5 minutes before the start of the 2005 St. Anthony's triathlon my mom took this beautiful sunrise photo. On the right side you can see the building at the end of the Pier where we eat our pre-race dinner.

"Press Release"

Don’t forget…if you would like to be on my “Press Release” email list…send your email address to me at: sara7411@hotmail.com! Basically, I just send out an email before and after each of my triathlon races with a short story about where I’m going and how the race unfolded.

Directions: Unpack, Pack, Repeat

Sometimes I forget which way I’m going with the pile of clothes in my arms…Did I just pull them out of a suitcase or are they going into a suitcase? I know, I know…I travel the globe competing in triathlons and getting pampered, How hard can it be??…but sometimes living out of a suitcase can be a bit tough.
After getting off my nice flight home from Japan last Tuesday…I had 3 ½ days left at the Chula Vista OTC before we started driving back to Colorado Springs. With training, eating, sleeping, and studying…that leaves just enough time to unpack, do a load of laundry, and then pack everything in the car.
Jaz, Jess, and I departed Chula on Saturday around 3pm. We went to swim practice that morning, ate breakfast, loaded the cars with bags, rode our bike workout, loaded the cars with bikes, ate lunch, and then hit the road in a northeastern direction. We were hauling butt out of California…and we had a crazy tailwind to help us…sometimes the leaves were passing me going 85mph! Of course our dinner stop was the In & Out burger joint in Phoenix, AZ (that place is delicious!!) and then Flagstaff, AZ was our sleep stop around 10pm. Jaz and I did a nice hour run in the morning on an amazing gravel running trail right outside the hotel. After the continental breakfast, we hit the road again and finally pulled into the Springs at 9pm. For one last treat, dinner was a Chipotle burrito in our room…the treat was actually being in OUR ROOM, the burrito was just an added bonus!
Have I told you about the beds that we got last year at the training center? Well, a quick recap: Queen-size Serta pillow-top-mattresses, down comforters, down pillows…you get the picture. It’s the ONE thing that I really missed when I was away from Colorado Springs…so you can imagine how well I slept on Sunday night:)!
Monday morning, in the freezing winds that decided to blow through Colorado, Jaz, Jess and I unloaded the bags and bikes from our cars. I did a light swim, bike, and run workout on Monday to loosen up from sitting in the car all weekend. My lungs and heart aren’t letting me forget that I’m back at 6000 feet above sea-level. I also got the brilliant idea to rearrange all the furniture in my living room. It was good timing because all my belonging were sitting in bags in the hallway…so moving couches was pretty easy:)! During a 9pm trip to the Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of the Outside Magazine Buyer’s Guide because there is an article about Jasmine inside…IT STARTED TO SNOW! Nice! It’s the end of April, we just came from sunny California and we are going to sunny Florida this weekend…and we have to deal with SNOW! Perfect!
Ignoring the light dusting of snow on everything, I ran all over town this morning doing errands…Wal-Mart for some toiletries, the mail room to send packages, finding gifts for my home stay families in Florida, etc. Between 2:30pm and 5:30pm I squeezed in all of the following: chiropractor appointment, swim practice, treadmill workout, leg massage!
Now it’s Tuesday night and I just finished UN-packing my last bag from Chula. Oh yeah, and I just started PACKING the same bag for my Thursday morning flight to Orlando! So are you following all this? Here’s the recap: Tuesday – unpack from Japan; Wednesday – laundry; Friday – pack for COS; Monday – unpack from Chula; Tuesday – laundry; Wednesday – pack for Florida!
I’m looking forward to my week in the Sunshine State. It’s been 4 months since I’ve been home and I can’t wait to see my family, the beach, our pets, the DBS team, people in DeLand…darn it, I keep forgetting that I’ve got a triathlon race too! More about St. Anthony’s soon!

