Mmmm, there are certain sweet nothings my husband whispers to me that send shivers rippling down my spine and cause a bloom of sweat to form over my skin. The line, You know our half Ironman is in less the 16 weeks wasn't necessarily sending the kind of shivers I like following a sweet nothing being whispered. But it is the truth, we have less then 16 weeks to prepare ourselves for this race.
My husband is ready I think. He goes out on his hellaciously long bike rides with his fellow spandexed buddies. He typically rides for 40 plus miles. Me, I have been hopping on the trainer and riding for an hour and a half. I might be covering 24-25 miles. Then I follow it up with a half hour or so run right now. I need to get myself back into the pool. I know I can swim a mile, I need to add a quarter of a mile to that. Those words sent me into such a panic, I keep telling myself I cannot miss a day of training. Today I did core work and yoga to build my muscles to be up to this task. Not nearly enough, not nearly enough training. Where am I going to find the time, how is everything in my life going to get done?
I keep thinking to myself, why did I agree to this? Why? I mean it's one thing to think you can do a sprint triathlon, heck that's nothing really, you're done in around an hour and how many minutes. A Half Marathon, shoot that's nothing more then a training run anymore. A full marathon, I want to make that a yearly event in my life. An Olympic distance triathlon, yeah, I can do those too. Not nearly as scary as I had feared, but now we are talking about a race with Iron in the title. We're not talking about something where you're going to see a tremendous cross section of weights and abilities. We are talking about something that you can qualify for Kona with. The mother of all triathlons, the holy grail for Pete's Sake!!! Ugh, what am I doing??? I have only done one Oly to Brad's ten thousand!
Maybe, while the sweet nothings I like were being whispered and I started to shiver, my husband threw in the "Let's do a Half Bits" (his nickname for me but that is a blog for another day) And in my delirium from those whispers I like, I choked out an exasperated yes I'll do it, sending shivers down my husband's spine and the bloom of sweat across his skin because those are the sweet nothings he likes to hear....
Friday, December 26, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Bear Creek and the Magic Bus
There are some things you do and you wonder why. This morning, when my husband woke me up before six so we could go freeze our heinies off and trail run for 10 miles, I questioned the wisdom behind my Yes to this race.
Let's rewind a week, I went trail running as practice for the race. We got invited by the people we were doing the race with. I was having a fabulous time. The run was great until mile 6 or so. I tripped and broke my fall with my face. I still have the remnants of a black eye as the reminder of it. But I have to say, the people we ran with were just wonderful and I enjoyed the run even with my face plant, swollen side of my face and subsequent black eye. I still have bruises down my thigh as well.
Anyway, fast forward until today. We all met at Primrose School. One of the people we were going to the race with said we could all ride on the magic Primrose School little bus because she owns that Primrose School. There was a flurry of pre-race emails from all of the people we met because each of us volunteered to bring something. Jay brought bagels and bananas, Erik brought this yummy Irish bread, John brought coffee from Starbucks, and I brought an Italian smooshed sandwich for us to eat afterward.
We got to Bear Creek State Park a half hour before the race started. The ride there was sooo much fun, we ate, drank and joked around. I have to admit I was pretty nervous, Jim made the comment about falling three times last year and my stomach lurched. It snowed last night, so the ground was all covered with white, it was so pretty. We parked, got out of the bus after a bit and decided to hit the loo. There were three porta potties for the 150 runners. The lines moved quickly, I got in one, sat down and the thing tilted backwards. It reminded me of a scene from Jackass. I was scared the thing was going to flip and got out in a hurry. I got out and did a quick warm up with Brad. We came back from the warm up and lined up.
The race started and it was a herd of people running along this narrow trail. We were all clumped together save the really fast people up front. Brad was towards the front with Erik, who is the fastest trail runner I have ever seen, Jay, a man who has this obsession with bananas, Jim and John. Deb and I lagged back and really decided to take it easy during the race. I chatted with Mike, another Tri Club member for the longest while until he ran ahead, he was in front of me, and chatted with Deb for the rest of the race pretty much. We had the best time. Right off the bat we hit a creek crossing, I was thrilled I made it across without getting my feet wet. It was one of many, and unfortunately my feet did not stay dry. Did I mention it was around 30 degrees?
The herd finally started thinning out and we all fell into our own paces. It was probably the longest ten miles of my life though. We went up and down and up and down and up and down. It was really tough. At one point I got to live a penguin's life. I fell and skidded on my belly like a penguin on the ice. I thankfully didn't get another black eye to match what's left of the one I have, but do have a whole slew of new bruises all over my legs and tummy.
