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The swims below done as:

(Take :15-:45 between each swim.  Stay jolly.  Nothing says Christmas like hard-work.)

Day 1, Day 1&2, Day 1,2&3, Day 1,2,3&4, Day 1,2,3,4&5, Day 1,2,3,4,5&6…Day 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11&12

1^st Day of Christmas:  100 easy freestyle

2^nd Day of Christmas: 100 IM OR backstroke

3^rd Day of Christmas: 50 freestyle drill (25 up-tempo = FAST turn-over, 25 distance per stroke)

4^th Day of Christmas: 25 under-water freestyle KICK (:30 seconds rest)

5^th Day of Christmas: 25 freestyle swim

(as few breathes as possible ie 0, 1, or 2 breathes during the 25) (:30 seconds rest)

6^th Day of Christmas: 50 freestyle done as: 25 easy, 25 FAST (1st Day 6 only do the 25 easy, after that swim a 50!)

7^th Day of Christmas: 50 freestyle kick with kick board

8^th Day of Christmas: 50 freestyle swim with 5 push-ups at opposite end

9^th Day of Christmas: 25 SPRINT (If you come from swim background, no freestyle.) (:30 seconds rest)

10^th Day of Christmas: 50 SPRINT (If you come from swim background, no freestyle.) (:30 seconds rest)

11^th Day of Christmas: 75 SPRINT (If you come from swim background, no freestyle.) (:30 seconds rest)

12^th Day of Christmas: 100 easy cool-down

I left my computer at my momma’s house so I was unable to blog.  I felt like I was working with an arm cut off for 1/2 of the day.  Rich Yarbrough and I were able to accomplish a lot though working with pen, paper, an iPad and a computer between the 2 of us.

Check it out @ shemoves Atlanta!!  LIKE us while you are at it.

I wanted to wish my best friend – Anne Chrzanowski – a Happy Birthday!!  Thank you for being such a great friend over the years.  Photos from Kona 2007 below…

I’ll finally write a race report for Beach 2 Battleship Triathlon.

Set-up Events gets two big thumbs-up.  It was an excellent event and a great way to wrap-up a breakthrough season.

The swim was with a current so although the water was pretty rough and choppy due to the wind swim times were VERY fast!  I was the first female out of the water in 40:05!  I’ll never break that PR.

The bike was flat, but the wind was pretty fierce the first 70ish miles.  The last 90-minutes of the ride, however, was like riding downhill.  I ran out of gears.  I couldn’t keep my wattage and my heart rate high enough.  I was too conservative on the bike.  I wanted to hold back and crush the run.  My goal was to run sub-3:30.  I was 5:25 on the bike and still leading the race.

I had the lead bike coming out of T-2.  I struggled to settle into a pace.  Actually telling my biker dude, I’ll settle in eventually.  At mile 2, I really believed I would, but it never felt smooth.  There were several bathroom pit stops in there.  From this day forward I will use Imodium while I race.  I cursed the weather.  I do not enjoy racing in chilly temperatures.  But everything aside, I got passed at mile 16 of the run.  She held onto the lead although I refused to let myself quit fighting.  I finished 2nd in 10:06.

It was a lack-luster performance, but as a season and a year, I should be proud of the personal and professional accomplishments of 2011.

Personally:

See the blog on Rev3 Full – Cedar Point.  I earned almost $5,000 as a professional triathlete racing this season!!  That is a 400% increase in salary from 2010!!  I had a huge PR this season.  All is well in the Burkey household with Ken, Meg, and myself.

Professionally:

The week following B2B, I had 4 athletes cross the finish line at Ironman Florida.  For 3 of these athletes, it was their first 140.6 finish.  This same weekend, I had another athlete cross the finish line of the New York City Marathon in 3:28, his first 26.2!!  I had an athlete finish his first 140.6 at Ironman Arizona.  Throughout the 2011 race season, there were several PR’s, first-times, and I am so proud of all of my athletes.  I do have a couple places remaining on my roster for 2012 with The Sport Factory, if you are interested in coaching.

The Atlanta Triathlon Club Swim Program went along swimming, and although I will have a reduced role in the program in 2012, I will still be involved with the Open Water Swim Program, and I will still be around the Atlanta Triathlon scene.

