Fantastic Fall!

Life in Vienna, it's been good lately! Things are still a little crazy, but going well. I love this time of year, it's pumpkin soup, fall colors, bright blue skies, warm days and cool nights. I've even gotten my boots out. Although, today I have been trying to force myself to switch over my closet to Fall/Winter clothes and store the summer things, and I just can't do it. In fact, even though it is freezing out, I am wearing a tank top and jeans. And, have been successfully avoiding the task by catching up with friends on Skype and cooking for the week. Apparently I think the world is ending, I bought enough food over the weekend to feed an army. Then I made enough turkey chile to feed a family of five for a week or so. Whatever. Since a few of us bought dirndls, we have been looking for excuses to wear them. We went to a festival the other weekend, and all I can say, is I felt like I went to a costume party, but was the only one that dressed up. Ha! It was fun though, and I did eat some pumpkin soup. Oh, so last weekend a friend and I decided we would go on this "trail run" and meet her boyfriend and his friend at the top for a little lunch and then take the gondola down. Without going into too much detail, that is definitely not how it worked out. We never did find the trail, or make it to the top, and at one point as I was holding on to a stump and looking left and right and wondering what in the world I was going to do, totally stuck and terrified... I realized that we were those people, you know, the ones that you hear about on the news that had to be rescued by helicopters and they had no food and water and what were they thinking, they must be complete idiots? Well, we were those people. Obviously, we did eventually make it down, but it was quite an experience. One that I don't need to have again. Training. What am I training for? I have NO idea, yet I am up every morning going for a run, at the gym after work and running home and doing rides on the weekends. I feel like I am training for nothing, but harder and more hours than when I am actually training. I added in weight training and that seems to be going okay. I did sign up for the Nice Ironman and am already totally excited about it. I did a hilly ride this weekend, and hope to do MANY more so I can do the hills better in Nice this time around. I am already planning on going to this weekend training camp in Nice in the spring. I'm not sure what the dates are yet, but will sign up as soon as they are posted. I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to do next year, life is good and easy here, but is it time to move? Try a new school, city and life? While I haven't made any final decisions, it's looking like another year or so here in Vienna. I want to buy a car and get a real phone when I do make the decision to stay. We'll see though! It's a normal Sunday of cooking, cleaning and relaxing. I might make some cookies in a bit. Or not. Next weekend Claudia and I are going to Slavonice, it's supposed to be a cool, artsy town right across the Czech border. I'm really looking forward to it!

Wrapping up, well, another summer.

Everyone keeps asking, so how was your summer? Do you smile and answer, oh, it was great! As usual it was really busy, running around visiting friends and family, but I loved every second of it. Or, are you honest and say how it really was?! Depends on the day I guess. So, as I mentioned before, I had a pretty crazy summer with a couple trips home and a trip back to Europe for Ironman Swiss. Now, I'm back in Vienna and things have just not slowed down at all. Let's see since I wrote last I've done quite a bit! I'll try to keep it short, but it will be long I'm sure... I flew into Vienna on a Thursday night and flew out Friday to meet Stipan in Croatia. He was visiting family in Croatia and well, why wouldn't I fly down and meet him for the weekend. We were on an island right off from Split and stayed at this apartment that was directly on the water and amazing! Excellent food and weather, I think it had been six or seven years since I'd last seen Stipan and some things just never change. Friendships like that are rare and I truly do LOVE that while we did the normal catch up on life thing for about 30 seconds, it was then just about the now and having fun! Which we did. I went on some great runs, rented lounge chairs and flopped around in the water a bit too. Wonderful. Work started that Monday, crazy and jet lagged, but all went smoothly. My boss is back, he was working as the high school principal last year, which made for a tricky year. I learned a lot. About what, I'm not sure. But, I'm just really happy with how things started off so far! A lot of people say that if you didn't work you would be bored and that there isn't enough things to do. I disagree completely. I feel that I would easily be able to fill my time. But, since that isn't really an option at this point, my job isn't so bad. I work with some great people and the travel from here is awesome... hard to complain! But, I do manage to complain often enough... I did an awesome race, I hadn't really been "training" in any organized fashion, just did an "active recovery" after the Swiss Ironman and then tried to get in as much biking, swimming and running as I could. Of course, the running is easy to do while traveling, but I did manage to do some of all of it. Then when I was back in Vienna I decided to make myself go swim in the Danube as often as I could and then just go for it race day. The race was a 70.3 Half Ironman in Zell