Hyvee Triathlon

Race report to follow in the following days. I need to evaluate somethings about it and work on accepting the fact that I did not do as bad as I am playing it up in my head.

Who determines these swim waves?

I have one thing to complain about. Swim wave times at Hyvee this weekend. Female under 29: 6:48 am. Transition closes at 5:45. What am I suppose to do for an hour? I have thought of several things. Take a nap, go out for breakfast, hang out in the beer garden. But the one I have chosen is to time my warm up to end exactly at 5:45, put my shoes in transition, get out of transition, stretch. By the time I am done doing that, the first people will be out of the water. This is a unique opportunity because now I can watch how the elite group do their transitions and maybe pick up a few things that could help me out. Normally I would be swimming still so you never get to see these guys/girls. Since these will be the people winning my age group, it couldn't hurt to learn from them. Also by the time my wave goes off, some people might be finishing. lol. Just kidding. Almost will get to see them come back in from the bike to run. So by the time I am done, all the food will be gone and I will have to wait 2 hours for a massage. Hmmm...that sucks. Oh well, what can ya do? I am heading out to the lake tonight for a swim. I was debating about whether or not I needed to get in the water without my wetsuit. I am pretty sure I will be fine, but it can't hurt to get out there and swim just to make sure so I won't have that tiny bit of doubt. And when else are you going to get out and be able to swim an hour with a life guard in open water? Not very often. This will be nice. Last couple days' workouts: Monday: 30 min swim because the pool water was 96 degrees. Hot tub water: 101 degress. Hmmm...little warm don't ya think. I about passed out so I decided it was time to get out. Tuesday: 45 min run in am. It was hot! Wednesday: 30 min bike this morning and an hour swim tonight. Thursday: 30 min run am and 2 hour bike after work. Friday: off. Picking up my packet, going to Rob's softball game and then to the Icubs. That is the plan anyway. Rain could alter these. Saturday: 45 bike and 30 min run. Equipment check and gather it up. Clean up bike and take to bike check in. Try to get to bed early(ish). Probably getting up at 3:30 Sunday. Going to braid my hair which will take the most time. Also wanting to get to the race sight so I get a good parking spot. the DSMtri club has special closer parking. So I want to get there probably around 4:45-5 just to make sure I get a spot there.

Going for broke

I have been doing tons of research online all weekend and think I have narrowed down my stomach issue. I think I need more sodium. Clue #1: I feel that I am eating and drinking enough, it is just taking my body forever to want to absorb it. Clue #2: I believe I get Hyponatremia (the nausea, fatigue, vomiting, sleepiness are hints to this), Clue #3: I have been relying on gels for my electrolytes. I ordered salt stick caps today. I also found a place where it talks about salt. My thought was why can't I just eat salt? It will become unpalatable and I need the other 4 - potassium, magnesium, calcium, and chloride. I am hoping that this is my problem and I can get this worked out in the next couple weeks. I have been doing some "water" tests the last couple days. Weighing myself before and after working out so I know exactly how much fluid and sodium I am going to need. The hot humid conditions are definately how Louisville is going to be. I ran 10 miles yesterday. Stupid me, I forgot to put the insoles back in my shoes. You have to ask how does one forget to do this? It was simple. I had a one track mind of get out and run and try not to die. Last time I went running, when I took my feet out, the insoles came out so I was going to let them dry and glue them in. Well I forgot to put them back in. No wonder they felt so big. I just thought my feet hadn't swollen up yet. I did get a small sore on the side of my foot just below my ankle. I am sure I would have gotten that with the insoles. The bottoms of my feet got a little "hot" at mile 8, but no blisters. Thank goodness. Tonight I am going to the pool and then staying inside on the bike tonight. In the "ac". Might have to turn it down a bit and put all the fans on I have. Running tomorrow morning and then I have tomorrow night off. Can't wait for Hyvee to be over. I just hate all the "stuff" you have to do before the race. Packet pickup, athlete briefings, bike check in, but I am still excited to do it. I love the races. It is what keeps me motivated. Right now I am not planning on doing Big Creek just because it falls on my last big weekend before Louisville. I have a 7 hour bike Saturday and I will be wiped out for the race Sunday. Might throw in Iowa Games or Hickory Grove if I need something to do. Well back to the training.

