My predetermined plan was to have two weeks completely off of any sort of exercising, except walking to and from work which I have to do. Week 3 would then be optional and Week 4 would officially start my off season training. During the weeks leading up to Timberman, I could not wait for a break. I was physically and mentally tired of training. Now, only a week into my two week break, I am already going nuts. It feels like I have not worked out in a couple of months. Pending my MRI results, I may have to refrain from running for even longer than the two to three weeks. I never thought I'd miss workouts this much.

Yesterday, I started my rotation at the Student Health Center. It is a part of a class that I am taking. Once a week, I help out the sports medicine physicians by helping them evaluate patients. After my evaluation, I'll tell the doctor what I found, what I think is wrong, and how I think it should be treated and the doctor takes over from there. I was only supposed to have an orientation session yesterday, but due to a lack of staff, they asked me to actually help out. I ended up being there two hours longer than expected, but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. I saw a couple of really interesting and different case.

Two days till my parents are in town. Two days until Buckeye football!

Two days until school starts :-/

Timberman is over and August is nearing the end which means one thing, summer is almost over and fall is almost here. Before I know it, school will be starting, work will be ramping up, and I will be a complete nut case until May. On the other hand, this is my last year working for Boston University (at least for now). I already have one of my ten months done. This realization led me to come up with a really lame joke, but where would be the fun in saying it right now? I would rather keep everyone in suspense.

Wait for it...

In other news, I heard back from the doctor and my MRI is scheduled for Tuesday night. I won't know the results from that until Thursday. Hopefully, its good news, or at least non-surgical news. I wouldn't be too terribly upset if the doctor told me not to run for a couple of weeks, but if weeks were months, I would be pissed.

Keep waiting for it...

Also, for those of you who don't know, I did my undergraduate work at THE Ohio State University which means that Thursday is practically a holiday. In fact, Ohio State doesn't even have school on Thursday. Not that it means anything as school doesn't even start until September 22, but there is no doubt in my mind that they would cancel school if it was in session. What would be the point when all of the professors would be tailgating by 4AM anyways? What can I say, we're all a bunch of nuts. Go Bucks! Thank goodness for the Big Ten Network.

*We're the three best friends that anybody could have*

Still waiting...

And I talked to my mom the other day. She had been planning for a while to visit us over Labor Day weekend. Turns out my dad has decided to come visit as well. They fly in on Thursday (coincidence? I think not). The only plans we have so far is to take them out for a nice dinner at the Boston Chart House on Friday for my mom's belated birthday.

Is the wait over yet?

I think so. So I have nine more months of work left at Boston University. That's the same amount of time as a pregnancy, except that I will be in labor the whole time. *ba dum ch* Oh boy, I crack myself up sometimes.

O-H!

Its only four days after our first HIM. There are still lingering aches and pains. I still don't have an official diagnosis on my knee. I don't even have an MRI scheduled yet (hope they call me back soon). We don't have many triathlons planned for next year as I don't know where I will be working and when. We have a few we would like to do which includes the Patriot Half Ironman. Through all this, Benny insists on bringing up the "I" word and "next year" in the same sentence.

Don't get me wrong, I would like to do one, one day. And if its next year, I can, and would be willing to train for it. However, the memories of Sunday are still too fresh to even comprehend the "I" word so soon. And with so many uncertainties going into next year, I would be hard pressed to put down that much money for it.

Benny did some research, albeit quickly, and came up with the Revolution 3 series in Sandusky, OH. It cost the same as an "I" race, but because it doesn't contain the "I" word *phew*, the September 2010 race hasn't sold out yet, so we have time to consider it if we want to do it next year.

Currently, my plans are to take two weeks completely off from training. After two weeks, I have a week of optional workouts that I'll do if I have time and feel good enough to do them. I am refraining from all running for a minimum of three weeks, if not longer pending MRI results. At the end of three weeks, I'm starting off season training (plus or minus running...I may take a fourth week off of running if the MRI results are negative just because it can't hurt). I'm looking at a winter maintenance program from Beginner Triathlete for athletes who have completed at least one Olympic distance triathlon this past season. They didn't have one for those who have done a HIM, but this is good enough. I don't want to reinjure myself, or get burn out. I am going to chop it down to five days per week instead of six, at least for the first couple of weeks. It is a 20 week program.

