Adventures In Triathlon

The Before:

This was a fantastic training cycle.  I finally got my run love back, and felt like I really nailed two month of marathon training.  Harder, better, faster, stronger, baby!  Taper took an interesting turn.  My runs were fantastic (as they had been) the week before, to the point where it made me a little worried because normally everything goes to crap.  My last run, a 5 miler with 3 at marathon pace, went so smoothly it was scary.  Then, the normal taper mess started to settle in, and since it was so late in the week, it was REALLY scary.

Thursday, I only ate one big meal and one plate of deserts.  This made my body just a little off.  I also made the mistake of wearing boots instead of more reasonable shoes.  I didn’t figure I would be on my feet much, but I guess it was enough that my feet were cranky after that day.

Friday, due to long security lines and being dumb, all I had was some beef jerky and airplane snax until about 6pm.  After eating a giant (and pretty unhealthy) dinner and a large beer, and heading to the hotel room, I was convinced I was getting sick.  I slept incredibly fitfully.

Saturday, my ankle hurt after my 1.5 mile shakeout run, so much so that I was really worried that I’d not be able to start the race.  Joel kept being all excited, and all I could do was hope he wouldn’t have to race without me.  Around 9pm though, I figured the best thing I could do was shut my brain off, sleep as long as possible, and let my ankle knit itself back together.  And I did.

Sunday, race morning, I woke up, put my compression sox and shoes on before I left my bed, and touched my toes down… still cranky, but much less so.  I would start, at least, I knew that.  I got my bar down and munched on some cereal, skipped my normal starbux (just didn’t seem like it would set well).  We got there, used the portable facilities, walked around, watched the half marathoners start, jumped back in the porta-potty line again, walked around, and then got in our corrals.  My husband was starting with the 5-hour folk, and I filed in next to the 4:40 pacer, and then we were off.

The Good: Mile 1-10

I walked as long as humanly possible.  I didn’t want to feel the hurt any longer than I had to, if I was going to.  Finally, I was about to get trampled if I didn’t, so gingerly I tried and *cue angels singing* my foot was ok.  I thanked the running deities or whatever higher power is up there looking out for babies and drunks and idiot marathoners a lot in the first mile, which ticked over in around 10:35 – under marathon pace, but not too much so to worry me.

I had to decide between the strategies of following the pacer, watching my watch, or running by feels.  Well, the pace bunny took off a little too fast (he was wayyy ahead of me even though I was running under 10:41 per mile), and while my ankle seemed like it was going to hold, my body was definitely a little *off*, so running by feels meant I slipped to around 11s.  So, early on, it was watch-watching, and trying to keep that pace group in my sights and not let the next one (4:45) catch me.

At the turn around (6.5 miles), I saw Joel just a bit behind me, and looking good.  One quarter done.  Right on pace.  Let’s do this.  Hopefully all these niggles work their way out for a while.

I finished mile 10 still on pace, but the hurt never got better.  I wasn’t feeling as if I was pushing the pace too much, it felt just fine aerobically, but I think my gait was just a little off from babying my ankle, so that made things ache differently.  I also really regretted having my handheld because it annoyed me from mile 1, and I was barely even drinking out of it, the temps were good and the aid stations were plentiful.

The Bad: Mile 11-15

I was hoping to get my second wind, but passing mile 10 just made me mentally implode a bit, 16 more to go and I was already in a lot of pain.  I kept going as fast as I could, but I was seeing more 11′s when I looked down instead of 10s, and picking up the pace was harder.  I passed 13.1 exactly on pace (2:20), but just after the mat I pulled over to the side, stopped and stretched out my aching back of my legs, and then tried walking.

Well, the good news is that walking didn’t feel ANY better, so I picked it up again.  Around mile 14, I decided to ditch my water bottle and was struggling with getting it out of the holder, and who pulls up right by me?  Joel!  He helped me get it out and carried it (I told him to ditch it but he held it anyway).  I was REALLY REALLY in a hole then, and was convinced I’d busted my goal down to JUST FINISH SO I GET THE DANG TOWEL AND MEDAL.  I might have done worse if he hadn’t shown up.  He was having fun, enjoying himself, talking to people, having smiles for the both of us, while I tried to not cry and grunted and did everything I could to follow him.

Also, somewhere in there, my mp3 player decided to default to random on my playlist and cut my volume in half, and I couldn’t fix it.  Super annoying.

