Random Friday Ramblings and 5 Triathlon Training Mistakes I’ve Made

Hi everyone! Happy Friday! TGIF! Fri-Yay! I don’t know why but this has definitely been one of those weeks where I have been counting down to the weekend. It’s been so beautiful outside (although crazy hot) and I’m just ready to spend the weekend biking, running, and being by the pool to cool off. Can’t imagine a better way to spend these summer days :)

At the end of the post, I’m going to share with you all 5 Triathlon Training Mistakes I’ve made. Trust me, they are good and embarrassing, so you’ll want to stick around til the end of the ramblings to hear about them ;) My mom just sent me the photo from above when we all went to the Del Mar Dog Beach last week! This was the very beginning of us trying to get Elle into the water. As you can see, she is clearly NOT having it. Mid-day selfie. Sometimes I wonder what I’m suppose to share with you all after a long day of sitting in my cube. Also, I was having a good hair day. Ladies, you can relate, right? ;)  This salad from Stone Brewery was bomb dot com. A couple girlfriends, Elle, and I went out to the brewery last night for beers, pretzels, and a long overdue catch up session. We all ordered salads for dinner without realizing it. There is something about summers that just make me crave fresh produce.

Not pictured: Eggs that came with the salad that I ended up giving to Elle. I told Anthony he needs to get the back seat from now on. Elle is a much better copilot who doesn’t complain about how I drive at snails pace. Missing the family! It sure would be nice if my mom and sister lived a little closer or on the same coast. The traveling between California and Florida is getting old. Plus, who knew a three hour time difference could make such a difference in communication?!My boss at work as been having a rough couple of weeks. One of her dogs is really old and the vet just delivered some bad news to her and her husband yesterday. Our staff chipped in and created a little goody basket for them and their dogs. Target, you are the real MVP.

As many of you know, I started training for my first triathlon this year. A week before my first race, I decided to go and break my collarbone, which will be a part of the 5 training mistakes I have made. It made me realize the things I was doing wrong, despite having teammates, a coach, and a lot of friends in this sport. There were just trials and errors I had to make on my own to either 1) listen to the advice everyone gives me, specifically my coach, Felipe, and friend, Jason or 2) become a better athlete.

1. Being too competitive right from the start: I am pretty competitive by nature. In a lot of ways, it is good. But as I’ve learned in training and in real life, it can get me into a lot of trouble, like caring more about my times on the bike than safely getting comfortable riding, or how fast I can swim a lap even though I could have terrible form. As I am building up and growing in this sport, I need to put aside my competitiveness and just focus on improving as an athlete.
2. Comparing myself to others: This goes hand in hand with being too competitive. I love training with my team and I’ve made so many great friends through triathlon. But when your friends are Ironmans and Ironwomans or podiuming every weekend, it is pretty easy to get frustrated when you’re still struggling with shifting gears on a new bike. Or if you’re getting dropped on rides or lapped at track. I just have to tell myself everyone started from somewhere and 3-4 years ago, they were in my shoes as well!
3. Wondering why this isn’t coming as easily as running to me: I’m not the fastest runner by any means and it took me awhile to build up the endurance and pace I am able to run now. But something about running just came more easily and naturally to me. It just clicked and I keep thinking that triathlon is going to feel the same. However, even when you read stories of how Jesse Thomas got started in the sport or how Mirinda Carfrae’s swim coach really doubted her ability in the water, you realize that just because one of the three or two of the three sports in triathlon comes easily, doesn’t mean they all will. You have to put in time and hard work. Slowly but surely, the pieces will start to come together!
4. Doing things you aren’t comfortable doing just because everyone else is: Looking back, I really should have waited a little bit longer to get a tri bike and a little bit longer to get into aero bars. I didn’t understand my bike, I didn’t have the confidence or balance, and it really is no wonder that I broke my collarbone. Every ride and every race now will be a huge opportunity to get better at my bike handling skills until I am really ready to start upping the speed and getting faster on the course. Slow and steady wins the race!
5. Putting on your wetsuit inside out: To end on a funny note, I’m sure you all remember THAT debacle. PEOPLE. The really colorful side of your wetsuit: chances are, it is the inside lining and not what the actual color of the wetsuit should be! Also! Find up true to your size. It is suppose to be really, really tight, and suffocating. Otherwise, you’re not doing it right ;)

Any rookie mistakes from a sport you do?

A Blog Post by Elle

Hey everyone! Hows it going?? I hope everyone is having a great day so far and looking forward to Friday/the weekend! My life is slowly returning back to normal after two weeks of having my mom and sister in town, the stomach flu, some long work weekends, and some crazy ups and downs in training (having guests is HARD).

