Steelhead 70.3* Race Report - Part 3

Sorry for the delay.  Training in earnest has continued as I'm racing the 70.3 distance again on the 11th.  I'll talk a little bit more about that later.

So where was I?  Oh yes, T2, or T1 as it turned out on this day.  I came in off the bike feeling really strong.  Other than almost slipping as I ran in my tri shoes with my bike - note to self: work on getting out of the stupid shoes without unclipping! - I found my spot and felt like I transitioned quickly.  I had already put my soks on before the bike start and grabbed my gel flask, baggie of salt pills, visor and was out of there.  The reality is that my time was slower than I thought it would be and I'm not sure why but it is what it is at this point.

I started out on the run feeling fantastic.  I was at a 5:30/km (8:51/mile) pace and not feeling taxed at all.  This was though the pace that I had held at the Oly in July until shit fell apart at mile 4.  I decided to keep going at that pace until I couldn't anymore as this day had turned into one big experiment.  At one point (I don't remember when - it's all a little foggy) I went to open my little sandwich baggie to take a salt tab and they all flew all over the road.  This would come back to haunt me later but otherwise things were going really smoothly.  I was passing people and the heat wasn't bothering me and I was able to jog through the aid stations.    I was feeling great and excited to see a PB for the 5k, then a PB for the 10k.  People all around me were stopping and walking and I felt awesome and would pick them off one by one.

During our discussion that week Mary had said that it would start to get hard around mile 8.  Well, she's obviously coaching for a reason because mile 8 started to get hard.  I started to feel my quads and lamented the loss of my salt tabs.  I went for Coke at the next aid station and was very disappointed that it was Pepsi - blech!  Coke is bad enough, but Pepsi?  I was looking for pretzels, which I'm almost positive was listed as something that would be at the aid stations but no luck.  In retrospect I should have taken a piece of banana that they were offering but I didn't know any better.  By mile 10 my quads were on fire from the cramping.  At one point I saw a little bag on the ground that looked  like it had salt pills and actually considered picking them up.  I then thought better of it because a)they could have been anything, and b) I was seriously worried that if I bent down I would not be able to get back up.  I wanted to stop to walk so bad but knew that if I stopped, I would likely not go again.  Around mile 11 is the second go at this hill on the run that is a pretty decent climb all things considered.  I used my arms to motor me up and was satisfied to pass all the walkers.  I got pretty big ovation at the top with all kinds of people cheering because I had run up that hill.  That helped a little.

The last mile was Hell.  My quads were cramping and burning so badly that I couldn't feel my feet.  I ran alongside a couple of guys that were struggling as well and we just tried to keep each other going.  I was never so happy to see a finish line in all my life.  Sadly though, the triumph that I had envisioned feeling whenever I thought of crossing the finish line at this race was missing.  I was disappointed and felt a little robbed.  What I can say though is that I am proud of myself for running every step of that 1/2 marathon.  Every aid station, every hill.  I also managed a PB for the 1/2 maration by almost 2 minutes. 

At the end of the day this race was a little anti climatic.  And maybe that's my fault for having built it into such an epic event in my mind.  What I will say though is that it showed me that I am capable of more than I give myself credit for sometimes.

That evening I was already emailing Coach about potential redemption races in September.  I HAVE to get that 70.3 miles in.  I cannot check that box after Steelhead.  And so, on September 11 I will be racing the Half-Rev at Cedar Point.  70.3 miles.  It's not an "Ironman" race but that's just marketing in my opinion anyway.  Of course with this new race comes so many doubts and anxieties like, "What if that was a fluke day?", "What if the swim (my weakest) proves hard enough to screw up the rest of my race?", "What if I bike slower or have a slower half marathon?"  So many questions and worries!

Steelhead in Numbers -

Bike - 3:00:21 (18.63 mph - 53/92 AG)  - My goal on the bike had been 3:15 so this was awesome.
T2 - 2:34  - You'd think I'd stopped for lunch or something.
Run - 2:05:49 (9:36/mile - 46/92 AG) - My goal had been 2:30 so this was awesome too.  NEVER expected to PB. 

Overall I finished 46/92 in my AG.  Dead middle.  I guess maybe I'm not a "back of pack" triathlete anymore?

Almost finished!

Steelhead 70.3* Race Report - Part 2

The alarm went off at 4 a.m. but quite frankly I had been up most of the night.  I wasn't feeling anxiety or nerves but for whatever reason was still frustratingly unable to fall asleep.  I ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich and started sipping my real fruit juice/coconut water mix.  A quick change into my singlet and it was time to meet everyone downstairs to start loading up the bikes.  


