Adjusted Reality

Now that October is about half over, time to at least record these for posterity!

September Goals:

1. Shake off all the cobwebs in my brain.  Focus on the next two weeks of training, getting solid work done, and then let it go and taper and don’t get tempted to squeeze more in.  As of Sept 14, the hay is in the barn, and wherever I am, I am (and wherever that is, it’s WAY better off than I was going into BSLT in June).

Yep.  I did pretty good at not letting the taper crazies get the best of me even though I was pretty sure I was dying the last week.  I went in mentally strong and was ready to kick ass.

2. Race Kerrville the way it deserves to be raced.  Rock the swim and the bike with the new abilities you have gained this year, and draw strength of will from your running past and the longer runs you have completed in August and will in September.  Find your edge and keep going until you fall off.  Persevere.  Your body can keep going on that run as long as your brain can.  Kerrville is the race where I get comfy in the pain cave and either end up at the finish line or the med tent.

Well, I raced this hard and came up with a 29 minute PR.  No complaints.  However, just the work I’ve done in the last week makes me realize that I did not find my edge, I could have pulled a little more out on the run, and there’s more work to be done here.  I raced smart though, and I never gave up, so I’m proud of that.

3. Eat good food.  Eat enough to fuel the training, but not any more.  Realize that taper the second two weeks of the month means less calories needed.  Make good choices, but allow some times to go out to eat or eat cake pops and stuff.  Pie in the sky: weigh 169.something before Kerrville.  Realistic: maintain 173-176.  Do something between that.  Also, don’t stress too much about food this month beyond making sure the calories are in line – trying to get bad calories down to 10% made me a bitchy bitch.

I hit 172 this month.  Race day, I was probably sitting around 175-ish.  I ate decently, just as expected.  After the race I ate crap for a week, then ate good for a week, and landed back around 175-177.

4. Buy myself something with those 75$ gift certs so Zliten stops telling me useful things I can use them on.  Try not to buy a bunch of junk otherwise.

I bought a new pair of my favorite running tights and a purple hat and some crazy sunglasses.  DONE!

5.  Clean out rest of pantry.  Gold star if we go through and reorganize the tupperware section so we can fit all of it into the cabinet instead of it spilling out onto the counter.

Pantry done.  No gold star though.  Baby steps!

6. Continue working on 2014 plan for races.  Nothing needs to be decided this month, but work on getting ideas.

I really wanted to get through Kerrville and see how I felt.  I went through a period where I wanted to RUN ALL THE RUNNING RACES in spring.  Then I sort of had a reality check where I really like to have longer training blocks and not race every other weekend.  I also am not sure how much offseason I want and whether I want to focus on speed (sub 2 half marathon? sub 50-something 10k?) or distance (more marathons and a 50k?).

7. Finish book.  Start another.

I’ve forgotten which book I was on last month, but I didn’t read that much, so I am guessing I didn’t get through this.  Ah well, next month!  I’d like to get through this series this year.

8.  Make a new music playlist on the zune or 3.  Marathon training is coming up, which means lots of quality hours with the zune, unlike now, when it’s a treat the few hours a week I get to listen to the same playlist I’ve been using for 6 months.  That will get old if I don’t change it up.

I made a few new ones and added some music to my main one.  We’ll see how this goes (I just need to now not just automagically load up my main playlist each time).

9. I’m trying out probiotics and digestive enzymes on the recommendation of some research I’ve been doing.  My most recent “cleanse” (stomach flu) coupled with the fact that it’s one possible reason I might be holding onto some weight, and the fact that the vitamin store had a buy one get one half off sale makes me feel like I don’t have much to lose.  Keep on these for the 15 day supply you have, and if it’s awesome, go get more.  If it makes me ill, stop it.

This was AWESOME!  I was super regular and felt a lot less tummy bloat.  Right before Kerrville I stopped it and haven’t resumed, and though my weight hasn’t changed much, I feel like I’m way stopped up and my tummy is hanging out further.  Resuming for the rest of October!

10.  Lots of sleep.  Lots of relaxing.  If something is stressful, avoid if at all possible. I have no race in October so I can go be a spaz then if I have the energy to do so with marathon training.

Did my best, work didn’t help, and neither did everything falling apart the week of the race, but I think I was able to get some good quality chill time in.

11.  Gaming!  Gaming is high quality relaxing feet up type activity.  Let’s make some more progress in my game, play some Disney Infinity, etc etc.

