It’s been a long time since I’ve done something that has truly gotten me out of my comfort zone. Of course my sessions and training are demanding, but I love every second of it and I never doubt if I can do something or not. I’m not afraid, I know by now it will be extremely hard, but also that I am capable of a lot more than I thought. Just turn off the brain and execute. Of course I’ve done races that are challenging but nothing that has ever brought me to to 100% pure exhaustion as in I can’t lift my arms anymore or I can’t  walk  another step at all (although after crossing the finish line at Worlds this month I was chatting it up and feeling great and then about 15 minutes later had a period of about 2 minutes where my legs just said “NOPE! Not one more step for a while” So I stood in the parking lot on the way to get my bike mumbling “owwwwww, owwwwww”). But, I could WALK, just not well. Granted I was surrounded by a lot of other people doing the same thing, so it seemed pretty normal. You know it’s bad when you come up on a curb and have to bargin with it in order to step up. “All right, here we go, just turn a little, lift the leg a bit, swing it up and there….now to get the other leg up…..”

My coach is always coming up with different ways to bump me to the next level. I know whatever I am doing now is a stepping stone to something else, as was the work I started doing almost 2 years ago with him. Oddly enough, a lot of what I do is based on repetition, yet it’s always different in a way. Not sure how that works….Anyway, this has all brought me to flipping a tire around in a gym and doing KETTLEBELLS!!

So you’re probably saying “so what?” So it’s freakin’ HARD, that’s what. It’s something that has completely, 100% taken me out of my comfort zone in every way. Personally and physically. I’ve never done something that require so much brute force, finesse, coordination and POWER. Guess what I don’t have too much of? FORCE AND POWER. Sure, I have some or I would not be able to do what I do, but it’s lacking. And yes, I am a big huge believer in that you train these things in your sport, so low cadence work on the bike and hill repeats on the run. But sometimes you need an intervention.  The endurance stuff needs a rest this time of year, and it’s always good to work hard on the mental side. The longer you go, the more this comes into play. This is taking me out of my comfort zone personality-wise also which I know is good. I’m being confronted with things in the class that I am physically unable to do right now and it really pisses me off, ha! As you can guess I am just slightly uber competitive and I’m having to learn to do something I’m not super good at-YET, he he.  Even the warm ups look really easy. I went to the first official “class” (after barely being able to walk after the “we’re just going to show you how to do this so you don’t kill yourself or somebody else” class) thinking “this is the warm up?  Ha. This is not going to warm me up” to being about 3 minutes into it thinking “WHY IS THIS SO HARD?? WHY CAN ALL THESE PEOPLE DO THIS SO FAST!!?.  Ha!!

After the first class I could not lift my arms anymore at the end. My husband was laughing at me because when I got home we ate dinner and he looked over at me and my fork was shaking when I tried to bring it up to my mouth.  It took me a really long and time and some creative thinking to get my shirt off over my head. It’s pitiful, I know.

So I’ll enjoy the break from the endurance stuff for a bit and can’t wait to see if I’ll get less sore as the weeks go by. No wonder my friend laughed when she brought me to the intro class. She knew the pain that would follow! It looks like I’ll be eating some humble pie for the next few weeks. Better now than later

So as I mentioned, this was a split transition. I woke up at 4 and started to wonder how I was going to dress. The day before the weather changed and there were 25 to 30 mph winds, pouring rain and colder temps. This was stressing me out more than anything. History has told me I do NOT bike well in the cold. The temps were in the 30s on race morning, but it was set to be a pretty nice day.

I ate my standard breakfast of a GF bagel, Justins nut butter, and banana, coffee, etc, grabbed my wetsuit and headed out. ITU rules state you cannot alter or cover up any part of your uniform, so I planned on wearing a long sleeve shirt under the uniform. However, due to the abnormally cold temps, we were thankfully allowed to wear any compression sleeves, jackets, shirts we wanted. I never race in compression sleeves but for the extra warmth I put them on.  I was wearing my Team USA uniform, a long sleeve shirt, coat and winter hat. I stepped outside and it was cold, no doubt about it.

We drove over to  Lake Las Vegas, parked and I grabbed my wetsuit and started my walk down to the changing tents and transition. A lot of people were walking in the opposite direction. Someone walked by and said “the swim is canceled”. I said “ha, sure” and kind of laughed. I really thought he was kidding!

Then another person walked by and said the same thing, then a third. So, I was beginning to think this was reality. I was not happy, nor disappointed. I simply shifted my mind to what I needed to do to have my best possible race. It was out of my control and nothing I could do. I also was wondering if it was a rumor so I brought my wetsuit just in case. But, after hearing it from about 10 more people, I put the wetsuit back in the car.

We checked in our gear bags and bikes the night before. The bags were lined up outside the changing tents and sat out in the pouring rain all night. Yes, they were tied up, but everything was still soaking wet. Bike shoes, gloves, jackets, etc. The scene inside the changing tent was a little chaotic as everyone was crowded around the heater trying to dry off gear. We had a long wait, it was about 6am and we were set off to go out around 8:43. So there was nothing left to do but shiver, wait, shiver and wait.

