September Summary...

Technically, there is still one day left in September, but I'll be taking it easy. What a crazy month. I am glad all my hard work over the summer paid off. Back in March I never thought I'd have a month like this, it was hard to not worry about reinjury. You just get to the point where you worry that every run will end up like the last one before the injury.

I can say that September has definitely lessened my worries.

This is missing the five miles (including the Brookhaven 5k from September 1st), why won't Daily Mile let me select the time period I want to see?

So, 69 running miles in September. There were also 40 miles on my bike. Considering there were zero miles on my bike in August, I think the bike legs of the triathlons went pretty well. If there is a HIM in 2013 I'm going to have to love being on the bike. I think all the kick ass spin classes I did this spring when I was injured and this summer when it was too hot to be outside definitely helped. I'm going to have to keep doing that once a week this winter.

So 2012 is 3/4 of the way done. I currently have no races planned for the rest of the year. Well, there is the Race for the Cure the last weekend in October, I would like to work on my speed for that one. I did win my age group last year, maybe I can do that again.

Maybe I can convince some friends that we need to run the half at Whiterock in December, and we are all talking about going back to Cowtown in February. Maybe I can shoot for the full there.

That would mean I have 71 days until my next race. I guess we will see how it goes. I see some cruise ship running in my near future.

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Redman Recap...

I was horribly nervous all last week leading up to the Redman. I headed up to Lake Hefner after work Friday to drop off the cookies I traded out for mine and Rochelle's entries into the Oly pic distance tri on Sunday.

I got to see the sea of bikes all set up in the transition area for Saturday's races, I also picked up my race packet and meet Ben to pick up the wetsuit I was borrowing for the race. I lucked out and borrowed one from Ben's sister, who is crazy awesome, she won the full ironman at the Redman last year. (After swimming over two miles and riding her bike 112 miles she ran a marathon in four hours. Amazing!)

Can I just say that wetsuits are not easy to get on?

This really isn't my best look, I think.

After spending most of Saturday feeling very sick to my stomach, we had a birthday party and then I did some carb loading. I got all my stuffed packed and loaded my bike in my car. I was in bed by 9:30, and I slept pretty good.

I was up bright and early (4:45) and got dressed and put on my tri tats. What a great idea to have temporary tattoos for your race numbers.

We loaded up, swung by and picked up my partner in crime, and after a bathroom pit stop at Starbucks, we made it to Lake Hefner. It was quite a scramble to get our tires aired up at the Schlegal's tent and get our transitions set up.

Assigned transition spots are a really good idea. The fact that they closed the transition an hour and a half before our race was not. The sprint distance race started at 7:30 and we weren't allowed back in transition at that time. Things like sunscreen got missed because of this. More on that later.

It was nice to be able to see the swim portion of the sprint race. It got pretty interesting, the water was so shallow we got to see exactly where we would have to walk during our swim. We also had time for pictures.

Do we look terrified here?

Where we were standing, there should have been water. The low water levels made for a very long trek from the swim to the transition area.

Before we knew it, it was time to get in the water.

I'm not gonna lie, the water was freezing, and the bottom was pretty muddy and slimy. I managed to not get too beat up when the swim started. It was not easy to adjust to not being able to see anything when you put your face in the water. I swear, every time I looked to see where I was in relation to the bouys it didn't seem like I was getting any closer to them. I did get kicked in the face once, and on the second lap when I had to walk I got a horrible cramp in my right calf. I managed to work it out and finish the swim.

The craziest part of the race was the strippers. If you had a wetsuit on, when you got into transition they had strippers to get you out of your wetsuit. I had mine unzipped and my arms out, so I ran up and laid down and they just grabbed ahold of the wetsuit and ripped it off, then they helped you get back up, threw the suit back to me and I was on my way.

I did have to make a stop at one of the most disgusting port-o-potties ever, and then I got my helmet and socks and bike shoes on. I did not get sunscreen, I managed to tune my Garmin on but forgot to put it on, and forgot my sun glasses. After a GU and a drink of water I was ready to go.

The bike route was a seven mile loop, which made the total long for an Olympic distance race. It was nice riding along the dam, but coming back up Hefner was not easy. By the fourth loop I was seriously ready to be done.

