Santa Fe Half Century

What a weekend!  Had so much fun and was so happy I had a friend to share in the moment with me, even with bad jokes and all! :-)  I packed my stuff the night before to be ready to be picked up in the morning and kept feeling like I was forgetting something but that could just be because I'm use to having to pack for 3 sports not just 1.  This was going to be my first bike only event (not including the fun ride I did with my son last Halloween).  I was a little bit nervous and not even sure why I wasn't even entered in the timed one (they don't allow aero bars on the timed events and after the very involved bike fit I had I wasn't about to mess with those).  I had been having some dizzy spells on previous rides so maybe that's why I was nervous but I knew this ride would be well supported if anything happened and I had a ride home so no worries there.  Morning of I was desperate to get my usual "buenos dias" call in to my son and for him to wish me well.  I finally got a hold of him as I was standing in the port a potty line just minutes before the start.  He was more excited to hear about me having to chase Lexi, our dog, down the middle of the street that morning than he was about the fact that mom was doing race :-)  But for some reason out of all the things I do or have done cycling feels like one of the more dangerous things I do only because of potential run ins with cars.  Ever since I had my son I am usually chanting to myself as I ride, please don't hit me, please don't hit me.  And after coming across a bike/car accident one day I went straight to get a will and all that done for my son.  So for some reason I just always want to tell him I love him before every ride or race.

photo bombed!

We started about 15 minutes after the rest of the group but there were other stragglers too.  After making it through town I was much more relaxed.  I'm not use to riding in groups of people so once I got on the open road I felt much better!  Then my chain fell off which is frustrating because that seems to happen on my bike a lot more than it should.  It's really the only complaint I have about my pretty bike but it's a big one.  After that there were no hitches.  There were nice rolling hills for most of it.  We stopped at one food stop where I had a PB&J which is the only fuel I had on the ride and I had drank a full bottle of Accelerade and about half of a bottle of water and felt pretty good.  There was a Popsicle stop that provided my already loopy riding partner with some pretty cheesy jokes that I got to hear over and over, but hey if it made people laugh as we passed by and gave them a little boost who am I to complain!! :-)  Thankfully only dizzy spells I had were about the last 5 miles of the ride and it passed quickly soon after I was done with the ride.  Stayed after to eat some lunch and chat it up with fellow riders.  The last 15 miles of the ride had some pretty decent climbing but my legs felt surprisingly fresh after I was done.  Total ride time was about 3:19 but that doesn't include our time for stopping for food and mechanical issues.  Lots of friendly riders and the wind was not bad.  I could feel it at the end as we got closer to noon but nothing that I couldn't handle.

Lastly as we were loading up our car these two women rode up to a nearby car and were congratulating each other and so happy with each other that they had just completed their first 50 mile ride.  They said whatever you do don't stop moving, keep going!! They told us they were 65 and 68 and were so happy to have done that ride.  They said eat healthy, exercise and stay happy!  They had so much energy, gratitude and camaraderie that it was contagious and made us smile!  Keep it up!  You inspire me to keep going!

Fun day to end the weekend.  Then I went with my son to go get him a real bike so he wouldn't have to get frustrated with spinning out on his old plastic trike.  He was very happy riding around the neighborhood and my guess is the training wheels won't be on there for too long!  I'm going to need to focus on the good and I'm happy I have training to keep me positive and up beat and in great shape to keep up with my son.  This morning I received an email with some heartbreaking news of a small personal battle I'm going to have to deal with in the upcoming months.  All I hope for is the best outcome possible no matter what it may be.  I hope my son comes out the winner and most of all that he will always know his mom loves him more than anything in the world!  I hope to have plenty of bike rides with him to come!  He's already revving to go for the bike ride I promised him this afternoon after school/work.  To new and old training buddies!

Happy Training! 

Rio Grande Retro Tri Race Report

Ok so this one is a hard one to write and I'm still not sure how I feel about it all.  I know I will walk away with lessons learned but right now it still stings! 

