Cycle Training - 70 miles!

What?  70 miles already?  Well, not really.  Earlier in the year, Laarni and I had signed up for a metric century before we knew we would team up and do TNT.  So, although we both missed formal trainings with our respective teams this weekend, we definitely got our workouts in by riding 70 miles through Solvang and included about 4,000 feet of climbing.  It was a beautiful ride and although it is a different ride than what the TNT Cycle Team plans to ride in March 2011, we will ride some of the same roads!

Cheers!

H

Tri Training: First Swim (Unofficial)

With Monday, 11/15/10 being the first official swim practice I figured I should at least get some practice laps in so I can reacquaint myself with the pool. I have not swam ever since my last tri event at the end of September. To me, the event was over so I had no reason to swim again. Until now... Even though I was swimming prior to the event, I still cringe everytime I think about swimming. It actually makes me nauseous. So, I forced myself over to the Silver Creek pool.

Team in Training (TNT) provides a detailed training schedule for the week to give the participants an idea of what you should be working on and what distances based on three levels. You can also be a different levels for each sport. In the pool, I am not confident and so I categorize myself in between the lower to middle level for swim. Based on this, I should be swimming between 400-500 yds. If this was truly my first time ever back into swimming, I would say "you're crazy!" Swimming one length of the pool which is 25 yds is a feat in itself. Luckily, I had all my gear: my googles, swim cap, fins, kickboard and pull buoy. Prior to me swimming, I had no idea you need all these things to develop strength and endurance.

Swim practice always begins with a warmup. TNT's recommended warmup is 200yds in freestyle. So, that's what I started with and my first 50 yds of my swim, I was out of breath and all I could think about was "what did I get myself into?" But I tried to remain calm and realized that I swam that first 50 like I was racing. My wonderful swim instructor, Mrs. T was the one who said "swim nice and easy." So, I tried to remember that and I headed out for my next 50 but again, I felt out of breath and even sucked in some water. My breathing was not good! So, I decided to get my friend the pull buoy (and for you non swimmers, this device forces you to use your arms only when you swim). Many people don't like it but my main reason for liking the device is that I only concentrate on moving my arms, keeping my head down and breathing. For some reason, when I add the kicking, I overtire myself. I finished my warmup with 100yds using the pull buoy.

Now for the main set... I alternated between freestyle, kickboard and the pull buoy. This is what I ended up doing.

2 x 50yds freestyle
4 x 50yds pull buoy
2 x 50yds kickboard
1 x 50yds freestyle

My final swim total was 650yds. I would've attempted to swim additional yards but my last 50yds was done in what I would call my best freestyle so I wanted to end on a good note. Still not confident but I have 5 months...

Aloha
Laarni

First Spin Class - Equinox in Palo Alto

For the second year in a row, the TNT Winter Cycling team is lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to a beautiful fitness center, Equinox in Palo Alto, for indoor cycling (Spin) classes each week.  Coach Patrick is also a certified Spin instructor so he put us to work right away.

It was a great turnout...we must have had over 20 people from our team.  Coack Patrick did not take it easy either. He let us warm up for a little bit but we started on both seated and standing climbs. We also did a lot if interval training.  It was hot in the room too so we were all sweating bullets! No better way than to get a great workout in the middle of the week!  Coach Patrick not only is generous with his time as he volunteers to teach the class, let alone head coach of our cycle team, but he also promised $100 to any fundraiser who makes it to each and every Spin class over the course of our 4 month season.  I hope he has to pay up a lot of dough!

Both Laarni and I will be missing our trainings with our respective teams this weekend, but we'll be definitely working out as we will be doing a metric century (about 65 miles) this weekend with some friends in beautiful Solvang, CA.

H

Tri Training: Intro, Day 1 and 2

I'm officially part of the Silicon Valley TNT tri team! Lavaman, here I come! Yay! It took me quite some time to register. Besides figuring out the logistics of babysitting since Harold is also training this season, I am also terrified of this event. Yeah yeah, the event is in Kona but swimming in the ocean... now that's a different story.

It was only this past July when my wonderful friends who will remain nameless but knows who they are, got me on this kick of doing a triathlon. So, I entered and finished my first tri last September. It was called a sprint tri where you swim 400 yds, bike 11 miles and run 3.1miles. As Harold mentioned earlier, I'm not water friendly. I'm the one who will literally scream if you splash me in the pool and will only be in the pool or a body of water if I can stand. So, in order to complete this event I had some serious training to do. I took swim lessons and joined a masters swim program. You can all do the math, this was all in a 2 month time period. By the time I was faced to do the open water swim portion (which was in a lake in Pleasanton), I freaked out and did the entire swim in backstroke since I could not put my face in the water. My description to anyone who asks is "it looked like a scene from the Titanic where everyone is just swimming to survive." It took everything in me to calm myself down and talk myself through until I could finally get to a point in the lake where I could stand. As much as I was thankful for not drowning that day, I wasn't very thrilled of my performance.

