I wrote this a long time ago and it's been sitting here as a draft for forever.  I may finish it eventually...but for now i feel like I should just post it as-is.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So, since my last post...I've actually done a few events.  Since most of them were too long ago to write a real race report, I'll just put a quick synopsis in one large post.

AT&T Austin Marathon (2/17) - My first marathon evar!!  OMG, this was an amazing race.  The weather was supposed to be rainy and super windy, but it ended up being beautiful.  I don't know if it was the course that seemed to block the wind or if it just wasn't windy that day, but we didn't seem to have too much trouble there. The hills were supposed to be only from mile 9-12, but Holy Crap it seemed like they never ended!!  I got a bit disheartened when I saw that I was in Z4 basically the whole race, and complained to Connie a bunch (I'm so sorry Connie) but she kept my spirits up most of the time.  Mike and Richard were amazing, out on the course every few miles...almost where I thought I'd just seen them.  (They missed us a couple times early on, but after I called them from the porta-potty stop at mile 7 that never happened again).  Around mile 20, when I was feeling the worst, I decided to try to ham it up for a photographer.  Then I looked closer and realized it was Julia!! (She told me earlier that morning she would be wearing a colorful wool hat...I can't believe she was still wearing it that late in the day!)  Getting to see someone I didn't fully expect to see and her cheering kept me on kept me on a high for the next few miles.  I got to see everyone I wanted to see: ran into
rheller
 before the race even started (he said he recognized my voice...I'm so loud!) and ran across Alyssa running in her pink skirt :)  I saw Julia again, hanging with CJ (which was super awesome, I hadn't seen him since Vegas of last year!)  They both had their cameras out and were busy snapping up pics.   After the race, I just went home and napped while Mike took care of everything in the house...then went over to Ayer's to visit with my lovely goddaughter (and her wonderful parents of course) for a bit.  I limped around there for a bit, drinking their liquor and eating sooo well.  The next night was a celebratory dinner at Buca Di Beppo with a ton of people...so they sat us in the Pope room.  Sooo much fun!!!  Back to race details, Connie and I both made our goal of beating the 5 hour mark...just barely.  We passed the 5:00 pacers just as we were getting to the last quarter mile (to Julia and Mike's surprise)

Shamrock Half Marathon( 3/16) - Connie and I drove down to VA Beach the day before the race, and barely made it in time before the race expo closed.  Luckily, they still had a few shirts in our size, and I also bought myself a bracelet I wanted but didn't want to buy until I had finished my first marathon.  Then we went to dinner with Kathi and fretted about the weather reports.  All the ones we saw were forecasting a storm with crazy winds.  Again, we lucked out...it wasn't the prettiest of days, but it didn't even really rain on us at all, and warmed up quite a bit although the winds were insane!!  We might even have PRed if I hadn't had to stop to use a porta-potty (a recurring theme for me at races) and then sorta lost track of Kathi and Connie.  We still did well, and came in under 2:30.  Connie and Kathi both left me in their dust during the sprint to the finish, with Kathi running at least a 6:30 pace and Connie holding strong around 7:00.

One Day Hike 50k (4/26) - The training for this was brutal.  20 miles of walking is WAY harder than 26 miles of running.  This definitely made me rethink my ability to walk the marathon at the end of an IronMan.  That day, we made it to the check in on time and then decided to drive to the nearest town and wait for Hien, John and Lap (the crazies who signed up for the 100k) to get to the halfway point so we could meet up with them.

[Unknown LJ tag]

Yay!! My last race report of the YEAR!!!  This post will be WAY shorter than the last..I promise!

As I mentioned, the race started at 7:00, so we woke up at 6:00 and started walking down there with about 25 minutes to spare.  It was super dark, but we could hear the crowd roar as we started walking.  They let the elite athletes go about 20 minutes early, so I think that was them taking off.  It was kinda cold that morning, so I wore my PJ bottoms over my new running skirt (they were the only pants I had big enough to easily take off over my shoes)...and my free Brooks long sleeved shirt (I got it from the Baltimore expo when I bought my shoes) over my short sleeved running shirt.  When they let the first of the non-elite runners go, I stripped both of those off and handed them to Mike. 

