Adjusted Reality

One of the things I’m pushing this year with my training is faster recovery.  Weight training on back to back days.  Now, running on back to back days.  Two-a-days.  Running/biking/swimming on tired legs/arms.  To do an endurance event that’s going to take me potentially around 7 hours of constant hard effort, I’m going to need to understand what it is to start out tired and push through.

I’ve done very calculated steps to get here, constantly testing the water, putting a toe in and see how it feels before getting in.  First it was the weights – working up to it until I could handle 3 times per week even if it’s Monday night/Tuesday morning working the same muscle  groups.  Then, upping the workouts, adding two-a-days 1-2 times per week.  Then, adding multiple brick workouts per week.  Then, running on back to back days.  I’ve definitely gotten harder, better, faster, and stronger.

However, my two real worries right now (besides that whole marathon thing, but we’ll ignore that for now):

-Biking.  I need more long ride experience.  I need more hilly ride experience.  The trainer is helping for long, but it’s definitely not quite the same as an outside ride.

-Running off the bike, and not in the normal triathlon way.  I feel just fine off the bike (due to much, much, much practice with the bricks), but I’ve never done more than 10k off the bike.  I kept trying to get myself to do 3 loops around PF, but due to heat, blisters, tireds, time crunch, whatever, we’ve not done more than 2.

Saturday, I had almost 5 hours of outside-y, heat training, hill biking, fear-conquering, cojones-building, mind-steeling workouting.

I’m on the mailing list for one of our local tri-shops – Jack and Adams Bicycles.  They do the whole TX Tri series, and a lot of other races, and they have a Sunday shop ride we always wanted to make it to, but never have had a chance (because, well, I freaking hate morning workouts on Sundays…unless I’m racing).  I was excited to hear that they were doing shop rides EVERY DAY in celebration of the tour.  So at 6:45am, we showed up.

And we were the ONLY people who didn’t look like this:

Luckily, our new tri-friend Brian (who is doing the whole TX Tri series as well) showed up too and when we got dropped as quick as you could say “peleton”, we called ourselves “Group B” and used the turn by turn directions they gave us to complete the course anyway.

It was called “medium mountains”.  I called it every one of George Carlin’s seven dirty words at least, oh, twenty times.  This is one thing about training with friends.  If this was just me, I think about 3 miles in, when we were still climbing hills without respite, I might have turned around (I wanted to with every fiber of my being).  Somehow, I got through it.  I stopped at lights and unclipped like a champ (a really clumsy, slow, champ, but I didn’t fall OK?).

And then, we turned onto freaking 360.  A highway.  With entrances and exits and cars going freeway speeds.  Aieeeeeee.  Not to mention hiiiiiiillls.  I got close to 35mph white knuckling down some of these fuckers, riding the brakes as much as I dared saying “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck” the entire time.  Oddly enough, I didn’t die.  I did find out that I’m an extremely good coaster.  For some reason, I fly past people on hills without even pedaling.

When we were on the way to J&A, Zliten joked that we would probably ride up to the house.  Well, when studying the turns, we realized – we would come about half a mile from the house.  At least I had a ripcord there.  Worst case, we could ride home, take car #2 and pick up car #1 later (I was really feeling stranded and a little scared out there).  Then, we hit freaking Far West.  There were some nice climbs and rollers, and then we hit a street that seemed to just ascend to the heavens, after a turn – so no momentum.  Zliten and I got off and walked up it (it really just took us by surprise), and Brian said he was potentially seeing pink elephants on the side of the street trying to get up it (my summary, not his, but the sentiment was there) but he made it (and then waited for us, nice guy).

After our dose of humble pie, we started rolling again and getting into more familiar territory.  The ride back to the shop was actually pretty nice, down mostly familiar streets, lots of downhills.  We made it in about 2h30 (with a few stops), where the “pros” were supposed to take no more than 90 mins.  Ha!

Here’s another point where I am so flippin’ glad I am training with people.  I was ready to bag the run.  Completely.  It was just starting to get STEAMY, it was much later than expected (instead of the 8:30 we expected it was 10am), and the hills and, frankly, the mental floss needed to get through that damn ride beat me up.  However, I had Zliten, who I PROBABLY could have talked out of the run or talked down in miles, but we also had Brian along with for the ride.  So we all looked at each other and said, “Still up for the run?” “Yep!” “10?” “Sure!”…. and being the prideful little shit I am, I wasn’t going to be the one to beg off a shorter distance.  So, off we went after refilling our camelbacks and handhelds at Jack in the Box and nuuning up again.

