Oly Race Report

First of all my 3 goals were met: don't puke (although I came close), don't get sunburned ( I used spray sunscreen between the swim and bike), and finish around the 3:30 time frame.  Now that being said I felt I could have done a lot better and was feeling really strong until I let something get to me and I fell apart!

Pre-race
For some reason I was really nervous and jittery.  I couldn't sit still Sat. and I had a hard time sleeping that night.  We were up just before 4 am and hit the road early to drive to the race.  We got there early with plenty of time to get settled and stare at the ridiculous hill that they were calling the wall that you had to mount your bike with no head start and immediately attempt to climb up.  I got really nervous about that and went and tried it out just a little to make sure I could actually clip in and have it in the easiest gear possible.  I changed my mind a gazillion times on if I would wear my wetsuit or not.  It was 75 degrees.  I decided to wear it.

Swim

It was a 2 loop triangle open water swim.  The first wave was catching up to us just as she yelled for us to start!  I somehow stayed right on course and didn't swim that much extra.  I felt surprisingly good considering I hadn't done an open water swim in 4 years and up until that week hadn't swam a full mile in training this season.  When I saw my finish time 36:20 I was happy and I felt really good!  During the swim I noticed I got a little motion sick from not being able to see anything other than the moving mountains every time I went to breathe but I shook of the puky feeling and powered through!

Bike

We road over the dam on what was a really bumpy road where you could feel your entire body vibrating and when we finally got on some smooth road it still felt like you were vibrating :-).  I actually took some water on the bike with me but ran out during loop 1.  I was still feeling really good at this point.  Then it happened, the volunteer said Olympic I said yes he pointed straight so I went.  There were no signs to confirm.  (btw I don't blame the volunteer at all he obviously did not get good instructions and had no signs to back him up) Then I noticed I was going downhill and it said "boat ramp" on the sign NOOOo I was headed down the dreaded wall back to transition.  I asked and someone else coming up had just done the same thing so I turned around.  I think I did about 3 miles extra.  But mentally it ruined me.  At first I got really angry and I took off and went out way too hard on loop 2.  By the time I got to the uphill part with shaky legs and no water I was really hurting. I had eaten 2 shock blocks before the bike and to during the run, this seemed to be enough nutrition to get me through.  I finished in 1:45 about 16 mph which with the hills and road I was happy with this time just not the extra miles.

Run
At this point I was past angry and began to not care I figured it was over.  As a tried to "run" up the 1/2 mile wall I started to walk.  Then at the top it turned into a shuffle then I jogged as I got my legs back a little.  Unfortunately my calf muscles were spasming the entire run.  I thought I did better on my hydration so maybe it was that I pushed too hard on the bike?  Either way I thought I would average about 9 min/mi it turned out to be more like 11:30.  I made it and survived.

Somehow I got 2nd in my AG but I think that is because there were only 7 in it to start and a few must have DNF or DNS cause my total time was 3:35.  But I'll take what I can get!!! :-)  I rewrote this paragraph several times and have decided that I will not let my inability to deal with emotional stress during a race bias my feelings towards a race.  But I have chosen not to do another race by this particular race company again due to a history of mistakes in all their races.

Afterwards my mom really wanted to go to a nearby national park Tent Rocks and since she put up with two nervous and grumpy triathletes and took awesome pictures of us we obliged.  But even a 1.5 mile hike in the middle of the day heat was excruciating after this tri.  This is where I almost puked for the 2nd time.  My dad did awesome and felt good the whole time.  We are on our way to IM.  I learned some valuable lessons, #1 being don't let your emotions get the best of you.  I know where my strengths and weaknesses are and I will be making some changes to my training.  For this year I will concentrate on the IM but next year I vow to conquer the Olympic distance tri!!!!

What is your favorite race lesson learned?

My Pavlov Theory

This weekend my dad and I are going to compete participate in an Olympic Distance Triathlon in open water.  I haven’t swam in open water since 2008 and I hadn’t swam a mile straight until this week.  So needless to say this should be interesting.  I keep telling myself “I am not racing this! This is only part of my training!”  I’m just making sure my base training is where it should be as I just officially started my Ironman training this month.  So I shouldn’t be nervous or worried about how slow I might be but I am.  THIS IS NOT A RACE!  That’s what I keep trying to tell myself but my brain isn’t listening. 

Here is my theory, I much like Pavlov’s dogs, have been trained to have a very specific reaction when I hear the starting gun go off because I hope to get a reward at the end.  So as I am warming up and waiting to start I keep repeating “this is not a race, this is not a race”

Then BANG, gun goes off and all of a sudden it’s a flurry of arms, legs, snot, and spit as I rabidly try to remember what it’s like to swim in open water.  Somehow the fact that I didn’t train enough to actually race this evaporates from my mind and I manage to convince myself in the 20 minutes of swimming that it takes for me to get my heart rate back under control that I have a chance to place in my age group!  Forget the fact that my age group is full of people who were track stars, collegiate swimmers, nationals winners, and have been training hard since March, I am all of a sudden super human and forget the training plan!  

