Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Category: Uncategorized Page 36 of 211

One Year Campiversary

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On July 3, 2018

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Twelve months ago, I had no idea this was going to be one of my favorite things in the world.

ICYMI, last year our company moved offices, and we had some extra time off around the July 4th holiday.  Obviously, this prompted me to start looking at vacations, and when I found prices to be outrageous, I lamented that I wish we could just go camping, but not in July without air conditioning.

We started looking up rentals, and long story short, ended up purchasing a used Jayco pop up.  We obtained Turtle Home from a nice gentleman who had used it approximately eight nights in the previous nine years, for the cost of approximately double the price of a flight and accommodations in Colorado (the cheapest place we could go) over that long weekend.

Our first foray was six nights, which was a little overwhelming to me (the most I’d ever camped was two), but the site was an hour from home, so if it didn’t work out, we could just pack up.  We didn’t do that, in fact, I didn’t even want to go home when it was time.  I still don’t know at what point I’d get tired of camping in the pop up, but the answer is at least more than one week.

I expected the AC in the camper to put out a little bit of cool air so it wasn’t completely miserable to sleep.  I didn’t expect to need a hat, a thick comforter, and fleece pullover with it on low and sleep much more soundly than normal.  I figured it would be roomier than a tent, but I didn’t figure it would be spacious enough for two people to be able to lounge around in it comfortably with plenty of personal space.  I hoped I would have a decent time camping, I didn’t expect it to hook me as completely as it did.

I’ve spent 24 nights in the turtle and at the end of this week it will be 29 – that’s about a month of my life in the last year camping.  It’s been invaluable for races – it’s cheap, relaxing, comfortable, and sometime you can even stay AT THE VENUE and wake up with the race in your backyard, which is super convenient for someone who is not a morning person.  It’s been great for training, it’s nice to roll out of a campsite and be able to take a long bike ride in the country without navigating city traffic to get there and back.  It’s been amazing for time away to unwind and relax.  My brain shuts up a little bit after a few days in the woods and it’s a beautiful thing.

Our first year of camping included:

Even if you ignore the other trips, we’ve saved at least 10 nights of race hotel accommodations – considering the average hotel room price with taxes and fees, that would definitely be closing in on 1,000$ if not already there (for example, Hotter’n’hell was a 45$ campsite vs 150-200$ for basic rooms in the area).

In our Sophomore year of camping we plan to do these trips:

  • Krausse Springs for fourth of July again.  I’m super excited to have this as my view for another 5 days.  I’m super excited to paint, ride bikes, traipse around the property with my camera, read, make some great campfire food, and just chill the eff out for a while.
  • We are toying with the idea of camping as a training camp type weekend sometime this season at Granger Lake.
  • Race camping for Waco 70.3.  First camping half ironman!
  • A few nights in the Fredricksburg area over the holidays.  Y’know, they have free buses that take you to wineries and back.  That sounds like it doesn’t suck.
  • Mayyyyybe Pace Bend Ultra.  As part of a relay.  Or crew.

…and I’m sure we’ll be doing some more races and hopefully a few weekends where we take off and just enjoy being outside and relax.

I’m super excited for five more days in the woods.  Can we go yet?

Post Spring Season Decompression

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On June 29, 2018

In Uncategorized

I’ve had almost two weeks to reflect (and also not do a whole lot of serious training), I wanted to document what has absolutely been my most successful season ever.

First of all, let’s talk about the races.  Honestly, all five triathlons so far this year would rank up in my great races of all time, but as long as we know we’re comparing unicorns with rainbows, here’s the order in which I feel I performed:

#1 – Pflugerville (3rd AG).  This was my best bike result by far.  For all 5 legs (swim bike run and transitions), I got a PR.  Best of all, getting 3rd in my age group with my BSS team there supporting me was the thing that was kind of missing at the “away games”.  Also, I do this race every year, so it’s a great measuring stick against where I’m at with my training.  Considering it was a huge PR, it’s proof I really actually have improved a lot.

#2 – Texasman (3rd AG/7th OA F).  The mass female start made me feel like I was actually able to RACE for the overall placement against people vs just kicking my own ass as hard as I could and hoping for the best.  I knew where I was in the race at all times after the bike turnaround and that was fun and motivating.  I think it was my most aggressive and gutsy bike, my best run, and it was super cool to hear them calling out 3rd female in as I got to T2.

