Go easy, little truck…

…extra points if you can tell me what book that is from…!

The hardest part of any sort of taper, no matter how short, is resisting the urge to crank it up.  You train and work hard to get to the race but then just when you feel the best, you have to back off.  Don’t get me wrong, tapering really helps and is the right thing to do for a goal race.  But going short distances at 3/4 speed feels weird.

I was on the trainer tonight just to get some seat time on my bike.  It had rained all day and I just didn’t feel like fighting puddles.  I decided to do a brick of an easy half hour on the bike followed by a 2 mile run at an 8 minute pace.  The bike was fine and gave me a chance to do a few minor adjustments I have been putting off.  I am satisfied with how it shifts and my seat position now, so I am good to go.  But I really wanted to crank it up on the run.  Eight minute miles seemed too easy.  I know this is a good thing, but resisting pressing the ”faster” button on the treadmill was hard.

We got about 2.1 inches of rain last night and it destroyed a chunk or two of the MKT trail here in town.  It’s the second time this has happened in a year. Frustrating but natural.  Nothing we can do about it.  Luckily the city portion of the trail is very well maintained and when the threat of flooding goes away, the trail will be fixed immediately.  There were crews out surveying it in the rain today.  I love this place…!

Tomorrow is an easy swim.  Not because I have to but just because I want to.  Probably no more than 1000 yards easy working on form and technique.  It’s supposed to be a day off so I guess I will let the rest of the day go without doing anything… !  Saturday I will do a final shakedown of my bike and a light swim/jog.

Sunday is the race and they are expecting over 800 triathletes and duathletes!  I’ve never seen that many bikes in one place before.  It should be awesome!

Taper week for the triathlon

I was a little tired Monday morning for my last scheduled long pool workout before the triathlon so I decided to re-arrange my schedule so that I could do it Wednesday instead.  I was glad I took that extra half day off.  I would have been useless in the pool.

Monday evening I tossed my bike on the trainer (rainy/stormy outside) and cruised for 45 minutes, just to keep my legs fresh.  I tried to stay in my aero bars the entire time, just to keep a comfort level in them and I varied my cadence but tried to keep it high.

Tuesday I ran with the club and got to see my friends that had run Boston for the first time since they got back.  I wanted to run no more than 4 miles but, of course, the route master chose Tuesday to pick one of the longest routes we run.  I ran the shortest of the distances but still went 5.8 miles.  I don’t think this will hurt me and it felt really good.  I started out running with my friends and they were running slow to recover so it was a nice talking pace.  They wanted to go a little farther than I did so we split off and then I picked up the pace.  Even though the first two miles were at a nine minute pace, I still finished with an 8:10 average.  Even though I wasn’t checking splits I know I ran a couple of 7-7:30 miles in there but didn’t feel fatigued or sore.  I’ll take that as a good sign.

Today I hit the pool a little early but swam about 1300 easy yards in a mix of long and short intervals.  I really just thought about technique and relaxing in the water.  I didn’t seem to warm up until I hit about 800 yards.  Hopefully this won’t be a big deal on race day since I can’t get in the pool until it’s my time to swim.  We’ll see…

I’m going to try to get on the trainer tonight and spin easy for a half hour or so and then go for a run tomorrow with the group.  I might try to go out and do some hill repeats on the bike tomorrow night if it’s not raining.  Otherwise I may only ride one more time before the race.

It’s time to shift to race planning and visualizing all the steps involved.  There is so much more planning in triathlon.  Even when I ran the marathon all I had to do was make sure I had enough clothes to keep me warm until the gun went off and that I had my fuel with me.  With this triathlon I need a backpack full of crap all lined up in the proper order so that when I get to the transition area it is all waiting for me.  And I have to play a lot of “what if” scenarios like “what if it rains (bike and/or run), what if it’s cold (swim/bike/run), etc.  I’m not complaining, it’s just different and will take some time to get used to.

Lawn clippings and practice triathlons

I’ve decided to swear off doing yard work ever again.  I did two hours of yard work (got a new weed eater!!  WOOT!) and carried some rocks around to make another planting bed.  My arms are so sore and weak this morning that I can barely lift my coffee cup.  Yup…  No more of that crap…  Brutal.

Oh, by the way, I also completed my final big workout prior to the triathlon.  I did a practice triathlon on my own with a 600 yard swim, 22 mile bike ride and a 4.5 mile run!  This may sound strange, but it didn’t hurt as much as the yard work…

The hardest part of doingsomething like a practice triathlon is there is NO support.  Since it is too cool still to do an open water swim, setting up any kind of transition area is just impractical.  The best you can hope for is that you get a parking place close to the front door so you can get to the car easier after the swim.  This is NOT where you practice your transitions…!

