Whew, that was hard!

After what seemed to me to be a particularly difficult week of training, I did a quick check of what I was doing leading up to my last HIM.  Surprise, other than my Saturday ride being shorter by over an hour, this week was just as difficult if not more so!  I thought it was hard!

Long ride with new bike fit

Saturday was only my second road bike ride on my TT bike in months.  I’ve done a lot of work on the trainer, even a two hour ride, but not much on the road.  The last time I went out I felt a lot of aches and pains from the new fit and cut the ride short, mostly because of knee pain.  With a race right around the corner I didn’t want to cause any problems.

Nothing has changed with the fit, other than perhaps I’m beginning to get more accustomed to it.  Fortunately many of the complaints were gone this time out.  There is still something wrong with my knee, and it is painful in the neck to go more than 90 minutes.

The ride was 1:15 out and back (2:30 total) which I did on purpose so that I wouldn’t be able to cut it short towards the end.  My legs and cardio held up fine for the entire ride.  My neck didn’t do so well.  It was shot at 1:45, and the rest of the ride was a suffer-fest.

The good news is that I was able to hold the same power output that I did in my last race.  My pace was a bit lower than I‘d hoped for, but with this being my first real outdoors ride in months I’ll take it.

A run in the hills

I’m trying to get in some more running in hills, which is very difficult in Houston.  Sunday I headed out to Magnolia, which is where I do my bike training.  In hindsight I’d have to say that this was easily the hardest course I’ve run.  I’d measured it out the day before while on my bike, so I knew that there were 4 hills that I normally stand on the bike to climb.  The implications of that didn’t sink in until I hit the first one.  All four of these bigger hills were in the 2nd five miles of my scheduled run, meaning I wasn’t “fresh”.

I think I did ok on the first two hills.  My pace might have dropped off some, but I was able to lean forward and push myself through them.  The last two hills came after the turn-around, which put me in a head wind.  Not only were the hills tougher, but there was no break on the downhill or flats because of the wind.  I reminded myself of my goal for the year and pushed myself through them.

The final challenge was a two mile stretch where I was supposed to drop the pace again (the first was after 5 miles).  I did the best I could given the wind, hills, and fatigue; focusing on my music and thinking about out lasting the person next to me.

I finished those two miles strong, then walked a bit to get my heart rate down to a reasonable number.  Running again, those last two miles seemed to go on forever.  It didn’t help at all that it started to rain really hard.  I was really surprised at how heavy my shoes got.  I can’t imagine how I would have fared if I’d worn less water friendly shoes!

Thank goodness today is Monday and I can try to recover a bit!

Fair vs. Right

I’ve spent way too much time over the past couple of days thinking about fair vs. right.  I keep oscillating over what to do, but before I jump to where I stand today, let me start from the start.

To me, fair is pretty straightforward; it is what is allowed by the rules.  Fair is the opposite of cheating.  What is right isn’t quite as easy to define.  Perhaps that is because it could be different for different people.  Clearly, to me at least, the two are not synonymous.

Here is a football scenario to demonstrate my point.  You are losing 30-0, the opposing team has the ball with 30 seconds left, and there is no chance you can get the ball back (let alone change the outcome of the game).  The rules say if you have a timeout left you can use it.  That would be fair.  However you aren’t going to change anything except how long the game lasts, so is it the right thing to do?  A lot of football fans would say no, let the time expire and lose gracefully.

I don’t play football though, I’m a triathlete, and my dilemma is as follows.  I want to qualify for and race in the National Championships this year.  I can qualify at any of a number of races, based on how well I do.  For simplicity sake, let’s assume that I have only to finish in the top 10% in my age group (not true at all, but suffices for discussion purposes since the actual rules are fairly complicated).

My issue stems from the fact that it appears, historically speaking, that some races are much less competitive than others.  One race in particular is so un-competitive that any of my times from last year would have qualified me, and I almost would have qualified with my very first Olympic distance race.  In contrast, there are races where it would take a time almost 20% faster to qualify.

So, do I race in OK where I am all but guaranteed to qualify, or do I race a more competitive race in Austin, and risk not qualifying?  Either race would be fair, but is it the right thing to do to race in OK?

Sadly I don’t have an answer, yet.  I do know that I would appreciate it more if I qualified in Austin.  As soon as I convince myself that Austin is the right thing to do, I wonder how I will feel if I don’t qualify and much slower people in OK do.

I suspect it will come down to whether it is more important for me to race at Nationals (by any means possible), or to qualify (against the best).  Stay tuned for my decision…

Smoking those runs!

I don’t want to pat myself on the back, but to say my runs are really going well would be an understatement.  I continue to push myself to the upper limits of what coach requests, and am finding them somewhat easy!  Yet the biggest challenge is still mental.

I’ve left for my last several hard runs thinking to myself “this is my plan, but can I actually do it?”  I’m not sure why I’m questioning myself before I even start, considering how well I’m running.  Perhaps it is because when I think about how fast I plan to run, it is really fast!

Sunday I went for a run out in Magnolia, where I train on my bike because of the hills.  It was cold, and I started off very slowly.  I didn’t think I had a prayer of running my plan, but my legs warmed up nicely and after the first mile I’d climbed the first hill and was holding my plan.  Not only were the hills a non-factor (other than my inexperience showing in my inability to hold a steady pace), but I exceeded my pre-run plan and still had more left.

