There it is...sunny, warm, and very inviting! The beach at Lorne, Australia! Not too many waves today, could be a good thing, could be a bad thing!

Things to share with you today

The snow is still hanging around here in Colorado Springs…meaning it HAS NOT warmed up for a whole week! But I hear that it is to be expected when you live in Colorado during the winter months! Our run at Bear Creek this morning did not go very well, thanks to the hard-packed/snow/ice slippery mix that covered the trail…especially on the UP HILL part where we ran hill repeats (you know that story about the frog in the well that went up 2 feet and slid back 1…that’s what I felt like today)!
I just got an e-mail from the Head Lifeguard…he says our plane tickets and Australian Visa will be in the mail this week. Training for the events has been going well…along with just getting some extra yardage each week in the pool…I’ve been training with the gates and the manikin. There’s no chance in h*ll for me to train in open water before the trip…so I’ll just have to rely on my 15 years of experience for the ocean races. By-the-way, I think it’s about time I follow this post with another photo from the beach in Lorne, Australia!
Speaking of Open Water, the 2006 date for the Tiburon Mile has been posted as October 1st from Angel Island to Tiburon Harbor. My friend Christine from the race also e-mailed me the other day because she was working on the ’06 event poster. I’ll definitely be going back as the 2004 defending woman’s champion (there was no race in 2005 so I automatically held my title:)! The race is a huge fundraiser for the Special Olympics…in 2004 I donated part of my prize money to the charity…this year I’m going to try and fundraise some before the event. I will keep everyone posted on that because I’ll need all your help to support the Special Olmpics!
This week is a ‘recovery week’ according to my training schedule. So that means that Sunday is completely workout-free. Anyone want to guess what the first thought is in my head when I’ve got a day off? (Keep in mind where I’m living.) (Also remember what I keep saying is all over the ground.) Give up? Its a perfect opportunity to SNOW SKI! Some of my friends at the training center are going to be over at Monarch Mountain all weekend. The main problem: my coach Denny has specifically wrote “focus on recovery today, stay off legs” on my training log for Sunday. Does skiing count as RECOVERY OFF LEGS??? Gosh, I hope so!:)
Grad school is going good for me so far. I’m keeping up with all the chapters we are supposed to read and practice. This week we got our first assignment…it’s called a ‘case study’…and I have to work on it with my Group C partner who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah…amazing what you can do with a bit of technology! Basically, we analyze some data, make some graphs, and write about what the graphs show us about the original data.

Good story before nap time!

I’m having a hard time staying awake at this moment. But I think I should write a blog before I head off for ‘nap time’!
I just came back into my room after eating a fantastic brunch in the cafeteria. Charlie made me a delish omelet on the grill (ham, cheeses, peppers, onions) and I treated myself to a Belgium waffle with banana topping. Oh…and of course I started it all off with a hot cocoa…can’t forget that!
Lets see what I did do earn all these tasty little treats…went on a 3 hour, 50 mile, bike ride with quite a bit of climbing…AND the high temp of the day is 31 degrees…I had to wear like every warm thing I have for biking. It was one of my favorite rides of all time. I rode south on 115 (which is the same road I drive on when I go skiing at Monarch) for about 1h 15m with some of the cycling guys from the training center. They were taking it easy for the first bit…and when they started picking up their pace, I was like “see ya”:)! I rode back into town at about 2h 15m so I added another 20m riding north and then came back to the training center.
I was never unbearably cold…but I didn’t like waiting at the stoplights and going 40mph downhill was a bit chilly. I was actually looking FORWARD to the climbs (that was a new thing for me!) because I knew that I would warm up by the top.
The best part was the beautiful area that I got to ride through. The snow from Thursday’s big snow storm is still around in ¾ force (meaning the roads are semi clear but everywhere else is still white) and south on 115 is “nowhere’s-ville”. It was nice white covered hills and clear blue sky. The key to being comfortable was wearing black clothes because the sun was keeping the black nice and warm. The traffic was not too bad, 99% of the road had a nice wide shoulder that 2 or 3 bikers could ride side-by-side and not be in the traffic lanes.
So, that awesome ride (combined with going out last night and getting to bed at 1am) made me a bit tired. I’ve got some loads of laundry running right now…5 minutes and they need to go into the drier. I’m thinking about making a trip to Wal-mart for some supplies (toothpaste, pins for my world map, and 2cent stamps). The 2nd week of online business classes starts today…week 1 was okay, mostly a refresher on how to create graphs in Microsoft Excel.
I mentioned above that we had a snow storm this week…came in around noon on Thursday…that  morning we went to Bear Creek trails for a run workout and we could see the storm heading our direction (we could definitely FEEL it coming because I was FREEZING in not enough clothes). Our bike ride in the mountains that afternoon was canceled and moved to the basement cycling room…which was okay because I had a good ride that I was very happy with (and I would have been miserable in the blizzard in the mountains!). So lots of the snow is still hanging around because it has yet to WARM UP since the storm…but looking out at the mountains and hills with beautiful white frosting is a plus! It’s also a plus to know that I’m going to the SUMMER in about 17 days…who wants to see another photo of the beach I’m heading too?? Just kidding, I will wait at least another day before posting a new one!:)

