Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: cycling Page 7 of 34

Second verse, different than the first…

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On July 9, 2018

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Today begins half ironman season, which will be very different than the first half of the year. 

Time to remember how to race for 6 hours vs 60 minutes.

Instead of short, small races where I’m running for the podium and I can almost blink before they’re over, I have longer, bigger races to tackle.  For these, my hope is that I can place in the top half of my age group, and the only thing I hope to qualify for is a post-race beer.  I can’t just wing the distance on these with the endurance I have so I actually have to start doing stuff like running for more than half an hour and swimming more than 1000yds. 

The cool thing is the rest of the year brings ALL new races, so I don’t have any course PRs or prior expectations.  It’s about kicking my own ass and pushing myself for no other reason than just to be better than before.  It’s kind of refreshing.  Also, by signing up for Waco 70.3 four weeks after Cozumel, I actually get TWO chances in extremely different conditions to test my fitness on the same build and I’m really really really looking forward to that.  Worst case, if it’s a really bad idea, I’ll get to suffer on the course with a bunch of my Bicycle Sport Shop team!

I’m attempting to continue the efforts that have been successful beyond my wildest expectations this season.  Specificity and intensity versus excessive volume are what I’m about this summer, just like I was in spring.  I’m trying to keep the same methodology but slightly longer workouts since they are slightly longer races.

The focus for the last month has been heat acclimation.  We’ve done a lot of hot, mid-day walks, runs ending as late as possible before work (sleeping in has it’s privileges…), bikes in the hot afternoon sun, and just being outside as much as possible.  One ride topped out around 100 degrees (feels like more) and I remember thinking it didn’t feel that bad (though I was happy not to be running in that yet, baby steps).  I took a walk around the block at sunset and thought it was 10 degrees cooler than the temperature showed.  I ran in feels like upper 80s and I didn’t even have curse words for it.  I did have a hard time in the heat with our 30 mile ride on Friday (some idiot nutritional factors were at play), but I have confidence that I’m getting where I need to be.

Smiles after long rides vs a month ago I was seriously hunched over my bike trying not to pass out.

If I had zero things on the schedule between now and Cozumel, I’d probably just start riding my bike a million miles in July with some short brick runs every few sessions and then transition to more running in August and faster stuff in September (kind of like my Austin 70.3 training).  However, I have to race an Olympic in five weeks and while Nationals isn’t a goal race, I don’t want to completely embarrass myself.  I need to build my run concurrently as well, peaking for a 13 mile race distance run in about 2 months.  That means I’ll need to rip off that “long run” bandaid off sooner than later.  I have 6 miles planned for tomorrow which is exactly 1.5 miles longer than I’ve run in the last half a year.

Pre-Nationals (first 5 week block):

  • I’m a little rusty in the weightroom. First plan is to work my way back up with lighter weights for the first two weeks or so (2xweek), and then get back to the actual deadlifting/squatting/etc in the gym at least once a week (and the other session either the same or at home with kettles) within this time frame. 
  • My bike comfort zone ends somewhere in the realm of 30-40 miles right now.  I plan to get to 40 miles feeling like just another day, and ride my TT bike as much as possible (when it makes sense).
  • I plan to work my long run up to about 90 minutes, but my goal for these runs is to never slow to 100% easy pace.  I’m running a 5k easy holding 10-something mile pace, I’m hoping not to slow too much from there.  If it’s either or, I’d rather run less but faster. 
  • Swimming, I’m the least worried about you.  I plan to swim twice a week, and swim open water at least once a week/every other week at the absolute least.  I need to work on my speed and form when I can’t see the black line.  However, the jump from what I usually swim to 1.2 miles usually comes quickly as long as I actually DO IT.
  • I plan to hit our team brick most every Wednesday, or do a similar workout at home (exception – the FTP test I have scheduled this week in that same time slot ><).  Every long bike has a run scheduled off it.  I have a practice Olympic on the schedule 2 weeks out from the race to practice logistics and give myself confidence that I’m ready.
  • These five weeks consist of: #1 building volume, #2 more building volume, #3 stepback w/practice race, #4 one more building volume, #5 race week.  It’s not a full taper but I should go into Nationals *sorta* fresh.

Haven’t spent much time here lately and that’s about to change.  Soon.

Post Nationals to Peak (4 week block):

  • After racing two days back to back, I’ll take the next few weekdays fairly light and then have my first “long day” with a 30 min swim, 3 hour ride, 3 mile run that weekend.  If I’m super fried from racing and travel, I may switch this to the next week and just do an easy long bike + run instead. 
  • I have a second “long day” planned as my final long workout before the race/three weeks before the race – 1.2 mile OWS, 56 mile TT bike, 10k run.  This will be where I test all my race prep.
  • On the flat, closed course Cozumel bike, I estimate I’ll ride somewhere around 3 hours with the race conditions.  However, I don’t have a lot of places to practice like that.  The options I have are: riding the same amount of TIME on my road bike in group rides/traffic (but that will probably net me between 10-15+ miles less with logistics).  3 hour trainer rides sound torturous but I have a feeling I’ll do at least one.  I have a few places where I can get CLOSE to a closed course/continuous effort on my TT bike but none of them will let me open up as much as I will in the race.  I think the best I can do is just get out and ride anywhere and everywhere I can to ensure that 56 flat miles/3 hours is well within my comfort zone.  So, lotsa bikes.
  • On the run, I plan to alternate race pace long runs with shorter faster tempo work.  I figure I’ll run the 13 miles once about a month out for a confidence builder but I’m not running a half marathon race, I’m surviving a half marathon on tired legs in the heat off the bike.  The best thing I can do is be prepared to run FASTER and run OFF THE BIKE.  So, I’ll continue to go forward with that methodology.  Absolutely no junk miles here to stick to my minimalistic running program.
  • Weights and swim plan continues as before.  I expect I’ll be swimming the full race distance once a week or every other week at least.

