Kickin My Funk to the Curb

As you may have noticed from my lack of posting over the past two weeks, I've been in a bit of a funk lately.  No worries though because Mollz is back.  Here's how I've been kicking this bad attitudes butt and bringing awesome back...

...Reading about a badass Ironman champion

I started this book a while ago and picked it back up when I was cranky one day.  It's motivating and inspiring and Chrissie Wellington has become my new triathlete girl-crush.  This book makes me want to be even more awesome than I am now.

...Partaking in some useful retail therapy

A 13.1 shirt?  For $10?  That one was a no brainer.

  

And perhaps trumping that purchase:

Cycling shoes!  Nothing makes you feel more legit when riding then clipping in and out of your pedals.  I've been wearing these bad boys around the house just because I'm so excited about them.  

Don't worry Mom, these were definitely all completely necessary and justified purchases :)

...Mentoring an awesome group of new runners

Mentoring and running with this group is so much fun and I love hearing everyone's story of how they started running.  It puts me in such a good mood every week, that I don't even mind taking sweaty red-faced pictures of myself afterwards.

...Run and 'Rita night with my favorite running girls

Not even the torrential downpour could ruin our go for a run then drink margaritas night.  Running + drinks + good friends = a great way to spend a Tuesday evening.  

...Going on some pretty awesome bike rides

30 miles in Bristol with coach Rob.  The first Bristol ride we did, I had to walk my bike on 4 different hills mountains.  This time - only walked it three times.  I WILL conquer you eventually, Bristol.

Back to back rides with Becca and my brand new shoes.  I'm proud to report that I have not yet fallen off my bike while trying to clip in or out.  More than one person has shared this bit of wisdom about falling off your bike -- there are two kinds of bikers; those who have fallen and those who have yet to fall.  You all may think my eating dirt on my bike is inevitable, but I am determined to prove that saying wrong.  No falling.  Ever.

...Watching athletes kick butt Ryan Lochte in the Olympics

Let's be honest.  I'm not watching the Olympics for the inspiration.  I'm watching the Olympics for this guy.  

Right back at ya Lochte ;)

So there you have it.  Good ol Mollz is back and better than ever.  

Riding, Running...and Swimming?!

Spectating at Musselman on Sunday got me super motivated to have an awesome week this week.  I still didn't completely follow my training schedule (shocking), but I kept it interesting and did pretty darn good regardless.

Monday was a bike day so I packed up Mr. Trek in my car and planned to hit the road right after work.   That meant that I had to do a quick wardrobe change in the bathroom at work:

corporate america mollz

cyclist mollz

Someone walked in as I was taking that second picture and gave me a funny look.  I'd probably do the same if I saw someone in bike shorts in my office bathroom taking pictures of themselves.  Good thing it wasn't someone important. 

After my outfit change I was ready to go.  I even prepped and mapped out my ride so I wouldn't get lost on the country roads:

Great idea in theory, until I ran into this right smack dab in the middle of my route:

why

I thought I had it under control when I detoured via the detour signs but my brain must have been in sleep mode because I ended up getting completely lost.  How do you get lost following detour signs?  I don't know.  

I pulled over to check my map on my phone to figure out where the heck I was and as I was doing that minding my own business, I got stung by a bee.  And then I toppled over on my bike as I was examining my sting.  That was fun.

don't worry, i didn't let that bee ruin my ride

After my eventful ride on Monday, it was time to run on Tuesday.  I was finally able to make it to a group workout for the running class I'm mentoring and it was good to be back!  I paced the 13 minute milers on a two mile run and even though it was ridiculously hot, it was a good run.  I loved talking with the girls in my group and they gave me a run for my money at the end when they kicked it up to a sprint the last tenth of a mile.

Steph and I had planned to go for a run after I was done mentoring and I was probably on my biking high when I agreed to that.  It was so flippin hot outside that I just wanted to go home and sit in my air conditioning after mentoring.  

i don't wanna run anymore.

One of the plusses about having running buddies is that you feel bad letting them down.  As much as I wanted to bail on my run with Steph, I sucked it up and went.  We ended up doing about 3.5 miles which brought my daily total to just over 5 miles.  And guess what?  It was actually a good run.  Look what happens when you suck it up and just do it.

Wednesday night is kickball night and I almost worked up a sweat prancing around the kickball field.

When I got home from work on Thursday, it was like Christmas when I saw that some of my recent online shopping had been delivered:

Nothing gets me more excited than some new gear.  After realizing on Sunday that I'm a wanna-be triathlete, I ordered this book that someone recommended to me:

It's about 400 pages and my new best friend.  I've been flipping around in it since I got it and someday I will look like that man on the cover.  But not manly.  Just really hardcore and legit.

Since I didn't do anything on Thursday, I should have ran yesterday but I'm just too obsessed with my bike right now so I went for a ride.  I had planned on doing 20 miles again, but Mother Nature had plans of her own and I ended up cutting my ride short and booking it back right before it started to pour.

What to do when I can't run or ride in the rain?  Test out my new swimming gear of course.  I headed to the gym after my ride to do laps in the pool for the first time in my entire life.  I realized real fast that I had no idea what I was getting myself into with swimming.  I thought it would be way easier in the pool than the lake, but it was HARD!  

It didn't help that the pool at the gym is less than stellar and looks like it's 50 years old and hasn't been cleaned since it opened.  And the group of older women doing water exercises across the pool in their flowery bathing caps didn't make for the best swimming buddies.

I swam for literally 12 minutes and felt like I had just swam a marathon.  That 12 minutes of swimming included breaks pretty much every other minute.  Can someone please teach me how to swim?  I don't think they allow the doggy paddle in triathlons.  Even though it was fun (ish), swimming will be taking a backseat for a little while.

thumbs up for a good try?

