Traveling man Marty is in Orlando today and tomorrow. He’s going to hit the downtown Y track workout tonight – I sure do miss that group. So once again Tassie and I are holding down the fort (I did have a nice dinner with my sis tonight). She is getting way fluffy again and I think it might be time for one last summertime shave. It’s always interesting to see because around this time of fluff we always think, ‘Good Tassie! You’re filling out!” She’s always been a bit scrawny. Then we shave her and we realize she’s still scrawny. We’ll have to see if this is still the case.
Training is going good – my run is really starting to come around I think! It’ll be interesting to see how I feel in my upcoming races – only 3 sprints left and I’d like to hit all of them hard.
And of course the Olympics are on and I do love watching pretty much any sport. Recently, my friend Laurie let me know that an Olympic swimmer was going to be on What Not To Wear (thanks Laurie) so of course I made sure to watch. It was breaststroker Tara Kirk and I’ve been expecting to see her in some of the races but just saw today that she actually finished .01 out of a qualifying spot at the trials in the 100 meters. BUMMER! But it gets worse…the winner was Jessica Hardy who tested positive for a banned substance! There’s a bit of controversy because it seems the committee knew about the positive test before the deadline of entries for the Olympics but failed to do anything about it. So Tara didn’t get bumped up or anything and is not at the Olympics. I just assumed that when the doper was caught they automatically reverted to next in line. Instead, the qualifier for the 200 meter breaststroke will also swim the 100 meter, even though she finished FOURTH at the trials. Jessica Hardy (the doper) also qualified in the 50 meter freestyle and the 3rd place finisher is also being left out of the games. It just seems so incredibly unfair. The episode with her in it was good, though.
Marty was gone this weekend but I managed to keep myself pretty busy. I got in a nice bike ride, a good long(ish) run and saw The Dark Night with friends. I've also managed to watch A LOT of Olympics and if last night was any indication, I'm going to be staying up way past my normal bedtime over the next couple of weeks.
I've also realized we really need a doggie door. Tassie loves being outside and is constantly giving us the puppy dog eyes so we'll open the door for her to let her out. Then she goes and tries to hunt squirrels and bunnies. When she gets tired, she lounges in the dirt which is great since she's a white dog. Anyways, she's discovered that with just one distinctive bark, Marty will run down the stairs and let her in. I was the recipient of this bark all weekend - it's different than her bark when someone rings the doorbell and sounds more like, "LET ME IN NOW!!! HEY!! RIGHT NOW!!" I swear she can be so bossy. Little princess!
ONE Cheesecake Brownie is excellent. I bought a pint on Sunday and finished it off just a minute ago. It's one of their new flavors and I give it two thumbs up. It's even good after your husband accidentally puts it away in the fridge because you were too lazy to get off the couch and you don't find out until the next morning when you ask him what the heck he was thinking and put it back in the freezer which later makes the remaining ice cream refreeze into one big frozen hunk. Still yummm.
I definitely don’t have to worry about my Look pedals being a part of the recall because the ones I Have could be anywhere from 10-20+ years old. When I first started doing triathlons again after college, I used a 1990 Trek that was on consignment at one of the local bike shops in Florida (this was 2002, so the bike was a bit old by this point). It came with the Look pedals that I’m still using today, and I’m not sure exactly when they were put on this bike. Maybe when the person got it, maybe later, or possibly even before. Now that I think about it, I think Marty has my pedals on his tri bike and I have his, but his aren’t much newer than mine.
I’m not sore anymore from the triathlon – that thing really tired me out for a few days. Next races on tap are: possibly the sportsplex sprint in Hillsborough since OSB Multisport sponsors this series. Then the Sandman in Virginia Beach, and hopefully the Wilmington Sprint. We got shut out of registration in June and will hopefully get on the waitlist early enough to get into the race. Other than that I’m not sure what we’re doing.
Yikes, sometimes my posts sure are boring! Come back again when I'm not so tired and uncreative.
