On Saturday Jason and I woke up early-ish to meet our teammates for a trail run over at Cougar Mountain. It was a nice sunny morning that gave way to thick fog and decreased temperatures as we puttered across I-90 to the park entrance, but by the time we arrived it was sunny again (albeit a bit humid). You gotta love Seattle and its schizophrenic weather. I had only done the Cougar Mountain trail workout once before and I was a lot chunkier and slower, so I was looking forward to attacking the trails in my leaner, meaner state. The last time I did the run, I wheezed my way up the hills feeling miserable and bloated. I don’t have a picture of myself from Saturday’s workout, but I estimate that I’m about 14 lbs lighter and considerably faster than I was in the above chunkeriffic photo. Hooray for eating like a normal human being for a change! We waited for our squadron of teammates to arrive, and I figured I’d have plenty of peeps to run with. My hopes were dashed when five people showed up: Tom, who just did Ironman Canada and wouldn’t be taking the workout seriously Amanda, who also just did Ironman Canada and also gave zero shits about the workout Brent, who has qualified for the Boston Marathon Coach Bridget, who is much faster than me Coach Kim, who is much much much faster than me Awesome, so that leaves the fast group (Kim, Bridget, Jason, Brent), the “We just did an Ironman so fuck you” group (Tom, Amanda), and me, the cheese, left to run by herself yet again. I’ve either got to get a hell of a lot faster or just give up and sandbag it from now on, because this middle of the pack nonsense is getting pretty lonely. Before we got started, Bridget inexplicably thought it would be a good idea to attach her $400 Garmin watch to her dog’s collar to see how fast and far her pooch would travel during the workout. We didn’t think it was the smartest idea considering Zoe started chasing the watch’s reflection across the parking lot as soon as Bridget strapped it onto her collar, but Bridget’s gonna do what Bridget’s gonna do. And thus we took off. Almost immediately we settled into Fast Group, the Mediocre Athlete Team of One, and the Ironcouple. Zoe shot off like a rocket, weaving in and out of the woods and crashing through trees like a sasquatch on angel dust. We had been running for less than ten minutes when the dog returned to Bridget, panting happily. I heard a loud “MOTHER FUCKER” and immediately knew the cause of said expletive. By the time I caught up to Fast Group, the look on Coach B’s face pretty obviously identified the problem: Zoe lost the Garmin watch. Surprise! Bridget left Fast Group to try and find her watch, so they took off without her while I chased them to no avail. Pretty soon they dropped me like I was a holiday flavored gel (seriously, mint chocolate? Eggnog? Nobody likes that shit) and I found myself alone on the trail. My run felt really good and I stayed steady and strong, albeit ridiculously sweaty as I trudged through the thick, humid air. At one point a guy and his buddy passed me twice going the same direction, causing me to double-take and say, “Didn’t I just see you guys?” the second time we crossed paths. Either there was a glitch in the Matrix or those dudes were lost. The run went tons better than the first time I...

A couple days ago I had a hill repeat run workout scheduled in glorious 83 degree heat. My hamstrings were already screaming at me from a tough week of strength training so I wasn’t really looking forward to the run, but I knew it needed to get logged so I HTFU’d and pulled on my running shoes. After a 15 minute warm up that consisted of the shortest strides ever thanks to too-tight legs, I made it to the bottom of the hill I would climb six times. Jason had a hill repeat run too, only he had eight climbs because he’s more beastly than I am. We both started at the Volunteer Park Cafe on Galer in Capitol Hill and would run from there up a steep 200 meters until we reached the entrance to Volunteer Park, then we’d turn around and jog back down. The hill is somewhat crappy — it’s a steady climb for most of the way up and then has a nice and shitty steep finish. My hamstrings actually felt less sore when I climbed so the repeats actually weren’t too bad. I was running up the sidewalk during my last repeat when I glanced across the street and noticed two absolutely stupid looking Boston terriers running up the sidewalk too. A mild wave of annoyance crossed through me as I thought the owner was probably behind the dogs and had let them off the leash like a douchebag. When I got to the top of the hill, I turned around to descend but saw nobody in sight. At this point the dogs had reached the top of the hill and were darting all over the place in a spazzy little frenzy. Some random dude who looked like Wilford Brimley emerged from the park, saw the terriers, and exclaimed, “Well where did you two come from?” He fended off oncoming cars while trying to shoo the dogs out of harm’s way. The terriers turned around and started shooting back down the hill. By now Jason had realized that I was more interested in the dogs than in doing my cooldown, so he looked on in annoyance while I tried to flag the dogs down. He and I are mostly compatible with a few exceptions: He hates when I make hard-boiled eggs or eat tuna fish because they’re stinky I get annoyed every time he washes his face and flings water all over the bathroom mirror He’s not a big “pet person” Regarding #3, Jason and I are like the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story. I grew up with a plethora of animals — since childhood, I’ve had a pet hamster, a bunny, a guinea pig, a cat (pre-allergies), and a wild assortment of dogs I’ve loved (my brother’s beagle) and loathed (two stupid, high maintenance chows). He, on the other hand, grew up in a pet-free home, so he’s never had much interaction with furry critters and is therefore pretty “meh” about them in general. I want to get a dog but he’s very eye-rolling about the matter. Since we’re at a standstill regarding bringing a dog into the household, I have to get my doggy fix with random pooches I come across. Okay, back to the Boston terriers. The big one shot down the hill on the other side of the street but the little one started to run towards me. I clapped my hands and coaxed it over, then spent a few minutes chasing it around until I managed to half-tackle the damn thing (I should have logged the extra time and distance with the rest of my workout...