Ehhh… a little bit.  Not much.  I really don’t know what happens during taper, when you halve (or less) your training hours, you would think you would have all this time, but not so much.

12.  Sometime before the end of the month, pull all the summer shirts/tech tees I haven’t worn lately and box them up or donate them (if I love but they don’t fit, box them up, if I just don’t love, send them onto someone who will love them).  Also, since I’ve lost about 15 lbs this year (yeah yeah yeah YEAH!), try on some of the stuff I have boxed up to see if I have gained more wardrobe!

I did this, however, since it was after a week of eating bad food and drinking beer, I just pulled the stuff that was only a little tight back into the mix.  We’ll see how that holds up.

13.  Find a day that I can justify the calories and eat the damn desert I got in August.

Oops. 😛  However, you can take solace in the fact that I ate many other deserts, I just forgot about this one.

October is half over, but, there is still time for goals!

1. Train smart.  Do your 5-6 runs per week and check the boxes.  Easy on the easy days.  Speedwork on the speedwork days.  Go into tempo days and focused long run days with a plan in mind and communicate that to Zliten ahead of time to not disrupt marital bliss.  If things start to fall apart, first drop back to easy, then drop mileage, then miss runs.  Missing runs = more bike, not buttsitting, unless the only option is buttsitting.

2. No getting sucked into racing anything this month. Use the money and the time to plan for next year’s race schedule.  Keep adding to the list of ALL THE RACES and try to consider what my goals are before signing up for a bunch of races that I have to try and train around.

3. Eat what fitbit tells me to.  It’s actually pretty magical, fitbit tracks my steps/activity, and translates that into calories.  I set my weight loss goals to the “pretty hard” setting (-750 calories per day, losing 1.5 lbs per week), and it changes my food goals throughout the day depending on my activity.  It has more than once made me get off my ass so I can eat more.   So, that being said… the goal would be at this point to get back into the low 170s by the end of the month.  I’ll be more specific next month.

4.  Also track food quality as a secondary measurement.  While keeping calories in check is what makes me lose weight (and I will overeat whether you give me carrots or chocolate after running, I have talent), keeping that DQ score up will make me feel better.

5.  Get the Halloween costume settled (almost there).  Sew the patch on the shirt.  Since you have to sew the patch on the shirt, also mend the items piling up on that table.

6. Probiotics and digestive enzymes for the rest of the month starting today.

7. Finish this book, start the next.

8. Stressing recovery.  Ice baths every week after 15+ miles.  Compression sox/sleeves the day before and after long runs if not during.  Stretching after weights sessions and after long run.  Shockies and foam rolling as necessary.

9.  Make progress on the story I’m supposed to be writing for our gaming session next month.   I’m going to run a game for the first time for people sometime soon and it’s scary!  I love telling stories for people in text, but I’m terrified (in a good way) of doing one interactively.

10.  Write stuff on the blog that’s not a status report.  I’ve found lately that I’ve thought of nifty things to write about and by the time I get to do them, I squeeze them into these long posts and don’t give the thoughts the time the deserve.  I still feel like it’s important for me to catalogue my weeks of training and eating for posterity, but I also feel like maybe I should spend some more time refinding my writing voice.  I used to be a decent writer!

11.  Quarterly maintenance – nails, toes, and brows.  I’m getting scruffy and since I live in Texas, sandal season doesn’t end for another month or two.  On the upside, my nails are in lovely shape since I cut them all down to nubs for wetsuit ease a few weeks ago, so they’re mostly all the same size (minus the index… always the index).

12.  While I’m not confident I’ll actually settle on a theme for my blog this month (and who knows, maybe I’ll keep switching it around!), I want to update my pages, especially my RACE RESULTS page, I haven’t done that since tri season.

13. Make some sort of healthy pumpkin spice desert thing.  Tis the season.  If I make it at home I’ll be less tempted to eat the pumpkin everything out there in the world.

What is your October goal?

So back in the day, I used to write a lot more thoughtful things than just race recaps and weekly status updates.  I actually used to have a writing style and have posts motivated by more than just “oh, it’s been a week, I should tell people what I’m up to”, or more accurately, I should write down what happened so in 3 years when I go… what was I doing October 10th 2013, I can have some sort of recollection.  For me, I remember (generally) the important stuff, but the details… well… the little plastic castle is a surprise every time.

