Victory Lap

Well, the race was outstanding. The day before the race, Nate and I got up early and drove around the whole island, like a mini-vacation. Then we got Kim and the two of us (with Nate as our trusty driver) scoped out the whole bike course. After we finished, we swam a little out from the race swim start to see what it would feel like. After a few inspirational words and big plates of pasta, we turned in for the night so that we would be fresh to catch the 4:30am shuttle the next morning.

We arrived early and got body marked. As I was hydrating and trying to get focused, I realized that my race packet didn't include my race number. Yikes! Panic just before the race! Fortunately, I found out that the race numbers are mostly just for the "photo finish," and because I was properly registered and had my smart-chipped ankle band on, I was just fine to race so long as I was comfortable knowing that I wouldn't be offered an overpriced package of professional photos of myself offered to me after finishing. Indeed, I was just fine.

The swim began at Waikiki Beach. It was a half mile out, and half mile back. The water was ridiculously warm. It was at least 80 degrees. I wish I had gone faster during the swim--I know I could have...well, okay, it was my first triathlon and I really wanted to make sure I had enough energy to do the whole thing--but after training in the freezing Bay, I felt like I was on vacation in that darn island water!

The transition to the bike was fast. I just crammed some shot bloks in my mouth and threw on my shoes, socks, and helmet. We biked from Waikiki Beach to Pearl Harbor. The road was closed to cars, so it was totally safe. It was also totally flat. Again, training in San Francisco was to my advantage. There were a bunch of TNTers from Florida in the race, and I passed just about all of them both on the up and the down sides of the only "hill" in the race (it was a freeway overpass). Go TNT SF!

I was more tired than I expected transitioning to the dreaded final piece: the run. By this time, it was past 9:00am and the sun was out in full force. The run was an out-and-back 1.5 miles in each direction; hence, we did the loop twice to reach 6 miles. We just beat this flat track back and forth in the sun. Gaaa. I was tired. I didn't have any negative thoughts whatsoever until the final half mile, when I was getting really tired and hot and the negativity started creeping into my brain. To counter it, I thought about how proud I was of myself, of everyone who supported my throughout my training and fundraising, and mostly, how proud I am of Jessica for being a great mom to Jaden no matter what obstacles life hands her. I also thought of how proud I was of Kim, as I kept passing her and seeing her smiling the whole way. She looked so happy and healthy. What a terrific experience!

Here is a link to the photos Nate took all weekend.


Thanks, Nate!

Au Revoir, ma Biciclette!

I dropped by bike off for shipping. I am officially tapering my workdout. I have my mantras. I have my tri suit. I have my race day nutrition. I have my fundraising completed. I have one week until the big day. I am ready to rock.

Global Climate Change Attacks San Francisco!

It was in the 80s all weekend...how apocalyptic is that? Nate says it's just May. Maybe he's right. Most of my team was racing this weekend at Wildflower. Go Team! I know you all rocked that course! You are superstars! I, however, have a couple more weeks until showtime.

I trained on my own this week and weekend. In the middle of the week I fell while running for the first time, well, ever! It did not feel very good (no surprises there...) I cut and bruised my hand and knee in several places. Oops. I won't go into the "how" and "why" details.

On sunnier fronts, I took an amazing ride all over the city on Saturday. Starting from home, I rode out Cesar Chavez down to the water and then along the Embarcadero all the way to Crissy Field and the GG Bridge. I went up through Fort Mason and Seacliff to the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Then I cut in toward GG Park and paralled the park up past USF and Alamo Square. I came down through the Western Addition and Hayes Valley, through the Castro, into the Mission and then took Valencia back home. It rocked! So today, I did it again (I think it was abot 22 miles) but this time I packed my wetsuit and swam at Aquatic Park. I still have both my legs and the water was actually a little warmer today than last time.

Tomorrow is the day of rest. Sweet, sweet rest.

A Farewell to Blue Hair

Well, the blue hair enjoyed a two-week stint atop my head. At the end of the second week, I was starting to look like a little old lady due to the fade factor, so I had a colored back to its regularly scheduled blonde hue. Sigh.

