Days Off are the BEST!

Last Monday, it was a day off of training. I spent some time at the beach with my friends. We attempted some surfing and hung out at a café. This Monday, today and also a day off of training, I went with some friends to Coronado Island to hang out, shop, and wander the streets. We had a yummy lunch at a café, sitting outside in the sun and enjoying the relaxing atmosphere. Jessica was driving and we got to make a quick stop on the Naval base on Coronado Island. She took us into the Naval Exchange…cheap prices and no sales tax…unfortunately, you can only buy things if you have a Military ID:)!
We had to get back to the Training Center for some appointments in Sports Science. Me for a massage to work out a huge knot in my back, Jess for pain in her foot, Jaz…she’s fine. Now, we are all chilling in our room in front of the TV…I should be doing some work on my Stats class, though.
The second test of the class has been sent out...wish me luck…I have to turn it in by April 8th! It’s a take home test (so we get to use the book and all our notes) but that means all the questions are going to be even harder! I’m about 2 chapters behind in the class because the LAST thing I am motivated to do after a hard workout is read about statistics (ya think?).
This week is a bit of recovery in the training schedule. But there is still excitement…Barb Lindquist is coming in tomorrow to spend a week working with us. She’s scheduled for a bunch of talks, from ‘mental approach’ to ‘pre swim routine’ to ‘the business of being a pro’. Of course she’ll be training with us a bit, and coaching us a bit, and I just can’t wait to learn all I can from her. We each get a scheduled time for a one-on-one talk and one of the things I’m going to ask her is to look at my planned race schedule this year and let me know what she thinks. She’s raced on most of the courses and she will know which ones are the best for me (a strong swimmer like her). I will keep you posted on the info that she provides…or maybe not…I don’t want all my competition to know all the secrets from Barb!!
Other than all that…the countdown is 15 days until I depart for Japan to race in my first World Cup triathlon! I’ve got a roommate, Jenna Shoemaker (also my teammate on the U23 team)…and we sent our info to the Japan race organizers for a room. They also organize transportation to and from the airport for all the pros…thank goodness because my Japanese doesn’t go far past “please” and “thank you”:)!

Surfing Trip #1...La Jolla Beach

Being 30 minutes from the West Coast beaches makes me want to drive to them all the time. Fortunately, I was able to do that on Monday because we had a complete day off from training. My friends (Jasmine, Matt and Mike) loaded up into my car around noon (we had to sleep in first!) and headed to Mission Beach.
The day before, I visited Maggie at her house. We saw a movie (Eight Below…very cute Disney tear-jerker) and she let me borrow a long board and a wetsuit.
So I had a big 9 foot board on my roof and we were on our way to the beach! Unfortunately, Mission Beach was not the place to be…the waves were crap and there was no one in the water! So we kept driving, through Pacific Beach and over to La Jolla. La Jolla was the place to be…there were a couple of other brave souls in the 54 degree water on their boards. The waves were nice (and small). Perfect for learning to surf!
I pulled on the wetsuit and headed out! Unfortunately, I’d be fine in the waves if I was just body surfing…easy. But put me on a 9 foot board and the waves are VERY scary! They just look SO big, especially when I’m on the top of the wave, about to catch it! So, I stuck to the already broken waves, and practiced standing up on the board. That was good enough for me…I’ve got to start somewhere!
I got out of the water after about 30 minutes and then Jasmine put on the wet-wetsuit and grabbed the board for some wave time. She was pretty good and had fun in the water while the guys and I threw a Frisbee around on the beach.
We stopped by a café and grabbed some hot chocolates for the drive home. It was a fun way to spend a day off in Southern California…and we’ve already got another day off next Monday…I wonder what we’re going to do!? But before Monday…the team is going to practice open water swimming on Saturday morning (I think at Coronado Beach) and Maggie is going to met me afterwards for some lessons! I think I’ll be a bit more confident if I have someone who knows what they are doing…and willing to give me pointers!

