Elements of Erin 337

Waves lava cake Originally uploaded by erinlesleylee A few nights ago, we paid a visit to our new favourite coffee house in Steveston BC. Jamieson had his usual London Fog latte. I had a cup of their house blend coffee and we shared the Lava Cake. Very yummy! Now for those of you who know Steveston, you know there are no less than 9 coffee houses/cafes in about a 1 square mile radius. We love our coffee here in Steveston. So why is Waves our favourite place? The food, the coffee, the tea and of course the EXCELLENT SERVICE! The manager, Kayvan Rahmati , has taken the time to get to know us as customers and welcome us with a familiar smile and hello when we walk in. Now, I am sure the fact that we are there at least 3 times a week helps him remember us too. Waves also has free wireless access and lots of great sitting space. Everything from a dining room style table that seats 10+ to cozy couches and leather chairs. So when you are in town to get your Dave's Fish & Chips , take...

Last weekend Tim and I took a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas. We wanted to get away but also didn't want to break the bank. Both of us needed to get a long run in on the Sunday and we didn't want to stay up all night drinking and gambling. Why go to Vegas then? Because of the weather of course! Fall is starting to set in here in Vancouuver and Vegas is still 40C. We flew out of Bellingham, Washington airport (about 30 mins south of Vancouver) on a 9:30pm flight with Allegiant Air . The border line up on Friday night was about 35mins long. We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before our flight. There is NO food at the airport at this time so eat on the way down. The flight for the two of us return was around $450US. Parking at the airport is $9US/day. We arrived in Vegas around midnight and caught a cab to the Renaissance Las Vegas . Tim booked this hotel on Priceline for $65US/night. The hotel is off the strip right beside the Las Vegas Convention Cent...

Run – 42.2kms – 5:11:09 The run was slow and basically went as planned. The first 3kms of the run are in and around the finish line. When I was at about the 2km mark, I could hear Jordon Rapp, the race winner giving his victory interview with Steve King. How crazy is that??!! I have 40kms to go on the run and the winner has finished. As I headed out of town and down Main Street I saw www.twitter.com/kelownagurl and her husband Erik cheering me on. Not more than 50 feet later I saw www.twitter.com/trifunster and her husband. I was running slowly but had a smile on my face and felt pretty good. I was not really concerned about the distance I had to cover still. I was pretty excited that I had now finished the swim and the bike and was now on the run. It was like being in a dream how quickly the time had passed during the day. Around 9kms into the run I started to feel the distinct tightness of my right IT Band. I had ITB 10 years ago when I first started to run marathons but t...

T2 – 7:08 As I dismounted my bike and started to run it into transition, a volunteer grabbed my bike to rack it for me. This is a wonderful feature of IM. I think all triathlons should have volunteers to rack your bike. Once my hands were free, I was off looking for my bike transition bag. A volunteer handed me my bag and I was off to the change tent. In T2 I did a full costume change. I obviously have never been a model because this change too me a while. The change tent was less crowded for T2 than T1 but I didn’t have a personal volunteer helping me out. I dumped out my clothes, stripped out of my bike stuff and put on a new bra top, running shorts, SAA visor, new socks and a tri top for the run. Stuffed all my clothes in my T2 bag and went off to get lathered with sunscreen again. This time I was careful to make sure I covered my face (even though I had already gone over 7 hours with no sunscreen on my face). As I was leaving the transition area I ran into www.twitter.com/diehardsk...

Bike – 180kms – 6:53:48 As I left transition on my bike and rode down Main Street, I was very focused on starting my nutrition plan immediately. I had been swimming for over an hour and I was HUNGRY! My bike nutrition plan was one 16oz bottle of Gatorade, one PowerBar or ½ PowerBar and a PowerGel per hour. Main Street was packed with spectators and people were cheering like crazy! It is awesome part of the ride and a great way to start out. It is difficult to recognize people you know here though. I didn’t see Tim, Jamieson and Brenda here but I was not sure if I just missed them or if they had moved on (turns out they had moved on to try and catch me at OK Falls). The first 60kms of the bike are relatively flat with exception of McLean Creek Road. This is a steep incline where you need to get out of the saddle to climb. I was surprised by the traffic jam of bikes in this area. Some people seemed unaware that there was going to be a hill and were in the wrong gear. I managed to...

