The good, the better, and the best!

Honestly, I'm not sure which is which, but this past weekend was great, and just what I needed heading into the off-season.

On Saturday morning I attended a cyclocross clinic at Wheelworks (sorry Landry's). I was riding my bike there, hoping to not get lost (as I am prone to do!), when Noah drove by on his way to the shop. So yay, no getting lost, and I got a ride for half the trip. During the clinic, I had total bike envy. I wasn't sure which bike to bring: my road bike is lighter, but I'd have to change out the pedals for flat ones at the store, vs my mountain bike, which is super heavy and has slick tires, since I commute with it, but has the proper spd pedals. I asked BQ, and he said to go with the mountain bike. But almost everyone there had cross bikes, even Noah, since he borrowed Jorge's (who may never get it back, lol). I just keep telling myself, I cannot afford another bike, I cannot afford another bike!

Anyway, tons of fun, but I need a lot of practice! They had to lower my saddle so that I could remount, because I couldn't touch the ground. And I couldn't do the hops because I couldn't lift up the bike. But I have the bruises and a sore back from carrying the bike to show I put in a hard, fun couple of hours. Definitely want to try racing sometime in the future! Boo that I'm supposed to be 'resting' during October :(

Then Saturday night I had dinner with my cousin, who was in town for the day. I haven't seen her in probably about a year, even though she lives maybe 2 hours away. But it was good to catch up, find out all the latest family gossip from her branch (there are 7 of them, and then countless children, so they always have a lot more gossip than from me & my brother!). After dinner, I was supposed to stop at my lab, but I had forgotten my ID card (doh!) so I just biked home. I had barely done anything that week since I was so tired and sore, so the 32 bike miles + cyclocross clinic that I had done that day had wiped me out. I thought about bailing on the sprint triathlon I had the next day so that I could sleep in instead of getting up at 4am, but decided not to, so off to bed I went.

I did not sleep well - very weird dreams involving a goose, my mother, a highway rest stop, and the race. I'll leave the rest to your imagination...

When 4AM rolled around, I kinda wanted to cry. But I got up, and was barely ready when Keith & Michelle pulled up. I'm not normally a coffee drinker, so usually when I'm up, I'm up, and can be annoyingly chipper first thing in the morning. But not that day. I was dragging, and barely staying conscious in the back seat. Keith was nice enough to find me a Dunkin (since they're on every street corner), and I got one of the worst cups of coffee ever. But it was enough to wake me up a bit. We also picked up a Wheelworks guy, who had taken a wrong turn and couldn't find the park. Since he wasn't in any of our age groups, we decided to show him the way ;-)

After going for a 2 min spin on my bike to check the gear, and a 2 min run to see if I thought my calf would hold out (I was debating wearing my compression socks on the run), I foam-rolled for 5 min to try to loosen my glute, hamstring, and back that were killing me. Good thing my main goal for the race was to string a solid day together, or else I would have been freaking out about how much I hurt!

The warm-up in the water was hilarious. For some reason Keith, Michelle and I decided to warm up at the swim start, while everyone else was at the swim finish. We soon figured out why - TONS of rocks! It probably took us five minutes just to walk in the water. But we made it, splashed around a bit, then got laughed at by everyone watching us try to get out. I fell a couple of times!

But when it came time to get in again, no one else seemed to have any trouble! Michelle and I pulled up the rear of the wave as we picked our way across the rocks. Either I'm a major wimp, or everyone else's adrenaline was running very high. This was only my second ocean swim in a triathlon (the first was the previous weekend at Lobsterman), so I never felt very comfortable with the waves, but I made it, and was pretty happy to be done swimming for awhile. All I kept thinking was 'just get me to my bike' where I knew I could pass some of the strong swimmers. Sure enough, halfway through the bike, I passed the girl from my age group who came out first from the water. I almost said to her 'don't worry, you'll pass me back on the run', but I'm glad I didn't, because she never did!

I was amazed at how good I felt on the run. I hadn't seen many women on the bike, but I didn't know how close behind me any were. I just tried to hold on. One girl from my age group passed me at mile 2. Grrr, I had a 2.5 minute lead on her, and blew it in the run. But I was running as hard as I could - I'm not a runner - so I had to be content with that. I hadn't had a run in a triathlon this season faster than ~10 min/mi. Granted, I'd been doing longer races, but that was still slow, even for me. So that I finished Buzzard's Bay with an 8:25 pace was awesome!

I'd only done 2 sprint races before, last May and June, my 1st and 2nd races ever. So I was definitely hoping to have a PR, even though the bike and run were longer, and the swim was intermediate. I crossed the finish line with a 5+ minute PR!!! I felt so good. I had accomplished all my goals for that day: have a good attitude (I tend to get down on myself in the middle of races), pace myself to have enough left on the run, and feel strong throughout. The icing on the cake was a 3rd in AG finish.

Even better was Max Performance gives good prizes - a pint glass and a pair of lock laces. To top it off, Keith got first in his AG, and Michelle got 3rd overall!!

I know Michelle also had a PR, so it was a good day. Plus, I got to meet a couple of other teammates I hadn't met before, and visit with Chrissie and Elaine, which is always a pleasure.

Exhausted, I went back to Boston, showered, and headed out to watch the Mayor's Cup bike race, since I knew Alain was racing (so apparently was Landen, but I didn't know that at the time). I ran into a bunch of BTTers, Rebecca, and then some friends from Nike as well. We took refuge from the cold day in the Kinsale, and it was fun to see people I knew from different things merge with each other - it really is a small community in Boston.

Final stop was Beth's girl's salad night in Charlestown. I was excited to go and see everyone, but once I sat down, I almost fell face down. When MB said she was leaving, I was willing to beg to go with her (happily, she did not make me beg, and drove me home). Of course, I couldn't go without embarrassing myself by dropping a slice of Jenn Dwyer's awesome cake (again, doh!).

What a great, exhausting weekend. I got no chores accomplished, my cats were wondering who I was, but I managed to avoid my dreaded roommate all weekend. The only negative: my brother was in Maine at my mom's house (from Arizona, and I haven't seen him in a couple of years), and I couldn't get out to see him. I was just at my mom's the weekend before for Lobsterman (I had a rough race, but watching my Mom enjoy watching me race for the first time was awesome), plus I was racing. Chad and I used to live together (during my unfortunate stay in Idaho), yet somehow we have drifted so far apart, that we don't know who the other is anymore. Oh, well, another worry for another day.

Today I'm just going to finish enjoying this week of sitting on my butt all day, getting lots of sleep, and ignoring my triathlon gear. I think we're going to watch a cyclocross race this weekend, and then next week, I am going to start figuring out what my offseason is going to look like. Key points: straighten out my diet, lose weight, get stronger. No problem!