Purdue Sprint Tri Recap

Hello all! Sorry for the disappearance. :) Even though it's been almost two weeks, I want to give you guys a recap of my first sprint tri of the year! My friend Helen came from Michigan to do this tri with me, so I was excited to have a friend share the misery fun with me.

This race has a wonderful start time of 10 am, so we were able to wake up at a reasonable time, have breakfast, casually get ready, and then head to the start. The start/transition area is less than a mile from my house, so we considered just riding our bikes there, but we had our bags of stuff (towels, water bottles, sunglasses, shoes, etc), and we were going to lunch afterwards, so we loaded up the car and drove over there.

We were there about a half hour before the start of the race, but they were making it seem as if the race was about to start. They kept saying the transition area was closing soon, and in general were making me very nervous! It was funny because I had my HR monitor on, so I could see that as I got more anxious about being late, my heart rate kept rising. :) It turned out just fine though, and we got our numbers written on us and headed to the swimming area.

I was a swimmer in high school, so I am very comfortable in the water, and I always feel like the swimming part of a tri is my best area. This tri is in a pool and the swim follows a snaking pattern, which is nice (no scary open water swim), but also makes it very tough to pass people if you are faster than them. I passed about 5 people who were clumped together and realized there was a huge gap in front of them, which meant that once I was past them, it was easy going.

The bike portion of the tri is probably my weakest portion. The very first triathlon I did was at the end of my freshman year of college, and I didn't even know what a road bike was. I had a "mountain" bike from Walmart, which I didn't even know how to shift gears with hahaha! Now that I look back, that is so embarrassing, but at the time I didn't even know it was strange. I remember being one of the first people out of the pool and then I think every single person passed me on the bike! ha. I am a bit better than that now. :) I still feel like I could improve a lot through more consistent cycle training. When I did the Purdue tri back in 2013, there was this megahill which was very intimidating! They have since changed the course, so although there are several decent hills (to me, I'm sure to someone who lives in a hilly place, this course is very flat haha), it is very doable. I felt very strong through the entire bike course, which helped me a lot mentally. I look very happy in the picture below because the guy was at the very top of the last hill, and I was amused that he chose to be there where everyone was pretty tired/slow. I said to him, "Why did you choose to be right here?!" and started laughing, which made the pictures he took of me turn out pretty well. :)

After the bike ended, I was very nervous to start running. The last time I participated in triathlons was in 2013, and at the time I was definitely not a runner. I remember running after biking being so painful/awful. I was hoping that since I have made running my primary activity in the past two years, I would be more comfortable, and I definitely was! It was still hard, no doubt, but I took about 5 minutes off of my 5k time from the previous tri! The course went through campus, and was very similar to one of my normal running routes, so I think again I had a nice mental advantage. Here is a picture of me during the running portion.

Overall, this was the first triathlon that I have ever done that I didn't feel like I was suffering the entire time. :) I think this race made me more confident in triathlon racing and in running! I am so happy that I did it, and I am excited to continue to train and get even better. When I did this race in 2013, I finished in 1:31:49 (swim (300 m): 6:36, bike (20k): 48:28, and run (5k): 33:33), and this year I finished in 1:22:02 (swim (300 m); 6:33, bike (20k): 44:24, and run (5k): 28:30). I hope that all of you runners consider doing a Sprint Triathlon at some point! They are fun to train for, and it is a very different experience than running races. :)

Backpack Dash 5k Recap

Another weekend, another race! I think this is the first time ever that I have done a race two weekends in a row. This 5k was tentatively on my calendar because my friend Bethany's mom planned it, but I didn't actually decide if I was going to do it or until about Thursday night. At that point I decided that getting an official 5k time this early in the year would be a good benchmark for the rest of the year. :)

This race happened in Rossville, a small town about a half hour away from Purdue. I was pretty happy that the start time wasn't until 9 am, so I didn't even have to get up that early! I had asked my parents if they wanted to come and walk it (it was officially a run/walk), and I was very happy when they said yes! My mom has walked one other 5k before, but this was my dad's first. Yay to healthy choices. :)

A picture of my parents and I at my wedding--one of the only good pictures of us (I'll have to change that!)

