Going into Quassy, I knew it was going to be hilly…and I questioned whether I was ready for hills and I was dying to know….just how hilly was it?  I’ve done a few hilly races, Vineman 70.3 and Wildflower Long Course and Big Kahuna up in Santa Cruz, and i’ve managed to hold my own, not being zippy fast, but other than Wildflower, the other races didn’t leave me feeling like I was dying :).  So, as long as it wasn’t as hilly as Wildflower, I would be ok.

So..how did it all go? Like this:

As I stated in my previous post, I didn’t have the easiest time in getting to the race/getting set up and all that jazz, if it weren’t for my amazing Trakkers family, I probably would’ve thrown in the towel, but thankfully they were all helpful and able to lend a hand in making sure Soren was entertained while I got my bike’s rear wheel in gear (long story) and got all set!!

After an awesome dinner with my team, I headed to the hotel to check in….at 9:00 p.m. :).  For the first time in my life I actually requested help with my bags…Soren isn’t much help in that department just yet, so the front desk guy helped us get into our room and I put Soren to bed, he crashed like i’ve never seen. Thank God….I needed to get my stuff together for…

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Categories: Triathlons

There wasn’t any crazy training for this race, more like consistent runs a few treadmill speed workouts and I actually ran off the spin bike thinking a “brick” workout may actually help train me for some fatigue in the race.  The gory details: my longest run was 9 miles (once), but, I also ran 6-7 miles a few days a week.  The spin classes i’ve been going to have my heart rate hovering around 168-170 for the entire class, so I felt confident on race day that even though my training hasn’t been all “running” specific, I had been working my body hard in different ways and I just had to hope like hell it would all come together.  And by some graceful force: It did :)

I had an awesome race.  My goal for the race was to really try to “race” it.  I’ve never really done that, most of my half marathons were either too flat to really “count” (think Silver Strand out on Coronado, CA, terrific course, super flat, but not all that realistic in terms of terrain for most half marathons).  I wanted to see how hard I could push myself in a half marathon.  Starting out feeling good, let my lungs settle (hoping that my asthma didn’t kick in!) and see what would happen.

I was also sort of desperate to get some speed back.  Since having Soren it just hasn’t been there and granted,…

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Categories: Triathlons

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about dedication and drive and what motivates people to do what they do.  Whether it’s their career or their activities, but what makes people “good” at what they pursue.  I’m not talking about scores or rankings or how people finish in a race or how high they score on a test, but more-so, their perceived “worth” in what they do and if they feel they’re successful, how do people define themselves as “good.”

My parents recently came to stay with Soren while Dave and I went to Spain and we were talking about how I got into triathlon and how way back in the day when I was a high school tennis player, I hated practicing.  In all honesty, I was a good tennis player, I was really good.  Was I great, probably not, but I was good.  I was ranked in the state of Virginia and I practiced, but half-halfheartedly.  Finally, my junior year, my dad or my parents rather, were “done,” I was the last of their three girls and my dad had grown a bit tired of me wanting to travel and signing up to work with good coaches, when I didn’t want to practice. In my own mind, I was good and I was happy just going out and banging the ball around, winning matches here and there, but practicing, eh, I just basically wanted to walk out on the…

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Categories: Triathlons

I know everyone wants to hear how hard i’ve been training and to some extent when I “train,” I DO train hard….it just has been a bit far and few between.  My running is pretty consistent, my spin classes are consistent, my swimming-not so much and here is the honest to goodness truth.  I haven’t ridden my bike outside since VINEMAN 70.3 last July.

I love my bike, I mean, seriously love it….it’s fast, it has 650 wheels so I feel with every push I get more than one rotation in my wheels (is that even a technical bike term??), it’s sleek, i’m proud to own it and I absolutely love riding it.  My issue:  lack of knowledge of the Boston area of a place I can ride that A: won’t kill my tires/wheels as the roads here do to my car B: knowledge of a place I can ride in general, C: time in general to get in a good ride.  In San Diego, my time was limited, but I knew exactly where to go to fit in some quick rides.  Time is moving quickly and I have GOT to get my little Kestrel out and moving!!!

This weekend’s goal is to get in a long swim and a ride somewhere, I got some good recommendations although one of them included riding up Beacon Street and then heading over to heartbreak hill (from Boston Marathon) and i’m thinking…

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Categories: Triathlons

In all the races i’ve ever done, i’ve only ever had to DNF one race.  It was the 2007 Lifetime Fitness Triathlon in Minneapolis.  I had qualified for the race by racing at the elite level at the LA Triathlon in 2006.  I qualified for the race in September of 2006 and raced the following July, 2007.  What happened?  I listened to a bunch of crazy people who managed to convince me that during an olympic distance race it was better to DNF then to carry a spare tube/air to fix a flat.  Guess what? For the first time *ever* in a race, not only did I crash my bike, but once I picked myself up, I flatted.  Twice.  The first patch (stolen, er, um, borrowed from a spectator-cyclist who was dumbfounded that I had nothing to repair a flat with) he was very nice though, fixed my flat and sent me on my way.  Another mile down the road, I flatted again. At mile 21 on the bike.  AND, I also for the first time decided to race sockless, because you know, who wants to take 15 seconds to put on their socks.  So, running barefoot for five miles pushing my bike to finish the bike portion just seemed absurd to me.  So, I DNF’d.  After a year of waiting to race, flying to Minneapolis alone/knowing no one/assembling my own bike etc.  Lesson learned:  it is ALWAYS more important…

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Categories: Triathlons

I get this question every once in a while, people kind of shake their heads and wave their fingers at me and say “triathlon, ridiculous….you’re crazy.”  Well, I agree, I think I am crazy….but not really for doing triathlon, but for a host of other reasons :).

