More Rally

Here is the video of Stanley’s 2nd Rally Advanced leg from last Saturday.  Other than a station I restarted because he was trying to sniff me instead of heel in position, it went pretty well!

Triathlete Haiku

Wicked foam roller
You cause me so much pain. Ow.
Still I can't quit you.

Another Whirlwind Weekend

I got the video for Stanley’s first Rally Advanced leg from a few weeks ago.  You can see how he was a bit distracted in the very loud indoor ring but then pulled it together nicely for the 2nd half.

On Saturday, in addition to my training that was on the schedule, Stanley and I made a quick trip up to Petaluma for another rally trial.  Everyone entered from our little rally practice group qualified, and the four of us entered in Advanced A not only owned all the placements but all got the same score so placements were determined by time.  Stanley was the fastest and scored a 1st place for his 2nd leg!  Now I will hold off trialing him in rally until the National, in the hopes he can finish his title there.

Today we were out the door by 5:30 am to drive to Santa Cruz and cheer for friends doing the Big Kahuna (1/2 IM) Triathlon. 

Jeff with my brother before the start

My brother finishing up his 4th 1/2 IM

Recovery beers for my training buddy Nigel, who completed his 1st 1/2 IM

We also squeezed in a 3 hour bike/30 minute run on the course while cheering!  Suffice it to say, I’m feeling pretty trashed and looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Long bike ride on the Santa Cruz coast – wind and hills guaranteed

Sleep. Now.

All Work and No Play

means nearly a week goes by without a blog!  It’s been a work and training week of epic proportions, and I’m simply relieved that it’s finally Friday, even though I have a crazy busy weekend ahead as well.  But first I should at least show a little of what I did last weekend. 

After Saturday’s bike test, we went to the beach on Sunday.  Nice and relaxing.

On Labor Day I did a couple loops around the cement ship in Aptos.  It looks nice and clear here, but by the time we swam it was so fogged in you couldn’t see the buoys from shore or shore from the buoys.

After the swim I biked down the coast through the eucalyptus groves and the strawberry fields.

Since then it’s just been lots and lots of work meetings, masters swim, long and short runs, and trainer rides.  Phew!  I guess I really am training for a 1/2 IM!  Have a great weekend, everyone! Hopefully I can update again before another week has flown by.

Plateau

I suppose it is too much to expect constant improvement in all 3 sports, though I’ve been lucky enough to experience a lot of that in the past couple years.  I still see my swim and run getting stronger and stronger, but I feel like my bike has plateau-ed this summer.  Not that I can’t hold better and better paces over distance than I could before – and perhaps more importantly run better and better off the bike – but my power numbers in my bike tests just haven’t gone up by huge amounts.  I try to cling to the idea that I’m still in the years of muscular development when it comes to cycling – since I only started riding 3 years ago (and riding seriously in the last 2 years), I still have room to improve, I hope.  It’s just hard when I see most people are significantly faster cyclists than I am.

Anyway, today’s bike test was…interesting.  About 5 minutes into the test portion, I was on the verge of puking and overheated and failing badly.  So I popped the bike off the trainer and hit the roads for the remainder, where my power numbers were much better.  I probably would have shown a slight improvement over my last test if I’d done the whole thing on the roads.  *sigh*  On the positive side, my run off the bike was super fast and strong.  There’s a sport I know how to do properly!  Onward…

Exciting mail deliver today from Recovery Sock!  I’m looking forward to wearing their products for my recovery.

A range of colors, because you know how matchy-matchy I have to be (remember my hot pink pair from last year?).

All sorts of goodies are starting to roll in for the charity ride and take over my dining room table.  We’ve been lucky to get such wonderful sponsors!  Now we really need more people to sign up…

Time for some house cleaning and relaxing!

Thursday of Randomness

The swim test yesterday went alright but the most *ahem* exciting moment came during the warmup.  As I swam along in the lane by myself, staying on one side only, someone joined me in the lane without asking and then decided to circle-swim, also without asking.  We collided head-on and the conversation went something like this:
Me: “Huh?”
Him: “Oh, I thought we were circle swimming.”
Me: “Did we discuss circle swimming?”
Him: “Uh, no.”
Me: “Well, we’re not!”
At least the anger fueled my swimming after that.  Douchebag.

I got some very sad news Tuesday about a longtime online friend, a triathlete and amazing animal lover, who passed very unexpectedly in her sleep.  She was the kind of person who inspired others to greatness with her enthusiasm and spirit.  This is a lovely tribute to her life.

I had some deep musings about triathlon to post.  But I forgot them.  I think I had a long convoluted way to get to a point about how much more I like the challenge of triathlon over straight running because of the many decision points along the way and the potential for disaster.  It feels like you are skating more of a fine line for 20, 70.3, 140.6 miles than a run race has ever felt.  And I dig it.

My schedule for the day went to hell but in the best possible way.  That whole block of work I was supposed to do in between lunchtime yoga and my sports massage ended up being lunch with 3 fun women!  Oh well, some days you’ve just got to go with the flow and take advantage of the opportunities as they present themselves.  Work will still be there later.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday weekend!!!

It’s My ELF-iversary!

From my August 28th, 2008 blog post:

I'm going to have a coach starting in September! I finally bit the bullet and emailed the person I've really wanted to work with! I can't wait to have some real personalized guidance instead of a canned plan for once.

Who knew all the places I’d go in those 2 years and how much of a difference the Elf Herself (or her more serious side) would make in my life, training and race performance?  Or that 2 years later, I’d be struggling to fit in my favorite pairs of jeans because of how big my biking thighs have gotten? :-)  Today, it feels like old times…I have a swim test on the schedule.  Gee, thanks Coach, I should have gotten you something special too!