Will's Perspective of the Triathalon

Posted by Will

You all probably noticed a while back that I retired from Triathalons from the Bio page. Well after some thought it occurred to me that saying that was a little bit like saying Paris Hilton retired from a job. I figured that in order to claim that I was retiring from the sport, I would first have to participate at least once. So after Sandi registered me for the Vineman – Monte Rio (without asking if I wanted to do it…ie: Sandi’ing) I decided play along and give the triathlon a tri (or “try” for those of you who don’t like homophones).

This was an incredibly insightful learning experience for me, and even though I had a pretty good time, it affirms my decision to leave the triathloning to others for now. So I’m going to break my report down into the three sports. My only disclaimer is that while my critiques may seem pretty harsh, I did have a pretty good time and in no way regret participating.

Swimming (or Aqua-Battle-Royale): Just like Rachel, I also took 22 minutes for the swim…plus I added another 18 minutes, but who’s counting? This is my weakest sport and since my first open water swim was about a week ago, my expectations were pretty low. The low water level and abundance of algae were a challenge, but the biggest challenge was fighting off the savages I was “swimming” with. There is no etiquette to swim racing (at least not in the 34 and under wave). I have been running for about over 10 years and have never seen anyone close-fist punch a runner during a race. Not only is this normal in swimming, but you get to continue punching the person in front of you until THEY move out of the way. The other strange part about the swim is how they structure the wave start. There is little-to-no correlation between age and gender and swimming speed, so why are the waves organized by age and gender? Of the first 50 swimmers, only 12 were men under 35 (and not the first 12 either). There were just as many women under 35 (including our Master Swimmer, Rachel!) in the top 50 swimmers. And, probably more shocking, there were 10 men over age 50 in that group (which was the LAST wave). Both the female under 35 and men over 50 waves had a higher percentage of swimmers in the top 50 than the men under 35. I’ll stop the rant here, but triathlon organizers should consider setting the waves up by projected swim time, not age and gender.

Biking: I would say that I am average at biking, but it is definitely not one of my strengths. My race plan and execution was probably a little conservative on the bike which is reflected in my average speed of a whopping 16.5 mph. I wanted to conserve some fuel for the run and take in a little of the scenery, so from that standpoint it was a huge success. The bike course was almost tailor made for me. It was pretty flat, had a lot of shade, and riding out towards the coast meant cooler temperatures. I was able to see everyone on the bike which was a highlight except when Sandi “reverse-ghosted” me. What’s that you ask? Well, Chen created this thing called “ghosting out” which is when she fades back from her running partner without them realizing it. A “reverse ghost” is the opposite…like when Sandi silently sneaks up on you and then shouts “Hey Iberg” really loud. I might have pee’d a little, but can’t confirm or deny as that entire region was numb due to the fact everything was wet and cold.

Running: Finally!! I don’t think I passed anyone in the swim and the amount of people I passed on the bike was somewhere in the single digits. Finally, I was able to pass some people. I wish the run would have been longer, but since I was well into the 2nd hour when I started the run, it is probably better for me that it wasn’t any longer. Just like the bike course, the run was flat and shaded almost the entire way. My conclusion is that the running portion of a triathlon is more of a mental game that a physical one. I observed two populations of triathlete; those that were runners first and those that weren’t. I witnessed a large group of people that flew by me on the bike, and then walked the 10k (without any obvious signs of injury). I’m assuming this population is mostly people who didn’t enter the world of triathlons via running. They probably love to bike and swim and then just “get though” the run. Anyway, the other population (which I believe everyone on this blog is part of) is those that converted from running to triathlons. For this group, the run is a mental game of making sure the pace doesn’t get out of hand. After a hard swim/death match and a hard bike ride, I laced up the running shoes and hobbled out of the transition zone. Everything felt tired and heavy as if I was running up a steep hill...then until I looked at my Garmin and it said 7:34! Most runners are pretty good at knowing what pace they are capable of maintaining for a certain number of miles, so managing a huge gap between how fast you feel like you are running and how fast you are actually running can be difficult. I don’t know why, but for some reason legs still want to go fast after a hard ride. Regardless, a runner knows this isn’t sustainable so the rest of the run becomes a mental game of trying to connect how the body feels with what pace your watch says you are running. I only partially succeeded at this game since my pace dropped about 40 seconds per mile by the end of the run.

