Adjusted Reality

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The quiet

On November 19, 2018

After last week’s mental meanderings, and the return to some physical activity over the last seven days, I feel a little more… even-keeled.

A friend told me this outfit was Daphne and Velma all in one and I think that might be the highest compliment ever.

There’s many reasons that I throw words on this page. It’s a historical reference of my life that I often use in lieu of my failing memory. What did we do for our sixth anniversary? How did I train for that half marathon I notched a personal record back in the day? AR.com answers all those questions for me even when my brain cannot.

However, one of the most beautiful and wonderful things this blog can do is be my therapist. I started last week VERY VERY confused as to what was going on in my brain, and through three days of massaging a piece of writing, I figured out why my mind was lashing out. While I don’t have all the answers yet, I at least know what was REALLY causing me strife. As they say, knowing is half the battle, because when I know the full shape of the problem, I can actually formulate stabs at a solution instead of just generally freaking out and trying to prove my self-worth in other, completely unrelated ways, while not getting to the heart of the matter.

If I want to be an author, I’m going to have to amass an audience (it’s just how it’s done these days, apparently). If I want to have the guts to create a community, I’m going to have to believe in myself 100%, that the ware which is myself is worth hawking tirelessly from the rooftops, even through the perils of disregard and rejection. I’m closer now to feeling that self-worth than I’ve ever been, and I think part of the anxiety is that I’m so scared of losing it, as right now it feels terrifyingly fleeting. I’d gotten used to being self-deprecating, and it’s honestly EASIER for me to be just imperfect enough that I don’t feel like maybe I’m destined for any level of greatness. Just… decentness. It’s comfortable to live on this side of the mediocre.

Obviously, I still need to learn the HOW of the marketing stuff. I tried to dip my toe into that over the last few years and just like editing my book, I’ve found a huge mental block. I’ve got some decisions to make (do I stick with AR.com or actually register a new site that’s got more focus), but I think I’d be more receptive to the ideas that made me overly uncomfortable previously.

And I’m not even squidding about how much this has been octupi-ing my thoughts…

While I’ve often been frustrated at my lack of progress in specific things over the last few years, there’s no doubt in the big picture that I’ve transformed. Spring 2016 was when everything shook apart and I realized I needed to diversify myself as a human. Within that next year I collected three certifications (personal trainer, sports nutrition, triathlon coach). I’ve learned a lot about investment, business development, and have a list of about a million things I could start up should I find myself unemployed (though, obviously, that’s not the plan).

Then, I started to nurture my creative and performer identities. I started painting again, I wrote a freaking novel, I’ve gotten really into photography and photo editing and have even taken a crack at video. At work, I’ve found myself as the co-host for live steams and giving presentations at the all-hands company meetings as well as other official video. I get to do things that push me in the public speaking regard about 3-4 times per month and I relish the opportunity to improve (and it’s also a bit of an adrenaline rush).

For someone focused on only work and triathlon previously, that’s a lot of personal growth in 2.5 years. That period of time also included completing my first Ironman, three half Ironman races, two six hour bike races, two half marathons, and at about two dozen races of other distances. Beyond my job and training, I have to give myself credit for spending ANY time on diversification, though I couldn’t imagine my life without it now.

And thus, cue the low level of anxiety that stretches me to always want to be better, always wanting more.

However, I’ve felt more quiet in the last few days than I have in a long time. Figuring shit out helped, but also, I’ve been able to return to activity, which has made me feel like my normal version of a human.

Actual weights on bar not pictured, but rest assured, they are tiny.

The only thing that I’m doing with any seriousness or schedule is lifting, and even that’s very loosely reigned in. I’m starting with 2xweek until my body says that 3xweek is reasonable (read: not sore two days later – I’m guessing not this week but next). I’m doing a nice, long, full body, lighter weight lift hitting all the main muscle groups each day (e.g. squatting and benching 65lbs, dead lifting 85 lbs, rowing and overhead pressing the 45 lb bar only). Once these numbers start to approach where I was at earlier in the year, I’ll start lowering the reps and splitting things up a little more. When I add the third day in, it will be kettlebells (lighter stuff), like what I was doing in the last few months.

Besides that, the plan is: some run, bike, swim, or other cardio a few times a week. As long (within reason) or short as I feel like. At whatever intensity feels good. And if curling up with a book or going out with friends or drinking whiskey or playing video games sounds better on any given day, I’ll do that instead (as long as it’s not ALL given days).

I swam on Thursday and it felt like coming home. Sure, I was slow and clunky and my goggles kept leaking, but it felt absolutely wonderful to glide back and forth across the pool. There’s something about the silence and focus when it’s just you and the water (and some tunes), and maybe that’s why I was going into a bit of a tizzy over the last few weeks – the lack of time in my own head enforced by the circumstances of sport. I had been accustomed to some 3-4 hour stretches on the bike/run over the summer with just me and my grey matter, and I suppose I missed that.

Saturday, I had grand plans for a bike adventure. I wanted to go somewhere pretty and take pictures and have lunch and in my head we would set out in the morning and spend the day on bikes. Reality set in – we stayed up late playing video games the night before and started riding after noon. We decided to take off from the house instead of driving the bikes somewhere and I didn’t want to tax my knee *too* much with crazy hills, so we just rolled a fairly normal suburban loop with a lunch stop at Little Deli. My legs told me that the mildly rolling 600 ft of elevation gained in 21 miles in 90 minutes was perfect for right now, more would be overreaching.

