Yeah, the Dane is back.........for now.

Well, the Dane is back from lengthy Euro trip and I'm happy about that. I also get to assert my well-honed go-forever-at-a-good-pace fitness on him! It's not funny but it is nice to know all this consistent training has elevated my fitness level quite a bit which I can compare when he returns from each trip. Poor guy, he tries to jump right in to my training when he returns and it really proves difficult. He is a trooper and will toe the line in Panama City on Nov 3rd and give it a go as they say. Things are going fine overall. Really into the meat of it. Still with a lot of volume but added speedwork and weights. I'm pretty tired and looking forward to tapering in about 4 weeks but I know I have a lot of solid training efforts to put in between now and then. Not much else to report. I could blab about all the killer workouts but don't feel the need and too much to type out! Cheers.

big weeks - I love 'em

Didn't get a chance to post during the weekend, too tired, I guess. Fully back in the swing this week. Work was insanely stressful and training back on full bore from week's "vacation" (from work, not from training). Got the first seven hour ride in on Sat. I had some issues in the middle but finished strong, I think. Had a great brick, too fast on the run but, hey, if that's my problem, I'll take it! So, about 7 1/2 hours of training on Sat then long run on Sun morning. Got in a little over 15 miles, most of it felt pretty good. Pleased about that as this Ironman training period starts to get serious. The Dane is gone to Europe so most training, other than swimming and long ride, have been solo (great job out there Val). I work well solo which is great for Ironman. I have had a bit of time this weekend to refocus and motivate myself for my goals for IM Florida. I think I'm on track. Swam PR's for 100 and 200 yards last week (I won't say what they are because they are pretty slow)! I'm getting pumped and watching the race in Kona in less than 4 weeks online will really solidify my goals! I am looking forward to my Dane coming back home end of the week - gone too long! I'm gonna post some fun pics from our trip to God's country just for kicks! Go Broncos and Gators! Cheers..

mini altitude running camp

We had a blast in Colorado for Labor Day weekend. We did a really cool long run (3 hours) in Rocky Mountain National Park that was just amazing! I would say it ranked right up there with climbing Haleakala on the tri bikes two years ago prepping for IM Florida '05. I'll post some pictures which don't do it justice. I could have run for five hours out there it was so challenging and serene. I we did another run out there on Sunday on the trails just to check them out and did the long run on Monday. We spent Monday night in Denver at Hotel Monaco which was really cool. It was an amazing trip, wish we would have planned more time there because the training is incredible. The altitude at Grand Lake is about 8600 feet. The turn around on the trail we ran on was nearly 10,000 feet (the Garmin download is great). I actually was able to keep my average heart rate aerobic too. Can't wait to return there with bikes and wetsuits to do tri training, maybe next summer. Have to get back into the routine next week (have medical conference this weekend) which will be easier after having such a nice change of scenery and temperature. The temps in the morning were high 40's and low 70's during the day - such a nice break from Florida! Back to the heat and humidity now. I mind it less with the wonderful memories from God's country. Cheers!

Running with dolphins

Coolest experience on my long run on Monday. Running back from turn around after 1:15, running along Memorial Causeway, there was a huge group of dolphins swimming right along the water's edge. They seemed to be keeping pace with me and it was truly enjoyable, as much as a 2:30 run can be enjoyable. Still hot, about 93 degrees, add whatever for "heat index". I faired much better than last week, thank goodness! Anyway, off to Colorado on Saturday, yeah. Hope my sinuses don't act up, they're on the edge! Cheers.

