So, I actually have a race to talk about! On Sunday, my friend Lauren and I did a sprint tri relay here in New Jersey. Lauren had actually signed up for this race months ago…and then found out she was pregnant! A few weeks ago she asked if I would join her in a relay because she didn’t feel safe completing the bike portion. We decided she would swim, I would bike, and we would run together. So, I was totally unprepared and hadn’t ridden my road bike in months. And months and months. I tested it out the Friday before… View Post

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I’m pretty terrible at my weekly recap posts, huh? I haven’t done one in weeks. Yikes. Sorry to stress you out like that. I have everything written out in my fancy little calendar, so maybe someday I’ll post them here… I JUST HAVE NO TIME FOR ANYTHING. Everything is in shambles. Well, not really. But unless you live, work, or train with me, I probably haven’t seen you in weeks. Or months. (Even if you live with me, it’s still a fairly rare occasion). I promise that on July 29th (which, ahem, also happens to be my birthday), I’ll be 100%… View Post

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I crashed. In the cycling world, apparently this means I’m now a “real cyclist”. So at least I have that going for me, right? (Yes, I’m okay, thank you for asking!) Everyone always told me, “it’s not a matter of IF you will crash, but WHEN.” Fantastic, I have that out of the way!  Backing up – this past Saturday, I headed out to practice with my team with a totally negative attitude about biking. My head was really not in the right place, and I think I can attribute this almost 95% to my crash. The other 5% to… View Post

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So, I went on the ride. I laid in bed this morning at 4:30 staring at the weather forecast for Middlebury, CT; inconveniently located two hours away from me. (Dang it, WHO put Middlebury there?!) Weather.com told me it was NOT raining. I analyzed the pattern of “rain percentage”. 60% at 6AM, 50% at 7AM…so, it was going down, right? Perfect. I knew I would hate myself and would probably have to ride alone tomorrow if I didn’t go on the preview ride today, so off I went, coffee, bagel, and anxiety in hand. The whole car ride I was… View Post

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Happy Saturday! I hope wherever you are, you have as beautiful of weather as we do here in New Jersey. Sorry Mom and Dad, I know it’s been snowing in Iowa (even though it was 80 degrees last week). I swear, the Midwest is the only place where you can potentially end up wearing your winter coat and flip flops in the same 24 hour span. Ridic. On this lovely day, I went for a nice little 3 hour bike ride with my team. By the way, I’ve been trying to think of a bike name (she needs a name!)… View Post

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For today’s edition of Kara’s Exciting Saturday Nights, I bring you: “Kara uses various race calculators to try to figure out how long it might take her to finish an Ironman and then she freaks out.” My bike ride kicked my butt today. On the schedule was 3 hours of riding. I met my team on the NJ side of the George Washington Bridge. For the first two hours, I felt awesome. I felt strong, even amongst the millions (yes, millions) of hills. I was keeping up with the front of my group. It was a beautiful morning – the… View Post

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This is my Sunday so far: Woke up. Drank water. Drank coffee. Ate a banana. 2500 meter swim workout. (Saw a girl swimming with headphones and an iPod strapped to her arm somehow. NEED THIS WATER-PROOF CONTRAPTION IMMEDIATELY.) Ate half of a Clif Bar. Ate another banana. Drank Nuun. One hour outdoor bike ride. Ate chicken. Okay, chicken wings. FINE, fried buffalo wings! Ugh. They were leftovers and I thought about them while I was riding. I ADMIT IT, I USED BUFFALO WINGS TO MOTIVATE MYSELF. They were soooo good though. 10 minutes core work – planks, pushups, squats, calf… View Post

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Bike buying is a tricky thing. The only bike I’ve ever bought is a bright blue mountain bike from Walmart. And by “I”, I mean my parents. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) My Trek hybrid (which is amazing) was a birthday gift from Brendan. Am I lucky or what? Needless to say, I’m certainly no authority on purchasing a road bike or on triathlons in general. Until a few weeks ago, I had never even ridden a road bike outside. Yikes. But, as you know, I signed up for a challenge and so far a challenge this experience has been. When… View Post

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