Adjusted Reality

Author: Quix Page 87 of 218

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon Recap

On June 22, 2015

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

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

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

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

Swim:

I did not get a chance to do a swim warmup due to a long porta potty line, but I was pleasantly surprised it felt slightly crisp (79 degrees w/no wetsuit feels nice to me). It was my first wave start (not TT) in a year, but I felt like I handled it decently and didn’t get stuck behind anyone, and didn’t have to beat anyone up to get in position.

Oh my, the nature, though. The first and last ~100m were to the surface with hydrilla. It was a fight. I figured I was going to end up covered and tangled in it, will be interesting to see the swim out pictures to see if I had any extra… erm… jewelry. The rest of the time I felt like I was swimming strong, I didn’t sit behind anyone going slower, I kept a fairly smooth stroke, I kept the effort honest.

My watch shows about a 1:56/100m pace for .36 miles (580m). That’s pretty good for me in open water. I’m pretty happy with this. 23 seconds better than last year, which was my previous PR, and there was significantly less nature. Win.

Swim time: 11:10, 8th AG/27, top 3rd overall.

T1:

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

T1 time: 2:24

Bike:

I got on the bike and got going and could not get the heed in my system soon enough. I tried to find that insane effort I’ve put in the last two races and it didn’t come right away, but I just did my best to get to work, drink my drink, and pass all the people (except the few on super bikes that passed me).

Then, around mile 4… it started to POUR. At that point, my head got all negative. The roads were in awful conditions in places (good old Pflugerville roads…) and I felt like my biking sucked today and actually had the thought that I was hoping they would pull us from the course because of the weather (what?) and then after the 3 sisters hills I realized I needed some caff and calories, stat. I worked on a salted watermelon gu over the next few miles and eventually things got a little less emo in my head.

It rained on and off, people actually were fairly courteous on the bike and exchanged friendly banter, and I held about 22 mph on the nice long 130 frontage road stretch. Then, as we were turning in, the sun started to come out. No, no, no, no, NO! With the humidity, if it turned sunny, it was going to feel like a billion degrees on the run. I also had to slow for an ambulance almost fully blocking the street.

I forgot to do the “spin easy” thing into transition but it all worked out since I hadn’t ripped my legs off that ride anyway. Considering the rain, and the fact that I had to bike a little more cautiously than normal, and how I was feeling, and all that, I still pulled out a PR (from 2 years ago, actually, which was before this year, the hardest I had ever ridden my bike in my life) by 25 seconds.

Bike time: 46:03, 6/27 AG, top half overall.

T2:

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

T2 time: 1:30

Run:

This is where the wheels fell off, kind of. The steep hill out of transition was so muddy I slipped down it a few times. That didn’t help me mentally to start off. I got out on the run, and I couldn’t get my legs to turn over. There was no reason. It had stayed cloudy, so it actually wasn’t too hot (though humid as fuck). The rain had actually made the trail feel LESS slippy to me. I just could not will my legs to go any faster. I tried not to panic, and just to roll with it and work into the effort gradually, because sometimes my first mile just sucks.

I tried to consider another gel in the first mile but it sounded revolting, and for some reason in my head I was worried about wasting it if I couldn’t get it down? (more race brain) so I just tried to get through my bottle of heed as quickly as I could, though more of it probably went on me than in my mouth. I just wanted it to be effing over. That’s all that was through my head. Get to that finish so I don’t have to be running anymore. One more tiny little loop around Lake Pflugerville until I can get with the offseason.

I tried to pick it up a little in the second half, especially when I realized that a 1:30 was still in reach if I put on some gas. I succeeded, a little, because I negative split each mile, but it was… lacking. I gave all my oomph on the home stretch and cramped on both sides of my ribs. That was new. Joel said I looked REALLY rough running it in (I can’t wait to see those pictures if they caught my face), but I was soooo close to that 1:30. It ticked over before I crossed, sadly, but it definitely helped me not to quit fighting along the way.

Run time: 29:21 – 15th/27 AG (bleh), middle 3rd (but bottom half) overall. My second worst run at Pflugerville (my PR is 28:07, which was from 2012).