4 Pages About My Trip Home...Enjoy:)

Now that I’m back in the USA (the OTC in Chula Vista, CA to be exact), I have a bit of time to sit down and recap my trip home from Ishigaki. If you think I’m just going to write about 15 hours in a plane…you are very wrong!
Sarah Haskins (my teammate from the OTC who also raced) and I were on the same flight from Ishigaki to Tokyo on Monday morning. Upon arrival in Tokyo (around 4pm), we checked into the airport hotel. It was a bit more expensive than we expected…but it was our only option because I don’t think it would have been fun to ride the trains in Tokyo while pulling two HUGE bike boxes!
We wandered the huge market place in the airport and chose a place to eat a late lunch/early dinner. We picked ‘American’ food because we were both craving a big, juicy hamburger:). The hotel had free internet service in the rooms so I plugged in my computer and we both caught up on our emails. In preparation for the next day, we turned off the lights early and caught some zzzzz’s.
At 6am I drug myself from a deep slumber, threw on some running shoes and headed out for another jog around the Tokyo airport. The air was not foggy, but it sure was full of car/truck/van & airplane exhaust! Every 4th person in Tokyo wears a face mask because the air is so polluted. Sarah and I jogged for an easy 30 minutes and then showered and checked out of the hotel. We left our bags with the hotel staff and got directions (and a map…very important) for taking the train into the center of Tokyo.
The train line started/ended right at the airport so getting on was no problem. As we speed into the center of the city, each stop it started to look, and feel, like photos you see of Japanese people jammed so tight on the train as they go to work. We had to switch trains at one station and there were so many people that we had to take a picture:







The second train took us to the center of the city and we got off and walked to the Ginza quarter (kind of like Broadway in NYC). There were shops, cafés, spas, etc. for a half-mile square. I don’t know if it was fortunate or unfortunate that everything wasn’t open yet because we were there so early. It would have been fun to go into the stores, but I’m sure that I saved a bit of money because I couldn’t go in (my shopping buddies will understand:)! This is the Chromo 6 corner…reminded me of a mini NYC Times Square:













We stopped for a bit of breakfast, and a rest for our legs, in a cute café and watched all the people heading to their stores to open for business. At the end of the Ginza area, we followed our trusty map to the closest Japanese-style gardens. It was only 300 yen to enter and walk around…and it was well worth the $2.50 we paid! The first thing we saw was a 300 year old pine tree with every single branch supported by a post:
















It was planted in 1709 (so it’s actually only 297 years old but I won’t tell anyone) by the 6th Tokugawa Tycoon (according to the sign in front of the tree:). After the tree we wandered through the big field of yellow flowers over to the Peony garden. Now this is a flower…they grow as big as your head! I wanted to pick one and take it home…but I decided I might not be able to come back to Japan if I did:







We wandered past the ponds with a tea house in the center, past the duck blinds where the hunters hid, and just saw so many beautiful things. The most amazing part was how this beautiful garden (and many others just like it) can survive in the middle of Tokyo. You could almost forget that you had just walked down a road with skyscrapers on both sides…until you looked up and could see their outlines from the garden (and I mean “outlines” because there is so much pollution in the air everything over ½ mile away is hazy and hard to see). My favorite trees were the cherry trees and we happened to be in the right season: when they are blooming! After watching (and reading) Memoirs of a Geisha, I was very moved by how beautiful these trees can be and found the perfect one to take a photo under:
By this point in time, Sarah’s legs are tired and my feet hurt so we head back to the train station to find our way back to the airport. It was no easier on the return, but we did know to get off the train at the last stop! Just like a week earlier when I arrived in Japan, I bought a ticket on the Friendly Airport Limousine Bus from the domestic to the international airport, about a 90 minute drive. Sarah’s flight departed only 1 hour after mine so we continued to travel together. It was nice to have company while waiting in the long check-in line, while eating lunch, and while waiting for our planes at the gate. She flew back to San Diego through SFO while I switched planes in LAX, so we parted when I boarded my plane.
I waited until most of the passengers had boarded the plane (only because didn’t want to stand up any more) and then handed my ticket to the United guy. When the machine spit my ticket out, the United guy looked at a paper and told me “You’ve been bumped up to BUSINESS”!! I could not believe my luck…the plane was SOOO full that I got moved into the most amazing airline seat I have ever been in (thank goodness I keep track of all my United miles and have a semi-high priority:). The downside to this is: I’m screwed for traveling FOREVER because the upside is: I had the most amazing flight home…great food, constant service, an ‘almost horizontal chair’ when it folded down, and 7 hours of sleep as a result!
Sarah and I met again in San Diego for a van ride back to the OTC. Before I went to Japan, I scheduled a massage when I returned…as I lay on the massage table, I realized it was the perfect ending to my perfect trip to Japan.
I leave you with one last photo from the race (that blur is me on my Blue bike, in my Speedo suit, with my Rudy Project helmet!):

