The next thing I knew it was October!

I don't even know if anyone stops by this place anymore it's been neglected so long. For all like 4 of you who previously read my musings, I thought I'd attempt to recap the last 3 or 4 months for you.

Everyone warned me that the time would FLY by but I just don't know where it all went. It seems like just yesterday it was spring, I was running, I had free time, things were mellow and good.

Then June hit.

It's probably a lot more fun if I show you were I've been....

The chaos all kicked off with Ragnar Chicago Relay. Well worth the lack of sleep and sore muscles. I've made some truly amazing running friends. xoxo!

Then my BFF came to visit from NYC and we made our annual pilgrimage to Summerfest, complete with tickets to see Britney Spears!

W and I then moved our kitchen mini-remodel full steam ahead! Those flower tiles HAD to go.

Note: No actual before pictures were taken because the kitchen was SUCH a disaster. Ugly, messy, and in disrepair. Shudder...

Flowers GONE! But drab cabinets and weird green walls remain...

Nothing a fresh coat of paint on the walls and cabinets can't fix!

(I'm trying to track down a picture of the other half of the kitchen....you know, where the cabinets are...)

Kitchen remodel finished, complete with custom bench designed and upholstered by yours truly, chalkboard paint wall, and a new spice cabinet!

Now if only the new floor and counter fairy would swing by Claire St.

The weekend remodels were intermixed with working events like the Robbie Ventura Gran Fondo

And Centurion Wisconsin.

Which was immediately followed, of course, but Trek World!

I found time to sneak in another race and joined the Pavement Pirates last minute for the Ragnar Great River Relay.

Where I earned my "Make it a Double" medal for doing both Chicago and GR in one season. Huzzah!!

Before I knew it I was off to Vegas for Interbike 2011.

I mean really, who doesn't want to spend 7 days in Vegas the week before getting married...

All the house cleaning and home reno was not for naught though as we hosted our rehearsal dinner in our bcakyard on our fabulous patio.

Then we said some vows...

...took some pictures....

...and had a party!

Followed almost immediately by hopping on a jetplane and heading to Kona to work the Ironman World Championship.

And yes, I was close enough to snap a pic of Chrissie crossing the finish line and regaining her title. OMG.

Don't worry, I had a chance to enjoy a Hawaiian sunset or two.

I realize so much of this is worthy of posts all their own, and I promise to do just that, but not now. I'm almost out of time on my lunch hour, and, well, I am still trying to get caught up from the last few weeks.

Ironman Advice...?

So my friend Sarah is gearing up to do her first Ironman this fall (IM WI, woo woo) and is looking for words of wisdom. I've told her everything I know from my industry and tri experience, but as you know I fell short of IM WI myself last year.

She's definitely logging some serious miles and is well on her way to be trained and ready, but it's all those other things...food, clothes, special needs bags, pacing, and so on!!

For example, one woman told me that as a female participant do whatever you can to get a men's colored swim cap. Huh? No explanation, just those words of wisdom. Can anyone confirm or deny this bit of advice?

She's also toying with the thought of a 1/2 iron less than a month before IM. Good or bad idea? Why? (For the record, I said bad: taper and rejuvenate before the big day.)

What was your most useful piece of advice as a first time endurance athlete? Ironman? Marathon? Ultras? Whatever it is, share the love.

Don't let me down interweb, pay the tri love and knowledge forward!!

Ironman Wisconsin

I wish I could say that Sunday's spectating experience was invigorating, inspiring, rejuvenating or whatever, but generally I just spent the day being pissed off. As much as I love ALL things Ironman, I thought about just not getting out of bed.

That's right, I am fully admitting that I was a bad sport.

Let me back up a tick here and congratulate all of the AMAZING athletes. There were over 2000 hardworking, determined, rockstars out there working their tails off. And I hated each and every one of them just a little bit for being out there while I couldn't be.

