I haven't felt like I've been undereating the past week--not felt particularly starving upon waking or anything--but I suppose if I look back over the last 6 days, starting with last Saturday, I probably haven't been restocking as well as I should.
After the 112-mile ride/7 mile run last Saturday, I had Endurox R4, the big McDonald's burger and fries, a few beers, some crackers and some candy. I probably should have eaten another meal, so this would have been the start of the downfall.
On Sunday, I had a waffle then rode a few hours, drove home drinking Gatorade (in retrospect I should have had some protein right away, too), got home and made a chicken wrap and I don't remember what I had for dinner, but I'm pretty sure I didn't make up for Saturday or Sunday's calories burned.
I haven't been eating a lot of starch lately--it's been salads or a modest amount of vegetables at dinner time. I guess I've started to taper my eating even though my training isn't really tapered yet. I've been off my usual grocery shopping/restocking schedule, too, which means I'm not on my normal eating routine.
Still, though, like I said, I wasn't feeling famished or anything. Through yesterday, I'd done about 11.5 hours of training since Monday. Now that is unusual, but it came from a little extra riding and a whole lot of swimming. I had about 1/2 lb. of salmon and a little (probably less than one serving) spaghetti with pesto for dinner, 2 beers, and felt good to go. Now that was dinner for a 4-hour training day, which is not something I normally do on a weekday when I'm also working! I really should have eaten a bunch more, but by the time I ate dinner, I was tired and went to sleep.
I slept 10 hours last night, and felt good when I woke up this morning, had my usual breakfast of an English muffin and a hardboiled egg, but around 11AM I was feeling sort of hungry so I dug into my stash of Cheetos and also downed a Coke. This should have let me know that I was in a glycogen hole, because I don't usually crave Cheetos in the morning! Then I went off to the Y because it was raining, planning to do a :40 run and about 1:30 on a stationary bike (I just didn't feel like getting on my trainer and besides I could probably watch TDF replay at the Y).
As I walked into the cardio area, I could tell my legs were telling me I probably should just rest today, so I thought, what the hell, I'll just get on the elliptical trainer. Can't hurt, right? I did the :40 on there and it wasn't bad, but I could tell I was a little tired.
I moseyed on over to the Precor bike, got on, and wasn't worried about intensity, but still was doing a 10-minute ladder of resistance. When I got off the bike about :40 in to change the channel on the TV in front of me to Versus, I thought, gee, my legs feel pretty trashed considering I didn't do much today. Still, I got back on the bike, and thinking I'd still go 1:30, at about 1:10 I finally recognized that I was out of fuel no matter how much Infinit and Gatorade I was drinking.
That is, I was experiencing a grand bonk! Thing is, I'm so trained that I can usually overcome bonking (or not even notice it) that might affect someone else, or I might just miss the signs, but when it finally dawned on me, I realized that I had better get my ass home and eat as quickly as possible.
Still, I had to shower, and when I got home I immediately made myself a big wrap thing, chowed that and drank some Endurox. I figured that should set me up, right? Nope. It wasn't so much hunger that I felt, but my body was screaming for more calories. So I scrounged around and found a Snickers Almond Bar in my freezer, took it out, and after about 5 minutes, I ate that. By this time, I'm starting to notice that I feel really cold, even though it's hot out and I don't have my A/C set too low (maybe 76-78 now), but I am actually shivering, and this tells me that my body is truly fucked up (it's like the same insulin reaction I sometimes get when I down 400 calories of Ultrafuel all at once and my body is valiantly trying to pump all that sugar into my muscles) and needs me to lay down, so I get into bed with all the blankets on, still wearing clothes, and I'm cold but after a few minutes finally my temperature starts to go back up, but I stayed in bed for maybe an hour and even dozed off a few times.
Getting up, I realized I am not "fixed" yet, so I'm going to need to eat up tonight and sleep well and let my body do its thing to get me back to normal. I also realized that whatever I have planned for training this weekend is all optional, so if I'm not feeling peppy tomorrow, I will just rest, because at this point, nothing is really going to make me any faster for IMLP.
I guess I've reached that point in the summer where I'm pretty sick of the starchy carbs, but I will need to get back on some level of them, especially post-IMLP and pre-ROTPM. So I'll start counting my calories. Thankfully, next week is actual full taper, so I don't need to worry about it so much. Some years, I've lost 2-3 lbs. during the last 2 weeks before IM, but I don't think I should lose any more at this point.
So in an odd way, this was all a good thing, to remind me that I am existing on the edge, and that I need to pay more attention to my nutrition.
Have a great weekend!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 09, 2009
What is Going On?
Somehow I ended up training almost 4 hours today--a 4800 meter swim, riding to/from the outdoor pool (it was glorious this morning), and then a 1:34 run. And I'm tired. Almost 12 hours of training since Monday. Tomorrow maybe a short little recovery swim and some biking. Decide whether I'm going to do the 2-mile open water swim race Saturday, some more riding, get ready for Sunday's last 100 mile ride before IMLP.
I am planning out 2010 already, and thinking about planning my training for ROTPM (Revenge of the PirateMan), although what I had scheduled for IMC should do just fine there. And then I need to plan how the hell to train for a 50-mile foot race in 2 months. After that, training for Goofy Challenge will be a no brainer--I've done that before.
But then how do I train for ultracycling and ultraswimming and ultrarunning at the same time? I have no fucking clue. But I am going to figure it out, through books, friends and maybe a coach.
Yes, I'm certifiably nuts. But the way I figure it, I might not want to do this in say, 3 years, and I may not be able to. The time is NOW.
Some people on Facebook asked how/why I have become faster all of a sudden in terms of top-end speed running and also my FTP has gone up. I dunno--maybe because I quit watching TV altogether and sleeping a little more. Maybe because I'm a little smaller than a year ago. Maybe, just maybe (ya fucking think???) because I've been training at a high level for 9 years straight? I dunno. Maybe the worst shit of my life is finally behind me. At least this stage. Sucks that I started this nonsense a few years after getting divorced, then was just getting into shape then boom, boom, boom crapola piles on. Maybe my tolerance for that shit has finally decreased and I am just not going to acknowledge it anymore.
Maybe it sounds like the fun has gone out of this for me, but it hasn't. I guess I'm a little weird in that FUN=WORK. And work leads to greater fun in my book. SAME=BORING. MORE=MORE FUN.
Sure I want to do well at IMLP, but I can already see past it, and where the last 9 years have been leading me. Onward, upward, forward. As long as I can manage it!
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Rock 'n Roll
So I did a pretty hard brick workout yesterday. This morning I had wanted to go swim at the outdoor pool, but it was overcast and pissing, and I just didn't feel like swimming outdoors in that, so I headed to the Y and banged out 3400 yards, and they were pretty good, despite the water being like 85.
And then my schedule called for a ":40 easy run, optional." Well, um...OK. It was still raining by the time I finished up with 4 consecutive 1-hour meetings at work (how exciting, I know!), and I'm a total wimp, so I drove back to the Y to run on the treadmill. Side note: I can feel how much energy I have right now, which is a sure sign of peaking, and right on time.
I got on the treadmill and had already decided I'd run for :45 because that wouldn't hurt, and so I just did a ladder increasing speed every 5'. And I was talking to this woman that I had given advice to on how to help accelerate her healing process from carpal tunnel syndrome and saw her walking on the treadmill holding on, and I told her not to, and she listened and she is now hanging on every word I say!
Well after the :40 are up I go to run on the track and I'm thinking this should feel good. And actually I felt great considering when I woke up this morning I was feeling a bit ragged from yesterday's workout, and was trying to avoid swimming this morning valiantly, especially when there was a sign on the door saying WE HAVE NO TOWELS but the woman at the front desk who knows me (they all do) waved me in, which meant they must have some, and I was like, fuck, I guess I have to swim, and even though the pool was hot, I swam my ass off.
So I head to the track and just start running what I think is a bit faster than I was on the treadmill, but knowing it was only for 5 minutes, I just went with how I felt, and I felt great, and when I hit 1/2 mile I was like OH FUCK I THINK THAT'S THE FASTEST I EVER RAN A 1/2 MILE, and I kept running until the 5 minutes was up and then I finished a lap, and yeah, it WAS true!
Now I'm not a fast runner by any standard, but still, for me to pull off 7:15 is something else. And it didn't really hurt, and all I could think was WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM? And then I didn't question it. Something must be working after all these years at this game! Maybe it's because I ate like a pound of fish last night for dinner, maybe it's just that the harder I train, the faster I get.
This year feels different than other years. I think my body is capable of absorbing a lot of high quality, high volume training, and that's a good thing because I want to step it up into the Ultra territory. And I don't want to just slog through lots of miles, you know? What fun is that anyway?
So maybe, just maybe, I've processed the major life crap that I've experienced, and my body is ready to heal itself and show me how it can perform, even though I'm a little old to be doing this in some ways. But for right now, I feel fucking great and wish I could train like 30 hours a week! I know that I could tolerate that without working fulltime...so I guess I had better get back on my financial planning to make that possible sooner rather than later!
I am just so full of energy right now--it's hard to describe--I know I have an IM in 2.5 weeks, and I'm planning logistics for Revenge of the PirateMan, and I'm starting to work on a plan for the 50-miler in October, and I'm also sketching out 2010, which will bring some ultracycling into the mix.
It all comes down to, I think, understanding my body and continually pushing it a little bit further than it has gone before in some way or another. It could be more hours, which I haven't really done, or more distance, more speed, more challenges--but knowing that I will be done with "conventional" Ironman this year is setting my mind free to ponder bigger possibilities.
But back to one day at a time--I need to wake up tomorrow and knock out 3+ miles of swimming and then later on something like an 11-mile run. I know--doesn't sound much like a taper, but that run is a lot less than last week! Friday will be a 2.5 hour ride, Saturday will be a 2-mile open water swim race and then 2 hours of riding and a concert (No Doubt), and Sunday is my last 100-mile ride/6-mile run combo.
While at the grocery store tonight I was thinking, shit, it's all starting to happen now--everything I've been working towards not just for this season, but laying the groundwork for moving on beyond Ironman, and it's all very exciting and heady and partly unbelievable to me. I NEVER thought I'd be in this position, and knock wood, if I keep myself healthy, it is going to be one helluva ride over the next 15 months!
Oh and here's a pic of me (I'm the one in all black with the blue aerohelmet) riding into transition at Rockman 1/2 IM that I find rather poignant for some reason--as bad as I felt that day from the combination of rain, cool temperatures and the impending destruction of a relationship, I was heads down getting it done.
And then my schedule called for a ":40 easy run, optional." Well, um...OK. It was still raining by the time I finished up with 4 consecutive 1-hour meetings at work (how exciting, I know!), and I'm a total wimp, so I drove back to the Y to run on the treadmill. Side note: I can feel how much energy I have right now, which is a sure sign of peaking, and right on time.
I got on the treadmill and had already decided I'd run for :45 because that wouldn't hurt, and so I just did a ladder increasing speed every 5'. And I was talking to this woman that I had given advice to on how to help accelerate her healing process from carpal tunnel syndrome and saw her walking on the treadmill holding on, and I told her not to, and she listened and she is now hanging on every word I say!
Well after the :40 are up I go to run on the track and I'm thinking this should feel good. And actually I felt great considering when I woke up this morning I was feeling a bit ragged from yesterday's workout, and was trying to avoid swimming this morning valiantly, especially when there was a sign on the door saying WE HAVE NO TOWELS but the woman at the front desk who knows me (they all do) waved me in, which meant they must have some, and I was like, fuck, I guess I have to swim, and even though the pool was hot, I swam my ass off.
So I head to the track and just start running what I think is a bit faster than I was on the treadmill, but knowing it was only for 5 minutes, I just went with how I felt, and I felt great, and when I hit 1/2 mile I was like OH FUCK I THINK THAT'S THE FASTEST I EVER RAN A 1/2 MILE, and I kept running until the 5 minutes was up and then I finished a lap, and yeah, it WAS true!
Now I'm not a fast runner by any standard, but still, for me to pull off 7:15 is something else. And it didn't really hurt, and all I could think was WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM? And then I didn't question it. Something must be working after all these years at this game! Maybe it's because I ate like a pound of fish last night for dinner, maybe it's just that the harder I train, the faster I get.
This year feels different than other years. I think my body is capable of absorbing a lot of high quality, high volume training, and that's a good thing because I want to step it up into the Ultra territory. And I don't want to just slog through lots of miles, you know? What fun is that anyway?
So maybe, just maybe, I've processed the major life crap that I've experienced, and my body is ready to heal itself and show me how it can perform, even though I'm a little old to be doing this in some ways. But for right now, I feel fucking great and wish I could train like 30 hours a week! I know that I could tolerate that without working fulltime...so I guess I had better get back on my financial planning to make that possible sooner rather than later!
I am just so full of energy right now--it's hard to describe--I know I have an IM in 2.5 weeks, and I'm planning logistics for Revenge of the PirateMan, and I'm starting to work on a plan for the 50-miler in October, and I'm also sketching out 2010, which will bring some ultracycling into the mix.
It all comes down to, I think, understanding my body and continually pushing it a little bit further than it has gone before in some way or another. It could be more hours, which I haven't really done, or more distance, more speed, more challenges--but knowing that I will be done with "conventional" Ironman this year is setting my mind free to ponder bigger possibilities.
But back to one day at a time--I need to wake up tomorrow and knock out 3+ miles of swimming and then later on something like an 11-mile run. I know--doesn't sound much like a taper, but that run is a lot less than last week! Friday will be a 2.5 hour ride, Saturday will be a 2-mile open water swim race and then 2 hours of riding and a concert (No Doubt), and Sunday is my last 100-mile ride/6-mile run combo.
While at the grocery store tonight I was thinking, shit, it's all starting to happen now--everything I've been working towards not just for this season, but laying the groundwork for moving on beyond Ironman, and it's all very exciting and heady and partly unbelievable to me. I NEVER thought I'd be in this position, and knock wood, if I keep myself healthy, it is going to be one helluva ride over the next 15 months!
Oh and here's a pic of me (I'm the one in all black with the blue aerohelmet) riding into transition at Rockman 1/2 IM that I find rather poignant for some reason--as bad as I felt that day from the combination of rain, cool temperatures and the impending destruction of a relationship, I was heads down getting it done.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Start of Last Big Week of Training before IMLP
More pics from today's brick are here.
Last week went really, really well, and I haven't been posting weekly workout totals in awhile (yeah I know you miss them they are SO exciting), but the last 4 weeks have gone 20, 20, 20 and 22 (thereabouts). This week I hope to get in 22 or so.
This week my run and strength tapers have officially begun. Except for the 2 weeks I was sick during and after Triple T, I have been putting in some really good run mileage this season. Sometimes it's because I have just decided I'd run a little more than I needed to because I was feeling fine, and some of it may be because I'm a bit faster than a year ago. Whatever. I am sure that dropping another 3-4 lbs. has been helpful in making the running suck just a little less.
My swimming is what it is. I should really get some 1 on 1 coaching, but I don't have time, and the work required to bump up my swim time just isn't something I'm into right now.
