Some bad luck this week has made me appreciate that I must have been pretty lucky in my last 39 ironmans . . . It turns out that the big 4-0 will have to wait til next year. I have been in bed sick since Thursday night. While I have raced half-sick–with colds and the like–before, but I have never been laid up like this before a race. Yesterday I had a fever and was so nauseous and achy that I couldn’t even sit up in bed, and it hurt to open my eyes. Maiki had to go to the pro meeting and even beg his way into registering for me. But still I convinced myself that this was just a 24-hour bug and I would be all fine by today. I am better today, but that just means that I can walk around. Coach told me I was allowed to try a short jog because that would show me that I was in no shape to race. He was right. My legs felt like they were ready to buckle with each step, which probably shouldn’t be surprising given that I have hardly been able to eat for two days. I lasted 10 minutes and my other half was kind enough to inform me that this “wasn’t really running.”

I came here to race, with some of the best training I have ever done in the past few weeks–not to just jog around. And I know that would be my best-case scenario tomorrow.  I was really looking forward to capping off the season and earning a little break with a big smashfest, so looking at the prospect of a forced break instead is really disappointing. Patience has never been my strong suit, and this would all be much easier to handle if I had an ironman on the horizon in a month. Coach says I still have to take my two-week break now, and we will move on from there.

A wise friend once told me that the best way to get over broken plans is to make new ones, and I know I will feel much better once I have set some new smashfest dates on the calendar! Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I did an interview with Shawn Skene from ironman.com this week. You can read it here, if you scroll down to 9:01.

Today I am thankful for “Happy Snapper,” a.k.a. my boyfriend, for obsessively recording our every move on camera . . . and making up for the bikini pic to which I subjected you in my last post with one from today!

Today is the third time in 31 years that I have missed my the Person Family Thanksgiving–my family’s Thanksgiving extravaganza. Both my freshman year as a swimmer at the University of Michigan and  my first year in Sutto boot camp, I was not allowed to leave on this day. This year I had to make to difficult decision to race over our family´s big holiday weekend. From what I heard, it seemed like Ironman Cozumel would suit me better than would Ironman Arizona, and at the end of the day, this is my job; while I think it is the best job in the world, one of its few drawbacks is that we don´t have the same holidays as everyone else does. In fact, there aren´t many “vacation” days in this job, but we get to work in places like this:

The water is beautiful and clear, and the sand is white. There were plate-sized starfish all over the ocean floor at the start of the swim course–it was awesome!

My decision was confirmed, however, when Maiki and I went for a swim on the course today. It was like swimming on a treadmill. You see, the swim course here is an out-and-back, with the first half into a current. Apparently it can vary in intensity, but today it felt quite strong. Maiki and I stopped to chat for a minute at the turn buoy, and suddenly we had been pushed 50meters backwards on the course. I figure that if I don´t feel like I am going anywhere when I´m swimming, this means good things for me, because it can only feel worse for most of the competition! Plus, the water was really warm, so it should be a non-wetsuit swim. And the run course, from what I can tell, is on a stretch of completely exposed asphalt. And it was blowing a gale outside today. Who knows what race day will bring, but this place seems perfect so far!

Lucky pre-race hair extravaganza–with flower beads this time, too!

We found a place to have coffees made with soymilk–yay! I have been living off of my staples from home, like PowerBar Protein Plus bars, which I enjoyed while Maiki had a brownie-cheesecake. I am compiling a post-race “to eat” list already . . .

HILLARY’S 40th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION!

Join me in celebrating my 40th time across this line . . . This was #1: Ironman Florida, 2001. My little sister sent me this picture today; her email was aptly titled, “Fatty Finish.”

WHEN: Sunday, November 29, 2009, All Day Long!

GIVEN BY: Ironman Cozumel

WHERE: Cozumel, Mexico, or www.ironman.com

**No gifts, please. I will be giving it to myself all day long.

Two trips to Tempe in three days on top of my last big days of ironman training for the year (Wow, that sounds strange!) left me without time for posting here. But I did enjoy experiencing Ironman Arizona even though I wasn’t racing. Friday I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with my K-Swiss peeps in their shop in the ironman expo and also got to meet tons of awesome athletes who were there for the race, and were getting on the K-Swiss train. Everyone was loving the K-Onas, especially all of the different national flag varieties. It is so cool to see K-Swiss taking over the tri world!

Women’s lead bike approaching–time to check the split! Keeping track of everyone is hard work!

Yesterday, after a morning of training in Tucson, Maiki and I had an afternoon of iron-run-spectating. We camped out all day on this corner of the course, where we could see the athletes at two different points during each run loop–the best way to see how the race unfolds here in Tempe. I also like to be able to give the pros splits and other words of encouragement, and I’ve found that this position on the course is a great one for trying to help keep them informed.

Linsey Corbin (passing Leanda Cave here) was a machine on the run; she ran her way up to second place with a 3:04 marathon. It was an inspiration to watch!

