CapTexTri is always tough

I remember last year thinking this was a hard race.  Maybe when I’m done here I will go back and read last year’s report and see what I had to say.  That’s what I remember though, it was tough.

I’d been in Austin for a couple of days before the race, and it had been super hot.  I was prepared for the heat with extra water, electrolytes, and a strategy that I thought would hold up.  As we will see shortly, heat wasn’t the problem.

I won’t go into details about my last minute mechanical problems, or the lunatic racked next to me that thought he was God’s gift to triathlons, or my anger at finding someone had moved my bike overnight.  Suffice to say it was a stressful morning and I couldn’t wait for the race to start.

The water was cold, so I wasn’t real thrilled with treading water for 8 minutes, but that is what they wanted.  I hung on to the dock to conserve energy which meant that once the race started I was at the back of the pack.  The swim lanes were pretty wide and it wasn’t long before the pounding and thrashing was over.  I tried to find some feet draft off of, but every time I found some I ended up swimming right on by.  That is the problem with starting in the back.  I focused on keeping my cadence down, long strong strokes and before long the swim was over.  I did have some trouble getting my balance coming out of the water and needed several helping hands to get going.  They had wetsuit strippers this year.  As I plopped down to get stripped I remembered I hadn’t tied my shorts after my last potty break, and hoped she wouldn’t pull down more than she expected!  No problems though and I was quickly back up and running into transition.

While the run to the mount line is pretty long, I was soon off on my bike, only to hear some serious banging and clanging coming from the back of my bike.  One more stroke and I knew something had come loose and was banging around in my spokes – the sensor for my bike computer!  This usually happens when I change out my rear wheel.  I’ll bet you can’t guess where my mechanical problems were before the race!  It didn’t take me long to fix and then I was really off.  I’d used up most of the early flat area before discovering the problem and now had to quickly get my feet in my shoes as we were going up hill.

The goal for today’s ride was to push myself harder than I have in the past to see what happens on the run.  I’ve been doing well coming off the bike all year and was looking for the line that said I’d gone too hard.  I’d gone back and forth with several racers on the first three laps, so I really pressed the last lap and never saw them again.

One thing crossed my mind once I finally got off the bike;  uh-oh!  My legs were their normal wobbly self, but a pain in my hip made it difficult to manage even a simple jog.  I told myself just to keep going, get out on the run, and then figure out what is going on.  I’m not sure when it started, but before going 1/2 mile I had bad cramps in both sides of my stomach.  “Just keep on running” I said, it will work itself out.

I stopped at the early aid stations and dumped 2 cups of water (this would climb to 4 cups by the end) over my head.  I wasn’t hot yet, but it is much easier to keep cool than get cool.  One mile into the course we turned around, right into a brutal head wind.  It had been a mostly cross wind on the bike so I hadn’t thought about it much.  I was going to give it plenty of thought on the run.

Aside from the early stomach cramps, I could feel some rubbing on my left ankle.  I was irritated at myself for not doing a better job of securing my timing chip.  I even thought about carrying it in my hand, but wasn’t sure how the race people would feel about that.  When it started in my other ankle I figured it was my shoes and that it would be a fairly painful run.

I was doing ok for the first 3 miles, but around marker 4 the wheels fell off the bus.  I walked first through the aid station, and then a couple of other times as well.  At one point, with just over a mile to go, some girl behind me shouted some words of encouragement.  I made sure to track her down at the end, because I never walked again.  I saw Natasha about 1/4 mile from the finish line and she was telling me to push harder now, that I could die at the end.  I was already dying, but I did manage to hold to that pace until the finish.

In the end I set a new PR by several minutes, knocked 15 minutes off of last year’s time, and moved up about 180 slots in the overall standings (this morning it was up to 230, so I’m not sure what the real standings are).  I should be pleased, and I would be if I hadn’t of had such a bad run.  I remind myself that part of the goal was to find that line on the bike that I shouldn’t cross, and this was probably it, but it still bothers me.  I was passed by two peers on my last walking session.  Usually it is the other way around.  I don’t feel badly that I walked, I had to.  I feel badly because I had to walk.

