Week 21: #dontdieBSLT2013

I really don’t have all that much to say, but going to do this for completionist’s sake to have a weekly report (EDIT: ok, fine, more to say than I thought).

Food:

I stopped tracking around Thursday at lunch because, honestly, carbing up for a longer endurance race is something you need to do, but doesn’t look pretty on the diet quality score and the calories.  In retrospect it was silly not to track since it’s just a number, a metric, but the last thing I wanted to do was restrict calories too much the days before and be underfueled.  It was a good thing too, as I felt like my tank was topped off, I had zero stomach issues, and I even forgot my nutrition on the run and did just fine with a few sips of powerade at every other aide station.

My weight ranged between 176.8 and 180.0.  It was the week where I typically don’t make any weight progress (thx u hormones), so that was expected.

What might be more interesting is to note what I ate the last few days before the race because it was NOT normal:

Thursday:

• Normal fage, berries, alpen granola, and pb breakfast
• Went to a work lunch and ended up (not intentionally) with a teeny tiny greek chicken salad.  Oops.  And a few fried pickles.  Double oops.
• Outdoor training + no electrolyes with (oops) meant I needed salt badly on the way home so I ate half a bag of smartfood popcorn.
• Normal type dinner.  I don’t remember exactly what it was.  I was pretty satiated from the popcorn but OMG I had to have something right then or I was going to get dizzy on the ride home.

Friday:

• Normal breakfast
• Went Vietnamese for lunch.  Normally I avoid since it’s not whole grains, but I indulged in a big chicken vermicelli bowl with lots of fish sauce and hot sauce.  Day before, I eat nothing spicy.  Day before the day before, I enjoy. 🙂
• No snacks because, huge lunch.
• Another normal-ish dinner.  Again, don’t remember what (this is why I track) but something normal like fish rice/quinoa and veggies.

Saturday:

• Bean and cheese breakfast taco with normal flour tortilla
• Cookie stop at Colin Street bakery – had 2 small cookies
• Lunch: turkey club sandwich, salad.  Asked for it without mayo, it came with extra mayo, was too hungry to care and ate it.
• Snacked on pretzels all day whenever I got hungry (probably about 2-3 servings)
• Dinner:  Room service… grilled cheese sandwich and mashed potatoes, a few of Zliten’s fries

Race Day:

• Pre race: oatmega bar, chai tea (meant to have another cookie but forgot), half a honeystinger gel 15-30 mins before, ~225 calories
• During the race: 1 powerbar chomp, 2 cliff shot chomps, half a pack pink lemonade honeystinger chomps.  Probably about ~200 calories.   On run, meant to take down more chomps, but forgot them so just some powerade sips… probably about ~100 calories max.
• Lunch: In n out cheeseburger and fries
• Dinner: Champagne, beer, and random snacks I found around the house (half a bag of carrots and hummus, etc etc).

I was pretty hungry the next day (in a perfect world, I would have skipped the champers and beer and refueled with chicken breast and veggies but… well… y’know), and ate a few hundred more calories than normal but all was right with the world Tuesday.

I felt much better with the heavy carb/less fat meal the day before, and doing a little extra white carbage the few days before I think helped my tank feel full without a whole bunch of fuel the day of either before or during.  I mean, it was only a 3 hour race so it’s not really indicative of what will work for a 70.3, but it’s the best data I have before BSLT so you better believe I’ll be finding a place to get a damn club sandwich on sourdough bread. 🙂 Going to go back to the normal steak/taters/veggies next week though and see if there’s a difference.

The next few weeks I’m trying to be on the straight and narrow – I would really like to roll into June 30th as light as I can (within reason of course).

Training:

This was a week of just trying to prepare to race a distance I, in all rights, was not ready to race being cleared from injury just 12 days before.

Weights: I’ve just stopped weights work, minus my chiro sanctioned PT, and I’ll pick it back up in July after the race.  Joe Friel says that during the thick of tri-season, you may or may not find weights helpful, and while I am definitely someone who usually finds weights helpful, I need to make sure that I pick my knee stress wisely and I really need to use all available time making my comeback.  One odd tidbit – my chiro said that women should never ever do squats without a smith machine with significant weight.  Apparently we have too much boobs and butt to actually be able to balance the bar correctly.  So I shouldn’t feel too much like a wuss that I’ve only squatted a) with like less than 40 lbs in Group power class or b) on the machine.  It was science!  Or anatomy, or whatever.

