Bri Gaal's Blog

Backloading the Season

2019-10-16T14:50:00.000-04:00

After St. Anthony's I didn't have any races on the schedule and just figured I'd jump into a few local sprints throughout the summer. A hard interval run on a June morning was immediately followed by all day training/testing as we implemented a new financial system at work. When I got up at the end of the day, my right hip was super tight. I figured I needed to stretch and roll and it would be fine. It wasn't. It gradually got worse every week until I had to shut down running for most of July. I was very cautious coming back and did a lot of walk/jogging (and dry needling/stretching/yoga/standing more at work).

Marty and I decided to do a few late season races after it hopefully cooled down a bit and I could get my hip better. First up was the Outer Banks Triathlon which we had never done. Actually, all of the races we signed up for we had never done. Outer Banks was also an excuse for us to do a mini vacay at the beach since we could both race on separate days. No babysitter needed for Junior Awesome.

Outer Banks Sprint Triathlon
We had some friends also join us for this and stay at the beach house we rented in Nags Head. It was a fun and relaxing weekend. Unfortunately, all swims were cancelled for the races because of high bacteria in the water leftover from the hurricane that came through the week before. This was a bummer but I was honestly glad they were able to pull off any race that weekend. They started us in 4 different 'waves' where we self seeded in the wave and ran into transition to our bikes. Old ladies last, of course :/ They started with two waves of men, then two waves of women. I ended up 3rd in line for my wave but was first out of transition. The bike was crowded with cars, something I hope the organizers can work on for next year. It was down right dangerous leaving the first transition area since they allowed spectators to leave before everyone was out on the bike (there were two transitions). I went super hard on the bike since I knew the run was going to be hard for me either way - I just wasn't in good run shape yet. I was able to catch everyone in the wave ahead of me except for my friend Sarah. It was a very hot and humid day so the run felt pretty brutal. I knew it was going to be a tough one when after 5min into the run I thought I wasn't going to be able to finish :) I was definitely on the struggle bus out there - running is so freaking hard when you're not in shape! I did manage to win overall for females with Sarah not too far behind me.
Results

Sandling Beach Formula 1 Sprint
This race was a crazy format and just down the road from us. It was also 3 weeks after the Outer Banks and I was starting to feel a bit more fit. Bike-Run-Swim-Bike-Run-Swim-Bike-Run
All the bikes were 5miles and the runs were 2K. The two swims were 500 yards.The format made this very fun with zero pressure as it's so different than most other races you'll ever do. The competition was great, but it was very disappointing how low the overall turnout was. The course itself - really challenging! The bikes were two loops with lots of turns and one moderate hill. I never felt like I could really get going on the bike. The run was out and back (uphill/downhill and then reverse it). The swim was calm and a perfect temperature. When I first signed up for this race my biggest concern was the water being cold (since I'm a total cold water wuss) but it felt great. I knew from doing the Old School Aquathons years ago that swimming after running is super hard, so concentrated on long, relaxed strokes. I ended up finishing second to a young super stud and had a really fun day.
Results

The Dam Triathlon
6 days later was our last triathlon for the year: The Dam Triathlon in Lexington, SC, part of the South Carolina Triathlon Series. My sister moved to Columbia a few years ago and then bought a house a year after moving there. I discovered that their house was only 10min from the transition area of this race and it was a fun distance (they called it a 'sprinternational' since it is in between a sprint and international distance: 1000 meter swim, 21 mile bike, 4 mile run). Last year we couldn't make it because Marty had signed up for the NC 70.3 on the same day (which ended up getting cancelled) but we penciled the race in for this year.

I had taken a peek at the participant list and saw there looked to be a good number of open/masters open competitors which I was very pumped about. I didn't know any of them (except for Katie Malone) but was glad to see a healthy amount that would definitely mean good competition. Justin had also told me the prior week that the points were real tight for the series so it was going to be a good one. I mistakenly signed up for Masters Open instead of the Open division - I had remembered that back in the day for the North Carolina Triathlon Series that once you were 40 you were in Masters Open, no exceptions. But this was not the case down here - anyone could be in the Open division, and this is where all the fast girls were categorized. Luckily we all went in the same wave so it ended up not being a big deal.

The swim was barely wetsuit legal (yay!) and had some chop since it was a bit windy out. I seem to do better in these type of conditions and ended up coming out with the first girl (although I didn't know it at the time). We got on the bike at the same time but I was able to ride away pretty quick. The bike course was open to traffic but luckily I only had one close call (a car pulling out of a gas station right after I had a made a left turn onto the road). I was almost completely by myself on the bike except for a few slower male swimmers who passed me. The second lap had a few more people since I was now overlapping the later waves but overall it was very spread out. I thought I was in first but really wasn't sure until I got on the run where a spectator finally said something.

On the run I put it in a comfortable hard pace - I'm finally feeling better fitness-wise but didn't have the confidence that I could run all that fast for 4 miles. I knew I had a few more gears in me and was feeling good but wanted to see how far the other girls were at the turn around before deciding if I needed to drop the pace. I could see Marty not too far ahead but it seemed like I wasn't gaining much ground on him at all. After the turn, it looked like I had a pretty solid lead so no need to go to the well. Almost to the finish line and Marty was just a handful of seconds in front of me - he took a quick look back and because he's a nice hubby he slowed a bit so we could cross together, which I don't think we have ever done before! Jeremy, the race director (who we knew from the NCTS) said some real nice things about us when we crossed. First overall female with a course record to boot! Super fun.
Results

St. Anthony's Triathlon 2019

2019-05-02T10:10:00.000-04:00

A race report? Why not. Maybe I’ll do just one a year from now on 😉

St. Anthony’s Triathlon is an iconic Olympic distance that was celebrating it’s 36^th year in 2019. I had done the youth triathlon 5 or 6 times when I was young, and then the Olympic distance a handful of times post college. We hadn’t been back down there for this race for quite some time – maybe 2010? I could look it up but I’m feeling lazy.

My training was pretty good this winter in prep for this race. It was nothing crazy, and nothing terribly hard. It was training for fitness and to continue my cake/ice cream habit.

*REAL TIME CHECKING MY TRAINING HOURS* Uhhhhh, so I actually thought I trained more than I did. Since my watch automatically uploads everything into training peaks, I can check this stuff (easier than old race results, apparently). My swim/bike/run average hours for the last 90 days was a whopping 6hrs 40min a week. This was typically 2 swims a week, 3 runs and 2 bikes (1 mountain bike on the bridle trails for ~1hr and one outside weekend ride for ~1.5 – 2hrs). That’s a far cry from the training hours this time last year when I was gearing up for IM Texas, but this was what I wanted to do this year. And I loved it. There wasn’t any pressure, it was just getting out when I could and enjoying it.

Let’s get on with this race report already. I decided to race age group (I had raced open several times in the past at this race) but was not feeling particularly speedy and frankly didn’t want to be racing 25 year old’s. The bad thing about racing age group is that my wave was one of the last to go. The pro’s went off at 6:50 and my wave went at 8:08 (two waves were behind me, women 35-39, so hey, I was 5 min ahead of my real age, and then novice). Going late sucks for many reasons: you sit around for a long time so have to make sure you are eating and drinking enough, there are lots of bodies to swim through, and it doesn’t get any cooler.

I made my way out into the water with my age group where we started in chest deep water (Sadness. We used to run in from the beach which adds a whole different element to the start of the race, and I was looking forward to it since that’s not a start you see much of anymore). It seemed like not many were interested in lining up front and center so don’t mind if I do. The cannon sounded and I went pretty hard for the first 50 yards with one another girl and we separated from the rest of the group quickly. The first part of the swim was fairly uneventful, except for the jet ski that went right in front of me to get to a distressed swimmer. That made it quite bumpy for half a minute or so. I started catching the wave ahead of me but was able to navigate pretty good through them until we made the left turn out to sea, into the sun. This is also where the waves got much bigger, which, not gonna lie, I was super pumped about. It certainly slows me down but I’m also very comfortable in it so it doesn’t bother me as much as it seems to bother others. Plus, coming from our normal calm lake swims in NC, I was happy to have an honest swim. My time was right around 25min which is, I think, my slowest ever 1500 meter swims, but was 2^nd in my age group. It was a slow day across the board (not just in the swim).

The bike had some wind, and the course has a lot of turns, but it’s totally flat. Starting so late meant that all I did was pass people. Literally, no one passed me the entire bike. I was that person yelling ‘on your left’ maybe like a jerk sometimes, but people, come on, stay to the right out there. I don’t actually have anything else to say about the bike. It was fine. My 5 mile splits were: 13:38, 13:22, 13:26, 13:30 so yay for riding even (12:30ish for the last bit which is less than 5). 1^st off the bike for my age group.

The run, ugh it was hot. I started off comfy and felt fine and it was literally just a slow burn. I slowed down each mile and started walking through the aid stations after half way (yeah, I walked, whatevs). I even walked at mile 5 where there wasn’t an aid station but I really felt like there should’ve been! I didn’t walk for long and somehow still managed to have the fastest run split in my age group, which is a testament to how hard this race is, even though you think it shouldn’t be.

Super fun race. Everyone should do St. Anthony’s at least once! We had a great time with our friends from Raleigh (also Florida transplants and St. Anthony’s veterans) and am so glad we got to go back there this year.

Ironman Texas Race Report

2018-05-01T16:45:00.001-04:00

Well, writing a race report for an Ironman is literally not something I thought I would ever do. But here it is.

How did this happen
Good friends (bad friends?) got me to pull the trigger. Beer was involved but not much so can't really use that as an excuse. I have never really wanted to do an Ironman, but the stars aligned that I would have an almost full time training partner (Carrie) and the timing worked out where I felt I could actually fit all this training in. It was now or never. Marty's excellent coaching got me to the start line feeling confident and injury free.

Pre-Race
The travel, logistics, bags, packing, nutrition - these are all a royal PITA.

