Cozumel Trip

Jeff and I were really excited about going to Cozumel. Jeff also got to celebrate his 30th birthday in Cozumel! We got a new camera for the trip and Jeff wanted to get the underwater housing for it, I told him, no way, it was just too much money right before vacation. But I had ordered it for him for his birthday, that was a tough secret to keep! He opened it on the plane, and he was pretty impressed that I had kept it secret.

The underwater camera housing

We stayed at Vista del Mar, the same place we have stayed before and we dove with Aqua Safari, the same company we have dove with before.

Pool at the Vista del Mar, there's a cool tiled turtle on the bottom

The view from our balcony

The Vista del Mar has two pet turtles that live near the entrance to the hotel

The Aqua Safari pier

This is a sculpture near the town square of a coral reef with scuba divers

These people dressed like Mayans and did a show every night near the ferry pier

IronBabe Super Sprint Triathlon

Sunday May 11, was the IronBabe ladies only super sprint triathlon (200 yd swim, 8 mile bike, 2 mile run). Originally I was going to volunteer at this race, and when I told the race director, she said “Why don’t you want to race Heather? We’d be happy to have you as a volunteer, but you should think about racing” I said, if you’re going to twist my arm, then I’ll race! Didn’t take much twisting!

Race morning my alarm was set to go off at 4:30, at 4:11 I jumped out of bed thinking I was late! Then I realized the alarm was supposed to go off at 4:30 and I had to leave at 5, not 3:30 and 4! There was also thunder and lightening outside, not a good sign. This is the first race I’ve done that Jeff didn’t come with me. So I had my google directions printed out and took off, turns out the directions weren’t exactly right and I got a little lost and had to stop and ask for directions, I was pretty frustrated about it, but I ended up getting to the race site with plenty of time to get set up and check everything out.

By the time I got to the race site the rain had stopped and the lightening was obviously moving away, but the wind was really picking up! Lake Houston looked more like the ocean than a lake! They actually started a little late because the buoys kept blowing out of place! I dipped my feet in and decided it was about mid 70’s so I wasn’t going to bother with the wetsuit.

My wave was the second to start, it really did feel more like an ocean swim than the nice calm lake swim I was expecting! I found it funny that when the water went up my nose/down my throat, I expected it to be salty and make me gag. The toughest part of the swim was getting around the turn buoy. Even though it was rough, I felt fine, not sick like at San Jacinto a couple weeks ago. It was definitely an interesting swim, I was hoping to finish the swim in 5 minutes my time was 8:48, not that bad considering some of the faster times were over 6 minutes and there were a lot of 15-20 min swims on the results pages. A lot of people do this as their first tri, so I really felt bad for the girls who had never swum in open water before.

T1 was 2:23, I didn’t know what to expect on the bike course with all the wind. I was hoping to average 16 mph and finish in 30 min. The bike was fun. There were spots with a headwind and spots with a tailwind, but it was short so I could just go as fast as I could. My legs felt a little tired from the start, I’m sure because I did a 35 mile ride on Saturday. I did a sprint on the same course last year and I had forgotten how many turns there are on the bike course. I finished the bike in 30:39 (15.66 mph).

T2 was 2:03 and Dave Rainey the leader of the Zephyr rides was working in the transition area and saw me and started “heckling” me. “Come on Heather, MOVE IT! Let’s go!” and pointing at his watch, too funny! I started the run at a pretty fast pace and wasn’t sure I could keep it up so I slowed down a little. The turn around point was at 1 mile and there was a pen of buffalo right by the water station, I had forgotten about them from last year. I picked the pace back up after the turn around because I realized if I pushed it I still might finish in 1:05. I just kept it up to the finish and finished in 1:04:20! My run time was 20:24 for 10:12 min/mile, that’s the fastest I’ve ever run in a triathlon so I’m really happy about that!

Sorry no pictures this time, since my photographer, pit crew, and cheering section (Jeff) couldn't make it. But I'll post a link to the website with the official race pictures when they put them up.