Biking is GAME FUCKING ON! I have to admit, I guess, that my FTP has gone up for the first time in 2 years. Maybe 5-10 watts, depending on what day it is. Either that or I am just used to riding really hard now. I'm going with B!
Yesterday called for a 3400 yard swim, and if I felt like it, weights. I had gotten to bed early on Sunday night, and since I only trained a little over 2 hours on Sunday, I woke up yesterday feeling pretty damn good, so I rode Clipless Fuck to the pool, swam 3400 meters feeling strong the entire time, rode home, and then later in the day I rode to and from my most excellent massage (thanks as always, Mike!) and a little extra there because I had time, and then I rode to and from a haircut. I managed to get my entire strength session done, and when all was said and done for yesterday, I'd trained 3:20! Nice way to kick off the week!
Oh and something stung or bit me under my left eye yesterday, and I had to resort to Benadryl since this was my second insect incident of the summer. The swelling didn't go down until last night, and maybe it was the Benadryl/beer combo that made me sleep like a baby last night, 10 hours worth!
I am trying to pile on a lot of biking this week, so an hour and change yesterday was a good way to start. Today called for a 1:30/:40 brick workout, but I figured I had time to do almost 2 hours of biking. I decided I wanted to ride LGL today, perhaps motivated by watching the TDF and wanted to wear my Catlike helmet that I absolutely love. In fact, now I'd like their aerohelmet, too, because they are pretty cool looking.
Weather right before I left was beautiful--sunny, mid-70's, a little humidity, and just a little wind. Perfect! I headed out on LGL and right away just wanted to crank it up, and so I did. I love riding Bitchie with the race wheels, but I love riding LGL, too. I love all my bikes!
I rode east first for about 5 miles and then back towards home, and thought I'd check out my former TT loop to see how repairs were going on the one major road. About 3 weeks ago, I rode a little over there, but the main road needed one more layer of asphalt, as the sewers were still sticking out of the road. But when I got there today, fuckin' A, it was DONE, and smooth as a baby's bottom, PLUS they widened it a bit so I had sort of this whole lane to myself, and I just hammered away! The loop that includes that road is 3 miles around, and I don't know how many loops I did, but I was kicking out some serious watts and having an absolute blast!
I suppose it helped that I had chugged a can of Coke right before I left, that I'd had 10 hours of sleep last night, that I'd ridden almost 225 miles last week, that I thought I was getting stronger on the bike, that the TDF is on, that it's a beautiful day...there was really no reason for me to have a bad ride today except to begin exorcising the usual demons that try and creep in this close to an Ironman. And I'd had weird and bad dreams last night, also part of the IM leadup, and for the few minutes that I rode deliberately easily, it seemed that I scrolled through every bad thing that's happened to me in the last 3.5 years--pretty good depression from a combination of life crap (2005--right when I first began writing this blog), death of my Mom, death of my Dad, 2 failed romances, and yet, as is typical at this time, I was asking myself, "WHY????"
Why, why, why, why, why do I do this when it fucking hurts, when I know how tired I am going to be later in the day--too tired to accomplish anything major, yet already thinking about the next day's workouts and how much fun it will be to be outdoors doing them, when I have let things like my house cleanliness and garden tidiness go to hell for the last 8 weeks and will keep that up for another 10 or so, when I've put something on the calendar for August that I am alternately positive I can do yet respectfully afraid of, when I've signed up for a 50-mile trail run that I keep getting these looks like you don't know what the fuck you are getting into there when I talk about it, when I want so desparately to connect with more and more people, yet crave the alone time while I'm out there purposely hurting myself?
It is amazing to me how much I can think about during 3 minutes of riding easy! And when the 3 minutes is over, I stop asking myself why and get back to riding hard, telling myself it's only 10 minutes of pain--I can do anything for 10 minutes, right? And since I am riding in circles and seeing some of the same people every lap wondering why would someone ride their bike in circles, but it makes perfect sense to me because when I'm in the circle, it's my fucking circle of pain, and I've chosen to be there in it and fully experience the pain of my muscles and pain of my emotions, and really it's all about feeling--feeling everything--even though it can appear to be running away from stuff.
And I want to keep going--to stay in that circle--but real life calls, and I still have to run, so I finish up, riding for 1:50. The Ergomo says I rode at 94% of FTP, which is either true or my FTP has gone up. But I know I was riding hard, hard, hard, and it felt good.
I quickly put on running shorts, shoes and visor and headed out to run. I'd already decided that since some rainy-looking clouds were rolling in that I'd also run in circles around the "big block" and besides it has rolling hills and I will hate it and it will suck. And when I first started running, I could tell for sure that I had ridden hard, much as if I'd been in a sprint race, only it was a longer than normal sprint (I put in 35 miles on the ride), and so I expected the running to suck. But it only sucked from the effort of the bike--not the normal "brick suck." Nutrition-wise, I felt great, and since it wasn't particularly hot outside, I didn't have that to deal with (or else I am better heat acclimated now).
Running though, demands you feel it everywhere unlike being on a bike. Plus, running is not my thing--biking is! I ran the first loop holding back, and was fine. On the second loop, I dropped 30 seconds, repeated that on the third loop, and on the fourth I dropped another 15 seconds, so negative splitsville, which was great.
I ran pretty well considering how hard I rode, and I'm happy for it, but hey, it was just another workout that I enjoyed the hell out of even though it hurt like a motherfucker (note to self: why do you make yourself hurt like this???). I could have done an actual sprint race today and done pretty well, I think, and that is good. But I will just chalk this up to another great day of training, 4 days in a row of riding, and I'm still cresting that peak, that should culminate this weekend with my last 100-mile ride and brick run before IMLP.
There is nothing more I can do at this point except, I think, to really dig on the simultaneous pain and joy I get from doing this shit. And laugh at myself. I am sure that while I am out riding and running there are many people looking at me and thinking, "what the hell is that woman doing anyway?" but it's funny that I get a lot of smiles, too, and I always try and smile back. Because I am enjoying myself!
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Big Week!
I am just back home from spending the weekend in Verona, Wisconsin to do a race rehearsal on the IMWI course and some other stuff. Please note I am drinking a glass of Grumpy Troll Amnesia Baltic Porter as I write this, so I may pass out or need to stop for awhile and go take a nap. OMG it is SO good!
I am going to back up to Thursday. My training schedule called for a 2:00 run, but fuck that, it's 3 weeks out from IMLP and I did a little over 16 last week, so I decided to go for 17. Since for once I didn't have any meetings in the morning, I let myself sleep in until 5:30, finished a Power Bar Triple Threat and a couple of cups of coffee, loaded a small cooler with (3) 12-oz. bottles of defizzed Coke, and headed for Waterfall Glen, where I was on the trail running at 6:45AM. Even though I arrived there what I would consider late for a weekday morning, I got the very first parking spot closest to the trailhead:
I thought I'd take a picture of the trailhead, too, since I have spent many, many hours here!
I wasn't absolutely positive that I would do 17 miles, since allegedly I didn't need to, so armed with 1 bottle of Coke, I started out. Since it hadn't been too long since I'd had breakfast, I didn't think I'd need any Coke for awhile. Whenever I do these long runs, I usually split them into 2 out and backs, but how much I do for the first leg is always unknown, and I just play it by ear, thinking how long I can go on whatever I'm carrying. I didn't want to run down into the hole (to Mile 5 and a little beyond) because I'd have to run out, but I didn't drink anything before Mile 4, so I figured why the hell not, and I ran down in there, meaning I'd need to run uphill out, but so what! On Tuesday, I'd done a brick run on a street near home that I'd never run, and it was a good one because it includes a 1-mile fairly steep hill that I just charged up, so I wasn't having too much trouble with the Waterfall Glen hills today, although I typically walk the first 2 in the first 2 miles just because it's warmup time, right?
Still, I was pleased that I was running fairly well, even with running out of the hole, and got the first 11 miles done feeling pretty great. I had run about 8 1/4 miles the day before pretty much all at tempo pace, and this was the day after the hilly brick run, so I was like what the fuck, I guess I'm running well!
As I was out there on the first leg, I kept forgetting how to do basic math to figure out how many miles I'd need to run on the second leg, but after I finished 11 and stopped briefly at my car to get some more Coke, my brain kicked back in and realized I only needed to do 6 more.
Those last 6 miles I slowed down about 20 sec. per mile, but that was fine, I shouldn't have been running that fast in the first place! Still, overall, I ran a little faster than I think I can run an open marathon to qualify for Boston for the full 17, so I have to chalk it up as a good run.
Hmmm...3 solid hard fast runs in 3 days...what's next? I hadn't fit in my strength training, so sometime in the afternoon I decided to get on it even though my legs were pretty shot. Still, I got in :55, and I thought that was pretty good after a 17-mile run.
Friday called for a 3800m TT in the pool, and with some warmup and cooldown, it would make for a nice 3 mile swim. I wanted to swim outdoors, but got lazy again and slept in until 5:30AM, so I ended up driving to the Y to swim. I forgot how many yards an IM swim is so I just settled on 4400 yards, and I split it into 4x1100, alternating pull, and pull with paddles, so a real strength building swim, huh? I swam about even paced the full effort, even though my swimming sucks, but at least I felt like I have the necessary endurance to pull off a decent (1:15) IM swim, if you consider drafting. Still, the IMLP swim has way too many athletes, and I've seen my swim time go up the more people get added. I hate getting beat up. But who knows what will happen this year? Sometimes I think I'd just rather swim alone, because I know what I can do. Whatever, I digress. I did complete 3 miles of swimming.
I thought about running a little bit, but my legs were on the verge of not liking it, so I didn't. I packed for Wisconsin, and got on the road around 1:30, experienced some holiday traffic, but got there around 4PM, unloaded the car, chilled a little bit and then headed to The Grumpy Troll for dinner and to refill my 2 growlers that I had back from April when Jostein and I went up there to ride a few hours. I was going to fill one of them with Imperial Stout, but when my waitress told me it was $40 for it, I decided to get the other stout that I've had before, Spetsnaz Stout, and the second growler is the Amnesia Porter that I am still nursing. I had some spicy chicken/andouille sausage pasta thing and their usual good salad, and returned to home base, the Super 8 in Verona. Of course I didn't finish the entire dinner, and so brought a box back to the hotel, where I later basically ate the rest of the chicken, and had one more beer while watching highlights from past Tour de France's. Below is a pic of the two growlers I bought being iced, since we wouldn't want this good beer to spoil before I get home, now would we?
Alarm got set for 4:15AM as I was to meet a new friend, Ken, at Fireman's Park so we could ride the stick (the out and back section of the IMWI course) before meeting up with Ali to ride 2 loops. I slept rather fitfully, but still got in about 8 hours since I'd retired early, even though I awoke several times to fireworks booms.
I got to Fireman's Park with a few minutes to spare, and Ken was a few minutes late, but we headed out at about 6:15am. We rode to the Sheraton on John Nolen Drive, which is close enough to the beginning of the actual course, then turned around back for Fireman's Park. It was a cool, overcast day with 30-60% chance of rain depending on which source you consulted, so I'd worn a bike jersey and shorts and carried a rain jacket with me. We were fine for this part, and when we got back to the park, I called Ali, and he was 10-15 minutes out, so Ken and I decided to roll for a few more miles just to make sure we got in a full 112 on the day! So we rode out backwards on the loop for a few and back, Ali was just arriving with Deanna, whom I'd met a few times before but didn't recognize until she took off her sunglasses.
We all headed out on the loop, and we all knew Ali would take off ahead of us, which was fine. Deanna and Ken sandbagged that they were slow, but it turned out they and I were about the same pace, but we somehow managed not to draft one another much at all for the first 40-mile loop. I got ahead of them for a bit, but stopped at the Kwik Trip in Mount Horeb to pee, they both went by me, and then I caught Ken peeing by the side of the road at the intersection of J (or is it S?) and Witte Road. Ken got ahead of me for a bit, and then he launched some bottles on railroad tracks, and I went ahead, and then all 3 of us were pretty close the entire time.
We reloaded our bottles and headed out for loop 2. I had made (2) 3.5 hour bottles of Infinit, but we were 4 hours in and I hadn't finished the first bottle. That was OK since it was so cool out. I felt pretty good as on the first climb off of Paoli Road my legs didn't feel too bad at all, and this is always a marker for this course.
Somewhere before we got to Mount Horeb, I was ahead of Ken and Deanna and I didn't stop to pee at all, so I just kept going. As I was riding, I kept thinking, "hey this kinda sucks but not nearly as much as Horribly Hilly" and that kept me going. I was ignoring the power meter (which won't display speed right now, but who cares?) and just riding based on my breathing, so all was good. I never did take off my arm warmers, but unzipped the jersey a little as it did warm up a little bit.
When I got back to Fireman's Park, Ali was already running, and I had left my run stuff back at the hotel, so I needed to go back there. Deanna had cut a tire and so hadn't gotten very far into the second loop at all, and my car was packed up when Ken arrived back, and I told him I had to go back to the hotel, and thanks for the ride and all that.
I had only drunk 2.5 bottles of water and 1.5 bottles of Infinit for the entire ride, which seemed a little low to me, but oh well! My legs didn't feel all that bad, so I hurried up and got the bike back in the hotel and suited up to run. I knew it was actually warm out as I was pretty sweaty, and as soon as I headed out, I realized how humid it was, but still not too hot. I ran back to Fireman's Park in hopes of catching Ken, which I did, and he'd run 3 miles, but was headed home, and I continued on. I was supposed to run 6 miles, but I just decided on running about an hour whatever that would bring. On my way back to the hotel, I caught up with the Military Ridge Trail to run on which is nice crushed limestone.
I didn't know how fast or slow I was running until I got to a mile marker and then timed myself, and I was extremely please with how I was running! Plus, this was the best I can ever remember feeling running off of a 112-mile bike ride except maybe for a few IM races over the years. Still, this is not race day, so let's just get it done.
And I did. Here are a few pics from after I finished up the run:
I guess I'm a skinny little thing now, aren't I? When I was finished, I was famished, but I had to shower first and start in on my Endurox R4, which I did, and then since I was conveniently next to McDonald's, I just walked over there and got one of the new sandwiches I'd read about--the 1/3 lb. Angus Burger with mushrooms and swiss cheese, and small fries:
The burger was actually tasty from what I can remember since I think I inhaled it in like 2 minutes! I actually ate a bunch of fries on the walk back to the hotel and polished them off before I started in on the burger. And then I got to laying down to watch a replay of Stage 1 of the TDF wearing compression tights and laying down and generally moaning. My legs felt pretty well trashed, but I've felt worse, and I was pleased with the time it took me to cover the IMWI course and my brick run.
Finally, I motivated to stretch, and then I got in the hot tub:
for a little bit while watching some comedy on TV (I still haven't hooked up the converter box to my TV at home and hadn't watched any TV since June 12 or whatever that date was). The hot tub was blissful, and I polished off the last of 3 beers while in there before getting (or trying to get) to sleep early, as I was pretty tired.
