Adjusted Reality

Tag: running Page 18 of 50

Ironman Texas – Run Party

On May 1, 2017

Part 1 here (pre-race, swim), part 2 here (bike). Follows is the thrilling (?) conclusion to Ironman Texas.

Run:

Getting out to the run was a relief. At this point, I wasn’t going to get hit, kicked, punched, scratched, drown, or die of dysentery from swallowing canal poop. I wasn’t going to wreck on my bike, get a flat, have my wheel fall off, fall over unclipping, or have to bike around the world to end up on the other side of a freeway. You run or you walk (or crawl, but I was hoping I wouldn’t get to that point), and I had almost a full workday to do a combination of those around the 26.2 mile three loop course.

Assessing the situation after running about a mile and then walking through the first aid station I realized that a) my knee wasn’t thrilled with everything but it was holding up and b) the transition from walking to running was the worst part, so I resolved myself to try to run as long as I could and then take decently long walk breaks (about a mile running then 1/3 mile or so walking fast). My average pace was staying around 12s, so I was fine with how things were progressing.

Let me just say that the run was my favorite part of this race – the course was a PARTY. There was the sexy nurse helping us up the steep dirt hill. There was hippie hollow (and there was no walking in hippie hollow, rules are rules). There was slingshot corner that made you feel like you were in Tour De France with everyone cheering in your face. There were two girls just standing at a random corner (under a floodlight in the dark) in the middle of a hidden trail encouraging everyone. The Moxie crew was out having a dance party and slapping asses. I gave at least a few hundred high fives to random people. I kind of really want to come back next year, not to race (not yet), but to cheer people on because everyone was having SO MUCH FUN.

On the second lap, I made run friends with a gal from Delaware and a guy from Austin who were running together. We were right about the same pace, so I hung with them a while and we chatted, for the life of me, I don’t remember about what, but it made the time pass a little faster. However, we got to a point where handling conversation was hard for me and taking energy instead of helping. Also, while we were the same pace, I realized I needed to run longer and faster than they were shuffling, and then walk longer, I told them to go ahead and I’d catch up.

I went past special needs again around mile 11. I did some math, and figured that leaving my stuff there until mile 19 would be good motivation for me to hurry back and not take too many walk breaks. I ran and walked and ran and walked and kept hearing “Hey Bicycle Sport Shop, your husband’s just a few minutes up ahead” (apparently he stopped a few times and asked spectators to look me up on their trackers and told them to look for me). I hit the 13 mile marker at 2:43 garmin time, which meant I was on track for about 5:30 if I stayed consistent – the top of my expectations! Yay!

If we made our own sign are we our own spectators? 🙂

On the third lap, I got to special needs with about 30 minutes to spare (yay), and I straight plunked down on the ground and had a picnic. I chugged my chicken broth and coconut water, ate some chips, I used my pvc pipe to roll out my back and legs and hips (and then gave it to the volunteers to do the same!), I tied my shirt around my waist, grabbed my headlamp, and got going… like 10-15 minutes later. Oops. Apparently Zliten was just leaving special needs when I got there. We missed each other by just a minute. I might have had a little less tea time if I knew I could have left more quickly and potentially have caught up with him but I also kinda really needed the break.

I was hoping to be able to run most of the rest of the lap after my little picnic, and I got one good mile in after the stop, but about mile 21-22, my knee just kind of let me know it was DONE. So, instead of run/walk, I changed to a 13-15 min/mile powerwalk. I really think that walking a marathon is more painful than run/walking. Not being able to alternate hurt the rest of my body SO MUCH MORE, all I wanted to do was run a little, but every time I tried, my knee was like HAHAHA NOPE! Then, the other knee joined in to the NOPE NOPE NOPE party. Super fun times, but I knew I just needed to press on.

So, I resigned myself to being one of those people you see on the Ironman videos walking in the dark with my glowstick necklace and bracelet (which HAD to be purple, no idea why, but it was VERY important at the time), and just tried to keep it as speedy and with a mission as possible. The last thing I wanted to do was push it too hard and lose the ability to even walk and miss my chance to finish. “I’m not in a hurry” didn’t ring QUITE as true in my ears, because damn, I was ready to be done, but I made myself repeat it while I powerwalked and tried to keep the grumbling to a minimum.

I was popular with my headlamp and had some walk buddies for a while, but due to different paces or bathroom stops, I didn’t stick with anyone for long. I did realize at mile 22, I was sitting in a stinky porta potty longer than necessary just to rest my legs (get up get up GET UP). The bottoms of my feet were on fire and I couldn’t figure out why – I figured out later that I had a giant blister on the pad of each foot, OW, I’m actually thankful that those didn’t come into focus until after the race. Other than that, besides just wanting to be DONE and frustrated that my legs wouldn’t cooperate to make with the running motions instead of walking, I was just doing just fine, taking care of business, enjoying the crowds, and soaking the last bit of my first IM in.

