After getting rained out two years ago,and having a not-so-fun volunteer experience last year, I only signed up to do anything related to CapTex 2009 due to one Kirk Offel.

Last year my friend at work Hans told me about Kirk and his cause. I became an informal "mentor" to Kirk (and I guess, ultimately the team). This year, the pressure's on - they want me to join The Team. And one of the races they wanted to take 'by storm' was CapTex. Kirk is a Navy vet and it makes sense that he'd want to have CapTex be a big "awareness" event for the cause of Sarcoma.

Well about 2 weeks ago I got news that my right knee will need some arthroscopy in the near future (AFTER DANSKIN!!!!!!) so I told Kirk I'd be glad to be the cyclist on an Olympic relay team. He paired me with one Doug (I've done IronMan Coeur d'Alene) Thompson for the swim and Karen (I got three kids, and I'm a badass runner) Ayala. Sweet.

We met each other for the first time in the vestibule of Palmer Events Center on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, we were in line behind some poor sap whose team didn't know the whole team had to be present to pick up packets.. well.. uh.. WE DID! so, could you let us through please????

Karen's hubby was doing the sprint (not relay) and they had a committment later in the day, so we wanted to get packet pickup underway so they could see where I'd rack Buzz Yellabike. Well, there are only two racks for Olympic Relay. One at the very last row closest to the lake, and one on the very last row across from the path from the other rack..

Doug followed me to transition to see where the bike was (which was the most important anyway, since I gotta get the chip from him). We somehow lost Karen. But I figured we'd see each other at the tent in the morning.

I arrived about 6am on race day at TxDOT parking lot and thought, "where is everybody"??? So I re-parked about 4 times, finally picking a really primo spot under a tree just behind the strip joint.

Indeed it was a good place cause when I came back later, it was in total shade............

I loaded up the TriZones cooler with icepack and two bottles of gatorade endurance for the bike as well as a water bottle, and my sling chair (race starts at 7:00, Olympic Relay goes off at 8:30.. thought I'd put my feet up) and the 2008 RiverCities Awesome custom-embroidered tribag containing my bike pump, helmet, sunscreen, phone, paper towels, hand sanitizer, bandaids, spare goggles (even though I'm NOT SWIMMING), and extra electrolyte powder mix.

Made my way to the transition area (where I turned my back to 

triman  so he could see my helmet with number!!) so I could pump up my tires, put down my "never kissed a frog.. never had to" tri towel with my bike shoes, Texas Iron socks and road id on it, and wipe off my rear view mirror and bike computer, then put the two bottles of gatorade endurance on the bike cages. I wandered through transition and found Coach Jen so went to say hi to her.

Went back to VFS tent to hang out. I knew Sarah R was supposedly working in bodymarking. I went over to the tent, but she wasn't there... dang.. Karen, my runner arrived and I explained how we'd exchange the timing chip. Went back to bodymarking tent. Still no Sarah..... whipped out my own sharpie and marked myself while talking to Karen at our team tent and putting on sunscreen (our photographer got a lovely pic of this)

Soon saw Bets walking by on her way to Sprint transition (I also saw her last year! cool to see your friends again and again). I am truly amazed at her "pre-race" meal. she was holding a bagel with what appeared to be chunky peanut butter on it, and a can of diet coke. DIET COKE?!?! BETS!!! you have a cast iron stomach!!! and you seemed so calm about all of this.. (more on Bets later.........)

I saw Heather and she so tried to find me a Water Monster to fill up my waterbottle! Heather was out there solely to cheer for us, that is truly awesome!!Karen & I walked down to swim start and ran into Amber and Rob, stopped to visit for a bit, then wandered down to water where I saw Kendra "meditating" on the ground. I can't really get on/up from the ground so bent over to talk to her. Chris was already in the water, but I knew Kendra was a strong swimmer. Just passing the time............Karen's hubby was getting in line to do the sprint so we went back to team VFS tent for a bit.. very soon we went to transition and not too long after 9:00 heard Doug yell, "ANNETTE!!" so I grabbed the chip/strap, put it on left ankle and ran the bike out of transition. that rocky/bumpy transition. It took FOREVER till I got to the mount line. Then it was time to rock 'n roll. Up 1st street, right on CC.. HEY!!! THERE's NIKKI!!! Thanks!!! Congress Ave will now be known to me as the Wind Tunnel. Saw Amber again as I approached the Capitol. Mentally it was kinda weird, since previously all the events I've done that approach the Capitol from the south were running races. Then after you turn right onto 11th, it's an uphill... then SanJac.... ready for downhill? had some gatorade?? CHECK!!! fly at 30mph down SanJac.................. U-turn, and back up... ugh.. do it all again.. I think it was on 2nd loop that Bets passed me.... I saw trichelle  just before I had to head south on 1st for the u-turn.

last few loops, the police let people cross in front of us (hey, can't you see we're climbing here??) on SanJac. I didn't think I'd like the loop course (due to USAT rules, which, at this race are a MOOT POINT), but actually it felt like some kind of NASCAR racing. I really enjoyed it!! 