First the days leading up to it with winter storm warnings and temps in the low to mid 30s I spent most of my time convincing myself and my friends that we could do it!  It was just a sprint and if they didn't cancel the race and it was safe enough to race we could all endure the poor weather conditions together.  I packed an extra plastic bag to keep as much as I could dry in transition.  This was a reverse tri which meant the swim was in the pool and last.  I didn't however realize it was an outdoor pool until I showed up to the race which gave some of my friends quite the laugh.  :-)

Morning of in my head it actually felt warmer than I had anticipated.  The one good thing about the fact that I always build things up in my head to be WAY worse than they really are is that when I show up for something no matter how bad it is I am usually pleasantly surprised because I had prepared myself for way worse. 

Run went well I was cheering everyone on that I could and finally could feel my hands and feet around 1.5 miles.  I had one girl running right behind me pacing herself with me and it turns out it was her first triathlon which was exciting to cheer her on.  I passed one of my friends who yelled keep it up Natasha you have like 5 women ahead of you.  I said yeah and one on my butt! :-)  I was joking of course with her and she said she wanted to stay next to me because I was such a good cheerleader and it kept her going.  That made me so happy to hear!  I also didn't mind because once I warmed up a little I may have slowed down if I didn't know she was right behind me.

It was so exciting to see so many of my friends out there and all with their own stories, like first race post baby, racing even though afraid they might drown, another raced her heart out and placed over all F for her first time, other people having overcome things such as heart disease to still be out there, one making her comeback after a major foot surgery and racing as a team with a super supportive hubby.  I could keep going and going!  You are all my heroes and keep me inspired!  How couldn't I spend the whole race cheering and high fiving??!!  The bike was slick with the wet roads so the first loop was kind of slow for me but the second loop I had a talk with myself and was like you already know what to expect and you didn't fall so go for it!

Then came the swim.  This is where it gets ugly for me.  I jumped in and my legs were on fire and stinging so bad.  I guess I hadn't worn enough layers on the bike and I didn't have enough circulation going to my legs as it hurt and they were red and swollen when I got out.  It was down and back in each lane then under.  Which I thought I did!!!  I heard my friends cheering for me but somehow I supposedly didn't hear an official trying to tell me I had skipped a whole lane??!?!!!!  That's what they are claiming led to my disqualification!  So while this makes me so sad because I swear I thought I did the whole course and there were so many people in the pool I was following and so many people cheering that would have told me if I had skipped and my times make sense with everyone around me, I'll just have to live with my first DQ EVER!  My first D of any sort EVER!  Until this race I had never had a DQ, DNF, DNS none of the Ds I tell you!  I may not be the fastest but a quitter or a cheater I am not.  So I will learn to live with this result and I will now be so super cautious on the course moving forward.  They actually gave finisher's medals for this one even though it was just a sprint, I think that's weird but ok, but now I have to throw this one away.  The trick is how the heck do I tell my son that I need it back!  He thinks all my medals are his because I told him I earn them for him.  I might have to let him keep it but I really don't want that reminder around the house.  :-)

In the end I was proud of myself and everyone else for getting out there and toughing it out and I still had a lot of fun with all my friends.  I am so lucky to be a part of this sport and we Tri for those who can't and I will keep at it!

Happy Training!

Snot Rocket Queen

People sometimes like to focus on the negative aspects of getting older but one of my favorite aspects of getting older is you just stop giving a you know what about what other people think.  I already grew up pretty immune to being embarrassed because my mom always valued being yourself no matter how unique that was and lived by this therefore always marching to the beat of her own drum.  I learned pretty quickly that I better stop caring too or I was going to have a very tumultuous life! :-)

