San Diego Triathlon Classic Race Recap

Hello everyone!! Hope everyone had a great weekend and guess what? I have another race recap for you from the San Diego Triathlon Classic this weekend! This season started off slow with some clumsy accidents, but glad I’m getting into the rhythm of triathlon racing. Can’t believe there are just a couple more months of the 2016 triathlon season. Then time to eat a lot of donuts and get ready for 2017 race season ;) Friday morning started off with an hour bike ride before work just to spin out my legs and to make sure my chain was properly lubed (dry chain = THE WORST). Left work early to pick up my race packet because the race was on a Saturday this time around and took Elle on a run. She ran her first mile on Friday!! We are so excited for many more miles to come.

I went into this race with very, very, very low expectations. I started off the week with a sinus infection that still hasn’t fully cleared, and didn’t know how that was going to affect my race performance. Not to mention, the bike course was pretty killer and probably the most climbing I’ve done in a race to date. My expectations were so low to the point where I didn’t even bring a Breakaway Training shirt to change into after because I figured I would go home straight after the race. Because of the low expectations, I started the race super calm, which is extremely out of character for me. Woke up Saturday morning coughing up my lungs, clogged sinuses that were keeping me from breathing, changed into my tri kit, packed up some oatmeal to eat in the car, and we were off to Liberty Station for the race! I was racing the sprint and for some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to have all 100+ women starting the swim together. From where Elle and Anthony are watching, you can see all of our hot pink swim caps bobbing together in the water. The swim… was brutal. I am definitely not a strong swimmer and those 750 meters felt like a 1000. Plus, having so many women start at the same time did not help- it resulted in a lot of salt water intake, veering off course, and losing a lot of time going back on course and trying to sight. Needless to say, after this race and a good talk with Jason… I will most definitely be needing a swim coach!! Once I was out of the water, it was time to start the extremely hilly bike course! The course goes through Cabrillo National Monument as well as the Point Loma Naval base. So many riders were hopping off their bike to push it up some of the hills. Even though the course was tough, that was probably the most fun I’ve had during the bike portion of any duathlon and triathlon. There was constant winding and turning, nice rolling hills, great descents that helped me make up some time, and for once, it was nice passing people on hills instead of them passing me! Not to mention the beautiful views of San Diego at the top of every climb. The 5K was through a lot of dirt and trail, but after climbing a small bridge, it was flat the rest of the way! This reminded me that I need to run trail a lot more often- Dirt is a lot harder to run in than pavement. To be perfectly honest, I felt like I was doing this entire race in slow motion. From being sleep deprived, sick, and delirious, I really do not know how I got from start to finish. Finished in an hr and 43 minutes with a whole lot of motivation to ride a lot more. Cycling when you’re not breaking things is kind of fun. Shout out to these two for running along side me at some points to take all the great photos above and waking up at an ungodly hour on Saturday to come watch me race. Elle told me I owe her a new toy and like 5 extra hours at the dog park this week. Had a lot of fun running into my two teammates above. Brent did the Olympic distance and finished 4th in his age group and Gunnar finished third overall in the Sprint!!! We are so grateful for the constant support from the BT coaches (Felipe, Luke, Adam, and Chris), our sponsors, and our tri community. Being part of the Orange Family is 90% why I am starting to like triathlon a lot more than just running, despite being the worst swimmer and cyclist in the world. Need a coach? Breakaway Training is the way to go! Oh, remember how I had zero expectations? I told Anthony before we were about to leave that I wanted to see what my time was. Found out I somehow placed second in my age group and top 20 in females. I guess none of us really knew how to climb that hill that day! Instead of leaving, we stayed for the award ceremony. With 12 girls in my age group this time around, it finally felt like a real podium… but where are number 1 and 3?! C’mon ladies! A really big fan of the podium medals. All in all, I felt like this is one of the best races I’ve been to in the multisport world. It was extremely well organized, had a designated parking lot for athletes that was less than a block away from the transition area, and really awesome swag- trucker hats for the win! Despite the tough course, this is definitely a race I’m coming back for.

Biggest takeaways from this race:

– BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE AND THEN BIKE SOME MORE

– Climb some hills

– Don’t get sick and bring a jacket everywhere you go just in case

– I need a swim coach ASAP After the race, I had to head to the airport in two hours to visit my best friends in San Francisco but before we left.. these two really needed to squeeze in a power nap. Spectating is exhausting business ;)

Belated Donut Celebrations and Back to the Long Runs!

