A whole bunch of hollerin and swallerin!

Oh I am ready to move!

I had the best time down in Nashville this weekend. The funny thing I realized about Nashville is that everytime I would bring it up, everyone mentions how much they love it, how fun the town is, what we should hit and on and on! Now I know why! That place is mad fun!

So back awhile ago I had decided that this spring I wanted to do a fun marathon and I had heard Nashville fit the bill so I signed up. Yet, after the tibia stress fracture set back over winter and so much time off I decided it wise to not try to build too quickly and just do the half.

I went back and forth with coach as to how I should run it. It was tagged as a B race on my calendar with my A Oly Rev 3 Knoxville race two weeks later. The plan was to run it as a training run for the half Quassy IM I am doing in June. Just wanted to run it as a training run and see how the hr trended to see if my pacing and effort would be on schedule and realistic for the half I wanted to run after a 1.2 m swim and 56 mile bike.

The Plan: Run 1st 5 miles at 7:45 pace
Run rest of the way at 7:30 pace

The Actual: Ran the first 5 at 7:38 avg pace
Ran the last 8+ at 7:13 avg pace
Garmin reflected 1:37:42 total time, 13.18 dist, 7:24 avg, avg HR 165

As a side note that I should not neglect, apparently I have never run a half marathon well. I was digging back through some of my results on athlinks and 1:40 and change a bunch of times but I had never even broke 1:40. So my little "training run" was even a PR! And the best part was I felt so good the entire time and was just taking it all in!

So here is the rest of the story.

We left out Friday morning about 7:30 am. It took us about 8 hours to get down there, then we hit the hotel, & hit the expo. I had a really nice conversation with the Saucony rep over at the expo and think I know what shoes I will try next...it was really nice to talk to someone so familiar with their shoes.

As a sidenote, I had received a new pair of shoes from Saucony Wednesday night, the Saucony Tangent 4's. My old racing shoes were wore out and I was nervous about wearing these without a proper break-in but without a lot of options, I set out to wear them anyways. I had wore them for an easy 2.5 mile treadmill run with some strides on Thursday and laced them up Saturday morning. And these shoes worked great for me! They were lighter than my old shoes and just felt fast. Oftentimes I seem to have issues with the balls of my feet going numb and thankfully no issues with these shoes and not even a blister! I LOVE THEM ALREADY!

Anyways so before we could leave the expo, we got a text to go to bar across the street and of course, we obliged. Great music, good beer (Yuengling on draft!) and friends. I love how everywhere down here has good live bands! We hung there for a bit and then headed to Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner and turned in early.

The next day I woke up waaay tooo early. I kept wondering where everyone was. It was not until 6:45 AM when I realized Nashville was an hour behind us and I still had another hour to wait! How did I miss that???? Anyways the threat of really bad weather (tornadoes, hail and storms) was the talk of the day and a big concern so the race was going to start early. Yeah as I thought it was starting an hour earlier already :-)

Race was awesome and it was even sunny. There was a good breeze and tons of spectators and AWESOME bands the whole way. I loved the course. I like hilly courses like this that mix it up, probably more so since I was not racing. Did I mention how nice it was to go to a destination race and NOT run a marathon and feel good when you are done? I am sooo used to always running a marathon and hurting so badly when I am done that this was such a nice change of pace!

Upon finishing, I left pretty quick as I wanted to change and shower. We killed some time at the hotel and headed out around 11:45 to commence pub crawl about the time the monsoon & the rest of the crazy weather rolled in. Oh what a day! Lots of laughs, good music, good beer and fun times hitting Big River Brewery, Tootsies, Big Rock with some of the Cleveland running gang and three of our high school friends that made it out!

The only question is, when can I go back there?????

Winner!

What is it with me and stupid pics?

Let's Talk Some Smack!

 

Another Camp picture! Who is that chick in the Trakkers gear? ;-)

Oh this time of year just has me so excited with so much going on!

The Cleveland Tri Club training camp last weekend was just a blast!

This upcoming weekend I am heading all the way down to Nashville, TN to run in the Country Music Half Marathon!

