adjustedreality.com

Didn’t have any expectations for the Dash 4 Dads 5k.   Last three weeks I have been taper, injury, taper, sickness, allergies.  The last week is the first week in almost a month I’ve been able to fully train and I’ve been living it up.  An 8 miler Sat, sprints Mon, 10 miles Wed, and biking and swimming and weights and yoga so today, I was soooooooore.  No taper for this gal.

Didn’t have the greatest race.  Goal was in the 26s (because I know I can do it).  However, see above.  Plus two MAD hills and needing some mental work on short distances… I had no hopes.

I finished around 29 minutes.  My worst 5k ever.  It was long (3.25 miles) and as above, stupid hills, and I still really need to work on my mental game.  I had a stellar first mile (8:20-ish miles), but slipped into 9:20′s for the last 2.  I didn’t even sprint to the finish, which sucks.  I had given up, especially when I saw the time.

Apparently I knew things would be awesome with my blue steel look there.  Glad past Quix has foresight…

I wasn’t as bummed at the Gladiator Games, I realize that I’m not training for it, and I felt ok but was thinking about how to improve.  My goal was to go out fast and try to hold on, and around 1.5 miles, I failed at that.  I need to figure it out.  I felt pukey after the first mile but… who doesn’t racing a 5k really hard… but I still couldn’t do it.   The second mile is usually my worst but I usually rally for the third.  I tried but the third included an epic hill.  I even walked two steps and then told myself NO.

I finished, we hung out and waited for everyone to finish, and then left.  I kept trying to google for results and couldn’t find it.

An hour later I got an email with the title “1st place”.  Apparently, I WON MY AGE GROUP.  Holy crap!  I’ve never place in a running race, let alone first.  Holy shit!  Sadly I didn’t stay for awards, because that would be fun.  I’m not saying I’m fat, all 175 lbs of me, but I am not generally the person that you’d expect to be on the podium, let alone be on the top.  So, freaking-a.  I am jazzed.

Zliten ran also, and he is now has just started training for the 3M half marathon (hope he doesn’t mind me sharing this).  His tempo pace is 11:15  (finish was about 35 and some change).  He ran the 5k at almost exactly 11:15 – a great run for him.  His goal was 32-33, but that was minus the stupid hills.  Someone came to a STOP right in front of him on the last mad hill and killed his mojo but he finished str0ng (his sprint t0 the finish was quicker than mine,  he, unlike me, didn’t give up).

Morale of the story: never, never, never give up.  And run the hills.

Quix out.  More next week.

Normally on weekday evenings, you’ll find me a) in the gym or b) on my couch, resting and relaxing or occasionally c) at work if something went wrong.  About once or twice a month or so, I go out on a weekday but I usually try to keep it mellow-sauce.

Normally, I go one, MAYBE two days without a workout or I go insane/feel like a slacker/etc.

However, this last week hasn’t been normal at all.

Last week, I had the perfect storm of my glute acting up, then a cold, then my race getting cancelled, so I did NOTHING after Tuesday trying to save up all my strength for a race that didn’t happen.

This week started already behind the curve.  Monday, I had a lot of catch up to do with chores and groceries since I was laid out this weekend sick, so I didn’t even eat dinner until 9:30, let alone work out.  Plus, I was still a little under the weather, so I didn’t push it.

Then, we’ve had our annual game industry convention in town the rest of the week.  This means session and panels and expo floor and networking, oh my.  This means lunches and dinners downtown with old friends, coworkers, and new acquaintances.  This also means lots of open bar parties and many hours out and about until all hours of the night to catch up and socialize with said fine folks.

This also means no time to run and do formal workouts.  I haven’t hit the pavement or the gym since October 4.  That’s 9 days counting today.  That’s a lot for me, if you haven’t noticed by paying attention to my normal schedule.  Four years ago, I would have FLIPPED THE HELL OUT and thought “OMG I haven’t worked out in forever and I’m going to get out of the habit and I’m never going to work out again and get fat and go from runner to couch potato ARGHLARGH!!!”  Today, my thoughts are, “Whew, nice little break before my marathon training officially starts!”  It’s nice to be reasonable sometimes.

