Whenever I’ve decided to be serious about nutrition in the past, I always did a very good job on weekdays but would use my long bikes and runs on the weekend as an excuse for some pre or post training sugar and carbohydrates.  Specifically I love pancakes.

Not. Pancakes.  These are the scallops, yellow squash and kale I had for lunch.

Normal Saturday breakfast before a long ride would be pancakes and fruit (I have a fantastic home made pancake recipe*, I refuse to use a mix).  Problem with pancakes now is: (1) I really want to hit race weight for Ironman Florida; and (2) my “long” ride this weekend was only 2:17, which is definitely not long enough to justify pancakes under any circumstances.
 
So when I woke up on Saturday morning breakfast consisted of three bantam eggs and pineapple and then I headed to West Hartford for some outdoor asana as part of the Lululemon West Hartford grand opening celebration. 

Setting up the mats.

There were about 500 people there for the free outdoor power yoga class with Barbara Ruzansky of West Hartford Yoga.  The class was set up on LaSalle Road in West Hartford (they actually closed the road down and my mat straddled the double yellow line) and tons of people attended.  I especially liked watching the dad who brought his two little girls.  They were especially adorable (not so adorable was Darth Vader who occupied a mat to my right).Best part of the whole experience was that I finally got to meet Kate McAvoy in person.  Kate is a (very fast runner), blogger, member of Oiselle Racing Team and a new member of the Hartford Track Club.  It was really great to be able to put a face to name (and blog posts). 



Kate McAvoy.

 

It was raining so hard this woman
needed a patio umbrella.

 Sunday morning we woke up to torrential downpours.  I didn’t really want to get out of bed but Shaun and I had agreed to run the bike-in / bike-out area for the Niantic Bay Sprint Triathlon.  This is the first triathlon I ever did (way back in 2006) and I figured since the weather was so crappy, lots of volunteers would bail and I didn’t want to leave the race director in a tight spot.  I had breakfast (more eggs and fruit, no pancakes) and we drove down to the shore.  Shaun and I arrived in Niantic around 7 a.m., watched the swim start go off into some rough, gray seas and headed to bike out. 

Dreary looking ocean and transition area.

I’ve never worked bike-in/bike-out before and has several observations:

  1. If there is a hill as soon as you start the bike course, its probably not a good idea to try to put your bike shoes on while riding.  Several people had to stop and several more almost fell over trying to get their feet into bike shoes while climbing a hill.
  2. I know its a race but remember everyone is a newbie as some point, so if you blowing by, be kind, call you pass and don’t run the newbies off the road, its not nice (and scares the crap out of the poor person being buzzed).
  3. Don’t hit the volunteer holding the “Dismount here” sign.  Enough said.
  4. If you can do a flying dismount well, its looks really cool.  If you can’t you’re probably just going to end up falling into a volunteer.  As much as I love triathletes, I don’t like having them fall on top of me.
  5. If you are spectating, please respect the athletes.  Don’t try to cross the street in front of bikes going 24 mph and don’t stand directly in the path of people trying to run their bikes into transition and don’t get mad at me when I make you wait to cross because athletes are entering or exiting the transition area. 
  6. If you are fast, please respect the people who are slow.  Several athletes who finished early clogged up the exit/entrance trying to leave while people were still coming in off the bike.  Several more got upset with me when I wouldn’t let them drive their cars on the closed bike course while athletes were still coming into transition.  You would be pissed if someone did that to you, don’t do it to someone else. 

Other than getting poured on, we had a really good time volunteering.  It was great to see several people I know racing (big shout outs to Rick and Jeff — both of whom had fantastic races), even though I wish that I was racing too (two more weeks until Mossman Olympic).

Rick coming off the bike and on his way to a PR.

As soon as we got home, the clouds parted, the sun came out and the heat and humidity for ridiculous.  Perfect weather for an easy bike ride.  I only had to ride 1:15 and did easy out and backs on the rail trail.  Just to make things interesting there was family out riding and the two little boys had their bike helmets securely strapped to the handlebars of their bikes.  Shaun made a comment about how the helmet did a lot of good on the handlebars and the father proceeded to start yelling at us.  Me being me, I turned around and let the lovely family know that not only were they in violation of Connecticut law (Conn. Gen. State. Sec. 14-286d), which requires all children 15 and under to wear helmets whenever they are on roads, trails or “places” owned or operated by the state or town but also that they were idiots for putting their kids at risk.  The father was so kind as to threaten to call the police on me.  Fantastic.  I think I have a plan for dealing with the helmet issue, I just need to figure out how to work with spray chalk. 

*Pancake Recipe
2 c. Flour (King Arthur White All Purpose)
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
1/4 c. Sugar
2 Eggs
2 c. Milk
1/2 c. Melted Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla

Before starting start heating up the pan on medium-low heat.  Mix all ingredients together with a whisk.  Melt an additional 1 TB of butter in the pan.  Pour, cook, flip and serve.  Pancakes are super light and fluffy.  Shaun can eat about 8 at a time, makes 16-20 depending on size. 
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Kelly Burns Gallagher

mccarter english employment litigator / oiselle team runner / coeur sports triathlete / sonic endurance coach & race director / witsup.com writer / dartmouth '02 / emorylaw '05

3 Comments

Running Disorder · August 8, 2011 at 11:15 pm

Great post… And not because you mention me:) I didn’t know you were taking pics! Yoga was fantastic!! Also fabulous meeting you… Love, love that you called out that family. My kind of girl!!

Kel · August 9, 2011 at 12:03 am

Kids without helmets drive me crazy. Its so easy to fall off your bike and hit your head. I just don’t want to see little kids with serious preventable injuries.

Anonymous · August 9, 2011 at 1:21 am

Thanks for being out there helping in the rain on Sunday!

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