Recently in Swim, Bike, Run Category

It was an AWESOME weekend. The weather was beautiful, and I took full advantage for some good triathlon training.

On Saturday I went for a 6.3 mile run. At noon. It was a little warm, but still not awful, though it certainly won't be long before running in the middle of the day becomes completely out of the question. I was out for just over an hour, and sunburned my neck. Oops. That was my own fault. Even in March, I can't be outside for that long on a sunny day without sunscreen, but apparently I still have not learned this lesson after 31 years.

L to R: Kathleen, me, Steve (in the gray & blue behind us), Donna, Cleve, and Mike (in the blue in the back)

On Sunday morning, I drove over to Manvel to meet up with some people from my tri club (and hundreds of others) for the Great Escape Ride. It's one of the many MS150 warmup rides that go on in the greater Houston area in the spring, which means it's a supported ride with rest stops, snacks and fluids, and police support at major intersections. They had routes mapped out for people to go 16, 42, 55, and 73 miles. Most of the tri club people rode 55, but I'm not quite ready for that distance yet (maybe next weekend). When the two routes split at mile 20, I rode the rest of the way with my friend Cathy.

The start of the ride was a bit chilly, but it warmed up quickly as the sun rose. By the time we hit the final rest stop, it was warm enough that I took off my tights (which I'd been wearing over my bike shorts) and just tied them around my handlebars for the rest of the ride. It was an awesome day for a ride, and it wasn't even too windy! I took things easy and finished with an average of 16.4 miles per hour. Not too shabby for a nice, easy ride. I still felt good when we finished, so it seems my legs could have handled 55 miles. I'm not sure my butt could have taken the extra 45 minutes in the saddle though!

I was pretty hungry after the ride, and when I got home, Jose was cooking eggs and biscuits. He is pretty awesome.

My first tri of the season is coming up in just under 4 weeks: the Gateway to the Bay tri in Kemah on April 11. I'll be doing the Olympic distance -- 1500 meter swim, 40 kilometer bike, and 10k run. This is a new race, so it should be fun. I love races that are practically in my backyard!

On Saturday, Debbie and I did the Great Urban Race. It's an adventure race / scavenger hunt that's held in cities around the country, and this was the first year they'd done one in Houston. Despite the fact that it occupied my entire Saturday, and the race experienced a few "first race" issues when they had twice as many teams as they'd expected, it was a lot of fun.

We had twelve checkpoints -- figuring out where they were required puzzle-solving and Google-searching skills (phones and laptops were allowed, and calling people was also fair game) -- and were allowed to skip one. We started at Lucky's Pub just a couple blocks from Minute Maid Park, and ended up running through downtown and all the way to Montrose when all was said and done.

Debbie named our team the Lollipop Lobsters, and she invented lobster costumes for us to wear. Our extra arms turned out looking more like sausages, but oh well. One of the clues had nine things to take a photo of, and we needed any 3 in a tic-tac-toe pattern. The first one we got was both of us with a stranger wearing a cowboy hat. Since there was a gun show going on at the convention center, this was quite easy to find.

Another of the tic-tac-toe options was to take a photo of us with 5 strangers in front of a fountain. This one was right in the middle of Discovery Green, and there were tons of people around so it was easy to find some enthusiastic strangers. Being dressed in our ridiculous lobster getup didn't hurt either.

The first couple checkpoints we attacked were downtown. (We weren't required to do the checkpoints in any certain order, but could determine ourselves how we wanted to proceed.) The clue for this was to take a photo of both teammates touching the statue at a given set of coordinates, which turned out to the Joan Miro statue in front of the Chase building at the corner of Milam and Capitol.

We also had to take a picture of us in front of the clock on the corner of Main and Texas. The catch was that we had to be within a minute of 20 minute increments (i.e. 1:00, 1:20, 1:40, 2:00, etc). Fortunately we timed things well.

