Ragbrai & Training

Me and my little riders Team Dairy Air Sailing & biking...what could be better?

After the Trek Triathlon I headed to Iowa for our summer vacation - RAGBRAI. This is the bike ride across Iowa - 7 days, 480 miles.

We went with our good friends and their team out of Wisconsin. We're the Wisconsin Dairy Airs. Get it? It was our 3rd time going and have to say this was quite a different year. I wasn't nervous in the least to ride across Iowa. My husband and I rode a tandem a couple days and our road bikes the other days and just enjoyed a whole new world of doing this now that we're both in good shape. Lance wasn't there this year - (yes, he did Ragbrai a few times after he first retired) but it was still a blast. Our kids rode a day with us too and made it 55 miles!!

As far as training, riding was the best thing for me after the tri. My hip and leg are still giving me trouble running. After I got back I ran a little and got frustrated with not being able to run well. My piriformis and IT band were not having it. It's crazy how cranky you get when your body doesn't perform as expected. Training took on some ups and downs with this. I think it mostly boils down to getting my head together. Coach Matt gave me total perspective again on how you have to take care of yourself - eat, sleep, ease up on the stress, focus. I noticed I was getting super busy and not writing anything down, just getting through workouts last week. By Monday I was falling apart doing a simple swim in the lake. But Coach made me think - back in the fall, none of this was even close to possible for me. I've gone fast forward for 9 months with training and mentally I'm playing catch up to what my body's capable of doing now. I've had workouts where I've felt like throwing up even before I get there because I know what's in store. Getting your heart rate up in zone 4 territory and teaching your body that it's ok to push it and go all out is hard to do! But then it's not as scary next time you do it and you feel like you can pick up a car after you're done... sometimes. So I'm coming up on the big daddy, the Olympic triathlon next week. It's crazy to think that last summer I could barely run a 5k, tooted around on my mountain bike, and literally couldn't swim 25 yards in a pool - let alone a lake! That's TFP.