I Love TRI-ing in the City

Timberman 70.3 Race Report

2010-10-26T15:13:00.019-04:00

“Well, holy fucking shit”

(my favorite quote from my boss by the way….he generally means it out of “love” so it is a fan favorite in our studio)

How did it become mid-October and I haven’t written yet about races from July and August? Ugh….well, actually I can tell you how it happened because there is not a lot of mystery to it. Its called work, stress, working out, family commitments, travel and not enough time in the day….same as everyone else’s story right?

Well the NJ State tri in July just sort of happened….in fact more excitement happened before the race than happened during the race which is a story that needs to be told but I think one that can wait for a few minutes longer. You have waited three months…what is a little longer gonna do? But Timberman I feel like I need to tell more so for myself and just to get the story down for posterity so that I can say “remember when” I worked hard to achieve goals and then I actually succeeded?

5:44:00

If you would have told me at the start of the day that the finishing clock would read those numbers at the end of the day I would have called bull shit on you. In looking back and reflecting on my lead up into the race I didn’t do anything remarkable or earth shattering or especially different to enhance my performance on race day. I didn’t buy a new bike (even though I wanted to badly!), I didn’t buy race wheels and I didn’t buy an aero helmet…..but I did show up every day for training and I put in the work. In the three week build block of training following NJ State and leading into Timberman I missed two….TWO….sessions the in the block – one was a 45 minute easy spin and one was a 60 minute easy swim workout on race week in favor of some extra rest. I think that having a good plan, a motivating coach, some self motivation, sticking to the plan and executing the workouts as they are assigned is what got me to the finish line in a time that made me so proud of myself for pulling that performance out of me. So how did my day unfold you ask? Well, this is how:

Pre Race:
This was the first time I have done this race since my broken foot left me side lined last year and I think on some level the “you can not fear what you don’t know” really helped me to not over think this race. It was a HUGE race and was the first official “70.3” Ironman branded race that I have done which comes with all of the extra hype and logistics at check in and just getting around in general. I slept fairly fit-fully pre race night and woke up in a bit of cold sweats which is kind of unusual for me but basically once I got dressed, fed and was out the door I was excited and feeling reasonably well for 4:30am.

I made my way to transition to get set up, nutrition in the right spots, made sure I had everything I would need and then made my way to the water for a bit of a swim warm up. The swim start was a bit of a walk down the beach but I had plenty of time and was really in no rush since I was starting in a wave somewhere in the middle. I sort of just wadded my way into the shallow water which was surprisingly quite shallow even up to the first buoy. The lake was a beautiful temperature and nice and clear so I put my face in and started to swim a little to just get my body moving. I popped my head up at the next buoy and started to tread water and get my bearings when I look to my right and three time World Champion Chrissie Wellington is treading water right next to me! How freaking cool is that? I was a bit star struck and realized I was staring at her while she was trying to prepare for her day so I just said a quick “good luck today” to her and she smiled back and said “same to you”. So classy, and as typical she not only won but set a new course record and then stayed at the finish line handing out medals to the age group finishers as they crossed the line. This is such an amazing sport where you can be so close to the pros and race on the same course with them it really just blows me away sometimes.

Anyways…enough day dreaming. I made my way out of the water and they were starting to line up the waves so I found Marty as is typical before all of our races to wish her good luck and then made my way to the other “day-glow” yellow caps and waited my turn. I took some deep breaths and just got myself ready, I was feeling a little anxious….not really nervous, more of “I just want to go already” type of feeling.

Swim:
Coach to the stars, Liz, had told me that this was her favorite pro swim so I sort of had that in the back of my mind as a calming yet motivating little piece of information. I am still not going to set any land speed records with my swimming but I have been working hard on improving and just making the most out of what I have. I did not seed myself aggressively but I wanted to try and stay in the mix and hopefully find some feet around me to draft off of. It was a long and straight out to the first turn buoy and I felt really good. I mad the turn and there was definitely a bit more chop heading in that direction but not as much as what other reports I have read described. Maybe I was still early enough in the day for it to not be too bad or maybe it just didn’t effect me as much, not sure? I have a tendency to “lolly-gag” a bit during the swim so I just kept reminding myself to keep pulling long and strong strokes and just get myself to the swim exit.

Two words….wetsuit strippers! I need to work on some alternate plan for watch management in races next year because I have now proven that it is physically impossible to remove my wetsuit over my “little orange friend”. I had gotten the top half of my wetsuit down by the time I reached the strippers but my sleeve was still caught on my watch. So I had the strippers first help me get my sleeve off over my watch and then I flopped down to have them help me pull off the legs. Lovely….thank you.

Swim time: 41:44 (3:32 improvement over Musselman swim)

T1: After the strippers relieved me of my wetsuit, I thought I could be speedy though transition but obviously I could have done better. I am always a bit disoriented so getting on socks and shoes sometimes proves to be challenging……

T1 time: 3:01

Bike: I felt like my HR was high starting the bike (which was also proved to be true after analyzing my HR data after the race) just from the general melee of getting out of the swim and onto the bike and then you are essentially climbing a pretty decent hill right out of transition.

Funny aside: you know those peeps that clip their shoes to their bike and then put them on while riding. Yeah…that doesn’t work so well when you have to climb a hill coming out of transition and you kind of need your feet to be IN your shoes to climb. I saw more than one person pulled over to the side of the road on the hill putting on shoes as I spun up the hill past them. Suckers!

Basically I just got myself calmed down, took in some fluid and gel when my stomach settled and got myself on my nutrition plan straight away. My nutrition plan basically served to break down the course into manageable chunks for me. My thinking was not “what mile am I at” but more so “when do I get to eat again?”….ha! I heard tale of the hills on this course and that it is super hard and while I will not sit here and say that it is “easy” I also didn’t find that it was totally brutal. I actually enjoyed the hills to break up the monotony of just pushing and trying to go as fast as possible. I welcomed the opportunity to get out of the saddle and push a bit to get up and over the hills and then settle back into a rhythm. I found the middle half of the race to the turn around and back by the race track to be a place where I was generally cruising a pretty good clip and feeling quite well. I was actually surprised to see my speed in the 20’s with what felt like decent effort but nothing that I could not sustain. Right around this point is also when I started to feel some rain drops. The overcast skies were keeping the brutal sun and humidity down which I was thankful for but I was hoping beyond hope that the rain would stay away.

It never poured down rain so it was not as bad as other races I have done but it would go in and out of a heavy sprinkle. I don’t think the rain affected me that much until I got back to the end of the bike where we came down one of the larger hills we had to climb going out on the bike. It was raining pretty decently by the time I hit the downhill so that the entire road surface was wet and I could also see some uneven pavement on the hill. I had visions of my bike going out from under me and my race day being over so I took the downhill SUPER conservatively and pissed off a fair number of my competitors behind me by doing so. I was trying to take the cleanest line down the uneven pavement and feathering my breaks so I did not get up an uncontrollable amount of speed. If the conditions were any different I would have bombed down that hill but I had a momentary panic attack and just wanted to be down that hill in one piece. I definitely lost time doing this and heard a fair number of “on your left” as others took a less cautious approach.

Bike time: 3:02:28 (6:23 improvement on Musselman on a much harder course plus rain!)

T2: Needed to pee at this point but basically didn’t want to wait in transition, just got my shoes on and went for it without looking back.

T2 time: 2:57 (did I stop for coffee as well….really what was I doing?)

Run: I was glad to be off the bike and on my own two feet starting the run. And apparently I my body was happy to start running because I could feel myself running WAY too fast which was evidenced by my first mile clocking in at 8:23. I jumped in a porta potty at mile two and made myself slow down and breathe….but also try not to inhale the odors for all that long. I was still moving at a pace that I was telling myself was probably too quick but it felt so easy and relaxed that I just kept going. The run course was a two loop out and back course which I originally thought was going to be painfully brutal but in the end I actually really liked. My only complaint was that the course was pretty crowded so much so that when I fell into step with a guy running around my same pace we would sort of un-spokenly take turns making our way through gaps in packs of runners that were moving slower than us. This kept me motivated to run with him until I realized that he was on his second loop and I was on my first loop when he took the straight away to the finish and I had to turn off only mere feet from the finish…that I can say was brutal.

I was still cranking out around 8:00 miles starting the second half of the run and I was literally almost laughing at myself waiting for the wheels to fall off because clearly this could not last forever. And really the wheels never fully came off. I was definitely tired and not feeling as much pep in my legs in the 11th and 12th mile and took a little more time getting up the hills and walking through the aid stations. I was well within any sort of “dream” time that I had and I might have been letting myself go a bit and not putting balls to the wall in the last three miles. The final mile I kicked it in and was just so excited to get to the line. I honestly could not believe my watch time was true, how had I done this?

Run time: 1:53:50 (11:24 better than Musselman and a PR on my open half marathon time (1:57:27) of 3:37)

I was seriously close to tears and I was in such a daze that I missed Chrissie handing out medals at the finish but I was rewarded with a big hug from Marty who had just crossed the line minutes before me. She asked how my day went and all I could say was I just went fucking sub-6…..no like way sub-6…..like sub 5:45 and showed her my watch for proof!

Total time: 5:44:00 on the dot! (and it is sort of funny to me that I was 999 overall….ha!)

I was on such a high after this race I can not even describe it. Marty and I got some food and decided we would make our way back to the “camp” to shower since we had to hit the road back to NY shortly. I texted Liz as we were waiting for the shuttle bus to tell her my race time and I was so excited to hear that her and Dave had been following along on my day even during his own Ironman training (which he did phenomenally well at) and everything Liz was doing that day to coach and take care of a brand new baby! It really just made me feel special that I could share in my moment of joy with them and that Liz was as proud of me as I was of myself for getting to the finish line in a time I could only dream about a few years ago.

The rest of the day and that night was sort of a blur. Let’s just say that the torrential rain that had held off on the course now greeted us for our drive home. So basically I made it home at the wee hours of the morning, packed my bags with whatever was clean in the house, dumped out my race bag of dirty wet clothes in the bathtub and left it there, got about one hour of sleep and then was at the airport and on a flight to Vegas at 6am the next morning. I can honestly admit that making it through that flight and not being able to get in any sort of position that was comfortable long enough to fall asleep might have quite possibly been harder than the race! But the party in Vegas was fun and MUCH DESERVED. :)

Race Report: Musselman Half Ironman

2010-07-19T11:59:00.001-04:00

Summer race season is coming and going faster than I can find time to crank out race reports so here is one from last weekend’s half ironman with a report from this upcoming weekend’s Olympic distance race to come soon!

One word (or I guess more appropriately…two initials)…..PR….bitches!

I was super excited to get back to this race as it was the scene of my very first half ironman two years ago and for some reason I have decided to chose courses that beat my brains in with hills/technical issues and more hills ever since this race. Also, can I just say that I *heart* this race? The whole freaking town comes together and really embraces the athletes and this race. For example….we stopped to get gas on our way home before leaving town and I went into the gas station to get beverages for the road. The woman behind the counter “wow, did you just do that race? You must be really tired, I am so impressed that you could do that!” How awesome is that to hear no matter how good or bad your day was out there?

Marty and I decided to drive up to the race early on Saturday morning which actually worked out perfectly for me since I had a million and one things to do before leaving so it was nice to have the extra night to do so. We made it to the packet pick up with little to no traffic issues and scored some major loot in our race packets. Reason #1023280 why I love this race, it is almost half the cost of the “70.3” races and you get the best swag: arm warmers, long sleeve tech shirt, wool running gloves, Musselman chocolate bar, small shampoo/conditioner bottles (perfect for your gym bag!), Hammer nutrition products, Cliff shot blocks….probably more that I am forgetting but all given in a re-usable bag.

We checked into our room at the college of Hobart & William Smith College where they offer dorm rooms on the cheap for athletes to stay, while I must say that this is nice I think it can be fully and truthfully stated that I have reached the age of “too old” to stay in a dorm room comfortably. But it is only one night and really how much sleeping do you really plan to do the night before a race? From there we had to go to a mandatory race briefing which was given at an old/historic opera house in the center of town. Last time the briefing was in the auditorium at the college so this was a nice and interesting change of venue. The race director for this race is great, I said to Marty that he is the type of guy that I would be friends with…super laid back, funny and down to earth. He gives a really clear presentation and tries not to laugh too hard at athletes that ask questions like “do both of your water bottles on the bike have to have water in them or can one of them have sports drink?” Yes, someone actually asked that…..

From there we decided to skip the athlete’s dinner at the college cafeteria (although it is free to athletes and another nice perk of the race we just couldn’t handle dorm living and dorm food in the same weekend…..) and went to an early dinner at a local pub for some sandwiches. After dinner we racked our bikes in transition and took a short walk around transition and down to the swim start to survey the scene. I felt calm, excited and ready to race…..all good things! Oh, and not to keep going on about how great this race is but one other cute things I wanted to point out was each bike rack was numbered with a sticker with your name and your mantra that you had to give when signing up for the race….mine read “remember the first five minutes are always the hardest”. Marty and I wandered through the racks for a bit reading and laughing at some of the other athlete mantras. We finally made our way back to the room to get set up for the next morning and as I said I tried to get some sleep but all I was really doing was “resting” until my alarm went off……RACE DAY is here!

Pre-race things went fairly well….I was having trouble choking down my oatmeal but who really wants to eat at 4:45am…..ugh. We got to the race site with no issues and I systematically set everything up with plenty of time to spare. I made my way to the water to get in a little warm up and before I knew it they were calling everyone out of the water and lining up the athletes to start.

Swim:
I was in the 3rd wave out of 7 which is great position for me as I knew there would be swimmers around me the whole time. You had to wade out into about waist deep water to the starting buoys and with only three minutes between waves there was no time to think about it and get nervous…you just had to GO! I know the swim is by far my weakest sport so I was not going to kill myself knowing I had a long day ahead of me but I still wanted to work hard the entire swim and try to come out of the water with a respectable time. They changed the swim course a bit from two years ago and I think this new course suited me much better. You swam a big sort of rectangle in the open lake and then you turned into a canal which is essentially a boat launch/docking area with protected water and a bit of current in a helpful way. I came out of the water feeling like I worked hard but still felt fairly good.

2008 swim time: 1:01:46
2010 swim time: 45:16 (over 16 minute swim PR!)

Bike:
Marty had mentioned on Saturday that the first bit of the bike is deceivingly hard because it is a “net” uphill with generally some decent headwind into your face. So you feel like you should not be working so hard but in reality you are working fairly hard. I am glad we talked about that because I was not feeling good for the first bit of the bike. My quads felt tight and I just didn’t feel like I had any zip….but I was hoping that I could come good soon enough so I just focused on nutrition and following my plan. I saw a rider cruise past me on the left and when I glanced over I was fairly shocked to see Marty! She had started the swim 9 minutes after me so I thought I might have a chance to stay away from her if I had a good enough swim but I know she is a better swimmer than me so I knew it would be close. We were kind of leap frogging a bit on the bike but as I said my legs were not feeling so great so I just let her go and focused on my own race. Thankfully my nutrition kicked in and I started to feel more comfortable on the bike. This course is really beautiful, it has long sweeping roads of gentle rollers that you can just put your head down and work. A faster bike and a set of areo bars would have been fantastic but that is a whole ‘nother story.

One thing that happened to me on this course two years ago that happened to me again was I started to get some fairly severe pain in my left knee on the last quarter of the bike course. Hashing this out with my coach after the race the likely reason for this is the shear fact that you are pedaling the entire 56 miles of this course. Unlike the hill fest half ironmans that I have done recently there are no down hills to recover on….it is all constant pedaling. Also, your position on a road bike forces you to use more of your quad muscles so likely my pain was caused by an over-use of quad which caused quad cramping that led to the quad pulling on my knee. The last bit of the bike on the way back to transition is through a state park with a pretty crappy/bumpy road. I saw Marty in the “group” just ahead of me on that stretch but could not surge over the road conditions to catch her again. I came into transition literally just behind her.

2008 bike time: 3:15:53
2010 bike time: 3:08:51 (7 minute bike PR)

Run:
My knee was hurting starting the run but it was the sort of pain that you could just “run through” and holding a steady/consistent pace seemed to make it not feel any worse. I caught and passed Marty about half a mile into the run and we shouted some words of encouragement at each other, if it was a training day I would have run with her but I knew I really needed to focus on my race and nutrition so I had to let her go. It was full afternoon sun starting the run and I knew it was going to be a long hot day out there. The volunteers at this race are awesome….you shouted out what you needed as you approached the aid station and they responded immediately. I was taking cups of ice and dumping them in my sports bra to try and keep myself cool and it worked amazingly. The only small annoying thing was the ice was clanking against my heart rate monitor strap and anyone that knows me or has run with me knows that I have huge pet peeve of mine when people run with their keys and then clank them while they are running. I don’t know what it is about that sound but it is like nails on a chalk board to me….thankfully it was freaking hot enough out that the ice did not last long enough to be annoying! Ha! It was also around this time that I may or may not have peed my pants…..just don’t get anywhere near my running shoes and you will never know….

I felt like I was running well and just tried to hold a steady pace, I was not thinking about it as 13 miles but aid station to aid station. I got a little behind on salt and nutrition because the aid stations were not spaced out at exactly every mile. My stomach was also starting to revolt against the gels and sports food but that did not come to full fruition until the last few miles of the run. At mile 7 you turn onto a rocky trail and then you climb a fairly significant grade and this is where my knee cried uncle. As soon as I turned onto the rocky and uneven trail my knee totally gave out. I stopped for a bit a stretched it out, then I found the flattest and most even part of the trail and started to run slowly again. Thankfully you are not on the trail for that long and as soon as I turned back onto the pavement I started to run well on it again. My stomach however was taking a downward turn. I tried to take some coke at the mile 10 aid station as I heard that helps in settling your stomach but it only succeeded in tying it more in knots. I’m not going to lie, the last two miles were pretty much a death march for me. The course takes you back along the lake which is nice and flat but it is also in the blazing sunshine with no relief in sight. My stomach was officially done with this race even though I had two miles to go. It felt better when I stopped and walked but when I started to run again it was SUPER painful so I just tried to keep moving forward albeit slowly. Unfortunately I saw my goal of going sub-6 hours on this course also fade away in these last two miles, but in the end I can’t really complain because I did have a pretty good day out there.

2008 run time: 2:14:12
2010 run time: 2:05:14 (9 minute run PR)

2008 overall race time: 6:38:33
2010 overall race time: 6:04:08 (34 minute race PR!)

I can’t really be “upset” over this race performance since I did take over thirty minutes off my race time and got a new half ironman PR but it does leave a bit of a bad taste in your mouth that for the second race in a row I was mere minutes from reaching my goals. I guess that is motivation to get out there and do it again next year….to chase down those elusive four minutes!

I goes without saying (but I am going to say it anyway) that I would not be seeing improvements like this without the help and support of my wonderful coach, husband and family. Thank you for being there for me so that I can enjoy a really amazing break through race and surprise even myself with my performance.

Griskus Photos

2010-06-30T11:08:00.005-04:00

These are all obviously stolen.....but generally I'm a good kid and I follow the rules....

This is Kristin and I either listening to the national anthem or only half paying attention to the pre-race briefing...

Exiting the water....still struggling to get my wetsuit off over my watch

Leaving the park for a hilly 25 mile ride

On to the run....not to brag or anything but I like how "jacked" I look in this picture, clearly an optical illusion....

Is this over yet? Really starting to hurt but trying to stay strong....what are my hands doing by the way?

DONE!

Kristin and I post race and post beer cheering for some of her friends to come in!

Race Report: Pat Griskus Olympic Distance Triathlon

2010-06-30T10:37:00.005-04:00

My UK fan base is clamouring (yes, I intentionally threw an extra ‘u’ in there) for more updates so I wouldn’t want to disappoint them….or my grandpa.

I raced, I raced, I RACED!
(Can you tell that I was a bit excited to finally race again?)

The Pat Griskus tri is a really nice, low key, no frills type of race that I love but it is also a challenging little kick your butt and keep everything fair type of course. I did this race two years ago for the first time and was happy to come back again this year especially since I made the wise decision not to race an early season half this year which is the reason why I didn’t do this race last year too.

Swim:
This course is notoriously a bit long or maybe it is just the fact that you basically have to swim the entire perimeter of the lake in order to get in the race distance so it just feels long but whatever the case is I feel like I am in the water forever. Thankfully the water is nice and calm and the temperature is on the cool side which is perfect for me since I was nice and comfortable in my wetsuit the whole time. I stayed with some packs of people for the most part on the entire swim and got swam over a bit by the men from behind but it was all good for the most part. I was ready to be out of the water by the end but I was happy that I pushed my swim effort and had a decent time (for me).

2008 swim time: 50:01 (blah)
2010 swim time: 38:57

T1:
There is a long run up to T1 out of the water in which I struggled to get my wetsuit off over my watch for most of….good times. In the process I also managed to push every button on the watch so I no longer had my overall race time….also, good times. I struggled some more getting out of the rest of the wetsuit at the rack and took a mental note that the guy racked next to me was still in the water since his bike was still there. I played the “how long can I hold him off” game on the bike and I almost made it the whole ride. Socks, shoes, helmet and GO!

2010 T1: 2:10 (damn wetsuit….)

Bike:
I did not feel great coming onto the bike. I was pretty tired coming out of the water and felt a lot of soreness/tightness in my shoulders, triceps and arms from working the swim. I was a bit dizzy with a bit of a headache since we were sighting into the sun for most of the swim. I focused on getting some fluids in and started to feel better quickly especially since the first part of the bike is mostly rolling hills or down hills so I could focus on settling into the ride. I took a gel about 15 minutes into the bike after my stomach had settled and I could tell that my legs were coming around.

My goal was to keep the climbs under control so that I had some legs left to have a strong run off the bike. I have mentioned before that I have a tendency to mash up the hills instead of gearing down and spinning up them but not this time, I promise! This strategy really helped as I was able to gear up at the crest of the hill and pass a number of people over the top of the climbs that had burned a few too many matches while climbing. I felt good on the bike and my legs definitely came around for me. The small disclaimer to the bike course is that they did cut it short by about two miles because one of the roads was just chip sealed and thankfully did not want us to ride on the loose gravel. But the detour included a climb from hell where I saw more than one person get off their bike to walk it up the hill so I feel justified in my bike time comparison even though it is not exactly a side by side course comparison.

2008 bike time: 1:34:52
2010 bike time: 1:28:50

2010 T2: 1:18

Run:
I felt zippy and ready to run coming off the bike….maybe a bit too much so. The first mile is all basically down hill and I could feel myself moving! That is one of the best things that I learned at camp this year was to not let up or recover on the down hills but to run hard to make up some time that you knew you were going to lose on the up hills. The run is a double out and back loop so the down hills at the start of the run were some pretty decent climbs on the way back to the finish line. This is also where I was really bummed that I did not have my overall race time on my watch because I felt like I could have dug a little deeper on the run in some places had I known how close I was to breaking three hours. I find it mentally tough to really push myself when it starts to hurt and my mind is telling me to just slow down or just walk for a bit. I did feel like I ran hard and maybe if I would’ve pushed harder on the up hills I wouldn’t have the speed on the flats/down hills that I did but it is hard to say in the end.

2008 run time: 55:25
2010 run time: 50:54

Overall race time:
2008: 3:22:27, 5th in my age group
2010: 3:02:08, 5th in my age group

Overall I was happy with my race. This definitely shows improvement and hopefully I can learn from this race to really hurt on the run and dig deeper for my goals. The other fun fact to this race is that according to the recap email from the race director I have also qualified for the age group national championships since I was top five in my age group. I haven’t gotten anything official but this is what the email said:

This 2010 Northeast Regional Championship race qualified the top 33% per age group (or top 5 in each age group) for the Age Group Nationals in Tuscaloosa, Alabama onSeptember 25. Congratulations to all of our qualifiers!

So that is a bit crazy.....I am not sure if I will do the race but it is nice to know that I qualified!

Camp CHICA-go

2010-06-01T16:38:00.016-04:00

Wow....what an intense/fun/hard/interesting weekend I had. It was definitely not your typical Memorial Day weekend which is generally filled with drinking too much and eating too much (which I guess still holds true for me but in the form of Acclerade and sports food instead of beer and burgers). My first beer of the weekend was consumed at the airport waiting for my delayed flight on Monday night and it had me so loopy and then consequently so tired that I passed out on the plane as soon as we finally took off. But I am jumping ahead, how did I get so tired....well let me explain....

Oh....and all photos are obnoxiously stolen from Molly since I forgot to bring my camera and she is a photo taking superstar.

Photo from the welcome dinner at Jen's house with Kristin and I talking to Liz who we just met finally after working with her for over two years!

Kristin and I got in early Friday morning and decided to head to one of her college friends homes in Naperville, IL for a fun brunch and shopping before the craziness of the weekend started. It was nice to have a little chill time (the calm before the storm) before we headed further north for the start of camp. We met for a little "meet and greet" at Jen Harrison's home who was the other coach for the camp along with my coach to the stars Liz with some additional coaching help from the lovely Cat. We were borrowing bikes from Liz so that we didn't have to deal with traveling with them so after dinner it was quite the comedy of errors getting the right combo of pedals, bike and rider together. It came together finally but Kristin definitely gets the camp award for making it 60 miles in a bike that was way too small for her! We made our way back to the hotel and packed our bags for the next days activities and tried to get some sleep for the long day that we knew we had in store for us.

Have you ever seen an 8 month pregnant woman look this adorable in a wetsuit? This pretty much sums up the amazingness of my coach!

Saturday started with a 1.5 hour open water swim in a protected lake. I started the day out with Liz learning various techniques and tips for swim starts and even got a special shout out for my sighting skills! Then our group set out to swim the perimeter of the lake with Jen and wouldn't you know the exact thing that happens to me in races happened to me in the swim workout. I got dropped by the fast group so I was killing myself to stay with them to try to draft off of them but couldn't close the gap but I was swimming faster than the slower girls so in essence I was swimming by myself and working way too hard.....awesome. On top of that awesome-ness I forgot to body glide my neck before I put my wetsuit on and since I was sighting frequently to keep Jen and the faster girls in sight I got a really lovely wetsuit hickey on the back of my neck....sexy!

Lovely IL farm country and FLAT country rodes for our bike ride

After the swim we hopped out of the water, had a lovely breakfast and got ready to roll. On tap was a 60-ish mile ride with a +/- 30 minute run off the bike. The sun was starting to blast through the morning and it was shaping up to be a sweltering day. We said we would roughly break up into three speed groups and Liz said I could go wherever I felt comfortable. I saw Jen and Carrie start to take off up the road so I went around a few girls thinking they would jump on my wheel to close the gap. Ummmm....no one came with me so for the first 10 miles or so it was only three of us which was sort of cool to be able to ride with Jen in such a small pack. We stopped at one of the turns and a few others caught up to us but it seemed like it was just three or four of us off the front for most of the ride. I was SUPER impressed with my riding this weekend. I have not put in as many miles as I usually do in the spring but my last few rides leading up to this camp have felt peppy and good. It also helps that we were in "flat town, USA" for this ride and I am used to having to climb much more elevation gain on my rides. Still it was a really good confidence booster for me to know that I could hang with the faster girls even when the head wind kicked up.

Post yoga group photo....ready for a shower and a "proper meal" containing real food and not sports food

Off the bike I did a quick car clothes change into some running shorts and stopped by to see Liz for some advice/pep talk to go out into the heat of the day for a run off the bike. Like the goddess that she is she told me to only run ten minutes out and ten minutes back. It was still pretty hot and miserable with some nice little rolling hills mixed in to the run just for fun-sies. I was super hot and tired getting back to home base and thankfully Holly had brought a cooler with some ice so I downed a couple bottles of cold water and gatorade to get myself hydrated again. Next up was some yoga in the shade by the lake. I have never been a big yoga person and I don't know if this experience helped in convincing me into any more than my previous experiences. I knew we still had a lot more activity to come in the next few days and any new strength/stretching moves tend to make me quite sore so I basically "half-assed" it enough that I got a good stretch but didn't hurt myself. Stick a fork in me I was DONE and ready for a shower and food....group dinner here I come!

Saturday night dinner with the coaches and all of the athletes

Sunday morning came an hour later than Saturday had come but we were in the pool and ready to rock out a 90 minute workout from go time. I swam in the middle lane and felt pretty comfortable but straight away Jen is telling me that I am working too hard. One of these days it will hopefully click for me to get that right balance of form, speed and efficiency but for now I'm still looking for that zen swimming state. Liz video tapped my swim and gave me some great tips during the workout and more post camp so it is just something that I will keep working at.

Molly and I having perhaps a bit too much fun between sets :)

A quick shower and wardrobe change later we were outside back in the sweltering heat (are you sensing a pattern?) for a hilly run workout. I had to laugh at what constitutes a hill in the midwest....highway overpass, anyone? We did four repeats up and down the hill and then two more at max effort. I was pretty cooked after this run and was again in search of ice when we got back to the health club. I think I scared the poor woman working at the smoothie bar enough with the amount that I was sweating that she did finally break down and give me ice even though it was against their policy. I cooled down enough to head out for some additional run drills lead by Liz and then we broke up for lunch.

Running up the overpass for another round of hill repeats

We rounded out the afternoon with various strength workouts, core based exercises with Liz and a new torture device called TRX with Jen's personal trainer Kate. It was interesting to learn some new workouts and to realize that the strength workouts that I have been trying to keep up since my broken foot debacle are actually paying off.

