good ol' what's his name

I own the prettiest bike in all the land, trew story. As you know I bought a bike last week and on Saturday I went back to my local to get it fitted. Darren at Neworld spent a good long time making sure I was completely sorted out, he even mentioned that he thought the bike was ‘made for me’ which I just find so funny. Despite the fact that I had forgotten to bring my emergency kit with me he encouraged me to take it out for a spin on my favourite path as the risk of something bad happening was low and honestly how could you NOT take it out immediately right. I drove down to the lake and for once the bloody lift bridge was down, yay! As soon as I headed out I had a HUGE smile on my face, it rides like a dream. The KEO Easy Clip pedals are pretty awesome although I’m used to the clips being much much looser than these ones. I raced to the end of the path, I wanted to go FAST FAST FAST and I didn’t have much time for a good long ride. At the end I stopped for a photo op before heading back to the car. When I got home I put the bike in the livingroom, I’m sure my roommate is just thrilled about that!  This weekend I want to take it out on my sideroad route (SR 1, 2 and 4) to see how it handles on the hills. I think there is still some really great riding time left this year. I’d also like to do 50km or so before end of the month, I think that will be on Rodney’s route towards Niagara. This weekend isn’t looking promising but maybe next weekend. Anyone interested in a slow ride is welcome to come along. I still need to name the bike..

My race is done and I’m finally official and of course I’ve had the required week off training and taken in the appropriate amount of ice cream and French fries so I’m ready to hit it again. I was talking to Coach Nancy about my upcoming training schedule which I had sort of outlined here but she had a better idea. Haha yeah.. a better idea.. her idea hurts a lot more than my idea!!! So my schedule for 2011 is now looking like this:

Nov 6 – 5km run (Road to Hope)
Dec 11 – 5km run (Jingle Bell Run).. ummm this is my birthday?? At least I can drink after the run
March 6 – Chilly half marathon – this is the most daunting of races, a half marathon
June 6 – Kelso sprint tri
June 19 – Guelph Oly tri
July 17 – Musselman HALF IRON
Sept 6 – Sprint tri (OWTS), I’d like this to be an annual race since it was my first one
Sometime in Sept – Century ride with PedalmanTO (who wants to join us?)

The half marathon has me completely freaked out, even more than the half IM which is just ridiculous because there is a half marathon at the end of the half iron.  I never said I make any sense.  All I can think about is the Chilly half and I start to hyperventilate. I am starting a running clinic tonight but is it enough time to train for half marathon? I am a horrible horrible runner, you don't understand how bad a runner I really am.  Nancy knows this so for the next 9 months it’s going to be ‘all about the run’. After the half IM in July I will switch my training focus to be ‘all about the bike’, or ‘all about my sore ass’ as I like to call it in preparation for my century ride. Bryan, so we’re clear this is a regular century, not a METRIC century.

When talking/thinking/training about and for triathlons, do the Canadians in the room think about it in imperial or metric? When I think about the sprint and Olympic distances I think about it in metric, meter swim, km bike and run BUT when thinking about the half iron my brain goes all imperial on me and I’m back to miles. Weird 

I want to say a HUGE congratulations to Rodney and JohnWProc for completing their first half ironman races in Muskoka this past weekend. I met up with these guys on twitter at tweetxmas hosted by Bryan (who else) last December. Actually I know John was there but can’t remember if Rodney was there or if I found him via Bryan after the fact. At any rate a year ago both of them signed up for the Muskoka half iron with little to no experience in triathlons. I know John is a mad mountain biker and Rodney had some solid time on the bike before they signed up but I am pretty sure neither of them had done a triathlon before. It’s also important to note that Rodney and John are PFG and if you see pictures of them today they are looking fantastic! They both completed the half iron in amazing time and I’m so excited for them!! They signed up for IMLP before finishing the half IM so what I want to know is, guys are you still gonna do IMLP? You can read Rodney’s race report on his blog here (there are a few posts so make sure you scroll, the pics are great) and look for John’s report soon.   Finally another HUGE congratulations to John for his completion of the Wisconsin Ironman! Well done, I look forward to the race report! 

Lots of people ask me why I blog and tweet so much and I can tell you with all these amazing people and their stories you can't help but be completely motivated and inspired. 

That's all I got.

I don't know how to tell you this...

I was going to post all about my new bike today, yes, it’s true I finally went out and bought a bike for me! I have been busting since yesterday (after I got over the shock and payment) to post a picture of it cause it’s SUPER pretty and when I test drove it I immediately fell in love but then Johan had to go and post this. I mean if that isn’t the COOLEST bike in the universe I don’t know what is so I’ll post about my bike tomorrow after the vision of Johan’s bike leaves our brain (and I have better pictures of my bike).

