Jason and I signed up for the inaugural Seattle Rock ‘n Roll Marathon that’s happening this Saturday. We wanted to do the full but when we ran it by Teresa she gave us an “Are you serious” look and convinced us that tackling a marathon two weeks after doing a 70.3 isn’t the smartest idea we’ve had this year. We begrudgingly settled for the half, but after shredding my feet in Boise I’m thinking I made the right decision. I’d like to finish in under 1:50, having done a 1:52 and change at the Vancouver Half Marathon nearly two months ago. However, I haven’t run much lately (I wouldn’t call my Boise lurch much of a training run since I was going pretty slow, and since then I’ve been in recovery mode and letting my feet heal) so I’m not sure how well I’ll do. Jason’s itching to do a sub 1:40 and I think he’ll pull it off because he’s pretty stubborn and has been doing great with his training this season. Plus, even if he does pass out, at least we’re in our hometown so I can just drag him over to Harborview, get him pumped full of IV fluids and head home. So…those are our Saturday morning plans. I’ll post another entry letting all five of you who read this blog how well we did. If you’re watching the race, be sure to cheer on the TN Multisport runners and give us plenty of encouragement....

It’s been a while since I’ve posted (traveling and work has keep me occupied), but I thought I’d finally introduce a new series I’ve been wanting to blog about for a while now. I’ve tentatively dubbed it “It Ain’t Easy Being a Triathlete,” but for brevity’s sake I’ll just call them “Triathlete Woes.” For my very first woe I thought I’d talk about something that, well, bugs me about training: the bugs. I’ve run through countless gnat clouds and have had to pick teeny bug carcasses off my sweaty face. Trust me, few people can pull off the “bug beard” look, and I am not one of them. I’ve also eaten/inhaled many a bug while running and biking, causing me to choke and sputter as the creature unsuccessfully attempts to escape out of my stomach and lungs. I think the absolute worst, though, is when you’re biking over 20 mph and a frickin’ bug bounces right off your face. You hear that “THWACK” noise and feel a heavy sting as a blurry black object ricochets off your cheek, and you immediately think “Ewwww.” So true. (Diagram courtesy of Indexed) Last year I did a 50 mile ride in Yakima, and I was riding along a long, open stretch of highway when I felt something bounce off my inner thigh. I didn’t think anything of it until about ten seconds later when I felt a sharp, searing pain on the inside of my leg. I stopped and hopped off my bike to inspect what the hell had happened. It turned out that a freakin’ bee flew towards my leg ass-first and stung me. I had a sting mark on my inner thigh for the entire summer. This year I went back and did the same Yakima ride, only I rode about 62 miles. As I started, I jokingly thought to myself “I better not get stung by a bee this time around.” No sooner did I think that when I felt a series of stinging, sharp pains under my boob. I panicked and smooshed/itched at the area until the sensation subsided. Eventually I forgot about it until later that day when I was stripping down to take a shower and discovered smashed bug carcasses stuck to my chest. Those little effers had flown down my shirt, got trapped in my sports bra, and decided to bite me over and over again until I crushed them against my bony bosom. What the hell?! So yeah, triathletes are like little bug magnets. Every triathlete I know has had some sort of bug encounter (most recently, Jason forgot his pair of sunglasses for a ride and had a bug bounce directly off his eyeball). I know that protein’s good for athletes, but I’m getting tired of sucking face with gnats. I mean, the least they could do is buy me a drink...