This week is a short work week, which means in theory I will have more time to play, but I know the siren song of the couch will be strong once I’m off work. If I had to put together a loose plan it would be:

Lift #1 Monday
Swim Tuesday
Lift #2 Wednesday
Run on Thanksgiving morning
Bike adventure sometime over the weekend

I’m a little anxious both TO get back to running and actually ABOUT getting back to running. It’s the one sport for me in which absence doesn’t make the legs grow fonder. If I take too much time off running, I usually end up paying a price. I don’t want to put too much pressure on my knee trying to replicate the paces from a few months ago. I also don’t want to mentally flip out if I find 11-12 minute miles difficult after a minor injury and almost a month off.

I decided that doing an official Turkey Trot under these circumstances seemed like an idiot decision, so I’m running out my door on Thursday instead. I don’t know if I’m going to go one mile and then turn back or finish all five. I do know that running around my neighborhood means I’ll go at a pace and distance which feel comfortable, instead of getting swept up in the chaos of a race. My body has been pretty clear that all the good efforts have been used up for a while, and I’m happy to remove any excuse to try to push the issue.

Speaking of turkeys, Thanksgiving is in just a few days, and that means that the holidays are in full swing. For many reasons, I’m excited. For my diet, I’m terrified. This has been my most successful year in almost a decade in terms of weight loss – and of even more import – figuring out the mystery behind making the scale move in the right direction. For so many years I was using incorrect metrics and had too much faith in the calorie burning effect of training. If my goal is to maintain my weight, the only distance in which I can eat intuitively, as much as I want, is Ironman (11-15+ hours per week of training). Under any other conditions, especially offseason, I need to watch my shit lest my nice new size 9 juniors jeans will start to shrink.

Since I’ve been focused on taper tantrums and post-race blues, I haven’t shared (or cared) much about metrics, so here’s a bit of catch up.

The first part of September was flat (training volume up, had to eat to fuel those efforts). November (offseason, little to no activity) has some rollers, but both still *slightly* trended down. Late September and October, even with 10 days in Cozumel, was a huge success because taper (5-6 hours a week) is honestly my optimal training volume to lose weight.

The other nice feather in my cap is that I set 165 as my interim weight loss goal for the year. Over the summer, when things slowed down, I said I’d be happy with 170 but I’ve surpassed that, and I’m so close to my original goal, y’all!

Since Waco, I’ve not made much progress, though I haven’t expected to. Trendweight is also reminding me that in the last 3.5 years I’ve been tracking, I’m 10 lbs lower than any recorded weight in history. That doesn’t suck.

I expect things to get a little easier now that I’m moving around again. Last week, without any hassle, I hit 5.5 hours of activity. I expect that will stay constant through the holiday season. I need to keep committed to how I’ve been eating all year and absolutely track my calories and weight daily to keep that line from reversing course (I can’t really deal with the diet quality tracking right now, that will be something I get back to after the new year). If my trendweight looks exactly the same as it does now on January 1st, I’m fine with that. If it’s back to where I was in the summer, I’ll be pissed. I love me some peppermint bark and mulled wine and all, but nothing is worth erasing months of hard fought progress. Moderation is key.

For now, I’ll be encouraging and enjoying the silence. The quiet ease of this time of year. Sleeping in and staying up late. Everything moving a little slower, including me.

Wacky Waco 70.3

By Quix

On November 1, 2018

In Uncategorized

I’ve been hesitating writing this one, and almost convinced myself to just copy my social media posts over here and phone it in, but I do look back at this stuff for posterity, so rock and roll, let’s do this.

The week of the race was probably one of the most hellaciously hectic – not just the “to do” list, but I had to be ON a lot with filming, live streaming, and other things going on in work and life. The problem for me sometimes is not being ON (I live for that stuff), but turning OFF after. On the week where sleep matters A LOT, I spent a lot of nights awake thinking all the things, which is SO abnormal for me.

Thankfully, I had the headspace to take a little time off work Friday and arrive in Waco in the late afternoon (versus Saturday like we had originally planned), and all went smoothly with the trip up. Once I got to athlete check in and did all the pre-race things, this is what I had to say:

I’ve been fretting all day, all week, heck, all month about various and sundry things both related and not related to this race. At one point, I questioned, is this what ACTUALLY losing your mind feels like? Are THEY going to find out and whisk me away to the funny farm?

After the comedy of errors which was this week, I hoped I hadn’t spent all the mental energy I had left for the race. My cup of give-a-crap hath runneth dry mid-race before, and folks, it’s not pretty. On the drive up, thankfully, things pivoted. I enjoyed conversation and actually peeping that big, beautiful, bright ball in the sky. Oh sun, I have missed you so. Never stray for so long.

When I saw the finish line today, that familiar arch, I smiled. The spark is still there. I’m pretty certain there’s still some poetry left. Forget all that fast flowing freeeezing water with debris we’re supposed to be swimming in. Never mind that race day is twenty degrees warmer than yesterday. I’m ready to do battle on Sunday, once more, with feeling, with whatever course the race director lays out before us.

And, of course, I’m enjoying the opportunity to eat all the things. That is partially why we endure, to order something from the BBQ truck called The Terminator guilt free, right? ?

It was a bit of a brave face at the time, I will admit – but I was there, I was going to race whatever course was deemed appropriate, and that was that. I don’t back down. I’m not a quitter, even if the notion flits through my mind occasionally.

I got the best night of sleep all week in the camper, and woke the next day naturally to do the rest of the race prep things. We went on a test ride, dropped off our bikes, attended a race briefing to find the swim cancelled (about 10% boo since I’ve been swimming well lately, and 90% yay because that water looked VERY UNSAFE). The only thing I botched a little was that I ate my lunch (turkey bacon guac bagel sandwich) around 4pm instead of at a reasonable hour, but followed up with dinner (chicken, potatoes, and some veggies and hummus) quickly and the calories got in as they were supposed to. I snacked a little more than normal and was probably about 2200-2500 calories, which is a lot more that I’d take in on a rest day, but a nice surplus to start the race in the morning.