#mfw I run in the heat because I love it so much.  But then I chose to do races like Cozumel.  I am an enigma. 😛

Taper (3 weeks):

  • At this point, the hay is in the barn so I’ll be ditching long workouts for shorter, faster stuff to keep sharp.  All the sports volumes will come down and I’ll be running faster than race pace more often. 
  • I’ll continue my weights until race week, and *maybe* that Monday I’ll do a light weights workout if I feel up to it. 
  • I’m figuring I’ll be extremely ready to cut the volume once I get here as usual, but if I have to remind myself, I’ll refer to my last post on how successful I was at sprints on minimal training (but the right training).

Post Cozumel to Waco (4 weeks):

  • The first week post race will involve diving, snorkeling, tacos, and margaritas. 
  • October 13 is two weeks out of my second race.  I have one more opportunity for a key workout.  Whether anything I do 15 days out will improve my fitness is questionable, but I can definitely do something that will build confidence.  That’s TBD. 
  • If I feel like everything is copacetic, I’ll repeat my taper plan for Cozumel almost exactly.
  • Basically, my goal is to keep my fitness in tact and to not do stupid things and hurt myself or get burnt out or sit on my butt too much and get stale and unfit.

October 28th post race plans…

What’s after that?  Staying active but some offseason-y goodness.

November = offseason.  I hope to pick up my activity by Thanksgiving to stave off gaining any weight, but there will be absolutely no POINT to it.  I’ll go run because it’s nice outside and ride bikes with friends on adventures and maybe swim once because it feels novel and maybe lift heavy things because it’s fun.

December = strength + run focus (but still kind of offseason).  Because I have a little matter of a half marathon (that I don’t care about my performance but need to survive), I should do some running but probably mostly the kind where I duck outside in the afternoon and race the sunset for fun for about an hour, completely ignoring things my watch says.  If I’m not back to lifting yet, I need to start.  Bikes (probably) and swimming (haha) as they sound fun.

Some of this coming up.  Not a ton, but some.

Then there’s the other part of the equation – weight loss.  I’m hoping to eek out about FIVE MORE LBS this year, but it’s already starting to slow down to a crawl.  A few months of calorie deficits and agonizing over every crumb I eat has gotten tiring and I missed Mexican restaurants and bike adventures with food stops and those may have crept back in my life in the last few weeks.  Even though I’m still fighting, it’s not with that much enthusiasm.

At some point I’ll officially transition to more calories when the training ratchets up and then my appetite catches up (I’m guessing that will happen in early August).  My only goal for the rest of the year will be not to gain weight (but really, I mean that – I don’t want to gain ANY weight over the holidays).  Then, after New Years, I’ll start again in earnest to try to lose the next (and maybe last) 15.

My goal will still be to eat nutritious food and track my calories and really nail the hell out of my diet quality scores since I have more calories to play with.  However, in my estimation, I’ll be burning about 2-3k more calories per week with increased training.  That gives me some leverage to actually drink a few non-light beers or have some post ride pizza and maybe not freak out if someone wants to go out for dinner unexpectedly if I don’t change my normal daily habits.  That sounds nice.

Let’s do this thing! 12 weeks to go, starting… NOW!

Post Spring Season Decompression

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On June 29, 2018

In Uncategorized

I’ve had almost two weeks to reflect (and also not do a whole lot of serious training), I wanted to document what has absolutely been my most successful season ever.

First of all, let’s talk about the races.  Honestly, all five triathlons so far this year would rank up in my great races of all time, but as long as we know we’re comparing unicorns with rainbows, here’s the order in which I feel I performed:

#1 – Pflugerville (3rd AG).  This was my best bike result by far.  For all 5 legs (swim bike run and transitions), I got a PR.  Best of all, getting 3rd in my age group with my BSS team there supporting me was the thing that was kind of missing at the “away games”.  Also, I do this race every year, so it’s a great measuring stick against where I’m at with my training.  Considering it was a huge PR, it’s proof I really actually have improved a lot.

#2 – Texasman (3rd AG/7th OA F).  The mass female start made me feel like I was actually able to RACE for the overall placement against people vs just kicking my own ass as hard as I could and hoping for the best.  I knew where I was in the race at all times after the bike turnaround and that was fun and motivating.  I think it was my most aggressive and gutsy bike, my best run, and it was super cool to hear them calling out 3rd female in as I got to T2.