#3 – No Label (1st AG).  This was the huge confidence booster (and the first National qualifier).  I had no idea how I was going to do, coming off some serious lifting and annoying injuries and some frankly disappointing races in winter.  I enjoyed the hell out of the super flat bike course even if it was a little chip seal-y at times, and I still maintain that I only won my age group because it was a point to point run to a brewery.

#4 – Windcrest (1st AG/3rd OA F).  While it’s hard to rank a race that I won my age group and placed 3rd overall female so low, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t my best performance physically or mentally.  I was just getting over being sick, the bike course didn’t play to my strengths and that frustrated me, and I let a minor gear issue (my race belt missing) mess with my head on the run for longer than it should have and I didn’t run to my potential because of it.

#5 – Rookie (4th AG).  Any other season, this would have been the highlight of it.  A 3 minute PR in an 66 minute race is nothing to sneeze at.  It was the first measure of my bike prowess on a course I’d done before and I blew away my expectations.  However, I died a little on the run when the course changed and they threw an unexpected hill at us, and watching someone just FLY past me half a mile from the finish (to ultimately take 3rd place) was humbling.  While 4th was an amazing result compared to how I’ve ever done here before, it was the only race this spring where I missed the podium in my age group.

I’ve learned a lot this season (even if some of this was re-learning, ahem).

Weight training and recovery are probably the most important factors for me succeeding at sprint triathlons right now.  Because I have so much previous base, there’s no reason I need to go out and swim, ride, and run a lot.  To build the power needed at the short distances I need to be strong, and I need to be fresh.  When I get to the point where my legs don’t feel like the limiting factor in my run, this could change, but I have miles to go before that happens.

I’ve nailed my day before, pre-race, and race nutrition.  For reference:

  • Day before:
    • Normal breakfast (yogurt and berries, protein bar or shake, bean and cheese breakfast tacos, etc).
    • Turkey sandwich on wheat for lunch.
    • Chicken, potato, and salad for dinner.
    • Snacks as hungry, like jerky, nuts, fruit.
  • Day of:
    • Earl grey tea, two caffeinated jelly beans, and a whole wheat english muffin with sun butter and honey about 2-3 hours before start.
    • The entirety of my sprint nutrition plan is: a salted watermelon caffeinated gel as early as possible on the bike, and whatever diluted gatorade I can (usually between 4-10 sips) and whatever water I can throw at my face during the run.  Besides that gel, I really don’t need much for 60-90 minutes.
    • Eat something with some protein (real food) as soon as possible after the race or I’ll be a hunger monster all day.  Pizza is actually a great immediate post race food.
    • Have easy to make healthy nutritious food on hand and try to not go over the calories burnt.  Maintaining a deficit on race day is just about impossible, so let that go.  For Pflugerville, I had a chef salad and veggies and dip ready to go in the fridge to eat right away.  That was probably the best I’ve felt post race in a while.

I have yet to have a bad race while camping.  Just sayin’.  It just feels right sleeping in the pop up and spending time outside in the quiet, something about it helps me FOCUS and then UNWIND better vs having all the distractions of home around.  I thought I was done with it for the year and I’m excited to have added one more race so I get to do it again!

When I *do* swim, bike, and run, the intensity needs to be there regularly.  We are what we repeatedly do, and by taking the pressure off with less volume (averaging about 5 hours a week since March), I get the opportunity to do things at race pace more often.  I think this is most important with running, because I rarely tend to pull out anything in a race I can’t do, or actually do even a little better in practice.  If all I’m doing is running slow, that’s probably how my race is going to go.

I’ve also come up with a great pre-race preparation schedule which involves:

  • Laying out my gear and practicing transitions three times before packing it up to go has helped me to be more confident and quicker in transitions (and I never forget anything important!).
  • Going over my day at least once before I go to bed.  I start when I wake up and walk myself through a successful day.  I mean, even the mundane stuff – wake up, make tea, eat english muffin, use bathroom, put on kit… it helps me cruise through my morning with less stress since I’ve practiced!
  • Making some solo time race morning to go internal and psych myself up before the start.  I didn’t really need the whole “race day persona” thing I was trying out last year, I just needed some time to focus and get my game face on for the day.

