Becoming an Iron Girl

 I did it! I'm an Iron Girl!

Thank you to everyone who got me here:

All of my donors
Coach Patti
My Mentors: Debbie, Karen, Mimi, Carol, Jen
Those of you who trained with me or helped me get my gear together and in order
and last, but every bit as important as everyone else, my team mates who kept me motivated for practice and during the event!

If you'd like to see my results you can find them here: http://chiptimes.com/?Tabid=65&EventID=460
(links are on the left hand side bar)

Overall I'm happy with how the day went. My only disappointment is that I could have come in earlier if I hadn't cramped up while running. I think my run would have been about 15 min. shorter had I kept myself properly hydrated during the bike ... oh, well. Lessons learned right!
Even with the cramping I still managed to come in before my shortest estimated time, which is awesome. I guess I really shouldn't be disappointed at all. 

Even though I don't really enjoy the swim I think I want to do this again next year. At which point I'll need all of your help again, so save up some energy, training tips, or any other type of contribution you'd like to make, because I'll be back next year!

 Fri. went pretty well. I didn't freak out, too much any way. I got startled a couple of times when stingy lake grass was grabbing me, or when another swimmer accidentally grabbed me. I didn't get too tired out, although that's probably because i decided just to go slow. Even with going slow I finished the swim more quickly than i expected. That's a good thing, I guess. I think the part where i freaked out the most was after I'd gotten out of the water and noticed the little water worm on my arm. Yuck. Also the water is really warm there, so hopefully it's as nice a day on the 22nd as it was Fri. The run afterwards wasn't bad either. We didn't run the full course because part of it is shut down for construction, but we ran pretty close to the full thing. I was super sore later that night and had to have a friend help stretch me out, but felt much better after that. 

Saturday's swim was much harder than Friday's. I'm not sure what the distance was that we swam on Sat., but we were dealing with actual waves and currents rather than just a flat lake. I did it all though, and was not the last one to come in. I only veered off course once when i mistook something in the distance for the next buoy. I didn't go that far off though, so it only added a little extra work for me. There was a lot more seaweed in that body of water too, and it freaked me out a little. I managed to stay calm though and pull or kicked it off of me. The worst was when it would catch around my neck.  I was still sore from the previous two days work outs, so I went home after the swim while some of the other girls went for a run.

Sunday was a mess, but worked out in the end. We were riding the bike course for the race, and the group was leaving at 8 sharp, to avoid as much traffic as possible. The road I usually take was shut down, so I had to take a route that takes twice as long to get there. I passed the girls as they were heading out, parked got all my gear together and my bike ready and then had to catch up with everyone. I never managed to catch up with the main group, but coach had stopped to help someone outside our group with their bike, so I managed to catch up with her right when I had no idea where the course went next. When I caught up with her I wasn't certain that it was her, but I followed her anyway thinking I'd just turn around when i reached the halfway point for the distance course if it turned out not to be her. However, it was her and she helped me figure out where i was going. I one point I'd powered up a hill and lost her behind me. I thought pedaled pretty slow for the next part of the course hoping she'd catch me, but she didn't, so I asked another random biker where the course went and just kept going. I caught her on the turn around of the course, where she'd stopped to wait for me, because she wasn't sure where i was. I felt kind of bad for not waiting then, but at least the course doubled back and we were able to connect before i headed back. After the bike, we did the run again. Once again i was behind the group, having started later then them, and i wasn't sure i wanted to do the whole course, but felt good enough when i got to the split that i just did it all. I'd say it took me an hour and a half to do the bike and the run. That's not too bad. Especially since for parts of it i was going rather slower than i intend to on race day. I do need to get out and ride that course more often though. I also discovered Tiger Balm yesterday. It's great, because my muscles don't really hurt at all today. That makes for a very happy Patty.

