the rest is still unwritten

Someone PR'd today!!!!!

Me?

Heck, no.

MY MOM!!!!!! :) Congrats to my awesome Mom who broke an 11 minute mile for the first time in a 5K!!! I am soooo proud.

So much to say I hardly know where to start!!!!

Must type as fast as my brain is going.....

First, sorry Eric and Greyhound that this has taken so long! I just got back from the best ride of my life. More on that later.

Got to the race around 8:20--picked up my number and then waited for qcmier (aka TriAlv2006) to come! He was doing a long run and said he could run a few miles with me as a tempo run in the middle. How much does he ROCK???? He paid the entry fee and everything. What a cool dude.

So we lined up for the start. I was a little nervous but tried to remember that I'm the strongest I've ever been right now and that I can do this....TriAl was joking around with me and helping to focus me on the race. The gun went off, and we were off.

First mile, felt A-OK! It really didn't feel very fast. This is good as I have a tendency to go out RIDONKULOUSLY fast and then die. We did 7:30 on the dot. Now I just hafta hold that!

Famous last words. :)

Mile 2 and 3 were slower, despite TriAl barely breaking a sweat :) and doing everything he could do keep me truckin' along. I felt like I was having a hard time getting a breath in and I was just a little bit queasy, too...

The last .1 I absolutely full-out sprinted and got in a foot race at the end! That was fun, and TriAl jokingly scolded me for having enough juice to do that--of course, if I had enough to sprint at the end I probably didn't push hard enough. Sigh. Story of my 5K life.

So I was about 50 seconds (I think?) off my PR. I was a little bit bummed, but still tried to stay up. Speaking of up, I felt my stomach about to throw up...headed to a clearing in the nearby woods as TriAl cheered me on and said, "Go ahead--let it go--nuthin' wrong with that!"

But no hurl came. Whew.

OK--now to cheer my Mom on--WOW, she turned the corner at 33:30!!!! I knew she was about to PR, so I ran her in the last 100 yards or so....and then she proceeded to wobble over to the EXACT SAME SPOT THAT I ALMOST HURLED SO SHE COULD ALMOST HURL! I started laughing so hard.

"Like Mother, like Daughter," said TriAl to my Dad. I'm not kiddin'--out of all the spots in this huge forest area we could have gone, we went to the same spot about 9 1/2 minute apart. My mom ROCKS.

So anyway, I really got to thinking and told TriAl that I haven't done one of these in SOOOO long that it's easy to forget how to do it. Which sounds rather dumb--how do you forget to run a 5K? But it really is a fine art--how to push yourself to the brink of exhaustion at a steady pace for 3.1 miles. I think if I could try again in a week or two, I might have a better shot, as I dug back in the archives and found that the last time I RACED a 5K--raced HARD, for a PR, and not at the end of a triathlon--was October of 2004.

So a year and a half ago.

So thinking that I could miraculously PR after a year and a half hiatus from that kind of race is rather silly, huh?

Yeah, I think so too.

There will be PLENTY of time for that--now I know that I can, that the numbers say I can, and that I have a goal to work on next year, or maybe in 2 years, who knows? I ain't goin' nowhere. :) I'll be doing this stuff until I keel over.

But this year, as both TriEric and TriAl have been telling me, is about IM MOO. So, to be about 50 seconds off my PR without doing really any 5K style training except for a few sweet track workouts, and after a year and a half hiatus is not too shabby.

Still, the overachiever in me was still a little disappointed KNOWING that I CAN run much faster and DIDN'T. Even though the circumstances of IM training trump everything else. So what could I do to make it up to myself today? How, in the words of Keryn and the infamous Robo-Stu, did I prepare for Ironman MOO today?

Answering that by saying, "I ran a 5K" is pretty lame.

The sky is blue and cloudless. The temperature is 65 degrees. The wind is low. I knew what to do.

God works in funny ways. For me, I prayed for a good 5K. His response, I've concluded, was as if to tell me in a nice way, "Hey dummy--get over the 5K. This ain't the year. Get your butt on your bike."

I knew what I needed to do.

I hopped on my bike for what was hopefully going to be a 3 hour ride. I thought, well maybe I can average 16.5 or so. I averaged 16.5 last year in the Pineman Half-Ironman in September. That's a good goal.

Only I was on FIRE. I felt so good. The first half hour I was a little sluggish, but I decided to give my Perpetuem another shot.

Perpetuem, for those who don't know, is a fuel that you can drink. It's like eating a ClifBar, except you are drinking all that. It's supposed to be good to avoid stomach distress and just a great fuel on the bike.

Except it tastes like my sweaty shoe.

Now, some fools on the package told me that it tastes "Like an orange creamsicle." I would like to take said creamsicle and shove it where the sun don't shine.

But I thought, well, let's try it. The stupid tub was $25 and I'm stuck with it.

So when I took a quick break at around an hour, I held my breath and chugged. You know, kinda like you do with free Natural Light keg beer in college. Ugh.

But man, does that stuff work. I felt like I had so much GO in my legs--and this after racing this morning! I was FLYING. I knew it was a message--God's trying to tell me in his own way through several people, my race results, and my ride, that I am TRISARATOPS. I am not 5KSARATOPS--at least not this year. Focus on the goal at hand. That goal is to get my mind, body, and spirit ready for the most physically and emotionally challenging event of my entire life to date on September 10th.

So NOW, if someone asks me what I did to get ready for IM MOO today, I can proudly reply:

Had a great tempo run with my awesomely supportive training buddy, qcmier. Was only off my PR by about 50 seconds, despite not racing a 5K in 18 months. Then had the BEST RIDE OF MY LIFE on a beautiful day before I had my Arizona traveling buddies over to cook out and enjoy the weather before I celebrated Easter.

Why, you say, was this the best ride of my life?

Remember my stat from above? Pineman 56 miles averaged 16.5? That was my goal for today?

Time--2:53
Miles--51.08
Pace--17.8mph average

Thanks to all my supportive buddies, with a big nod to the one Upstairs--I am TriSaraTops.

I'm a triathlete.

This is IM year.

Hop along for one crazy ride!

UPDATE as of 12:27am (yes, I'm still awake--just had a cookout by the fire outside and it was sooooo fun)--> my time was good enough for 5/31 in Age Group! How 'bout that. Not sooo bad after all. We'll take it. :)