For some reason, I stopped.  I wanted posts to be more thought out.  I felt like a few hundred words wasn’t enough, so it was like, 2k or bust.  The problem with this is I always forget the little nuggets I think of on a run on Thursday by the time I do a weekly recap.  For some reason, I was thinking this needed to be a 2014 resolution and I would start doing shorter, more frequent posts then, but then I realized, no time like the present.  So, if I can hack it (it, meaning, not being exceptionally wordy and also remembering to open the wordpress console more often), expect that.

So, with that out of the way, today’s thought…

I was lunch running (a 5 miler) with Zliten, and this week we have taken turns feeling crappy on runs, and this was his turn, I was feeling great. The schedule said 5 miles with last 3 at tempo.  I went out all happy puppy to try and catch the girls that were running only 2.5 and realized that was tempo pace, but it felt nice to be going fast, so I kept it up until I noticed I was pulling away and slowed it down to keep up with him and then I started feeling rough as he started feeling better.

We were chatting and I said the run was kinda not going the way I had planned (out too fast, now we were slowing and I felt bleh).  I told him, on the last downhill stretch (half to three quarters of a mile?), let’s pick up the pace.  He started running faster.  I lugged myself after him and complained that he was not listening.  He said that his brain must have heard hill (which we were on) and faster, so his legs started turning over.  I did my best to follow suit.

I got through the rest of the run and made it to the downhill stretch (which is conveniently after a steep uphill) feeling mehhhhh and wanted to just jog it in.  However, something in my brain just said “time to go faster” and my legs went with it.  10s, then even 9s, and I felt like I was flying and happy and peaceful and free, the kind of bliss you can only find in that spot where you’re going just hard enough to feel fast and badass, but not redlining.  The mind thinks it, and the body does it.  Novel concept!

It felt nice to have my brain and legs connect again.  They’ve really been out of sync since I got injured in April.  I haven’t felt fast or free or wonderful or speedy on a run, really, since then.  It’s been oppressive heat or long distances or after a long bike ride or just trying to slog through whatever miles I could.  Losing my base just as summer came on sucked, and it really made me limp along during tri season on the run leg, and it feels really, really good to see pieces of light in the corners of the universe that my run love might just be back.

I expect to see this feeling smashed to smithereens, as I’m heading out for a really long run Saturday and figure I’ll probably want to quit running forever after slogging through a upper teens amount of miles I don’t feel ready for (brain, not body), but for just one day, for one stretch, I felt like maybe I’ll be able to feel fast and competent at running again someday.

Who says that just because you’re not training, you’re not busy?  I am sooooo behind on the bloggage, but let me catch you up on the happs on Quixytown.

NOTE: I did change the blog around a bit because my old template broke.  Expect things to be a little topsy turvy changey until I really get some time to sit down and play with it but for now, it doesn’t offend me so it will stay.

Week 38: Taper Week + Kerrville

Monday, I was getting extremely psyched and ready for the race.  My body was feeling good for, like, the first time ever in a taper period.  I felt confident.  The dry run brick on Saturday went awesome.

Then, Tuesday morning, I went out for a 3 mile run in my new (same as I had been wearing, just without 450+ miles on them) shoes and LIMPED home after 1.7 that I had to intermittently walk/run due to my ankle flipping out.

It hurt up until Sunday morning so I shut down all running until the race.  I guess I am just not equipped to deal with myself fully healthy in taper.  Total ghost pain, no reason for it to be there, and ABSOLUTELY not reason for it to stick around and not get much better for FIVE DAYS and then magically disappear on race day.  And, I’m running just fine in my new shoes, no issues since.  *boggle*

I wetsuit swam one more time on Wednesday and things felt good.  I still have no reference on how much difference it made for me and not sure I will – I cut 10 mins off my swim time from last year, but most of that was probably me being better at swimming.  Oh well, I’m happy with purchasing it and definitely not going to miss out on any opportunity to wear it racing going forward!

I put in about 40 fast trainer miles in on Tuesday and Thursday with some (1/3 to 1/2) resistance to keep the legs loose.

By Friday, I was convinced I was dying because I was extremely tired, my aforementioned ankle pain, my throat was a little scratchy, and I had a toenail that was chipping.  It seemed to work out by Sunday though (silly taper madness).

