4 final the to Down

Only one month left until Auburn Tri. The training has been going ok. Knee pain and calf pain have finally subsided a bit, but the loss of training time and intensity caused me to step back and re-evaluate my goals. I decided to officially change to the sprint distance triathlon from the half –ironman in Auburn. It was a hard decision to make, but I just decided that killing myself for one race wasn’t worth it and I was liable to end up more injured. I haven’t done a triathlon in almost 2 years (!) and I think a sprint might be the best way to ease back into Tri Racing.

That being said, the Sprint distance isn’t anything easy—1000k swim in a 55 degree lake; 18 miles on the bike with the first 8 miles being almost straight uphill; and a 7k run on trails. Yeah, I think that’s good for now.

I pre-rode the bike course on Sunday with two (non-tri training) friends. It was great. My split time from Rattlesnake Bar (T1) to Auburn Overlook (near T2) was 37 minutes for 8 miles of 9-14 % grade hills. The first time I rode it, it took nearly 50 minutes to cover the same distance so the time decrease is greeaaaaaaaat!
I rode the rest of the sprint course to Bell Road and back (10 more miles) and my Garmin reported a total time of 1:40. The rest of the course is fairly hilly too.

I am still a “back-of-the-packer” in terms of my riding buddies. Hubby says it is good for me to ride with stronger riders, but I have to admit it is a little discouraging to be huffing and puffing up a hill and watch someone zoom away from you. C’est la vie. I can only keep trying my best and I know from my split times I am getting faster. Just maybe not faster as quickly as everyone else.

Saturday I ran 12 miles in 2:04. It was 78 degrees outside--- beautiful! The calf was still recovering a bit so I did a slower than normal pace. The Parkway half is May 1. I am still secretly hoping to beat 2 hours officially. Shhh don’t tell anyone.

Swimming is of course going well. I have been doing some longer swims even though the sprint is only 1000k. Last weekend I was doing intervals of 300 when an older man swimming in the lane next to me stopped me and asked, “Who taught you your swim technique?” to which I answered, “oh, god is it that bad?”. He laughed and said, “no no! You look very comfortable in the water and your technique is excellent!” I was dumbstruck. Really? After I finished my set and chatted with him and his wife—I was going to let him know about a training group that did open water swim and he said, “well watching your stroke you don’t need that group and from the size of your shoulders, you obviously swim a lot and are very adept at it.” Again. Uhm, WOW! I joked that by the middle of the summer hubby is scared by the size of my back and shoulders and he and his wife laughed.

I have considered doing a trail running series that is on Thursday nights—it looks like so much fun and they have a short 3 mile race option. If I substituted Friday’s morning run for the Thursday ‘race’ I think it would work. I would really like to do it but… coach chad told me that he would ‘advise against it’ since I have a hard speed workout every Wednesday. The Folsom Trail Runners look like they have so much fun though!!!!! Grr!!I

What else? Hmmm… On the personal front, three people I know were either in the hospital or having surgery last week. The worst, was my friend Ms. Tiff who somehow contracted a nasty foot infection after getting a pedicure. Her foot managed to get worse and worse until she was hospitalized for 4 days.



Yeah, I don’t think I will ever get a pedicure again. Seriously.

My grandma is here in USA to attend my cousins wedding. It was so good to see her. I saw her at the reception and she knew who I was right away (her eye sight isn’t so good). No, she didn’t ask about my training…. At least not yet.

Here’s the only pic of me from the wedding.. That shiny glare off my nose is really really awesome.