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Monday, April 30, 2007

It was a busy weekend. Fun, but busy. Isn't that my typical refrain? In a nutshell: ate at Tokyo Bowl and finished my radio (it worked the first time I turned it on!) on Friday, did a 20 mile bike/3 mile run brick, went to the International Festival and bought a bonsai, and saw the Astros actually win a game on Saturday, and shot photos at a 5K then went bowling and to Outback for Debbie's birthday yesterday.

The longer recap: Saturday's bike/run brick with Buzz, Amy, Jess, Leah, and Darren went well. I averaged about 16.5 mph on the bike and 11:00 miles on the run. It's getting hotter out there, which makes running significantly worse for me, not to mention I hadn't run since the Charlotte Half Marathon. We already had tickets to the Astros game that night, so Jose and I made a day of it by heading downtown early and checking out the International Festival. It was hot, but fun. We basically ate our way through the festival, which also gave us time to check out the art and see the Kung Fu Spectacular. Yesterday's 5K was at Bear Creek Park, a lovely location for running and taking pictures, but I must admit that I might not have so readily agreed to take pictures had I realized how far away the park was. It took me an hour to get there, and since the race started at 7, I had to leave home at 5:30. I need a weekend where I don't have to get up earlier than I do during the week!

I'm already waiting impatiently for Saturday. This weekend I have nothing on the schedule. N-o-t-h-i-n-g.

Work has been slow lately, what with the reading, reading, and more reading. My group lead got my hopes up a week ago when he said that I'd probably be able to work a sim in the next few weeks. Then we looked at the sim schedule and realized that there are only two generic rendezvous sims in the entire month of May. Since the trainee ahead of me is getting close to certification, he gets to work them both. The good news is that if he does well, he needs only three more sims and he'll be out of the training flow and I'll get in the game. The bad news is that if two rendezvous sims per month is all that's going to get scheduled, my certification is going to be slooooow in coming.

I'm impatient. I'm antsy. I'm getting slightly bored. So finding out that I probably won't get my first rendezvous sim until after 117 flies was a big downer.

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays...

Friday, April 27, 2007

Last night I swam intervals for the first time ever. I didn't know how fast to do them, so I pretty much swam all-out. The 100s called for 1:00 rest between each set, and the 200s called for 2:00 rest. I needed all of those minutes to recover, but my splits times were consistent so I don't think I was going too hard to maintain.

8x100 - 1:38, 1:38, 1:40, 1:40, 1:40, 1:39, 1:42, 1:41
2x200 - 3:43, 3:39

I asked the question "how fast should my intervals be" on the BAFT message boards and they told me that if I was very winded at the end of each 100, but was able to recover enough in the 1:00 to do another without slowing down, then I was doing it right. So apparently more or less sprinting is what I needed to do. During each rest period I had to take some deep breaths to get recovered, but I was able to maintain the same pace for each set. My form started to get pretty sloppy at the end though. Next time I'll concentrate on that more.

That's the hardest I've worked in a pool since, well, probably since I was on swim team as a teenager. While preparing for all my triathlons over the years, I never tried to swim particularly fast -- I just tried to swim long. For the Half Ironman, I was much more concerned with distance than with speed, so I swam easy and long.

I wonder if swim intervals make you faster like run intervals do? I guess I'll find out.

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Last night I soldered all the components for the pre-amp onto my aircraft radio receiver. It was very fun. I like soldering. :)

Thursday, April 26, 2007

It's been one of those days. I have nothing to do but reading. As important as the Ku-band system is to the space shuttle and to rendezvous, it's not exactly holding my attention this afternoon.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

I just spilled my coffee all over my keyboard and desk. The scent of Almond Joy Decaf is overwhelming. I spent 4.5 years down the hall without ever spilling anything on my desk. Now I've spilled coke and coffee on my new desk within a month of each other. Hmm.

The New York Times had an article today about the dwindling numbers of private pilots, especially young pilots. (There's always been a lack of women pilots.) I've been surrounded by pilot talk lately, with both Jose and Jen taking lessons, and many people have asked when I'm going to start. The honest answer is that I don't know. Maybe some day. Maybe never. I have passing interest in learning to fly, but at this point I'm not interested enough to invest the time and money. Maybe the article is right, maybe general aviation hasn't been "exciting" or "new" enough for me. But I like flying, and I love that Jose is flying because it makes him so, so happy. I would never think of being a wife or girlfriend like those mentioned in the article -- someone who would tell him not to fly because it's too expensive, or because I need him at home. Why would I tell him to stop doing something that he loves?

Sadly, though, I think that's why a lot of people do stop flying. In my division alone here at work, there are at least 12-15 people with pilot licenses. That in itself isn't a surprise, since we're all aviation and space buffs on some level. But of all those people (all men, except for Becca and Jen), there are only 3 or 4 who actively fly today. Most of them used to fly, but stopped when they got married, or had kids, citing the risk.

It's weird. I know flying is a risk, and that one day Jose might go flying and something might happen. But what in life isn't a little risky? He probably has a better chance of dying in his car than he does in that plane.

Anyway.

Despite the weather clearing up beautifully, I still rode on the bike trainer yesterday. It was just one of those days. I got home, and didn't want to leave. So I compromised. It has been too long since I rode my bike, as I found out by the discomfort I felt in certain areas. Anyway, I rode for an hour and watched two episodes of Scrubs while doing it.

As I rode, cramped into the only available space in my living room, I looked around my apartment and thought about how nice it could be to live in my own house. I'm just so indecisive. I want a house. But I'm scared, and somehow the timing never seems right.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Bits and pieces for today...

I ordered two small posters of my photo alphabet from zazzle.com. We'll see how they look. I ordered some note cards from them as Christmas presents and they turned out very well, so hopefully the posters will turn out similarly.

It's one of those gray days that makes you want to do nothing but curl up in bed with a book and maybe a cup of something hot. Seriously. It's just drab outside. Hasn't even rained that hard. Just dull, flat gray.

Had dinner at La Madeleine last night. Man, I do love their tomato basil soup. I slurp it up happily and just don't think about how many calories are in it. It's so good. Along with that, I had their spinach salad which is also very good. We went late, and they must have been trying to finish off their supply for the day, because I got a huge mound of spinach. Seriously, I think I got at least a bag's worth. Lots and lots o' spinach.

Anybody know how to replicate this vintage photo effect in Photoshop? I love it.

I haven't run since the Charlotte Half Marathon. I haven't been on the bike or in the pool since the Half Ironman. It's official: I've fallen off the wagon. This is a familiar place to be, as it's happened after every big event. Fortunately I have people waiting to pick me up. I just have to make myself available. Yuri's Night is over. Class is over for the semester and won't pick up again until August. I have no more excuses.

The Combat Triathlon is coming up on May 26. I may also do Silverlake on May 20. Time to get ready for these shorter races, and quit languishing in the aftermath of the Half Ironman.

