I got a new ring! It's from Qalo Ring!

I have been struggling with finding a way to be able to wear my awesome engagement ring/wedding band combo while I hike, lift, run, and swim.  My rings are very nice, and I don't want to ruin them with all of the rough grips and such on the weights, plus sweat, and they try to fall off when I swim.  So I went on the search for a better way to do this, and I found a company called Qalo.  They are mostly known for their wedding rings that are made of heavy silicone and are for very active people.  They have t-shirts, beanies, and hoodies as well, but I'm mostly interested in their rings.  I've only had my engagement ring for a little over 3 years, and my wedding band a little over 2, but both look like they've been through a war and have needed re-dipped and cleaned every other month.  This is a bit much, not to mention I'm always afraid of losing my ring when I bike and swim.  I have to take it off when I do triathlons or just swim because it slips really badly and I don't want it to fall off and never be able to find it again.  This ring turns out to be a great solution.  I haven't swam in it yet, but it doesn't move around on my finger, doesn't change positions, and doesn't feel any different than my regular ring.  To make it even better, my Qalo ring came in a small mesh zippered bag that has a small clip on it.  I took my good rings off and put them in the mesh bag, which is nice so they aren't just going around loose in my swim bag or anything.

I don't like taking off my ring, so this ring is going to make it so I can wear a wedding ring all the time!  We'll see how well it wears over the next few months, but I already like what I'm seeing.  My poor pretty rings get beat up daily, and whenever we went hiking and camping I'm always afraid my ring will get wet and fall off.  That or I'll lose it in the dirt, or something else will happen to it.  Yeah!  

Check them out! http://qalo.com/

Secret Santa, and how it goes south.

When you're trying to save money around the holidays you can often get stuck in a pickle.  I like the majority of the people that I work with, but there are always those few that I really don't care for.  When it came to draw names out of the box, I ended up with the 1 name that was seriously put back in the box 3 times by people before me.  I looked at it, wanted to put it back, but I didn't because 1) I was the last person to draw, and 2) I didn't want to be a complete jerk.  So this left me in a tight spot.  This is not a person that I wanted to buy a gift for to begin with, this is not even a person that I like.  What I should have done was not participate and discuss with my friends about what the gift giving plans were before joining the rest of the staff.  The problem with not participating though is the fact that then I look like a Scrooge.  I want to look like a team player, because a $20 gift isn't that bad really, but a lot of my actual friends are getting much cheaper and smaller gifts, because we talked about it.  But here we are, Secret Santa time, and we have to keep up appearances of being a cohesive team, care about everyone, and want to spend a lot of money on people we may or may not like.  

What were my odds of getting the person I ended up with?  One out of twenty-six. That meant that I had a 3.8% chance of drawing his name. Seriously.  How did I manage that?  Next time I think that I'm going to bow out and not participate and just look like Scrooge McDuck and just get presents for people I wanted to.  This added an extra gift to my already overly long list, because given the chance, I wouldn't have ever bought this person a gift. Yet here I am, making/buying my friends gifts and now another gift for someone that I don't even like.  

Next year, or even the next chance to participate in one of these, I am not doing it. The down side here is that I look like a jerk if I don't play well with others and I feel obligated to buy a decent gift, even though this gift is not nice.  It's just a $10 gift card inside of a Christmas card. It's kind of lame and almost a waste of money.  Actually, it is a waste of money because he wouldn't have cared if he got a gift from me if we weren't doing this Secret Santa.  Ugh.  The other bad thing about this is that I feel guilty now for not getting him a better gift, but I really don't want to buy him anything else because he isn't that nice of a person.  There's a reason his name was put back in the box 3 times.  Grrrr....

Ok, that's a lot of ranting.  I could do the right and good thing, give him his gift with a smile, be nice, and show him a little kindness since clearly no one else likes him either.  That's a sad testament to how he portrays himself and comes off to others, but it's the truth.  I even talked to my manager earlier this year about getting this guy fired because he was such a jerk to members and fellow trainers.  My manager said he has a bad attitude because who would like to come to work every day with a group of people who hate him?  I've tried being nice after that conversation, and he received it well, but then he turned right around and tried to steal one of my clients (he didn't succeed and was actually told off by my client), but seriously.  Why would I try to befriend this person who doesn't know how to help anyone or be a good person himself?  Be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice.  Just be nice.  That's what I have to do.  Just be nice.  And bite my tongue and make it bleed.  But still be nice.  Everyone needs some kindness.  He needs a lot of kindness.  Ugh.