While I definitely indulge the healthy living/racing/social adventures part of my life much more in this blog, I do have a pretty sweet video game producer gig.  I don’t talk about it much here because a) most of the people reading this are probably not interested and really are more curious to know much more interesting facts like I am addicted to costco packs of sliced apples now and I currently weight 176 lbs and I got some really cool random tee shirts in the mail and more importantly b) I really like my job, and I’d rather not walk the line of deciding what’s appropriate to post about the industry and my day to day.  However, even though I don’t really believe it, people tell me I’m kind of a big deal, and it’s kind of nice to really revel in that and conferences with your peers are a great time to do it.

Most days, I wear my producer hat for a while, and my athlete hat for a while.  I love the dichotomy of having two vastly different aspects of my personality and tasks each day.  My day job is rife with decision fatigue and sitting on my butt and telling other people what to do.  My superhero self only has to decide to put one foot/pedal/stroke in front of the other and it’s like as far anti-butt-sitting as possible and is all about the doing.

Sometimes, like during a peak training week, it’s all about the training.   Work is work, and I’m in right on time and out the door 8 hours after (although, a lot of times peak training week and crazy crunch weeks collide, and that is ever so fun, running 9 miles after a 12 hour day is not exactly awesome but, whatevs) to either train or get in the maximum amount of rest I can.

Some weeks, like this one, I do n0 formal activity beyond walking some miles and a multi-hour dance party last night, and I’m in producer/network/game industry mode all day.

It’s all about balance.  More balance than this dude has…

I’m looking forward to a little more yang to this week’s yin as the sickness and injury seem to have passed and the convention has come and gone as of today, but for the next few evenings?  My ass + couch = match made in heaven.  I even turned down an invite to a fancy party tonight.  I did however hit the gym today for a nice mellow 35 mins of arc trainer while catching up on twitter and it felt awesome.  Tomorrow, my goal is to run somewhere between 10k and double digits.  As slow as I wanna.  No need to hurt myself but wanna log some mileses.

Cool things that happened this week:

-We won an audience choice award for our game, and were nominated for 2 others.  Fun fact – my name was up in lights (sadly, I didn’t get to see it because I didn’t notice the names until after but I was told).  We got to sit in the VIP section and everything, it was pretty cool.

-My old CEO (of a pretty big company) recognized me, and is a huge closet fan of my game.  Awesome!

-I’ve been recruited for roller derby by a cool chick that works with me.  I’m going to at least go to a practice and check it out.  Probably not going to try to do that + marathon at the same time but it would be fun to see what it’s all about.

-It’s always fun to see people that only knew fat Quix from San Diego and see their jaw drop when they see me.  Nice ego boost.

-I have been recruited to go try out Roller Derby.  I’m going to go to a practice soon.  I don’t think I’ll be joining up during marathon training or anything, but it would be cool to check it out.  I love me some roller skating, and I’m not horrible at it.

-Tore it up on the dance floor with a bunch of coworkers for hours.

-Saw a lot of old friends/peers.  It’s nice to see a lot of the people I worked in the trenches with are now also coming into their own awesome successful careers.

It’s good to start to be back to normal, but different is fun sometimes!  Especially when different = fancy parties and winning awards and good peoples I haven’t seen in a long time!   Do you ever take some time away just to indulge an  aspect of your personality you normally don’t let consume your life?  Anyone do anything super cool this week and wanna brag?

If you follow my ass on twitter or facebook, this will probably be redundant.  But because not everyone signs up for my exhilarating tweets and posts about how fage, chocolate almond butter, rasperries, and stevia is the best breakfast ever and that I ran 3.5 miles in 34 minutes and felt good, I’ll compose this little ditty.

About 2 weeks out, I was dreaming about back to back PRs.  How cool would that be?

The day before my tri last week, Tricia drove the course and said “OMG the HILLZ” (my paraphrase).  So we all know my LOVE of hill running (not), so a PR was probably out the window (but still was dreamable).  Then, I smashed my A goal at the tri.  I could do anything!  I had a nice recovery swim on Monday, and a GREAT QUICK 4 miler at what I hoped would be race pace (around 9:30) and felt awesome.

