Austin 70.3 Almost Here!!

Just over a week until my Half Ironman in Austin, TX!!  I am nervous but I think I'm ready. Fighting some little plaguing injuries.  My plantar fasciitis isn't any better and now my right knee has jumped onto the injury band wagon.  It's really warm and there is some swelling.  I've been taping it with the Rock Tape.  A brand of Kinesio Tape that was recommended to my by one of my ICEdot teammates.

Rock Tape makes an H2O version for triathletes and swimmers and this stuff is great!!!  I would recommend it to anyone using Kinesio Taping techniques.

I raced last weekend at the Mighty Magnolia Triathlon here in my hometown of Hattiesburg, MS.  It was two weeks out from the 70.3 so I wasn't expecting anything amazing as far as speed.  All the long distance training for the Half had me pretty tired.  So I didn't have high expectations.  But I had a GREAT race!!!  I never pushed the pace to the point where I was breathing hard at any time during the race.  Averaged 20.5 miles per hour on the bike (an improvement from last year) and ran 7:27 average pace for the run.  My run splits were 7:41, 7:35, 7:26!!  My Garmin clocked the run course at 2.95 miles, a little short of the advertised 3 mile run - so my watch had me at a 7:34 mile pace.  I'm happy with that too!  I placed 4th Overall Female and won the Masters Women's Division.

This is a great little race, only a few problems encountered.  The run course has two little out and back dog leg sections and when looking at some of the run times there were some athletes who didn't complete the entire course.  There should have been a volunteer at each little section directing the runners.   Hopefully next year the race director will have someone there.

See the two "Heartbeats"?

I was really happy to receive our second batch of Aquaphor Samples a few days before the race!!  I had run out before the Alabama Coastal race and didn't get to pass out any samples at all there.  Had the usual "I love this stuff" reception when I handed out over 50 samples to the triathletes after the race!!

All my friends did really well at the race!  It was a great day and hopefully we'll all have the same in Austin!!

Judy and I warmed up by swimming across the
fog covered lake! 

Nice easy swim - 5th Female swim time.

Finishing controlled.

Deanna - 3rd Masters Female
Lesley - 1st Age Group
Ginger - 1st Masters Female
Judy - 1st Age Group

And I just couldn't resist holding this adorable 8 week old
Golden Retriever puppy that I saw at the race!!