Preliminary Race Schedule 2015

Black Cat 20 miler March 2015
Boston Marathon April 2015
JCC sprint tri May 2015
B2B bike race/ride June 2015

? Musselman July or Lowell Olympic
? challenge Maine olympic in august
sprint or half September

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Activities of summer

Lots of stuff going on with the kiddos this summer, my oldest is flying down with daddy to Coco Beach Florida next week for the 5th grade AAU national basketball championships, my 8 and 10yr olds are swimming in the New England Regional Swim Championships this weekend and then off to Harvard University the end of July for their 12 and under Age Group National Swim Championships. My 7 yr old continues to play basketball and tennis and keeping quite busy. I'm trying to stay focused on keeping sane and training and heating as healthy as I can.

Over the last 2 months I have chosen to eat gluten free and as paleo as I possibly can. I am trying to decrease bloat and GI distress that I have had since I was a little girl. I have been very successful with decreasing the bloat but still trying to manage not having the carb input that I had before. I haven't been too happy with the gluten free products out there so far but continue on my hunt. I have added probiotics to my diet and aloe juice to my smoothies. Life is good.

Training has been going well. I went away with my qt2 peeps to Lake Placid 1 1/2 weeks ago to get in some good training and to hang with my friend Keri who will be racing in a few weeks, it was so much fun. I was very nervous that I wouldn't beable to handle the volume of training since I'm not doing and ironman anytime soon but it was very doable and I came out of it unscathed. I met some really great people and I can't wait to return to Lake Placid on the 28th to route on my fellow teammates, campers and friends.

Well, time to rest, just finished my zone 3 bike and hill bounding sessions for the day, may try to squeek in a recovery swim later today before hitting the pool hard tomorrow.

Just signed up for the Boston Triathlon in August with Pumpkinman in September and the Baystate marathon in October. Here's to a great finish to the season that hasn't really started for me yet.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Qt2 camp Lake Placid 2013

So, I was off to my 5th time of training on this amazing and most humbling course with my Qt2 peeps. I'm not racing this race this year but I needed to get away and have some fun and get some really good/ well needed training in that is sometimes really hard to do at home. My friend Keri and I arrived Wednesday night unpacked and fell asleep.



Thursday morning: Breakfast and a swim TT around the lake, what a way to start camp. When I was putting on my wetsuit I ripped a big hole in my groin. 10 years with this wet suit, not so bad but come on really, this is a timed race and everyone else is in a suit. Oh well, my friend Keri let me borrow her skin suit so at least I wasn't just in my bathing suit. Anyway, 3rd female, 34: 53 for 1.3 miles. Sucky time but without wetsuit considering not awful. Then it was off to a 2 hour recovery ride and then a 1hr run. Lots of fun meeting new friends at camp, Liz, Amy, Bridget, Jim, Paul ( aka as Tweety in his yellow and black cyclonauts tri suit) Barbra, Dan, Mary, Matt, etc.. so much fun.

Because of the weather the schedule had to be changed because of the rain that was expected ( torrential on friday) so our long run was friday f/b a 2hr bike. Running in the rain was great and my pace was solid. The 2hr bike could be done on your trainer or you could go outside, Keri and I decided to go outside, I just couldn't go on my trainer anymore. It was great. Long day, great conversations, and tired legs.

Saturday: Early morning swim 1 loop around f/b our long ride, 6 hours + a little for two loops. It was still raining a bit and it was a bit humid but all in all I felt strong, my HR was stable and I nailed the nutrition. The ride was great, Keri and I eventually formed our own little group, we did some talking but mostly focusing on nailing our nutrition and making sure not to blow up. It was the longest I have been on my bike in over a year and only in April did I do a 4hr ride on the trainer so to finish this ride on a very hard course feeling good made me happy. A quick T-run later feeling good. Our talk that night was going on the course and any race questions, it was so funny with coach Tim and Cait presenting, soooo informative and sooo much fun. Crazy how much experience and knowledge these coaches have to give to the athletes, absolutely priceless. The comedy show was extra. I haven't laughed this hard in awhile.



Sunday: 2 loop swim in mirror lake, nice and easy. So funny, I thought I was with the main group until I realized that I started yet another loop when I was following another pack of people, totally overswam the 2.4miles, Keri couldn't stop laughing. Stupid silver cap swimmers. Then it was off to pack the car and get everything ready for our 2 1/2 hour ride that involved a 4.1 mile TT effort for time on the old out and back. My garmin had died so I had no time or power so I just went as hard as I could given the legs I had left over from yesterdays long ride, it went fine, no gold medals won but it was a good effort. Then we had to climb back up Whiteface to get home ( so unfair) and then off to a 40-60 minute T-run. I could only manage 40 minutes, I was hungry and tired and was ready to be done.


Most memorable moment of camp: On Day 2 I got to meet a man named Jim, he is an older gentleman, very soft spoken and very sweet. He is from Michigan and he told me that it was his second time to Lake Placid. Jim told me he raced LP 2 years ago ( I think) and he crashed on the second loop of the decent into Keene. He doesn't remember the crash as he was med flighted out of Keene to the hospital and he said that he woke up 3 hours later. He doesn't remember much at all but was determined to come back and counquer the descent as well as finish the race he started a few years ago. His son who was not at camp but was at the race 2 years ago ( currently in medical school) was very nervous for his dad being there and was checking in with him multiple times, especially after our ride on Saturday. All day saturday I thought of Jim, how was he doing, was he ok, did he make it down, how was he feeling. I honestly wanted to get back to camp and give him a hug and make sure he was fine, Guess what he was, and happy. He was able to ride with Cait which was awesome. Myself and the rest of the campers were so proud of him and rightfully so he won camper of the weekend. So proud of Jim and I can't wait for him to cross the line at IMLP and have Mike Reilly call out his name and say, your an Ironman Jim.  I'm still in awe that he came back to do this, what courage.  See you in 3 weeks Jim, you will be an ironman.



Thanks Qt2, thanks Jessie, Pat, Mary, Tim, John, Cait, Matt, Courtney, Kai for running an amazing camp as usual. The hospitality, the program, the goodie bags, the friendships, the training was amazing. See you guys soon.