Yesterday

Apparently yesterday was so great I wanted to do it again - at least the parts about waking up at 9 and oohing and aahing about how fantastic Kitty is and watching "What It Takes" for the second time in as many days. I'd also like a do-over on last night's batch of cookies, but I think I'll save my slave-away-in-front-of-the-oven time for maybe Sunday or Monday.

Anyhow, back to the movie - there are a lot of things I really like about it. For those of you who don't know it (I am assuming it's not many, considering even my VAC teammate Lara who has never raced a triathlon had seen it!), it follows 4 top ironman pros as they prepare for the 2005 Ironman World Championships - Peter Reid, Luke Bell, Heather Fuhr, and Lori Bowden (who winds up preggers and thus on the sidelines for that year).

I could watch this movie like 25 more times and still not be sick of it - spotting the tons of Oakley models on superstars' heads, staring at footage from Lori's win in 2003 where she looked like she weighed 12 kilos, counting how many times Luke Bell mentions his family (at least once per interview!), loving and admiring everything about Heather Fuhr, identifying all of Peter's Virgo tendencies (Greg is better at that game than I), spotting other IM VIP's who aren't featured in the movie (Dave Scott, Chris Lieto, Simon Lessing, Kate Major, etc.), and BEST OF ALL, THE GERMANS! Norman Stadler's temper tantrum cracks me up, and I WAY TOTALLY HEART FARIS!!! So bummed I don't speak German... his website doesn't have an English version :(

Race Report: Ice Breaker Sprint Triathlon

Woohoo first race of the season! Man I was nervous. But it was a good day, and even without my Greg Crutch, I survived!

I won the Women's Under 34 race, but there was a woman in the 35 and over race who had a faster time than I did. So, I finished second overall by 40 seconds to the woman who finished second overall to Eileen last year. Ah well. At first I was really bummed - I had a feeling she probably beat me but since the older wave started 7 minutes later than mine and I didn't take note of my time when I crossed the line, I had to stand around and wait for official results before I knew for sure. But now I don't mind. As Greg says, I didn't deserve to win.

Anyhow, the gory details:

I got to the race and immediately found Chris and Loren and, as promised, asked Loren a trillion questions about what to do. He sort of teased me for not setting up my bike with the shoes already clipped in, but when I told him I just got my new tri shoes on Wednesday and my 20 minutes of on-the-fly entries and exits since Wednesday basically left me feeling like a safety hazard, he snickered and then be'd quiet. Later I made fun of him back, because his "transition backpack" is the hugest 70 gallon Rudy Project Rolling Duffle ever.

After setting stuff up and jogging around for 10 or so minutes to warm up (no biking allowed since there was another race going on), I got half my wetsuit on and walked for like 20 minutes down across a bunch of hot sand to the swim start. Water level in Folsom Lake is clearly at a low point, which mystifies me considering how much snow and rain fell this year and considering that the water source for the lake is supposedly our snow-covered mountains. Also: dude from the gym was dead wrong, I didn't see a single log and the water was definitely not freezing, I would guess it was at least 60 degrees.

So then our race started, I lined up at the front but didn't do a good job of really sprinting into the water and very quickly found myself halfway back in the pack getting pulled and whacked, but I slowly got into a rhythm and managed to stave off my panic reflex. Out of my 4 open water swims to date, this definitely felt like my best. I felt like I actually managed to swim, to focus on good technique, and work on my sighting skills. Yay! I finished at least a few minutes behind the leaders, maybe more, but that's way better than it could have been. My real problem and mistake was at the end of the half mile swim - the race directors recommended that we take our wetsuits off in the shallow water and carry them up the LONG sandy run (I would guess 1/4 mile but don't quote me), and even though I watched men from earlier waves really struggle when they followed that advice, for some stupid reason I did it anyway. By the time I realized that my muscles were too jellied to take the wetsuit off quickly and to maintain my balance, it was too late, so I helplessly watched 5 smarter girls run past me and take theirs off further up the beach while I just struggled and tried not to topple over. NEVER AGAIN. Ugh.