All-in-all the weekend was a great success! Both Rachel and Travers had huge PRs, Sandi finished 10th in her division (behind Rachel’s 8th place finish), and I survived an activity I was trying to avoid. Now I can officially say that I am retiring from the sport, however something is telling me I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll be the Brett Favre of amateur triathlons.

Will

Race report: Vineman Monte Rio

Posted by Rachel

I'm excited to write my first race report here! I haven't raced since we started this blog. I think I almost did a 10k once, but then got a cold and decided against it. Anyway, this is about Monte Rio, so here goes.

Monte Rio is a tiny (seriously... it's small) town about 10 miles east of the coast in Sonoma. It's also right on the Russian River. The location is awesome, even if the coast was a little foggy. We stayed at an inn in town, and other than the race part we had a pretty chill, relaxing weekend. Here are some snapshots:

 Well, it is called vineman

 Relaxing at our inn on the Russian River

 Russian River + Pacific Ocean + fog

 It is surely a "vacation wonderland"

If you know me, you know I LOVE the Sonoma Coast

Sadly after all this eating, drinking, and messing around, it was time to get down to business. I'll divide the triathlon into the three sports and give a short summary of each.

Swim/walk:

I call this the "swim/walk" because the Russian River was shallow. I know the drought has much more serious repercussions than this, but the swim was pretty miserable. The day before the race, we saw some kids playing outside of where the start line was supposed to be and they were ankle deep in water. Not a good sign. So they moved the start line about 150 m upstream, but due to a lack of deep enough water to swim in the race felt very congested the whole time. Out of 24 min of swimming, I walked/trudged through the water for over 2:30 of it. There was a spot we had to walk through at the turnaround (~ 0:30), but the worst was at the end. When I stopped swimming I looked down at my watch and thought "oh, a 22:00 min swim, that's solid". Then it took me TWO MORE MINUTES to walk over timing mat at the water exit. I didn't like it, but at least it was over and I could move onto a sport I like even less. The transition was 1/4 mile up a rocky hill, but luckily we had put sandals down near the water exit. After a 5 min transition (yeah...I need to work on transitions. It didn't help that my black sock blended into my black shoe and I couldn't find it!), we were off!

Bike:

The bike course was really fast. We went out to the coast and back with a ~6 mile detour (a north to south loop) toward the beginning. The day before I got very anxious about the bike ride because I learned there was a 0.8 mile long "no passing zone" about a mile into the ride. Generally, as a relatively strong swimmer and a relatively awful biker, I'm getting passed constantly at that point. I wanted to just write an apology on the back of my shirt for everyone whose race I ruined by being in front of them in this zone. Well, it turns out that there actually weren't many people around me at that point and two people ended up passing me anyway- some random girl, and TRAVERS! I got really nervous that he was going to get DQ'ed, but nobody cared. Why have a no passing zone if nobody cares? I almost ruined a shirt for that!

Anyway, the bike course was nearly perfect except that the pavement in the "detour part" was pretty rough. There was ~650 ft of elevation gain over 24.9 miles. I beat my Olympic distance bike time from last year by 10 min, rolling in @ 17.6 mph. This is great for me but I still have a long way to go. Luckily, I have a husband/training buddy who did the course in an awesome 19.5+mph speed and I can chase him all summer on the bike! Hopefully this will help me get faster.

