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Showing posts from September 16, 2012

HELLO from Branson!

  HELLO!! We made it safe and sound. What a smooth trip to Branson Missouri.     Like always, it's hard to leave my furry best friend. I am fairly certain he has perfected his sad face to make is super duper hard to leave him.   But not to worry, Campy was the best helper in getting me race ready. Not only did he help me finish most of my runs during my training but he made sure I didn't forget anything before the race.     Mom, are you sure you aren't forgetting anyone??   At the Trek store, helping Karel pack up our bikes. Waiting a patiently to see if we will pack any of his toys.   To avoid a super early commute Friday morning, we headed to Orlando on Thurs evening for a good night sleep. At 5:40am, we left our hotel to head to the Orlando airport. Although Jacksonville airport is closer than the 2-hour drive to Orlando, we ended up saving $200 each ticket to fly out of Orlando to Branson and on AirTran, our bikes were only $50 ea

Bottled-up energy

"Being relaxed, at peace with yourself, confident, emotionally neutral, loose, and free-floating - these are the keys to successful performance in almost everything." -Dr. Wayne W. Dyer   It still hasn't hit me yet but my mind and body are yelling at me - WE ARE READY!    I can't believe on Sunday September 23rd, 2012, I will be doing my 7th half ironman with Karel on the hardest bike course in the world. Well, this course may be ranked "hard" because of the average bike times (average "fast" female bike times ranging from 3:10-3:20 for 56 miles) but I'll let my legs help me write my race report after I finish 70.3 miles in Branson, Missouri, on Sunday. I can't wait to finish this challenging event with my best friend and life partner..... I wonder how long he will have to wait for me??     Link found here Can we say, confidently, that this is a course designed for a former Category 1 cyclist???   This has been on

1 week 'til race day!!

Ugggh.... taper blues. Heavy legs, lethargy, super sleepy, weird appetite, no energy, mood changes.... Don't ya love taper???? A 50% decrease in training volume and with 7 hours of training during our recovery week, it took 6 long days to finally find our legs. Thank goodness that after 6 years I get to share this feeling with Karel. Of course, he has put up with me year after year, race after race, always reminding me "you will be fine on race day". Never have I trained so hard to prepare my mind and body for race day and because of that...WOW - did my body really need time to recover. It's interesting that in the article on taper blues, the author ( Gale Bernhardt) discusses "fear based" training. I think this is common for so many athletes and relates not only to training but also to nutrition.  Fearing gaining weight before a race, fearing not having enough energy, fearing GI problems on race day. The same issues that relate to fearing t