On Thursday we had an inspirational sports psychologist guest speaker to get us mentally prepared for our races. Many aspects of this lecture were valuable, one of the most important ideas I came away with is that I need to have one mantra each for swimming, biking, and running that I can use when (note: not IF, but WHEN) I am fatigued and want to give up during each leg of the race. I spent a lot of time this week figuring out what my mantras would be, and fortunately, I came up with all three.

Yesterday was my first foray into the mighty (and mighty brisk!) waters of San Francisco's very own Aquatic Park. Wow! That is some cold water. I am SO GLAD I bought the wetsuit bonnet, but I wish I had something to cover my hands and feet with! After the first ten minutes, they went numb, but then after about thirty minutes they started to cramp. That was when I tried out my swimming mantra, which worked like a charm. In the spirit of this blog's rating, I can't reveal the whole mantra, but I will give a clue. It's from a Snoop Dogg song, and it starts with "G's up." I will say no more, but if you know it, you know why it's a good swimming mantra. Here I am after a successful dip in the Bay...don't I look delighted?



We ran from A(quatic) P(ark) to the S(ports) B(asement) afterwards and it was surprisingly enjoyable!

The Wildflower race is next weekend (haha, camping for those folks...Hyatt Honolulu for me!) so our bike today was nothing major. We rode 25 miles down in San Mateo. The day started off blustery but ended up being a sunburn day. Rats. It was a beautiful out-and-back to Woodside. All in all, I've gotta say it was a good day.

Spaghetti Legs

We are in peak training right now. Things have gone way beyond eleven, so to speak. On Saturday we swam a mile at Redwood HS and then ran eight more. Luckily, the weather was cool and calm. It rained later that day.

Today, we biked forty-two miles, again beginning at RWHS. I was pretty much KO'd at the turnaround point, at twenty-one miles. Hahaha. It was really a beautiful day to be out riding for four hours. What a long bike ride! Doing twenty-five miles on race day will seem like a stroll in the park. When I got home all I could think about was food, glorious food! Indeed, I didn't care what it looked like. Three banquets a day, my favorite diet. Ok, ok, I'll stop.

What an Amazing Week!

Here are some photos in backwards chronological order: 1. Wow! It's really raining! 2. Looks pretty overcast... 3. Starting to cloud up. 4. I see some blue sky! 5. Here is my blueberry head.





Wow! Where to begin with this week! First off, I met my fundraising goal, which feels great! Really awesome! True to my word, I let my donor students vote on which color I would dye my hair and the winner was...blue! Yikes! I'm Smurfette...for a couple of weeks. Even the worst hair day has got to be better than the best hair day on chemo.

On Wednesday night we ran the Alcatraz run course. It was rather strenuous, to put it mildly. At one point, climbing up off the beach, I realized I had actually ceased running and was walking. And was it ever some agonizing walking! I felt like I was climbing out of the depths of hell. Every step was laborious but I knew it was putting me closer to being off the climb. Those people who signed up for the Alcatraz tri are hard core!

On Saturday it was very rainy, windy, and cold. We had a practice tri on Treasure Island. It was my first open water swim, and I was fully prepared to have a freak-out, which I had. Temperature-wise, the swimming was the best part because compared to the wind and rain, getting in the ocean was no big deal. I had a lot of trouble putting my face in at first because it was cold and disorienting. When I finally did, I just couldn't swim regularly. About a third of the way in, I relaxed and got my regular rhythm. Go me!

The biking basically sucked because we had to do a zillion flat loops in our wet tri suits in the wind and rain. Gaaaa. The running was a little better once it got underway. It felt really weird at first to be running with numb feet. I felt like I was running on two leg stumps or maybe two brick feet until they un-numbed (I hesitate to say they every "warmed up") and then I was able to feel that, yes, they were in fact still soaking wet.

Yay! I did a triathlon! I bet it will be a lot more fun in Hawaii.

