My first Half-Ironman is approaching quickly (56 days - YIKES!) and I bounce from excited to nervous, to feeling confident, to wondering WTF was I thinking I can't possibly do this! My plan was to do the HIM distance this year and a full IM next year. In the last couple of months or so I began to question this plan. Should I wait? Can I really do it? There was also the question of which one. What race did I want to work that hard for?
Then, a couple of weeks ago Sydney sent me this link. And since then my mind has been turning over. Two new Ironman races were announced for next year and Mont Tremblant in Quebec was one of them. I've been to Mont Tremblant in the winter to ski and it's so very beautiful. I looked at the website and the details of the course. It's a tough one. Lots of climbing on the bike and scary descents. The run course is hilly. The swim, well, any swim for me is a challenge. Could I do this? If you would have asked me a few months ago I would have given you a resounding, "Hell no!" but cycling in Tuscany changed something in me (a post about Tuscany is coming, I promise!). It was really hard cycling and the climbs were crazy hard for me. The descents scared me like nothing before. But you know what? I did them. And although most of the time I was the slowest of the group I got it done. And by the end of the week I was a little bit better at the climbing and little more confident on the descending and I proved to myself that with alot of hard work I can accomplish what I set my mind to.
And so in 14 months - a year after Steelhead, I will tackle Mont Tremblant. It's going to be the challenge of my life. I hope you stay along for the ride - I'm going to need all the support I can get!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Motor City Sprint Triathlon Race Report
My first triathlon of the season was Sunday and I'm happy to report that for once, I did NOT finish at the back of the pack!
The sprint distance for this race was a 500m swim, 20k bike, and 3.3 mile run and was held on Belle Isle, about 20 minutes across the border from home. I'd heard great things about this race and course from friends who had raced it before so I was excited and nervous to try it out. Excited to see how my training is translating into performance and nervous that all of this training wouldn't translate into an improved performance.
Packet pick-up on Saturday went really smoothly. We were given a clear bag with our race number on it for T1 (there were two transition areas), a swim cap, and the race t-shirt. The t-shirt isn't bad in that although it's cotton it isn't that horrible stiff, scratchy cotton you get alot of. It's a soft cotton in a nice colour with a cool graphic. My only complaint is size. Aren't triathletes generally on the slimmer side? Why is the women's small so huge?! Despite that, I did appreciate that the bag wasn't loaded with useless papers and because Hammer was a sponsor you had the option of grabbing a gel from the bin. People crack me up though. The sign on the bin says, "To ensure that all athletes are able to get a gel please take only one" and people were grabbing fistfuls. Really? They're not THAT expensive.
On race day the alarm went off at 4:45 because we wanted to head out for 5:30 to ensure that we had ample time make it across the border and set up transitions. I choked down a bagel with peanut butter and a banana and loaded up the car to head out. Border crossing was a breeze and we arrived at the location to find loads of parking and alot of people already there. Sydney got registered, we got our timing chips, and set up our run stuff at T2. I got a great spot, second from the aisle, about halfway between between the bike in and run out. We then had to get our swim and bike stuff down to the beach area where T1 and body marking was located. It was little odd riding my bike in flip flops, with a bag containing me wetsuit and other gear but I managed the mile to T1 without falling so that was good! It also gave me a chance to make sure that my bike was in the right gear before I racked it. Again I scored a spot on that was second from the aisle and went about setting up my stuff. I went to body marking where they wrote my number on each arm, on the top of each hand, and S on one calf, and my age on the other. Overkill much?
The race meeting and my wave start was still more than an hour away but I put my wetsuit on because it was FREEZING! We chilled out (literally) on the beach and finally at 7:40 the race director held the meeting. The Olympic waves began going off at 8:00 sharp and we got in to do a warm up. I was worried about getting into the water but truthfully it ended up being warmer in the water than out of it. I warmed up for about ten minutes and felt really good. Finally, it was time to head back into the water and get ready to start.