Handed off chip to Karen who really smoked the 10k run!! We even made the front page of today's Austin American Statesman.After we were done, there is evidence that although I raced under VFS jersey, I was ringing a TriZones cowbell for one of my teammates!!


 

 

Finally saw Sarah R after I finished, who said she'd be reassigned to water safety.. probably where they needed most help. Thanks Sarah......

this one goes behind a LJ-cut..

I had an abysmal showing at Couples but I appreciate triman running in with me to the finish.  I had a decent sleep Friday night but spent most of yesterday "muscling" the new tires on Buzz' rims. Finally had to go to BSS and have them do it. I didn't get any sort of 'loosening up' done except for a couple miles in the 'hood on the bike. I simply couldn't go attack the Couples course on tires I'd never ridden on. I made the mistake of reading my work email before going to bed and thought I'd have to send a "I respectfully disagree, this is bad for our customers" email to important people, so of course when I woke about 3:30 I couldn't get back to sleep. I was actually grateful when the alarm went off at 5:25.

The swim was even worse than Danskin (36 min??????? C'mon, I've done that course entirely breaststroke before and it took about 28) and the worst hydrilla experience I've ever had in that lake. It just kept up for at least 100m, but I was grateful just to finish. I knew the run would hurt and since I have Marble Falls next week, I didn't feel the need to run the whole thing and hurt myself real bad. So finishing was good. Hung out with friends, Erik came in from California to race with Kim, triman introduced me to Tune, and I had breakfast tacos and beer after the finish. I never found the towels or bandanas but I have enough of both of those. I guess I was the only one with a cowbell cause I went to watch Jody as she ran in to the finish. Tune and I had a nice chat while the awards were being handed out and then she left. Coaches Cindy and Gina and I went to grab a final beer at the beer tent where we ran into Ken, his son Alex (first time triathlete!) and another guy whose name I can't remember, and we all had a good time celebrating the sport of triathlon (and Cindy & Gina's 3rd place win!). I offered to help Cindy and Gina take down the TriZones tent but first we thought it best to get our bikes out of transition as they were holding up the rack teardown. We stopped to talk to Glenn Beck for a few minutes and as we were headed to our cars, I noticed a bee was really loving the little bit of e-load that had dribbled out of my bike waterbottle. I guess it got real mad that my body was in the way and it stung me on the upper inside of my right thigh. Not just stung me, left the stinger, too. Gina said, "I'll hold your bike" and I managed to grab what I hoped was the stinger (thank goodness I had the stick on bifocal on the bottom of my sunglasses). MAN, DID THAT HURT!!!!!!!!! owwwwie! Gina was parked close and I was way at the end of the loop, so she offered to take my tribag while I rode back to my car. OUCH! OUCH!! It stung so bad it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I quickly unlocked the car, grabbed the pump spray bottle of benadryl from the passenger side door pocket and sprayed it on my thigh. Stuck my bike in the car, drove over in front of the tent and thought it might be a good idea to visit the Medical Tent, if it was still up. It was still up, but nobody was there. I helped tear down the tent, get it in Gina's car, then proceeded to try and find the real turns of the longhorm 70.3 bike course. I'd forgotten that Cindy took the printout we used the previous week and it wasn't in the car. I tried to remember what roads to turn on, and I think I did pretty well overall.

Steve and I met for a very late lunch at the north Hoover's Home Cooking. I met him there once earlier this year except when I got there the kitchen was closed. So this time I actually got to eat!

So I'll be sleeping with Prince Benadryl tonight. Got all signed up for Splash n Dash Tuesday and might go to GM swim tomorrow just to cool off.

The "I'm not going to apologize for its length" Danskin 2008 Race Report:

SaturdayAM was TZT - 7:00 to 9:30 getting ladies ready for Danskin at the multiple-training-group Mini-Tris. The nice man at the gate did not take my $1 walkin fee at 7am.We were alongside Team Danskin. One lost soul asked me where the YMCA group was meeting.. uh.. I dunno.. can't help ya there! I brought TZ signs which worked great to direct people to my house at Freezescale 2006, but did not work so well at Lake Walter E. Long park since the "soil" is ROCK. Since my main sign was on posterboard on a yardstick, we secured it with a pile o' rocks! And since we all (TDT AND TZT) kinda knew each other, we woohooed and yeehawed for each other. TDT had two white styrofoam coolers for their swim course, we had two neon green "innertubes" and we rather crossed over each other's course. As I was assigned to "Swim Exit", I wore my Keens to help pull ladies out of the water. We started out with a "dry run" where ladies pretended to exit the water, pretended to get on their bikes, make a uturn and pretended to run. Then we had two "real starts". If I haven't said it before, I think this year is the strongest group of women training for Danskin I've ever seen. They're way more ready than I was 4 years ago. We hardly gave up a noodle on the open water swims this year. And I noticed Becky, who was one of our TDT athletes the last 2 years, exited the water on the Team Danskin side, announcing, "I didn't use a noodle" so I yeehawed her anyway! She likes the bike, swimming is not her thing and I totally understand!