Wednesday, my glute muscle felt PULLED.  Strained.  Whatever it was, it hurt.  Bagged my run on Thursday because it still hurt, figured I’d go on Friday.

Friday, I woke up with a head cold.  No lung issues thank the dear and fluffy lord, but a sore throat and sniffles.  I went to work, and by the end of the day I was beat.  I’m not sure if I was just less focused on my glute, and it still hurt, but it felt better.

Yesterday, my cold was worse but still just above the neck.  We had lots of errands to run and I was WIPED after a few hours of just being out and about.  We picked up the packets, and drove the course.  It had some crazy hills between miles 7-9 and 11-12, but it wasn’t as bad as Austin Half.  I psyched myself up for the best.  Pop a dayquil, get some caffiene in me, and I’ll be fine, I thought.  The faster I ran, the faster I’d finish would be my motto.  It drizzled a little bit, and I figured it would be a-ok, and made the contingency plans if it was still raining during the race.  Windbreaker, wearing tri shorts to run in instead of normal shorts since they do well when wet, hat instead of headband, electronics in plastic bags, etc.  I made an epic playlist, ate my pre-race filet tater and veggie meal, chugged some Nyquil, and drifted off to sleep peacefully 8 hours before alarm time.  The hills, the rain, my body – it was not going to beat me.

Woke up this morning, and noted that it was FREAKING POURING and LIGHTNINGING.  Watched the news and saw that there was no letting up all day today.  Whatcha gonna do?  We did all the normal stuff – half a coffee honeymilk (caffeiiiiiine), get dressed, eat a little breakfast, get all my gear plus readied everything for running 2+ hours in the rain, plus dayquilled, vitamin C’d, and zinc’d up (more caffeiiiiiiiiiiine).  Checked emails, and nothing yet, so we headed down to the race (luckily it was like a 10 minute drive from the casa).  I commented that I wouldn’t be surprised if the race was delayed, cancelled, or just cut to a 5k.  We got halfway there, and I saw the confirmation tweet – the race was flat out cancelled.  I made Zliten drive to the start just for… I dunno… closure?  To be sure?  To make sure we at least got to the start?  But yeah, everyone was turned right around and not allowed to park.

Sore glute.  Sick.  Very very close to TOM (I wouldn’t have been surprised if it hit during the race as hard running seems to bring it on).  Pouring rain.  One week after racing a tri HARD.  I feel bad for the people who were training up hard for this race as their goal race, but frankly?  I’m relieved.  I was going to toe that line no matter what if they didn’t bag the race, but I’m so very glad they did.  In a way that I have never ever felt on a race day.  I signed up for the shirt and damned if I don’t have that pretty little shirt in my hot little hands and I’ll wear it proudly, since I showed up and was willing to run even though I had a host of fucked up conditions that would have very likely made it a rotten race for me.

That being said, I have a lot of pent up “rarin’ to go” for a race and nothing long scheduled for a while.  So this morning, I’m drinking mimosas (it’s kind of a requirement – it was the race for champagne, plus, what else am I going to do with my uber hyper self at 7am, right?), watching IM 70.3 Las Vegas coverage from last month, and surf for some fall/winter races, and getting some major rest so I can get healthy and back to training.

I will definitely run long next weekend as long as my body is up for it (not sick and no butt hurty).  Skipping this weekend means my 2nd without a long run.  Though, to be fair, 1:39:44 of heavy triathlon type-effort probably excuses last week.

In 2 weeks, I have a flat 5k race on a military base.  I can’t lie, I would love to prove to myself that I still can run 5ks fast.  My PR is 25:10, but I still question if it was a short course.  My other PR is 26:31 from 2 years ago.  My goal is 26:30.  I know I can do about 26 easy on a treadmill without much of a thing, maybe I can pull it off on a flat course.

Some other options:

DRC half and 5k Nov 6.  An excuse to go to Dallas for some In and Out (yeah, we’ve been looking for an excuse).  Zliten could run the 5k.

