Race, Strain, Recover, Push, Race, Celebrate, Crash!

Wow! What a week. We are in the thick of tri season and summer has arrived. I've had 8 races in 9 weeks with 5 more weekends of tri's in the next six weeks before the Ironman Florida training focused training kicks in. E has 5 down and 3 to go.

Last weekend was an emotional Waconia tri, the MN Best of the US qualifier. Going into it E and I were both gunning for some improvement. The ultimate goal for me would be to come out of T2 in first and pull off a win to claim the championship spot for MN female. The start of the day E and I were in our fleece tops and full pants. This is the end of June in MN? Temps weren't bad, but the the WINDS were the worst I've ever had (well that I can remember swimming in anyway). So basically the swim SUCKED! E said he drank about half the lake. I think most were on the swim/ breast stroke plan just to survive. 1/2 mile accurate swim and it took me just under 18 min (normally around 14), crap - I have some work to do. The bike went as planned and came into T2 in first with the 4 mile run. I pushed hard knowing what was on the line and the thick and super talented field of runners. by mile 2.5 my right hammy started to seize - CRAP! I tried to run it out, but the hills didn't help - I had to slow up a tad just start shaking the legs. Marlo passed as I continued to struggle with the leg. one more up hill past the park and down hill to the finish... could I hang on?? well the other hammy had that answer... Double crap! Double seize on the hammys with about 1 mile to go. Peg leg running.... well that was me! I stopped to stretch just to survive the last mile. Hung on to 2nd. Congrats to Marlo for being a rock-star athlete. E had a great race, despite the water log gut during the bike.

By Tuesday I was in for heavy massage work and wed skipped my first Black dog TT in years to work on recovery of the legs. We were both racing a sprint tri on Sat and kept training light for most of the week to be as healthy as possible for the long term.

Our 4th of July was pretty low key, including some R&R relaxing on the deck.... so relaxed that Erik applied sunscreen like it would naturally spread itself out. Oh and just cuz some men have hair on their legs doesn't mean that you won't burn. Unfortunately E was looking streaky red on the top half and just plain red on the legs. Bound to feel really good with the bike shorts on Sat am. Friday night we stayed at my sister Shelly's, to be a lot closer to race start. we had a little B-day celebration with her (hers is on the 6th) and some yummy dinner.

4:30 Sat am I roll over and give E a kiss as it is our 12th anniversary and we get to go to our happy place - another race with so many friends. E says to me on the way to the race...I don't think I can do this, my sun burn hurts so bad on my legs. Once we arrived, got settled and on our warm up he realized the other pains, actually we both did - our quads and gluts See on Thursday we did this great strength workout that we did for most of the winter 2x's/wk. problem was, it had been maybe 2 months since we've done the full routine and the 2 day sore effect was in full force. Our biggest killer - Jump lunges for 1 min straight followed by a 1 min squat hold. YIKES! We were so sore. We left the pain killers at Shelly's. We took it on full force and finished faster than last yrs time - me by 45 or so seconds and he by couple minutes. I finished 2nd for the 3rd tri in a row and this one had a some anniversary dinner cha-ching to go with it.

To celebrate we had a fun dinner our with some non tri friends that think were crazy to celebrate by racing and training. E and I enjoyed yummy pasta meals and cocktails/beers of choice to prepare for our group century ride Sunday AM. Our tolerance is so low that I think we were both home and crashed in front of the TV by 9 pm. Too funny!

So this morning Merilee, Jen and Marty came over for what was to be our longest ride of the yr. Objective: 100 miles. We pull out of the drive way around 8:15 with 70 degrees and partly cloudy - A perfect day for a ride. About 5 miles in and I hear this "AARRHHH!" I look back and Jen is ass over tea kettle - crashing her new bike! Yes we as triathletes seem to be so concerned about our gear. But Jen pulled off a full fledged somersault with the bike. The gymnast in her really shined and she rolled with grace. A quick mind, body and bike check and we're off and peddling again. We're rolling right along with some great tail wind sections hitting mid to upper 20 mph on the flats - way fun line riding. Great job pulling us for so long Marty. We manage to get lucky dodging a few other obstacles when at mile 56 E's front wheel gets caught in the eroding part of the black top. His quick reflexes yank his foot out and skids like Fred Flinstone would putting on the brakes. The dump for him ended with a large road rash just on his cute little butt cheek in the middle of a two lane road. I was riding right behind him and couldn't avoid the loss of control and managed to take a quality spill myself. The second I realized I'm down and in the middle of the road I see Erik saying "shit" grabbing his bike and moving to the skinny shoulder. I look back and no cars are coming over the slight rise. We do a quick body check for each of us. I took it pretty hard on my left side, no broken parts, but road rash central and a cracked helmet. We survived, fixed E's flat that he got in the process of the incident, and rode on... well for as long as we could. E's tire had skid against this ridge of the road so much that it tore right thru the side walls. A few minutes after the fix he officially blows out the tire. We call Jmac for a Sag wagon ride for E. Thank Jules for saving us!!! 4 of us rode those few miles to Julie's house, got cleaned up and I realized that I shouldn't ride anymore. E thought an urgent care trip for a scan was in order to test for concussion. We skipped that as I still had dilating pupils and just plain refused to go - I'm fine. E and I drove Julie's 4runner with bikes in back to our house and Julie joined MS, MW and JL for more riding. I'm happy to have heard there were no more crashes, and most posted their longest and more epic rides of the season!

It's been a pretty emotional roller-coaster of a week, but with today's experiences and thinking of what could have been with our crashes..... I'm so thankful for a wonderful husband, the best soul mate I could ever meet and the gift to live another day to live laugh and love.

Ride safe and keep the rubber side down.