First Race Back: Triple Lakes Trail Race

Yesterday I raced for the first time in quite a while and it went....well.  Surprisingly well.  Especially for being a half marathon, on technical trail, & full of hills!  Before the race started I scoped out the competition and picked out a few women who I thought could be in it to win it.  I lined up at the start right behind them and figured I'd take it out at their pace and see how long I could hang on. 

There was just under a mile of paved road before the single-track trails started and one woman got off to a pretty swift start.  So I followed her b/c I thought, "Hmm, this could be the race right here."  My Garmin is still broken so I really have no idea how fast we were going.  We got onto the trails and I stayed behind her, probably about 30 sec back.  However, after a while I felt like I was going a little too hard and decided to back off around 2.5 miles and settled into my own pace b/c I was getting a side cramp - not a good thing that early in the race (or ever really). 

At 3.5 miles the trail broke onto more pavement for about a quarter mile and I could see that I really hadn't lost much ground.  This was encouraging and as we got back onto the trails I noticed I was gaining on her.  Of course this was exciting!  It took me until about mile 8 to fully close the gap and I ran right behind her for a mile or so.  Then the trail broke into a wider grassy section and she motioned for me to go ahead of her.  I really didn't want to b/c I was tired and content to just run at her pace.  I wanted to stick behind her for a while then race the last 1-2 miles.  However, she wasn't having any of that, so I made the pass with about 4 miles to go.  I kept an honest pace for the next mile and we passed 1 guy and caught another who tagged onto us.  My legs were hurting but I could tell she was breathing harder than I was so I was pretty sure I could pull out the victory. 

We got to an aid station before starting the last trail section and I took a swig of water.  I had planned on eating a gel every 30 minutes but my stomach wasn't up for it.  I am not used to working at such a high intensity and I felt like I was going to vom from miles 11-13.  Anyhow, after the aid station, the woman behind me slowed and the guy and I put a bit of a gap on her.  I let the guy take a turn leading, though his draft smelled terrible, and finally when I noticed that the other woman was creeping back up, I re-passed him. 

By mile 12 I was very fatigued!  I must have hit a root or something b/c I took a pretty hard fall.  The guy behind me was like "Whoa!  Are you ok???"  I got up as quickly as I could b/c I didn't want to concede any time to 2nd place.  Thankfully I only had some superficial scrapes on my knee & elbow. 

Now, before the race started, the race director informed us that the half marathon was a little long, more like 13.5 miles rather than 13.1.  I got to mile 13 in 1 hr 28 minutes and was so thankful to know that at absolute max I probably only had 4 more minutes of running!  However 4 minutes went by and the trail kept going.  I was like, "OK, 2 more minutes max."  Two minutes later, no end in sight...  Finally, a full 11 minutes later I reached the finish line!!!!  Craziness!  I felt completely beat and the volunteers at the finish said "You don't look very good."  Gee thanks.  Actually, the volunteers were very helpful - they cleaned up all my cuts and filled my hands with pretzels, bananas, water, & soda, which was all much appreciated!

All in all, I was happy with this race considering my state of fitness and level of training leading into it.  I had fun, got to run a race I've always wanted to do, and even came away with the win and a respectable time.  It definitely motivates me to train more and I'm already trying to decide what race I'm going to do next.  It's gonna be another 1/2 marathon for sure, probably November time frame.  I kind of like the idea of running a race on Thanksgiving morning so I can spend the rest of the day feeling completely justified in pigging out!

Fireballs

I have a new addiction to Fireballs.  Haha, yes the hard, red, spicy-yet-sweet candies!  Well maybe it's not so new.  I've always enjoyed eating Fireballs and would purchase them on road trips.  I'd eat one or two and put the rest of the bag in the glove compartment or center console and forget about it.  Then the next time I happened upon the bag I'd be insanely happy about it!  Kind of like finding money in the back pocket of a pair of jeans you haven't worn in a while.  Anyhow, now that I do a considerable amount of driving for my job, I've started purchasing bags of the little red balls regularly and keeping them stocked in driver's side door. 

One day recently I asked myself why I liked them so much and came up with a few answers:

1.  Every time you eat one it's a challenge to see if you can keep it in your mouth the entire time.

2.  Once you get past the firey portion, there's the sweet portion.  At this point it becomes a question of how long do you have to wait before you can bite down on it with your teeth and break it in half.  This is a bit more precarious than #1 because it's inevitable that you will try to bite the ball too early and thus there is an omnipresent risk that you will break a tooth.

3.  They last a long time and only have ~20 calories per ball.

4.  They leave you with a nice, pleasant, cinnamony breath.

Moral of this story - buy a bag of Fireballs.  You'll enjoy them.

