Beating Erin

Erin used to train with us, then she moved back to Colorado. She's in my age group and she's fast. I won't be able to beat her. But I use her as motivation.

Today we were supposed to ride Santiago. I was kinda looking forward to it, until the weather called for rain and wind. It was cold! So we had a spin class, courtesy of Martha instead. As stated before, her classes kick my ass. She was asking us what mantra kept us going in the middle of the race, with the course stretching in front of us and no one to see if we gave up. (This was while we were hovering over our seats, climbing a hill)

"I want to win!" No. I probably won't podium until I'm in my 70s and have outlasted the competition.

"I want to finish!" No. Regardless of what I think in the middle of Santiago or a race, I will always finish.

"I want to beat Erin!" Yes, yes, yes! That's something I can get behind. A tangible, if unreachable, goal.

Realistically the pohrase that repeats in my head in the middle of the bike, or Santiago Canyon, is by My Chemical Romance. "Have you heard the news that you're dead!" I wonder if my legs are trying to tell me something.

I did finish all my training this week. I actually woke up, and got out of bed, at 4:30 on Friday morning and did a 1 hour (*cough* 50 min *cough*) swim. I was slower to 1500 than I was last week, but I also forgot to eat breakfast, so I'm blaming that.

Thursday, after much ado, I found Tesoro High School. The track there is beautiful and they didn't kick me out when the Girl's Lacrosse game started. Cons, it's only open when the high school is using it. I started to have fat girl high school flashbacks, but I got over myself. Why fret over things that I can't change?

Saturday was my not great 7 miles. I wasn't feeling like running when I got up. I "packed" for 10, but wanted to call it quits after an hour. It was misting, I was cold, blah, blah, blah. Either way I'd have to run back up hill to get home, so stopping at 5 wouldn't get me anything. What was I going to do? Call my husband to pick me up? Embarassing! So I finished strong. When I hit 5 miles my high kicked in and I almost pushed it to 8, in my head. Once I got to 7, my legs said stop.

Also, I got in! I will be at the Nike Women's 1/2 this year. Woot!