Monday, June 25, 2012

Body marking...

is the (good?) walk of shame for triathletes...

 ...if I hide in my cube, how many people will actually notice? (Yes, that is this blog post on my computer screen)

How do you get a temporary tattoo off???

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Pond Monster Team Building

If I could do trust falls to establish a good relationship with the pond monsters, I would. However, because that would mean meeting one face to face, I guess I'll have to settle for my weekly anxiety attacks from 10pm Wednesday night to Thursday morning.

So of course it makes sense in the week after I bike the longest I have ever biked, that I post about running and swimming and not mention the bike...

Anyways, I finally made it across good ole Walden this morning. Unfortunately, it still doesn't count as a full mile do to some stingy GPS watches (yet another reason why I'm so reluctant to have watches) but I'm soooo close. We made it to the little sandy stopping spot and I look over at the other side and I'm like ugh I'm doing it.

Because it's so freakin early in the morning, naturally my mind is working in weird ways so of course I had country music in my head. More specifically Luke Bryan's song Country Girl and specifically the part where he says "gonna stomp my boots in the Georgia Mud." I decided that the other side was Georgia and kept thinking to myself that I was gonna go stomp my boots in it. So I'm finally there and I go jump up on the other side and decided I just "touched the butt" for all you Nemo fans out there. (I then had Disney songs stuck in my head but no one wants to swim back with "Be Prepared" from the Lion King going through your mind so I quickly switched back to the chorus of Country Girl.) You know, swimming is kind of like horizontal dancing...but that's a post for another time.

Country Girl just came on my Spotify. Weird.

 In case you are unfamiliar with the cruel Medusa that is Walden Pond here is a nice geographically accurate map:


Also, for your listening pleasure, Country Girl, by Luke Bryan, just in case you need to shake it to the other side today ;)

Cat out!

Monday, June 18, 2012

It's the RIGHT way, ok??

I'm just going to go out there and say it: I'm a quirky person. I don't mean to be, I just tend to have strong preferences about odd things. Clearly which direction I'm running in is one of them.

I really only like to run clockwise.

There we go. I said it. I ran with a running group one time and they ran the reservoir COUNTER-clockwise and I was like O gosh....And then I had that moment where you feel social pressure because you don't really know these people and don't want to admit you're freakin weird vs being uncomfortable. I chose uncomfortable.Worst mile and a quarter. Ever. [read: blogger is over exaggerating big time]

So when I got an email saying I got off the wait-list for the Cohasset Tri, what were some selling points?

Well, let me show you the beginning of the course descriptions:

Bike:   
The clockwise bike course includes 12 miles of scenic roads winding through Cohasset and North Scituate. 
Run:
The 3.2 mile clockwise run will loop around Little Harbor.  

Also, here is the email from the race director when I said I was interested in picking up one of the newly vacated spots:

"YESSS!!!!! - sign up NOW

1) go to www.cohassettri.com  
[..and then he gave me more instructions etc..]
 
Do this NOW to get this number."
LOVE the enthusiasm and clock-wise-ness, Cohasset Tri on Sunday, here we come!

( I will post about the Century ride this weekend, I never said I would blog chronologically!)

PS
Yes, I realize this issue is going to have severe implications on my NASCAR career, I'm working that out with my sponsors as we speak.


Sunday, June 10, 2012

Friday, June 8, 2012

I'm a sucker for a great graduation speech...

This Wellesley teacher is getting a lot of hype about his controversial High School Graduation speech. I think it's bomb. It ties in nicely with the point of this blog. It's not special I do triathlons and yeah, I'm not that great at them, but I work hard and I do them.

"Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you"

 ...I mean, I do like to be seen butttttt that's not the point haha I also like how thus speech  reminds me a lot of what my tattoo stands for. (Maybe I'll post about that someday.)

Enjoy: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/wellesley/2012/06/youre_not_special_teacher_tell.html?p1=Well_Local_YourTownlinks

Ta-Da!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Bad triathlete=good worker?

My new role as team lead got announced today! I had to share what the big boss had to say, I literally laughed out loud at my desk:

"Cat joined us about 9 months ago and has brought a great deal of insight and enthusiasm to the Ad Ops team. I am confident that anyone who runs 20 miles in the middle of the night, with a light on her head, as part of a team relay, can effectively take on the role of Team Lead for the Ad Ops. Cat has committed that she will limit these races so she can be conscious during daylight hours :) Cat will effectively run the day to day operations of the team with guidance from Nicole. I have a lot of faith in Cat and I'm excited to give her more responsibilities. The Ad Ops team continues to impress me and I look forward to ongoing positive improvements."


