Race Teaser

We're back from vacation - from Pac Crest week(end).

On arriving to Sunriver, Mai thought we should dehydrate a bit by the pool...

Then the kids found their cousins had arrived and took over the hot tub...

The days included rockwall climbing, bike riding, rocket classes, swimming, surfing and nature walks and just hanging out with the family...

The talent show was a success with blonde jokes, gargling, SING, armpit farting and we ended with a play of Snow White. My talent was apparently drinking too much and cackling, but I tried to edit most of my screech out...



I finished...

More on that later!

Oregon Girl

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement over these last 6+ months as I've recovered from my running injuries, reached my fund raising goal for The LLS through Team In Training, and trained my way back to the 1/2 IM distance.

We leave soon for our vacation in Sunriver and race day. I'll most likely be off the grid until next Thursday when I plan to report back with a great race report. I have no illusions about how I'll do if the heat is in full force, but I know that the race will be great regardless. I hope that I've been able to present TNT in the best possible light and that you will consider partnering with them in the future for an event. It could change your outlook on life, give you some of the best friends you'll ever have, and help save lives.

This Oregon girl is heading to the high desert...to enjoy some of this...

Monday Morning Dance Party AND A WINNER!!

1. My back is still tight, but it is feeling better. Thanks for all your concern. I was able to run 8 miles on Saturday and swim and bike yesterday. The bike position was really the only one that bothered me. Sleeping positions and just sitting hurts the worst. Whatever.

2. The winner of the Zaca Patches is Nikki @ Mom On A Mission. Congrats, girl! I think I already have your address so we're good! I'll mail the package out to you next week, though, when I return from vacation.

3. Do a little dance...

Just A Day In The Sun

I'm starting to get stressed out today and it's only 7am. First...I threw out my back this morning stretching out in bed. This isn't the first time, but it's the first time so close to a race :-(
I just realized that I have a TON of stuff to do this weekend to be ready to leave on vacation and get to race day. Main priority is work that needs to be done, but also topping that list is cleaning my bike and replacing the electrical tape that is being used as a handlebar plug. That kind of forgetfulness will get me disqualified. I also need to find a replacement band for my aerobottle because mine got old and crunchy and broke. That kind of forgetfulness will get me dehydrated.

I'm supposed to go on an 8 mile group run this morning, but I'm not even able to walk properly with my back like this...so as I hash all this stuff out in my mind, here are some pictures of a very unusually sunny day in Portland yesterday. We took full advantage of it, and hope and dream of summer actually arriving for good here in Oregon.

Mai's own sunbathing spot she made for herself...

A little shady reading with the pooch...

Building a reading room/fort underneath the swingset...

Doin' a little dance...

A little water fight action...

And even Mama got a little unexpected surprise after she threatened "the kids" they better not squirt her due to her library book and her phone...



Ended the day with a little taper bike ride with the boy...

Today...it's raining again...
Really?...
ugh.

Don't forget to enter my Zaca Recovery Patch Giveaway!!

Party GIVEAWAY

We've been enjoying our first week of summer break.
Mai found a fat app to play with on my iPhone...

Jack has us all taking some strategic Risks...

Baby Katelyn finally arrived at her REAL due date, weighs 5.3 pounds and got to go home after 90 days in the hospital!!!

The team had our Send Off Party last night and the little kids had fun swimming while the big kids had fun stuffing ourselves with food and drink...

...and the viewing of one of our teammates living up to his promise that if he reached his fundraising goal, he would completely shave his hair and beard at the end of the season...

Coach bottled some of our blood, sweat, and tears from the season and we each received one of these...

Click for a closer look at our personalized message from Coach.

...which brings us to my giveaway today. Recently Zaca sent me some of their recovery patches to try out. They are easy to use, just peel and stick a small 1" patch on your skin before going out and then let the good times roll. Both times I've used the patches, I have woken up earlier than I would like, but without feeling too very lousy. The patches are infused with 11 different organic ingredients to help you "enjoy feel-great mornings, clear-headedness and bright eyes" and the nice people at Zaca want to give one of you the opportunity to try out the patches, too. I'll pick the winner on Sunday! It's as easy as this:
Three ways to enter.
1. Be or become a follower of this blog and leave me a comment.
2. Tell me what your current method of hangover prevention entails.
3. Tweet about this giveaway and let me know.

Now I'm all bright eyed and bushy tailed and I'm heading out to use my pass to the Nike Employee Store. First, I need to figure out what NOT to wear, as I received an e-mail that emphatically states I am not allowed to wear any competitors clothing in the store...

Pac Crest is ON

Road is completely plowed and open...I guess our 1/2 Ironman is a GO @ Pac Crest...