The easiest Teriyaki chicken and rice meal ever!

Ok, so I'm all about efficiency and multi-tasking.  I also actually really love to cook, and I'm getting a lot better at it!  So the fact that I've successfully made a recipe multiple times in a row all with positive results is awesome!  I love chicken, rice, and teriyaki sauce, so it made sense to put them all together for a change.

I use the Lawry's Teriyaki marinade, white rice, a whole chicken breast, and kroger brand teriyaki sauce.  I follow the instructions on my rice and this time cut it in half:

3/4 C rice + 1 C water, bring the water and rice to a boil, cover your pot and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes depending on how big your pot is.  After the water is absorbed then take it off the heat and let it sit.

While the rice is cooking I am marinading the chicken, in this case I cut it up into chunks before marinading, it saves me time after it's done cooking.  When my rice is setting up I start cooking the chicken until it's done all the way.  Add the rice to the chicken, add the thinner teriyaki sauce, mix together, and enjoy.

Another super easy thing that I've been enjoying is my egg muffins.  Mix up 6 eggs, add in bacon, cheese, or whatever you want with your eggs.  Pour into a sprayed muffin pan (1 egg per muffin spot for an easy measurement), bake at 350 for 20 minutes, and voila!  You have breakfast.  I eat two of my muffins each morning.  They're super easy to handle and they keep for 5-6 days.  I normally just make out however many I need to get through my super early mornings at work.  When I have to get up and around and be at work by 5, the fewer things that need done in the morning, the better.  When I don't have to go in until 6:30 or 7, I'm much more functional, so cooking a little or organizing in the morning isn't too bad.

Enjoy!

The beauty of having more time on my hands

So, now that Ironman is over I have a lot more time on my hands.  I also have a lot more energy!  This means that when I'm left unsupervised that I get bored and decide to make things!  I made a really nice flower bed around the tree in the front yard a couple weeks ago because I felt like it, had the time, the materials, and the energy.  I was sitting in my office, looking out to the yard and realized it was a beautiful day and I needed to be outside.  So I went to the back porch where we had extra boards laying around (this really is a thing), started measuring, figuring out how much I'll need, and migrated to the basement to start cutting.

My husband has nearly every saw imaginable for wood working, I know he'll probably say "No, I don't have x, y, or z and I need all of them!".  Goober.  But anyway, I know how to use the chop saw relatively easily, so that's the saw I chose.  The problem was that Red had locked the arm part that goes up and down from going in and out.  This meant that I now had to ask Red how to use the blessed thing, and I was hoping to have the whole thing done before Red got home and surprise him.  Weeeellll...now he gets a text that says "how do I get the arm on the chop saw to move".  I pictured him immediately thinking "oh God, what the world is she doing now?"and I was right.  His response wasn't instructions, it was "why are you using the saw".  I still had my plan in place, but he was insistent on not telling me until he got home from work.  So now I had to wait.  But it was worth it because I now have an awesome flower box in my yard!

The flower box is definitely something my Grandma would have done.  My Grandma once bought 3 TONS of dirt and had it dumped in her side yard so she could move it herself one little wheelbarrow at a time into the back yard so she could make her own bigger flower beds.  I just made an octagon and migrated 400lbs of dirt into it :)  I now have bulbs of a large variety in there waiting patiently until spring.  I know that some are lilies, but some may be dahlias, gladiolus, and something else.  My Grandma's neighbor gave them to me last weekend while we were helping my mom deal with the house.

I can't wait until Spring to see how everything turns out!

All of this time also comes at a great time of year!  My family does a lot of handmade/home made gifts, and it turns out that this year Red's family is also doing handmade gifts for Christmas!  Now that I'm not training 20 hours each week, I can take that time to get my gifts made.  I have a long list of things that I want to make, and I'm hoping that I can get through all of them this year and not have to rush like crazy the day before Christmas to get them all done.  I'm going to knock a few more things off of my "to do" list!  Oh, I've also started carrying a mini notebook around with me everywhere.  Now that I have a lot more time on my hands, I've noticed that it's really easy to get side tracked and accomplish absolutely nothing for the day.  That was fine for a few days.  My body demanded it, my mind needed it, and it was just a nice change of pace.  But now it's back to being Type A and get organized!