The Chocolate Bar

Heatha (formerly of Heather and Roger from College Station) came to Texas for a quick visit the weekend of April 12. We were all very excited because it's been almost a year since she decided to move to Florida and be a private speech therapist for the son of Jimmy Buffet's business partner, yea seriously she gets free concert tickets for life! We knew she'd have lots of great stories, Heatha always has lots of great stories.

Heatha's plane didn't get in until 8pm and Jeff was working til 9 so Cherie and Cullen and I went to Barnaby's for dinner before the Chocolate Bar. Jeff and I love hanging out with them and we don't get to see them often enough since we live about as far apart as possible and still say we both live in the Houston area. We had a great time at Barnaby's then headed to the Chocoate Bar and pulled in just as Heatha was parking, perfect timing.

The Chocolate Bar is awesome, there is chocolate EVERYTHING you can imagine! I had chocolate ice cream with heath bar in it, and Heatha had a huge peice of some kind of chocolate cake. Heatha told us all about living in Florida, the rich and famous, and her drinking buddies. We laughed so much my stomach hurt the next day! She also told us all about her and Roger's divorce, which I know should be sad, but it was really just more entertaining, if you know Heatha you understand.

Cherie's birthday was Friday so we gave her her gift at the chocolate bar too. It was a good luck key chain from Brighton which she loved!

The Chocolate Bar closes at 11:00 and at about 11:30 we realized what time it was, we hadn't even noticed and there were still a few other people there so we didn't feel too bad. Heatha and Jeff hadn't had any "real food" so we went to Katz's so they could eat. We didn't get home until almost 3 am.

Heatha stayed with us that night and got up early to go to College Station and get her stuff out of storage and drive it back to Florida.

This was such a fun night! It really made me wish the whole grad school gang still lived close together and we could still hang out all the time.

Battle of San Jacinto Triathlon

The water looks deceptively calm here.

Sunday was the Battle of San Jacinto triathlon, an Olympic distance 1500meter swim, 24 mile bike and 6.3 mile run. Jeff and I got up at 4:30 and I had a peanut butter banana smoothie for breakfast. We got to the beach at about 6:00 and I got everything set up. This race was different because it’s a point to point race. So you bike from the beach to the San Jacinto Monument and they have already taken your transition 2 stuff over there.

Everyone kept talking about how cold the water was, so I didn’t do a swim warm up. This was a small tri (only 30 girls total) so only 3 swim waves, they got the men under 40 going right at 7 and my wave started right at 7:10, the water wasn’t that cold, I was wearing my wetsuit and once I got going it was pretty comfortable. We were in the water waiting to start and I could see Jeff and Cherie and Cullen on the shore, I waved, but they didn’t see me. The waves didn’t look bad from shore, but swimming against them was tougher than I thought it would be, but I was doing ok. When I turned, I had to swim diagonally to swim a straight line, the waves really weren’t that bad, but they were annoying, felt like scuba diving in a surge, back and forth, back and forth, and it was making me dizzy. I had to stop a lot to get undizzy. I was really happy to make the second turn and have a short break from that! At this point I was noticing that there weren’t many people behind me, this was a small tri, and I was having some trouble, but still, I’m used to being in the middle of the swim pack, not near the end. The third turn put me back parallel to the shore and getting dizzy again. A few of the waves were breaking over my head when I tried to breathe and I swallowed some salt water, yuck! A couple times I stopped to get undizzy and I thought I was going to puke! I was really wishing for a regulator so I could get under the waves and breathe! This was the toughest swim I’ve done in a triathlon and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to get out of the water and on to the bike! I still finished the swim in 41:14 my goal time was 40 minutes. I saw Jeff and Cherie and Cullen as I was finishing the swim, they ran over close to my transition area and Jeff was asking how I felt, I told him it was the toughest swim I’ve ever done. He seemed surprised when I said that. getting out of the water
volunteers helping me get my wetsuit off (you can't really see me)
In transition 1, getting ready to bike