On to the bike... this basically went well. I love my new bike, and I loved myself for taking the race website's advice and pre-riding the course yesterday. It was a twisty narrow rolly slow course, a cyclist's nightmare basically. But since I had a glimpse of it yesterday, I knew what to expect and managed a decent pace. But, and this is becoming my theme for the day, I made some mistakes. First, I spent an hour last night trying to put my SRM head on my bike in a way that it wouldn't slip and point straight down when I went over bumps. I thought I got it, but I totally didn't. I spent 6 miles of the bike reaching down and pulling it up and holding it with my hand before I decided it was fruitless and pointless. I should have decided that right from the get-go because it was such a distraction. Thankfully, after the race Loren showed me how I could improve my jerry-rigging with a couple of cable ties. Second mistake was getting complacent with my shifting - I shifted to my little ring while I was coasting around a turn into a hill (I should know better!) dropped my chain, tried unsuccessfully to shift it back on, and ultimately got off my bike to fix it. NEVER AGAIN. Ugh.

On to the run...As I rolled into transition, and dismounted my bike with my cycling shoes still on my feet (see previous safety-hazard note), I thought I heard the announcer say I was the first woman, but I wasn't sure. The bike course had two loops with no true turn-around point so I even though I had passed a ton of people I still had no idea where I was in the field. My transition went OK, I didn't forget anything but it took me longer to get my shoes on than it should have - side note they are brand new shoes and today was their maiden run, thank god it worked out well and I totally love them! - and off I went. The course was almost all on trails, and there were quite a few really steep up and down portions. I love this type of course, but I wasn't expecting it. My BIGGEST MISTAKE OF THE WHOLE DAY was that I didn't double-check the run format. I thought I had read that we did 2 loops of a 2 mile course, which would make sense since they had run a Baby Sprint race earlier in the morning that did 6.5 miles on the bike (one loop of our course) and 2 miles running (so 1 loop of our course, right?) As time wore on, and as the terrain got more and more difficult, I was thinking "god this is the longest two miles of my life!" and "I have to do this climb again?! Better not toast myself now..." and felt myself slowing. Finally I asked another racer, who told me we did only one 4 mile loop, and instantly I ran faster. I booked it to the finish, berating myself a little bit but there was nothing I could do at that point.

And how do I really feel about it?...

On the one hand, in case you hadn't noticed ;), I feel kind of like a jackass. I feel like I had like 3 minutes of unnecessary farting around (not literally) during the course of the race, and because of it I lost the race. But on the other hand, and in the grand scheme of things, I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to really learn what I need to work on. This is my third triathlon ever, and I am a long way from being smooth. I know that if I had won the overall race, my many mistakes would seem less important, less painful, and less urgent. I probably wouldn't have the determination to really fix my problems that I do right now, and this race would not have served its purpose of giving me much-needed lessons. I know I will be a better racer for this - and thank you Marit and Sarah for indirectly giving me this perspective!

Next up is Wildflower Long Course on May 4 - I am really excited, and I feel confident that I will have a great day!

Putting Down the Greg Crutch

From the birth of the thought of the idea of my multisport career, Greg has been at my side - teaching me to swim, stuffing me into my wetsuit, telling me how to get it off, explaining wacky rules (e.g. when you can get on your bike, when you can get off it, when you can take your helmet off, all the nonsense about the strap, why there is no neutral wheel support), cheering, helping, and telling me I am doing a good job.

Also he makes all my swim workouts for me. If you ask me about my swimming all I can answer is "I just do what Greg tells me to do?"

ANYWAYS, this weekend is my first triathlon of the year, and my Greg Crutch can't come! Ack! I am going to have to think for MYSELF on race morning! Ack! Who am I going to ask "Greg I'm hungry what should I do?!" Ack! What if I have to make a decision of some sort regarding clothing?! Who's going to help me pump my tires??? Who's going to take pictures of me?!?!!?

Self Sufficiency, here I come (with the assistance of a cell phone)(also, Loren expect a visit and a "help!" from me on Sunday morning).

Ack!

Research Breakthroughs

At 5 months and 2 weeks shy of my 30th birthday, I feel like I have finally crossed over into adulthood in one major way. Somewhat relatedly, my birthday is September 7, and rest assured I have not crossed over into adulthood with regards to my birthday and telling everyone about it for months beforehand and expecting birthday acknowledgements from everyone and anyone for the whole month of September.