Run:

This was my favorite sport of the day, taking the top spot from my usual favorite, the swim. My legs felt awesome off the bike, but unlike the last (and only) 3 triathlons I did where the end of the run became a sufferfest, I knew better this time and held back. The run was very flat and mostly shaded. The shade was key- for the small portion of the run near the turnaround that was exposed to the sun, you could really feel it. All the athletes I was around on the run course were really supportive of each other and the volunteers were great. Here's what the run looked like:

Splits & elevation. Yes, my watch is generous, but even Sandi's measured 6.3 on the course and hers is the most conservative watch that I train with!

Overall it was an almost 10 min PR from last year: even on the swim, 10 min faster on the bike, 1.5 min faster on the run, and probably 2ish minutes slower in the transition. The race was really well organized and I would probably do it again- definitely if a group of friends were going. Also, the Garmin 910XT was awesome for multisport! All in all, I'm looking forward to my next tri, and also to the impending IM signup...

Pre-race thoughts: Vineman Monte Rio

Posted by Rachel

I like Katie's idea of posting pre-race thoughts, so here we go. The Olympic distance Vineman Monte Rio tri is this Sunday. It will be my third Olympic distance triathlon, and my goal here is to PR (current PR 2:53). My swimming and running are already somewhat close to optimized (sorry, got a little engineery there), and I can't expect huge significant drops in those legs. What I would really like to see on Sunday is a strong improvement in the bike, and I feel like I've been training hard enough to see at least something. Last year my bike split in my Olympic tri was a lot slower than I thought it could be, but my bike split in the 70.3 was pretty much faster than I thought was physically possible (for me). My point is, I have a REALLY hard time gauging what my bike split should be from my training, so whatever happens Sunday will be either a good surprise or a bad surprise!

It felt wrong to have a blog post without a picture, so here's a pic of the piping hot blueberry cobbler I just made. Don't worry- we'll be eating it with vanilla ice cream.

Another fun fact is that we have two new triathletes racing with us this weekend- fellow bloggers (sort of) Sandi and Will! In the spirit of first triathlons I'm going to make a list-style overview of my first tri (also an Olympic distance), especially highlighting all of the mistakes I made:

1.) The swim went fine. Then again, I had been racing swimming for 18 years. If you can't manage to have decent execution of a sport that you've been doing for that long, then it's a bad sign. In hindsight I may have even taken it a little too easy, but there's no shame in that in a first tri.

2.) My bike wasn't in a low enough gear for the short but steep uphill out of the parking lot. Also, I was getting passed a lot so I basically sprinted the first two miles of the bike, which of course, resulted in me feeling like my quads were going to fall off by mile 10. I'll also add that I ate and drank nothing on the bike because I couldn't take a hand off my handlebars without crashing. Luckily that situation has improved since my first race.

3.) The run wasn't a total disaster, but it was hot. I was feeling the effects of not drinking anything for the last 1:30+ (ok, closer to 1:40). And again, I pushed the first mile WAY too hard. Luckily, I had also been running for a long time so I managed to drag myself through the 10k although I'm sure there was some serious positive splitting going on.

For those of our readers who are triathletes... what mistakes did you make in your first (or subsequent) triathlon?

Ommmm...

Posted by Katie

Today is day #1 of my Ironman 70.3 Lake Tahoe training plan! I am feeling excited about this race and the training. I am feeling refreshed and hopeful that there are enough hours in the day (now that my PhD is done) to train for this race. The plan I chose to follow is a pretty simple one, 3 of each sport, 3 times a week. This isn't a whole lot different from my usual running plans: Run Less Run Faster (3 runs per week: track, tempo and long with 2-3 crosstraining workouts). Actually it is very similar just with more "crosstraining" which I guess we can now call training, and with more double workout days or bricks. So even though it is fundamentally similar... for some reason in my head this feels like a whole new concept and I am excited about it.

What a let down that today is a scheduled rest day of the plan... whomp whomp...

