Today wraps up our first real brick training. Started off the morning with a solid 34 mile ride to our Spinervals DVD. To take our mind off the burn and sweat, we decided to name all the cyclists on the video. Yes, we are that cool! What can I say when you have kick-a$$ made-up cycling names like Kurt, Sven, and Cho; it makes you want to ride faster. Poor Calhoun has been banished from the bike room because he has this weird infatuation with running under K's pedals as she is biking and just lays there. What a goof! But to keep him safe he has been locked out, and eagerly waits at the door until we are done, then he runs in and helps K take off her bike shoes by playing with the laces. After our bike ride, I headed down to Springfield to run a yoga teacher training session, and hit up the grocery.... FOOD! Came back to good ol' BOMO and headed over to the wellness center and prepared to finish off our day with a little swimmy swim. Don't worry we actually got into the pool and swam this time, but the lifeguard there was horrible. I don't think he understood the concept of swimming, I asked to use the pace clock and he said I wasn't allowed because I didn't know how to use it "properly." I know this is coming off very condescending but really dude, I promise I know how to use a pace clock (insert sigh of frustration right here). On a positive note we have a pool in Bolivar to swim in so I can't complain too much. Any-who back to swimming, we got in a good 2 grand workout and called it a day. Our semester is off to a running start, no rest for the weary! Patho exam on Friday, and neuro exam next week, bring in on DPT, we're ready!
Wow, have we been slacking on this blog or what!!! Let's see, so Thurs, we rested; Fri, we rode for 45min and watch a couple episodes of Will&Grace, Court taught yoga; Sat, we drove up to KC and shopped all day. Let me tell you, it was a MUCH needed day!!! Being in the middle-of-nowhere really starts to take a toll on us "city girls." Hello Whole Foods! Hey there Trader Joes! Long time no see Lululemon! How've you been Athleta?! Seriously tho, so much shopping and so much mula spent in one day. I'm not going to say we binge shopped, but I'm also not going to say we didn't splurge a little. ;) (Pictures to come tomorrow!) So, that takes us to Sun (yesterday), where we ran 8mi. It was a gorgeous 60 degree day, but we still had one of our slowest 8mi run ever! For some reason, we just couldn't get our lungs warmed up until the last mile or so. And by then, we were ready to be done anyway. We kept asking ourselves, "How were we able to run a marathon?!" Today, we tried to go swimming. Turns out, the pool is closed until 3p and we weren't too excited to wait around for an hour. Granted, we've only swum once now. :/ With that said, we'll try again tomorrow... good news is our normal schedule is in effect from now until May 20th (Katelyn's bday!), no more of this January term nonsense. ALSO it was our LAST first day of spring semester ever!!! That is a big deal when you have been in school for 21 years, HOLY MOSES we are getting old, and the real world is coming for us fast... YIKES! But we are so ready to get going on clinicals and our professional career. HIP HIP HORRAY!
Here is our training schedule: Mon: Rest/yoga/ lift Tues: Swim, Long bike (we have tuesdays off of class!) Wed: Run Thurs: Shorter bike Fri: Rest!! Sat: Swim, Long run Sun: Shorter bike Eventually we will switch out some of the swim/bike and swim/run bricks with bike/run
Let's just pause and take a long moment for the pure MAJESTY that is a matching outfit. My family is the president of matching outfits. Whenever we would travel somewhere we would all don our matching Adidas wind suits (navy with yellow stripes to be exact). In the event of a missing child not only would my parents be able to hear us swooshing around the airport, but they would also be able to spot us very easily as we were the only family with the same outfit on. Now lets take a little look see at our family photo circa 1999, we owned the Canadian tuxedo, notice the matching beige turtle necks underneath.... "Pulling. It. Off" Side note; I showed this picture to K a while back and she got such a kick out of it, that she saved it to her phone, and looks at it when she is having a bad day. The Veerman clan has also rocked matching polar bear pajamas...do you see a trend here?! Pure awesome. SO whenever you are feeling uninspired, go put on your matching track suit, put on your favorite 90's jam, lace up your sneakers and WORK IT! Strut around, swagger cat it out because you look FABULOUS! In other news K is embarrassed to be running next to me, I wore my matching winter running outfit.... You're welcome world!