4:50 Bike Hurt

I have been home now for about 20 min from my 4:50 bike. It was a good ride and it was a bad ride. First the bad. I am really starting to question my sanity, if I had any to begin with. Why am I doing this? The longest bike I had yet, and it killed me. I made 80 miles in 4.5 hours and then did a slow cool down around the neighborhood. I guess I wasn't really tired, my legs just hurt and my saddle region was screaming. It would have been better if I was able to stay aero and be comfortable because then my legs stopped hurting when I was down. I had to sit up a lot the last hour. I will get to that in a bit. My quads are what was yelling the loudest. Oh man. I am still struggling with my nutrition. I will elaborate more in a second. If I had to add any hills today, I think I would have just died. Ok onto the good: I did ride 80+ miles today. I have figured out that being in the aero position is a start to my nutrition problem. I started having stomach problems today right at 1:15, when I have the other times as well. I found that after 5-6 min of taking a gel is when my stomach reacts to it. I started sitting up after 4-5 min and sitting up for 5 min and then going aero again. This worked really well until after 3.5 hours. I started to have to sit up longer before I felt better, but by the time I could feel it settling in my stomach, it was time to eat again. Ugh. I did not have a strong urge to throw up, but it was on the way. By 4 hours I wanted to throw every gel I had at passing vehicles. I was getting upset. Just then, my boyfriend text me and I asked him why I was doing this and he said "because you are awesome". That really helped get me through the last miles. I will have to plant signs and pictures of him around the course that I can read to keep me motivated. Today I also tried Elite. Um...no reaction to it, I guess. I liked the salty taste it left on my lips when I ripped open the packet. This got me thinking that I do need more salt. Would it be weird to just carry a salt shaker around. Then I passed Casey's and thought, I should stop in there and see if they have those little salt packets. Hmmmmm....this could work. Well I didn't stop because I wanted to get home so bad. I did stop about half way on the bike to pee and right when I got home so I feel I was not dehydrated. This problem is driving me nuts. The upset stomach was what was causing me to sit up longer, which was brutal. Today, even the light 5-10 mph wind out of the West was pissing me off. I try not to think about it because it takes so much energy to be pissed at something you can't control. I also decided I would rather do a hilly course than have a flat windy one. I discovered today that the old Lincoln Highway between Ames and Nevada has a bike lane. That was sweet. Today I was also very tempted to eat the nats that were stuck to my arm. I could have eaten for 2 days with all of them. Gross. I also got sunburned on my forehead where the vents are in my helmet. So I have 2 red vertical marks there. Great. Good thing my hair will cover it up, hopefully. I did not get burned anywhere else other than my face. That was where I put the most sunscreen. So maybe less is more? Or mostly I just sweated it all off. I also think I have figured out why people in their 60s still feel like they are in their 20s. Because I feel like I am 60 years old today. So when I am 60, I will remember that I felt like this in my 20s and it will be the same :) At the rate I am going, I hope I make to 60. Geez. Thursday morning I ran 45 min the morning and then biked for an hour after work. I went on the trail that heads up to Big Creek. I couldnt remember why I don't like that trail, and then I remembered. Holy Crap, that trail is in horrible shape. I think I had more water on me than I did in my water bottle. I lost the straw and sponge from my aero bottle about 5 times and then I just took it out and held it in my hand. It was so stupid. On the way back I took the road. Never riding that trail ever again. Well, maybe if I had a full suspension mountain bike. People are insane to ride on it. Friday was my day off. Well kind of. I hadn't mowed lawn in 2 weeks now so I figured I would do that last night. hahaha. it sucked. First off, the grass is about a foot tall, second it is really think because I over seeded it this year and third, it was very wet. So my normal 20 min mow turned into a 30 min mow plus another 20 to rake. I never even got the front mowed. Ugh. I was dripping wet so I came in and showered. Took a short nap and then went out for a couple drinks with some friends. So maybe sometime today I can get the rest mowed. I need to hire someone to do my yard work because the weeds are taking over my raspberries and rubarb. Tomorrow I am going to attempt a 1.5 hour run and a short 30 min bike after. Might have to take the mountain bike so I am not sitting on the same place as I was today. Decided I am not going to do much of a taper this week for Hyvee. Probably will take Tuesday night off and Friday and only do a short bike/run Saturday before dropping off my bike. I like the excitement of Hyvee, I had the logistics of it. The mandatory meetings, registration, the expo, bike check in, race morning chip pick up and marking, the parking. It just goes on. I liked Kansas because you could get so much done the day before and get it all done in one swoop because it was all at the race site and I didn't have to drive 30 min across town to get there. The traffic much better too because busy roads were NOT closed. I am going to crash on the couch. I just found a fucking cockroach in my spare bedroom. Holy fuck I am going to burn down my house to get rid of these bugs. The ants have discovered last night where I feed my dog so they were all over his food bowl this morning. I had to spray it to kill them because there was literally a hundred ants on it. So I filled up his water and set it on the floor while I cleaned his stand. When I set his bowl on the floor he looked at me like, you want me to eat off the floor? But I am a God. I said you stuck up little monkey, lol. Just eat. I cleaned up his stand and then put his food and water dish back on it, then he came over and ate. Spoiled rotten. He is now laying spralled all over my bed so I have to sleep on the couch. At least I get the big tv then, lol.