Food:

I ate about 1700 – 1900 calories of good quality food Monday – Thursday, a little less on  Friday (1400 – didn’t really have much of an appetite), and did my normal pre race thing Saturday (sprouted grain english muffin, cream cheese, veggie sausage for breakfast, club sandwich, salad, and some fries for lunch, and mac and cheese and some carby snacks and fruit for dinner).  On Sunday, I was able to wake up and get a LOT of breakfast in my belly before the race (a starbucks mocha, two energy bars, and half a pack of chomps), and had an appetite really soon after the race, I ate a HUGE dinner and had some beers, unlike last time, where I just felt sick and could barely eat back any of the 5000 calories I had burnt.

Other stuff:

Had to take the other leezard (Lump, our schneider skink) to the vets because he was really lethargic and not eating.  Apparently, he was just stopped up, so we’ve had to give him special food and daily enemas (yep, leezard enimas) and laxatives.  He’s doing better now, and we see the vet for a follow up soon to make sure his belly is clear.  By doing an xray.  Which costs like 100 bucks per… good thing we love him.

I really pretty much spent the week in as much of a bubble, mentally and physically, as possible. It ended up working out well, so yay!

Week 39: The Aftermath and the Week of Yes

Let’s just get this out of the way: I didn’t train and I didn’t track.  I sat on my ass, drank every day, ate a lot of fried food and sweets, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Aftermath:

I haven’t been this wasted after a race in a long time, but the good news is that it was all just major soreness, not injury pain.  Sunday, after the race, I felt pretty ok.  Monday, I was pretty sore.  Only after a significant dose of vodka did I ever believe my body wouldn’t hurt forever and ever.  Tuesday, my glute muscle decided to act up, so to the chiro I went.  She said it wasn’t that out of line, but it had probably happened on the bike and I had probably been carrying it for the whole 13.1 miles and that’s why it was super ouchy.  It took most of the week, but it got better.  Besides the glute issue, I probably would have been down to start training about Wednesday, but was happy to have the week off.

The Week of Yes:

Some magical fairy of scheduling decided to make a bunch of social events fall on this week, and after having to skip so many things, or leave early, or just drop by, I was like a kid in a candy store saying YES to things.  It was pretty much beer thirty whenever I wanted, so I indulged!

Monday, we ate burgers and drank champagne and really didn’t leave our house much or do much of anything once we got home from Kerrville.  It was lovely.

First up on Tuesday was a Yelp Elite party at Outback.  They were showing off a new bar menu (food and drinks), so they were bringing out healthy offerings such as rum punch, brisket bacon potato nachos, chicken and spinach flatbreads, and the like.  We ended up seeing some old friends that we hadn’t seen in a while, and making a few new ones.  It’s fun to talk to someone who wasn’t either wasn’t related to me or has known me for 5+ years, and isn’t a triathlete/runner/etc.  That doesn’t happen all that often in social situations nowadays and it was refreshing.

Wednesday, we stayed in.  We had to get the house clean for the cleaning people, which meant unpacking Kerrville.  I wanted to whine about it, but realized that no one would make pouty lips for me.  Woe is me, I have to unpack from the awesome weekend trip I went on because people are going to clean my house.  Yeah, I can’t really get a tear in my eye about it either.  I did have some wine though (hey, it was open from cooking), so it wasn’t all bad.

Thursday, we hosted game night.  Beer and snacks and friends and fun.  Giant robots, portals, and almost getting killed but being dragged to safety was the highlight of the evening.

Friday was our anniversary.  We did the iFly thing – indoor skydiving!  We got there early and got to watch everything from first timer little kids to a choreographed group of people doing tricks and flips (that’s THEM above, not us).  When it was our turn, I think we did pretty well.  I had one good stretch where I held position for a while and flew up and down by myself, but the instructor did have to catch me and right me a few times each session.  They offered more time for a pretty cheap price right then, but we were starving so we declined, but bought more time for later. If you want to see our sessions, here’s the video they took of us!

Then, adrenaline works up an appetite, so we had a HUGE anniversary dinner – beer, wings, salad, fish, and a to go pizookie at BJ’s Brewhouse.  We’ve spent a lot of money lately, so we did it on the cheap – we had giftcards for both.  I got Zliten a dehydrator and a red and green stuffed dragon, and he got me a cool owl duvet cover, a cushy red blanky for the couch, and a really nice new sheet set for us.

Saturday, I didn’t quite know what was going on with the whole no training thing, but I adjusted by sleeping in, eating a leisurely lunch out, grocery shopping, and cooking up some batch stuff for next week.

