It's all coming together.
Bike has had its pre-race check up and thanks to my local bike store, Bike Hub it is packed and ready to go.
My bag is nearly packed...it's pretty much at optimum capacity so I'm not sure what else I'm going to be able to fit into it. To be fair though I am sharing it with my 2 sons. So one suitcase between the 3 of us isn't too bad.
We are headed off tomorrow and my husband and daughter are following us down there on Friday. Weather looks good, water temp is a balmy 60F. So on Sunday around lunchtime, this is where I expect to be....running down the boardwalk,next to the beach, toward the finish line.
Oceanside here we come :)
Sheesh...so my daughter's school had a bomb scare today and all the kids had to be evacuated while the bomb squad and their sniffer dogs came in and made sure there was no actual bomb in the building. Is it just me or does it seem outrageous. I don't consider myself naive but I still can't believe how we have become so accepting of these things happening to our children. We've become so desensitized to this kind of thing that it seems like no big deal when it happens. Violence is so integrated into our lives that we just accept it as a consequence of living in a community.....
Yes....can you tell I'm tapering????
All of a sudden I have way too much time to think, analyze and ponder. My training load is winding down in preparation for my race in 10 days and now I have all this time on my hands. Hmmm...what to do with all this time....solve world problems...no, I think I'll just pack.
Now let me tell you packing for a race IS on the same difficulty scale as world problems. Look at my packing pile....
You see my problem.
BUT. I have a list. I am excellent at list making.So hopefully now I have a list everything will pack itself.
Last weekend I had my first outdoor ride since September last year. With Oceanside 70.3 coming up in a few weeks I had to get out there and make sure 1 - I still knew how to use my brakes and 2 - that all those winter trainer rides I've been doing will be good enough to get me up and over those Oceanside hills.
This is how I have been spending winter....
...OK, well hopefully a little more intense than the sitting up, hands on the hips, chatting thing, but you get the picture.
There was a good group assembled at the beginning of the ride...about 30 people.....everyone obviously training for different races but most people just out to ride a short 20 miles, so there were only a few of us riding long.
We chose a good hilly route to test out the legs and nutrition. It was the old IMCDA ironman course. I had a bunny to chase, my friend Phil ( who is wearing the Timex gear in the picture above) ,which made it extra fun. He is a guy who can talk and ride at threshold pace so never a dull moment. He tells me that although I'm good at hill climbing my brakes nearly spontaneously combusted on the descents because I was riding them too much. I made a mental note to try and be more fearless on the downhills even though I am scared to death. I tried to tell him that I was taking it slow on the descents to minimize the wind chill as I'm sure that bits of my body were dropping off in the chilly 40F (5C) weather. He took this picture of me at a rest stop apparently checking that all my bits were still intact.
Hopefully the weather will hold out for a few more outdoor rides before race day and then it's off to southern California....hellloooo sunshine and 70F.
Training is cruising along pretty well so far this year. I finally have my training mojo back and I'm loving the process of training again. With Oceanside 70.3 about 2 weeks away I'm excited to be seeing the back side of the off season and looking forward to getting out and racing again. Seems like everyone else in the tri community is emerging from the off season too because in the last few weeks I have had lots of fun tri related news. I am excited that this year I have some great companys sponsoring my racing and training.
Once again I am part of the Timex Factory Team. This is such a fun group to be part of and I just love all the great products they offer. Last year they sent me my trusty waterproof training watch that I have worn just about every time I get wet and it is still going strong. I'm looking forward to testing out another one of their watches.
For the first time this year I have been invited to be a part of the SunRype Team.This is a great company out of the Okanagan Valley in BC Canada. They make juices, fruit snacks and fruit bars and the thing I like most....they use all natural ingredients. No unrecognisable chemical names in the ingredients list here, just 100% fruit, fruit juices and grains. Yum!
I got my first delivery of this SunRype yumminess the other day. The boys helped me unpack the boxes and do some taste testing. Everyone gave them the thumbs up so it looks like it could be a struggle for me to share them but I'll do my best.
So now all that's left is to do the actual training...and the racing..and that's the fun part.
Racing season has officially begun.
Last Saturday, my friends Michelle, Ken and I headed down to Snake River Canyon which is about 2 hours south of Spokane. I have never been there before so it was a bit of a fun roadtrip. Except for the getting up early...but Ken bought me a coffee on the way so that made up for it.
We arrived early...( thanks again Ken)...and it worked out perfectly. We were some of the first ones there so we breezed through packet pick up and then headed back to the car. Did I mention that it was cold. Yeah...the forecast said 50 but it felt about 30 with a wind chill so we had to do some outfit adjustments back in the car. After all the races that I've done you would think I would have the outfit thing down....but I spend way too much time thinking about it and second guessing the weather gods. And. every. time. I .get. it. wrong. I ALWAYS overdress. Even though I know I'm prone to overdressing. I can't seem to help myself.I think its an illness or a phobia of being cold. Gaahh...trying living in my brain...it ain't fun you know.
Back to the race...I was secretly hoping for a PR. My coach's instructions were simple. He wanted to see a negative split. Hmmm...some self control was required.
So from the get go I decided to find someone who was running a nice easy 8:45 pace and who was bigger than me so I could tuck in behind and escape the head wind we were running into. I found the perfect guy and followed him for the first half of the race all the way to the turn around. I must have been driving him crazy. Always one step right behind him for 6.5 miles. But at the end of the race I would learn that 2 separate girls were using me to pace them so that was funny. As we were coming up to the turn around I saw my friend Amy who was trying to PR and run under 2 hours. She had started ahead of me so I had to speed up at that point to catch her. When I caught her we chatted for a moment then she told me to keep going. So then I decided to run 8:15s all the way back.
{I think I am the Queen of the awkward race photo.Who gives 2 thumbs up just before crossing the finish line? Me evidently. As my brother would say. "What a tool!"}
I crossed the line in 1:52:06 with a new PR. After the race I texted my coach and his response..." Good job. Let's build on that....you can go faster". Hehehe...he cracks me up.
