I'd been feeling like something had come over me for about 5 days. I couldn't shake it. I felt light headed, dizzy, had a terrible headache, weak, tired; if I was sitting down, I still felt like I was going to fall over. I was scheduled for an olympic tri on Sunday, and since Tuesday had it in my head that I'd be over this and able to race. Friday came, I went to the pool. 500 meters into my swim I felt like I was going to pass out in the pool. I got out. Smart move number one. The rest of the day I drank lots of fluids, rested, did everything I was instructed to do. Saturday I woke up feeling a little better. Had it in my head that I was going to race on Sunday. Went out for my shake out ride and run and felt great. Put out pretty good numbers with little effort. Brought my bike in to get a couple of last minute tweaks and a pre-race tune up. As the day went on I felt worse and worse.... but that night still had it in my head that I was going to get up at 4 am and get my race on. As 8:00 rolled around that night and I could barely stay awake or hold my head up, I told myself that I wasn't going to set my alarm, but if I woke up at 4 (which is not unusual for me) it was meant to be and I would head to the race. Sunday morning I rolled over and saw 6:30 am, and knew it was not meant to be, and it was too late to get to the race anyway. I was fine with it.... as my A race is in two weeks and I didn't want to jeopardize anything leading up to that.
So... I prepared a few bottles (notice I say a few, obviously had the intention of a good ride) and headed out on my bike. Oh, I also set up a transition area at the end of my driveway, just in case I felt okay and wanted to run a few miles after. Headed south on 125, took a left onto some unknown road, figured I'd loop back into Exeter... came upon another cyclist, about 20 minutes down the road after catching up with and passing each other over and over, I said "hey, do you know where this road comes out?" He said "I have no idea!" and we both laughed and kept on... about another 20 minutes go by, he (his name was Andy, I came to find out later) caught up again and said "Uh, we're in Amesbury Mass". Oops. We found our way onto 286 and into Hampton together.
My ride turned into 60 miles, and I did a 4 mile run off the bike. So, I feel like I could've raced... but I guess it was better to not have and wish that I did, than to have and wish that I hadn't. Needless to say, I was feeling much better, and think I have finally kicked whatever I had come down with. Two weeks til my A race: Pumpkinman 70.3.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Hey GENIUS...
Not advised to buy a pair of Newtons 4 weeks out from your 70.3 that you've been training for all season. Wait, let me add to that: and run 13 miles at a 7:40 pace and then do 8 miles of speed work two days later. Wait, a little more... especially if you've had achilles problems in the past. Hang on, a little more: a slight achilles tear that sidelined you from running Boston in 2008. Wait, scratch all that; let me start over with a complete sentence (or maybe a run-on sentence):
Hey MORON, Don't go out and buy a pair of Newtons when you have never run in anything but asics for years and years, when you are 4 weeks out from your 70.3 A race of the season and 9 weeks out from a marathon, especially when you have had achilles problems in the past; specifically don't lace them up and run 13 miles and then two days later do a hard speed work day in them.... and expect everything to be a-okay.
That about sums it up. Luckily I think I caught it in time; as soon as my achilles started to show the same signs of injury again, I backed off - took 6 days off from running; was religious about using rock tape; and I think I'm good.... I hope. As I get older, the more injuries I seem to get, but I also seem to get smarter about taking care of them immediately instead of trying to push through them. The Newtons are back in the box, haven't decided if they are going back or if I'm going to just keep them in the box until November and then slowly break them in over the winter. Right now they have left a sour taste in my mouth (or on my achilles) but I really want them to work. The two runs that I did in them felt great; just not so great after.
Ran 13 miles this morning, in my asics (and rock tape), felt great. Phew. Tragedy narrowly averted.
Hey MORON, Don't go out and buy a pair of Newtons when you have never run in anything but asics for years and years, when you are 4 weeks out from your 70.3 A race of the season and 9 weeks out from a marathon, especially when you have had achilles problems in the past; specifically don't lace them up and run 13 miles and then two days later do a hard speed work day in them.... and expect everything to be a-okay.
