She's alive!!!!!

Post previously written. :)

It’s been a couple weeks….so sorry!!  First thing first though.  I did not race at the Houston Oly.  The bike was cancelled due to wet conditions and I decided I’d rather get my workouts in at home instead of driving 40 minutes each way.  I was bummed I wouldn’t get my chance to try for a PR but at the end of the day, it wasn’t the end of the world. 

The past few months have been a whirlwind.  I feel like I’m always busy but life seems to just get busier all the time.  I have done a much better job learning to say no to things which is something I’ve never been good at.  In the past, I would try to do everything and be everywhere regardless of how stressed it made me.  Before IMTX in 2011, I was driving myself crazy with how much I was taking on.  After that, I decided things needed to change.  Just in time too since IMTX training will kick in after the New Year! 

While I hate saying no and really do WANT to do it all, physically (and more importantly, mentally), I just can’t.  So now I miss a lot of things I’d love to be able to do and don’t get to see as many of my friends as often as I would like BUT I’m far less stressed and I’m even able to enjoy some down time every now and then.  

So on to training news!!  Since losing 22lbs (yes, I said 22) since June, I’m finding that my workouts improve every week and what might have been hard a few months ago is getting easier every day.  I’m still a few pounds away from my November goal but have a feeling I’ll be hitting that number in the next week or so.  I can’t wait. All but two pairs of my jeans are too big for me and it’s a great feeling.  Of course, having people make fun of your droopy drawers isn’t as fun but that’s ok.  Chase suggested I wait to lose about 10 more pounds before buying new stuff and frankly, I’d like to make sure I maintain before I restock my wardrobe.  I’m clearly at the point though that I’m going to need to buy a few things. 

Ok, I totally got off on a tangent there.  Back to training which as you now know, is going great!  This past weekend was a really big training weekend for me.  On Saturday I ran an awesome 12 miles.  Well, it ended awesome.  The first few were spent battling an upset tummy.  I’m not sure what’s going on as this has been somewhat of an issue the past few long runs and the only thing I can think of that is different is my sports drink.  That being said, that very same sports drink is what I use on long bike rides and it gives me no issues there.  I’m somewhat stumped.  The good news is that once I hit mile 7, the tummy was perfectly fine and I was able to drink the sports drink without wanting to vomit.  Yay! 

Thanks for carrying me 12 miles legs!

Yesterday Keith & I set off on our long ride, a supported ride out of Montgomery.  We knew a cool front was blowing in but had no idea the entire ride would be in the 50’s.  We also knew it would be windy but not THAT windy.  And finally, I knew there would be hills but did not know there would be Anderson hills.  As you might recall from my IM training, riding in & out of Anderson is quite the hill workout.  Given this stretch of road is not on the IMTX course, I don’t exactly seek out rides that go that direction.  Lucky for us, I had no idea this route went to Anderson or I may not have gone.  I have to say, as tough as that ride was, I felt pretty darn good post ride.  That’s not saying the day went off without a hitch.

Riders started taking off at 8am.  Keith & I hung back as there are always a number of inexperienced riders at these organized rides and I didn’t feel like starting anywhere near them and having a near collision.  We weren’t in a position to put ourselves up front b/c we were still putting things back in the car.  We hopped on our bikes and set off on our merry way.  At mile 3.23 Keith signaled he was pulling off the road because (you guessed it), he had a flat tire.  What the what???  Keith took his bike to the shop and got brand new tires.  How the heck is this possible?  Well, there was quite a bit of debris the first few miles of the ride and Keith picked up a huge nail.  That’s a bummer.  He got the tube changed, we put a patch over the hole in the tire as we knew this would now be a weak spot and set off.  I kid you not, 15 minutes later Keith is pulling over again because he has another flat.  This is the point where I dropped a few expletives.  I wasn’t mad at him, just couldn’t believe this was happening again.  With a half ironman just a few weeks away, we couldn’t afford to miss this ride.  Thankfully, Keith changed the flat and we were able to get back on the road with no further incidents.  We bypassed each rest stop until we hit Anderson.  After climbing those hills, our “treat” was going to be to get off our bikes and stretch.  We kept the stop to about 3 minutes…really quick and then finished off the ride.  We aren’t sure but we think this is the longest ride we’ve ever done together (I’ll have to go back to my blogs to verify).  At the very least, it’s the longest ride we’ve done together in a very long time. What a great ride!!!

What’s up for this week?  Well, more training (surprise, surprise).  I’m pretty sore today and would love to skip my workouts but I won’t.  Tomorrow night I have 400’s at the track and running 400’s is one of my favorite things to do so I’m looking forward to that a lot!  Also, 10 for Texas is this weekend.  Woo hoo!  I’ve been instructed to stop thinking about my time which is really hard to do!  The weather won’t be as cool as it was this weekend so I won’t benefit there.  I guess my plan will be to execute my race and have fun.  Keith and I will have a 3 hour ride this weekend and the plan is to drive out to Montgomery and get back out on the OilMan course again.  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!!!