I was pretty pleased with the 3 past days of training, having covered nearly full Ironman distance (OK so I was off on the running part by by 2.2 miles, fuck me, OK?) in 3 days (actually went over on the swim), and thought that can't be a bad thing, seeing as how I want to do double IM distance over 4 days. This made me think maybe I can do it, although I'll be doing it all brickie-brick style, which will be harder ;)
I slept fitfully, as there were more fireworks, my legs were throwing off all sorts of heat, and I'd had plenty of caffeine on the bike. Still, I think I managed about 8 hours of sleep, finally waking up around 6:30. I had thought about doing some more biking this morning, but knew I didn't need to, but I've had some significant training weekends this year where I've been able to do something the day after something where I'd normally take a day off, and it was a gorgeous day, so I thought, what the hell, what else am I doing, I'm here--may as well ride, right?
I went to the hotel lobby and fixed myself a waffle, which was just the thing I needed plus 2 cups of coffee, and before I could think too much about it, I had most everything in my car and was on my bike by about 8:10AM. I was going to wear bike shorts, but since it was so sunny, I decided on panties, and as soon as I started, realized what a good choice it was. It was so beautiful--I should have taken my camera with me the sky was so perfect, and all the crops so green--this is what I live for--to bike in an area like this with this kind of weather! I rode pretty well considering, and I think it was the right thing to do.
Here's my trusty Bitchie after this morning's ride. She did me proud this weekend, and I decided I still love her, even though I wouldn't mind another tri bike in my stable!
And here's me with Bitchie.
I wanted to keep riding, it was such a nice day, but alas, I need to start thinking about actually tapering for IMLP, so I'm going to review my past records to see what exactly I will do. I am in my run taper for sure, but I think I can knock out one more solid week of biking before I drop off.
I feel so great now, which means I am definitely peaking. I just want to keep training. Training is what I love. Training well is what I love. Training well in the company of other good athletes is what I love. It's all good. But I guess I'm signed up for this damn race, so I had better get my head in that game, right?
Hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did!
I am going to back up to Thursday. My training schedule called for a 2:00 run, but fuck that, it's 3 weeks out from IMLP and I did a little over 16 last week, so I decided to go for 17. Since for once I didn't have any meetings in the morning, I let myself sleep in until 5:30, finished a Power Bar Triple Threat and a couple of cups of coffee, loaded a small cooler with (3) 12-oz. bottles of defizzed Coke, and headed for Waterfall Glen, where I was on the trail running at 6:45AM. Even though I arrived there what I would consider late for a weekday morning, I got the very first parking spot closest to the trailhead:
I thought I'd take a picture of the trailhead, too, since I have spent many, many hours here!
I wasn't absolutely positive that I would do 17 miles, since allegedly I didn't need to, so armed with 1 bottle of Coke, I started out. Since it hadn't been too long since I'd had breakfast, I didn't think I'd need any Coke for awhile. Whenever I do these long runs, I usually split them into 2 out and backs, but how much I do for the first leg is always unknown, and I just play it by ear, thinking how long I can go on whatever I'm carrying. I didn't want to run down into the hole (to Mile 5 and a little beyond) because I'd have to run out, but I didn't drink anything before Mile 4, so I figured why the hell not, and I ran down in there, meaning I'd need to run uphill out, but so what! On Tuesday, I'd done a brick run on a street near home that I'd never run, and it was a good one because it includes a 1-mile fairly steep hill that I just charged up, so I wasn't having too much trouble with the Waterfall Glen hills today, although I typically walk the first 2 in the first 2 miles just because it's warmup time, right?
Still, I was pleased that I was running fairly well, even with running out of the hole, and got the first 11 miles done feeling pretty great. I had run about 8 1/4 miles the day before pretty much all at tempo pace, and this was the day after the hilly brick run, so I was like what the fuck, I guess I'm running well!
As I was out there on the first leg, I kept forgetting how to do basic math to figure out how many miles I'd need to run on the second leg, but after I finished 11 and stopped briefly at my car to get some more Coke, my brain kicked back in and realized I only needed to do 6 more.
Those last 6 miles I slowed down about 20 sec. per mile, but that was fine, I shouldn't have been running that fast in the first place! Still, overall, I ran a little faster than I think I can run an open marathon to qualify for Boston for the full 17, so I have to chalk it up as a good run.
Hmmm...3 solid hard fast runs in 3 days...what's next? I hadn't fit in my strength training, so sometime in the afternoon I decided to get on it even though my legs were pretty shot. Still, I got in :55, and I thought that was pretty good after a 17-mile run.
Friday called for a 3800m TT in the pool, and with some warmup and cooldown, it would make for a nice 3 mile swim. I wanted to swim outdoors, but got lazy again and slept in until 5:30AM, so I ended up driving to the Y to swim. I forgot how many yards an IM swim is so I just settled on 4400 yards, and I split it into 4x1100, alternating pull, and pull with paddles, so a real strength building swim, huh? I swam about even paced the full effort, even though my swimming sucks, but at least I felt like I have the necessary endurance to pull off a decent (1:15) IM swim, if you consider drafting. Still, the IMLP swim has way too many athletes, and I've seen my swim time go up the more people get added. I hate getting beat up. But who knows what will happen this year? Sometimes I think I'd just rather swim alone, because I know what I can do. Whatever, I digress. I did complete 3 miles of swimming.
I thought about running a little bit, but my legs were on the verge of not liking it, so I didn't. I packed for Wisconsin, and got on the road around 1:30, experienced some holiday traffic, but got there around 4PM, unloaded the car, chilled a little bit and then headed to The Grumpy Troll for dinner and to refill my 2 growlers that I had back from April when Jostein and I went up there to ride a few hours. I was going to fill one of them with Imperial Stout, but when my waitress told me it was $40 for it, I decided to get the other stout that I've had before, Spetsnaz Stout, and the second growler is the Amnesia Porter that I am still nursing. I had some spicy chicken/andouille sausage pasta thing and their usual good salad, and returned to home base, the Super 8 in Verona. Of course I didn't finish the entire dinner, and so brought a box back to the hotel, where I later basically ate the rest of the chicken, and had one more beer while watching highlights from past Tour de France's. Below is a pic of the two growlers I bought being iced, since we wouldn't want this good beer to spoil before I get home, now would we?
Alarm got set for 4:15AM as I was to meet a new friend, Ken, at Fireman's Park so we could ride the stick (the out and back section of the IMWI course) before meeting up with Ali to ride 2 loops. I slept rather fitfully, but still got in about 8 hours since I'd retired early, even though I awoke several times to fireworks booms.
I got to Fireman's Park with a few minutes to spare, and Ken was a few minutes late, but we headed out at about 6:15am. We rode to the Sheraton on John Nolen Drive, which is close enough to the beginning of the actual course, then turned around back for Fireman's Park. It was a cool, overcast day with 30-60% chance of rain depending on which source you consulted, so I'd worn a bike jersey and shorts and carried a rain jacket with me. We were fine for this part, and when we got back to the park, I called Ali, and he was 10-15 minutes out, so Ken and I decided to roll for a few more miles just to make sure we got in a full 112 on the day! So we rode out backwards on the loop for a few and back, Ali was just arriving with Deanna, whom I'd met a few times before but didn't recognize until she took off her sunglasses.
We all headed out on the loop, and we all knew Ali would take off ahead of us, which was fine. Deanna and Ken sandbagged that they were slow, but it turned out they and I were about the same pace, but we somehow managed not to draft one another much at all for the first 40-mile loop. I got ahead of them for a bit, but stopped at the Kwik Trip in Mount Horeb to pee, they both went by me, and then I caught Ken peeing by the side of the road at the intersection of J (or is it S?) and Witte Road. Ken got ahead of me for a bit, and then he launched some bottles on railroad tracks, and I went ahead, and then all 3 of us were pretty close the entire time.
We reloaded our bottles and headed out for loop 2. I had made (2) 3.5 hour bottles of Infinit, but we were 4 hours in and I hadn't finished the first bottle. That was OK since it was so cool out. I felt pretty good as on the first climb off of Paoli Road my legs didn't feel too bad at all, and this is always a marker for this course.
Somewhere before we got to Mount Horeb, I was ahead of Ken and Deanna and I didn't stop to pee at all, so I just kept going. As I was riding, I kept thinking, "hey this kinda sucks but not nearly as much as Horribly Hilly" and that kept me going. I was ignoring the power meter (which won't display speed right now, but who cares?) and just riding based on my breathing, so all was good. I never did take off my arm warmers, but unzipped the jersey a little as it did warm up a little bit.
When I got back to Fireman's Park, Ali was already running, and I had left my run stuff back at the hotel, so I needed to go back there. Deanna had cut a tire and so hadn't gotten very far into the second loop at all, and my car was packed up when Ken arrived back, and I told him I had to go back to the hotel, and thanks for the ride and all that.
I had only drunk 2.5 bottles of water and 1.5 bottles of Infinit for the entire ride, which seemed a little low to me, but oh well! My legs didn't feel all that bad, so I hurried up and got the bike back in the hotel and suited up to run. I knew it was actually warm out as I was pretty sweaty, and as soon as I headed out, I realized how humid it was, but still not too hot. I ran back to Fireman's Park in hopes of catching Ken, which I did, and he'd run 3 miles, but was headed home, and I continued on. I was supposed to run 6 miles, but I just decided on running about an hour whatever that would bring. On my way back to the hotel, I caught up with the Military Ridge Trail to run on which is nice crushed limestone.
I didn't know how fast or slow I was running until I got to a mile marker and then timed myself, and I was extremely please with how I was running! Plus, this was the best I can ever remember feeling running off of a 112-mile bike ride except maybe for a few IM races over the years. Still, this is not race day, so let's just get it done.
And I did. Here are a few pics from after I finished up the run:
I guess I'm a skinny little thing now, aren't I? When I was finished, I was famished, but I had to shower first and start in on my Endurox R4, which I did, and then since I was conveniently next to McDonald's, I just walked over there and got one of the new sandwiches I'd read about--the 1/3 lb. Angus Burger with mushrooms and swiss cheese, and small fries:
The burger was actually tasty from what I can remember since I think I inhaled it in like 2 minutes! I actually ate a bunch of fries on the walk back to the hotel and polished them off before I started in on the burger. And then I got to laying down to watch a replay of Stage 1 of the TDF wearing compression tights and laying down and generally moaning. My legs felt pretty well trashed, but I've felt worse, and I was pleased with the time it took me to cover the IMWI course and my brick run.Finally, I motivated to stretch, and then I got in the hot tub:
for a little bit while watching some comedy on TV (I still haven't hooked up the converter box to my TV at home and hadn't watched any TV since June 12 or whatever that date was). The hot tub was blissful, and I polished off the last of 3 beers while in there before getting (or trying to get) to sleep early, as I was pretty tired.I was pretty pleased with the 3 past days of training, having covered nearly full Ironman distance (OK so I was off on the running part by by 2.2 miles, fuck me, OK?) in 3 days (actually went over on the swim), and thought that can't be a bad thing, seeing as how I want to do double IM distance over 4 days. This made me think maybe I can do it, although I'll be doing it all brickie-brick style, which will be harder ;)
I slept fitfully, as there were more fireworks, my legs were throwing off all sorts of heat, and I'd had plenty of caffeine on the bike. Still, I think I managed about 8 hours of sleep, finally waking up around 6:30. I had thought about doing some more biking this morning, but knew I didn't need to, but I've had some significant training weekends this year where I've been able to do something the day after something where I'd normally take a day off, and it was a gorgeous day, so I thought, what the hell, what else am I doing, I'm here--may as well ride, right?
I went to the hotel lobby and fixed myself a waffle, which was just the thing I needed plus 2 cups of coffee, and before I could think too much about it, I had most everything in my car and was on my bike by about 8:10AM. I was going to wear bike shorts, but since it was so sunny, I decided on panties, and as soon as I started, realized what a good choice it was. It was so beautiful--I should have taken my camera with me the sky was so perfect, and all the crops so green--this is what I live for--to bike in an area like this with this kind of weather! I rode pretty well considering, and I think it was the right thing to do.
Here's my trusty Bitchie after this morning's ride. She did me proud this weekend, and I decided I still love her, even though I wouldn't mind another tri bike in my stable!
And here's me with Bitchie.
I wanted to keep riding, it was such a nice day, but alas, I need to start thinking about actually tapering for IMLP, so I'm going to review my past records to see what exactly I will do. I am in my run taper for sure, but I think I can knock out one more solid week of biking before I drop off.
I feel so great now, which means I am definitely peaking. I just want to keep training. Training is what I love. Training well is what I love. Training well in the company of other good athletes is what I love. It's all good. But I guess I'm signed up for this damn race, so I had better get my head in that game, right?
Hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Clumsy and Scatterbrained, aka 4 weeks out from IMLP
When I get this close to an IM, it seems the only things my brain and body know how to do are:
This morning I opened 3 cans of Coke to get them busy defizzing and was going to mix up 10 bottles of Endurox R4 (I mix 10 at a time so I achieve optimization of my bottle fixing time) and some Gatorade bottles for swimming, and I had put the cans of Coke back in the fridge, and went in there for something else and knocked over one of the cans of Coke, and it seemed like a huge tragedy. Luckily, the whole can didn't spill, but it still took time to clean it off all the surfaces it did hit in the fridge. The experience just reminded me that I need to be careful with simple things now, as I get clumsy doing much of anything besides swimming, biking and running.
As far as the #9 above, that sounds counter to what I should be doing, but it's mostly an effort to stay in touch with my emotions even as I am feeling good and aggro about training and maybe even racing. It's just that I am still not over this love I felt for someone, and try as I might to get all negative about him and such, it's not working, so I know I have a few more weeks of that to go. And while sometimes I feel like I'm superhuman, man, I know some really talented people (athletically, that is) and I don't put myself in that same category AT ALL. Mostly I just like to train, and I know that my training isn't necessarily optimal for all the crazy shit I like to do, and I am OK with it.
I'm looking forward to my partial weekend up in Wisconsin, but have decided to come back on Saturday night so I can have a relaxing Sunday and maybe even check out a local festival that I have really enjoyed in the past. I hope I am able to catch some of the balloons taking flight on Thursday and Friday mornings!
- Swim
- Bike
- Run
- Fix bottles
- Laundry and dishes
- Mess with bikes (wheels, cassettes, etc.) and race gear
- Acquire and eat food
- Obsess about training and upcoming races
- Obsess about all the ways in which I suck
- Anthropomorphize just about anything
This morning I opened 3 cans of Coke to get them busy defizzing and was going to mix up 10 bottles of Endurox R4 (I mix 10 at a time so I achieve optimization of my bottle fixing time) and some Gatorade bottles for swimming, and I had put the cans of Coke back in the fridge, and went in there for something else and knocked over one of the cans of Coke, and it seemed like a huge tragedy. Luckily, the whole can didn't spill, but it still took time to clean it off all the surfaces it did hit in the fridge. The experience just reminded me that I need to be careful with simple things now, as I get clumsy doing much of anything besides swimming, biking and running.