On and on

Another solid week in the books. Just about same amount of time as last week and still in one piece. This week, the Dane left on Wednesday for a week in Europe so I got to focus on training and sleeping (and, unfortunately, work/cleaning/laundry/grocery shopping). I did manage to catch the Dane's cold before he left and am getting through that without any serious sequelae, thank goodness. The week started Monday with record heat. When you talk about record heat in Florida, that isn't fun for training. I know it's not Arizona or desert heat but, sheesh, it's humid here also folks. The record heat and a 2:10 run were staring me in the face when I came home from work Monday evening. The Dane was smart enough to avoid that long run and amazingly hot conditions. So, I was on my own. Time to toughen up and get going. I've stolen a motto for this Ironman training season which, anyone who is a CSC cycling fan will know.....HTFU. It means Harden the F#$% up! I normally, being pretty small in stature, handle the heat very well and am typically not bothered by it other than having to slow my run pace to keep the heart rate down. Well, I got about a half mile up the road and it felt like a blow dryer blowing in my face. I knew it was going to be a testing run. I knew the heart rate monitor was going to take a beating so paid a little less attention to it (sorry Luis). I got out a little over seven miles to the turn around point and wanted to sit down and cry. I never cave mentally in long runs like this so I knew these were special conditions. I looked across the Memorial Causeway and spotted a guy and gal running along at a really solid pace and thought, hey, I can do that. I began running again after a gel and some hot, watered down Gatorade from my fuel belt and my knees nearly buckled! Oh boy, who can I call to come and pick me up? But, of course, I don't have a phone. I had to go into survivor mode and make little goals for myself, which I did. Before I knew it, I was back to the golf course, 4.5 miles from home, with a cold water faucet, refilled and motored on. I made it home, negative splitted, no less. This was one of those days that will go into the motivational vault should I need it down the road (ie, IMFL). This really kind of put me in a hole physically for the week. I got a much needed massage on Wednesday which was wonderful! I did recover enough to ride 6 1/2 hours on Saturday with a 32 min brick which was a solid workout. We will be leaving for Colorado for Labor Day weekend and I am not upset that I might miss a workout or two! I think I need it for the final push into IMFL. I will be so happy to run in 70-something degree weather! Even if it is at altitude! So, HTFU and less than 10 weeks to IMFL! Cheers.

The fun continues...

Well, I've officially done the biggest training week of my life as far as my training logs go back. Nearly 23 hours in the log. And, I missed one easy run! I quickly realised Sunday when finishing bike/swim/weights at noon that an "easy" run wouldn't be so easy so decided not to do it. I have done all my other workouts. Logged nearly 200 miles on the bike this week which is my focus for this Ironman push - the key, for me, to building overall endurance is the bike. We rode 100 miles on Saturday and I didn't really feel that great but I got through it, practiced my nutrition strategy and just got 'time in the saddle', as they say. Today, another 3 1/2 hours on the bike and actually felt better than yesterday, weird. I'm amazed that, at 40, I can still recover from day to day. I think that is the beauty and secret of the MarkAllenOnline program, is the ability to get the volume and recover. When training aerobically, nothing is intense or "hard" to the outsider but if you do it long enough, it is difficult. The beauty is, in staying aerobic, you don't beat the body and it rewards you with a fresh outlook the next day. I know the hot weather is taking a toll on my run pacing because I have to slow to a crawl to keep under my MAHR (max aerobic heart rate) and it frustrates me greatly. I just hope this will improve as the weather cools. I have done a run in the am and my pace was about 50 seconds/mile faster just based on temperature.....amazing. There is hope! Cheers!

REAL Ironman training has begun!

Not that I have been goofing around for the past 7 weeks but this past week began feeling like IM training. Firstly, I had over 21 hours for last week in the training log which I haven't done since last summer! The legs are generally tired and it's hard to wake up in the morning but we get up anyway! The scary thing about it is, the long ride will get much longer! I'm not really sore or anything though, which is good. I usually only get sore from weights. Basically, did about 16,000 yards swimming, 170 miles biking, 35 miles running and about an hour total in the weight room. The only problem is that I also worked about 45 hours! I feel like I'm recovering pretty well - should be because all of the work is aerobic other than weights. We have a 2 1/2 hour long run after work tonight so I'm hoping for a thundershower to cool it off a bit but that's not likely today. One thing is for sure, I'm well heat-acclimated right now! The Dane is hanging in there like a trooper, trying to get as much training as he can before leaving for Europe the end of the month. We are then looking forward to our trip to Colorado over Labor Day weekend, should be nice and cool there! Cheers.

