My blog in Spanish

I just discovered how to translate my blog into Spanish.

Give it a try. It is awesome, especially if you are fluent in Spanish!

Okay. That is all.

Can you tell I'm bored?

A great fun weekend

I had a great time seeing my cousins this weekend! They didn't end up coming until 10:00 on Thursday night. This was okay though, since it gave me all of Friday and Saturday to visit with them. They also didn't leave until yesterday at 5:00 P.M. Their late departure time gave me almost a whole extra day to visit with them.

During this time, we did lots of shopping, since many of my cousins needed new back to school clothes. I didn't really need any new clothes since I already have a ton of clothes (because I love to shop, and I haven't changed clothing sizes for at least a couple of years) but I still got two new pairs of shorts and a couple T-Shirts.

These new clothes I got are from a store that has always been in my mall, but that I have never really shopped at before called Aeropostale. I don't know why I never shopped in there before- but I am glad I decided to look in there while we were at the mall on Saturday. They have the cutest clothes there! I decided to get some stuff there because they were having a really big sale. Everything in the store was 50% off! I ended up getting six things for maybe $50. That is definitely a good price on things!

Besides shopping, my family and I did other things such as seeing a movie. We saw the new Batman movie. I was so bored during that movie that I fell asleep. I don't like action movies! I wasn't the only one that didn't like it though. Two of my cousins and my aunt also fell asleep.

Over the weekend, my mom also took me to Pearle Vision to get my glasses fixed. I was seeing really funny through my glasses. When I put them on, it was like looking underwater- definitely a messed up feeling! It turns out that I need to get a new prescription from my eye doctor. The prescription that was in these new glasses was too strong in my right eye.

At home, I had fun visiting with everybody. It was especially fun visiting with my cousin who is a girl (all my other cousins were boys!) and only a year younger then me. We did many things such as play cards, get each other's e-mails, and stay up late. Everybody else stayed up much later than I did (maybe 1:00 A.M.) but I made it up until about 10:00-10:30 each night. This is very late for me! I know- kind of pathetic.

Over the weekend, I even had a chance for a couple good workouts. I did a 1:20 run on Saturday before visiting with my cousins all day. Yesterday after they left, I did a 1:30 bike ride followed by a :45 run. My 1:30 bike rides are definitely taking me a lot farther than they used to!

A quiz and a quick note. Quirky, right?

First, I will mention the quiz. Apparently, this is what my name means:

What Amy Means

You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated. You master any and all skills easily. You don't have to work hard for what you want. You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you'll knock down anyone who gets in your way! You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in. You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising. You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

I think the only thing true on that quiz was the part about me having a “type A” personality. The part about being confident and a free spirit is totally opposite of me. I am always questioning myself and I like to have everything planned Whoever said quizzes were completely right all the time is very, very wrong. Maybe this person should take a quiz about the accuracy of quizzes. They would fail! Any ways...

It is now time for the quick note:

Remember the bike ride I did in May that took me about 3 hours to complete? Today, I finished that same loop in just under 1:55. I also felt a lot fresher after riding the loop today than I did a few months ago (probably because I wasn't on my bike so long this time!). After riding this loop, I actually had enough energy to go out and rode my bike another 15 minutes. This gave me a total of 2:10 of bicycle riding today!

I hope this means I can get my speed up past 8 mph now, and will be able to complete an Olympic distance bike leg in a reasonable amount of time!

I was getting really discouraged at myself for my lack of improvement. Now all of a sudden, this whole week has been about improvement! I hope this improvement continues. I still haven't seen much improvement with my running!

In other happy news, my cousins are coming over to my house to stay the weekend! I am so excited to see them again! They live on the other side of the country and I haven’t seen them in two years. They will be arriving here at around 9:00 tonight and will be staying three nights with us. They leave on Sunday.

I also get to see my uncle, who I haven't seen in over a year, tonight. He has been stationed in Iraq for the past year. He is not in the military, but he drives military trucks there.