The week's plan:
Tonight - trainer ride (since it's raining)
Tomorrow - pool
Friday - off
Saturday - bike/run brick with Buzz and company
Sunday - "long" run of 5-6 miles

In the coming weeks I will likely make appearances at two local 5Ks -- the Village Fair 5K on May 5 and the Summer Kickoff 5K on May 12, both down here in League City. Hope to see you there!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Becca brought me lunch from Tokyo Bowl, since I was stuck in the never-ending and very boring sim. (And I was so excited to have a sim too. Pity.) Tokyo Bowl is by far the best sushi place in Clear Lake. By far. I'm fairly indifferent to sushi, but I like Tokyo Bowl. Every time we go to a different sushi place, I'm disappointed. I think I'll stop going anywhere but there.

Just in case you cared.

Two of my officemates are gone this week on "the trail," a huge golf trip they take each year. From what I can tell, the year is divided into three parts:

- six months prior to The Trail, which are spent talking about the upcoming trip
- one week, which is spent actually on The Trail
- six months after The Trail, which are spent reliving the trip

I'll just enjoy this week in the office without golf talk. It's actually sort of quiet, since we don't Dave and Ted around to tease.

I finished up my grad project for typography class. It was actually a fun assignment -- found typography. "Carry a camera with you throughout the semester. Look for the shapes of letters in the world. Notice how a chair may look like an H, a cloud may look like a T, or the dial of a radio may look like an O. Throughout the semester, take one unique and innovative photograph for each letter of the alphabet. As the idea is to look for shapes in unusual places, your found letter shapes may not be made out of text. For instance, the Q from a Quick Trip sign will not count. All images must be found and may not be staged."

Here's my poster (click for a PDF):

Monday, April 23, 2007

It was a good weekend. I'd forgotten what it was like to have down time -- or to even be in my apartment at all -- after spending all my April weekends thus far in Galveston, Corpus, and Charlotte. Before that was my birthday, and before that was the two half marathon weekend, and before that... Yeah. I need to schedule a no-activity weekend. Unfortunately the first potential no-activity weekend isn't until May 19.

The Yuri's Night 5K went well. I got a lot of good feedback on the course and lack of hoopla, and the weather was awesome. We had some mass confusion with the t-shirts (they were late, and then for a while I thought they hadn't given us all of them because we couldn't find the youth sizes) but in the end everyone got a shirt. We also had about twice as many people show up to register on race day than I'd expected -- almost 40, instead of my anticipated 20. But in the end it turned out to be our second biggest year (out of four) and we made $1000 for the charities. Pretty cool. I'm very relieved to have it over and done and off my plate.

I spent Saturday afternoon relaxing and running a few errands. I got my car inspected and got a haircut. The salon was full of teenage girls getting fancy up-dos and curls everywhere. Yep: prom night. I never went to my own prom, but it was fun to watch the girls get ready.

Yesterday I thought about getting up early to run with BARC down in Texas City, but I was just too tired. I slept until 11:00! We then made the trek to Spring for Jen's fancy bridal shower (as opposed to the casual one we threw in the 40 degree weather). It was very nice, but far away. Far, far away. Good food. Really good punch. Tons of presents. I think Baby has enough blankets to use a different one each day of the month. Jen and Gavin are going to have to have another kid just to use all the stuff.

I played soccer last night for the first time in months and am quite sore today. I guess I'm not as young as I used to be...

Friday, April 20, 2007

I have had enough this week. Enough already. I don't want to hear any more stories about crazy gunmen here, there, or anywhere. I don't want to hear about people ending up in the emergency room. I don't want to hear that my email came through in Chinese. If anything goes wrong at the 5K tomorrow, I'm not quite sure I can take it. I don't want any more "final straws" on the already very large haystack.

Sarah is signing out for the weekend. Sayonara.

Friday, April 20, 2007

There's apparently a guy with a gun somewhere onsite at JSC. I'm not even at work right now -- I left to go do 5K packet pickup. So nobody worry.

Friday, April 20, 2007

The HARRA email list manager retired from the position a month ago, so I set the club up with an option via our web hosting. Every 10 days or so, I send out an email update. This process has worked well for the past 4 emails. Last night I sent out the April 20 email and this morning I awoke to find that it came through the system as a long string of Chinese characters. Unreadable. So now I'm dealing with the web host trying to get them to figure out the problem while also resetting my email count, because I'm only allowed to send so many emails per month. And last night I sent an email that got turned into gibberish to 1,500 people. 1,500 emails of junk. UGH.

An assortment of responses:
"Sorry, my Chinese is not up to snuff."
"Your announcement is not coming through on my computer, just a lot of jubberish stuff."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Yikes! It looks like someone has hijacked the HARRA list!"
"No message. Everything garbled."

And my favorite:
"Is this some kind of joke?"

Yes, yes it is, because I enjoy sending junk to 1,500 people and answering the ensuing dozens of confused inquiries.

I'm so glad we're going to a new website and membership system soon.

In the meantime, the email has been posted on the HARRA website.

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When I was at Stanford, I took a really cool hands-on controls class where we built a control system from scratch. Resistors, capacitors, the whole shebang. It was so much fun putting components together and soldering stuff that during one trip to Fry's, I bought a couple of their little electronics kits -- a counter that you could just build on a breadboard, and a small kit to make an aircraft band radio receiver so that I could listen to airplane radio communication. I had grand plans to put them together in my free time as a fun little project. (Yes, I'm a dork.)

Free time? What free time? I moved to Houston and the electronics kits stayed in a plastic grocery bag. That was 5 years ago.

Last weekend while I was out of town, Jose got antsy and decided to pick up his electronics hobby again. A year ago he had been building some stuff for fun, but it had been sitting dormant for a while. He went to Fry's and lo-and-behold, left with a kit for an aircraft band radio receiver. He finished it after about 6 hours of soldering and showed it to me on Monday when I got back. That's when the bell in my head finally started ringing. "This looks so familiar," I said.

Last night I went to the closet and pulled out the exact same kit. It was still in the plastic grocery bag I put it in 5 years ago. (Say what you will about my messiness, but dang it if I can't find exactly what I'm looking for in the mess in 3 minutes or less!) Yes, I bought the exact same kit 5 years ago. We bought the same thing independently. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is. Random.

We're such dorks.

Jose is going to Corpus this weekend without me, because I have to be here for the 5K tomorrow. Maybe I'll get antsy and build my radio while he's gone.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

I've been thinking about the Virginia Tech shootings, but haven't been able to figure out what to say. It's horrible. Almost unbelievable. And the media treatment is even worse, turning a tragic event into a circus and a chorus of trying to blame someone, anyone. It's absurd to suggest that VT should have shut down the campus (equivalent in size to a small town) after the first shooting, when reasonable belief pointed to a domestic dispute. And is it really necessary to publish the shooter's hyper-violent writings and broadcast his "manifesto" to the world? And why must the news keep harping on the fact that this was a new school shooting "record" -- are they trying to encourage someone else to go out and shoot even more? It makes me so angry.

But mostly it just makes me ache. Carter put into words what I've been thinking pretty well. I went to a tech school. Most of my friends went to a tech school. Georgia Tech, MIT, and plenty of other schools with large engineering departments... We're geeks, we're nerds, and yes, we're weird -- even the English majors, like this guy. The number of students at Georgia Tech that could have been described as "strange" or "a loner" or "sullen" or even "emotionally unstable" was not small. There were plenty of strange kids. People who never left their dorm rooms. People who always seemed angry. Could they have been pushed over the edge? I don't know.

