Well, I know it's been a while. Since Tour I got super burnt out. I spent a few weeks trying to train for a half marathon. Then a few weeks being lazy. Then dropped out of the half marathon. Then decided to get my act together and start base building again.
In these weeks, I ran the Run the Rocks 5k for the second year in a row! Always a very challenging race and a very disappointing time this year compared to last year but... it is was it is. I've been slowly amping up, doing mostly whatever exercise I've wanted as long as it was useful. This week, I finally put in some real time with training rides and some treadmill speed work.
Yesterday I got out for a brutal 48-mile bike ride and after having not done more than 35 since Tour in September - it was a painful, hilly, long 48-miles.
Today, I'd asked my boyfriend if he wanted to do a 5k and he easily obliged, but it was an interesting experience for me.
First off, I had tweaked my hamstring (stupid hamstrings...it is always something with them) this week and while it didn't hurt it felt, odd. Luckily a little warming up and gentle stretching seemed to hit the target area and loosen it up for the most part. I noticed an immediate difference between jogging at the start of my warm-up and jogging at the end of my stretches.
I also accidentally stepped on my iPod charged a few days ago so I've had no way to charge that so music wasn't an option. A crutch I usually lean on, as I was walking out of the house I realized I didn't have the option to run with music. I decided I'd done it before during triathlons so I would be fine.
More so than a race, today was a test for me - what moderate pushing for 3 miles would get me. I knew it wouldn't be a PR due to the injuries and working myself back from those. I knew it wouldn't even be the best I can run in my current shape because of the crazy ride yesterday. Still, I was hoping for 10-min miles.
As I usually do, stupidly, I sized up the people around me to find people who looked like me that I could run with. Yeah... people who "look" like me run 11-12 min/miles. So I immediately got stuck for a few minutes behind some very slow traffic. It was okay though, not terrible to start off slow - especially with the bizarre hamstring tweak thing. After I cleared the traffic I started focusing on getting into a stride. Which brought the first mile in at 9:44. I wasn't super happy with it - but I also wasn't disappointed! I knew there was more in the tank and it was nice to not see 10 min/miles. (Granted I ran 7 miles at 9:58 a few weeks ago...idk, small victories. I biked 48 hilly miles yesterday for christsake!)
I hit the first mile with a false sense of "only 2 miles left!" and started picking it up. Nothing crazy - but hit the turn around blah blah. Came through the second mile market at a 9:28. Just before that some random lady high-fived me who I thought was my friend Christine but...actually I have no idea who it was and I think she had no idea who I am and together we thought we high-fived other people.
Then it hit me. My legs started feeling weird and things were getting hilly, and I was telling myself "don't walk" and then "seriously, you are telling yourself not to walk in a 5k? C'mon woman" and then I walked for about 15 seconds up a hill. My unofficial goal sometime during the second mile was sub-30 min. Unfortunately, my watch, I was done in about 30:11 (womp womp) but still not all that bad for a rough few weeks and some previously slow running. I also hear the course was a little long so, cross your fingers! All in all, by far not my best race, but a good indicator of what I hope to be progress towards where I was before.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
First century EVER
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| Zoom Zoom |
Given how much I've been bonking at the end of long rides, I was a little nervous. Yesterday, doing 60, I pushed it quite a bit. I was one of the first few people in and my quads were on fire. Thankfully, I had the BEST 15-min massage ever by a guy who worked at a chiropractor's office in the area and often worked on hockey players. Still, yesterday I was cranky, tired, dehydrated and my head hurt like crazy.
Despite my 8-hours of sleep, I still felt very tired this morning. I knew I had two groups of guys I had talked to about riding with me and that I wanted to ease off a bit today so I wasn't very concerned about going hard.
I grabbed my bike and saw the first group (from Baxter...otherwise known as "the Baxter Boys" or "Wild Hogs") taking off. Worried the other group might've left as well, I jumped on my bike and started riding after them. I caught up to them within the first few miles and we were going a nice hard pace. They had some pretty strong guys with some fresh legs pulling us along. Despite the hills, we managed to hold a little over 16 mph. Not too bad for a century.
We cranked along through the next couple stops. Unlike yesterday, these stops were pretty close together because of some gnarly hills we were traversing. I made sure to eat and spray up with some extra sunscreen and finally we hit lunch. For the first half of today, I was a domestique, which means I was designated to help riders in need and identified by a yellow vest. OH MAN. That vest was SO hot. I was drenched in this humidity after just a few dozen miles. I couldn't have been happier to take that damn thing off when we got to lunch at 45 miles.
It was an early lunch, but I was very hungry and excited about eating the food they had for us. I stopped with the Baxter Boys for a nice long stop and we soon met up with Jim, whom we were planning on riding with in the first place! His group had been too aggressive, then his new one was too slow, so he jumped on with us for the second half.
The next stop wasn't until 65 miles and man did I need it. When we arrived I promptly sat on the ground and drank tons of water. When we left that stop I lost the Baxter Boys and set out on my own for a while. As I approached the 71-mile mark, the turn off if you chose to do the century, I was very excited to see some volunteers (red shirts) cheering wildly for me. I kept pedaling, passing a few more riders, until I caught up with Carissa - a dietitian from Irvine. We chatted about nutrition and exercise, rolling in together to the 81-mile stop. WOO!!
At this point, I had officially achieved my longest ride ever and this stop was awesome. Ran by "Eighty-mile Ed" (whom one of the riders nicknamed), there was tons of ice and my FAVORITE part - a pink tiara! While drinking some water, I found it in a bin. One of the guys running the stop explained this belonged to the "snack princess," to which I responded "oh, I guess I can't have it then." But then he said "well, I don't see why not" and encouraged me to take it. I felt it fitting, being my first century and all. So I stuck it in my helmet and rode in with a tiara. :)
The last 20 were sort of a mixed bag. First 10 or so miles felt great but as we approached 90 and I was exhausted. I pushed through the last few, and was so relieved to see the white tents indicating I was done. When I arrived, they handed me a century pin and I received a number of compliments for my tiara helmet. Despite being burnt out for those last few miles, I feel even better than I did yesterday. My quads don't feel sore at all (though they did when the masseuse got to them). I'm definitely ready to crank out 65 tomorrow and push myself to keep a nice quick pace to end the tour!
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Nestled in the Corner at Houston
I've found myself a little corner in Peets Coffee where I'm leaching power to my phone from an outlet as I anticipate limited charging time over the next few days. I've snuggled up with a skim pumpkin latte which REALLY tastes like pumpkin from the can. Not sure how I feel about it, but it will be finished.
I just purchased the blogger app for my phone so updating from the road will hopefully be less of a hassle. Think I can expense it? :) jk
I was a little worried and grumpy this morning about getting to the airport. Joel is uncommonly good about calming me down and talking sense into me when I get this way. He may think I'm just shutting up, but it really does level me out. As he said, of course everything went just fine. The bike was checked without a problem. I did get the $75 oversize fee which I expected. Honestly for how expensive it COULD be, I cannot complain.
I realized upon getting to the terminal, I forgot the book I meant to bring with me. I had to buy a new one for $17!!! Yikes. But so far, so good and a really apt choice. I bought "Wild" as memoirs have crept under my skin ever since taking the writing non-fiction class in college. The story the author tells is of a rough time in her life when she decided to spend 100 days hiking the pacific crest trail. Last summer I similarly wanted to spend a few days biking from Chicago into Wisconsin and back. A few hundred miles just to escape it all. I didn't do it and instead found myself moving to Denver where I had ample "soul searching" time while looking for a job. Funny enough, said job has brought me here to spend...a few days riding 220 miles. Funny how it all comes full circle.
As I read, my mind drifted to how little I packed. Really low on the supplies and bringing just the bare minimum. If you want me to spend 3 days cycling, I'm going to do just that. Not sure if a corporate tour is the best place to have this "roughing it" attitude, but ah well. Throw caution to the wind.
Before leaving, our manager asked us to do DISC personality tests. Much like the Myers Briggs, it measures you across a number of factors. I don't remember exactly what it all meant, but I was high D and high I - meaning very decisive and interactive. Low S and C- which in a nutshell means that I'm not very cautious, if maybe a little rebellious. So in the vein of that "test": who cares? I'm just going for it and using what I brought.
I just purchased the blogger app for my phone so updating from the road will hopefully be less of a hassle. Think I can expense it? :) jk
I was a little worried and grumpy this morning about getting to the airport. Joel is uncommonly good about calming me down and talking sense into me when I get this way. He may think I'm just shutting up, but it really does level me out. As he said, of course everything went just fine. The bike was checked without a problem. I did get the $75 oversize fee which I expected. Honestly for how expensive it COULD be, I cannot complain.
I realized upon getting to the terminal, I forgot the book I meant to bring with me. I had to buy a new one for $17!!! Yikes. But so far, so good and a really apt choice. I bought "Wild" as memoirs have crept under my skin ever since taking the writing non-fiction class in college. The story the author tells is of a rough time in her life when she decided to spend 100 days hiking the pacific crest trail. Last summer I similarly wanted to spend a few days biking from Chicago into Wisconsin and back. A few hundred miles just to escape it all. I didn't do it and instead found myself moving to Denver where I had ample "soul searching" time while looking for a job. Funny enough, said job has brought me here to spend...a few days riding 220 miles. Funny how it all comes full circle.
As I read, my mind drifted to how little I packed. Really low on the supplies and bringing just the bare minimum. If you want me to spend 3 days cycling, I'm going to do just that. Not sure if a corporate tour is the best place to have this "roughing it" attitude, but ah well. Throw caution to the wind.
Before leaving, our manager asked us to do DISC personality tests. Much like the Myers Briggs, it measures you across a number of factors. I don't remember exactly what it all meant, but I was high D and high I - meaning very decisive and interactive. Low S and C- which in a nutshell means that I'm not very cautious, if maybe a little rebellious. So in the vein of that "test": who cares? I'm just going for it and using what I brought.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
And now the left side!: minor injuries that destroy everything
It has been a trying month. Oh, August. You pain in the butt.
After the 70.3 I took 4 days off from all exercise and then attempted to slowly jump back in. Not necessarily where I left off (no 10-12 hr weeks necessary) but just gently to about 7-8 hr weeks to get ready to race again at the end of the month.
Originally, it was going great. I had an amazing run coming back - some of the fastest I've done in a while. Then some decent biking and a mix of rest days and decent workouts. Then last Saturday I jumped in the pool around 8:30 and was feeling a little tight but nothing crazy. I actually had a decent workout holding a pretty fast clip for even some longer sets. Though a little tight, I was happy with my performance.
That day I had also convinced my "non-athletic" boyfriend (otherwise known as one of those people who is athletically talented, but doesn't use it.... *sigh*) to run a quick tempo run with me. Nothing crazy - 10 min warm-up, 2 miles at a 10k race pace, and then a cool down walk home.
In my opinion, this went pretty well for him. He ran too far and ended up doing more like 3 miles at race pace and then when all was said and done ran nearly 4 miles. Yeah, he said it was hard - but I don't know of anyone who can just go run 4 miles at a decent clip without any training. Plus after the warm-up, he left me in the dust. For what he did, he had to have run 8 min miles at the slowest....which to me says that with any practice he could run 7s for a long long time.
I, however, was not so lucky. It was hot and I guess I didn't take in as much water between the swim and the run as I thought. My warm-up was fine, but then as he took off for the tempo run (which was just a more aggressive jog for him) I ran 3 minutes before feeling awful. My legs felt like lead, my stomach started hurting - just bad news bears. Interspersed with walking - so no, not exactly a tempo run - I made it to the turn around point and then walked/jogged it back. I met up with him and we walked home. Even though I felt crappy, I was so proud of him that I didn't really press the issue too much.