Joe, Anneliese (from the UK), me and Jenna at Japanese dinner before the race. Anneliese and I go waaaaay back...we raced in the Junior Elite World Champs in 2000 & 2001! Stuart (also from the UK, is taking the photo:)

This is me with Trisha and Andy...my new American friends who live and work in Tokyo. I think I can even forgive Trisha for working for the Univ. of Southern Cali! Andy works for a finance company in Tokyo...he raced the age-group triathlon in the morning.

Sarah Haskins, Jenna Shoemaker, and I after the race. We just finished cheering the American men across the finish line (4 of the top 6 men were from USA!!!)

The best place to be in a pack when you are going though skinny and tight turns...right were I am: in the very front so that no one can take you out when they crash! The good news...no one crashed during the 2006 Ishigaki World Cup!

Yes, this is actually during the race:)! There are other women in the water...they just aren't in the picture yet! Unfortunately, you can't see how beautiful and blue the water is because the sky is very overcast and grey.

One World Cup Down...

…many more planned in the future!
Yesterday I raced in my first triathlon World Cup race in Ishigaki, Japan…I finished in 16th place…I had a ton of fun…and I learned a LOT of things for the future.
As mentioned in an earlier blog, I was number 31 (out of 29 competitors:) so I was pretty much the last person to be called out to the starting pontoon to pick my starting position. It doesn’t really matter where I end up…I sprint like mad when the horn sounds so that I  get in front and clear of the field. I had no problems doing that yesterday; I was leading after about 10 meters! The two lap swim course had a lot of currents flowing around…I was glad that I swam a warm up loop right before the start so that I was comfortable knowing where to angle for the shortest distance.
Well, the shortest distance was pretty short…my swim time was 16:12! That’s like world record pace if I had been in a pool for 1500 meters…oh well, they can’t get it right every time, but I just wish that they would error on the LONG side instead of the short side of 1500m.
According to the splits, I exited the water about 1:40 ahead of the next women. I was on my bike and already hammering up the first hill on the course. There is only one point on the bike course where I could view who was behind me…and where the chase pack could see how close they were to catching me…that was on the first hill/bridge of each lap. I had a nice big gap and worked pretty hard by myself for the first 2 laps (I wanted to make sure that I got the bike prime at the end of the 2nd lap as well as the swim prime at the end of the first lap of the swim). I heard time splits after 2 laps and knew the pack was catching me so I rode the 3rd lap nice and easy hoping that the first chase pack of 6 would catch me and we could ride hard together.
Unfortunately, since I could only see the packs one time each lap…when they caught me, it was a huge pack of 20 (three chase packs had joined into one)! I was a bit upset because once you get big group like that…no one can break away and everyone starts the run together. After I let myself mope for about 30 seconds, I refocused on staying safe for the rest of the ride, and started thinking about having a strong 10k run.
The weather was great…I couldn’t have asked for anything better…the skies were overcast with thick dark clouds, a cool breeze was blowing from the north, and every now-and-then it would mist rain. I had no fears of overheating on this race (which is a big problem for me) so I could concentrate on racing as fast as possible.
The 3 lap run course took us up the bridge 4 times. My motivation during the run was to count down the number of times I had left to climb the bridge…1 down, 3 to go…2 down, 2 to go, etc. I had terrific speed on the first lap, I was running great, catching some girls, and even passing them! Well, that lasted until about 5k…and then I realized I might have started out with a bit too much enthusiasm:)! The 2nd and 3rd lap were not beautiful…but I knew that all I had to focus on was my running form and it would get me to the finish line…eventually, that happened: I crossed the finish line of my first World Cup! 16th place and within 8% of the winner’s time (finishing outside 8% of the winners time does not get you any World Cup points) and getting 5 points next to my name on the world rankings.
After recovering (getting some fluids and food) and changing out of my race suit…I ran around the race course cheering for the American men (4 out of the top 6 finishers were from the USA: Hunter 2nd, Andy 3rd, Matt 5th, Mark 6th)! At 7pm that night, we all went to the post-race party, ate yakisoba, danced to the Japan rock and roll band, and celebrated that the race was over!
I’ve just finished packing my bike box and I have about 10 minutes until I catch a ride to the Ishigaki airport for my flight to Tokyo. I’m looking forward to getting to Tokyo because I have a 25 hour layover and I can’t wait to go exploring the city. I will be spending the night in the same airport hotel as I did when arriving in Japan and hopefully I will have time to say hello again. Later, Gators!

