Category Archives: ironman

It Starts Right Here, Right Now

  By Crystal Clarke | January 2, 2017 - 7:30 am | , , , , ,
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My pride and joy!

I don’t really know how to start this post. My intentions are always so good, follow-through sometimes isn’t. This post will focus on my good intentions. I have done lots of planning and processing in my head in preparation for the next 8 months. I’m preparing for lots of training, lots of sleep and lots of eating. I think I have created a pretty good plan and schedule. Calendars are super important to me. I’m talking about physical calendars. We have a calendar on the fridge that we literally look at many times a day. Does Josh have hockey? Let … Keep reading →

Getting it back!

  By Crystal Clarke | December 8, 2014 - 4:08 pm | , ,
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Swim workout in a not-just-for-sandwiches baggie. The workout is from the book Be Iron Fit by Don Fink.

Last week I was accidentally consistent! The past few weeks I’ve been trying to get on the treadmill a couple of times a week and I put my bike on the trainer and started riding it a bit. My big incentive came from a very unlikely interaction with my training buddy. He was telling me how he does his long indoor bike rides when his wife isn’t home. They are both retired so I wasn’t quite sure the reason for his needing to wait for a time when they weren’t going to be together. He told me it was because … Keep reading →

40 Day Challenge One Month Update

  By Crystal Clarke | July 10, 2013 - 11:31 am | ,
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Thanks to Chad Bennett for this awesome photo of the line of bikes.

The other day I kind of cheated on the 40-day exercise challenge that I have been doing. I weighed myself. I’ve been feeling pretty good about getting out or just doing some kind of exercise every day. It turns out that I lost 2 pounds. It was nice to see that, but I won’t weigh myself for a while longer. It’s been 4 weeks since I started this and I have been pretty consistent. Some days, like I said before, I have done very little, but at least it is something. I do SOME kind of exercise every day. Sometimes … Keep reading →

Decisions of the head and heart

  By Crystal Clarke | August 27, 2009 - 10:59 pm | , , , , , , ,
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Yesterday I decided to go for my shortest run in at least 6 months. I took my dogs out for a 30 MINUTE RUN. That’s right… 30 minutes! I barely worked up a sweat. And you know what else? We walked sometimes. Yep, walked. And we stopped for water several times, just because the water fountains were there. And you know what else? I didn’t even time it, I’m just guessing it took 30 minutes based on how far we went. This feeling of freedom from training is just one sign that I’m burned out from training and thinking about … Keep reading →

Ramping up

  By Crystal Clarke | June 12, 2008 - 11:12 am | , , ,
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This week is the first of my peaking cycle and it’s going… well… it’s going all right. I was doing great last weekend with a swim-bike brick on Saturday at Pike Lake, where my first race of the year is held. On Sunday I did a 13-km long, slow run with my new training buddy, but skipped out on my short swim that night due to exhaustion. Today I got back into the pool; my training buddy and I did some weights and then hit the pool for a couple of 500m pace intervals with a warm-up and a cool-down. … Keep reading →

Ironman advice

  By Crystal Clarke | December 14, 2007 - 10:41 am | , ,
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So I subscribe to many online ‘zines about triathlon. The one I got today from Trifuel is a really good one on racing for Ironman. I tried to transport myself to a year ago when I was starting on my training plan and thinking about what this article would have done for me. I don’t honestly think I would have known what it was talking about, but now that I’ve been through it I can really appreciate the advice given. So I thought I’d add the four keys that they talk about and add my comments. The whole article is … Keep reading →

Life after Ironman

  By Crystal Clarke | September 14, 2007 - 11:34 am | , , ,
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The day after Ironman was intense. I awoke at 9:30am to pain. Every molecule of my body screamed in pain, even my hair. I whispered to Luke to wake up and he asked me how I felt and I winced a smile. I hurt. A lot. Even more than I thought I would. I slowly got up and shuffled my way around the room. By the time I got dressed, Luke had already made oatmeal. It was demoralizing how slow I moved… we named it the “Ironman shuffle.” The family that we stayed with made us a wonderful vegan lunch … Keep reading →

Balance shmalance

  By Crystal Clarke | June 25, 2007 - 9:39 am | , , , ,
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I know it has been almost a month since my last update. There really is no excuse. However, I guess it could be seen as I’ve been training more than putting time into the internet… and I have. I have been in emotional turmoil about the upcoming Iron(wo)man and considered dropping out. Not because I couldn’t do it, but because of the anxiety that I have felt surrounding it. Alas, I decided to suck it up and push on. So that’s what I’m doing. I have a whole list of bike ride times that I’ll put at the bottom and … Keep reading →