As far as the #9 above, that sounds counter to what I should be doing, but it's mostly an effort to stay in touch with my emotions even as I am feeling good and aggro about training and maybe even racing. It's just that I am still not over this love I felt for someone, and try as I might to get all negative about him and such, it's not working, so I know I have a few more weeks of that to go. And while sometimes I feel like I'm superhuman, man, I know some really talented people (athletically, that is) and I don't put myself in that same category AT ALL. Mostly I just like to train, and I know that my training isn't necessarily optimal for all the crazy shit I like to do, and I am OK with it.
I'm looking forward to my partial weekend up in Wisconsin, but have decided to come back on Saturday night so I can have a relaxing Sunday and maybe even check out a local festival that I have really enjoyed in the past. I hope I am able to catch some of the balloons taking flight on Thursday and Friday mornings!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Revenge of the PirateMan
I am feeling like I am hitting peak or near peak fitness for the season, which is good since IMLP is coming up fast. But I actually think I will be super-peaked for Revenge of the PirateMan, which is what I've decided to call my sprint/Oly/HIM/IM festival in August. That's my Buddha above, and he's decked out in various ribbons from various gifts and flower arrangements I've received in the past several years. I've added my new pirate hat from Kim, and I am looking to Pirate Buddha to guide me in the next 10 weeks as I prepare to do something I've never done before.
I can tell I'm peaking because I feel strong swimming long. Not necessarily fast; just strong. I swam 3000 straight last Friday and it didn't feel like a big deal. I hope 4200 doesn't feel like a big deal either this Friday!
I can tell because I can ride hard a lot. In checking through my bike records, I would call yesterday's sprint an "official" FTP test. I rode at 107% of my alleged FTP of 190 (on Bitchie), which is about right for a sprint, but I'm guessing maybe my FTP has gone up maybe 5 points, which is still good, considering I've gotten older (how did that happen???). The day before the sprint I rode 2:45 at 82% of FTP, and the day before that I'm guessing based on my speed that I was at least at 80% of FTP. For me, I think I need a particular combination of volume (outdoors, thank you) and hills (I love riding hills and will ride them fairly hard as evidenced by Horribly Hilly this year). What's cool is that since I'm the lightest I've been in 15 years (15 years ago was when I got divorced and got almost stupid skinny--now I am carrying a lot more muscle), that means my power to weight ratio is going up by leaps and bounds. I would still need to ride a lot more to get super fast, and if I had the time, I'd love doing it, but there is that damn swimming and running to do.
Now about running. I'm not much faster than I've ever been (and I've never been fast), but I feel strong running. Again, the light weight seems to be a factor, but I've also been (carefully, I think) just adding miles for no good reason this year. We'll see how I end up the season in total run mileage, but I've knocked out some great weeks of running in the last 13 weeks (but should remove the 2 I was sick post-Triple T) and not felt any worse for the extra miles.
I feel like this year I am able to push myself harder in the few actual races I've done. I'm saddened that I was sick for Triple T, because I thought I could have won my age division again, or been close.
So now I get to show what kind of fitness I have in an Ironman. It's always dicey, because I could blow my taper, I could be sick, I could be in a bad mental place, it could be rainy and cold (which would surely be my demise) or any number of things. I have reconciled myself to the fact that however it goes, I will have arrived on the starting line in good shape and ready to enjoy the experience.
But I'm really now looking forward to Revenge of the PirateMan, because no matter how I do at IMLP, it will have prepared me well for this new adventure. I don't know anyone else who's done this before (although I'm sure there are a few out there), and I'm not doing it for the accolades or anything--it's just something I wanted to try and see if I could do it. And I'm starting to think that I can do it. I know I can do the first 3 days, easy as pie. And then there's only one more day!
I've got my idol (sorry for the abuse, Buddha!) all set up for the deal. I've got 10 weeks to get ready, which will include a warmup Ironman, and I'm hoping to squeeze in a few other races, because I want the preparation after IMLP to be fun, fun, fun!
Isn't this crazy? I just want to be fit enough to do something I'm not sure I can do, but with each passing day, my body is telling me that I can do it, and I will.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Twin Lakes Sprint Triathlon Race Report
Get ready---this will be long for a sprint report!
First the important stuff. Pics are here.
So if you go back a few days you see that on Friday, I pretty well cooked myself (figuratively and literally) that day. I was oh so tired Friday night, but stretched pretty well, and didn't need to do too much after that--I had Infinit mixed up that was leftover from my bottle-making tragedy prior to Horribly Hilly, and so all I needed to do was load and set the coffee pot timer.
The plan for Saturday was a 1/2 hour recovery swim and 2:30 ride "at any intensity that feels right." Uh-huh. Yeah. OK. That's what the piece of paper said.
I had wanted to be swimming at 7AM, but I was a little late getting started, due to the fact that I let myself "sleep in" until 5:30 and wanted to have my breakfast somewhat digested before I started swimming (unlike on Friday).
I'd thought I'd swim easy for 1/2 hour, but as soon as I jumped in, I was like, fuck, I have a sprint race tomorrow I should do some short speedy stuff. So first I just swam 500 all out (what is "all out" for me that is), then I did 300 easy, then 4x100 hard 20"RI and 4x50 hard 10" RI, with a 100 easy cooldown. OK, FAIL on easy swim, hey but it was short, so no worries, right?
I got lucky in that the Farmer's Market was staged at the Y yesterday because of the annual summer festival in Downers Grove called Heritage Fest (I may yet walk down there today OR NOT), so I picked up some tomatoes (Florida--Illinois' fruit won't be here for a few weeks yet, but it is the best, I SWEAR), some focaccia (which substituted for the pizza I should have eaten on Thursday but didn't, and the pizza I should have eaten Friday night but didn't because I was too tired), and this olive muffaletta stuff that I absolutely adore--it's like giardinera on tasty steroids--mostly olives, some onions, some peppers.
I had wanted to leave home by 8:30 to ride, but slacked and didn't get going until almost 9:30. No worries--it wasn't as hot as Friday. I went riding in panties again, but with a tank top on so I wouldn't burn my back up. I was plenty comfortable, and while I started out sort of easy, I just sort of got a mileage number in my head (50) that I wanted to knock out. I rode east in my "hood" ride area through Westmont, Hinsdale, Western Springs into LaGrange, and then joined up with the Salt Creek bike path. It is nice and shady in there, and I was laughing while going 20MPH on it. I made a wrong turn at one point, but it was good because I still ended up with 47 miles of riding at a pretty good clip.
Oh my fucking God were my legs toasted after that. Needless to say, it was NOT a recovery ride by any stretch of the imagination, but I had things to do. I made a quick lunch, mowed the lawn and then headed to the bike shop to pick up LGL--she'd been tuned up and zebrafied:
Look at her! Is she a thing of beauty or what? While at the LBS, I started thinking I want a new tri bike, and would love the Pinarello Montello. Sadly, though, we looked up the frame sizing parameters and they don't make one small enough for me. I am going to look at Colnago next. I don't want Joe average's tri bike--but I would like something as light or lighter than LGL.
After bike shopping, I did some dishes, stretched, got Bitchie all set up to race, including cleaning off the shit left over from her tuneup and my rides on Friday and Saturday, got my race gear together, loaded the coffee pot, and tried to get to sleep early at 8:30.
No such luck. I just laid there and tossed and turned. I swear I sleep better before an Ironman than I do before a stupid sprint! I remember scrolling through all the crap that has happened to me in the past 3 years, thought about all these things I should be doing or could be doing, but then just gave over to the fact that I didn't really need a whole lot of sleep. I heard maybe one thunderclap (I guess it rained a little), finally got to sleep and was having "the dreams" of being late for a race, etc.
I woke up just before the alarm went off thinking I maybe had another hour to sleep, BUT NO! So I got up and thought, yikes my legs are fried, this is going to suck today. I had 2 cups of coffee, grabbed a can of Ultra Violence for the road, and an hour after waking was on the road. It looked to be a beautiful day--no clouds, and temperatures in the 70's for racing. My PERFECT race weather!
I got to Twin Lakes a few minutes later than planned, but was still one of the first 25 or so cars there, so I had plenty of time to set up, take a few dumps (a pre-race tradition!) and mill around and find people I know. I had several women say to me, "You look fast!" I don't know why they say that--sure Bitch looks fast, but I don't think that I look particularly fast. Anyway, my response was, "I don't know about today." And I didn't. I had reconciled myself to just going out and having fun, and I was looking forward to it.
OK, on to the actual race. For my swim wave, I started far left and then angled into everyone. I had no idea if I was doing a good pace or not, but I did seem to pass a lot of people. I guess I did my usual MOP effort there, but it was still fast for me. Like 12:30 for 700 or 750 meters, not sure what the actual distance was.
I got out of the water and had 1/2 my wetsuit off, got to my bike, lots and lots of bikes still on racks (!), got the suit off quickly and got ready to bike. I wasn't going particularly fast, but not slow either. I headed out to bike and thought, "Fuck, this is going to hurt."
Because you know why? No matter how I feel, it's a sprint, biking is my thing, and I will make myself hurt just because I feel it's my obligation. I must not have had that great of a swim, because I immediately started passing all sorts of people, in my wave, and earlier waves, lots of guys, and never found a pack to draft off of. No worries--several guys tried to suck my wheel, but I dropped most of them once we hit some wind around Harper College. I am tiny and my CdA is quite low (and I was wearing the aero helmet to boot), and so I can cut through wind pretty well for a yard gnome.
I remember after about 5 minutes into the bike I'm like FUCK THIS FUCKING, FUCKING HURTS! And yet I couldn't make myself ride easier. Why bother? It's only 14 something miles, I can handle it. The only times I slowed down a little was when I thought I needed like 3 seconds to recover or swig some Coke out of my pink pirate bottle. And I just kept cranking, and since I kept passing people (yelling at those who were in my way), I thought I must be having a decent ride.
When I got back to transition, I was methodical about taking stuff off and getting into my running shoes. This was the first time I wore my black racing flats in a race, because this is the first sprint I've had in them. They felt great! I feel like I am barely moving, but not really feeling the pain of the bike ride. Earlier in the day, I thought I'd be happy running 9mpm, and here comes Mile 1 I wonder what I'm doing? 8:38. Huh? I don't do that. Oh well, just keep the pace and don't look at the watch.
Well, I kept going, taking short walk breaks at the aid stations, and when I got near the finish line, a friend of mine, Kevin, was there to run me in. And he's yelling at me and now I am hurting like a sonofabitch, but hey I did this at Rockman, I can do it again, and then I'm across the finish line and done!
And I have no clue how many miles I'd run. I thought each mile was short because I just kept running a little faster each mile that was marked, and the website had said it might be 4.9 miles, someone else said it was 4.3, but I guess they measured it at 4.5. Whatever, I felt like I had had fun, and I even passed like 8 people on the run, so I was OK with however I'd done.
When they posted results up on this van, I walked over, and I was like WTF??? 20th overall??? And I just didn't believe it. OK, so maybe this isn't a big race, and maybe there wasn't a lot of competition, and maybe blah, blah, blah, but WHAT??? So of course, I thought maybe I should hang out and see if anyone comes ahead of me, but I doubted it because of the elapsed time since I had finished and people in later waves probably being overall slower.
But even though I checked at least 5 times, the results never changed, I was 20th overall and 1st in my AG, and this was after all the shit I had done before this in the week!
And sweetest of all, that was the fastest I have ever run 4.5 miles or whatever it was, if it was measured accurately, and I am very happy, as you can see from the last pic in the set of me in my car.
I don't really care what this means as far as IMLP or anything else. I am just taking it for what it is. I did OK today. I guess I have won my AG in all 6 races (aside from Triple T) that I have done this year, including a 1/2 IM. I'll take it.
Now I just wonder what I could do with a proper taper...
First the important stuff. Pics are here.
So if you go back a few days you see that on Friday, I pretty well cooked myself (figuratively and literally) that day. I was oh so tired Friday night, but stretched pretty well, and didn't need to do too much after that--I had Infinit mixed up that was leftover from my bottle-making tragedy prior to Horribly Hilly, and so all I needed to do was load and set the coffee pot timer.
The plan for Saturday was a 1/2 hour recovery swim and 2:30 ride "at any intensity that feels right." Uh-huh. Yeah. OK. That's what the piece of paper said.
I had wanted to be swimming at 7AM, but I was a little late getting started, due to the fact that I let myself "sleep in" until 5:30 and wanted to have my breakfast somewhat digested before I started swimming (unlike on Friday).
I'd thought I'd swim easy for 1/2 hour, but as soon as I jumped in, I was like, fuck, I have a sprint race tomorrow I should do some short speedy stuff. So first I just swam 500 all out (what is "all out" for me that is), then I did 300 easy, then 4x100 hard 20"RI and 4x50 hard 10" RI, with a 100 easy cooldown. OK, FAIL on easy swim, hey but it was short, so no worries, right?
I got lucky in that the Farmer's Market was staged at the Y yesterday because of the annual summer festival in Downers Grove called Heritage Fest (I may yet walk down there today OR NOT), so I picked up some tomatoes (Florida--Illinois' fruit won't be here for a few weeks yet, but it is the best, I SWEAR), some focaccia (which substituted for the pizza I should have eaten on Thursday but didn't, and the pizza I should have eaten Friday night but didn't because I was too tired), and this olive muffaletta stuff that I absolutely adore--it's like giardinera on tasty steroids--mostly olives, some onions, some peppers.
I had wanted to leave home by 8:30 to ride, but slacked and didn't get going until almost 9:30. No worries--it wasn't as hot as Friday. I went riding in panties again, but with a tank top on so I wouldn't burn my back up. I was plenty comfortable, and while I started out sort of easy, I just sort of got a mileage number in my head (50) that I wanted to knock out. I rode east in my "hood" ride area through Westmont, Hinsdale, Western Springs into LaGrange, and then joined up with the Salt Creek bike path. It is nice and shady in there, and I was laughing while going 20MPH on it. I made a wrong turn at one point, but it was good because I still ended up with 47 miles of riding at a pretty good clip.
Oh my fucking God were my legs toasted after that. Needless to say, it was NOT a recovery ride by any stretch of the imagination, but I had things to do. I made a quick lunch, mowed the lawn and then headed to the bike shop to pick up LGL--she'd been tuned up and zebrafied:
Look at her! Is she a thing of beauty or what? While at the LBS, I started thinking I want a new tri bike, and would love the Pinarello Montello. Sadly, though, we looked up the frame sizing parameters and they don't make one small enough for me. I am going to look at Colnago next. I don't want Joe average's tri bike--but I would like something as light or lighter than LGL.
After bike shopping, I did some dishes, stretched, got Bitchie all set up to race, including cleaning off the shit left over from her tuneup and my rides on Friday and Saturday, got my race gear together, loaded the coffee pot, and tried to get to sleep early at 8:30.
No such luck. I just laid there and tossed and turned. I swear I sleep better before an Ironman than I do before a stupid sprint! I remember scrolling through all the crap that has happened to me in the past 3 years, thought about all these things I should be doing or could be doing, but then just gave over to the fact that I didn't really need a whole lot of sleep. I heard maybe one thunderclap (I guess it rained a little), finally got to sleep and was having "the dreams" of being late for a race, etc.
