Adjusted Reality

Taking time off from triathlon is always a leap of faith.  What happens when you go back?  What if you forget how to race?  What if you suddenly suck at it, or it’s not fun?  What if you have so much caffeine that you suddenly blast off into outer space?  These questions and more will be answered in this post…

Jack’s Generic two years in a row has proved that #offseason over summer is a really great thing and five weeks is definitely not long enough to lose enough fitness to care about.

It was a clash of things over the week:

• Rested legs vs lack of training. (obviously)
• Crappy sleep during the week vs AMAZING race night sleep. I was at over 4 hours slept debt for the week against my 8-per night minimum, but I fell asleep at 7:45 and slept almost 9 hours Saturday night.  Unheard of race day sleep!
• Obsessing over the race vs not even thinking about it.  It really didn’t hit me I was racing until I picked up my packet.  I didn’t lay my stuff out until after dinner on Saturday.  I didn’t type up or think about goals for it.
• Being underfed vs being a few lbs lighter.  I had been at the lower calorie range for the last few weeks, but I was ~5 ish lbs lighter than when I raced last season.

My enthusiasm wasn’t all there this week.  Just like last year, I wondered “why the hell did I sign up for this race?”, because who races well after 5 weeks of slacking?  But, Saturday, I felt a twinge of “yay race” when I picked up the packet.  Coupled with the amazing sleep and the fact that I ingested the proper amount of caffeine on race day morning (see above), I was peppy and happy and had the thought that I was just ready to go for racing hard, whatever that happened to be that day.

Pre race stuff: ate kind bar (going to switch over to more carbs, but I haven’t tried it before AM workouts yet so stuck with what I knew), had purple stuff, set up transition, pottied a few times, ran about half a mile with strides and WOW my legs were feeling great, got kicked out of transition because it was time to go, got a warmup swim, and then stood on the beach with Zliten and B and M and waited for our time to jump in line for the time trial start.

Swim:

Due to the massive amount of Hydrilla in the lake, they skipped the normal course and bushwhacked the nature through this weird out and back.  I can’t thank Hi 5 Race Productions enough for doing this – it would have been AWFUL to race through as it was.  However, this resulted in a lot of dodging people going my way because the course was very narrow, not to mention avoiding stray swimmers coming toward me that were off course.  No head on collisions, but there were a few close calls.

Besides playing crazy swim taxi, I felt pretty strong, passing people left and right, and I got passed maybe… once. I slowed down a little bit coming back. It was into the sun and I didn’t have a good judgment on how gassed I really was without training lately so I tried to stay… moderately gassed. 🙂

Swim was a little long, my time was 1:52/100 yard for 550 meters on the garmin – not my best, but under the circumstances, I felt like it was a good swim for me.

Swim time: 11:14/500m.  6/20 AG, 47/152 gender, 105/283 overall. 1:27 faster than last year. Very happy with the placement and the amount of time I took off from last year!

T1:

Long run over the rocky beach, and my feet just don’t love that, so all these people I passed on the swim went right by me. Ugh.  Once I got to concrete I picked up the pace and got to my bike and didn’t fumble too much.

T1 time: 2:49.  7/20 AG, 42/152 gender, 104/283 overall. 4 seconds slower than last year.  Eh, whatevs, close enough.

Bike:

T2:

My legs were a little wobbly getting out of the pedals but I made to back to my rack and changed without too much fumble or delay.  I decided hell to the yes on a frozen bottle, which makes T2 a little slower to navigate, but I believe it may have saved my race.

T2 time: 1:38.  10/20 AG, 60/152 gender, 124/284 overall. 8 seconds faster than last year.

Run:

Now, that I’ve had one last romp with the short stuff, with the 90 minutes of speedy pain, we start the volume build towards SIX HOURS OF PAIN at the end of September. 🙂

Some days you have that little extra something special, and some days, all you can do is execute on your training and roll with the punches.  I was missing a little bit of fire from the beginning but sometimes that resolves itself. Today, it lingered. But, you play the cards you have on race day, and I didn’t have a bad hand, just not a royal flush.