Ever since Harold joined TNT a year ago, I look at every season's brochure to see where the events are being held. I kept saying if I ever do an Olympic tri I want it to be in Hawaii. So, here I am... I joined a wonderful group of people who will be doing the same thing I am. We will swim .93 miles (4 times what I did my last tri), bike 24.8 miles and run 6.2 miles. Some have done it before but there are others even in worse situations than myself, no swim, bike or run training. Yes, TNT will train you to do all those things!! What inspired me even more to do this event was at the Info meeting, a woman named Vanessa spoke to us about her experience with cancer. She was diagnosed with cancer right as she was graduating from college and if it weren't for the clinical trial drugs at the time she wouldn't be standing telling her story. That was in the early 90's. Some of the drug protocols she received are actually now part of the chemotherapy drugs today. But because of those drugs, she continues to have medical issues related to those drugs. She is also a participant in the Lavaman event so now my teammate.






Vanessa is just one of the many people we have met or heard their story about how the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has helped them.

Day 1:

Our first official training was last Saturday, Nov 6th. After the busy morning, getting our babysitter all situated... (Shout out to Kristine btw who without her I probably wouldn't be doing this!! Thank you!) I finally made it to the Sports Basement in Sunnyvale. After doing a quick, get to know your fellow team members, we split up into our mentor groups and rotated around to 4 stations;  bike fitting, 1 mile run, tire changing and core work. Here we are headed out to do our 1 mile run (that's me in the front)...Afterwards, there was a gear clinic where they talked about all the required items needed for this event and all the luxury items. Being on the tri team can get quite expensive if you don't already have gear.

Day 2:

Marci Hanisch's mentor group

Last night, we had our first track workout at Foothill College. I thought for sure we'd end up running since we had a fairly easy practice on Sat but again we broke up into 4 groups and rotated around different stretching activities. While doing our stretches, we were able to get to know our fellow teammates once again. The coaches stressed how important your core and stretching will be for this event. This is a good reminder because I have a weak core (I'll blame that on being pregnant 4 times!) and I never remember to stretch. After we did our stretching exercises, we did a scavenger hunt with our mentor group and had to make up a team cheer.It was all in good fun and a good way to get to know more people!

The night ended with HWTG (Hang With the Gang) at the Boardwalk in Los Altos for some well deserved dinner. Once again, more social time with the teammates. This is all fine and dandy now as I'm sure the training will start to get more intense...

Missing next practice due to our 65 mile ride in Solvang this weekend. But the next practice I'll be attending next Monday will be swim! Yikes!

Until next time.... Aloha!

Laarni

First Day of Hill Repeats - Not a Good Day of Learning!

Warren, Coach Patrick, Peter, and Harold
by Rick's van in an attempt to stay dry!

Sundays will bring hill repeats at Mt. Eden.  The cycle team meets at Monta Vista park in Cupertino and then will ride a 3 mile warmup to Mt. Eden.  Unfortunately, the first day was a washout. We had 2 participants actually show up!  It reminded me of me last year when I showed up to every training ride rain or shine.  Not one ride last year was cancelled due to rain so this was a first for me.  But, like Coach Patrick said, it's not a good day of learning.  If this were week 2 or 3, or if this was a regular training ride and did not involve hills, we would have still road our bikes!  Yeah!  I love it!  Cheers to Warren and Peter for still showing up!  Also pictured is coach Patrick.  And of course our great web captain Rick showed up...he's taking the picture! 

Next up, Spin Class this Wednesday at Equinox!

H

First Training Day for the Winter 2011 Cycle Team

Just like last year (my first season with TNT), I was totally excited about the new season.  But this time, unlike last year, I had almost 3,000 cycling miles under my belt.  Yup, in just one year, I logged in almost 3,000 miles.  I remember that first day last year when the 15 mile orientation ride felt like I would never be able to do a full century.  Now, I'm mentoring for TNT and having a blast!  Our first team ride was this past Saturday 11/6/10 at 9am.  That's way too late to start riding!  :o)

I got to our meeting place, McKenzie Park in Los Altos, at 6:30am.  It was dark and cold as could be but I got my bike prepped, put on some layers, turned on the lights on the bike and started to roll on my own at 7AM on the nose.  I did a 20 mile loop from Foothill to Page Mill to Aratradero to Alpine and back down to Foothill.  Got be back to McKenzie Park at 8:30am with plenty of time to spare before the actual team ride at 9AM!  Great warm-up!

