Adjusted Reality

Otherwise known as 2011 is half over.  Argh!  It has certainly flown.  So, as we’re at a halfway point in the year (again, how did that happen so fast?), let’s evaulate our progress on 2011 goals, shall we?

1.  First and foremost, I need to get a handle on my free time.  I spend most of my weeknights just dorking on social media because it’s easy, I haven’t had a chance to look at it all day – and then all of a sudden it’s bedtime and I’ve done nothing.  I’d like to start with a goal to not have my nose in my lappy all the time.  I’d like to make one weeknight per week a reading night (no laptop after dinner), and 1 day per week gaming (again, no laptop after dinner).  I need to accept that I don’t need to read EVERY tweet or facebook update if I don’t have time.  I love keeping in touch with people, but if they care that much, they can @ me or tag me.

I’ve done better.  I spend a lot of time dorking online, and I haven’t been the best game player.  However, I have definitely taken down more books this year than I have since I was in college, and if you only count “for fun” reading, probably since I was a young teen.  I’ve sort of cut time by no longer reading blogs through my reader, but just waiting for the links to appear on twitter.  If you have a blog that is awesome and stuff, add me on twitter – @quixotique.  Also, I like to say random stupid stuff sometimes…

2.  Race goals –

-I’d like a new half marathon PR (goal – 2:05).  I’d love a sub 2 hour, but improvement is all I care about
I haven’t done a half this year.  Planning on a half in October and one in January so we’ll see.

-I’d also like to feel that I could run 10 miles at any time (do at least 1 double digit run per month)
Decided to back off on this, to test the theory about my appetite being very very connected (also, having a back injury for about 2 months on and off didn’t help).  I get a lot less RUNGRY, but I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those “pick at my food” types.  Picking the distances back up now for a fall half though, so I may just finish the year this way…

-Do another sprint and olympic triathlon, PR at least 1
Decided to not do an olympic this year, and I’ve already SMASHED my sprint paces, with one more chance later this year to obliterate it even more.

-I’d like to attack my 5k, 5 mile, and/or 10k PR
This did not go so well.  No 10k or 5 mile yet, and the only 2 5ks have been slow.  If I can FIND a 10k, I’ll PR the shit out of it, but haven’t raced one in over 2 years (not since my 3rd race ever)

-Do a trail half marathon/duathalon in one weekend
This would be not smart to do with a road bike.  Instead, I’m doing a sprint tri and half marathon within 8 days.  I believe this sufficiently proves my badassness for the year.

-Do each workout in the new tri training book at least once
I’ve been training shorter, so I’ve been slacking on this book.  However, it might be worth picking it back up once a week or so.  I’ve gotten through just about all of the off season workouts, but haven’t done many of the tempo/speed ones.

-Do a destination race outside Texas (any distance)
Probably not going to happen now.  We had picked Portland, but due to time constraints, we’d barely have enough time to spend 2 days in the city, which is not worth the plane ride/fare.  There is a small chance we *might* be able to do one in NOLA, but we’ll see.

-Adapt these as I see fit next year… the goal is mainly to get better at the distances I’ve do
I’ve done a billion races this year.  It’s been fun, but when you’re racing once every few weeks at the minimum, it’s hard to get good quality training in.  The latter half of the year, I’m spending being more choosy.  One tri, one half, a 5 miler, and MAYBE a 5 or 10k that I’ll take seriously, but that’s it!!!

3.  Weight Loss/Maintenance goals – get down to and maintain 150 by summer. Once i get down to 15o, never go above 155… that will allow me to fit in all my clothes, still have flexibility to gain a little during race training that I can easily lose after, and once I get there, feel super fit, awesome, and hot while not being a weight I have to only eat celery to maintain.

Yep, I’ve been stuck here too.  This is why I’m seeing the nutritionist this week.  I’m kinda pissed at myself that I’ve made literally ZERO progress in 6 months, but it’s a huge sign that I NEED HELP. Hopefully when I look back at the end of the year this will be a big check mark.

3b.  Continue with strength training, yoga, and things that don’t immediately contribute to torching tons of calories or race training but definitely helps build definition, makes me look thinner, and most importantly, helps me improve my race times.