See Where I Trained Yesterday

http://www.triathlon.org/?call=TVRZeQ==&keep=sh
Click on the link above…then click on “Launch Tricast” next to “Ishigaki World Cup”. This is a little pre-race footage from the pool that I was training at yesterday. I’m not in the little video…but you can see some of the other athletes that are here on the island to race tomorrow!
Can you believe that the race is TOMORROW?!?! The countdown on ITU says its 19 hours, 31 minutes and 51 seconds until my race starts…yikes!
From 3-3:45pm today we had a chance to swim on the race course…it is very beautiful. The water is clean and clear blue, the course has lane ropes the whole way (just in case someone might get lost?) and the water is a great temperature: cool but nowhere near wetsuit temperature. It actually started raining (well, sprinkling) when we were at the water…that’s what the weather has been like the whole time…either sprinkling or threatening to sprinkle. If it is exactly the same tomorrow, the men’s race will be very scary because the roads will be wet and VERY slick on the paint and I would predict more than one crash…so if that is the case, please don’t start sprinkling until 2:30pm when I am on the run!!
Current time here is 5:30pm…Jenna and I are thinking about where to go for some dinner. After we get back to the hotel I’ll start all my pre-race preparation and packing. I have to go through the whole race in my mind and make sure that I have everything I need (and things I might need) packed into my race bag. Any last minute suggestions are welcome…I love hearing from everyone…e-mail me: sara7411@hotmail.com !

