The I Wish Someone Else Filled in for me so I can still love the tavern tri post

Whew, that was a long one. But I needed a long title because only that could do my swim justice. I have been training, really I have, but you wouldn't know it by my performance this weekend. I wanted to be witty and off handed about how it took me 26 minutes in that endless pool called the James River that I had to swim in on Sunday. It was positively demoralizing when I got my results after this brutal excuse for a triathlon. I deluded myself into thinking I did okay after all was said and done. I did run better then my last triathlon, which isn't saying much. I just cannot get into the spirit of my blog and once again poke fun at myself after knowing I tried my absolute hardest and wound up placing where I did. I dunno, it is definitely food for thought. Do I carry on with training and trying or do I shelf everything and just turn away from doing tris for awhile. Just run for the health of it? Bike because I have made friends with a really nice group of people on my Wednesday night ride?

I don't know, I will keep you posted....

My hairy belly after a hairy swim....

No, I don't really have hair on my belly, but I did yesterday after swimming in the James. The Tri Club has had to cancel every open water swim this year so far due to the weather or how the weather effected the James River. Technically speaking, last night should never have happened. The river was 2 feet higher then what it should be for safe swimming, and the current was really something. When we got to the swim site, all I could think is the water is the color of mud. It was silty and mucky. My skin started to crawl imagining having to get in. Then, as we are standing there a log goes floating by. Yes, a log. My husband joked and said it was an alligator, which I guess was his attempt at humor and trying to distract me. He saw the pure, abject terror in my eyes when I saw what the river looked like. Anyway, the nice man leading the swim runs down the rules etc. and tells us to start getting in, which the water was supposed to be 79, I beg to differ. As all of us start making our way down the ramp, into the mushy, soft, squishy, get between your toes silt that winds up going up to your knees before you can push off and start floating and stroking, we are all remarking that we should have had our wetsuits on. It was chilly, but I eventually got used to it. We can't start until everyone is in, and I notice we are all floating down current from the start. We start yelling at every one to hurry up and get in before we float away. They tell us to start and away we go. Grinding away into the current. Dory is singing in my head, Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....I am thinking to my big, bad self, this isn't bad. Look at me go, I am swimming just fine with this current. What were they talking about 22 minutes up into it and just 8 back? This is easy! As I am puffing up with pride like a blow fish, something suddenly sinks itself into my right thigh. I literally jumped up, still in swimming position, mid stroke screaming like a maniac, what got me?? What got me??? It was just my friend Jill, grabbing at my thigh to tell me after 10 minutes of swimming, we got nowhere. I looked at her like she was mentally deficient. I go, "what are you talking about Jill, I have been swimming for 10 minutes now", and then I look over my left shoulder. I am literally maybe 50-75 feet down from where we started. Listen, can you hear that??? That is the sound of my ego, deflating like a rubber raft with a puncture in it.....Okay, what is it they say to do, shorter, choppier strokes, less glide? I must have looked like an old school egg beater, I couldn't have looked like I was doing anything productive....Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....Which I am doing, wham! A floating branch hits me in the head. Not hard, but enough to startle the hell out of me. Okay, face back in, keep going, I get hit by an assortment of things, ginger ale bottles, coke bottles, and then I swim straight into someone. My sighting was pretty poor, I was grinding away, thankfully it was someone I knew. Finally the kayaker next to me said, time to turn around. I did, angled myself 45 degrees into the shore and it took me all of 4 minutes to get back. 4 freakin minutes to the 22 that it took me to go what, 250 meters if I was lucky?? Talk about making you feel like you have no clue what you are doing. I have been working on my swimming for 3 years now, and I felt like I had no freaking clue by the time I got out.

Anyway, when I got home, I felt like I needed a bath big time. I had the creepy crawlies. Now I know why. When I pulled my suit down, I was covered in a mat of brown "stuff". Sort of reminded me of this movie I saw when I was really little and people would get this brown fur and turn into werewolves afterwards, but there I was, looking like the next werewolf from the movie or at the very least I was from the East German's women's swim team. It was really awful. I had it on spots on my back, and truth be told, I couldn't stand the thought of looking any lower then my stomach. I did scrub myself wildly everywhere when I hit the shower, which I had on as hot as I could stand. The stuff coming off me on the shower floor was truly horrific.

