Home Again!

I am baaaack!

Feels so good to be home, sleeping in my own bed and doing my normal running route. I got home on Friday and have some training from last week to report, but first want to write about my kick-ass run tonight. I did 10 miles, and boy it has been a while since I've run that far. I felt really relaxed today about getting in these miles and didn't fret when I decided to push off my start to later on in the day. I knew that I wasn't going to bail on this run at all. I was actually looking forward to it. I ended up doing my normal river front route and since there is a festival going on I decided to loop through that area twice, which I normally don't do. I felt like I was cooking and didn't really think too much about time - I'd turned off the auto lap on the Garmin so I wasn't seeing each and every mile pace. I'd look down occasionally and do a little math in my head and was surprised at the pace I was managing to kick out. It was odd because it felt relatively easy and smooth so I just held on and tried to keep it up. I could tell toward the end that my body was hurting a bit, but I really held the pace well and finished 10.02 miles in 1:15:56. That's a 7:34 pace!! My avg HR was 170 bpm. Aside from the first and last half miles I didn't stop at all (those were due to stoplights).

This was a huge confidence boosting run for me and I'm happy it turned out so well. I had some pretty crappy runs in DC and was beginning to think I wasn't in the game anymore. Today's run reversed that thinking and I'm totally excited about the triathlon on Saturday.

Now, back to the future: I got in late on Friday night and woke up early for an open water swim clinic put on by the race organizers in the lake we're swimming for the race. It ended up being a 3+ hour clinic with a wetsuit for free and some lunch for free. We had a local tri stud teach it and it really helped me. We went through sighting, congestion, starts, buoy turns and probably more. It was damn cold out but we toughed it out, despite a lot of downtime soaking in the water listening to the instructions. Our last little test was to do a beach start and sort of mock race down the length of the small swimming area, then run out, run up the steps to a fake transition area and strip out of our wetsuit. I was the first one out of the water! WTF? There were about 20 men and 20 women and I'm still not quite sure how that happened, but I know I went where I was supposed to and didn't cheat dammit. I got up to the fake transition area and they were all like - what? You're out already. So, that was another confidence booster for me to store away until the race.

After the swim we sat around and talked then went for a bike ride on the race course. In total we did about 20 miles in about a 16mph avg. Some of that felt slow but a big part of it I felt like I was going really balls out. There was a cross wind but it was still discouraging. Something weird is happening with my bike but I don't blame that. I am a little bummed that I'm not faster on the bike portion but we'll just have to see what happens on race day. (I also came home to realize my back tire is totally deflated and since I have no idea how to fix that I'll probably recruit someone to help me this week - any taker?) Beyond the bike, I have no clue how I'll perform on the run. My 5ks this year have been in the 21/22 range but what will it be after the swim+ride? No clue. I just hope I don't totally break down and get a lactic acid bitchslap at any point. This race is totally a test for me but I think its going to be fun so I am just going with it.

I have questions and issues on race apparel that I will save for a later post, but to sum it up WTF? Why is everything so tight and gross-looking? Why do I require a size large?

Also for another post is HUGE news in my life. I can't wait to talk about it, but will save for later when I have more time to devote to details.

I've been slowing catching up on everyone else's blogs, so I'm sorry if I don't leave any comments for a while. I'm getting there, but mainly so glad to be home.

Have a great week peeps!