I am a (tri)ROCK STAR!

I am in here somewhere!

The entire Team Challenges were in the first heat. We wore orange swim caps. It was so crazy to see us jumping little by little and settle at the starting line. I was pretty calm. The night before coach Paul gave us an awesome speech. A prepared and ready athlete is the calm athlete! I was! Shortly after we entered the water, they announced a minute warning...45 seconds..10...9...8....My OH CRAP mode set in for like a second, and then I was ready. I said to myself, "Here we go Jess. Let's go! Swim". I was convinced I was one of the last people in the water. It was tough! I was pushing myself. I was breathing hard, but kept  going. My goggles were giving me trouble by getting foggy and I still need to work on my sighting. I had to stop a few times, but kept pushing through saying to myself, "You got this Jess. Keep going! You're almost there. Keep moving, and you'll get there". 

Once I got out of the water, coach Sarah yells, "Look at you!" I  was surprised. That gave me confidence and the boost I needed. I was happy that I was doing so well! I was out of the water in a little under 11 minutes. On my way over to the transition area I saw a few friends and it was the nicest surprise to see them cheering for me. I was running over to the transition area, but slowed down a bit or else I knew I'd fall over. When I got to my bike I was kinda shaking. I think it was part nerves! I thought, "Breathe Jessica. Breathe. Get out of your wet suit, get your shoes on, helmet, glasses, go. What are you doing? Don't dry off! Go!" haha. I had my energy goo, got going, and mounted. 

I was a bit out of breath when I started the bike. I tried to keep up with a teammate who also started the bike portion around the same time. After hitting a few bumps my kickstand was getting in the way. Prior to race day, my kickstand was getting in the way of the wheel, making this horrible sound. I had it looked at, tightened, and even had to get it replaced. Race day, same thing. It was making a horrible sound and I tried to ignore it and keep pushing, but I was worried it would mess up my wheel. I had to get off and that set me back a little. Janet caught up with me though! I had a few more slower moments when I had to get water. I still need to learn to grab my water bottle and put it back in it's place while riding. Irregardless, Jan and I finished and started running together! :) I was ready to get off that bike and to running! I hated the bike portion, honestly! Not my favorite. 

Here I am crossing the finish line! It was great! My calf and Achilles was kinda hurting  halfway through the running, but kept thinking, "GO, GO, GO". I did have additional motivation. My goal was to finish, strong, and catch up with my teammate, Cassie. She passed me on the bike portion.  

CONFESSION: I saw here on the run and said to Janet, "There she is. Let's catch up! Let's go". Sadly, Janet and I didn't stay together, but we finished!! I was in a mode that just took me over. I powered through and wanted to finish fast. I thought, "The faster you go, the sooner you can stop". I tried to keep thinking this than focus on the pain in my leg. Needless to say, I got new running shoes the week after. 

The sister and I with our lovely medals. We're TRIATHLETES! 

So, when's the next one??

Day before race tales

The day? Saturday, Sept. 8
The location? San Diego Hilton
What? Pre-race day!

When we got to San Diego we went straight to the Expo area and picked up our "Swag Bag" with our goodies. Here are mine:

We checked out a few booths. The sister, Cassie, and I signed up for the Rock N Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon and got free shirts! WOO! :)  Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and we reviewed our materials and put our timing devices on. It looked like we had excaped from jail or were under house arrest. Don't we?

Once we reviewed everything, we went back to our rooms to relax a bit. We had some time before our big Team Challenge dinner so we put on our race number temporary tattoos. Here's Janet blowdrying hers. Cassie accidentally got it wet witouth peeling the back. 

When we went to dinner, we met in the lobby as a team and made our way over. We were greeted by the following: 

It was really cool to see so many people cheering for us! :) We had dinner with all the other teams part of Team Challenge. They came from Seattle, San Francisco, and a few other cities. It was awesome. We gave shout outs to our coaches, managers, top fundraisers, and had awesome, inspiriation speakers! 

After our lovely dinner, we had our last team meeting before race morning. Here are some photos from our meeting. 

We painted our nails orange & blue, our team colors!

I knocked out soon after; my bedtime was 11pm. My set up race morning - 

First thing in the morning, WATER!

My wake up greeting!

Splash Splash

The night? Wednesday 

The place? LMU swimming pool 

The mission? Complete our last team swim practice.

Getting ready to dive in

Yesterday, as usual, we ran through the Wednesday motions. I make my way over to pick the sisiter at work at 6pm and we face the feat of getting through LA traffic to make it to practice by 7pm. We usually get there right on time but the last two weeks we've made it with 15 minutes to spare. We got to practice and our coaches talked through a few logistics for the weekend and afterward we got in and ready for business. We did a warm up and sprint work. We were teaching our bodies to swim through an elevated heart rate. It was good! I felt good! However, last night (& this morning) I'm feeling it.