I’m sore and beat up, but today starts another training week and I’ve got to get back at it.  Now that I’ve documented my thoughts, I can put the race behind me and move on.  Lessons learned and more experience gathered.

Finally, a night before the race post!

Not only did I remember to update my blog today, but I have time, and most importantly a little something to say!

For me, the day/night before a race is all about keeping things positive and distracting myself so I don't get all worked up. Well things just aren't working out this time!

It started with a simple request at the front desk: point me to a place where I could get some spaghetti that is within walking distance. I knew there was a Spaghetti Warehouse a few blocks away, but it was further than I wanted to walk. There was also a place across the street that had lasagna, but my normal plan is for spaghetti.

I take off for this place that ends up being a 20+ minute walk, mostly uphill. I should have taken the hint when I walked in and they asked if they could help me. I'd like to eat some spaghetti I replied, not sure exactly what he thought I was there for. Then, instead of walking me to my table, he pointed the way!

I got to my seat, and was handed the menu when problem #2 was discovered: there wasn't any spaghetti on the menu. Oh yeah, and it cost twice as much as the warehouse. Oh well, I wasn't going to leave now so we figured something out.

Dinner done, I walked home, only to be almost hit by a bus in the hotel parking lot. Really? Don't they know this is Austin and the pedestrian rules?

Finally I make it to the lobby, along with 3 bus loads of high school band kids with their instruments! I swear I heard them tell one boy he was in the room next to me, but seeing as how they haven't shown up yet I'm hopeful I was wrong. I'm back in my room now, with my feet up, trying to down another bottle of water or two and find something interesting on TV.

The magic question is how do I honestly feel about tomorrow? I told coach earlier today I feel stale as I haven't had a real hard workout in 3 weeks. Coach told me I should be fresh, which is true. My body does feel rested, maybe it's my mind that is stale. Other than New Orleans I haven't had to dig into the mental well for a while. I guess I'll find out tomorrow as conditions are ripe for a tough mental day.

My only complaint is that my hamstrings are still bothering me a bit. They seem to do ok once I get warmed up, so I'm hoping the bike will do the job. On the other hand, they started bothering me more the further I ran. It's a good thing this is only a 10K!

Once again I'm going to try to push harder on the bike. I was told not to watch the power, so I'm going to ride hard enough to keep the burn going whereas I usually back off to just below the burn point. I'm also supposed to start the run a bit faster - then again it could be hot so I'm not supposed to go out too fast. Looks like it will be a race day decision!

Coach said she was going to be out there volunteering, so I've got to make sure I look good when I pass the aid stations and finish strong!

Ironman Texas and our Homestay

Ironman Texas was two days ago.  We were fortunate enough to have a professional triathlete stay with us for the duration of her time in Houston, aka a homestay.  I tried to sign up for the program with WTC, but they just didn’t seem that interested and never replied to my submission.

Fortunately for us I said something to the captain of the Team RWB Triathlon team, and she was looking for someone for Jessica Jacobs.  We really didn’t know what to expect with the homestay and didn’t get very much guidance from anyone.  In the end we treated her like a family member and had a wonderful time.

Jessica’s husband Jake, and her daughter Kasey showed up a couple of days after Jessica and they too were wonderful.  I took what time she shared with us and tried not to get too much into her space, what with the big race and all, though I certainly would have loved more time with her.

We may never see any of them again, but I truly enjoyed our time together and hope that we can stay in touch!

This was my first Ironman experience.  I spent two days at the expo getting caught up in Ironman fever (it is very contagious) and by race morning I was again thinking I could and should try this one day.