Nutrition Help

I am still struggling on this 4th disipline of nutrition. I need help. Here is my background of things I have tried. Last year, I trained with a powerade mixture that I mixed. In races I used gels. My HIM last year, I double mixed the powerade in my aero bottle and planned to drink half of it and then fill it up with water and drink the rest, gels to fill out the other calories. Bad idea. By mile 20 I was starting to burp and then around mile 25 I threw up. I could not keep anything down the rest of the bike. Not even water. I would drink it, and then I would burp and it would come right back up. Felt better on the run. Took gels and drank a lot of water. Ended up being pretty dehydrated after the race. This later year, I have been training with gels and water only. Been taking about 2.5 gels an hour and 1-1.5 bottles of water an hour. It has worked really good on my training rides. I did try the Zym tablets you put in your water, but on a training ride I got a really bad stomach ache. Kansas HIM I had water and gels. I had 3 gels before the start of the race with a bottle of water. First 20 of the bike, went through 1 bottle of water and 2 gels. I was taking 1 gel every 25 min. Shortly after mile 20, I felt like I was running out of energy so I took another gel at 20 min. I started burping and then followed that up with my stomach hurting. The "I am on the verge of needing to puke" that is how the whole day my stomach felt. I kept eating a gel every 25 min and drinking 1+ bottle an hour. I felt a little better after I took a gel, but that didn't last real long. On the run I switched over to the gatorade and water only. Drank 1-2 cups of each at each aid station. This got me through, but my stomach never got any better until I stopped running. Then it was fine. I do not think I was dehydrated at all because I peed about 10 times after the race and urine was still pretty clear. I am not sure what is out there that I should try. I like not having a sports drink and just using the gels, but maybe a salt tablet or something. Will that help? My HR on the bike was a little higher than I normally bike at so could that have made a difference. It was at 80% instead of 74% So I slowed the second 20 to get it under 75% thinking that would help, but never felt any better so I just kicked it up again and went. Overall, I never felt low on energy or thirsty. I just wanted to stop eating and drinking. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

How can you afford this?

Today I realized that Ironman training is expensive, but not for the reason you think. Yes, equipment, race fees and travel are a lot, but the most expensive is the area you don't think about. Food. Holy crap. Just my training nutrition is burning a hole in my pocket. I have gone through 48 gels in the last 3 weeks. I just ordered 48 more. I should have started collecting them in the race on Sunday, then I could have a lot of them right now. lol. Then on top of that, I have to buy regular food. My last resort is what I eat almost every night. Oatmeal. It is cheap and quick to make. I have gone through an entire canister in the last month. It seems like I never have any food at home because once I do buy food, it is gone in 3 days. I need to set up automatic delivery or something because who really has time to go grocery shopping 3 days a week. I have definately seen a huge increase in my food budget these past few months, but more so this last month with the huge increase in training time. I can't imagine how next month will be. August won't be as bad, I hope, because I will be tapering for most of the month. I will have to take some time off of training just so I can save money on food, lol. Maybe I should pick up a second job to cover it, lol. All this talk about food is making me hungry. Darn it.

