Adjusted Reality

Can’t lie, I was actually a little nervous about this one since the last metric century ride a month ago.

1.  I know now how much it hurts to ride 60+ miles.  The first one was great because I was blissfully ignorant, having never done more than 35.  This time, I knew how hard the end would be.  I knew how wasted I would be the next day.  I knew I was in for 4-5 hours of biking.  It took me 8 months to decide to do a second half marathon after my first one.  It’s taking me 2 years to get back to an Olympic tri.  But this year is about building a massive endurance base, so my recovery time was one month for this new and challenging distance.

2. While we have most definitely got more bike time this month, it’s all been right around 1 hour or less – which didn’t leave me feeling confident that I was any more ready to be on the bike for 4-5 times that.

3. Feeling much better about the clipless pedals, but was still nervous about how I would do on tired legs.

Gear: blue north face shirt, pearl izumi bike shorts, moving comfort bra, bento box with nutter butters, chips ahoy, power bar caffeinated gel bites (cola and strawberry banana), pb pretzels, sesame sticks, solids, candied mango slices, and quench gum.  I even stashed some extra in my camelback which also had my chapstick, biofreeze wipes, an extra tube (we had 4 total), my compression sleeves, and it was full of icewater + grape nuun.  Also had an extra b0ttle of icewater on the bike.

Notes:

-I expect my nike dri fit tanks to take the place of this north face shirt as my faves, but it’s the lightest, comfiest, most wicking shirt I own and I didn’t want to try anything new and be stuck hating life for a long time, so I bit the bullet and wore the same thing.  Yes,  I do actually think about things like this for the race pics. 🙂

-I way overpacked food.  This time, I really enjoyed the powerbar gel chews, the nutterbutter cookies, and the orange slices at the aid stations.  I think I’ve learned what I love the most are new things and things at the aid stations, not what I liked last time, heh.  However, it was really good to have options.

We ended up not being able to fall asleep until way, way too late the night before, so we got a late start.  I think I’ve perfected my morning food routine though – the oat-mega bar was great on my tummy and a caff tea late got me going great.  We got to the race, which started at a high school, with just a little to spare.  After hitting the bathrooms (inside the school, which was really nice instead of porta potties), we got back to the car, geared up, chatted with the couple next to us (they were also doing the 63), had one more potty trip for Zliten, and we ended up starting with the family ride in the back.  Bah.

That made for dodging and weaving a lot in the first few miles which was sort of annoying, but kept us from getting out too fast.  I did a lot of “on your lefts”.  There was a lot of inconsiderate riding, like people riding 4-5 across slowly and taking up the whole road so it was hard to pass, or people riding REALLY slow on the lefthand side (note: it’s like in a car – you pass on the left, then move back to the right).  I was really happy when we got ~7 miles up and lost the family 14 mile ride folks.

The first 30 miles were strong as hell.  I had to reign Zliten in a little bit from going too fast in miles 10-20, I didn’t want to feel like I was pushing myself at all in the first half since I remembered how FREAKING HARD the second half was last time.  We varied each mile but every 20 mins, we were steadily hitting 5 miles +/- a few seconds, rocking our 15mph goal pace.  It was great.  It was looking like we were going to cut an hour or more off the time and finish in just over 4 hours.

We had determined to take as few stops as possible and keep them short, so we passed the first 2 rest stops and only hit one up at around 26 because Zliten needed to pee.  I had been dreaming about orange slices for about an hour and the station had them.  Hooray!  Speaking of nutrition, I learned the last ride that you just have to keep eating.  I took a caffeinated chew at 10 and 30, and popped cookies and pretzels and mango snacks as I remembered.   I didn’t feel like I needed it and almost felt bad eating so much so fast but I knew that by the time I was hungry, it was too late.  Also, the scenery was GORGEOUS.  Beautiful Texas countryside.  I look down a LOT on the bike because I’m a scaredy biker but I couldn’t help but notice the awesome.