Swim: 1:01:17
Carrie and I were separated after dropping off our special needs bag because of bad communication and bathroom needs within our group of 7. Noooooooo. I surprisingly ran into Marty at the start who I was not expecting to see and he was able to call Whit and tell him where I had seeded myself for the rolling start. But it got crowded quick and I couldn't find her. I'm sure the people around me must have thought I was the most fidgety person as I was constantly spinning circles and standing on my tip toes looking for her. We were set to go off at 6:40am and at 6:38am I feel a tap on my shoulder! CARRIE! (she immediately got smothered in a hug - emotions were high). She said she spotted me because I was the only one (spinning circles) while everyone else was focused and looking straight ahead. We entered the water together and swam almost stroke for stroke the entire way. We had heard that the swim here was rough, but we stayed way to the right and didn't find it too bad at all. On the return trip things got a bit more crowded as we were surrounded by people swimming about at our same ability but nothing terrible. The final turn into the canal was a bit more rough as it was narrow and shallow and more like a washing machine. All this stuff doesn't bother me, though. I can only point to the many, many open water swims I've done throughout my whole life. Growing up in Florida doing triathlons in the ocean has some advantages - particularly when they NEVER cancelled swims back then. All in all I felt like the swim was super easy and enjoyable. I got out feeling like I hadn't done much at all, which was exactly my goal for this part.

Finding Marty and recreating the picture on his t-shirt

T1: 4:10
This was so amazing being in there early and having a personal assistant. I asked her to do things like take my socks out of my shoes and my sunglasses out of their case. She even put my socks on my feet like I was a 3 year old while I put my helmet on!

Bike: 5:11:57
My #1 goal for the bike was to keep my power at 70% or under of my ftp. Whenever I saw it get above 70% I told myself to back off. 112 miles is a long time to be on the bike and I knew how easy it would be to go too hard at the beginning and pay for it later (and I remember Marty clearly doing this at the Great Floridian back in 2004 - that was a mistake I was not going to make). Coming out around an hour in the swim means you get passed by lots and lots of people. I didn't worry about that at all. I only worried about keeping that power number in check.

Running to my bike

The first 18ish miles you wind around town until you get to the Hardy Toll Road which is completely closed off to traffic for 20miles. You do a down and back twice so you get 80 miles of mostly flat roadway with only 3 u-turns. We had little wind out there this year (it started to pick up at the beginning of the second lap) but all this meant supah-fast bike times. If you haven't heard by now, there were also MASSIVE draft packs that formed. For me, I would let them swallow me up and spit me out. This was not very hard to do as they were moving faster than I would've been so once I was out of them, I could go back to my own thing. I guess for someone who is faster this tactic would've been harder to do, but for me this worked. At Chattanooga 70.3 last year, it was not the case - I felt that there was almost nowhere to go, but I just didn't feel like it was like that out there. And it's very easy to see the people who won't make that decision to back off and race on their own. Most of the packs were men, but there were always, always a handful of women who were tucked in there getting sucked along at a faster time than they most certainly could really ride (and then of course they came off the bike with fresher legs). It's hard to not let this bother you, but my goals didn't involve a Kona spot or a podium finish. They were much more intrinsic. And I did not train this hard and spend all that $$$ and to come all this way to sit in a draft pack.

I felt great on the bike. Keeping my power where it should be and getting all my nutrition certainly helped. The miles clicked off and soon I was at 100 and getting off the toll road to head back into town. This was probably the worst part of the bike course, the last little bit back to transition. Ironically, I was completely by myself through this part. It was so weird to be in this huge race by myself for the last 10miles. And yes, that was only 10 miles. Turns out the bike course was 'only' 110 miles.

T2: 3:54
Again, rock star treatment in the changing tent. I had a semi circle of 5 women around me asking what I needed. The volunteers were simply amazing.

Run: 4:17:51
Time to go do my first marathon! The first 3 miles I had a knife-like cramp in my side. I could only drink water at the aid stations not sure what else to do to get rid of it. I knew stomach troubles were possibly going to be a problem as I just in general don't have the strongest stomach. I never got nauseous or sloshy stomach, it just hurt. Also - the weather. I keep hearing, oh wow you guys had such amazing weather. Let's be clear here. It was a high of 84 with zero cloud cover. The humidity was ok (in the 60% range) but this is by no means a 'cool' day. I think what people mean is it could've been so much worse (agreed) but it got very hot out there. My entire jog/walk was a pretty typical first IM marathon, I think. I jogged to each aid station and walked though getting all the water/ice/coke/gatorade I could. Sometimes I walked a little extra. I took one bathroom break that was a "don't trust that fart" scenario. The run course was awesome, though! I thought 3 loops might be monotonous but the volunteer and spectator support was truly amazing. There was hardly any length of time that you didn't have someone cheering for you. There were some serious low points for me out there, however. At mile 7 I couldn't fathom how I was going to run another 19.2 miles. My right hamstring tried to fully cramp on me about 2 dozen times. In all honesty, I never felt good the entire run. But I just put my head down and got to the next aid station. I high fived everyone who offered. I hit any poster board that promised me I would power up if I did. I stomped on chalk drawings on the ground just so I could hear the girl there yell, "BOOM!" every time. I wish I could've run faster, and I certainly know I'm capable of it, but not that day. I did what I could with the hand I was dealt.

Jogging with a smile

The Finish: 10:39:08
I had a few people around me as we were nearing the finish line so I slowed up a bit to get a bit of space for my own finish picture. Of course I end up with "I'm-foreign-and-need-to-wave-my-flag-guy" in front of me. And Mike Reilly didn't even say my name as I crossed the line but I did it. I did the damn thing! And no, I didn't trip right after the finish line, that was just my leg giving out on me. That's also the quickest way to get a bunch of volunteers to rush at you, in case you're wondering.

Fantastic racers from North Carolina!

Post Race
I had a fantastic time and have zero regrets. I'm so glad I signed up for it and did it. BUT. I'm still one and done. IronBri OUT!!!!! ;)

3.5 weeks to go

2018-04-04T16:15:00.001-04:00

I felt like I needed to blog about the training that has happened (as this training is never to happen again! Hahahah). Ironman Texas is 3.5 weeks away so the hard stuff is done at this point. And I’m here at the other end of it in one piece and still smiling! I mean for the most part anyways, there were times where I wasn’t smiling. For instance, during round 2 of the triple brick, when it was 42 degrees and we were getting rained on and I was feeling awful – the good news is my initial reaction is all captured on a Go Pro. I’m putting my bike up in the middle of this round and look at the camera: I…….(very long pause. So long you think I might be done talking)….I don’t like this.

But what have I accomplished? Enough to think that I may actually be able to finish this thing.

My first 100 mile ride (106 miles to be exact) was amazing because it was mostly flat and had a 10 mph tailwind. Zooooooooom.
The next 100 mile ride was imbedded in the aforementioned Triple Brick (yes, that needs to be capitalized). 3x33 mile bike, 30min run. Oh, what, that doesn’t add up to 100? It’s called rounding, bitches!
The third was 112.8 miles on a Friday where I needed to burn a vacation day because our weather has been really very crappy. It has been so unseasonably cold here – which is awesome as Texas is most likely going to be 90 degrees. More on that later. This ride had anywhere between 4200 – 4900 ft of climbing depending on who’s Garmin you are looking at. This was not what we wanted, but what you get if you ride long around here.

You all should know by now, but when I say “We” or even “I” you need to assume I’m including Carrie because we have literally done about 95% of this training together. Also, this caption from an earlier blog was fortuitous as she may have wanted to kill me at some point this past weekend but, l’m still alive and we are still besties.

The final was 111.7 miles at Beach Camp this past weekend (rounding, bitches).

Not one, but two 20 mile runs. Also, a 17 and 18 miler.

Swim has been consistent and definitely did a 4200 yard workout (plus many others near there) but I’m not worried about the swim at all. I also don't know why these bullets are not indenting but I'm not spending anymore time trying to figure it out. I also don't know why the next paragraph is two spaces down instead of one.

So, the weather. If it’s 40-50 degrees I am confident I will have a good run and nail my nutrition. Because that is literally all I’ve been training in. OF COURSE IT’S NOT GOING TO BE THAT. So who knows what’s going to happen? I will get to that finish line one way or another.

I'm still doing this Ironman

2018-02-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

A little over 10 weeks to IM Texas, my first (and only) Ironman. I do truly believe I am one and done. With this statement you might think I’m hating everything about this ‘journey’ (blargh I just threw up in my mouth a bit) but I’m actually not. There is something to be said for having a plan and trying to (mostly) go full force in and do what it calls for, even when a lot of it stretches all of your boundaries. If it weren’t for the other ladies, particularly Carrie, there wouldn’t be any way I would be getting all this done. Especially since Mother Nature has been giving us everything she’s got ranging from snow to uber-cold to all weekend rain. There have been many trainer rides, and yeah, I realize we signed up for an early season race but our winters in the south are just not usually that bad.

I’ve been setting all sorts of PRs: longest trainer ride (4.5hrs), longest run (15 miles), longest outdoor ride (80 miles) and maybe longest swim? (3.9K) That one I’m actually not sure of, but at least longest swim in the past 7 years. All of those, except the trainer ride, are very soon to be eclipsed again (I mean for gods sakes let’s hope that trainer PR doesn’t get any longer). We did get through the whole season of Ozark as well as other movies and shows.

It’s weird to even begin to explain to other people what I’m training for – obviously people outside the triathlon world. They think I’m straight up crazy, which in all actuality, this endeavor is. Without the full support of Marty, there’s no way I could get all this training in. I literally feel like my world is slightly askew, trying to fit the workouts in. Someone at work asked how long it takes to train for an Ironman and I literally didn’t have an answer for them. I mean, I did my first triathlon when I was 8, so I guess for me 30 years? But some people can do it in 6 months :P

With 10 weeks to go we haven’t even hit the BIG stuff yet, and that definitely scares me. Sometimes I feel like I’m hanging on by a thread and things will come crumbling down any second. Since the beginning of the year I’ve been sick twice, had some calf strain scares and what is probably a neuroma in my foot. Many days, I’m just hoping I make it to the starting line as doing that seems like a win. And for the record, I’m not trying for a Kona slot, I’m not interested in a Kona slot, and if a miracle happened and I somehow got one (people, 4^th place in my age group last year was 10 flat. That is sick fast and I’ve never even run a marathon before) I can’t even imagine taking it.

One day at a time, one foot in front of another, one stroke blah de blah blah -- you get the point.

Cheers, fools!