Doing well with strength lately…although I always and still feel like it cuts into my valuable cardio time.  I’d love some advice from the peanut gallery – what do you feel is the minimum time commitment to strength training to keep an endurance athlete going? Don’t care so much about being ripped or visible muscles or upping weights – just to keep myself strong and fit and injury free.  1 hour per week? 2?  I’ve been averaging somewhere between the 2, focusing on 1-2 body parts per day for about 30 mins, cramming as many reps and exercises as I can in as fast as possible. 🙂  Have not wanted to go back to Yoga or weights class since I hurt myself in both.  Call me gun shy.

4.  Continue with my job in the same position at the same company continuing to improve, grow, and become a better producer capable of handling more things with more ease.  I have much more specific goals here but that’s about all I’ll say publicly.

Keeping my head above water here even with things being crazy busy, and learning the ins and outs of being a good boss, manager, and balancing the creative with the logical.  I’m not going to be perfect in a year, but it’s a process.

5.  More one liners:

-Smoke less.  Continue to allow smokes only with alcohol, and I’d like to get to the point where I can take it or leave it.
Getting there.  I can do a beer or a few glasses of wine, or 1-2 drinks, but not all night.  Someday.

-Less hangovers.  I hate getting one of my weekend days eaten being laid out on the couch.  I just need to quit just BEFORE that switch flips where it’s on like donkey kong and all of a sudden it’s 10am and I feel like death warmed over.
Giving up diet soda REALLY helped here lately, vodka with soda water makes me rarely have issues the next morning.  Sometimes when I *really* try it does though.

-Pay off the car (January), pay off Zliten’s college loan (August), and continue to meet our savings goal of 1k per month.
Car is now my own.  We may not have the loan paid off by August, but definitely by the end of the year.  We’ve actually just about already hit our savings goal, and have actually rolled some of it into higher interest investments.  Doing great here.

-Visit one new city I’ve never seen before.  Denver? NYC? Seattle? Portland?
While Portland isn’t panning out, I guess I can say I’ve visited Roatan, Honduras and Belize City, Belize, as well as Houston (not exotic, but still new to me).  In December, we’ll hit Montego Bay, Jamaica.  These are all new!

-Begin one new major house renovation.  Failing that, start planning and budgeting for it and establish a timeline (windows, bathrooms, counters, etc).
We are totally pricing out windows right now.  We’re considering options – aka replacement (cheaper) or new (more expensive, but don’t screw up our full wall view that made us fall in love with the house…)

-Find something that makes me happy that is not goal oriented.  Some people knit.  Not to be the best knitter and to make x scarves per week and improve by March to be onto stripes instead of solids, but simply because they enjoy the act of it.  Same with Zliten and reading.  I’d like to find mine.
Hmmm.  Right now, life is making me happy.  I’m not sure exactly what I was aiming for here, but I think the thing that makes me most happy is having awesome adventures with my Zliten.

-Continue to do things that frighten/excite/challenge me (like trapeze lessons or flight lessons) and continue to pick out of the hat – the whole life goal of one truly memorable thing per month.
Flight lessons next month. 🙂  No hat picking, but definitely don’t feel like I’m lacking here.

So in summary, doing a great job with a lot, but still have major progress to make in some areas.  I’m pretty sure these things start with making #3 a priority.  So, time to really do that.

How are your resolutions/goals for 2011 going?  What do YOU need to focus on in the next 6 months?

Happiness, or at least trying not to threaten folks with too much bodily harm at work.  Seriously, I’ve threatened stabbing someone’s eye out, choking, brandished a knife at someone, and promised beatings.  And that’s just today.  No, I’m not a prison guard or FBI agent, but I AM a Producer… I guess it’s just a day in the life.

So yes.  Busy.  Out living, not writing about it.  Here is a quick and dirty of my happs:

Foodie food food food:

Made myself track the last two weeks.  Realized that DUH, I’m not losing because I’m eating like an asshole again.  Working on rectifying that.  Last two days have been pretty good, working on continuing that trend.  Still going to see the nutritionist sometime next week, have to convince her that I don’t normally consume about a bag of chips over a weekend and enough alcohol to inebriate an army.  Well, at least the first one… more on this of course as I meet and greet with the lady who will attempt to relive me of a major burden for the last two years and hopefully remove my head from the wall which I have been banging it upon.

