new favorite things about triathlons

I will write a longer post about this past weekend and the Lonestar 1/2 Ironman in Galveston on Monday (I'm a wee but tired right now...and I didn't even do the driving home - thank you, Laura!), but I had to share some of my new favorite things about triathlons while they are fresh on my mind. That is, if you consider my mind fresh since I woke up at 4:45 a.m. and had a nice little activity for approximately 6 hours in between!
Anyway, until later...here are my thoughts:
- wetsuit strippers...this was a highlight of my day!
- when your nutrition works (yeah...I might finally have it down pat)
- riding with an aerobottle...how did I last this long without one?!
- not bonking on the run...seriously, what an amazing feeling to actually be able to finish strong (even though I didn't quite negative split the 1/2 marathon like I wanted to)
- T3 blue, T3 blue, T3 blue all over the place...happiness is racing with teammates who are as awesome as T3!
- watching T3 join together in encouraging one another, cheering one another on, PR-ing all over the place, and picking one another up both literally and figuratively
- having some of our coaches at the race...doing awesome...working hard (racing or announcing)...cheering us on...being excited to see us finish...or getting in touch with us before the race to wish us luck. As a T3-er, I felt so supported by our coaches today it was incredible.
- leaving some goals for next time!!
- the fact that this "race" was really just a training day/weekend...back to the normal routine tomorrow! Really, we've lost our minds!
- out of town triathlons with great traveling buddies...especially Laura and Blythe
- having teammates who will let you go grab food with them after the race wearing shorts and your compression socks...yeah...some things should not typically be worn in public - like this outfit. But I did.
- and my new favorite race time for myself...seriously, this makes me giggle - 5:59:25. I wanted to go sub 6 hours someday (although I had not committed to this race being the race for it given we're in the middle of IM training)...and surprisingly I did! But it's a good thing that I didn't stop to do a single other thing along the way or else I would have missed it by a hair instead of making it by a hair.
(Thinking of all of my teammates tonight as everyone recovers from racing - whether it was a great race or a terrible race, I'm guessing we all learned something from it...and it took something out of all of us. For those who got hurt, feel better soon!)

friday quotation

Going into a weekend of racing/"training with support and cheering!"...

"There are positive and negative thoughts. And, hey, it doesn’t cost you a cent more to think positively." (Angelo Dundee)

Let's be safe...have lots of fun...do our best...and be encouragers to everyone around us! Go T3! Go all athletes!

switch-a-roo

My family has this great term that we use when suddenly in the middle of a conversation someone completely changes the subject. We call it a "switch-a-roo" and it usually happens when we're discussing something bad that we don't really want to be talking about. As kids, for example, if we were getting fussed at we might suddenly ask, "What's for dinner?" and we'd get called out for a "switch-a-roo."

I'm still guilty of conversational "switch-a-roo"s but I have also taken to using the term to apply to almost any sudden change. Like this morning...
The weather forced me to pull a "switch-a-roo" this morning when I woke up to heavy rain, thunder, and lightning. Ummm...that doesn't work for swimming at Lost Creek. I wanted to stay in bed but I also really want to be able to take Friday off from exercise completely. So I hopped over to the PTC for morning spin - sort of fun to have a different group of people to spin with. I think Erin and Praveeta were surprised to see me! The class isn't quite as long as the evening spin classes but that was actually perfect for me since I'd been advised not to spin for very long (race this weekend - ha!).
Clearly, this is a good thing for me to do every now and again. Break out of my routine. Shock my body into something different at 6:00 a.m. because let me tell you, my body is not used to spinning at that hour! Swimming...yes. Core workout...yes. Even running (although I have gotten surprisingly used to running in the evening). Spinning is tough for me in the morning so it's a good challenge from time to time. It's also a good thing mentally...reminding myself that I am flexible, that I can be spontaneous and react to whatever is thrown my way. This is triathlons. This is life. We can't always predict our day or the course of events or decisions that others will make. We have to be able to respond to whatever comes along...and make the best of it!!
Quick shower and then it was off to work for a looooong day. A meeting ran until 6:30 p.m. which meant that I didn't have a ton of time before swimming. But that was okay.
Thankfully, Blythe was up for swimming in the evening, too, and we somehow claimed a lane for ourselves. (Don should have come to swim with us instead of with super fast guys but he stuck it out with them...good for him!) Anyway, it was the PERFECT workout for Blythe and me. I'll forever think of it as the "B&E" workout. It was a great blend of time for Blythe to lead and time for me to lead...happiness. Pulling. Kicking. Fins. And then a quick trip to Rudy's for dinner after - fun! And good to get some good protein in our systems to replenish our muscles. Plus, time with Blythe is always fun!
Home sort of late...tried to start pulling things together for this weekend...and then bed. Knowing that I would get to sleep in on Friday (nice!)...even though I will miss my Barton Springs swim routine (sorry, Nancy!)...the extra sleep is a good thing for me.
Looking forward to this weekend and fun with friends and my first out-of-town race and T3-ness all of that good stuff...now to get everything together to get there!!!

be careful what you wish for...