Total time: 1:30:30 total, PR by 1 min 39 sec from last year’s 1:32:09. Zliten still holds the Lake Pflugerville Tri course record at 1:30:08 from last year, but I got close!

This was me jumping for joy here 3 years ago, and yesterday, I did over 2 minutes better. I’ve been consistently 1:32-something the last few years so while I could have had a better day, this still is progress. 9th/27 AG, 89/290 gender, top half overall. While none of my performances were great in and of themselves, really, I was able to put together a fairly solid race to show that I’m a few feet ahead of where I have been the last few years, which have been feeling like a game of inches, especially with this race.

Now, 5 weeks of offseason. I am so ready. Physically, I feel like I could get back to training tomorrow, and mentally, it’s kind of hard to accept that I don’t have to put together a workout schedule until the last week of July, but I know it’s for the best and once a few days go by, it’ll totally be the new normal not to be swimming, biking, or running all the time.

Pflugerville Goals and Race Weight Update

By Quix

On June 19, 2015

In Uncategorized

One more shakeout trainer ride and it’s go time. How did this happen so fast?

Because it’s been fun in the past, let’s math this one up a bit, just for fun, shall we?

My best times at Lake Pflugerville Triathlon:

Swim (2014): 11:33
Bike (2013): 46:27
Run (2012): 27:08
Overall (2014) 1:32:09

My multipliers from Rookie:

Swim: 5.8%
Bike: 6.25%
Run: 9%
Overall: 7.6%

This means I can reasonably expect:

Swim: 10:50 (swim has a run in and out so this is not all paddle time)
Bike: 43:45
Run: 24:45
With the 2:15 and 1:30 transitions I did last year, this works out to 1:23 and small change overall.

…well then. That would be a 9 minute PR. I will try to open my mind to the fact that this is POSSIBLE, but WOW.

Let’s just try this again from my best result overall, last year.

Swim: 10:50
Bike: 45:10
Run: 26:20
Overall: with same transitions as above… 1:26 and small change

…a little more believable, but still wow. That would be a 6 minute PR. Considering the last 3 years I’ve finished within 45 seconds of each time, that’s still a huge change.

I’m going to have to lean on a little bit of unicorn and rainbow magic here. The forecast is obviously a little far out, but it’s not kind (low 75, high 90, and INSANELY humid), and that works against me like WOAH.

Swim:

The lake’s condition will definitely influence this, but if I was able to pull 30 seconds off a 300m swim, I can probably do better than that unless the lake is SUPAH CHOPPY. I just need to keep the effort ON, which I’ve gotten much better at this year. I’ll be trying for a watch pace of around 1:42/100y (around 1:50/100m, but my OWS settings only display in yards). And hey, I’ll finally get a chance to see if the race course here is long like I suspect!

T1:

Same deal as all the other races. Every second here is another second I have to take off on that run. Run as fast as I can to transition. Sock, shoe, sock, shoe, helmet, sunglasses and go.

Bike:

This will be interesting. I ride here a lot, but I rarely get the chance to fly down the blocked off roads without worrying about traffic or keeping Zliten/friends in my sights. Here I get to just RIDE. 18-19.something mph sounds crazypants to me, but I did just ride this under the above conditions not giving anything close to 100% at 17.4 mph, so I guess it’s reasonable. Again, just hard to open my mind to the fact that 19 mph is a pace I can keep outdoor riding since that’s new.

If I can feel the same riding as I did at Cap Tex, I’ll be thrilled. Riding aggressive without being aggressive, consistently keeping a comfortably high cadence, pushing up hills and recovering on the downs once I’m back up to speed, staying honest and working to gain speed on the flats, and just rock my home course advantage.

Just a note to myself: sub-42 is over 20 mph. I’ll go on the record right now that if I can ride that speed, I almost don’t care what my run is like (within reason). And also, if I’m close, I may just go for it.

T2:

The run starts as soon as my feet touch the ground on the bike. I’m not using bike gloves this time, so I won’t fumble with them. I’m debaaaaaaating using a throwaway frozen handheld bottle, but I need to decide whether the extra happy of having a frozen bottle will outweigh the “i have to carry a bottle” annoyance. The temps will decide. Shoe off, shoe on, shoe off, shoe on, step into race belt, grab visor (and maybe handheld) and GTFO.

