I am back! It has been so busy over the past week. Ron's parents came for a visit and I think they had a good time. We loved seeing them and the guys were thrilled to have them here. Then, on Friday, my friend Joanne arrived to visit for the weekend and do the Tinfoilman Triathlon with me. It was great to see her and I hope she had a good time in spite of the torture I inflicted on her! We rode our bikes up Mt. Lemmon on Saturday and then on Sunday completed the triathlon; Monday, we went to spin class together and she got to meet Spencer, my coach and spin instructor. It was a brutal class and it was only 5:30am -- a bad combination!

The triathlon went well. I was in the third wave of people to swim (about 30 people swim each wave). It turns out that the woman I was sharing a lane with had sent in the same swim time I had sent in (you have to send in an estimate of your swim time so that you can be grouped with people about the same speed and the race progresses steadily). She told me this and then said that she had improved a lot since sending in her estimate, but didn't want to lower the time. It was kind of snotty, actually. Finally, the buzzer sounded and we were off! I went out way too fast and couldn't maintain my speed after 6 laps (too much adrenaline), but then I settled into a good pace.... and lapped my lane-mate twice. This was satisfying, and there was a tinge of schadenfreude about it. After the race, I found out that she finished in 18:59 and I finished the swim in 17:25. Brigid and Joanne were there the whole time cheering me on and then they arranged to have two pullers there to help me out of the pool. This pool is a huge pain in the butt to get out of since the surface of the water is about 18 inches below the pool deck and I couldn't push off the bottom of the pool. So these two guys appear at the end of my lane and each one takes a hand and they yank me out. "Graceful" is not the word I would choose to describe this particular action. I did speak to the photographer before the race and tell him no pictures of racers turtling on the pool deck.

I ran out to the transition area (after collecting my glasses from Brigid), and got ready for the bike section. I was hoping to do great things on the bike section of this race since I knew the course and I have been cycling so much lately I thought I could do it faster than last time. I felt really strong and good for the bike ride; I didn't crash or hit any pedestrians (though one of the other TriGirls did!) and pulled back into transition to go out on the run. I did cut two minutes off of my bike time in this race, but I was a little bit disappointed since I felt like I was going superfast around the course and I thought I would cut off more than 2 minutes.

The run was alright. It wasn't horrendous, but it wasn't anywhere near easy. In my last triathlon (Memorial Day), I hurt my left hip while I was running and I really haven't been running since then. My hip is still bothering me and so I figured that I would just walk the 5K. However, pride got the better of me and I jogged out of transition and then walked/jogged the rest of the way. By some fluke, I managed to cut 3 minutes off my run time compared to the last triathlon. How about that for a stunner? I did run the last 100 yards as fast as I could -- and Brigid ran along beside me screaming and cheering. Boy she is just FANTASTIC to have on my side!!! Brigid also stays on the bike course and cheers until she is hoarse each time I go by -- it is just GREAT!

Today, Joanne left to go back home, all the guys are in school, including James and I was going to do errands and all that crap that accumulates when a lot of other stuff is going on, but forget it! I am going to do almost nothing this morning. I have from now (9:15am) until 11:20am to myself and I am going to sit on the couch, have an ice cold diet coke, and read my book.