Now it's time to figure out my training schedule for Dopey Disney Race that's in January, only 76 days left!

Ironman Wisconsin 2014 Race Report: Also known as "Well, that sucked"

Ok, so about a month before my race I was seriously starting to doubt whether I would make it to the starting line.  I was tired, I was cranky, I was ALWAYS hungry, and I was exhausted.  I really wanted to do nothing more than take the days off from work and have a stay-cation, but I'm also very glad that I actually did my race.

Here's the short version:
Swim: 1:22:09

This was 12 minutes shorter than what I planned and anticipated, but I also did not swim in a straight line, and I hated everything.  My watch measured 2.74 miles of swimming instead of 2.4 like it was supposed to be.  I came out of the water angry and mad as a hornet because people suck.

Bike: OUCH 7:12:04

I was shooting to average 17mph for the bike, but I wrecked at mile 40 and that seriously dampened my already cranky spirits.  I was hitting 17mph perfectly, but after I crashed I dropped down significantly. :( Grouchy Midget

Run: Also, OUCH 5:53:24

I was banged, bruised, tired, and grumpy.  At this point in the race I was already out there an hour longer than I intended, and I was very sore and everything stung.  Grrr

Overall: 14:44:20, a 30 minute PR over Florida 2012 on a much hillier course and after wrecking, so not terrible.

Long version (get comfy):

We decided to drive all the way from Cincinnati to Madison in one day.  There were three of us that could drive, and Miller's truck is huge and very comfy, so it worked out really well.  It took about 8 or 9 hours to get there, so in reality it was a really good drive.  We were entertained by each other, and we didn't really get stuck in any traffic, so we were always moving which made it nice.

Once we got checked into our hotel I quickly realized that getting ready for an Ironman with Miller was not going to be the vacation I envisioned.  We immediately changed into workout clothes and went on a 45 minute run.  It wasn't too bad, kind of humid and hot, but overall a decent run. I need to run with him more often though because his loping pace was a 7:45, and I didn't feel like I was pushing to keep up with him, which was a nice little confidence booster.  On Friday we checked into the race, checked out the expo, and headed out for a 45 minute bike and a 30 minute run.  At this point I realized I was going to need more workout clothes, but decided to just wear stinky clothes twice instead of buying new stuff.  On Saturday we were able to check in our bikes and did a 30 minute OWS to get used to our suits and just get in the water.  When we dropped off our bikes the mechanics told us to let air out of our tires because the heat and the asphalt where our bikes were was heating up and was already causing tires to blow at 11:00am, and it was only going to get worse as the day went on.  So we almost emptied our tires so there would be more than enough room for them to expand, and just planned on getting a tire pump in the morning to fill everything up.  Yeah, on the list of things we forgot, all 3 of us forgot to grab a pump.  Oops.  Oh well, there were plenty to go around on race morning, and triathletes are notoriously helpful, at least the ones I've dealt with have been.

Race day morning:  Wake up around 5:00am, breakfast, wander over to the race time.  We dropped off our special needs bags for the bike and run.  I added a honey stick to each of my bags and sadly forgot about the on each of them during both the bike and run. Miller and I went into transition, set up the water bottles on our bikes, I needed to hurry up and find a bike pump, and the guy across from my bike had a pump.  So I decided that being adorable would be the fastest and best way to borrow it, so I looked adorable and helpless and stole it.  It worked, I win.  After I was done in transition I migrated over to Miller and we couldn't get his powermeter to work, that stinks, but then we migrated for body marking, gave our clothes to Red, and threw on our suits and glide.

