Its my birthday and I can taper if I want to...

Well, it IS my birthday...but I was lying about taper...that comes in a few more days.

Yesterday I headed out for a 40mile recovery ride from Sundays open water nationals. My legs could definitely feel the no warm down after the open waters. Not warming down is smart, I know. Heres a couple of pictures from the Open Water stolen from other people...

Here is one of Vicki trying to sabotage the race ;)


Here is a pic of me and former UCD teammate Jen


This is me and one of my 12 yr old swimmers from LAC - we both podiumed!


Today I woke up and went to FOMO track. I am not SUPER connected with these people - and only have a couple of personal relationships, but the couple who host the track workout are super nice. They knew it was my bday (via facebook) and put together a cute tri bday gift for me (a cycling bag, some nutrition treats, and a water bottle). They made everyone sing, and everyone was quite friendly. Because it was my bday and I am 2.5 weeks out from IM CDA I took the liberty to modify the track workout accordingly. The set was 3x1mile at 10k, 10k (but descended), and 5k. I decided to do them at 10k+ (little above), 10k, and 10k- (little below). That seemed the right effort.

Here is the party people are track this morning...


After track me and hubby Nathan went out to breakfast. At the best diner in the world. Ok, maybe not world..but its pretty dang fabulous. We drive 30+minutes to get there, b/c its in Berkeley. I can't swim this afternoon with TVM b/c we have plumbers working at our house, which just means I avoid the "BIRTHDAY SWIM." I don't know if this is universal...I'm thinking its pretty close. Basically, its a gauntlet of people with kickboards splashing the bday person in the middle lane swimming 100 fly. So, I will avoid it from the masters today, but cannot avoid it from my USA swim team kids at LAC. They were excited about it yesterday. The head coach swam his this year, so I don't have an excuse to skip mine either. I think its inevitable. ;)

Tomorrow will be a big brick and then....1 more step closer to the taper! (can you tell I'm excited?)