1 crazy week ending with the jackpot!

This was a taper week like none other. I'm sure it will never be repeated. Nor do I want it to.

Its one for record books on how NOT to go into your first big race of the season with the goal of qualifying for Vegas. A lot was on the line with this race (yes put on my shoulders ALL  by me).  My taper was awful, my race very average, but I managed to get what I went for, a spot to Vegas, and a lesson learned...don't give up even when its ugly

I opted to skip the upcoming  trip to St. Croix with AZ  (even though I loved that race) because now that I work full time,  I am trying to spread out days of work.   I want to   have a few extra days in Vegas and Kona and do summer training trip. Plus  I just spent time in Tuscon and San Diego. The people I work think I'm crazy for sure.   NOLA can be done on a quick trip.  Just ask my coach, Scott! and I managed this race without missing any time off work. The pressure was on  though because damn it I got up at 4:20 in the morning to meet people to swim,  or drug myself to the basement in the dark to run on the treadmill or do intervals on the trainer, and I didn't want that to go to waste!  Plus there is a lot of relief getting the spot early and being able to pick and choose what I do all summer.

My taper week started off with watching the Boston marathon at work, in awe of how awesome the women's race was to only find out at lunch time of the horror that was unfolding. And yes, the first I heard of the news came from none other than Joe Lotus from facebook.  I knew a lot of people there and thankfully they were all ok. But I found myself in tears, hearing that people actually died, and lost limbs, and one of the people killed was an 8 year old boy waiting for his Dad to cross the line. Jack is 9. It just hit too close to home.

Meanwhile it started raining and never stopped. AZ and I woke up to thunder and pouring rain at 1 in the morning.  It just kept on raining. It was rain on top of more rain and we couldn't sleep.  On a whim he checked the basement, and it was a bad dream come true.  The sump pump had quit and there was water sloshing around on the carpet in our newly finished basement complete with new furntiture and theater system. We were up all night getting it fixed so it wouldn't do more damage. I went to work exhausted, missed whatever workout I was supposed to do. In fact all my workouts that week went awful because I was so tired and stressed.  AZ insisted I still go race went into contractor mode and got the basement under control. So I worked 1/2 day Friday, boarded the plane and arrived in NOLA with just enough time to get my packet and see that suspect #2 had been caught!

Secret Service style

For the rest of the weekend, I  was in princess mode, because my bike was being shuttled down by Scott who drove,  and my friend DL and I were being chauffered around by our friend Dan who was also racing. He scored a blacked out secret service style  suburban  at the rental agency with only 4 miles on it so were riding in style! Friday night we took a walk down Bourban street after dinner. A sober view is  much different I'm sure  than if you've had a few hurricanes. After such a stressful week it was fun to just watch and laugh at  crazy drunk people.

Bourban St.

I woke up Sunday excited to race. Its been really since Kansas last year since I raced a triathlon thanks to the ugly injury. Going into this race I had been working hard on my swimming which has been horrific that past few years mainly due to just not getting in the water enough. I can and have done better swimming when I put the time in. So I  have worked hard to try to  get some of it back.  I have been swimming with Kelly Perry 2-3 days a week. She smokes me. Bad.  But keeps me honest, and is always there early which works for me. I also have been working hard on my running coming back from being hurt and I have had some great workouts and have been  running as well as I ever have. So was so excited to test it out in NOLA. 2 years ago there I ran 1:37,  and my goal Sunday was to beat that because I have been running better than I was then.  Its so funny how things can wind up in a race though.

finish line seemed to take forever

The new swim course was actually nicer than expected. ,A  little choppy and a super long wait if you were 40+ female (like 2 hours), but we swam!  It was a time trial start, I had no idea where I stood, because our group included anyone 40+.   Bonus= wetsuit strippers! By the time we actually started the bike the wind was crazy. No complaints from me. We bike in this all the time, but the long 30 miles straight into headwind made it very  tough!  I didn't feel good and knew I was under prepared some on the bike thanks to our horrible never ending winter. I think I rode outside a total of 3 x.  I wan't happy with how the bike felt and how slow the time was turning out to be. But I felt some relief when I got to transition, there hardly any bikes racked. I was able to run my first 2 miles at my goal pace but then it all fell apart. I was getting charley horses in my quads, then several miles later my calves,or arches. I had to walk a lot to get them under control, and ended up running slower than my easy run pace.  Even when I was falling apart no one passed me on the run other than 1 girl from the 25-29 age group, so it must have been ugly for everyone.  Not sure why,  other than the wind was extreme. It wasn't hot, actually perfect. 73 sunny degrees. For me I'm blaming lack of bike fitness and going out hard to race.  I finished 2nd in the AG, with 4th fastest swim (wow, me?)  and fastest bike in AG, and held on enough to get a spot to Vegas.  We barely made it to the airport in time to fly home. Sorry to those around us as we were still sweaty with race numbers. I was home at midnight  just in time to go to work the next day.

podium

Every race teaches you something.  This race,  it was to keep pushing even when the plan is falling apart because you don't know what is happening around you. My run goal went up in smoke, but didn't give up even though I was way off pace. First race is done.