The swim: Grrrr!!!  So I was really thinking that I would hit closer to 1:10 for a 2.4 mile swim, I was at 1:22, BUT my garmin was reading 2.74 mile swim.  I lined up far right from the jump and buoys because I knew I would be heading in at an angle and didn't want to get hit and punched for the first quarter mile.  Well I didn't get any of that right.  I lined up in some open water, and after the first 30 seconds I started getting punched, kicked, bit, hit, smacked, and pulled under for the remainder of the swim.  I have never been so annoyed for that long in a swim EVER.  I was hit, and smacked, and pulled on for the entire hour and twenty-two minutes.  I actually tried to swim as far right for as long as possible, I was almost swimming with the guards and boats because I was so wide, but as soon as I migrated inward I was being pummeled.  I didn't realize how much I was adding to it until I got out.  At that point I was mad as a wet hen because I was so sick of being hit, I looked at my watch and saw the 1:20 time, and I was just beyond angry with the whole thing.  The volunteers were great at getting the wetsuit off in a hurry.  The volunteer in the changing area was a little less than useful, but meh, what can you do.  Afterwards I got my bike and headed out.  My favorite part though was running up the helix with all of the people lining it.  I was super unhappy, but it was really hard to be unhappy while running up around all of those people.

The bike: Ow.  After I got out of transition we migrated to the bike.  It was a little hard getting out into the main part of the bike because the first few miles were constant turning, a no passing zone, and really bumpy areas.  I ejected my aero bottle within the first 5 miles.  I immediately went back for it because I knew I needed it, and 5 miles in was way too early to lose it.  If I was losing it 5 miles before the end of the bike and I had a good bike, then I may or may not go back for it.  But 5 miles in for the bike, I needed it.  There was a biker who had a bad accident 5 miles in, and he was being treated by the EMTs, in a neck brace, and his day was over.  He was talking though and the volunteers were good at getting us around him safely.  After that we were able to head into the main stretch where we would do the loop portion.  I was feeling really good and hitting the times and speeds that I wanted.  I wanted to hit 17mph as my average for the bike because that would have placed me at around 6.5 hour bike, and I knew the hills would play in my favor because I can climb well, and I was getting a lot better at the descents because they weren't nearly as technical as I had been told.  Here comes mile 40ish and happiness came to an end.  I had spent the last couple of hours talking myself into a good mood, then I went through an aid station and my good feeling was gone.  I grabbed a bottle from a volunteer, did what I needed to with it, chucked it, then I think I hit something.  Next thing I knew, I was on the ground sliding towards the curb on my side.  I was fortunate to fall so quickly that I didn't know I was falling until I was down, which meant I didn't try to reach out and catch myself.  Since I didn't try to catch myself I just ended up with A LOT of cuts/scrapes, and some pretty nice bruises.  The bruise is pretty hard to see in the picture, but the cuts show through just fine.  I ruined my favorite Betty Designs race kit because I put a giant hole in the hip when I fell.

I unclipped from the bike.  Stood it up and tried to calm the woman down who was freaking out because she saw me crash.  Her husband was far more useful and asked if I was ok, looked me over for a sec, held my bike while I checked it over really quickly, then I headed on my less-than-merry way.  At this point I wasn't hurting too terribly because I was more in shock that I fell and that it didn't really hurt.  I was very ok with it, but less than happy about getting on the bike for another 70+ miles.  There was one kid who was cheering and went "yay! Go bikers!  Goo!! Oh! Mom, look at her!", yep, that was my awesomely bloody leg.  Ugh.  I talked myself into going to at least the special needs and see how I felt.  I got to the the "big" hills, was VERY unimpressed with the "Tour De France" style cheering on these hills, but they were still entertaining.  I felt like there were at least 5 other hills that were harder than these 3, but it's all good.  There was one Jamaican dude who was hilarious the first time through and called me the little engine that could, it made me chuckle and got me mentally over a hill.  I came through special needs, swapped out my water bottles for fresh ones, and headed back out.  It didn't really occur to me that Special needs would have been a good time to stop.  I just kept thinking that I couldn't let Miller see me quit.  So I carried on.  We went through the second loop of the course, the Jamaican guy wasn't on the hill anymore which made me sad, then I migrated to the run.

When I came into transition one of the volunteers caught my bike and asked if I needed medical.  I said no, and he asked if I was sure because I was bleeding.  I told him that I was aware and that it happened a long time ago and everything was fine.  Each person I came in contact with decided to remind me that I was banged up as if I wasn't aware already.  I know I wrecked, I was there.

