First Thursday

Jeff, Jim, and I went out to First Thursday tonight, it was a beautiful evening and we had a great time! We started at Homeslice Pizza and managed to get there before it got too busy. Jim had never been to Homeslice before and of course he was really impressed with the super yummy pizza.

Jim and I near Guero's

After pizza, we walked down to Hey Cupcake and Jim got a red velvet cupcake, Jeff and I had eaten too much pizza for cupcakes. Then we walked SoCo and checked out all the stands with photos, painting, jewelry, clothes, and all kinds of other stuff. We went into lots of the shops including the Big Top Candy Shop, Jeff and I had never been there before and I'm pretty sure they had every kind of candy in the world! Jim went crazy in there! He must have said 5 times "Heather, you shouldn't have brought me in here" and ended up with a big bag of all kinds of different candy.

Jeff and I in front of Jo's Coffee. Jeff was really excited about his CAN of Shiner.

We found Vince at his Jamacian stand and talked with him.

We saw this dog with tiger stripes! The stripes looked and felt totally real, but the dog's owner said a guy near Hey Cupcake had painted them on!

We walked down to Lucy in Disguise, Jeff and Jim had never been there before and were really impressed with the number and variety of costumes, they must have over a million costumes in there. Jim and one of the workers about his age reminisced about leisure suits and platform shoes with goldfish in the heels!

Just down the street a groups of was giving out "Free Hugs" everyone walking by was hugging them and they looked like they were having so much fun! That's me holding the pink sign.
As we were walking to the car, we heard a marching band coming toward us. Jim is a drummer so of course we had to stop and watch. It wasn't actually a marching band, but a casual group of drummer playing and walking down the sidewalk.

Skeese Greets Triathlon

The Tri Zones team at the Skeese Greets Triathon. Photo by Tom Marek

Saturday after Ingrid got into town, we went over to Lane 4 to get her packet for the Cap 2 K swim (she had an awesome swim on Sunday morning!), and I got a new swimsuit and goggles. Then Jeff, Ingrid and I went to dinner at Chez Zee for dinner. I went to bed early since I was planning to leave home at 5am. When I got up Sunday morning, it was raining. I looked at the radar and it looked like it would probably stop. It rained all the way to the Texas Ski Ranch, but it stopped just after I got there.

Coach Tracy trying to make me look tall. Photo by Tom Marek

As soon as I got there there I saw Sarah G. and Tom and Carolyn were body marking. I racked my bike right next to Julie M. We had a Tri Zones team rack, which was a lot of fun. It was so much fun to see so many of my Tri Zones teammates before the race and to wish the beginners good luck, this was the very first triathlon for many of them!Some of the first time triathletes! Photo by Tom Marek

Me in transition
Coach Jen in transition
Sandra in transition
Julie M and I doing a swim warm up. Photo by Tim McDonald
Julie M and i at the swim start. Photo by Tim McDonald

Julie M. and I did a swim warm up, the water was a little dirty and mucky at the bottom, but the temperature was perfect. Desiree Ficker sang the National Anthem, who knew she could sing too! and then the first wave took off, I was in the second wave and lined up right at the front, I look over and right beside me was Desiree Ficker! I told her she did a great job singing and she said "oh thank you so much! That was WAY harder than racing" How often do you get to start a race right next to a world class professional triathlete!

I had a good swim, I really tried to focus on my technique and swimming strong vs. swimmng fast (with bad technique) and I feel like it worked well. Even though there were a lot of people in my wave, I felt like it was easy to find my own space in the water and I didn't really run into anyone and didn't really have anyone run into me either. My swim time was 8:02.

The pavement from the swim to transition was really wet from the rain, and it was super slick, so I walked from the swim to transition, my transition was pretty long at 3:43. I got out on the bike course and quickly realized that even though a few people had told me the bike course was "mostly flat" it was pretty hilly by my standards. The hills were all doable, nothing as steep as at Decker, but there were definitely some fairly long tough hills. It was a fun bike ride, I had fun seeing so many Tri Zoners out there. Going up a hill, someone passed me and said "nice job", I replied breathlessly "thanks, you too" then I realized it was Coach Tracy! All of a sudden I wasn't so out of breath! "hey! I didn't realize that was you!" She said something about not recognizing me at first and that I was doing great as she powered by me up the hill. It's amazing how seeing someone you know can give you a boost of energy! I finished the bike in 47:31, a little slower than I'd wanted, but I was also expecting a "mostly flat" course. As I came in to transition, I heard Tom yell my name, as usual Tom and Carolyn were all over the place taking pictures! Thanks so much guys!