I was most nervous about the layout of this swim course. For a 500m swim there were four buoys that we had to go around. This coupled with all of the buoys meant for the Olympic distance made a little confusion when looking out at the course. The horn went off and I started out feeling really strong. I took the first turn a little wide and started to head to the second buoy. The water was only about shoulder deep here so a good majority of the field was walking or running through the water. I hate that! It's frustrating to try to swim through a wall of people who are walking and not letting you swim by them. Once you turned at the second buoy the water got too deep to stand up in so everyone started swimming. The thrash fest began and I was just trying to separate from the group. I finally got a good line and was sighting the next buoy perfectly. Unfortunately the group was headed to the inside of the buoy when the lifeguard started yelling at them to go around the outside. They all made a bee line towards me and that's when I got pulled under. I came up choking and spitting water and lost about a minute trying to spit out all the water and get myself collected. I was so pissed because I was having a good swim and with such a short swim a minute was big chunk of time. The rest of the swim was awful as my hr was crazy high and I had a hard time getting my breathing down. What I learned from this? Learn to swim FASTER so I can get in front of all this mayhem.
Swim time - 12:22 (78/127 females) - BOOO
There was a fairly long run up to the transition area and I used this time to try to get my wetsuit sleeves off. The sleeves of my 2XU wetsuit are really tight but normally don't give me any trouble. I think because I was so worked up from the swim my coordination was the first to go. Fortunately, I was out of the sleeves and collected before hitting my rack. I stripped pretty quickly and got my shoes, glasses, and helmet on. I lost a little time trying to stuff everything into the plastic bag - the bags would be collected and transported to the finish area - which then proceeded to tear around the top. Finally, I grabbed my bike and ran for the mount line.
T1 - 2:24 - I normally way quicker in transition so this was disappointing
The bike course was two loops plus about a mile of the island. Two car lanes plus the bike lane was closed to traffic for the race (there weren't enough participants to allow them to close it to all traffic). Racers were instructed to stay to the right and pass on the left. This did not happen. The bike course was a complete gong show of people riding all over the place, sometimes two and three wide. I resolved to not let this bother me and just try to pass as many people as possible. The course is totally flat and in fairly good shape. I was happy to see that I was only passed by Olympic distance athletes sporting University of Michigan or Michigan State racing kits and full disc rear wheels. The oddest person I passed was guy on a tri bike wearing an aero helmet but wearing running shoes on flat pedals. I felt really strong on the bike and kept a steady pace. My only problem was trying to figure out how hard to push. I felt like I could have pushed the bike more but was worried about burning out my legs for the run. This is something I'm going to have to work on. I also drank continuously throughout the ride as instructed by Coach Mary. I had Hammer Heed in my aero bottle and was happy to see that I've become better at drinking with an elevated heart rate. My stomach did start to revolt a little about 3/4 of the way through so I stopped drinking. It was still pretty mild out so I wasn't worried about dehydrating but I was worried about puking up the Heed so I made the call. It worked out well.
Bike time - 38:07 for an average pace of 19 mph (24/127 females) - I am VERY happy with this bike time.
I dismounted with no problem and ran it into T2. I quickly switched out the shoes (speedlaces worked great), tossed off the glasses and helmet and grabbed my hat and gel.
T2 - 1:05
I sucked back the gel running out of T2 and gabbed a cup of water from the water station. Right away I fell into a smooth pace and was happy to see that my legs felt great and although I could tell that my hr was high it felt like I could maintain it. The run wound into a nature trail that was in pretty rough shape. The race team had taken the time to spray paint the areas that were heaving and potholed but you still had to be really careful. I passed a couple of people (not in my age group) and was passed by ALOT of men in the 40-44 AG that had gone off after us. I ran based on feel and concentrated on quick feet. Unfortunately a woman in my age group went by me with less than a mile to go. I tried really hard to stay on her heels to potentially sprint it out at the finish but it wasn't meant to be. She ended up finishing about 30 seconds ahead of me.
Run time - 30:58 for an average pace of 9:07/mile (the course was a little longer than 3.2 miles). I'm happy with this and it's a PR for 3.2 miles.
Total time - 1:25:54
30/127 Overall
5/18 Age Group
5th place! I'm so excited by that. Although I was disappointed with how the swim went, and wonder whether I could have pushed harder on the bike I'm really happy with the overall outcome. I was on the first page of the race results for the first time ever!
The sprint distance for this race was a 500m swim, 20k bike, and 3.3 mile run and was held on Belle Isle, about 20 minutes across the border from home. I'd heard great things about this race and course from friends who had raced it before so I was excited and nervous to try it out. Excited to see how my training is translating into performance and nervous that all of this training wouldn't translate into an improved performance.
