Just over 2 weeks ago the day had finally come, and we headed to Capitola for the triathlon. We checked into our hotel on Friday afternoon, and my lovely teammate/roommate Dianne and I just chilled out and relaxed – taking it easy!   That night we packed and packed (and checked and double checked) all of our gear.  I put the names of my personal honorees on the purple wings I got from Debra (our honoree captain) – these names, along with our team honorees that were listed on a card that I attached to my run belt would help inspire me when I needed motivation during the event.

We got an early night, and both of us woke up super early and got ready for our big day!  There was a lovely surprise on our hotel door in the morning – our mentors had made inspiring posters of us both and had taped them to our door (along with some streamers!).

We had some breakfast (a little hard to eat that early!) and met our teammates and wonderful coaches, captains and mentors in the hotel lobby.

We all cycled in the dark (with headlights of course!) to the transition area.  We picked our spots and set up.  Here’s Sue and I at our transition spot – we had our numbers marked on us and were ready to go!

We headed down to the beach and got ready for the start.  The sun was starting to rise and we helped eachother get into our wetsuits.

It was time to get in the water to get acclimated – it was pretty chilly!

Then we were off! Our lovely sprint teammates (thanks Dianne and Marlene!) cheered us on as we ran into the water. (I believe we have Coach Drew to thank for the gorgeous  panoramic photo below).

I really focused on not going out too fast, but that far away buoy seemed oh…..so…..far…..away!  We bumped into eachother frequently but I must say everyone was most polite with saying ‘sorry’ and smiling at eachother.  The swim was HARD.  We had plenty of practices in the open water but on the day of the event there was quite a swell and it made swimming more difficult.  For me I just kept focusing on getting to the next buoy – one step (or stroke!) at a time. I know many of my teammates also struggled with the swim – but we all ended up completing it thanks to the wonderful training we all got – we were PREPARED!

Finally the end of the swim was near – it was quite a challenge to exit the water without faceplanting from the waves but I managed it.  My legs felt like jelly as I made my way up the sand – I think I was wobbling all over the place.

It was awesome to see friendly, familiar faces cheer us on as we made our way to the transition area.  It took me several attempts to get my flip flops on, but finally I did it and I started my way up the hill.  I was fairly shattered and remember thinking to myself how on earth I was going to get on my bike, but I kept going and this was certainly one of the many times where thinking of my honorees helped get me through.  As I got to the transition area I saw several teammates already there – was great that many of us finished the swim around the same time.  I took off my wetsuit, rinsed my feet and dried off, and was eternally grateful for the practice triathlon (and practice transitioning) we had done in training.  Helmet on, and off I went on the bike!

It really helped that we had already done most of the bike course in a preview training session in August.  I knew the Rio Del Mar hill was approaching, and was definitely prepared for it! I made it up without getting off my bike, and was relieved that the first tough hill was behind me.  The bike ride was actually really enjoyable – loved having all the policemen out there waving us through the stop signs, and the actual course is gorgeous.  We had beautiful views of the ocean, and saw some lovely vineyards.

Since the course was (partially) out and back I got the opportunity to see many other teammates on the ride and it always perked me up to see a familiar face. I loved seeing the coaches out there, and appreciated the heads-up from Coach Marc (looking gorgeous in a tutu) that I was approaching the last big hill.  This was Spreckles – a hill I didn’t manage to make it up during the training course preview and I was determined to make it up that day.  I started the climb, and hadn’t yet got to the lowest gear yet, and went to change down to a lower gear when, uh-oh, I accidentally shifted up.  At that stage I pretty much came to a stand still, so did end up getting off the bike but only had to push it a short way up the hill.  Oh well – one day I’ll tackle that hill!

I finally managed to make it back to the transition area, put my bike away and got ready for the final run.  As I ran out it seemed like there was hardly anyone on the course – I guess we’d spread out a bit by then.

I’d been running just under a mile when I got a lovely surprise – my gorgeous teammate Anastasia caught up to me and we started running together.  Was great to catch up, and we decided that we would complete the run together and wouldn’t worry about trying to complete the run as fast as we could.  I think this was awfully generous of Stasia as she would definitely have done the run faster than me!  We chatted about how the course had been so far, and cheered as we saw our teammates coming back the other way.  This was another place where we truly appreciated seeing our coaches out there cheering us on – helped get us both in really good spirits and I have some of my fondest memories of the day from that last hour of the run.  It was a little challenging having to do the same loop 3 times, but again it gave us an opportunity to see teammates we hadn’t so far seen on the race.  It was on our first loop that I saw Sue (speedy Sue!) for the first time on the course.  Was just great to see her – she was on her last loop and on her way to the finish line.  Stasia’s husband Max found us and ran with us for a while – it was great to meet him (and apparently he is getting inspired by his lovely wife and getting more into running etc himself – a future TNT participant perhaps!).  He had his camera with us and took some photos.