I decided that I am going to make an honest effort to incorporate strength training in this cycle. In the past I have said that and then after 1-2 weeks bailed on it completely. So in the spirit of strength training I decided to go for a yoga class today (hence the Ommm title of this post). I was pleasantly reminded that I really love yoga, especially heated power flow type classes. The instructor today had some awesomely wise words that I thought I would share:

"Meet your body where it is today. Take stock or where you are right now, and then push yourself from that point."

Meeting myself today meant meeting some suuuuper tight hips (thanks to the marathon last weekend) and a weak core (hey I said I would work on it!). In general though I felt surprisingly good and promised to do yoga more often. I think taking stock of where you are in the moment/day/training cycle is something that is easily forgotten and can lead to disappointment or worse, injury. Hoping to keep these words in mind as I start Ironman 70.3 training.

Kona's best downward facing dog.

Garmin 910XT and the open water swim

Posted by Rachel

Finally... a blog post completely dedicated to my favorite tri sport... swimming! To start us off, I'll post a picture of me after our open water swim at Aquatic Park last week (compliments of Will, the "retired" triathlete from our 'Meet the Team!' page who is doing his first triathlon next weekend).

I'm smiling and waving so it doesn't look like I almost drowned in that swim, but afterward I came home and spent an hour reading about "how to not die in an Alcatraz swim"

Anyway, I posted a picture of the map that my Garmin recorded in that swim and commented about how I thought it was approximately accurate. Fast forward to today, when we went open water swimming in Quarry Lakes in Fremont. This swim went MUCH better- no hangover, no chafing, no salt water, no current, and 9 degrees warmer. It was a great confidence booster because I felt like I knew how to swim again. However, I had some SERIOUS issues with my Garmin 910XT. Let's compare the two files:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/507682196  (Aquatic Park, ~275 yards between buoys: 27:34/mile...slow for me, but believable)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/511702991 (Quarry Lakes, ~80 (?) yards between buoys: 47:44/mile...definitely NOT right)

So I don't actually know if we have any readers other than each other, but if so... does anyone else have issues swimming with their Garmin? Is the inaccuracy due to the short distance between buoys? Or is my watch just completely messed up? The average cadence between the two weeks is the same so at least it appears to have done something right.

That's all for now, but I'm sure you'll be seeing another post from me very soon. We have our first tri of 2014 next Sunday (Vineman Monte Rio- Olympic distance) and I'm sure I'll have a whole bunch of pre-race thoughts to share with the blog world, although I'm still not totally on board with sharing my goals on the internet :) We'll see what happens!

Race Report: Mountains 2 Beach Marathon

Posted by Chen

This race report could also be titled: “That time I signed up for a marathon and didn’t tell anyone about it (except for Katie, because she was online right after I signed up, and I felt the need to tell someone about the dumb thing I just did, and Brandon, because we live together, and I’m pretty sure he would figure it out eventually).”

Let me back up.

As you saw in my Boston race recap, that marathon didn’t exactly go as planned for me. While I still maintain that I had a fantastic weekend and that the race was a great experience regardless, I still knew I was capable of a much faster time given my training cycle.

So when I was sitting in my friend’s NYC apartment three days later and discovered (while three drinks deep, mind you) that Mountains 2 Beach had opened up several spots in the marathon after having been sold out for a while, I decided that this was my chance! I’ve known for a while that M2B has one of the best BQ courses around and had been hoping to do it someday – well that day could be today! #winning! I immediately filled out my info and pressed “register” without another thought and then giggled to Katie about it over a quick gchat conversation. She laughed and told me that while most people impulse shop, I impulse sign up for marathons. She was not wrong in her assessment.

The next morning, I woke up with only one thought running through my head: “Well that was dumb.”

As I was signing up, a delusional part of me thought that I’d be able to recover and train up in time to shoot for a PR / sub-3:30 again, but as the days went by, my legs continued to feel fatigued and not-at-all ready to train. So I continued to keep the race a secret for five weeks and focused instead on the other two tri sports that I still had (have) to learn.

