Cold Weather Racing

Well the first triathlon of the season is out of the way and its a good feeling. The race itself had nothing "feel good" about it but it was definitely good to race again. Here's a lil race report for ya:

The weather forecast was true to its word and the temps were below freezing when I loaded up my bike at 6:00 am Saturday morning. I'd driven out to Athens, Tx the night before and spent the night with my family in the Holiday Inn Express there. Race morning I was catching a ride with one of my friends clients, she had an extra space on her bike rack so I thought I might as well carpool.

Got to transition. Set up. Body marked. All that good jazz then headed out for a nice run. Ran out to the 1 mile mark and back then did some strides and stretching. The legs felt alright. There was a little bit of tightness right beneath my glute but nothing too bad. By the time I was done with warm up it was almost 7:30 when the pre race meeting was supposed to start. Jack Weiss was directing this race and he is an excellent race director. His races are well organized and safety is a big priority with him. This means that he doesn't allow exceptions and when he said everyone needed to be at the pre race meeting, he means EVERYONE. This resulted in me not getting a chance to warm up for the swim. Oh well, it was only 300m so I'd survive.

I was #15 but a couple people didn't show up so I believe I was 11th in line. This was a pool swim for which I was eternally grateful and so they started people every 10 seconds. I jumped in and within 100m, caught, and passed the guy in front of me. Running out of the warm pool area into the cold was a shock and I quickly pulled on a long sleeve shirt over my wet skin. Helmet and bib number on I was off after having passed about 5 people or so in the transition area.

The bike was freezing and my face went numb within the first couple miles. The temperatures were mid to low 30's but luckily the wind wasn't too severe. Still between the miles of chip seal, bone rattling asphalt, slight rolling hills, and cold temperatures it wasn't exactly enjoyable.

I passed more people on the bike until I was riding in second with a few miles left. It was at this point that #24 blew by me and my dreams of winning the race took a dive. I knew that this guy who had just gone by me was a superb cross country runner and had hoped that I would be able to out bike him. No such luck and I entered transition about :30 down to him and 1:30 off the lead.

I had trouble putting my shoes on because I couldn't feel my feet or fingers at all and once I started the situation didn't improve much. Essentially I couldn't feel anything from my waist down and had no perception of how fast or hard I was going. At the turn around I saw that I had actually made up some ground on the first guy off the bike. He had started 9th so I knew I only had to get within :40 or so of him to beat him.

My face had become so numb on the bike that my eyes were half shut and I couldn't open them all the way. I could see well enough to not fall over but couldn't make out facial features or bib numbers at all. This meant that I didn't notice how apparently horrible the guy directly in front of me was doing until I crossed the line and saw him laying face first on the ground. I had gained a little more on him, enough to beat him when chip timing was factored in but not enough to quite pass him. He had a mild case of hypothermia and they whisked him off to an ambulance to warm him up. My extremities were still cold but my core was warm from the heat I had been generating.

All in all it was a good start to the season. I ended up 3rd overall for which I was pleased. My splits were extremely slow, especially on the bike but it is hard to gauge in such cold weather. Next up is the Galveston Triathlon on March 29th. I'm looking forward to summer and racing in the Texas heat!!

Race Time!

This entire week I have been looking forward to the Athens triathlon this Saturday. The first race of the season!! However the weather has done its best lately to curb my enthusiasm. Currently it is 33 degrees outside but luckily it has stopped raining/sleeting/snowing. Still, the idea of busting out of a warm, humid pool envirement- onto my bike going 24 mph with windchill in the 20's does not exactly appeal to me. Nonetheless I can't wait. The offseason has been too long. Come rain, sleet, snow or hail I will race!!

I anticipate slower then normal transition times and possibly a few cases of hypothermia. Nothing too drastic though and it should be a good race. Can't wait!!!

Much Better

I'm back!!

Yup and feeling better then ever. Today was my first day back into real training and it felt so good to be working hard again. Looking forward to Athens this weekend. First tri of the season and time to test the legs a little.

An Ailing Athlete

Apologies for the time gap in posting. I've been sick this week, and it sucks. Not anything really debilitating. I've managed to make all my classes and go to work still but have had no energy left for training. Actually I don't know if I would classify it strictly as "sick" more like "Infected." Basicaly I have this boil on my lower backish, almost the we-don't-talk-about-this-area regions. Its nasty, oozing, extremely painful mess that I've had since last Saturday night. Not sure how the heck it got there but it hurts! Anyways as my body has been fighting that it's resulted in me feeling horrible, running a slight fever, some congestion, etc. I did finally go to the doctor today and now I'm on some hardcore antibiotics to try and kick this thing.

Sunday-Wednesday I didn't train at all. Yesterday I swam like 700m but my arms were just too tight and tired. Today I made it 1500m but it still was not fun. Running is almost impossible as I still have some trouble walking and for biking we'll have to see tomorrow. I'm really needing to get back to training with Athens next week and my world qualifier in I think 6 or 7 weeks. Its getting to be crunch time and I NEED to be training.

Swimming, swimming, swimming, swi...

I'm in somewhat of a self imposed swim block right now. Self imposed means that my coach hasn't told me specifically how often to swim but we've agreed it would be good to try and bump up the meterage and see how it goes. My goal for this week is to get in 20k.

