Contest: Quassy

It's that time of year again....
Time to make the pilgrimage down to CT and brave the hills of Quassy.

Last year there were horrific rains and winds on Saturday for the Oly race and beautiful weather for the half on Sunday. This year they temps went from 40's straight to the high 80's in a day in Maine and the temps in CT promise to be up there as well.

Here's to absolutely NO temp acclimation for me!

I cannot control the weather but I can control my reaction to it. It is what it is...
so here's to some hills.
Lots of hills.

HILLS HILLS HILLS.

Let's have a fun little contest to celebrate my favorite race...not time focused but bike focused.

In a way....

Last year Quassy was my first race with my beloved Quintana Roo, PinkiePie. I "christened" her at mile 43 of the bike and it was very memorable moment.

To celebrate one year of pee-tasticness and my (revenge) return to Quassy,

GUESS WHAT MILE OF THE BIKE I PEE (first pee)
I plan on being very well hydrated too.

The person closest to the mile that I pee on the bike will win a fantastic package from me!

TriSlide
Foggle
TriSwim products and 

some Powerbar love in there too!!

One entry per person.
In the event of a tie, I will choose one winner thru random selection.
Entries will be accepted until Sunday 6/2/13 at midnight.
Winner will be selected once I return from Quassy and can walk normally.

Moving Right Along...

random thoughts today

Today is Lola's last day of pre-school and I cannot believe it is here. This year had gone by so fast...if you have been reading for a while, here is a little snippet of how my girl has grown since starting this blog.

There is no doubt about it, she is MY girl!! While I am sad that these years are passing so quickly and she is no longer my "baby", I am so proud of her and what a beautiful little girl she is on both the inside and outside. This child has a heart filled with love and I hope she stays this way for many years to come.

Quassy is just around the corner and this year the entire family will be traveling down with me. I am so excited to have my "new" husband there with me, by my side and along for the journey. I am so proud of all he has accomplished in the last several months. I look forward to cheering HIM on as well :)

As for the Quassy half race itself, the only thing I really have as a goal this year for the race is to execute a solid run. I know I can bike and I can bike the hell out of those hills but I need to put my ego in my back pocket and focus on the run this year. That run kicked my biscuits last year and I intend to do things a little different this year. After all there is no such thing as a great bike and a shitty run...right??

As for the swim, this should be interesting. I have not even been in open water yet this season. It has been a very long and cold winter here in Maine so that's the wild card. I am hoping to get into the local pond this week now that the air temps have been up a bit but the nights are still really cold--last week we even had frost. So...

Last years finish, so happy to be DONE that run!

It will be interesting to see what the weather brings too. Last year we had massive rain on Saturday so the Oly was a mess. It was sunny and beautiful (and kind of hot) for the half on Sunday and the finish line was still a mud pit the next day.

I am looking forward to seeing my team mates and having an amazing weekend!! 

Knocked Out & No Knox

Whoa, ok. First, apologies for being an absent blogger for the last two weeks. With my schedule changing up so much in the last two months, I am still trying to find a way to balance everything and well...blogging was one of the balls that got dropped. Which I am totally ok with since the other balls I am juggling right now are very important!

The last several weeks have certainly been a roller coaster of all over the place...literally.

Mid-April, I traveled down to beautiful Short Hills, NJ for a coaching clinic with the USAT.

Newark NJ and the NYC Skyline off in the distance

I had heard many mixed reviews about these clinics and the amount of information provided but I was overall pleased with the experience. I got some good info to take home from Jesse Kropelnicki's talks, especially about nutrition. Shelley O'Brien was a great speaker and had a great way of explaining things so they were easy to understand--you can tell she is an educator at heart.

I have not spent that much time sitting and doing NOTHING in a long time!

*nerd alert*
...and yes, I am THAT student. The one that sits in front and eats every word the teacher says.

I drove home immediately following the classes and what is normally a 6-ish hour drive was actually a 8 hour drive with traffic...I was so ready to get out of the sitting position!

Driving thru Short Hills, cheery trees in bloom

9pm traffic jam in CT. REALLY?? at 9pm??

My travel plans for Rev3 Knoxville started falling apart (hotel changes, friends unable to share with me, I was driving vs. flying, blah blah blah) and it was turning into a freaking mess. I was pretty bummed since it was shaping up to be a pretty fun weekend and I would drive down with my team mate, Laura aka Frayed Laces. But mess after mess kept coming up so, considering all the travel issues and the thought of spending another 20 hours each way in a car, a chat with Coach put this "training day" on the back burner.

Training was going fabulous and I was heading into a pretty big build week with some awesome key workouts in the plan now that Knoxville was out. My run off the bike has been coming right along (yay!!) and I am finally seeing some solid swim gains.

Then BOOM! Lola got hit with a nasty stomach virus and was up all night sick (This was Tuesday).
Then BOOM! I got sick on Thursday and it was horrendous. Awful. I have not been sick like that in a lot of years.
Then BOOM again, the hubby got it just after midnight on Friday morning.
The entire house was on lockdown with this nasty norovirus. Quarantined. 

Rev3 Knoxville was this weekend and it was a tough day of racing. Cold water temps, cold air temps and lots of battling going on out there.

In hindsight, I would have been on the road and many hours into my drive to Knox when I was hit by this stinking stomach virus. Now, it was horrible enough at home...can you imagine being on the road?
and exposing my team mate(s) to this?
and being stuck in a hotel room?
unable to race in those conditions?

Funny how things workout some times...regardless, I wish I had been able to be there with my Rev3 peeps! A big shout out to all my Rev3 Team Mates and ALL the athletes who braved the elements on race day!




I love these pics from the Rev3 FB page, this is my friend John, with MultiSport Ministries. I just LOVE this picture!! That kit is awesome!!

Now that I am finally on the other side of this, it is time to go tackle some training and hope that this set back does not have a huge impact on my next race: REV3 Quassy, three and a half weeks from today!