From there, we hopped on the Metro and rode along for a few stops until right after we'd passed under I-45. Public transportation was allowed and encouraged! A few blocks from the stop was the Nouveau Antique Art Bar, where we had to take a picture of ourselves in front of the mural on the wall. We then ran over to "the best place to watch hockey in Houston," which turned out to be the Maple Leaf Pub on Elgin, where we had to get a ping pong ball into a cup a la beer pong. There was one more checkpoint in this area that we skipped -- it would have required one of us to eat a habanero pepper, and neither of us wanted to do that!

Then we had to head out Westheimer. We kept looking for the bus to come by so we could hop on, but it never did. The winning teams did indeed take the bus, so I guess we were just unlucky. No bus meant we had to go on foot, which added about 3 miles to our path. We did it anyway. One stop was in front of this mural at the Leopard Lounge, another was at the Aurora Picture Show, and a third was at Cherryhurst Park where we had to do an obstacle course.

We had no luck with buses on the way back either, so we had to go all the way back to the Metro stop and ride a few stops back into downtown. We ran over to the Houston Public Library and made origami. I have to say, we totally ROCKED the origami challenge. We were in and out of there in about 5 minutes, and it sounded like other teams had been there for a lot longer than that.

Our final stop was "the Travis location of the restaurant founded by Tom & James Papadakis," where we had to take a photo of one teammate feeding the other teammate a cookie. The restaurant turned out to be James Coney Island. (Thanks to Jose for Googling that one for us as our "phone-a-friend!")

We passed back through Discovery Green on our way to the finish line, where we stopped to get a photo of Debbie shaking a dog's paw to complete our tic-tac-toe. We'd had to change direction halfway through the race after failing to find a restaurant with a to-go menu with an eggroll on it -- it was amazing to us that we couldn't find a single Chinese restaurant with egg rolls. Oh, there were spring rolls galore, but no egg rolls!

We finished back at the pub, where we think we were in the middle of the pack. We'll know for sure when they post results later this week. We hung around for the awards and costume contest, but sadly we didn't even make the finals. There were a lot of people in great costumes, and since the voting was done by applause, the guys who won were the guys who had the most friends there, pretty much. They were entertaining though.

I mapped something close to our path this morning, and found that we covered around 10 miles. About 2.5 of that was on the Metro, which means we ended up covering somewhere between 7-8 miles on foot. I didn't realize it had been that far, but that explains why I was so tired that night!!

On Triathlons and Training:

I had a great 4 mile run last night as the sun was setting. My training is picking up this week as I prepare for the Lonestar Half Ironman at the end of April. I'm about a month late in adding swimming and biking to the mix, but it's now or never. I've struggled quite a bit with training over the past year and a half. At first it was understandable, since I was swamped with wedding planning and house buying. But now it's more confusing. My motivation is...uneven. I find myself spending a lot of time comparing myself to others instead of concentrating on myself and what I want to accomplish.

I don't have a good group to train with. Many of the people in my triathlon club have gotten more serious about the sport than I am interested in becoming, rising as early as 3:30 a.m. to participate in 4-hour long spin classes. I am not at a point in my life where I am interested in getting up that early or spinning that long. This means that I am back to training by myself. Sometimes I don't mind training alone, but sometimes it gets lonely.

On Social Media:

The NASA tweetup last week was great, and I loved participating in it, but after tweeting for a solid 2 days and following dozens of new people on Twitter, I found myself feeling overwhelmed by the amount of social media I was trying to keep up with. When I'm feeling stressed out because I missed the last hour of tweets, something is seriously wrong. So I unplugged from Twitter and Facebook for the whole weekend. A couple times while we were watching the Olympics, working on the bonus room, or enjoying dinner with friends, I thought "oh, I should post this or that." Then I shook my head and groaned at myself.

Yesterday, I unfollowed about 50 people on Twitter whose updates I realized I had begun skimming past anyway. Then I logged onto Facebook and hid a whole slew of people. If the answer to the question "have I communicated in any way with you since high school graduation" was "no" then bye-bye. You can be my Facebook friend, but I do not have to read your updates. Unfollowing and hiding people probably sounds like an insanely obvious thing to do to some of you, but it was long overdue in my life. I feel less overwhelmed already!