Photo by Tom Marek
finishing the bike, it looks like I'm smiling pretty for the camera, but I didn't see Tom at all, just heard him yell my name, he's just that good a photographer and caught me at the right moment!
Photo by Tom Marek
A few of the awesome Tri Zones volunteers Coach Gina, Coach Cindy, Little Pam and Vickie

In T2, I saw Sandra and we left transition at the same time and she said, "great! now we can run together". T2 was 1:33. Sandra and I ran together a lot during half marathon training. We ran the first mile together and saw lots of Tri Zoners heading back for the finish, we high fived Coach Tracy, Coach Jen, Julie and a few others. At the turnaround, I tried to get a cup of water, but ended up with Powerade, I never drink powerade, I thought about turning around and getting water, but I just drank a little of the powerade, I slowed down enough during this that Sandra got a little ahead of me, I thought about really trying to catch her, but I knew we still had a hill to run up at the end and I was already working pretty hard, plus Sandra is usually a little faster than me. I saw lots of the Tri Zones beginners going out on the run as I was coming in, I high fived a few, and cheered them on! As I came back toward the finish, I saw Sarah G. and high fived Kendra. My run was 20:03.

Almost finished. Photo by Tom Marek

I had a great race and a lot of fun! I ended up finishing in 1:20:53. Photo by Tom Marek
After I finished a few of us walked out a little way to cheer for the rest of the Tri Zoners. Coach Jen won her age group, Jody won her age group, and I think a couple of other Tri Zoners placed in their age groups.
Jody with her first place award. Photo by Tom Marek
Coach Jen accepting her first place award

The Kindness of Tri Zoners

This morning Tri Zones had the first open water swim practice of the season out at Decker Lake (where Danskin, Longhorn and Couples tris are). I got there early to help the beginners. But as soon as I got out of the truck to say hi and figure out what was going on, I realized I had locked my keys in the truck! oops! And of course I hadn't taken anything out of the truck yet. I was wearing my swimsuit under my clothes, but my wetsuit, goggles, swim cap, phone, wallet and everything else was locked in the truck.

I eventually decided I could get someone to take me over to Performance so I could get Jeff's keys and walk home, then when Ingrid got to town we could go get the truck and then I could go do packet pickup for Skeese Greets.

I also decided I could still help the beginners, I just wouldn't be able to really do my swim after with out goggles and everything. I figured I'd be really cold just hanging out in the water without a wetsuit.

But then everyone started showing up and I got at least 20-30 offers to help me out. I really don't even know how many times people said, I have extra, goggles, swim cap, towel, etc. etc. I ended up borrowing $1 from Julie M. for park entrance fee, a swim cap from Julie W., goggles from Susan, a towel from Sandra, and food from Kenneth and Vickie.

The water wasn't even that cold without a wetsuit. We helped the beginners for about an hour and they did an awesome job! After the beginner swim, those of us who had been helping out did our swim. I had a good swim, I think I only did about 600 m or so (couldn't miss my ride!), but Decker is a really nice place to swim and I really enjoyed it.

Jenny took me to Performance and on the way I told her my plan for getting into the truck and she said, "well why don't I just bring you back to get the truck now, that way you don't have to wait for Ingrid to get here and worry about getting your packet before they close" That was awesome!

Thank you so much to everyone who offered to let borrow stuff yesterday!! I really appreciate it. and a super huge thank you to Jenny for taking me to get Jeff's keys and then driving me all the way back to Decker to get the truck! You guys are the BEST!

Spectating at Champions Triathlon

Ingrid invited me to do the Champion's Tri a few weeks ago, I decided to pass, I have to draw the line somewhere (if triathlons were free, I'd probably race every weekend). She came into town on Saturday afternoon and we had dinner at the Salt Lick.