Finally we got to do our own workout. On my schedule for Sat was: 30 min OWS, 2 hours bike, 30 min run off the bike. Well it was nearly 10am when I finally got into the water. I did 3 out-n-backs to the first TZ green buoy so I call that "600". After we changed and regrouped, we did an "easy" Danskin bike course. Coach Cindy and I stayed together for this one. my time would have been totally unacceptable for Danskin of course, but we had another one to do. We did the second loop (with me leading!!) FAST. Five minutes faster. I gotta do better on race day though cause my Garmin said it was only a little over 11 miles (We couldn't do the actual route thru the back of expo). And then there was wind. I usually like to bomb down that last hill before Big Bastard at like 36-37 mph. Even on my second attempt (where we didn't stop for a lady in distress), I could only manage 32, which I attribute to that damn headwind.

After the two Danskin bike loops, Cindy and I ran the Danskin run course. I say this only to point out that both of us were on the Danskin run course at the same time. She's a runner and I'm .. well, recovering. She finished well ahead of me but as I finished, she rewarded me with a cup of water from the official TZT water cooler!

I stretched (a lot), then went to Jersey Mikes tfor lunch o get some funds diverted to ACA. quick nap, then cleanup and off to meet my TriZones friend Lisa, who recently moved to Michigan and was in town this week. She wanted to go to Jorge's for a TexMex fix and I was willing to please. We had a lovely time, then her friend Carol came and got her to go to Esther's Follies for Lisa's final Austin thing before leaving at 8am Sunday!

Sunday - JUNE FIRST (this is significant for Sprint distance triathletes). I woke at 5:30. I had brought my laptop upstairs to the bedroom so as to be ready for this.................the 28th annual RiverCities Triathlon registration!!! I'd already made my hotel reservation and was eagerly anticipating the registration for the tri. I easily got registered and had my email confirmation. Then I went back to sleep. When I woke, my clock was flashing....... it was after 11am(some kind of power glitch). No way!! So it was too late (hot!) to do my 75 min run. I had to do stuff around the house, Cindy needed a new phone (she got it,a zune), then dinner with Steve and his former boss/my former coworker. We'd planned Enchiladas y mas but steve forgot they're closed on Sunday. So taking a tip from tripam we went to Chapala instead. They did not disappoint. lovely margaritas, salsa mixed at your table, and good entrees. Steve's former boss had recently suffered a 'cardiac event'. He said this was actually a heart attack. It happened at work. I really like Steve's former boss (and I worked with this guy, too) but really.. do you want your first heart attack to happen AT WORK??? crap!!! make it at like the 5 mile mark of the run on an Olympic triathlon... but I digress. You don't get to plan your first heart attack. And he had lots to say, and he was obviously much thinner than he was when we met him for dinner in January. So we all agreed, fat or not, old or not, we all do something to stay fit.

Monday - was supposed to be my day off but since I didn't do my 75 min run on Sunday (cause we met Jim Heart Attack), I did my 75 min run after work today. Oh my. Walgreens said it was 96 degrees. No wonder I had no decent pace. For my 75 min of running/walking, I got 5.2 miles. Then I went to Austin Cycling Association meeting. On the way home I stopped at Braker HEB and saw Joey and Rachel!

 I just looked at my beginnertriathlete log and realized that the last day I have no exercise entries is May 5. Today's an "off" day and I intend to make it that. 

Quick recap:
Tuesday: 1 mile w/u, 8 mile So.Mopac TT, 3 miles c/d. Total riding: 12 miles. Then I did a 2 mile run out-n-back run from Kiker (about 22min).

Wednesday - had to miss the TxI OWS at HH due to dinner/movie commitment with Steve. All I could manage to fit in was 30 min of core work and 500m swim. We went to the 9:45pm special "cocktail" showing of  "The Thin Man". great stuff. Then the storm hit.

Thursday - Carolyn had asked for more assistance with her ongoing Vista woes so Em and I got invited for dinner. Before that I ran 3 miles around our campus with the intent to go fast "mostly" fast. Mile 1: 10:30. Mile 2: 11:30 (pulled back just a little tooooo much). Mile 3: 9:00. YEEHAW! how did that happen? feeling pretty good about doing Skees.