Let’s talk about my stomach and nutrition. I had untold amounts of gatorade and water (but a lot, like *having to pee 3 times* a lot), one coconut water, a cup of coke about every other aid station, salty snacks occasionally when they were available, some fruit, and I had my own chicken broth and two other cups along the way. I had two gels and a full pack of blocks. I took two sets of 303 muscle relaxers (one at the start, one at special needs), one tums because it sounded good, and two salt pills at spec needs. My stomach felt rock solid the entire run. My only fail was a little bit of self-flagellation on the last 5 miles (if you can’t run you totally don’t need nutrition, right?) but other than that, I couldn’t be happier with how everything but my cranky knees held up.

I wish I had 27.5 miles of 8:30 min/mile pace. That’s a 5k for me on a really good day…

Let’s also talk about my garmin being EXTREMELY rude. For the first two loops, it was significantly behind. For example, I’m hitting the 14 mile marker and my garmin is saying 13.5. The last lap, at some point it completely flipped the other way and at mile 23, it said 23.5. I tried to stop looking at my garmin because I knew the course signs were probably right, but by the end, it had me pegged at 27.5 miles…. ><.

I hit the waterway, the crowd support starting to thin out a *little* nearing 10pm, but there was still a lot going on, which helped keep me going. I did the down, over, saw Zliten heading to the finish and got a hug, then around, rang the last lap bell with fervor, and finally when I made the turn with a quarter mile to go, I started running. Eff it. My knees could deal, I wasn’t walking across the finish line.

The finish line is pretty magical and TOTALLY worth it. You feel like a rockstar. Hundreds of people are cheering for you, you get the cool red carpet, the lights are bright, the music is loud, and as Mike Reilly calls you an Ironman, you look and feel a lot like this.

Run time: 6:28:04

Total time: 15:56:12

The run was almost 30 mins slower than expected, just like everything else was a little slower than expected. I really had pegged my finish time to be between 14-15 hours on a good day. I can nitpick how crappy my swim form was in the washing machine and how I can maybe stay in aero more and have the wind suck less on the bike and try and HTFU a little more on the run, and for eff’s sake, maybe take less of a nap in transitions (and porta potties and special needs…) next time. None of that matters. This time, I got my money’s worth and got to savor almost 16 hours of playing triathlon in The Woodlands and then I got to join the exclusive Ironman club at about 10:45pm on Saturday, April 22nd, 2017.

Post Race:

Joining the club means a shit-eating grin on my face and being deliriously happy at my volunteer catcher. She got me my finisher shirt and hat and some water, and then I went to look for Zliten who sent me back in the picture line and we got pictures together where I just look crazy eyed and sunburnt and bloated and probably won’t buy for 30 bucks each but it was VERY important we did that, apparently. Then, my salvation… the crappy post race slice of cheese pizza. I ate three. It was everything.

The rapid recovery boot people had chairs open, so we ducked in and now THIS was the best thing ever in life. Then we got our morning clothes bags and I bundled back up in my fleece and pjs, and we made the trek back to T1 to get all our bagsbagsbagsbagsbags. We had originally planned on walking it all back together but it was a LOT OF CRAP and bikes so I stayed with our mound of stuff and Zliten got the car (thankfully, he got someone to give him a ride back to the garage). Next time, we’ll stick a key somewhere else we’ll have at the finish so we don’t have to do that.

Late night post race noms. Notice the bottle opener. Ironman wanted to prepare us for the next week of beer drinking…

I was prepared for some ugly stomach stuff, either RAVENOUS hunger or extreme distress, and I had neither. I had an easy mac, watermelon, chips and a beer when I got back to the hotel room at 1:30am, but my fueling and hydration was on point enough that I drifted off to sleep and didn’t wake up in the middle of the night starving. I ate two big meals and snacks the next day, and some more beer. Monday was probably the worst of it, where I ate a meal and then immediately wanted another one, but by Tuesday, I got a burger and had to split it into lunch and dinner (with a salad) because it was too much food.

