Ironman Cozumel Pre-race

The week before we left was uneventful, but still pretty stressful. I was worried about forgetting something and Jeff was worried all our bags would be overweight. Jeff and I made lists and packed and repacked during the week. We had triathlon gear, Scuba gear, and stuff for 10 days. We ended up with 3 bags weighing 49.5 pounds and the bike box close to 70. On Monday, Jeff called me at work and told me while packing my bike he and Adrian found that my rear wheel was completely out of true, they tried to fix it but it was too bad to be fixed, so they had already decided I was going to borrow Adrian's Easton wheels and everything would be fine. I was not happy, I wanted MY wheels, I didn't want anything new or different for the biggest longest race ever! But I knew I had no choice and was really happy that they had figured out a good solution. After a couple of hours I was able to convince myself that it would be fine. Besides as Shayla said, "all the cool kids use different wheels on race day". While I was still unhappy and freaked out about the wheel situation, I went to pick up some antibiotics just in case I had tummy issues. The pharmacist told me "there's just one side effect, it's not common, but some people have ruptured their Achilles tendon while taking this" I thought "you must be freaking kidding me!" but I said "I'm doing an Ironman on Sunday, can you change this out for something that doesn't have that as a side effect?" She was super nice, she made a few phone calls and got it switched out for me. I think that was the last of the drama before we left, we drove to Houston and hung out with Jeff's parents on Tuesday. The flight on Wednesday was no big deal, almost everyone on the plane was doing the race or going to support/spectate.

Jeff and I got to Cozumel on Wednesday before noon and I was immediately SO happy to be here!
There were Ironman signs everywhere! This was taken from our balcony

Thursday morning Sandra and I went to swim at Chankanaab, beautiful water! I swam along looking at cool fish and corals in the water!Jeff assembled my bike
We did packet pick up Thursday afternoon and ran into Ingrid, Del and Kim on our way backLove our jackets!!

Early Friday morning Sandra, Del and I rode out to Chankanaab and back about 10 miles total. Adrian's wheels were fine, except that his magnet and my Garmin weren't quite getting along. My Garmin info would look normal one minute and next thing I know I'd be riding along and it would read 0 for speed and auto pause itself. It happened about 10-15 times on our 10 mile ride. Jeff did some adjustments and we hoped it would work properly for the race.

Jeff went out on the dive boat Friday morning and saw a shark and a lot of other cool stuff diving. I went back to Chankanaab for a second practice swim. Another awesome swim and I was pretty sure that the race would be the best swim ever! The only thing I was unsure of was the mass start, but you can't really practice that.

After swimming we watched the "dolphin encounters"
and Ingrid, Kim, Del and I hung out on the beach at Chankanaab until about noon. 2 Croatian guys took this picture for us and then we realized they were staying at our hotel, right across from Jeff and I!
On the way back from Chankanaab, we stopped at the bike mechanic area, Jeff had told me to get a new magnet if I could, Del needed skewer springs, and Ingrid needed something for her aerobottle. Ingrid got her stuff, but they didn't have what Del and I needed. Our cab driver was super nice and she told us there was a bike shop a few blocks back from the water front. We had lunch and walked back toward the bike shop, it was fairly far back into the "local part of town" where I had never been. We found the bike shop and just had to laugh! They had mopeds, old mountain bikes and kid's bikes, but not a road bike and certainly not a tri bike in sight! I knew they wouldn't have a magnet, Del asked about springs, but they didn't have those either. Oh well!

Friday afternoon I started putting together my bike and run transition bags and got really nervous. Jeff tried to make me feel better but it wasn't really working, then I remembered I had printed an email Kristen sent me just before we left and I pulled it out and read it and it put me right back in my happy and excited about the race mood. Thanks Kristen!


Getting ready to go for my last run before the race!

Saturday at lunch

Saturday afternoon was bike and gear bag check in
They put all of my bike info into a computer
I went to rack my bike, turn in bags and get body marked, and I ran into Sandra and Del!
Saturday pre-race dinner was at La Mission, one of our favorite restaurants in Cozumel. They were giving 50% off to athletes and 30% off to athlete companions! My parents got to Cozumel on Saturday and came to dinner with us. Ingrid's mom showed us the "Inspiration Stick" and all of our charms on it. She got a fish necklace for me.
The racers after pre-race dinner, Del, me, Kim, Wilmer, and Ingrid