I woke up just before the alarm went off thinking I maybe had another hour to sleep, BUT NO! So I got up and thought, yikes my legs are fried, this is going to suck today. I had 2 cups of coffee, grabbed a can of Ultra Violence for the road, and an hour after waking was on the road. It looked to be a beautiful day--no clouds, and temperatures in the 70's for racing. My PERFECT race weather!
I got to Twin Lakes a few minutes later than planned, but was still one of the first 25 or so cars there, so I had plenty of time to set up, take a few dumps (a pre-race tradition!) and mill around and find people I know. I had several women say to me, "You look fast!" I don't know why they say that--sure Bitch looks fast, but I don't think that I look particularly fast. Anyway, my response was, "I don't know about today." And I didn't. I had reconciled myself to just going out and having fun, and I was looking forward to it.
OK, on to the actual race. For my swim wave, I started far left and then angled into everyone. I had no idea if I was doing a good pace or not, but I did seem to pass a lot of people. I guess I did my usual MOP effort there, but it was still fast for me. Like 12:30 for 700 or 750 meters, not sure what the actual distance was.
I got out of the water and had 1/2 my wetsuit off, got to my bike, lots and lots of bikes still on racks (!), got the suit off quickly and got ready to bike. I wasn't going particularly fast, but not slow either. I headed out to bike and thought, "Fuck, this is going to hurt."
Because you know why? No matter how I feel, it's a sprint, biking is my thing, and I will make myself hurt just because I feel it's my obligation. I must not have had that great of a swim, because I immediately started passing all sorts of people, in my wave, and earlier waves, lots of guys, and never found a pack to draft off of. No worries--several guys tried to suck my wheel, but I dropped most of them once we hit some wind around Harper College. I am tiny and my CdA is quite low (and I was wearing the aero helmet to boot), and so I can cut through wind pretty well for a yard gnome.
I remember after about 5 minutes into the bike I'm like FUCK THIS FUCKING, FUCKING HURTS! And yet I couldn't make myself ride easier. Why bother? It's only 14 something miles, I can handle it. The only times I slowed down a little was when I thought I needed like 3 seconds to recover or swig some Coke out of my pink pirate bottle. And I just kept cranking, and since I kept passing people (yelling at those who were in my way), I thought I must be having a decent ride.
When I got back to transition, I was methodical about taking stuff off and getting into my running shoes. This was the first time I wore my black racing flats in a race, because this is the first sprint I've had in them. They felt great! I feel like I am barely moving, but not really feeling the pain of the bike ride. Earlier in the day, I thought I'd be happy running 9mpm, and here comes Mile 1 I wonder what I'm doing? 8:38. Huh? I don't do that. Oh well, just keep the pace and don't look at the watch.
Well, I kept going, taking short walk breaks at the aid stations, and when I got near the finish line, a friend of mine, Kevin, was there to run me in. And he's yelling at me and now I am hurting like a sonofabitch, but hey I did this at Rockman, I can do it again, and then I'm across the finish line and done!
And I have no clue how many miles I'd run. I thought each mile was short because I just kept running a little faster each mile that was marked, and the website had said it might be 4.9 miles, someone else said it was 4.3, but I guess they measured it at 4.5. Whatever, I felt like I had had fun, and I even passed like 8 people on the run, so I was OK with however I'd done.
When they posted results up on this van, I walked over, and I was like WTF??? 20th overall??? And I just didn't believe it. OK, so maybe this isn't a big race, and maybe there wasn't a lot of competition, and maybe blah, blah, blah, but WHAT??? So of course, I thought maybe I should hang out and see if anyone comes ahead of me, but I doubted it because of the elapsed time since I had finished and people in later waves probably being overall slower.
But even though I checked at least 5 times, the results never changed, I was 20th overall and 1st in my AG, and this was after all the shit I had done before this in the week!
And sweetest of all, that was the fastest I have ever run 4.5 miles or whatever it was, if it was measured accurately, and I am very happy, as you can see from the last pic in the set of me in my car.
I don't really care what this means as far as IMLP or anything else. I am just taking it for what it is. I did OK today. I guess I have won my AG in all 6 races (aside from Triple T) that I have done this year, including a 1/2 IM. I'll take it.
Now I just wonder what I could do with a proper taper...
Friday, June 26, 2009
Aw....You Shouldn't Have!
Have you ever scheduled training for yourself that looked good on paper, but once you actually get it done you think maybe you shouldn't have done it? Sometimes the realization doesn't happen for days or weeks when you feel a twinge of pain where you shouldn't or are extra tired or become sick, but sometimes it's a same day thing.
I'm not sure about today's festival yet. Here's the deal: I signed up for this sprint that's on Sunday, but right now, being ready for IMLP is way more important than how I do at the sprint. Although while riding today, I was thinking that one of the unique things about hard-core triathletes is that we expect to be able to perform well no matter what. So what I was sick for 2 weeks, so what I didn't taper, I'd still expect a decent performance at a 1/2 Ironman or anything less. Isn't that funny?
Anyway, what I was supposed to do yesterday was a 2:15 run with about :40 of it at half mary pace, the rest being "steady" which is just above easy pace. But noooooo...what I actually did was decide I wanted to bang out 16+ miles all around half mary pace because, what the hell, why not? I was feeling suitably recovered from Horribly Hilly, and it wasn't oppressively hot while I was running, and well, it just happened.
Last night I was pretty hungry and pretty tired. I knew I better load up on calories for today's festival. Since I have that sprint on Sunday, I decided today I would need to take the day off from work and get some quality training in, so that Saturday could be a light day and then race on Sunday, expecting to do well.
So what I scheduled for today was a 3,000 yard swim (straight), 4:30 ride (I had written a workout for it but decided to just wing it) and :40 brick run. Now, if I had executed yesterday's run according to plan, this might not be such a problem, but even still, it's like I scheduled nearly a 1/2 Ironman for today. But with a day off from work, no problem, right?
I woke up this morning right with the alarm, because I wanted to get in the pool by 6AM. As it turns out, I missed that by about 10 minutes, but didn't stress about it, because the temperatures were supposed to drop a little from the upper 90's of the past few days.
I downed the customary Ultrafuel, which made my nose run like a faucet (I still don't have that figured out), and was in the pool swimming at 6:10. I didn't try and swim too hard, but I felt just fine other than wanting to puke a few times because of all the calories in my gut, but no way I was getting up at 4AM so I would have finished eating 2 hours before I started! I can suffer with the desire to puke while swimming, though.
I was home by 7:30 and wanted to hit the road for Fermilab to ride and run by 8:00AM. Again, I missed the mark by about :10 (see I'm running 10 minutes behind), and was OK with that until I got to my customary entrance at the East Gate which was blocked for some reason, so I had to take a little detour to get in at the West Gate off Pine Road. No worries, I got what started out to be a nice, shady place to park my car.
As I started rolling, I noticed the winds were from an odd direction. Usually we have SSW or WSW winds this time of year, but today they were from the NE. I guess that is what held the temps to the upper 80's instead of 90's today!
Anyway, I was a good girl and made sure I drank a full bottle of water each hour and was on top of my Infinit. The Ergomo appears dead on the Griffen now, so I just rode by feel and sort of by speed. I wore a sleeveless white jersey for the first 3 laps, which kept me comfortable as my back wasn't burning up--although I totally lubed up with sunscreen before I left. I switched to a tank for the last lap and I don't know if it's because it is more skimpy than the jersey or the heat picked up, but I was hotter. I think the heat did pick up significantly more by that point, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I rode fairly well considering the wind, all the turns I was making, a few moments of slackitude, my legs being toasty from yesterday's run, and the heat. I covered 82 miles in 4:30, not too bad. Here are some pics after I finished riding. I definitely browned up today!
Next, I suited up to run. I put on running shorts, visor, shoes, and ditched the tank top as it was pretty hot. I started out and was like Oh My Fucking God I am going to die! Now I really noticed how hot it was, and I also observed that I must have rode a little hard and/or my legs weren't ready to run today. Whatever. I briefly thought about cutting the run short, but nixed that idea and just HTFU'd (you can see my black HTFU bracelet on my right wrist in all the pics--it really does help me somehow). I ran mostly in the blazing sun, and it was a pretty day, but hot, and I had all these Infinit crustaceans (the leftover electrolytes that seem to crystallize in my nose much like another substance that I wouldn't know anything about) in my nose and my skin was disgusting from all the sweat, sunscreen, salt, bugs and whatever else had blown onto me while I was riding. Such is life. I got it done, and was pretty happy with myself, as you can see below:
And after all that I'm thinking, damn I'm a fucking Crackhead not sure if I should have done that, but I did it, and I stopped at McDonald's just outside the East Gate (I was able to drive straight through the middle of Fermilab to get there) and got a couple of cheeseburgers to tide me over until I got home, and also had some of my Endurox R4.
I had the best shower ever, and I am on Beer #2, and even though I discovered some minor adjustments I need to make to Bitchie before I ride her tomorrow (yes, I schedule 2:30 of riding, but it is going to be E-A-S-Y), and I'm going to try and swim for 1/2 hour, too.
I have to be OK with sucking on Sunday now, but you never know, I might not. While I was showering today, I had a flash thought--whenever you say or think something negative about yourself, pause, and then say, "or not." Like, "Maybe I shouldn't have worked out so much today. Or NOT." Or, "I will probably suck on Sunday. Or NOT." Kind of allows you to express the negative thoughts, but at the same time question them, which I think is a fine way to proceed for now.
Sometimes I think I have everything figured out. OR NOT!
I'm not sure about today's festival yet. Here's the deal: I signed up for this sprint that's on Sunday, but right now, being ready for IMLP is way more important than how I do at the sprint. Although while riding today, I was thinking that one of the unique things about hard-core triathletes is that we expect to be able to perform well no matter what. So what I was sick for 2 weeks, so what I didn't taper, I'd still expect a decent performance at a 1/2 Ironman or anything less. Isn't that funny?
Anyway, what I was supposed to do yesterday was a 2:15 run with about :40 of it at half mary pace, the rest being "steady" which is just above easy pace. But noooooo...what I actually did was decide I wanted to bang out 16+ miles all around half mary pace because, what the hell, why not? I was feeling suitably recovered from Horribly Hilly, and it wasn't oppressively hot while I was running, and well, it just happened.
Last night I was pretty hungry and pretty tired. I knew I better load up on calories for today's festival. Since I have that sprint on Sunday, I decided today I would need to take the day off from work and get some quality training in, so that Saturday could be a light day and then race on Sunday, expecting to do well.
So what I scheduled for today was a 3,000 yard swim (straight), 4:30 ride (I had written a workout for it but decided to just wing it) and :40 brick run. Now, if I had executed yesterday's run according to plan, this might not be such a problem, but even still, it's like I scheduled nearly a 1/2 Ironman for today. But with a day off from work, no problem, right?
I woke up this morning right with the alarm, because I wanted to get in the pool by 6AM. As it turns out, I missed that by about 10 minutes, but didn't stress about it, because the temperatures were supposed to drop a little from the upper 90's of the past few days.
I downed the customary Ultrafuel, which made my nose run like a faucet (I still don't have that figured out), and was in the pool swimming at 6:10. I didn't try and swim too hard, but I felt just fine other than wanting to puke a few times because of all the calories in my gut, but no way I was getting up at 4AM so I would have finished eating 2 hours before I started! I can suffer with the desire to puke while swimming, though.
I was home by 7:30 and wanted to hit the road for Fermilab to ride and run by 8:00AM. Again, I missed the mark by about :10 (see I'm running 10 minutes behind), and was OK with that until I got to my customary entrance at the East Gate which was blocked for some reason, so I had to take a little detour to get in at the West Gate off Pine Road. No worries, I got what started out to be a nice, shady place to park my car.
As I started rolling, I noticed the winds were from an odd direction. Usually we have SSW or WSW winds this time of year, but today they were from the NE. I guess that is what held the temps to the upper 80's instead of 90's today!
Anyway, I was a good girl and made sure I drank a full bottle of water each hour and was on top of my Infinit. The Ergomo appears dead on the Griffen now, so I just rode by feel and sort of by speed. I wore a sleeveless white jersey for the first 3 laps, which kept me comfortable as my back wasn't burning up--although I totally lubed up with sunscreen before I left. I switched to a tank for the last lap and I don't know if it's because it is more skimpy than the jersey or the heat picked up, but I was hotter. I think the heat did pick up significantly more by that point, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I rode fairly well considering the wind, all the turns I was making, a few moments of slackitude, my legs being toasty from yesterday's run, and the heat. I covered 82 miles in 4:30, not too bad. Here are some pics after I finished riding. I definitely browned up today!
Bitchie all by her lonesome. She is looking forward to racing on Sunday!
Me and Bitchie
I decided I was pretty happy about my ride!
Next, I suited up to run. I put on running shorts, visor, shoes, and ditched the tank top as it was pretty hot. I started out and was like Oh My Fucking God I am going to die! Now I really noticed how hot it was, and I also observed that I must have rode a little hard and/or my legs weren't ready to run today. Whatever. I briefly thought about cutting the run short, but nixed that idea and just HTFU'd (you can see my black HTFU bracelet on my right wrist in all the pics--it really does help me somehow). I ran mostly in the blazing sun, and it was a pretty day, but hot, and I had all these Infinit crustaceans (the leftover electrolytes that seem to crystallize in my nose much like another substance that I wouldn't know anything about) in my nose and my skin was disgusting from all the sweat, sunscreen, salt, bugs and whatever else had blown onto me while I was riding. Such is life. I got it done, and was pretty happy with myself, as you can see below:
And after all that I'm thinking, damn I'm a fucking Crackhead not sure if I should have done that, but I did it, and I stopped at McDonald's just outside the East Gate (I was able to drive straight through the middle of Fermilab to get there) and got a couple of cheeseburgers to tide me over until I got home, and also had some of my Endurox R4.
I had the best shower ever, and I am on Beer #2, and even though I discovered some minor adjustments I need to make to Bitchie before I ride her tomorrow (yes, I schedule 2:30 of riding, but it is going to be E-A-S-Y), and I'm going to try and swim for 1/2 hour, too.
I have to be OK with sucking on Sunday now, but you never know, I might not. While I was showering today, I had a flash thought--whenever you say or think something negative about yourself, pause, and then say, "or not." Like, "Maybe I shouldn't have worked out so much today. Or NOT." Or, "I will probably suck on Sunday. Or NOT." Kind of allows you to express the negative thoughts, but at the same time question them, which I think is a fine way to proceed for now.
Sometimes I think I have everything figured out. OR NOT!
Horribly Hilly Hundreds Pics
In looking through the event photos, it's apparent there were very few women who finished the 200K ride (or who started for that matter--they indicated 18% of registrants were women, and I'm guessing most of them rode the 100K) and also that I was faster than a lot of guys. Not that I'm competitive or anything ;)
This picture is coming up to Cty J on Garfoot Road, which is part of the Ironman Wisconsin course, only we are going backwards. While on Garfoot, I saw a number of athletes obviously training for IMWI or perhaps some other IM, since it's a popular spot to ride and a tough course. This climb was not very difficult at all, as it was pretty short, and I did try and stay seated on all the climbs that day so I wouldn't burn up my legs too quickly. You can see my HTFU bracelet on my right wrist!