I tried to seed myself in the right pace group, but I was on the wrong side of the street and there were just SOOOO many people.  I have never in my life seen that many women gathered in one place.   Mike said you could feel the estrogen in the air.  I was kinda shocked to see a few men with race numbers on...but later found out that there were about 800 men (500 half and 300 full marathon) out of about 20,000 runners that day.  Wow!

Usually the first few miles are sluggish for me, but I felt great this time.  I looked at my watch at the first mile marker to see my time and was like...hmmm, why is it showing cadence?!  Crap, it was set for cycling instead of running.  I was so annoyed with myself, I didn't pay attention to my time and just reset the thing to run mode.  Ooops!

Near the 2 mile marker, I tried again to see how I was doing.  0:00:00?!?!?  Crap!!! Forgot to turn the timer on after I reset modes.  Grrrrr!!!!

I started it up, but by this point I had no clue what my time was.  I assumed I started about 3 minutes after the first runner, so I just started paying attention to the clocks at the mile markers.  They had them setup at every mile and every 5k...sweet!!

The whole running part kinda passed in a blur.  I remember the first 6 miles or so were pretty flat, and I was feeling really strong.  The scenery was gorgeous as we ran along Embarcadero...with almost constant views of the bay.  They had a few bands sprinkled across the course, and even a motivational speaker screaming at us about how great we were.  The funny part was when she hit the topic about how we were all WOMEN, STRONG WOMEN!! and the guy in front of me pumped his fists up in the air :) 

Fisherman's wharf had a small hill (which was probably comparable to the grade I was running in Baltimore) but nothing compared to THE HILL at mile 6.  Over a mile of switchbacks, climbing up the hill right next to the Golden Gate Bridge.  I'm sure the views were stunning, but I was having enough trouble gasping for air that I couldn't pay attention.   There was a short tease in the middle there, where I thought it was over and let out a little cheer before someone corrected me :(  I finally made it all the way up, and found out that the mile only took me about 12 minutes!!  Sweet!!!  Little did I know they would just be taking us halfway down and then all the way back up again.  And descending was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be.  I was definitely running fast (my Garmin registered a 5:30 pace for a bit there, but I think that was a fluke) but only because I felt like if I didn't keep turning my legs over, I would end falling down the hill.  I tried to view the scenery on the downhills as much as possible, and it was really really beautiful.  I overheard a bunch of people saying they were walking on the downhills to save their knees...and maybe that woulda been a good idea if I could have slowed down...but I really did want to get those things over with as soon as possible.  And they were helping my time :)

Just before mile 12, the courses split as they started herding the half marathoners towards the finish.  I remember thinking, holy crap I'm tired...there's no way I could keep going for another 14 miles!! (I guess we'll find out in just a few months).  At the last mile, I saw my time and realized I was blowing away my target time of 2:24 (11 minute miles) and got a short energy burst!  I crossed the mat when the clock said 2:15!!! :)


Official Time: 2:11:01 (10:00/mi)
Placement: 1923 / 12181

Surprisingly, I wasn't sore most of that day.  Walking the hills of San Francisco the next day, however was torture!!!  

My last triathlon of the year, and boy did it feel like it.  I think I peaked for Smallwood, and have been barely holding it together since.  You can tell by looking at my workouts on runningahead.  October is pretty barren!

So, I felt like crap at this race. I knew ahead of time that I would, so when Mike said he wanted to get some work done on the house,  I told him he wasn't obligated to drive all the way up to NJ with me. Bad news is, Mike wasn't there to cheer me up.  Good news is, our closet has drywall now! :)  That's especially good news, since we haven't really gotten anything done on the house in many many months. 


Swim:
Swim Distance: .6 mi
Swim Time: 24:39  (2:25 / 100m)
Place: 145/176

T1:
T1 Time: 7:05
Place: 165/176

At least I wasn't last!

Bike:
Bike Distance: 29 mi
Bike Time: 1:49:24 (15.9 mph)
Bike Place: 161/176

T2:
T2 Time: 1:42
T2 Place: 100/176

Run:
Run Dist: 4.1 mi
Run Time: 42:38 (10:24/mi)
Run Place: 143/176
Again I have Connie to thank for pushing my speed up.