Swimmer Chick is #31

I was number 41 (out of 41 competitors in my race) last September at the World Champs in Gamagori, Japan….now I’m back in Japan and I’ve moved up to 31 (although this time there are only 33 competitors)!
We just got back to the hotel after a beautiful dinner party hosted by the Mayor of Ishigaki. Great food for all the athletes and race sponsors (as long as it’s free, it’s always good food:)…traditional dances and music performed by the local high school kids…and a chance to mingle with the other racers.
Before the fun dinner, I was at the mandatory pre-race meeting. We got our race numbers, a goodie bag with the race t-shirt, listened to a presentation about all the important things and times on race day. It was at the host hotel which is just a 5 minute walk from the Sleep Inn where Jenna and I are camped out for the weekend. A lot of the American athletes are in this hotel…Joe and Mark (two guys I train with at the OTC) are in the room next door, Dave Kuendig (an old teammate from Daytona Beach Swim team) is a few floors above…and a few others.
Last night I went out to dinner with Jenna, Joe, Stuart (from England), and Annabelle (#1 ranked woman from Australia). We walked down the street to a curry restaurant…we all ordered the same thing because there was no English or picture menu. The table next to us was girls from Canada and they had just finished eating when we arrived. They suggested that we just get the same thing they ordered…chicken or beef curry…because that was all the waiter understood. Anyways…the point of this story is not about the dinner (I just wrote about it because it was kinda funny and describes a typical attempt at ordering food when you are in Japan).
As we are sitting there waiting for our curry to arrive, we are chatting with the Canadian girls. They all know Joe and Annabelle and Stuart so it’s just a big conversation. Suddenly, I hear one of the Canadian girls ask Annabelle, “Have you heard about that swimmer chick that’s here?” I can resist looking over and just smiling and giving a lazy wave as Annabelle explains that I am that “swimmer chick”.
I just knew it!!…in my mind I predicted that exact moment would happen, I just didn’t really think it would actually HAPPEN! But, it was a really funny moment at the tables. The girl apologized but I told her she didn’t have to because that’s how I think of myself in the presence of all the “runner chicks”!
So today, this swimmer chick, did a nice little workout in the local pool. We rode our bikes there around 9am…after a relaxing sleep in and breakfast buffet. I hung out in the room for the mid part of the day. I checked e-mails and spent a few minutes hurting my brain with homework. Then, around 2:30 in the afternoon, when the clouds were looking very menacing, Jenna and I went out for a bike ride…we did one loop of the course and then did some efforts on a deserted road. I would love to ride the course at full speed before the race but it is impossible because it runs right through the middle of the town and the roads have lots of traffic and there are 20 stoplights on the course. It’s pretty technical…lots of 90 degree turns on narrow lanes (some at the bottom of long descents so we will be at top speed) and one 180 degree turn on each lap after going over the bridge. We climb the bridge, descend the other side, turn 180, and then do the whole bridge again…every lap for 6 LAPS! The run course goes up, over, down, 180, up over and down the bridge on the first lap only. On the 2nd and 3rd laps, we only go to the top of the bridge, 180, and back down.
Tomorrow we get 45 minutes to swim on the course…from 3-3:45pm (so you’ll know exactly where I’ll be at that time of the day)! As for this moment in time…I’m going to sleep! Later Gators!

Hello from Tokyo

What’s up dudes and dudettes?! I’m sittin’ in the Tokyo Airport Hotel charging up my computer and watching the only English channel on TV (CNN). I’ve been awake for 22 hours, most of them spent on a plane over the Pacific Ocean. I caught a few movies on the flight: half watched Harry Potter 3 (because I’ve already seen it a few times), laughed a bit during The Family Stone, and enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha (5 hours after I purchased the book in the airport!!).
Arrival in Tokyo was uneventful…I met up with my teammate Joe Ump. and we caught a bus to the domestic Japan airport. That’s the reason I’m in a hotel right now…the flights in-bound to Tokyo and out-bound to Ishigaki DON’T match up so we are all forced to have an over-night layover. I arrived at the international airport at 4pm on Wednesday…rode the bus for 1 hour…sleep in the hotel for the night…then fly out of the domestic airport at 6:30 Thursday morning.
Thanks to all my friends and family who sent “Good Luck” wishes in reply to my first Press Release e-mail. If you didn’t receive an e-mail describing my trip to Japan this weekend…send me your e-mail address and I can keep you posted on my worldly travels and race results (send to: sara7411@hotmail.com). I took the idea from a suggestion by Barb Lindquist (my triathlon idol) as a way to keep my friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances and sponsors up to date!
I must say that the bed is calling my name and my eyelids are getting really heavy…talk to you again from Ishigaki, Japan!