Texas Tri Series Party

I had been looking forward to the Texas Tri Series party for a long time. I knew it would be hard to beat last year's party, but I knew it would be a lot of fun! The Tri Zoners decided we all wanted to go early and have a pre-party drink, so Kendra (my date) and I got there around 6 and met everyone in the lobby. We scoped out the awards, hats, and t-shirts before anyone else got there, I love the shirts and mine fits perfectly- Yay! First thing I said when I saw them was "this shirt is totally going to Cozumel with me!" I made sure I was at the front of the line to pick up awards and stuff, then went into the party room and saved us the two best tables, right in front of the stage!
Annette, Kristen, Kendra, Julie, Eva, me, Cindy, Vanessa, Carol, and Kim. Photo by Miguel Ortiz
Tri Series finisher award and t-shirt! Photo by Julie Wolf
Eva with her award

We enjoyed lots of free beer and wine and watching the slide show, while we waited for dinner time. Of course every time a Tri Zoner came on the slide show we all cheered. did I mention there was free beer? Photo by Miguel Ortiz

I don't know if I was extra hungry or if dinner was really that good, but I really enjoyed it! But I took forever to eat, I was too busy talking to everyone to finish eating, so they started the prize giveaways before I even finished eating!

The entire party is always a blast, but the prizes are the best part, because, honestly, it's fun to win anything, even if it's just a $1 coupon or something. They give away tons of small prizes at the Tri Series party, to the point that almost everyone wins something. Then they move on to the bigger prizes, I'd say valued between $100 and $400 and there are more of those than you'd think. Then the biggest prize of the night is 4 entries into the entire Tri Series for the next year- that's 5 triathlons and worth well over $600!! So you know we were all WAY excited!!
The first big Tri Zones winners were Cindy winning a bag and Kristen winning a bookThey both ended up trading for visors. Photo by Miguel Ortiz
Then I won a visor- yeah I got pretty excited about it. Photo by Julie Wolf
Eva won a visor that matched mine. Photo by....no clue, but it was on my camera
Vanessa and Miguel won matching hatsThen Vanessa traded for the book. Photo by...ummm ME, with Miguel's awesome camera!
By the end of the small prizes, every Tri Zoner had won something, most of us had won the visors like mine, Julie won a huge bag of Shot Bloks (which is on her head in the picture). Then they moved on to the bigger prizes- we didn't all win those prizes but Kendra won a swim speedsuit worth $300! Based on last year and this year, it looks like being my date at the Tri Series party is good luck!**

They give awards for the winners in each age group over the entire series and both Julie and Kim won their age groups! Then they recognized the volunteers who had volunteered at every event, including Annette and Tom & Carolyn who didn't get to come to the party.

Then they did the Grand Prize drawings. Last year Ingrid won and put my name down (cool story here), and Julie won too. We were all on the edge of our seats hoping Logan would call our number! He called out a number that was about 8 higher than mine and I knew it was someone from the second Tri Zones table, so I immediately pointed toward them and started screaming and cheering, it was JULIE again!! What a lucky lucky girl!!
At the end of the party with all our cool Tri Series winnings! Photo by Miguel Ortiz
Julie was the BIG winner of the night! She posted this picture on FB, notice the huge pile of Shot Bloks under the plaque and the pile of money that says "2011 Texas Tri Series"

** it turns out the speedsuit doesn't fit Kendra, but it does fit me, so that's actually 2 years in a row that my "date" to the Tri Series Party has won a big prize and then given it to me! Do I have the greatest friends or what?!?

Ironman Florida Watch Party!

Shayla named my house the "Virtual Ironman Viewing Headquarters" during the Buffalo Springs 70.3 watch party and I love it! My house is officially on 4square as the VIVHQ! So she even made signs this time! So cool!
People started showing up around 6:30 am to watch Coach Jen, Red, Nicki, Tom and Peggy race Ironman Florida. I put the coverage up on tv as soon as it started! Everyone was so excited to see our Iron Tri Zoners begin their race!!!

Drew did a pre race video of Nicki and a swim start video, we loved them and watched facebook constantly for more videos, he kept them coming all day!
We thought there was a lot of food for breakfast, but this was nothing compared to what the table and really the entire kitchen looked like by dinner time!

The swim started and in no time Coach Jen was halfway, soon everyone else was halfway and I was amazed at how fast everyone was swimming! Their final swim times were crazy fast!! Once everyone was on the bike, we could watch the trackers and see their progress, way fun! The trackers worked really well and even when they switched over to the new Beta version, Shayla figured it out quickly and we realized the new version was better anyway. I think the only scare we had was when Coach Jen's tracker stopped working for awhile, we worried she got a flat or something, but after a quick text to Kristen we knew it was just a tracker issue.
Shayla brought posters so we could make a sign for each athlete and everyone could sign it.