Overall Time: 3:05:26
Overall Place: 158/176

Yay!  I completed my last Triathlon for the year, and despite how crappy I felt, it was one of the best races I've run (swim time sucked, but bike and run were both some of the best times I've posted to date...more analyzing this later)  Obviously, some of my mood was burnout, as  I haven't worked out almost at all since this race.  I'm going to have to factor this kind of thing into my race season next year. 

Since the last two weeks have been kinda crap in the way of training, I decided to just skip the weekly workout posts and get straight to the race report.  My first Olympic distance race was on Saturday September 22nd in General Smallwood State Park, Maryland.  



Swim:
Swim Distance: 1500m
Swim Time: 33:56
AG Place: 7 / 14
Overall Female Place: 54 / 77

T1:
T1 Time: 8:57    
AG Place: 10 / 14
Overall Female: 72 / 77
WOW!!  was that slow!!

Bike:
Bike Distance: 24 m
Bike Time: 01:35:26
AG Place: 10 / 14
OF Place:  60 / 77
Hmmm...same AG place as my T1???  Blech!  I thought biking was supposed to be my strong sport :(

T2:
T2 Time: 00:03:02
AG Place: 9 / 14
OF Place: 60 / 77

Run:
Run Distance: 10k
Run Time: 01:05:09
AG Place: 9 / 14
OF Place: 52 / 77

I grabbed a piece of pizza, chugged down a Gatorade, and shared a hamburger with Connie, who had come in just a couple minutes after me.  We both marveled at how much harder this was than we thought!  She mentioned she had a panic attack during her first swimming loop and spent most of it doing breast stroke.  Maybe it was the wetsuit?
We hung around for a bit and then went to the transition area to pack up.  Mike had planned on doing it for us, but Stacy was working the transition area and told him he had to have racers with him.   Then we all went back to Mike's parents house and crashed on their sofas :)

Overall Time: 03:26:28
AG Place: 8 / 14
OF Place: 56 / 77

I think I'm going to try to post one of these at the end of every weekend, just so I can keep track of how my workouts have been going. 

I think you can also see a summary of my workouts here.  Although it may force a login...I can't tel.

So, here goes:


( Weekday stuff )

Saturday:
    Connie and I planned on getting together at 9 so we could get a 3 hour bike ride in by noon.  That, of course, meant that I woke up at 10:30 and didn't roll out of bed until 11 :)  We did manage to get rolling at noon. 
    We started out in Reston, planning on riding to Leesburg so Connie could sign up for Sunday's 20k run.  I was still trying to decide if I wanted to sign up, since Connie wouldn't have time to hang out with me afterwards, and Leesburg isn't exactly close.   I also knew it would be an AMAZING training opportunity, and there was no way that, left on my own, I would push myself to run 12.5 miles. 
   Mike came out on the ride with us but turned around after about 7 miles to ride all the way home.  He did end up riding about 20 miles (since we drove out to Reston to start) and averaged 20 mph!  Great ride for him!
    Connie and I kept going and rode the 19ish miles out to Leesburg.  Before heading to register, we stopped at a coffee shop and picked up some gelato.  At registration, I made the right choice and signed up for the 20k!  The technical shirt with the cow on it was a definite draw!
   The ride ended up totaling 38 miles, averaging 15.2 mph.  Not exactly fast, but it's my second longest ride ever, and we did have to stop a lot for all the street crossings.  Plus, I think some of that speed included the times I walked my bike. 

