Hood to Coast Done!

Yesterday at around 3pm the 2010 Hood to Coast team that I was on finished "The Mother of all Relays" This was the first time I participated in Hood to Coast and it was a fun grueling experience. Being crammed into a van with 6 other sweaty, smelly, tired, hungry people for a day and a half was very interesting. Amazingly we all got along!

Overall it went well, no injuries to report from the team and everyone had a great time. We were able to finish the 197 mile running relay in 28 hours 53 minutes about an hour faster than we had expected. We slept in some interesting places one of them being Mist, Oregon which lived up to its name. We arrived around 5am and set up our sleeping bags on tarps in 37 degrees and lots of mist. When we woke up 2 hours later for our next leg our sleeping bags were soaked!

Hood to coast was a great experience and I am really glad I did it! One week from today, the inaugural Eugene all womens half marathon! Time to get some rest!

Click here to view the 2010 Hood to Coast Video

Hood to coast one day away!

Now that I have completed my lat triathlon of the season, the Portland Triathlon less than a week ago its time to focus only on running. Tomorrow I will be participating in Hood to Coast, "The Mother of all Relays" I had not been planing on doing this event but two weeks ago one of the teams needed an extra runner so I was in! I have not really "trained" for this event but I should be ok, I think I am in descent shape.

This is a race but my team will not be treating it as a race, most people treat it as an event we are estimating it will take us 30 hours to cover 197 miles so there will be some running in the middle of the night and sleeping in fields.

I will be making a video of this and taking lots of of pictures because who knows when I will do this again. Time to get get ready get all my food in order. Talk to you after I'm done with Hood to Coast!

Portland Triathlon Olympic Distance 2010 DONE!

Yesterday was the City of Portland Triathlon. They have two distances, the Sprint distance and the Olympic distance every year I choose to push myself a little harder as this is the last triathlon of the season for me and do the Olympic distance. My expectations of finishing in the top are never that high, I am not being negative I am just being realistic. On top of everything else I have had a bad cold with lots of coughing and phlegm for the last week which as you can imagine I was not happy about dealing with while doing an Olympic distance triathlon in a rather hilly bike course.

The temperature was perfect and there was not much wind until towards the end of the bike course. The swim although I have not been able to practice for it went really well I was 8th out of the water out of 90 women and 4th out of the water in my age group out of 35 women.

The bike ride was not so great my average speed was 16mph nothing to be ashamed of but not what I was going for. On the bike ride my breathing became more labored due to my cold and I knew I was going to be in trouble.

The run was not so great either. My first 5k (there are two loops) was hard and slow for my speed. The second loop involved a little walking for me so it brought down my average pace to 9:40 minute miles. Again nothing to be ashamed of but not what I was looking for.

All in all I placed right in the middle 15th/35 in age group and 41st/90 women. I am glad I did it and glad I finished it. Finishing any of these events is a big accomplishment and something to be proud of.

I have five days left to get rid of this cold/congestion before Hood to Coast come on!

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Can I run 19 miles?

Sorry it has been a while since I last posted, a lot has been going on. It is my last few days of preparation for the City of Portland Olympic distance triathlon (race is on Sunday!) There has also been a really crazy heat wave here, I know everyone has a heat wave but when it usually doesn't get over 85 and the houses and city can't handle the heat neither can the body.

Anyway on Saturday my Portland Marathon training said I should run 19 miles I woke up really early to try and get the run in before the heat wave got me. I started at 6am I guessed it would take just over 3 hours. I ran far, really far, at the halfway point the sun was already fully out blaring on me. I kept going as I was about 7 miles from my house and it just kept getting warmer and warmer and harder to continue. At mile 15 I started feeling like I was not going to make it. I said to myself its all in your head keep going. I stopped at a park to wet my head and try to cool off. I kept going had to start walk/running. From mile 17 to mile 17.5 I was not able to run or walk in a really straight line so I decided it was probably time to stop. I was really disappointed but thought it was the best thing to do. So that was that......