I saw a really cute blog post by Peanut Butter Fingers once of her dog, Sadie, “blogging” and having the blog post be in Sadie’s point of view. I thought that was so cute and wanted to do something similar with Elle narrating her own blog post. I also saw The Secret Life of Pets this past weekend and talking animals is all that is on my mind! Until I get pics back from my sister from their time in San Diego, my phone pretty much only has pictures of Elle, which she’s been dying to share with you guys ;) Enjoy! “Hi guys, hi, hi, hi! I’m Elle! I’m sure my mom has told you a bunch about me, so I’m excited to chat with you all today! Also. Mom and Dad went to see a movie about dogs just like me.. WITHOUT ME. How rude! I’m kind of fighting with them about it, so in case mom tells you anything about me eating one of her shoes… you’ll know why.I’m going to share with you all what I’ve been learning the past couple months ever since my mom and dad adopted me! First things first. My dad is a chew toy. I love nibbling on him and even though I get a lot of toys from mom and dad, his hands are still the best thing to teeth on. Also, I always win in wrestling. Don’t let him tell you otherwise. And I’m kind of learning how to swim. I am still pretty unsure of the ocean and especially those waves. How do you make them stop coming at you? Mom and Dad keep saying we are going to keep going to this dog beach but… it’s scary!I also learned I love puppachinos from Starbucks! They sure are tasty!And I learned how to strategically play fight with my best friend, Arya. Speaking of which, we have a play date today! Mom, hurry up and come home from wherever you are!I have learned how to use a pillow and take over Mom and Dad’s bed. They keep telling me my bed is next to theirs but I think they are mistaken/ just messing with me. I am learning how to run! Mom says she wants to wait until I’m a little older to start running longer, but we went on our first run together. Half a mile, and boy was that fun! Now I am pooped! I can’t wait to spend more time on the road with her when we go on more runs. And I’m still not a fan of photos. Generally can’t find me looking at the camera unless mom has really good reflexes. But she’s saying I’m learning how to get better at selfies. Whatever that means!

Thanks for following my mom while she shares her fitness journey and training with you all! Even though that means she leaves me and Dad for a couple hours… But I’m happy when she’s happy. Also, I turn 6 months on Saturday. Tell them to get me lots of treats! Bye! Talk soon! Squirrel!”

Why I Started Blogging About Running and Fitness

Recently I was asked why I started blogging and after a long-winded explanation full of passion, excitement, and enthusiasm about how RunMileswithSmiles was born, I realized I wanted to put the condensed version on the blog itself. Blogging is one of my favorite ways to express my creativity while reading other people’s blogs offers motivation, inspiration, and support that is hard to find in other written pieces in my opinion. There is something organic and authentic that I really love about blogging. I truly love the blogging and fitness community and was very excited to join it with my own.

4 years ago (holy cow, has it already been 4 years?!), I realized I was in a very unhealthy place in my life. I had gained beyond the freshman 15 after my first year of college, I was staying up way too late, eating too much junk food, and it would honestly take me some time to try to remember the last time I ate a vegetable. While dorm food wasn’t the healthiest, I bypassed the salad bar way too often for one too many meatball subs with a side of curly fries.It also didn’t help that Anthony is a string bean and when we first started dating in college, I tried to keep up with everything he ate and drank. Needless to say, it was not a very good idea. I was feeling lethargic and struggled to walk from one side of campus to another (in my defense, our campus is HUGE). Don’t even get me started on how often I exercised because I didn’t want to walk to the gym. I was also going through a tough time emotionally. My father passed away unexpectedly from stage 4 cancer the first quarter I was in San Diego and it’s true. Everyone copes with grief differently and I coped with food and unhealthy habits that kept me from thinking about just how sad I was.

Sometime that summer after my first year of college, I decided I needed to make a change. My initial goal was just to lose some weight and start eating healthier. I started the Insanity 60 Day fitness challenge with Anthony and I was instantly hooked to the challenge and hardships of the fitness program. I don’t know what it was but something about how the physical pain of each 45-60 minute workout was greater than anything I was feeling about missing my dad or how everyday, it gave me a new obstacle to focus on, really drove me to push myself. No matter how hard the workout was, I was also having a ton of fun and also  made it a little competition with Anthony to see how far we could get without taking a break in between each interval. I guess I was always competitive!

When the challenge ended, I started to look for new ways to stay active and thought I would try running. I ran track briefly (like for a hot second) in middle and high school but for a long time, hated it because who wants to run in a 100 degrees with a 110% humidity in Florida?! Not this girl. In the very beginning, I had no idea how to get started. Do I run a mile? Half a mile? Go as long as I could until I passed out? Clearly all of the thoughts of a noob runner. I decided to start reading articles on Women’s Running Magazine, Competitor, and Runner’s World to get advice on how to get started. Then I started reading blogs and boom! Everyday I was inspired by the women in the fitness community with similar stories as mine and how now they have qualified for the Olympic trials or BQed or PRed their latest race. I loved reading their stories and it would constantly push me on my runs. I started to love running and pretty soon in that year, won my first local 5K and went on to run my first half marathon, the San Diego Rock ‘n Roll 1/2 in 2012.Distance races really hooked me from the start and since then, I’ve completed three marathons, multiple halves (including the San Diego Triple Crown Challenge), a Ragnar Relay (favorite running memory to this day), a duathlon, and joined a triathlon team to start making the transitions from just running to cycling and swimming as well. I wanted to start tracking my fitness journey and the improvements I made along the way, plus inspire and help others starting their fitness journey. It created RunMilesWithSmiles and opened up amazing windows of opportunity- hello blogging for Chobani and freelance writing for Women’s Running Magazine. I’m so happy I started this blog and hope to continue to grow and connect with more people through this amazing community. :)