In addition to my four cousins and uncle, my aunt is coming. On top of this, one of my cousins is also bringing a friend. All together (in case you can't add) this is seven guests this weekend. This should definitely make for a full house. Normally, it is just me and my parents!

Lotsa food!

I have been kind of hungry for the past few days. I think part of it had to do with the big swim workouts I did over the weekend. I ate a little extra on each day that I was hungrier than normal. I didn’t eat a whole bunch extra though. I was a little hungry when I went to bed each night, but being lazy and not wanting to wake up and get more food, I thought I was fine.

Apparently I wasn’t fine. Yesterday, I woke up STARVING and remained that way the entire day. No matter how much food I ate yesterday, I was still famished and would quickly need to shove more food in my mouth! It was like I had a tapeworm eating all my food and saving none for me. Have you ever had a day like this?

All together, I ate almost 3,000 calories yesterday over a total of 5 meals. You know how most people eat 3 meals? I just ate 5 yesterday! It must have worked though. I haven't been all that hungry today.

Just because I'm sure you are dying to know, here is everything I ate yesterday. Keep in mind I am not a good cook. Also keep in mind we don’t have that many varieties of food in our freezer. You will see the same 5 foods repeated over and over again on my menu yesterday.

Okay, here goes... Are you ready?

Breakfast (7:00 A.M.): 2 Pop-Tarts
Lunch (11:00 A.M.): A bunch of mini-vegetarian corn dogs and 2 packets of oatmeal
Dinner #1 (4:00 P.M.): Amy's Organic burrito and 2 packets of oatmeal
Dinner #2 (6:00 P.M.): More mini- vegetarian corndogs and 2 more packets of oatmeal
Dinner #3 (10:00 P.M.): 2 Slim-Fast bars and another burrito

Also keep in mind that my stomach was growling violently between all these meals. Another thing to keep in mind: Eating this much food in a single day is a pain in the behind!

Moral of the story: I will no longer be lazy and go to bed a little hungry. I will eat extra food when I am hungry so my body doesn't have to play catch up with me- and give me a crazy day such as yesterday. (This advice should be pretty self-explanatory, but apparently it wasn’t for me!)

Super Secret Gear

My brand new, fixed bike is awesome! Okay, it is not really brand new- but it feels that way!

When my dad fixed my bike (it was making strange rattling noises because it was out of gear) he actually put my bike in the correct gear. It was a gear I never knew existed before! It was a Super Secret Gear!

I rode my newly fixed bike both today and yesterday. It rides so much better now! This Super Secret Gear makes it so that I actually move forward when I start pedaling. Before Dad fixed my bike, it felt like I wasn't moving at all!

In this new gear, I can actually pedal hard going downhill. I was never able to do that before. I was only able to coast downhill. That didn't make for the fastest riding! Now, being able to pedal downhill, I am able to go SO fast (relatively speaking, of course...)!

I bet right now, you are thinking "What a complete idiot, she doesn't even know how to gear her bike properly!"

Oh well. Continue thinking that, and I will continue pedaling away in my newly found Super Secret Gear!

Yesterday, I also uploaded to the computer a video about why I do triathlons . I uploaded this video because the website I uploaded this video to was having a contest.

The contest rules were that if you upload a video to their website during the month of July, you are eligible to win a bike. The winner of the bike will be selected by a raffle. You enter your name into this raffle (after you upload the video, of course!) and one winner will be randomly selected. I hope the winner is me! I really need a new bike!

It's pretty doubtful that I will win though. There are at least 30 other entries, and I am never lucky at winning raffles. Oh well. I can at least try; however, there is a very slight chance that the new bike is mine!


I’m glad the winner is randomly selected. If the winner was selected based on the quality of the video, I wouldn’t have even bothered entering my video into the contest.

All of the submissions so far to the website have been incredibly well-done. A lot of these people have used fancy video editing software that I don’t even have on my computer. This software gave these people the capability to add music, captions, and all sorts of other things to their videos.