Run:

I predict my run will be in feels like mid-to-upper 80s. A little better than two weekends ago starting my run around 11am in the feels like upper-80s to mid-90s, but I was only able to muster 10 minute miles going probably only one gear under race effort. The run is a little short at something like 2.85 or 2.9 miles typically on my garmin, which makes these silly run times possible. On a cool day. Not on gravel. Not off a hard bike. With a healthy dose of pixie dust.

I need to channel my inner badass here and just FUCKING RUN MY ASS OFF. Remembering that this is the last 3 miles of season. For the next 5 weeks, I can run 13 minute miles on the treadmill inside in the AC if I feel like it. These three need to be aiming somewhere around the low 9s/upper 8s if I can summon the sheer amount of will, guts, gumption, suck it up buttercup, caffeine, sugar, and unicorn dust to do so.

I’ve spent a lot of time running on kitty litter and while it hasn’t stopped sucking, I’m probably more used to it. Dreaming about dunking myself back in the lake helped me on previous runs. That and freezy pops may singlehandedly get me to the finish line.

No matter how things go, I’m looking forward to one more go-crazy-as-hard-as-I-can race before it’s time to change things up a bit. Let’s go with… 1:23 is my A+ goal, 1:25 is my A, sub 1:30 is my B, and a PR is also perfectly acceptable to me if the day does not go as planned.

…y’all just come here for the selfies, right?

Project Race Weight:

I’ve learned some things.

It is indeed possible for me to eat like a normal human, where a large restaurant meal is actually the majority of TWO meals, not something to be consumed also with an appetizer and a snack later. It’s super nice to buy a big sandwich and have it last for two meals. Less training hours helps this but also not letting myself get to the point of being famished is key.

Eating less food definitely means I have a little less to give while training. It wasn’t that I was lacking the ability to get through any one session, but I couldn’t string as many together as I could two weeks ago when I was shoving food in my cakehole like crazy. As long as I’m careful, workouts don’t suffer, but some days where I’ve lived on vegetables and fat and protein, I’m definitely feeling lethargic… until I eat my before workout snack of fruit and yogurt, and then I perk right up.

This is just how the calorie defect game goes. I won’t have to worry about training until August so after Sunday, things will get less complicated. However, this week’s plan was to be careful about workout fueling Mon-Wed and try to maintain a smaller amount of calories, and then Thurs-Sat, no less than 2000 GOOD FOOD calories per day. Kind of like carb loading, but calorie loading. I thought this would be hard, but yesterday I went over by like 500. Oops.

Just for kicks, since we’re talking numbers, I ate an average of 1864 calories per day last week, and burned an average of 2315, resulting in an average calorie deficit of 451 per day. If math worked out properly, I’d be just a little under 1 lb down.

So, let’s take my average weight over the week, throwing out my high and low. I think that’s one thing that gets me needlessly frustrated. One weird low swing and I get excited. When it doesn’t happen again for a while, I get down and think I’m not making progress when I am. My average weight June 1-7 was 182.6. My average weight June 8-14 was 180.7. I would say a little water weight played into the extra loss but… progress. I expect to make a little less this week because of the race, but we’ll see.

Less than 48 hours until offseason, so I’m off to make it happen!

This is how it is

By Quix

On June 8, 2015

In Uncategorized

I’ve got a couple other posts I’m working on, but here’s an update and stuff and things. This is how it is around here.

Food Thoughts:

Working on nutrition is so much harder than training. You can’t just go get motivated for an hour or four and knock it out and then relax. It’s not an offensive action. It’s that quiet, persistent task that never ends as life throws curveballs and challenges at you. It’s a constant defensive you have to have at the ready. Which makes it SO HARD to work on this stuff when you’re not 100% motivated. It’s easy to poke a hole in a weak defense… one moment of relaxation and you fall face down on a cake, it seems like. I gotta stay strong on this stuff.

However, it’s really cool how shining a flashlight on things can (at least start to) fix it.

