Bucket List: My First Tri

Five years ago I was on the verge of turning 30 and feeling a bit sorry for myself. Life wasn't what I expected it would be – it never is. We were living in a campground, I was unemployed, childless and Daniel worked an hour away. So I wrote a bucket list: 100 Things I would like to do in my lifetime.

Three mile trail run in preparation for the Rock Island Rock and Row triathlon in two weeks. #imslow #icandoit #trailrunning #trainingrun #rockislandrockandrow #mohausoutside365 #mohaus2016

A photo posted by Cheree Moore (@mo_haus) on Apr 2, 2016 at 4:43pm PDT

The list had no-brainer things and grandiose things. Some I have accomplished, some will never happen. My life is a lot different now, but every once in awhile I get the chance to mark an item off my list.

Last weekend I got to cross #20 off.

Triathlons have been on my mind for some time. But every time I get the itch to tri, I have been pregnant or just had a baby. About two months ago I started asking around to see if there were any races in this area that included a paddle, mountain bike and trail run combination. Then I got busy and forgot about it.

One week to the Rock and Row Triathlon. After a week of foot pain I finally felt ok enough to do a short indoor training bike ride and run. Hoping I don't spend the rest of the day hobbling around. #rockislandrockandrow #mohaus2016 #trainingrun

A photo posted by Cheree Moore (@mo_haus) on Apr 8, 2016 at 10:27am PDT

Three weeks ago, a friend asked Daniel if we would be interested in doing a paddle, run, bike race with her at Rock Island State Park. We would have 3 weeks to prepare and each segment would be a 5K (for a total of just over 9 miles). We talked it over, asked Daniel's mom if she could watch our boys, and then we signed up.

Leading up to the race, I was working out pretty consistently (4x a week doing boot camp and pump classes). Daniel was running maybe once a week at best. The last time we paddled, I was 39 weeks pregnant and we haven't been able to bike with any consistency – our most recent ride several weeks ago on muddy terrain. But we figured we could do it. Nine miles is no big deal, right?!

I have to admit this isn't the first time I have decided to "train" for a race in a short period of time. I seem to do things backwards – I find a race and then cram for it, much like a high school student trying to scrape by. I guess not much has changed in the last 20 years.

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In an attempt to train, I went on one 3 mile training run and hurt the bottom of my foot. So I took a break for several days before attempting an indoor cycle/spin session.

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A week later I found myself with a pinched nerve in my shoulder. I spent the Sunday before the race on my back, unable to lift anything. Things weren't looking very promising for me to be able to paddle.

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I took it easy for a couple of days and then did a few light workouts to make sure I could handle the cardio portion of the race. I figured I would just do my best to finish and pay the price after. I also knew that I would have no shame walking if it came down to it during the race.

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Friday we headed to Rock Island to pick up our race packets and take our boys hiking. Years ago, Daniel and I spent a decent amount of time hiking in the Rock Island gorge, but I don't think we have ever gone down to the Caney River (past the Great Falls). As we drove down to pick up our packets, my stomach dropped. The hill was ridiculously steep and long. Oh, so, long.

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That night I couldn't sleep because I could only think about the hill. I kept reminding myself that it would be OK to walk it, and in fact I should just plan on walking it.

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The next morning at the start of the race, we talked to so many people who were nervous about the hill, and that made me feel a bit better. Everyone was incredibly friendly and the dreaded hill made for good conversation!

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For the start of the race, we began in waves. The first group was open female kayakers (those who brought their own boats). The second wave (my group) were female kayakers were renting a boat from The Happy Yaker (the boats were already staged for us). The third group were SUP and canoes. The fourth group was the open male kayaks, followed by Daniel's group, the male kayakers.

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Each wave was spaced 4 minutes apart. Daniel and I always canoe together and I haven't been in a single person kayak in over 10 years so I wasn't sure how I would fare. I surprised myself by being the first in my group to get in the water.

Our first leg involved a 2.5k paddle down river, where we would circle a buoy and head back up river. Thankfully the current wasn't too bad but we had a pretty strong head wind on the return trip. I passed several in the first group on this section, coming in 4th in my group. Many of the SUP and canoes passed me and a few of the men caught up at this point. I was shocked at how shaky I was coming out of the paddle section. My paddle time was 49 minutes.

The transition involved running across a really sandy beach and quickly changing in to tennis shoes. I did my best get as much sand off my feet as possible before running to the base of the first hill. The hills in this park were no joke. Definitely not for a novice. I only saw a few people who actually ran the whole course. Nearly everyone walked some portion.