I was excited about that run, until I got up this morning and my legs were a bit sluggish.  Knowing I had another hard run and bike workout scheduled for today I was a bit concerned.  Last night I’d made a plan, a fairly aggressive one, more aggressive than what I think coach scheduled.  When I woke up I once again didn’t think I had a chance of holding pace.  I even adjusted the plan downward a bit to be safe.

The schedule called for 2x3 miles, with descending pace every 1/2 mile.  Once I got on the treadmill everything changed.  I used the first 1/2 mile to continue warming up as it was cold outside, and then jumped up the pace to catch up with my original plan.  I felt great the first 3 miles and had no problem with the faster paces.  After a quick bathroom break and chat with a fellow triathlete about swimming, I fired up the treadmill again.  This 3 miles was faster than the first and I had no problem.  In fact, I had to talk myself out of really dropping the pace for the last 1/2 mile.

I am so excited about my running I can hardly stand it.  This is definitely the way to get ready for the triathlon season – with a strong base of running.  Assuming this continues and I can avoid injuries, I am going to smoke some races!

Here is my bold prediction:  I will podium my next race (a 5K), and again my first triathlon.  Hold on racing community, I am on fire!!

I took 5th, which is almost 1st!

Ok, so it’s an inside joke, and skips to the end of the story.  Let me start from the start.

This past Sunday was the USA Fit half marathon in Sugar Land TX.  As I stated before I wasn’t real excited about either the race or how well I would do.  Things didn’t get any better race morning, when we got to the race site only to find it windy, in the 50’s, and raining.

Because of the weather contestants were having difficulties getting to the start.  This caused first a 15 minute, then 45 minute delay.  Of course this information wasn’t dispersed until after I’d done my pre-race warm up, bathroom break, and GU consumption.  Freezing to death in shorts and a T-shirt, I went back to the car to wait for the starting gun.

Sitting in the car, shaking, and watching the rain fall, I had serious reservations about running the race.  I thought for sure I would catch a cold, and it just didn’t look that fun.  In the end it was the finisher T-shirt that got me out of the car and to the starting line.  Who would have thought that a $15 shirt would get me out in that horrible weather for a couple of hours of misery!  I also decided that it was raining too hard to take my iPhone with me for music.  Since I always run with music I wasn’t sure how I would occupy my mind for 2 hours.

Standing at the starting line I knew I had to go to the bathroom again, but the lines were too long and moving too slowly.  Since this was just a “training race”, I figured I would stop at the first open port-a-potty, hopefully at mile 1.

I hit mile #1 right at the pace I’d hoped for, stopped for the potty, and continued on my way.  I didn’t think my pit stop had lasted that long (although I REALLY had to go!), but at mile #2 I found I’d lost a full minute.  I ignored the lost time and continued running at my planned pace.  There were people with watches at each mile marker counting off the average pace (total time/miles run) and I slowly made up time.

At mile #6 I picked up the pace a bit as scheduled.  The plan was to drop 30 seconds per mile, but since I was already running faster than I’d planned for the first six miles (to make up the deficit) it was only about 15 seconds.  I noticed the quicker pace, but was still within my comfort zone and wasn’t hurting much.

The spectators that were wonderful early on really disappeared around mile #9.  The racers had also thinned.  I hadn’t really noticed myself passing people so I assumed that we had just naturally spread out.  I caught up to one runner that had left his friend and passed me miles ago.  I’d pass him, then he would sprint past me.  We ran like that for a while.  At one point I remembered an article I’d read about how it would come to this during the race and I would have to decide if I wanted it more than he.  Finally, after running together stride for stride, he dropped back.  I heard him talking behind me with his friend, the one he’d left behind, about having one more sprint left in him.  I was determined not to let him beat me!

At mile 11 I kicked it into my final gear.  This was, I thought, as fast as I could run for the final 2+ miles.  This last leg was into the wind.  I was getting pretty tired, and my legs were getting cold making the muscles harder to move.  There were some baby hills making it hard to maintain my pace.  I thought to myself that I could explain to coach that I really was working harder even if the pace didn’t show it!  I passed some more people before making the final turn into the last 2/10 miles.  I caught up to a couple more runners.  I didn’t want to pass them this close to the finish, but they were going too slowly and forced me to pass.

Crossing the finish line I checked my time.  It was faster than my goal time, but not as fast as I really wanted.  I think the weather played a role in that, but it is also very early in the season.

I grabbed a bite to eat and headed for home to get warm, without really checking the race results.  Later that night, while waiting for the results to be posted, I checked the results from the previous year.  If things played out similarly I would have medaled, except I didn’t stick around for the award ceremony!  It was a very stressful for night for me, waiting for the results to be posted. 

When the results finally came out, I’d finished 5th and as we all know:  5th is almost 1st!

And we're off!

Tomorrow officially kicks off the new race season, with a half marathon in Sugarland. I'd love to report that I'm excited, but that would be an exaggeration. Allow me to explain...

I've had some really good runs these past few weeks, including two just this past week. And that is the problem: I feel like I've worked too hard this week to do my best tomorrow.

I mentioned that to coach, and she reminded me that this is just a training race. I'm still not sure what that means, other than I'm not going to go in fully rested. Evidentially, doing races in this manner will make me stronger. I hope so, because I don't expect to intimidate anyone with my time!

But, tomorrow at 7 am I'm going to start running. It might not be the bang I'd hoped to start the season with, but I have to start the season somehow.

And so the quest begins, the first of many steps towards my goal. Wish me luck!