Arizona

Some of you may not know this about me, but I used to live in AZ. Graduated from ASU in 1997 and then lived here off/on until I moved to Hawaii in 2004. Arizona is where I lived when I got my first bike and started into this sport of triathlon! Being back here has been nostalgic and surreal in many ways, as I find myself out riding roads and having memories of all the group rides I used to do out here… As a college student then as a young adult you know you move like all the time so I lived all over this valley and consequently have ridden many of the roads here and it's all just really fun to be back and pedaling! I cut my teeth riding on these roads so being back now with the experience I currently have is pretty cool.

My athletes here have been so awesome and welcoming too. HUGE thanks has to go out to Monica, who doesn't even live here, but who drove out from CA with her bike and left it here for me to ride for the week. It's a 51cm Cervelo P3 which is exactly what I ride at home. All I did was jack the saddle up some and called it good to go. Monica you are a gem and I will pay you back soon with a thorough ass whooping! Ask my other athletes, that's how I show love. xoxo

Things have finally calmed down a bit after the crazy jam packed race weekend! (More on that in a bit) I'm staying at Krista and Shane's house this week as they are happily recovering at a beach in Mexico. What's been fun is that I've got a bunch of old friends and athletes here to train with and it's been super fun catching up. Funny though, I have to say I appreciate some alone time for a few days right now. While I love being all social, when I'm surrounded by people all the time I realize how much I also enjoy my alone time. As I get older I'm becoming more and more of a hermit.

Can I just say how awesome the food choices are here in AZ?! I am super impressed with the availability of really awesome fresh whole foods everywhere. I've had some of the best salads ever in the last few days. It feels like a really healthy environment/atmosphere. It's no secret I would have moved here in a heartbeat… but that won't be happening anytime soon as we closed on our new house on Oahu and Scott/Moana moved in over the weekend without me! Scott says there are plenty of boxes waiting for me in the garage so I'll have lots to keep my busy when I return home in a few weeks. :) We had a little scare when my favorite cat ran away during the move process… he is afraid of pretty much everything/everyone but me so I suspected the move would cause some anxiety in him but it never occurred to me he'd completely disappear! In good news, Scott found him in the middle of the night and was able to get him over to the new house… I can't even imagine how I would have felt had he not come back. :(

I can see this post turning quite random and simply highlighting some of my experiences here the last 5 days… Sorry but I'm living out of a suitcase for 2+ weeks and feeling a bit scattered and all over the place!

~Race was fast on Sunday! They had great conditions and I think the fast times really motivated athletes during the race to keep pushing because they knew they were crushing their goals. Lots of smiles and happy faces on course and it was fun to watch! TeamBSC had some super performances that made me so proud… Lynsey led the age group women out of the water and I was beside myself cheering her on as I watched her ride off. I wasn't surprised she was first- I told her to mentally prep for this b/c I knew it could happen- but you never know what other fishes show up on race day…

Lynsey went on to PR by 25', cracking 11 hours for the first time finishing in 10:50! Shane also had a super day, with a PR of over an hour… in 10:25! How do you think we felt about that??

Krista also had an amazing day, with a 32' PR finishing in 10:31 and ON the podium! Her face at the finish line was so awesome (check her FB page for that shot). The thing that was most apparent to me about Krista's race was the JOY she was feeling… every time we saw her she had a HUGE smile on her face. She believed it was going to be her day and she delivered and loved it the whole time. Good lessons there!

Tracy had a similar day! All smiles every time we saw her. And what's not to smile about when you're on your way to an hour+ PR?!

Ryan had a more challenging day. He got sick before the race. Lesson there… racing with a virus sucks. :( That said, he persevered and got himself to the finish line which is always awesome!

I have to say, having watched 2 Ironmans in the last 4 weeks, I am super excited that it's finally almost my turn! Physically, my build up training has gone pretty much perfectly. But that's not new. My training almost always goes well! I do the work. All of it. Every day. And I love it. The trick for me is to figure out how to translate that into the race performance I want. I am pretty sure this time around that it's all in my head, so I've been putting a big focus into rewriting the script in my brain. In a couple weeks when I get back from Mexico I'll let you know how that worked out. :)