What’s Up

2017-12-07T17:34:00.002-05:00

The Thursday after SwimRun NC I went in to have PRK done on my eyes. Earlier in the year I had gone to get a LASIK consultation, but I wasn’t a candidate for LASIK because of the shape of my eye. In LASIK, they cut most of your cornea so they can flip it back and use the laser to correct your vision. The doctors felt that cutting that flap was too risky so they recommended the safer, older version of LASIK called PRK (it’s actually called something different, but most people know it as PRK so that’s what I’m sticking to). The main difference is instead of cutting your eye, they use a solution that dissolves the top layer of your eye, and then use the laser to correct your vision. With LASIK they flip that cornea back over and you walk out with perfect vision. With PRK, the top layer of your eye slowly grows back and you have really good vision within a week, and perfect vision within 1-3 months.

Not cutting the flap makes PRK safer, and FDA studies have also shown that long term vision is more stable than LASIK. But everyone wants instant gratification so hardly anyone opts for PRK – you get it if LASIK won’t work for you. The first few days after the procedure are not awesome, and your vision isn’t very good until around day 5-7. Which is why I decided to delay it until after the season. I was training for the Chattanooga 70.3 at the time of my initial consultation and wasn’t entirely sure how this would affect that. I figured I’d waited this long already so what was another few months.

I got the procedure done early in the afternoon on Thursday and they have you take half a Valium for relaxation and the other half when you go home so you can sleep. And boy did I sleep! We were home at 3pm and I slept until 9pm when Marty woke me up so I would eat. I had a pb&j and then went back to sleep until 7am the next morning. Friday and Saturday were not super painful, but I just literally couldn’t open my eyes for more than a second or two. It felt like my eyelids had ten pound weights on them and they were very sensitive. Mostly I laid around and listened to audio books. Shout out to Marty, husband and father extraordinaire. By Sunday I was able to open my eyes fine, but my vision was pretty awful (probably around 20-60). At my follow-up that Tuesday it was 20-40, and Thursday it was 20-30 in one eye and 20-40 in the other). My coworkers laughed at my screen resolution, but other than that everything was good. At my one month follow-up, I was 20-20 (but I did miss one letter) and they said that over the next 2 months my vision will continue to get crisper.

This all coincided with a mini break which worked out nice. I hadn’t really done much riding since early October and now I wasn’t going to be able to swim for over 2 weeks. The remaining part of November was very much do whatever you want type things as Ironman training was set to begin in December.

I ran enough to make sure I could complete a half marathon on Thanksgiving without any problem – I ran with a friend who is also doing IM Texas and we talked the whole way on a chilly morning. It was a great start to the holiday. We had our traditional friends-giving that evening and then on Friday we drove out to the mountains to spend the rest of the time with Hughston’s. We rented a small cabin, hiked the Appalachian Trail, played lots of cards and ate and drank too much. It was tons of fun.

Ironman training has officially started but all of December is going to be about consistency and trying not to miss much with the holidays. Luckily, I’m surrounded by great friends who are also training, and great husbands who are all very supportive.

Next week – Logan turns 6!

And now a few pictures to commemorate Thanksgiving and the fact that Logan can now take our picture pretty good.

Then he wanted me to take his picture

And finally he wanted to take a selfie.

And the reason why his hair looks funny above is because Marty let him get his hair cut with a double mohawk. And it obviously couldn't stay like that for too long.

SwimRun NC

2017-11-01T20:25:00.000-04:00

Last year was the inaugural SwimRun North Carolina at beautiful Hanging Rock State Park. We had two friends participating so Marty decided to head over with them and volunteer at the event. When he arrived home he declared: We are doing this next year, Bri!

So what is a SwimRun race? From the website:

SwimRun races are team events with 2 athletes per starting team, and these teams can be either all male, all female or gender mixed. Athletes on the same team have to be within 10 meters of each other at all times, and they are allowed and encouraged to help each other.

Typically teams swim with the running shoes on their feet, and run while still wearing the wetsuits. With so many transitions in SwimRun events, it makes no sense to get undressed and dressed over and over again. Pull buoys, tethers and paddles are legal in these events, but when used must be carried from start to finish.

This race was 14 miles of running and 3k of swimming broken up into 11 runs and 9 swims, plus a lot of elevation gain for some added fun.

Not going to lie, this was not ever something I was super excited to do. #1 and this is a big #1 - I hate cold water. And the water was no doubt going to be cold (it was under 60 at the main lake we swam in and probably mid 50s in the river we finished in). I also kind of suck at fast trail running. Going up is no problem but I'm a Wuss coming down (yeah, I capitalized that). And the whole thing seemed a bit ridiculous with the whole swimming in shoes and running in a wetsuit....but I also knew doing it with Marty would be fun. He is the best training/racing partner; he won't get angry, he doesn't care about place and besides the race, we would be able to have some 'dates' while training for it (Never mind we spent a small fortune on babysitters preparing. Some people do dinner and movie, we SwimRun out at Jordan Lake while people hiking the trails look at us like we have 7 heads).

We made our way to Danbury, NC on Saturday with Jess who would be meeting his partner for the first time (Erik) who had raced last year. Packet Pickup is at the Green Heron Ale House and there are many tasty brews on tap.

Tasty brews

Erik told me to pose and this is the unfortunate outcome

Jess and Erik opted for the 'Groomsmen Pose'

We stayed in a cabin at Hanging Rock State Park, which is awesome because it's a short drive to the start. The closest hotels are ~40min away. The cabin was great and had everything you needed and a lot you wanted (like a TV to watch college football). Instead, we resorted to listening to the radio, doing silly card tricks, and (gasp) talking.

Breakfast after listening to it rain heavily for 2 hours

As a side note, it's really pretty great to do a race where there are zero expectations except to have fun. I had a great night's sleep and then we were up with the sound of rain as a front was moving through the area. The outside temperature was close to 60 early on and would continue to fall throughout the morning (ending somewhere in the mid to high 40s).

Pre race selfie with Marty's giant dome front and center

As none of us were going to warmup, we got to the race site with just enough time to get in our wetsuits and line up with the other racers. The countdown began and we were off on the first run which was 4.4 miles and mostly uphill on a single track trail. It was crowded, as expected, but we were able to move past some people who started off a little faster without any problems. Every racer we encountered was super nice and awesome.

It was on this run where you get to go under a waterfall and then climb up a bunch of boulders before returning to the trail - that was really cool.

Photo by Brian Francher

That's not us, but just wanted to show some of the terrain (photo cred Brian Francher)

We finally made it to the lake where we took our time getting our arm sleeves on, saying hi to our friends, hugging Logan, etc - literally teams were streaming past us. And yes, I did say hugging Logan! Our friends, the Hughston's graciously watched him (umm actually a lot of times prior to this race. Logan might think his last name is Hughston right now), AND they drove 2hrs in the morning to come cheer us all on. I can't tell you how much more fun this made the race knowing I was going to see them all, and so many times with how this course was laid out. It was so awesome to have our own cheering section. I can't thank them enough for being so incredible and getting out there to support us.

I sooooo didn't want to get into the lake!! But I did, because what else was I going to do? This leg was 500 meters to the other side of the lake, onto a short 1/4 mile trail, back into the lake to cross a 25 meter section and then back on a downhill (extremely muddy) trail that was also short which took you back to the beginning where we initially got in. We did this twice before continuing up and down Moore's Wall, and then we did that whole circuit (swim-short run-short swim-short run) twice more, before heading back down the mountain.

Also not us, but great shot of the lake (photo cred Brian Francher)

Aid stations were pretty crowded in the beginning

Slapping hands with the fans

Logan and Campbell contemplating the view

The beginning of Moore's Wall tricks you into thinking the stairs will be NBD

Second round at the lake and Logan was dehydrated and required some Gatorade.

Climbing up Moore's Wall was beautiful! And getting to the top was awesome. I'm sure some teams ran up it but Marty and I chose to mostly walk. The 'stairs' are all big and uneven and not easily runnable. I was supah-slow coming back down. It was technical, rocky, rooty and very slick. But we both stayed upright.

Top of Moore's Wall (photo cred Richard Hill)

Back in the lake we go for our last two rounds and then we were heading back down the trail towards the finish. Before you get to the finish, though, you get into the river for ~800 meters which takes you back to the start/finish area. This was by far my least favorite part of the race. The water was frigid and not deep at all. It was tough to swim - we tried short strokes, sculling, anything to get through the water. There was enough current and tons of rocks that getting up and walk/running was also not a good idea. Marty would yell out ahead of me, "ROCK!" and I would try and avoid it or at least try not to get smacked in the face. I did totally get stuck on a rock like a beached whale and could not get myself off of it! I finally shimmied enough to get back into the water but then my pull buoy was around my ankles and trying to get that back up (with paddles on, in this river) was no easy task. Finally, we saw the finish area. Just have to navigate more rocks before we climbed the steps up to the line.

It looks deep. It is not (photo cred Brian Francher)

That is us. And that water was about 55 degrees.

Navigating the finishing section

Yay, almost done!

Hurry up, Bri!

What do you think? 2017 Christmas Card picture?

Post race and I was still freezing

So all in all, a fantastic event. The organizers do an incredible job and I love my trucker hat and will wear it proudly. I loved doing this with Marty and I loved having friends there racing and cheering us on. I will not go so far as to say I loved the race, but definitely a top notch event and a great time.

Catch Up Post

2017-09-28T13:40:00.001-04:00

It's going to be one of those bullet point posts since a lot has happened and I do want to document this stuff as my once stellar memory is starting to fail me. I see the evidence when I play the game 'Memory' with Logan (who incidentally, has a fantastic memory).

We had lots of fun weekends and weeks during the summer, which included lake houses, a trip to the mountains, a Guns n Roses concert and a full week vacation to the OBX (Outer Banks for those of you not in NC)
Logan started kindergarten AND lost his first tooth on the first day!
My best girlfriends from college came to Raleigh for a long weekend. We had way too much fun and stayed up way too late.
Last weekend (ok, not anymore since I started and then stopped this blog) I once again was on a team for the Blue Ridge Relay (206 miles from Virginia to Asheville). RUNNINGJUSTASFASTASWECAN and RUNNINGJUSTASFASTASWECAN2 both had 8 intrepid people on the team. I ended up running 26+ miles over 5 different legs. I am very sore still (3 days later) but had another fantastic time. I also kept it interesting for my team as I got lost on my 3am run and ended up getting picked up by another team (who also got lost).
I signed up for Ironman Texas.