It indeed was STEAMY as hell but the first couple miles were ok.  At least running is probably not going to leave me splatted on the side of the road or toppled over on the way up a hill.  Right around 3-4 though, Zliten’s heart rate monitor kept going off, and showing numbers like 190, 200, 255, 272 (the two latter of which I’m pretty sure are heart rates that are completely un-possible), and we ignored it for a while, but after a while, we instituted a walk half a mile, run half a mile and figured we didn’t care about the time, just the miles.  It was the slowest 10 miles I’ve ever done at somewhere around 14 min mi pace, but I did run the last mile at least.  After seeing that our ending temp was 99 degrees, I felt less like a wuss, and even though it was slow, it was 2+ hours on feet training after a long hard bike.  Kerrville will not be that hilly.  Kerrville will not be that hot.  If I could get through that, I can do Kerrville.  Even going that slow (which there is no flippin’ way I would) I’d make the Kerrville cutoff no problem.

And suddenly, last weekend, I’m about 90% confident about my ability to finish the half iron, up from probably about… 50?

The long and short of this is that really, everything endurance-related is less monumental for me to work on right now than stepping up my mental game.  I’m not sure when I started giving up during workouts.  I’m certain it had to do partly with gaining weight.  On the way down the scale, I COULD DO ANYTHING but on the way up, I’ve started to doubt what a nearly-obese gal can do.  A nearly obese gal certainly can’t run as fast as someone who was just about a normal weight.  It’s ok if I give up on these hills on the bike because I just don’t look the same in the mirror as I used to.  It’s ok if I don’t make it through marathon training because maybe 179 pound girls aren’t meant/don’t deserve/haven’t earned the right to run that far.

Well, this Saturday, after that long ass day of bikin’ and runnin’, and later drinkin’ – I passed the pull up bar on the way to bed.  Zliten said to me, “do a pullup” to which I said “No, no, I’m too tired, I’m sore, I can’t do one any way.”  That damn thing has been up there for at least 2 years taunting my ass.  After he egged me on more I said “FINE” and gave it a go.

Lo and behold, I DID MY FIRST FUCKING (jumping to get to about 90 degree bend, but still…) PULLUP of my adult life.  That’s something a nearly-obese gal can do that the smaller Quix could absolutely not before.

And apparently my workout plan has just been missing utter exhaustion and whiskey.  Noted.

Usually after Saturday’s epic-ness  I take Sunday as a rest day.  This week, I wanted to break 100 bike miles (100.05 thank you very much!  And half outside even!) so I trainered for about an hour.  Yesterday, I skipped my swim due to lightning (apparently it’s unsafe to swim even inside), but rocked the weights a little harder and longer.  Then, this morning, sans my normal day off to relax, and without a swim to loosen me up, I WAS SORE.

I got on the bike with no hope for anything decent, but I settled into 20mph on the trainer pretty easy.  I was NOT looking forward to this run at all.  I got out there, and at first it was like trying to run in mud (especially because my short course, the first half mile is uphill), but my legs got the hint fairly quickly that we were moving and they couldn’t stop me.  I ran my ass off and knew that my garmin was screwing up, so I had no idea of the pace. 1.6 mystery miles.  The second trainer session went even faster, and I did the mile course due to time constraints.  I was incredibly pleased with my 1 mile – 8:49 effort, especially because it didn’t feel completely like death, like the first one.

Well, once I figured out the time + distance of my first run, it was another 8:49 paced run.  Take that, brain who figured my legs would be too tired to run fast!

I am ready to dominate another sprint tri run course on Sunday.  Gotta love double brick workouts.  Gotta love getting your head in the game.  Gotta love shedding doubt and just rocking the faces off some training.  Here’s the specifics….

Training for the week:

X MONDAY: 2000 yd swim +weights
X TUESDAY: 40 mile trainer + lunch weights
X WEDNESDAY: 2000 yd swim, 20 (16) mile bike
X THURSDAY: off
X FRIDAY: 5 (3) mile run + weights + 1.75 mile walk
X lololol arg (Zliten’s comment) SATURDAY: 20 mile trainer + 10 mile run (or 26-30 mile hill ride and 10.3-.6 run depending on who’s garmin you look at)
X SUNDAY: EZ 20 (18) mile trainer

4000 yd swimming
100.5 miles biking (46 outside, 54 on trainer)
13 miles run, ~2 miles walked

This Week’s Plan:

July 9: RACE WEEK (Couples)
X MONDAY: 2000yd swim +  weights
X TUESDAY: triple bricks (15 mile bike, 3 mile run) + weights
WEDNESDAY: 7 mile run (or 25 mile ride + weights)
THURSDAY: 25 mile ride + weights (or 7 mile run)
FRIDAY: 3 mile run AM
SATURDAY: off
SUNDAY: COUPLES TRI (800yd swim, 11 mile bike, 3 mile run)

2800 yd swimming
50 miles biking
16 miles run

Things marked in BOLD ITALICS have been skipped and may or may not be made up.  Since it’s a race week, I’m allowing a little rest and recovery so I can hit it HARD again next week with major milezzzz *salute*

Not much else went on this week (had a very mellow 4th at home and weekend at home) so I’ll leave you with that.