(And don't worry -- if you're reading this blog at all, that pretty much guarantees that you are not on either of the lists above.)

On Major Life Decisions:

It's three weeks later and I still don't know anything about what NASA's new direction means for me. Overall, people are worried, scared and unhappy, and listening to the din is stressing me out. For the moment, I've tried to tune out most of the commentary and opinion and just read what's officially released by the people at headquarters. I'm planning to stick around through the end of the shuttle program this fall, since I'm the lead Rendezvous for the last shuttle flight, STS-133. After that? Who knows.

I have many ideas of what I could do. Jose has many ideas of what he could do. A lot of those ideas are compatible. The sticking point is that it will be nearly impossible for us to move into new careers without taking a very large pay cut. That isn't the end of the world, and though it would change our lifestyle, if we must do it, we'll do it. But I feel like we just got settled. The NASA uncertainty makes me feel unsettled. And I like settled better.

I complain about this race every year, yet I continue to run it. That's because it's one of the best values around -- for $30, you get to run a race AND you get a ticket to that evening's basketball game. The tickets were actually pretty good too. It's the first time I've ever sat on the lower level for basketball, and it made a big difference.

John, Melissa, Jose and Kelly shivering pre-race

But when John and Kelly went to packet pickup on Saturday (where they kindly picked up our packets as well), they had to wait 45 MINUTES in line. To pick up their race packet. That's just absurd. I can't recall ever having to wait in line more than 5 minutes at any of the hundreds of races I've done...except for this one. And it happens every year. Inexcusable.

Jose & me after the race

And when it was 38 degrees outside on Sunday morning, everyone had to mill around outside because the doors to the Toyota Center were either locked or guarded. No one was allowed inside, where it was warm, before the race. Keep in mind that the race ENDS on the basketball court and people are funneled through the concourse after the race (to the post-race party, which is also outside in the cold). But they can't let people in before the race to keep warm until the start time? Also inexcusable.

And when Jose went to demonstrate the "power pose" he created that morning under the basket, the dude next to him worried warned him not to jump up at the basket. Does he seriously think that Jose can even reach the basket (which maybe he can, but in that case, DANG JOSE, YOU CAN JUMP)? And does he seriously think that even if Jose does reach the basket, that he's going to somehow damage the rim when 6'8" 250+ pound basketball players can dunk on it regularly without it breaking?

Anyway, all stupidity on the Toyota Center's part aside, we had fun and enjoyed our tickets to the game that night. I ran with Jose and am proud of him for doing it -- I don't think he'd run 3 miles since the Rockets Run LAST year. After the race, we all came back to Clear Lake and went to breakfast at The Egg and I. Yum!

I ran my 6th Houston Half Marathon this morning in 2:24:32. Not too shabby, and I'm really happy with my result! I've been trying to remember how many half marathons I've now run, and I've lost track! Off the top of my head, I named at least 6 more: Austin, Surfside, the fall Houston Half, and Seabrook at least 3 times. Oh -- Charlotte! That makes at least 13. And of course there was a half marathon at the end of my half ironman, so that's 14, in a way.

Point being: the half is where it's AT! I love the half. It's long enough that I really feel like I accomplished something, but short enough that I don't end up wishing I were dead. ;)

Jose and I stayed downtown at the Four Seasons last night, just because it's fun to have an "in town" vacation and spend the night in a hotel. We drove down yesterday afternoon, checked in, and walked over to the convention center to pick up my packet. I resisted buying the shirt pictured above, mainly because it didn't look like it would fit me, but I just could not resist buying a green tech tee that says "I'm only doing this so I can post a picture on Facebook." We spent the rest of the night relaxing in the hotel room, splurging on room service for dinner and a way overpriced pay-per-view showing of Julie and Julia. (It was good, but made me want to eat!)

