FITT to be dirty!

That's right - another muddy buddy Fiesta Island Time Trial. Two years ago a persistent light rain turned an otherwise simple time trial into a mud bath. We were cleaning mud and sand out of cracks - on the bike too. This year we were looking at the same. Three days of solid rain slowed to on & off rain showers leaving the island road muddy and slick in a few spots. Nevertheless, the madness shall go on. Saturday I rode down to Fiesta and evaluated the conditions. Huge puddles crossing nearly the entire road. OK if you're in a car.. but racing a TT bike.. yikes. (On a funny note, I was riding in Tri Club San Diego kit and a fellow TCSD member driving home noticed me riding & pulled along side. After quick introductions he quickly smiled and said, "so you're the Indian Guy!") Race directors did a good job sweeping the course and reduced the massive puddles to mere muddy patches on the road.

More impressive when it comes to weather, was the absolutely abysmal conditions at Boulevard Road Race yesterday. While I haven't yet checked the numbers myself, rumor has it that a Pro/1/2 field had a 75% drop out rate. Snow. Last year I was so miserably cold I decided it wasn't worth it. I'm glad I did! I think even Landis froze his huevos.

Rumor had it Landis was being saved a spot at the time trial today. We did get some pro riders from Fly V Australia & Jelly Belly, but Landis was not among them.

The first sign the weather wasn't going to be ideal was the double rainbow. Pretty...pretty sucky more like it considering that was heading in our direction. My brilliant idea of bringing a little Murphy into the mix - if you don't bring an umbrella, it will 100% rain. If you bring an umbrella, it'll be sunny n'dry. So I called Stacy & picked up her tent... if a tiny little umbrella could spur a little Murphy action, then a tent... Iza wrong... it rained, so under the tent I went! I'm sooo pretty!

I had a friend come with me. Rie has been a long friend of mine from the horse competition days. We worked together for Olympic rider Charlotte Bredahl up in Solvang. She came down to San Diego for the weekend and wanted to see "this thing I do". Silly Raja. Get a car!

Ten minutes into my warm up, she says, "your steaming".

Last year I learned my lesson.. don't even think of cutting it close to start time. They indeed, will start without you. So I arrive 20 minutes early and begin to freeze my little **** off. Finally I'm off and riding. I told myself to take it easy the first lap. I have a tendency to bust out of the gate and see just how high my heart rate can go. Not necessarily the best of tactics. In fact, kinda stupid really. I just get sooo excited.. gotta go, gotta go!

Lap 1 felt good. Steady, but strong. Lap 2 ahead of target and feeling good, stronger than I remember feeling. Lap 3: Ka-BOOM! Legs were failing to turn over and feeling like rocks. So that's where I need more strength! I like to do these races as a test of conditioning. I can get a pretty good feel for my training. Today I was right were I wanted to be. Not a PR, but 1 minute ahead of last year's race and only 50 seconds off my PR. I placed 2nd (and 2nd overall) with 32:24 behind local crazy woman Anna Gerber. This girl is a fire ball of energy and loves to give those boys a little pinch in the butt as she whips past. I expecting a proper Gerber spanking, which I got, but I'm cool with that. Well, I'm not cool with it, but a little reality keeps me cool.

Happy Riding!

Raja

Food!

So I don't usually write about food. But I love food. A lot. Probably more than I should for a triathlete... but I have to say, I REALLY enjoyed packing on a few pounds this holiday season. It wasn't the eating.. it was the cooking. During the racing season I'll limit my diet and remove the excess fat - butter, cream, cheese (yes.. giving up cheese for racing sucks!). During the holidays.. I enjoy it every bit I can get my hot little hands on... so here are some recipes which aren't exactly "race friendly", but easily top my list of the best ever...

I'm not a soup gal. I don't order them at restaurants, I don't make them at home, and I occasionally eat them when presented with soups at a meal. But this soup.... I could eat it breakfast, lunch & dinner....Here's a dinner menu for you.. guaranteed to add an extra pound, but a meal you won't forget!

