Baking day.

I saw this scary time on my alarm clock last night when I was setting it for this morning. I promptly deleted it lest I accidentally switch on my middle of the night race-morning alarm clock (it's left-over from Sunday). Eek that was early.

This morning I started the day right by making special crescents rolls. Yummy yum I am a genius.

That's two choc chip, two s'mores (graham crackers included), two marshmallow/chocolate, and two plain. YUM.

The plain turned out prettier than the s'mores. Prettiness is not a good trade-off for deliciousness.

I had planning on saving this project, but I decided to go ahead and make this amazing Chocolate Eclair Cake this afternoon, since I was home early from work and clearly in a baking mood today. I've talked about making this before and am glad I finally did! Usually I'm really good at make bread doughs and pastry doughs (I've been baking challah for a long time and I mastered cream puffs last spring and there was no going back since). However, today something was "off." I still don't know what but it led to me breaking an egg on the floor (either a good omen or a sign of worse to come?). When I finally managed to crack an egg into the bowl, some how the whites of it also flew into the air, luckily (or unluckily, depending who you are) landing nowhere but my own clothes... so, I was a little crazy today... Then I neglected to mix each egg in at a time, and came out with lumpy dough.

Raw.

...and cooked.

Maybe I've lost my pastry dough talent, but I think I was just having an off day. The rest of the project came out wonderfully! I did a marbling design on top of the cool-whip topping (using choc sauce).

And of course I ate out a corner ASAP

I think it did turn out well other than the fact that I would've liked a little more substance to the dough. The dough is topped with a chocolate mixture, custard, and whipped topping (and more chocolate) and I think it would've been balanced out better with more dough. But maybe it was just my weird dough that was lacking substance...will have to attempt again.

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On the workout front today, I worked 3X2000meters on the erg. I'm trying to up my erging to 4 times a week (I think I got 3 last week, pretty good). I was able to sneak these 2ks in whilst I was baking this afternoon. They were hard. I did them at 5k-rate (well, a little higher than 5k rate...) and all together it was about 27 minutes. Erging has been really hard lately. I followed this stroke-rate pattern for each piece (I found it on concept2.com).

Maybe today it was hard because I'm still tired from Sunday, so I'll keep at it. I also think that running so much could be tiring out my legs to a point where they're finding it hard to push it out on an erg for 30 minutes a day. For now, I want to keep running but in a couple weeks I'll pull back, as we get closer to my try-outs date. 

I lounged later in the afternoon, reading more about Anne Boleyn (I know a lot about the Tudors...been doing my own (amateur) research through reading about them for almost a decade now!), looking back through all of Hungry Runner Girl's posts, and catching a Shark Week episode. Later on I worked in abs and a 5-mile run. More shark stuff tonight, perhaps. Wild night!

Race shirt Monday.

I love those Mondays when you get to wear your new race shirt and frolic around happily in it. I wanted to wear mine to work but thought that might not quite be considered "business-professional."

Sorry for the face.

Today I toyed with the idea of going for a light run or erging, but my body (and mind) still feel really tired from yesterday. I think that I had a pretty hard week last week with little to no taper anyways, so I decided to listen to my body and just take a day completely off. I'm sure it'll benefit me in the long run! I just hope I can fall asleep tonight. Part of the reason I "have to" stay so active is because it makes me fall right asleep at night. Often if I don't do any activity, I lie awake for hours, thinking about basically everything! I've been this way since I was 7-8 years old. On the days I row/run/cycle/swim/walk/fly/all of the above I go out like a light, as soon as my head hits the pillow! My pediatrician used to always say she could notice me always brimming with energy, always moving. This isn't something I would always notice about myself, but I realize that a lot of the time, it's true! I just was made to be active, and it does so much for my mind and body. 

Long story short, I had plenty of time today to do nothing except take selfies and make fish faces at the webcam. 

I was really looking forward to my 10-mile race on Sunday, but now I'm not sure if it'll work out because I've gotten a weekend-long babysitting stint. I'm not sure if the parents would be okay with me working this into the schedule (and if not, I can't blame them!). Considering I am recovering from a first (albeit short!) triathlon and want to do a longest-ever run before moving back to school, it might not be an all-together bad thing if I had to skip it, though I'll definitely still plan to do it if I can work it in. Stay tuned on that one, folks!

Tomorrow morning I'm hoping to make a delicious concoction before work...stay posted for that too!

Race Recap: Cleveland Triathlon and 100th post!

