Training Begins Again

Last week was a strong training week and my last week of school!

I managed 12,500 yds last week, which is a personal best!

We are trying to get out to start the trek up to Quassy for the Olympic Rev AND George and I will be doing an aquakbike relay during the Half Rev on Sunday!

We are going to visit family who is moving across the pond on the way up :-( We will miss having our nieces around! We will spend a couple of days with them, a couple in Quassy, and then we will take of for the LONG drive home on Sunday (to really return on Monday). Should be a fun little adventure, AND my first chance to meet my TEAM TRAKKERS!!!

I am also peaking this week for the Chattanooga Rat Race (a 4.5 mile swim). I read conflicting race reports that have me worried! Some years, the locks are open and there is a great current. Some years they are closed and it is like a lake swim.

This scared me--a lot. I am not really ready for that.

So, last night, I swam 8000 yards in the pool. I needed to make sure I could do it without going under--and the pool is a safe place to do that. Probably not my best choice, but feeling some confidence about this nutty race coming up!

I will be laying off some during these travel days so that I can rest and recover for the weekend!

Almost Scared to say it....

But coach and I decided to that I am going to do BOTH fall 140.6 Races.

Cedar Point 9/11

Ironman Cozumel 11/27

*****Deep breath*****

I might have totally lost it......


In my defense (when go I trial for being totally nuts).....I gave up Ultraman entry, so I am creating my OWN fall adventure/challenge/crazy for myself. Yeah...that's it.


Now it's time to take really really good care of myself! I have to stay in one piece for a long time!

Moving Forward

I am sure my coach is going to read this before we meet....hehehehehe....

So, turns out life goes on after an IM! Crazy right!

In this picture it looks like they only thing in my future is some water and maybe a hairbrush.

And this picture is simply a face of relief. I promise.




But its true and its time to start moving ahead. Right now, I have spent an hour spinning on my bike and a 2 mile run. I am ready to race again! HA!

But really, on June 5th, I am racing the Olympic Distance at Rev 3 Quassy (1500m swim, 26 bike, 6.2 run). Who knows what my body will feel like doing that day. The course is supposed to be tough, and I have no idea how/if I will feel recovered.

I am really excited though! I will get to meet all of my trakkers teammates, and we are going to drive so that we can visit friends and family! Awesome!

Then, on June 11th, I am racing the 4.5 Chattanoooga Rat Race in the Tennessee River. I have GOT to get back in the water. Today! That is a long long way to swim--even if it is downstream! Maybe I should order some new TYR swim goodies!

Here's a pic from the start of their race!

Then, for the third time, I will be returning to the Ridges 5K Open water swim in Lake Hiawasse on June 26th. I love love love this race. I am terrible at these races. I mean, I am lousy. I am not a really fast swimmer, and I am TERRIBLE at sighting in open water. But I love getting in the water and swimming when swimming is your focus (and not being worried about riding or running). It is just a liberating thing for me to do every once in a while! I am always at the bottom of these races, but I do them anyway!

That's all fun and reasonable. I am registered for all of it. Excited and ready to have a fun June!

So here in the schedule is where it gets tricky!

I know that I want to race at Rev3 Cedar Point and Rev3 South Carolina. Right now I am signed up for the Full at CP and the Olympic at SC. Here's the rub. George and I signed up for IM Cozumel. The timing is better for him to develop his swim abilities--AND we want to do a full distance race together. It will be perfect for us! But I still want to do the full at CP! There is a half option, which I know my coach (and any sane person) would suggest. I could also do the half at CP and the half at SC. That might make me feel better about it all. Hmmmmmm.....two fulls would be really exciting in the fall though......but risky.....

Editing this--I WILL end up doing what my coach and family decide is best. But I find people's input interesting....SOOO.....what do you think?


They are 11 weeks apart. Would you do both as fulls? Or would you be reasonable?


Do you do any races where you are just awful....but you do them anyway?

Ahhh Recovery!