#3 – No Label (1st AG).  This was the huge confidence booster (and the first National qualifier).  I had no idea how I was going to do, coming off some serious lifting and annoying injuries and some frankly disappointing races in winter.  I enjoyed the hell out of the super flat bike course even if it was a little chip seal-y at times, and I still maintain that I only won my age group because it was a point to point run to a brewery.

#4 – Windcrest (1st AG/3rd OA F).  While it’s hard to rank a race that I won my age group and placed 3rd overall female so low, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t my best performance physically or mentally.  I was just getting over being sick, the bike course didn’t play to my strengths and that frustrated me, and I let a minor gear issue (my race belt missing) mess with my head on the run for longer than it should have and I didn’t run to my potential because of it.

#5 – Rookie (4th AG).  Any other season, this would have been the highlight of it.  A 3 minute PR in an 66 minute race is nothing to sneeze at.  It was the first measure of my bike prowess on a course I’d done before and I blew away my expectations.  However, I died a little on the run when the course changed and they threw an unexpected hill at us, and watching someone just FLY past me half a mile from the finish (to ultimately take 3rd place) was humbling.  While 4th was an amazing result compared to how I’ve ever done here before, it was the only race this spring where I missed the podium in my age group.

I’ve learned a lot this season (even if some of this was re-learning, ahem).

Weight training and recovery are probably the most important factors for me succeeding at sprint triathlons right now.  Because I have so much previous base, there’s no reason I need to go out and swim, ride, and run a lot.  To build the power needed at the short distances I need to be strong, and I need to be fresh.  When I get to the point where my legs don’t feel like the limiting factor in my run, this could change, but I have miles to go before that happens.

I’ve nailed my day before, pre-race, and race nutrition.  For reference:

  • Day before:
    • Normal breakfast (yogurt and berries, protein bar or shake, bean and cheese breakfast tacos, etc).
    • Turkey sandwich on wheat for lunch.
    • Chicken, potato, and salad for dinner.
    • Snacks as hungry, like jerky, nuts, fruit.
  • Day of:
    • Earl grey tea, two caffeinated jelly beans, and a whole wheat english muffin with sun butter and honey about 2-3 hours before start.
    • The entirety of my sprint nutrition plan is: a salted watermelon caffeinated gel as early as possible on the bike, and whatever diluted gatorade I can (usually between 4-10 sips) and whatever water I can throw at my face during the run.  Besides that gel, I really don’t need much for 60-90 minutes.
    • Eat something with some protein (real food) as soon as possible after the race or I’ll be a hunger monster all day.  Pizza is actually a great immediate post race food.
    • Have easy to make healthy nutritious food on hand and try to not go over the calories burnt.  Maintaining a deficit on race day is just about impossible, so let that go.  For Pflugerville, I had a chef salad and veggies and dip ready to go in the fridge to eat right away.  That was probably the best I’ve felt post race in a while.

I have yet to have a bad race while camping.  Just sayin’.  It just feels right sleeping in the pop up and spending time outside in the quiet, something about it helps me FOCUS and then UNWIND better vs having all the distractions of home around.  I thought I was done with it for the year and I’m excited to have added one more race so I get to do it again!

When I *do* swim, bike, and run, the intensity needs to be there regularly.  We are what we repeatedly do, and by taking the pressure off with less volume (averaging about 5 hours a week since March), I get the opportunity to do things at race pace more often.  I think this is most important with running, because I rarely tend to pull out anything in a race I can’t do, or actually do even a little better in practice.  If all I’m doing is running slow, that’s probably how my race is going to go.

I’ve also come up with a great pre-race preparation schedule which involves:

  • Laying out my gear and practicing transitions three times before packing it up to go has helped me to be more confident and quicker in transitions (and I never forget anything important!).
  • Going over my day at least once before I go to bed.  I start when I wake up and walk myself through a successful day.  I mean, even the mundane stuff – wake up, make tea, eat english muffin, use bathroom, put on kit… it helps me cruise through my morning with less stress since I’ve practiced!
  • Making some solo time race morning to go internal and psych myself up before the start.  I didn’t really need the whole “race day persona” thing I was trying out last year, I just needed some time to focus and get my game face on for the day.

And finally, while ~15 lbs doesn’t sound like much, I feel like it’s made a world of difference on the bike and starting to do good things on the run.  I think I’m nearing the end of what I will call my “cutting” phase, and the weight loss is slowing, but it’s been really nice to carry one less pink kettlebell around on my body.

I have a lot of thoughts about the second half of the year, but that’s a heck of a lot more words for another post!

Eighth time’s a charm – Lake Pflugerville Sprint Triathlon

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On June 18, 2018

In Uncategorized

Saturday morning at 5:30am I was awake popping copious amounts of aleve and cursing being a girl.

Post swim was the best I felt yesterday.  I truly am a fish.

I’m not entirely sure why my body, which is usually a trooper, has to go into conniption fits for about a day once a month, but it’s just one of those things that it means to be me.  I’ve asked multiple doctors and health professionals about it (since all my exams have come back normal) and I’ve gotten answers from “well, just start taking painkillers when you THINK you’re about to start” (no) and “it’s just part of the process” (sad trombone).