It seems easy to look back now and see the warning signs. But there's still a huge difference between writing angry, violent literature and deciding to kill 32 people. There's still a huge difference even between needing psychiatric care and being so messed up that you think going on a shooting rampage is a solution to your problems. I don't know how anyone is supposed to be able to predict something like this. And if you can't predict it, how can you prevent it?

I just don't know.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Rain last night and sun today. It's funny how the world keeps turning and things keep happening no matter what the weather. There's a lot going on, but not much that's blogable.

The Yuri's Night race is this weekend. We've had a run on registration this week and I think we're going to top 100 participants, which would beat last year. If we keep growing, we may beat the year before that. Race registrations are such a strange thing; it's hard to predict how many people you're going to get. I had to order the t-shirts last week when there were only 40 registrants. I ordered 115 shirts, enough to cover almost three times that many people. And yet here I sit with the very real possibility that we might run out of shirts, and that we certainly won't have enough for the volunteers on Saturday. That is upsetting, but what can I do? I'm doing what I can: I'll be placing a second t-shirt order on Monday to cover anyone who doesn't get a shirt on Saturday. Better late than never.

It's been a weird week ever since I got off the plane on Monday morning. And it's only Wednesday.

Monday, April 16, 2007

And just like that, I'm back in Houston. I drove through the rain on Friday, then flew ahead of it. I saw the rain again in Charlotte, then flew behind it. Takeoff this morning was among the bumpiest ever -- up, down, side to side. Here in Houston the temperature is lovely but the sky is a little overcast. Up in Boston where some people I know were running some dinky little marathon, conditions were ten times awful. You just can't escape the weather no matter what you do.

I had a lovely time in Charlotte as expected. It is always nice to go home. My parents mentioned a conversation that they had with my dad's family last week, a "what if they moved to the farm" question. "The farm" is the dairy farm in Pennsylvania that my dad grew up on and that his two brothers, my uncles, own and manage now.

I stared at them. Moving to the farm is probably the one and only place they could move that wouldn't spark a riot from us kids. See, my parents have lived in Charlotte for more than 30 years, and in the same house for almost as long. Despite the monster mansions popping up all over the neighborhood (which has become popular and expensive; people buy the old houses for $300-$500K just to tear them down and build something entirely new and monsterous and completely too big for the lot), we love that house. I know my parents could sell it for 10 times what they paid for it, but still...

I don't think they were serious though. At least not in the next few years. There probably aren't many people that spend their entire childhood in the same house anymore. But I did.

I don't get to see Jose until late tonight because he has a sim. Boo.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Katie, David, me, Joel, and Jennifer pre-race! Temperature was in the mid-50s at the start.

Jennifer, Katie, and Joel from behind. Mom had issues figuring out how to work my camera. ;)

David and me around mile 10...

David just beating me to the finish line!

Katie, David and me with our medals. (Yes, I know Katie and I look like twins.) If only we'd gotten Brian to come down from DC -- the sibling sweep would've been complete!

Carter got a few more photos that I'll post when I get them.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Charlotte Racefest Half Marathon Recap

The weather was great this morning for racing -- sunny and relatively cool. We headed to the race site around 6:45, with a stop at David's apartment to pick him up. David is less of a morning person than anyone I know. "This is stupid," he grumbled as he laced up his shoes. "But it will feel so good when you finish!" I said cheerfully. I was in a very good mood.

This was my slowest half marathon ever, but it was also probably the most fun. I love running in Charlotte, especially at this time of year when the trees are all blooming and everything smells fresh and clean and green. I was also very excited to be running with my family -- my sister, brother, and brother-in-law. Though Katie and Joel (and Katie's friend Jennifer) took off at the start and I never saw them again until the finish, David and I ran together the whole way. That was pretty much how I expected things to go.

Katie, Joel, David and Jennifer were all making their half marathon debuts. (This was my 7th overall, and 4th of 2007.) Katie and Joel's training went well, and fast. Katie and Jennifer finished in just under 2:06, with Joel finishing just ahead of that in 2:04. Wow! What a great half marathon for them!

David's training didn't go quite as well as he'd hoped. This was his first road race ever and first time doing a long distance, but he's been running 3-4 miles a few times a week for years. (Last year he ran 500 miles.) He had some problems with leg pain on his long runs, and said he was horrible at pacing himself. He did a 10-miler, but said he had to walk a lot of the second half. So our goal was to run steady for as long as we could, with me helping him control his pace, and then just do whatever was necessary to finish. His secondary goal was to average 12:00 miles or less (finish under 2:37).

We ran very well and very consistently through the halfway point. As soon as we hit the first hill and I saw how hard I was huffing and puffing to get up the stupid thing, I knew there was no chance of me PRing anyway! :) We walked through the water stations. The biggest and longest hill came right after the mile 7 marker, and though we ran up half of it, we ended up walking up the second half. Just after we'd started running again, we saw Mom and Carter waiting to cheer for us.

David started to get tired towards the end, but he did far better than I did at the end of my Half Ironman! For the last 4 miles we walked up the hills and ran the flats and downhills. Heck, I was pretty darn tired too -- the rolling hills are so totally different from anything I run on anywhere in Houston.

We'd just finished walking up the last big hill and had just over half a mile to go when I glanced at my watch and saw 2:24. "Come on David," I said. "If we run the rest of the way, we can finish under 2:30!" We started running again, and sped up as we got closer to the finish line. David beat me by a few steps in the final sprint. We crossed in 2:30:01 by my watch -- if it weren't for the upward slope of the final tenth of a mile, we'd have totally saved that lousy extra second.

Katie and Joel and Jennifer, along with Mom and Carter, met us at the finish line and we got a good photo of everyone with their medals. I'm happy to report that everyone had fun and had a good race. Four newly minted half marathoners! Hooray!

Mile 1 - 10:43
Mile 2 - 10:43
Mile 3 - 11:16 (water stop)
Mile 4 - 10:33
Mile 5 - 10:39
Mile 6 - 11:17 (water stop)
Mile 7 - 10:47
Mile 8 - 11:53 (biggest hill)
Mile 9 - 10:53
Mile 10 - 12:40
Mile 11 - 12:39
Mile 12 - 12:38
Mile 13 - 12:20
Final 0.1 - 0:59

Pictures to come later today if I can figure out how to get them off the flash card via the printer. Otherwise they'll have to wait until I get back to Houston and my card reader.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Races are funny things. This is the fourth year that I've directed the Yuri's Night race. Each year with about two weeks until the race -- right around the time that I have to order t-shirts and spend the biggest chunk of change associated with the race -- I freak out because we never have more than a handful people registered. But in the last four days we've almost doubled our registrations and I'm not stressing out as much anymore.

I don't know if people just register late, or if I somehow get people to register as a result of my freakout. Either way, I guess it works.

In my mind I'm gone to Carolina...

I'm running a half marathon in Charlotte tomorrow morning with Katie, Joel, David, and Jennifer. Carter heard I was going to be in Charlotte and decided he wanted to come up for the weekend as well, though he's not running. It should be a lot of fun, even though they everyone will probably outrun me easily. (Katie said she was aiming for 2:15. Well, 2:15 is my PR!) I run the most, and I'm still the slowest. Somehow that doesn't seem fair.