Tracking my food daily made me realize how bad I was eating, even though I was mostly sticking to my bread/rice/pasta free diet, so I had convinced myself I was doing ok. Once I realized that, it wasn’t too hard to go back to a more balanced NORMAL. I’ve also thrown the RULES out the window and am back to guidelines and a little experimentation.

I’m finding that if I trust myself to eat more in the first half of the day, and make sure I treat myself right before, during, and after workouts, I don’t need a 1000 calorie dinner + snack and life is better overall most days.

I’m finding that maybe I’m going to vary up the things I’m eating and loosen up the embargo on some things I gave up last August. Yogurt has come back. I don’t know why I stopped eating it, but a little plain or greek yogurt mixed with PB powder and apples is a pretty awesome snack. Much more satisfying than just the apple. Same with dips. Hummus and tzatziki sauce rock my world with veggies.

Also, things I eliminated because of bloat and trying to limit carbs. Beans. Whole wheat tortillas/bread. Rice and rice products. I do know I feel better not loading up with the stuff, but I’m shoving a lot of nuts and cheese and meat in my diet to fill those holes and that’s a LOT of calories (and it’s not that satisfying). I think a limited amount of these things back in my life will help the cause.

I’ve decided to bring back the possibility of these things in my day, but in smaller quantities. The back half of my week, I ate rice, bread, or wheat tortilla once a day. My stomach didn’t revolt, I didn’t feel super bloated, I felt fuller on less calories, and I didn’t die. I think LIMITING this stuff is better than trying to remove it completely (otherwise I do things like eat a double lettuce wrap cheese burger and french fries for a meal and feel virtuous that I didn’t eat grains).

A ~150 calorie snack IMMEDIATELY after killer endurance spin class helped me only eat a ~550 calorie dinner and be satisfied. Normally, I was going for a GIANT, 1000+ calorie plate of mostly junk food since I was so hungry.

Either way, I’m happy to say that I had a good, solid week last week where I:

1. Tracked everything that went into my mouth. This actually definitely helped me make better choices some days knowing I had to own up to the total at the end of the day.

2. Drank more water. I didn’t do as well at tracking it, but I found myself most days on bottle 4 or 5 at the end of the day and that’s pretty good.

3. Weighed and logged it daily.

4. Did better at identifying workouts where I needed to eat something right away instead of just trying to hang on for dinner. Even if my very next stop was food, that’s a delay of workout ending, stretching, showering, changing, transporting, and waiting for someone to either prepare my food or doing it myself, even if it’s just 5 mins on the microwave. So a small snack is useful even though I’m going “right” to a meal, it’s still usually on the order of 30+ minutes unless that workout ends at a location where my meal is waiting for me.

5. I got close a few times but didn’t go off the rails. Counting calories really helps. It kept me from an extra slice of pizza, heck, and extra meal one day. Sometimes I just don’t know when to be done eating. I was able to keep the counts between about 1700-2200, while enduring just a LITTLE bit of hunger some days, nothing unmanageable.

My goal this week is to just do more of the same, and probably will be the week after too. My weight has stabilized around 180.x most days, and I’m hoping that the trend will continue downward, though I know it generally takes me 3 weeks to really respond to anything, so I won’t get ~~too~~ frustrated for a bit if nothing changes.

Training Thoughts:

I definitely have some senioritis here. It definitely feels like the last few weeks of classes until I get summer vacation. I’m generally hitting the paces and efforts just fine, it was just a little hard to WANT it. If that makes any sense at all. It’s about 10000% better than I was last year at this time, but it’s definitely reinforcing the fact that I need a break so I don’t spiral into the land of burnout, especially now that the HEAT IS ON.

Doing only short races this spring has been so so so so good. While I had planned on trying to maintain my marathon run base, throwing that out the window has been a good (at least short term) decision. It’s been just so fun to go out and put the gas on over a few miles and not worry about it. I definitely feel like a half marathon right now would be a bit of a stretch – doable but would feel long. I also feel like on the right day, I’d have a chance to crack open my 5k PR (8:30 pace) which I was nowhere close to earlier this year (you mean I have to run under 10 minute mile pace? that’s too faaaaaaaaaast…). It all goes in cycles. You can’t have it all at once.