am See on August 26. It was GREAT. Mel and Claudia came out with me, we rented a van and an apartment and we were off on Friday afternoon right after school. Of course, I was angry and annoyed leaving Vienna, I swear, I cannot get out of this city without some type of circular route and there is nothing that annoys me more than wasting time. But... once we were on the road, it was a pretty good drive and the place we stayed was great. Saturday was the "fun day" of driving the course, getting the bike checked in, registering and going to the race briefing. I always think I won't get that stressed out, but I do. Oh well. I met a friend at the race briefing, it was nice to have someone to talk to about the race. Mel and Claudia were trying on dirndls and of course I wasn't planning on it, but ended up trying a few on and then buying one. As you do...! We drove what we could of the bike course, racked the bike, packed the transition bags and had a great dinner! Of course, before dinner we tried on our new dirndls and drank wine. Yes, the night before race. Ha! I was feeling pretty relaxed and had no real expectations about the race, the only reason I was even doing it was because I had broken my ribs and wasn't able to race the St. Polten race and this was the only one I could transfer it too... I also decided that I thought I could go faster than what I did in my previous races, so I was just going to go all out all day and see what would happen. Mel, Claudia and I went to a place for dinner that someone recommended and it was delicious. Came home, stayed up for a bit and then went to sleep. The race didn't start till 10:00 the next day. Very annoying! Race Day! I was up before my alarm and drank some coffee and ate a leisurely breakfast. Seemed weird for a race day to start so late! I packed up all my stuff; we were planning on just leaving straight from the race so we could get home at a somewhat reasonable hour, I was thinking the race would take me between 7:00 - 7:30 hours. Mel and Claudia dropped me at the race, I walked around, checked my bike, put on the food/gels/water that I thought I would need and was just sort of standing around for a bit. Suddenly it was time to exit the transition area and head towards the lake. I stuffed myself into my wetsuit after covering myself with the body glide, no need for wetsuit rash anywhere. It was a water start, which I had never done before. Right when I walked in, I saw my friend, and we just stood there talking and waiting for it to be time to start. The buoys just look SO far away. Soon it was time to start, I just hung back in the water, near the stairs and decided to let everyone else start and I would just follow. I was not the only person with this idea. It was a wave start, which I liked for a number of reasons. I was in the first wave, so I LOVED that there really was no way I would be the last person out of the water and there would be less people swimming over me and maybe the kicking and crazy start just wouldn't be so bad. Well, no such luck. The swim starts are just plain scary. The pros got a bit of a head start and then we were off! It's so exciting and so many things just are rushing through my head. I don't really get the random cheerleaders, but they were there doing some cheers, they played what I can only guess was the National Austrian Anthem and we were off! I just kept thinking, swim your swim, don't worry about what anyone else is doing. Breathe. Swim. Kick. Don't let it bother you if anyone kicks you or if you are being passed. Just swim your swim. I actually felt pretty good during the swim and the course seemed easy to follow and I could see a balloon that I was swimming towards, which was awesome. Although, when I asked my friend about it, he said he didn't see a balloon, so maybe it was my imagination. Either way, I felt like I was at least swimming a fairly straight line and only getting hit and kicked a little. I knew the fastest swimmers in the second wave would catch me, so when that started happening, I again, just kept telling myself swim your swim, don't worry about others. The kicking and hitting was pretty bad through the whole race and especially bad around the corners. I think triathlons are all about talking to yourself... The swim seemed to go really fast and really slow all at once, when I looked at my watch when I got out and saw that it was 44 minutes, I was thrilled! I was hoping for less than an hour, so it was much better than I expected. Transition 1 I have NO idea what I do, or what takes me so long, but it seems to take me forever to get off my wetsuit, into my bike gear and all that whatever. Bike: So, one word could describe the whole bike ride. RAIN. Yes, once again, racing in the rain. It really does crack me up, I have only ridden my bike twice in the rain and both times were races. It actually didn't even bother me really. I'm not sure how or why I wasn't freezing. Ok, so the bike course... we started off on a track and left the transition area and were off... the course was mostly flat and through some small towns and around the lake. It was an awesome, fast course, mostly on closed roads and bike paths. I'm not sure if it was the wave start, or that I swam faster than usual, or what it was, but there were a lot of bikers around, I was passing some people and some people were passing me. I felt great on the bike, it was absolutely POURING down rain, to the point of not being able to see and having to slow WAY down. I saw a number of crashes and ambulances. It was a little scary to be honest. It was