I played softball last night and went 0-for-3 with a walk. I really suck at softball, enough that I'm not really enjoying it very much anymore. I thought about not playing this season, but I like the team, and if I didn't play softball I'd never see Edgar or Sean or Amy or Lenny or Katie or those guys. I suppose the solution is to get better. Go to the batting cages regularly. Or something.

It's a dreary day and I'm having mixed feelings about everything. I'm looking forward to being in Charlotte in the spring, though it looks like the weather may be crappy. But it's harder to go out of town than it used to be. I don't like it when J can't come with me.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Really, really interesting article that I came across today: Pearls Before Breakfast.

Take a world-renowned violinist. Have him pick up his multi million dollar Stradivari violin. Have him choose some of the world's greatest music.

Then have him stand in a DC subway station in jeans and a baseball cap, playing that fabulous music on that very expensive violin.

How many people do you think would stop? How much money would they put in his case?

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The LP Run has a little bit of a strange race. Instead of running a set distance, you run a set time -- everyone runs around the track for 33 1/3 minutes (like a record -- LP -- get it?) and then you add up how many laps you did, plus your last partial lap. Whoever goes the farthest wins! Neat concept, but I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy the race, since it's just running around in 400 meter ellipses for more than half an hour.

It was really, really fun!

The laps weren't boring, because I was running hard, there was music piped over the loudspeakers, and I passed the stands every couple minutes to a chorus of "Go Sarah!" Sign me up for next year, I'm sold.

My enjoyment was helped immensely by the fact that I kicked my own butt. OH YEAH. I did 3.44 miles in 33:20. That's an average pace of 9:43. OH YEAH. I'm super pumped. That's approaching 5K PR pace.

Jose came along to enjoy the fantastic evening weather (getting a little warm for running, but still nice) and ended up being my lap counter. He wrote down each lap time on a race-provided sheet of paper, which turned out to be a very necessary role. I figured I'd just count my own laps, not realizing that the scoring system was more advanced -- or that after 5 laps I'd totally lose track of how many laps I'd done. He also took photos of the women's race since I couldn't do it myself. They'll be on the HARRA website soon.

We arrived about 15 minutes before the open men finished, so I got to see Joe and Vic finish. The women followed, and it was fun to see the backs of Anna and Lisa and Pony as they lapped me multiple times. ;) Jessica and Erin were both in the stands, as were Steeeve and Steve S and many other Striders and HARRA members.

We left for home just as the master's men were finishing their race, but not before I picked up my medal for 2nd place in the Reuben division (their name for the fat girls division I so fondly race in when available). My 3.44 miles were topped in that category by Veronica's 3.7? miles. I cry foul, since she just had a baby like a month ago and is unfairly using her baby weight (baby weight that is quickly disappearing, I might add) to run in my category for a bit. ;) Ah well. Being pregnant slowed her down to my pace; she'll be flying past me again soon.

On a funny note, I should mention that when I asked to be in the Reuben division, I had to step on a scale. "What's the limit?" I asked. "145 pounds." I laughed. "Do I look like I weigh less than 145 pounds?" I said jokingly as I stepped on the scale. Seriously, I think that the last time I weighed 145 pounds was probably when I was about 14. Ah well. C'est la vie.

All in all it was a really fun evening.

Splits -- and fairly consistent splits at that!
2:17 (2:17)
2:23 (4:40)
2:24 (7:04)
2:23 (9:27)
2:27 (11:54)
2:29 (14:23)
2:30 (16:53)
2:27 (19:20)
2:30 (21:50)
2:26 (24:16)
2:27 (26:43)
2:24 (29:07)
2:23 (31:30)
Final 1086 feet - 1:50 (33:20)

400 meters * 13 laps + 1086 feet = 3.436 miles

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Unfortunately I can't participate because I'll be in Charlotte doing the Charlotte Half Marathon, but if you're interested in virtually running part of the Boston Marathon with astronaut Suni Williams (who qualified in 2006 and will be running on the space station treadmill), check out this announcement from the current station flight director:

If you didn't see it the news has hit the presses about Suni's attempt at the Bostom Marathon. It also sounds like the Boston Marathon will do some sort of recognition of our efforts to support Suni (not sure what yet). And the number of people participating has grown - both here and in Huntsville! In addition, I have actually gotten a local store to sponsor us with some stuff to keep us alive during the grueling run! With the numbers we have we can each do a couple of laps or try teams (probably just laps best unless we have a bunch of aggressive types).

Also, some folks have told me they have a schedule constraint so they need to run early/late or other have said they are thinking of trying to run longer (including maybe the same amount Suni is) - if so please let me know so we can order the laps, otherwise it will be random.

Since I missed it in one of the later emails, I wanted to remind folks of the details:
Saturday April 14, 08:30 am Clear Lake High School on Bay Area
Rain date: Sunday April 15 time TBD

Dang! I'd be there for sure if I was in town! Maybe some of you guys will want to go though.

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I ran 3.75 miles last night. More accurately, I ran for 40 minutes and happened to cover 3.75 miles. Either way you slice it, I got really sweaty because the weekend's freak cold snap has definitely ended and the humidity is back. I must have been smoking something yesterday when I said my goal for tonight's LP Run is to do 10:00 miles. Yeah right. I forgot that it's warming up. My new goal is 10:30 miles. Because the race is a set 33 1/3 minutes, that should put me right around 3.2 miles (while the fastest runners will probably cover close to twice that).

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I designed a Yuri's Night race t-shirt last night. I always wait till the last minute. Anyway, here's a preview for those who read this blog...

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Well, they've decided not to switch external tanks, but the repairs won't be ready in time to launch STS-117 in May. Instead, we'll be aiming for June 8, which totally sucks because Chris and Lisa's wedding is on June 9 and now I might not be able to go. GRR. Stupid hail storm that delayed the mission.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The post-lunch slump hit me hard today. I was sitting here, eyes drooping, wondering how I'd make it through the rest of the afternoon.

Then the emergency warning system siren went off.

We all looked around the office and did the mental math. It's not the first Thursday of the month, and it's not noon. What could it be? Someone produced the handy cheat sheet explaining what each siren means. Turns out that a 3-5 minute wavering tone indicates an air raid or attack (conventional or nuclear).

Oh, that's all? Pssh. No worries.

Twenty minutes later, an email was circulated. It was an accidental siren, and once it got started it wouldn't respond to any "off" commands.

Ironically, the timing coincided with a shelter-in-place order issued for Texas City (about 10 miles south) after the BP plant (the one that blew up a few years ago) started spewing a clay-like dust into the air. Winds are from the south today. Lovely.

When the shuttle program ends, I'm so moving.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

I am feeling better today about the Yuri's Night run. We got some more sign-ups overnight (including some from friends -- thanks guys) and though our numbers are still low, I think we'll get enough to break even and maybe even make a few hundred bucks for our charities. I'm less stressed in the morning light.