Later that day we took my dog to the park for a nice long walk. Again, it was pretty hot, but we stopped a few times so she, and we, could drink water. 2.5 miles of walking should feel like nothing to me, but I was hot, cranky, aching and in need of a LOT of water. I stopped once to try to stretch out the pain, but nothing helped.
That night I had trouble sleeping because the pain in both my hamstrings got so bad. I woke to fidget every few hours. Walking didn't hurt, but laying and sitting killed. This got worse throughout Sunday, so on Monday, sitting hurt. The pain in my right hamstring had subsided (this is the one I injured this winter), but the left was so bad I couldn't think while I was sitting down. The drive to work made me wriggle in my seat. I immediately took 800mg of ibuprofen and it all went away. I thought this was promising until again, I spent a night in pain. I tried icing the left side, but to no avail - and still experienced the same pain on Tuesday and Wednesday. I made an appointment to see a chiropractor on Thursday.
Thursday morning I woke feeling a little better. Sleeping had been easier but the pain still was present. The chiropractor felt the tightness and found a number of areas of localized pain in my leg which he helped me work out. He also helped me get my hips back in the right place and found a knot in my back that he released. I chronically have pretty knotted shoulders - so this was great. I felt sore that day at work, but only took an Aleve (not 800 mg of ibuprofen). By Friday, the pain during sitting or laying was totally gone.
I went back for a check up today and the doctor went back to my areas of localized pain, but still went through my entire leg as he had. One by the back of my knee was still bad - but other hamstring pain had eased up considerably. Instead I discussed with him the abdominal cramps that I regularly suffered from and was able to find similar knotted areas in my external obliques that he could help me release. I'll be curious to see if that takes an effect on that periodic cramping I get while running and biking. He also found similar pain in my left hip flexor (yep, same side at the hamstring thing) and worked that out.
I was and am optimistic. However, I did try running today, and could not even take a few strides without experiencing bad pain. I quit and got on my bike instead which did not irritate the hamstring - but instead bothered my knees. Granted, I took a route with fluctuating grade so the climbing has a tendency to do that.
Ultimately, I am supposed to race next weekend, but now I'm not sure if I can. My brain tells me I just shouldn't, but I was very excited about this race and it upsets me not to go and finish out my season. Right now, I'm considering trying to run again a few times this week. If I am capable of completing any run without hamstring pain, I may still race, but today the future does not look bright.
The worst part about injury is the impatience. I have gotten better - Andrea of old would never have been capable of taking an entire week off, but I did. Still, healing is slow, frustrating, and mentally taxing. At least I can keep up two of the three sports.
After the 70.3 I took 4 days off from all exercise and then attempted to slowly jump back in. Not necessarily where I left off (no 10-12 hr weeks necessary) but just gently to about 7-8 hr weeks to get ready to race again at the end of the month.
Originally, it was going great. I had an amazing run coming back - some of the fastest I've done in a while. Then some decent biking and a mix of rest days and decent workouts. Then last Saturday I jumped in the pool around 8:30 and was feeling a little tight but nothing crazy. I actually had a decent workout holding a pretty fast clip for even some longer sets. Though a little tight, I was happy with my performance.
That day I had also convinced my "non-athletic" boyfriend (otherwise known as one of those people who is athletically talented, but doesn't use it.... *sigh*) to run a quick tempo run with me. Nothing crazy - 10 min warm-up, 2 miles at a 10k race pace, and then a cool down walk home.
In my opinion, this went pretty well for him. He ran too far and ended up doing more like 3 miles at race pace and then when all was said and done ran nearly 4 miles. Yeah, he said it was hard - but I don't know of anyone who can just go run 4 miles at a decent clip without any training. Plus after the warm-up, he left me in the dust. For what he did, he had to have run 8 min miles at the slowest....which to me says that with any practice he could run 7s for a long long time.
I, however, was not so lucky. It was hot and I guess I didn't take in as much water between the swim and the run as I thought. My warm-up was fine, but then as he took off for the tempo run (which was just a more aggressive jog for him) I ran 3 minutes before feeling awful. My legs felt like lead, my stomach started hurting - just bad news bears. Interspersed with walking - so no, not exactly a tempo run - I made it to the turn around point and then walked/jogged it back. I met up with him and we walked home. Even though I felt crappy, I was so proud of him that I didn't really press the issue too much.
Later that day we took my dog to the park for a nice long walk. Again, it was pretty hot, but we stopped a few times so she, and we, could drink water. 2.5 miles of walking should feel like nothing to me, but I was hot, cranky, aching and in need of a LOT of water. I stopped once to try to stretch out the pain, but nothing helped.
That night I had trouble sleeping because the pain in both my hamstrings got so bad. I woke to fidget every few hours. Walking didn't hurt, but laying and sitting killed. This got worse throughout Sunday, so on Monday, sitting hurt. The pain in my right hamstring had subsided (this is the one I injured this winter), but the left was so bad I couldn't think while I was sitting down. The drive to work made me wriggle in my seat. I immediately took 800mg of ibuprofen and it all went away. I thought this was promising until again, I spent a night in pain. I tried icing the left side, but to no avail - and still experienced the same pain on Tuesday and Wednesday. I made an appointment to see a chiropractor on Thursday.
Thursday morning I woke feeling a little better. Sleeping had been easier but the pain still was present. The chiropractor felt the tightness and found a number of areas of localized pain in my leg which he helped me work out. He also helped me get my hips back in the right place and found a knot in my back that he released. I chronically have pretty knotted shoulders - so this was great. I felt sore that day at work, but only took an Aleve (not 800 mg of ibuprofen). By Friday, the pain during sitting or laying was totally gone.
I went back for a check up today and the doctor went back to my areas of localized pain, but still went through my entire leg as he had. One by the back of my knee was still bad - but other hamstring pain had eased up considerably. Instead I discussed with him the abdominal cramps that I regularly suffered from and was able to find similar knotted areas in my external obliques that he could help me release. I'll be curious to see if that takes an effect on that periodic cramping I get while running and biking. He also found similar pain in my left hip flexor (yep, same side at the hamstring thing) and worked that out.
I was and am optimistic. However, I did try running today, and could not even take a few strides without experiencing bad pain. I quit and got on my bike instead which did not irritate the hamstring - but instead bothered my knees. Granted, I took a route with fluctuating grade so the climbing has a tendency to do that.
Ultimately, I am supposed to race next weekend, but now I'm not sure if I can. My brain tells me I just shouldn't, but I was very excited about this race and it upsets me not to go and finish out my season. Right now, I'm considering trying to run again a few times this week. If I am capable of completing any run without hamstring pain, I may still race, but today the future does not look bright.
The worst part about injury is the impatience. I have gotten better - Andrea of old would never have been capable of taking an entire week off, but I did. Still, healing is slow, frustrating, and mentally taxing. At least I can keep up two of the three sports.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Recovery is the road to greatness
For ONCE in my life I actually let myself recover. *PHEW* That was great.
I only worked out twice this week. I did a 52 min run on Thursday and a 2 hour bike today. Both were nice and fast and both felt totally fresh. Gosh. I love recovering. But today's bike has brought me back to the daily grind. I really only have a week and a half of training until I've got my final triathlon of the summer, which I have some decently high hopes for. I'll pack in the workouts until next Wednesday and then really start backing off to taper.
Then it's all biking mixed in with some long runs as I gear up for Tour in September and then another half marathon in October. TIME FOR SOME SWIM RECOVERY. Then I get to do some base building/cross-training. Maybe spend some more time in the yoga studio and the gym. Maybe take a little time off and then it will all. start. all. over. again.
In the mean time, here is a cool video reminding how to sight in open water. I like to sometimes watch these. Even though we may think we know how to do something, sometimes little reminders can wake us up about something we've grown a little complacent about.
Oh and something interesting about time goals. Apparently I'll just be spending the rest of my night reading about tri stuff to get excited about training again.
I only worked out twice this week. I did a 52 min run on Thursday and a 2 hour bike today. Both were nice and fast and both felt totally fresh. Gosh. I love recovering. But today's bike has brought me back to the daily grind. I really only have a week and a half of training until I've got my final triathlon of the summer, which I have some decently high hopes for. I'll pack in the workouts until next Wednesday and then really start backing off to taper.
Then it's all biking mixed in with some long runs as I gear up for Tour in September and then another half marathon in October. TIME FOR SOME SWIM RECOVERY. Then I get to do some base building/cross-training. Maybe spend some more time in the yoga studio and the gym. Maybe take a little time off and then it will all. start. all. over. again.
In the mean time, here is a cool video reminding how to sight in open water. I like to sometimes watch these. Even though we may think we know how to do something, sometimes little reminders can wake us up about something we've grown a little complacent about.
Oh and something interesting about time goals. Apparently I'll just be spending the rest of my night reading about tri stuff to get excited about training again.
Monday, August 5, 2013
BOULDER 70.3 RACE REPORT!!!
Now time for a (not so quick) race report.
WOO HOO! I have a few pictures. YAY
Let us start on Friday. I think this was when it truly hit me that I was doing a 70.3 on Sunday. My stomach was in knots, eating was difficult, and my mom had flown into Denver to watch me do a triathlon for the first time. That night I had dreams about triathlon ...errr...nightmares. About forgetting my wetsuit, and pumping up my tires, and having nothing in transition. It kept waking me up.
Saturday we had beautiful brunch at the hotel my mom stayed at on Friday and Saturday night - then headed up to Boulder for packet pick-up. The ONE SHIRT I was SUPER EXCITED about getting (the one where they put everyone's name in the ironman symbol and 70.3) they left off all the names of the people who were signed up for the whole tri series. :( I was super bummed out - but apparently they are remaking them to include us! This bummed me out a LOT because I had been looking forward to this shirt since signing up for an Ironman Foundation 70.3.
I picked up my packet and started feeling more nervous. We headed over to Fleet Feet so my friend Adam could pick up his wetsuit that was being repaired and then got lunch, which I had to force down. We had dinner later that night at the same great Italian place I had gone to the year before before my last half ironman after which, I headed home and tried hard to sleep but struggled. I had finally started feeling relaxed after having been able to comfortably eat a big dinner and listen to the mini storm pour down next to my window, but sleep was still tough.
I had an alarm set for 3:30 but got up multiple times throughout the night - ultimately waking myself up at 3:10. I got ready and felt anxious and tired, but calm. I had to remind myself to just be happy so I put on Beyoncé and sort of bopped around while getting ready to take the edge off. It was kind of a blast...
I picked up my mom and we headed to Boulder, only to wait in a HUGE line of slow-moving cars. I finally got into the lot and had to trek a little way to transition. MAN were we crammed in there. I had maybe 8 inches of space for myself. It's funny though - the more adept you get at tri the less space you actually need in transition.
Before really having transition set up I started out on my warm up run and bike. The run felt great - I felt strong and fast. I would love to do a 10k one of these days. I really think I'm getting back to where I was. On the bike I had shoddily taped down my EnduroBites and they fell off as I was going up a hill. Unfortunately this caused 2 casualties to slip out onto the road. I stopped to pick up the ones still in the bag (2) but left the 2 all ready on the road just laying there. I was pretty upset because that was 200 cal of my nutrition plan gone. I did bring extra Gu and had not truly counted my gatorade in nutrition intake, but I was bummed because I was really excited to eat these damn things.
I got in a decent warm-up in each of the three sports and as I was leaving the transition area to put on my wetsuit for a swim warm-up, I looked down to find next to nothing. My bike had the shoes on it. All liquid and nutrition right on it. Watch attached to the handlebars. Helmet in the aero bars with glasses in the helmet (along with my 2 remaining EnduroBites so I could throw them in my back pocket). All together, a self-sufficient entity. Next to the tire sat my running shoes, with socks on top, with race belt on top, with hat on top, with a gu on top (order in which I wanted to deal with everything). So just my bike, and a tiny pile on my running shoes. That's all. REALLY? Yep.