Swimming:

I’m cutting down pool swimming time this month as a) I’m in really great shape here b) I focused on this in May and c) more time for biking and swimming.  I am going to try to make it to the Lake to swim at least 3 times this month and hit up the pool 1-2 times a week as well (after this week – the pool and I are on a break).  However, last week, for which this recap is being written – I actually swam a lot – 4 times (3 times during the week and at the race).  I’m pretty happy with where I’m at pool-wise.  This month, my gains need to be in open water, and sacrificing pool time for long bike/run sessions.

Bike:

I didn’t do a lot here, although I did get a very hot outdoor ride in which actually did bad things for my confidence.  I did a trainer ride on Wed that had some race effort miles in the middle which felt great, and the ride outside in the 90 degree heat at PF.  I felt really weak and wiped after 13 miles at about 0.1 miles per hour (ok fine, 15.5, but still!).  I couldn’t figure out how to dismount off my higher seat and had to circle back once and then at the parking lot almost fell.

My biggest fear at the race, after coming back from the injury and having a lot of other shit to worry about, was that I would biff it on the way into T2.  Someone did that on my second lap.  Instead of wrecking, my brain finally wrapped around the flying dismount – slowest ever, but it gives me hope in like 20 years I might actually look like a veteran triathlete coming in and out of transitions.

Run:

I missed the 3 mile run the Saturday before the race, but I had to get on with some longer runs to ramp up, so I did 4 on Tues and 5 on Thurs.  I can’t lie, they were both kinda rough.  It’s been a long time since that distance was a challenge, but after a month off and weak quads, I was done at the end of each run, no flowery “I wish I could have done more” poetry at all.  However, finishing 5 slow ass miles made me realize I was fine for the race.

The suckiest thing was the combination of starting heat training and starting running again after a month off.  I ignored my heart rate and ran what felt easy, but *foreshadowing* my heart rate is back up through the roof with an effort that was previously perceived as a super easy jog.  I knew I would have to address that soon, but this week, running 4 and 5 miles nonstop was more important to me for race prep/confidence than adhering to a HR plan.

At the race, as I suspected, the limiter was my knee.  I ambled along at about 10:30s which is actually better than I’ve ever done at an Olympic, but any time I tried to push much faster my knee protested, even though I knew the rest of my body could go faster.  So, I raced that line as close as I could, and Zliten noted that I wasn’t limping through most of it, but I definitely had a weird gate at the end, so success – pushed myself as far as I could.  I was hot and a little tired at the end but I definitely wasn’t spent, so here’s hoping that with extra healing, I’ll have a little more to give in race 2 and 3 this month.  My only solace with BSLT’s brutally hilly course is that my knee actually tends to be happy with uphills.  So there is that.

By the days:

Monday: off (volunteered for Cap Tex Tri for 5.5 hours and was WIPED and knee sore after so no training)
Tuesday: Run: Neighborhood Loop + Some 4 mi 00:47, Swim: Estimated Laps 1290 m 00:30
Wednesday: Bike: Trainer w/Pickups – XxX and V… 11.47 mi 00:30, Swim: Race Effort 150s 1350 m 00:30
Thursday: Run: Neighborhood Loop + North Sch… 5 mi 00:58, Bike: Pfluger Loop 13 mi 00:50, Swim: Lake Pf 550 m 00:15:00
Friday: off
Saturday: off (meant to swim but oops)
Sunday: Race!  Swim: Play Tri Olympic Swim 1500 m 00:32, Bike: Play Tri Olympic Bike 22 mi 01:14, Run: Play Tri Olympic Run (short) 5.5 mi 00:58

Thoughts and Other Stuff:

For the next 2-3 weeks, I’m focused on longer sessions.  I’ve been lucky to be able to pull out huge PRs at my 10 miler and my Olympic tri on very minimal miles, just a straight head on my shoulders and very strategic sessions, and race karma for volunteering.  I don’t feel like my luck will continue with BSLT unless I do some work.  I have proved to myself I have the speed I need to hit the paces I want there, I just need to make sure I don’t die endurance-wise.  I think I’ve ended every dailymile post with this.  I now think I will coin a twitter hashtag of #dontdieBSLT2013, or something.

And now, off to do what I do best, go to sleep right around sunset, so I can wake up early and train.