Nobody told me before........

This is a blog entry I copied from another triathlete-----It seems to sum things up pretty well ;)


There are a lot of things that nobody told me would happen to me before I started doing triathlons. A lot of strange side effects that maybe needed some forewarning aside from the obvious like, "your aerobic capacity will increase and your resting heart rate will go down." No, these are some sneaky little things that you might never even think of, and although all of them won't happen to every triathlete, I am pretty sure that they will happen to most who take up the sport after a lifetime as a non-triathlete.

-Food will become infinitely more important to you than it ever was before, and in several aspects. You will constantly think about what you are eating and if it is the best fuel for your workout. You will suddenly start caring about carb/protein ratios. You will be a whole lot hungrier, and it is the kind of hunger that most normal people do not understand. So if you are on a long car ride with several non-athletes and you tell them you are hungry, there is no way they can possibly understand the urgency of the situation.

-You will find yourself using an awful lot of porta-potties, whether they be at races or on a pitstop in the middle of a run or bike workout. It will become so normal to you that you will forget that most normal adults do not have occasion to use them very often, and they will likely look at you like you have 3 eyes if you should suggest they use one.

-You will suddenly have no problem discussing bodily functions around others. Normal people won't usually offer up a story about nearly crapping their pants in casual conversation, but for a triathlete it just becomes a story that we can all laugh at, and most of us, unfortunately, can relate to.

-Along the same lines it will suddenly seem perfectly acceptable to pee yourself when covered head to toe in a neoprene suit. Normal people aren't really into that kind of thing, but we just call it "warming up" *I will say though that I have met one triathlete who still chooses not to do this, but that is only one and the rest will happily admit it.

-Your time between laundry loads will shrink considerably as the dirty clothes will pile up faster than you can imagine. This is especially true in winter with all of those extra layers.

-You will start to plan vacations around races and with most social events that come up you will immediately wonder, "how will that conflict with my training schedule?"

-There's a good chance you are going to start getting up just as early on weekends as you do on weekdays so that you can get your workouts in.

-You will lose your ability to stay up late at night. And by late I mean 10, or in my case, 9.

-Suddenly a 7-day week will run Monday-Sunday and not Sunday-Saturday as the calendar might suggest.

-You will probably master changing clothes in your car without anyone noticing.

-It will suddenly feel perfectly natural to walk around in stretchy shorts.

-Several times a week you are going to smell chlorine in your nostrils all day long. This of course is dependent upon you actually doing your swim training.

-You are going to have to take a lot more showers. Or at least I hope you will.

-It won't seem weird to do a workout in the morning and then still have to do another workout when you leave your job at the end of the day. To a lot of people that is compulsive exercising. To us it is just training.

Careful, it might happen to you, too. :)

One Word.

Last Sunday, Matt and I were listening to Chip preach at Pinelake. This series of sermons has been related to heaven. During part of the sermon, Chip asked us to think of one word that would describe how we feel right now. He said he imagined that most people's word would be 'tired'. I will admit, at that moment, he was right. I WAS tired. I AM tired quite a bit lately----most busy month ever at work, triathlon season at its peak (which means mass emails from MS Heat members every day to answer ;), training, training, and more training, etc.

Matt looked at me during church and said, "Hmmmm.......if I had to pick one, it would be 'content'." I sat there for a moment, and I couldn't help but smile inside. What better word to describe how you feel but content? It sure made me feel good ;) I know I am not a perfect wife by any means, but being married means taking the good with the bad. He sure loves me, through my happy times, as well as my horrendous, PMS-stricken moody and devilish times!!!!

And although my word for the day might have initially been 'tired', if I had to pick a word for my life right now, it would be 'blessed'. I am totally, 100% blessed. I deserve nothing that God has given me, yet he has showered me with a wonderful, attentive husband, a beautiful family and friends, perfect health and fitness to partake in Ironman triathlons, and a wonderful job in which I can help others first-hand. I couldn't ask for more. Often, I just stop in the middle of the day and pray quietly, "thank you God. Thank you SO much for all you have given me." For I am BLESSED, indeed ;)

Mental Toughness

Mental toughness: Let's just say we finely sharpened ours this past weekend. Friday evening, they were predicting tornado-type weather for the entire weekend. We were due a long ride and run, as usual. Saturday morning, we woke up with plans to either drive to Vicksburg to get some hill work in for preparation for Canada, or ride with some friends in Madison.

