hopefully I can get back to training

I went for a ride on the IronMan course in CDA on Saturday with Katie, Amanda, and Mitch.  It was their first time out there, so I was their tour guide.  It was my first time out there this year, and it was good to get out there is see what the course was like again.  They have re-paved some of the roads out there which was amazing because those roads use to be pretty crappy.  The ride was going great, I was pushing them along nicely, the scenery was amazing, but about halfway through and this truck passes us on a two lane road, with no oncoming traffic, about 6 inches from me and the rest of my group.  I'm sick of the disrespect bikers get when riding on the road, especially out on the IronMan course.  And of course what would the ride be without the people yelling at you out the windows of their cars and making comments to you.  Anyway we didn't let it take away from out great ride! We finished strong and everyone made it back!  We just did the hills part of the loop and the ride ended up being 30 miles with 833 ft of ascent with most of that within the first 10 miles.

Once again this was a great race!  Just as many people showed up this year as the last, which was great news!
Our swim is done at the pool at our school.  I shared a lane with my friend Sarina, who I knew was just about as fast as I am in the water.  I just tried to stay in front of her the whole time, which worked out great!  I got out of the water first with a time of about 8:40.  From the pool its about a 75 meter jog to the transition area and then about 100 meters to the street from the transition area.  My transition time from the pool out to the street was 1:18 which is way better than last year.  Out on the bike course my bike felt amazing!!  It was a pretty hot day so I decided to drink an electrolyte drink on the bike, but I hadn't been training with it for a couple months...more about this later...after the turn around I finally saw the next person behind me.  He was about 5 minutes behind me at this point.  I had been practicing my tranistions with leaving my shoes on my bike for the couple weeks before the race..and man did that pay off..also thanks to having my elastic speed laces on my shoes..I forgot to hit split on my watch, but I believe my transition time from the mount line to through the "field house", our tranistion area in the middle of an 8 lap track, out the other door was about 30 seconds..here is where that electrolyte drink came into play..my stomach was not used to drinking that drink and it was a little fizzy..about 3/4 out to the turn around I felt it start to come up..and it proceeded to leave my body about 3 times at that point..after that was all gone I felt pretty good and couldn't see anyone behind me so I continued pushing on..grabbed some water at the turn around and started heading back..about back at the 3/4 mark is where I came across the guy behind me in second place in our heat/CLASS I gave him a quick HI5 and was off..about half way back is where I crossed paths with the guy that was winning the whole race..he started 15 minutes after our heat and was already 1/4 way done with the run!!  I will be that fast someday!  I ended up finishing the run really strong once I got to the top of the hill and came across the line at 1:07:01..PR by 1:30 from last year..the first place guy came in at 54:00  2 minutes ahead of the 2nd place guy...crazy..someday..

My new frame finally showed up today, and with no time to spare.  We have a race coming up on Sunday!  My bike shop said he should have both bikes put together by Friday afternoon; I've got my fingers crossed.
This week has been a tapper week in my training since I have a race on Sunday, but today I PR'd my 2.5 mile run time at 16:08.  Yesterday I PR'd my 50 meter swim time at :37 so I'm feeling really good about this weekend!!

Summer classes make it hard to find time for training. 10k this weekend.

Today my friend Stephanie, her sister Melissa, and I decided to take a trip to the lake for my first, their second, open water swim of the year.  The lakes around here stay cold pretty late into the spring and early summer; last year our last snow was in June...Crazy...Suprisingly today the water was not as bad as I expected.  Of course, as always, that first bit of water that comes in through the zipper is a little surprising, but we got used to it quite quick.  We swam out to the middle of the lake, about 1/2 of a mile, stopping every so often to talk about sighting and the water.  On the way back we made the decision to just swim it out, no stops, just to see how it would feel.  It felt great!  I am usually not that great at spotting, but my swimming coach has been having us practing heads up / heads down swimming, and I felt a lot more comfortable with it today.  I didn't seem to track off too much from my spotting point on land.  All-in-all todays swim felt like my best swim of the year so far!!

What a beautiful day that was.  I was feeling pretty nervous about this race as I usually do before any race.  My pacing partner and I were questioning our goal time up until the starting gun fired.  We reached the first mile marker and were slightly confused, as well as others around us, how we had just ran the first mile in 9:55.  We all came to the conclusion that their marker was off....Great...We continued running and were feeling great around the 2 mile mark and the first aid station.  I reached out and grabbed what I thought was water from one of the volunteers, but was suddenly supprised with the taste of HED.  My stomach and HED do not get along.  We got to the 6 mile marker and we were still feeling good!  I looked at my watch and I had set a new PR for a 10k, 48 minutes, and I did it in a half marathon!! Sweet!  As we approached mile 10 I realized that we were on pace for a 1:40 total time; then suddenly I started having horrible stomach cramps and had to start a walk/run routine.  When within a mile of the finish I decided that I really just had to push through the pain and just run out the rest of the race, and beat my time from last year.  My final stats were:
Finsih time 1:53:20
Overall Place 267 / 1187
Age Place 12 / 20
Pace 8:23