I've Suddenly Become a Fan of Iron Distances!

Finishing up the second week in San Diego…the weather is finally treating us a bit better. The sun has come out and starting to warm up the area (of course we still have to deal with rain showers but what can you expect in Southern California in the Spring?) so training is much nicer. Today we had “open water” practice in the pool during swim practice…hilarious…I, of course, would much rather be at the beach and in the ocean to practice “open water” but I understand that it takes time and planning to drive everyone to the beach. Instead, we put buoys in the pool and do mass starts off the side of the pool for race simulations (not so sure how many of our races this is actually “simulating”…but its tons of fun and makes practice go by so much faster than just doing sets and swimming laps)!!
After breakfast and a bit of down time, I headed out for my long aerobic run at noon because I had heard that the rain was going to arrive in the afternoon. It was a smart decision on my part because the rain did come later, but the wind was out in full force during my run! I did a bit of an ‘out-and-back’ course and had a nice cooling headwind on the first half, and then on the way back to the training center I’m hot and sweaty because I don’t have a nice breeze keeping me cool. I was very happy with how my run felt…it’s a lot different this year…long runs are not pure TORTURE for me, they are actually enjoyable now! It’s a start toward becoming a ‘runner’ and I’ll take it!
So read about the AMAZING news I heard this morning: http://www.silvermannv.com/index.html. This is the web-site for the Silverman Full-Distance (Ironman) Triathlon. They have just announced that they will give $100,000 to the first relay team that finishes the race in under 8 hours. This is HUGE! The race course is regular Ironman distances: 2.4mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run. I did some research on last years results (the first year the race was held) and the winning time was by a relay in 9:37. The course is VERY difficult (except for the swimmer of course) with 9,700 feet of climbing on the bike course and 2,000 feet of climbing on the run. So the most important thing is a biker who can time-trial AND climb…and can ride the 112 miles in 4:30 to 4:45 hours. Then the marathoner has to go between 2:15 and 2:30. Its not a big time spread for the swimmer, under 45 minutes would be ideal (of course I can do that!)…under 40 would be flying!
Oh my gosh…I would LOVE to be on the team that does it! Don’t you think it is important that the team be COED…and of course the only place for the female is on the swim…and of course I’m the perfect girl for that! I’ve already got my name being spread to the people putting teams together…I’m even willing to take less than 1/3 of the prize (I will be the first to admit that 5 hours on a bike is a bit more grueling than 45 minutes in a lake)!
Now I’ve got to calm down, get my head out of the clouds, feet back onto the ground and get back to my studies! Later, Gators:)!

?Warm? California

What is going on?! It's like freezing here in Chula Vista! I packed for typical warm California weather, same as we had last year at this time...but we arrive at the OTC in Chula and it's been cold and windy every day. The sun tries to shine through the cloud layer every morning, it might make it through for a few hours, but then it goes back to being cold...usually when we start our bike rides!
Other than the weather crisis...its so nice to be back in Chula, everything is just how we left it! The roads are nice for riding, the hills are still as hard to climb as always, the trails are great for running (even better this year because Southern Cali is having a drought, not a flood like last year) and the pool is outdoors in the sunshine!
Tomorrow, the 11th, we are going to run a 10K race...I'm excited to run it and see how my running has improved in a year. I can't actually compare a time to the 10k from last year because I didn't actually finish (I had to help my teammate who had an ashma attack). I've already warned her that I'm not stopping this year:)!
Other than that...just hanging out, training, getting tan, hoping that the weather is nice tomorrow afternoon because we have plans to go surfing!! Maggie...my teammate from the lifesaving competition...has promised to take us somewhere with nice waves to practice on! I will keep you posted on the run race results and the surfing update!

Check out Dana in the Stars & Stripes cap...diving for the hose in the finals of the Beach Flags event...our young little sprinter finished 5th in the world!