Kansas 70.3 Race Report

This morning I am back to normal. I woke up starving and tired. I am surprisingly not that sore. A little stiff in some weird areas. My knees (more specifically my acl area) are stiff and my butt is sore. But those 2 areas make it tough to walk, lol. Well lets get started with the weekend:

Friday:
I spent Friday trying to relax. I got off work and went to the pool for a 20 min swim. Mostly to test my new goggles and my new ear plugs. I decided that I wasn't going to wear the ear plugs yet because I felt like they were going to get knocked out. I sat in the hot tub for awhile trying to loosen up my shoulder so the headache I have been having since Wednesday would go away. Got home and gathered up my gear and tried to get to bed early. Ended up laying on the couch running through all my gear mentally because I was sure I forgot something. Went to bed about 10. Not to bad, but a little later than I wanted.

Saturday:
Got up at 6:30. Had breakfast and packed the car. I was off at 7:45. Dropped my dog off at the kennel and headed for Clinton State Park, just West of Lawrence. Very foggy day. I needed the sun just to get pumped about the race. My stomach was in knots the whole way down. I tried to drink as much as I could all day to stay hydrated. I arrived at the race site at 11:45 and parked. Walked the 1/2 mile to registration/T2 and then walked another 1/2 mile to T1 to check my bike in. It was exciting that we were able to get body marked on Saturday so that was one last thing I had to worry about race morning. The distance between the transition areas changed my race morning strategy. I went to rack my bike by the seat, but it was flopping in the wind so bad I had to rack it by the handle bars which took up 3 spots. Later I was lucky to find out that those 2 people did not show up anyway. After checking in my bike I went up to the first athlete meeting. Waste of time. They didn't talk about anything that I didn't know, but man people had some stupid questions. For example: If we are doing a relay, does the runner have to be there at the start of the race? Really people. How lazy is this runner that they can't be there to cheer on their teammates and everyone else doing the race. If I was the swimmer in that relay, I would leave before their run then :P hahaha. No I wouldn't, they had beer there. :) After the meeting, I headed to Amy's campsite. She is a triathlete I met on iamtri. I will be meeting several more of these people after the 2nd athlete meeting. I stayed at her campsite until about 3:30 and we walked up to the expo area to wait for the pros to be finished up with their meeting. Pros got out, I met Tim Deboom and I got Chrissy Wellington to sign my swim cap. She is amazing. She does not have an ounce of body fat on her. After that race we waited for the 2nd athlete meeting to finish up and met several other folks from iamtri. Most of us went out for dinner. Everyone had such a fun story. It was great to meet all these people that you talk with online and probably will never meet again. There was a small group from Pittsburg all the was to Los Angeles. After the dinner, Amy and I headed to our getto hotel. It really wasn't to bad until you walked into the bathroom. It looked like no one had cleaned in there for years. There was even one of those non slip mats in there. Gross. Can't imagine what the underside of that looked like. The curtain looked brand new though :) Amy and I talked about the race and checked our equipment and hit the hay about 8. Well Amy did, I watched the baseball college world series until about 9 then I went to sleep.

