Step One: 10k

Raced the 3W Prairie Dog Half and 10k this morning in Louisville, CO.

I knew my race didn't start until 8:30 but I found myself still stressing out on my drive up. I'd calculated it so I'd arrive just before 8, but I started getting anxious - what if they closed packet pick up at 8?

As usual, I arrived on time, 2 minutes before they started the half marathon and it was packed. I'm just really impressed by people who are fit enough to run a half marathon in the middle of the winter. As you can see, it was more than just a "few" people banging out 13.1 this AM. Well, go them.

My marathon training said I was supposed to run 8 this weekend for my long run, but it's been a slow off-season and I signed up for this to get in a hard 10k to get things started. 

I saw a handful of RMTC women lining up the starting area. Knowing they were probably faster than I am right now, I let them sort of break off. I knew my head would want me to try to keep up which would just be...bad news bears. 

I told myself when I started to just relax - everyone has a tendency to go hard out of the gate. I tried to hold myself back. I'm glad I did, because coming through the first mile I was at 9:10 by the marker and 9:17 by my watch which is a little fast for me right now. To give you context, I was aiming for 9:40s for this race given what I've been running during workouts (9:45-50).

Still, the first 3 miles felt pretty great. I had to keep telling myself not to ramp it up. Sit back, don't over do it. I came through the 3rd mile-marker (which at that point was pretty in-sync with my watch) at 28 mins - so 9:20s. I thought "well, maybe the race atmosphere really does make a difference." Plus, I took yesterday off, even though that wasn't really the plan and I was feeling pretty ok this morning. 

The turn around was a little far into the course which usually throws people off so I made the loop at 3.3 miles (by my watch, but seemed like by the markers too). Unfortunately it was then I noticed I'd been running on a slight downhill with my back to the wind and guess what I got to do now? Go all the way back up that hill in the wind. Great. Glad I saved up some of that energy. 

It was a little tough but nothing seriously brutal on the way back. I got concerned when I couldn't find the 4-mile marker, but as I closed in on 5 I just gave up, deciding there were no more mile markers and I just had to keep going. Good thing I did, or I would've been worrying about the mile markers until the finish line. 

So we forged through the wind, with a few turns of relief until we were right back head-on into it. I looked down at my watch at 5.9 thinking "ok, .3 to go" and we made a right turn looking at a straight-away to the finish line. I mean, talk about a beautiful design for the end of the course! .3 miles is a great kick, flat, not into the wind. THANK YOU RACE DESIGNERS.

Unfortunately, it was so windy that the finish line sign BLEW OVER as I was about 15 secs away from crossing the mat, and I had to run around it to a little open piece of mat that wasn't obstructed by the fallen sign and tripped crossing the second mat. I managed to regain my balance (and not fall over) and run over to where I'd dropped my water bottle. 

Soon thereafter I saw the super-fast woman whom I'd bought my tt bike from, and we stuck up a conversation. She too was lamenting the wind (though she had 13.1 miles to deal with it - yuck!) but we agreed it was a beautiful day and I set off to grab another mile since technically my run today was supposed to be 8. As I started to breach 7 I knew I didn't have it in my legs to go much further (which is understandable, having just "raced" a 10k) and cleaned up at 7.2. I figure with my warm up run/drills I'm probably at least over 7.5 logged for the day so - not too shabby.

Oh, and in the end I crossed the line, by my watch, at 59:03 which averages at a 9:30. While not exactly a PR, I'm pretty happy with that since I was aiming for 9:40s. Glad to be in decent enough shape to knock out 7.2 miles in the middle of January.

4 more months until I attempt 26.2...

Coming Back with a Bang

It's been about 2 months since I last posted.
I've gotten lost in the relaxation of the off-season.

Since last I wrote, I got a new job and, with a new job, comes a new commute. While, technically, my commute is shorter than it was before (mile wise) it is through thick traffic to drive in and then there is an issue of parking. My company provides us with year passes to ride public transit so I'd been driving to the station, where it is inexpensive to park, and taking the train in. Still, this makes my 7-mile commute take 42 minutes.

Alternatively, there is a paved trail just behind my house (that I often bike/run on) which goes almost directly to the front door of my building. 7.1 miles parking lot-to-garage door. So, with my Q4 profit-sharing bonus I bought myself this guy.

It was on sale at Performance Bike (given that it's not exactly bike-buying season) and for a reasonable price, I have a sturdy single-speed with a little more tire girth, that is harder to take apart and steal. Now, weather permitting, it is 30-min to traverse these 7.1 miles (given hills, that I only have one gear, and places I have to stop and stuff) AND and extra 14-miles of riding tacked on to everyday I ride. To me, this is a bonus, BUT it also means I have to consider what it means to spend an extra hour on training days riding. It's still calories burned and energy expended. When this was 2-miles of riding in college, that wasn't bad, but 14 is a whole new ball game. I all ready started to feel the effect of the riding the other day - on an off season 1500-1800 cal/day diet. Exhausted, I plopped on my sofa for the night instead of heading off to the gym. "Why am I so tired? This is awful!" "Oh. Maybe because I've done an hour of riding today and haven't replenished those calories so I'm at a net intake of 1000. Yeah. That might be it." 

Other than my commuting, I'm back to blogging because Monday, Jan 13 officially starts my marathon training! (AH! WHAT AM I THINKING?!) I signed up for the Colfax Marathon on my 24th birthday figuring, heck, the next day the price for the half was going to be the same as the full, so I might as well buy today and have the option. Plus, if I really want to consider an Ironman in the near future, I should probably try the marathon part.  So, here we go. I'm going to start the training. I'm going to try. Should I be met with injury or...what have you, I will say it's not my year and back-off. My A-race is Silverman 70.3 in October so I need to be prepped for that. I'm not going to destroy myself over a marathon this year. Next year may be a different story, but that is the game plan for this year. 

So there. I said it. I wrote it out. That makes it official.

Oh and I'm "racing" at 10k next week. (By "racing" I mean, I'll be running it as fast as I can run a 10k right now, which will not be nearly as fast as I know I can run a 10k given some more training time.)

Happy training!

Starting from the very beginning...again

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.

First century EVER

Zoom Zoom 

Today I had the unique experience of doing my first century ride!

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!

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.

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.

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.