Here I am coming up to the park to finish. Sucks this one has PROOF on it, but oh well, you can see that at this point I am not really smiling anymore--I'm all focus, get it done and get off the bike!
I'm about to start in on my 7-hour training day, so I better get going! Enjoy your Friday!
This picture is coming up to Cty J on Garfoot Road, which is part of the Ironman Wisconsin course, only we are going backwards. While on Garfoot, I saw a number of athletes obviously training for IMWI or perhaps some other IM, since it's a popular spot to ride and a tough course. This climb was not very difficult at all, as it was pretty short, and I did try and stay seated on all the climbs that day so I wouldn't burn up my legs too quickly. You can see my HTFU bracelet on my right wrist!
Here I am coming up to the park to finish. Sucks this one has PROOF on it, but oh well, you can see that at this point I am not really smiling anymore--I'm all focus, get it done and get off the bike!
I'm about to start in on my 7-hour training day, so I better get going! Enjoy your Friday!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Harden the Fuck Up Run
So I ran pretty hard yesterday, much of it in sweltering heat. I was plenty tired last night, as I did 3 workouts on the day (swim, lift, run), and just from the run I knew I needed to stretch well, and so I did. I got to sleep just after 8:30, since I had the alarm set for 4:45 because I needed to run 2:15 today.
I slept really well and deeply, but when that damn alarm went off, I thought I do not want to get up and could feel some soreness in my legs. HTFU. I turned off the snooze alarm, thinking that I'd let myself sleep a little longer (I'd wake up with the light anyway), and that I would just run on the treadmill, since it was most likely pretty hot already, and it doesn't take very long to get to the Y.
I'm laying there thinking HTFU you sorry excuse for an athlete, the clock is ticking, so I got out of bed and walked downstairs to the kitchen where I saw that it was only 5:05, so even though I felt like I had given myself a little gift of extra time, I still had plenty and could have made it to Waterfall Glen.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and grabbed a Power Bar Triple Threat (which I now only eat on mornings when I do a long run, race or big ride--on other days I have been eating a hardboiled egg on an English muffin with jam), started eating and drinking and got on the computer just to see what's going on. Of course, I had to pee like 4 times and also do that other thing a few times. One of the entertaining parts of training so much is that you are pumping a lot of calories through your body and are pretty much fired up most of the day, so you are processing at a high rate.
I think it was only 5:30 and I decided I should put the running clothes on and put my contacts in, and I immediately reached for my HTFU bracelet because I figured I'd need it today. And then I had a flash of FUCK IT and I decided I'd just run from home and get this motherfucker done.
I had poured myself a second cup of coffee, but didn't really want it, so I chugged like 1/2 can of Coke that was open from some other day in the fridge, suited up and was out the door running at 5:50. FUCK! I think that is the fastest I have gotten out the door for a long run. I was like not even entirely awake when I started running, and that was good, I suppose.
It didn't feel too hot yet, and the sun wasn't fully up, so I was probably not going to suffer too badly for the heat, but I could tell my legs were a little toasted, but too bad HTFU. Initially I was going to do 7.5 miles total out and back and then repeat, because I guess I decided I should run 15 miles however long it would take, which would normally be around 2:15 but today I'm running on asphalt and sidewalk and it's rolling hills so who knows? There is a water fountain 1.5 miles in and then again 2.5 miles in, so that plus the 12 oz. of flat Coke I was carrying was certainly enough for 7.5 miles or maybe even more.
Somewhere along the way I remembered there's a water fountain at the outdoor pool, and I thought, perfect, I will run there (it's about 5.3 miles), suck down water and some Coke, fill my bottle and get on my way. I didn't drink anything until I got there, and felt fine with the one cup of coffee, 1/2 can of Coke and maybe 16 oz. of water that I drank before I left. I ran into MJ at the pool, took a piss, and turned around to head home.
It was still not too hot out, and I had plenty of shade to run in which was great. But man, my legs were feeling the pounding on the pavement. Too bad, HTFU. I would look at my right hand with the HTFU bracelet and tell myself no walking, none of that today. It always feels good to be running by people on their way to work while I am thinking smugly to myself, "I'm an idiot because I'm running 15 miles this morning." I don't know why logically that makes sense, but it does!
When I was about a mile from home, I had to think about how I was going to do the remaining miles. My first thought was to run up and down the .3 mile hill from my house 9 times. Now, I know that sounds OCD-ish, but I have no problem doing all kinds of repeats of things (as you may know) in order to get distance and/or time in. Back at the ranch, I opened a fresh, fizzy can of Coke and took a few sips, went back outside with it, and left it by my front door.
I started up the hill, and thought what the fuck, I am so stupid, I should just do block repeats. If I run around what I call the "big block," it's 1.15 miles and rolling hills (of course), and so I decided I'd do that 4 or 5 times. This seemed like a better idea than running up and down the hill 9 times.
So I did the first repeat, and I was running a good pace, and I stopped briefly to swig some Coke, and it was still cold, and that was great. When I was on the 4th lap, I thought about stopping at that point, because it would be just over 15 miles, but I thought fuck it, HTFU I did that much last week let's add another mile. So I headed out for lap #5, and even though it hurt like a motherfucker, I got it done, and it was my second fastest lap out of the 5.
All in all, I did 16.37 miles in 2:27.46 for a pace of 9:02, which is faster than I thought I'd be able to go.
I'm eating a bowl of fruit even though I really REALLY want some fucking pizza right now. Even though I talk about how I eat all this crap, I really eat pretty cleanly for the most part. Although last night I had a Twinkie with my last beer of the evening ;) And I had a snack before dinner of some Pringles with sour cream. Oh well, I guess all those carbs helped me out today, eh?
Tomorrow is going to be an early morning repeat, since I am going to swim, bike and run and it's going to be hot, hot, hot, so I want to be in the pool swimming at 5:30AM. OMG, I am fucked, I think. Why am I doing this tomorrow? Because I want to do a stinking sprint race on Sunday.
Oh, geez, I am fucking out of my mind. But you know what? This is my idea of FUN! Going out there when your legs hurt and pounding out some miles and sort of half grimacing, half smiling while you are doing it and then just getting it done because a lot of life really is all about HTFU'ing when the chips are down.
Here I am post-run, suitable sweaty, but still standing!
I slept really well and deeply, but when that damn alarm went off, I thought I do not want to get up and could feel some soreness in my legs. HTFU. I turned off the snooze alarm, thinking that I'd let myself sleep a little longer (I'd wake up with the light anyway), and that I would just run on the treadmill, since it was most likely pretty hot already, and it doesn't take very long to get to the Y.
I'm laying there thinking HTFU you sorry excuse for an athlete, the clock is ticking, so I got out of bed and walked downstairs to the kitchen where I saw that it was only 5:05, so even though I felt like I had given myself a little gift of extra time, I still had plenty and could have made it to Waterfall Glen.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and grabbed a Power Bar Triple Threat (which I now only eat on mornings when I do a long run, race or big ride--on other days I have been eating a hardboiled egg on an English muffin with jam), started eating and drinking and got on the computer just to see what's going on. Of course, I had to pee like 4 times and also do that other thing a few times. One of the entertaining parts of training so much is that you are pumping a lot of calories through your body and are pretty much fired up most of the day, so you are processing at a high rate.
I think it was only 5:30 and I decided I should put the running clothes on and put my contacts in, and I immediately reached for my HTFU bracelet because I figured I'd need it today. And then I had a flash of FUCK IT and I decided I'd just run from home and get this motherfucker done.
I had poured myself a second cup of coffee, but didn't really want it, so I chugged like 1/2 can of Coke that was open from some other day in the fridge, suited up and was out the door running at 5:50. FUCK! I think that is the fastest I have gotten out the door for a long run. I was like not even entirely awake when I started running, and that was good, I suppose.
It didn't feel too hot yet, and the sun wasn't fully up, so I was probably not going to suffer too badly for the heat, but I could tell my legs were a little toasted, but too bad HTFU. Initially I was going to do 7.5 miles total out and back and then repeat, because I guess I decided I should run 15 miles however long it would take, which would normally be around 2:15 but today I'm running on asphalt and sidewalk and it's rolling hills so who knows? There is a water fountain 1.5 miles in and then again 2.5 miles in, so that plus the 12 oz. of flat Coke I was carrying was certainly enough for 7.5 miles or maybe even more.
Somewhere along the way I remembered there's a water fountain at the outdoor pool, and I thought, perfect, I will run there (it's about 5.3 miles), suck down water and some Coke, fill my bottle and get on my way. I didn't drink anything until I got there, and felt fine with the one cup of coffee, 1/2 can of Coke and maybe 16 oz. of water that I drank before I left. I ran into MJ at the pool, took a piss, and turned around to head home.
It was still not too hot out, and I had plenty of shade to run in which was great. But man, my legs were feeling the pounding on the pavement. Too bad, HTFU. I would look at my right hand with the HTFU bracelet and tell myself no walking, none of that today. It always feels good to be running by people on their way to work while I am thinking smugly to myself, "I'm an idiot because I'm running 15 miles this morning." I don't know why logically that makes sense, but it does!
When I was about a mile from home, I had to think about how I was going to do the remaining miles. My first thought was to run up and down the .3 mile hill from my house 9 times. Now, I know that sounds OCD-ish, but I have no problem doing all kinds of repeats of things (as you may know) in order to get distance and/or time in. Back at the ranch, I opened a fresh, fizzy can of Coke and took a few sips, went back outside with it, and left it by my front door.
I started up the hill, and thought what the fuck, I am so stupid, I should just do block repeats. If I run around what I call the "big block," it's 1.15 miles and rolling hills (of course), and so I decided I'd do that 4 or 5 times. This seemed like a better idea than running up and down the hill 9 times.
So I did the first repeat, and I was running a good pace, and I stopped briefly to swig some Coke, and it was still cold, and that was great. When I was on the 4th lap, I thought about stopping at that point, because it would be just over 15 miles, but I thought fuck it, HTFU I did that much last week let's add another mile. So I headed out for lap #5, and even though it hurt like a motherfucker, I got it done, and it was my second fastest lap out of the 5.
All in all, I did 16.37 miles in 2:27.46 for a pace of 9:02, which is faster than I thought I'd be able to go.
I'm eating a bowl of fruit even though I really REALLY want some fucking pizza right now. Even though I talk about how I eat all this crap, I really eat pretty cleanly for the most part. Although last night I had a Twinkie with my last beer of the evening ;) And I had a snack before dinner of some Pringles with sour cream. Oh well, I guess all those carbs helped me out today, eh?
Tomorrow is going to be an early morning repeat, since I am going to swim, bike and run and it's going to be hot, hot, hot, so I want to be in the pool swimming at 5:30AM. OMG, I am fucked, I think. Why am I doing this tomorrow? Because I want to do a stinking sprint race on Sunday.
Oh, geez, I am fucking out of my mind. But you know what? This is my idea of FUN! Going out there when your legs hurt and pounding out some miles and sort of half grimacing, half smiling while you are doing it and then just getting it done because a lot of life really is all about HTFU'ing when the chips are down.
Here I am post-run, suitable sweaty, but still standing!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
What Do I Call It?
OK, so previous post you see what I am attempting to do. Top contender for a name so far is UltraNothingMan. Maybe I should leave "man" out of it entirely--after all, it is just going to be me (unless somebody surprises me and fills out the imaginary race application). So maybe just UltraNothing? Or maybe I'll go with a Prince-like thing and just have a symbol that can't be pronounced...here I found the Chinese character for Nothing. I like how the pronunciation is kongkong. While I'm doing it, if anyone asks me what I'm doing, I'll say that!
I can't even believe I'm already looking forward to this even though I haven't even done IMLP yet! But now it gives IMLP that much more "meaning," if there is, in fact, meaning to be found in an Ironman.
And yet I need to get through some more training, and it's a LOT of training, and so I'm taking things one day at a time. Before I know it, I'll be packing for IMLP and getting excited about that, but first, I need to just get through the rest of this week.
Today was a tempo-ish run in the 90's and it sucked and I ended up doing the last few miles indoors on the track at the Y because I couldn't keep my HR down. Tomorrow is a 2:15 run and I am not sure right at this minute whether I will do it outside early or on the treadmill. Friday I am taking a day off from work and swimming 3,000 yds., riding 4:30 and doing a brick run. Maybe I should call it a triathlon, huh? Saturday will be a short easy ride and then Sunday is a sprint race. It looks like the temps will drop somewhat but it will still be hot. Oh well. It is what it is.
After all, I have kongkong coming up...
I can't even believe I'm already looking forward to this even though I haven't even done IMLP yet! But now it gives IMLP that much more "meaning," if there is, in fact, meaning to be found in an Ironman.
And yet I need to get through some more training, and it's a LOT of training, and so I'm taking things one day at a time. Before I know it, I'll be packing for IMLP and getting excited about that, but first, I need to just get through the rest of this week.
Today was a tempo-ish run in the 90's and it sucked and I ended up doing the last few miles indoors on the track at the Y because I couldn't keep my HR down. Tomorrow is a 2:15 run and I am not sure right at this minute whether I will do it outside early or on the treadmill. Friday I am taking a day off from work and swimming 3,000 yds., riding 4:30 and doing a brick run. Maybe I should call it a triathlon, huh? Saturday will be a short easy ride and then Sunday is a sprint race. It looks like the temps will drop somewhat but it will still be hot. Oh well. It is what it is.
After all, I have kongkong coming up...
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
A Very Special Crackheaded Announcement
Those of you who are friends on Facebook have seen me alluding to something today that I promised I would unveil here on the blog first.
I almost don't even know how to talk about it. It came to me in the middle of last night. I had been struggling with do I or do I not do IM Canada? It's not the "doing" of it that's an issue--it's the travel and I hadn't made any plans, and as much as I know I could go back there and kick the course's ass, I just haven't felt the need to end this season with another WTC/NAS (or whatever the fuck it is now) Ironman (I am already doing IMLP). It would have, indeed, been fun to meet some people face to face that I've never met before, fun to do the race, all that stuff.
But my heart, while still broken, has needed something else to revive me, to make me feel alive and challenged and maybe lead me to that next step. I'm signed up for a 50-mile trail race in October, I'm going back to Goofy Challenge (which is no big deal to me) in January, and I had thought about doing a "double Ironman" training week in 2010. I had also talked about a sequence of triathlons with an impressive total distance sometime earlier this year with someone, but it was expressed in terms of "next year." Well, you know what? I'm training pretty well, I'll have IMLP as a warmup race (and I do intend to race that) and being undecided about IM Canada, last night I thought what the fuck let's do this thing THIS YEAR.
So initially the thought was 4 days (and these are all "do it on my own" fuck actual races I don't need no stinkin' medals or T-shirts):
- Day 1: Sprint
- Day 2: Olympic distance
- Day 3: Half Ironman distance
- Day 4: Ironman distance
But then I add up some numbers and think, huh, that's close to double Ironman but not quite. So while stuck in traffic this afternoon (only to return to a house with no power, but obviously it's back on, thank GOD because it's still 91 here), I figure out how it's going to go. This will begin on August 24, 2009:
- Monday, August 24: Run 3.8 miles or so. This is just to get the total run miles for the week up to 52.4, which is double Ironman.
