run this amazing day

1. The first thing Thursday has got to be my mental state.  I felt completely flattened after this weekend.  I spent some of Monday morning rehashing and over-analyzing, and then suddenly I just don't want to talk about it anymore.  I'm ready for a break.  I'm ready to do things for fun again, and not be on some ridiculous and completely inflexible schedule.  I've been married to triathlon for the past few months and I feel like his shell-shocked battered wife.  I just want to hide in my sweatpants and ignore my HR monitor and let people be nice to me for a little while.  So that's what I'm going to do.  I've made a lot of important decisions over the past few days, and one of the best of them lets me go back and train with CAR for a month or so until Ironman base training gets cranked up later this winter.  I need to spend some time focusing on my running, as it is the weakest link, which helps it to all line up quite nicely. 2. That said, I do want to

The best part of Saturday, by a long shot, was being surrounded by so many familiar faces - both on and off the race course. My family was there to cheer me on, which is always awesome. And this brand-new Ironman graced us with her presence: I knew a half-dozen people doing the race, and I met lots of blog friends along the way (Hi Caroline!  Becca!  Christina!  I hope you guys had a much better day than I did!).  The poet, very embarrassingly, told the announcer that it was my birthday, so I was getting well wishes from all directions throughout the day.   The second-best part of the day, of course, was stocking up on fresh ass shots for you guys. Don't worry, I've got your best interests in mind.

I think by now, just about everyone has heard that my day didn't turn out even close to how I planned.  Rather than walk through the day (I woke up!  Tried to poop!  Ate a power bar OMG NO ONE DOES THAT!) I thought I'd just hit some highs (yes, there were highs) and lows of the day, as well as some big takeaways as I head into the "off season." Swim (1.2 miles) The swim was my best leg of the day.  I got into the water before the race started to warm up and was surprised to not freak out even one little bit.  I swam around for a little while then hopped back out when the first wave lined up.  I got back in to get ready for my wave and was laughing and joking with the rest of the women instead of thrashing around being terrified by everything I couldn't see.  The swim was a bit slower than I expected because there was massive amounts of vegetation on the "out" and the "back" part of the square - which we hit twice, 2-loop swim fail - and I had

Emily shared this earlier in the week, and it finally struck the chord I needed to figure out how to close out my year.    You can read last year's letter here . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear 30-almost-31-year-old-Katie -  Girl, seriously, you need to chill.  The fuck.  Out.  You've got a lot of years in front of you and spending all day every day worrying is just not going to get it done.  Don't worry, I remember that year.  There was a lot to worry about.  Let me help you out a bit. Your first day of being 30 was a whopper.  It took you a while to come around but trust me, getting married again was a good call.  The first time around you were scared and small and it avalanched over you and tried to break you, but this time - I promise you -  the poet is the real deal.  You might think that he was crazy and trust me, he still is, but his instincts are good and he helps you un-clamp a bit.  It would do you some good to

This is actually three things Tuesday on Thursday, as I pre-wrote all my posts this week.  I'm having a rough time getting my head in the game for this race, and will be lying low... 1. My crunchy back has basically healed.  I had an awesome calm-it-down session with one of the many PTs that I keep in my pocket last Thursday, and that kicked off a steep upwards climb towards healing.  I was able to swim at a moderate pace on Sunday with no ill effects.  On Tuesday, my swim included a 600 yard time-trial, and while I wasn't swimming at a "hard" pace, I snuck in right under 10 minutes with no pain during or after the swim.  I think I'll be fine for the weekend. 2. I took my fabulous new sexy  out for a very short test ride earlier in the week.  First of all, if I had known how much faster a tri bike would make me, I probably would have purchased one a lot sooner.  8 miles in Z2 with a touch of a headwind had me averaging just under 22mph.  HELLO.  However, de

Sit, weather.  Weather, SIT.  STAY.

I decided to do a fall 70.3 back in July, but I had no idea so much would change by the time it finally rolled around.  This post looks very different than what I had imagined over the summer.  That said, my primo number 1 A goal for this race is execution.  I've got an extremely detailed race plan and I want to stick to it like super glue, like hot taffy, like peanut to the butter.  That's what I think my training and my mental game needs the most going into the winter.  That said, here are my goals beyond that. Swim (1.2 miles) Except for the 2 weeks where my back was freaking out, my swimming this cycle has been solid and unremarkable.  I made some pretty serious progress after a stroke session with Amy , and I'm hoping that I've managed to hang onto that through the past few weeks.  Both of my planned OWS practice sessions sadly fell during this time, so my main goal here is to get in the water and immediately start swimming without having to talk myself off the