My option for the swim warm up was to jump in a tiny roped off area and join the spinning wheel of death...or as normal people would call it, a ton of people circle swimming in a tiny little area. So I did and it wasn't as violent as I anticipated, but I only got in 3/4 of a loop before they were singing the National Anthem and it was uncool to keep swimming.
I joined my mom on the beach and I didn't feel like standing in my corral too soon. I knew just standing there silently would just make me anxious and I probably didn't go off until a half hour after the pros started so it was a good call. I finally did join my group with more than enough "standing there" time. I actually like that all though we sort of went off in a wave they only let us into the water one-by-one so I went off with about 10-15 people and not....100.
The water in the reservoir was very warm this time around, unlike my last 3 races where getting out into the res has been very cold. It was very convenient that the buoys were spaced every 100 m - SUPER easy to sight and nice to track your progress in a relatable way.
I now understand why they are doing the start based on projected finish time of the swim leg....and it is crap for me but I guess that is was being a slow-but-confident swimmer gets you. What I mean is, so because I'm slow I get stuck with people who are slow because they freak out and start backstroking/breaststroking/treading water. *sigh* It's awful. You'll be swimming along and BOOM - foot to the face. That happened at least twice on this course. Some violent breaststrokers walloped me in the face. AWESOME. One hit my lip so hard and it made me so frustrated I felt like crying on the swim....but I didn't. There is no crying in triathlon. Not until the end of the race.
So somehow I managed to deal with these people. I understand it would be even more frustrating for someone swimming 10 minutes faster than I do, so I guess that's what I get for being confident, strong, and slow. I've really just got to work on that to get around these people. New motivating force.
As I spotted the last turn buoy I thought of my friend Will who always said "there is no reason to not just go all out on the swim." I think I was around 1200m at that point so I knew I wouldn't burn out, and I picked it up. In my head I kept thinking "pull-flick, pull-flick, pull-breathe. pull-flick, pull-flick, pull-breathe" except for the occasional "pull-sight-breathe." I focused on scooping the water underneath me with a considerable amount of force. I felt like one of those taffy-pulling machines you see on boardwalks or at carnivals. The water was salt water taffy and my arms were little metal hooks constantly revolving, stretching, pulling.
Eventually, of course, I started sighting the swim finish arch. I saw lots of people standing around me but of course I waited as I always do to hit the sand with my fingers. When I pushed out of the water and started running I looked down to "45:36," which made me pretty happy to see. I ultimately crossed the timing mat a few seconds later. That said, it was consistent with last year and the time I wanted to see out of the water. Lately my 100m fast repeats have been around 2:10s but I'm not too upset about 2:22s in open water for an extended period of time. I'll work on the newly found speed translating to long distance. (For those of you working in yards: 2:10 ~ 1:58s, 2:22s ~ 2:10s).
In T1 I was happy to find there were still bikes from girls in my age group sitting around to be picked up. YAY I WASN'T THE SLOWEST SWIMMER!! My mom also had a pretty funny sign ready for me that made me laugh. Smiling because of funny signs can totally pick-up the mood of your race and it did for me. I felt less serious and remembered that... HEY, THIS IS FUN. I LIKE DOING ALL THESE EVENTS. I stuffed the EnduroBars in my pocket and off I went. I had a pretty smooth start though had trouble getting my right foot in the shoe. I ultimately pulled it off and put my foot in again and everything was better.
I dislike starting off bike rides on Jay Road with a few small but steep hills - just not the way anyone wants to "get settled in." Going up Jay and then up 36 was even easier than I remembered from previous races. I just pedaled my little heart out at a nice high cadence. I thought back to Katy's race report she had sent over the tri club listserv and for the first half tried to stay one gear easier than I thought I could really push. I still was passing people up 36 and a some of the rolling hills there.
We came up to one major descent and I thought of a funny article about being in a relationship with a triathlete in which the more intense husband says to his wife "That's it. I'm taking off your brakes. You don't need them." It was congested and people were sitting up on their TT bikes on a HUGE downhill. I thought "this is the whole POINT of a TT bike" so I geared out, tucked in, and swung out left. There was another guy about 50 ft up doing the same thing. Knees to top tube, I stormed down the hill passing probably 20-30 people holding on their brakes. HECK YES. It was definitely a rush and a little scary but a ton of fun.
As I came up on the 15 mile mark around 50 min I was pretty happy with myself. I hadn't gone out too hard and the climbing and descents had evened out. I knew hitting 30 around 1:45 would be saweeeet so I just tried to keep a consistent pace down Ute Highway - a nice fast flat with a big old shoulder that I love riding. I even looked down counting my cadence, which was a solid 90 rpm. Go me! Mind you - I don't have speed on my bike right now so everything is perceived exertion and math. I knew I wanted each increment of 5 miles to be consistently under 20 min, and I knew I wanted to hit 35 around 2 hours.
My other big goal was just eating consistently and a lot. I focused on downing 100 cal every 35 min plus being consistent in drinking my gatorade. Funny the EnduroBars I was so excited about weren't very good hot and squished up - so I was glad to only have to eat two. The chocolate Gus later ended up being much more of a treat. Other than that every time I sat up I knew it was time to pull some water from my auxiliary water bottle and CHUG CHUG CHUG.
Out into the back half of the course, things slowed down - more hills, slower riding, but again I strived for consistency. I came up on 30 at 1:42 and thought "yes, 35 at 2hr is IN THE BAG." Well, it sort of was. I hit 35 after some false flats at 2 hrs and a few seconds change. I was probably at an average of 17.39. At least at that point the 4 gnarly hills were over and it was smooth sailing in. After that mile marker we had 5 miles of beautiful course and I thought "hmm wonder if I can do these 5 miles in 15 minutes." With only 21 miles left I took the gamble and picked it up a bit. Riding through the 40 mile marker at 2:14 and change I was pretty impressed with myself. I knew at this point I would be smashing my time goal of 3:15 because I only had 16 miles left and it was not going to take an hour. I knew the course ahead and it was a gentle 16 miles.
We came up to a bottle exchange and there were people dangling chomps and bananas. Remember the 200 calories I had dropped, I said aloud "Ooo BANANA!" I swung in to the exchange which I usually just pass right by and said "BANANA ME!" One of the volunteers thought it was pretty funny and I successfully gnabbed a banana that I got pretty excited about. Finally clear of the exchanged, I got back into aero and sat there eating my banana. I felt like a happy monkey who had successfully managed to get the best treat EVER.
Soon thereafter I passed a 50 year-old woman and she said "WOW. I wish I tried these when I was 23!" And I said "try 20!" and we talked briefly about how tri is getting more popular at colleges and then I sped off.
Coming in, I was beginning to wonder if I would even break 3 hours on the bike. I was having some pretty fast riding through mile 50 - but the trek up diagonal highway was harder than I anticipated. The last time I did it, I had fresh legs and was holding on to wheels ahead of me. It was still a good bike ride because as I came down Jay road around 3:08 I knew the ride ahead would not take me 7 mins. I pulled into transition with a time of 3:11 and was pretty darn proud of myself. My hydration and nutrition had been spectacular and my running legs felt good. YAY PACING.
That said, around the second aid station after mile 1, I thought "hm, maybe my hydration was a little too spectacular." However, the porto-potty at that aid station was being moseyed into by another lady who didn't look too serious about hurrying in and out and I wasn't about to wait around to find out. I resolved I could hold it to the next stop. After mile 2 they had 2 potties! HOORAY! Both were vacant so I jumped in one for a quick pit stop. That made me feel so much better! I jumped out and grabbed an icy sponge from a volunteer and kept running. Honestly, I felt pretty good. I saw Adam after mile 3 with the rest of my tri club. "Perform?" He said "No but I want a high five!" His hands were full, so I bonked him on the forehead. After the fact, I wondered if I could get docked for assaulting a volunteer, even if he was my friend. Oops.
I plodded through mile 4, meeting a guy who said "Are you a recent grad of Northwestern?" I said "Yep, not this year, but last year." His response was "Oh man, I'm class of '78," to which I said "GO CATS!" and continued on. But then mile 5 got harder. :/ I started walking for a bit. Mile 6-7 I worked on running consistently except through the aid stations. Some people thought it was demoralizing to run past the finish line, but I knew these people were quick. I had spent the whole race telling myself to run my own race - not run after others in my age group. I had goals I wanted to meet....so I did. I came through the first lap in about 71 minutes - with walking aid stations, hills, trail, and a potty break, I wasn't too upset about that.
Mile 8-9 was THE WORST. Oh man. There are two big old hills in the first two miles of the loop and the first time they kind of sucked but this time they REALLY sucked. I was Walkers McGee just walking my little heart out. I had a gel in my pocket, but I was saving it (for whatever reason) so I took a PB chocolate bonk breaker off the aid station at mile 7 and that was..digesting. It made my stomach feel weird and sort of sloshy when I ran. I wish I had just taken my damn gel. By mile 9 I got some more water and ice at the same stop I had taken a bathroom break. I started talking to an older woman next to me. It was her first half ironman. I told her "well, if it is any consolation - it gets easier when you do your second one." She was still smiling and I was proud of her. With this, I think my bonk breaker digested and I started feeling better and running again.
Then I met Jacqueline who became my race buddy for the end of the race. I passed her and she said "Good pace, girl, I'm going to try to stick with you but it won't last long." We talked about how it was both of our second half ironmans and we were both doing much better than last year. We passed the Rocky Mountain Tri Club aid station and Adam yelled "LESS TALKING MORE RUNNING!" to which I said "Adam. I am keeping my HR down so I can actually finish this thing!" Which he thought was fair, and gave me some words of encouragement. I started walking and grabbed some water and ice again. Jacqueline didn't want to stop running if she didn't have to so I lost her for a bit. But my consistent pace was faster than hers when I was actually running so I caught her a bit down the road. It went on like this for a while. I'd catch her, we'd talk, I'd pass her, then I'd start walking up a hill/through an aid station, she'd pass...I'd catch her...etc. We rounded the last aid station, which I walked and she started walking but she was right with me. We ran in about a half mile together and realized we lived blocks away from each other in Glendale. Funny stuff. Ultimately, I did end up passing her at the very tail end - but her run time was actually 2 min faster over all!
I felt pretty good coming in but very tired. I pushed myself to just keep a decent pace and run it on in. Honestly, my legs were shot and I was sunburnt but happy. Everything, except the swim, had been so much faster than last year and I did exactly what I came to do. I was feeling super dizzy and lightheaded and needed food and recuperation, but all in all it was a great day and I couldn't have asked for a better race!
Looking forward I think I can take the bike a touch harder. I think my run will get better solely with doing more half marathons and getting my paces back to where they used to be. Plus, this was all on a sandy trail in little shade so I'm not too disappointed at all. I think I could do a 2:20 or maybe even a 2:15 half though if my running were just a little better. I am VERY glad I got in my long run last weekend and suffered a lot through some hard runs this year. It made this not seem like too big of a deal. My swimming now just needs some coaching, which I'm going to seek out. If I can pick it up, I can sit in a better start group and encounter fewer obstacles. Honestly, without the kicks to the face, I might've even cracked 45 min yesterday. I'm very proud of my nutrition and hydration plan and I'm definitely going to keep that up.
In the end, it was a great day and a great learning experience. Now to sign up for next year's. ;)
WOO HOO! I have a few pictures. YAY
Let us start on Friday. I think this was when it truly hit me that I was doing a 70.3 on Sunday. My stomach was in knots, eating was difficult, and my mom had flown into Denver to watch me do a triathlon for the first time. That night I had dreams about triathlon ...errr...nightmares. About forgetting my wetsuit, and pumping up my tires, and having nothing in transition. It kept waking me up.
