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2015 Goal Wrap Up

On January 3, 2016

2015 is done and dusted, and it’s time to tally the results. It was a really mixed bag, but as they say, you either win some or learn some, and there was a lot of both things in the last 12 months.

Racing:

Do some soul searching and figure out what is important to YOU for 2015 race-wise, since you may be on a different schedule than Zliten for at least half if not more of the year. Race the marathon Feb 28th only if training is going well. Make appropriate goals as such. No arbitrary January 1st goals on what you’re supposed to PR or tackle next year, just the promise that each race will be for a reason.

Well, sort of. I raced a lot less this year than I have in the past, with doing only five triathlons and four running races, and that was by design. I’ve learned that I don’t love jumping into a bunch of races if my intention isn’t to either a) PR or b) use that race for a specific purpose. So, I actually focused more on the training than amassing a bunch of t-shirts and medals.

Luckily, after winding down after the Woodlands Marathon (and vacation, and recovering, and getting sick before I could actually train again), Zliten bounced back rather quickly and we found ourselves mostly on the same schedule, so I had my training partner back much more quickly than I expected. While I’m a bit more of a higher mileage pony overall and ducked out for some extra sessions/add on miles/split off to do our own thing the last part of runs or bikes during periods of 2015, we mostly attacked the same training.

I had some really awesome races. The Woodlands Marathon may have been slower than I’d hoped, but I ran the whole thing and felt really strong that day. I PR’d race after race after race after race after race in the spring and summer. Rookie and Cap Tex netted me some insane PRs and I showed I was a better athlete this year by improving at Pfluger and Jacks by about 1.5 minutes each time.

I crashed and burned at the end of the year. One time, it was due to circumstances outside of my immediate control. One time, I just lost steam and my brain and body gave up on me. I’m still trying to put together exactly what happened and restore my shaken confidence, after 4 months of training resulted in 2 SPECTACULAR blow ups, but I definitely learned a few things from both the good and the bad:

I’m able to put enough training to be decent (and maybe soon starting to be AG competitive) at the shorter races. My head holds together pretty well and executes well up to the 2-3 hour mark. I’m able to dial in a goal and most times hit the targets (or at least come close).
There’s something about the longer stuff I just can’t seem to fully grasp. I had decent luck at running a full marathon without stopping, but I had spectacular crash and burns at 70.3 and another 26.2.
Still, I find enjoyment in training and dreaming and racing the longer stuff. Or I’d just stop doing it.
Racing a hot marathon on 6 weeks of training banking on post 70.3 fitness is always doable, but never going to be your best shot at a great experience.
Even if I’m having a fantabulously shitty day and want to give up and DNF, that’s not what I do. And that’s something to be proud of, if nothing else.

Training:

Polarized and periodized training seems to work. Continue with this. Easy days easy. Hard days on point. Base periods without electronics or focus and embracing the joy of movement with really loose volume suggestions instead of nailing a certain mileage/pace. Months out of your A race – 85% easy 15% hard. Closer – more goal pace work.

I think I did the best at this than I ever have, though I have room for improvement. I did push the intensity a bit too much leading up to Lake Pflugerville (almost all quality sessions), which I would dial back because I was missing a little give a shit on race day from too many hard workouts in a row. But, I did much less throwing a lot of easy volume at things and trained much more specifically.

1k run miles, 3k bike miles (less on the trainer), 100 swim miles.

Run check (1,022). Bike, so not check (1893). Swim, also not check (45 miles). I definitely had a different focus than I did years before – but when you have 5 months out of the year focused on marathons, 1 month of offseason, and only 1 long triathlon to train for – the volume goes by the wayside.

However, I can tell you that it was the most INTENSE year for swimming and cycling. I did a lot more focused workouts with sets and paces and watts and goals, and I got faster at both. Funny how that works.

Work strength and stretching in as I can.

I’ll have to go back and count this up later because dailymile is being cranky but the gist of it was I sucked at it the first half of the year and was pretty excellent at it the second half, minus December.

DDR is a great plyometric workout.

And my mat broke and the workout room is full of junk. Moving on.

Run streak January.

Nailed it! Doing it again this year, I’m already on day 6 and loving it!

Figure out a time for offseason. True offseason, same as July for you this year. At least 1 month.

Nailed it as well. Had a great 5 weeks focused on water park and lake time above all else.

Food/Scale:

No booze January

In which I held out for 11 days, reset my tolerance for a bit, but with a new promotion and job stress and trying to also clean up my eating and not spend any money, I spent the most miserable and boring 2 weekends of my life and decided that moderation is the key instead of abstinance.

A bunch of other stuff…

I tried to continue to do the lower-grain thing and found it wasn’t the weight loss panacea I had hoped. In fact, I gained some lbs and was kind of cranky about it. I worked with a nutritionist in July and found out

a) I know how to lose weight, I just forgot how. Counting calories, hitting macros, actually sticking to it.

b) It’s counterproductive to try to lose weight during season. Workouts are hard, racing suffers, and I get hangry.

c) I’m still looking for the way to fuel my workouts and sustain me during season without gaining a shit ton of weight, because his plan piled on 12 lbs in one month that I still can’t seem to shake.

I did feel a lot freer being able to eat things in bread and out of flour tortillas and rice and pasta, and I was able to lose weight during offseason (5 lbs in a month) doing that. So, eating a damn sandwich is not off limits. That was nice after a year of bread being the devil.

Work:

The promotion that was up in the air happened. Sadly, reorganization also happened which made doing my new job a whole lot more stressful.

