Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Subaru Women's Triathlon!

Last weekend I competed in the Subaru Women's Triathalon Series, held in Naperville IL. It was a BLAST as ususal :) some greats and some downs but overall way fun!!

My parents who are my biggest fans and always loyal supporters journeyed accross the state to just to help me get to my tri and watch me run my second tri! Thanks Mom and Dad!!

On Friday night we all meet out at Heather's for supper and chillin with my nephew for a while before we decided to try and load up my stuff and head out. If you don't remember Friday night it stormed ALLL night and we ended up loading my bike on the back of my parents van in pouring down rain, but my dad was in great spirits and didn't even complain to much. He just said "couldn't you have picked better weather kid?" but he was a good spirit to have around.

After loading up various gear in the pouring down rain we headed towards Davenport and Naperville IL. However with the rain it made driving conditions not so great, slower than normal travel, and a car ride that seemed to go on for forever!!! My mom had decided to take this weird route to Naperville which included taking us thru a senic route down hwy 92 thru moline while we were looking for a hotel, which again seemed to never happen.

We eventually made it to Geneseo, IL. As were pulling into town my dad goes "So help me if there is a God there will be a Super 8 in this town" I laughed, but the whole time we were in the car I was praying for a hotel, some place safe and just perfect for us, and sure enough we turned the coner and there it stood, a super 8 the light in the distance, by this time, it was almost midnight, as we didn't even leave Iowa City until close till 10 because of rain and such, as we pulled up into the drive way it looked awfully full, I was still praying there would be a room. and sure enough, God provided for us, the perfect spot! There was only one room left in the entire hotel, and we just got it!! Thanks God!! It was perfect, one king sized bed and a pull out couch, ohh how great it was to be out of the rain in a room to sleep.

We left early saturday morning around 8ish, and headed off to Naperville, it was STILL RAINING!! I kept thinking are you kidding me? It's still raining, oh brother! We eventually made it to Naperville and found the triathlon Multi Sport Expo event with out to much trouble, but again, the expo was OUTSIDE and it was STILL raining!!

But none the less, I got out, and picked up my packet, and then went on to pick up my goodie bag and my tank top. I also experienced my favorite part of the triathlon experience, the EXPO, where you get all sorts of good free goodies!! We got all sorts of freebies at this expo, including luna bars, waterbottles, race belts, magnets, chip clips, lip balm, all sorts of good stuff!

On Sunday the morning started off early getting up at 4 AM, to make it down to the transition area before it closed at 6:45. I got to the transition area around 5:30 after slurping down some oatmeal in the hotel room that I didnt' have a spoon for, and laoding up all my gear and other stuff into the van. At the transition site, I wasn't to nervous, At this triatlon you had to rack your bike according to wave number, thankfully for getting up early I found a SWEET spot to rack my bike on the end of a rack right next to the run out, unfornitually it was a jog to the bike start, and yes you have to walk your bike to the bike start, but it was also next to the place where we ran in from the swim, so all and all, it was a pretty good location to be in!

I was reviewing my goals for this triathlon in my head setting up my gear, I mainly had three goals, to beat my previous time, to have better transitions times than the last tri I did, and to have fun! After setting up and walking to where we come in for the swim, I wasn't so sure that the transition time was going to be beat, I was going to have to be pretty fast transitioning on the first transition to beat it becuase it was a good .1 to .2 mile jog from the swim to the transition area.. way farther than the last triathlon I did.

Anyway, so I set up my gear, laid everything out perfectly, had a game plan in my head, was ready to go.. I meet some girls in the transition that were next to me in my wave, that set their bikes up next to mine, we chatted about various things for quite sometime before we had to head off to the swim area and the transition area was closed. Before the transtion area closed, we all laughed as we lubed up with body glide, man that stuff is amazzzzing!! It keeps you from chaffing or having your suit rub the wrong way, etc, especially since it's what you will be wearing the rest of the day.

At 7:00AM we were sitting on the beach talking, I was talking to a girl from Chicago who is currently getting her PhD, it was pretty cool, it was her first triathlon, all was going well, we were both in wave number 25 so our race wouldnt' start until 8:36! I took a quick warm up swim before things got underway, which lead my watch to dieing!! Oh NO!! Thankfully I had another one in the car if I could only find my parents. Shortly after I found my dad, who ran back to the car for me and got my other watch, thanks again dad! Whew okay back to chilling, so we finally get called to line up, I am towards the front of the line which is good since i am a fairly strong swimmer.