Friday - BTWD! 16 mile riding

Saturday - TZ OWS practice. Unlike the previous time, there was NO WIND. Lake was beautiful. I didn't even mind wiggling into my wetsuit. We have some really strong athletes this year and during their out n back practice, I didn't even hand out one noodle. I did have two customers during their mass start return. Who can blame them? that was the hardest part for me, too. Tracy allowed us TLs and coaches to have a "supported" (meaning buoys and kayaks stayed out in the lake) OWS after the workout. The water was soooooo great! I had not yet done any OWS this year and it was absolutely lovely. Since I was doing Skees the next day, I just did one loop (about 400). Several of us then rode the Danskin/Couples bike course. I wanted to go a little faster but, I was doing Skees the next day. According to Garmin, we only rode a little over 11 miles. I was supposed to do a 10 min run off the bike, but noticed I was almost at 1 mile, so kept running till Garmin hit 1.0 30 seconds later. Whoop!

Sunday - Skees Greets Women's Tri. First tri of the season for me. Based on the lightning fast running I'd been experiencing, I wanted to "race" this. I figured even I could get the swim out of the way in less than 9 minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't apply my own advice from Rookie last year -- should have got to the front of the wave. Our wave went DFL, so even if I did that, it might not have mattered because people were all over the lake by that time. Overall time (1:15:21)  was a few seconds off last year's Rookie time (1:15:43), but I really wanted it to be several minutes. I improved T1 by 15 seconds and T2 by 13, took about 2 min off the bike, and was only 30 sec slower on the run. I have a theory about why the bike & run took longer than I had wanted - will put behind the cut:

I intended to ride with Cyclopaths last night but I started feeling weird at work. They were painting the hallways again. Seriously, I've been in my job for 10 months and they've painted the hallways THREE TIMES. They never warn us and it gives me nausea and headaches. The painters get to wear masks. Why can't they at least warn us so we can work from home or whatever? My trip to Intel next month got canceled due to expenses being too high but we can paint the halls unnecessarily twice a year. Anyway, went home to bed for about an hour, then went to hang Mindy's bedroom curtain rod. Had some dinner and stayed up too late documenting my food intake for my personal trainer.

woke up today kinda groggy but as I didn't have to be anywhere at a particular time, monitored email from home, packed up a whole bunch of exercise stuff, and went to work. I met with my personal trainer at noon and she worked me out hard with core and strength for an hour. I called it quits at work at 6 and went back to Gold's to swim 1,000. I had visions of trying to do the political pedal or whatever they call it now, but that just wasn't to be ;-(

tomorrow is our first OWS for the TZ crew. And I didn't have time to put the "shadow panel" down the side of my TZ shorts. They'll just have to deal. oh well!! We get to swim after the practice and I'm also going to pack running stuff. Running stuff for the Danskin/Couples run route includes bug spray. At 2:30 I go to help trichelle at the Shiner Ride bike unload. Then over to Stanton & Susie's to do Armadillo Hill Country Century Challenge registration data entry. I should smell pretty bad by then!! good thing I have Rocket Shower!

whew. Good thing Sunday I only have to run 50 and swim 30! of course since I'm not likely to get any ride in tomorrow, I will have to squeeze in a 1.5 hr ride..

good luck all the Shiner Riders! should have great weather this year!!

well, first of all, did anybody else ride after work tonight? that WIND was fierce! I think things are starting to go a little more right for me now. My Dr. let me get off both norvasc and cardura (one or the other was causing severe edema making me look like I had elephant ankles). Now back on Lisonopril, which we've tried before without success but this time she upped the dosage a little. It is like night and day. I was truly miserable on those other two meds and now I have a much better outlook. Back to the "well, it's kinda hot/windy/rainy/cold/insert excuse here but I need to bike two hours and run for one".. or something like that. It was really depressing that I felt like I couldn't work out. Which brings up the monthly totals. I'm not pleased with the start of Tri season but given the fact that the first two weeks were kind of a wash (due to the above reason), it turned out not-so-bad.
S: 4500.00 Yd - 2h 22m
B: 200.00 Mi - 13h 33m 22s
R: 20.00 Mi - 3h 53m 13s
Also did an hour with personal trainer on Friday (core workout instruction!) and the core workout on my own this past Monday.
( exciting details of the past week! not....... )

Coach Cindy talked me into joining her sister, and their OS (Other Sister) Friday @ 5 @ Pure Austin. I know Cindy wanted to swim in the lake but I just wasn't up for that yet. So the four of us swam in the outdoor pool (which was quite nice). Total swim: 1200yd. We then went to celebrate by having dinner at Baby A's. I'd never had a purple margarita so I had one. Coach Cindy scared me into only having one. Even though I'm not the lightweight that she apparently is... I ordered Shrimp Fajitas and although I stuffed myself, could only hold about half that food, the rest went home with me to becoming Saturday's lunch.