Kendra making baked potatoes for lunch- yum!

It seemed like everyone was off the bike in really good time, I think they all rode so well that they could have crawled the marathon and still beat the cut off time!Once our racers started running more people came over and things got more exciting!
We had 4 laptops and a huge tv to track our athletes, watch the live coverage, post to facebook and the Tri Zones forum, and download pictures and video.
Coach Jen was first to finish!! I can't even imagine being that fast!!
Waiting for the rest of our Tri Zoners to finish.

Everyone else was pretty close together, Red first. Shayla decided to take a video of us cheering and going crazy as Red finished.
then I had to take a break to eat dinner while we watched for Nicki to come in. Shayla had to leave and put Jeff in charge of videoing the finishes, we had a false alarm for Nicki, and the video Jeff took is pretty funny. Then we actually got to see Nicki finish!
Next was Tom
and then Peggy! although we had a false alarm for Peggy too, it's pretty tough to recognize people coming down that dark finish chute!
All our Tri Zoners were in in less than 14:30! Wow!! I had planned to be up until midnight watching but it was only 9:30 and they were all already finished!!

They all did so amazing and made it look easy! I'm sure it wasn't easy at all and I can't wait to hear all their individual stories!

Congratulations!!! You all did awesome!!!!

My fridge FULL of leftover food! Jeff and I will be eating well all week!

P-ville Century

Sandra and I needed to do another long ride and I wanted to make it fun, so I decided we should do 4 laps of the Hell Ain't This Hot course and invite all our Tri Zones friends to join us. I figured if we were lucky we might get different people for each lap which would really keep it interesting.

On the way to P-ville I saw tons of police cars, fire trucks and there was traffic at 6:45 on a Saturday! I had no idea what was going on, but soon got a call from Amy B. She told me she and others were stuck in traffic because a tanker truck crashed and caught on fire- YIKES! Luckily everyone make it to P-ville, a little late, but safe. It was also super COLD! 39 degrees!! So I was bundled up like an Eskimo! Sandra and I waited until everyone looked ready to ride and then took off, assuming everyone would follow right behind us- we were wrong. We kept thinking they would catch us any minute but we never saw Tom, Amy B., Laura, or Leah. I was sad that we didn't get to ride with them, I was really looking forward to Amy, Laura and Leah's awesome company! Especially since I have never ridden with Amy or Leah and every time I ride with Laura she keeps me highly entertained!

I was cold most of the first loop but not excruciatingly so. I don't think I whined to Sandra too much. We were riding along on Manda Carlson (before the wind picked up) and I heard a noise, looked behind us and saw a dog chasing us! We sped up, but the dog kept following! At first it was scary, but soon we realized the dog had no interest in biting us, she just wanted to follow us. I didn't want to give her attention because I assumed it would make her more likely to chase bikes or even cars, so we kept going. She followed us for over 2 miles!! Later, Tom, Amy, Laura, and Leah saw her too and Tom and Carolyn decided to adopt her! How cool is that!!

We got back to the parking lot and had Kim H., Little Pam, Jeff, Clint, and his friend Brent waiting to ride with us- cool! I took off with Kim, Clint and Brent. The wind was already picking up, but at least I wasn't freezing anymore! Clint and I chatted and I told him who I was since I wasn't sure if he remembered me. He said "oh yeah, I know you, I just didn't recognize you in the ninja mask!" LOL yeah, it was that cold even on lap 2! I rode most of the first half of lap 2 with Kim and we talked all about Ironman training, then the second half I rode with Little Pam and Jeff. I told Jeff I was going to be really tired of the wind by lap 4, he replied "maybe the wind will get tired of you first!" I wish!!

For lap 3 we had Kendra, Peggy, and Jody waiting for us and Little Pam and Jeff again. I rode part of lap 3 with Kendra and Peggy and then the rest with Sandra. Sandra and I had new fun things to talk about since we hadn't ridden together in a lap and a half. I was definitely getting tired of the wind, but still having a good ride. Catherine finished up lap 3 with me.