The horn goes off and we are offically off!! The swim, was offically a mess!! You had to swim a W pattern, which lead to being 6 lengths of this pool, however at the shallow end of the pool you almost couldn't swim and had to run around the buoys just to get around them, therefore never getting a great swim in before you had to switch directions or get up and run.. The other bad part of this swim, was the lanes weren't wide enough, I felt like i kept hitting people ahead of me that were to slow, but were staying close to the lane line to be able to hold on to it when needed or running into other waves ahead of me that were just slower and it was pretty frustrating swim, but I made it thru, I looked at my watch halfway thru it said 6 minutes, I thought, ahh I got plenty of time, I kept swimming, but my watch stayed at 6 minutes, it died too!! I got out of the swim, not sure how my swim time was but went on jogging up the small hill and down the long run to the transition area.

I got out of transition to be what I thought was a fairly decent speed, and off on to the bike, my motto during hte bike was start strong, finish strong, and my goal was to keep my MPH above 15. I needed to be 15 or more to beat my previous bike time. The bike was a two lap course, it wasn't to bad on the first lap but by the time I got out to the second loop the wind had picked up, and my second lap time surely had to been a little slower, but I was still passing people. On the first lap I passed the girl who i had been sitting with on the beach who I knew was a strong swimmer, but it felt good to pass someone who I knew I started with. As I passed, I cheered others on, saying good job, keep it up, not that much farther, and remembered to thank all those volunteers who got up super early on a weekend so that I could have a race.

I saw my mom on the first and the second lap.. My parents who most definitly are my biggest fans are definitly NOT good photographers! I saw my dad on the second lap coming in.. I kept yelling dad dad dad to get his attention, he missed the photo on the bike as I zoomed by him, I had to laugh, I saw my mom sitting on the coner where I turned and as I was having fun, I said hey mom :) Pulling into transtion, I had no idea how my times were, but was determined to get out there and finish it up.

I had driven the run course and I didn't think it looked to hilly but it had some slow inclines that I wasn't quite ready for. But I pushed thru, deteremed to run when I could and walk when I couldn't, I walked thru all the water breaks pouring water down my back to cool me off, and they had volunteers on the race course yelling out your name and Go! you can do it! I heard several people yell keep it up Leslie (we had our names on our numbers, pretty cool), it made me want to keep going. They were great!

By the time I hit mile two the same girl I sat with on the beach and passed on the bike, came back to run with me for a while on the run, she actually came along side and said want to run together for a while, I said sure, running with her for a while, which was cool, till she got a little faster and took off :) but all was well. I was deteremened to run the last mile of the race, where all the fans where, and I accomplished that! I saw my dad, who totally again missed the photo, but I laughed as I talked to them running by them, then my mom tried to get another photo as we ran thru the park, and I just had to laugh, as I came up, I said.. hey mom the camera is still off! the volunteer next to her laughed as well and I continued on.

The finish line was approaching and all these people were going your almost there, way to go Leslie, yay Leslie, it was such a cool experience, as I crossed the finish line I heard the event speaker say and here is Leslie Stodden from North Liberty Iowa. how cool is that!! They handed up a towel that had been drenched in ice water, thank you!! and then we got a medal! yay!! I had finished, no idea on my time, but thought i did an okay day. I then went to the medical tent and asked for some ice, my knee was on fire!!

The last mile was run on brick and it's kind of uneven, it made my knee burn! but after a little icing it was all good. I came out of the event with ice wrapped on me, my mom was like.. oh my are you okay? I was like yeah I am good! We finihsed the day with some relax at the post party! and some free stretching provided by a physical therapy place, they were heaven sent!

Before we left town I went on to check my times, I was plesently surprised, I beat my previous tri time by more than 16 minutes!! and this was a LONGER course!!

My swim time wasn't horrible, 14:02, my transition 1 time was faster than my previous one!! :) 4:39, my bike was 48:38 my second transition was faster too!! 2:30 and my run time, the most impressive improvement, i cut off almost 7 minutes!! it was 43:12 Which means I completed this tri in 1 hour 52 minutes and 59 seconds! :)

So I cut off a
1:40 on the swim
:32 on the first transition
4:10 on the bike
2:28 on the second transition
7:22 on the run!!