Packet pick-up on Saturday went really smoothly. We were given a clear bag with our race number on it for T1 (there were two transition areas), a swim cap, and the race t-shirt. The t-shirt isn't bad in that although it's cotton it isn't that horrible stiff, scratchy cotton you get alot of. It's a soft cotton in a nice colour with a cool graphic. My only complaint is size. Aren't triathletes generally on the slimmer side? Why is the women's small so huge?! Despite that, I did appreciate that the bag wasn't loaded with useless papers and because Hammer was a sponsor you had the option of grabbing a gel from the bin. People crack me up though. The sign on the bin says, "To ensure that all athletes are able to get a gel please take only one" and people were grabbing fistfuls. Really? They're not THAT expensive.
On race day the alarm went off at 4:45 because we wanted to head out for 5:30 to ensure that we had ample time make it across the border and set up transitions. I choked down a bagel with peanut butter and a banana and loaded up the car to head out. Border crossing was a breeze and we arrived at the location to find loads of parking and alot of people already there. Sydney got registered, we got our timing chips, and set up our run stuff at T2. I got a great spot, second from the aisle, about halfway between between the bike in and run out. We then had to get our swim and bike stuff down to the beach area where T1 and body marking was located. It was little odd riding my bike in flip flops, with a bag containing me wetsuit and other gear but I managed the mile to T1 without falling so that was good! It also gave me a chance to make sure that my bike was in the right gear before I racked it. Again I scored a spot on that was second from the aisle and went about setting up my stuff. I went to body marking where they wrote my number on each arm, on the top of each hand, and S on one calf, and my age on the other. Overkill much?
The race meeting and my wave start was still more than an hour away but I put my wetsuit on because it was FREEZING! We chilled out (literally) on the beach and finally at 7:40 the race director held the meeting. The Olympic waves began going off at 8:00 sharp and we got in to do a warm up. I was worried about getting into the water but truthfully it ended up being warmer in the water than out of it. I warmed up for about ten minutes and felt really good. Finally, it was time to head back into the water and get ready to start.
I was most nervous about the layout of this swim course. For a 500m swim there were four buoys that we had to go around. This coupled with all of the buoys meant for the Olympic distance made a little confusion when looking out at the course. The horn went off and I started out feeling really strong. I took the first turn a little wide and started to head to the second buoy. The water was only about shoulder deep here so a good majority of the field was walking or running through the water. I hate that! It's frustrating to try to swim through a wall of people who are walking and not letting you swim by them. Once you turned at the second buoy the water got too deep to stand up in so everyone started swimming. The thrash fest began and I was just trying to separate from the group. I finally got a good line and was sighting the next buoy perfectly. Unfortunately the group was headed to the inside of the buoy when the lifeguard started yelling at them to go around the outside. They all made a bee line towards me and that's when I got pulled under. I came up choking and spitting water and lost about a minute trying to spit out all the water and get myself collected. I was so pissed because I was having a good swim and with such a short swim a minute was big chunk of time. The rest of the swim was awful as my hr was crazy high and I had a hard time getting my breathing down. What I learned from this? Learn to swim FASTER so I can get in front of all this mayhem.
Swim time - 12:22 (78/127 females) - BOOO
There was a fairly long run up to the transition area and I used this time to try to get my wetsuit sleeves off. The sleeves of my 2XU wetsuit are really tight but normally don't give me any trouble. I think because I was so worked up from the swim my coordination was the first to go. Fortunately, I was out of the sleeves and collected before hitting my rack. I stripped pretty quickly and got my shoes, glasses, and helmet on. I lost a little time trying to stuff everything into the plastic bag - the bags would be collected and transported to the finish area - which then proceeded to tear around the top. Finally, I grabbed my bike and ran for the mount line.
T1 - 2:24 - I normally way quicker in transition so this was disappointing
The bike course was two loops plus about a mile of the island. Two car lanes plus the bike lane was closed to traffic for the race (there weren't enough participants to allow them to close it to all traffic). Racers were instructed to stay to the right and pass on the left. This did not happen. The bike course was a complete gong show of people riding all over the place, sometimes two and three wide. I resolved to not let this bother me and just try to pass as many people as possible. The course is totally flat and in fairly good shape. I was happy to see that I was only passed by Olympic distance athletes sporting University of Michigan or Michigan State racing kits and full disc rear wheels. The oddest person I passed was guy on a tri bike wearing an aero helmet but wearing running shoes on flat pedals. I felt really strong on the bike and kept a steady pace. My only problem was trying to figure out how hard to push. I felt like I could have pushed the bike more but was worried about burning out my legs for the run. This is something I'm going to have to work on. I also drank continuously throughout the ride as instructed by Coach Mary. I had Hammer Heed in my aero bottle and was happy to see that I've become better at drinking with an elevated heart rate. My stomach did start to revolt a little about 3/4 of the way through so I stopped drinking. It was still pretty mild out so I wasn't worried about dehydrating but I was worried about puking up the Heed so I made the call. It worked out well.