Gingered Butternut Squash Soup
6 servings
1 large butternut squash, halved lengthwise & seeded
extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup pecans (1 ounce)
1 T unsalted butter
1/2 large onion (or 1 small onion), cut into 1/2 inch dice
1/2 fennel bulb (anise) - cored & cut into 1/2 inch dice
3/4 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled & finely chopped
3 cups chicken stock
7 ounce unsweetened coconut milk, shake/mix prior opening
3/4 cup chilled whipping cream
1/2 t hazelnut oil
pinch cayenne pepper
Kosher salt
3/4 t fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350. Rub cut sides of squash with olive oil and set them, cut side down, on a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake for ~1 hr or until very tender. Remove from oven & let cool until you can handle the cooked squash. Once cool, spook the squash flesh into a large bowl & discard skins.
2. In a pie plate, toast pecans for about 5-8 minutes until lightly browned & fragrant. Set aside & let cool.
3. In a large pot, melt butter & add onion, fennel and ginger. Cook over moderate heat until softened, about 10 minutes. Add squash & chicken stock, cover & simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover the pot and continue cooking until the squash starts to fall apart, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat & stir in coconut milk.
4. While the squash is cooking, finely chop the pecans in a food processor. In a medium bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form. Fold in the shopped pecans, hazelnut oil & cayenne pepper and season with salt.
5. Working in batches, puree the squash soup in a blender until relatively smooth. Stir in the lemon juice & season with salt. Ladle the soup into bowls, top with a dollup of pecan hazelnut cream and serve.
-Soup can be prepared up to 2 days ahead of time & stored in refrigerator. Reheat gently & add additional chicken stock to thin soup.
-Food & Wine, November 2007

The Perfect Tart to compliment your soup:
6 servings

Crust:
Do yourself a favor and buy uncooked pie crust (In the freezer section of Trader Joes or usually near the "doughs": cookie, cinnamon roll, pie doughs in the refrigerated section of your local market). Or search Epicurious.com and find yourself a pie crust recipe, just be prepared... crusts are time consuming and your kitchen post mortem will usually look like something in the flour factory exploded)
Filling:
5-6 thick-cut bacon slices
1 large onion thinly sliced
1 cup whipping cream (yep, more cream...)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon group black pepper
generous pinch of salt
generous pinch of ground nutmeg
1/2 packed cup coarsely grated Gruyere cheese

1. Set 1 crust out, overnight if possible. It will unfold/unroll without breaking if warmed to room temperature. Press dough in a shallow 9 inch tart pan. Pie plates will be too deep & crust will have a tendency to burn. Preheat oven to 400F. Pierce crust all over with fork. Freeze 10 minutes (if you have time). Throw some pecans in bottom of tart pan & bake crust until crust is set (~20 minutes). The nuts will keep the bottom from bubbling too much. Remove form oven & set aside. Maintain oven temperature.
2. Saute bacon in skillet over medium heat until crisp. Transfer bacon to paper towels & drain. Let cool. Once cool, chop bacon into medium size pieces.
3. Using remaining bacon grease in pan, add onion & statue until onion is deep golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove onion from grease & set aside.
4. In the meantime whisk cream, egg, yolk, pepper, salt & nutmeg in small bowl.
5. Spread onion over bottom of baked crust. Sprinkle bacon, then cheese. Pour cream mixture over.
6. Bake until tart is puffed & filling is set, about 25 minutes. Cool ~ 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

And for dessert:
Coffee Cream Brulee
yup... total sin, complete pleasure...
4 cups whipping cream (cuz cream is sooo good!)
1 cup sugar
8 teaspoons sugar for caramelized top
2 tablespoons coarsely ground espresso coffee beans
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder or coffee powder (Turkish coffee power is exceptionally good with this)
1 cinnamon stick
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
6 large egg yolks
1 large egg

1. Place eight 3/4-cup custard cups in large roasting pan.
2. Combine cream, 1 cup sugar, ground espresso beans, instant espresso powder and cinnamon stick in heavy large saucepan. Using small sharp knife, scrape seeds from vanilla bean into mixture; add bean. Bring to boil, stirring until sugar and espresso powder dissolve. Remove from heat. Cover; let stand 30 minutes. Strain through fine sieve.
3. Preheat oven to 325°F. Whisk egg yolks and egg in large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in cream mixture.
4. Divide among custard cups in pan.
5. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of custard cups. Bake custards until center moves only slightly when cups are gently shaken, about 55 minutes. Remove custards from pan. Cool at least 1 hr prior to serving, refrigerate uncovered overnight if possible.
6. If you have a cooking torch, use it, it's easier than the broiler to make the caramelized sugar top. If not.. preheat broiler. Sprinkle sugar evenly over each custard covering surface. Place custard cups on baking sheet. Broil until sugar is brown and caramelized, rotating baking sheet to broil evenly and watching closely to avoid burning, 1 to 2 minutes. Chill & serve.