 I opted to wear gloves, long sleeve shirt and a jacket. I wish I had leg warmers, but other than that I was fine. It was a little windy, but not nearly as bad as the day before and the sun was shining.

We lined up by our number and went off 5 seconds apart. They did a good job with what they had to work with last minute. Forget about drafting on this course! The hills and topography of this course would eliminate that. The start involved climbing “out and up” out of the Lake Las Vegas area, so I would say we climbed for about 15 to 20 minutes then headed out to the Lake Mead area. I thought with starting out 5 seconds apart I would start to pass people fairly quickly. But, I was cold and my legs did not want to work. I ended up passing a couple people and then seemed to hold my place until we were well into the Lake Mead Nat’l Park. So from then on it was a loooooong climb, followed by a looooong downhill, repeat and repeat. The scenery is amazing here. I felt good but my legs were not working as well as I needed them to and I was not warming up. Overall it was not bad though. I saw a huge tarantula on the road and a girl pedaled up beside me and said “Wow, did you see that??”, it was quite large and a cool sight! I did my standard infinit and EFS liquid gel but also ate since I knew I needed more calories with the cold. I grabbed bananas and ate snickers which no doubt helped my run.

So up and down we went until we got to “the bike path”. How bad can a bike path be you ask? Bad. It was up and up and then I saw a mileage sign coming and it said “60″. I had 15 more miles on this thing?? I know 15 miles was not bad, but you have to understand it was lucky if I was going 12 mph.  It was evil. It ended with 3 hills, the last being an 18% grade. I was not overly pleased with my bike time but was not really surprised given the weather. I’d just have to run fast which I was prepared to do!

We came into T2 which was in Henderson and I noticed my left leg and feet were numb but luckily that only lasted a few staggering steps off the bike. I returned to transition with only one glove and one sock, they met an unfortunate demise on the bike path.My feet were numb and I was not used to wearing socks so I managed to get one off and I’m not sure where one glove went. I probably took it off while trying to pedal and take socks off at the same time.  I will say now that the volunteers were GREAT at this race. Someone took my bike and my grabbed my gear bag for me. I was a little out of it and forgot my race number so I got the wrong bag for a second. After that minor mishap, I put on my shoes, took off all my layers and took off. My legs felt awesome and I was ready for a great run. The run was 4 loops (30k total) which was half downhill, half uphill. I did my standard 6:20 mile off the bike, said “whoa!” and settled in the 7s which felt good. I started passing people quickly but knew I did not have a great bike. The run went by very quickly and I got to the 13 mile mark under 1:40 and said “hang on!!”. Third lap was great and then I started to feel it on the 4th lap, which I expected. It was not bad, I was just able to tell I had to work a little harder now. I was taking in the liquid shot and water and that seemed to work just fine. It seems with the liquid shot as opposed to traditional gels that I don’t need to take in as many calories, not sure why. My energy seems more even with it. Mile 16 came up fast and it was great to know I only had 2 more to go.  I started to take in some coke to get that extra energy. Since it was a looped course, it helped SO much to see my family that came down to see me including my mom, cousin Angie and my Aunt Janet and her girlfriend Nomi. Talk about superstar spectators, they gave me a huge boost every time I saw them.

It was great to run down the chute and I finished with a huge smile on my face. I wanted top 10 badly and got it. However it took days for me to find that out since the results took forever-most likely due to the TT start format. I then started to shake, my core temp dropped fast and I was freezing!! I put on 2 coats and walked over to grab my bike and gear. I wanted to stick around but I was just too cold. All in all a great race, I really hand it to people who do the full Silverman on this course. It’s one of the most beautiful areas I’ve been to and I can’t wait to head out here again to do some training.

So what next? A little much deserved rest and then some late season running races!

As some of you know, the swim was cancelled and as much I try to avoid slowtwitch like the plague, I could not help but take a peek and see what people were saying. Of course, most people commenting how lame it was to cancel the swim were not there and had no real knowledge of the circumstance, the ITU rules surrounding the decision and how this was set up.

First, I believe it was about 37 degrees race morning. There is an ITU rule that takes the water temp and air temp and a decision is made to shorten or cancel the swim. Ours had to be canceled. So, when something like this happens out of your control, adapt, move on, and have the best race you can have. No use whining or wishing for something else. I was not happy, or disappointed, just moved to plan B and tried to find as many clothing layers as possible to put on!

Our gear was soaked from sitting in the pouring rain all night, even though it was in our gear bags. Shoes, jackets, socks, helmets, were all put in front of the heater in the changing tent. We were all freezing and debating what to wear or not to wear. I think the swim was possible, but how would we feel coming out of already very cold water onto bikes in 30-some degree temps? This is where whether we liked it or not, it was a smart decision.

