The End! (Or is it?)

It's all such a whirlwind and I'm still emotionally and physically drained. I could probably write a 10 page paper about my race experience, but I'll try to edit myself and keep it brief-ish. If it were really brief, it wouldn't be me writing this. ;)

So race day finally approached. After a nice evening filled with a healthy cooked dinner, a lavender-filled bath, some shaving, and last minute packing, I hit the hay. Alarm set for 2:45 a.m. (no snoozing allowed this morning). We got out the door at 3:20 a.m., just 5 minutes behind schedule. Naturally there was little traffic on the highways (most was in G'ville from those who were still up partying) so we made excellent time.

Got to the park as maybe the 9th car in and got registered in the pitch black. My race number? 7. Lucky number 7. I dug it. Brought my bike over to the transition area and the whole rack was completely open so I got LITERALLY the best parking spot in the entire area, right out front! I set up shop (bike helmet on seat, crate on ground and shoes next to it with socks inside, etc.). I was wondering how to best do it all and was studying others (Oh, that's right, kickstands AREN'T cool, so you sort of hang your bike on the bar!) and soon Vinny from Foxboro, MA came along. Vinny was a total pro, a 59 year old who looked not a day over 45, and who does Ironmans through the year. Nice guy. In the couple hours before the race, I watched people come in and nudge their bikes in next to mine to get a better position. Amazing what people will do.

Anyway, we were set up and Kate lent me her spring suit and she wore one also. We did a mini jog, got in line, and got ready. All we had to do was swim out to the buoy and go around it and swim back. DAMN that thing looked far away! So before we knew it there was a countdown and we were off. Kate & I took the left side middle position which served us well. I only was kind of running into someone towards the beginning, at one point apologizing before I realized that HEY, he was running into ME and I swam away from him. There was a strong glare and I stopped frequently to tread water, take my goggles off, and see where on Earth the damn buoy was. Not terribly efficient, but what the heck. I think I did that often too because the whole experience was so surreal and unsettling. I mean, I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere and it was madness. Still, I put my head down and plowed along. After what seemed like eternity, I found myself upon the buoy. In a daze I watched as some people were kind of treading water around it like it was a mystical God, but then I got my sh** together and moved on. It was tough going back as there were swimmers coming at me towards the buoy and I was going away. Still, I wore on and made it. The water was dark, like we knew, but it felt nice and cool and crisp. Was thankful for Kate's suit. When I finally got out, I had no idea how I'd done but I felt spent. I felt like I'd just exited the water after being shipwrecked and swimming to land. It was hard to imagine that somehow I had to put myself back together and now run 1/4 mile on dirt and road to change and do MORE exercise...

So my transition was extremely poor. I was running slow, feeling slow, and everyone around me was moving faster. I was still in transition when I saw Kate come in from the swim. I got on the bike and took off, promising to myself that I could relax on the bike for a bit. Had to pull over immediately when I realized there was no way I could put on bike gloves whilst riding (I'm not THAT coordinated) but then I got a decent groove. Sometimes I passed, sometimes I got passed. It took some time to get my breathing feeling normal due to all the excitement, but I made it. I had taped the directions to my bike (along with the words BREATHE and SMILE) but of course they changed the course AGAIN so those didn't work. I kept looking for Kate to pass me since she's stronger on the bike, but it didn't happen. Finally I saw her coming in the opposite direction, apparently she'd passed me ages ago. Seeing her fueled me to get a move on. I remembered while biking that the whole point of this thing is to HAVE FUN and so I started doing just that. When passing little kids, I told them they were doing great. I asked a cop who was directing the race if she'd mind trading places with me for a little bit. It got me smiling which helped. The bike portion seemed to go by quickly and soon I was just trading the helmet for a Sox hat and running.

