my TriZou results

Well it was an interesting TriZou that's for sure. The rain held off, but unfortunately the heat didn't, it was pretty rough. I think the MC said it was the hottest trizou they've had.
         Either way, in general it was a good race for myself. I say in general, because I completely was a complete "struggle bus" (for lack of a better phrase) through the run. Mainly because I pushed myself a bit too hard on the swim and bike, and with the combination of that and the heat, I had to walk a few steps a few times during the run. I pretty much consider this a failure on the run portion, because I've never had to walk before and usually running 3 miles is pretty easy. But, at least I wasn't the only one, since I was one of the last ones to start there were a whole bunch of us walking because of the heat (and we're not exactly the "elite" group). The good part was that there were a few of us who were having a hard time and finally the last mile one of other girls came up to me and was like "come on, we're gonna do this together," so we ran together for the last mile. I can't thank that person enough, because usually I hate working out with other people but in this case having somebody to run with was my saving grace.
      Now that I've given you the bad news, the good news is that I improved in every other category and improved my overall time by 3 minutes. I had timed myself in the pool at swimming a 10 minute, 400 meter, but adrenaline got me through it in 9:24. I also improved my bike time by several minutes. Mainly because I figured out my work out style- mainly, some people are better at lighter weight (resistance for a bike) and fast reps, but I'm better at less reps, but more power required. So on the flat parts I put the gears on a harder setting so I could get more distance and power with less reps. This is probably the wrong way to do it, and any legit biker is probably yelling at me, but in this case for just a 14 mile ride, along with a swim and run, that's what works best for myself. But, I did push myself to do better this year, which I did, but I payed for it in the run.
       All in all, it was a good race, with the exception of the run. I guess we all are apt to bad moments. Oh well, something to improve on for next year. Well here's my results and some pics if you feel like looking at them:

Division Place: 10th out of 24
Gender Place: 94th out of 182   (I was amazed there were only 182 women out of 550 total people)
Swim Time: 9:24
Transition 1:   3:48
Bike: 53:38    ( 14 miles)
Bike rate: 15.7 mph (almost a 2 mph increase from last year!)
Transition 2:  2:01
Run: 30:16
Run pace: 10:16   (literally have never run a slower 3 mile pace, ever)
Overall time: 1:39:04

Now for the fun part: pictures

The finish line the afternoon before the race

This really has nothing to do with the race but the Quad and the Columns were so pretty Saturday afternoon

The sunset on the quad was pretty too

The transition area at the TriZou with the bikes

TriZou bike transition. Running leg next (I'm the one in the black)

Finishing the trizou. Thanks to the lady in blue who's behind me who ran with me for the last mile

the TriZou finish

TriZou weekend

So the TriZou's this Sunday and I'm pretty excited. The only problems are that it's going to be close to 90 degrees, and if you're familiar with midwest weather the temperature isn't the bad part, it's the intense humidity. But, it's been humid this whole week so hopefully everybody will be at least a little bit use to it by the time race day comes. It also looks like it's going to rain, so cross your fingers that the rain won't start until after the race.

My training went fairly well this year. My only complaint is that I spent too much time on the indoor bike trainer as opposed to getting out there and biking on the roads. So I took some advice from people who are very knowledgeable in this field and did a bit more interval training. For instance if I was going on a 3 mile run, I would purposefully run faster than my normal pace for a bit about every 1/2 mile or so. It's one of the only ways to make you faster and hopefully it worked.

Tomorrow's packet pick up day and I think I'll swing by the track (aka Stankowski field) where all the transitions are/where the bikes are kept tomorrow afternoon and see if they've set up everything. If stuff is up, I'll take a few pictures for you guys.

If you're participating in the TriZou tomorrow, than good luck.

zombie 5k video

this has got to be my favorite video yet of the Run For Your Life Zombie 5k. I think the hay stacks are traditionally the first obstacle where you meet the "zombies." This is pretty much the best video because 1. The four ninja turtles make an appearance at 1:30 mark
2. The dude at 3:40 "Come on Waldo, you got it, keep going! Go Waldo Go! I found you!"