Yeah. Neither one of those quite happened. Matt woke up early to check out the weather radar. It looked like it was heading straight for us, so we didn't want to chance being out on our bikes for that long period of time. We really didn't have any other plans for the weekend, so I guess no better weekend to have to stay inside.

Here's where the mental toughness comes in: 3 hours 30 minutes on the trainer, followed by a 4 mile brick run. Now, it really doesn't sound THAT bad when you put it into writing, UNLESS you regulary ride a trainer. 1 hour is doable, although not fun. 2 hours is not only not fun, but starts bordering on dreadful. It's where you hit that 3 hours and beyond point where the fun REALLY starts. (sarcastically put, of course ;) We decided to take a mini 5 minute break after each hour. That, combined with non-stop Lost episodes on Netflix made it bearable. The thing that made us want to pull our hair out, though, was the fact that when we got finished, the weather ended up turning out ok. We rode the trainers for that period of time, when we might could have ridden outside:(

Saturday, we also tracked our 4 friends from Mississippi competing in Ironman St. George. It was fun seeing them progress throughout the day!!! We got to watch them all cross the finish line live on ironman.com

Today, however, was another test for mental sharpness, I suppose. Plans were to wake up at 5:30am, hop on the bike trainer (oh,how I missed it SO much!! ;) for 1 1/2 hours, then a long run.

Newsflash once again: that didn't happen. We woke up to see it lightning outside our bedroom window, and could hear the rain pounding down on the rooftop. The bonus was at least that we got to sleep till 8am. Up we went: hopped on the bike trainer to get that over with for the day. We would miss our brick, but did what we could.

Once we got off the trainer, we could see the sun shining. Perfect!!! It's like this was some type of cruel mother-nature joke on the Cassell's !!!!! Ughhh. We couldn't miss church for a long run, that's not even a question, so we decided we would eat a big breakfast, go to church, then come straight home, throw on some running clothes, and get out the door to get that long run complete.

Hello HUMIDITY!!!! If today is any indication of how hot this summer is going to be, we are in for a rude awakening. "Mental toughness", we told ourselves. "Ironman Canada is going to be hotter than IM Florida was, so we need this." (at least we told ourselves that to tolerate the run.) It was 90 degrees with 89% humidity (which we didn't find out until AFTER our long run, once we were severely dehydrated and felt like death warmed-over ;) Never underestimate what hill intervals done on the trainer the day before a long run will do to your leg power!!

It was a LONG, mentally long, run for sure. We aren't used to this heat already, and our bodies showed it. I really don't feel like doing anything the rest of the day, except lay around. (which I most likely will do :)

In the end, though, even though this REALLY was a mentally tough weekend for us, we do realize it will make us stronger. The mental battle of this thing called Ironman really does matter. When you are out on the course for that long period of time, if you don't have mental strength up top, I don't think you'll make it. We have 4 months left to sharpen it up.

With that note, I am going to hibernate on the couch for a bit. My toughness has been sharpened for the day. :)

Dentist trips, home tours, and a little training ;)

A major accomplishment for me? Surviving the dentist.


A lot of people will laugh and say they are frightened by the dentist, but I am DEAD serious. I haven't been to the dentist since before I moved to Jackson, which is almost 4 years!!!!! Ok, so one reason was because of dental insurance, but I can only use that excuse to get me through 1 year of not going ;) No offense to any of my dentist friends out there, promise!!! I think it stems back from my childhood. I had the absolute worst dential hygenist that would clean my teeth SO hard, that I would have to hold back the tears:( It scarred me for life, I'm afraid.

I wasn't cavity-free, but I am pretty proud of my teeth update, considering it's been that long!!! I made a promise to myself to take better care of my teeth and go to appointments every 6 months like a good girl from now on ;)

Training went back to full-force this week, after a VERY easy recovery week last week, following NOLA 70.3. I must say it was verryyyyy nice!!!! Our bodies needed it. So, what did we do with all our spare time? We looked at homes----once again, just for fun for now, but I am keeping a little folder of all the ideas we like, so when the time is right, we can remember exactly what we loved!!! Here are some photos we took of a couple of homes that we loved!!

