Sick

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before. -- Henry David Thoreau

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes. -- Henry David Thoreau

Well, I guess these quotes should make me feel better, right?  I am VERY sick right now.  Started as a chest cold which has taken residence in my head.  I am NOT good at being sick, especially when I look at my training plan and see what I am supposed to be doing this week.  Last week was a down-week in my training plan (following a build and Raleigh) - this week is supposed to the beginning of a build period again...and I am crashed out on the couch.  :(  I tried to ride the trainer yesterday, but made it about 11 minutes before I needed to stop.

That being said, I had a couple of surprisingly good workouts last week before falling apart on Saturday.  On Wednesday I had a good solid trainer ride building endurance.  On Thursday I ran for my employer as part of the Corporate 4-Miler.  I laid it out there and had a really good run - I wasn't expecting much given that I was recovering from Raleigh, but I figured a short hard run would be good for me - and it was, especially for my confidence.  I was really disappointed in my Raleigh run...I was worried maybe my run mojo was completely gone.  But no - it was just the mess of the 70.3.  I can still run.  And run fast (for me).  On Friday I had a nice little recovery run in the middle of the day (good for starting to build my heat tolerance) and then a great OWS on Friday night.  We did the normal Friday night distance workout - up the river for a certain period of time, then back down river.  I made it further up the river than I ever did last year - cool for me.  I still had issues with sighting - the sun was crazy once I got about 13 minutes up river.  Next time we're out there I need to test out the smoke goggles...'cause it freaks me out to not see at all.

Anyway.  I know I need to follow & trust my training to get through IMLOU.  I also know that I need to get healthy before I can train.  Now I just need to figure out how to reconcile those two competing interests.  :(

Raleigh 70.3 - Race Report (EPIC)

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says "I'm possible"! -- Audrey Hepburn

Bottom line - I didn't meet my BIG goal of sub-7:00, I'm not sure I finished with a smile (pictures later), but I finished and after thinking about it, I'm pretty happy.  Also, I know what I need to work on for IMLOU - and that's what matters, right?  And I'm on top of the world, 'ay!

I've tried to cut these corners, try to take the easy way out, I kept on falling short of something

I coulda gave up then but then again I couldn't have 'cause I've traveled all this way for something

I take it in but don't look down

'Cause I'm on top of the world, 'ay, I'm on top of the world, 'ay
Waiting on this for a while now, Paying my dues to the dirt
I've been waiting to smile, 'ay, been holding it in for a while, 'ay
Take you with me if I can, Been dreaming of this since a child, I'm on top of the world.

I figured I'd put this song in your head, because I was totally singing it to myself during the race on Sunday.  Sometimes because I believed it, sometimes because I was willing it true...y'know - it was that kind of day.

Next bottom line:  I didn't beat my time from Patriot's last fall, but I improved on the swim (yeah me) and the bike (which was 2 miles shorter but much more challenging).  I fell apart on the run -- I think because I gave too much on the bike and because I didn't follow my nutrition plan.  Yes, I'm a dumb ass.

Here's a comparison of the races by the numbers:

LEG	2013 Patriots		2014 Raleigh
Swim	53:36		50:09
T1	6:08		5:13
Bike	3:36:54		3:35:11
T2	2:24		3:52
Run	2:42:38		2:51:04
TOTAL	7:21:37		7:25:29

On to the gory details...

Pre-race details:
We drove down to Raleigh on Friday night because there was an "Iron Kids" race on Saturday morning before the expo opened.  Here's a picture of the girls after the race with their medals:

It was supposed to be a mile race, but given their times, there's no way it was that distance.  That being said, my oldest KILLED it - she was the first girl in, laying on the heat at the very end to pass another girl.  She was also only behind 4 or so boys.  She's amazing...too bad she doesn't like racing.  The little one did great too - she could have run a shorter race, but she ran the longer one and did just fine.  So proud of my girls.

