Despite anxiety of enormously disproportionate proportions (!) I ran the 10-miler without major incident or pain, and thankfully was not faced with the decision of whether or not to bail. My glute/hip is sore now, but nothing acute. I finished in 1:13:37 and won the master’s division (7:22ish pace). Fourth female, 50/284 overall. [Results here] Yeah, I know….what was all that complaining about. No, I’m not a sandbagger, but I might well be a nut job.

There IS an issue. Thursday’s run was cut short to 1.5 miles of inexplicable hip pain. I can’t recall ever cutting a run that short. Thursday the chiropractor realigned me and Friday I saw the D.O. who diagnosed a “fired up” gluteus minimus and gave me a lidocaine/steroid injection (that was a first). Neither saw running today as a major injury risk so I went forward with it.

I can’t believe what a headcase I have been the last few days. I was worried I had torn something, worried I had jeopardized Boston (again), and frustrated I apparently can’t seem to detect warning signs in my body. I’d been feeling great.

By Friday night I was a fragile mess on the verge of tears. It’s been a tough week post-conference and with Robert gone to Mexico, and there have been emotional issues with the kids, a close friend, and a family member going through some trying times. The last straw was when the oven stopped working last night.… Read the rest

I”m pretty happy to be reporting from the OTHER side of the finish line! I’ve had a big lunch (with two beers…whoa), iced the legs, and am laying around while the boys and my husband are at the Science Center of Virginia.

I love this race, it really feels like the hometown crowd even being 200 miles away from home. There were a reported 28 members of the Virginia Tech Triathlon club here, my neighbor Joe and his daughter, my friend Michaela (thanks to her husband Frank for cheering me on!), and lots of other friends running the full (Ian, Jordan, Andy, Laura), half (Edie, Martha, Ennis…) and 8k. I ran into One-on-One athlete Crystal in my hotel and saw (heard?) Edie cheering for me at the start of the race! My teammate on the Endurance Films Racing Team, Laura Bergmann, was here too and though we texted like crazy we never did meet up (she was way too fast for me finishing in 3:33!!)

It was a 3:38:54 effort today (14th / 268 in Age Group) with nearly even splits (4 seconds off) for first vs second half so that is progress. The funny thing is my other marathons were 3:38:39 and 3:38:01. I’m consistent, if nothing else!

Considering my longest run this fall was 18 miles and I didn’t really hit a “wall” till about mile 23 today, I am very very pleased. I asked Coach Jim to help me nail down a… Read the rest

This sprint triathlon at Lake Anna, NW of Richmond, VA was a late addition to my race schedule. It was just one town over from Mineral, the epicenter of the recent earthquake. This was intended to be a low-key, fun, getaway wrap-up to the season with my friend Krista. Coach called it the “icing on the cake” race. I envisioned a relaxed little event with plenty of sunshine (and maybe rainbows and puppy dogs). What I got was a sold-out (870 registered) race with rain and temperatures in the 40’s. It was more ice than icing.

We stayed at Krista’s friend’s lake house with another racing family. The conversation provided a nice distraction from the falling temps. (We scored the room with the bunk beds and Barbies!) 

I agonized a bit about how to dress on the bike leg. Normally for a ride in the low 50’s I’d have neoprene shoe covers, leg warmers, a long sleeve shirt, a windproof jacket, and gloves. For the race, I contemplated riding in my wetsuit or perhaps slipping into some nice fuzzy footie pajamas.

Pre-Race

Race morning I drove Krista crazy because I kept saying, “hey, at least it’s not raining.” So of course….here comes the rain to add to our pleasure. We all decided we would do each other’s body marking before we left the house to save needless COLD disrobing at the venue. At least the start time… Read the rest

It was a mighty fine race day, indeed! I knocked it out in 2:27:29 to finish 39th out of 108 in my age group. Thanks to the age-up rule, I also qualified for ITU Worlds on October 22, 2012 in Auckland New Zealand. (The age-up rule means I was compared to people who will be in the 45-49 age group at the time of Worlds) My number-loving husband came up with this from the online results:

829/1624 Overall Finishers
182/650 Female Finishers
61/332 Female Masters Finishers

Hey, I’ll take it!

This is the quick race report.

finisher’s medal and “Wacko” beer!
Swim

I had no warm-up on anything, no swim, no run, no bike. This was a cold start (as in not warmed up), but the day was gorgeous and the water was perfect. We jumped in off a dock and lined up. It was announced that among our age group was an Olympian! This is Nationals after all. I settled in fast and got busy drafting. The sun made it kind of hard to see the turn buoys and the whole lot of us did not swim straight. The spectators were saying later how wide we all went. It’s funny how a whole pack can do that. Like lemmings we just follow those around us. My swim was a 29:18, nothing stellar, but I enjoyed it and didn’t get mauled. There was some chop out there and… Read the rest

To pick up where I left off yesterday… the plan was to check my bike into transition before a team meeting for filming at 5 pm. I got my bike out of the hotel bike check and noticed the front tire seemed low again. I pushed the bike about a half mile to transition for the bike folks to check it out. We discovered the front had a slit and the best fix was to put a tube in my tubeless tires but they couldn’t do it there, so I pushed/sprinted with my bike about a mile to the local bike shop, SkiRak (which is amazing). I dropped it off there and sprinted back to meet the team. I was frustrated but my mantra this weekend has been to just “roll with it.” I knew there was a lot of uncertainty and things would happen. I couldn’t get flustered and let it affect my fun or positive race energy.