Was a great feeling to complete the 3rd and final loop of the run, and make our way toward the beach.  Just as we were about to veer right back on to the beach I slipped on some sand on the sidewalk and went for a bit of a tumble. The people around me were ever so nice,and Stasia helped me get up but luckily it was only a grazed knee and I was able to keep running.  We wanted to run strong to the finish line, so we made our way across the sand and on to the more packed sand near the water, and had great big smiles on our faces as we got closer and closer to the finish line.

Finally we were at the finishing shoot – and we heard our names called out!  Yet again we saw coaches, mentors, captains and teammates (including many who weren’t doing the tri but had made a special effort to come out to support us) at the finish line and we felt fantastic!  I love this photo of Stasia – her expression and body language certainly captures the moment.

Finally we crossed the finish line!

We were greeted by lots of hugs and loads of smiles, and was just awesome to see the lovely Sue there to greet us.  We were done – yay!!!!

I had made a little detour to the medical tent to get my knee looked at – was good to sit down (thanks Carlos for the photo of my best ‘I’m wounded’ impersonation!).

It was a totally awesome day, to finish off a totally awesome season! Thanks to my wonderful friends and family I raised over $2600 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, and it was an absolute pleasure to participate in the training program run through this amazing organization.  I’ve met some incredible people, and will remember this day, and this wonderful season always!

G O  T E A M ! ! !

Down to our final month.  I’ve been loving the new bike and on August 25th we covered almost 30 miles.  Was a great ride.  Here’s a photo of us somewhere on Canada Rd having a little break  – thanks to Aimee for the picture.

Here’s the route

Next post will be after the triathlon!

So far I’ve been training on a hybrid bike that I borrowed from a friend, and that was great for getting me back into cycling and for my first couple of months of training.  Last week I decided to take the plunge and buy a new road bike!  I visited the great folks at Chain Reaction in Redwood City, and they were very helpful.  Here’s what I ended up with – a ‘Trek Domane 2.0’ – it’s a pretty nice bike!

new Trek bike!

Yesterday after an hour in the pool we went on a 24 mile ride so that was a great way to test out my new bike.  It was a gorgeous ride and a gorgeous day, and I definitely noticed a difference riding a road bike.

Aug 11 ride

Last weekend we did went down to Capitola for a preview of the mighty mermaid course.  Was good to get a sense of what the ocean open swim was like, and I managed to swim around the pier twice.  After that it was a 19 mile ride, again riding along some of the actual course.

Mighty mermaid 'preview ride' in Capitola

We saw some beautiful scenery – the course goes along the coast for a bit and through some pretty rolling hills.  There were a few absolute killer hills – I was able to stay on the bike for most of them, but ended up walking my bike up the last couple!  We finished off the day with a 2 mile run, which was a little challenging after the long ride, but we managed to complete it.  It was great to get a preview of the course!

It’s a little challenging to try and fit in workouts while on vacation, but I was able to get some training in.  I spent the weekend in Sydney with my twin sister Laurel, and didn’t manage any training there, but from Sunday through Thursday I was in beautiful Mooloolaba in Queensland which was a perfect place to get some workouts in.

Mooloolaba is a gorgeous beach town, so I got a couple of hour long runs in.  This isn’t a bad view for a run.

Mooloolaba beach, Queensland, Australia

Mooloolaba run

I checked out the Olympic pool in Maroochydore on my run – and was able to get an hour swimming there another day.  It’s a gorgeous aquatic complex right on the beach.

Aquatic park, Maroochydore

And of course, being on the beach I did have a quick swim in the ocean, but didn’t stay in too long (the water was pretty chilly!).

quick swim in the ocean

Finally for some cycling training I just popped into a local gym and spent some time on the stationary cycle.

I got back yesterday (Friday), and tomorrow we have a ‘dummy run’ of the Mighty Mermaid course in Capitola.  Hoping the jetlag doesn’t kick in – will be good to get a preview of the course.