Whoah. Wait. Back up. I DID WHAT?

Yup. Pulled the trigger. Put too much money on the credit card for something I really thought I would never do. And then had a pretty rock bottom meltdown at midnight googling on my phone "how to cancel Ironman registration"

It took about a week but I'm all good now :) So why did I sign up? I guess there's always that little inkling of wanting to complete one. I've watched Marty finish 6 of them. And it's pretty much impossible NOT to be a inspired. Even so, I knew the training involved and never felt that was something I really wanted to do. And you really need to want to do that training.

Enter in very good friends who started talking about it. Friends I train with a lot. This would be the only way I get this done, by having a hand to hold, shoulder to cry on, and partners in crime throughout the journey. I'm not interested in qualifying for Kona or racing it - I want to have fun with my friends and get to the start line in one piece. If I can get there, I can get it done.

So why Texas? The timing of the race enticed us all. Definitely not the winter training, but for the most part you can do the training outside in NC. There will for sure be cold days, but I've actually trained through the past two winters and it's not too terrible. Most of the time. Anyways, it was more the fact of getting it done and out of the way before summer starts and family time is at a premium. One thing I didn't want was to train through the summer and miss all the fun stuff with Logan and Marty. This way I put my head down in winter, do the IM in late April and voila! Summer time is fun time.

So yup. Pretty momentous for me. I still have one last sprint this weekend and Marty and I are teaming up for the SwimRun NC at the end of October (that should be interesting....) and then it will be a short down time before training starts back up.

Go read Marty's blog for more interesting life stuff.

Here are a few pics from the past month or so.

Cuties at Chuck E. Cheezits (as Logan calls it). Or Chuck E. Diseases, as one of our friends refers to it.

5 Family Beach week. Not my kid but we all shared responsibilities.

The solar eclipse is that way!

This one is either going to love me or hate me when we get through our Ironman training.

Family photo op

Riding our bikes to get some post dinner ice cream

Hole in one! For real life.

Summer Summer Summer Time!

2017-07-07T14:29:00.005-04:00

Helllllllo, summer! July welcomed us with a blast of heat and humidity no one is ever ready for, no matter how long you have lived in the south. When your temperatures are in the 90's with 90% humidity it feels like "OMG I can't breathe" whenever you step outside. It is truly miserable.

So what do we do? Rack up money on the power bill and go to the pool. Accept that when you run, 1min per mile slower is actually fine, and drink water all day long to make up for the sweaty mess you became during the piddly 1.5 hour bike ride at 9am.

I'm still training, although no where near as seriously. Basically, I'm training so I can continue my dessert addiction and not be too self conscious about wearing a bikini out in public. I mean, I am 38. When does it stop being appropriate? (As an aside, when is it time for me to take out my belly button ring?)

I took some good rest and downtime immediately following the Chattanooga 70.3. This is, I believe, something many of us don't do right. Especially after an 'A' race. Sure, you take a few days, but dang it, you are feeling soooo good! Might as well keep on training; hard group ride? IN! Track workout? YES! I promise, this will likely lead to burnout or severe fatigue. After a long course race that you've been putting in some serious effort, your body needs a good break. At least 2 weeks. Don't be fooled by the 1 week honeymoon phase that happens after a short rest. It is a liar.

Anywho. Took some rest. 4 weeks later I raced in the 3 Little Pigs triathlon (my 4th time). I ended up having my fastest time ever on that course, so that was neat, although Marty beat me by 11 seconds (damn time trial start!). Then it was off to Boone for our 8th Boone Camp!! I love, love, love Boone Camp. And I love, love, love the people who join us. It is always super fun with some crazy hard hill training.

After Boone, Marty and Logan continued on vacation-ing while I went back home because, work. The week alone was nice and very busy so it flew by even though I really missed my boys (and missed a bunch of fun vacation things, too). And here we are in July already. No tri's for me until late September. Although I will do our open water swim race in a couple of weeks, and am on a team for the Blue Ridge Relay again (early September). The one 'race' I haven't been thinking about AT ALL is the SwimRun NC that's at the end of October. Marty signed us up for this last year after he volunteered. Mostly I'm worried about cold water and blisters. But the race does seem like it will be a fun adventure.

View from our bedroom in Boone

We went tubing down the New River this year

One of our campers climbing Snake Mountain

Sitting on the edge thinking about every excuse to not swim while Carrie pretends to dive in

We made it to the top of Snake, too!

Climbing to our house. This picture does not do the hills justice AT ALL

Before our Friday ride

That's the Viaduct on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the upper right of this pic. We climbed up there and then road the Blue Ridge back home.

We always make a visit to the App Mountain Brewery. This year, we made two visits.

Everyone flex. Except Marty. You just grab Bri's butt.

Heading off around Bass Lake before we ran up to the fire tower

Seriously. This is where we ran. Crazy beautiful.

Competitive game of Hearts on Steroids Saturday night.

So happy to see this 5 year old after 8 days!!

Ironman Chattanooga 70.3 Race Report

2017-05-24T19:45:00.001-04:00

This went well: 2^nd age group, 7^th amateur female, PR 4:28:07*

This guy gets the credit. Super dad – letting me train until my heart was content for this race. Super coach – writing me an awesome plan. Super supporter – taking the bulk of the work while in Chattanooga so I could relax.

My training squad is a group of awesome ladies who are so motivating and supportive. Carrie-Anne-Morgan-Michelle-Amanda-Cari (and the boys who we call fast girls). You guys are awesome.

Theme music for the weekend: Anything from Trolls, which Logan watched no less than 6 times in the car ride over and back.

Video of the week: endless pool swimming in the Tennessee River the day before. That’s me in the front, sighting and thinking, “But that buoy isn’t that far away? Why am I not getting any closer?”

Pre-race

My taper went perfectly; I immediately got sick :) I was on a constant diet of airborne and zicam and literally by the day before the race I had cleared out all the congestion. We stayed in a condo right on the river away from downtown and the nerves/high strung personalities that these Ironman races tend to attract. My own obsessiveness revolved around checking the weather every hour. 100% chance of thunderstorms – oh please don’t cancel anything! A bad thunderstorm rolled through the night before, but, and I’m no Al Roker, the line just wasn’t that wide. Surely it would be through before the start of the race?

Swim: 16:02
Flanked by the best couple to be around, Anne and Dave Mac, we made our way to the swim line up very early so we could get a good spot. No rain, just cooler temps and cloudy skies (amazing! Maybe I am Al Roker!). All queued up in an orderly fashion, we sit down and wait. But then an Ironman worker comes walking by and yells, “OK everyone! This is a self-seeded started! So if you’re a fast swimmer, move to the front!” Instead of a line, people rushed to the front and it now looked like a street concert. And this self seeding business was total bs - people were lying their faces off worse than a pool swim back home. But no worries! It was still 1.2 miles, some of it upstream so it would get sorted out. Or would it? Dun dun dun!!!!!!

Apparently, the officials decided the pro's were taking too long to make the first initial upstream turn and didn't think us weak age groupers in our wetsuits could handle it so they took that part away and we were now only going to do a very short, downstream swim. Forget about getting much separation from the competition - people I probably would've gotten 6+ minutes on I might get 1-2min now. And there were so many people ahead of me, AUGGHHHHH PANIC!!!! Anne must've read all this on my face and firmly talked me off the cliff (thanks, Anne). I then turned to Dave and told him I was moving up, so the two of us were able to leapfrog probably 100 or so people.

This swim was a mess. I passed people the entire time; there were bodies everywhere. I never felt great and couldn't get into a good rhythm (and Dave and I lost each other immediately upon jumping into the water). It was over quick.

Logan relaxing with a nap and cartoons at Hotel de MacDonald after his initial wakeup at 3:45am

Bike: 2:27:18
I felt awesome on the bike! So, so good that there were times I felt like I should push a little bit more but then reconsidered (reminding myself that I did still have to run a half marathon after this). A couple of girls passed me in my age group but I wanted to ride my race, not theirs. And I wasn't even thinking about placement in my age group.

The bike was also very crowded and absolutely we all got the benefit of having so many people on the road - whether you were drafting or not. It's like a vacuum pulling you through, and with virtually no wind and a rolling but not difficult course, the times were smoking. There were for sure draft packs out there - sometimes you didn't have a choice in some of the tighter sections to be blocking someone or in the draft zone, but I also feel like you definitely had the ability to decide if you were go to blatantly suck wheel and take advantage of it or try to get out and race clean. I was mostly around guys and boy there were some that clearly had low moral standards with regards to cheating. I didn't see a ton of girls, but the ones I saw I can at least put in the camp of trying not to draft. But if you start 3000+ athletes within 20min of each other, in an easy swim that takes no time, the bike is going to be packed.

I really enjoyed the bike, though. I just felt SO GOOD. I was literally smiling at mile 50 thinking, I love this! This is awesome! I was diligent about my nutrition and took everything as planned. I don't have power or use a heart rate monitor, but my Garmin was beeping every 5 miles and I knew I was holding an excellent pace. I guess I'm still a little old school with that aspect. For a race like this, I go to the point where I feel like I'm pushing just a little too hard and then back off. It works for me.

Run: 1:39:19
No joke, I heard 'Can't Stop the Feeling' from Trolls at the beginning of my run (that's my jam!). The first few miles were all smiles and high fives. They were easy and smooth. I did ended up taking my gels earlier than planned as I needed a boost but the first lap was relatively uneventful. I was definitely getting tired but also felt like I was going to have enough left in the tank and mentally I was on point and ready to fight through any tough spots. I was so happy to finally see Marty and Logan!

The temps were cooler, but the humidity was sky high and I allowed myself to walk through the later aid stations so I could grab coke and water (wow, coke, you're awesome). I also thought about my friends back home tracking me and Marty sacrificing weekends for this (self-centered) pursuit. And then when it really started to hurt, I thought of a friend who recently got some scary news - this girl is an amazing athlete (and person) who never quits, and is always digging to get it done. I often found myself saying, "Would SHE quit now? Would SHE go slower?" It helped tremendously.