I can't help it...these photos from the beach in Lorne, Australia are absolutly B-E-A-utiful! I'm going to be swimming there in 20 days!

My New Laptop!

Yep, you guessed it; I’m typing this on my new laptop computer! It was finally delivered this morning! It’s a beauty…the screen is bigger than I expected…it barely fits in the travel bag that I have from my old laptop. I’ve been sitting between both my computers getting the new one all set up. The cool thing is that I have a memory stick and I can just move my files from my PC over to the laptop in about 5 seconds…I’ve actually already moved them all! So I guess the memory stick is actually my third computer?! Welcome to the 21st century…lots of technology!
Today was a tough day workout wise…we started this morning at the trails for a 3x2K running workout…followed by a bike ride mid-day…and finished off with swim practice at 3pm. Along with getting my computer delivered today…the manikin and rescue buoy came in the mail from Daytona Beach. I took those to the pool this afternoon and did a bit of practice. I’ll have to get a picture of me swimming one-armed with the manikin resting on my butt so that the face is out of the water…I can’t actually see what I look like when I’m doing it…but I’m going out on a limb and saying that it’s got to be a funny sight!
I also got a package in the mail from home with some mail and a large world map that I have pinned up to my wall. I’m going to put little pins into all the locations that I have visited…for vacation, for a competition, or whatever. If I’ve been there, it’s going to get pinned on my World Wall Map!…and I have an official statement to make: “stopping in an airport just to switch planes does NOT mean that you have visited that location!!!”
So I’m trying to decide if I want to create saramclarty.com?! A lot of pro athletes have their own website, and a lot of them do not. It’s kinda based on how you market yourself. I guess I want to market myself…it’s how you make $$ in the business that I am in: professional athlete, speaker, coach, etc (what business am I in??). My friends and I kinda have the view that it’s a bit cocky to have your own website…but it also lets people/sponsors know who you are, what you are doing, and what your results are…What do you think??? Here are some examples: Hunter Kemper, Andy Potts, Shelia.

This is the beach where I will be competing in Rescue 2006...Lorne, Australia! This is the current backgroud photo on my computer...I can look at the warm weather as I get ready to head out and train in the snow and mountains...it's actually VERY motivating:)!