Enjoy!!

Velo Bella Camp!

1/20:

Wow! I had an amazing weekend with 30 of my fellow Velo Bellas, hotties on bikes, up in San Luis Obispo. We had Bellas from all over California, even one from North Carolina! Some had just started riding in the last 6 months, others were seasoned racer chicks. Then there were the boyz... A local racing group provided escorts, sweeps, tire changers extraordinaire and last but not least.. some mighty fine calves for all viewing needs. :-P When suffering, a good pair of calves will do. :-)

We even had paparazzi! Huge thanks to Carson Blume for some making hurt look soooo good!

Daily rides ranged from 25 miles to 75 miles of amazing farm roads and a skills clinic run by Michael Hernandez ... a former San Diego triathlete now wicked cyclist in the Bay Area. Or AKA "Sabine's Boy Toy"... oh la la!

Our own Ryan Hostetter (Girl Ryan) provided most excellent organizing, routes and most importantly, INSPIRATION! And Sue.. well, she just likes spanking boys. I think they call her SueNami! Marian... Virgin Blood is Vegan Safe... Cathy from NC, the track guru turned mommy...if you ever thought you didn't want kids, have a little chatty chatty with Cathy "I'm a Mom" Boland. And the rest of the Bellaistic crew, what fun!

Laura and Sabine (pronounced like Sabina)...Mama Bellas (pictured above left)! They are the perfect personification of Velo Bella - pink hair, endless humor, killer smiles, giggles and energy & motivation that never ends.

If you've ever wanted motivation to do more, be more.... welcome to Bellaville, where going as sloooow as possible is talent and climbing like mad women never looked so goooood.

So next year... you don't want to miss it! Who's in? I can't even tell you how proud I am to be a Velo Bella! Huge thanks to all those who put it together.

Happy Riding!

Raja

1/18:

I'm up in San Luis Obispo, CA for the Velo Bella training camp. I came fully prepared. Not. I've been at work meetings in Florida for the last week, sitting, drinking & dancing. I haven't been riding much, longest ride yet has been 50 miles. But heck, we're all Bellas so it'll be a blast! And it has been! Ryan Hostetter has been leading the way with wicked rides (72 miles on Saturday) and a killer crit clinic with her fav JUMP drills.... yep, lungs'a'burn'n! More updates when I recover.... :-P

2009 Around the Corner

I was so tired at the end of October, I didn't want to train and I certainly didn't want to race. My last race of the season, Pumpkinman, had this cute 5 mile climb to transition (Halfmax course had about 6500' climbing, the Olympic about 3100'), about 100 meters of flat and on to the run. The race wasn't flawless, but beyond that, I was done racing. I did ok, ended up 4th and scored points for TCSD for the team national championships. I was however happy to be done racing for the year. 2008 wasn't a great season for me, too much going on, work, life, moving, etc to allow the racing season I wanted, but overall, not a bad racing year.

After witnessing the tragic military plane crash last week in San Diego where a man, father, husband and son-in-law lost his entire family (his wife, 2 young children and mother-in-law) in an instant, I had to ask myself why. Why was I meant to witness this tragedy? My answer is - to live life and just go for it. You never know when a plane may crash into your house.

With that, I am thankful for my family, my friends, my teammates, my colleagues and the people that motivate me.

As it is that time of year - ready for a new one... on come the resolutions. As usual, I resolve to have a better year. Be a better person, race a better race, better my performance at work.

So what's on the agenda for 2009....