Wake Up Sleepyhead!:

Have been attempting the morning workout thang.  It’s being a little challenging, as now work is starting to encroach on the mornings some days (really?  do you HAVE to schedule me a 9 am interview?  my schedule is not THAT booked…), but I’m determined to make it work.  While I REALLY hate getting up in the morning, it is REALLY nice to get it over with before work (though admittedly right now they’re both about the same amount of capital REALLY) and it gives me more time at night.   Not sure how exactly that works but I like it.  Also, it eliminates the uncertainty.  No matter what happens during the day to make me stay late at work or I have ninja-insert-into-schedule-right-after-work plans, I can get down with it, since my workout is diggity done.  Tomorrow is really a test, because I’ve got to be up and out by like, 7:30.  This may sound late to some of you, but it’s the middle of the night to me.  I have a feeling it’s fucking with my mood a bit (negatively, see stabby comments above and eeyore like facebooks and tweets), but hopefully that will subside soon.

Also, along with this, is more outside time.  I was really beating myself up on my sad, sad paces on runs, but I found lots of evidence to support that you need to lower your expectations.  They said in the temps I was running in – to add about 20%.  Guess what, it was just about exactly 20% more than a really fast paced 5-6 miler would be for me.  My two summer mantras will be “Base is more important than pace” and “It IS that hot and you ARE running that slow.  It’s ok.”

Mostly, uh, because I’m a dumbass and signed up for THIS half marathon and am also targeting THIS sprint tri.  As an A race.  8 days apart.  Either training the long runs with everything else for the swim and bike will be AMAZING for my endurance and I’ll PR like crazy, or I’ll crash and burn.  I had success last year training up my run to almost half marathon lengths during tri season, but that was for an olympic.  I’ll be running a 12 one weekend, a sprint tri the next, and then a half, so no real taper time.  While the sprint is an A race, the half is ABSOLUTELY not.  I’d just like to finish at a respectable pace.  If I’m feeling great on race day, maybe I’ll race it, but for this one, I am really doing it for the t-shirt.  I mean, it says that I run for champagne (and chocolate).  Um, hello, race tradition!

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted:

Vacations are falling into place.  While I keep threatening to hop a plane to a desert island this week, we will be doing just that in December to Jamaica (Montego Bay).  5 days of all-inclusive resort with food, drinks, water sports, land sports, white sandy beaches, and most importantly, just me and my Zliten.  We were going to do Portland in Sept., but after researching, we just don’t have enough time to really do it justice (flights there and back would take up the majority of a day, and I want more than 2.5 days in a new city for the price we’d pay).  Likely, we’ll do NOLA again as we HAVE been there, it’s driving distance (or if we can get a really good deal, a VERY short flight), and will be a good long weekend away.

2012 is actually now settled too.  Cruise with my parents early in the year (either back to the same ports we went to last time, or more Jamaica), and we just found out our friends are getting married ON A FRIKKIN CRUISE TO ALASKA in Sept – we’re so in.  So 3 trips out of the country!  Woohoo!  2013 is tentatively some sort of really long cruise with my rents for my dad’s 80th, so we’re thinking that we may actually do our planned honeymoon in Italy and Greece for our 5th anniversary. =) When you have the money you don’t have the time, when you have the time you don’t have the money, indeed.

It’s Friiiiiiiday, Friiiiday:

Well, almost.  Plans this weekend include Judah Frelander at the comedy club, a bike ride, and that’s about it for now.  What’s on your agenda?

Now that spring races are over, it’s time for a long summer’s nap.  Sorta.

It’s about that time in the ATX when temps reach 100 and don’t quit (which means morning workouts start at a stifling 80+ and humid and it just gets bananas from there), which means – time to lay off the races for a while.  Or at least attempt to.  I am trained up to primo endurance for sprint tris, and since I don’t plan to do any Olympic distance this year, I can just coast with the distances.  Push paces and speed and work on my nemesis – hills, but I’m feel comfortable doing what I’m doing.  Now just work on faster.

Next Planned Race: Oct 1 – Kerrville Tri (Sprint – 500m swim, 15.5 mile bike, 5k run).  Goal is to improve upon paces again.  Super goal would be adding 1.5 miles on the bike and beating my 1:40.