The CNN ‘6-pack’ all crossed the NYC Triathlon finish line, and all of my producers (that were able to start), also crossed the finish line!

Good things are on the horizon for 2012 and ‘The best is yet to come…’

Tomorrow, I’ll blog about a good friend that also happens to be a Birthday Girl!!  Until tomorrow, Day 2…

My Ironman PR leading into this race was a 10:16 at Ironman Cozumel ‘09.

I nailed my training going into this race, and I knew I’d smash my PR.  I didn’t want to count my chickens hatched, but I’d put in the work.  I was biking 20+ mph, holding much higher wattage than last season, and forced myself to run sub-8’s on my long runs.

Race day wasn’t perfect, but it was close.  It seems that the further you move away from the event, the more you forget the pain…

The swim was a little boring.  I staying with the lead group through the first turn buoy, lost them after that, caught a male pro on the second loop, but for the most part, it was an hour of swim alone.  3-5 minutes faster on the swim and I would have been with the lead pack… Matt Russ is right, I should be swimming more.

However, with that 5-minute time gap, it was equal to 1-2 miles on the road which kept the other girls out of sight, and I was able to focus on my ride.  Two silly negatives on the ride:  1. My Garmin got some water in it on the swim.  So the top corner of it was foggy.  My Garmin had my heart rate AND power data for the ride – not so good.  It was tricky to see the numbers, but I’d do spot check every 5-10 minutes.  2.  I lost an arm pad (velcro and all) at mile 56, and chip-seal road + rough roads on the medal arm-pad – OUCH!  I got a good elbow bruise due to that one.

Coming off the bike, I was in 6th place.  In the beginning, it didn’t feel great.  I got off the bike with Paolina Allen, started the run with her.  I knew she could run and the first mile was a 7:20 as I tried to keep her in sight.  As Paolina ran out of sight, my pace was creeping up, 7:40, 7:50…somewhere between mile 7-8, I had a little, inter-personal heart-to-heart.  I told myself to focus on MY race, sub-10 hours was still within sight, not worry about the 2 girls running within a few minutes behind me, etc.  About this same time, some angel at the aid station offered me ‘Cola.’  At first, I said ‘no, too early,’ but before I had passed it by I had changed my mind grabbed the cup, and things seemed to smooth out.  Be it the caffeine or the sugars, ‘Cola’ fueled the rest of my marathon and I felt stronger as I ran…until about mile 20.  I had cameras on me for most of the final 13.1 which really helped smooth out my stride.  It gave me a little extra burst of energy having the camera by my side.  I couldn’t run poorly on TV (at least that was my thought process while I was running.)  The marathon hurt, but I ran as quickly as my stand alone marathon PR – 3:33.

I crossed the line in 9:53, my first sub-10, and in 5th place.  A 27-minute Ironman PR, HUGE!!!  Taking home $3,750, and my first (and only) real pay-day!!

A HUGE Thank you to Rev3 Triathlon.  They go above and beyond and the attention to detail is unlike anything in the market.  They CARE, and in the people business, that makes all the difference.

A HUGE Thank you to my husband, Ken Burkey, without him, none of this would be possible.

A HUGE Thank you to my Coach Matt Russ.  This was his plan.  I was just the puppet and 75% of the time, I did what I was told. To get to the next-next level, I’ll probably need to bump that percentage up.

A HUGE Thank you to Joe Domaleski.  Years ago, he told me these things were possible and that I had to potential to achieve them.  He believed before I did.  Thank you Joe.

A HUGE Thank you to Tri-PTC.  My community has backed me along my professional career, and that means so much.  It really does take a village.

Final Thank you to Splish.  I looked good out there.  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.  (Looks like they are having a sale right now…)

(Rev3 Cedar Point – 2010 Photo)

a ‘hopeful’ strong end of the season.  I finish off the season with a series of long course races – Rev3 Cedar Point 140.6, Rev3 Anderson 70.3, and Beach 2 Battleship 140.6.

Early Spring-Summer, I races a series of Olympic distance race which were humbling to say the least.