Top Gun Tri race report

Race went better than expected. When entrenched in ironman training and racing a sprint tri, one never truly knows how the body will respond. I do remember in my workouts on thurs and fri prior, I was breathing really hard with super heavy legs. I didn't expect anything great, just wanted to go out and give the hardest effort that I could. Woke up around 4:15am to get out of the house early and get to the race early (I'm anal about these things). Everything went fine, got our race packets then had to have one of the bike mechanics in the Outspokin tent run my gears because they were skipping with the race wheel on. No problem there, waited around a bit but got to catch up a bit with Donna S. Got to my rack which was filling up fast and found an acceptable spot. No racing Elite, I'm going for Master's victories now that I'm 40! There were only 3 girls signed up elite and, alot of times, my own age group is more competitive! We started with the men 40-44 which is always a clobberfest! I kind of got tripped up on the sand which slowed my entry into the water a bit but got my feet back underneath and headed for the turn bouy with everyone else. Getting around the bouy, I got a heel to the face and my goggles got popped off. I calmly stopped and emptied the salty water from them and sealed them back down and went on my way. I swam hard, only 1/4 mile so really a sprint! We had a bit of a current to swim into so the times were quite slow. I got out, didn't even look at my time just cruised into T1. I had no idea where I was place-wise because there were tons of other people exiting the water from prior waves. Got on the bike, gears working great, and tried to really hammer. I had my HR monitor on and, luckily, it worked on the bike (have Polar bike computer) but it didn't work the remainder of the race. Total waste! Oh well. It was the least windy day I can remember at Fort Desoto so really tried to keep my HR steady around 172 which was painful but it's only 10 miles! I really ride scared because the bike tends to be my weakest event and some of the girls in the age group are really fast riders. Got into T2 feeling pretty taxed but looking forward to nice, hot 5K run. Had my usual slow transitions - I just can't get my shoes on very fast. The run was 1/2 on sand and 1/2 on pavement; thankfully, the sand was first. I pushed pretty hard, probably too hard in the first mile (6:20-something) and really paid the next mile. I backed off a bit the next mile and tried to keep the tempo up in the last mile. I was really happy to see the finish though! I had no idea what position I was in but I did see who I thought was going to be my greatest competition in the age group behind me on the bike so hoped I got the win. I did win Master's (my first) and actually won overall the women with the fastest time overall. This was quite a shock to me because all of my training has been aerobic; my runs have been averaging over 9 minute miles to keep my HR down. I was really pleased how hard I was able to push myself while basically racing alone. The race was a lot of fun because we got to see a lot of people we haven't seen in a while. The Dane gutted out a top 5 in his age group which was one of the most competitive. Not bad for someone who hasn't gotten in any training in almost 2 weeks! We had a fun, relaxing weekend. Looking forward to getting back into voluminous training again this week in the final 12+ weeks to IM Florida. I can honestly say I'm pretty happy about my current fitness level. A good place to be at this time. Cheers!

More of the same...

I have been lazy in updating my blog recently. I guess because there is not much new going on and I don't think everyone wants to hear about my workouts week in and week out. I am happy to have the Dane back home - he was in Europe for the past week. Had a decent week of training last week. My runs are frustrating me a bit because I have to run sooooooo slow to keep my HR down to satisfy my coach. I have been doing my long runs on Monday after work and the temperatures have been in the low to mid 90's with heat index well above 100 degrees which jacks the HR even more! I have been getting it in though which is important. We have a race this weekend (Top Gun sprint tri)which will be interesting since we haven't raced since Florida 70.3 in May! I'm sure I have zero foot speed and am hoping I don't get thrashed. It's nice to change up the weekly training structure a bit and get in a race. I'm actually looking forward to racing and not being a slave to my stupid heartrate monitor. I'll update after the race. Ciao...

