A Green Tea Solution

I haven't been sick since March (the flu... boy, that was a blast) so I was pretty dismayed to discover I had developed a sore throat Thursday evening. And when I woke up Friday... worse. I tried to attribute it to allergies, but then I talked to Mom last night and found out Josh has been sick the last two days and even had to go to the doctor to get a strep & Mono test. I hung out with him for awhile on Tuesday, so I'm sure we're sharing the same thing. Luckily, his tests came back negative, and he was already feeling much better by the third day. So, hopefully, between healthy eating, lots of rest, gallons of hot green tea and vitamins, I can nip this thing in the butt ASAP. I need to because I have to kick my training into high-gear for... the Tri Indy Duathlon on Sunday, August 17th!

Yes, that's right, after planning to do several triathlons this summer and having them fall through (first one because of my knee, the others because I was worried I didn't have enough time to train) I finally decided I was going to just say "heck with it" and work up the guts to do at least one this summer. I opted for the duathlon, rather than the triathlon, however, so that I can focus more training time just on running and biking. For those of you not familiar, a triathlon is swimming, biking, running, in that order. A duathlon is running, biking, running, in this case a 2 mile run, 20K bike, 5k run, in that order.

The event I'm participating in sounds really cool. It's the first one of its kind in Indy, because it is held all downtown. Indy already has a triathlon sprint series, but this tri (and du) has both sprint and Olympic distances and takes place entirely within the downtown area. Here are the run and bike course maps (If you click on them, it will bring up a larger, more readable version):

The swim part is even in the canal that winds through downtown (pictured at the start of this post)! Pretty cool. Hopefully next year I'll feel confident enough to do the swim as well.

Lanie, my old teammate and now a fellow coach at IU (she's a strength trainer), is doing it with me. She's doing part of a team-triathlon the day before, but even so she'll still probably kick my butt. But, it's OK... this isn't so much for victory as it is simply for myself and for a bit of that sense of challenge and competition that I miss. The outcome (as long as I finish) isn't so much important as is the fact that I'm doing it and enjoying it.

So, really, really hoping that I start feeling better and can get back into action tomorrow. Time's a-wasting!