Then, things get interesting.  See Jane Run got on my radar and I listed it as a possible race.  I’ve wavered back and forth, doing it, not doing it, doing the 5k… but a promise of being able to bail to the 5k at the last moment (because this awesome deal makes the half cost 37 bucks!!!), a freaking SWEET race shirt I really want… I think I’m going to have to do it.  This will be the weirdest race combo ever – 8 days separating a sprint tri and a half marathon.  And the tri is an A race.  Now, I have no expectations of a PR at the half mary, and it will be an interesting experiment.

Then, the actual building to actually race long distances…5 mile turkey trot on Thanksgiving.  Looking for a winter 10k (it still bugs me I’ve only ran one, and I LOVE the distance).  3M as my goal race.  Then… I said I’d never do the Austin Half again, but I may or may not do 2012 but IF and ONLY IF I am pacing someone who has asked me POSSIBLY to help them with their first half.  And these plans may or may not change due to a cruise planned sometime in Jan/Feb.  This is all very far away though…

There are a lot of 2012/2013/2014 type far reaching plans I have too, but it’s way too early to talk about them.  Suffice to say, I R crazypants.

This summer though, I have goals:

-Under 160 by the next tri.  I’m seriously SICK AND TIRED of this extra weight.  Nutritionist appointment underway (week of July 11th is the first one) and I’m going to do this FO REALZ.

-Learn how to wakeboard (a coworker friend person is supposed to teach me)

-Learn to fly a plane (at least the first lesson, which I have paid for)

-Lots of fun outside time.  Lakes, kayaking, biking/walking for fun, not for pace (ok, some for pace, but not every workout).  Hit the veloway with the bikes.  Hit lots of other random places up with bikes.  Lots of open water swimming just to stay in practice and enjoy our lakes.

-Keep up with weights, so I can resume selling two tickets to my gun show!

Dragging Ass:

The last week has been jam packed with excitement and…stuff.

Saturday – Went for a 10 mile ride outside around the house.  Then, decided at the last minute to do another 10 mile ride down to the Keep Austin Weird 5k and festival (to which we had recieved 2 free entries, thanks Yelp!!!).  Then, the 5k at 7pm in the 95 degree heat and sun.  We walked it.  Was NOT going to race it in the hot weather and after 20 miles on the bike.  It was a GREAT experience and next year, when we don’t have the free passes, we may just come down to the course and watch the costumes.  It was an awesome time.

Then, huge transportation fail.  We had planned to either ride or bus back if it got too late.  It was on the edge of dusk and we don’t have lights (yet, definitely on the list to get now), so we decided to bus.  First bus had two bikes on it already.  Next bus never came.  Finally, an hour later (and keep in mind we had biked 20 miles, walked 5k, and hadn’t eaten since 1pm and it was after 9), we called a cab and asked for one that could handle our bikes.  Cab was on it’s way, got the confirmation, and then… nada.  Two more busses came by.  Called back, and the dispatcher said that the cab didn’t see anyone there and we were like… HELLO, and then waited a bit longer.

Finally at 10pm, I put my foot down and we walked our bikes down the street and got some dinner and a drink and unwound a bit and decided to deal with transport later.  We ended up calling a good buddy who retrieved our bike rack from our house, and came down and got us.  Sigh.  Transportation fail.  After that frustration, we ended up home finally at 1am, and errr, started drinking.

Sunday: Let’s just say I was a bit worse for wear this day after Saturday’s events.  Then, on little sleep and feeling like super craptastical, we headed back out in the heat for a ball game.  By the time the game started I was feeling better, but it went kinda long and we didn’t get home until 11:30.  Was a blast though.  I definitely got my vitamin D last weekend!

Monday was a busy day at work and back to the gym for 30 mins of hillllz on the bike and a particularly brutal crunch time class.  Tuesday was our head honchos and our localization partners in the office at the same time, plus a brutally hot 5 mile morning run and laundry and cleaning.  Yesterday was more meetings and work and heticness and weights and about a mile swim, and then we spent all night researching vacations and have booked our winter vacay – 6 days all inclusive resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica!  Woot!  I’ve been told I need to come back with a shirt that says “Jamaican me crazy” so it’s a mission!

