An old co worker once told me those are the only three things I do. I can't really argue. 25% of my blog followers have given me a hard time that I haven't written about Black Fly yet-well at least they aren't yelling at me to post the pictures from that weekend too :) Yes, because I have been so busy doing those three things mentioned above, I haven't had time to blog. "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." Clearly it applies to blogging as well ;)
Yes, I somehow survived Black Fly Lord of the Flies and my longest triathlon to date. I'm not sure why it was all ok but it was. It was also the first triathlon my dad has come to and between he and my mom I now have 32483209 photos. My dad has this thing for taking photos when you are making the worst faces because he thinks it's "a great action shot. Woof. Not sure what to do with all these pics but o well.
I also arrived a lot earlier than everyone else by accident and I had some time to kill. After wandering to my old stomping grounds in Plymouth (and finding the best coffee place ever) I ended up here:
And yes, I boldly went galavanting alone into this area. Was the movie filmed in NH?!
So here are some things I learned from Black Fly:
1) I really need to throw myself down some hills on my bike. The bike course is pretty much all downhill and then you climb all the way back up. My bike hit a max speed of 30 mph and that's definitely on the slower side compared to most people. It was pretty scary, although I did get a little used to it by day 3.
2) I didn't know which hand went to my bike's brakes. I was told this was one of the biggest bad triathlete comments I have said to date. But yes, now I know your left hand is your front brake and the right is the back. What did I do before I knew this you wonder? I squeezed them both equally and prayed I didn't flip over my handle bars.
3) Try not to spill beer on children. We were briskly walking through the town square after the bike time trial Friday night and I tripped at the exact moment these 11 year olds were walking by. They were all like, "You splashed me!" I apologized and kept on moving and I felt pretty mortified when they said, "is that beer?!" I quickly replied NO! and kept on moving. They exclaimed they loved beer and I chose to look ahead at my laughing friends rather than turn and see if they were licking the ground. (They really might have been.)
4) It sucks when your bike is racked by fast people. Although I kept reminding myself I was doing 3 days of racing which is something most people can't do, it kind of sucks when everyone is better than you and ahead in the race. There were only 6 people in my age group and I didn't come in last so I was pretty happy with that.
5) Never borrow a guy's body glide-especially when he wears a one piece tri suit. I won't say names to protect the guilty but I was very happy I wasn't the one that learned this lesson the hard way...and that's all I'm going to say on that matter.
6) Doing the sprint triathlon on Sunday was way easier than I thought it was going to be. People told me after I did the longer race on Saturday, Sunday would feel so much easier. It was. I actually felt pretty great. The best feeling is that after the race they give you a towel that has been soaking in ice cold water. Amazing.
7) I call myself "baby" when I need encouragement. Any guy that calls me "baby" quickly finds out that is the first time and last time he will call me that if he wants to keep hanging out with me. That hated nickname is only second to when a guy calls me "girl" (yes, girls can call me girl.) But there I was chugging along up this forever uphill and I found myself saying, "come on baby" as words of encouragement. I have no idea on this one. I guess it worked?
8) There are really only 7 things, I just like the number 8...which was in my Black Fly bib number...and we had yellow swim caps! (One of my favorite colors.)
There you go. I survived and I'm still in love with NH, especially in the summer.
I asked my GOOD triathlete friend for advice before the race and all he said was, "fix your swim cap, it's crooked." Thanks friend, I'll swim much better now that the logo is appropriately on the side of my head!
It almost looks like I know what I'm doing!
BAM!
Also, after doing pretty decent in the Corporate Challenge on Thursday, (#2 woman in my company, #1 at the open bar) I come home to find my white board with my race schedule fell (after 3 years) and took down a lot of stuff with it :(
I think it was just so overwhelmed I actually completed one on the list (Lord of the Flies) and fell over in shock and disbelief. Does that mean I don't have to do the rest of them?
Also, I did a marathon yesterday (of the beer sorts) and one of the bouncers kindly informed me that my ID expires in 4 days as it is my birthday. I felt my ID needed to have some extra viewing time:
(Dear friend in pic, I will cut you out of the pic if you don't wanted to be associated with this trashpile of a blog. Get it, get it? No but really, I won't be offended :)
Happy Sunday night everyone, so happy I have Thursday and Friday off :)