Anyhow, the milestone is that I have actually started researching stuff prior to purchasing and dumping money down the drain. I have never done this. Impulse buys were my M.O. for ages - and part of the reason I got into bike racing I think. I just HAD to have that carbon bike way back in 2003, it was so PRETTY!! Then a year later I found out it was a full 2 cm too big and thus was the reason behind all my back problems and inabilities to ride in the drops or descend or feel my fingers, hands, and elbows. But it was still a pretty bike!

I must say, I like the new me.

Reading user reviews, reading professional reviews, closely comparing functionality, searching for the best price (OK am I one step short of my aunt who clips coupons and will drive 20 miles for a better price on steaks??), comparing warranty information... I'm saving myself some cash AND increasing my nerd-value!

I'll share some lessons:

-the Brooks Adrenaline 7, my current training shoe, has actually received a lot of negative reviews from long-time Brooks wearers, particularly for the lack of longevity of the shoe. Many users say it wears out after 100 miles. I wish I had read this prior to hitting 200+ miles on my last pairs, thinking that my physical complaints were just evidence that I needed to "toughen up".

-Sample girly review of a running shoe: "I love the color! I give this shoe 4 stars!" Lesson being: read the actual reviews rather than trusting the "average score".

-The Polar F6 heart rate monitor, while cute and bearing the supposedly-worthy-of-extra-$50 Polar logo and the "most popular" designation on Amazon, does not do lap times. Thus it is not good for athletes.

-The Polar RS200, at a mere $30 more than the F6, does lap times, has a back light, has a 2 year warranty, and does a bunch of other cool crap.

-However, my Timex HRM that broke last week actually has a 1 year warranty and I can get it fixed for $7 (to cover return postage). So, no new Polar for me.


That's it for now, although New Me is hoping to expand into non-athletic territory soon (after putting a bunch of Old Me purchases on Ebay with the help of my New Me Camera that is arriving today).

#500!

This is the 500th post I have written since I started this blog in May of 2006... Since today can be summarized in just a few words (overslept, it's snowing, s'posed to snow more, kitty says hi), today's post will instead be a little Courtenay's Blog Recap for those of you who weren't here from the beginning (which is probably everyone except my mom... took me a while to start posting daily with gory details all about my fascinating life!)

-I got engaged. (warning: from a gossip standpoint, it's all downhill from here...)

-I got famous.

-I stopped being engaged.

-I started documenting conversations with Mom. (see more here)

-I made a threat - little did I know it would actually happen!!

-I rode the crap out of my bike.

-I started teasing Huntress. Still haven't stopped... sorry Lisa you know I love you!

-I raced.

-Shaz and I picked the wroooong place to stop.

-ImetGregweemailedhemovedin!! (it happened so fast I didn't even get a chance to blog about it!)

-I got to hang out with the coolest massage therapist ever.

-I teased some more.

-I met Katie!

-I proved that girls love goggles.

-We moved.

-I won a triathlon!?!?

-I made tons of cool new friends (see links to the left I mean right!)


and the rest is pretty recent history...

Briefly

Yesterday's "Huntress Moment" courtesy of VAC Team Director Lisa Hunt:

"Lara your little sister is a triplet? That's so cool! Wait - does that mean you are twins?!"


We had team photos yesterday afternoon at the Golden Gate Bridge - a long-ish drive from where we are staying in Healdsburg but the view and dramatic backdrop made the trip worth it, and the wind and rapidly-rolling fog made the shoot very funny. I'd post some of my photos of the photo shoot but ride departure time is t minus 22 minutes and huntress FREAKS OUT Courtenay-style when we are late.

Oh and I made it to the pool this morning!!!! Got to swim right next to high school swim team practice, good practice for race swimming with all their splashing and cavorting. Apparently all the hubbub caused me to completely forget my favourite new skill, the Flip Turn, (i SWEAR i know how to do them) but other than that I had a lovely outdoor swim workout! Sunrise over our (very chilly) pool this morning:

Um Today's Tuesday

I was so stoked for my morning swim workout. So stoked that I got up at 6 A.M. (which I haven't done in MONTHS) and drove for 15 minutes, armed with my water bottle and a banana - interesting., still being stoked about the swim, I got to the Healdsburg Swim Center, stoked yet suspicious that I was apparently the only lap swimmer, went up to the locked door and read the sign about the M W F 6 am-1 pm lap swim and T TH 10 am-1 pm hours, started flipping out that there was no notification or explanation whatsoever about why the pool was for some reason CLOSED at 6:45 am on a Monday and stomped around and

then

remembered

Yesterday was Monday.