News from the Springs

I’ve officially been back at the OTC for 1 week! I can’t believe how fast time flies here!
Let’s see…I’ve been in the pool training with the equipment for the Lifesaving World Championships: Rescue 2006. The bike rides have been beautiful, a bit hilly, and quite cool. Running has had it’s ups and downs…some workouts are great and then sometimes my lungs don’t want to transport oxygen.
We already had our first Wednesday Texas Hold’em tourney of the new year…and your looking at the blog of the champ…yep, it came down to the girls for the win: Jaz and I were the last two standing!
My Speedo contacts were in town for the weekend and they called up all their athletes and took us to a delish dinner at The Warehouse in downtown COS. I had some yummy chicken wrapped in bacon and we all had a good talk about many different things.
On Friday I had an appointment with a MBA advisor at UCCS…we talked about the classes that I need to take, what order to take them in, and how I get to choose my ‘area of emphasis’ (which is going to be ‘entrepreneurship’). But for right now, I’m focusing on taking the Preparatory classes…I managed to get ONE of them exempted because I took an English class and a Speech class at UF. At the meeting, I actually enrolled in my class for the Spring semester: Fundamentals of Business Statistics! I know…it sounds SOOOO exciting! And I get to take the WHOLE class on-line…which is great because of all the traveling that I’m heading off to do…90% of February I’m going to be ‘Down Under’ and then all of March and April I’ll be training in south California at the Chula Vista OTC. Speaking of the class on-line…it started today, Sunday! I’ve got the book for class…lets not talk about the $111+ dollars that I spent on a bunch of words on paper bound together and titled…and I’ve been on the class website to check out the assignments and stuff.
It’s very interesting to me…on ‘online’ class to me means watching a video of a professor talking in front of a normal class…that’s what we had at UF. But this is nothing like that…we actually have to read the book, read the notes that the professor writes up in a Word document, look through the PowerPoint slides, and the assignments are done in a group. Well, a ‘group’ can consist of people from all over the country who are also enrolled in the Distance MBA program…which means a lot of communication via computer!
And my NEW laptop is supposed to get delivered tomorrow…Dude, I’m getting a Dell! haha! Traveling and trying to take this class would be impossible with out a laptop…so I got myself a simple laptop…it’s very interesting to compare this laptop purchase to the one I made 6 years ago. Smart me, I decided to get a laptop to go to college with… it cost over $3000 and took a few weeks to get delivered. 5 days ago I ordered one for $600 and it’ll be here tomorrow:)!
Other than going back to college…which I promised myself I was NEVER going to do…but that promise only lasted 1 year…last night we had a fun night. I went out to dinner at The Loop, a Mexican restaurant, with bunch of friends from the OTC…after we pigged out on chips and stuff, we went across the street to a coffee shop that had live music. Today, I enjoyed a nice sleep in until 9am, when I started 4 LOADS of laundry and met Jaz and Jess in the caf. for brunch. We managed to spend about 3 hours in the middle of the day ‘shopping’ and not really actually purchasing anything…which is the ‘smart’ kind of shopping:). Around 3pm today, I finally headed out the door for my one big workout of the day, a 1 hour 15 minute run…and I was really pleased with how it went and how I felt.
So that’s news for now…keep in touch everyone:)!

Snow, mountains, altitude...WHERE AM I??

We're not in Florida any more Toto!!
Friday night the plane landed at COS...and I'm back in Colorado Springs for another year at the Olympic Training Center. It's been great to see all my friends again...Jaz, Jess, Sam, Ken, etc! Of course we've had a party both nights since we've been back...I was hurting a bit on Saturday night from skiing all day...but last night I was back to 100%:)
I was awake before 6am on Saturday morning and in the car by 6, on my way to Monarch Mountain again. This time the drive was easy: I knew my way there and the sun was not blocked by a blizzard! With two short stops for gas and some hot cocoa...I got to the slopes around 8:50am. It was perfect timing for me to rent some skis and then meet Sally and Jimmy in front of the ticket windows.
We had a great day of skiing...the sun was out in full force...not too much wind...a lot of runs were beautifully groomed...and of course it wasn't too crowded! It was nice to have someone to ride on the lifts with...and we alternated choosing what runs we wanted to take. Unlike my weekend of skiing in December, I didn't have to go into the lodge every 2 hours to get the feeling back into my fingers and toes...we stayed out on the slopes until lunch time and then almost made it until closing time before we were all worn out! A big THANKS to Sally and Jimmy for a great day in Colorado!
The drive home was fast, no scary blizzard...and then dinner at the OTC in the repainted and redesigned dining hall! Sunday was a bit of a catch up day...I spent the morning unpacking my bags and then went swimming with Jaz and Jess after lunch. We weren't allowed in the OTC pool because we didn't have a coach on campus so we drove to the Peterson Airforce Base and used Jess's military ID to get on and then paid 2.50 to get into lap swim. I came up with some swim sets for the 3 of us and we all got in the yardage we needed. It was getting late when we got back...close to 5pm when Jaz and I actually started on our run. Note to self: the sun does not stay up as long in Colorado as it does in Florida right now...and it gets A LOT colder when the sun is gone! In other words...the run was really cold, but at least we got it done!
I wont even go into details about how much I love being back at altitude...I think I wrote enough about that last year when I was acclimating...I just know that it means I'm working harder all the time:)! The magnificent views out the windows of Pikes Peak and all the other snow covered mountains makes everything worth it...and of course being back with my awesome training partners and friends!