Sunday:
    I woke up at 6am, and headed out to Leesburg for the 7:30 am start.  When looking around for Connie, I heard someone call my name, and I turned to find Alyssa!!!!  I went to school with Alyssa in Burma back in 4th grade!!  And, the wierder thing is, we had just gotten in touch again on facebook earlier in the week!  Random, and so very cool to see her.  I found out she was running the 10k, but she said she was planning on waiting for another friend who was running the 20k, so she'd probably be around when I finally finished.  Cool.
    Connie and I ran the 20k and I will DEFINITELY do this race again.  As many times as I can.  It was on the W&OD trail, heading further out from the city, and there was tons of shade.  So so perfect, the times that we had to run out in the sun, I could feel my effort level skyrocket.  They had a ton of aide stations (although I probably would have preferred a few more if I hadn't had my fuel belt) and free Gu.  There was only a few hills, but one killer one around mile 8 next to a highway, with NO shade...but Connie was so cool, she suggested we walk up it, knowing that we were getting close to my longest run distance ever.
    I definitely faded a bit after the mile 10 marker, counting down the seconds until I could walk again.  But I managed to keep it up the whole time, even sprinting a bit at the end.  I finished in 2:20:22, coming in 245 / 284 in women.  Not a great placing but I'm super super happy I finished!!
    Afterwards, Connie had to rush back home to make it to church on time.  I met up with Alyssa and gabbed with her for about an hour...while eating a granola bar and ice cream sandwich...yummy yum.  She's also doing Triathlon!! (too many coincedences, I'm freaking out) and is actually doing her first Half IronMan this coming weekend.  She's also signed up for Lake Placid next year so while I'm out there cheering on my team, I can cheer for her too!  YAY!!   Super excited about that one!   The only sad thing is, we won't be able to train much together since she's planning on moving to Austin later on this year.  She's totally going to love living in Austin, though, I'm sure.


Weekly Totals:
Run: 17.8 Mi
Bike: 50.3 Mi
Swim: 1.1 Mi

Not a great week (as in weekdays) worth of workouts, but Restaurant week definitely interfered.  Plus, the workouts did seem a bit ambitious coming off of my first race.  I don't regret for a minute putting food above working out, but I need to get more serious this week.  The weekend, on the other hand, was amazing!!  Getting the 2 long workouts in felt like such an accomplishment. 

Yesterday, I was still really sore from the run (in fact, I'm still now pretty sore from the run) so I didn't work out at all, even though the schedule called for a 60 minute run.  I'll get into the rest of this week in the next weekly post. 

Pre-Race:
   My father's birthday was the day of the race, so we ended up having a small party at my Aunt's house the night before.  Dinner was amazing...we had duck and clams and a beef filet roast.  Man, I wish I could make a roast like my mom...mmmmm.
   We did still manage to drive down the night before, but we didn't get into the hotel room until almost midnight.  Mike drove us down and Tony was waiting in the room to let us in (he ended up crashing on our floor so he wouldn't have to drive down that morning)  We immediately hopped in bed and got almost 6 hours of sleep!
   The next morning, Tony got ready so quickly and left 30 minutes before us.  Mike drove us to the race site, and dropped us off to register as he got our bikes ready and took them to transition.  After signing up, getting my pink cap (wave 4, women under 34 and Athenas) I went with Mike to setup my transition, then went to the team tent to eat a really bruised banana and a teaspoon of peanut butter.  We posed for a group shot, and then stood around to wait for our swim start.

Swim:
   The water was NASTY!  It was 83 degrees and so murky, you couldn't see your hand right in front of your goggles.  The beach was incredibly rocky, so they rolled out an outdoor carpet that we walked on basically all the way to the swim start location.  Once you stepped off of it, though, you sank 6 inches into some really squishy lake bottom.  We only had to stand in that for a little bit, though before the air horn blew and we were off.  I had stayed in the back again, afraid of the mixing bowl that I hear so much about.  I did start creeping forward, and probably came in right around the middle of my wave (although I was 18th out of 24 in my AG, so maybe I'm being overly optimistic).  I was way off course a few times, but got back on course when the men from the wave behind us started passing me.  I listened to Jay's advice, and was able to do mostly freestyle around the buoys, only getting into breast stroke to make sure I was pointed in the right direction.  All in all, I'm really happy with my time.

Swim Distance: 750m
Swim Time: 18:45
AG Place: 18 / 24
Overall Female Place: 132 / 206


T1:
   I am really slow in transition.  I need to make sure, when setting up transition, that my bike shoes are open but the straps are already through the metal loops.  I spent too much time fumbling with those.  Oh and I just learned the rolling sock trick...I'm going to have to try that in my next race.  Socks and wet feet don't go together very well.  Then there was that long grassy hill we had to run up to get to the bike start.  That sucked.  I thought I had my cleat covers on, so I wasn't too careful about running...but didn't realize that the covers had fallen off back in my transition area.  Means I had to try to dig out dirt from my cleats before I could clip into my bike.  Again, taking time. 