So I received my tri-suit on Sunday. I'm kind of excited about that. Not so much about wearing all spandex in front of everyone for a couple of hours, but I'll deal with that by just forgetting about what i'm wearing. I don't think I'll have much trouble with that on race day as I will have many other more important things to think about. Like not drowning, keeping myself hydrated, and going the right direction etc. 

I'm also super excited that I am officially past my halfway point in raising funds. I have raised over $1500! Thanks to my incredible friend, Frank Fried, for getting me to halfway, and my friend Susan for getting me past halfway! I really hope to be able to raise a little more, but with only a week to go I'm not sure how realistic that is. Speaking of that, if you've been planning to donate and haven't yet, my fundraising deadline is August 6th. You can still make donations to LLS after that, they just won't be going towards my individual fundraising goal.

Training over this weekend is going to be crazy. We have a run tonight (although i guess that isn't technically part of this weekend), tomorrow morning is the official Iron Girl dress rehearsal (we actually get to swim in the lake before race day, and run the course), Sat. is another open water swim just with the team, Sun. we're riding the bike course, and then having regular swim practice that evening. I'm not too excited about the dress rehearsal swim 1) because there are going to be loads of people there, 2) swimming is not my strong point, and 3) that lake is kind of gross. I'm sure it'll work out well enough though. I don't really want to do the open water swim Sat. morning either, but I know I need all the practice i can get. especially with it not being my strongest part of the race. And the race is less than a MONTH away! That's crazy. I don't feel ready at all. I don't feel that i won't finish or anything like that, i'm just super apprehensive about the swim. Coach keeps telling me that all i have to think about is getting in and getting out. After the swim i'll be fine, and it's true. I have no problems with the bike or the run, and i'm pretty sure they won't take me all that long to complete.

Our wave times were posted recently too. My wave doesn't start until 8:06, so I'm going to be sitting around for a while after we get there the morning of the race. Hopefully i'll be able to relax myself in that time instead of freaking out. My mentor keeps reiterating that it'll be fun. That doesn't keep me from worrying. And, as you saw in the paragraph before, it's really only the swim that's worrying me ...

Hope you all are having a great summer, and enjoyed that short break from the heat we had.

Until next time!

A lot has been going on for me both with tri activities and non-tri activities. I apologize for not regularly updating this. I probably just give a short accounting of what has happened since I last wrote.

We had our first open water swim in Pasadena. It was kind of gross, but I made it, and I didn't die. I still worry a little about the swim, because I do tire easily when constantly swimming. I think I just need to work on continuously swimming when i'm in the pool. I think the best part of that workout was the chicken salad that Debbie made for us to eat after. Yum.

Biking is going well, and I don't think I'm going to have any problems with that leg of the race. My cousin helped me tune up my bike the other day when my gears were slipping a bit. My cables stretched out, but I'm told that's normal for new cables. This is definitely my favorite of the three parts of the race. My sis, a friend and I are also going to be doing a century not long after my tri. That should be pretty fun. I've also started riding more with some friends of mine. I appreciate their help, and they don't even see it as helping. They just want a riding partner, so that's nice too.

Running ... I haven't been doing much of this. I've gone out a few times when the other Iron Girls have gone, but I haven't really been keeping up with it. Fortunately that part of the race is not long, and I don't foresee me really having any issues with it. Plus we're about to start running on what used to be our bike practice night. It'll all work out.

We have a couple more open water swims coming up soon as well. The one that is actually in Centennial lake i'm not really looking forward to, but since that's where the race is, I am determined to go. No matter how disgusting it's going to be. The other one is at Gunpowder state park. I've never been there, so I've no idea what the condition of the water is there. Hopefully it's cleaner than the lake.

Finally my fundraising. I've got a little over a week left to fundraise. I'd like to make it at least halfway to my fundraising goal of $3000 and have about $335 left to go to make it to $1500. I'm pretty sure I can do it, but I think I'm going to have to have a benefit BBQ or a dance party or something to collect donations. We'll see how it goes. (After mentioning this today online my friends already gave me $210 towards reaching my goal bringing my amount needed to reach half to $125. My friends rock!)

