I cannot believe it’s been over a year since my last journal entry where I was on the plane back from Kona and the Ironman World Championships. So much has happened, and I will spare details…but it’s been a wild ride and I am finally back to a place where I feel like I’m “Michele” again.

I’ve returned to Interior Design school in Orange County and loving it. I’m taking 3 classes and spending most of my time doing homework. I manage to fit in fitness for fitness sake. I still very much love to swim, bike and run. I took 4 months off from riding… and believe me, it was HARD to regain bike fitness.

Recently, I’ve participated in a couple 5ks and today… a sprint triathlon in San Diego racing as ELITE. This was my first time racing in this category rather than as an age grouper. Since I placed 6th in my last sprint triathlon, I was able to race as an elite today. While I knew I could most likely place in the top three of my age group, I opted to raise the bar and mostly likely, will take last place in elite.

So as I rolled into transition this morning, who is setting up her bike two spots away from me? Olympic Silver medalist and Ironman World Champion, Michellie Jones! Next to Michellie, Rachel Challis, another pro. GREAT!! Are you kidding me? There are 3 of us in Elite- that’s it!

At the swim start, they rattled off all of Michellie’s amazing accomplishments and I sunk deeper and deeper into my doubt of why the F am I racing with two professional triathlete”s ??? I’m going to get my ass kicked!!! I walked up to Michellie and Rachel and smiled and said, “this is so unfair!” We all laughed!

BOOM- the cannon shoots and we are off. Wait, they are off… I plod along and manage to see them for all of 2 seconds. After the first buoy, I was on my own and really without anyone to sight off of. I have a tough time sighting to being with, so this sucked. I did my best to chill out, and just get in a groove and do my race. OK, here comes the second buoy and third and turn. OK, got the turn and I think I see the next buoy, but why is there a boat in the middle of the swim course? I continue to swim towards the boat and I’m baffled, get out of the way! As I approach the boat, I stop and they tell me, “go this way”. I am SO off course. Shit. So I find my way and then I’m off again and so is my equilibrium- I’m dizzy and confused. Agh. Each buoy I approached, I stopped and asked, “which way?” I struggled the entire 750k … what the?

Got on my bike and hit it as hard as I thought I could without sacrificing a fast 5k run. I got passed by one girl towards the end of the bike. Where did she come from?

On the run, I pushed. First mile, 6:20. holy crap-this is fast for me, but I’m really liking it, so I’m going to keep it up. I finished the 5k in 21:16. This is a huge PR for me so I am stoked!

At the end, I was really excited to have the amazing experience of racing elite with two pro triathletes. I was also super duper happy with having a 5k PR. This is fantastic fuel for my 16 week marathon training plan which commences today. On Feb 7th I’m doing the Surf City Marathon and my goal is to qualify for The Boston Marathon. Oh and by the way, I got 3rd place today in Elite. And yes, there were only three of us! Whatever, I got a plaque and a bunch of swag and it’s pretty rad!