January:

1/17 - Velo Bella camp, SLO

February:

2/8 - Fiesta Island Time Trial (FITT), San Diego

2/28 - Bulldog Road Race, Oceanside

March:

3/8 - FITT, SD

3/22 - Palm Springs Triathlon, Palm Desert

April:

4/5 - FITT, SD

May:

5/3 - Wildflower, Paso Robles

5/10 - FITT, SD

5/17 - Encinitas Triathlon, Encinitas or Tempe International, Tempe AZ

June:

6/14 - Redondo Beach Triathlon, Redondo Beach

6/28 - San Diego International, SD or Ventura Breath of Life Triathlon USAT Regional Championships, Ventura, CA

July:

7/26 - Pacific Coast USAT Sprint National Championships, Newport Beach, CA

August:

8/22 - USAT Olympic National Championships, Tuscaloosa, AL

September:

9/12 - FITT, SD

9/13 - Big Kahuna Long Course Triathlon, Big Sur, CA

9/27 - OC Tri, Irvine, CA

October:

10/11 - FITT, CA

10/25 - Soma Long Course Triathlon, Tempe, AZ

I'm sure I'll add, subtract, substitute, tweak, fudge as necessary...

As for you - I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, give a stranger a smile, call a relative you haven't talked to recently and take a moment to be thankful for all the wonderful things.

In the meantime, happy riding!

Raja

Reflections

2008 is coming to a close.. so many things to reflect on. So many things that happened. The biggest shocker of all was loosing Dave Martin. It wasn't supposed to happen. Not like that. Statistically speaking, we should be good for another 50 years. But nobody wants to test that number. Me neither. No need to test the waters, at least not for awhile. A lesson for us all, live life now. Don't worry about the past, or too much about the future. If you don't live it now, you may loose it forever.

The Greatest Club on Earth

I just want to comment about what an amazing club TCSD (Triathlon Club of San Diego) is - for both sport, and support. Dave Martin was tragically killed by a 16' great white shark off the coast of Solana Beach in May of this year. A regular swim by TCSDers every Friday morning turned tragic beyond belief.

ESPN went beyond words, a touching article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=backinthewater

USA Triathlon Nationals 2008!

Well, it's done and over.. so that's good news. No mechanicals, that's good news. It didn't rain, more good news (start temp was estimated at 45 degrees). And I did much better than last year, so that's good news. Last year I was plagued with the mystery leak in my disk (turned out to be the stem). This year, new disk, no problem! Not!

On Thursday before the race I got a good ride on the course and I would even say the course & I had a little pow wow, chatted up some issues I had on the mind, and by the end of the ride we became good friends. :o) I did my feel good brick after and jetted off to go jump in a hot shower at the hotel. Upon opening the back of the car the theme to a horror movie started to play in my head. I was cursed! Disk was flat as a pancake. Crap!!!!! Online store Team Estrogen came to my rescue. I called them up having ordered a ton of stuff from them in the past for some solid bike shop advice. They pointed the way to a local tri store called Athlete's Lounge, where tri bikes, leather couches and napping tri geeks come together. Their mechanic was a saint and was able to patch my teeny tiny hole without having to use one of my spares or start the stretching process all over again. PHEW!

During check in USAT had a "More Cowbell" giveaway - so yes, you can bet I will be ding-a-linging my sweet cowbell when the pro tour rolls into town next Feb (Tour of CA) for the march up to the Mt Palomar finish. Sweet! Always wanted a cowbell...

On race morning we were delighted to feel the weather warm up a bit (to the 60s). The lake, in the low 70s, was going to be a pleasure to jump in, it really is a beautiful lake.

We started from the dock the elite team dives off, except we got to be good little age groupers and sit on the dock, then dunk in to start. I'm not a natural swimmer. Being fishy doesn't come easy for me. All those great Phelpsian pheaturs that makes swimmers swim great - well, I don't have them! Except a little stubbornness and desire. I didn't start learning to swim correctly until I started triathlon 4 years ago so I'm pretty much playing catch up all the time. Once the horn went off indicating the start of my race, the swim felt pretty steady. I was on a mission for feet. Bubbles, find the feet, attempt to stay there. Loose the feet, find new bubbles, new feet, and try to stay there. Repeat. I figured if I could keep finding feet I would have a decent swim split. I exited the water at 26 minutes, which was good for me (one day I'll like swimming...). Last year at this race I achieved my first 26 min split ever, so it was nice to stay consistent at that split.