I got to Rossville around 8:30, so had plenty of time to get my race bib on and decide what to wear. It was 35 degrees, so I was trying to decide if I wanted my light-weight zip-up hoodie on, or if I wanted to go in a t-shirt; I decided on keeping the hoodie, which I think was the right choice even though I was getting pretty toasty by the end. The course was out and back--I ran the first mile too fast at 8:14, so slowed down quite a bit for the next two miles (8:23, 8:39) and was able to speed up a little for the end. I finished up with 26:17, 8:25 pace...not a PR, but not far off, and my best time without D running next to me telling me we can go faster. :) Overall I was pretty happy with how it went!

Beth and I after the 5k. 

My parents walked together and finished around 51:20, which is a pace of about 16:30...not too bad! I was very happy that they decided to come and participate. :)

First Spring Week!

I think we can finally say that Spring is here in full force. This week was [mostly] very warm, and contained several thunderstorms that convinced me that Indiana has accepted that it is Springtime. :) Yay for the end of winter!

This week wasn't overly eventful, although I did find out that I passed the math qualifying exam, which is the monster one, so I was relieved to hear that! :) I have a sprint triathlon coming up next Saturday that my friend Helen is doing with me. We were both feeling a little nervous about the prospect of a tri, so we decided to do a practice run of the whole event (not at race pace, just casually), in an attempt to prove to ourselves that we could do it. Unfortunately, when we woke up on Wednesday, it was storming intensely, so we had to resort to doing the whole practice tri indoors. No problem! :)

We started with 40 minutes on the spin bike, which said it was about 16 miles for me (Helen was over 17, woo!), followed by 3.1 on the treadmill. I was right at 30 minutes for the 5k--a little slow for me, but I have to remind myself that my legs are going to be slower after spending time on the bike immediately beforehand. We swam last just because it made the most sense logistically (not soaking wet on the spin bikes, shower after swimming, etc). We swam the 300 meter swim that we will have to swim in the tri, and I finished in just under 5 minutes. I think we both felt much better afterwards, and now we are ready to conquer this tri! :)

My friend Helen and I after eating delicious burritos to reward ourselves for our practice tri :)

I had an exam on Thursday, which I think went pretty well, and then went out with drinks for Helen and a few other friends on Thursday evening. She lives in Michigan now, so whenever she visits, I make sure to maximize contact time with her. :) This weekend I did a 5k with my friend Bethany--race recap to follow shortly. Today I biked the bike route for next week's tri. I was very relieved when I looked at the course and saw that they had changed it from previous years so there is no longer a humongous hill in the middle! There are still a few decent hills, but I am happy to avoid this monster. :) I ended up biking 16 miles and felt pretty good, so I hope that's a good sign for next weekend. Have a good week, everyone!

Chi Town 10k

On Saturday, my friend Bethany and I participated in the the Chi Town 10k. I have been running consistently lately, but only 3-4 times a week, and not more than 4 miles at any given time, so I was pretty nervous to do a 10k. I figured I would just take it as a training run, and be happy with whatever happened.

The nicest part about this race is that the start line is only about a 5 minute walk from Beth's house, so there was zero stress in getting to the course. Beth and I run about the same pace, and neither of us were expecting a PR, so we decided to run together. Here is a picture of the course route:

The most hilarious/insane thing happened during the race. After the stretch south along the lake shore, the course goes through a small tunnel that passes under Lake Shore Drive. When we got near the tunnel, there was a person from the race saying, "The course route goes through this tunnel, but there is a water leak, so there is a decent amount of water in the tunnel." Beth and I figured it couldn't be too bad, so we ran to the entrance of the tunnel and we saw that there was about 5 inches of standing water! We decided we did not want to run through that (we were only around the halfway point, so we would have had to run over 3 miles with soaking wet shoes); we looked around and saw a ton of people jumping over the guard rail, and then crossing Lake Shore Drive!! This is a very busy, 8 lane road, and traffic was completely stopped because of all the runners making their way across! We joined everyone else, hopped over the guard rail, crossed one direction of the road, hopped another guard rail, crossed the other direction of the road, and then finally were back on the course. It was insane! I am sure the drivers were not happy (understandably!), but we were not sure what else to do! AND a few minutes later, we heard a guy talking to his friend behind us, and he said, "I went through the water, and it was very smelly...I think it was sewage." :-o That made us extremely glad we hadn't tried to tough it through the water! :)