My run was slow but steady. Immediately people were zipping by me, but I didn't care. And in time, I was passing some people. A lot of people seemed to stop and walk for a bit and then pick up to a solid clip, but I kept with my slow and deliberately steady pace. Again, I tried to have some fun. While running through the campground area, I came upon some kids who were saying the jersey numbers aloud. "341, 253, 7..." When they said my number, I started whooping and hollering. "Yeeeeeeeah, SEVEN!" I yelled. They smiled. At one point I came upon a guy with a giant grill, cooking up some yummy grub. I turned to the five people running behind me and said "Hey, that doesn't smell bad now does it?" Finally I came upon the last water station. I thought for sure I'd have about 5 mins left at that point. "Just a mile left" the guy said. Eeks. I wasn't running strong, so this would take around 10 mins I figured. Luckily I saw my young friends again, who shouted out "Gooooooo 7, yeah!!!" That was fun. Vinny ran by me in the opposite direction and in a moment I blanked on his name and instead yelled out "Go Foxboro!" I passed the time by watching the calves of those who ran by me, looking for fellow MFT women in the 30-34 age group. I came upon two men, one who was in his 60s and one in his 40s and passed them. Was told we were 1/4 mile away, and the 60 year old said to his younger friend, "I'm going to pick up the pace here," and immediately blew my a** out of the water. I started to pour it on hard, thinking I'd turn the corner and that was it but it was still a bit to go. No time to slow down now. I saw Kate and John cheering as I sored through the finish line. I gasped for air, was handed a water, and then lunged for John's Bloody Mary. ;)

Kate and I immediately started talking shop about the race. I found out that I was one of the first female swimmers to finish (4th I believe) and that Kate finished about 5 minutes ahead of me. She remembered being passed by two of our competitors towards the end and they took first and second, making Kate in THIRD place in our age group (SHE GOT A MEDAL. SHE'S THE BOMB!) I got fourth and am feeling pretty good about it all.

I was (am) feeling pretty good about the whole deal. It was exciting and nerve-wracking and fun. I wanted to go for less than 2 hours, I went in 1:35. I wanted to not have any big issues, and I didn't. I wanted to not get DFL in my age group, and I didn't! Yaaaaaaaay.

My body is sore and I'm exhausted. It was a long day, but a fun day. When I went back to my bike I found the race number band that Vinny had worn in his race sitting on my bike. "I have a few of 'em, you can use it for your next race!" he said. We closed it off by eating food Kate's mother-in-law had made. Ham sandwiches with cheese and mustard never tasted so good. "We should make this a yearly event!" Kate said. We could, we could. And ironically enough, the countdown I had set on my Myspace page actually reset itself to say that my triathlon is in 364 days. Ya never know what could be next... ;)

Off to bed now but more to say tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Final Pre-Race Message...

This is it. The next time you read a post from me, it should be after the race. Wow, that's even scary to write. Anyway, here's an update on the latest news...

*Latest figures have me around $500 for donations! Yay! Although this is far from my goal of $5,000, it is a start. I'm hoping I can make it to $1,000 by tomorrow. Anyone wanna do a $500 donation? Any takers? ;)

*Dropped my bike off at the shop and was pleased with the service. Later read a bad review about the place from a girl who, of all things, went in for a simple tune up like me. Jesus. I tried to think positive and picked up my bike today. Imagine a busted bike at 3:30pm before race day. So although it's raining pretty heavy, I tried it out some and found the breaks aren't squeaking any more and it appears to be working fine. The newest quirky thing was that the guy said he lowered my handlebars 1/2 inch because they 'weren't safe' and I'm hoping that doesn't feel to strange to me.

*Weather report changed from t-storms & high winds to just high winds. Yay. Winds: SW at 15 to 25 mph. That will do wonders on the ole confidence level as I ride into a brick wall of wind, but many people have reminded me that we will ALL be going through the same winds. That actually does ease my mind. Some.

* We had a 'Webinar' the other day to give us race updates. I fired out several questions at once (why not) and much to my chagrin, the guy running it answered all of them AND said our names with the question. So there was a lot of "Kristin asks: What about the weather? And Kristin again asks: Will there be changing stations?" Man. Anyway, I made it through that but came up with another new worry: Directions. You see, I'm a little directionally challenged. Our bike course has been rerouted and the guy running our Webinar said "Look, you have to learn the course. Don't rely on the Policemen or Race Helpers to guide you on the right path." Oh oh oh. Also, at least 3 people in the Webinar expressed concern about the running not being marked out well, stating that some of them have raced at Moss Park before and couldn't find the path to finish the race. I could be one of those people. Oh, oh, oh. I have given serious consideration to taping the directions onto my bike. I mean, since I don't happen to have a bike navigation system "Turn right here in 1.5 miles...." I could make my own. I know it's probably lame. Shut up. I might do it anyway.

*Now my goal (of course) is to finish the race. Within that goal are mini goals. To not be the DFL of the race, that's a goal. But get this...every age group for the My First Tri has the top 5 finishers getting awards. How many people in my age group? You guessed it: Six. Is someone playing a cruel, cruel trick on me? So you know that I can't come in 6th, right? My best hope is 5th or that a group of other people sign up last minute and then it doesn't matter if I got 6th in my age group...