...because sometimes something as simple as an '80s birthday mix request becomes a full-blown '80s core production!
Background - today was Coach Chrissie's 30th birthday! Woo-hoo...she's finally joined the rest of us 30 year-olds. Welcome to your 30s, Chrissie- it's actually a really good place to be! Anyway, she mentioned to Laura that it would be fun to have an '80s mix at core today. I'm pretty sure she might have suspected that we'd also bake cookies or a cake or something to celebrate her because we're like that at T3. We love celebrating one another!
I'm also pretty sure that what she encountered this morning was beyond her wildest imagination of anything we might do!
We figured, "Why stop at '80s music?" Let's transform the PTC into an '80s aerobic studio for the morning for our incredible coach. Richard Simmons...Jane Fonda...Larry Bird and Magic Johnson...Olivia Newton John...we were trying to be you! Or dress like you? Or something?!
And we were pretty darn good. It was hysterical...tri-athletes ditching the spandex and tech shirts and opting for leotards...short shorts...off the shoulder OP shirts...leg warmers...sweatbands...side ponytails...sunglasses...lace tights...Reeboks...fluorescent tights...jelly bracelets...tube socks... Doing our core routine to Footloose, Madonna, Toto, Chaka Kahn, Michael Jackson, etc...Truly a sight to behold. Or something?!
I am not sure any of us quite knows whether our abs are more sore from laughing or from all of the crunches or from holding our legs 6 inches off the ground. Whatever the case, it's a good sore. And a different sore from a really good workout sore (although it probably is that, too) so I think it's all the laughter. You know that sore that you feel when you've had a really authentic laugh with good friends? The kind of laugh that makes you grab your stomach and take an extra breath now and then because you just can't stop. Yeah. That kind of laughter. For an entire hour - except for when we were focusing too hard on our exercises...and even then, you'd catch a glimpse of someone's outfit and start giggling. Or at least I did.
But the very best part of the day was seeing Chrissie smiling the entire time. You have to understand that I think we give Chrissie reason to shake her head and smile at us on most Wednesday mornings. There is a pretty solid crew of about 40 of us who show up for morning core each week and Chrissie (a.k.a. Coach Pain) leads us through awesome workouts. We're forever trying to negotiate fewer death lunges or a different song to finish off our hamstring curls to. We rarely win...you'd think we'd learn. But we keep coming back for more because we love it...and we love Chrissie! She's an incredible athlete but more than that she's just a wonderful person. I can't think of a time when I haven't been glad to see her, and she's one of those people who you feel like you have so much to learn from (about triathlons and life...even if I'm older than she is!). A model of humility, kindness, and stability with a good sense of humor, incredible devotion to her athletes, and a generous spirit...yeah, we'd dress up in '80s attire and embarrass ourselves for Chrissie!
Anyway, I hope she had a great day...we certainly had a blast planning the morning for her. About 5-10 of us have been scheming for a while now - passing '80s exercise pictures back and forth, organizing food (thanks to everyone who baked and/or brought food and drink...especially the yummy giant cupcake from Jess, the T30 cake from Lisa, cookies from Laura, and the cookie cake from Yvonne...and everything else - juice, coffee, fruit...the makings for a yummy sugar rush at 6:00 a.m.), gathering '80s music (Laura!), and getting our outfits together. I think we worried that this morning would be anti-climatic. No chance. It was great! The only problem is that the rest of the day was rather mundane after starting in such an outrageous way!
What are we going to do with ourselves now that April 1 has come and gone?
(P.S. Night off from running...took some good advice there...felt good to go see the girls lax game at school and rest my legs some...I am racing this weekend, even if I keep forgetting about it!)

sleeping on the job

No. Not me.
I heard this story twice this morning (this happens when I listen to NPR on my way to swimming and then hear it again when I leave swimming before I switch to music for my drive to work) and I cracked up both times. Mostly because I've been thinking about napping a lot lately. And I always joke that someday I'm going to sit down on the couch in my office and fall asleep. I always imagine having students or a colleague or my boss walk in and me getting in trouble.
Well, a certain JetBlue baggage handler got a little more than he bargained for when he took what he thought was going to be perhaps a power nap on the job. He reportedly fell asleep in the cargo area of the plane when it was at JFK airport and woke up when it landed at Boston's Logan airport. Quite a shock, I would imagine...
Some question whether or not someone would really be able to sleep through all that noise in the cargo area...from a champion sleeper, let me just say that I absolutely believe it is possible! But I bet he won't choose that nap spot again!