I ended the day with this thought:

While I adore fine food and drink, being pampered, and penthouse views, there’s nothing quite so peaceful as waking up in the camper. Even if the situation at hand involves all the mosquitoes, one shower for the whole camp, and the illustrious “pee bucket”, being outdoors stills my soul. Best night of sleep and the most relaxed I’ve felt all week. I’m feeling the proper amount of nerv-cited butterflies fluttering around inside.

I haven’t been able to visualize this one yet. Cozumel, I pictured it clearly months in advance. This race has remained hazy. Of course I have a race plan, I just haven’t really been able to transport myself there mentally. Now, I’m pretty sure I know why.

A week ago, one course was set. Two days ago, it was altered to a point to point swim through rapids and obstacles, and the bike course changed as well. As of this morning, the run course has changed, and the swim was scrapped. Instead of kicking off the age group racers in the first wave of the swim at about 7:30, I’ll be hopping on my bike in the middle of the fray around 9am. That’s ok. I get to chase. I love the hunt.

While there are some minor logistical adjustments with gear and nutrition to consider, the overall plan for tomorrow is unchanged: bike with my head, run with my heart.

I slept a little fitfully that evening, but it was typical pre-race. Luckily, with the swim cancelled, we did not have an early wakeup call, and rolled into transition around 7am, with plenty of time before the race to get set up. I had my “Courage and Confidence” playlist on repeat, and actually didn’t take my headphones off until about 5 minutes before we queued up (around 8:40am). It was nice to hide and listen to Willy Wonka about 6379 times.

Bike:

At first, the bike course was incredibly narrow and crowded and that made me a little cranky, but I figured it was the best they could do with the situation at hand. I wasn’t going to do unsafe things to keep my power or speed up, so I knew early on that the bike wasn’t where I was going to kill it this race. The idea of staying draft legal (6 bike lengths) in this situation was laughable – it was just impossible. I did my best to not hide behind anyone for too long but I’ll admit that there was no way I was technically legal for at least the first quarter of the race.

Once it got clearer, I found that I was maintaining the 150W average I wanted to (though the plan wasn’t to find it so early) with absolutely no effort, so I went with it. I also found that I LOVED this bike course. It had enough elevation changes to keep my legs fresher than Cozumel without any killer climbs – lots of rollers – which I just adore. While other people complained about the chipseal on the country roads, to me, it just felt like home, like riding out at Pflugerville or Kerrville.

About mile 40, I felt some deep fatigue/minor cramping in my lower back and inner thighs. I’m frustrated about this, I don’t know why this has happened in both my races when my training rides were pretty spectacular. In practice, I took less salt and nutrition in wayyyyy hotter conditions and my rides went by in a blink of the eye. My power dropped steadily but I stuck with the pace. I’m proud that I rode REALLY evenly – I stayed between 18-18.7 mph the entire time. My goal was to push the last hour to try to come in under 3 hours, but with the threat of cramping looming fiercely, I played it a little more conservative.

Bike time: 3:06:03. I would have been about 3:04 and change, but I had to stop and pee early on and that took about 90 seconds. This is right about what I did at Coz time-wise and power average, but I enjoyed this course MUCH more and smiled through it instead of being angry (first at others, then at myself) the whole time.

Transition:

The chute was crowded and muddy, and everyone in front of me was walking their bikes so I did too. My legs just didn’t have it in them to run through the mud in my bike shoes (read: still on the edge of cramping). I sat to put on my shoes and talked to people next to me. I could have been a little more expedient, but I honestly just didn’t care right about then. Once I got up, running felt okay so I did that, heading out under the arch, wondering what the run would hold.

Transition time: 5:29. Meh. I’m not impressed with this but I can’t hate myself for it either.

Run:

My legs felt oddly okay, so I just tried to pace myself at that 10-something minute mile and hoped for the best. Quickly, I knew it wasn’t going to be my day. I had followed my nutrition plan exactly on the bike (2xcaff gels, 1 pack of spearmint blocks, 4 salt pills, 2 303s after I started cramping, and probably about 3 bottles of gatorade). However, within the first mile of the run, I started feeling AWFUL. Overfull. Nauseous. I tried to hold it together, sometimes that fixes itself, but I walked the first aid station and could only take in water. Not a good start.

Then, I saw Zliten, and he had one communication for me as we crossed paths, “No shame in walking the hill” and then “oh yeah, love you!”. Then, when I got to the hill, just the bottom looking up, I shouted, “OH HELL NAW!”. In that moment, the switch in my head flipped from “shooting for a PR” to “maybe let’s survive this and resist the urge to turn in my chip at each aid station I pass”. While I will give the Cameron Park area props for being BEAUTIFUL, it was so hilly. They rerouted part of the run there, which added extra elevation, and not just a little bit, the kind of hills you maintain running heart rate walking up at 18 minute mile pace and bust up your quads running down.

I’ll be honest, I sulked a lot of the first lap and walked a lot (I ran the downhills- that’s about it – not even the flats after mile 2), while also visiting at least five different porta potties to try and take care of business out of one end or the other, and figure out how to make my revolting digestive system feel better. I could not even fathom eating anything solid (I took ZERO gels or blocks in over the course of the run), but after a while I found I tolerated gatorade and the coke was actually settling my stomach, so I stuck with that so I could at least get SOME calories in.

Finally, I got my shit together on the second lap. I stopped hitting the porta potty at every aid station even though I still felt like I could use it the whole race. I figured whatever happened, happened, I was beyond giving a flying fig. I established a 100 step run/100 step walk cycle, except at aid stations and the hills (which I walked). Once I finished up the stupid hilly section (which I said goodbye forever to – because I don’t think I plan to do this race again), I started pushing myself to increase my run cycles to 200, then 300, then 400. I had entirely lost my internal monologue and I had a few people call me out and ask me what the heck I was counting. Oops. At least I was mostly passing people by that point.