This is all well and good until you wake up on race day feeling like a bloated, exhausted, painful monster.  I’m thankful it was the day before instead, but it hit me really really hard this month and I was a zombie on Saturday.  I woke up at 10:30am, and barely dragged my ass around to do all the packet pickup and lunch (Jason’s Deli) and swim and groceries things, and was pretty much ready to be back in bed after. I watched some TV and had dinner (chicken and air-fried potatoes) and did my normal transition practice and sadly, when I got to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep right away, but I did get almost 6.5 hours and I upgraded to halfway zombified when I woke up at 5am Sunday morning.

For some reason, waking up in the camper is a little easier, but with our own walls we were able to blare the music nice and loud and enjoy a cup of tea, the typical sunbutter honey english muffin, and two caff beans sitting at my counter.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was enough that morning but I told myself I could have more once I got to my bike.

We lucked out and two people on the primo rack (closest to bike out) had taken up ENTIRELY too much room, so we squeezed our bikes in (I take up about 1 ft of space) and filled bottles and pottied and did all the normal pre-race stuff in what felt like the perfect amount of time (getting to transition about 45 minutes before closing seems to be the sweet spot – not being rushed but not too much standing around).  At the last minute I popped two 303 (herbal muscle relaxers) to hedge my bets on any residual cramps.  I was the first one of our little group taking off in wave 8, so I wandered over to the start, and spent a little time psyching myself up.  I wasn’t sure if today was going to be a complete shitshow or a decent day but it would all be over in about 90 minutes, give or take.

Love all these goofballs that came to cheer us on!!!

Swim:

Wave starts always catch me off guard, they used to be the norm and I’ve done plenty, but I’ve gotten spoiled with time trial starts and I forgot how combative they are.  Not Ironman-level kung fu judo chopping or anything, but definitely a lot of jostling for position.  I made it a goal to try and find feet to draft on, and I was actually fairly successful for the first half, but after the turnaround I just kept knocking into people or finding open water, so I just kept my efforts calm and tried to focus on good body position.

I swam until my body didn’t really fit in the water anymore and then high-kneed it out to transition.

Swim time: 11:05 (2:13/100m) 3/10 AG  This is my best in 8 years by 5 seconds (it’s always a little long, my Garmin recorded 596 yards and my sighting was pretty spot on).  To be fair, it’s only 40 seconds better than my worst showing in 2013.  I’m pretty consistent and I haven’t put much work over the years into swimming, and that goes doubly so this season.  I will say I think I got out of the water a lot fresher than I have in the past, as I really do think of the swim as a warmup for the rest of the race and rarely push it past the “I’m doing some work” feeling.

T1:

I think a spring of walking on the Addisage sandals have toughened up my feet, as I felt like I could run at a pretty nice clip even on the gravel sections.  Everything went smoothly and I got out of T1 quickly.  Technically, this is part of my bike time since I was over the mount line, but the only noob thing I did was not adjust my gearing (my TT bike had just been sitting in the garage since the last race) and it was very hard to get clipped in and going because I was in a very big gear and that was a few seconds of futzing.

T1 time: 2:13 6/10 AG.  I’m actually kind of confused by this because I thought I was pretty speedy and efficient, and it’s my best here yet by 2 seconds, but apparently I sucked compared to my 35-39 ladies.  *shrug*

No bike pics yet so you get my “stock footage” from the last race.  Are you sick of this one yet?  I’m not!

Bike:

After the clipping fiasco, I got going.  I know this course like the back of my hand (it’s the Jack’s Generic course and we ride the first half of it all the time), so I knew there was no reason to do anything but coast down the first hill into the turn.  Two girls passed me in that section, and as soon as I hit the turn, I went hunting.  I caught them within half a mile and just concentrated on eating my gel ASAP (cracking it open before the race REALLY helps a lot).  That went down fine, but I had oopsed and made my gatorade too strong.  It was undrinkable.  I took a few sips of it and almost spit it out because it was like sludge, but that’s ok on a sprint (I barely drink anything anyway).

Even with the questionable body condition and the lack of palatable hydration, I was feeling rather strong so I went to war.  I concentrated on staying in aero and passing as many people as I could.  Some of the super fast guys caught me but I was not passed by anyone of my gender again.  My goal was to try to hold 20 mph on the way out because I usually slow down on the way back (that tends to be where the wind is), but we actually ended up with it from the northeast, which meant the almost 20 mph I held the first half was with a headwind or crosswind, and made for a nice trip back.

I should have probably pushed the last couple miles harder if I was looking for the absolute best bike split, but the roads were so terrible and bumpy.  I let myself take my foot off the gas for a bit from the gasp-fest that was the first half and instead watched the road and prepared my legs (and brain) for the run.

Bike time: 39:55 for 21 mph 2/10 AG (10th overall female bike split).   My Garmin said right about 20, so I think this is a little generous, but just like Kerrville last year, I will take it.  I improved upon last year’s ride by five whole minutes (same course, just backwards).  Zliten put it best by saying that he feels like he’s one with his TT bike when he rides it now.  I feel the same way this season.  Death Star and I are pretty in sync now.

T2:

Everything went without incident.  I had planned on grabbing my frozen water bottle but I didn’t feel that hot and I hadn’t ran with it in months, so I took a few seconds to take a cold sip of nuun and left it.