Azle Half, 1ok, 5k. Nov 12.  Small town race outside of Dallas.  Super cheap.  Another excuse for In and Out post race.  Cheap ass race entry (15 dollars each for Zliten and I).  Zliten could run the 10k or 5k.

Rock N Roll Half, San Antonio, Nov 13.  If I don’t do the one above, maybe this one.  I raced it last year and PR’d the crap out of it and enjoyed the race.  It’s fast, it’s flat, I know the course, there’s lots of support, and pushing for the next 3-4 weeks beyond the 13 miles might help me not fade out after mile 10 like I did last year.  Downsides: Expensive and Zliten isn’t ready for a half and there’s nothing less here, so he’d just be spectating.

Spicewood Vineyards Dec 3rd 10k and Half.  Not sure which distance I would race, I love me some 10k runs and I’ve only raced one.  However, it’s hilly.   Probably not a PR course (well, maybe for a 10k because, well, my current 10k PR is 2.5 years old), but should be a nice race day.  Zliten would be ready for a 10k here.  We will VERY likely do this one.

After that, there’s Decker Half but I heard it’s miserable (or maybe it was just one bad account of it), and I’ll keep looking for other race options, but soon after that, I’m dedicating weekend to 26.2 training, but I’d really like to race a half sometime this year while I can.

Have you ever had a race cancelled on you or skipped a race due to sickness?  Ever ran a race you regretted?

Today is the second anniversary of my marriage to this guy (which means we’ve been together for about 12 and known each other for like, 16, I’m we’re just slow):

When I was 20, he got me (re) hooked on video games and we thought, hmmm, maybe we can make something out of this.  Now it’s our bread and butter and we’ve been making games (mostly together) for over 10 years, and have definitely built a life around it with most of our friends being in the industry, so we can be unabashedly geeky together!  I can certainly say that I would have never thought of this on my own.  I always knew I wanted to entertain people, but didn’t know exactly HOW I wanted to do it.  Good call on the careers, Zliten!

When I was 30, I got hooked on a little thing called RUNNING.  While Zliten still isn’t a huge fan of the run, I did get him hooked on TRIATHLONS.  So much that we decided on a crazy race goal before 40.   I’m sure you can probably guess what it is, and potentially why all of a sudden I decided on a 2012 marathon.  Good call on the hobby, me!

Two years ago, we got hitched in Vegas in a tiki hut.  While I ended up stressing the details at the end, Zliten came up with the theme and ended up securing the venue.  Even though the lady made it VERY clear she would PREFER TO BE SPEAKING WITH THE BRIDE KTHX.  It was the best day ever.  Good call on the wedding, Zliten!

While we definitely have bad decision nights….

…we’ve gotten all the major ones right.  Most importantly, to spend the rest of our lives together.  Cheers to another year of good (and bad) decisions, my love, my bestest friend and my adventure buddy!

I KNOW, 2 posts in 2 days.  You might think I was a real blogger or something instead of treating this site like LiveJournal.  Enjoy it while you can…

Read the pre-race details here, if you like that sort of thing.

Where we last left this tale of tri… I was feeling very calm and zen (which is unique for me before races, I get lots of nervous and excited energy going, this time it was just… absent…) and the swim had just started…

Swim:
I should have probably mention that this is the smallest tri I’ve done – only about 250 people signed up and only 208 showed.  However… there were only FOUR swim wave starts.  39 and under had a TON of people and there was a lot of fighting for space.  Oddly enough, while there was a lot of jostling, I found that for the first time in a lake swim, I was getting that “water in my ears” feeling.  Which meant I had settled into a comfortable stroke like in the pool.  Cool.  I took care not to get caught up in the excitement and go too fast, just settle into a steady and relaxed pace even with people swimming over me.

I never really found a pocket, but I made do with what I had – I’ve learned to not expect that in the 500m swims we’ve been doing for these races.  I kind of can’t wait to do another Olympic simply because I loved the long swim section.   However, instead of feeling frustrated this time, I felt… zen.  Peaceful.  I almost didn’t want the swim section to end.  Mostly because I was enjoying it, but also because it was frakking cold and I had a huge hill to run up.  Some people raced past me at the end but I just kept pace.

