Weather Report for Houston today.

HOUSTON—Mother Nature is in a kind mood, because she is giving the gift of beautiful weather Thursday.
"It is a beautiful morning out there, it is just fabulous," 11 News Meteorologist David Paul said. "Although it is warm, it is much less humid."
Paul said highs should top out around 96 Thursday, but with the lower humidity, it won't feel nearly as hot as those heat advisory days we've been having.

Its pretty sad when we get excited about "cooler" temps and it is still supposed to be 96 today. Houston your weather sucks, can we please turn the ac back on.

Hope to see you on the roads soon!

Another loss

So it is week 11 of weight watchers and I am down 1.6 for the week. So far my total loss is 13.2 (avg 1.2 loss per week). I originallty set a goal to be at 127 lbs and now that I am 4.4 lbs away I think I may try and go further. I am a shorty at 5'2 and I think I would be ok at a lower weight maybe closer to 123ish. We'll see what week 17 brings.

Hope to see you on the raods soon.

River Cities Race Report

Saturday morning began at 5am for me, I threw last min items in my bag, got dressed, loaded the bike and headed to Starbuck's for 7am tires on the road. In the caravan we head Coach G (Gena) and Greg in car 1 Micha in car 2 and Lynn and myself in car 3. Lynn and I had a bit of an ordeal keeping up with this bunch as we cruised at a nice speed of 80. We did however make it to Shreveport in record time (a normal 4.5 hour trip), in less than four hours that included 2 pit stops and a traffic stop. And we had to drive across Shreveport to get to packet pick up. Following Greg and Gena can be quit interesting, from stalkers to cops and many laughs in between the weekend in Louisiana with Team sTRIve turned out to be fantabulous. So since I spilled the beans already yes we got pulled over for doing 75 in a 55 I guess we slowed down just enough to not be clocked at 80. I am sure that this cop in Nachadouches thought he had scored big that he was able to pull over three cars in one stop, when he got to the car we explained that we were headed to Shreveport and did not know how to get there so we were speeding so we did not loose the cars in front of us. So this story could take forever but thanks to having friends that work in law enforcement not one car received a ticket. Car one received a warning and we carried on our happy way. I mentioned a stalker- well we lost the stalker when we were pulled over, later to find he was not a stalker but an invited guest to our caravan in car we did not recognize and he happened to pull in to Starbuck's as we pulled out.

This is the truck that was stalking us.

Packet pick up was fun, we ran into several teammates and shopped a bit and headed to check in to the hotel. This was not so such fun, we got there early thinking we will be able to get into our rooms early as check in was at 3:00. We arrived at 1:30 to find our rooms were not available, finally at 4:45 we got into our rooms with enough time to relax for an hour and head out for pasta dinner. I normally do not try to carb load the night before a race simply because it is too late. So I ate pasta two nights in a row for shits and grins- no because it was a team effort (15) and I am a team player. After dinner headed back to the hotel for a good nights rest and to get our stuff ready for the morning.

Sunday morning up at 4am, breakfast, dressed car loaded and on the road at 5:30am. We arrived in transition at about 6:30 at this race the racks were set up by range of number and as long as you race number was on that rack you could put your bike anywhere. I set up on the end to make it easier to get in and out of transition. After we got set up a few of us went to get wet and do an easy practice swim. I was in wave 8 that went off at 8:30am, in my wave included 30-34 and Anthea, this wave had 110 ladies in it and all I wanted was not to be the last one out. This was to be my longest swim in a race yet and I was very nervous. I accepted the fact that this swim would be slow and I would get through it. When the gun went off it was like mad, I was getting pushed, pulled, hit and swam over no matter were I tried to position myself. After the first turn I took a break and tried to get away from the hustle and bustle. At the final turn and with 300 I was ready to be done. Swim 800 25:06 51/56 in age group (not the last out of the water). When I finished my swim I chose to walk out of the water and take a few deep breaths, once I got close to transition I started to run. Sunglasses, helmet and bike shoes on and I was running out of transition with my bike. T1 3:05 (thanks to my leisure walk) Bike coarse had some nice rollers, I found myself at 8mph a few times. I raced as hard as I could and everytime I had the chance to pass somebody- I did. 18.6 mile bike 1:01:50 (17.7 av pace) 29/56 age group. Running off the bike is usually not very easy thus why we should practice this as much as possible, my running legs took a while to run but I made it to transition rack bike, helmet off, visor on (oops to early) remove bike shoes put on socks for run, shoes for run, race belt- umm race belt wont go on- click finally) oops should have taken care of this out on the run with the visor. T2 2:46 I learned take care of everything you can while on the move not in T. The run coarse was shaded but it was still very hot, but lots of support and aid stations with ice cold water and cold towels about each 1/2 mile. Run was good I ran most of the coarse and felt good. Run 3.1 33:42 (10:52 pace) 42/56. All in all this was a great & fun race. After all of Team sTRIve finished racing we headed our separate ways to our hotels for our journeys back to Houston. My total time for this long sprint was 2:06:32 my goal was to finish healthy, I had a secret goal of 2:00 which I almost accomplished- but I know how to do it next time.

After race Refreshments..

Team sTRIve!

Hope to see you on the roads soon!

The Goodie Bag

River Cities Triathlon is said to have one of the greatest swag bags of all races. This year proved to be true, although a little disappointed in what came in the bag, the bag speaks for itself. It is the perfect triathlon travel bag unfortunately it is too big for a transition bag but if you need to travel this bag will hold everything. It had several compartments for gels, nutrition, race belt, 2 separate shoe compartments for running shoes and bike shoes, a place for your helmet and anything else you will need to pack for your next race no matter what the distance. With the bar we received a 30th anniversary participation tech shirt, a pair of socks, a hat and some funky ass sunglasses. All in all I was quit please with the bag. A little disappointed that there was not a medal this year.

I will try to have a race report by the end of the week. Hope to see you on the roads soon!