Happy Monday! Ready to start a great week? I am so excited to get through Monday-Thursday because from Friday- Sunday, I am going up to San Francisco! I am going up for a work event and Anthony is coming. When I’m not working, I’ll be visiting all of my friends that moved to San Francisco after graduation. Favorite city with my favorite friends- it’s going to be a good time!! The lines for all donut shops on National Donut Day were crazy!!! I postponed the celebration until Saturday morning. After an hour and twenty minutes on the trainer, this coconut chocolate donut sure hit the spot. The rest of Saturday consisted a lot of relaxing, time on the couch, and with my good friend, Netflix. Bo Burnham just came out with a new comedy piece that Anthony and I found hilarious. Near tears at some of his jokes!! This Snapchat was pretty accurate with a cute snoozing pup next to us:) Sunday ended up being a lot more of a productive day, starting with an early puppy training class, then acai bowls in Pacific Beach. Does anyone else have problems with their name being spelled correctly? Happens to me all the time no matter where I go. Post acai bowls was time to go up to Encinitas for a new bike helmet at my favorite bike shop, Nytro Multisport, and then a visit to the best dog park I’ve ever been to. Anyone in San Diego with a pooch, I highly recommend the Encinitas Community Park. It is family and kids friendly with baseball and football fields, play areas, and a skate park!Does anyone know how we can get a puppy to look at the camera? Since we don’t end up in Encinitas very often, we wanted to take advantage of local hot spots and of course, had to cross of a brewery on our list, the Lost Abbey. And finished off the day with 7 treadmill miles. Great way to end the day and I’m so happy to be incorporating long distance running back into my schedule 5 weeks after surgery. I was feeling pretty bummed when I woke up this morning because it was the first time in 4 years I wasn’t doing some version of the Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon or Full Marathon. Excited to get back out there soon stronger than ever. Had to sit on the ground for awhile after that one. Thank goodness for a cold bottle of water and Miss USA playing at the gym to keep me entertained during my stretch and cool down period.

SoCal Ragnar Relay Recap: Best 2 Days of My Life

Good morning everyone! Hows your Tuesday going so far? My past two mornings have been a little tough getting out of bed post-Ragnar and my brain has felt like mush up until today, so I can finally type out a recap! Let me just start off by saying, Ragnar was the most incredible experience. The teamwork, the friendships, the laughter, the running, the sleep deprivation… 100% worth it for this experience. We made sure we packed a lot of food and baby wipes to last us through the next few hours!I was in van 2, so we couldn’t start running until van 1 one finished their first legs. We got to start a little bit later (sorry van 1 for having to wake up at 5) and drove to exchange 6 to hang out, stretch, check out the expo they had, and stock up on Nuun! Here comes Janice, meaning it was our turn to start!And van 2 has started! Brandon was leg 7 and I was leg 8, so I spent the entire time during his 12 miler feeling extremely impatient to start running. I wasn’t scheduled to run until 5:50PM and as a morning runner, I experienced a lot of angst waiting for my turn. The last few minutes before Brandon was scheduled to come in so I could take off! For Ragnar, any time from 6:30PM-6:30AM is considered night time and you have to be wearing reflective gear- even though I started my leg around 5:50PM, it was going to be considered “night time” once I started going. My first leg was 9.3 at 7:55 min/ mile! My coach and I discussed Ragnar strategy of having two tempo runs and 1 marathon goal pace run during Ragnar. I didn’t believe I could do it and kind of regretted how fast I ran the first leg!!  This one was a little tougher- 5.4 miles in the dark at 2:30AM! I was definitely feeling a little anxious about running this leg, especially since the longer your leg is, the less people in between you there are. However, something about the fear and adrenaline caused this leg to be ran at a 7:56 min/mile average, knocking my two tempo runs out of the way! The next morning after our van finished by 6AM, we found the nearest Denny’s we could for real food. Even diner food tasted good after nothing but peanut butter, bread, pretzels, and bananas. It didn’t necessarily feel good a few hours later, but no regrets in the moment. My last leg was the toughest- 8.8 miles through La Jolla. I was definitely familiar with my surrounds and where I was running since I’ve ran a lot in these areas but I didn’t know if my legs could handle such heavy elevation. Finished in 9:19 min/mile, 19 seconds slower than my marathon goal pace! I’ll attribute that to all the hills ;) Anthony and I both finished our legs! Time for 3 more teammates to finish theirs before we have finished our FIRST RAGNAR! Rachel was our last leg so we were so excited to run to the finish line with her. She absolutely killed it, sprinting the 100 meters, making it very hard for us to follow! 29 hours, 22 mins, something seconds later, and our SoCal Ragnar Relay was done! We probably got a total of 2 hours sleep during that entire trip, but it was well-worth it. I am hooked and ready to relay again! Medals and beer- the perfect combo. Cheers to the perfect and best 2 days of my life! Oh yeah, my legs were in serious need of some TLC after. These elevation legs were great and served as massaging compression socks. I was a little skeptical at first but once they started, I was in heaven.