Flowrider

I can't seem to get the dang song out of my head now! The kids and I spent the day at the Massanuten Indoor Waterpark on Monday. We had a lot of fun, that will definitly be a place to return to often. ONe of the rides was called Flowrider. It is an indoor boogie boarding ride.

Not one to miss out on the fun I decided to ride, along with the kids. I'm not sure if it is being heavier, bigger or just inexperienced but it was a lot of work! I am sure I used every abdominal muscle I have trying to control that board. I got the hang of it pretty well so the lifeguard starting giving me tricks to do. I was able to first push my board out in front of me, then get back on. Then I pushed the board out & let go & got to body surf! It was so fun - plus the best part, folks clapped for me when I got off.
I rocked the flowrider! (that sure is a HUGE spray of water coming off my legs, it's almost a re-enactment of the parting of the Red Sea!)

Climbing Mill Mountain

I have been trying to convince Nina, a training client & friend to climb Mill Mountain (on the bike) for the first time. She is still resisting my efforts. Never fear though, I will eventually win out.

This has gotten me thinking about my first trip up Mill Mountain. I too had avoided it for years. It just seemed too hard, too steep, too long of a climb to tackle. Add that to the fact that I was (and still am) afraid to actually ride my bike on the road - I wimped out of many a ride to get out of that climb.

Finally my wonderful friend Kate offered to take me up the mountain. I thought that would be a much better choice than going w/ Paul, so I gave it a try. WOW - that was hard. About half way up I thought I might not make it. Seriously, I wondered how bad it would look, me walking my bike up the mountain?! I do know that at times I was going around 5 m.p.h., so joggers could have passed me, luckily they didn't.

We kept going and rode out to Explore Park. I guess I din't notice the nice downhills going out on the spur on the way out. They hurt on the way back. Anyway, I made it up - YAY!

The next time my dear friend Kate and I were riding up she asked, 'Hey, do you want to go up the old route?' My obvious quiestion was - "Is it harder?" Lies, Lies, Lies - Kate said, "No, I think it's about the same."

Now I can ride up the new way or old with not much struggle or pain, but I still smile triumphantly every time I get to the top!

My First Race

I got to tell the story at a beginner triathlon clinic that I was leading of my first triathlon. It made me giggle so I thought I would give everyone else a laugh too.
Paul and I decided on a whim to try a triathlon. I had started running & have always been a swimmer & we had some friends that did triathlons so we thought what the heck. We decided on the Wilmington Sprint which was a 1500m. swim, 12 mi. bike & 3.1 mi. run. Leading up to the race I ran & swam occasionally but never got on the bike. Paul had bought some used mountain bikes from a co-worker for us to ride. The Thurs. before the race I decided I'd better learn to actually shift gears on the bike. In my pajamas & Birkenstock at 8:30 at night Paul had me out in front of our house riding back and forth. If only the kids had woken up and seen what we do when they are asleep.
There was a tropical depression moving across NC on our way down. We drove through tornado warnings (even missed an acutal tornado by 5 min.) and torrential downpour. Thankfully the rain stopped by race morning and the weather was cool but nice. Paul and I took heart in the fact that we had all that body fat to keep us warm, all those waif like-in shape fools were shivering & cold!
The swim was no problem, although I did worry about Paul (who announced before the swim, you know I could actually die doing this!) the whole time. The bike was comical. In the pictures I am all hunched over looking very serious and VERY red in the face, although my bo bo walmart helmet is on crooked. I just shifted gears at random for kicks. I thought I would die on the run. Thankfully my wonderful husband came back and did an extra mile (he was already finished) to finish the run with me.
My goal was to finish in under 2 hours. I finished in 1:55. My first thought was, when can I do that again. Paul and I went back to our room and slept all day, then went out to dinner and pigged out.
4 1/2 years later I can do the same race in about 1:25. Afterwords I can go out for another ride. What a wonderful 4 1/2 years it has been and wow, I am so lucky we decided to do that first race!!!

Oh yeah, it wasn't the flu!

So it turns out not to have been the flu, but instead mono. Just as an FYI mono stinks. For the last few days I have been saying, "Gee, I just don't have that absolute run down feeling everyone describes, I just can't shake the fever." Ha, shook the fever - but a trip to the grocery store felt like a marathon to me. It's so hard to remember that taking it easy now will benefit me in the long run. All I seem to be thinking of is - when can I train again! It doesn't help that all day I am looking at training stuff - writing workouts for people, reading new training books, planning for my speaking gig @ East Coasters about you guessed it - TRAINING!
Trying to think positively and tell myself that all this rest will really get me ready to go, go, go soon. Mostly though I think that's crap and that I will be tired for months and training is going to be really hard to do. So much for positive thinking!