My day started at 5am at Law Park to help coordinate the swim volunteers. (PS-huge props to Jason, the overall swim volunteer captain, for coordinating a safe swim AND snagging himself Captain of the Year honors.) It probably doesn't surprise anyone who knows me that I was on the verge of tears from the moment I woke up, or that I didn't sleep at all the night before, but I kept it together enough to help get the volunteers in place on time. About 6:45 we headed over to the swim start/finish to watch from there, and ran into a couple of friends. Mike, who later finished his first ever Ironman in a smidge over 11hrs, looked annoying calm and collected. Then there was Robert. Robert, who was frustratingly relaxed before the KS 70.3 was looking a little, shall we say, nervous. Can't say I blame him really...

Then there was the National Anthem and the start. And the tears. Yeah, I cried. A lot. Shocking, I know. Luckily after that it was time to wetsuit up and get in the water for my official athlete pulling duties which kept me occupied for the next 2 or so hours. As the clock ticked closer to the 2hr 20min cut off I got all choked up again. Who really wants to be the one to tell an athlete that they didn't make the cut off and their day is done? Not me.

After the swim was wrapped up, we headed back so I could shower and get the lake off me before heading out to the bike course. I was hoping to be able to cheer on the athletes I knew as they came through Verona after their first lap of the course. Of course, due to traffic and all the roads shut down for the race that was much easier said than done. We missed everyone we knew, but did hang out to see the lead pro's head through Verona before they finished up the ride. Seriously, the pro athletes make it look easy!! Like woah.

We spend probably an hour or so checking out the bike course. I then conceded to let Wyatt (and secretly myself) take a much needed power nap before heading back downtown to watch the run. Getting up at 5am and trucking around on a broken foot takes a lot out of you. Ok, not like actually participating, but I was pooped. Anywho.

Yet again, our timing was lousy! We missed the lead male pro's finish by like 10 mins. We heard that the lead females still had 8-10m left in the run so we attempted to grab some food and hustle back to watch them finish. Again, huge fail!! We didn't manage to catch anyone on the run. Boo! As we were deciding to call it a day, we ran into Mike's fiance who said she expected him to finish within the hour, so we opted to stick it out and cheer him on. (Side note, she was so fun. She didn't want him to be in pain per se, but she certainly didn't want him to enjoy it enough top want to do another....) Sure enough, we saw him finish just over 11hrs, nothing but smiles!

We hung out just a bit after Mike's finish and then decided to call it a day. As much as I wanted to see some of my other iron-friends finish I could barely stand. Seeing as I had to face the DR and 2 PT tribunal the next day I figured ti was time to put my foot up.

Sunday, not being able to participate, was devastating. It was an emotional rollercoaster to say the least. I have to give credit to Wyatt for getting up at 5am to watch the swim with me, hauling my cranky butt all over Madison trying to see it all, humoring my tears, and at the end of the day feeding me vodka and putting me to bed.

Is there an IM in my future? Not next year, 2010 is for rehab and getting back in the saddle. I don't think I can handle another DNS sort of season. 2011? Maybe....

"We always tell people you WILL be an Ironman. The truth is some people can't be an Ironman."
Quote from today's meeting. Ouch.

IM Spectating

Here's a little program you can input your projected IM times into and it crunchs the numbers and spits out approximate times and locations for your faithful spectators to cheer you on at. Seriously, that simple. In previous years the website has charged $5.00 for this. This year the cost is the same, with all proceeds going to the Janus Charity fund.

Check. It. Out.

http://www.pattonathletics.com/qsheets.htm

How cool is that?!?

Bleh.

At least once or twice a year my ulcer ends up angry enough to make me think that there is an angry fire breathing alien in my stomach trying to get out that may may actually cause me to a)vomit fire and or b)die. And I wish I could say that this is a result of crazy nights out or too much exotic spicy food, but no no, it's not. It's just me letting stress get the better of me. Anyone who knows me will tell you that it's not that hard to imagine. I kind of border on high strung basket case most of the time. Like one of those annoying yippy cracked out small dogs. It's part of my charm....