Then, we hit the wall.  A big wall of WIND.  Somehow, we kept heading directly into the wind.  This is also the section where the most uphill sections were – nothing that would faze me normally, but add ~15 MPH headwinds and 30+ miles on my legs already and the fatigue set in.  My hands started to ache, my neck started to hurt, as well as my hips, back, and quads.   We slowed way down and kept losing ground.  From mile 30-35, we lost a whole 4 minutes on a pace we were easily keeping before.  And it just kept getting worse.

I also started getting really loopy.  Zliten gets kinda quiet during these middle miles, and I get delirious and talky.  It works.  I like to sing songs like “I wear spandex and I know it” (sung to Sexy and I Know It) or make new lyrics like “At the Copa, Copa Cabana, the hottest spot in Havana, they dance and they sing and they do lots of things THAT ARE MORE FUN THAN FUCKING BIKING UPHILL IN THE WIND”.  I also get the mouth of a sailor apparently.  I’m pretty sure my f-bomb count was at least in the triple digis.  Fuck you wind, fuck you hills, fuck you bumpy fucking roads, fuck green guy who was going 2 miles an hour on the left…  Really, how I keep myself sane on the bike is keeping myself amused.  It’s not going to be pretty when I have to ride long distances solo…

We took an aid station around mile 44 and saw our car neighbors.  They were holding together well!  I was almost out of nuun, so I filled my camelback halfway with gatorade.  It was like mana from heaven.  We didn’t want to lag too much so we took off quickly.  The despair hit then.  We were slow.  It was hilly.  There was still headwind, and it seemed like every time we’d get respite it was for a quarter of a mile or less, and then back in.  I kept getting ahead because I just wanted to be DONE and then I’d have to stop and wait.  Sometimes I’d get behind.  One fork wasn’t marked so we had to stop to check the map.  The miles went slow.  I just wanted to see the mile on my Garmin change to 50-something, and once it did, I got a little  boost.

We had yet to really take a real rest, so we were going to do that at the next rest stop.  Well, it didn’t come.  Around mile 53.5 there was a nice flat patch of grass, so we made our own.   We sat down for about 5 mins, stretched, downed a bunch of gatorade, ate more food, waved at passerbys, and I got my wind back.

After we took off here, I had lots of energy left but Zliten was still pooped.  The wind subsided a bit.  I kept both shoving food in my mouth (I tried to eat a bite of something each mile), singing silly songs to myself and I kept going fast because I just wanted to be done, and then I’d get so far ahead of Zliten I couldn’t see him, and then I had to stop and wait.  Aero position was my friend at the end, my palms felt bruised.  My legs actually stopped hurting this late in the game, but my lower back and neck definitely didn’t, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.  Zliten, however, was having to stop occasionally because of leg cramps.  When I saw him get super slow and looking rough I would make him get off the bike and stretch.

When we hit 60 it was even worse.  Zliten slowed to a crawl and all.I.wanted.to.do.was.FINISH so I kept speeding up and having to stop.  We hit 61, then 62, then 63… then 64…. then 65… finally we saw the turn in to the school (on the back end, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR NOT MAKING US DEAL WITH TRAFFIC ON TIRED LEGS!!!!) and we crossed the finish together, touched down, and DRANK ALL THE GATORADE and ate the crap out of a bag of fritos.

My time biking was about 5:07, I think Zliten’s was about 5:19 (I stopped mine when I was stopped), and total time out on the course was about 5:50.  A little faster than the Rosedale for like 4 more miles, and in worse conditions (I hate you WIND).  My goal was simply to finish faster, and no crashes, and mission accomplished.