Team USA walking out in the Opening Ceremonies (which were AFTER the finals of the first day of events...hum?!)

This is the start of the men's Surf Race, aka "Open Water Swim"...(can you see Blaine in the Fastskin legsuit?). Just gives you an idea of the intensity these guys have!

This is probably Shane (obviously the guy in the Red/White/Blue cap:) on the ski. Those things just cut right through the wave...it's very cool to watch them paddle head-on into big surf...and just go right through!

This is Brian...I'm not sure if this is the finals of the paddleboard event or part of the Taplin Relay...but he was awesome on the board, no matter what event!

Maggie on the ski in the Taplin relay...she's going to make the USA Olympic Team in the Kayaking events in 2008!

That's Tilly on the paddleboard in the women's Taplin relay...catching a NICE wave!

This is Blaine finishing his swim leg of the Men's Taplin relay...he is also the men's World Champ in the 200m obstacal swim!

That's me, finishing the first leg of the Taplin Relay (the MAIN event out of the whole World Champs...see how they put the sponsor shirts on us!). I swam about 400 meters, ran onto the beach and tagged Tilly, she did the paddleboard section. Then Maggie did the kayak/ski section and she tagged Dana who finished with the beach sprint...by the way...we got 4th in the WORLD! Go Team USA!

This is the sprint to the finish in the finals...soooo close, but we ended up 6th overall, in the WORLD! Pretty impressive for the first time Maggie and I were on a paddleboard together!

See...I told you that we caught this wave!! This was seriously the highlight of my World Lifesaving Competition...I wish we could do it again! Thanks Maggie for the opportunity to be your teammate!

Maggie and I in the Rescue Board Rescue relay...yes, that's really us...I'm in the front! Check out the next shot...we actually SAVED this!!

Dustin=Genius! (as if we all didn't already know that)

The other day I was just sitting at my computer, putting new songs onto my iPod Shuffle like I always do, and somehow I managed to completely screw the whole thing up! I think I might have pulled it out of the computer before it was completely ‘updated’. But the main point is…it no longer played music! I was so mad at myself…I love my Shuffle, it’s great to run with, and it was a birthday present from my brother last year.
Of course I went onto the Apple website, searched through their support articles, tried everything they suggested…but NOTHING worked…I even formatted the darn thing (not a good idea…actually the WORST idea when it comes to iPods). So basically, I turned my music player into a new 1GB external storage device…it was now holding computer files just fine:(
I called my brother, left him a sad message about how sorry I was about destroying his b-day present and how upset I was. The funniest part of this whole story (well, funny to me at least) was when he called back, he was sincerely worried because he couldn’t understand what I had destroyed in the message I left on his phone! When I told him it was my Shuffle, he was a little mad that he called back so fast with so much concern:)!
Anyways…I made him (the computer wizard) give me some suggestions for fixing my iPod. I had already tried some of the things he suggested…but I tried them again. Unfortunately, my computer still would not recognize that there was an iPod plugged into the computer (big problem when you want to transfer music from one to the other!). So I called Dustin back, told him “thanks for the help”, apologized again, and was saying “goodbye” when he mentioned a very random idea.
“Sara, don’t you have your new laptop with you?” I said that I did, and it was set up with iTunes, but I had never plugged my shuffle into it. “See what happens if you plug it into the laptop,” he said. So I turned on the computer, plugged in the iPod, had NO hopes of anything happening…but would you believe that the thing suddenly started updating songs! I was literally jumping up and down all over my room…it was a very exciting moment:)!
It’s now like 11:30pm in Florida…of course I call Dustin to tell him the GREAT news, and thank him a hundred times for the brilliance that is contained between his ears! It’s so nice to have a genius as a close family member…I’m beginning to see the benefits of this! Hahaha
Basically, the point of all this is that my hour run on Wednesday was not torture because I had my magic little music player with me…pumping out the jams! I love my little brother…THANKS DUSTIN:)!