There's a part of me that wants this fun run to become a big event that draws hundreds of people. Some part of me feels like I'm failing if I can't make the numbers grow every year. But then I realize that it's not necessary for us to draw a huge crowd. Heck, I'm not sure that the park could even support more than a few hundred. I'd like to see closer to 200 participants, instead of the 100 we usually get, but it's probably unrealistic of me to think that we can get that many when I'm doing the bulk of the work myself (partly my own fault) and when we're competing with an already very busy race season in Houston.

So the race will be small, but it will happen. In the next few days, t-shirts will be ordered and age group awards will be figured out (suggestions?).

Life continues to be far too busy. I need to weed some things out, and cut back, but I remain unable to figure out how to actually do that. Class tonight, with a run afterwards, hopefully with the BAFT folks if we get out of class early (as we usually do). I don't remember if I wrote about this already, but class has been particularly frustrating lately. This is the first time the prof has taught typography, and I don't think he was prepared for a full semester. The first half of class went well, with plenty of interesting and useful material to fill up the time, but the last few weeks have really suffered. He seems to have run out of lectures, and instead of cancelling class, he just rambles for an hour or two. The students seem to have noticed, because attendance has taken a nose dive. Oh well -- I'll have some words for the course critique at the end of the semester.

I'm planning to do the LP Run tomorrow night. Can you believe it'll be my first HARRA spring series appearance of this year? I know, it's downright embarassing. Hoping I can do somewhere around 10:00 pace, but that'll depend on how humid it is. We'll see.

Monday, April 09, 2007

This happened right after the marathon. I lost all motivation for working out.

Same thing is happening now. I ran twice last week, one workout and one race. Didn't bike, didn't swim.

Don't really know what my next goal is. Half marathon in Charlotte on Saturday, though the plan to run with my sister and brother and brother-in-law is probably out the window since it turns out that even in their first distance event, they're still all faster than me.

Think I'm gonna hit the pool tonight.

I'm tired.

The Yuri's Night race is on the verge of having to be cancelled for lack of runners. D-Day is Thursday, so if you were planning on signing up, please do so before then. We're about halfway to our minimum. I just do a worse and worse job of handling this race every year. I don't get the word out, I don't have any help, and I just have too many balls in the air.

Sigh.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Easter was fun, despite having to drive through the gloom to spend less than 24 hours at the lake house. I spent another holiday with Jose and his extended family and it was lots of fun. And they remembered me. Score!

One of Jose's aunts has a small house at Lake Corpus Christi, so that was the scene for the celebration. Because it's about an hour from Corpus itself, we just drove straight to the lake on Saturday night to save the extra driving time. If Thursday and Friday's weather had held, it would have been really beautiful up there. As it was, we just made do with the clouds, drizzle, and 40 degree temperatures.

We ate yummy food, we played basketball, we checked out a grass strip near the house (maybe Jose can fly there once he gets his license), we went out on the lake in a little boat to see if we could catch some catfish (nope), and we scared the geese and the geese scared us. Those were some seriously aggressive geese.

More importantly, we had two rounds of cascarones and I smashed many eggs on many heads. Jose's mom made me my own box of them so I had a secret stash. The funniest person was Jose's little 4-year-old cousin Megan, who would point at the ground and say "your shoes are untied" to get you to bend down to where she could reach your head. As luck would have it, my shoes came "untied" at least a half dozen times. Go figure.

The only downer was that I seem to be allergic to something -- the house, the great outdoors, who knows -- and spent most of yesterday sniffling and sneezing. It seems to have mostly cleared up today, with some lingering eye itchiness.

Now it's back to work, which is always a struggle after such a hectic weekend. I'm heading to Charlotte this weekend though, so that's something to look forward to.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Resurrection Run this morning was cloudy and cold -- about 48 degrees. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was the coldest run they've ever had, since it's always the Saturday before Easter and by this time of year, chill like this is usually long gone.

It would have been a great day to go for a 5K PR, and I'd be lying to say that I didn't think a lot about it. I'd been planning to give it a shot earlier in the week. I wasn't sure if I could do it a mere 6 days removed from the Half Ironman, but I figured I could try.

Then when I mentioned the race, Jose said he wanted to run it! It was totally unexpected, and of course I couldn't turn it down. I considered running it alone and jogging back to find him for the last couple tenths of a mile, but that's no fun. It's much more fun to run with someone!

So an attempt at a PR for myself can wait. I ran with a cute boy instead, and that cute boy set a new PR himself! That's three races for him and three PRs.

Astros Race - May 06 - 35:18
Reindeer Run - Dec 06 - 35:00
Resurrection Run - Apr 07 - 34:24

He hasn't been running since, well, basically his last 5K in December. We took off too fast for Jose, probably a factor of me wanting to just go go go. The first mile passed in about 10:40. I thought he might want to take a quick walk break, but he didn't! We continued running, finishing mile 2 in about 11:15. We did walk briefly through the water stop, but then we started running again. I could hear Jose breathing hard, and he was coughing a bit from the cold air on his throat (the same thing happens to me when I run hard in cold weather), but I told him that if we kept up this pace, he'd set a new PR.

That was enough to keep him going, and we crossed the finish line in 34:24 for my 5th straight Resurrection Run finish. Afterwards, Jose did not feel very good, but half an hour later he was better. Just after crossing the finish line, I stopped to talk to some of my friends and apparently that was not good for Jose, who felt like the sudden stop was worse than the running!

It was great to see a bunch of my friends, including Sean and Amy, Jon and Waverly, Joe, Sam, and Veronica. This is one of my favorite races in Houston because I like the course so much. If I find myself with an extra few hundred thousand dollars lying around, I'd buy a house there.

-----

From the race, it was home for a shower and off to Jen's baby shower. We had reserved a pavilion on Taylor Lake, and everything would have been awesome if the shower had been yesterday during the gorgeous sunny mid-60s weather. But at shower time, it was in the mid-40s, gusty, and drizzling. We basically ate food, watched Jen open presents, and then all fled for warmer locales. Oh well. It was as fun as it could be in the conditions!

Friday, April 06, 2007

So I should mention that Jose has started a blog. He doesn't plan to blog about his personal life, but does plan to write some music reviews and maybe a bit about his flying lessons. He said it was ok for me to post about it, so there you go.

Busy weekend on tap. It's supposed to give us a last gasp of winter with rain and highs in the 50s, but life goes on. There's a baby shower for Jen tomorrow, and then another 24-hour trip to Corpus for Easter. I'm looking forward to smashing an egg on Jose's head. Fun times.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

It's been busy since I finished my race report, so that's why you got to look at it for an extra special long time. That, and the fact that I'm still revelling in actually finishing the race.

I've done exactly one workout since the race, a "hill" run with BAFT on Tuesday afternoon. I say "hills" because it was along the Middlebrook greenbelt (Joe, I think I saw your wife out running but I wasn't sure) and there are some "hills" back there. Apparently our hill workouts will soon be moving to the Kemah Bridge, at which point I'll no longer need to use quote marks. Anyway, we ran for 40 minutes, during which I covered 3.5 miles. Not too shabby for a mere 48 hours post-Half Ironman! And it was freaking HUMID. I am not ready for summer.

