Fool's Five

Wow ... we dodged that winter weather bullet, didn't we? All the snow that was predicted just never materialized. And I'm sure one of the happiest people around was Fool's Five race director Diane Rislow. The conditions were much better than they were predicted to have been, though we had to deal with a really stiff wind, as was predicted.

So, the low down. A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Mary Chestolowski for winning the women's race! She ran so well. 31:15 She got a very nice trophy. (And Mary has volunteered to help me bake cookies for the 20K runners on Saturday. Thank you, Mary!)

Tom Woo also ran very well finishing 5th overall with a time of 30:47.

I guess I'm satisfied overall with my run, but I was hoping it would have been faster after my good run at the Human Race 8K. But it's not fair to compare the races I guess as this one is hillier and the weather wasn't nearly as nice. Also, this one measured 5.02 miles on my GPS and Tom's as well. Human Race was 4.98 on my GPS. At 7 minute pace, .04 miles is about 16 seconds. So anyway, today my right hamstring was really tight and sore and I was afraid if I really pushed it I would have pulled it so I tried to run strong but smart. And I ran 20 miles yesterday. :-) My splits were: 7:14, 7:20 (the "killer hill!" in this mile), 7:09, 7:10, 7:00. The wind was very strong from the NE. That last 1.5 miles back into town was rather on the brutal side. My time was 35:57 and 4th female.

Pictured are Gloria Jansen, guest speaker, Pat Brown and me. Here are the overall results: 8K results I'll post the whole slideshow tomorrow.

Fetzer 20K: I have 78 volunteers. This is super wonderful news! I am so thankful to each and every one of you. I will be able to have a volunteer at every intersection on the course, including the bike path. There should be no doubt about which way to run. This early in the week, the weather is sounding ... pretty great. All is in order. :-)

Foodie stuff: Being it was a cold, blustery day, soup sounded like a good idea for supper. So it was Baked Potato Soup from Cooking Light, a salad a a hunk of Panera whole grain baguette. Delish. Hit the spot.

Then it was time to bake yet more cookies ... for the Cookie of the Month crew. BTW: The money from auctioning off those cookies is the Fetzer 20K prize money for Saturday. $500. :-) Made with dark chocolate M&Ms, the absolute undoing of my will power.

Well, the bunnies are now complete. Two are on their way to their new homes, and one will hopefully be delivered tomorrow. They're so fun. :-)

The TriRochester get together was a lot of fun last night. Lots of triathletes were in attendance. And hopefully there was a new triathlete amongst them ... namely Melissa Gorvin. (Pictured below are Mike Ewen (TriRochester white shirt), Tom Williamson, Melissa, Judy Weller, Cathy Torgerson)

I talked to her for a bit and found out that she too is apprehensive about the swim. I then found out she reads my blog and knew that I was training for my first tri, but she still wasn't convinced she could do it. Well, low and behold, a short while later Andy Shulha and Mark Carey were drawing for prizes. And who should win a free entry to the Rochesterfest Tri but Melissa!

I think this was meant to be. I'm hoping she will be able to work with Shaun Palmer on the swim and be confident enough in the swim that she will do this! I told her I'd do it with her. You go, girl! You can do this!

I was standing next to someone who introduced himself to Andy Shulha. I heard the name and asked if he was a neurosurgeon. He said he was. I told him he'd done my back surgery in 2003. Small, small world. We talked for about 30 seconds about medicine (I think he appears briefly in the up-and-coming Medical Edge video I did) and then quite a while about triathlon. Also noteworthy, Erin Carey is doing Ironman Coeur d'Alene (Idaho) in June. Way cool! That's Erin on the left below along with Abigail (!) and Becky Tri.

I guess there were a number of requests for the recipe for the banana bars. Here it is. Another winner from Land O'Lakes .

I have to give a plug to Lionel's blog. He does such a great job with photos and the written word.

Enough for today. It's nearly 10:00 and I've had no down time to speak of. It's off to the pool in the early AM to continue my triathlon training.

More tomorrow. Toodle-oo!