TriAya (Yanti) and lmscozz (Lynn), Manatee Mentors--FULL! (Page 27)

I don't have a wet suit or I would so do that!!!  Actually, I have put on my tri suit before, and begun my transition practice in the shower!!  Quick wet down, then run down the steps and out the door!!  But, I figured it was raining last night, so I could skip that step.  And I was right, I was immediately as wet as I am when I come out of the water!  The only thing that makes my nervous is biking in the rain.  Any tips on getting over that fear?  It did start raining on my Oly last year, but not until I got to the run.  Then it poured.  But I had a blast, I kinda like the rain when I run.

I am thinking of a HM this fall.  I just need to find one close, that doesn't interfere with football season.

I did a swim this morning, then I am just going to relax tonight and not workout more.

Karen

Sorry I don't know the solution to your problem.  I understand your frustration though.  I don't ever drink if we are going to be in the car for longer than about an hour.  I know the location of every public bathroom between my house and work, my house and the mall, my house and friend's houses, you get the picture.  And yes, I am well acquainted with many bushes and trees and sides of the road (even interstates!!)  When I asked my doctor about it, she just told me I was getting old!!  Not so helpful.

Also, I had to ask.  Have you been attacked by birds?  I have my own turkey story that I posted about last year that I will have to go look for...

Karen

OMG you guys, I live in downtown Chicago...I SHOULD totally do transition practice in the 'hood...people will just think it's part of the 'hawks celebration.  Plus my kids would enjoy hosing me down.

I had BIG plans this morning.  Yesterday I felt totally hard core so I came home from my bike, did my mommy duties, and then when DH was back from the gym before work, I squeezed in 8 midday.

SO, feeling all badazz, I made plans with one of the girls from the bike team to meet again this morning for a ride and then I was going to stop at OAK street and do a OWS before heading home.  We got about 2.5 miles down the path when I hit SOMETHING and flatted pretty spectacularly...held on and didn't wipe out (we were going 16-17 so it could have been an event).  Did the damage assessment and found a large hole in my tire...we put some electrical tape inside, hoping we could jury rig it, but as soon as we inflated it, it started to bulge out.  My bike-swim quickly became a swim only.  

Alright, whatever, adapt and move forward.  

SO I got the suit on hopped in the lake and experienced the surreal experience of OWS looking at skyscrapers.  Kind of fun.  Did about a mile in just over 30 mins.  Not sure exactly where the 1/2 mile marker was but I was almost at the point and not sure of boat traffic and stuff so played it safe and headed back... 

Did my little T1 practice, packed my stuff up, hopped on the bike, and pedaled once.  Boom.  Now I am 3 miles from my car, no phone or wallet, all out of tubes and inflators.  And no shoes except my bike shoes.  So I put on my extra pair of socks and started the long walk of shame back up to Fullerton.  I made it maybe 100 yards when Amy comes blazing back from her ride and she's more experienced with bikes so she has a plan.  

There was massive construction going on just north of Oak st. beach so we found a construction worker with some scissors (took a surprisingly long time...don't all of those guys have leathermans???).  After explaining why I wasn't wearing shoes and why I wanted to cut a perfectly good (not) innertube, I got a piece of old innertube to line my holey tire with, put the tube in again, blew it up and...whew, it held.  Amy took my bag to lighten my load and we headed back...SLOW and made it back to my car.  

It blew again on the bike rack.  Sheesh.

So my workout was trashed, but I don't care!  Get this, I probably would have flatted in my first sprint triathlon coming up on Sunday if this hadn't happened!!!  

So now I am putting new tires on Lola (my bike, Allison can tell you all about it...it's quite the wacky starter bike...suits me fine, but I probably will be shopping for something a bit less, historic  in the near future).  And really, the OWS was the most important part of the day.  My childcare situation has made it nearly impossible to OWS lately and I needed that mental boost.  I really like OWS...turning is the worst part about pool swimming for me.  I am going to try to go again tomorrow to practice swimming, sighting, and wetsuit stripping for Sunday.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my macgyvering... 

Good luck in your tri this weekend Karen!
Hopefully it won't rain on you at all or at least until after the bike.  I am not expert but here are some tips on riding in the rain:
- Lines on the road are like ice so try to avoid them. This also includes railroad tracks.
- Do not lean your bike too far into turns.  If you need to then brake before you take a turn...avoid braking in the turn.
- Also try to avoid standing pools of water.  You won't know how deep it is and could hydro-plane or it could be a pothole (that you cannot see) which may blow your tire or throw you off.
- Wear glasses if you want. They can be annoying when wet but drops but better than rain pelting your eyeballs at 20mph.