- Tuesday, August 25: Rest day
- Wednesday, August 26: Sprint (sort of) of 1500m swim/20-mile bike/5K run
- Thursday, August 27: Olympic (sort of) of 2000m swim/30-mile bike/10K run
- Friday, August 28: Half Ironman (sort of) of 2500m swim/60-mile bike/13.1 mile run
- Saturday, August 29: Ironman (sort of) of 4000m swim/115-mile bike/26.2 mile run
And the total is 10,000m swimming, 225 miles biking and 52.4 miles running.
Can I do it? Well, I've done the whole sprint/Oly/Half Ironman before. No big deal. Part of Triple T. It's that pesky Ironman thing at the end that will be tough. So I will be leaning on some friends for advice--I think I know how to pace this, and I have to find places to get it done. I'm OK swimming in the outdoor 50m pool, and riding from there. I think I will need to do the half and full IM runs on trail, though, which will necessitate some transportation or something.
I have time to figure out the logistics!
Am I going to ask if anyone wants to come along with me? FUCK NO! I am assuming I will be doing this all by myself. If once I post where the hell I will be while rolling someone wants to show up and swim/ride/run along with me or just clap or look at me like I'm fucking insane, that's perfectly fine by me.
Even though I won't be doing sanctioned races, I am hoping that if I decide to submit an application for Ultraman Kona, that they will consider me appropriately loony but qualified to race there. That has been one of my goals for several years now, and it's time to start making good on it, eh?
Now this all begs the question WHY??? Why is because I think I can do it, but it's also somewhat scary, because this is how I feed my soul, because this is how I exorcise demons that seem to plague me only leaving me when I push myself to another place, and because once I lock in on something that I think I should do, I'm already doing it.
I've had enough of doing it for the prize, the glory, frankly I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of me anymore.
I might fail at this; but I might not. All I can do is tri, right?
Monday, June 22, 2009
More on Horribly Hilly
The more I read elsewhere about this ride and specifically this year, the better I feel about how I did.
Here's an article about the last rest stop, which is about 100 miles and 7800 feet of climbing in.
Here's a blog post by a guy who had to walk many of the hills. Interesting to note it says the temperature reached 88. Look at the graph at the end that shows that last climb into the park. It's brutal!
Also, checking my archives, this was my 5th and fastest attempt at the sonofabitch (although in 2006 I only did 100K since it was just 2 weeks after Ironman Brazil and I knew better).
There is another ride in the area on July 11 called Insane Terrain. The 200K course has a road on it called Roller Coaster Road. I think I need to go there...
Here's an article about the last rest stop, which is about 100 miles and 7800 feet of climbing in.
Here's a blog post by a guy who had to walk many of the hills. Interesting to note it says the temperature reached 88. Look at the graph at the end that shows that last climb into the park. It's brutal!
Also, checking my archives, this was my 5th and fastest attempt at the sonofabitch (although in 2006 I only did 100K since it was just 2 weeks after Ironman Brazil and I knew better).
There is another ride in the area on July 11 called Insane Terrain. The 200K course has a road on it called Roller Coaster Road. I think I need to go there...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Horribly Hilly Hundreds Ride Report
This was my 4th or 5th time doing this ride. The first time I did it, I found out about it from some email that magically came to me, and I remember thinking, hey, this looks pretty hard, I should try it! It was back then, I think, that I began getting on email lists for challenging events.
The first time I did it, I did it on Bitchie and went by myself. I am perfectly fine doing things totally on my own, and cool with a group, too. I did OK that time, but had to walk part way up the final climb and vowed I would never walk it again, and I haven't.
This year, I signed up with and was originally supposed to stay with, Jostein (OMG I said his name!). But you may know how that turned out. About 5 or 6 weeks ago, a guy living in my area found me on the IamTri networking site, we exchanged emails and friended on Facebook. I didn't know too much about him until he saw my (now deleted) blog post about what had recently happened between me and Jostein, and sometimes, common misery brings people together, so long story short, Brad and I started talking about doing some stuff together (this is just friends kids, I am old enough to be his Mom). He ended up doing the Rockman sprint the day I did the half, but I didn't know it until the next day. I convinced him to come and ride Horribly Hilly, even though I knew he'd be far, far ahead of me, but I thought he'd enjoy it, having recently spent time in the Rockies, plus he races bikes and just started doing triathlons and is kicking serious ass.
So we drive up there Friday night, talking the entire time, and just as we got to Mount Horeb for packet pickup, it began raining, and our bikes were on top of his Jeep, so they got a nice bath. Oh well, no worries, it was forecast to be sunny and hot for Saturday. I ran into a few people I know at registration, and we spent some time looking over the large-scale map of the ride route and talking to one of the volunteers (who looked, physique-wise to be an experienced rider), and I recounted many of the roads whose names I remembered fondly as sporting climbs that SUCK BAD.
Next we checked into the Super 8 in Verona, where I've stayed I don't know how many times (I'll be there again in 2 weeks for a race rehearsal weekend). Now, while I don't travel with a lot of girly body care products, I do have certain things that I need with me like one of my own bed pillows, a small selection of clothes, a small cooler with bike bottles and other fluids, and extra bike shit in case something breaks down. Whereas Brad had a bag of wheels, a backpack and a pump. It was kind of funny, but he didn't make fun of me or anything.
We ate dinner at Avanti and ran into several more people that I know (all men), and we thought we'd all start riding together the next day, but that never happened. Some random barfly chatted us up because he wanted to know why my shirt said "Crackhead" on it and then we talked about what we were doing, and how Brad ended up in Chicago and what he's doing here, which is Assistant Pro (sorry if I get the title wrong) at Medinah Country Club. Golf and triathlon--seems like a good mix to me!
We split an extra large pizza, and I think Brad was impressed that I could eat so much, but when I know what's coming the next day, my brain just tells me to eat.
The stupid hotel room didn't get cold enough, so I slept fitfully, but still slept, and then 4:45AM, and it's wake the fuck up time. I looked out the window and the sky was perfectly clear, and it was already 65, so it was going to be a hot day. Perfect!
In getting to the ride start, there were so many cars lined up to get into Mounds State Park, that it appeared we wouldn't make a 6:30AM start time, but no worries, I think we got started just before 7AM, which was the official start. We didn't want to get into that whole fray, so we took off just a bit ahead. Right away we were riding with 3 other guys, but I knew that pace was too fast for me, so after a few miles, I just let them go. I really don't mind riding by myself.
I had thought I was well-prepared for a decent ride on the day, what with Rockman having been hilly, and having done several other rides with decent amounts of climbing. But you never know, right? To fuck with my head, the Ergomo decided not to show me speed or distance, but I still had cadence (who cares?) and watts. Even still, in doing a ride like this, it's basically about get your ass up each hill and then hammer down as hard as you can and take advantage of the few flatish stretches.
On one of the climbs in the first stage (5 stages--see course map), I remember feeling like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I didn't think I was pushing it that hard, but I guess I must have--typically I will feel a little like this on the first bad climb, but I honestly thought, "Huh, maybe I'm going to die right now." But I didn't really care, and had no choice but to continue climbing.
I got the first stage, which was 24 miles, done in like 1:26, and I remember thinking, huh, that's like 16MPH, I'll take it. Actually it's 16.7 MPH. There was 2041 feet of climbing in that 24 miles. The worst part of this stage is the 3.5 mile climb back up into Mounds State Park.
The second stage is 20.3 miles, and I got it done in 1:15, so 16.2 MPH. Again, I was pretty pleased with myself. There was only 1673 feet of climbing in that 20 miles. During Stage 2, you go by or on parts of the Ironman Wisconsin course, like Garfoot Road, so you see plenty of people just riding the course as well as HHH riders. I think the Mineral Point climb on this stretch was the hardest. I had been on Vermont Church Road with Jostein in April, I think, so when we got there I was like I've done this a bunch of times already.
Stage 3 is 20.9 miles, and it's the flattest stage (only 1509 feet of gain), and I thought I might have been pushing it a bit, so I decided to take it easy. I got it done in 1:14, which is 16.9MPH. The worst climb, to me, on this stage was the Turkey Road/Blackberry Road combination. When I saw the sign for Turkey Road, I was like, "Oh FUCK" in my head or maybe out loud--I don't know. I guess it was out loud because 2 guys rode just ahead of me and went, "Gobble Gobble." Turkey Road (as many of the climbs on this ride) starts out innocently enough, but then you get fucked in the ass at least 3 times, and then you think you are done with a short downhill, you make a left and you start climbing Blackberry Road! Ugh...that was just unnecessary (as the entire ride but that's why we do it, right?).
Stage 4 is long--33 miles, and mentally tough, plus, this is where they really start throwing the nastiest hills at you that they could find. There is 2543 feet of climbing in this section. I did it in 2:07, so my speed noticeably dropped--all of 15.6MPH. I suck. And man, this stretch has some of the worst fucking shit you can imagine. Reeves Road had like 5 separate fuck you in the ass climbs, and you could never see up ahead to the end of the road. It was funny driving back home that Brad commented we'd be in a flat stretch, and he'd see some hill and think, "Of COURSE they are going to send us up there." He also, as I did a number of times, would notice these houses at the tops of these hills with really long driveways, and sometimes the driveways would look like roads, and he said he thought that if they weren't gravel they would have made us ride right up to their front door!
Anyway, Reeves Road sucked bad, Fesenfeld, Sutcliffe, Zwettler (really fucking bad) and Ray Hollow. All major suckage.
I don't know about anyone else, but my legs are starting to feel pretty fried by now, and the brain starts playing games with me. I started thinking how the hell am I going to finish this thing, I suck, I suck and I want to stop. But you get to that last aid station and this is where you need to have a serious talk with yourself. Why? Because the last stage is the hardest of all. First, you are going to head right out of that aid station and climb Pinnacle Road, which is just a leg burner, then you get Lake View Road, which sounds pleasant enough, but anything with View, Ridge, Hollow, Valley or Otto (!) in the name is going to be horrendous.
So at this point, my brain is going a little haywire on me--it's hot, I'm overheated, sweaty as hell, covered in bugs, sticky, disgusting and just plain tired. And yet, for some unknown reason, I get back on my bike and head out.
You get maybe 1/2 mile and you are already on Pinnacle Road (pinnacle not being a nice word this day), and I'm thinking no way am I going to be able to climb it without walking, but somehow, I make it up 1, 2 and then 3 sectors of the climb, but wait, that's not enough, there's a short downhill and they fuck you in the ass one more time up to a stop sign at a T intersection.
But I made it, I made it! How the hell did that happen? But I can tell my legs are really, really fried, and I'm also suffering because I decided to eat 1/2 of a ham sandwich back at the aid station and my body is trying to send blood to my stomach while my legs are being tortured to death. But I figured I should be able to recover from this shit, right?
Fuck no. It's not very long before we get to Lake View Road, and I remembered this one as being pretty and at the same time fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. There are some shorter climbs on this road, but the last 2 you can see (which was rare for all the hills we'd been on) the road going straight up, and I guess it was just demoralizing and I was hot and I wanted to quit so bad, and I'd see SAG going the other way yet somehow my hand did not go up COME AND GET ME.
So I stopped briefly (it was may 15 seconds) at the bottom of the first big climb and had a little chat with myself. I said that if I could make it up here I was going to be fine to finish the whole fucking thing so let's go get it done. And just as I had been up until now as I was climbing, I looked at my HARDEN THE FUCK UP bracelet and was chanting to myself "Harden the Fuck Up, Sheila" over and over and over again, and somehow I made it up that bitch and the switch went back on in my brain that I was doing OK and everyone else was probably suffering, too, but there was one more of these fuckers to get up, and that one was just fine and I felt good to go.
After Lake View, there was a nice flatish section and then we start climbing again and I'm thinking, "Where the fuck are we?" And then I remember, we are going into the town of Barneveld and there's a nasty climb right into town, but before I had time to think too much about it, I'm on it, and somehow I am even passing a few people, but now I am remembering that this is the last bad climb before we head back into the park.
And you get out of Barneveld and there's a whole lot of pretty countryside (as there was all day--I should note that the scenery is beautiful if you can manage to look around you instead of at the fucking road all day), and it's mainly rolling, and now you can see the Mound and you sort of start getting this sense of dread. Because you climbed that bitch once already today, only it was maybe 7 miles into the ride and didn't feel too bad, but the second time, you do the whole climb and then there's the last 800 feet up into the park itself that you didn't do before but that is really, really bad.
So I'm riding and just figuring, oh well, time to get this done, and another friend of mine, Joel, comes by. We run into each other a lot at races and rides, and he says this is the last time he will get ahead of me because I will pass him going into the park. I didn't really think so, as he was looking pretty strong, but still I tried to stay sort of with him.
When we got to the turn into the park, I thought that was fast, and then I thought, oh shit, here it is. I was right with Joel, but after the first flatish 1/2 mile, I stopped my bike briefly to catch my breath, and that's when I invoked my dead Dad to help me out for the first time all day. I had some of his ashes with me, and just like he pushed me up many hills on the run course at Rockman, I really hoped he'd be able to push my sorry ass up this final climb.
I forgot how many twists and turns and you think you're done but you're not, and my legs were just screaming, but I was telling myself to try and relax and breathe, and even though I had really, really thought I wasn't going to make it several times and would need to stop and walk my bike, I just kept going. I did see one girl walking with her bike and thought I wonder if walking would be faster, but somehow I rode up to her and past, and despite how pitifully slow I was going, I was going faster than if I had walked, so I just kept it up, and I did pass Joel somehow and we said a few soft words to one another, and then I got to the crest where you turn right for the worst part into the park and I thought I was going to need to stop, but I didn't, because if I stopped now it was all over, and I couldn't even believe I was turning the cranks at all, and I wanted to stand up but knew if I did I'd be committed and it would hurt even more, so I just kept turning the cranks over, and there were people lining the road now clapping and encouraging us, and I couldn't believe I was going to make it up, and finally I did and went through the makeshift finish line, and I saw Brad sitting on the grass waiting for me and I was so happy to be done!
And I looked down at the Ergomo, which although it hadn't shown me anything but watts all day long, I figured the time was correct because I knew about how long I had spent at the aid stations, and I had done the whole thing plus the aid stations in 9:30, which meant the 8:13 on the clock for riding time was good, and that was a PR for me by about :45! But it wasn't sinking in, and besides, I wanted to hear about Brad's experience, because after all, I had dragged him here telling him it would be challenging even though it's not the Rocky Mountains.
And he told me how he got to ride with Robbie Ventura, easily keeping pace with him, and I don't know Brad's actual time, but let's just say he's really fucking fast, and I have to say thanks that he waited for my sorry ass there, and I didn't want to keep him much longer, so I first grabbed and ice cream cone, then walked over and got a beer, then went to the car, toweled myself off, loaded up the Jeep and we got on our way, me driving.