A Race On The Horizon!

I'm kind of excited b/c I signed up for a race today!  I suppose it was somewhat impulsive, but when I realized that there's a 1/2 marathon on Saturday that I've always wanted to do (Triple Lakes Trail 1/2 Marathon) and that I don't have to work this Saturday I couldn't help myself.  Plus, I haven't raced in over 3 months and have missed the thrill of competition!  Not that I will be all that competitive...my training has continued to be sub-par as per my standards.  This past week I probably ran somewhere in the viscinity of 35 miles.  I'm not totally sure b/c my Garmin has been broken for a while now and I have just been using a regular old Timex watch for my runs.  Sometimes this is nice because I can't look down and see how slow I'm going ;)  I had planned to run 6/7 days, but ended up skipping one day, for 5/7. 

I'll probably see similar mileage this week, as I don't want to kill myself before Saturday.  I'd much rather go in rested and undertrained than unrested and overtrained!  However, I do want to start upping the mileage soon like I mentioned in my last blog. 

Lastly, one very cool thing about my "training" this past week was that I got to run with a seriously fast runner.  I met up with a friend for a run and she brought a friend.  Over the course of the run, I found out that this woman ran in the Olympic Marathon Trials a couple years ago!  How cool is that!!??  Definitely very inspiring and I'm pretty psyched to have met such a bad ass training partner.  Now all I have to do is get my ass in gear!

Out of Shape

It's been a few months since I stopped training and I feel so out of shape these days.  Still, most people would probably look at me and think I'm in great shape, and if I told my coworkers I wanted to drop a few pounds they'd probably laugh at me. 

I also used to eat really healthfully.  Like super healthfully.  But when I stopped working out I stopped caring about what I put into my body.  I still probably eat better than 90% of Americans and if I mentioned to my coworkers that I thought I needed to start eating better they would definitely scoff at me.

But, I can feel the difference.  Before I was like a finely tuned machine, everything oiled and running smoother than Roger Federer's shiny hand-crafted Swiss timepieces.  My cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems worked effortlessly and harmoniously in tandem, fueled by plants and water.  Training was hard, but easy at the same time if that makes any sense.  Now I just feel rusty.  I can't find a rhythm, my body feels tired, and I'm afraid I'm always one mis-step away from injury.  I feel like I'm physically 10 years older than I really am and I can't stand it!  I want to feel the silky feeling of fluidity again. 

At this point, I'm transitioning into running with a goal of getting up to 70-80 miles per week, a PR half marathon, and a sub 3 hour marathon in 2014.  I've decided to continue my blog and write about the process, as well as other musings that pop into my mind and the day to day minutiae of my life.  Plus, I realized that I really do enjoy writing and blogging.  Like health, fitness, and nutrition, it has become one of my hobbies. 

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I wrote the above post a few months ago and before publicly publishing my blog again wanted to succinctly add this.  I've been going through a really tough time personally over the past 6 months, which is why I've taken a hiatus from triathlon & social media.  I've had to take a hard look at myself and my decisions and how they affect others.  Sometimes its not fun to look in the mirror and see where we fall short of our ideals.  As someone wiser than myself put it, "introspection isn't for the faint of heart".  At the same time, I do believe that life's lessons are the impetus for positive change, as they provide opportunity to grown and to learn more about ourselves.  And one thing I know for sure is that even if it's not all sunshine and rainbows, there is no facet of my life in which I ever want to stop learning. 

Race Report: Over The Mountain 2013

Over The Mountain (OTM) was not a race that was originally on my schedule. However, since Knoxville was such a bust, my coach & I decided I should do another "tune-up" race before Rev3 Williamsburg. After perusing the local race listings, OTM seemed to fit the bill. I've always liked the course and it holds a special place in my heart because it was my first triathlon 5 years ago! OMG I've been doing this for 5 years now; hard to believe! 

4:30 am on Saturday morning came around real quick and we made it to the race site by 5:55 to do packet pickup and set up transitions (it's a point to point race, so there's a bit more logistics involved than normal). As the sun rose, the sky looked clear and it held promise that the day would turn out to be really nice - unlike the scattered thundershowers that the forecast called for. We even chatted to a USAT ref who said something along the lines of, "Yeah, so we've had real bad weather here the past few days, but it looks like today is going to be perfect weather for the race." I had no reason to doubt his statement, especially because I was issued my lucky number 14! Apparently however, things were not meant to be. Literally as soon as I started putting on my wetsuit it started raining. Oh no, here we go again...

