I used to be extremely superstitious, I think many athletes are. You hear about pro athletes all the time who don’t wash things or don’t cut/trim body hair during a season or a winning streak of some sort.  I’m sure there are even weirder ones like cyclists not having sex close to races, or was that boxers?  Either way, I think it explains a lot about grumpy testosteroney sports? Am I right ladies!?  Sorry if you’re a dude cyclist reading this, but seriously.  I had one dude at Vineman who would charge past me, and then settle in at easily 1-2 mph slower than me, so I’d pass him again with a friendly,  “hey, good job”.  A few moments later – who comes whizzing by me again?  THAT GUY. This happened about 8 times, I was dying to give him some race etiquette / RULES, so when I went by the last time and HE STOOD UP TO PEDAL SO AS NOT TO LET ME PASS (yes, this is said slowly, loudly, enunciating, and with my eyes wide open!).  I finally did say – “Umm…that’s actually illegal, you have to let me pass you”. — and then I beat him of course since he was riding 1-2 miles per hour slower than me. Duh.

Sorry, got of topic there a smidge.  So superstitions.  In high school I was a little CRAY – ok like TOTS CRAY in-fact.  I had such a system down that if one little iiiiitty-bitty thing was out of order I really thought the world might end. For example, I had a volleyball practice outfit for each day of the week, down to same socks, same underwear, same sports bra!  EVERY WEEK. I’m not kidding. I did laundry every Wednesday then put the days workout clothes in their piles for the next week.  I didn’t think I was looney-toons, we all had our little things.  One big game I changed my hair-do and HAD THE WORST GAME OF MY LIFE, and was told how awful I was by my terrible coach.  It took a long time for the ol’ confidence to grow back after that one. I couldn’t exactly explain to him it was my hair-do change. Obvi. Didn’t he notice I don’t usually wear double french braids?

So, why is this important?  I’m not superstitious anymore. I mean not REALLY,  I do however notice if there are patterns of bad races wearing the same thing.  I know, I know…even putting it in writing sounds silly.  BUT – have you ever had that horrible race where you have 10 miles left to run, and every 90 seconds or so you body tells you to lay down, and then your head has to tell your body, “no body, that’s actually not ok- we have to keep going so we can finish this”.   It’s painful, and hard, and when I think about what I’m going to wear to a race I don’t want to wear something that I suffered in before.

So, I’ve been thinking about what to wear for Ironman Lake Tahoe  RUN– this is going to be a special Ironman. My first as Katy Rounsaville, I have LOTS of friends and family coming to watch.  I haven’t done an Ironman in 3 YEARS – and this will probably be my last for a while.  I think it’s time to pay attention to my new husband a bit, don’t you think?

So, here’s my sufferfest dress: You all know I looooooove pink, and I love my skirtsports gear, but looking a this dress is painful and I don’t think I can wear it again.  I suffered in it at IM AZ and IM CDA 2010. (I know I look perky in the picture but it’s not real).

 

Obviously I’m not pulling on compression capri’s after my ride but this outfit made me HAAAPPY. This is my first 50k — and I was fast and had FUN.  I’m pretty sure I had cheetah nails too (more on that).

 

I think the outfit below could be the winner — it’s kind of a combo of the two, I still get my dress – with my Pinnacle Women’s Racing logo, I’ve had GREAT races in this dress including AR50 pictured below, and I can still add Cheetah accents as needed to make me feel fast and diva-like.

So, now I’ll have to work on my nail design. I really do have a little superstition about that, I ALWAYS race better when I spend a little time making my nails look fancy.  Aaaaand, I literally just ordered new nail art brushes from Amazon so I can step up my game for IM Lake Tahoe (I know overboard right?!).

Don’t tell Brett.

Happy Training –

 

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