I will say that yes, I do think doing the Ironman distance races require a dose of insanity, mostly because really, your life becomes about Ironman. No doubt.  I suppose I could be someone who wakes up at 4:00 a.m. and rides the trainer, or goes to the gym and runs on the treadmill and during Soren’s nap, i’d ride the trainer and after Soren goes to bed, head to the pool. I *could* do this and I know people that do, but right now, that all sounds just very…very….tiring.  So, what I decided to do when my kids are “little” is race the shorter stuff, meaning, maybe two workouts a day during “peak” training, but definitely not three.  And yes, i’ve done three workouts a day……and yeah, I feel a little insane for writing that, but then again, someone once asked, “how do you do an Ironman”.  That’s how.  2-3 workouts a day….about 15-20 hours, maybe more a week.

So, how does one do all this.  Not just “eating well” and, not even really sleeping because when you’re training that much, you’re jittery at night. Yeah, you’d think you’d sleep well, but…

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Categories: Nutrition, Product Reviews

When I got pregnant and I kept up running until I was 28 weeks, I knew that I would have my work cut out for me after Soren was born.  It wasn’t really a big deal, I had been slow before and I could be slow again, but I knew I could get back to where I was prior to his arrival.

It made me slightly discouraged though because many people would say “I’m SO much faster now that i’ve had kids, I got my speed back and then some in no time.”   I waited the requisite 6 weeks post delivery to attempt running.  “Running” meant “running” a quarter of mile and walking the rest of the three miles.  I think I was…

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Categories: Triathlons

Thank you all for your thoughts on the cochlear implant! I’m pretty excited, i’ll blog more about it when I have some more details—one thing I wanted to answer was that the “homework” i’ll have refers to: after they turn the implant “on” which is about 4 weeks after the surgery, I have to sort of re-learn to hear–which probably means not wearing my hearing aid in my left ear, since the implant will be in my right ear (my ear that is worse off)….so, it’ll involve a lot of patience and I think they give you tapes to listen to, i’m not quite sure just yet!

Ah, training, well, the last week has been a no-go as far as training, Soren had what I thought was a teething runny nose, which turned into a full-on cold, then a fever followed by several misses by doctors and finally we ended up with cold/wheezing and ear infection..poor guy. He’s truly a good sport—we have to do breathing treatments for him for his wheezing and he finally got some antibiotics for his ear infection, so we are on the mend.

Just in time literally for us to fly to Colorado tomorrow.  The month of February is ridiculous for Dave, just one of those really bad months in terms of hours, most days he leaves the house at 5:30 and gets home either just before Soren goes to bed or more than likely…

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Categories: Triathlons

I have a lot of decisions to make these days, one of which has absolutely nothing to do with triathlon but everything to do with me being able to hear better.  I’m contemplating (actually i’ve already decided) to go ahead and have a cochlear implant surgery. I won’t go into too many details on what exactly it is, it would take a while :), but here is a link explaining the surgery: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/ImplantsandProsthetics/CochlearImplants/ucm062823.htm

My older sister and my cousin both have cochlear implants and both have had tremendous success, so, why am I dragging my feet?  Laziness, wondering if i’ll be patient enough to do the “homework” required after the surgery, and wondering if it will really work for me (I’m doing it in my “bad” ear-they’re both “bad” but my right ear is the worse of the two). My goal is to have the surgery while we’re here in Boston because they have an amazing Eye/Ear clinic here and Dave randomly worked with a surgeon who performs these surgeries on both children and adults and he was able to receive some good feedback from the doctor about the MA Eye/Ear Infirmary.  Anyway….so, i’m contemplating doing the surgery in March—I have a few things I need to look into as far as coverage etc.  My reasons for doing the surgery:  overall, just better quality of hearing, the ability to mountain bike, surf, scuba dive and other super active activities that…

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Categories: Triathlons

I have a lot of decisions to make these days, one of which has absolutely nothing to do with triathlon but everything to do with me being able to hear better.  I’m contemplating (actually i’ve already decided) to go ahead and have a cochlear implant surgery. I won’t go into too many details on what exactly it is, it would take a while :), but here is a link explaining the surgery: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/ImplantsandProsthetics/CochlearImplants/ucm062823.htm

My older sister and my cousin both have cochlear implants and both have had tremendous success, so, why am I dragging my feet?  Laziness, wondering if i’ll be patient enough to do the “homework” required after the surgery, and wondering if it will really work for me (I’m doing it in my “bad” ear-they’re both “bad” but my right ear is the worse of the two). My goal is to have the surgery while we’re here in Boston because they have an amazing Eye/Ear clinic here and Dave randomly worked with a surgeon who performs these surgeries on both children and adults and he was able to receive some good feedback from the doctor about the MA Eye/Ear Infirmary.  Anyway….so, i’m contemplating doing the surgery in March—I have a few things I need to look into as far as coverage etc.  My reasons for doing the surgery:  overall, just better quality of hearing, the ability to mountain bike, surf, scuba dive and other super active activities that…

(read more)

Categories: Uncategorized