Swim – 3.8kms – 1:06:53 My swim could not have gone any better. I was really pleased with my placement and my final time for the 3.8kms. It did get pretty crowded around the sailboat (1st turn) and houseboat (2nd turn) but not as bad as I was anticipating. My only incident was a ‘blue cap’ grabbing my ankle and using me as leverage to get a head of me. Although I was slightly ticked off, I actually felt sorry for a guy who had to resort to pulling people back to get ahead. By the time I was around the houseboat, I realized I could site between the 2 condo towers on the beach quite easily and kept close to the buoys. In general, I would say my swim was quite uneventful and very well executed. I don’t think I could have or should have swum any faster and my position was good. As I was nearing the end of the swim (with about 500m to go) I could not believe it was almost over. I had been swimming for about an hour at that point and still felt really good. I swam as close to the beach as I ...

Last week I was invited to talk about my Ironman Canada experience by the hosts of Triathlete.FM This is a new radio show that will be broadcast live and available in a podcast. You can listen to their first show tonight at 5pm PST (8pm EST) by clicking here Hope you enjoy it and add it to your podcast library. Happy training.

Race Day My alarm went off at 4:30am. I actually slept pretty well so I felt rested and anxious to get started. I at my regular breakfast of 2 pieces of toast with almond butter. I also made myself a 16oz bottle of Gatorade and drank that on the way to the race site. I tried to eat a PowerBar but I just couldn’t get it down. The night before the race we had a pasta feast that included Lasagne and Spaghetti. I stuffed myself until I was over full so I was sure I had enough carbs in me to last a while without the PowerBar. We arrived at the race site around 5:30am. Tim dropped me off at body marking and him, Jamieson and Brenda went to find a good place to watch the swim start from. Body marking was relatively organized. The woman who marked me wrote the wrong number on my arms. When I corrected her she said she would just scrub really hard to get the numbers off. Funny thing is that when you want the numbers to come off, they never do. She ended up ‘fixing’ the error and it seemed to be...

I can't believe that it has already been a week since I completed Ironman Canada 2009. Today I slept in, made a hot breakfast and read a magazine. Such a foreign concept when you consider my life for the past year. I promised a long post so here it goes... Thursday August 27, 2009 This was the first day we could pick our packages so I headed down to the race site with Colin . The line was LONG and the weather was getting warmer. After being in line for about 1/2 hour, we were told that the line was being split into 2. Racers with race numbers 1550 and under and racers with 1551 and higher. Of course the 1550 and lower was a much shorter line and my number was 2396. I was happy that I brought a bottle of water and a snack with me. About 2 hours later I was in the tent and picking up my package. The process was to show your ID (drivers licence or passport), get handed a waiver, read the waiver, sign the waiver, hand in your waiver, be weighed (I was 134lbs), collect your swim cap and...

Hot off the press, this a photo of Chrissie Wellington's bike for Kona 2009. No wonder I had such a great ride at IMC 2009...we ride the same wheels. Sweet!!!

Perhaps I am jumping ahead with this post since I haven't posted my Ironman Canada race report yet. The truth is, my race report is ready to go but I have some people I want to share the details with in person before they read it on my blog. I will say that my Ironman Canada experience was fantastic and a repeat is in the works. Today I committed to doing a Half Marathon and a Marathon before the end of the year. My coach and I had chatted before Ironman about the importance of having a goal after Ironman. He said that I would recover quickly and be ready for something else in a couple of weeks. I was not totally sold on this. The amazing thing is that I feel really good. All that training time has really paid off, not just on race day but in my recovery. If the weather is good tomorrow, I plan do so a short ride with The SAA (in my Ironman finisher gear of course!) Here are two races I have registered for: November 15, 2009 New Balance Fall Classic Half Marathon, Vancouver BC Dece...

Just a quick non detailed update to say... I did it! I am an IRONMAN/IRONWOMAN. The day was fantastic and I lived to tell about it. I will post a full race report on Sunday September 6th (I promise). Get ready for a long read.