Sunday: Race Day:
Woke at 3:45 am. Immediatly turned on the weather because it was suppose to rain. Great huge storm headed right for us, with a lot of rain following. Ugh. I hurried up to get dressed, covered myself in sunscreen and was out the door at 4:15. I wanted to get to the site and get my stuff all set up before it rained. Transition opened at 4:45. I got to the race parking shortly after 4:30 and walked to T2 to drop off my running stuff. I put my run stuff in a plastic bag because I was not going to start with wet shoes. I threw all the stuff I needed for the swim and bike in my gatorade bag and left the rest of my stuff at T2. Walked down to T1. First thing for me was to get my tires pumped up. I did not bring a pump because you had to be able to fit all your stuff in this gatorade bag or it wasn't going to be brought up to T2 for you and you had to go back down and get it. I was not going to feel like doing that. I got the tires pumped up, set up my area and drank another bottle of water. I sucked down some gels because I kind of felt like eating and I figured I better do that now while I still felt like eating something. I got 3 down before the start of the race which was what I wanted so I was happy with that. I was all ready to go by 6am. I walked around transition checking out people's bikes because I love looking at bikes. I found some of the iamtri folks and talked to them for a bit. At 6:15 I got all body glided up and put on my wetsuit and headed to the swim start to watch the pros off. By this time, My stomach was in knots again, I wanted to throw up and wanted to go back to bed.
Swim: 40:37 Goal: 45 min
My wave was off at 6:50 so I didnt have to long to wait until I went. It was a water start so you had to tread water for about 4 min. Thank god we had wetsuits because I cannot tread water. It was so hard because everyone was kicking their legs all crazy and arms were flailing about. This was before the start of the swim. Gun went off. Holy crap it was crazy and there wasn't that many in my wave (18-29 women) Could not imagine any more people. We took off. I spent the first 300 yards fighting off people and trying to find a good draft. It was good until just before the first turn when the wave behind me started catching me. (men 40-44) They were so violent. I got kicked in the face for the first time ever because of those assholes. I also got raped for the first time too. 4 times to be exact on that swim, holy hell. There would be a group of about 3-4 guys that would just swim right over me. Really? There isn't enough room to go around. Geez. The end of the swim was crazy. It felt like I was in a washing machine. The water was so rough. We ended in between to docks and you walked up the boat ramp. Everyone stopped at the end of the docks. I was like get the hell out of my way. They only had carpet on 1/2 of the dock which was retarded. I looked at my watch 40:45. Awesome! I was way under my goal of 45 min so that gave me some extra adrenaline for the bike. There was no way I was going to beat 6 hours if my swim was to much longer than 45 min. I just felt really smooth and relaxed. I think it was because I was able to catch a draft for a good 1/2 of the swim.
T1: 1:53
My bike was racked at the end by the swim exit so I didn't have far to go. I put my goggles, cap and wetsuit into that tiny ass bag and grabbed my bike. There was so many tiny rocks and crap. It was painful. It was also very crowded and this stupid guy was just walking right down the middle of the aisle. I was like get the fuck out of the way dude. Finally he stopped and I ran past him and out to the mount line. I was surprised that my time wasn't longer. Felt like it took me 5 min to get out of there.
Bike: 2:57:43 (18.9 mph) Goal: 3 hours
I hop on my bike, but one of my shoes flipped upside down so I figured I would just go and spin it back around. Nope. Shoe hit the ground and I about wiped out. Had to stop to get it turned around. Ok, now I am off. I knew I was going to have to hit the bike hard because this was going to have to absorb my transition times and my extra run time to beat 6 hours. The first part of the bike was with the light wind so that helped a little, but not a lot. I felt really great. I hammered the first 20 miles. My HR was about 7 beats higher than I wanted, but I figured it would come down after awhile. This was just because I was so excited to get going. Nope, I had a hard time getting it to come down. By mile 20 my stomach was getting upset. Great. This is what happened to me last year in my HIM. I ended up not being able to keep anything down the last 2 hours of the bike which made it very miserable. This time I slowed down and kept drinking water. I kept eating the gels as planned. I started burping a bit, but it all stayed down, thank god. This year I eliminated any other liquid than water. Everything else gave me an upset stomach. Well upset more than it was. I had a 21 mph ave after the first 20 then it started slipping in the next 20 because I felt like crap. Mile 40 came up and I knew the next 10 miles were almost all downhill so I picked it up again. Mile 50 was half way up the huge hill and I knew there was only 1 more big hill left and 2 short steep hills in the park. I also realized at mile 50 I could still make 3 hours. This pumped me up and I gunned it for home. I quickly looked at my watch. Just under 3 hours, YES!
T2: 1:41
I got off my bike and ran through T2, well for about 10 steps then my calves gave me a hollar. I did not want them to tighten up or I was going to be screwed. I walked a bit, mostly because people were in my way and I was all the way to the other end. I got to my rack, dumped out my stuff. Almost forgot to put my socks on. Geez, that would have been bad. I hate socks. Grapped my visor and belt and was off.
Run: 2:01:01 9:14 pace Goal: 2:15
Oh I felt like I was going to be hurting, but I wasn't. I actually felt really good. Awesome. I wasn't going to push myself at all and just run comfortably because I haven't run more than 6 miles in 3 months. I was also very cautious of any pain that could arise in my foot. Before I knew it I was at the first aid station. I grabbed some water and gatorade. I love those sponges. I was going to make sure I got one of those at every station. The miles actually went by fast because I was thinking about how crappy my stomach felt and what I was going to get at the next aid station. Those came up way to fast because I did not want anything. I always grabbed atleast one water and one gatorade since I was not going to eat any more gels. Just before mile 3/10 (2 lap course) was the only hill. It was steep enough that I wasn't even going to waste my energy trying to run it. The first pass I had to walk backwards up it because my calves tightened up. The run went by so fast. I was able to keep either a 8:45 or a 9:15 pace. I was very surprised at that. I thought, yes, keep this up and you will make your 6 hours. I did not realize how far under 6 hours I could finish until I was at mile 7. I actually felt a goal of 6 hours was going to be a huge task ahead of me for how prepared I felt. Mile 7 also brought 3 girls in my age group to pass me. Grrr... I was not even going to try to keep up with them. There was so much race left. I got to mile 8 and was at 4:55 on my watch. Alright if I can keep a 10 min pace, I can finish in 5:45. Yes how cool would that be. So now at mile 10, I could see 2 of those girls. One had started walking, YES. I can catch her. I just kept at my pace and it slowly ate away at theirs. I passed girl 1 just before mile 11. Girl 2 was about 60 feet in front of me. I got to mile 12 and decided I had enough left to pick up the pace. I went for it. I knew I had to pass her early enough that she would not try to keep up with me and out sprint me at the end. She didn't even try. Ok this is great. At 12.5, I was just about to back off my pace, when another girl in my age group was right in front of me. Awesome, I am going for it. I kept the pace up until the finish. Coming down the shoot I turned around to make sure she wasn't there then jogged it in. Oh my gosh, I was so excited to finish. From the times last year, that would have put me in the top 10 in my age group. Not this year. That got me 23rd. Really. That was sad to find out, but I was so happy with my time. I ended up running a pr in the half marathon with a 2:01:01. That is a 9:14 pace. Wow. That was my pace at the last olympic. I need to learn how to run faster at shorter distances, lol.

