Longhorn and Margaret Reflections

Today marks the one year anniversary of Margaret's death and as I sit here and reflect on this, it seems quite trivial and self centered that I've been obsessing and feeling sorry for myself over the last 48 hours about my lack of prerace calories and how many Cliff Blok squares I consumed or rather didn't that allowed me to ruin my own race. Simply put, I lack the respect and attention proper fueling deserves and it bit me in the ass on Sunday and most likely my last 1/2 iron race in September for that matter.
This is a sport, a hobby, a choice and a privilege. Margaret will always be there to remind me of this and I am so very thankful she occasionally slaps me back to the here and now and gently points out what really matters.

Austin was spectacular. I just loved it there. Thank you Amanda for your recommendations! I tried to hit every place you mentioned but sadly I wasn't there LONG ENOUGH! The food was great. Gawd, I love authentic Tex Mex!! The weather beautiful, my accommodations top notch and Keith Jordan and the Endorfuns crew per usual, put their heart and soul into that race. Many many thanks to all of them and the droves of volunteers that helped make our day a memorable one.

Jennifer Harrison:
I owe you a kidney for taking the time and going through my day and deciphering my self destructing fueling issues. YOU ARE THE BEST!

I am looking forward to 2010. I truly feel good things in store and really, I'm not just spewing out poop here.

You wait and see.....

I like this quote my friend and fellow team mate Maggie sent me this week:

Shoot for the moon and if you miss, you'll be among the stars.

Here we go!

VARoooooom!


It's time to get ORGANIZED!! I am not a light packer. The airlines love me. $$$$$$


Pinky Elite all packed up and bubble wrapped. Southwest Airlines $50!!!! YIPPPPEEE!!
They'll just get me with my 80 pounds of luggage I need for 3 days. HA!

Here's my suit! Thanks Dawn! xxxx Might as well be fashionably coordinated shufflin' down the street in this, no???? Hey...it's all about THE LOOK this year, being speedy is SOOOOO passé!!!

One more time!

It feels a bit bizarre that I'm still in full swing training swimming, biking and running. This is the first year I've ever stretched my season out so far for triathlon and this coming weekend will be my cap.
I've been racing for the last 5 weekends mixing it up with triathlon and road racing while trying to be SMART about resting as to absorb and bank some of the efforts put forth. Here's a recap:

Pumpkinman - I ran/stumbled through a 9:42 pace for a 2:07 1/2 marathon feeling way under trained for the distance but I had to start somewhere.

Lobsterman- I was hoping the shorter 10k distance would feel better but... ah.. no. 55:27 10k
(8:55 pace) Can I blame it on the really windy bike?

Eliot 5K - Short and sweeet but still feeling sluggish. 24:49 (8:00 pace)

Harvard MA 10 miler Road Race Ok, this one i felt pretty good because I played my cards SMART and didn't go out too hard on this very hilly course. 1:29 (8:55 pace)

Tufts 1OK for Women - "Control the heart rate and negative split the run" was my completed goal 51:20 (8:16 pace)
Next up
Longhorn 70.3

Who wants to take a stab at what pace I should be able to hold for this weekend's 13.1 based on those STELLAR times above. HA!

My running is coming along but it's progressing at a snails pace. I'm missing the bottom of the all important pyramid: A solid base. My head thinks I can spit out 7:00 miles but my legs and my head are not in sync. I've at least made one major milestone
which is, I've finally rid the feeling of dragging a bus behind me on every run. Now that is progress!!




Tufts 10k For Women

This week I'll be enjoying some rest and getting ready to pack up for Austin Texas! I've never been to Tx so looking forward to the trip.
Stay tuned for a red carpet preview of another custom Splish suit for my last race of TGP's wild and wacky 2009 season.

Bees, Butts and Bike Chronicles..grab a cup a joe for this one.

