Racine 70.3

On a more positive note from my last race, I had the awesome experience last weekend of getting to see three of my teammates kick butt at Racine 70.3.
Here is a narrative in pictures:

Kendyl, Nikhil, & Tyler all geared up before the race!

Nikhil is FLYING, Kendyl is READY

Here comes Nikhil from his AWESOME swim

The Chicago tri club was awesome and lent me some chalk... so naturally this happened

Nikhil is just a happy runner. I wish I looked like this when I ran

Let's go KENDEEERRR. Oh yeah, and I cut my hair off - see? But more importantly, Kendyl starts her half marathon. NBD

Here comes Nikhil finishing up loop 1 of the half marathon in a stellar time

Bought a few finisher presents for Kendyl and Nikhil (couldn't locate Tyler). I was thoroughly impressed by both of them. Naturally, I am now scared out of my mind.

Evergreen Lake Triathlon x2

I owe a race report, though I hate to tell you, it isn't a good one.

I had this goal of 2:45. Then they rerouted the swim and I hammered it...I was convinced I'd PR the swim until I got out and saw my watch was just under 41 min. As a team, we all decided it was long. I'm thinking more like an 1850m than a 1500m.

I think I was aiming for a 72-73 min bike. But after that awful swim, I had some dreams of doing a 70 min bike. That didn't happen. I came in at 73:40, which was still a decent bike split for me, especially with some nice hills. I had a 40-something clydesdale racing along side of me for a lot of the race. At the end he said "Nice riding, let's finish this up" and I left him in my dust :)

I remember this being taken. I made sure to not make a crazy face.

The run I took hard for 3 miles...until my mind got the best of me and I gave in to pain and exhaustion. Ended up walking a lot and gave up on the race.

I can make excuses about lack of hydration and not enough run training... But ultimately it was a bad race that I gave up on. It happens. Ended up placing second in my age group anyway, and the awards were neat.

Now to Denver for the weekend. May the high altitude training begin.

Oh hey heat acclimation

Check out this awesome article from the Washington Post!

Sign and Back

Man, do I have a whole new appreciation for what the tour riders are doing right now.

July 3rd was a rough night. I had a speed workout earlier that day and let me tell you - a track in 95-degree heat is no joke. I was supposed to do 1200m repeats. Did one, then laid on my back to recover. Started #2, got 650m in and walked. HR not coming down. That was horrifying. My friend Zoe, who was doing 800s talked me into running her last two with her. Let me tell you - if it wasn't for that girl a LOT would not have been accomplished this week.

I came home and drank water, didn't feel like eating food so went with a smoothie and gatorade. Still not too great. Sleep was rough and the dehydration was rougher. Though I had planned a Wisconsin ride on the 4th, I was worried about my recovery for the coming day.

But Zoe arrived around 10:30 and we headed out around 11 on our epic 73-mile journey.

The beginning felt great, though hot. We made our first water/ice stop only 10 miles in - mostly in anticipation of not having another option for a while. Perhaps stupidly, that was our only stop for the next 26.84 miles until we got to the sign.

The last 7 miles to the sign were the most difficult. We were hot, tired and thirsty, but determined not to stop until we got there. Various signs teased us along the way, but eventually we made it!

I made it. Second time!!

Zoe is excited! :D

Immediate next stop? Across the street for a 35 minute ice-pop, water, gatorade, chip, and sanity break :) I looked down at my phone and it said "Pleasant Prairie. 101 degrees and Sunny." Awesome.

It was so hot that the ice melted almost instantaneously upon hitting the sidewalk.  

Zoe was impressed by my ability to house ice pops and I was impressed by her will power to sit on the boiling hot ground. We filled up with ice and water and hit the road again. We started on a nice "pedal-pedal-coast" technique, really feeling the miles, even though we had both ridden over 45 miles before, something about the way there had killed us. We were ok with stopping for a picture of the lake just outside of North Chicago.

