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Showing posts from September 16, 2018

Executing a tune-up race

Hello from Augusta! This is my first time in Augusta and the downtown streets are packed with triathletes. I am thinking it's not always this way but this weekend is the 2018 Ironman 70.3 Augusta event and the town is booming with multisport lovers. To be honest, I really wish I was racing. I bounced back really quickly from IMWI and feeling fit, healthy and strong. While I only have two "fun" races left on my racing calendar, I have a feeling my FOMO from Augusta may lead me to look for one last triathlon race in 2018. We will see if I can find anything for Karel's racing calendar is keeping us busy over the next 7 weeks as he still has a lot of racing left. Speaking of Karel, it's his birthday today!! Today we are celebrating Karel's 42 years of life! While IM Kona is Karel's big key race of the season in 3 weeks time, and he is then following it up with IMFL 3 weeks after, Karel is racing Augusta 70.3 tomorrow as a tune-up race as part of his

IMWI '18 Race Report - 26.2 mile run

Photo: Jay Baker After dismounting my bike, I quickly removed my cycling shoes as I ran my way into the terrace to grab my T2 (Run) gear bag. My legs were a little tired from 112 miles of biking but I didn't let it worry me. My athlete Diane was out on the course and on lap 2, she told me I was still leading but the girls behind me were closing in. At this point, I assumed I was still leading my age group but I didn't know by how much. Anything can happen in an Ironman marathon and I had a game plan that I trusted and I was looking forward to seeing if I could put together a solid run after what appeared to be a solid day of swimming and biking. When I entered the women's changing room, I was all smiles as I was the only one in the room and I had all the volunteers to myself. I had a few Trimarni followers in the room (volunteers) giving me cheers which made me so happy. I put on my Nike Zoom Pegasus Turbo, emptied my pockets from the bike and put on my visor. I grab

IMWI '18 Race Report - 112 mile bike

Photo: Jay Baker If I had one complaint about this course, it's the first few miles on the bike path. Even though the course was altered a bit due to recent flooding, it's still a technical way to start the bike in a race. Thankfully, it's not more than a few miles of navigating cracks, turns and bumps and a railroad track before you are on an open road and heading out to the country. With the temp around 50 degrees, I was happy I had my arm coolers on as they were keeping me warm. I felt very comfortable (body temp) when I started the bike but I still gave myself a few miles to wake-up my legs and to settle into a nice rhythm. I always start the bike with my helmet shield up so it doesn't fog and then after a few minutes I snap it in place as my "sunglasses" for the rest of the ride. It's also a lot easier to get on this way. After losing both my rear bottles at Ironman Chattanooga last year in the first few miles of the bike, I was extra paranoi

IMWI '18 Race Report - Pre-race + Swim + T1

Pre-race I was looking forward to my 30-minute swim on Friday morning at the Pinaccle Health Club. Karel joined me but swam about double my distance as he is still in training mode for his upcoming races. Because two days out from an Ironman is a relatively light day of training for me, I was really looking forward to connecting with our 13 athletes who were racing IMWI (and seeing their family members). In usual Trimarni fashion, we had our pre-race pizza party + course talk as a way to connect everyone and provide last minute advice and tips. Our athlete Lisa lives in Madison and offered up her rooftop deck/clubhouse for our party. The views were incredible. Plus, you can never go wrong with pizza two days before a race. We ordered pizza from  Pizza Brutta  and it was amazing! The rest of the day was very low-key for me and it was early to bed to try to get a good night of sleep as you never know how sleep will go on the night before the race.  Saturday was all about