Adjusted Reality

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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.

Cap Tex Tri Goals

By Quix

On May 22, 2015

In Uncategorized

So, I spent a lot of time belaboring this point here, but since this is my corner of the internet, I want to jot down how I’m going into and what I plan to take into this race.

Our spin teacher (also profesh cyclist) said something that stuck with me. Don’t feel sorry for yourself out there. At first it hit me as a weird sentiment, and oddly unmotivational. Then, I considered the hippie rainbows and flowers “be grateful you’re able to do this triathlon thing” which is a nice thought, but when you’re killing yourself on the second loop of a run after 2+ hours of pushing yourself in the heat and humidity, you don’t feel lucky about anything. Trying to shove that in my head to pull out on lap 2 of the run will result in racing me giving past me a few middle fingers.

I really think it’s more literal. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Just do the work. Just carry yourself through the day you have worked for, and deposit yourself across the line according to plan because you know you can fucking do it if your head stays out of the way. When you get to the SUCK part of the race (and if you don’t get there, you’re not racing hard enough), emotions are the enemy.

So, the overall goal, is to spend just a smidge less than 3 hours, if all goes ideally well, out of the inner caverns and craters of my head, just executing on paces I know I can do but have yet to put together.

I feel like racing my 28th triathlon, these things should be rote, but they’re not. Every race is a different beast. I felt like I was less specifically trained for this one, but then I rocked the fuck out of an Olympic brick in practice on Saturday, so maybe it’s just taking what went right at the last one and expanding upon it.

Race Week:

Monday: easy 4.25 mile treadmill run with a few race pace pickups.

Tuesday: up early to get cavities filled (yay?) so no lunch workout, but legs smashed at endurance cycle for 90 minutes. Good stretch after.

Wednesday: off. Needed it.

Thursday: Double bricks (15 mins bike/1 lap around the school x2) with 1 mile run cooldown. Mixed these with race simulation bricks so I practiced each transition twice. I was holding below race pace like a champ.

Friday: Now, it’s time for the part that many athletes don’t like, but I actually do – the rest part. I finally feel like the fatigue is starting to clear. Just a little. And I’ve got 3 more days before the race. Today’s goal is one more OWS in my wetsuit to practice taking it off quickly. And that’s IT.

Saturday is a day off. All fun stuff, no workouts, but also no beer or staying up late.

Sunday, after a quickie spin to keep the legs loose in the morning, we’ll pick up our packets and drop off the bikes and then do something inside and quiet for the rest of the day.

Monday (Race) morning – the norm is a kind bar, coconut water, and purple stuff. I’m super happy they changed the timing – last year, my wave was set to go off at 8:40… this year it’s 7:47. One hour cooler. Fuck yeah.

The weather is… curious. Looks like the forecast calls for a cloudy morning (good) but high for the day is 85 and it’s going to be 80% humidity (yuck). I can’t control the weather, but I know I got out in worse conditions last week and ran a 10 minute flat pace off a very challenging bike ride, so I’m not going to stress (too much).

And, for the three hours I’ll be out there, here is what I intend to hold in my head.

Swim:

This swim is a time trial start (yay) so it doesn’t really matter where I start in my wave, though any extra minutes I can bank against the climbing heat and humidity is probably best.

Right now, the difference in my fast and steady intervals are really negligible in the pool. I want to make sure I stay focused and don’t day dream, and definitely be breathing hard, but I think trying to redline this swim would be a mistake. I want to skirt the line between steady and hard.

That usually nets me about a 28-29 minute 1500m swim in the pool, so I’m going to aim to see a 1:42-1:46 per 100 YARD (1:52-1:56 per 100 meter, but my OWS watch shows yards), which I think is realistic. I don’t look at my watch a whole lot in the water, frankly, last tri I didn’t at all, but if I’m looking for a metric to aim for, here it is. I’m hoping this is 33 minutes all said and done accounting for the swim course maybe being a little long and the timing mat being somewhere between exit and transition.

Transition 1:

Looks like we lucked out and it’s closer again this year (same spot I’m accustomed to, not moved due to construction). This should take about 2 minutes off my transition expectations. Ha, wouldn’t this be funny if this is what gets me under 3? 🙂

I’ve practiced getting my wetsuit off and I *think* I’ll be ok. First race without a peeler… hold me!