I'll tell you now that the snow is deceiving. We will likely have temps in the upper 80s-90s on race day. The bike course is not easy but I'm looking forward to it! Kids have been known to throw snowballs at you upon request. Let the good times roll....

Monday Morning Dance Party

'Cause Fathers Day is sneaking up on us :-)

Bull Run

Pictures are from Mt. Bachelor.

Hard to believe in 13 days we'll be riding this course in sweltering hot weather when the road is still not open at the top yet due to snow. Several teammates decided to go ride the Pac Crest course this weekend (as far as they could) to get a feel for what they are in for. I know what I am in for, so I chose to stay at home and be a bull rider.

Bull Run is our infamous end of year ride before Pac Crest. Every year I do just a little bit better at it, but every year I also forget how torturous it is. 65 miles with about 4500 feet in climbing (I was told it was more like 5500 by people this year, but I have no proof of that). Every year as I hit that first steep downhill and I'm screaming along I get a huge smile on my face and then I realize that what goes down must come back up on this course, as it is an out and back. It's a beautiful ride and when we hit the aid station at 32.5 miles, I was feeling great!...and this kind of surprised me.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I've been having some tummy troubles. I was starting to worry I had picked up a parasite at the lake last weekend, and I came into this ride with a few less co2 cartridges, tubes and snacks and made a lot more room in my bag for toilet paper. I'm happy to say that I didn't have to break into the bag even once. I did break into what snacks I could fit in and I'm here to tell you that if you aren't already enjoying the Chocolate Almond COCONUT Mojo bars...you need to go get some right now! YUM!

As we headed back to finish up the next 32.5 miles, I maintained a great speed, attitude, and strength...until we got to a little 1.5ish/2 mile hill that I had completely forgotten about. It's amazing how fast you can go downhill for 1.5 and not even notice it, but getting back up that baby was H.A.R.D. My butt, my hips, my glutes...EVERYTHING was screaming at me to just stop. All of a sudden I remembered that it was just after this hill during my first season that about 4 people hopped in the SAG wagon for a ride back because they just couldn't finish the ride. I didn't quit that year and I was sure as heck not going to quit this year. I grabbed some advil from the aid station and washed it down with about 10 gummy bears, 25 sugar drops, a handful of pretzels and off we went.

I've never cried during the Bull Run ride before, but I've cried after it...in my car...with my legs cramping up...and no one could see me. But no tears this year...so I guess that's improvement. I know it made me stronger and we start taper now...
...as much as an 8 mile run tomorrow can be considered taper. Whatever...I just follow the schedule.

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

First day of summer vacation and I am one happy mama! I love summer break! The kids let me sleep in to the decadent hour of 8am (bye bye alarm clock for the summer!!), I worked for 3 quick hours still in jammies and with hot coffee in hand, then the wee girl and I got our workout on in front of our lovely new workout mirror Steve framed and hung in the family room for us. With muscles pumped up, we headed out to find some summer adventure on this very first day of our break. We were ready to let the wild rumpus start!

Cedar Island is a favorite of the kids and we decided to take our chances and go see if it is above or below water these days. The rivers around here are all pretty high, so we weren't sure what to expect. On the way down to the river we found some roots to climb on...



and then we found some logs to use as a bridge...

and then we waded through what was probably raw sewage...





until we reached as far as we could go...We could see the island...what little was still above water but there was no way to get to it since we didn't bring swimsuits and couldn't reach the bridge without swimming to it. Besides, there was nowhere to go once we got to the island...'cept maybe sit in one of the trees. So we mucked around a bit more and then headed home. Mai said it was the best day of the year so far...
so...who am I to argue. Three free hours of fun...our arms and legs are covered with scratches and possible nettle stings, we will probably come down with something from the sewage, but at the end of the day...we'll remember this hike as A LOT OF FUN!

The Very Good Run With A Not So Good Finish

I've been feeling a bit off since Tuesday. I had a really hard time with nausea on our Tuesday night bike ride. Fortunately, Michele is saving Logie for next week, so this was "just" a 35 mile ride  with two hills - Newberry and a longer sustained climb similar to Pac Crest on a street called Springville. I made it through the ride but didn't feel spectacular about it.

Yesterday, hours before I was supposed meet for my evening 8 mile run, I could be found on the couch trying to sleep away nausea and dear daughter taking care of me with heating pads for my tummy. I finally arose, ate some chicken and rice soup and headed out to meet JB and I wasn't sure who else. There ended up being 6 of us...Fast Nik...um...not keeping up with him, 3 of the faster girls on the team...um...probably not keeping up with them for long, and JB...whose pace is slower than mine. Poop.