We reached the race site a little while later and were lucky that Sydney's husband Andy could drop us off nearby to the park where we could ride our bikes in the last little bit.  As soon as we got out of the car all I could hear was the wind and pounding surf.  I started to get a little worried about the swim given how the weather had been the day before.  Once we were in earshot of the transition area though we heard the announcement that the swim portion of the race was cancelled.  There were 5-7 ft swells, a rip current, and small vessel advisory.  I almost started to cry.  I of course did not want to swim in unsafe conditions because I do have a life to return to outside of triathlon but I had trained for this race for 8 1/2 months.  This was my 'A' race and first 70.3  Also, unlike the swim cancellation that had occurred a couple of years prior they did not add a run to the beginning.  The decision was made that it would be a bike/run, with everyone being sent out by bib number, in a time trial format.  I was going to race in my first 69.1.  Not nearly as satisfying and thus, the 70.3* that will forever mark this experience.


It took me about a minute to decide that I was going to have to sign up for a September 70.3 race and therefore today was going to be a long, hard brick workout.  After what seemed like an endless wait they began sending off the pros one at a time at 30 second intervals.  By the time my bib number came around (567) they were sending us off about 5 seconds apart which resulted in a bit of congestion at the beginning.


Instantly I noticed that my Cateye (that had functioned fine from the car to transition) wasn't functioning.  I had counted on that to tell me my current speed and the distance travelled.  My Garmin was set only to show me my cadence.  I wasn't about to pull off to mess around with the Cateye and I'm not coordinated enough to mess around with changing the data fields on my watch while moving so I decided to race this race based on cadence.  I know that an average cadence of between 90 and 95 is ideal for saving the legs for the run so that's what I did.  


From the get-go I felt really good.  I hunkered down into aero and started passing people.  I caught Sydney (she was bib 508) and asked her as I went past what speed we were going because my Cateye wasn't working.  She replied "Fast!" and shouted at me to save something for the run.  The course is rolling (compared to where we live) and I was having a great time passing people on the uphills (the advantage of being small) and taking advantage of the free speed on the downhills.  I made a point to be conscious of my nutrition and eat and drink when I was supposed to.  I ended up not drinking nearly what I had intended but managed to eat a package of Honey Stingers and two gels during the three hours.  I also took a salt tab somewhere along the line.  I had a very scary moment happen while going through one of the aid stations.  I was not taking anything as I was able to carry all of my required food/drink but ended up about ten feet behind a guy that fell while trying to grab a bottle.  He skidded onto his side, flipped over his bike and began to roll into the oncoming lane.  Unfortunately, I had swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid him going down and had to swerve almost into to the grass to avoid running over him.  I felt sick when that happened and my first instinct was to stop.  I looked back though and a ton of volunteers had converged on him and I don't have any kind of medical skill to offer so I kept going.  It took a bit to get my wits about me again and I was on high alert through the remainder of the aid stations.


I passed the 50 mile marker in what seemed like no time and couldn't believe how fast that ride had gone.  My only complaint about the whole thing was the peletons of (mostly) men that went by.  I don't know if it was as a result of the time trial start (by the time they got to the men's waves they were sending them one on top of another with no delay) or what but the blatant cheating that was occurring was really discouraging.  It especially bothered me when I saw a group of about six men riding in a pack with two women from my age group firmly ensconced in the middle.  I worked really hard to get the time I got and made sure that if anyone passed me I dropped back and that if I was passing I was going fast enough to actually pass.  From reading past race reports of this event it appears that this is a problem at Steelhead and I'm not sure why nothing's done about it.  Okay, rant over.


Next thing you know I was pulling up to the transition area and hopping off my bike with only a half-marathon to go!


Some pics - 

Me, Sydney, and Dave before the start

Bike Start

Loving the bike leg.  Look at my grin!

Coming into transition.  Need to work on getting out of my shoes!

Steelhead 70.3* Race Report - Part 1

"The hay is in the barn."  My coach said this to me the week before Steelhead when I was feeling rundown and like I was getting sick and panicking when she suggested commanded me to take a day off from my scheduled workouts.  This stuck with me and was what I repeated to myself the day before and morning of the race.  There was no reason why I couldn't do this! 


We travelled the 3 1/2 hours up to Benton Harbour on Saturday morning after a quick bike/run brick workout.  Along the way we stopped at an IHOP to load up on pancakes as suggested.  I think Coach Mary's advice was "eat until you're full, then eat one more pancake" -  I could not believe how packed that place was at 10 a.m. on a Saturday! 


A couple of scary thunderstorms later we arrived in Benton Harbour and after meeting up with some fellow Windsorites for lunch we hit up the registration/expo at St. Joseph High School.  Registration went very quickly/smoothly and we then spent some time trying to part with some money at the expo.  I was disappointed that the Ironman store had only L and XL t-shirts left that had the m-dot with all of the participants names as that was what I really wanted to get.  I ended up buying a t-shirt that says "Ironman in training - 2012" and a couple of stickers.  The rest of the expo was pretty lame if I'm being honest.  I don't know why I'm always expecting these to be better than they are.  Maybe it's because the first expo I ever attended was at the ill-fated Chicago tri and that was gigantic with the best deals and everything you could possibly hope for that is sports/triathlon related.