There was one short but steep hill that I gave myself permission to walk up the second time around (Would SHE walk up this hill? Hmmm, actually I think SHE might :) ) but anytime I was running I was moving pretty well. I really feel like I weathered the low points well and was able to push out of them and hold it together, which is something I have struggled with in the past. I did start dealing with some quad cramping which was completely new to me and freaking hurt like hell. But then I was at mile 12 and knew I could pick it up a little bit and finish strong. Yay to getting to take the turn to the finish instead of starting another loop and double yay to slapping Logan's hand in the final stretch. 7:34 average pace - I'll take it!

Post Race
I collected my award after showering and having a late lunch with friends. I passed on the World's slot and hopefully made someone else's day letting it roll down. I'm happy with how it all went and had a lot of fun training and racing for it, but now I'm ready to get back to more low key training and having a fun summer with family and friends.

Waynesville has a great recreation center with a splash park for the kids we went to on the way back home

*Big asterisk next to this PR since the swim was so short. Who really knows where I would've been, but I could guess my swim would've had another 12min to it. Which would have probably also slowed down the bike a bit. I'll say I may have still been under 4:50 but eh, doesn't really matter at this point.

Trip Down Memory Lane - Half Iron Style

2017-05-04T13:43:00.001-04:00

I’m about 2.5 weeks out from the Chattanooga 70.3 and I’m feeling good about my training. I’ve been consistent with my swimming which is feeling great right now, I’ve been outdoor riding all winter and the run seems to be coming around. Now let’s take a short trip into the brief history of Bri’s half iron distance races.

#1: 2004 – Duke Liver Center Half (doesn’t exist anymore). Did you know that Marty and I blogged before it was called blogging? Some of the stuff got lost in cyberspace but here’s my race report from this race! We got married that year, I was working at Lockheed Martin, and finishing my MBA (we were living in Orlando). We had 3 hurricanes roll through during the summer (on the weekends) and I was also a very weak biker and swimmer. I was still running fast not so far removed from college, but not in this long event. I finished thinking, nope, not doing that again. I don’t know if the results are anywhere, but I think I did something like 36min, just under 3hrs, a little under 2hrs. 5:33 total time is what my race report says.

#2: 2005 – Duke Liver Center Half (why oh why did we go all the way up to NC AGAIN for this darn race?) This race report also exists! Not a whole lot faster than the prior year. I just frankly didn’t train that much :) Race report says I was 8min faster so I guess I did a 5:25 this time around.

#3: 2007 – White Lake Half. I was in great shape this year – having traveled the world the prior year and getting to ride my bike a lot. We moved to NC late in 2006 but I didn’t get a ‘real’ job until March of 2007 so the in between time I had lots of time to train. There is a race report floating around somewhere for this one but I can’t find it. I can look at my splits since these are still around - RESULTS That run split makes me laugh. I literally couldn’t do that if I was shot out of a cannon downhill now :) Of note at this race (that apparently I’m still steamed about) is I got my first (and so far only) penalty. I will never forget the talk I had with the official after the race. Apparently, someone passed me and I dropped back. He said, “oh yeah, I could see you were clearly dropping back, but you didn’t get XX bike lengths back within 15 seconds. Sorry.” So yes, I guess I technically did deserve the penalty (?) except I do believe that the official might have made a judgment call and saw that I wasn’t intentionally drafting and did completely get out of the zone so maybe a 4min penalty wasn’t really warranted? Incidentally, they were throwing out penalties left and right at this race and at the sprint the next day. I’ve never seen another local race like that in terms of penalties. Final time was 4:40:36 (4:44:36 with penalty).

#4: 2013 - Raleigh 70.3. I really was done with long stuff after White Lake. I felt like I nailed that race and probably would never get into that shape again. And still, I just didn’t love the long stuff. Sprints and Olympics it was! And then I had Logan! Then more sprints! Then we hear that Ironman is bringing a 70.3 to town and everyone and their brother is doing. Oh all right, I’ll sign up. Then I got to around March and had tremendous mom guilt and decided not to do it. I trained how I liked (short) and didn’t worry about it. THEN in early May we did The Raven Rock Ramble (60mile bike ride) and an 11 mile long with the OSB crew. I realized I could just do it for fun and not really race. So that’s what I did, and it was fun, until the last 4 miles of the run. I was undertrained, it was hot AF, the course was awful and I had major stomach issues. I finished in 5:15, 4^th in my age group and got a Worlds’ spot which I declined. Not my thing. Here’s my race report.

So this will be #5*. I’m in much better shape than #1, #2 and #4 but not like #3. Still, I’m excited for the race and am hoping to feel good all the way to the finish!

*I technically did another half iron distance last year as part of the American Triple T, but that race is so different I wasn't sure I could count it. So maybe this is really #6.

Belews Lake International Triathlon Race Report

2017-04-12T15:38:00.000-04:00

It’s not often you get to race right next to your bestie, but that’s exactly what Carrie and I got to do at the Belews Lake International triathlon last Saturday. Going into the race we were both looking for a great workout and lots of fun. Since we train together all the time we thought it would be fun to take the pressure off and stick with each other throughout. This race worked out perfectly since they start athletes 2 by 2, every 15 seconds. As luck would have it, we got to start together. The swim was awesome. We were next to each other the entire way, moving through the water at a very comfortable but great (for us) pace. It was wetsuit legal and with the rolling start there weren’t any crowds to contend with. We took our time in transition, drying off and putting on warm clothes since it was only in the low 40s. The 27 mile rolling bike was fairly uneventful and Carrie kept her distance behind me – way beyond the draft zone. Our friend Dave Mac caught us right at the end, yelling at each of us to be sure that we KNEW it J A little, ok, a lot of extra time was taken in T2 as I talked Carrie out of quitting the sport (long story) before we set off on the rolling 10K run. We chatted most of the way, until I got a terrible side stitch (probably from talking too much!!) but we still wound up running a decent pace. Super fun race – goal accomplished! We capped off the afternoon with a late lunch at Natty Greene’s brewpub with the rest of our gang. Thanks, once again, to super dad Marty for manning the fort while I spent all day away. Next race: Chattanooga 70.3!

Post race. Daniel put up with a lot driving the 1hr40min there and back with us.

Logan is enjoying playing T-Ball for the first time.

Relieved some mom guilt at an ice cream shop and a park with this cute guy. Cars in hand, of course.

Last minute triathlon race report

2017-03-30T11:18:00.003-04:00

Marty was supposed to do the Wrightsville Beach Half Marathon this past Saturday and Logan and I were either going to hang out back home or watch Marty and hit the beach if the weather was nice. Early in the week the weather was looking pretty good so we were tentatively planning on the latter. Then Marty’s mom, who lives in Florida, got very sick so he and Logan high tailed it down there and all of the sudden I was left to my own devices here in NC. I was thinking of movies and sleeping in and great training without any time constraints. Then this girl says, “Now you can do the Sampson County Super Sprint with us!” hmmmmm oof. A super sprint was not really in my plans and trying to wrap my head around that was a little difficult. Although they are short, if done right, they hurt the entire time (spoiler alert: that’s exactly how it ended up feeling).

Several other friends were going to do this race and we all planned to ride 50 miles after to get our long ride for the weekend in on country roads. The weather ended up being awesome; I had done this race back in 2013 and it was FREEZING and I had vowed never to do it again. This year was perfect.

I started 10 seconds behind Carrie in the time trial pool swim start and let’s be honest, this is a definite advantage. I promised her that if we do another pool swim this year I will make sure she starts behind me (There. It’s in writing). Just 250 yards, and the end of it was messy with open turns and slower people. Got out and ran as fast as possible to transition. Literally every second counts in these short races! The 7 mile bike is out and back with several turns where I was able to see that I was still holding around a 10 second gap to Carrie. Then towards the end of the bike I got a little held up with some cars on the course and literally thought that was probably the race. Out on the run (2 miles) I was hoping that my piriformis/hamstring issue didn’t flare up and although I was breathing like a freight train and it was very hard, I actually felt ok. And Carrie was ever so slightly coming back to me. I finally got almost up to her shoulder before she put in a late surge (Dangit! DO NOT let all that hard work go to waste!) but was able to hold it together to the finish line where she crossed just in front of me. Time wise I finished 8 seconds ahead of her, and she finished 1 second ahead of 3^rd place!! Talk about a tight race!

Afterwards we changed for our bike ride which was super windy but an awesome workout and finished up with burgers and milkshakes at a local eatery around corner from the race site. Fun race, fun people, fun day. (PS - Marty's mom is doing well!)

Don't let the smiles fool you into thinking we weren't sputtering messes at the finish line.

Logan had it tough in Florida. Here he is watching cartoons after an evening swim.

February Things

2017-02-23T12:13:00.000-05:00

It’s February 23^rd and currently 71 degrees outside. Wait, did we move back to Florida without me realizing? Nope – just an unusually warm winter here in the southeast. Not going to lie, I’m sort of loving it. You can still wear pants and long sleeves and not be too hot, but you’re not freezing every time you step out the door. Although, I think we’re all holding our breath for what the summer may bring.

Our recent excitement has revolved around where Logan is going to go to Kindergarten next fall. If you think it’s as easy as walking to your neighborhood school you would be wrong. Here in NC there are all sorts of trip wires and booby traps to get through. 2+ years ago we specifically moved into a neighborhood with a great school. Then as he got closer to Kindergarten, we started considering trying to get him into a ‘magnet’ school (public school but with a special focus). There are several different types of magnet schools in our area, and it’s a lottery to get in, but the different groups in order they select from are based on 3 different criteria. The criteria is mostly around if you already live in an area with a high performing school that is at or above capacity (yes to both of those for us). Since he has been going to a Spanish immersion daycare for the past 3.5 years, we thought it would be great to have him continue with that and hopefully he really will grow up to be bilingual. So we put our name in the hat for a dual language magnet school, that is not at all close to our house. If he didn’t get in there, we would apply for the year round elementary school near our house and if that fell through, he’d be at his base school (both of these schools are rated very high). We found out last Thursday that he DID in fact get into the magnet/Spanish immersion school – YAY!!!! And crap, that is going to be lots of driving. But we’ll make it work. We both believe it will be a great skill to know both English and Spanish.

So if you followed that closely enough, you’ll realize that we moved to get into a good school district, that he’s not going to, but the reason he got into the magnet program was because of where we moved to. So. Weird.

Switching gears - here’s my favorite picture from earlier this year of me and Carrie passing the baton at the Occoneechee Speedway Relay.