Run for your lives zombie 5k

Well here's an interesting race I just signed up for. It's basically a 5k kind of like 'epic mud run' or 'the warrior dash' except with a strange twist. It's called the Run For Your Lives Zombie 5k where you're given a flag football belt with three red flags on it which are your "lives" and you have to climb over and dive around obstacles in the mud and dirt all while avoiding 'zombies' which try and rip off your flags... I really want to know what happened at that planning meeting when somebody said "guys, we're going to put zombies in our 5k race, it'll be awesome."

It's something I never thought I'd do, but hey why do a normal road 5k when you can do an adrenaline filled one? It'll be fun because I'll already have the cardio from my half marathon training and all I'll need to work on it agility and explosive movements. It looks like I'll be doing a whole lot of box jumps and wind sprints. But it looks like a whole lot of fun, and lets be honest how often does a 5k race like this come along to an area close to you.

It's actually pretty cool because this race is only taking place in 8 states and Missouri is one of the lucky ones. Even luckier is that it's going to be only about 30 minutes away from my home town so that makes the commute fairly easy. And the main reason why I'm doing it is because 1. my roommate got really excited and wanted to do it really bad and 2. it's one of those things that you get to tell your kids down the road "yeah I did a 5k race where you had to avoid zombies"

Trizou coming up!

My favorite race, the TriZou is coming up here in the next 12 days, it's definitely that time where you start getting really excited because it's coming up so quickly. I say favorite because it's the only not-purely-running race I've ever done. I really encourage you to sign up even if you live in a 2 hour radius of Columbia, Missouri. Here's the website if you're interested. And if I remember, I'm going to bring a camera (or at least take pictures and video with my cell phone) because I know how much I personally like it when people post pictures and videos.

Now that I know in general how to pace myself I'm gonna push myself a bit this year. Last year was a kind of trial run to figure out how I would do with going from biking 4 gigantic hills to running 3 miles. The only two foreseeable problems will be 1. the weather has been super unreliable (raining for a few days, than really cold, then 85 degrees) 2. there's construction where the running course use to go through, so they've had to change it slightly and it now incorporates a hill. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the hill is in the last mile-ish of the race so everybody's gonna be tired. But, aside from that I'm really excited.

My time last year was 1:42 so I'm aiming for anything lower than that, even if it's only a minute or two. I realize that's not a significant goal, but considering that I only do this stuff for the fun of it and the experience I don't have the time to train non-stop and improve time significantly.

So probably for narcissistic reasons I added the video my dad took on his phone of me finishing last year. I'm the one in the dark blue shirt.  A little background behind the video is that the lady next to me passed me a little while before and me being unhealthily competitive really wanted to catch up to her.

Sign up day

The start to my Disney Half Marathon adventure has officially begun! Today was the first day of sign ups for the Disney World Marathon Weekend and I signed up my mother and myself. (She was the only one willing to go with me). For now I'm just going to focus on the TriZou triathlon and I'll think about the half when the time comes. Everybody does races for their own reasons, mine is: To prove to myself that I can. Up until now I've never run farther than 4 miles because I'm not all legs and build like a gazelle like other people. I'm going to follow Hal Higdon's training program and even though it's a 12 week training program I'm probably going to stretch mine out to 18 or 24 because I have the time, and like I said before I'm not really built for long distance running (or running in general). If you wanna take part in the family fun run 5k/half marathon/ full marathon the sign ups are here.

I since I won't officially start training till about July or August you probably won't hear a substantial amount of updates until then. But in the mean time I'll let you in on my general work outs from here unti then.

hiking the Great Smokies

This past week I went hiking in the Smoky Mountains. Specifically the section around the Gatlinburg, Tennessee/ North Carolina area. Here's just a few pictures of how beautiful the place was.

that's Mt. LeConte in the back, which we hiked up on our last day. The elevation is 6593 feet and one of the most beautiful hikes I can imagine.

This drop off on Mt. LeConte was one of the prettiest/most nerve racking parts of the whole climb. The actual part you hiked on is out of the frame on the right side with a cable to hold onto so you don't slip on the rocks.  

A tiny waterfall thing on the Mt. LeConte trail