After the race, we went to the expo.  Since it had just opened and every other parent was headed that way too, I waited in line forever, but once I got into the process, check in went very smoothly.  I will say, top-to-bottom, WTC is a class act.  I understand why people shell out the big bucks for their races - more on the awesomeness as I go on.  Then I headed over to the athlete briefing - very thorough, concise, clear...I was feeling good.  Also, because I'm a bit sappy - I loved this:

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.  :)

After the briefing, etc., we got some lunch and headed out to the lake to check in my bike and do a little practice swim.  Bike check in was a madhouse, but again, even given the number of people it went smoothly.  One thing that made me a little nuts was this busy-body woman that was coming around telling people to deflate their tires.  Last year it was so hot that tires kept popping overnight.  It made me nervous because I wasn't going to have my own pump in the morning...they wouldn't transport with our morning bags and husband didn't want to carry a pump all day - totally get that.  I did deflate my tires some, but then spent the rest of the night obsessing about it.  You know, that's how I roll.

After that, we went for a little swimmy swim on the other side of the lake - they weren't letting us swim at the race site.  Mostly I laid around and let the girls play, but I did get in the water and it was OK.  

Then we drove the course.  Holy hillacious.  Elevation graphs are meaningless on paper.  (And yes, I know LOU will be worse.  I know.)  Got some pizza, got some beer, went back to get some sleep, didn't, woke up a hundred times and then it was time to go!

Race morning:
I've never done a 2-transition race before.  Hubby dropped me off at T2 in the morning where I set out my running stuff and then I hopped a bus to swim start/T1 where we had left my bike the night before.  As the bus pulls into the parking lot, the body markers starting CHEERING for us.  It was flipping awesome.  I felt like a rock star and I hadn't done anything yet.  And then they announced wetsuit legal and I felt even more like a rock star.  And then I took my bike to the mech tent to reinflate my tires, where I failed miserably...managing to completely deflate my front before giving up entirely and letting a wrench do it for me.  Yes, I am that incompetent.  But at least I knew it was done right.

And then the long waiting.  Because you know I was on bus # 2 down to the water but not swimming until forever after the start...wave 13 (lucky....) of 21.  Ate a couple uncrustables, drank some gatorade, and waited for the family to arrive.

Swim:

Here I am, looking darn elvin in my swim cap, no?  Yes, I really do swim with my ears out - although I'm reconsidering that decision now.  I had water in my ears the rest of the race and that's a little discombobulating.  

 Here's my starting wave.  I'm in here somewhere.  Really.  :)

So the way the swim worked is that a wave went off every 4 minutes.  It was 600 something out to the first turn, 750 to the second turn, and nearly 600 down to the finish line.  It was clockwise, which is good because I breathe right - but I had some problems sighting on the way out.  Also, at some point the wave(s) behind me caught me and swam over me, but that didn't cause me as much stress as you might have thought given my skittishness with the swim.  Really it was the sighting that threw me.  So much so that I freaked because I couldn't find the red turn buoy.

Do a little experiment with me.  Put your right hand out straight in front of you, parallel to the ground.  Now bend your elbow up.  See how your hand is like a foot or so from your face?  So I was looking for the turn buoy when the kayaker at the corner asked me if I was OK.  I said yeah, I was just having a hard time seeing the turn buoy.  He said look to 2 o'clock.  And there, about as far in front of me as your hand is from your face right now, was the red buoy.  Yeah, I need to work on that sighting thing.

After I made the turn, the sun situation was better and I was able to sight much better on the across and back legs of the swim.  And remarkably, looking at the Garmin data for my swim, I was pretty much spot-on course.  Sweet - considering.   Also sweet was the fact that I beat last year's swim time by over 3 minutes.  I didn't realize it until I was out of the water - I was sure I was dead last in the water and way over an hour, but as I came up the ramp on my way to the wetsuit strippers, I looked down & saw my time & did a little happy dance.  :)  (Thanks again, POW!)

T1 to Bike:

Another thumbs up to WTC - the wetsuit strippers were awesome.  They were pretty aggressive - basically pulled me off the course & started unzipping and yanking and all sorts of things.  They had a little drama getting my suit over my watch, but after they were done, they even stood me back upright and sent me on my way.  Loved it.

Got all my swim stuff packed into the transport bag, bike stuff on, and headed out.  Mistake # 1 - I forgot to shove some food in my mouth...I was so anxious to get out there.

Here I am (in a fuzzy picture) exiting T1 at the sunscreen line.  Mistake #2 - sunscreen UNDER my trisuit in the morning.  I am horribly burnt where my trisuit slipped during the day and didn't get sprayed.  Ooops.

Bike:

I'm telling you - the bike was really flipping hard.  WTC's guide says something like 1250 climb, but my Garmin says double that.  I believe my Garmin.  :)

And can I just point out that 36.1 mph max speed.  That was me going down a big hill yelling "Holey crap!  Holey crap!  Holey crap!" the whole way.  