That's an awesome story Quincy and you've inspired me to tell my awesome story from Sunday.

Well, first from Saturday.  I went on a 5 mile run and as I was heading down the path I passed a kid running alongside his bike.  About 20' past him I felt something hit my head and my first instinct was to turn and cuss out the kid for throwing something at me.  Except I realized as I was turning that what had hit me was sharp and poked my head in multiple spots.  That, combined with the chirp I heard while whipping around made me look up in time to see the red winged black bird that had just pecked and clawed my head as it made its getaway into a nearby tree.  The kid?  Staring with his mouth hanging open as I missed a step then continued running.

Sunday I was planning a bike/run brick for 10am but decided to invite some friends to ride with me.  After they wasted time hemming and hawing I was finally getting ready to leave to meet at their houses (their neighbors) for our ride.  Throwing my bike in the car at 11am I found the front tire was flat so I called C to let her know I'd be a little late and she told me that she'd left her bike shoes at her hair dresser's in Lincoln Park.  While I changed my tube we exchanged phone calls and finally decided that we'd take the pedals off Hubs' bike and we'd put them on hers and she'd wear his shoes to ride.  So at noon I'm finally leaving. 

At C's house I find out that S is coming with and start changing out C's pedals.  Then S's husband starts complaining about her leaving and C gets into a fight with her husband and at 12:30 neither of them are going.  I'm annoyed so I make a sandwich in S's kitchen and plan to go alone.  At 12:45 the husbands come in and announce that they're taking the kids to the pool so now we're all going again.  1pm we get outside and mount our bikes and S says she wants to just ride to the pool to meet her family and hang with them and C thinks that sounds like a great idea so I figure I might as well ride there with them then keep going alone.  Except we get half way down the block and my front tire is bumping. 

Checking the tire I find that the tube is kinked and the bead is popping out in one spot.  C and S don't have any tools to fix it so I threw my bike back in the car, swapped the pedals back off C's bike and went home.  At my house Hubs says the tire needs to be fixed anyway so I might as well do it right then even though I just wanted to crawl back into bed.  Once it was fixed he insisted that I might as well go ride since I was all ready anyway so off I went.

11 miles into my ride I'm stopped at an intersection and C and S drive past on their way home from the pool with their bikes in their cars.  My light turns green, I cross and realize my front tire is going flat again but the cars are already out of sight.  I pull out my little hand pump, refilled the tire and rode the 3 miles back home wondering why I'm too stupid to listen to the universe. 

I was telling this story last night at Olive Garden with some friends and as I'm making the "too stupid to listen to the universe" comment I leaned forward just as a server was walking behind me carrying a tray of empty dishes and dropped it on me.  If I hadn't leaned forward at that moment it would have landed on my head.  Apparently the universe decided it owed me one.

Oh, when I got home with that flat I did my brick run despite everything and knocked it out in thirty minutes.  Almost as fast as my stand-alone 5k PR which is amazing off the bike and proves that anger isn't necessarily wasted energy.

Hi everyone!

I just have a minute and wanted to check in.  My race this morning was awesome!!  There has been no rain all day!  Actually, the heat and humidity was more a problem!!  The official results are not up yet, but my time was around 1:40.  That made me 1st place Athena!!!  I was so shocked!  And so excited I can't even explain!  I will post my race report when I get the official results, but just wanted to let everyone know that I rocked the race!!
I hope everyone else had a good race too and I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend!!  Doesn't everybody have Monday off???  It is flag day and a holiday for me! 

Karen

CONGRATS KAREN -- BIG HIGH FIVE FLIPPER AND WOO-HOO!!THRILLED FOR YOU. 

Edited by lmscozz 2010-06-12 9:34 PM

Did you get a Medal?!?  Awesome job Karen!!!

Back from my first tri of the year...I laughed, I cried, I didn't throw up (for you Lynn)...

Race Report 

Hello all, remember me???

I have been MIA for over a month now.  My husband was in a motorcycle accident and I have just been maintaining for the last 5 weeks.

He is okay now.  Up and walking (and starting to fix up his motorcycle <sigh> and back to work.

Of course, my training was 100% derailed.  I won't be able to do the June tri, but hope to kick it into high gear for the August tri.