The run: Coming out of transition I seriously debated about even starting the run, but then I saw my watch said "Total time 8:44", I mentally went "Oh! I haven't been out here all day, I can still do this!" Yay!

I kept telling myself on the bike that I was looking forward to the run, because I can always run.  That was my mini-mantra for a while, "I can always run".  I got to the run and I reminded myself that I was looking forward to the run.  I needed that reminder after the first 14 miles.  When I came out of transition it was the first time that Red saw my battle wounds and he asked how I was doing.  When I said I have been better he annoyingly responded with "but you're doing ok, so you can run, right?". Ugh.  I wanted to slug him.  A little bit later I ran into Miller, the run was a two loop course, I was starting loop 1 and he was about to the turn around to do loop 2.  So for my entire first loop Miller was technically behind me and I kept waiting for him to pass me.  As I passed each mile marker I made mental notes of things for the next loop.  When there was a little hill I essentially gave myself permission to walk up the small hills, then I convinced myself to run down the hills even though it really hurt my leg to go downhill.  Then I would do a lot of mental positive talk as I counted down the miles.  I would hit mile 12 and go "good work! You're already to mile 12, let's at least run to 13", I would rinse and repeat this until about mile 17, then my body went "F you".  Yep, I was done.  I didn't want to run anymore.  I was mentally and physically tired, I was hurting, I was kind of hungry, I was grumpy, and I wanted to be finished, and I didn't care if finished meant right there at mile 17 or if it meant crossing the actual finish line.

Thank God for Red.  Madison has this awesome bike share program where you can essentially rent a bike and tool around town for as long as you want so long as you return the bike to a rack every 30 minutes.  This is how Red was able to keep tabs on both me and Miller even though we were hours apart during the race.  Miller did an awesome job and finished in 11:37, which was a 9 minute PR for him!  He looked good when I saw him on the run, and it looks like he felt good too.  Red gave Miller his phone back so he could talk to his wife and let her know how he was doing, while Red came around and found me.  That's when he found out that I really wanted nothing to do with the race anymore and was taking a lot of convincing to keep going.  I was hurting and I hated EVERYTHING.  Not just a couple of things, I hated everything.  Red then informed Miller that I was thinking about quitting and suddenly Red's phone was blowing up with texts from Miller and other friends of words of encouragement for me.  I was being told I was loved, that I'm the strongest person they know (seriously wasn't feeling like it), that I'm stubborn and don't know how to quit (Kind of right because I was trying to figure out the logistics of if I just told a volunteer that I'm done and if they went and got someone, or what), and all other kinds of encouraging words.  It helped more than I could explain.  My friend, Ashley, wrote inspirational sayings on slips of paper for me to remember during the race.  Those definitely came in handy.  Finally, one foot in front of the other, I was able to finally finish that blasted race.  When there was only about a mile left I was able to see Red again and I looked at him and went "I love you, but if you're here and I'm heading towards the finish, how will you see me finish?".  He asked if I wanted him to hang out with me for the next half mile or so where he couldn't really go much farther, or if I wanted him to see me at the line. I said of course the line!  So he took off sprinting, and I honestly thought for a second that I would beat him to the finish, but that was just me being delusional.

When I finally made the final turn towards the finish chute, which by the way, making the second loop go within 100 yds of the chute is just rude, I finally felt like I could actually run again.  Before I was slogging away between walking 15-18 min/miles and a very lame attempt at a jog around 12-13 min/miles.  I ran towards the music because that works as more motivation than any positive talk I could come up with, and suddenly I see some wack-a-doo frantically leaning over the barriers and waving his arms like a psycho.  I started cracking up because it was Miller.  I needed to smile as I crossed the finish line, and that's what did it!  Yeah!  I ended up finishing 14:44 on a very hilly course, ejecting my aero bottle twice (I did it again after special needs while hitting a big bump, ugh), and wrecking.  But I did it. I went through Ironman Florida in 15:15 with no actual issues, so I know that if I hadn't screwed up with the bottles and had my mid race nap, that I would have gone so much faster!

