I spent much of my day trying to figure out what I want to do next. Despite having started up with a running group, signing up for a ChiRunning workshop coming up this weekend, and slapped down the fee for a Total Immersion swim clinic next weekend, I'm feeling a little rudderless.

I spent a good bit of time researching triathlon coaching. There are lots of local options, but I don't know enough about them to know which option to go with. There's another option for someone who is out-of-state, but already knows me, knows my injury history, and is a physical therapist. Going with that option will almost certainly mean needing to join a masters swim team. Biking and running I can handle on my own, but I really struggle with structuring pool workouts.

Or, I can join a local team. <--That's the least expensive of the options.

*sigh* So many choices.

Oh, and I found a recipe this evening that I am soooo making the next time I'm jonesing for cake. Gluten-free Coconut Carrot Cake. Oh, my...

Ugh. So, I didn't race this morning.

I got as far as driving to the race site and starting to set up my transition. And then my body started to rebel. And rebel hard. Sharp cramps, nausea, and then The Headache.

I decided to just pack my stuff back up and go home.

crappy weather + feeling crappy = needless pain and torture

There is something about getting up early that seems to be triggering migraines for me. I need to get to the bottom of that, and soon.

My bags are packed...

Ok, so just the one bag.

My transition bag is ready. My bike and the rack for my car are sitting by the door. Clothes are laid out. Alarm is set (for rilly, rilly early).

Sadly, I can't find my camo print dress or the chest strap for my heart rate monitor. I cant replace the dress (though I think I just remembered where it might be), but I can order a replacement strap if it doesn't turn up in the early part of next week. Neither of those things are necessary for my race, but I'd like to have them nonetheless. *sigh*

Think of me tomorrow morning, out in the chilly rain, suffering in the suburbs. (Ok, so it's not all suffering. It's more fun than anything else.)

Another race down. :-)

This morning saw my alarm go off at 4:40 a.m. I followed that up with a solid twenty minutes of sitting on Lisa's couch and alternately dozing and trying to get myself fully awake. Then, I got dressed, made some breakfast, loaded my bike on my car and went over to the race site with Lisa. Well, we went to a shopping center about a quarter mile away from the race site and then walked over. (I'm convinced all of this foot travel before and after a race is just the race directors' way of screwing with the participants.)

I got my transition area set up, but wasn't really happy with it. So, I set it up again...this time with my stuff positioned on the side of the bike I prefer. (Lisa took lots and lots of pics of all of this fussing around, so it must have been amusing to watch.) And then, a giant woman showed up and tried to rack her bike beside mine. Except, being a giant, her bike wouldn't fit under the rack easily, and once she got it under there it was too tall to actually hang from the rack. So, she decided to hang it *over* the rack...um, that didn't work out so well either. Eventually, she resigned herself to having to prop her bike against the railing around the transition area and just setting up the rest of her stuff across from mine. I was simultaneously amused and incredulous. She was well-meaning, but just a clueless mess. It was also her first triathlon, so it was hard not to feel a little bad for her--also the fact that she was #666 and in swim wave #13 seemed to have her just set up for mishaps.

My swim was ok, but I kept getting caught behind people who were struggling. I eventually got out of the water and realized I had a splitting headache. Ick. I *really* dawdled through transition, hoping the headache would dull a little before I got on the bike. It didn't. But,I eventually managed to talk myself into riding.

The ride was really pretty, but had lots of rolling hilly bits. My knee seemed to be cooperating a little better this time, but I was mostly just concerned with my headache. I was so preoccupied with that, I wasn't paying enough attention to the rest of my body. At one point, I was hit with intense nausea because of a way elevated heart rate (189...eep!).

My second transition was a little faster, but I was still feeling gross. But at that point, I was so close to finishing (just one more event) that there was no way I was going to bail. So, I walked almost the entire run. Except the end. Something got into my head at the very end (I think I realized I was really close to water, food, electrolytes, and a chance to sit down), and I started running toward the finish line.