And finally, while ~15 lbs doesn’t sound like much, I feel like it’s made a world of difference on the bike and starting to do good things on the run.  I think I’m nearing the end of what I will call my “cutting” phase, and the weight loss is slowing, but it’s been really nice to carry one less pink kettlebell around on my body.

I have a lot of thoughts about the second half of the year, but that’s a heck of a lot more words for another post!

Florida Cruise Part 2: Roatan and Costa Maya

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On June 26, 2018

In Uncategorized

Last I left off, we were in not-so-sunny Cozumel.

However, rainy Cozumel is just fine with me.

Especially, just fine for enjoying some tasty beverages at Senior Frogs in port after a successful diving day.

Can’t wait to come back in the fall for the Ironman 70.3, so I had to become the M dot in anticipation!  After a fantastic day of diving and drinks, all we really could do was just enjoy another delicious dinner and then head to bed.

Thursday was another early wakeup for Tabyata Beach.  While I love diving, I was most excited for this port.  Last year I snorkeled here for about four hours and ended up seeing some amazing things!

More lobster friends.

Blue angelfish being just a little coy.

Balloonfish!  I see Porcupine fish everywhere but rarely their darker cousins.

Squid!  I danced with their pod for a bit and even got to see them shoot ink and swim away… and then get curious again and come back.

We got out around noon to eat lunch, one that I had been looking forward to all year.  BBQ chicken, rice and beans, and coleslaw sounds like nothing special, doubly so when it’s dark meat chicken (which usually is a deal breaker for me), but something about it (maybe the ocean air, but probably just the delicious sauce) makes it magical.

We went back into the ocean for what we hoped would be another great snorkeling session, but the seas got rough, and instead, we just got raked over a bunch of coral in the current.  Y’all know me.  I’m a strong swimmer and I can persevere in just about any conditions.  This was bad.  When we got caught, all we could do is just hope the surge sent us in the direction where the least amount of pokey and scratchy things were at.  I wore my long sleeved rashguard, which saved me from most of it because I aimed my back at the reef, but I wasn’t wearing my long pants so some particularly feisty coral caught my knee right before we found clearer water.

We dried off, got Zliten patched up, and then took our toys and went home.  You KNOW it’s a bummer of a day when I don’t spend every last minute in the water.  The rest of the day was spent playing cards, seeing a really kick ass aqua show involving high diving, trampolines, and gymnastics (so, pretty much teenage me’s dream, and even 39-year-old me kinda wanted to go play if they would have let me), and another great dinner and bed for one more early wake up.

Friday was our last port, Costa Maya.  I actually got myself to the breakfast buffet instead of having my butler Zliten deliver it to my room and found all the veggies (and bacon).

I had zero expectations at this port.  I booked a snorkel and open bar tour mostly because I wanted transport to a beach and a place to sit and have some drinkies and it cost about the same as just that.  The snorkel tour was predictably terrible with a giant group of mostly newbies (the times I got kicked in the head  = much greater than zero), but we went back out after and saw some cool stuff.

Lionfish!

These yellow stingrays were everywhere.  I’ve never seen so many!

And after two and a half hours of snorkeling, right as I was getting out, I saw something I’d never seen before in about a foot of water.  My new camera rocks for getting such a great picture in the silty murky water.  After looking it up, it’s an albino mantis shrimp!  Holy crap!

I got dragged out of the water since Zliten’s owies from yesterday were hurting him, and we spent the rest of the day on the beach.  It oscillated between sun and rain, and we were served margaritas as quickly as we could finish them.

We got super authentic nachos with the local “plastic” cheese. 😛

These fine folks gave us a fantastic massage in the rain.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so relaxed.  Happy.  Place.

And then we spent some time at the pool bar before we absolutely had to go and the ship would leave us there.  I had much more fun in Costa Maya than I expected and would definitely consider going back to that same beach next time.

It was fancy night #2, and somehow I have zero pictures of that, but we enjoyed a lobster dinner.  This was from last year, but we can just pretend.

Then, we visited theater one more time for the Blue Planet show which was amazing – I was most impressed that the same folks from Mama Mia and some of the acrobats also were in this show as well.  Busy performers!  We hit the outdoor dance party next in the Solarium and danced and had fun, but my stomach wasn’t feeling super great so I headed to bed well before everything closed down.

Saturday, I slept in until I couldn’t sleep anymore.  I think I made it until about 10am.

First on the agenda was hitting the pool.  Instead, we ran for the hot tub because it was windy, rainy, and nasty out.