I came into work this morning keeled over in pain, promptly forced down a fistful of the chalk deliciousness best known as Tums, and have been slouched in my desk ever since. I have managed to drink enough water that my stomach feels more like embers, less like raging fire but I still feel awful.

And what in the world has my panties so twisted?!?

That's a great question.

This whole apartment renting and moving thing has got me on edge. Especially the time frame we're working with and everything that has to get done. And show my apartment....ick. Don't like it. I showed it to 2 gals last night, both of whom really liked it and turned in applications (yay!) but it's just not that easy. My landlord is being a serious poop about everything and that alone has me worked up. But I'm trying to embrace the good news, that it is hugely unlike I will be paying to for 2 separate living spaces. That's a relief. The rest of it will work itself out, right?

Then there's the whole Ironman thing. It just stinks to not be participating. Sure I've decided to volunteer again this year. I'll definitely be out there cheering all of the amazing athletes on. But it's not the same. I wanted to be out there. Every email I get, every time I hear about, everything, just tears me up!!!

And normally running is my reprieve. After the first mile or so I fall into a mind numbing stride and the rest disappears. But seeing as I am on the no exercise/getting fat list, that is not even an option to burn off my nervous energy. (Did I mention that the fact I am getting fat is stressing me out too?)

It's time to breathe and reboot. And drink a lot of milk...

I may not get a shot at a cool IM finisher medal this year, but if it's any consolation I do get to wear this awesome boot for the next 2+ months...

Seriously?!?

So it's no real secret that my training this summer is not what I had planned it to be. Not being able to run in over a month, or do any hard training rides, has been incredibly frustrating and not at all helpful in training for my 1st Ironman. But my foot has to heal. And just as I saddle up for a decent training ride and tell myself that there's still hope...I crash my bike, leaving myself concussed and incredibly sore. It's just not my year. So what do I do? Well I started to crunch numbers the past few days. My "worst case scenario" numbers. I should amend that statement slightly. What WAS my "worst case scenario" numbers are now my best case, if I make it to race day numbers. With this never ending stream of times and situations clouding my brain, I found myself on Slowtwitch the other day. With all the drama surrounding the recent Spirit of Racine race, which I had planned to race before I broke myself, I had found myself reading through the forums. And I came across this: Re: IM - What happens after 17:00:00?

Yes there are many that finish later but why do they bother. As eloquently and convincingly determined by many on this board, they aren't real ironman if they finish after 14 hours. They are really just fat bastards who are only slightly better than all those sloth people who make health care go up. Actually they are worse because they make it hard for the real athletes to get into the good races. Those people make a mockery of everything that doing a race is about. I like to go back around 15 hours to laugh at them and tell people around me that those poor saps don't even know its over: Heck, I finished four hours earlier. Maybe had they not even bothered training for the run they would be faster.


Now to set this up, the initial question had seemed innocent enough: What happens after 17:00:00 (the IM cut off)? There were all sort of insightful posts and then that. Really?! Seriously! Are there people out there that really think that way? WTF?! I am kind of disgusted by this.

Do triathletes really think this way?

Training?

None to speak of.

That's right. My IM training has come to a complete halt.

Walking's sore, running HURTS, cycling isn't pleasant (flats are bearable, but torquing up hills is painful), and swimming is manageable.

I am in a constant state of frustration, crankiness, and usually near tears. This is not how this year was suppose to go. And I certainly do not have the level of fitness to do minimal training for a month and jump back on the bandwagon before IM WI. Sigh...

We had a conversation the other day that went something along the lines of "Katie, are you having fun? Are you enjoying any of this any more?" and almost instantly I responded "No." Training isn't always easy or fun, I get that. Working towards your goal isn't always easy or fun. That's the facts. But being in pain (at least for me) is never fun. Pushing through the pain has left me unmotivated and frustrated.

What's next? How will things work out? I don't know.