I got what I came for.....hard work, focus and mountains!

After a restless few hours of sleep, a 3.30am wake up alarm and a 50 minute drive to El Paso. I managed to arrive at my gate with 5 minutes to spare and I am now on my second flight and halfway home! I am SO excited to see the family.
Camp ended for me yesterday....with a great last day of training. A classic 4 .20 ride to Hatch.....nothing but open roads for endless miles, panoramic views of horses,pecan trees,chile farms and stunning mountains and big skies! Nothing but focus....and getting the work done! The ride finished with a short run, and the training day ended with a fun but hard swim at NMSU pool! Camp was wrapped up by a great eating frenzy of chips,guacamole,ceviche and burritos in Old Mesilla followed by a surprise ice cream stop for Lindsey at Dairy Queen finally!

I shall miss Las Cruces and the NMSU pool....that 50 MPH wind that almost blew me off my bike a few times and the sand storm that almost swept me off my feet! It was fun and inspiring to train with the posse and Coach Paulo....well what can I say about him...he's the glue....keeping it all together...! As I said before another great beneficial camp! Thanks Paulo, Danny,Lindsey,Jonnyo,Lauren,Tracey,Darryl, Michael and Jeremy for your good energy and laughs this week!

So as I return to NJ, I hope the bad weather is now gone and I can build on this block of training to gear up for my first race!

Next up is a Team Camp in Austin with Trakkers....should be fun!

Missing the family...3 days until I am back home!

Looking through all the great pictures I have tonight of my wonderful family...and am thinking about how lucky I am to have a husband who is so supportive of my dreams and who is such an amazing father.



Missing my cool dude! Tanner you are wise beyond your years. I love you so much and am so proud of you! You are truly amazing...and I could not ask for a better son.

Miss my bundle of energy and love. Sydney you make me laugh every day. Your creativity and beautiful mind and endless love is a treasure! I miss our bedtime stories!


See you all soon!

My love/hate relationship with swimming!

Today's pool time was extremely hard for me.(and the rest of the gang too) It was my 6th day of hard/long swimming in a row and my arms did not want to turn over. Actually they hurt with every stroke. After a long warm up I was hoping they would stretch out like they often do...but no they just seemed even more fatigued. Then came those dreaded words 40 x100's. Good news was only every 5th one was fast. Bad news every 100 seemed like the fast effort....which made the fast effort throw up worthy.
I appreciated Coach Paulo yelling at me, but there seemed to be nothing I could do to get my arms moving. So I just swam and swam and counted them down and then it was over....another workout done! Thanks Lauren for the motivation today!

After swim we rolled out for an easy bike that turned into the battle of the 25mph winds and uphill climbs. But thanks to good humor and an eventual tail wind we got through it.
Resting up now for a long "fun " run.. .should be anything but fun...but I look forward to it!
I shall miss having Lauren and Tracy ( The Rocket) to run with as they both have to get back to work. You gals are the best! It's been fun!

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP... SOME PHOTOS FROM TODAY'S RIDE!

CROSSING OVER THE RIO GRANDE RIVER BY MESILLA STATE PARK

ME...RIDING SOLO TODAY

I SAW THIS BEAUTIFUL TREE!

A GREAT VIEW OF LAS CRUCES FROM PICACHO MOUNTAIN
Picacho Mountain is a mountain summit in Dona Ana County.

Eat..Run...coffee...eat,,Bike..eat.. nap..coffee..Swim...Eat!

Day 5 for me of my Las Cruces training and I am setting into a nice comatose of training. My legs are constantly fatigued and you learn to live with it and be happy! Luckily we are all in the same boat here. The energy at camp is great and I love the girls that are part of the PS posse.


It is so nice to train with girls and guys that are all working towards the same goal...being their best!
Our first official day of training camp was a big energy day as we did a 4 hour that turned almost into a 5 hour ride. The winds were howling and it made for some fun big efforts. The loop we did was a ride included riding up the transmountain gap. It is so great to be on the road again and was really fun to climb and made me think of our training camp in Arizona and climbing Mount Lemmon and how amazing that mountain is.
It was an memorable first official day of camp ride and yes, how could I forget that it was my birthday so we had to have a great dinner at Lorenzo's too!