We grabbed a little lunch and then atoned for my sins with a pretty hard (for a stationary bike) 30 minute ride and 45 minutes of kettlebells. These statues we called “flower butts” greeted us before and after every workout.

It was gross and rainy and they actually even closed off the outer decks in the afternoon, and I was kind of over my camera at that point, so please enjoy this (still cloudy but not as nasty of a day) picture from earlier in the week.  Instead, we played cards all afternoon.  I think we got in 9 games total through the whole week, and I don’t remember the win/loss ratio, but I’m pretty sure it favored my Dad. 🙂  After a while, we tried to go to the ice show, but we couldn’t get seats together, so instead we packed up our suitcases, lounged a bit, and headed out for one more delicious meal.

I was feeling really yucky after dinner but a little lounging in bed made me feel better, so we went to the last comedy show of the cruise.  The comic was very good, but I felt even worse by the end of it, and spent the night sweating through my pajamas and then freezing and then tossing and turning and I was not thrilled with the situation in the slightest.

Sunday, we said goodbye to the ship.

…and our nice view from our central park room.  The rest of the day involved a very very tired, sick, and whiny me spending 2 hours in line for customs, then about 6 hours at the airport waiting for our flight to Austin.  I can’t think of a time when I was more ready to be home from a trip and I was immensely happy we were off for Memorial Day so I didn’t have to drag my sick ass to work the next day.

Even though the last half had a few bummers, I thoroughly enjoyed the vacation, the itinerary, the ship, and I’d go back in a heartbeat.  My parents are actually flying back to do it again in September.  The ginormous ship did mean a lot more people and lines and crowds in places, but that was balanced out with a bigger selection of things to do and eat than the smaller ships, many places to jump in the pool, and a super nice gym, so it worked out.

I say I’d like to take it a little easier next time, but the thing is – if there’s water with fishies, I’m going to drag my camera rig and swim in it as long as humanly possible.  It’s just in my nature.  However, next time, I’d like to request some better conditions, less stormy skies, and skip the side of getting sick at the end!

Florida Cruise Part 1: Allure of the Seas, Nassau, Cozumel

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On June 25, 2018

In Uncategorized

I don’t know why I’ve put this one off for so long.  I think I’ve written so many cruise recaps that I was trying to figure out how to make this one more interesting, but I think you’ll just have to indulge me on this travel log.

Saturday, we flew to Florida, and entertained ourselves in extremely rainy weather by eating at the Sweet Tomatoes salad buffet after a soggy three quarter mile walk, playing cards, and having taco bell for dinner because, lazy (it was right next to the hotel).

Sunday morning, we planned to run, but it was still so rainy we went back to sleep instead.  I did get in a swim in the hotel pool even though it looked like this.

Between the rain and the humidity, my hair looked like I stuck my hand in a light socket the whole time.  *shrug*.  The good news is that from hotel to shuttle to port, we were on the ship and eating lunch in about an hour which is just friggin’ amazing, especially considering the size of the humongous Allure of the Seas.

Then, we checked out the gym, which was actually FABULOUS, and we spent more time there over the cruise than we expected.  I knocked out a nice progression 5k run (shorter than I had wanted but I didn’t feel like an hour on the treadmill) and then about 45 minutes of weights.  They had a great set of kettlebells which I made copious use of during the week.

Then, we did the normal boat drills, unpacking, cards with the fam, and then dinner.  Our waiters John and Simon were some of the best and most fun we’ve ever had, and we looked forward to dinner every day.  While it’s been too long for me to list out everything I ate, or even the highlights, really (if I didn’t take a picture of it), but we thought the food on this ship was a little better, even if the dishes were mostly the same, than our normal ship out of Galveston.

Normally, we go explore the ship and stay up and play a bit, but not this evening.  Instead of two sea days, this itinerary started bright and early in Nassau for diving the next day, so we went to bed pretty much right after supper and prepping our gear.

Monday was an early alarm (6:30 which was 5:30 back home).  I groggily did the wake up things while my husband was up and peppy and got us a plate of breakfast to split.

The giant tropical storm really mucked with our weather all week.  Don’t let some of these photographs lie – I edited the heck out of things so it looks all sunny and gorgeous, and while there were some moments of sun, it rained every day – at least a little, some days a LOT.

