What I use Wednesday

This week I am sharing one of my favorite race day products. First I want to say yes SBR is a sponsor for my team, Trakkes. However, I was introduced to and started using this product long before they sponsored my team. I will never recommend nor does my team as me to recommend anything I don't honestly believe in. Trakkers just happens to have some great sponsors!

So the product is Trislide by SBR Sports. Oddly enough my mother in law also introduced me to Trislide. Apparently she knows her stuff! Trislide is an "aerosol skin lubricant" or as I like to call it anti chaffing stuff and hurry up and get outta my wetsuit stuff!

Why I LOVE Trislide.....
1. It prevents me from getting chaffed. Obviously! But seriously it works really well. I spray it on the neck, wrists, and ankles of my wetsuit, on the inside of my tri shorts, around the edges of my sports bra, and inside my shoes.
2. Since it is an aerosol spray you get the perfect "coating" and there is no caking or rubbing over and over as opposed to some other products out there. Just a nice spray and you are good to go..
3. It doesn't melt in your tri bag!
4. It is fun to spray.

Try it.... you will love it I promise!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

Triple T

Its been oven a week since I finished triple t and I still think I could sum up that race report with one word. OUCH!

Rather than write a detailed race report of how each each segment of all four races went(which would be really long and only include declining heart rate with corresponding declining output and a lot of "OUCHES"), I will just give some of my thoughts on the race. I heard about triple t Ohio a few years ago and have been trying to fit it into my race schedule ever since. So when they added one a four hour drive from me, offered it at half price, put great prizes at stake,and it fell on a weekend I had nothing planned for, I signed up. I will say now that I greatly underestimated the difficulty of triple t, maybe I was still broken down from nationals but Sunday hurt! I was smart enough to realize that having a teammate would be more fun and managed to talk BC into racing with me. Of course the hubby wasn't going to miss out and then our friend John jumped on the band wagon. So we had a nice group of four for the long weekend.

We arrive at the race sight Friday afternoon and checked in. I was instantly excited about the weekend. Transition was set up just off the lake at an FAA camp. The whole weekend was a truly unique atmosphere. People were very relaxed and you didn't have that nervous energy that typically appears at races. We never felt the need to lock our car and left our shoes at the swim start all day. The race director did a fantastic job. Courses were well marked, every event started on time, results were quickly available, and they provided plenty of food all weekend which was free to all athletes. I do have two complaints. First the roads were a little bumpy and second they only put your race number on your right arm so it was very hard to keep track of people as you couldn't see their race numbers. Oh and one last possibly negative comment. Everyone had to wear the same jerseys. This added a very neat aspect to the race, but it made me really appreciate my awesome Trakkers kit which is made by Saucony. My race kit is much more comfortable.

I will tell a little bit more about the races. Friday night was a super sprint which was a fun way to get some speed in and kick of the weekend. And, oh yeah BC laid down a 5 minute mile for 5th fastest overall run of the day.... take that boys. Saturday brought two olympic distance races. The first one is traditional and I have nothing exciting to say about it. The second one starts at 3 pm it is a bike, swim, run and where you start to feel the pain. It is also where I learned It would probably be better to take the time to deal with a wetsuit than deal with the time lost from cramping while swimming hard off the bike in 71 degree water.

Sunday was the final race, a half. Going into the race BC and I had a pretty generous cushion between us and second place so we decided to take it a little easy. I am so glad we had that option as it was a rather painful race even at the more enjoyable pace we set. The totals are four races with over 140 miles total for the weekend.

Would I do this race again? No probably not..... this was a bucket list race for me. It was fun and I would recommend it, but it's done for me! I would however go up there again if others were racing and just race the half on Sunday. Even though I say I would not do the race again I am very glad I did it. And, oh yeah we had a bidet in our 1970's hotel, but no.... no one tried it..... maybe we will have to go back?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

Done!

With the completion of triple t comes the end of my season! This year has been amazing and here is why!

1. I stayed healthy all year! Thanks so much to my wonderful coach for keeping me in line, a great team at drayer physical therapy for teaching how to fix my imbalances, and my amazing husband for taping my stinky, blistered, yucky foot without complaint.

2. The Trakkers team. I was lucky enough to be part of this team of amazing athletes and sponsors. I have to say one of the highlights of my season was getting to meet my teammates and sponsors at Rev3 knoxville(while also racing one bad a** course).

3. Lessons learned. Wow I have learned so much this year. I cannot even start to list everything I have learned this year. My most recent lesson was not to ride a hard 40k on your bike and then jump in a 71 degree lake without a wetsuit and try to swim your a** of unless you want to cramp like crazy. I also have learned how to nail my race nutrition thanks to coach Dirk and first endurance. I have learned I can push my body much harder than I thought.

4. This year has also been filled with accomplishments. There were a few pr's. I finally backed up a solid bike with a run in a half. Thanks to Kat I made it through my longest and hardest bike ride ever. Tracy paced me to a 10k I thought I would never be able to run. I reached volumes in my training that I never even considered doing. There were many more throughout the year but most importantly I had fun each step of the way.