Training has been going great, mostly due to this girl who keeps it fun and pushes me all the time. Like throwing my paddles across the pool deck so I can’t use them (they are a bit of my baby blankie), only to have our friend trip on them while walking out of the locker room. Woops.

And while we’re here, let’s talk about swimming. I’m in my happy place – many things have converged to form a perfect swimming set up (for me). My company has a great pool on site so Marty and I can now swim for free. They keep it a touch warm (which I LOVE) and I can meet the aforementioned paddle thrower at the completely civilized time of 6:30am and get in a solid 3K before picking up breakfast at one of our cafeteria’s and getting to my office just after 8am. Years of getting up at 5:15am with a bad attitude because I then had to jump into a freezing pool seem like a distant memory.

Happy New Year

2017-01-16T19:00:00.000-05:00

Having a blog and then not updating it in months paints you into the corner of: do I list out everything thing I’ve done the past 4 months in bullet form with pictures interspersed so the whole world knows I’m alive and well and having super duper fun or pretend I wasn’t gone and HELLO JANUARY 16! HERE WE ARE!

I’d rather not do either and don’t have a ton of earth shattering news that most readers (the 4 of you out there) wouldn’t already know from the insta/facebook/twitter-ing/texting/whatsapping and real live talking that happens throughout the week.

Instead I’ll go with the headlines:

Bri lands a job at one of the best companies to work for and is still in the pinch-me-is-this-for-real phase

Logan turned 5 on December 12^th! Celebrations ensued at a local bounce place where every child (and a few parents) cried at least once during the party. An undeniable success!!!

Christmas 2016: We have too many toys

Winter storm Helena – Snow way it’s going drop 8 inches in Raleigh

(and in a related story: Grocery stores and weather stations team up to cause first quarter sales to skyrocket)

On the workout front, I signed up for Chattanooga 70.3 in May after seeing the venue while cheering for Marty during his inferno-like race. Despite the god-awful heat, Chattanooga is a beautiful city that is not terribly far from us (7-8hrs). It's most likely going to be very competitive since the 70.3 Worlds take place there in September. I'm hoping to be in decent shape for it, if I can get healthy. Which brings me to my whiney topic.

I seem to be getting silly-not-really-but-annoyingly-hurt too often. In November it was my lower back. I unfortunately dealt with a spasm that almost made me pass out and that took a good 3 weeks to get over. A few weeks of light training (it was December after all) and now I’ve done something to my glute/piriformis/hip/IT band I mean really who knows and am now trying to get that back to working without hurting. I know much of this could be directly related to the fact that I have a desk job, that I’m completely inflexible, and I haven’t gotten regular massage since before Logan was born, so I’m taking steps to remedy all of this. I’m going to be getting regular massage again (already had one and another on the docket), I have been stretching and rolling like a mo-fo, and have made it to a few yoga classes at work. Fingers crossed I’m running again soon. I miss it. Swimming is going awesome right now; I’m likely in the best shape I’ve ever been in for January (and possibly most other months including years where I was much more serious) and biking is getting better (all this is thanks to my partner in crime, Carrie)

Overall report card: 2017 is shaping up to be a great year.

Logan's Race

2016-09-21T12:44:00.000-04:00

The Healthy Kids Running Series kicked off it's fall races this past weekend. Logan has done several of these now and absolutely loves it. He's still in the Pre-K division, 50 yard dash, and for the first time ever he won his race! It was awesome and he was so cute.

Focused

Listening intently to the starter


And they're off!


Always checking everyone out!

When he saw me after the race he said: "Mommy! I won!!" It was adorable. Then I tried to tell him that no matter how he finished I am proud of him for trying his best to which he replied, "Can I have some juice now?" Hahahah.

Post race photo op

With his buds Campbell and Clayton

Watch out

Everyone wanted to watch the videos Marty took

Blue Ridge Relay

2016-09-13T13:50:00.000-04:00

The Blue Ridge Relay is a 200+ mile running relay that starts in Virginia and finishes in Asheville, NC. My friend Carrie has put together a team for something like 8 years and she talked me into joining in for this year. She had enough interest that she actually put together two teams: RunningJustAsFastAsWeCan and RunningJustAsFastAsWeCan2. Everyone submitted a time to her and she divided us up so that hopefully we could stay somewhat near each other. This relay can be comprised of relay teams with as little as 4 people (completely insane) up to 12 people (wussies). We had two teams of 9. A good compromise. When it was all said and done, I had run 23.7 miles over 4 different legs.

Leaving Raleigh, snacking on a cookie

It's super ugly in western North Carolina

A few things:
I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was SO FUN!!! Talk about out of my comfort zone - 23.7 miles?? The scenery was gorgeous and our teams were beyond awesome. We weren't fast, but we were fun and the camaraderie was great. It's also nice to be a part of something so logistically challenging where I literally didn't have to do anything but show up. So huge thank you's to our team captain (Carrie) who made sure everything was set and ready to go and our driver (Andrew) who drove every step of the way unless he was running (also Ryan, the other van's driver who did the same thing). The Blue Ridge Relay has continued to grow and this year there were 191 teams. Start times range from 5:00am until 1:30pm (slowest to fastest) based on submitted times. 10-15 teams start together in 30min increments. I was the 3rd of 9 runners on our team and my legs looked like this:

5.2 miles, difficulty level: medium (levels are easy, medium, hard, very hard and mountain goat). I started around 9am so it hadn't gotten too hot yet, although it was quite humid. It was unusually hot this weekend for the mountains, unfortunately. This run had one fairly large hill in the first 2 miles but then was mostly flat/downhill to the exchange.

Getting the baton (slap bracelet) to start run number 1
6.1 miles, difficulty level: hard. I knew this run - it was on the Blue Ridge Parkway right where we ride our bikes for Boone Camp. Spectacular views and long grinding hills. I started around 4pm and it was HOT. Although the name of this relay might lead you to believe that it's mostly run on the Blue Ridge Parkway, only 3 of the 36 legs are run here. And it's a good thing because it's really not great for running. No shoulder and lots of tourists out not paying attention. For that reason, even thought it's the middle of the day, you are required to wear a reflective vest if you're on it.

Finishing up a gnarly little hill
8.0 miles, difficulty level: very hard. After my 2nd run, we went to Chik fil A and I stuffed myself with a chicken sandwich and a medium fry. The timing was perfect as I wasn't going to be running again until after midnight. I was still wide awake for this one, which surprised me, but I guess that's the adrenaline. I was all lit up with blinkies and a headlamp for this run, which was on a desolate winding, hilly road. It was dark and could be pretty unnerving under normal situations. I passed a handful of people but everyone is really strung out so there are long stretches of times where you are completely by yourself in the pitch black. The occasional van from other teams will drive by but it's pretty surreal. I was holding a good pace on this very challenging run. The uphills were hard, but this is where the downhills really started to hurt.
4.4 miles, difficulty level: easy. I finished after 1am and a little while later I hit the brick wall. I couldn't keep my eyes open so went to the far back of the van to 'sleep' which never really happened but I did rest I suppose. Then before you know it it's morning and you catch a second wind. My last run was mostly flat with the slightest grade which was good on my legs since any downhill was excruciating. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to run! But once I got going my legs loosened a tiny bit. They still hurt, but at this point 4.4 miles is a drop in the bucket. I finished and had a pancake breakfast at the church the exchange zone was at. The best pancakes I had ever tasted, it seemed like. The bottled butter you squeezed out made them oh so delicious.

It was nice to be done early and be able to cheer on the rest of my team and eat whatever I wanted. We finished just 15min back of our other team which is really pretty amazing when it's all said and done. We started at 7:30am on Friday and finished at 2:45 on Saturday. It's amazing how fast it really goes, but you're either running, cheering, eating or driving and the time flies by.

We went to Mellow Mushroom after the finish then took a quick very well needed shower before checking out Green Man Brewery. I finally went to sleep at 9pm Saturday night, making that the longest ever stretch of awake time in my entire life (5am Friday to 9pm Saturday!). I can't wait to do it again next year :)

Waiting for runners in Blowing Rock, stuffing my face with Chik fil a

Making a tunnel for Charles on Railroad Grade in Todd, NC

Typical exchange zone with tons of 15 passenger vans

Carrie finishing her first leg

Sweaty girls

Waiting for Michael on his very hot 2nd leg

RunningJustAsFastAsWeCan finishing all together

Our team's post race picture

Our awesome t-shirts Captain Carrie made for our respective teams

Things that have happened

2016-08-03T13:37:00.000-04:00

In order since my last post!

Boone Camp: So fun, so hard, so much food.

Logan went to the Tweetsie Railroad with GiGi while we were climbing Snake Mountain.

I met some of my best girlfriends from college over the 4th of July weekend in Charleston, SC. We sweated our asses off, danced way too late into the night pretending like we were 20 years old again, and had an overall awesome time.

Logan started soccer! And he scores goals!

We've also shown up to 2 out of the 4 games so far like this:

I cheered for people racing the Triangle Triathlon (I did the run in a relay). It was very hot.

And then I jumped in Mission Man which is another local sprint triathlon.

Logan can swim! More of a doggie paddle/drown but he is getting there :)

We flew down to Miami to visit family and play on the beach

We went to this awesome city pool (Miami Shores) that was basically a small water park.

We're heading to Asheville this weekend so Marty can race the Lake Logan half. Logan and I won't be watching (not spectator friendly) but we'll be cheering from the cabin. Summer, as always, is flying by right before our eyes.

What's happening and a quick race report

2016-06-20T14:35:00.001-04:00

Literally the day after the American Triple T, I caught a cold. Not too surprising as after an effort like that the immune system is down and it’s easy to pick up a bug. I was just thankful it waited until after the race! We celebrated my birthday that week and then had a nice long Memorial Day weekend. I took most of the entire week off, save for one short easy bike ride and then a swim on Memorial Day with our master’s group. There was lots of eating and drinking during this time. Too many celebrations and lack of willpower equaled yummy desserts and beer much of the evenings.

The following weekend we drove down to a very hot and humid Charleston so Marty could do the Low Country Splash. We stayed at a house with the Honnold clan and enjoyed the beach and downtown Charleston. I’ll be returning there for the 4^th to meet up with some college friends – can’t wait for that!