Overall, my race time of 58:45 was quite a bit slower than last year (I expected to be slower), but we had negative splits for every single mile (except for the whole crossing the road fiasco, but I'm quite sure our pace was where it should be for that mile), so I was actually pretty happy with how it went. I felt strong until around mile 5, then I started to feel exhausted. Beth suggested we try to do a 9:00 mile for the final mile, and I said I couldn't, but ended up doing it! Woo. :) Not bad for what I went into the race expecting. Afterwards we had a delicious breakfast: I drank about 4 cups of coffee and ate an awesome croissant sandwich (wish I had a picture to show you!). I'll leave you with a picture of Beth and I after breakfast.

Back to Los Estados Unidos!

I am back to the US and have been catching up with school and sleep this week. I came back with a cold, so I haven't been very productive this week, but I had an absolutely fabulous time in Spain! Here is a quick recap of my time in Espana!

Sunday
We arrived to Madrid, had time to change and get ready for dinner, then took buses to have dinner as a large group (our entire group was around 115!).

Monday
Run in the morning! I was worried that my GPS watch wouldn't work since I was halfway around the world, but it had no issues! Our pace was a little slow because we stopped at a lot of lights and spent some time evaluating if we were going in the correct direction or not. :)

We took a day trip to Toledo, which was beautiful! It is a smaller city that is surrounded by a river on two sides. To protect the city, a wall was built around the other two sides of the city. Very neat place that seems to represent the classic Spain that first comes to mind.

Our first concert was in evening in a beautiful church in Madrid. We had a full audience which I found absolutely amazing--people had to see the poster that said an orchestra from Purdue (I am sure most of them hadn't even heard of Purdue before!), and then they decided to come see us. I think we played very well, and I feel lucky to have such a cool experience.

Tuesday
We walked to a large park called Retiro Park as a group in the morning. This is somewhat similar to Central Park in NYC; I mostly say that because it is a huge park with tons of trees, fountains, greenry, etc, right in the middle of Madrid. We rented row boats (actual row boats, not paddle boats!) which was a blast. You can see me in the obnoxiously bright pink/purple rain jacket. :)

Later in the day we went to Plaza Mayor, and were given some time to explore the area. Following, we went to The Prado--a very famous art museum with several classic pieces. After the museum, several of us went to a Flamenco show, which was beautiful and inspiring: the dancing, the singing, and the guitar playing were all incredible. We ended the night with karaoke which was so. much. fun.

Wednesday
High speed train ride to Barcelona--we seriously need to get some fast trains in the US; they are fabulous for traveling. Barcelona is amazing! If you haven't been there, you have to go check it out. I think it is the most interesting city that I have ever been to. It is a perfect combination of new and old--they kept most of the old buildings in the city, but when they restored them, they would add modern flairs. For example, there was a huge building that used to be a famous site for bull fights. They recently remodeled it and added a lot of colorful tiles, colored windows where there used to be open gaps, and a glass elevator to the top--gorgeous. The rest of the day we spent just exploring the city a little bit.

Thursday
Thursday morning I was motivated to wake up early and run. We ran along the sea, which obviously I never get to do in Indiana, so I was on cloud 9. :) My watch didn't find satellites until we had already been running for about 5 minutes, so I think we were probably closer to 3.3 miles or so.

After the run, we had breakfast, and then a large group of us walked back to the beach. We put our feet in the water (brr!), and walked barefoot in the sand--it was nice. Here is a nice picture of all of the girls that were with us.

The rest of Thursday we spent walking through the city and checking things out. We rode a gondola to the top of a mountain, which gave us a perfect view of the city--very neat. At night, a handful of us went out with our orchestra director, and we ended up being out until 5:15 am. :-| That is the first time in a very long time that I have been out that late, but it was only 12:15 EST, so I'll just say I was still on Indiana time. :) When I got back to the hotel room, I got some very exciting news--D's twin sister had just had her baby girl. So sweet!