Saturday we had beautiful brunch at the hotel my mom stayed at on Friday and Saturday night - then headed up to Boulder for packet pick-up. The ONE SHIRT I was SUPER EXCITED about getting (the one where they put everyone's name in the ironman symbol and 70.3) they left off all the names of the people who were signed up for the whole tri series. :( I was super bummed out - but apparently they are remaking them to include us! This bummed me out a LOT because I had been looking forward to this shirt since signing up for an Ironman Foundation 70.3.
I picked up my packet and started feeling more nervous. We headed over to Fleet Feet so my friend Adam could pick up his wetsuit that was being repaired and then got lunch, which I had to force down. We had dinner later that night at the same great Italian place I had gone to the year before before my last half ironman after which, I headed home and tried hard to sleep but struggled. I had finally started feeling relaxed after having been able to comfortably eat a big dinner and listen to the mini storm pour down next to my window, but sleep was still tough.
I had an alarm set for 3:30 but got up multiple times throughout the night - ultimately waking myself up at 3:10. I got ready and felt anxious and tired, but calm. I had to remind myself to just be happy so I put on Beyoncé and sort of bopped around while getting ready to take the edge off. It was kind of a blast...
I picked up my mom and we headed to Boulder, only to wait in a HUGE line of slow-moving cars. I finally got into the lot and had to trek a little way to transition. MAN were we crammed in there. I had maybe 8 inches of space for myself. It's funny though - the more adept you get at tri the less space you actually need in transition.
Before really having transition set up I started out on my warm up run and bike. The run felt great - I felt strong and fast. I would love to do a 10k one of these days. I really think I'm getting back to where I was. On the bike I had shoddily taped down my EnduroBites and they fell off as I was going up a hill. Unfortunately this caused 2 casualties to slip out onto the road. I stopped to pick up the ones still in the bag (2) but left the 2 all ready on the road just laying there. I was pretty upset because that was 200 cal of my nutrition plan gone. I did bring extra Gu and had not truly counted my gatorade in nutrition intake, but I was bummed because I was really excited to eat these damn things.
I got in a decent warm-up in each of the three sports and as I was leaving the transition area to put on my wetsuit for a swim warm-up, I looked down to find next to nothing. My bike had the shoes on it. All liquid and nutrition right on it. Watch attached to the handlebars. Helmet in the aero bars with glasses in the helmet (along with my 2 remaining EnduroBites so I could throw them in my back pocket). All together, a self-sufficient entity. Next to the tire sat my running shoes, with socks on top, with race belt on top, with hat on top, with a gu on top (order in which I wanted to deal with everything). So just my bike, and a tiny pile on my running shoes. That's all. REALLY? Yep.
My option for the swim warm up was to jump in a tiny roped off area and join the spinning wheel of death...or as normal people would call it, a ton of people circle swimming in a tiny little area. So I did and it wasn't as violent as I anticipated, but I only got in 3/4 of a loop before they were singing the National Anthem and it was uncool to keep swimming.
 |
| pre-race, drinking my gatorade as usual |
I joined my mom on the beach and I didn't feel like standing in my corral too soon. I knew just standing there silently would just make me anxious and I probably didn't go off until a half hour after the pros started so it was a good call. I finally did join my group with more than enough "standing there" time. I actually like that all though we sort of went off in a wave they only let us into the water one-by-one so I went off with about 10-15 people and not....100.
The water in the reservoir was very warm this time around, unlike my last 3 races where getting out into the res has been very cold. It was very convenient that the buoys were spaced every 100 m - SUPER easy to sight and nice to track your progress in a relatable way.
I now understand why they are doing the start based on projected finish time of the swim leg....and it is crap for me but I guess that is was being a slow-but-confident swimmer gets you. What I mean is, so because I'm slow I get stuck with people who are slow because they freak out and start backstroking/breaststroking/treading water. *sigh* It's awful. You'll be swimming along and BOOM - foot to the face. That happened at least twice on this course. Some violent breaststrokers walloped me in the face. AWESOME. One hit my lip so hard and it made me so frustrated I felt like crying on the swim....but I didn't. There is no crying in triathlon. Not until the end of the race.
So somehow I managed to deal with these people. I understand it would be even more frustrating for someone swimming 10 minutes faster than I do, so I guess that's what I get for being confident, strong, and slow. I've really just got to work on that to get around these people. New motivating force.
As I spotted the last turn buoy I thought of my friend Will who always said "there is no reason to not just go all out on the swim." I think I was around 1200m at that point so I knew I wouldn't burn out, and I picked it up. In my head I kept thinking "pull-flick, pull-flick, pull-breathe. pull-flick, pull-flick, pull-breathe" except for the occasional "pull-sight-breathe." I focused on scooping the water underneath me with a considerable amount of force. I felt like one of those taffy-pulling machines you see on boardwalks or at carnivals. The water was salt water taffy and my arms were little metal hooks constantly revolving, stretching, pulling.
Eventually, of course, I started sighting the swim finish arch. I saw lots of people standing around me but of course I waited as I always do to hit the sand with my fingers. When I pushed out of the water and started running I looked down to "45:36," which made me pretty happy to see. I ultimately crossed the timing mat a few seconds later. That said, it was consistent with last year and the time I wanted to see out of the water. Lately my 100m fast repeats have been around 2:10s but I'm not too upset about 2:22s in open water for an extended period of time. I'll work on the newly found speed translating to long distance. (For those of you working in yards: 2:10 ~ 1:58s, 2:22s ~ 2:10s).
In T1 I was happy to find there were still bikes from girls in my age group sitting around to be picked up. YAY I WASN'T THE SLOWEST SWIMMER!! My mom also had a pretty funny sign ready for me that made me laugh. Smiling because of funny signs can totally pick-up the mood of your race and it did for me. I felt less serious and remembered that... HEY, THIS IS FUN. I LIKE DOING ALL THESE EVENTS. I stuffed the EnduroBars in my pocket and off I went. I had a pretty smooth start though had trouble getting my right foot in the shoe. I ultimately pulled it off and put my foot in again and everything was better.
 |
| hauling out of T1 |
We came up to one major descent and I thought of a funny article about being in a relationship with a triathlete in which the more intense husband says to his wife "That's it. I'm taking off your brakes. You don't need them." It was congested and people were sitting up on their TT bikes on a HUGE downhill. I thought "this is the whole POINT of a TT bike" so I geared out, tucked in, and swung out left. There was another guy about 50 ft up doing the same thing. Knees to top tube, I stormed down the hill passing probably 20-30 people holding on their brakes. HECK YES. It was definitely a rush and a little scary but a ton of fun.
As I came up on the 15 mile mark around 50 min I was pretty happy with myself. I hadn't gone out too hard and the climbing and descents had evened out. I knew hitting 30 around 1:45 would be saweeeet so I just tried to keep a consistent pace down Ute Highway - a nice fast flat with a big old shoulder that I love riding. I even looked down counting my cadence, which was a solid 90 rpm. Go me! Mind you - I don't have speed on my bike right now so everything is perceived exertion and math. I knew I wanted each increment of 5 miles to be consistently under 20 min, and I knew I wanted to hit 35 around 2 hours.
My other big goal was just eating consistently and a lot. I focused on downing 100 cal every 35 min plus being consistent in drinking my gatorade. Funny the EnduroBars I was so excited about weren't very good hot and squished up - so I was glad to only have to eat two. The chocolate Gus later ended up being much more of a treat. Other than that every time I sat up I knew it was time to pull some water from my auxiliary water bottle and CHUG CHUG CHUG.
Out into the back half of the course, things slowed down - more hills, slower riding, but again I strived for consistency. I came up on 30 at 1:42 and thought "yes, 35 at 2hr is IN THE BAG." Well, it sort of was. I hit 35 after some false flats at 2 hrs and a few seconds change. I was probably at an average of 17.39. At least at that point the 4 gnarly hills were over and it was smooth sailing in. After that mile marker we had 5 miles of beautiful course and I thought "hmm wonder if I can do these 5 miles in 15 minutes." With only 21 miles left I took the gamble and picked it up a bit. Riding through the 40 mile marker at 2:14 and change I was pretty impressed with myself. I knew at this point I would be smashing my time goal of 3:15 because I only had 16 miles left and it was not going to take an hour. I knew the course ahead and it was a gentle 16 miles.
We came up to a bottle exchange and there were people dangling chomps and bananas. Remember the 200 calories I had dropped, I said aloud "Ooo BANANA!" I swung in to the exchange which I usually just pass right by and said "BANANA ME!" One of the volunteers thought it was pretty funny and I successfully gnabbed a banana that I got pretty excited about. Finally clear of the exchanged, I got back into aero and sat there eating my banana. I felt like a happy monkey who had successfully managed to get the best treat EVER.
Soon thereafter I passed a 50 year-old woman and she said "WOW. I wish I tried these when I was 23!" And I said "try 20!" and we talked briefly about how tri is getting more popular at colleges and then I sped off.
Coming in, I was beginning to wonder if I would even break 3 hours on the bike. I was having some pretty fast riding through mile 50 - but the trek up diagonal highway was harder than I anticipated. The last time I did it, I had fresh legs and was holding on to wheels ahead of me. It was still a good bike ride because as I came down Jay road around 3:08 I knew the ride ahead would not take me 7 mins. I pulled into transition with a time of 3:11 and was pretty darn proud of myself. My hydration and nutrition had been spectacular and my running legs felt good. YAY PACING.
That said, around the second aid station after mile 1, I thought "hm, maybe my hydration was a little too spectacular." However, the porto-potty at that aid station was being moseyed into by another lady who didn't look too serious about hurrying in and out and I wasn't about to wait around to find out. I resolved I could hold it to the next stop. After mile 2 they had 2 potties! HOORAY! Both were vacant so I jumped in one for a quick pit stop. That made me feel so much better! I jumped out and grabbed an icy sponge from a volunteer and kept running. Honestly, I felt pretty good. I saw Adam after mile 3 with the rest of my tri club. "Perform?" He said "No but I want a high five!" His hands were full, so I bonked him on the forehead. After the fact, I wondered if I could get docked for assaulting a volunteer, even if he was my friend. Oops.
I plodded through mile 4, meeting a guy who said "Are you a recent grad of Northwestern?" I said "Yep, not this year, but last year." His response was "Oh man, I'm class of '78," to which I said "GO CATS!" and continued on. But then mile 5 got harder. :/ I started walking for a bit. Mile 6-7 I worked on running consistently except through the aid stations. Some people thought it was demoralizing to run past the finish line, but I knew these people were quick. I had spent the whole race telling myself to run my own race - not run after others in my age group. I had goals I wanted to meet....so I did. I came through the first lap in about 71 minutes - with walking aid stations, hills, trail, and a potty break, I wasn't too upset about that.
Mile 8-9 was THE WORST. Oh man. There are two big old hills in the first two miles of the loop and the first time they kind of sucked but this time they REALLY sucked. I was Walkers McGee just walking my little heart out. I had a gel in my pocket, but I was saving it (for whatever reason) so I took a PB chocolate bonk breaker off the aid station at mile 7 and that was..digesting. It made my stomach feel weird and sort of sloshy when I ran. I wish I had just taken my damn gel. By mile 9 I got some more water and ice at the same stop I had taken a bathroom break. I started talking to an older woman next to me. It was her first half ironman. I told her "well, if it is any consolation - it gets easier when you do your second one." She was still smiling and I was proud of her. With this, I think my bonk breaker digested and I started feeling better and running again.
Then I met Jacqueline who became my race buddy for the end of the race. I passed her and she said "Good pace, girl, I'm going to try to stick with you but it won't last long." We talked about how it was both of our second half ironmans and we were both doing much better than last year. We passed the Rocky Mountain Tri Club aid station and Adam yelled "LESS TALKING MORE RUNNING!" to which I said "Adam. I am keeping my HR down so I can actually finish this thing!" Which he thought was fair, and gave me some words of encouragement. I started walking and grabbed some water and ice again. Jacqueline didn't want to stop running if she didn't have to so I lost her for a bit. But my consistent pace was faster than hers when I was actually running so I caught her a bit down the road. It went on like this for a while. I'd catch her, we'd talk, I'd pass her, then I'd start walking up a hill/through an aid station, she'd pass...I'd catch her...etc. We rounded the last aid station, which I walked and she started walking but she was right with me. We ran in about a half mile together and realized we lived blocks away from each other in Glendale. Funny stuff. Ultimately, I did end up passing her at the very tail end - but her run time was actually 2 min faster over all!