Just to warn you, my video doesn’t have any of that stuff at all- it is just me talking, while sitting in a chair. Also, make sure to turn your speakers up really, really loud to be able to hear me. I got the cheapest recording device I could find (a $30 webcam) to make this video. Obviously, it means the quality of the video is not going to be the best!


If you want an idea of how awesome the bike I am now eligible to win is- click here.

All I can say is that it is one of the coolest bikes I have ever seen!

More good luck

I have had some great luck this week (especially today)! Okay, I didn't win the lottery- but it was still a pretty lucky day today!

First of all, I got my bike fixed. My bike was making awful rattling noises, for the past month or so. My dad (who is great at all things mechanical) took a look at my bike. It turns out I had the d@mn thing out of gear!

I don't ride my bike for 2 weeks- thinking something was seriously wrong with it. I thought my bike was going to fall apart or something. The only thing wrong with it: the bike was out of gear! Hahaha. I'm an idiot.

I also went to the bike shop today. I have a $70 dollar store credit there. This is because I didn't like a bike computer I got there (the computer was supposed to be held to the bike through rubber bands...yeah). I decided to spend the store credit on some slick tires for my ever-so-slow mountain bike.

It turned out that they didn't have the slick tires, however. They were out of stock. They said they will be ordering them very soon and will call me once they get a new shipment. I can't wait to get them! They are supposed to make you a lot faster. At least that is what I read on one of the triathlon forums I like to visit.

You know another thing that might make me faster on my bike...inflating my tires! When I took my bike into the bike shop (thinking the mechanics would need the bike to put the tires on it) they told me my tires were almost flat!

I never said I was smart...

In other news, road bikes are supposed to make you faster (duh-uh). I never knew how much faster though, until the guy told me (unless it was a sells pitch...).

He said that if I go 13-14 miles an hour on a mountain bike (I wish!); I could go about 18-19 mph on a road bike. I know a piece of equipment isn't a guarantee, but that sounds like a HUGE speed increase to me. I don't know exactly how much faster a road bike would make me, but I am sure it makes quite a bit of difference.

I really want a road bike (or better yet, a tri bike).Too bad I don't have that much money! The road bikes in the store cost a minimum of about $650. I'm sure a triathlon bike would be even more expensive. I only have about $1,000 saved up, and I want a car WAY more than I want a fancy bike.

I will get a road (or tri) bike eventually though. I just need a lot more money! Those bikes are so pretty...

Okay, enough with my greediness. I still haven't written about my awesome swim workout today. Yes. Another awesome swim workout. I have been having many swim breakthroughs this week!


I swam 6000 yards today! Did you hear that? 6000 yards!

I finally had enough time to swim today to finish this workout. Normally my attempts get cut short because I have to leave the pool a lot sooner. I've tried several times to finish this workout, but today I actually had the time to do so.

Are you ready to hear my workout?

Okay, here goes...

1000 free
2 X (500 SKIDS*)
1000 free
5 X (100 IM, 200 free)
500 free
200 back
500 free
300 IM

* 500 SKIDS = 100 swim, 100 kick, 100 IM, 100 drill, 100 swim

I'm actually, surprisingly, not that tired; however, I was incredibly hungry when I finished. I ate about 1,000 calories of food tonight, and am still a little hungry. Other than that and a little tiredness in my arms, I feel fine. I feel very relaxed too. A long swim (or any other workout) has amazing powers of relaxation.

I am so glad I got my bike fixed today. I actually miss riding it, and am eager to ride it first thing in the morning!

Another swim breakthrough!

Thursday night at swim practice, I had another swim breakthrough!

The main set we were given to swim at this practice was 6 X 200 hard on 3:40. As soon as I heard that set, I knew I would never make the interval. I'm just too slow. I normally swim my 200s on 4:00. Besides, whenever we have a set longer than a 25 (sometimes a 50 if I am lucky), I never make the interval. This is because I am the slowest person in the slowest paced swim lane. I get lapped a miliion times. If someone created a swim lane slower then the one I swim in, I would easily be in the new lane.