Last week was a bit tricky – racing Sunday always throws things off.  Also racing Tuesday REALLY threw things off.  Also, Wednesday was that one day of the month where I’m just dead, and then there was packing and camp-stuff-gathering, and, oh yeah, Zliten was working overtime.

So, just another regular week in our crazy lives.

Totally, totally worth it though.   It was so amazing to get away from the internet and civilization for a few days.  I haven’t felt so fabulously carefree and happy for a while.  Absolutely nothing that I had to do or nowhere I had to be… *contented sigh*  Zliten and I just kept joking how it was the worst weekend ever.  How much we hated it.  How could he drag me to this awful place.  And then giggling because we were both having the most fantastic time.

Friday, we left work at 5 – we already had most of the car packed up, but then came home and shoved the rest of the stuff in.  We really and truly brought too much, but being our first solo camping trip, we decided that overpacking was fine.  We only found a few things that would have would have liked to bring (a rug for outside the tent, a broom, one extra bag of ice, more things to grill, a cushion for the bench for my princess-ass, water shoes, and 1 more day).  The main stuff we brought was a tent, an EZ up for shade (which we didn’t use), air mattress, pillows, blankets, a first aide kit, a few flashlights and headlamps, lounge chairs, 2 coolers full of food and drink, a cooler to make adult punch, swimsuits, towels, clothes, kindles, and games.

It took us only 30 mins to set up, and we had purchased to go salads that evening, so we sat down and ate.  The plus side was we got to eat early, but the negative was that there were grills going on all over and it smelled awesome!  We decided that next time, we would grill more.  After our dinner, we loaded up on bug spray and drank some wine and beer and played tons of games into the night as the hippies next to us sang and played guitar.  I looked up at one point and felt smacked in the face with a gorgeous smattering of stars.  Holy crap, stars!  We don’t get those at home!  Around 1am it got quiet, and we headed to the Eva Bundle bed in the bedroom.  I read for a while by flashlight and then drifted off with a gorgeous view of those stars through the translucent parts of our tent.

So, let me take a second to discuss how awesome this camp site is.  We have power.  We have running water.  We have a very clean restroom and very clean showers less than .25 mile away.  From the restrooms, we can see the lake.  It’s about .5 mile to the awesome water hole, and while we spent a lot of the morning reading, once it got hot (probably in the 90s), we headed for the water.  I had intended on swimming laps, but it ended up being very rocky, so we just sort of paddled around for an hour or two, and watching the cliff divers jump.  I would normally be among them, but considering the amount of money we’ve got invested in race fees… I decided I would stick with things that would less likely to make me end up DNSing a mess of races this year like conquering the little rocks in the middle of the lake.

Then, lunch of turkey sandwiches (still not grilling – again will change that next time…).  And more reading.  And a nap.  And more reading.  And some adult punch.  Another walk to the water hole for another hour of rinse and repeat earlier.  Then grilling (organic grass fed, you can take me camping but not all the way…) hot dogs and smores.  Then some more adult punch.  Then more games as the sun went down.  Then more reading.  I cannot express in words how awesomely wonderful and amazing and peaceful and full of just pure joy and goodness I felt all day.

Also, the lack of AC and just being out in the heat and the sun felt AMAZING.  When it got close to 100, we’d just repeatedly douse ourselves in water and feel better.  We’ve taken to spending a lot of time outside lately with tri training, but a whole day just felt… so, so good.

What didn’t feel great was the air mattress the second day – it lost a bunch of air and sent me careening into Zliten whenever I adjusted my position.  So it wasn’t all that bad. 🙂

In the morning we read again until it started to get hot.  Book count on the two day trip: 1.5!  It was glorious to read so much.  I wish I could find time to do that at home…

Then, we packed up the car, which took 30 mins – I packed up most everything else and took it to the car while Zliten took down the tent and air matress.  It is so nice feeling strong again, hauling the coolers and bags were like no big d.  We took one more trip to the watering hole, dried off and changed, and started our trek home.  Our plan was to get some out of the way down home BBQ in Burnet, but nothing was open, so instead, we got some fried catfish goodness when we were closer to town. 🙂  We were still on vacation, so it was totally fine.