The Swim - 1500m - 24:42 (1:30/100 yds) 

Water temp was 72 degrees which felt downright warm compared to what I've been swimming in thus far this season. I started out at the back of the open field, my plan being to draft off of faster swimmers. This ended up working out perfectly and I drafted off of the same guy for the entire race. I felt a little bad about this b/c I hit his feet enough times to be annoying. A few times he kicked really hard, which I think was a signal to me to get off his feet. But I didn't. Actually, I did try to pass him once or twice, but when I realized I wasn't going any faster than he was, I just settled back into the draft zone. I felt comfortable on the swim and I think I owe this to all the open water training I've been doing w/ Jordan at Belew's Lake! As I was swimming into the finish, I looked at the surface of the water and I could tell it was still raining. 

T1 - 1:52 

OTM has a great T1 - its a fairly long run straight up a ginormous hill! Usually this hill is lined with people cheering you on, but the fan crowd was a little sparse due to the poor weather conditions. As I ran up the hill I started mentally preparing myself for the bike. Because this race is a point-to-point you have to stuff all your things into a bag in T1. I made the blunder of accidentally putting all my gear into someone else's bag. Sorry #18, I hope I didn't confuse you!

The Bike - 45k - 1:23:26 (20.1 mph)

Starting out on the bike I had a few flashbacks of Knoxville, but forced them out of my brain. I was determined to beat the bad weather! I knew that at this point I was in second place and I could not afford to be a baby on the bike or I would lose too much time to the woman ahead of me who is a strong cyclist. I channeled my motor pacing practice and got into the aero and powered away. I felt a little nervous at first, but this went away as the course went on and I did a really good job of attacking the course given the weather conditions. The only problem was that my legs were dead! I was cursing my coach for that lactate threshold bike ride on Wed & that track workout on Thursday! Yes, Sharon, you were the object of my un-affection! Normally on this course I make up some good time on people on the climbs, but my legs were burning on every single one of them. I knew I was probably not gaining on the uphills, so I figured I had to crush the downhills. I've never looked forward to descending in the rain as much as I did on this course. Despite my hurting quads, I really enjoyed the bike - I think it's one of the funnest & prettiest courses in the NCTS!

T2 - 0:43

T2 was pretty quick - ditch the bike & put on the running shoes, Rev3 visor, & Garmin. Heading out on to the run Kurt told me I was about 1:30-1:45 back on the leader. I felt pretty confident that I could close that gap. 

The Run - 10k - 39:21 (6:20/mi)

Just like on the bike, my legs felt so heavy on the run. The first two miles were especially un-pleasureable. I'd describe the run course at OTM as undulating - there really aren't any flat areas, it's either you're going up or you are going down. It winds through a bunch of quaint neighborhoods and had a ton of turns. At each turn I kept hoping I would see the woman ahead of me, but I kept turning and turning and she was nowhere to be found! Finally about 2.5 miles into the run I turned the corner and there she was! I felt a little bit of relief. However, she was running really strong and it took me until about 3.5 miles to catch up to her. At this point I drafted off her for about a quarter to a half a mile before picking up my pace again and bringing home the win. To my amazing surprise I got a new 10K PR out there! Pretty happy about that :)

Total Time - 2:30:02 (1st overall female)

It felt good to cross the finish line in 1st! It felt even better to know that I had conquered the rain and beat the bad weather conditions. It was the moment when I knew I could truly put Knoxville behind me. I am so glad that I decided to sign up for this race and it was just icing on the cake that it happened to be my 5th anniversary of my first triathlon, which as I said before was at the exact same race. Just for kicks I looked back at my time from 5 years ago:

Swim - 28:58

T1 - 3:12

Bike - 1:34:55

T2 - 2:19

Run - 48:23

Total Time - 2:57:55 

I suppose a lot has changed since then ;-)

Race Report: White Lake Half 2013

After the last time I raced White Lake Half I said I'd never do it again. Well, 3 years went by, I forgot the pain, and I signed up yet again. I wanted to race a half prior to Rev3 Williamsburg in June since the first half I do each season tends to be less than stellar and this race fit well into my training schedule. Plus they moved it up a month so I knew it wouldn't be blazing hot on the run like usual. 

The Jester, Kurt,& TriGuy also signed up for this race as a relay team, their goal being to beat moi. The Jester, always one for a gentleman's bet, bet our friend Jeff that he would beat me in the swim. Jeff backed me and accepted with the agreement that the loser had to take 3 shots of the winner's picking with 1 minute in between each. Justin also orchestrated another bet with Jeff that Kurt would beat me on the bike with a handicap of 7 minutes. Jeff backed me again, putting a total of 6 shots on the line and some pressure on me to beat each leg of "2 Bananas & an Egg Yolk." 