View from our hotel room today

We were up at 5 a.m. this morning and out the door at 5:45. I had my now-standard race day breakfast of instant oatmeal, made with a pitcher of hot water that they brought me for free since our room didn't have a coffee maker. (Side note: the Four Seasons was nice and all, but the room wasn't anything above rooms I've stayed in before. The service, however, was exceptional.) Jose walked over to the convention center with me, where we met John, Melissa, Matt, and Melissa's dad. Melissa and Matt were running the half, while John and Mr. P were running the full. We hung out for a bit then headed to the start line.

I wasn't really paying attention to how far back we were, and it turns out we were towards the back of the black wave. The result was that we had a LOT of weaving to do -- it was more crowded than I remember it being before, and it took a lot longer for the crowd to thin out. It didn't help that people were walking in the middle of the road. I don't have a problem with walking whatsoever; after all, I do some walking myself. But if you're going to walk, you should 1) move to the edge of the road and 2) DON'T walk 6 people abreast in the middle of the road, thus clogging up the entire road behind you!!

Anyway, so it was crowded. I ran with Melissa and Matt for the first 5 miles, at which point Matt slowed his pace a bit. We only covered the first two miles at 12:00 pace due to the crowds, but were able to speed up after that. I stayed with Melissa for another mile, long enough to pass Kelly and Mrs. P cheering for us just before the 6 mile mark. I made it through 6 miles without walking at all, but I started my run/walk regimen at that point and continued for the rest of the race while Melissa went on ahead. Interestingly, the run/walk didn't slow me down -- in fact, I sped up for the next few miles! I crossed the 10K mark in 1:09 (11:07 pace), but by mile 9 I had lowered my average pace to 10:55! I did slow over the last couple miles (still run/walking) but still finished with an average pace of 11:02.

After the race, I found Melissa and then met Jose in the reunion area. We couldn't find Matt, and eventually had to abandon him for the time being to walk back over to Rusk about a quarter-mile from the finish. We saw both Mr. P and John run past on their way to excellent finishes and finally met up with everyone one more time at the convention center. From there, Jose and I headed back to the hotel where I took an awesome shower, and then it was back to League City!

Overall it was another fun year at the Houston Marathon and Half Marathon, and I hope to be out there again next year!

Monday's Sunset

I'm beginning to build my mileage in anticipation of running the Houston Half Marathon in January. I started with 4 miles, then 5, then last Monday I ran a successful 6.3. On Sunday I went out with the intention of running 7 miles...and I totally crashed and burned. I was ready to be done after a couple miles, but by then I was about as far from the house as I could get. I plodded onward, ever so slowly. At 4.5 miles down and a bit more than half a mile from the house, I threw in the towel and walked the rest of the way.

It's not hard to figure out what could have happened, though. On Saturday, I went to the Y with Jose and ran on the treadmill. Well actually, I didn't just run on the treadmill, I did some speedwork on the treadmill. I ran hard. Then we went over to Gavin and Jen's for the evening where I drank at least a couple glasses of wine and zero glasses of water.

Hmm. Hard run the day before, combined with bad hydration? Not really the smartest move, and it made me realize that I've got to start taking this seriously again. If I'm going to do a long run, I need to treat it like one. Hydrate well, avoid alcohol the night before, get a good night's sleep, make sure I eat well in advance.

Last night I ran 3.6 miles where I concentrated on just keeping things easy and comfortable. It went great. Hopefully I'll be able to say the same about my next long run!

There was a time when my friends would complain that my blog was all about running. But lately, my running buddies would be totally justified in complaining that my blog is NEVER about running. This is because I haven't been running or biking or swimming with any real consistency since August 2008. There were spurts in there of solid training. I did the Houston Half Marathon last January on half-hearted training and it actually turned out ok. But overall? I haven't gotten significant exercise in any way, shape or form in the past year.

I'm ok with that. The past year has been perhaps the craziest and busiest -- and also most awesome -- year of my life. Accepting that I didn't have the time or desire to work out while planning my wedding and building a house is not something I regret.