The good:

While I felt like a damn duck, looking calm and composed on the surface, but paddling like hell underneath a lot of the time, my team and I rocked this year.
I feel like this position is probably one of the best fits I’ve ever had in terms of taking my experience and letting me fly. I kind of feel like this is something that my entire professional career has been leading up to, if that makes any sense.
I played a lot of my games. I’m not as caught up with everything as I’d like, but I’m getting closer.

The bad:

Holy hell, let’s talk about that paddling like mad thing. I feel like I blacked out some really stressful periods of 2010, which was my first year of being producer. I’m pretty sure I’ll look back on this year the same way. I think I held it together pretty well on the surface, but I don’t think I’ve needed a 20 day vacation more than I ever did this December.
I got bad at leaving the stress at work. I’ll be honest, I’m not a stress eater, but work definitely drove me to drink at some points.

Life:

I didn’t give away 1 thing every day like I wanted, but I did have a giant garage sale and donate a bunch of bags after it to charity.

Don’t go into a training hole…

I think I balanced the social calendar pretty well. I had to pull back a bit in March for marathon recovery/getting sick, and again in August-September due to family visits/work stress/mental recovery, but I don’t feel like I missed out on too much.

Less facebook/twitter, more short posts here, less weekly recaps.

Well, um, let’s move on, shall we?

Complete the TX tri series with a combination of volunteering and racing.

Yep!

Do something that’s a hobby, not dying in front of the tv, once a week for more than a few minutes.

I actually got really into reading this year. Some periods of time, I did well with gaming. My sewing machine, necklaces, and piano are untouched. 🙁

Actually go scuba diving in lake travis this summer (or somewhere) so I don’t noob it up in the winter.

Yep. It was totally awful. I hope to not have to do that again for a while.

Spend as much time in the water I can.

Ahhhhhhh…. yep!

End the year with 3 words to describe 2015 that are as positive as “grateful, fun, and focused”.

This took me a little while, and while I considered “stressful” as one of them, I tried to look beyond that.

Confident.

Minus the last two unfortunate races of 2015, I really feel like I came into my own this year in a few regards. I have ZERO imposter syndrome anymore at work, I rock at what I do and I know it. I REALLY nailed some races this year. I’m a lot more confident on the bike though I know I have a long way to go. Of course I still have those worries if I’m doing the right thing at times, but I have confidence in the things I chose being the best decision I could make at the time.

Committed.

Again, in so many regards, I spent the year saying, “rock and roll, let’s do this” and then having to follow through (and doing it). The major stuff – I didn’t quit. Even when it was hard. Even when I wanted to. Sometimes this caused a bunch of stress, but, I feel much better about following through with the hard stuff and learning the lessons. True, it tested my strength and pushed me to the limits of my capacity and sanity at times, but here we are, and I’m ready for more.

Fluid.

This is kind of a two parter. I found so much joy, so much healing, so much… love in the water this year. Paddling, swimming, racing, kayaking, snorkeling, scuba diving, waterpark-ing, and sometimes just existing and kicking back. I am not me when you remove my water… I am a pisces through and through.

Also, I found fluidity in life to be my savior this year. The January streak and the whole Woodlands training block made me realize that “run – a lot – whenever and whatever” is actually a decent way to train for a marathon. Work threw me curveballs and waking up in the morning sometimes was hard, but I learned how to run with a headlamp or at lunch or just sucking it up and training in the heat like a dang animal. When work projects started to go sideways, we always got things back on track by having a little fluidity in the plan and being able to attack a problem from many angles.

So there you have it. 2015 had it’s ups and downs, but at the end of it all – confident, committed, and fluid are not terrible ways to sum up 365 days of life.

Kerrville Race Report

By Quix

On September 30, 2015

In Uncategorized

Hoooboy. Let’s get started, this is a long one.

Earlier race week, I got really sick, and then got better. Bullet #1, dodged. I actually had great sleep all week. I ate according to plan and had two days of really great carb loading (400+ carbs, sticking really well to my other macros) and felt really rested and fueled and was ready to go by the time I tucked into bed around 8pm Saturday night.

Ugliest race shirt ever. The logo is pretty cool, but the gold v-neck and the maroon stripes on the sides with white text that don’t actually match anything means this one is probably going right into storage…

I went to bed and drifted off to sleep around 10-ish and slept fairly fitfully and then… **TMI warning incoming** that lovely and wonderful time of the month came knocking like a drunken asshole at my door at 2am race morning, waking me up with killer cramps. This particular 24 hours of each month is the one where I normally cancel or heavily modify my workout plans and sit on couch in a red meat, chocolate, and pain-killer stupor.

Racing really hard for 6-7 hours in the heat is generally OFF the plan those days. But, hey, sometimes when you roll the dice, it comes up craps. I don’t love racing on painkillers, so, I tried to suffer a bit and go back to sleep. After being awake for 45 minutes in the fetal position, I said FUCK THAT NOISE and took 2 aleve. That dulled the pain a bit, but after I slept a bit more, woke up, and ate breakfast, I took 1 more (my normal dose for cramps) because I still had twinges and said que sera sera. The race was not happening without it.

It definitely impacted my ability to FEEL anything before the race. Even with a full dose of purple stuff, I did all the things you do before a race in a stupor and I practically fell asleep in line to get in the water instead of bouncing around like I normally do and I totally ended up in the back of my age group because I didn’t pay attention, but all of a sudden it was 3, 2, 1, splash, and whether I was ready or not, the race had started for me.

This obviously wasn’t where we swam, but I LOVED our hotel pool!

Swim:

It was quickly apparent that my top 2 gears were missing, but I just tried to roll with it. The current this year ran perpendicular to the shore, which made it COMPLETELY not useful because most of the course was parallel so it was just this annoying side chop that kept pushing you off course.

