travels, races, and other musings

This year's Austin Triathlon was a hard race for me, mostly because of the run, but timewise, I still did well and met my expectations. I knew going into the race that it wasn't going to be my perfect race. I was coming off a big ramp up to my "A" race (America's Finest City Half Marathon) and was focusing a lot on my running (to the detriment of my biking and swimming). Also, while I was in San Diego for the race, I really didn't do any training the week after the race. Then once I got home it was time to "taper" again for this race. So it was a week of taper, a hard race, a week of vacation/recovery, another week of taper, then this race. Not ideal, but doable. Pre-Race 4:30 AM wakeup, breakfast, get ready and out the door by myself at around 5:20 (Roger and Emmaline were coming later). Arrived a bit before 6 and got my stuff set up. Then I found Michelle in transition and we chatted for a bit before heading down to the swim start where we chatt...

I can't really ask for much more from a race than I had from this morning. My goal was 2:10 - a 10:00/mi pace and while I didn't quite meet my goal, I was pretty close and it was still a PR by two and a half minutes so I'm happy. I gave every last bit I had; I stuck to my race plan and had a good day. Everything went very smoothly in the morning. The race started at 7 AM, but we had to be in line for the shuttle buses up to the start line (the race is a point to point with no parking at the start) no later than 5:30 AM. I woke up at 3:30 AM, left the house at 4 AM and headed to meet up with a friend from Texas Iron for a carpool. Mark grew up here and had come out for the race, too. I arrived at his house and we left around 4:45 and got to the race site around 5:15. We parked easily, hopped on the bus and headed for the start. The start point at Cabrillo National Monument was at the top of a hill and was quite beautiful. We hopped into the port a potty line (in the larg...

The stars were not aligned going into this race. I got sick on Tuesday and spent the rest of the week resting and recuperating (and trying everything possible to get well). By Saturday, I was still a bit sick, but pretty sure I was going to do the race. I knew it wouldn't be my best race ever, but I felt well enough to at least go through the motions. Sunday morning, I was still coughing but I decided I was mostly well so off I went. The night before I had gotten everything ready and Roger put the rack and bike on my car with my tires all pumped and ready to go. I had taken my bike for a quick spin around the block (5 minutes as opposed to my usual 20 minute warm up ride) and everything was working well. Sunday morning I arrived at the race site and realized that my front tire was completely flat. Because I ride tubulars on my race wheels, I don't carry a spare for short races. There's just no point. So of course, I had no spare. I called home (Roger and Emmaline were c...

I did my first official duathlon event this morning. Not by choice, since the swim for my triathlon was cancelled. I had fun and usually I vow not to do races without a swim (since it's my strongest sport) but I actually had fun today. But let me back up a bit. We originally came to Corpus Christi so could do the triathlon, Roger would do the duathlon and we'd have a beach vacation. Roger's mom (Elke) and her husband Stephen flew out to meet us and have vacation with us and watch Emmaline during the race. On Friday I heard that there may be jellyfish in the bay. I sort of shrugged it off and on Saturday I was picking up my packet and heard again about the jellyfish and that there were actually a fair number of them. One guy said that they didn't sting much - more like a fire ant bite. I dunno, I sort of go out of my way to avoid fire ants. Plus the water was super choppy and I was getting really nervous. Then Saturday night we got an email. The race organizers had...

I had been looking forward to Skeese Greets Triathlon as my first race of the season not just because it was my first race, but because I've been feeling really strong lately and I wanted a good benchmark for how my training has been going lately. I knew my bike was a little lacking, but I've been feeling so strong on the run, I just decided that my strategy would be do have a solid swim, hammer the bike and then put my running skills to the test. It's a short race and I didn't feel like I would need to pace too much.That was the plan anyway.  Pre-Race Before the race, things went smoothly and I found friends to hang out with. Emmaline was excited to be in her new (cheap) stroller for the event and was ready to ring her cow bell. I was in a new age group this year (35-39, even though I'm not yet 35) and I met up with Amy Bush, also in my age group and we lined up together.  As we waited for our swim wave, "Push It" (Salt N' Pepa) came over th...