good advice

I'm always ready to soak up wisdom from those around me. Got a few particularly helpful pieces of advice this weekend...
1 - from Jess about endurance sports in general: it is not who is the fastest it is who slows down the least! Yes! Something to be said for consistency and just plugging away...might be a specialty of mine.
2 - from Logan when I commented on how I felt better this past weekend than the weekend before (something that was sort of a mystery to me since the weekend before had shorter distances...maybe the brick did me in? umm...on to the advice, ETG): don't try to figure it out, just take it all as it comes, one workout at a time. Yes, yes...especially in this training, you just have to go with what you have at the time. Dig deep. Give it your all. Some days against all pieces of reason, you just don't have it in you. And other days, against all odds, you have more in you than you think you do.
3 - (technically from last week) from Don when I was talking about how I was trying to change some things up with my swim stroke...just feel the water, the speed with follow. Don is the metronome of our swim lane. Pacer extraordinaire. Consistent. Wise. Encouraging. I have a lot to learn from him! P.S. Mo did say I was catching more good water so maybe I'm getting there?!
4 - from Gran when we were talking about a friend of my mom who Gran has been particularly generous to with her time and listening ear...even when you don't have anything else to give, you can give someone your time or you can just listen to them. No wonder Gran has so many admirers...
On the training front, yoga was just what these muscles needed this morning...and surprisingly, I had a great run tonight. Okay, "great" is relative. Mentally it was great because I was out there doing it and felt good about it - more emotionally energized at the end than at the beginning. It wasn't fast (hills + ETG are never very fast!) but we did the long loop-short loop partner (yeah, Amy!) stuff in the Possum Trot area and I was impressed by what my legs still had in them. But only for the four sets + 1 set of backward stuff and then...the legs were done. Monday and Tuesday should be full workout days and then I start enjoying a more "recovery" type week Wednesday through Saturday before the Lonestar 1/2 Ironman in Galveston on Sunday. It's crazy to me that this "training day with lots of people cheering for us and support along the way and race numbers which makes it like a race except it's just another weekend of training for us CDA folks" (yes, this is how I look at it so I don't get anxious about racing...I'm not in racing mode yet!) is the same length as my "A" race last year?! What's gotten into me?!

ice baths and other thoughts

I've made lots of discoveries on this path of training for an Ironman. There are too many to list, really, and I'm sure if I tried I would leave out some really important ones. So I'll focus on some things from this past weekend...which, by the way, was a "big" one training-wise since we did our first 100-mile bike ride and our first 20-mile run. (Note: this was my longest bike ride and my longest run to date!)
Some thoughts about the weekend...
- 100 miles is a heck of a long way to bike (wind or no wind, it's just a lot of time to be in the saddle! I can only imagine 12 more miles!)
- 20 miles is a heck of a long way to run (on fresh legs or tired legs...it's a significant distance...but my first 20-miler felt good today! yeah! I felt strong and challenged and satisfied by how we did...yeah running buddies - Laura, Liz, Jim, Blythe, and Amy)
- both of the distances go by faster if you have friends and training buddies with you...if the sun is out...if you keep smiling even when you experience pain...if you have a good song to sing...if you are really loving what you are doing
- my body/our bodies can do way more than I ever thought possible...and can recover from injuries in amazing ways if you take care of them (insert deep gratitude here for no shin splint pain!)
- "ignorance is bliss"...I think I felt relatively little anxiety about this weekend purely because I had no tangible experience of how tough it would be. I (foolishly?) just assumed I could do it all based on the training that we've been doing and because none of my coaches have told me to throw in the towel yet. I could only imagine it and those images didn't really do it justice! At any rate, I'm incredibly grateful that my first 100-mile ride and 20-mile run went so well/felt so solid.
- why, oh why, can I bike 100 miles and run 20 miles and then totally wimp out about the two ice baths I forced myself to take this weekend?! Seriously. I did get in. I did soak for 20 minutes each time. I didn't freeze completely (although I was shivering like mad). I was thanking my Saturday ice bath on Sunday when I was running. Yes, yes, yes...all of these things. But I acted like a kid being forced to take gross tasting medicine as I tried to get into the tub! Amy said I have a lot of mental fortitude, well, it didn't look like that in the bathroom this weekend. Or maybe it did once I got in and forced myself to stay in.
- friends who go the distance with you on the bike, on the running trail, and in life are the most valuable sort...I'm humbled that I'm surrounded by so many in so many areas of my life
- having someone say they believe in you or are proud of you can carry you through some of the painful moments along the way
- and continuing to deepen your belief in yourself is a gift beyond compare
Here's to another great week of training...and life.