Homemade, healthy, organic “hamburger helper” cheesy mac… (corn/quinoa pasta, grass fed beef, organic beans, organic cheese, about the worst thing in here is 1 tsp of organic sugar, have to give props to the recipe I used to base it on here)

Meatball-ganoff.  Decently healthy chicken meatballs over ancient grain pasta and greens and made with lowfat organic sour cream, but I did just use the stroganoff sauce packet, which I’m sure was packed with MSG and other crap.  I’ll have to learn how to do that on my own, because that shit was awesome.

Then, we went to a friend’s birthday party at the bar.  We ended up sitting outside (they have a small inside and a HUGE patio), and it was the first cold night in a while (read: 60s and a little wind), and we were all freaking out over the temps.  I had a sweater and a jacket and everyone else was bundled up too.  Oh Austin, you make us such wusses in the cold.  It was fun to have a few pumpkin beers and catch up with people.  I had an AMAZING pumpkin mini-cupcake that was just to die for.  I did eat decently though and only had a veggie burger on a wheat bun and a side salad for dinner.

In the AM on Sunday, we got up and out to the IBM Classic Uptown 10k, as this was my friend M’s first 10k, and I’ve been branching out my newbie coaching skills from torturing just myself and my husband to torturing her as well!  She did great and hit her training solidly, so it was no surprise she smashed her goal of under 1 hour by 2.5 minutes.  So proud! We stomped around in silly hats and running tights with cowbells and cheered everyone on and had a great morning.

She even decided she liked it enough to sign up for a half marathon next year, so I didn’t even make her hate running!

That evening, we had our last hurrah, celebrating another friend’s birthday.  It was a beautiful sunset on the patio in perfect weather.  More beers, the BEST jalapeno poppers and fried pickles I’ve ever had (at least I just had a salad for dinner), and three hours of hanging with a lot of really great friends.

And then, just like that, Monday, my facebook and twitter feeds went from posts about all the crazy fun I was having and what sort of beer and food was in my face to dailymile workout crossposts.  And I’m ready for it.  A week off was what I needed, but all I needed.  This week will be Intro to Marathon Training 101 to get myself back into it, and the advanced course will start up the week after.  I am waiting to get a week of running and clean eating under me before I see what the scale says, but I can’t imagine I did SUCH damage in a week that another week or two won’t fix it.

I keep having a little bit of letdown about tri season being over, but marathon training is helping me get over it, and I may even have some super secret plans after that depending on where my head is at in a month or so and how much I hate running.

Question of the week: Do you miss the old layout or hated it and like the new one better?

Four years ago, we were doin’ this:

This fourth year of being hitched, we walked the plank together…

…celebrated finishing the Texas Tri series together…

…learned to Scuba together…

…spent at least a few days looking respectably swanky together…

…but mostly looking like our usual selves together…

…we spent lots of time out in the sun together…

…and oh yeah..

…we may have raced a few triathlons together…

I can’t wait to spend another year with this guy, being goofy together.

Tonight, we’re going to go flying, and then eat pizookies.  Happy 4th anniversary, love!

I almost don’t want to write this one because it means tri season is over, and that’s sad.  But it means that marathon season is starting, so that’s happy.  Except my legs hurt, so I’m going to rest this week and recover and ramble on about the fun times in Kerrville instead of thinking about that, so strap in, folks!

Pre-race:

We slept in a little bit, loaded up our stuff into the beast, and had a nice, uneventful drive to Kerrville.  We got into town around 1, got our packets, and dropped off our bikes at T1 and told their bikes to have a good night under the stars.  We had a typical pre-race lunch of a club sandwich, a few fries (normally don’t have so much fat, but I was really craving it so figured my body needed some), and a salad at the gourmet restaurant of IHop.  We drooled over the pancakes but decided against so much sugar.

Then, we dropped the run bags off at T2.  Mine had way too many things in it, but I wanted to be prepared: extra shirt, extra arm sleeves, extra socks, run shoes, handheld, visor, race belt w/number, gatorade bottle, pain spray, and sunscreen.  Just to refamiliarize ourselves, we drove the bike course, and the run course, and then it was finally time to check into the hotel.  We elected not to stay at the host hotel (elected = I waited to long to book a room), and it ended up being a great thing – the room was cheaper and so, so, so much nicer.