I felt pretty good coming in but very tired. I pushed myself to just keep a decent pace and run it on in. Honestly, my legs were shot and I was sunburnt but happy. Everything, except the swim, had been so much faster than last year and I did exactly what I came to do. I was feeling super dizzy and lightheaded and needed food and recuperation, but all in all it was a great day and I couldn't have asked for a better race!
 |
| Yay for being donezo. Look at my hyper-extending knees! haha |
Looking forward I think I can take the bike a touch harder. I think my run will get better solely with doing more half marathons and getting my paces back to where they used to be. Plus, this was all on a sandy trail in little shade so I'm not too disappointed at all. I think I could do a 2:20 or maybe even a 2:15 half though if my running were just a little better. I am VERY glad I got in my long run last weekend and suffered a lot through some hard runs this year. It made this not seem like too big of a deal. My swimming now just needs some coaching, which I'm going to seek out. If I can pick it up, I can sit in a better start group and encounter fewer obstacles. Honestly, without the kicks to the face, I might've even cracked 45 min yesterday. I'm very proud of my nutrition and hydration plan and I'm definitely going to keep that up.
In the end, it was a great day and a great learning experience. Now to sign up for next year's. ;)
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Thinking about nutrition
Today I had a very cool opportunity with Rocky Mountain Tri Club to listen to some pretty awesome pro triathletes talk about the quadratic formula.
So the pros were Liz Blatchford, Rachel Joyce, Drew Scott, and Tim Don. The talked a lot about training and the idea of 20-30 hours/wk blew my mind. I have to FIGHT to get in 10 and last summer the few times I got in 12 or 13 really wore me down. Can't imagine double that.
....No just kidding. They talked about triathlon obviously.
So the pros were Liz Blatchford, Rachel Joyce, Drew Scott, and Tim Don. The talked a lot about training and the idea of 20-30 hours/wk blew my mind. I have to FIGHT to get in 10 and last summer the few times I got in 12 or 13 really wore me down. Can't imagine double that.
But honestly, what I took away most was something I all ready knew but needed a swift kick in the ass about: nutrition.
Drew Scott talked about 400 cal/hr on the bike. Tim Don said "if you think you need 4-5 gus, take 6-7." And they are both right. As anyone who has been following me knows I have had some rough runs, rides and races all due to nutrition (for some reason, I'm always smart about bringing gatorade to long swim workouts - even so I've had some cramping there too). I need to get my head in the game.
Part of being a woman, especially a woman who did not grow up an athlete and spent the vast majority of her teen years losing a lot of weight, makes me incredibly calories conscious. Sometimes I'll know on a workout I need more nutrition, but the thought of losing the calories in weight will nag at me. If I don't think I need it, I won't take it to gain the extra 200-calorie loss. God. That's dumb isn't it? I probably burn 1500 cal on the average bike ride. I can give an extra 100 cal to nutrition. We'll call it a July resolution: take the damn nutrition supplement.
But most importantly, it reminded me my idea for Boulder is right. When I bought my nutrition last week at Tribella, I bought double what I intended upon buying. So originally I planned 2 gus and 1 pack of enduro bites: 600 cal (plus gatorade on the bike and sport beans on the run - so maybe 800 for the whole race). I'm glad I did because while the extra pack of EnduroBites are staying home (or in the cooler), those Gus are getting taped somewhere just in case I feel so inspired to eat them.
I am determined to have a good race, or at least a better race than last time. It all starts with getting all my ducks in a row.
On an uplifting note, here's a picture of me with Tim Don at Runner's Roost.
Monday, July 22, 2013
EnduroBites on a LONG training day
Yesterday was a long day. I spent 3 morning hours on a bike, then 1 afternoon running and 1 evening doing yoga. PHEW I'm wiped. But luckily I kept my refueling in check and I was able to DO all this yesterday. During the ride, I brought with some EnduroBites which are apparently just BARELY launching on to the market.
I was introduced to these one day when I ran into Tribella to get my cassette to stop rattling - but it cost me next to nothing and mid-ride all I had was a credit card so I resolved to buy something else. Liz suggested I try some of these - so I got one of each flavor - fig & chocolate and chocolate espresso. I threw them in the fridge when I got home. Well OH MY GAWSH. One night I got hungry after a workout and wasn't much in the mood for anything but a small snack so I tore open the fig & chocolate. These were so good that they never actually made it on a workout with me. I only ate them pre/post workout because they were so delicious and starring at me.
The chocolate espresso made it a little further out on a 10-mile run and a 53-mile bike. I didn't love these as MUCH as the fig & chocolate (and trust me...I'm a coffee fanatic). I found these to be a little more grainy, which didn't suit my tastes as well.
For other athletes I'd say this - these are the best when they are cold. Keep them in the fridge (as the package instructs anyway). If you aren't one for heavy food, these probably won't be your favorite for racing. I'd compare them to Picky Bars and Larabars - less sticky and gooey than both. I'm a big fan of chocolate during races - chocolate gus, specifically. So another chocolate-flavored nutrition was a good call. I like that they are all natural. So, broken down:
pros:
yummy
all-natural
cons:
heavy
grainy
Take that as you will - but I'm totally buying a pack of fig & chocolate to eat on Aug 4 at Boulder 70.3. One of my friends once told me "bring something on the bike you look forward to eating" which I feel is TOTALLY valid for an ironman or half. I'll look forward to chowing down on a pack of these guys. The packaging is tough to open - so pre-cutting is necessary. Also, each pack has four bites so they are pretty sizeable. You may want to divide them out in individual saran wrap/tin foil/something.
The tumblr is pretty cool too - so check it: http://endurobites.tumblr.com/
Monday, July 15, 2013
Boulder Peak Triathlon
The plan was to get up and swim this morning....instead I slept for 10 hours and still feel like a ton of bricks. So I have found myself with some extra time this morning, since I'm not working out, I will sit here eating my peanut butter and banana sandwich and recount yesterday's agony.
I knew yesterday would be hard when a friend of mine pointed out there is a 5-mile continuous climb on the bike course. Plus, I probably didn't taper as well or as much as I should have. This will NOT be an issue for the 70.3 in 3 weeks.
The morning started out rough. I was running late and missed my opportunity to have a swim warm up. Then I realized I'd forgotten to leave my sunglasses in transition (they were on my face...) but was luckily able to get a volunteer to drop them into my helmet for me.
Yesterday we were once again seeded by swim time. This time instead of fastest 100y it was how long we thought the 1500 would take us. I lined up with the 33-36 min crew. The challenge to this, once again, is the number of people in this time bracket who spend a good portion of the swim freaking out. Though I'm not very fast, I still swim strong the whole time, so this gets tough. One woman (I'm unsure if she was actually doing something different or just doing free) hit me in the face just a few 100m out. That BLEW because it knocked my goggles off my face and got water in them. So I stopped to let the water out. Unfortunately, pushing the goggles back on my face too hard brought on a headache a few 100m later which I just dealt with through the rest of the swim. Man, getting those goggles off was great.
I also encountered people breaststroking, backstroking, life guard swimming...it's just a mess out there. I wish we were faster but I guess this is what I get for being slow. Once guy was doing a good pace free so I was sitting in his draft when he flipped over into back and slowed down tremendously. So I waited for him to pass because I was on his left and he started swimming into me with no idea where he was going...and went around him on the right. In the end, I stopped my watch at 35:40 (which was the time we crossed the mats to run from the beach into the water, to the time I hit the mats to take me to transition.
Unfortunately the results aren't up yet, so I don't have the real times for you.
T1 felt very long. The day before they told us we had to wear our bib numbers on our backs so that was just ONE MORE thing to worry about. Plus, I brought my road bike for the climbing so that just sort of added to the chaos - no easy place to leave my helmet, my sunglasses were just sitting in it. But I took my time. I knew rushing and panicking would probably only make t1 longer.
The bike started as every course has in Boulder. Up a very very slight grade to get to 36, which I would guess varies between a 1-2% grade in the beginning. So not too bad, but slower than you'd like to be moving. Than a turn on to Lee Hill rd. which I'm going to say sits nicely between 4-7% the whole time. Then you turn slightly right as the road turns into Old Stage and BAM 15% grade. Have fun.
For those of you who aren't familiar with gradients - this is steep. VERY VERY steep. In the Tour de France the announcers will start freaking out about 10% grades. I was going about 5 mph the whole time (very very slow for a road bike) and lots of people just got off their bikes all together and walked it. I was all kinds of determined not to walk up that hill... so I didn't. I was a little concerned by people around me swerving their way up, mildly worried about the prospect of crashing. But I didn't do that either.
It actually ended up being a ton of fun. For once I let my competitive self go. I didn't care about passing people (though I did pass them) and I mustered up energy to cheer on people around me here/there when I knew they were struggling. There were lots of spectators lining the hill to watch us struggle, screaming, cheering. There were people in costumes with loud music playing at the top at the bottle exchange.
On the back end there were some rollers and then one big descent with a speed limit! It was only for a short section but there was a speed of 35 imposed and they had both a huge digital read-out set up and a cop sitting at the bottom of the hill with a speed gun to catch us. I kept myself at 32-33 so as to not get dq'ed - but I ABSOLUTELY see how someone could hit 40 without a problem.
The nice part was that after all this, we descended a TON so we had about 10 miles of some nice quick course. I geared out twice and threw my knees into my top tube and my head down as close to the handlebars as I could get it. As we turned onto 63rd, I knew the road very well and knew I had some rollers in store. My hamstrings were really starting to feel it though and I definitely wasn't at my best for this part.
Coming into t2, it looked like the course took me about 1:26 which given the fact that it was longer than your average olympic course and much much harder, I wasn't too upset with. I had a long run back to my rack from bike-in over the same really awful, painful asphalt and so I just walked it. My feet were numb and I wasn't having it.
I started out on the run feeling pretty okay. I felt heroic during my run warm-up. Heck, if all I had to do was a 10k yesterday I think I would've smoked it. The first mile I came through at a smooth 9:30 - which isn't as fast as I would want but it wasn't all that bad. Mile 2 came and after that came the twisting and turning, seemingly unending trail of mild rolling hills. I wasn't happy. I walked up the first hill because I just had not too much left. My feet started to blister in my shoes and my breathing felt shallow. I knew it couldn't be because of altitude because I've been here too long, but man it felt like I was suddenly at 10,000 feet.
I rounded the half way point feeling like crap. There were two girls around me in my age group though so catching them was a priority that moved me forward. One, just after I passed her, asked the volunteer if they had margaritas. I decided I liked her - thought briefly about just running it in with her, but I think she was probably holding 11 min/mil and it was just too slow. Honestly, when I mustered up the energy to run I was probably keeping a decent pace, but I was overcome with the blisters and exhaustion more often than I wanted to be.
I passed the other girl and hit the 5-mile mark, but that last mile was lacking a severe amount of motivation. Lisa Norden passed me and I thought "Whoa. COOL!" so I ran a little because it's LISA NORDEN! But then I had nothing left and walked again... the other girl in my AG came running by and I tried to hang but just couldn't do it anymore - especially not with the extreme pain from the blisters. At mile 3 I knew I was no longer racing, I was just "finishing" and that really did nothing for my motivation to go fast...or go at all.
I think I ended up finishing at around 3:12 which is a terrible time for me. About 13 minutes longer than my last olympic this season. My bf met me at the finish line and I exploited his medic knowledge in saying "I need you to help me take off my shoes. It isn't going to be pretty." His response "well, at least you aren't bleeding" - which was true. I've just got lots of tiny blisters all over these feet of mine.