In the meantime, tri-training IS good for weight loss, trew story. I haven’t paid much attention to the scale recently, I decided I would train and eat smartly but not be too restrictive.  With it being summer and me being Canadian I’m kind of required to drink my share of beer right. Also I should confess that my metabolism has been tanked recently because I quit smoking 45 days ago. Yes you read that right I quit smoking.. I was a smoker.. I don’t even mean I smoked, I mean I smoked like it was an Olympic sport smoked, smoked for 30 years, loved nothing more than a bucket o’ coffee and a carton of cigs type smoking.

I tried from about May to quit, every single week I would quit and by the end of the week I’d be back at it, sometimes I’d make it 1 day, other times I’d nearly make the whole week. Of course I didn’t tell YOU this cause you are all fit and healthy and what would you think of me and my smoking? SO embarrassing… but one day in July I tried again and I haven’t gone back. I have been feeling much better from a lung perspective, I’m seeing gains in every area and it’s fantastic to be able to swim without my lungs threatening to actually explode. What you may not know is that when you quit smoking your resting heart rate decreases significantly which in turn affects your resting calorie burn rate so I decided it was more important to quit smoking and not care what the scale said.. plus you know, I can’t stop the beer, especially now that my smokes are gone!! I understand if you are disappointed in me, I needed to quit in my own time and wasn’t certain I’d even confess here but there it is.

So until the bike post tomorrow, finally I’ll leave you with this (guys you may want to pass on this next part)…. Back to the weight loss, yesterday I went to purchase a new bra and sure enough, I’ve lost 2 inches in my rib cage, WIN!!

BUT  I gained a cup size.. so ladies, want bigger boobs? TRI training!!

Still love me??

I never knew what 'It's Miller time' really meant until today

Well there it is.. the finishers medal from the 2010 Ontario Women's Triathlon Series.  It's not my medal BUT I DID finish, more on that later.

So after all the talking and blogging and tweeting I finally shut up and did it.. can you believe that?  Now that I can't move a whole lot I figured I should throw up the race report before I forget all the gory details.  So go grab a coffee or a beer or what the hell, go do something else while I post the low down on how my day went.

I was awake ON TIME which is an event in itself and I had some coffee and part of a shake while I got my stuff all packed in the car.   How many times can you check to make sure you have everything before you are labeled OCD anyway?  On the drive to the park I noticed an SUV pulled over to the side of the road and a woman moving a rack of 2 or 3 bikes onto the shoulder from the middle of the road.  Can your bike rack really fall off your car without you knowing?  They weren't her bikes, she just drove away and I did contemplate stopping to see if they were good bikes because I'm in the market for a new bike but I decided to just keep going, I'm nice like that.
I got a great parking spot and all my crap together and wandered over to transition.  My coach somehow ended up walking beside me, that chick is everywhere I tell you, and had loads of encouraging words and funny stories.  I racked my bike (in the wrong spot, good morning) and chatted with some of my team that were milling around.  I was a bit shocked at all the ladies that were saying things to me like "I can't believe you are doing the sprint!!".  I know I'm not the fittest in the group and I know they didn't mean anything by it but quite honestly I couldn't believe many of them weren't doing the sprint.  I have seen the work they can do and I think there were less than 5 in my group doing the sprint distance.  Their statements were followed on with alot of 'go get em, you can do this, you are amazing!!'  I guess we all have our own journey to follow but with all the surprise and shock in their voices it got me even more scared, so scared I contemplated switching to the super sprint.  Well between that and seeing the swim course it's a wonder I didn't switch.  When I arrived the sun was shining but as the morning progressed we had some clouds and it got chillier but no rain, yay.

@JohnWProc (from twitter) had mentioned he signed his wife up for the sprint (what a peach) and to watch for the "big blue hand" (pardon?) sure enough, I saw him. I mean how the heck could you miss that!!!  They were there all decked out to cheer on the Mrs.  It was really nice to meet another twitter pal in person!  I begged him not to trash talk me on twitter while I was out on the course..

I was in the last wave and standing in the water waiting for the 'gun to go off' I was freaking out, trying not to think about it but how could you not with 750m of the longest swim I have ever seen stretched out before me.  Many of the ladies were convinced this was actually further than 750m.  I think the swim up to the first buoy felt the longest, like I would never get there but by the time I rounded the last buoy I was feeling ok.  Out of breath, drinking in ALOT of the lake and doing the crawl/breast stroke but I felt pretty good.  I have seen my chiptime results and am really happy with my swim time.