So, so, so amazing.  A+.  Would go again.  I wasn’t entirely sure I would love it, but I really really did.  I wanted another day there.  For someone who says that roughing it was a hotel without an indoor pool, I loved it a lot.

My workouts suffered but I think I’ll live:

Monday: 30 mins weights, short 800yd swim
Tuesday: splash and dash race (750m swim, 2 mile run)
Wednesday: practically unconcious (off)
Thursday: 32 minute trainer (10.45 miles) and 25 mins weights
Friday: setting up camp
Saturday: walking a billion miles around the campsite, 2 hours of swimming
Sunday: walking half a billion miles around the campsite, 30 mins swimming, packing up camp

So yes, a textbook training week…right…  I feel rested, recovered, and actually really enthusiatic about training this week, so mission accomplished.  I’ll need to hold onto that feeling for the next 2.5 months or so, because it really, truly, madly, and deeply is GO TIME.  Everything up until now has been flirting with 70.3 (half ironman) training.  It’s time to really start making Olympic distance look like a sprint.  I plan to sit down with my training plan I loosely made in the spring (I’m a type A nerd about everything else, but for some reason, I’m really type Z about triathlon training) and actually see if I can plan out: a) the long days and b) a list of what else I need to do.

Now, to complicate things, I need to be ready for a marathon 6 weeks out from my 70.3, which basically means being ready for the marathon then.  I’m doing it because, well, I’m dumb, and also because I think that having that focus will help me run more, which I think in turn will help the 70.3.  If I’m going to be running 13.1 after biking and swimming for about 4 hours, I should probably be able to run 20 miles by then.  My comfort zone right now is really and truly around 7-10 miles right now, so I need to get back to attacking double digis soon.  I also am going to try running more OFTEN.  I haven’t done 4 runs per week since I trained for my first half, but I really think I need some more miles to get through this marathon.  I’m starting small and seeing how I feel this week. (5, 3, 3, and then 6-9).

I also ended up at the gym, no pool access, and no time to wait, so I did a test – the hill workout I was doing all winter – I was able to push myself faster and harder at a higher cadence, so I’m still improving even with the trainer not being hill specific (I’m pretty sure it’s that I ride outside fairly frequently and also do weights).  Hooray!

So the plan this week:

Monday: 30 mins weights, 20 mins hill ride (6.35 miles)
Tuesday: 5 mile run (supposed to be 7 but OMG HAWT), 30 mins weights
Wednesday: 3 mile run, long trainer after work
Thursday: offffffff
Friday: 3 miles AM 30 mins weights
Saturday: 6 mile run, long swim, short-medium bike (in that order due to heat)
Sunday: off

Total:
Run: 16-20 miles
Bike: about 55 miles
Swim: 1500m or so (this will be a SWIM LITE week)
Weights: 3 sessions

I suppose week by week I’m a little type A as I like having my week planned out.  But next week?  Have no clue what mileage I will be doing.  I think I’d like to do a brick with a long run on the weekend, and probably a long trainer bike one week day, and probably some short morning runs like I’m doing this week, and of course a double/triple brick as those pwn my face.  I’ll need some swimming in there, and cram in 3 weights sessions.  And then, once I figure out I’m training every waking moment, I scale back and figure out what I can actually sustain.

Also – I’ve been doing this whole “meat reduction” thing and honestly, it agrees with me.  I used to be honestly scared of ordering vegetarian entrees or having a meal without meat because I didn’t think I’d be full.  Turns out that veggies, beans, brown rice noodles, whole wheat tortillas, olives, a little oil, sprouted grain bread, nuts, and fruit are really most of what you need to stay full and healthy.  I supplement with a little cheese and/or sour cream when needed, some milk before or after workouts when I’m really craving it, and I still have my fage 0% in the mornings a few times a week.

I still never plan to give up meat completely, but not eating it for breakfast or lunch helps me to stick to organic sources of meat and dairy more often as I’m not seeking as much quick-meats to eat for quick meals.  I definitely enjoy my meat with dinner and I have yet to really try to implement any sort of restrictions on the weekends, but perhaps aiming for 1 meaty meal per day would work for me, and just trying to be conscious of what dairy products go in my face and try to limit those as well to mostly organic and eliminate them when I don’t *need* them (I’ve found that I can ditch sour cream OR cheese on a taco, but not both without being sad.  Also, a sprinkle of feta is just manditory for a greek wrap.)