Nassau diving with Stuart’s Cove was something I remembered fondly from a previous trip, it actually made us choose this cruise.  However, this specific day, the conditions were crappy, we dove with a bunch of newbies, and the divemaster seemed to be over it – he went very quickly.  He said “follow ME not the fish” to which I muttered “yeah, we’re going to have problems” because I will always (in conditions I feel safe in) follow the fish.

It was not a complete bust.  I got some nice photos.

Quite a few gorgeous grouper.

Usually these crabs like to hide, but this one posed for me right on top of the reef.

However, overall, I felt kind of rushed and the visibility was just not great.  All dives can’t be Bonaire dives, I guess!

After dropping our gear and grabbing a very quick snack on board, we consoled ourselves with some Nassau beers at a bar in an alley.  Please pity us.

We dressed up for fancy dinner.  I had some super yummy cilantro crusted cod, but my husband ended up with some prime rib that he said was one of the best he’s ever had.

This is as dressed up as my parents get.  Aren’t they adorable though?

We had a few more drinks after dinner, perhaps tried out the late night pizza place like I totally said I was not going to do, and tucked ourselves into bed just after midnight.

Tuesday was an At Sea day which meant sleeping in and then really getting to explore the ship.

We hit the gym again and then tried out the “healthy” lunch area (which, I’ll give them credit, had some good choices like baked fish and brown rice and all sorts of veggies and fruit), and then went mini golfing with the family.  We lost terribly to my parents, which is not a-typical when competing against them at games. 🙂

The giant theater was gorgeous and we enjoyed a full production of Mama Mia before dinner.

I found some chairs to be really small in while we waited for dinner.

Hot. harissa. chicken.  With yogurt sauce.  Then bed.  Because more diving in the AM.

Wednesday, we docked in Cozumel and were excited for a second diving day, because #divingdaysarethebestdays

Our dive shop was right at the docks which was convenient, and our divemaster was AWESOME.  He saw I had a pretty sweet camera set up and pointed me in the direction of a lot of cool (small) stuff to photograph.

Seahorse!  Finally, Zliten doesn’t have to resent me for seeing them in Bonaire when he was sick and couldn’t dive.  I wish my lights wouldn’t have been acting up at that point, but this is an improvement over the last seahorse picture (actually not appearing in that post because it was so poor).

Red lipped blenny!  He kept poking his head out and taunting us with his adorably grumpy little face.

All the lobster.  With the new camera, it really picks up some great detail on subjects that are curious and friendly and pose for me.

This lionfish decided to pose with a gorgeous red coral background.  This is one of my favorite pictures of the bunch.

Clingy crab.

I’ve never seen such a big hermit crab in a his shell.  I love his little eye stalks.

And… a gorgeous eel.  This was with my macro.  Crazy.  For such crappy conditions, we actually had a pretty amazing diving day!

For the rest of my day in Cozumel, the ocean being unkind in Roatan, and a really rare find in Costa Maya in about a foot of water, check out Part 2.

Eighth time’s a charm – Lake Pflugerville Sprint Triathlon

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On June 18, 2018

In Uncategorized

Saturday morning at 5:30am I was awake popping copious amounts of aleve and cursing being a girl.

Post swim was the best I felt yesterday.  I truly am a fish.

I’m not entirely sure why my body, which is usually a trooper, has to go into conniption fits for about a day once a month, but it’s just one of those things that it means to be me.  I’ve asked multiple doctors and health professionals about it (since all my exams have come back normal) and I’ve gotten answers from “well, just start taking painkillers when you THINK you’re about to start” (no) and “it’s just part of the process” (sad trombone).

This is all well and good until you wake up on race day feeling like a bloated, exhausted, painful monster.  I’m thankful it was the day before instead, but it hit me really really hard this month and I was a zombie on Saturday.  I woke up at 10:30am, and barely dragged my ass around to do all the packet pickup and lunch (Jason’s Deli) and swim and groceries things, and was pretty much ready to be back in bed after. I watched some TV and had dinner (chicken and air-fried potatoes) and did my normal transition practice and sadly, when I got to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep right away, but I did get almost 6.5 hours and I upgraded to halfway zombified when I woke up at 5am Sunday morning.

For some reason, waking up in the camper is a little easier, but with our own walls we were able to blare the music nice and loud and enjoy a cup of tea, the typical sunbutter honey english muffin, and two caff beans sitting at my counter.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was enough that morning but I told myself I could have more once I got to my bike.