Ok back to our training Yesterday: we biked for 70 min, watched an episode of House, and an episode of Will & Grace. With race pace intervals of 12 min,10 min, 8 min, 6 min, 4 min and 2 min, with easy speed rest in-between. Today: we ran 4.3 miles at a 8:20 min/ mile. Beemer not only joined us for the run but lead the way, he is one fast dog!
So, down for the count day 2 (" It came at me like a wrecking ball") . I think I have slept more than my cat these past two days, which takes talent because he sleeps ALL day. He has been my care taker (insert adorable sigh of cuteness right here), bringing me his toys (mousey and hedgehog to be exact) to make me feel better (or remind me that he doesn't feel sick and is confused that I am not playing with him) what a kitten! Hopefully tomorrow I will be back and at it, but good news is it is very early in our training, and there is plenty of time to make up these lost few days. K had a busy day volunteering in Springfield at a organization called Newborns in Need. Sorting donated baby clothes, sewing blankets, and delivering packages for new mothers. Two thumbs up for you K! As the title of our post says- it's meet and greet Monday.... Shall we?!
Best advice anyone has ever given you: C: "Life is not fair, sometimes its awful, but the only option available to you is how you respond to it, you call the shots in your own life" - my dad K: "It's better to be a hard worker than a smart [alack]" - mom Favorite item of workout clothing: C: Lululemon energy bra K: Smartwool running socks Hobby you want to get better at: C: Photography K: Piano Favorite winter Olympic sport: C: Short track speed skating K: Giant slalom Biggest concern about this triathlon: C: Getting a penalty card on the bike for drafting and then having to sit in the time out tent for 5 min. Also not being able to brush my hair after the swim to bike portion (I don't know why this concerns me so much, but it does) K: Not finishing due to some unforeseen circumstances. And also a flat tire...I don't know how to change one! What chore do you absolutely hate doing: C: Putting away my laundry after its been folded K: Agreed w/ Court Four things on your bucket list: C: Dress up and go to a masquerade in Venice Italy. Re-learn how to play piano. Visit the pyramids in Egypt. Enter a photo in a large scale photography contest and win. K: Move to England, climb K2, ski in Switzerland, become fluent in ASL, Spanish, French, and/or Romanian.
Turns out, we got distracted and haven't been posting. So here it goes: day 11, we rode for 45min; day 12, we rested (court taught yoga); day 13, we rode for 90min (tried out our spinnervals DVD, now that's a workout); and today, day 14, we rested. We were supposed to run 7mi and swim some today, but unfortunately, Court has an ear infection (and slept for 8 hours today). So Katelyn decided to take Beemer on a 2 hr walk instead. Turns out, 6mi of walking will really take it out of him! (As I'm writing this, he's passed out on the floor next to my feet.) Hopefully Court's ear infection is minor and she'll be back on her feet in no time! BUT, we still have plenty of time to train, AND we have plenty of school work to keep us busy, too.
Once again, school forced our hands and we had to make a decision: run inside on the boring treadmills, or run outside with the down-to-the-bone cold (humidity, man!) while the sun was going down. Inside it is! I got to the YMCA a couple minutes behind Court, so I decided to take a couple pics! Court had no idea...ok, she saw me and was like, seriously?! Yep. Totally serious, man! Needless to say, the 4mi inside was not fun. But hey, we can cross today off our list!
Just hanging out with our favorite bone the TRIquetrum... (we are so humerus... get it?! hahah I crack myself up sometimes). Today for class we actually looked like civilized professionals, no lycra, spandex, lulu, or fuzzy slippers to be found. Did we choose to dress up... absolutely not; was it required for our guest lecture, you betcha! Looking like real people is so uncomfortable, buttons and zippers really inhibit our ability to do yoga anytime anywhere, and relax in class to the fullest extent possible. All joking aside, today we rode 90 min and watched 2 episodes of bones. Our legs were fresh from our day off, and riding was much more productive. K installed her new aerobars and her lumbar spine and wrists were very grateful for the change in position.