My watch kept telling me paces that seemed pretty great so I didn’t worry about it, but I could definitely tell the effort wasn’t there. I knew I was in trouble when I thought I hit the halfway point at 18 and was excited… then kept swimming and realized I was closer to the actual halfway point at 21. My heart kind of sank and I just kept trying to plug away at it, but I knew I wasn’t going to have a stellar time. I was cursing my lack of open water training in the summer, and the fact that I haven’t done more than 2000m but ONCE this year, but in retrospect, I think it was more the conditions of the day.

When I got out and saw 44, I was like… what in the actual FUCK? I mean, I didn’t have a lot of gas but 2:17/100m pace is like paddle pace for me. That’s 4 minutes slower than last year. However, my watch did show 1.35 miles and while I went a little off course, I don’t think I went 250m off. 😛 Other folks said their swim experiences jived the same way so at least I felt better about it after the fact, but still, I was disappointed.

Also, I had to pee the whole frickin’ time and just couldn’t. I am a master at the wetsuit pee. That annoyed me.

I usually love the swim at Kerrville and instead was just cranky about it going into T1. It was a crappy start to a long day.

Swim Time: 44:06, 2:17/100m, 7/13 AG

T1:

While I didn’t hit my sub-3 goal, I did actually hustle in and out of this quicker than last year. Not being super winded from the swim helped, I think. I saw Zliten at his rack and told him I had a terrible swim and I’d see him out on the bike course (he took off about 1-2 mins before me).

T1 Time: 3:56, 8/13 AG

Bike:

I tried to get my annoyed attitude in check and figured if I had a great bike, I could easily make up some minutes from the swim. I got out and going, and within the first half hour took down a gatorade and a caffeinated gel. I was trying to knock out this crap headspace with rocket fuel.

At first, it worked. My bike pace was pretty good, I passed Zliten on the bike and kept things pretty steady on the first lap. Things started turning around. I’m sure a lot of things happened in that 1:30+change it took for me to ride those 29 miles, but I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember feeling like my day was turning around.

Then, on the second lap, my cramps decided to make it known that they were NOT enjoying the idea of 56 miles of bumpy riding (ok, maybe only 40 of the 56 are bumpy, but still). To someone who’s never had the privilege of menstrual cramps, let me put it this way: imagine you had a stomach ache – and you had to kick your stomach constantly for 3 hours. I made up songs about my uterus hating Kerrville and sang them out loud. I asked the universe to please, please make it stop.

And then, it nearly did. Right before mile 50 is a steep hill. I passed someone right before the hill, and then halfway up, they tried to pass me back. They swerved out to the right and then when a car came through, they swerved again… RIGHT INTO ME. I lost my balance but tried to reach out for them to steady myself on instinct, and then we both kind of fell down on top of each other.

FUCK. It was the lowest of the low speed collisions, and I thought nothing of it at the time, but my handlebars are torn up, I have some painful bruises and some baby road rash, but you don’t notice any of that on race day adrenaline. You just know that you and a bunch of other people that almost ran over you are walking up a steep fucking hill and wasting fucking time because fuckery. Fuck. Can I swear a few more times? I know I did on Sunday!

Day after. It actually looks a little worse now, the bruises took about 2-3 days to really come out. Every time I accidentally kneel on something it’s a world of pain.

Once I crested the hill, I got onto my bike and started to clip in and… um… something didn’t feel right. I just kind of sat there and stared at my bike until this angel of a gentleman came by and asked what was wrong and I was just like “my bike isn’t working right” and he unclipped and I was like “no, no, don’t stop your race for me” to which he said “it’s not like I’m winning this thing, let me help”. He helped me figure out what was wrong and held my bike up while I clipped in and it went forward, so I thanked him profusely and got on my way.

We went down the hill and then… about 5-6 more miles mostly uphill were left on the course. And my bike wasn’t getting above 11mph. Fuck. At first I thought I was just slow, but I had a bunch of people pass me and ask me if my bike was ok, and I said “it’ll get me to T2”. So, yeah, let’s add a fucked up back brake that rubbed the entire time to the list of casualties. After the race, Zliten showed me how I could have potentially fixed it temporarily, but it would have disabled my back brake, which seems a little dicey.

After about 30 minutes of straight mashing and seeing my average pace drop from above 18 mph to 17 to 16.4 by the end of that torturous 6 miles, I was flattened. I almost in tears and just never wanted to ride my bike ever again. And it’s not as if my cramps had gone anywhere. Not in the slightest. Salt, meet wound.

I was thinking that the universe was punishing me for asking for a reprieve and having a bad attitude during the race, and that I was a weak triathlete and sucked and it was really funny that I thought I could sub-6 ever and I was over it. Insult to injury – I caught a glimpse of the run course during this time and it was a long section without shade, and it was getting HOT. I had serious thoughts about turning in my chip when I got to T2, and going to drink beer and float in the river instead of running that half marathon.

I FINALLY rolled into T2 and was so happy to be rid of the torture device that evilbike had become that morning.

Bike Time: 3:24:47, 16.4 mph, 11/13 AG 🙁

T2:

I walked my bike in. I had lost all give a shit. I racked my bike, dumped my run bag, and found my purple gatorade and took most of it down in about 3 seconds. In my haze while thinking about how to drop the race, I took off my bike gear and found myself with my run gear on. I figured that at the very least I should start the run and see if I got my legs under me and I should tell Zliten I was ok, and well, you just kind of run after biking if you’re a triathlete. It’s what we do. So, after the longest T2 ever (it was DECIDEDLY NOT HOT LAVA, I could have easily been out in under 2 minutes if I hustled), I got out onto the run course.