The Ugly: Mile 16-20

Finally, I had to stop and stretch, I told Joel to go on ahead and  I would catch up with him.  I stretched, walked for about .05 of a mile, and then got running again.  And I did catch him, and decided that I could make it a mile running again before I had to do that again.  When my watch dinged 17, I did the same thing, and 18, and 19.  These miles were slow, but I was moving forward and as I got closer to 20, my mood improved.  As we hit the last turnaround, and then the 20 mile split mat, Joel had to stop and stretch out his knee, and finally, I started feeling better and getting that second wind I was waiting on.

He happened to mention that we needed to pick it up if we were going to make sub-5 hours, and I asked if it was ok if I ran ahead, he said yeah, and I went.

The Awesome: Mile 21-26.2

Something clicked in me that I wanted to get in sub-5 more than I wanted to not hurt.  So, I took off, running as fast as I could reasonably at that point and asked myself if I could make it 2 miles without a break.  Let me tell you, if you want to feel awesome about yourself, run a ~11 minute mile pace around the 5-hour marathon finishers.  It’s a lot of people walking dejectedly.  I passed, no lie, hundreds of people in that last 10k.

I passed mile 22 and found strength for one more.  At mile 23, I felt some major cramping in the back of my body, so I stopped to stretch, walked for about .05 of a mile, and then started the 5k push to the finish.  I told myself that I could slow down for mile 24 if I needed, but I couldn’t stop, and I was just so dang ready to be done, I didn’t.  I finally picked back up to marathon pace, and the mile markers said 25, and then 26, and then I was running faster, and then I rounded the corner and saw the finish line and I was passing people, and in my mind I was sprinting like Usain Bolt and I crossed the finish line.

My garmin said 4:59.

The After:

I got my medal and towel and had about 4 cups of water and then sat down the first place I found space and I think I would have cried if I had the hydration to have tears.  I told Joel that the last 10k was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and even now that the pain has faded, I still think that’s probably accurate.  I snapped out of it a few minutes later and went to go watch for Zliten to finish, and hoped I hadn’t missed him.

I stumbled back over to the finish line and some couple took pity on me and let me sit where they were standing and I waited… and waited… and then I was about to go check with medical (he said his knee was hurting) and I saw Zliten round the corner and cheered my arse off for him as he crossed the line.  Then it hit me, I had finished 18.5 minutes earlier and we were even at mile 20.  Sorry Joel, I wish you would have been able to run it in with me, but I ROCKED that last 10k.

I hobbled over to find him at the finish and then we plopped down and stretched and recovered.  I finished in 5:02:35, and he finished in 5:21:07 (his goal was to at least beat my time from last year, which he did!).  I’m about 1% pissed that I couldn’t have found 2:36 in there to at least finish under 5, and 99% incredibly proud of that last 10k.

I had two post race beers, and was ready to eat right away, so my tummy cooperated with me.  I didn’t eat as many of my chews as I had expected, but I took in gatorade at just about every aide station.  I might have done better if I had more calories in the messy middle miles where the world was ending, or it might have upset my stomach and I’d have done worse.  You never know.

Then, we went and played by the Ocean.

Recovery was not so bad.

Overall – I am happy with marathon #2.  It’s progress.  It’s a 21 minute PR from last year.  I fell apart in completely different ways and places from the first one.  It’s a distance I’m still trying to figure out, and I’m looking forward to more opportunities to do so.  I get the first part, I actually get the end now, I just need to figure out the middle when there’s 10 miles to go and it hurts and that’s just a long time to be hurting.  My training cycle was awesome, and I fully believe that a 4:40 was within my grasp if everything would have gone well, but my A legs didn’t show up that day.  C’est la vie.  I’m not done with marathoning, and my run love is back hardcore, so I’ll get another shot soon.

What’s next?  Well, stay tuned.

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Since it’s almost time to run the marathon (2 weeks 3 days, people!), figured I should post my recap of Kerrville first!  It’s long, so grab a snack and tuck in!

Pre-race:

We slept in a little bit, loaded up our stuff into the beast, and had a nice, uneventful drive to Kerrville.  We got into town around 1, got our packets, and dropped off our bikes at T1 and told their bikes to have a good night under the stars.  We had a typical pre-race lunch of a club sandwich, a few fries (normally don’t have so much fat the day before a race, but I was really craving it so figured my body needed some), and a salad at the gourmet restaurant of IHop.  We drooled over the pancakes but decided against so much sugar.