Race Links

Here are some quick links for anyone who wants some more information about the race I’m going to next week.

http://www.triathlon.org/?call=TVRFdw==&id=Njc3&keep=sh
(This is where you can find the ‘start list’, results, and photos after the race)

http://www.triathlon.org/?call=TVRBeQ==&keep=sh
(This is the home page of  ITU…near the bottom of the page you can click on the Ishigaki link under the “Live Webcast Schedule” heading and listen to the race LIVE!)

http://ishigakijima-triathlon.jp/en/index.html
(This is the Japanese site for the race)

Sara = Master Procrastinator

I’ve got an entire day an a half to finish my Statistics test…who’s calling me a procrastinator? Oh…well, if you want to get technical, I did get the test 2 weeks ago!
But, first I had to finish reading the chapters and complete the practice problems in the book before I could start the test. Alright, alright…I did have 4 weeks to read the chapters! I give up…you are right: I am the world’s biggest procrastinator…but only when it comes to school work, okay?!
I always do my training, and my shopping, and my eating, and my sleeping with out procrastination. But I will admit that I usually do wait until the last minute to finishing packing for travel. I just hate the thought of making the final decision on what I’m going to put in my suitcase and what I’m going to leave out. What happens if I need that one item that I took out right before departure!?
So when it is the last minute and my shuttle is leaving for the airport in a few minutes, and I’m still making final decision on what to take…I rely on my mother’s great advice: “as long as you have a credit card and your ID…you can buy whatever you forgot!”
It’s that time again: for international travel…but for this trip I’m getting a head start. I leave San Diego on Tuesday morning and I’ve already started THINKING about what to pack! I’m ahead of the curve already:)…hahaha. United flight from San Diego to LAX and then from LAX to Tokyo, Japan…although I leave on Tuesday morning, I arrive in Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon, thanks to the international date line. I have from 4pm on Wednesday until 6am on Thursday to travel from the international airport in Tokyo to the domestic airport…they are like a 3 hour train ride apart! So I’ve also got to find a hotel to spend the night…sleep is kinda important 4 days before the race, ya think?
The flight to Ishigaki arrives at 10am on Thursday…around the same time my roommate for the weekend, Jenna Shoemaker arrives also. She’s one of my Under-23 teammates. It’ll be nice to have a familiar face around in a foreign country.
The RACE is on Sunday…women’s wave starting at 1pm…right in the heat of the day, thanks race directors! I should look on a weather website to see what the estimated temperature is for that time of the day. Ishigaki is the southern-most island of Japan…and it’s pretty big because it’s got an airport. (I did a bit of research online and discovered that the only other method of transportation to the island was a ferry…and it took about 13hours!! So I decided to go with the plane ticket!).
I have not decided yet about taking my laptop with me to Japan…it can be a bit of a hassle to carry it all that way and then not be able to use it (no internet connection, or expensive internet connection!) Right now, I do have to decide to finish my Statistics test…that is the first priority…after that, I can return to ‘thinking’ about packing for Japan!!

Being a Weekend Warrior!

Today was the last and final day of our “unload” week. This morning, our intense and hard core bike ride involved all of the following: loading the vans with our bikes the night before, waking up early (because we lost an hour due to Daylight Savings), driving to the coast, unloading our bikes at the beach, riding along as a big group of triathletes, averaging about 15 miles an hour, stopping at a coffee shop after 75 minutes of biking, relaxing in the sun with lattes and mochas, and then biking back to the vans even slower with full bellies!
It was the best workout we’ve had since arriving in Chula Vista! We lucked out with the weather, it was a perfect temperature, with lots of sunshine and a bit of wind to keep us cool. It’s being able to do things like this that remind me why I love my sport and enjoy being around my friends and training partners. The atmosphere was relaxed and laid back…just hanging out with friends on a sunny day in California.
One of the guys just flew back to the Springs for the weekend and was nice enough to grab everyone’s snail mail. I had a big stack of junk mail with a few important envelopes (like National team stipends) and a new credit card! Speaking of mail…the internet at the training center here has been out of commission for over 4 days! We are literally GOING CRAZY! I’ve typed this blog while in my room, and then published it the next day after driving to a coffee shop with free internet connection. At least the coffee shop makes really good white-chocolate drinks:)!
By the way…the GATORS are in the National Championship Basketball Game on Monday night! In case you haven’t been following the March Madness…which is now April madness…they are down to 2 teams: Gators versus UCLA…playing tomorrow night! Can’t wait to see some UCLA gator bait…Go Gators:)!