Crossed the finish line and collected my medal. (and a bottle of water and an apple) w00t!

I also hit the stop button on my heart rate monitor and checked out a summary of my "workout". That's when I realized I had stupidly let my heart rate get too high. And I burned 1201 calories during the race. Kick ass.

So, I did my very first triathlon a couple of weeks ago. I'm doing another one next week. And then another two weeks after that.

I'm hooked.

And since I'm hooked, and I met my goal for the summer of becoming a triathlete, I've decided to treat myself to a new toy. A new bike. A tri/time trial bike, specifically. And I'm going to build it up myself. (Because I'm a studly beast like that.)

I've assembled all the parts (except saddle and pedals), and the frame is currently up on my bike stand awaiting the work to get it assembled. I'm insanely excited!

I'm not spending a ton on this bike. I just don't take myself (or my riding) seriously enough to drop a boat load of cash on top of the line stuff. So, it's something of a budget build for sure, but that doesn't thrill me any less.

Frame, component list, and pics to come...

I am a triathlete. That's right, I finished my first triathlon. Slooowly.

There were moments of hilarity. (No, really...at one point I started laughing so hard that I forgot how to swim. No, I don't remember what I thought was so funny at the time. I had to actually watch someone swim by me to figure out how to get my body parts coordinated and working together again.) And some pretty intense pain--my knee blew up near the turnaround point of the ride.

I now have five blisters, a heat rash, and two chafe marks. And a finisher's medal.

But I'll back up a little...

The day started early, with my alarm clock going off at 4:30 a.m. Why so early? Because it takes me a long time to wake up and get my body moving around. Also, I needed enough time to eat (4 oz. extra lean ground beef and two eggs, scrambled together and half a can of Diet Coke) and let my stomach get used to being awake--that's actually the hardest part of waking early for me.

Because this race is so huge (it's a PNW event in the same way that the Seattle To Portland is), racers and spectators were given strict instructions to not even attempt to park in the surrounding neighborhood. Instead, we were to go to Safeco Field to park (for $5) and ride school busses over to the race site. I woke up with a pounding headache and decided I would rather take my chances with the Seattle PD than ride a crowded school bus at stupid o'clock in the morning.

So, I peered at a Google map of the neighborhood and picked out a series of side streets that would get me within a couple of blocks of the transition area at Genesee Park. It worked. I found a spot two blocks away...at the top of a steep hill. (Not a big deal before the race, but a bitch to climb with transition bag and bike after the race.)

I got there, ran into a couple of friends from dinner the night before, and then started setting up my transition spot. Since it had been spitting raindrops a few times that morning, and I could hear thunder while trying to wake up, I had stuffed a garbage bag and a couple of huge Ziploc bags into my transition pack as a just-in-case measure. The sky still threatened rain, so I took out the garbage bag and tucked it around my clothes and shoes. By then, I could hear announcements over the loudspeakers signaling people to start moving toward the swim start to see the Elites start their swim (those ladies are crazy fast). So, I put on my Body Glide and started doing the wetsuit wiggle. After getting it up to my waist, I grabbed my swim cap and skull bling goggles, and made my way through transition and across the street toward the water. And that's when I ran into two of the ladies that were at the tri-weekend with me in the Gorge. (Incidentally, the first place finisher this year also lives in the Gorge and is a good friend of the coach that hosted us that weekend.)

After watching a few of my friends go off, and then floating around for what seemed like hours in the warm-up area to get used to the water, it was finally time for my race to start...

I'm still at a loss for what made me start laughing in that first leg of the swim. It's possible that I got kicked, or maybe tangled up with some water weeds, and just started laughing out of confusion. But I eventually got myself together and resumed my swim. I went slow, but kept a steady pace. And always kept moving forward. I was pleased that I didn't have to stop and grab a rest on a kayak or surfboard along the way. As far as I was concerned, that was a win for my swim.