Day 2 of competition...not as exciting:(

A quick break from my school work studies to write more on my Australia competitions.
I think I ended my previous post at the end of Day 1…unfortunately, that was my only day of glory…but the fun was only just beginning! On the second day of pool events, I woke up with a nasty cold in my throat and nose area…it was a big bummer and made me feel like crap. I knew I still needed to compete well for the team, and I tried my best in my events: the 200m Super Lifesaver and the 100m Manikin Carry with Fins. Again another ‘unfortunately’ belongs here because in both events in the prelim heats, I was disqualified for drowning ‘Bob,’ my manikin!
I guess that means I’m not really a “Super Lifesaver”?! But we already knew that, right? Hahaha
The rest of Team USA had the same kind of bummer luck and we had a ton of DQ’s on the second day…where we should have scored a ton of points in finals, had we been allowed to swim! But the cool thing was, all my teammates were really laid-back, and very calm about it…not totally frustrated so that it affected their future events, so I took a page from their book and just focused on my future events and how to excel at them.
The highlights of Day 2 were watching the SERC event in the morning…when Daytona Beach hosted the World Champs in 2002, my mom and I volunteered at the Orlando Aquatic Center for the pool events. One morning, we were ‘victims’ in the Simulated Emergency Response Competition. In short…each country sends out 4 members to the pool deck where an ‘emergency’ situation has been created (people drowning, people drunk on the edge, dead manikins on the bottom, boats flipped over, etc) and they get 2 minutes to do whatever they can. My mom and I were drowning victims in the Orlando pool…it is VERY hard work to drown the exact same way for 2 minutes for 25 teams! So, it was very nice to sit in the stands and watch some other pour soul drown for 32 teams…and watch how each country approached the situation (of course Australia was ridiculously perfect!). I wont say anything about Team USA…except it was hilarious and we got 17th out of 32, which is ‘Average’!
When we weren’t at the pool (which was not very often because we got there at 8am and didn’t leave until 8pm on both days) I enjoyed seeing the city of Geelong. It is an ‘old’ city, as far as ‘old’ goes in Australia (they are younger than the USA). But age doesn’t effect the amazing view of the water in the harbor and there were plenty of cool places to get meals with the team…we loved this one pizza/pasta place for dinner, almost every night!
The drive from Geelong to Lorne Beach was about 1.5 hours…most of it along the Great Ocean Highway, I’m speechless. Beach after beach of white sand with clear blue water and big white waves crashing…I never wanted the drive to end! But then we get to Lorne, and it’s a beautiful beach and we actually get to swim in this one! Our hotel in Lorne (because we spent 3 nights there instead of driving back and forth each time) was a huge resort right on the water…kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms…heaven!
The ‘rest day’ between pool and beach events was more like a ‘training day’ for Team USA (mainly me). Mitch…our coach and a former World Life Saving Champion himself…helped me learn all the rules of the events that I was signed up for, gave some tips, and watched me practice. Our board paddler, Maggie, had a ‘try-out’ session with Micha and I for one of the relay events…I will get into more detail on the Day 3 post. Other than that, I actually spent some of the day ‘resting’ because my cold was hitting me hard-core and sleep wasn’t coming easy at night…it wasn’t going to stop me from one moment on the beach though! Day 3 post coming soon!:)

Here's my new Blue bike...built and ready to ride! All the OTC resident triathletes and the U23 team will be racing to glory on these beauties in 2006! Thanks to Blue Bikes, Shimano, Powertap, Fizik seats for all the parts!

Maggie and Micha...there really is a story behind this interesting photo...at the BBQ before the races started, we had hamburgers that were RARE so all we ate was the bread. As they say, a photo is worth a 1000 words:)!

