Asheville swimmin' and mountain bikin'

Wow, I'm finally getting caught up on my blogging. This feels good. And I'm getting paid. There's not a whole lot of traffic or phone calls coming in to where I'm working right now (Duke Faculty Club), but someone's gotta be here for those that do. So, umm, what I'm trying to say is that blogging is fun, especially when it doesn't feel like a total waste of time.

Click here for pics of the Asheville swim, and then my mountain bike ride afterwards.

http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r153/norcal2carolina/?action=view¤t=aadc5af6.pbr

So this is the 2nd weekend in a row where I've left my house before sunrise, driven a long distance, swam in a race, ate lunch, then rode my mountain bike, and then drove home. Whew. All this fun I'm having sure is tiring.

The drive to Asheville was so super easy, I'm not joking. Why did I think that it was a 3.5 to 4 hour drive to get there? Nah, it's more like a little tiny bit over 3 hours to get there, and that's to the west side, where the race took place.

The open water was held in Biltmore Lake, which I thought was going to be on the property of the Biltmore Estate, but sadly, it wasn't. Instead, it was the focal point of this fancy neighborhood with HUGE mansions, Range Rovers parked in driveways, perfectly done-up women power-walking and gossiping with each other (a bit like the Desperate Housewives show!)

The water was nice, just cold enough to want to swim fast. Dawn and I warmed up for about 10 minutes, then stood outside shivering as they did the pre-race meeting that described the course. 1 lap around the triangle-shaped course for a half mile (me), and 2 laps for those doing the 1 mile (Dawn).

Race was good. I started out way too fast for my sickeningly low aerobic level, so the first 7 minutes, I felt pretty good. But the last 7 minutes, that's another story. Let's just say that my arms felt like they weighed 50 pounds each. So I finished in about 14 minutes, not bad, since I barely swim.

I dried off, wrapped my blanket around me and stood around with Dawn's husband on the shore. When we saw Dawn coming in, I got my camera ready to take a pic - I love that pic of Dawn where she's smiling real big and her shoulders look huge and muscle-ly! Dawn was pretty happy with her swim. I think she did her 1 mile in about 27 minutes - great time!

For post race food, they gave us fresh fruit (some of the best strawberries I've had in a long time), nutri-grain bars, and Gatorade. They also had hot cocoa for us to drink at the ceremony, which was so nice!

At the awards ceremony, both Dawn and I got 1st in our age groups, so we accepted our awards with lots of excitement! The award was the hand-painted piece of pottery that can either be a coaster, or a paper weight, or a small trivet on the kitchen counter top.

After the ceremony, I said goodbye to Dawn and her hubby as they left for a few days of vacation up in the mountains. I left in search of lunch, buying a sweatshirt (I forgot to bring one, duh) and then I headed towards Asheville School for the pool portion of the meet.

My pool events, umm, they sucked. No other nice way to put it. I had that pain in my right leg, so when I bent over to grab the block on the start, it hurt. So my starts sucked (well, they always do, actually - I've never really been a great starter, except for relay starts) and I was off my normal swim times by 1 second on the 50's and 2 seconds on the 100. No big deal - I know I'm out of shape, so it didn't bother me. But, I was the only woman in my age group, so I ended up getting 1st place points for all 3 events I swum. :)

After the pool meet, I went in search of some nice singletrack to ride. I ended up at a small college nearby called Warren Wilson College. I found some great trails - a little mix of everything; climbs, flat spots along the river, descents, roots, rocks, mud, smooth dry dirt, bridges, etc. The views of the Blue Ridge mountains were amazing from the ride!

After I cleaned up from riding, filled up on gas, bought a Subway sandwich for dinner and a DQ Blizzard for dessert, I was off and driving back home. I was fine until I got past Morganton. Then I got really, really sleepy and I knew I had to pull off to take a quick nap. So nap, I did, for about an hour. Then I was rejuvenated enough to drive the rest of the way home. I think I ended up getting back home a little bit after midnight.

Very fun day! Very well organized open water and pool meet! I hope next year, more DAMA-ians will come out for the Asheville meet.