I’m now at the point where it’s one week down, one to go (and then race week). Science says that you absolutely positively cannot absorb any endurance gains this close to racing, and since this is my last triathlon before summer vacation, everything goes into the “sharpening the stick” basket – bringing out the fitness I already have and readying myself for sprint race pace. Short fast sets in the water. Attacking it on the bike. All the run miles are either surrounding or are fast miles. The volume is pretty meager at 7 hours per week, but it ALLL counts, which is just as hard as 10-12 mostly easy. I like the spring being about getting faster.

And… just as good cycles go, I’m dreaming of the other thing. This weekend, I was lamenting that instead of a 90 minute ass kicking brick, I’d rather be doing something easy and longer. Just like the kind of efforts that I was getting super tired of doing in January and February and wanted to go faster. Just like the kind of efforts I will get back to in August.

Either way, I’ve still managed to maintain race enthusiasm this year, which is great. I’m excited for one last party at Pflugerville on June 21st, and then shutting it down for a while.

Life thoughts:

I had to be two people at work (sort of working against each other) for a while, and it was weird and uncomfortable and scary but also very challenging and exciting and stretched me in different ways. That’s over temporarily, but will return again later this summer. I feel some amazing stress relief right now to get back to my normal for a while and I think this may help with some of the eating and drinking in the short term.

The waterpark opened and we’ve been a few times for a few hours. It’s my happy place. I can’t wait to totally abuse it during off season.

We went scuba diving in Lake Travis weekend before last. This will be part of a larger post later but holy wow – I got some really surreal pictures, here’s one of my favorites.

I’ve been doing things! Training less on the weekends gives me a little more RL oomph. Last weekend, we walked to check out a new bar in the ‘hood. In the rain even. It was the scene of the infamous wing and fried pickles, but it was really nice to go out and hang out on someone else’s patio. This weekend, we went to go see Mad Max in theaters. The movie was a smashy good time and made me watch all the rest of them. I feel educated in post apocalyptic wasteland now!

Anddd…. I’m back to playing EverQuest. They opened up a new progression server (everyone starts at level 1, in the old world, playing like it’s 1999) and I’ve been having fun with the nostalgia element.

This is how it is, and it is pretty darn good. Time to get on with my Monday!

Nutrition 101

By Quix

On June 1, 2015

In Uncategorized

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s finally, finally, finally time to work with a nutritionist again. I’ve been at this for years. Obviously I’m not where I want to be. I NEED HELP.

I’ve talked to a few candidates – the one at my gym, some other local folks, and someone in blogland who I respect. I’m narrowing down who I want to work with by the scientific process of putting it in the back of my mind and seeing what feels right vs the cost.

There are the 2 parts of me debating the approach.

Quix #1: FUCK IT LETS DO THIS RIGHT NOW I WANNA MAKE PROGRESSSSS!!!!

Quix #2: Ok, let’s finish out season and not try anything drastic to upset the part of my life that’s actually been working out quite well, thanks!

However, I knew that one thing for sure – any nutritionist/RD was definitely going to have me log my food. That was a good start, getting back to that. Oddly enough, I made this choice on a Thursday. Usually I would wait until Monday to do something like that, but I decided that there is no time like the present. And after four days of logging, one thing smacked me in the face.

I am making no progress right now because I eat like utter crap about half the week. I’m completely failing Nutrition 101 right now.

It’s a lot less apparent when you look at it at the start of a week, because I’m usually pretty good then, but looking at the back half isolated… yeah. It’s not befitting of an endurance athlete doing any sort of proper fueling, and I’m pretty surprised everything is going as well as it is right now. Hello, wakeup call.

I cannot justify spending money to go to a nutritionist with my diet this way. I need to get rid of the obvious stuff first. Things like wings and fried pickles and vodka are not appropriate for your main calorie intake on Saturday. Also – 1200 calories of dinner on a day off workouts is inappropriate. What’s worse is where it came from: 600 calories for the healthy meal I meant to eat, and then 600 calories of bread and butter, eating leftovers from my husband’s wedge salad, and then over half of the dessert he ordered because it was there and I was hungry.