Kris rocking the one legged upside down bosu ball squats....I was not so successful at this maneuver!

Molly rocking the TRX workout with Kate

From here we had an optional shorter recovery ride with Jen if wanted and honestly I could have gone either way. Jen asked the group who wanted to ride and I think only one person volunteered! Really my hold up was that I just wanted a bit of a break before starting another workout and with Jen you don't get any breaks. Liz offered for us to come by her house that night since we were on our own for dinner so that we could hang out and chat for a bit more. That also gave us the option to take a cruise around the Arboretum for a recovery ride which sounded down right fabulous to me. Give me shade and a beautiful setting in the early evening any day over another hot afternoon ride.

Ladies cruising on the bike path....Kristin on her midget bike! :)

After the ride we had a fun time just sitting around and chatting. Gossiping about the tri community and how Kristin and I have only three degrees of separation between everyone that Liz coaches (not really but it seems that way!) Liz's husband Chris made the most amazing dinner and I can't thank them both enough for their hospitality and giving us the chance to pick their brains a little more about racing and training.

Multisport Mastery girls post shower and pre-amazing dinner by Liz's awesome husband Chris!

Food is fuel right? Cat and I are showing off our skills of optimal cake to icing ratio when eating cupcakes!

Monday morning started off early, hot and humid once again. We were set to race the local 5K in Elgin, IL and I would like to take this time to thank my coach yet again for telling me to sign up for the 5K and not the 10 miler like I had originally thought of signing up for. I realized after the race that this is shockingly the first stand alone 5K that I have ever run so I guess I can chalk up a 5K PR to this crazy weekend as well. And I guess I should say that it was not only a 5K PR but 3rd in my age group! I was 3rd out of 61 in my age group with a time of 26:15, 8:28 minute per mile pace. No great speed records there and I will attribute my age group placing to doing a non-NYC race so the competition was not that deep and the fact that the faster I finished the race the faster I could sit down!

Standing around pre-race trying to remember how to actually race :)

Just past the starting line, and starting to pull away just because I hate running in crowds

Post race we had a little wrap up that was cut short since some pretty nasty storms started rolling in. Kristin and I drove back to her friends house to hang out a bit more where I got fed another amazing meal. I was fairly exhausted by this point so I started to get anti-social and I just wanted to be home. We set out for the airport thinking that our flights were only slightly delayed only to find out that they were significantly delayed once we got to the airport. We set up camp at a bar near our gate and had a few beers and chatted about the weekend. I finally hit my pillow back at home around 1am and almost cried when my alarm went off for work on Tuesday morning.

My final thoughts on camp are first and foremost that I am really glad that I went. I found out that I am actually pretty good at this sport. You sort of take that for granted living in such a big city where you are constantly surrounded by people that are better than you but I have been doing this for a number of years now and I think I've figured out a thing or two but like everything else in life I also still have a lot to learn. Nothing really replaces working with your coach one on one. I was really highly motivated for her to see what I could do and get her feedback on what I could be doing differently or better. I think that feedback will prove invaluable as I build up toward my big season races. She knows I can do it, I know that I can do it...now all I have to do is pull the performance out of me. And finally, after riding Liz's Cervelo P2 all weekend it is pretty much a given that I am salivating I want a new bike so badly. I can really tell that my bike performance is being limited by my equipment and given all the time and money I put into training I don't want some average Joe that hasn't trained but has expendable income to pass me on the bike just because he has a nicer bike. The wheels are spinning.....literally.

Going to Meet the Wizard

2010-05-25T11:02:00.001-04:00

We are rapidly approaching Memorial Day weekend and instead of the usual yearly pilgrimage to my in-laws second home in Pinehurst, NC where I try to sneak in as much training as possible and not get accused of skipping out on family time, I am doing something a bit different this year. The seed was planted in the dead of winter this year when I was coming off of my broken foot and looking for some motivation to get back into training and get my fitness back. My coach sent an email saying she was hosting a women’s triathlon camp over the weekend and my immediate response was “I want to do that!” So I rounded up my triathlon partner in crime to do the camp as well and cleared the skipping out of the family weekend with my hubby and I was in.

The last “sports” camp I went to was cheerleading camp the summer before my senior year of high school and even though we did win the coveted spirit award I think this experience is going to be slightly different….. It is going to be three fairly intense days of racing and training and I am feeling a weird mix of excitement and apprehension leading up to all this. But I think the thing that I am most looking forward to is finally meeting the woman behind the plan.

Up until now my coach has been this mythical “wizard of oz” hiding behind the curtain who I have been blindly following and trusting with my training and racing for the last three years. All of our communication has been over the internet, she puts the work into training peaks and I do the work….simple as that. And I will fully admit that I would not be nearly as prepared or have the performances that I have had without her help and guidance. But what I am really hoping to get out of this weekend is a more personal connection. To see first hand what it looks like to have a beautiful swim stroke and what I need to do to achieve it. To know what it feels like to enter the pain cave running off the bike and really try to break through. To not be afraid of going fast!

Like all things related to my triathlon life I am hesitant to tell the outside world exactly what I am doing this weekend. This “crazy” triathlon training and racing that I do is like my secret double life. So I prefer to tell people that I am having a “girl’s weekend” in Chicago for the holiday weekend which is not exactly a lie, no?

Hello Brave New World

2009-12-14T11:26:00.001-05:00

So I’m just going to move past the fact that nothing new has been written in this space for two months and just get on to the talking about something interesting, m’kay?

Let’s start with the injury report. Things are actually looking up in this area thankfully. The road rash has healed and now I am left with a lovely looking scar on my left forearm/elbow but that is sort of hardcore right? Ha…well, I don’t think I am in danger of intimidating anyone at this point but at least I am no longer seeping bodily fluids. The broken foot is also now healed, yay! It sometimes feels a bit stiff and sore still especially after long workouts but I think that is the new “normal”. Some of this soreness could definitely be attributed to the fact that I need new running shoes but I hear that Santa might be bringing me some so I will hold out. I have been taking the running very cautiously, other than a mishap of “run commuting” turning into a much longer run than I wanted every other run has been less than an hour. Dear God…I love me some off season.

So what have I been up to you ask? Well, thanks for asking. I have just tried to stay consistent over the last couple of months and get my body moving again at a regular interval of exercise but not take things too seriously at this point of the year. I realized during my forced “rest” period with the broken foot that I really function a whole lot better when I exercise. I was grumpy, I was moody and I was sick of sitting on my bum and doing nothing. I need the activity in order to relax….crazy, I know but it works for my lifestyle. When I had the broken foot I took the opportunity to take any sort of abs, core or pilates class that I could find where I didn’t have to use my feet.

Those few weeks sort of spring boarded me back to age 12 when my sister and I lived in a gym probably more than young girls should training for gymnastics. We outgrew the local gym in our hometown and started traveling 30+ minutes one way to a larger gym with better coaches. My sister was always better than me at the skills so I just sort of tagged along because she was doing it although I started to lose interest. The one thing that I was really good at was strength and conditioning and I actually liked it because I was good at it. At the end of every workout session we would go through a series of strength exercises that most girls would grumble about doing I would painfully enjoy just because I had spent the whole workout beating my brains in trying to throw tricks that I couldn’t land but sit ups and L-hangs on the wall…that I could do!

Clearly my core is still not anywhere close to what it looked like as a 12 year old but I have found the joy in the pain again. So I have made it my goal to try and incorporate the core strength and conditioning in my training schedule again this year. In my quest to try every strength class available during my down time I found a couple of lunch time abs, core, leg, butt strength classes by a really great instructor that I have made it my business to get my butt too every week if I don’t have any work/meeting conflicts preventing me from getting there. It has been fun and I am seeing the progress which is always a good thing.

Other than strength I have been doing a lot of swimming recently. I am going to masters twice a week for the most part which has been fun but hard. I think I have finally started seeing improvement in my stroke and the new “technique” is finally sinking in. I ordered a present of a new Splish swimsuit when I saw on Bree’s blog that they were having a sale. I think the smile I get out of wearing the new suit has made me get to the pool a little more….I mean, who wouldn’t want to wear this suit? Ha…so silly but great.

Rounding out the strength and swimming is a sprinkling of running and spin classes to complete the swim-bike-run triumvirate. I am still flying solo with my training plan without the boss lady until after the new year. I am headed to Buenos Aires the week after Christmas for a friend’s wedding so I thought it would be best to get all of the traveling out of my system before focusing my training again with my coach. Right now I am just having fun being active again and getting myself back into some sort of cardio shape so that “training” is not such a shock when it starts again. Plans for the 2010 season have almost been chiseled in stone so I will be posting the schedule soon.

It feels good to be back.

OK....I've had enough now!

2009-10-07T14:01:00.004-04:00

The foot is finally starting to feel better and approaching normal, I was cleared to ride again by the doc and I am only a few days away from being cleared to run again....all is well right? One would think so but I guess I needed to get beat back down again one last time.

This past Sunday it was the picture perfect fall day. Bright sunny skies, white cotton ball clouds and a refreshing crisp in the air. Morgan and I planned a cruise-y ride up 9W to Piermont with no agenda what so ever. Just enjoy being out riding and try to NOT look for hills to climb along the way. Sounds perfect, right? Well it was going perfect, we cruised our way across town to the west side greenway, made our way uptown and through the MS bike tour which was also using the greenway. We had just entered Riverside drive at 72nd street to make our way up to the George Washington bridge and over to the wilds of NJ when it all started to come apart.

Morgan was riding in front of me and I was just behind his wheel. We have ridden together enough that we can generally tell what the other one is going to do so we tend to be a bit lack with our hand signals to slow and stop. I know that we both tend to be aggressive riders in the city traffic so when we were approaching a traffic light on Riverside drive that was about to turn yellow I assumed that Morgan was going to speed up to make it through the light. So I "hit the gas" so to speak and stomped on the pedals a bit to get my speed up to cruise through the light. I also must have been looking down or not fully paying attention because before I knew it I was right up on Morgan's wheel because he was slowing down to stop for the light instead of going through it.

Everyone tells you not to grab both brakes when you learn how to ride a bike because grabbing the front brake makes the possibility of you flying over the handle bars that much greater. But I challenge anyone in a split decision situation to not grab both brakes out of panic! Well, panic I did and grabbed two heaping handfuls of front and rear brake. I immediately locked out my wheels and my tires started to skid which in turn made me hit the asphalt before I even knew what was happening. It all happened so quickly but in the moment I saw my head hitting the ground and realized that this was not good.

Somehow I missed taking Morgan down with me and I also avoided getting hit by any cars, thank god. The woman who was in a car right behind me who must have had a pretty good shock seeing all this go down immediately jumped out of her car to see if I was OK. There were also cops on the scene almost immediately which I found weird because there are never cops around when you need them but thankfully they were this time. They asked if I needed an ambulance. I wasn't sure that I needed one because nothing hurt "that" bad so I didn't think I had any broken bones but I told them that I know I hit my head so they put the call in for one for the possible head injury. Morgan came over to look at me and said that my helmet was cracked from the blow to the asphalt.

As I was laying there on the asphalt on the side of the road there were two "Italian" (you know what I'm sayin') men that came up to me. They had on suits, gold jewelry and were pungent with cologne. They introduced themselves as Dr. Mario and Dr. Luigi (not really...but they were Italian...do you really expect me to remember their names?) they were two doctor brothers that just happened to be walking by and wanted to know if they could help. Ummmm, sure...."am I dying?" They checked out my neck asked me a bunch of questions and had me up on the sidewalk before the ambulance got there. I never passed out and I was coherent and the doctors and the ambulance guys said it was up to me if I went to the ER or not. I didn't think I was in that rough of shape but the shock was just starting to hit me I think and I was feeling a little light headed.....not to mention that I had just smacked my head on the asphalt.

I decided to just hop in a cab and make my way back downtown to meet Scott since Morgan had thankfully woken him up with calls and texts explaining my predicament. Besides the road rash covering my left arm which you can see in the healing process above, road rash on my left knee and face, my other significant injury was a large flap of skin and a bruise under my right thumb that either needed to be glued or stitched back together so I had to go to the ER to get it looked at as well as just get myself checked out. My ER experience definitely could have been a lot worse, I made it in and out rather painlessly and did not thankfully have to spend all day there. They wound up doing an x-ray of my left hip/upper thigh because it was really the most painful/sore part of me even though I didn't have any road rash there. It had also started to swell up significantly so they did a precautionary x-ray just to make sure nothing was broken but they really thought I was probably fine since I had full range of motion with no significant pain. They glued my thumb back together and sent me on my way with some peroxide and neosporin to deal with the road rash on my own.

The patch of road rash on my arm is really the worst bit of it although I have more on my upper bicep and forearm. I have a HUGE bruise on my left upper thigh where it was swollen and sore right after the crash. I assume that was the first point of impact with the ground which is why it is so bruised. I tried to take a photo of it but really is there a flattering way to take a photo your own upper thigh? I'll just leave that to your imagination but Scott did describe it as beautiful last night.....

So just as I was getting back into a routine....down I go again. I am heading to Michigan this weekend to see my family and hopefully get some R&R to heal and recover. I am hoping that the road rash heals enough to get back in the pool next week which will also commence my running come back as well! I might just start walking around with a helmet on to avoid any future injuries though.....

95%...We'll Call That Good Enough

2009-09-29T18:11:00.000-04:00

Last doctor’s appointment and x-rays revealed that the foot is now about 95% healed and is not in danger of re-breaking at this point. Good to know. I had called it quits with the boot a few weeks ago because I couldn’t stand it anymore and it was feeling pretty good to walk around in just tennis shoes. This week I have even ventured back into flats and shockingly today I even sported some short heels for the first time in two months. I must admit, I haven’t missed them.

Doc advised to give it a few more weeks before I start running again and even then to take it very easy and start out on soft surfaces rather than the asphalt. Hmmmm, ok well in a few weeks it will likely be butt ass cold out and dread-mill time anyway so that works for me. He did give me clearance to get back in the saddle on the condition that I am not going to fall or have to stop short and quickly put my foot down. OK….how does one guarantee that while riding in NYC traffic?

I have sat by long enough while all of my cycling friends have done lots of great (and not so great…but still fun) fall century rides and I pretty much couldn’t stand another boring weekend without a ride. Morgan saw my injury update on Facebook and basically read my thoughts that 95% was likely good enough for me to ride again. I knew this cycling come back tour was going to be a little ugly since I went from doing cardio workouts six days a week to zero cardio workouts and minimal strength and swimming workouts for six weeks.

We decided to just do some loops of the park instead of heading out of the city just to play it a bit safe. The loops were going well and I was feeling really good just being out there again that is until we hit the hills. Cat Hill was do-able because it is short enough that by the time it starts to be too much it is over but Harlem Hill….not so much. I tried to stay on Morgan’s wheel but the legs and the cardio were just not there. I had a feeling that the hills were going to be ugly but this was just crap-tastic. Morgan took pity on me and we called it quits after three loops.

I have gone to a few spin classes, which are decidedly harder to get through than they were six weeks ago, to start building up the leg strength and cardio again. Master’s swim classes started up this week as well which will motivate me to keep getting in the water even though it is turning chilly out. I have really been loving a lunch time abs class on Tuesday’s that I have been going to, although a last minute site visit today forced me to miss it which sucked. I’m trying to establish a basic workout schedule that I will try to stick to over the fall since the injury has forced me to take a coaching break from ELF until I am back up to speed.

This weekend Morgan and I are heading out of the city to the wilds of NJ….not really trying to find any hills to climb, just getting some miles back into our legs. Riding for fun and not for training right now is pretty much my definition of perfect.

Twin-kies!

2009-08-25T10:12:00.006-04:00

Coincidence? I think not......

(that's Michael Phelps by the way....if you haven't heard about why he is standing with Shaq check this out)

Abs Watch

2009-08-21T14:49:00.002-04:00

Day 2 of my new mission to find something that I can do at the gym with a broken foot which turned out to be abs yet again.

And, ummmmmm.....yeah, it hurts. Raise your hand if you are a triathlete that has the endurance of a pack mule but a core so weak that two 30 minute sessions has you crying.....woot, woot. So, definitely some work to be done and progress to be made so that is a good thing. I try to divert my eyes from the treadmills and spin bikes that are calling my name as I hobble past on my way to the studio for abs class. I just have to keep reminding myself that stuff will be there all winter for me to get back into shape on so I just have to give it time. See, progress....no?

My friends are likely hitting the road soon for Timberman. I have wished them well and told them I will be thinking about them all weekend and wishing that I could be there for every swim stroke, pedal revolution and running stride. This weekend is all about rest and getting some things done in my life that have been on the back burner for months. And you know what, that feels good too.

Broken

2009-08-20T10:55:00.006-04:00

So this happened. No, no…not the getting dressed up and looking nice bit of the photo. Yeah, a bit lower….see that. Yup, that is a SEXY looking moon boot type cast that I am not wearing just because it matches my dress. HI….my name is Sara and I am the idiot who slipped and fell during a site visit to the apartment that I am working on and broke a bone in my foot……HI, Sara….welcome to idiots anonymous.

Ugh, I have moved through the stages of this injury in a slow and meticulous fashion to now arrive at laughing at this. But let me tell you there were tears and a HUGE pity party that was thrown in my honor with copious amounts of ice cream. So needless to say I am not racing Timberman this weekend, hence the driving force behind my pity party. I am upset about it, I am bummed about it and I am frustrated about it but it is done, nothing more to do about it at this point so I am moving on.

My current obsession is finding things that I can do to remain active but still follow the doctor’s orders for staying off my foot so that it can heal. My coach suggested this during my pity party when I was having an email melt down to her about how much this situation sucks. I almost spit wine all over the computer screen laughing at ridiculousness of it. (Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I am also drinking copious amounts of wine to get through this situation….because, why not?)

Yeah, so I can’t imagine ordering that video on Amazon because I would be really afraid of the “since you ordered this you might also like these selections” emails. Can you even imagine where it would go from chair dancing videos?

I am happy to report that I successfully made it through an abs class at the gym yesterday afternoon without breaking another bone in my foot. It was touch and go for a minute during the side plank and the regular plank that I had to do supported on only one leg. But I think that upped my “abs cred” with the instructor because he thought I was hardcore doing everything on one leg to make it harder and didn’t realize that the contraption sitting next to me was in fact a cast and not some bionic limb. My next attempt will be a Pilates class….lets hope that the instructor will actually stick to the mat based moves as the description suggests and not turn it into a step class, ie my worst nightmare.

So, that is what is going on with me. I went from and 11+ hour training week feeling tired but good with the level of work that I was putting into getting ready to have a great day at Timberman. To a 0 hour training week and learning how to walk again. I have another doctors appointment in a couple of weeks where they will do another x-ray to check the healing process. Hold your collective breath everyone that I will get clearance to at least start swimming again or else I am going to have the worlds best looking 6 pack abs with absolutely no endurance.

(oh....and by the way, the photo of my hubby and I looking pretty is from my friend Karla's wedding from this past weekend. Which also proved to be an awesome distraction from the crap-tastic situation that I have found myself in because I got to hang out with some awesome college friends all weekend and celebrate my friend getting married in a beautiful setting)

Adventures in Cycling

2009-08-10T10:42:00.007-04:00

No pictures=didn't happen. Well....here is proof that you can ride your bike without even having to pedal if you find yourself some good friends to push you!

I foolishly decided last weekend that it would be fun to convince my friends to go out and ride the KNOT last weekend. What is the KNOT you ask and why does it have to be capitalized (for dramatic effect, of course!). Most of our cycling adventures from the city take us across the George Washington bridge and north to the town of Nyack or Piermont. There are a number of hills you can climb in the area and depending on the mood of the group that day you decide which way you will go and how many hills to climb. And that brings us to the KNOT. The KNOT is based around one intersection that you approach from all four cardinal directions (N/S/E/W) climbing every hill in the area on your approach until you have crossed through the same intersection four times and thus tying the KNOT. Get it.....yeah, corny I know.

Well, we were two hills down and on our approach to the third hill I downshifted and heard a screeching of metal that did not sound good. I immediately lost all power in my pedals and I knew something bad had happened. Thankfully I was not going that fast and I was able to react quickly enough to get my feet out of the pedals so I did not crash. My friend Ed was more than thankful for my mechanical since he was suffering a bit in the hills so this gave him the opportunity to take a breather and try to fix my chain. Snapping a chain is not something that normally happens to a bike, not like a flat tire that we can easily and quickly take care of on the side of the road. Breaking a chain required getting out the multi-tool directions that Ed CARRIES WITH HIM (but that is why we love him) and trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together.

After 30+ unsuccessful minutes of not only utilizing the chain tool but also the "magic stick" on the ground we gave up our repair job. We had sent the rest of the group ahead to climb hill #3 and they were circling back around just as we were giving up our repair job. In other news, a bento box not only makes a convenient place to store nutrition but also a handy place to store your broken chain! So now we were faced with how to get my now very expensive glorified scooter to the bike shop with me having no ability to pedal. Problem solved....my friends will push me! I think I may be on to something here....escorted triathlon anyone?

It was by far the most helpless feeling I have ever had on a bicycle. When I was going downhill I was able to coast and use my breaks to stop but when there was an uphill I would slow to a crawl until I just wasn't moving anymore. Then there would be a frightful moment when I would have to decide to either clip out to prevent myself from falling over or hope that my friends would get there soon enough to give me a push to keep me going before I fell over. I was laughing hysterically when my friends were pushing me....it was just so ridiculous!

Of course the bike shop in Nyack is just past the Runcible Spoon which is a cyclists mecca on the weekend or any other day for that matter. Every cyclist in the area stops at the Spoon at the half way point of their ride to grab a snack, refill water bottles from the huge coolers that they leave outside and take a potty break before heading back to the city or further north to bear mountain. I knew I was going to cause a scene getting pushed on my bike past the Spoon and the roadies did not disappoint. I was getting whopped and hollered at that I was cheating and all I could do was laugh.

I made it to the bike shop in one piece and the owner was super impressed that I even made it there on a bike with no chain. He gave me a "gold tooth" and in five minutes I was out the door and on my way. (Gold tooth=master link for my chain. I'm feeling pretty ghetto fabulous now though, perhaps another strategy to scare off my competition with my pimped out bike chain?) After a quick stop back at the Spoon we were off to tackle the last climb of the KNOT but unfortunately Ed and I missed a climb during our bike repair so similar to my tried and failed attempts at century rides this season it seems I will always be the bridesmaid and never the bride at completing crazy endurance events on the bicycle.

Alone

2009-07-31T15:02:00.001-04:00

I don’t know what it is about cycling but I love *heart* riding in groups. This is generally a good thing for me because I have found a group of cycling friends that push me to be a stronger rider and force me to get my butt out there to ride because I have committed to meeting up with them on days that seem much more suited for crawling back under the covers. But there is always another side to the story isn’t there? I sort of live by the rule of I’m getting out there and riding so who cares if I am actually following the workout exactly to the letter as prescribed by the boss woman? Miles in the saddle after all are miles in the saddle, right? Well, I have come to learn over the past two summers of training with Liz that she has got some triathlon game and she is super meticulous about knowing exactly what training is right for you to prepare you to have your best day out there come race day.

So that brings me to last night. Try as I might to convince no less than two friends to come riding with me I was unable to get any bites. I had an hour “recovery” spin on the schedule with the directives of “small chain ring, 90+ rpm”. An hour is bit longer than I am willing to go to the gym and suffer through on a spin bike alone especially without any intervals or hill climb simulation to break up the hour session. 60 minutes of sitting there spinning in a room by myself was more than I could handle. Plus its summer and it finally wasn’t raining for once this week at 6pm so I put on my big girl pants and went out to ride alone. I also figured since I was riding this alone I was also going to follow the workout since I had no one else to answer to but myself out on the bike today.

Even though I put on my big girl pants to ride today I decided to be slightly more cautious heading up to Central Park by taking the west side highway bike path than riding up First Avenue dodging rush hour traffic. When I ride up to the park with Morgan I feel slightly safer weaving in and out of traffic because two bikes together seem more likely to be noticed and taken seriously than one girl all alone. Probably not necessary in the end but I don’t like to press my luck…. So once I got to the park I made it my biz-ness to not chase after the “boys” in the park with their team kit on and keep my cadence over 90 rpm even in the hills.

I guess I should mention at this point that my nickname among my cycling friends is “the masher” and I have staked my cycling reputation on the fact that under only dire circumstances am I to use my granny gear. Yeah….I’m a regular Jan Ulrich. A recent email from my coach kept popping into my head over my last few rides that mashing a big gear and consequently having a low cadence is the number one way to ensure you have a suck-tacular run off the bike. Pro cyclists can mash a big gear and then go lay down after riding a tour stage….I have to go run a 10K or a half marathon…big difference.

I think I may just be a 90 rpm convert. I was feeling fresh as a daisy climbing hills and still seeing speeds that I normally see when I am in bigger gears. I made it up and over Harlem hill (twice!) at 90+ rpm which is no small feat for me. I did notice in the flats and small rollers that I was being “out-ridden” by people pushing larger gears but I would catch them on the up hills. I think this technique is definitely something I am going to work on over my next few rides to see if I can find the delicate balance between terrain and my small & big chain rings to keep myself more around 90 rpm rather than the 80 rpm that I usually ride in. This weekend’s epic ride to “the KNOT” will be a true testing ground when my friends and I set out to climb every hill on the approach to a single intersection until we have crossed through the same intersection from all approaches (N/S/E/W) hence tying “the KNOT”….get it? It is a fun ride and hopefully Saturday’s forecast will hold out to give us a fun day for a ride.

In other news, I just got back from a lunch time pool swim where the woman swimming behind me in my lane told ME that I am a GOOD swimmer! Ha! Thanks lady you just made my day even though that statement is completely false!

Race Report: NJ State Olympic Triathlon

2009-07-27T15:53:00.001-04:00

aka I guess “hill repeats” back and forth to the beach for dos per uno happy hour do not make for the most successful race prep.

I knew going into this race that I wasn’t feeling the best. I knew I was prepared in that I would certainly make it the distance but was I prepared to have my best day out there and the answer turned out to be ‘no’. But when all is said and done I had a really fun weekend with friends and I made it across the finish line which is really what it is all about, so in that sense it was a very successful weekend.

We spent the weekend with our good friends Steve (or more often known as Gugs (G-ooo-gs) since we have about 50 friends named Steve and it’s hard to keep them all straight) and his girlfriend Michelle. Steve’s parents live less than a mile from the race site and they graciously offered for us to stay at their house for the weekend which was AWESOME! It totally eliminated the usual pre-race logistics of finding a means of travel, making a hotel reservation and coordinating how all of these things would come together. We took the train out to the NJ suburbs and Gugs picked us up and dropped us off at the train station both ways. Unfortunately I had to take both wheels off my bike to fit it in the trunk of his car but I find that a small price to pay for easy travel logistics.

When I go to races by myself or with Kristin I am generally content to focus all of my attention on the race prep, eating and resting leading up to race day but when I “drag” Scott to my races I feel like I can not then lock him in a room while I “rest” and not do anything fun on the weekend either. We went to NJ on Friday night because Gugs and Michelle wanted to take us out to one of their favorite restaurants. We had a lovely meal with more sangria than I would have ordinarily drank on a race weekend and finished off the evening by visiting a local gem of a road side bar where I probably didn’t need to have any alcohol but had just one beer. We got back to the house and thankfully I crashed in bed before the 1/2 bottle of lemoncello was pulled out and consumed.

Saturday morning I slept in and then got up to help Gugs make blueberry pancakes for everyone. It was quite the adventure digging around in his parent’s pantry to find all of the ingredients but they turned out quite well. We headed over to the race site to pick up my packet and Gugs got the first taste of what this was all about. It was sort of fun to see the weekend through a “newbie’s” eyes since I am so used to the whole thing now. Seeing a HUGE transition area set up or buoys set up in the water that seem to circumference the entire lake just don’t shock me anymore but it was fun to see his reaction when I was pointing out the course. He seems excited to try the sprint distance next year so we shall see if I can keep the spark in him until next year!

We had briefly talked about going to see the Philly’s game in the afternoon which I agreed to do since I figured I could sit and relax in a baseball stadium and NOT partake in the beers just as easily as I could sit around the house and rest. Well, turns out the game was sold out so we looked to a plan B. And plan B was to go wine tasting. Something I would ordinarily be totally up for but pre-race I didn’t think was such a good idea. Not wanting to be a downer on the weekend I agreed and told myself I would drink lots of water with my wine and share tastings. That worked for the first vineyard but then they decided to try another vineyard….ugh….this is not shaping up so well. Following the vineyards, Gugs also mentioned that there was a ribs place that he was dying to try. Again, ordinarily I am all for ribs but this probably does not make for the best pre-race meal. Alas, it was really GOOD and we were having fun so I think it is a small price to pay for less than stellar race performance. Thankfully the evening rounded out with renting a couple of movies and watching at home so I could sneak off for an early bed time. Not that it really mattered because I couldn’t sleep…..

Pre-race:

The spectacularly crappy thing about this race is that I had to have my transition set up and I had to be out of transition by 7:20am. But I wasn’t scheduled to enter the water until 9:12am in the second to last wave. Yes, two hours of sitting around and doing nothing.