The biggest downside of all this not running, of course, is weight gain. I have a long history of being overweight. Though I'd given it a try many times before, I started running for real when I was in grad school in late 2001 and continued to lose weight slowly but surely for the next few years. I reached my lowest point ever in September 2004 and remember coming back from our trip to Peru, stepping on the scale, and seeing 169. For a lot of women, that's still pretty heavy. It's still well above the 150 lb minimum weight to race triathlons as an Athena. But at 169 pounds, I felt awesome. I felt healthy, looked healthy, and was generally blissful about my physical fitness and appearance.

But over the past 5 years, the weight has been creeping back, for a lot of reasons. A saying I once read has proved more or less true -- that once in a relationship after being single, men tend to eat healthier and women tend to eat worse. But mainly, I just stopped being as dilligent about what and how much I ate. Today, I've got clothes in my closet that fit 4 years ago but don't fit now.

But on top of the weight gain, I miss running and competing in races and triathlons! I only need one finger to count the number of triathlons I did in 2009. That's right: ONE. I've done maybe 4-5 running races as well. Compare that to 2008 when I did at least 6 or 7 triathlons, and probably a dozen other running races. I love races, I love seeing my running and tri buddies, and I love the motivation they provide.

SO. With the wedding done and the house finished, it is time for action!

I've been "on a break" long enough that I am essentially starting at zero. That's tough. I'm not really looking forward to building up endurance again, and I wish there were some way to warp past the next couple months and get back to the point where I can go do a tri every weekend. But I spent October slowly starting to build a base again, and throw some longer runs in on the weekends.

I missed my "long" run on Sunday since we went to the airshow, so I headed out last night for what turned out to be 6.3 miles around my neighborhood. I'm trying to ditch the run/walk pattern I adopted over this last inconsistent year, but I still need it for the long runs right now -- mentally as much as physically -- so last night I did a 5/1.

So training is underway for the Houston Half Marathon in January, followed by the Lonestar 70.3 in April. It's going well so far!

p.s. Hearing about running buddies entering the lottery for next year's New York Marathon reminded me that I've applied -- and been denied -- three years in a row. That means I'm automatically in for 2010. Interesting...

p.p.s. On Sunday, Meb Keflezighi won the New York Marathon -- the first time an American has won that race since 1982. I read this morning that there is "debate" on the internet about Meb, a naturalized American citizen who immigrated at age 12, not being "American enough." Here's a BIG GIANT EYEROLL from me to anyone who thinks that.

Last Sunday I ran in the 10-miler for the 4th time. I think. I can't keep track, but I know I've run the full 10 miles twice, and participated in the relay at least twice now. Hmm, it may have actually been my 5th.

(Hooray for blog archives. It was my 5th. I ran all 10 miles in 2004 and 2007. I ran the relay in 2006, 2008 and 2009. I must have skipped 2005.)

Now that that's settled...

A cold front came through last Friday which thankfully lowered the temperature (if not the humidity) for the race. The weather conditions were some of the nicest I can remember for this particular race, since October weather can be so variable down here. I caught a ride over to UHCL with John, Kelly and Melissa who were all running as well. As soon as we got to the start area, I quickly found my triathlete buddy Steve. Together, we were Team BAM BAM!

I ran the second half of the race, so after the start, Kelly and I drove over to the relay exchange at the 5-mile mark. It had been comfortable at the start, but over on Kirby where there was more wind, it was actually pretty chilly. We spent a few minutes sitting in the car and saw the race leaders fly by. It always amazes me to watch the fastest runners. Their strides are so smooth and efficient that they look deceptively SLOW. Their breathing isn't labored, their faces aren't red, they're not sweating profusely. They look like they're just out for an afternoon jog. Yet they come at you, rush by, and recede in the distance in what seems like a split second. I don't think I could maintain their pace for more than a half mile, tops. Maybe not even that long. Amazing.

See? I just look awful when I run. No danger of confusing me with an elite runner anytime soon! Or ever!