Happy October my friends. Tis the season of candy galore. Ahhh....the beauty of it all. My mother DENIED me of candy as a child hence the infatuation with it. And Gerry, don't you deny this. Remember how you used to pick through my Halloween candy and throw out the BEST STUFF, lick-a-sticks, NowandLaters,Lemon Heads Wax lips and candy cigarettes. I'm scarred from this. Right now I have sugar coated jelly pumpkins under my bed that I bought at the apple farm stand . A rather large bag of them I might add. And guess what everyone??? For her birthday Sept 8th, I sent her an exquisite assortment of CHOCOLATES from Dean and Deluca. Ha! EMBRACE THE CANDY!!!



I've been very productive this week catching up on my my blog reading. My brand new Thule rack is installed on my car. My Cervelo "issue" is solved (more on this later) and I'm working on lane mate suits for our MIT Masters Lane 3 squad just for kicks. Wanna see? Well it really starts with my friend Katie. I never know what to get her for her birthday and who couldn't use a custom made Splishy?


So since she is the official leader of the lane, I thought the suit should sport all our lane mates on it. Katie HATES kicking and IBB means- In Before Bill (our coach). If he strolls in and catches you squandering away warm up time socializing BOOM! The lane gets punished. Usually by giving us some junky fly set. Also he (tried) to post on KT's Lane 3 blog anonymously as "Stinging Bee". It took us a nanosecond to figure out who was leaving the rouge comments.


And here's one of male suits I made. This one's for Bob. No room for all the late mates so I kept it simple. I love swimming with BB. I am cranky come morning masters and BB is never cranky which in turn makes me a tad bit less cranky when he's there. I've got 5 more suits to create and hopefully everyone will order one and we will be DA BOMB in lane 3. You can bet your Stinging bee a$$!

Speaking of asses. Mine has been chronically sore for a long time. I just thought I'd share that with you. I went to have an MRI on my lower half to see what is nagging me there and come to find out, the radiology report said:

Significant strain of the hamstring on insersion into the Elvis.. I mean PELVIS.
I do not consider this anything new or even actually an injury. I've just had it for so long and all my other injuries totally overshadowed a sore butt so I just learned to live with the discomfort.
As a dental professional, normally I would sit on a stool to treat patients and now I stand and have been FOR MONTHS. If I'm in the car for more than an hour, I want to crawl out the sunroof if I don't have my lacrosse ball rolling around under my a$$ to loosen up my bum. But the worse part is, my running stride is not a stride. It's an old lady shuffle and it's due to the lack of flexibility I have. It doesn't matter how much I warm up or stretch, my flexibility is so limited back there my knees barely lift. Pathetic. But not for long....


I went to a sports medicine/ soft tissue chiro last night who dug to China working on the scar tissue in there and electro stim-ed me and sent me on my way armed with hamstring strengthening exercises. Ahhhhhhh. It felt soo good! The combo of deep tissue massage and seeing Dr Michaud over the next 6 weeks and I should be Cirque du Soleil- good in no time!



And lastly, my bike!
For the ENTIRE SUMMER folks, I've been riding an aerodynamic, carbon fiber sleek road machine that has been sucking the ever loving power out of my legs. YES.. I AM BLOND and why couldn't I figure this out???? Well I did... It just took me a while.

Because I am a new Cervelo owner and have not taken much notice of the rear cutout where your tire goes in the frame
and when I was OFF the bike both the front and back wheels

spun freely. The brakes where always checked and made sure that they were seated properly.

But here's the catch:

When ON the bike and PRESSURE (as in TGP's big 'o butt) was placed on the saddle/rear part of the carbon frame, the wheel was seated too far up into the frame and it was RUBBING on the inside of the carbon wheel cut out. You could not hear ANYTHING as in rubbing noise so I just chalked it up to needing compact cranks that I've been so accustomed to and just can't handle the gearing of the 53 up front and that I am a wuss.

So, come to find out, the screws in the frame were loose and that is why the tire wasn't seated correctly and the probable cause for why I sucked at time trialing this summer riding this nightmare while feeling like my legs were going to EXPLODE and feeling like a loser who couldn't manage her swanky new bike gearing was the effect of this. It's all just a memory now and one can continue to justify the purchase instead of staring at it in the corner collecting expenstive dust.

PHEW!


Bring on the candy apples and fall crisp air this weekend!!!!! Oh.. and less of a butt ache one can hope. :-)