112 miles......Chuck Norris never rode 112 miles....

As I pedaled my way out of T1, getting loud cheers from the small crowd, I focused on my new tasks at hand. Don't eat or drink too much these first 10 minutes. Allow my body to switch from "laying down" to being more upright. Let my legs get used to this new feeling. My last big swim to bike transition was about a month before, during the Boulder Peak, and it took my legs about 10 miles to not feel like Gumby. Today, I was happy that during the swim I focused on getting blood flow to my legs early so I wouldn't have this problem. I felt great! I again kept super calm and just focused on having a great ride, being alert, getting no flats, and taking things a mile at a time.

Before I knew it, I was about 8 miles in and saw my fan club! They had made these great shirts to go with their "Where's Waldo" theme and I could see them for what seemed like miles!  Merrill, Jill, Laura, Nancy, Rebecca, Chris & Avi (God, I hope I'm not forgetting anyone!!) were screaming their hearts out, ringing their cowbells, jumping up and down and gave me the boost I needed to keep going. As I rode by, I reflected on how lucky I am to be riding on the course I knew backwards and forwards, being cheered on by my dear friends. As I turned the corner to St. Vrain Road, I knew I was coming up on my first aid station and an opportunity to see my friend Daniella. Once she realized it was me, she also cheered and gave me another boost. This was awesome! I'll knock these miles out in no time, I thought!

The first part of the ride is gorgeous as we roll through the foothills near Boulder, riding through farms and the rolling hills. I love it. Then I turned East. Ugh. I was just about 40 miles in and enjoying the day when I hit my first wall. I panicked. This is not good. I cannot hit a wall at mile 40 of the bike. I was trying to work my way out of my funk when I looked up and saw a familiar silhouette. Could it be? Was it really she? Yes! It was my "oldest" friend Julie! We've been friends since we were 2 and she surprised me by coming out to cheer me on! I held back tears as I screamed at her. She was exactly where I needed her. I immediately got out of my funk and was ready to tackle the plains! A few miles down, my fan club appeared again!  But alas, my spirits weren't lifted for long. A couple more miles down, I got into my funk again. So, I decided to find my happy place. I tried going to Maui, Ireland, scuba-diving, bed, Iowa, nothing worked. I ended up finding my happy place in high school,  at Ground Zero, dancing on the box with my BFF's Heather and Jill. Um, what? I hated Ground Zero! But if this was my happy place for the day, then so be it! So I played a game with myself and thought of every song we danced to, what we wore, the crazy boys we danced with, etc. Unfortunately, the only songs I could think of were "Electric Avenue" and "Safety Dance". So those two songs became my soundtrack for the next hour.

As in the swim, I broke up the bike not only into half, but also into the time cut-offs. I had to be at mile 56 (special needs) by 1:30pm, I had to be at mile 86 (going under I-25) by 3:30pm and I had to be completely off the course by 5:30pm. I'm a slow enough cyclists that I knew I would have no time to dilly-dally on this course. You can stop and get off your bike at any time, but the clock does not stop until you cross the finish line. Knowing this, I would allow myself to stop once-at special needs, which was exactly half-way through.

I pulled into special needs, shouting out my number for my bag. The volunteer couldn't find it. No worries. Luckily, I didn't pack anything in my bag I couldn't do without except sunblock. A volunteer found some left over, sprayed me down, and I was on my way as I saw my friend Molly roll in. I yelled that I was proud of her, she looked great and I'd see her soon, and I continued on my way, looking ahead to the giant hill in front of me. About halfway up the hill, I saw two girls who looked like they were naked, only covered by large signs. The first girl's sign said "Ironmen are sexy". A little ways up was her "naked" friend with a sign saying "But not as sexy as Ironwomen". They were hysterical. They were screaming at the top of their lungs and were making me crack up. I wanted to hang out with them all day! And just like that, I was in the plains.

