Racing, dayton, testing and a return to the blog

Geeez it's been a while. Oops

Updates updates.
I raced on Jan 1 and it's unclear as to what my pace was. I think the official clock said 8:34, garmin said 8:23? Who knows, but what I DO know is that I got 3rd in my age group so that was nifty.

Isn't it snazzy?

 Then I returned back to school where I've been back to my crazy 7-10 hrs/week of training. I don't think I've actually hit double-digits in the hours/week yet, but we'll get there soon enough. In January I went back to Dayton which was ridiculous again. It was cool because I had done it last year and to see the differences was pretty awesome. I swam, what I believe was 100 y farther and I ran more than 1min/mile faster. So that was exciting. I don't think I'll make SUCH drastic changes in my second year solely because I'm not building a base anymore, but hopefully I can keep getting a little better.

On the second day we did a relay! Here's my relay team: Pasta Dinner. I don't understand the name either... it doesn't matter. I somehow ended up doing the whole bike leg myself which was both fun and funny. We didn't place to poorly, somewhere in the middle of all the teams, but most importantly we had fun cheering each other on.

Peter, Brad, Anna, Me, Nathan

OH OH and reflection of how my job on our exec board actually does something - Brad's shirt is one of our 2012 dry fits and mine is our team shirt this year :) I can't really take credit for the team shirt other than well... ordering them. But those snazzy dry fits are designed by YOURS TRULY.

Last week was testing and my bike test and swim test definitely showed improvement. Nothing quite as exciting as that! My run test showed improvement from last year, but honestly was not near my capabilities. There were a lot of factors working against me so I'm not too upset about it. My other addition to training has been strength/weight training which has been a cool challenge. I actually really like it so that's important!

Today we had a track workout which I just completed on a goose poop-covered track. It was really charming. During my run test I had experienced that chest pain I talked about a while ago, talked to my coach, he told me to breathe through my nose this week while I run. Difficult, but I forgot to do it for my first 400 (workout was 400 repeats) and sure enough I was not feeling too great. Worked hard to concentrate on that for my next 400 and it went away. WOW. I feel stupid, but still kind of relieved to have a quick solution! We'll see if it continues to fix my problems.

I know this may have been a boring-ish post. I'll come back soon laughing at myself.

New bike? The saga never ends also Tri en France: last day of practice

In recent history, I've been having some serious troubles with my bike (sheila, the pink one, in the states) one of which includes, you know, getting hit by a car. Oops.

Anyway, given the Christmas season I've been thinking about buying myself a new bike. Thus the posts this summer about bikes. However, as most plans go, this girl is not going to have enough money to buy the bike she wanted (doesn't that always happen) so I was depressed and then the bonktown gods heard my tears and said "Andrea, it's going to be okay. We're going to post a $1500 bike for less than half price."

Now I'm sitting here, comparing the geometry of my bike to this beautiful bike... deciding whether or not the bonktown gods are presenting me with the best possible choice.

In other news, it was my last day of practice in France. I wasn't finished with the workout when everyone started congregating around our coach (as usual) and I ran up and said "I'm not done!" to which my coach respond "How many have you done? 5 reps? You have still earned a small piece of chocolate anyway..." to which we all cracked up laughing... and then he whipped out a box of chocolates and handed them out. I am going to miss that man. Hervé Delaunay was a positive influence on my tri experience.

Tri en France: French for "mud" is "la boue"

Raacce day.
When I arrived, about an hour before my race (I learned from my mistakes when I arrived too early last time) the whole race site was covered by a haze of fog. How foreboding!

Oooo scary, right? It was also cold.

 The men's race took off before us at 9:45, and I quickly recognized two of the guys from the tri team who were running the course. I considered watching them start, but decided to go warm up around the track. I did some strides and drills and a little easy jogging, and then went to watch the men loop around the muddy course in the trees. Albain (who is the fastest guy on the team) was hanging in the pack with the top 4 guys and they were way far away from anyone else. The other (who looks like a baby-Pre... before facial hair) was hanging out in the middle of the pack. I think he can do better and was having a bad day :/

About 20 minutes before the women's start, Albain won the race! The 2nd and 3rd guy were a decent distance behind him, and the 4th guy in the pack apparently couldn't keep it up and ended up coming in 4th, quite a bit behind the top 3. I was impressed and excited to know the kid who won... but then it was time for my race.

I started jogging a bit in the start area, realizing that there was mud uh EVERYWHERE. Great. Cross country races. Right. I've never really felt a desire for spikes until today and then I thought "Hmm, I wish I had spikes or... any experience wearing them." I looked around and quickly realized I was not going to come anywhere near winning this one. (A) I wasn't being ranked by my age group, but only among the ranks of these 70 women on the course (B) these women were infinitely more athletic than the women at the other race... although still not all that legitimate. :P Some of them were fake-boxing with each other before the race. I mean... whatever gets you pumped right? One woman changed into her spikes and her legs were so intense she looked like she could pick me up with one of them and throw me to the finish line.