Swim:

I had gotten in the water and done a little warm up during my two hour wait and I chose not to wear my wetsuit because the water was only .1 degree under wetsuit legal. I over heat really easily when I am wearing it when the water is cold so I knew I would die in the just barely cold enough water. I definitely made the right choice there as I was heating up during the swim but I could feel my increased effort and lack of buoyancy without it. It was an in water start and I started to the far right of the buoys. I tried to hold onto a pair of feet and draft like I attempt in every race but I just can’t seem to find anyone to hold onto. I made an effort to be really good about sighting since I didn’t need to swim off course and make this swim any longer than it already was. I feel like I was fairly successful sighting so that was good but I was definitely feeling sluggish and tired by the end of the swim.

’07 Swim (my first Olympic tri ever): 41:56
’09 Swim (1.5K, 0.9 mile): 40:59

Wow…one whole minute....why I am so freakin’ slow in the water? Ugh…frustrating!

T1:

I made the rookie mistake of the year in transition by not paying enough attention to where my bike rack was in the morning so I went to the wrong rack! I started to freak out because I couldn’t find my bike only to realize that I was a row off. It definitely threw me for a few seconds and definitely added to my transition time.

T1: 3:08

Bike:

The one big thing that this course has going for it that all the other races I have done so far this year is that the bike course is fast and flat! It was a welcome change to be able to put my bike in the highest gears and just push. I was trying to keep a 20 mph average but ran into a bit of headwind that dropped me down to 19.2 mph average. I felt good on the bike and worked hard to pass as many people as I could.

’07 Bike: 1:16:52
’09 Bike (23 miles): 1:12:30

Almost a 5 minute improvement…I will definitely take that.

T2: 2:08

Run:

Coming off the bike my legs definitely felt heavy. I just didn’t have the pop in them that I had coming of the bike in Harriman where I had a really great 10K off of the bike. Given my late starting time it was also now the heat of the day and even though they advertise “plenty of shade” on the run there are long out and back stretches where you are baking in the open sun. On the first mile my stomach immediately cramped up. It was so bad that I had to walk it out and stretch. I took in a gel and a lot of water at the aid station but I knew that I wasn’t going to have the run off the bike that I wanted. I feel like mentally at that point I just gave up which I am angry at myself for but I was definitely going into survival mode instead of run hard and go after it mode. I was also severely dehydrated since it was roasting outside and I was getting goose bumps. I was stopping to drink at every aid station and dumping water on my head but the damage had already been done and it was too late to look back at that point. I did what I could and just wanted to make it to the finish line at that point.

’07 Run: 58:49
’09 Run (10K, 6.2 miles): 59:00

’07 Total: 3:02:29
’09 Total: 2:57:43

I was happy to go sub-3 hour for the Olympic distance so I was definitely happy for that but ultimately I really think I could’ve had a better day with not taking a week off for vacation two weeks prior and a better pre-race lead up the day before. Next and last on the race schedule for this season is another half ironman at Timberman! Time to get the training back in gear!

12 days and counting….

2009-07-09T17:02:00.004-04:00

Yesterday marked my 12th straight day of exercise and to say that I am tired would be an understatement. Why you ask have I not taken a rest day. Well that is because I get seven glorious rest days starting on Saturday. Scott and I are heading to Costa Rica with a couple of friends to enjoy some much needed and deserved rest and relaxation. We are going back to Manuel Antonio which is the same area we visited a few summers ago when we were in San Jose for a friend’s wedding. But this time we are staying in the new airplane suite. Oh yes, check out how freaking cool this thing is!

Approach to the Airplane "treehouse"

Afternoon drinks on the wing deck anyone?

Interior of the plane totally decked out in teak!

View of the ocean from the plane...I can't wait to jump in that water!

So in order to prepare myself for seven fairly low key but not completely sedentary days of rest I have been cramming in workouts like a high schooler crams before the big calculus final. There have been a lot of quality sessions in there including two really nice long rides and the longest run I have done in weeks over the 4th of July weekend. We went down to our friend Morgan’s parents lake house in Virginia to celebrate the American way with too much food, too much beer and fireworks bought from a road side stand. Morgan and I were actually responsible enough to wake up early on Friday and Saturday to get in 32 miles and 55 miles respectively and I managed to get in a 20 minute run off the bike on Saturday and 1:45 run on Sunday. It felt like a great little training camp with the payoff of getting to jump in the cool lake with a floaty noodle and a can of beer as your reward post workout. I did a lot of the cooking which is generally one of my favorite things to do with big groups of people….I find chopping to be one of the more therapeutic and relaxing activities for me....I know, it’s weird.

I have two more sessions to make it through before I am able to hang up the ‘big girl’ pants and take a little breather before vacation and my next race rolls around. Morgan and I are snapping into the cycling cleats one more time for some laps of Central Park after work today and if I can make it a 15 minute run off the bike. Then I HAVE to drag my butt out of bed to the pool (long course outdoor pool by me is finally open! Yay) on Friday morning to get 2800 yards before work because Friday night is all about drinking and packing!

Next up on the racing schedule is the NJ State Olympic triathlon which was the site of my very first Olympic distance race a few years ago. It is a nice little course right near Princeton with a lake swim, fairly flat and fast bike course and fairly flat and fast run course. I am really hoping to perform well and smash my Oly distance PR. Let’s hope I can maintain a bit of my fitness over vacation by doing some “hill repeats” back and forth from the beach and hiking through the national park chasing monkeys.

NYC Training Logistics

2009-06-30T18:13:00.002-04:00

So AV has asked me a couple of times how I manage to train in this city because to her it seems like it would be so difficult. To me it is an odd question because training in the city is the only tri training I have ever known so to me it is just normal. Some things require logistical complications that I’m sure would be less cumbersome if I lived in the ‘burbs with a car but then I would be living in the ‘burbs and hating life. To me the city offers so many unique and different training opportunities so you don’t always have to do the same run or bike route.

To illustrate, here is a little week in review of the what, where and how I pulled off my training last week. Some workouts were successful and some less so.

Monday:
Workout: 2750 yard pool swim
Logistics: I swim in the NYC parks and rec pools because they are convenient and cheap ($75 for a year membership! That is a steal in NYC!). My favorite pool is the newly renovated 25 yard pool located in Chelsea at 25th between 9th and 10th avenue. Since Monday’s are particularly hard for me to wake up in the morning and get to the pool I swam after work on Monday. To get to this pool from my office I have to take two subway’s two stops which is a little annoying but it is a bit of a trek to walk it, it takes about 15ish minutes to get there by subway if the transfers work out smoothly. The pool is always a bit annoyingly crowded at evening lap swim and there seemed to be an unusual number of “swim champions” that showed up to swim on Monday. Which made my sluggish feeling in the water not so great when I was getting lapped an inordinate number of times on my long sets.

Tuesday:
Workout: 45 minute easy run & 30 minute spin
Logistics: I wound up getting stuck at work for longer than I wanted and I really wanted to get outside to run because it was beautiful out. I went home after work (10 minute walk from my office to my apartment) and left for the run as soon as I could change my clothes. My favorite route for a short run from my apartment is to head east along 2nd street until I hit the FDR drive and then cross over the foot bridge to the East River Park. The park runs along the water and you can always find lots of runners on the path and a baseball game or two going on at the diamonds as you run past. I generally do an out and back run where I turn around whenever I hit the half way point of my workout. I had to pull the plug on the 30 minute spin because realistically you can not pull your bike out and go for a ride of any consequence that is less than an hour in the city. There are just too many traffic lights to stop for or pedestrians that by the time you get to Central Park where you can comfortably ride you are already 30 minutes into the ride just in commuting. Usually what I would do is go to the gym and run on the treadmill and then ride for 30 minutes on a spin bike to get the workout done, I just really wanted to run outside so I knew I would likely not get the spin done.

Wednesday:
Workout: 1:10 bike (with option to ride up to 90 minutes) with hill intervals
Logistics: I have thankfully gotten my friend Morgan back into cycling this year (he cycled in college) so he is generally willing to go along with me on my cycling workouts. We met up after work and rode up to Central Park. The goal was to do 3-4 laps of the park (6 miles each lap) and really focus on pushing it up the hills. The park is a pretty amazing training ride, it doesn’t really have any “flat” it is constant rollers with a fairly steep climb at the top end of the park. We pushed it hard for three laps and then did another 1/2 lap easy to bring us around to the west side so that we could cycle back downtown on the bike path along the west side highway. Between “commuting” back and forth to the park and the workout we were riding for 2+ hours.

Thursday:
Workout: 1:15 run with pick ups
Logistics: I had a client meeting scheduled on Thursday starting at 5:30pm at my jobsite which is on the Upper East Side right near Central Park. I grabbed my gym bag as I was heading out of the office for the meeting so that I could run in the park after the meeting was over. In order to find a place to change and stash my bags while I was running I looked up the nearest NY Sports Club which is the gym I belong to so I could use their locker room. The nearest club was about 10 blocks (1/2 mile) away from my jobsite so I walked there after the meeting. I changed, stashed a gel in my sports bra and I was off to run the few blocks to get into the park. Running in the park is a much different animal than cycling in the park. You become VERY aware of every hill because they seem to be relentless. The run was really great training for me because I have felt like I lacked hill climbing strength in my last few hilly races. My goal was to just keep moving up the hills and recover on the down hills. I planned on finishing up the cool down of the run by walking downtown a bit to the next subway station after I picked up my bag from the gym but I wound up talking to my mom and before I knew it I had walked 40 blocks. I just kept talking and walking until I was all the way home which was 60 blocks or 3 miles. It makes me laugh sometimes that walking 3 miles really doesn’t seem like much in this city but after running 6+ hilly miles my legs were pretty spent and it was now almost 10pm and I had not eaten dinner yet!

Friday:
Workout: OFF DAY :)

Saturday:
Workout: 3:00 bike with 30 minute run off the bike
Logistics: Here is where the weekend went terribly wrong. Some of my cycling friends and I were going to go out and do a ride that we have done 1000 times over the George Washington bridge, along River Road and up highway 9W into Piermont or Nyack whichever came first at the half way point of the ride. We started talking on Friday and saw that there was a ride posted on the New York Cycle Club website that looked like fun out to Point Lookout on the Long Island shore. Who doesn’t love a ride to the beach in the summer? It was listed as an A-19 ride (advanced cycling skills, 19 mph average pace) so it looked it would be perfect for my scheduled workout. The only problem with these group rides is that when you get a group of 10-15 cyclists together to ride together everything takes twice as long. Combine that with a lot of stop lights where the group was getting split up on the ride out of Brooklyn and you have a terribly slow ride and a not very good workout. Morgan and I decided to pull the plug on the ride at the half way point when it was already 1pm and we were just heading back to the city. We cycled back to Long Beach and took the Long Island Railroad back to Penn Station. I had all intentions of doing the run when I got home but I got a terrible headache as soon as I stood up to get off the train. Not sure if it was dehydration or the heat or what but I knew I couldn’t run with such a terrible pounding in my head! I took some advil and a shower and started to feel better thankfully!

Sunday:
Workout: 3000 long course yards or open water swim
Logistics: Originally I was super psyched for this workout. I planned on meeting some of my swimming friends from masters swim out at Coney Island for their group organized open water swims. I think I had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth from Saturday’s all day debacle that did not turn out so well that I decided I would not go out to Coney Island for the open water swim because it takes an hour by subway to get out there and an hour back. I had to go into work on Sunday and I knew I couldn’t be gone all day again. Before I told my friends I wasn’t going to meet them I checked the pool schedule to see if there was a pool open on Sunday for lap swim since a lot of the indoor pools are now closing for the season and the outdoor pools are opening. Unfortunately the schedule on the website had not been updated because I went to two different parks and rec pools only to find them closed! Ahhhhh, so frustrating! I even tried to sneak into the Chelsea Piers pool again by telling them I wanted to “try out” their pool to see if I wanted to become a member but I think they have my number because they said it would be $50 for a day pass! Ummmm, no thanks! The only good thing about the day was that I got in almost an hour of run commuting between the three different pools and back home again. So that swim workout was a total bust and I wound up being super bummed that I was seemingly just lazy about not going out in the morning to Coney Island. At least I got into work in the afternoon and got some things done!

OK…so that is my week in review. All weeks pretty much shape up similar to this one just with different running routes or cycling destinations based on what the boss lady prescribes that week. The outdoor 50 meter pool that is TWO BLOCKS from my apartment is opening up in a few weeks for lap swim so I will be there a lot in the coming months which is super convenient for me. I guess the major difference between training in the city and training elsewhere is that your “commuting” miles and time becomes a factor in your workout. If you want to get to the park, you cycle there. If you want to get to the pool, you run there. If you want to get home, you walk. Where as I think other people would for instance drive to the start of a ride and then start cycling from there….ya know what I’m sayin’?

Fox Hunt

2009-06-21T18:12:00.002-04:00

I am up at my in-laws house in White Plains just north of the city doing the father's day thing today. That meant that today's long run (which thankfully was only an hour...don't you love it when an hour run seems short?) was done in the hills of Westchester county. I am always a bit torn when I have to do runs here, part of me is excited that it is new territory and scenery for my run but I don't really know the area that well so I generally wind up doing loops which is never a fun thing. Today I decided that I would be a bit bold and just get myself lost in the neighborhoods until I found a road that I knew and then I would turn back to the unknown again. I had a great time although I did come across quite a few LARGE and unexpected hills!

Another thing I came across was a fox, yes.....a FOX! He looked exactly like this. At first I thought it was a dog but then I saw that he had a long skinny body, pointy ears and a white tip on his tail! It was definitely a fox. He ran into the woods up ahead of me and he was gone by the time I ran by. How exciting....you definitely don't see that every day in the city.

I has been super rainy and gross here for the past week so unfortunately my much anticipated ride to the "KNOT" was cancelled this weekend. Marty and I knew we still needed to get in a good ride this weekend so we decided we would gamble with mother nature on Saturday morning and try to ride as many laps as possible in Central Park before the rain started coming down. We were doing them at a very zippy pace so it was definitely feeling like work! 8 laps and 48 miles later it started to sprinkle so we called it quits. By the time I got home my odometer hit 55 miles and the rain finally started coming down pretty hard. I'd say 55 miles before the rain came down=I WIN!

I felt like it wasn't my typical weekend of training but the training I did get in was quality training so I am feeling productive and strong. It was also really nice to have a lovely home cooked meal with my in-laws and play with my nieces to cap off the weekend.

Ride Report: North Fork Century

2009-06-16T12:31:00.005-04:00

a.k.a. why I will not be doing any more organized rides that require me to put myself or my bike on a truck or bus to get to and from the ride start.

Really, the whole concept of this ride was doomed from the start but they always look so fun on paper. Escape from the city for a day to ride 100 miles in the beautiful rolling country side of Long Island past vineyards, farms and the LI Sound.....what could be better. To illustrate the shit show that was this day I present a timeline:

12:30am - arrive home from b-day celebration dinner for a friend and try and get myself and my gear ready for the ride.

1:00am-go to bed

4:00am-wake up, throw on my clothes, brush my teeth

4:15am-meet Morgan downstairs to ride over to 34th and 8th avenue in the pitch black

4:30am-register for the ride and get my bike and bag check in tags

6:45am-finally put my bike on a truck after standing outside in the rain on the street corner with the homeless people that reside in Penn Station for over 2 hours.

7:00am-For the first and only miracle of the day, they decide to let us on the 2nd bus that was sitting there empty instead of squeezing on the first bus. Take over three seats and fall asleep immediately!

9:00am-Arrive at the ride start in Greenport, LI. Discover that it is raining but not too badly, venture off the bus to find the truck that contained our bikes.

9:05am-Find out that the truck that has our bikes on it is missing and no one knows where it is. Go back on the bus, take another nap.

10:30am-One truck rolls in and the volunteers say that it has all of the bikes in it from both missing trucks. Wait for them to unload the bikes to discover that our bikes are not on that truck but no one knows anything about another truck. Start to panic that someone has driven off with a truck full of 1K-3K bikes to pawn off on eBay and Craigslist.

10:45am-Our truck rolls into the parking lot to the surprise of the ride coordinators who had no idea that there was another truck even out there.

11:00am-Finally start pedaling with the caveat from the ride organizers that they will keep the rest stops open but the last bus back to the city must leave by 7:00pm so we have to finish the 100 miles in less than 8 hours. We shrug our shoulders and say..."no problem"

11:01am-Start hauling ass, have you ever done rotating pace line at 20+mph for an entire day? I have and I can honestly say that it is FUN!

11:15am-FLAT TIRE....ahhhhhhhhhhh!

12:30ish-Arrive at 20 mile rest stop and fuel up with PB&J and farm fresh strawberries. Pull out of the rest stop and decide to skip the "scenic overlook" when people coming back the other way tell us that there is nothing much to see. Big mistake.

1:45ish-Notice that our cycle computers have now rolled over to 40 miles then 45 miles with no sign of the 40 mile rest stop. Pull over to examine cue sheet to see if we went wrong somewhere. Discover that the 100 mile route had to take a different turn out of the scenic overlook than the 66 mile route but we missed it since we skipped the view....boooo. Start to feel really sad when we realize we have gone through all this hell to now only ride a metric century rather than the full 100 miles. Then start to feel even worse when we realize we are almost out of fluids and it looks like we missed the last two rest stops.

2:30ish-After causing a ruckus with our 20+mph rotating paceline in the state park area when most people were cycling like it was a Sunday joy ride we decided to stop at a restaurant to get more food and water since we now had plenty of time to get to the finish line. Only to discover when we looked at the cue sheet more closely that there was a rest stop at the turn around in the state park that we had totally missed. Oh well, the beer tasted good at the restaurant ;) We also discovered that Morgan was about to have one of the most spectacular blow out flats of all time since his tube was being held by a shred of rubber in his severely worn out tires.

3:00ish-Finally get rolling again after booting Morgan's tire with a metrocard and several dollar bills.

3:15ish-Morgan flats, the metrocard sliced the tube. Boot again with another dollar bill.

4:00pm-Arrive at finish line only 66ish miles later instead of the 100 miles that I was hoping to see on my odometer. Decide to drown our sorrow in beer so we make a run to the deli for provisions. A water bottle is a fitting substitute for the "brown bag". Try to figure out the return travel scenario and decide to pull the plug on this day and take the 5pm bus back to the city. Put our bikes next to the truck that we are told is taking all of the bikes for the 5pm bus.

4:55pm-Start heading towards the bus only to see that our bikes are still stacked next to the truck where we were told to put them an hour ago and people who are attempting to scramble at the last minute to get on the 5pm bus are getting there bikes on the truck but we are told ours will have to go on the next truck. Cause a HUGE stink that our bikes MUST get on this truck, we are not waiting in the city for the next truck! Finally get our way....for once.

5:15pm-Finally get on the bus after the volunteer woman decides that she was going to chose that moment to become organized and makes us get on the bus in number order of the ticket we had to get to reserve our space on the bus. Seriously? Can't you just say....hmmmm, there are 50 seats on this bus so ticket numbers 1-50 get on now? Or that would be too logical right?

7:45pm-Arrive back in the city after sitting in traffic on the LIE only to discover that the truck with our bikes on it has not arrived yet and no one can tell us how far out the truck is. Have you ever heard of cell phones people?

8:01pm-Head to the nearest bar after making friends with two girls who said they would text us when the truck showed up with the bikes.

8:30pm-Truck finally here, chug beer.

9:15pm-Wait for almost the ENTIRE truck to be unloaded and start to panic that Morgan's bike may not be on the truck. Finally the last bike to come off the truck is Morgan's. Head over to the West side path to cycle downtown since it is now pitch black outside and it is more than a little scary to ride in the dark in the city.

9:30pm-Finally arrive home to a room full of people for Sunday night dinner to immediately be handed a plate full of delicious food. Life is good!

Ummmmm, yeah so that was the story of the debacle that was my day and the reason why I am never doing one of these rides again in a big group organized fashion. I will take the train or rent a car but seriously, ride organization should not be this insane when organizing rides is your job!

REV3 Photos

2009-06-12T09:39:00.005-04:00

OK, I am sick of looking through the 19,273,490,230,420 photos that were taken at this race for pictures of myself so this is as good as it gets. I saw a lot of photos of people who looked like they were in a world of hurt so that makes me feel better that I was not the only one out there suffering! On a positive note I am feeling pretty good recovery-wise. I finally made my way back to the gym last night for an easy run and spin. I will do some swimming tomorrow and then I am doing an organized century ride with some of my cycling peeps on Sunday. Coaches instructions were to EAT A LOT on the ride so that I can recover quickly. Done and done! :)

Just before the race start, National Anthem with an amusement park in the background! My swim wave start although I can't really find myself. I positioned myself middle back so I think I am one of the purple caps in the background...really, I am...I swear!
On the bike, trying to work hard and recover before the next climb. It really was a beautiful course despite all of the climbing!

Approaching the finish line after a 13 mile death march! I was so glad to be done but also happy that I made it at this point!
FINISH! Never mind the time....the clock started with the first pro wave. My finish time was 6:40:52, just two minutes shy of my PR on a really tough course!

Race Report: Revolution3 Half IM Triathlon

2009-06-09T16:53:00.001-04:00

Phew….I don’t even really know where to start with this one, my head is definitely still spinning from the weekend and part of me can hardly believe I even made it to the finish line of this bad boy. So I guess I start where all great adventures start and that is at the beginning.

Kristin and I decided we wanted/needed/were mandated by our ever loving coach to attend the athletes practice swim on Saturday morning since our “practice swim” at the Harriman race a few weeks ago was brought to a screeching halt by a wee bit of fog. All this was well and good but the practice swim was from 7-10am which meant we had to get our booties up at 6am and to Connecticut in order to make the last hour of the practice swim. Nothing beats waking up early two days in a row for racing purposes….who needs sleep anyway? After much discussion on ‘how is Sara getting to the race’ with various scenarios including train, zip car, rental car, in-laws car, taxi and PATH train we finally settled on Kristin borrowing a car from her parents that would fit both of our bikes and I taking the PATH train to Hoboken so Kristin wouldn’t have to drive into the city to get my lame ass. Seriously I feel like getting to these races is more than half the battle so if I can get to the start line I feel like I have already won.

In order to avoid getting to Kristin’s house at an un-godly hour on Saturday morning I came over Friday night for a little sleep over. Nothing can ever be easy so it was of course raining on Friday night which only complicated my trip to the bike shop to pick up what I was hoping was a well tuned up bike (more on that later). I finally made it over to Kristin’s much later than I wanted but first leg of the journey was at least complete. We made it to Middlebury the next morning and surprisingly my navigation skills (or lack there of) actually got us to the race site with no problems. There were quite a few athletes milling about in the water and Kristin and I both saw a couple of people we knew who were doing the race that we did not know were going to be there. It is always nice to see a friendly face! We donned our wetsuits and hit the water for a swim out to the second buoy. The water was actually wetsuit perfect, it was just chilly enough that it would keep me from overheating in my wetsuit when I started swimming hard. I felt good, stroke felt good and I held onto Kristin’s feet for a little drafting practice on the way in even though I knew her feet would be long gone in the race!

We had to check in and drop off our bikes after the swim so we both decided to take a little cruise around the parking lot before racking our bikes in transition to make sure that they survived the car journey. To my surprise my shifting felt way off, it was nearly impossible for me to get into the big chain ring and it was still making the same funky sound I told the bike shop guys it was making in the highest gears. GRRRRRR. Kristin was also having some shifting issues so we dropped our bikes off at bike support for a little tune up and my bike was definitely doing better after the tune up but it was not perfect, close enough at this point though. Unfortunately all this took a little longer than we wanted it too and we still wanted to drive the bike course to see exactly what we would be up against for Sunday’s race. I am really glad that we did drive the course so I knew exactly what to expect and where but holy crap that thing was scary in a car. Strangely though I was not panicking because what are you going to do at that point? We knew going into this race that it was touted as a hard course and it certainly looked like it was living up to it’s designation. We also drove the run course and found that the hills did not stop there either…..they just kept coming and coming and coming.

We finally made it to our hotel and were now starving and tired at this point. We really just wanted a deli sandwich to be able to crash on the bed and get some rest before dinner but sadly we forgot that we were now in Watertown, CT and the best thing they had to offer was Subway and the Olive Garden. Ugh…we are so spoiled living in the city! Thinking that it was impossible that those are the only two options in town we started to drive around looking for something, ANYTHING that was not a chain restaurant to get something quick to eat. After getting hopelessly lost we finally found the mall and a Ruby Tuesdays (what do you know…another chain restaurant!) and decided to just cut our losses and eat there. This adventure would repeat itself at dinner time when we tried to meet up with a couple of people Kristin knew from her tri club and the best choice we could find was Bertucci’s which I had never been to before and can guarantee I will never be back. We made it back to the room, got ourselves set up for the morning and went to bed fairly easily after I made Kristin watch cheesy girl movies that Scott will not let me watch at home!

The morning came early but Kristin and I systematically got ourselves up and through our pre-race routine of making oatmeal in the coffee maker. I was even resourceful enough to bring plastic bowls and spoons so that we would not have to eat the oatmeal out of plastic cups with our toothbrushes! We made it to the race with plenty of time to spare and made it through transition set up, body marking and down to the water for a warm up swim. We watched the pro men and women’s waves go off and before we knew it we were being called to the beach for our wave start. Originally we were supposed to be the second to last wave which is never all that great for me since I usually lose my swim wave due to my less than stellar swim ability. If I am in one of the last waves that means I am swimming alone the whole race. If I am in an early wave then at least the swimmers from the wave behind will catch me and then I have some swim friends again.

I tried to be aggressive at the swim start and get on some feet but I can only seem to hold onto someone’s feet for a few minutes before I lose them. It also doesn’t help when the lake water is murky so you can’t see six inches in front of you to even see where the person’s feet are to even try to stay with them. I kept telling myself to swim hard, take long efficient strokes and pull myself through the water. It got a bit hectic when the men’s waves that started behind us caught up and then decided to swim over us. I was getting a bit too cocky and positioned myself right behind a pair of feet with two swimmers to my left and right. I was riding along nicely in the draft until the swimmer on my right decided to take a wide stroke and punched me in the eye. Ummm, yeah that got my attention. Thankfully it wasn’t that bad and after a few seconds of treading water and coughing up the lake water I swallowed when I was startled by the punch I was back to swimming in some clean water. It was honestly the best I have felt on a swim, I was pushing myself more than I ever had in a race and I knew coming out of the water that I had a swim PR but it was not until after the race when I looked up my past results to see that I had a PR of over 12 minutes!

Swim (1.2 miles): 45:38

Transition involved a long run up the beach and through the amusement park before we got to transition. I had stripped off most of my wetsuit on the run up to transition and surprisingly got it off my feet and ankles rather quickly when I got to my rack. Helmet, socks, shoes…go! I was ready for a long journey and a date with some hills on the bike.

T1: 3:50

The bike…..ugh. It was long, it was hot and it was hilly. When the pros are saying after the race that this was one of the hardest and most relentless courses they have ever done then you know you are justified in saying that it was hard! I felt like I was either going 30 mph down hill or 6 mph up hill the entire course. There was no time in between where you could just sit in and cruise at 20 mph. I was trying to stay within myself and not explode on the hills too early since I knew from driving the course that they were never going to end with the middle section of the course containing some of the longest and steepest climbs. It was totally a power course, you had to have the leg strength to get it done and that was all there was to it. I kept telling myself to focus on nutrition and keep eating and drinking since I knew that was the only thing that was going to get me through this long day. The aid stations and volunteers out on the course were great, they did a wonderful job of handing out bottles and getting us what we needed. Kudos to the first time race for having aid stations logistics figured out!

My confidence in the sport usually comes in the bike leg when I get out of the water pretty beat up from a generally not so great swim performance and then start to pass all of the “swim champions” on the bike. This race, not so much. I think that this was probably compounded by the fact that I had a decent swim this race and that there were men’s wave that started behind me and on a course like this the power men are going to climb faster than me. I passed the mile 40 sign and I wanted OFF my bike. My lower back hurt from riding down in my drops to try and power up the hills and stay as aero as possible on the short down hill sections that did exist! I knew I only had 16 miles to go and thought I could do them in less than an hour. Ugh, I am here to tell you that those were the longest 16 miles of my life. And then I passed the mile 50 sign and those became the longest 6 miles of my life. My legs were screaming, my glutes hurt, my hammys hurt, my stomach muscles hurt, any muscle that is used to generate any sort of climbing power hurt. Again, I wanted OFF my bike.

Two guys came flying past me in the last few miles and I started to get really angry….what were they saving all that energy for? All the rest of the riders were spinning up the hills with whatever nothing they had left and these guys are standing and pushing the pedals. Thankfully one of the guys turned around and said that they were not in the race so they were riding on fresh legs. Thank god because I was about to kill them! I finally roll into transition but I know the day is not over….we still have to run!

Bike (56 miles): 3:33:08

I didn’t want to stop moving in transition because I knew that if I did I would sit down and never get up again. I should have taken the time to put on more sun screen but crazy race top tan lines for the rest of the summer will be punishment enough for that.

T2: 2:38

So running now, huh? OK…legs what do you got….nothing…..great, that works for me. The first couple of miles were down hill which was nice but I also knew that this is an out and back course so I would have to be running up those hills at mile 9-10….not so great. I just settled in and found a pace that was comfortable for the moment. One of the volunteers yelled that I looked good, I gave him “the look” and he said that my form looked good and comfortable just hang onto it. Ummm, thanks but I’m not sure that is entirely possible. We made a right turn and the hills started coming and coming. And then the dirt road came with more hills that were faster to walk up then run up. I felt like I was scaling a mountain. My legs just had NO power left in them to run up hill after using every drop of power I had to make it through the bike course. I felt like I had lactic acid up to my throat that is how bad my legs hurt. I decided then and there that my plan was to conserve. There was no sense in trying to run up mountains only to be reduced to walking more of the race than I wanted later. So I would walk up most of the hills and then run with whatever I had left on the rollers, “flats” and down hills. Although the down hills started killing my quads just as much as the up hills so really it was a no win battle that I was fighting.