Then, we met our tri buddy B and drove the course again.  I took pictures and video.  I forgot how pretty it was!   We were going to have dinner with him but it was late and we were tired, so we sent him off to get pancakes and ate some mac and cheese in the room and went to bed.  I slept fitfully, waking up a lot, but besides that I did get a decent night of sleep (better than normal before Kerrville).

I woke up around 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep so I ate my first bar (Rise – Pineapple Macadamia) and used the potty and then laid back down and got myself mentally ready and waited for Zliten to wake up.  When he did, I ate my second bar (Oatmega PB), drank my starbucks mocha, used the potty again, and dithered around and got going right about on time.  We parked right near the race finish (smart, as both other years its been a PITA to hike the 2 miles back to the hotel) and caught a shuttle to the race start.  More dithering at T1, more pottying, ate half a package of chompies, turned in our dry clothes bags, stuffed myself into my wetsuit, and headed down to the race start to send off B and Zliten.

Swim:

There was no swim warmup (sadface), so I tried to warm up my shoulders the best I could on land.  I really, really had to pee and didn’t have time to get back to the portas, so as soon as I was able to jump in the water….ahhh… sorry women under 39 (I’m sure I was not the only one).  I got myself near the front on the outside, and they started our wave.  Last year, I spent the whole swim just ill at ease and anxious about the rest of the day, so my goal was to NOT do that.  I swam strong and actually found a pretty good pocket and some space (love this race – it’s small enough that it’s not crowded).  My “mantra” when I found my mind straying was “swimmy, swimmy, swimmy in my happy, happy jacket”.  Don’t ask, but it worked.

I rounded the first and second buoys and got onto the long straight stretch and I kept finding myself alone except for passing people in caps in waves before me (that were obviously struggling).  Oddly enough, my mind went to “somehow I’m last in my age group”, but then I just kept repeating my mantra and trying to swim with good form and keep on it and in the moment.  Apparently I passed Zliten and B around the third buoy (apparently, as Zliten told me, I was oblivious), and started swimming for the finish.  My goal was to get there before the last quarter wave started, and I got out of the water, and got to the wet suit strippers as I heard the air horn went off and the announcer said “last wave is off”.  Sweet.

Swim Time: 43:57, 2:17/100m.  Goal was under 45 mins, so I was happy.  I think a little more wetsuit swimming could help me here as it feels different, and I could have pushed a little harder, but it was nice to get out of the water feeling fresh.  Also, 10 mins quicker than last year.  Yay swimming!

T1:

I was a little “deer in the headlights” with the wetsuit, and I got to the strippers fully clothed.  I said “first wetsuit race”, and they took care of me and I was off with my wetsuit in hands in short order – in just my sports bra and my tri shorts (I shudder for the pictures).  The hill was steep, but I chugged up it carefully (no sandals).  Once I got to the top and there was no more carpet, I walked.  I didn’t want to be a wuss, but having had ankle problems all week, I didn’t want to have a little rock end my day so I took it slow.

Once I got to the bike – I put on my arm sleeves, a tech tee, some ride glide (molesting myself in public is fun!), my bike shoes and socks, and I was off.  I left my garmin and bike gloves on my bike since it worked out at the last race.  As I was about to take off I saw Zliten get up to his bike looking INCREDIBLY rough, but into T1 in a great time for him.  I told him I loved him and I’d see him on the bike (I expected to be passed) and I was off.  I got stuck behind a few relay people, said excuse me, got to the mount line, and got going without incident.

T1 time: 3:25.  Last year – 4:15.  Even dealing with the wetsuit, even walking and being careful, I cut 50 seconds off my T1.  My goal was to be on the bike at 8:35, and I was on the bike at 8:35 exactly.  Solid!

Bike:

Got going, and my first thought was “It’s COLD!”  I forget after long, hot Austin summers that it can ever be cold again, so it’s always a surprise at Kerrville.  I was thankful that I had my sleeves on, and I took the time to put my bike gloves on for warmth.  I started with a gatorade in my aero bottle, a backup gatorade in my bottle cage, and a smile on my face.  Miles ticked away very quickly on the front half of the loop – the cool weather and the nice, slight, downhill stretch for the first 14 miles.  Getting out of the water 10 mins quicker meant I was actually in it – I was very lonely last year on the bike.