Swim time: 13:37 for 500m.  While I do want to whittle this down a little bit, I’m pretty happy I had a l33t swim (it’s a dork thing, don’t ask).

T1:

The nice volunteers helped me out of the water on the steep ass ramp, I got my flippie floppies on and took it slow up the hill.  No need to get breathless before the bike, energy conservation, yadda yadda.  The few people that passed me on the way up the ramp I beat out of transition.

It went like clockwork.  I struggled with one sock but everything else went on quickly as planned.  I ran the bike out and did a running mount once I cleared the traffic (why oh why people, why do you stop RIGHT at the line, and get on your bike sloooooowly?).

T1 time: 3:12.  Pretty excited – I’m getting the transitions down.  Yeah, thumbs up indeed.

Bike:

The first mile of the bike was a bit hectic.  I didn’t start the garmin right away.  My glasses were foggy.  It was in the 60s and I was wearing a soaking wet tri suit.  Getting on the bike gloves took a little more time than I thought.  Did I mention it was cold?  I cursed the weather a bit, and was insanely jealous of the girl who I saw throw on a jacket at transition, but in retrospect, I’m not sure that would have been a good idea.

What may have been a good idea is the duct-tape-over-the-top of my shoes trick, with wet socks and a chilly breeze, my feet were VERY cold.  Considering I expect to have clip-in pedals and bike shoes next year it’s probably not a consideration, but even by the end I had frozen feet and was hoping it wouldn’t affect me in the run too badly.

Getting back to the bike, it was a 2-loop course, and we didn’t drive it ahead of time like we did the run course.  While there were some rolling hills, it was generally a slight downhill one way, slight uphill the other way.  I was pleased as hell with this.  When I told people I was tri-ing in Kerrville they’re like “oh… watch out for the hills”.  Luckily, the sprint distance was all in town which either wasn’t so bad or I just rock hills so hard it felt flat.  Probably the former, but I can dream.

I just kept getting happier and happier as the miles went on.  My pace was often above 20-22 mph and rarely noticed anything below 16 mph even on the hills.  I took the first lap MUCH faster than the second, and slowed down not because I was tired, but because I wanted to save something for the run and wanted to make sure my back wouldn’t flip out.

I started picking people off left and right at the start.  There was so much “on your left” (what’s said to warn someone you’re coming up to pass them) I started having to change it up and say “good  morning” and “awesome job”.  No one from my age group passed me the whole course, it was only masters folks on really really fancy bikes.  It was also a product of the fact that I took the swim really mellow, but my swim was middle of the pack, and I was fast out of transition.  There were plenty of people that could have passed me.

I had the bike of my life and I was freaking pumped as I finished.  I was also super excited that I didn’t pass Zliten – which meant he was having a great race too.  Most bike tri segments I’m REALLY ready to be done.  It used to be my worst worst worst of the three.  It’s now my best.

Bike time: 49:01 for 15 miles.  That’s freaking 18.4 MPH average.  This makes me happy in the tri shorts.  Speaking of tri apparel, look who FINALLY got himself a real tri shirt?

T2:

I was so jazzed about the bike I sort of lost my head here.  My time was great, but it could have been better – I fumbled things a few times grabbing them out of my bag.  I dropped my wristband multiple times.  I halfway considered leaving the bike gloves on for extra warmth, but I knew I was warm up way quick on the run so I ditched them.

I practiced this transition a lot less both mentally and physically (read: besides packing the bag, not at all).  How it went: ditch bike gloves, grab race belt, grab head and wrist band, drop head band, pick it up, drop race belt, pick it up, run for the exit, cross line, realize I dropped wristband again, consider leaving it, realize it could be a penalty, run back and grab it, and then finally get out on the road.

T2 time: 1:46.  Not too shabby but could have been better.  I may go for a race hat next time, it would be easier to grab, especially if it comes out of a bag and isn’t laid out.