Phone Call

I got THE COOLEST phone call last night!
Our good family friend...Sally Gist...called the house to ask my parent for my phone number in Colorado. Well, she was a bit surprised when I answered the phone and asked why I wasn't in COS!
I replied that I was flying back on Friday afternoon and would be in the Springs by the weekend. Sally then explained to me that she and Jimmy (her husband) were flying up to Pubelo and driving to Monarch Mountain for some skiing...and they were wondering if I wanted to join them!?!
That was an easy answer for me...YOU BETCHA!
So I'm getting back to the OTC at about 10pm on Friday night...and I'll have NO problems getting my butt up at 6am to meet them on the slopes! I'm sooo excited to have another reason to go skiing...and this time: with some company!
My bike is all packed up...I'm doing some laundry as I type...I've got to run some errands today...and pretty soon I'll be back to the snow!

And I Thought I'd NEVER Need It!

So there I was in December of 2004...graduating from college...I was DONE! Finished! No more school! All those school supplies that I had accumulated during 4.5 years of college went straight to the basement when I moved home. Out of sight and out of mind, forever!
Or so I thought!
After all those happy promises to myself about never going to class again...I only made it to November of 2005 until I found myself taking the GMAT test to get into Graduate school. And for some reason, they accepted me!
So, the other day, I ventured down to the basement to retrieve some supplies that might come in handy during the next 5 years it's going to take to get my MBA:)! While I was looking through the school supplies, I started looking through the boxes of clothes, swimsuits, extra toiletries, CDs, etc. that I also stored in the basement.
Now, 4 days before I head back to COS...I've got a 55 pound BOX of things to ship to myself! Yeah, some of it is for school...some of it is clothes...a few Christmas presents from last week...but mostly: I CAN'T figure out WHAT I put in the box!!
But I do know that it sure will be fun to open it up at the OTC and see what I sent to myself:)!!

2005 Recap

A list (in no particular order) of some of the neat/cool/fun/exciting/adventurous things that happened in my life in the year 2005!
1. First time I've lived outside the state of Florida: for 3 months in Chula Vista, CA and for 6 months in Colorado Springs, CO
2. I celebrated my 22nd birthday!
3. The 10K open water swimming event was added to the Olympic roster for 2008
4. I competed in my first triathlon as a Professional (St. Anthony's in St. Pete Florida)
5. I also competed in 6 other races as a professional triathlete...getting to compete with my idol, Barb Lindquist
6. My dad flew down to Chiapas, Mexico to be my 'coach' and helped me win the 15k open water swim
7. My mom flew to Chicago to watch and cheer for me in the Chicago Triathlon
8. My brother flew to New York City to go to the Golden Goggles awards ceremony with me...and then we toured NYC the next day
9. I competed in the FINA Open Water World Championships in July and the ITU Triathlon World Championships in September
10. I traveled to the states of California, Arizona, New York, Florida, Washington, Colorado, and Illinois in the USA and to the countries of Mexico, Canada, and Japan for races.
11. My family remained healthy and happy, my friends continued to be awesome people, and the world stayed in one piece!