Monday was the official start of my week and so I dutifully got up and trekked to the pool for 6 am practice. That afternoon I came back before work and did 1.5k, including a 200m time trial in which I knocked 6 seconds off by best time ever! I was super excited to finally see some significant improvement. I feel that now I've reached another level with my swimming just as I had the breakthrough run on Saturday.

Tuesday was relatively easy with just 2.5k that evening.

This morning was tough as my arms were tired from last night. I had to check to see that they were still attached when I flopped out of the pool after practice. I did the 3k but the pulling was tough (as always) and it doesn't help that February is "Butterfly month." Its alright though. I like fly and I think its good for triathletes to be well-rounded in all the strokes.

So far I'm at exactly 10,050 meters for the week. I plan on getting another 2k in this evening, then about 3k tomorrow morning. I'll then have to see whether I want to do a second workout tomorrow afternoon or wait until Saturday. Friday is my off day and Saturday I'll swim in the SMU 50m pool again at 11 but can go to the Landry Center that evening if I need a couple thousand more to hit the magic 20k mark.

Bike and run are still going nicely. I'm looking forward to my first race at the Athens Tri on March 8th. Sub 18 off the bike baby!!

April 20th is looming ever larger. Thats my shot to qualify for worlds again this year and my chances are looking pretty decent. However, I know I have to stay focused and lately I've been able to do that much better. Sleep and nutrition are the two things that I've worked on to be able to keep improving. You can train all you want but if your body doesn't have the proper fuel and you aren't giving it time to repair itself (sleep) then the training will just negate itself. It isn't always easy but with a clear goal in mind I've found it easier to cut down on the fun stuff with friends and late(r) nights on the weekends.

It was pretty funny when I was at dinner about a week ago and started yawning around 9 ish. I mentioned that normally at 9 I'm either in bed already or headed that way. They looked at me with mouths agape. Complete shock froze their faces into expressions of wonderment. I frequently catch flak for not being willing to hang out late. Or I have to train so I can't do stuff on the weekends. I don't like spending money because I know all the races and events I have to pay for this year, not to mention the equipment. Ahhh welll, if thats WHAT IT TAKES- then so be it.

Breakthrough

AH YEAH!!

Ok so I'm a little stoked, to say the least. I had a pretty major breakthrough run workout yesterday. It's something I'm still trying to rationalize in my head how I did that. Lets go through a quick run down of the day-

7:30 am- Got to sleep in a little today as I was swimming later so it felt nice not having to get up super early.
9:00- Private lesson with a kid at the Tom Landry Center.
11:05- After driving around in circles I finally found a spot to park at SMU so I could go swim at their 50m outdoor pool. Im supposed to have a pass to park in this garage but its saturday so who cares right?
12:30- Good swim workout. Its kinda cool when you do 1 lap and thats already a 100 meters. Went and check out the meet going on inside. UT vs SMU and let me tell you: I've never seen lats that big on girls!! Found my car again and thankfully it was still there.
3:00- After going home, napping, and just chilling for a while it was time to get the real work done. First was a 1:30 ride. It went as follows:

10 min warmup
3x15 min in my 53x12 at 60-70 cadence with 5 min recovery in between.
2x3 min HAMMER! Max efforts with 3 min recovery.
20 min at zone 3 i.e. 22-24 mph.

Needless to say my legs were a little tired when I got off the bike but there was still a tough run to transition into.

I did:
20 min at Z4-Z5. This translated to me running 6:00 miles for 3.3 miles! Or 20 minutes. I've never done a workout like that in my life. I couldn't believe it as I hit the mile markers. Especially as I didn't feel like I was going that fast at all. My coach explained to me what she had changed up to result in such an improvement. Now it makes sense and I'm even more excited then ever.


Today was a longish run and even though my quads were pretty trashed and I didn't feel that great I still did 7:17 miles for the whole 9.7 miles on a hilly course.

If I could just get my swimming to improve like that I would be set.

Happy training to you.

Change

Hopefully I'll have some really good news to report here in a week or so. It looks like I'm college bound this fall. And I don't mean no Eastfield Community Colellege. I'm talking a real 'rootin tootin' state university. I applied yesterday so hopefully I'll be getting the word back next week. I've also talked to the cross country coach there and he's very excited about me coming out to run with them. I'm pretty much stoked out of my mind. Being homeschoooled all my high school years I never got a chance to swim or run on any sort of team. This will be my first oppurtunity to do that and hopefully it will help take my run to a much higher level.

Another pro is that the coach is a 7-time Ironman finisher and many of the runners there do triathlons as well. Cross training is a big part of their program and its good to know that I won't have a coach who insists I quit everything else just to run for him.

In fact I've been talking to my coach and we've decided that it will probably be best for me to take a couple years and really focus on the swim. I know this is what I'lll need if I every want to be even come close to hanging with some of the U23 or hopefully pro ITU guys. Swimming 8-10 times a week, week after week, month after month, for a couple years is what I need. *sigh* oh well. I have grown to hate my swim workouts a little less over the last 6 months and I have been getting stronger so that is encouraging. Next week I'll try to get in 6 or 7 workouts for the week and see what my shoulders have to say about that.

On a school note I believe that I am living proof that procrastination works. Goverment test on Tuesday. I was really motivated for this one as it was the first test of the semester and I wasn't sure what to expect. I really put my head down and studied for all I was worth... the 20 minutes before class. I came out with a 92. Next up- history test Monday. I bet that same strategy will work again...