Saturday - up bright n' early to get to Caraway School to help with TZ Women's bike workout. I'm not real familiar with that neighborhood, but I had to lead, so I took notice of where the cones & flags were on my way there. Coach had me demonstrate cadence of 70 on one street, then cadence of 110 on the next (which, for those of you who have run Motive, was up Oakview!), 70 on the next, then 110 again. Repeat 3 times. Then we went on a longer loop (4 miles) twice and I finished with one more 1.5 mile cadence loop. I saw only 3 lost people on my last loop, told them to follow me and we all got back fine.

I wasn't sure what the coach/Team Leader post-workout-workout was to be, so Kim, Cindy and I decided Lake Pville. They donned the wetsuits (I'm about 15 lbs away from wearing mine) and as luck would have it, someone in a kayak noticed us and asked if we were doing the Lake Pflugerville Tri in June. Answer no, but the guy said Glenn Beck (RD) had asked him to set buoys out there so people could practice. And there they were! they're little red/pink (couldn't tell from the shore) bubbles sitting on top of the lake! one is 250 yds from shore, the other 250 yds from the first). That was really nice of them! Although I'm not doing that particular Tri (It conflicts with The Urban Assault Ride , it'll be good practice because Kim, Cindy and I (and possibly others) are going to start the "Cindy Sunday Tri Series". Well, practices anyway... So they swam 500 yds, then we went out for two of the Cele/Cameron/JesseBohls/Weiss loops (15 miles total). Then ran around the lake (3 miles). As I hadn't planned on being out that long, I hadn't worn sunscreen. My shoulders are a little upset with me, but it's not bad. Cleaned up and went to Steve's so we could go to dinner at Drakula Romanian Restaurant.  When we had gone to Sarah & Raz's birthday bowling party in Jan, they had brought a cake from there and sure enough Steve had to order a piece for dessert!

Sunday - nothing. Steve and I had brunch at The Omlettry, which is always good and reasonable. I went back home for a few chores then we were supposed to meet this guy at 6:30 at the Little Woodrow's up by my house. Consequently, I didn't have time for any working-out. And the guy never showed.. boo hoo.

Monday - after work, dragged my rear over to the Gold's Gym that I just joined. As luck would have it, Sarah was in the locker room as I made my way to the pool. Actually I was lost, so she pointed the way! I swam 1200 meters and met a nice lady named Denise who had been watching me swim for the last 800 or so. She said, "You really inspire me, how do you keep going like that?" (I really needed a compliment right then, too!) so I mentioned that while swimming in a triathlon, there's no stopping out in the lake! She replied that she'd done Danskin and had been a competitive swimmer in college. So to have a compliment on MY SWIMMING from someone who swam competively in college just made my day. I then changed and went outside to run 5 miles. Whoop! yeah, FIVE miles!

Had to get out of this funk somehow. In my continual battle of the Blood Pressure, I talked myself out of doing the TxI women's bike workout last night. But today I just had to do something to quit feeling so ... uh.. powerless? I dunno. I've been in some kind of funk-mood with zero motivation and that's not good for a Team Leader.

So, today I got up, did my knee exercises and decided I'd need to get my act together - tri season has started.

First, updated my
Then, since I need to volunteer for some of the Triseries, sent off the volunteer registrations. Then, whipped out the new Discover card to finally register for Skees Greets Tri. I need to start somewhere. So now I'm committed. I think I'll celebrate by riding with the Cyclopaths tonight.

Finally, I cracked up when reading a thread on the RunTex forum today. Hits pretty close to home for me!

first off, Happy Happy Birthday sweetmonster!!!!!!! I signed a card for you and ate cake for you. And yesterday I ate cake (twice) for my niece Nikki in Marble Falls. So thus far this week I've had THREE pieces of birthday cake! good thing I was busy last weekend..

I had wanted to get my swim total for the month to 5k yds but that just didn't happen. I let myself be talked out of it due to allergies. I don't know why, I just can't breathe at night and wake up (After 3 hours of sleep) exhausted. So I'll just not worry too much about it right now.

S: 2600yd
B: 240.5 miles
R: 20 miles

I did the most excellent Salado Smokin' spokes ride Saturday. I swear this event gets better every year. First time, I was the only one (or so I thought) from Austin to do this and I chose the 57 mile route. At a rest stop, I saw some people I knew from Trizones.

Last year I dragged Jimmy H along with me to do the 57 mile route again. I have a habit of telling Jimmy "we're going on a ride to so and so" (like "the Shack" or "Eagle nest hill") only the shack didn't have barbecue like he envisioned and Eagle Nest Hill does not really contain an Eagle Nest...)



Sunday, as I mentioned, drove to Marble Falls to celebrate the 6th birthday of Nikki, my niece with no front teeth <G>She loved the Little Mermaid bathing suit I got her. They insisted I stay for dinner (grilled salmon, red peppers/onions, rice and corn). didn't take too much convincing.