My last three miles were 12:10 (a fair amount of walking), 11:24 (just a little walking), and 10:17 (I think I walked once for 100 steps), so my RUNNING was on point, I just couldn’t keep it up for that long.

Once I realized that I was close to a 3 hour run, I wasn’t willing to let that time tick over. I’ve only run over 3 hours in a half Ironman once and it was in 2013, after being injured and having a 5 week cycle to go from being unable to walk to racing hot and hilly BSLT 70.3. Surely, I could do better than that during the best season of my life.

Run time: 2:58:37. Spoilers: I beat it. But it took a pretty good physical and mental push at the end to overcome the fuckery of the rest of the run. I’m happy I was finally able to latch onto a goal and conquer it, but gosh, it came so late in the day. A few days out, I feel less content with this than I did after the race. I think on Sunday I was just happy to be done, both with the race and the season, but now I have a different perspective. Now, my sentiments about the run go something more like “fuck that race, fuck that course, fuck my stupid malfunctioning body, fuck my weak ass brain, fuck that day in particular”. If I raced with my heart, it was kind of like this. I could have been in a better situation, but I also could have handled my cards I was dealt a little better, especially in the first lap.

Total time: 6:10:09. Nowhere near the 5:30 I was hoping to beat, which was kind of unrealistic with that stupid run course, but I could have gotten closer if I tried a little harder and gave up a little less at some points.

My face at the finish. Big difference in how I felt at the finish line vs Cozumel.

Lest you think I am hating everything about the race, let me talk about the awesome parts. As I said, I was a pretty big fan of the bike course. I got to camp, which is always a bonus! We raced with a billion people we knew, both on Bicycle Sport Shop team and also Wattage Brigade. The town came out in force to support us. I’m so happy they made the call to cancel the swim early, versus having us out in transition at 5am lugging gear and wetsuits, wondering if it would happen. It was a well done race for an inaugural one. It just wasn’t my race, and it probably will never be with that ridiculous run, and that’s totally okay.

My heart goes to the long stuff. I love the training. Somehow it feels more epic and heroic to come into the finish line 6 hours later instead of under 60 minutes. I love the idea at someday being able to podium here like I can at sprints, but my head now knows its unrealistic without a BIG change in my strength, my weight, and my brain. While that’s a bit of a downer, it’s also enough to already make me hungry to tear shit up next season.

That is, after a NICE long winters nap where the only requirements on the schedule is lifting heavy shit a few times a week. Ah, offseason. I am here, finally. Embrace me with your arms of blissful recovery!

Waco 70.3 Pre-Race – The Precipice of the Unknown

By Quix

On October 24, 2018

In Uncategorized

It’s race week! Again!

Four days out, I’m finding the emotions and the machinations to be different this time. For various reasons, anxiety as of right now has overshadowed the excitement, and uncertainty has replaced the utter SWAG I had last time. That’s fine, that means I REALLY CARE about this, and while my sneaky little soul is trying to hide this by manifesting it in a million other things right now, I appreciate this feeling. If the spark is there, I can fan the flames towards excitement in the next few days. Fear of failure is much closer to courage to try than the typical unbridled apathy I’ve found in racing for the last few years.

Feeling all the things and practicing being brave has been a little tiring – literally – I haven’t been sleeping as well as normal. Giving a crap is weird and squishy and while some of the side effects are unwelcome, this is some positive personal development. I hope I find some peace on the other side of the finish line on Sunday. However, now that I have been practicing things that scare me a little to get comfortable at courage, I have a few OTHER things in play that I’m going for, so I may just sit here constantly reverberating like a nervous chihuahua until my heart explodes. Stay tuned.

My head and my heart also haven’t had enough time to forget how much these things HURT. Cozumel took every ounce and the only reason I actually still existed afterwards was massive amounts of caffeine until the epic crash crash crash that literally incapacitated me. I intend to start a little slower on both the bike and the run, but my intention is to put forth the same or more effort OVERALL. It’s fun to be all confident about seeking the man with the hammer… once. While that’s what I want with all my courage this time, part of my heart feels like it’s just pure masochism to thrust myself into that fire walk again so soon.

Also, this whole “giving a shit” thing also comes with the baggage of wanting to race well in front of people I know. I’ll be on the course with a TON of BSS teammates and some of the Wattage Brigade. While logic dictates they’ll be wholly absorbed in their own races, there’s the performer in me that wants very badly to do well on the closest thing to “home court” right now. I also want to show myself that PR’ing in Cozumel wasn’t a fluke. This race has the potential to have perfect conditions (as in NOT AS HOT AS THE CENTER OF THE SUN) and the only thing that would hold me back is my head, heart, legs, or lungs.

Putting aside sports and racing psychology – the race conditions are also incredibly uncertain. I’m told we’ll know tomrrow if we have a swim or not, currently the water is dookie brown, fast flowing, and full of debris. The current transition area is underwater. I don’t know if I’ll be racing a 70.3, a 69.1, a half marathon, or just heading up to Waco to camp and drink beer for a weekend. I know what to do – I need to be prepared for anything and everything and stay adaptable, but between the unknow and the constant crappy weather, it no longer feels like triathlon season in the slightest and another reason my excitement is waning.

