Flip-turn-ing point

Okay, it's been  a while since my last post. Haven't raced since Oceanside, am still planning to race at Malibu, and have signed up for Oceanside again. I'm also debating on doing the Soma half in October. But right now my race schedule is limited due to financial issues.
This is where the turning point comes in, as a teacher at a charter school, my employment is on an at will basis. I have been working as an adjunct teacher for 2 years now, but do not have any guarantee of employment for this coming school year. Yesterday I received a message from my boss, and today returned the call only to find out that the school is not planning to employ any adjunct teachers at this time. So that means that I will probably not have a job for the coming school year, unless they have a massive increase in enrollment numbers. This has made me think more about leaving the profession. It's not that I don't enjoy it, just that there are so few jobs out there right now as the state keeps cutting budgets. I'm not the only one in this situation, I've had a friend or two rethink their current career choices.

Hanging with my adorable nephew

So where to now... I'm just now starting to process and try to determine where to focus my job search. I haven't made a decision yet, so I will still look for teaching jobs, as well as jobs outside the teaching profession. I just want to be in a job I am happy at, not that I wasn't happy at my last job.
Of course, this may mean I can make more trips to Fresno to hang my my adorable nephew.
Now back to swimming/triathlon/cycling. USA Swimming Olympic Trials just finished up yesterday. I was a bit disappointed that Dara Torres and Janet Evans (local) didn't make the team, but am excited to see Tyler Clary (local) make his first Olympic team. Tyler's mom is a USA Swimming Administrative Official and I have worked several meets with her and for his team FAST. As a matter of fact, I'm working a meet there this weekend. It was also great to see Jessica Hardy, another SoCal native qualify for the team after missing the 2008 Games due to a positive drug test at Trials (contaminated supplement). Southern California has a great history in the Olympic games, but it is nice to see that swimmers are being developed in other areas of the country at teams both large and small. (Missy Franklin comes from a small team in Colorado.)
The Olympics start in just a few weeks and the competition in the pool will be intense. In triathlon, I think the hometown boys may pull off gold and silver (Brownlee brothers).

Swim tip for the day: RELAX... don't forget to breathe, be nice to the water, don't hit it too hard. If you are nice to the water it will be nice to you. Take the time on the 4th to just sit in the pool, just float and relax, this will help you recognize where you balance in the water.

Oceanside Race Report...aka My first DNF

Pre-Race-
Arrived in Oceanside on Friday, parked near the expo and set up my computer and went to work (had to teach 2 live sessions from my car that day). Checked out the expo, had my flat tire fixed (brand new tube and tire just put in the day before).  Picked up race packet then walked back to the opposite end of the expo to pick up t-shirt and goodie bag...ran into all of the people I knew that were doing the race: Pam, Chris, Justin, & Jim.  Ate lunch and, dropped off  my run bag, then checked into the hotel. Then I started getting my other 2 bags prepped for the race. I felt like I was all set to go.
Race morning-- woke up at 3 (didn't sleep all that great, but that's normal for me). Ate the usual breakfast of honeynut cheerios. Got some juice from the hotel breakfast and headed off to the race. Parked by the finish/T2 area, dropped some items off at my run bag then got on my bike to head to the start...carrying 2 pastic bags full of stuff for the transition. Now these weren't the type of bags that you could do as backpacks, so I tried my best to ride with them...bad idea. About 2-3 blocks into the ride, one of the bags caught in my front wheel, and I flipped end over end, luckily there were 2 nice volunteers who helped me up, picked up what had fallen out of my bento, and helped me on my way. I thought this might be the end of my  day, as I walked to transition, I kept feeling a brake rubbing, thought it was the rear, so stopped a couple of times on the way to try to fix it, after stopping about 3 times, I figured out it was the front brake rubbing. So I finally made it to transition, had one of the bike support guys check it out, he got it to work, but the front wheel was slightly out of true. So set up my transition, checked on my friends, and made a few pit stops before putting on my wetsuit and making my way to the swim start.

The swim
Leaving from the boat ramp, they give you about 3 minutes to get to the start line, water was a bit cold. I was in my usual sleeveless wetsuit. But once I got going it felt okay. My directional skills, on the other hand were really sucking this day, as I ended up running head on into a lifeguard on a paddle board. (Morning after the race I still have the bump on my head.) It seemed like I kept zig zagging through the course, haven't looked at my garmin yet to see how it "really"went. After leaving the harbor we were hit with some pretty big swells, had to be careful in timing my sighting. Swam over a few people and had a few swim over me. Swim time 47 minutes.

The bike
Garmin was going wonky on me, saying 20 something miles and I hadn't hit the first aid station which was at mile 14, so that was out the window, for everything, except time of day (to make sure I made the cutoff). Things seemed to be going okay, I was taking it easy (or at least trying to) the first half. Then I hit the hills, I ended up walking up most of all three, thinking positively, I think good calf stretch. I was looking to, based on my times at the Vineman half aquabike last year to have about an hour cushion on the bike cutoff, plenty of time to make the run. Unfortunately this was not to be. I only made the bike cutoff by 3 minutes...I need to learn how to ride my bike up hills, those people who passed me made it look so easy. Bike time 4:43

The "run"
This is where I really need to work, been focusing on it this off season, but still having problems picking up and maintaining speed, end up walking a lot. I knew at this point that it was mathematically impossible for me to make the finish in time, so I did a lot of walking, with the occasional run break. The ramps were annoying, especially on the pier where the lower portion of the ramp is much steeper than the upper portion. Was all going well until about 200 yards from the turn off where the finishers keep straight and those going on the 2nd lap turn...people kept telling me I was about to finish, but I was not to finish, I headed up the ramp and hit the cutoff point at about 3:15, time cutoff was 3:08. I probably could have gone fast enough to make that cutoff, but thought to myself, why torture myself even longer when there's no way I'm going to finish, it was about 10 k left (after cutoff point) and my fastest 10K is about 1hour 30 minutes, and I only had 1 hour 10 minutes to do it.

