September is a good month

Posted by Rachel

Not my favorite month, but a good month. Traditionally, fall has always been my favorite season. Technically we don't have legitimate seasons here in California, but there's still something about September-November that's pretty awesome. This month, between my trips to the central coast, London, Tahoe, etc it has definitely been a fun one. Here are some thoughts I've had since my last post (the London run):

-An hour after I walked in the door from my London trip, I got into the car and drove to Lake Tahoe. I was signed up to volunteer at running aid station #1 and I was excited about cheering on my husband and friends in the race, which was probably helping to fend off the jet lag. I had asked Travers whether the drive would be smoky, and he had said "only a little". When I was driving, I noticed the smoke was way more than a little. WAY more. When I got there, everyone seemed in good spirits and optimistic about the race continuing, so I didn't say too much and got into it. The next morning I was supposed to be at the aid station at 9:00 am, so I thought I'd wake up at 5:30, get a run in, and head to the swim start at 6:30 before heading off to my post. It wasn't too smoky in King's Beach so maybe there had been a favorable shift in the winds. I was excited to see the pro swimmers and the start of the Ironman, in general. I ran a bit and was standing on the beach in my running clothes when I heard the announcement- the race would be canceled due to smoke. Even as someone much less invested in the race than the hundreds of suited-up swimmers around me, I still couldn't believe my ears. After he repeated it, I started sprinting back to the rental house to tell my friends what I had heard. I saw them half way and they had heard it, too. Huge disappointment! The only good to come of it was that we made some pretty tasty breakfast sandwiches and hung out at the house for a while. Also, a couple of those friends are now signed up for 70. 3 Rancho Cordova next weekend so I can't wait to see how awesome they do!

-Monday spin class: I hadn't biked in a week so I started a little slow. I realized my power meter was reading about 20 W. Hmmm. Am I THAT out of shape, or is this thing broken!? Eventually, the screen showed the word "POWER" with a picture of a battery with a line through it, which hopefully confirms it was broken. At the end, my average was 7 W, and I realized I like spin class a lot better when I don't know my data!

-I'm in week 3 of my half marathon training plan and I had both some great (track, tempo) and some not so great (long, easy) runs. Being a few weeks into running has been a good reminder of how much I love the sport. Between that and swimming, it's no wonder the triathlon is a pretty good fit for me. Still working on that positive outlook for biking :)

-Broads Run Broadway: For Sandi's birthday, our "present" to her was to all sign up for a 5k and run it with her. Initially we were going to run it aiming for a PR, but earlier in the week we received an email informing us that the run was untimed. So we (well, most of us) decided to have a little fun with it (one of us ended up seriously "racing"). Halfway through, I was running by and I heard "water" and decided to ignore it because we were only running 5k. Then I heard the same voice yell "wine!". Wine?! I put on the brakes and did what I had to do. After the first time I had wine during a race I swore I'd never do it again, but how bad can 1.5 miles be?! Turns out it was ok this time, although I still won't have any in the Healdsburg half next month. The theme of the run was "dress up as your favorite movie star", and since we already had a real life Sandi, we decided to be Grease-themed. We ended up winning a trophy inscribed, "2nd Best Dressed Broads" for our awesome costumes!

Thanks to Danielle for the picture, and Michelle, Sandi, and Chen for the costume/hair!

October- here we come!