Here’s the good news – the legs and lungs part of the equation seem to be willing. The sludge I was experiencing post-vacation is mostly gone. While it’s been PULLING TEETH to get myself to train, when I show up, the magic happens. In the last week, I’ve PR’d my 1.2 mile swim and ran an 8:36 mile off a race power (read: not easy) bike. This does not suck. As long as I can summon the motivation to strap on my armor and pick up my axe, the odds seem to end up ever in my favor. I’ve had no spectacular blowups, which I kind of expected on the way back to being whole after Coz, just solid days pushing the numbers I’m aiming for without too much strife in my grey matter, at least during. It all feels so much less magical than last time, but the foundation is there. That’s a big building block in the confidence to try again.

So, the order of the week is rest up. Psych up. Show up. Make the magic happen!

For the record – here’s all the gory details I’ll want to look back on later.

Oct 15-21 training.

35 min and 30 min race power trainer practice
Fastest swims in a while – 1:55/100m at the longer Lifetime pool and 1.2 miles in about 38 minutes.
1 hour race pace run (5.7 miles)
1 hour race power bike/5k faster than race pace brick (9:30/mile)
One kettlebell session

Oct 22-28

One bodyweight session with a nice long stretch and roll
Short brick (20 min race power/1 fast mile)
Pre-race swim/bike shakeout (if we swim, if not… meh)
RACE!

Nutrition plan:

Friday night camping food: hot dogs and a carbtastic side
Saturday breakfast: bean and cheese breakfast tacos
Saturday lunch: turkey bacon guac bagel sandwich (trying for a little more calories than normal)
Saturday dinner: grilled chicken, baked potato, pre-made salad
Race breakfast: two caffeine beans, earl grey tea, english muffin with sunbutter and honey, coconut water, watermelon, sip on gatorade before the race
Race day nutrition on the bike: caff gel ASAP and every 45 mins (alternate caff/non caff), gatorade handoffs at every bottle stop (or as necessary depending on the temperature). Cocktail of salt pills and 303s halfway through (possibly one more dose of salt pills near the end depending on the weather).
Race day nutrition on the run: One more cocktail, probably about mile 3, bring a caff gel, non caff gel, and a pack of spearmint blocks, and try to consume at least two of them. Take in all the gatorade and coke (yeah brown ponyyyyy!) possible for that sweet sweet sugar and caffeine high!

Race plan:

Feet up as much as possible Saturday, get to the race EARLY Sunday since parking is up in the air and I’m in one of the first waves.

Swim the same effort I dialed in on Saturday. Just an inch past comfortable. Concentrate on either finding some space or some slightly faster feet. To do that, I need to have confidence to seed myself properly (for a race like this, probably not front pack but at least first half) and concentrate on long, relaxed strokes. Around 40 minutes would be ideal, give or take depending on the conditions.

Transition 1 I plan to roll the same as Cozumel. Wetsuit off, helmet, glasses, shoes, go. This is a single transition race, so I should save some time not having to bag everything up. The goal is motivation for quick locomotion without pure seething rage, like last time.

Biking during this cycle, all my really successful training rides involved a slower start and then chasing a power number. They also involved elevation, pace, and effort changes, not a constant effort. I’ve got a plan to make sure my race goes this way as well:

Hour 1: 130-ish power. This should feel like holding back.
Hour 2: work up to 140 power average. This should feel like a good ride.
Hour 3: try to work up to 150 power average, if it makes sense. I don’t want to be gassed at the end, but it is allowed to feel like work at this point.
Every 15 minutes, stand up (or at least sit up) and push out 30-60 seconds of 200-250 power if I haven’t had to do anything similar recently.
Also, be advised that my power is not 100% dialed in, it’s my first season really tracking it, so perceived effort can trump this, especially in the later miles. It’s a target, not the arrow.

It would be nice to break 3 hours, but I’m not going to tank my run to do it.

Transition 2 is lava. It will be slower than T1 because I have to put on socks and tie my shoes, but the goal is a minimal amount of time of effing around. Socks, shoes, race belt, hat, go.

Running has been going well, but is always the wildcard. My one confidence building workout didn’t do quite so much as I was hoping, but it was a nice, solid, race pace double digit run off a not-so-easy bike. So, I’m going to start this one a little more conservatively than Cozumel. Frankly, the first trek up the hill on the way out, I plan to sandbag myself a little bit. I find when I PUSH UP THE HILL SUPER HARD it bites me in the ass later, so taking a little extra time on the way up the first time based on how I feel may pay divedends later. I plan to ENJOY THE HECK out of running the downhills and push THOSE fast.

I want to run the whole thing as long as it’s the fastest means to the end. The marathon I ran every step of the way was a proud accomplishment, but not my fastest. However, if I’m just steadily jogging 12 minute miles, I know that suuuuuuuuper sucks for me and I’ll get more out of myself if I strategically alternate walk breaks and faster running (Coz average, with LOTS of walking, was 11:30-ish). Plan A is to start out running 10:30-ish minute miles and stay there (or speed up) until death or the finish line. I’d like to see approximately 2:15 here, whatever that looks like.

Overall, that looks perilously close to 6 hours with some decent transitions. I know total time was REALLY motivating in Cozumel, so I will probably switch there sometime in the second lap and work on busting ass to hit the closest even number. I would be over the moon if that even number I was striving to beat was 6:00:00.

I’m not entirely sure why race weeks also end up being the craziest in work and life, but this one hasn’t disappointed in that regard. I’m more than looking forward to wrap up doing about 20 different nerve-wracking and brave things (we are what we repeatedly do) and spend the 36 hours before the race in the woods, in the peace and quiet.

Last time, I needed to bring all the noise. This race, I need some quiet, to center myself, and to prepare myself to race once more with renewed feeling. I know in my heart, if I do it right, I’ll toe the line with my heart, head, legs and lungs ready to do battle, I just need to spend a little time in bubble wrap to get myself there.

Forward

By Quix

On October 15, 2018

In Uncategorized

For now, I’ll skip over the vacation parts of vacation.