Post Race
Much thanks to Pam for allowing me to hang out with her post race and process the experience with her. So I ate and sat for awhile after packing up my stuff in my car. Stayed to watch the awards, was cool to see the pros get their awards.

Next Steps
The next race that I am signed up for is Malibu International (Olympic) Distance in September, may do a race or 2 before that, haven't decided yet, but I definitely want to conquer this race next year. I know I need to focus more on riding hills and actually running (without pain).

1 Week until Oceanside

My Sister at the wheel, she drives me
nuts sometimes, too.

 Okay, so I now have 1 week until I head down to Oceanside for my first complete 70.3 event. Tapering drives me nuts, so I guess I'll put some of this lovely excess energy in giving you more up to date blog posts.
Training has been going good...focusing on the run, so running a lot more than I ever have. I'm almost to the point where I have run more this year (in 3 months) than I did all of last year.
Been swimming on Saturdays up at Los Angeles Valley College, including in the pouring rain on St. Patrick's Day. And yes, I did wear a suit with green in it as well as a green swim cap, unfortunately I don't own a pair of green goggles or I would have worn them. Here's to hoping the water is not too cold in Oceanside, as I haven't done any open water training this year, but swimming's not a major issue for me, I may hit the water some time on Friday just to get the feel for it.
I waited until last week to make my hotel reservations, but thanks to the USAT discount, I found a hotel room for under $80 in the vicinity of the race. It should be better than where I stayed last year (as a volunteer).  So that alleviated a bit of the stress/anxiety I was feeling about my readiness for this race.
The bike has been the most neglected part of my training, but luckily for me, one of my favorite pro's started back up with his trainer class on Tuesdays, so I've been doing that, it's just much more fun when training with other people.

I also wanted to share some of my favorite links:
Red Performance Multisport - Home of Jim Lubinski - Trainer Tuesdays coach at Triathlon Lab Redondo Beach--6pm come join us
Triathlon Lab - locations in Redondo Beach & Santa Monica, home of Trainer Tuesdays and lots of great triathlon educational seminars

Me and some of my TriDivas
teammates at last year's
Strawberry Fields Tri.

Tri-Zone-- located in Los Alamitos, new location on Cerritos is now open, the're having their official opening event this Sunday, March 25th, also sponsor of TriDivas
TriDivas--The all-women triathlon training group I train with. Head Coach Kelly Clancy. (Website is not up to date, will be re-launching in the near future.) We train out of the Long Beach area, with training sessions in Signal Hill, Los Alamitos, and Cerritos as well.

Jordan Rapp of Slowtwitch
Celebrating his 2nd birthday
today, after bike crash almost
killed him.

Slowtwitch-- triathlon news and information website-- beware the forums can be addicting.
USA Swimming-- I'm a swimmer, what can I say...I also officiate USA Swimming meets, this website is helpful for those Master's swimmers who want to check out stroke rules, there's a complete rulebook on the website, including Section M- the differences between USA swimming rules and USMS rules.
USA Triathlon-- what kind of triathlete would I be without this website. It allows you to renew your membership and check out what member discounts are available (its how I found the hotel discount). It also has some pretty interesting articles and recipes.

Oh yeah, I got some new technology, the Garmin 910XT, still working on the bugs. The other day I did a 50 Butterfly and it read it as a 100 mixed-25 back, 25 breast, 50 free. At least it's getting better, one time it thought my backstroke was breaststroke. We shall see how it survives in Oceanside.

87 days and counting until Ironman 70.3 Oceanside

I haven’t written a blog post in a while, been busy enjoying my oh so short off-season and the holiday season (which included 2 trips to Fresno to visit my new nephew, as well as my brother and sister-in-law). So now that the New Year is here, it’s time to get back on the wagon, writing more and training more, while working part time and trying to find full time employment.

Yesterday’s workout plan: swim, run, & yoga

Swim (workout modified from Workouts in a Binder for Swimmers, Triathletes, and Coaches by Eric and Nick Hansen- Stroke 5B)

Warm Up- 100 Free, 100 (25 kick, 25 drill back), 200 Free, 100 (25k, 25 d breast) 300 Free, 100 (25k, 25d free)  (900 yards)

Main set- 2x200s 50 back, 50 free
100 Back Fast
2x150s 50 breast, 50 free, 50 breast
2x75s breast fast
2x100s 25 back, 25 free
2x75s back fast   (1300 yards)

Warm Down- 4x50s free easy

Run- changed after swimming and headed to the treadmill for an about 20 minute run before yoga class started. I strongly dislike running, but I have been working on it more during this off-season. Still trying to get to the point, either by finding new shoes, new ways to lace shoes, or finding the right run form so that my foot does not go numb during my run.

Yoga- I try to do this every Tuesday, at my local gym. First Tuesday of the month is Sunflower series, instructor added a bit of extra core work this week to help those of us who may have over-indulged during the holiday season.

Random thought—Why have there been so many reality documentary shows on television based in Alaska recently?? No offense to Alaska, I do have a couple of friends who call the state home. Off the top of my head, I think I have seen about 7 or 8 shows: Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, Alaska State Troopers, Flying Wild Alaska, Coast Guard Alaska, and  Gold Rush Alaska. And there’s supposed to be another one coming out soon. I propose the next great Alaska based show should be about triathletes in Alaska!! ;)