Pretty soon, I saw two more crazy women dancing and cheering. It was Lisa and Tina from my running group! I had no idea they would be out there!  Lisa yelled that I looked awesome (I paid my friends to tell me that) and that they would see me in a few miles. To which I groaned as I'd assumed she meant she'd see me on the run, which was still about 50 miles away. A couple miles down the road, there they were again! And again, she said "we'll see you in a couple miles!" And they continued to leap-frog me every few miles for what I'm guessing was a good 20 miles! It was awesome!

Even with the encouragement from Lisa and Tina, I was soon dragging again. I was tired, I was sick of eating bananas, and I just wanted off the bike. Once again, I looked up and saw a new set of fan club members-Natasha, Krista, Sara, Drew and my youngest cheerleader for the day, Jonah! Once again, I was not expecting them to be out there and once again, had to choke back tears for all the love I was feeling. Apparently, this was Jonah's first time watching so many bikes go by and he loved it! He was clapping like a pro!

After passing them, I headed west and was thankful to be heading in the direction towards home. I was beginning to see more and more people struggling and bailing completely off the bike. It broke my heart to know that for some, their day was over.

Pretty soon, off in the distance, I saw the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. I-25! And there was no sign of a sag wagon behind me! And here it came. The ugly cry. I bawled. I knew I was home free after I went under the interstate. There were a bunch of spectators under the bridge and I felt re-born. I allowed myself to get all my tears out for a short time. I didn't want to waste any energy! And then I had a mild panic attack. Oh shit! I still had to run a marathon after this ride! In all my compartmentalizing, I had completely forgot about the marathon! I guess that's good and bad. I learned I'm very good about compartmentalizing, but the thought of doing a marathon made me want to vomit.

As I pulled into the last aid station at around mile 90, I saw a volunteer look at her watch. She clapped her hands and yelled "yeah, you've still got time to squeeze this out!". WTF?? I wanted to kick her in the head. I know she didn't mean it as bad as it sounded, but it pissed me off. Enough to lite a fire in my belly for the run ahead.

Laura, Jonah & Sara. The greatest cheerleaders ever!

Mile 92'ish, I saw my trusty fan club again and this time, Jonah was holding a great sign. It made me smile all over again.

Aga holding some random guy's bike while he answered a call of nature. I think this bike looks pretty good on her!

Mile 96'ish, I saw two people standing next to each other off in the distance. I knew one was my Julie, but who was the other? As I approached, I saw it was my friend Aga! She and Julie were standing next to each other for an hour but didn't realize they were both waiting for the same person until I came by!

I knew I had 3 monster climbs left before I descended into Boulder. The race called them "the 3 sisters". After riding them on my training ride, I renamed them "the 3 bitches". They weren't awful, but at the end of a long ride, they are not a very welcome sight. At the turn for the 3 bitches was my fan club again! As I passed them and made the turn for the climb and could hear them screaming behind me. There were two very fit guys in front of me on very fancy tri bikes and they were struggling. So much so, they decided to zig zag up the hill. Not good as I knew I was strong enough to take a straight line up the climb. So, I quickly thought of how I could get their attention (i.e. move out of my way so I could power up) without being a total bitch. So I yelled "you got this boys-this is the worst of the 3!". They both looked back at me and responded in stereo "3!!!????" and with that, they quickly got out of my way while I scooted right on up without a problem. Aside from all my cheerleaders, this was the best part of my day!

The closer I got to Boulder High School, sight of T2, I allowed myself to start thinking ahead to the run. The night before, at the athlete party, one of the elites said that after he rode his bike, he had the privilege of running a marathon. I thought he was high. But I kept repeating this to myself "I get the privilege of running a marathon".

I rolled under the arch and into T2. And I saw more running friends, Karen and Kandy, cheering me on. I could hear the thunderous cheers coming from the bike path below (where the run would take place) and I got excited. Maybe this run would be fun, after all!

