Thursday, October 17, 2013

ONE MONTH COUNTDOWN IS ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it's almost GAMETIME......

This was sent at the end of August....and I literally almost pooped my pants. Great motivational email sent by a friend who did IMAZ last year. It got me to thinking about the reason I didn't blog as much as I planned...because I feel like Wonka, IMAZ IS ALL I TALK ABOUT and people must get SOOOO sick of hearing about my workouts....



But, I know family/friends are reading my posts and enjoy, so I keep going!

August was filled to the brim with traveling and September arrived quickly with races.

Here are a myriad of pictures that describe a typical week in September (ok, for the last year......)























Sept 22nd Lifetime Tempe Tri; no podium for either of us, still fun! And we met Olympic Triathlete, Hunter Kemper!




Always steal the pics online.....
I was put in the wrong age group......Oh well!



The next weekend.... Sunday Sept 29th.....

IRONMAN AUGUSTA 70.3

Part of the reason we wanted to get into triathalon was to travel the world!

We started with traveling across the country.......to Georgia! We got to race with Casey Burt and see family friends all in one trip!



My traveling shirt, Thanks Cass, hope I always have it!

Bikes made it!!! Whew!

The sign lives on Ster! With a new addition of Simon's work profile.

Thank goodness for Simon's bike building skills and the Burt's house with a bike stand, tools, food and FRIENDS!!

Yeah!!!! Reunion!

All checked in!

Athlete band on!

Goodie bag!

Ready for bike check in!

Let's get racked up!

PRIME REAL ESTATE for me!!

Morning of the race.......dark and chilly!

Transition area all set!

Let's get this party started!!! Athletes in the water, waiting for our wave to start.




HOORAY!!!! WE MADE IT!

With THE BEST cheerleaders!


TEAM WILLMAN!

The "Hardware"!

Cleaned up and ready to relax!


No trip is complete without the traditional In N' Out stop on the way home from the airport!

You can only borrow it for a minute!

Profesh pics. SOOOOOOO happy!




WOW, September flewwwww by!

October! Already?!?!?

Got to cheer Kelly on in her first Tri! Mission Bay, San Diego!


Mommy's doing a what?!?!



Man that's a good lookin bike! ;-)

Buddies!




GREAT JOB KELLLY!!!!!!

Annnnnnnnndddddd......

More training..........

That's after a 3800m swim........a little water logged......yikes!

Typical pre-workout breakfast.



Strawberry shortcake from Horny Toad...yes please! reward for a loooooog run!

The view for 7 hours on the bike in AZ....4 Peak in the background!

I don't need any sunscreen.......7 hours later.......




EXACTLY ONE MONTH FROM TOMORROW WE WILL BE RACING IMAZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will try to post more leading up to the big day so the blog isn't 30pages long and takes me 2 hours to complete........

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Catch up....

Well, I have no excuse. I have not posted since before Havasu Tri, in MARCH.....YIKES, time flies!

MARCH: Havasu Tri

This is an excerpt from an email from our coach the week after. It pretty much sums it up. I had a TOUGH run....which calculated into a not so impressive overall time. But, I felt better after reading this:

"Wow, what a day of racing at Havasu on Saturday! There was an extreme wind advisory for the Havasu area on Sat and they weren’t kidding. The wind was blowing at near 20mph at 6am! Gusts hit the 30mph range all day. As a result the lake become very choppy with whitecaps and a strong surface current. This was one of the toughest open water swims I have seen in 25 years. The reward for getting out of the water was being able to bike against that same wind on the bike and avoid getting blown over while running! Needless to say, times were slower than usual. This was a day to put the watch away and just keep moving."


APRIL:
 Simon was on the ASU Triathalon team this year and got to race at Nationals! (Which was conveniently located in Tempe AZ). What a super fun day of watching college athletes from all over the country! Simon did very well and so did team ASU.



The next day, I raced, a sprint distance, and had a PR (personal record)....AND I placed 3rd in my age group, what a day! Simon raced with two of his ASU teammates in the relay, and they placed 1st overall!! Literally, OVERALL, including all men and women individual athletes...AMAZING!






MAY: IRONMAN 70.3 ST. GEORGE FOR SIMON AND TEMPE INTERNATIONAL SPRINT FOR TINA annnnnnnnnnd GRADUATION FROM LAW SCHOOL!

Overall, our trip to St. George was AMAZING!! Simon and 4 of his law school classmates ran one of the most infamous races (other than Kona) on the Ironman circuit. The race has traditionally been a full distance 140.6......but many of the race have been in terrible weather conditions, so in 2013, the distance was changed to 70.3. Due to it's reputation for participants AND spectators DYING, I chickend out and did not race.

But what a GORGEOUS, inspirational and FUN day it turned out to be!



We had such a great time.



Tempe International was only a couple weeks later, so Simon did not race. 

I had another PR (but the swim was shorter so that's probably some of the time difference)....




I felt really good and raced well. ;-) Jill, another law classmate of Simon's, is an AWESOME triathlete. I'm pretty sure she was 1st in her age group (out of many)!

GRADUATION = lots of pictures with family!



JUNE, JULY AUGUST..........STUDYING FOR THE BAR AND A LOT OF THIS:






SOOOOOOO one would imagine that I am not currently at "race weight".......I don't have any excuse. I was sympathy eating for Simon studying for the AZ Bar exam.....wow, that's a lot of fattening food!

We have travelled a lot over the summer which has mad training difficult, but we have had some FUN trips and spent some great time with family and friends. Elyse's 2st BDay, Six Pack trip to DC for Westi's baby shower, Kevin and Monica's wedding in Indy and then just last weekend, HK and Andrew's vow renewal ceremony (which I have no picture of Heather in her dress on my ipad....Will add soon).








Next up......

LifeTime Tempe Sprint Sept 20

IRONMAN AUGUASTA 70.3  September 29

DUATHALON NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS October 12

and the grand finale.........THE BIG SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

IRONMAN ARIZONA NOVEMBER 17TH!



I promise not to wait until after IMAZ to post again.......promise!