 Woooo!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Happy National Running day!

I will be celebrating by going out for drinks with co workers for our new sales director who is in town...and then maybe a little run after.

It will probably look something like this:


What's my age again?/How do you run a mile?

*YAWN* sorry I haven't posted my write up on Escape the Cape yet. The rain and the busyness of work this week has got the best of me and I haven't had time to post.

So here we go:

I knew going into the weekend it was going to be bad weather. I referred to "Escape the Cape" as Avoid the Hurricane on my fbook and was prepared for a tough, wavy, swim. I also realized I would have to be up super early to get down to the Cape. I was also just really tired from the week and as I was trying to avoid traffic coming home from work on Friday, I ended up here:

Fail. I also turned on my GPS and it brought me by a strip club and a XXX Store in a trailer....worst ride home ever, so glad it was light out!

So I finally get home and my friend who has a summer house in Plymouth invites me to stay down there for a night. I was easily convinced as the race start is only about 30 min from there. They all go to the bar to watch the second half of the Celtics and wished me good luck and of course the optimistic one in the group added-Don't drown!! Thanks guys. (I won't go into detail about how I got woken up at 3am by two of them playing one-on-one beruit and there was a ping pong ball repeatedly hitting a tile floor.) Basically, it wasn't the prettiest morning wake up and I realize I need to update my GPS's data because I ended up going over BOTH Cape bridges when I needed to go over NONE of them. Oy. Also, when I got out of my car and was pumping up my bike tires in the downpour, I really debated just going home.

So I get there and I immediately see a girl from Zoom! So nice to see a familiar face. I check-in and get all my ish and go to get body marked. The guy is body marking me and asks how old I am...I say 26 and he goes ahead and writes it. I'm putting my sweatshirt back and I'm immediately confused. Did I just say that? Yeah, I'm definitely 25. Who does that? People were like, you know, most people lie and say they are younger. O well, I guess I'm mentally prepared for the big 2-6 next month!

I go in rack my bike and notice a very familiar bike racked next to mine. O hey! It's that same girl racked right next to me! I also saw the two girls I met during Zoom Preseason weekend. Despite the disgusting weather and how tired I was, I was in a really calm "let's do this" mood. Also, the swim didn't look that bad, I was expecting way more waves:


However, the current was moving very fast. I continued to get my stuff together and was just about to commit to putting the wetsuit on (no turning back after that bad boy gets put on) when they announce the Fire Marshall (or something like that) deemed the swim "unsafe" due to a strong undertow and they were making it a duathlon. Say what?? People were very confused and just running around in their wet suits. I, of course, had no idea what I was doing but I was actually disappointed the swim was cancelled. WAIT!? Did I just say I was disappointed the swim was cancelled??? WHO HAVE I TURNED INTO?? Eek...we'll pretend that never happened.

So we all had to run a mile, and then they kept the race the same, (10 mile bike, 3.1 mile run). It hit all of us-how do you run a mile? The last time I ran a mile was after a cross-fit workout and the only time before that was probably in High School to make the Field Hockey team. O well, here we go!

My mile time wasn't that bad and it was pretty uneventful. 7:24. I'll take it. My bike, however, was terrible. Everyone pretty much went out at the same time and it was a big cluster of bikes and people yelling. People were cutting right in front of you, not saying "on your left", passing in groups, someone got in a crash and got taken away in the ambulance etc...I was like ahhhhhhh. I mean, come on people, it's not even a real tri at this point! I decided I was going to bike the best I could, not stress, think of it as "practice" as I'm still getting used to my clipless pedals and just go have the best run ever.

My mounting and dismounting on my bike still leaves a lot to be desired, but I was so determined to drop my bike as quickly as I could and run. And that's exactly what I did! I didn't even grab water, I was just out to the run transition. I definitely made up time from my bad biking and passed a good amount people-a bunch in my age group too! I almost ran it in my 5k PR and it felt great. I really like my yellow lenses in my sunglasses too :) Overall time of 1:16. Not great, but I was pretty content with it.

The best part was that I got to go to my favorite coffee place after (Mary Lous) and hang out at my friend's beach house for the rest of the day.

O, it's probably the right time to mention I also sing in a cover band so I might have set a record that day by racing during the day, and singing Adele by night.




Swim. Bike. Run. Sing. Drink. (finally)


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Before I comment on escape the cape tri and my show last night...

I just remembered that someone told me I had really nice back muscles last night at the bar haha Bad triathlete win!