Party like a rockstar!

Things were moving along quite nicely in triathlon training land for me until last week. I have been partying like a rockstar, drinking too much beer, staying up WAY too late and still getting my training in! Oddly my times are improving despite doing all the things that are supposed to be horrible for tri training. I ran the fastest 12 miles ever, on 4.5 hours of sleep, and 6 beers (and maybe a half bottle of wine too!). That was a huge confidence booster! My biking and swimming were getting much stronger too.....until the friggin' swine flu hit me and I have been down ever since!

Last Sunday was to be the last big hoorah before my half taper and full taper weeks. The plan was to do a little Reger-like triathlon. I woke up Sunday feeling a little quesy. I ate a light breakfast because my tummy didn't seem to want to eat a lot. I headed out to the SC and decided to ride 56 miles in the following segments: 20 miles easy, next 20 moderate: last 16 hard. I ended up with an avg speed of 19.3 after the first 20, 19.8 after mile 40 and finished up at 20.1. I was pleased with that but noticed that my tummy was still hurting and I didn't take in enough calories. I figured that I was dehydrated from previous nights beer drinking and the fact that I didn't get much sleep. I started off on my hour run and ran into Matt (Kelly's husband) I saw Kelly out riding, she took an unfortunate spill on the bike but still managed to get her 70 miles in. Go Kelly! When Matt saw me running he decided to turn around and run back in with me. Oh. My. God. Seriously? Matt is way too fast to even think about running with me. He was jogging and I was running. Acutally it was really good for me because he was pushing me to run faster than I felt like running. At that point my stomach was not happy and I was pretty sure I was just hungry. I finished up my run and was pleased with my time and distance.

Sunday night all hell broke loose. I started puking and didn't stop until 5am Monday morning. My back was hurting so badly that I was crying. I was in more pain then when I broke my leg! I called my mom that morning because I honestly thought that I had spinal meningitus, the swine flu, or some type of parasite that was going to kill me. I was throwing up water, had taken three scalding hot baths, and was using every form of heat that I could find and was still miserable. Mom came over and took me to the doctor a couple hours later and they sent me to the hospital. Suckity suck. I hate hospitals. A CT scan, ultrasound, bloodwork, and several bags of IV fluids later, they told me that I wasn't going to die. That would come next week at mile 9 or so of the run at Gulf Coast.

So today is Friday and I have only done one swim so far. I attempted a run and got two miles before I almost puked on Wednesday. Today I went to the hooch for a 10-miler. I made it 3.5 miles before I got dizzy and threw up. I think my body is trying to tell me something! I know in my head that I am still not 100% but my body wants to train so desperately! I have not gotten caught up on my sleep either this week, and I feel fat and lazy.

Thanks to everyone who checked in with me in my ill state! I appreciate it! I am going to attempt some training this weekend, more for confidence than any actual gains in my fitness. I REALLY hope that I can kick this before next weekend!

Speed.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Thursday I headed up to North Carolina to have Thanksgiving with my Dad and his family. On the way up there I was snagged by a state trooper and given a speeding ticket. Grrrrr, my 12th ticket in 10 years of having a driver's liscense! I know what you are thinking: lay off the speed! But really and truly I don't speed anymore than anyone else does. I just speed on road trips, usually on holidays, and always in the left lane, so I may stand out too much. What happened was that I was on the phone with Pee Wee getting updates on all my peeps that were running the half and full marathon. I was super excited for them and then all of a sudden Beyonce's new song "Single Ladies" came on. I started juking and jiving (a term my Dad likes to use) and before I knew it I was being pulled over by a state trooper. When he asked me if I knew I was going 85 in a 60 I said "I had no idea" and that was the truth! He was "nice" and made my ticket for 69 in a 60. Thanks. That's why I try to avoid driving on big trips.

So I was thinking that the fair thing to do would be set up a Dani is Dumb Speeding Ticket Fund. Everyone who ran the half should donate $2. If you ran the full you need to donate $4 because I was doubly excited for you guys. That should more than cover the cost of the ticket!

Enough about me, onto you guys! I want to say congrats to everyone who ran the half, especially those of you running your first (Olga and Steven). Tat ran her first marathon and rocked it! Nat PR'd on the marathon and snagged some hardware! Sue PR'd on the marathon course and Bob did awesome as well. There were a couple of ladies running post baby-which deserves special recognition because I can't imagine how hard that is!

My Luna teammate Michelle also ran her first 50k trail run this weekend. She won first overall! Way to go Michelle!

I am more anxious than ever about racing somewhere now!

Endurance isn't really all that great sometimes!

The motto "Go long, go hard" may be great for training. But when you apply it to alcohol consumption, not so much. Let's just face it: endurance training and endurance drinking do NOT go hand in hand. I learned this the hard way this weekend. Ouch. I am STILL hurting! After the reception we went on a boat ride for a couple of hours. I seriously should have ended my night there. But nope, instead I went out to the bar at the Hyatt, then Wet Willie's, then back to the hotel room. We closed down Wet Willies! They turned the lights on at 3:30 a.m. and everyone started scurrying like little rats, not wanting to expose themselves in the light. I am not normally a heavy drinker at all, and a bottle of wine can last me a month. But my competitive nature got the best of me and I didn't want to be the first one to throw the towel in and go to bed. Waking up on Sunday was awful. My joints hurt, my neck and back hurt, even the hairs in my nose hurt. I was having some serious sinus issues from allergies on top of a huge hangover. I went downstairs to get some coffee and a bagel looking like something that had just gotten run over. Remember how cute my hair looked in the wedding pics? Well, not so great the next morning! Of course I ran into everyone in Mandy's very Catholic family in the lobby on their way to Church. Ugh. I am such a loser.

I would have preferred to stay in bed all morning but I had to come back to Atlanta because it was Easter, a holiday that required a visit to mom's house. Let me tell you that drive back really sucked. The sun was beating down into the car and I wanted to crawl into a dark hole. I would have given everything I owned to someone to just drag my sorry self back to Atlanta and put me in my bed. Big thanks to Mom for warning the rest of the family about my diminished state of being so they weren't really expecting much out of me.

I obviously screwed up my plans of getting back in town early enough for a bike ride. I am now even more of a loser. You guys didn't help matters by being so good and training all weekend.

This may have been my Joe Reger defining moment of giving up alcohol for good. Or at least for the rest of the month!