T1 Time: 3:05
AG Place: 20 / 24
Overall Female: 177 / 206

Bike:
   So glad we previewed this race.  I knew exactly when to take it easy and when I could push myself.  The hills still killed me, and it was definitely harder than the first loop in training.  I managed to pass a few people, but most of them were on hybrids and mountain bikes.  And the whole time, I was terrified they'd pass me back.  Tons of people passed me, but none of them were in my age group.  (Probably since most of them were already ahead of me). I saw mostly women 35-45, and men of all ages.  At the time, I thought I was pushing myself a little too hard, but after the run, I realized I still had plenty of power left in my legs.  Maybe next time I'll push a bit harder.  This is so my strongest event of the 3, but there's lots of room for improvement.

Bike Distance: 16.1 m
Bike Time: 59:47
AG Place: 15 / 24
OF Place:  127 / 206


T2:
   All I can say is, I'm slow.  Transition is probably the area I need to work on the most.  I bought some bungee laces the day before, and Mike and I put them on that night.  Huge mistake!  I didn't know how to use them and we ended up cutting them off way too short and I couldn't get my shoes open enough.  Lesson learned: don't try anything new during a race!!  I know, I know...everyone has already told me this, many times.  Stupid me, I didn't listen.  I will next time.

T2 Time: 2:41
AG Place: 22 /24
OF Place: 189 / 206

Run:
   The run started out on grass for a little while as we winded our way back to the road.  The first few minutes were all uphill, and I took that time to walk and get my legs underneath me.  After the first hill, I got my (slow) rhythm, and got jogging.  I managed to jog the whole time after that, even though there were still some hills later on in the course.  There were 2 out and backs, so that allowed me to cheer on a bunch of my friends.  After the 2nd out and back, Tony caught up to me and encouraged me to keep running to  the finish.  He took off again as we were heading down the initial hill, but I didn't have much in me to sprint that far, so I kept my plodding pace.  Running back in on the grass, I mugged for the cameras, and the older guys behind me sprinted for the finish.  Dave P yelled at me not to let them beat me, so I found some stored energy and took off.  Only problem was, it was grassy, and I didn't have great footing...so I sorta sprint stumbled to the finish...I'm sure looking like an idiot.  I managed to catch up to the 45 year old, and hit the timing pads just a half second after him.  The 63 year old, on the other hand was un-catchable.  Wah.

Run Dist: 5k (but i think it was actually more like 3 mi)
Run Time: 31:29
AG Place: 22 / 24
OF Place: 166 / 206


Overall Time: 1:55:45
AG Place: 17 / 24
OF Place: 149 / 206
Overall Place: 435 / 529


Wow, I beat my goal time of 2 hours.  Actually, that was Connie's goal for us...I was less confident and was giving myself an extra 10 minutes.  And I didn't feel exhausted afterwards. 

Afterwards, I stayed near the finish line to cheer everyone else on.  Connie came in just a few minutes later, and also beat the 2 hour time limit!!  Mike disappeared a few minutes later, and went to transition to load our gear and bikes back in the car.  While he was busy doing that, I scarfed down a hamburger, some chicken and a bunch of chips, while I chatted with everyone else who raced.

We took off around 11:30 to go shower and check out of our hotel and headed straight for Sonic again.  This time, we knew where it was, so it only took us 30 minutes to get out there.  We drank our Cherry limeades, ate our tater tots and then headed to Springfield for the movie.  Then a nap at home and dinner at a wonderful restaurant in Georgetown with my friends and my dad, for his birthday.

What a perfect day!!

Well, I actually did my first Triathlon this past Sunday!!  It was only a mini (250m swim, 4 mi bike, 1.4 mi run) so I thought it would be super easy...
Which is why I made the mistake of riding a 40 mile ride the morning before...my longest ride ever.   But just let me explain!!  It was supposed to be flat, flat, flat....or at least, that's what our ride coordinator told us.  It wasn't.  It wasn't even close.  Connie and I were dying at the end, even though I had a hammer gel and a whole bottle of H.E.E.D. (They had given us a sample of the lemon-lime in our rack packet...it's so good, I went back and bought a tub of it!)  I even had a piece of bagel and peanut butter at our first rest stop. 

