Adult Spring Break : Triathlon Style

Everybody needs a spring break right? Just because we aren't in college anymore doesn't mean we shouldn't get some beach, frosty beverages,  a tan, and some sunshine? I wish it still worked that way.  Getting old sucks! Either way I had my little piece of spring break in Panama City Beach. Amidst heavy half IM training, I definitely needed a change of training scenery and figured a little sunshine/beach time wouldn't hurt.

I headed to PCB to spend the weekend with one of my favorite spring breakers and girly triathletes: 

We spent Saturday rocking out a 63 mile ride at the Tour de Ranch with some solid rolling hills that included about 3000 feet of climbing. Not bad for Florida right? We were nice enough and even pulled some boys along for the ride :) It turned out to be a beautiful day and fun ride that included minimal mechanicals, bike short tan lines, and frosty electrolyte beverages. We thought we would be crazy add a little T-run too. So out of control right? 

Then the real spring break began! The day was topped off with some beach time and then official adult beverages. I'm not going to lie... I did feel pretty old amongst a bunch of 20-something year olds.  Either way both Chloe and I were rocking our bikinis way better than the college girls were rocking their freshman 15.  I'm thankful for that ;) 

Despite our attempt to hang, we were both done after one cup of frozen daiquiri and after a few free samples. Rookie mistake.

The next day Chloe and I woke up super early to rock out our long runs. Our long run was a very educational for sure. We learned a lot of spring break lessons. A few include:

-If you get super drunk and your friends can't find you and you have no idea where your hotel is.... the beach access makes for an AWESOME place to sleep:

-We later learned that running or "cardio" is the shizit..... (after being hit on by some college kids drinking natty light) at 6 am. At least we still look like we are in college right?

And that is a wrap of 2 days of solid training and spring break! Definitely not the spring break I used to have, but not bad for being a thirty-something weekend get away right? I'll take it :)

Tropical Trails

Although my first "Florida winter" has been a little disappointing with lots of days below freezing-- over the past weekend I was lucky enough to head a few hours south to Melbourne, Florida. My husband had a work thing for the weekend and I figured I would tag along to get in some warmer training.

Like most places I go, I love to get in touch with whom Scott calls "my internet friends" before hand to set up some training. It's always way more fun that way! What better way to meet new triathlete friends and explore new places? Lucky for me I was able to set up a solid ride with Emily Nelson along the beautiful eastern Florida shores.

It was a fun 40 plus miles together with lots of girly chatting, sunshine, and palm trees. I was so thankful I had some fun company! Per coaches orders, I added another hour on and traveled along a gorgeous road called the Tropical Trail with a some speed intervals and lots of wind :) Luckily the breathtaking views kept me distracted through my power intervals and I nailed my wattage goals.

I don't think it gets much better than this! 

Post ride I napped some beachside and woke up to this! Hello best rainbow ever!

Sunday, I cranked out a slightly chillier 10 miler along the coastline solo.

And that my friends is a solid training weekend wrap! I'm so thankful for new friends, beautiful creation, and time away with my best friend. Cheers to many more tropical trails and travels in 2014 :) 

Surprises

Have you ever had one of those races that you went into thinking "I'm probably not in that good of shape-this could turn out ugly".....and somehow surprisingly you knock it out of the park?

I feel like I've had a lot of those lately. Still being in between houses/sort of homeless and temporarily husband-less, training has continued to take back seat to "life" as they call it. I went into the past weekend without a lot of confidence. My right ITB was super locked up as I did a tough CrossFit workout a few days before. *Oops. I was super sore going into the weekend. Either way I figured it would be a good fitness gauge.

Without going into too much boring detail that none of you care to read, I was stoked to drop over 10 minutes from my prior OLY PR and to bike 1:06. In the end, my 2:18 scored a 3rd OA/1st AG slot. 

I will say I'm enjoying both short course training and racing---and liking the balance with adding CrossFit...Strangely enough I've been seeing more results with less mileage on my body and finding a large amount of strength deficiencies. I know most endurance athletes probably don't want to hear that. Either way I'm glad it's working. And yes I've been drinking a lot of CrossFit Kool-aid lately can you tell?