The only side effect is I’ve been eating a little more sugar (sweets), and I’m thinking that’s just mental.  I’ve maintained the same weight range, however, I have been feeling lighter and stronger (it’s been translating well to both faster run/bike/swim times and also lifting heavier weights), so I’ll keep with it.  So far this year we have learned 3 things:

1.  The scale is a dirty filthy liar that is driving me insane.  I’m pretty sure I don’t look like I’m flirting with obesity, but that’s what the scale would have you think…

2. Weights good.  I missed being strong.  It’s nice to feel buff.  I don’t even really mind making time for it anymore, though I am finding that it’s hard to justify 1 hour classes when I can get a good full body sesh in 30 mins on my own.

3.  Less meat good.  Less dairy – not sure.

Let’s see what else I can learn this year!

While I had put a lot of care and thought into racing Lake Pflug last weekend, I put exactly the opposite of that care and thought into the first splash and dash of the year.  It sorta went like this:

Quix: “Hey, we wanted to do a splash and dash this month.  Wanna do the one that would make sense to do, or the one two days after PF?”

Zliten: “I dunno, the one that makes sense to do is, like, soon.” (At that point, the next Tuesday)

Quix: “Yeah, and this one’s closer.  We can get there right after work, no big d.”

Zliten: “And we get to check out the gym with the lake in the back.”

Quix: “Plus it’s cheap and requires this USAT license we’ve paid for.”

Zliten: “Which also means more races register for our rankings.  POINTS!!!”

Quix: “Ok, lets race just over 48 hours after our tri.  What could go wrong?” *hits registration button*

Then, there was the triathlon magic of Lake Pf.  Ahhhh… unicorns.  Tasty, tasty unicorns.

I found myself feeling freaking awesome the next day even though I raced hard and champagne’d hard, so I hit up the gym for a weights sesh and a short swim.  My goal with the weights were mostly bodyweight, ez toning type exercises and some abs.  Well, I gravitated to the 20 lb dumbells and even bumped up my pulldown weight by 10 before I remembered that I was going to NOT do that.  Bah.  I went ahead and blasted my abs anyway and took it a little easier on my legs and had a fail of a swim (forgot goggles, forgot backup goggles, ended up with backupbackup goggles from 2010 which held exactly ZERO water out of my eyes).

I didn’t sleep well Saturday night, didn’t sleep terribly well Sunday night, and Monday, I had to get up real early to be at work early to be off early.  So lots of sleep, check.  Rested body, check.  Sarcasm in tow, check.

We got there with about 45 mins to start, and in that time we had to check in, get bodymarked, walk our stuff half a k around a lake and down a crazy steep rocky path, set out our transitions on said steep rocky path, got our shoes on, ran once around the lake as a warmup (1k), realized we need to use the restrooms, came back, reset up transition, and got in the water to get about 3 strokes of freestyle before they called us back to have the pre-race meeting and then the men were off (bye Zliten!!!) and we followed 3 minutes after.

This was a mass wave start of about 80 people and let me tell you –  I still don’t like ’em.  I know I’ll be started with thousands of my closest friends when I undertake the ironman so I know I need to warm up to it… but… I was spoiled my first year of tris having itty bitty wave starts and it seems like they’ve just gotten worse from there.  I figured in 750 meters, I’d have plenty of time to find my lane.  Not so much.  I would get into a groove, catch up with other swimmers, and I swear everyone was plotting against me as they would box me in and I’d drop back and around (I’m just terrified of breaking a rib from a wayward hand or foot or something).  What I need to do is practice sprints again so I can just swim through them like I do when I pass a runner – I’m just used to going my constant, same, comfortable swim pace.

Even through that drama, it was a beautiful swim in a beautiful lake.  I really, really, really wish it was open to the public since it’s open water and gorgeous less than a mile from my work, but looks like there will be more splash and dashes in my future (they do one a month).  And I MAY just go sneak in after the race and get another lap or 4 of their 750m course. 🙂

Transition was set on a steep hill so I fumbled a bit getting my shoes on without tripping on rocks or falling over.  After I did that, I grabbed my sunglasses, my garmin, and my visor and rolled out.

Swim + transition: 19:09.  Navigating the rocky hill was not easy, plus I started about 30-60 sec back in the middle of the pack.  I’m thinking my actual swim time may have been around 17?  Considering I was just feeling warmed up and really really wanted to go for another loop (and think I could have taken the second one faster), I think a ~35 minute olympic swim time (and about 40-ish half iron swim) seems reasonable, which sounds good to me.