Soon enough, the water in my aerobottle was at about the temperature at which I would happily eat soup, and the icy water in my insulated Camelback bottle was almost gone. Desperately we walked around a Metra station, hoping for a water fountain. With no luck, I poured the remainder of my aerobottle into my ice, hoping it would at least come down to about 70 degrees. We made a pact to keep an eye out for a water fountain and stop as SOON as we found it. 

By some miracle, a mile down the road in a baseball park, I spied a water fountain and IMMEDIATELY signaled for a left turn. Zoe couldn't believe I found a fountain... clearly I meant business. We lucked out and also got a bathroom break out of it, then back on the road with full bottles and slightly fresher legs.

I felt good as we were nearing home. We hit the 56 mile point and I yelled "HALF IRONMAN DISTANCE DONE!" Knowing we had less than 20 miles left invigorated me on our way back down Sheridan Road. We chatted and zipped a little faster now up and down little hills and around windy roads. Both of us were struggling to find comfortable positions on the bike. I began to appreciate cycling gloves as the heels of my hands started to feel raw. Finally we hit Fort Sheridan for stop #7324 (or 4, or 6... depending on how you look at it). We bought another bag of ice - me: more gatorade, Zoe: apple juice.

My gatorade was the same color as the windshield wiper fluid  - see it on my elbow pad?

This time I only filled my aerobottle with ice in order to avoid the soup-water predicament. Not to mention the heat was sort of melting my straw so it tasted pretty plasticky (is that a word? It is now). Luckily, this worked out, and I sloshed with ice cubes in both bottles the whole way home.

We took it hard from the Fort down to Kennilworth, but with a few miles left the fatigue got the best of us and we eased off to a nice leisurely ride home. Though the heat was against us and though my back "looks like a cookie" (as coined by Brad), it was truly a feat. 

Now to get my legs to stop aching so I can actually swim and run and nonsense like that.

One week of apparent insanity

Remember how about umm four days ago I said I wasn't sure if I was even going to race an olympic in July?

Yeah.
Woke up in the morning, registered for that olympic.

Then, in searching for races in August and September after I move to Colorado - I found a sign. All this year I have wanted to do a half ironman, but none of them fit too well into my training schedule or knowing where I'd be when. Then I found this one: Sept 9 (one month after I move to CO) just outside of Denver. Accessible from Boulder or Colorado Springs and at least $100 less than all 70.3 races.

Registered.

Then I texted about 20 of my closest friends.

Am I out of my mind? Why yes! yes I am.

Scarlet & Grey... err Columbus Triathlon?

Yet again, it was a race weekend. Though it CERTAINLY didn't feel that way. Regardless, I somehow figured it out.

Kendyl and I laughed as we waded in the water, realizing our bodies were definitely NOT in race mode. The swim looked like a short out-and-back, thought I tried pushing hard, on the way out I was definitely zig-zagging QUITE a bit. As I came out of the water to see 31:09 I KNEW something was wrong with the course. 33 minutes would be an excellent day, 31:09... no way.

The run to the mount line from the transition area was RIDICULOUSLY long, but there isn't much you can do about that but run faster. I knew the bike would be fast as I set out feeling the wind at my back. The bike was generally flat - a mild incline here and there, but all in all it seemed like a pretty easy course. I took the first lap very fast, to find out we had to bike back down to the mount line and make a tight 180 to start the course over. I sucked it up, did ok with executing my 180 degree turn, only to have the kid in front of me end up too far right and in the grass. I quickly unclipped and came to a stop. Grrr. My second lap was definitely slower than my first, but not by much. I came in feeling pretty good off the bike but certainly not in the mindset to run.

I mentally prepared myself for heading out to the last leg: the run. We started on pavement but quickly ended up on a trail. I hoped it would end soon, and it did, but then we were on grass, in heat, and it was awful. 2 miles on grass, then back to the short path of pavement, then back on trail, then back on pavement and made a loop to a trail I had done a run workout on the day before. Until mile 5, I was on pace to run 8:55 pace for my 10k... and then it hit and I walked. I began to feel the blisters killing on the bottom of my feet. The trail was just miserable. My breathing was labored while walking. I ended up finishing the run in just under an hour... not exactly ideal. When I took my shoes off, I had two of the largest blisters I've ever had in my life on either arch.