We lucked out and two people on the primo rack (closest to bike out) had taken up ENTIRELY too much room, so we squeezed our bikes in (I take up about 1 ft of space) and filled bottles and pottied and did all the normal pre-race stuff in what felt like the perfect amount of time (getting to transition about 45 minutes before closing seems to be the sweet spot – not being rushed but not too much standing around).  At the last minute I popped two 303 (herbal muscle relaxers) to hedge my bets on any residual cramps.  I was the first one of our little group taking off in wave 8, so I wandered over to the start, and spent a little time psyching myself up.  I wasn’t sure if today was going to be a complete shitshow or a decent day but it would all be over in about 90 minutes, give or take.

Love all these goofballs that came to cheer us on!!!

Swim:

Wave starts always catch me off guard, they used to be the norm and I’ve done plenty, but I’ve gotten spoiled with time trial starts and I forgot how combative they are.  Not Ironman-level kung fu judo chopping or anything, but definitely a lot of jostling for position.  I made it a goal to try and find feet to draft on, and I was actually fairly successful for the first half, but after the turnaround I just kept knocking into people or finding open water, so I just kept my efforts calm and tried to focus on good body position.

I swam until my body didn’t really fit in the water anymore and then high-kneed it out to transition.

Swim time: 11:05 (2:13/100m) 3/10 AG  This is my best in 8 years by 5 seconds (it’s always a little long, my Garmin recorded 596 yards and my sighting was pretty spot on).  To be fair, it’s only 40 seconds better than my worst showing in 2013.  I’m pretty consistent and I haven’t put much work over the years into swimming, and that goes doubly so this season.  I will say I think I got out of the water a lot fresher than I have in the past, as I really do think of the swim as a warmup for the rest of the race and rarely push it past the “I’m doing some work” feeling.

T1:

I think a spring of walking on the Addisage sandals have toughened up my feet, as I felt like I could run at a pretty nice clip even on the gravel sections.  Everything went smoothly and I got out of T1 quickly.  Technically, this is part of my bike time since I was over the mount line, but the only noob thing I did was not adjust my gearing (my TT bike had just been sitting in the garage since the last race) and it was very hard to get clipped in and going because I was in a very big gear and that was a few seconds of futzing.

T1 time: 2:13 6/10 AG.  I’m actually kind of confused by this because I thought I was pretty speedy and efficient, and it’s my best here yet by 2 seconds, but apparently I sucked compared to my 35-39 ladies.  *shrug*

No bike pics yet so you get my “stock footage” from the last race.  Are you sick of this one yet?  I’m not!

Bike:

After the clipping fiasco, I got going.  I know this course like the back of my hand (it’s the Jack’s Generic course and we ride the first half of it all the time), so I knew there was no reason to do anything but coast down the first hill into the turn.  Two girls passed me in that section, and as soon as I hit the turn, I went hunting.  I caught them within half a mile and just concentrated on eating my gel ASAP (cracking it open before the race REALLY helps a lot).  That went down fine, but I had oopsed and made my gatorade too strong.  It was undrinkable.  I took a few sips of it and almost spit it out because it was like sludge, but that’s ok on a sprint (I barely drink anything anyway).

Even with the questionable body condition and the lack of palatable hydration, I was feeling rather strong so I went to war.  I concentrated on staying in aero and passing as many people as I could.  Some of the super fast guys caught me but I was not passed by anyone of my gender again.  My goal was to try to hold 20 mph on the way out because I usually slow down on the way back (that tends to be where the wind is), but we actually ended up with it from the northeast, which meant the almost 20 mph I held the first half was with a headwind or crosswind, and made for a nice trip back.

I should have probably pushed the last couple miles harder if I was looking for the absolute best bike split, but the roads were so terrible and bumpy.  I let myself take my foot off the gas for a bit from the gasp-fest that was the first half and instead watched the road and prepared my legs (and brain) for the run.

Bike time: 39:55 for 21 mph 2/10 AG (10th overall female bike split).   My Garmin said right about 20, so I think this is a little generous, but just like Kerrville last year, I will take it.  I improved upon last year’s ride by five whole minutes (same course, just backwards).  Zliten put it best by saying that he feels like he’s one with his TT bike when he rides it now.  I feel the same way this season.  Death Star and I are pretty in sync now.

