Living The Tri Life!: December 2015

It's kind of a tradition to swim your age in yards on your birthday, skipped it the past couple years, need to get back into the habit. I'm turning 55 in February, so I think I'll do a 55 x 100 Birthday Swim to celebrate... celebrate? Punishment for some is fun for others!

Here is what I'm planning to do:

10 x 100 w.u. @1:45
20 x 100 @ 1:40
10 x 100 @ 1:35
10 x 100 pull @ 1:30
5 x 100 c.d. @ 1:45

Piece of cake, right! Unfortunately I don't think I can convince anyone else to swim this workout with me so I may be going solo. Any takers in Tuscaloosa??

There is a masters swim meet in February in Auburn, too! I think I'll go swim a few events. The plan so far is to swim the 1,650 free, 100 IM, 100 back, 50 fly, and hopefully the 200 Mixed Free Relay on Saturday. There are several other swimmers from the Crimson Tide Masters who are going and I think we can put together a relay. Not sure yet if I will go back and swim Sunday, too. If I do I'm thinking I'll swim the 500 free, 50 breast, and maybe the 200 IM. There is the Mixed Medley Relay that day too, we shall see!

The last meet I swam was in 2012 when I was living in Hattiesburg. Here is a link to the post I wrote back then about the meet: Living The Tri Life - Hitting The Red Line.

Short post. Later gators!!

What a year...

Bunch of adventures this year. I had a pretty decent triathlon season. Seemed like a lot of 5th overall finishes. Here is a brief recap:

April - WikiWiki Man. 12th Overall Female, 1st AG. Totally sub-par performance in my first race of the season. I had a really bad upper respiratory infection and my training had been pretty pathetic. Even though the doc didn't test for it, I'm pretty sure it was walking pneumonia (Bill had it.) Oh well, brush it off and move on.

Wiki Wiki!

June - Indian Creek Tri. 5th Overall Female, 1st Grandmasters. Felt better at this race, it was supposed to be a trail run, but there had been so much rain in the days leading up to the race that it was changed back to the same run as prior years. Had a really good swim, 4th fastest female swim!

August - River Cities Tri. 11th Overall Female, 1st Grandmasters. My all time favorite race. Exactly the same overall place as the year before... This was the 35th anniversary for RC, and Dave Scott was in town for the race. I went to his clinic on Friday morning - all kinds of great information. One of the best parts for me was the swim portion of the clinic where I found out that what I teach/preach was pretty spot on with what he told us. Great little core session where I knew/discovered how out of shape I am in that respect. All of us that participated were sore for the race in our glutes, hamstrings, and abs, probably didn't hurt my race, but it may have.

River Cities.

August - Lake DeGray Tri. 5th Overall Female, 1st Masters. Talk about hilly! Bill and I went up for this race, brought the kayak. Bill cruised in the water during the swim and even helped out a couple swimmers that needed a little break. I had the 3rd fastest women's swim split, only being beat by a couple teenagers who were swimmers! Only two men beat my swim time, too. During the summer months I swam with the COSST Varsity kids - it made a nice difference in my swim. The bike course was super hilly, and the run started up a hill. Definitely the most challenging course that I've done in a long time, maybe ever.

Uphill start, downhill finish at DeGray Lake.

September - Rose City Tri. 5th Overall Female, 1st Masters. My second time to do this race, it was good to know the bike course a little better than last year. Lots of quick up and downhills, and turns out of the hills. Decent race, nothing spectacular. My run wasn't anywhere near what I did last year. I could tell that this entire season just didn't have the snap as last year when I was prepping for Worlds. That's okay, I think this next year will be better. The best part of this race was that it is in Tyler, TX. Home of Cobb Cycling, and the Cobb Mobb. Lots of teammates out for this one, it makes a race so much better when you get to see people you know all over the course. We were out in force!

*So one funny thing that happened at this race... I was goofing around in the water before my wave started. Leaped up like a dolphin and lost my goggles... my wave started in just a couple minutes. Debated for a moment about just swimming without them, and then thought better of that. Raced out of the water, sprinted to my transition bag where I keep a spare pair of goggles (I always have one smoke pair, and one clear pair in my bag to use depending on the weather. Cloudy - clear. Sunny - smoke). People got out of the way quickly as I blew by them to my bag. So... tip of the post - keep spare goggles, just in case, in your transition bag. And put it at the edge of the transition area so you can access it even after the race has started!)

Bill captured this picture - the move that lost my goggles!

Cobb Mobb out in force at Rose City!

I had one more race scheduled for September, the Meat Pie Tri. Last year was the fiasco of not making a turn on the bike course, getting a flat, and having to hitch back to transition. I was hoping for a redemption race but something major came up.

Big time major. We moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama at the end of September. It's been quite a new transition. So far things are going okay. I joined the Druid City Bike Club and have been on a few of their rides. For the most part there are some nice people in the group, and I've been lucky enough to meet the "core" group, who are welcoming and friendly. I would like to get a new road bike, it is so hilly here!

First ride with the DRBC.

I've been swimming at the University, they have an amazing pool. I met one of the Masters Swim Coaches, Ed Reed. He's been really nice, and I've even done a few workouts with him when he happened to be at the pool at the same time. I'm going to join the Crimson Tide Masters, as a matter of fact, I'm going to my first practice with them tomorrow morning.

Started working at the local run specialty store, Wagner's RunWalk a couple weeks ago. It's a lot smaller than Sportspectrum, but the other employees have been really great, and it's good to continue working in this field. I really love helping the runners that come in for shoes. I do have to say, the training that I got working at Sportspectrum has made this transition really easy.

Ran a local Turkey Trot earlier in the month. Wagner's puts on 2 mile race in the same shopping center where the store is located. I won the women's division. Went out a too hard with the first mile at a 7:20, but managed to hold on for the win. That was definitely a fun way to start off the racing scene here. Your entry also paid for your annual Tuscaloosa Track Club membership - bonus!

1st Overall Female!

I've already signed up for 5 triathlons for next year! Need that carrot of motivation to keep me honest over the winter. Here is my 2016 Schedule so far:

May 7 - Lake Guntersville, Guntersville, AL.

May 21 - Mountain Lakes Tri, Guntersville, AL.

June 11 - Buster Britton Tri, Pelham, AL.

July 9 - Sunfish Tri, Meridian, MS.

July 16 - Capital of Dreams Tri, Montgomery AL.

July 24 - Music City Tri, Nashville TN.

August 7 - River Cities Tri, Shreveport, AL.

Maybe I will see some of you at these new (for me) races!