Final time: 5:42:55 PR by 43 min!

Summary:
Things I learned:
Do not get your shoes wet. I got water in mine at mile 3 and it was horrible. The bottoms of my feet burned so bad. I don't have any blisters but man they burned. I am sure it is because my feet have 2 inches of thick callusted skin on them from never wearing socks that saved me. I need to work on getting my stomach ready to accept food at the pace I want to go. After all of that, I am dissapointed with my bike time. Well the middle 20. A massage after a race is awesome. Beer after a race tastes very yummy, but water does not. A very cold sponge on a hot day takes your breath away. My wheel hypnotises people. Even though I was starving after the race, I did not want to put food in my mouth which made for a miserable night. Getting kicked in the face hurts. Even though the guy in the wheel chair is flying past you on the downhill in the run, he does not have an advantage over you. He is just awesome. Be sure when you grab a water, you know if there is ice in it or not because you could choke on it. Very dangerous.

Now that this race is over, I will work out my aches in the next couple days and get ready for Hyvee in less than 2 weeks now. Need to get my derailer fixed. It wanted to jump gears a bit. I am also highly considering a massage. Oh yes, a massage. But right now I am burnt and don't want anyone to touch me. They could work on my butt because that is not burnt and that is the place that needs the most work. :)

Pure Awesomeness

Ironman Kansas 70.3 was awesome. The awesome details to follow in the next couple days because right now, I need to get something to eat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ready!

Tomorrow I leave for Lawrence, Kansas for Kansas 70.3. I am ready, well after I pack my bags tonight :) I did an hour bike last night and a 20 min run. I felt very loose and relaxed. I hope I don't get tensed up from driving tomorrow. I need to recruit someone to give me a massage Saturday night. I will just cover myself in icyhot. It will be awesome. Goal for this race is time only. I want to PR my HIM. Shooting for under 6 hours. I am hoping the rain holds off, or atleast the storms.

