Twenty-Ten Photo Recap

I’m counting down the days until 2011. I can’t wait to race again. In the meantime I decided to do a little countdown of my top ten favorite photos of 2010. Enjoy!

10. Back in early 2010 I raced the California 70.3 Half Ironman in Oceanside. My performance was less than stellar, but I did get to meet up with my superstar swimmer BFFs Kara, Mary, Beth and Robert, reminding me it’s not the medals, but the people you collect that count.

9. And lucky for me, sometimes good people can be complete strangers. Like the friendly couple who rescued me and my stuck-in-the-mud sag wagon en route to Hilton Head. Moral of the story: don’t ride bikes with a guy named “Grizzly.”
8. On another occasion I biked right onto the scene of a terrible accident. Trash, burnt cars, and people covered in blood were everywhere. I panicked. Tears were rolling down my face. Then the director told me I missed my cue. Is it more embarrassing to think a movie set is real life, or for someone to think you’re in a zombie costume when it’s the real you?
7. The real me does not like blood. So when YC hit his head on a branch while we were trail running, I encouraged him to ignore the cut, clean himself up and finish the run. Which he did. Then he drove himself to the hospital and got eight staples. Oops, guess I’m not the best person to ask for medical advice.
6. I am great at giving swimming advice. My favorite critique is “just go faster.” Or “maybe you should just swim in the other lane…”
5. Kidding! I love my teammates, and they are far from slow. In fact, their enormous aerobic capacity keeps them fast in the pool, and helps when they are blowing the vuvuzela and cheering for 10+ hours straight during an Ironman.
4. My favorite part of the Hawaii Ironman is about 15 minutes before the start. The water is still calm and the sea wall is lined with hundreds of people waiting for the cannon. I love the anticipation and the energy coming from the crowd. It makes me feel so lucky to be part of such an amazing event. And upon close inspection, the picture of the crowd below, which was actually printed in the Kona newspaper the day after the race, shows three green jacketed figures - my teammates Betty, Ernie, and Micki - just above the Canadian flag:
3. It’s no secret the Dynamafia are a tough crew. But this year Barbara “Wild One” Chandler took toughness to a whole new level. After she crashed on the bike at the USAT National Championship, Wild One not only got back on the bike and finished the race, but she placed near the top of her age group!
2. The best thing about triathlon is the people you meet. This year my training buddy Brent introduced me to his brother Kyle (K-Peasey to his friends). K-Peasey wheeled his way around Louisville cheering for Brent and the whole Dynamo crew during the Ironman (with a few mandatory rest stops at local watering holes, of course)! His post race blog post helped me realize why Ironmans are so special. And I hope everyone checks out his blog and website often because rumor is K-Peasey has some VERY BIG triathlon news coming in 2011!
1. My favorite picture of 2010. This one always brings a smile to my face. It’s not the most flattering, the scenery’s not spectacular, but it shows everything I love about competition: every step is important, experience always counts, and the race is never over until you cross the line. So yes, I admit that I lost the “First Dynamo Athlete Out of the Water Competition.” Let’s hope for a re-match in 2011.

COLD!

Long, long ago, when I was a kid living in Manhattan, Montana (not to be confused with the NY variety), I walked to school every day. And unless temperatures fell below zero, my classmates and I were outside at recess, having snowball fights and making snow angels. The cold did not faze me. But spending the better part of the past decade in the South has changed things. When it comes to the cold, I’m afraid I’ve gone soft.

The recent weather in Atlanta has been downright unbearable. I snapped this picture of the temperature reading in the Corolla on my way to the pool this morning:

SEVENTEEN degrees?!?! I know other parts of the country are colder, but this is ATLANTA! The only temperatures beginning with the number one I want to see are three digits! Luckily I have a few indoor training opportunities to keep me busy until things get back to normal around here.

Swimming is the easy one. I swim in a covered, heated pool. But the pool deck still gets cold, leading some people, like my always fashionable friend Drew, to bundle up as much as possible!

I actually bike indoors once or twice a week all year round. Training on a CompuTrainer or PowerBeam, which have power settings measured in watts, let me do very specific and intense bike workouts. I think these workouts, which I usually do in a class setting with my Dynamo Multisport teammates, have really improved my cycling. But the cold weather has me trading a few more outdoor rides for the indoor variety. At home, I have a simple magnetic trainer, but it still does the trick. And if I’m lucky I get to set up in someone else's garage or creepy basement:

And then there’s the treadmill. I actually don’t mind the treadmill. And when I do start to dislike the treadmill, I make myself think of my mom, because she LOVES the treadmill. Seriously, I’ve watched her go hours and hours on the treadmill without stopping. My mom also happens to be ridiculously fast, so I guess whatever she’s doing must work!

