Race Report plus this and that..

My weekend started with a 50 mile bike ride yesterday with my Outlaw friends. I have decided to somewhat abandoned Mark Allen (sorry Mark-you are still my hero, I promise) to train for IMAZ. I am including some speed work in my new regimen. Yesterday was one of those days. My HR was probably hovering in the 140s (I turned it off midway)..Even though I was the last one up the hill, I wasn't as painfully slow and behind as I have been in the past. Now this new "throwing caution to the wind as far as my HR is concerned" may backfire but it is sure way more fun to ride with my friends and my ego is happier.

Today's workout continued as H and I decided to run the New Mexico Half Marathon as part of our IM training. The day was perfect as far as the weather was concerned. In the 60s, cool, cloudy yet was a bit humid for these parts. I sweated, alot and felt a bit like I was in Texas or something with the mugginess. I awoke early to give Geekgirl a lift down to the marathon starting line, which was just a jaunt down the street at 5:30 AM. She was very awake and perky at this hour, I was impressed. I came back home and drug the rest of my running attire on and stumbled out the door at 6:00 to ride with our friends to the half start line. We got there just as athletes were lining up for the start. I went to to bathroom twice, then off we went-downhill. I felt really groggy still and my legs were hurting from the beginning mostly from the ride yesterday. I complained alot about my legs hurting until after taking 2 Advil, I shut up and just kept the Mantra in my head I'm a runner, I'm a runner! We passed a bunch of people or rather passed the same folks several times, I am not quite sure...

You know those times when you just say screw it! I'll do this today and just deal with the consequences tomorrow! Kind of like how I use to drink and party. I don't practice that behavior anymore, however yesterday I did this on 2 fronts; One-the bike ride up hills. Two-eating Mexican food. Now I am one who needs to practically eat nothing solid the day before a race and certainly not any roughage...Well, today I paid on both accounts. We ran a pretty good pace once I got out of the fog after the first couple of miles. H, bless his heart was committed to staying together although I know he could have run faster without me and my half a dozen bathroom stops. Ah yes, speaking of bathrooms a word about the porta potties on the course-oh there were NO porta potties! The RD will hear from me on this one. Anyway, not to be too graphic but there are alot of bushes on this course, thank goodness because I utilized plenty of them. After each stop, then I would run as fast as I could until the next aid station or potty stop. This is basically how we ran the half marathon today. When we ran, we probably ran 10 min miles (not bad for me). With the stops and all, we ended up with a time of 2:24-11 min. mile average. I am pretty proud of that considering my PR for a half marathon is 2:19 and that was 5 years ago. It was mostly downhill, which helped. Now if I could only translate that times two to have a 4:45 hr marathon at the end of an Ironman, then I am a star!!

Tonite, I am sore, tired, have been laying around all day watching Hurricane Gustav news. My fascination with hurricanes is just plain weird. I am happy to report that Louisiana seems to have it all together this time and I feel for those poor people who haven't even recovered from the last big one 3 years ago..

Tomorrow morning rounds out our training weekend with a 2.4 mile swim at Cochiti Lake, once again with our Outlaw Triathlon Club, who seem to love suffering as much as we do! The friendship and coffee afterwards is sure fun though!