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.

Run Like Hell

The Mid-Winter Classic 10 Mile Road Race

Cape Elizabeth, Maine 

February 3, 2013

I signed up for this race quite a while ago and had some pretty solid goals for this race. I broke the 1:45 barrier on the half marathon distance in December so my goal to go sub 1:20 at a 10 miler was completely reasonable...until January happened.

I did a lot of traveling in January-Florida and Colorado-and come home from FL with a nasty chest cold that lingered through the Colorado trip and beyond. Lola was sick too and my training plan for the month was really screwed up! It's freaky to me to look into Training Peaks and see almost an entire week of RED BLOCKS from incomplete or missed workouts!

I chatted with Coach and we both agreed that it was smart to put any lofty goals on hold for the day and just run, call it a training day and take it mile by mile. I wasn't even sure if I was going to show up come 9:45 on Sunday morning. The weather has been COLD and they were predicting snow for the day. There was no way I wanted to prolong this chest cold in freezing temps to just run and not race. Then I found out that my girl, Mandy, would be there--you know, Caratunk Girl.

That's all I needed to know. I have not seen Mandy in a while and as long as the roads were safe to drive up to Cape E for the race, I'd be there.

It was cold, temps in the 20's and the winds brought the "feels like" temps down to about 10*. Layer, layer, layer and be smart! I walked into the High School for packet pick up and right away got to see my awesome Rev3 Team mate, Ryan. Then picked up my race bib.

REALLY?? C'mon....

Then I got to see Mandy.

And Jake.

DOUBLE BONUS!!

We made lots of jokes about my bib number and it was decided that I would RUN LIKE HELL!
The run's theme song would be "Running with the Devil" by Van Halen.


I also got to see running buddies Danielle and Sarah, whom I have not seen in forever!! Danielle is looking marvy with a little baby bump (25 weeks along and looking amazing).

chatting up Danielle and her cute bump

Got out to warm up a bit (ha ha) it was freezing and found Michelle in the parking lot. Lucky Michelle got to witness me christen the CEHS parking lot before the race (and dare I say this is not the first time I have done this...Beach to Beacon 2012!)

obviously, NOT peeing in the parking lot in this pic! 

Then I ran into Jen (yay!!) I've been wanting to meet this gal in real life for a while! She was pacing to what my goal time was today and I was hoping we could run together but...we lost each other before the start.

I lined up and started with Mandy, Michelle and a couple of her friends and just trotted along a bit. I was pretty happy at about 8:45 pace so just kept it there and went with it.

Michelle in Yellow, Mandy in Green and me in Pink (behind red guy)

The first five miles of the course are all rollers and I was feeling good and strong on the hills. Cadence was where it was supposed to be, I was running easy and keeping the HR in check. Pace was solid and consistent at 8:30's and I was feeling good. I hit the half way mark around 42:00 mins and was pretty sure I was on pace for a 1:25-ish finish time. The plan for the rest of the miles was to stay steady at 8:30 and pick it up the last 3 miles and finish strong-no mind to HR at that point.

The last two miles were quite comical--this is actually the flattest part of the course with a slight incline, but into a very cold and strong wind on this day. It was soooo cold and I felt like it was just pushing against me. Ok, it was pushing against me. I'd glance at the Garmin to see high 8:00's and low 9:00's flash at me and I was getting annoyed. To add insult to injury, I had peed a little and my entire inner thighs were wet and FREEZING.



NUMB cold freezing painful NUMB.

So I just chugged along and I spotted a local tri club gal, Kim up ahead about a half mile or so. I tried like the dickens to catch her but that would not happen today. I had no idea where the finish line was but we started in the HS parking lot so I figured it finished around there too. Sure enough, I saw the runners ahead turning into the school and I just kept running...and running...and running. It was a slight downhill to the finish line and boom! Done

1:26:04 for an 8:36 pace and 6th in my division.

Not bad for a training day and I will definitely return to run this route again. I loved it! Lots of little rollers and part of the course is along the Beach to Beacon course.
Next year that sub 1:20 finish is all mine.

awesome! Michelle and Mandy having fun

how cute is she?? GO JEN B
Happy to report that Jen finished in 1:19!! GO JEN GO!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FREEZE!