Then, we dropped the run bags off at T2.  Mine had way too many things in it, but I wanted to be prepared: extra shirt, extra arm sleeves, extra socks, run shoes, handheld, visor, race belt w/number, gatorade bottle, pain spray, and sunscreen.  Just to re-familiarize ourselves, we drove the bike course, and the run course, and then it was finally time to check into the hotel.  We elected not to stay at the host hotel (elected = I waited to long to book a room), and it ended up being a great thing – the room was cheaper and so, so, so much nicer.

Then, we met Brian and drove the course again.  I took pictures and video.  I forgot how pretty it was!   We were going to have dinner with him but it was late and we were tired, so we sent him off to get pancakes and we ate some mac and cheese in the room and went to bed.  I slept fitfully, waking up a lot, but besides that I did get a decent night of sleep (better than normal before this race the last two years).

I woke up around 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep so I ate my first bar (Rise – Pineapple Macadamia) and used the potty and then laid back down and got myself mentally ready and waited for Joel to wake up.  When he did, I ate my second bar (Oatmega PB), drank my starbucks mocha, used the potty again, and dithered around and got going right about on time.  We parked right near the race finish (smart, as both other years its been a PITA to hike the 2 miles back to the hotel) and caught a shuttle to the race start.  More dithering at T1, more pottying, ate half a package of chompies, turned in our dry clothes bags, stuffed myself into my wetsuit, and headed down to the race start to send off Brian and then Joel and then I got in line with my wave and it was time to go!

Swim:

There was no swim warmup (sadface), so I tried to warm up my shoulders the best I could on land.  I really, really had to pee and didn’t have time to get back to the portas, so as soon as I was able to jump in the water….ahhh… sorry women under 39 (I’m sure I was not the only one).  I got myself near the front on the outside, and they started our wave.  Last year, I spent the whole swim just ill at ease and anxious about the rest of the day, so my goal was to NOT do that.  I swam strong and actually found a pretty good pocket and some space (love this race – it’s small enough that it’s not crowded).  My “mantra” when I found my mind straying was “swimmy, swimmy, swimmy in my happy, happy jacket”.  Don’t ask, but it worked.

I rounded the first and second buoys and got onto the long straight stretch and I kept finding myself alone except for passing people in caps in waves before me (that were obviously struggling).  Oddly enough, my mind went to “somehow I’m last in my age group”, but then I just kept repeating my mantra and trying to swim with good form and keep on it and in the moment.  Apparently I passed Joel and Brian around the third buoy (apparently, as Joel told me, I am oblivious during swims), and started swimming for the finish.  My goal was to get there before the last wave of the day started, and I got out of the water, and got to the wet suit strippers as I heard the air horn went off and the announcer said “last wave is off”.  Sweet.

Swim Time: 43:57, 2:17/100m.  Goal was under 45 mins, so I was happy.  I think a little more wetsuit swimming could help me here as it feels different, and I could have pushed a little harder, but it was nice to get out of the water feeling fresh.  Also, 10 mins quicker than last year.  Yay swimming!

T1:

I was a little “deer in the headlights” with the wetsuit, and I got to the strippers fully clothed.  I said “first wetsuit race”, and they took care of me and I was off with my wetsuit in hands in short order – in just my sports bra and my tri shorts (I was scared of the official race pics, but besides my blindingly white tummy, it wasn’t too bad.  No – I won’t link them :D).  The hill was steep, but I chugged up it carefully (no sandals).  Once I got to the top and there was no more carpet, I walked.  I didn’t want to be a wuss, but having had ankle problems all week, I didn’t want to have a little rock end my day so I took it slow.

Once I got to the bike – I put on my arm sleeves, a tech tee, some ride glide (hands down my pants in public is fun!), my bike shoes and socks, and I was off.  I left my garmin and bike gloves on my bike since it worked out at the last race.  As I was about to take off I saw Zliten get up to his bike looking INCREDIBLY rough, but into T1 in a great time for him.  I told him I loved him and I’d see him on the bike (I expected to be passed) and I was off.  I got stuck behind a few relay people, said excuse me, got to the mount line, and got going without incident.

T1 time: 3:25.  Last year – 4:15.  Even dealing with the wetsuit, even walking and being careful, I cut 50 seconds off my T1.  My goal was to be on the bike at 8:35, and I was on the bike at 8:35 exactly.  Solid!