(Man, this is getting long. Nervous rambling. Sorry. Last thing.)

*A friend sent along this video and I thought it was pretty funny. Tomorrow at about 8:15 a.m. this will be me along with 84 other orange-capped first timers:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=U_6tOzt-nfM

THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!!!
Of course I am still taking donations for AWB and you can always donate some love and good thoughts to me too.

Cheers!!!
xoxo,
Kristin

Calm, but for a minute...

Was I sounding calm there for a minute? Gee, sorry about that.

I have gotten at least three emails from the race folks with important news in the past week and a half. The latest one, just received minutes ago, carries the following subject line: "HUGE changes in Wildman3". HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOO, LIKE I WASN'T NERVOUS ENOUGH?!

Turns out all along they have been sending us details on the 2007 race, not 08. I don't even know what that means, but I have to check it out. Next, they have decided (as of 1pm today, mind you) to reroute the bike portion of the race. Why? What a great question. I HAVE NO IDEA.....

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...

New Goggles Suck, Bicept Muscles Are Sore, Newfound Love for Old Wheels, and Other Adventures...

It wasn't meant to be such a busy tri day, but it was.

Yesterday I had ambitiously planned to hit the gym just for a quick "Oh, yeah, so this is what it feels like to swim laps" swim and to test out the spiffy new goggles. I don't believe I mentioned it here, but recently I got me some new goggles. It was long overdue, as my old ones are leaking, so I was excited to get going. Now I ended up purchasing said goggles while in the midst of thrift store shopping this weekend. My friend needed to hit up a pool store and these goggles I found were the best ones they had. They are kiddie size, but looked big enough, and black with hologram fish on the lenses. SEXY. So I got them, and today I zipped over to the pool to give them a whirl.

Started off with a four length warm up. Stopped to adjust goggles and found that the foam had almost completely peeled off each side of goggle. I couldn't even believe it. Frustrated, I resorted to the old goggles. I took the leaky guys and readjusted them tighter. Wouldn't you know, it worked! The suckers don't leak any longer. Hallelujah!

Then I was left to worry beyond my goggles. My swimming was less than stellar. Lead arms all the way. I felt slow. Well, I felt like my arms were slow. Other than that, the experience was wonderful and somewhat similar to what I'll experience Saturday. I shared the lane with a pleasant elderly fellow who swam slowly and innocently took up more than his side of the lane. His lumbering along paired with my equally slow and splashy neighbor simulated race-like conditions. The water was actually quite foggy, which was again great because that was race like too. I danced (or rather, swam) the fine line of wanting to kind of push hard and get a good swim in (since it had been so long) or to honor the fact that - HELLO! race in a few days!- and anyway, it all went well. Felt nicely winded and slid over to the hot tub where I sat with 7 elderly men, massaging my aching biceps all the while.

Next I had to rush off to the bike shop for a last minute tune up. I was anxious to get the bike in TODAY for repair so I could have it ready on time. It was there that I had the most pleasantest of experiences. The employee treated my bike like it was a true beauty instead of an old beat up thing. He suggested I not tape up the handles but keep the peeling foamy bits on so it retained that "I just pulled this out of the garage" type look. It was my first bike shop experience here in G'ville and I loved it. Previously I got the whole "Ooo, this is your bike? Ewww" feeling at shops. Maybe I was imagining it, but I am sure there was a little of that vibe there since I wasn't spending a measly $500 to purchase one of their 'lower end' bikes. Naw, this place was different. The guy even gave me a website to check out other old school bikes that had been suped up by their owners. I left feeling a little bit more love towards my old "American Made" wheels...

When I came home, my new Acupuncturist Without Borders t-shirt had arrived. I anxiously opened the package, worried the shirt would be too small. It was on the smaller side, but nothing a little stretching can't fix. :)

Lastly, I checked my email to see some solid advice and encouragement from some friends I'd made on a tri training website along the way. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and a little bit more confidence to get out there and DO IT!

Hope this confidence lasts tonight...just an hour away from the Webinar that will tell us all about the race. Hope that doesn't make me more nervous. ;)

Till next time....
xoxo,
K
P.S. PLEASE PLEASE when you donate, find a place in the notes field and add my name! Kristin Althea!

Last Hoorah...

Today I went for my last hard workout before the big race. Technically you are supposed to take the entire week off to prep for the race, but one of my big training days from last week was rained out (it rained from 7am through the ENTIRE day) so I felt it was ok to squeeze in one more big workout.