I volunteered at the swim start, which was a boring job and I wouldn’t do it again; although I did get to see the mass start from up close and personal.  It was amazing to see over 2000 athletes churning up the water.  It wasn’t wetsuit legal, but a bunch of people chose to forgo the opportunity for a Kona slot (like that was going to happen for them!) and wore one anyway.  My only action that morning was helping one lady who started in a wetsuit and then decided she didn’t want it any more.  I just looked her up, and she did indeed finish in 16:22, with a swim time of 2:14.  I think the swim cut off was 2:20.  I heard that several people didn’t make the swim cutoff, including one guy by only 20 seconds.

After the swimmers passed me by I walked over to the swim exit in time to see the first swimmers coming out.  I stuck around long enough to see all of the professionals exit, including Kelly Williamson in first place, and my homestay Jessica.  It was then a long walk back to my car to find the run aid station where I would spend the next 7 hours.

At the aid station we spent the first hour cutting up Power Bars, and oranges, filling cups with water, coke and some Gatorade type drink.  I finally moved down to the sponge station where I spent the bulk of my time.  I got to see all of the pros come by and handed many of them ice-cold sponges.  I don’t know how they did it, but they would be eating with one hand, cups of water to drink in the other, and still grab several sponges!

The run was a three loop course and we were able to watch the race unfold as the runners came by.  I got to see American Tim O’Donnell run from fourth into second place, but the best part was watching Kelly.  The first time she came by she was in 8th or 9th place.  by lap two she had moved up a few spots, and by the last loop she was in 3rd place.  She ended up in second place and the first American.  As this was the US Championship, Tim and Kelly are the reigning national champs!

I also watched Jessica, who didn’t have as good of a day.  It started when we all overslept.  They only overslept by a few minutes, whereas I overslept by over half an hour.  I was so late that I couldn’t lead them to the Woodlands, and they ended up getting lost!  I don’t know exactly how she did on the swim, but she was near the end of the pack of the professional women.  Once out on the bike course she lost all of her nutrition early on and really suffered.  By the time she came by on the run she was really hurting.  I don’t think she saw me until the second lap.  This time I got up right next to her as she walked by.  I asked her if she needed anything and she just wanted me to talk to her.  I walked with her for a bit, where she told me she was sorry for not doing well and promised to finish the race.  I didn’t have any magic words for her, and she ended up dropping out at the end of the second loop.

I learned a lot about a lot of things this weekend.  The professionals are human like the rest of us, and we all can have good and bad days.  The question is what will we do the next day.  I know what Jessica did:  she got up and went for a run, played with her daughter, took a nap, and went to a fund raiser for Team RWB.

I went to the fund raiser dinner as well, where I bought an original oil painting done by Christina Quijano.  Here is a picture of it that was posted on the Internet:  Triathlon painting.  Anyway, the painting was sold by silent auction, and Tim O’Donnell and I got into a bidding war.  I suspect this is the only time in my life that I will beat Tim!

So ends blog Monday, another day that I spent getting tortured by the dentist.  Hopefully I only have one more of these in the near future.

The race that almost wasn’t

This race almost never happened for so many reasons.  My health hasn’t been that great, and then I developed a problem in a tooth requiring a root canal Wednesday.  It wasn’t until Friday morning that I decided for sure that I was going to go at all.

The drive by myself was hard, and I found myself wishing I hadn’t come.  Then I got to the race site and conditions were horrible.  It was very windy, which really was stirring up the water into a choppy mess.  While checking out the water Saturday afternoon I saw they had sunk a boat, not a good sign for an easy swim.  Everyone kept saying the wind would die down, so there was hope.

On my easy workout Saturday morning, I got a flat tire.  I had a spare, but needed to find another one for the race.  I drove all over trying to get a replacement.  It was after 3 pm before I finished my chores for the day and was able to sit down and relax – NOT the way it is supposed to happen.  When I started winding down for the evening I thought to myself that I wasn’t prepared like I wanted to be, and wished I had stayed home.  I told myself that if I didn’t race I would never know how I would have done, and that was it.

