Stacey 2.0

The Vistancia Sprint Triathlon was last Sunday. I wouldn't describe it as my most shining moment.  Nothing tragic happened, but nothing felt like it was going right, either. I thought about going through and describing each moment of the race, but eventually decided against it.  To sum it up, I came in last in my age division on the swim and the bike portions; 3rd from last on the run. Now, I knew well in advance that I wasn't going to win it all, I just wanted to do better than I had in my previous sprint triathlon .  I think I probably could have.  I ended up stopping to attempt to help a friend who had a flat tire on the bike portion of the race.  I wouldn't say I actually helped anything, since I didn't really know how to change a flat tire, but I had seen it done before...  Thought maybe all of that observation would be effective...  Although I don't think it was.  Still, I think his triathlon goals are much bigger than mine, and I gue...

It has come to my attention that whilst my van was running away at Ragnar Del Sol, my best friend and her sister-in-law (both in the other van) decided to set the goal of completing Ironman in 2016. Apparently it is expected that I participate in these shenanigans with them. A couple of weeks have passed and I find myself just as indecisive about the whole thing as when I first heard about it.  Why am I waffling?  I think there are good arguments to do it and good arguments to hold off, or to just be a great spectator.  It's been a weird feeling for me though.  I'm pretty sure if I committed to it, and was able to train for it, I could finish.  So, for the first time, I'm not sitting around worried that I just can't accomplish something, and that's a pretty great feeling.  I was also kinda-sorta worried that I might somehow lose my identity as a "runner".  I've been making some small but incremental progress this year and I don't want to lose m...

Oops.  I haven't posted since October?  Like all of us, the holidays were pretty hectic, and then I took this stupid MySQL online class during some of the heaviest training weeks of the year.  I had to let something slip during that time, so it ended up being this.  Then I had a few weekends of races and now, things will be kinda sorta quiet...  until March. Since the sprint triathlon, my major races in 2014 included the Rock n' Roll Las Vegas half marathon , the Thanksgiving Tryptophun Rhun 6 hour race, the Desert Classic 30k , and Across the Years (24 hours). I didn't post the Vegas race in my "upcoming races" at the time because I have a weird thing about strangers knowing when I'm not at home...  It was my first Rock n' Roll event ever.  My best friend was in Vegas for some work conference and I met her there, along with her cousin-in-law.  It was fun, but packed, as I understand most Rock n' Roll events tend to be; and unexpectedly cold...

Last Saturday, October 11, I participated in the Mesa Sprint Triathlon and my first triathlon of all time.  My day would consist of a 400m swim, 12 mile bike ride, and a 5k run.  For anyone who knows me, I was not looking forward to this.  The joke had been, "my first triathlon would be my last triathlon"; swimming in general had been something difficult for me to really enjoy doing.  I'm also a bit scared to ride in traffic on the bike during training so I tend to shy away from it for that reason.  I couldn't imagine how I was going to like this, but I needed to overcome whatever was holding me back.  Fear, pessimism, lack of confidence?  My best friend was doing it too - not her first triathlon, but something she started within the past year or so - and she has the power to basically get me to sign up for almost anything.  Photo Credit to L Ellis The swim was easily the most chaotic event of the day, but thankfully it doesn't last lo...