Run:

I got a few blocks away from transition and realized I should check my pace.  I looked down at my wrist and holy crap, it was NEKKID.  Making the last minute decision to mount the garmin on the bike was AWESOME… except I forgot to grab it since I’ve never had to deal with it at transition and I didn’t practice.  FAIL.  I was running naked.

Past the initial freakout, I convinced myself it was a good thing.  I had to rely on perceived effort which meant I’d be really in tune with my body and how it was feeling.  Since I couldn’t dig into my music and rely on that for pace either, I turned my running more external.

While I’m a big fan of running my own race, I had to do something to stay motivated.  I started playing the age group game.  If someone passed me who was under 30 or over 34, I let it go.  If someone with a 30, 31, 32, 33, or 34 on their calf passed me, I kicked it up a notch.  I ran with a really super peppy girl named Whitney for about a half mile, but she got ahead of me on a hilly bit I just wasn’t ready for (she was only 21 so it was ok).  During this time I passed Zliten at about mile 1.3, he was having a great race and keeping around 12-13 min miles and feeling great and looking strong.  We gave each other some encouragement and I took off (it was very tempting to run with him for a bit, but I just had to keep pushing).

A 30 passed me and I tried, but couldn’t catch her.  Now that I’m looking at the results, she was definitely the one who finished right above me in the AG rankings and ran a very fast 5k (pretty close to my non-tri PR).  However, the next one was a 34.  She was booking it too.  I got a little sad until she started walking, and I caught her and passed her.  Then she passed me.  Then I passed her.  Finally she started running with me and was asking me about my camelback and oddly enough I was able to make fairly coherent conversation.  She passed me, and then started walking again, so I decided when I passed her, it would be the last time.

I turned on the heat.  I was feeling good, I knew the finish was pretty close people were cheering us on, my legs responded well to the request to kick, so I went with it.  Best spectator ever: instead of “almost there”, he said “you have about 500m to go”.  That was perfect.  Just about a 400m sprint.  I can do that.  I turned it on more.  Other best spectator ever told me I had 200m left and the finish was around the corner.  I kicked as hard as I could and booked it through the twisty turny corral and hear them call my name and I saw the clock: my time was in the 1:39s.  I finished feeling AWESOME!

I beat lady 34 by 1 second.  She was 8th.  I had no idea until I saw the results.

Run time: 32:07 for 5k – 10:18 pace

Would I have run a better race with a garmin?  Maybe.  Maybe I would have gone out too fast and crashed.  Maybe I would have gone out fast and made it work.  I suspect I might have been able to hit my goal of under 10 minute miles if I knew how close I was (considering how well I kicked at the end, I had a decent amount left in me).  Apparently, this race I was meant to run without my garmin and while I probably wouldn’t do it again, I can’t say I’m really disappointed with how the run went.

Results:

1:39:44 total
7th Age Group/21 total AG
42 gender/120 total chicky-poos
96 total/208 total tri people

Top 1/3 of age group (and almost gender), over top half overall.  I am pleased as punch.  I hit both my A goal and my placement goal.  This was a great way to end the tri season – PR, a beautiful course, and an amazing day.  While I wasn’t sure anything could top my mood after the Pflugerville tri, it did.  Favorite tri so far EVAR.  We will SO be back next year, whether we decide to do the sprint, olympic, or half distance (we’ll see where I’m at in a year, there’s plenty of time to decide).

Overall, I have such a good feeling about the Kerrville.  Just the pure JOY I felt before, during, and after.  At no time (beyond maybe on a few of those run hills) did I curse out the course or feel frustrated or angry or taking revenge on the course or honestly be anything but fueled by rainbows and sunshine and puffy clouds and unicorns and sparkles.  I spent most of the race just grinning ear to ear, thankful that I was out racing on such an amazing day.  Even thinking about it is giving me chills.  They can’t all be like that, but I’ll take as many of those as I can!  Love, love, loved this day.

We’ll leave the goals for next year to a future post.  Please enjoy drooling over what I celebrated with once I got home, and now I’m resting and in taper week 2 – See Jane Run Half Marathon in less than a week!