On completely rested legs and body I could maybe have tried for sub-9s, but in my condition I was sticking as close to it as possible.  I just practiced that mental toughness, trying not to give an inch when I wanted to slow down.  It was 3k, and a 3 loop course.  Usually I like loops, but at times, it was a little disheartening.  Going past the fancy restaurant with yummy smelling food 3 times.  Going through the (slight) uphill gravel pit 3 times.  On the flipside, knowing where I could bank some time each lap was helpful.

First 1k: 6:18. Second 1k: 6:26. Third 1k: 6:18.  Nothing this run if not consistent.  The course was a little long, and my garmin read 2.03 miles in 19 flat (~9:24 avg pace).  Total time: 38:12.  46/77 women (and I’m pretty proud of this, these were some fast womens, this wasn’t your normal race crowd of all shapes and sizes).  Race 12 for the year in the books!  12 down, 12 to go!  We’re halfway there!

While I won’t say I have completely conquered keeping my head in the run, I’ve made great strides in it, with 3 major successes in less than a week.  Going fast is exhausting work!

What’s next:

Getting in what I can this week before we leave for a camping trip (this was not a banner workout week but I think I’ll survive).  During said camping trip, hiking and open water swim goodness.

My next race is July 15, so I’ve got a good month of training until then.  It’s also a solid B race – I didn’t do it last year, it will be hot as balls, and I have no expectations.  And since it’s couples tri, Zliten and I get to start in the same wave and we’ve decided we will race it together.  I need to sign us up for another July race, but it will probably be another splash and dash or 5k, still TBD.

Volume increase time.   July and August are our big training months, so it’s time to get the endurance train out of the station.  The base, it’s time to build it up to the sky.

First though – enjoying the wilderness and disconnectedness of camping.  I bought us healthy food for the trip, but I also brought potato chips and smores.  It’s a balance.

Next week: it’s on.

When we talk about something somewhat unobtainable at work (figuring out an issue that only happened once, while Jupiter was aligned with Mars, and only while standing on your head), we tend to call it “chasing unicorns”.  Very occasionally, you’ll catch them, but most often, they will elude you.

Well, dear readers, let me assure you that unicorns were caught this day.  My mother, on facebook, asked what I was going to do with them, and I didn’t really have a good answer besides BBQ’ing them, but that was after bottle #2 of champagne.  I felt kinda a lot like this…

Let me back up.  Way up.

Last year, the conditions were a wee bit rough (wind wind wind), but I had what I thought was a pretty great race, with a time of 1:40:36.  The timing company screwed the pooch and didn’t get any splits, so I can’t compare with that, but when I laid out what I thought I could do, I figured out that if I had an attainably perfect race (stringing together paces which were within my grasp, but just barely) I could swing about a 1:33.  Realistically I expected to PR at least by a little, but I wasn’t sure how much that would be.

Things had been going right this week.  The old bod, even though I still maintain an extra 5-7 over what I was at last year’s race, was feeling pretty good.  Sore in the right ways from training early in the week, and with 2 days of active rest before Sunday, I was feeling rested, loose, and rarin’ to go.  Also, my last training session was the best brick I’ve had in memory – 20+ mph on the trainer, and sub-9 minute miles off the bike both times.  I was riding the confidence train pretty high into this race.  I knew it had the potential to be magical.

These were my strengths going into this race:

1. Lots of form work while swimming.  Better form = faster swims @ less effort.  Long body, kicking as close to the top of the water as possible, breathing without lifting my head out of the water as much as possible.

2. Since this bike course isn’t very hilly (some rollers, it’s no pancake, but nothing epic), the constant effort on the trainers I’ve been doing is great.

3.  Lots of mental training for the run.  I’m trying to keep my enemy – the all out 5k pain pace – very friendly.  Running really fast outside off the bike really, really helps this.

4.  Practicing transitions really helps.  I can’t stress this enough.  This is the fourth sport people!

5. Having an actual nutrition plan.  Eating on the bike keeps you from the despair point on the run.

6.  This is now really my home turf.  We train here all the time.  I wasn’t sure if this would help with familiarity, or hurt me because it would be hard to keep the intensity up, but I do believe it helped me, indeed, to not panic.

Pre race notes:

-Eats: Saturday = Apple and milk for breakfast.  Did the normal steak, veggies, salad, wee bit of bread lunch around noon.  Little bit of ice cream for desert around 3pm.  English muffin, cream cheese, and bacon around 7pm.  Sunday AM = chai tea + milk upon waking, oatmega bar slightly after.  Tummy happy.  Pre-race nutrition success!

