A great big gigantic thank you to all of you that entered the Totally Tubular raffle and made a donation to my Team in Training fundraising!!!

Lindsay Stowe, Linda Clark, Mara Siebert Schwartz, Lynette Lombardo, Leigh Bee, Jason Martin, Febe Rios, Meghan Scannell, Lauren Ciabattari, & John Bee are all winners!

Congratulations!

My Ironman is just over a month away, which means my fundraising deadline is just around the corner! I'm so close, but I haven't quite reached the mark yet. My dear friend and owner of Totally Tubular Design, Lauren Junker, has offered to help my cause. Her company uses all recycled products, including scrap upholstery and recycled bike tubes & tires to make these awesome bags, purses, & clutches

Totally Tubular Design has been kind enough to donate over $300 worth of product to be raffled off, including 1 flat bag, 4 clutches, 6 small tire purses, and 1 bento box. By making a donation online your name will be entered in the raffle to win one of these functional & fashionable bags. $10 for 1 ticket, $20 for 3 tickets. The winners will be announced Wednesday, July 6th at noon. Check out Totally Tubular Design to see more photos, get more details about her products, and of course please become a fan on facebook!

Thank you everyone for your support through this crazy adventure! I'm so excited for race day to come and I couldn't have made it this far without all of you behind me every step of the way!!

Holy cow! I can't believe I'm down to double digits in the countdown. We are in week 24 of training and race day is practically right around the corner. The last couple of months we've started to train longer and there have been a lot of solo swims, rides, & runs (mostly due to my crazy work schedule). It's been a lot of time alone in my head, which frankly can be quite tedious & boring sometimes. I guess it can only help though...that's how it's going to be on race day. However, I do have to say that I'm so much happier now that the sun is shining! It is 1000 times easier to get up and get going when the birds are chirping & the weather is warmer.

A couple of highlights since the last update:

**A huge thank you to everyone that came to Mary's last month & participated in my pizza fundraiser. Together we raised $100!! You guys are the best! I truly appreciate you donating to my cause!

**10K(6.2mile) run marker personal best - 52:27!!!! Yaaaaayyyyy!!!!! This training is paying off!

Coming up in May .....

Yountville double brick

Bootcamp 2.0

Clearlake Tri-101 (3/4 ironman trial run)

Please stay tuned. :)

Nov 29 - Dec 5, 2010:

Recovery week at last! The workouts weren't as intense or long, which really made a noticeable difference in my overall energy level during the week. And stupid me decided I would use all this extra time and energy to paint my living room. I love the new color but I probably could've used the time more wisely to recover...like getting a massage or taking a nap or two. Instead I stood up on a ladder and strained my arms, shoulders, and back. I never realized how hard it is to paint. Well, lesson learned. Next recovery period I will do my best to actually sit down and recover.

Also this week we had our first time markers. It's been a month, so it was time to see exactly where we are in terms of baseline markers for swimming and running. Goal #1: run 2 miles as fast as you can. Goal #2: swim 1000 yds as fast as you can. I was excited and nervous all at the same time. I'm not really sure why I was nervous. I guess I just wanted to do my best and I was worried I wouldn't be fast enough. But then again, I'm not really competing here...so fast is irrelevant!

Highlights of the week:

1. My two mile run time was 18min 22sec. Running is so unnatural to me, so this marker was especially painful. However, Coach told me that with this time it is projected that a stand alone marathon would be about 4hr 44min and I could finish my IM marathon in 5hr 26 min. Not bad. If they think I'm capable of that time after swimming and cycling, I'm looking pretty good at this stage of training. Thank goodness I've got 8 more months to improve!

2. My 1000yd swim time was 16min 22sec. If I were to do the IM swim tomorrow, my projected time is 1hr 9 min! That is awesome! I'm looking forward to getting faster as the season goes on!

3. My family tells me that I laugh more. They say they've noticed that I'm happier since joining Team in Training than I've been in a long time. Hmmmm....what can I say? I love this group of people! And I feel good about going after my goal. And most importantly I am happy to be giving back to such a great cause in memory of my dear friend. How can that not make you smile? :)

4. Colby Larson and Old Town Sports in my hometown of Novato featured me on their blog this week! I can't even begin to thank you for your tremendous support of my endeavor. You guys rock! Check out OTS and their blog here: http://www.oldtownsportsnovato.com/

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! to Carrie, Colby, & BG for this week's very generous donations!!! I'm so grateful!!! You guys are AWESOME! Thanks for keeping it coming!

Dec 13 - Dec 19, 2010:

Come Mondays this is how I feel. Recovery day at last!!

This week was especially hard since it was spent almost entirely on my own. There's work getting in the way of my life again!! LOL! No seriously, I spent most of the week doing the workouts by myself, including a workout on Saturday that just started out by swimming for 90 minutes at the gym pool. After that, I came home and hopped on the bike trainer for 30 min, then ran 2 miles, did another 30 min spin, ran another 2 miles, did one more 30 min spin, and ran 1 mile to finish it off. That was a busy morning! And then I did an 8 hour shift on the floor at the hospital. My legs were very sore!

The next morning I woke up nice and early to meet my buddies for a ride in Petaluma. I was very excited to not have to drive so far, but I was NOT so excited that the weather looked like this while I was driving there....

I think we rode almost 30 miles in the pouring rain and wind. I was pedaling as hard as I could at some points and I was still only going about 9mph. If I wasn't careful, the wind might have knocked me over. My so called rain proof jacket became saturated when the rain started coming at us sideways.

Les, Kristy, Jen, Elise, Luis

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! to JEN, RAJ, & CHRIS for the generous donations this week! I couldn't do it without you guys!!!!