My birthday is in August. My second child was born in September. Once, a couple of years back, for my birthday my husband gave me a pair of tri shorts. They were a men’s medium. Have you ever seen a medium build male triathlete? Have you met me? I was 8 months pregnant. you get the picture. sorry.
Shortly after Ellison was born I realized that there are at least 2 things in this world that should never meet. spandex and the postpartum body.
since i am currently a non-working (student) mother of two small children i deal with things like a 15 year old bike and my only, completely functional, ill-fitting, postpartum spandex.
when i get the emails saying “_________ triathlon photos are now available online!” i immediately check them, right after i cringe. they are never what i am expecting.
don’t get me wrong, i feel great. i am pretty sure i look great, to those who matter anyway. somehow though, this reality that i am sure of alludes the tri-photo guy.
that. is why i am posting this photo. i look like the tough ass that i surely must be.
never mind the fact that i am climbing out of the water with all the men from the age group behind me. yes, the same ones who started 5 minutes after me. or was it 10.
oh nevermind.
check it out.
oh boy… my husband sent this to me this weekend.
just to have a good laugh at ourselves.
So I went to the uptown Y yesterday with my wetsuit in tow. I swear, I look at it and feel like it should fit a jockey. No offense to all you little guys out there, but I have big quads and an ample arse so I could not imagine this little wetsuit being pulled up over this body.
Putting my feet in, I knew this was going to be a challenge. I do think it would be kind of funny to have video of me trying to get this thing on with no assistance or slicking up my legs first. So I pulled and pulled and bent and pulled and got it up. Thankfully a woman walked to her locker near mine at just the right time. She asked me if I was doing some type of scuba class. I should have just said something like “no, I just like to wear this in the pool.” but I didn’t. I told her about the triathlon and the need to try out this XS size. I even asked for her help zipping me up!
Now I know how Kathryn felt when she had the issues with her wetsuit at Lake Norman where the neck was too tight. Same with this one, but it’s too late to try to find a different size from a different store!
In other news, my time WITH wetsuit was 10 min. faster than the open water swim at Lake Norma WITHOUT. Crazy.
I love you, my tiny, tight wetsuit!
I was late in the game reserving a wetsuit for the Lake Logan Triathlon tis weekend so I had to get a men’s XS. I sure hope it fits. I am going to try it on tonight and swim in it (i hope). It looks really small. I mean, really small.
This weekend’s workouts were hard. We swam 1500 in the open water of Lake Norman and followed that up with an 8 mile trail run that contained some heavy duty hills towardss the end of the run (and in the blazing sun). We passed this group of little kiddies out on a nature walk and I wondered if any of them asked the adults “What are those people doing?” and wondered if the response went something like, “Oh, they’re just crazy,” or “Someday when you get older (in your 30’s), you may decide you want to be a triathlete and go out and train in the 90 degree heat too!” Good times.
I started getting the dreaded chills towards the end of the run. I lost 1.8 lbs of water(thank you Jen for giving Denise your scale so we could be faced with the numbers!! haha). I’ve never experienced this before, but thankfully my stomach waited until I got home to cramp up! Yay.
So, Lake Logan International Tri is on Saturday. I am looking forward to the gorgeous scenery and the lower temps. My b/f sent me the forecast and it looks like it’s going to be awesome weather!
I’m off to the tri store at lunch to load up on Gu, reserve my wetsuit and maybe get some new shoes to break in tonight and the rest of the week!
I should end on a positive note: I really enjoyed training with Jill and Kathryn this weekend. Jill overcame her fear of the open water! Kathryn and I had a great convo on the bike. This is a big reason I stick with triathlon – it’s been a fertile ground out of which good friendships are grown and developed!
So here we go — Tri 2 Survive Lake Logan style!
This is the first year that i have had cable in my home in 14 years…. for better or worse. Though this month, it is definitely for the better. My entire family has enjoyed the tour de france. Even my 2 year old knows who Land Armstrong is. She, in fact, spotted him on the road yesterday and started cheering from the backseat. “To De France! To De France! Look, Mommy it’s Land Armstrong!” It has been fun and eventful, yesterday in particular.
I celebrated when an unexpected rider broke away to win the difficult mountain stage, first of his career. Rallied when Lance Armstrong showed his strength to catch the breakaway. Which is apparently amazing considering his old, old age of 37 (the announcers’ continue to remind us of this). And watched in horror with everyone who has ever flown down a hill on two wheels as Jens Voigt’s bike seemingly crumpled beneath him.
If you haven’t seen it, you have probably as least heard of it by now. But if not, here is a clip of the accident. It is harrowing enough to frighten even the most daring among us.
Though thankfully for Jens, he will heal and ride again.
For most of us, you tube or the boob tube is as close we will ever get to the Tour De France. But in our hearts, this is our race too. And when someone goes down, we are all bummed.
Here’s to hoping Jens Voigt will be there next year.
This beautiful 4th of July holiday began with a ride around one of my favorite urban loops, Dixie River. It is fabulously traffic (and almost
stoplight) free for such close access to Charlotte. It isn’t a long loop so to get distance a couple of laps suffice for a quick, easy urban spin. This Friday I decided to take 2 instead of 1 like the rest of the group. My first.