The following weekend I head to AL for a week to visit family and will cap that week off heading up to Knoxville for the big REV3TRI showdown!

Speaking of Knoxville, REV3TRI...beep beep beep beep....breaking news! Time to interrupt the blog for breaking news from Team Trakkers (YES, that would be my team!) The PRO TRAKKERS TEAM had already challenged KSwiss and Trek teams to a showdown! Now Trakkers Age Groupers are taking the challenge to a couple other teams at Knoxville! Complete details are laid here in my teammmate, Sonja's blog here!

Did I mention that I just love a little bit a rivalry and fun competition? Go TEAM TRAKKERS!!!!

So back to the original report -
4/17 Weekend was Camp.
4/24 Weekend is Nashville Mary
5/1 Weekend is vacation in AL
5/8 Weekend is Knoxville REV3 Trakkers Team Domination (Oly Tri)
5/15 Weekend is Cleveland Mary (not participating but official cheerleader!)
5/22 Weekend is Greater Cleveland Tri Training and CTC Picnic
5/29 Weekend is Mountain Biking Weekend in Raystown Lake, PA
6/5 Weekend is REV3 Quassy in CT (Half IM)

So back to the original statement that I am so excited that the season is here and the schedule is now action packed with fun things! Now to somehow stay on top of everything else like stupid laundry!

CTC Training Camp!

 

This weekend rocked! First ever CTC Training Camp. We ate, we drank, we trained, we learned and we laughed! Good times!

Loaded down the RV with major amounts of food for the camp after some power shopping trips and headed out Friday afternoon to Mohican about 2.5 hours away.

Upon arrival, I kicked my feet up and just enjoyed some beers and good conversation. There was a very popular headlight trail run that night which I opted out of on account of my tender tibia and trying not to overdue it.

Saturday morning came fast and was kicked off with a warm up clinic and lots of drills like high knee, butt kickers, lunges, striders, grapevine, etc. It really does feel good to wake up the muscles and then I was off on a mountain bike ride. My Team Lake Effect Teammate, Todd and I took the lead on the mountain bike ride. It was time to put some miles in on the new mtb! Oh the full suspension 29r is such a change from my 26 hard tail. It was a blast with lots of climbs and in less than 3 hours we were done with the 24 mile course! WHAT A BLAST!

The camp had various road and mtn bike distance options for this 3 hour time slot and you could pick and choose accordingly...(would not want to scare anyone away thinking about this for next year)

Then it was time for some lunch, sandwiches, chips, fruit...good, easy stuff! Then we had a choice of swim clinic with videotape or bike skills clinic, then transition clinic, then nutrition clinic. Lots of good stuff here!

Afterwards I headed out for a 6.5 mile run on the paved path feeling pretty fresh still. Upon return, it was a much needed shower time before getting ready for dinner. It was quite a job to drain that many pasta noodles from such a giant pan, let me tell ya! It took 3 of us! Pasta, salad, bread, veggies, salad and ICE CREAM like drum sticks, heath bars and sandwiches! Mmmmmm!

There was one last clinic Saturday which included periodization and planning your training to race day before chilling by the fire over another earned beer!

Oh we had a lot of good laughs thoughout the day....some of the biggest was brought on when a unicycle emerged and people took turns giving it a go! :-)

Sunday was a core workout and then a road ride! The roads down there are just beautiful. We found a very lightly travelled flat road which would be great for some intervals next year and then we headed over to climb some hills around the Mohican State Park. Did I mention how gorgeous it was??? Although it was a little cool both days, it was not too bad thankfully and I was sooo happy that it did not rain!

Then I started the not so fun part of packing up and just when I thought my workouts were over, I had to unload the rv which WAS SOOO FULL, start laundry, put things away, and on and on! Big kudos to all the others like Tim, Todd, Brandon, Mindy who helped pitch in with everything. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST my husband, Joey, who did so much to help out and provided some entertainment along the way!

Anyways I think everyone had fun and learned something! So here are some random comments from my weekend there!