All in all, it was trying. While it was slow and not a very good race for me, it made me feel pretty excited for the 70.3. No huge hill anymore, a longer swim I can handle. And my goal is 11:30s on the run, which I imagine I will suffer through similarly to how I did this one (which I'm assuming was about 10:30s). With just a little more training and nutrition, we'll see how it goes!
I knew yesterday would be hard when a friend of mine pointed out there is a 5-mile continuous climb on the bike course. Plus, I probably didn't taper as well or as much as I should have. This will NOT be an issue for the 70.3 in 3 weeks.
The morning started out rough. I was running late and missed my opportunity to have a swim warm up. Then I realized I'd forgotten to leave my sunglasses in transition (they were on my face...) but was luckily able to get a volunteer to drop them into my helmet for me.
Yesterday we were once again seeded by swim time. This time instead of fastest 100y it was how long we thought the 1500 would take us. I lined up with the 33-36 min crew. The challenge to this, once again, is the number of people in this time bracket who spend a good portion of the swim freaking out. Though I'm not very fast, I still swim strong the whole time, so this gets tough. One woman (I'm unsure if she was actually doing something different or just doing free) hit me in the face just a few 100m out. That BLEW because it knocked my goggles off my face and got water in them. So I stopped to let the water out. Unfortunately, pushing the goggles back on my face too hard brought on a headache a few 100m later which I just dealt with through the rest of the swim. Man, getting those goggles off was great.
I also encountered people breaststroking, backstroking, life guard swimming...it's just a mess out there. I wish we were faster but I guess this is what I get for being slow. Once guy was doing a good pace free so I was sitting in his draft when he flipped over into back and slowed down tremendously. So I waited for him to pass because I was on his left and he started swimming into me with no idea where he was going...and went around him on the right. In the end, I stopped my watch at 35:40 (which was the time we crossed the mats to run from the beach into the water, to the time I hit the mats to take me to transition.
Unfortunately the results aren't up yet, so I don't have the real times for you.
T1 felt very long. The day before they told us we had to wear our bib numbers on our backs so that was just ONE MORE thing to worry about. Plus, I brought my road bike for the climbing so that just sort of added to the chaos - no easy place to leave my helmet, my sunglasses were just sitting in it. But I took my time. I knew rushing and panicking would probably only make t1 longer.
The bike started as every course has in Boulder. Up a very very slight grade to get to 36, which I would guess varies between a 1-2% grade in the beginning. So not too bad, but slower than you'd like to be moving. Than a turn on to Lee Hill rd. which I'm going to say sits nicely between 4-7% the whole time. Then you turn slightly right as the road turns into Old Stage and BAM 15% grade. Have fun.
For those of you who aren't familiar with gradients - this is steep. VERY VERY steep. In the Tour de France the announcers will start freaking out about 10% grades. I was going about 5 mph the whole time (very very slow for a road bike) and lots of people just got off their bikes all together and walked it. I was all kinds of determined not to walk up that hill... so I didn't. I was a little concerned by people around me swerving their way up, mildly worried about the prospect of crashing. But I didn't do that either.
It actually ended up being a ton of fun. For once I let my competitive self go. I didn't care about passing people (though I did pass them) and I mustered up energy to cheer on people around me here/there when I knew they were struggling. There were lots of spectators lining the hill to watch us struggle, screaming, cheering. There were people in costumes with loud music playing at the top at the bottle exchange.
On the back end there were some rollers and then one big descent with a speed limit! It was only for a short section but there was a speed of 35 imposed and they had both a huge digital read-out set up and a cop sitting at the bottom of the hill with a speed gun to catch us. I kept myself at 32-33 so as to not get dq'ed - but I ABSOLUTELY see how someone could hit 40 without a problem.
The nice part was that after all this, we descended a TON so we had about 10 miles of some nice quick course. I geared out twice and threw my knees into my top tube and my head down as close to the handlebars as I could get it. As we turned onto 63rd, I knew the road very well and knew I had some rollers in store. My hamstrings were really starting to feel it though and I definitely wasn't at my best for this part.
Coming into t2, it looked like the course took me about 1:26 which given the fact that it was longer than your average olympic course and much much harder, I wasn't too upset with. I had a long run back to my rack from bike-in over the same really awful, painful asphalt and so I just walked it. My feet were numb and I wasn't having it.
I started out on the run feeling pretty okay. I felt heroic during my run warm-up. Heck, if all I had to do was a 10k yesterday I think I would've smoked it. The first mile I came through at a smooth 9:30 - which isn't as fast as I would want but it wasn't all that bad. Mile 2 came and after that came the twisting and turning, seemingly unending trail of mild rolling hills. I wasn't happy. I walked up the first hill because I just had not too much left. My feet started to blister in my shoes and my breathing felt shallow. I knew it couldn't be because of altitude because I've been here too long, but man it felt like I was suddenly at 10,000 feet.
I rounded the half way point feeling like crap. There were two girls around me in my age group though so catching them was a priority that moved me forward. One, just after I passed her, asked the volunteer if they had margaritas. I decided I liked her - thought briefly about just running it in with her, but I think she was probably holding 11 min/mil and it was just too slow. Honestly, when I mustered up the energy to run I was probably keeping a decent pace, but I was overcome with the blisters and exhaustion more often than I wanted to be.
I passed the other girl and hit the 5-mile mark, but that last mile was lacking a severe amount of motivation. Lisa Norden passed me and I thought "Whoa. COOL!" so I ran a little because it's LISA NORDEN! But then I had nothing left and walked again... the other girl in my AG came running by and I tried to hang but just couldn't do it anymore - especially not with the extreme pain from the blisters. At mile 3 I knew I was no longer racing, I was just "finishing" and that really did nothing for my motivation to go fast...or go at all.
I think I ended up finishing at around 3:12 which is a terrible time for me. About 13 minutes longer than my last olympic this season. My bf met me at the finish line and I exploited his medic knowledge in saying "I need you to help me take off my shoes. It isn't going to be pretty." His response "well, at least you aren't bleeding" - which was true. I've just got lots of tiny blisters all over these feet of mine.
All in all, it was trying. While it was slow and not a very good race for me, it made me feel pretty excited for the 70.3. No huge hill anymore, a longer swim I can handle. And my goal is 11:30s on the run, which I imagine I will suffer through similarly to how I did this one (which I'm assuming was about 10:30s). With just a little more training and nutrition, we'll see how it goes!
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Back in the Saddle
I have 27 days until my next 70.3 and 1 week until my next race.
70.3 training has not been quite as intense as last year, which is sort of a blessing because when I got to race day last year.... I was exhausted. Then again, I am concerned about being less "ready." We will see. My swimming is comparable, my running is actually probably more as I've been in half marathon mode since April and my biking has certainly been less which I know is weird coming from this girl who loves her bikes more than creation.
I knew my needs for long rides have been looming though and since the onset of June I've been working on a 50+ mile ride/week when I'm not racing.
Once again, I spent July 4th on a riding extravaganza. I was told last minute on the 3rd that I would actually have the day off, so I left around 9 am with an estimated goal of a 4-hour ride. Not quite the 73-miler I pulled off last year, but still something.
My TT bike was making weird rattling noises and I needed to take it into the shop before putting more miles on it, so I suited up Isadora to ride:
70.3 training has not been quite as intense as last year, which is sort of a blessing because when I got to race day last year.... I was exhausted. Then again, I am concerned about being less "ready." We will see. My swimming is comparable, my running is actually probably more as I've been in half marathon mode since April and my biking has certainly been less which I know is weird coming from this girl who loves her bikes more than creation.
I knew my needs for long rides have been looming though and since the onset of June I've been working on a 50+ mile ride/week when I'm not racing.
Once again, I spent July 4th on a riding extravaganza. I was told last minute on the 3rd that I would actually have the day off, so I left around 9 am with an estimated goal of a 4-hour ride. Not quite the 73-miler I pulled off last year, but still something.
My TT bike was making weird rattling noises and I needed to take it into the shop before putting more miles on it, so I suited up Isadora to ride:
I unfortunately found my Garmin wasn't working so I did the whole ride off time and my speed monitor on this bike. I ended up climbing the usual path that I often enjoy despite it being very trafficked and into Chatfield where I bike as far as I could until it dead ended and I turned around. Here are some pictures from that.
In the end I knocked out 63 miles at around 16 mph in just a little less than 4 hours. I finally felt good again about distance riding. It didn't hurt too bad until after 60 miles, so that was a good indicator. Now just to keep it up for the next 3 weeks until I taper. YIKES!
Monday, June 17, 2013
Boulder 5430 Sprint Triathlon
Welp it was a harder weekend than I anticipated.
I spent the whole week feeling pretty burnt out and not too motivated, with the exception of Wednesday during which I randomly had a great bike ride and did a ton of core. But then I had a short, hilly run on Thursday that tore up my legs. Friday I had no desire to move and Saturday I forced myself to get in a quick easy bike, where I found myself legs feeling like lead, my stomach cramping, and my body generally working against me. So I headed to the pool where I felt a bit better, but a slow 1850 proved this sport wasn't doing too much better.
I drove up to Boulder with my boyfriend to find an expo that indicated I was in store for a VERY well-organized race. As part of the Boulder series, it is backed by Ironman so everything was up to par. We checked out transition and saw once again that I had a pretty sweet spot in the pecking order. My rack (#1-59) was immediately in front of the bike out which meant not too much running with my bike. It was pretty far away from the bike in, but still a relatively straight shot.
I got to the reservoir around 5:15 the next morning and only one girl was set up on the rack, in the best spot...of course - right on the end in front of the bike out, but I racked next to her and called it good enough. She looked at me and said "this doesn't look like this is your first tri." I laughed and said "Nope. I think it's 13." She was there with her boyfriend or brother who was helping her out...he seemed a little more seasoned. In the end, I'm pretty sure she beat me because her bike wasn't there when I came in from the swim and it was there when I returned from the bike.
The swim start was interesting and innovative. They asked us to corral by our best 100y time. I jumped in with the 1:40-1:50 pace group. Maybe a little ambitious as I was once doing 1:47s, but am really more around 1:57s right now, but I figured I'd see if I couldn't hang on their feet. Plus, I didn't mind sticking towards the end of the group. What else would be new?
This DID make the swim WAY crazier than I am used to. It was a huge race and it stuck us all around people of our speed. I've never been around so many people in the swim. It was hard to sight the buoys with all the splashing and heads ahead of me, but I definitely got more drafting in than your average race. I was disappointed to see I came out of the water in 18 min. I was really looking for more like 16, but you do what you can. I felt like I pushed myself really hard and despite the sighting difficulties stayed on-course pretty darn well. The nice thing was that this race was by no means an "A" race for me. So it didn't cramp the rest of my race.
The bike was a 15-miler, cut down from 17.2. Either way, sort of a long bike for a sprint-distance tri. My goal was to finish it in around 48 minutes given I knew most of the course from last time and the nature of the climbing. I had just done 15 miles in a little less than 50 minutes on Wednesday, so I knew I could do it.
Coming into T1, I once again was running over the incredibly painful parking lot. It was nice to not have to run too far on that, though it was still a longer transition run. And apparently because it was wet from the people ahead of me, that made it a little easier on my feet. Unfortunately, all ready to go, I took my bike out and knocked down the one next to me. I grumbled and picked it up. Not too happy about that one.
Running out to the mount line was a TOTAL disaster. I did ok, swinging far out to the right. People were falling over, having serious issues mounting. I forgot how bad that can get. Part of the problem was just that there were SO MANY PEOPLE doing such a short distance race. I really think they over sold it. I got on with no issues, though left my feet out of my shoes for a while solely because there were so many people around me that I didn't have wiggle room to coast and reach down. Some woman was riding out way left and I somewhat sassily said "Coming up on your left" and then thanked her for moving. I'm never amused by people being neglectful in front of me and try not to be mean but I get aggravated never the less.
