Thursday, May 22, 2014

Life Happens Part 3

As all this life has been happening, I've done my best to stick to the training plan and stay engaged in racing for the year.  It's been hard though....motivation wanes at times and the many MANY temptations of Colorado life are calling.  Swimming and I have NOT been BFFs since I moved to altitude, the trails near my house keep calling me to bike them (nevermind that I don't, as yet, own a mountain bike), the warmer weather is making me crave backpacking trips in the Rockies, my dog needs to get back to competition again after a yearlong break...

In addition to all that, the triathletes here...they really fit every single negative stereotype we have in this sport.  After a good hard masters swim, I don't wanna hear you talk about your FTP in the hot tub.  DURING masters swim, I'd like to actually do ALL FOUR STROKES rather than listen to everyone whine that they can't.  Wake up, people are still triathletes even if they don't do Ironman.  And so on...  It's really become quite a turnoff in general.

What this means for me is, at the moment, it is highly likely that I will end my racing year after duathlon nationals in July.  I have concerns about attempting to fit in long course hours when school starts again in August and honestly I'm just not that into it right now.  Nobody should train for a 1/2IM when they aren't feeling it.  I do want to stick it out for 8.5 more weeks till Du Nats though; I want to see what I can do coming down from altitude at an event that highlights my best sports.  After that, Molly's Summer of Fuck Around In The Woods begins.  Bring on the beer festivals, music festivals (of which our town has THREE world class events!), backpacking and mountain biking.  This is my 8th straight season of triathlon and all I can say is, somebody needs a LONG break from racing.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Life Happens Part 2

Training has taken me to many new and beautiful places near our house in the past 2 months.








I've done some very...non-training related things as well!




Spring has certainly sprung in Colorado.  MAJOR spring fever makes it hard to work in a basement some days!


Finals and grading and the semester are done, so now it's just lab work for the summer - phew!  More on my plans for the upcoming months next!

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Life Happens Part 1

And when you don't blog for months, it's cause it was really happening.  We moved into our new house.





It's amazing.  I waste an hour a day staring out the windows.


Puck has chased a multitude of wildlife.


We've seen even more wildlife. Up close and personal.


You thought I was kidding.


We ran out of water on the first weekend.  We used our handy dandy water truck that came with the house to retrieve more.

We've tried out just about every restaurant and bar in town.  We've been amazed by this community...for a tiny town there is SO MUCH going on here, from live music every single night to an array of festivals and events.

We've had snow, we've had rain, we've had warm sunny days and our whole valley has gone green.





 My closest neighbors are cows.  And we now have baby cows too.

We've wood chipped wood, we've burned wood.







Monday, May 19, 2014

A Tale of Two Races

I might as well catch up on races first.

In March, a few days before we closed on the house, and 2 days before Jeff moved to Colorado, I raced down in Arizona.  It felt like a comedy of errors that morning...my wetsuit tore a giant hole across my ass when I put it on, the race director allowed the volunteers to play all bible music in transition, and the swim was a giant clusterfuck of panicked people.  However, I felt phenomenal on the bike course that involved climbing over 1000 feet from the lake before turning around and then I felt horrible but went fast on the run that required 500 feet of climbing over the 1.25 miles to the turnaround.  I wound up 4th place woman overall!

Last week I raced here in Colorado, a reverse tri where you start with the run.  The upside is this allows for a pretty good spread of the field early, the downside is it's damn hard to jump in the water and swim after redlining it for an hour and barely being able to breathe.  I had my best 5k run at altitude and threw down the fastest run in my AG, then followed it up with one of my strongest race bikes to date.  The swim...was difficult to start while still panting for air but I finished it stronger than I started it.  Ended up 2nd in AG and 5th woman overall.

Turns out when you are on the pointy end of the field, there are a lot of photos of you.
 


 

When I crossed the finish line I got a rose "as thanks for being a mom."  This is what happens when you race on Mother's Day weekend.


And THIS is how we do post-race recovery in Colorado.




Friday, May 9, 2014

Return of the Blog?

A certain someone *cough*Tea*cough* thinks I need to resuscitate the blog...now that I'm officially done with the spring semester and ONLY have lab work and training and dogs to deal with, it could happen.  I'm not even sure how to catch up on the past 2 months of moving and new house-ing and racing and schooling and life stress but I'll give it the college try.

Stay tuned...