Easter weekend

     I had a great Easter weekend as I hope all of you did.  Not only was it special because I got to celebrate Jesus's death and resurrection, but I got to spend it with some of my favorite people.  The only thing that could have been better would have been if Matt could have been with me. 
     Early Friday morning, me and my mom set out to drive to Texas.  My sister and her husband bought my grandma's car, so we were delivering it.  We left around 5:30 in the morning and got to Temple at 5 in the evening.  It was a great trip, went by pretty quickly and we didn't run into any traffic.  Lindsey had driven over from San Antonio with Eli and I was so excited to see them and all of Devon's kids. 


Enjoying the spoils



Isaac's full bucket



   On Saturday morning, we were invited over to one of Devon's friends' house for a brunch and Easter egg hunt.  The food was good and the kids had a great time.  Isaac definitely won the prize for the most eggs, you could tell he was an experienced egg hunter.  While the other kids would find an egg, open it to see what was inside, and then move on to looking for the next one, Isaac was running around as fast as he could filling up his bucket with any eggs he could find.  By the end of the party, Isaac was complaining that his tummy hurt because he ate too much candy :-)



Eli loved the sprinkler ball



     That afternoon, me and Devon drove into Austin to visit a few of the triathlon shops I had heard of and to get some time to just hang out.  We did a little shopping and went out for dinner.  It was nice to be able to hang out and chat without a little one vying for our attention.



Easter outfits



     Sunday morning the kids were excited to find their Easter baskets that mommy and daddy had made them and of course, we all went to church.  That evening we all went over to my Aunt Pam's house for dinner.  They had grilled ribs which were really good.  It was good to see and catch up with them. 

      Unfortunately I had to get back to the real world, and me and mom flew home yesterday (monday).  We were supposed to have a pretty crazy schedule where we were flying to Memphis, then Milwaukee, then Atlanta, and finally to Pensacola, but after sitting on the plane for 1 1/2 hours before even taking off from Austin, we missed our flight to Milwaukee.  Which actually ended up being a blessing.  We were able to get put on a flight that was leaving Memphis and going straight to Pensacola.  We had about 3 1/2 hours to kill in the airport, but it wasn't too bad.

Bold Eagle Triathlon

I competed in the Bold Eagle triathlon in Navarre, FL yesterday.  It wasn't one that I was planning on doing.  It was a last minute decision, I figured I may as well do it since it was close and I figured it would be a fun longer training day.  The race was a disaster though.  I hadn't heard great things about the race directors, but I had done the same race last year and it wasn't too bad.  However, this year they tried doing a half-ironman race at the same time as the olympic and it was an epic failure. 
      The people putting on the race decided they didn't want to create two swim courses so they had everyone do the half-iron distance (1.2 miles) which was okay because they at least let us know that beforehand.  The swim was in the bay and we basically just did an out and back course.  The water was pretty calm, but I was dreading getting in because a cold front came in overnight and I was freezing.  Once I got in it wasn't too bad though.

     Getting on the bike was a different story.  Being wet and having the temperature around 55-60 made for a pretty chilly bike ride.  It took me about two-thirds of the ride to warm up.  The bike course was the disaster of the race.  It was way more complicated than it needed to be, there were too many loops and turns, and it was very poorly marked leading to mass confusion about where to go.  About five miles into the ride, as I was riding past a side street one of the volunteers told me I was supposed to turn.  I tried to quickly turn around and ended up crashing my bike...not cool.  Luckily I wasn't going too fast so it wasn't bad, but I ended up with a pretty bloody knee, a swollen and bruised jammed finger, and I had to stop and put my chain back on.  Needless to say, I rode pretty cautiously after that.

      The run went good, it was a pretty simple course, but by then I was so frustrated with the race that I wasn't very motivated.  I did okay, but it wasn't one of my better runs. 

Never more glad to be just about done

     After the race, everyone was pretty upset about the confusion on the bike course.  There were people who had gone all different distances ranging from 17-26 miles (it was supposed to be 25) depending on which loops they did and how many times they did them.  i was just glad to get out of it without any significant injuries or anything.  It was still a pretty good training day, but not a race I'll be doing again.