I was just… happy.  I just saw the mph climbing, I ended up at the first aide station at mile 17 at 9:30 (15 mins ahead of schedule), and then the back half of the course happened, as did the wind.  I hit the first big hill, and the bump before it, I lost my backup bottle of gatorade.  Boo!  I was looking forward to yummy grape.  Luckily, I got the first bottle grab no problem, my first bottle grab ever *tear*, and a dose of lemon lime endurance gatorade was loaded into my bottle.  Woot.

I didn’t get any less happy, but I noticed I slowed.  I went from 19. something to 18. something, to 17. something, and all of a sudden, I was finishing the first lap 5 minutes behind schedule.  However, before I finished, I saw the BEST SIGN EVER.  I was rolling down a hill, in the middle of nowhere, and I saw a sign that said “the cow goes moo”, to which I moo’ed (not the first time this ride, we went past a lot of farms).  She then turned it around and it said “What’s the fox say?”.  I got out of aero and bike danced and sand “Ring ding ding a ring a ding ding” and thanked her for the awesome sign.  Two zipp wheelie dudeholes passed me and gave me dirty looks, and I lost some momentum, but it was TOTALLY worth it.  Also, this was in my head the rest of the day.

After the turnaround, I got that momentum back and got back on schedule for aid station 3 (mile 30), hitting it at 10:15.  The wind really picked up this lap, I didn’t make as much headway on the way down, but I tried to ride hard all the downhill to gain as much ground as I could.  I also made up a song… “aero bars goes thpththt (my tape was coming off), pedals go woooshhh… what’s the bike say? Ring ding ding da ding da ding ding… what’s evilbike say… hatee hatee hatee ho”.  It was making me happy.  My legs were getting sore but not unreasonably so, and I was really enjoying my day.  I hit mile 40 and realized I had only 16 left to go, and things got a little harder.  The second lap up the hill was harder, but I just concentrated on doing what I could to not lose more time.  I just kept telling myself to tuck in and keep working.

I saw Zliten at the out and back, and he said he had been chasing me for 17 miles, and I just sang “what does the fox say” to him because that’s where I was at.  Now I knew he was coming for me, I tried to stay as fast as I could without really taxing myself and made sure not to let up.  Over, up, around, past the horsies and cows and down the highway and up the hill… I kept watching the time of day and tried to keep close enough to the 11:50 I wanted to get off the bike without completely hosing myself.  Also my ankle hurt (not the one that was hurting all week, and in a completely different place), but I tried to put it out of my mind – whatever would be on the run would be, and there was nothing I could do to fix it at mile 50 on the bike.  I kept expecting Zliten to pass me, but I got myself into transition about 5 mins behind schedule, happy, a little sore, but ready to wrap my brain around a half marathon run.

Bike time: 3:22:07 – 16.6 mph.  My goal was to hit 17 mph, over 1 mph better than last year, but I’ll take 0.7 mph better, and a 9 min PR.

T2:

I got off my bike and walked it into transition – it was downhill and a little slippery.  I got to my spot and racked my bike and opened up my T2 bag.  My brain was in a jumble but I removed all the things I needed to remove and put on my run shoes and got my handheld and OMG GRAPE GATORADE.  My plan was to bring it, knowing it would be warm and I’d probably leave it for colder stuff at the aide stations, but after ~40 miles of nothing but lemon lime, and knowing the run course would probably have the same, I took the time to pour it into my handheld and it was like MANA FROM HEAVEN.  I left all the changes of clothes because I was all good, but took the necessary race belt and visor.

I was about to be off, but turned around again and saw what I thought was Zliten heading into transition.   I shouted “Zliten!  I love you!” and jumped up and waved and got going.

T2 time: 3:44.  Last year – 4:09.  I could have been out of there a little quicker without out the PDA, but, whatevs.  25 seconds faster than last year, and I slacked.  I’ll take it.

Run:

Ah, my nemesis.  My achillies heel for 2013 (thank goodness I never had THAT injury, knock on wood).  This was my wildcard.  I pegged my swim time exactly, I had a very small window of expected bike time, but I had about a 30 minute range for what I could expect to do.  My best half marathon in the last 2 years was around a 2:15.  My worst effort at BSLT was over 3 hours.  I figured I’d be somewhere in between there, but I had no idea what my legs could do without other mitigating factors (brain, nutrition, weather).