Cheers to a different training approach and making new Florida tri friends :)

A Girly Girl's Guide to Buying a Bike

Given that QR is one of the awesome Rev3 sponsors for the year, I was sold on the brand from the start. Buying a bike can't be that hard right? Wow-sers was I wrong. Despite the long, challenging, and sometimes intimidating process I'm happy to say that I've learned a lot and have a brand spanking new bike vocabulary.

Meet:

Esperanza!!!!

Looking back 5-6 years ago, one of the first questions that Scott asked me when researching my first tri bike option was "What kind of bike do you want"?

My reply, "A pink one".

Since those days my friends I've come a long way.  (Although I still had A LOT to learn). How does one go about buying a bike? How long does it take? What parts do you need? So many questions! I'm going to share some of the steps that I went through in hopes that maybe I will help some of you all in reducing the headache. For the illicito, it came with frame and brakes only. Everything else I had to figure out. Below are 10 of the big decisions that I had to make.....

1. Brand: This is obviously the best starting point. Things to consider when making this choice: Do you have long legs and a short torso or short legs and a long torso? Certain brands are designed for certain builds. You really don't want to go wrong with this decision. I'm pretty average and made sure my dimensions of of my new bike closely resembled the old one.

2. Size: How tall are you? How much do you weigh? Again no-brainer for me the "shorty". I went with the smallest bike QR had.

3. Crank Size: I had no idea what this meant until my recent new bike purchase. I went with 170 cm as my old bike was 172.5. This is a controversial topic but I decided  that for my height I definitely had to go smaller. To go with my Rotor Q rings, I ordered a Rotor Crank set. And wow does it make my bike look even that much sexier.

4. Bottom Bracket: These size vary. I would check with your bike shop to make sure you get the right size for your frame.

5. Aero bars: What kind of materials do you want? Are you a carbon junkie? Do your bars need to move backwards because the bike is longer? I went with Profile design to give me the extra flexibility to move them back again because I'm short.

6. Wheels: Do you want race wheels? Do you want power? My coach has been pushing the idea of power --so luckily I found a  used powertap from my coaches friend. It was a huge-huge-huge pain in the butt to set up and figure out. The batteries were dead and my Garmin had a bug so the 2 would NOT sync up. After a day with garmin on the phone and new batteries, the power was ready to rock. And coach is happy :) Hopefully having the objective power numbers will lead to lots of good things in my last few races of the season.
7. Pedals: Do you want knee play? I have been using speedplays for years and yes-wanted something pink. I stuck to the same brand with these.

8: Saddle: My philosophy ladies is once you go ADAMO ISM, you NEVER go back. After switching out my old saddle to put the Adamo on the new bike, I learned the hard way. I had to train a few sessions on the old saddle and old bike and forgot how uncomrtable regular saddles are. Ouch...

9. Handle bar tape/Wiring: There are so many more options than ugly white handle bar tape! I love pink handlebar tape and it definitely stays cleaner longer :)You can get pink wire covers too! This was probably frivolous but a must for my QR. Loved how it turned out.

10: Components: Almost forgot the most important part! I went with middle of the line Shimano Dura Ace Components. I had Shimano Ultegra before and had zero problems. I thought Dura-ace was the safe middle of the road option.

I am not yet capable of putting a bike of this magnitude together. I ordered mostly everything and had the bike shop do the assembling. Anyway this list of 10 things includes most but not all of the decisions you will have to make when buying a new tri bike. Once everything was ordered, it took about 2 weeks for assembly and another week for a proper fit. This is NOT something you really want to do mid-season. Big mistake for sure. This is an off season TASK ONLY.

Please email me if you have questions. Some bikes come with components and wheels. I went the customized route to get the best bike I could and because my bike was sold as  "frame only" option.

Thank you Thank you Thank you most importantly Rev3, Alex, QR, and Bicyle World for making my dream bike happen!