T2 Time: 3:41, 8/13 AG

Run:

Let’s just say that running with cramps is probably as uncomfortable as riding, just in different ways. I got out on the course and ran the first mile the best I could, but it was obvious the run I wanted was NOT coming out of my body that day. I ducked into a porta potty right before mile 1 and peed (fiiiiinally) and had thoughts of just sitting there and taking a break and seeing if the pain would go away. Then, I realized I was in a stanky ass porta potty and got myself out of there.

I found my herbal muscle relaxers in my handheld and took them, figuring they’d help me out even if I dropped at some point, and then the first mile split at like 14 minutes.

I broke.

I started walking, saying fuck it, I didn’t care anymore. I was over it. I mostly wanted to tell Zliten I was alright so he wouldn’t worry, and I figured it would be the punishment I deserved to make myself walk 13 miles in the stupid hot 90 degree sun and I didn’t deserve to drink beer and float if I was this crappy of a triathlete. Hormones + bad race + behind on my gels = huge mental downward spiral. I am not a crier but I probably shed a few tears in the first 2 miles behind my sunglasses and might have had a full on meltdown if so many people weren’t looking at me on the out and back course. I saw Zliten and told him what happened and that I didn’t know if I was going to finish the race and he gave me a big hug and I felt a little better.

Then, all of a sudden around mile 3, the 303s kicked in, the massive amount of gatorade I’d drank made me feel a lot better, and I started running more than walking. I had lost any hopes at a even a PR on the last 6 miles of the bike and the first 3 miles of the run, but I could salvage things and have a better rest of my day.

I decided to take all the pressure off and stop trying for a specific time, but to just get to the finish as fast as I could without killing myself, running when I could and walk when I physically or mentally needed a break. Just like last year, my run was in the 9s and 10s, it felt good to run that speed, I just needed to intersperse it with powerwalking in that heat and in the condition I was in (cramps + actually a little in pain from the bike crash, though I didn’t piece that fact together until way later).

I had a gel. I started smiling and talking to people. I let the kiddies at the aide stations fill my bottle even though it took longer. I actually started to enjoy the run course and have some mad respect that on a different day, I could have a huge run here since it’s pretty gentle rolling… slight terrain changes? I wouldn’t even say hills. Totally runnable. Just not after the day I already had on Sunday.

I caught Zliten halfway through the second lap, and we took a little walk break together, but we were on different speed plans that day (it would have absolutely broken me to run 12-13 minute miles and he couldn’t keep up with 10s when I was running) so we said adieu and I ran up ahead.

I watched my 2013 time tick by, and I watched 7 hours also tick by, but at that point, I was just happy I didn’t quit (and… let’s not tell him, but also happy that I beat Zliten even though I wish he had a better day too) and ran it into the finish. Good thing too – to move up a place I needed about 30 minutes, but I beat the lady in 10th by about 30 seconds. That’s something.

Run Time: 2:53:10, 9/13 AG, 13:13 min/mile. Whatever. For a split of about 50% run and 50% powerwalking, I’m at peace with this.

When I started the run I didn’t even feel like I wanted a medal for this race but I actually wore the fucker for two days. I earned that one by sticking it out and not quitting on a really tough day.

Total Time: 7:09:42, 9/13 AG

Parting thoughts:

I’ve had a great 2015 tri season before this race, and eventually you have to have one spectacular explosion, I guess, but I do regret that it was my biggest race of the year in which I don’t have another crack at the distance for… probably at least another year.

If I wasn’t rolling right into marathon training, I would consider signing up for the same distance at the end of next month (Austin 70.3) and trying to roll my fitness into a better performance, but I think I’d rather just stick to the plan and let this one go.

Both Zliten and I are really thinking long and hard about how to proceed from here. We had been talking about doing an Ironman in early 2017, but we’re really reconsidering that after this race.

I love the long course training. I’m a workhorse. I was kind of looking forward to the ramp up and riding my bike for 5 hours and long runs more often and more training hours, but it’s the racing part that frustrates me. I just feel like I fall apart in these long 4+ hour races and I’m sick of it.

I can be solid in sprints and olympics and the 5k to half marathon distances on down for running. I wouldn’t say I’m awesome at them, but I’m a lot LESS BAD. Sometimes, even age group competitive – I’m not often taking home medals, but I’m regularly finishing top 1/3 or 1/4 and I’m starting to think about incremental improvements over the next year or two that I might actually be able to start racing for at least third more often in the smaller races.

But I’ve always wanted to climb the mountain. Especially if it made me fall down the first time.

As a kid singing, all I wanted out of life was to be a soprano with the high lilting voice and all the cool solo parts. I would always audition for those roles even though I had a deep (and pretty decent) alto type voice. Maybe if I would have stopped forcing it and went with what I was actually good at, I might be able to have done something with it. I just have this stupid desire to climb the mountains if the mountains are there, even if maybe I don’t have the right equipment.

If I suck at it, it’s just something I need to bang my head against until I’m good, right? In my 20s, I sought to get out of a job title I actually liked a lot because it was too easy. I was actually really good at it at the get go. I instead took the harder one that I frankly sucked at and it felt uncomfortable and took me MANY years, but I’m finally good at it. Really good. And I grew in ways I wouldn’t if I hadn’t gone this route.

But… maybe that’s not the answer to everything. It sucks to suck at things. You have to have passion to suck at something for years. When you suck a little bit less each year, it’s at least comforting you’re making progress. But this year, I sucked more at 70.3 than I did the last two years. Sure – there were mitigating circumstances. I’m almost not even talking about the total time. I’m talking about the INCREDIBLE meltdown and bad attitude I had all over the course. I thought I was over that as an athlete. I guess not. I didn’t give up, but I was really close.