I had this detailed plan about what to do if I was feeling great, good, ok, bad, etc, but I threw that out at mile 1.  My plan became: keep trotting as fast as I could.  It was obvious that my legs were too sore to let me go faster than my lungs could handle.  If I couldn’t trot: walk only as long as needed until you could continue trotting.  Lap 1 went very well.  I got out and my first mile was sub 11, and I was feeling great.  I saw Zliten and gave him a woohoo and saw that he was feeling rough but still sticking it out.  Then the uphills came and I felt ok and got through it, and hit the turnaround and was like, lap 1 done, 3 to go.  Then, the same stretch that felt awesome was not feeling so awesome, and I popped the 303s and ate some chews and willed my glutes not to cramp any more and JUST KEPT TROTTING.  I saw B somewhere in there and he was behind me (? – I had figured he was ahead) but catching up  – I tried to keep going to keep him behind me as long as possible (he’s a WAY faster runner so passing was inevitable – but it was decent motivation to keep fighting).

I finally walked a little bit up the hill after mile 5, but resumed running right after (no surrender).  I trotted back up past mile 6, past the second lap turn around, and gave myself a mental high five for not bonking yet (I fell apart at mile 6 last year).  Lap 3 was kind of a blur.  I think B passed me somewhere in there, and I would have LOVED to pick it up and hang on, but I knew the best I could do was KEEP TROTTING.  It was probably my lowest lap, but I still don’t think a smile left my face – the crowd support was so awesome, the people on course were awesome to talk to (and, holy crap, I talked to people instead of just being in my own little world, since I was limited by my muscular fitness rather than being winded…), I was loving all the volunteers who were badass.  I walked at one point because my stomach went all crampy, but when it passed I resumed the running, and I did walk the hill again, but I didn’t. give. up.

The best was lap 4.  Every point of the run, I just said goodbye to it.  Goodbye puffy taco restaurant, good bye aide station 1, goodbye turnaround, goodbye nasty hill, thank you and goodbye volunteers… I did walk a bit through and past the aide station but I picked it back up and only let myself walk up the hill again and then it was time to run it into the finish.  I was watching my times tick away but just kept the math going to make sure I wasn’t completely blowing it.  Ok, 6:30 is gone (middle of lap 2), what about 6:45?  Ok, 6:45 is gone (end of lap 3), let’s get in under 7.  I made my way back to the finish, grinning ear to ear, knowing I had smashed last year’s time, my body held out, and I was soon going to get to sit the hell down.

I ran through that finisher’s chute smiling, happy, full of joy.  This was the perfect end to the 2013 tri season – a celebration of all the good, the bad, and the ugly that went into preparing for this race.

Run time: 2:42:06 – 12:22 min/mile.  Last year – 2:50:29.  8.5 mins better.  I had pie in the sky goals of under 2:30, but my run training has been severely lacking this year.  I really feel I ran to the best of my abilities today after 4 hours of swimming and biking.  That’s a whole ‘nother conversation and plan of attack to improve for next time, but I cannot be disappointed with this.

Total time: 6:55:22.  Under 7 hours!  Yahoo!

Afterthoughts:

I am just very proud at how I kept my head positive about 90% of the race and just kept in the moment and just kept smiling and having fun the entire time.  This is the most fun I’ve had at a race the entire year, hands down.  My thought as I got in the water at the swim was about how your race is a celebration of your training.  Well, I’ve had some rough times out there this year, but I was going to get out there and pop some proverbial bubbly all over that course and celebrate the heck out of Tri Season 2013.  And I did that in spades.  I loved Kerrville and its volunteers and its spectators and the people on the course that wanted to be happy with me and I had a fantastic, memorable day.  And I knocked 29 minutes off my time from last year.  You can’t not smile when you think about that!

The beer tent closed by the time we finished.  Boo!  I told them to save me one as I rounded the corner for lap 3 (yes, you are about 2 feet away from the finisher area each lap…) and he told me to hurry.  I thought he was kidding!  At least I prepared a contingency plan well…

I felt AWESOME tummy-wise.  No sickies and had an appetite just about right away.  By now, I have eaten all…

…the…

…things (I intended to order this whole pizza and eat it myself, but I ate too many other things first and could only get down two pieces… I still have two left in the fridge).  I’ve now been to the chiro to put my back in the right spot.  I have declared this week “yes week” – all those social events I have to say no to, this week, I’m saying yes, and I’m saying yes to a lot!

More thoughts and stuff later, I’m sure, but for now, sipping a glass of wine and basking in the glow of happily sore muscles, and enjoying all the extra sleep you get when you don’t have to wake up at sunrise to train!