So far this blog has been rated PG but the name of the workout we did today will probably bump it into the PG-13 category. We did a bike-run-bike in Fairfax called the Alpine Asskicker. Within the first short mile, said anatomical region was duly and truly kicked, and there were still 15 miles of biking and 40 minutes of running to go. Fortunately, the vistas were breathtaking (hint hint we were in major hill territory) and the weather was awesome! Nike was surely watching over us from Mount Olympus today. I forgive him for all that cruddy weather yesterday.

Well, I'm beat. Go Team!

Live Free or Die!

I was a member of the Keene Family YMCA all week and what a week it was. I was swimming in a yards pool rather than a meters pool so I overcompensated and got my mileage up near two miles! Yes! I also ran for 90 minutes one day (in the snow, might I add. Might I also add that everything was done in the snow...) which is my longest run to date. Not sure of the mileage on that one. I did the stationary bike at the Y, which was not ideal, but it will make me all the more appreciative of my own bike when I pick it up tomorrow from its head-to-toe (or is that handle bars-to-back tire?) service at Palo Alto Bikes.

Letter from the Eastern Seaboard

The TNT SF team is training this weekend at the Wildflower course but I am visiting my sister in New Hampshire. I am fully prepared to do OYO training all week, and to accomplish this, I had to bring an extra suitcase (albeit a small one) full of gear. Nate was appalled that I would travel for one week and need two suitcases. However the other thing taking up so much space besides the gear was a bunch of student work I brought to grade. My plane was delayed several hours out of Denver and I had plenty of time to grade as well as lugluglug that work around. It's shaping up to be a good week for training out here.

Grrrl Power!

I changed my own bike tire this week! Yes! It was really hard and it took me an hour, but I did it. I think it will be a lot easier next time. I loosened that bad boy up. Saturday was our first open water swim, but I was at an ELL workshop in San Jose instead of having my legs chomped at by great white sharks or rogue sea lions (now THAT really happens...). I went running after the workshop in the old 'hood in Campbell.

Today, Sunday, I did a swim/bike set on my own, as per the captain's orders. I was down in Santa Cruz, so I thought I would swim at UCSC for old time's sake, but the pool was closed for cleaning, so I swam at Simpkin's.

Now, I haven't been to Simpkin's in years, so I got a little lost on my bike on the way there. Fortunately, a kindly young man riding a motor scooter and wearing a really frightening skull mask gave me directions. Take that, all you conservative adults who judge teens on their looks!

I got to Simpkin's in no time after that and had a great one-mile swim. Then I rode all the way to Davenport on my bike, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty miles. It was the inagural ride for the new tri suit. Riding your bike for two hours with a wet bathing suit on really does feel just about how you'd imagine it. At first it's really wet, then it's only kinda wet, then it's just overly moist, and by that time, you're all sweaty from the bike so who really knows where the wetness is coming from anymore! As Derek Zoolander would say, "Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty." And as Martha Stewart, everybody's favorite triathlete would say, "It's a good thing!"

I found the perfect prom dress!

Intense weekend!

On Friday, I swam 1.5 miles: a new personal best! On Saturday we trained again at Redwood High School in Larkspur. The weather was beautiful. I got really, really lost on the bike ride, but luckily I wasn't alone. Next time I will leave a trail of Clif bar crumbs back to the starting point.

After the workout, I bought my tri suit. I opted for the two-piece kind. The one piece kind looked like a using-the-bathroom nightmare. Enough said. Apparently, exactly what you wear for a triathlon is largely a matter of personal choice. Are you doing the tri for speed or comfort? Somewhere in between? Just want to finish? I decided to go with swimsuit/wetsuit combo for the swimming portion, then throw the tri shorts and top on over the swimsuit for the biking and running portions. Thinking this through so carefully may seem neurotic, but even if I achieve a personal best on race day, I would be spending a minimum of 4.5 hours wearing this getup...so it'd better fit like a glove.

