Tri-ing to get back to blogging!

Hello Blog world!  It has been a while!  My athletic career looks much different than the last time I posted anything here.  I graduated from CNU over 2 years ago now and that also marked the completion of my pole vaulting career.  While I miss it like crazy I have enjoyed the opportunity to explore new options since then.  While I may no longer be literally reaching for new heights, I think I am going to keep the title.

My first transition was to longer distance running.  I raced my first half marathon in May 2014.  Happily finished with a time of 1:53 on a hilly Pittsburgh course.  Since then I found an awesome new running partner who has helped me keep up my running.  However, surviving my second year of graduate school meant there was not a lot of time for organized formal training.  Last year, I decided I would train for a triathlon once I made it through my Oral Exam I would train for a triathlon.  Well, I passed my exam at the end of February, so it was only a matter of time.  Some crazy stuff happened at work at the end of the spring, and I pushed off signing up until the beginning of the summer.  For my first race I went for something local and short.  I chose the Hawk Island Triathlon Fall race.   Everything I had heard was that this race was very low key and full of beginners.

Changing advisors, setting up for an experiment, and traveling did not result in the most consistent training schedule, so I was a bit nervous come race day.  Swimming was absolutely my weakest link.  I only had the opportunity to get in a couple of open water swims and just one in my wet suit.  Certainly a recipe for success!

As you can imagine, race day was quite interesting.  The transition area opened at 5:30 am for my 8 am start.  Everyone had advised being there early, so Alex and I made sure the car was loaded up the night before, and made the 2 minute drive to arrive at the park at 5:35 am.   Pulling my bike out of the car (that is corrrect...no bike rack)  was when the nerves really set in.  Here I was pumping up the tires on my hybrid mountain bike next to this dude with his fancy road bike.  Watching all of these super light expensive bikes walk caused a serious hit to my confidence. Thankfully, the guy on the other side pulled a mountain bike out of the bed of his truck making me feel much less out of place.

After wandering the park back and forth between the car and check-in and transition several times, I finally had all of my stuff at the transition area.  There were two interesting issues with this.  First, it was 6 am, so it was essentially pitch black.  Which meant setting up my transition area using the light on my phone, haha.  Second, there were like 2 of us there that early and being my first race I was really counting on others to make sure my transition are looked ok.  For example, how was I supposed to rack my bike??  After some very important snooping I got myself set up.  Running through the tips I had from friends on setting up the area I discovered I was missing a key piece of equipment...my helmet...  Nice going, conveniently the race was two minutes from Alex's apartment where my helmet was.  So off he went to grab it for me.  What would race day be if I didn't forget anything right?

While he was gone, I met my rack mates for the race.  They were mostly women in their 30s and 40s who had also never raced before.  Made me feel much better.

With it being Fall the weather is quite unpredictable, sandwiched between two 80 degree weekends, the morning of my race it was a lovely 44 degrees when I headed into the water.  Thank goodness for the wet suit!  The lifeguards were running behind, so the Olympic competitors started about 15 mins behind schedule.  I nervously stood there on the edge of the water very unsure of what was to come.

The race had organized an open water practice on the Friday before the race to give people an opportunity to swim in the lake and get used to the course.  At this practice we all discovered just how crazy the seaweed situation in the lake was.  It felt like I was swimming through a forest.  The tops of the seaweed stalks were just inches below the top of the water.  Not exactly ideal for my newbie open water self.  But I was glad I new that going in.  The race officials had tried to clean it up some, but were largely unsuccessful.  The swimmers before me however did a wonderful job of breaking up the seaweed so instead of being attached to the bottom it was floating everywhere.  But I was able to remain calm and make it through.  The lake at Hawk Island is not exactly the clearest and too be honest this freaked me out a bit.  On top of that I was recovering from a head cold making breathing difficult.  As a result, I did a lot more breast stroke with my head out of the water than originally planned.  But 13 mins later I was happily jogging my way up the hill to transition area, thankful it was over.