The race then immediately became about time. My goal was to come in at 18:30 and to stay focused. Then this French guy shot a gun and we went trampling through the mud. Lots of women took it out WAAAY to hard. I spent the whole race passing people. Some women walked... in a 3.465 km race. I understand fitness goals, but a 3.465km race? Whatever.

We wound through trees, uphills, through LOTS of mud, grass, and dead leaves. The men all watching as we suffered through what they just had. All I could hear was "Allez, filles!" and I just kept passing. I only looked at my watch twice. Once to see I was disappointingly climbing a hill at 9:21, and one happily to see I was pushing a flat a 7:50.

In the second loop, I knew the end was near, but my abs were crying. I kicked myself for biking 6 miles to a race. I wondered if I had warmed up too much... or not enough, or if I took the first loop too hard, but whatever it was, I was paying for it. I pushed through anyway, passing another woman in purple. Her shirt said "Nelly" and she was always exhausted. Ohhhh Nelly. We came down the finishing hill, and she ripped right by me with her friend, stealing two places. Wish I was better at short distances... ah well.

winding and rolling through the trees - don't worry, this time it WASN'T during the race

I ended up coming in at 18:58, which wasn't quite what I'd hoped, but it wasn't too terrible either. 8:48 pace is not all that beautiful though when you know you can do better. I crack it up to the mud and it being my first trail race. Still, it was tons of fun and a really cool experience. I definitely would want to try that again. Definitely not easy, but also it was over SO FAST! And it was free, so there's that.
I asked a woman to take my picture at the finish and after some questions about where I was from and if I actually did the race, she did.

Notice how I'm not nearly as dead as I was at the end of the last race.

mmm muddy

But honestly, the best part was the races for the little kids. I couldn't handle the cuteness. I considered crying, just saying.

LOOK AT THESE MUNCHKINS!

I biked home, but on the way, stopped at the entering Nantes sign! Important! NU triathlon has been to FRANCE!

Rocco says "Hi."

Deal is first team member to get here gets dinner on me at a nice restaurant in Nantes!

Tri en France: Nobody no nobody is gonna RAIN ON MY BIKE RIDE

Today was one of THOSE days. I skipped my workout yesterday to be normal and walk around with friends... and then the Gods of triathlon looked down on me and laughed. In all their power, they called my phone at 4 am this morning, which woke me up until 6. Then they made sure it was cold, windy, and pouring rain all morning...
Well, Gods of triathlon, nice TRI.

Against my better judgement I took my biking and running stuff down to the basement around 10 am this morning, and suited up. I left my sneakers in a pile with my bike lock, turned my lights on, and left the apartment building "oh puhlease, this isn't that bad." I probably shouldn't have thought that.


My ride was relatively horrifying. The rain got harder and I made a wrong turn that took me onto a highway that I really didn't want to be on in this weather. By some miracle, after a 10 min detour I found my way back to my route and went the correct way this time. I turned around at my usual round about. I'm not TOO scared of this one, but I am generally scared of round-abouts and corners. As I took this corner nice and tight... on wet roads, in the rain, the first car decided to blow the yield sign and sneak in ahead of me. Thanks dude. Then as approaching MY exit, this other car decided to take the round about at warp speed and almost cut me off. I literally saw my life flash before my eyes before he hit the brakes. Seriously dude? I'm exiting. CHILL OUT.


Needless to say, at this point I had already taken my glasses off because they were like a windshield with no wipers, but as soon as I exited that round about, I kind of wish I left them on. The wind was SO bad that I felt like my jacket was a parachute and I may have flown backwards into the air with my bike. Then on a downhill where I normally gear out going 26 mph, I was pushing to keep 17 mph.


Not having bricked in a while, I forgot how difficult it is to settle into a run after a bike. All though one good thing did come of it - I found a quicker path to the university (you know, 2 weeks before I leave).


But ultimately, I came home victorious, 75 minutes of workout later, covered in mud.
TAKE THAT STORMY DAY.

... I cannot say as much for my cleats, socks, and sneakers which are all cuddling by my radiator.

I swear this doesn't even do it justice

Tri en France: Swimming in a pool of doggy-paddlers

I haven't posted in SO long and I didn't realize QUITE how neglectful I was being. Oops.

The news of the month is that I started swimming again. In fact, I've gone TWICE this week! I know, who am I?

Here's the thing. Good things about swimming in France: 50m lanes which means (a) I'm doing more than I realize because it's METERS not YARDS and (b) 50m lengths so fewer walls. GREAT. Bad things about swimming in France:

The pool is not 25m wide, so that blows. Which means it's always set up long ways. Ok that's fine but means fewer lanes... always. Then it's divided very oddly with 3 empty lanes of swim space, a backstroke lane, a fast lane, and a lane where you can use odd equipment like... fins. Also, the "fast lane" and the "equipment lane" are frequently closed for school swim practice so now we're odwn to the free-for-all and the back stroke lane. Crap. About 18-25 people try to cram in this big lane at any given point in time, which may actually work if they all staggered their push-offs nicely but no. I would estimate that only 15% of them are doing any real sort of work out which additionally seem to conveniently consist largely of breaststroke repeats. AWESOME. Upon further inspection, I realized what I thought was breaststroke (because I saw heads bobbing in/out of the water) is frequently just a more elegant form of doggy-paddling. This "stroke" is favored by French women. SURPRISE. Apparently they swim like the run.