Races come in all different flavors.  Some, like Warrior Dash, Hell Run, Urban Dare, Keep Austin Weird, are more about the beer and the experience and the fun, and they just happen to have a finish line.  Some are for the shirt (See Jane) or it’s sponsored by work (Casa) or a race someone else picked out and you agreed to (Rookie).  It usually doesn’t take much arm twisting, I’m happy to race distances I’m comfortable with at any time (sprint tri, 5k, 10k, etc), but it doesn’t mean I’ve put in the training to really kick it’s ass.

Some races, though, are the ones you designate an “A” race.  Some races you spend 3.5 months training for without the distraction of other races, simply zooming in on the goal of absolutely CRUSHING your PR and dominating the course.  Not just rolling the dice to seeing if your number comes up, but attempting to stack the deck with so many aces by training your heart out, there’s no possible way your athletic gains can’t be recognized with a shiny new PR.  Sometimes it works out (Rock and Roll San Antonio 2010), sometimes it doesn’t (Gladiator Games 2011, Austin Half Marathon 2009).

That was this race for me this year.

Please indulge me a race report probably longer than the race itself.  I went back and forth trying to edit it down, but to be honest, I love reading long, detailed race reports.  Getting into people’s heads, histories, tips, techniques, and living vicariously through their experiences… I love it, so you might love it too.  If not,  and you just want to hear about the race itself, it will be up soon.

I put in 3 months of solid training for this sprint tri, just working on getting faster, especially at the bike, by punishing myself with hill work at least once a week in the gym, and doing a speed/hill workout once a week on the run.  I didn’t do as many bricks (I was averaging 1-2 per week last year and even earlier in the season, later I dropped to one every 2-3 weeks and not all outside), but let me tell you – a 10 miler w/a fast 5k at the end simulates tired legs well, to the point where bricks felt EASY.  Double duty workout = rawk.

I also did lots of volume – we did lots of 20-35 mile bike rides, and I did 6 double digit runs in the last 2 months, and put in the same amount of work I did to get to the Olympic last year, even though on race day, I would be swimming only a third of the distance, biking 11 less miles, and running only half as much.

I stacked the deck, for sure.  But I still took a gamble training up for a half marathon at the same time and working on those long bike rides.  I’ve never thrown this many miles at a short race before.

If your eyes glazed over from all that, please be assured my point is this.  I trained really fucking hard for this one, and put my eggs in one basket.  By signing up for the last sprint tri in the area of the season.  No chance for redemption.

No need though.  I absolutely obliterated that course.  Dominated.  Conquered. (We both did, actually)

I’ll save you a long diatribe about the journey there and the expo and the night before except to mention a few things:
-Staying at the offical race hotel if the start line is a block or two away is so awesome.  The expo, our hotel room, and T1 was within a block of each other.
-We checked out the run course and noted that of course, the tricky part was in mile 2, where I have the most trouble.  Lovely.
-Pre race dinner at the hotel was just about the worst filet mignon I’ve ever had in my life, and my cut was at least 2000% better than the one Zliten got.  Still, chewy steak is steak and it’s much better race fuel than pasta or anything else I’ve tried.
-If you ever have sleepy troubles before a race – half a can of Drank put us both out like a light and I woke up 7 hours later rarin’ to go.
-I must be spoiled.  It was the nicest hotel in town and all I could think of was hmmm, it’s been a long time since I slept on anything that wasn’t a pillowtop mattress (but it was fine, see above).

The morning of, I woke up with the alarm at 5:30, and found that my back was markedly better (I’d been dealing with stiffness and some pain this week), so that made me happy.  I was still full from the night before, so I decided to go without a breakfast bar, but I swigged a coffee honeymilk (I took half right when I got up, and half about 30 mins before the race).  Good thing I had checked the forecast, because I saw a low of 57.  Considering we’ve been lucky to be below 80 before that, those numbers seemed pretty much like nonsense to me, but packed for it.  When I poked my head outside it was super chilly and felt exactly like it did the morning of the tri the same weekend last year which I was unprepared for..