I was prepared to undertake some extremely low points, to have it feel like a long and terrible day. I was just amazed at how much my training, which I thought was on the minimal side of things, prepared me. The swim was rough, but at least I wasn’t swimming into the chop at Pflugerville for 2 hours. Biking into the wind was mentally draining, but it wasn’t like rolling the 6 hour Pace Bend loop 14 times in the wind and the rain and the cold or climbing hills into similar gusts on 360 and Bee Caves halfway into my first century ride. That TERRIBLE marathon I walked a lot of last year taught me that if your body starts to give out, just keep going towards the finish as fast as you can however you can. I didn’t ever think about never wanting to swim again, throwing my bike away, or only running 5ks in the future. In fact, I think I figured out why people really love Ironman races and I’m pretty sure even at the finish line I was plotting my return.

I was also prepared to have some sort of mental revelation or religious experience or feel different or whatever, but I honestly don’t. Yes, it was a damn big deal to finish this race. I had convinced myself otherwise the day before “well, if *I’m* doing it, it’s not a big thing” and I realized at the end that it was indeed a huge accomplishment. But it wasn’t just Saturday that changed me.

It was that after this last 4 months, training for a half ironman will never feel quite as long ever again. It was becoming a cyclist vs a scaredy triathlete that bikes outside very very occasionally. It was conquering my first century ride, after a few failed attempts. It was running 20 miles and getting up to ride bikes the next day. It was those long days where I triathloned from sun up to after sun down and pushed my limits beyond comprehension. This was really just a celebration, and a validation, of all that work, that it was enough, that I was enough, to travel 140.6 miles on my own volition in under 17 hours.

For those who are about to tri…

By Quix

On April 19, 2017

In Uncategorized

Ten years ago, I didn’t know what an Ironman was, but I did know that walking a mile to work sounded REALLY FAR and there was a hiiiilll so I never did it. Man, if I could live a mile from work now, I’d never ever drive!

Just a little different.

Skipping ahead through a lot of things, four and a half years ago, I did my first 70.3 (man, it feels like forever…). EVEN THEN, the thought was that it was a stepping stone to one day do an Ironman race.

I KNOW my impetus for my first marathon was that I was going to have to run one off the bike someday, so I better learn how to do that. I’m not sure when the seed took hold. I know Zliten wanted to do one right away after he finished his second sprint, and the goal was “before 40”. I remember “before 40” was actually pretty far away when we said it, and now it’s… well, this year or next year.

Each year since 2012, we’ve examined the landscape, looked around, and said “nope, one more year”. There was the year that I injured my knee. Then the next year when Zliten fought a bear and missed two marathons because of it. Then the next year when we made up those two marathons and I was so burnt out by the end I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take up underwater basket weaving instead. In 2016, we examined the landscape, cleared our schedules, and hit that 1500$ registration (for both of us) button.

Possibly the first Wednesday night recovery ride with the crew. Definitely not the last.

At that point, it was pretty much zero to Ironman. I’d taken a gloriously long #projectspring offseason that unceremoniously ended in July when I got antsy and decided that I’d like a schedule again and to mayyyybe break the 5 hours a week mark for activity. My first long runs were like 5-6 miles and they felt long. Our Wednesday 17-ish mile recovery rides with BSS were difficult and due to fear and lack of fitness, I’d be willing the miles to pass and they’d take foreeeeever (now I blink and it is over *poof*).

My instinct always leans towards NOT ENOUGH TIME NEVER ENOUGH TIME, but summer and early fall training did it’s thing just fine and delivered me to a sprint PR, a really solid Olympic distance RUN (rain on the bike made me sketchy), and then a decent showing on the bike and run for Austin ~~70.3~~ 69.1 on a scorcher of a day on a pretty hilly course (especially DAT RUN during the hottest parts of the day after a 3 hour delay, and even still I notched a 2nd best in a half iron).

With about six months to go, we took a mid-season break. It wasn’t so much of an offseason as the spring, I just needed a little break from a schedule, so we did between 5-10 hours a week of whatever we felt like, and in the fall? It was mostly biking. This worked out great because I felt like it was the sport we needed the most work extending the distance.

First century attempt was May 2014. Took me almost 3 years to actually DO it.

Turns out I was right. My goal was to just go out and do a century ride already, and then during official training figure out how to make that easier/faster come race day. I tried a couple times before January, and found out it’s really hard to do 100 miles on the bike even if 60-70 is in your comfort zone. We’d have to spend a whole month riding bikes every single day before we pulled off our first 100 mile ride the last weekend in January. And it was a doozy. I still had no idea how I was going to run off a bike like that but I had a few months to figure it out.

Once I had the bike down, it was time to ramp up the run. Oddly enough, that focused block went rather well. Within a month, I knocked out an 18, 19, and 20 mile run. The 18 was a little reachy because it was the first run past half marathon distance of the year (and also super steamy), but both the 19 and 20 felt oddly good and like they hadn’t tapped out everything I had in me, and I did at least 1-2 hour workouts the day after each one.

