Episode 1 - Labor Day Racing and Drinking - A Triathlon and Beerathlon Report

First off, it has been way too long and I have had too much going on to write lately. Second, I don't know if triathletes are likely to include racing and drinking (and my reference to Star Wars...) in the same sentence but well, I do...

My next two posts will be for the 1st Half-Ironman (and not to give away the ending but I finished!!) and my awesome little trip to Sweden for my 35th birthday.

It's so funny how when you do a longer race or just start racing more often the stress of preparation and making sure you got your stuff together starts to go away. And when I say go away, I mean my only care in the world was the fact that I was going to be swamped for two weeks of work, somehow needed to get the house in order, yeah I was doing a tri, but more importantly, we were having our party of the year...and I needed to make 6 lbs of meatballs, sausage and peppers, etc...
all by Saturday, September 2nd. I was glad to be in my 2 week taper, as I didn't know if I would have time to fit everything in...

Some history on this 4th year tradition....
The tradition started about 4.5 years ago, at a girl's night when after a few shots of jager, I asked Christine if she would do a triathlon. She said yes, of course and then we were off to sign up for our first tri.
I wanted to originally do a race in July, but did not feel I would be ready (I didn't know how to swim and thought a swim cap was to keep your hair dry...), so after much searching we found a race on Labor Day weekend. It was May and felt like a feasible goal. As training began, Mike (my husband) and I decided that we should celebrate the festivities with yes, the beerathlon which would consist of 3 sports...beer pong, beer jenga, quarters and then the championship round of flipcup...
As a FYI - my girls team - TEAM HGRC - were the winners for three years in a row.

Fast forward to Race...
I got all my stuff together...
Got to the last with a mere 20 minutes to spare before the "race meeeting."
We had a newbie this year, Susan, who was doing her first and then myself, Christine and Nicole.


All races run differently and I couldn't remember if I was in the 35-39 or the 30-34 since I was turning 35 (ohhhhh) on September 15. So I followed blindly the 35-39 thinking they were my opponents, wrong!!! Anyway, I got into the swim and this year felt surprisingly good, until I got caught in the mix with a few girls and had to swim out to swim back into the canal, probably costing some time.

My heart rate monitor wasn't working and I had no clue and relied on the feel (this will be a theme going into the HIM). I ran out thinking I did much better than last year, got to transition, threw on my bike shoes and helmet and headed out (forgetting my bike computer...)ugh I forgot I took it off for the car ride.
(just thought this was a pretty awesome shot and had to include it...)

Again relying on feel and passing people...
So back into T2, feeling really good, put on my Zoot Tempos and had a bunch of hecklers (i.e. our fan club) yelling that I was doing good, but to get my ass out of T2!!
So I ran...and I felt good, but I guess after all this longer distance training it is difficult to measure how hard you can go without the monitor, so I think looking back I could have hauled ass a lot faster.

I ended the race with a really good time of 1:15 (about 2 min faster than last year) and a 4th place in my age group 30-34...all without the help of my bike computer and HR monitor.

The best part of a race is the people that come out to support because they are the ones that really help you get from point A to point B (and in triathlon world talk...to point C).


and your training partners (without each other it's not as fun)...

and of course, the post race food...
So we got back home, I feel like it was just a mere short workout, not used to this, and got the food ready, had a short 30 min power nap and put on my party hat - ok so not really a hat, well Mike did have a hat...

Party was great -


Friends...



Rules were given...
Teams were getting ready...so the pressure was on...everyone was against the 3 year in a row winners...Hot Girls Running Club (HGRC).
Christine and I rocked at ninja ball (aka ladder ball),

of course, Tanya and Denise were up against a difficult team at beer pong,

and it came down to the nail-biting game of Jenga...

Quan's team won and now we will hear about this for a full year.

We lost this year for the first time in 4 years, but instead of resorting to sadness we celebrated and are planning a major comeback for 2011.
I have to finish this post with the fact that we had the best weekend of our year. We woke up to bloody mary's...



and carried on the rest of the day with expensive toys...

ninja ball...

and drinking...

The next day, I drove with the band, Beyond Dishonor, to North Jersey, where to their surprise received a fantastic review by Project Independent and were told that this was the first band with a perfect score in 2 years!!







Cheers!