Despite being very unlikely to make the 3:40 intreval, on the first 200 I was still determined to swim hard. I knew even if I didn't make the interval, I should still swim at the intenesty that the coach perscribed. After powering through the water as hard as I could (without sprinting, and slow enough to save energy for the rest of the set) I was suprised that no one lapped me. I was even more suprised that I actually made the interval!

Okay, that was a one time thing only, I thought. Let's just see what happens after this next 200.

Suprisingly, after another hard 200, I realized that I actually made the interval again! I was even more suprised by this feat than I was the first time I made the interval. Not believing this happened, I buckled down and swam a third 200 hard.

I couldn't believe it! I actualy made the interval for the third time! By this time, I was wondering if I could make the entire interval on 3:40. I was starting to get pretty tired by this point, but managed a fourth 200 on 3:40. I was completely amazed and knew I could make all the other intervals. By this point, there were only two intervals left.

On the fifth 200, the person in front of me was slowing down and starting to get tired. I stayed on his toes for a couple laps - almost passing him- but not sure if I should. The person who was slowing down right in front of me normally laps me about 100 times on every other set

By the time I finished the fifth 200 (yet again, making the set), I was starting to get extremely giddy and tired- both at the same time. The guy that I caught up to remained directly in front of me for another couple laps. By the time I got to the end of the last set, however, he sped up. I guess he didn't want to get passed by the slowest person (by a long shot) in the lane.

By the time I finished the sixth 200 (and made the set- again) I couldn't believe I had made the entire set. That practice on Thursday was the first time I have ever made the tough intervals on a full, complete mainset in swim practice!

Just when I was getting discouraged...

I thought I would never improve in triathlons;however, just when I was getting discouraged with my performance, I had a major swim breakthough. Last night, at the end of swim practice, we did 2 X 25 sprint. I normally do these 25's in 17-18 seconds.

Last night I did one of the 25's in 16.6 seconds. I couldn't belive it. I thought the coach messed up with his watch, or the pool somehow shrank. I knew however, that pools didn't shrink and watches are usally very accurate. In my state of disbelief, I stepped up to the blocks to do another 25 yard sprint.

I plowed though the water as fast as I possibly could. My new time: 15.6 seconds! A whole second off of what I thought would be my best time! This two second improvement was only off a 25. I can't wait to see what my times are going to be like in the longer swim races. Too bad I will have to wait untill October for my next swim meet.

It is weird the way that fitness comes. When you first start working out, you make huge improvements all the time. I remember last year when I was first getting into shape: almost every workout would be my longest or fastest swim/bike/run ever.

After a few months, these improvements would begin to slow down. I would continue making small improvements here and there, but my times and distances would pretty much stay the same. That is how everything has been for the past several months. Now, however, I must have hit one of those huge jumps in improvement.

I can tell because my arms and legs (especially my legs- from all the biking and running I have been doing) are starting to feel a lot stronger. Have you ever had that happen during a time of getitng into shape? Your arms and legs just feel stronger?

I am sure the reason I am experincing such a huge leap in fitness is because of the twelve to fourteen hour training weeks I have been putting in this summer. I have recently been doing about 2 hours of training a day. Before this summer, however, I only trained about 7-10 hours a week. I think since I have been increasing my training so much since June, my body is finally having a chance to absorb all the extra workouts.

However it happened dosn't really matter. No matter what, I can not wait to shatter some of my previous best times during the next swim meet in October!

Oh, and some more great news: I can finally do another triathlon. I havn't done a triathlon since the beginning of May. I kept asking my parents if I could do one these past two months and they kept saying "no". They said this because because there was a whole bunch of other thngs going on through out the past few months, such as swim meets and my grandparents visiting for a month. The month of August is pretty free though. I finally have parental permission to do a triathlon Aug. 24! All I have to do now is get registered for the thing!