Race morning found the wind just as strong as the day before (where it was 17 gusting to 30).  I walked out to the water to check out the course and there were no buoys in place.  Long story short, the swim was cancelled due to the water conditions, and replaced with a 2 mile run.  I talked to several people who weren’t happy with the decision to cancel the swim, probably all strong swimmers.  In my opinion it was the right thing to do.  There were too many people out there that weren’t strong swimmers, and with limited support (no kayaks, and the jet skis were really fighting the waves), it was just too dangerous.

I had no idea how to approach this new run-bike-run format.  I can run 2 miles pretty quickly, but what would it do to my bike and second run leg?  I decided not to use my watch to time the run, and just go by feel.  I started off slowly, but had dropped to a reasonable pace by the end for an average pace of 7:50 or so.  It wasn’t a mass start, but my wave was all the men, and many of them started at the front when they had no business up there.  I really hate that!

My racing shoes are made for getting them on quickly, not so much for removing them.  I got one off and then tried to loosen the laces.  That was backwards and I fought with them for what seemed forever.  Also, I needed to take off my sunglasses before putting on my helmet.  This was a transition I hadn’t practiced and it showed.

Finally out on the bike I really noticed the wind.  It seemed to be mostly cross winds which made it hard to hold my line.  As we were still bunched up from the mass start, there was a lot of passing going on.  I saw several packs of riders.  They were making no attempt to pass, happy to just ride in a group which really bothers me.  I never felt much of a head wind, focusing instead on staying tucked in, making myself small, and focusing on my power.  My power seemed a bit high, but my legs felt ok, and the pace was in the mid 18s.  When we turned around at about mile 17 the wind was gone, evidentially it had been more of a head wind than I thought.  My pace picked up to around 23, that should give me a good bike split.  I got passed by two people in my age group, but they were too strong for me that day to try and stay with them.

There weren’t a lot of bike in transition when I got there, usually a good sign.  When I took off on the run my legs felt ok:  not great, but certainly not bad.  I was out there early enough to see the leaders coming in on the run.  They were flying and covered in sweat.  That surprised me a bit; with all the wind I was actually a bit cool.  At mile 1 I caught my first peer.  I told myself I had just run into 9th.  I’m not sure where I came up with that, but it was my motivation.  I wasn’t going to let him catch me from behind.  I really needed to pee, but wearing a one piece uniform that would be complicated.  I decided to skip the pit-stop and made up my mind I wasn’t going to walk at all, not even through the aid stations.

At this point there just weren’t that many people out there.  I didn’t think I was going to catch anyone, so I was going to finish in 9th.  I finally caught someone at the base of an overpass, another peer!  I leaned forward, picked up the pace, determined to capture 8th place.  About a mile later, coming down a hill I caught another one, I was in 7th.  I saw one last person in front of me, but with only 1/2 mile left I didn’t think I would catch him, and had no idea if he was even a peer.  At the six mile mark I did in fact catch him.  I thought for sure he was going to pass me at the finish line so I kicked it into the next gear.  It was a tough time to run fast as it was on gravel with lots of turns.

And then it was over!  I’d actually finished 5th, good enough for a nice little trophy for my office.  I’d also qualified for the HyVee championships.  Not a big deal for how small our field was.  I had already decided I wasn’t going if I did qualify, and then I heard them talk about the race.  Getting in to this race is hard.  There are races in DC with 4K entrants and NY with 6K, and they have the same number of qualifiers as my little race with 350.  I suspect more people will sign up for this race when people find out how easy it was to qualify at here.

So do I go to this race, where less than 100 people in the US in my age group will get invited, knowing I would probably be the slowest one of them?  Or do I take my trophy and invitation and run?  I don’t know yet, but with only two weeks to register I will need to decide pretty soon!

I couldn’t figure out where to put this without disturbing whatever flow I had going, but I think I could have run faster.  I was going pretty quick by the end, and could have gone further at that pace, so obviously I could have started that pace sooner.  I’m going to have to find out how to convince myself during the run that I can go faster.  I guess I will have to risk blowing up at one of these races to do so!

