an actual swim race!

My friends are a bad influence. I haven't swam on the RAM team for a year. Literally, it was last May when the arthritis got so bad that I couldn't finish a practice and decided to drop the team. Well, this may they came around again and talked me into signing up for the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge at the last minute. This is the first race in the local swim series here and I've done this race several times. It's usually early enough in the year to require a wetsuit, but this year the water temp was around 72* so I opted to go only speedo.

Really this was a social event for me. Yes I came and I swam and I totally expected to spend the rest of the day in the fetal position on the couch crying in pain. But the cool part was getting to see some friends that I hadn't been able to to hang out with for a while.

Beautiful day to be in the water

It wasn't a huge crowd this year! Daniel is a coworker and in my age group, this was his first open water swim race. The course was a bit short this year, which worked to my advantage. I've taken age group awards at this race before, but it's really hard. Daniel took 2nd place in his first race! Those RAM practices are really paying off for him.

My only hope was to get out there and not end up with horrible pain. I was able to hold my stroke for the entire course, didn't really end up with any joint pain, and finished the 1 mile course (for a 1.2 mile race - hey it was short) in 38 minutes. My previous slowest time was around 34 minutes when it was 1.2 or 1.3 miles, so that was hard to accept. I finished 6/7 in my age group, Daniel took 2nd

Me, Lisa, Rebecca (Kristen's sister), Jennifer, Tom, and Kristen the RAM coach

The whole RAM crew L-R - Tom, Amy, me, Jennifer (coworker), Daniel (coworker), Rebecca, Jen, Coach Kristen, Chris, Lisa, and Barker

This was a large crew of friends from the RAM team. It felt amazing just to be out there competing again, and having fun with old friends. I also ran into some other surprising friends, one of whom had recently lost 45 lbs and it took me a minute to recognize him. For a social event, this was wonderful. For a race, my performance was disappointing, but I was glad to just be out there again.

Umstead 2019

So I've been a bit lazy in blogging lately. My good friend Tammy Massie talked me into pacing Umstead 100 again, and I actually did it this year. After only 1 lap, I was in a lot of pain and ready to get home.

Showing up at Umstead is always a good time. I got there about an hour before Tammy finished the lap with our friend Susan. I ran into so many friends, including an old coworker who actually finished the 100 last year! Now Merrit is training for Western States - insane.

Me and Merrit

Me and Tammy before we got out there

Susan also convinced another runner to go out with us, so I got to meet a new friend. Kim turned out to be a blast to run through the woods with. The 3 of us hit the trail about 10:30 pm, and finished the lap around 3 am. I was pretty good for about 10 miles then the arthritis really kicked in and my hands swole up pretty bad. Once again, spending time with friends in the woods is the best part of this race, the running part was pretty unpleasant.

Now here's some other random pics that I've been holding on to

Kelley in the kitchen. Really I was just testing out the camera on a new phone

selfie at work

selfie at home

The kids were surprised that I got a skull phone case. I'm surprised my belly has gotten to this size

selfie in the car. My hair is getting longer!

So yeah, I'm still carrying around this big belly and a lot of pain when I run. Fun times. But I did get into a swim race (next post)