Which means it was a great race day, all my goals accomplished!!! I can't wait for race day next weekend, here we go Danskin!!

p.s. I'll post some more pictures when the actual race photos get on the web! :)

Friday, June 22, 2007

ITU World Cup!!

Amber and I went to the ITU world cup last weekend.. Oh me oh my... what a great race!

If you weren't there you missed one of the most historic events ever to happen in the History in Triathalons, and you also missed the LARGEST every prize purse given out in triathlon history.. and you missed an amazing kick arse race!!

Amber and I went to Des Moines on Saturday, we got there in time to see the Junior Elite Championship.. WOW, kids under the ages of 15 doing an amazing triathalon! It was a great race to watch, and fun, we also got to spend some time going to the expo that was put on next to the finish line, I think expos are one of my favorite things to go to at a triathalon becuase you get lots of free goodies! We got free tea, deoderant, sport beans and more!! :)

On Sunday in the morning they had the Amuteur race that was sanciontined by USAT. It was a good race to watch as well. I was like in bike heaven as I saw bikes that cost up into the thousands roll out onto the race course! WHEW!! Those were some sweeeeet bikes!! I also got to see short time transitions some as short as 30 seconds.. that is some fast transition! USAT and ITU are two different monsters, USAT is what governs all usa triathlons and you usually hae to be a member or buy a membership one day pass to do a race, they have different rules than ITU. In USAT you can't draft in the Bike, you can get up to a 2 minute penalty per occurance for it, but in ITU drafting is encouraged. ITU also is the govering body for the triathlon for the olympics.

Anyway, back to Sunday, the ITU womens race began at 1:30 by then it was HOT, 94degrees!!! and 54% humidity, 42 women would start the race, but not all would finish. it was a sweet race to watch start, in ITU's they dive from a dock, the swim is increadbly fast, they have to swim just under a mile, but they do it in two laps, and most of these women swim the mile in under 20 minutes. Then it's on to the bike. Which lead them downtown to the old capital they then have to do 6 laps on the bike, it was pretty sweet to watch, never in history had so many american's been in the front of the pack, I believe at this time there was about 5 in the front 10, again SWEET!! The American's Bennet, & Zieger were right at the top as well as Sarah Haskins, Sara Mclarty, and Julie Swail.

Bennet took the lead on the run and into the first lap there was a pack of three leading in the run, Bennet was in there, along with Luxford, from Aus, and Sweetland. They stayed all in the pack of three until the last lap, coming up the hill.. there was just one!! Who would it be.. but LAURA BENNET!! Sweetland had totally dropped out of hte race from exhaustion along with 16 other women from the day, Luxford came shorty after bennet with only a 14 second difference, but the most amazing one was the third place, Ohata, from Brazil, who had worked her way from FAR back in the bike to THIRD in the run, an amazing runner!! Ohata had the fastest run split of any of them by almost 2 minutes!!

Sara Haskins from the USA came in 4th.. sweetness!!! and Swail came in with a 14th place finish :) Zieger who was at the lead and strong on the bike never made it thru the finish line.. The heat was HOT!! the course hard!! and some amazing women out there, it was a great day to be watching a triathalon and USA Take the WORLD CUP in the US!!! it was a sweet victory.

Laura Bennet swam just under a mile in 19 minutes and then biked 25 miles in just over an hour and then ran a 10K in 38 minutes to become to next WORLD CUP CHAMPION! pretty impressive in my book. That day definitly made me want to get out there and run a triathalon asap!

Birthday Extravaganza!

I know this is kind of late, but I just have to post about it! :)

Once again I was reminded this year, how important my family really is to me, and how amazing my life group peeps are to me! :) This year I decided to head home for some time away and to spend some quality time with my family on my birthday and it happened to work great!

I haven't been home for a year and was excited to see the progress my parents were making on their new addition to their house, It was pretty cool to see, however I had to point out that the green color my mom had picked out for one of the rooms just HAD TO GO!! So because I said it had to go, I spent my birthday morning painting :) Which was fine by me, I really enjoyed being at home, surrounded by peice and quiet and remembering home just how I left it. I was happy to be able to serve my mom as she has served me so many times.