Until next time!

And as always if you want to donate please visit www.tinyurl.com/igpblanchard 

Hey everyone!

So as usual it's been a while since I've posted, and a lot has happened since my last post.

While I was out in California I promised myself I wouldn't skip out on my training and for the first week I did pretty well keeping up with everything. I swam a couple of times, did some running and worked out on their stationary bikes. I have to say while I love riding my bike, I hate stationary bikes. I also found out that running on tread mills doesn't work for me. When I get off of them I'm disoriented and can't walk. I'm sure it's amusing to watch, but it feels terrible, so no more treadmills for me. The second week I slacked off a little, but I did get to swim in the pacific a bit, and I did get myself out running one morning.

Now that I'm home I've been biking a lot and of course going to the team trainings. I'm finding the team trainings for the triathlon a lot more helpful, in terms of athletic training, than the trainings for the marathon were. Mostly because we actually train as a team, instead of meeting up and then going our own way, and we have the 3 different parts of the event so we often see each other more than once a week. I know I need to start running and swimming more on my own, but I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself when it's not a group training. I need to find a running/swimming buddy, ... or several. I've found that my favorite part of this is the biking, so my next event is likely to be a century!

I'm also finding that even though I'm tired I have a lot more energy than I used to, and my memory has improved. Guess all those things they say about the benefits of exercise are true.

On the fundraising front:

The benefit show went really really well. The bands all played fantastically, we had a full house almost the entire time of the show, and we made $450! I'm so very grateful to Mike Nestor and the Beechfields Record Label and it's artists for putting this together. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

That puts me at needing $1850 to meet my goal. So to any of you who plan to donate please do so now and help me meet my goal!

Thank you to everyone who has already supported me either monetarily or with knowledge or help. I couldn't do this without you!

First I want to thank my cousin Jim for helping me put my bike together. I am really really super grateful to him. Also for all of the advice he gave me on what i'll need for biking.

Swimming has been going ok. It's kind of frustrating at the moment, because I have a slight fear of drowning from an incident that happened when I was younger at girl scout camp, and it's making it difficult for me to not freak out when i'm working on breathing and keeping my face in the water. I will conquer it though. Special thanks to Carol, one of the TNT mentors and a fellow Iron Girl, for taking the time to work with me at practice and outside of practice.

Wed night workouts haven't picked up in attendance yet, but hopefully they will soon. For now the few of us that have been showing up have just been doing some workouts on our own. Probably not doing wonders for tri training, but at least we're doing something.

Besides that I need to start getting myself out to the pool more often, start biking, and start running again. I'm so glad the run is only a 5k.

And an exciting bit of news that I hope yields some more fundraising, one of our clients has offered to post my fundraising link to their website! I know that it's not likely to yield a huge amount of donations, but if it gets even one additional donation that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise i'll be happy.

Don't forget that if you haven't made your donation yet and would like to the link is www.tinyurl.com/igpblanchard. Thanks again to all of you who are supporting me!

Once again I've been a bit lax in keeping up with my journal, but I am writing again!

Last week for group practice only three of us showed up and that did not include a coach. Not sure what happened, but the 3 of us decided to work out anyway. We did some stationary bikes, treadmill running, and some core workouts in the weight room. Doesn't seem like a lot, but I was done after that.

Then this past Sunday I had my first swim practice. Apparently they were meeting before now, but I haven't been getting emails so I just showed up the other night hoping the schedule was correct, and it turned out to be ... we'll see if i start getting emails again. Swim practice was a bit crazy. I have issues with putting my face in the water, because of something that happened when i was younger, so this is going to be a bit of a struggle for me. Right now they've got me doing breast stroke, because it doesn't require your face to be in the water, but I'd really like to be able to do freestyle for most of the race. Hopefully I'll find a way to get over the face in the water bit ... I still need to go out and get a swim cap too. Everything else i have seems to be working alright for now.