For the people saying “why couldn’t they just do a duathlon with a run first?” Our shoes were over 10 miles away at T2 in Henderson. So an interesting start to an interesting day! More to follow with pictures.

I added another race for October and wanted to choose one that would really test my fitness and give me a good idea where I was and what I needed to work on before Vegas. I chose Rev3 due to how they treat the athletes (like gold) and the difficulty of their courses. Rev3 Anderson was perfect timing and less than 2 hours from my parents house in SC. I had a great time and Rev3 did an awesome job as always.

Rev3 is so unique and they treat the athletes so well. Everything right down to the transiton areas are just that much more thoughtful that other races, including the “70.3″ races, especially so. I flew into Augusta to stay with my mom for a bit and then we drove up to Anderson. Check in was a breeze and I made sure to attend the pre-race meeting due to the 2 transiton areas. Glad I listened because they clued us in to a potentially tricky hill and the logistics of setting up the two seperate transiton areas. One was at the lake of course, one being back in town to start the run.

It was not difficult and it worked out quite well. No drama setting up the bike and I was happy to find a restaurant offering a great gluten free menu. Not exactly a relaxing day as usual, but I got to bed early and after the party at Hooters next door to the hotel broke up (note to self to not stay next door to a Hooters next time) we had some peace and quiet and I actually got some pretty good sleep. And as usual, the 3:45 am wake up call was rough.

I was actually hungry when I woke up and was able to eat a huge breakfast which was awesome, no doubt it helped my race!

I got to the race start WAY too early (transiton opens at 5! Shuttle buses start at 5:15!), it was so easy to  set up T2 so I got to relax in the car until the shuttle brought us over to the lake. The swim was cool! We started on one side of the penninsula and swam around it, landing on the other side.

I decided to line up front and center, it was a running start and I knew from my warm up the lake got deep very fast, so it was run a few steps and dive. I looked back about 15 seconds before the gun went off, finger on the “start” button on my watch and thought “I am going to get the crap beat out of me”! Good thing I lined up in front because I got a pretty good start, I always struggle with the swim start.

The gun went off, I ran hard, dove in and got a pretty good position.

I was having a good swim and could tell I was moving well and they buoys were placed so well, even with all the turns. I was trying a new wetsuit for the first time in a race and it’s a keeper. I hated how I felt in my other wetsuit, like a big beached whale that had no feel for the water. Like I was bobbing way on top of the water just flailing my arms. I have never felt a wetsuit like this new one (Xterra Vector Pro) WOW!! It just moves with you like you’re wearing nothing. It’s amazing.

I got to my bike and stuffed my wetsuit in the morning bag (which Rev3 promptly had back at the finish waiting for you) and jumped on my bike.   The bike was amazing, really beautiful and really hilly. It took me 34 minutes to do the first 10 miles, luckily I was able to pick up the pace throughout the bike. The hills were not crazy steep, but relentless. I remember thinking once for about 2 minutes “holy crap I’m in my big chain ring!”. But that did not last long. I ate my mini snickers and gulped my Liquid Shot (which I now LOVE) and felt pretty good!

Towards the end, this guy pedals up to me and says in a really concerned voice “ARE OUR MORNING BAGS AT TRANSITION??” It struck me as the weirdest question and I had no idea why he was even thinking of this. I said “that is the last thing I’m concerned about right now”. Turns out he had no idea we were NOT going back to the lake and left everything at said lake. Poor guy! I hope he found his shoes! I would have been nicer had I known why in the world he was asking me in the first place.

So, I rolled into T2 and knew I had an okay ride-nothing out of this world, definitely not bad at all. 1 or 2 girls passed me in my AG but I was confident I could outrun them so I did not kill myself since with the hills, it could come back to bite me. I could not tell where I was but there were not many female bikes there yet. However, I had no idea if we were racked by age group. I grabbed my second flask of liquid shot and took off and was so happy my legs felt great. I knew it would be a hilly run. I also knew I had been doing countless repeats on the beast. Bring on the hills!

When I encountered a hill, I literally thought “you are nothing compared to the beast” ha! Whatever gets you through. And the ribs?  They hurt badly and I had to modify my breathing. I also knew I had a couple girls to run down and could worry about it later.

I passed one quickly and it took me about 6 miles or so to find the other one. It was a lonely run after we broke off from the Oly race. I just focused on anyone to pull in and counted people on the turnaround. The support was great and I really enjoyed the course. We has some cross country course action, downtown and hills!

Just as I crossed the finish line, a TV crew started to interview “The Bachelor” which I was a little confused about. My finish line photo shows me looking to the side and I have a look on my face like “huh?”.  My mom said “great race! They are interviewing the bachelor!”

 I  stuck around and enjoyed the post race activities and awards-the half awards were held later in the day and not a ton of people stayed. I had a good race! Pretty high up overall and 2nd in my AG. There is ALWAYS room to improve but I saw some great improvments on a tough course. As we know, not all races go well so you have to enjoy it and appreciate it when they do.