After getting all registered we headed to the hotel to get our bikes ready as we had decided to check them in that day so that we could take the shuttle from the parking to the race site the following morning instead of having to worry about coordinating our bikes the morning of.  By the time we hit the hotel the weather had turned foul.  I was so happy  that Mary had suggested we do our brick in the morning when I saw all of the other Windsor athletes trying to head out in the crazy weather to get their workouts in.  We also learned at this point that Jean Klock Park, where the race was being held, had closed tranisition early because of the crazy weather and sand storms.  No early bike check in for us.


After a little relaxation we met up with other tri friends and headed out to dinner.  Unfortunately the dining choices in Benton Harbour are not substantial and 16 of us ended up at Applebee's because they at least had a pasta menu.   I had a pretty tasty grilled shrimp on pineapple rice dish that was on their "healthy menu".  After dinner it was back to the hotel for lights out at 9:00 p.m. and hopefully a good night's sleep.


Stay tuned for part 2...

Steelhead 70.3 Teaser

Because I know you're all on the edge of your seats.... :-)

I unfortunately did not completed 70.3 today.  Neither did anyone else though - the swim was cancelled because 7ft swells and a rip current advisory.  No lifeguard boats, no swim.  So booo to that because I can't put a checkmark next to that particular goal.

Anyhow, a full race report will follow but the highlights are as follows:

- Exceeded my goal time for the bike
- Exceeded my goal time for the run
- PRs for not only the 1/2 marathon but the 5k and 10k too

Had the best race of my life but I must admit, I'm feeling a little robbed because of the swim cancellation.  Stay tuned for more....

The Countdown Begins

I have a bib number - 567
I have a wave start time - 7:25
I have a countdown - 10 days

I guess this is actually going to happen.

Tri For Life Olympic Triathlon - Race Report

Better late than never?


Life has thrown me a few curveballs lately, thus the lack of posts.  Thanks God (as my mom would say) for triathlon as the regular routine of training has assisted in keeping me focused and (mostly) sane.


I competed in my first Olympic distance triathlon on the 17th.  The Tri For Life triathlon is part of the 3 Disciplines race series.  I did the Motor City sprint triathlon in June that was also organized by 3D and I can't say enough good things about this race organization.


Having never done this distance I was at a loss as to what to expect both from the race and from myself.  What I ended up with was a mixed bag of results, a couple of good lessons that I will take with me to Steelhead, and an appreciation for the Olympic distance.


We were advised during the week leading up to the race that the water temperature in the lake we were to swim in was almost 80 degrees and as a result we could not wear wetsuits.  My first reaction was to panic.  How could I do a swim without my wetsuit?  I then gave my head a shake and remembered that I have been swimming 2-3 times per week for the last 7 months diligently!  I swim 1800-2400 metres regularly without problem and have been doing open water swims once a week - albeit with a wetsuit - for the last 2 months.  I CAN swim 1.5 kilometres and I can do it without a wetsuit.

Pre-Race
Otter Lake is across the border and 2 hours away from where we live.  Sydney and I packed our bikes into the Flex and headed out at 4:45 a.m.  Crossing the border was no problem and the website directions were perfect.  I choked down a whole wheat tortilla with Nutella before we left - I hate eating so early -and brought another to eat an hour before the race.  I also brought one of my homemade direct energy bites to eat 15 minutes before the start.


Parking was a breeze as there was a huge field about 5 minutes from the race venue where volunteers were on hand to direct cars.  We got registered in no time, body marked, grabbed our chip timers and went to set up transition.  This was a small race as it's only the second year so transition consisted of two long racks on either side of the transition area.  I nabbed a spot close to the bike out/in and set up my stuff.  I was pre-occupied with getting into the water to do a test run of the swim without a wetsuit and as a result didn't do my bike warm up.  This would come back to bite me later.


I was able to get in and warm up for ten minutes.  The water was warm and got deep really quickly.  I actually felt pretty good swimming without the wetsuit and was comfortable.  It felt a little strange swimming in my tri shorts and top (I think a singlet would have been better) but nothing that freaked me out.  I had my new Garmin 310XT set to multisport to keep an eye on my times and could wear it on my wrist without having to worry about getting my wetsuit off around it.