That about sums it up. Luckily I think I caught it in time; as soon as my achilles started to show the same signs of injury again, I backed off - took 6 days off from running; was religious about using rock tape; and I think I'm good.... I hope. As I get older, the more injuries I seem to get, but I also seem to get smarter about taking care of them immediately instead of trying to push through them. The Newtons are back in the box, haven't decided if they are going back or if I'm going to just keep them in the box until November and then slowly break them in over the winter. Right now they have left a sour taste in my mouth (or on my achilles) but I really want them to work. The two runs that I did in them felt great; just not so great after.
Ran 13 miles this morning, in my asics (and rock tape), felt great. Phew. Tragedy narrowly averted.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Swim: YOU are the weakest link
I have done four tri's this year; three sprints and an olympic. First sprint I won my AG, 5th overall. Second sprint placed 2nd AG. Olympic...well, we don't even need to discuss that. I don't know where I placed but it certainly wasn't worth mentioning. Third sprint, won my AG - I think I was 7th overall? Or something. But, none of that was thanks to the swim portion. Luckily I can run. Out of 202 people (men and women), I was 149 out of the water. Run, I was 17th. (2nd female). None of these numbers really matter, except they go to prove a point that I am super competitive, and I like being good at things. Swimming is not one of these things.
I have been working with Craig Lewin from Endurance Swimming and he has been fantastic. I have certainly gotten a lot out of his instruction. I plan to work with him over the winter as much as possible. For now, my goal is just to get through my Olympic race in a week and a half, and not let the swim ruin my race like it did in my last Oly. And then to get through my 70.3 in (gulp) 3-1/2 weeks, again, without letting the swim ruin my race.
I'm hoping that by this time next year I can look back at this post and laugh, because I'm SO much better at swimming by then. If I'm not, it won't be for lack of trying!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Jumping ahead... my first Olympic tri (aka I am my biggest critic)
Jumping ahead to my third triathlon... an olympic distance - July 18. this was my race report:
First and foremost, I must say that I am extremely hard on myself - always have been, always will be, it will never change. So here's my report.
3:15 am my alarm goes off, and I am up like a little kid on Christmas. Always like this for me on race day. I had asked my mom if she wanted to go with me, as she has come to all of my marathons and most of my running races, but never a tri. I told her she had to be at my house at 4:15... I completely didn't expect her to come, but at 3:53 I got a text message "on my way". I was excited - it is always nice to have someone waiting for you at the finish. We left the house and headed out for a 2 hour drive to the race venue. I had plenty of time to just focus on my race. In my head I was going over everything that I had in the back of my vehicle to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. At one point while I was doing this I even turned around to look and make sure that my bike was there... a bit OCD, yes.
We got to 275 Baldwinville Road with the help of my GPS and it was somebody's house. After a little bit of freaking out, I realized it was Baldwinville State Road that I needed and luckily I wasn't that far away. Got to the parking lot, all gear unloaded, headed towards registration and body marking. My mom pulled out the camera and started taking pictures - I think she took a total of 88 photos throughout the day. Team Hoyt was there, whom my mom had never seen or heard of, so she was very impressed with them and I ended up with lots of pictures of them. She was also very impressed with the size of some of the people that were participating, so I ended up with about 6 pictures of two very large people that I don't know. My Mom's a little odd. Anyway....
Walking into transition my chain fell off my bike, not sure why. Put it back on, set up transition; shoes on, off for a little 1 mile warm up run. while I was gone they announced that the water temp was 80, so wet suits could be worn but you wouldn't be eligible for any awards. this was fine, as I didn't expect to place anyway. I figured my swim would be 35 minutes for .9 miles, and with that speed, I think a one armed... no wait, Jim K, probably could've passed me :) Back from my warm up run, onto the bike to make sure it was in the right gear and chain was good to go. Back to transition, grabbed sleeveless wetsuit, goggles, cap, gu and headed to the beach. Walked in the water for a little swim and saw the guy that I have taken a few lessons from (obviously I need to take a few more) and chatted for a few minutes. He said "why are you wearing a wet suit?" and I told him I would still be in the water when he was coming in from the run if I didn't. I asked him the best place to start to be out of the madness, so we came up with a plan; he was off and I did a little warm up swim.