My first transition was interesting.  I had a friend give me lots of very helpful tips on where to place things and what order to do things in.  Thanks to her help I was able to have my wet suit off quickly.  My very tired self though got all freaked out and started trying to unrack my bike before putting my shoes on.  Solid idea.  Thanksfully I came to my sense and made it out on my bike in 2  mins and 21 secs.  Not too bad.

Now, my bike training had been the most sporadic of them all so I had no idea how I would feel.  Thankfully, I was having a blast and rode fairly well.  My hybrid mountian bike and I managed to average 14.2 mph.  Not breaking records any time soon, but could have been worse.  I was excited to get back to the transition area to start off on the run, something I was familiar with.

While my bike training was not the most consistent, the one thing I made sure to do was several brick work outs.  I new exactly how jello-y my legs would feel as I headed out to run.  I also knew that the jello-yness would pass and did not mean I needed to run slower.  I started out at around 8 min miles.  By the end I averaged 8:17 pace.  Man, was it fun to pass people on the run.

The most exciting part for me came in the last quarter mile of the race.  Coming around a bend, I saw a girl in front of me walking, a respectable thing to do at the end of a triathlon, but my competitive self could not handle losing to some one who had walk part of the race.  I started to kick.  Getting closer I noticed a 22 on her leg.  She was walking and in my age group, there was no way I was losing now.  I kicked hard coming around the turn to the finish line beating her by about 6 secs, apparently she did not try to come with me like I feared.  But that effort came at a price, I did not even make it to the girl passing out metals before I was throwing up all over the side of the grass.  Conveniently right next to the medical tent. Totally worth it.  After recovering and walking over to the results board, I found my name at the top of my age group!!  I was so surprised!  That last push really made a difference.

I had so much fun at my first triathlon.  I am definitely doing it again!  I would like to someday do longer races, but for now I need to make sure I can get through a sprint swim.  Winter in Michigan is not exactly conducive to racing, so I won't have any big events until next spring.  Really looking forward to where my new Tri addiction will take me.  If you made it all of the way though this post I am incredibly impressed by your dedication!

shut down until further notice...

So after finishing out the season, Coach told me that he wanted me to stop for quite sometime.  The hope is that with enough rest my knee will heal itself without any sort of surgery or anything!!  I like this plan a lot I really dont want to have to do surgery again, but it is really hard to stop working out...I will start some abs and upper body again soon.

Started my internship at J lab on tuesday!! So far I am loving it!  My roommate is awesome!!  I have learned a lot already!!  It is very strange to be in a work enviroment rather than a school one...once I am done for the day I am done, no homework or aweful lab reports like last summer!!  I am really looking forward to getting to know the people here and makin some new friends.  I think it will be a good summer!

pain in the neck finish...

Season did not end the way I would have liked it too.  I had a really great pre-meet practice in Wednesday and was ready to go thursday afternoon.  Warm-up wasn't stellar, but things were starting to come together.  First jumped at 3.01 m I went right over it but landed funny and got up with a sore neck...made it over 3.16 easily, but by the time I was attempting 3.21 my neck was so tight I could not straighten my arm above my head.  Tried, but was not able to pull of the 10'9" clearance...really disappointed with how the season ended.  Coach messed with my neck after my last jump and could feel it was tight, Maggie saw it as I walked over to her...Boys did pretty well,  Joey finally got his PR by jumping 4.61 m.  Its a good thing he and I are juniors cause we have lots of work still to do!!!!  Now the team is gearing up for nationals.  Rich, Dira, and Jenna are pretty solidly in.  Asare and the women's 4x4 are right on the bubble.  The last day to qualify was today, the final lists come out on Sunday.  We are all hoping for the best!!!

I was able to drive home after the meet on Thursday, despite the fact that my neck refused to turn to the right...good thing it was mostly all highway!!!  Felt very sorry for the rest of the team on the bus, they didn't get to CNU until 4:30...Now I am enjoying a few days at home before heading back to school for some research work.  I am not happy with how the season ended, but I am glad to be able to start summer and give my body a chance to recover after a very long year!  Can't believe I am now a senior!!!  College went way to fast!!