Post race food: great! Panera had cookies, sandwhiches and chips for us. Rev3 had pulled pork, funnel cakes, etc. Fun stuff for the spectators!

Countdown to Vegas….

It is hard! I went back to Juneau  this past week and did a lot of running and swimming. I did not realize how hot and humid it’s been here when I found myself able to run, and run and run and have endless energy and I was able to BREATH in the nice cool air. The warmest temp I felt was about 57. It felt awesome! Juneau also has a beautiful new saline lap pool and I had it to myself most days. I found out it was saline when I jumped in and got a big mouthful. It was great-no stinky chlorine smell. The above picture is what I saw on my runs out the front door. Did I get used to it? No way, I had to pause on each run to take it in, while keeping one eye peeled for bears.

What did I do in between all the running and swimming? Spending time with the cutest nephew ever and catching dinner:

We all have really crazy looks on our faces in this picture! Long day on the boat?? In true getting away style; no blackberry, no TV, no radio. I enjoyed every minute of it.

As you may or may not know, Juneau is a rainforest. It is in the middle of a 17 million acre national forest and 1000 square miles of an ice field-and the glaciers are gorgeous!

What always strikes me as funny is that you see the above pictures basically from the Safeway parking lot-you don’t have to go far, everything is up close.

I also had my fill of wildlife sightings which I love.  From the not so exotic porcupine crunching away in a tree, to a pod of Orcas super close to the boat-very exciting. I will be positng video of that soon. Bear, of course and these guys below:

Most of the time, I was doing this:

Stay tuned for more pictures and video this week!

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/ultramarathon

• For being competitive.
• For loving the pursuit of excellence in everything you do.
• For wanting to win.
• For eating chocolate every day.
•  For being a hard a$$ about excuses. “There are no excuses, only priorities”. I like that!
• For  being  a little obsessed with stories about transformation, whether they be about someone who rose up from adversity to someone losing 100 lbs.
• Perfect example of point above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1ZIKtPHR7c
• For wanting to go on a bike ride instead of doing the dishes. The dishes will be there when I get back, the beautiful day is available now!
• For having silly names for my dogs. Ava=tater tot or Ava Potata’ (thanks to my niece for that one: .  Willie-the willie monster or Willie gee willikers.
• For loving the Team TBB website and reading the posts by Brett Sutton.
• For being all or nothing. If you do something-DO IT.
• For not being able to give 100% of me to people at all times. I need my alone time too!
• For being really frustrated at people who blame their circumstances on everyone else.
• For my point of view.
• For fueling with Snickers and Milky Ways on my bike. Whatever works and it does the trick.
• For  being addicted to “So You Think You Can Dance?”.
• For cheating on my GF diet every once and a while with pizza. I love pizza.
• For drinking an ice cold Coke after a long, hot ride. It hits the spot sometimes!

It’s been a busy summer around here and things are not slowing down! Last weekend, I volunteered and raced at the Oshkosh Kids Tri (again, not held in Oshkosh) the day before the Oly (again, not a real Oly). I highly recommend volunteering at a kids race. This was hilarious and well worth being on my feet all morning. There was a real “swim” in the lake, bike and run. The distances depended on the age group.

They started out with the 3 year olds! Never too young to get them started. This was hands down the most hilarious age group. I have never seen kids with bigger smiles on their faces. My job/post was first to body mark (which they thought was super cool) and then to direct them where to go on the run. Let me tell you, those little legs were turning over FAST! They looked like little wheels spinning down the pavement. Most of them ran with their bike helmets on, bare feet or water socks and busted out the fastest pace they could to the finish. I loved yelling “You’re running SO FAST!” because the smiles would just get bigger. No tears in this age group. Many came up to me after the race holding up their medals saying “LOOK WHAT I GOT!!!”. TOO CUTE.

Then came the other age groups, 5-7, 9-10 and up to 12 years old. This is where the drama started. Clutching of the stomachs, drool, crying (I DON’T WANNA RUUUUNN, WAAAAAAA) and general drama. After one outburst, one exasperated parent was doing anything just to get their kid to the finish line (which you could see from where we were standing, ha ha). Everything from “but everyone is waiting for you! You have to run!” to, “just ruuuuuun!”.  I have to say the parents in general were pretty good and not hounding their kids too much. LOTs of tears in these age groups on the run. Some of the older kids were really into it and I could totally see a few of them going very far if they choose. There were some beautiful runners! And, the nice thing? All those kids said “thank you” for every little thing. Imagine that!

We had a gorgeous morning for the race on Sunday. I met up with my athlete Rick who was READY for a good race. We figured out some nutrition and bike fit issues and I was so excited for him. I knew he was going to smash it when he looked at me before the swim and said “This is it, this is my race. It’s my course, I train on it every week”. You could just tell from the look in his eyes this was genuine confidence. And, he smashed it!! It was really exciting to see.  He’s getting ready for IM WI and I did not let him taper for this one so I am very excited for him come September.