Gosh, today's triathlon was AWESOME. There's no other word for it! I wasn't entirely thrilled during most of the race (the steep and crazy hills during the bike sorta got me down in the dumps, and the run was so short I hardly realized I started before it was over!) but by the end I was like..."OMG! I can't believe I am a triathlete now!" and I was filled with euphoria (and relief). Now, I'd love to do some Olympic distances (and maybe more?) in the future. I'll use my automatic pool membership at school this fall to get a leg up on my swimming, which is certainly my weak link. However, today it was my favorite event! Crazy!

Let me walk you through my day. Until it was happening, I really wasn't entirely sure how everything would go! Get ready for 908327894 pictures. I'm really excited to go through this with you guys in detail because I had a lot of exposure to things like running races through my parents and Alex before doing those, but this is a completely new, raw experience for me!

• At 4:55AM, I (finally) got out of bed and got dressed in my make-shift trisuit (spandex, suit, and jacket). I ate a piece of toast with a tiny bit of butter and grabbed all my bags. We loaded up my bike and were off by 5:23. 

All my stuff. Just as much as I'd bring to a regatta! Almost forgot the helmet, that would've been badddddddddd.

• At 5:45 we parked and walked to transition area where I organized all my stuff. I'd been waiting for this moment all week! I like knowing that everything's organized and it's proper place. The first thing I noticed was how beautiful it was this morning:

Claiming my spot and organizing happily :)

These are unedited--can you believe it???

• Upon entry, I got my number (lucky number 31) written on my right calf, left thigh, and right wrist. None of them were really legible except for this one though...

• By 6:45 I was sorta warmed up and ready to go for the swim. Ankle bracelet, swim cap, goggles, check, check and check!

Uhh...swim cap struggles...

Got it!

• The men went out in the first wave, and then they had us women jump in. I wanted to delay it for as long as possible but finally a race official kinda pushed me and this other (scared) girl to jump in, saying that though the water was cold, it would be way warmer than the air temperature at the time. She was right! My only issue with the swim was that I got all tangled in seaweed when I jumped in...it was annoying, at the worst! The swim went about how I expected it to go though, it was not too hard while I was going but I didn't feel like I could do a big amount more. And on the latter coming out, my muscles were screaming! So I know I worked hard :)

I'm somewhere in here:

• Then it was time to plow through T1 and get on that bike! I was pretty speedy in here, though certainly a little wacked out from the swim. I found my spot and got myself together though.

• I went off without a problem. Now as I said earlier, the bike was 8 miles of HILLSSSSS. Ouch. I've been training for up to 30 miles, but only on FLAT land! I need to start mixing things up because this hurt really bad. My bike worked very well though, and I'm still digging my new tires! I met my goal time for the bike and hurried into T2.
• T2 went the speed of light for me! I chose not to switch shoes (wore my running shoes for the bike) and just put on my hat and number and got going!

• And before I knew it, I finished! I held the run pace right where I wanted. Garmin had me at 7:44 pace but they clocked me at 7:55. No matter, I still finished in under an hour (my goal!) with a time of 58:56. I even won my age group!

Done, done, and DONE.

• By 8:00, I packed everything up and we slowly headed out and the happy feelings sunk in :)

Sorry, can't resist one more pic of the beautiful day we got!

So, overall, today was great. I met my personal A Goal, had a small victory, and LOVED the experience! I'm not sure if I'm crazy about the course for a first-time triathlete, but I seriously do think that challenges like this toughen us up and are for the better. So next time, those hills will be sorry they ever met me! 

When I got home, I had a low-key rest of the day; made banana bread and took my classic post-race afternoon mini-nap. I can never nap except for when I do big races (which usually involve getting up super early). My legs are more tired-feeling than after either of my half-marathons, but I know that I will not be as sore (today's experience is not quite on that level!). Tonight I'll relax with Shark Week and watermelon.

I owe (as always!) a BIG thank you to one of my biggest supporters: MOM. She's the best for always getting up early with me, driving when I'm too exhausted to do so, and make sure I get where I need to be. And of course be the best photo-documenter ever! Thanks, Mother!

And because I knew excessive pictures just wouldn't make the cut, I compiled a video of a bunch of video clips my mom took throughout the event! I used my technological prowess to make an iMovie AND upload it to Youtube and the blog. It took about 5 hours but I think the end result is pretty nice!

P.S. This is my 100th post, waddup!