Today was the usual DellHell, with the addition of the announcement of PN1 closing. hope it doesn't affect my friend Terry, he's been at Dell way longer than me. Finally got to Coach Tracy's house about 7pm, I guess, for snacks/wine/MORE birthday cake. (sweetmonsterwhere were you???)

Congrats to my Couples partner triman for a kick-ass weekend. I think the reason I woke up yesterday in a weird mood was I knew all my friends were in Galveston and I really should have just driven over there to cheer!!

Here's hoping my knee starts really cooperating in April cause on Wed, it's gonna start getting intense.

is to ride 78 miles in one day.

Soooo -- since last post, my friend Carolyn completed her first Half Ironman. With the expertly run transition area (thanks deankat and shubbe and other peeps who were helping!) I basically picked my volunteer spot - the bike course at 969/Blake Manor. After watching Carolyn take off in the water (goosebumps!!), I rode out to the spot. I took the 'short' route (!) I found it harder than the direction the competitors were going, but maybe that's because no less than 5 vicious dogs bolted under their 'fences' and chased me, with determination and barks that scared even me. I finally got to the location and changed into running shoes and my volunteer shirt, cowbell in hand! I cowbelled lots of folks up that durn hill!

After Carolyn went by, I called her hubby Tom to let him know she'd passed by me safely. As I made my way to the race finish, I saw little chalk sayings on the road. I mentioned this to Tom while we were watching Carolyn make her way around the run course and found out he'd put them there:)

I really felt for the Half Iron athetes. Saturday was hard enough on our Olympic event, but at least the sun didn't come out till I had 2 miles left to run. Sunday was just brutally awful hot. And the food tent nazi wouldn't let me have any food! I was there volunteering since 7am and she can't give up a burrito? I didn't get much the day before when I Was a competitor! I settled for a BBQ sandwich and when I asked for a coke, it was warm. ugh. fortunately, Tom had brought extra water (Thank goodness). I had rbought two full waterbottles, thinking I'd get some water at least for volunteering all damn day. NOSIR! Carolyn finished, smiling, hot, wet and tired, but she sure wasn't out of hugs!!

Monday, Mindy and I went to Carly's yoga class, then to potbelly sandwich for dinner and homedepot for homestuff. It was very nice.

Tuesday, well, we had a big party to celebrate end of Tri season at Cindy's! four of us managed to kill two bottles of champagne!

Wednesday, TxI women's brick intervals at Travis Country. Practiced pacelining and did running drills, cycling, about 18 miles, running about 2 miles.

Thursday, I was really really tired, so no workout.

Friday -- trip to Calvert for their 6 man football homecoming game! Just after halftime, the score was 47-0 so they called the game (anytime a team is up by 45 pts, they call the game)

Saturday -- since I stayed over at Steve's due to the lateness of getting back, he rode 8 miles while I ran 4.5. Then we went to Maudie's!

Sunday - (here's where the title comes in) Cindy and I did the ACA Cedar Park Fever ride. We were still hoping to get trained enough to do the outlaw 100, meaning 100 miles. Except we got rained out at Conquer the Coast, last weekend was a race for me, and really this weekend should have been a taper. We rode 78 miles, the last 25 of which we faced stiff cross and headwinds. ugh! It took us 6 hours and we only made one stop of any duration (probably about 10-15 min, in Florence). On my way home, I stopped at Waterloo ice house in Avery to have a mexican martini and burger so I could watch the Cowboys start to lose.

So then I get home, shower, and start on my quest to make my bed dust-mite free. I washed the sheet and when I went to put on the bedmiteproof casing, found it was at least a foot short all the way 'round. I ordered queen, for goodness sake! it looks more like twin!

oh well, at least the sheets are clean (!)

My massage therapist called to tell me she had an emergency for tomorrow and couldn't take me at 11:30 so I asked for the following monday. Turns out she'll be at the Outlaw giving FREE massages! Go see Elizabeth!!

So -- I'm not sure what's going to happen Saturday. I don't think I could have stayed in the saddle for another 2 hours, plus I'm running 10K Sunday. The 63 mile option is looking more attractive.

   

I did NOT catch a cold, I am NOT fast but I DID finish my very first Olympic/International distance triathon today!

I am NOT catching a cold.. Good thing this is a taper week, I didn't do much at all. Wed night TxI was pretty light, some bike/run repeats, about 8 miles of cycling and about 2 miles of running. Some of the running was up/down Lost Horizon toughly across from the country club. Last night I met Kim & Erik at Pure Austin to do our last OWS before tomorrow. As we were chatting afterwards on the dock, Carolyn came down the hill in her pink high-heeled slides! It was a sight! I didn't realize she hadn't swum in Quarry Lake before, so we hadn't told her about the rocky/rough descent to the dock. She came to do a test swim with Kim's wetsuit but and we also forgot to tell her where the "landmarks/sighting objects" were. So she didn't actually do a full loop around the objects, but she did get a feel for swimming in the wetsuit.  I went there with the intent to swim the full two loops for 1500m but I just felt weird and uncoordinated. Probably did about 1,000m and called it good.