Actually I can’t, but I do like the Flobots. But what I CAN do is change out my cassette! And obviously since I’m blogging about it I’m very excited about this. See, if you have race wheels, it’s good to put your cassette on your race wheels because your chain and cassette wear together. Some people keep a different cassette on their race wheels, but this can sometimes lead to shifting problems (chain skipping, etc). Marty has always changed out my cassette before races, even though he doesn’t really like bike type work. I know some guys love this stuff, but not him. But he loves me so he will do this for me with minimal grumbling ;) A few years ago he said, “Look Bri, you really should learn how to do this yourself. It’s simple, you take this chain whip (me: what the heck type of tool is that?) and you wrap it around your cassette, put the wheel between your legs, put this key in here, take a wrench…"(me: lalalalalalalalala) I claimed girly ignorance and never had to do it myself.
Enter a few weeks ago my good friend Alysia who recently bought some race wheels off of Stacey. Alysia wanted to learn how to do this so Marty held an impromptu cassette changing 101 for us. I figured if she was going to learn than I should too. Especially since she was learning at our house – I mean what was I going to do, claim girliness again and watch tv? We both watched Marty and it still seemed a bit confusing but I had seen it done several times now even though I never admitted to watching before. Last Friday Alysia came over again with her bike and race wheels and planned on changing out her cassette while Marty watched. She did it with little problem and then Marty said, “Bri, do you want to try?” I immediately answered no, but then decided I might as well step it up. And like my 3 year old niece would say, “I did it!” And just to be sure, I took my cassette back off yesterday morning before our ride and got it back on my regular wheel before Marty even came downstairs. I wonder what I should learn next.
We left Friday afternoon to make the 4 hour drive to Asheville, picked up our race packet and then had a nice dinner at the Asheville Pizza & Brewing Company before hitting the sack pretty early.
We thought we were going to get to the site nice and early, arriving before 6am but most people seemed to beat us there! We had to park kind of far away and then it seemed like there was just not enough time to do everything I wanted to. There was a lot of confusion - okay, probably I was just confused - about the 1st transition which had to be moved to the swim exit. In years past, the swim start was a good 1/2 mile away from the transition area. The swim is in a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and the course ends taking you down the river, under a bridge and right to the entrance of T1. But this year that river was pretty much just a rock bed so the swim finish would be the same as the start. They decided to have an extra transition area there so everyone could put their shoes on to run to the next transition area. We would be running on a rocky dirt road for at least a 1/2 mile, and although I did see some people do this barefoot, that was out of the question for me. So my confusion mostly dealt with what shoes to wear, do I put on my socks in this new transition or the one with my bike? Do I take my wetsuit off and leave it there (are we allowed to do that?) or do I run with it in my hands? Or do I run with it still half on? AAUUGGHH! During all these questions I met Ashley Long who must've thought I was a weirdo because I don't think I was all there right then. Luckily, we were able to talk after the race, too. I feel like I've known her for a long time and that we've been friends for years - it was great to hang out with her even if it was just for a little while. I'm hoping to go and visit her in Greenville sometime in the not so distant future.
I got all my questions taken care of (wear racing shoes, no socks and leave wetsuit) but didn't have any chance to warmup. Oh well. I really didn't have ANY expectations for this race. I didn't know the competition except for my teammates and had no idea how I was going to hold up over this distance. BUT I was so looking forward to racing and competing and having fun.
My wave was the 4th to go off (women 34 & under, the first women's wave) and my goal was to try and stay on Alysia's feet for as long as possible. I felt good at the start and got behind her but lost her quickly as we started weaving through the male age groupers ahead of us. The small buoys were hard to spot and I think I went a bit wide going out to the first turn buoy, but that always seems to happen. By the time I got out the water my lats were very sore so I knew I had put in a good effort. This swim was definitely not short. Swim 22:48, 6th overall.
I saw Alysia still in transition and got my wetsuit off and shoes quicker so started the first run ahead of her. I tried to run this little portion fast because I knew it might be a good chance to save some time. I finally got to my bike and my heart rate was sky high! It slowed while I put my socks on and by the time I got to the mount line I was ready to go. T1 5:48, 2nd overall.
