forgot to mention...

I had my best 5k time ever at 5 Mile this weekend :) I averaged at 7:35 mile pace! Super!

first race of the season!

Well, it came and went. And it went stupendously!

I went down to my mom's last night so I'd be right by the race course. Sleeping in my old high school bedroom was a little odd- it always is. I just couldn't sleep last night, it was so hot.

Anyway, I woke up at 6 this morning, got dressed and tried to eat some breakfast. Mmmm, peanut butter and strawberry jelly Uncrustables (trust me, they're great!). Unfortunately, that was all I got since I forgot the second one and my banana at my mom's.

We left for the course at 6:30 and I quickly set up my transition area (perfect rack assignment). Almost immediately I run into Misha from work. We ALWAYS find each other right away. I chat briefly with some other members of RTB and hit the bathrooms twice before running a warm up lap around the park. Somehow, time got away from me so I didn't get a warm up swim in. Oh well. I was feeling excited.

I was in the third (of four) waves and waited patiently chatting with other athletes. And then we were off. I didn't have the best swim, but it wasn't bad. I flew through T1, only getting hung up on my timing chip with my wetsuit for a moment, mounted my bike and was off. This was the first time racing this bike with a computer on it. And only my second time racing it!!! There was a lot of leapfrogging between me and a couple other girls. I came to found out later that we were the leaders!!!

Again, I zoomed through Transition and was off on the run. And I was feeling super. Incredible. Amazing! And then a couple minutes into it, I got passed by a woman like I was standing still (she went on to be the first woman finisher and beat me by over 4 minutes- posting an 18 minute 5k!!!) And then I think two more woman passed me-but that was it! I kept them in decent sight at least. However, there were two waves of women, so I wound up 9th woman overall. 2nd in my AG out of 11, and 43 person out of 229. Not a bad finish!

My mom got some decent pictures. But the best is the video she got of me running out of the water and blowing a snot rocket as I passed her. Classy!

I leave in a couple days for Ironman CDA as a finish line volunteer. I'm super excited!

happy day!!!

It's my birthday!!!!

Hooray! The big 2-9 today! And the weather is Seattle is stupendous! What a fabulous couple of weeks we've been having. Last night I hooked up my new cadence/speed sensor to my bike- however I didn't take it out. I was all primed for a run. 2 miles downhill, 2 miles back UP hill. The first 1.5 a gradual climb back up and then nearly the last half mile hitting a 9% grade. And I'm so proud of myself. I kept it steady on the downhill and rocked the climb. My Garmin showed a pretty smooth line, and for 4 miles I ran just over 33 minutes. Not stellar by any means, but that hill... seriously. It usually makes me walk!

Hooray!

melty

Short and sweet. I live in the Seattle area. We are famous for rain and gray. Or that's what everyone thinks at least. We usually get one week in July that's insanely hot (for us) somewhere in the 90's, and then for the most part the rest of our summer is beautiful. 70's and 80's with some rainy days here and there to keep everything green. Well, these past couple weeks have been unusually toasty. I just heard on the news that the the city over from where I live hit 98 today. Ugh! Not very windy- so more humidity than I'd like.

On the plus side- the winds have kicked up pretty good tonight so I'm taking full advantage of getting some gusts through my bedroom before I shut down for the night. At least it's only supposed to be 76 tomorrow, and then 69 on Saturday when I do a practice run at next weekend's sprint course.

Okay, time to lose some clothing and try to get comfortable instead of sweltering!

yes, i would like something to eat...

I met with a nutritionist and dietitian last week. I've been in kind of a slump over the past few months just not really feeling like I was putting everything out there that I could during a workout and not recovering from them very quickly either. It's hard to have the constant lead-legs feeling.

Well, unsurprisingly- they don't think I eat enough. Based on my body fat, age, weight, etc they say I should be eating about 2400 a day-- when i DON'T workout. And then on those big workout days- you know a 18 mile run or 50 mile ride I get to chow down on about 4500 to 5000. Hooray! And they think I need to gain just a couple pounds. Permission to eat? Yes!!!

However, this is much harder than I thought. I feel like I'm never really at home- and I honestly haven't been much. Between work, working out, friends and hanging out with a boy- I feel like I've only spent enough time at home to sleep, do laundry and repack gym bags. Oy. Luckily the boy feeds me pretty well. Last night was some delicious BBQ followed by chocolate cake while watching a movie. A girl could get used to that!

In short, I'm really trying to keep a better eye on my protein/carb intake. Apparently I tend to overestimate the amount of calories in food.

For example- Saturday morning I got up at six and very slowly got myself ready to run up in Lake Stevens. I was planning on doing as much of the could do of the 70.3 course safely. (I wound up doing 18 miles). However, I only ate two hard-boiled eggs, a bagel and some mixed nuts before I ran. I drank Gatorade Endurance the entire time and took two GU. And when I finished- my feet hurt!!! I tried to nosh on some more nuts but they were seriously gagging me. Luckily, I'd thrown some Perpetuem powder into a bottle so I was able to get some calories from there.

I guess I recovered pretty well. Enough for another fire pit/s'mores night anyway :)