The last order of business was to stitch them together with two long days. The first was a nice approximation of race day with some breaks – but a solid 8 hour training day with a STRONG 2 hour run at the end. I had ZERO issues. I didn’t feel broken at all after and after my requisite day off and taking Monday a little lighter, I was back at it Tuesday. The second one was a little tougher – the full swim+ in the lake, the full ride, and an hour run, with less breaks. I had nutritional issues at the end of the bike and felt yucky on the run. I think I figured out how to solve that particular issue, but the recovery on this one took TWO full days off after and cutting that next week’s hours from 11.5 to 8.5.

This is just long day #3, right? The first two went well, so this one should too. Yep!

I feel like my training went really really well. I missed some sessions but I hit the key points:

Two race-length swims in the lake (I wanted more, but at least I got two). I supplemented this with plenty of 3k+ swims in the pool.
Two 100+ mile outdoor rides. Most importantly, one continuous on my TT bike on a similar elevation profile to the race that also helped me get over the psychological hurdle of seeing my garmin tick over to 100 miles and still have almost an hour to go. I also had plenty of long hours on the trainer and the six hour race in the rain and cold and almost 5k climbing… so I’m good. Yep. Good.
Three long runs similar to the pace I would like to run the IM marathon if I’m feeling good. I didn’t emphasize the brick run this time because 1) my legs have the opposite problem typically of feeling AWESOME off the bike but I can’t sustain it after a mile or two and 2) I anticipate my transition time will be in the 10 minute range, so I won’t even be running RIGHT off the bike at the race. However, I did do some running soon after biking on the long days, so I think I’m fine.
While my overall volume was more at the minimum end of spectrum (11-16 hours for each week I was ON), I still feel like I did enough volume and intensity to prepare me to COMPLETE an Ironman, and I’ll head to the start line with that confidence. I feel ready but not overtrained.

As my cold subsides and my energy comes back, and the knees still complain about tapering but feel weirdly GOOD as soon as I warm, I think I can actually say without cringing that I think my BODY is prepared.

Something is not completely right up there… but that’s nothing new…

Now, about the mind.

The mind wants to convince me that it’s been too long since all that happened. The mind wants to tell me that running a marathon after an already long day on the swim and the bike is going to break me. The mind says “maybe you were ready three weeks ago, but now you’ve lost so much fitness you’re barely going to be able to do a sprint triathlon this weekend”.

Fuck you, brain.

Here’s where I remind brain exactly what this means to me.

For YEARS, Zliten and I would watch random Ironman videos on Youtube as inspiration. I would imagine what it would be like to actually be out there doing that stuff, having our big dance, our big long awesome IM day after months of training… and it seemed so awesome, but so far away. Even a year ago, heck, even six months ago, it was like… how the fuck and I going to do that? Now I’m actually going to go do that. In like, a few days!

Experiment of two, reporting for duty.

Normal people would hire a coach, but instead, I wanted to hoard all the knowledge for myself, so I set out to become one (results after certification? I think I want to try working with a coach for a cycle soon… but that’s a whole ‘nother post). Honestly, it really just showed me I had most of it to begin with, and coaching is really just a long series of experiments that get more precise with experience, so this is just sample #1 and #2 of Ironman training.

Somehow, I fought through a bunch of burnout by training for this race. Not just battled against it, but cleared it away. I feel re-energized, having gone through a completely new type of training, completely new experiences, and my body just feels… different. I’m not at my lowest weight (by far), I’m not fast (my peak power and fast mile run right now would be laughable), but I am sturdy and solid and I can go forever at a reasonable speed and not quit. That’s a fun place to be.

I guess the hard part is really over. I can (hopefully) do anything for one day. Even if it might be a really really really long one. In a few days, barring natural disasters, I’ll have shoveled myself to the start line with at least the hope, at least the feigned confidence that me, standing on top of the last 10 months of training, will be able to make it 140.6 miles in 17 hours or less.

Of course, I’ll do the dorky things like buy the all the Ironman gear and wear my stupid medal for a week and probably say “Quix, you are AN IRONMAN!!!” in my best Mike Reilly voice about twenty seven hundred and fifty-nine times. I’ll use that for an excuse to sit on my butt for a week and give my bike the side eye for as long as I need (honestly, I give it a week before I’m back on the cruiser, but still…). I will giggle at my running shoes beckoning until my legs no longer remember the abuse of running a marathon after a full workday on the swim/bike beforehand (pretty short memory these days – two weeks? three?).