Then, today, on top of more crazy meetings and 2 interviews and such at work, we ducked out over lunch and refinanced our mortgage (I had a 2 hour free window in the day and it took 1.5 hours).  However, now we are paying a little more a month (think giving up your once a day starbucks habit 5 days a week, or one decently nice dinner and a few drinks per month), and with rates as low as they are now, we’ve converted from a 30 year to a 15 year.  Double woot!  Seriously, if you bought your house more than a few years ago, go at least check it out and see – this was an amazing surprise!

That being said, a hill/sprint 4 miler was on the program tonight, and I am just… mentally and physically drained.  I decided to take tonight off and just relax and read, and hit the track tomorrow AM for some 400m repeat goodness.  I owe myself some weights but I’ll work those in sometime before Monday.

This weekend, plans are – Saturday – 2 hour bike ride up north, then lunch and the day with my parents, and then grillin’ and chillin’ at the house later.  Sunday, more bbq fun at our friends T and V.  Thinking this may be the morning I work those weights in.  Monday – …nothing.  Glorious nothing.  I have some easy food to make for lunch and an asian feast to make later.  We have some video games to play, and movies to watch.  The goal is to not leave the house and veg.

Speaking of, time to stop yip yapping and read.  More about the KAW 5k soon, as I have some epicly cool pictures.  What awesome plans do you have this weekend?  If you could take a vacation anywhere, where would you go?

I just sent this letter to the nutritionist on staff at my gym.  As I said below, I’ve been banging my head against this problem for 2 years now.  I’ve been bitching about it for just about that long.  Time to suck it up, and get help.  I’ve been saying THAT for almost 6 months now (admitting it is the first step, right?) but today I made the first step towards action.  I’m pretty proud that I just hit send, for some reason, that took a LOT.

It hit me today that I need to do this, I need to do this now, and I need to throw the money and time at it NOW so I can take off these seemingly insignificant to everyone but me 20 lbs, and more importantly, establish a plan with a professional how to get through race season without gaining and carrying weight for a signficiant amount of time (I’m well aware that it’s typical to gain a few lbs during race week/after endurance events, but I should not still be carrying that weight 2 years later).  If I continue this cycle I either need to give up anything beyond 10ks (not really in the cards unless it was medically necessary for some reason), or I need to figure out how to adequately fuel myself for the training and racing I do while allowing for things like vodka sodas and tacos that make life worth living.

I’m pretty sure the sane thing to do when receiving this email is back away quickly, and pretend that it never happened, but hopefully I’ll get a reply instead.  I’ll definitely chronicle this on the blog, as I’m hoping it will be valuable and/or interesting info for the internetz to see.

Hiya,

I’ve been considering doing this for a while and wanted to get more information on what would be involved/what we would do, etc.  For some reason, this is a little intimidating and scary, but info can’t hurt, right? 🙂  Let me overload YOU with information and see if you think you can help…

Here’s my background.  4 years ago I was 265lbs and I lost about 115lbs, down to about 150 in the spring of 2009, simply by using sparkpeople.com, counting calories, and building a regular exercise program (started with 20 mins 3 times per week, and uh… got crazy from there).  Around that time, I found a passion for races (started with running, but now pretty much anything with a finish line and official time, I’m there).  I’ve done 3 half marathons, 3 sprint triathlons, 1 olympic triathlon, duathlons, and various and sundry 5ks, 10ks, and adventure races.  Sounds great, right?

I’m in great shape and staying healthy.  The problem is?  I’m pushing 170 lbs+ right now – I have gained 5lbs with each half marathon and another 5 when I was out with an injury earlier this year, and taking off weight right now, which actually came pretty easily and like clockwork with just counting calories in 2007-2009, is just NOT.  I want to lose weight partially for the vanity (it stinks not fitting into all my clothes), partially for the potential reduction in race times, partially because I was injured this year and I suspect it may have been because I’m asking my body to continue to push my paces harder carrying more, and partially because I am 20 lbs overweight for my height, and I’d like to be back in the normal range.

I generally eat healthy (to the point where my friends tease me about rabbit food and joke about whether we can go places so I have something I can eat), but I eat a fairly high volume of said healthy food.  I get hungry often, and I’m not satiated with small amount of food generally.  Plus, I’m no angel, I have a handful of meals per week that aren’t the best.  And, I still think I’m in college at times, and will have a few too many vodka and sodas. 🙂  However, I do my best to earn these with workouts.  For example, yesterday, I indulged in fried pickles and a few whiskey drinks.  However, I rode 20+ miles in the hot sun, and did a 5k race.  Calories in, calories out.  It worked for me when I was taking off the weight from obesity, but now, not so much.

