Born Again Athlete:

Another bike crash

Good ride until then. Weather has really cooled off here.
It was a stupid fall. No cars involved, no cracks in the road. Just me not paying attention, going off into the shoulder gravel and losing control of the bike. It was on a little downhill, so I was going fast.

My friend Catharine was still around, thank god, and some nice women stopped. I think one of them was traumatized because she saw me go over and it probably looked worse than it was. Some nice man brought me to the nearest gas station.

For some strange lucky reason, I crashed really close to the hospital where I work, so decided it wouldn't hurt to go. Catharine called Mo, our coach who came and got me and my bike.

I think the bike is okay. It is titanium after all. But need to the get the aero bars checked out; they are carbon.

My right knee swelled up a bit and I had a little difficulty walking on it. My left shoulder worried me the most. I seemed to have landed mostly on my left side. It hurt when I turned my forearm upwards (supination), so the ER doc wanted to rule out a humeral head fracture.

A few xrays later, everything checked out. Cleaning all the road rash hurt the most!

I had a pretty good attitude about the whole thing. I was kinda laughing. Yes, had helmet on. And even if I had broken something and couldn't do the ironman - so what? There are far, far worse things in the world. 

In fact, I was glad because this gives me a legitimate excuse to take some days off and not feel guilty!

Friends in general and T3 friends have been great. The great bond of cyclists and commisery over injuries. (Is commisery a word? the noun form of commiserate??)

Gory pics:

 
Road rash galore
and a little on my face.












Could be worse!

Sweet and Twisted splits

Just more details, mainly for my own documentation

Swim - actually exactly the same at 2:39 per 100 meters. Don't know how much time I lost from getting kicked in the face and adjusting my goggles.

Bike: 17 mph this year vs. 16.2 mph last year. Funny, I felt much faster.

Run: 10:58 min mile this year vs. 12:36 last year. Huge improvement. Would have been faster, but I stopped to walk and talk with Catherine, who was cramping.

I'll take it!

I'm very happy these days. heeheeheehee

I love haggis.

I love my bike.

I love eating haggis on my bike (just kidding).

Sweet and Twisted tri 2009

Good race, good day with good team.

Not sure of my splits, but last year I did this in 1:52 and this year 1:46. I'll take the small improvement!
I felt strong on the swim, not sure if the time was so hot. I got my goggles kicked off, again! (those breast-strokers, ugh!) There was a 300 meter run to T1. Not sure if the time counted or not. So not sure if this transition time added to this year's time, making it inaccurate to compare?

BIke was pretty fantastic. I passed a lot of people, including some of my teammates! Everyone in T3 is good, so this is saying a lot.

Run was great. As usual, I got passed alot, but I'm pretty sure I did the run in under 33 minutes whereas last year it 38 plus.

T3 boy volunteers were a hoot - Thanks guys!

This had to be the best post-race food ever! I had a beer and pretzels, a cupcake from Hey Cupcake! and an ice cream cone.

I took these photos from Gordon. He's been our unofficial team photographer. He has a day job, but really needs to give that up. He takes fantastic photos. If I ever get married, I think I'll hire him as photographer. He has a way of making everyone look good, as well as capturing interesting moments of the day. Here is his blog: http://gordonmcgregor.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

Always finish with a boa.
If you look really carefully, I'm airborne!

I like smiling during races.

They are fun. I appreciate the fact that I can do them, and I'm not disabled or even just out of shape.

Nutrition FAIL

Trying honey to replace gu/gels didn't work. Nothing terrible happened; I didn't get explosive diarrhea or anything. But my stomach hurt and it was too sweet and didn't get enough calories. So my 100 mile ride turned into a 64 miler. Eh. Smoked salmon on multigrain bread is my new favorite post-recovery food. I'm getting back to being a foodie.