Swim:

The only “split” I took was the swim.  I swam 600 yards in 10:20.  This confirms that I will swim somewhere around 9 minutes for the 450 in the race so that’s where I will stage myself.  I just tried to settle into a rhythm and breathe every third stroke until I got tired.  Then I switched to every two.  I know that is not the most efficient but it’s the best I can do at this point.  I hopped out of the pool feeling good, if a little dizzy, and put on my shoes to trot/walk fast through the lobby and out to the car.  This is NOT the kind of parking lot one walks through barefoot.

Bike:

My “transition” involved pulling my bike out of the back seat of the truck,  putting the front tire back on (making VERY sure to put the brake cable back on!), clumsily stuffing my melon in my lid.  Lesson: check your helmet to make sure it fits as a part of your transition setup ritual.  The head lock on mine had slipped tighter and the helmet no longer fit.  It took me a second to figure out how to adjust it.  I guess it just got bumped in the bag and that’s what moved it.  Anyway, got my shoes on (no socks), locked the truck and took off.

I debated my route all the way up until I was on the bike, but then decided to take a straight shot from the gym to the bike course for the race and ride it.  Round trip was 7 miles to/from the gym and then 15 miles for the course.  The biggest issue I had was the wind.  It slapped me around quite a bit, especially when I was in my aero bars.  Other than that I was comfortable on the bike but still feel very slow.  I know that this will improve when I have time to ride more, but unfortunately I am out of time for this race, so I will just have to take what I can get.  I’m hoping that by the time Club Nationals gets here, biking will be the biggest area of improvement for me.  I’m really going to work hard on it this summer.

As for the rest of the ride, it was pretty uneventful.  Almost hit a woodchuck, but other than that, not much to report.  I debated practicing getting out of my shoes on the bike since I was going into an active parking lot, but finally decided to do it because I need the practice.  I am going to run from the transition to the mount line in my shoes, but when I get back in I am going to step out of my shoes (leaving them clipped in) and run barefoot back to my rack.  I will rack as close to the “bike out” as I can so I don’t have to run barefoot very far.  I just really hate running in bike shoes.  Especially when I’m tired.

I got off the bike, stuffed it back in the truck, almost left my sunglasses sitting on the bed ($130 Oakleys… not good), put on a dry shirt (I will probably have to do this in the race also), stomped into my shoes (still no socks) and headed out for the run.

Run

I had no intention of running 4.5 miles.  The plan called for two miles and I had strategically plotted out a route that was 2.2 miles.  The problem was that this particular route, or at least the part of it that the turn was on, is VERY familiar to me.  I must have mentally checked out when I got onto this part of the run route because I blew right past my turn and didn’t even realize it until I was too far gone to turn around.  Luckily, if I have a strength, it is running so I just laughed it off and kept on going.  The only bad part was it added one big hill at about mile 4 that my legs weren’t happy with.

Since we have been training bike/run quite a bit, and I have tried to get runs in after all of my bike rides as well, I am used to the jelly leg feeling you get trying to run right off the bike.  This time it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I could tell I was tired.  This was also the longest bike/run combo I have ever done (22 miles/4.5 miles) so I was expecting to be tired.  I just ran as hard as I could for as long as I could and then cruised home.  I’m sure my splits were in the 8-8:30 range.  Not race pace, but that’s ok.  This was about putting it all together and surviving it more than race training.  This was the first time I have ever done all three legs at once.

Thoughts

I think this was actually harder than the real race.  Not because it was longer, but because it was unsupported.  Unless you are lucky enough to be able to stow your bike at the gym or you have a friend to act as support, you spend most of your time obsessing over things like “Did I lock the car?” or where to put your keys.  It was a challenge but unless I can figure out a way to make it easier for transitions, I’m not sure I will do another one on my own.  Maybe if the group does one I will join in, but not on my own.

I really need to make a checklist of “gotchas” for the race.  Things like front wheels, shoes, brake cables, helmets, etc.  Anything that could go wrong needs to be checked and re-checked.

I also need to visualize my transitions a bit more and get my brain thinking about them BEFORE I get there.  Things like stepping out of my shoes and taking off my goggles/helmet, etc.  are not second nature yet and I need to force myself to THINK the transition through before I get there.  I think it will make the transition smoother, if not faster.

I think I compete better on an emptier stomach and drinking sports drinks than I do with recent food and water.  I don’t do well with food right before a race.  This means I need to be up early and eating on race days to give my stomach time to process.  Otherwise I get hearburn/nausea.

