Awards and Accolades

How cool...I got an email on Monday evening inviting me to come to the Austin Runner's Choice Awards Ceremony tonight. It said, "Congratulations! You have been nominated for the 2006 Austin Runners’ Choice Award: Race of the Year 10K and Under. Winners will be revealed in a running celebration complete with food & drinks, please join us!

This was my first indication that the ThunderCloud Subs Turkey Trot was even nominated. So, I gotta admit...I'm a little flattered as Race Director to even receive the nomination.

We'll see what happens, but I'm not preparing a speech! haha

UPDATE: I just got home and did NOT win the award, but my Coach Gilbert won Coach of the Year and Austin's Desiree Ficker won Female Runner of the Year. Both were on hand to accept their awards. It was pretty surreal to come home tonight and open My "Triathlete" Mag only to see an ad for Guru Bikes featuring Desiree Ficker. How cool that I just saw her...Damn I love Austin.

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I was sleeping soundly when the alarm sounded this morning jolting me out of bed to go to my Spin Class at Castle Hill. I attempted to get up, but realized that I couldn't successfully move my legs or my ass. Holy Crap...The Wilke Hill Repeats from yesterday have paralyzed me from the waist down! Even the cat looked at me like, "Get up lazy ass!" Gingerly, I removed my atrophied limbs from the bed and walked to the closet to grab my bike shorts and cycling shoes. I moaned and groaned all the way to the parking lot of the gym. Thankfully, it's only two miles away from home and my car windows were rolled up so no one could hear me. I hadn't atended this particular spin class before, but was instantly blown away by the instructor's approach. Instead of mashing the gears and working as hard as you can with no real method, he really had a great way of managing effort and keeping a strong cadence throughout. He is also a stickler for form. After class, he introduced himself to me and said that he didn't recognize me. He took notice of my Ironman 70.3 hat that I was wearing. I explained that this was my first time at this class because I usually swim or run in the morning. We started chatting about racing and bike fitting and I spent over 20 minutes with him talking about stretches, form and exercises to better my cycling performance. He offered to look at my bike fit and make some tweaks and adjustments that may help fight form fatigue. I left the gym with such a positive feeling in general and about Castle Hill. A lot gyms are huge and instructors don't bother getting to know the members unless they are paying for personal trainers. Still other fitness facilities don't monitor member's form or progress toward their goals. Jerry was incredibly enthusiastic about his job and made a point of sharing his enthusiasm and knowledge. It's that kind of instruction that keeps me motivated and determined to do better. Now, I know increasing my wattage and decreasing my heart rate during a ride doesn't mean anything on the grand scale of life, but it all works hand in hand. When I get better at one thing, it makes me more positive and inspired with something else. Each little "victory" translates into bigger "victories," usually having nothing to do with exercise at all.

Last week, a group of Texas Tech students came to our agency to learn about advertising. My boss introduced me as the chick that does comedy, runs marathons and does triathlons. After the general lecture, two young girls came up to me and asked me about training and racing. We ended up chatting for over an hour about how achieving fitness goals has changed our outlook on life in general. Shit--these girls were only 21 years old!! I was inspired by them because GOD KNOWS I wasn't exercising at age 21. They had the same enthusiasm for me as I had for Jerry this morning. I received an email from one of the girls yesterday that said, " This is Sarah from last week with the Texas Tech Advertising Federation. Just e-mailing you so you don't forget about me... and because you might be my new role model(with the running and the stand up comedy) ;) So i'm still working on my own time to put together a portfolio and wanted to see what you though about the latest ad that i was fooling around with..."

That's what I mean when I say that achieving some fitness goals has made me a more complete person overall.


I left the gym so happy that I got my butt out of bed this morning when I really didn't want to. I even noticed that my legs felt lighter.