Teaser

I bought a new bike!
It's not what you think.

yes, this is in response to the whole corefit brewhaha

Yoga for athletes - what a hideous concept. Okay, maybe hideous is too strong of a word, but it bothers me. Whenever I've done yoga in a gym setting or with athletes, it seems to get competitive, who can stretch the farthest or hold a pose. And isn't that the antithesis of yoga? Yoga involves a meditative, almost religious aspect. The physical benefits seem to be just a side perk. If you strip away the reflection, the "emptying of the mind", the focus on awareness, is it really yoga?

A teacher once told me that corpse pose is the hardest pose. Not because it's physically hard - you just lie there on your back. But because the most difficult to do is focus on your mind and body in a simple pose and most of us can not do that; we are filled with inane chatter.

If I ever do a yoga for athletes class, can someone please punch me in the face? Thanks in advance. ohm.

Quick update.

My camera is not working too well these days.

I am chronically fatigued (oh, yeah, Ironman training), but I am loving the sport again.

I am working on real food for my nutrition plan.
Last week I tried boiled potatoes. It sat well, but didn't taste too good. This weekend, I made sushi rice (like when you make sushi - with rice vinegar, salt and sugar), packed it into little foil packets. It worked great and tasted much better than gu. I am watching these videos on Youtube about real food made for Tour de France teams. He has a lot of other videos too.

Eye candy alert.

Go to Kreutz Photography, click on Jack's Generic triathlon, and type in bib # 767. That's Brendan Hansen, Olympic swimmer. This was his first triathlon. He swam the 500 meters in 6 minutes.

Does this make me a pervert for oggling him? Instead of appreciating him for his athletic skills and abilities? Yeah, I'm sure all the men at races look at the women, thinking "wow, I really appreciate her athletic skills."

Wait - he trains with T3?!?! Just read Tia's blog. Who are you Tia? Say hi if you see me. She reports that he trains with T3. I heard he swims at Courtyard, but didn't know he trained with T3. Maybe he just gets advice from Coach Pain and Mo. He should come to spin class. Specifically Tues and Thurs afternoon spin class.  Park by the littlest Guru.

Can you buy time?

I went open water swimming this morning at Barton Springs. I decided to use another wetsuit. It's not exactly a new wetsuit. I bought it last fall, but preferred my cheaper wetsuit. This is a Blue Seventy Helix. I felt weird about buying a top-of-the-line wetsuit for my not so-top-of-the-line swimming, but it was on sale. It's a $550 wetsuit which I got for about $220. Anyway, it didn't feel as comfortable. Perhaps it was was too small at the time.

I've been unable to sell it, so decided to try it out again this morning. It fit better; the weight loss has helped. The neckline is definitely better (no more wetsuit hickeys).

It usually takes me me about 10 minutes to cover the 400 meter lap. Today, in that wetsuit, I did it in about 8-9 minutes.

So I swam "faster", but not really faster.

I feel kinda guilty about this. I know there is a lot of debate already about technology and sports. Most recently, Biedermann defeating Phelps and discussion of whether it was the speedsuit. I know that I'm never in contention of winning. Maybe the wetsuit will help me get 27th in my age group instead of 28th. I know that the equipment doesn't replace the effort or the training (car's good, but still have to have the motor).

But still...

I can afford high end stuff. My bike is super light and aero, and I have race wheels. I can get fancy orthotics, and now a fancy wetsuit. I suppose it doesn't diminish the work I've put in, but I can't help feeling like it's cheating a little. I hope to have a faster swim time in Florida this year than in Arizona, but now I might wonder, am I better, or is it the wetsuit?

Something to think about at any rate.

(but hell yeah, I'm sticking to this wetsuit. I'm introspective but still a realist).

I still suck

Whiny post about how I suck and I'm never doing 360 loop again.
Even with improvements and weight loss, I'm still the slowest person in T3. Others may be slow on the bike, but they are good runners; or may be average runners, but great swimmers.
I felt like crying on the last 4 miles today. why the fuck do we have a ride where we come back on really steep hills when it is hot and traffic-y? And thanks for the headwind God, baby jesus, Allah, Buddha and Zeus


See how disgusting that last big hill is? And after that you still have to do 2 smallish climbs.

Why am I doing this stupid Ironman thing again?