TGIF...I'm so ready for the weekend! It's been a good week, but I'm looking forward to the next couple of days.  Tomorrow my church is having a women's conference and I get to lead worship for it.  I've never played in front of a group without any other instruments, so we'll see how it goes.  All I want is to play well enough that I am not a distraction to those worshipping.  My mom is one of the keynote speakers and I'm excited about hearing her testimony.  Then on Sunday, I'm doing another race, the Bold Eagle Triathlon in Navarre.  I decided to do it last minute, just signed up two days ago, and am really just using it as a longer training session. 
     On Wednesday, we had a nice surprise, Lindsey (my sister), her husband, and friends stopped by for dinner.  They were on their way home from their vacation in St Augustine and went a little out of their way so they could come see us.  I made homemade pizza at my parent's house, we ate, hung out, and played a game.  It was so good to see them, even though they didn't have my nephew Eli with them.
     I had some tough training sessions this week.  A few of the ones that stick out in my mind were a ten mile run that I did on Thursday where for the middle 40 minutes I was alternating between 1 min max effort and 1 min easy.  My legs were dead by the end.  Another good one was this morning I rode 50 miles including some tough intervals and followed up by a short run.  I also got to meet Coach John on Thursday afternoon for an open water swim session.  As you can tell, I definately won't be tapered for the race this weekend :-)

Red Hills Triathlon

I opened up the triathlon season yesterday morning with the Red Hills Triathlon in Tallahassee, FL.  It was a sprint (short) distance race that consisted of a 1/3 mile swim, 16 mile bike, and a 3.1 mile run.  Me and Matt were both able to get off work a little early on Friday afternoon, so after about a 3 hour drive, we got to our hotel around 7.  I was excited about the race, running races are fun, but triathlons are on a whole other level.

Race morning, we got up a little before six, our hotel was pretty close to the race venue so we got a little extra sleep, and headed over to the Alfred Mclay State Park.  What we weren't expecting was the 20 minute walk from the parking lot to the transition area.  Once we finally made it to the transition area, I grabbed my packet, picked up my chip, got bodymarked, and set up my transition area. 

Getting ready to race

The race started at 7:30 and I was in the 5th wave.  We swam in a lake which was a little dirty, but I've been in worse.  With swimming being my worst event, I was glad to get it over with.  Once in transition, I struggled a little with getting my wetsuit off, and then was off on the bike.  The website had said that it was a hilly course, but it was even more hilly than I expected.  Most of it was rolling hills with a few pretty tough ones.  I felt pretty good and pushed as hard as I could.  The last event, the run, is always my favorite.  This course was pretty cool, the first and last mile were on pavement through the park and the middle mile was on a trail back in the woods.  I felt strong and was able to pass a few girls, but was caught by another girl in the last 1/3 mile.  I decided I was going to try to sit right behind her and hopefully outkick her at the end. I was actually able to just barely pass her on the last hill, but then, right before we got to the finish line, the road kind of forked and I started going down the wrong side.  I heard Matt start yelling at me, quickly cut over to the right side, and ran as hard as I could.  I thought for sure she would've passed me, I ended up beating her by 2 seconds.

 

Overall, I was happy with the race.  It was very well organized, had great volunteers, and a great atmosphere. Definately one I would do again! It was a good season opener and a good chance to get back into the groove of racing before some of the big races coming up.  It wasn't a very big race, but it had some strong competitors show up. I ended up as the 7th overall female and 2nd in my age group.

    I had a pretty big week of training this past week, about 18 hours total.  Some of the highlights included meeting Coach John for a swim training session, attending an open water swim clinic put on by Multisport Performance Institute (MPI), and getting back on the trainer for a hard bike interval set. 
    I met Coach John at Portofino Resort out at the beach for a one on one swim session on Thursday afternoon.  Swimming is by far by weakest discipline, so any extra help I can get is great. We went through several drills particularly working on keeping my elbows high on the catch phase of my stroke.  John has been coaching for over 30 years and really know his stuff.
    On Saturday morning, MPI put on a free open water swim clinic out at the beach.  There were about twenty athletes that showed up for it.  They gave an hour lecture and then we were in the water for about an hour.  It was a little chilly getting in, but not as bad as I was expecting (we were wearing wetsuits).
    When I woke up Wednesday morning, it was storming, so I knew the pool would be closed and I'd have to wait until the afternoon to swim. I decided to go ahead and do the bike interval session I had planned for that afternoon on the trainer.  I have recently been in a running block, so haven't done many hard bike sessions lately so it felt good to be able to hammer it on the bike again.
    As many of you know, Matt is in the midst of taking the exams to be a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).  It's a four part test, he's passed the first two and took the third one on Saturday.  He didn't feel great about it, but we are praying he passed.  These tests are beasts and he is so disciplined in preparing for them.  Saturday was also my sister and bro in law's, Devon and Jon, fifth anniversary. Can't believe it's been that long.  It's crazy to think back on what has happened over the past five years and how life has changed.