To add insult to injury the course has you running past the finish line area at mile 10-11. Brutal. My stomach had started to revolt against any more gel at this point, I just felt bloated and ready to be DONE. Scary enough running was feeling a little easier than walking so I just sort of put myself in the zone and kept moving. Surprisingly the mile 12 sign appeared and I knew I only had one mile to go. Ok, 10 minutes longer….you can do this. And then the bastards decided that you would climb one more mountain on mile 13. Seriously? There was a photographer half way up the hill which was the only thing that made me run a few steps….I’m sure that race photo is going to be priceless….. I finally hit the 13 mile mark and made the turn to the finish line. It was sort of anti-climatic since the PA system was out when I came across so I didn’t hear my name called out until a few minutes later when I was heading towards the bathroom. Hmmmm, well that is a glorious way to cap off this day if I don’t say so myself!

Run (13.1 miles): 2:15:36

Total (70.3 miles): 6:40:52

I couldn’t do math in my head for when Kristin would be coming across the line and I didn’t want to miss her so I got some food and just milled about the finish line area getting even more sun burnt in the process. The pro awards were happening so I watched that for bit and felt pretty proud of myself for completing a course that even Mirinda Carfrae and Matty Reed (pro women and men’s field winners, respectively) said was one of the toughest races they have ever done. It was a really well run race for a first year race, although for the entrance fee I would have been PISSED had it not been. We got a really nice technical long sleeve finishers shirt at the finish line that everyone seemed to be wearing around after the race as a badge of honor.

My finishing time wound up being only 2 minutes shy of a PR from Musselman with a bike split only 15 minutes longer on a much tougher course. Putting everything into perspective, I’d say that makes this a pretty darn successful day. I know I have taken a lot of strides this year in my race performance and even on this tough course it shines through but there is always something to work on and something to learn in the process which is why I always keep coming back to doing more and more races.

Harriman Photos!

2009-05-28T19:29:00.008-04:00

A random assortment of images from Harriman triathlon.....er, duathlon....

Proof that someone actually has worn a Snuggie to a sporting event as advertised...
Pre-race Kristin and Sara ready to rock it! Interesting shot of people milling about before the first run in the fogLake where we were supposed to swim....what, can't you see it?Run into the fog brave souls!Heading in from the first 1.5 mile run....feeling good!In T1...look coach, I did do a gel right when I got on the bike!Heading out of T1 for a hilly 29 mile ride...I'm gunna get you suckers!Kristin heading out on the bike and looking fabulous!Scott taking creepy cool fog photos between taking a nap in the car while we are out on the bike courseComing in off the bike...still feeling good but legs are definitely feelin' those hills!Using carbon fiber bikes for support so I don't get my feet wet...it's cool, right?Heading out on the run.....go legs go!Kristin heading out on the run...still in a blanket of fog...creepy, very creepyOn the home stretch...trying to kick but got nothing leftBooking it to the FINISH and 5th place in my age group! Whooo hooo!
Kristin pushing hard to the finish!

Thanks to Scott for coming to this race and being the Sherpa extraordinaire as well as a great photographer! He was duly rewarded with many Walter's hot dogs!

Crossing Over

2009-05-21T10:26:00.003-04:00

Do you think if I watch this video enough it will fix my cross over in my free style stroke? Why is it that every time I focus on fixing one thing in my stroke it causes some other new problem? Ahhhhhhh...why can't I just have everything come together at once!

Race Report: Harryman Olympic Distance Triathlon (Duathlon)

2009-05-18T14:53:00.003-04:00

After a bit of poking and prodding of the husband I got him to agree to be my chauffer/sherpa extraordinaire for the weekend. I think it was really just the promise of Walter’s hot dogs after the race that eventually convinced him but I’ll take it either way. We had to borrow a car from his parents to get to the race (Side note: racing is the only time I wish I had a car in this city and not having one makes getting to the race half the battle!) so I loaded up bags with everything we would need for the weekend, sent Scott in a cab to Grand Central with all of our crap and I rode my bike to the train station. Ingenuity will always win the prize! We rendezvoused at the ticket machine and actually made our train with time to spare….SHOCKING! The train conductors are less than thrilled to see bikes on the train so I was excited that we scored one of the handicapped seats where I could move my bike out of the way and not cause any issues. Thankfully the conductor did not blink an eye at my bike so I felt like I had won a small personal victory there.

We had a nice dinner with Scott’s dad on Friday night and then it was home to get some sleep. The start time for this race was not super early which was also good motivation for convincing Scott he wanted to come. I got up early, had my oatmeal, took some time for myself and prepared everything I needed for the race day. I finally got Scott up and he was less than thrilled at my now wide awake and chipper attitude. I wanted to get to the race site plenty early in order to get in the water to “warm up” to the freezing cold water that made me panic last year. We pulled into the parking lot with plenty of time to spare but as soon as we got there we realized we were sitting in a dense blanket of fog and it started to rain pretty hard. I decided to go and register before I lost my nerve and then came back to the car to sit there willing the rain to stop. I did as much as I could from inside the car to get ready and thankfully the rain started to let up and turn into a light drizzle. Thank goodness that was really all we saw of the heavy rain for the rest of the day but the fog was here to stay. This race has a half and Olympic distance event and as soon as I got to transition I heard that they have cancelled the swim for the half and will likely cancel it for the Olympic as well if the fog does not burn off in the next hour.

A year ago I would have been delighted to hear this but for some reason I really wanted to swim today. I think part of it is because I have worked really hard on my swim over the off season and I think the other part is that I wanted to exercise some of the demons I faced in this swim last year to prove to myself that I am tough! Well, what’s done is done so let’s move on. OK….now this is a duathlon (run-bike-run) and I have never done one of those before so that is new and exciting stuff. I was also now at the race way too early since I didn’t have to swim warm up and I was feeling a bit restless. I took my bike out for a quick spin to make sure it was shifting and all was well after the car trip. Then laced up my run shoes and did a couple loops around the parking lot to warm up. Before I knew it I had found Kristin after a bit of drama (I thought she had bailed on me because I couldn’t find her but really I’m just an idiot for not seeing her in transition!) and it was time to run. This race is fairly small for a NYC area race so they set up two orange cones for the start line and shouted go….I love it…so ghetto is a fabulous way!

Like I said I have never done a duathlon before so I didn’t exactly know how to pace the first 1.5 mile run. I went out with Kristin and we were running comfortable. There was a slight uphill and I kept pushing, I think I lost Kristin somewhere in the crowd at that point but I was sort of in the zone and didn’t realize that she was not there anymore until I looked over and she was gone. I was feeling good and my legs were zippy so I pushed a little harder on the way back.

Run-1.5 miles: 12:52 (8:35 pace)
T1: 1:29

The bike course for this race is fairly notorious; it is a 14 mile loop with 1,500 vertical feet of climbing per loop. We started climbing right out of transition and it took me a few minutes to settle in and get into a rhythm. I took a gel right when I got on the bike and then another one at the end of each loop, about 45 minutes apart. I was feeling a little un-sure of my bike fitness this year. I had been riding all spring with the same training group/program that I have for the last three years but this year my group seemed to be kicking my ass on a more regular basis. I was certainly not off the front of the climbs like I had been in the past and I thought that was due to me not being in as good of bike shape since I have really been focusing on my swim and run over the off season. Well I guess I proved myself wrong because even in the wet road conditions I took 8 minutes off my bike time from last year! On this course I will take that any day! I think that the riders in my training group this year were so strong that they were pushing me to be a better rider as well. I settled in on the bike and pushed a BIG gear where I could and then dropped back to spin up the hills when I felt myself pushing too hard in the hills.

There is a technical curving downhill section at the back half of the course which I took super cautious since I am a nervous descender anyway but was also being extra cautious because of the wet road conditions. I had to smile at myself a bit for knowing this course really well because there was a guy who I was playing a bit of cat and mouse with on the bike ride leading up to this point. Really we were going about the same pace but had to keep passing each other so that we would not be penalized for drafting. He went flying past me on the downhill section because I was being careful but I knew I would be able to get him back in the hills. After you come out of the downhill section you immediately have to down shift into a low gear because you have to go around a 180 degree turn and then you start climbing straight up the final 2 mile climb. If you don’t down shift before the turn you are not able to get into a low enough gear fast enough to start climbing and you wind up dropping your chain. Hee, hee…..guess what Mr. Speedster did…..dropped his chain. I flew past him spinning up the hill and that was the last I saw of him because he had to stop to put his chain back on. Small victories!

Bike-29 miles: 1:48:53 (16.0 mph average)
T2: 1:37

My legs felt heavy going out onto the run but I also felt strangely comfortable in my un-comfort……make sense? Yeah, me neither but I went with it. The run course is an out and back along a rolling hills course with some of the rollers a bit more pronounced than others. You climb a fairly big hill right out transition and I thought to myself that running this hill downhill on the last mile is going to feel pretty darn good! I tried to keep myself steady and under control on the way uphill and push myself on the downhills. I was feeling good but I was breathing and working hard. My legs were responding so I just tried to find a rhythm and hold on until the finish line! I hit the 5 mile mark and pushed it with everything I had left. There was a guy up ahead on the road and I WANTED to catch him. We made a slight left turn coming into the finishing chute and I thought I had him but as soon as we made the turn he started to kick and I couldn't stay with him. He was good motivation mentally for that last mile because it was over before I knew it and it was a FAST mile (for me!)

Run- 10K/6.2 miles: 52:00 (8:23 pace)
Total: 2:56:51

Scott and I scavenged for some post race goodies to hold us over until the as promised Walter’s hot dogs could be eaten. We waited for Kristin to run in and gave it our best effort cheering for her on the way in! As we were packing up Scott mentioned that he didn’t think many women crossed the finish line before me. I honestly didn’t think much of it because the field is always so strong at NYC area events that I am in very little “danger” of placing in my age group. So needless to say I was SHOCKED when I checked the results and saw that I got 5th in my age group! That is my best race result ever and I could not be more happy and proud of what I have accomplished! I have worked hard this off season and it is really exciting to see it all come together on a race day! Next up: REV3 half ironman…..here I come!

2009 SIG-gie Awards

2009-05-14T09:29:00.004-04:00

The 2009 B-18 SIG has come to an end and I am feeling the same way that I have the last three years.....a mix of sadness and relief.

Sadness because I will miss riding with these really amazing people every weekend and the fact that I did not have to think at all about if/when/where I was going to ride for the past 10 weeks because it was all planned out for me already. There is definitely a sense of ease about the whole program when all you have to do it show up and do the work. Being a leader of group this year added a bit more responsibility to look after all the riders in the group (even though we left a rider at a rest stop by accident this year!), make sure everyone knew where they were going and what they needed for that weekends ride.

Relief because I will get to ride where I want, when I want and for as long as I want (or at least as long as my coach wants!) for the rest of the summer. Sometimes you just don't feel like riding 85 miles in the rain but if that is what the group is doing that is what I had to do. I will also not miss being out there for 6-8 hours to get in 60 miles because it takes so much longer to do everything with a group of 15 cyclists rather than a group of 3-4. I will also not miss the bonking or under trained rider that seemed to show up every week thinking that they could ride 75 miles in a day after sitting on their couch doing nothing for 2 weeks because they missed a ride the previous weekend.

All that aside one of my favorite parts of being a leader this year was being able to award our riders with the end of year "siggie" awards! And without further ado here are this year's winners:
Best Climber - Matt

There is nothing more defeating than having Matt sprint past you on a hill when you are grinding it out in your smallest gear and he rolls past you like he is out on a Sunday joy ride. I aspire to climb with the ease and power that he does.

Award - 5 lb brick signed with all of our names for his jersey pocket so that we can weigh him down on the hills!

Best (down hill) Sprinter - Bradley

We also deemed Bradley "the boulder" because he moved like a rock in the flats and up hills but would fly by you like a rolling boulder on the down hills. He is a very aggressive down hill rider and if I was being timid and braking on the hills I would lose his wheel and not be able to catch the group again.

Award - goggles for improved aerodynamics :)

Best Wrench - Brian

Really my co-leader and friend Ed deserves the best wrench award since he fixed every single one of our MANY flats over the 10 weeks but Brian had the mis-fortune of breaking his carbon fiber seat post on a ride! I unfortunately (or is it fortunately?) missed this ride but I am told he had to ride on the broken seat post until they got to the next bike shop and he could buy another one. Of course the only choices were a $250 seat post or a $40 one....can you guess which one he chose?

Award - duct tape to fix his seat post in a pinch next time he breaks it!

Mrs. GPS - Lisa

At the start of the SIG both Ed and Lisa were debating the pros and cons of buying a Garmin GPS unit and by the 3rd week they both owned one. Although this super fancy toy did not save us from getting lost or taking wrong turns it did look cool!

Award - paper map of the NYC bike routes and paths

Mr. Congeniality - Arvi

Arvi was such an interesting guy because he is one of those people that can start a conversation with anyone at any time. Usually you were in the middle of NYC traffic trying to navigate pot holes and not get hit by a car while he was trying to carry on a conversation with you about your family history but that is what made him fun to ride with. His best performance came when he showed up to our last ride after being out drinking until 3:30am hung over looking green but still managed to chat his way through the entire ride.

Award - shot glasses for pre and post ride drinking fun!

Best Wheel - Tim

Tim was moved into our group a few weeks into the series since we had lost some riders and the group coordinator was trying to even out the numbers in the groups. He fit right into our group and was such a strong and dependable rider each week. I never saw him struggling or pulling way off the front he was just always consistent and strong.

Award - Play-doh for his ability to "mold" into our group

Most Aggressive Rider - Erica

Erica was a bit of a character, she had a steel touring bike that weighed more than all of our carbon fiber bikes put together and she rode with pedal cages instead of clipless pedals. She also rode down in the drops on a group ride more than I have ever seen, I tend to stay away from the drops for ease of access to my brakes on group rides but she had no fear!

Award - water bottle since she rode the whole time with Poland Spring water bottles that you buy at the bodega....old school but not always a good thing!

Most Improved Rider - Sam

By FAR Sam was our most improved rider and that is because he put the time in to get better. One of our first weeks we had an awful ride where we decided to cut the planned route short and climb a monster hill to bee-line back to the city. Sam had to walk his bike up part of that hill to make it up but on our last ride he was attacking riders off the front of the hills.

Award - January's "how to improve" issue of Bicycling Magazine

Our grads surprised us with a list of "Everything I needed to know I learned from my SIG leader" of not so inspiring things that we taught them over the series. Some of them were really funny. And they gave us a framed photo from the finish of our last ride enjoying our favorite post ride recovery beverage of a "few" beers!

And now onto triathlon season.....Harryman Oly tri, here I come!

Passing Go and Collecting My PR

2009-04-29T16:30:00.002-04:00

So I know you have all been at the edge of your seat waiting with bated breath to see how my PR smashing attempt went at the More Magazine Half Marathon this past weekend. Well....a PR goes down in the books for me but I guess it has to go down as "unofficial".....boooo.

Here is the long and short of it. The race was supposed to be a marathon and a half marathon. When I got to the start they were making announcements that they were cancelling the full marathon and turning the half marathon into a “fun run” due to the predicted temps in the high 80's. I was totally bummed because usually when they turn races into a fun run they shorten them to like a 5K but for this one they were still letting us run the full half mary but they were not going to chip time it. Which totally did not make any sense to me, if you are still going to let us run the whole race why don't you just chip time it! So I guess my PR is “unofficial” because it is just from my watch time but I think that still counts, no?

I am guessing that every race from here on out is going to be so afraid of another Chicago marathon from two years ago happening again so any race that has unusually warm weather will be paranoid and cancel or shorten the event. It was definitely warm at the start….I was sweating just standing there….but it did not heat up to the high 80’s until mid afternoon when the race was well over. It was mid to high 70’s when I finished which is still hot for this time of year but not absurd.

Here are my splits in annoying detail more for my posterity just to remember the PAIN of this race!
Mile 1 - 9:09
Mile 2 - 9:26
Mile 3 - 9:04
Mile 4 - 8:36 (what!!!!)
Mile 5 - 9:13
Mile 6 - 8:55
Mile 7 - 8:34 (what!!!!)
Mile 8 - 9:24
Mile 9 - 8:58
Mile 10 - 9:27
Mile 11 - 9:39 (fading BIG time)
Mile 12 - 9:02
Mile 13 & .1 - 9:55
Total: 1:59:27

As you can see my race was sort of all over the place which was a little rough. I wanted to make sure I was really getting water & Gatorade in at the water stops so I walked them mostly….more so at the last half of the race when I not only needed the water but the rest as well. So my miles that did not have a rest stop were generally way too fast and my miles that did have one were way too slow. I had a ton of highs and lows where I was feeling like crap and then the gel would kick in and I would feel good again.

I was also getting the shivers the last half of the race which I assume was from the heat, dehydration and dumping cold water on my head but I was worried that my body was going to shut me down. I would back off the pace until I would feel better and then keep going since my legs were feeling pretty good for most of the race it was just my body that didn’t like the effort and heat. It is always a bit scary to look down at your arms and see goose bumps and touch your stomach and feel cold when it is almost 80 degrees out!

I was playing a bit of cat and mouse the second half of the race with two girls who seemed to be running a pretty consistent race at my pace so that was a nice mental break for me. I would get ahead of them and then I would have to slow down and they would catch up to me. I would run with them until I came good again and I would run ahead again. The last mile in this race is really mentally challenging for me because you can see the finish line at the start of the mile from across the park but you have to loop down and around to it. I felt terrible the last mile and was just trying to hang on. The two girls passed me with .5 of a mile to go and I decided I had to hang onto them in order to beat 2 hours. I did it and almost lost my cookies at the finish line trying. The only thing that saved me was a girl who crossed the line just after me started throwing up and the sound of her retching made me hold it in!

My “unofficial” watch time was 1:59:27 so a PR for the books but definitely not the well executed race that I wanted to have.

Back For Another Crack

2009-04-25T18:03:00.002-04:00

I feel like I have learned so much in this past year about Sara as the endurance athlete. Last year at around this time I was pretty scared to run in my first ever half marathon. Three half marathons later with two of them coming at the end of 70.3's has me actually looking forward to running a stand alone half mary. As I have said recently my running has been feeling good and strong so far this year. I feel like the early season base mileage that I have been getting in this year over last year is only going to help me in running down my half marathon PR tomorrow.

The only thing that has me scared this year is the weather. Temps are predicted to be in the mid to high 80's tomorrow. Ordinarily I would be super excited about the early season warm weather but me and running and the heat are not exactly a great combo. Especially when I have been doing most of my long runs in hat, mittens and at least two layers. There is nothing I can do about the weather so I am going to stop thinking about it and just hope that I run fast enough to be finished before it starts heating up! I will report back tomorrow with the race results as I once again try for the super sexy goal.....

B-SIG Adventures

2009-04-22T09:59:00.006-04:00

Here is a quick photo review of some of the amazing rides I have done over the past couple of weeks. We have had some beautiful days for cycling already this year which have pretty much been the definition of why I love to ride. We have a few more weeks to ride and some of my favorite rides to come. Unfortunately I will have to miss the ride this weekend so I don't have to try and run a half marathon PR attempt on legs that have 70+ miles of cycling in them!

Sitting on the harbor wall at the lunch stop at Mamaroneck

Enjoying the Mamaroneck Harbor view although a bit windy that day

Post ride "recovery" beverages at Dinosaur BBQ....pretty sweet dive bar in the Bronx

Enjoying a break and picnic lunch in Oyster Bay on Long Island

Jamaica, Queens most "famous" bar.....they didn't quite know what to do with us when we rolled in there with spandex and bicycles

Running Circles

2009-04-16T11:26:00.001-04:00

It has been awhile since I have been on here and rest assured that training has been happening, just no time to blog about it. The season is definitely ramping up quickly with the volume piling up, especially the run volume for next weekend’s half marathon where I am hoping to take down my 2 hour PR. When you have 10+ hour back to back training weeks and working out now feels like your part time job you know that race season is fast approaching.

I feel good, tired but good. I have been making a big effort to just stay consistent with my training, put in the hours, hit the intervals and heart rates where I am supposed to and trust that progress will happen on the other side. And you know what, progress has happened. I feel GREAT about my running right now (other than this morning that is……). My last couple of long runs have felt….dare I say it……easy. I am always scared to push past that level of comfort where I know I could run at that “easier” pace all day because what happens when you collapse in a heap and can’t finish because you have gone out too hard? Well….how will you ever know unless you try, right? I had a great run on my schedule a couple of weekends ago where I had to run the last third at above race pace. So I “commuted” two thirds of the way through the run and still felt really good. Pushed HARD for the last third and you know what…..I came out OK on the other side, stronger and more confident that I can push through it. I am really looking forward to the half marathon next weekend to put my new confidence to the test and see what happens when I just trust and let my body show me what it can do.

Last weekend my schedule got a little bit out of whack due to some steady rain fall that we had all day on Saturday and Easter on Sunday. My cycling group ride was re-scheduled for Sunday due to the rain but being that it was Easter and the fact that my mother in-law would kick me out of the family if I missed Easter celebrations to ride my bike I had to figure something else out. I emailed my coach asking what I should do because I really didn’t think I could last the 3.5 hours of riding that was on my schedule inside at the gym. I didn’t hear back from her before I had to head out to a spin class so I figured I would do the spin class and then try and ride for as long as I could stand it after the class was over. After 1.5 hours of riding I was toast and called it a day. I was disappointed that I couldn’t last longer but after you have been doing your long rides outside for a few steady weeks to go back inside is pretty much the definition of torture. I got back home to find an email from my coach that said “Spin 1-2 hrs or skip it...yup I said that :)”

Really….ugh. Well I guess I can stop feeling guilty about only lasting 1.5 hours but the thought of being given a free pass to skip a workout and not taking advantage stings pretty badly! I guess I can say that in my next race when I am flying up hill on my bike past my competitors it was that 1.5 hours of hill climb spin class torture that made me stronger than them! Silver lining……in search of it. Easter Sunday rolls around and we are up at Scott’s parent’s house in Westchester. It is actually a beautiful morning, sunny and a little crisp, perfect running weather. I have been around my in-laws house enough to know the area fairly well but my knowledge really does not extend that far beyond the route from the train station to my in-laws house. So whenever I have to run when I am up at their house I tend to have to do a lot of loops or out and backs in order to get in enough time especially if it is a long run on my schedule. Sunday’s run was 80 minutes so I knew I pretty much had to do at least two loops. The other thing about running in Westchester is the fact that it is MUCH hillier than the greenway path where I generally run in Manhattan.

So I knew I was facing at least two trips up the monstrous hill that leads into and out of the neighborhood. But what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, right? The other thing about running loops is that you are never more than half a mile away from where you started so it is very tempting to just quit when you are running past the house for the 11th time. It required a lot of mental strength and self control to tell myself to keep going…..just one more hill…..10 minutes more…one mile….go, go, go. I was thinking of calling it quits with about 10 minutes to go but realized I was still feeling pretty good and I didn’t want to cheat myself so I ran past their driveway one more time and was hoping that one of the side streets cut back up. I found a side street to take me back to the street they live on but I also found a hill…..ugh. One more mental challenge….go, no walking. I made it back to the house and felt really good. I didn’t wear a HR monitor but if I can feel that relaxed and under control in my hilly half marathon coming up then I am going to be pretty psyched to see my finishing time. Keep your fingers crossed!

Bad Things Come in Three's

2009-03-29T09:54:00.002-04:00

or in my case.....4,5 or 6's.

The infamous bike series, the B-SIG, continues and this weekend's ride was doomed from the start. My friend Ed and I were on our own for leading since our third MUCH more experienced leader (ie. he actually knows the routes) was out of town on business. I woke up in the morning to over cast skies and drizzling rain and was almost relived because I figured they would cancel the ride. I ran to the computer to check the message board to look for the inevitable ride cancellation notice and found that the board was frozen....super. A few calls and emails later and I found out they just delayed the start of the ride by an hour. Great, now that I am fully awake I guess I'll just make coffee and commit to being awake at this point.

Thankfully the rain did stop and it actually turned out to be a beautiful day to ride so in that respect I am glad that the group organizers stuck with the weather and made us get out there. But the weather was far from done in its quest to ruin my day. With the rain comes extra road debris that gets kicked up and with extra road debris the potential for getting debris stuck in your tires which leads to an eventual puncture is quadrupled. Lets hope that we have gotten all of our flat tires out of the way for the year because we had three on this ride, two of which occurred 5 minutes apart. So annoying! In the first two rides of the year my group has rolled into the lunch stop first on both rides, to say that we were by far the last group to arrive at lunch today would be an understatement.

It had already been a long day and it was only going to get longer from here. And in the back of my head the whole time were these words from my coach "Ok, I know you gotta do that group ride but honestly this week I would cut it short & get extra rest. No 5 hour rides today :)" Ummmm, sorry coach to blatantly disregard your coaching but it doesn't look like a short ride is in the cards for today!

So I mentioned that the day was only going to get longer and I knew this because of a new rider that was moved into our group this week. She was moved down from the A-SIG because she couldn't handle the speeds. One would think that if she was participating in the more advanced cycling group that she is a good rider but just couldn't keep up with the group so at our slower speeds she should be one of the better riders or at least equal to everyone else....right? Ummmmm, very wrong. I was riding at the back of the group as sweep for the first half of the ride and was noticing big gaps forming in the pace line at her. The rest of the group would pass her and then she would be right in front of me and eventually we would be at least 100 yards off the back traveling at about 11 mph. I was trying to coach her through gearing and accelerating to catch back onto the pack but she just didn't have it.

A big part of the problem was that she didn't have clipless pedals but honestly that wasn't all of it. She had to get off her bike and walk up hills at more than one point in the ride and if you have to do that then you certainly do not belong in our group because that just isn't fair to all the other riders to have to wait for you at every turn. As a reprieve from riding off the back with her Ed offered to switch with me and I would lead the group to the half way point and he would ride with her. That sounded good to me but the problem is I really did not know this ride very well. It has been a year since I was on did this ride and honestly when I'm not leading I just zone out and ride. And as Kristin and Scott can attest to my sense of direction and map reading skills have little to be desired. So two miles into my leading I already had us lost. We were riding towards and entrance ramp onto a highway and I obviously knew that wasn't right! We figured out where we went wrong and turned back but now before our 3rd flat tire stop of the day.

I didn't want to get us lost again so I offered to ride off the back with our struggling Siggie and Ed took the group ahead to various intersections and waited for us. Needless to say we were only 3/4 of the way done with the ride and it was already 4:30pm. Ed made the call for us to deviate from the cue sheet and be-line it the fastest way back home on route 9W. He had dinner reservations at 6:00pm and at this rate it looked like he would miss them if we didn't high tail it home. The problem was that the direct route back included a climb up a monster hill. We told everyone to climb it at their own pace and meet us at the top. It was a long steep hill but nothing crazy if you just take your time and spin up it, although I was glad to have a granny gear on the last very steep section. I knew our struggling Siggie would not be able to make it up that hill without walking her bike so I offered to wait for her at the top so Ed could take the rest of the group ahead and get home.

I stayed with her until we hit Hudson Terrace which is the road leading to the GW and I figured she was good from there. I rode ahead and crossed the bridge only to be faced with my final disaster of the day. There is a SUPER precarious ramp leading down from the bridge that includes two steep inclines with a 180 degree turn around in the middle. The ramp is barely wide enough for two "in control" bikes to pass. I was coming down the ramp and I saw a guy coming up that was struggling. He and I both reached the turn around at the same point and in order to avoid a head on collision with him I had to grab the wall. But the wall happens to be a really rough concrete retaining wall and I managed to take the skin off of three of my knuckles in the process. I didn't realize it had happened until I looked down and I was bleeding......lovely.

I finally got home at almost 6pm after an all together way too long of a day. I ordered Chinese food because I was STARVING at this point and then met some friends for some drinks to re-tell the craziness that was my day...... Good thing I had bloody knuckles to prove my story was true otherwise I wouldn't believe this hell either!

Top 5

2009-03-18T09:25:00.002-04:00

....signs that you rode long last weekend for the first time this year

Your forearms hurt from braking down steep hills and stopping short at red lights, something you have not done on your trainer all winter.
Every piece of your winter cycling gear in laying in a heap on your bedroom floor right where you stripped it off to jump in the shower to get warm again after your ride.
Your bike has a lovely crusting of road salt on it from riding on the roads that never seems to go away completely no matter how many times you clean it.
Your thighs have a new dull ache to them that you have not experienced in many months that is only personified when you walk down stairs.
There is now a smorgasbord of water bottles, drink mix (I am currently featuring HEED and Acclerade) and nutrition laying around your kitchen that is just waiting for next week's ride.

