Fun! Fun! Fun!

Another great weekend! First off, let me just say that I am so fortunate to have the most wonderful, supportive, and honest friends ever. And I am so happy that I got to spend time with them over the past few days.

This was the weekend that I headed to Columbia, MO for two reasons: a friends/teammates' wedding on Saturday, and race on Sunday!

The wedding was lovely despite the rain and chilly temps. Darcey looked gorgeous and Ty was so handsome. The happy couple left the chapel in a bike drawn rickshaw - adorable! AND gave out cowbells for us to send them off with!! Food was fabulous and cake was even better - I had TWO pieces: one lemon and one chocolate. It was an early night for me. I left the reception at 8:30, while everyone else stayed until 11 dancing the night away. It was so nice to catch up with my teammates/friends and talk about races done, races to come, country dog attacks and being attacked by a GOOSE on a run (that would be me).

Race season started Sunday morning at 4:30 am. Here we go!! Back to the early morning wake up calls!!! But I fell right into the race morning routine just fine and felt totally at ease. While I had a just enough time to drive the bike course on Saturday before the wedding, I didn't actually know exactly where the pool/race was located. No worries. I arrived in plenty of time and was really impressed with the whole site.

So ... TriZou (formerly known as Race for Sight) is held on the MU campus. It's unique in that it's a pool swim (400 LCM) at this amazing new natorium. It's a time trial start with send offs every 5 seconds. You line up according to you swim seed time and then jump in (FEET FIRST!), swim down the lane, under the lane line, and down the lane in the opposite direction - "snake style". So ... um, yeah. This became another episode in the Villasi Comedy Show. I'm watching all the fast swimmers and they're all doing flip turns and effortlessly swimming under the lane line. I do not do flip turns (don't get me started) and I always do my open turns to the left.... which means... there were a couple of less-than-coordinated turns and transitions to the other lane, and whereby, losing momentum. I just laughed it off and made the best of it. It's only 400 meters, right?

So out of the water, we run outside (weather was PERFECT by the way - sunny, clear and low 60s) to transition which is held around the track of a football field. The ENTIRE track. All the way around. Luckily, I got a great spot close to the bike out and made it out in a flash.

Bike is two loops, seven miles each. Two rather large hills (done twice = four) but two rather long downhills and one nice, fast descent. Also, a LOT of sharp turns. Hairpin almost. I even considered bringing the road bike, but it worked out fine. I was a little skittish about the turns and took them very conservatively. It probably slowed me down over all, but a crash would have REALLY slowed me down so... yeah. I felt like I left it all out there on the bike even though my bike split was slower than usual. No regrets.

In to T2 and for some reason, I choose to take the long way around the track to the run out. Whatever. Stupid mistake but not anything major. Out on the run through campus and I'm building into it and after the first quarter mile I'm feeling pretty good. I'm thinking, "I should run faster ... no, better wait ... don't know what's up ahead ... at the turn around, then I'll kick it in". Ha! There was no turn around - the course just snaked around. But about mile 2 - 2.25 I'm thinking, "I'm not hurting. I should be running faster. Like really fast. This is good, but I should go faster." Before I knew it, we were approaching the finish and I'm like, "KICK IT IN NOW" and I sprinted for the finish. But when I crossed the line, I had way too much energy and knew I could have - SHOULD HAVE run harder.

Even with all of this - a comedic swim, a hard bike and an easy run, I still came in 4th AG!! YEAH! I didn't even have a goal for this race. I just wanted to do it just to do it. Did it and DONE! It was a LOT OF FUN!!! And I didn't know a soul! Met a couple people from KC, but no one I already knew. Those races are the best - because you really are racing YOU. You don't know anyone so there are no rivalries - but there are also no rabbits to chase. At least no familiar rabbits.

Best part - my day was over at 9 am!! Didn't stick around long and headed back to the hotel to shower and meet up with Aubs and Adam for breaky at Cracker Barrell (whoa!). Headed home after that with a smile on my face, a pocketful of beautiful memories (barf - but true) and some classic psycho-billy, thrash metal on the stereo thanks to the best bike mechanic in all of KC.

Oh, but it doesn't stop there!!! I was home by 2 pm and had the whole day to just ... do whatever I wanted! Put together a new desk, my computer and hung some pictures. DS came by and we (Liz is going to kill me) drank our dinner ... on the porch catchin' up on life and crackin' each other up over random crap.

I am so fortunate to have such great friends, a great coach, and so far, a great 2010 season!!