Took the bike out and got in a solid, faster ride this time which got me huffing and puffing. I even managed to scare a little turtle, who did a little "What the?!" and ducked into his shell quickly as I sped by. Came home, dropped the bike off, changed from bike helmet to Red Sox cap, grabbed the ipod and I was off for a solid run. I felt good and then when I finished I felt good and tired. I think I had fully convinced myself that it was going to be OK, that I just needed to take it easy and finish, when I sat down and checked my email...

...the note from Kate told me that the weather for Saturday was "High Winds and Thunderstorms." Oy vey. I'm not even sure how to handle that. I can't imagine. I wonder what it takes to cancel an event. That would be such a bummer. We have a webinar tomorrow night to get the lowdown on all things race-like so I should know more then. Of course, I'll fill ya in.

Looking forward to checking out a local gym and getting a few days of easy swims in. Getting my final bike tune up too. And that's all, folks. The race is RIGHT THERE. Man...

Anyway, last thing to mention now is that I found the News Journal article online, the one about Kate & I and our race. It has fancy pictures and everything. I included the link in separate blog and also tacked it on to the list of links on the right hand side of my blog. Check it out!

Alright, I'm pooped. That's that for now.

Cheers!
xoxo,
K

Whoa....

Just found the News Journal online with pictures and everything. Yay!

http://www.mytopiacafe.com/topic/healthandfitness/sub_detail.html?sub_type=stories&list_type=normal&sub_id=4478

A Variety of Heart Attacks...

Maybe the title to this blog is a little dramatic. Maybe.

Sooooooo...the race is just days away. Not 6 months, 6 DAYS. I'm nervous. It's understandable, right? I'm sure. My nerves are not being helped by the emails the race organizers keep sending out with "IMPORTANT Updates." My internet access has been spotty for the past week plus so to have such urgency coming to me in a way I can't always easily get to is, well, unnerving. Sigh. Aaaaaaanyway...

I'd rather focus on the other kind of heart attacks I'm having lately. They are the kind you get when someone does something amazing for you and your heart skips a beat, puffs out with love, and sings. Those kinds. I am getting those lately from donations. I'm amazed at the generosity of those out there. I'm humbled that people care enough about me to believe in AWB and to support them. I feel like I'm floating on all these donations. I feel like the words will never find me to fully express how meaningful it is to have this support.

I'm going to take this feeling and bottle it up and unleash it on race day. I'm going to have it be my energy drink to get through the biking portion when the wind is blowing at me head on. I'm going to use it to help me continue to chug along when my legs don't want to run anymore. I'm going to continue to be inspired. Thank you all so, so much. Thank you!

The Wind At My Face

A few days ago I had a wonderful training day. A bike run combo. It was a weekday and it was midday and the bike path was mine alone. I sped along it, working hard. It was sunny and beautiful and peaceful out and the path felt like it was mostly cleared for me. It was wonderful. I came home and replaced my bike helmet with my baseball cap, grabbed my ipod, and immediately went for a run. The bike to run transition doesn't appear that it will be easy, ever, but I think Kate's advice of taking it slow is solid advice. This was the first bike to run transition where I actually felt my legs lengthen out in time and the run was more smooth. Ah, bliss.

The joy I felt that day reminded me of how fortunate I am. I mean, even for those of you out there who aren't able to get away for a midday bike ride, you all have the ability to live in a safe place. The organization I am doing this race for, Acupuncturists Without Borders, supports people who have been through wars, natural disasters, and traumas. We are lucky to live like we do, without much worry for these types of issues. We should do everything we can to support those who need the support, just as others would help us if we needed a helping hand.

My race is just a week and a day away. I have spent six months sweating and training hard, trying to fit all of this training into my newly busy schedule, because it is important to me to help others. A little while back I added a quote to my outgoing email messages that said, "Love me? Go here" and listed the link to donate. And I meant that. If you love me, please support me through this amazing organization. I am now devoting my life to becoming an acupuncturist and helping others, and your donation will show your support to what matters to me most.

To donate, you can do so online or you can mail a check to Acupuncturists Without Borders. If you donate online, please be sure to add my name to the notes field.
Here is the link to donate: http://www.acuwithoutborders.org/donate_online.php

You can also see that Acupuncturists Without Borders is supporting my race and has featured a little bit about me on the front page of their site.

Thank you so much.

Love always,
Kristin Althea