I got out of the shower looking like I had crawled out of the lobster pot, but at least the hair was gone. If I had just used the mental brush in the shower to get rid of the memory of how I grew the fur in the first place....

A Disappointing Power Sprint and Surviving the MS 150

Once again, a long time since the blog has been updated. Race season is in full swing and loads of stuff has been happening. After surviving the Rocketts Landing Duathlon, which I was still scarred from, I had the Power Sprint to look forward to. I had been training for it, but for whatever reason on race day things just didn't fall together the way they should have. I had a great swim, but I was held up twice by lap traffic, which once upon a time never bothered me, but this time it did. I know I can swim 300 meters in 6 minutes or better, but I got held up some and finished in 6:30. I have to say the bike leg was the best thing I did. I increased my speed considerably from last year and finished strong. My run was the thing that did me in. It actually took me 30 minutes to run the 5k *gasp*. Now I know I am no Kenyan when it comes to running, but it's a pretty poor state of affairs when turtles blow past you laughing their shells off. I don't know why I was so frickin slow, but there I was, like a car with three flats (which makes me think of that joke about when Pirelli tires go flat, daygo wop wop wop wop...well I went wop wop wop too must be the eye-talian in me). Finally, not too far from the end a guy I used to run with, Fred, started yelling at me I was running like a girl, which used to be a good thing once upon a time, but not so this day. I was running like a girl who forgot how to use her legs. That yell was good to hear though,it was like someone shocked me like that dog in Something About Mary, and I picked up my pace to where it should have been the last 2.5 miles before. I flew through the last part of my run, and finished my race in 1 hour 21 minutes. So disappointing for me, but I finished I guess. Not at all what I had hoped for but it was what it was. Oh to go back to that race, to just motivate myself more. Once again, it would have been enough to finish upright last year, but not so much this year. We did start Marathon Training team the day before too. It probably wasn't the best idea for me to run those 6 miles the day before. I can make a million excuses, the fact remains I was disappointed with my performance. I came in tied for 15th in my age group, out of 44, so I suppose it would have been good last year, but not this year, there's that mantra once again.

I did make mention of the Marathon Training team. I love it so far. My first run was okay, I hadn't been running 10k a lot, so it was good to have to. I am a Navy Team member, Brad started on Navy with me but quickly discovered his fruity side when he realized he was more Cranberry then Navy. He belongs with those rabbity types. I can't say I am with turtles or snails, but I am definitely not hopping along at a Cranberry pace. Anyway, I did get lost this last run. I couldn't figure out where the heck I was supposed to go and well I wound up doing almost 7 miles for a 6 mile run. Did I mention how amazing it is for me to be able to mention these distances like they're no big deal. I often sit back and think, is this really me? Who is this person who can talk about running 6 miles, or 8 like there's really no big thing involved?

I did miss my second Training team training session. I was busy riding the MS 150 with my team. Actually, I was busy chasing down my husband and team mates, they were way faster. I had never ridden farther then 50 miles. To do 150 miles in two days was daunting to say the least. I, and my bottom half, faced this with much trepidation....I didn't relish the thought of having sore girl parts, or heinie. I have to say my cyling shorts, Glide and Chamois Butt'r combination did alright for me. The free Cream Ale at the Williamsburg welcome did alright by me too! I did a majority of my ride by myself, I did hook up at the end of day 1 with this nice guy named George that reminded me of my Uncle John. He took pity on me grinding away by myself. But anyway, I survived the first 75, which was actually a bit longer then that, had a lovely evening dining with our Tri Club friends and I was out by 8:30PM. The next morning my stomach was in knots. I knew how tired I was from the day before and I thought how the heck am I going to do this back? I managed to find a fabulous little group to ride with, and the four of us had one heck of a good time throwing movie quotes out as we suffered along. I thanked God for my Granny ring on two hills, didn't have to walk my bike up any hills, and gained the respect of my riding friends because of how well I powered up the hills. I got to help some one suffering from the heat, draft off our local weatherman, and thank God for every pedal stroke that I could do what I was doing. I finished the second day in 6 hours. I spent 12 hours in the saddle over two days, made some really nifty friends as I rode, laughed a lot the second day, saw some beautiful country and wound up saying I rode 150+ miles in two days time. Not once was I dissatisfied, not once did "but not this year pop in my mind". Don't know if I will ever get faster then 6 hours each way and I don't think I care, not this year anyway.....