Today, Sunday, we had our first "themed" workout. The theme was the '80s, and though it pains me to admit it, I didn't have to purchase anything new or used whatsoever. For this special occasion I wore pink leggings, an airbrushed off-the-shoulder t-shirt, black legwarmers, large hoop earrings, and plenty of red lipstick and purple eyeshadow. Everyone was truly impressed with how fresh my makeup still looked at the end of eight miles.

Watch Out, Sharks...Here I Come!

A variety of my body parts are feeling GREAT right now. These good-feeling body parts include my eyelashes, fingernails, teeth, and most of the other body parts that don't have any joints or muscles in them.

This weekend's workout was SUPER because Mr. Golden Sun was shining the whole time. However, it was also rather strenuous. Saturday's workout was in Novato. We swam a little over a mile and then biked thirty-five miles. The views on the ride were breathtaking, as were the hills, meaning they took my breath (pant, pant, pant).

This morning, I "sprung ahead" and did a sixty-five minute run in Golden Gate park. My eyelashes, etc. definitely felt better than my knees at the end of this little jaunt. Next week will be a similar set of workouts, and then the following weekend we take the plunge into the mighty open waters of the San Francisco Bay.

I have exactly two weeks to overcome my irrational fear of great white sharks chomp-chomp-CHOMPING my little kicking legs to smithereens. These sharks do not live in Santa Cruz, let me assure you. I very much enjoyed swimming in the ocean when I lived there. Naturally, they live in San Francisco because they guard Alcatraz, which is precisely the area in which we will be swimming in the forseeable future. Keep your hands and feet inside the wetsuits at all times, everyone.

The Very Tired Caterpillar

What a week! On Tuesday I did an 1800 meter swim, but I was still hungry. On Wednesday I did a 4 mile sprint set, but I was still hungry. On Thursday I did a 15 mile bike ride, but I was still hungry. On Friday I did a 1500 meter swim, but I was still hungry. On Saturday I did a 1600 meter swim and then a 5 mile run, but I was still hungry. On Sunday I did a 27 mile bike ride and when I finished I was not hungry any more. I had become the very tired caterpillar.

Thar she blows!

Yet another day at sea...which is to say that today's bike/swim workout was once again in the rain. YES! Does the fun ever...start? JKJK. We swam about a mile and biked about 25 miles up in Novato. Also, Nate showed me how to post photos. Just imagine this photo of Flipper was in my last post.

Over and out.

Look Out, Flipper!

On Tuesday I swam more than a mile for the first time! Yes! OK, ok, it was only 1800 meters and it was in the swimming pool, not open water, but still! Maybe I couldn't beat Flipper in a swim relay yet (as in, "I haven't seen 'Evil Dead 2' yet"), but I bet I could annhilate him in an arm wrestling contest.

I took last weekend off to visit Bend, Oregon, so this weekend's swim and bike combo should be a wakeup call. Bring it on!

Dites "Fromage!"

I can't figure out how to post photos! Rats! I promise to post some as soon as Nate and I have some free time in common...I hope that happens before Honolulu!

I Think There's a Leak in My Swimmies!

When I started the day on Saturday, I already knew the definition of the verb, "to chafe," and the definition of the adjective, "waterlogged." However, by the end of Saturday's workout, I had learned what these two highly descriptive words mean. Our workout began in Larkspur at Redwood High School at 9am. The warmest part of the workout came first: swimming. We swam about 3/4 mile in the outdoor pool, then had 15 minutes to change (no time to dry your hair, but really no reason to, either...) before we got on our bikes. I rode 14 miles in the rain, which was at times a sprinkle and at times a downpour. Afterwards, I put on my less wet shirt, and got in the car to leave. I thought I felt terrible, but the more I thought about it, I realized I felt terriffic.

Does This Daisy Basket Match My Streamers?

This morning was the first official TNT SF Tri Team workout. I arrived at the Presidio Sports Basement parking lot at 8am and stood in the February air waiting to get my bike safety-checked and quickly turning into a mini iceberg. We took a short ride out to the Golden Gate Bridge and my little icicle fingers never warmed up. Clink! Clink! Everytime I shifted gears, I hoped those little iciles wouldn't snap off...let the season begin!