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Hey there Newsletter readers,
Glad to be back on your screens. So much is happening here at the DCR office these days, I don’t even know where to start. We’ve been traveling, training, running with the kiddos, and even cycle tourisming; is that even a word?
Before I go any further, in case you have not been on the website lately, there is the big annual Garmin Spring Sale happening now. Ray says, “Arguably this is one of the best Garmin sales we’ve seen to date”, including all of their top-tier and brand new products on sale like the Fenix 8, Instinct 3, and inReach devices plenty more!
Now, if you stick with me here, I’m going to give a quick housekeeping recap of what’s happening at DC Rainmaker HQ, then you can sneak down to the In-Depth Thoughts of The Girl for a few life and training updates.
Most recently on the site we have Garmin’s new launch of the Garmin Connect+ feature: Garmin Trails. After reading the post, and the subsequent 80 or so comments, I’m not sure I’d want to be lost in the woods with this feature. Especially since you paid extra for it.
Next up, there’s some cool news between Elite and Zwift. Updated firmware has allowed for Elite trainers dating back to 2017 to shift virtually on Zwift. Given 99.999% of the time I use erg mode on Zwift for my coach’s sadistic purposes, I can’t tell you if I’ve ever shifted gears on that platform [Ray's the Editor: Yes, yes you have.]. So you know what I’m going to say… I didn’t really read the article. More of a skim :)
A couple of weeks ago, Ray came home with a nice new carrier bag. I was quick to eye the three recognizable letters on the bottom left. D-J-I “hmmmm what’s in the bag Ray?”, and “When will you be going to Amsterdam to test it?”. So now, for your entertainment purposes, I present to you the DJI Mavic 4 Pro vs The Gauntlet video (and yes, from Amsterdam).
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In-Depth Thoughts of The Girl
Hurray, you made it to the “Fun Area”. Not much tech-talk down here, it’s more of what’s the current life and times of the DCR Household.
So last time I left you hanging a little on “What’s Next” in the Bobbie racing schedule, and that was because I still wasn’t totally sure what I was up to.
See, the issue was, as I said before, that our family’s spring schedule is really really busy. Trying to balance work, all of the girls’ extra activities, Ray has 101 new gadgets to test & review, and we had a 2+ week term break at the kid’s school. Plus, as much as Ray was the “life sherpa” in this past fall/winter supporting me going into my 70.3 Oman race, life flipflops a little going into the spring/summer season. March through June (… pfffft maybe October) is my time to shine as “family sherpa”. So energy levels have been dwindling.
All of this is to say, while we have had a busy, albeit VERY fun schedule the last 2 months, it wasn’t the most conducive to training the way I want for my race build. My mind has been set all year on trying to qualify for the IM 70.3 World Championships (WC), so while it’s not a big deal for some athletes to go into a race a little less than 100%, it is a big deal for this goal. For my age group, we often only have 2 WC slots, and in the past, I have even come 3rd place and still not grabbed a WC slot. As you can imagine, I was on the fence for a long time if I wanted to try again this summer, against the odds, or just pick a different race/goal for the fall.
After many conversations with Ray, and pulling out the trusty refrigerator calendar to see what we really had to work with, I decided to continue my goal. The goal being, 70.3 World Championships in Marbella, Spain this fall. We agreed on this with one caveat in mind: I go into race day knowing I’m in shape to have a good-to-great, but not “epic, best race day ever” level of fitness. And I have to be mentally OKAY with that! Believe me when I tell you, that was a hard decision.
This race has been in my back pocket for months, and the race was chosen for so many reasons. The date primarily, as it gave me the most time to buckle down after our family travels and my epic 7-day gravel-bike trip to Tuscany with Thomson Bike Tours (review on that to come!). As well, it will be a hot race, and I tend to love hot races; glutton for punishment I suppose. The course is VERY well suited for me (cough… that swim). And best of all, one of my very very best girlfriends was willing to come to the race as race support, and top cheer squad, which takes a lot of pressure off Ray as he will stay home and cheer via the Ironman tracking app (sniff sniff).
So, finally I’m happy to tell you, I’ll be taking one last stab at it for the 2025 World Championship qualifiers. If any of you happen to be in the Rockford, Illinois area on June 22nd(thanks piles of United Airlines points!), I’d love to hear you ringing a cow bell and yelling at me to “Don’t F’ing Stop!”. If you won’t happen to be there, please send all your positive thoughts to the weather gods that we will have some rain prior to the race and that river will have a fast yet safe enough flow to fire me downstream at a respectable pace!
Until then, TrainingPeaks tells me I have about 3 weeks to pull it together! So I'd better put this computer down and head out for the run I had planned to start an hour ago!
As always, thanks for being DC Rainmaker Newsletter Subscribers.
Stay tuned! Bobbie |
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