Bring on the HEAT

Thank Snoop Doggy Dog that the sun is finally out in San Diego. I was honestly worried that I was going to have to heat train with insane amounts of layers for Kona preparation. Now that I had a solid week with some decent San Diego weather, I am glad to know that I still need lots more heat preparation.

The week started off with a solid Wednesday ride with Kebby. Well, we started with the guys... got dropped on the warm up because we were babbling too much, and then caught back up with them. It wasn't too long til we got dropped again on the actual ride, but we finished the route with a solid effort. I knew that my T run had to be decent since the week before Chris so nicely told me that I have to "buckle down" and stop running "15 minute miles." Now, I highly doubt that I was running 15 minute miles, but whatever pace the miles were, they were not cute and definitely needed to be faster. On Wednesday I ran like a mofo and was actually really pleased with it. I was expecting to see Chris drive by yelling at me to hurry up, but luckily they were too busy deciding where to eat while I was out running.

Thursday was a nice, fast workout at track before team pictures. It was just a 3 mile workout, which should have been a cake walk (mmm-cake) compared to the usual 4 or 5 mile workout, but it was all balls to the wall. Kebby, Michelle, Emily, and I ran the first mile together... well, Emily and Kebby ran it in ~6:13 and I ran it in ~6:20, but that did not feel good. Why didn't it feel good? Well, I decided to have a big ass lunch RIGHT before the workout. We all ran the 200s together, but the last mile was brutal. Michelle was nice enough to stick with me and encourage me to not throw in the towel completely. On the last 400 of the mile when I wanted to cry, she told me to picture running down Ali'i Drive, so that helped get me through! Thanks, Shelly!!!

I felt much better on Friday when I didn't eat a huge lunch before a workout, and while I was scared to swim at the Cove because of all of the recent Great White sightings, I went anyways. Swimming back to the shore, it was high tide and therefore not a lot of beach. Getting to the stairs was a crap shoot because the waves were so strong. I started laughing my ass off as Fred attempted to swim to shore and got knocked down by the waves. It was really funny up until I then got taken over by the waves and pummeled around. I got up, laughing, but then got knocked over again backwards. Lesson learned: don't laugh at others, because it will happen to you and you will end up with Swimmer's Ear!!!!

Saturday was my first REAL day of heat training - Katie, Erick, and I headed out to Temecula to ride. None of us knew a route and I forgot to print out one that Katie found online, so we just drove and got off at a random exit. For some sick reason, I didn't know that Temecula was hilly and was rather pissed when the first 2 hours of our 4 hour ride was uphill. It also didn't help that I forgot to pump up my tires and that my back tire needs to be trued. I drank all of my bottles of Infinit during the first 90 minutes and was sweating my ass off by the time we turned around. A rest stop at some random market was the greatest thing ever and we all enjoyed some "nicely manufactured ice" and cold h20. The way back was sO much easier, though I still got dropped! OOPS. The T run was hell and I walked the last 10 minutes because I was dying. I told myself that it was ok for walking because I had a race the next day, but I knew that I really should just HTFU and move my bertha ass.

Speaking of the race the next day, it was Surf Town Triathlon in Imperial Beach. I had never done this race before, so didn't know what to expect. Natalie, the race director, told me on Thursday during a nice Thai dinner that the course was flat, but the bike was pretty technical. Great, I have about 0 technical skills. Anyways, the waves were pretty big and the sets (I think that's what they're called) were close together. Trying to get out to the first buoy was a shit show because of the wicked current or riptide (don't know the difference) and each time we tried to dive under a wave, the water would just push us back. I finally made it out to the first buoy and was in 3rd place at that point. I swam past the 2nd place girl and caught up to the 1st place swimmer but she caught a wave and was out of the water before me. The bike did have a lot of turns, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I caught up to the girl that was first out of the water and didn't look back. Apparently I dropped my bike completely in T2, but I had no idea. The run was fun because it was an out and back and we could see the competition and teammates the whole time. Jeanine was killing it on the run! She was in eye sight the first half of the run and was really hard to catch - you go girl!!!! I finally made it to the finish line, which seemed like forever because we could see it forever on the last stretch! Since it was such a small race, there were no Elite women athletes, but I ended up finishing first overall female. Breakaway Training had a great showing at this race and it was awesome to see so much Orange. Chris and Felipe were 2nd and 3rd Elite Male finishers and plenty of other teammates were on the podium. HOLLA!

Next race is Malibu in September, but there will be PLENTY more heat workouts before then! Best of luck to Kebby and Chuck racing at IM Louisville this weekend - kick some booty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!