In the end, short swim and tough run, I came in at 2:46:30, though if it had been a normal 10k, I was on course to go 2:43 high. That being said... the swim was epically short so maybe the tough run made up for it. It was nice to come in second in my age group behind Kendyl - seeing that clearly all the girls had suffered like we did. As I usually do the night after a race, I think I may need a little break from triathlon racing. We'll see what I decide to do for July.

Truly Treacherous Time Trial

I had high hopes for this weekend. I was scheduled to complete two back-to-back 20.6 mile races.

Well, I arrived at the race and looked around to see a handful of fellow racers, all of whom looked pretty legit - expensive bikes, race wheels, aero-helmets. I was very overwhelmed, but the best part of TTs is that they truly are your own race. As I got ready, I heard a few people muttering about the wind, but isn't that always the case on flat open roads?

I didn't have a ton of time to warm up, but I hoped to get in a little quality spinning. I ended up starting 10 min later than my preliminary start time, but I suppose that's why it's called "preliminary." While waiting in line I heard number 18 (two in front of me) mention that the first two and last two miles would be covered with pot holes. I mentally envisioned Sheridan Road, where I bike all the time... which is pretty choppy. As I started, I didn't noticed too many pot holes, but I did notice a seam in the road every 25 yards or so. I was clunking along when I saw orange cones lining the left side of the road... there was no one there, but I assumed it meant to take a left turn... which I did.

There were no cyclists ahead of me. I looked back: none behind. I kept glancing back to see if number 21 would make the turn. He didn't. AWESOME. Took the wrong course about 1 min in. Good job.

I turned around, got back on course - a little bummed that I messed up in my first race. I continued on, waiting for the seams in the road to stop. They didn't. The whole way I went over a bump every 25 yards, which KILLED my wrists in my aero position. I tried to not even hold on to my bars and just sort of let my hands dangle there to be sure I wasn't pulling up on the bars or putting too much pressure on my hands. Didn't matter. With every bump, my wrist jostled and killed. There was a cross wind and my speed was kind of low, but I thought back to Memphis  - it would probably be to my advantage on the way back, so I gave it all the strength I had, hoping it would pay off when I turned around.

When not focusing on my wrists, the bumps, or the wind, I was also focusing on how badly I had to pee. I thought it was just a nerves thing.... apparently not as it lasted all 22 miles.

After a long straight stretch, the course became a series of left turns, each turning harder into the wind, each making my speed a little slower and my hurt a little worse. I hoped we would finally make enough lefts that I would be heading away with the wind at my back. It never really happened and for about 75% of the ride I was really fighting the wind.

As I began the straight shot back to the finish, I kept looking out for when I knew I was almost done. There were about 4 times in which I was totally convinced it was almost over. I ramped up my power and pushed harder... only to realize there was more. It was incredibly difficult to have 4 hard "finish" effort moments in succession. Not to mention, drinking water from my aero bottle was incredibly difficult, because every time I'd dip down to get the straw in my mouth, I'd hit a bump that sent the straw into my gum. ouch.

Once I finally shot through the finish line, 5 minutes over my goal finish time, I just kept biking. I wasn't kidding when I said I needed to pee. I biked straight back to the car, trying to remember to spin-out my legs on the way there, then ran to the bathroom. All the while, debating whether or not I wanted to go through that again.

As I walked back to my bike I saw I was 3 minutes away from my next start time, but I needed water and fuel. I took my time eating a banana and some sports beans as well as drinking some water. Then I got myself together and got back on my bike... My quads were in excruciating pain. I biked to the end of the parking lot before realizing I had forgot to put my helmet back on. WOW. Maybe I shouldn't do this again...

I got back to the start and heard the man managing the start line say "and that was 199" (which was my second number). I said "oh, that was me..." He asked if I wanted to go again, I said no thanks, and pedaled back to the lot.

When talking to my teammate Nick, he reminded me that experiences like these are what we can call on later to remember that, this moment we are racing through may suck, but at least it isn't as bad as that one time I raced a tt into the wind, feeling like I might die, and made the course longer than it had to be.