After passing off my bike to a volunteer, I walked through transition as my feet were on fire, saw only a handful of bags left on the track and knew that while I was cutting my time very close, I had made it! I walked with my bag into the changing tent and was greeted by another very friendly volunteer who walked me over to a chair and started unpacking my bag, laying everything out neatly for me. The lady across from me did not look good. She had a bad day on the bike and was calling it a day. I looked at her and wanted to shake her-she had come so far! But I decided to leave her be and focus on my volunteer. I asked her what time it was. She told me "5:10". Whew! I had 20 minutes to spare! I knew I could walk a 6 hour marathon, so I was fine with that! She was so sweet that I didn't want to leave, but I was SO close to the end of my journey, I thanked her and headed out the tent. I had the privilege of running a marathon next. Oh goody!

2.4 miles. Or, just keep swimming.....

2:00am. Race morning. Freddy was not thrilled with waking up so early, but bless his heart, he knew he would have a mad woman on his hands if we were not on the first bus (which left Boulder High School at 4:00am) so he agreed to keep me happy and calm. We made our race day breakfast which consisted of coffee for me, OJ for Freddy, scrambled eggs, bacon, and a sweet potato. After experimenting with a lot of food, we found this was our breakfast of champions.

We got to Boulder around 3:45, headed to special needs and got on the bus with about 50 of our closest friends. We took the back of the bus because that's where all the cool kids sit and were entertained the entire ride. The guy behind us made a remark that his wife said he could have kids or do an Ironman. He proudly exclaimed "I decided I'd rather have an Ironman medal", to which Freddy and I lost it. We thought it was about the funniest thing ever, because we routinely use similar comments when asked about kids. Although about 5 miles into the run, I thought maybe having a kid would be easier...But I digress.

Those poor people who sleep in just don't know what they miss!

It was pitch black when we arrived at the reservoir but we were greeted by the happiest volunteers ever! They directed us where to go, wished us a great day, and had us laughing. I found my body marker guy and he was awesome. He was so patient with me, even when I couldn't remember how old I was. I finally told him to write that I was 70 so I had a shot at winning this thing. There was another body marker yelling "guaranteed Ironman finisher, right here!". The volunteers were amazing!

We were lucky and were on the same bike rack as most of our friends so were thrilled when we got to the bike racks and saw so many friendly faces. We exchanged a lot of hugs and talked about the day. Overwhelmingly, the feeling in the air was "this is just another training day with a medal at the end". The calm was refreshing. None of us were rattled (or if we were, we were pretty good at fooling everyone else). My friend Joann and I talked about how we were going to compartmentalize everything. When swimming, we would only focus on the swim, when on the bike, we would focus only on the bike, and so on. I was also going to split each sport in half-counting the miles up on the first half and counting down on the second half.

About 6:00, we all scattered and headed towards the warm-up area. I did one lap and called it good. I really just wanted to be alone and away from all the nerves.

6:20, the cannon went off for the elite athletes. 6:30, the cannon for all us regular Joe's. Ironman recently implemented a wave swim start which I think is brilliant, but apparently some of the hard-core Ironmen think is kind of pansy. In the wave start, you line up according to your swim time and the volunteers at the end of the ramp slowly wave you into the water. I placed myself into the 1:35-1:45 swim time wave and patiently awaited my turn, soaking everything in. As I made my way to the boat ramp, I saw my mom, Aunt, and sister. They were such a welcome sight! My favorite band, U2, was rocking in the speakers and my family was jumping and waving like crazy. It was awesome. Pretty soon, the volunteers told us to have a great swim, have fun, and enjoy the day and we were off!

Hey! Can you see me? I'm the one in the pink cap! I'm pretty sure I was hanging out by the medics. You know, just in case!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The swim was so peaceful. I'm sure this was not the case for the faster swimmers, but me and my peeps were ubber calm and there was very little punching, kicking, pulling, jockeying, at all. I think the biggest thing about the swim is to remain calm. You have to be totally ok with being climbed over, punched, kicked, held, etc. If you are calm in the water, you will do just fine. I'm swimming along to the first turn when I realize I am completely in sync with this dude next to me. We were matching every stroke, kick, breath, everything. It kind of creeped me out-especially when at one point we were close enough to almost lock lips and I got a whiff of his breakfast. I'm not sure what he had in addition to his garlic, but I'd venture a bet that he is protected from vampires. With that, I decided to swim a bit harder to lose him.