I liked the course, and the support, and it was a great ride on a great day.  Next year, perhaps we’ll undertake the 100 miler!  If it fits within our training and racing plans next year, we will definitely do this one!  A sweet tech tee with the course map on it also definitely helped my favorable opinion… I’ll just hope for less wind…

From there, we went to see my ‘rents (who live up there) to shower, eat pizza and ice cream, and play games.  From THERE, we hit up a friend’s BBQ for dinner, although it was very short lived – we both stayed away from sitting so we didn’t crash, but Zliten made the mistake of sitting down for a sec and then realized he needed to get home.  We had another invite to the bar, but we just couldn’t hack it.  We were totally beat.  We sat on the patio, popped some champagne, and enjoyed the evening watching tri videos on youtube.

I’m a lot more confident about the 56 miles of riding for the half iron after this ride.  It was less hard than I remembered the first one being, even with the wind.  While I didn’t feel like I was ready to run a half marathon, I did feel like I could knock out a few slow miles without dying (and if I would have had shoes with, we would have).  And I have 5 months to train from here.

Today, I have sat my ass on the couch besides a trip to the gym to use the hot tub, for a well deserved rest day.

Less than a week until Rookie Tri – the first tri of the season.  300m swim, 11 mile bike, 2 mile run.  My goal is to race it hard, so that I don’t have any of the “that’s all I get to do?” feelings I have now… and to beat my time from last year, of course.

Is it weird that if I see this and think about running, I sigh exasperatedly, but if I think about biking them, I get all wiggly with excitement.  Maybe I need to run hills once a week in the off season next year like I did with biking.

FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

I usually blather about diet and exercise and races first, but as was pointed out to me by my lovely husband, “there’s nothing more boring than someone else’s diet or workout” (although, that’s why you all come here, right? RIGHT?) so perhaps I’ll lead with something else for a change.

Vacations, I has planned them.  Usually, we have lots of little random weekends out of town here or there for races or other reasons, but this year, we just *don’t*.  So, since I’m NOT OK with my first vacay of the year being in August, we decided to do a few mini trips:

First up next month – spa weekend here.  Looking forward to fancy hotel, dinner, spa, dance lessons?, and just chillaxing over a long weekend.

Then in June – camping.  We finally bought a tent, so we’re out to camp at least 2-3 times this year (and this would make it twice).  This place is so close to home, but feels like a nice escape away into the wilderness.

True story – I haven’t been camping except for one nighters which were basically just excuses for going out into the wilderness and getting drunk.  So I had to ask Zliten what the second day was for.  He went into hiking/running trails, swimming, canoe/kayak rentals, and just relaxing with a kindle and this view.  After that, I was on board, and yet again, wiggly with excitement!

That should tide me over until August and September vacays – which are San Diego and Alaskan Cruise times, respectively.  Don’t even get me started on how excited I am about running my first out of state half marathon in SD, biking and running amongst the glaciers training on the cruise, and going snorkeling in Alaska!

Aight, so now onto real life stuff… training, and food, and races, oh my.

PRACTICE RUN

Last weekend, our “long workout” was a practice swim bike run at Lake Pflugerville.  We did 13 miles on the bike in about 50 minutes on what could be described as rolling hills, nothing severe but definitely some up and down.  I gained a bit more confidence with my new shoes, and figured out a strategy – for the love of all that holy, if I’m riding on a busy street and anticipate turning soon or have any other reason I might need to stop, rock out with one pedal out until I’m onto a straight stretch.  We kept up about 15 mph pace, and it felt EZ peasy most of the time. We ran a 5k around the lake, which Zliten PR’d and I took it easy (30:19 and 30:49, respectively), and swam 500m in about 12-15 mins.  I wanted to get in open water before the tri next weekend just in case I freaked out, and I’m happy to report that nature’s got nothin’ on me. Last weekend was the first time in a long time I haven’t been exhausted by the intensity or duration of my weekend long workouts (and I did over 1.5 hours).  Next stop, half ironman!

BICYCLE, BICYCLE

This weekend is the second supported bike ride on our calendar, the Georgetown Red Poppy Ride.  This one could potentially get us into trouble, as it not only has a metric century (63 miles, which is the plan), it also has an 80 and 100 mile course.  Considering the longest we’ve ridden since the last one is 13 miles outdoors and we have a tri the next weekend, I think we’ll be able to control ourselves and just do the 63 we have planned.  But we both have that inkling that 80 isn’t that much more than 63….