I feel like I’m ready for this.  Even though this is not a long race like a marathon, it still requires almost as much preparation and training.  No, I didn’t run any 25 mile training runs, but I was still on the road and under my own power for 2 hours.  That’s a substantial workout, by any training standard.  In fact, my first half marathon was in just under 2 hours.  I think because I am training less on a single discipline it doesn’t feel like I am training as hard or as long.  But I’m glad to have done this workout to show me that putting it all together equals an endurance event.  I was missing that, somehow.

I’m looking forward to the race now.  It will be fun.  I don’t have any goals other than to push as hard as I can and see what happens.  There are no “PR’s” here for me since this is my first triathlon.  This is my benchmark by which all other races will be measured.  Especially the bike and run portions.  Admittedly (and decadently) I am also looking forward to a light week of training.  I need an easy week.  I’m tired.

Now if I can just stay out of the yard…

Noodly!

The combination of digging in the yard all day yesterday and swimming 3 X 400 back to back in the middle of a 2100 yard set has got my arms positively noodly.  I need two hands to hold my coffee.  They were so fatigued and shaky I couldn’t keep the eggs on the fork to eat!

This was my last long swim before the race.  Tomorrow is a straight 600 (I may do 750) as a part of a practice triathlon.  Then I go easy next week.  I would say that, looking back at December (when I started all this) the thing I’m most proud of is my swim improvement.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m no world class swimmer.  But 4 months ago I couldn’t get to the other end of a 25 yard pool.  Now I’m swimming over 2000 yards consistently and can swim 450 yards in just under 9 minutes.  I still have a long way to go to be a “strong” swimmer, but at least I feel like I’m not going to drown now.  Hopefully the transition to open water will be gentle.  I expect bumps, I just hope I can do it…

I’m trying to work out a plan for after TriZou that emphasizes riding and swimming.  I want to go on a maintenance run program of two days a week and continue swimming 3 days a week.  But I would like to ride at least 3 to 4 days a week.  It’s going to be a challenge.  The other issue I have is that most of the rides are getting up around 40-50 miles, especially on the weekends.  This is too much for me to do consistently.  My max distance in a race this year will be about 20.  If I can do 40-50 once a month that will be plenty.  The rest of my rides need to be 20-30 max so I can concentrate on strength and technique.  I will eventually extend my mileage out but not for a while.

The swims are going to be the greatest challenge.  I would like to get away from swimming in the pool and spend as much time in open water as I can.  There are some nice lakes around Columbia to swim in…  It just needs to warm up.  I know I will be saying “it just needs to cool off” soon enough…!

Getting closer!

Last night I did a group brick with the newbie group.  It was a bike/run/bike of about 20 total bike miles and an 18 minute run.  Our group seems to have dwindled a little as there were only 9 of us total, with three either being coaches or friends of the group.  I was a bit concerned that I would suffer on the bike since I hadn’t done as much as I usually do because I was traveling.  Turned out I felt fine  through the first ride and the run.   I did tire a little bit on the last ride, but I survived it.  Fun workout on a beautiful evening.  Nothing better than that…!

I knew I would be tired this morning for the run and worried that I wouldn’t wake up for it, but I was up before my alarm (curse my intolerably accurate internal clock…).  I was tired, as predicted, and a bit sore, but I pulled on my shoes and prepared for the run.

I stared in disbelief at the thermometer.  It read 58 degrees.  I didn’t know what to do.  I had on shorts and a shirt.  Was that it?  Was that all I needed?  No layers?  No gloves?  I spent the entire drive to the trailhead feeling absolutely sure I had forgotten something.  I hadn’t forgotten anything but I couldn’t find my headlamp so I decided to just stick with someone who had one.  Turns out I didn’t even need to do that.  It was light enough to see about 10 minutes into the run.

Yes, I was tired.  Yes, I was sore.  Yes, it was absolutely beautiful this morning.  Sixty degrees, no wind, birds singing everywhere, the sun coming up and shining on the bottoms of the clouds.  Worth every bit of it!  I still managed 5.3 miles at a 7:30 pace.  I’ll take it.

I have two big workouts left and then the plan calls for us to taper next week in the lead up to the race.  I have a big swim tomorrow and then Saturday I am supposed to do a practice triathlon with a 600 yd swim/15 mile ride/2 mile run.  I need to plot out a route for the ride and the run from the ARC (where the pool is) and then figure out how to stow my stuff.  Sunday we go to the race site and go over the flow of the race.  Next week is light workouts.  It’s odd for me to be tapering again for a race.  I know that this race will be about an hour and a half for me, and I guess that is a “taperable” race distance.  I’m just used to 5Ks for the last year being my only races and I usually go out and run AFTER the race just to get more miles in.