This morning was our first ‘open water swim’.  We met at Coyote Point in San Mateo, and the first thing we did was pick up our wetsuits (we are very lucky in that we get given them as part of training with TNT).  We had some lessons in ‘how to put a wetsuit on’, and ‘how to prevent chafing with a ton of body glide’, and most people managed to get them on without too much effort.

all about wetsuits

Coyote point was a great place to have our first open water swim.  For a start the water was a good temperature, and given it was low tide we were able to touch the bottom throughout the entire swim!  As usual TNT coaches were awesome, giving us all the support we needed and being out in the water on kayaks in case anyone freaked out (no one did!).  The actual experience of swimming in open water with a wetsuit on was quite different than pool swimming – the cold water certainly took your breath away, and swimming in the murky water took some getting used to.  The great thing about having a wetsuit on is that you literally CANNOT sink!

We ended up swimming for around 50 minutes – and probably did close to the distance of the Olympic tri distance on 0.93 miles – so we are definitely getting closer to being ready  for this! After the swim we did a short 40 minute run.

Here’s teammate Sue and I before we went in the water:

ready to swim in San Francisco Bay!

Last weekend we did another great swim, bike AND run at Burgess Park in Menlo Park again.

My challenge now is a vacation in Australia! I’ll continue my training while I’m there – most likely that will include an ocean swim in Mooloolaba.

And when I’m back in early August we head down to Capitola for our ‘dummy run’ – where we’ll see the actual course.  Stay tuned!

Yesterday we had or first bike/run ‘brick’.  We met at Almaden Lake in San Jose, and started with an out and back ride along Santa Teresa Blvd.  This was our longest ride yet, but it wasn’t particularly hilly.

The ride took around 1:30 (I started my iPhone ‘mapmyrun’ way too early which is why this chart is off).  When we finished the ride we put our bikes on our cars and headed out for a short 2 – 2.5 mile run.  When I first heard we were only going 2 miles I thought that seemed very short, but these coaches know what they are doing and there was a reason it was only that distance!  When I started running my legs felt like jelly and I really struggled to get going.  In addition it was starting to warm up in San Jose, and that 2 miles ended up being quite a challenge.  Certainly a wake-up call, and a realization that you need to get super fit to complete a triathlon – lucky I still have almost 3 months to go until my event.

We’ve learned a load of things in our first month of training, and have already put in some good miles on the bike and in the pool. One of our first sessions was at Sports Basement in Sunnyvale where we had a bike clinic.  Apparently flats are inevitable, so first thing to learn was how to change a tire!

Sports basement has a great variety of sports gear, and we ended the day learning about what kind of ‘gear’ we should get (triathlons of course require way more gear than running!) – I’m starting slow and just picked up a couple of bathing suits.

In June we started our swim/bikes at Burgess Park in Menlo Park.  What a great facility that is – Menlo Park residents are very lucky to have it!

Typically we start in the pool for about an hour of drills and swimming, followed by a bike ride around Menlo Park/Atherton/Portola Valley.  It’s literally been years since I’ve ridden a bike, and I was nervous about riding in traffic, but TNT manage the training schedule very well and we started with a very easy ride around Atherton.  Every week we add a few miles and some hills, and by June 30th we were up to a 14 mile ride that went up past 280 and into Portola Valley.

I’m getting way more comfortable on the bike, and I’m looking forward to going even further over the next couple of months.  Swimming and Cycling has been a great way to start my Saturdays!

It’s been almost 2 years since I completed the Nike Women’s Marathon, and I’m thrilled to have signed up for yet another season with Team in Training. This year I’m trying something different – my first ever Triathlon! I’m going to be swimming/cycling/running in the ‘Mighty Mermaid’ triathlon on October 6th in Capitola. Over the season I’ll be posting updates on this blog www.motivatedtotri.com.

I am participating in honor of my co-worker John, who was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in November 2010. He has kept an amazing positive outlook and sense of humor as he has gone through his treatment, and even kept a blog – jg will kick its ass. John was also featured in this fortune article.

He has been a huge supporter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and helped raised over 13,000 dollars for LLS. John had a stem-cell-marrow transplant in March 2011 and is recovering well. While he is dealing with some chronic graft vs host disease, there is currently no sign of leukemia. You can read all about his status (and see pictures of his beautiful family) on the aforementioned blog. We are very happy to have him back with us in the office!

I am also participating in memory of Larry. Larry was a fellow TNT participant in the Summer 2010 season – here is a photo of us just before we were about to run the Nike Marathon in October 2010. Larry is on the left.

In December 2010 Larry was diagnosed with Acute Lymphatic Leukemia, and sadly passed away in February 2011. Larry ran 25 marathons to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Countless lives have been saved thanks to research funded by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, but still more needs to be done to fine a cure for ALL forms of leukemia, lymphoma and other blood-related illnesses. I am completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers. These people are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line – a cure!

Please consider making a tax deductible donation to support my participation in Team and Training and help advance LLS’s mission. My TNT page is here.