• I kidnapped my mother for a shopping trip that would overwhelm any car. My mother had no idea what she was getting into when I said I needed to pick up a few things for the club camp. Thank goodness it was all going down to camp in an RV!
• There is a reason why triathletes all have vehicles with a lot of storage. And holy crap can we pack a lot of stuff!
• Fire, beer and conversation = a very good time
• That was a big bathroom but a small cabin for so many adults!
• Flips flops apparently are not a good choice for warm-up shoes but they did great for longer than expected (way to go Julia!)
• Yes, my new mtn bike rules and the Mohican Mountain bike trails are SO much fun even when trying to not slow Todd down too much! Oh and as a bonus, who needs maps when you have well marked mountain bike trails!
• Don’t ask about going to the bathroom at transition.
• You can learn a lot from swim video analysis, including who slept through it!
• Don’t hide ice cream sandwiches from Tiffany 
• You can fit a lot of people in a small cabin!
• Is there something wrong when you first meet someone and you ask if they want to share a bed?
• Only so much food can sit on one table.
• Did I mention Mohican is hilly? But oh do hilly park roads make for such beautiful road rides!
• Craig is part pyro.
• Who knew CTC was teaching unicycling at camp?
• Watching newbies learn unicycling is VERY FUNNY!
• Hot tubs RULE!
• Mapmyride turn by turn lies.
• 20 or 30 degrees more would have been nice, but who needs that when you’re tough and you have other peeps around to train with!
• Thought the weekend’s workouts were over until I got home and started unloading the rv!
• Major props to “There’s no need to fear, underdog Tim is here!” for coordinating camp details!
• Nothing beats a weekend full of food, good people, lots of training, lots of learning and gorgeous scenery!

ALREADY LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR!

Lifetime Masters Swimming

 

Yesterday was an easy day with just masters swimming in the morning, some work and then it was off to enjoy the sunshine at the Indians home opener with the sister and friends!

Well the good thing about my swimming is that there is lots of room for improvement!

Just over a month or so ago I started swimming with Lifetime Fitness Masters at 5:45 AM on Monday mornings. The first week there was about 10 people. Now it is more like 2-5 people. I almost feel bad for the coach and hope that we get some more people there so that this actually stays on the schedule.

Anyways this actually works out great for me as it is like I have a personal coach. Jeff, the coach, really seems to know his stuff and has been giving me lots and lots of tips and things to think about. He also makes me do lots more drills with his favorites being one arm leads with side kicking, fingertip drill and catch up. Not that I like to spend a bunch of time doing drills but cleary there is value to them. I just hate how tired I get doing the one arm leads and doing the side kicking!

Anyways I have been really working on my hip rotation, staying long, finishing my pull and not dropping my arm early when I breathe. I feel like I am using a bit less energy and have sped up a tiny bit but I am still sooo slow! Hopefully as I continue to work on my technique, improvement will continue!

Mustard Rules!

 

Definitely on of my favorite condiments!

The Roo is Gone!

 

Time for a moment of silence for my old friend, Roo! Roo was my first real bike. Prior to Roo, I had not rode a bike since early high school on what I deemed as the lame, Free Spirit. Back in 2006, Trisaratops had told me about this deal at Bike Authority on a sweet bike and I could even get a discount if I joined Cleveland Triathlon Club. Well I took the plunge and WOW, has that led me down such an awesome journey both with my favorite shop, my club and my beloved bicycling!

I remember being very nervous about the purchase. Dropping a lot of money on a bicycle was a bit daunting. Always trying to keep a watchful eye on the funds, one thing was for sure...if I spent that much money on something, I sure as HELL was going to use it! And I did!

I rode that bike like crazy for 3 solid years. In the Spring of 2009, after several thousands of miles, I decided it was time for something new and picked myself up a new carbon bike and the Roo sat. The plan was to use it on the trainer and when the roads were crappy. Yet, I have not rode it one time in over a year. I told my sister and friend that they would have to ride with me and that I had an extra bike that should work for them to ride. The one asked if I would sell it. I had not thought much about it, but that got my gears going and a week later, I had a couple interested people, and I decided to sell it and she was gone! I hope new owner catches the Roo bicycling bug that I caught!