Finally after being sick for a few days I started to feel better on Sunday.  I decided to take advantage and go out for a ride!  However, this meant I was SNOTTY but I just didn't care.  Sure it was gross for me and perhaps anyone who might have unsuspectingly ridden up behind me but who cares I was free and out enjoying a glorious spring day!  I was so proud of myself for what I thought was a perfect snot rocket because I didn't feel any blowback and it didn't land anywhere on my handlebars until I opened my hand and ewwww it was all in between my fingers, but hey that's what jerseys are for right wiping!?!  The other fun part of being sick at the same time your son is sick is that you don't get to care about what is happening to you, you just pull up your britches and you take care of your sick child.  Which meant instead of getting rest I was taking him to the Dr. and working from home to make up lost hours.  This also meant that once I got him to bed I was going straight to bed too instead of you know doing stuff like taking care of my personal hygiene.  It was too warm to get away with leggings so I went in bike shorts and showed off my wonderful hairy legs!  Again don't care! ;-)  For half a second I thought they'll just think I'm a guy, oh but wait, in this sport guys shave their legs too.  I'll just have to ride so fast that my legs will be a blur and no one will notice!  Go!  Ok then there was the fact that I couldn't remember the last time I had washed my hair!  I thought to myself well that's an easy one you'll have a helmet on to cover that up!  There's nothing stopping me from this ride!  Note to self: just don't take your helmet off at any point in the ride and try to whip it around a la sexy librarian or it will just stick to one side of your face.  Easy enough.  So I was fully enjoying this ride. 

Then about mile 10 just as I was about to hit the super fun downhill I noticed I could feel the road a lot more than I normally can.  I stopped and sure enough I had a flat rear tire!  New fancy bike I realized I hadn't changed a flat on this one yet!!  I tried to remove the wheel and felt like the brakes were stopping me.  The brakes on this one don't have a quick release and are in a different spot.  So I assumed I needed an allen wrench to release them which I didn't have.  Sadly I called my dad to pick me up all the while I could hear my son in the background yelling "where are you mom?"  Turns out he got the wheel off no problem I was just too scared to hurt my fancy new bike. Ahhh!!  Well it turns out I wouldn't have been able to remove the extension on the bike valve without pliers so I didn't feel so bad and add to the list of things I now need to carry.  Also turns out there was something wrong with the tire and/or tube.  Because it kept bulging out about to pinch the tube.  So long story short I didn't get to finish my ride which is ok since I was still recovering.  But one thing I do care about is not knowing how to fix my own bike!  I will make sure I can handle this on my own next time. 

But now I also am a little closer to my decision of if I "need" a road bike in addition to my tri bike.  Because some days you just need to ride on something you aren't afraid to beat up!  And one can never have enough bikes right?!?!!!   Who's with me?

Happy Training!

Lobo Tri Recap/Lessons Learned

So the first tri of the season came and went with all the anticipation and nerves I was so happy I did it even though I knew I was in no shape what so ever to do this.  I had been in the pool 2x and on the bike 2x prior to this and had no business being out there.  But guess what I did it anyway!  And I'm glad I did.  There were a lot of friendly faces out there cheering for us.  Knowing a lot of people in this community can be both comforting and terrifying at the same time.  It was so awesome hearing them cheer for me and uplifting when I needed it most!  But I also knew I had let myself get more out of shape this winter than I ever have and I was letting it all hang out!!! Ahhhh  after I let the adrenaline and burning lungs take over I quickly stopped caring about what I might or mi

My lucky socks...

ght not look like in my tri suit.  Or that after the bike there was snot in places I never thought there would be!  Considering all this I was only 1 minute slower than last year which isn't bad considering how out of shape I am and that last year I was in the process of training for a HIM in May. 