We LOVE the stone on this home ;)

We love, love, love the slate in this kitchen ;)

We are definitely fans of this style staircase and look-down into living room!

Perfect little entryway! Would look awesome with a big black/white family portrait ;)

Great back patio ;)


I could do some MAJOR baking in this kitchen ;)


This morning was hill repeat workout day---------my most dreaded day of the week :( We did survive, however, and all we have left for the day is an easy recovery ride this evening..........thinking of joining the MS Heat group at Soulshine for a little ride if the weather stays beautiful.

I survived call last week, and Matt is surviving his call this week as well------the nights have been extremely pleasant for his call, including no calls after 10:30pm all week??!! Wow!! It's been awesome :)

We originally had plans to drive to Chattanooga for 3 states, 3 mountains century ride for some great Ironman Canada training on hills, but the weather is not looking so good. We don't want to chance a 6 1/2 hour drive with bad weather predicted, and we are saving up money for Memphis in May triathlon weekend, so we decided not to do both. We are thinking about making it a Vicksburg hill training weekend. That, along with being lazy and tracking our Ironman St. George friends Saturday...........and I'm thinking Keifer's patio and some pita moz and Chicken Gyros sound just about perfect tomorrow night ;)

Retirement-----from a Triathlete into a Duathlete ;)

Ok, so not really. But the Lord knows that I could compete a lot better at duathlons than triathlons. I have lost my age group before ever getting out of the water. It really does not settle well to realize you have missed your goal time for the day once you look at your watch upon exiting the water:( Oh well!!

New Orlean Ironman 70.3 Race Report:

We arrived to NOLA late Friday evening after meeting Matt's family in Hattiesburg for dinner. We checked everything in, and actually got a good night's sleep. Saturday morning, we met a couple friends at Mother's for a wonderfully healthy breakast of buttery pancakes, fully sugar maple syrup, and huge buttermilk biscuits with jelly ;) YUMMY!!!!!!!


After the carb-loading that took place at Mother's, we headed over to pick up our race packets and numbers. We had to sit through a 20 minute briefing, which I never really understand the point of, and we checked out the expo for a bit. After this, we headed back to the room, packed up the bikes and rested for a bit, grabbed a light lunch from the hotel restaurant, and then drove our bikes to check-in at UNO.
We tested them out around the parking lot, since they had most of the roads blocked off in the surrounding area. It's always fun to check out the nice bikes in transition around you!!! Lots of money spent on this sport is an understatement ;)




After checking in the bikes, we headed back to the hotel for just a bit. We met a few more friends for dinner at Gordon Bierch(sp?) and then turned in for an early night's sleep. I never sleep the night before races, but I was excited that I actually had no trouble sleeping that night!! Maybe I am getting used to the excitement of races ;) It was interesting to hear a prom going on in the hotel and lots of people going in and out of rooms, but they didn't bother us like we were scared they would.

Morning wake-up at 4am. Breakfast of bagels and peanut butter and a banana for me. I think Matt had a bagel/peanut butter, 2 Clif Bars, and a banana? Hydrated well and got our things ready to go!

SWIM:



There were lots of interesting things that happened on this crazy swim!!!
Our friend Melanie, was getting ready to zip her wetsuit before our wave started, and the zipper broke!!! Can you imagine? I felt so bad for her, but we all encouraged her to keep it on, rather than toss an expensive wetsuit to the side. Surely the company will reimburse the wetsuit? I think she has only worn it once!!!!
I found out later that Matt was in the water getting ready for his wave to start when he realized his goggles were missing. He put them on top of the water for a split second while he was putting on his swimcap, reached down to grab them, and GONE!!!!! Oh my gosh---another panic!! Luckily, for some reason, he threw an extra pair of goggles in his transition bag. He said he took off to get them. If you didn't know any better, you would have thought he was a pro finishing the swim, because he said he was running to get his goggles as the pro's were exiting the water. Ha!! Thank God he had that extra pair.