Out of the water, over to transition and it turns out I'm pretty quick getting my bike self together.  I have to say I was never so happy to be out of the water and was really looking forward to the bike portion.  I felt good on the bike, my quads felt like stones but other than that I felt good and wanted to go fast.  I have ridden this course a few times prior to race weekend and I felt even faster today.  It helps that traffic was limited and we had the police at every intersection holding off traffic.  The hills hurt, they always do and I was slow getting out to the turnaround but I made up MAD time on the way back.  It felt like 60 minutes out and about 10 minutes back.  Honestly I didn't want to get off the bike, I could have kept going.  I saw my chiptime results for the bike portion which includes both T1 and T2 times and I think I cut off at least 5 minutes off my usual time to ride the course, thank you hill training.

My run, as usual, sucked but I did it.  It was long and it hurt.  I guess it makes sense that I was tired from the swim and my legs were pretty tired from the bike.  I ran more than I thought but those freaking hills KILLED me.  I saw my chiptime results on the run and am not happy about that but it is what it is.  I am signed up for a running clinic starting in two weeks and I will get faster, I know I will.  My coach ran the last hundred meters with me and I crossed the finish line where my entire team was waiting for me, even the super sprinters that had finished ages ago  What a team!  I found out they were out of medals and at first I thought ah, who cares but as I looked around and saw everyone else with medals I was getting pretty bummed about it.  My teammate Kelly came over to me and put HER medal around my neck.  She said that I really deserved it and that she had come in first in her age group and would probably be getting something anyway.  I don't care how many medals you have, every one of them is well earned and for her to give hers to me was so incredibly kind it's a wonder I didn't start bawling on the spot.

The entire time during the swim I was thinking, oh lord make it stop, I'm never going to finish.  The entire time during the bike I was thinking YES this is awesome!!  The entire time during the run I was thinking ouch (it was much more colourful than ouch), this hurts but it's almost over!  At the end you turn around and look where you came from, you see the course and in my head it was the entire journey and think holy crap I just DID that.. I DID that.. and then i was just speechless.

blah blah blah

I wasn't going to post anything on this, the day before race day. I think no matter what I post it's just going to sound like blah blah blah and who really cares but THEN I picked up my race kit.

I've decided that I'd like to share that I REALLY REALLY want to throw up, I mean alot.  I should be hydrating but I can't stop drinking coffee and diet coke, this needs to stop very soon.  The shirt in the race kit is really nice, I'm mostly excited about that.  I got my number (1145) and found out my wave goes at 9:20(somethingorother), I didn't really pay that much attention.  I picked up a race belt because I figured it's the easiest way to manage the number and at the moment I'm fully convinced I'll do another race so the race belt is a good purchase.  Tomorrow I am sure I'll be thinking more along the lines of 'what the fuck was I thinking?' (sorry mom) and start imagining new uses for the race belt.

Here's a question, I understand why the safety pins came in my race kit but is there a purpose for the elastics?

on that note folks.. blah blah blah

winner winner chicken dinner

I WON! I WON!! No seriously I actually won something, what a shock. I read about Mandy’s contest for GU products but thought since I’m Canadian I wouldn’t be able to enter. Mandy is not prejudice against her northern neighbours and encouraged me to enter so I did and can you believe it, I won! I won!!

Mandy can now be an honorary Canadian. When are you coming by Ontario for visit Mandy?  Come do a race next year!!!  Seriously you are more than welcome, I’ll even make sure I’m stocked up with the yummy delicious mint chocolate GU and I’m betting we could give the kegerator a go, but let's pass on the beer bong.

My race is coming up this weekend and I can’t even think about it without throwing up a little in my mouth. Life has been just that, life and I’ve trained as much as I could and made some decent progress and gains but it also seems to be a lot about ‘the day’ as much as prep. I am scheduling a tattoo after the race, post nap, later in the afternoon. Nothing big, a saying that I read somewhere (maybe even on this blog) that meant a lot to me, that I have had translated to Finnish (for reasons that are far to boring to get into here). It’s my victory prize no matter how I do in the race, I just have to show up at the start line it doesn’t matter what happens after that.

Coach Nancy and I have been talking about some future goals to coincide with my recent stupidity and next year is already shaping up to be interesting. I am going to train for a 5km (or 10km) race in November to end out this season, I need some SERIOUS work on my running so I will focus on this during the off season as well.  I've signed up for Nancy's running clinic and her weekly tri clinic to keep me busy and she's already sent me my program for September.

2011 racing season:
Early season half marathon
May – Brian Smith charity ride, 140km
June – sprint tri
Sept – Olympic distance tri

There’s also the ‘@PedalmanTO 2011’ 160km ride and I may be doing a 75km ride in there as well with him and @thechefupstairs and a few other riders. I need to map this all out with Nancy to see how to spread it out so I can do them all.

And of course all of this work is preparing for a half iron in 2012 with @PedalmanTO, I'll be doing the half and he WILL be doing the full Ironman at the same race. 

That's all I got