On Tuesday my mom took me to Sanborn Iowa inwhich we got to pick FRESH strawberries!!! Oh my they were amazing! As you pick you can eat as much as you want.. mmm yummy! We took away 6 flats of strawberries to bring back to family and friends! All part of my birthday present from my mom and it was a great one!! I loved every minute of picking hte strawberries and having fun in the sun.

While we were finishing eating breakfast we got an intresting call, it was from a flowershop in Marcus, saying they had a delivery for me.. Because of where we were and I was heading back to Iowa city that day, We decided to drive over and pick them up, however on the way over, my mom and I were both puzzled as to who sent me flowers.. and why Marcus? Don't people know that I live in Cherokee, It was a very puzzling but fun ride to Marcus. When I got the flowers, they were BEAUTIFUL!!! They were from my life group (THANKS GIRLS!!!)

After we got home, I packed up and headed home, on Wednesday night the girls suprised me with another b-day surprise at Life group, Which was again, beyond amazing and awesome!! I can't tell you how much these girls mean to me, or how much they showed their love and caring hearts!! THANK YOU!!!


We meet up at subway and ate there, (thanks for the healthy choice) and then we went and played Frisbee Golf!! One of my favs!! (Thanks again for throwing some activity in, I loved every minute!!!!) It was fun watching everyone play and some of our frisbee's going into the woods, but a great time.

Then we headed back to town to get our cars, I thought all our fun was over and Amber Tianna and I were chilling in her car on the way to get her gas.. Our night was just begining.. Tianna just got a new used car for her that just had gotten a repair on her fuel tank or such. So as were sitting at caseys's she is filling up and I swear it sounds like gas is POURING out onto the ground, but she is sitting talking in the car with us.. and a few seconds later i hear.. WHAT?!?! As i open my door and take a step out, Gas, everywhere!!! 5 gallons of gas spilled all over casey's cement... rut roh!


We move the car and she goes in to tell the gas attendend.. she is taking a littel longer than we thought she should so we go in to check it out, I guess they have to call the Fire Department.. so soon enough were standing outside and we hear the fire truck sirens, lights, you name it! In the mean time I am thinking I should text dana and tell her what is happening. So I eventually get to my phone and send her a text message... our converstaion goes something like this..

Me: Hey Guess what is happening?
Dana: what?
Me: Were at Casey's with the fire trucks, gas all over the ground
Dana: Oh NO!! are you okay?

So a pause, I am thinking.. sure, but in the background Amber says say NO say NO!! and I am like.. hhmmm so then I type no, then she says say we got gas all over our legs and they had to spray us off! and Tianna in the background is saying, no no, say No, we got gass all over us, and they made us strip and hose us off, and then just send JK.

By this time I am laughing so hard i am like.. guys I dunnoo..but pushed by peer pressure I cave! :)

Me: No! We got gas all ove us and they had to spray us off!!
Me: JK
Dana: That joke was great!
Me: They made me do it!
Dana: I keep picturing you 3 with your skivies on and them spraying you off and you all giggling.

oh Priceless!! Definitly a B-day to remember, thanks again girls!!!

Friday, June 08, 2007

Day 4 - Yes it's really FRIDAY!!!

YYEEEEAAHHH!!!!

It really is friday, and thank goodness!! Last night workout was just as hard as the rest, but it was worth it.. My back, shoulder hurts today, I think a rib might be out of alightment but other than that I feel pretty good.. My calves are finally starting to stop hurting :) And my overall body just slightly aches.. not to bad, especially after lifting weights for 2 hours last night :)

Last inght was the final night of class.. out of 25 that started the class only 11 finished!! WOW.. who knew when we started the class that less than half would finish the class, I thought it was kind of crazy but I am very happy and proud to have made a goal and completed it, even if I would never teach a class, I learned so much in just 4 days.. and I learend that I can push my self to places I thought I would never go.

I don't know however if I could survive another week.. maybe mentally :) becuase I refuse to say I can't.. but I dunno it was getting down there, there were times last night when I seriously wanted to cry, but refused to give up. I was thankful that both instructors were there and one was always helping us get a break!!! Thank you thank you!!