The swim was really nice and although it was another out and back with one buoy line (see the chaos of the Chisago race in a previous report about this) it was not a head clunker like the other one (well, not as bad at least). I have been doing some open water swimming to figure out how often I need to sight and figured out a good pattern and it worked well. At the turnaround I noticed I was not far off the lead pack at all so in general it was quite good.

We had very little wind for the bike which is always a treat. It’s a 32 mile bike opposed to a 40k. But per coaches orders, “smashfest from the gun” I rode it like it was a 40k. I was a little tired but looking back I was coming down with a little bug, but it did not affect things much. Much faster than last year and that’s all you can ask for! The only thing that drove me nuts but could not be avoided were the turns on the course. I think I counted like 8+ turns in the first 2 minutes, whew. That, and you had to remember you were starting with the sprint so you had to chill out a little until the course split. I will say that people seriously need to learn bike etiquette while racing. This was one of the loneliest bike portions I have ever done. I did not have company except for a small portion around mile 20 and then I just hoped the course was marked well.

An out and back run which I like because I could see where I was. I was 3rd F and ended up holding on to that spot which was fine. Like I said, faster than last year so placement was irrelevant. And yes, it took me a while to get to this way of thinking. An age group win after some timing issues which had one girl in my AG (who actually did the sprint) running a 4:45 mile and biking 28 mph. Yes, we cried foul on that but they accidentally put her sprint times to the Oly distance. Alls well that ends well. So a few days rest to clear up a cold and back to normal soon. I can’t wait for my mini break in Alaska at the end of the month. My brother sent me a picture of their new aquatic center and it’s gorgous!! So lots of running where I have one eye out for bear (okay, two eyes and maybe a can of bear spray), a 5k lined up (it’ll be “cold” so maybe I’ll run really “fast”) and lots of good food like salmon and elk burgers. YUM!!

I love this post from Chuckie V and it mirrors what I have been thinking lately.  The link is smushed below that giant picture up there. It’s basically about choosing to do something full- assed or half -assed and choosing to be your best but that’s only part of it. I’ll let you read the rest since he says it best. But I will say that one thing that has always bothered me is when people say, “this sport is so selfish”. But is it really? Why is this sport selfish but others are not? Isn’t the pursuit of being your absolute BEST in ANYTHING “selfish?”  And, what is wrong with choosing to persue something 100% and sacrificing things to be your best, whether it is work or sport? I don’t think there is anything wrong with it at all. And if you have to sacrifice “balance” then so be it. If you really want to do your best, somethings gotta give. You’re just going to have to choose what that something is and be okay with it. If you want something you don’t want balance, you want FOCUS. 

I will never forget a couple years back when I worked hard enough and was lucky enough (and I say both just because you never know who will show up on any given day) to win a race. I was talking with my friend Renee afterwards and she introduced me to a friend of hers. He saw that I won and looked me up and down with some disdain and said “Yea, but you’re probably one of those people who TRAIN” like it was okay to do well but not if you admitted to really working at it. It was one of the strangest exchanges I’ve ever had with anyone. Weirdo.

Anyway, I’ll be jumping around here a bit. I am behind on a race report but in other news, the weather here has been ridiculous! Hot, hot hot. And, my husband and I chose every activity  (not purposely) this weekend that required standing and walking around is said sun and heat for 7+ hours on end. First, EAA, which is in Oshkosh and is the larget airshow in the world. I am not even super into airplanes but this is actually pretty cool even if you’re not into planes. By the time the actual airshow started we were HOT and exhausted and did not even make it through the show. I can’t figure out how to get that picture down here but that is me in front of the engine for the Boeing Dreamliner, the long overdue massive plane their working on. WOW!

I think we spent about $20 in fluids alone here. The next day we drove down to the Galena, IL area (what a beautiful area, I had no idea! Makes me want to do that Galena race) for an auction that again had us standing around in HOT weather with no shade. Thankfully for my ride today I had some cloud cover. Never thought I’d say that. It might only be in the 80s by the end of the week!

I went to the track Sunday to do my standard Sunday track session and I knew it was really hot but I did not want to throw in the towel without trying. The first sign I should have done it indoors was the very rare occurance of every single gate around the track being locked. So, like any determined person, I climbed and jumped the very tall fence and hoped no one was watching because it was not graceful and I almost ripped my shorts off. Part of someones shirt was hanging off this same spot so I was not the only one to attempt the climb, balance, teeter, jump.

Warmed up and I was shocked I was holding the speed I wanted to for as long as I did and then…alarm bells went off in my head. TOO HOT!! TOO HOT! I went through almost all my fluids after only 5 repeats. I have never felt so crazy hot before and I could not take it. It’s like I was burning from the inside out. I freaked out and I drove to the Y after another balancing act on top of the fence and headed to the air conditioned treadmill. There is a fine line between toughing it out and being stupid.