And then soon vacation, where my swim training will look more like this…

But beyond the superficial stuff, I guess what really resonates in my soul is the follow through of it all. How often do you actually have a big scary dream that you actually get a chance to face? How often do you get to make a big check mark on the ol’ bucket list? How many times do you get to live the thing that you’ve been dreaming about constantly for years? How often do you discard those things because they are too scary, too hard, and you convince yourself that you can live without? I’m about to toe the line and find out a lot about myself on Saturday, and see what things I can and can’t live without.

This truly is a mad pursuit. Literally no sane person would ever refer to a marathon as a cooldown after 114.4 miles of swimming and biking. No one would pass the 100 mile mark on a bike and go, y’know what? I think I should just ride another 12 mile for the fun of it. The swim gets you almost halfway between two of the Hawaiian islands and that’s just the warmup. I think that’s why we do these things though… because they are crazy. Because they seem impossible and we are the kind of people that don’t like being told what we can do, ~~even~~ especially when its our brain telling us NO and our heart instead says FUCK YOU, I’m going to give it a try.

If I can do this completely insane thing that seemed like a “can’t” a year ago, what else can I do in the future that seems crazy to me right now?

This is about proving that indeed, anything is possible.

If you want to follow my day, head HERE and look for bib #1056. I’ll see you on the other side.

Race week and the taper tantrums

By Quix

On April 17, 2017

In Uncategorized

Well, here we are. Race week. Race week? What?!?! Yeah, race week.

Much more of this last week than #swimbikerun.

I had hoped to be almost fully packed, feeling super rested and excited and springy, and rarin’ to go, feeling confident about my training.

Here I am *cue the dramatics* with my whole little world falling the hell apart.

Last week was probably one of the most stressful work weeks ever, and I had two 11-hour days to boot.
On Wednesday, I came down with a head cold (that I was hoping was allergies for a few days but it was not). I’m still getting over it – I’m feeling better than I was late last week but still low energy and that’s exaaaaaactly how we want to be on race week, right?
I clocked 3.25 hours last week, and ZERO swimming, which is what I really wanted to focus on in taper, so obviously I’ve completely forgotten how to endurance.
Because sick me = snoring me – all the nicely laid out gear on the guest bed is now on piles on the floor (so we could both get some sleep) and I haven’t had the energy to do any more packing since Friday and I keep thinking about ONE MORE THING I need to go get and it’s just SO MUCH STUFF.
Let’s also focus on the fact that for no reason, my knee is literally broken and has been for over a week now. I’m convinced I have a tendon just flapping around in there somehow disconnected without any actual trauma.
One more thing to pile on – during all this came that awesome time of the month – which I am SUPER thankful we’re getting out of the way now – but definitely adds to the fatigue.

Sigh…. I guess I wrote this for myself before I needed it, when things were going actually super well. This taper has been SUPER FRUSTRATING. I’m at the point where I want to be excited for the race. I should be excited for the race. But I just can’t even think about it that way yet. All I can do is plead with the race week divinity to help me get through all this shit in time to deliver me to Saturday morning in one piece.

Dear protector of the bikes, please give me 112 smiley miles on Saturday…

Logical, coach me, is stepping in to provide freaking out athlete with some facts:

You have swam close to and past race distance 8 times this cycle, twice in open water. Maybe you wanted more practice this week for your confidence, but you didn’t need it for your fitness. You’re fine, fish.
We ramped long bikes early in the cycle. Yes, there has been an absence of riding bikes for 4-7 hours in a row lately. That doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten how to do it. You can’t do all the things all the time. That 112 miles on Long Day #2 felt pretty darn good, and you’ll be SO MUCH MORE RESTED after taper. Also, in the last 6 months, you’ve ridden: 112, 100, 87, 80, and 75 miles outside. You’ve done: 5, 4.75, 4.5, and 3.75 hours on the trainer as well. The legs do not forget.
5 weeks ago (6 weeks out from the race), you ran a fairly effortless 20 miles. This was proceeded by a really nice 19, and a rough 18 (but you made it). More importantly, you ran 11 miles off a 5 hour bike ride and 1 hour off a 7 hour bike. You don’t have much top speed, but who cares? You can run forever. You didn’t build this by smashing your legs with a bunch of long runs, but with overall volume and your legs have responded well and were RELATIVELY pain free during training.
This cold couldn’t really be coming at a better time (unless it didn’t come at all). You’re not missing important training (yeah, this taper week was sparse, but if it had to happen THIS IS THE WEEK FOR IT), and it’s forcing you to rest like a mother effer. No crazy partying or stupid “let’s cram this training” has occurred. This is a benefit to feeling like crap.
The knee is not really broken. Both knees feel weirdly cranky and while anything in the knees is scary, it REALLY IS just muscle tightness and your rational brain knows it. The chiropractor even checked it out. Stretch, roll, ice, massage, boots, do all the good things and it will go away by race day. Have the faith, this one happens all the damn time.