This bike is not super hard, but I also wouldn't call it easy - it has some rolling hills, and one hill that you go down at the beginning and then back up at the end that is worthy of you getting out of the saddle. I remember getting to the 5 mile marker and thinking, "5 miles?! That's it?!" But I soon got into a rhythm and felt good. There were about 5 or so guys that I kept going back and forth with, which probably helped me overall with my bike split. I passed a few girls out there and figured I must be near the front because I thought I had a pretty good swim. Towards the turn around which was a series of turns through a little town, it started to get crowded. There was one part where we did a hard left followed by a hard right and the guy in front of me must've taken the second turn a little too aggressively because he slid out. I panicked a bit and tried to get out of his way, but me getting out of his way actually put me directly on the path that he was sliding. Now I realize if I had just held my line and turned like normal I would've been in the clear, but instead I was heading right towards him. I slammed on my brakes and unclipped a foot to drag it. He was still attached to his bike on the ground. I felt like I was in a movie where someone is lying on the street and a big truck is heading right towards them - the truck brakes and your sitting there waiting to see if it will stop in time before it hits the person. I was the truck in this scenario. I managed to stop with just a minor bump into him with my front wheel. My back wheel had come off the ground because I had braked so hard but I stayed up. After a few quick breaths I asked if he was all right and he said yes. Then I turned around and saw the girl I had just passed a few minutes ago getting up off the ground. I don't know if she took the turn too hard or if she also panicked when the guy in front of me went down. I asked if she was all right and she looked pretty shaken up but also said yes. Luckily, there were a few volunteers at this corner. I went off and tried to get back into a good cadence and hoped I didn't lose too much time. The rest of the ride was uneventful after that :) I came off first for my wave, so I was the first women off the bike. Bike 1:06:16, 4th overall. This bike had to have been short of 40K.
T2 was quick, and I saw that one of the girls I had passed around halfway was not far behind at all. She had a huge cheering section out there. T2 :39, 2nd overall.
Here comes the run! This run is mostly shaded and the temps were very nice. It's net uphill to the turn around (and obviously net downhill coming back). I started off very conservatively. I think I've run 6 miles since starting back running several weeks ago, but I'm really not sure since I always go by time. And I've had plenty of meltdowns in an Olympic distance when I am in shape, so I really just wanted to enjoy this run.
I stayed relaxed and kept going after all the guys ahead of me. I hit the turn around and on my way back I saw the girl who was right behind me out of transition was still pretty much right behind me. I decided I felt decent so picked it up a bit. I cheered for Ashley and Alysia who also weren't too far behind. Right before I saw Alysia I saw this lady who was running at supersonic speed. My first thought was, geez I hope she's a relay! But Alysia yelled to me that she was from the other wave and I better get my butt moving! The other wave started 8 minutes behind us and this person was well within that time frame. Now I decided I would try and just cross the finish line first because she was certainly slaughtering the rest of us. I found out later that she is a super stud duathlete - and her swim isn't bad at all so she's a stud triathlete now, too. I tried to push the last few miles but the lack of much intensity so far definitely caught up with me. The last 1/2 mile was tough, but I did manage to cross the line first (2nd overall). 3rd place was just 20 seconds back and 4th was another 10 seconds behind her. It turned out to be quite a close race! Run 42:51, 7th overall.
I'm very pleased and a bit surprised I was able to finish so high. Mediocre is not the right word, but I wasn't GREAT at anything: 6th on the swim, 4th on the bike and 7th on the run somehow got me to 2nd overall, but I'll take it. I was very sore after the race, and still today but I'm feeling better. Marty and I did an easy ride this morning and I think that will help. I highly recommend this race to everyone next year - hopefully the water levels will be back to normal by then!
I thought Marty was taking a picture of me getting my award but he took a video instead, if you want to watch. Nothing very interesting or funny to be quite honest, just your run of the mill getting the award scene.
Just a quick update - I survived! And even finished 2nd overall! It WAS a beautiful venue for a triathlon, even with the low lake levels made for an additional run. I also came about as close as ever to crashing on the bike, but I managed to stay upright (the guy ahead of me and the girl behind me weren't as lucky). And yes I BEAT MARTY!!! Not as fun since we weren't in the same wave - I would've much preferred catching him on the run and giving him a big slap on the butt ;) Anyways, I'll put way too many details about the race in my race report tomorrow, but for now I'm going to go relax on the couch in front of the tv.