After about 200m, I'm all warmed up (pre-shoulder pain)

The Problem: My left shoulder feels a bit strained so I'm trying to take it easy. I googled what could the cause of the pain could be. I believe I've found...

The Answer: I normally breathe on my right side. As I bring my left arm to enter the water, instead of having my hand come forward as it's entering the water (fingers pointed at an angle), my thumb will enter first, putting pressure on my shoulder. Definitely got to work on the mechanics of my stroke a little bit. 

Before the shoulder pain, we were instructed to get out of the pool and we knew what was coming. Last week we went through a drill where we, little by little, jumped in the pool and made our way through the lanes, like snake. 

Last drill - we snake through the lanes, from one end to the other

I usually stay behind because I don't want to be in the front with the faster swimmers or those who are secretly competing against other teammates, but last night, I thought, "Why not?" So I made my way to the edge of the pool, jumped in, and swam! It was kind of competitive. There was a point when I tried to pass two teammates and one of them slightly knocked my googles and they almost came off. I recovered, though. Once we were done, we made our way into one swim lane. Coach Paul quickly explained that we were about to complete a "rite of passage." We were all given paddle boards and were instructed to make the swim down the lane impossible, or as near to. Check out the video of me and a teammate making it down the lane. It wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself! 

After practice, we went to Tower Pizza for our last meal. We ate, we were merry, we're ready for Sunday! 

Julie & Julia / Jessica & Janet

Have you seen the film "Julie & Julia"? 

I recommend this film! However, BEWARE: it WILL make you hungry!

I began to watch it on E! last weekend and I found it DELIGHTFUL. The cooking, the french food, the lovely acting of Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, it inspired me to get my butt into the kitchen. 

Tuesday Night the sister and I made our way to Trader Joe's and picked up a few goodies and decided to experiment a little in the kitchen. While what we cooked was technically Italian food, a change from the French cuisine in the film, it was still fun! 

My dish: I made angel hair with tomato sauce and basil with some vegan meat, and bruschetta! I toasted the sourdough on the stove, and it was SO yummy and crunchy! I made the bruschetta without olive oil (sadly, we had just ran out!), so I don't know if you can technically call it bruschetta, but the freshness of the tomatoe and basil was delicious. It was carbilicious! 

Trying my hand at some Italiano food

SO MANY CARBS! lol

Toasted bread with my version of bruschetta!

Jan's dish: The sister has had garlic pizza dough sitting in the fridge for a while now so she decided Tuesday was the day! She prepared it, put some tomato sauce, and covered the pizza with broccoli, vegan Italian sausage, kale, mushrooms, and baby tomatoes, with a few pine nuts to top it off. It was tasty!

Jan & her vegan creation

Thank goodness we're racing in the Triathlon this weekend! Luckily, Jan and I always try to make our food as healthy as possible. 

Happy Cooking!

ONE WEEK!

less than a week, technically! 

We got to Saturday practice and were greeted by our teammates and their friends & family. Lorenzo (Jan's bf) came along with us. We started the morning with an easy 30 minute run! I felt pretty good (despite the festivities I partook in the night before celebrating a friend's 21st birthday)! I rocked the run :) We ate afterwards and had a small team powwow to discuss the logistics of this coming weekend! We got our gear, and now we're riding along until race day! 

TriRock San Diego, here we come!

Janet and I ready for TriRock!

Our "friend" Stephen decided to take a photo with us lol

More open water swimming!

We swam 1800m yesterday at a teammates sister-in-law's house. It was such a beautiful area! We swam, ate lunch, and chatted with some teammates. It was a good (hot & tiring) Sunday! 

Some of our awesome crew! 

Miss Cassie, myself, and Jan ready to swim our booties off

Jan getting ready to jump in!

There and back was around the race swim distance

Battle Wounds

THE TALE:
Yesterday, the sister helped zip up my wetsuit and left a little lip of the velcro sticking out. 500m into yesterday's open water swim, I was feeling some irritation. I pushed through and adjusted it and kept going. By the time I got to 1000m, it started hurting a little more. Grrrr! This is the second time this has happened - the chafing. It looks like I have hickey!...or is it really? ;) haha

THE TALE:
On Saturday, I attempted to "gracefully" dismount my bike while it was still moving. The idea was to swing my left leg over and  land on the right side of my bike. I got my leg up, but I didn't commit enough and started to place too much weight on my right arm. The handle bars started to turn in and I tried to land on my feet to stop myself from completely falling over. I managed to do so, but not without having my handle bars cop a nasty feel on my upper thigh. Here is the evidence.


My wetsuit and bike may have won this battle, but they have yet to win the WAR! 2 weeks and counting!