Deb and I were doing great, until we hit this really mushy spot. It got mushier and mushier as the race wore on, and in the muck there was a root or rock, something. I tripped over it and rolled my ankle badly. But it was weird, there was this stabbing pain all the way up to my knee. I had to stop running and try to walk it off a little. It hurt when I walked and figured I would keep running. We had around 5K to finish and I was truly over the race after that. So plod on I did, it was the pits. It hurt particularly to go up hill, so I had to walk a lot of my uphills. I started recognize where I was after awhile so I knew I was close to the end. Holy cow, by the time I finished, my knee was aching so badly I was limping. But finish I did, in 2 hours and 10 minutes. It would have been at least 5 minutes faster if I weren't hobbling the way I was. I still managed to come in fourth in my age group, still managed to get to the buss. Still managed to have a fabulous time on the way home and dole out my smooshed sandwich.
Deb said to me as we walked to the bus, I am never doing that again, and at that time I heartily agreed. Ask me if I am going to run Bear Creek again after my knee stops hurting, I just might, or I just might go along for the ride and the food and the company...
Let's rewind a week, I went trail running as practice for the race. We got invited by the people we were doing the race with. I was having a fabulous time. The run was great until mile 6 or so. I tripped and broke my fall with my face. I still have the remnants of a black eye as the reminder of it. But I have to say, the people we ran with were just wonderful and I enjoyed the run even with my face plant, swollen side of my face and subsequent black eye. I still have bruises down my thigh as well.
Anyway, fast forward until today. We all met at Primrose School. One of the people we were going to the race with said we could all ride on the magic Primrose School little bus because she owns that Primrose School. There was a flurry of pre-race emails from all of the people we met because each of us volunteered to bring something. Jay brought bagels and bananas, Erik brought this yummy Irish bread, John brought coffee from Starbucks, and I brought an Italian smooshed sandwich for us to eat afterward.
We got to Bear Creek State Park a half hour before the race started. The ride there was sooo much fun, we ate, drank and joked around. I have to admit I was pretty nervous, Jim made the comment about falling three times last year and my stomach lurched. It snowed last night, so the ground was all covered with white, it was so pretty. We parked, got out of the bus after a bit and decided to hit the loo. There were three porta potties for the 150 runners. The lines moved quickly, I got in one, sat down and the thing tilted backwards. It reminded me of a scene from Jackass. I was scared the thing was going to flip and got out in a hurry. I got out and did a quick warm up with Brad. We came back from the warm up and lined up.
The race started and it was a herd of people running along this narrow trail. We were all clumped together save the really fast people up front. Brad was towards the front with Erik, who is the fastest trail runner I have ever seen, Jay, a man who has this obsession with bananas, Jim and John. Deb and I lagged back and really decided to take it easy during the race. I chatted with Mike, another Tri Club member for the longest while until he ran ahead, he was in front of me, and chatted with Deb for the rest of the race pretty much. We had the best time. Right off the bat we hit a creek crossing, I was thrilled I made it across without getting my feet wet. It was one of many, and unfortunately my feet did not stay dry. Did I mention it was around 30 degrees?
The herd finally started thinning out and we all fell into our own paces. It was probably the longest ten miles of my life though. We went up and down and up and down and up and down. It was really tough. At one point I got to live a penguin's life. I fell and skidded on my belly like a penguin on the ice. I thankfully didn't get another black eye to match what's left of the one I have, but do have a whole slew of new bruises all over my legs and tummy.
Deb and I were doing great, until we hit this really mushy spot. It got mushier and mushier as the race wore on, and in the muck there was a root or rock, something. I tripped over it and rolled my ankle badly. But it was weird, there was this stabbing pain all the way up to my knee. I had to stop running and try to walk it off a little. It hurt when I walked and figured I would keep running. We had around 5K to finish and I was truly over the race after that. So plod on I did, it was the pits. It hurt particularly to go up hill, so I had to walk a lot of my uphills. I started recognize where I was after awhile so I knew I was close to the end. Holy cow, by the time I finished, my knee was aching so badly I was limping. But finish I did, in 2 hours and 10 minutes. It would have been at least 5 minutes faster if I weren't hobbling the way I was. I still managed to come in fourth in my age group, still managed to get to the buss. Still managed to have a fabulous time on the way home and dole out my smooshed sandwich.
Deb said to me as we walked to the bus, I am never doing that again, and at that time I heartily agreed. Ask me if I am going to run Bear Creek again after my knee stops hurting, I just might, or I just might go along for the ride and the food and the company...
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