My next race is in about a month and a half.  It will be my first open water swim.  I did get an offer to use one of the coach’s houses that sits on a lake as a place to train.  That’s two more spots I have found as options so I’m encouraged to have more places to swim.  Now the weather just has to cooperate and warm up enough for me to swim outside.  Or I have to find a wetsuit.  I’m just not sure the world is ready to see me covered from head to toe in neoprene.  Think “baby seal”…

Congratulations to all my friends who finished marathons this weekend!  For Kathy, Dan H., Lisa, Hugh, Andy and Dan S., I hope it was everything you dreamed it would be.  Congrats also to Nikki and Karen for completing the St. Louis marathon.  You guys and gals are awesome!

Swim questions

Image by cygnus921 via Flickr

OK.  Somebody tell me I just miscounted my laps.  I tried swimming this morning with my tri-singlet on because I am going to swim with it in the triathlon in a week and a half (gulp!).  Either I missed a lap or I swam over a minute slower…?  I thought it would make me a little faster?

…meh…

I spent the last 5 days down at the lake (of the Ozarks) at a conference and admittedly didn’t work out as much as I should have or eat as well as I should.  So this morning was my pennance.  The first half of the workout I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath and I had no rhythm.  Only after my unsuccessful attempt at a faster 450 did I feel like I kind of loosened up and started swimming OK again.  Swimming is weird for me.  I feel better at the end of a set than I do in the beginning.  I want to quit for the first half and don’t want to stop at the end.

I really need somebody to tell me how I’m going to get in outdoor swim training between now and my first open water swim in just over a month.  I have no clue.  Unless it warms up drastically over the next two weeks, the water won’t be warm enough to swim in and I don’t have a wetsuit.  Any ideas?

Exercise-induced Urticaria

What the heck is that, you ask?

Hives.  Caused by exercise.

I have this.  No.  I didn’t need to go to the doctor.  No, I’m not a hypochondriac.  But it’s pretty frickin’ obvious.  About 4-6 times per year, this happens.  I talked to my doc about it and he just said to watch it and try to take notes on when it happens, what/when I ate, what I was doing, what my physical state was, etc.

Last night was the scariest event so far.  I had hives on 100% of my body (and I DO mean 100%).  My mouth felt swollen and so did my tongue.  It was awful.

I can usually tell when I’m going to get them.  It starts out with itchy, red hands and a few hives on my head.  Then it spreads to my body.  I can’t itch anything or it’s like I set it on fire.  All I can do is stop exercising immediately when I feel it and go take a Benadryl.  It usually goes away in an hour or so.

Unfortunately, last night I didn’t recognize it until it was too late.  I was running HARD on the treadmill (6:30 pace) and missed the itchy hands.  By the time I got back to my room, I was covered.  It was quite frightening.  I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance.  It took over an hour for it to go away.  And I still had some lingering discomfort this morning.

The odd part of it is that I don’t see any obvious triggers.  It just seems random.  And once it happens, it goes away for several months and I’m fine.  I ran again this afternoon and put in 5.7 miles of tough hills with no adverse affects.  There is no rhyme or reason to it at all.  Ungodly frustrating.

I guess the only thing to do is to take allergy medications (already prescribed by an allergy doc for seasonal allergies) more regularly and hope that keeps it from happening.

…of all the stupid crap…

That’s it… I’m pooped…

I really don’t know what the hell is wrong with me lately.  I seem to have developed this affliction for self destruction or “Death by exercise” where one tough workout a day is no longer good enough.  Even though my plan calls for a “ride/run” or “swim/ride”, I seem to be taking it to the extreme like I’m some kind of athlete or something.

Take yesterday for example.  It was not enough to run 6.5 miles in the fastest time I have ever run it (7:34 pace).  That alone would be enough for most.  But not me.  Then, yesterday evening I rode 28 miles at 18mph in a stiff crosswind.  AND THEN… I had to talk myself out of putting on my running shoes and going for a cooldown run.

I’m sick…  I have lost all common sense and good judgement.  Lucky for me my 5 year old wanted to snuggle last night and sat on me for an hour or I might have done something else stupid…

But I woke up exhausted.  That is a bad thing.  And I know it.  It’s times like these when more exercise is foolish.  This is when you get hurt.  My last week was:

Monday- Swim 2000, ride 20 in the rain and cold

Tuesday- Run 6

Wednesday- Swim 1500, ride 20 (hills), run 2

Thursday- Run 6.5 hard, ride 28 hard

I’m pooped…

My plan calls for a day off today but unfortunately I am supposed to swim a 450 for time and ride 20-30 tomorrow and I will not be able to because I am leaving to go to a 3 day conference so I have to shift that to today.  I don’t have to ride because I did that yesterday, but I still need to swim.  In fact, I should be at the pool… right now.  But I just can’t answer the bell this morning.