T2 time: 1:17 5/10 AG  Seriously, I don’t know.  I know I took 5 extra seconds getting a sip of my bottle but I usually place HIGHER in transition than the actual sports.  Maybe the spot I thought was primo was actually further away?  Again, *shrug*.  Best here by 2 seconds.

How strong does BSS member Rachel (with smiley Courtney behind her) look finishing her first triathlon? 🙂

Run:

I ran out and up the hill and got going and everything felt predictably awful.  I had reminded myself the night before when going through my race plan that it would, so it didn’t freak me out as much as normal.  I hate this run.  I’ve done it a lot, so I’m comfortable with it’s suck, but I really really really hate running on kitty litter with no shade.

Physically, to keep myself running as well as possible, I tried to stay more up on my toes, keep driving with my hips to lengthen my stride, and swing my arms to touch my waistband.  Mentally, I kept reminding myself that I had just completed a friggin’ phenomenal bike ride, and I probably had a place on the podium if I could hang on, dig in, and not let any girls in my age group pass me.

Only two women passed me, and both were in their 50s and running like wild badasses, so I tried to ride their momentum for a while and then let them go.  Near the end, my teammate Lewis passed me and I tried to latch onto him but all that I had was the steady pace that did not waver the whole time.  Running in the heat and the suck felt painful but also somehow methodical – I kept thinking “just keep doing this for 20 more minutes, 17, 15, 10” and my legs kept moving.  They wouldn’t speed up for any sort of finishing kick, but all 3 mile splits were within 3 seconds of each other so I’d call that some even pacing.

Run time: 27:50 (9:16/mile) 4/10 AG.  This is a run PR for me here.  Technically by only 17 seconds, but that was from 6 years ago when I considered myself a runner who dabbled in triathlons vs running now being my weakest sport.  While I keep getting down on myself for not being able to hold that 8 minute/mile pace in races that I have sometimes in practice, I am showing steady improvement.  I have long term plans on how to make this better but for right now, I’m happy that my run has been SOLID this season, if not super fast.

Overall time: 1:22:21 3/10 AG. 

Look at my shiny plastic thingeeee!

I am over the moon with this result.  I feel like I nailed the bike even better than I have been.  I fought hard for that run, even if it wasn’t quite as fast as I would have liked.  I PR’d all three legs of the race (+ transitions), and for one that I’ve done for eight years in a row in various states of form and fitness, that’s actually quite a big accomplishment.  This resulted in an over 8 minute PR at this particular race (previously 1:30:30, Pflugerville 2015), and an over 4 minute PR on this course (1:26:33, Jack’s Generic 2016).  I also took back the house Lake Pflugerville title by 30 seconds, which hasn’t been mine in a long time.  Sorry, Zliten.  Better luck next year. 🙂

And, finally, with this fourth podium out of the five races this spring, I think I can finally dismiss the feeling of it all being a big fluke.  I think I can finally say out loud and with confidence that my case of the proverbial triathlon yips has passed for now.  At the local sprint triathlon level, I can put together a solid race that I’m proud of time and time again.  I’m good enough at this particular thing now to race for the podium, with an 80% success rate.  I think I can finally stick that feather in my cap and call it macaroni.

Lucky #wattagecottage hat and socks. 

It was a really great day racing with Team Bicycle Sport Shop.  We had a big handful of teammates racing and also a bunch of supporters.  Can’t thank everyone enough who just came to cheer! It’s always a little boost on the run when you know you’re going to see some friendly faces yelling your name at the finish.

Now I’m looking forward to a quick summer’s nap before hitting Coz 70.3 training hard – the next three weeks, the only requirement on the schedule is lifting at least twice a week, swim bike and run are to be applied AS DESIRED (sessions, distances, paces).  I already want to swim and ride today, which is a good sign, but with how SORE and TIRED I am, I’m taking myself right to bed after supper and getting one more long night of sleep first.

Kick the tires and start the pfires

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On June 15, 2018

In Uncategorized

Pflugerville is my 8th race this year.  I’ve had a lot of fun this spring, and I feel like I’ve gotten decent at the whole sprint triathlon process by repetition, but I’m ready for a little break.

One more outing for this kit and then it gets a rest.

However, let’s kick the tires and light the fires one more time, because Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY, we race our 8th Lake Pflugerville Tri.  At this point, my legs pretty much have what they have, so this week has been more about doing stuff I feel like doing when I feel like doing it.  I am the most meticulous coach ever but it’s officially my last week of season Pt 1, and I’m ready for it.

Last week

  • 15 min bike, 30 min bike, 32 min bike (race)
  • 1 weights session (race week, that’s fine)
  • 2 mile run, 2 mile run (race)
  • 1050yd swim, 200m swim (race)

So yeah, not much.  3.25 hours.  There will be plenty of time to smash myself, right now is not one of them.

This week has been/will be:

  • Monday: Shoal Roll!  Bikes with friends.  This also counts as my heat training for the week.
  • Tuesday: weights at the gym (early enough in the week so I won’t be affected race day)
  • Thursday: AM 3 mile run with striders (working on the feeling I need during the race)
  • Friday: random outdoor 45 min bike ride
  • Saturday: swim (probably open water)
  • Sunday: RACE!