I was very very glad I brought a long sleeve shirt and pants and extra shoes and socks (and told Zliten to do the same – he actually had purchased that ensemble as a joke for a halloween costume last year, so it may have not been pretty, but it worked).  We did our warmup run with them on and, in fact, I didn’t want to take them off.  At all.  Luckily we were able to rack our bikes the day before and as I mentioned, we were staying at pimp accommodations, so we were able to get a warmup run around the hotel grounds, grab the rest of our stuff to set up, and walk the block over hitting transition about 30 mins before it closed.

Normally this is a no no, and we try to get there pretty close to when it opens, but to be honest, once you’ve secured a spot, that’s half the battle, and we were able to rack bikes in T1 and drop our bike to run bag off at T2 (which was 2 miles away) the day before.  The only thing we had to do the morning of was set up the rest of T1, which took almost no time.

I made a few different decisions about gear/stuff this time.  While I thought I was going to go sans bike gloves, my last 6.5 mile ride told me I’d much rather have them.  Since I didn’t want to add to my transition time, I velcroed them to my bike and planned to put them on while I was peddling.  Also, last minute, Zliten’s new ironman watch came with a bike mount which he didn’t want to use, so I snagged it.  The plan was to leave it there on the bike and, obviously, put it on my wrist for the run.  Also, since I had such a great run while fueling in between, I brought sports beans to throw in my sportsbra just in case I wanted nutrition.

The rest of my gear was the norm.  I didn’t do a lot of actual transition practice this time but went over it a billion times in my head.  Shammy for feet if needed, sock, shoe, sock, shoe, helmet, sunglasses, camelback, unrack bike and go.  After getting briefed on how things would go down, I had to add “put all wet swim stuff and towel in swim bag”.  Because if anything was outside your swim bag, it got donated to goodwill or thrown away.

This took all of… 5 minutes.  And my goal was to turn on the garmin as close to transition closing as possible because I didn’t trust it finding satellites (since we were not at home, it took a WHILE the night before), so I had time to kill.  I walked down to the water and took a look – the lake was GORGEOUS.  It looked super clear, which made me happy.  I was lamenting earlier that I just wished it was in Lake PF because it’s my favorite lake and I’m comfortable there and I was a little nervous about swimming somewhere completely new I’d not seen until the day of, but my freakouts were unwarranted.  Although, the ramps they had to make to get us in the lake due to very low water levels were a little steep and scary.  Thank goodness the start was actually IN the water.

I hit the porta potty one more time and went back to transition one last time.  When they said 5 minutes to go, I shed my long sleeves and pants and shoes and reluctantly handed off my dry goods bag and turned on my garmin.  It was not any warmer so Zliten and I huddled together and went back down to the water to have the pre-race meeting and I dropped off my flippie floppies near the lake exit.  We went to go put our feet in the water and out swims a water moccasin.  Awesome.  Well, I’m pretty sure it was going to be more scared of me than I was of it, and I needed a warmup, so in I went.  The water was soooo nice and warm.  I swam out to the first buoy and on the way back, the national anthem started playing.  I’m not sure what proper procedure is to not be rude while swimming, so I treaded water with my hand over my heart until it was over.  I hope America understands.

I got out, and it was just about time to wave 1 to start (which was Zliten’s) so I gave him a nice big wet hug, secured a spot by the start, and screamed and yelled for him as the horn blew.  I made friends with a few women who were shivering and assured them the water was warm.  One lady I talked to kept questioning me about the distances in the race… uh… maybe people aren’t obnoxious as I am about knowing and training for every little thing but… really?  There is a big difference between sprint swim distances (I’ve seen everything from 300m to 800m) and being prepared for one is not necessarily being prepared for the other.  Other than that oddity, it was nice making convo.

The funny thing I realized at this point was… no pre-race nerves.  Not just less, but none.  I hadn’t really fretted about anything this morning, I had planned and trained for so long, and gone over it so many times in my head, I was just executing.  I wasn’t jumping around with nervous energy.  I felt very calm and zen the whole morning.  I went over my transition plan a few more times in my head, got into the water, and then all of a sudden – the horn blew and everyone started swimming.  If there was a countdown, I totally missed it.  Treading water fluidly became freestyle and off we went!

Stay tuned for Part 2 later this week… just in case you were interested in the race itself…