Reviving the Blog! - Catching up....

As life has continued to get busier, my blog has sat lonely and mute.  My last post was after Ironman Arizona in November 2011.  A painful character-building day where I completely blew up on the run and brought home a finish time much slower than I had hoped for...but the good news was I managed a podium finish with an AG 3rd place.  Sometimes you still catch a break when you least expect it.

2012 brought another busy year of life and racing.  With a 2 week trip to Australia in the spring, hosting several international triathletes in our home and feeling a little frazzled by the busy pace of life, my husband Warren and I decided we’d take a break from Ironman racing.  I wavered between missing the feeling being very fit and of working in a disciplined manner toward an Ironman goal race, and the feeling of enjoying not having that big training burden hovering overhead.  It was a good year of racing shorter events, with a couple of 70.3’s thrown in just to enjoy the distance.

The Baker’s Team Era

As a member of the Erin Baker’s Triathlon Team for the past 4 years, I had the opportunity to represent a great company and be associated with a wonderful and talented group of athletes.  The Baker’s team mission includes a strong “give back” directive, and its athletes raised money for different chapters of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The Club I chose to fundraise for was our local club in Fort Collins.  I helped organize a special “Day for Kids” event, and recruited college students from the triathlon clubs at Colorado State and University of CO to volunteer that day. The college kids seemed to enjoy the experience as much as the little kids! I got to visit the Clubs on several occasions and interact with the kids and the staff.  It was such a pleasure to be able to help them financially and to see the money help them in their work that is so important to families and communities.

Newest Chapter begins!

This year I am thrilled to get the opportunity to join and help manage the new Ironman Foundation/Newton Running Ambassador Team. I just love the idea of making my triathlon effort and experience about something bigger than just me and my athlete ego.    I’ve found that triathletes are generally fun people who get that life can and should be an adventure. I love that us mere mortals share the course with the triathlon gods and goddesses and that we understand the journey we share.   Triathlon training is both time-intensive and energy-intensive, and Ironman training can be close to all-consuming, especially when placed on top of a busy work schedule.  I’ve found that after crossing over to the sunny side of 50 years old(that’s my spin and I’m sticking with it!), it’s not as easy as it used to be to crank out lots of training miles and yards on land, wheels and water - and be able to bounce back the next day ready for more.  Mental and physical recovery is as important as any training done. I’m FINALLY learning to respect this fact, so I’m becoming less likely to toast myself day after day even though I’m feeling run down, or skimp on sleep by staying up til midnight working.

My coach is Tim Reed, a young Australian professional triathlete who first did a homestay with us back in 2010.  He is quite a student of the sport, and wisely advises me on all things triathlon and talks me down from the proverbial ledge when I lose sight of reason and take myself too seriously.

First Race of the Season

My first race of the season was Ironman Texas 70.3 in Galveston Texas, last weekend. The whole trip to TX is a long sad one; here’s the condensed version.

I was looking forward to spending it with my daughter....had a couple of business meetings planned, but it was to be a girls’ road trip weekend, hanging out and having fun and me racing.  

However, things didn’t go at all as planned..

Thursday: flew to Austin, stayed overnight with daughter Erica

Friday: customer meeting in Austin; then drove with Erica to Texas City between Houston and Galveston.  Dinner with E that night, laughs looking at Facebook posts on my iPad.

Saturday: 2:30am call from hotel management informs us that E’s car was among many that had been broken into in hotels around the area.  Window smashed, Erica hysterical, big mess.  TX City Police reports, general mayhem for a couple of hours. Back to sleep for maybe an hour eventually. Woke up tired and stressed.

Off to the race site to check in and pick up my bike from TriBikeTransport.  Quick 45 minute ride to check out the bike. 
Took a look at the water; calm and nice.  Swimming can be a source of anxiety for me, but this looked just fine.

Drove back to Texas City, then drove an hour to have Erica's car window replaced. 
I had realized Saturday morning that I had left my iPad in the car, so it of course had been stolen. Another call to police to amend report.  Realized I could track my iPad using the Track my iPhone app, and found it on GPS two hours north of where we were.  Reported it to TX City Police, who said it wasn’t their jurisdiction, and that I should report to Houston PD.  Reported to Houston PD, but they said it wasn’t their jurisdiction, should report to Harris County Sheriff.  Reported to Harris County, who said we had to drive up there to meet with the deputy and show him the tracking.  We did that.  The deputy knocked on the door of the house where the iPad was, the resident denied having it - and the officer had no authority to take it any further.  He could not enter without a search warrant, which, of course, you couldn’t get til Monday from a judge.  Of course by then, the iPad would be long gone somewhere else. The whole thing just seems so wrong. What good is knowing where it is if you can’t get it?

So, knowing I’d never see it again, I remotely wiped the iPad clean and digitally kissed it goodbye.  The good news is that AT&T was able to blacklist the iPad as stolen, and make it so that if anyone ever tries to set up a data plan on it, it will flag law enforcement. 

Saturday evening: returned to Texas City, grabbed a sandwich(oops, realized we never got around to lunch) and started gathering up my things to race the next day. Off to bed way too late, then too wired to sleep. Oh, yeah, and what’s with this cough that started on Friday?  Nope, not thinking about that anymore.

Sunday: Race Day  3:30am wakeup, off to the race at 5:00; feeling a bit tired but adrenaline is kicking in.  Feeling like I can do this after all.

• Swim:  I’m in the first AG wave at 7:10.  Wetsuit swim in the bay at 65 degrees. Swim feels relatively low stress until the waves behind me start to catch up and swim over top of me.  I start taking a wider path to avoid aggressive traffic, and of course, time lost.  Swim time slower than even my usual slow swim.  Shake it off and move on. Heading toward T1, a volunteer directs me down wrong lane even I had a feeling it was wrong.  Lost a minute or so looking for spot. Off on the bike.
• Bike: An out and back relatively flat course paralleling the shore on Galveston Island. Historically quite windy.  I was holding a decent mph the first 40 miles, but stiff headwind appeared the last 16 and made for tough going in last long stretch.  Pushed through harder and adjusted body position on bike to use some different muscles - a decision my body punished me for on the run. Possibly not enough calories in to set me up well for the run either.
• Run: Felt lousy from the first mile.  Nothing left in the legs after the bike ride and maybe the fatigue of the weekend caught up with me.  The run is usually my favorite part of any triathlon, but I literally willed my way through one mile at a time, managing the negative thoughts screaming in my head, but really not enjoying a minute of it.  Well, OK, I guess the last tenth of a mile after passing mile 13 was pretty fun.  :-)  



A Familiar IM Sight!



Swim Course 

• Overall: Finished a disappointing 7th in my age group, waaaay off the podium and further still from a Vegas slot.  However, the race was well-organized and well-executed start to finish; kudos to the organizers.  I think I could improve on my time if I had another go at it...

My Texas Entourage!  (Erica)

Beat myself up for a day or so about performing so poorly, then let it go.  At the end of the day, it’s not life-and-death, it’s sport and I live to race better another day.  I did learn some lessons about preparation, pacing, persevering and nutrition.

I had a meeting with customers in Beaumont TX on Monday, and was to fly back to CO on Tuesday.  However, due to the big snowstorm back home, flights cancelled so I was delayed getting back til Wednesday night.  Great...one more night in Texas!  Gotta say while I love Austin, not so much a fan of the Houston area.  Ridiculous traffic and not a great vibe there.

So, I'm spinning it as I've gotten the bad race of the season behind me already!  Time to get back to work and shake off this trip and this race.

The great part of the trip was hanging with my girl, Erica!

Cheers, everyone!