But really, I think the root of my issues were a little more biological.  I spent Friday outside in the lake which was fun, but probably not 100% the best race prep.  I didn’t sleep well the night before.  I have been cutting calories a bit over the last few weeks.  I spent the three days before at a higher calorie count (around 2000 per day), but it might not have been enough.  My husband decided to make our caff drink half strength for some reason because he thought I didn’t want any and I didn’t realize until we were on the road.

And… honestly, after a clearer head today and writing this all up, it’s so clear there wasn’t really something magical that was wrong with me, as I had convinced myself there was during the race.  I ate breakfast at 4:30am (kind bar and coconut water) and my wave didn’t go off until after 8:15, and I consumed approximately 1.25 scoops of heed and one gel until I hit the finish line, around 10am.  That’s just not enough.  When I get on the bike in a sprint feeling hungry, it’s not a good sign.

On the flip side, I’m saying all these things about something that was actually a pretty good breakthrough for me, overall.  And it’s hard to be taken seriously bitching about a PR, which I’m not.

Swim:

T1:

I feel like I’ve had solid transitions here at Pflugerville the last few years and this was no exception.  I was curious why it took me a little longer and then realized that they expanded the parking lot, so transition was bigger.  It was a difference of 9 seconds, so no worries there.

T1 time: 2:24

Bike:

T2:

Since I had to hold back a bit on the bike, I was a lot less spent than expected, so I made my way through this quickly.  Even with a bigger parking lot, and a completely SOAKED transition, I took 3 seconds off last year.  Win.

T2 time: 1:30

Run:

Sometimes it feels like coming home.

This triathlon was a breath of fresh air.  At the end of the season, I had trouble getting really excited or inspired for races.  I had all these expectations, heavy with a season of training and fatigue, and even when I had a pretty darn decent race, I felt disappointed.  I was lucky to end my season on a real high note, and go into offseason feeling blissful, redeemed, satisfied…

…but then there is a whole uncertainty about taking 5 weeks off.  I mean, I ran 6 miles a week and did some weights (that was my one offseason homework assignment to myself).  I biked ONCE because I wanted to watch the tour de France and it felt wrong to do so from my couch.  I did a lot of laps around the lazy river at the water park and splashed around in the ocean a lot on vacation, but I didn’t swim a yard in a pool or a lake.

I felt like an idiot signing up for this one, the week I came back to training.  Why would I do this when I’m obviously not at my full potential?  I’ll probably be exhausted from trying to get back in the swing of things.  I’ll probably just be overwhelmed after this at all the work I have left to do in 8 weeks to put in a good effort at Kerrville.  And… this race and I do not have a great history.

But, yesterday, I got all excited.  It didn’t matter that I hadn’t biked outside since June 21st (and 3 times inside, less than 3 hours total over 6 weeks).  It didn’t matter that I’ve swam less than 2 miles (and all open water, but still).  It didn’t matter that I’ve just pittered around doing lazy 5ks whatever pace I felt like.  I had some race enthusiasm!  It was really nice!  I wasn’t just faking it until I got going!

The goal of last week’s training was to just do enough to feel like we were back into it, but stay fresh for the race.  Ran 10 miles, did 45 easy miles on the trainer, and swam twice in the lake, for about 1.5 miles.  I felt good, my legs felt fresh, but I was really uncertain about what I had to give.

Swim:

The swim was changed to an out and back because of major hydrilla overgrowth (they had gone in with snorkels and machetes and cleared a path for us, how nice).  It was a time trial start, so when it was my chance I ran in, dolphin dived (sorta), and started passing people.  Sighting was a challenge, and it was harrowing being worried about getting in a head on collision.  A sprint swim always feels like I’m just getting started when I get out.  Swam until I touched fingers (almost ran into a volunteer), swam a little further, then up, out, and across the beach I went.