We all started out together at Vera Katz and the plan was to head South until Springwater ended into a gravel road and then head back, since the East Esplanade is closed right now due to high water. I decided to hang with the girls for as long as I could and then drop back and run by myself. To my surprise we got to mile 4 and I was doing fine. I had no idea what our pace was, but knew it was faster than I usually run. However, I felt pretty darn good at this pace - it was definitely not too hard.

We headed back and my chicken soup started really repeating on me and I started to feel my tummy rumbling in a not so great way. At 6.5 miles, I dropped back a bit to release some gas in some varying ways but always kept the girls in my sight. I thought about catching up with them, but my tummy was really revolting at this point. Let's just say that I wasn't about to trust a fart by this time. The last 1/4 mile I dropped to a walk or more than likely face some pretty embarrassing consequences. As it was, I was afraid to look at the back of my shorts.

I figure that I was only about 2 minutes behind the girls when I finally reached them. Their pace was 9m/m for the whole time, so I know that I at least did that for the first 6.5 miles and THAT MAKES ME SUPER HAPPY. I can't believe I'm running 9 m/m again and not dying from it.

It's 5:30am and my tummy is still revolting. I have a meeting with a client in a few hours and I'm just hoping I don't barf on her desk while I'm there.

I leave you with pictures of the kids from Field Day yesterday.

I am SO STOKED because today is their last day...and then...

'Cause today I swear I'm not doing anything Nothing at all, nothing at all

Oh...how I long for the day that I can say that. I think it's coming up soon...maybe in July or somewhere near that. But for today...I was just convinced to sign up for a century ride in August...it ends at the beach for a BBQ and then a bus ride back home.


I have friends that are enticing me to continue training as they head to Ironman Canada in August...so maybe it will be more like September??...but for now, I'll keep dreaming...

I hear this stinkin' song on the radio every time I'm heading out in the truck to a workout. I roll down the windows, sing it at the top of my lungs...then arrive at my destination, unpack the bike and get to work

What does YOUR ideal "not doing anything" day look like??

Monday Morning Dance Party

I like to rhyme,
I like my beats funky,
I'm spunky. I like my oatmeal lumpy.

What A Great Day For A 2.5 Mile Swim

All I can say is when I got to the lake this morning and saw the buoys marked out for the 2000 meter swim and realized I would be doing it TWICE...my tummy REALLY started to hurt. It hurt so bad that I couldn't even eat the breakfast I brought of leftover tater tots that was someone's midnight snack I found out on the counter this morning. You bet I bagged those bad boys up - way too many preservatives for them to have gone bad in that short amount of time, right?

So with tummy turning, I made my way over to the 2000 meter swimmers to wish them luck before they got in the water. Several of them had just finished the 800 meter, were heading out for the 2k and would then get back in the water for the 4k for a total distance of 4.25 miles total. YIKES! My heros!

By the time we finished our warm up, I was feeling a little better but still unsure if I could complete the entire two loops and also wondering how it would feel to come in dead last :-(

Morgan, Diane, Erica and I felt like we would all have a pretty similar pace and so we talked strategy...tried to remember each others race #s that were marked on our caps...but after the first two people's #s I got thoroughly confused and just hoped to recognize their goggles or wetsuits.

Off we went!

I obviously knew I could finish the first loop since that is my race distance, but I had some uncertainty as to how I wanted to handle it. I really wanted to see what kind of time I could do for my first 2000 meters so I would have an idea where I'm at going into Pac Crest this year. However, I was afraid if I pushed it too much, that I wouldn't have enough gas for the last 1000 or so meters of the second loop. As it was, I hit the 2000 meter mark at about 40 minutes. That's ok...but I was really thinking I would do better. My second loop I was fighting a bunch of people around me and it really threw me off. I can really let go and forget where I'm at and just swim like crazy if I'm off on my own, but it just wasn't happening. The one really great thing was that the whole way, but especially the last loop, I was stroke for stroke with Morgan. Every time I looked up to breath, she was looking at me. The sun was shining down on her pretty face and making her goggles light up like a rainbow. Perfect!

The four of us came into the finish on each others tails (we obviously train together!) and my finishing time was 1:25:25. I had expected to do better than 1:30:00 for sure! I had hoped for and thought it totally possible I would finish between 1:15:00 to 1:20:00, but I'll take my 1:25:25 and be happy that I had the gas to finish strong.

It was a great thing to do before race day. I have an idea of what I need to work on in terms of swimming nicely with others, but as far as my actual swimming...I feel great!

Now here's some pictures to go with the post below from yesterday's good time on the bike, the run, and the parking lot party afterwards!