Swim for your life...

Today I swam a 5k. Tonight my arms hurt. Ha.

A couple of weeks ago my swim coach mentioned a 5k race in the area. It was tempting but hmmmm... A 5k? It is kind of far to swim, right?

I mulled it over and ended up registering for it. There was a promise of Olympians - Aaron Peirsol, Ricky Berens, Rowdy Gaines, Eric Shanteau, Rebecca Soni and Kathleen Hersey among others - AND - it would be a good distance before B2B. The race is organized by Eric Shanteau to raise funds for the Livestrong Foundation.

I got up bright and early this morning, grabbed my suit and goggles and headed out. I was amazed at the number of participants. They had 700 registered as compared to 200 last year. Lots of under 18 swimmers who were going to kick my butt out there. LOL

The 5k route was three continuous loops. The start was time trial which is always appreciated. Who needs the churn of a mass start? The first lap was uneventful, I just kind of did my thing treating it less like a race and more like a swim. Lap two is where the super fast people started to lap us. A large percentage of the people in this race were serious swimmers so it was rather humbling. I was told that at one point one of the Olympians went by doing butterfly. Hilarious. When I made the turn for lap three, there was no one else in sight. I had been swimming with a group of four or five people and they just disappeared. Very strange. At some point I thought surely I was the last person as the kayakers kept inching near me as if they were escorting me. I told you this was humbling, right? Anyhow, i made my way through the chop and through the finish.

Turns out I wasn't the last but was definitely towards the tail end. I was looking over some of the times and those people were flying! More than a few people finished under an hour which is insane! The one mile racers handed in times around 13 minutes. Crazy.

So glad I did it as I really did need to get a good distance swim in and despite the slow swim, I was freakishly good at sighting out there which is unusual for me. I'll take that as a win :)

Some pics from the day including a pic of my friend with Aaron Piersol.

Walking 'round the mountain...

CR and I hit the walking path yesterday. The weather was pretty darn perfect. So much so that even CR couldn't resist a walk. As a thrill seeker (sky diver, stunt pilot, hang glider pilot...), such things might seem too tame for him ;)

Five miles around...

A quick stop at the grist mill and we were done.

Just in time for me to load up on my new addiction of kale, oranges and chicken. Strange combination in my mind but so good!

Looking for another great day today - early swim with my new friends at Blue Iron Coaching and a 7 mile run later this afternoon. Have a great day!

Weekend Training...

After a big weekend out of town for Labor Day, this weekend I was back on my home turf. It actually felt good to get back on "the plan". I have been off plan more than I would like lately which is messing with my head and my sense of preparedness.

This week, I got back on track and even tried out a new masters group which seems like it will be a great fit! My last group was at my gym. There were not a lot of participants and there was a fair amount of turnover in the coaching staff which was frustrating. I went for my first session on Thursday which was a time trial day. Can't wait to go back Tuesday for more!

My long workout this weekend was a 20 mile run and 15 ride brick. I went across town for the run because Stone Mountain had a special event and I was afraid it would be super crowded. The run went great! It wasn't easy but I didn't expect it to be. As long as there are no real issues and I finish the miles, I call it a success.

I took a quick sandwich break before I loaded up for the ride.



I was expecting the ride to be a little painful since my legs were still feeling that run but the spinning actually felt pretty good. Who would have guessed it? Once I got home, I took full advantage of my runner's high and made dinners and lunches for the week before crashing. :)

Sunday, I met up with Meredith for what she described as "a terrible ride" Apparently, it is terrible in a character building sort of way. We arrived bright and early to start off with a swim.



There were what seemed like a hundred ducks, geese, birds, whatever in the water. Having never been to this park before, I was trying to visualize myself swimming through all these creatures secretly hoping that they would take off when we approached. Apparently they were practicing a mass swim start. Luckily, a boat motored through and they went on their way.

We did a quick one mile-ish swim. Meredith chose to sight on the buoys while I decided to strike out on my own towards the middle of the lake. Clearly I am not good at following directions. I found my way back to the buoys and we finished up without having to call out the dive team.

Leg two was the "terrible" bike ride. We took off with Meredith leading the way. She offered little tidbits along the way like "this is the worst hill" and "the last 10 miles are all uphill". I am a planner so it was good to know these things :) We finally hit the turnaround and stopped for a coke. I feel like I have taken her to the dark side, poor girl had not had a diet coke for months until we started riding together. (hanging my head in shame...).



As promised, the last half of the ride was a little worse than the first but we made it. There were no tears and no one quitting on the side of the road. #winning.

As if the 3600 feet of climbing wasn't enough, we laced up our shoes and knocked out a six mile run before parting ways.

On the way home, I stopped by Dutch Monkey Doughnuts, a gourmet doughnut shop owned by our friend Arpana and her husband. They recently won the American Express Big Break for Small Business contest which is pretty exciting! If you are in the area, you have to stop buy and pick up some treats.