Anyway, before I knew it, Steve had arrived about 51 minutes into the race, aka about 4 minutes before I'd expected him. The volunteer called out "1340? 1340!" and I went "hmm, I wonder where 1340 is...OH WAIT, IT'S ME!!" I'm pretty sure Kelly laughed at that one. I scooted up to meet Steve, strapped the timing chip to my ankle, handed him his car key so he could drive back to the finish, and started running.

I did a consistent 4/1 run/walk that has been working well for me lately as I ease back into running consistently. As the weather gets cooler and I regain fitness, I certainly intend to get back to running constantly with only the occasional water stop walk break, but the run/walk has treated me well throughout this crazy year.

Kelly passed me between mile 6 and 7 (or mile 1 and 2 of the second leg), as I expected that she would. She looked really great, on her way to her fastest 5-mile time ever. (46:43!) There was no way I could have kept up with her, so I watched her pull ahead until I couldn't see her anymore. Melissa ran the first half of their relay in 53:18, so Kelly had only started a couple minutes behind me.

At mile 7 I passed the BAM water stop and laughed at Todd, our club president, who was standing in the road in a robe and long wig complete with curlers. After that, things were pretty boring as I ran along the rather unscenic Space Center Boulevard. I spent the next couple miles counting telephone poles and listening to the occasional conversation going on around me between other runners. During each 4-minute run segment, I'd pick someone just ahead of me and made it my goal to gain on or pass them. Playing that mental game with myself helped me keep my run segments just a little uncomfortable (but in a good way), instead of just slacking off.

I crossed the finish line in 55:55 by my watch, just after Bill snapped the above photo of me with Jon's camera. The timing company didn't post Team BAM BAM's results until I emailed them, and it looks like the chip must not have registered when Steve started the race, or when he crossed the timing mat at the relay handoff. They only listed our overall gun time of 1:47:17 but that's better than nothing.

Last night I ran from the house again. This time I was sans Jose, since he was off taking the final for the Java programming class he's been taking all summer. (He is quite happy to have it over with, by the way.) I headed out in the opposite direction from what we'd done on Tuesday with the intention of checking out the trail system in our new neighborhood.

In this case, "trail" doesn't mean dirt. They are concrete, which is one of the worst surfaces to run on...I know this, yet I almost always run on concrete anyway since that's what everything is made of around here. So they're concrete. BUT they are nice and wide, with plenty of room for people to pass each other, AND as a bonus, there's a significant section that runs through the trees a bit off the main road. It was awesome! It was scenic and peaceful and quiet and I saw tons of rabbits and field mice.

I had only planned to run 3 miles, but ended up covering 4 because I kept expecting the trail to end, but it kept going. I kept thinking I'd turn around at the next corner, but then the trail would continue a bit more. Finally I turned around because I wanted to make it home before dark. (The nearly full moon rising was in view as I ran back and it was beautiful.) This morning I checked out Google maps and it looks like the trail finally ends about a quarter mile past the point where I finally turned around.

I also mapped out a few routes covering the neighborhood in different combinations. I can do everything from 2 miles to 5 miles pretty easily without even leaving our subdivision. When I need to do longer runs this fall as I ramp up for the half marathon in January, it will be very easy to follow the sidewalks into neighboring subdivisions. I already mapped out what looks to be a pretty nice 8 mile route to tackle in a few months, and it won't be too hard to add a few more miles to that by incorporating loops into other neighborhoods.

This is the best added benefit of buying a house so far! New, interesting, and non-repetitive running routes!

Where have I been all week?! Well, to be honest, I've been having the life force drained out of me as I drone on endlessly about rendezvous in an effort to finish my tasks before my cert sim next week at work.

ANYWAY.

Last Sunday morning I headed over to Pearland (with #1 fan in tow) for the Y Freedom Tri, my first triathlon of the season! That in itself is unusual, since in recent years I would've done at least two or three tris by this point in the summer. But this year, I've made no secret of the fact that my training has been zilch. Knowing that, my goal was simply to finish. I knew I had absolutely no shot at matching my time from last year, and probably wouldn't match my time from 2007. But since I've done this race every year since it started and the course hasn't changed, I can compare results!