I have about 10 pages of catching up to do!  Hope you all are doing well   Good to be back.

Kerry

Kerry- Sorry to hear of your husband's motorcycle accident.  Hope he heals quickly.

I promise a full race report later in the week.  I just got back this afternoon from my weekend in Montauk.  The race was on Saturday- Mighty Montauk (oly).  I am very happy with my results- finished in 3:11:27.  It may be BOP but it is great for me!!  I shaved 36 minutes off my disaster of my first oly in September.  The swim I was ok with even though I am super slow.  The water was way cold (probably around 60 degrees).  My T1 and T2 were great and I was very happy with my bike.  My run suffered because I cramped from about a mile in until the very end.  I ended up doing a lot of walking so my run split was somewhere around 1:10 which really hurt my overall time. I was hoping for somewhere around 1:00 to 1:03.  

I have a lot of catching up to do about everyone else that raced this weekend but I am beat.  Will update in a couple days.

 

Omigosh, Kerry, that's terrible!  So glad he is on the mend and it wasn't worse, but Jeeze, what an ordeal.  Hang in there.

I haven't read back beyond today's page, so forgive me.  I've been a terribly MIA Manattee of late.  The good news is, I am slowly re-emerging from my work induced funk and silence and trying to get back on track with training, foremost, and also with being around these parts.  Will hopefully get to catch up more tonight.   Waves to you all!

That's awesome Karen!  Congrats on the 1st place!!!  And I look forward to reading your race report.

Edited by blackledge 2010-06-14 9:34 AM

Welcome back Kerry.  I am sorry to hear about your husband's accident but definitely glad to hear that he is doing better. He sounds like he is on his way to a full recovery.  Sorry that you're going to miss your June tri but glad that you have one scheduled for August.  I am sure you will kick butt in training!

Wow, I am glad he's ok, and glad you're back!  What's your plan to get ready for August?  

 

wb Kerry great to see you, good thoughts for you and hub

I have dengue fever and a tri sched Sunday grrr

if I can up and walk by then, I'll do it.

oh goodness Yanti!  I wish you a speedy recovery as well.  Please take care of yourself this week!

That sounds awful Yanti!  Please take care of yourself!

Morning manatees.  What are we all doing today?  Work?  Workouts?  Recreation?  All 3?

I am doing my standard kid care/wrangling routine all day.  DH has the day off but he has to go to the dentist.  We're in the taper for DD's school...yes Chicago Public Schools DRAG IT OUT until mid June and then it seems like they DRAG IT OUT for summer too...she won't go back until September 7th.

Tonight the Chicago Tri Club has a cool program called Stroke n Stride which is a lake swim followed by a 2m? run.  I am going to go.  I usually don't do stuff in the evening because it is DH and my time, but after my 3 minute T1 on Sunday, I am thinking it would be good to practice with some people around (for pointers) and under some time pressure (they time you and keep track for sort of a fun club competition).  DH is ok with it and we eat late anyway, and it's not like I go out in the evenings for girls night out or anything.  This sort of is my girls night out.  Pathetic.  haha.

Got my OLY in two weeks.  Kind of nervous about the swim as the longest I have gone is about 6 minutes (in a race) and I go all out and gas myself and obviously I can't do that for this race.  Going to be interesting to see how I handle the significantly longer swim.  I swim very differently in races.  Hmm.

Alright, enough about me, what is up with you all?  I feel like we are all going through a transition time...the initial excitement of training and racing has worn off a bit and a lot of us are looking at what is next...I know an IM is on the horizon for late 2011 for me...not sure exactly how yet, working on it as we speak...

 

Good morning Quincy and all you Manatees!

I guess the good thing about taking 5 weeks off is feeling rejuvenated about training again.

The stroke and stride tonight sounds great!  Have fun!

I plan on biking to the pool this afternoon, taking a 30 minute swim, and biking home.  Only 10 miles round trip, but hope to make it my go-to mini brick work out. 

Have a great day all!

Welcome back Kerry!  Sorry about your hubby's accident but I'm glad he's doing better.  Get better Yanti and if you're not skip the race.  But I hope you don't have to.

I've been crazy lately between training, kids on summer break and planning our move.  No time right now, but I'll post later about my ride on Saturday.

Race report is up.  Nothing exciting but its there  http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=213130&posts=1&start=1  I am not tech savvy so don't know how to make this an active link to click on...