All in all an awesome weekend of training. It felt good to hit every workout and not make any adjustments to the plan. Beach 2 Battleship, here I come!

Roasting at the Coast...

Hi Friends! With three weeks to Ironman Augusta and six weeks to Beach 2 Battleship, I am waist deep in training. It is that point where you feel that is all you do and your friends don't understand why you can't meet them for lunch or dinner after your long runs or rides. Truth be told if you aren't just too tired, you are probably packing up your nutrition and gear for your ride/run/swim the next day. The never ending circle of tri training.

I have been fortunate to be able to attend two training weekends with friends which has made for a nice change from my normal schedule. Over Labor Day weekend, I attended Roast at the Coast Training Camp with Blue Iron Coaching in Panama City Beach. Most in attendance are training for IM FL so it was a perfect chance for them to preview the course. As luck would have it, one of the people attending is doing B2B with me! It is such a small race it is rare to bump into someone actually racing it. My new B2B friend, Sarah, turned out to be a lifesaver this weekend and I can't wait to share the B2B experience with her in October.

The weekend started on Friday with what was to be an ocean swim followed by a beach run. Double red flags on the beach due to Hurricane Isaac meant no swimming so we opted for a beach run. Isaac ending up changing a lot of the swim plans for the weekend.



The plan for Saturday involved an 85 mile ride followed by an ocean swim later in the day. On the way to the meet up, I caught this picture of the blue moon.



Saturday started off innocently enough. Tires pumped, helmets fastened and we were off. About 10 miles in I hit a piece of asphalt and heard an immediate hissing sound. Yes, a flat. Joy. I pulled off and started to get the tools out scanning my memory banks for the last time I changed a rear flat - or any flat for that matter. It was easily over a year ago and not on this bike. Luckily, within moments of my flat, I was surrounded by Sarah, Guardian Angel Joe and Regina from the SAG crew. They sort of stood back and talked me through it and we were off in no time.



At around mile 30, the road starts feeling rather bumpy. At the same time I think this, Sarah mentions that my tire looks low. We tried to air it up and took off. That lasted TWO miles. We pulled over and changed the tube again since nothing seemed to be in the tire. As he did last time, Guardian Angel Joe appeared within 60 seconds of the flat. We were off. This time we made it FIVE miles. Yep. A more thorough inspection of the tire revealed this tiny little wire that was inside the tire.



We didn't know it at the time but could have removed it with pliers or tweezers. We folded a dollar bill in there between the wire and the tube and that held for the rest of the ride!

At 50 miles, we had a rest stop at Pitt Springs. After changing the rear tire on my bike THREE times, Sarah and I could not wait to dip in the cold water. It was like an ice bath - assuming your ice bath has thousands of little fish in it. We hated to get out!





By the time we got back, I packed the bike up and headed to Steve's Bike Shop in PC Beach for a new tire. They were so friendly and had me in and out of there in 15 minutes. If you are in Panama City Beach and need anything bike or tri related, look them up!

Sunday brought the Blue Iron Scorcher - an ocean swim followed by a 3 hour bike ride and a 10 mile run. Red flags on the beach changed the event to a duathlon so we set up our transition area and headed out on our bikes down 30A through seaside and a lovely route.








Once everyone returned from the ride, we set out on the run. This is where the "scorcher" got its name, I suppose. Before we even started it was hot.



As we were running, we kept seeing people turn back early. Callie and I kept plugging away. Dripping in sweat, doing a run/walk and mentally negotiating with ourselves to get to the halfway point. We were quite proud to reach the turnaround! Of course, who else would be there but Guardian Angel Joe with a cooler of water, gatorade and cokes. Just what we needed!



We kept plugging away and before we knew it, we were sprinting in for a big finish.



The "feels like" temp was 104 and only a handful of people finished the whole 10 miles so we were pretty proud of ourselves. So proud that a frozen drink seemed like the perfect treat before we hit the beach.



We spent some time relaxing on the beach and in the pool before heading up to dinner for a skype session with Heather Gollnick. She was so nice and gave us lots of great info for our upcoming races. I think even some of the more experienced people got some good information to take away.

And then there was Monday... Our final morning involved a poolside yoga session.



... and a choice of a beach run





... or an ocean swim - the red flag went to yellow on our final day!





All this was followed up with a yummy brunch and awards. I really had a great time and made lots of new friends! I am so glad I was able to go and can't wait to go cheer everyone on at IM FL!

Old Training Logs...

Every once in a while I wonder why I spend time logging in my workouts on various sites. Sometime ago, I had used one site exclusively and when that site crashed, well, everything was gone with it. I have since been logging my workouts online to a few different sites - Daily Mile, Beginner Triathlete and then a google calendar (because KC likes to keep up and harass me...). I was using Training Peaks as well but decided it was excessive to log into that many places. I know, four sites, really? I think that was carryover fear from the great Buckeye Outdoors crash last year.