But the weather today, after yesterday's rain, is absolutely beautiful. Looks like it will stay that way through the weekend as well, meaning great temps for the Resurrection Run on Saturday! My plan to go for a 5K may be put on hold though. Jose expressed interest in running it, and if he does, I'll run with him.

-----

My training at work is picking up, and it makes me excited. I feel like I'm really learning new and exciting stuff. Take yesterday -- I learned about the IMUs. The IMUs have to be aligned fairly often because they drift. They drift because they are 1970s technology (so when I say I'm learning new and exciting things...well they're new to me, at least). So I learned about them, and about star trackers, which are basically fancy cameras that track stars and tell you where you are in space. But it was cool.

After that, I got to tag along to a load checkout in the fixed base simulator. It's a detailed mockup for the shuttle flight deck, with TV screens behind the windows so you can look outside and see computer-generated images of the Earth passing underneath you, and the stars, and the space station looming overhead as you approach to dock with it. And you can flip switches and hit buttons like some glorified video game! Someone brought a few people by on a tour at one point while we were sitting waiting for the simulator to be re-started, and one lady climbed up the ladder to look around. We answered a couple of her questions and then she asked if we'd been in space. I was very tempted to reply that why yes, I am an astronaut...

Today I took a class about Universal Pointing. In a nutshell, that's how to point the shuttle at what you want, and have it track what you want. It was the most fun class yet, mainly because I got to play with a little shuttle model and turn it every which way to track an imaginary Earth and Sun and satellite.

-----

More than a year ago, my division had photos of everyone taken in various settings -- in the office, in the control center, posed group photos outside by the pond -- to replace the very old and very outdated photos currently gracing our hallway walls. (Seriously, half the people in the old photos didn't work here anymore, and the other half that do still work here are now 20+ years older. While it was rather comical to see the hair styles they sported in the 1980s, the photos were badly in need of updating.)

Yesterday, the photos suddenly appeared on the walls after a year of languishing in someone's office.

Now, when the official photographer came to do the photos, Jose, Becca, Jen, Gavin, Matt and I were all skiing in Tahoe. We didn't want to miss our chance of being put up on the walls for the next 20 years, so we took some photos on our own and then, unbeknownst to me, Becca sent our division secretary a few photos of us on the Vomit Comet. From when we flew as undergrads. In 1999. When neither of us worked in this division. Heck, Becca didn't even work at JSC yet, and I was a coop in a different area.

So now there is a huge (2x3 foot) photo of Becca and me on the Vomit Comet on the wall outside the door to my office. My 20-year-old self is immortalized on the walls of my building for what I can only guess will be at least another 20 years.

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I had a massage yesterday afternoon, my treat to myself for doing the race. It was awesome. It's only the second massage I've ever had, and it made me wonder why I don't get them more often. (It's because they're too expensive to do on more than a once-every-few-months basis.) I almost fell asleep right there on the table.

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My brother-in-law, Joel, found a new job in Auburn, a city that is apparently located about halfway between Seattle and Tacoma. This is great news, since he and Katie were planning on moving out there anyway. Katie's job search continues as she finishes school, but I know she'll find something great as well so it's official -- they are moving. I'm thinking of planning a Seattle trip sometime this fall...

-----

Jose and I watched Babel last night. I was unimpressed, and unsure how it managed to get a Best Picture nomination other than the fact that it was suitably "arty" in its style and general feel. On many occasions and with many scenes, it just felt like the movie was trying too hard. Some characters made decisions that I just didn't buy. An interesting point brought up by Jose is that the white and Japanese characters turned out ok in the end, while the Mexican and Arab characters ended up with crap. Interesting.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Lone Star Half Ironman Race Report - The Run

(Read about the swim here and the bike here.)

As I started on the run, I took a moment to reflect on what I'd already done. My neck was aching and my back was sore, but I was so, so happy to be off the bike. My legs were feeling as good as could be reasonably expected -- they were tired, but not too rubbery. I'd been on the course for more than 4.5 hours and I'd already travelled 57.2 of my 70.3 miles. I felt good, and excited, and though it was getting hot now that the sun had finally broken through the clouds, I knew I could finish the run even if I had to crawl. It was a good feeling.

I could tell the story of the run by simply posting my splits: 8 miles of good, steady running a 5/1 run/walk pattern as I planned, followed by 4.5+ miles of suddenly dead legs. I say 12.5+ because my Garmin measured 12.65 miles. However, the Google Pedometer map that the race director emailed me last week did indeed measure 13.1 miles. So what gives? After some close inspection by the anal-retentive engineer in me, I discovered that we did indeed run about 12.6 miles instead of 13.1. Why? Between miles 5 and 6 (and then again between miles 11 and 12), we were misdirected. It's actually pretty understandable, considering the number of twists and turns that course took. Seems the Boy Scouts manning the intersection were just confused. Over two loops, that cut about a half mile off the course.

We were supposed to run the course marked in red. We were coming from the top of this map, so it should have been a right to start around the loop, and then a right to head out to the turn-around. Then a left to go back around the loop in reverse. What actually happened after the turnaround is what I marked in yellow. We weren't directed to reverse our course around the loop. Instead, we were directed to the right. So we only went around that part of the course once instead of twice, turning the 6.5 mile loop into a 6.25 mile loop, and the total run from 13.1 miles to 12.6.

Anyway, back to the good stuff!

Mile 1 - 10:49
Mile 2 - 11:39
Mile 3 - 11:56

The first three miles covered the winding paths and back alleys of Moody Gardens. I enjoyed seeing Vera, Jay, and Kevin at the BARC aid station around mile 1, and told them I'd see them again in an hour and a half or less. I settled into my 5/1 run/walk pattern pretty easily and when I had some thoughts early on about how I didn't really want to have to run this loop again, I was able to drown them out with thoughts of "holy crap, I'm actually doing this!"

Before mile 3 there was a girl with a trash can full of wet sponges. Oh man, those were awesome! I used it to wipe my face and neck, which felt amazing. It wiped off my sunscreen so I ended up a little burned, but oh well. It was worth it. I took another gu (vanilla flavored) from the aid station just past mile 3 and gulped that down with some water.

Mile 4 - 11:27
Mile 5 - 12:11
Mile 6 - 10:44

The first loop passed without incident, and I wound back past the transition and finish area to begin my second loop. It was a little disheartening to pass the finish line and not get to stop, but I knew I'd be back soon enough. After cheers from Jose, Nick, Heather, Melissa and Laurie, I headed out for the second loop. Jose even yelled out "you're right on time!" as I passed, which made me laugh. That boy knows how absurdly obsessed I am with times. I knew right where I was; I always do. I'm an engineer, and I can't help it.

Mile 7 - 11:18
Mile 8 - 11:55

I again saw Vera, Jay, Kevin and BARC crew at their aid station and got some more water. Shortly after that, I had to stop at a Port-a-potty to pee. I decided that was a good sign that I wasn't completely dehydrated, but it also turned out to be the beginning of my downfall. I don't know if it was the fact that I stopped for a minute, or the fact that everything just caught up to me, but the wheels started to fall off.

Mile 9 - 13:43
Mile 10 - 13:27

I passed the sponge girl again and thanked her profusely for the nice cold sponge of goodness. I got another vanilla gu from the same aid station as before. I gulped water and Gatorade and even some de-fizzed coke, but nothing helped. My legs were just about dead. At that point, I focused on finishing!

