Detour!

Some days just do not go as planned.  This morning when I woke up, of course I expected to be chipper like I had been all of last weekend.  Not the case.  It was so hard to drag myself out of bed this morning, I was so thankful to have a running partner to at least get my day jump started.  When I got home, I was supposed to go swimming, but instead I ended up falling asleep for almost two hours!! This resulted in rearranging a lot of my day.  Various other events came completely out of left field and really threw me for a loop.  We all have days like this and we all can relate to things going completely different from the way we expected.  I guess life would be pretty boring if it always went the way it was supposed to!  However, I feel like the way you deal with these situations really ends up defining what kind of life you have.  Several times today I was pretty frustrated with the changes that were happening out of my control, but when I sat down to think about all of these things tonight, none of them really truly mattered.  At the end of the day I was still in one piece and really had no cuts or bruises to show for all the little detours in my day.  Having the ability to roll with the punches is certainly a skill that everyone should acquire at some point in their life and I decided that today was just a test to see if I could ride the wave.  Turns out I can and tomorrow I'll wake up for an entirely new experience :) and that's the beauty of living.

Sunday Funday!

Got my long brick all done for the week. I rode out to Mt Lemmon and did a tempo up a bit of the mountain, but the real "fun" began on the descent! In order to increase my handling skills I've been going out east once a week and trying to see how little I can use my brakes going down this rather gnarly mountain. This week was a pretty huge success! I hit 40 mph for the first time (I think ever..?) going down the mountain and it was not nearly as scary as I had imagined (usually I tap the breaks between 33 and 35 mph). This was such a big milestone!! Of course there is always room for improvement because as soon as I started to reach 41 I started to feather the brakes...40 was quite enough excitement for one day!
It's all about the little victories :) I still have so far to go with bike handling, but now I feel like I've crossed into enemy territory and I'm ready for the mission to commence full swing!
A little more playing later on today; another high point in my week right up there with long run day...yoyo! My lovely friend Zara Guinard and I go to yoga together and follow it up with our guilty pleasure...froyo!! I'd that's a solid end to the week :)

Early bird

It's nice to have the motivation back to wake up at 6 to get my workouts done for the day :) it feels like the more you think about your goals the easier it is to turn off the snooze button and pull yourself out of your nice cozy bed to get some quality work done in the morning :)
Now it's off for a double shift at Oreganos. Get ready for the weekend everyone!!

TGIT

Happy Thursday :)
Thursday=my Friday :)
No school tomorrow and a break from the pool today (an opportunity to stay warm and dry!) are both reasons to smile! Even though my booty is really feeling those long hills from yesterday I know that all I need to get through is one more tough workout today then tomorrow is just an easy run before my double at Oregano's (a local pizza joint that I multitask at as bartender, to-go specialist, and server extraordinaire(: )
Something so different and refreshing about training for triathlons is that most of your workouts are done alone and most of them you know the exact workout days in advance of actually doing it. This difference from club swimming, where everyday you would go to practice with so many unknowns, allows my crazy type 'A' personality to thrive! Just knowing exactly what I need to get done as far as my workouts are concerned allows me to focus on what is coming and make it happen, which is a huge point of stress relief for me :)

Bike skills

So today I worked with my coach (Katherine Phillips) on bike drills mainly for transition purposes. Holy cow I had no idea there were even skills like that to be acquired! After some frustrating tries I managed to get my feet in my shoes with them already clipped in the bike, but it was definitely a new experience! We played a game after I got comfortable to see how fast I could get it all together, but I found something new to focus my attention on! It's all about the details :)

Long Run!

Today is definitely my favorite day of the week--long run day! I think it just amazes me how long your body can go without wheels or any other devices (except shoes of course) to help you cover the miles.  When I was a swimmer back in high school I was an awful runner.  Running more than 15 minutes was impossible for me.  So when long run day comes along I'm always so excited to go out for at least an hour and a half and prove to myself that my training is certainly doing it's job and each time I'm pushing my body a little further than it has gone before :)  Not to mention most long runs happen on trails...which are AMAZING, beautiful, and highly recommended :)
This is the trail for today
http://homepage.mac.com/patholleran/ParkVision/Saguaro/Sa-01.jpg

Here we go!

Hello :)
I'm Nicole, I've never blogged before and I thought I would give it a try.  I've been doing triathlons for almost three and a half years now and for the first time I want to talk about it!  I'm hoping to share my transition from undergraduate-student-with-little-to-no-direction to focused-directed-professional-triathlete.  I hope you enjoy the ups and (hopefully not so many) downs I will face in the next year, and feel free to comment and share your thoughts with me as well!