Looking back at my running Excel sheet, I ran 21 times between Boston and M2B, with most runs totaling 5 miles or less. In fact, I only ran double digits 3 times: one 10-miler, one 11-miler, and one 16-mile last-ditch attempt at training, 2 weeks out from the race. No track or tempo workouts to speak of. I’m not sure what a smart training plan looks like between close marathons, but that wasn’t it.

To complicate matters further, Brandon and I decided to do a three-day juice cleanse during the week leading up to the race (as I’ve mentioned before, logical decisions aren’t always my strong suit, especially when it comes to running). I’ll do another post on the cleanse later, but it essentially equated to me consuming fewer calories over a 3-day span than I normally consume in a single day (sometimes in a single meal). My shake-out run at the end of the cleanse felt incredibly sluggish (shocker), and I became seriously concerned that I would literally pass out on the course.

Still, I knew that some of my Boston training was likely lingering somewhere in these legs of mine, and I knew that if I played it smart (and ate everything in sight to make up for the cleanse), I could still pull off a decent time.

On Saturday morning, Brandon and I woke up, went for another quick shake-out run (which felt much better due to food consumption the night before; funny how that works), and started the drive down to southern California.  We made it to the expo by mid-afternoon and easily navigated the low-key expo to pick up our bibs (Brandon signed up for the half marathon waiting list once I told him what I’d done and managed to get in a few days before the race).

Small, simple expo at Ventura High School

We headed to our hotel and then eagerly drove to dinner, as we had been anticipating a visit to a particular restaurant for weeks. Which restaurant, you ask? The one, the only – Olive Garden. 

I know – with all the great food we have in the Bay Area, who goes out of their way to eat at Olive Garden? WE DO. We were both huge fans of the chain as kids, and neither of us had eaten there in at least a decade. When we got there, we were a bit shocked to see how many people were waiting in line, but I suppose I was glad to see that Olive Garden continues to prosper!

We were seated within 15 minutes and immediately started chowing down on the unlimited salad and bread sticks. I ordered seafood parpardelle for my main, while Brandon had chicken and fusilli. We both emerged from the meal PAINFULLY full, but hoping that the extreme round of carbo-loading would help us out the next day. We also had ice cream from one of my favorite SoCal spots, McConnell’s, and we headed to bed early with an extremely early wake-up time looming.

So many childhood memories… minus the giant beers.

2:50am Sunday morning came around quickly, and it was time to get ready and head to the shuttles that would take us to our respective starts. Because we signed up so late, we were assigned to the earliest shuttles, meaning we had to wait an hour and a half at the starting area. I used the time to visit the porta-potties five times – not the worst thing in the world. If I do this race again, though, I’ll remember to bring a blanket, as lying directly on concrete wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world.

At 5:45am, I ditched my hoodie with the bag check folks and got into the starting corrals. It was already relatively warm by the time we started, and I knew the temperatures were forecasted to linger in the 60-65 degree range, so I reminded myself to stay controlled and do everything I could to avoid the bonking I endured at Boston. While I hadn’t set a goal up until that point, based on how I was feeling, I decided to aim for 3:40 or less.

The race started right on time, and we started our tour of Ojai for the first 9-(or so)-mile loop (such a cute town, by the way!). I knew that this was where all the “climbing” would be, so I kept my pace conservative until we started down the bike path that would take us to the ocean. Similar to what I did during the first half of the Presidio 10-miler, I controlled my pace by making sure I was never breathing too heavily at any point, especially during the two mile climb during miles 6 and 7.

I have “climbing” in quotes above, because as you can see, climbing wasn’t really something we did throughout the race. This was by far the fastest course I’ve ever run!