JEREMY,LINDSEY AND LAUREN
TRACY AND JONNYO
ME AND PAULO

Today got my fifth day of swimming in a row. Paulo's pool workouts have been amazing and the long course pool is such a treat. Never mind getting to do it outside in the beautiful sun is amazing.
I have been taking some great pictures on the road so I will be posting those as often I am to tired to think.

Heading out for a two hour ride.


Another beautiful day in Las cruces!


Paulo and the rest of the gang get in tomorrow. Big training up ahead! Need to get some good sleep tonight!

I am done for the day and am chillin and stretching ....


...and thinking of my two cute kids....who will be ready this blog. I love and miss you two!

Peeps are rollin in...

Lauren and Lindsey got in last night and we had a nice 40 minute run this morning around NMSU grounds and then headed to the pool for a quality swim. They had my yesterdays workout so I had to do a 9x 400's on my own...but it was fun having them next to me and watching them swim. I tried to get a few pics of them swimming but they didn't come out to well.


After lunch at Milagro's and a short nap we are now heading out for a two hour bike. The winds are blowing so it shall be interesting but a welcome change from the trainer. I shall try get a few pics of the dust and tumbleweeds that blow around here. Hopefully we won't get blown off our bikes.

Falling in love all over again!

Today out on the roads of Las Cruces, New Mexico I fell in love with biking again.
Since my crash in September of last year I have had a bitter relationship with biking. A little nervous at times with cars pulling out in front of me, definitely cautious, but I haven't even had much road time. Riding on the road has felt forced and unsafe with ice, heaps of snows making it tough for cars to see you and the roads took such a beating leaving huge potholes everywhere. Winter has been long and majority of rides have been on my trainer. These rides have not been torture as they have not been crazy long like a few people I know that are training for Ironman, but they have been a bit of a struggle.

Bottom line is I love the outdoors, I love to feel the sun on my back, the wind and have the open roads where you find that sweet spot where you are riding effortlessly, just you and your bike... free!
Well today I felt that and was so happy.The wind was at my back, I was in the aero bars, pushing comfortably, enjoying the beautiful scenery. I love the mountains and the dry air was such a good change from all the rain and snow.






My pool swim was equally as enjoyable today at the NMSU pool. It was great to see Danny looking fit and strong and I look forward to swimming outdoors for the next 10 days. The pool was set up long course and the water was perfectly warm and it felt so good to have the sun on my back.





Tonight Linsey and Lauren come into town and tomorrow Paulo and Tracy arrive. It shall be an awesome training camp and a well needed good quality stretch of training.



Well off to go run...more up dates soon!

Saucony Rocks!

What a great day yesterday...Sun was out and I got a great swim in with my friend Maggie. After a few days of little or no training due to a wisdom tooth being pulled out I felt tapered and my times reflected it in the pool. Which just means I was able to cut a few seconds off my times and I actually felt stronger in the pool than usual.

The weather has been beautiful and I got to ride in shorts yesterday. What a difference it makes to have less layers on and the sun shining! I met my friend Patti for a ride. Patti is amazing. She is the toughest women I know and she is 55. I have never seen her get dropped on a ride ever....she just knows how to dig deep and work hard. Yesterday the two of us worked hard. Some of my best rides are when I have someone sitting on my wheel just there pushing me from behind. Patti has been riding with me for years and I appreciate her feedback. She let's me know if my riding isn't smooth and is always quick to tell me if I am riding strong...which only makes me work harder. Yesterday I pushed hard into the wind for what seemed like most of the ride and she was there after each interval to tell me how fast I was going. It really helped so thank you P. By far my best ride of the year!

I got back to find I had got a nice delivery from Saucony with all sorts of fun workout clothes. Love them....thanks Saucony!!!!
I tried to get Sydney my daughter to take a picture of me with them but that didn't work out to well. I am happy to have new training clothes for camp next week....packing will be so easy now!!! Awesome! Also got a new pair of Progrid Triumph 7's. Can't wait to try them out on my run today!