After that begins the 20 week HIM program for the Patriot Half. Then maybe...the "I" word...

I thought my Timberman post was running a bit long, and I wanted it to be primarily about the race, so I omitted Sunday post-race and Monday. After the race on Sunday, we went back to the hotel to drop off the bikes and to change into dry and not smelly clothes. We then headed over to Gunstock for the post-race dinner provided  by the race organization for an additional cost. Ben had a steak and a hot dog. I had lobster with mussels and steamers. I also had the drink that I have been craving for so long, a glass of Guinness. It tasted so sweet. It was well worth every one of 70.3miles. Shortly after, Ben and I went back to Sawyer's for more ice cream and then headed home for an early night to bed.

Monday morning, we woke up early after a restless night. I'm not sure if it was the excitement of the day or the soreness of our legs, but neither one of us could sleep. We went to a diner called Cravings for breakfast. We obviously weren't the only triathletes with a huge breakfast in mind. The diner was packed and it was clear that about 90% of the people there had done the race the day before. I had a really delicious and unique breakfast dish called "Pig Pile". It was home fries and a biscuit topped with a sausage patty, an egg, and gravy. After breakfast, we went to another outlet mall, more specifically to visit the Pearl Izumi outlet store. We also went to the Christmas Loft in North Conway. They had a huge variety of Christmas decorations in addition to a cheesy, yet fun Christmas scene which included talking cows and trees and a nativity scene complete with giant rooster.

The annoying talking cow

The rooster looks like its eyeing up Jesus for his next meal

After eating lunch, we headed back home to Boston as Ben and I both had classes we had to go to.

I have an update on my knee. I visited an orthopedic doctor today who specializes in knees and shoulders. He thinks that I may have a patellar stress fracture. I need to get an MRI next week to verify it, but at least if it is a stress fracture, I won't likely need surgery. That was what I was really worried about. He told me to not run in the mean time, which were my plans anyways now that Timberman is over, but that I could continue to bike and swim if I wanted to. Although, even when it comes to swimming and biking, I'm still taking some time off.

After a three week hiatus, I had another acting class Monday night. Two students did not show, so we had a small class of five students. We started with some hatha yoga for relaxation. It was much needed, especially because of the race on Sunday. After about 20 minutes of yoga, we did an exercise in which we would pretend that the air was made of various substances. We started with air as it is, then moved to thick air, then water, than rubber, and finally stone. At the end, he told us to imagine the stone air turning back to regular. It may not seem like much, but its quite a workout just pretending like you are trying to move through thick air.

Then we did a couple of exercises focused on emotions. One exercise, we did on our own. We had to walk across the room, without speaking, displaying an emotion that would gradually get stronger and stronger. After this, we did an exercise where everyone was involved. We had to pick an emotion and interact with everyone else while portraying that particular emotion. It was weird portraying one emotion when someone else is portraying a completely different, unrelated emotion.

After a quick break, we did an exercise called "machines". One person would go to the front of the room and perform a repetitive motion with a repetitive sound. One by one, other students would add on to the make believe machine. In the end, it sounds like a really whacky machine. Then our teacher left the room with instructions to make a real life machine with our bodies using the same rules of the "machine" exercise. He would then return to the room and try to guess which machine we were. We picked out a computer. I was the mouse. We then had to pick out an emotion again and pick out a word or phrase that is associated with that emotion. We then had to pick out a movement that is associated with the movement and repeat the word or phrase and movement over and over like in the machine exercise. It sounded really interesting, but it also sounded really fluid and orchestrated.

Finally, we had to make an assembly line in which we are still following the rules of the "machine" exercise. We decided to make an assembly line in which we were making Jack-In-The-Box's.

In the end, the class went by way too fast. I am already half way done with the series of classes. I don't want it to end. It is fun and relaxing at the end of a busy day.

To put it simply, this past weekend was really, really long. Everything about it was long. Waiting for the race was long. The race itself was long. Waiting to write this blog post was long. The only thing longer is now waiting for the next triathlon season to start. Really. I am still feeling the aches and pains of having just completed a half Ironman, and I can't wait for the next one.