WEEKEND IN THE BLACK HILLS

We spent last weekend in Hot Springs, SD, for my nephew's wedding. My mother, aunt, siblings and various inlaws were there. It was quite fun but I'm only just now getting over the generalized fatigue which results from staying up way too late every night! I had planned to run a 10K in Chadron, Nebraska on Saturday morning with the Dane and my brother-in-law's brother. Got up just fine, gets light a little after 5am there! Drove an hour to the race site and started warming up about 20 minutes prior and had this really intense aching in both thighs. I couldn't even run through it and it was causing my knees to buckle. Weirdest thing. Hobbled back to the vehicle, sat down for 5 minutes and tried to jog around the parking lot but same problem. So, I took off the flats and decided I would watch (not fond of watching races). I stood on a corner with my Mother for about 30 minutes then decided to try and jog the course backwards to see where the Dane and Rich were and, viola, my legs felt quite a bit better. I decided to keep running and finally found them; luckily, there weren't very many running the 10K, most were doing the 5K, they were easy to spot. This course was quite hilly, no flats anywhere. As it turns out, the Dane went off the course and ran extra at the end because there wasn't much sineage out on the course (unfortunately, he was in 5th overall). I don't know what the problem was with my legs but it was fine after a few more hours. Oh well, I did get in a nice moderate hilly run in which was quite pleasant in dry heat and different surroundings. We got up early on Sunday morning to do an easy run through "town" and saw about 20 deer roaming around. Pretty cool. Got back late on Sunday night, had to run through O'hare to catch our connection, not fun in flip-flops but we and our luggage made it. Trying to get back into the swing this week, so far so good. I'll post some pics when I get a chance. The videos are hillarious but I don't know how to post that (probably just as well with this motley crew). Back to reality...

17 WEEKS TO GO

Had a pretty solid week of training this past week. Had five days of cycling, 4 swims, 3 runs and 2 weight sessions. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with running now and will add back the fourth run again since I don't feel any discomfort in the achilles any longer (although I'll keep icing, stretching, eccentrics). We have a bit of an abbreviated week this week as we'll be traveling to South Dakota for my nephew's weddding on Saturday. I haven't been there in quite a while, ?16 yrs. My sister found a 10K for us to run on Saturday morning which will be good but probably slow since most of my runs lately have been around 9 min/mile to stay aerobic in the heat! Well, I'll run as hard as I can and hopefully get a little fitness boost from the effort. We are strongly considering signing up for IM Austria next summer; have to sign up early because this one fills up pretty quickly. That would be a fun trip!

MARKALLENONLINE TRIATHLON CAMP REPORT

I signed up for this camp mostly, I'll admit, for the swim video analysis. I wasn't sure what I would get out of it otherwise but came with an open mind. Not that I know everything at all, but I am pretty familiar with the MAO training system after being involved with it for a little over a year now and having read a lot on the website. I already knew 4-5 of the people also participating which made it more fun. We met up Friday evening for bike fit lecture and actual fittings. I was the "demo" rider during lecture so that went by fast for me; plus Val had already done an excellent job with my fit last year I knew I didn't need any adjustments at this point. Saturday morning's ride started at 5 am for me as I wanted to be sure to get my long ride completed as the camp group was only planning to ride for 2 hours, I had >3 I needed to get in. I didn't sleep well on Friday night so my heart rate was elevated to begin with Saturday morning. No worries, nothing to prove here, I just let the front of the group go and rode on my own; afterall, I had 90 minutes in on my own prior to meeting up with the camp group. We rode South for an hour then turned around and rode back; I was able to hook back up with the front group and got a nice draft the rest of the way back, ahhhhh. Ended up with nearly 70 miles, a bit over scheduled time but rather over than under. After bike, we had swim lecture then a session in the pool. I figured this would be pretty low key but we ended up swimming fairly briskly for about an hour, I was ready for a break. We had another lecture in the afternoon then met up at a local track for run coaching. We were all pretty gassed by this point, especially considering the temp was well into the low 90's with a lot of humidity. We did a warm-up, some drills then some video taping which we viewed after dinner. That was a good session and informative as I haven't been videotaped running since high school! It turned out well, no real significant changes for me to make. Needless to say, I slept like a baby that night!
We had a long run scheduled for Sunday morning. Most of the group ran for an hour, I had 90 minutes on the program so did that. The Dane joined us and ran with the lone German participant which was good for both of them (they're in the same age group too). The run was slow, it was pretty warm even at 7am. I didn't blaze any trails but that's not the goal of the workout. I haven't felt any discomfort in the achilles this whole week so am pretty excited about that!! I did a quick 20-minute weight session after the run then we met back up for breakfast and more lectures. I was getting a lot out of the lectures and people were asking really good questions which Luis answered really well. We then headed back to the pool for swim videotaping. The taping was pretty comprehensive which was really informative. Luis could see a lot of us were making similar mistakes so had us work on some drills which we did Saturday as well. After lunch, we went back into the AC to review all the videos. I didn't have any major glaring issues, just some S-motion of one hand during my underwater pull - a big improvement from the last time I was videotaped 4/06! I had really improved on the things that I've been working on over the past year and hopefully it will pay dividends. We had one more lecture and then we were done. Overall, the camp was an excellent experience. I am planning to work with Luis a bit closer in my bid towards IM Florida in November because I want to get all I can out of the program and my body/potential. I think I will have a good go as long as I stay healthy and I'm doing better now with some TLC of my achilles. Back to reality now but much to look forward to.