So anyways another week in the books. Right now, the schedule is structured around training for the Rev 3 Half Iron in CT on 6/6.

This week was a run focus week which key workouts would include Clev Tri Club duathlon (Run 1 tempo), a brick, and a long run. Everything went pretty much as planned.

M 4/5: Lifetime Masters Swim 2600 M, 60 min weights / core (leg EZ day)
T 4/6: 2400 M Swam, 6 M EZ Run (8:25 pace)
W 4/7: 18 miles indoor ride (10 min w/u, increasing LT intervals 5-9 min while dec Z3), 7.5 M MTB Ride
R 4/8: 2300 M Swam, 14 M Ran (7:51 pace)
F 4/9: 1750 M Swam
S 4/10: CTC Headwaters Du 2.85 M Run/ 16.5 Hilly Bike/ 2.85 M Run(6.36 R1, 19.25 M Bike inc T1, 7:03 R2 incl T2)
S 4/11: Brick, 47.6 M biked with touring club (18.4 avg), 5.6 m run (miles 1, 2 & 6 focus 7:05, 7.24, 7:45 uphill, 7:45 avg)

Thursday night's run was especially terrific. I had talked my friend, Nathan into running with me and explained I wanted to start at around 8:15 pace and work our way down to around 7:45 and average under 8. This was going to be a bit of a challenge for NA but he is always up for a challenge and handled it with no issues! My husband and two of our other friends joined us on their bicycles. So the 5 of us GHS alumni just carried on as we clicked off the 14 miles, dropping pace and feeling pretty chipper the whole way. It is not that often that my husband will join me while I run, but it was really nice! Then we headed to the local bar / grill for our reward! It may have been one of the most perfect nights!

Run Splits
1 8:09
2 8:04
3 7:56
4 8:02
5 8:10
6 7:44
7 7:44
8 8:04
9 7:53
10 7:50
11 7:55
12 7:40
13 7:38
14 7:24

MY NEW GF!

 

OH THE JOY! My new GIRLFRIEND (ER GARY FISHER) HAS ARRIVED! Cue to the celebratory music and me doing back flips!

For the last two years of my mountain biking fun, I had whooped my poor little 26 Cannondale F5 mountain bike. That bike had been good to me but after destroying many a rear derailers, (due to my sheer riding finesse falling off obstacles and banging it on everything) I (or rather my bike shop friends) had converted it to a single speed and it was to be strictly my park bike (complete with sweet flat pedals and HAWT pink tires). The master plan was to save some money over winter and get a new mountain bike.

I had pretty much got my heart set on getting a hard tail 29r. So on March 30th the time had come to hit the bike shop and pick out my new steed. I wanted to get the best bike in my budget and wanted to be sure I was getting a step up from the ole F5.

Upon looking through the catalogs and pricing stuff out, I was all set on either the Gary Fisher X Caliber or the Paragon. With a quick check of the shop computer, the bad news came. Both sold out for 2010. None available until maybe August. Booooo! I should have known this was going to be a problem as my friend, ET, who was also looking at bikes had said several of the bikes she was looking at were sold out and not available.

I am assuming after a slow year last year, manufacturers cut production back and everyone who waited to buy last year all bought early this year. I never would have expected this to be a problem in March!

I was sort of at a loss as to what to do. I looked at the Felts but the one I liked was a little out of my planned budget. Cannondale does not make a SM 29r (although I guess my current F5 is a medium so started looking at those later but all specs say I should ride a SM). After talking it over with the husband I decided to just get old bike fixed up to ride this year. I had resolved to deal with that but, yeah, that was sort of a bummer. I just did not want to wrap a bunch of money up on a mountain bike that I was not really excited about.

So dropped off old bike the next day to get fixed. Then the next day, I went back to pick it up. I got to talking with super awesome bike shop man MV about the Cannondale possibility and then was comparing them with the Gary Fishers I had liked. Checking out the Gary Fisher site, he stumpled upon this super awesome Gary Fisher HiFi Plus 29r in a SM.

You know that thing they say about love at first site...it was kind of like that! Needless to say, the bike was ordered on the spot on Thursday and just a few short days later, it had arrived! (More cartwheels!)

