An embarrassing confession

The weekend recap:

I officiated for the Columbia Triathlon on Sunday, so I had to adjust my weekend workout plans. Normally my long run is on Saturday, and the long ride is on Sunday. This weekend called for an 18 mile run, and a 100 mile bike. Due to the race Sunday though, I was forced to skip riding with my awesome teammates.

Except, some of my awesome teammates also needed to do their ride on Saturday. I took a group down to Prince William Forest (thanks again, Ray!). Tony and I went down early, since he had a 3 hour ride with some threshold work. He figured he'd do his threshold work trying to keep up with me on a loop. I don't know when I got the reputation of being "fast", but I digress. After a nice loop, we met up with the others who had to skip their ride. We rode the out and back to the visitors center for a quick trip to the bathroom, and then continued on our way. I kept dropping back to chat with everyone to make sure life was good, figuring I'd get my solid workout after the 40 miler's were heading home. I looked ahead, and watched Jackie go down all of the sudden. Not a major crash, more like slowly veered into the grass and fell over. Once I reached her, it turned out her chain dropped and then locked up in her triple. So, I taught her how to get it undone (which, came in handy when she raced Columbia the next day and dropped her chain!), and we continued off to the visitors center for another quick stop, since Jen's cleat was acting up. That's when the following conversation took place:

Teammate: ... How come no one makes fun of you? You're riding with long dangly earrings, hot pink nails, and yet you're a badass rider and had no issues fixing a greasy chain. Seriously.... how do you not get made fun of?
Me: uhhh. Good question.

So. My embarrassing confession: I'm occasionally girly. When I'm not blowing snot rockets, spitting up sports drink, covered in sweat and road grime, I'm kinda girly. Not overly, but I wear long dangly earrings, and I paint my nails. The hot pink nails were just to see if I could stand it (which, I can't... I usually paint them a darker red, navy, or gray). There. There first step is admitting I have a problem.

Continued the ride, stopping to teach Andrea how to fix her chain when she dropped hers as well. The girls left, and Tony and I did another loop. I wasn't really in the groove of the ride, so I decided since he was leaving, I'd go ahead and head out too.. I'd just finish my ride on the trainer, and then head out for an uber-long brick. About 5 minutes onto I-95 and guilt washed over me... so I turned around and went back to the park to finish my ride. Got in some miles on the feet after the ride, and called it a day.

I was up early on Sunday to drive up to officiate for the Columbia Triathlon. The day started off cold, windy, and misting. I've worked a few times under the head official, and apparently she likes me, because I was assigned to the Pro's in transition. Suddenly, waking up at 3:15 was totally worth it - nothing like seeing a bunch of hot guys in spandex with insanely nice bikes first thing in the morning. All of the pro's were EXTREMELY friendly, well, with the exception of 1 who was a complete tool and threw a fit because I wouldn't let him move his bike to another rack. Met fellow DC blogger Lesser is More,while he was doing his first officiating race (though I don't think I ever introduced myself regarding my blog - so.. hi!) I was the first official out after the Pro's on the motorcycle, and then came back in after a loop on the course to grab my mountain bike to head out on the run course. Its been a hot minute since I've been on my mountain bike - it needs some work in the shifters, and wow, did it feel heavy. 34 pounds vs my road bike that is around 18... HUGE difference. Stuck around after for a while, and one of the Pro's came up to thank me for officiating... He and I ended up talking for about an hour and half after we took our bikes up to the cars. Awesome guy, and he gave me a lot of suggestions to implement into my training. I'll see him up at Placid.. though he might be done with the race before I'm at mile 3 of the run.

This weekend is a huge training weekend up at Placid. Pictures to follow... Gina dared me to swim, so that means I'm getting in for a brisk swim in Mirror Lake. Needless to say, I'll be packing the wetsuit. :)