Downeast delicacy

I'm up in Maine this weekend. It's about a 180 mile drive North and I mean North. Augusta Maine is Stickville USA. I try and get up to visit my 94 year old grandfather who lives up here when I can. He still lives on his own. Quite sufficiently in fact. Some of you might have seen my post around Christmas time. If you didn't, it's worth going back and looking at the photos I took of him snowshoeing with us on Christmas Day.

Here he is at the stove cooking me Fiddleheads tonight. Basically it's a fern that you pick in it's very early stages curled up near rivers or streams. My grandfather is just back from a fishing trip up in Caribou Maine (Super stickville USA) Anyway, trout and Fiddleheads where on the agenda while on his trip so I was "treated" to this delicacy tonight. I must admit, I was a bit skeptical. "Can't we just eat this nice salad from the bag grampa?"

Oh.. and hills. There are hills here. Mile long hills. I never pass up a run here.
Tomorrow morning I have a pre-breakfast date with them.

Closet Envy. Do you have it?

You should unless of course you can post pictures better than this.
Welcome to my closet. What's a triathlete supposed to do instead of a 7 hour brick that was planned but now cancelled due to pulling out of CdA? You organinzed a new season of racing, you scrub your house top to bottom, pay some bills, clean out the fridge just to name a few.
You stay productive and get sh*t done that never gets done.

You start by pulling all your winter crap out. Sort it, throw stuff away you never wear anymore and pack the rest up in sealed Rubbermaid containers to store in the attic. Then you haul all the summer stuff down from the attic in those Rubbermaid containers that have been sitting up there all winter and go through that and toss out all the crap you never wear and organize
it in your empty closet.

Ahhhhhh.. this purging session was therapeutic for sure.


Happy training. Stay safe.
xx
e

Quick Race Report

getting ready to chuck my empty Gu flask at Mr. TGP, shufflin' by with 2 cups of ice cubes down my swimsuit..lol




The Good news:
My hip tear didn't bother me at all on the run!
The Bad news: I got my ass handed to me on the run!

The combination of my lack of run fitness coupled with the heat made the run complete misery for me. I never found a good groove. I suffered every mile. 8 women in my age group swiftly caught me and left me practically standing still during my 9 minute mile 13.1 shuffle. Last year I did a 5:07 on this course so yesterday's 5:18 was a true test of where my fitness was. I've decided to pull out of CdA. All I could think of during the run yesterday was, how am I going to make it though 26.2 miles??? After a discussion with Coach Jen, my run fitness isn't going to change much in the time I have to prepare and I'm not willing to go there to shuffle through the marathon.

Off to enjoy my last day in sunny Florida and figure out plan B!! Thanks for all of your support. I tried really hard as to not disappoint especially myself!!!


Oh.. almost forgot.... I ran SMACK into Kate Weaver J. after the race. It was so nice to meet her in person! I had no idea she was racing and saw her family cheering during the run wearing TEAM KATE MONSTER t-shirts. Also big big shout out to team mate and super BAD ASS chicka chicka Dede for clenching 3rd yesterday!!!! She had some serious competition and is really proving that she is a force to be reckoned with out there on the race course.

Cheers!

All's well in the land where happiness lives

I'm smiling now. Let's see who's smiling come tomorrow where the temps haven't dropped below 86 degrees even at night. Smoooooth sailing so far! I hope it doesn't
rain on Minnie tonight.....

Thank you guys for your awesome support and messages! Congrats to Coach Jen for her win at her race today.

xxxx
e

SOOOOOO BUSY

This week was supposed to be a nice ez, taper week, right? Between getting ready to travel to Fla, MRI appointments, ( MRI confirms labral tear in my right hip). I'm trying to squeeze in another Ortho appointment to discuss treatment options along with an unexpected delivery of our Team Psycho uniforms that arrived this week on my door step. Since this was my project for the team this year, no way was I gonna let it be a free for all without me being here to oversee things. I felt compelled to do the sorting, labeling and bagging of each members gear with some help that really took up way too much of my time. It's done and ready to distribute with minimal mistakes in the order and none made by me! Yay!


Off I go.... to Sunny HOT Florida. I will run and run as hard as my body will allow and enjoy the start of the 2008 season! Yipppeeeee!

How to prepare your bike for a semi tractor trailer ride

Bye Bye bike. See you in Sunny Florida. I've chosen to once again use TriBike Transport
to have my bike shipped to Fla instead of packing it up in my Trico case and lugging it to the airport with me. By what I've read lately, the airlines are not letting anyone get by with extra luggage or an over sized bike case without charging you. Tri
Bike Transport does a nice job but don't expect your bike to get there completely scratch free. Last year mine came back with a small dent in the frame. It happens.
So this year, I stopped into Lowes and picked up some pipe insulation tubing and wrapped it up as well as areas I thought might rub against other objects while being transported by truck.

Tomorrow I have my Athrogram MRI at 9am. I'm anxious to hear what they find and
if I can get some cortisone before Florida 70.3 I've decided to do the race to determine if CDA is still in the picture. Wish me luck. I'll need lots of it!!

Embrace your cartilage and other stuff

Wow.. what a weekend! Lots of racing going on. Congrats to Puremadness Jen. She won a local triathlon here in MA. Congrats to Bree for getting her fiery butt to place third at St. Croix. Kudos to Amanda for her awesome race there too. Her race report sets her apart as a professional in that there is no shoulda,coulda, woulda, you just go out there, you race hard and you deal with adversity and laugh at yourself falling off your bike instead of swearing like a sailor in which I would have done as loud as I could!!! Next time, I will catch myself and "think Amanda like" before I do this if I'm finding myself in this situation. Besides, we as age grouper do this for FUN, right?????

Mel, you've got only a few hours left to sulk and you will leave your St Croix mishap right there and get SUPER EXCITED about your next race just like Bree said, right???
You did a SUPER JOB!

As for cartilage, I am lacking some. I have a labral tear in my right hip. In layman's terms, it acts as a gasket where your bone sits in the socket. Bad gasket= pain. The tear can't heal itself. An MRI is next up for me and then a cortisone shot to dampen the chronic discomfort I have been having for 5 weeks now. It's been a tough spring!! The good news is, it's a mechanical issue and not a inflammatory one in that I can train on it as much as I'm able to bear the discomfort.
Fun fun...
Thanks to my coach for putting up with me and Dede for the most awesome referral to Donnie Strack at Wellesly Orthopedics. He promises to help fix me!