Yesterday I got back on my bike. Instead of looking like this though, I was just spinning in my living room while watching Sex and the City:

So for entire week after the epic picture above, I pretty much ate chocolate cake. Really. It was amazing to me how much cake appeared in my life the week I decided I would eat cake. You should try it sometime. Tell the world you are up for cake, and it will appear. Cake time is over though. Back to normal. :-(

Oh, our crazy life got a little crazier. George was breaking up a fight at school, and a kid broke his nose. So he had to have surgery to fix it! No worries now though, because it is all straight, and he can breath normally again!


After surgery, we headed to my friend Katie's rehearsal dinner!

One week post Ironman, I was sitting in the Four Seasons, eating tacos, having my hair fixed all fancy and makeup done while the room service people brought white wine for us to toast our friend's wonderful wedding. What a difference a week makes!!!

Katie gave me a bouquet of red Gerber daisies to carry (my favorite!)


Here is my fancy makeup:


And here is my fancy hair:
No pictures from the wedding yet, since I didn't bring my camera, but I will tell you that George was rocking a nose cast, and my sunburn was peeling off my back making me look like a lizard. We will not be offended if we are not included in the wedding album!

Coach and I are working on my schedule right now. I have Quassy in June, which I am really excited about. He told me to stay with the Olympic, and he's right. We are making some decisions about the distances for Cedar Point and SC Rev 3 still. I signed up for 2 swim races in June so that I can really get back into serious swim shape, which is easier to do post 140.6. I will post more about the schedule as we decide things.


Oh, and another thing, George and I signed up for an Ironman together......it's going to be a fun Thanksgiving!

I asked for humble pie, but they only had cherry or Ironman St. George Race Report

at the Veyo Pie Shop:


Ok, so the race report. This race was hard. Hard. Hard.

I am going to lead with this:

1. I was injured 8 weeks ago. Not many 8 week training plans for an ironman, so I am grateful my coach and therapists got me to the start and the finish lines.

2.Bike Course:



3. Run Course


4. Weather

Hottest day of the year. Over 90 degrees. No shade. Enough said.

**************************************************************

On to the Pre- race report. I am not entirely settled with this race, as you can probably tell with my pre-race report 1-4. It was really really hard.

We flew into Vegas on Wednesday night, and headed to bed. Then we made the 2 hours drive to St. George, checked in, and went on a little adventure riding the run course. It looks a bit like Mars.


Here I am with my friends Mark and Laura. These smiles are hiding the fear we are feeling after experiencing some of the heat and riding some of the run hills.



At the athlete's dinner that night, there was a lot of talk about how insane this race is. The videos were not particularly inspiring, and the speakers talked about how insane we are. Even the referee said that drafting wouldn't help us because the run was going to kill us. Awesome.

We dropped off our bikes and checked out the swim course.



Gorgeous. At the dinner they reminded us to enjoy the scenery. They told us we would have time, because we would not be going that fast. Great.



Then, we checked in our run gear at T1, which was 20 miles away from T2.



Then, it was time to relax, rest, eat some great food, and prepare for the race.

**********************************************************************

The Race **Deep breath**

This was hard. Have I mentioned that?

Here I am with my amazing husband:


And here I am with my friends Mark and Laura before we jumped in:



This was the first true mass start that I have ever done. Not going to lie, it was pretty scary!



I got a little beaten up on the swim, but I made it. I did have trouble sighting because the buoys were the same color as the red rocks, so I kept on messing up. Sighting is not my strong suit anyway. When I came out of the water, I had a really nasty cramp in my calf, so I stumbled out. Those should be great pictures ;-)

Off to the bike. This was not my best ride. It was hard, it was hot, it was hilly. I struggled. I wanted it to be over. I had one great decent, but for the most part, I struggled. I thought that with all of the climbing I had done in preparation, I would be ready, but I wasn't. It was a really long time to be on the bike. As I saw George on my way in, I started crying out of exhaustion, frustration, and relief at putting my bike away.

Off to the run. This is where I had to come to terms with the fact that there was no way I would get the time that I wanted. It was dry. And my stomach hurt. And it was hot. And it was uphill for a long time. George came to run beside me and we had to seriously rethink my game plan .