Swim time: 12:43 for 500m – 13/29 AG, 65/183 Gender

I felt like I was swimming decently, and while this time in and of itself is really, really slow for me, this also includes a fairly long beach run.  There was a question of whether it was a little long too.  Whatever.  I’m happy with it.

T1:

The normal Pfluger run from beach, around the path, down the stairs, to transition.  The difference is that this time it was NOT open racking, and I was pretty much on the opposite side I like to be on (very close to swim in, far from bike out).  I did my thing and clip clip clip clomped out, mounted, and was on my way.

T1 time: 2:46 12/29 AG, 60/183 Gender.

A little longer than I’d like, but the whole clomp clomp thing across a whole parking lot.  Someday… I’ll do the shoes in like a pro.  Someday…

Bike:

I had ZERO expectations for this. But, I got riding, I was feeling good, keeping high cadence, and I just decided to smash myself as best I could. I just wanted to see what was in these legs, and damn the run, I’d get to that when I got to it.  And I actually had more than I expected! I maintained over 20 mph the first 2 miles, over 19 the first 4, and then I hit the wind.  I spent miles 4-10 fighting the wind, the hills, and dodging the noobs on the mountain bikes riding in the middle, and trying to stay out of the way of the dudeholes on their zipp wheelies, I slowed to 18s and then 17s.  The miles ticked past quickly even though I was pushing myself, I did my best just to hammer.

I lost pace all the way to 17.1 mph but knew I’d get some love soon.  While Pflugerville wind sometimes blows at you from all directions, this was not one of those days. Once we turned and got the tailwind I breathed a sigh of relief to not be fighting the wind (and got some nice flat miles), so I saw awesome paces like 23 mph, and I just kept cranking.

I did make the mistake of tucking in behind a slow guy too early, and had to stay there so I didn’t make a dick move to dart out in front of him right before rolling into transition.  While I wasted a few seconds there, I was hoping it would help my legs on the run, having a quick little break.

Bike time: 43:54 – 7/29 AG, 40/183 Gender

I kept the exact same pace as the last race on this course – when I was primed for racing, and even specifically training for shorter courses. I can’t even… I’m just thrilled.  I did the BEST overall in the bike course when I expected to do the worst.  Rested legs for the win!

…and I beat this guy on the bike.  He normally eeks out a few MPH more than me (at least short course, longer courses it’s a toss up) but I beat him by about 1.5 minutes.

He had a really good race though and beat me over a minute on the run, so there’s that.

T2:

Dismounted as normal, had an close encounter of the T2 kind with another guy cutting in front of me going to the other side of the lot, but found my way to the rack in one piece.  I had a few issues, I was a little shell shocked from hammering the bike, also the run all the way back down the parking lot in the clip clip clips took a while, but I was off and running pretty quick.

Transition 2: 1:47 – 13/29 AG, 85/183  Not my best, but not my worst.  My worst placement of the day, oddly enough.

Run:

3 seconds.

That’s not a whole lot of time.  I mean, there’s the 5 second rule for food (which I know is not really a thing but it totally is when I drop something on the floor that I really want).  You might say “gimme 3 seconds” when you want someone to hold on.  Glad I didn’t give anyone 3 seconds today or I’d not be talking about a new PR.

All the other pictures besides this one of me waiting for the porta potties are on a realm which is named Notmyphone so excuse the wall-o-text for now.

I was not feeling all that great this morning.  My bar didn’t sit well in my stomach, the caffeine didn’t really get me up and pumped, and I just wasn’t with it and feeling excited.  I’ve turned around my mojo in the last few weeks with some rest and a little more speed, but I guess it’s not still recovered.

We got to transition super early and got an awesome spot right by bike out (yay open racking).  There was the normal dinking around setting up transition, hanging out in the car listening to music, potties, warm up run, more potties, warmup swim, national anthem, running into a bunch of friends, and then I was sending Zliten off in his wave.