Afterwards I went to the food for the athletes and thoroughly enjoyed stuffing my face with pizza. It wasn't even that good, but it tasted delicious at the time.  Miller found me and was super energetic about me finishing...then he saw my awesome right side that was banged up.  He immediately jumped all over taking care of me, getting me more food (yeah!), and grabbing my bike from transition when I was ready to head out.  Red let me lean on him even though I was a sweaty, stinky, wet, and bloody mess.  I have some pretty awesome friends/family!  The volunteers were awesome and were more than ready to help me around the finish area.  The two girls who were my catchers when I crossed the line actually picked me up on accident because they were taller than me.  They asked how I was doing and I joked by telling them that I could walk better if I was touching the ground.  They set me down and laughed.  When I was ready to get out of the finish area (when I was stuffed :D and happy :D) another volunteer helped me out of my chair and accidentally grabbed my right arm to help me up.  He felt so bad when he realized why I yelled out.  I felt bad for making noise, but they were so awesome!

Now I'm sitting here talking with my buddy Cathy and she almost has me convinced to do another Ironman next year.  I'm torn because training sucked this year, but part of me wants to know how I would do if I hadn't crashed, because I was feeling really good before then, and I was right on pace.  So we'll see what this next year brings.  Since races aren't selling out within minutes of registration opening, that gives me a little bit of time to think about it and recover.  Right now I'm enjoying my off season and just lifting and running whenever I feel like it instead of having a schedule.  Next up, Dopey Marathon weekend with Red and his family!

Iron Melt Down Plus Birthday Shenanigans

It is officially that time of the season where you want nothing more than to curl up in a ball and sleep for about 7 days.  Training for an Ironman is incredibly taxing enough, with all the 100 mile bike rides, 4 hour runs, and hours in the pool.  Don't forget the lifting sessions, meal prep, and extra laundry.  My poor washer and dryer.  I was training with some friends on Sunday, and I wanted to do just about anything else in the entire world other than be there, but I showed up.  I was supposed to do 100 miles, and I ended up with 46.  About 20 of those miles I was nearly solo and just trying to figure out how to keep my legs moving.  We did 2 loops up at Caesar's Creek, and I was dead set on quitting after the first loop.  My legs hated me, my head hated me, I hated my bike, I hated the wind, I hated absolutely everything.  I was finally suckered/talked/forced into a second loop, which is when I had my mini meltdown.  My friend was asking me why I was so tired, and if I was really that tired or if something was wrong.  That's when I ended up half yelling/screaming at him that I was exhausted!  Yep, enter very pathetic attempt to not cry here.  I was tired, I was angry, and I didn't want anything to do with biking at that moment.  We talked for a little while, he gave me a pep talk and reminded me that I've been training hard for a LONG time now, and that it's all going to be ok.  We decided that stopping after that lap was the best idea (duh), and not training today was an even better idea.  I couldn't agree more.

As Red and I were driving home we were discussing why I'm so tired (other than the obvious).  When I got my paycheck this past week it said that I had worked 92 hours, so about 46 hours per week.  Ok, well my day starts at 5:00am 4 days out of the week, and that makes me less than thrilled.  So add about 15 to 20 hours of training to that week, and we're to 66 hours for the week.  I've also been dabbling around with the idea of attempting to go back to school for Physical Therapy.  I don't know if it'll work, but I'm at least doing my part to meet the observation requirements, plus it's good for me to watch what my next career could potentially be.  I've been observing about 15 hours each week, so now we're up around 80 hours of stuff that I'm doing every week.  Yep, I would say that would start to weigh on someone physically.  To add insult to injury I've been thinking about Grandma A LOT.  I miss her like crazy, and with my birthday being Saturday (the day before we rode) it hit me that this was the first time I wouldn't hear her call me to tell me happy birthday.  That sucked.  On top of it, Red was gone for the week before because he unfortunately also had a death in his family.  His Uncle Al, which was one of my absolute favorite people in his family, died unexpectedly the weekend before.  I was stuck here in Ohio, while Red went to California to be with family. So missing someone, mourning someone, and being exhausted just kind of all set in at once and I was done.

Yesterday, after the ride.  I showered, ate like a fiend, and took a 2 hour nap.  I felt worlds better and just tried to relax for a change.