It's a Group Effort

2009-03-13T17:43:00.002-04:00

Although I do this crazy sport of triathlon for fun and as a release of sorts from my day to day life at times training can be a bit lonely. After you grind out mile after mile of slow base running or lap after lap of swimming to try and correct your form there is only so much ‘fun’ that can be squeezed out of these daily activities. That is why I am super pumped, stoked, excited, amped (too much?) to head out on my first of many long group rides tomorrow. I get a lot out of riding in a group and I find that is the place where I have really found the best in myself over the past few years. At first I was nervous of a lot of factors that I couldn’t control in my first group ride but then I started to learn more about the dynamic of exactly how to ride in and work with a group and consequently started to love it. I felt powerful, I felt strong and most of all I felt FAST!

Tomorrow also marks the first of many group rides over the next couple of months that I will be leading. We are headed to Westwood, NJ…..over the George Washington Bridge and head north. 45 miles, a new group of 12 cyclists and hours of turning pedals to clear my head to refocus myself to find the fun and discover why I love this sport.

Barbaresco vs. Barolo

2009-03-11T10:57:00.005-04:00

One of the extremely amazing things about living in NYC is that you are presented with opportunities that do not exist in say....Piedmont, North Dakota. And that is one of the many reasons why I LOVE living in this city. A few weeks ago a friend emailed Scott and I asking if we wanted to go to a wine tasting dinner. Being that we love all things Italian, especially Italian wines and throw in some Italian food on top of that and you've got a HELL YES we want to come!

So last night was the night of the much anticipated throw down of Barbaresco vs. Barolo. It was a joint event between the restaurant and the wine shop to celebrate all things amazing in the Piedmont region of Italy. The food paired seamlessly with the wine and each course and glass opened up so many unique flavors and smells. The collection of wines that they brought together were some of the most amazing vintages in wine making history and from vineyards that only produce a limited amount of wine each year. It was a really special experience and I am so glad that I was able to be there and appreciate every second of it.

So without further ado here was the menu for the evening:

Capon Tonnato

pulled hen & veal tongue, celery, beets, poppy seeds, creamy tuna sauce

Veal & Porcini Lasagna

wilted spinach, veal jus, parmesan

Braised Short Ribs

robiolina-potato crema, green apple, hazelnuts

Barbaresco 'Annata' Giorgio Pelissero, 2000

Barbaresco 'Annata' Giorgio Pelissero, 1999

Barbaresco 'Bricco de Neueis' Dante Rivetti, 1998

Barbaresco 'Vigneto Nervo' Elvio Pertinace, 1997

Barbaresco 'Bricco de Neueis' Riserva Dante Rivetti, 1996

Barolo 'Mondoca di Bussia' Oddero, 2000

Barolo 'Parej' Icardi, 1999

Barolo 'Rocce Rivera' Oddero, 1998

Barolo, Eraldo Viberti, 1997

Barolo, Oddero, 1996

My 30+1

2009-03-05T17:09:00.003-05:00

Today I start my 31st year of life (or am I starting my 32nd year?....I’ll stick with 31 for now…..) Crazy, huh? It is even more personified since the aforementioned joining of FB and every person I ever knew in high school is contacting me and referencing that it has been almost 13 years since we have spoken….blink, blink. Seriously? I’m not that old so how did I graduate from high school 13 years ago?

My birthday has been pretty enjoyable thus far I must admit. It essentially started for me last night when I came home exhausted and starving from masters swim to find my husband cooking beef tenderloin, spazele (homemade!) and green beans for dinner. And as midnight rung in we were still doing dishes to clean up the mess he (we) made cooking. Of course we also had to indulge in watching the shameless reunion show of Top Chef and of course catch up on the latest drama of Lost. I wasn’t holding out too much hope given my rather late bed time that I would be jumping out of bed to hit the gym this morning as was my plan.

Shockingly I actually had a decent amount of alertness when I woke up and only hit the snooze once so I forced myself out of bed this morning. I have found that the key to success for me to make it to the gym in the morning is to have my workout clothes already laid out and my gym bag packed for what I need for the workout the night before. If I don’t do this it becomes just another excuse for me to stay in bed because I KNOW I am never going to find anything that I need so why even bother? See…it doesn’t take much. So I rolled out of bed and into my clothes and hit the door before I even knew if I was awake or not. I pulled out the bike workout from my bag (see! It was packed the night before!) and got to work. I started adding up the intervals and realized that ELF is not only bad at adding up yardage in swim workouts her bike workouts are also victim to her bad math! The workout called for 45 minutes on the bike but the intervals added up to 60 minutes. In reality not such a big deal but when you are also trying to fit in a 20 minute run off the bike before you have to head back home and get ready for work and now your bike workout is 15 minutes longer that causes a wee bit of a problem.

I cut the bike workout 5 minutes short and then ran to the treadmill and got in 15 minutes instead of 20 so I figure that is close enough….what is 10 minutes between friends on your birthday? I know I am the worst about getting up in the morning and getting my workouts in but I must admit it feels really good to have my whole day and evening to myself without any other responsibility! I keep saying every month that I am going to be better about getting up in the morning to workout but this time I mean it…..(we’ll see). So now that I have this lovely evening in front of me with no responsibility to speak of I am going to spend it with some friends enjoying a few beverages to ring in my 30+1 year.

I have another big weekend of workouts and hopefully I live to tell the tale. Saturday will include the +/-25 mile “time trial” to divide my cycling group into different speed groups. I am leading the 18mph group so let’s hope that I can at least sustain that! Sunday I have an almost 2 hour run on my schedule. Note to self: I need to figure out some fun route to run because although Lady Liberty is cool and all I am getting a little sick of running around the lower loop of Manhattan. (poor me, right?) Also of note is the huge box of goodies that came in the mail this week from Hammer Nutrition. Can you say someone now has a year’s supply of gels and HEED…..aka a year’s supply of calories that you don’t need to chew to consume. Lovely…..in a gross way…..but necessary.

OK…which way to the bar?

FYI: This is not only my 30+1 birthday but my 100+1 post.....

Run Commuting, Photo Shoots and Swimming with an Olympian

2009-03-01T16:21:00.004-05:00

Otherwise known as my ROCKSTAR Saturday. And no, I was not fueled by Rockstar energy drink, I was fueled by peanut butter thank you very much.

I had an orientation meeting for my bike group on Saturday morning at 11am and I also had an hour run to get in. I decided to make the most of my commuting time to get my run in since it would likely take me almost an hour to get to the upper west side via weekend service subway travel anyway! So I made a deal with Morgan to act as courier for me to bring a bag to the bike meeting with all of the rest of the crap I would need to make it through this day. The run started out OK, it was cold out but I was doing fine. I hit the West Side Highway path and turned North and was faced with a wall of wind. It seriously felt like I wasn't moving anymore because the wind was so strong! But I had to keep moving because I had to get to the meeting on time.....always good to have a fixed arrival time to force you to keep running!

I sat through the meeting and survived the weird introduction of the leaders segment.....ugh, I hate speaking in front of a group! I met up with Kristin and Cheri after the meeting and we booked it out of there early to make it to Chelsea Piers and met up with Marty for our run photo shoot. So, a couple of weeks ago "the NY girls" as ELF likes to call us, got an email from our coach saying that since she has never met us before it would help if we could video tape our swim and run so she could help us with any drills to correct our form. The idea originally horrified me but I figured that safety in numbers would make the experience a little less painful so we organized a group photo shoot.

We successfully made it through the run taping without too many odd looks from the other people using the indoor track. From there we did a clothing swap and headed over to Cheri's building a few blocks away to use the pool there since we knew it would be relatively empty, thus minimizing the embarrassment factor. Marty being the rock star that she is, arranged to have her friend Melanie Valerio give us a swim lesson since we were already going to be in the pool. For those of you just catching up, Melanie is a gold medal winner of the 4x100 free relay from the Atlanta Olympics and is an just an all around awesome person. I was so captivated the entire time she was breaking down the stroke to its simplest form, I definitely make things too complicated when I swim. I just need to focus on lengthening my body and getting the most out of each stroke by really paying attention to my body position in the water. So simple, right?

After the marathon workout session I headed home to eat again for the third time and it wasn't even dinner time yet. I felt really good though. Sometimes the days when you don't feel like you have a minute to sit down and relax are really the most rewarding. I definitely accomplished a lot yesterday and maximized my time to fit everything in as efficiently as possible. Oh....check out Kristin's fancy new blog for some embarrassing swim footage and here is some run footage....just, for laughs.

What Have I Done?

2009-02-26T23:40:00.001-05:00

Ahhhh...I just joined Facebook. I think I was the only hold out in America not on Facebook and now I have finally caved....

Ugh. It's the beginning of the end.

Uncharted Waters

2009-02-24T11:23:00.003-05:00

I am entering a rest week and it could not come at a better time for me, but honestly, who doesn’t look forward to a rest week whenever it comes? After a couple huge running and cycling workouts this weekend that I slogged my way through I had an easy form based swim on my schedule for Monday night. Since I have been trying to re-invent my swim stroke this year to actually produce some results from my effort rather than just producing effort…..I loves me some swim drills.

Scott woke up in the morning with chills, achiness and a cough so he rolled over and proclaimed that he was staying home sick from work. Jerk….ugh, I’m dying for a day off and losing President’s day holiday to office wide cut backs this year was a bitter pill too swallow a few weeks ago. I felt some bitter pangs of wife guilt that I should get home after work as soon as I could to administer the chicken soup and his requested orange juice and Nyquil. Thankfully work is slightly less crazy than usual right now so I decided to skip out at lunch to do my swim. I had been scanning the schedules of the parks and rec pools that I belong to in order to find the optimal combination of lap swim hours and my availability, and I found that there is a pool sort of near my office that I have not been to yet that has lap swim hours during lunch. OK…let’s have an adventure and check it out.

Now I must warn you, you are probably envisioning that pristine YMCA or over priced health club pool that you belong to but just bring it down a notch and think about what a NYC parks and rec pool might look like….yeah…you got the picture now? Hey, it’s cheap….don’t judge me! Anyway, like all of the parks and rec pools this one is not quite 25 yards long, it is 70 feet long or 23.3 yards long. Close enough right? I make it through the locker room without touching the ground with my bare feet, a skill that I have come to perfect through my tri training. I scan the three, yes (3) three, available lanes and chose the one that seems to have the least number of breath stokers in it. (Side rant: I think all breath strokers should have their own lane….there is nothing I hate more than taking a big free style pull and coming face to face with someone’s feet as the breath stoke in front of me….ugh).

I jump in and find that I am only up to my knees in water….the shallow end is 2.5 feet deep….awesome. I start swimming and find that the deep end drops of a cliff and forms this weird crevice; I have never seen a pool shaped this weird before. As an added bonus, the temperature of the pool seems to be as weird as the shape. The shallow end is obviously boiling since there is only two feet of water and right in the smack middle of the pool you get a blast of cold water since that must be where they fill the pool. I made it through my sets and only had to cut off breath stroke girl a few times before she realized that she should move into the slow lane with the aqua joggers if she was not only going to breath stroke but breath stroke with a kick board…..I couldn’t make this stuff up….it’s all true.

Needless to say I don’t think I will be coming back to this pool any time soon. The shallow depth was way too annoying, I was hitting my hands on the bottom and my impressive size is nothing to write home about…..read, I’m short. It did feel good to get my swim completed on my lunch hour so that I could head to the grocery store after work to get the chicken soup supplies and spend a nice relaxing and RESTFUL night watching 24 with the bubonic plague that was my husband.

My A** Hurts

2009-02-18T17:31:00.001-05:00

I expressed to ELF a few weeks ago that I wasn’t totally digging the strength workouts that she had been including in my schedule. From an intellectual point of view they were interesting but from the practical side they were just taking me too long in my limited training hours to get through. ELF has been trying to “re-invent” herself this season and learn from some of her trials and tribulations she experienced in her first pro season last year (which has been very educational to follow along with her journey!). So she visited a PT (physical therapist) to work out a strength routine to focus on improving any weaknesses in her form and then passed along the strength exercises to her athletes.

So that is all well and good with the best intentions but the document containing the strength exercises is well over 25 pages long with paragraph description of what the purpose of the exercise is, what your form should look like during the exercise and how to complete the reps. By the time I had found whatever accoutrement around the gym that the exercise was calling for (bosu ball, stability mat, core ball, medicine ball, etc.), read through the exercise, looked in the mirror to make sure my form was as described and then finally did the reps I was only getting through about three exercises in 30 minutes! (exaggeration maybe, but it definitely felt like I was doing more reading than strength training!)

I asked ELF if she would mind terribly if I just went to an abs/core/pilates/etc. class rather than do the strength routines since there would at least be someone there telling me what exercises to do, correcting my form, and I would be getting in more exercises in the same amount of time. Plus anything that makes my gym membership more useful always feels good, right? Graciously she agreed and on my schedule for Tuesday I see 30 minutes of strength any class I want to go to. I look at the class schedule at the gym and there is a lunch time abs class that is 30 minutes….perfect! I also had a hill run on my schedule so I figured I would go to the abs class at lunch and then back to the gym after work to do the run since I couldn’t fit both things in on my lunch hour.

I headed to the class a little apprehensive like I do all classes/instructors I haven’t taken before at the gym. You never know if these people actually know what they are doing or just took a 1 hour on-line “I want to be a personal trainer” course. The class turned out to be really great, the girl who was teaching was very peppy and we did a ton of new core exercises different than your standard crunches. Also sprinkled in the mix where some “superman” exercises to work our glutes. I didn’t think much of it at the time but when you combine the glute exercises with the hill run later in the day you are left with one sore a** to contend with.

In a sick way I sort of like it though…if something hurts that means that good work is being done and things are getting a little stronger on…..ahem…..my back side.

In the Zone or Just Plain Dumb

2009-02-16T14:39:00.001-05:00

This weekend had a couple of monster workouts on tap. I was looking forward to them but also a little scared/apprehensive since I haven’t done workouts of that duration back to back in a number of months.

Saturday I woke up early-ish after a fairly tame Friday night but still a bit of a late evening hanging out with friends. I got some breakfast in and then suited up to hit the pavement for 1.5 hours of running. I grabbed my Fuel Belt that I WON at the last race that I did last season since I discovered much to my chagrin last week that all of the water fountains have been turned off on the west side path even though they advertise to be frost free. I haven’t busted out the Fuel Belt yet for a run. I have carried bottles in my hand but have always felt some pangs of vanity over wearing the whole contraption. Vanity aside, this time I would just go for it….I mean I was wearing a hat with rainbow colored stars on it how sheik do I think I am?

I set out along my usual “long run” route: over to the west side, down and around the lower tip of Manhattan, up the East side and across on Houston to HOME! I was feeling really good, I started out easy and just enjoyed the stop and go getting through the traffic lights until I hit the west side path. I took a gel just before I turned into Battery Park at the 45 min. mark and could definitely feel it kicking in by the time I rounded the corner around the Staten Island Ferry terminal and up the East side. I LOVE that feeling when you can feel your body responding to the calories and everything just felt pretty fresh and good.

I went to grab a bottle out of my Fuel Belt to take a drink and realized that I had dropped a bottle at some point without knowing it! This is the first time I have worn this thing and I have already lost a bottle? Are you kidding me? I guess I had my music up a little too loud or I was so in the zone that I just didn’t even notice that my bottle had dropped…..or I’m just a clueless idiot……again, you decide. I looked at my watch as I was approaching the Houston Street footbridge to cross over the FDR and realized that I was coming in under the prescribed run time since I know it takes 10 minutes to get home from the footbridge. I was sort of shocked at myself because this same route took me close to 2 hours to run last year and now it is taking me under 1.5. That my friend is progress!

I crashed for the rest of the day until Scott and I figured out what we were going to make for Valentine’s Day and finally headed out to the grocery store to face the crowds. Here is what we made: braised short ribs, wasabi mashed potatoes, balsamic and honey glazed chipollini onions and homemade chocolate pudding. It turned out quite well especially topped off by a really nice bottle of wine we have been saving from when we lived in Italy.

Sunday I woke up early again but was still fairly scared by the 1:45 bike session that was on my schedule. I decided that it would be much more fun to wake Scott up and make him take me to brunch at one of my favorite spots, Clinton Street Baking Company. We haven’t been there in months (a year?) because it is always so crowded on the weekends now that it is virtually impossible to get in. We knew going into it we would have to wait and that would be part of the fun…..right? Well 1.5 hours later we were finally seated…..ugh. The food was as good as I remember but I don’t know if I could wait through that line again…so crazy. Maybe it is a once a year thing? I was cold and tired again after standing outside waiting that I decided to head home to relax before hitting the gym. After completing one of my favorite weekend activities, curling up with a blanket and watching a bad movie, I was finally ready to face the 1:45 bike session.

I set up camp in the dark and quiet spin room with a water bottle, cliff bar and music. I made it through the warm up and two out of four hill repeats and was feeling tired but settling into a groove. I love it how sometimes your music just coordinates with the intervals and a fast song comes on for the sprint and a slow song for the hill climb…..or maybe that is just me? Hee,hee. Shockingly time was flying by and I was feeling really good. It was hard but it also felt good to really push and feel the burn in my legs to know that progress is being made. I was soaked by the end of the session so I jumped in the shower. I decided to treat myself to a pedicure on the way home because I knew the leg massage would be priceless after that workout.

All in all it was a really successful weekend of working out and having fun. I was shocked to find that workouts that I thought were impossible because of duration and difficulty were pretty manageable when I could just get myself in the zone and push. And all it cost me was a bottle from my Fuel Belt…..

I'm a Salt Lick

2009-02-09T11:00:00.002-05:00

I was 56 degrees on Sunday this weekend and that meant only one thing……I was riding OUTSIDE! I recruited my friend Ed to ride with me since we are supposedly supposed to be in shape enough in one short month to not only ride but lead the B-18 cycling group…..gulp.

Saturday night turned out to be a wee bit later of an evening than I had hoped for so when I emailed Ed at 3am to say that I was still game to ride tomorrow, I didn’t hold much hope that it was actually going to happen. I set my alarm with the intention of getting by butt out of bed and was shocked to see a reply from Ed when I checked my email in the morning. He was extremely gracious and gave me an extra 30 minutes to recover from my impending hang over before we met up.

Perhaps because of my foggy head and the fact that this was the first time I have been out on my bike in, oh....let’s call it four months, I sort of couldn’t decide what I should put on for this weather. I decided on bike shorts, tights over, a short sleeve technical t-shirt, a jacket and full finger gloves. I was over dressed.

I made it to the boat house which was our meeting spot after I re-learned how to be aggressive riding up First Avenue to the Park in Sunday morning (well…Sunday afternoon now….) traffic. Ed and I decided that we would do at least three loops (6 miles per loop) and see how we felt about a fourth loop. It was shocking how crowded the Park was. It totally reminded me of the first “warm” spring day when I was at Notre Dame and the eternal grey cloud parted so suddenly the entire quad was filled with people hanging out, playing Frisbee and enjoying being outside. Half way into our first lap it started to rain, it was sprinkling at first and then it started coming down a little harder. We thought about pulling over and waiting it out but as soon as it started raining it stopped.

The only thing the rain did for us was wet the pavement enough so that our back tires were now kicking up the salted winter road spray all over us and our bikes. I think this would be a good strategy for race organizers to prevent drafting in their next triathlon because every time I tried to sit on Ed’s wheel and catch a draft I would get a face and mouth full of salt spray and I would have to move off of his wheel. The ride was feeling good, it was so nice to just be riding outside on my bike and remember why I love this so much. The time was flying by! The hills however, were not flying by. I was really struggling up Harlem hill but I know it will get easier, I just have to put in the miles! We made it through three loops in 1:05 which was a pretty decent time split for me. We decided to take the fourth loop easy as a cool down since the Park was getting more crowded with runners now that it seemed the rain was going to stay away.

I made my way home down the west side highway and across the west village on Christopher Street. When I got home Scott looked at me and just started to laugh. My entire body was covered with salt. My black tights were now completely white and my booty had a perfect imprint of my saddle surrounded by cake of white salt. And my bike……looked like it had been preserved in a salt box. It was awful! I stripped my gross clothes off and jumped in the shower. The water tasted salty coming out of my hair….so gross! After some food and a little nap I had to tackle cleaning my bike or else my chain would not have turned the next time I tried to ride because it would have been rusted solid! It took me over an hour to wash and clean all of the salt out of all of the crevices on my bike. I cleaned my chain and put some fresh oil on it so hopefully I saved it from disaster.

Needless to say I definitely need some more time in the saddle to get back my bike fitness and beyond but this was a good way to kick that process off, just getting out there and riding.

Celebrity Blogger

2009-02-03T09:36:00.002-05:00

aka......ME!

So I mentioned that I might have some exciting D grade celebrity news this week and it turns out that I actually have not been scammed after all. I am currently being featured on the Training Peaks blog!

I can even prove it, right here!

I was fairly shocked to get an email a few weeks ago from someone saying they had found me through this little 'ole blog and wanted to know if I would be interested in being featured on the Training Peaks blog. I was skeptical to say the least and I even had Scott look at the email to see if he thought it was legit. He said I should reply and ask for some more details on what exactly is involved and what I would have to do.

The woman replied back with a list of questions for me to answer about how I use Training Peaks software and what my training was like, blah, blah, blah. It seemed harmless enough so I answered her questions but was still unconvinced that this was actually going to amount to anything. A few days ago I got an email from her with a draft of the article that was going to be posted for my approval. I read it and it actually seemed like I was being quoted accurately so I told her it sounded good but again never really thought it would actually be posted. Today I got an email from her saying that the article was posted. I guess that now makes me a bonafide nobody who is featured on the Training Peaks blog that I am guessing all of about 5 people may read! SWEET!

Anyway, I guess it is nice to know that this bit of rambling that I tend to do now and then on this blog is not only entertaining my grandpa (HI grandpa!) but it has now gotten me "published" as well.

You have to go SLOW to go FAST

2009-01-30T09:29:00.002-05:00

I have to constantly keep reminding myself of that fact this time of year. I really want to jump on the treadmill at the gym, dial it up to the speed I can hold as "steady" in the peak of my season and just run. Mind you my "steady" pace is like a warm up/walking pace to others (not naming any names here....) but to me it is fast. I forget that wee little basically two month hiatus that I took in the months of November and December and the fact that my running fitness is usually the first thing to go.

This is not my first season, I've been around the block a few times and I've studied the science of heart zones training. I know that in order to go fast and still keep my heart rate down I have to train my heart rate to be low at slower speeds and then gradually build up speed while maintaining low heart rate. I just have to keep telling myself that when I see slow speeds and low distance vs. time numbers. I have a long season ahead of me and I am certainly not going to peak for it overnight!

In other news, why are you always more tired (tireder....?) during a rest week than you are during a regular volume week? This week has been a rest week for me with TWO whole days off and I feel like I might fall asleep at my desk at any moment. The workouts I have had this week have contained the words "easy", "low heart rate", "just run", etc. and I have barely been able to make it through them before collapsing. Perhaps this is because I actually need the rest which comes with a "rest week"? Enlightening, no? Ugh, just when I think I'm a super star and can do anything coach comes along with some common sense knowledge of "hmmmm, maybe she needs rest" and knocks yet another lesson into me.

Hopefully some exciting D grade celebrity news is coming next week....that or I've been scammed......your call.

A Ski Jump

2009-01-26T09:40:00.002-05:00

or otherwise known as something odd to see on my run along the East River Park.

So I cross over the FDR and into the park like normal, running along, trying not to freeze my ass off and keep my heart rate down all at the same time and I see this huge tower rising up. I run down the ramp and into the park and I realize that it is a ski jump platform with a couple of snow machines blowing snow on it. Ummm, ok....not something you see everyday even in NY.

I finished up my run, de-thawed myself out in a hot shower and hit the internet to figure out what this thing is all about. And here is what I found.

Seriously....I know we always make fun of the Winter X games this time of year and we joke with our friends that we are going to build a half pipe in our "dining room" because that would be so RAD and EXTREME and GNARLY (all said in a screaming voice and jacked up on Red Bull). But I think someone has stolen our idea to create a snowboard contest on the East River. I don't see anything dangerous in having a huge snowboard jump directly adjacent to the river where one could plummet to your death or at least get stung by a jellyfish or two.

I'll Give You a Dollar for a Pair of Feet

2009-01-22T18:48:00.002-05:00

The boss lady had two sessions of master’s swim on my schedule this week and I knew it was going to be tough but I also sort of welcomed the extra motivation since it is not always easy to push yourself when swimming on your own. My masters instructor has been focusing on endurance swim conditioning over the past month because this weekend is the one hour swim for masters members to see how far you can swim in 60 minutes without stopping to raise money for charity. I have no intention of doing the hour swim but the endurance conditioning is obviously good for me.

I get in the pool on Monday, look at the main set and see that it includes increasing intervals of continuous swimming. Super. I was instructed to take it easy and focus on my form on Monday so I sat in the group and swam pretty easy for the intervals surviving pretty much in tack. Fast forward to Wednesday night and add another 30 minutes to masters practice making it 1.5 hours of swimming torture.....I mean, fun. I know from past experience that the master's classes follow pretty much the same workout within the week so I pretty much knew that I was in for some more continuous swimming. Since we had extra time to fill on Wednesday my instructor decided to throw in some continuous kick intervals between the continuous swim intervals just to make good and sure that we would be scrapped off the bottom of the pool by the end of the workout.

A couple of faster people than me were there on Wednesday so I let them lead the lane with the goal of sticking on their feet during the continuous swim. By the time the last seven minute continuous swim interval came around I was pretty toast. But to my horror my faster swim buddy said he did not like me hanging on his feet because it was making him claustrophobic. Great….nice time to bring out the 'give me my personal space' mandate. So I gave him his space and hung back from his draft. Holy crap….can you say my shoulders just fell off? I knew I was starting to fall apart but just focused on holding my form the best I could even though I knew my pace was slowing down. I tried to surge to get back to his feet but I just could not make up the distance, two classes of continuous swim were now officially taking their toll on me.

Needless to say I slept well last night, and thank the freakin’ lord that there was nothing on my schedule today that involved the use of my arms, shoulders or abs because they have called in dead for the day.

2009 Schedule

2009-01-21T11:41:00.003-05:00

Ok....I got the GO from the boss lady so here is what 2009 has in store for me. Let's see if I live to tell the tale!

3/7 - 5/9 B-18 SIG leader. Weekly bike training series with progressive pace and distance increases. The penultimate ride will be 90+ miles which should set me up more than nicely to have some strong bike fitness going into the season.

4/26 More Magazine Half Marathon. This is a really great all women's half and full marathon in Central Park that I ran last year and really enjoyed. I was one minute off of my goal of going sub-2 so I am gunning for a PR this year!

5/16 Harryman (basically Olympic distance) I did this race last year and vowed after swimming in 54 degree water that I was never doing it again! K applied some peer pressure combined with the convenience of getting to the race and the need to get in an early season "warm up" race has found me signing up for it again. It will be nice to compare my times with last year but I don't know if the memory of hitting that cold water has completely left me yet, at least I will be prepared for it this year!

6/7 Rev3 Half Ironman. This race is close to home and it looks like it is shaping up to be a pretty premier event even in its first year. The course will be hard and it is early in the season so I am going to go into it knowing that it will be a tough day but gain some confidence from my hopefully strong bike fitness.

6/21 Ride to Montauk Century Ride. Have fun riding with my cycling friends!

7/26 NJ State Triathlon Olympic. Back to my roots, this is the first Olympic triathlon that K and I did together. Smash my Olympic distance PR is the goal for this race.

8/23 Timberman Half Ironman. Get the freakin' official 70.3 thing out of the way plus have a fun weekend of racing with friends. If I take down my PR in the process that would be fabulous!

9/13 Mighty Hamptons Olympic. I did this race two years ago and really loved it. I had a conflict this past year on the same weekend which prevented me from doing it so I really want to get back to the race as a fun way to wrap up the season.

9/26 Escape NY Century Ride. Also just another fun ride with my cycling buddies.

10/11 Staten Island Half Marathon. I pulled out of this race last year because of an injury so depending on how much stamina I have at the end of the season I could run this race if I feel like I need something to train for. I am going to have to re-visit this decision at the time but for now I will throw it up here as a goal.

It is going to be a fun season. Bring on the base training!

Dream Team Is Back Together

2009-01-19T11:33:00.005-05:00

Well not exactly this team which included some of the most talented and fun people that I have ever cycled with. I was definitely pushed each week and became a much stronger cyclist because of it. This is our group photo from the summit of seven lakes drive in Harriman state park on the final ride.The dream team I am referring to is Ed and I are going to be back together riding again this spring as leaders for the B-18 SIG group. Watch out world....King of the Mountain challenge is so ON!

I guess that also means I need to get some base miles in pronto if I am going to be able to keep up or LEAD! I am soooo looking forward to the weather breaking and getting back out on my bike....come on spring!

Also, the 2009 schedule is in the works. I finally sent it to coach and just waiting for the final blessing. Stay tuned.

Workout Nirvana

2009-01-12T11:41:00.000-05:00

I have been a faithful listener to Zen and the Art of Triathlon ever since the tri bug bit me a few years ago and I wanted to soak up all the knowledge I could about the sport. I love Brett’s casual/laid back style and he has a great way of weaving the sport into his every day life so that you truly understand how training for triathlons is not just a hobby but a lifestyle. On some of his latest episodes he has been talking about the concept of “workout nirvana” and how great he was feeling because he changed up his schedule to workout 7 days a week. This allowed him to be able to comfortably shift workouts around when the unexpected things in life come up so that you are not scrambling to fit things in because you have taken an off day on a day when you could have fit in workouts. This works especially well around this time of year because a lot of the scheduled workouts contain the words “easy effort”, “base mileage”, “keep HR low”, etc. so you are able to string together some consecutive days of easy workouts without taking a toll on your recovery.

