Uniform Day!

It's been kind of a long week. I'm happy to have gotten to sleep in this morning. Alexa had me wanting to watch Lord of the Rings yesterday, so I watched Fellowship of the ring, then last night I was still wanting more! So, since I for some reason don't have my Two Towers DVD here, I went right on to Return of the king. But, since I didn't start it until after 8 last night, I was up to about 11 watching the first HALF. Finishing it is definitely on the agenda today. I would be watching it right now, but Amanda's still asleep. Lazy girl.

Following up from my last post, the water polo tournament went alright last weekend. I felt like I played okay, not as well as I could have, but some of that might be due to never actually having full-on real practices anymore. The night's that we're at U of R aren't great for the senior men, even though it's nice supporting their team. As for last weekends games, I'm a bit disappointed. We should have been able to stick with Kitchener-Waterloo better, maybe not win, but at least it should have been closer. I was frustrated, so I went for my 80 minute run after that game. After having ridden my bike for 2:30 in the morning, and then played two games. My legs were tired. That combined with the frigid cold last weekend, and the slushy road shoulders in Webster (come on Webster, runners need the road clear too!) I didn't perform very well for the run. I had trouble keeping my feet going well enough to keep my HR up where it probably should have been. After finishing the run, I changed up for our game against Laval. My frustrations for the last game were left our on the road, I was calmed down, and ready to give that last game what I had left. I ended up playing pretty well that game. Again, we were outworked by a better in-shape, and better practiced team. They had some great players, our team has some good players. I played well this game. I had lost a bit of the pep from my legs, but I shot well, and my defense was good. I consider that game a personal success. It was funny, after all of the hours I had in that day, I was still getting up and down the pool just fine (Thanks Mary!). That was where I definitely saw my fitness gains over the past few months. Finally Sunday morning, we had a weird kind of combined game with U of R, and the Niagara Falls team. Ostensibly the teams were pretty even. Although, I somehow ended up on the team where the better players just wanted to sit pretty much the entire time. I don't know if they figured it was just an exhibition, and didn't care or what; but every time I get in the water, I want to win, and I play to win. I don't understand why you would show up and pay the tournament entry fee if you just wanted to sit on the bench. Stay at home on your couch, it's much more comfortable, and you don't have to wear a speedo.

Anyways, on to tri related business. I'm starting to really get excited. My run pace is creeping up, my legs are getting stronger on the bike. And I'm getting more an more comfortable (if not appreciably faster) in the pool. The big news though is that I've registered for about half of my season now. At least, most of the races that are more important to me. It started earlier in the week, with me registering for the Flower City Challenge Duathlon, and Half-Marathon. I did these races last year back-to-back, and it was a blast. I'm pumped for the duathlon specifically. I did well last year, and this year, my endurance run pace is now faster than my best 5k paces were last year (When I started with Mary running was by FAR my weakest leg). I should see some good gains on the bike too. I'm also registered for the Keuka Lake Tri, which will be a new event for me (lets face it, I've only really done three tris so far, so right now, they're pretty much all new events for me). I'm excited for this one as well, plus it's close to my parent's house, so I don't have to get up early to travel to it! I'm figuring there will probably be a good number of people I know there racing, which is exciting. I also registered for tupper lake, where I'm planning on crushing my half-IM time from Musselman last year. And I'm all registered for IM 70.3 Pocono Mountains. It's one of their new 70.3 races, I wanted to experience another IM branded race (other than IMLP) but I didn't want to do Syracuse, because it conflicts with Finger Lakes Tri, which was my first race, and I love. So I decided I'd brave the October waters of Pennsylania. I had enough swim practices in the winter in high school where the pool heater was broken that I'm not all that worried about half an hour swimming a bit chilly.

I still need to register for Finger Lakes, and I'd like to register for the F1 tri in Dunkirk in August, but for now, I have to wait until I have some more money. I got the biggest ones in, so I'm happy for now. It's exciting seeing your season come together!

175 days to IMLP.