I had a bright and early wake up call this morning to go volunteer at a 5k/half marathon.  As much as I love volunteering/cheering/spectating at races, I get a little jealous when the gun goes off and I'm not out there running.

I was stationed right around mile 6 and was ready to direct and cheer.  Of course I came prepared to cheer extra hard with my cowbell:

I was there for a while before the first person came through.  This dude was BOOKING IT.  It still boggles my mind how some people can run so ridiculously fast like it's nothing but a thing.

first person flying by

I enjoyed being out there and cheering for everyone, and lots of the runners thanked us for being out there.  I think they all secretly really enjoyed my cowbell too.

I was there for a couple hours and was done with duty once the last runner had gone by.  Volunteering was the only activity I could fit in today because now I am off to the airport for a work trip.  It's our company's Annual Meeting at our home office, and there's a 5k tomorrow morning as part of the festivities.  Last year I "ran" it and it was the most miserable experience of my life (obviously this was before I picked up running).  I'm interested to see how much I can crush my time from last year!  See you next week!

Musselman Triathlon Spectating

This week has been chock full of a little bit of everything.. from race spectating, to biking to running to swimming.  Yup, swimming.  More on that later.

On Sunday, I went to cheer on Becca and Rob, my two running/biking/life idols, in their first Half-Ironman triathlon.  A half Ironman is 70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running - that's a lot of miles!    I've never been to a triathlon before so I was excited to see the event and cheerlead for my favorite people!

I wish I took more pictures of the actual events, but I was so amazed at everything going on that I just couldn't stop watching.  It was seriously one of the coolest things ever - seeing so many dedicated athletes pour their heart and soul into this was so inspiring.

Because I'm always five minutes late for everything in life, I missed both Becca and Rob in transition from bike to run.  So I parked it at the finish line and didn't move from my spot until they came through.    It was so cool to see the winners finish and to watch everyone's faces as the ran down the finish chute.  Probably the highlight of the finishes was watching kids run through the finish line with their parents.  Most adorable thing ever.  I can't wait to have my kids run through finish lines with me.  Someday.

I got really flustered when I realized that Rob and Becca were coming through the finish chute because I didn't have my phone prepared to snap pictures.  Nooo!  I did manage to get my act together by the time Matt (Becca's husband) came down the chute.  One outta three ain't bad.

go matt!

you did it! :)

team miller time! my idols.

let's go coach rob!

iron-becca!

Race spectating is seriously one of the funnest things to do.  Give me a cowbell and I'm all in.  This was a crazy cool race to watch and now completing a triathlon is officially on my list of things to do.  Congrats Rob, Becca and Matt on your awesome achievement, you crazy half Ironmen!

I'm Back!

After a week of relaxing and galavanting around the Adirondack's, I'm back in the Roc and back to reality.  Lucky for you, I took plenty of pictures to capture my week in the mountains.

welcome to the adk's

I had grand plans of actually following my training schedule during the week, but ended up doing whatever the heck I felt like instead.  There's a shocker.

I managed to get in 4 runs and 3 bike rides and even got my very first swimming lesson in open water.  I also did a pseudo triathlon - swam, biked and ran all in one day!  Molly's Miles owned the Adirondack's.

Three of my four runs were all along a similar route; there's a 2ish mile loop around the cabin where I stayed and that became my go-to run.  It's so different running in the middle of the mountains - I think I listened to my music only once and just took in the naturey-ness of the run.  There's a trailhead on the loop that I decided to check out on one of my runs.  I mean how can you not thrown in a trail run while your in the Adirondacks?!

And look what I found at the end of the trail:

thumbs up to trail runs in the adk's

I switched it up on my final run day and ran up a crazy hill that is a straight 1.25 mile climb.  It took me about 13 minutes to run up it and I literally flew down in 8 minutes.  I can't remember the last time my Garmin saw a single digit pace.  I need to start running downhills more often.

I also biked up the same hill on one of the days.  Well, I biked up some of it and teetered up most of it and turned around before I got to the top.  Bristol Mountain has nothing on that hill - this is one ride that was actually decent for my training.  Highlander here I come.

For my hill ride and one other bike ride, I had the company of some pretty hardcore Lance Armstrong's.  Bob, John and Jeff have all been biking for longer than I've been alive so I had my work cut out for me just to not die while riding with them.  They didn't leave me too far behind in their dust so I think that's a win.  Although I did have my first ever biking mis-hap when my chain fell off right as I was about to go down a hill.  Good thing I wasn't by myself because I would have no idea how to fix it and I'm pretty sure that AAA doesn't work for bikes.  No worries because Jeff came to the rescue and threw my chain back on like a pro and I was good to go. 

reppin' fleet feet in the adk's!

To round out my triathlon of the day, I got my first ever swimming lesson in a lake.  Now, I've taken swimming lessons back in the day when I was like 12 so I figured my skillz would stick with me and translate to the lake.  Wrong.  Open water swimming is hard!  Andrew was a fabulous little swim coach, along with Tyler and Peter and Matthew (who taught me nothing) and a Colombian named JP (who also taught me nothing).  Hi guys!

Needless to say, I have got my work cut out for me if I ever have hope at surviving a triathlon.  Although my swimming endeavor was not my best work in the water, I tested out some other open water skills:

boat driving - captain mollz at your service

paparazzi'ing on the boat 

i'm so artistic.

time for some tubing!

thumbs up!

It was a fantastically relaxing and fun week and in between all my activities this week I played photographer and got some pretty awesome Adirondack pictures.  So I leave you with the beauty of the Adk's:

Total miles for the week: 11 on the pavement, 25 in the saddle.  Better than nothing for vacation!  Thank you to all my new Blue Mountain friends for helping me rack up some miles this week!  You all better be bookmarking my blog right now :)