Going into the weekend, I was super excited about the race. It was like waiting for Christmas to come. This was what all of my training and hard work was all about and I couldn't wait to finally put it all together. We drove up to Gilford, NH on Friday afternoon, checked into our hotel and then headed over to Gunstock to pick up our swag bags. Of course, no swag bag pick-up is complete without perusing, and ultimately shopping, at the race "festival", if you will. Normally, we don't buy anything and just grab all the freebies we can, but this time, because of the enormity of the race (its not just any half Ironman distance race...it is A half Ironman race), we went shopping. Unfortunately for Benny, whose clothing size is usually in limited quantities anyways, a good number of people had already gone through the race shop. However, he did find a sweatshirt and socks that fit him. I got a sweatshirt, t-shirt, socks and a shot glass (I collect shot glasses...plus something about a shot glass with the Ironman logo on it amused me). Following our shopping spree, we went to a local Italian restaurant where we were going to meet up with some people that Ben had met through Beginner Triathlete, but he failed to get any contact information including names of any of the people we were meeting there. In the end, we went to another Italian restaurant where the wait was far less than 1 hour and followed it up with ice cream at the local shop by our hotel called Sawyer's. Ben was unsure of eating ice cream this close to race day, but it turned out that I wasn't the only triathlete with an ice cream addiction.

The calm before the storm

We focused on ultimate relaxation on Saturday. We went to a small diner for breakfast. Afterwards, we drove up to an outlet mall. On the way, we stopped to play mini golf. Despite my various putting strategies, which included walking up to the hole and deliberately kicking or dropping the ball into the hole, I still lost.


Once at the outlet mall, we were both thirsty and decided to get some smoothies from Starbucks where we met some of our teammates who had just gotten into town for the race. I did some more retail therapy (got a Coach card holder for $20), and we headed back to Gunstock for a pre-race presentation for newbie half Ironman racers which was shortly followed up by the mandatory meeting for all athletes. It was at the presentation for newbies where I really started getting nervous. The speaker spoke of choppy waters, a hilly bike course, and a double loop run course (how I didn't know it was a double loop course before is beyond me). The "mandatory" meeting was to go over the rules of triathlons *Zzzzz....* After our nap, we dropped off our bikes in transition and then met up with our team president, Sunny, and her friend for the spaghetti dinner that was provided by the race organization.

That night, we went to bed early in anticipation of our 4AM alarm. I wasn't too sure about this whole getting up early to have a really long workout thing, but I went with it. It wasn't until we arrived at the course when we saw the people in the car parked next to us drinking Bud Lights that I knew I had the wrong idea about what I should be doing at 4AM. Since it was still three hours till race time, Ben and I ate breakfast in our car and got our stuff ready for the race which including slapping race numbers on everything. At 5AM, transition opened and we went over to get body marked. After getting our temporarily permanent tattoos, we grabbed our stuff and set up our transition areas. Everyone in my area was also in my age group. It was comforting to know that most of them had not ever done a HIM before either. After finishing up my area, I went over to check on Ben, who was unfortunately disorganized all weekend. We walked back to the car to pick up my wetsuit and to do our last pees (its like the last supper, only more nerve wracking because you know you'll have to go in five minutes anyways). We paused slightly on the way to watch my idol, Chrissie Wellington, set up her transition area. She is gorgeous in pictures, but even more so in person. And we weren't the only ones gawking. Everyone was stopping to take pictures.

Reason #3071 why triathlon is the best sport ever...what other sports have pros and weekend warriors alike competing in the same event at the same time?

After much waiting, and nine months of training, the time had finally come to start making the walk to the starting line. One by one, the waves started going off. First, the pro men went, then the pro women, then three age group waves, and then finally my wave. They let us into the water five minutes before our actual start time. It was the longest five minutes. At least during the wait, I got to become acclimated to the water temperature and was able to lessen my nerves some by goofing around with some of the girls in my wave (of which there were fewer than I thought there would be, maybe around 60 people?). I was glad to find out that I was not the only one with "survival" as my main goal for the swim. Shortly after the start, I needed a quick break to regroup my mind as I did not mentally adjust to the chop very well. After a minute of hanging on a noodle, I was off and quickly (much to my shock) passing people I had started with. I'm glad I took the time to adjust my thoughts on the chop as it only got worse the further out we got, and the more people that took to the water. The swim out was by far longer than the swim in. By the time I had turned towards home, I had become so comfortable in the water, even with hundreds of people trying to karate chop my feet, that I actually tried to swim more for speed than survival. My time goal for the swim was 55 minutes, so I definitely did not shake my head at the 57 minutes that I did put up.