SWIM
2007 - 6:34
2008 - 6:41
2009 - 6:14

My swim on Sunday was pretty normal. There were faster swimmers racing this year, since I moved from #106 last year to #152 this year -- and I entered the same 300m swim time I always do. I ended up passing the guy in front of me halfway through the swim. After that I had open water to myself until the last 10 meters, when I was significantly slowed by a girl who had flipped onto her back. Since there were only 10 meters left, I didn't plan to pass her so I slowed and started breaststroking. This didn't work, because she was kicking so violently that torrents of water were flying into my face and I couldn't breathe. I actually ended up just standing up in the pool and walking the last 15 feet to the wall. Oh well.

The big drop in my time this year is only because this year they finally moved the chip mat so that we crossed it immediately after getting out of the pool, instead of a few hundred feet away. This leads to a very interesting conclusion that validates what I have said all along -- for short distance races, it doesn't matter how much I've been swimming lately, because I always swim at pretty much the same pace! In 2007, I was only a couple months removed from a half ironman and had continued to train like crazy. I was in great shape. But this year, before Sunday, I had been swimming exactly ONCE in the last 6 months.

So, the new conclusion that I state with some degree of seriousness: unless I'm training for a half ironman and need to build my endurance, it's not even worth spending time in the pool.

T1
2007 - 1:35
2008 - 0:52
2009 - 1:34

I took it a bit easy in T1, jogging very slowly over to my bike (though I did luck out with a spot right on the end of the rack). Again, they moved the swim-to-T1 timing mat, which explains why last year's T1 was super quick. And back in 2007, I hadn't fully streamlined my transition yet so I probably was putting on a lot more stuff.

BIKE
2007 - 42:32
2008 - 36:22
2009 - 38:54

I was really happy with my performance on the bike on Sunday. My Garmin displayed an average of 19 mph, and I was only a couple minutes worse than last year. Overall, it felt good. There wasn't much wind so my speed stayed consistent. I leapfrogged back and forth with a guy who would ride really hard for a while, and then coast for 15-20 seconds. Ride hard, then coast. Again and again. I did not understand his riding technique at all, and by the end of the bike I was just tired of hearing the "whirrrrrrrrrrr" of his gears when he took a break from pedaling.

Oh, and for reference, the big drop in my time on the bike from 2007 to 2008 is due to my awesome tri bike that I started racing with in 2008. For better or for worse, in some cases you really CAN buy speed.

T2
2007 - 1:08
2008 - 0:50
2009 - 1:14

I'm not gonna lie. I was tired coming off the bike. I took a moment to catch my breath, and walked to the exit instead of jogging.

RUN
2007 - 32:47
2008 - 33:55
2009 - 38:23

OH MY. There are no words to describe the levels of SUCK that I attained on the run this year, so I will just leave it at that.

OVERALL
2007 - 1:24:45 - 1st place Athena
2008 - 1:18:34 - 1st place Athena
2009 - 1:26:20 - 3rd place Athena

If I'd matched my time from last year, I would have repeated as 1st place Athena. Alas, I didn't come close, and hadn't expected to. Had I not attained the previously mentioned high levels of SUCK on the run, I would have still beaten my time from two years ago. Alas, I did not.

Overall, I'm quite happy with how the race went, aside from the run. 1:26 was as good as I could have reasonably expected given the hot and humid conditions combined with my almost complete lack of training. I didn't end up getting my award, because when I looked at the posted results at the race, I was listed in 4th place. It was only getting hotter, so Jose and I decided to head home. Oh well.

Overall, it was really fun to get back into tri mode and get one under my belt for 2009. I came home that day and signed up for both Tri Girl and the Clear Lake Sprint in August, so I have a couple months to get back into the swing of things, and hopefully improve my performance!