So, here we are. Sniffles, broken knees, feeling barely ready for a sprint triathlon, head a mess, but y’know what? Going out for a nice, relaxed, 4 mile run made me realize that everything is probably going to be alright and I just need to relax and go along with the ride. Hopefully by the middle of the week I’ll be all bouncy and excited like I expected to be.

Such little runs, so many THINGS to pack.

Last week: almost nada

Monday: off (planned)
Tuesday: 30 mins weights (11 hour work day, missed open water race)
Wednesday: off (unplanned, 11 hour work day, missed bike and run)
Thursday: 45 minute bike (coming down with a cold)
Friday: 3 mile run
Saturday: 1.5 hour bike
Sunday: off
3.25 hours total of 7-ish planned

It is what it is. And my race does not hinge on missing 3.5-ish hours one week. I’ve trained better than that. All we can do is move forward. Here’s what I know about this week:

Monday: 4 mile run (DONE)
Thursday: off (travel)
Friday: pre-race swim and maybe a quiiiiickie spin on the TT bike before drop off.
Saturday: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run
Sunday: audition for a hot dog eating contest or something….

Tomorrow and Wednesday – I would like to swim since I missed all week last week. I would like to do a quickie 20 min/20 min brick. I would like to do another heat-of-the-day short run. I’ll probably do two out of those three things but I’m not committing to which yet.

#fueledbytacos. If only tacos packed well into special needs bags…

Life stuff:

Who cares about life stuff, it’s race week! Here’s my random to do list:

Decide between new shooz and old shooz on the bike and the run and rethink your life choices that lead you to this point (just kidding… sort of).
Cut your damn toenails.
Figure out if I’m going to actually get small PVC pipes from Lowes to make disposable rollers for my special needs bags (which have actually saved my life on multiple rides and runs).
Get tiny body glides for special needs bags.
Get some Imodium for my med kits. I’ve never taken it (during a workout or also during life) so it will be absolutely only if the literal shit hits the fan, but I’ve been told by multiple multiple people it should be on my person just in case. If I’m about to shit myself at mile 16, I’ll try just about anything to fix that.
Pack all the rest of the stuff (at this point, mostly clothes and toiletries for before and after) before Wednesday night at midnight (please).
Write goofy notes for Zliten to put in his special needs bags.
Grab tupperwares to bring with. My hotel has TONS of free food at various points of the day, so I want to make sure I have options of things to eat after the race if I can’t even with things.
Find my bib number so I can post it all over social media so people can follow along with our crazy days.

And of course – eat the right things but don’t freak out too much about it. No going crazy with beers and shit when you DO start to feel all-the-way better. Stretch, roll, puffy legs, get (and give) Zliten massages and do all the smart things you know to do. Try to be more of a lark than you normally are (early to bed, early to rise WITHOUT sacrificing sleep).

Off to do things about the things above instead of just writing about them.

10 Days Out

By Quix

On April 12, 2017

In Uncategorized

Today, I get to start stalking the weather report for the race.

Not super great, but it could be worse. I’ll take the cloudy and the low chance of rain, but I’d be grateful for a 5-10 degree drop in temps and the wind calming down a little.

Either way, this is nothing I can change. I’ve prepared in worse, so I’ll be fine, y’all. One of these days I’m going to get perfect weather for one of these silly long distance races I like to do, but until then, I’ll conquer whatever the day presents me.

I talked in great length about the weekend here, so let me just wrap up the rest of it.

The first week of taper never quite feels much like taper, but it all went a-ok. I had 11.5 hours planned, which seemed ambitious, so I was alright letting a little fall off. I held on a little more than I actually expected and ended up with 10.5 hours. I missed a little bit of cycling and one weights session. Life will go on.

Runs: 1 hour heat acclimation, 1.5 miles off the bike, 10 ~~mile race~~ easy miles
Bike: ~~1-1.5~~ 45 min effort ride (sort of), BSS ride, ~~50-60 mile TT ride~~ 1h30 fighting the wind around town on road bikes, 48 mins fighting the wind commuting on cruiser bikes.
Swim: 1 race distance (close) OWS, 1 shorter OWS
Weights: 2 1 session
10.5 hours total.

I really would have liked a better race distance OWS and some more awesome TT bike miles, but I’m pretty happy with what we did.