On Thursday, a pair of women - both in beach bikinis, decided their workout would consist of doggy-paddling a 50m every so often and then chilling on the wall to chat. One even had a waterproof MP3 player to help her get through her grueling occasional 50m drill. Then they managed to hang out on the wall exactly where I needed to push off for about 300m of my workout. Seriously? MERCI. VOUS ETES TROP GENTILLES. Needless to say, after pushing off, I frequently managed to surface a bit sooner than usual and give a nice dolphin kick in their general direction in hopes of splashing them as much as humanly possible.

On Monday I was blessed enough to get kicked in the face by one of the real breaststrokers. I forgive him - it's not his fault that these crazy French people set up their pools in the WORST WAY HUMANLY POSSIBLE. Also, in his defense, I think he stopped after realizing he walloped me with his foot. Being mildly accustomed to group-starts and being free-style karate chopped in murky lake water, I continued. I wasn't too perturbed until I felt it start stinging. Then when I got out of the water and realized "Wow, this actually really hurts. Wait..." and that I had a legitimate cut on my face I was truly agacé'd with this system.

wounded. lol

Ah well. At least I'm swimming and conveniently enough, once I got back in the water I loosened up a lot and my pace dropped significantly. I'm down to running a cool 9:15 pace mid-distance run (which for me is 4-6 miles) so that's super exciting. Looks like swimming really does help!

Morals:
French women don't too well swim either.
Swimming may truly help running.
Getting kicked in the face is not that fun, but a necessary evil.

Also - plug for triathlete lit. Brad got an email from this triathlete who is trying to market his new book, Sex, Lies and Triathlon. I started reading it and was thoroughly amused. I'm sure a review will follow once I finish it.

Tri en France: Winning?

This French guy friended me on facebook to tell me I won the race for my age group. OK. lol

Out of a total of 3 of us. Proof that French women don't run.

Tri en France: Stairmaster wanted

Today was race day and I was, as usual, nervous as hell.
At first I proceeded into the building for bib pick-up. Found myself on the list and standing out next to my name it said (USA). Great. Whatever.
Then I was incredibly amused by French etiquette. The men's toilets were porto-potties. The women's toilets were in the building, one-person bathrooms. BAHAHAHA That's right. Sucks to be a guy.

Then I panicked about two things the French don't really have under control: bib pins and a place to drop your stuff. First, I mustered up my courage to ask 3 people about bib pins in French. Then a women saw me standing around looking... alone, so she decided to interview me, in French, about why I was doing the race and how often I run. After that, I reluctantly hid my new rainproof/windbreaker/running jacket next to the stairs in the building and hoped no one would steal it. There simply was no way I was going to race with it, but I also didn't want to leave my electronics sitting behind in it (both good decisions).

The race started an I was 95% sure I REALLY had to pee, but I sucked it up. The first 2 miles were pretty uncomfortable due to that. It started like a normal race. The roads were kind of congested and a little too small for people. We twice ran into paths that they blocked off that we simply too small for us to run through, so we had to walk. It was a two-loop course, and I wasn't looking forward to experiencing that four times.

Around the 4k point, the course turned into a park, which included a run up-hill through muddy grass and navigating some paths over rocks/tree-roots that required a little hiking skill. My quads did not thank the people who planned the course for throwing this my way just after I'd walked in a huge pack of smelly French people. Speaking of smelly French people, if you think French guys smell bad already, you should not run races with them - learned that the hard way. BLEH. Anyway, I hated the leg through the park and thought, "well, how much worse can it get?" I thought too soon.

A lot of the course was already proving to be mostly uphill and I was excited to find that that was ACTUALLY to my advantage. I was passing people uphill! Then came the first set of stairs. Then the second. Then more uphill. Then the third, which led you immediately to the fourth - the pièce de resistance with spectators lining the other side and then FINALLY about 100m after - the 5th. I prayed I would not encounter these on the second loop, but I did. 10 sets of ascending stairs and 4 sets of descending stairs (which allow them to add the additional 6 sets of ascending stairs). Between that, the park, and the tiny trails that were too small to fit the group, I knew a PR wasn't happening today.

These are the epic stairs - on my second lap

My second lap was just about conquering it. Finishing the race strong....enough. It was rough and I knew I just needed to have fun and treat it like a hard workout and not worry about pace. So I took some pictures of the stairs - to commemorate the experience.

Then I asked someone to take this gross photo.

What I'm really thinking: Thank God it's over!

That was definitely one of the hardest races, workouts, PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES I've ever done! Now back to tri.