Sandra decided she was going to have to skip out a little early to get some work done (party pooper!, but I love you anyway Sandra!!) So we decided to make "lap 4" 2 laps of Coach Jen's time trial route so that Sandra could do 1 lap, not have to ride it alone, and be finished 45 minutes or so earlier. For lap 4 we had the "dream team" of Coach Cindy, Kendra, and Elizabeth H. The Dream Team- Kendra, Elizabeth, & Coach Cindy

E-beth has a sprained ankle and was really worried about unclipping so she was super excited when I told her we switched the route to the TT loop and there were no stop signs and all right turns so no unclipping til the end! They kept me chatting and laughing the entire time and even the hills and head wind on Cameron Rd didn't seem that bad, (ok, it was still tough, but made seriously better by good company!) We decided Coach Cindy needs her own fashion TV show and episode 1 will be "Roadside Underpants", episode 2 is "Topless Chapstick", and episode 3 "Antarctic Polar Sunglasses" I know you had to be there, but it was seriously entertaining at the time! Cindy's "Antarctic Polar Sunglasses" Very fashionable!

At one point, Kendra and E-beth fell behind, when Kendra finally caught up I asked what happened, she said they slowed down on purpose to make me feel really fast! LOL! I yelled out "100 miles" when my Garmin hit 100 and they all cheered for me like only Tri Zoners can!! I ended up riding 103 miles! And I think it was my most fun century ride yet!Still smiling after 103 miles!

THANK YOU so much to everyone who came out to ride with Sandra and I today! We really, really appreciate it!! You all ROCK!!!

How Did I Get Here?

An online friend of mine who will be doing Ironman Cozumel too just wrote a "How Did I Get Here" post, I thought it was a pretty cool idea- so I'm stealing it! Thanks Hassan! He also said "This is a moment I will NEVER (this is one of very few times I CAN say NEVER!) have again. I will NEVER again be 4 weeks out from my FIRST Ironman." WOW! 4 weeks!?!?! Deep Breaths!

So, how did I get here? I was never an athlete, as a young adult, I always worked out just enough to not get too overweight, I was an overweight kid and didn't want to be there again. In 2002 I was finishing grad school and had just started my first "real" job at Duckworth-Cole, Inc. I wasn't walking all over campus anymore or swimming at the A&M rec center. I needed to do something to stay in reasonable shape, so I joined Aerofit gym and started swimming a couple mornings a week. My swims coincided with the triathlon group's swims. They were all really nice (and REALLY fit) and kept trying to talk me into swimming with them. Finally I gave in and told them "ok I'll work out with you, but I'm never (that's right I said NEVER- Ha!) going to do a triathlon, that's just crazy!" I started swimming with them, then doing a few spin classes and eventually a little running. I held to my "I'm never going to do a triathlon" thinking for months, honestly I was afraid. My go to excuse became "I don't have a bike" I must have used it a few too many times, because that year for Christmas Jeff got me a bike! I didn't know whether to be happy or scared! I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 16 or 17 and I had never ridden a bike like that! I had to learn how to shift all those gears and use the brakes (I had only ridden bikes with coaster brakes!). I had no excuses anymore and everyone in the triathlon group assumed I would do a triathlon that spring. YIKES!My first road bike, a Specialized Allez

The first ever Brazos Valley Triathlon was on April 6, 2003. It was a sprint with a 1000 meter swim, a 15.7 mile bike, and a 3.1 mile run. I was scared to death I would be LAST! Turns out I was last in my age group (of 5) but far from last overall. Even though the water was only 55 degrees, the bike course was fairly hilly, and the run was partially on a trail, I had FUN and I told everyone in the tri group that I'd do sprint triathlons "but never (that's right, I said NEVER again!) anything longer because running more than 3 miles is just dumb."Running at my very first triathlon

I did the Splash Triathlon at Sea World that fall, this time I wasn't even last in my age group! In 2004 Jeff and I got married- so no races that year. In 2005 I did 2 triathlons including my first race longer than a sprint- the Galveston International Triathlon, which later became Lonestar. No races in 2006, but in 2007 I did the sprint at Lonestar and as I was running through Moody Gardens in the pouring rain I thought "This is so much FUN! I really need to race more!" I did 4 sprints that year and somehow got it in my head that I might, maybe be interested in doing a Half Ironman someday!