Taking a page from Brett’s book I followed this plan for my workout schedule and I am proud to say I reached workout nirvana by hitting all of my scheduled workouts and logging 8.25 hours of training last week. I did a bit of workout shifting at the end of the week to fit everything in and a HUGE session on Sunday but it really felt great.

K emailed me early in the week saying she was thinking about doing the 5-mile race in the park and wondered if I would be interested in joining her. I looked at my schedule and saw that I had a 50 minute run on tap for Saturday….sounds perfect to me! I signed up for the race and recruited Theresa to run with us as well. It was cold on Saturday morning but I had put on enough layers that I was actually really comfortable while we were running. It was crowded at the start and we lost K weaving through the crowds to find some open space. Theresa and I ran together for most of the race until we got to the base of Cat Hill and she started to cramp so I pulled ahead. I wasn’t looking to set any time goals for this race…it was just a fun way to get in the mileage. I crossed the line in 47:40 with a pretty sweet negative split so I was happy with that. We hit Sarabeth’s for brunch after the race and enjoyed catching up with each other on everyone’s holiday travel and general life craziness.

I had a swim drill session on my schedule as well for Saturday and I had full intention of getting to the pool later that afternoon during lap swim time to get in the session. I started doing things around the apartment, like finally unpacking my bag from the holiday travel and sorting laundry! I thought I had read the lap swim time correctly but when I checked the website again before I left I realized that I had just misread the time and I had missed lap swim. Blah. I knew I had all day Sunday to myself since Scott scored some tickets to the Giants/Eagles playoff game on Sunday from some of our clients. Scott and his brother were planning on heading to the Meadowlands early so I figured I could get the swim in on Sunday afternoon instead.

Sunday comes around and I slept in a bit and helped Scott find enough layers to dress in to have a chance at staying warm…..fat chance. I packed my bag for a long day of working out and headed to the gym for a spin class. Got there early to grab a bike thank goodness since all the bikes were gone in a matter of minutes….ugh, new year’s resolutions are the worst! It was a fun class with a super gay crazy instructor who was shocked that I knew that Madonna sang ‘lucky star’….ummmm, I wasn’t born yesterday buddy. I ran for 15 minutes easy off the bike which felt pretty good but thankfully it was only 15 minutes because my legs were feeling that hilly Central Park run from the day before. I changed into my swim suit and hit the café for a bagel and a hot chocolate “recovery drink” since I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through the swim session without some food.

I jumped on the subway and headed up to the pool. It is sort of annoying that my gym and my pool are not at the same place but I rarely have two sessions on the same day that requires both facilities so in theory it works. Everyone was a little shocked to see me there on a Sunday since I usually like to do all of my swimming during the week. It was nice to be in the pool and the water felt good on my aching legs. I am really trying to re-invent my swim stroke and focus on the proper way to do the pull of the stroke to get some more power/speed out of my swim stroke. It is definitely starting to feel much more natural and really becoming a part of my stroke rather than something I am fighting. I jumped out of the pool and was starving so I headed to the store to buy food for Sunday night dinner since I volunteered to cook. I got home with enough time to spare to take a nap before dinner which capped off my weekend of workout nirvana.

New Year's non-Resolutioners

2009-01-07T10:37:00.002-05:00

Is there seriously anything more annoying than the gym in January? I went last night to do my 45 minute spin and strength workouts and the place was literally busting at the seams with all of the New Year's resolution people. Seriously people? Working out for the first week of January isn't going to get you very far.

I figured I could jump into a spin class for a little motivation to get me through the bike workout. I showed up for the class when I usually do....two minutes before it starts.....and all the bikes were gone. Ugh. Plan B...grab my headphones and head to the crappy gym bikes for my spin. Thankfully the workout was easy so it wasn't too hard to do on my own but it just makes me so angry that all of these non-gym people are suddenly taking my spot in classes!

I jump off the bike and head to the stretch area to do my strength workout. I get to the mats and there is not an available space on any mat anywhere in the gym! Insanity. At this point I decide to just cut my losses and head home to do the strength workout. There is no way I am waiting in line for a space on a mat! Ugh....hopefully these people lose steam quickly and decide to hibernate for the rest of the winter so I can have my gym space back!

Delays, Cancellations and Upgrades

2009-01-06T12:39:00.002-05:00

Basically those three words fully describe the travel nightmare that was our holiday travel this year.

Note to self: only fly to places that you can get to on a direct flights from here on out.

So in a very brief re-cap here is how the last two weeks went down:

Went to the airport early on 12/23 trying to get on an earlier flight since I finished my deadline early (yay!)
Discovered a wall of people in the check-in area of the terminal and proceeded to spend the next three hours of our lives standing in various lines
Missed all earlier flights standing in aforementioned various lines so went to airport bar to get drunk while waiting for our now delayed later flight
Had a whirlwind of four family Christmas parties in two days (ate too much, drank too much & had too much fun with my family)
Went to airport on 12/28 to discover that Detroit had a massive power outage so no radar & no fuel trucks=no flying
Finally made it to Atlanta but already missed our connecting flight to Cabo before we landed. Gate agent tells us that they might be holding that flight so we run the entire length of the airport to find out that indeed we had missed the flight by 15 minutes
Stand in line for another three hours to find out that we have to spend the night in ‘Hot-lanta’ since there are no available flights to get us to Cabo (Holiday Inn Express or Cabo….basically the same thing, right?)
Stand in line the next morning for two hours while the gate agent tries to fix that mess that is our plane tickets to confirm our reservation and get us seats
Transfer to small Mexican airline in Mexico City to get to Cabo, get to my seat and find out that the airline has double booked the seat
Plane door is closing and I still have no seat (Panic!) Flight attendant has mom with toddler put the baby on her lap so I can have the baby’s seat. So now I am sitting in the middle of 300 lb snoring man and angry mom with baby on her lap…..awesome
Spend a fun 4 days in Cabo with a really great group of friends. (eating too much, drinking too much…..) I did have a really nice run along the beach with one of my friends so that was at least something active!
Head to the airport on 1/2 with a couple friends who were on the same flight back to NYC only to find out that they have cancelled our reservation (cry)
Gate agent thankfully gets us a spot on the next flight out to Mexico City but that only leaves us 1 hour between flights if all goes well. We are delayed.
We land in Mexico City with 30 minutes to get to our next flight. Run through airport. Just make it to the gate as they are boarding.
Look at our tickets and realize that the agent in Cabo upgraded us to first class! I’m not going to lie, that was a nice way to end the trip but I’m not sure if it totally made up for the travel hell.

It is always fun to travel and have an adventure but it also feels good to be home as well. Work is a lot less crazy now that I submitted the drawings for my deadline before the holidays. Things will be busy but not crazy which is nice. So that means back into full force base building workouts. Thankfully coach is easing me into things so I did a really nice and easy drill based swim workout last night. Doing some spin and strength tonight.

I am still trying to fully cement my ’09 schedule. I really want it to be more bike based this season so I am thinking about signing up for a pretty intense cycling series in the spring. I’d also like to keep the bulk of my races at the front half of the season this year. Doing the second half in September last year made the season pretty long. I am committed to Timberman in August with some friends so for now everything is getting planned around that race.

I'm a Sinking Ship...

2008-12-17T19:20:00.003-05:00

That is the subject of the email that I sent my coach the other day. She responded by laughing at me, which is exactly what I needed.

Why does stress always build up around the holidays? Is it possible to have a relaxed pace in your life AND at your job this time of year? I've yet to see it so I suggest no, it's not possible. I have a deadline at work on Tuesday that is KILLING me right now. I have worked at least 11 hour days for the last two weeks and every weekend for the basically all of November and December. And I'm tired. I was trying to be good about staying on my workout schedule but it has basically become impossible.

If I am able to get away from the office I am so physically/mentally exhausted that the most I can expect to do is eat something before crashing. So basically I am doing what I can right now which is not amounting to very much. I took a break at lunch time yesterday and ran for 40 minutes at the gym....it felt glorious to be doing something active. I just feel like a tired sloth. I'm supposed to run a 15K with a friend this weekend but it isn't going to be pretty. I feel like I owe it to myself to just do it even though I know it will suck. At least it looks like the weather will break by then so I won't have to run it in the sleet and snow.....so I got that going for me.

I am definitely seeing the finish line of this deadline at work and at the end of that finish line comes a trip to my parent's house in Michigan for the holidays and then a week long trip to CABO with our friends for New Years. How freaking sweet is that going to be? So basically I have a week and a half to look forward to relaxing, spending time with my family and friends, and soaking up some rays.....oh, and I guess I better start working out again too!

Dreamy McDreamy

2008-12-05T17:17:00.002-05:00

Have you ever seen a body or photos this beautiful before? I really love dramatic photos with eye candy subject matter. Too bad all of that upper body muscle is going to start melting away in a couple of months when Lance is on the bike 24/7.....

Lance Armstrong

click on index and then on Lance's Comeback. Have the drool bucket handy...you're going to need it.

Fueled by Nutter Butters

2008-12-04T12:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was sort of a crazy day but unfortunately (or I guess I should say fortunately given the state of the economy and the massive lay offs that my friends have been going through) however, craziness seems to be the norm lately in my life.

I got to work early after setting my alarm to get up to work out in the morning which I should just stop doing altogether because I think I have now proven that I am never going to be able to convince myself to get out of bed and out into the freezing cold to run in the morning. I got to work armed with the motivation that I was going to get a lot of work done today. Things were going to plan until a random Outlook reminder that popped up on my screen. I didn’t pay much attention to it…blah, blah, blah…risk management seminar….blah, blah, blah. It was one of those Outlook invites that you accepted months ago because you thought it was some vendor who was coming in to show you latest and greatest in bathroom tile and if you weren’t busy that day you would go and listen to their presentation and get free lunch out of the deal….don’t tell me you have never done that before!

Well I guess I should have paid attention a little more because it was not an invitation to the whole office, rather just to the partners, senior associates/associates and staff architects working as project managers hoping to become associates (me!). Sadly it was not a quick 15 minute presentation by a vendor but a TWO HOUR presentation by our office’s insurance carrier describing ways in which we can safe guard ourselves against litigation. Oh joy, it’s not like I don’t have enough pressure on me right now to get these drawings done I also have to worry if I am going to be sued because of something I drew at 2am on my 7th cup of coffee. Thankfully there was lunch but it was pizza that doesn’t deliver well and I only had a couple of slices.

After a two hour chunk in the middle of my day was now unwillingly ripped away from me I went back to my desk with renewed energy to FINISH what I was working on that morning. I finished it, looked at the time and gloriously discovered that it was only 6:30pm. Sweet…I can make it to master’s swim tonight at 7pm. I ran out of the office and hit the subway.

I realized half way to the pool that the two crappy slices of pizza I had at 12:30pm were not really with me anymore and if I was going to make it through 1.5 hours of master’s swim I was going to need fuel. I ran into a bodega with the intention of getting some sort of bar with some basic assemblage of healthiness (Cliff, Luna…whatever, not picky). But there they were calling my name….NUTTER BUTTERS….how dare they put them so close to the “healthy” snacks! I rationalized my choice by the fact that they have peanut butter in them and peanut butter is protein which is what I need right now. Just forget about the sugar and other artificial crap in there, I am going to swim for 1.5 hours surely that will burn off right?

I don’t know if it was the Nutter Butters or the fact that I had a lot of extra stress that I needed to get off my chest but guess who was leading her lane at master’s swim? Yup…..me! I also won’t mention that the only other people who showed up in my lane was the guy that hasn’t been to master’s in a couple of weeks and the guy that broke his wrist so he is only swimming with one arm….don’t ruin my moment people, it HAD to be the Nutter Butters.

Extra Motivation

2008-11-25T18:29:00.003-05:00

I knew the weekend was shaping up to be a black hole sucking me onto the couch when I was out at the bar with friends on Friday night with no end to the evening in sight. I pulled out my phone and texted Marty the following message at 11:15pm

do you want to run this weekend? I have an hour on my schedule could do it sat or sun

Thank god she didn't get the message until Saturday afternoon because there was no way I was in the mood to get up and run on Saturday morning after finally getting home from a very fun evening at 3:30am. I slept in on Saturday with the intention of getting to the gym in the afternoon to a pilates class or something a little active but that black hole was very strong. Marty texted me back on Saturday afternoon saying that a run would be delightful, hallelujah we have motivation people! I am now officially accountable for showing up and meeting someone else who is depending on me to be there. We decided on a meeting time and place and I promptly went back to bed because that was far too much activity for one day.

I saw my friend Theresa later that day and I forgot that in my state of bleariness on Friday night I had also asked her if she wanted to run this weekend. Wow....I was grasping for motivation, huh? So I filled her in on the details and she was game to join Marty and I on Sunday morning.

Sunday rolls around and I am still tired but ready to get up and make something of myself this weekend. I got myself up and dressed in a million layers because it is way too cold here for it only being November! Jogged to the subway and realized I dropped one of my gloves getting out my metrocard....super. Nice MTA worker dude decided he would let me out of the turnstile to get my glove and back in without having to pay. Score! Had a bizarre small town/big city moment where Theresa got on my same subway car at her stop at 33rd street without any prior planning to meet up in that location.

We met up with Marty at 59th street and jogged the rest of the way west to hit the loop in Central Park. As soon as we started moving it just felt so great to be outside and doing something active. I was so glad to be there and the run felt great! The hills in the park were feeling good and we took a couple of detours onto the bridle path to switch up the running surface and the scenery. No one was really wearing a watch or paying attention to pace and distance but we did around 6.2 miles once you factor in all of our detours in about 1:10ish?

The run was not about how far or fast, it was more about just reconnecting with friends doing something active with each other which turned out to be the motivation I needed to get my butt out there again!

Bruce is Still a Winner in my Book

2008-11-21T13:55:00.007-05:00

So Bruce did not win any awards at the gala last night but here are a few more photos of some of my favorite sculptures by other teams.

Hot Air Balloon

Marilyn Monroe

Mr. Potato Head

Panda (Winner: Best Meal made from the cans used in the structure)

Michael Phelps

Swan (Winner: Best Use of Labels)

Sailboat (Winner: Best Structural Ingenuity)

Meet Bruce.....

2008-11-20T14:16:00.004-05:00

Our Canstruction shark!

Team photo! Bruce is made out of LeSuer pea cans for the 'body', Goya kidney bean cans for the mouth with the label turned various ways to get the different colors for the gums and tongue, small evaporated milk cans for the teeth and Vienna sausage cans for the water.

Work in progress. We made it out of shaped layers of foam core that we stacked the cans on and then started cantilevering the layers to get the curve for the mouth.

I'll report back tomorrow with more pictures of the other sculptures from the opening reception. If anyone in the New York area wants to check the exhibit out head to the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center, it is actually a really cool space and some of the structures are really amazing.

Weekend Fun

2008-11-19T14:20:00.003-05:00

In the continuing spirit of off season slacking, here are some fun photos from our tailgate at the Notre Dame vs. Navy game this weekend in Baltimore. We made the trek there on Friday night and had a great time catching up with friends from the DC area on Saturday before the game. Notre Dame tried to lose the game in the last few minutes but thankfully they pulled it out in the pouring down rain to cap off a really fun day.

Notre Dame Architecture class of '00 reunion photo....aka J. Mead and his women! John did Ironman Lake Placid this year so it was great to catch up with him and talk a bit of triathlon.

Notre Dame Architecture Class of '01 reunion photo. Kaci is sporting a lovely example of an obnoxious alumni sweater that you only really appreciate when you are no longer a 'cool' undergrad.Being silly....enjoying some delicious 'off season' beverages

Glamor shots photo. I miss college.....

I've Fallen....

2008-11-13T19:39:00.009-05:00

and I can't get up! (because I can't move my abs!)

For some reason I told my coach that I would like to focus on strength over this off season. A decision I have now come to regret since every strength workout leaves me crying on the ground like a new baby. But not a baby that is adorable like my tri friend Lisa and Ian's new baby Maia, as you can see (although she is not so new anymore, I can't believe she is 3 months old already!).....no more like a writhing, screaming, very pissed off baby.

And the funny thing is, I did this workout on Tuesday and on Wednesday I hurt but I could at least move....today, ummm.....not so much. Can anyone explain why it is ten times worse two days later? I am supposed to be swimming right now but I think there is a serious risk that I would drown due to lack of response from my muscular system to keep myself afloat.

So other than trying to fit in workouts between doing a lot of catch up work at the office I haven't had much to ramble on about in the last few weeks. It is definitely feeling like off season and that is a good thing. There has been a bit of banter back and forth between the tri friends figuring out what races should be on the calendar next year so there will definitely be some new motivation to give me focus soon. But for now, I'm still pretty happy not thinking about next year yet and just working out to stay healthy and active but not really training for anything in particular right now.

A Wager

2008-10-29T18:22:00.003-04:00

I will give anyone who can illustrate photographic evidence $20 bucks if you can prove that it is even possible to stand on a bosu ball upside down let alone do squats on it. I provided some real interesting entertainment at the gym yesterday as I attempted this maneuver with shaking legs. And today...my legs are HURTING! But it feels good to be back in the swing of things. It has been one hell of a couple of weeks including two last minute trips back and forth to my hometown in Michigan....so yeah, the 'workout routine' is feeling nice and fresh again.

On Rollerbladers

2008-10-15T18:41:00.003-04:00

Generally rollerbladers and I have a hate/hate relationship in this city. I will not even give them the satisfaction of a love/hate relationship because really there is nothing to love about them. The typical rollerblader that I come across is either on the bike path along the west side highway or in Central Park on the outer loop. I am very willing to go out on a limb and generalize that EVERY rollerblader I have come across while I am riding my bike does one or more of the following things:

They wear headphones so they do not have the slightest possibility to hear me when I scream 'on your left'
They skate down the middle of the bike path so that there is more than ample room for them to push off by kicking their legs out as far as possible which in effect takes up the entire bike lane
They unexpectedly without warning move to the right or left for no apparent reason without looking to see if anyone is coming up behind them
They do not possess the world's greatest skating skills so they are essentially at risk to lose their balance and fall in any given direction at any given moment

That said, I now have a new found respect for people that can actually rollerblade or more accurately, speed skate.

Since I was out for running the half marathon on Sunday I decided to take my bike out for a leisurely spin in Central Park to just enjoy the day. I entered the park at 72nd street on the west side, got up to speed and in my groove and was almost immediately passed by a guy on rollerblades. I thought it was a bit odd that I was getting passed by a rollerblader, I did not think I was going that slow! So I looked down at my cycle computer and I was going 22mph....and he was passing me! I sort of made it my mission to catch up and stay with him up the east side of the park and in the process I started watching him skate more closely. He was not on your typical set of rollerblades, they were the over sized speed skates with an extra wheel and the short boot that only comes up to your ankle. He was fully decked out in racing kit and he had the most powerful stride and control that I have ever seen. He did not have super over sized muscular legs, they were more long and lean but you could tell that every ounce of him was muscle.

We traded off with each other going up hill and down hill but we were still pretty close to each other. On the big hill at the north end of the park I realized he was basically sitting on my wheel so I wasn't sure if he was trying to get around me or what he was doing exactly. On the downhill he skated up next to me and asked if it was OK for him to ride behind me since I was going a pretty good pace for him. Ummmm, ok. So my leisurely ride in the park turned into me pacing for a speed skater at 20+mph with me pushing in my biggest gear as fast as I could go and him bearly breaking a sweat following behind me. We were definitely causing a scene as the tourists/pedestrians who generally just walk out into the middle of the road in the lower loop of the park were actually stopping and getting out of our way as we flew through at crazy speeds. It turned out to be a ton of fun and it gave me a little something to work at powering up the hills in order to stay in front of him.

He passed me going down Harlem hill on our third lap (18 miles) and I decided to call it a day and turned off at 72nd street again to head home. At least he changed my opinion of rollerbladers....for a few hours at least.

I'm Out....

2008-10-11T15:37:00.002-04:00

I went for a short run this morning to see how the Achilles would hold up and it felt good for about the first 15 minutes and then it started to go down hill from there. I definitely feel like it is getting better but running 13 miles on it tomorrow is not exactly the recipe of quick health for it. So on the bright side I guess that means I can drink during the ND game today.....

It is beautiful out this weekend so I am hoping to head up to the park for a ride tomorrow at least. I guess it is what it is....

Enjoy the weekend!

Game Time Decision

2008-10-09T15:56:00.001-04:00

Why can these things never be easy? So here is what went down over the past week since I declared that I was running the Staten Island half mary and I was going to take down my PR. Friday night I came home from a happy hour with co-workers that ran a wee bit late with a sore throat and half a cough. I figured it was just from talking and sitting outside in the now fairly chilly fall evenings. I woke up on Saturday feeling like death warmed over. I was able to make it only from the bed to the couch, which anyone who has been in our apartment can attest to the fact that those two objects are not very far apart given the size of the place we live. So obviously I wasn’t getting in my “key” long run workout as directed by the boss lady.

After almost a bottle of Dayquil or Nyquil depending on the time of day it was, I was actually feeling slightly better on Sunday. I had dropped off my bike at the shop on Friday afternoon to get a new set of tires since we all know what happened the last time I rode her and I thought I was riding with my friend this weekend but that obviously wasn’t going to happen now either. I figured it would do me some good to get out and get some fresh air since I had not left the apartment in a day and a half and there is only so many times you can watch ‘Almost Famous’ or ‘The Rock’ or ‘Karate Kid’ just to name a few of my TNT guilty pleasure movies. I took the bus up First Avenue to get to the bike shop….it is on 63rd street and 1st avenue and I live at 3rd street and 1st avenue. So 60 blocks and I’m there. I pick up my beautiful clean bike with new tires, new chain and new cassette (yes, the new chain and cassette were an added bonus that the shop called me on Saturday in my medicated state to tell me I needed…..super, what did I agree to and how much is it going to cost?). I didn’t think I was in any condition to actually be coherent enough to ride my bike home in the NYC traffic and of course that would have meant totting my helmet, shoes, etc. along with me so I decided I was going to walk home from the bike shop. Big mistake. 3 miles and almost an hour later I was finally home and I was weak, tired and hungry.

My alarm went off on Monday morning and I woke up long enough to call in sick to work and go directly back to sleep. I managed to get myself up and about to at least do some things around the apartment. I was feeling better by the afternoon so I decided to go for an easy run to see how things were feeling since I had not worked out in three days. I dropped off the dry cleaning and headed east to my usual path up to 23rd street. I was feeling fine, I wasn’t wearing a HR monitor so I don’t know if my exertion level matched the work my body was doing but it felt easy and it was good to get the blood pumping again. I didn’t notice until the end of the run but my sock had slipped down at my ankle and I wound up with a pretty nasty blister on the side of my foot, I didn’t think much of it since this has happened to me lots over my training.

I got to work on Tuesday and I decided that I was feeling better and I was going to be able to run this race on Sunday. I logged into New York Road Runners, registered for the race and paid my money. Tuesday night I had a 50 minute run on the schedule with some pick ups. I headed to the gym after work and jumped on the ‘mill. I noticed some annoying pain coming from the side of my foot and I remembered the blister….no biggie, just run through it and it will go away. Ummmm, I must have been doing something weird with my stride in order to compensate for the blister because the next day my Achilles was so tight I could barely walk. And when I took my sock off after the run, I was surprised to find an exploded blister and a bloody sock. Awesome.

Fast forward to today and the Achilles and myself are still feeling like crap. I don’t think I have fully kicked this sickness and I’m sure going to master’s swim last night was not the best medicine. It is still hurting to walk on this bad boy let alone run. I am skipping the scheduled easy run for tonight to stretch and rest it to see if it can recover before Sunday but I must be honest it is not looking good. Scott has struggled in the past with feet/Achilles issues so this isn’t something I am taking lightly. I don’t want to run through the pain on Sunday to be injured for another month. So in the true crap-tastic finish to my tri/racing season this one might be another wash but stay tuned for the final verdict.

Because I Can't Leave Well Enough Alone....

2008-10-01T18:02:00.001-04:00

I’ve decided to sign up for the Staten Island half marathon next weekend. I would like to try and end my season with actually accomplishing a race goal rather than sitting on the side of the road praying for SAG to come by to at least get me back to transition. Ahem…..sorry, end rant. My race goal is to take down my 2:01 half marathon PR time and run it at anything under 2 hours.

I feel like I have become more of a “runner” through all of this tri training. Now mind you, I’m not about to sign up for the Olympic trials but running used to be such a chore for me. I would start to run and five minutes later I had a cramp in my side and I was panting to catch my breath. I couldn’t fathom the possibility of ‘running for fun’ but somehow in the middle of all this that is exactly what running is for me now. I had a long/stressful/tough/tedious day at work yesterday and couldn’t wait to get out of the office to chase down the last rays of daylight for a run along the water.

I had a 45 minute easy run on my schedule so I strapped on my shoes and the ipod shuffle and headed west. My legs were feeling a bit heavy at the start of the run, Toughman has still not completely vacated the premises.....I guess that is what you get when you are out there racing for over seven hours. There were a ton of people out running since it was a beautiful crisp fall night and we are down to the last few weeks before NYC marathon. They have finally finished the construction on the path along the water and it is really a nice place to run and people watch! I came home feeling refreshed and relaxed from my crazy day because I was able to take an hour and do exactly what I wanted to do for fun.

So I am extending the season for at least another week. I have a “hard-ish” run on Saturday and then a four sessions of running next week leading up to the race on Sunday. After that begins the off-season and working out like more of a normal person. Pilate's, master’s swim team, spin classes, core work, treadmill long runs..... What’s that you say, that’s not ‘normal’? Oh, well I guess normal is not me then……

Race Report: Toughman Half Ironman

2008-09-23T18:48:00.011-04:00

Toughman=tough day

Where do I start with this thing? Well, I guess I will start where all of these things start….with the swim.

Marty and I successfully made our way to the state park, set up transition and even did a little warm up jog in the morning with no problems. I was feeling calm and ready. I swam a bit on the way to the swim start to get a feel for the water and everything felt surprisingly good. As we were standing on the beach at the swim start trying to make heads or tails of the swim course we realized that the fog on the water was so thick you could barely see the first buoy let alone the third buoy out that you had to swim to. There was supposedly a sail boat anchored just after the furthest buoy but you were barely able to make out the outline of the mast, it looked like a ghost ship out there that would mysteriously appear and disappear in the thick fog.

This is the first year for this race so there was not a very big field to begin with. Marty and I were in the last wave of three which is never a good place for me to be since history has proved that I am not a strong swimmer in these events. I did everything I could to stay with my wave but somehow I always lose the big pack. I did stay with about three other girls so there was a little mini pack that I was with out to the first buoy. When we got to the first buoy we figured we would be able to see the second one but unfortunately this was not the case, we couldn’t see anything out there. We saw another buoy to our left and we started to swim that way thinking that was the next buoy but when we were almost there we were stopped by a kayaker telling us that we were way off course. By the time I made it to the turn buoy I was alone with no kayaker or buoy in site and a vague sense of which direction it was to the shore. Needless to say this was more than a little terrifying to be in a fog covered body of water all alone. I started swimming on some blind faith that I was going the right direction until I stopped and called out ‘hello’ and a kayaker led me back on course. All said and done I think I swam about 2 miles out there….or at least what felt like two miles. So it was a long swim but I knew it would be as all of my swims tend to be. I got out of the water with the knowledge that I could catch a lot of people on the bike so I was off to get them.

Making my way out of the fog and out of my wetsuit

And that is when the fun started.

Swim: 57:56
T1: 2:43

Working hard up the hills at the start of the bike

After a pretty uneventful T1, I was just trying to move as quickly as possible and actually managed to get my wetsuit off fairly quickly! I had to laugh though because as I peeled the wetsuit off it started to smoke when it hit the cold morning air since I always get so hot when swimming in my wetsuit. So I was off on the bike and set to catch some people. It was still pretty chilly out but once I settled in I was feeling good and climbing strong. This was a challenging bike course with fairly constant rollers and rollers that become hills. I was taking in nutrition and following my race plan, I was focusing on smart gearing and picking up speed wherever I could. I slowed down for a left turn at around mile 22 when a squirrel decided to take a kamikaze run for my front tire. As soon as I made it around the corner I started to fish tail and I knew my rear tire just went flat. I didn’t panic, just started to move quickly to change my tire as fast as I could. I discovered the spare tube I had just put in had a leaky valve after I went through both of my CO2 cartridges and didn’t get a tire with enough air in it to ride. I ran back to the volunteer at the turn and asked him if he knew where bike support was because I needed more air. For my first miracle of the day, someone had accidentally dropped their tire changing kit at the intersection and he had a spare CO2. I took off the tube with the leaky valve and put the other spare tire that I had in. The volunteer got it filled for me and I figured I was on my way.

Unfortunately about 10 miles down the road my rear wheel was flat again. At this point I thought my day was over since I only had a spare tube with a leaky valve and no air. I decided to pull out the spare tube to see if I could tighten the valve enough that it would hold air. I blew into the tube and it seemed to be holding so I changed the tube hoping that SAG would be by soon and they would have air. SAG did come by but unfortunately they did not have air, they called in bike support but I got the sense from the conversation that they were a long way out. For my second miracle of the day, two women happened to be riding by and asked if we needed help. I asked if they had any air and one of them had a frame pump! Hallelujah! I got my tired pumped and it seemed to be holding air but I wasn’t overly confident that it was actually going to hold up for the rest of the ride. At this point I was the last biker out on the course which was extremely humbling for me. I think that the guy who was driving the SAG car could sense the disappointment in my face and he said to me as I was getting back on the bike “you are not going to be last, the girl in front of you is barely moving so go get her.” At the time those words did not mean very much to me since I knew she had passed me a long time ago so I made up my mind that if I was the last biker in I was going to call it a day. I did not want to run a half marathon alone, it would just be an aqua bike for me and that would be ok. I was still riding hard and feeling good especially since I had about an hour of rest out there for my tire disasters.