So more props for WTC -see that difference between moving time and time - my little 3 minute break?  Yeah, that was a potty stop.  I'm not a podium contender, so yellow socks are not really on my radar.  Ewww.  Anyway, I pulled up to aid station 3 and there were volunteers in front of the portas.  I wanted to park there so I yelled "bathroom, bathroom" and this guy comes flying over, holds my bike for me to get off.  I start to take my bike to rack it and he says "No, I got it - go, go."  So I went, came back - figured as long as I was there I'd refill my hydration bottle without getting sports drink all over my body and bike, and he held my bike while I did that too...then he watched for traffic behind me as I got back on and told me when to take off.  So awesome.  

And yes, I realize that without the 3-minute potty stop, I would have been closer to beating Patriots...but you gotta do what you gotta do.

So the bike course was hilly and it seemed like there was a consistent headwind as we headed east to Raleigh from the beach.  But I rode strong, passed folks on the climbs even, and felt really good until about mile 50 or so.  At that point I was SO over the climbing.  Good news - I was very comfortable on the bike and in aero.  Bad news - there was a cruel up hill into T2.  I had it in granny (or what constitutes granny with my compact crank set) and I could barely make it up the hill.  In fact, I dismounted way before the line because it was going to be less painful to walk my bike in than to ride it 10 more feet up the hill.  

Mistake #3 - NOT FOLLOWING NUTRITION.  On my 50+ mile practice rides, I had been working on uncrustables, gu, and yogurt covered pretzels...along with gatorade.  All of that.  Problem is that on the race, I wasn't as comfortable eating as I am when I'm by myself.  First - no bikers around so if I get a little wiggly, no harm no foul.  Second - I actually usually eat my uncrustable at the turnaround, standing on the edge of the road.  Third - I usually enjoy my yogurt pretzels.  Well, during the race I never got my uncrustable out even.  I ate 2 gus.  I drank my gatorade + a refill of sports drink and water.  And I tried to eat pretzels, but they were drying my mouth out too much, so I gave up on them.  So -- again -- not nearly enough fuel to sustain my efforts and it showed on the run.  I need to really truly get my nutrition nailed down because it's a serious flaw.

Mistake #4 - pushing the hilly course.  I was curious to see what I could do.  To be honest, after driving the course on Saturday, I was a little petrified of the hills...so when I got out there, I really worked them.  And maybe I gave a little too much.  I wasn't "hammering" the hills, like everyone warns you about, but I wasn't taking them leisurely either...and that's probably a fine line I need to work on drawing.  I want to put in a good performance on the bike - it's the longest leg and the place where I can make the best time (it's my best leg as far as vis-a-vis other competitors too)...but not if it shuts down my run like it did.

T2 to Run:

So here I am coming into T2.  There's a smile on my face.  It could be because I was finally not on my bike.  It could be because I thought I could still meet my time goal (although hubby explained later how it was not really possible).  Most likely, the smile is because I was flipping delirious.  And I was.

I found my racking space and my run bag, but the two beyotches that were on either side of me had racked their bikes so close together, I couldn't squeeze mine in.  I didn't want a penalty for misracking, so I stood there for a while until my brain worked a little bit and I racked my bike by a single brake.  I hoped it would still be standing when I got done.  

The other problem was that in T2, I was a little lost.  Like mentally.  I'm assuming it was the exertion + no eating combination.  I don't usually get loopy (at least when there's no wine involved), so that's all I can think.  I wasn't really sure what I was doing or who I was and I did NOT feel well at all.  But I headed out on the run course, because once you get to T2, it'd kind of suck not to finish, y'know.  I'm a sucker for medals.

Leaving T2, since I was all discombobulated, I forwent the sunscreen ladies.  Mistake #5.

Cheerleader Interlude:

So, you wonder what my cheerleaders do while I'm out on the course?  Wait, obvs.

 They read.  They wear capes and look down the street to find out if I'm coming.  They chase me around the course taking unflattering pictures and telling me to suck it up.  (OK, he didn't actually say that - that's what my brain was saying...but hubby was in the vicinity at the time.)  They are the best.