Mile 1: 8:18

Mile 2: 8:09

Mile 3: 8:06

Mile 4: 7:59

Mile 5: 8:07

Mile 6: 8:26

Mile 7: 8:22

Mile 8: 8:14

Mile 9: 7:59

Mile 10: 8:09

I watched a lot of people pass me during this first loop but didn’t let it get me down or deter me – I had (somewhat of) a plan, and I was sticking to it. I crossed the halfway mark in 1:47:07 feeling good. Anytime I started to feel at all fatigued, I would focus my attention on keeping my cadence high and my steps light. It was a good distraction that quickly changed my mental state to a positive one every time.

One thing I found interesting was that I actually felt better and more controlled on the flatter sections than the ones that were noticeably downhill. It’s not actually surprising, as I only ever train on the rolling hills in Golden Gate Park or the perfectly flat Bay Trail along the peninsula. For anyone thinking of doing this race, it would definitely be a good idea to find long gradual downhill stretches to train and practice on – your quads will thank you!

I started to feel really good around mile 17 and started passing all the people who had passed me earlier. I was still a little nervous that I would blow up at any moment, but I went with it anyway. The 3:35 group had been far ahead of me the whole time, but I started to catch up to them slowly but surely and started to entertain the idea of trying to BQ. I knew if I just maintained my current pace, I could do it, but again – blow up fear remained.

Mile 11: 8:16

Mile 12: 8:12

Mile 13: 8:03

Mile 14: 8:12

Mile 15: 8:03

Mile 16: 8:06

Mile 17: 7:57

Mile 18: 7:57

Mile 19: 8:06

Mile 20: 8:02

I continued to feel really strong through mile 22.5 or so, when I stopped briefly to drink some water and electrolytes. I always walk through water stops, so this was no different, except that this time, I had a REALLY hard time getting going again. I knew that because the electrolytes on the course didn’t have calories, I hadn’t taken in as much fuel as I normally would have by that point, so I decided to break out an unprecedented 5th Gu (I’ve only ever had 4 or less in my 22 previous marathons) and downed it in the hopes that it would pull me through.

It took a few minutes, but it seemed to do the trick. I certainly slowed a little bit in the remaining miles, but I was able to hang on and avoid any major bonking episodes. After my Garmin beeped at the 26th mile, I picked up my pace as much as I could for the last stretch and crossed the finish line in 3:33:52 (3:33:53 official time).

Mile 21: 8:09

Mile 22: 8:05

Mile 23: 8:24

Mile 24: 8:18

Mile 25: 8:09

Mile 26: 8:14

Mile 26.24: 7:31

Garmin stats:

26.24 miles

3:33:52 (~8:09.0)

First half: 1:47:07

Second half: 1:46:45 (the closest I’ve ever come to even-splitting!)

I was really happy with the way I ran this race, and even though it wasn’t a PR, it was still my 3rd fastest time ever. I really couldn’t have asked for a better outcome given my lack of training and cleanse stupidity. The race itself was also beautiful and well-organized, and it’s definitely one I will do again if given the opportunity.

26.2 / 13.1 miles done!

Brandon and I spent the rest of the weekend in Santa Barbara, where I and several of my fellow blog authors went to grad school. I hadn’t been back in quite some time, so it was great to visit again and show Brandon all of our old spots. Our time was mostly focused on eating and drinking, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking there:

Post-race shrimp cocktail, lobster tacos, more giant beers, and mint chip ice cream, consumed atop the Santa Barbara pier

Obligatory selfie, taken from the aforementioned Santa Barbara pier

Delicious Vietnamese food the next day: fresh spring rolls, curry noodle soup, shrimp stir-fry, more McConnell’s ice cream

Since this is still a triathlon training blog, I’ll mention that before leaving Santa Barbara, we went for our first open water swim. My thoughts:

Likes:

• Rachel was right – wetsuits ARE like a flotation device! It’s nice to know that if I get tired in a tri, I can just flip onto my back and float for a while
• Wetsuits also keep you warm and cozy – despite water temps of 57 degrees, I felt completely comfortable temperature-wise the entire time
• East Beach was particularly calm that morning, and it made for an ocean swimming experience that was far less scary than anticipated

