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

Biology Club Museum Trip

Today I took members of the Biology Club to the Museum of Natural Science. Brandon, the other club advisor, set up a behind the scenes tour of the Cockrell Butterfly Center.













Me letting a Phasmid (leaf insect) climb on me.














holding a tarantula


This is where the chrysalises are kept. When the butterflies come out they are taken to the butterfly habitat.















I took pictures of tons of butterflies, but this one is my favorite. It's a rice paper butterfly hanging upside down.

Camping at Pedernales Falls State Park

I was asked by my boss to go with the Venture Dynamics class on their camping trip, as a chaperone. The class packs everything they’ll need for an overnight camping trip into hiking packs and hikes into the primitive camping area about 3 miles from the parking lot. They’re graded on packing what they need, setting up a tent, and cooking meals. We got to the park and explored a little then got our packs ready and hiked into the camping area. I didn’t have any trouble hiking in with the pack, but by the time we got there, I was really glad to get rid of the 25 lb pack! I’m really glad I don’t weight 25 lbs more!

We hiked down to the river and explored there for awhile. We waded in the water, but it was freezing!

On Saturday morning, we packed up the gear and hiked back out, then we drove over to the waterfalls. We hiked and explored around there for a couple hours. It’s a really beautiful area. Lots of caves and cliffs, it was fairly hard to get to some spots.

Welcome

Well, here we go. Hopefully this works!

Heather & I decided this would be the easiest way for us to keep in touch with everyone.

Feel free to comment on any of the posts, we look forward to hearing from everyone.

Cheers

Jeff & Heather