I kept hearing the music from this movie out on the bike course… I’ll try and keep this short!

The Good:
A new swim PR. In November I started swimming 4x/week, doubling my time in the water. I almost died from the boredom. It paid - took 5 minutes off my time and was out of Tempe Town Lake in 58:43. At the start Maggs and I jumped off the dock holding hands like total dorks. She swam smack into the bridge warming up, winning the dorkier award by a smidgen. It was chilly, and boys were mean to me and aggressively stole my draft until I gave up and swam it alone. It was a pleasant surprise to be told by a T1 volunteer that I was a top 10 amateur out of the water. He was likely lying, but don’t check the results and tell me, I don’t want to know.

The Bad:
The first loop was good. New scenery. Big saguaros like you see in spaghetti westerns. Wind, excitement, that scary disk noise coming from me.. I was thinking 1:45/loop would put me where I wanted to be. My HR was right where the coach said it should be. 1:45 exactly and I was back in town and saw both my parents. Then I had to turn around and go again.. which was fine, but the saguaros were not as exciting the second time around. The wind made me grumpy. My shorts were not cooperating. A bee tried to fly into my mouth. The tailwind on the ride home was nice, but the loop was 7 minutes slower. And don’t be fooled by that word “loop” we really just go out and back, over and over. Loop three was bad, and not in the Michael Jackson way. My HR was low. My shorts were still not cooperating. I was looking for a reason to do a 5+ hour ride and not finding one. My teammate Juli flew by a mile or two out of transition and looked so strong it was inspiring. We exchanged pleasantries in T2 while forgetting to put on our compression socks. She went on to win W35-39 because she is awesome. I finished in 5:29, a new personal worst, and told the nice volunteer they could have my bike forever.

The Ugly:
The run, my favorite part! Except there was this funny time warp going on. I was running 7 minute effort, but 8 minute miles were coming out. My heart rate was 20 beats too low. I have a plethora of excuses: my IT band insertion thingamajig, I ate too much on the bike, I ate too little on the bike, it was hot, I only ate 200 cals on the run, the world hates me, it was karma for running over that endangered endemic bird last week, I am a pansy.. pick which ever you like. It was the most difficult marathon of my life. Running past transition six times gave me six chances to use one of those excuses to quit. But my knee didn’t hurt, so I kept running. The marathon was 3:30.. another PW. I could make the report longer with more details - but instead I think I will sum it all up with: That course kicked my ass.

I finished in 10:03, right smack in the middle of my two previous IM times. BUT - it was good enough for 9th place among the women, making it my highest IM placing ever, which cheered me up almost as much as the giant burrito my dad had waiting..

I forgot a camera, so here’s what I’ve got:

My bike, making friends on the rack:

& My last ditch effort at getting faster by osmosis with Michael & Sergio:

Or Red Lentil & Vegetable Soup recipe.. whatever you want to call it.

The clearance holiday chocolate carried me through to the Valentines Day candy, when I discovered 2 lb. bags of all green peanut M&Ms (practically a vegetable) and by the time those were gone the Cadbury Mini Eggs came out. If only they’d throw a little protein in, I could write them off as recovery food..

But as the season gets rolling, we all know it’s time to start eating better. To fuel our training, not eat for entertainment. Or in my case, as 4pm rolls around and I realize I’ve eaten nothing but crap all day, it’s time to try to make up for it with a healthy dinner.

This Lentil Soup is quick and easy, loaded with veggies, fiber and vegetarian protein, and mild enough that it doesn’t hamper the evening masters swim workout an hour later (yes, I swim. It doesn’t show, but I do it anyway.) Your kids probably won’t eat it, mine didn’t. I found it in Good Housekeeping, as seen at your local dentist’s office.

Red Lentil & Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 medium carrots, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 can (14 1/2-ounce) diced tomatoes
1 can (14- to 14 1/2-ounce) vegetable broth
1 cup dried red lentils
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 bag (5-ounce) baby spinach

In 4-quart saucepan, heat oil on medium until hot. Add carrots and onion, and cook 6 to 8 minutes or until lightly browned and tender. Stir in cumin; cook 1 minute.
Add tomatoes, broth, lentils, 2 cups water, salt, and pepper; cover and heat to boiling on high. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, 8 to 10 minutes or until lentils are tender. Stir in spinach.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION (per 2c serving)

Calories 265 Total Fat 5g Saturated Fat 1g Cholesterol – Sodium 645mg Total Carbohydrate 41g Dietary Fiber 13g Sugars – Protein 16g
Source

Congrats Kim & Kevin on baby Nora!

Kim, my friend Bree’s only goal going into her first ironman this October was to beat her labor time - maybe that’ll have to be your Hawaii goal this year..
I’m just here to link to Bree’s Blog about training for triathlon as a mom and how it changes things. See it here at breeweehawaii.blogspot.com

Hawaii moms - Bree Wee, Ingrid Rolles & me

Six weeks, no mention of the sport. No talk of gear, potential sponsors, coaching, races that might be fun to try. Triathlon is the new bad word and I’m not allowed to say it for six weeks. My seven year-old is the bad-word police; “Mom, he said the __-word!” is an hourly statement. Most recently it was the m-word.. I can’t imagine what that one was, but Henry knows. And it was bad.