Exiting the water and running/walking (barefoot) back to my spot in transition seemed to take years. (Maybe because of the patches of sharp gravel that I encountered along the way.) But, I got there, stripped off my wetsuit (without falling down) and gulped down some water while chewing a few SportBeans. Threw on my wicking tank, race skirt, skull socks, gloves and bike shoes, then grabbed my bike off the rack. (One thing about being a slow swimmer is that I had plenty of room in transition to do my thing because the people on either side of me had already left on their bikes.) I put on my helmet and started the long trip back to the front of the transition area to the bike start.

The bike was fun, but I could have done without the pain and the subsequent slow down. I was flying through the first half and passing people constantly, but slowed waaaaay down coming into the turnaround when my knee decided it had simply had enough of that. Ah, well. It had been behaving almost a little too well the last couple of weeks, I should have suspected something like this. Heh.

My second transition was faster, because it was just a matter of re-racking bike (ok, so that wasn't that easy), taking off helmet and gloves, changing shoes (all hail Easy Laces), grabbing sunglasses, and clipping on race belt as I started toward the run start. (I also took a few moments to drink some more water.)

After that, I just walked almost the entire run course. I played a little bit of the this-to-that game (e.g. I'll run from this driveway to that tree), because running made the blisters on my feet hurt less. So, walking made it possible to ignore the knee, but the blisters on my toes would burn and throb. Running made the feet feel no pain, but the knee screamed with every strike of my left foot on the pavement. It was just like choosing what kind of pain I felt like having at any given moment.

During the "run", I was dubbed Miss Pink by more than a few people (pink skirt, pink race belt, pink hair). And I got lots of variations on, "Wow, Miss Pink has ridiculous legs." I have to assume they were talking about my muscles and not the swollen knee...heh.

My actual transitions went really well (except for forgetting to put my sunglasses on before the bike, which I didn't notice until I came flying out of the tunnel on I-90 into the brightly sunlit morning), but my spot was really far away from all of the start/finish areas. Looking at the times, it seems like I really dawdled, but the reality is that I just had really long distances to cover to get to and from my spot.

As for my times...they weren't great. I wasn't last (in my age group, or overall), but I was far from even middle-of-the-pack.

This was a crowded race, with over 4300 participants and over 3700 finishers this year (out of 5500 registrants). And lots and lots of those are women doing their first tri. It's a super-supportive environment, with lots of smiling faces and whoops of encouragement from both racers and spectators. But, those crowds can be hard to maneuver. (And makes the transition area immense. For some perspective, check out this picture on flickr. That's not my picture, but it's actually the section I was in...it was in the very back corner of the transition area. I was in the second-to-last row, a little farther to the right than that pic shows. You can't even see the front of the transition from back there.)

The swim waves were sent off in reverse age group order (after the Elites and Survivor groups), which meant that the faster (younger) swimmers were easily overtaking the swimmers from the wave (or even two) before them. The bike course went north on Lake Washington Blvd a bit and then made a quick set of turns and a short, steep climb up to the I-90 express lanes (from there it was an out and back of rollers to some point out on Mercer Island). That (narrow) hill with its sharp turns was enough to freak more than a few women out, and many stopped cold (in the middle of the lane) to get off of their bikes...which was fine unless you were right behind one of them. (I was, and almost had to ditch it into a crowd of volunteers and hay bales.) Coming back down that hill was almost as harrowing, with riders holding onto their brakes for dear life and crawling down at a snail's pace. Those were the two stress points of the race for me. Most of the run course was pretty easy, as well as just plain pretty. It went south on Lake Washington Blvd, so a lot of it was shaded and flat. Flat until the last half-mile or so, at which point the race coordinators decided to put in a hill climb on Genesee--at least there was a drum band at the base of it to give us an uplifting beat. (Not that it made me any faster. It was just something to listen to besides my bitchy knee.)

After that uphill climb, there was a gentle downhill and then a turn onto a path into the park and the finish line. After entering the park, I started running (slowly) again and managed to run (slowly) across the finish where a very young (and very cute) teenage boy put a medal around my neck. I leaned briefly against a fence pole to pull off my ankle strap and retrieve the timing chip to turn into one of the armada of volunteers sitting there waiting to collect the chips. I felt someone touch my hand and I looked up to see one of the ladies I went to dinner with the night before all smiling (and non-sweaty, clearly having finished quite awhile before) and issuing congratulations.