Transition 2 was a bit faster than the first one. I managed to get my Garmin on, had another GU and some water, put on my visor and set off for the run. I did have a bit of a freak out moment when people were cheering my name at the start, (the fans were awesome), but then I realized my name was on my race bib.

It was only about 80 degrees out but it was not cloudy at all. I was wishing I was back in the freezing cold lake. For the first half I was maintaining about an 8 minute pace, which I was really happy about, and I managed only one walk break in the first half.

After this there were a few more walk breaks. Im not gonna lie to you, because of the lack of wind during the walk breaks i could tell how stinky i was. I was very happy to finish the run in under 55 minutes. So after just over 3 hours and 17 minutes my first Olympic triathlon was over.

You can't tell from this picture but I was quite sunburnt.

Our cheering section were real troopers.

Josh even rode up with us at the crack of dawn. I think he might have gotten a nap in before our race started.

We got loaded up and headed home. After a shower there was this.

I used baby oil to get the tattoos off on Tuesday, and my arms look like this now.

That's my number 673, it'll be there foe who knows how long. What a great reminder of a great race.

Looks like 2013 will be the year of the half ironman. More on that later.

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WIAW Redman Edition...

So let's talk WIAW and the Redman Triathlon.

We went to a birthday party Saturday afternoon for some nieces and nephews. Its crazy how many birthdays we have in September. I waited to eat after we left the party and we stopped by Sandro's for some pasta.

I got the penne with marinara sauce. I could have sworn I took a picture of it but maybe in my crazy nervousness I might have imagined it.

I had a banana before we left the house Sunday morning and a peanut butter and honey sandwich a couple hours before the race started. Those would be the most boring food pictures ever.

After the race Rochelle and I stocked up at the food tent before we headed home. After my shower, and a little ice for my feet I was ready to eat.

The peanutbutter and jelly graham cracker sandwich was amazing. When we did the Breast Cancer 3-Day in Chicago in 2006 they had these and we ate them for three days, they were just as yummy Sunday.

By dinner time I was starving, so I ate the rest of the pasta I didn't eat on Saturday night.

There was lots do Nuun in my water bottle the rest of the day as well. I was a little dehydrated after the race.

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Redman Triathlon...

Just the highlights right now, but I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon on Sunday. I don't think I did too bad.

Becky Craig. 673 Congratulations On Your Finish Here Are Your Ultramax Sports Personalized Results Race Name/Distance Olympic Overall Place 131 Division Name F3539 Division Place 4 Gender Place 40 Swim Time 32:50 Swim Pace 2:01 Transition 1 5:34 Bike 1:41:37 Bike Rate 16.5 Transition 2 3:26 Run 54:27 Run Pace 8:47 Finish Time 3:17:53

In a regular Olympic distance Tri the bike should be 24 miles. Because of route limitations it was long at 28 miles, trust me on lap four I was wishing it was four miles shorter.

Lake Hefner was very low because of the lack of rain all summer. They used the alternate swim location, and it was so shallow that there was a part that we had to walk instead of swim. As a person who has never had a love for lakes, the slimy bottom was not only hard to walk on,but it completely freaked me out. I never imagined that 1000 meters would take me over 30 minutes. I only got kicked in the face once.

My transitions were not super speedy, the first one involved a trip to the port-o-potty. I certainly wasn't going to go in a borrowed wetsuit. There were quite a few women in our wave that talked about going before we started.

I am very happy with my run time. I was tired, and there was a few walk breaks, it was only about 80 degrees out but the sun was blazing.

It was a great race. I think there is a Half Ironman coming up for me in 2013. I sure will train more for it.

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Finally, Lets Talk Leg #3...

After two legs and a really long time in the van, we got to exchange 24. We got some rest, or not, in the van or on the gym floor and before we knew it we could take off the reflective gear. Jerry was ready to take off on the first of our final legs.

 

Remember that horrible hill that Patti had to run on her first leg? This was not much better for Jerry. After running up the hill he had to run up a much worse hill, although it was shorter, to make it to the exchange.

His teammates in van #1 had a great time waiting for him.

I cannot confirm or deny that any thing went missing from this particular exchange.