Maybe I’m the bee – at it’s weight and body shape it has NO CHANCE of flying via the laws of physics. All the laws of time and space forbid it to get off the ground. But, as they swarmed me as I rolled my stupid broken bike ridiculously sticky with splashy gatorade out of transition, (oh, right, another thing on the bike – I forgot my aero bottle sponge so my liquid went everywhere with every bump…) I was reminded they fly somehow even though they’re not supposed to.

EDIT: ok fine, after research, that’s not totally true. But I like the analogy. So, shut up, science. 😛

Then again, maybe I’m just the freaky kid in a bee costume jumping and buzzing around. That’s probably more likely. 🙂

I’m less than 3 days out of racing and still feeling incredibly raw. I pegged myself as annoyingly fine the day after the race. I was barely sore. Then, over the next 48 hours I found bruises and scrapes and my brain still feels like it’s wrapped in cotton and my legs still groan at stairs. A bit less so after 3 sleeps, but I’m still getting emotional thinking about this stuff.

It may have not been every inch I had in my body, but seven hours of mental gymnastics, raging emotions, and mood swings, not to mention the actual physical toll of running, biking, and swimming in the hot sun for 7 hours, takes a lot out of you. Post race evening, I thought I might go for a shakeout run the next day – ha! It’s clear that physically I can use a break, but probably more so mentally. After a disappointing race, it’s SO difficult not to just start training hard the next day (well, if I fucked this up, I just need to train more), but that is a recipe for disaster.

Either way, you don’t make big decisions in this condition. You eat the gawddamn half lb hamburger and fried pickles you’ve been craving for 3 weeks but they’re too much fat, and you wiggle around the house with your post race inflammation on display while you drink some beers and sit on your ass for a few days.

I’ve got my my course set for about the next 6-9 months, and I’ll start out on that path mid-October and see if it’s the one I should continue to follow. I’m excited to set out on a run build after this little break and maybe see about two more cracks at long distance racing to see if there’s any joy to be found there this year. At the very least, the simplicity of shoes on, out the door, sounds awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing what the fall holds for me.

2014-2015 Season Recap

By Quix

On August 5, 2015

In Uncategorized

Usually I have this big deal about wrapping up my seasons and setting goals for the next, but five weeks ago I just sort of went quietly into #offseason and didn’t really think much.

I think the main reason for that is… it was a pretty great year. Sure, I can definitely think of some things I want to improve upon, but a PR for every single distance I raced (and every RACE I raced, minus 1 hilly marathon) is not anything to sneeze at.

But, I like to look back at this stuff, so let’s navel gaze, shall we?

Things I did right:

1. Consistent training.

I had no weeks where I was completely knocked out by injury. I had a few niggles here and there, but I was completely doctor approved to run through them and nothing hung around too long. My body showed up all year and I was able to swim, bike, and run each week from July 28th 2014 to June 21st, 2015 at my discretion.

One of the best things I did for myself was that 5 week run streak in January. It taught me that I could run in any conditions, that running didn’t have to be a special event. It taught me how to really do a recovery run. It made me harden the fuck up and get the miles done because it I couldn’t put it off until a better day. I also think it’s one reason I was able to run the whole marathon in February.

2. Taking enough time off during season to stave off major burnout.

I had at least one week off after each major race, and one ramp up week after that. I also followed each major race with vacations – in some cases that helped my stress levels and in some cases it didn’t.

October – 70.3 recovery – one week OFF, one week low volume (5 hours).
December – Marathon #1 recovery – one week OFF, one week low volume (5 hours).
March – Marathon #2 recovery – one week OFF, two weeks low volume (3-5 hours).

After that, I took about 1 recovery week for every 3 weeks of solid tri training. This helped me stay mentally with it pretty much through the end of my season instead of being OVER IT a few months before like 2014.

3. My head game

While I lost it a little bit at times, I felt like 2014-15 was a breakthrough season in many ways because of how much better I got mentally at racing, not just physically.

I did sessions to really focus on keeping my head straight and simulate racing more often, and I think this helped me… y’know, race well. I was executing by rote instead of constantly problem solving new things I didn’t expect.

I went into just about every race feeling excited, rested, fueled, prepared, and motivated. It might help that I wasn’t racing any new distances, but I also pursued some lofty goals for each one.

I attacked every race. I never let myself do the “well, it’s not your race, let’s just jog this one in and forget the time” thing. If I was missing my A goal, I was doing strategerie calculating how to accomplish my B goal. This season was the one where I hung the fuck on every race, even if the day wasn’t going 100% my way.

I can’t lie – the marathon results frustrated me. I still can’t believe I can’t boast a sub-5 PR after everything I did last year. But I bounced back pretty quickly from both races and was thrilled with what I DID achieve; especially once I started in on the shorter stuff and started obliterating PR after PR.

I also was able to salvage my season even though I lost my training partner for a few months due to injury. I also think because I stayed motivated and training, he was more motivated to get back into the swing of things quickly.

4. Training Specifically

As a 70.3er and marathoner, it’s really easy to overtrain the easy distance volume. It seems reasonable if you’re going to do a few long events throughout the year, you should always be ready to race the distance, right? Multi-mile swims, 3-4 hour bike rides, double digit runs should be done no matter what you’re racing, right?