Run:

Once out on the run, I realized I felt really crappy - a little light-headed, a little sick to my stomach...so I started just running when I could, walking when I couldn't, and eating/drinking at every aid station.  Pretzels.  Sports drink.  Water.  Bananas.  Oranges.  Cola.  You name it, I shoved it in...and it started to help - which is why I think that one BIG problem is that I screwed up my bike nutrition.  I negative split the 13.1 miles (barely).  I'm bummed that I was so freaking slow on the run, but honestly, I gave it all I had and that's all I could do.  Lessons to be learned - but also proud of myself, because I did NOT feel like heading out for 13 miles when I left T2.  I wanted to curl up and cry instead.  So I should be/am proud - not of my time, and not of my stupidity, but of my persistence.  

 So, yeah, that's me rocking the neon calf sleeves.  Remember, calf sleeves are the new sexy - and I had no problems at all with calf cramps.  That's a win.  (It looks like there are a lot of people behind me...don't be fooled - I think I'm on lap one and they're on lap two).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  Trisuits are so flattering...said noone ever.   That being said, I'm thinking a little less junk-in-the-trunk would suit me better for LOU, so I need to be a little more careful about what I eat and drink the next couple months.

And here I am crossing the finish line!  YEAH ME!  Hey now, I'm a rock star.  (Don't ask me about the cats...it made me laugh...)

Here I am after the race with two of my three favorite cheerleaders.  There is nothing better than hearing them all tell me how proud they are.  Thanks, crew!  I love you.

So I think I have pretty much figured out what I need to work on between now and IMLOU...and I'm still looking to go sub-7 at Muncie...the bike is flat and fast and I WILL have my nutrition dialed in.  Yes, ma'am.  That' is priority number one for now.  That and recovering quickly from Raleigh and getting back to business.

Karma

Karma is experience, and experience creates memory, and memory creates imagination and desire, and desire creates karma again.  If I buy a cup of coffee, that's karma.  I now have that memory that might give me the potential desire for having cappuccino, and I walk into Starbucks, and there's karma all over again. -- Deepak Chopra

It's just a couple days until Raleigh and yes, I'm freaking out.  I don't think I've had enough time in the open water and I've had a couple of really crappy workouts recently.  I think I may have had a bit of a stomach bug the last couple days (or maybe it's nerves, but usually I don't feel so sick with just nerves) - so I haven't eaten right and that hasn't helped much of anything.  But I'm going to go down there and I'm going to kick Raleigh's butt.  Ha!

Big goal - sub 7:00.  Manageable goal - finish strong with a smile.  Bottom line - finish and get back on the IMLOU training band wagon.

So, KARMA.  This weekend I finally gave back to the tri community - and you know what...Deepak up there is spot on.  Karma is an experience...that creates desire.  My daughter raced Rev3 RUSH at the Richmond Int'l Raceway this past weekend and had a ball.  And I volunteered, both at packet assembly the day before and in the chip tent the day of...and I had a ball too.  I had a great time interacting with all the athletes and it really made me feel like racing again.  Not that I haven't felt like racing - but for the month of May I've been a race & soccer mom and that's different.  The older daughter had a bazillion soccer games between travel and middle school.   The younger daughter had 3 tris - yeah, seriously...she's done until the end of June now - it's just the way the schedule worked.  Even husband raced.  I love being a race mom, and while watching C race is really inspiring, it doesn't make me want to race.  You know what I mean?  It makes me want to be a better person and not give up and aim for the stars.  But it doesn't get my engine revved. 

(She is pretty cute, though...check out some pics my husband took while I was soccer momming with the other child...)

Anyway, being around the race and volunteering made me ready to race (at least until I got that stomach thing).  I'm not sure I'm ready.  I would have like to have spent a little more time in the open water but Mother Nature and my job hate me.  My calves are still not what they were before the marathon.  But I'm revved and ready for Raleigh.  Go me!

(And I would be remiss if I didn't give you some Culture Club, right?  That's what you thought of first when you read "karma," right?  Or is it just me who is stuck in the 80s?)

(EDITED - what is up with the weird formatting???  No idea, but I got to get on my bike.)

Calf Sleeves Are the New Sexy

I like someone who is a little crazy but coming from a good place.  I think scars are sexy because it means you made a mistake that led to a mess.  -- Angelina Jolie

I'm trying to start a new movement here - calf sleeves are the new sexy - kinda like "orange is the new black" or "40 is the new 30" or what have you.  Why?  Because if I'm going to rock them on a regular basis, I want to feel good about it, right?  

