I haven’t written in awhile since I got the green light from my doctor to start riding and running again. I have been training super hard on the bike trying to get back in shape with little time on the couch to type. I have a new coach, Sean Ahmaedi, that has been training me on the bike. That is definitely my strongest event right now.  I have also increased my running to include sprint workouts on the track and I have set up a paddle simulator in my room to work my shoulder muscles.

I did my first race this weekend with Nathan. I was a little worried since I haven’t done a sprint race in a long time. The first running section was fast but I felt really good. There was one coed team ahead of us but I didn’t recognize the female. I thought if we stayed with them we would have a chance to beat them out on the bike. But they were super fast runners and it was hard to keep them in sight. They had a good lead on us going into the paddle and paddling was difficult for me since losing so much muscle in my left arm. Toward the end of the paddle the 3 place coed team with Chris and Kim passed us up. I didn’t have much left in my arms to pursue so I knew that it would end up to a race on the bikes. Chris and Kim left the TA first but we caught them on the jeep road. We hit the single track first and rode great. The bike section was only 7 miles long and there would be a mystery event at the end so we knew we would need hammer.

We finally caught the first place team about mile 5 and went into the last TA in the lead. For the mystery event we were required to run along the shore of the water for about 100m. The second place team was hot on our trail and we both came out of the water about the same time. We got a good jump out of the water and it was left to a sprint to the finish. Shaun and Jason were there cheering us on and pointing us in the right direction. They had just finished and  won the male-male division. Sprinting the last 100m reminded me of thr track workouts I have been doing with my daughter Sydney. I keep my elbows in close and pumped my arms to the finish. The second place team finished seconds behinds us. It was great to be back racing and winning again. Our next race will be the Sprint race June 27th in Huntsville.