Once on the bike I felt great and let it go. According to hubby Dave, I was 25th out of the water, so I had a few spots to make up if I wanted to try to make Worlds. I finished the first lap in just over 34 min and was on a roll. Then the second lap hit and an all too familiar pain started to radiate down my left leg. Stupid sacrum! I had been feeling this over the last 3 months and was delighted to be pain free after my last visit to Dr. Crunch (Dr.Elleraas, my chiropractor) and Gino Cinco (UCPT ART), the Miracleman. Since the course is so hilly (~3000' climbing in 24ish miles) I backed off the big chain ring over the last couple of miles with the more pitchy climbs to give the legs a break before the dreaded run. Sacrificing some time on the bike would probably save me minutes on this run. I finished in 1:10, good. Marked improvement in my time from last year (1:13). (Picture right from 2007 Nationals)

Then the run... oh the run. The run from hell... and back. I forgot about these hills. I mean I remembered the hills, but I forgot how long & nasty they got. Coming round the half way point, my left leg was loosing power and push. I tried to latch on to some guys that were passing me and managed to keep my head on straight. Only 3 major climbs left on the run at this point, I could do this. I looked at the asphalt ('cause trust me, looking up at the hill was just depressing!) and tried to use the pain in my left leg as a distraction. Then I looked at my heart rate monitor. Approaching 200. Crap. I was at max and there was no avoiding the pain and lack of oxygen at that point. Coming in the final hill, I was gaining on the girl in front of me, but as we turned to go down a rather steep incline, she widened the gap. I just didn't have the coordination to turn my left leg over any faster. The last 200 was fairly flat and I ran as hard I could but couldn't quite catch her. At least I got to within 2 seconds. I finished the run in 46 min, a marked improvement from my 49 min run last year.

I finished in 21st place with a time of 2:26. I missed the chance to go to worlds by 1 spot. Yup, 2 seconds. You'd think that should be bad news, but really, it's good news. I'm that much closer to qualifying that last year! As frustrating as it can be to be that close and not get it, things happen for a reason, and with the crazy competition in this age group, I truly felt like I gave it everything I had for the day and didn't have any extra seconds I could have wrangled up from somewhere. That's all you can ask for when you're trying to sync all 3 events on one day. For a year that started slow and dismal with waning hope, I would say it was a success. If not, I can always wait until I'm 60 to qualify!

Many, many thanks to coach Peter Clode for loads of schedules that get better and better every year, Lesley Paterson for reminding me I can suffer longer and harder, Gino Cinco at UC Physical Therapy for un-tweaking me after all my muscle tweaking workouts, Chris Elleraas of Carmel Valley Chiropractic who was the first brave soul to straighten my broken body, Cassidy's Massage Clinic for reminding me that going injury free is an option, Tri Club San Diego for being the best tri club & training group on earth, and of course, my husband Dave, who was at the finish line with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates.

Now, you can bet I'll be calling all the above to figure out how to un-tweak my left leg so I can start training again.

Happy Riding!
Raja

P.S. I didn't believe there was so much climbing on the bike.. until I mapped it myself..... click here for a 1 loop elevation which skewed even higher! The race course is 2 loops....

Run for the border

Imperial Beach Triathlon

So you basically drive down the 5 south till, oh, the border. Take a right and go to the beach. Ta da! Imperial Beach! Now Tijuana is renowned for their pristine water - or sewage spills, so I'm glad that fence along the border keeps all the bad bugs out. I checked in for the race on Sat and immediately hear rumors that the swim could be cancelled due to bacteria counts being too high. Sweet! The race directors run a good race and wouldn't put us in harms way, so I would just have to take their word on the water quality. Personally I suck at beach entries/exits so I'm not sure that I would be too upset if the swim were to be cancelled. But alas.. it the water was fine and the swim would go on.

But it sucked in any case. I haven't seen the splits yet, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty. Just as my little toes hit semi-dry sand and stopped ('cause I was just about walking at that point), stripped out of my wetsuit and then ran into T1. One of my goals was to quicken up my transitions, so I'm glad I ran right past my bike in T1. I've always known that swimming provides me serious oxygen debt in the pool, but now I get an open water-demo of oxygen-debt-brain-loss. Goody!

Once on the bike things start to look good and blood once again returns to the gray-matter. The bike felt pretty good, even while viewing the Mexican houses on the other side of the hill.