And as in years past, you are just so wired from what you have done, and I mostly wanted to hear about it from Brad's perspective which was hilarious since he had no idea what to expect, but I knew he'd be right up there with the lead riders all day. It was funny that he had some of the same evil brain thoughts that I did like this really sucks I am sick of it and yet we would keep going, and we'd think about how "they" were making us go up these stupid hills all day, but "they" was really OURSELVES and we have nobody else to blame.
And I rode pretty much all day by myself and in a sick, sick sort of way, enjoyed it. I had thought to myself that if I rode a good time on the day that it might be an omen for Lake Placid, and I guess so, and I guess it's time for me to start ignoring the numbers on the power meter like I did yesterday and JFR (Just Fucking Ride) and get it done.
So now it's 5 weeks to IMLP and I've got 3 more big weekends of work (mostly riding) to get done, and I'm psyched for it, and honestly, I feel pretty good today, although I'm just going to go for a swim and a short run to work the crap out of my muscles.
Mostly I'm really glad to have made a new friend who is as crazy or maybe even worse than me, and we are driving to IMLP together which will be fun as hell, and I get to play Iron Mentor to Brad for his first Ironman, and that always gets me excited to see all the excitement and fear on a person doing their first one, but I'm sure he's going to do just fine, and I am looking forward to putting myself in a seriously painful place on the day--this year is the first time I've felt like I could go to that place, and I don't know what that means, but I am finally feeling strong this year despite some emotional and physical hurdles (and I know there will be more), so all I need to do at this point is stay physically healthy and I should be fine.
One thing I do know is that physical pain is nothing compared to emotional pain, and while physical pain doesn't cancel out the emotional, it seems to provide some relief. So I will keep planning to hurt myself in a way that seems to be good. And on that note, I am going for a short run and then a swim to try and loosen up.
Happy Father's Day to all of you who are Dads, and to everyone who still has their Dad living, be grateful--it is never the same once he's gone!
The first time I did it, I did it on Bitchie and went by myself. I am perfectly fine doing things totally on my own, and cool with a group, too. I did OK that time, but had to walk part way up the final climb and vowed I would never walk it again, and I haven't.
This year, I signed up with and was originally supposed to stay with, Jostein (OMG I said his name!). But you may know how that turned out. About 5 or 6 weeks ago, a guy living in my area found me on the IamTri networking site, we exchanged emails and friended on Facebook. I didn't know too much about him until he saw my (now deleted) blog post about what had recently happened between me and Jostein, and sometimes, common misery brings people together, so long story short, Brad and I started talking about doing some stuff together (this is just friends kids, I am old enough to be his Mom). He ended up doing the Rockman sprint the day I did the half, but I didn't know it until the next day. I convinced him to come and ride Horribly Hilly, even though I knew he'd be far, far ahead of me, but I thought he'd enjoy it, having recently spent time in the Rockies, plus he races bikes and just started doing triathlons and is kicking serious ass.
So we drive up there Friday night, talking the entire time, and just as we got to Mount Horeb for packet pickup, it began raining, and our bikes were on top of his Jeep, so they got a nice bath. Oh well, no worries, it was forecast to be sunny and hot for Saturday. I ran into a few people I know at registration, and we spent some time looking over the large-scale map of the ride route and talking to one of the volunteers (who looked, physique-wise to be an experienced rider), and I recounted many of the roads whose names I remembered fondly as sporting climbs that SUCK BAD.
Next we checked into the Super 8 in Verona, where I've stayed I don't know how many times (I'll be there again in 2 weeks for a race rehearsal weekend). Now, while I don't travel with a lot of girly body care products, I do have certain things that I need with me like one of my own bed pillows, a small selection of clothes, a small cooler with bike bottles and other fluids, and extra bike shit in case something breaks down. Whereas Brad had a bag of wheels, a backpack and a pump. It was kind of funny, but he didn't make fun of me or anything.
We ate dinner at Avanti and ran into several more people that I know (all men), and we thought we'd all start riding together the next day, but that never happened. Some random barfly chatted us up because he wanted to know why my shirt said "Crackhead" on it and then we talked about what we were doing, and how Brad ended up in Chicago and what he's doing here, which is Assistant Pro (sorry if I get the title wrong) at Medinah Country Club. Golf and triathlon--seems like a good mix to me!
We split an extra large pizza, and I think Brad was impressed that I could eat so much, but when I know what's coming the next day, my brain just tells me to eat.
The stupid hotel room didn't get cold enough, so I slept fitfully, but still slept, and then 4:45AM, and it's wake the fuck up time. I looked out the window and the sky was perfectly clear, and it was already 65, so it was going to be a hot day. Perfect!
In getting to the ride start, there were so many cars lined up to get into Mounds State Park, that it appeared we wouldn't make a 6:30AM start time, but no worries, I think we got started just before 7AM, which was the official start. We didn't want to get into that whole fray, so we took off just a bit ahead. Right away we were riding with 3 other guys, but I knew that pace was too fast for me, so after a few miles, I just let them go. I really don't mind riding by myself.
I had thought I was well-prepared for a decent ride on the day, what with Rockman having been hilly, and having done several other rides with decent amounts of climbing. But you never know, right? To fuck with my head, the Ergomo decided not to show me speed or distance, but I still had cadence (who cares?) and watts. Even still, in doing a ride like this, it's basically about get your ass up each hill and then hammer down as hard as you can and take advantage of the few flatish stretches.
On one of the climbs in the first stage (5 stages--see course map), I remember feeling like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I didn't think I was pushing it that hard, but I guess I must have--typically I will feel a little like this on the first bad climb, but I honestly thought, "Huh, maybe I'm going to die right now." But I didn't really care, and had no choice but to continue climbing.
I got the first stage, which was 24 miles, done in like 1:26, and I remember thinking, huh, that's like 16MPH, I'll take it. Actually it's 16.7 MPH. There was 2041 feet of climbing in that 24 miles. The worst part of this stage is the 3.5 mile climb back up into Mounds State Park.
The second stage is 20.3 miles, and I got it done in 1:15, so 16.2 MPH. Again, I was pretty pleased with myself. There was only 1673 feet of climbing in that 20 miles. During Stage 2, you go by or on parts of the Ironman Wisconsin course, like Garfoot Road, so you see plenty of people just riding the course as well as HHH riders. I think the Mineral Point climb on this stretch was the hardest. I had been on Vermont Church Road with Jostein in April, I think, so when we got there I was like I've done this a bunch of times already.
Stage 3 is 20.9 miles, and it's the flattest stage (only 1509 feet of gain), and I thought I might have been pushing it a bit, so I decided to take it easy. I got it done in 1:14, which is 16.9MPH. The worst climb, to me, on this stage was the Turkey Road/Blackberry Road combination. When I saw the sign for Turkey Road, I was like, "Oh FUCK" in my head or maybe out loud--I don't know. I guess it was out loud because 2 guys rode just ahead of me and went, "Gobble Gobble." Turkey Road (as many of the climbs on this ride) starts out innocently enough, but then you get fucked in the ass at least 3 times, and then you think you are done with a short downhill, you make a left and you start climbing Blackberry Road! Ugh...that was just unnecessary (as the entire ride but that's why we do it, right?).
Stage 4 is long--33 miles, and mentally tough, plus, this is where they really start throwing the nastiest hills at you that they could find. There is 2543 feet of climbing in this section. I did it in 2:07, so my speed noticeably dropped--all of 15.6MPH. I suck. And man, this stretch has some of the worst fucking shit you can imagine. Reeves Road had like 5 separate fuck you in the ass climbs, and you could never see up ahead to the end of the road. It was funny driving back home that Brad commented we'd be in a flat stretch, and he'd see some hill and think, "Of COURSE they are going to send us up there." He also, as I did a number of times, would notice these houses at the tops of these hills with really long driveways, and sometimes the driveways would look like roads, and he said he thought that if they weren't gravel they would have made us ride right up to their front door!
Anyway, Reeves Road sucked bad, Fesenfeld, Sutcliffe, Zwettler (really fucking bad) and Ray Hollow. All major suckage.
I don't know about anyone else, but my legs are starting to feel pretty fried by now, and the brain starts playing games with me. I started thinking how the hell am I going to finish this thing, I suck, I suck and I want to stop. But you get to that last aid station and this is where you need to have a serious talk with yourself. Why? Because the last stage is the hardest of all. First, you are going to head right out of that aid station and climb Pinnacle Road, which is just a leg burner, then you get Lake View Road, which sounds pleasant enough, but anything with View, Ridge, Hollow, Valley or Otto (!) in the name is going to be horrendous.
So at this point, my brain is going a little haywire on me--it's hot, I'm overheated, sweaty as hell, covered in bugs, sticky, disgusting and just plain tired. And yet, for some unknown reason, I get back on my bike and head out.
You get maybe 1/2 mile and you are already on Pinnacle Road (pinnacle not being a nice word this day), and I'm thinking no way am I going to be able to climb it without walking, but somehow, I make it up 1, 2 and then 3 sectors of the climb, but wait, that's not enough, there's a short downhill and they fuck you in the ass one more time up to a stop sign at a T intersection.
But I made it, I made it! How the hell did that happen? But I can tell my legs are really, really fried, and I'm also suffering because I decided to eat 1/2 of a ham sandwich back at the aid station and my body is trying to send blood to my stomach while my legs are being tortured to death. But I figured I should be able to recover from this shit, right?
Fuck no. It's not very long before we get to Lake View Road, and I remembered this one as being pretty and at the same time fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. There are some shorter climbs on this road, but the last 2 you can see (which was rare for all the hills we'd been on) the road going straight up, and I guess it was just demoralizing and I was hot and I wanted to quit so bad, and I'd see SAG going the other way yet somehow my hand did not go up COME AND GET ME.
So I stopped briefly (it was may 15 seconds) at the bottom of the first big climb and had a little chat with myself. I said that if I could make it up here I was going to be fine to finish the whole fucking thing so let's go get it done. And just as I had been up until now as I was climbing, I looked at my HARDEN THE FUCK UP bracelet and was chanting to myself "Harden the Fuck Up, Sheila" over and over and over again, and somehow I made it up that bitch and the switch went back on in my brain that I was doing OK and everyone else was probably suffering, too, but there was one more of these fuckers to get up, and that one was just fine and I felt good to go.
After Lake View, there was a nice flatish section and then we start climbing again and I'm thinking, "Where the fuck are we?" And then I remember, we are going into the town of Barneveld and there's a nasty climb right into town, but before I had time to think too much about it, I'm on it, and somehow I am even passing a few people, but now I am remembering that this is the last bad climb before we head back into the park.
And you get out of Barneveld and there's a whole lot of pretty countryside (as there was all day--I should note that the scenery is beautiful if you can manage to look around you instead of at the fucking road all day), and it's mainly rolling, and now you can see the Mound and you sort of start getting this sense of dread. Because you climbed that bitch once already today, only it was maybe 7 miles into the ride and didn't feel too bad, but the second time, you do the whole climb and then there's the last 800 feet up into the park itself that you didn't do before but that is really, really bad.
So I'm riding and just figuring, oh well, time to get this done, and another friend of mine, Joel, comes by. We run into each other a lot at races and rides, and he says this is the last time he will get ahead of me because I will pass him going into the park. I didn't really think so, as he was looking pretty strong, but still I tried to stay sort of with him.
When we got to the turn into the park, I thought that was fast, and then I thought, oh shit, here it is. I was right with Joel, but after the first flatish 1/2 mile, I stopped my bike briefly to catch my breath, and that's when I invoked my dead Dad to help me out for the first time all day. I had some of his ashes with me, and just like he pushed me up many hills on the run course at Rockman, I really hoped he'd be able to push my sorry ass up this final climb.
I forgot how many twists and turns and you think you're done but you're not, and my legs were just screaming, but I was telling myself to try and relax and breathe, and even though I had really, really thought I wasn't going to make it several times and would need to stop and walk my bike, I just kept going. I did see one girl walking with her bike and thought I wonder if walking would be faster, but somehow I rode up to her and past, and despite how pitifully slow I was going, I was going faster than if I had walked, so I just kept it up, and I did pass Joel somehow and we said a few soft words to one another, and then I got to the crest where you turn right for the worst part into the park and I thought I was going to need to stop, but I didn't, because if I stopped now it was all over, and I couldn't even believe I was turning the cranks at all, and I wanted to stand up but knew if I did I'd be committed and it would hurt even more, so I just kept turning the cranks over, and there were people lining the road now clapping and encouraging us, and I couldn't believe I was going to make it up, and finally I did and went through the makeshift finish line, and I saw Brad sitting on the grass waiting for me and I was so happy to be done!
And I looked down at the Ergomo, which although it hadn't shown me anything but watts all day long, I figured the time was correct because I knew about how long I had spent at the aid stations, and I had done the whole thing plus the aid stations in 9:30, which meant the 8:13 on the clock for riding time was good, and that was a PR for me by about :45! But it wasn't sinking in, and besides, I wanted to hear about Brad's experience, because after all, I had dragged him here telling him it would be challenging even though it's not the Rocky Mountains.
And he told me how he got to ride with Robbie Ventura, easily keeping pace with him, and I don't know Brad's actual time, but let's just say he's really fucking fast, and I have to say thanks that he waited for my sorry ass there, and I didn't want to keep him much longer, so I first grabbed and ice cream cone, then walked over and got a beer, then went to the car, toweled myself off, loaded up the Jeep and we got on our way, me driving.
And as in years past, you are just so wired from what you have done, and I mostly wanted to hear about it from Brad's perspective which was hilarious since he had no idea what to expect, but I knew he'd be right up there with the lead riders all day. It was funny that he had some of the same evil brain thoughts that I did like this really sucks I am sick of it and yet we would keep going, and we'd think about how "they" were making us go up these stupid hills all day, but "they" was really OURSELVES and we have nobody else to blame.
And I rode pretty much all day by myself and in a sick, sick sort of way, enjoyed it. I had thought to myself that if I rode a good time on the day that it might be an omen for Lake Placid, and I guess so, and I guess it's time for me to start ignoring the numbers on the power meter like I did yesterday and JFR (Just Fucking Ride) and get it done.
So now it's 5 weeks to IMLP and I've got 3 more big weekends of work (mostly riding) to get done, and I'm psyched for it, and honestly, I feel pretty good today, although I'm just going to go for a swim and a short run to work the crap out of my muscles.
Mostly I'm really glad to have made a new friend who is as crazy or maybe even worse than me, and we are driving to IMLP together which will be fun as hell, and I get to play Iron Mentor to Brad for his first Ironman, and that always gets me excited to see all the excitement and fear on a person doing their first one, but I'm sure he's going to do just fine, and I am looking forward to putting myself in a seriously painful place on the day--this year is the first time I've felt like I could go to that place, and I don't know what that means, but I am finally feeling strong this year despite some emotional and physical hurdles (and I know there will be more), so all I need to do at this point is stay physically healthy and I should be fine.
One thing I do know is that physical pain is nothing compared to emotional pain, and while physical pain doesn't cancel out the emotional, it seems to provide some relief. So I will keep planning to hurt myself in a way that seems to be good. And on that note, I am going for a short run and then a swim to try and loosen up.
Happy Father's Day to all of you who are Dads, and to everyone who still has their Dad living, be grateful--it is never the same once he's gone!
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