But training can’t be totally confined to the great indoors. For me, a big part of triathlon is getting to be outside. So sometimes I do toughen up and get out – no matter how cold it is!

Traveling and Training (or trying to)

Occasionally my day job requires me to do a little out-of-town travel. This week my travels landed me in the always exciting Lakeland, Florida. This Tampa suburb is best known as the home of Publix Super Markets, which happens to be where I do most of my shopping back home in Atlanta. It’s also the birthplace of Crispers restaurant, which my co-workers know is my favorite Florida sandwich shop and where I force them to eat lunch every single day.

For me, training and traveling don’t typically go well together. At home, I know exactly where and when and with whom I can swim, bike, or run. On the road, things can get a little tricky. Will the hotel have a stationary bike? Is there a pool nearby? Can I run outside, or should I stick to the treadmill? I have triathlete friends who travel nearly every week and somehow they make it all work, but I usually become a complete mess as soon as I step foot outside the ATL perimeter.

This week I actually wasn’t dreading my trip as much as usual. Temperatures in Atlanta took a nose dive post Turkey day and I was hoping for milder temps down south. Unfortunately, I managed to pick the week of RECORD LOWS for the Sunshine State, but I don’t think things are much better in the rest of the country, so I guess I’ll just appreciate the thermometer showing double digits.

The freeze warnings did not keep me out of the pool this morning. I love swimming outdoors and as long as the pool is heated, I REALLY love swimming outdoors when it’s cold. The air feels so brisk and clean – so different from the chlorine filled indoor variety. And when I go to the pool in the cold and dark I get my own lane! (Ok, I get my own pool!)

Sometimes I can get my co-workers to join me for a workout. Before I turned 25 I wasn’t usually allowed to drive the rental car so one of my lucky colleagues would drive me to the gym or pool in the morning. Looking back, I’m so appreciative of them helping me keep up my training on the road. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much help I’ve received along my triathlon journey, and for that help I am incredibly grateful.

Since I hit the quarter century mark earlier this year, now I get to pilot the rental car. Lucky for my co-workers because they get their beauty rest, and lucky for me because I get to spend more time behind the wheel of my new dream car – the Chrysler Town & Country! I got a free upgrade at the airport and I think I may be in love. Seat warmers, back-up camera, TWO TV screens, automatics doors, automatic starter, tons of space…I could go on and on. Is it socially acceptable for me to drive a mini-van even though I don’t have any children? Because I could definitely get used to this. Even Reuben, my colleague, thinks it's cool!

Thanksgiving

Good food, friends, and fun - I had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Similar to past years, I spent the morning running the Atlanta Half Marathon. Traditionally, the course ran straight down Peachtree Street and finished just past the Olympic Rings near Turner Field. New this year was a loop course that both started and finished at the home of the Atlanta Braves.

Honestly, I think I liked the old course better. Running straight down the ATL main line with zero stops gave me a sense of vindication for all the time I’ve spent sitting at those red lights in my car. It’s funny to think I could probably run the 13.1 miles down Peachtree on Thanksgiving morning in less time than it would take me to drive the same route on some weekdays.

But the new course had its good points. The run passed some great Atlanta historical sites, like the King Center and Oakland Cemetery, and it had a LOT of hills! I had a lot of fun running with my good friends Kathryn, Brent, Casey, Daniel, and YC - until YC tried to pull a fast one and out sprint the rest of us at the finish line. But he should have known better. The one skill I perfected in 2010 was the art of the TIE:

Most of my family lives where November temperatures average single digits (as opposed to the beautiful 70 degree temps here in Atlanta), so the extremely generous Honderd-Eggers family took me in for the holiday. Their charity included inviting me to join in the family tradition of a pre-meal climb up Stone Mountain, complete with a mid-mountain arm wrestling competition.

Unfortunately, I was a little out of practice in the arm wrestling department, and I lost miserably! But I did make it to the top of the mountain. And maybe the mountain of delicious food I ate post-hike put me on the path to stronger arms and better results next year!