Bike time - 38:07 for an average pace of 19 mph (24/127 females) - I am VERY happy with this bike time.
I dismounted with no problem and ran it into T2. I quickly switched out the shoes (speedlaces worked great), tossed off the glasses and helmet and grabbed my hat and gel.
T2 - 1:05
I sucked back the gel running out of T2 and gabbed a cup of water from the water station. Right away I fell into a smooth pace and was happy to see that my legs felt great and although I could tell that my hr was high it felt like I could maintain it. The run wound into a nature trail that was in pretty rough shape. The race team had taken the time to spray paint the areas that were heaving and potholed but you still had to be really careful. I passed a couple of people (not in my age group) and was passed by ALOT of men in the 40-44 AG that had gone off after us. I ran based on feel and concentrated on quick feet. Unfortunately a woman in my age group went by me with less than a mile to go. I tried really hard to stay on her heels to potentially sprint it out at the finish but it wasn't meant to be. She ended up finishing about 30 seconds ahead of me.
Run time - 30:58 for an average pace of 9:07/mile (the course was a little longer than 3.2 miles). I'm happy with this and it's a PR for 3.2 miles.
Total time - 1:25:54
30/127 Overall
5/18 Age Group
5th place! I'm so excited by that. Although I was disappointed with how the swim went, and wonder whether I could have pushed harder on the bike I'm really happy with the overall outcome. I was on the first page of the race results for the first time ever!
Happy with the outcome
My next race is an Olympic distance in Otter Lake Michigan on July 17th. I'm a little nervous about the swim but what else is new?!
Congrats to all those who raced this past weekend and good luck to anyone racing this weekend.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Italia 2011 - Part I
I'm going to separate the update about my trip into a couple (or few) posts because there was just SO much.
Week 1 - Rome
We departed Toronto on the 15th on the 11 p.m. flight that was scheduled to last 9 hours. I love the overnight flights because I don't have any problem sleeping on planes (I'm pretty small so the lack of legroom doesn't really effect me). The first hour and a half was frustrating because I was SO tired and wanted to sleep so badly and they kept the lights on and wouldn't STOP with the announcements in English, French AND Italian. Finally they turned off the lights, turned on the movie and I went to sleep until about half an hour before we landed.
Immigration and Customs was ridiculously easy - if not a little frustrating for the all of the pushing and cutting in line - we located our shuttle driver, and commenced the harrowing drive into Rome to our hotel. We found a great place to stay on Expedia called the Residence Villa Tassoni. This is a permanent residence with various apartments that they let out for week or longer stays. It was a 10 minute walk to the Vatican, had a kitchenette and balcony, but was not located in the super touristy part of Rome.
Over the course of the next four days we walked many kilometres and I had a limone gelato every. single. day. Some of the highlights were The Coliseum, The Trevi Fountain, Parthenon, The Vatican, and The Vatican Museum. We didn't do any formal tours (though were approached ALOT by people selling tours), preferring to take things at our own pace.
One thing I will say about Rome is that four days is ALOT. It's really busy, and expensive and the constant noise/motion/people can become pretty draining. I had been before but Paul, Dave, and Kathy hadn't so it was important that they went and experienced it. Would I go again? Meh. I don't know.
As far as training went I had arranged with Coach Mary that I would sort of wing it and upload any Garmin data when I got home. Certainly week two would be filled with alot (ALOT!) of cycling so I wasn't too worried about it. I did manage to run twice while in Rome. The second day we were there Paul, Dave, and I (Kathy has a knee injury and can't run) went out for a 30-45 minute run. All downhill for the first half and all uphill for the last half. I felt great and managed a pretty reasonable pace throughout the run. On the Thursday we went out for an hour and a half and that was an awesome run! We found ourselves in front of the Vatican at 6:30 a.m. and there wasn't a soul in sight. We ran to the River and along the path and I did a ladder workout. Running on the cobblestone streets is pretty challenging and my calves and knees were really feeling it by the end but it was an awesome workout!