I just couldn’t get excited.  I was yawning.  My stomach wasn’t awful, but definitely off.  I couldn’t stomach the idea of any pre-race nutrition like I try to do, so I skipped it.  I cheered Zliten out the swim, and then went and centered myself and tried to get jazzed about being at one of my favorite races of the year.  Finally, after forever, it was my wave’s turn.  I unintentionally positioned myself in the middle of the washing machine and decided it was fine and then it was time to swim.

Swim:

Short swims are not my strength.  It takes me a while to get going in the water, but after about 200-300 meters, I do well.  For a sprint, that’s like half the swim.  So, my goal was to just try to put some hurt on the first half until it gets better.

I think I did alright at it, there was some touching feets and bodies and jostling for position but nothing obnoxious, and then all of a sudden we were halfway there and I felt pretty good.  I did have to avoid some breaststrokers and backstrokers, but felt pretty long and lean. There was some chop, but I’ve been through way worse, so I just made sure to get my breaths when I could.

I could have probably pushed the second half more but I was having some sighting issues into the sun, but nothing too bad.  I swam into shore until I touched, high knee’d out of the water, and was vertical and running before I knew it.  Sprint swims are weird and so short, it never feels worth even going into the water.

Swim time: 11:33 (17/41).

3 seconds better than 2012, 13 seconds better than 2012. Thought I might have a better swim in me, but I haven’t really been focusing on the swim so a few seconds better is a-ok with me. I’m convinced this is long – this clocks me at 2:19/100m, which is pretty much cruise pace for me and this didn’t feel like a cruise, and the best time in my age group was 1:51/100m pace. Yeah, pretty sure it’s long.

T1:

Did the big girl thing and went sans sandals.  It was mostly fine except a short rocky stretch that was thinly covered by astro turf, which I gingerly walk/ran.

I tried to go minimal this year.  No gloves, no sleeves (didn’t need them since it was in the 80s), and decided to try leaving my garmin in my bento box instead of taking the time to put it on.  Felt pretty expedient and got out and mounted without incident and got biking quickly.

T1 time: 2:15. (15/41)

Both 2012 and 2013 was 2:53.  Really, really happy to take almost 40 seconds off my transition time, and I didn’t find that gravity in transition the way I did at the x-50.

Bike:

Got going, hit start on my garmin in the bento box, and tried to get it on my wrist. Fail. Wasn’t going to happen on the bike. I swear I’ve done this before but haven’t practiced it for a while so… whatevs. I tried a few times and it was just too crowded and too much going on, and I knew it was going to cost me some speed to tinker with it, so I just left it in the box.

So, yet again, I was biking blind. I can honestly say this time I think it hurt me without question. This race is challenging to bike – my wave goes off so late there are so many people to pass. Somehow, this year it wasn’t as bad – the people around me seemed decently polite and being in the third to last wave instead of second meant less people to dodge, I guess, but still – on your left about 100 times at least.

The wind was unfortunate – the longest stretch had the headwind. I didn’t feel like it was killing me, but it did definitely slow me down a little bit. I leapfrogged with some gals – attempting to be as legal as possible, but the course was so crowded it was hard. I never tucked right in behind someone with the intent to draft, but sometimes going around a corner or a car was coming, or a super fastie was coming through, and I had to get over and I definitely did not have enough bike lengths between me and other people, but it was impossible to do so.

I peeked at my garmin about 2 miles to go and it said 17.7. I was a little bummed because I wanted to hold 18s, but… it was not to be. I tried to resist the urge to hammer the last two miles and just tried to keep it steady – I didn’t want to kill my run.

Here was the worst part of the bike – I felt like I had to pee the ENTIRE time, and while I’m sure it’s a point of pride to pee off the bike in an Ironman, it’s probably inappropriate to do so in a little local sprint. Also, chews still sounded AWFUL and gatorade was turning my stomach (plus, putting fluid in on top of a full bladder was not working).