So workout is postponed to tomorrow morning, when I will again be stoked. I love swimming now! I wish I were swimming with Greg here instead of by myself but it is good for me to rely on my own motivation and energy instead of drawing off of his. And it is also great to feel like I can breathe and go faster and do longer sets all at the same time! Yay sea level!

The best of times and the worst of times...

I am feeling highly melodramatic, and for that I apologize, additionally I apologize for my long break from blogger, BUT:

1. I won Silverman! I won I won I won! It was awesome! Half-marathons sure are hard, especially after a few hours in the water and on the bike, but somehow even though I am still in pain from the race, I am still even MORE excited about how cool it was. I can't wait for next year.

2. Right now though it's back to the mundane...

3. I am actually sitting at a public computer at the Incline Village rec center

4. BECAUSE my stupid laptop finally up and died this weekend.

5. So did my camera.

6. Anyhow, thankfully (or not), I am still jobless so I have all the time in the world to trot down to the Apple store in Reno tomorrow and beg them to pretty please fix my laptop for me.

7. I'll put together an honest-to-goodness race report here pretty soon, for those of you who are interested in all the gory Silverman details!

Vegas Virgin

This is my first time in Vegas. Going from this:

through this:

to this:

...was a somewhat eye-opening progression. Or a depressing one, I guess. This country has such beautiful, beautiful things, and Vegas is not one of them. For one thing, the light pollution at night was visible from 170 miles away. I knew that the city was huge, excessive, and grossly American, but seeing it in person for the first time was still shocking.

But enough rambling about the obvious and the boring.

I am very excited about the race on Sunday. It takes place mostly to the southeast of the city, where it's hilly and the air is pretty clear. Conditions are supposed to be perfect. I feel fortunate to have opted against the Treasure Island Triathlon this weekend, because of the oil tanker disaster from earlier in the week. The swim portion of that race is likely to be canceled, making the event a duathlon (bike and run only) - this would cater to my strengths for sure but it would not give me the open-water race-situation swim practice that I desperately want heading into next season.

Amusingly: the check-in lady at the hotel asked if we were here to get married and whether we needed a wedding chapel or something. We were both like "ew gross".

And P.S. No Whale Jokes

Note About Combining Drink Mix Brands in One Bottle

Last scoop of Gatorade Endurance plus 1/2 scoop HEED = MAJORLY DISGUSTING

and altering proportions will have no improving effect on the taste WHATSOEVER


this is one part of fall/winter training that's not usually fun, the nutrition-drawer scrounging...

Girls Love Fins

;)

Tinley's Race Photos

Out of the Water! Those are actually kids behind me, racing the kid's triathlon. The swim was not really my strong leg but the race wasn't over at all.

That's my "GAH!" face!

Now I am out for revenge on all those little swimmer-experts... In looking at this photo I am deciding to try to get a bike with 700 cc wheels, my cute little Elite looks too little! What do you think?

This part of the race was pretty fun. I do love running.


Here I think I am still loving running, but perhaps a bit less than in the previous photo? I am making that face again!

Thanks to Lorri for all the great photos! Oh, and finally, *sigh*, here is my favourite... Greg getting interviewed after his awesome win!

Actually, I kind of WAS the Cat

"It's hot and I'm starving. Let's get out of here."

"But PLEASE can we go check my result? I think I see them posted over there. PLEASE?"

"Ugh. Why? They're going to be online tonight. Let's just look later."

"PLEASE?!"

This was me and Greg yesterday after the Scott Tinley's Triathlon and after the pro awards ceremony. Major excitement of the day was that Greg won the pro race, it was a strong field and he had a great day and won it decisively, by nearly two minutes!! SOO, verifying that I did indeed have a mediocre-slash-terrible swim leg at my first triathlon was arguably lower on the priority list than getting lunch and getting the 230 mile drive home over with.