I'm going to try and get to bed really early because it looks like I'm not gonna feel well tomorrow at my first Olympic :-(
I'll be out on the bike course with cowbell on Sunday, I asked Audra if I can plant myself at the intersection of 969/Blake Manor. I'll be looking for all my LJ peeps & #240! (That's Carolyn)

Good luck all Longhorn racers!

so since I was too sick/jacked up on drugs to do Austin Tri (which was supposed to be my first Olympic), I'm now thinking about doing the International distance at Longhorn.

Last Tues, 13 mile total bike, 8 of which was the S. Mopac TT

Wed, I mistakenly took the antihistamine first thing in the morning and was in a fog all day. Didn't think it made any sense to drive to Hippie Hollow and try to swim. Instead, I went home and took a nap. And did NO workout.

Thurs was busy. Met Steve and his friend Courtney for lunch at Firebowl, then went with Steve to his parent's house for dinner. I swam probably 400 yd in their pool. Those old people really stay up late!!

Friday I intended to meet Coach Cindy at Quarry lake for a swim and she offered to meet me there and film me (cause she'd been battling a head cold) but I said maybe in a few more days. So met my friend Cynthia (who just did her first tri in Lake P-Ville) at the Longhorn site so I could show her the run course. I was wearing one of my new pairs of shoes. We ran one loop easy, if you can call it that. Although it was mowed, the weedstalks, etc were pretty hard to deal with, not to mention the spiders!!! Cynthia peeled off after the first 5K and I went on alone for the 2nd one. As the sun was setting, I did not stop at all, just kept running. Except when I freaked a little knowing I was running through spider webs and I could see the spiders.. those guys are ambitious, I tellya!

After I ran the 10K at longhorn course, I went to drive the Half Iron course to mentally prepare for the bike ride Saturday. Several of us were going to ride with Carolyn to support her since she's the first of our little group to leap ahead to Half Iron. Well, Old Kimbro was barricaded. Only on one side though. So I drove around it, kept going and found some gravel over a culvert. No big deal. Then more gravel over another culvert. No big deal. A little while further, a big pile of rock/rubble and.. no road. My headlights could see no road and I turned around then. I went back to 290 and headed into Elgin, paid attention to the texaco at 95/290, then cut across on Fisher to 1704 and followed the rest of the longhorn course. Got back home and posted to several places that the road was out, pulled up Sanoodi to see how far I had driven with the detour (50 miles) and decided 50 miles was good enough.

Saturday met Carolyn, Tom and Kim out at the race site. Many others joined later. I tried to tell everyone about Old Kimbro but some wouldn't listen. We took off and when I got to the intersection with 290 I realized I'd brought - but not yet applied- sunscreen, so did it there. A few min later I heard whooooosh ahead of me. Kim's front tire was flat. At least it was on the downhill heading toward parmer. her tire actually had a tear in it so she had to get out her dollar bill to boot it. We rode along 290 into Elgin having a great time and just after we passed old kimbro, her phone rang. It was Tom. They were worried when we didn't show up or pass them. We hooked up at the chevon in Elgin (never made it to the Texaco!) and continued on to 1704. We all had a great ride, no dogs chased/bit us, and the only bad thing was (I think) tom's quads were hurting near the end. After the ride, Kim went home and Carolyn, Tom & I went to run. I only ran one mile since I'd run 10K the night before.  When I finally left, I noticed cars were parked along the fenceline almost to hogeye road. Swung by REI to check out watches to swim with and found a Nike on sale for $45, used my $15 in Team Danskin WOL bucks and only had to shell out about $33.

Spent Sat nite at Steve's -- I brought Salmon and he cooked it along with his steak on the grill. yum!!!!
Sun we went to Denny's, bad bad service, took vorever and I was starving. But at least I used the $5 coupon. Came home and CLEANED HOUSE (Instead of my 60 min run, 45 min swim). I really couldn't stand the filth anymore.

today met coach Cindy at Pure Austin Quarry Lake so I could swim two laps. She filmed me and said I had a good stroke, I just need to use freestyle more (where have I heard that before???) the new sportswatch worked great. I'm not fast, but I did two loops, 1500meters, under an hour. YAY!!  Then met Steve and two of his ex-co-workers at Draught House for a couple cheep Guinness beers.

Feeling pretty good about being able to do Longhorn Olympic. Need to keep the confidence going. More freestyle...

my co-worker comes back from vacation tomorrow. yay!!!

Saturday, Kim and I joined lots of our TxI buddies riding the Hill Country Century Challenge in Burnet. I ran into Kem at the rest stop where 40 milers split from the others. Kim and I rode 40 since we were doing Burnet Tri-Hard next day. After the ride, Kim went back to her family at the campsite and I hung out with the great post-ride feed and visited with Cyclopaths (tres Lindas and uno Jimmy), other TxI folk, and a fellow HCCC participant who’d had a heart attack back in March. He was truly inspiring but laughed every time Leary and I would talk about the difficulties of open water swimming or running after cycling. We just explained it’s a disease.