I really pushed the climbs this time, knowing it would end sooner than last time because we were turning earlier. The route was absolutely crammed. It was nearly impossible to stay 3 bike lengths behind people because there were so many athletes over the course of 15 miles. I tried to just hang out left if I was passing and right if I wasn't. Still we had people passing people passing and I almost took out some people passing me very close on the left because they didn't announce their presence and I was within a bike length of the tire in front of me. It's a mutual fault, but it was a disaster nevertheless.
Coming back in on the bike, we once again had a carpet covering a gravelly area. Unfortunately I got stuck behind "Sandi." Oh Sandi, I will never forget you. She had her bib on her back with her name. Yes well, Sandi on her very expensive tri bike wobbled and braked like crazy. I wanted to scream and there was no getting around her because so many people were passing on the left. Then as we cleared the mats she rode out left. Sandi, oh Sandi. ARRGGGGHHHH!!! I finally got passed her with enough time to get out of my shoes and dismount the bike. Again the line was more crashing and wipe outs. I pulled far right and ran away from the chaos into transition as fast as I could. Total bike time 46:18 - average over 19 mph! Back up to what I've done in the past at sea level on flatter courses. That made me feel pretty fierce again.
In transition I heard them announce the first female finisher. "WOOF, welp see ya in about 30 mins" I thought to myself.
My goal for the run was 9-min miles, but pushing hard to the first marker at 9:04 I knew that probably wasn't happening. My legs hurt, my side ached...I wasn't feeling anything near runner's high. I stopped at the water stop and took a drink and promptly poured it all over my head. It was hotter than last time. Coming back, I walked twice, but only allowed myself 10 seconds. I felt pretty bad, but counted to 10 and told myself to start again. In the end, the run time was reflective of the suffering: over 29 min for a 5k. The whole race was 1:38 and my place, out of 20 girls, was 9th. There was a pretty tough turn out though. Even if I had raced my goals (4 min faster) we still would've been looking at 7th place.
All in all, not my best race but not my worse. Now back to training training training.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Official Start to Race Season 2013: Boulder Sunrise Race Report
Yesterday I started my triathlon racing series up in Boulder, CO with the Boulder Sunrise olympic distance tri.
My expectations were lowered. My biking hasn't been as fast as in the past. My running has been slow and peppered with injuries. My swimming has been not too far off from what I was doing at my best last year, but still not quite as good. My goal was to finish in under 3 hours. I was hoping for a sub-35 min swim, a 1:25 bike and a run under an hour. Which, if you add up - leaves little room for transitions or mistakes if I want to do that whole sub-3 hour thing, because those all equal 3 hours of racing time. :)
I got to the reservoir at 5:30 - 30 minutes before transition officially opened - to poach the best possible place to set up....I was one of the first three athletes there and the second person to walk into transition. Luckily, they were pretty lax about when it actually opened so I wandered in around 5:40 and no one seemed to mind.
The racks were sort of set up by bib # but luckily I was #233 and assigned to the last rack (nearest the bike out - YAY!) but unfortunately the side furthest away. I was literally the last racer assigned to this section, so I set up way out on the end so I just has a straight run to the "bike out" arch.
As other athletes started pouring in, I was pretty much all set up, and able to start my warm up around 6:10. I got in solid warm ups for all three events, which was pretty nice and barely had enough time after my swim warm up to run from the beach back to transition to hide my flip-flops and car keys under my towel for after the race. As I did so the announcer said "All olympic distance athletes need to be on the beach" and I promptly hustled over.
During my swim warm up, I quickly realized the water was ICY COLD. Not surprising really since the high for the day was only 67 degrees. As soon as the depth increased to about 5-feet I swear it was 60 degrees. BRRRR I think this was probably the coldest swim I ever did. It hurt my head a little, but after we started out, I got used to it.
For what I believe to be the first time EVER I actually hung with the women on the swim! I was even passing some of the men (who started maybe 4-5 minutes before we did). But as I made the left turn to come around the buoys and swim back into shore, I cut it too wide and was not diligent enough about my sighting and ended up swimming WAY far left of the guide buoys. I was disappointed and sure this would ruin my swim. I did end up losing the pack that I had been hanging with because of this mistake, though I was around an athlete or two from time to time.
As I came in I watched other athletes stand up as soon as they could but I remembered to keep swimming until my hands were scooping up sand. I did and immediately looked at my watch - 34:29. 2:06/100y or 2:17/100m. I was pretty darn happy with this. Especially given my nice WIDE path I'd made for myself.
Unfortunately the run up the beach, across the concrete into transition was a little tough and took me an extra 1:37 - making for a chip swim time of 36:06. All things considered - this is STILL better than many of the swims I've had in the past.
Transition itself kind of sucked because it was on very gravelly pavement that really cut up my feet. I knew it would be like this ahead of time, but it was pretty awful - especially on my icy cold and numb feet. I ran the bike to the mount line cursing under my breath the whole way because it was so painful. I hopped on though and was pretty successful in getting my feet in my shoes - granted I had been practicing since being fit to my tri bike a little over a month ago.
The bike started off with a mild set of rolling hills - which amounted to a lot of low grade hill climbing for the first 7 miles. For the first 30 min I averaged 15.9 and felt pretty discouraged, but as the course continued the climbing stopped and around mile 10 I came upon a pretty sweet 5-mile descent. It definitely helped even out all that climbing and because I was in one of my highest gears, I used this time to make sure I drank water, took all my nutrition, and refilled my aero bottle. The descents were never too aggressive - I think at MOST I hit 30 mph. By an hour, I'd made it 17.8 miles - so a significant increase in speed since the first half hour. At this point, I had roughly 7 miles to go, so I just wanted to focus on getting this done. The remainder of the course was pretty fair rolling hills and apparently brought me down to an average of 17.6 mph - finishing in a little over 1hr 22 min (bike course was slighting short). With a long enough bike course, this still would have been a 1hr 24 min finish and just barely under my goal.
I ran into transition, again like I was on hot coals because of how harsh the ground was to my bare feet. I struggled getting into my sneakers because my feet were so cold, which was incredibly frustrating. I think a combination of the painful run and this sneaker struggle accounted for my 1:37 T2, which was depressing given I'm looking to be around 45 secs here. Nevertheless, I took off on the run.
The run was an interesting 2-loop 5k course that I ended up really liking. We ran a little over .5 miles on pavement until we hit a dirt trail and ran out on that until the turn around point. This whole leg ended up being AWESOME. I ran my first mile in 8:58 which was both fast and a little too aggressive. Since I was hoping for 9:40s at the very least, this was surprising, but also concerning because I was afraid I would burn out. But I walked for water a couple times and pushed myself to keep running - feeling pretty good. I didn't take my garmin so I wasn't really sure of pacing other than knowing I did the first 5k in under 30 min and was on pace to do the second one in what seemed like about 28. As I came in, I saw I basically needed to haul or I would exceed the 3 hr mark, so I "hauled" to the best of my ability (which obviously isn't too fast :P) and made it in at 2:59:02 by my watch and 2:59:07 chip time, which earned me 3rd place in F20-24. Pretty psyched to see I just ran a 9:18 pace 10k which was significantly better than how I had been performing or expected myself to perform.
While this is not, by any means, my best race, given the full-time job, loss of personal coaching and move to hills/altitude - I'm pretty proud of myself. As a season opener I only have room to improve and I think this allows me to set a goal this season of completing either Boulder 5150 or Sunset Olympic tri in around 2:51 which is not ALL that much slower than I was doing in Chicago last year. Hoping for hard training and good results to come.
#rinse. repeat.
My expectations were lowered. My biking hasn't been as fast as in the past. My running has been slow and peppered with injuries. My swimming has been not too far off from what I was doing at my best last year, but still not quite as good. My goal was to finish in under 3 hours. I was hoping for a sub-35 min swim, a 1:25 bike and a run under an hour. Which, if you add up - leaves little room for transitions or mistakes if I want to do that whole sub-3 hour thing, because those all equal 3 hours of racing time. :)
I got to the reservoir at 5:30 - 30 minutes before transition officially opened - to poach the best possible place to set up....I was one of the first three athletes there and the second person to walk into transition. Luckily, they were pretty lax about when it actually opened so I wandered in around 5:40 and no one seemed to mind.
The racks were sort of set up by bib # but luckily I was #233 and assigned to the last rack (nearest the bike out - YAY!) but unfortunately the side furthest away. I was literally the last racer assigned to this section, so I set up way out on the end so I just has a straight run to the "bike out" arch.
As other athletes started pouring in, I was pretty much all set up, and able to start my warm up around 6:10. I got in solid warm ups for all three events, which was pretty nice and barely had enough time after my swim warm up to run from the beach back to transition to hide my flip-flops and car keys under my towel for after the race. As I did so the announcer said "All olympic distance athletes need to be on the beach" and I promptly hustled over.
During my swim warm up, I quickly realized the water was ICY COLD. Not surprising really since the high for the day was only 67 degrees. As soon as the depth increased to about 5-feet I swear it was 60 degrees. BRRRR I think this was probably the coldest swim I ever did. It hurt my head a little, but after we started out, I got used to it.
For what I believe to be the first time EVER I actually hung with the women on the swim! I was even passing some of the men (who started maybe 4-5 minutes before we did). But as I made the left turn to come around the buoys and swim back into shore, I cut it too wide and was not diligent enough about my sighting and ended up swimming WAY far left of the guide buoys. I was disappointed and sure this would ruin my swim. I did end up losing the pack that I had been hanging with because of this mistake, though I was around an athlete or two from time to time.
As I came in I watched other athletes stand up as soon as they could but I remembered to keep swimming until my hands were scooping up sand. I did and immediately looked at my watch - 34:29. 2:06/100y or 2:17/100m. I was pretty darn happy with this. Especially given my nice WIDE path I'd made for myself.
Unfortunately the run up the beach, across the concrete into transition was a little tough and took me an extra 1:37 - making for a chip swim time of 36:06. All things considered - this is STILL better than many of the swims I've had in the past.
Transition itself kind of sucked because it was on very gravelly pavement that really cut up my feet. I knew it would be like this ahead of time, but it was pretty awful - especially on my icy cold and numb feet. I ran the bike to the mount line cursing under my breath the whole way because it was so painful. I hopped on though and was pretty successful in getting my feet in my shoes - granted I had been practicing since being fit to my tri bike a little over a month ago.
The bike started off with a mild set of rolling hills - which amounted to a lot of low grade hill climbing for the first 7 miles. For the first 30 min I averaged 15.9 and felt pretty discouraged, but as the course continued the climbing stopped and around mile 10 I came upon a pretty sweet 5-mile descent. It definitely helped even out all that climbing and because I was in one of my highest gears, I used this time to make sure I drank water, took all my nutrition, and refilled my aero bottle. The descents were never too aggressive - I think at MOST I hit 30 mph. By an hour, I'd made it 17.8 miles - so a significant increase in speed since the first half hour. At this point, I had roughly 7 miles to go, so I just wanted to focus on getting this done. The remainder of the course was pretty fair rolling hills and apparently brought me down to an average of 17.6 mph - finishing in a little over 1hr 22 min (bike course was slighting short). With a long enough bike course, this still would have been a 1hr 24 min finish and just barely under my goal.
I ran into transition, again like I was on hot coals because of how harsh the ground was to my bare feet. I struggled getting into my sneakers because my feet were so cold, which was incredibly frustrating. I think a combination of the painful run and this sneaker struggle accounted for my 1:37 T2, which was depressing given I'm looking to be around 45 secs here. Nevertheless, I took off on the run.