Before I knew it, I was at the half-way point. And I felt great. I thought of nothing other than the swim. I enjoyed the calmness of the water, knowing that I didn't need to stop at all, even when I saw others near me that did. I just soaked in (no pun intended) every second. There was not one point during the swim that I didn't see a kayaker or rescue boat. I made the second turn and could see the finish arch! I reeled myself in and focused again on just keeping steady. Pretty soon, I could hear cheers and music coming from the beach. I knew this was the time to kick a little faster to get blood flowing to my legs. I swam until I literally touched a volunteer, who helped me out of the water.

I walked up the boat ramp and saw a huge party! It was everything I had in me to not just hang out for a while! Kanye West's "Stronger" was blaring and there was a drum line drumming along to it. I think Kanye West is an ass-hat, but that song is one of my favorites and got me through many, many training miles!

All those little dots are swimmers! The swim at an Ironman is one of the most amazing things you will ever witness. Ever!

I turned right onto the grass and was gently grabbed by two women "the strippers"-no, not those strippers, the wet suit strippers. They said, "stand steady and then sit". I was so confused, I had to ask them again what I was supposed to do. I've never had a stripper before-this was uncharted territory for me! In a flash, they had my wetsuit off and I was heading towards the changing tent.

I got to the changing tent and was greeted by a very nice woman who started asking me all these questions. I remember looking around me and seeing every woman next to me shaking uncontrollably. I remember holding out my own hands to see if I was shaking as badly as they were and luckily, I wasn't (or maybe I was and I couldn't tell!). My poor volunteer was super-chatty and I just didn't feel like talking. I was on a mission. And super focused at my next task of the day. The beast of all beasts for me. The long ride.

I got out of the tent, headed towards the sun block volunteers, ran by my family exclaiming "that didn't kill me! I'm still alive!" and headed towards my bike. Luckily, there were volunteers leading into the bike racks that would tell you which way you needed to go. With 2500 bikes, they were a God send! I grabbed my bike, saw Claire and Sue (Freddy's dad and his wife who traveled all the way from Arizona just to cheer us on), took a deep breath, and headed up the ramp to the bike mount arch......

The final countdown....

We awoke Friday morning to a mild case of nervous stomach. Race weekend was here! We could not believe how quickly the time had come for us to put our 8 months of training to the test!

Friday morning was athlete check-in at the Athlete's Village in Boulder. I liked the sound of that: "Athlete's Village". This wasn't your average fitness expo. We were athletes! As we walked up to the athletes village, we could feel the excitement in the air. I was excited, Freddy was a little freaked out....

I only signed up for this whole thing for the backpack and I couldn't wait any longer so we headed straight to check-in. After reviewing our waivers, being asked if we would like a Red Bull (seriously-we all thought it was a little funny to ask a bunch of Ironman hopefuls if they want a Red Bull), we were handed our caps and chips. 

Friday night, we headed back up to Boulder with Freddy's dad Claire, and his wife Sue, for dinner and the opening ceremonies. After a lovely dinner, we went back to the Athlete's Village for the festivities. We were thrilled to see most of our dear friends and training partners!  During the ceremony we heard from a few elites, the race director and the voice of Ironman, Mike Riley. Videos were shown from some of the more epic Ironman battles, pumping us up for Sunday. It was a gorgeous evening in athletes village, steps away from T2 and the marathon course we would be running in just a few short hours!

The Race Director welcoming all to the Big Day!

The voice of Ironman-Mike Riley! 

Our awesome "Island of misfit toys". There are no other friends we would have rather taken this journey with than these guys!

Saturday morning was spent preparing all of our bags. We were given a total of 5 at check-in: Morning clothes, Bike Bag, Bike Special Needs, Run Bag, Run Special Needs. It's a long day and a lot to think about so all week we had placed items we think we needed into a box (thanks for that tip, Chris DeCroce!) as well as worked off a check-list to be sure we didn't miss a thing. 