Looking at last year’s results, with what I know I can do on an average day this year, I’ll be in the mix for a podium slot.   I should be through the swim and out of transition in about 13-14 minutes.  I’m hoping to bike about 19 mph, which would have me through transition two in a little under an hour.  If I can do that, which is well within my capabilities, it’s all about the run I can produce.  I’m probably going to have to set a run PR here to do it, but honestly, it’s not going to be that hard because I’m in better shape than I have been in years.  So, it’s all up to how bad I want it, chasing down people on the stupid kitty litter trail.

On one hand, it would be nice to cap the season pt 1 with a podium, and prove to myself I can do that in Austin races, and not just out of town.  On the other hand, I’ve had such a great spring I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t.  All I can do is go out there and race my ass off, which I plan to do!

Hopefully with much less heel striking…

I’m actually mimicing a body shape and preparation from 2014, when I was weighing in the low to mid-170s and specifically trained for short course triathlon, where I did really really well.  So, I have high hopes.

I didn’t have the most stellar week in nutrition land last week.  I did just fine on the weekdays, but our grill going out/being so hangry I needed a salad and an appetizer made Friday night’s meal WAYYYY more calories than normal.  Then, after the race Saturday, vegetables were positively repulsive to me but I was super hungry, so that went to the tune of about an 800 calorie surplus over what I burned.  Sunday, I let myself indulge a little bit and ate some pizza I was craving and went slightly over the calories I burned as well.  So, my numbers are going to look like crap, but here they are:

  • Average Calorie Burn: 2190
  • Average Calories Eaten: 1924 (-266 deficit)
  • Average Diet Quality: 19
  • Weight trend change: -0.4 (176.9 to 176.5)

All I can do is own it.  I should have packed up half my dinner on Friday, but I ate it to the point of being uncomfortably stuffed, probably influenced by the fact that I was peeved about the situation.  I tried to eat immediately post race on Saturday, but a spicy kielbasa wrap did not sit well at 8:30am, so I made it through barely half and didn’t eat again til 1pm when I was utterly starving and remained in that state pretty much all day.  I have just recently found these protein chips and I think I will be packing a bag of them for after every race from now on, just in case the food is unappealing.  Maybe that will help?  And then, my husband is the opposite – not much appetite the day of, but the day after he’s a hunger monster, which leads me to overeat that day too sometimes (this being one of them).

In the grand scheme of things, it’s one weekend.  But I have a few of these “just one weekends” coming up and unless I want to call the weight loss progress right here right now (and I don’t), I need to step it up.

It’s still going down, but flattening out a bit.  I’m going to endeavor to work a little harder the rest of the month to increase the angle downward a bit.

Besides just the normal, I know I need to do these things on Sunday:

  • Eat a thing as quickly as possible after the race.  They always have pizza, half a slice of that should actually be wonderful post race filling fuel and I can usually stomach that post race.
  • When I get home, have food ready that’s at my fingertips that is both filling and voluminous and also low calorie.  My goal will be to plow through as many positive diet quality points as possible (fruit, veggies, whole grains, lean protein) as possible quickly in as few calories as possible.
  • Stop at 1 post race beer (so many calories!) until I can get home and have much lower calorie beverages (or bring light beers to put in the team cooler).

This next week is that wonderful week where I make no progress because my body is angry about the lack of my procreation, so I’ll probably get back to this reporting (not logging, I do that daily still) in two weeks when the curve starts to slope down again.

I finally culled, edited, and posted my vacation photos from my camera.  I was hoping to get maybe half a dozen to a dozen shots I wanted to submit to various photo sites and I came up with 28.  Most sites want something like 10-15 for the application process, so at least I have something to work with.  Submitting photos that are rejected doesn’t preclude me from trying again after the next vacation with a new set, so worst case I get some feedback on what I’m doing wrong and become a better photographer.  Best case, they like my photos and I can make a little money doing something I love anyway.

Also, that means I’ll post about my vacation next week.  Honestly, I’ve written about cruises so much, it will be a photo dump with some words. 😉

Randomly, I can check two of my adulting things off my 2018 list.  Zliten found us a “do your own will” site, and in less than 30 minutes I had that done.  My situation is pretty simple so it was easy to do.  Also, they had a optional pain management section, to which I succinctly said, “I’m an Ironman, I can take it”, so I took it SUPER seriously, but the important parts are filled out and official.

Sadly, I haven’t seen our feral cat, Wookie, since we came back from vacation (and he was around at least every other day before).  I’m hoping someone took him in and gave him a forever home, but I’m not that optimistic about that.  This one wasn’t really “our” cat, and was definitely feral and not friendly, but he visited enough I wanted to make sure he got fixed.

So, potentially sad circumstances aside – 2/5ths done.  Financial planner, organization, and a small construction/cleaning projected to go.  If I was motivated I could probably knock all this out in a weekend but I’m… not.

And, that’s not a bad way to leave a Friday.  See you on the other side!

All’s well that ends well – Windcrest Freshman Tri

By

On June 12, 2018

In Uncategorized

It’s always weird when the drive to the venue is longer than the race, and this one was no exception.