I’m consummately training for things – generally I workout at least 5 hours per week, more when I’m ramping up.  My current regiment is 2 bikes (general pace, around 15-18mph), 2 runs (9-10 min/miles, 8 for speed work), and 2 swims (I swim about 1 mile in the pool in 30-40 minutes) per week (30-60 mins), and about 2 hours of strength training per week.  By all estimations of online calculators and common sense, I’m burning about 2500-3000 calories per week.  I do stepback weeks every once in a while and have easy weeks before and after races, and I always have at least one (usually 2) rest days per week, and I very rarely get less than 8 hours of sleep per night (9 if I can).

It’s not the exercise I have a problem with, it’s the eating.  I’ve tried counting calories again, and what should be taking off 1-2 lbs per week is not budging.  I feel like I should NOT have to work out like I do and subsist on 1200-1500 calories per day, but that’s the only way I take off any weight, and it’s pure torture.  I can do that for a few weeks, and then I get exhausted and crash and burn and get frustrated.  And it doesn’t feel healthy.  And the numbers just don’t make sense.

Right now, I’m working on cutting artificial sweeteners, and lowering my salt intake, and just generally eating cleaner food for most meals.  I’ve not been great about tracking my calories for the last few weeks, but I’ll jump on that so you have an idea about what exactly my intake is.  Lately, about 1600-1800 calories with maybe one day of more (but as before, usually accompanied by mass quantities of exercise).  My body should be maintaining at around 1800 calories per day with no exercise per online calculators – it just doesn’t seem to add up.

I’ve been banging my head against this for 2 years now and I’m ready to get help.  I’m ready to make the financial commitment, and would like to work on this, as starting next fall, I’d like to push myself further and start training for full marathons and a half iron man within the next few years (blog note: just the inkling of an idea – let’s revisit this discussion once I’m back down to my fighting weight, mmmkay).  It doesn’t make any sense to continue to gain weight doing this and would risk injury doing so.  While it seems from your profile, you’re specialized in folks losing weight for medical reasons, and that’s not really me, we both share the love of moderation.  Frankly, I believe that if I go run 10 miles, I’ve earned a margarita, y’know?  Plus, it seems very convenient as the gym is somewhere I frequent anyway. 🙂

Apologies for the novel, but I wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into.  Also, my husband is considering the same services.  He’s not QUITE as insane as I am but he does train with me and is also working towards the same goals as above.  Since we cook/eat/train together, it might make sense to have couples sessions?  Would that be the same price as singles?

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks,
Me

So, it’s done.  I’d love advice from anyone that has done nutritional counseling or something like this, or if you have had success with any other person/resource like this, I’d love to hear it, as I’m not sure we will jive.  I have a feeling she’s more into 300 lb ladies who think the 2000 calorie salads at Chilis are healthy and who sit on the bike and pedal 2-3 mph just to keep the tv on and call it a workout, and not typically working with athletes, but who knows.

While I’m all for “hey I track my food and exercise on BLAH site and it’s great”, that level is just not working for me.  I have exhausted those options and am pretty much convinced I need one on one time with an individual (either online or in person) who is tailoring a plan directly to ME.  And I think it needs to cost me money – if I’m spending money, I’ll really have to think twice about throwing that advice I’m paying for away on crappy and/or too much food.  I would also, if nothing else, like comments telling me that I’m not wasting my money doing this because it aint cheap.

And now I’m just jabbering because I am nervous about this, but also just ready to GET ER DONE.  Bring it on, world.

The subtitle of this one came to me as I was biking – as I *yipped* for the third time when I felt like my bike would get pushed almost sideways by the wind.  Then this song got in my head.  They (the wind) see me cyclin’, they hatin’.  Gustin, they try to get me ridin’ sideways…

So yeah, if you can’t tell, it was NOT a perfect day.  Wind made the usually calm lake full of white caps.  The riding sideways thing mentioned above, coupled with a mean headwind at times, both on the bike and run.  Somehow, on the run course, I never caught a tailwind.  It was wicked hot (over 80 at the start, probably upper 80s at the finish).  I ran out of water.  It was TOM time and that’s NEVER optimal for a race.  I’d been nursing some owie hips this week.  My last workout before the race?  I had to walk it in, almost crying due to digestive issues and pain.  I’d had various minor injury tweaks.  Work and life have been a beast and I have not trained as hard as I wanted to.