a two lap course that was well marked as far as where to go, but not marked with distance markers at all, I think I only saw four or five the entire race. I think the rain kept a lot of people from coming out, but when there were plenty of volunteers and in the small towns, there were some people out. It was really fun to see Mel and Claudia in Zell am See. It's funny how motivating and exciting it is to see people you know! They were awesome. There were some times when it was just insane rain, like can't see in front of you, huge puddles everywhere, getting soaked by your own bike and people as they pass you. Just plain crazy. Like I said before, I felt like I could go faster on the bike, but didn't know what would happen to my ability to run, but decided I didn't really care and would just try it out. So, I didn't ride all out, but harder than I normally would and somehow managed to finish the bike just over 3:00, which SHOCKED me. When they waved me in towards the transition, I felt like there must be some mistake. But, there wasn't. Which is also funny because I felt like I was actually having to slow down because of the rain, yet still got a time I was super happy with. Transition 2: Once again, SLOW. Although, this time, I feel like I had a bit of an excuse. While I didn't feel too cold, my fingers were numb and earlier on the bike I could barely open up the bar I wanted to eat and ended up dropping half of it because I couldn't feel my fingers. So, the volunteers actually had to tie my shoes for me! I did eventually get into my running clothes and off on the run. Run: The run course was a three loop course that went through town and then out along the lake. It was still pouring down rain. It took me a few minutes to settle into a running mode, but I felt pretty good and didn't look at my watch right away, I told myself I had to wait a bit. By the time I looked at 4km, I felt like the race was practically all over, only 17km to go... easy enough and I was feeling good. Running through town was fun, lots of people and you were seeing runners come towards you since it was an out and back course. I love that. And, I love getting those bands! I saw my friend on my first lap out, he was already finishing! Amazing how jealous you can become of colored arm bands. I think I spend half of the time on the run looking to see how many colored bands people have and how many kilometers I have left and when will I be back in town, and, will I see Mel an Claudia? I think the only thing I am not thinking about is running. The aid stations were a mess, it almost felt dangerous to run through them with all the cups everywhere, funny for how organized the Austrians are to have the aid stations be such a mess. But, it was fine and with the rain and the puddles, it was just like an obstacle course. At some point I realized I might be able to finish the half marathon in less than two hours. Two hours and twenty minutes was my goal, so I was really happy! Towards the end of the run, I was starting to feel a bit tired, but overall I felt great. No pain or sick feeling, just a bit tired of moving... and not really looking forward to driving home. At the last lap I had asked Mel and Claudia to not go pick up my bike and instead meet me at the end, I was finishing the race about an hour and a half earlier than I thought I would, so I was HAPPY! Finish Line: It was such a great feeling to cross the finish line and I was THRILLED with my time. I was not expecting it and loved that I felt good and finished strong and faster than anticipated. Mel and Claudia were at the end. I had to run in, change, grab my medal and then I thought we would be off to get my bike and then head home... but that's not quite what happened. Funny thing, they didn't really mark the run course and somehow we managed to get our van stuck on the race course. Oops! We did eventually get the police to lead us out, but not before we actually saw a car HIT a person. Everyone was ok, but unbelievable! So, we picked up my bike, then had to go back to the apartment, which ended up being really nice to shower there and not in a rest stop, which is what I was going to do. So, we managed to get ourselves home, it was late, but we did make it! Not fun to get up the next day for work though. The next week was uneventful really, just trying to get back into work, the weekend was wonderful. I did a long bike ride, went to Dr. Falafel, all the things I missed! The next week we went did our Fall Trip, I went to Hallstatt, Obertraun and Bad Ischal with the 6th Grade team and it was as exhausting as it always is, but I did have my first pumpkin soup, which was very exciting! This last weekend was great too. Mel and I did some dirndl and lederhosen shopping, met a friend Carol at a Meet Up French Wine and Cheese tasting that was really fun and went to a harvest festival in a dirndl the next day and the weather was awesome! Now it is just back to work... and tomorrow I am going to attempt to get my Russian Visa to meet Kristin in October. They ask that you list off every country you have been to in the last 10 years and which years... scary to say I have NO idea and I just looked through my passport and hoped I got it all straight. I have heard nothing but nightmare stories about waiting in line at the Russian Consulate and having to go time and time again... I hope that it just doesn't happen like that for me, but I guess we'll see! Oh, and I signed up for the Nice Ironman 2013. I am so excited I can't stand it. I am going to hire a coach this time I think. We'll see...