 

When I finally extricated myself from the church/food/drink/conversation, I drove to my sister’s house in Marble Falls. We visited for quite a while and then stuffed my car full of the six bags of hand-me-down clothes for when I go to Corpus. Drove back to Austin to get things packed for the Burnet Tri-Hard (and take the hand-me-downs out of the car). Everything went more or less according to plan, I never get to bed early enough but even if I did, it wouldn’t matter probably. I still woke up in the middle of the night and I still had the Dream. The one I have the night before most events.. the one where you dream you overslept and missed the event. Only you’re sleeping and it takes so much energy away dealing with the fact that you’re somewhat aware you’re actually sleeping. It’s weird. Maybe I’m the only one who has these weird dreams. 

Monday I didn't have the energy to do GM swim (and I didn't get the notice before leaving for work so I'd know the location), so just did nautilus on way home from work. 

Last night was supposed to be a run but as it was the very last Run-Far TT, I went there instead. Good thing I showed up:
http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/73262_213070_2007.html#23

 

I wanna Tri-Hard!!

in addition to yesterday's 1,000 yd swim at the ymca, I didn't mention that I cycled to the 'offsite event'. I guess because, well, I don't really notice bike rides that are only 8 miles??

Today's TxI ows workout got canceled for two reasons. One, Barton Springs Pool was closed due to flooding. Two, Coach Susan had come down with a cold, and realizing most of our group was participating in Burnet Tri-Hard and didn't want to 'infect' us, sent the workout in email and said "this is NOT a night off... make sure you're really breathing hard".. uh... I always breathe hard when I'm swimming.. it helps me to not drown. Anyway, I was feeling a little trepediatious about Burnet because I haven't run lately. As in, the last run I did was 10k two weeks ago......... (but I do have an excuse, I was on drugs)

So... since I didn't have to brave an hour's worth of rush hour traffic to swim for 45 min, I headed toward home and detoured to the y. there were two swim classes going on and almost no lap swimming although some clowns were hogging the lanes.  Since I was already in more-or-less running gear (Trizones outfit), I strapped on the Garmin, the running shoes and set out to run the 5K route around my house. I tried to push, just a little. Now, the pace I've been running for 5 or 10k lately has been (on a good day) 12 min mile. Today (with a 5-10 second delay while I Waited at a stop for a suburban-type vehicle to get outta my way), my 3.1 miles took less than 34 min. I'm very happy with that. Burnet is a pretty flat run course. oh, and after that, I went to the Y again and did the 1,200 yd workout Coach Susan sent.

I'm going to resist the temptation to look up last year's Burnet  results until I've got THIS year's results. I'll wear Trizones GoFast (tm) for Burnet(it's in the washer right now since I wore it for tonight's run).

I'm thinking of making a bold step and losing my Olympic virginity to the Longhorn festival Olympic distance............. it's gonna be a bizzy weekend either way cause I've already committed to volunteering at the half iron. and my friend Carolyn is gonna kick assphalt!!!!!

yay!I love this race.

Total: 2:14:43

I did not have my fastest RCT ever (that was 2005, 2:09:28), but I did beat last year (2:17:08) by more than 2 min. Steve had been kidding me earlier in the day by saying if the swim took me longer than 30 min I’d have to walk back home.HA! So far, I’ve never swam that course under 30 min.

Had a blast, as usual, and hey, it didn’t rain!! Steve took a couple photos of us (And so did a nice person with Shayla's camera, which produced my userpic). Went back to hotel and showered, checked out at 1:55pm and headed back downtown to check out Oakland Cemetery on the way back home (Steve likes taking pictures of unusual cemeteries - this one had cast iron covers above ground).

Thanks to TZ buds who still let me hang out with them, especially to Genny for “encouraging” all of us to do this. My back still hurts..... I hope it heals up soon.

It's been a week, soooooo..

Monday - nice yogaaaahh class with Carly. Mindy went with.

Tuesday - T3 swim, I cut it 'short' at 2,000m

Wednesday - TxI women's brick intervals up/down Terravista in SW Austin

Thursday- TO THE BAT CAVE!!!! Will see if any of my pix turned out, but I went with Steve and his company to dinner at the Salt Lick and an outing to the Bracken Cave to see the bats emerge. Quite a spectacle. And quite an unforgettable stench.

Friday - picked up my MFT pkt and went to Wine Down Friday after work. Pretty decent dinner/wine tasting for $10. Stayed up too late watching a movie and didn't get much sleep.

Weekend update

or, how I humiliated my first Couples partner..

not as long as some reports, but tucked behind