The triathlon is called the Great Buckeye Challenge. It is in a town called Springfield (no- not the Simpson's Springfield) only about 45 minutes from home. I am hoping to do the "mini" distance. It sounds really cute, right?

Wrong! It will be my first olympic distance triathlon. 1000m swim/24.9 mile bike/6.55mile run. I am so excited and nervous- but with a name like "mini" how bad can it be?

This Disney character would enjoy herself in the triathlon:



I hope I will too!

Wondering about potential...

I've been wondering a lot lately about potential. Most particually, I have been wondering about potential in the sports of triathlon and competitive swimming. I will focus right now on triathlons.

For me, a back of the pack triathlete, I am wondering what my potential could be if I did everything right in this sport. Is there a possibility that I could ever reach the level of being a middle of the pack triathlete (or beyond) if I did everything right in terms of training and recovery? Are my genes the only factor in my athletic abality, or is there a way I could work hard and improve beyond my back of the pack status?

For some examples, here are some things I could possibly do "more correctly". I am not saying I would necessairly do all these things, but if I did do them, how much would it help me?

Okay, here they are-

Swimming:
. Work on my stroke (ovbiously) and find ways to swim more efficiently.
. Practice very frequently, like I have been doing (5 X a week, usally).
. More speedwork?

Biking (okay, I have a lot here!):
. Get a road/triathlon bike.
. Put slicks on my mountain bike.
. Get areo bars, clipless pedals, etc.
. Bike more often (at least 4X a week, 5+ would be better if I really wanted to improve).
. Do more long rides
. Figure out how to do speedwork on the bike, and do it!
. Make sure my bike fits properly.

Running:
. Do more long runs/bricks.
. Do speedwork.
. Get orthotics or some kind of support (other than motion control shoes) for my flat feet!
. Run more often (not sure how often, since I would be using all that other time getting better at swim and bike. 3X a week? 4?).

All together:
. Figure out stratigies to make my transitions shorter.
. Follow a good training plan, instead of doing workouts randomly. (Not sure how complex I would have to go in this- would I have to follow a periodized plan like in the Triathlete's Training Bible?)

Other:
. Work on my nutrition (including eating more protien, fruits, and vegitables).
. Lift weights
. Stretch more.
. Learn how to fuel workouts properly, including what to eat during and after working out.

Okay, I think that is everything. Before I wrote that, I didn't even know what I knew (if that makes sense whatsoever!). There is still a lot that I don't know about these things though- including how well some of these things improve performance.

I don't know. I would just would really like to do well at this new-found sport!

Driving and Running

more graph humor and song chart memes

Hahaha! And that funny graph was from GraphJam.com, a funny website that I discovered that has all sorts of equally amusing charts. If you don't believe me, check that website out for yourself. Trust me, you will enjoy it. I just recently looked through about 15 pages of graphs from there.

Anyways, you probably want to know about my week- since I havn't spent much time blogging this week. Well, to sum it up in two words, my week has been all about driving and running. It has also about procrastinating on my summer homework, but that is a whole other story.

I will begin with the driving part of my week. As you may know, I am spending this summer learning how to drive. After much studying of my driver's manual, I went down to the DMV to take my driving test. I was afraid I wouldn't pass, never get my liscence, and never learn how to drive. I soon found out that this fear was for nothing though. Out of the 32 questions they gave me on the test, I only missed two. I then got my learner's permit!

I started driving school on Thursday, going to two, 2 hour classes. Today, I went to another 2 hour class. I had different instucters each of these different days, but they have both been good teachers. They were both ex-cops and had a lot of intresting stories to tell!

In the classes, we learned about things such as the fact that you should look ahead when steering. We also learned things such as how to drive at night and on the freeway. I still have 9 classes to go, and a few hours where I actually get in the car and drive, then I will be done with driving school. I then have to complete 50 hours of driving with my parents (10 hours at night) and then I can drive all by myself! The driving on my own will start as soon as January- you have to wait to drive on your own untill 6 months after you get your learner's permit!

