Busy Bee – Blue Norther

Workout, eat, work, sleep.

Workout, eat, work, sleep.

This has been my week.

The good news is that I love what I do, I love training, I love work, and I’ve been sleeping well, so life ain’t so bad.

The bad news is that leaves very few waking hours for anything else (read: blog posts) so here is my life in the last few days:

I got older on Saturday March 3.  It was an awesome day, which included a great 2.51 mile run (25 mins), 10 mile bike (42 mins), 2,51 mile run (24) – goal was to negative split and get some time outside in my saddle.  Mission highly accomplished!  Also, it included a fancy crab dinner at Truluks and happy fun times with friends at the bar after.  We literally took over their whole patio, a billion people came out.  It was good times, I felt the luv.

Blue Norther Duathlon:

I obsessively checked the weather for a while on this one. It looked disasterous.  I am not afraid of running in the rain anymore (besides, ya know, lightning and downpours) but this is a du.  Never have evilbike and I been bffs outside with water.

Frankly, evilbike and I have not been bffs outside since Kerrville in Oct. As in, the 10 mile ride outside is the first time we’ve hung out since then.  I mean, I’ve done hills at the gym all winter once a month and we’ve been getting reacquainted via trainer…

…but last weekend was the first time we rode outside in 5 months.

And then the forecast was rain.

I have never ridden in the rain.

I was most definitely terrified.  I got up at 4:30 am with the pitter patter and secretly hoped it would get converted into a 10k.  I could do that.  However, the email from the race director said it was ON so on we went.

You all know the addage – nothing new for race day.  Well, when you race 2 weekends a month, you don’t always have that luxury.  When I heard about the weather, we picked up some new tights.  North Face.  Because I have a lot of adventures (honestly, the best ones I tried on)…

Plus, I picked up a waterproof cycling jacket.  It zipped the sleeves off which was neat, but it wasn’t my fave color (neon green and white) so it was a maybe.  I had to be coerced to bring it but glad I did.

Full gear list: underarmor lucky sports bra, tx tri short sleeve tech tee, asics sleeves, north face tights, nike dri fit socks, brooks t-5 racers, cep compression leg sleeves, pearl izumi cycling jacket.

We did a warmup run after setting up transition, and then bathroomed and got to race start.   I decided to zip off my sleeves and run with the izumi vest, asics sleeves, and tech tee.  And… we were off!

Zliten started with me until I looked at him and said “9:15s? Really?” and then he dropped back (his plan was 11s).  Not that I didn’t want to run with him… I just didn’t want him to fizzle boom on the first run that I was ready for.  This run, as anything USAT sanctioned, is no headphones allowed.  I was bummed, but honestly, didn’t miss it.

My goal for the first 5k was a progression run.  I wanted to start out around 10s and get better from there. I actually blew that shit out of the water…  9:32 the first mile, 9:24 the second, and 9:13 the third.  I think the course was actually long, so the last .2-.3 was faster (but garmin data was inconclusive becuase dummy forgot to hit splits). Overall, passed about a dozen or so groups on the run, Est. avg. 9:20 min/mi.

Then, I picked up evilbike.  I ditched my sunglasses as they were so rainsoaked I could barely see and got going.  I was SO FREAKING NERVOUS about this part.  Never rode in the rain (and why not learn in a race, right?).  I noticed about half a mile in that I didn’t do anything on my garmin and it was about 33 mins. Oooook.

Started out really conservatively and cursed myself for leaving the sunglasses as my face was getting pounded with rain.  I booked when I could and took the turns super slow.  I always fancy myself a sucky cyclist but I “on your left”‘d a few dozen peeps and only got passed by 3.  I had mile splits everywhere from 14.2 (ugh) to 18.7 (yay) for an avg of 16.3 mph.  As much as at first I cursed my lack of hill skillz this year, I have to remember that a 16.3 this early in the season before I’ve done any outside training is actually AH-MAY-ZING.  Also, very un-winded at transition.

Sadly, unwinded did not mean a good run start.  With the coldness and the wetness, my feet actually hurt BAD.  Like, my lungs and legs wanted to go faster but the unhappy little stumps I was landing on were screaming.  I sucked it up and did what I could and within .5 of a mile of sad, sad times I was back under 10s.

I talked recently about my 5k pacing problems, specifically the despair I feel at 1.5 miles and while I didn’t the first time running it as a progression run, I did this time.  I made it a goal not to hit 10 min/mi and just did what I could.  Right around then I also had another issue – my ankle went all wonky.  I slowed down and limp-ran a bit until I stopped and stretched it out a bit, and continued to limp-run until, magically, it went away.  No problem since then.  I think I may have just stepped funny on a curb but it had me worried.

After getting past mile 2, the eyes were on the prize.  I passed a few more people and then finally had my eye on a girl up ahead.  She had passed me on the bike and chatted with me a bit, and all I could think about on the bike was “the people I pass on the bike will probably smoke me on the run”.  So this was a goal, to do the opposite.  I kept her in my sights going a fairly comfortable 9 min/mi and when I saw the finish, I made my move, passing her and sprinting as fast as I could, topping out at about 8:13s.

I finished in 1:58:00 garmin time, and went out to cheer Zliten in.  I had monitored his progress – he got into transition to get the bike before I ran, and had put his bike away before I finished, so  I knew he was ok.  Then, before I knew it, he was running it in strong and finished.  Apparently he    had me in his sights on a long stretch of the bike but couldn’t catch up (no quarter mother effer!!!!).  He ran a huge PR at about 30:30 for his first 5k, abut 1-1.5 mph behind me on the bike, and a totally respectable 35 for the last 5k.

So, I went from thinking I might DFL this race (last years results were ridic – 9 min/mi was the bottom of the barrel), to thinking I might have placed.

…well results say I’m 8/9 but honestly, there are a bunch of errors.  We’ll see.  Either way, I’m happy with what I did so onward and upward!!!!