Mile 11 - 13:31
Mile 12 - 14:17
Mile 12.65 - 7:50

I crossed the finish line running. I had been walking about a quarter mile away, but when I rounded transition and came into view of the crowd, I started running again. I may have had to walk a good portion of the last 4.5 miles, but I was going to cross that finish line running, dang it! :) As I crossed the bridge with less than a tenth of a mile to go, I saw Jose, Nick, Heather and Melissa. They all started going crazy, yelling my name and cheering. I couldn't help but smile, and as I turned the corner and saw the finish line that smile got even bigger.

I crossed under the arch as the announcer called my name and for a moment, I didn't know what to do with myself. A volunteer handed me a water bottle full of ice cold water (so good) and a wet towel (also so good). As I let another volunteer unwrap my chip from the band around my ankle, I heard Mark and Todd from Bay Area Fit Tri yelling at me from the sidelines as well. Somewhere along the way, another volunteer hung my finisher's medal around my neck.

Everyone met me as I walked out of the finish area, still grinning from ear to ear. Jose tried to hug me and I pushed him away. "I am totally gross right now!" I said, somehow aware enough to realize that I was wet, sticky, sweaty, and stinky. My number one fan said he didn't care and hugged me anyway. It was the best hug ever.

I think I was in a bit of a daze for the next 15-20 minutes. I remember standing and talking to the BAFT guys, and to Jose and friends. I needed to walk, so they trailed me to the food tent where I ate a mini-pizza that at that moment was the best thing I had ever tasted. I walked some more. We looked at my official results.

Before the race, I'd looked at the participant list and there were only 4 Athenas listed, so I thought I might have a off-chance at a group award. Not so! Yesterday there were actually 8 Athenas and the top three all finished under 6 hours, with the winner posting a 5:18. Yeah....so I had no chance in hell. I was number 7 of 8, with the 7th best bike, 7th best run, but 5th best swim! Boo yeah! I was also the only one of the 8 that was from the Houston area. The other 7 were all from Dallas and Austin, so I claim the title of Houston area champion. :)

Official results:

7:08:16
1.2 mile swim - 42:42 - 2:13/100m
Transition 1 - 06:59
56 mile bike - 3:40:44 - 15.2mph
Transition 2 - 03:02
13.1 mile run - 2:34:47 - 11:49/mile

Since the run course was short, I mentally added 6 minutes to my time, which still puts me well under my goal. I thought I could do sub-7:30, and I shattered it.

Will I ever do an Ironman? NO.
Will I do another Half Ironman? Maybe.
Will I remember April 1, 2007 for the rest of my life? HECK YEAH.

I'm a Half Ironwoman!

Monday, April 02, 2007

Lone Star Half Ironman Race Report - The Bike

(Read about the swim here.)

I watched the NWS forecast for Galveston all weekend. They've got a cool graphical forecast that predicts things like temperature, chance of precipitation, wind, and wind direction. I checked it a dozen times on Saturday, and once more at 6 a.m. Sunday morning. Each time it showed the same thing: winds of 8-9 mph from the east shifting to the southeast. (For reference, winds from the southeast are the norm.)

I'm never trusting a pre-race forecast again, because what actually happened was completely different.

Weather Underground lists the average wind yesterday as 11 mph, with a max of 21, and max gusts of 26. I stole the graph above from them. I was on the course from about 8:45 until about 12:30, or during winds of 10-18.5 mph coming straight out of the southwest. That would be straight down Galveston Island and thus straight down the road we had to ride on. The only positive was that we had to face the direct headwind on the way out, so the ride back to Moody Gardens was, literally, a breeze.

I was in high spirits as I left the transition area to begin my 56-mile biking odyssey. My hands did get a little tingly at various points due to my missing biking gloves, but I was ok. The course took us from Moody Gardens across to the ocean side of the island, and then 13 miles southwest down the island. We hit the turnaround and retraced our path back to Moody Gardens, where we then turned and did the out-and-back one more time.

On the first leg out, I never looked at my distance, not even once. The wind was, well, just plain sucky, and I didn't want to think about how much farther I had to go. I decided to just let the turnaround catch me "by surprise" -- even though I was waiting for it anxiously. Around mile 10 I passed the entrance to Galveston Island State Park, where there was a bottle pass-up. I'd read about this pre-race but didn't really know what it was. Turns out they were handing out full bottles of water and/or Gatorade! I didn't partake because I had my two water bottles, and had nowhere to put another bottle.

I hit the turnaround with glee. Time to fly! I quickly accelerated to 20 mph without even trying. Even at that speed, a handful of guys still flew past me over the next miles. Even at 20 mph, they made me look like I was standing still.

One area with room for improvement if I ever do a Half Ironman again is nutrition. I think I just plain didn't eat enough, and suffered for it at the end. In T1 I'd stuffed three gu packets on my body -- two underneath the spandex on my thighs and one in the bike bag. I also had two full bottles of water. I planned to drink one bottle per loop and take a gu at 15 miles, 30 miles, and 45 miles.

After suffering through the headwind on the way out, I'd just taken the turnaround when it was time for gu #1. I pulled it out from under my shorts, lifted it to my mouth, and...dropped it. Whoosh! I'd already hit the turnaround and thus had the wind at my back. I was going 20 mph, and the gu was gone long before I had a chance to catch it. I briefly considered stopping, but didn't. I decided to wait until mile 20, and took one there. I held it much more carefully that time!

It had taken me 1:10 to get out to the turnaround, but it took me less than 45 minutes to get back! By the time I got back to the pyramids of Moody Gardens I'd almost forgotten about the crappy wind. Almost.

Take a look at the Garmin-produced graph of my speed. Pretty drastic, eh?

I saw Jose again as I got within a half mile of the swing back past the transition area. I almost missed him, but spotted his striped shirt. "Jose!" I yelled. He looked a little surprised -- I caught him off guard. "Sarah!" he yelled, with his hands in the air. They had another hand-up near the transition area, and I was able to grab a gu to replace the one I'd dropped. A few minutes later I passed Jose again as I started my second out-and-back. I had enough time to comment to him about the wind and how it totally sucked. Ah, that's me, complaining in the middle of the race.

My first bike loop had passed with an average of exactly 15 mph, just as I'd hoped for. With that knowledge, I again headed into the wind. It was worse the second time. I'd averaged something like 12-12.5 on the first time out; this time I could only manage 11.5. This time I did look at my mileage. "I can make it 10 more miles in this," I'd tell myself. Then I'd yell at the wind. "I can make it 8 more miles in this," I'd tell myself as my feet spun and spun. I'd curse out loud at the wind. Whatever made me feel better! Instead of despairing, I got angry and I kept going.

When I passed the bottle hand-up again, I decided to take advantage of the full bottle of Gatorade. I grabbed a bottle and threw one of my green MS150 bottles to the side of the road -- a sacrificial lamb to the gods of the Half Ironman. Boy did that Gatorade taste good. So did the knowledge that the turnaround was less than 5 miles away.

