One week to go

I feel like it's been awhile since I've posted a blog.  My life has been crazy! Tonight was our mini-triathlon for the Great Beginner Triathlon program.  This means the tri is a mere week and a half away.  It went pretty well.  Kitty wanted us to swim 20 minutes, then go to transition.  I started my swim out across Lion's beach, and back, and was disheartened when I was told I had to swim back out, and it had only been 10 minutes!  What?! 10 minutes, no way!  So I reluctantly swam out, not nearly as fast, and turned around where Kitty gave me the okay.  I jogged through the sand up to transition, wiped my feet off, put my socks, shoes, and helmet on, and was off.  We just did a small 2.8 mile loop, but up a rather large hill on Racine.  The downhill was nice, but I'm sure the uphill was more vicious than that downhill!  Next it was run time, I racked my bike, grabbed my water bottle and headed out.  This is where the heat became noticeable.  I forgot to spin in a low gear on my bike before the transition and my calves were screaming at me.  Needless to say I won't be forgetting to do that next time!  It wasn't a race, but I was 3rd back.  Next week is the last week, I'm not sure if I'll make it on time with work and it being a holiday week (4th of July).  It would be nice to get out into the river for another swim.

A few more Ragnar pics

More Ragnar pics

Leg 2 in the books!

I want to start by saying I had an AWESOME 7 mile run this morning, however the road to that run was not so smooth. After leg 1 my electrolytes or something else were far out of check and I had a headache for quite awhile.  I tried everything; Gatorade,  water, salt tablets, the rest of my subway, pretzels, Tylenol, and sleep. No such luck, my dehydration headache would not go away and I was feeling crummy and cold.  And I must have looked pretty awful because my team was worried about me. Jessica gave me a ONE coconut water to drink because of the electrolytes and potassium. I grabbed a banana and slowly made my way the exchange in time for me to throw the rest of the banana and ONE to Jessica before I took off running in my tank and arm sleeves. I was finally feeling better when I took off. I passed 2 people right away and had to roll off my sleeves at half a mile. Mile 1 8:45, mile 2 8:45, mile 3 was around a 9, and I'll have to consult my garmin for the specifics. The miles  were flying by as the sun came up. 6 roadkillz. Just after mile 6 I saw my next target; an athletic male about my age. At 6.5 he was about 200 feet ahead of me and i was slowly gaining. At .15 to go I started picking up my pace to sprint. When I was 4 feet on him sprinting when he turned around and saw me gaining on him; so he started a sprint, we were neck in neck coming into the exchange when I wasn't sure where my hand off person was. I saw her on the left side, handed off then high fived the guy and told him good race. What started off as an iffy run turned into a great one. 5 miles left this afternoon for me!

Time moving splits (There stop lights I had to stop at so I think it's fair to use these times!!):
8:47
8:44
8:55
9:02
9:33
9:15
8:48

5.8 to go

Leg 1 is done! 5.8 of 17 miles done! I wish I could say it went really well but it was a huge mental battle for me. I started out too fast at a 7:30 pace, and decided to slow at half a mile. I didn't take music and there wasn't anyone near me for most of the run.  At mile 2 my wonderful teammates were on a trail intersection to cheer me on, it was great.  Then soon after my lower left leg started to cramp, I talked myself up, and pushed through. Then I saw a shiny little packet on the trail, I stopped, went back 2 steps and found myself a full gu. I immediately took the gu and kept on going. The scenery along the trail was absolutely gorgeous. A river along the trail with a grassy bank. I tried to keep my pace under a 9:30, which was difficult at times. A couple runners passed me but not before we had some friendly exchanges. The first guy to pass I asked what he was hoping to pace and he said he didn't know so I asked if it was around 9 and he said yes so I tried to keep up with him for a bit and pushed my average pace down. The next couple to come by made comments about the bugs; there were a ton!  Then finally there was a water station at a mile to go.  I felt pretty good so I started sprinting  to the finish to hand off to Andrea.

4 done

We are currently on runner 5. Caleb is on the road and we are waiting around mile 3.7 of 6.3. We are having a good time. We stopped at subway for some fuel. It's kind of hard to give updates while driving a van and stopping here and there.

We saw Caleb at mile 3 he was looking well at a good pace. We are now waiting at Nathan's mile 2 of 10.9. Then we will be heading to our exchange point to get van 2 rolling (or running)

Some pics