Out of "Bounds"

Matt and I had it cut out for us this morning. Yep. Hill Bounds.

* Quite intense
* Must do more often
* Don't really enjoy the feeling of almost vomiting every time I reach the top of the hill
* Definitely must do more often
* As for reasoning, because I really don't feel like vomiting at 5am while running

As you can see, I can't seem to come up with complete sentences this morning. I think the hill bounds beat my body up a little.........possibly all the way up to my brain? ;)

For the past couple months, Matt and I have been doing hill repeats, which is what we THOUGHT our coach prescribed us. Upon looking at the plan a little closer earlier in the week, Matt picked up on the fact that our coach actually prescribed hill "bounds", not repeats. Oh yes, there IS a difference ;) So, this morning we attempted to do what we were assigned to do all along.


So, here's a little dialouge from the morning:

5 AM---

1st Hill Bound---------
Matt: Maybe these aren't quite as bad as repeats---they're hard, but in a
different kind of way.
Amanda: (thinking to myself) Yeah, these aren't going to be as hard---SCORE!!!

2nd Hill Bound---------
Matt: Hmmmm.........that seemed to feel a little longer than the 1st.
Amanda: Yeah, I kept waiting for you to say, "ok, stop." It took forever.

3rd Hill Bound--------
Matt: Ok, these are worse.
Amanda: (wooo wwoooooo wwwooooo wooooooo---breathing like I'm dying)
Yeah, these are worse.

4th Hill Bound--------
Matt: Holy Mother, I think I am going to hurl.
Amanda: (gagging) Ugh. This is awful. I don't know how many more I can do.

Then we carry on with a conversation as we run down the hill. We discuss how Matt thinks he should hurl instead of me, because it would be much more impressive since he ate a larger breakfast. Ooooohhhhhhh, the conversations that 2 married triathletes carry on at dark o'thirty in the morning.................impressive, huh? I know you're jealous ;)

Repeat dialouge from 4th hill bound x 2.


Now, let's complete this day with a recovery bike with Tabata intervals. Wonder how we shall sleep tonight??

Recovery week.................................where AREEEEEEEEEEE You???????????

Nobody told me before........

This is a blog entry I copied from another triathlete-----It seems to sum things up pretty well ;)


There are a lot of things that nobody told me would happen to me before I started doing triathlons. A lot of strange side effects that maybe needed some forewarning aside from the obvious like, "your aerobic capacity will increase and your resting heart rate will go down." No, these are some sneaky little things that you might never even think of, and although all of them won't happen to every triathlete, I am pretty sure that they will happen to most who take up the sport after a lifetime as a non-triathlete.

-Food will become infinitely more important to you than it ever was before, and in several aspects. You will constantly think about what you are eating and if it is the best fuel for your workout. You will suddenly start caring about carb/protein ratios. You will be a whole lot hungrier, and it is the kind of hunger that most normal people do not understand. So if you are on a long car ride with several non-athletes and you tell them you are hungry, there is no way they can possibly understand the urgency of the situation.

-You will find yourself using an awful lot of porta-potties, whether they be at races or on a pitstop in the middle of a run or bike workout. It will become so normal to you that you will forget that most normal adults do not have occasion to use them very often, and they will likely look at you like you have 3 eyes if you should suggest they use one.

-You will suddenly have no problem discussing bodily functions around others. Normal people won't usually offer up a story about nearly crapping their pants in casual conversation, but for a triathlete it just becomes a story that we can all laugh at, and most of us, unfortunately, can relate to.

-Along the same lines it will suddenly seem perfectly acceptable to pee yourself when covered head to toe in a neoprene suit. Normal people aren't really into that kind of thing, but we just call it "warming up" *I will say though that I have met one triathlete who still chooses not to do this, but that is only one and the rest will happily admit it.

-Your time between laundry loads will shrink considerably as the dirty clothes will pile up faster than you can imagine. This is especially true in winter with all of those extra layers.

-You will start to plan vacations around races and with most social events that come up you will immediately wonder, "how will that conflict with my training schedule?"

-There's a good chance you are going to start getting up just as early on weekends as you do on weekdays so that you can get your workouts in.

-You will lose your ability to stay up late at night. And by late I mean 10, or in my case, 9.

-Suddenly a 7-day week will run Monday-Sunday and not Sunday-Saturday as the calendar might suggest.

-You will probably master changing clothes in your car without anyone noticing.

-It will suddenly feel perfectly natural to walk around in stretchy shorts.

-Several times a week you are going to smell chlorine in your nostrils all day long. This of course is dependent upon you actually doing your swim training.

-You are going to have to take a lot more showers. Or at least I hope you will.

-It won't seem weird to do a workout in the morning and then still have to do another workout when you leave your job at the end of the day. To a lot of people that is compulsive exercising. To us it is just training.

Careful, it might happen to you, too. :)