Bike:

Got going, and my first thought was “It’s COLD!”  I forget after long, hot Austin summers that it can ever be cold again, so it’s always a surprise at Kerrville.  I was thankful that I had my sleeves on, and I took the time to put my bike gloves on for warmth.  I started with a gatorade in my aero bottle, a backup gatorade in my bottle cage, and a smile on my face.  Miles ticked away very quickly on the front half of the loop – the cool weather and the nice, slight, downhill stretch for the first 14 miles.  Getting out of the water 10 mins quicker meant I was actually in it – I was very lonely last year on the bike.

I was just… happy.  I just saw the mph climbing, I ended up at the first aide station at mile 17 at 9:30 (15 mins ahead of schedule), and then the back half of the course happened, as did the wind.  I hit the first big hill, and the bump before it, I lost my backup bottle of gatorade.  Boo!  I was looking forward to yummy grape.  Luckily, I got the first bottle grab no problem, my first bottle grab ever *tear*, and a dose of lemon lime endurance gatorade was loaded into my bottle.  Woot.

I didn’t get any less happy, but I noticed I slowed.  I went from 19. something to 18. something, to 17. something, and all of a sudden, I was finishing the first lap 5 minutes behind schedule.  However, before I finished, I saw the BEST SIGN EVER.  I was rolling down a hill, in the middle of nowhere, and I saw a sign that said “the cow goes moo”, to which I moo’ed (not the first time this ride, we went past a lot of farms).  She then turned it around and it said “What’s the fox say?”.  I got out of aero and bike danced and sand “Ring ding ding a ring a ding ding” and thanked her for the awesome sign.  Two zipp wheelie dudeholes passed me and gave me dirty looks, and I lost some momentum, but it was TOTALLY worth it.  Also, this was in my head the rest of the day.

After the turnaround, I got that momentum back and got back on schedule for aid station 3 (mile 30), hitting it at 10:15.  The wind really picked up this lap, I didn’t make as much headway on the way down, but I tried to ride hard all the downhill to gain as much ground as I could.  I also made up a song… “aero bars goes thpththt (my tape was coming off), pedals go woooshhh… what’s the bike say? Ring ding ding da ding da ding ding… what’s evilbike say… hatee hatee hatee ho”.  It was making me happy.  My legs were getting sore but not unreasonably so, and I was really enjoying my day.  I hit mile 40 and realized I had only 16 left to go, and things got a little harder.  The second lap up the hill was harder, but I just concentrated on doing what I could to not lose more time.  I just kept telling myself to tuck in and keep working.

I saw Joel at the out and back, and he said he had been chasing me for 17 miles, and I just sang “what does the fox say” to him because that’s where I was at in my head.  Now I knew he was coming for me, I tried to stay as fast as I could without really taxing myself and made sure not to let up.  Over, up, around, past the horsies and cows and down the highway and up the hill… I kept watching the time of day and tried to keep close enough to the 11:50 I wanted to get off the bike without completely hosing myself.  Also my ankle hurt (the other one, not the one that was hurting all week, and in a completely different place), but I tried to put it out of my mind – whatever would be on the run would be, and there was nothing I could do to fix it at mile 50 on the bike.  I kept expecting Joel to pass me, but I got myself into transition about 5 mins behind schedule, happy, a little sore, but ready to wrap my brain around a half marathon run.

Bike time: 3:22:07 – 16.6 mph.  My goal was to hit 17 mph, over 1 mph better than last year, but I’ll take 0.7 mph better, and a 9 min PR.

T2:

I got off my bike and walked it into transition – it was downhill and a little slippery.  I got to my spot and racked my bike and opened up my T2 bag.  My brain was in a jumble but I removed all the things I needed to remove and put on my run shoes and got my handheld and OMG GRAPE GATORADE.  My plan was to bring it, knowing it would be warm and I’d probably leave it for colder stuff at the aide stations, but after ~40 miles of nothing but lemon lime, and knowing the run course would probably have the same, I took the time to pour it into my handheld and it was like MANA FROM HEAVEN.  I left all the changes of clothes because I was all good, but took the necessary race belt and visor.

I was about to be off, but turned around again and saw what I thought was Zliten heading into transition.   I shouted “Zliten!  I love you!” and jumped up and waved and got going.

T2 time: 3:44.  Last year – 4:09.  I could have been out of there a little quicker without out the PDA, but, whatevs.  25 seconds faster than last year, and I slacked.  I’ll take it.

Run:

Ah, my nemesis.  My Achilles heel for 2013 tri season  (thank goodness I never had THAT injury, knock on wood).  This was my wildcard.  I pegged my swim time exactly, I had a very small window of expected bike time, but I had about a 30 minute range for what I could expect to do on the run.  My best half marathon in the last 2 years was around a 2:15.  My worst effort at BSLT was over 3 hours.  I figured I’d be somewhere in between there, but I had no idea what my legs could do without other mitigating factors (brain, nutrition, weather).

