{"id":456,"date":"2013-08-26T20:50:46","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T20:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=456"},"modified":"2013-08-26T20:50:46","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T20:50:46","slug":"lessons-from-lake-st-louis-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=456","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Lake St. Louis 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

A whole year has come and gone since I officially became a triathlete.\u00a0 How is that possible?\u00a0 Sometimes it dragged, and\u00a0sometimes it felt like\u00a0time was flying by.\u00a0 Time is weird.\u00a0 But time does some pretty incredible things.\u00a0 It heals.\u00a0 It allows us to mark our own progress.\u00a0 It is consistent but it knows how to adapt to change.\u00a0 And\u00a0time never stops pressing on.\u00a0 We could all learn a few things from Time.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, I joined several friends at the course of the Lake St. Louis Tri.\u00a0 Some did the long course, some did the short.\u00a0 Some were out for hardward, some were in the shoes I was in a year ago, just hoping to survive to tell the story.\u00a0 Some were the same friends who I saw in Racine.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t accomplish my goal of a Sub 3, but I did give LSL all I had in the moment and I walked away with an almost 7 minute PR.\u00a0 I improved my times in all 3 disciplines and both transitions.\u00a0 So, I\u2019m pretty happy with that. \u00a0I also set a goal to finish in the top 10 of my age group, and I was #9 (Yes, there were more than 9, 14 actually thank you very much.) \u00a0Not everything went according to plan, but that\u2019s pretty much par for the course.\u00a0 After all is said and done, I had a great time on Saturday, I\u2019m proud of my race and I\u2019m proud of how far I\u2019ve come in the past year.\u00a0 That just allows me to set my sights even higher for the year ahead.<\/p>\n

Here are a few of the lessons I took away from LSL Tri 2013\u2026<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I am still a really, really, really slow swimmer. \u00a0But at least now I\u2019m proud of the fact that I give the illusion of knowing what I\u2019m doing out there.\u00a0 And I think I still finished the swim in the bottom 5 of my wave, but that\u2019s better than bottom 2!<\/li>\n
  2. Goal for 2014: Learn how to swim a straight line.<\/li>\n
  3. Don\u2019t get lost in the transition area.<\/li>\n
  4. Consider courses with less hills and more shade.<\/li>\n
  5. I might be a closet cyclist masquerading as a runner.<\/li>\n
  6. Ryan and Farrell chose the location of their home wisely\u20265 minute walk to the start line.\u00a0 Nice job Guys! J<\/li>\n
  7. I have some really Badass friends.\u00a0 Not just the ones who owned the course like Katherine who took 2nd<\/sup> female overall of the long course and Brian Schoenholtz who took 3rd<\/sup> male overall of the short course.\u00a0 And Katie Schoenholtz and Erin Wilke who took 3rd<\/sup> in their age groups and Mark French who won his age group.\u00a0 But all my friends who were out there sweating with me.\u00a0 And especially the peeps who came out for no other reason than to support us.\u00a0 I got to have friends, my kiddos and ALL my moms at the finish line (My mom-Mama J, Steve\u2019s mom-Dee and Lindsey\u2019s mom-Wendy)\u00a0 How awesome is that?!<\/li>\n
  8. The LSL Rescue team rocks.\u00a0 Traffic on the course this year was a beast, the cops directing traffic were much appreciated.\u00a0 As were the folks in the water, like Ryan Heaberlin and Rick Tharwachter.\u00a0 We wouldn\u2019t be able to participate in events like this without the invaluable group of people who volunteer to take care of us.\u00a0 Can\u2019t thank you all enough!<\/li>\n
  9. Residents who put out their sprinklers are much appreciated, especially nice for those of us who might pee ourselves.\u00a0 Don\u2019t judge me.<\/li>\n
  10. Some people are just naturally gifted at various events.\u00a0 I am not one of them.\u00a0 But I\u2019m willing to work my butt off to tri! (See what I did there?)<\/li>\n
  11. Sometimes it\u2019s hard not to hate the people who are naturally gifted. \u00a0But at least I have the capability to be out there.\u00a0 And for that, I am thankful.<\/li>\n
  12. Some days you walk away with a PR and some days you don\u2019t. But at the end of the day, no matter how big or small, a PR is a PR.\u00a0 So be happy when it\u2019s a PR kind of day.<\/li>\n
  13. Remember the Run Guard.\u00a0 Chafing sucks.\u00a0 Especially boob chafing.\u00a0 Just sayin\u2026<\/li>\n
  14. There is always room for improvement.<\/li>\n
  15. Triathlons are hard.<\/li>\n
  16. I\u2019ve said it before, but it warrants repeating\u2026STOP DOUBTING MYSELF.<\/li>\n
  17. I love having perfect strangers cheer me on.\u00a0 But the thing I love to hear the most is, \u201cKeep smiling Girl!\u00a0 You\u2019re making it look FUN.\u201d\u00a0 And THAT, is the true trademark of Rambling Runner Girl.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, who wants to sign up to do LSL with me next year?<\/p>\n

    \"Lindsey<\/a>

    Lindsey squared 2013…we recreated the picture from last year. Looks pretty much the same, huh?<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A whole year has come and gone since I officially became a triathlete.\u00a0 How is that possible?\u00a0 Sometimes it dragged, and\u00a0sometimes it felt like\u00a0time was flying by.\u00a0 Time is weird.\u00a0 But time does some pretty incredible things.\u00a0 It heals.\u00a0 It allows us to mark our own progress.\u00a0 It is consistent but it knows how to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-randomthoughts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-7m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}