So today was a beautiful day. Sunny with a high of 65 (the weather fluctuates violently down here in good ol' BOMO) And...WIND. So much wind. Gusts up to over 30mph! But did we let that stop us? Not a chance! I'll be honest though, it was rough. We ran 7mi today thinking it'd be easy breezy. No such luck. In fact, I'd even go as far to say that it was one of our worst. We had a headwind for our first 3.5 miles, and it was so gusty that we had to lean into the wind just to keep moving forward. All of the snow has melted leaving part of our long running route a soggy swamp. It was very SQUISHY to say the least, but it made for a much more dynamic and interesting run, and we didn't fall (two bonus points for us). And I will say this: I didn't want to go. But, Court convinced me (not really...it was more of me feeling guilty for hanging out on the couch, binge watching Everybody Loves Raymond on Netflix, while I knew Court would be outside, battling the wind). Anyway, I'm glad we did it and we even stopped for a couple pics!
Pool fiasco of 2014 solved, crisis avoided! The pools in Springfield are open and running... yeah buddy. We did the usual U of M gopher warm up, 500 swim, 400 pull, 300 IM drill, 200 kick, and a 100 swim. Plus an additional 500 choice, for a grand total of 2000 yards. Baby steps.... it was the first time in the water in a long time (think almost 3 years) for both of us. Actually, more like 3 for Court and however long ago high school was for Katelyn. The swim will be the strengths for both of us in the race, but we have some work to do! OH EMMM GEEE we both forgot how hungry you are after swimming, (reminder to pack a snack for after) yes I know we only did 2 grand, but we were hungry little tri monsters. Oh how the water is the great equalizer of athletes, you can be a bike and run all-star, but put some people in the water and it's over baby. Even though it's the shortest aspect of the race, there are some large time gains that can be made in the swim aspect, and we are hoping to use our swimming backgrounds to our advantage.
Thoughts I (Court) had while swimming: - which side do I breathe to? - grapefruit sounds fantastic right now - if I do butterfly will I be able to make it safely to the other side? - 17 years of swimming, not sure how I looked at the bottom of the pool for so long - would the extra water taken up in my body right now change the radio density of my tissues? - why can't I get this Katy Perry song out of my head? - how does so much water get into my ears? - I wonder if I put Calhoun on a kick board would he like it? and would he look cute in a kitty life jacket? - did my fingers used to get this pruney? mmm prunes, that sounds good too - This is actually kind of fun - whelp, its sauna time
Thoughts K had while swimming: - it's cold in here...wait, no it's hot in here - ugh, what is that little black floating spec?? - water in my ears! water in my ears! - only missed the wall once on a turn...not too shabby! - seriously Court?? passing me AGAIN?! I'm so slow! - I kind of like the water sound - maybe if I hang out on the bottom of the pool as Court swims by, I can wave...(waves)...nope. She didn't see me. - I did the warm up. Can I be done now? No? ok great... - I don't want to do this anymore. - Yay! Time to get out!
After our arduous swim workout we headed over to Sumits Hot Yoga and got in a quick yoga session, and by yoga session I mean take yoga pictures for our blog. It was fun, some of our pictures look ridiculous, but we got some good ones (check out the picture tab). Saving the best picture for a different time, stay tuned if you want a good laugh :)
So here's the deal, in case you guys didn't know, we're working on our doctorates. With that in mind, training has already begun to take the back burner somewhat. We decided to ride yesterday evening for 90min. Not bad since we've done it before, but man were we struggling! No motivation. Whatsoever. Thanks to Bones and Calhoun, we finished around 9p last night. Katelyn is eternally grateful to Cal for laying right under her pedals or getting too close to the rear wheel while it's moving. Without him, she wouldn't have been able to take as many breaks as she did! Today (Friday) is our "off" day. With that being said, Courtney taught her yoga sculpt class in Springfield before the sun's alarm clock even went off. Katelyn, on the other hand, took Beemer on a w-a-l-k in the slushy snow.
In other news, Court wore this to class. She wasn't kidding when she said she was out of clean clothes! (benefits of wearing mirrored goggles in class, you can take a nap and your professor won't even know!) Actually it was team day in school, go big or go home baby!
Just a normal day getting your doctorate. You know the age old saying.... B's get degrees... whelp, Gophers get degrees too!
Courtney and Katelyn are both pursuing their Doctorate in Physical Therapy in Missouri. While school is their full-time job, racing and working out is their hobby...and food is their passion! The blog name comes from MADison and DENver.