8th of 9 Professional Women @Memorial Hermann T3 Kemah Triathlon in April

14th of 15 Professional Women @ Rev3 Knoxville Olympic Distance

After these 2 races, I was psyched to jump into something local, not feel intimidated by Olympians and World Champions on the start line.  I took myself out of the race at these first 2 Olympic distance attempts.  Going into West Point, I got some solid advice from Amy Kloner – ‘bike your @ss off.’  SO I did, and still ran my fastest 10k split of the season – 7:22’s (still some work to do there…)

3rd Overall Female at West Point Lake Triathlon

4th Overall Female at Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon

Late June, the focus transitioned back to Long Course Training.  It was tough to fit all the workouts in/find the time to train at first.  I got used to 1-2 hours of training a day.  As we added volume, I set personal training goals – trying to maintain some of that speed and quality from short course racing.  My love and passion for triathlon and training took over and the last 2 months have been a happy, BUSY blur.  I am excited to race and hopeful to break some new barriers…

We’ve worked really hard — my team including – Matt Russ, Ken Burkey, Amy Kloner, my TSF Famiy, Anne Chrzanowski, Tom Ramthun, Cannon Cyclery, and Tri-PTC.

The lay-out of the season was Matt’s plan – short-course ass kicking Winter training through the Spring, transition in the Summer back to Long Course.  Challenge my body in a different ways than it has been challenged in years.  Put the gains back into Long Course racing and see what comes of it.  These last couple races of the season should reflect my training (if all goes according to plan), I am very optimistic.  There is something to be said for a long-term PLAN and sticking to the PLAN.  Not always easy to have faith in the process – especially as you’re getting your booty kicked left and right.  Bring on the delayed gratification!

And all the while, Meg has grown-up…

(working to insert photo of Meg)

Meg Paper Burkey

Meg in her Sport Factory racing kit

I’ll keep it short and sweet – we got a puppy, it’s a girl!!

easy taper workouts creates a bit of free time and without cable, i have taken to reading.  i read 2 books last week.  i’ll start a new one today.  i wanted to catch up with the computer, in general, first though, emails and facebooking.  the trouble with catching up is the outpour of response to the emails sent out which then require an additional response and then i find myself behind…again.

it seems odd for race week to be here.  i feel so balanced.  i look forward to life leading into ironman and life coming out of ironman regardless of what the day holds.  i’ll hope for the best, climb my ass off on the hills of Placid, and come away smiling.  at times like these, i always remind myself that i haven’t just been working towards this the last couple months.  i started swimming year around at the age of 8, we started swimming doubles at 12, and i missed out on a handful of normal kid things because we had training.  i’ve spent 20 years training.  it all counts.  on race day, i get to pull from all life experiences.  i get to use whatever keeps me moving forward.  i am currently fueled by jelly belly.  i found they are the lesser of all evils.  they seem to kick most of the sugar cravings without the calories of chocolate and ice cream.  

alright pretty uneventful day here in the metto, so i’ll leave you in peace before i start to ramble about dinner plans and coaching masters.  these are exciting times we live in kids, exciting times  

goals for 2009.

1.  wake up for the race.

yeah, there you have it.  i think that will be the single most deciding factor in how my day goes.

i am excited to race again.  hopefully, i can have a little better day than i did down at gulf coast.  i am even more excited to get done with this race, put my head down and do WORK! in prep for placid.

last year, i was crown homecoming queen and i barely had to do work to win.  this year, women came and kicked my little butt and the whole time i was just trying to feed myself ‘amy kloner’ lines.

‘these girls going so fast is making us all better.’

i think i actually had a pretty decent race, better than gulf coast, at least.  i felt strong on the bike.  my watt average was above 210.  it’s not great, but it’s above 22 mph so okay.  i ran 7:45s which again, not great, but worlds better than gulf coast (also faster than i wanted to be running).

i was the race announcer post race and had more fun than i probably should…with a microphone    that’s trust.

the crowds and the people cheering for me and yelling for me were awesome.  all along the course, all the volunteers, my little sister and her boyfriend, everyone yelling and cheering and providing placing and updates.  i love racing in my backyard.

now back to the training…i get real serious here in a minute with countdowns and commitment.  it’ll be great fun.

but in summary, not really homecoming queen this year, but as kim (race director) told me, i am ptc’s number 1.  i’ll take that.  great day, great boyfriend, great life.  just keep moving forward…