But it worked out in the end, so let me tell you my tale of the Windcrest Freshman Triathlon.

The day before started completely by rote (yogurt and berries for breakfast, sandwich and salad for lunch), and we even got out of work a little early to make packet pickup and drive the course to scope it out.  Nice roads and nice little community to race in, and the turns didn’t seem AS BAD as I had feared.

We got to camp and got set up and then turned on the grill… nothing.  I finished unpacking while Zliten dithered with it for about 30 minutes and finally we gave up after 8pm and headed out for a pre-race dinner.  When your alarm is set for 4:45am, this is fairly tragic.  We went to Applebees (somewhere reasonably safe) and ordered too much food because by that point, we were HANGRY.  I ate a giant caesar salad, half an order of fries, and almost my entire dinner of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli.

Supposed to be my pre-race meal. 🙁  It was good post race though when we finally got the stove working!

I returned to the camper around 9:30, settled into bed around 10, wondering how badly I’d effed up my race with that super late, super giant meal.

The camper is magical, as I ended up getting some fairly decent sleep (if not quite enough of it at 6 hours), and my body didn’t protest TOO hard when the alarm went off.  I did the normal things – earl grey tea, hot, a sunbutter honey wheat english muffin (I figured I wouldn’t want much of it but the whole thing disappeared in the blink of an eye), two caff beans, and the normal morning dithering.  We left around 5:50 and got to the parking lot just after 6.

This race had us parking at a church a few blocks away and walking our bikes down an alley.  It didn’t look far on the map but seemed never ending in practice.  We got there at 6:20 and the announcer was saying transition was closing in 10 minutes (website said 6:45 so I was confused, I think he was just trying to get people dithering around in there OUT), so we picked a spot on the rack, quickly but deliberately set up our stuff, and hit the potty line.  During the pre-race meeting, my tummy started to rumble again, and during the pre-race prayer, I HAD to run to the bathroom.  No line at least! (No offense to God or whatever, I really really really had to go)

Swim:

We lined up by approximate swim times but that’s always kind of a cluster$%^#.  We ended up about 30th in line (out of 151), and my thought was “gee we’re up far” but my husband was “we should be up further”,  so we stayed there.  They let us go once every 10 seconds, and soon it was my turn and I waded into the pool and then they said START, so I did.

The thing I love about these pool swims is once you get in the water, your path is sort of set.  You can pass people, sure (I did once), and you do if they are significantly slower, but it’s a pain so everyone is just sort of going the same speed.  I don’t like to shell myself on the swim, I think of it as the warmup for when the race really starts, so I was happy to cruise near 2 min/100 pace.

Zliten was right behind me and tickled my toes a few times but I think I successfully let him draft the whole way (which was the plan, I wanted to give him every advantage this time to qualify for Nationals).  I could have pushed it a little more the last lap but I was behind a dude going *slightly* slower so I just cruised it into the wall instead.  Up the stairs (oh yeah, it was a super regulation pool – not really – one side was about 3 feet deep, that was fun), and onto the next.

Swim time: 4:36  2:17/100m. 2/9 AG, 10/69 gender.  IIRC, this also included some of the run to transition because my garmin said it was significantly faster.

T1:

They were kind enough to carpet the entire path to transition.  I suppose this is the one time they actually permit running at the pool!  I had no issues quickly and efficiently transitioning, the only thing that took me an extra second was I was unracking my bike and then Zliten unracked his next to me, so out of habit and politeness, I let him go first.  Not sure why.  I’m not usually that nice.

T1 time: 58 seconds. 1/9 AG, 2/69 gender.  Yeah!

This may be the nicest pictures that anyone’s ever taken of me on the bike.  Expect to see this one as “bike stock footage” over and over. 🙂

Bike:

I started out on the course and something just didn’t feel right.  Not like WRONG but I didn’t feel snappy.  Just one week ago, I was completely laid out with a cold, and while I felt better, this was my first hard effort since, and I think what I thought was feeling 100% was really closer to 90-95%.  I felt like I was pushing hard, but the speed just didn’t match up.  Looking back at my heart rate data, I rolled about 3 bpm higher than normal and I had a weird catch in my breath when I was really pushing it, so yeah, maybe I was just a few shades off complete recovery.  Or, there’s a chance my brakes were slightly rubbing (I haven’t looked yet), or something was just a little bit randomly off with my bike.  I’m banking on ME being the problem though.

Also, this course was not my strength.  I am a wimp when it comes to cornering, I slow down a LOT at turns, and this course had 28 of them in 10 miles.  I tried to push it a little bit more than normal, but a few of the right turns had me shrieking like a little girl due to debris in the road.  Meh.

While I was not super thrilled with my speed, I only had two guys pass me (one of which I passed back).  However, the guy I was concerned about – my husband- was way far ahead.  He’s less of a weenie on the turns.  Also, on the first lap, I got stuck behind a car and he was just ahead, and I had to chug up a (ok, THE ONE) hill while he kept his momentum.  Overall, he just had a little more OOMPH than I did.  I never was able to reel him in and he was out of sight by the end of the second lap.