There was a biking practice this past Sat. as well, but I missed it because my bike isn't put together yet. However, my cousin is going to help me put my bike together this week! So I'll be able to start riding and figuring everything out. I still need to get some biking shorts and shoes, etc., but i'm getting there.

It's been a while since I've posted and quite a bit has gone on. The most interesting part of what's gone on was buying my bike.

This didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked, but it all worked out in the end. I took a couple of weeks maybe even a month to look around at bikes and asked my cousin what he thought of certain ones that i found. I finally ended up choosing a bike from bikesdirect.com. It's a Mercier Corvus AL and has really good components to it. I got it super discounted  by having shipped directly from the warehouse which was nice, so I pretty much paid for a bottom of the line bike and got a close to the top of the line bike. :) Deals always make me happy. The not so smooth part was that first the site wouldn't take my card, so i call my bank to find out that they have to raise the purchase limit for the day in order for me to be able to put that much money on my debit card ... Took care of that, but then even though the site only showed me paying once I somehow managed to order my bike twice ... Fortunately the people at bikesdirect.com were super helpful and understanding. They canceled the duplicate order and refunded the second payment. Then my bike was supposed to ship out the next day, so I had a tracking number but 2 days later the UPS still didn't show an arrival date. So I contact the bikesdirect people again, and they have to research what's going on. It turns out that they were sold out of the size I had ordered ... It's fine though because there's a range of sizes that will fit a person, so I just had them switch it to the next size up. Then a few days later, I had my bike!

I was so excited to get it. I worked from home that day, because i had to sign for the shipment. and it took it all day to be delivered. Then it finally arrived and I couldn't do anything except unpack it and try to put it together. Bikes are surprisingly difficult to put together. I ended up stopping, and I'm going to see if my cousin will give me a hand in putting it together.

Hope your day is going well!

Why is it that I can never remember the words to the YMCA except those letters? I got the tune down and I got the dance down, but the words ...

Anyway. Last night we had another team workout. We were told it was weight training so I was expecting to be in a weight room lifting weights like my college weight training class. Loved that class. Well it turned out that the room the Y had for us was what they use for their after school care program. Our class leader for the night hadn't planned on any actual weights anyway. We were pretty much doing strength training exercises like squats, wall sits, and lunges. We did enough that I was having trouble keeping my legs straight when we walked back down the steps to our cars, but not enough that I'm feeling it today. Not sure if that's good or bad, or maybe it's just that it's different muscles than I would usually use. Either way it's probably good that I'm not feeling it too much because tomorrow I'm headed out for a full weekend of dancing just about non-stop! Don't know if it'll be good for the muscles I need for swimming, biking and running, but it's good exercise at least.

Blood Cancer/LLS fact of the day: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society was founded in 1949 in as the de Villiers Foundation in memory of Robert Roessel de Villiers who died of Leukemia at age 16.

Yesterday was IHOPs free pancake day. Each year the local IHOPs choose a charity to support. LLS was lucky enough to be chosen for a second year to be supported by the DC/Metro area IHOPs. LLS supplies volunteers/ambassadors to the locations that are supporting us and we try to increase the amount of donations given as much as possible. I volunteered at the Capital Heights location. We were very fortunate to have an extremely supportive manager and store staff. Together we managed to raise a total of $1060.50 at our location!

I have to say that this fundraiser was a challenge for me as I am generally extremely shy especially around strangers. But with the help of the other TNT/LLS volunteer there with me I managed to get up enough courage to go talk to a bunch of people and in my most non-pressuring way asked them to give us money. It really surprised me how often people immediately opened their wallets and gave us anywhere from the change they had to $20. Others dropped a donation of the change they received from paying for their meals on their way out. We even had a few of the wait staff tell their tables that if they weren't going to donate that they should give the tip that they were going to give the waiter/waitress to us.

I know most of the people who donated last night won't read this, but I still want to say I'm so very grateful to all of you who have been so generous to us.