After a few days spent with Pre-K kids, I had a day off on Wednesday so went hiking on the Billy Goat Trail near Great Falls. We came here because I recently found out that the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park has many miles of hiking trails. It was $10 to get into the park but if we had come one day later, it would have been free because of the National Park Service centennial celebration. The parking lot was quite full and there were numerous people on the trails which surprised me considering it was the middle of the week.
We picked up a trail map from the museum and walked the C&O Towpath to the Billy Goat A trailhead. The trail is a 1.75-mile hike with lots of rock scrambling. Depending on your speed and the number of people on the trail, it can take 2-3 hours to complete. It was a beautiful hike. The Billy Goat Trail is a trail I would be happy to do many times over.
The Olympics have ended, school has started, and people are already acting like it’s fall now! Stop it! I’m loving summer and though the temps are still steamy, I’m not wishing away the warm weather anytime soon. Though Saturday was a hot day, Brady and I headed out towards Frederick to hike Sugarloaf Mountain. I’ve only been here once and I was probably 9-10 years old.
On Friday, Brady, my sister Hanna and her friend Chris, and I drove a couple of hours down to Kings Dominion in Virginia for a fun day of roller coasters and water slides! We left in hopes that we’d get there before park opening and be in the front of the line for the “Volcano” which is probably the best roller coaster in the park. Of course, we headed straight there only to find it was closed. It was already insanely humid at hot. Just walking through the front part of the park already had me sweating all over. Brady and I bought a souvenir cup for $13 that would give us free refills for the entire day. It was a no-brainer because I think water bottles cost $4 apiece. I feel like we always drank through it within a minute or two of refilling because we were so hot.
I’ve been thinking that I need a good way to introduce myself to all of you new readers so I’ve made a little quiz-like thing to share some of the interesting stuff that makes me, me! Please stay til the end and comment as well to share some things about yourself with me 🙂
Favorites:
Food: Basically anything either of my grandmothers makes is the best food ever. I really love Italian foods, Asian foods, and fruity sorbets and desserts.
Colors: Blues, pinks, and purples.
TV Shows: Friends is my all time favorite TV show and I have made quite a few converts out of friends and family to my way of thinking 🙂 I got hooked on Grey’s Anatomy at Christmastime last year and I’m eagerly anticipating the new season of Sherlock! I love some classics like Little House on the Prairie, MASH, and I Love Lucy.
Theme Park: I had to add this in here because I LOVE Disney World! I love it so much that we went there for our honeymoon which has made me love it all the more.
Movies: I’m actually not a huge movie person but I tend to like comedies, chick flicks, historical based, and occasionally an action flick. My favorite movie (that I can think of…) is the Proposal. I love that movie, it was so perfectly hilarious.
Books/Genres: My favorite series ever is the Anne of Green Gables books. I love the writing, I love the characters, and I love the stories. Otherwise I really enjoy reading historical fiction based books.
Board Games: I am a game collector! Not in the spend lots of money on fancy sets kind of way but just that I love playing games with family and friends. Some of my favorites include…
PC games: Surprise, I really love games! My favorites tend to be the ones I played as a kid and they’re the ones I keep going back to when I’m in the mood for a game, the exception is Age of Empires 2+3 that my hubby introduced to me while we were in college. My classic faves are: Theme Hospital, Caesar 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and NFS Most Wanted (2005).
Shopping: Target is my favorite love. I’ve spent so many hours and probably way too much money at Target over the last few years, haha
Thank you Olympics for being so distracting while I tried to write this post. It’s hard to tear your eyes off of Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and the #FinalFive when they’re just being so awesome!
How is it that a year has flown by and a second Iron Girl completed? Sunday’s race was a very different race for me than my race from 2015. More often than not, things aren’t quite as exciting the second time around but this is something I was anticipating. I went into the race weekend disappointed that the swim was cancelled and I talked about my feelings in Monday’s post, but even more disappointed as my body spent the weekend rebelling against me.
The thing that pushed me through the race and kept me going, was finishing my first race that I got to do with my sister! Things aligned perfectly because it was actually National Sisters Day on Sunday! I think she’s happy I pushed her to do it with me especially since she said she’d probably do it again next year! (WINNING!)
My back was really struggling after coming back from Michigan the weekend before. It was a struggle to get comfortable on Saturday night as I was lying in bed, unable to sleep from the pain. I was struggling mentally knowing that I had the endurance for the race but feeling unsure whether or not to do it because I was afraid of seriously hurting myself. I barely slept that night and I woke up feeling nauseated from the pain and struggled to eat any food. What I was able to get down was basically force fed because I knew I couldn’t race on an empty stomach.
We arrived at the park about 5:50 am on Sunday morning feeling excited, nauseous and a bit anxious. I got to my bike and immediately noticed there was an extra bike on the already overcrowded rack. I was supposed to be the last bike but I guess someone else had come along and racked in the wrong place. I talked to a ref and after an announcement was made, someone eventually came and moved to where it was supposed to be all along. Without a swim, I only had my helmet and sunglasses for the bike and my bib and visor for the run so transition was a quick set up. I did have a mini panic attack when I saw Hanna putting her chip on and I hadn’t seen mine yet. I ran back my stuff and quickly found it to put it on. Crisis averted.
We went to the start line for the beginning of the race and the waiting began. To replace the missing swim, they added a quarter mile run up the hill towards transition. We were supposed to go by 7:49 but didn’t go out until 8:01 and I think the first finisher crossed the line less than 15 minutes after we took off. I was still feeling really nauseous before starting but I forced down some electrolytes about 30 minutes before and a few gels 15 minute before going out so I didn’t crash too soon. We passed the time by being cute and taking photos.
You know, I’ve been talking about my swimming training a lot lately. Swimming is the discipline I’ve put the most work into over the last year since I last did the triathlon. I enjoy swimming the most because I’ve always been a fish and loved being in the water. I struggled some on the swim last year but I was ready to smash my swim time this year!
Well, Friday morning I was checking Facebook and I saw this:
No longer a triathlon, now a duathlon. Just like that. I suppose the water quality was too poor to be swam in safely as well as there being an issue with releasing water from the dam following the freak flash flood that occured in Ellicott City last weekend. Since the swim was cancelled, there a quick (uphill) quarter mile run added in place.
My initial reaction was a sinking feeling and utter disbelief. I’ve been struggling with so much pain, especially over the last week and so the swim was my only real chance to make a great improvement on my time from last year.