The pro races were awesome yesterday–especially with so many strong women in the field, there was a lot of position-changing happening. And lots of digging in amidst the men and women. I saw a lot of good game faces out there. My friends Jordan Rapp and TJ Tollakson were 1-2 in the men’s field; after an impressive ride, TJ nearly gave us a heart attack, but showed some true grit by holding off a couple of very close chasers in the latter miles of the run. Ultimately he held onto second by just 17 seconds. Talk about excitement! The Rappstar also deserves a huge congrats for showing everyone that he is in fact the real deal, with his second ironman win in three months.

TJ, giving it to himself on the run

Once the pros were done, I was able to get a close look at the age group race–inspiration everywhere! I felt guilty sitting in a chair on the side of the race course with my feet up half the time (Coach’s orders–I have an ironman next Sunday!)  but I tried to yell until my voice was nearly gone. I did have to play favorites with the age groupers a bit, though, as two of my little machines were out there. It seems that I am usually running around on the course with my athletes, so just watching them was an experience–but they did me proud!

These two, David and Zody, both raced the ironman in Madison with me in September. Then David threw in the iron-distance Silverman race two weeks ago because apparently he needed a “warm-up” for Ironman Arizona. Yesterday he did what I believe is his second-fastest ironman to date, with an ironman run PR at the age of 51–and he almost cracked the 4-hour barrier for the marathon!

Zody knocked another 46 minutes off of her ironman PR, which was a 16:36 when we began working together in January. Over the course of four ironmans this year, she has worked herself from there to 13:21 and finishing well within the top half of her age group. Plus I am pretty sure I heard wounded animal noises coming from her during that marathon yesterday, so this tells me that she is developing one of the most important skills in this sport: suffering ability.

I am looking forward to my own visit to the hurt locker next Sunday! Can’t wait!

Tuesday was a treadmill PR day. Coach Muffin assigned the same big brick (bike-run combination) session I had done two weeks ago, and although I had been really pleased with that run, I managed to better it significantly this week. It was a career brick PR.

I had a fair bit of time on the treadmill that day, and in fact the treadmill and I have been spending a lot of quality time together recently. It has me becoming conscious of the patterns in my thinking while I am on there–specifically, the way that I habitually convince myself of things that are not real. This is a technique that I have become accustomed to using on the treadmill in order to trick myself to run harder, and/or to keep running when my legs are begging me to jump off of the thing. I realized that this imaginary world that I create to endure my treadmill sufferfests looks a whole lot like the that I inhabit in my mind when running 26.2 miles at the end of an ironman.

In no particular order, here are the ideas I that invent that facilitate my best treadmill workouts, when I successfully trick myself into believing them:

1. “This pace really is easy. In fact it is quite comfortable. Shoot, it is so comfy that I am just going to smile along with this lovely music that I am listening to.” *Insert picture of crazy girl smiling for no apparent reason while sweating profusely on treadmill here.*

2. “Big Brother is going to walk in and check on you any minute now!” My coach is in North Carolina–nowhere near Tucson, actually. Certainly having him standing over my every treadmill session would “keep me honest,” as we say. But that isn’t our reality.

Which is where Hillary’s Fantasyland comes in really handy. I am fortunate enough to have one of my old Sutto squad training partners living down the street. He uses the same gym as I do, although he is retired and doesn’t actually touch the treadmills himself.  Sometimes he happens to show up to lift weights while I am running–maybe during half of my run sessions. The thing about my old training partners is that everyone was so intense that we held one another accountable almost as well as Coach (Brett Sutton) did. This memory is still with me; this guy now probably does not actually care about how fast or long I am supposed to be running and whether I am doing it. Heck even if he did, it all looks slow to him because he was a speedy ITU boy.

But in my head, he is . . . The Enforcer: the embodiment of Santa Sutto and Coach Muffin all rolled into one. And even when he has told me he won’t be at the gym that day, when I am running hard, he is about to walk in and check on me any second!

3. “I can do anything for 10  minutes.” Or 20. Or 30. As in, ‘It doesn’t matter how much this hurts because I only have to do it for a short period of time.’ As in, the preceding hours on the treadmill (and bike, for that matter) are wiped out of memory and what I am doing is just a short jog.

Yes, I realize this train of thought contradicts that of #1, but the beauty of my imaginary world is that the two can exist almost simultaneously!

I just wanted to let all of my Ironman Arizona-ing friends know that I will be in Tempe on Friday at the K-Swiss booth. Of course I will be out on the run course to cheer you all on Sunday afternoon, but I know most of you won’t be up for chatting just then . . . So, please come say hello at the K-Swiss booth in the Ironman Village this Friday, November 2oth, between 11AM and 2PM. I will be there, and am looking forward to meeting you!

While we are on the topic, I just wanted to highlight another one of my favorite items from my latest batch of K-Swiss stuff. Above, those are PINK running shoes. Yes indeed. They are called Tubes. And that was me about to join my little sis for a powerwalk at home last weekend. The Tubes will be getting a lot of powerwalking mileage in, come two weeks from now (= off-season, and I anticipate a brief running ban)! But in the meantime, this Sunday afternoon, I will be the one screaming from the sidelines in my new pink shoes with hot pink compression socks to match–gotta save those legs for the following Sunday’s smashfest! 