My legs have been a little cranky lately, and I got no time for that sort of thing.  So I've been sporting these bad boys.  Monday wasn't so ugly (especially since I had the neon yellow ones on) because it was just a bit cool so I wore long pants.  Today - warmer and wearing linen capris to work, so...yeah.  Just let me tell myself lies.

In addition to the calf sleeves, I have even more sexy going on - I'm sporting some new scars.  Yesterday's "mistake that led to a mess" involved clipping in just a little bit too slowly, resulting in my knee getting cozy with the concrete at the gas station where I stopped for a refill on my long ride.  It's been a long time since I've had a clipping error - but I have new shoes/cleats/pedals, so it was bound to happen.  Might as well get it out of the way, right?

I finally graduated to big-girl cleats/pedals.  I started my clip-in career with the tiny metal mountain bike SPD cleats and have done just fine for years.  But I have also worn a hole in the toe of my bike shoes, so this spring we bought me a new pair of bike shoes (which are super cool)...unfortunately, they don't work with the teensy cleats, so I had to graduate to roadie/tri SPD-SL cleats.  Finally, I know.  I'm a little slow.  I'm keeping the SPDs on my roadie, though.  But we put the SPD-SL on Freyja the tri bike and so, crash in the parking lot.  Super sexy skin-less knee.  Yeah!

So check out these shoes...

Instead of a velcro strap, they have this little dial-y thing.  You click the disk and then spin and your shoe tightens right up.  Pull the disk and you slip right out of the shoe.  SOOOOO COOOOL.  I bought them at our local tri store, Endorphin Fitness, this spring...just took me a while to get over my new pedal drama.

Anyway, I'll keep bringing the sexy back.  :)  As long as calf sleeves and scars are involved, at least.

A Little Help From My Friends

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends. -- John Lennon & Paul McCartney

I'll give you the Beatles version, because I grew up with a Beatles-fanatic father...but I've always been a little partial to Joe Cocker's version myself (and no, not because it was The Wonder Years theme song).

Anyway, do you remember this guy?

By ßlåçk Pærl (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Yeah, it's my good friend, the Open Water Swimming Monkey.  He's not smiling or yawning - he's getting ready to sink his fangs into my back while I'm in the river or lake.  I guess it is more accurate to say that we are NOT friends.  Not at all.  But last night he came to visit me anyway.

I wasn't even going to go to OWS practice, because my daughter had a middle school soccer game (and I feel like I have missed too many of her things this spring as it is between my races and my other daughter's activities).  On the other hand, Raleigh is less than 3 weeks away and I have not really been in the open water to truly swim.  So after having serious mental mama drama, I decided to go to the swim.

And I hated it.  It was hard.  I forgot everything good I learned last year.  I panicked.  I freaked.  I wanted to quit.  I tried to quit - but one of my friends was there..and she didn't let me.  And I am grateful.  Usually it's my mean old husband that keeps me from quitting by mistake, but he was at the soccer game, etc., with the girls.  So it was good to have someone else there pushing me and watching my back.  I hope that I won't need it anymore - it seemed as the season went on last year, I was less frightened about OWS.  But last night I needed the kick in the pants.  Or wetsuit as it were.  Triathlon is a good place to have friends.

Bad Mojo

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. -- Thomas Jefferson

This past week, really, after Tuesday's awesome long ride, I fell into some bad training mojo.   I was just over it.  Over everything really - I was kind of just crabby at life in general.  Sure, I had a great business trip (and who doesn't love running in Florida), but otherwise my whole outlook was MEH.  This is not a good thing with Raleigh.  Then Muncie.  The Louisville.  Then OBX.

Some of it maybe something my husband said to me that was meant to be sweet but I probably internalized it the wrong way.  Basically he pulled up my race results from the beginning of me doing tris and pointed out that I have been squarely back-of-the-pack, peaking (on one tiny occasion) at middle-of-the-pack.  He said it was impressive that I was even still doing tris, because most people would have given up by now.  I get the point he was trying to make - I am persistent.  I have dug my heels into doing tris and I'm not going to stop just because I suck.  But the hard part was the fact that I have (and pretty much still do) sucked at it.