The training front was fairly non-existent that 2^nd week after the Triple T. I was not ever very sore from the races, but I was incredibly tired. And that lasted for longer than I expected. It was around this time that I told Marty I didn’t think I wanted to do the Three Little Pigs race on June 17^th. I’ve done it a couple of times, and although it is a fun, short sprint, it’s also usually very hot and I wasn’t feeling like I wanted to suffer through that, particularly with how rotten I was feeling on the fitness front at that point in time. I had signed up early for a bargain basement price so didn’t feel that bad about not doing it.

The next week I started feeling better, but still wasn’t planning on racing. Truth be told, work had been very busy and stressful (I have taken a new internal position and the learning curve has been fast and steep) and thinking about training and racing was at the bottom of my list. I was enjoying my usual group workouts and hanging out with Logan and Marty and friends on the weekend.

The week of Three Little Pigs rolled around and we knew a ton of people doing it. The forecast looked unusually awesome for this time of year. Then the last straw, Whit said he’d be happy to watch Logan during the race as he’d be there watching their 3 kids. I had no more excuses and decided to go have fun, go as hard as I could on that day, and enjoy it all.

This is the best race to bring kids to. They have a big playground next to transition, a bounce house, lots of sidewalk chalk, free sno-cones, and after the race they open their kiddie pool which is awesome.

It’s a pool swim seeded start and my ‘time’ (which was a lie) had me going in 21^st place. This was unfortunately around 2min behind Carrie so chances of seeing her were slim. The whole thing would’ve been so much more fun if we had been able to start near each other. Anyways, everything was fine. I knew I needed to have lickety-split transitions and at the end of the day, that’s how I won. Had Carrie had equal transitions, we would’ve been only seconds apart. As it was, I ended up 30 seconds ahead of her. But she doesn’t have nearly the sprint tri experience like I do. I did give her all of my secrets that evening so expect her transitions to be fast from now on.

Very quick race report:

I swam comfortable because the pool swims always seem to suck and I didn’t want to crush myself to get an extra few seconds. I probably over-biked a little and paid for it the last mile of the run, but all in all it was a very tough race as I knew Carrie is super fast and wasn’t going to give up. Marty had a solid day and finished second overall so we both got our big bad wolf trophies for another year. Logan had a blast with the Hughston’s, as usual, and then he legit swam in the kiddie pool after the race.

Here are random pictures to make this more interesting.

Logan and I had a picnic in a local park after work one day

Waiting for daddy at the Low Country Splash. It was HOT and we waited a very long time. Logan did awesome.

We went to the Aquarium in Charleston

One of these is not like the other

Sometimes we spill our breakfast all over the place

Silly faces on Father's Day

Slaying dragons at Dave & Buster's

With their matching t-shirts Logan made

American Triple T 2016 Race Report

2016-05-25T13:27:00.001-04:00

I have no idea how to make this report not long. It was a long race! The American Triple-T has been in existence for 14 years and takes place at Shawnee State park in southeast Ohio. It consists of 4 races: a Super sprint on Friday evening, 2 Olympic distances (sorta - 24 and 27 mile bikes and 6.55 mile runs) on Saturday (7:30am and 3pm) and a half iron distance on Sunday at 7am. The courses are hilly – over 8200 feet of climbing between the 4 races on the bike (over 10,000 feet if you include the runs!). So obviously, the run is also hilly, but on a dirt fire road which is nice on the legs. It’s a 3.27 out and back that you repeat over and over. For Raleigh folks, imagine doing Turkey Creek back and forth for each race.

We had a great time. No really, even me, who hates long races, had a great time. But our attitude going in was to just complete the dang thing. NO RACING. Some people told me that this would be hard for me to do but it actually wasn’t at all. Instead, it felt like I was doing a big (really big) training weekend with Marty and friends. When you don’t push the bike on hills, the hills aren’t that bad. When you run 8:30’s – 9:00’s on the run, it’s not that hard. Sure, you get tired, but you aren’t wiped out. It’s the only way I was going to do this race and for sure the only reason I had a good time doing it.

We left Thursday late morning and met up with the Hughston’s in Charleston, WV for the night.

The next day was a 2 hour drive to the race site where we checked in and started unloading all of our crap into the cabin we rented at the state park. The cabin was great, except for it being up a large hill that we had to climb after every race to get back home as we couldn’t drive down and park at the race site.

Checking in!

Lots 'o crap

I wear my helmet inside because it's just safer that way.

Supersprint (race #1)

The water was cold. 61 degrees – everyone thought it was cold (not just me). I got into warmup because I wanted to make sure I could handle it before just running into the water. I hyperventilated and my face hurt, but I did it. All of the races are rolling starts where you go with 2 other people and the Super sprint people kept to their assigned race numbers to start in order (the next 3 races, not so much – it’s not that big of a deal). The swim on this Super sprint was longer than advertised and when you get close to the exit the temp drops even more which is not awesome. I kept it under control and jogged into transition to do the short bike in the rain. The bike was up the hill to our cabin and back down and then a 1 mile run. I couldn’t believe how hard people were hammering! I didn’t hammer at all. I put it in the easiest gear and just spun up the hill. And then proceeded to run an 8:38 mile. Very comfy.

Before the start of the super sprint

After the race we packed up all of our now soaking wet stuff and road back up the hill to the cabin. We had brought extra hair dryers to try and dry out our clothes (you have to wear the same Triple-T jersey every race) as well as dry our bike shoes. I had brought two pairs of shorts and running shoes and we had lots of newspaper but everything was just wet all weekend.

Dinner, Friday night

Olympic #1 (race #2)

The crew from NC

Marty promised to do the remainder of the races with me and it was awesome. He really is the best! Carrie also went with us and Marty backstroked much of the swim so we could draft off of him. It is very easy to sight off of someone backstroking and I have requested he do this in all of my upcoming races to which I think he said, ‘ah no.’ Oh well. All of the remainder of the swims were slightly short (to no one’s dismay!) -- and then come the transitions. All of our transitions were EGREGIOUSLY slow. Saying we took our time is an enormous understatement. We sat down, we toweled off, we put on lots of clothes, we chatted – none of us were in any sort of hurry. The bike was great! Easy gear the whole way, spinning up the hills, with beautiful country side around us. We kept the run super comfy and it flew by.

Lots of talking on this run. Like most of our runs together.

If we had to stop and pee, we did. If we had to wait on someone to fix a shoe, we did. We finished with low heart rates and smiles all around.

Crossing the finish line on race #2

Then we all got massages, rode back up the hill, ate and relaxed until race #3.

Olympic #2 (race #3)

Ready for race #3

This is a different format – bike, swim, run. Carrie and Whit stayed together the whole time, just a bit behind us so we never actually saw them. We went just a tad bit harder than the morning session on the bike which was a different course and 3 miles longer. There was one nasty grade out there and lots of other rollers. Back in transition (which was 4.5 minutes!!), we dilly-dallied and waited for Whit and Carrie before we all complained and grumbled about getting back into the freezing cold water (yes, we put on wetsuits, no chance any of us were foregoing those) I sighted off of my backstroking Marty and we exited all discombobulated and dizzy. I have never just walked from a swim exit into transition but I did here. The four of us did the entire run together which was awesome.

This was a tough turn around. After biking (yet again) up the hill back to our cabin, it was now pushing 7pm but we still needed to eat, unpack, repack, and get all of our crap together for a half iron distance race.

Half Iron (race #4)

I'm smiling on the outside and crying on the inside thinking of getting back in that lake

There is also a stand-alone half iron race with ours (the Little Smokey Mountains half iron) so it was a bit more people in transition. The race started at 7am and it was effing cold. And we had to get back in that awful water but first we had to put on our still wet wetsuits. Nobody was happy about this. But I did have Marty right there the entire time, letting me draft and constantly checking to see that I was still right behind him. We strolled out of the water and into transition where we proceeded to take 6 min (6 min!!!) to dry off and put all of our stuff on.

Smile now. Freeze in 2 minutes.

It was cold. So so cold. We finally got on our bikes and were both moaning and groaning and barely going anywhere as people flew by us. Marty had gotten a bunch of cold lake water in his ear and it was causing him to feel dizzy and out of it. Then we stopped so he could fix his watch. Then we moaned and groaned some more. Then we stopped so we could both pee. I swear, if we kept this up, this bike was going to take us 5 hours! After the second hill we finally got our act together (probably about 30min in) and started to feel human and warmer. The bike was gorgeous! It did have over 4,000 feet of climbing so it was by no means easy. And for the record, on every bike, I really made a big effort to not be on Marty’s wheel (despite us being a team. I’m still burned up a bit about the race organization changing the team rules a few months before the race, but I didn’t come here to cheat). We did have one more stop when one of my bottles filled with nutrition popped off the back of my bike, but when I found it the cap had also come off so no more caloric bottle for me. Luckily, I still had water and tons of food so I knew I would be fine. There was a very long climb at mile 47 which just seemed to go on forever, but then we had a nice downhill finish back into transition.

Another long transition. It did include a selfie.

Selfie in T2!

Then I ran out a bit ahead of Marty so I could use the port-o-potty. I waited for him to get out of transition and then I needed to fix my shoe. Good thing we are still not in any hurry :) We exited at just over 4 hours and honestly I knew breaking 6 hours was going to be really tough. I know it seems like it shouldn’t be but by this point my legs were fried and I don’t exactly have a great track record of half marathons. And it was hilly – hillier than the other races! How is that even possible. We jogged onward and kept it comfy; a pace I felt like I could hold throughout. We saw Whit and Carrie out there and they looked awesome. We passed 7 people the first lap and I still felt fine. The hills kept getting harder but I was counting down the time (Less than hour! You got this!). The course descends sharply at the out and back portion of the course and I knew that climbing back up that for the last time was going to be tough. I kept at it but very quickly started feeling dizzy and BAD. Marty had gotten a little ahead of me at this point so I shouted to him (and everyone around me) “I have to walk!” I walked to the top of the hill where Marty waited with a caffeinated gel. I incoherently tried to tell him that I didn’t want to take the whole thing without water but he convinced me to take half. I was now jogging again and it kicked in pretty quick and I was feeling much better. It didn’t hurt that we were now going downhill. At the next aid station I got in water and the rest of the gel, and Marty picked up a cup of coke which he held for several minutes because he didn’t want me taking all that at once. So he ran with a cup of coke for me for a while! When he deemed enough time had gone by, he let me drink the coke and soon I was feeling pretty good! The return (and now final) trip back to transition was mostly downhill with just a few little climbs. I realized we actually could break 6 hours if we tried to pick the pace up and we ended up running a 7:45 for the last mile which was likely the fastest mile of the 27.2 that we ran (yes, we ran over a marathon combined. Total uncharted territory for me). We finished in 5:58.