T2:

Everything went without incident.  I had planned on grabbing my frozen water bottle but I didn’t feel that hot and I hadn’t ran with it in months, so I took a few seconds to take a cold sip of nuun and left it.

T2 time: 1:17 5/10 AG  Seriously, I don’t know.  I know I took 5 extra seconds getting a sip of my bottle but I usually place HIGHER in transition than the actual sports.  Maybe the spot I thought was primo was actually further away?  Again, *shrug*.  Best here by 2 seconds.

How strong does BSS member Rachel (with smiley Courtney behind her) look finishing her first triathlon? 🙂

Run:

I ran out and up the hill and got going and everything felt predictably awful.  I had reminded myself the night before when going through my race plan that it would, so it didn’t freak me out as much as normal.  I hate this run.  I’ve done it a lot, so I’m comfortable with it’s suck, but I really really really hate running on kitty litter with no shade.

Physically, to keep myself running as well as possible, I tried to stay more up on my toes, keep driving with my hips to lengthen my stride, and swing my arms to touch my waistband.  Mentally, I kept reminding myself that I had just completed a friggin’ phenomenal bike ride, and I probably had a place on the podium if I could hang on, dig in, and not let any girls in my age group pass me.

Only two women passed me, and both were in their 50s and running like wild badasses, so I tried to ride their momentum for a while and then let them go.  Near the end, my teammate Lewis passed me and I tried to latch onto him but all that I had was the steady pace that did not waver the whole time.  Running in the heat and the suck felt painful but also somehow methodical – I kept thinking “just keep doing this for 20 more minutes, 17, 15, 10” and my legs kept moving.  They wouldn’t speed up for any sort of finishing kick, but all 3 mile splits were within 3 seconds of each other so I’d call that some even pacing.

Run time: 27:50 (9:16/mile) 4/10 AG.  This is a run PR for me here.  Technically by only 17 seconds, but that was from 6 years ago when I considered myself a runner who dabbled in triathlons vs running now being my weakest sport.  While I keep getting down on myself for not being able to hold that 8 minute/mile pace in races that I have sometimes in practice, I am showing steady improvement.  I have long term plans on how to make this better but for right now, I’m happy that my run has been SOLID this season, if not super fast.

Overall time: 1:22:21 3/10 AG. 

Look at my shiny plastic thingeeee!

I am over the moon with this result.  I feel like I nailed the bike even better than I have been.  I fought hard for that run, even if it wasn’t quite as fast as I would have liked.  I PR’d all three legs of the race (+ transitions), and for one that I’ve done for eight years in a row in various states of form and fitness, that’s actually quite a big accomplishment.  This resulted in an over 8 minute PR at this particular race (previously 1:30:30, Pflugerville 2015), and an over 4 minute PR on this course (1:26:33, Jack’s Generic 2016).  I also took back the house Lake Pflugerville title by 30 seconds, which hasn’t been mine in a long time.  Sorry, Zliten.  Better luck next year. 🙂

And, finally, with this fourth podium out of the five races this spring, I think I can finally dismiss the feeling of it all being a big fluke.  I think I can finally say out loud and with confidence that my case of the proverbial triathlon yips has passed for now.  At the local sprint triathlon level, I can put together a solid race that I’m proud of time and time again.  I’m good enough at this particular thing now to race for the podium, with an 80% success rate.  I think I can finally stick that feather in my cap and call it macaroni.

Lucky #wattagecottage hat and socks. 

It was a really great day racing with Team Bicycle Sport Shop.  We had a big handful of teammates racing and also a bunch of supporters.  Can’t thank everyone enough who just came to cheer! It’s always a little boost on the run when you know you’re going to see some friendly faces yelling your name at the finish.

Now I’m looking forward to a quick summer’s nap before hitting Coz 70.3 training hard – the next three weeks, the only requirement on the schedule is lifting at least twice a week, swim bike and run are to be applied AS DESIRED (sessions, distances, paces).  I already want to swim and ride today, which is a good sign, but with how SORE and TIRED I am, I’m taking myself right to bed after supper and getting one more long night of sleep first.

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About Me

I'm a video game producer and a lover of anything game related by trade.  I'm a triathlete by hobby.  I live for being on or in the water as much as I can - scuba diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, water slides... you name it.  The dichotomy between my outdoor and indoor realities are interesting, but they're all mine!  Longer version here...

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