-Movement: last workout Thurs AM, active rest Friday/Saturday (seriously active Friday – I burned just as many calories as a workout day running a billion errands).  Sunday AM – lots of walking around race venue (at least a mile or two).  About half a mile warmup an hour before the race start – .25 EZ jog, .25 with fast striders with no garmin.  200m swim warmup about 30 mins before race start, mostly just getting the arms to work properly (water was crowded so I didn’t do too much too fast).

-Gear/Transitions: #1 Success was laying everything out, practicting transitions about 6 times, and then immediately packing it all up and putting it in the car.  I knew I had everything I needed because I had just used it! #2 Success was getting to the race site right at transition opening, since I knew it was open racking, and we got the exact positions we wanted (as close to bike in/out as possible).  It took away an hour or so of sleep we could have had, but it was nice to get to the race super early and have plenty of time. #3 Success was spending a LOT of time mentally going over and over my entire race plan.

Swim strong with good form. Swim in until you touch the bottom with your hand.  Cap and goggles off.  Pick up flippy floppies.  Run to bike.  Garmin, glove 1, glove 2, sock, shoe, sock, shoe, camelback on, camelback buckled, sunglasses, helmet, unrack bike and run.  Bike strong.  Maintain 18mph average if possible.  Don’t tuck in somewhere and get comfortable and slow.  Get in easier gear last mile uphill.  Rack bike, helmet off, camelback off, gloves off, shoe on, shoe off, shoe on, shoe off, grab racebelt/visor and go.  Change garmin to run mode.  Get your legs under you while you put on the race belt and visor.  Settle in below 10 minute miles.  Get faster as you can.  Push the pace.  Don’t get about 10s even if it’s painful.  You know you can maintain this pace, it’s about pain management.  Save a little bit between 2 and 2.5 so you can accelerate to the finish.

My only complaints with the morning was that I got crappy sleep the night before (eh, race days, it’s hit or miss, and it’s hard to get a good night of sleep when your alarm is set for 3:30am), my wave was second to last (which meant it just got hotter and hotter while I waited to start, and I did have a last minute bathroom trip right before my wave (no big d though – especially since my wave was so late).

So, let’s get to the actual RACE report, shall we?  🙂

I sent Zliten off in the 3rd wave, and our buddy Bacon off in the 5th, and did said trip to the potty, and then came back just in time to cheer Zliten out of the water.  He looked a little scatterbrained, and later, he said that having me cheer him on helped him focus and get his head back.  Yay!  I kept reviewing my race plan in my head until we were called to be on double deck, and shut off my brain and joked around with the ladies around me that we had one of the smallest waves (weird).  We got in and I decided I would go for the middle and see how that fared.  The start was actually past the point where I could stand, so as they counted down, I started breaststroking towards the start and just about hit it when the air horn went off.

Swim:

I concentrated on my stroke form.  Usually I have a good idea of where I am in the swim wave, but this time I was so focused I had no idea who was ahead or behind me unless I could visually see them/bump into them.  Can I just say I REALLY hate backstrokers and breaststrokers?   If you can’t be buggered to learn the proper stroke, then stay to the outside please… I’m not a terribly aggressive swimmer but each race I’m getting closer to being one.  I found my lane a few times and felt like it was a pretty solid swim.  I wanted to push myself a little more than normal to see what it did to the other legs and I think it was a success.  I got out of the water a little more tired than normal (with normal being not tired at all), but felt recovered after the jog to transition.

Swim time: 11:36.  Considering Kerrville was just as calm and the same distance, and I swam it in 13:37, I’ll call 15% better time or 2 mins a HUGE improvement.  Goal was a swim in the 11s.  Done and done.

T1:

Never walked, jogged as much as my flippy floppies and the slick stairs would allow, and executed transition almost perfectly minus a little garmin fumble.  Jogged out in my bike shoes, got to the mount line, got clipped in quick, and was on the way.

T1 time: 2:53.  Considering the amount of ground I had to cover, I’m happy (and nothing to compare it to from last year).

Bike:

Got going, and put a nutter butter in my mouth.  Tummy did NOT like that.  Peanut cookie + sprint race = bad.  I started working on my honeystinger chews and those were much better – those will be my go to.  They weren’t stringy like the powerbar ones that kinda got caught in my throat, but they were nice, clean, happy sugar and caffeine.  And that’s all I need on a short course.

The first few miles went very well – I even got my average pace up around 20mph through the first few.  Then we hit the rollers I train on and I was ready for it.  In my head, I had thought the second half of the course was easier, so when I was at about 19mph halfway through, I was ecstatic!  Then, I hit a little middle fatigue – I think I wasn’t eating enough because the pb cookie made me very unhappy and I slowed down in the middle miles – I lost 19, and started working just to keep above 18 and lost that too.  Finally the easy part of the course came and I picked up a little speed but it was never enough to get back above 18.

