Albuquerque!

I spent last weekend in Albuquerque, New Mexico attending a USAT Level 1 coaching clinic. THANK YOU PT Solutions, for the opportunity to go out there to educate myself further in the realm of swim, bike, run, and triathlon and become certified in a sport I absolutely LOVE!!

I flew out Thursday afternoon from Atlanta of course. It was interesting travelling by myself because that has happened VERY few times in my lifetime. But I rather enjoyed it! I watched some Sex and the City on my laptop, read a lot, and worked on my neglected blog! I arrived in Alb. at around 7:30pm, which was 9:30pm home time, so of course I was already tired! Dale and Emily picked me up at the airport and we went straight back to the hotel.

We woke up early Friday morning to get a quick run in before heading to class. I didn't realize until someone had mentioned it to me when we got there, but Alb. is actually at altitude. Even slightly higher than that of Denver. Made sense when I saw the giant Mountain in the background, and when I saw my hr on my run! :) Wasn't crazy high, but noticeable. So after a short little run that felt good in the cool morning weather, it was a quick breakfast, and then off to class.

Ok... now is a good time to say that 8 hours of sitting in class is exhausting!! It's been 9 years since I was taking classes, and probably 11 or so since sitting in lectures like that. But the good news was that I was listening to stuff that I actually WANTED to learn a lot about! The day was broken into classes basically. 1:30 devoted to topics like physiology, periodization, psychology, and of course, swimming, biking, and running. I must say that some of the presentations were a little lacking in the information. It was definitely a beginner based class, but they also did a great job of bringing in some expert people to talk about these different topics and that was awesome.

One of my favorites was Bobby McGee. He's written a couple of books about running technique and even sports psychology. Both information I desperately needed! Nutrition was great! The cycling class given by John Crawley gave me all sorts of ideas, and it was so neat to listen to this information from the perspective of an athlete myself as well as how to work this into schedules for other athletes!

Another REALLY good thing that the instructor did... asking people to save their personal questions for after the lecture! THAT was a life-saver! I'm sorry, but a lecture is a lecture... You are supposed to listen. If you have a question about the explanation of the material, ask of course, but if it's personal... don't waste everyone elses' time with your long-drawn out question. This little pet peeve of mine mostly pertains to the people that talk because they like to hear themselves talk. They ask things in the form of a question, but really it's a "look how smart I am" statement or a demonstration of the differing of their opinion. Of course every group has one! There was this one girl there who obviously felt she was an expert on things, but then I disagreed with almost everything she said! Not saying she's wrong, but she certainly didn't think so! :) Emily and I just thought it was funny and laughed about it the whole time! :)

One guy even had the nerve to tell the gentleman they flew in from New Orleans to give the lecture on proper swimming instruction that his stroke wasn't right!! I was like, man... you disagree that's fine, but don't call the guy out like that... it's just rude!

Anyways... so the class was good. I have now 6 weeks to do my take home test/assignments to officially become certified. But I'm all pumped up about doing more coaching! I'm currently working with an athlete now, and plan on pursuing some different things to work with out of our club like group rides, swims, and runs! It's exciting!

The city of Albuquerque itself was neat as well! We went downtown on Friday night to check it out and eat dinner. It was so different than I expected. I was expecting a lot of bright colors and the city itself is kind of bland. Everything is brown it seems. But it has a lot of culture. I saw a ton of mud houses. How neat is that!

On Saturday morning I woke up early for my longer run and ran along a local trail that had been recommended. It was a dirt path that was basically a long circle. It went up into the Mountains for about 1 mile, around and then back down. I ended up doing about 2 loops and my hr was up there with the altitude and the hills! But I LOVED it! My favorite thing about Alb. was the weather! It was amazing! You wake up and it's low 70's. So you can run in the morning like that and it's perfect! It gets hot during the day, but not ridiculously hot. Then at night, it gets really cool. Like, you could use a sweater cool! It rains every afternoon this time of year, so it's not as dry as you would think, and winters there are mild. At least when you aren't too far up the mountain. So it would be an amazing place to live and train!

Unfortunately, I didn't really take any pictures. I was either in class or the few times that we went out, I wasn't really expecting it, and therefore didn't have my camera on me. We were pretty much going all weekend. We saw Batman on Saturday night, and I thought it was great! Swam Sunday morning, and wrapped it all up Sunday at lunch right before going back to the airport!

Short but Sweet and I am SOOOO glad to be home! I may be headed to Florida for a short weekend race in August and then up to South Carolina for the SC 1/2 at the end of September, but other than that... I am just waiting for my big last trip of the year to Clearwater in November!!

School is back in session August 4th!! So just a week and a half to go and our summer is over! I can't believe it. It's bitter sweet. Early mornings, homework, and routine, but in exchange for my mornings to myself to get my stuff done. Sounds pretty good. But my baby is off to kindergarten and I'm kind of sad. But... he's excited, so we're working our way back into the routine of things from this point forward.

Happy last days of summer to everyone else!

K