I am alive and well!!

I am here! Been so super busy that blogging has taken a back seat. Lot's of things been going on though....I raced at Irongirl Triathlon. It was fun, it was a "C" race for me so my goal time was 1:33:30 (yes I even had the seconds!) My actual time was 1:33:23 so I was happy with that! Sprints hurt! It was fun to race at an event where so many ladies were doing their first triathlon, they were so excited that it made it really special for me! Plus I was coaching a couple of ladies who were racing, and supporting them was fun!

Last weekend I went up to the Gaps for some good ole' fashioned arse kicking. For some reason I was convinced to go up Brasstown Bald (3 mile climb, highest elevation point in GA) Made it about 2 miles when a truck started honking at me. I was weaving all over the place because it was the only way that I could ride. I was going 2 mph, the power meter said it was 16.5 % incline and my power wattage was over 300. I had to stop. I literally felt like I was going to fall over! There was this amazing 16 y/o rider from Columbia with us, he kept trying to get me to start again by clipping in and holding on to his dad's car ( he was our sag wagon) I was like "you obviously do not know my bike handeling skills!! I ended up turning around only to find that the hill was too steep for me to get back on my bike. I walked it to a safe place and mounted the bike, squeezing my brakes as tight as possible, still going really fast. The rest of the ride was much easier, we did Hogpen last and it seemed much more managable than last time. 50 miles total. Good times!

So I am slowly reintroducing myself to the long stuff. Took too long of a break after Gulf Coast because I wasn't training for anything that required too much work. Rode 56 miles yesterday with Big Brown. He liked to kill me when he rode off and I was trying to catch him going 27 mph (it was FLAT) He likes to see me suffer!

Hope that everyone else is having an awesome summer and training hard! Congrats to everyone that raced today at Chattanooga! Heard that you guys were killing it out there!!

West Point Lake Triathlon

West Point Lake Tri is going down in history as the very first time in my triathlon life that I have ever not wanted to race. I ALWAYS want to race. I would race every weekend if I could afford it. That is how much I love to race. This time? Not so much. It turns out that racing is only fun when you train correctly. My training? All over the place. Seriously. 10,000 meters in the pool on week.....then 10 days off from swimming. Climb Hogpen.....take a five day break from the bike. Me without a plan or a purpose is obviously pretty ugly. But....like my dad says excuses are like buttholes, everyone's got one. And for me? No excuse other than just being a bit lazy coming off Gulf Coast. So here is the skinny:

Swim: Yikes. Windy. Lake was choppy and I still can't sight worth a flip. Went off course. Matt caught me, tried to draft off him for the last 400 yards or so but he is fast little bugger. Couldn't find a good rhythm, stopped and took off my goggles to look for the buoys once and realized I was WAY off course. Gotta work on those siting skills! Swim time: 30:12 a perfect 2 min/100 meter pace....WAY too slow!

Bike: Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Usually love the bike. Not today. More negative thoughts went through my head than ever before. Thought about DNF'ing because my back, hamstrings and feet were numb. Thought about quitting triathlon. Dropped my chain and was pissed but able to get it on without stopping. Mad at myself for not changing the 11-21 cassette. Just in a BAD mood on the bike. I hate being negative! Couldn't come up with anything positive....then I started thinking about how lucky I was to be able to race in the first place! I am alive! I am healthy! Quit being a whinner! Bike time: 1:13:52 (20.2 MPH)

Run: Actually didn't feel that bad on the run. Only took one gel in on the bike so I bonked around mile 3 but other than that it wasn't that awful. Wanted to it a minute faster than I acutally did. but considering the amount of speed training I have done, I am happy with the results. Didn't get passed too much. Saw my Luna Chix Leslie and Sharon on the course which pepped me up! The Atlanta Triathlon Club volunteers were all out in full force which was fun too! Run time: 51:47 (8:22 pace)

Total Time: 2:37:44 5th place AG, 16th female OA, 118th overall male and female
Goal Time: 2:36:29

Why 2:36:29 as a goal? That was Keith's time from last year and some ice cream was riding on it! Missed it by 1 minute 15 seconds! But we had the EXACT same bike split! How odd is that?

The quest for Brusters continues......

Free Beginners Triathlon Clinic!!!