I had this detailed plan about what to do if I was feeling great, good, ok, bad, etc, but I threw that out at mile 1.  My plan became: keep trotting as fast as I could.  It was obvious that my legs were too sore to let me go faster than my lungs could handle.  If I couldn’t trot: walk only as long as needed until you could continue trotting.  Lap 1 went very well.  I got out and my first mile was sub 11, and I was feeling great.  I saw Joel and gave him a woohoo and saw that he was feeling rough but still sticking it out.  Then the uphills came and I felt ok and got through it, and hit the turnaround and was like, lap 1 done, 3 to go.  Then, the same stretch that felt awesome was not feeling so awesome, and I popped the 303s and ate some chews and willed my glutes not to cramp any more and JUST KEPT TROTTING.  I saw Brian somewhere in there and he was behind me (? – I had figured he was ahead) but catching up  – I tried to keep going to keep him behind me as long as possible (he’s a WAY faster runner so passing was inevitable – but it was decent motivation to keep fighting).

I finally walked a little bit up the hill after mile 5, but resumed running right after (no surrender).  I trotted back up past mile 6, past the second lap turn around, and gave myself a mental high five for not bonking yet (I fell apart at mile 6 last year).  Lap 3 was kind of a blur.  I think Brian passed me somewhere in there, and I would have LOVED to pick it up and hang on, but I knew the best I could do was KEEP TROTTING.  It was probably my lowest lap, but I still don’t think a smile left my face – the crowd support was so awesome, the people on course were awesome to talk to (and, holy crap, I talked to people instead of just being in my own little world, since I was limited by my muscular fitness rather than being winded…), I was loving all the volunteers.  I walked at one point because my stomach went all crampy, but when it passed I resumed the running, and I did walk the hill again, but I didn’t. give. up.

The best was lap 4.  Every point of the run, I just said goodbye to it.  Goodbye puffy taco restaurant, good bye aide station 1, goodbye turnaround, goodbye nasty hill, thank you and goodbye volunteers… I did walk a bit through and past the aide station but I picked it back up and only let myself walk up the hill again and then it was time to run it into the finish.  I was watching my times tick away but just kept the math going to make sure I wasn’t completely blowing it.  Ok, 6:30 is gone (middle of lap 2), what about 6:45?  Ok, 6:45 is gone (end of lap 3), let’s get in under 7.  I made my way back to the finish, grinning ear to ear, knowing I had smashed last year’s time, my body held out, and I was soon going to get to sit the heck down.

I ran through that finisher’s chute smiling, happy, full of joy.  This was the perfect end to the 2013 tri season – a celebration of all the good, the bad, and the ugly that went into preparing for this race.

Run time: 2:42:06 – 12:22 min/mile.  Last year – 2:50:29.  8.5 mins better.  I had pie in the sky goals of under 2:30, but my run training has been severely lacking this year.  I really feel I ran to the best of my abilities today after 4 hours of swimming and biking.  That’s a whole ‘nother conversation and plan of attack to improve for next time, but I cannot be disappointed with this.

Total time: 6:55:22.  Under 7 hours!  Yahoo!

Afterthoughts:

I am just very proud at how I kept my head positive about 90% of the race and just kept in the moment and just kept smiling and having fun the entire time.  This is the most fun I’ve had at a race the entire year, hands down.  My thought as I got in the water at the swim was about how your race is a celebration of your training.  Well, I’ve had some rough times out there this year, but I was going to get out there and pop some proverbial bubbly and toast my season all over that course and celebrate 2013.  And I did that in spades.  I loved Kerrville and its volunteers and its spectators and the people on the course that wanted to be happy with me and I had a fantastic, memorable day.  And I knocked 29 minutes off my time from last year.  You can’t not smile when you think about that!

The downer was that beer tent closed by the time we finished.  Boo!  I told them to save me one as I rounded the corner for lap 3 (yes, you are about 2 feet away from the finisher area each lap…) and he told me to hurry.  I thought he was kidding!  At least we prepared a contingency plan well…

I felt AWESOME tummy-wise.  No sickies and had an appetite just about right away.  For two days after, I ate all…

…the…

…things.  I declared the week after “yes week” – all those social events I usually have to say no to, and went out almost every night.  Then, marathon training resumed and my whole perspective on running has flipped over the last 6 weeks, but that’s another post.

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