Thursday, June 26, 2014

Mohican Endurance Festival - Sprint Triathlon

The Mohican area in Ohio is a gorgeous place that I enjoy visiting to hike any season of the year.  It is most famous for its forests, river, gorges, mountain bike trails, and in general just about any type of outdoor recreation.  It seems like every time I'm there I stumble upon some crazy race going on.  This weekend it was a 50 mile and 100 mile trail run.   Those athletes are super humans!

When I saw HFP Racing announce they were going to hold a triathlon there for the first time, I knew I wanted to sign up!  I did the mini distance last September at Portage Lakes and figured I would try sprint this year.  750 meter swim, 20 k bike, and 5 k run.  Sounded like a good idea in January when I signed up at least! As the date approached I just felt my swimming was still verrrrry weak.  I swam at least once a week all winter / spring and then everyday once summer hit and I could swim in our pond.  I still couldn't go 50 meters without being out of breath.  I took the open water swim clinic they had the day before and it eased my mind a bit (I wasn't as bad as I thought when comparing myself to the others) but I still was nervous about how far it was and more importantly how bad I would do.  I set the goal of being top 50% in my age group.

The race:

Swim time plus time it took to trudge up a loooong steep, muddy trail (mostly walking per advice from others)  = 16:41.  I definitely side stroked just as much as front crawl.  It seemed to keep me in the ballgame though so I can't complain.  Lots of improvement can be made here though!

Bike section was rumored to be realllllly hilly, including a climb over a mile in length, but I didn't think it was bad at all!  Time = 43:06 (avg 17.3 mph).  It rained the whole time so I braked a lot on down hills and turns since the roads were slick.

Run was way more hilly than my jelly legs wanted it to be.  Time = 27:30.


My total time was 1:29 which gave me 2nd in my age group.  I was happy!

green swim cap.  nick took the photo when I was actually swimming right! 
up a long trail towards transition


I must have been going so fast, it was a blur ha

Uphill finish!



Ironman - Blaine Style

My son declared the he "has to do an Ironman everyday".  The way he says the word "Ironman" is SO DARN CUTE!   Upon further questioning, I learned that an Ironman consists of swimming, baking pies, and mole catching but he is actually still training.  Once his birthday comes and he is 4, then he will be ready for his Ironman.

HAHAHA KIDS!

I only have photos of swim, bike, run; no baking pies or mole catching on film yet. ;)
check out the goggles and look of determination.....



the only athlete in the family dedicated enough to swim when it is 61 and windy

BIKE

RUN

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

SUMMER!


The lazy days have arrived!  Sleeping in until 9.  Swimming everyday.  Nothing on the schedule of any significance. Ahhhh, life is great!

Thanks for all the positive thoughts; all my tests came back FINE so I feel a lot more at ease about trying for another baby in the future without worrying something is wrong with my body.

I am training for a sprint triathlon in June that has a 750 meter swim [triple yikes].  I'm still trying to get my swim under control because the race I did last September was 250 meters so that is a big jump.

We are going to Seattle in July to visit my sister.  Blaine will be there for his 4th birthday so he is super pumped and talks about it a lot.  However, he is convinced he is 5 years old right now.  Ha.  We'll have his Ohio party when we get back.

P.S.  Sorry this blog has been so neglected!  My computer is on the fritz so I use the Ipad instead; posting from there is a pain so I just don't.    I still read all of your blogs but sometimes don't comment because the Ipad is always difficult and won't let me backspace when typing a comment and making an error.

Easter photo shoot by Mom-Mom!

37 peeps this year!

4 baby swans!