I have actually never ridden by myself. I am a stickler for safety. I guess it’s the kid thing. But this week no one else wanted the additional miles save for me, so i added on an extra loop. i figured it would just be an exercise in diligence before i could get my running shoes on.
one of the things i treasure most about cycling is the group rides. time spent in community. i love to find new routes from my friends, learn about their lives, seek God, tell truths. A lot can happen on the open road. silence and secrets, there’s time for both.
running for me has a different draw. i rarely like group runs. the run is for me. it’s mine alone. time to dig out my suitcase and pack it full. take a vacation and drag it all out.
so the solo ride. without my friends, my community? was fabulous. it was kind of like the world’s best run. strong, fast, not too hot, not too hard. i didn’t have to keep up. i just had to keep my HR under control. perfect. easy when you’re alone. surprise, surprise.
i was so excited to find this little jem of solace on my bike. it was liberating. like a new little treasure that i can pull out and rub anytime i want.
will it replace my group rides? not a chance. i still have running for that. but i will, for sure, enjoy a ride or two on my own. after some thought, the group ride was a limiter for me. i never went unless i had a friend or two to join. so vacation, weekdays, weirdo times were run only options for me.
not anymore.
the road is my oyster.
so if you couldn’t tell from my previous post, i didn’t have the best race of my life at Latta. Ready for the excuses? I was sick, tired and sick and tired. after that race i almost wanted to throw in the towel and forget it. but i didn’t. instead, i just kept going and going and going. i drove myself right to the doctor. to be fair, i probably would have ended up there anyway. we all do from time to time. the difference was the relentless action. the fatiguing of my spirit as well as my body. as Jen says, rest days are important. as are rest weeks and even months, when you need them.
as Jen reminded me, I don’t do this for a living. She wisely spoke this to me right after she told me that my smart friend Steph had let herself off the hook from swimming on vacation. Good job. when i think of vacation, lap lanes are not in the picture. this is YOUR life. or mine rather. Enjoy, as much as possible, enjoy.
so, i have been taking it easy. really easy. i may not be as fast as i was, I don’t know. And I don’t care. when i went to do my easy run today, at a pace I haven’t seen in a long time, I felt GREAT. I wanted to sing. I did. On the treadmill in the Y. sorry if you were there. I wanted to update my status everywhere saying, “I LOVE RUNNING!” Oh yeah, this is what it feels like to be alive. “I LOVE THIS!” How could i have forgotten, how? Impossible. Yet, it was only a couple of weeks ago that i dreaded my workout and wanted to kick my bike. geez.
I am going give it rest girl.
oh man… we did a sprint yesterday. did i ever mention that i don’t like to race? well, i don’t. let me clarify.
i really like races, or to not be confusing, events. they are awesome. the motivation, the energy, the accomplishment… it is all part of the experience that keeps bringing all of us back for more.
what i am not so crazy about is the all out push of speed. the very title of what we did yesterday makes me cringe. For any of you who have cycled with me you may disagree, but let me show you my running resume to convince you.
Since beginning my love for exercise (or rather my journey) i have continued to strive for the endurance event. When beginning, the 5k qualified but i soon progressed to the 10k, the half marathon then the marathon. My favorite settled on the half. I have run countless half marathon events and run that distance almost every weekend in between. Just because. I love it.
I feel like the distance separates the hardworkers from the naturals. i feel accomplished here. even if i am not the fastest (which i am not) i still have worked very hard for something that i can be proud of. i feel strong, competent and fit.
when i started triathlon, more of the same. my first event was an international with a half-ironman to follow the next month. save for the fact that i had no idea what i was doing, i just wanted to do it for a long time. that first half Iron was canceled (thank goodness) due to a hurricane.
enter 6 months later. blog start. Half Ironman II. still a newbie. Steph and i start the training. we did the race. it felt great. we were strong, well prepared and raced a good race actually… slow, measured, effective and efficient. my mind started winding up for the next one. woo hoo. I love this!
yesterday, almost one month exactly post White Lake, we raced, yes raced, tri-latta. My first sprint. maybe my last. it was too fast. too cluttered. too short. i am worn out today. what this tells me is that i went too hard for too long when my body is currently adapted to go really long, not quite so hard. apparently i don’t know when to quit or at least slow down. It might have felt worth it if i had you know, won. but alas, i am not fast. so it left me feeling like i had kicked my own ass for nothing. i don’t feel the same way about short distance as i do long. i know, it’s my own problem.
steph calls me an endurance snob.
i prefer to think of myself as speed challenged. I am like the tortoise in the hare story.
slow and steady.
After the race, I found myself kind of lost. Haha. Get it? Found myself lost. Anyhoo. That’s obviously the Sauvignon Blanc making puns.
Kathryn and I lost touch for the 2-3 weeks after the race too. And it felt odd, honestly. You spend 2 days during the week working out with this person and then 2 times on the weekend in addition to that. In the process, a friendship has grown. Then, after the race, the workouts slowed and we got busy with life. We didn’t really see each other or workout together. It just happened.
The good news? This week, we’re back on the path. Last night we did a 4 mile run and then today we did a speed workout at the track. Oh my. Thankfully, we got through it. I am so thankful she joined me because it helped. Those things must be effective. If not, it cannot be worth it. LOL. Anyway, it was fun to have the whole Martin fam out there. The girls cheered us on and her husband, Seth, timed us.
So, a week from Saturday is our next triathlon — Latta. It’s a Sprint distance so it’s going to be SO very different from White Lake. I’m kind of excited to experience the difference. I don’t have lofty goals except it would be really nice to beat my time from SheRox last September.
So that’s the update. Sorry for our blog absence. Life just gets in the way sometimes.