Now this bike is full suspension which is not what I was expecting but that was even an added bonus in my book! Oh my new Girlfriend is beautiful! Everything on it is sooo much better...forks, shifters, derailers, brakes...I could go on forever. I took it home last night and was rolling down the steps in my yard, going over anything I could find like it was nothing with that suspension! OH I LOVE IT! The only sad thing is that I have this sweet new bike and am not doing the Mohican 100K mountain bike this year. Nonethless, I will make up for it!

So I guess tonight it is time to hit the mountain bike trail! The husband brought me to work today so he could pick me up and we could head straight from work to the trail...YIPPPEEE! I can't wait to take this to Mohican to ride at the CTC training camp April 16-18, then down to AL when we are down there April 30-May 7 (I see Racoon Mountain in Chatanooga in my future...maybe a day trip to ride in Nashville??), then out to the Allegrippis Trails over memorial day weekend & the weekend of June 12, and ride it July 11 at Xterra One and to RIDE IT ALL THE TIME...You get the idea!

Gimme more Sunshine!

 

This last week was just a whirlwind and I felt like the tasmanian devil just running around spinning in circles like crazy with a million things going on!

Monday was action packed with AM Masters Swim, work, dropping off taxes, meeting to discuss CTC triathlon training camp.

Tuesday, worked, ran 14 miles, and went to the bike shop hoping to buy a new mountain bike. Sadly, so many of the bikes I wanted appeared to be sold out. I left the shop with some prices and a lot to think about!

Wednesday, worked, got in another 2000 m in the pool and then headed off to Rays Indoor Mtn Bike Park to pick up the bicycles. I was going to convert my old mtn bike back from single speed to gearing and ride it one more year since I did not want to get something I was not sure about. I also took the husband's bike to the shop for some service.

Thursday, worked in the morning and then got out and enjoyed some gorgeous weather and rode 45.3 miles. Oh, it felt so nice outside! Managed a nice farmers tan that day in the bike jersey! Then for Day 3 in a row, I returned to the bike shop to pick up our finished mountain bikes just in time to ....

..take the bikes out to Medina's Reagan Park for Mountain biking fun Friday! Then a quick shower and we were off to motorcycle ride for the remainder of the day! (NOW IF THAT IS NOT A GOOD DAY?)

Saturday, included a ez 4.3 mil run with HS Newbie runner friends, a 43.75 m bike ride followed by a 2.9 mile race pace run. The wind was rather brutal the last 10 miles but nonetheless, finished feeling pretty strong. It felt good to lay down on the picnic table after that, stretch out, and chug my FE Ultragen recovery drink. Then I rushed out of there to grab a PBJ, sort the mountain of laundry, run to the store and speed clean the house before the 6:30 BBQ! Oh I was happy to finally shower and plop my butt down in the deck chair and crack open a Yuengling! It was a nice low key night with both my husband's family and my family including my favorite little nieces!

Sunday, I was up again for more cycling fun! I rode another hilly 46.5 miles with the Cleveland Touring Club boys before hopping into my car. No sooner had I got on the road, then my my sister called and wanted some running company. I had a bit of time and was still in my sweaty clothes, so what the heck! I must indulge her new running interest! We ran an easy 6 miles and she had her best run yet! I am so proud of her! Then off to Easter dinner at the in-laws!

It was such a busy fun week!

All this and there were still some more highlights including...

THURSDAY MY TRAKKERS TEAM KIT CAME IN AND IT IS SUPER AWESOME! Even broke it in Saturday properly!
THURSDAY I found my long lost swimming suit hiding in my car!
THURSDAY, after giving up new mountain bike hope, MV at BA found me a close out super bad arse mountain bike which was just up my alley! Guess who is picking up a new mountain bike today...pics to come! SOOOOO EXCITED!

Totals for the week-
SWIM: 5600 Meters
BIKE: 143.55
RUN: 22.1

Why I love my Honda Fit

 

38 MPG, good price point and holds all my stuff like here! Groceries, lots o bags of crap, 2 mountain bikes and a road bike!