After the first big hill, I managed to jog a portion of the next hill and walked a limited amount on the rest of the road section. As we transitioned to the last part of the run, my foot started to hurt. I walked at least half of the trail section and don't know what my time was as I came out of the woods. At the bike transition there was a water station. Praise the Lord! I was definitely needing water at this point.

With the bike portion in front of me, I knew I needed to get in easy gears as quickly as possible. We started with a fast downhill, that would turn right and immediately start into a steep hill. The bike portion of the race was all on park roads and consisted of 4 major hills – long climbs followed by fast downhills. The very last hill for biking had most people off their bikes and walking back up. I made it a third of the way up (on mountain bike tires no less) before I got off my bike. Daniel was able to crank up this final hill (props to him!).

While off my bike, I bonked. My energy tanked and I wasn't sure if I could get back on my bike. It took some mental gymnastics to convince myself that being in the saddle would be easier than walking. I'm so glad I got back on my bike because the last hill was the long hill that we had started running (walking) up and it was a treat to ride down. At the start of the race, the officials said to check your brakes at the top and to not try to race anyone since the bottom of the hill involved a final turn. They thought you could get up to 35mph. I'm sure that I didn't get that fast, but I bet that I pushed 20mph on that final descent. It felt so good to go fast and not have to put in any effort – besides not falling off the bike!

With the bike portion being last, I was able to make up a lot of lost time (from my slow run/walk) and I ended up finishing 3rd in my group with a time of 1:55:04. Daniel finished 5th in his group with a time of 1:47:55 (he was 37 overall while I was 56 out of 85 racers). 

 

I am really proud of us both for finishing. It was a really hard race (I would say only 10% of the racers actually ran the whole thing), but we had a lot of fun and it was the perfect day to be out in nature. It's not often that we can combine several hobbies that we love into one morning together! Post race I came away with one nasty blister on my left thumb and Daniel had a rough evening while his body chemistry evened itself out.

The Rock & Row Triathlon was put on by Support a Park, with funds raised going to the Rock Island State Park.

I'm so glad that I brought a pint of gelato to keep in the freezer of our cabin. It was so good after that race!

Love Where You Live: East Brow Ride

I recently discovered Roots Rated and it is quite possibly my new favorite web site. Roots Rated gives great details about outdoor activities in select cities and Chattanooga happens to be one of the cities they cover.

Happily we have already discovered many of the activities and places on this site, but there are plenty of new places left for us to explore. 

One of the activities on Roots Rated that we had yet to discover was the Brow of Signal Mountain. It promised at least 7 miles (round trip) of amazing views.

We live about 2 miles from East Brow and decided it would be worth the ride from our house. 

The views definitely delivered. We have driven on this road before, but riding (or running) on it gives you more time to really soak it in.

We biked until we were almost at the W Road. Conveniently there was a grassy section on the right side with an amazing view of Chattanooga. 

The plot of land probably belonged to the people who owned the house across the street, but we took advantage of the opening in the bushes and parked our bikes out of sight and enjoyed a picnic with this fantastic view.

East Brow is rolling hills, so be ready for your legs to burn a bit on the uphills, but the fast downhills more than make up for it. 

The steepest section for us was actually coming out of our neighborhood, past Green Gorge Park and down to East Brow. What goes down must come up, so the final hill up to our neighborhood was a brutal one.

We biked about 5.5 miles on this ride. My fastest speed was around 17mph but I know Daniel (and Jack) were going much faster than me on the downhill sections. Our elevation gain was about 600 feet.

We enjoyed having Daniel home on a Friday, he has been working crazy hours the last couple of weeks and may have to go back tomorrow. 

Have I mentioned that we love where we live?

Biking in Hollywood

Today we took advantage of the cooler weather to take our first road biking trip since moving to Alabama. We had been a little weary about riding on country roads {people around here tend to drive pretty fast} but finally decided that the roads close to our house should be safe since most of them are "no outlet" and go down to the lake. This meant some back tracking but also offered some great views.

At 1.75 miles we passed a field of cows. They must not see many road bikers because they all seemed to get spooked as we went by.

  

At 5.5 miles, we had to turn around due to angry country dogs that were roaming loose... we didn't want to take a chance on being bitten by a mean looking, one-eyed dog. We saw plenty of other dogs that seemed friendly. In these parts everyone lets their dogs roam free {we are guilty of this}.

Bellefonte cooling towers in the background {where Daniel works} 

Toward the end of our ride we ended up over by Bellefonte. The whole area is very pretty – alternating between water views and rolling farm country. We managed to fit in a 10-mile ride in a comfortable 1.5 hours. My only complaint is that the roads were tar and chip which is not the smoothest surface for riding.