The Zen of Ultra Running

First tri of the year at Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon. In early January, I posted about signing up for races on social media and Mickey sent me a private message about this race that he organized. It's an indoor tri with a 20/20/20 format. That is 20 minutes pool swim, 20 minutes stationary bike, and 20 minutes treadmill run. I talked to B (my coach) and he said it sounded like a fun race so I signed up.   The week leading up to the race was pretty uneventful. Work was busy as usual but not stressful. It was supposed to be super cold on race day (thank god it's an indoor tri). I asked hubby to drop me off at the race, which took place at a gym in Beachwood. He was not interested in my race so he dropped me off and went to a coffee shop and grocery shopping LOL.  I got to Lifetime Fitness about 1 hour before my wave started. The race was very well organized and the volunteer walked me to the designated area in the locker room and marked my body. After I put my stuff i...

It's been a while (again) since my last blog. Things were c-r-a-z-y at work and I also felt lost after the Akron marathon where I had no big race or short-term career goal to look forward to. As a goal-oriented freak, that put me in the deepest sh*thole I had ever been (besides the time during my PhD program but that's another story).  Here is the recap of what happened while I was not blogging.  September was a pretty busy month. I submitted the tenure packet one day before my A race (Half IM). Two weeks later I did a 100-mile bike ride and the last weekend of September was the Akron marathon.  Update on the Akron marathon - I had cramps from Mile 20 to the finish and ended up having to walk a lot. Things were not pretty but it was good to see friends along the course. Akron marathon #4 - check! I also ran Regal Beagle in November but decided to cut back to the 25K coz I felt like I did not train enough and honestly my head was not there. I started to treat racing like a...

Another year of CassadagaMan 70.3. I could have done other 70.3 races but it seemed like many people got deferred from last year races and it was hard to find other races nearby. So, I signed up for this race again this year despite the hilly bike and run courses. The timing was perfect for me as it was on Labor day weekend and I don't have to teach on Monday. The hardest part of this race was to convince my husband to go with me because he said there was nothing to do in the area or the town where we stayed at.  I had a big deadline the week leading up to the race day so my whole attention was paid to that BIG deadline. I submitted my work on Thursday and took Friday off to prepare for the race. We left the house on Friday late morning and stopped in Cleveland for lunch before heading to Cassadaga, NY. This was our mini vacation although P. did not think so.  We arrived at the packet pick up around 3pm. I picked up the packet and we also drove the bike course to remind me wha...

Not exactly sure what I was thinking when I signed up for this race. It's the weekend before the fall semester began and I was super stressed out as I revamped 75% of one of the courses this semester.   The purpose of this race was again to practice race strategy and nutrition. I was very glad that there was a race in Cleveland/Northeast Ohio after HFP sold their races to another company based in Columbus and they moved all the races (including the ones that I already signed up for) to central Ohio :( So, it was a no-brainer to sign up for a race close to home.  Except for that, the race was two days before the semester started.... The inaugural Tri CLE Rock Roll Run was very well organized and the communication was very clear (if you took time to read the athlete packet that they sent out before the race). The race took place in downtown Cleveland and T1 & T2 were in different locations. This was the first time I did a tri that the transitions were not in one place. ...

 I cannot believe that the last time I updated this blog was after Regal Beagle 50K in November 2020. Has it really been 9 months?  Oh well, I forgot to write a blog about Outrun 24 race in May. I showed up at the race with a goal of just to finish a 50K because I wanted to save my legs and energy for the Olympic tri race at Deer Creek. At O24, I ran 35 miles and went home. Then, I got sick a week before Deer Creek and did not go to the race :(I was very disappointed as I was training pretty well and felt like I was "ready".  Then, we took off on a 2-week vacation in the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador and I felt like my training went backward a little (with minimal running, biking, and swimming during the two weeks). However, the vacation was something that P. and I really needed after more than a year of staying at home and no traveling.  After coming back from vacation, I saw someone posted in the Cleveland Tri Club Facebook group about the Spring Classic Sprint Tri...

Wow. All I could say is that the past weekend was a pretty eventful weekend. On Saturday, I went out for a hike with friends (tapering for a 50K race on Sunday). It was good to catch up with my favorite people and get my mind off of work.  Then, we visited Purple Skies Farm. A participant in our cooking class referred us to the lady who owns the farm and she invited us to visit the farm on Saturday.  This pandemic year has been crazy for many of us including me and P. We had to cancel our trips and travel. But one good thing that happened to us during the pandemic was the #QuarantineCooking class that we started in April. The class has grown so much since we started. I was looking at the data last week and decided to create an infographic chart to summarize the statistics from our cooking class. It was fun to see the numbers (yes, we are nerds).  We taught the cooking class on Saturday evening (it's now offered once a month) and had a lot of fun (as usual). Many new peopl...

 Why do I feel like it has been forever since the last race and the last blog update?  That could be because September was not very kind to me. The new online live teaching format because of COVID changes what I do in classes quite a bit (e.g., in-class exercise, discussion, presentations, etc). We also had to deal with wifi issues and spotty internet (both my & students'), low motivation, attendance, participation, etc. It was quite a headache.  Back to racing and running stuff. In April, Forget the PR 50K was postponed to October but then later they decided to make it a virtual run (due to many reasons), which I totally understood. I then talked to C. and a couple of people. They said they were going to go down to Mohican and run the course (C. had the course map). Originally, we were going to go down on Oct 17 but then the University of Akron asked me if we could teach the cooking class on that Saturday because it's UA homecoming & family weekend. So, I asked C...