Heading out on the bike
Heading out on the bike
Transition 1 was 3:04, a little long, but I was still feeling a little dizzy and sick when I got out of the water. Jeff said that everyone looked pretty beat up as they came out of the water. By the time I got my bike stuff on, I was feeling fine. I knew this would be a challenging bike ride. Somehow in a really flat area, they found all the bridges and exit ramps and had us bike on them. The race packet said “there are 8-9 miles of very challenging hills” I had ridden over the Hartman bridge once before so I knew how steep it was. We rode over the bridge then turned around and did it again! I felt good the entire bike ride, even on the bridge. It was a beautiful bike ride, you get a great view riding over the bridge. The last half of the bike was pretty flat and there was a little tail wind so that was fun too. A couple miles before the finish, I could see the San Jacinto Monument in the distance. I rode into the park and just past the monument and saw Jeff and Cherie and Cullen cheering for me! I gave my bike to the volunteers (I’ve never done that before) and got my transition 2 bag. Bike time was 1:37:04. I was hoping for 1:30 to 1:40 and had told Jeff it might be 1:45 or more depending on the hills and the wind. Another volunteer helped me get my run stuff out of the bag and put my bike stuff into the bag. He was really nice. T2 was 2:25.
The San Jacinto Monument
The run was 2 loops around the San Jacinto park, it was probably the prettiest run I’ve ever done. We ran over a boardwalk over a wetland with all kinds of cool wetland plants, and there were tons of trees and other plants in bloom. A lot of it was on trails and grass, which slows me down a little, but sometimes it makes my legs feel better when they’re tired. My legs were definitely tired from the hilly bike. I started off the first 2 miles at about an 11:45 pace, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up, my legs were getting really sore and tired! I was feeling good other than that. Mile 3 was closer to 12 minutes, and just after mile 3 I got to pass the monument and see Jeff and Cherie and Cullen cheering for me again. I passed the mile 4 marker at 47:00 so I was still doing fine, but man my legs were sore! I definitely slowed down on mile 5, I don’t remember what my time was, and not long after the mile 5 marker my stomach started to hurt and I really thought I was going to puke, so I walked for a few minutes, ran for a few minutes, started feeling sick again, walked again, pretty much kept that up for the last mile until about a ¼ mile from the finish when I ran in to the finish, run time was 1:19:16, goal was 1:15. Of course Jeff and Cherie and Cullen were there to cheer and congratulate me! My final time was 3:43:05 my goals was 3:45.

I'm not sure why, but this was a really fun race, I really enjoyed it, even though the swim was tough and I had a little trouble at the end of the run. The scenery was great through the entire race, and the point to point was different and really well organized. I also had an entire cheering section which was way fun! Thanks Jeff, Cherie and Cullen!

I was sure I was the very last finisher. I didn’t feel bad about it at all since I beat my goal time and I knew mostly fast people entered this tri. It was interesting because before my first couple of tris I really agonized about the possibility of finishing last and how horrible I’d feel, but now when I thought I finished last I didn’t feel even a little bad about it. Turns out there was one guy who finished after me, he was behind me on each leg so I never saw him.

We went over to Cherie and Cullen’s after the race, I took a shower and we went to Kemah for lunch at the Cadillac Mexican grill, we watched the sailboats heading out to the bay for awhile then headed home.


Cherie and I at the Cadillac Grill

Camp for All Ride

Today Camp for All had their annual fund-raising bike ride. I got up at 5:15 and headed up to Burton, about an hour and a half drive. Camp for All is worth it, it’s a really cool place.

This is from Camp for All's website: Camp For All, located in the rolling hills of Washington County, Texas, is a unique camping and retreat facility that strives to enrich the lives of people with special needs. A not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization, Camp For All works in partnership with special needs groups whose members gain self-esteem, self-awareness and independence by participating in programs that are recreational, therapeutic and educational. The camp provides a fully-accessible environment and programs that are tailored to meet the needs of campers of all ages, interests and abilities.