Recently I wrote about how Jason ate pavement at the Vancouver half marathon last year and signed up for the 2009 race for redemption (aka Operation De-Bruise the Ego). His goal was to run the half in 1:40 to 1:45 and spare himself a trip to the medical tent this year, whereas my goal was to do between 1:50 and 1:55. How’d we do? Well, we headed up to Vancouver on Saturday, stuffed our faces at Cioppino’s, and got to bed at a reasonable time so we’d get a little shuteye before our 5:45 wake up time. When I got up I was sportin’ a lovely headache and did my usual morning-of-the-race grumbling. I sucked down some Advil and geared up for the run. We ducked out the door and jogged to the start of the race for an early morning warm up, then shoved our way as close to the starting point as possible. When the race officially began, Jason and I both spent the first two miles dodging people and trying to run at a decent pace. Much to Jason’s annoyance, he had to pass a ton of people who had no business being at the start of a half marathon (like people with walking sticks who had positioned themselves among the 6 minute mile runners). I, meanwhile, got freakishly overheated in the balmy 60 degree weather despite my attire of shorts and a sleeveless shirt. I attributed my Hot Head Syndrome to the visor I was wearing, so I stripped it off and ran while holding it for a bit before getting tired of carrying it and chucking it into a bin. With my head blissfully naked, I was able to concentrate on running. Or so I thought. Even though I did the customary pre-race Glide application and despite the fact that I had worn these shorts on plenty of runs in the past, for some reason during the race my shorts kept riding up on me and I had to do an awkward shimmy shake every few hundred feet to try and yank the fabric back down. I can only imagine what it was like to run behind me the entire race. I waged this battle for the entire 13.1 miles, cursing my thighs and these godforsaken shorts. The run itself went pretty well. I had the usual ups and downs and would suck down Gu and water whenever I felt an energy lull. At mile 10 I was running hard and had a Jason moment where my vision temporarily tunneled and I felt light-headed for a few seconds. I wondered if it was my turn to pass out, but thankfully the feeling subsided and I was able to resume running. Hooray for staying upright! I approached the finish line and saw Jason at the sidelines wrapped in a space blanket, so we went 2/2 on the “no passing out” goal. I finished the race in 1:52 and some change, which is a 4 minute PR from last year’s time and a 12 minute improvement from my first ever half marathon. Yeah, beeyotch! Jason also achieved his goal, having finished in 1:41 and sparing his veins from invasive IV needles. I celebrated my achievement with an ice bath, a Wendy’s bacon and cheese baked potato, a dim sum lunch and the coveted post-race nap. Later that evening we caught a movie and ate gigantic steaks at Gotham. (Post-race gorging is easily the best part of training and competing.) All in all, the race went well for both of us this year (aside from excruciating chafing). Huzzah for improved times, healthy bodies and great food. We’ve...

Yesterday Jason and I ran the Vancouver half marathon. Jason dubbed it his “vindication race,” and before I talk about how we did, I feel I have to explain why he nicknamed it that. Time to flashback to last year’s half marathon. Cue the wavy lines… Okay, pretend it’s 2008. Jason and I are driving up to Canada to do the Vancouver half marathon. This will be my 2nd half marathon, and my goal is to finish in under two hours (my first half marathon was in Port Angeles a couple years before, and I finished at around 2:04). Jason had actually never run a half marathon before — he had done 3 marathons, so he figured the half would be a piece of cake and set a goal time of 1:45. On our way up to Vancouver, Jason starts noticing that he’s feeling a bit “under the weather.” It’s no big deal — just a little stuffiness and a bit of a headache. We get through the border, check into our hotel, walk to the Expo Hall to pick up our packets, have dinner, and go back to our room to relax and prep for tomorrow’s race. This is where things start to get a bit icky. Jason’s symptoms start to worsen and he begins feeling downright miserable. I’m not sure exactly what’s wrong with him, but I figure that once someone starts excreting goop out of his eyes, he’s probably not in the healthiest state to run 13.1 miles the next morning. Jason’s laying on the bed sounding congested and miserable with a warm washcloth draped over his gunky eyes, and I think, “There is no way he’s running tomorrow.” He’s sick and seems like he has a sinus infection, so the last thing on his mind should be hitting a PR for a half marathon…right? Oh, how I underestimate the competitive nature of men. The next morning, Jason rolls out of bed jacked up on adrenaline and race jitters. He pops a bunch of cold medicine like they’re Tic Tacs and suits up for the race. I keep asking him if he’s feeling well enough to race and he assures me with his husky, congested voice that he feels a lot better and will be fine. We meet our racing buddies in the hotel lobby and head to the start of the race. Since the finish dumps into a large stadium and there are thousands of people racing, we set up a meeting landmark for after the race: a giant inflated Ronald McDonald. It’s easy to spot the frighteningly huge clown, so we figured it would make for an idiot-proof meeting spot. We all wish each other good luck and I kiss my sicky boyfriend before the gun goes off and we all begin the race. I don’t feel great on the run — my main mistake is that I’m wearing pants instead of shorts because I mistakenly thought that race day would be colder than it actually was. I immediately get too warm and feel kind of miserable as I plod along, one foot in front of the other. Despite the wardrobe misstep, however, I finish the race in about 1:56 and feel pleased that I beat my previous half marathon time by 8 minutes. Wahoo! I run into two of my racing buddies who finished less than a minute ahead of me and we make our way to Ronald McDonald to meet Jason, who should have finished about ten minutes before we did. We get to Ronald and Jason’s nowhere in sight. I think that maybe he’s using the bathroom or grabbing food, so...