So, I’m going to take the “let’s wait until after season” approach, which actually gives me a chance to get things under control myself and let the nutritionist fine tune. Even if I do lose a little weight in the next few weeks, I actually still want to work with a professional to see what I can do better. I think it will help me stick with it longer than making a little progress, then backpeddaling, then getting depressed that I have to lose the same damn 20-30 lbs again like I have been the last 5 years. But, I don’t want to pay someone to tell me that I should probably cut out the fried food and simple carbs. I know that. I need help with the harder stuff that you get degrees for.

Paying attention to both my intake and how I felt physically and emotionally over the last 4 days, I think I’ve realized a few things.

I suspect that I’m not drinking enough water. It’s easy to overlook something so simple, but very often I’m finding myself only on bottle 2 at the end of the workday, when I’ve worked out at lunch or in the AM. My lips have been chapped a lot lately, and I’m pretty sure that’s why.
Eating shit I don’t need because it’s there is a HUGE issue for me. I have to get better at this. My husband is NOT on board with making significant diet changes right now, so crap is going to be around. I need to remember he’s actually trying to be nice when he offers me stuff and not trying to be super mean and completely sabotage my efforts. Also, I work at an office where people leave cupcakes and chips and candy and junk around. I go to a game night where everyone brings snacks to share. I just have to figure out strategies on how to not eat food that’s *right there* without it becoming a huge stressor and obsession. Hell, right now, I’ll take the ability to endure it while being miserable about it and giving in. Baby steps. Someday I’ll be able to not give the bowl of chips at a party a second thought, but for now, I’d take winning the war over it in my head after a hard battle instead of giving in.
I think one of my problems is being so goddamn hungry all the time. I brought a healthy dinner to game night, but it wasn’t filling, so I ate 5000 calories of chips and cheese too. Same with Friday’s dinner – it was healthy but not 100% filling, so all the other stuff I ate added up to another dinner. Why am I so hungry? Why am I crashing into 6pm wanting to eat a whole cow covered in cheese? What needs to change about my eating habits so I can be reasonably comfortable and not obsessed with where I’m getting my next fix?
Chips/fried food need to be dialed back like whoa. I counted SEVEN different instances of eating them in four days. This is madness.
Justifying rewards – just because I crushed a long/hard workout does not mean I automatically deserve junk food and booze, and my body would probably appreciate that I didn’t, thank you. Not to say that can’t happen sometimes, but as my training has gotten a little more intense (instead of just easy and long most of the time) this spring, I’ve been definitely making this happen more often. Not every workout needs to end in this…

So my goals for this week are:

Track all my food. Every bite. On the same day in which I eat it.
Track water and make sure I’m getting 64+ oz INDEPENDENT of workouts.
Weighing daily and logging it. Lets get it back to metrics land instead of emotional make-my-day-crappy-ville when I can force myself to get on the scale. It is what it is, and ignoring it doesn’t make it go down.
Make it a goal to not go into a meal RAVENOUS. Bring adequate pre- and post- workout snacks with me.
Identify any time I am either about to or have gone off the rails and analyze why and what I can do better. No judgies, just figuring out strategies not to have it happen again.

Next week this time, I’d like to have a good, solid, 7 days of normal healthy eating under my belt and then see what I can continue to improve. After that, I can start tackling the harder stuff and perhaps graduate to Nutrition 102.

Cap Tex Tri… er… Du Race Report

By Quix

On May 27, 2015

In Uncategorized

I don’t know if y’all have seen us in the news, but Texas is having some WEATHER.

The last four years, we’ve been in a massive drought. This year has been so wet, among other more important things, whether a triathlon is going to get cancelled or at least modified is kind of a coin flip. We were lucky enough to get good weather for Rookie, but since then we’ve had storms days than not. This is our wettest May on record, by 2 inches, and it’s not over yet.

The weather was kind enough to stop the spitting and thunderbooms for one morning for us to be able to race, but Ladybird Lake was in NO condition to have bodies in (that shit was naaaaaasty, not to mention a strong current and debris all over), so the day before, they announced that the race was moving to a duathlon – a bike/run in the same distances as before, in a time trial format.