Australia...Competition Day 1

I realize that I have been back in the USA for over a week now…and I’m just getting around to writing a story about my awesome trip to Australia for the Lifesaving World Championships. Let me first put in a bunch of excuses why it’s taken me so long: had to get back into training…needed a lot of time to catch up on sleep…school work was required to be finished…laundry needed to be washed…my 23rd birthday needed to be celebrated (all weekend long:)…some of my friends asked for rides to the airport…a backlog of e-mails were waiting for answers…my new bike needed to be assembled and correctly fit (I will post photos of my beautiful new Blue ASAP)…etc!
Here we go with a recap of the trip and competition: On Wednesday, February 8th, around 3pm, Jasmine and Jessica drove me to the COS airport. It was sad to be leaving for so long, all my friends and training, but I knew that summer and warm, sunny beaches were awaiting me. I had such high hopes for myself on the plane trips, I had homework to complete, books to read, things to do…but all I managed to do was take some really long naps! The flight from COS to LAX wasn’t too long…but the wait in the LAX airport was ridiculous…I had about 5 hours to ‘chill’ until we started boarding the Qantas flight to Melbourne! I did get to met a few of my new teammates in the airport…they were all really cool people…but we all spent most of the flight sleeping and keeping to ourselves (understandable when you’ve got 15 hours through the night on a plane!).
We arrived in Melbourne at 9:30am and after the inevitable wait for rental vans, we were on our way to Geelong…the city where we were staying for the pool competition events. It was a small city, very old looking…but with a nice new 50 meter pool…built for the Commonwealth Trials about 1 month prior.
The first few days in Australia were dedicated to training, practicing the events, figuring out the relays, visiting the beach where we would compete later in the week, and just hanging out. The USA team was a really cool group of people…lots from the West Coast (Cali.) who knew each other from other competitions and local training (Blaine, Andy, Renee, Micha)…both our sprint runners, Dana and Matt, were from the East Coast (NJ & NY)…Kicker was a swimmer like me who just missed out on the 2004 Olympics...Tilly, Brian, and Shane were American citizens that lived in Australia for one reason or another (mostly b/c training for this sport is easier there)…and the coolest teammate was Maggie, she’s training for Beijing 2008 in kayaking IN CHULA VISTA! I’m heading to the Chula Vista OTC in 5 days…we had a great time getting to hang out in Australia and we are very excited to hang out for 2 months when I’m in Chula…she’s promised to take me surfing at all the cool spots in Southern California and let me try her racing kayak (which I know I’m going to tip over in so I’m going to show up in my swim suit!).
On to the competition part of the trip (yes, we really did compete, not just hang out on the beaches and explore Australia!). The pool events started on Tuesday, February 14th…my ‘best’ event was the first event of the whole competition (and by ‘best’ event, I mean the one that is closest to a normal swimming event and my best chance to win)…the day before, I had Scott Petersohn time me in a test 200 meter obstacle swim at about 75% because I wanted to at least practice the whole event one time before I had to do it in competition! The USA coaches had made sure that I knew what the “world record” in this event was before I went to Australia…2:11. My practice swim was 2:15…I didn’t want to brag, but I knew that I had it in the bag!
Come race morning…when the meet finally started (2 hours after scheduled start time) I broke the world record in my Prelim heat with a 2:10.7! No better way to start a meet…and team USA was pretty pumped! Unfortunately, the meet was not run very smoothly, and the estimated time schedule was thrown out the window…the 2 hour break between prelims and finals was canceled when prelims actually finished 3 hours late! So we went right into finals…and I was again the first event…with ‘lunch’ sitting very heavy in my stomach (I ate it 30 minutes before the finals started) I managed to bust out a bit faster 200 meter obstacle swim, break my world record again: 2:10.3 and finally become a World Champion! I was also the anchor leg of the Rescue Medely relay…the last event of the evening…and the USA women swam to an awesome bronze medal performance! Of course the men had to out-do us in the next heat by winning and setting another World Record…so Team USA was off to a solid first day…I think we were sitting in 4th place when we finally headed back to the hotel!