This is a lot of stuff! Luckily, Claire and Sue were doing all the supervising!

Part of my finished product! Packing for a marathon is so much easier!!

Once our bags were ready to go, we again headed up to Boulder with our bags, bikes and everything we needed for Sunday. The great thing about Ironman is checking everything in the day before-it's kind of a freeing feeling to not have to worry about all your stuff on race day! We headed to T2 to drop off our run gear first and we loved the sight we saw: 

Lovely line o' bags in T2! Cannot wait to run through here!

From there, we headed up to the reservoir and the sight of T1. The swim course was already set up so we got a great view of our big swim the next day. Oddly enough, Freddy and I both looked at it and went "ok. No biggie". Which was crazy. I remember two years ago when we did the Half Ironman, the swim course looked impossible. If you like bikes, even a little bit, an Ironman is where you want to be. The sea of bike porn is amazing. Freddy and I gawked at some lovely tri bikes before heading home to call it a day.

Just one rack in the massive sea of bikes!

Freddy looking ubber-confident with his work.

Putting the finishing touches on T1. GULP!

Single Digits. Almost.

Can someone stop the clock, please? Seriously! We are down to just over one week to go until IM Boulder and the freaking out has begun in earnest!

I cannot believe we are this close. After seven months of training, we are about to receive a new title. We are excited, nervous, anxious and ready to get the show on the road. This morning, we had our last long OWS (open water swim) at Grant Ranch. Neither of us wanted to get up at the crack of dawn again but knowing after next week we can sleep in (well, for maybe a week. Then it's back to training for NYC) got us out the door. It was a good thing we went. The view was beautiful!

Freddy got in about 2 miles and I did just over 1.5 miles before we had to head home. The pace was nice and easy and we felt great after the swim.  During the swim we both reflected on how far we have come and how excited we are to see all our friends and family on August 3. We have worked so hard to get to this point-just training for an Ironman is a huge accomplishment that we don't take lightly. 

We will be unplugging completely next week to turn off all "noise". I, especially, get incredibly anxious before races and need to be in my bubble so if you text and hear silence from me, please do not be offended! If you have not joined our "Where's Waldo fan club" on Facebook, please do so. My dear friend Laura Chartrand has set up a great page for you to get all your scoop on the big day: where to meet up, best places to cheer, how much tequila to put in my margarita, etc. Please join the group and feel free to contact Laura with any questions. She is my right hand girl and I'm so lucky to have her!  You can join the group here.

Freddy and I have also purchased a cool gps gadget we will be wearing on race day. This will allow you to see where we are at any point on the course. The best part? It's free to our fans! Visit My Athlete for more info. If you have an Apple or Droid smart phone, you will need to download their free app, type in Ironman Boulder (they don't have that event live yet) and our names. I'm not sure if you need our bib #'s, but if you do, I am bib #150 and Freddy is #149. No smart phone? No problem! Ironman Boulder will have a live feed set up on several places along the race course (typically swim start, half way on the bike, a couple places on the run and of course, the finish line) you can view here.

We are incredibly blessed to be participating in the inaugural Ironman Boulder with so many friends and even more blessed with our support system. We honestly could not have gotten through this without you! Thank you all, so much, for believing in us, cheering us on, pushing us when we needed pushed and supporting us every stroke, pedal and stride along the way!  Let's get this done!

I leave you with a video that makes me tear up everytime. If you wonder why we do this crazy stuff-this is it.... enjoy! 

Village people

Hannah, me, Molly, Melissa & Freddy before our run along Boulder Creek

I don't subscribe to the whole "it takes a village" to raise a child BS. But in the case of training for an Ironman, nothing could be more true! It is, in fact, taking me an entire army to get ready for August 3!