But guess what my friends?  I still freakin’ conquered that course.  My goal? Around 1:40.  My time? 1:40:36.  Age group place 22/52, Overall Female 116/300.  Almost in the top 1/3rd!  Righteous!  For someone that last year was just happy not to be last, I feel like I’ve improved a LOT.

Now, there are two ways I could take this.  There’s the negative way, berating myself for missing my goal time by 37 seconds.  However, I’ll chose to be both stunned that I was able to predict my finish time within 1 minute, and excited that I was able to take some majorly non-optimal course and situational conditions and still frakkin rock.

The timing chips crapped out so all we have are overall times, so I can’t dissect each section, but here’s a bit about how the day went, and sharing my advice to any newbie tri folks with my not-so-pro tips!

PRERACE:

Woke up, and had gotten a good solid 6 hours, I think this was the most awake I have ever felt for a race this early.  And early it was – alarm time was 4:30.  Youch.  Pre-race dinner of steak, taters, salad, and bread settled well (I don’t know why I ever deviate – this is the one thing that ALWAYS gets me through a race).  Got to the race, got racked (it was open racks so Zliten and I got to bunk with each other, which was SUPER nice).  Decided to hit the bathroom and then had a quick jog to warm up.  Not-So-Pro tip: bring an extra old pair of shoes with you that you wouldn’t mind losing.  That way if transition closes before you can get a warm up, you can use that pair and stash them somewhere else (car, behind a table, etc).

Found our du loop friends running transition, then found an ex-coworker who was also doing the tri, and then found our other du loop friends.  I decided that it was time to get in the water and swam a little bit of warm up.  It wasn’t quite bathwater but pretty close.  It was nice to get a feel for the chop before being thrust in it for the race.  Not-So-Pro tip(s): swim out a ways away from people and pee there.  WAY shorter than the porta potty line.  Oh yeah, and DEFINITELY get a warm up swim.  You’ll be ok without a bike and a run, but if you get into the water without any sort of warm up its a shock to the system.  If it’s going to be a cold day, bring something to put on over your suit and wait until the last possible minute to get into the water, but it’s worth it.

Zliten was in wave 4 and I cheered him off and then waited the 22 minutes until mine.  I spent the time reviewing my transitions.  Cap off, goggles off, put in hand, get flip flops, run to transition.  Shirt on, sock on, shoe on, sock on, shoe on, camelback on, helmet on, sunglasses on, garmin power on, garmin on wrist, grab bike, run it out.  Then I started going over the race in my head.  I decided to start on the inside but towards the back on the swim.  I decided to take it easy on the swim.  Rock the transition.  Go hard on the bike, hope my legs remembered how to rock the hills.  Rock the second transition (glasses off, helmet off, glasses back on, grab sweat bands and run out).  Push the run as much as I could.

The conditions may have not have been perfect, but my head was on straight for sure.  That’s major. Not-So-Pro tip: DO THIS.  Being mentally prepared and centered rocks.

SWIM:

Starting on the inside in the back worked pretty well.  Also, the swim start was MUCH nicer, minus the white caps.  I ate water once right away and had to breaststroke a few while I coughed, but soon I settled into a good rhythm.  Pro tip: in choppy water, breathe to the side away from the wind.  Also, roll more onto your back if you need to get a breath.  I decided to take it easy, and while I wish I knew my split to verify for sure, I don’t regret it.  I finished up the last 100m practicing my transition in my head, and I was barely winded at all when I started the run to transition.

T1:

The 1-2 mins I may have been down by taking the swim easy, I’m pretty sure I picked up in transition.  Again, without splits I don’t know for sure, but it can be characterized by “According to Plan”.  The only thing was I ripped one pin putting my shirt with the race number on it, and I just let it be.  I ran my bike out, mounted, and headed out.  Not-So-Pro Tip: Practice Practice Practice your transition.  Take a day on your taper week that’s off, set out your gear, and do it at least 10 times.  Do it until the point where you can list the steps in your head without stuttering.  This 1-2 hours can take more off your time than working for a whole year on your run or swim.

