Another year, another candle on the cake. This year has been exciting to say the least. After Henry was born, I’ve been trying to find time to work out like I use to. It’s been tough, but signing up for a race is always a lot of fun. My first triathlon this year was in Otter Lake and it was fun to see how far I could push myself without a lot of training.

For some reason I decided racing the weekend of Henry’s baptism would be a good idea. Although it worked out in the end, it could have gone more smoothly. The Saturday before the race (the day of the baptism) was super busy, I did manage to make my way over to Otter Lake for packet pick-up (which I was glad I did so I could figure out where the best place to park was).

Sunday I was up early to give Henry a bottle and feed and let the dog out. I knew where most of my tri gear was at, but hadn’t packed any of it the night before. I quickly threw everything in my sweet tri bag, loaded up the bike and was off. Having done a couple tris in the past, I was able to set up my transition area quickly and headed down to body marking.

After body marking I figured I might as well get a quick swim warm-up in and headed down to the beach. Everyone was saying the water was like bath water, but it actually felt kind of nice (temperature was measured around 79 degrees I believe), especially compared to the 84 degree pool I swim in at the Y.

When it was my wave’s time to start (after a waiting a long time for the Olympic athletes to finish) I got in and was actually able to find some feet to draft off of. I had a pretty decent swim and managed to run the whole way up to transition. I told myself to stay in the small chain ring on the bike, but a couple of the down hills I “had” to push a bigger gear. I wish I hadn’t messed up pushing buttons on my 310XT to see what speeds I hit, but I was definitely cruising past people on the down hills.

Then I got to the run, for whatever reason I always seem to start out super fast, my watch was showing ~7:00 min miles and I was like whoa… need to slow down. Not having been able to get much running in, I settled in on a run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute plan. It worked pretty well, even though people were trying to get me to run the whole thing… I’m pretty sure I would have had a worse time trying to run the whole way, rather than my plan. All and all it was a good race and I finished with a smile!

My next race was a first ever triathlon in Frankenmuth. I managed to have my car packed and ready to go race morning, but I still managed to get there later then I wanted. I was able to get my transition set-up a few minutes before they closed it to racers.

Although the reports say the Cass River was safe to swim in, I wasn’t able to see more than a few inches in front of me. I also realized I should really move up to the Olympic distance so I didn’t have to stand around waiting for the race to start. It was pretty neat though, as we got to launch off a ferry boat and swim to the start line under the covered bridge. Once I finally gotten into the water I was able to drain my pre-race hydration, man that was such a relief!

The swim went pretty good, I was able to sight well for not having practiced much (and I wasn’t able to draft off anyone at this race). After getting out of the water and jogging up to transition, I realized it was a VERY long transition run. This was the first time I got to my spot and almost fell over (due to lack of oxygen and my heart racing).

I finally managed to un-rack my bike and headed out to the maze of cones. Luckily no one was coming at me, as I wasn’t sure which path to follow on bike out. I actually managed to stay in my small chain ring for the whole race, even though I was tempted to get in the larger one…

I should really start running every day, but I did do the same approach as last time. I even managed to pass a few people using my run/walk plan. Another fun race, I’m looking forward to doing this one next year, and maybe we’ll actually be able to go to the after party!

Taking a deviation from triathlons, I decided I could do another mountain bike race on no training (last time I was on my mountain bike was two days before Henry was born… two months before the race). I had signed up for the Ore to Shore 28 mile race in the UP (they have a longer one, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have finished it). We left Friday after noon and got to Susan’s folks’ place around 11:30ish.

I got to the race start early to pick up my race number and managed to get a small warm-up in. I was planning on using pop-tarts for race nutrition, but Susan’s dad decided I needed a huge breakfast and I didn’t touch either pop-tart. The start was pretty neat, there were 1200 racers rearing to go. Riding the roads we were able to spread out pretty good, but once we got to the single track in the woods, it was a major congestion. Walking the bike was way faster than trying to ride < 3 mph. Once we got to the first hill, the crowd started thinning and I was able to get going on the bike once again. There was quite a bit of sand during the race and I’m glad I decided on a lower tire pressure… usually I run 35 PSI off-road and 50 PSI on-road. At the start of the race, I was wishing I had gone with my on-road pressure, but once I hit the sand, I was glad I didn’t. I didn’t have much troubles at all navigating the sketchy sandy down hills, I just had to watch out for other people as they would jack-knife unexpectedly. There were a couple brutal climbs and I had thought I had seen the worst of it at mile 16. Then I realized that hill paled in comparison to the one at mile 22. It was at this point, pushing my bike up the hill that my legs started to cramp pretty bad. I was pretty much dragging my right leg up the hill to prevent it from locking up. As you can see in the finish line photo, I was trying to stay upright and muscling through the pain in my legs. It was a fun race and hoping it will work out that I can do it again next year (after some actual training!)