Taking a risk

My worst fear has come back to haunt me. My foot is showing signs that it wants to develop yet another stress fracture. AUGH. The tendons in my foot are tired and sore, which is exactly how my foot felt before. I ran last Thursday for 3 miles and it was really starting to get bad so I stopped. I haven't run since then until this morning. I ran about 4 min. Yes, that is 4 mins. The pain is not there, but that feeling before the pain comes was. I am very nervous now about Sunday that I will really mess it up. Only Planning a very short run Thursday just to get my legs ready. Probably will only be about 5 min. Just enough to get a sweat started so I can stretch out really good. Did a 30 min swim last night. The pain I have had in my arm is finally gone so last nights swim was nice. I am not sure what is causing that pain. I thought it was from swimming so I did a shorter than planned swim to see how I would feel today and there is no signs of stiffness. My arm still gets tired when I swim and that is just because I am not use to swimming with a "better" form. Taking the bike out Thursday night for a final equipment check and then packing everything. I need to get to the LBS to get a new tire. Yes, a tire. I was changing the tire I had on my 808 to my disc so I had the same tires on the wheels I am going to race on Sunday and put the other one on my 808. Got it on the wheel and started pumping it up. What is that noise? Yes, there was a hole about an 1/8" long and 1/16" wide. Not a small hole. So that tire is shot and need to get a new one. I am also going to pick up another pair of Tyr Nest Pro goggles. I love these goggles. Other than that I am taking it pretty easy this week. It has been nice. I could get use to this, which is a big problem since I need to push these last 11 weeks. Well, I could take a nap right now. The 11 hours of sleep last night apparently weren't enough. Geez. lol.

Week 25

Well...It has been a long, short week. The week went fast as each day I now have packed full of fun and exciting activities. Mostly, I just look forward to that day I can wake up at any time I want, not have to workout, and not have to even think of working out. September will be here soon, lol. The days seem short when I am trying to get stuff done, but the day ends up being long because I am exhausted by mid day and still have to finish the day. Workouts this week: Monday, I got in a 45 min swim. Tuesday I was on the trainer for 1:30 after I ran in the morning for 45 min. Wednesday I was feeling the effects of the 3 hour bike on Saturday and race on Sunday so I didn't do any "official" training, but did play softball that evening. Thursday, I swam at Raccoon Park for 20 min and then ran for 30. I planned to do an hour, but my feet are bothering me again. This is really starting to get me down. I am going to take it easy now that I have started my taper except for this Saturday's long bike. I might do a 30 min run after if my feet are feeling better. I don't want to push them being I have to run 13.1 miles in a little over a week. The pain in my foot is not in the same place the stress fracture was, but it is very similar pain to that leading up to the fracture. I am hoping it is just the tendons in my foot are a little tired and nothing more. Good thing it is a taper week and I don't have to really do much of anything. Maybe I can wash the 5 mile high pile of clothes in my closet. I have not washed clothes in 5 weeks. Good thing I have an unlimited supply of underwear :) Tonight is a day off. Tomorrow I am heading out with Tribeaner for a 3:45 ride and a 30 min run. Should be a nice workout. It will be really nice to ride some place other than my normal rides. It gets boring riding in the same place over and over. It is also tough to find roads that are not super busy too. Sunday I probably won't workout. I have some things in the yard I need to work on so that will be a nice easy day. I am sure it will rain all day so I will sleep most of it.

Bluff Creek Triathlon Analysis

Now the fun part. Official results are finally up. My line: Swim :33:23, T1 0:45, Bike 1:30:53, T2 0:26, Run 55:07, Total 3:00:35

Actual swim time was ~32:00. There was a 400 yard "jog" to transition, that hurt the time. T1 awesome. Going to brag a bit, both of my transition times were the fastest for all female olympic. That is where my edge is. To bad there isn't more of those, lol. Bike :P that sucked, 18.3 mph but the fastest bike time was 1:18 which was my original goal of 21 mph. Looks like everyone hurt on the bike. I was averaging over 23 mph (wind helps) until the first hill at mile 7, then it all went downhill from there, wait, uphill. Up a big f*cking hill. We should have done the bike course backwards, then we would have had awesome splits because it would have been with the wind. T2, smoked it. Run, this has been changed from the "original" results. Swim got a little faster and this got a little slower. I would have been happier with the slower swim :) 8:53/mile average. Better than I thought I would do, but right where I was hoping it would be for this race. So if I drop off 15 min from the bike and 5 from the swim, I will be at 2:40, my goal time for Hyvee. Seems more doable now than it did 3 days ago. Ok, so I am done obsessing with Bluff Creek now, time to focus on Kansas.