My birthday was actually quite awesome!  I only had to work for 3.5 hours due to cancellations, I potentially acquired a new client, and I was able to leave early!  Red and I then went to the West Chester Farmer's Market where I bought apple doughnuts, a fresh cup of coffee, and some sunflowers.  Then we went to Morgan's Canoe Livery and went canoeing for 6 miles :)  On the way there we saw a giant bird that Red was told was a giant Osprey, it turns out that it's a bald eagle!  When we got to the canoe rental place, they were talking about the eagle.  When we were all done with the canoe trip, we came home and checked on my garden.  It is officially out of hand, but incredibly productive!  I've picked 24 cucumbers out of it so far, and I think there are about 8 more left.  Then I picked a butternut squash, just because I could, but I have about 10 more in there still.  We also picked a big pot of green beans!  I ended up making pickles out of some of the cucumbers, and canned the beans.  The squash still needs to be dealt with, but we'll get to that eventually.  To round out the night, we went to PF Chang's for dinner before coming home to go to sleep.

Now I have a rest day, I train tomorrow, then this weekend we're going to the National Tractor Pull on Friday and Saturday.  Then we're going to Cedar Point on Sunday!  I don't know how to sit still :)  Oh well!

Toodles

Ironman Muncie 70.3

Okie dokie, the short version:

I came in worried how I would do here because I've just been feeling blah, that and the fact that Muncie's bike is "flat and fast" meant that I could potentially end up screwed on the bike portion.  Anyway:

Swim info: very slow, 38:38, 17th/58 in my age group out of the water

Bike info: 2:54:57, average speed 19.2mph, moved up to 11th in my age group off the bike (that's new)

Run info: 2:02:18, 9:20/mile, finished 13th in my age group

Overall time: 5:42:07, T1: 3:30, T2: 2:44

Longer version:

Pre-race shenanigans

The swim:

I've been working on siting while swimming, and I think I've got it figured out, but what I haven't figured out is how to get around people in the water.  I also need to figure out how to get my wetsuit to stop eating my neck.  I positioned myself closer to the front of the swim start (good move) because I figured out that leaves me with fewer people I need to fight with during the swim.  The first few hundred yards were a bit on the ridiculous side, this is where sighting could be useful.  We were sprinting and running into each other like crazy.  I had to tell myself to calm down because there was one girl who was insistent on trying to swim on top of me instead of beside me.  After a while everything started to calm down, and we started closing in on the orange caps (Men age groups 18-24 and 25-29).  They started 5 minutes before we did and we had caught a good number of them before the first turn.  By the time we were done with the swim, there was a good number of us that had also caught the first age group wave which was men over 55 and women over 50.  I need to figure out how to swim when I can't see.  I keep dropping time in the pool like crazy, but when I get into open water I may as well just float because I'm not dropping time there at all.  I'm not tired after the swim either because I feel like I'm resting by swimming breaststroke in an attempt to go around people that I catch and also keep checking to make sure I'm swimming in a straight-ish line.

I'm the wee one in the sleeveless next to the full wetsuit girl

The crazy swim start, I'm close to the front

Coming out of the water, hoping I'm not dizzy, and locating the wetsuit strippers.

T1:

I ran up the beach just fine, there were a lot of guys ahead of me but Red let me know that I was about the 50th purple cap out of the water, my wave had women ages 18-34 (3 age groups), so the number didn't sound that promising, but it wasn't terrible either.  I hurried up and migrated out onto the bike.

Bike:

I normally suck at the bike, there's no other way around it.  I've been working on it, but I think I need to work quite a bit more.  I don't know if I've been lazy, not pushing enough, skipping workouts, or what, but I still suck at the bike.  I felt better coming off the bike this year than I did last, but I was only .2mph faster this year than last year.  This year they changed the bike course because it was so rough last year.  Now we migrated through a couple of neighborhoods with really bumpy roads to get to a high way.  It was a two loop out and back and was fairly flat.  There were a couple of places that people tried to say there were "hills", they were just mild inclines, not really enough to say it was a hill.  On the way out though the road did seem to be a false flat and be inclined, and it had a headwind, but on the way back all of that was reversed so it worked out well.  I was able to average about 17-18mph on the way out, and then 22ish on the way back.  The clouds kept us covered and fairly cool until the last 15 miles.  By this point I ran into a guy who also had a Felt like mine and we started to literally play tag.  I would pass him on those "inclines"/"hills", then he would pass me on the flats and downhills.  He first passed me and said "Leap Frog!", then I said "Tag, you're it", we ended up going back and forth like that for the last 15-20 miles and we got to where we were actually smacking each other as we passed.  We were bored and tired and found a way to entertain ourselves when most people were starting to struggle before the run.  Right before the last aid station I noticed I was starting to get a little warm (the sun finally came out and immediately started baking us), so I grabbed a water bottle and doused myself with the majority of it and drank the rest, probably one of the best decisions ever!

