A race, a trip, and trying to find my stride again.

I think I wrote the last post right before Marble Falls Tri. This was my third year in a row to do the race, which is located in Marble Falls, TX, about a 45-60 minute drive from Austin. The race is an odd distance, they call it intermediate, with a 1000 m swim in Lake Marble Falls, a 23 mile hilly bike, and a 4.4 mile run. It's a pretty low key event, less than 200 racers in the intermediate distance and maybe the same or something in the sprint. It's always well run though, so that's why I like to go back.

Fun fact: this was the first race Mike and I both did last year. It was the day after our second date, not sure if it counts as our actual third date, but it was the third time we saw each other. 

There had definitely been improvement in my race results from 2012 to 2013, and then there was this year. 

Swim was definitely faster. I somehow actually led my wave, and it was the first women's wave, so I was first woman out of the water. Kind of cool. I remember getting out to the first buoy (maybe 250m in) and realizing there was no one in my color swim cap around me or in front of me. 

Bike was meh. More than half a mph slower than last year. I definitely had not tapered for the race and done pause squats at Atomic two days prior, so I suspect that was part of the reason I had no zip. My overall wattage was down so no surprise I was slower. I had not expected pause squats to take that much out of me, but it's hard to quantify that sort of effect. 

Run was also meh. This being since I hadn't been running much in the 2 months prior. So, I did what I could.

Field was decidedly not stacked this year. First in my age group and third female overall.

The medal was backwards because I'm a tool like that...

The following weekend I visited Jocelyn in DC. See her blog for a recap. We did my first big training weekend since maybe IMTX, as terrible as that sounds. A one hour trail run and one hour swim on Saturday and 10x800 on the track, which gave me my biggest running/training weekend (and week) in a long time. We also ate a lot of cupcakes.

So now it's August and the WC 70.3 are literally a month away. Work is kicking my ass (and my brain) so just trying to do the training I can fit in consistently, keep my knee healthy, and try not to have a complete meltdown in the next 30 days. There may be a lot of ice cream and m&m's involved. It's definitely not going to be a PR course, but I'd like to go have a good time.