Friday
This morning we went to see La Sagrada Familia, which is a very famous church designed by Gaudi. It was probably my favorite thing that we saw on the entire trip--it is unfinished, but it is already magnificent. The rest of Friday flew by and in the evening we had our second, and final, concert. This was again in a church, and our audience was just as great as in Madrid. It is a great feeling to play a concert and feel like the audience truly appreciates your music.

Saturday
We woke up early and headed home. It was a day full of travel!

The best way to recap is with this absolutely amazing video that my friend Adam made. He studied abroad in Spain in the summer, and during that time he wrote and recorded the song that is playing in the background; then during this trip he took a bunch of videos and stitched them together to make this masterpiece. :)

Orchestra Trip to Spain!

Purdue's Spring Break is next week, and this year I am going to Spain! The Purdue orchestra made the decision to take this trip last Fall, and I immediately knew that I wanted to go with them (it's optional since we have to pay for it ourselves). When I was an undergrad, the orchestra had taken a trip to Turkey, and I decided not to go because it was expensive and I thought I could go by myself and have a better time. Looking back, although it was expensive, I wish I would have gone because although you can always travel on your own, you don't get many chances to perform in a foregin country. That's part of why I'm so excited for this Spain trip!

I have been to Spain once before--I took 4 years of Spanish in high school, and our Spanish teacher took our class to Spain immediately after graduation. We went to Madrid, Seville, Toledo, Cordova, and Malaga. It was a blast, but it was almost 8 years ago (what!), so I'm definitely ready for a refresher. :) Here are some pictures from my first trip to Spain:

Three of the four students who went to Spain, and our Spanish teacher. Yes my shirt has a monkey on it--it was my favorite shirt! :)

The four students in front of...something! I can't remember what. :-|

Pretty winding street

This trip we are going to Madrid and Barcelona--I'm very excited because I've never been to Barcelona and I've heard it's amazing. We have one performance in Madrid at this beautiful church:

 After three days in Madrid, we head to Barcelona. This city looks amazing! I can't wait to have picture of my own like this.

Our last performance is here in Barcelona in another church.

Ok enough pictures for now. :) I will definitely create some posts while we are there (free wi-fi at both hotels, woo!), sharing what we are doing and seeing. I am also going to try to get some runs in while I'm there, although that may prove to be difficult--we will see!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Springtime!

I have lived in Indiana for my whole life, so going through the four seasons is definitely something I'm used to, but the start of a new season is always exciting to me! The first snow makes me light up like a little kid, but after months (and months and months...) of winter, I welcome the sound of birds chirping, and warmer temps. I guess after the time changes it always feels like Spring is actually coming, because the sun stays up past 6 pm. :) This weekend was absolutely beautiful, with temps feeling positively balmy (I heard it was only 45, but it sure felt warm and wonderful compared to the past few months with highs of 10 degrees!). I was super busy all weekend, so I didn't get a chance to do any outdoor runs or bike rides, but I will be making up for that this week. I have lots to do, but I see a dramatic improvement in my outlook on life, and my general happiness when I spend time exercising outside. This morning I took Nova for a walk and then played with her in the backyard for a few minutes--I love that it's getting warm enough to venture outside without wearing 10 layers.

The Spring feeling in the air has me thinking about my garden. I didn't have a garden last year, but the year before that, I rented a plot at a local community garden, and grew some delicious vegetables. It was really great, and I enjoyed it a lot, but it was about a mile from our apartment, so I definitely didn't get over there as much as I should have, and I didn't get as much out of it as I could. Now that we have a house, I can have a garden in our backyard! So exciting! I have been looking into raised garden beds, because otherwise Nova may decide that the garden would be the most fun place to play in the yard. :) I also have been looking into local CSAs, community supported agriculture. These programs let you invest some money into a local farm, and then they deliver a crop to you each week. I have had lots of friends who participate in this, and they like it because 1) you get local, yummy fruits and vegetables every week, 2) you get a variety of crops that you might not grow/buy on your own, which forces you to try new things, and 3) you are supporting local business. I'm still trying to decide if it is wasteful to try to do my own garden AND be part of a CSA--it might make more sense to have my own garden and just supplement with things from the farmer's market. Anyway, happy Spring everyone! :)