So, back to the swim----------Upon looking at the water, it didn't look THAT choppy. I didn't do a practice swim, and I am honestly thankful for that. If I had known how bad the conditions were beforehand, I would have been even more frightened by the fact. As I started, the swim, I realized from the beginning how challenging this was going to be for me. I wondered if it was just me that was feeling this way?? I have never had a panic attack in water or felt seasick, but suddenly I was feeling both. If you have ever felt this way in the water, you know how mentally frightening it is. I saw kayakers everywhere, and saw lots of triathletes hanging on to the kayaks from the beginning. Every time I would turn to breathe (I breathe on my right), a wave would hit me in the face and I would swallow water. When I DID actually get air, it smelled like gasoline because of the boats out there. I told myself if I could just get to the turnaround buoy, maybe the waves would not be coming straight at my face. I finally got to the turnaround, started back, and realized not only were the waves still hitting my face when I turned to breathe, but they were now coming from the opposite direction due to the seawall on my right. Wow. Talk about the worst conditions I have ever been in. I told myself that if I ever got out of this water, I didn't know if I could handle Ironman Canada. When I would try to sight on the way back, the sun was glaring at me, even with tinted goggles. No one could see the buoys due to the waves coming at your face when you would try to sight. I thought to myself, poor beginners. If this is someone's first race, it would definitely scare them out of the sport for good. I ended up swimming way off course, because a kayaker yelled at me "move to your left" when I came up for a breath. I had swum towards the seawall. I was so freakin' frustrated, because I felt much stronger this season with my swim, and my times in the pool reflected this. To know I was way off course and panicking just ruined my day. I finally got back to shore and got my wetsuit stripped. I looked down at my watch---I really didn't want to know---I knew I had potential to do around a 37 minute swim, which isn't great by many standards, but for me and swimming being my weakest sport, I would take it. My watch showed 43 minutes. Talk about a letdown. I continued on, nonetheless. (I found out later just how rough the swim was for everyone else----it seems to affect weak swimmers much more than strong swimmers. Matt told me he got a calf cramp and actually had to lay on his back and massage out the cramp in the middle of the swim!)

Overall Swim Time:------ 43 minutes

BIKE:


The bike was the same typical headwind on the way out--the same experience from last year. My bike was averaging around 17.8 until the 25 mile turnaround. It honestly took me about an hour to get over that mental madness in my head over that horrendous swim. I was so mad and frustrated, but there was nothing to take it back. I did realize that if I can make it through that swim, hopefully every other swim this season would seem like a breeze :)
After the turnaround, I started picking up speed. It was fun to see team members on the out-and-back. There was a nice little tailwind and man was that FUN!!!!!!! To see my bike mph go from 17.8 and finish out at 20.2mph was VERY rewarding to me. I had been hoping for around 19.5mph that day, so that was a bonus for sure!!! I took in 3 water bottles of Gatorade, as well as 3 gels and felt very hydrated and good coming off the bike. My legs were surprisingly not as tired as I was scared they might be. The winter trainer rides were paying off ;)
Overall mph for bike---- 20.2mph

RUN:

The run was the same typical non-shaded very hot course. I started off with my first mile being a 7:36 pace. My goal overall was to hit 7:58 as long as possible, but with the heat, I knew I would most likely fade. I decided after the first water stop that I would walk every water stop for a mental break. I took advantage of all the ice water, cold sponges, and gatorade. I even put ice down my tri top when possible and poured water over my head. I passed lots of people on the run, and that felt good to stay so strong. I did fade towards the end, but seeing though Matt and I have only been in base phase of training with no speed work yet, I was very content with an 8:09 pace for the 13.1 miles, especially at the beginning of the season.
Overall run for 13.1 miles-------1:46 (8:09 pace per mile)

The last 3 miles of the run are always tough; that's where you have to dig reallyyyyyy deep. I never scrolled my Garmin over to see what my predicted finish time would be. I knew that I would either be motivated or frutrated. If I was frustrated when I looked at the watch, with 3 more miles to go, I knew that I would mentally want to throw in the towel. That's why I made the decision to wait until I crossed the finish line.

My overall goal going into the race, with perfect conditions and race expectations, was a 5:15. Overall, I was 5:22. If you look back at my estimated swim time I had hoped for (37 minutes), that would have put me right around a 5:15. Bummer. BUT, you can't change weather conditions. I still beat my New Orleans time last year by 17 minutes, so I am very happy about that!!!!!

Matt finished in 5:12. His goal was a 5:10, so he was very close as well. At least we can understand each other's frustrations, seeing that neither one of us are strong swimmers. I am very proud of him!!!

Sister Madonna!!! 80 years old---oldest female to finish Kona ---36 Ironman Triathlons!!!