Like I had planned, I took my time in transition, making sure I was really ready for the next stage. My goal time was 5 minutes and my actual time was 6 minutes.

Once on the bike, I mentally chopped up the course into 4 pieces of 14 miles. It worked out perfectly as I wanted to finish the course in 4 hours. Going into the first piece, I knew that this would be one of the hardest parts of the race due to hills, so my goal was to just take it nice and easy. As I was going up Marsh Hill, which is notoriously the hardest hill on the course, we saw Andy Potts going down on his way back. By the time I hit one hour in, I had only done 12 miles, but at least the hardest part was over. From there until the turn around at mile 28, there would be a gradual downhill. It was the best part of the race for me as I was able to maintain speeds of around 20 miles an hour for the whole piece (which is unheard of for me). I got to the turn around at 1 hour and 45 minutes, and so I promptly rewarded myself with a quick bathroom break. The third piece had us going back up the gradual downhill. It was then that I found myself considering quitting multiple times. It was so deceiving because the course appeared to be flat and I was working really hard and was only able to go between 14 and 15 miles per hour. I finished the third piece in 2 hours and 50 minutes, which gave me an hour and 10 minutes to do the final and yet another hilly section of the course. The more I biked the fourth piece, the closer my time was getting to 4 hours. I was nervous that my time might be slightly over, but to my benefit, the final stretch going back into transition was downhill. My actual bike time was 3 hours and 54 minutes.

After another restful transition and potty break, lasting six minutes, it was time for the final event. Running is by far my most favorite event, but considering my recent knee problems, it was the one I was most unsure of going into the race. I decided to just start with a nice easy jog and see where it takes me. Much to my excitement, my knee did not hurt much at all and I was feeling amazing. I made sure to stop at every aid station and fuel up on fluids. As I was finishing the first lap, I saw Ben starting his, so I made it my goal to catch up to him and walk with him a while. I finished my first lap in 1 hour and 5 minutes which was much faster than I was expecting. However, by the time I caught up to Ben, the 64 miles that I had already completed were finally starting to catch up to me and my knee. I walked with him for a while before continuing to run/walk at a rate of 5 minutes running, 1 minute walking. By the time I reached the turn around for the run, I was just flat out exhausted. I started running one minute and walking one minute and walking up all the hills. I can't tell you what a welcome sound it was to hear the announcer's voice getting louder and louder as I got closer to the finish. Finally, I was almost there. I was really going to make it. No matter how tired I was, I was going to run the last 0.1 mile. Before and during the race, I had tried to come up with a celebration dance to do as I crossed the finish line, but by the time I actually got there, I was so tired, I couldn't even think anymore. I just smiled and raised my hands above my head, making sure of course not to slip on the rubber mats as it had been raining for the better part of the second half of the race.
How not to end a race...

My goal run time was 2 hours, 30 minutes and my actual time was 2 hours, 29 minutes. My goal time for the entire race was 7 hours, 35 minutes and my actual time was 7 hours, 33 minutes. Holla!


After receiving my medal, I went back to transition and packed up my area while waiting for Ben to finish. I knew it would be at least another hour. I headed over to the food area in an attempt to eat something. I have GI problems when I participate in longer events or workouts and have really bad nausea making it difficult to replenish everything I lost. I was able to eat a couple spoonfuls of chowder, a small yogurt smoothie and a quarter of a banana. I tried drinking some Coke, but only got about two sips in. If anything, I definitely was not thirsty. My belly had so many fluids in during the second loop of the run that it had been sloshing the whole time. I then changed into my dry, not sweaty clothes and headed over to the team tent. I hung out with Sunny and Stephanie for about half an hour when I got a text from my mom. I was about to respond to her, letting her know that Ben should be finished any minute when I hear my name over the sound system, "Rachelle Berry, please come to the announcer's podium." My heart stopped. I immediately thought the worst. What was it? What happened? What am I going to do? I ran up to the announcer's podium and nervously said, "I'm Rachelle Berry." Another woman had also been called to the podium, and she was clearly as nervous as I was. The announcer told us to go over and talk to the man in the blue hat and rain poncho. We both ran over and the man quickly told us that they were beginning to close down the race course. Of course, then my thoughts went to, "Well, at least Benny is ok, but are they not going to let him finish?" The man continued to tell us that our husbands would be the last two competitors that they would let finish the race and that they wanted us to present them with their medals. I felt so relieved and so happy. I didn't even know that they allowed family members to present medals. The man ushered us to the finish line area and handed us the medals. It seemed like forever until we finally saw our husbands coming down the finishing chute escorted by one of the race personnel, but it was so amazing (I'm glad I had my camera as it was probably a once in a life time experience). There may not have been many people left to cheer them on, but we were the loudest people all day, I'm sure of it.