Spoiler: it involved SO MANY TURTLES!!!

Believe me, it was epic, and I posted some tales on Instagram when my phone decided that it would hold a charge and also connect to wifi (which was rare). My soul feels very recharged after a week under the water and in the sun, and the amount of pictures I have to process and edit is both daunting and exciting and I can’t wait to share them.

The transition was quick. Sunday at 1pm I was hanging out in a hot tub in Mexico. Monday at 9am I was back in the office. Monday at 6pm, I was in the gym throwing around kettlebells. Less than 48 hours after my plane landed, I was (barely) holding race power on the bike and trying to shake the sludge out of my legs with some faster running. If I’m going to race Waco, there’s no rest for this triathlete. Y’know, besides that week where I had a very heavy training load (10+ hours underwater, more weight training hauling tanks and gear) but absolutely no specificity. And actually, not pushing too too much because that would be counter-productive. Let’s just say, back to a (sane) training schedule I went!

I’ve never raced two long races this close back to back, so this is a new, fun experiment of ONE (ok TWO since my husband is also doing these crazy things with me) that could fail miserably or perhaps produce race day magic. Considering my success with a lot of back to back racing weekends earlier this year, I’m hoping for the latter!

This Tuesday was a lot different than last Tuesday.

Here’s where I’m at right now:

Officially, I should be back in taper. I had planned to do a little more last week, but it actually worked out to be about 6.5 hours. This is fine. I’m a little cranky I skipped my wetsuit swim but everything else went well.
Back in June when I laid out the full season’s training plan, I set October 13th to be a CONFIDENCE BUILDING workout. I knew I’d have ONE shot to rectify whatever was the biggest chink in my armor at Cozumel, and I’d tailor the workout to that. Two weeks out, I’m not going to be building much endurance, so the purpose of Saturday’s workout was 100% mental. That workout was a 1 hour trainer ride at race power (result was a little low but also my power meter kept dropping out :P), and then a 2 hour run at race pace (a shade under 10:30/mile for eleven and a half in conditions not dissimilar to Cozumel – hot and muggy with a few sprinkles). I haven’t done any longer runs off the bike and that may be part of what broke me on race day (and, also, the ridiculous heat, but let’s focus on the things I can control).
How I feel right now at this moment: a little sludgy, both mentally and physically. I definitely feel like I just raced and gave it a lot but it’s coming around. I’m confident I’ve got what I need under there, but I’m just not SHARP right now like I was before Cozumel. Maybe that’s good. I expended a LOT of nervous mental and physical energy that I had in excess over the three weeks of taper last time, maybe this cycle I’m destined to be calmer and have things come together at just the right time.

Here’s what I feel like I could improve from the last race (and what I’m doing to fix it):

This is the last wetsuit pic I have… from 2016. I own 3 and I don’t like any of them, really…

I had too much time on my feet before the race. We had originally planned to get to Waco Saturday morning, but now, we’re taking a quarter day off work on Friday and plan to get there in time to hit packet pickup, mayyyybe athlete briefing, and set up the camper the day before the day before. In theory, all I should need to do on Saturday now is drop off my bike and do a practice swim, and the rest of the day is lounging in and around the camper. Pefect!

I will get up early enough race morning to not be rushing to the swim start in the back of the line. I swim about 40 minutes for this race, that’s where I need to seed myself.

This swim will likely be a wetsuit swim, and I take a little bit to get used to swimming in my sausage casing. I will be hitting a lake at least THREE times before race day (even if I have to swim in 50-something degrees air temperatures).

The elevation change for Waco is about 1k feet over the 56 mile bike. Still very flat, but not quite pancake like Cozumel. I need to work out a schedule to have some forced intervals in there (with easier sections) so my legs don’t get stale. Maybe 1 minute 200+ power, 1 minute ~100 power every 15? I also plan to go out a little more conservatively – every training ride I would start at lower power and build over the three hours. I’m going to make that my goal (build to 130W hour 1, 140W hour 2, 150 or as close as I can hour 3 or something like that) instead of heading out of transition like a rabid squirrel on speed.

The run is a little hillier – double the elevation gain of Cozumel – though it’s hard to be as flat as FLAT. There are two longer hills. My goal is to NOT WALK ON THESE HILLS. If I want to walk, it’s gotta be on the downhills. And I feel stupid walking downhill, so perhaps with this mentality and some luck with the weather, I can goad myself into running the whole damn thing finally. There will be a lot of people I know at this race, and I plan to ask them to literally BERATE AND YELL AT ME if they see me walking. I don’t want encouragement or kind words, I want to be told to SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP and GET A FUCKING MOVE ON. I doubt I’ll get that because most people are really nice, but hopefully the FEAR of it will motivate me.

A week back from Cozumel and I feel like I’ve lost most, if not all, of the crappy inflammation and water weight. I think, somehow, it all came off during Saturday’s run (I felt the extra weight hauling up some of those hills for sure), because since then I’m *about* back to where I was before I left (168-170). Two more weeks of tracking calories and Snap Kitchen mainly and hopefully I can race Waco slightly lighter than Cozumel. I’m super excited that my race prep will be 100% my own food cooked from the camper grill, that should help things immensely!

While I wish two days of carb gluttony before the race helped me, because it’s SUPER FUN, I’ve never seen any sort of success with it, so I’m planning just to eat like a normal human with a few extra snacks (fruit, crackers, almonds, etc) the day before. I think any benefit I get with slightly-more topped off carb stores, I lose with a super gross sloshy stomach and extra weight on race day. I may look back on this in 3 years and do this…

…but it’s my current strategy. So I’m documenting it. I work differently than other humans, and I’ve accepted this. My best 70.3 previous to Cozumel (2014), my only carb sources for the season were corn and potatoes the day before and I didn’t eat to excess. I’ve found I tolerate some whole wheat now as well, and brown rice is back to being a homie, but I don’t plan on going crazy, just my normal sprint plan (normal breakfast, turkey sandwich on wheat for lunch, grilled chicken with potato and salad for dinner) plus extra snacks to be like 2000-ish calories vs 1500.