I was kinda bummed because I was all ready to crush a sub-3 and this is my only chance at an Olympic this year, but quickly decided holding the correct effort on the bike and the run (and extrapolating what a reasonable swim would have been) would be just about as sweet. So, I set a stab in the dark goal of 2:20, which actually was actually my bike + run goal time (ignoring transition), and decided the M.O. was:

Go out fast on the bike
The run starts the minute I get off the bike, not at the end of transition.
Hang on for the run

Also, it afforded some potential changes, like I didn’t have to wear contacts (did anyway just in case it rained), didn’t have to wear a tri kit top (did anyway), could stash stuff in different places, and decided to wear bike gloves since I didn’t have to put them on, only take them off. I also wore my fitbit and got all the steps. 🙂

The morning logistics went just as planned. Kind bar, purple stuff, some coconut water, warmup run, bathroom, setup, another warmup run, and then we were corralled INSIDE transition instead of locked out of it, and had to wait by our bikes until our wave was called.

Zliten was one of the first age group waves out, so I cheered him on as he went by in the line, and then… waited. Made friends with the gals around me. Kept my run shoes on as long as humanly possible because my stupid heel was cranky. My wave was supposed to go at 7:47 and at 8am, we weren’t even close. Sigh.

I felt off. I didn’t feel excited. For some reason, the only thought that gave me a slight sideways grin was “y’know that new bike you’re always talking about wanting but don’t feel like you deserve yet? Let’s go attack that like you want to earn that new bike.” I don’t know if it makes sense to anyone but me but whatever.

Finally, we all lined up and they sent us across the bike mount line every few seconds. They told us to clip in one shoe and move up to which I was like… um… you don’t know my track record with that but I managed to stay upright and it was like… 3, 2, 1… GO!

Bike:

My goal for the first lap was to go as hard as I could fathom holding for 25 miles, but not pay too much attention to metrics. Up and over the bridge, up to the capitol and back down, a loop down 1st street and I saw Zliten and shouted hi at him, then under and around and then up the hill that’s probably not steep enough to get out of the saddle for but it felt good to change position and jog up it anyway and dowwwwwwn the freeway exit and back and do it again!

And 1/4 laps down, I noticed I was holding about 19 mph. That’s not exactly a speed I see outdoors, like, ever. I felt like I was working but not cooked so I was like, ok, let’s do this. 3 more like that. And pretty much, that’s how it went.

I could tell you about Coeur girl (that had the kit I wanted last year) and how we chased each other around the whole course. I could tell you how how my bottle came out of my cage on a bump and like a ninja I fucking caught it and put it back in. Normally, I can barely fumble to grab it when I’m riding. I could tell you about the poor guy on the b-cycle (rental bike with a basket on it) doing the international course. I could tell you about playing gel roulette in my kit pockets and coming up with salted watermelon on lap 3 (caffeine!!!!)

But what I really want to tell you is that I spent four laps doing some good solid work on the bike. I was able to ride aggressive without being aggressive like Rookie. I didn’t sit behind anyone that was going slower than I wanted to go just because I didn’t feel like passing. I only yelled at one guy who buzzed me REAL close while passing, and all I said was HELLOO!!!, not anything I could have been… reprimanded for.

I also made it into the dismount line a full 3 minutes and 20 seconds faster than my A goal, which I already thought was kinda far above me. What???

Bike time: 1:16:40 for something like 24.8 miles, official course pace of 19.45 (13/36 AG). Again… what??? I am over the moon. Me, on my entry level road bike and the engine a little heavy and biking being the sport I’m least comfortable at… I can’t really say it’s my weakest now after this year.

And… while I decided to hold off on the new bike – we did pull the trigger on two new Garmin Vector 2 power meters today. 🙂

Transition:

I dismounted and ran my bike in and had to run around a girl who was completely strolling and dazed. Those stupid gloves tripped me up for a while (they’re new and pull off differently and I left my rings on) but everything else went as planned. I wasn’t sure where transition stopped and the run started after the racks, but that’s ok. Because for me, the run started when I got off the bike.