Then Kelsey got to run through some beautiful cow pastures.

It was nice that it was warming up by this time and we got to enjoy some beautiful views.

For Patti's last leg she got to run down a really big hill. She decided that Abby needed to go with her.

Then I was up for my super short final leg. Only 2.1 miles and very flat. Finally, I got to run a leg with other people and I even managed to have three kills. Scotty meet me before the exchange and ran the end with me, then he took off super speedy-like and we raced to the next exchange.

Next up was Rochelle for her final leg.

I didn't get a good picture of Ro during her last leg, but I got a picture of this guy...

 

What a horrible costume to run in. I even meet a girl at this exchange that graduated from OU, what a small world.

Exchange 30 is where we handed off to van #2. This exchange was at a middle school and we had an opportunity to take showers I decided to pass on the community shower with scalding hot water.

Scotty took off with van #2 to help cover some legs for injured runners, and the rest of us headed to Snowmass to wait at the finish line. I did get a little sleep in the van on the way. When we got parked and I got out of the van I was immediately light headed. I don't know if I'd ever get used to the altitude.

We hung out, got some food and then about 27 hours and 30 minutes after we started this crazy journey John was making his way to the finish line.

 

You don't even want to know how crazy hard the final leg of this race was.

Jerry, Robyn, Patti, Rochelle, Kelsey, me, Scotty and Monica

GRobyn, Rochelle and Tiffany

The medals were some serious hardware. They are also bottle openers, because what would you need more after a race that lasted 188 miles through the mountains of Colorado than a beer?

Still to come, just some odds and ends from our awesome weekend, and then there is the whole Redman thing...

 

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Redman, I Must Be Crazy...

Back in May when I made cupcakes for Beer Sprocket, I had a chance to talk to my BIL's boss who is the race director for the Redman Triathlon. We talked about how they were wanting to get some higher calorie foods for the finish line. He said we could do a trade out, cookies for two entries into the Olympic distance triathlon.

Fast forward to September. It's been a busy month, after three months off in the spring, I decided to make up for it in one month. Brookhaven, Ragnar, the Tie Dye Tri and now Redman. There is only one person crazy enough to tackle all of this with me, that would be Rochelle.

Everyone needs that friend that you can take your crazy ideas to and they will always say yes.

So I baked about 400 cookies this week.

I boxed them up last night.

I'm gonna deliver them this afternoon. After that I'll probably be even more nervous than I already am, and come Sunday I'll be trying not to freeze to death during my first open water swim.

This was part of the conversation I had with Ro yesterday. I think insanity loves company, because I sure don't think I could do all this on my own.

I don't know how I'm going to survive the next 48 hours.

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WIAW Tie Dye Tri Edition..

For my WIAW post this week I thought I would talk about my pre and post rave fuel for the Tie Dye Tri this weekend.

Carb loading was on the menu for Saturday night. Instead of making garlic bread I made some little grilled cheese sandwiches with pesto, mozzarella, fontina cheese and Roma tomatoes. That with a little penne pasta with my spaghetti sauce with squash, zucchini and mushrooms made a perfect carb packed meal.

Breakfast this morning was a half a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Too boring to take a picture of.

After the race we went to a new place in town for a real breakfast. Syrup has not been open very long and I had been dying to try it out. I got a waffle topped with scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese and some green tea.

It was delicious.

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Tie Dye Tri #4...

Before I finish my many Ragnar recaps I have to talk about a little race I did this morning.

This is my fourth year participating in the Tie Dye Tri, you can read about the last three years here, here, and here. I was looking forward to the race this year, it's my third of four races this month and even though I haven't done a lot of cross training lately I have been feeling pretty strong lately.

I made plans to meet Ro when the transition opened at 5:30. I got my bike to the wonderful guys at Sun & Ski Sports for a last minute tune up and then we got our spot in the transition area set up.

Then there was time for self portraits.

In no time it was race time and I was lined up to swim. I was number 25 and I felt great in the pool. I passed two swimmers and would have passed a third if the guy had not blocked me out in the last 100 yards. So frustrating. My swim time was 8:39 which was the fourth fastest swim time.