And onto the race report. My friend Julia sums it up well here:

http://julia-gobiggreen.blogspot.com/

I wanted a low key, flatter course and chose Chisago. I headed over to the St. Paul, MN area and stayed with Julia, same Julia from our KS 70.3 adventures. She was nice enough to let me stay at her house and borrow everything I forgot and feed me   So onto the race, why in the world did I think it was low key or an “easy” course? Not low key, NOT FLAT!! And yes the fog was bad. I saw it rolling over the tree tops while we were in transition and poked Julia and said “hey, check that out” and then before we knew it we could not see the lake. Or the buoys. It was a head clunker for sure. It was an out and back swim and everyone was crossing over and swimming right towards eachother and I had some close calls. I definitely got my arms tangled with people as we were swimming right towards eachother. I also could not see the buoys until I was right up on them. I sighted horribly and was all over the place. I don’t know what they could have done differently except for having a rectangular course or something.

Onto the bike and I was very surprised it was almost chilly. Stupid moment #1 of the race. My sunglasses fogged up the second I put them on and I could not see a thing and had to take a turn under a tunnel and ran right into the tape they had blocking where you should NOT turn. The tape is stretchy and it travels a very long way, I just kept pulling it and pulling it with me with it around my chest, ha!! Oh my gosh. Then one of the volunteers said “keep going! I will take care of it!” What a way to start. The roads were not great, just one of those courses where you put your head down and just got it done. We were with the sprint race for a while so it was hard not to get caught up in the sprint speeds and let people go. Again I did not see any marshalls like High Cliff. There were mile markers every mile on the bike and I don’t know if I liked that or not! It at least kept me occupied on an otherwise fairly ho-hum course. I felt pretty good!  I ate so many flipping carbs before this race it was not even funny. My main goal though was to finally get close to  having the run I knew I had in me. Training was saying one thing, racing was saying another and I had to figure it out. A huge part of it was a not good bike fit I received back in May. Oh well, I went back to my tried and true fitter and my run improved drastically. It really is an art and a science to get someone maximizing their bike and then understanding how to get them to run off the bike really well. Brent at Emery’s is genius at this. As soon as I set up my bike in his fitting area a couple weeks back, they took one look at me and said “you must be running like crap off the bike”. YES! So it was not just me thinking something was off.

However, having my run legs back excited me a bit too much and I whipped off far too many miles in the mid 6s before implosing at mile 9/10 before getting my head and legs together and holding it together to the finish. And I felt good, what a great feeling. I was exceedingly pleased with this. This was one of those races where if I blew, I blew and did not care much and wanted to see how much I could push it. Turns out the implosion was not bad and gives me a good idea of where to start out next time. And it was hilly!! I turned the corner after the first mile or so and said “you’ve got to be kidding me”. I saw one very long black top road in the sun with constant up and down rollers. It was not too bad and kept it interesting. It was kind of a cool run course. I am still laughing about what one guy said to me when I started to spiral a bit at mile 10. He said “you need to chill out and just try to keep the same pace”. ha! Must have been the part where I could not figure out what speed I needed to hold and was all over the place. It was an out and back with mile markers every mile which I liked. The competition was fierce at this race and overall it was well run. I agree with Julia in that it’s not one that I would repeat. Too many other good ones out there to try and do, but it fit the bill for this weekend and I had great company for the race.

I’m taking another little midseason break and heading to Alaska again, I can’t wait. Before that though, the Oshkosh Oly Tri is coming up. Again, not in Oshkosh, not really an Oly distance… but it’s 7  miles from my house and I can’t pass that up. It’ll give me another chance to figure out why I can’t swim in my wetsuit. I’m too buoyant and too hot in it! The water temps at these races HAVE NOT BEEN 74 as they say. I actually feel like I am in one of those silly sumo wrestler suits people put on to “wrestle” in. That’s a great analogy actually. I am cooking my brain on these swims and most of the races I have done so far should not have been wetsuit legal. I’ll just leave it at that.

Then it’s time to start thinking about Worlds in November!

So you may be thinking “what in the world does the movie Rain Man have to do with this post?”. Well, last week, let’s just say I was definitely taken out of my routine and I acted a bit like Rain Man when he starts to flip out when he did not have his normal, every day schedule, remember that??  It’s 3 O’Clock I have to watch Judge Wapner!!” and he flips out and Tom Cruise has to pull over at a random house so he can watch People’s Court. I did not react much differently last week. And I do NOT do well without sleep. If I were a CIA agent and someone used sleep deprivation on me as torture to get me to talk I’d crumble in a second.

 Now, I like to think of myself as being very flexible and going with the flow to say the least. I have traveled all over the world by myself, have lived in a couple different countries for an extended period of time and it takes a lot to get me frustrated or wound up. I kind of reached my limit last week. I was asked to interview for a management position at my company and was told I would be flying out to Boston 2 days before heading out to KS 70.3. I knew it would be a tough schedule, but I could easily make it work, so I thought. That’s before I found myself stuck at O’Hare (big surprise, ask me how much I love flying through O’Hare) at 12am knowing I had to be at another airport at 5:30am that morning to make my flight to KS. I needed to EAT and SLEEP. It was bascially Friday and I had done neither since Wednesday night. I knew already it was going to be rough.