Finally -- finally! -- I saw it. There in the distance, like a mirage, were the flashing lights of the police car stationed at the turnaround. As I got closer, I could see the orange cones marking the end of the out leg. I've never been so happy to take a turn as I was to take that one. Though I still had 14 miles to go, I felt like I'd finished. The ride back to Moody Gardens was fast and pleasant enough, or at least as pleasant as it could be after already riding 42 miles. My neck and back were really complaining, but it was good to know that I'd be off the bike soon.

Jose was standing along the very end of the bike course, mere feet from the dismount line. I almost cried when I saw him. I was so happy to see him, and so happy to be done with the bike. I gingerly dismounted and walked into transition. Three minutes later, I'd ditched the helmet and biking shoes and added a hat and running shoes. Off I went to do...

the run.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Lone Star Half Ironman Race Report - The Swim

I slept restlessly on Saturday night, and after waking up at 4:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom, I never really fell back asleep. When the alarm went off at 5:30, I was already awake. I rolled out of bed and the butterflies began immediately. I haven't been that nervous about something in a long, long time. I'm not sure I was that nervous even before the marathon! I ate two bowls of cereal and a bite of a bagel. I knew I needed food but I was so nervous that I couldn't stomach much.

I did a final check to make sure I had all my equipment and that was when I realized. "Oh NO," I said. My cycling gloves were not in my biking shoes, like I'd thought. I immediately knew where they were -- at home, in the dryer, after being washed on Thursday.

For the first of many times that morning, Jose calmed me down. And he was right -- of all the things to forget, cycling gloves was probably the best item. I can't bike without, say, a helmet...but I can bike without gloves. Crisis averted.

Just before 6:30, Jose and I left the hotel room and headed to the race site at Moody Gardens, about a half mile walk away. It was still dark, but the transition area was bustling. After getting body marked (#334 baby!), I set up my transition area between some very, um, spread out people on either side of me. Triathletes are generally pretty polite, but there is definitely a tendency to take up too much space in transition!

From there, it was time to grab my cap, goggles, and wetsuit and head to the start.

The nerves hit hard once I got to the little man-made beach where we'd be entering the water. I would sit quietly, and then Jose would ask how I felt. That would make me start to tear up, and then he'd get to calm me down by telling me how awesome I was going to do. Could I ask for a better guy? After the race, he told me that he'd been really nervous too, but at the time I didn't see it at all. He was great. I was so, so glad that he was there.

Just as I'd teared up again, I looked down the beach and saw Gavin walking towards me. I was very confused for a minute, and I didn't even know what to do besides tug on Jose arm and point. "There's Gavin," I said, as he walked up with his camera. I didn't know that he was coming, and even though I couldn't really react, it was nice to see him and know I had another fan.

Being happy to see my "fans" was a theme that would reoccur throughout the day. Triathlon is a hard sport for spectators to watch, since the course covers so much area. I never expect people to come because I realize that for most of the day they won't have anything to do. But when I see people I know, even for just a moment, it really, really gives me a lift. Big thanks to Jose, Gavin, Becca, Melissa, Laurie, Heather, and Nick for making the trek to Galveston just to give me a boost.

I was in the fourth wave, starting at 7:55. As the wave before us started, we headed into the water. My wave was all women under 40, highlighted by our fluorescent pink swim caps. I swear the race directors had picked up the rocks or something -- there were absolutely no rocks, despite the fact that I was walking into the water in the same place as the practice swim last weekend when I sliced my foot on multiple rocks. The water was chilly at first, but I knew it'd be fine once we got going.

It was a deep water start, so I walked out as far as I could and then slowly swam the rest of the way to the end of the dock where we had a couple minutes to go before the start. I looked over and saw that Gavin and Jose had moved to the end of the dock. I was sure that they wouldn't be able to pick me out in the water, but I popped up and waved and Jose immediately waved back. He said he could see my bobbing head the whole time until we actually started swimming.

I floated in my wetsuit, trying to get my thoughts in order. My nerves had finally calmed down once I got in the water, and I floated in my wetsuit trying to get my goggles cleared. They were weirdly cloudy, and I worried that the anti-fog stuff I'd put on them the night before wasn't going to work. I'd been in an area where I had a little space, but suddenly I found myself in a gaggle of other girls. I tried to get some more space, but failed.

And then, we were off!

Triathlon starts are always a mess of thrashing arms and legs, and this one was no different. It took me a while to get into a rhythm. When I did, things went pretty well. The swim course was trapezoidal -- out away from the beach, then a long leg parallel to the shore, then straight back in to the big paddlewheel. I passed the first buoy, however, and thought that was where we were turning. It wasn't! I still had a long way to go on the first leg.

I swam and swam for what felt like ages. My goggles cleared up once I got going -- the anti-fog worked after all, like a charm. On the long leg parallel to shore, the water was usually fairly calm, but every so often a series of small swells would come along. This was a new experience; all the open water swims I've done before have been in small lakes. No swells there. Finally I reached the final buoy and made the turn back to the paddlewheel. I was relieved that I finally had a big target to go for again, and the yellow flags marking the bottom of the ramp out of the water were very visible.

It was in the middle of this last leg that I finally looked at my watch. It read 36:00. I was shocked -- it really felt like I had been in the water for hours, not because of time but simply because it felt like I'd covered so much distance. I was certain that my swim was going to come in closer to an hour, instead of my targeted 40-45 minutes. I was pumped! I swam the rest of the way with a smile on my face.

I hit the ramp and mentally thanked the race organizers for not making us walk over rocks and oysters on the way out. As I moved up the ramp, one volunteer unzipped my wetsuit for me and I continued along the carpet to transition. At the end of the path was the most fun part -- wetsuit stripping! Jose, Gavin and Becca all cheered and laughed from behind the fence as I pulled my wetsuit below my butt, sat on the ground, and ZOOM -- the volunteers grabbed the suit and WHOOSH -- pulled it off my legs in one swoop. Before I knew what was happening, the wetsuit had been shoved back in my face and I was on my way into transition.

My final swim time was 42:42 -- right on schedule! As it turned out, I was right on schedule all day. I'd written down all my estimated arrival times (swim, bike loops, and run loops) for Jose, and he said he could have set his watch by my predicted times. I was always at the start of my predicted window.

I took my time in transition, careful to get myself dried off, socks on comfortably, shoes, shirt, helmet, sunglasses, sunscreen. My shirt got stuck as I put it on, the fabric all rolled up inside itself since I was still wet. I had to laugh as I got myself unstuck. Finally ready, I walked out of transition to begin...

the bike!

Sunday, April 01, 2007

I did it. I finished the Half Ironman.

My time was 7:08:16. 42:42 swim, 3:40:44 bike, 2:34:37 run, with another 10 minutes split between the transitions.

The wind was fierce and I'm never trusting a forecast again. Straight headwind on the bike out leg slowed me to a steady 11.5 mph; straight tailwind back in had me flying at 21+ mph. The bike was 14 miles of hell, 14 miles of heaven, then another 14 miles of hell, 14 miles of heaven.

The run went well until the wheels fell off my proverbial bus around mile 8.5 and I walked a good bit of the last 5 miles (and Garmin read the course about a half mile short).

But I finished!

OHHHHH YYYYEEEEAAAAHHHH.