Monday, July 23, 2012

Last Triathlon of the Season

Yesterday I competed in what will probably (cry) be my last triathlon of the season, NJ State Tri. I performed really well at the NYC Tri a few weeks ago, so was hoping to improve my time this week since they were both Olympic distances.

To much disappointment, it seems like my timing chip was faulty, even though it 'beeped' when I crossed all the timing mats. The official times come out after 6pm this evening, so I am hoping somehow they can fix my preliminary time of 00.00.00. I 'think' I finished it around 2.45 which is a bit slower than NYC, but the swim in NY is a lot faster. I am still so annoyed!

Overall I the race wasn't my best. I woke up feeling sluggish and not really in the mood to race. Dan was awesome and drove us out there @ 5am and I was having my normal panic attack that we would not make it in time, especially when the saw the signs for the Verrazano Bridge lower roadway closure. But we made it (of course) with plenty of time to spare.

I think my swim was pretty good - I didn't have the same issues with sighting as I did in NYC. The lake was beautiful and calm and the water was about 75, which made it wetsuit legal. I could have swam a lot longer! The only negative was I swallowed a lot of water, a habit I have developed recently which I think is what made me sick later in the race. Read on!

T1 was a breeze (I am normally pretty fast and relaxed through transitions), and it was onto the bike. My hamstrings were tight and I was feeling cramped not even after 5 miles. There was a lot of wind kicking around too which made it difficult. Fortunately though I was able to relax, take in some Cytomax and Chia seeds and settle in, and just maintain a comfortable speed of 20m/h. The course was pretty flat, a few rollers but nothing too serious, which for me is a bit of a disadvantage, since I am a strong climber.

T2 again was fine, and then the torture of the run started. It was not a particularly difficult 10K - it was through the woods and actually beautiful scenery, but my stomach was playing up. I actually threw up twice throughout the run, and overcompensated on the water stations to get that taste out of my mouth, so was running on a full bladder. I think I had about 50 people pass me, but I kept trucking and did not slow to a walk. Like I said, I think I finished in about 2.45 which would put me at around 7th out of a field of 50 in my age group which was not too bad considering it was not my best day.

We decided to come back into the city afterwards, even though we had packed our beach stuff to go to the Jersey Shore, but since I was feeling meh, and the weather was overcast we decided to come home.

I headed out later in the afternoon to continue my search for wedding accessories - hairpiece, jewelry, veil, wedding bands, but alas came no closer to a decision. I still don't have a picture of what I want to look like in my mind and since I am not an accessory person (I think they look silly on me), I am having a hard time deciding. AND because I am cheap too, I don't want to pay much for something I won't wear again. I have found plenty of great deals, just can't decide on the style. I am getting sick of looking so will probably bite the bullet soon.

We did not make that much progress on any other wedding stuff or travel/packing stuff this weekend either. I found out I sent the wrong clothes to Liam (groomsman) and Dad - luckily they were about the same size so they can work with what I sent them - I still can't believe I did that, after making sure I checked the packages before they sent!

Friday, July 20, 2012

6 weeks to go!

Wedding, extended backpacking honeymoon, moving out of our apartment... its all exciting but stressful too!

June crawled by, I felt like I had so much time on my hands, but not anymore. July has flown!

We have began packing up the apartment, and I feel like we have made quite a bit of headway, yet we still have so much stuff here! It's amazing the amount of crap that accumulates. We seem to be particularly skilled in collecting power cords and dell chargers.

The wedding plans are pretty much under control, we have a wonderful planner from Baliku Weddings, Katie who has been a dream. Last week we chose the centerpieces, bouquets and ceremony decorations. I have hard a hard time making decisions from photos - but I probably would be even more indecisive if I had the real thing to look at.

The only thing that has really been tricky is the food. Dan and I decided to try a plant based diet (vegetarian) early this year. We watched Forks over Knives and it made us want to give it a go. It didn't come as a surprise, but the chefs at the hotel we are having the wedding at sent us pack the vegetarian menus to look over to select for the main course and they all had fish! We ended up getting it sorted out, but I think its going to be pretty common while we travel through Asia. That could mean we both get really skinny (or eat a lot of plain rice and deep fried vego spring rolls mmmm)

This weekend we are going to try and organize our wedding bands and probably look over the travel insurance yet again which is one of those pain in the ass tasks. I think we will probably end up going with World Nomads or perhaps a combo of Nomad with the AMEX insurance. Its a bummer AMEX will only cover a max 45 day trip, but it is the cheapest option.