ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

greetings, my Tri Homies. i write to you from my hotel room in lovely Downtown Denver, Colorado. been here two nights on a shoot. wednesday morning before i left, i knocked out a brick that had me thinking that COACH might be trying to kill me. it went something like this...

ride 30 miles BE1 (maintain 80 RPM and HR in zone 2 with some zone 3)

include 2 x BAN1 - 4 repeats of 2 minutes at zone 4 at 92+ RPM with rest interval of 3 minutes in zone 2 at 80RPM

run 6 miles right off the bike:
2 miles - zone 3
1 mile - zone 5
1 mile - zone 3
1 mile - zone 5
1 mile - zone 2

for the most part, save for some single run sessions of 4-6 miles of repeats, all my running has been long, slow mileage over a long duration. this would really switch the gears, and i get it that it's supposed to lift me right to a perfect peak just before Ironman. still though, i nearly hurled all over that running path. and sadly, i couldn't quite hit zone 5, but just shy of it. for one, i haven't done a week long test of my resting heart rate in quite a while, and i suspect that it may be lower now which would change my zone numbers. and for two, the zone 5 miles happened to fall on more downhill portions of my route which made it incredibly difficult to bring my heart rate up. fyi, did you know that a normal adult female resting heart rate lies somewhere between 74-78 BPM?? adult men are 71-75. i have fitness related Bradycardia (it's a good thing), so mine rests anywhere between 47-52. Lance's is 36. we make medical professionals REALLY NERVOUS!!! anyhow, i got to the upper end of zone 4 with smoke comin' outta my ass from my legs turning over so fast....but i did it.

and then i missed my flight...

there i was at LAX with ALL THE GEAR for the next morning's shoot and the lead photographer already in Denver for 3 days scouting locations. for the first time, i'd let training overtake everything else and possibly jeopardize a very expensive shoot. i felt a pit in the bottom of my stomach as the check-in kiosk read "IT IS TOO LATE TO CHECK IN BAGS FOR THIS FLIGHT. PLEASE SEE AN ATTENDANT." then the attendant told me i had to pick up the black phone to talk to a ticketing agent and see what other flight possibilities were available.

me (to myslef): "remember what your moms taught you. don't be havin' an attitude at the airport, especially when it's your fault, not theirs. KILL 'EM WITH KINDNESS"

so that's just what i did, and sure enough, Alicia from Delta airlines saved my ass. now i'd have to fly to Salt Lake City first, but i'd make it to Denver just 2 hours later than originally scheduled. of course it would cost me a cool 100 bucks. DOH!! another withdrawal from The Bank of Ironman.

finally made it to my hotel by 10:30 that night. i'd brought my swim gear, my run gear, and as much as y'all know how much i loathe even the thought of it, my spinning shoes. come to find out that the Downtown Denver YMCA doesn't have a pool, so i took it as a sort of a mid-week recovery. i crashed hard, and managed to drag my ass to a spinning class at 6:00 the next morning before our shoot started. i wanna thank Coach Liz for helping to make the distinction between a spinning class and an indoor cycling class, but it all sucks just the same to me if i'm not on my own bike. still though, i had one of my better indoor cycling experiences. no the music still sucked, including the cd continuously skipping (ever heard of an ipod?) and having to hear 2 songs from my ex boyfriend's band (they just LOVE them here in Denver). and the bikes REALLY sucked, but the instructor had just gotten back from a cycling trip in France, so she ingeniously took us on a route she rode while she was there. without a fancy video screen or any other virtual aids, she simply had a list of the names of the towns along the way and admittedly massacred the pronunciation of each and every one of them while she described the switchbacks and the rolling sections, the descents, and the smell of all the countryside herbs. no disco fest, no jumping outta the saddle and doing silly shit with our arms, and NO WOO HOOOING. we just rode through an hour and a half in a little room in Downtown Denver masqueraded as the Provencial countryside. LOVED.IT.

the shoot went super long as we traipsed all over Denver and then up into Golden for some more outdoorsy location stuff. the drive up there made me pine for my bike big time. there were cyclists everywhere!! but i had a job to do. made it back to the hotel around 8pm and politely declined the band's invitation to go for wrap party drinks. crashed out by 10:oo and got up early this morning to go back to the Y for a yoga class or should i say...

YOGAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

oh man, it's been weeks since i last hit up my regular yoga practice with Sahara, and i realized just how much i needed it. everything is super tight and wound up especially after last weekend's race. i've been too broke for extra luxuries such as massage and acupuncture, but at this stage in Iron Madness, i need to look at those not as luxuries but as necessities for basic health and maintenance. so i'm gettin' paid before i land in LA, and on my way back home from the airport, i'll hit my Y for my swim workout and then schedule a much needed massage with my savior, Nang, at Pho Siam.

this weekend brings a 75 mile long sustained hill climb ride saturday. sunday brings another brick of a 2 mile ocean swim followed by a 17 mile run. i'll need to crunch that in and rush home to shower and primp. if all goes as planned, by 2pm, i'll be seated at Simko and Sue Ann's wedding ceremony!!!

I'M WEARIN' MY LUCKY DRESS...