So the driver's education has occupied a pretty good portion of this week. Another thing that took up a big part of the week was running. Not the kind where people run off the roads because I am going to be driving on the roads soon, but real, actual running. The kind that makes you sweaty and comes as the last part on a triathlon. I'm not going to describe this exercise any further, since you are not a preschooler and know what running is, anyway...

I was unable to ride my bike this week. The chain feel off my bike last week and I didn't know how to fix it. I got my dad to fix it later, but my bike was still making a loud, obnoxious ratting noise. I decided not to mess with my bike and am choosing not to ride it- at least untill I bring it to the bike shop for the mechanics to take a look at it.

Since my bike was being so annoying, the only thing left for me to do was run (and swim, duh). This meant that I ended up running 5 times within 4 days. Don't ask why I spent so much time running- maybe I was going for a new world record. All I know is that last week, I ran the most I have ever done in a single week. On the last day of this "running festivity" I did two runs (that is how the 5 runs in 4 days thing came about) totaling about 2 hours and 15 mins. Even with my excruciatingly slow running pace, I probably ran at least 10 miles that day!

My legs are still a little sore today, but I am recovering well. My 4 days of consecutive running were from Monday-Thursday. I ended Friday with a nice, long 4500 yd swim and 20 mins on the stationary bike at the health club. Today is a complete rest day. I start again with the workouts tomorrow. I hope my bike gets fixed for this coming week though. I need some practice so that I can do an olympic distance triathlon this summer!

In other news, not only did I do the most running I have ever done this week; I also did my biggest workout week. My workout totals seem to be getting higher and higher every week! They will stop getting bigger soon though. I don't want to end up with 20hour weeks like someone in the peak of Ironman training- that is, untill I am training for an Ironman...

Okay, here it comes. Are you ready?

Swimming: 7 hours 55 mins

Bikig: 25 mins (Hey, my bike is broken!)

Running: 4 hours 38 min (No, that is not a hallucination!)

Yoga: 1 hr 25 mins

Total: 14 hours 23 mins (Yes, you read that right!)

Ending this post with a funny GraphJam...


more graph humor and song chart memes

Intresting Google Searches

My blog has a neat tool that allows me to see how many people are visiting my blog. It also shows what websites they were visiting as they got referred to my blog. It also tells me the Google searches that people make to arrive here.

Here are some of the searches that people have made. There's nothng wrong with these searches, I am just woundering what was going through people's minds as they made them!

"Doing an olympic distance triathlon in 13 weeks"- Someone has a good goal. I hope to finish an olympic within 13 weeks myself.

"Cockitil sounds"- My bird makes plenty of sounds. "SCREECH!!!", being the most common.

"triathon" + "two swim suits"- Those things go together very well, especially if you are scatter-brained like me and forget one swim suit. You would always have a back up!

triathlons why- "Why not?", is my only reply.

P.S. If you are one of these Google-searching people who took the time to visit my blog, thanks for stopping by. For whatever reason you came here, I hope you found what you were looking for!

Week of 6/29-7/5 workout totals: Prepare to be amazed!

I normally don't do workout totals in this blog, since no one really cares, but I have to post these totals. This is the biggest workout week I have ever done! I'm sure sometime in the future, my biggest workout week is going to be even more gigantic- but as for now, this is what I have:



Swimming: 5 hours 55 mins



Biking: 5 hours 11 mins (I never did this much bicycling in a single week before)!



Running: 1 hour 27 mins (kind of puny compared to the rest, but when you do that much swimming and bicycling, you have to sacrifice something).



Yoga: 1 hr 15 mins

Total: 13 hours 48 mins!!!

I bet you didn't see that comming!

Thought for the day

Facebook games are so addictive! I just spent a couple hours playing some of them. My favorites are the Srabble game, the Word Twist game, the Parking Wars game, and the Slot Machine game.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, go to the Facebook website and put in a search for these games. After several hours of entertainment and happy computer fun, you will be thanking me!

Happy independence day, by the way. It is great to be a free American!