Sunday morning I went out to Pace Bend Park to watch the race. It was a really small race, probably less than 150 people total. Ingrid was in one of the last waves to start and she was excited to not have to worry about starting with tons of people or having people catch up to her and swim over her.
She saw some guy doing some kind of ballet moves as a warm up, I missed it so she reenacted it for me!
Ingrid looking excited to start swimming!
While Ingrid was swimming, I overheard one of the race directors saying that they didn't have enough volunteers, so I ended up volunteering at the start/finish of the bike course. It was fun to see everyone getting on and off their bikes, flying mounts and dismounts, some really good, some really not good. I only saw one person fall and it was nothing major. It was also the perfect place to see Ingrid coming out of transition. She looks so happy to get to start biking!
Coming in to the bike finish, again looking really happy! She passed a ton of people and had a great ride.
I was still volunteering on the bike course when Ingrid started running, but I was finished before Ingrid would be finished running, so I ran over to the finish. While I was waiting for Ingrid I heard them announce Lisa Dennison finishing. She was my swim coach for the Tri Zones swim clinic a few weeks ago.
Just a couple minutes after Coach Lisa finished, Ingrid came around the corner, looking happy and not tired at all!

As Ingrid crossed the finish line the race director announced he was going to give away prizes for people who got signatures from race vendors. Ingrid crossed the finish line and immediately said to me "what did he say we have to do to win prizes?" I told her, and she took off running (seriously, she was running and she just finished!) to get signatures. We got the signatures and Ingrid won a t-shirt and I won a backpack. Later Ingrid told me "nothing about that race was easy". She never said why, but from what I could tell, the water was cold and a little choppy, the bike was hilly with lots of curves and turns, and the run was hilly too, but she really made it look easy.

Then it was Cupcake time! Ingrid was super excited about her cupcake, I couldn't believe how much energy she had right after finishing!

Maybe she had so much energy because she won her age group! That's right a first place finish!

Less than an hour after she finished, Ingrid asked if I has swum yet (I had planned to get in an open water swim since I was out there). I hadn't swum yet and Ingrid offered to swim with me! I couldn't believe she was ready to get in the water again, but it was great to have some company out there, especially since the water was pretty choppy with a few boats and jet skis around. I had a good swim and it felt great to get in the open water.

I'm really glad Ingrid decided to do the race. I had an awesome time spectating, volunteering, and hanging out with Ingrid after the race. Doesn't hurt that Ingrid had a great race and won her age group either!

MS 150

I didn't actually do the MS 150 and this year it wasn't actually the MS 150, it was 1 day and 80 miles. Day one got rained/thunderstormed out. But on day two, Ingrid, Kim, Matt, Steph, Larry, Loanna, Chris, Maggie and a few other people I know (about 15,000 people total) rode from La Grange to Austin. I saw Larry after he finished and talked with him for a little while. I talked with Matt and Steph when they finished, and I heard that everyone else had a great ride too. Ingrid and Kim at the finish with the Capital in the background
Larry after finishing
Ingrid and Kim and I had planned to go to the Cookie Lounge when they finished. Ingrid had been looking forward to her trip to the Cookie Lounge for a long time. She really enjoyed it and sent Jeff and I an email about it the next day with her Cookie BreakdownKim enjoying a cookie
Ingrid with her Mookie
Ingrid's Cookie Breakdown
"Here’s what I ordered:
1) Peanut butter dough with milk chocolate chunks (good)
2) Brown sugar dough with English toffee bits (really good)
3) Chocolate dough with a hint of macaroon dough, dark chocolate bits and almonds (the best of the three fresh baked cookies)
4) Mookie with Vanilla Sweet Cream dough and caramel bits (almost as good as #3)
5) Whoopie Pie (yummy but very messy!)"

Pedernales Falls State Park

We had planned to camp at Pedernales Falls State Park this weekend, but they are predicting thunderstorms and hail tonight and tomorrow, so we decided to make it a day trip instead.

I have been to Pedernales 3 times and this was the driest I've seen it. The second time I went you could barely walk on any of the rocks, most of them were underwater.

The Pederanales is known for serious flash flooding, to the point that it's rushing super fast and you can't see any of the rocks that we were walking on today.

Jeff climbed up onto this tall rock

There's a small waterfall right below me on this rock

Another waterfall

Big rocks near the waterfalls. The rocks are really cool looking, but pretty tough to climb on Jeff by one of the rocky water pools

I saw this cave and really wanted to go in it. It took a lot of climbing on rocks to get there

almost there

me in the cave

Jeff and I in the cave

view out of the cave

The water isn't that cold. and look how clear it is!

Jeff really liked this bald cypress tree