Fast forward to race start. The sprint race was going off at the same time as the Olympic - the sprint waves were first. Finally my wave was up (orange caps), into the water to the first buoy to start, and we were given the signal to start. there were only 4 waves for the Olympic race, so the waves were rather large. It was a struggle at first but I was fine, and got away from the mass of people and got into my groove. I just concentrated on my stroke and aiming for the big buoys, which looked so far away... after a while, the men in the wave of white caps that started after us, started to pass me. This is where my day started to go south I think. I started to get grabbed - my feet, my legs, my butt (ooh baby) and swam over and kicked. I didn't freak out at all, but it made me slow down a lot and keep looking around to try not to get kicked in the face. This went on for most of the rest of the swim, which seemed like it took forever. I felt fine, wasn't tired or anything, more annoyed. Oh, I also peed twice on the swim so hopefully one of those guys swimming over me got peed on. I finally made it back to the beach, ran out of the water and looked at my watch... 40:17. My heart absolutely sunk, I was so disappointed. I have been swimming around 1800 meters in 40 minutes, so I thought for sure I would swim the .9 in about 35. Secretly I was hoping that I'd somehow be faster than that. It's alright, just get on the bike, legs feel great, make up the time on the bike and run.... is what I SHOULD have been thinking. Instead I was consumed with the fact that I sucked so bad in the water. I think at this point I mentally packed up and went home.
Swim: 40:17 ...gulp... 291 out of 322. Yikes.
T1: I had worn my racebelt under my wetsuit and already had my garmin on, so I only had to tear off my wetsuit, throw on my bike shoes, helmet, sunglasses and grab my bike. Switched my garmin into bike mode as I was running out.. T1: 1:21
The bike course was two loops, with a couple of good hill climbs. The first was at mile 5, and it was almost a mile long climb. I passed a lot of people on the bike, kept it steady up the hills, just cranked along. I was still thinking about the swim and how disappointed I was. Not much to report on the bike - other than the 2nd loop at the big hill climb almost at the top of the hill there was a guy in cycling clothes that had parked his bike against a tree and was on his knees on the ground with a cowbell in one hand and pounding the pavement with the other hand yelling "hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Almost there! Kill this hill! Hammer!" It made me smile and gave me a little kick.
I was hoping to average around 19+ mph on the bike, ended up in the 18's. I was disappointed with this as well.
Bike: 24.4 miles 1:20 - 129 out of 322. A little better than swim, but geesh, still disappointing.
Dismount, run into T2. Bike racked, helmet off, visor on, bike shoes off, running shoes on, speed laces tightened on right shoe.. grab the little plastic thingy on the other laces and CRAP! Pulled it off! Alright, relax, just take your time and put it back on - no big deal. Got the little plastic thingy on, laces tightened, set garmin to running mode on my way running out of transition. Figured that T2 was going to be a couple minutes at least.
T2: 0:53!!!! I scanned through the results quickly at the T2 times and this time was definitely better than most!
Onto the run. All I can say is Thank God I can run. My competitive spirit kicked back in (I'm lying, it never left) and I was passing people left and right. I guess it's a good thing that running comes at the end of triathlon. I had asked Aleck how to play out my day as far as pacing and he gave me instructions on all. For the run he had said to run the first mile around 7:30, then work up to 5k pace and then the last 5k go as hard as I could. so for the first couple miles I tried to hold back and ran around 7:15, but then I thought - why am I holding back? It's only a 10k! And I kicked it in. My legs felt great, I didn't feel like I had swam or biked prior to this (based on my results I really didn't!) and I was on it. I passed one person after another and kept thinking in my head "Ha! That's for passing me on the swim!" It was hot out, the run was out and back, there were two water stops (so really four) and I grabbed water at each, drank some, and poured the rest over my head. At the 3rd water stop, I reached for the cup and somehow it got knocked onto the ground. I needed water at this point so I turned around and went back for a cup. Aggravating. In the last mile I kept thinking about my coach saying "give it all you've got" and pushed harder and harder. My last mile was 6:26. My 10k pace ended up being 7:06 average per mile. I definitely could've gone harder - lesson learned.