Afterwards, some of the members of the MS Heat team met for dinner at Crescent City Brewhouse for dinner. We enjoyed sharing race stories together.


The morning after, we slept in and got to enjoy a lil bit more of New Orleans before heading back to Jtown!!!





We are all very concerned over a team member that crashed on the bike course. He looked down after making a pass and upon looking up, hit an orange cone blocking a hole in the road. He was taken to Tulane Medical and had hip surgery Monday from a broken hip. Please pray that he makes a speedy recovery from this. This was his first 1/2 Ironman, and it just breaks my heart that this happened to him. He was so well-trained and excited about this race. He will be in good hands though; A friend of ours is taking over his care after he returns to Jackson. It turns out, the surgeon on-call at Tulane at the time was a good friend of George's, our friend who is the surgeon here. I think God definitely is playing a hand in all of this, and we are just thankful that Robin was not injured any worse than this.

NOLA 70.3 race week!!

Well, all the bags are packed and we are ready to head to New Orleans after work today!! Let's hope we haven't forgotten anything:)

Why does it always seem that the week you want/need to be relaxing never seems to work out that way? (at least not for us, anyway ;)
This has been a crazy week for both of us due to work.

Just a few of the drama bits for the week------
* Got home 5 minutes after it began pouring rain Wednesday---the dogs decided to
have a mud party. Matt took Ollie in the backyard for a bath, Sadie went with me
for a bath in the front yard.
* My blackberry keyboard decided to stop working Wednesday night---I could see when
I would get a call, but couldn't answer or use the phone, because none of the
buttons worked!!!!!!! Spent a great deal of the day yesterday trying to get it
fixed without paying major bucks!! My cell phone is a MUST for work---I mainly
work out of my car and can't go a minute without it. I had 2 patient referrals
that day and was panicking that I missed the hospital's calls.
* Work tells me that I need a yearly TB test. Got this done at the MEA clinic
Wednesday. The lady tells me I need to come back after 3:30pm on Thursday. I
even asked her twice, double-checking her, telling her I needed to go out of
town early Friday. She re-confirmed. I showed up yesterday, after 3:30pm, and
they told me I was going to have to come back Friday. Wow!! Are you serious?? I
went all the way across town to get this and planned my afternoon around it:( If
it isn't read when they need it, you have to repeat both tests again, and I will
be off work Monday and can't get it read. Matt is going to try to see if he can read the test and report it on a script for my work. So frustrating.

Hmmm.......so when you look at it, the week didn't really start getting crazy until
Wednesday night. Unfortunately, that's when I would have preferred the week to get calm. Oh well, can't have it like you want it in life, right?!

I did successfully pull off a lingerie shower cake for Staci's sister. She is going to come pick it up today!
I really love making fun cakes!!! I would like to take some cake decortating classes one day and learn more about fondant, etc.

Back to racing this weekend. We have put in the time and training hours (LOTS of bike trainer hours this cold winter!!!) It is going to be a very hot and windy day, just like last year. All we can do is our very best though.

There is actually about 38 MS Heat Members racing in NOLA this weekend, so it will be fun to see all the team representin' at the race ;) We are going to have a post-race party at Crescent City Brewhouse Sunday night-----looking forward to it. We will be staying until Monday this year. Coming back directly after the race last year was not the wisest idea ;)

I'll leave you with a pic of our bikes ready to roll :)

Race report to follow !!!!

Natchez Trace Century Ride weekend :)

Long bike rides are always more fun with friends!!! The more friends to pull or help pull the pack, the better ;)

We could not have asked for more BEAUTIFUL weather this past weekend for the Natchez Trace Century Ride. We rode 65 miles of the ride, with a 4 mile brick run afterwards. The legs are coming along nicely for both of us. Yesterday, we had another brick, this time with a shortened bike and a long run tacked on at the end. I am hoping for nice things in NOLA next weekend for both of us ;)






Last Thursday night, we had a MS Heat tri team meeting to discuss sponsors for the year, as well as speakers we are requesting for the season. We kicked it off at Pie Work, pizza by design. Good stuff!!! We got the whole back patio, by the water, to ourselves, so it was a nice night for discussion!!!!




I am SO thankful for good, faithful friends and an even more faithful,loving husband who always stands beside me. I could not ask for more blessings than I already have!!!!