Post Race/Pre-shower picture

There are a bunch of people who made Sunday amazing. Obviously, the Ironman organization. Not only do they put together a good race, but they make the race more than just a triathlon. They make it about the people and the competitors. They realize what a big deal this is to everyone who participates and actually finish, and they make it possible for the athletes and families alike to enjoy the moment.

The volunteers and all the family, friends and neighbors that showed up that day. They were all fantastic and the cheers definitely helped to keep away a lot of the doubts that tend to creep up during events like this. It was amazing especially to have random people cheering on you specifically as you went by and to see them there all day. Thanks in particular to all of the people in the neighborhood who set up sprinklers for the athletes. You are amazing!

Thanks a lot to our families and friends for putting up with us and for sacrificing precious family time so we can get in our workouts. Thanks for cheering for us from afar. Just knowing that you were watching is hugely motivating. When all is said and done, there is nothing worse than a disappointed parent.

And there is one group of people we would like to apologize to...the beer companies. We know that we haven't quite been doing our fair share of drinking, but we promise to work extra hard now that the season is over.

BLING!

Edit: Thanks also to the Wheelworks Multisport team. Ben and I could not have done it without you guys. You're awesome and we're looking forward to cheering you guys on at Cranberry next Sunday!

" 'Cause sometimes you feel tired,
feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up.
But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength
and just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up
and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse

Tomorrow marks a very important mile stone in my family. My brother, my youngest sibling, thus the last one to go to college, is being left in the Middle-Of-Nowhere, Kansas to begin his college career. His plans currently are to study meteorology in hopes of becoming a storm chaser. And then there's something about Rock Chalk. I don't know, but when I was his age, it was called sidewalk chalk. Kids these days...

Here is a quick recap of what I have been doing to train the past couple of days. Thursday, I rode for 20 miles, dropped off my back at home, and then went for a 7 mile run. Yesterday was a scheduled day off, so guess what I did? Nothing! Today, we were scheduled to ride for 40 miles, but due to fatigue, a blown spoke on Ben's bike, and general not feeling like doing anything, it was shortened to a 20 mile ride and we added on a mile open water swim (the more time I can get in my wetsuit, the better).

As I stated before, I will be updating every so often on my day to day tasks pertaining to my job. Recently, not a lot has been going on. Last week, we welcomed the new graduate assistant athletic trainers. Between last week and this week, they are participating in various orientation sessions and the athletic trainers that do not have obligations to their teams are required to attend and help out with the sessions. My team doesn't start practice until September, so I have been helping with orientation.

First Love Letter ~

Over the past couple of weeks, Ben has been participating in a "Walking" Challenge through work. This "Walking" challenge consisted of tallying up all of the miles you walk each week, in addition to how many miles you ran, biked, swam, crawled, etc. At the beginning of the challenge, they were told that the winner would receive an i-thing (yet to be determined). Benny had speculations that ranged from i-pod shuffle to i-pad. Whenever he brought up the i-pad, I had to bring him down softly and tell him not to get his hopes up. He's been wanting i-everything since, well, for forever. I keep telling him there are products that are just as good, and a lot cheaper, that aren't preceded by "i". But he has openly admitted that the only reason why he really wants them is because of the Apple label. Yes, Apple owns my husband. But when this challenge arose, I saw this as an opportunity for him to get more i-things without wasting our money.

Last night was class #2 of my acting class. It consisted of more acting without words, but now it was more about facial expression and body language. We started the class with a long game of "Zip, Zap, Zop" (long because it took FOREVER before the first person got knocked out...once one went down, the rest went quickly). Then we sat in a circle and practiced memorization. The first person would say, "I'm going to California and I'm going to bring..." and they would list one item. The second person would say what the first person is bringing plus what they are bringing. It continued like this until there was about 40 items/people going on a trip (guess who's bringing the Jersey Shore cast?).