The trip to Europe in pictures

After the welcome atmosphere, beautiful nature, great food in Spain.......,

       

After finishing Ironman France with 4th fastest women's time of the day .......,

After a little brake in Ukraine and Russia with my family.....

It was time to go back to America and start training for Ironman US Championship, which was taking part in New York this year. 

Finishing season 2011 without the final event.... Vacation

I was looking forward so much to do the final event of the season: Ironman Arizona. My mind was set on Ironman race even though it was a last competition of the very long season, started in San Juan with Ironman 70.3 in March. The training was going very well and I had a few more long days ahead of me before I start tapering when my body said: "Sorry, it's a little too much" and it gave up and hit me at my weak spot, the feet, to be more correct: the achilles. So I stopped running just a few weeks before the race, thinking that I can rest my feet for a little bit and still be able to show up at the race in a good shape. But that didn't happened and I had to call it the end of the season 2011. It took me a few days to set my mind to the rest mood. I still went out and did the "Horrible 70m" (the bike ride in Clermont) same weekend as Ironman Arizona. It wasn't easy to start the vacation just like that: after so many days of training without any complete brake and without the proper finish, but the time was right...

It was time to get out of Clermont (a very sport oriented town) and have a great vacation even though I didn't feel like I deserved it. And the best way to have a vacation (that I know now for sure) is to go for the cruise. And that what we did with my boyfriend, who definitely deserved to have some good rest. It was a 7 days cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line to Western Caribbean: Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Mexico. It was the best vacation I've had in many years. So much to tell..., I just add the small photo album with pictures, which I took during the first two days of the cruise before my camera got wet and broke :( https://picasaweb.google.com/Aniluzok/NCLCruiseToWesternCaribbean

And we had much more fun as a volleyball, rock climbing, ping pong, bowling, different entertaining show every night, dancing and a great food.

But all vacations come to the end sooner or later and it time to get back to reality and stop looking through the pictures over and over again :)))

The season 2011 coming to the end.

The last couple months passed very fast. I've managed to complete 4 big races in seven weeks, have been racing almost every second weekend. The first one was Ironman 70.3 Timberman which was a good race for me even with my first ever 4min. penalty :((( and with my "good luck" charm in the front wheel. Finished 4th with a good bike splits and a dissent run.
The REV3 full distance triathlon race was the next one, three weeks later. It wasn't my best long triathlon event, I really broke down after mile 15th- 16th. Still didn't gave up and finished in top 6. Two weeks down the road I was already going to Augusta, to do one of my favorite Ironman 70.3 races (why?... swim with a current, love it :) ) Another 4th place and sprinting at the finish line second year in row. Another two weeks after Augusta we are heading the road almost the same direction again, a little more north-east this time. It was a final race of Revolution3 series in Anderson, SC. I was already pretty tired (no surprise there). But I wanted to do that race and I wanted just to go out there and enjoy the day. The goal for the day was to stay in my comfortable race zone, don't brake down through the whole race and try to progress towards the finish. And I accomplished that. I don't think I was able to do all that travel and racing without my boyfriend, he is my best support. We became so officiant with packing and traveling. I finally stopped to freak out before my trips and actually started to enjoy it. So, the race in Anderson was the final triathlon of the series, as I mentioned before. I qualified for the series points overall and finished in top 3. REV3 team have done a great job through the year and it's very nice to see that they are growing, they are going to add 3 more races to the REV3 Triathlon series next year.

I have one more race before I can enjoy a little vacation. And it's going to be Ironman Arizona, which I've done 2 times in past, but I never did it in November. Looking forward to have 5-6 weeks of just training and staying on one place. And then, Arizona, I coming :)))