I wasn’t sure what to do, but since it was just a sprint, I figured the best bet was to just forgo any nutrition and just get to transition where I had a nice cold water bottle. THAT sounded pretty good.

Dismount went without note and I was over the line and going.

Bike: 47:58. (21/41)

2012 was 48:16, so that was better, but 2013 was 46:27. 2013, my garmin decided to fuck up and show me around a 15 mph speed, which made me rage bike and smash it. I wish I could have done a little more on the bike yesterday. Besides the fact that I just haven’t done a lot of outdoor riding this, I’ll also say that not having the garmin data didn’t help (could I have pushed more seeing my pace? probably?) and stomach issues were not helping.  Excuses, yes, but they are my excuses and I own them.

T2:

I stopped my garmin and shoved it in my tri top.  I racked my bike, got my shoes on, and our friend R that runs the transitions yelled at me and said “action shot!” so I gave him a thumbs up.  So, that probably cost me a few seconds but totally worth it (says the girl who was 3 second on the right side of the PR, might have been a different story otherwise).

This is the first Pfluger I decided to use my handheld (mostly for cooling purposes), so that took a few extra seconds and some time fucking with my garmin, but I got out pretty quick.

T2 time: 1:33.  (19/41)

Both 2012 and 13 were 1:19, so I lost 14 seconds.  However, I saved 38 seconds in T1 so it was a net 24 seconds in both transitions so I’ll take it.  If I could have ditched the handheld I could have saved time, but I felt like I needed the ice.

Run:

This was where I wanted to kill it. I got up the hill, onto the path, and found that my fast legs had stayed at home. I was struggling to stay around 10 minutes/mile. I didn’t freak out at first, I know I take some time to get going, but when I passed the first mile at about 10 mins exactly, I knew it was not going to be the day to run my best.

However, I wasn’t running AWFULLY. I didn’t feel like death, but I just couldn’t get my legs to turn over the way I know they can. The second mile was better, but then we turned into the wind, and I leapfrogged some girls in my age group, and I found myself just… lacking in the oomph department.

I finally came back to life closer to the finish line after someone in my age group passed me and I could see the finish, and I saw the time of day and knew I had to lay it down to PR. I found a little oomph I didn’t know I had, passing four people (two I believe were in my age group) and rolled into the finish and actually dry heaved into my finisher’s towel (all the chunks stayed down though, thankfully).

Run: 28:48. (21/41)

2012 was 28:07, and 2013 was 30:10 (but that was definitely due to my knee injury). I had figured a run PR was a no brainer with the way I’ve been running lately, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Pretty sure just a few calories of nutrition here could have made the difference, but I just couldn’t do it.

Finish time: 1:32:09. (19/41)

My best at Pflugerville in 2012 was 1:32:12, and I beat it by 3 seconds this year.  No question, if I hadn’t turned on the sprint about 200m from the finish, or even I had taken the time to put on my biking gloves, I would have been telling a different story about how I just missed my PR.  Today, I get to tell you about how I PR’d even on a not-so-great body day.

Did I want a better time?  Yeah.  I really was hoping for a sub 1:30, and I have the fitness to do so.  I’m kind of sad about that run, and a little grumpy about the bike.  However – I pulled out a PR.  I can never be upset about that, especially when my PR here 2 years ago was probably my shining crown jewel of a race that year for execution.

So, kids, this is a lesson: practice your transitions for speed and minimize when you can.  Some days, it will be the absolute difference between a good story and a bummer.

This week is just damage control – keeping the legs fresh and body rested, and I race again in 6 days to end the season.  Honestly, this one is just the icing on the cake.  I’ve never done it before, I have no time goals (yet), I just want to go out and have fun doing an Olympic that a lot of people have told me is awesomesauce.  If there is no fire that day to pound myself into the ground, I’ll be ok with that.