The only bike ride of the week that went as planned…

This week is taper week #2, which should actually feel like taper. Having multiple days off was decadent. Having single digit hours on the plan feels positively sinful. It’s lucky because between work and the rain, I’m having to shift my plans around a ~~little~~ lot but this week. I can’t lie, I’m at three days right now with no swim/bike/run and I’m freaking out a little, but I have to remember the advice I’d give ANYONE else – it’s no big deal and it’s actually probably a decent week for life to happen.

My super-detailed plan is below:

Runs: some miles as long as my knee stays cooperative
Bike: Bike once or twice somewhere. Some distance. Maybe on the TT even if it works out properly.
Swim: At least one open water swim that’s 1+ mile. More if I can.
Weights: did one session already this week. I’m calling it here since we’re 10 days out. Time to let the muscles rest.
Some hours total.

Life Stuff:

Two new blue shoes (say that 10 times fast)…

I successfully obtained new cycling shoes that seem to fit (they’re a little tighter than I’m used to, but my old ones are so loose and slippy I think that’s a good thing). I also have new Clifton 3s and I really wanted to wear them for the 10 mile run (my last long one), but with my knee twinges, I decided to go with the ones I knew. I hope they’ll be broken in enough by the race to wear, but if not, it will probably be my last run on the previous pair (and I will have yet to break the cycle of wearing old shoes at my big races…).

Sighhhh… I don’t know why it’s been so hard for me to track calories but it has. It just has. I got through Monday, half of Tuesday, and randomly tracked Saturday to make sure I had eaten enough food (and at the time I tracked, I hadn’t, so it was good I did).

So far this week, I’ve tracked everything so far, so I’m doing better! I have been hopping onto the scale every so often, and my weight seems to be pretty steady (185-188), but my body fat seems to be down a few %s. So, that’s good! While I’d like to have magically taken off a lot of weight this cycle, instead, I definitely put on some muscle. In the next month, my goal is to not fuck that up with a bunch of weight gain.

I foam rolled 6/7 days last week. I went in for a chiropractor check on Monday and she says my back is the best she’s seen it lately, so it’s working! Yay! I need to continue this trend through the race, it is so good for me.

I drank beer last Wednesday, and then I got sick of beer and drank whiskey and stayed up too late. Life continued on, I didn’t miss any training specficially because of that, and I got lots of sleep the next night. I guess the law of averages dictates when you act like a grandma 5-6 days a week and go to bed around sunset, sometimes you need to act like you’re in your early 20s to balance things out.

I haven’t quite mastered the bedtime thing yet, but less training seems to equal less sleep needed (and less residual exhaustion), so as long as I’m asleep by 10:30-11, the 7am hour isn’t too bad. This week, I will continue the fight of early to bed and early to rise.

So, this week’s goals are:

Early to bed/early up whenever I can without sacrificing sleep.
Let’s stop being stupid with the having too many drinks and staying up ’til 3am, k?
Foam roll and puffy legs and stretching and all the recovery things.
Track the food. At the very least, write it on a list somewhere.
After the cleaning service on Thursday – start packing ALL THE THINGS for IM TEXAS!!!!

On this last one – holy cow. I’ve started to make a plan for this and I just hope I can fit everything in need in our big ass Xterra. I’ll share my neuroticisms and overthinking later this week. 🙂

Save

Austin 10/20 weekend in review

By Quix

On April 10, 2017

In Uncategorized

I like to write up race reports to capture the moment in time. However, this one was a little… different. I can’t really break it off from the rest of the weekend because it was all in the name of IMTexas training. Also, in and of itself, the race was slow and unimpressive so I feel like I need to qualify it with what was going on all weekend.

Swim, burger, bike, run. Not usually in that order…

Saturday morning, we had set the alarm for omg-wtf-early to be out at Lake Pflugerville to swim race-ish distance, bike 40-ish miles, and run around the lake – and in the middle of it, be around to say hi to our tri team doing a newbie clinic at the same place. The siren song of sleeeeep got us, and we didn’t get in the water until almost NINE THIRTY (oops), and we were gifted with some pretty rough conditions in the lake, caused by 20+ mph winds with 30+ gusts.

I have not had a more challenging swim in my recent recollections. It was like swimming in a choppy ocean fighting the tide. I almost quit at least 20 times in the first mile. The direction of the chop was probably the most challenging part. I can roll with some side chop, literally by rolling almost onto my back to breathe, but half of each lap was directly into it. Every few strokes it was so high that I’d go to breathe and *nope* as a wave crashed over me.

My safe swimmer orange floaty thing acted as an anchor going into the chop, and on the way back, it want to be RIGHT BY MY HEAD, so I had to adjust my stroke to keep my arm from getting tangled in the cord. Not bringing my arm out of the water was incredibly inefficient and took the fun out of the payoff (swimming fast with the current). I actually intentionally inserted some breaststroke in there so I could actually sight because I often couldn’t see the buoys over the waves.