Maiki and I are back home in Tucson after a two-day family reunion plus bonus old-training-partner-reunion with Sammy in Palos Verdes (my hometown). Growing up there, I took this place for granted, but nowadays–after traveling the world–I have a high level of appreciation for the running along the cliffs near my parents’ house. i am in awe of the views every time I return. We caught an awesome sunset there last night, too.

But this is what I got to show Maiki and Sammy on our Sunday morning run . . .

Then we had our first round of soy lattes and checked out the beautiful new resort they’ve built just down the road from our house . . .

I say “first round” because I had to bribe the GCM with another hot one as a reward for joining me in the Pacific sans-wetsuit for our recovery swim!

Now for nine more days of hitting it hard before we leave for Cozumel!

I got to take advantage of my parents’ fancy scanner-machine this weekend to share this with you–for my readers who don’t get to see German Triathlon magazine. This is their Hawaii edition, with my K-Swiss teammate Andreas Raelert on the cover:

But of course the real highlight, as far as I am concerned, is the pictures of my superstar–my GCM. The pictures the magazine chose were of our celebrations immediately after he crossed the line . . .

I had made it into the finish area just in time–thankfully! He spotted me straightaway, but had forgotten to remove his Santa Sponge-stomach!

Maiki and I are home with my family in Palos Verdes this weekend, and today we went uptown to LA to return to my alma mater for Homecoming . . . Cameron and I got to relive lots of great memories from our univeristy days. Tommy Trojan, below, is our school mascot–and his statue is a landmark in the center of campus.

But this was my real “home” on campus:

There was a waterpolo game on today, but I just had to catch a glimpse of this place . . . The USC pool was where the 1984 Olympic Swimming was held and is where I spent all of my energy during college. In my final year, we had a daily countdown on that scoreboard at the end of the pool, counting the days until the 2000 Olympic Trials–beginning with 365. The atmosphere was intense, to say the least.

And, in fact, as I was just reflecting today, while every time I rode my bike through campus, there were students lounging about in the main quad, in front of Tommy Trojan, I don’t think I ever once did that. I was perpetually sprinting from class, trying to get home to squeeze in a nap or meal before practice, or just rushing to get to the pool for another training session. I’m not complaining; I wouldn’t trade it, but there are times like today when I look at “normal” college students and am reminded that mine was certainly not the typical college experience. It was more like four years of practice for being a professional athlete. Although I never would have imagined then that I would ever be so lucky as to be able to put that practice to use.

The fam with our two visitors, Sam and Maiki, whom we dressed in proper Trojan attire!

Sam and Maiki experienced their first tailgate . . . My dad’s friends were serving up breakfast quiche and burritos with beer and wine, and yes, that crazy luxury RV extravaganza is theirs, just for special USC game-day purposes. We got a tour of the inside, and in fact there was a life-sized cardboard Pete Carroll (USC football team coach. Fun fact: his yearly salary is $4.4 million USD) inside.Speaking of Pete Carroll, we won’t discuss the details of the score of today’s game. It was embarassing. I heard someone describe his Clearwater race today in the following manner, which I’ve now adopted when talking about our Trojans’ performance: “The conditioning was a little off!” Yep.

The LA Coliseum was built for the 1932 Olympics and used again for the 1984 games; it sits right next to the USC campus and is where we have our football games–lots of history there!

Thankfully, I got in a fair amount of “pulsing-V” time when we watched the marching band play on campus beforehand, because there weren’t too many opportunities for our favorite song during today’s game.

This weekend is the “Homecoming Weekend” at USC. For my non-American friends, “homecoming” is the annual event at a school or university, during which many of the school’s alumni return for a visit. At American universities, this weekend is centered around a football game. It has been a couple years since I’ve been able to get back to USC in the fall for a game, but this year I was determined to make it happen.

Homecoming or not, football game days at my university are always big days. Trojan football is steeped in more tradition most any other sports organization; my dad, for example, went to school at a rival university, yet I grew up playing with my Trojan cheerleader doll and dancing around the house to the sounds of his USC marching band record. Win or lose, Trojans have an unmistakeable pride in the USC tradition, but in recent years, our football team has been producing the results to back up this attitude. When I was there, the swimmers’ performance had to make up for the football team’s shortcomings. But, when we had enough energy after Saturday morning’s training session, we went to the game anyways–mainly to socialize.

This weekend will be Maiki’s first Trojan (this is what we USC people call ourselves, after the school mascot) football experience–in fact his first American football experience, period. I have been prepping him for it. He still can’t believe that there will be twice as many fans in attendance as at most German soccer matches.  

We are working on our game-day outfits, and I have explained to him a bit about concepts like “tailgating,” or pre- and post-game eating and drinking–theoretically out of the back of a car, hence the name . . . This weekend I will have the pleasure of sharing these American traditions with not one, but two Euros! In addition to a reunion with some of my old USC Swim Team girls, I also get to have a reunion with Sam Renouf, a Brit and one of my old Sutto squad training partners. He is in town for business , so we are bringing him to the game– which he still refers to as “footie”. And of course Mom, Dad, and Cameron are all ready for a big day back in “Trojan Country.” Can’t wait to visit my old stomping grounds.