Bike time: 32:32 – 18.4mph. 1/9 AG, 2/69 gender.  While this PLACEMENT is typically not something to complain about, I’m not thrilled about the pace.  Also, my garmin said the course was short, so my actual pace was closer to 18mph.  There were only about 10 people that went over 20 mph, and the first girl only beat me by about 45 seconds, so it was probably just a hard course but still, I just don’t feel like I did my best here.

T2:

I rolled into transition on a mission to get through quickly.  Racked my bike, shoe off, shoe on, shoe off, shoe on, race belt… race belt?  Where’s my race belt?  My area was kind of destroyed with everything askew, so I rooted around through my area and my husband’s area, and the girl next to me just in case, and I had NO race belt.  At this point, all I could do was go without it, so I ran up to run out and yelled over at the race director “my belt is missing” to which he said, not quite understanding, “where’s your number?” which I answered, “on my race belt, which is missing”, and he waved me through anyway.

T2 time: 1:04. 7/9 AG, 32/69 gender.  A lot more dithering than optimal.  I bet I could have been in and out in 40 seconds. 24 extra seconds actually isn’t that much, but it felt like an eternity.

No race belt, and what the eff am I doing with my arms?

Run:

I think the kerfuffle in T2 affected me more mentally than anything.  I ran out feeling annoyed, and defeated.  In my head, I had lost so much time, I was angry at some external force effing up my race, and the legs that didn’t really want to bike as hard as normal were having trouble with the run too.  I won’t say I gave up, because I was still pushing, but my brain went to some weird scattered places I don’t even remember.

I realize that on the bike, I play offense (chasing people down).  On the run, I play defense (running to not get caught).  Maybe it’s a mindset I should work on, but it really plays to my strengths (or weaknesses), and I spent the first half mile with a dude breathing over my shoulder.  As I approached the golf course, I saw tiny girl that had one of the professional suits with her name on the butt making her way back.  My first thought was “I’m not first female” (not that I expected to be) but then I thought “I bet she’s first, so I’m not that far behind”.

I tried to book the whole way up the golf course, but it was enough of a hill that dude passed me and got ahead.  Once we turned to go back down, the downhill started and I felt oh so relived.  I worked on fixing my stride and arm swing (which I should have done earlier but I got grumpy and distracted) and caught one guy who complimented my pace (gave him a thumbs up) and asked if I wanted to do two more loops (to which I grunted HELL NO), and circled back around to head down to the stick of the lollipop.

On the run back, people who were racing kept cheering for me.  At the time, I was super impressed with how friendly everyone was, and while I didn’t really have any breath to talk, I waved or gave them the thumbs up and smiled before getting back to the pain pace.  Upon reflection later, I realized that because I was the second girl in, they were cheering for me because I was one of the people leading the woman’s race.  That was pretty cool.

Finally the turn came and there was the arch and I could stop running and while I wasn’t stoked about a lot of the race, I was super excited about THAT.

Run time: 20:34 – 9:47/mile. 3/9 AG, 14/69 gender.  Garmin showed slightly faster (9:27/mile).  I didn’t push enough going up the hill (HR, cadence, and stride length show that clearly) and I need to remember to put crap I can’t control out of my head quicker.  In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t have changed anything, but seeing 15-20 sec per mile faster on my garmin would have made me feel better about the run in retrospect

Overall finish: 59:41.  1/9 AG, 3/69 gender.

My time goal was under an hour, and I made it, so I was happy there (though I thought I’d have more wiggle room than 19 seconds…).

While nothing about this race felt stellar, I was able to win my age group.  Eight other people showed up and I took first by over 8 minutes for women 35-39.  Not only that, sixty-eight other women showed up, and I was able to out-triathlon all but two of them.  While this is a triathlon that is very newbie friendly, there were plenty of people in team kits and when the race director asked “how many people have done an Ironman” about a quarter of us raised our hands, so it wasn’t as if I was the sore thumb sticking out as a vet triathlete at the race.

And here’s the conundrum.  On one hand, my confidence is a little shot because I felt like my bike performance sucked and I sandbagged myself on the first half of the run.  On the other hand, I didn’t have a perfect day (or lead up), and I was third overall for my gender, and fourth was about four minutes back.  I know it’s a big fish in a little pond scenario, but it’s still a nice feather in the cap.

However, I’m not quite sure how to feel.  I’m trying to go with super frickin’ proud, and I am, but for some reason, I’m missing the validation that this “actually maybe being decent at triathlons” thing isn’t a big fluke that I thought would come with the third podium, second age group win, and first top three gender placement.  Maybe that’s on my brain more than my actual race performance, though I just keep thinking about that bike and run pace and uggggggh, I do better in practice.  See, conundrum!

The good news is I race again in five days, so I don’t have too long to ruminate on this one.

EDIT: oh, the other good news is I got my race belt back.  Someone else grabbed it thinking it was theirs.  Oops!  Hooray!

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About Me

I'm a video game producer and a lover of anything game related by trade.  I'm a triathlete by hobby.  I live for being on or in the water as much as I can - scuba diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, water slides... you name it.  The dichotomy between my outdoor and indoor realities are interesting, but they're all mine!  Longer version here...

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