I wasn’t super physically spent in that 1h45+ to go just under race distance, but I was mentally spent for sure. We decided to cancel the TT bike ride out there for not just that reason, but it was also borderline unsafe on those bikes on traffic-y roads. We briefly flirted with a run around the lake but I was wet and cold and over it so we got some In-N-Out Burger instead and ran an errand.

It worked out that we had to be back to pick something up in two hours, and it’s along one of our normal bike routes, so tooled around town on our road bikes instead of banishing ourselves to the trainer. The wind continued to be incredible, making downhill against the wind feel almost more challenging than uphill into it, but we got in almost an hour and a half. Not quite the 40 miles we were hoping, but again, fighting the wind should count for something extra, right?

Because I’m a triathlete, and I also had new shoes to break in, I ran a mile and a half off the bike. I felt a little knee twinge, and then it went away, but it still made me nervous. We showered and had some recovery shakes, ate some dinner, crawled into bed with our books, and set our alarm at wtf-oclock again for the race.

This night of sleep was rather fitful. Sometime during the night, my knee had convinced me it was broken (ah, tapers) and I was up less with the actual pain and more with the worry that I had 10 miles to run with a bib the next day. I didn’t want to wreck anything for April 22nd but I also didn’t want to quit. I woke up and everything seemed to be in working order (if maybe a little stiff), so I got up and did the morning things and we rode bikes 3 miles to the start line.

Morning race day shenanigans. Also, I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to spell shenanigans without a spell checker.

We had originally been prodded to sign up because a lot of our BSS team was racing, but a lot of people dropped out and most of the folks there, we just didn’t connect with. We ended up seeing our friend Rikki who randomly found us right before the race, but didn’t end up seeing any of the other 10 million people we knew that were there.

The race started late, and an extra 20 minutes of standing around wasn’t helping leg-things so I took off VERY slowly. I could tell Zliten was frustrated and I told him to go, and he said, nope, he need to go about this pace anyway. Itold him to give it a few miles, I’ll probably warm up and feel better, and through the first 4, we stayed really easy and I turned a corner (literally and figuratively) and my stride changed and all of a sudden it felt better so we picked it up by 15-30 sec/mile.

This race is awesome for many reasons besides the convenience. The first 4 years, it was a great place (and a great time of year for my fitness) for me to lay it all out on a flat and fast course and I improved every year by a minute or two. It’s close to home and work and I run in this area all the time. I get a kick of running down the middle of busy roads I drive all the time. There is almost always a band within earshot (the first four years I was hidden in my music trying to PR, so I didn’t appreciate it as much, but the last two years I took it easy and rocked out and it was super fun). They hand out cold towels halfway through and at the finish, which is always refreshing.

The hill that is always terrible wasn’t that bad (when you’re running easy pace), and then the last half mile uphill into the wind finally got me near the finish, my knee twinged while Zliten was speeding up, so I said “nope, walking a sec”. A spectator, bless her heart, was trying to encourage me, and instead of explaining the situation I just started jogging slowly again (and it felt fine) and then we crossed the line of the last Austin 10/20 EVAR (unless some political-sounding things get resolved).

After the race was for putting things in my mouth or showing things where to go (by opening my mouth), apparently.

Garmin time: 1:54:57 which is about 11:30/mile. Which is almost exactly what I would like to aim for in (eeek!!!) 12 days on the run, so there is that. While I would have liked to put on a little more gas (maybe 10:30-11s), my knee feels fine today so mission accomplished!

It was humid and windy and we were dripping during the race and quickly chilled after. The beer tent had a block-length long line. The food offerings (rice krispies treat and fruit) were great for a snack, but I definitely was ready for something more substantial. So, like almost every other year, we skipped out on the post race party and fought the wind home on the bikes and had better beer with no lines, ordered a pizza and watched sci fi movies all day.

Besides the mental energy going into worrying about my knee, I felt a marked lack of tiredness and soreness (and still do today) with over 6 hours of training in the last two days. I’m taking today off (maybe some weights, but more likely catching up on the chores I blew off yesterday) because that’s in the plan, and I’m super stoked to visit the chiropractor tonight because I think part of the knee issue is I’m out of alignment, but training did it’s thing and taper is doing it’s thing now and life is good.

Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: running Page 18 of 50

Ironman Texas – Run Party

For those who are about to tri…

Race week and the taper tantrums

10 Days Out

Austin 10/20 weekend in review

About Me

Search

Pages

Archives

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Login