The weather was nice, warmer than last year, took the arm warmers off half way through the run.  The course is always fun and I love seeing everyone out there.  It's a reverse tri but in this case with wave starts and a nice big olympic pool to swim in it was pretty easy going.  Sorry for the person I kicked in the gut when trying to push off the wall, really I'm so sorry did not see you there.  I thought for half a second of turning around to apologize but quickly changed my mind because I knew they would already be going and not hear me, it's just hard to fight the instinct.  The biggest surprise for me here was my run.  I had been only running and lifting all winter and had improved my 5k times to somewhere around 24 mins. breaking that once even.  So I was really surprised to see that my 5k time was the exact same it had been for this race the last two years prior 26 and change.  My bike I feel like I took it too easy on myself I could have pushed myself a lot harder.  I'm still not use to the new wheels my father got me and on the last downhill before the turn around was holding on for dear life scared to death of the crosswinds.  As the guy yelled at me to slow down for the turn around I was thinking I'm TRYING!!  Then of course the swim killed me as it always does for this one.  My arms were not working at ALL so I kept yelling at myself to kick damn it, if your arms aren't working then kick!

So here it is by the numbers: AG 4/10 OA F 20/72 OA 67/161
R 26:34 T1 1:10 Bike 45:36 T2 :51 S 10:11

After the race I met a friend for a nice flat 22 miles.  I'm glad she put up with me and my tired legs because I need some more training!  The problem is my training has been all or nothing.  Not on purpose.  It's just usually life either gets in the way and I go several days during the week not doing anything or I have some extra free time because it's not my sons night/day with me so I try to fully exhaust myself to not think about it by filling it up with training hence a workout after a race.  But one thing I really want to do for myself and my training is find a masters swim class that might actually fit into my schedule two times a week.  I feel I would see huge improvements if I did this.  I think the bike will come along since I have a training buddy for that every Sunday and she doesn't let me take it easy on myself!!  My running I guess I just need to incorporate some speed work.

HAPPY TRAINING!!!

Shamrock Shuffle 2017

Somehow this brutal course has become one of my favorite races to run not sure why perhaps I like the torture challenge!  St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorite holidays to celebrate, not sure why maybe because my favorite color is green but instead of drinking green beer to celebrate like in college now I go run a race.  Before the race I decided I actually wanted to set a time goal, ahhh scary I never do this I feel like I just set myself up for failure, but I wanted to keep challenging myself.  For some reason lately I've been able to push my own limits and I keep hitting times I didn't think were possible.  The weird part is I'm the heaviest I've been in a long time!  I'm talking like since I was pregnant I've never been this heavy.  I don't even know how it happened.  It really snuck up on me this off season.  I only noticed now that I'm trying to get ready for tri season.  I went back to look at my time from last year and couldn't find it so I looked up my time from the year before which was 59 min.  So I decided I wanted to try for 9 min. miles which would have put me around 56 mins.  Turns out I had decided to switch from the 10k to the 10 miler last year last minute and that's why I couldn't find my time.  It's crazy to me that I do enough running/tris that I forget what and how many races I've done each year!

So going into it I thought I was confident since I've been running faster lately. But then the day before I went skiing with my son in Santa Fe for the last hoorah of the season.  We actually went to the top for the first time but that meant I was super tired by the end of the day.  My

legs were super soar and I wore compression socks that night to try and help.  I was also very dehydrated and had a horrible headache.  Not to mention my hamstring on my left leg has been yelling at me every time I run for the last two weeks and it was grumbling again on race day.  So race morning I decided I'd go ahead and run in my compression socks and just hope for the best!  I mean at leas they fit the theme, rainbow and all.  :-)  I still wanted to go for it.  I ended up with a time of 57:20 which I was super happy with even though I fell a little short of my 9 min/mi goal I know I left it all out there.  One friend even said well you looked like you had skied all day yesterday! Yes, I was tired but I really pushed myself.  Somehow this time was good enough to get me 2nd AG this year.

My son did the 1k again and this was the first year he seemed to know what was going on and was excited for it!  It helped that he had some friends out there with him.  This time the crowd and the start horn didn't scare him and he took off as fast as he could.  We hit the little hill and he started walking and wanted to quit.  But then I reminded him that if he crossed the finish line he'd get a shiny medal.  So he kept going.  He did the whole thing and I didn't have to carry him at all like in past years.  I was super proud of him and we both left with medals! ;-)  Hopefully a family tradition we can continue for years to come.  It was great seeing friends and a beautiful day for a race and to have hills for breakfast!