We had originally planned on doing the full 46, but the first 25 took so long, we decided to skip the second rest stop and take a short cut.  All-in-all, we finished the ride in about 3 hours.  Which isn't too bad considering this was only our 2nd long ride with the team. 

There was one spot where we had to ride on a gravel road, and some of the other roads were so pothole-y it felt like a gravel road.  Plus, this pair of riders on mountain bikes played leap frog with us for about 30 minutes, until we stopped and had food.  We never saw them again.  Dude, Mountain Bikes!?!!?  And they were tearing down the hills, it was hard to keep up with them.  They were awesome! 
But other than that, the ride was super fun, and super pretty.  And I felt so accomplished afterwards....40 miles!! Yay!

Remembering my last longest ride (36 miles, a few years ago) I bonked pretty hard around mile 30 and Mike had to basically push me home.  That was the first time I ever let him get that close to me on a bike, though :)  Although, I have to say, bonking is not the best way to get over that fear. 

Ok, onto the race.  On Friday, I met up with Connie at Bonzai to pick up our packets.  This guy (Max) came up to us and introduced himself and his sister (Sam S.).  At first, I guess, he as planning on hitting on us...so he asked us what age bracket we were in.  You shoulda seen his face when we said 30-34!  The guy was only 22!!  But he was super cool, and said he'd meet us up on Sunday morning.

Saturday night, my friend Sam H. came over with all her stuff.  The race started at 7:30 am, and she has 2 little kids at home, so she wanted to make sure she got a good night's sleep by spending the night at my house and carpooling to the race in the morning.  Mike took a look at both of our bikes (my front derailleur had been giving me trouble on the ride that morning) and packed us both off to bed.

That morning, we got to the Aquatic Center at around 7.  In the transition area, we ran into Max and his sister, and it ended up the two Sam's knew eachother (they work at the same company...wierd!)  We found out they were seeded right behind us, so we got to spend the whole nervous time waiting in line around the pool together, shooting the sh*t. 

We seeded ourselves wrong on the swim, since we signed up for this race before we joined TeamZ.  We guesstimated it would take us about 15 minutes to do 250m.  Little did we know it would take us about a third of that time.  So we all ended up getting stuck a few times swimming behind breast-strokers taking up a whole lane.  Sam H did ridiculously well (actually both Sams did) and was out of the pool at least 30 seconds before me.  I joined her up in the first transition, but she was just pulling out.

  The bike hurt...I guess I had nothing left.  Any slight hill, and my legs were screaming at me.  Luckily, I was one of the few with a road bike, so I managed to pass up a bunch of people.   I passed Sam near the end, since she hadn't been riding in almost a year, and she as riding a hybrid.  Later on, she said she had almost skidded out in the first turnaround, and it had shaken her.  Connie was dead on my heels the whole time, though. 

   The run...still my weakest.  Connie hung back with me for a bit, but had a much stronger finish than me, and was able to speed up for a sprint at the end.   I was just so happy it was over, I must have bounced through the finish line (That's what the pictures look like, anyways)
 
   All in all, I finished 157th out of 302.  Here were my times (I'm guessing the transitions were rolled into the bike and run, since I'm pretty sure it didn't take me almost 20 minutes to ride 4 miles)

157 Catherine Hall (30 F)
Swim Place 202 Time 5:47
Bike Place 126 Time 19:38
Run Place 184 Time 13:17
Overall Place157 Time38:42:00

  I had SOOO much fun...it was one of the best things I've ever done.   Max and Sam S were super super cool.  The 5 of us were cheering and yelling the whole time.  Cheering people who were getting in to the pool as we were waiting, cheering people we passed or who passed us on the run, cheering people as we lingered near the finish line.  Max has more energy than anyone I've ever met in my life. 

  Afterwards, we all went to Denny's with Max and Sam's parents and their friend Adonis.  I ate my whole Moons Over My Hammy AND half of Mike's pancakes.  Ughh...it was only a mini, I don't think I needed that much food to recover :)   That didn't stop me from eating and enjoying it...and then taking a 3 hour nap on the sofa.  Oh yeah, I'm such an athlete :)

  Next up, Culpeper sprint, August 5th  Now, after having done this, I'm terrified!!  I thought a sprint would be easily doable, but now I know I'm going to have to train.