Then I grabbed a bottle of ice cold water and made my way (slowly) through the crowds back to the transition area to start getting my stuff together. I sat on the ground and started packing my stuff back into my bag, taking a moment to drop a Nuun tablet (tri-berry...heh) into an extra water bottle that I'd brought with me. I drank that while I finished packing and then finished it off in the car on the way home. I'd had some slight calf cramps during the race, so I figured I should get some electrolytes into my body.

When it came down to it, this race was mostly a mental challenge of convincing myself to keep moving forward regardless of the pain in my knee.

Despite all of that, it was easily as much, or more, fun than I hoped it would be. I wanna do it again. (Maybe with a little less knee fussiness.)

So, I managed to get up this morning and head over to the track for half an hour of sprint intervals. That was rough and exhilarating and exhausting and fun, all at the same time. And I don't think I've ever been more grateful for the support strap on my knee. Driving home was great, too--all the racer boys were out in their dorky team kit, riding around in bunches. So I got to watch their legs and tight little bottoms as I passed them, then sit and watch them catch up as I waited at stop lights. All while enjoying the weather, taking pulls of cold water out of my water bottle and bouncing around to Green Day in my little convertible.

Home meant food. Cold pizza, specifically. Mmm... Also, I popped The Tudors into the DVD player and watched some Jonathan Rhys Meyers hotness.

Somewhere amongst the eating and the television, I lost my motivation to go out and get my ride in. I don't know what exactly happened, but I was just feeling glued to the sofa. I just really, really didn't want to change clothes and take my road bike, Lola, out. So, I decided not to take Lola out.

Instead, I put on my Keens, grabbed my helmet and hopped on Eva, the singlespeed. We made our way down to Gasworks and then out to Logboom and back via the Burke. It was an awesome time. No computer, no heart rate monitor. Just sunshine, and a breeze, and a lot of pedaling goodness for a total of about 30 miles.

I need to remember that when I don't really feel like riding, that could very well be the perfect time for reintroducing some singlespeed-y fun back into my life. It was just about perfect today, at least.

That was a lot of workin' out for the weekend. I kick ass. :-)

So, I have this friend... (Don't we all?)

Anyway, this friend is always asking me for nutrition and workout information. Always. And, about once a year, the frequency of her questions ramps up to an almost feverish pitch.

I always answer her questions and share as much knowledge as I can. Sometimes I send her links to articles, or web sites, or discussion forums. She never follows through.

She's gotten close to following up a couple of times, but it's never actually happened. Last summer, she got a bike. True, it was a kind of crappy, heavy 3-speed...but it was functional and free. She rode it twice.

The questions have been ramping up again lately, and they reached a fever pitch late last week. Sure enough, she asked me for a beginner workout plan. I, of course, am always happy to share these things with people, but I long ago stopped thinking they will actually follow through. (That doesn't really mean I don't still occasionally feel disappointment and frustration about it, though.)

This time, her request came with a litany of health problems that pretty much excluded all forms of exercise except swimming, and the additional restriction of no budget for joining a gym. Here's the thing: I don't think you need a gym membership to build fitness, but if you can't run or bike (and you think walking is boring), and you don't have the money to pay for access to weights, cardio equipment, or a pool; or to buy an elliptical (or some other low-impact piece of cardio equipment) to use at home, I really don't know what to tell you. The lakes around here aren't quite warm enough yet for open water swims without a wetsuit.

I actually don't think she can't bike. I think she won't bike. I think it's easier for her to make up excuses for her inactivity than to get off of her butt and go do something.

Unfortunately, I also think that she is reaching that all too familiar and sad place that many sedentary people get to without realizing it: Won't has turned into Can't.

I hope she can turn it around, and I'll support her in any way that I can, but I'm not holding my breath.