Run: 45:26, 41 out of 322.
Reached the finish line and my first Olympic was done. Time was 2:48. 126 out of 322. I didn't wait around for the results to be posted, I was too pissed off about the swim still (I'm a big baby I guess). I did get in the water to cool down, and then packed my stuff up and headed out. I am pretty psyched about my transition times and my run. I need to work on getting stronger on the bike, and definitely need help on the swim. Next Oly is Aug 28, then my first 70.3 is Sept 12. Hopefully I will make some huge improvements in those periods of time and be much happier with my races in the future! (Side note: I will never be happy with my race results. No matter what. That's just me. :) )
First and foremost, I must say that I am extremely hard on myself - always have been, always will be, it will never change. So here's my report.
3:15 am my alarm goes off, and I am up like a little kid on Christmas. Always like this for me on race day. I had asked my mom if she wanted to go with me, as she has come to all of my marathons and most of my running races, but never a tri. I told her she had to be at my house at 4:15... I completely didn't expect her to come, but at 3:53 I got a text message "on my way". I was excited - it is always nice to have someone waiting for you at the finish. We left the house and headed out for a 2 hour drive to the race venue. I had plenty of time to just focus on my race. In my head I was going over everything that I had in the back of my vehicle to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. At one point while I was doing this I even turned around to look and make sure that my bike was there... a bit OCD, yes.
We got to 275 Baldwinville Road with the help of my GPS and it was somebody's house. After a little bit of freaking out, I realized it was Baldwinville State Road that I needed and luckily I wasn't that far away. Got to the parking lot, all gear unloaded, headed towards registration and body marking. My mom pulled out the camera and started taking pictures - I think she took a total of 88 photos throughout the day. Team Hoyt was there, whom my mom had never seen or heard of, so she was very impressed with them and I ended up with lots of pictures of them. She was also very impressed with the size of some of the people that were participating, so I ended up with about 6 pictures of two very large people that I don't know. My Mom's a little odd. Anyway....
Walking into transition my chain fell off my bike, not sure why. Put it back on, set up transition; shoes on, off for a little 1 mile warm up run. while I was gone they announced that the water temp was 80, so wet suits could be worn but you wouldn't be eligible for any awards. this was fine, as I didn't expect to place anyway. I figured my swim would be 35 minutes for .9 miles, and with that speed, I think a one armed... no wait, Jim K, probably could've passed me :) Back from my warm up run, onto the bike to make sure it was in the right gear and chain was good to go. Back to transition, grabbed sleeveless wetsuit, goggles, cap, gu and headed to the beach. Walked in the water for a little swim and saw the guy that I have taken a few lessons from (obviously I need to take a few more) and chatted for a few minutes. He said "why are you wearing a wet suit?" and I told him I would still be in the water when he was coming in from the run if I didn't. I asked him the best place to start to be out of the madness, so we came up with a plan; he was off and I did a little warm up swim.
Fast forward to race start. The sprint race was going off at the same time as the Olympic - the sprint waves were first. Finally my wave was up (orange caps), into the water to the first buoy to start, and we were given the signal to start. there were only 4 waves for the Olympic race, so the waves were rather large. It was a struggle at first but I was fine, and got away from the mass of people and got into my groove. I just concentrated on my stroke and aiming for the big buoys, which looked so far away... after a while, the men in the wave of white caps that started after us, started to pass me. This is where my day started to go south I think. I started to get grabbed - my feet, my legs, my butt (ooh baby) and swam over and kicked. I didn't freak out at all, but it made me slow down a lot and keep looking around to try not to get kicked in the face. This went on for most of the rest of the swim, which seemed like it took forever. I felt fine, wasn't tired or anything, more annoyed. Oh, I also peed twice on the swim so hopefully one of those guys swimming over me got peed on. I finally made it back to the beach, ran out of the water and looked at my watch... 40:17. My heart absolutely sunk, I was so disappointed. I have been swimming around 1800 meters in 40 minutes, so I thought for sure I would swim the .9 in about 35. Secretly I was hoping that I'd somehow be faster than that. It's alright, just get on the bike, legs feel great, make up the time on the bike and run.... is what I SHOULD have been thinking. Instead I was consumed with the fact that I sucked so bad in the water. I think at this point I mentally packed up and went home.