Team Luna Chix is hosting a FREE beginners triathlon clinic this Sunday, June 14th from 2-3 p.m. at the Concourse Athletic Club (8 Concourse Parkway Atlanta 30328) we will be covering basic topics including transitions, what to expect, what to bring, bike safety, tips on what to wear, nutrition, USAT rules and regulations, and much more! We will have Luna product to share and will be accepting donations for the Breast Cancer Fund.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Augusta 70.3

It appears that EVERYONE is doing this race! Like honestly, almost every triathlete that I know is going to either be racing Augusta, or there volunteering. You know how much I hate being left out of the action, so I took the plunge and signed up for the race! Yay! I am MORE than excited! I have been pretty lazy since Gulf Coast, not really following any particular training plan with no "A" race scheduled for myself. It's good to have something that I actually HAVE to train for. (Technically I don't really follow any type of plan for sprints of Oly distance races!)

In other news I am going to attempt to race this weekend at West Point Lake. Yikes. So little race specific training usually equals lots of misery. The heat will be brutal I am sure. Olympic distance racing seems to be the hardest for me! No real goals for me, just trying to qualify for some Bruster's from Scootsie if I can make a certain time goal (a very ambitious one I might add!)

Come holla at me if you see me! Some of the Luna Chix will be there too! I will be at the Atlanta Tri Club tent after the race!

The Hogpen Hillclimb

I am so excited that I FINALLY got to ride up Hogpen! I have wanted to do this forever-but getting up to the Gaps is always such a hassle and never seems to fit in with the rest of my training. So when Scoots invited me along for a Gaps trip last weekend, I knew that I couldn't resist!

I have heard SO much about Hogpen, I was a little apprehensive about a climb that has left many of my friends off their bikes and walking their first time up. But it wasn't really half as bad as it's made out to be. It would have been a lot easier had I not accidently took a tramadol (pain killer) after Unicoi Gap. Oops. That was totally supposed to be for the leg pain after the ride! I got super-dizzy and sick to my stomach. But somehow I managed to make it up Hogpen and back down! My goal was not to let the mountain goat Scoots get out of sight. I can't wait to climb like that one day!

We rode a total of about 48-50 miles. It was blazing hot because we didn't start until 11am! The best part was that I didn't freak out at all on the descents, because honestly they were nothing compared to what I dealt with in Cali! After the ride was over I was even more dizzy and nauseated (pain killers on an empty stomach aren't a good idea!) We made an emergency stop at Zaxby's so I could hug the porecelin for a few minutes and then I felt better!

Congrats to Aaron for riding up Hogpen his FIRST trip to the Gaps! That's awesome!

Happy Training!

Team Luna Chix Swim Clinic!!!

Swim Clinic for Women

Where: Marist High School Pool - 3790 Ashford Dunwoody Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30319 When: 05-31-2009 Session One: 12pm-3pm Session Two: 3:30pm-6:30pm
Whether you are a beginner swimmer or advanced, join the women of Team LUNA Chix Atlanta Tri Team for a fun and highly educational swim clinic to benefit the Breast Cancer Fund.Each swimmer will experience extensive pool time and the clinic includes the following:
• Videotaping of each swimmer
• Analysis of each swimmer’s stroke and “limiters”
• Specific drills to improve stroke
• Proper stroke technique and drills will be demonstrated and practiced
• Suggestions for further swim training to achieve individual goals
• Free samples of LUNA sports nutrition products

Clinic Instructor: Coach Tim Storsteen
• Former All American and scholarship swimmer at Clemson University
• Ten years of coaching experience for U.S. Swimming, U.S. Masters Swimming, YMCA, and Triathlon Swim Coaching and certified with American Swim Coaches Assn.
• Masters Coach for Westminster Killer Whales

Registration
*ONLY 10 SPOTS AVAILABLE IN EACH SESSION*
Please register by May 24th. Send an email to teamlunachixatl@gmail.com and additional details will be provided. Pre-payment is required to reserve your spot otherwise the clinic is first come first serve! Note: must be able to swim 100 yards to participate. Cost is $100 per swimmer and 50% will be donated to Breast Cancer Fund! Cash is preferred. We will also accept checks, but no credit or debit cards.

I went to Panama City Beach and came back with a hickey!

Okay so the title of this post may be slightly misleading....it really should say Gulf Coast Race Report 2009. But I really did go to PCB and come back with a hickey so I guess it's not totally false! Here is the low-down of the race!

I felt good going into Gulf Coast. I knew that pending nothing horrible happening I would have a good race, and I would PR. This was my second time racing the half-Ironman distance. So far it's my favorite distance to race. Friday the swim wasn't as bad as everyone else seemed to think. Master's swimming all year has paid off and I felt good. I swam without a wetsuit because the water was really warm and I was pretty confident that it would be not be wetsuit legal.