Some pics -
Week 1 - Rome
We departed Toronto on the 15th on the 11 p.m. flight that was scheduled to last 9 hours. I love the overnight flights because I don't have any problem sleeping on planes (I'm pretty small so the lack of legroom doesn't really effect me). The first hour and a half was frustrating because I was SO tired and wanted to sleep so badly and they kept the lights on and wouldn't STOP with the announcements in English, French AND Italian. Finally they turned off the lights, turned on the movie and I went to sleep until about half an hour before we landed.
Immigration and Customs was ridiculously easy - if not a little frustrating for the all of the pushing and cutting in line - we located our shuttle driver, and commenced the harrowing drive into Rome to our hotel. We found a great place to stay on Expedia called the Residence Villa Tassoni. This is a permanent residence with various apartments that they let out for week or longer stays. It was a 10 minute walk to the Vatican, had a kitchenette and balcony, but was not located in the super touristy part of Rome.
Over the course of the next four days we walked many kilometres and I had a limone gelato every. single. day. Some of the highlights were The Coliseum, The Trevi Fountain, Parthenon, The Vatican, and The Vatican Museum. We didn't do any formal tours (though were approached ALOT by people selling tours), preferring to take things at our own pace.
One thing I will say about Rome is that four days is ALOT. It's really busy, and expensive and the constant noise/motion/people can become pretty draining. I had been before but Paul, Dave, and Kathy hadn't so it was important that they went and experienced it. Would I go again? Meh. I don't know.
As far as training went I had arranged with Coach Mary that I would sort of wing it and upload any Garmin data when I got home. Certainly week two would be filled with alot (ALOT!) of cycling so I wasn't too worried about it. I did manage to run twice while in Rome. The second day we were there Paul, Dave, and I (Kathy has a knee injury and can't run) went out for a 30-45 minute run. All downhill for the first half and all uphill for the last half. I felt great and managed a pretty reasonable pace throughout the run. On the Thursday we went out for an hour and a half and that was an awesome run! We found ourselves in front of the Vatican at 6:30 a.m. and there wasn't a soul in sight. We ran to the River and along the path and I did a ladder workout. Running on the cobblestone streets is pretty challenging and my calves and knees were really feeling it by the end but it was an awesome workout!
Some pics -
Day 1 Gelato Outside of The Coliseum
Gelato - Day 2 :-)
Dinners on the balcony
The Vatican - with NOONE around!
Paul and Dave running along the River
On Saturday we said, "Arrivederci Roma!" and boarded the train for the three hour ride to the Tuscan countryside. Stayed tuned for Part II and more pics!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
May In Review
Well hello again. It's been a while and I'm not sure anyone's still out there? Obviously, I'm back from Italy and will post a review (or likely more than one) of my trip soon.
For today, you'll need to put up with my May In Review. Keep in mind numbers will be skewed because of two weeks in Italy.
Swimming - 6,900 meters in 5.42 hours (14.74% of training time). This is 8,050 meters less (yikes!) than last month but significantly less time spent. There was NO swimming at all for me after May 15th.
Biking - 470.5 kilometres in 26.41 hours (71.91% of training time). Of course, this is because I spent a full week in Tuscany doing nothing but cycling. It's difficult to compare to last month since April was mostly trainer time.
Running - 32.74 kilometres in 4.9 hours (13.33% of training time). This is 55.22 kilometres less than last month but again, other than two runs in Rome during the first week of my trip, there was no running after May 15th.
For today, you'll need to put up with my May In Review. Keep in mind numbers will be skewed because of two weeks in Italy.
Swimming - 6,900 meters in 5.42 hours (14.74% of training time). This is 8,050 meters less (yikes!) than last month but significantly less time spent. There was NO swimming at all for me after May 15th.
Biking - 470.5 kilometres in 26.41 hours (71.91% of training time). Of course, this is because I spent a full week in Tuscany doing nothing but cycling. It's difficult to compare to last month since April was mostly trainer time.
Running - 32.74 kilometres in 4.9 hours (13.33% of training time). This is 55.22 kilometres less than last month but again, other than two runs in Rome during the first week of my trip, there was no running after May 15th.
This weekend brings my first tri of the season. The Motor City triathlon where I'm participating in the Sprint. I'm a little nervous for the swim and hopeful that I'll show improvements over last year.
I hope you're all having successful training weeks and good luck to anyone racing this weekend!
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