Underdone

Training this week has been humming along. I've been starting to remember the constant smell of chlorine on my skin, the endless stream of water bottles that always need to be cleaned and re-filled, and the packing and unpacking of dirty sweaty clothes / clean clothes / dirty sweaty / clean. Training involved some monotony, that is a given. It means getting to bed early, trying not have that second glass of wine, and seeing the sun rise many a morning. I do love it though.

There were two mornings this week where I actually got into the shower in full workout attire because I was at the gym and I was THAT sweaty. I was soaked. Completely and utterly soaked. I decided it would be better to just get in, rinse my clothes and wash my hair (letting the suds that ran down do some of the cleaning) and then spin dry the shorts/top before putting them in my plastic bag all day letting them wallow in their own stinkiness. It was a good call. Waaayyy better than the rotting. Has anyone else ever done that? Yes, I know I am gross.. got past that a lllooonnngg time ago :)

Anyway, I started thinking back to the things I remember about Ironman Training..

There was one instance in particular where I was out on the bike for close to 7 hours. I had started at 7:00am with a friend and I did a swim after so it was now about 3:30pm. I still had not eaten a real meal. I walked into my house (that we were trying to sell at the time so my Mother-In-Law was there working on a few fix up items with us) and I took one look at her, didn't say a word, and BURST into tears. I was just sooo hungry. I couldn't even come up with one good reason why I was crying, but I ate an ENTIRE box of mac-n-cheese - myself... and finally, I was fine. She made it of course, I was crying to hard! Thanks Deb!

Anyway, there will be ups, there will be downs, but most of all, there will be some really fun times out on the bike at mile 90 where I see just how far I can go...and I live for those times ;)

In other news, I've decided to JUMP into a triathlon this weekend. I call it jumping because I just signed up at the end of last week and that is pretty spontaneous for me! So, I'm going to be doing the Pittsburgh Olympic Triathlon this coming Sunday.

I'm coming off of three weeks of not too much and one week of heavy training (um.. and I get a 1 day taper.. nice), but I'm not afraid of coming in underdone. I'm excited actually! Who knows what will happen!!

Lots of friends and people will be there to race, along with our beginner Sprint triathlon group who I am SOOO looking forward to seeing them compete. I know they will have a blast and they are READY!

So here's some previous Pittsburgh Pics to keep you busy..

My first Olympic Distance Triathlon in August of 2007. Running it in probably thinking "geezz.. that hurt!"

The last time I did Pittsburgh I couldn't help but wonder why all these girls were passing me in the second loop of the bike (the bike is two loop 5 mile uphill climbs out of town). Little did I know, I was riding with a flat! Oopps!

So I got Second that year.. that's ok! LOVE racing!! In the words of Ricky Bobby "I wanna go FAST DADDY!!"