The pool is open for lap swim this afternoon and then again tomorrow starting at noon so I will see if resting and eating will get me fired back up so I can go today.  Then I can take tomorrow and most of Sunday off before I hit it again.

This only makes me admire even more those who choose the path of the Ironman.  It would take me YEARS to build up to that level of training, even at my current pace.  And even though I know this will get a bit easier as I lose weight and get stronger, it’s still the hardest thing I have ever done.  And I’m only training for sprint distances…!

Honoring an athlete

Our club recently lost one of it’s founding members.  A life cut too short.  A strong heart silenced.  A good friend to many in the group, to the sport of triathlon and to many others.

I never got the chance to be introduced to the man they call Kona.  I came in just as he moved away for a while and though I may have seen him, I never met him.  But I could see on the faces of those who knew him that he was special and is bitterly missed.

I am usually not one for memorials or tributes.  Mostly because I am awful at controlling my emotions and I get embarrassed because I tear up and feel sad even though most of them have nothing whatsoever to do with me.  I guess I just hate to see people hurting.  These are some of the strongest people I know.  So to see them reduced to tears frustrates and angers me because I know there is nothing I can do.  They will have to heal.  And I will never truly understand.

When the club announced that they would be doing a memorial run to honor the life of Kona, I debated whether I should participate.  Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t feel like I was a part of the club enough to be of any use.  I thought a lot about this.  Finally, I decided that I would run.  But not so much to honor someone I didn’t know, rather to honor the people who knew him and the club that he helped create.  They (his friends and club members) needed support as well.  They needed to see that we (newer members) support them and believe in the same things they believe in.  They also needed to see that what Kona and the rest of the founding members created is now far bigger than one person.  That it is strong and full of the next generation (or two) who believe what they believe.

So, for Kona, I ran today.  I ran as hard as I could.  I ran the fastest 6.5 miles I have ever run.  Because, from what they tell us, that is what he wanted and that is how he lived.  I think this is also a good synopsis of what this club expects.  Go hard, do your best, leave everything on the course.

There is now a bell (I’m not sure how permanent it is) hanging on a sign at the Forum entrance to the MKT trail in Columbia.  When we got done we were asked to ring it in his honor.  If you ever run here, you should to.

Know when to say when

When I started with the triathlon newbie group, one of the first swim lessons we had talked about practice.  Besides showing us technique drills and how to set up an exercise plan for swimming, we also got tips for getting comfortable in the water.  One of the tips that stuck in my head was “Swim until you get tired, then get out”.  In other words, your technique starts to fail quickly when you get tired in the water and you develop bad habits.  So work hard, but if you get fatigued, call it a day and come back tomorrow.

I never really thought about this until today.  After a couple of pretty intense workouts, a sick kid (read: limited sleep) and a hard race on Saturday started to wear on me this morning.  I could tell I was tired because I didn’t want to get out of bed.  My greatest victory of the day was winning that arguement with myself and actually dragging my sorry butt to the pool.  I started off fine but I could feel the energy draining faster than usual.  The pool was unusually warm this morning, which didn’t help.  I have really been working hard to be more symmetrical with my rotation in an effort to try to straighten out my track.  I still pull to the right.  I have also been working on slowly increasing my cadence now that my technique and arm placement seem to be a bit more natural.

But I noticed early on that I was having trouble with my left side.  I was dragging my arm out of the water and not placing it out in front, but rather to the side.  My kick was also much more erratic than usual.  I got to the last part of my set, 8 X 100 with 15 second rest, and I was just spent.  Mark Livesay’s (coach) words echoed in my head at that point “If you are tired, get out”.  As much as I wanted to keep going, I know he is right.  I was routinely breaking form and felt like I was dragging through the water.  It was time to go.  So I got out.  My dad’s favorite saying “Live to fight another day”, was also on my mind.  I’m so focused on getting in as much training as I can that I have to remember that I will get to train again tomorrow (heck, I’m riding this afternoon!) and that I need quality right now as I am trying to get the muscle memory down.  Doing things wrong or poorly just for the sake of getting in the miles makes little sense.  Regardless of whether they are wet miles or dry miles.  I wouldn’t run this tired, why should I swim?