The real goal is to do the 63, and to get closer to 4 hours than the 5 it took us to do the ride in March.  So that would be riding faster, and taking more expedient stops.  We’re also loaded up with goodies like pb pretzels, cookies, nuts, candied mango, and the like, so we’ll have better eatin’ without the rest stops.

TRI AND STOP ME

After my feet touch down on the finish line of this bike ride on Saturday, I’m officially calling it TRI SEASON.  I’m so full of wiggly excitement about this, I don’t even know what to say.  I’m sure that will change soon enough.  First up will be rookie – 300m swim, 11 mile bike, 2 mile run.  To combat my “that’s all” thoughts since I’m all but primed for about an Olympic distance tri right now, I’m fixing to race this one HARD since it’s the exact course from last year and I plan to PR the SHIT out of this.  Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah!

SMOOTHIE OPERATOR

In my ongoing quest to find a nutrition plan that works for me, I’ve been trying some smoothie lunches.  I’ve accompanied these with a small, savory item (like a greek salad, a cup of soup, etc), and I’ve been saving half of said smoothie for a snack around 4-5pm.  Some of my creations have been:

Strawberry Love: Strawberry 110 cal protein shake, chocolate pb2 powder, banana, 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder, frozen strawberries

Spiced Late: 1/2 cup pumpkin, scoop vanilla protein powder, vanilla extract, apple, skim milk, cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg

If You Like Pina Coladas: Tropical protein powder, banana, orange, pineapple, mango, lite coconut milk, coconut oil

Not-In-The-Box Oreo Shake: Skim milk, oreo cookie protein powder. (200 calories of friggin yum, almost just as good as a jack in the box shake)

Creamy Raspberry Lemonade: Vanilla protein powder, frozen raspberries, banana, coconut oil, lemon juice

Really, the ideas are limitless.  It really just needs: 1) some sort of protein powder+milk or protein shake 2) some sort of fat – pb or coconut oil 3) a thickener – banana or pumpkin seem to work, without it, it’s ok, it just tastes really ice 4) frozen or fresh fruit.  I haven’t gotten brave enough to put veggies in yet.  I also put some stevia extract in each one because I like it sweet.  Each one (besides the simple oreo one) is about 300-400 calories and is really filling.  I plan to continue to do this a few times a week.  It’s just so simple and yummy, curbs my snackings in the afternoon, and really kills my need for any sort of desert.

HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER

Since they cancelled our weekly Monday crunchtime class, I’ve found a new love: group kick (kickboxing).  I’ve always wanted to try kickboxing, and it’s both a great cardio and strength workout.  It works muscles I didn’t know I had in my ankles and shins.  It’s pretty hard to get my abs to be sore these days, but they were definitely worked over.  Also, since I took the introductory class, I have these fun boxing wraps that do nothing, but they make me feel all badass.  I think I’ll stick with this one for a while.

I’m going to reiterate this to myself over and over, so just a warning you’ll get sick of hearing this mantra. a) The best way for me to change my body composition is to strength train.  A lot. b) The best way for me to improve both my race times and my general happiness is to change my body comp in a positive and healthy way. c) Therefore, I should NEVER want to skip a strength sesh for a cardio.

Enter this week.  Two things.

One, I got major cramps on my run Tuesday AM (which is a damn shame because otherwise it was a FANTASTIC morning, and I was feeling GREAT and SPEEDY) so I cut it at 2 miles instead of 5-6.  This is making me REALLYREALLYREALLYREALLY want to skip my weights class tomorrow morning so I can make up the run.  Because in my sillybrain, apparently I will die if I don’t get at least one 10k run in each week (even though I’m going to be almost triple digis in bike miles, hello…).  WEIGHTS ARE NON NEGOTIABLE, silly brain.  /sigh

Two, all of a sudden I got freaked out, realizing I hadn’t mashed up any bike hills on the stationary at the gym in quite a while.  I figured my hill skillz HAD to be deteriorating with all this ez trainer and outside riding.  I hopped on the stationary, and lo and behold, it even felt EASIER than normal.  Gotta give weight training credit for that.