Bluff Creek Triathlon Results

This last weekend I raced in the Bluff Creek Tri. From the get go, I was not in the race mentally, which resulted in a very tough day. Sunday morning I woke at 6am to walk the dog and grab some breakfast. I loaded up the car and headed for Ogden. I arrived at 730 to find pretty much everyone already there. I got my race packet and rack my bike. I got stuck by a person that this had to be their first race because who brings a bag big enough you could carry your bike in, really. So he had about 5 feet or space for just his transition stuff so you think that finding a place for his bike would be easy (forshadowing for later) I squeeze in my bike. I only have my running shoes to layout so I just set them in front of my bike and my bag in the back after I pushed the other guys bag over. Race time. We had to take a shuttle 2 miles to the beach for the start. We get there and I am still not nervous. This is how I know I was not mentally ready. I never really got nervous. My stomach is usually in knots and I don't want to eat anything, but I was actually hungry. There wasn't very many women in the olympic race which lead to a small wave. I had a good shot up front, but was reluctant to be confident with it feeling as if I wasn't ready. Normally I would have been all about it. We take off and I quickly find a girl to draft off of, but after the 2nd buoy, she was out in never never land. So now I have to swim by myself. Still hoping someone will pass me. Sure enough, after the 3rd buoy, another girl passes me. I try to jump in behind her, but I was having a hell of a time finding her line so by the time I got in line, she was to far ahead of me to draft off her and I lost her. Now my toes are frozen and I just wanted to be done. Swim: ~32 min. We had a good 400 yard run to the transition. Took about 3 min to run it. I strip off the wetsuit and I am off on the bike. I had practiced getting my shoes on on the bike, but I never practiced with wet fee so I had a hell of a time getting my shoes on. The bike was miserable for me. The road was crappy and it felt like 80% of it was into the 12 mph wind. There was really only 3 big hills. The 2nd one wiped me out big time. ~1:30. We got in on the run and I get to my rack to find there is no room for my bike. The dude next to me had his bike in my spot. Awesome. I kind of throw my bike on his and take off. I was lucky the guy on the other side of me was standing there so he must have re racked my bike because it was actually on the rack when I finished. Thanks dude. I mentioned later to the guy that you have to put your bike back in your spot and he said that there was someone else that took his spot. With 5 feet of transition area, there should be room for you. Your bike doesn't need a 2 feet space between the next bike. I take off on the run completely exhausted, but my body doesn't feel to bad. Just no energy. I was hungry and thirsty. I ran out of water on the bike. I had 2 bottles which should have been enough, but it was not. I reach the first water station and down 2 cups. They only had a swallow in them. I should have grabbed another, but I kept on. The next water station I was like I need 3 gatorades. These were 3/4 full so I really only needed 2 but took all three and downed them. Ahhhhh...much better. I was getting some energy back so I grabbed usually 2 gatorade at each of the other stations. I actually was very very happy and surprised with my run time. ~55 min. For only getting one 5 mile run in training the last 2 months, I was happy. I finished somewhere around 3 hours to finish 2nd in my age group. It was a tough day for me. I think it was the 3 hour bike from Saturday that kind of wiped me out, but that was ok. This was mental test today. I am not sore today so I know I was ready physically for the race. The bike was just brutal for me.
Lessons for the day:
-Swimming in 67 degree water for 30 min gives you numb feet
-Running with numb feet is not easy
-Getting your bike shoes on with cold wet feet is hard.
-Do not open a gel until you are ready to take it. If not, it results in your hands, arms, and aero/handle bars being covered in gel that you have to attempt to lick off because you need the calories. It is very difficult to clean off after sitting in the sun for 4 hours.
-When hills have names, they are going to be harder than hard. One guy in front of me got off and walked his bike up the hill.
-If the county is going to close a road for road work, there is a reason. Maybe check out the shape of the road before the race.
-Running on an uneven dirt road is hard.
And finally
-Athletes do not want to drink diet pop after a race. Give us something with sugar and calories!

Overall it was a good weekend. I am still waiting for the results to be posted so I know my actual times and splits. Today I am heading to the pool to see if I can get an hour swim in. Might be mostly sitting in the hot tub. :) That will be good too then I can work on my mental preparation for Kansas in 2 weeks!!!!