After a year of goals the new goal is to not have a goal.

I have been warned of the Noise. I’m not sure what the Noise is, though my teammates will tell you it’s probably coming out of my mouth. I just keep seeing Kevin Costner making it all go quiet in some baseball flick. Is the dreaded Noise the year-end wrap-up, the tri-mag’s most-accomplished list, the she-only-beat- me-because-she-drafted blog? Is it the gossip of our sport, catty as a gaggle of freshman girls at prep school? For me the Noise is inside – it’s a matter of over-thinking things. Like when you learn to play Tetrus and play all day until your fingers hurt and then you go to bed and can’t sleep because your brain is unable to stop aligning blocks as they fall from the sky.

The past two years, off season has meant running a couple of marathons for me. This year it means running, biking and swimming when I feel like it, which means my goggles are going to rot under a seat in the minivan. Not talking about it, not thinking about it — no T-word for at least six weeks. This year it’s going to be about letting go. It might suck. It might require my husband telling me to shut up, or a loud ipod - but I’m going to cut out the Noise.
(I shouldn’t be writing this. Or thinking it. And don’t tell Henry I said the T-word.)

Someday when I am old and fat and slow you will wonder to yourself -Why the hell is Rachel Ross still on the Timex Multisport Team?- so I’ll clue you in now: it’s the pictures I took of our team management at Kona.

Ever had a fever that made you totally delirious? Apparently I tried to swap bikes with Joe Boeness at the bike drop off on Friday afternoon. I have no recollection of this, but Joe doesn’t lie. I slept/hallucinated the rest of Friday away, and woke up ready to go on race day, after my horse-pill sized ibuprofen to get the fever down. I had my pre-race cry (thank you ironmanlive for catching that on film and replaying it for all at the awards ceremony) and got my sorry butt into the water just in time for the cannon. I decided to line up in the front and let the people who actually know how to swim go over me until I found some feet. It was a little painful, but it bought me a six minutes swim PR, so it was worth all the panicked underwater screaming. Swim: 1:03:50.

I rolled over some duct tape in T1 so I got to listen to it flap for 112 miles against my brakes. It was kind of like that water-drop torture you hear about. It was melted on by the end and is now part of my race wheel. April and I passed each other back and forth for the first 30 miles or so, and yelled back at men making inappropriate comments about body parts they shouldn’t be that close to if riding legally. Shortly after Hawi, my eyeballs started to burn in my head again. I reached for the Tylenol to kill the fever and dropped it – and smartly decided to go on. By Waikoloa I was on fire. Not in a good way. I knew the fever was back and it was high. My thinking was cloudy and I was having funky daydreams. So I sat up and spun it in slowly, dreaming of the 800 mg ibuprofen in my T2 bag. It was hard to watch my goal bike split go by, but I managed to get in with time of 5:28:46.

I started the run and saw the family immediately. My training buddy Wil screamed “you have to run 3:23 or better to break 10 – you can do it!” He later told me “I didn’t think you could do it, you looked like crap.” Thanks, dude. I, on the other hand, had planned on running 7:30s the whole way and breaking 3:20, so I actually did think I could do it. I found a Big Island friend and ran down the first of two girls in my AG that were ahead, chatting all the way. Jeff dropped off, so I ran the second 5 mi back to town with Fernanda Keller, who was not feeling very chatty but was a pleasant companion none the less and steady with her 7:30s. I caught the other girl in my AG on the way back to town. Up Palani was more of a party than a run, I saw my kids, my parents, my Oahu friends, and Macca coming down the hill for the win. Sharpie screamed that she loved me, totally making some nearby perv’s day. The pace was pleasant and I made small talk along the road, even though I swore I’d shut up and run this year. Out at the energy lab I saw my superstar friend Bree Wee ahead in the first amateur position (fortunately for me the girl’s a baby and still in the 25-29 AG) and knew I was the next one behind her. I love the energy lab. It’s beautiful and truly the beginning of the end. Lots of people were puking - apparently they don’t love the energy lab. I tried to pick it up for the last 10K home, but it seems holding 7:30s had become my max. I rolled down Palani and onto Alii fairly confident that sub-10 was in the bag. There is nothing like turning onto Alii and seeing that arch. Though it really should be closer to the actual timing mat.. My marathon split was 3:18:45, for a finish time of 9:56:21. Second age grouper (Bree went 9:47 in her first IM!) and 21^st female.

Then I ate a lot of Taco Bell. I mean a LOT, while floating in the ocean behind the King Kam swatting my kids off of my legs. And then I ate a lot of pasta. And then I drank way too much beer. And that just about sums up the following three days. Shockingly, I’ve relapsed and the flu has taken over again, but now I don’t mind.. I wasn’t going to run today anyway.