I am also thankful for the opportunity to meet knew people and figure out new ways to push past my comfort zone, to take a step out there, to say hello, to ask what their name is, to say my name is, to ask their intrest, and find out a little baout a person, I am excited to see where God is going to lead me in this. Who knows? :)

I am also thankful for all the friends who brought me this far! Who have always encouraged me, kept me going and supported me along the way, I don't think I coul dhave done it wihtout you!

So even with a migraine for two days I still made it thru 4 days of class.. I figure if I can make it thru a 2 hour intense class not feeling so great, I can also at least make it to the gym and try the workout before I say.. eh I don't feel like it today.. If i only worked out on the days i felt like working out, I think I would only work out 10% of the time.. but I do have to admit.. I still love working out.. But I love also being pushed during a workout, passed where I ever thought I could go physically so I have to use my mental and spiritual self, so maybe I'll have to find another thing to push me to a nother limit exercise wise! WOOOT!!

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Day #3

Is it friday yet??? Okay seriously??

Last night, I thought I might die during class, whew what a workout. I have never seen so many people red faced, sweating non stop, wanting to stop, and even the thoughts of vomiting crossing their minds.. yup it even crossed mine! We even had a few people WALK OUT OF CLASS!!

Last night we learned all about kick boxing, our instructor told us at the begining of the class, that the exercise portion of the class would be short and sweet, meaning about an hour and 15 minutes or so.. which I was way excited about, my calves still hurt from the night before.

We learned about the technique of kickboxing, how to properly stand, guard up, kick, throw punches, etc.. which was fun, but man it takes a lot of ab and core work to hold ya there and yes you can get a great workout from it. The kickboxing that was supposed to last 30 minutes quickly turned into about an hour and 10 minutes.. bummer man.. but, it was all good. By the end of the workout, I was ready for a change.

We moved onto bootcamp! WHEW! who knew it could be such a workout! I mean I knew it would be intense, but wow what a whole new level. We lined up the stairs from front of the room to the back, starting with a 3 minute jog all was good, i was like okay.. then we moved onto doing up and downs on the steps.. wowzers, and then lunges on the steps, jumps on the steps, all sorts of crazy things on the steps.. and then.. we did LUNGES down and back in the room.. ooh feel the burn! Then I am thinking okay.. I am still here just make it thru leslie you can do it.. we move on.. and she says okay.. lets do some sprints.. holy tolido.. lets push my self a little more.. were now doing sprints up and down the room.. I really now think I am going to vomit, we then move to suicides.. oh my! Is this pain ever going to end?? We then lined up on the steps again to do pushups, tricep dips, mountain climbers.. someone please end this!!! Then we stand up and she begins to explain what else you cna do.. such as indian runs, and somone says I don't knwo what that is.. EVERYONE in the class JUMPS to explain what it is.. we really don't want to go do it.. but NOPE..

off to the track it is.. to complete the indian run!! Oh my.. An indian run is everyone is jogging in a straight line and then the back person sprints to the front and then the next person in the back sprints to the front.. etc.. We went around the track serveral times before we headed back to the room, for more mountain climbers and jumping jacks, and yes a true bootcamp! Whew!

What a night, I was glad to be walking to my car, talking to a fellow class mate on the way down.. still thinking i might not make it to my car.. but talking about an intense workout! holy tolido!!! I tink I could definitly TEACH bootcamp but I think i might make it a little easier :) I am still way excited about the possiblitly. I think the more I think about it, I like step but I don't know if I really want to teach it.. I don't know if it's really me.. we'll see.. I really would love to teach bootcamp and spinning so we'll see :)

Tonight is the last night and we are learning weights! Hope there is not to much overload! :) And please if your praying continue to pray for lasting relationships from this.

Thanks!!

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Class #2

It's only Wednesday?!?! I am thinking it should be Friday! This week seems to be flying by but it's really not.. or maybe I just really want the weekend to get here as well.

Last night we had class #2. Who knew you could spend the entire two hours of class doing step aerobics! whew! What a workout! I am very thankful for the shape that I am currently in. Had it been a year ago, or two years ago, I think I would have died 30 minutes into step aerobics, but nope, I made it all 2 hours, and at the end, I didn't even think it was that bad, thinking I could have gone more, not to shabby! :)

I am still finding out that cueing is extremely hard but instructors make it look extremly easy! but thankfully I can take all the time I need to learn, Yes after the class I could technically teach, but they suggest we take our time learning lots and then when we are ready to teach to let them know, I am waaaay excited by that factor!

