Tug-a-war

It was a fine Saturday afternoon. Heather was upstairs doing laundry, and I was downstairs playing with Rex (our dog). He was growling and his paws were shuffling all over the concrete floor as we played his favorite game: keep-away. When I have his toy, he will stare, eyes transfixed and ready to lunge the second his toy gets close enough to his snout. When he gets his toy, he will taunt me with it until I chase him for it. This particular time, he wanted me to chase him around the dining room table. The next thing I knew, one of the skinny table legs was wedged between two of my toes! It felt like your run of the mill stubbed toes, but when I looked down at it, my little toe was sticking out at almost a 90 degree angle.

“Heather!” I said, “I think I broke my toe!”

She peered over the railing to see my wonky toe “Yup, that’s broken alright.”

Never give up

Broken toe or not, the training and racing must continue.  Don’t get me wrong, when you are injured, you should be smart: recover and then pick up where you left off. Lucky for me, I don’t really have to heed my own advice. I mean, come on, it’s the little toe and who uses that anyways?  It’s only a little pain every step I take. Given that flawed logic, I wasn’t going to let a ½ inch of bone and flesh stop me from racing the Jack’s Generic Tri at Lake Pflugerville. It had been a while since my last triathlon. Almost two months since I raced Rev3 Williamsburg for the win.  I was scheduled to race The Couples Triathlon a few weeks ago, but scheduling issues and work made for a change of plans.

Great day!

Jack’s Generic offers both an Intermediate and a Sprint distance race. I chose to race the sprint because it would allow for faster recovery and let me get in a few more key workouts leading up to my last ITU race of the year (Kelowna, Canada).

Swim warm up, better hurry.

Mother Nature started the day off with low humidity and temps in the mid 80s. Race day started off with the Intermediate distance followed by the sprint. It’s not often my swim wave doesn’t start first, but at least things would be more interesting with more bodies to pass along the course. Also, instead of a mass start, the swim waves went off in a time trial format, where each swimmer started on their own, followed by the next swimmer 2 second later, and so on. New race, new swim start and a lot of fun to follow.

GQ

The race unfolded as such: swim the second fastest, bike the second fastest and run the fastest. The swim was an out and back. I had to navigate through the masses of swim waves that started before me.  Bike was a fast, rolling course, in which I biked faster on the second half.  T1 was uneventful, while in T2, I almost at Sh*&!, because I tripped over a concrete parking block but luckily used my catlike reflexes.  The run was fast, but it did not feel fast because the course was on a dirt, gravel mixture trail and it was hard to get good traction.  Overall experience: Awesomely organized and fun.  Plus, an overall win feels good, too.

Winner's Jersey

I am fortunate and honored to represent the US Army and race for the US Military Elite Triathlon Team, part of US Military Endurance Sports. Racing and training is effortless and made possible by the following USMES sponsors: Boeing, Snapple, Scott, SRAM, Primal, American Classic, Osmo Nutrition, Honey Stinger, Headsweats, Rudy Projects, Xterra Wetsuits , Orange Seal Cycling, Klean Athlete and Schwalbe. I’m thankful to be serviced by and involved with my local bike shop, Jack and Adams Bikes. Team Sterghos also includes Vasa, Sable Water Optics, and Total Immersion. I’m coached and trained by Tim Crowley of TC2 coaching. Finally and most importantly, at the end of the day my heart belongs to Heather.