travels, races, and other musings

I had a good race today at the Rogue Women's Tri! Here's the short version: I kicked ass on the swim, was a little too conservative on the bike, but had a really good run. My transitions were fast and smooth, there were no major mishaps and I felt great afterward. Pre-Race Once again, my day began at 5 AM. Usually I have the "What the hell am I thinking?" line going through my head at 5 AM in the morning before a race. Usually that voice goes away while I'm getting ready. This morning it didn't go away for a long long time (just about until I hit the water at the start of the race). We arrived at the site a little later than I had wanted. We parked and I found a place in transition to rack my bike (though slots were filling up fast). I set up my stuff and then headed out to get body marked. After being marked upon, we waited in the long line at the port-a-potties, then I got my timing chip. After that, I took a quick dip in the water in an attempt to w...

This was the race that started it all. I went back a year later to run it again. Like last year, my morning began at 5 AM. It was slightly easier this year, since I'm getting used to waking up early for training and events. Again, I met my teammates at Apple at 6 AM and we headed down to the race for a start time of 7 AM. Only two of us from last year's team returned this year, which is for the better since this year's runners were a much faster bunch. The weather was much better this year than last year. It was still humid, but it wasn't as hot. It was overcast for the first couple of legs of the run, then part way through our third runner (the second 10k leg) the sun came out. The sun came and went a bit, but unfortunately, when it was my turn, the sun was out and it stayed out through most of my run. I did a better warm up than I have been doing recently at races and I think it really helped. I didn't go out too fast and I kept a pretty good pace through th...