I signed up for the 2008 Austin Half Marathon (since the Houston half sold out) just to see if I was actually capable of running 13 miles. That was by far the hardest training I had done, all my long runs were tough and I expected the race to hurt. But somehow, my "Inner Runner" broke free during that race and I had a BLAST! I hadn't run any hills during training, but I loved running the hills and I loved the race atmosphere in Austin!Finishing my first half marathon in 2008

The Austin half gave me confidence and I signed up for Longhorn 70.3 in the fall. I also joined HRTC and met Ingrid, Del, Cassie, Kim, Matt, David, etc. and trained for Longhorn with them all spring and summer. I still had no interest in doing a full Ironman, although at least I had learned not to say Never! We talked about Ironman races a lot that summer and at the time I think Cassie was the only one who definitely wanted to do one someday. Longhorn 2008 was probably the toughest race I have ever done, but I loved it! As soon as I crossed the finish line I knew that I wanted to do an Ironman someday!Running at my first Longhorn 70.3 in 2008

Jeff and I moved to Austin in 2008 and about a week before Longhorn, I joined Tri Zones. Structured workouts and real coaching helped me a ton and I had an awesome 2009 tri season! At the end of November (after her first Ironman in Florida), Ingrid emailed me saying she and Kim were signing up for Ironman Cozumel 2010 and asked if I wanted to do it too. Since the race is over Thanksgiving weekend the subject line on the email was "Turkey Tacos!!!!" At first I said no way, but after talking with Jeff, Coach Jen, Ingrid, Cassie, Nicki, David, etc, etc! (thanks to all of you!!) I decided to go for it!!

Hard to believe that was 46 weeks ago!! So far training and racing this season has been a lot of fun. I got to do my first marathon, 2 half irons, and a few shorter races this year. When I signed up, 50 weeks seemed like such a long time, but so far it has flown by! I have a couple more long training weekends, a taper, 3.5 weeks of work, and a lot of packing to do before we leave for Cozumel and Turkey Tacos Baby!!!!

Longhorn weekend

When Adrian got the new coach, he told Jeff and I that he wanted to use it as much as possible, so I suggested we take it out to Decker for Longhorn and just stay out there all weekend. He thought that was a great idea, and wanted it to be at the Tri Zones Team Tailgating area, so I got all the oks to have a huge motor home out there and Jeff and Adrian took it out there on Friday while I was still at work. I got out there around 6pm after they had done all the hard work! We picked up our race packets and within an hour the Expo area was pretty much deserted. It was really cool to be out there by ourselves, we let the dogs run and play and watched Office Space on the outdoor TV.
Saturday morning Jeff had to go to work for a few hours and Adrian and I did our short pre-race workouts. Kendra was first to show up and Julie and Sandra were just behind her. They all wanted the pancake breakfast, I knew that was a really bad idea for me and Adrian was making eggs, veggie sausage, avocado & fruit so I had that- YUM! Definitely going to be my Saturday pre-race breakfast in the future!
Kendra, Sandra, Julie, & Amy all came back after the pancake breakfast and hung out for awhile.
Kendra, Amy, & Adrian relaxing at the coach. It was a completely lazy day! We sat around in the cool coach chairs with our feet up ALL day! Most of the Tri Zoners who would be racing stopped by. The expo area stayed pretty crowded all day with people picking up packets and everything and we were just off the main walk way to the expo center. We had fun people watching all day and that definitely went both ways. Tons of people actually stopped and stared at us! At one point Adrian said "this must be how zoo animals feel" haha! Funny but true! It was so nice to not have to worry about timing packet pickup, lunch, bike check in, dinner and everything else, we were right there! When we got hungry we went inside and ate something, when it was time to exchange shirts I just walked over and did it in less than 10 minutes.

We decided to go over and check our bikes in around 4:30, I knew bike check in was open until 7, but we wanted to do it before dinner. We drove the Xterra the mile or 2 to T1 so we wouldn't have to walk all the way back. I was surprised that I got a really sweet parking spot. We were leisurely walking our bikes toward check in when some guy said "be prepared for a lecture" I said "what?" he said "for being LATE!" I was completely confused. But when we got over to check in Carolyn and all the other Tri Zoners were pointing at their watches and saying things like "it's about time!" "we wondered where you guys were!" Apparently bike check in actually closed at 4:30! I would have sworn it was 7! Guess I better read the packet more carefully in Cozumel since it won't be Carolyn and all my Tri Zones friends in charge of bike check in there!! I felt really bad because I know Carolyn and everyone had been out there ALL day and I was one of THOSE people making them stay later than they needed too- SORRY guys!

Back at the coach, we had dinner and hung out with Carolyn, Tom, Del, and Kristen, then watched the stars and played with the dogs until bedtime.
Bonzai being a lap dog
Katie being a lap dog
Connor chillin' out
Abear being silly