Here's a picture of a new participant, Dori (thumbs up), with two other mentors around her, Wendy and Mark, and then there's me!  We are just filling her with information and what a fantastic time she is about to have this season!  She is ready!

The first ride was simply an orientation ride, about 15 miles.  We had folks out on road bikes, as well as mountain bikes. Some in full on kits (bike uniform talk) and some in simple gym attire.  At the end of the ride, our Coach, Patrick, asked for a show of hands if this was the longest ride they had been on. There were around 8 or 9 people who raised their hands!  Awesome!  I was one of thoses who raised my hand a year ago! I still remember how excited I felt and how awesome it felt to be with this team!  I can only hope that the new participants feel the same way!

We can't forget why we are here doing what we are doing, so we had two Honorees speak during our breakfast after the ride.  Honorees are those who are fighting or who have battled cancer and are willing to tell their story.  Not only have both of these gentlemen fought Lymphoma, but they are in remission and are riding/training with us today. In fact, one of them, Tom (the guy on the left) was a TNT coach during the Summer season!  These guys were sitting there telling us how it was because of people like us that have helped them stay alive.  The drugs that cured both of them, called Rituxan, was brought about because of the help of LLS and the funding that it provided. It's because of the research and support that helped both of these awesome men stay alive.  Now, they share their story so that we could continue raising money for new medicines.  We've heard time and time again, how sometimes medicines that are around today don't work for some people so they have to try new things. With new things, you never know what the side effects are.  That's why we have to continue to research and find a cure!  That's why we do this!  Thanks to both Tom and Gene for sharing their stories with us!  They are very inspirational!

Until next time! 

H



Let's Do This Again!!

Ok, so it's been about a year to the day that I created this blog to share with everyone my TNT experience. For those of you just joining us, TNT is Team in Training and is part of the Lukemia and Lymphoma Society. Their mission is to abolish all blood cancers! I joined TNT to help fight the cause! You may think, wow, that's cool that you're doing that Harold. What a great guy you are for doing this. Well, as you all know, I couldn't have done it alone! My wife and teammate, Laarni, was a huge part of my team and helped me accomplish everything I wanted to this past year!

Let's see, she not only supported me in my adventure of training for and actually accomplishing the 100 mile ride back in February 2010, but she also supported the team a few times by volunteering to work at a rest stop. With all this, she still managed to keep things in order at the house, help with the homework, get to plays, baseball games, dance classes, and even found time to scrapbook for her own well being.

Well, this time, Laarni is doing even more! She's decided to fundraise with me and do an event on her own. Yup, we both will be training to do an endurance event. We just kicked off our seasons this past Saturday 11/6/10. I will do another 100 mile ride, but this time as a mentor with TNT. That means, I have the opportunity to help out new participants who are just starting out. My event takes place on March 12, 2011 and will be held in Solvang, CA.

Laarni on the other hand is going to try something really courageous! That is, an Olympic Distance Triathlon. This entails a 1.5K swim (about a mile), a 40K bike ride (about 25 miles), and a 10K run (about 6 miles). It hasn't even been a year since Laarni got her first road bike and her first running shoes. It was even more recent than that when Laarni got her first pair of goggles. If anyone knows her, she never wanted to get her hair or face wet when entering a pool! Now she's going for the open water swim! Oh, did I mention that her event would be taking place on April 3, 2011 in Kona, HI? Yeah, I know, I know, paradise, right? Hey, but it's still a Triathlon and it will take everything she has to train for it. I am very proud of her for taking on this challenge!

Not only will we have the challenge of training as we both have a training schedule that will require 2 - 3 days of training each week until our events (sometimes on the same days as each other), but we'll also need to juggle taking care of and spending time with our kids...all 4 of them! Hana (10), Marcus(7), Zachary (5), and Kailie (4) are our little angels and we are so glad that they have come to enjoy our new found family...TNT!  That also means a lot of babysitting expenses for us!  But it's all worth it when we think about why we are doing this!

So, this blog has now officially become the blog of Team DeGuzman. Both Laarni and I will be posting our experiences throughout the season here. Oh, by the way, remember why we are doing this? Well, go check it out here:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/lavatri11/teamdeguzman

I know it can sometimes be an imposition to ask for money, but it never hurts to ask is our motto. It's not like the money is filling our pockets, but is going to a very good cause. Again, please consider donating to this worthy cause and help us find a cure. Together - We Can Fight!!

On behalf of Team DeGuzman, ALLLLLOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHAAAAAA! 

Team DeGuzman Fighting Cancer Together!