Essentially, it’s a camp for kids and adults with cancer, cerebral palsy, burns, spinal cord injuries, and many other conditions. Campers get to do activities like archery, cycling, canoeing, horseback riding, nature studies, and tons of other cool stuff. When I worked at Duckworth-Cole, Inc. we did some charity work for Camp for All, so when I heard about the bike ride, I knew I wanted to go up there to do it.

Riders had a choice of 3 distances, 22 miles, 36 miles or 64 miles. I decided on 36 miles. Since there are lots of hills around Camp for All and no hills in Houston, I wasn’t sure I could do 64 miles in such a hilly area. I was excited to ride on some hills today, they really build leg strength and it’s good practice for some of my triathlons in Austin.

It was pretty cold this morning, I was shivering before the ride started, so I got to wear the riding jacket that Jeff got me for Valentine’s Day for the first time. It was sunny and clear and the bluebonnets and other wildflowers were blooming all along the course. It was a really beautiful bike ride. The first 25 miles was hilly, but I was feeling good, the last 10 miles or so were a little tough, there were some bigger hills and a little headwind, so I was happy to ride back into Camp for All at the finish. My quads are fairly sore tonight, so I guess I got a good workout today.

Then I picked up my goodie bag and t-shirt and had lunch. They had hamburgers, chips, potato salad (yuck!), ice cream, and beer. (It’s pretty common to serve unhealthy food at rides & races, last weekend at the triathlon the post race food was pizza, ice cream, and beer) I met some girls from A&M who did their very first ride today, the 22 mile ride, that’s a great first ride! It was such a pretty day that I hung out at Camp for All for awhile and watched some of the 64 mile riders finish.

Cool Camp for All cnavas bag and t-shirt.

Hamburgers and beer after the ride.

This is me with one of the Aggie girls who did her very first ride today.

Lonestar Quarter Ironman Triathlon

Sunday was my first triathlon of the season a Quarter Ironman (1000 meter swim, 28 mile bike, 6.5 mile run) in Galveston. Jeff had to work until 3pm on Saturday and there was a mandatory pre-race meeting and packet pickup at 5:00. They didn’t really say anything new in the meeting, but still, I’d feel pretty dumb if I made a wrong turn or did something stupid that they covered in the meeting. So we got there at about 4:45 grabbed my packet and met up with a few people we know. We checked out the swim start then headed to the hotel and checked. We had dinner at Fishtales (Mom, we ate lunch there once), I had fish, rice, and veggies, pretty typical prerace meal for me.

The hotel was decent, except for the mattress coming off the frame! I think the beds just didn’t fit the frames properly so if you sat on the bed, you’d sink down and the other side of the mattress would go up into the air! So we got almost no sleep and instead of getting up at 4:30 as planned, we just stopped trying to sleep at 3:30 and got up. We got to the race site early, I set up my transition area and then waited for about 4 hours for my race to start (that's pretty common in big triathlons like this one). The Half Ironman started at 7:30 and the first wave of the Quarter Ironman started at 8:30, I was in the 7th wave and started at about 9:15.

Ready to go!

The swim went well. The water was cool, I was glad I was wearing my wetsuit, but I was comfortable once I got going. Of course there was some thrashing around at the start, but after 100-200m, I was able to swim pretty comfortably. I almost got kicked in the face hard by a girl frog kicking, her foot was probably less than a ½ inch from my face and I felt the water rush by, glad I missed that one, it would have really hurt! I got out of the water and checked my watch, but my stopwatch didn’t start right when I tried to start it and the time was messed up too, so I had no idea how long the swim took me. It was 25:23. I saw Jeff and Cherie as I ran up to transition. The first transition was a little slow with getting the wetsuit off and making sure I had everything. (4:47).

Coming in from the swim.