The idea was to wake up at 4:30, leave by 5:30 and arrive at the race around 6 for a 7 AM start. Things didn't work that way. When I got up at 4:30, Emmaline woke up and I spent until 5:30 getting her settled again. So I raced through getting ready and was out the door by 5:50. I arrived and sat in a small traffic jam, parked and walked to the race site. As I was parking, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. Badly. I saw a bank of port a potties, but there weren't many and there was a LONG line. Thinking there would be many many more closer to the start (I mean, this was a race with 20,000 people) I headed for the start. Boy was I wrong. There were not many more than those I saw before, but there were gobs more people. So I waited. And waited. I probably waited about 40 minutes in the line before it was my turn. By the time I completed my business in the port a potty it was 7:10. The race had started 10 minutes earlier. It wasn't a big deal, really, though so I jo...

This is a long overdue race report for two recent running races. I started writing this, actually, right after the IBM 10k, but then I started writing something else timely and then I didn't finish that other entry because I was writing something else, etc. Things just kept coming up. Anyway... IBM 10k  This year was the third time I've run the IBM 10k. The first time I ran it was in October 2007, not long after I was (unknowingly) pregnant. Granted, I wasn't very pregnant, but I was already feeling tired and nauseated and had a crappy race. I thought I was still recovering from the Longhorn Half Ironman and maybe that was part of it. I never wrote a race report because I was so ashamed of my 1:03:42 time. Ha! Perspective! So then the following year (2008) Emmaline was born and I didn't run it because it was too soon, but I did run it last year. And 2009 me laughed at 2007 me for thinking 1:03:42 was a bad time. I ran it in 1:06:47 and again, didn't write a rac...

Ever since I had an incredibly good race at The Austin Triathlon in 2007, I've been wanting to go back and take another crack at it. All things considered, everything went very well today and I had a good race. It's really really hard to compare my performance now to that of three years ago and not be a twinge disappointed. It was basically the same course (slightly different run) and I was about 15 minutes faster overall three years ago. I was training for a half Ironman at the time, though and I was super in shape and just had a crazy good day that day. What can you do? For where I am now as an athlete (and a mom) I'm really happy with my race this year. Pre-Race I got up early and headed down to the race site and Roger and Emmaline slept in a bit and came down later and met up with me. I arrived a few minutes later than I wanted and then left my wetsuit in the car so I had to run back (luckily I hadn't made it too far from the car). When I arrived I had about 20 m...

Pre-Race I was excited to race the Pflugerville Triathlon again this year. I did it in 2007 (which I think was the first year) and it was a good race. Nice and small (500 people) which I definitely like. We planned out when we would arrive based on the time transition would be closing, which, according to the race packet was 7:15. So we arrived, parked, headed to transition and just as I arrived, they announced transition was closing in 10 minutes at 7 AM! I went into panic mode, racing around trying to get everything done. I'm usually on auto-pilot and can get everything done efficiently and quickly, but things just weren't going well and I was goofing everything up. Add to that the fact that my rear wheel was practically flat when Roger went to put my bike on the car. It had been fully inflated the night before. My race wheels are tubulars so it isn't like I can just change out the tube quickly. We pumped it up and took the bike pump to transition (which I never do)....

I had a really great race yesterday at the Skeese Greets Women's Triathlon. In fact, I think I'm going to have to make sure it's on my race calendar next year. My goals were fairly loose. Really, I just wanted to be faster than last year at The Rookie Triathlon (same course, different event) which was 1:20:06. I was thinking 1:15 would be nice. Roger thought I should be able to beat 1:10. My final time beat all those goals with 1:08:47! Pre-Race 4:45 AM is too early. But that's just how it goes. We had gotten most things ready the night before so we were able to get ready and hop in the car to head down to the race (about an hour drive). We arrived, I got set up, waiting forever in the port-a-potty line and then it was time for the race to start. Swim I was in the second wave. Michelle Garel and I started right next to each other each of us joking with the other about drafting off the other. As it happened, we spent most of the swim next to each other. I knew in t...