HOWEVER, we compromised, I trotted over to the results board, saw that I actually won my age group, made Greg re-park the car, dug out a Ritchey hat, replaced my Target sunnies with my Rudy Project race glasses, and headed back over to awards in time to get a plaque, a podium presentation, and 3 french fries.

Anyway here is a sort of brief recap of the race, in case you are curious:

- Swimming in a big murky lake with a bunch of wetsuit-clad chicks is NOT THE SAME as swimming in a nice clean pool with lane lines and 2 other people in your lane. NOT the same AT ALL. I looked like the kitty...

- But after 15 minutes of pathetic breastroke/laying on my back trying to breathe, I managed to stop freaking out and start swimming. I even passed some people somehow. The one-mile swim took me 41 minutes to complete, when it should have been less than 30!

- Then I got on my bike and set out to at least have the fastest amateur female bike split, since I feared my swim put me out of contention for anything else. I did indeed have the fastest bike split, and I was apparently faster than half of the pro women as well. It's nice to know that my cycling hasn't gone completely down the tubes with all this other training!

- Then I ran a blessedly pain-free 10K, my longest run in nearly 2 months due to my knee injury. I passed several girls in my age group, the last one was the most tenacious, but I had no idea that this put me in first place!


O.K. As Martina said yesterday, I guess I am officially a triathlete now!

My Swim Coach

Maybe for my next workout I'll ask my second-favourite swimsuit model...

OOPS

I am taking the liberty of transferring everyone's well-wishes from this weekend to next.

We* had a little "passport issue" here at the Brown-Remaly residence so Cancun is going to happen without us. Probably just as well, my likelihood of running 13.1 miles without knee pain was not high, plus as my mom and sister reminded me, my Spanish is horrible.

So instead I will race at Tinley's next weekend! Olympic distance race. Greg says he will lap me in the swim. I say I will exact revenge via Scrabble.


*NOTE: I am being very grown up and not placing blame on anyone specific

Might Get In Trouble - UPDATED!

My "inappropriate for the internet" filter always seems to be a little off - stuff I think is interesting, fine, funny, etc. will sometimes really backfire. So, we'll see how long this one lasts...

ANYHOW:

For all you fellow Alisha Lion fans who have been wondering what is going on with her and her website besides absolutely nothing (no updates since July!!), the USA Triathlon list of athletes competing in the upcoming Duathlon World Championships just went out. Alisha qualified for this event with her win in the Powerman Alabama duathlon this past April. However, her name was not on the list of athletes, and the accompanying USAT memo said that one female athlete had to withdraw due to injury and they were seeing about filling the vacant spot.

So I guess perhaps this means Alisha is injured? Very unfortunate, she is a talented athlete for sure. I hope she recovers quickly, and I hope someone starts updating her website. I have been using Nuun citrus tablets for like two and a half months now!

***UPDATE***

I have a double dose of good news! 1. Alisha is doing fine and 2. Her website is going to be updated soon!! So, be sure to check it out... I for one am glad to hear that this bike racer-turned-triathlete is still going strong.

FREAKOUT is COMMENCING

We leave for Cancun on Friday.

I am fairly confident that I won't drown.

Other than that... It's anyone's guess as to how my "triathlon debut" (not entirely sure I want to build it up like that) goes. My main goal is that it goes well enough for me to want to buy a wetsuit and go gallivanting off to Silverman!

Tales from Down South

We went to L.A. for the weekend! Greg had a race there on Sunday, plus Friday was my birthday so of course that's the perfect excuse for a trip, and side bonus was the air quality in the bay area was crap thanks to some dumb schmoe whose illegal debris fire became a multi-day multi-acre monstrosity. See photo at right. Funny what makes L.A. seem clean and clear by comparison... but we were actually staying in the Santa Monica Canyon, which generally does have nice clean air.

I learned lots of cool things on this trip!

Thing 1: swimming "long course" is really really great. Long course means the lanes are 50 meters long, instead of 25 meters/yards or 33 1/3 yards (which is the length of the Temescal pool, where we swim here in Oakland). There is this really awesome outdoor pool at Santa Monica College that is set up long course at certain times and MAN was it nice. I didn't realize before how much a shorter pool breaks up one's rhythm.