The awesome part from last year where I accelerated to 25mph and kept it for about a mile?  Well, some dumb slow lady was hogging the middle of the road on the turn and messed with my mojo so I didn’t get that awesome stretch I was looking forward to flying past – oh well.  I also really didn’t like starting the bike that far back – I love passing people, and REALLY love passing dudes.  Zliten’s recount was being buoyed up by getting in a pack with fast dudes, and mine is being really frustrated dodging slow older ladies on a Sunday ride.

Bike time: 48:16, or 17.4 mph avg.  I really cannot be disappointed with this, but I feel like it was my weakest leg of the course.  No pb cookies, and I need to work on keeping myself motivated internally on the bike – I never realized before this race how much I rely on other people to push me on the bike.

T2:

Went as expected, except I realized I was still really dehydrated even though I had my camelback and used it, so I spent 5 extra seconds to suck more of it down.  Camelback for constant bike hydration = totally worth the extra 6 seconds to deal with in transition (I’m not good with the bike bottle in a cage and I have yet to spring for a front mounted hydration system).  What was not expected was I heard the announcer call Zliten’s name – he was already finishing.  I realized that a) he was a lucky sonofabitch to be finishing now because the clouds and cool had just finished burning off and it was hot hot sun run time, b) he had a really great tri and c) I better book it on the run if I wanted to beat him.  I saw my buddy R who was running transition and he cheered me on and I said “Zliten just finished, I want to be done…” and he just told me to gogogogo so gogogogo I did.

T2 time: 1:19.  Not too bad.  I was a little out of it and could probably get this under 1 minute, but definitely went “according to plan”.  My position next to the bike in/out really helped this one

Run:

While I was crossing the line, I hit my garmin running mode, and started.  I put on my race belt, and my visor (it fit weird, so I don’t have high hopes that I have any pretty pictures with it on, but it did it’s job).  Then I started paying attention to the garmin.  In my head, 10s were unacceptable, and things that needed to be fixed, whatever the cost.  In my head, the better I did on my run, the better I would feel later, even if I felt crappy then.  And it felt crappy.  Mid-80s, no shade, no wind, freaking trail I hate running on (give me pavement for short races any freakin’ day, I feel like I can actually get a grip).  But I got myself around 9:45s, and made myself stay there, and it oscilated between bearable, and just short of bearable.  I wasn’t ready to try for sub – 9s, I was really afraid of blowing up, so I kept it between 9 and 10.

The run really was a blur.  Green shirt 29 year old passed me and I simply kept up with her.  She really helped me.  I zoned out and focused on my run and what it meant to me to keep up a decent pace, and how disappointed I would be if I just let go and the miles went.  Slowly, but they went.  I really ran at capactity the entire time.  I didn’t think I had much of anything for the finish until I saw Zliten, who ran me in the last 100m or so and told me to speed the fuck up so I picked up my legs and sprinted with the last oomph I had and crossed with the clock reading 2:08.

Run time: 28:07 – 9:22 average.  I clocked the course a little short, but it was definitely way under 10 minute miles.  Eff yeah!!!

Post Race:

I got my bottle, my towel, and I had to sit down.   I really and trully had spent everything on that run.  I got my freezy pop (and a second and a third).  Once I was recovered, we went to check out the results.  Zliten had a 1:33:28 – which is about 34 minutes!!!! faster than last year.  I couldn’t for the life of me work out the math when I actually started and I had finish times in my head anywhere from 1:28 to 1:38.  I knew I had biked and ran MUCH better than last year, but didn’t know about the swim or transitions…also, had I beaten Zliten?  He had really had the tri of his life!

Finally, they updated the finish results tent.

1:32:12.  Over 8 minutes better than last year.  I was overjoyed.  All day.  1:33 was my A goal (and frankly, I set REALLY HARD A goals) and I beat THAT by almost a minute.  Honestly, it took me until I just dissected the race above to find anything I could do better besides just “get faster with more training”.  And that’s just a given.

The magic of Lake Pf tri even extended to the next day – barely any soreness (so I hit the gym), and today, we race again (little splash and dash – 750m swim, 3k run).  I’ll continue my “What’s next” thoughts in that post because for now, this is becoming novel length and I must get on my with life.

Onwards and upwards!

Also – I met someone who read my blog!  Wheeeee!  Marlena? Maggie?  I think your name started with an M – and speaking with you made my day even more awesome, but I’m horrible with names (especially coming off a super tri PR high).  If you see this – comment and let me know who you are. 🙂