What goes on in my head....if I win

But all I can say is “Oh Well” I at least have heart right?  The thing is that the Olympic distance has always been my kryptonite it’s that weird in between distance, not short enough to leave it all out there and not worry about reserves but not long enough to just try and finish.  The last time I did this distance I was severely dehydrated and had my bathing suite sun burn mark left on me for about 3 years after.  Every time I’ve tried to enter this distance since then it has been cancelled.  So here it is, I’ll try my  best to remember what I’m there to accomplish.  So my goals for this race are to be smart, stay hydrated, and finish somewhere in the 3 ½ hr mark without puking or getting sunburned.  How does that sound?

How about you?  When you hear that start gun go off do you always react the same no matter what your goals for the race were?

Adventures in hiking and riding!

Another great weekend in the books.  On Saturday I went with my brother and an old friend of his for a ride.  Even though my brother commutes on his bike and doesn’t own a car I hardly ever get to ride with him so this was very exciting!  It was also really nice to get to see him and his friend interact it reminds me that no matter how much he’s grown up there’s still a little bit of that goofy carefree kid somewhere in there.  It made me smile the whole time I was on the ride as I rode behind them and got to hear them talk. 

 So let me tell you a little something about commuting versus distance riding.  I commute 1-2 times a week on my bike during the summer and I thought I finally had this commuting thing down.  But the thing is I take my commuter bike which is clunkier and doesn’t make you clip in.  I also take back roads (non-congested) and/or bike path the whole way to work.  What this means is that I am forced to go slower and am not on the defensive for very much of my ride.  When I do my longer weekend rides I take my lovely tri bike (did I mention how much I love my bike!) which you do clip in to and is very light I can go fast!  When I ride this I usually am not in town I’m on a road with no stop lights and I can go for ever without having to clip out.  Well, when I rode with them this weekend we went from my brother’s house out, which meant lots of city riding.  Now my brother is both a pro and fearless when it comes to this so he was whizzing in and out of traffic using his hands to command which direction he was going.  I on the other hand was timid and doubting my moves which cause more confusion and probably put me in a little more danger.  Also add clipping in and out a gazillion times which let me tell you that and the brain power I was using made me TIRED before we even got to the hills we were going to ride!  J  I of course got a flat right at before having to head up a 6% grade hill which meant once I had the flat changed I had no momentum to get up the hill.  I’ve decided I need to buy new tires I think I’ve worn through these I can’t even remember if I’ve ever replaced them since I bought the bike, YIKES!  I also need to try and be more like my brother when riding in town!  I wasn’t able to keep up with these two guys but was thankful they let me tag along because I had fun.

Sunday I was up at the crack of dawn to join some friends for a hike up the La Luz trail.  I did a little bit of a run first just so I could say I ran then went back to meet up with them and hike the rest of the 9 miles with them.  I had never actually been all the way to the top and it was beautiful!  We took the tram back down.  It’s only my 2^nd time riding that even though I’ve lived here for over 8 years.  This was a tough hike and my legs were tired after but so much fun!  It was great seeing lots of people from my running club out there too they were running up the entire thing in preparation for the race that goes up that in August.  So I didn’t get a long run in this weekend but I figured that long of a hike should count for something?  What do you think?  I mean it does have about 3,775 feet of elevation gain!

Of course I had to end the weekend with some lovely ladies I had over for homemade empanadas and one of the brought over homemade strawberry short cake!

Happy Training!

Do numbers talk?

So lots of good things happening around here!  I have greeting cards in and have my Shop CautiouslyAudacious Store started.  Think of it as sponsoring an Ironman for IM AZ 2012!  :-)  I just got an email telling me my shirts are being shipped so those should be up by the end of next week!  I'm super excited about them and hope you like the design I chose!  Help me reach 100 likes and I'll have a giveaway! And once that happens if I reach 200 likes I'll have a 2nd giveaway, here! Or just like my page cause you wanna :-)It's almost the end of the month which means I have an Olympic Distance Triathlon coming up in almost a week and it also means I only have about 1 month left before a certain someone comes home!

I gave a presentation recently that went well and in it I used a chart I found on the SHRM site that gave some statistics on costs of health risks in the workplace.  Here it is:



Cost (F) = % of work lost to risk factor
(A) x # of at-risk employees (D[BxC]) x
median compensation (E)







I mean look at the cost of Physical Inactivity and Stress!  I find that numbers can sometimes be powerful especially when dealing with management where sometimes let's face it $ talks!  I really hope I have some more exciting news to give you guys by the end of next week!  In the mean time I'm going to keep moving along on my training!

What do you think do numbers talk or do you just here blah, blah, blah?

Happy Friday and Happy Training my friends!