OK Blogger I officially HATE the amount of stress I endure adding/placing photos on your site.....
This past weekend we were part of two relay teams. I've never done multi-sport relay so it was a new experience for me. Saturday was the Tri-Loppet. The night before the event we had a huge storm that dumped a ton of rain so the run and bike course ended up getting modified due to flooded trails and roads. We started down at Calhoun to watch Jeff take off on the canoe portion. He's in the very middle of this picture in the yellow sea kayak. What was really cool is that while they were waiting for the start signal, an eagle did a "fly by" across all the canoes/kayaks in the water.Jeff had a great paddle and then handed off the chip to me for the 5k trail run. That was by far the hardest trail run I've done. My average pace was 10:57 if that tells you anything. There were a couple massive hills that I had to walk. One I walked just because of the mud and how slippery it looked. It was a fun run though since there were steps, branches, tight turns, rocks, trees across the trails that you had to dodge.
And at some point Mark snuck in a "Steve in a Speedo" tribute photo. Sigh.... :-P
I handed off to Mark for the mountain bike and he had an absolute blast on the mountain bike and was caked in mud by the finish.
Another note was that Charles from Forever Films Photography came out to get some action footage of the two of us for our life/wedding video. We did a little interviewing on camera too. I'm so excited to see how the video turns out :)
We ended up placing 3rd out of 4 corporate relay teams and 5th out of all relay teams so we were super happy with that and look forward to hopefully competing here again next year :)
Here's a video someone did that shows you the whole race Tri-Loppet Course. Note you will see my at the start of the run in purple and pink (around 1:44 in the video) and if you look quick you can see Mark waiting for me in transition on the right hand side (around 2:42 in the video) Tri-Loppet 2010
Sunday was the Lake Waconia Triathlon. We decided to do this one as a relay with Mark's brother to give him an introduction to the world of triathlon and again, just try something new and fun. This was a "Best of the US" qualifying race so a lot of the local elites where here competing and being in the circuit for a few years now, I recognized a lot of people. It's fun seeing a lot of friends and other triathletes that I know and can cheer for. Even if they can totally burn my ass in pretty much every way shape and form of competition :-P
I started everything off by doing the swim. It was the smoothest water the Waconia Tri has ever had. Normally it's windy and choppy (last year they had to shorten the swim course due to adverse conditions). I tried to give it a pretty hard effort since all I had to do was the swim. Ended up finishing in 16:06 (1:50) pace. Was hoping for better but I guess that's what I get for taking such a break and slacking on swim training.
I handed off to Michael for him to take off on the bike. He was flying and ended up with a 18.8mph pace! I would have been no where near that :-P
Michael completed the bike and handed off to Mark to finish on the run. It got pretty sunny and warm so for the most part it was a hot run for him but he did awesome as usual averaging 7:37 for the 4 mile run and was in a neck and neck with another guy for the finish.
We placed 4th out of 13 in the mixed relay team category and 5th out of 19 in all relay teams. We had a blast and are considering putting this one on the calendar again next year to make a push to place in the mixed category :)~~~~~~~
Other updates from me other than racing.....work has been going well but being inside all day long, sitting in one spot in front of my computer with no fresh air is killing me still. It really puts me in a depressed place some days. I got to work from home the past 4 summers and have the window open and spend time with my kitties so it's just really depressing for me. Especially on top of how much I'm not able to be home with our traveling back and forth between houses. I can't wait until we have one house and I feel like I can actually have a home and spend time there. When I am "home" these days, I almost never get to do anything but laundry, dishes, feed the cats, unpack, repack and sleep. Maybe once a week I actually get to make dinner and watch a TV show but even then I'm usually having to watch TV and pay bills or something at the same time. Enough of that....
Still trying to get myself feeling better about myself too. We are getting to the gym now once a week before Tuesday night swims so that feels great. That's another part of my life right now that is completely neglected due to time constraints. Spending time on me. Hair, nails, tanning, shaving....girly stuff that I always used to do to keep me feeling good about me. Unfortunately all takes time and money in some cases.
(didn't I say enough with the depressing stuff???)
Next weekend is Minneman. Not sure what that will bring since (again) haven't been putting in as much bike and swim time as I have in past years but I still love the race (it was my first tri) and am looking forward to doing it on Saturday. Will be my 4th year in a row racing there. The one thing I shouldn't have just done is look at the field this year and look at my results from last year. Now I feel more pressure...5th last year out of 25 in my age group. This year there is only 15 in my age group. Better odds right, even if I'm not faster? And I think I can beat a 8:27 run pace this year....can't I? And I do have a new bike...?
It's 4th of July weekend too and is sounds like we might have a party to go to on Sunday but other than that it should be a pretty relaxing holiday and can get some housework done between Sunday and Monday. Probably work mostly on the remodel projects at Mark's house. Pending weather we are also hoping to get out for a mountain bike ride (or road ride if the trails get wet).
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