Second half of the bike, photo was taken from the SAG car that was following me!

Amazingly my rear tire held up and with three miles to go I caught and passed the girl in front of me. At that point I knew I had to go out on the run because I was not last. It is very humbling to be coming in on the bike when most of the field is finishing the race or at least on the second half of the run so I definitely had to swallow my pride to exit T2 and head out for what I knew was going to be a lonely half marathon.

Bike: 4:01:24
T2: 1:33

I did not wear a heart rate monitor at this race and I’m glad that I didn’t because the number probably would have scared me in the first mile. I was running angry. I decided my new goal was to have a strong half marathon. And I did feel strong the entire run, I actually felt really good. It is funny to be running with the back of the pack in a long race when you are not a total back of the pack athlete, most people are shuffling and I was running strong (not to say that I am usually going to win these races but I definitely never thought I would be coming off the bike second to last…..humbling). I really did not think that I had any chance of catching anyone since I knew that everyone was really far ahead of me on the bike. The run course had two sections of out and back which was nice since I at least got to see some other racers for the first part of the run when they were on their way back and I was on my way out. Part of the run was on trails as well which I did not realize but turned out to be really nice and shady sections where I felt very strong despite the loose footing.

Crossing the bridge at the Croton Reservoir just before I caught and passed my prey!

At about mile 7 I saw a guy in front of me that looked within my reach…. wow, I could pass someone! I passed him and we yelled some encouragement to each other, there was another guy up ahead and he told me to go get him. And I did. I just kept running and ignored the pain in my legs and just felt comfortable and strong. The second half of the run was lonely and it took some mental strength to not let myself get angry with the way the day turned out. In the last mile home I was feeling tired but I saw three more guys ahead and they proved to be motivation enough to keep me going to pass them as well. In the end, I am happy that I went out on the run and made it across the finish line and thankfully I made it across not last! It took a lot of mental strength and swallowing of my pride to finish this race. This experience will definitely give me some things to reflect on the next time I find myself in a difficult situation, if I can make it through this I can make it through anything.

Run: 2:11:31
Total: 7:15:07

My bike “rolling time” from my cycle computer was 3:20, so with that time I would have had a PR on the day over my first half ironman since I had a faster swim and run time. Alas, I will have to wait for next season to chase down my goals!

As I was lamenting my plight to Marty after crossing the finish line and attempting to choke down some food post race, the awards ceremony was taking place. Since I was in no danger of placing in my age group I was only sort of half listening to the announcer and suddenly I hear my race number being called out. Marty just looks at me and said “that’s YOU!” I won a prize in the raffle! How cool is that? I won a fuel belt which is an awesome prize since I don’t own one and have been thinking about getting one for the last few months. I usually just run drinking fountain to drinking fountain on my long runs and it is usually to my detriment since I start to blow up by the end of the run for lack of nutrition. So I guess this means I have to train for a long run race now, huh? It’s fate or something right?

Feeling the Fire

2008-09-19T09:27:00.008-04:00

Admittedly things have been a little debbie downer around here lately. It has been a long season but you know what.....it's not over yet. I have trained hard and given up fun, drunken evenings with my friends in order to get up early on a Saturday to ride or run or sometimes both so I'm not going to let that all go to waste. I have decided to change my mindset about this race and change it fast. I am not going to go out there and just slog my way through this race to get through it.....I am going to RACE it! And if I blow up in the end, then I will know that I gave it everything I had. I need to build on what I learned in my first half IM and pull it together to have a better day. Yes, the course is different and the day is different but hopefully some things will be better too. Like not a torrential thunderstorm for over half the race (I have religiously checked the weather....sunny and 70's is the forecast!)

It has taken a little help to get myself to refocus on this race. Thanks to my coach for sending me multiple emails this week with a solid race plan and words of encouragement to get me to understand that I have put in hard work for this race so don't let it go to waste! Also, my friend Marty who will be racing with me again knew just what I needed for some extra motivation. She knows I have a soft spot for inspirational race reports so she sent me the link to her friend Selene's RR (who just happens to be Fit Chick from Bicycling Magazine! How is it that Marty is friends with such cool people....me included of course! hee,hee) from the Louisville Ironman. Check it out for a good inspirational read if you would like to see how overcoming adversity can get you a Kona slot!

Also, Marty put together one of the coolest things ever for the Danskin girl's who raced in their very first tri ever last weekend. She made a little laminated tag for them to put on their tri bag with a quote from our coach that she sent to her athletes at some point this season that has really rung true with Marty and I over the course of our training. It says "The thing about pushing your limits is that you find out there really aren't any. Go out there and chase your best day!" Marty gave me one of the tags on Wednesday night at the Danskin graduation party and I seriously almost cried. It is what I needed to remind myself that what I do is special and I have worked hard for it so go and chase down my best day and all the other things in life that I am stressed about will still be there after I cross the finish line but I will be able to attack them with a different outlook.

And you know I will be giving this one last look as I head out of transition for the swim.....

Refocusing

2008-09-17T09:14:00.003-04:00

Hey all. I am back from Puerto Rico and definitely feeling much more rested. Sadly even feeling a little sluggish since I have essentially been on a two week taper for this race now. But I will be glad to have this weekend come and race on Sunday with the mindset of having the best day possible given the conditions and my preparation.

Work is still crazy so it will also feel good to be able to put working out on the back burner a little bit (I don't want to STOP working out....healthy living is still the goal). But I do need to focus on my job right now to make sure that my priorities are in the right place. I want to focus on strength over the off season so I might try and walk back into the dreaded pilates classes where I just don't feel like I fit in. It is like I have a sign on my head that says "endurance athlete" does not belong in our "club".....or maybe it's just me. Thankfully I have some gymnastics and ballet background from my youth to fall back on so I will channel my inner zen and tackle the strength training yet again. But enough about off season for the moment....it is still the "in" season for me at least until Sunday!

I will post some pictures from PR as soon as I can get them off the camera. Scott loves playing with all of the different settings on our camera so there are some really amazing shots.

Ugh.....I'm Tired

2008-09-09T14:08:00.001-04:00

I’m ready for it to all be over with. I am swamped at work and I feel like life is passing me by while I swim endless laps, bike endless miles and suffer through endless long runs. I started intensely training for this tri season in February…..yes, February. I signed up with a coach for the first time which has been awesome, started working out 6 days a week sometimes twice a day, and have done four races so far this season none less than an Olympic distance and one being my first half ironman. Needless to say September 21st can’t come soon enough where I will be racing my second half ironman of the season, Toughman.

On top of the fact that I have been working out for endless hours I have also been working for endless hours. Any hour of the day I am not at the gym, in the pool or on my bike you can find me at my desk. The project I have been working on is in a building with a summer construction schedule so this whole year has been a race of the project getting built faster than I can design and draw it. This is always stressful for me since I know that some little thing I drew on a drawing months ago as a place holder is now getting built. I fear the day the client walks in the apartment and with a WTF look on her face asks me what X is when she sees something that got built but never approved. To add additional stress, this is the first project that I am managing all by myself which is an awesome promotion for me and says a lot about the faith that my office has in me but I always fear that everything is going to come crashing down around me when I make some rookie mistake that I never saw coming. Ugh.

So, I looked at my calendar the other day and realized I am going to Puerto Rico tomorrow. That is generally not something that one would forget about but in all the mayhem of my life right now the date of the trip totally snuck up on me. Two of our good friends are getting married at a resort in Puerto Rico this weekend and we are going down a few days early to hang out in Old San Juan before heading to the wedding. I don’t even have a dress to wear to the wedding since I haven’t had time to shop since about……oh, February. I could wear a dress I already have but 99% of my clothes don’t fit me anymore since I have lost so much weight training, since all I do is train….and work….and not eat enough……because I’m always training…..and working.

Clearly, it is obvious that I need a bit of a break so I am now actually looking forward to escaping for a few days and hopefully getting the chance to relax and get myself focused again. Thankfully I am just about to enter taper for Toughman so this trip isn’t completely unfortunate timing. I am supposed to get in some running and swimming while I am away which I will try to do since I don’t want to lose all my fitness in 5 days of care free nothingness. But some extra rest will definitely be on tap as well and spending time with friends who will also be there for the wedding.

Maybe when I get back I won’t be so crabby and I might have time to actually post about my training ride from hell this weekend or the post I have written in my head about my great Labor day weekend. Alas….no time…..back to work.

Operation Failed

2008-08-29T10:20:00.002-04:00

So 'Operation get Scott out of bed earlier and into work on time" officially lasted two days before the mission failed. I have been calling him for the last 20 minutes and I imagine he is still fast asleep. The mission's chance for success was compromised last night when Scott met his brother and some other friends for the monthly 'steak club' that they have started. After an evening of carnivorous meat eating and associated drinking the odds of wanting to get out of bed in the morning are severely decreased.

I on the other hand made it out of bed for the third morning this week.....count it 1-2-3 mornings to get my workouts in. Today was some what of a sad day though. It was the last day for lap swim at the 50 meter outdoor pool, the pool closes after Labor day weekend. The last day of lap swim at the outdoor pool really makes me sit up and realize that summer is almost over and that always makes me a bit sad. This weekend is summer's last hurrah and I plan on making the most of it. I was hoping to really send off the outdoor pool season with a bang and bust out my new and improved swim stroke thanks to Melanie Valerio with a strong 1000 meter time trial. But I just wasn't feeling it this morning in the water unfortunately. I think I was probably a bit tired. I am generally fairly drained on Friday's from a long week of work and workouts and this morning was no exception.

I did my 1000 TT in 22:55 minus 10 seconds rest after each 100 for a total time of 21:15. Clearly nothing earth shattering but I'll take it since I am clearly not a strong swimmer.

I am headed out of town again this weekend to a friend's lake house in Virginia. It is a really great house in a super secluded spot on the lake. We always have the best time when we are there just enjoying each other's company, eating, drinking and talking. This time I am bringing my bike along to do some cycling is the countryside which I am definitely looking forward to!

See you in September! Yikes!

Mission Accomplished

2008-08-26T09:41:00.002-04:00

It's true.....I actually got up this morning and got my workout in before work! Amazed.....yeah, me to.

AND....I even made it back home with enough time to make breakfast for my husband and I in our new endeavor called "Operation get Scott out of bed earlier and into work on time." This morning was the trial run and I must say all went really well. Now I just have to see if I can make it through the day today without falling asleep at my desk. Thankfully I have a lot of work to do so hopefully that will keep me focused. And I am getting my haircut after work so that will give me a little "treat" at the end of the long day.

This mornings workout was re-testing my LT threshold on the bike. 20 minute warm up and then 20 minutes all out. And I'm here to tell you that I held nothing back in that 20 minutes.....I saw "the wizard", I saw stars and I had to hold back my insides from coming up at the end. I did the test at the gym on a spin bike so I don't know what my distance was but my average HR for the 20 minutes was 154 with a max of 165. I will have to run those numbers by Liz to see how they stack up with my last LT test but for me that is a pretty good effort.

OK....I'm off to get another cup of coffee.....

I'm Here!

2008-08-25T18:10:00.003-04:00

Hey....sorry it has been awhile since I have posted, time is flying by this summer.

I had a good weekend, I was out of town again back at the scene of the crime for my half ironman in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. My husband and I have been going for the past three summers with a group of friends to go wine tasting in the area. We stay at our friends parent's house where his mom feeds us entirely too much food and then we rent a limo from there to get to the wineries so no one has to drive. We went to some new vineyards this year that we haven't been to before so it was a lot of fun but still quite drunken as always. We were a little further South than where I was for the race but the countryside was still the same.

I saw some cyclists at one of the vineyards that we were at and my heart literally started to ache because I would have given anything to be riding with them. It is such beautiful countryside with endless rolling hills and a lot of emotions definitely came flooding back to me just being in the area again. Unfortunately there was not room in the cars to pack my bike but there was definitely room for my running shoes.

I got up early on Sunday morning before anyone else was even stirring and creeped out of the house to do my scheduled 2 hour run. It is rolling hills and open country roads to the right and to the left of my friend's neighborhood so I decided to do two one hour out and back loops one each way since I had to swing back by the house to get water. It was already starting to get hot when I set out for the run so I was glad when I found patches of trees that offered some shade as I ran. I surprisingly felt really amazing and just felt good to be out running somewhere new. I don't think I was pushing the pace but I felt comfortable and relaxed the whole time which is definitely something new for me over that distance.

Somewhat of a rest week is on tap for me this week with some re-testing of my swim/bike/run LT zones. So recovery and hard effort. I am really interested to see where I am at with my LT zones so I am sort of looking forward to the pain.

You and Me Were NOT Meant to be Together

2008-08-14T09:52:00.002-04:00

For the second day in a row I have set my alarm to get up in the morning to get my workout in and I have not made it out the door. Today I actually made it out of bed and to the bathroom before turning around and heading back to bed. I seriously don't know what's wrong with me. I clearly know that my schedule will be a whole lot easier if I can just get the work done in the morning and not have to think about it the rest of the day. But the call of the nice warm bed and the extra 45 minutes of sleep is far too loud for me to ignore. I guess that means I am tired and need the rest or maybe it just means that I am lazy.....that one is toss up.

So now I have to "sneak" out of work at lunch and get in my hour run at the gym. And then "sneak" back into work at least 1.5 hours later after showering for the second time today and grabbing some food. Why do I do this to myself? Oh, that's right.....so I can have a life outside of sport and actually pretend to be having a good time although I am tired and cranky. Ugh....end rant.

It will be good to see some friends tonight and last night was fun grilling on our roof and watching Olympic swimming but I'm sure that contributed to the fact that I couldn't get up this morning. Vicious, vicious cycle.

More Training with Rock Stars

2008-08-11T14:10:00.004-04:00

Thanks so much to Andrea who pointed me in the direction of this really cool article on one of my spin instructors in Bicycling Magazine.

Perhaps I will have to re-arrange my schedule this week so I can go to her class to congratulate her. Plus I could use a good ass kicking on the bike and as you can see she is well equipped to deliver an ass kicking. Kym is front and center in the above photo. I don't know how I am going to top all of this celebrity training!

The Coolest Thing EVER!

2008-08-09T17:59:00.002-04:00

I went swimming today with an Olympic gold medal winner. Wait.....let me say that again. I went swimming today with an Olympic gold medal winner. And it was freaking awesome.

And not just any Olympic gold medal winner, a freaking bad ass tri stud too. Check out this article on Melanie Valerio from Triathlon Magazine. How freaking awesome is it that she got Cheap Trick to sponsor her for a custom built tri-bike? That doesn't just happen to anyone!

Marty said her friend was willing to "just come watch us swim and critique our stokes" to help us out with our swim technique for our next races. Almost two hours later she had dissected each of our strokes and gave us drills to work on to improve our swimming. She was such a patient teacher and I learned so much it was just really cool. Unfortunately, I was the weak link of the group and she said my stroke needs the most work. She has given me all of the pieces and definitely things to focus on when I am swimming endless laps in the pool. I could get disappointed that I don't have natural swimming ability and hang up my goggles because it is just going to be too hard to improve. But the opposite is definitely going through my head right now, I want to work even harder and try and get my body to do what it should be doing. I have a new goal and set of things to work on in the swim and that is going to be great motivation for me over the next few months.

Training Triathlon

2008-08-08T13:41:00.000-04:00

It looks like I will be doing a little training triathlon this weekend given the way my schedule is shaping up. Here is the plan for Saturday:

8:10am: Arrive at Marty’s apartment on my bike with my bag packed with swimming and running gear. Drop my bag off at Marty’s house and the two of us will cycle to the park.

8:30am: Arrive at the 90th Street and 5th Ave. entrance to the park for the bike workout with the Danskin girls. The workout is scheduled as an endurance ride but I’m pretty sure that the endurance pace for these girls will be a more than sufficient recovery pace for me. That will take care of my scheduled 30 minute recovery ride, probably not in the order my coach wanted my workouts but that’s the way it goes.

Approx. 10:00am: Depending on how many questions the chatty Danskin girls have after practice hopefully Marty and I can scoot out of there and cycle back to her apartment to drop off our bikes and change into running gear. We will need to do a quick run through Toga so I can pick up some gels but then we are off for our scheduled 1:45 long run. We are going to run from her place back to the park and then maybe do a loop….not sure, exact course yet to be determined depending on our mood.

12:30pm: Hopefully we will be arriving back at Marty’s apartment depending on how long it takes to change and our detour to Toga for gels lasts. This depends on how chatty the awesome John from Toga wants to be with the “crazy triathletes” that always come in his bike shop. We will then shower and change into swim gear and then eat some lunch.

2:00pm: It is still up for discussion but we will probably opt to take a cab to Cheri’s apartment but there is always the possibility that we could bike over there. We are going to get a swim critique by one of Marty’s friends who is an ex swim champion. I’m not totally sure of her background, maybe a college swimmer, or an Olympian but I could be making that up since I am probably just confusing her with some other conversation I’ve had recently about the actual Olympics. Anyway, she is clearly someone who knows more about swimming than I do and will be able to give all of us some helpful advice about our strokes, technique, areas for improvement, etc. I am actually super stoked about the process, I’m sure I will find it really useful in improving my stoke and swim times for the next race.

Approx. 3pm: I’m not sure how long we are planning on swimming but I can’t imagine we will be doing it for more than an hour. So hopefully by 3pm I will be headed home finally for the day and I imagine a nap will most likely be in my future!

On Sunday, Marty and I are planning on riding up to Nyack over the George Washington Bridge to get in our 2:45 long ride so I will take the bus up to her apartment on Sunday morning to pick up my bike if we don’t end up cycling over to Cheri’s. It should be a nice weekend filled with lots of endurance training and spending time with friends, what could be better?

KICK

2008-08-06T09:34:00.002-04:00

I've been kicked in the pants......by my coach.

After basically three glorious weeks of rest and recovery that included vacationing with my family and drinking with my friends I could see myself slowly slipping into a downward spiral. After entering the stats into Training Peaks from yet another long run in the rain this weekend (will I ever get to run long NOT in the rain?....it’s yet to be seen) I got a response back from my coach asking ‘how I was doing?’ Honestly, I wasn’t doing that great. Motivation to train wasn’t there, I could see my fitness slipping away and that scared me because I have worked so hard for the last 6+ months to be fit. But the devil on the other side of my shoulder kept trying to tell me ‘you’ve done four races already this season, one of them being your first half….it’s OK for your season to be over’ and ‘work is crazy right now with a looming deadline in mid-September.’ I have never been this torn about racing before, usually I just take the plunge and register for something crazy and then figure out how I am going to accomplish it.

So I wrote back to my coach and basically told her I was a total head case right now. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I needed either a kick in the pants to do another half or be told that it is OK for my season to be over. And the response I received was this…..

KICK

It’s pretty hard to ignore that, huh? So, Marty and I are on board again to take down another half this season. Toughman here we come! The awesome thing about this race is that it is less than an hour away from the city so we could potentially sleep in our own beds the night before or my in-laws live only 20 minutes away and they would be more than happy to open their home up to a 4am bed and breakfast race morning. So if there are any other NY people who feel like they need to do another half this season……K?…..then come on down! Marty and I have stated that our goal for this half is to do more training together, no more lonely long runs or rides. And I WILL become a morning workout person so that I can still have time to *ahem* work and see my husband over the next six weeks more than just in passing.

Once I proclaimed my declaration to my coach that I was doing another half my training week this week was revised from 6 hours total to over 10 hours. Super…..what have I done? Hee,hee. Just like I have done all season I am tackling the workouts one by one and at the end of the week I amaze myself that I have gotten through them all. And last night’s swim….I found the motivation to actually swim hard since I now have a reason to push myself, which was a beautiful thing.

Getting Back to my Roots

2008-07-31T18:42:00.002-04:00

I guess I should preface this post with a brief description of how I got involved in this crazy sport before you will fully understand how I am getting back to my roots.

I got a mass email, out of the blue, from my friend Kristin detailing a really horrible break up with her then boyfriend and her vow to "take back her life" by refocusing all of the energy she was pouring into him into things for herself. One of those "things" was signing up for a triathlon. At the same time, I had really gotten into spin classes at the gym and wanted to take the leap of faith to buy a bike and actually ride outside.....gasp! Since this is New York and space is limited in already cramped apartments, I didn't want to buy a bike to just cruise around the park once a summer, I really wanted to get into riding. So I figured doing the triathlon with Kristin would be just the thing I needed, it would give me built in time to spend with my friend and it would force me to really learn how to ride. Kristin still laughs at me to this day at my response to her email. Something along the lines of "so sorry to hear about your break up. Ummmm.....sooooo, tell me about this triathlon."

So that is where it all started. Kristin convinced me to sign up for the Danskin all women's triathlon in Sandy Hook, NJ September 2006 and a 12 week training program called Team Danskin Training. This is also where I met Marty and Cheri, the awesome two-some that accompanied me on our Musselman conquest. Marty was one of our coaches and Cheri was a first time triathlete just like many of the rest of us. It was a really great 12 weeks of training. I met friends that I still train with (some more than others since one of my best tri friends is now pregnant!) and hang out with to this day. I learned about heart zones training and how to push my body and when to hold back to complete the distance that seemed so daunting at the time.

Since Marty and I became friends after the the Danskin triathlon and the training was over she has always convinced me to come back and help with the team as a workout leader every year. Last year I only commited to helping lead the bike workouts and I'm sure I was less than stellar at showing up for all of them when work or my own training got in the way. But I was shocked to hear some of the returning team members this year tell me that they learned so much from me in our trips around the park about gearing and maximizing speed in the uphills. Who knew that I have any knowledge to teach other people since I still feel clueless most of the time! Since I am coming off of my first half ironman and still don't know what I am doing with the rest of my season I told Marty I would commit to helping with as many workouts as possible this year.

Last night was a bike workout in the park. Two loops of the park for 12 miles total which happens to be race distance! It was really amazing to see the looks on some of the girl's faces when you told them at the end of the ride they just completed race distance. Something that seemed so impossible was now done on week 3 of the training! I try to give tips on spinning and not mashing pedals, proper shifting when going uphill to try and hold your speed for as long as possible and being comfortable on your bike. But mainly I am just there to listen to their fears and try and calm their nerves by telling them that they WILL do this and it DOES get better. It definitely makes me take a step back and think about how far I have come just being an average middle of the pack athlete who commits to doing something a little extra every day in order to experience that one day of extraordinary effort.

Notes from Active Recovery

2008-07-24T09:03:00.003-04:00

I am pretty much on my second week of active recovery with an Olympic distance tri thrown in there just for good measure. Workouts over the last two weeks have included: one 1500 meter swim in the outdoor 50 meter pool, one +/- 5 mile bike ride to drop my bike off at transition before the race, one warm up run with the Danskin girls before max heart rate testing and one 25 minute Z2/Z3 run also with the Danskin girls. Yeah, so as you can see I've been focusing more on the "recovery" and less so on the "active".

My body DEFINITELY needed this break. I could tell that I have been feeling fairly drained recently and my attitude towards training was more of just getting through a session instead of enjoying the training and feeling progress towards my goal. I think my body is finally starting to recover from the pain I have put it through in the last few weeks as well, my legs no longer ache climbing and descending stairs like they have over the past two weeks. This has really been a problem for me since I live in a 5th floor walk up apartment building so climbing/descending stairs is a daily un-aviodable activity for me! I have this coming weekend left as my active recovery week and then next week starts back up with just some easy effort sessions.

This minimal/no training weekend couldn't fall at a better time for me since I am going on vacation with my family for the first family vacation we have taken in a LONG time. We have obviously seen each other at Christmas, etc. but that is just going home, this is going on vacation somewhere else with the whole family. It will be my parents, my sister and her husband, my in-laws and my husband and I all headed to Pinehurst, NC for a weekend of golfing for the boys and shopping & spa for the girls. I am getting a massage on Friday and I can hardly wait....so freaking excited! We are also celebrating my father's 60th birthday on the 26th and my mom's retirement from teaching. I am looking forward to just relaxing, enjoying time off of work and getting the chance to reconnect with my family for a few days at least.

I guess this time off will also give me a chance to think about "what's next" to quote the motto of a friend. This has definitely been weighing heavy on my mind lately but for now I am going to push it aside since I have some more "recovery" to think about this week.

Race Report: NYC Olympic Distance Triathlon

2008-07-22T13:09:00.002-04:00

Yes, the madness continues. I raced again, after only one week following my half ironman. Crazy right....well almost. I didn't intentionally set out to race two weekends in a row it just turned out that way when I finally had a chance to sit down and plan my race season in a logical thought out way. You have to sign up for NYC in the first few hours after the race opens or you get closed out, so in November of 2007 I was signing up for a race in July of 2008 because I knew I wanted to do NYC but hadn't thought about the rest of my season yet. So when Marty convinced me that doing an early season half would be a good idea and that half should be Musselman we kind of forgot about the fact that we had signed up months ago for a race the next weekend just writing it off to doing it as a "fun" race. I don't think any amount of sitting on the couch and eating ice cream (although I tried my darn-est) would allow me enough recovery time to actually feel good at this race but in the end it could have been much worse.

Thank god I live in NYC because there were a lot of logistics involved in this race. Marty, Cheri and I (does that crew sound familiar?....what do we talk ourselves into?) headed to the expo on Saturday morning to stand in line for the mandatory race briefing, to then stand in line to sign the swim waiver card, to then stand in line to pick up our race packet, to then finally stand in line to pick up our t-shirt and goody bag. Ugh. I was hungry and tired by the time I left the expo and I still had to-go home, try and clean my muddy chain and dirty bike from last weekend, and then drop it off at transition before 9pm. All of these things took way too long and I wound up scrambling at the end of the evening to get back home after bike drop off, pack my gear for the morning, eat dinner and get to bed at a reasonable hour given the unreasonable hour I had to set my alarm clock for.

Race morning came early, my alarm went off at 4:15am and my goal was to be out the door before 5am to get to transition to set everything up before it closed at 5:45am. Things were going well until I realized in the cab about half way there that I forgot to grab my water bottles for the bike. With temperatures in the upper 90's there was no way I was doing this race without fluids. I had the cab driver turn around and head back home. I called Scott from the road to tell him to mix one bottle of Acclerade and one bottle of water for me and I would come by to get them. Since it was already getting so late and Scott was clearly awake at this point he decided to just jump in the cab with me and head up to the race since he wasn't getting any more sleep at this point. I made it back to transition at 5:30am so I had exactly 15 minutes to dump my crap on the ground, assemble it in some fashion where I could hopefully find it during T1 and T2 and get my body marked before heading up to the swim start. The swim was a mile up shore so we had to walk the mile from transition to swim start in the already sweltering heat. The thought of putting my wetsuit on was more than I could think about. I was really crowded at the chip distribution and I was nervous that I was running late so Scott and I got separated as I pushed my way through the crowd.

I finally got to my swim corral labeled F30-34 and donned my wetsuit. Before I knew it they were calling my wave down onto the barge to enter the water. There was a rope attached to the side of the barge that you had to hang onto so that the current didn't carry you down stream before the gun went off for your wave. This was one of the most hectic parts of my day as everyone was on top of each other fighting for space on the rope and then when our wave was sent off everyone moved at once in a huge scrum. I kind of smiled to myself as this scenario would have FREAKED me out if this was my first race but I kind of just sat back a little bit to let everyone go, breathed, and then started to swim. My goal was to NOT lose my wave in this race and I can fully admit that I did not lose them at all. Every time I looked up to take a breath there were orange caps all around me and then I started passing pink caps from the wave ahead of me......AWE-SOME! I can't really call this a swim PR for me since the current was so strong but 22 minutes and 20 seconds later I was exiting the water.

There were two unfortunate things that happened in the swim. Towards the end of the swim, there were swarms of jellyfish that I came to find out later were stinging just about everyone. I didn't know what it was at the time, I just felt a sharp poke on my upper lip and then it went numb. I was only about 100 yards from the finish at this point so I just focused on getting out of the water and the pain wasn't really that bad. Unfortunately, I also learned that a man lost his life on the swim in one of the later waves after mine. They still don't know the cause of death but it is a tragic loss all the same. Here is a link to the article from the NY Times about the jellyfish and the drowning.

I made my way out of the swim and through the LONG run to transition. At one point I commented to the people around me that I would have preferred to continue swimming rather than run the half mile to transition! I got on the bike and just tried to settle in. My legs felt very sluggish and definitely did not feel like they had any extra spark in them especially on the uphills. I tried not to push it and kept my legs spinning as easily as I could. The bike turned into one huge draft-fest. It was basically a double pace line the whole way up the West side highway. I was trying my hardest not to draft but at times it was basically impossible as there were so many people on the course at once. I feel bad saying that this race needs to be limited to about half the number of competitors since it is such a popular race but if this race is to ever be "good" than that is what needs to happen. So I didn't really push myself on the bike knowing that I had to save something in my already weakened legs for a hilly 10K run. My bike split was 1:23:42.