So, long story short – the hills, the weights – DO THEM.  I need this tattooed on my forehead.  Although, it might get me funny looks in mixed company as it might be taken as a suggestion, perhaps?

Questions of the week: what gets you “wiggly with excitement” lately?  What do you need to just DO?

Austin 10/20

My motto for the day was: I have thunder thighs, these thighs are gonna bring the THUNDER today.

I have always wanted to race a 10 miler.  Quite frankly, the last 3.1 miles of the half marathon are, in my opinions, the worst.  Story of my life is a great first 10, and then I just can’t hang on through the last 5k.  While I’m working on addressing what goes into that (with more strength training, planning for more distance, and a better pacing strategy), sometimes it’s nice to try something you think just fits your natural strengths and that you’ll be pretty good at.

And so, months ago, I signed up for a 10 mile race and was REALLY looking forward to it and wanting to train for it.

Months passed, and between lots of slower base running and getting up to speed for tris, the only thing even close to speedwork I’ve done is progression runs.  I had envisioned a finish time of something between 1:30 (A goal) and 1:40 (C goal).  However, since I’ve not been working up to 9 minute miles, I changed my goal and strategy.

A time goal: 1:35.  I figured if I was having a stellar day, I could potentially pull 9:30s.  They’ve been fairly comfortable on select days when I’m in the zone. B time goal was 1:40.  10s have gotten easier and easier as I get stronger and the year goes on.

A pace goal: negative split.  Since I’ve been practicing progression runs, I figured what a better way to try out my new skillz.  I pretty much have one race strategy: go out fast and try to hold on.  I’ve been finding more and more how much this DOESN’T work for me.  B pace goal: negative split in terms of effort.  Even if the pace didn’t work out, I wanted to feel like I was easing into the first half, and then really pushing it the last half.

Morning food routine: glutino bar, but I tried something new: a caffeinated tea late.  Worked like a charm.  This will definitely be my new pre-race drink.

Temps for the day: 75, overcast and 90% humid.  While other runners hate this weather, I love it.  I feel warm and loose right away and it’s not so warm that I’m overheating.  It’s a lot easier to start out EZ when you’re not trying to save yourself from hypothermia.

Gear list: cheapo black sweatband and wristband, north face blue tech tank, regular underarmor lucky sportsbra, one honeystinger gel in my small shoe wallet (which I actually clipped to my pants), old and busted grey capris I’ve had forever, wigwam thick socks, and my Brooks Racers.

Gear notes: get yourself a damn wicking visor already, headbands are so 1980.  Didn’t use gel (didn’t expect to but figured better safe than sorry).  Don’t wear old and busted pants in humid weather.  They will disintegrate around your thighs and chafe like a mofo.  The racers were a sort of risky decision that paid off – I had never run more than 7 in them, but all my runs with my other shoes have been crap slow (they were fine until about 9.5, which was NBD). Also I went sans compression sox, because I am vain and they didn’t go with my ensemble.  Zliten isn’t.

We got moving a little late, and were very thankful that a) the race was only 3 miles from the house and b) it’s essentially right where we work so we knew the secret back entrance.  We porta pottied and I got a warmup, and then we piled into our seperate corrals.  I was in 4, Zliten was in 8 (he should have been further up, but he put worst case pace, not what he expected, which is fine, he likes starting in the back).  No one was respecting the damn corrals (huge race pet peeve).

Soon, we were off.  During the warmup, my legs were sluggish, but as soon as we took off, 10 minute miles felt like a jog.  I obsessively garmin checked when I wasn’t fighting off the hoards of people who got in too-fast corrals, and ended mile 1 exactly at 10 mins.  Mile 2, I set my sights at 9:50.  Garmin ticked 2 miles at exactly 19:50.  Mile 3, I tried for 9:45 and there were more downhills than I expected so I came in at 9:35.  Mile 4 and 5 were right around there as well.