I have never walked in a race. Never say never. I walked the uphills. Ran downhill or when I could. I went into pure survival mode. I tried to throw up and start fresh with my stomach, but nothing worked. My stomach hurt with ever step until mile 19. I don't think I am ready to figure out why, but it hurt the day before too. I had to force down liquids, but when it is that hot in the desert, you force it down, or your day is over.

I have never walked in a race. Never say never. I walked the uphills. Ran downhill or when I could. I went into pure survival mode. I tried to throw up and start fresh with my stomach, but nothing worked. My stomach hurt with ever step until mile 19. I don't think I am ready to figure out why, but it hurt the day before too.

I actually enjoyed the "run" more than any other part, even though I didn't feel great. I just loved the energy of seeing my family and friends, and knowing that I was trudging towards the finish.

I finished. It was a really long day. I went 14:50, which is over 2 hours slower than Louisville. This finish line felt like relief instead of joy. I am glad it is over. I'm glad I made it through.

I am glad that my friends did an amazing job. I am really proud of them.



I am trying to enjoy the accomplishment, the extra dessert, and the finishers gear. It was a long day and I earned it all. The tough part about endurance sports is that when things are not going well, it means you are out there longer. I joked with George at one point that I was just trying to get our money's worth by spending more time out on the course.

There are no pictures of me grinning from ear to ear like in Louisville, but I am glad that I finished it, and I feel like it was a special race that I will remember forever.

By the way, I did eat cherry pie after the race. And I am still chewing on some of that humble pie.

Ironman St. George Tracking Information

Need to go ahead and do this post while I am thinking clearly and before we fly out tomorrow!

This is the race that I am doing:

http://ironmanstgeorge.com/

Tracking will show up here on Saturday, and my number is 92:

http://www.ironmanlive.com/

Also, if it stops working (which is has in the past), and you want to know what’s happening, George will be manning my phone to pass on information, and you can feel free to text him for updates! He will also be updating my twitter and you can click on the link or check it out on the right side of the blog:

http://twitter.com/#!/kacie_tri_ing

Thanks for your support and excitement!

Taper Time!

TAPIR TIME!!!!!!

Just kidding....not TAPIR, but TAPER time! That is one cute animal though, isn't it!

Ironman St. George is in a mere 6 days. Last week, I ran 6 miles Tuesday, did a trainer workout with Laura on Wednesday, and an open water swim in Lake Lanier with Laura on Thursday.

I am super lucky to be on Team Trakkers, and excited that TYR is one of our sponsors. Just in time for a really really cold swim at St. George, this little gem arrived at our house!

Doesn't it look like a superhero costume? My whole team thinks so, so here is my best superhero look:

Saturday was my last "real" workout before St. George. I will do a couple of short runs this week, but nothing much. I will test out my bike and go for a quick swim just to settle the nerves and check the equipment.

So Mark, Laura, and I took off to Lake Lanier. We swam about 45 minutes, then we rode back to Laura's house for about 2 hours 45 minutes, and then we ran for about 40 minutes. Perfect. I felt like I could go on forever. Even more perfect.

After the workout, we shared some hugs, high fives, and celebration. Now we just have to get there safe and sound this week, but the training is pretty much done at this point.

So, in honor of the accomplishment, Laura busted out her crystal, and we shared a recovery drink toast. As she said, crystal is for special occasions, and finishing a training cycle IS a special occasion. No matter what happens on race day, or how the race goes, we all overcame HUGE obstacles to get to this point--and we did a lot of it together.

Our toast? "To the finish line!"

And what better way to top off a great morning than seeing Sara, my massage terrorist, for a particularly painful session to prepare me (and my legs) for St. George.

I tried to capture what the torture sessions actually look like:

And this is what I look like:

And this is what Sara looks like when she realizes I am not playing Angry Birds, but instead, I am actually taking pictures:

So in a matter of minutes, we will be having dinner with coach, flying to Las Vegas, driving to St. George, checking in, and then swimming, biking, and running for a while. A long while.

I promise to post some tracking information before I leave for the trip. George and Sara plan to tweet for me, and there will be online tracking. And I WILL do this race. Yes, yes I will.