I was running like a nut from interviews, to the airport, delayed flights, running to gates and basically flipping out at the level of horrible customer service most airlines give you. I will say though  as a side note that I cannot say enough good things about Frontier Airlines. No bike fees and they treat you like a million bucks. So, to make a long story short, I got into Milawaukee about 1:30am Friday morning. Went to my friends house where I had all my stuff for my next trip. Broke down the bike, packed, closed my eyes for a minute, then went straight back to the airport. Flew to KS, and then drove to Lawrence. I was fried. I was hungry. I had been up for I don’t know how many hours, 36?? I was downright goofy at that point. I met my friend Julia at the airport and said “I NEED COFFEE NOW!!”. I could not have made the drive without it. I have to say that everyone at O’Hare needs to go to the Kansas City airport for training on how to treat people. It just amazes me how nice they are there. The people in KS (the airport is in MO, minor detail here) blow me away with their kindess and hospitality. I remembered this from last year when I was very suspicious as to why everyone was being SO NICE. Even the toll booth workers asked if we were racing, how it went and how nice it was that we were there. People in restaurants came up to us saying what an accomplishment it was to do the race and do we like the city, how did it go, etc etc. I remember thinking “what in the heck is going on?? Why is everyone being so nice??”

Anyway, with how I was feeling, I kept saying “do well DESPITE this”, you do not have to feel good to race good (it’s true, anything can happen and you never know how your body will respond-more on that later). Thank goodness for the amazing house my friend Julia get to stay in. We have our own room, a gourmet kitchen to use, nevermind we were too afraid to touch anything or make a mess….I got to lay down and take a nap when I got there, finally. I still had all day Saturday to catch up and try to feel normal.

So, we went through the whole upstairs, downstairs transition set up and there were no lines at registration, I think it took maybe 5 minutes. Again, all the volunteers were SO NICE. We got total crap in our race packets/bags. A sample size of Wheeties. Are you kidding me? Then of course they spit us out of the registration line right into the tent where the Mdot logo threw up on everything from towels to COOKIE CUTTERS. Get me out of here NOW. Of course I did end up buying a new pair of running shoes to which Julia said “SHOE WHORE!”. K Swiss Kwicky Blade Light-LOVE THEM. New fav shoe. Julia just stood there shaking her head while I tried them on. She knew once they suckered me into trying them on, they were mine! Besides I got a water bottle and a towel with the shoes and 50% off some flip flops. It does not take much to make me happy.

Back to the house after dropping off our bikes (that is always such a nice feeling) and more rest. I do very short tapers and it felt like I had been tapering for weeks. I was so so tired, no appetite and I felt super sluggish, big surprise after my cross country adventures. Nothing tasted good and I could barely shove any amount of dinner down.

We woke up at 3:30 and have our timing down to a science for this race. It was hilarious, it’s like we’re in the military race morning. We had a timer to get up, one to eat breakfast, to load the car and when we should be leaving. Just as we were pulling out of the driveway, the “leave for the park” timer went off, brilliant! We sailed through the state park entrance with no lines and got some pretty decent parking. Tied a ballon to the truck so we could find it (things look much different in the dark at 4am and then after the race) and went to set up T2 which was at the “top” or upstairs from T1. Meanwhile we were watching the lightening off in the distance. 80% chance of storms and rain which never materialized. I was updated on the minute with Julia’s quick weather checks. She is the weather guru. I still did not feel bad but who knows how the week would make me react.

I got in the water and when the gun went off I was immediately HOT. I was so overheated I wanted to puke. There was no way the water was 74! Then, this is where I got all Rain Man-like. The water was really rough and I was not expecting it. I do not mind rough water at all. I just was not expecting it. Normally I would react to the situation and just adapt. But I kept fighting it every stroke every step of the way. I was getting off course and I kept thinking “this is NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING”, “it’s not supposed to be like this!!”, “how in the hell did I get so far away from that buoy??!”.  So what? Adapt and keep going. I did not do that today. I made one bad mistake in that I did this race last year and had some time goals in mind this year. However, the weather had it’s own ideas and did not care that I had some times to hit. I know better than this also.

On to the bike and my body was just not responding. Whenever I tried to push, nothing was there. I was uncomfortable, nothing tasted good and I felt weird. Same with the run, “it” was just not there. I wanted to stop badly. Nothing was bad, just not good, that’s all I had today. Nothing sat right in my stomach, nothing felt right, and no energy. I was mad, and disapointed to say the least. I think I also have a mental issue with some of these bigger races which I hate to admit but it’s something I may have to work on.

I was happy to see Julia do great and I  still had a good time in Lawrence. I love it there and I would still do the race again! Really a great venue and city. It was just not my race this year. And here comes “the double” part.