Best husband ever

This race and weekend was A LOT of fun. Made so by the people we went with and my awesome husband who got me through it (with my training plan and literally during the race). A lot of people say that this weekend of races is harder than an Ironman but I can't really comment since I've never done an Ironman. I will say that I wasn't terribly sore the day after, just really, really tired. I think the approach I took makes it not so bad and definitely more enjoyable for me. I imagine if you go out and try to 'race' each race, there is probably a different story here.

Portsmouth Brewery with our awesome group. My abs hurt from laughing so much.

Well that was fun

2016-05-02T15:42:00.000-04:00

Marty and I (and whole lot of athletes and friends) raced in the Inside Out Sports Beaverdam Olympic Triathlon this past Saturday. I hadn't done an Olympic distance race in I think 2.5 years so I wasn't totally sure how to pace it. And after not really resting up for, and knowing I still had a lot of working out to do after, I decided on a plan.

Swim: whatever. First open water swim of the year on overall low training. My swim is not great right now, frankly it's not even good, but I'm not worried about the swim at the Triple T. I was SO happy that the water had warmed up to the low 70s.

Bike: comfy fast first half, pick it up second half

Run: comfy fast first half, pick it up second half

This is not the fastest way to race a race, but it is FUN!! Feeling strong at the end is a nice feeling. As opposed to the death march which I have definitely been apart of before.

Carrie wasn't racing, so she offered to watch Logan during and we no longer had to get a babysitter to come over in the morning. Plus, Logan got to hang with Campbell and Wes and his pretend mommy. With a 9am start, this also meant we didn't have to get up crazy early like most races. Just kind of early.

Short report, then pictures.

Swim was fine. The women started in third wave so there were lots of men to pass throughout.
Bike - this took a little while to get comfortable so my strategy of holding back happened regardless. I upped the effort coming back, really only because I wanted to catch Erik before we dismounted. I caught him right before we got back to the park entrance so mission accomplished there.
Run felt good. I stuck with the plan and held a steady pace for the first lap and dropped the pace the second lap. I can't really remember my split, but I think I negative split by 1.5min or so. The run flew by cheering for everyone out there. It was great to know so many people competing.

And our awards were beavers. Cue lots of bad jokes.

Our friend Dave Mac was out with his camera acting like the paparazzi so we got all sorts of fun photos.

Here I am racking my bike very seriously. Actually, I'm internally annoyed that every bike on the rack chose to be on one side therefore making it nearly impossible to fit anyone else in.

Happy to be swimming in my wetsuit in a not so cold lake! Yay for small miracles! This is race is notorious for having cold and/or bad weather. We lucked out this year.

Running out of the water trying to remember how to get the wetsuit off. T1 is up a long uphill sidewalk and by the time I got there the only thing I wanted to do was take 5 and catch my breath.

A fit Marty en route to his second place overall finish. P.S. he rode 65 miles the day before!

Logan and Campbell waiting to get high fives from everyone.

Another kid wanted a high five. Sure, why not?

Logan had said he wanted to run in with us. And I wasn't going to say no to him.

Pretend mommy no doubt laughing at beaver jokes. Her's were much better.

Getting Close

2016-04-27T13:45:00.000-04:00

We're a little over 3 weeks out from the American Triple T. I still don't even know what Triple T stands for. There are 4 races, so...

Training is mostly getting done. My run is fairly slow and not very high in mileage. But I'm injury free which is the most important. Biking has been solid. And my swim is meh, but I'm not too worried about it.

This weekend we have our first race, the Beaverdam Olympic distance which will be sandwiched in between a lot of training. Marty is even making me not only run again after the race, but that evening I'm supposed to do another short bike and run! Aiyiyiyi. Almost done.

I went up to Boston for a quick trip to see some good friend's Jimmy & Alysia. I've been to Boston a few times now and there is no debate that it's a really awesome city. BUT. The weather! They had one nice day (Friday) before it was back in the chilly, windy 50's. Even with the relatively mild winter they had my friends said it just goes on too long. I seriously don't know how people do it.

We had a great time, though, and hit a lot of great places since the city is so walkable. Their apartment is basically above the Boston Massacre so they are in a prime location to see this great (cold) city.


First stop when I flew in was the oldest bar in America

Took a trip through Chinatown

Drank a cold Sam Adams while viewing a cold Sam Adams (Sam Adams grave is the green one behind me in the distance). Har Dee Har Har.

Skype session with Logan

Marty and Logan kept very busy: 4 parties, 1 5K (which Marty won!) and Logan's race

Logan's still having a great time doing the Healthy Kids Series. He believes that he has to wear a tank top when he races.

Plugging Along

2016-04-02T15:49:00.000-04:00

Post Tobacco Road half bomb I took some downtime with my running. I didn't run for 7 days and then did two very short (verrrry easy) 20min'ers the following week and everything seemed close to 100%. This past week I ran easy and short and all systems seem to be go and I'll resume a more normal schedule next week. Biking is coming along nicely; I've definitely done more long rides than I probably ever have in prep for anything. I've done a few 50+ milers, then on Easter a group of us went out in search of hills (in the cool rain, dangit) and got in 62 miles. The following Thursday, I took a day off work and went with Carrie and Heather for a 69 miler. Feeling good!

We've had Marty's mom in town for the past week which has relieved us of full on parent duty 24-7 and we've been able to do some workouts together. I even got to Fast Friday masters which I never get to do unless we have family in town. Next week, my mom comes in and my sister flies in with her baby the following. I'm looking forward to more family time and more help :) Marty and I might even fit in a real date or two.

Logan and Marty came to my work for lunch when he was off school for Good Friday and we ran into the Easter bunny. Which he was scared of until he realized she had candy.

Logan and his best buddy Isaac before the town Easter egg hunt

Blowing bubbles on our back deck

A cold wet day for a bike ride. Getting it done.

A beautiful day for 69 miles. We rode on Christian Chapel Church Road, where we found none other than Christian Chapel Christian Church. Only in North Carolina. Where we love everyone, just like Jesus. Unless your gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender :/

Tobacco Road Half Marathon

2016-03-14T09:48:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, this went a lot worse than expected. I knew I wasn’t going to have a fast time, as I hadn’t been training fast for this distance, but I was fairly confident that I’d be in the 1:33 – 1:35 range depending on the day. Spoiler alert, ended up in 1:39 with some pitiful walking and a very hurt quad.

I had certainly done plenty of long runs this winter, as well as harder shorter workouts every Thursday. I’ve been consistent with core work and my training in general, so it’s really incredibly frustrating to have a day like that. I didn’t feel good at the beginning, but that’s not something to really worry about. But it never got better and my legs just hurt. You know how some days you have one of those runs that you can’t explain, but you just don’t feel good? Unfortunately, I had to have that day at the race. Had it been anything other than a race, I would’ve more than likely pulled the plug early because my legs just felt awful. But it was an out and back so I had to get home somehow. At mile 10 my upper quad felt like it had a knife in it. It huuuuuuurt. I walked a bit but walking is so freaking slow that I just told myself to jog because I would get done quicker. I have no idea why this happened and after talking to my sister (who’s a PT) she said it might be my TFL or hip flexor. Hopefully, just a mild strain and no big deal that a little rest should take care of. It’s a strange pain – I can walk pretty okay, but that evening in the car when I tried to put the parking brake on (it’s on the left side closer to the pedals) I literally could not lift my leg and pull it back to do it. So whatever I did is in a very specific place.

I’m super disappointed and definitely feel like what is the point of all this training and nonsense. Or maybe my body is literally saying, how many different ways do I need to tell you that you are not equipped for long distance?

But enough of that. Good things:

Friends, friends, friends. Going to the race, at the starting line, cheering on the way back in, and post race funnies.

Carrie killing it with a 13min pr

Seeing Marty and Logan at mile 5ish and 8ish.

Signs on the course that helped: Nobody died of sore legs (huh, wanna bet?). You call this suffering? (alright. True, I’m humbled)

Feeling terrible but happy to see my crew. A bad day running isn't the worst thing in the world.

Is this thing on?

2016-02-22T15:31:00.002-05:00

Oh HELLLLLLO out there! This blog has been neglected. With the other social media arenas it has gone to the wayside (like many other blogs that used to update frequently!) But alas, I figured I'd update the 1 or 2 readers out there - we are all doing great here in NC!

November: Marty's birthday, Thanksgiving, good times
December: Logan turned 4, family came in for Christmas, it was warm, and we had lots of fun
January: more serious training started, work got crazy busy, did the Occoneechee Speedway Relay again
February: consistent training has turned into feeling like this American Triple T race might actually be doable when it rolls around in May

Marty and I have been rotating through babysitters, friends, and each other to get our training in. But we've been getting it in, nonetheless. My dear friend, Carrie, has been by my side through most of it and it has been much more enjoyable because of that. First race up is the Tobacco Road half marathon on March 13 - I use the term race very loosely because although I'm feeling good and strong, there is no speed (at least in the way of long distance speed) in these legs at the moment. I can easily run 13.1 miles, but it will not be very fast. Which is cool, as what we're training for is not meant to be fast.

What are we training for? The American Triple T which is an iron-distance over the course of 3 days with 4 different races. Basically - Friday evening: super sprint, Saturday morning: Olympic distance, Saturday evening: Olympic distance, Sunday morning: half iron. Marty and I signed up as a team which means that we both do all the races, but the last two we could draft.

Except. The race organization recently decided to do away with the team concept. Which totally sucks, in my opinion, to change something like that fairly close to the race, way after people have signed up and have begun training. They have had the 'team category' for years and years at this race. So I'm not happy about this sudden change (it seems like making this change either should've been done WAY earlier, or for next years race). Anyways, we're still going to do it together, but obviously not draft.

Feeling fit not fast. Having fun and eating lots. Logan is the best dessert buddy ever.