One Down

The short version:

My hoped-for completion time: 2:00 at the most, anything less than 1:45 would be gravy

My unofficial completion time (based on my stopwatch): 1:22:50

My official completion time: 1:22:14

HOORAY!

And now, the gory details, for anyone who cares to read on:

Woke up at 5:30 am. Still on East Coast time, so this was not a problem. Headed out in the dark to Pleasanton. Travel time: 30 mins. No sweat. Found a parking spot. Found a spot in the transition area.

Now what? OK, need race number, timing chip, body marking.
Check, check, check. Arrange stuff in transition area. Look around. Hmmm, lots of people looking professional. Lots of body glide being applied. Many wetsuits. Did I mention that there was steam coming off the lake water in the morning air?

Swim:
Slower than I thought I'd swim but I didn't drown! Ended up doing a mix of freestyle and breaststroke. Didn't get kicked in the face. Goggles didn't leak. Remembered to fill up my swimcap with water for washing off feet at T1. Not fast but not the slowest in my wave either. All in all, not bad.

T1:
Man, it takes a long time to put on stuff. Forgot to put on sports bra. Remembered when I was almost ready to get my bike. Decided to forgo wearing one. Sometimes it's good to just be a B. Squeezed out about half a serving of one of those energy gel packets. EEEEEEEEWWWWW! Quick, get some water to wash that down with! OK, extricate bike from rack and let's go, go, go.

Bike:
I'd remembered to rack my bike in a pretty low gear so I made it up the hill out of the park no problem. Loved the bike ride. My legs felt good, not tired and my bike was a dream to ride. I passed a few people, a few people passed me. No cars to worry about as the course was well policed. Floated up the single hill that there was to climb. Before I knew it, I was back at the transition area. My watch read just over 50 mins. That meant that if I had a decent run, I'd totally come in under an hour and a half.

T2:
Remove helmet, put on cap, drink, force some more of that gel down and go, go, go.

Run:
Oh, man, got to pee. Never mind - mind over matter, you can hold it for 3 miles. Just run.
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Ack! Rock in heel, must stop. Dig out rock. Start running again. HILL!!! Walk up hill, there's no shame in that! Now run. Just run.

It felt awfully slow but I guess I was making progress. I passed some, and got passed by others. Just a little more, just a little further. Just keep running. Just keep breathing. Water station. Get water. Get water down wrong tube. Cough, cough. Just keep going. I need to finish this.

There it is, the finish line! Time to put on the afterburners.

The WHAT??

Hey, it's the whole gang, waiting for me and cheering! Woo-hoo!

I did it. (And, then, I finally found the bathroom.)

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Love You, Tomorrow

Eek! It's here. The triathlon is tomorrow. I've been on the East Coast all week and the flight back last night was delayed four hours which meant that I didn't get home till 2:30 am today. I took the day off work, got some sleep during the day and made my checklist of stuff. Tuesday night I had my first anxiety dream about the event: made it to the swim start but didn't know where my shoes or my bike were and my running shorts fell in the water. I did manage to get a couple of short runs, a single swim and two aikido training sessions (which I do want to blog about, but not in my current state of mind) in while in Princeton (lovely campus, by the way) so I don't feel completely unprepared. But still...

Let's see, my bike is on the car, ready to go, tires all pumped up, brakes checked. Helmet is in the back seat, check list is on the dining table along with the rest of my gear. I'll wear my swimsuit.

Just checked the weather. It's going to be in the mid-50s. Oh baby, the water is going to be cold. All the better to swim fast(er) in, I suppose.

Time to sleep.

Dawn Ride

I got up this morning to squeeze in a bike ride before work. The stars aligned just right so that my brother, who is staying with us, could watch the kids before he headed for work since M is off at 6:40. I was out the door at around 6:35 am. Still not quite light, but not pitch black anymore. I headed for my familiar 11 mi out and back with a little loop thrown in the middle. It runs right along Alameda Creek, into Coyote Hills Regional Park, along the San Francisco Bay and back home.

I saw no other bikers on the trail. A few walkers were sprinkled here and there, but I was cruising on my own. It was cold and, though I had thought ahead and dressed in layers, my hands and feet got chilly. No matter. It was time to pedal. Usually, I'm watching out that I don't run into somebody else. It was liberating to just go for it and have room. Not that I'm going at Tour de France speeds but still...