While most people enjoyed a nice, relaxing long 4th of July weekend, Freddy and I were experiencing our toughest training weekend yet. Friday morning we awoke early to head to Boulder to run 3 hours on the Ironman route (which is on the Boulder Creek Trail). I had done this route many times with Runners Edge, know it like the back of my hand and since I've done so many marathons, a 3 hour run is kind of not a big deal to me. Freddy, on the other hand, was pretty nervous. He had never run that far before and had never run the Boulder Creek Trail. We got really excited when Coach Marco gave us a special treat-he invited his wife Hannah and said he'd be out there on his bike cracking the whip on us! Giddy-up!                                                  

Hannah and Freddy took off like bullets while me and my girls trotted along at a nice, comfy pace. All the while, Coach Marco shuttled between us, Hannah and Freddy to offer encouragement, advice and every now and then, a squirt from his water bottle.  The IM route does a modified 13 mile out and back, so we were able to run the entire route to see what we are in for. The trail is great-very shaded (although by the time I'm running, it will be dark), pretty and cool as it runs along the creek so there are plenty of places to take a little dip for some relief as Freddy found rather quickly!  Another bonus is you can get an awesome contact high from all the Boulder Hippies lining the route. I'm sure this will come in handy around mile 130.

Totally worth all that effort!

Me and my girls enjoying some girl talk!

Don't ask me what he is doing. 

Our reward at the end-a Rocky Mountain Ice Bath!

We thought we'd try Freddy's trick. It hurt......

After 3 hours, Freddy logged around 18 miles and me and my girls came in just shy of 15. Freddy was thrilled to have this milestone behind him and I was thrilled to have some great company! But I was dreading what was to come.....

Sunday was a big day. The monster of all demons for me. The dreaded "entire IM bike course" training day. I did a century bike ride a few years ago and hated it. I also swore I would never do one again. So, don't ask me why I thought riding 112 miles in an Ironman is a good idea. 

We met up with our group bright and early at 6:00am on Sunday morning to begin our journey. Luckily, my girls were there with me and we decided we would hang together. We also were able to rope my dear friend Laura into being our sag wagon for the day, providing us food, water, encouragement and direction. I'm not sure she entirely knew what she was getting herself into!

We took off and were greeted with a nasty cross-wind on Hwy 36. UGH. I hate wind. It totally blows. No problem. This is all good training. Around mile 35, we came across signs saying "road closed ahead". Odd, but whatever. We are on bikes. We're good to go. More signs warning us to turn around. Surely they aren't talking about us. Then we saw it. The orange fencing and on the other side, no road. It had collapsed into the river below! WTF?? We all looked at each other going "how are they going to have this road fixed in 3 weeks? This is crap!". After pondering our situation for several minutes we decided to call Laura who informed us we were way too far north and missed our turn. After figuring out where to go, we all turned around in silence. A detour did not make us happy. But no one complained. We just continued on course. 

We all had maps but quickly designated Lehiwa as our trusty guide. I was too anxious about the ride to focus on anything but pedaling. She did awesome and made sure we were on track. She also knew of detours for bathrooms! About 60 miles in, we were low on water, burning up and pedaling to get to Laura when all of a sudden this man with no shirt on and Richard Simmons shorts started running towards us in the grass. We pretended not to see him but pretty soon he started flailing his arms saying "ladies, we have treats for you one block ahead! Come on over!". Then we saw it: an oasis in the plains. The most beautiful sight we'd seen that day. There was a tent with about 6 people, all of whom had ice-cold rags in their hands that they quickly put around our necks. Others grabbed our bikes and water bottles and started to re-fill them with ice cold water. They had candy, food, sunblock, anything we wanted. Turns out they were just some nice folks knowing there would be a ton of people training that route and they wanted to help. It was awesome!

As we pedaled through the corn fields, we encountered horrendous heat, head winds (that mysteriously switched direction every time we turned), hills and more hills. Having Laura on the course was a life-saver. If she wasn't out there, I truly don't think any of us would have made it. 