The run was an interesting 2-loop 5k course that I ended up really liking. We ran a little over .5 miles on pavement until we hit a dirt trail and ran out on that until the turn around point. This whole leg ended up being AWESOME. I ran my first mile in 8:58 which was both fast and a little too aggressive. Since I was hoping for 9:40s at the very least, this was surprising, but also concerning because I was afraid I would burn out. But I walked for water a couple times and pushed myself to keep running - feeling pretty good. I didn't take my garmin so I wasn't really sure of pacing other than knowing I did the first 5k in under 30 min and was on pace to do the second one in what seemed like about 28. As I came in, I saw I basically needed to haul or I would exceed the 3 hr mark, so I "hauled" to the best of my ability (which obviously isn't too fast :P) and made it in at 2:59:02 by my watch and 2:59:07 chip time, which earned me 3rd place in F20-24. Pretty psyched to see I just ran a 9:18 pace 10k which was significantly better than how I had been performing or expected myself to perform.
While this is not, by any means, my best race, given the full-time job, loss of personal coaching and move to hills/altitude - I'm pretty proud of myself. As a season opener I only have room to improve and I think this allows me to set a goal this season of completing either Boulder 5150 or Sunset Olympic tri in around 2:51 which is not ALL that much slower than I was doing in Chicago last year. Hoping for hard training and good results to come.
#rinse. repeat.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Running, running, running
Hey! I managed to make a new post in less than a month.
Technically, we have three race reports for ya - this time I'll try to make it short and sweet:
May 5
Mile High 5
Ran this 5-miler with one of my BF's friends who just got into running. My goal was 9:30 pace and I think I ended up clocking a solid 9:27. We ran out first mile together in 9:12, so we started a little too hard. His goal was 10-min miles and he ended up kicking my butt running an average of 9:11 pace (seesh). All in all, not awful, not great. I really felt how hard it was for me to keep up pace. The plan that day was to run 5 more later in the day (with the race and the warm-up, I had 6 under my belt) but I ended up super exhausted with a headache and opted to run 5 more on Sunday instead.
May 12
Westminster Women's Classic
Ran this 10-miler on a whim when I received a discount code. I hadn't run serious distance in about 2 weeks prior to this race and I knew I needed to get my act together for the half marathon the following week. My goal was sub 10-min miles considering how rough coming back from injury has been.
I told myself to start out slow, but still went ~9:20 for the first mile. To my surprise, I then held it for the next few too. Finished this race out in 96 min with a 9:38 min/mile average. I was pretty happy with that and it made me optimistic for the coming half marathon.
We got some pretty sweet medals too:
May 19
Technically, we have three race reports for ya - this time I'll try to make it short and sweet:
May 5
Mile High 5
Ran this 5-miler with one of my BF's friends who just got into running. My goal was 9:30 pace and I think I ended up clocking a solid 9:27. We ran out first mile together in 9:12, so we started a little too hard. His goal was 10-min miles and he ended up kicking my butt running an average of 9:11 pace (seesh). All in all, not awful, not great. I really felt how hard it was for me to keep up pace. The plan that day was to run 5 more later in the day (with the race and the warm-up, I had 6 under my belt) but I ended up super exhausted with a headache and opted to run 5 more on Sunday instead.
May 12
Westminster Women's Classic
Ran this 10-miler on a whim when I received a discount code. I hadn't run serious distance in about 2 weeks prior to this race and I knew I needed to get my act together for the half marathon the following week. My goal was sub 10-min miles considering how rough coming back from injury has been.
I told myself to start out slow, but still went ~9:20 for the first mile. To my surprise, I then held it for the next few too. Finished this race out in 96 min with a 9:38 min/mile average. I was pretty happy with that and it made me optimistic for the coming half marathon.
We got some pretty sweet medals too:
I later got home to find out I had placed 2nd in the female 20-29 age group and picked up this guy on May 18th:
 |
| Back reads "Female 20-29 Second Place" |
May 19
Colfax Half Marathon
I was admittedly pretty freaked out about this one. It had been a while since my last half marathon and I really was hoping to run the race in ~2:07. Mostly, I really wanted to break 2:10.
This time I resolved to take it out slow and I did. Pretty consistent 10-min miles. Mile 3 went through the Denver Zoo which was pretty cool and distracting. Nothing like running next to monkeys, elephants, rhinos, donkeys, emus, etc. It was only a quick mile in the zoo, but still pretty nice.
At mile 4 my iPod threatened low battery and I was NOT happy. I'm glad to say, it did not die. By mile 6 I started experiencing something I had NEVER experienced during the race: I needed to use the bathroom! WHAT?! I knew that I probably wasn't going to see another one until mile 8, but I wasn't about to run .25 miles back to the mile 6 stalls. I kept running and found one at 7.5 miles with no TP....awesome. I made it to mile 8, waited in line and started feeling a bit better. Still, it wasn't until mile 10 that I was able to grab some water and feel pretty recovered. So, in short, miles 6-10 really were not too good for me. Slow, uncomfortable miles.
Once I got to 10.25, I told myself no walking and I had to run to 11. I walked for 30 secs at 11 and resolved to run to 12. I drank water at the mile 12 water stop and ran to the finish. Those last 3 miles surprisingly were not all that bad!
With the bathroom breaks taken out (my garmin time:) the race was 2:12 and 10:06 min/miles. With the bathroom breaks (my chip time:) the race was 2:16 and 10:23 min/miles. I'm not too psyched about either time, but it is what it is. It's better than the last half marathon I ran in Colorado (2:17) and I have another one coming up in October so I've learned something and have a new time to beat.
Also, SUPER cool medals that came with mini-medals (charms, essentially) attached to it that you can hook to a chain and wear as a necklace:
Shout outs to Kyle for getting a new PR on this race, Clayton for finishing with 0 training, and everyone else for doing a freaking half marathon!
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
It's been a long time, it's almost race season...
here's this:
http://whatshouldtriathletescallme.tumblr.com/
did ya miss me?
I did. That said nothing to say.
It's a swim, bike, run kind of routine.
http://whatshouldtriathletescallme.tumblr.com/
did ya miss me?
I did. That said nothing to say.
It's a swim, bike, run kind of routine.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Adding Insult to Injury
It's been a while, athletes (and non-athletes who just like to read about my insanity). It's been a tough tough hiatus.
Let me start with an uplifting story before we delve into the depths of injury depression.
I signed up to run this "winter distance series" through the winter - keep my endurance running up to par. I was doing 7, 8, 9 mile runs through November just... like it wasn't anything. High 9-min mile conversational pace, cruising. Then I went to Breckenridge for a fun weekend with some friends, didn't workout too much, save a 5-mile walk through ice/snow with my friends's sister and came back on a sunday to a slow, cold, and painful 10k run. I couldn't really pinpoint WHY it hurt so badly, but it did.
I took a week easy - it was a taper week anyway if I were to race this 10k (the first race of the distance series). On race morning, I felt less than fantastic. My hamstring felt wonky, sort of tight and throbbing, so I warmed up and it didn't really go away. I had big goals to finally break a 9-min mile in a 10k and I knew I just wanted to do it. I was there... I wasn't going to back out now. So I ran it.
I tried to follow my rule of "if it doesn't stop hurting after the first 10 min, it's time to throw in the towel" but then I ran the first mile in a calm 8:57 and though I was still in some serious pain...my PR was there, calling my name. UGH FINE. So I didn't listen to my rules and I ran all of the 10k in 55:38, ruthlessly destroying my previous PR (by, you know, a few seconds, which in running is RUTHLESS) and also my hamstring.
I limped around afterwards and I don't think my friends really believed how much pain I was in. But, it was not pretty - not at all.
Thus began the saga of injury. My hamstring was a painful mess. For a while even walking was hard. I couldn't swim because kicking and pulling my legs in to push off the wall hurt and when SWIMMING hurts, you KNOW you're in trouble. I got in the water one day and got out after 700m - NOT pretty.
For Christmas, my grandparents gave me an R8 roller which is truly a painful miracle in my life. I cannot speak highly enough of this thing.
Then finally, about 5 weeks later, it seemed the hamstring was recovered, but not without other problems - my muscles were weaker. I was having shooting pains near my knee, I swam and my hips got so ungodly tight on the OTHER leg I limped around for a day. I spent a night rolling around in my bed because one of my legs had more shooting/stabbing pains going through it. In short... body falling apart. I'm 22 years-old. THIS IS RIDICULOUS.
This weekend I knew would be fairly quiet so I convinced myself it was time to get my act together and go to yoga. Now, most of you probably know I've always spoken very highly of bikram yoga. However, for about 10 reasons, bikram did not sound like a good idea so, though I've had less than fantastic experiences before, I bucked up and grumpily AND painfully moseyed on over to a 90-min vinyasa flow class.
HOLY SHNIKIES.
1) I don't think I've ever been so tight in my life - least flexible yoga experience um... EVER. Some poses that usually are a no-brainer were totally hopeless.
2) That was the best, most challenging non-bikram yoga class I've ever been to.
3) I may or may not be hooked.
In short, I need to believe in stretching.. and probably this yoga studio. NO MORE INJURIES.
Let me start with an uplifting story before we delve into the depths of injury depression.
I signed up to run this "winter distance series" through the winter - keep my endurance running up to par. I was doing 7, 8, 9 mile runs through November just... like it wasn't anything. High 9-min mile conversational pace, cruising. Then I went to Breckenridge for a fun weekend with some friends, didn't workout too much, save a 5-mile walk through ice/snow with my friends's sister and came back on a sunday to a slow, cold, and painful 10k run. I couldn't really pinpoint WHY it hurt so badly, but it did.
I took a week easy - it was a taper week anyway if I were to race this 10k (the first race of the distance series). On race morning, I felt less than fantastic. My hamstring felt wonky, sort of tight and throbbing, so I warmed up and it didn't really go away. I had big goals to finally break a 9-min mile in a 10k and I knew I just wanted to do it. I was there... I wasn't going to back out now. So I ran it.
I tried to follow my rule of "if it doesn't stop hurting after the first 10 min, it's time to throw in the towel" but then I ran the first mile in a calm 8:57 and though I was still in some serious pain...my PR was there, calling my name. UGH FINE. So I didn't listen to my rules and I ran all of the 10k in 55:38, ruthlessly destroying my previous PR (by, you know, a few seconds, which in running is RUTHLESS) and also my hamstring.
I limped around afterwards and I don't think my friends really believed how much pain I was in. But, it was not pretty - not at all.
Thus began the saga of injury. My hamstring was a painful mess. For a while even walking was hard. I couldn't swim because kicking and pulling my legs in to push off the wall hurt and when SWIMMING hurts, you KNOW you're in trouble. I got in the water one day and got out after 700m - NOT pretty.
For Christmas, my grandparents gave me an R8 roller which is truly a painful miracle in my life. I cannot speak highly enough of this thing.
Then finally, about 5 weeks later, it seemed the hamstring was recovered, but not without other problems - my muscles were weaker. I was having shooting pains near my knee, I swam and my hips got so ungodly tight on the OTHER leg I limped around for a day. I spent a night rolling around in my bed because one of my legs had more shooting/stabbing pains going through it. In short... body falling apart. I'm 22 years-old. THIS IS RIDICULOUS.
This weekend I knew would be fairly quiet so I convinced myself it was time to get my act together and go to yoga. Now, most of you probably know I've always spoken very highly of bikram yoga. However, for about 10 reasons, bikram did not sound like a good idea so, though I've had less than fantastic experiences before, I bucked up and grumpily AND painfully moseyed on over to a 90-min vinyasa flow class.
HOLY SHNIKIES.
1) I don't think I've ever been so tight in my life - least flexible yoga experience um... EVER. Some poses that usually are a no-brainer were totally hopeless.
2) That was the best, most challenging non-bikram yoga class I've ever been to.
3) I may or may not be hooked.
In short, I need to believe in stretching.. and probably this yoga studio. NO MORE INJURIES.
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