The bike went pretty well. I got out onto the seawall and the tailwind wasn’t strong at all, but that means no headwind on the way back! The crosswinds were fairly strong, which slows me down just to keep control. I’m going to have to work on that. This is a fun ride because it’s mostly just straight out along the shore and you can see the water or the fancy houses by the water the entire time. The weather was actually nice and the sun was coming out, at one point I noticed my arm and shoulder felt like they were getting sunburned, probably should have thought about that, even though I really thought it was going to rain. Overall my bike was slower than I’d like (15.4mph, 1:49) by about 10 minutes, but it went well. Second transition was 3:12, I was really careful to dry my feet well and put on clean socks to avoid blisters. Good decision, I ended up with a hot spot but no blister.
Biking so fast that the picture is blurry! Or maybe it's just the quality of the disposable camera.

The first 2 miles of the run felt great, I started my watch at the start of the run to pace myself. I was hoping to run 11:30 -11:45 minute miles. I saw Jeff and Cherie a couple times in the first mile, which was cool, because I thought Cherie would have to leave before I started running. First mile was right at 11 minutes, second one was 11:15, probably a little fast for me to start out. I missed the 3 mile marker and sometime before mile 4 I was feeling really hot and really thirsty. I’m thinking I didn’t drink enough while biking and before starting the run. Of course that slowed me down and I stopped at pretty much every water station after that. Overall run time was 1:18 about a 12 mm pace.

Running, I think it's close to the finish.

Overall time was 3:41:59, a little slower than I’d have liked but considering I was sick all last week and I didn’t drink enough before the run (and maybe in the 4 hours waiting for the start) I’m not upset. I had a lot of fun and the race was really well organized. I am excited to see if being healthy the week before, and proper hydration during a race will make a difference.

Finishing the race, Jeff promises it's me! The disposable camera just isn't the best.

The best triathlon spectator ever! (and Cherie's a close second!)

Austin Half Marathon

I ran my first half marathon (13.1 miles) on Sunday. I have been training for it since the end of October. I have been really excited about it for the past couple of weeks. Jeff and I got to Austin on Saturday afternoon and the weather was awful, cold, windy, and raining, and the forecast for Sunday wasn’t looking much better. We went to pick up my packet, with my race number and timing chip, and check out the expo, lots of cool free samples of food and stuff, advertisements for other races, lots of running clothes and shoes on sale, etc. We checked in to the hotel and had dinner at Panera and coffee at Motzart’s, then we drove part of the course, it was the hilliest part, some of the hills were super steep, but I was glad we drove it so at least I’d know what to expect tomorrow. We went back to the hotel and I planned what to wear, the forecast was looking better at this point (about 45 for a low and 60’s or so for a high), and Jeff was mapping out the points where he could meet me and cheer me on. He came up with 4 points to see me, start, mile 5, mile 12, and the finish. I told him that at mile 12, I’d probably be hurting and tired, but even if I didn’t seem happy, I’d be happy to have him cheering me on especially at that point. I actually slept pretty well the night before the race, which is rare for me.

We got up at 4:45 on race morning. I decided to wear shorts instead of long tights, I’d be cold at the start, but more comfortable in the middle and at the end. So I wore shorts, a short sleeved thin tech shirt and a thicker long sleeved tech shirt over it. This was perfect for me. I was a little cold the first couple miles but once I warmed up I was fine. I thought about taking off the long sleeved shirt a couple times, but I never got warm enough to bother with actually doing it. I ate a cranberry orange muffin from Panera and a banana on the way to the race.

The race start was really interesting, there were 14,000 people running the race! The bigger triathlons I’ve done have had maybe 800 people at the most, so this was definitely different. But the organizers did a great job, I think I only waited in line for the restroom for about 5 minutes and other lines during the day went really fast too. We got to the race early enough to park, but then had to wait around for about an hour. When the race was about to start I handed Jeff my warm clothes and lined up near the 5:00 marathon pace group. The gun went off along with lots of cool fireworks! The fast runners line up right by the starting line and slower runners line up further back, so I figured it would take about 10-15 minutes for me to cross the starting line, it only took 6 minutes! It was so exciting! Everyone running was cheering and all the people watching were cheering too! The best part of the first couple miles was coming down a slight hill you could see the first big hill ahead and all the people in front, it’s just amazing to see over 10,000 people running like that. Jeff got a really good picture.