Swim - 37:46 (1:47/100 yds)
Conditions for the swim were rough to say the least. Water temperature was about 54 degrees! Easily the coldest water I've ever swam in. I spent a good half hour the night before the race searching the Internet for tips on how to best deal with swimming in cold water. I did all of the following and they worked pretty well, as I didn't feel that cold while in the water. 

*Wear the appropriate gear: BlueSeventy Helix full sleeve wetsuit, BlueSeventy neoprene cap, & BlueSeventy neoprene booties

*Wear earplugs

*Rub petroleum jelly on any exposed skin, especially your face

*Before getting in the water splash the water onto your face for 10-15 seconds

*When you submerge your head under the water blow bubbles to help prevent the hyperventilation reflex

*Warm up for 10-15 minutes

Aside from the extreme cold, the other challenging aspect of the swim was the chop. It felt like I was swimming in the ocean over top of waves! It was the worst swimming out to the first buoy and after I made the first turn I just tried to stay on the feet of two other red capped swimmers. I could tell one of them was sighting pretty well and I followed her because I was having trouble seeing the buoys over the swells and was doing breaststroke to get my bearings. I knew the swim would be slow for everyone, so even though I had the slowest swim I've had in a while, I'm not reading too much into it. I was in 4th place at this point. 

T1 - 2:37
Even though I didn't feel that cold while swimming, maybe it was because I was numb. When I got out of the water it hurt to run b/c my feet were frozen and I fumbled around in transition forever because my fingers were void of dexterity. 

Bike - 2:42:15 (20.7 mph)
The bike felt like one huge headwind with plenty of cross winds in the mix. I did a much better job of staying in the aero position, but I'm not used to riding on flat ground, for that long, at that effort, using the same muscles. I tried to switch positions and get out of the saddle some, but it got pretty uncomfortable! The worst was the last 25 miles which were on a road with a poor surface (understatement). There was literally a crack in the road every meter of the way. Riding in the aero over this ground was so painful I just couldn't do it anymore. I'm sure this cost me time, but there wasn't much else I could do. After the bike I was still in 4th place, though some passing and getting passed occurred on course. 

T2 - 1:10
After a successful flying dismount of the bike, I was in and out of T2 pretty quick. 

Run - 1:27:10 (6:39/mi)
I was interested to see how I'd feel heading out onto the run after such a draining swim/bike. To my delight, my legs felt pretty good! I moved into 3rd place within the first mile. Even though the next two were pretty far ahead, I kept it moving and focused on running smoothly and efficiently. I dropped my pace a little bit once I was over half way and soon after moved into 2nd place. I knew the person in first was pretty far ahead, but I also knew from racing at White Lake in the past that anything could happen. Plus I knew from my mile splits that I was finally going to break 1:30 off the bike and this had me excited! I saw TriGuy and The Shannon around mile 10 and they gave me a boost to pick it up, which I did, but in the end I would have needed a few more miles to reel in the last one. 

Total Time - 4:50:56
I ended up finishing second overall for the women and got a PR on the run and on my half time. So even though it was a tough day on the swim & bike, I can't complain and I feel like this race served it's purpose!

So how did the bet turn out? Well, somehow my brother crushed me in the swim with a time of 33 minutes and change! With the amount of training that he's put in & the amount that I've put in, a discrepancy like that is just not fair! Kurt also beat me flat out on the bike by 3 minutes. And their relay team beat my total time by about 2 minutes. So, it was their day and each of them had a great race. Congrats to TriGuy on his 10 minute PR 1/2 marathon! Poor Jeff, I feel so bad that he's got 6 shots waiting for him next time we go out, but maybe I'll help him out with one or two of them, haha. All in all it was a fun day, though I'm saying it for the second time - I'm never racing White Lake Half again.

Race Report: Azalea Sprint Tri 2013

Saturday was my first race of the season - the Azalea Sprint Tri held at the campus of UNC-Wilmington. For some reason I thought that this race was going to be warm. It didn't register that even though the high was going to be mid-60's, I'd be racing at 8 am when it was high-30's/low 40's. It was sooo cold the morning of the race, reminiscent of Beach2Battleship weather. Here's how it all went down:

Swim (300 yds) - 4:16

This swim was in the UNCW pool, which I always enjoy swimming in. Participants are sent off 15 seconds apart and snake up and down the lanes. It's a little tricky because at one end of the pool you have to flip-turn underneath the lane ropes. I entered a seed time of 1:17 and was the 14th person to go (which, on a side note was a good omen b/c 14 was my soccer number at W&M). My swim coach, Matt Clancy of E3 Elite Human Performance, told me "not to win it in the first 25" and I took this advice to heart and it worked out really well. Instead of starting out too hard on the swim and paying for it towards the end, I maintained a good pace throughout and was able to pick it up for the last few laps. I even passed 2 people in front of me! I had my brother time me since the timing mat for the swim finish is not until you exit the pool, run down a flight of stairs, and run outside. My actual swim time was 3:50 (1:16/100 yds), pretty darn close to my seed time and 15 seconds faster than I went 2 years ago at this race. I didn't know it at this point, but the swim was going to be the most enjoyable leg of the race...