Earlier this year I had been down in the dumps because I was injured and had gained all the weight I had lost training for Ironman Canada. I felt like a beached whale that has a family size bucket of Ezell’s fried chicken within fin’s reach. But now that my body is mostly on the mend, I’ve established a renewed interest in getting strong and fit for the remainder of the 2011 season and heading into the new year. I recently mentioned my goal of getting abs by the end of May so the bikini beach photos of me with my teammates won’t be profoundly embarrassing. With 262 days remaining, I thought I’d check in with an initial progress report. I’ve never been fat fat, but I get to a breaking point where my jeans don’t fit, my muffin top is starting to spill over onto Jason’s side of the bed, my increased thigh mass gets inexplicably itchy, and my arms resemble sausagey pterodactyl wings. I don’t like being in that weight window for the following reasons: Race photos look worse than usual (my tri kit probably won’t look good on me when I’m skinny, but it sure as hell doesn’t look good on me when blubber is challenging the load-bearing capacity of every seam) I feel worse than usual I look like an ogre next to my petite female teammates, who are all “Tee hee look at my abs while I eat this lettuce leaf and race a sub-5 hour half Ironman!” My mother would consider me morbidly obese I race slower than usual So far I’ve lost 11 lbs from my “Good lord you’re a chunker” fattest state. I’m currently two pounds off my “I just ate my way through Puerto Rico” weight, five pounds heavier than my Ironman Canada race weight, and 7.5 pounds heavier than my lightest weigh in last year. My goal is to pull a Costanza and take it up a notch by losing 15-20 more lbs, which would put me about 7-12 lbs lighter than last season. I’m progressing along nicely with the help of the free My Fitness Pal app, which helps track my calorie intake and burn. Seeing the numbers add up has forced me to be more mindful about what I eat. For example: “Ugh, I don’t want to run today, I’m feeling lazy.” *checks app* “Aw shit, if I don’t run I won’t be able to have a hamburger bun with my lamb burger for dinner tonight.” *sighs* “Damnit…Jas, where are my running shoes?” Hence “Runnin’ for the bun.” (And that lamb burger was damn good, too, courtesy of Bill the Butcher.) Two other factors are fueling me to lose weight (other than having sexy stomach for Honu and being lean and mean for Ironman Canada next year): Jason’s tracking his calories too in hopes of losing 35 lbs for Ironman Coeur d’Alene (we’ve split our races for 2012 since he thinks Idaho will offer a better “big guy” course than hot Canada, whereas I signed up for Canada again because I want the extra two months of training coming off an injured season). Losing weight is always easier when your significant other is on board to take the journey with you and support you. So far we’re both doing pretty well, making more meals at home and being more mindful of portion sizes and not eating like horrible gluttons. I’m visiting Michigan October 19th, which means I’ve got 40 days to slim down to what my harsh Korean mother considers to be an acceptable weight (I don’t know what that weight is, but so far I’ve always failed). The last time I...

A good teammate pays it forward when her crew comes up to support and cheer for her as she’s dragging her tired legs 140.6 miles, so that’s exactly what I did the last Sunday in August in Penticton for my TN peeps. My Becca Sense had been tingling all summer thinking that the Ironman Canada athletes would have a hot race day since I got lucky last year with the weather (minus the pockets of rain and wind on the bike), and I was right. Of the five days I was up in Canada, the “coldest” day was in the mid-80s and race day crept up to the mid-90s. I tried to do some workouts while I was up there, so I flailed around in the lake for about 15-20 minutes and called it a swim, and I ran with Teresa a couple days. (And by “with” I mean “behind,” as even in her weakened state she’s still faster than me. Sigh.) One day we ran along an old railroad track that’s been converted into a trail, and although it was hot, the run was pretty nice. At one point we ran by a cottage on the trail that was advertising the following: I would have sold my soul for a slushie at this point on the run, but we didn’t have any money so I had to soldier on with my stupid unflavored water like a chump. The next day we did another shorter run along the run course, and it was so freaking hot that I was running slower than usual at a higher heart rate. I started whining to myself about how hot and shitty it was before remembering that I was running slower than this pace last year and had traveled 135 miles further, and that my teammates would have to run an entire marathon in this heat tomorrow so shut up and finish your stupid little run. Sometimes you’re not allowed to complain no matter how crummy you feel, because you know that other folks will have it worse and that you yourself have been in worse situations. The morning of the race eventually rolled around and I sprang out of bed, giddy with excitement and adrenaline (Jason said I was over-stimulated). I had volunteered to be a sherpa for two of my teammates and friends who were racing with no family support, so I wanted to make sure they were taken care of before and after the race. We packed up our racers and Jason and I cranked “Welcome to the Jungle” for them because it’s the song that played last year for us when we were driving to the race start. Naturally, the day was long and hot and the race was tough. Although bike splits were faster than last year, runs were obviously slower due to the heat. Our team did the best they could under the conditions. One had to drop out due to injury, one dropped out because of a bike malfunction, one got pulled with heat stroke, and one missed the bike cutoff. They all battled hard and gave it an admirable effort, and the athletes who did finish did great, too. Instead of a full recap, I thought I’d give out some “awards” via photos that my teammates and I snapped throughout the day. Enjoy! The “Bad-Ass with Braids” Award goes to Kylee. She battled the barfies all day (from the swim to the bike to throughout the run) and still managed to become an Ironman. I remember how awful I felt for five miles during the Rev 3 run and can’t imagine throwing up for 15...