I was at the rack for 30 seconds per Garmin data. I could have done better without the gloves but it is what it is and was under 2 minutes so I couldn’t complain too much.

Transition official time: 1:56 (15/36 AG). It was a pretty large transition area too. Just next time, leave the rings at home and/or get the gloves off in the last few miles of the bike.

Run:

Well, in the biggest shocking surprise to probably no one except me at that very moment, a bike PR by over 1 mph on anything I’ve ever ridden ever and a VERY VERY VERY humid day meant there were literally zero of these miles, literally zero of these inches that were going to be comfortable. They varied from hell to maybe-in-the-suburbs-but-still-in-hell-county and mostly in the fire and brimstone proper.

I accepted any pacing strategy was out the window beyond running as fast as I could without hurling. I can barely remember what I was thinking about, it was so hazy. Couer girl passed me before mile 1 and was off, and I was like, yep, you’re skinny, of course you’re going to run faster than me.

While that sounds kinda down on myself, it really wasn’t, it felt factual when I thunk it. I didn’t get really negative, I tried to stay out of “sorry for myself” territory, I just tried to acknowledge that a) yes, this run sucks b) you’ve gotten through runs that sucked c) everyone else is out here suffering and doing work so do yours and d) x more sections (sections helped more than miles) and then you can lay down wherever you fucking feel like but for now you are running as fast as you can.

I took a gel after mile 2. If I thought the caff would have made any difference, I probably would have done that and then been awake for 2 days, but I just felt like I needed sugar. Most of the aid stations were 1-2 waters on the head, 1 of *something liquid* in the mouth. I was SOAKED by the end.

There is a run up and down a bridge which last time I ran this course killed me, but this time, I kind of liked it. The uphill made sense that it was hard and it sucked, and the downhill was a bit of relief, and then the lap was almost over. I saw Zliten and he was all “woohoo! go finish strong!” and I was like “nope, another lap” and “give me your damn gatorade” because I finished my gel and hadn’t hit an aide station and then yelled back “I started an hour after you” so he wouldn’t think I totally bonked. It was a chaotic 5 seconds.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t completely demoralized by all that. I wasn’t moving terribly quickly, but I was like, ok, self – one more lap, you got this, just keep the same effort. I switched over to total time and just got to work on trying to get in at 2:20. It started the lap on the fence, and became more and more out of my reach as I wasn’t able to put together a mile under 10s. I felt ROUGH, but I never hit despair. I just kept at it, the best I could, in robot mode. Pain face robot mode but still.

The last mile I found a little extra – it had the most downhill which made it ok to push the uphill and then I headed down the last stretch and couldn’t quite figure out where the finish was but then figured it out. The last few meters were grass and it was so wet I was like OMG DON’T SLIP but then I was across.

Run time: 1:03:16, official pace: 10:11 (25/36 AG). It wasn’t the A goal of 1:02 and it wasn’t the pixie dust time of sub-1 hour, but it was the best I could do and I wouldn’t have traded that bike for anything.

Official time: 2:21:52 (17/36 AG). I would have had to do a 38 minute swim + T1 to sub-3 hours and barring something especially wrong, that wouldn’t have been a problem. I’ll get it officially someday! 🙂

After, I was a bit of a mess. I sat down. I laid down. I stood up because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to get up. I went to the med tent and asked for an ice pack since I wasn’t cooling down well. I took a picture. I barely held it together to get all my shit from transition and walk a billion miles back to the car.

I felt that weight, that shortness of breath that stomps down on your chest in the heat and humidity when you run, for HOURS. I can say that I suffered sufficiently.

Also, once I got over the initial just-raced heat induced nausea (doesn’t my sport sound so fantastic!), I had the appetite of a basketball team of teenage boys. It wasn’t like “yay, I splurged and ate pizza” it was like “if I don’t eat pizza right now I am literally going to faint”. After I replaced the calories I figured out I needed salt like woah and a cup of chicken broth finally perked me up.

Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Author: Quix Page 87 of 218

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon Recap

Pflugerville Goals and Race Weight Update

This is how it is

Nutrition 101

Cap Tex Tri… er… Du Race Report

About Me

Search

Pages

Archives

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Login