As I rounded the hill to head back home, I saw the sun peeking over the hills, a bright orange-red slice in the sky, and I smiled. This was totally worth it. In that moment, I felt like I could have ridden on forever. But it was time to get back to the kids, get ready for work, get going.

The good feeling stayed with me all day.

Bitten by the Bug

The triathlon bug that is. It started innocently enough: running three times a week, then I thought I'd get back in the pool because the summer was so hot and running at noon was sweltering, then I started riding my bike back and forth to aikido class and the pool instead of driving and coughing up the parking fee each time. Next thing I know, I'm surfing the web, looking for a triathlon to do.

Found one: See Jane Tri - all women, non-competitive, SHORT - 400 yd swim, 11 mi bike, 3.1 mi run. Better yet, the site is only a half hour drive away from home which means that I can get up relatively late for the 8 am start. Yeah, I'll be up at 5 am, but I think that will be nerves.

Oh, and it's two weeks away which means that I've been squeezing in biking, running, swimming and aikido into my weeks that are already full with work and family. Thank goodness I've got M backing me all the way. Wouldn't be able to do this without him. I think he secretly harbors this fear that I'm going to be trying for longer distance tris after this. All in good time, I think. Maybe when the boys are a little older. I want to see how this first one goes. I might hate it. Then again, I may love it.

I'm excited.

Lullaby, and Good Night

Maybe it's all this exercise but I find myself really looking forward to a good night's sleep these days. Sometimes, we even get one that's not interrupted by either one of the boys. Some good middle of the night quotes from them:

1. "My bed is messy."
2. "P is in the way." (P was asleep on the floor, between the boys' beds.)
3. "I'm scared." (Always a classic.)
4. "I need to go to the potty."
5. "P is snoring and it's annoying me."
6. "There's a gap (between my bed and the wall)."
7. "Sorry for waking you up." (Then don't wake us up!)

I hear the siren song again and it's only 9:24 pm. Does that just make me an old fuddy-duddy?

I don't care.

A Short Drive

My brother is moving closer to us! A new job has brought him to these parts. Today, he drove about 660 miles in just over 1o hrs to get from Idaho to CA. Needless to say, with that kind of drive between us, we haven't seen each other much these past few years. With four of us here in CA and five of them there, it just seemed like a logistical miracle to get us together once a year. Now, he and his family will be living just a 30 minute drive (weekend traffic conditions) away. Hooray!

We fought like crazy when we were little, as all siblings do (at least I think so). Then when we got to college, we got along much better. Finally, I moved away to go to grad school and I think that distance did make the heart grow fonder. We're really good friends now and I'm very much looking forward to seeing him and his family more often. Part of what I've missed, living here in the U.S., is having family close by. That has just changed.

Got a smile on my face. Life is good.

A Small Class

Doran Sensei taught on Tuesday at noon. There were just four students: a sandan (third degree black belt), a nidan (second degree black belt), a 2nd kyu (two ranks away from a black belt) and myself (5th kyu). It was like having a private lesson. Very cool. We worked on variations in response to yokomenuchi (strike to the side of the head). Sensei broke the techniques down very methodically into their component parts: entering, blending, redirecting and projecting. It made me think about how good it is to break things down in order to understand them, one piece at a time. Then put it all back together again and see if you can make it work.

Sometimes I really think I'm getting the hang of things and am not moving so robotically from one bit to the next. This was one of the times.

Thoughts on 100 and more

My grandmother lived to be 100 years old.

I've logged probably 100 days of running since I started Thanksgiving 2006.

I have over 100 hours of aikido training under my belt (pun intended).

I have 100+ cousins, if you count my extended family.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Read during one summer in college, not as a requirement. I must read it again soon.

C, the Roman numeral for 100. Also a vitamin.

Tried to make a list of 100 people I know that I'd like to find and connect with through Facebook and/or LinkedIn. Got to about 90. Only found 14. Get with it, people!

Using MyTravelMap, I've figured out that I've traveled to around 140 destinations in the US, Western Europe and Asia. There's still so much of the world to see!

This is my 100th post. Who would have thought I'd get this far? One hundred things about me? Maybe for the 200th blog entry.