Otherwise, my goal is to go minimal. Socks, shoes, helmet, glasses, go. I plan to have two bottles full of heed and a few gels in my bento box to pick from. I’ll stuff my bike gloves in my bento box JUST IN CASE but I think I can deal without them for 25 miles. Especially if I’m spending most of my time in aero. Which I should be.

I’m going to try and carry the same thought as I did through Rookie – the first segment of the race is swimtranstion1. The first time I will allow myself to catch my breath will be on the first bike flat section.

Bike:

I want to cook this hard like Rookie. This course is one of my favorites, and while not totally flat, definitely has sections where I can fly. It’s one of those ITU type 4 loop courses. There’s one decent incline at the beginning of each lap and one short “get out of your seat” on the second half, but they took out one of the BRUTAL hills from Tri Rock, so I see good things happening.

My goal, actually, is to post my best triathlon bike speed ever. Like, by a lot. I like to set reasonable goals. However, my husband pulled this out of his ~~ass~~ legs in 2013, and we are both the best cyclists we’ve ever been, so I can do it. It’s just about keeping high cadence, riding aggressively (hopefully not aggressive to other dumbasses like last time, but it is a very crowded course so we’ll see), and remembering what those endurance intervals at Pain Cave feel like, and, uh, staying there for 80 minutes.

I want to beat 1:20, which would be 18.75 mph. Two years ago I did 1:24 – or 17.6 mph. I was recovering from being sick. I think if I beat my Rookie time by 2 mins, I can beat this one by 4, especially since that probably wasn’t my top form.

Basically, this is the pace I’m having the most difficult time talking myself into, but I think I can do it. Rock and roll, let’s push THOSE WATTS (sadly, since my power meter is not waterproof, I’ll be going without, so I guess THAT EFFORT).

The last 1-2 miles, no matter what, I reduce the effort a little and spin lower resistance and higher cadence to get my legs ready for the run.

Planning on gel #1 at about 20 mins in, and then assessing how I feel, if I want another closer to the end.

Transition 2:

Copy and paste from Rookie: Every. second. here. is. a. second. I. have. to. run. faster. Helmet off, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe, visor, race belt, effing GO. The run starts the moment I get off the bike and anything that impedes that is a rude interruption that should be done away with. This is not relaxytime, this is BUSINESS time.

Run:

I really and truly believe I can make unicorns and rainbows explode here if I can just keep my head on straight. This specific run course has been a party to one of my most spectacular fizzle-booms where I PW’d my 10k run by about 2 minutes per mile, or something. However, I kinda want to show it who’s boss, so that’s something.

Mile 1 will be all about settling. Getting the run legs. Focus on cadence. I expect this to be slower than race pace. Maybe by even 1 minute per mile. This will not freak me out. This is normal.

Because, then it’s time to mother effing descend. This is what we do on runs. This is rote. Every run finishes faster than it starts. This is how I want to race, so this is how I train. Once I settle in, I’m going to start gradually work my way down to race pace and then really push it on the second lap. I’ve tended in the past to get demoralized on two loop Olympics and slow down at the end. This time, I want the second lap to be the best because I’m ripping up the pace.

My goal with the run is to not question if I left anything out there. I’d like to beat 1:02. I’d love to go sub-1 hour. I’d super love to PR my standalone 10k from 2009 at 56:54. The last result is unlikely, but I really think if my head can stay out of my way I can do myself proud here. And definitely not be feeling sorry for myself.

If I only have 1 gel on the bike, I’ll have another one in mile 1. If I’ve had 2, I may gel closer to 3-4. But I think I need at least one to properly push a 10k.

Overall:

I want a sub-3. Real bad. So I’m going to go for it. I keep wanting to caveat this with… but if I get close it’s ok… or other such backing down from the big goal.

But, that’s not fair. In summary, my goal is to continue to move forward at a pace which brings me across the across the line in less than 3 hours. Sounds simple, no? Let’s see what Monday brings.

Adjusted Reality

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

Page 87 of 218

Pflugerville Goals and Race Weight Update

This is how it is

Nutrition 101

Cap Tex Tri… er… Du Race Report

Cap Tex Tri Goals

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