Happy New Year!!!

New Year, continued madness!  And as most of you, I have been looking forward to kicking off the new year right, but then I ended up sick as a dog.  So the story goes as such....

Holiday madness- Ran around like chicken with head cut off trying to see everyone with very little time off work and still trying to get in the training.

Wednesday, scooted out of the office for my FTP test on the bike with the help of DM.  I was not sure what to expect as I have been slacking on the bike in the offseason to focus more on running.  The FTP test deserves a post of its own but in a nutshell it was a 20 min warmup, some 1 min on, 1 min recovery pickups and then 5 minutes all out, 10 min recovery, 20 minutes hard to grueling finale and then 10 minutes of catching my breath.  I was happy to have a significantly better showing than last year, albeit not anywhere close to the boys in terms of wattage but a very respectable watts / kg ratio compared to them.  Improvement makes me happy!

After the test I continued to cough into the night, chalking it up to a hard effort, but felt slightly cruddy on Thursday through my run intervals and subsequent swim.  Ran around hitting the stores the rest of the day on Thursday enjoying the day off with the husband.  Friday, I hit the door early for another holiday run with Southeast Running Club.  The temps were in the upper 40's (HEATWAVE) and we had a large showing, most everyone in shorts!  Wooot!  It was another one of those super fabulous runs when I ran with longtime running gals, CV and LP and while I planned to run 8 min miles, we pretty easily clipped along shooting the breeze to finish the very rolling 13.2 with a 7:32 pace.  Then it was off to another super yummy breakfast at Club President's FD's pad.  THANK YOU SUE & FRANK!

The day seemed to fly by.  Lots of stuff to prepare for Cleveland Tri Club (CTC) Polar Bear Plunge, made some meatballs for the PJ Party NYE and the whole time I kept thinking, I know it is only a matter of time at this point.  We headed to a PJ party NYE with some other CTC friends....good times, good games, good food and fun!  I crashed out a little early around 12:30AM, probably due in part to the beers and feeling just plain exhausted!

Saturday, I awoke without much of a voice and a hardcore sore throat but tried to suck it up for a few more hours.  After a kick but breakfast thanks to the Joliffs we were off the the polar plunge.  Huge props to fellow board members MD and KB who spent the prior day breaking ice.

"Remember, we're triathletes, damn it!  We improvise, adapt, overcome! - Durno (pictured)

You see this was the 8th year for the polar bear plunge.  It was the first year CTC bought Tshirts to commemorate the event AND it was the first year it has been so COLD that Lake Erie beaches were all ICED OVER.  Yes, the polar plunge would be on if they had to make the hole themselves!

It was a HUGE turnout!

Probably 300 people and over 200 plungers!

All in all, it seemed to go off well and people enjoyed the balmy temps that we actually enjoyed on New Years Day.  My day was a bit hectic as we were running a bit behind schedule and I was hustling to get everyone signed in, tshirts sold and just try to hold down the fort.  

Afterwards the gang warmed up at Panini's in Westlake.  It was hard to believe just how many people were at the bar by 1 on New Years Day.  After feeling worse and worse we opted out on the after party we meant to hit and I crashed on the couch.  I did manage to watch the fabulous footage New Channel 5 and Fox 8 airred on the event.  SUPER AWESOME and I even heard it made national news!  Yeah for Cleveland Polar Bears!

But ever since I have been just kicked and knocked down and have not been able to get moving.  I have not worked out since Friday.  I left work early Monday.  Today is the first day I think I will try to do something tonight.  The sinus pressure that seriously made it hard to keep my eyes open has finally left and I cannot wait to get back to it!  It will probably take a few more days to get rid of the annoying funk so I will take it easy and then I can spend the rest of the New Year Making up for this false start!

Happy New Year to all of you and looking forward to sharing 2011 with you!