18+ weeks

I haven't run since last blog, mostly because I am trying to keep the running to a minumum which will be 3 runs per week unless I get better. I have no pain in the achilles walking around or doing anything else (if I didn't run, I wouldn't even know I had a problem). I am doing stretching, massage, ice and eccentric exercises to pre-emp worsening. I find Donna and Rob's site very resourceful and have gotten a lot of info from there, thanks guys! We had our first official "long" ride of the IM campaign on Saturday. Went pretty well - four hours of aerobic nirvana. Sunday was my "moderate" ride of 2 1/2 hours and I felt really strong and recovered well from Saturday. I was glad to get back on the tri bike. I have done a couple modifications at the advice of the Dane and Val regarding my gearing and I think it will ultimately be a boost to my bike strength. I feel super confident that my bike will be good, especially since I still have 18 weeks to work on it! Hoping my body holds up for running! Later....
p.s. I got a cool little video camera (www.theflip.com) and plan to post some fun videos of training and what not. I'll have to figure out how to do it first but should be fun!

STARTING IM TRAINING........YEAH!

I love IM training. It's a chance to completely immerse onesself into long aerobic training efforts. The real challenge is finding the time for it all while working to pay the bills! I like the MAO program especially for IM training because it's systematic, appropriate and doable. I do have a few weekends this summer that I have to do other things (wedding, CME, etc) so I probably won't be racing very much because I want to get in as many long weekend training efforts as I can. I am nursing my left achilles a bit right now. I actually felt an ache in it after St Anthony's but didn't run a whole lot after that while tapering for Florida 70.3 so didn't think much of it. Took so much time after 70.3 too that I figured it would heal up. It's not a pain, more of a discomfort but bothersome nonetheless. So I am running, not a lot currently but doing the program. I'm icing, stretching and doing some eccentric exercises which I've read help. I have also scheduled an appointment with my podiatrist in a couple weeks in case it still is bothersome. I will say my chances at IMFL to place high in the AG are going to be limited if this keeps me from running for a prolonged amount of time but I'm thinking positively. Afterall, I qualified for Kona in '05 with limited running all year but it wasn't much fun! My basic training week set up for now goes as follows:
Monday - moderate swim am, long run pm->this may change back to Sunday
Tues - easy bike pm, weights afterwards
Weds - speed swim am, tempo run pm
Thurs - tempo bike, moderate run (will flip flop am/pm depending)
Fri - long swim am
Sat - long bike w/brick
Sun - moderate bike, moderate swim, weights (sun or thurs), easy run (or do fri)
You may notice a trend, 4 swims/bikes/runs, 2 lifts. All of the training at this point is aearobic, under MAHR of 146 (not easy when running in 90* heat!)

The Dane returns this weekend from a nearly two week stint working in Europe. I'll be happy when he's back! Happy summer!

We had a great time in Sarasota for Memorial weekend. Stayed at the Ritz-Carlton and were pampered which was really cool. The weather was perfect but the love bugs were annoying! I managed to get bronchitis shortly after that and have been dealing with that for the past week so no real training since before Florida 70.3. Not the end of the world but I hate being lazy! I think I'm coming out of it now so will try and get back in the pool tomorrow but will hold off running since that nearly killed me last night! Congrats to the folks who braved Hawaii 70.3! So, trying to get better and not get the Dane sick before he goes to Europe next week!! later....