So here is how my race went!

The Swim: This was the part of the race that had me the most excited. I had an AWFUL swim last year and was sure that this year I would be in the 36-37 minute range. Right away my goggles filled up with water. I tried to adjust them but it wasn't really working. Out of no where, my goggles came off and floated away into the ocean!! What the heck? I looked for them but they were obviously gone forever. Suck. Suck. Suck. At that exact moment I saw Tat and yelled for her. I don't know what I was going to say, but she was stopped and so was I, so it seemed resonable to call her name. She didn't hear me and swam off. I figured that I would swim with my eyes closed. Unfortunately my eyes were burning from the several brief
seconds when my goggles came off and my eyes were under water. I was totally unprepared for this and had no idea what to do. I swam with my eyes closed and got totally off course several times. I swam breast stroke and hardly got anywhere. So I decided to swim tarzan style! I made it out of the water with a nice hickey on my neck from my wetsuit, and eyes that were more red and puffy than Cheech and Chong! Despite my goggle malfunction I still swam faster than last year! My goal time was 37minutes, and I was 4 minutes and some change off that! Oh well! Next year!

The Bike: I had a game plan for the bike this year: HOLD BACK! Ride it at Ironman heartrate zone. Feel awesome the whole time. Do not push it. Repeat: DO NOT push it! I am SO happy that everything went according to plan! I was using a disc race wheel which was my only regret on the bike. It was windy and I felt uncomfortable, like I was being blown all over the place. There was no way to know that it was going to be that windy, because the Friday before the race it was not really windy at all. That is just a risk that you take when you use a disc! The bike course seemed a lot more deserted than it did last year. I remember huge packs of guys coming whizzing by me. This year I only got passed by about 5 or 6 guys. Only one chick passed me, Shelley Ruiz, and we played the ultimate game of cat and mouse passing each other almost 20 times! She is a bike coach with the Atlanta Tri Club (so am I) so that was fun! I was trying really hard to stick to my game plan and not push myself when she would pass me. I ended up with a 2:37 bike split, 21.4 avg mph, faster than last year!

The Run: Remember my awesome game plan of not pushing it on the bike? Well apparently I didn't push it enough because my legs felt really good when I got off. Too good because my first mile came in at a 7:20 something pace. Ouch. I tried hard to real myself in but it took another mile at a ridiculously fast pace before my body adjusted to what my mind was thinking. I slowed down. Then I slowed down some more. I honestly felt great until the most God-awful blisters I have ever had in my entire life started cropping up around mile 7-8. I am a total weirdo about not having my feet wet. I cannot stand it. So I wore a glove and filled it with ice instead of dumping water on my head. It worked really well. I peed in the port-o-potty in transition so that wasn't an issue. I guess that at some point you just start sweating a lot when it's hot as a motha! The best part about the run was that nothing really hurt that much. My hips felt great, my knees didn't hurt, no back issues, not one single cramp (although I thought I felt a calf cramp coming on). The only thing that was not good was my nutrition. My plan was to eat two gels on the run. Maybe three. I usually only take 2 gels for a 10-13 mile run with just water. Well this year there were no gels on the course, only Clif Bloks. Those things TEAR me up! I ate three and was like NO WAY! So I went without, I felt a little bonky around mile 10 so I stopped and had two orange slices and some flat cola. This was my first attempt at a long run with no gels and I didn't like it. Lesson learned: don't trust the pre-race booklet about nutrition. ALWAYS pack your own! My run time was 2:06:55 an 11-minute improvement over last year!

My overall finishing time was 5:33:24 which was much better (14 minutes!) than last years 5:47. I placed sixth in my age group and got an award! I was the 32nd overall female out of 296 finishers and I was the 209th overall finisher out of 999 finishers. I am happy with my results for the first time in a long time! It felt great to have a good race, podium, have the amazing support of my friends and family, and be able to race with such an awesome group of local tri geeks! I was off my goal time, but considering what I was dealing with, I was totally whole with my race and my results. I didn't let the swim mess me up, and I stuck to my race strategy. I learned a lot during this race and I am looking for another half distance race to do because this was so much fun!

Congrats to EVERYONE who showed up, completed, placed, and supported down in Florida. You guys are awesome and it was really appreciated. Pics are up on Facebook!