Making music and Making tracks

It's tough enough to rehearse and perform a challenging orchestral program compressed into a couple of days. But my friend Dorian Ramirez not only played cello for the weekend with Mid-Texas Symphony, but she and her husband Fred then turned around and swam, biked and ran the Austin Triathlon. Talk about endurance sports!

Congratulations to my good friends Dorian and Fred Ramirez who turned in outstanding races at the recent Austin Triathlon. You may remember that Dorian and Fred fired off the triathlon season in Galveston back in what seems like forever ago. It is astounding how quickly the triathlon season has passed, though there are still some good opportunities to race before the water of area lakes begins to chill. The swim for Dorian and Fred was in Austin’s Town Lake. Dorian reported the water temperature to be 77 degrees, right on the cusp for many swimmers as to whether they wet suit it or not. D&F both opted to swim without wet suits. Says Dorian: “I figured I would spend too much time trying to get out of it!”

Dorian turned in an overall time of 2:56:57, under her goal of 3 hours. Fred’s time was 3:06 plus some seconds. They both had enough left in the tank to finish strong in the final 10k. Dorian’s time was 47:41 and Fred ran 52:17, both PRs for their triathlon careers.

Fred and Dorian will take on the Longhorn Half Tri in October. That’s a half ironman, I believe. Dorian mentioned to me that they will be cramming nutrition information for that final exam of the season. I recommended she check out the booklet published by Hammer Nutrition, called The Endurance Athlete’s Guide to Success; in fact, I would suggest anyone with questions about fuel issues study this booklet. Currently, the book is out of print, but you can download a PDF copy for free. Go online to Hammer Nutrition.

I am sure Dorian and Fred would be interested in any other nutrition tips anyone might offer, especially keeping one’s self fueled during a long endurance event such as a half-iron, a marathon, or an ultra. In fact, I would encourage anyone with knowledge on the topic to chime in and share with those who read this blog. Your input will be much appreciated.

Making Music
Dorian and I have known each other for quite a number of years as musicians in the Mid-Texas Symphony. We had rehearsals and a concert the same weekend Dorian raced in the Austin Triathlon, making it even more amazing she did so well. It was a busy and challenging weekend for the orchestra, so I expect Fred ended up setting up transition areas both for himself and Dorian.

I checked the math and the 10k legs turned in by Dorian and Fred worked out to 7:41 and 8:26 miles respectively, and respectable too. You understand now why Dorian and Fred are valuable teammates of mine on the Mid-Texas Symphony relay team. We’ve had a great time the past two years running the Beach to Bay relay marathon down in Corpus and are about to bite off a BIG challenge this coming March. We saw a flyer stuffed in our race bags at Beach to Bay about a new race called The Texas Independence Relay. 207 miles. We laughed. Problem is, we then started thinking about it, and it just was too good a challenge to pass up.

I’m doubling the size of our relay team to a dozen and even 6 months out from the event we are becoming giddy with the prospect of taming the challenge: 207 miles from Gonzales to the San Jacinto Monument. We’ll run about four miles at a time per person and in 35 hours or so we will hit the finish line. Our team experience at Beach to Bay has been so positive that we are looking forward to this next big challenge. I’ve talked to other runners about relays, and some just don’t like them. I can certainly appreciate that for many of us running is somewhat of a solitary experience. But I guess for team Mid-Texas Symphony we enjoy so much working together in the orchestra that running together seems a logical extension. If you read this and think you might want to check out the Texas Independence Relay, browse over to http://www.texasindependencerelay.com/.

Meanwhile, happy workouts to all. One day soon the rain will end, the humidity will dry out, and we will all remember what pleasure there is in biking, running and swimming in the great outdoors.