BIKE:

The wind definitely started picking up.  On the flats and downhills, I was rocking 18-22s.  In the headwinds, I sometimes slowed to 12-15s.  The first 3 miles were fast.  The second 3 were not.  Then some rollers, some wind, and some decent slight uphill stretches.  I kept pretty close to the 16mph average, but I was losing ground.  However, around mile 10 we got onto a frontage road and got a nice downhil, folllowed by a mile and a half of flat/super slight uphill.  I got up to around 25 mph and kept it for almost 2 miles.  That was probably the best 2 miles of biking I’ve ever done.  I felt like such a freakin’ rockstar.

The last 2 miles were a bit uphill, but I was riding high on adrenaline and kept a decent pace. Not-So-Pro tip: Don’t let anyone tell you that cycling on a stationary bike at the gym doesn’t help your biking.  I’ve improved about 4 mph average in the last year simply by learning how to climb hills and strengthening my quads.  You have to ride outside on what you race on for sure, but some cyclist act like those miles are worthless.  They SO aren’t.

Observation: headwinds suck, but sidewinds are worse.  Riding on super light bikes is great until you feel like a gust of wind could knock you over.  Zliten actually caught air on his bike flying up around a corner and was fractions of an inch from being a puddle on the ground, but he didn’t even miss a beat and kept pedalling (his rockstar moment).

T2:

Dismounted feeling STOKED, ran the bike in, racked it, helmet off, and grabbed my sweatbands and was off and running.

RUN:

I did this exact run course about 1.5 months ago and had a just under 9 min/mile pace.  I was shooting for what I thought was a modest 9:30 pace.  Unfortunately, it was not modest that day.  I took off running and tried to settle into a pace but the race started with a very slight uphill and RIGHT into the wind (which might has well have ratcheted the incline up a few percent) and I looked down at my garmin and was shocked to see 10 and even 11 min mile paces at times.  I passed Zliten on the run, talked a bit, and then took off.  After I turned to not quite be heading into the wind I was able to pick up the pace a bit, but still, 9s and 10s, whereas the last run was 8s and 9s.

This was my least favorite part of this race.  The headwind parts always seemed to come while I was on the uphills (they were slight, but didn’t feel that way).  I was out of water in my camelback and the water stops were warm.  I never felt like I settled into a decent pace.  The day was just starting to really burn up.  I simply did what I could. Not-S0-Pro-tip(s): if you’re overheating, keep your palms cool.  I run with my camelback and just constantly drip water onto my hands while I run.  Also, if you have a real camelback, it’s VERY insulated.  Don’t make my mistake and just fill it with ice thinking it would head up enough to make water.  Warm water is much better than ice and no water.

I ran it in to the finish, pumping my fist, accepted my post race water bottle and ice pop (OMG, best finish line nomms ever – I came back for 2 more), and walked it off while I looked for Zliten.  I met up with our friends, then ran him in, and we celebrated together and cooled down and cheered on more finishers.

Then, of course, we got a 27 dollar pizza (our fave) and drank champagne and enjoyed a Sunday feeling awesome!

Aftermath and future plans:

Swim – Going to continue to swim, of course, but I’m going to stop worrying about getting much faster.  This worked well taking it easy as a warm up.

Bike – I’m just thrilled. I am guessing around 16.5 mph.  Going to continue to work both outside and inside on hill workouts and spin class.  I think I have the most to gain here this year.

Run – More outside runs.  More bike/run bricks.  Speedwork.  Heat training.  HILLS HILLS HILLS.  Lots of work in this area.

Today though, the order of the day was REST.  My body actually felt relatively awesome – I wasn’t hurting or sore during/after yesterday, and today I’m barely feeling it.

Now, a bit of a break.  I don’t plan to do another tri until late summer/early fall, and while there may be a few 5ks here or there, they’re all for fun.  It’s time to reset, rest, make sure the injuries are fully healed, and get stronger and leaner in preparation for fall.  Also, it’s too damn hot.

So yeah, great race.  Ridin’ sideways, but flying high.