I was at Training Weekend with my triathlon team Team EnVision this weekend from Thursday night to Sunday morning. We stayed in Waterville Valley, NH at the Golden Eagle Lodge. Overall I had a good time but it would have been even better if I was in shape.

Drove up w/ one team member that I've never met so that was new and interesting. We got there too late to get the pizza at registration so I just got my reading materials about the weekend and went to my room. I stayed in a room w/ 2 different girls, so there's 3 new people right off the bat. I was the second one to get there and soon after the third girl came. I asked if they met thru TE and the older one said 'We met at her birth.' They were sisters. So they were my roomies for the weekend.

I didn't wake up for swimming on Friday, already being lazy, but I made up for it. I got dressed to go running and on my way downstairs I found out about a bike ride that was leaving so I went back to my room and changed into biking clothes and got my bike. I can run anytime but I never ride. The girls I went w/ ended up doing a 38 mile loop which I knew for me would be too much but I went along and got dropped quickly, though they did wait for me at the turns and stuff. Though after 10 miles I told them I had to turn back because 38 was too much. So I did the 10 back alone and it was all uphill. I just wanted to get thru it w/out having to stop or get off and walk so I managed that at least. It was a good 20 mile ride w/ plenty of hill in it. Later that night I went to the pool and got taped by Bill, I think he's TriFury's swim coach. TriFury was up there too and some of our events were open to both teams. I only swam about 300m but we were more concerned w/ the taping part. I found out I don't look abnormal swimming and that my left arm is better than my right, makes sense since I'm left-handed. So that was real helpful and now I have at least 15 things to think about when I swim now. I also went to a seminar by Coach Patrick in the afternoon about self coaching yourself on 10 hrs a week. At our dinner that night we had a guest speaker Molly Zahr we did her first triathlon in 2002 and recently won Lake Placid. Her story seemed unbelievable; she had never run before just to run, was a basketball/softball player in school, was 'overweight', has lost 70 lbs. since starting training and now is looking to turn pro. All I wanted to do at that moment was go compare our triathlons because her first was Danskin and I did Danskin in 2002 so I thought if I had beaten her that year, it was her first, then maybe there was hope for me, though when I raced Danskin I was in really, really good shape and she didn't make it sound like she was. I couldn't check the results then though because I went computer-less all weekend and I also tried to go soda-less which I didn't accomplish but I took in much less than usual. I had a bottle of diet Pepsi and a can of Diet Coke and that was it, and I had none yesterday, so it was an accomplishment for me.

Back to the story, when I got home yesterday I looked up the results:

MARTIN, HEATHER    Bib #1283    F    25-29

Overall Rank    Class Rank      
200 of 1384      42 of 273       

Swim       Swim Rank    Trans1
0:17:03              440    0:04:50

Bike         Bike Rank    MPH     Trans2   
0:38:53             191    19.1    0:01:32

 Run        Run Rank    Pace
0:21:34           156    0:07:26

Final 1:23:54

ZAHR, MOLLY    Bib #1495    F    20-24

Overall Rank    Class Rank    
76 of 1384      6 of 95

Swim        Swim Rank    Trans1
 0:17:10             463     0:04:05

Bike        Bike Rank    MPH    Trans2
0:34:21             14    21.6    0:01:55  

 Run         Run Rank    Pace
0:21:28            148    0:07:24

Final 1:19:01

Looks like she got me in the bike. But like I said this was at my peak of fitness, so far at least, and for her she was just starting. Guess I have my work cut out for me.

After dinner we had some breakout sessions on different race distances so I went to the half-IM, full-IM sessions and there were only a handful of girls that were talking about their IM training and I was just kinda listening hoping some of their guts would rub off on me. Then to bed.

Got up Saturday morning for swimming. My roomies were kinda teaching a beginner swimming clinic. Not that I'm a beginner but I wanted to see what else I might learn. Mostly just swam though I didn't keep track of how far. I was in the pool for an hour. After, quickly showered up and got changed into biking gear for the Bootcamp. The Bootcamp consisted of a 6 mile bike loop and included a 3 mile uphill. Then you get back to the transition area, drop your bike, put on your sneaks and do a one mile running loop. Then a couple different Bootcamp exercises and then do the whole thing over again as many times as you want. Most people did it twice, though a handful did it 4 times. After the first one I sat out the second because I wasn't sure I could get up the hill again so I rejoined the handful left on the third go-around. After that I was done. Went back to the room for another shower and a little rest, then to a nutrition seminar and a core body seminar where we did more exercises and stretching. Then made it to dinner and had pasta and a glass of wine and there was live music. This older couple sang and played guitar and we were supposed to go up and sing and all w/ them but I didn't know the words well enough to the oldie songs they were doing. They were the musical entertainment at dinner last year too I found out and after last year's team performances by some of the girls, a repeat was expected. Eventually a group of us left searching for dessert. It was the second night in a row that we didn't get dessert, we think it was to save money or something, though if we knew that, we would have paid more! TriFury was having dinner in the same place as us and they had brownie sundaes. We never found dessert in the deserted little Town Sq. so we raided the vending machine and I had a Snickers. Then to bed.

Got up Sunday, missed swimming, my shoulders were very sore from riding, and instead just ran a couple miles on this trail that had lots of rocks and technical spots so it wasn't much of a run but still tough, more of a run/walk. Then it was another shower and packing up to meet my other teammate for the ride home. Of course that's when it started to rain the hardest, trying to get the bikes on the roof rack was awful and we were completely soaked. Eventually made it back to Boston to rest and watch movies: [Shopgirl] (http://imdb.com/title/tt0338427/), Music & Lyrics and enjoyed both.