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!

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:

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!

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.

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.

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:

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!

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.

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.