 A couple days later I noticed I felt really good. It did not seem like I raced at all and there was a half on Saturday that I could still sign up for. 2 half IMs, 5 days apart. What would happen? Could be very bad, could be brilliant. So, I signed up. I had a full week of normal food and sleep. I hate this particular race, I love this particular race. I always say “this is my last year doing this one for a while”. HA!! I always see so many people I know and always have fun.

I packed up the car Saturday morning and drove 20 minutes north. There was one other girl on my rack that did KS last Sunday too! We both wondered what would happen. we kind of looked at eachother like “this is really stupid”, ha!  So, I did not want to be in the first wave, but that’s where they put me. I felt good in the swim, the water was much colder than I expected but it felt good. It was a running, shallow water start and I do not like these. Especially here because the water is SO shallow for SO long, I never quite know when to start swimming. Then you start swimming and it gets really really shallow for a while again, all this sand bar stuff. I got off track a bit here and there but overall not bad. This race has wetsuit strippers, bonus! One less thing to worry about. Plenty of bikes left on the rack when I got out of the swim. Onto the bike and up “the hill”. Now, I will downplay this hill and when I asked people in my tri group if they were doing High Cliff, they said “oh man, then I would have to do “the hill”. I say it’s less that 1% of the race, it’s not bad, suck it up. But I will say, the hill is kind of a bitch. It’s long and steep and it’s the first thing you have to do right out of transition for the run and the bike. But, I felt really good. Legs were there, head was there. You just never know! So, within the first 5 miles I had 3 girls pass me hard, I kid you not I was going 31 mph, geared out with a nice cross/tailwind. But they were working way too hard. Heads bobbing, bodies all over the place pedaling like maniacs. They really wanted to pass though. So I though “okay, so this is how it’s going to be” and I was willing to play today. I  passed them back, one girl made one more attempt but she was working way too hard to maintain it. So, all that was left was Sue and I. Sue is an AMAZING runner and she was having a really good bike. We were in sight with eachother the whole ride, but I had to idea were were #1 and #2 or #2 and #3. I have been working SO hard for SO long on the bike. Not just doing some extra rides or longer rides, hardly. 2 YEARS of working on it. 2 years ago I rode 2:47 on this course, I just could never quite figure this course out. It was not hilly but a ton of false flats, super windy and mentally it really got to me. It gets to you because you just don’t move on the bike. You’re in the TT position and it’s always very windy and when you look up, you see one very long lonely road ahead of you and that’s about it, nothing to break it up, you just keep pedaling as hard as you can. This year, I did a 2:35. PR!! I knew my legs would not be 100% for the run so I kind of had to take advantage of how I was feeling and really crush it. I still did not know my place but I know the volunteers on the course were always really good about letting you know where you are. My legs felt pretty good off the bike actually!

I started up the hill and never once thought to walk. I felt pretty darn good. I knew I could get my HR down really fast once I got to the top and really start to run. So, they reversed the run this year. Same course, different direction. It actually made a bit of a difference and everyone ran a bit slower this year. I can’t quite figure that one out. This run course really tears my body up. The one part I hate is running through a mowed field in full sun on super uneven ground. Then, your feet get beat up by running on super uneven exposed rock beds. But then come the trails and I LOVE this part. On the first loop I heard “you’re 3rd!” and quickly found 2nd place girl and passed quickly. Then, I never saw anyone for a long time. I just pretended I was doing a hard training run.

In my last few races I have wanted plain, cold water REALLY bad. I don’t know if I am getting a bit dehydrated but I knew I wanted WATER. Every once adn a while you pop out onto the road and hit an aid station and then back into the woods, it’s a pretty cool run course actually.  I felt good, but I did not think I was running super fast, but it did the job today. It was a lonely, quiet run through the woods. On the 2nd lap I had a bit more company and tried hard to just keep my pace. It always amazes me how fast 13.1 miles go. Before I knew it I had one mile to go down the hill. It is 10x worse going down and I swear this is why I get so sore from this race. It’s all out crazy fast running downhill for a long time.

So, 2nd F and 1st in my AG. I did not feel other worldly, but it was okay! Sue had a brilliant run of course and I had a great time running into so many people I knew after the race. For a minute I thought the post race food really improved this year (although they added a beer tent this year!) and I loaded up on a grilled burger, chips, full size candy bars!! Until someone said “your food is around the corner, this is the stuff you have to pay for”. HA HA! Well, I did not have any money, so I basically said “oh” and left it there. Oops. Sorry. I think I was just really hungry and mesmerized by the sight of FOOOOOD and wanted it!

I do not know what’s next. I used to love Muncie before it was Muncie 70.3, that’s a possibility. Definitely another Rev3 this year and then Worlds in November. For now though, major rest time. NOW I feel like resting and my body is talking back to me today. And for the position I interviewed for? They decided not to hire anybody and put the positon on hold, waaa! Oh well, back to being flexible and going with the flow