Ahh...bike-related shopping. Such a joy. *grumble*

Actually, it is a joy as long as I'm at home and doing research on the interwebs. As soon as I go to an LBS, it becomes an exercise in frustration (with just a little smidge of rage).

At the moment, I'm trying to make a buying decision around a new set of wheels. In short: I need them. Being the fatty that I am, the wheels that came stock on my bike when I bought it last year are not holding up so well. They go out of true pretty easily, and currently my bike is sitting near my living room window with a couple of loose spokes and way wobbly-rotating back wheel.

Since I decided that I'm not going to let up on my riding, I decided that I should treat myself to new wheels. Part of me wanted to treat myself to a whole new bike, but I think I'm going to hold off on that until I'm ready to spend a bigger chunk of money and I have a better idea of what I want in a bike.

But, since I'm shopping for wheels, I figured I should get something gooood. Or, at the very least, strong...and pretty wouldn't be so bad either. In my roving interweb researching, I started ogling Chris King hubs. I'm familiar with these, in as much as I've seen them out in the wild and have always admired their killer aesthetic and lovely buzzy freewheel sound, but I didn't know much about them from a performance perspective. After many assurances that they were worth every penny, I started entertaining the notion that I may spend the extra coin to get some of my very own.

I priced a couple of different builds online with Chris King hubs, just so I would have a ballpark of "reasonable" when I went out to find a local builder.

*sigh*

I'll take this moment to say that over the past year I've had absolutely zero luck with finding an LBS to call my own in this city. Quite the sad state of affairs when you consider that cycling is such a common thing around here, and there are shops all over the place...

Anyway, armed with these baseline prices, I started visiting local shops. Grr.

One place was closed. Or, at least, their door was locked. Though the open sign was out and the lights in the shop were on. Ahh, well.

Another shop was helpful, but didn't offer Chris King hubs as an option, and was actively steering me toward 105 hubs, which I don't really think I'm interested in. (If I'm going to drop a chunk of change on something, I want something I now I'm going to be keeping for awhile. And his 105 price was considerably more than I can get the same rim built up on Ultegra elsewhere, and just a smidge above Dura Ace.) I want to support local shops, but not at the expense of getting what I want.

The last shop. Ugh. The last fucking shop was trying to steer me toward the least expensive options they had. To the point that they were practically selling me something crappier than I'm already freakin' riding.

I actually signed up for this blog about a year ago...I just never got around to using it.

I had just decided to do the Seattle to Portland and I was all kinds of excited about this new adventure. I call it a "new adventure" because at that point it had been about fifteen years since I'd really ridden a bike--the occasional one mile rides to the coffee shop on my Campus Green 1973 Schwinn Breeze excepted...oh, and the one time the summer before that I rented a bike with some friends and took in some sights on a nearby island.

I had intended to chronicle my (mis)adventures in bike shopping, accessory shopping, and clothing shopping here. And, of course, all of the hilarity that comes from an uncoordinated fat girl trying to actually ride her bike enough to get ready for a 200-mile ride.

I didn't actually do any of that. But, believe me, you would have laughed. A lot.

I did, however, complete the ride. And not without inflicting a certain amount of pain upon myself. There's YouTube video and shots on Flickr to prove all of this. (No, I'm not going to tell you how to find me in the masses. But, if you already know me, or have ridden with me, it's not that difficult to pick me out.)

So, why am I writing in this blog now? I dunno. Because it seemed like something to do?

No. Well, ok, yeah...that's part of it. But there's also a larger reason (no, I'm not referring to my ass).

I've decided to do the STP again this year. My original hope after completing last year's jaunt was that I could go into this year with the goal of being a One-Day Finisher. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. I've had enough injuries over the past year that kept me out of commission that there's no way I can get in (or rather, sustain) the kind of training that I would need to complete this ride in one day...not this year, at least.

So, in addition to trying my first sprint distance triathlon later this year, I'm also going to be gearing up for another STP.

Fatty's getting back on her bike...