My First Offseason - 2009

With my 1^st tri season in the bag, I took somewhere around 4+ weeks off. I enjoyed the rest of the summer, and when October/November came around I was already thinking about my 1^st half iron that I signed up for – Mooseman 70.3! With that on my mind, I was very anxious to start training. The thought of swimming  1.2 miles, biking 56 miles, and running a half marathon was “scaring” the living crap out of me. I have NEVER swam, biked or ran that far, never mind all in one day!  Of course, everyone was telling me that I should just enjoy my first half, and have no time goals, but that is not me – the super competitive czech chick! J The minute I signed up, I had a secret goal, which was to qualify for the Clearwater 70.3 championships! I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to give it a shot!

 I believe that training is everything, and I train hard! Sometimes probably too hard! I learned that the hard way, and that was by sideling myself from running for over a month, and pretty close to two months.  I started to have some issues with my left hip area, and it took almost 2 months of ART/massage appointments to get me back to pain free running. Good thing was I could still bike and swim, so that helped me to keep me sane. The timing was also great because Mooseman was so far away.

In December, I started to train with the Dreamfar Ironman team that was training for Wisconsin full ironman. We met every weekend starting with early December, and endured some of the toughest bike rides/runs that I have ever been on! I won’t ‘go into details on all these, but check out the pic below. It was cold, flipping cold! I am not sure how I still have 10 toes and 10 fingers left! There are no booties or gloves to keep me warm! Looking back at it now, I am not sure what I was thinking!

The offseason was long, and cold, but full of lots of FUN times! I must admit it wasn’t always easy and fun!  This one really cold morning comes to mind. The forecast called for pouring rain all day long. It happened to be a Saturday and that meant a team workout. We all met up and did some hill repeats before the rain started to come down. I can deal with the cold even though I am not a fan. But rain and cold? No, thank you! Hill work was followed by some core work, and we met up with the rest of the Dreamfar squad. By the time we got out the 2^nd time it was pouring, and I mean pouring! I can’t remember how long the loop was, but it was way too long for this weather! We did one, and came back inside! I swore I would NOT go out again, but of course was dared by one of my teammates who wanted company and I did it again! Two more freezing wet and cold loops on the bike. I was lucky I didn’t get sick, but I must be honest, this was a true test of character! Little did I know that my very first ½ ironman race – Mooseman 70.3 in June will be WET and COLD!!!!!!!!