T1 - 1:44

Running from inside the warm pool area to the freezing cold outdoor air was absolutely horrible. My body kept moving forward, against the wishes of my brain to turn around! The run into transition was pretty far and during this time I started thinking that I wanted to put on my wind vest and gloves. But, then I got to T1 and I saw another woman run in, grab her bike, and go, so I decided to scrap the vest/gloves idea and just get out on the course. 

Bike (10 mi) - 24:20

The bike was pretty unpleasant because it was so damn cold. It was also windy, which prevented me from riding in my aero bars for a lot of it. I also just got the bearings on my bike replaced and the handling is so much more sensitive now than it used to be, and I'm still getting used to this. The course was completely flat with a bunch of turns and it went by fast. I didn't pay attention to my speed, just tried to make sure I was working hard. I caught myself thinking about something else one time during the bike, but quickly got my mind back into the right gear. I ended up catching one woman on the bike and no women passed me, which I was pretty psyched about!

T2 - 1:23

Coming into T2, I was totally frozen. It took me forever to undo the strap on my helmet, take off my bike shoes, and put on my running shoes because my fingers were so numb. This resulted in a painfully slow T2 and the girl I caught on the bike passed me. 

Run (5K) - 19:36

Heading out onto the run I could see the girl who had passed me and was able to pass her pretty early on. I knew there was another girl ahead of me who had started a couple minutes ahead of me on the swim and I knew there was one behind me that I had to stave off by at least 45 seconds. I felt pretty bad on the run, especially on the first 1-1.5 miles. It was like I was so cold that I was almost hyperventilating and couldn't take big full breaths; they were more like short shallow breaths. This improved a little bit as I warmed up some during the run, but I never felt great like I thought I would and my pace wasn't what I was expecting it to be. Regardless, I ended up reeling in the woman in front of me and passing her in the last mile. When I was rounding one of the final turns near the natatorium, a spectator was walking across my path. I yelled out "excuse me" but it was too late - I ran right into him at full speed and I'm not sure, but I think he might have fallen down. I felt bad about this, but was so close to the finish and the win that I didn't stop. I sprinted down the finish chute and across the final timing mat. I waited 45 seconds and then realized I had won! At the same time I felt sick. I was kind of dizzy and shaky. I got checked out by the medic and vitals were normal, but it took me a long time to stop shivering and to start feeling better. It was a really weird feeling. I'm chalking it up to being really cold, not having done much high intensity training, and not being used to "red-lining" for that long. 

Total - 51:16 (1st OA female) 

So, I ended up winning the race, which was a great way to kick of the 2013 season! Gotta say I'm pretty happy with this start!

Here are some other things that made this weekend and race super awesome:

• Kurt & TriGuy also competed in the race, their first gladiator show down of the year. It was a nail-biter, but TriGuy edged it out on the run. Next face off will be Rev3 Williamsburg!
• I got to see my Rev3 teammate Rachel Stephenson, AKA "Glenda the Good Witch of the North," crush her first triathlon ever! Way to go @GtGWotN!
• My whole family came out to cheer everyone on! Thanks mom, dad, Jester & Claire!
• I got to witness TriGuy pull the ace of spaces twice in a row in two consecutive games of High Card against my dad, brother, & Kurt, resulting in him having to drink 2 shots of whiskey!
• We all went to a neighbor's fish fry party where the cinnamon moonshine was plentiful
• Kurt &I rode 60 miles on Sunday and got a slight sunburn - YES!!!! Summer is coming!!!

Last but not least, the I Heart Swimming Blog Raffle Results! Congrats to Andrew Corbin winner of an SBR Sports prize pack containing TriSwim shampoo, TriSwim conditioner, TriSwim body wash, TriSwim lotion, TriSlide, & Foggle! And the winner of the funniest Chuck Norris joke is Teddy Kelsay with "There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures that Chuck Norris has allowed to live." He will receive a box of PowerBar's brand new Performance Energy Blends made from real fruit! Thanks to everyone who entered and for those who didn't, you have to play to win ;)