The Swim
All Olympic distance women went off in the second wave a few minutes behind the Oly distance men.  I stuck to the back of the group so as to avoid getting run over by the faster girls.  Automatically I was in a groove.  I felt comfortable and did not at all feel any panic.  This was good!  I sighted every ten strokes or so and my line was perfect.  The course was a bit of a hexagon so you had to really keep an eye on the next buoy but I was having really great luck staying on course.  I did notice that the majority of my wave was up ahead but I didn't let it get to me.  I managed to avoid getting hit until about 250 metres from the end when I caught a couple of stragglers from the men's wave and the sprint distance swimmers were converging.  I got through it though and swam until my hands hit the ground.  Success!  I was stoked to have gotten through that entire swim without once hesitating or stopping.  Then I looked at my watch.  WTF?  Did I stop for a sandwich along the way?  In retrospect I realize that I've always been so focused on not freaking out that I actually forgot to race.  So, for Steelhead, no more thoughts of controlling panic.  I can swim the distance.  I must now focus on swimming faster!


Official time - 38:50 (8/10 AG)


T1
A quick run up the beach and across the street to transition.  The no wetsuit made T1 a breeze.  I got into my shoes, helmet on, glasses on, and GO!  T1 time was 1:40.  Given that Steelhead will involve my stripping off my wetsuit I'm not sure I can have a transition this quick.


Bike
This course is described as rolling with a couple of bigger climbs to keep people honest.  Coming from the flatlands of Essex County it was way more than what we're used to.  I discovered something in Italy though - I love to climb hills.  And given that I'm relatively light it lends well to rollers.  I started hammering on the bike and immediately heard a clicking noise.  I looked down to see that my cadence sensor, which has been strapped to my bike since last September without any problem had come loose and spun around and was hitting my pedal on every stroke.  I figured I'd live with the annoying sound until suddenly it spun a little more and was now hitting the spokes on my back wheel.  The last thing I wanted was to break a spoke over something so stupid so I had to stop.  I got to the top of the next hill and hopped off my bike.  I didn't have anything to cut the zip ties with so had to screw around with moving it until I got it to a spot where it was tight enough and would hopefully not get loose again.  I lost 3 minutes screwing around with that!  So frustrating!  I hopped back on, got into aero, and went.  I started passing people and was able to pass 5 women in my age group (there were ten of us) and many others.  I diligently drank all of my aerobottle and was only passed by two people (men) the entire 40k distance.  The only frustration was once we hooked back up with the Sprint distance people toward the end of the bike course it got to be a little hairy out there.  There were a lot of mountain bikes and people that were obviously unfamiliar with race rules.  They were all over the place and there were a couple of close calls when I passed.  I guess "on your left!" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone?  I got to the end of the bike course feeling really good about my bike and feeling pretty fresh despite the heat (it was over 90 degrees).  For Steelhead I will FOR SURE check my bike over for mechanicals beforehand.  Otherwise I was really pleased with my performance on the bike given the hilly course.


Official time - 1:23:30 - 17.8 mph avg (3/10 AG)


T2
Again, nothing unusual to report.  I did take the extra minute to put socks on since I was worried about blisters.  Given the heat I knew I'd be dumping water over myself and my feet would end up soaking wet.  That, coupled with a 10k distance could prove painful.  VERY glad I did this and I will definately do it at Steelhead.  T2 time was 1:11.


Run
I felt awesome as I headed out on the run.  The heat wasn't bothering me, my legs felt great, and my pace was awesome.  I was on pace to do a sub 1 hour 10k which I've never done before (don't laugh all you speedsters out there) and totally felt like I could hold it.  Then mile 4 hit and I got a stitch.  Since I don't get stitches I didn't really know what to do.  It seemed to feel better when I pressed on it so I ran like that for a few minutes but then the stitch spread across my whole stomach.  What was happening?  I wanted to cry.  I had to stop and walk and even that was painful.  I watched my average pace get higher and higher and my hope of a sub three hour Oly go out the window.  I started a pathetic shuffle/walk.  The slower I went the more I felt the heat.  It was awful and I was so upset!  Finally, with about 1k to go I decided that I could either be out there all damn day or I could suck it up and run the rest of the way.  I started to run and the stupid stitch was gone.  Too late though - the run was blown.  I was passed by only one woman in my age group during the run.


Official time - 1:08:28 (5/10 AG)


Total time - 3:13:37

The woman that passed me on the run?  3rd AG.  Very bitter pill to swallow.

Next up is the big dance at Steelhead.  I'm excited and nervous.  I'm down to race weight and feeling strong.  I've had some really good workouts that make me worried that I'm peaking too early and some crappy runs that make me worried that I can't do it.  I have no idea what to expect out of myself time wise but know that I want to cross that finish line feeling that I left it all out there and that I ran the best race I could run.

Good luck to all who are racing in the next couple of weeks.  Not sure how much updating will occur and although I haven't been a diligent commenter I am keeping up daily with all of your blogs.  And there will definately be a Steelhead race report.

Radio Silence

Rest assured that the training continues.  I'm racing an Olympic distance in Michigan on Sunday and of course the big one this year, Steelhead HIM, is in 33 days.  


Good luck to all in your upcoming races.