Sure – if you want to stay the same speed and get burnt out. Taking a few months to work on shorter distances without so much endurance fatigue made me speedier. We’ll see how this plays out now that I’m having to ramp up the mileage rather quickly… but it helped me be mentally and physically ready to race each race knowing I specifically prepared for it. When I’ve been doing 70.3 volume, I’ll show up to sprint triathlons thinking “what the fuck am I doing here, this is a waste of time”. Not this year. It was fun!

Things to improve:

1. Losing a bit of focus during the winter.

I may have consistently gotten out there, but most of my marathon training was literally running however many miles however I felt like running them. To take my racing a little further, I think I need to put a little more intention into my run training.

There is definitely a time and a place for workouts that involve just running whatever, but once a week I should have a structured shorter workout, and I should ALWAYS have a focus for my long run (even if it is just run 20 miles easy – that should be a choice, not default).

I definitely had some low points during the winter where I wasn’t able to get myself out for my long runs and I just hated everything, but I was able to pull myself together in time.

2. Letting myself gain weight during season

At Kerrville last year, I was pretty lean (for me). I gained about 10 lbs between October and May. I’ve got about 5 lbs of that off, but it took a LOT of work. For most of season, I didn’t track my calories, I didn’t take pre-and post- workout recovery seriously, I ate until I was stuffed, and while I ate a lot of healthy food, I also ate a lot of junk.

Obviously I need to eat a lot to fuel training, but I also need to keep it in check. I also found at the end of the season that proper fueling before, during, and right after intense sessions helped me to eat less calories the rest of the day.

3. Peaking for my last race about 2 weeks too early.

I’m still not quite sure what happened here or why, but two weeks out of Pflugerville I was so ready to kick it’s ass. Once the race got there, I was kinda meh and didn’t have 100% mental oomph that day. The only thing I can think of is that I ramped my volume wayyyy down and dialed the intensity way up too early. I also started to reduce my calories a bit there, which always fucks with my motivations.

4. Dropping the strength work

Looking back, I did 24 strength sessions last season. That’s approximately one every two weeks. That’s not so great. I should be doing maintenance work 2x week, and I know this. This is also one reason why I was only able to eek out 9 pushups before failure when I started the pushup challenge. Let’s not do this again, yeah?

It’s hard to fit in when I’m trying to swim/bike/run as many miles as I can but it’s worth it.

This year will be a little shorter in terms of focused season but I still have the same big 3 races to tackle. Next post/soon, I’ll summarize the general goals I have through March.

Jack’s Generic Sprint Tri – All Was Given

By Quix

On August 3, 2015

In Uncategorized

Taking time off from triathlon is always a leap of faith. What happens when you go back? What if you forget how to race? What if you suddenly suck at it, or it’s not fun? What if you have so much caffeine that you suddenly blast off into outer space? These questions and more will be answered in this post…

Jack’s Generic two years in a row has proved that #offseason over summer is a really great thing and five weeks is definitely not long enough to lose enough fitness to care about.

It was a clash of things over the week:

Rested legs vs lack of training. (obviously)
Crappy sleep during the week vs AMAZING race night sleep. I was at over 4 hours slept debt for the week against my 8-per night minimum, but I fell asleep at 7:45 and slept almost 9 hours Saturday night. Unheard of race day sleep!
Obsessing over the race vs not even thinking about it. It really didn’t hit me I was racing until I picked up my packet. I didn’t lay my stuff out until after dinner on Saturday. I didn’t type up or think about goals for it.
Being underfed vs being a few lbs lighter. I had been at the lower calorie range for the last few weeks, but I was ~5 ish lbs lighter than when I raced last season.

My enthusiasm wasn’t all there this week. Just like last year, I wondered “why the hell did I sign up for this race?”, because who races well after 5 weeks of slacking? But, Saturday, I felt a twinge of “yay race” when I picked up the packet. Coupled with the amazing sleep and the fact that I ingested the proper amount of caffeine on race day morning (see above), I was peppy and happy and had the thought that I was just ready to go for racing hard, whatever that happened to be that day.

Pre race stuff: ate kind bar (going to switch over to more carbs, but I haven’t tried it before AM workouts yet so stuck with what I knew), had purple stuff, set up transition, pottied a few times, ran about half a mile with strides and WOW my legs were feeling great, got kicked out of transition because it was time to go, got a warmup swim, and then stood on the beach with Zliten and B and M and waited for our time to jump in line for the time trial start.

Swim:

Due to the massive amount of Hydrilla in the lake, they skipped the normal course and bushwhacked the nature through this weird out and back. I can’t thank Hi 5 Race Productions enough for doing this – it would have been AWFUL to race through as it was. However, this resulted in a lot of dodging people going my way because the course was very narrow, not to mention avoiding stray swimmers coming toward me that were off course. No head on collisions, but there were a few close calls.

Besides playing crazy swim taxi, I felt pretty strong, passing people left and right, and I got passed maybe… once. I slowed down a little bit coming back. It was into the sun and I didn’t have a good judgment on how gassed I really was without training lately so I tried to stay… moderately gassed. 🙂

Swim was a little long, my time was 1:52/100 yard for 550 meters on the garmin – not my best, but under the circumstances, I felt like it was a good swim for me.

Swim time: 11:14/500m. 6/20 AG, 47/152 gender, 105/283 overall. 1:27 faster than last year. Very happy with the placement and the amount of time I took off from last year!

T1:

Long run over the rocky beach, and my feet just don’t love that, so all these people I passed on the swim went right by me. Ugh. Once I got to concrete I picked up the pace and got to my bike and didn’t fumble too much.

T1 time: 2:49. 7/20 AG, 42/152 gender, 104/283 overall. 4 seconds slower than last year. Eh, whatevs, close enough.