Close to the end of our ride and about 10 hours into our day, Dan, Frank and Ian came out to cheer us in. Frank had even bought us some goodies to eat for the final stretch. We asked for rides back to the cars, but they never acknowledged our inquiry. Jerks. Finally, after 8 hours of pedaling, 11 hours out on the course, and 115 miles, we arrived at Boulder High School-site of T2 and our start/finish spot for the day. After literally one minute of celebrating, Frank grabbed our shoes and pushed us onto the Boulder Creek Trail. We still had a run to do. So, Ashley, Molly and I headed out on our short 20 minute run. And it felt great. 

Sunday was a huge day for me. It proved I can do anything I set my mind to. It eased my fears, ever so much, about August 3. I learned a lot and know that race day it will all come together. And I cannot wait!

My Iron Village: Melissa, Molly, Laura, Lehiwa & Ashley. You ladies are the best and I cannot wait to cross that finish line with you!!

Becoming too tough to kill

Just as we suspected, last weekend was a tad brutal and a little crazy. Scratch that-a lot crazy. I got very excited as my run on Saturday was "only" 45 minutes! "Whatever will I do with myself?", I thought, until I looked ahead to Sunday. Sunday was "race prep day" and after I got out my trusty calculator to add up all the hours, realized we would be doing an "almost" half Ironman. For training. WTH? Our training plan called for a 1 hour open water swim, 4 hour bike ride, and 2 hour run. For those of you who have trouble with math like me, that's 7 hours of movement. In one day. Kill me now.

5 miles into our walk. I need an ice bath just looking at this! Gorgeous scenery but dear Lord it was hot!!

My friend Ann, also training for her first Ironman in Boulder, called me earlier in the week to make a plan for this race prep day. We decided that Aurora Reservoir would be the perfect place to partake in this madness. The water is clear and cool, we can park our cars in the lot to stage our transitions areas, there is already an existing bike route from the reservoir, and there is an 8 mile bike path around the reservoir. Perfect!

Freddy got called out on a very busy one day trip on Saturday which had him leaving our house at 5am and not getting home (if he was lucky) until around 10:30 pm. After my group run with Runners Edge, I had a wedding to attend downtown beginning at 6:30pm, so knew between the two of us, Sunday would be tough.

Sunday morning, Ann, Dan, Freddy and I left our homes before the birds were awake to travel to Kansas, er. Aurora.  We arrived at the reservoir and were giddy when we saw we were the only people around. We put on our wetsuits, jumped into the reservoir and started our day. On about lap 3, we noticed a very large school of fish started hanging out with us! They were huge and had horns on the tops of their heads and were not bothered by us in the least! After swimming in our rec center pool, Boulder Reservoir and Grant Ranch, they were a very welcome sight!

After an hour, we got out of the water and made our transition to the bike ride. We were all feeling pretty good as the temps were still cool and we were still fresh. We decided to ride the Harvest Moon bike course. I've never done this course but Freddy and Dan had and they warned me it was tougher than I envisioned. Hogwash, I thought. It's Aurora. Aurora doesn't have any hills. Good thing I'm a fan of roller coasters, because that's exactly what this course was. You were either going up or going down.  No flats in this part of Colorado! Crazy! The road was so beat-up that I was literally out of my saddle and squatting for most of the ride to try and save my bike from all the pounding in the pot holes!  There was no shoulder on most of the route which made me too nervous to eat while riding, so I had to pull over to eat. Then the wind came. And it stayed. Then it's friend, oppressive heat came with a vengeance. And it just got worse. The only saving grace about this ride was that we were in farmland and that made me smile all over. I only saw two other cyclists the entire ride and other than that, it was me, the cows, the farmers, some ducks and lots of tractors. I felt like I was home. I went through the entire John Denver collection in my head until I got to "Annie's Song" which made me tear up, so then had to quickly switch my soundtrack. Three hours and 45 minutes later I arrived back at the reservoir, tired, HOT, and hungry. Not good when you have a 2 hour run still to come.

