Summer 2015 - For the sake of getting to the good stuff! (Sorry forallthe maps)

I did a lot over the summer of 2015 to prepare for Ironman Chattanooga. Several long rides, an open water swim, and a second Oly Tri. This post will be a list of all those activities with very little detail (except for a few). I took it a bit easy the week after Raleigh, but then was back at it. My long runs started to get into the 1:15 to 1:30 time range and my rides got longer as well. I had gotten my hair chopped above the shoulders after Raleigh and donated it. I was getting really sick of trying to do something with it all the time. Still wasn't short enough!


6/20: First Metric Century Ride (also happened to fall on my birthday) - MSFits Ride for Ice Cream. I thought it was fitting to do a ride that ended with ice cream on my birthday. It was a really hot day though, and even though I was suppose to have a 30 min run off the bike, I think I only did like 10 min. I met a few new friends on this ride though, which is always nice.

MSFits Ride Map and ice cream treat!

6/28: I did 76 miles round trip from North Raleigh north to almost Kerr Lake with some of the Ridin' Dirty crew!

7/4: Firecracker Metric Century Ride. The name pretty much explains this one. 60 miles on the 4th of July. It can be a bit of a cluster, so I was careful. It's always a challenge when there are so many riders of all different abilities on the same route. For the most part it broke up pretty well and I didn't see too many issues.

Firecracker Ride Map

Firecracker Ride Stats

7/11: Big Deuce - 2 mile open water race (hence the name). Second in the series of 3.

7/12: First Neomonde 100 training ride. I only did 54 miles of the 100 because I didn't have time to do the whole thing. Did run a 10K after though.

Neo 100 Ride Stats

Neo 100 Ride Map

Post-Neo 100 Run map

Post-Neo 100 Run splits

7/18: Nickel City Olympic Triathlon (Buffalo, NY). This happened to fall perfectly with our annual family vacation trip, which was a big reason I picked this one. It turned out to be a great race, a PR, and a confidence booster after my first Oly didn't go as well as I had hoped. The only "goofy" thing about this tri was the swim was two loops and we had to get out and back into the water after the first loop. I hadn't had to do that before, so it was a bit of a shock to the legs, but I managed alright. The bike went by fast and was mostly flat, which was a nice change. On the run I was able to hold a really strong pace and I knew I was close to the top 3 overall females based on how many I saw ahead of me on the run, so I pushed it and it worked out okay. The only down-side to the run is that because it was along the lake, my fee were soaked from the humidity, but temperature-wise the weather was great. It was a bit foggy/hazy most of the race, but that was probably better because I didn't burn! I ended up 5th overall female with a time of 2:45:00, but 1st for the 30-34 AG (no one from that AG was in the top 3 either), so I got a 1st place medal. Pretty cool. Before the race I had decided to go pixie with my hair after the race, so I went to Aunt Dina and she did an awesome job on my hair. Absolutely love short hair. It's so easy! Best haircut ever!

7/26: Neomonde 100 Ride #2: Did the full 100 this time, my first Century Ride. Took NC Bike route 5 south toward Fayetteville. I really liked this route and will probably ride it again.

8/8: Bikefest. Another 100 mile training ride. Glad I got one under my belt with friends before doing one with strangers. Not a bad ride though. Even managed a run off the bike. On the weekend between this ride and the past one I did an 80 mile ride and a 10 mile run, not on the same day though. Don't remember a whole lot about this ride either, as it's been so long.

8/14: Almost solo 100 mile training ride (Doug joined me for a bit). This was a ride I got done during the week because we were going to Florida to board a cruise that weekend. That experience may need to be a whole separate blog post. I really had no idea what a lot of the roads were like that I planned to ride on, I just tried to map out 100 miles in an area where I may get some company. Glad to have Doug along for a bit, especially since he was more familiar with the area.

8/23: The Cruise: What do you do when an FAA outage makes you miss your ship? You adjust your plans then go for a LONG run down the beach. Our first mistake was not flying into FL the night before the cruise, but we thought we had given ourselves enough of a time buffer before it set sail. Apparently not. The FAA computers went down as we were about to turn onto the runway at RDU. We ended up landing in Ft. Lauderdale about 30 min after the ship left port. Long story short we flew into the third port (Curacao), missing the first half of the cruise but getting to spend a couple days/nights in Curacao before boarding the ship, heading to Aruba, then sailing back. Everything went as well as to be expected through Aruba, but the last 2 days sucked. The ship was crowded and norovirus blows. Snorkling in Aruba was the extent of my swimming during that week. I managed to get a few treadmill runs in and a couple spin classes on the ship, but my training definitely took a hit. Overall not too bad of a deal, but kinda shitty because it was the peak of my training. Pros and Cons. I was a bit under the weather for a week or two after we got back, but not so much so that I couldn't get my workouts in. It was really nice to see my friends from grad school though, so I wouldn't change my decision to go, but it definitely was more of a stressful vacation having to worry about getting training in.

8/29: Neomonde 100 #3. To Siler City and back. Again, I don't remember a lot about this ride, but the data is below. I also put the data from my long run the next day too, as it was my longest run to that date. Yes, I did my run on a track, no it was not the only time I did that. It was easier to be on a flat surface where I could get water every mile and know the distance without needing my watch. Boring it was but it worked for me.

9/6: Last peak week before taper! Long run was Friday, long ride was Sunday.  The run didn't go the greatest, but don't remember why. Probably still not feeling great or something. On the ride, George kept me company, which was nice considering he is much quicker than I am. I appreciated not having to ride that far alone. I even managed a 40 min brick run off the bike.

9/7: Tour de Moore: Got up early to get a RAM swim in before driving down to Moore County for a 28 mile "cruise" ride. No need for more than that but it was fun riding somewhere different.

9/12: Last minute Finish Strong Aquabike with DeGaulle. We both needed to get a descent ride in, and he wanted to do the Finish Strong race, so we signed up last minute to do the aquabike (long (11.5 mi) run the next day). 1.2+ mi swim in 30-35 min, then a 56 mile bike ride in 3:11. Good training day and glad we did it, sucks they're not having it again this year. Won't bother posting the maps for these, probably getting sick of them by now anyway. Two weeks till IMCHOO!

9/19: Neomonde 100 #4. Cut that down to 2 hours since we are a week out from Choo, but still wanted to do the ride. Had fun anyway! Taper is hard, but it wasn't my first experience with it, so I think I handled it alright. The next entry will be my IMCHOO race report. It will be long. That is all!