Bike:

Got going on the bike and cooked it as hard as I could and sipped my gu brew because I was REALLY thirsty. Going to have to figure out how to tote around liquid when my start is an hour and a half after transition closing.

My goal was to just rock the bike as hard as I could since I knew the run would be miserable no matter what. I fell in (legally) behind this chick that was going right about my speed for a while, then passed her, then looked for the next person who was going about my speed, rinse and repeat.

The first 5 miles I took down real quick – I was close to 20 mph and thrilled about life and it was hard but I was fighting the good fight. However, the wheels started to come off (figuratively, not literally). I started losing the battle to race hard. I was feeling like I just didn’t have enough juice. I felt kind of nauseous. I was slowing. It was either give in, or take the chance on making things worse in the gut and try rocket fuel. So, rock and roll, I put down a caffeinated gel.

It was a good decision. In a mile or two my stomach settled. I felt like I had a little more to give. While it was a crowded course, I didn’t have too much trouble with people. I tried to ride aggressively as much as I could, but I think this is really where I felt the 5 weeks off more than anywhere. My power numbers vs effort will come back but it was definitely not quite where it was in June.

The power readings were absolutely USELESS during a sprint when you are just riding as hard as you possibly can the whole time, but gave me some nice stats for later: 171 HR AVG (92% of max), 83 cadence (decent with some coasting), 49% L/51% right balance, 157W avg, 161W 20 min power, 173W normalized power.

Bike Time: 43:09/12.9 miles. 4/20 AG, 29/152 gender, 104/283 overall. 44 seconds faster than last year. While I may be a little *meh* on the particulars of the bike, it’s solidly my strongest triathlon leg now in the rankings and I definitely gave all I had to give today. Looking forward to more work over the next 8 weeks to be able to give more.

T2:

My legs were a little wobbly getting out of the pedals but I made to back to my rack and changed without too much fumble or delay. I decided hell to the yes on a frozen bottle, which makes T2 a little slower to navigate, but I believe it may have saved my race.

T2 time: 1:38. 10/20 AG, 60/152 gender, 124/284 overall. 8 seconds faster than last year.

Run:

It was hot, my legs were pretty gassed, and I spent the entire time just hanging on the best I could. The pace was not pretty but I tried to just concentrate on effort. I worked the pace down little by little, and kept an eye on the overall time.

After the first mile, I calculated that I had an overall PR in me, but I had to be careful. Racing in August in the feels like 90+, I know myself, and I know I can blow up and do stupid things like walk during a 3 mile run.

So I tried to find that line, that inch before the explosion, and just hang onto it as tightly as possible. I rode that wave, just chanting to myself “You’re strong, you got this”, over and over and over for at least the last mile and a half. Looking ahead brought me out of the trance I was in, so I looked directly in front of my feet most of the time.

At about a quarter mile to go, a lady with a 60 on her leg passed me and I was like… aw hell no, so I found another gear and followed her into the finish. I couldn’t pass her but I stuck to her like glue. The finish video is hilarious, I look like I’m stalking her but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Stats: 177 HR AVG, 186 MAX. That’s 96% and 101% of my max HR, btw. There was truly nothing more I had to give on this run. Just like the bike, I’m excited to see how this shapes up once I have more to give.

Run Time: 29:31. These gains I’m making racing the swim and bike harder and faster are slowing my runs down a little but if I’m PRing overall every race, it’s acceptable collateral damage. My worst placement of the day, but I’ll take it: 10/20 AG, 60/152 women, 156/283 overall. 44 seconds slower than last year.

Overall time: 1:28:18 (1 min 34 sec faster than last year). 5/20 AG, 41/152 gender, 118/283 overall. Top quarter both AG and gender, and top half overall. I actually beat all these these guys this time, which is NEVER a given!

By FAR, my best placement in a triathlon. If I would have been able to find 2 more minutes on the course, I could have placed 3rd, but I can safely say I did not have 2 minutes anywhere today and raced my ass off. I found the floor of my pain cave and dug it a little deeper. I’ll be happy to take this stuff into the next training block.

After the race, I spent the day eating everything in sight, and went to bed around 8:30 to read and fell asleep around 9. I still feel a little brain-dead today, but not that sore and like some great sleep-healing went on last night.

Now, that I’ve had one last romp with the short stuff, with the 90 minutes of speedy pain, we start the volume build towards SIX HOURS OF PAIN at the end of September. 🙂

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon Recap

By Quix

On June 22, 2015

In Uncategorized

Some days you have that little extra something special, and some days, all you can do is execute on your training and roll with the punches. I was missing a little bit of fire from the beginning but sometimes that resolves itself. Today, it lingered. But, you play the cards you have on race day, and I didn’t have a bad hand, just not a royal flush.

But really, I think the root of my issues were a little more biological. I spent Friday outside in the lake which was fun, but probably not 100% the best race prep. I didn’t sleep well the night before. I have been cutting calories a bit over the last few weeks. I spent the three days before at a higher calorie count (around 2000 per day), but it might not have been enough. My husband decided to make our caff drink half strength for some reason because he thought I didn’t want any and I didn’t realize until we were on the road.

And… honestly, after a clearer head today and writing this all up, it’s so clear there wasn’t really something magical that was wrong with me, as I had convinced myself there was during the race. I ate breakfast at 4:30am (kind bar and coconut water) and my wave didn’t go off until after 8:15, and I consumed approximately 1.25 scoops of heed and one gel until I hit the finish line, around 10am. That’s just not enough. When I get on the bike in a sprint feeling hungry, it’s not a good sign.