Then the heat wave got warmer and warmer, today is the first day it has let up but I hot a nasty cough on Friday (yes the day before my 19 mile run) and it is not letting up! I want to get my final triathlon training in but I have this respiratory problem now. I don't know what to do! I hope t clears up by Sunday though!

Hood to Coast 2010

Two days ago I was just sitting around thinking about random things when the idea came into my head, I wonder if I should try and do Hood to Coast. I know its only about 3 weeks away but I know that someone I know has a team that has an injured teammate and maybe I can get on. A few emails were sent and about 2 hours later I was on a team.

For those of you who are not familiar with Hood to Coast it is a very large relay race, in fact it is called the mother of all relays. It starts at Mt. Hood elevation 6,000 feet in Oregon and ends at sea level in Seaside, Oregon. It covers 197 miles and teams are usually made up of 12 people sharing 36 legs of the relay. Its a fun event which I have never done, people dress up and your support vans have crazy designs on them.

I have not really been training specifically for this but I have been doing a lot of running so I hope I am prepared and don't make a fool out of myself. My team is expecting to finish in about 30 hours!

Can I run 17 miles

I was hoping the answer to the question can I run 17 miles was going to be yes! It was hard but it was not a huge problem, unfortunately that is not the answer I have today. Todays workout was focusing on the upcoming Portland Marathon so I had to go for a 17 mile run. I woke up ate and was thinking positive as I set out on my run. Immediately I was not really feeling it the air felt heavy and I was having a hard time breathing.

I carried on though thinking that I would be able to get into some sort of rhythm 4, miles, 7 miles, 9 miles, no rhythm no rhythm at all just more and more pain. I can believe this I thought to myself I still have 8 miles to go I am never going to make it I was starting to cramp up. I kept on going and my pace slowed down by about 20 seconds a mile and my knees became more and more inflamed.

At 13 miles I thought ok "only" another 4 miles I can do it. I powered through it and completed the distance but in A LOT of pain! I got home drank chocolate milk ate and went to take a nap. Now I am still sore and icing my knees but I feel a little better. Tomorrow Providence Bridge Pedal!

Last triathlon of 2010

Now that we are officially in August it is time to start preparing both mentally and physically for the last triathlon of the year for me the City of Portland Triathlon. I have been doing sprint distance races all year and this one will be an Olympic distance race. I know I have been having good swim times but my left arm is still really weak after my shoulder injury so I am not feeling very confident about the Olympic distance swim. Also as many of you know running 10k after swimming and biking is hard, very hard to try and maintain my 5k pace for 10k.

Anyway I guess I am just not really feeling 100% confident I am not sure why as I have had a pretty good racing year but I guess that is just what I am like. I think there are about 3 Thursday Willamette swims left before the Portland Triathlon so I will probably go to all of those to try and get my swimming distance in. Ok time to go do some track work.......

Amica Blue Lake Triathlon 2010 Done!

Today was the Amica 2010 Blue Lake triathlon it is part if this new series of triathlons called the 19.7 series I did not find this out until 3 days ago. What the 19.7 series basically means is that the bike ride is 16.1 miles instead of 12 miles. I was a little worried about this and I was also a little worried that yesterday I did the Tour de Cure Ride for diabetes and rode 27 miles. I was hoping my legs were not too tired.

I got to Blue Lake early, and the mosquitoes were out of control. They were so bad I had to put my wet suit on right away after I got my body markings. Another strange thing about this race is that my wave consisted on men 20-30, women 20-30, athenas, clydsdales, and relays. Very strange.

Anyway we got started and I had a great swim 13 minutes 23 seconds. My average bike was 18.1 miles per hour and my average pace for the run was 7:50. When I was done with the race I was feeling good so I waited around for results. I placed first in my age group and 10th overall! Great race. I still have to work on the bike though!