I hadn't turned on my watch time at all for this race so I didn't know my splits but according to time of day I had 1:15 to run a 10K and still break 3 hours for the race. I kind of had that goal in the back of my mind all day but I wasn't going to focus on it knowing that this race was just "for fun" I saw Scott in the first mile of the run waiting for me on 72nd Street which was awesome. It was a really low time for me, my legs felt awful, it was getting hot out and my stomach was sloshy from liquid so it was so nice to see a friendly face! My legs were absolutely shot....they had no pop or strength what so ever. My only focus was getting aid station to aid station so I could dump cold water on my head and take a walk break. I wound up walking the big hills in the park as well since I didn't want to waste precious energy running up hill! hee,hee. I definitely felt the home field advantage as we were "running" up hill at Lasker Pool and a girl asked me if this was the last big hill. I replied "yes, this is the last big hill but it is still a steady uphill until you reach the East side of the park and Cat Hill for the next down hill...." Knowledge is such power since I can run and cycle that park in my sleep I knew just where I could push it and where I needed to hold back. Somehow between all of the walking I managed to pull off a decent run split of 56:49 which I am super stoked about. Imagine what sort of time I could have pulled off if I was actually running the whole thing?

And just for you non-math majors out there (me!) my total time was 2:51:50 so I have reached one of my very early season goals of breaking three hours in an Olympic distance tri!

I was pretty tired and sore at the finish line. My left knee decided it was going to seize up again similar to the half ironman and I had to stretch it out in order to bend it again after the race. They gave us ice cold towels at the finish line which felt so great. I saw Scott at the finish and we made the long trek back across 72nd street to transition to pick up my stuff. The logistical nightmare continued when they wouldn't allow us back into transition yet because there were still people out on the bike course. So we had to wait 45 minutes in the heat as they allowed 10 people at a time in transition to pick up their things. I saw Marty as I was making my way out of transition standing in line and told her that I was too tired and gross to go to brunch, we would have to re-schedule. We rehashed our races briefly and Scott and I were finally on our way home. We debated what the best way to get home would be, clearly a cab over the subway, but we didn't know if the cabbie would pick us up with my bike. Thankfully a cab stopped and since I am a wee little person with a wee little bike it totally fit in the trunk of the cab by just taking the front wheel off. It was the most glorious air conditioned cab ride ever. I got home and took the longest most glorious shower ever and then fell asleep on the couch for at least a good two hours.

We motivated to leave the couch only long enough to go get a late lunch at our favorite weekend brunch spot, Zucco in the Lower East Side and then came home to nap again. Overall I am pretty happy with the race, I did have fun which was the goal of the day, and was even able to reach one of my early season goals of a sub 3 hour Oly. Although, I'm not sure this Oly really counts since it was the world's easiest swim and a draft-fest on the bike but I guess I will take it any way I can get it!

Musselman Photos

2008-07-18T15:31:00.008-04:00

Someone tell that girl to get off my wheel please.....

Ummmm....yeah, you. GET OFF MY WHEEL!
Clearly these photos were before the heavens opened up
You can tell it's getting darker out but I'm still smilingOn the run and hurting!
On the run and smiling but you can see that my left thigh is seizing up
Still hurting....still running When will this torture be over?On the last mile gritting my teeth to keep running for the finish

Crossing the line all smiles to Marty's screaming

This is not me, but I didn't think any of my photos did it justice for how hard it was actually raining on the bike but I think you can get the picture from this one. Holy crap.

Race Report: Musselman Half Ironman

2008-07-17T15:10:00.003-04:00

I woke up race morning after getting a text from Scott at 4:15am wishing me luck and confirming that he knew I was going to kick butt. It only made me smile a little wider when I realized he was just getting home from our neighborhood bar ‘The Edge’ and I was just waking up. I was able to have my favorite pre-race oatmeal for breakfast since the microwave on our floor actually did work….score! We packed our goods and headed to transition arriving at 5:30am. Ugh…..that will never get any easier will it? It had rained a bit over night but the skies were clear, sunny and hot even in the early morning hours. I set up transition, went to pee and then headed down to the water for a little warm up to check out the conditions. I was surprised when I first got down to the water that I saw people all the way out to the last turn buoy that were still only up to their waist in the water! This lake was shallow! I also noticed an unpleasant amount of seaweed, chop, white capped waves and wind. The water felt warm enough so no issues there. I made my way back out of the water and waited for the start.

Swim:
This was an in-water start so you waded out into the shallow water and stood at the first buoy, yes stood until it was GO time. I seeded myself toward the middle/back right at the inside line of the buoy per what I had discussed with my coach. My plan was to hang onto my swim wave for as long as I could so that I could potentially get some drafting benefits. Well, that plan was immediately foiled as I looked up 300 yards into the swim and I was alone. The current was carrying my swim wave to shore and I was holding my line on the inside of the buoys….ugh. This was a little disheartening but I pressed on and just waited for the wave behind me to catch before I had friends to swim with. When we turned at the first buoy we were now swimming diagonally through the chop and waves and this was more than a little difficult. I was getting fairly sea sick from swimming up and down the waves and you had to time your breathing and sighting just right or else you would get smacked in the head by a breaking wave. I failed on more than one occasion….. Finally I was turning for home and we were thankfully swimming perpendicular with the current so it was helping bring me to shore. Although I was now swimming through a gross amount of seaweed that you literally had to move out of the way when you stroked to get through it…..gross. I tried to stay “swimming” for as long as I could but eventually my arms were hitting the bottom of the lake on my stoke and I had to get up and walk. I made my way to T1 feeling OK, I wasn’t tired but my stomach felt a bit off from the sea sickness and I had a headache.

Bike:
In and out of T1 fairly easy and I hit the bike course. I was focusing on getting myself settled and taking in fluids and nutrition. There was a pretty strong head wind for the first 15 miles or so that I could feel myself working against. It was nothing killer and nothing that was going to ruin my day but I wasn’t holding the speed I would have liked to. I just allowed myself to relax and reminded my head that it was a long day and there was no need to be forcing myself into the biggest gear at the start of the bike leg. We finally turned away from the headwind and I was able to move myself into a higher gear and get my speed up to where I would like it. I felt comfortable except for the nagging headache that I had coming out of the water that wasn’t going away. I was lying on my handlebars (I think I really need to invest in some aero bars as this was probably dangerous, especially in the rain) or down in my drops to stay as low and comfortable as I could. I made it to the half way point of the bike and through the aid station grabbing bottles and gel from the volunteers like a rock star, definitely one of the coolest parts of a long race! I looked down at my watch and I had made it through the first 28 miles in 1:30 and felt awesome. I was really excited thinking that I might actually pull off a 3 hour bike split. And then the rain came……

It was only a few drops at first and then I looked up to the sky, it was getting grey and the wind was picking up. It suddenly started to POUR down rain. It was raining so hard you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you. I probably should have been a lot more scared at this point but I just kept pushing. My tires were still gripping the road and I didn’t feel any unusual slipping so I just pushed. The rain came in and out over the next 28 miles from coming down so hard that it actually hurt when it hit your skin to a gentler sprinkle. I kept taking in nutrition but noticed that my stomach was feeling a little tight, I figured it was just from being on the bike for so long and pushing through the efforts of the day. At one point I just started to think about how nice it would be to change out of my wet cycling shoes and into my dry running shoes until I realized that my running shoes were getting soaked in transition and I would have to run a half marathon in wet shoes! I quickly pushed those thoughts out of my head, focus on one battle at a time. About 5 miles to go to the finish line a boom of thunder and huge crack of lightening light up the sky. I was so nervous that they were going to pull us off the course and not let us finish the race when I was almost 2/3 done. Thankfully the sky actually cleared up and the rain “stopped” for about 10 minutes, we did not see any more thunder and lightening for the rest of the day.

Run:
I made my way off the bike and into T2 and I was feeling OK’ish. My stomach was very tight, it didn’t feel like I was going to throw up or that I needed to do another bodily movement it just felt upset, I think it was an overdose of gels. I stopped at the port-a-potty to pee one the first mile of the run and that was it for the race. The first 2-3 miles were the really low points of the day for me. My stomach felt awful, my thighs and quads were screaming, my shoes were soaking wet and made a squishing noise at every step I took and the rain started to pick up again. I was taking walk breaks to try and stretch out my stomach and then finally just force myself to suck it up and run. I knew that I couldn’t take another gel for fear that my stomach would threaten anarchy and just pack up and move out. At the second mile aid station I grabbed a handful of pretzels from a volunteer and a glass of water and walked and munched on the pretzels. And it turned out those were the best freaking pretzels of my life. In the famous words of any distance triathlete “X, saved my half marathon or marathon” and for me X turned out to be pretzels. My legs were actually starting to join the party as well and I was running! I grabbed more pretzels and water at all subsequent aid stations and my stomach was definitely turning around for the better. I decided to get cocky at the half way point and take another gel…..huge mistake. My stomach immediately cramped up again. More pretzels at the next aid station and I was feeling better again. We then turned off the neighborhood roads that we were running on and onto a dirt road that lead to a huge gravel and pot hole infested hill. Ugh….needless to say I walked up it. And to add insult to injury it literally started to monsoon with rain. Everyone looked around at each other soaking wet and we just laughed….that is all you could do at that point. I thought about all of the early season long runs that I did in the rain and laughed again to myself how appropriate the training was given the conditions I was now running in. I was just focusing on moving forward and concentrated on the squish sound from my shoe at every step.

By the 10th mile I was ready to be done and apparently my left knee was as well. We headed back into town and the spectators were still out in force, so amazing in these conditions. We ran past the main church in town and there was a huge group of people ringing cow bells and shouting, it was just what I needed to take my mind off the pain. The last two miles are along the lake shore again and my knee was officially calling it quits. It was getting very sore and stiff and every step just hurt. I dug a little deeper and just kept running. There were competitors who had already finished and more spectators lining the last mile to tell me that the finish line was just around the corner. I saw the finishing arch, the announcer called my name and I heard Marty start screaming. She had started 14 minutes ahead of me in the water and I was looking for her the whole race thinking I could catch her. Turns out I was only about 5 minutes behind her on the run, just enough so she was out of sight the whole time for me or else I think I would have been motivated to catch her! We hugged and congratulated each other. My knee immediately seized up at the finish line and I could no longer bend it so we went in search of some ice. I headed to the med tent where they gave me ice, advil and cookies…..what more could a girl want?

Post Race:
We knew that Cheri was in the last wave and that according to her splits she knew she would be chasing the cut off times all day. The race officially closed at 3pm which would come about 1.5 hours after Marty and I crossed the line. We went to the car to get a blanket to huddle under and camped out at the finish line waiting, hoping and praying that she was OK out there and was going to make it. 3pm came and went with no Cheri in sight. We started to worry that she was hurt or on the side of the road and needed help. I went to the announcer who was packing up to see if he knew who was still out on the course, he said he didn’t know but that they were not going to pull people off the course if they were still moving forward, they would allow them to finish. A few more finishers were straggling in and we asked them if they have seen someone on the course fitting Cheri’s description, no luck, no one seemed to of seen her. Finally a guy crossed the line and he said that he did see her, they had been running on and off all day and that she was behind him…thank god! So we waited and watched and by this time the little crowd that was still at the finish line all knew that it was Cheri that was left to come in so when we spotted her we all started screaming for her at the top of our lungs. She crossed the finish line in tears to hugs from Marty and I. I just want to state that what Cheri did was one of the bravest things I have ever seen someone do. She chased down the cut off times all day and then in the end she knew going into the half marathon that she was not going to make the race cut off time but she stuck it out and finished anyway just for the principle of it on a very tough day. The official race results will give her a DNF but that is far from the truth of what she actually did.

The Long Journey Home:
We hit the showers back at the dorm post race. I threw out my socks because they were beyond saving and piled all of my wet belongings into a plastic bag. We figured we should hit the road for home since we had a long drive and there was no telling how long we would stay awake. We were all starving so we hit the Arby’s drive through just because it was close and the drive through was appealing to all so that we did not have to get out of the car and actually walk. We stopped again a few hours into the drive to get powdered donuts for Marty, Friendly’s Recees pieces sundae for me, and chocolate explosion sundae for Cheri. We were all getting quite sleepy by the time we hit the Lincoln Tunnel but I vowed to not fall asleep for Marty’s sake. And to make matters worse the rain started coming down again so the last couple of hours Marty was driving through the rain we had just raced in. We unloaded the car and said our final good byes and I was finally home at almost 1am. I tried to stay awake and re-cap the day for Scott but in the end he dragged me to bed and I passed out.

It has been four days since the race now and I am feeling pretty good. I am still a bit sore in the legs and hip flexors but nothing like the first few days after the race when I could barely walk. I am very proud of what I did out there on Sunday given the conditions and a distance that I have never faced before. I had absolutely no expectations for this race and really did not know how it would end and I can fully say that I very happy with the way it ended.

Race Report: Musselman Pre-Race

2008-07-16T11:42:00.000-04:00

This was an epic weekend and an epic journey so it is going to involve a multi-part race report. Thanks for indulging me but I just want to make sure I document every moment of this special weekend.

Two days out:

We decided to leave the city at 2pm on Friday to ensure that we would not get caught in any summer Friday traffic leaving the city and give us tons of extra cushion time to make it to check into our rooms by 9pm at the local college near the race. So I skipped out of work with my huge bag and bike helmet in tow in the most incognito way I could to meet up with the girls. We grabbed some snacks at the bodega and hit the road. We of course hit construction traffic and just barely made it to the check in before 9pm but that thankfully gave us plenty of time to catch up on life and training and strategize on how we were going to conquer this thing.

We finally got there and found the correct keys to open the correct doors and decided that the snacks we had eaten in the car were now worn off and we were hungry. We headed out to the grocery store to get food for the weekend and something to eat before hitting the pillows. We decided to wake up early to get in our morning workouts before all of the other craziness of the day so alarms were set for 7:30am.

One day out:

We suited up in biking gear and hit the run course. We couldn’t ride the whole thing because part of it was on a dirt road so we road as much as we could and it seemed to be pretty do-able with a few hills thrown in but nothing terrible. We would come to find out on race day that the detour around the dirt road that we took would have lead us to a monster hill but some things are better left undiscovered. We headed back to the dorm and decided again that we were hungry and wanted to check out the pancake breakfast hosted by the local church for the athletes. Can I just say how awesome this race is and the support it is given by the town of Geneva, NY? Seriously, I have never seen people so friendly and welcoming to a bunch of strangers who are going to close down the main streets in the city so that we can freely ride our bikes and run. AMAZING!

We had wanted to hit the water for a little swim before packet pick up so that Cheri could try out her new wetsuit. In the end there just wasn’t time or a great place for us to swim since there is generally isn’t public access at the lake where the race was held. Coach Marty (she will always remain coach Marty to us Danskin girls, especially when you can see in her mind that she is no longer speaking to you just as a friend but as a friend and a COACH…hee,hee) was lobbying hard for Cheri to get in the water and try the wetsuit before race day which is obviously smart but there was just so much to do! So we hit the expo after pancakes to register and made one last attempt to find me a bento box hoping the local bike shop that helps sponsor the race would have one at the expo…..no luck. We then ventured across campus to the mandatory pre-race briefing to go over all the details of the race and get our first chance to meet the race director of this great race. Seriously, this guy is amazing. He had put together a really great presentation that was not only funny but informative and totally set everyone’s mind at ease and answered every possible question one would have. From how to deal with the dreaded zebra mussels on the bottom of the lake from which the race gets its name, Musselman (the answer to that question is you have to swim the swim and not put your feet down and walk, duh) to what the exact nutrition would be at each aid station. I know I will keep saying this over and over but this is by far the best run race I have ever been to, the town and this race is totally a class act and it definitely put me at ease for the whole weekend.

After the pre-race briefing we headed out to drive the bike course which Marty and Cheri passively mentioned in conversation that it would take us over an hour to drive. Somehow in my brain it didn’t register that driving 56 miles would take over an hour…..I guess I should have realized that driving at a speed of 55mph is pretty fast and that would indeed be an hour and likely we couldn’t drive 55mph on the country roads that the race was on. But that statement FREAKED me out…..how was I supposed to bike something that takes over an hour to drive? That is crazy talk! We navigated our way onto the bike course and were following the route just fine. We stopped half way to get gas and switch drivers so that Marty could ice her leg (long story and I’m sure Marty doesn’t want me to re-live it here) and Cheri elected me to drive. Ugh….not such a great idea since I haven’t driven in like 5 years but thankfully I managed not to crash Marty’s car. We made it around the bike course and nothing looked out of our abilities. It was indeed all rolling hills and very beautiful countryside, it was definitely a course that was set up for a nice ride……little did we know that our ride would involve thunderstorms but all that to come in good time.

We had to make a decision at this point to either go eat lunch or stop and watch the ITU race that had just started. I had wanted to watch the ITU race since two competitors in this year’s Olympics were competing, Jarrod Shoemaker and Julie Ertel, but we all opted for food instead as the better pre-race option than standing outside in the sun hungry. We went to a little sports bar and got sandwiches and watched the Tour de France for some additional last minute inspiration. We hit the grocery store one more time for water and any other last minute race needs. There were signs at every check out lane saying Welcome Musselman athletes….how cool is that? We then went back to the dorm to rest and relax a bit before the athlete’s dinner and bike check in. We headed out again to the bike check in at around 6pm. We unloaded our bikes off the car and took a spin around the parking lot to make sure all was in working order. We smiled and thanked the little old couple that was sitting outside of transition that would guard the bikes all night….again, the coolness. The racks were individually numbered so that there was no fighting over where your spot was in transition which I actually like. When I found my number on the rack I noticed there was something written on the little tag, it read “#820 you have waited 30 years for this now go make New York City proud” It seriously brought tears to my eyes. That is the exact message that I needed to hear and to think that the race director took the time to write an individual message to each competitor is simply amazing to me. The little things this race did for the athletes will never cease to amaze me. So all adrenaline pumped up now and ready to make NYC proud we headed back to the college for the athlete’s dinner. It was just a cafeteria style pasta dinner but that fact that it was free and it gave all of the athletes a chance to sit together and chat was really nice. We headed back to the rooms at this point to prepare our stuff for race morning do a last minute run through with each other for nutrition and pacing, relax and then hit the pillows again for the last “sleep” before race morning.

I DID IT!!!!!

2008-07-14T10:09:00.002-04:00

Hey guys.....full race report to come but I just wanted to let you all know that I did it! There were high winds and white cap waves in the swim, torrential down pouring rain on the bike and we were waiting for the locusts (thanks Marty!) to arrive on the run. But we went out there and chased our best day in the conditions that were thrown at us and in the end we all crossed the line and can now call ourselves HALF ironmen!

Here are the numbers:
Swim: 1:01:46
Bike: 3:15:53
Run: 2:14:12
Total: 6:38:33

I can hardly move today, I have been hobbling around the office so far......good times.

Hey....Guess What?

2008-07-10T10:46:00.002-04:00

Ummmm, yeah. I'm racing a half ironman this weekend. Ah, yes. The weekend is upon us. I am surprisingly not freaking out. I am just more excited at this point to do it and stop thinking about it. I have focused the last six months of my life on preparing myself for this weekend so if I'm not ready now than I don't think that stressing out at this point is going to help me!

And of course it helps that I have been swamped at work so that helps in taking my mind off of thinking about every little detail that could go wrong. I am just going to roll with it. Things that need to be solved before I leave are as follows:

New tri shorts & top need to be purchased or laundry needs to be done.
Need to determine if three bikes can fit on Marty's new bike rack. If not, then plan B needs to go into effect immediately of borrowing a car from Scott's parents and making him come with me to be my Sherpa/driver.
Hammer gels need to be located and purchased (hopefully in the same place as tri shorts/top) for the run.
Bento box needs to be located and purchased for the bike to hold Fig Newtons which will serve as my bike nutrition. A girl can only eat so many gels and not throw up. When I tried the Fig Newtons out on my last long bike ride they worked great but I just put the sleeve of 'Newtons in my jersey pocket and kept reaching back and grabbing them. I won't be putting on a bike jersey in T1 so some alternate form of nutrition transport needs to be thought about.
Morning breakfast needs to be thought about and determined if the "kitchen" that the dorm we are staying in claims to have will be able to cook my oatmeal in the morning which is my favorite pre-race meal. I'm thinking I better have a non-cooking back up plan.
Time of departure needs to be coordinated with the girls and a plan for sneaking out of work early on Friday needs to be formulated. Do you think if I put pillows in my desk chair in the shape of a person that will serve as an appropriate proxy? I could set up an answering service for my phone a la Ferris Bueller.....it has potential right?
Directions need to be printed and given to a responsible navigator. Kristin has already pointed out that I am indeed not the person to be in charge of directions, I have gotten us lost going to tri's on more than one occasion.

Ummmmm, ok. I think I will stop at lucky #7 for the things I have to think about before tomorrow as I'd like to end this with a slight nod to the karma gods if possible. See you on the flip side with the race report unless I have any more thoughts to share with you between now and Sunday for the big day!

Covert Operation

2008-07-01T23:07:00.003-04:00

I almost amaze myself sometimes with the schemes that I come up with to get my training in but then again I do have a reputation for sneaking into pools so add this one to my list. So this time of year gets a little tricky for me to get my swims in because it is that weird time of year when summer is just starting and the outdoor pools are just beginning to open up. The indoor pool that I usually swim in is closed since their outdoor pool is open and to save costs they don't have both pools open at the same time. This would be fine with me, I could swim in the outdoor pool or in the 50 meter outdoor pool that is even closer to our apartment. The problem is that morning and evening lap swim doesn't start until July 7th.....the pools are only open for general/family swim craziness right now. Which pretty much boils down to I don't have a pool to swim in for another week.

There is another indoor pool that is across town from me that I do swim in sometimes so I figured I could head over there to get my swim in. I checked the lap swim schedule at that pool and found out that they only had lap swim hours from 6:15 to 7:15 tonight and then it was water polo for the rest of the night. So knowing that I was out of pool options I sprinted out of work at 6pm to run to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and then jump on the subway to head across town to hopefully hit the water by 6:15 so I could get at least an hour of my scheduled 1:15 swim in. My plan was quickly foiled when I encountered a huge line at the pharmacy counter and pharmacists that were moving like snails. Ugh. Finally I made it through the line and after just missing a subway (of course!) I finally made it to the pool at 6:30. I was now annoyed because I would barely get through the warm up let alone the main set of 3x600 before I was kicked out of the pool.

I had a sudden stroke of brilliance and realized that since I was already across town I might as well go a couple more blocks and try and swim at the Chelsea Piers pool. Basically Chelsea Piers is this super fancy sports complex that has a rock climbing wall, 1/4 mile indoor track, 25 yard pool overlooking the water, boxing gym, sand volleyball court, etc.....I think you get the picture. I figured I could go in there and say that I was interested in maybe joining the gym and see if they would let me "try" it out before I decided if it was the gym for me. And it totally worked. I had to go on a tour with one of their employees and listen to his spiel about how great the place is and how I will just love it there. All for the low, low price of $170 a month....ummmmm, no. What do you think, money grows on trees?

But I did convince him to let me "try out" the pool so I got to swim my entire swim workout in a really nice pool overlooking the sunset on the water and it will only cost me months and months of emails and phone calls that I will have to ignore asking if I want to join the gym. And I even had my lap lane to myself for a large part of the swim, I guess the high price of membership pays off. Or the sneaky covert operation to swim in the nice pool for free pays off even sweeter!

Fish Tales

2008-06-25T09:31:00.002-04:00

Who needs make-up, dry hair or ironed pants when you can have 450 pull? Seriously, those things are sooooo overrated in my life right now.

I need to go get my bike out of hock tonight at the LBS and they close at 7pm. So that means that I have to leave work at 6pm on the dot in order to get to the LBS in a reasonable amount of time to learn how to clip in and out of my new pedals to avoid falling on my face when I hit the streets all before the aforementioned 7pm closing time. And of course when you pick up a fresh clean bike with brand new pedals you can't possibly assume that I am going to ride it right home so that I can get to the pool do you? Silly you.

So all this boiled down to the fact that I had to get my swim done this morning if I am to pick up my bike and then get home at a reasonable hour tonight. You know, to spend some time with the guy that I live with.....who is that again?....ummmm, oh yeah, I think I married him at some point between training and racing....yes, that IS my husband! Ugh....yeah it's getting that bad.

So I crawl out of bed this morning which was super hard since the aforementioned (is that the second time I used that word in this post?......weird) husband was sound asleep and it would have been really nice to just forget the alarm and cuddle up for some extra z's. But I showed will power and actually got out of bed and into my swim suit which will forever remain nuts to me to be putting on a swim suit before sun rise. I made it to the pool and hit the water by 7:15am.....only 15 minutes behind schedule of when I wanted to hit the water but not so bad considering I loathe the morning. My lane was crowded and my shoulders were burning so my sets were taking longer than they should. At 8:15am I had made it almost all the way through my main set but had a 450 pull and a 150 cool down left to do. I had to make a choice...it was either get out of the water now so that I have time to dry my hair, put on make up and still get to work on time. OR.....I could finish the workout, put my wet hair in a pony tail, skip the make up and still get to work on time.

Gloriously the pool was starting to empty out for all of those suckers that actually do care about dry hair and make up. I decided to channel my inner little kid who never wanted to get out of the pool when I was young and decided to finish my set. I ripped off 450 pull without a single person getting in my way in front of me and ended with a smooth 150 easy back stroke to finish up my 100% completion of the swim workout.....yahooo!

Oh, and I made it to work with enough time to spare to get a bagel and coffee on the way in. I might need to head to the bathroom to do something about the dark cirles under my eyes though....I did get up early today ;)

Weekend Carnage

2008-06-23T18:16:00.002-04:00

It was an eventful weekend of training and my body is definitely feeling it today. Months and months of hard work and training are definitely taking its toll and I can almost taste the finish line. Or maybe that taste in my mouth is the apple pie Hammer gel on the way out, either way.....you decide.

As you can tell since I am sitting here writing this to you fine, fine people I did live to tell the tale of the B rider who shows up for the A ride thinking that she isn't going to get her ass kicked. The meeting place for the A and the B ride to Nyack was the same location, Central Park boat house, so when I showed up just before 8:30am on Saturday there was a huge crowd of cyclists awaiting the ride start. I saw one of my B SIG team members who was there for the B ride. He asked how my tri training was coming and if I was there to do the B ride with him and the rest of the cycling world in NYC apparently. A little shy and under my breath I said, "no, I wanted to push myself a bit today and do the A ride". A couple people around me heard me saying that I wanted to do the A and they pointed me to a group of guys standing to the side and mentioned that they were doing the A. So off we go....six of them, one of me.

I knew I was in for a treat when I couldn't even get to the top of the park without getting dropped. Ugh, this was going to be a lesson in confidence. So we make it out of the city and over the bridge and take the turn over to River Road where the first real hills of the day begin. There were three of the guys that rode off the front right away, it still amazes me when people can climb hills with such ease. I definitely wasn't the slowest but somewhere in the middle of the pack when we re-grouped at the Alpine Police Station at the top of River Road and that felt pretty good. We got on 9W and started to hammer the pace. I can fully admit that I have never cycled for so long in my big ring up front just pushing the cranks to stay with the pace line on a group ride. Craziness. Despite the speed and the extra effort I was still feeling OK. We hit two more huge hills, Bradley and Tweed, before we dropped down into Piermont for a 10 minute rest and refuel at the gazebo on the water. After lunch it was another hill straight away and then we turned off 9W again to a road that I haven't been on before. The name of the road was Eisenhower and it was pretty much a 14% grade for about a mile. AWE-SOME.

I was definitely feeling chewed up and spit out at this point but I was still moving and keeping contact with the group and I still wasn't last up the hills. The rest of the ride was basically "flat" or at least no more monsters but we were again hammering the pace line down 9W taking turns at the front pulling. I rolled across the GWB and down Riverside Drive and decided that I would treat my bike to a little tune up after the day I had just put it through. So I stopped at the east side Toga bike shop to drop off the bike and then treated myself with new shoes and pedals. I am a bit scared that I just decided to make a pedal switch so close to my race but I am hoping it doesn't take me too long to get used to clipping in and out of the new system. It was time to upgrade from the started SPD pedals if I am going to be going on any more A rides, ahem.

I was supposed to do a 20 minute run off the bike but by the time I made it back home from my bike shop detour I was feeling pretty cooked and tired. I was getting a headache and I was hungry so I didn't want to head out in the heat of the day to pound myself for a run. Probably should have HTFU and just gone out for the run but the shower was calling my name.

Sunday I tried to wake up early to get my long run in but early turned out to be 10am. I headed out for the 1:10 long run and my legs felt like LEAD. My quads were really screaming and I was just tired. I tried to settle in and just make myself run as comfortable as possible. I headed across town on my usual route to the West Side highway path and to add insult to injury there was a street fair on 9th street. Do you know how hard it is to keep running when there is the smell of french fries in the air? Also of excitement was the fact that it started to pour down rain on me at about the half way point of the run which actually felt good b/c it cooled me down. In the end I made it the time, I had to stop and walk a bit to stretch out my legs and get my HR to come down. When I got home I was so sore and stiff. I took and Epsom salt bath to try and relieve the aching muscles but in the end it was all I could do to stay awake. I crawled back into bed and took a nap, forced my husband to get up an hour later to get food and then fell asleep again. It was literally the world's laziest Sunday and my body was cooked.