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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