Swim: 40:17 ...gulp... 291 out of 322. Yikes.
T1: I had worn my racebelt under my wetsuit and already had my garmin on, so I only had to tear off my wetsuit, throw on my bike shoes, helmet, sunglasses and grab my bike. Switched my garmin into bike mode as I was running out.. T1: 1:21
The bike course was two loops, with a couple of good hill climbs. The first was at mile 5, and it was almost a mile long climb. I passed a lot of people on the bike, kept it steady up the hills, just cranked along. I was still thinking about the swim and how disappointed I was. Not much to report on the bike - other than the 2nd loop at the big hill climb almost at the top of the hill there was a guy in cycling clothes that had parked his bike against a tree and was on his knees on the ground with a cowbell in one hand and pounding the pavement with the other hand yelling "hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Almost there! Kill this hill! Hammer!" It made me smile and gave me a little kick.
I was hoping to average around 19+ mph on the bike, ended up in the 18's. I was disappointed with this as well.
Bike: 24.4 miles 1:20 - 129 out of 322. A little better than swim, but geesh, still disappointing.
Dismount, run into T2. Bike racked, helmet off, visor on, bike shoes off, running shoes on, speed laces tightened on right shoe.. grab the little plastic thingy on the other laces and CRAP! Pulled it off! Alright, relax, just take your time and put it back on - no big deal. Got the little plastic thingy on, laces tightened, set garmin to running mode on my way running out of transition. Figured that T2 was going to be a couple minutes at least.
T2: 0:53!!!! I scanned through the results quickly at the T2 times and this time was definitely better than most!
Onto the run. All I can say is Thank God I can run. My competitive spirit kicked back in (I'm lying, it never left) and I was passing people left and right. I guess it's a good thing that running comes at the end of triathlon. I had asked Aleck how to play out my day as far as pacing and he gave me instructions on all. For the run he had said to run the first mile around 7:30, then work up to 5k pace and then the last 5k go as hard as I could. so for the first couple miles I tried to hold back and ran around 7:15, but then I thought - why am I holding back? It's only a 10k! And I kicked it in. My legs felt great, I didn't feel like I had swam or biked prior to this (based on my results I really didn't!) and I was on it. I passed one person after another and kept thinking in my head "Ha! That's for passing me on the swim!" It was hot out, the run was out and back, there were two water stops (so really four) and I grabbed water at each, drank some, and poured the rest over my head. At the 3rd water stop, I reached for the cup and somehow it got knocked onto the ground. I needed water at this point so I turned around and went back for a cup. Aggravating. In the last mile I kept thinking about my coach saying "give it all you've got" and pushed harder and harder. My last mile was 6:26. My 10k pace ended up being 7:06 average per mile. I definitely could've gone harder - lesson learned.
Run: 45:26, 41 out of 322.
Reached the finish line and my first Olympic was done. Time was 2:48. 126 out of 322. I didn't wait around for the results to be posted, I was too pissed off about the swim still (I'm a big baby I guess). I did get in the water to cool down, and then packed my stuff up and headed out. I am pretty psyched about my transition times and my run. I need to work on getting stronger on the bike, and definitely need help on the swim. Next Oly is Aug 28, then my first 70.3 is Sept 12. Hopefully I will make some huge improvements in those periods of time and be much happier with my races in the future! (Side note: I will never be happy with my race results. No matter what. That's just me. :) )
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