Thinking of you!

I don't mean to be a bad blogger. I have been thinking of you, my faithful followers. :) It’s just that I've lost a little bit of my blogging mojo now that I'm no longer working towards the original purpose of this blog. Nevertheless, until I come up with a snappy new blog title, I'm going to continue to post here.

Life is good! 2010 has been really great for me so far. I am past the post-ironman blues and I'm enjoying each day as it comes. I am actually loving not having any race goals. That said, I am running the Cherry Blossom Ten-miler in April. Right now my story is that I don’t have a time goal, but not even I believe that one. Haha! I guess I am hoping to beat my previous PR, but we’ll see. I’m not sure if I’ve trained for that.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I am going to do this year. The team race calendar has a lot of great races ahead. The Knight is doing most of them on his journey to Ironman Wisconsin! Way to go, babe! I will tag along, but I’m feeling indifferent about my participation in the races.

So far I’ve decided the following: for the Rumpass in Bumpass and Kinetic triathlons, in April and May, respectively, I will relay. In other words, NO SWIMMING. Ha! Coach Ed puts compiles a list of those who are interested in being part of a relay team and assembles teams of 2 or 3 for the races. Cool, huh?  Just bike. Just run. Bike and run. The Rumpass Oly or sprint. The Kinetic half or the Olympic. Doesn’t matter to me. As long as my teammates don’t care about time, I’m their girl. I've never been shy about my feelings about swimming,

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It is not quitting if you consistently work hard at something for two years, you accomplish a huge goal, and then you stop. :) Okay?

According to my logic, relaying will give me the opportunity to stay involved and potentially help out newbies who are not ready to do a full triathlon. Coach Ed was quick to point out that what the newbies really need is folks to swim for them. Point taken. But nah, I’m not feeling quite that generous.

In July, the team is racing Musselman. You may recall that last year Musselman was my first half Ironman. (My race report  and pictures for those of you who might have missed them.) It was a great experience overall!  And now it is a team race. It is like a homecoming. Part of me feels compelled to do the half again. The competitive part of me wants to do it to beat my time. But you know what, I don’t need to. The Knight is racing and I plan to be there for him. So I decided that I will happily participate in the Sprint (called mini-mussel) and this year’s debut race: micro-mussel. Here’s a quick description:

Holy cow this is going to be fun. In 2010 the Musselman brings you microMussel (µMussel because we're into tiny), a Super-Sprint triathlon the likes of which you've not seen before. Contested on Friday evening, µMussel features absurdly short distances over a closed, spectator-friendly course through Geneva's Lakefront Park.


In the second wave, everyone starts in a single chaotic mass of humanity and must ride an unmodified children's tricycle (with or without bell) or Big Wheels for the bike portion.

• Swim (100 yards) (or so) - Take a flying leap off the dock and start churning. A few seconds later, if all goes well, you'll come ashore at the boat launch.

• Bike (0.6 miles) (roughly)  - What to wear? That's the big question. Don't think about it too long, because you've only got a single loop of Lakefront Park to spin your pedals.

• Run (0.2 miles) (give or take) - Ditch the bike and dash for the finish line, oxygen-starved and cramping like there's no tomorrow. Because in this race, there isn't.

Doesn’t this sound fun? I can’t wait.

So, that’s the plan so far. Once the weather gets a little warmer, I will get back on the bike. (I’m happy to report that I've done some good healing and my hands are 95% better.) Yay! I’ll continue running regularly. And maybe at some point I will get some swim practice in. But I don’t feel a sense of urgency on this one.

A final note: if anyone has ideas for a new blog title, I’d love to hear it. I thought of The Life and Times of IronCat or IronCat’s Life Lessons, but both, frankly, seem stupid to me. Hey, I’m my own worst critic.

Be well!