5. Finally my friends and family have given me unbelivable support. My parents dealt with me being missing a lot. My mom actually pushed me to man up and register for my first ironman(IMSG). The inlaws supported me through the very dissapointing eagleman. My mother inlaw as well as training partners Kat and Tracy have very generously shared their knowledge with me. And of course my husband jose! He has been amazing this year helping me with everything from staying motivated to making sure my bike was clean and race ready to yelling at me to do PT. I am very very lucky to have such a great support team.

Now that the 2010 race season is over I have big plans! Four weeks of cross training! I plan to play some golf, ultimate frisbee, take self defense classes, mt. bike, and relax. However I decided this week will be all about me. First up a pink hair extension to support breast cancer awareness month, a massage to get triple t outta my legs, a pedi and mani with my triple t teammate to celebrate our survival of that race, and some much needed wine with the hubby.

Next up .... what I use wednesday.... and a triple t race report.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

What I use Wednesdays!

I am starting a new habit on my blog! I am very particular about the things I use. Once I find something that I like I stay with it. Each wednesday I will share one of these things with you and explain why I use it.

Since I love coffee, and its a daily staple in my life I figured I would start with something coffee related. I love my Contigo insulated coffee mug. My mother in law (also a coffee enthusiast) gave this to me last year for Christmas. This thing seriuosly keeps my coffee hot for ever. Even though I love coffee and drink it often I don't atually drink that much of it because I sip on it. Since I sip on it, it takes me forever to finish a cup and it almost always gets cold before I can finish it. Cold coffee is icky! The reason the mug keeps your coffee so cold is that rather than having a hole in the lid to drink from it has a seel with a button. When you push the button the seal opens and your nice warm coffee comes flowing out of the mug into your mouth! That seal holds the heat in rather than the traditional hole in the lid that let's the heat escape.

The other reason I love my coffee mug.....it has pink on it! Pink just makes me smile, but when you combine it with hot coffee it's almost a guaranteed happy start to my day!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.1

taper,race, recover

Halfmax recap!

My taper was torture. It always is. My body feels terrible, my digestive system gets thrown out of whack, I am tired all the time, I get very cranky, and I doubt myself. My poor coach got several emails to the tune of don't be dissapointed if I am slow at halfmax. My husband had to listen to me say I didn't like to race. To which he responded that I was full of nonsense. Anyhow we all survived the taper week.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling pretty good. I did my warm up run and my legs felt 100% recovered. Something I had not felt in a long time. That combined with the fact that I had not really done a workout in almost a week I was very excited to race. The announcer said the swim would be wetsuit legal! Thank goodness as my swim training has been weak and I needed any advantage I could get. I then headed to port-o-john(I have a fear of these things, like seriously a real fear), upon my return I see almost everyone is out of transition and crowded around the announcer. Which seemed odd. As I walk past a couple people I overhear them say that the swim is CANCELLED. Yes, very good news for me. But in my opinion pretty sad given that it was a national championship.

The race director decided to do a random tt start. Allowing athletes to line up however they wanted, this he hoped would cut down on drafting. I found it dissapointing as I wanted to race the girls in my age group and would have preferred if we all stated at least within a few minutes of each other. I lined up at the very front as I just wanted to get the race going and stop standing around in the cold!

I quickly got on my bike and settled into my zone much quicker than I thought. My nutrition was a bottle of efs liquid shot mixed with efs sports drink totalling about 500 calories. This works perfectly for me as it is mild in flavor and provides calories and electrolites. The course was a two loop H, with too many uturns to count but it was easy to break down mentally. Final bike split was 2:31. PR! I have laid down some strong bikes before but never been able to run after them so I was excited to see what my legs had.

I ran into transition, grabbed my efs liquid shot and team Trakkers visor and head out to run. I decided not to start my watch and just run off heart rate. I didn't want to know my pace because I had no idea what to expect and knew that running off from my heart rate would bring my best result. The first mile felt good so I turned my watch on knowing that my pace was strong enough to not effect me mentally. The run felt great! I was able to execute my race plan perfectly. I think the cool temperatures really helped with this. Run time was 1:43:30 for a total bike/run of 4:17.

I was pretty happy with the results of my race. It's the first time I have put together a run and bike split in the same race. I hit my heart rate the whole time which is also a first. That is all I can ask for.

Now..... I recover..... I am signed up to do triple t next weekend so I have lots of recovery to do. I will be spending the day on the couch with my saucony compression tights on. The day will also likely include some stretching, mt. biking, a walk, a massage, and some stretching to help aid the recovery. Since triple t is just for fun coach has me official in the off season which calls for four weeks of cross training and "eating like a piggy." Seems odd to me. But the biggest thing I have learned this year is to trust him, but that is a whole other post! Any suggestions for the cross training..... my husband has already taken over the wii!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.1

blogging from new phone?

Got a droid! Yay! That means I can blog front phone now... right?

Here is the view of my favorite river.... on our way to halfmax!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.1