FLORIDA 70.3 RACE REPORT

I had a good taper and really expected to have a good race. I didn't have the race I wanted but had some positives to take away with me. We got to the race site around 12:30 on Saturday so we could register, rack the bikes then check in to the hotel and relax. We stayed at the Contemporary Resort right across the lake which was nice. No issues with registration, went quickly. Glad we arrived early in the day because the bike racks were first come, first serve and a lot of bikes were already racked. I got an ok spot but the transition area seemed huge. We ate dinner at the hotel and I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible heartburn and didn't sleep well the remainder of the night. We walked to the race from our hotel which took about 30 minutes so that was a nice time to get the legs moving and get the motivational juices flowing. I was in wave #11 out of about 15 so way in the back of the pack. I put on my new Blueseventy Pointzero3 skin suit and toed the line with the other girls; we had the women 40-44 and 18-24 in our wave. I had an awesome start. Got out really quickly and felt good about that. I saw the girls on my left coming by and tried to stick to their feet but went too anaerobic doing this so I had to let them go - that was the demise of my race!! They got away from me and were too fast to catch up to later. I kept thinking how long the swim seemed but it went ok overall (everyone swam slower this year, ?long course). Since our wave was later, we had a ton of slower people to navigate through but I stayed pretty aggressive. I hit the beach and was shocked how slow my time was and immediately went into damage control. Got through transition pretty well and got on the bike and started hammering. It was quite windy, blowing about 10-20mph all morning. I have been doing plenty of speed work bike sessions in the wind at Fort Desoto and was glad for that. I rode really aggressively because I was so ticked about my horrible swim. The bike was pretty uneventful overall. A lot of slower riders to pass and some serious drafting trains coming around me from the men 30-39 AG's! I didn't see a race marshall all day but tried not to get concerned with other poeple not racing legally. I probably didn't drink enough on the bike but didn't have any real problems. I got into T2 and completely lost my rack! Eeeeek. I did find it right behind me eventually and got going on the run. I made sure to hit my watch out of T2 just to see how I was running the first few miles. I ran 6:47 for the first mile and felt pretty good, didn't feel too fast but I knew I would slow down. I quit looking at mile splits around mile 4 when I was averaging 7:05-7:10 pace. I had some good periods and some bad periods in the run but it went by relatively quickly. I knew the girl who ended up winning my AG was way out in front but I wasn't really aware of anyone else, just concentrated on my personal race. I ended up 4th which I wasn't happy about but I lost the race in the swim. The positive I took from the race was my bike, which was a little faster than last year under much tougher conditions (wind) and my run was a bit faster off the faster bike. I'm not going to lose sleep over a slow swim but will do underwater video session the end of June and try and improve my technique. I am really sore today and am glad I have only a four day work week before Memorial Day weekend! I'm going to take the next four weeks and get back into the gym a lot and try and ride a lot before we get into ironman training for IM Florida. I talked quite a few people about the race and most did around what they thought, not all. The Dane did pretty well, 10th in the AG and got a slot to Clearwater 70.3 World Championships (I declined my slot since IM Florida is a week prior). We had fun hanging out afterwards and trading war stories. Now, time for a little R&R!!

TAPER

We are well into tapering for Florida 70.3 this Sunday (be sure to tune in to ironman.com to follow along). I have a love-hate relationship with the taper. On the one hand, I'm happy to cut back on the training and not be tired constantly and worry about fitting workouts into my busy day. But, on the other hand I LOVE to train and I love to push myself in workouts. I will take the compromise of pushing myself in the race and be rested enough to do that. I will have my work cut out for me on Sunday but I plan to just focus on my race and not worry about those around me. I've had some really solid training with MarkAllenOnline and am confident in my fitness. In fact, I emailed Mark with some taper questions and he gave good answers to help me feel confident in what I'm doing. Imagine, the Grip himself answering all my neurotic questions! This program rocks! Hopefully, it will be hot but we're supposed to get a "cold" front today/tomorrow so who knows. Can't control the weather so I won't worry about it. Good luck to everyone who will be battling out there on Sunday. I got some nice Belgian beer from my surprise party to celebrate with afterwards (thanks May-Li)! Race strong everyone.....

FRIENDS...

It's late but I just wanted to say how completely grateful I am to have such wonderful friends. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world right now because the people I hold close to my heart were kind enough to show up and surprise me with a birthday party. I don't know what I did in life to deserve such wonderful people in my life but I do appreciate the fact they were there. Thanks to everyone and I was truly surprised!! Forty, here I come....................