On Sunday Jason and I did the Mt. Rainier Duathlon in Enumclaw. A bunch of our TN Multisport buddies had signed up for the race and were urging us to do the same. We had heard daunting things about the mighty duathlon course hill, so last week we decided to ride the bike route and see how formidable the hill would be. Jason, his dad, Beth, Barb and I met in horse loving Enumclaw and rode our bikes to get a feel for the duathlon course. Beth told me that she wanted to make sure she could successfully get up the hill this year since last year she was unable to conquer it. It was a warm, sunny day and most of the roads were flat and fast with a few gradual inclines…and then we got to the hill. Even though I had heard gloriously awful things about it, the beast still caught me by surprise. The first part of the hill is the steepest — it’s mercifully short, but I’m told it’s a shitty 17% incline. When I hit it I was in the completely wrong gearing and frantically downshifted. Although I did make it to the top, I ran out of momentum and ended up keeling over and running into a guardrail (thankfully, much like a Weeble, I wobbled but did not fall down). When Beth caught up to me at the top of the hill, I asked her, “Was that the part you got stuck on last year?” She just laughed and said, “Oh no, it gets worse.” “Worse” is putting it lightly. This mofo is 2 miles long. While the rest of the hill isn’t as superbly steep as the beginning part, it’s a long, winding, never-ending piece of crap. Every time I rounded a corner and expected to be at the end, I’d see more hill to climb. I cursed, sweated, wheezed, dropped my chain, cursed again, stopped to put the chain back on my bike, burned my legs up trying to start climbing again mid-hill, sweated some more, wheezed a few more times, and finally made it to the top. Then we turned around, flew down the hill (well, they flew while I held my brakes in a nervous death grip) and climbed the bastard again. While I was in better gearing the second time around, my legs were tired and hating me for drowning them in lactic acid. Why the hell would I want to pay to bike up this hill? I just climbed it twice for free and hated every sweat-soaked minute of it! Our practice ride was last Sunday, and all week Jason and I contemplated signing up for the duathlon. Teresa initially wanted us to do the long course (which consisted of a 5.1 mile run, a 28.8 mile bike and a 3.7 mile run), meaning we’d have to do the bike loop (and that bullshit hill) twice, and once we rode the course we were like “Yeeeeeah, the short course seems more appropriate.” Several of our training buddies were doing the short course and a couple of folks were doing the long course. Confident that she could conquer the hill this year, Beth egged me on to sign up and race with her. Jason and I dragged our feet up until Saturday, at which point Jason put on his game face, hitched up his britches and decided to do the race. He set out his gear and clothes and I begrudgingly mimicked him like a disgruntled monkey. When the alarm started blaring at 5:15 am on Sunday morning, he bounced out of bed and said in a far-too-chipper...