Monthly Archives: March 2008

A good training week!!

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Last week was a good week!! I didn’t had classes so I had a lot of free time that I used to work out! I ran almost everyday, and I’m getting used to the long distances, it’s not so hard anymore on my joints and specially on my mind. I think the ‘mind factor’ is the hardest part of endurance training for me, because even though I love running, after 1 hour my mind starts to wonder away from the road and into the comfort of my bed, where I could be lying with the A/A on and watch T.V. And I start to try to convince myself to stop running and go rest. But it’s happening less and less with each run, podcasts have helped a lot with the ‘mind factor’, it’s a good distraction and I’m learning more and more about the tri sport each day. Another thing that made me stop a lot was the fear of getting an injury, so each time i felt any kind of soreness i would panic and stop running, now I just slow down, analyze the situation, wait a bit and decide if I really should stop. As Iron Kahuna and Iron Will were saying on their last podcast: (‘Get Your Geek On #45′!! that i was listening to while I was running yesterday) Just slow down, look around you and realize that everything’s alright.

On the days that I didn’t run I went to the gym and went swimming… oh swimming… I love water, I love the ocean and I’ve always consider myself an ‘ok’ swimmer, until last week when I tried to swim in a more ‘competitive’ way. I was trying to swim a few pools for the first time in years, and I was thinking that if I can run 15k without getting really tired, swimming a little would be simple for me… WRONG!! First thing I noticed when I started swimming is that I CANT BREATHE UNDERWATER!! so the whole exercise is totally different because of the breathing pace, which I couldn’t get right… ever, I would swim 1 pool and end up feeling as if I was going to have a hearth attack!! Well, it turns out that I’m a terrible swimmer, so I decided to enter swimming lessons (more on that on another post!).

To finish my great training week I went with my uncle and cousing to a Lake called ‘Represa de Camatagua’ to do some Kayak, about 2 hours away from where I live. I didn’t know I could find such a beautiful and peaceful place around here, there was absolutely noone around us. It was a great way to end up the week, work on my upper body and give my legs some deserved rest!
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The Alien Got Mugged!!!

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Well, it seems I’m not having good look lately. This morning I was going to class, driving in traffic at 6:30am, listening to music on my ipod as I do everyday, When this little kid (he was around 16 maybe?) pops up out of the blue on my window (whicha was open) and ‘asks me’ to give him my cell phone!! I dont know what scared me the most at that time, the kid trying to rob me, or that he almost asked nicely for it!!! The first thing i did was move forward in traffic as much as I could, but he ran besides my car.

So what should I do? There’s someone on the window of my car trying to rob my cell phone!!! Everyone always tell me to give them everything they want in the case i get robbed, that it’s the safest thing to do and that material things are all replaceable. And all of this is truth. But this was a young kid, he didn’t have a gun, knife or anything that made me feel threatened.

So did I choose to do the rational thing to do? Did I followed logic? HELL NO!! Before I had a chance t think about anything i threw a punch at his face and the fighting started! There I was in the middle of traffic sitting on my car fighting a thief!! It was all too surreal and extremely realistic at the same time, but I didn’t have a chance to think about this at this time, I had to kick his ass before he kicked mine!! I think he was as surprised at my reaction as I was, but as I kept throwing punches at him he was still trying to take something from me, so he reached for the first thing he saw, took my Ipod, turned around and ran away through the cars in traffic…

By the time I pulled off my seatbelt and opened my car door he was too far from me, and I couldn’t leave my car there opened and start running after him through cars. Although I admit that this story would be SO MUCH MORE cool if I had run after him and finished kicking his ass, but at that time i had recover some sense… sadly.

So what’s the moral of all this? (Besides keeping your window up while in traffic, duh!) I am proud at my reaction, I’m proud at not giving up on my things and having what it takes to fight against anything. And somehow I relate my reaction to running. Running has changed my life. I now know that I can do things that I would never dare to do before(like run for more than an hour without stopping! or fight a tugh), that my body is a lot stronger that my mind gives it credit for, and that I can take on anythings that dares stand before me!!

Oh and one more thing, It is really hard to try to kick someone’s ass while sitting and wearing your seatbelt!

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Shit happens, but what do you do when it happens to you?

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Well, shit happens right? Saturday was supposed to be my first 5k, i spent the the whole week working out for it and was really excited about it. I went saturday morning to sign up for the race, but the inscription time had ended!!! It turns out that they changed the inscription dates for the week, and not the race day, but the sponsors didn’t update their website, so I had no idea i could had signed up for it during the week and lost my chance… I had to admit it was a big hit for me at the moment and I felt really disappointed…

What now? I was really tempted to go to the McD on the corner and eat a hamburger with fries and even an ice cream!!! But then i saw my reflexion in a car, and saw the ‘new me’ there. So I changed my mind and went to the gym, first thing i did was jump on the treadmill and run 5k of course!! After that i did some weight lifting and then I joined a spinning class, I ended up leaving the gym after 2 hours of really hard workout and feeling a lot better.

Then that evening at 7pm (the time the race was supposed to take place) i somehow felt that i still had energy on me, so i put on my running shoes and hit the road, and of course, I run again 5k!! I did it on 29mins, which is now my fastest time! although it’s not an official time yet. On sunday I went out running again, 10k this time, the longest distance I’ve ever run in my life!!

After this weekend i realized that my body is a lot stronger than I thought, and that my mind is the one stopping me half the times!! Somehow not being able to race on saturday gave me energy, I reacted thinking ‘You wont let me race? Well now I’m going to train harder and run longer distances!!!’, doesn’t make much sense, but i’d rather not think about that little detail. I had planned to train for a half marathon after this race, but now with my renewed energy, I’ve decided that I’m going to train for the full marathon, I have 8 weeks, I’ve made my training schedule and all that’s left is to train as hard as I can.

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