Tapering, but not enjoying myself

Normally I enjoy taper week.  I find myself with a lot more free time to sit around and read, watch TV, work on my honey-do’s and sit in the backyard enjoying the peace and quiet.  This week has started off a bit differently.

I did have a great weekend last weekend.  My workouts were a bit shorter, and I was surprised how fresh I felt after I was done.  I felt so good in fact, that I wondered if I’d pushed hard enough.  I knew I had, because during the workouts I made sure I was putting for the the effort I deemed appropriate for the weekend before a race.

So with several solid build weeks and the beginning of a taper week underway, what could possibly be the problem?  I made a tactical decision last week to get a couple of crowns put in.  While I am still a bit under the weather from my stomach ills, I figured two weeks would be enough time for me to be back to form.

Maybe under normal circumstances that would have been true, but of course nothing works out normally!  On Thursday I was still having pain in the area, and by Friday afternoon I knew something was wrong.  Unfortunately the office was already closed for the weekend.  I managed getting through the weekend with regular doses of Tylenol (including a 2 am dose), only to find out Monday morning that they couldn’t see me until Tuesday.

I had a brief conversation with the dentist yesterday, who promised to call me back regarding possible antibiotics and pain pills.  He also mentioned the dreaded words:  root canal.  Needless to say the thought of a root canal just days before a key race are not very exciting to me, nor is the thought of doing the race with my current situation.  I think that given a choice between the two I’ll wait on the extra work if I can get something that will allow me to be pain free for more than 4 hours, but not make me a blithering idiot.

A third choice is to cancel my race.  I really don’t want to do that because races are expensive, and this was a key race for me this year.

I’ll let you know how it all comes out, maybe after my current dose of Valium wears off!

My legs know what to do

I have to say that the body is an amazing thing!  I continue to be surprised with what it is able to do, I have only to tell it to do so.  I’m beginning to understand how most of the battles we have in endurance sports occur between our ears.

I saw something on the Internet recently, I don’t remember the exact quote but it went something like “Your legs know what to do, it’s your mind you have to convince.” 

If you race triathlons, at some point you will find yourself at an intersection.  The road to the left is an uphill run, against the wind, sunny and not the road you will want to take.    The road to the right is easier:  walk.  In between the two is a rest stop, where you can stop, put your feet up, get a drink, and start resting; an oasis away from your pain.  Which road will you take?

Of course this is a figurative intersection, but if you do triathlons long enough you will get there, trust me!

I wish I could say I always too the road on the left, but alas I cannot.  Several times I’ve taken the road on the right, and at least once I’ve stopped at the rest stop.  Afterwards I’ll briefly berate myself for taking the road on the right, but it is the rest stop that stays with me for a LONG time.

Obviously I don’t have a magic solution for always taking the road to the left.  If I did I would use it!  What can say is train like you want to race.  If you come to that intersection during training, don’t waste the opportunity to force yourself to take the correct path.

I had one of those yesterday.  When I got up my legs were dead, and I had a 10 mile run on tap.  The first battle was just getting dressed and out on the road.  I’ve found that getting to the starting line is half the battle, and if I can just get started…

Of course once I started I knew how dead my legs were.  I might as well have had sand bags attached to my feet.  My pace was slow and lumbering, but I kept going.  Within half a mile I’d lost the sand bags and was on cruise control.  I didn’t think I could do my 5K pace, but with 10 miles on tap it wasn’t necessary.

It was amazing to me that my legs responded and did what I asked them to.  In fact, I had no problem putting in a couple of faster miles towards the end.

In the grand scheme of things this was just another training day, but it is mental fuel I can use next time I get to that intersection.  I’m not sure when next I will come to that intersection, but when I do I hope that I will remember that my legs know what to do!

Oh yea, and my legs are even more tired today!