Thing 2: puppies are also really really great.

Thing 3: but just because your boyfriend walks in with a puppy and it happens to be your birthday, it doesn't mean the puppy is a present for YOU! I truly did think for 2 seconds that Greg had gotten me a puppy, but in reality he belonged to our hosts. I had a great time sending photo text messages to my family telling them about "my new puppy i got for my birfday" and actually my brother believed it and told all his friends, which means I FINALLY got revenge for his little April Fool's joke...

Thing 4, last bit about puppies I swear: they can be endlessly entertained by their own tails. Chase and chase and chase in circles and then fall over in dizziness. Apparently, if you are a puppy, this is totally fun. If you are watching the puppy it's definitely fun.


Thing 5: despite whining and moaning (who me?! never!!) about the long ride I got sent on all by myself in the heat, uphill into headwinds, with no shade, in retrospect I actually had a good time and a great ride. But at the time I was making sourpuss faces at all the canyons I seemed to climb out of...

Thing 6: I saw hardly any chicks out riding, but tons of dudes. Brenda you'd better rally those LA women and get them on some nice Fuji bikes!

Thing 7: Yes I still suck at taking race photos. I wanted to get photos of Greg at the start and finish of the swim, additionally I wanted to ride down to the start at Venice Beach with him, I had no bike lock and no change of clothes and no backpack and at 6:40 a.m. I suddenly realized there was no way I was going to get my little spandexed road-cleated Serotta-saddled self down acres of sand to get photos at the ocean. So I snapped a shot or two of some random birds and the far-away start banner and left it at that. I missed the bike entirely for dumb reasons. I did manage a couple photos of Greg running, which was cool (and totally fortuitous, considering I armed myself with neither map nor compass nor sunscreen), except the photos were total-eclipse-of-Greg since I forgot about the whole sun-at-photographer's-back rule (incidentally, this "eclipse" photo turned out FAR BETTER than my lunar eclipse attempts). Nevertheless the spectating was tons of fun and he had a good race!

Thing 8: Beach time is great recovery time. We headed to the Santa Monica beach after the race and lazed until we felt too lazy. Neither of us is very good at true down time, but after losing a couple of Scrabble pieces to the puppy I stopped talking about earlier, we opted to play it safe and head to the ocean sans entertainment. I did, however, bring my phone...


Thing whatever-number-I-am-on-now: some things don't change, even 11 years after graduating from high school. Greg and I had lunch on Monday with my friends Paula and Tadia. We were all three great friends in school, and both of them currently are in LA doing entertainment industry stuff (don't ask me)(but they seem to be doing great). I see Paula once a year because she comes to my mom's for Christmas every year. Also Paula has a great blog, and I have a blog too, obviously.

Me and Paula: blah blah blah Blog blah blah blah Christmas

Tadia: UGH. If I hear the words "blog" or "christmas" one more time I am going to smack BOTH of you!

Greg: Um are you going to eat your corn bread?

It was fun. Also Paula teased me a lot, about legitimate topics such as my long-winded telling of how Greg and I met ("and then I emailed Jaffa, but the first time it bounced back, but then after that... etc."), and also about the fact that I have Juicy Couture sunglasses, a label that's TOTALLY not me but I swear they were the only ones that fit.


Anyway, after all this excitement, plus additional excitement but I think this is enough for one blog post, we drove home. The skies were beautiful and back to their normal mildly hazy selves.

Girls Love Goggles

Greg got some photos taken for his website this past weekend, and last night he and I were looking through them trying to pick the best ones.

Me: I love this one!
Him: But I am wearing goggles. You can't even see my eyes!
Me: I don't care, I think it looks hot.
Him: I don't. You are just saying that because you are obsessed with goggles.
Me: But you look awesome in it!
Him: Ugh.
Me: This is like our conversations where I say I don't like my butt and you say you do.
Him: Yeah but all guys like butts to one degree or another.
Me: Well all girls like goggles!

I am totally right about this. See?

photo credit: Stephen Weiss

(but by the way we did decide he was right, and he chose other photos, I am just getting my own personal goggle photo to ogle)

(also further by the way, we weren't really arguing)(don't want two consecutive posts about boys' and girls' differences of opinion)