I used a new approach to transitions this year. I didn't dry off at all. I just pulled on my Injinji socks, my bike shoes and helmet and I was off. I loved the new bike route this year, I hope they keep it for next year. The hills were tough, but it was nice to have some downhills, the old route was just flat and boring. My time on the bike was 41:25 which was almost two minutes faster than last year.

I made it back to the transition, threw on my Revenna's, visor and my Garmin and I was off. The beauty of the run during a Tri is that after you get off the bike you can't feel your legs. If you can't feel them then they can't hurt, right? Well mine worked pretty good for me today. My run time was 24:15, eight fastest run time and faster than my 5k run at Brookhaven two weeks ago.

This was the home stretch.

This one is Rochelle taking off on the run after taking a spill on her bike heading back into the transition. She is crazy awesome! After that she busted out an exact same run time as me.

I finished third in my age group, and fifth woman overall. Makes me wish there weren't so many crazy fast women in my age group.

The best part about today? These people...

That's Camy's head behind Josh. She was so not up for pictures today.

Patti, Kelsey, Abby, Brayden and Kendra all came out to cheer us on. Not pictured here was Brian, Bob and Cliff. There is nothing better than friends that will get up early to come show their support.

I love these girls!

What a great Sunday.

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Scenes From Leg #2...

I've already talked about our first legs for Van 1 at Ragnar Colorado. That's only a third of the story.

After we got food and headed to exchange 12, we got a little rest in the van. By rest I don't actually mean sleep, we mostly just hung out in the van and attempted to sleep but seemed to keep talking.

Jerry was convinced that Kelsey had done time in the military because she had no trouble sleeping in the van. Gotta love that she slept in her safety vest.

Scotty also got some sleep in the van with his safety gear on too.

There weren't a lot of pics from the nighttime legs because they would look like this...

Not very exciting.

Van 2 handed off to us and Jerry headed out in the dark for his second leg. Kelsey and Patti followed Jerry and before I knew it it was almost my turn. We got to exchange 15 with a few minutes to spare, luckily I had a port-o-potty break at exchange 14 because 15 had no facilities. Now that could have not been good.

It was getting cold in the mountains, and I was insanely nervous about running in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. I managed to almost get run over by another team's van while we were waiting for Patti, so that calmed my nerves a little. Before I knew it Patti was there handing the slap bracelet to me and I was off. Decked out in my safety vest, blinky light, two headlamps (one on. Y head, one in my hand) and a glow stick on my handheld water bottle, I tried to bring as much light with me as possible.

I was booking it. For the first two miles I was running at the same pace as the Brookhaven 5k. Since this lef was 5.9 miles I knew that pace was not sustainable, but I couldn't slow down. Fear is a wonderful motivator and running in the dark in the middle of the night, while it was a little exhilarating, it was pretty scary.

At about mile two, the worlds best route supporter meet up with me on his bike.

Craig, not dressed in these awesome pants, came to keep me company. I kept telling him that I was dying and that I was having trouble making myself slow down my pace. Basically, I ended up walking up some of the uphill parts of my leg and than not slowing down much on the rest.

It was so nice to have someone to chat with, I never run alone and I love having someone to talk to. It was pretty beautiful and peaceful in the dark. After a while I saw what I thought was another runner ahead of us. Turned out that he was not another runner, he was some guy out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.

Craig was still with me and the van was there when I passed him. They passed him in the van long before I got there and they never would have let me pass him all by myself (I had the best teammates) but it still scared the crap out of me.

After that Craig turned back and I headed off for my last mile or so on my own. I ended up running 5.9 miles in under 52 minutes, and was so happy to hang off to Scotty at the exchange.

Scotty busted out his 4.5 miles or so in no time flat and the Ro was up. Scotty was gonna run some with her, and they got to run my a guy with long blonde dreadlocks that Ro said had to be a zombie. So weird that we passed two random guys on two nighttime legs of the race.

Ro handed off to van 2 and then we headed to exchange 24 to rest up for our final legs. Ro, Jerry and I headed into the gym at the school the exchange was at and tried to get some sleep.

We didn't get much sleep but Ro modeled her ninja outfit.

Leg 2 was a success because we made up some ground and finally started seeing other runners and not just bums and zombies.

More about leg 3 to come.

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