Dislikes:

• Salt water. I managed to inhale / swallow a lot, and I found myself missing the familiar chemical taste of chlorine
• NO visibility. Santa Barbara waters aren’t exactly clear, and I found it frightening to look into the water and see nothing below me. Sometimes I’d even have to close my eyes and only open them while breathing to prevent myself from getting too scared.
• Lack of sighting skills. I thought I was bad at swimming in a straight line in a pool, but my goodness, I’m terrible at sighting buoys. I'm surprised I didn't swim straight out into the ocean, never to be seen again.

All in all, we had a fantastic long weekend down in SoCal! And I’ll try not to sign up for anymore surprise marathons anytime soon...

Memorial Day in the Bay (part literal)

Posted by Rachel

After our excursion to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, we decided to stay around home this weekend. Luckily since CA is amazing, that doesn't mean we had a lame weekend, at all!

On Saturday we did a 42ish mile ride up in Sonoma. You know it's a good start to your day when the following happens: After a 1.5 hour car ride, you go pee under a well-hidden tree that is in the middle of NOWHERE. You come back and tell the others (since everyone has to go) "that's a good spot to pee, it's really isolated back there". One of your fellow riders (a guy) who goes to do the same quickly returns, without peeing, and says "don't get creeped out... but there's a man in the tree". Sweet. Anyway, we all got a good laugh (except me) and when the man emerged from the tree it didn't look like he had any personal possessions, video cameras, etc; so no harm done I suppose.

So onto the ride. The distance and amount of climbing weren't anything out of the ordinary, but there was a 1.5 mile section that averaged > 10% grade (up to 20%, I hear) that was PAIN.FUL. Had I been moving any slower, I would have been going backwards. It was also about 90 degrees and the ride was very remote, so needless to say by the end we were all pretty tired, hot, and thirsty. This ride was called "The Geyers", and this was the rewarding view from the top(ish):

Panoramic views of somewhere in Sonoma County (I think). Either that or it's the county north of Sonoma County, directions aren't my strength.

Of course, after a huge bike ride in Sonoma followed by lunch, the logical thing to do is go wine tasting so we did a little of that as well.

The guys are a little tired after the bike ride

On Sunday, Sandi and I met up on a whim/unplanned and got in a nice 12 mile run on the Bay Trail while wearing the same outfit (also unplanned). Afterward we hit a couple of local wineries on bikes (on Saturday 50% of us had been DDs, so this was a little more fun). Then my neighbor invited us to a picnic on Lake Merritt, which seemed like a great idea!

Turns out there are things to do at Lake Merritt other than run!

The BBQ/picnic was really fun. You know it's a good party when it lasts into the night, and when you frequently hear the phrase "we should've brought more than 1 bottle of wine per person".

BBQ/wine on the Lake @ night

Then it was up early again this morning for an open water swim in Aquatic Park in SF (this explains why our Memorial Day weekend was in fact, part in the Bay). Co-blogger Sandi did her first open water swim here and did awesome- even though the water was cold and the current definitely wasn't fun! My swim was actually a little bit tougher than I expected based on how strong I've been feeling in the pool lately. Since my face was so cold I couldn't feel it, it's hard to evaluate whether a hangover had something to do with my struggles. This was a great chance to try out my Garmin 910XT in the open water (first time I've used it swimming) and it seems to work fairly well. The data (although slower than I'd like) is very believable, although the lines it draws on the map are a little off.

 I'm actually not THIS bad at sighting. Also, I'm fairly certain I started and stopped at the same buoy. Otherwise, the data seems reasonable.

Looks like I better practice this a little bit more before attempting to swim from Alcatraz. That's all for now- I hope everyone had a great weekend and happy birthday to my sister!