Getting off my bike at the dismount line.

T2:

I hurried up and jogged/ran into transition, it's hard to run in bike shoes, and as I was putting my bike up Red came over and told me to hurry it up because I was 10th.  I double checked that he said 10th and tried to hurry it up a bit.  Turns out that I was 11th, but that's ok.  My legs were a bit cranky, but I thought they were ready to go.

I'm behind the dude as I drop my helmet and grab my run shoes and visor.

Run:

Red had been texting Miller and apparently they concocted this idea that I could run 10.5 miles "all out" and give myself the first 2.5 miles to "calm down and settle into a pace", yeah, ok.  Well I didn't feel horrible on the way out for the run, but it quickly became apparent that "all out" was going to be between an 8:30-9:00 minute pace, so much for the 7:30 pace I had imagined.  I knew right away that I was going to need to cool down so I immediately started drinking water and pouring ice down my shirt and shorts.  Since I had a rough idea as to where I was in the girls, I made a note to check out their calves so I could figure out how many girls I passed or who passed me.  There was one girl who looked way to peppy and dry who passed me within the first 3 miles, that was annoying.  After her though there were a couple that I kind of played leap frog with all the way to the finish. They would pass me until aid stations, then they would walk and I would take whatever I wanted while running and keep running.  Then they would pass me again, rinse and repeat for the entire run.  Finally, there were a couple that stayed in front of me, but there was one girl who was particularly annoying because she did the annoying "hurry to get in front of you, then walk" nonsense.  I guess she finally got tired because the last time I passed her she decided to stay behind me.  There was another girl who was in my age group that I didn't realize was in my age group until later.  She was coming up behind me in the last couple of miles but she was making dying cow noises like I did, so I kind of decided to cheer/yell at her.  There were a couple of hills towards the end of the run that I beat her up, but I kept telling her to get back up next to me.  Yelling at her to keep going and move worked for me as well, it was kind of like I was yelling at myself as well as at her.  Either way, I still beat her.  The finish line felt like it took FOREVER to get to once I got to the top of the hill.  Yeesh.

Coming into the finish!

Feeling like absolute death

After everything:

Happy that I now have food in front of me again :)

I was hungry, sore, and tired.  My legs were shaking for a little bit and I really just wanted to eat/drink and sit down.  I was able to do all three!  This is also when I realized how many places were chafed, or so I thought.  I some how magically have straight lines the entire way around my legs from some unknown thing in my tri short legs.  I have never had that happen before and I've worn them all season. They're my Betty Designs tri shorts, which I just wore to the Mason Sprint tri a couple of weeks ago without an issue.  Hmm...meh.  It wasn't until I got into the shower that afternoon that I truly understood how badly my body was going to hate me.  My neck, thighs, bikini line, ankle from the time chip, somehow my shoulder blades, spots on my ribs from my hear rate strap, then a few random spots on my back that I think can only be from my bars that I had in my pockets.  Either way, when I took my shower I was making some awful noises as the water first hit places that I was only semi prepared for, then hit places I wasn't prepared to hurt.  Then the soap didn't help the pain either. OUCH.

Today I'm hanging out, catching up on the tour, wearing compression socks, and doing some laundry.  Dear sweet Lord do my clothes stink from yesterday, blech.

Ok, well after that PR and better finish from last year it is now time to officially switch gears and get ready for Ironman Wisconsin.  I have about 8 weeks until my race, and between now and then I have A LOT of training to get in.  I have multiple rides that are over 90 miles, lots of running miles to get in, swimming, and strength training.  I want to feel better during Wisconsin than I did yesterday during Muncie.  By the time I was done yesterday I felt like it was a true struggle just to maintain anything close to 9:00 minute miles, gah.

Toodles!