I am meeting lots of students in our class, and getting in fun converstaions that I am praying will hopefully go beyond this class!! yay! Thanks GOD! I meet a girl last night that is currently studying for ACE (which is how you get your personal training certificate) I got to ask her all sorts of questions about it, which got me excited, and she was happy to share.

I also know that I am not great at following up with people or making friends.. I am really bad at this.. but I am really hoping and praying that God will show me how to make it all work and grow me slowly :) I am so thankful that the people in this class are open, fun and funky!!

the best line from last night was "not all of you need to start your class with "ehhh" it's all good it's all good" or funk music :)

Tonight we are learning BOOTCAMP!!! YES!!! I am sooo psyched by this factor, I don't think or know that I could do bootcamp for two hours, but I am way excited to learn bootcamp because it's what I would really like to teach! So hears hoping and praying to another great night at class! :)

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Back to school...or working on making my dream become reality

Maybe it's just that I am getting older and not so much wiser, but this week I decided would be a good week to become wiser or at least get educated in a few things.

Last night was my first night of my Group Fitness Instructor Course. I was a little nervous going into, not quite sure what to expect, not quite sure if we were going to have to workout, or what we were exactly going to do, but it ended up being a fun two hours.

The first hour we ended up sitting around talking, introducing ourselves, and telling everyone why you came why you wanted to be a fitness instructor, which was a fun time, It was a pretty cool enviroment, mostly college students and a few older people such as my self.

The second hour we spent jumping into learning Hi-Lo Aerobics which is basically a mixture of High and Lo intensity aerobics. What basically happened was the instructor would do a step for 8 counts on the beat, then would yell out someones name and say okay how do I switch it up, how Do i add more intensity to this, and they would yell out a new step. This was quite fun, but I did learn that I am going to have to learn to figure out the down beat on music!

So we were getting towards the end and then we split up into two groups and our two groups reminded me of like stepping off almost one group would do one thing and then the other would do somethign else, like oh no, check us out, we can do it! It was pretty fun..

Things that I have to pick up or get the hang of
1) Talking while working out! - Whew, okay so you not only have to be in great shape, you have to be able to continue talking the entire time while you workout and give cues to tell them where your going, like say your going right, then you have to tell them to go left :) or they might just keep going right :)

2) Catching the Downbeat.. or just finding the beat all together, if anyone has good hints of getting the beat of music let me know I think I am going to need help here!

3) Counting in 8's anyone? or 32? I guess that's just how you do it? you count in a set of 32 or 4 sets of 8 and you never let someone do something more than a set of 16.. whew who kenw this was so complicated?

Class number 2 is tonight! :) I am hoping we are going to learn some weight lifting tongiht, I think i could do a little better, I think we are also going to do some step tonight.. that aughta be intresting :)

Monday, June 04, 2007

2 down... 10 to go! :)

I am once again switching up my diet and exercise for a little bit, to throw my body for a loop :) I am going thru the Body For Life (BFL) program which consists of eating 6 small healthy well balanced meals a day and working out fairly intensly for 6 days of the week. However on day 7 you get to throw out your eating style and your workout and party it up! :)

I am currenlty on week three and it's working!! :) While I was successful to loose weight before BFL I had hit a platue and my body was saying ohh please stop, and I was quite where I was ready to be at, So I was ready to try something new.

I am really enjoying the new workouts, that consist of lifting weights three times a week and a high intensity cardio workout that leaves your heart pounding and you catching your breath for the next few minutes after your workout is done, but it's a great time.

And I have to say that I haven't missed a workout yet! which is the best part, well maybe not the best part, I think the best part, is the scale is moving!!! :)

While it has not all be ups! there have been there moments of ugh's and telling friends and family no thank you many times, and passing up favorites during the week and challenging during BBQ's and meals out and passing up on goodies at work, I've made the commitment and pushed thru. It's so much easier It's only so many days till FREE DAY!! :) I think the next biggest challenge will be this upcoming weekend as I travel.. it should be an intresteing venture! :)