So seriously, I have so many things going on right now and everytime I sit down to write about it all I have total brain freeze and then something distracts me and POOF! gone...I have about 100 different drafts sitting in blogger and not a single one seems coherent! I promise I'll get my act together and get these posted to share some info with you soon-
I feel like a bad blogger! 

Training is going well -really well, in fact-I just came off a huge training block, happy to report that it went great! But I am starting to get a bit of anxiety about the Quassy and the course. The anxiety is more related to the fact that I have no idea what to expect. I read blog posts like this one (from BadAss 2x Kona chick & Maine triathlete, Ange -- if she thinks it's a killer). I felt the same way about Timberman and heard all kinds of horror stories about how difficult that bike course was THEN I made my little pigramage to ride it myself and all my fears faded away.


I am planning a trip down to Quassy to freeze those fears and show 'em who is in charge here (ME!)



Plus, I'll get to see Rev 3 Team Mate extraordinaire-Laura (who just finished up Run Across America with Ulman Cancer Fund)

Tuesday I had a power session on the bike and then a run later in the day--it was in the 90's here (yes, in Maine and in April) so it was certainly not freezing. I decided to take my run down to the beach and on a dare from GOTRIbal gal, Marison I ended up in the ocean.
The 45* ocean.
FREEZE!!!

Bone chilling cold shot up my legs even though I was hot! hot! hot! I made it up to my knees, twice and dunkin' was NOT happening. But rumor has it that my favorite local pond to OWS is rocking at 50*
Hmmmm.....

 My training partner, Marc was ready to make a dive for it on our long ride Saturday.
I only dated to place my fingertips in the water...it was sunny but a cool, spring day.

But I did strip off my winter layers at the pond. We started in low 40's, clouds and fog. At least the sun came out.

caught with my pants down! 

Hope you enjoyed that risque strip show!! lol

Happy Monday

Hello Timberman!

Has it been almost two weeks since my last blog post??
Wow...looks like summer -and my training schedule- have been taking up lots of my time!

It's been an amazing couple of weeks-I have had lots of family visiting from all over and of course, this means LOTS of time at the beach.  Training has been going remarkably well too. With only 5 weeks until Timberman 70.3, I decided to take a trip out to Lake Winnipesauke and ride the Timberman bike course. I was really nervous about this as I have heard "horror stories" about all the climbing on this course.

When we arrived at Ellacoya State Park (where all the Timberman action starts), I was taken aback at just how beautiful the area is. All the nerves seemed to settle into pure joy and excitement of what is to come! We took a drive around the lake to check things out and I could see the mile markers on the ground as part of the run course. The views were just amazing!

The plan was to swim and then tackle the bike course but since Ellacoya State Park did not open until 9am, we decided to bike first and then swim.



Add caption



I went into the bike with a plan to ride at a very conservative pace and to just enjoy the day. One experienced triathlete friend told me that the first 16 miles is pretty rough and the last 16 miles is even rougher when it came to the hills. I had also heard that the course was amazing-challenging-but beautiful (it was!) and to just take it easy on the climb and attack the downs.

The first thing that came to mind as we set out for the ride was how beautiful the area was and how lucky I felt that THIS course was going to be my first 70.3! I kept in mind to remember the beauty of this moment when I was in the hurt locker come race day and to focus on the majestic views should that hurt come on race day.

The bike course was not nearly as "bad" as I had heard. There was lots of climbing for the first 1/4 of the course-some long, steep climbs but nothing terrifying and there was some more climbing on the return. I really, really enjoyed the ride. My nutrition and hydration were on point. Granted, we only averaged in the 17's for this ride. The weather was great-hot (88*) and lots of wind. Some of the downhills were actually significantly slowed due to the winds but there were also some fun downhill rides where we were riding in the 40's (weeeee!).

After the ride, we ventured into the park and swam for a while. The chop of the water on this windy day certainly comparable to the ocean! But the water was beautiful and refreshing and we enjoyed it. Then we sacked out on the beach to soak in the sun for a bit and finished off our afternoon at a stop at Sawyer's Dairy Bar to scarf down some cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings and ice cream! I was certainly happy that my training partner, Marc spotted this little gem of a place on the return trip. Yummmm-

Oh and guess what??

Yup!! Chrissy will be there!

What?! Wednesday

Welcome to WHAT?! Wednesday...

Care to take a guess as what I just did??

Ummm, yeah!!

Only one more day left to enter my Tough Chik contest!!