Or What I Didn’t Do This Christmas Vacation.

For the first time ever, I took two months off. OK, the first time in my 4 years of triathlon and running stuff. Here are the top 10 pros of a taking a true off season:

1. My youngest has stopped accidentally calling me Daddy.
2. I look a little less like Lawrence Taylor due to delt atrophy.
3. My hair is more yellow, less green.
4. I really want to get out and run hard/bike fast.
5. Sleeping in when hung over.
6. Nothing hurts all the time.
7. My bike is new, all over again.
8. Ten toenails.
9. Sunday mornings at the skate park before the big kids get there to laugh at the lame mom.
10. No spandex for eight whole weeks.

And my top ten cons:

1. Sounding like Jack Palance in City Slickers when I run.
2. Falling off my bike sidewards when trying to climb a steep hill. On my street.
3. Everyone at the pool failing to recognize me.
4. Getting dropped and dropped and dropped again.
5. The pain of getting into a too-tight splish.
6. Looking like a sausage in said splish.
7. Having to put my head between my knees at the track.
8. The saddle ache starting 20 minutes into a ride.
9. Re-sensitization of the nose. I can smell my workout clothes again. Sometimes before I even start training.
10. A guy on a mountain bike passed me on a hill. Wearing jeans.

Or Ironman Lack of Recovery. Whatever you want to call it.

The last mile..

I think, well hope, I’m not the only one who gets ancy after sitting around for a week or ten days after Ironman, eating bonbons and peeling sunburned skin off my shoulders. While I understand the need for the body to recover, I also think some of the theories out there about just how long recovery takes are extreme. Made up by someone who wants to keep cyclists off the road, or wants to win the local 10k a month after Kona.. and is trying to trick you into staying home!

The whole one-day-off-for-every-mile-raced that many marathoners use seems extreme to me. 26 days off is not going to work for me. 140.6 days off? No way, Jose.

I had a chance this week to swim with Andy Potts. He raced well in Dallas 6 days prior to kicking butt at Kona, his first Ironman, so I thought I would ask him about a little plan I had brewing in my head and how best to recover. He said to alternate hot and cold tubs to repair the muscles. But not all of us live at the Oly training center, Pottsy. So he said ice baths are good. And then he said that when the muscle soreness of Ironman is gone, and you feel ready, throw in a hard run. If the pain comes back after, you were not adequately recovered.

I’ve renamed Kona. It wasn’t my race, it was my long training day for the marathon at Silverman, four weeks after Kona. I have been feeling good. Lots of swimming, very moderate running, and a bike still living in its box. So I ran 10 miles at marathon pace yesterday. And I woke up today more sore than I was after Kona. I threw the laundry down the stairs in order to avoid walking down. It was messy, but worth it. I guess I’m not recovered.

I guess it’s another week of swimming in store for me then.. happy recovery, all!

The first time I thought it was silly. And maybe even a little flattering. The second time, I was surprised two people would base their definition of race success on someone else’s performance. The third time I heard it, I began to feel like a moving target.

The only person I want to beat at Kona is me. Which I realize gives me something in common with those girls. I will beat the me that decides somewhere around Waikoloa: Screw this ridiculously overpriced torture event, I’m going to drop this bike off at T2 and watch the winners finish from the stands. (With beer and chocolate.) The me that gets bored and chatty as I run through the energy lab, losing focus and making friends to pass time. The me that inevitably panics during the swim start and considers stopping to let the madness go by. If I do the best I can every leg of that race, and stay in the moment instead of spacing out, then I win. Even if some other girl does it faster and tops the podium. Good for her, because she probably had a great day and is ecstatic, and that is all hers.

As always, there are some awesome amateur women racing in Kona this year, many of whom could kick my butt on any given day. My goal is not to beat anyone. My super-secret goal is to beat my time from last year, because why not? If 9:56:19 puts me 12th in my age group, I will celebrate improvement. But I guess that’s not super-secret anymore..

As always, my primary goal is to not die. Seriously, people. It’s an Ironman. It’s a miracle we all don’t die. My secondary goal is to race it. With every ounce of me. I would also like to smile through the entire marathon. And to not do so much math because my math sucks by the marathon anyway.

Not sure if all are aware.. but there is a bit of a Team Timex smackdown going on in Madison today.

Out of the water it’s Keith Meyer in the lead with a very impressive 1:12 split.

This is Keith, bib 664 - clearly a waterboy:

Tom Schuler, our big boss at Team Sports, is bib number 1696 and he followed in a respectable 1:26. He’s a world class cyclist, so Keith had better move it. Here he is getting pumped up for the ride:

Ben Harper, bib 1919 and former team manager, who has some skinny arms, made it out well below the cut-off in 1:57:25. Here he is trying to get faster by osmosis, with Andrew and Sam.

My money is on a big comeback by Harper.

And it turns out that camp actually could have been more fun, had she made it up from Under.

I ran into the gorgeous Ms. Balding fresh off of IM China at Hawaii 70.3 this weekend. We hung out with some pretty mediocre triathletes at starbucks after the race. I think they were a little in awe of us Timex gals, since they didn’t really want to talk about their races. It’s easy to be intimidated around Amanda and I.

Hawaii 70.3 is perfect practice for the big show, and it was one of those days where Kona gave all it could. Current and chop on the swim, and whipping crosswinds on the bike course. Couldn’t tell ya about the run course, as I played spectator for that portion, but it was hot out even standing at an aid station yelling.. those poor boys had to spend a whole 4 hours out there in that weather. It must have been so hard for them. My first DNF was a lot of fun, believe it or not, but it’s a long, rather whiny story, so if you want to read it, you can click here. I advise against it though, I think reading about others’ injuries is bad juju.