HURRICANE MAN SWIM REPORT

Well, we hoped for better water conditions for this 2.4 mile open water swim, and we got them, sort of. The water was much less rough than last year, a little chop for the first mile then smooth. Unfortunately, the current was decent and going against us, especially the second half. I got out pretty good and got to the Don Cesar in about 26 minutes and thought I was going to PR here for sure. Well, I'm glad I never looked at my watch again because it would have killed my attitude as I ended up coming out of the water a little over a minute slower than last year. The good news is, so did everyone else I spoke with but most by more than a minute, more like 4-5 minutes. The good things I can take out of this swim are I kept pretty focused on my technique pretty much the whole way, didn't space out to much and stand up wondering how much further like last year. I got the household trophy back as I passed the Dane (who started 2 minutes ahead of me in men's wave) shortly after the halfway point. He jumped on my feet for a bit and I had visions of us coming out of the water together sprinting to the line in attempt to beat the other! Didn't happen, I put a little surge in after I passed him and he couldn't hang on to my feet. I navigated very well, swam pretty straight, to the point where I almost forgot I had to pop my head up every now and then to check where I was! I finished fourth again in my AG but don't really care about that. The Dane and I then embarked on our long ride which wasn't as long as it was scheduled because I got truly sick of doing loops inside Fort Desoto with a million vehicles whizzing by too close for comfort. We rode about 48 miles though, all aerobic, in the heat - good prep for Florida 70.3! After the ride we trotted out for 30 minute brick which was not much fun. It was a little after 1pm by this time, the sun high in the sky and baking us already. We ran pretty fast because I chose to ignore my "heart machine" (as Linda M. calls it!) and get it over with. Can I just say, it was pretty hot. Again, good prep for Florida 70.3 in two weeks. The good part comes next, celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a few Coronas looking at the beautiful Gulf with my favorite person. I love weekends here! Taper time is here......finally!

ST ANTHONY'S RACE REPORT

I haven't done this race in 6-7 years as far as I can recall but since I qualified for the elite amatuer division this year, I thought I would give it a shot. I knew there were going to be some blazing fast women in this group but didn't want that to detract from my goal of racing my own race. This was, afterall, a training race in my build up for Florida 70.3 in 3 weeks so didn't have any delusions of a high placing or anything. I wanted to get a good idea where my fitness was right now and compete as well as I could. Did a couple days pretty easy last week to allow my wrecked body chance to rest a bit for this race since I felt so bad at the last race two weeks ago. We spent a bit of time in Outspokin booth at the expo on Sat and this tired the legs out a bit but we wanted to help out since they sponsor us. Since I was in an early wave, we wanted to get down there pretty early to get set up and walk over to swim start. I ended up jogging to the swim start because I miscalculated how long it would take to walk over there! No worries. Wet suit on, lubed up, couple minutes in the water to situate the wet suit better and we were off. The weather was absolutely perfect for a race, we were really lucky with that! There were about 40 women in the wave so the start was super clean, no clobberfest like normal! I concentrated on my stroke mechanics and really never breathed hard during the swim, felt really good. I sighted well, swam straight but never got on any feet to draft so was pretty much on my own which would prove to be the theme of the day! I thought I could swim around 22 minutes if I was having a good day. If I hadn't had so much trouble getting up the steps, I would have broken 22! Very happy with the swim. Unfortunately, half the girls in my wave were already on the bike course. I basically did most of the bike all by my lonesome, worried about being on the right course at some points! This was nice but I would have liked to have a few people to pace off of! Oh well. Legs felt pretty tired on the bike but I really wanted to get under 1:10 and managed to accomplish that on my solo time trial (I was happy I did my speed bike workouts all by my lonesome at Fort Desoto)! When I got off the bike, my quads were cooked! I went into auto pilot for the first part of the run, even though I wanted to try and run with Cosgrove who was in front of me. I managed to keep the pace under 7:00/mile which wasn't fast but ok for how I felt. I finished in 2:16 for 15th in the elite category (placing went higher due to a couple DQ's). I am happy because this is a huge PR for me and I kept competing and pushing even though I had nobody to really key off of which can be difficult mentally. Today I feel really sore so I know I raced hard. I don't have the best swim, bike or run but I feel I'm getting to be pretty even in all three which is what I have been working on. I have a relatively hard training week this week then will start into 2-week taper for the half ironman on 5/20. We are planning to do a 2.4 mile open water swim race on Sat which should be fun, if that's possible! Congrats to everyone who raced on Sunday, it was a great day!