Setting Sail for Show Low

Someone has already stolen piragegirl.blogspot.com. And it sucks. It appears to be abandoned, drifting the seas like a piece of wood from the deck of a ship that sunk long ago. I could do so much better. But alas, the name has been taken, and was taken long before I started blogging or doing triathlons. So I simply chopped off the IM portion of the address with my cutlass and here we are with AZPirateGirl.blogspot.com.

Now that I have my new blog setup and fully of saviness, I shall start filling it with stories and pics of my new adventures. Oh how nice it is to be free of the monotonous "Training Week X Plan" that the old blog had. That's Ironman for ya...like a daily bowl of soggy cornflakes.

So what have I been up to this whole time between April 13, 2008 and now? Well, training when I feel like it, that's what. Not following any sort of plan, and mostly cramming on the mountain bike in an attempt to get ready for Deuces Wild. I have begrudgingly kept up some sort of swimming each week, and running is, well, let's just say it's a good thing the trail run is less than a 10K.

I stayed true to my words at the Ironman finish line of "Ironman sucks. I'm going back to XTERRA." And that is what I have done. Ironman is over and there will not be another one for a very long time, if at all. New sights have been set on the horizon and that is XTERRA. The goal for the rest of the season is to pillage as many points in the southwest that I can in the women's 30-34 age group to get the invite to XTERRA Nationals in Tahoe. All I want is the invite, which I hope comes on pretty paper because it will get framed and put on my wall. Then I just hope to survive the race, and hopefully not be an embarassment to the sport. And of course it helps to have a fellow crazy person along the way, so my friend Liane is doing the same in the women's 35-39 age group. She's been to Tahoe before, I have not. So now we must go together. My only advantage is that I'm in the baby-maker age group, which usually has less people.

You'll notice the only non-XTERRA tri on the calendar for the rest of the year is the SOMA half Ironman. I have it there for a few reasons. One, I need the challenge of something big-volume but less than full IM to train for. And two, I still need to beat that race. Each year has had some sort of disaster. I'm hoping this year SOMA will be meeting the business end of my sword.

This week has been spent packing and getting ready for 2 weeks of XTERRA. Tomorrow we leave for Show Low for the Deuces Wild XTERRA on Sunday. Gotta get there early for a camping spot at the lake. This year I'm not doing the Olympic on Saturday. Just the XTERRA on Sunday. Zac is going to relay the XTERRA again by doing the bike portion, and our friend Shari (who can be convinced to do any crazy race) will be doing the swim and trail run portions. Then Zac and I will hit the road visiting Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, and Natural Bridges National Monument. The following weekend is the Four Corners XTERRA in Farmington, NM. This race has a bizarre swim, run, bike format. We shall see how that goes. So stay tuned for some (hopefully) spectacular pics and some good race reports.