Anyhow, I rarely go more than a month or so back to see what I have done so why bother? Last night, I had kind of a blah run. The kind that makes you question your preparedness and whether if your tree fell in the IM forest and you dropped out would anyone even notice. Not that I would drop out but it was one of those kind of runs where you question everything and I had been feeling like I wasn't on target with training in general. Today it dawned on me that I could look and see what my workouts looked like this time last year. I was, after all, preparing for the exact same race. So clickety click, I look online and it turns out that I am ahead of where I was this time last year! Go figure...




Funny how your attitude can change based on the tiniest thing. This year, I am thinking I am not doing enough. Last year, I remember being on cloud 9 because every workout was a new distance record for me and never even questioned that I was on track.

Weekend Training

Just finished up a long weekend of training. I think I have hit that part of the schedule where you feel like you are doing nothing but Swim/Bike/Run all weekend. You get home in time to shower and re-pack it all for the next day. I am inching ever closer to the big races - Augusta 70.3 is about a month away and then the B2B full iron is 3 weeks after that one. Yikes! I still feel like I need to get it together...

Yesterday was a bike sandwich of a 15 mile run / 20 mile bike / 5 mile run those last few miles of running, all I could see in my mind were the slurpee machines at QT whirling around in my head. I could not get packed up and to QT fast enough! Of course I drank it so fast I gave myself a brain freeze. LOL.

Today I packed it all up bright and early and met a group at 5:30 this morning to make the two hour drive to Augusta to ride the bike course. We had a ton of laughs there and back and a good bike ride in between. Post-ride we devoured some Five Guys Burgers and then made our way back home to ATL. Big ups to Meredith for driving!

I recently added an aero bottle to my bike and it made a HUGE difference in the amount of water I consumed on course. It is so much easier to just drink from the straw rather than try to get the bottle from the cage. I am a little worried about the bottle handoff though, my bike frame is small so it won't fit the larger bottles they typically hand out. Am thinking I might have to actually stop and fill up the bottle. Not sure I am talented enough to fill that on the fly. Guess we'll have to play that one by ear.

Tomorrow is CR's birthday! We have Mondays off which always makes for a good birthday. I see a Bruster's ice cream cake in our future The girl at the store was quite proud of herself as this was the first time they let her write on the cakes. Nice job Bruster's girl!

Later this week, Colleen and I are headed to Panama City Beach for a training weekend. We have been watching Isaac and hoping for the best. We have been stockpiling our best magazines to read on the beach (after training of course) and we don't want any of that to go to waste!

...and pics from the ride last weekend because I would have no pics if it weren't for Mere.





Hope you all had a great weekend!

Checking in...

As you might have guessed, I have been riding, running and swimming all month. My training for B2B has had ups and downs. All in all I think I am on track, just had been doing a lot of my own thing "off the plan" so it made me question my preparation. This past week, two months out from B2B, I pulled the training plan out and decided to actually follow it. Better late than never, right? ha ha. Turns out I am not too far off and am feeling good about the races in the next two months. Can't wait!

A few weeks back, I rode along with my friend Summer as she did her first century. Props to Summer as it rained buckets on us for at least 30 miles and was quite a bit hillier than advertised. We had a great time and even saw Iron Diva Colleen and husband along the way. :)


Stopping about 70 miles in...

Summer pre-ride...

Last week, I was fortunate enough to spend a training weekend at the beach with KC, Summer and Beth. To be honest, I think we were all terrified that KC would run us into the ground but I think she assessed the situation and decided to take it easy on us. We did have a shark sighting that was a little too close for comfort. Basically we were all standing in a circle after our swim and heard a big splash about 10 feet out. There was a moment of "hmmm what was that big splash behind us" followed by sounds of the lifeguards getting everyone out of the water. I saw the splash and realized it was made by something other than a person and decided I was suddenly thirsty and that it might be a good time to head back to the beach for some water :) Good timing. I narrowly missed stepping on a stingray on my way in for water. Luckily I was doing the stingray shuffle... Word on the lifeguard circuit was that the splash was a shark eating a tarpon. Lovely.


Safe from sharks on the beach...

Such a fun weekend, lots of laughs and some good swimming/biking/running!

This past weekend I pulled out the training plan and got down to business. Had an awesome ride with Colleen and Swim Bike Mom (Meredith). The miles flew by which is pretty awesome when you are talking about a 70 mile ride. Can't wait to ride with these ladies again!

Lots more training in store for the next couple of months, I am pre-riding the Augusta 70.3 course this weekend with SBM and my friends from Decatur Bikes and then am going to Roast at the Coast with Colleen and Blue Iron Coaching over Labor Day. As someone who normally trains on her own, I am so excited for some fun group training!

Have a good week, y'all!