Freddy and I drank an ice cold coke, dunked our heads in some ice water (which evaporated before we even left the truck) and headed on our way. Coach Marco had sent us an e-mail the day before after looking at the weather forecast (the high for Sunday was to be in the upper-90's) saying there was no shame in backing our bike down to 3 hours and our run down to 1 hour. He did not want us being hero's out there. Not today. So, with this in mind, Freddy and I decided we would break up the run in small segments to re-evaluate. We took off on a slow run but quickly realized the heat was zapping us of our energy fast. Our plan was to go out 1 mile, turn around, go back to the truck to get more water, and continue this trend until we couldn't go anymore. Our mantra was "No hero today. We save it for August 3." We got in 6.5 miles and called it good. We arrived back to the truck and promptly jumped back in the reservoir to cool off. When we got home and looked at our data, Freddy's Garmin said the temps had reached 100 degrees. I wouldn't argue that-I think that's probably about right!

During our 6.5 mile march, I shared with Freddy one of my favorite marathon sayings:

In my re-cap about the day to Coach, I told him he needed to try a little bit harder to kill us. He wasn't successful on Sunday and I promised to pull out all the stops on Aug. 3. There were no heros in Aurora on Sunday. But Boulder better watch out. We are comin'!

Enjoy the Fitness

It's happened. The nightmares are becoming more real. It must be close to race day-I get nightmares before marathons and now before Ironman. And the other night's was a doozy! I woke up in a panic at around 1am after a horrible dream about race day where everything that could go wrong did. As I tried calming myself down, I had a horrible thought. Race day is 39 days (oh crap on a stick!!!) away and after factoring a 3 week taper, that means we have less than one month of training left. This thought had me up all night as I reviewed every second of my training since February. As many times as I tried telling myself to trust Coach, trust the training and trust that I've done everything right, I couldn't shake it! So, needless to say, I had a very sleepless night which led to a slug-fest in the lake the next day!

As always, our training is steadily increasing week by week. Our swims, rides and runs keep getting longer. Three weeks ago, Freddy did his first century of the season with a big bunch of our Runners Edge of the Rockies friends and coaches while I joined my girlfriends for the Skirt Sports Half Marathon. Unlike me, Freddy was born on his bike and would be perfectly happy if he could be on it all the time. But he said the ride was brutal. It's in Castle Rock, which makes for a tough course anyway, but the winds that day were horrible and made it that much tougher.

Freddy and some of the gang at Elephant Rock. I think he lied-it doesn't look that windy!

A couple weeks ago, my friend Shannon and I (who is also training for her first Ironmanm but she's super bad-ass and decided she wanted to do Lake Placid) decided to ditch the guys and do a girl's ride, just the two of us. Shannon did awesome and kept squealing in delight over how much fun she was having, which made for a very fun day for us! We logged 75 miles on the bike and followed that with a 20 minute run. We loved riding together and decided that we should do it more often. We may or may not have discussed doing our next Ironman together. But not anytime soon!

Freddy traveled to Iowa to run in the Marathon to Marathon with his dad, Claire. Claire has become quite the runner and will call us occasionally with a challenge for us to join him. Sadly, my work schedule kept me home for the weekend, but Freddy had an awesome time with his dad and I'm SUPER PROUD to report that Freddy PR'd (again) with a time of 1:58 and Clair took first in his age group! I could not be more happy for those two and am thrilled they got to spend the weekend together!

Freddy & Claire. Two of the speediest guys Iowa has ever seen!

This shit's gettin' real. I just opened up my training for the next couple weeks and had a mild panic-attack. My friends Jay and Frank, both accomplished Ironmen who will be joining me in Boulder, warned me last week that the next couple weeks would be brutal. They were right! Coach Marco knows how to keep me in check. He will make notes like "enjoy your 'easy' day by doing something you haven't done in a while", or "rent a funny movie and watch with friends", but a favorite of Freddy and mine is "enjoy the fitness". So, my mantra for the next month will be just this. I am enjoying the fitness. Every early morning, gu-filled, Bonk Breaker Bar, rice cake, leg-pounding second of it!