Then comes the run. It always hurts, no matter how good you think you feel. I guess that's part of the "fun"... one day it won't hurt! Only a 5K run, but with an average heart rate of 188 on the run, at least I can say I gave her a good old fashion try! It wasn't quite as fast as I would have liked, not bad, but I was hoping for a little better, and not quite fast enough the close the gap to first on such a short distance.

I have to say, I'll take 2nd! If I counted correctly, I was 5th overall. I can't wait for a lake swim again!

After the race I was standing by the score board and I hear "damn, he beat me again!" from somewhere next to me. It just got me thinking - that's what brings us coming back... for yet another pain fest. That feeling that you can do better next time, it's like crack...

Next crack... Nationals..... wish me luck, I'll need it!

Happy riding!
Raja

Bella grooves & moves

OK, so this is the first time I've had 20 unread emails in my email box! Haven't written much and already blew my rule of thumb when it comes to writing race reports... write them within the first couple days after racing to get the full effect. Oh well!

This morning I attended a meeting of new Velo Bella triathlete getting ready for the US Women's Triathlon series triathlon in October and it was so great to see so many new faces! Triathlon seems formidable at first, but then after you do your first race you realize it's a ton of fun and the sense of accomplishment when you finish will get you signed up for your next!

Since the Mouse Attack, I've been to Coeur D'Alene to watch Bella Stacy Dietrich (left) and my husband Dave McMahon (right) race at Ironman CDA. Dave came in at a fantastic 10:40ish, taking 20 minutes off his Ironman Canada time (even with a swim disaster!), and Stacy finished in an astonishing 11:28 and was sporting a HUGE smile the entire time... sick!

Then I went to Napa for my girlfriend Leticia's wedding... ahhh.. a beautiful bride and fine glass of wine are always a good thing.

Since I had been away for the previous few weeks, what's 2 more!.... Back to living in a hotel for a couple of weeks as part of training for work. Get up early, run, shower, change for work, work training from 7:30-5:30, then back to the hotel, change and jump on the trainer for a couple of hours.. or zip off to the pool for a swim. Luckily my work partner (Stacy D. above) is also a tri-geek bella so my cohorts were already prepared for the equipment I moved into my hotel room.. bikes, trainers, swim cords, too many shoes and a bag full of Power Bars.

Then I raced Pendleton International and hoped I'd be recovered enough from my work training "graduation" class.... I wasn't going to expect too much since I really haven't had time to put in the solid training I would have liked to. Since I didn't have too many opportunities to swim for the previous month (except for a 25 yard pool at about 80 degrees), it was no surprise the swim sucked. Or the quarter mile run through deep sand to T1. But alas, I survived. I finally felt good on the bike. While I was at training for work, I dropped my TT bike off at the shop with a suspicious noise coming from my cranks. Of course I had heard it for awhile, but never thought it was an issue. Turns out my bottom bracket had more or less disentegrated. Oops! So ya think that's why riding that bike has been soooo hard??

Needless to say, the bike felt MUCH better and I finished in 1:10, right where I should be. (T1 & T2 were in the bike time for a total of 1:13:49). Out of T2 I left the legs turn into rocks. The deep sand was coming to haunt me. I just tried to stay steady and see if the lactic acid would miraculously disappear. Coming around to the second lap I was at about 23 minutes, I took some salt tabs & a motivator and within a half mile I had found my legs. I could hear Lesley "come on Raaa-yaaaa" like she does in your workouts and tried to focus on what I would I if she were there staring at me... she's really the Scottish Devil that one! And I mean Devil in the fire & energy that she exudes. I set my sights on a local TCSD racer who has quite a good run and if I could catch her I knew it would be a good run. Every hundred meters I got closer, and closer and I knew if she heard me coming, she could possibly out sprint me to the finish, so I used a little stealth and a whole lot of surprise to edge her out in the last 100 meters. Unfortunately with triathlon, you never really know who's in your age group so you just have to aim for someone in front of you and chip away.. then cross your fingers there's not too many you didn't see. There always is!

