One Month Later - October 10th, 2014

It's been a month or so since my last entry, not too much training-wise that's all that amazing. Had a rough week of training the first week, with a hellacious 12 mile run. Decided to cut back the following week, which ended up being perfect because I was going out to volunteer at IM Choo and didn't have time to run while I was there. I was on my feet most of the day though, so I think it evened out. I'll document that experience after catching up with the rest. The following week was better on the running. I did 13.1 this past weekend and did it in 2:21. That was the day after my 2.4 mile open water swim at Jordan Lake. Took the open water swim kind of easy. I wanted to make sure I could still do it. The water was 75 degrees and didn't feel too bad. It was sunny, so I opted to wear my tinted goggles, but they were not cleaned as well as I thought, and my eyes were burning for almost the entire race (not to self, buy new tinted goggles). I also had to stop a couple of times to empty water out of them. Otherwise, I felt good on the swim. Sighting was a little difficult with my eyes burning, but not terrible. The only bad part was following a group of people that were unknowingly cutting the course, since the buoys were hard to see swimming into the sun. We all had to turn back toward the second buoy, which probably added like 5 minutes or more onto the final time, but who knows how much distance it added. Overall I did it in 1:11 and was 14th of 46 overall, 7th for the women. It felt good and got me excited for more swims. I brought my bike with me, but decided not to rude after because of my eye and the fact that I'm @ 15-16 mph and the other riders were like 18+ mph averages and I didn't want to get discouraged. The bad part is that I haven't ridden since my long impromptu ride like a month ago, so I really need to be better about fitting that in. The solo half marathon the next day felt pretty good. I kept my HR around 80% of max the entire time and my knee started to get sore about 3/4 of the way through, but I made it and felt good. My knee was sore for about 2 days after, but once I worked out the fatigue on Tuesday's run the last 2-3 miles felt descent. Run Thursday was good too. about 9:45 min/mi avg, keeping HR in check for the most part and working a couple of hills. I have my first ever triathlon on Sunday (tomorrow). The Rex Wellness sprint: 250 yd pool swim, 12 mile bike, and a 2 mile run. I'm seeded 36 of 412 for the swim, so I'm excited. It'll be interesting to see how I do, but mainly I want to get some transition experience and learn some things. I swam yesterday morning and my shoulder really started bothering me during the mid-afternoon and through this morning. I'm on a diet of ibuprofen, icy hot, stretching and rehab, and icing. Hopefully it will improve by race time. Plan to be in bed by 9 pm since I'll have to be up at 5 am. Race starts at 7:30 am and I want to  make sure I get there early enough to get everything situated. Hopefully I don't forget anything major. Expecting to finish in about an hour to 1.25 hrs. I hope I can do well, it would be nice. Watching live feed from the IM Kona Championships. It's so exciting!