Mile 5 saw exactly 49 minutes.  I was feeling great, and figured it was time to start turning on the heat… just as the course started turning on the hills.  They advertised fast and flat, and that was true… except for the last 5 miles. 😛  To be fair, I’ve run on much worse, but it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.  Mile 6 and 7 were around 10:15s.

I was a little upset I was losing ground but the friggin hills were just steep enough to register, and relentless.  I just sort of ignored garmin time and moved to perceived effort, I just tried to go as fast as I could while also not feeling like I would die.  The end was also a little frustrating – you get ALMOST up to the finish line and then have to detour for another mile.  I didn’t think I had anything left in me but once I saw the finish I sprinted it in.

10.15 miles, 1:41:50.  10:02 avg pace overall, 9:48 first 5, 10:05 pace for last 5.15.  My ranking was higher in the second half than the first half, so I slowed down LESS than the average bear.  195/727 (26% beat me – almost in the top quarter) Age Group, 1075/3944 (27% beat me – again, almost in the top quarter) in Gender, Overall 2175/6009 (36% beat me).  And, since it’s my first 10, auto PR!

I finished, got my water and 3 juicebox thingees (the water stops were a little crowded, so I only took in 2 half cups of water and 2 half cups of gatorade so I was DEHYDRATED) and waited for Zliten.  He rolled in only 8 mins after me, his official time in the 1:49s.  While the big draw of the race was a post-race party, neither of us were into it after walking back to the car, so we headed home.

This was a huge win for me.  I am never good about pacing myself in the first half of a race, and if I really would have went out fast, I know I couldn’t have held on with the hills.  I’m pretty sure it would have been more like 9:20s and then 11s instead of an almost even split.

Speaking of Thunder Thighs, the strength thing seems to be working… I liked all my race pics from this race, and in general, I think my clothes are fitting better.  I need to weigh in this week and do my dang measurements, but I’m generally happier about how things fit and how I look.  Probably not coincidentally, I managed last week not to eat like an asshole, and maintain about a 800 calorie deficit on average.  So, we’ll see.  I’m trying to do that again this week.  Maybe, just maybe, the scale and tape measure will be kind.

Either way, I’m seeing marked improvements with my running keeping up the weight training sched 3x each week.  I need you all to hold me accountable through half IM training that a strength workout is worth sacrificing more time in the pool, in the saddle, and on the road.  It’s a gamble, but I really think getting stronger is the key.

Also speaking of being vain – I may want to take a great race pic, but this is how I rock it after in the backyard. Note: biofreeze is cold.

Next up: another metric century bike ride in 2 weekends, and then ROOKIE TRI in 3.  I’m so flipping excited for TRI SEASON I can’t stand it!!!!

Two roads diverged in the Austin ‘side
And sorry we could not cycle both ways
And being one pair of cyclists, pondered deep and wide
And thought about a 40+ mile day
That it would still be an grand foray

But we took the 60 miler, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it beconed to us wanting wear
(And said you’re a badass for going there)
And our asses ride would never be the same

And that morning we didn’t follow where safety lay
Road open, no “on your left”, no need for care
Oh, we risked our asses (literally) that day
Yet knowing regret is in what’s not done, they say,
I doubted the demon would follow us there

And though this morning I sigh
With back and legs sore, a petty grievance
Two roads diverged into Austin, and Zliten and I,
We cycled the one less traveled by,
And that made all the difference.

Nod/tipothehat/apologies to Robert Frost.

Yes, we did a metric century ride yesterday.

Yes, we are dumb.  We did the equivalent of training badly for a half marathon and just deciding race day to do the full (longest ride last year = 35 miles, longest ride this year = 14 miles).  Don’t be us.

Yes, we are very, very sore today.  More later!