Friday Night Swims and Lake Stevens....delayed!

Friday Night Swim races at Lake Meridian are held twice a year now and land perfectly with the athletes prepping for Ironman CDA and Canada. Since the focus is on my swim I signed up for the 2.4. We arrived early, just to allow for more time to stress over which division to participate in (rubberized or not). Flashbacks of Rev 3 Portland where the temps were 73.6 and feeling warm in the comforting Torque had me debating the actual 75 degree temps of Lake Meridian up until the final minutes. Webb reminded me that this was to be “fun” and no pressure so I figured, if I get hot I could just slow down (what a concept huh?!). I got myself the fresh out of the box TYR Hurricane and TYR tracer goggles and got in a quick warm-up. The water was very “comfortable”. Rumor had it that the first few buoys on the way out can be difficult to site so I played it safe for the first ¼ of the swim, swimming side by side another athlete and leading the first pack of 6 or so swimmers (which had some speedy non-wetsuiters in there). The rumors were true as we could not find the “green” buoy anywhere (the line-up was orange, then green, then yellow, repeat). A kayaker came over to get us as we were way to close to shore. Fellas it’s a good thing there wasn’t a lululemon nearby or we would have really been off course. Never leave me in charge :). By the first turn buoy I finally felt comfortable to swim on my own so I settled into a normal 2.4 mile swim pace and kept myself in check until half way through the second loop to make sure I was not boiling. In the final quarter I added in more power in my arms and a little more bang to the kick to finish it off (Hard to believe if you know how I swim-all legs. Hand me a pull buoy and I drown). I landed first place which got us a huge apple pie that kept my husband happy for days, three to be exact! To note for fun, second place is a cinnamon roll and third a stack of cookies. Always trying to fatten up the podium! (Pie at end of day two!)
Two days later was the Lake Stevens 70.3. We put together a girl relay team with the plan of having a blast. We were the final wave to go off and it was only 3 minutes behind Mark’s wave. I think he stressed all night as to “when” I would catch him. We joked that I would get in front of him and pull him a bit. All joking aside I figured there would be no way we would find each other, UNLESS he followed coach’s instructions of staying on the inside of the buoy line. Relays are always an unexpected abundance of athletes of all abilities. I started out steady to see if there were any “current-collegiate-swimmer-type swimmers”. There was one but not even close to the buoy line where I started. So I swam solo for a bit until catching the wave ahead of us, then the swim went by quick, I felt like I was play frogger in the water trying to dodge swimmers. About a ¼ of the way headed back “home” I saw Mark (he followed instructions :)) ahead of me in his purple cap. It immediately made me laugh…..his fears had come true! Oh, there was so many things going through my head to do to him, but I didn’t want to affect his race, remember this was all about fun for me, he had an agenda (ie: Worlds 70.3). I came up to him on his left, ughhh….he breathes to the right. So I stayed with him stroke per stroke for 5 or so strokes just waiting for him to look over. It was a no-go; he was racing a dude next to him and not even considering looking left. Thinking “I could whack him in the head” OR more kindly I will just get right in front of him, the annoying wife just wanting to say “hi”, and if I do something really obnoxious he WILL notice me. Backstroke it is…..so I did some backstroke with a super-grin and he finally acknowledge my existence in the smelly lake of Lake Stevens. It was LOVE. I continued on and got out of the water knowing my swim time would not be pretty because I felt like I was “playing” the whole time, never really thinking of racing. I checked my watch and it read 28:xx. That sounded about right, until I later remembered (okay, I looked at ironmanlive) and forgot I had started my watch a minute early. Somehow I managed the fastest women’s split of the day! The timing chip was quickly off and handed to my great friend/TNM coach/training buddy Bridget Jones! She hammered out the bike and buddy Karen ran a half ironman PR. We were women relay champs!!! Yeah! Very upset we don't have a photo of the three of us :(

And Double-Yeah to Webb for qualifying for Vegas…bring on the heat and hills and for me the suntan!