You can see the Texas capital in the background here.

This is Jeff's picture of the start, it's a cool picture, but it looked WAY cooler in person!

I was hoping to finish somewhere around 2:45, so I wanted to run the first 9 miles at about a 2:30 pace (11:45 minutes per mile) because I knew the last 4 miles would be tough especially with all those steep hills. My first 2 miles were a little slower, mostly just because there were so many people and it was a little hard to get around people sometimes. I had planned to take a 1 minute walking break every mile to give my legs a rest. The first few miles I really had to FORCE myself to take the walking breaks, I was so excited and felt so good, I just wanted to keep running! But I knew the walking breaks would help keep my legs strong for the tough miles toward the end. Somewhere between miles 3 and 5 I caught up to my 2:30 pace. There was a band playing at every mile and a water stop at every mile. The bands were all entertaining, I’m not sure they were all good, but I appreciated all of them, they just made the race more fun. I stopped for water at mile 4, had an energy gel and some water and kept going. I was really having fun by this point, the weather was beautiful and the race atmosphere was awesome! I saw Jeff at mile 5 and he surprised me by coming over to a spot just past mile 6 also! Somewhere between mile 6 and 7 the blister that has been bothering me (I got it 2 weeks ago on a long run and it just hasn’t completely healed yet) started to rub. It wasn’t bad so I just ignored it and hoped it wouldn’t get worse.

Jeff saw this Great Dane puppy at mile 5, he's only 10 weeks old and his name is Nike!

At mile 8 I stopped again for gel and water. I still felt great but this was the point where I expected it to get tougher, and the blister was hurting more. So far I was still at my 2:30 pace so I was really happy about that. Mile 9 is where the steeper hills started, I was doing fine and planned my walking breaks to fall on some of the steeper sections. At mile 10 I stopped at the aid station and put a band aid on the blister, it helped a little but after about .5 miles it slid around on my sweaty foot so it didn’t help much.

Between miles 10 and 12 I didn’t pay as much attention to my pace, just did the best I could, some of the hills were really steep. At this point I was still feeling good, but I was really looking forward to the walking breaks. I stopped for water at mle 11. At one point you could see a really steep hill ahead and a guy behind me shouted “don’t look up! Look at your feet! Whatever you do, don’t look up!” That made me laugh. I was really glad we drove this part of the course the night before so I knew to expect the steep hills. I was still feeling great, which surprised me because at this point in all my training runs I felt tired and sore. When I saw Jeff at mile 12 I yelled “I feel great! This is so much fun!” Later, Jeff told me he had a bottle of water to give me at that point, but I was “too busy telling him how great I felt” to even notice.

I really tried to speed up at this point because I thought I had climbed the last hill and it should be downhill to the finish, I really didn’t know what my time would be but I was thinking I might finish at about 2:35 if I really pushed. But there was one last hill just before turning onto the finishing stretch, I walked part of it so I could finish faster. I ran toward the finish as fast as I could and crossed the line and felt great! My time was 2:32:17! I was hoping for a 2:30 half marathon at some point, but I knew it wouldn’t happen at my first or in Austin with the hills, so to come so close to 2:30 is really cool!

This is just a few feet before the finish!

Yay! The Finish!!!

After the race, I got my medal, some water, my t-shirt and took care of that blister. I checked out some of the festivities and found Jeff. We had to get back to the hotel so I could shower before we had to check out. On our way to the car we ran into Frank, a diving friend who we haven’t seen in years! We knew he was running and Jeff saw him on the course, but out of 14,000 people we figured we’d never see him. So we talked with him for a few minutes then headed back to the hotel. We had lunch at the Hula Hut, a Mexican food place right on Town Lake, the food was great and we got to sit outside, which was cool because it turned out to be such a nice day.


Click on this link to see my "official" race pictures. http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=31298&BIB=3280&LNSEARCH=1