So, this week, I has plans.

Two weights sessions (today and Wed)
Four trainer rides practicing the progression to race power (today, tomorrow, Wednesday, Saturday) 30-60+ mins
One pool swim (tomorrow), one lake swim (Saturday)
8 mile run race pace (Thursday), 5k brick run off the bike faster than race pace (Saturday).
Stretch or roll every day.
Track food – 1500 calories most days with 2-3 slightly higher (due to workout load).

The unicorns and Wattage Cottage sock doping will get me through. I hope.

Two more weeks of triathlon season. While I’m not itching to be a lazy slob and sit on my butt, I am really excited for a few months of the plan pretty much saying “lift weights and do whatever else you feel like for the cardios” for a while. Just 13 more days of holidng it together and being good, and then one more massive, herculean effort at another 70.3 PR to go!

Cozumel 70.3 Bike and Run (Part 2)

By Quix

On October 10, 2018

In Uncategorized

When last we spoke, I was spitting vinegar and dropping all sorts of f-bombs over every inch of T1.

While I would be reluctant to want that feeling more frequently, I wish I could channel that pure adrenaline coursing through my veins, at least in shorter races. I do well on the bike when I feel aggressive and I was ready to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war like nothing I’ve felt in competition yet.

I had a RAD first hour, maintaining 20+ mph at around 150-160 power, just like I had planned. I knew I’d have to pay for that pace somewhere along the course, but I enjoyed passing people, even if sometimes it took a few attempts for it to stick (things I learned this race: dudes with their names on the butt of their tri suit don’t like to be passed). After a while, the teeth-gritting seething rage wore off and I relaxed into a more normal cadence and started to race more within myself.

Suddenly, we turned from the nice, sheltered tailwind to the exposed east side of the island right into the fray. This is fine, I thought to myself, I’ve got my power to watch. 150 watts are 150 watts at whatever pace the wind dictates. And that worked for a while. Then, for some reason, 150 watts sustained got HARD at any pace. My legs started cramping and I started getting passed as well as passing other cyclists and that’s just WEIRD for me on a one loop bike course.

From about mile 20 on, I had one simple thought in my head, dear merciful and fluffy lord, let this ride be over soon. And that’s an oddity for me so quickly into a bike ride. My leg situation continued to deteriorate until we turned out of the wind. My speed picked up but my power didn’t rally much. My legs just felt DEAD. I kept ping ponging with another girl, I’d get some oomph and pass her and then she’d just pass me back. I couldn’t pass decisively like normal.

My husband caught me around mile thirty-five (he actually beat me on the swim by a minute but I blew past him in transition and cooked the first half of the bike harder than he did). He told me he had the same problem on the windy side. It gave me a boost to follow the lightning bolts on his butt (legally), so we passed back and forth for about 15 miles and then I got ahead the last few miles because THANK THE MERCIFUL DEITIES OF CYCLING the ride was over.

Bike time: 3:05:42. 18.1 mph. 38/85 AG. Not the sub-3 hours I wanted, but still my best 56 mile race effort yet by about 10 minutes. I’ll take it. I was super excited for this course, regaling everyone that would listen that FLAT IS MY STRENGTH, but I’m revising that. It’s my strength on a sprint, or even Olympic, but once you get much past that one hour mark, I need some elevation (read: speed/pace/power) changes. I have some ideas on how to mitigate this on a similar course in the future (forced interval work), but it really threw my legs for a loop not to get any coasting breaks. Nutrition note: I consumed about six bottles of gatorade, two of water, three gels (two caffeinated), four salt pills, and two 303 muscle relaxers.

Transition 2:

As soon as I got off the bike, the outsides of my feet cramped. Of course, I was entirely on the other end of the transition zone, so I ran in my bike shoes shouting “Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie, ouch, ouch, ouuuuuch”. I took a moment to sit down and put on my socks and tie my shoes and get mentally prepared to run. This was it. This was what I wanted to nail. Sub-6 hours was still in my grasp if I had a stellar run. I exited the parking garage and emerged into the daylight, ready to find the darkness.

Transition 2 time: 4:41. I took a moment here intentionally, but this could have been better. I also could have not had cramps and had a better rack position. Life will go on.

Run:

Once I got my feet under me and onto the road my legs felt… good. Not great, but I had some decent speed and turnover. Okay, I thought, I can work with this. My plan was to go out aggressively and see what happened. I passed both Matt and Zliten in the first mile which ticked by at 10 minutes/mile exactly. It felt like a comfortable effort and I continued on similarly for the first 4 miles, slowing only to shove as much gatorade and pepsi and bags of water in my mouth as I could without stopping.

I even had a triathlete first and peed whilst running. If you remember, I had to pee on the swim (and didn’t), kinda had to pee the whole bike (but didn’t), and then someone hit me with a warm garden hose around mile 3 and my bladder just lost it. Wheee, I peed in the streets of downtown Cozumel! Party! Aren’t triathlons SO glamorous? I was actually pretty stoked I saved time skipping a porta potty stop, but the happiness faded quickly after the turnaround. The sun, my adversary, just backstabbed me when I hit a sunny stretch with no shade on the horizon.

It was the most frustrating thing. My legs felt fine. Nothing on my body was cramped up or really complaining in the slightest. I was just way too fucking hot and I stopped. Running a half marathon in the upper 80s and humid (read: feels like 100s when the sun was shouting at us, which was much more often than not) is no joke, especially when I’ve already been racing for four hours previous in said weather. But, I trained for this. I ran constantly in the fiery hot and hellishly humid conditions of the Austin summer. And still it wasn’t enough.