I ended up 3rd and really was quite happy with that. As soon as I get my swim back on and perhaps attempt to trim up a bit more, I think Nationals will be a better show this year. At least I hope so! It would be oh soo nice to race in Australia next year.... we'll see. Not sure if it's possible this year with the career change taking so much of my time, but I know it will all work out for the better.

Next race.. Imperial Beach Triathlon... see you there!

Happy Riding!

Raja

(Stacy in her post-Ironman daze...)

Get the MOUSE!

It's been awhile since my last posting... oye!

I had a change of careers in April and pretty much everything else has had to sit on the back burner until I get settled.

In May I did Wildflower Olympic and had fun. Training this year has been hampered by one thing or another, illness, work, injury, you name it. The gods are holding me back! I didn't expect much out of Wildflower, and still came away bummed with my race. The good news, my swim was the best yet and I really was delighted with it. The bike & run, well, not so much. I ended up 9th out of about 200 or so that finished. The exciting part was the finish.. pics below in the previous post....

Then came Encinitas Sprint (pic). I was 3rd with what I consider a crappy bike portion of the race. It wasn't bad, but I know I should be doing better. The run was ok.. and the swim.. well, I'm not so hot for surf entry so I survived.

This past weekend was probably one of the most fun races I've ever done. It was the Danskin Disneyland Triathlon. That's right, Kingdom of the Mouse, or in this case, California Adventure. The swim was in the lagoon in CA Adventure, the bike was a 2 loop course around the entire part and the run was a windy route through the park. With over 1300 competitors (all women), this was a big race.

Why did I enter? Well, when else can you take a dip in Disneyland without them giving you a life ban?!??

On check-in before the race I heard one woman say, "the water is disgusting! It's a lagoon! There were ducks right there pooping." Uhhh.. this is Disneyland where everything is sterile, that taste is actually chlorine and that brown water is dye so you don't see the tracks for the boat. If only she knew what nasty water really tastes like... As you walked in the water, it was warm, you know, kinda like bath water. No wetsuits needed so I wore a tri-swim suit for the first time. Couldn't wear my Bella kit as it's a 2 piece. Instead a put a Bella tattoo on my arm and wore my signature hair flair. The swim was a ton of fun, but a bit of a faux-Ironman. With about 16 waves (me in wave 9)starting every 3 minutes, it was A LOT of swimming over or around people in previous waves. Next time I think I'll actually race Elite instead of Age Group so I can get in the first wave and not have to crawl between quite so many ladies. But where else can you stroke, stroke, breathe, look at the ferris wheel, stroke, stroke, breath, look rollercoaster, stroke, stroke, breath, look Mickey...

The bike was fun, and my bike created quite a bit of attention (aka The Hornet) as there were a number of first-timers racing. I really enjoyed being able to answer questions, even got to give a fix-a-flat demo. Newby: "What are these?" Me: "These are tire levers, you really should know what they are and how to use them..."

Back to the race... so the bike was ok, still feeling a bit lacking in strength and it showed as I was unable to loose the cute chick in red on the cervelo with the disk. I should have been able to smoke her, but instead she latched on and let me take her for a ride. We leap frogged around for a bit between swim, T1, the bike & T2, but then she spanked me on the run. At least she was nice & cute!

By the time I got off the bike I was still coughing up the drink mix I managed to inhale. Note to self: don't inhale your drink!!! The run started and I had the glugs. You know that sloshy feeling from drinking then trying to run?! After the first mile I felt better and began to relax. Unfortunately the run was almost over by that point so I just ran my way past the popcorn and cotton candy, past the store where you can flatten a penny, past the churros, around the fountain, through the western-shoot-out store front and to the finish. With one great leap for Velo Bella, I was done!

I finished 2nd in my age group behind that nice cute chick on the Cervelo, and 6th overall. Not too bad.. but I know I can do better next year. My coaches tell me it's a long season and I've still got time to recover from a dreadful season (so far), but I have to say.. it's tough when you know you can do better and when people who don't usually beat you are squeeking in front of you... oh well, the life of a crazy triathlete with a life!

Pic of me passing on the bike.... no Bella gear... a tiny VB tattoo on my right shoulder... and way wicked VB water bottle to represent!

We had a number of Bellas attend, I'll update this blog with a list, but CONGRATS to all, this was a fantastic race and HIGHLY recommended as a destination race.

Happy Riding!
Raja