I don't blame my funk on him.  What's in my mind is my doing...but I need to get out of it.  I have too much training to do - and now is the best time to do it.  It's getting hot, so I can start getting acclimated.  In theory, if my life wasn't so busy, I'd be getting out in the open water more (which I need DESPERATELY!)...gotta figure out how to do this before Raleigh, especially since the idea of wet-suit-legal looks pretty slim.

So anyway, I am banishing my bad mojo.  I missed my Masters swim this morning and can't go because of soccer tonight, so I'm going to head over to the Y pool and try to get a swim in, and then head out for a longish hot run to start getting my heat on.  Tomorrow I'm going to get my nutrition dialed in on my long bike (thinking about doing a short swim or short run ahead of it to really get the nutrition story down).  I didn't have a problem last year at Patriot's but I don't think I ate enough on the bike - plus it wasn't near so hot.

With the right mental attitude I can achieve all my goals.  :)

Random Thoughts

The main thing I'm into is going about on a bike, taking random routes; I'm really into the idea of making up journeys, and just seeing where they take you, because they always end up taking you someplace freaky. -- Tom Jenkinson

Lots of stuff has gone on since last week, but since I have no coherent thread to tie it all together, I'm just going to throw it out there as random thoughts.  You know my brain is kind of jumbly anyway.  :)  Try to follow along!

*  At the end of last week, I finally got to get out on the roads.  Yes, it is time to stop whining about the weather.  I had a nice, hilly ride on Friday which, after Masters, kind of wore me out for the whole weekend.  Given my travel schedule this week, I'm heading out in a little bit for this week's long hilly ride - that ought to wear me out through next weekend, right?

*  It's great to be able to be flexible and get my long workouts in during the week, particularly given the crazy of our weekends (especially in May).  On the other hand, I kind of feel out of sync with the rest of the world.  Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration...but y'know - everyone else plans their long workouts for the weekend and this past Saturday was basically a rest day for me.

*  Speaking of Saturday, I got into the open water - yeah me!  And it didn't kill me.  Granted, I didn't really swim any distance or length of time, but I didn't completely freak and...even better...my wetsuit still fits, even after vacation!  Husband had his first tri of the season and they had a pre-swim at the site, so I went down and swam around as little bit too.  They only let us swim back and forth in a small area, but it was still good to get that first step out of the way.  Hopefully next week when I'm back from travel I'll be able to get a real OWS swim in - Raleigh is sneaking up on me.

*  That's not actually true.  Raleigh is NOT sneaking up on me - I'm acutely aware of how close it is and I do not feel ready.  Some of it is that my workouts haven't been spot on given the weather, etc.  Some of it is that I have totally built up the hills in my head as insurmountable - which is stupid - because they are surmountable even if they are hard.  I need to see this as a challenge in a good way, not in a bad way.

*  So crazy weekends - this past weekend we had 1 volleyball game, 2 soccer games, and 2 triathlons (one hubby, one younger daughter).  Husband did awesome in his first tri of the year.  He did Monticello Man in Charlottesville, VA - HILLY HILLY HILLY.  And he still rocked it.  I'm really proud of him.  Daughter did her first tri of the year also - East Coast Tri Fest kids tri.  It was her first open water tri - and although she didn't do as well as she or I would have hoped, I'm really really proud of her too.  She is conquering the OWS monkey at an early age and that is just amazing.  (One of my Masters coaches also said this last night - he was telling me about how he was kayak support and had a grown woman panic on him - been there, done that! - He was excited that my daughter did so well at so young.)

I don't have pics of hubby, because I couldn't be 3 places at once, but here's daughter before her race.  She's awesome.

Both of them are my inspiration.  And here is You're the Inspiration by Chicago - except that Peter Cetera beats Jason Scheff any day.  And you know it.  :)

*  In other inspirational news - daughter and I also spent the morning on Sunday watching the Junior and Youth Elite race East Coast.  It was amazing to watch the best in the sport doing their best.  Damn they are fast!

*  Finally, a last bit of inspiration.  This past week I finally gave back.  Yeah, I suck.  My family has volunteered.  Older daughter has independently volunteered.  Me?  I'm either racing, chasing children around, or being a wild, cheering mom.  So when the opportunity came up to volunteer and not interfere with all that, I signed up - I stuffed race packets.  Maybe it isn't quite as awesome as handing out water, etc.  I need to find a time to do that too, but it felt good to give back.  I'm also signed up to stuff packets at Rev3 Rush - daughter's 3rd triathlon of May (with RMS PowerKids the week before - yikes).