On the flip side, I’m saying all these things about something that was actually a pretty good breakthrough for me, overall. And it’s hard to be taken seriously bitching about a PR, which I’m not.

Swim:

I did not get a chance to do a swim warmup due to a long porta potty line, but I was pleasantly surprised it felt slightly crisp (79 degrees w/no wetsuit feels nice to me). It was my first wave start (not TT) in a year, but I felt like I handled it decently and didn’t get stuck behind anyone, and didn’t have to beat anyone up to get in position.

Oh my, the nature, though. The first and last ~100m were to the surface with hydrilla. It was a fight. I figured I was going to end up covered and tangled in it, will be interesting to see the swim out pictures to see if I had any extra… erm… jewelry. The rest of the time I felt like I was swimming strong, I didn’t sit behind anyone going slower, I kept a fairly smooth stroke, I kept the effort honest.

My watch shows about a 1:56/100m pace for .36 miles (580m). That’s pretty good for me in open water. I’m pretty happy with this. 23 seconds better than last year, which was my previous PR, and there was significantly less nature. Win.

Swim time: 11:10, 8th AG/27, top 3rd overall.

T1:

I feel like I’ve had solid transitions here at Pflugerville the last few years and this was no exception. I was curious why it took me a little longer and then realized that they expanded the parking lot, so transition was bigger. It was a difference of 9 seconds, so no worries there.

T1 time: 2:24

Bike:

I got on the bike and got going and could not get the heed in my system soon enough. I tried to find that insane effort I’ve put in the last two races and it didn’t come right away, but I just did my best to get to work, drink my drink, and pass all the people (except the few on super bikes that passed me).

Then, around mile 4… it started to POUR. At that point, my head got all negative. The roads were in awful conditions in places (good old Pflugerville roads…) and I felt like my biking sucked today and actually had the thought that I was hoping they would pull us from the course because of the weather (what?) and then after the 3 sisters hills I realized I needed some caff and calories, stat. I worked on a salted watermelon gu over the next few miles and eventually things got a little less emo in my head.

It rained on and off, people actually were fairly courteous on the bike and exchanged friendly banter, and I held about 22 mph on the nice long 130 frontage road stretch. Then, as we were turning in, the sun started to come out. No, no, no, no, NO! With the humidity, if it turned sunny, it was going to feel like a billion degrees on the run. I also had to slow for an ambulance almost fully blocking the street.

I forgot to do the “spin easy” thing into transition but it all worked out since I hadn’t ripped my legs off that ride anyway. Considering the rain, and the fact that I had to bike a little more cautiously than normal, and how I was feeling, and all that, I still pulled out a PR (from 2 years ago, actually, which was before this year, the hardest I had ever ridden my bike in my life) by 25 seconds.

Bike time: 46:03, 6/27 AG, top half overall.

T2:

Since I had to hold back a bit on the bike, I was a lot less spent than expected, so I made my way through this quickly. Even with a bigger parking lot, and a completely SOAKED transition, I took 3 seconds off last year. Win.

T2 time: 1:30

Run:

This is where the wheels fell off, kind of. The steep hill out of transition was so muddy I slipped down it a few times. That didn’t help me mentally to start off. I got out on the run, and I couldn’t get my legs to turn over. There was no reason. It had stayed cloudy, so it actually wasn’t too hot (though humid as fuck). The rain had actually made the trail feel LESS slippy to me. I just could not will my legs to go any faster. I tried not to panic, and just to roll with it and work into the effort gradually, because sometimes my first mile just sucks.

I tried to consider another gel in the first mile but it sounded revolting, and for some reason in my head I was worried about wasting it if I couldn’t get it down? (more race brain) so I just tried to get through my bottle of heed as quickly as I could, though more of it probably went on me than in my mouth. I just wanted it to be effing over. That’s all that was through my head. Get to that finish so I don’t have to be running anymore. One more tiny little loop around Lake Pflugerville until I can get with the offseason.

I tried to pick it up a little in the second half, especially when I realized that a 1:30 was still in reach if I put on some gas. I succeeded, a little, because I negative split each mile, but it was… lacking. I gave all my oomph on the home stretch and cramped on both sides of my ribs. That was new. Joel said I looked REALLY rough running it in (I can’t wait to see those pictures if they caught my face), but I was soooo close to that 1:30. It ticked over before I crossed, sadly, but it definitely helped me not to quit fighting along the way.

Run time: 29:21 – 15th/27 AG (bleh), middle 3rd (but bottom half) overall. My second worst run at Pflugerville (my PR is 28:07, which was from 2012).

Total time: 1:30:30 total, PR by 1 min 39 sec from last year’s 1:32:09. Zliten still holds the Lake Pflugerville Tri course record at 1:30:08 from last year, but I got close!

This was me jumping for joy here 3 years ago, and yesterday, I did over 2 minutes better. I’ve been consistently 1:32-something the last few years so while I could have had a better day, this still is progress. 9th/27 AG, 89/290 gender, top half overall. While none of my performances were great in and of themselves, really, I was able to put together a fairly solid race to show that I’m a few feet ahead of where I have been the last few years, which have been feeling like a game of inches, especially with this race.

Now, 5 weeks of offseason. I am so ready. Physically, I feel like I could get back to training tomorrow, and mentally, it’s kind of hard to accept that I don’t have to put together a workout schedule until the last week of July, but I know it’s for the best and once a few days go by, it’ll totally be the new normal not to be swimming, biking, or running all the time.

Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: triathlon Page 30 of 37

2015 Goal Wrap Up

Kerrville Race Report

2014-2015 Season Recap

Jack’s Generic Sprint Tri – All Was Given

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon Recap

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