Zliten even passed me and I couldn’t muster the run to go with him. That should paint a sanguine picture of my brain at that very moment.

I spent the next two miles feeling like I was having a pity party. However, looking at my splits after the fact (13:01 and 12:46 respectively), they weren’t SO bad. That’s not giving up. That’s taking walk breaks to keep from keeling over on the side of the road and slowing through aid stations taking down two cups of gatorade, two bags of water, a cup of pepsi, and shoving ice down my bra so I could cool my core and take a stab at running another half mile before it all melted. That’s still a fight, even if the battle looks different than imagined.

Around mile six, the torrential rain hit, flooding the streets in a flash. You don’t walk another damn step until it’s sunny again, I told myself, you will make the most of this. I passed the turn around, and started to smile a little for the first time in hours. I stomped through puddles, took down a gel, and smacked my husband on the ass as I passed him around mile eight. I was back, BABY! My splits were only about a minute per mile faster (11:45 and 11:58), but it felt more like conquering the run vs being conquered. The glee was short lived, the sun started singing the song of it’s people again as we turned to the section with zero shade and it was once more trudging through hot soup. Bleh. Four more miles to go.

Miles nine and ten were pretty cruel, 12:44 and 12:53 respectively, though one of these included a short stop to hug my husband who was not yet to the turnaround and looked like he might keel over at any second. He asked how I was doing and I replied stalwartly, “I’ve got a PR if I hold it together”. I had been monitoring total race time for the last hour. While I watched a sub-six hour finish slip away at mile four, I still had a sub 6:30 in my grasp… though it definitely wasn’t a given. I couldn’t give up, in fact, I had to increase my pace a bit

I saw plenty of people giving up. Triathletes were dropping like flies on the side of the road, either sitting on benches looking overheated or calling for SAG or medical. I vowed to not be one of them. I still found something inside that kept my feet turning over. I still took walk breaks each mile, but the run segments got faster and faster with mile eleven at 11:50 and mile twelve and thirteen at 10:57 exactly. By the time I saw the barricade at the end of the road, I was running nine, then eight minute miles, willing myself to get through the arch before the clock hit six hours and thirty minutes.

Run time: 2:32:35. 11:42/mile pace. 49/85 AG. While obviously this was not even close to my original goal, and not even a run leg PR, this is the hottest half marathon I’ve ever run. I’m more than okay with my performance here for reasons I’ll explain below.

This is my face when I crossed the line. This is someone who picked the important battles, maybe not the ones I expected, and kept fighting to have a shiny new half ironman PR, and possibly more importantly, to keep the house half ironman PR. 😉

Overall time: 6:28:01. 49/85 AG.

The aftermath:

Two successes to note: first, my new Roka kit is AMAZING. I had NO chafing for a SIX AND A HALF HOUR HOT RAINY RACE. I’m not sure if anyone but long course triathletes can understand how incredible this is, but showers after these races are usually among most painful things known to man or beast. Not this time, no tears at all. Also, I applied sunscreen ONCE, before the swim, and I can report that I had no sunburn the next day (skin was a little warm post-race but not lobster red) with many, many hours being exposed to the elements. Heat acclimation success!

I finished right before 2pm and I was FLYING HIGH. I got gatorade and my medal and shirt and then laid down on the grass in the shade to stretch waiting for Zliten and Matt to finish and then when they did, chattered away at them like a squirrel on speed, simultaneously stuffing my face with the best crappy pizza in history. After we collected our bikes and stuff from transitions and walked the mile back to the hotel in the pouring rain (JERK WEATHER), I continued my face-stuffing at the hotel with a burger and some beer.

After our burgers, Zliten started feeling crappy and laid down, while I bounced around and posted incessantly on social media, answering replies in about .0215 seconds (THANKS BROWN PONY… ahem, I mean Pepsi). I hit the first half life of the caffeine in my system around 6:30pm, collectively no more than a Starbucks coffee or two in total, but a massive amount for me, and started crashing HARD.

I began to feel cold outside in the 80+ degree weather, and when I climbed into bed, I started shivering uncontrollably while feeling hot and cold at the same time and my eyes wouldn’t stop watering. Every fiber of muscle in my legs and feet ached, and the top half of my body tingled. I felt incredibly nauseous and even tossed my cookies (I have an iron stomach, this is not normal for me) and eventually around 9pm, after he was feeling better, my husband had to bring me a plate of food to the room. It took me another two hours and two sprites to be able to stomach more than a bite at a time.

I’ve had mild heat sickness before because I am an idiot triathlete who trains to do stupid shit in the heat like this all the time, but this was by far the worst go at it yet. While it may sound crazy, while I was shaking and sweating in my blankets, it made me feel redeemed. I can’t much say I didn’t give this race my all, now can I? Again, the fight may not have looked exactly like I pictured it even hours before, but I can’t say it wasn’t a valiant effort nonetheless. I. did. not. back. down.

TL;DR – I’ll wear this shirt proudly.

The malady was short lived and I slept like a rock even if I did sweat through my pajamas (which was a WONDERFUL gift the rest of vacation ><). For breakfast I ate fruit loop french toast, which is exactly as decadent it sounds, and proceeded to go drink beers and play in the ocean the rest of the day with my husband and Matt and family. My conscience was clear, nothing heavy hung on my heart about race day, and it was time to play for a week!

Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: swimming Page 3 of 27

The quiet

Wacky Waco 70.3

Waco 70.3 Pre-Race – The Precipice of the Unknown

Forward

Cozumel 70.3 Bike and Run (Part 2)

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