I met up with the team where we did a some filming and had a lot of fun with it! Then I dashed back to the bike shop and finally got my bike into transition. I said night-night to Teddy Roo and got back to the hotel.

I’ve never seen so many beautiful bikes…check out this wheel!!

For this race they give you “Tri Tats” which are temporary number tattoos for your shins and arms. At most regional races they just use… Read the rest

I completed the Luray Double (Virginia) this weekend, with an Olympic distance race on Saturday and a Sprint distance on Sunday. That brings me to a total of 12 triathlons in my two year triathlon “career”. The double has been a goal of mine since last year when I did just the Olympic and really wondered how it would feel to do both. I can wonder no longer. I really enjoyed it, I felt great throughout, and the icing on the cake was a 3rd place Master’s finish Saturday and a 2nd place Master’s finish on Sunday. This whole town rallies to put on a top-notch event in a beautiful venue with phenomenal crowd support. That’s why the event continues to grow in size and caliber.

Luray Olympic – August 13

Truth be told, I was nervous for this race. It was my first Olympic distance tri of the season (and only third ever) and just a week out from Age Group Nationals, also an Olympic. It was a dress-rehearsal and I wanted it to go well.

My car made the three hour trip to Luray (never a given anymore) and I settled into some kind of retro 1960-ish motel that was very clean and well-maintained but wow you don’t see bathrooms like this anymore. My friend and fellow-racer Tanya arrived that evening.

We drove to the race site pretty early and were rewarded with…. the furthest possible parking spot. However, the long… Read the rest

Sunday I raced in the first home-town tri we have had in the area in more than ten years. With over 200 racers, and legions of volunteers, many of whom I know from the gym, it was a great time.

While I was excited to have so many local folks at the race, I have to admit that I felt a little pressure to perform up to my capabilities (e.g. avoid a major blowup). At the same time, I was feeling a bit of….I’m not sure….maybe racing burnout. Or maybe it’s that I knew that I had these two back-to-back trips right after the race (I’m in Vancouver as I type). At any rate, I wanted to finish out June with a good race and be able to turn my attention from racing back to training until I race again in August. I switched my thinking around by reminding myself that I love to swim, I love to bike, and I love to run. So during each leg, my mantra would just be “I love to ___”

Swim – 400m (8:08, 22/104 women)

This was a pool swim, in a fairly new facility that was designed in part as the competitive pool for the Virginia Tech Hokies. It was set up in 50m lanes for a 400m snake swim, so just four laps. One look at the swim start seeding and we were all left second-guessing our self-reported pool swim times. I knew there were faster swimmers behind… Read the rest

The Mighty Moms with Bob!
Yeehaw! Good times at the gorgeous Lake Moomaw in Warm Springs, Virginia. It’s worth the trip on windy back roads with limited cell coverage (!) to reach this beautiful town and this gem of a lake, nestled within the Allegheny Highlands. I guess the beige food worked, I finished 2nd overall among the women, and my friends Tanya and Jennifer finished 1st and 3rd in their big competitive age group! It was a good day for the team from One-on-One Endurance!

PRERACE
Tanya, Jennifer, and I stayed at a charming (2 bathrooms for 8 rooms) B+B with terrific hosts. The morning of the race we met the venerable Bob Valentine, another guest at the B+B. He remarked on the enormousness of my oatmeal breakfast which sparked a conversation where we learned he was 68, started triathlons 3 years ago, and is battling rheumatoid arthritis. Let me tell you, he looked spry, fit, and amazing!

Just before showtime I had a 2nd Surge gel from Pacific Health Labs. They recently offered $40 worth of purchases for $20 on TriCrowd’s Trinero site so I tried this caffeinated gel on my strong double-brick workout last weekend and today pre-swim. No, I’m not sponsored by them or anything but I really do like this product and will continue to use one pre-race.

SWIM (11th out of 88; 15:40)
After my grumbling, I wore the… Read the rest

Usually I do a pre-race blog reflection but did not this time because I knew I was doing something potentially risky and didn’t want to put it in writing.

If you have made the switch from road bike to tri bike you know it takes some getting used to with the aerobar-end shifters, a lower front end, and different handling. After a single test ride late Friday, there was no turning back. Now that I have confessed, and there was a happy ending (3rd overall out of the females) here is the race report.

This was a new local race, a 45-50 minute drive from my house. My friend Jennifer and I rode up together, warmed up together, and kept each other occupied and calm.

Swim (300y)
This was my first pool swim and shortest ever tri swim. We were seeded based on estimated swim times and went off in 10s intervals.  Clearly a couple of people either didn’t follow directions, grossly underestimated their times, or were completely delusional regarding their swim prowess. At any rate it created some havoc and turned some of the swim laps into something like that annoying windmill hole on the putt-putt golf course. The poor guy was flailing the width of the lane.

The group of us together in line agreed that “toe tap” meant “let me pass at the next wall”.  I had to pass one flailing, miscalculating… Read the rest