The tagline to the Golden Bear Triathlon is 'This Bear Bites' and they are not kidding. I thought this race was way harder than Wildflower Short Course and I'll show you why. Let's compare and contrast.

A swim is a swim. My Wildflower swim is kind of legendary and will never be trumped (scroll to the bottom of that link for a quick view). The swim for Golden Bear was fine but slow for me and I'm not sure why. The lake is so small you had to swim the perimeter, then get out, run down the beach about 25 yards and do it again for a total of 1,000 meters. I would tell you exactly how long it took but they removed the clock before I finished!! One of a few penalties for being slow. I didn't let it get me down, though and it was off to the bike.

Wildflower Bike Course elevation map:

You have that nasty, sharp up on Lynch Rd coming out of T1 but then it's some up and some down and all in all it's a pretty nice ride.

Now here's the Golden Bear Bike elevation:

See you have that not so huge up coming out of T1 although it was more of a thigh burner than you might expect. Then you get some serious down that was way fun. It is steep and curvy to the point where they had monitors on the course telling you to slow down. Then you get some no big deal rolling stuff and then... just when you are getting tired you get some uuuuuppppp and some more up and then some down followed by some more up until you want to rip your legs off and toss them over the barbed wire fence into the cow pasture. And then it's one more sharp, nasty up, teeny down and then UP again and you are thinking "I thought it was the THREE BEARS!! Where the eff did this last bear come from???" . Brutal. Then, when you finally get to start screaming downhill they flag you down and tell you turn right into T2. Bastards!

And then there's the run. My recollection of the Wildflower run is mostly that it was so effing hot I got sick and walked almost the whole thing. I remember a hill or 2 at the begining and then miles of asphalt trail with no shade. I don't remember a lot of uphill running, though. This map is fuzzy but here it is and I guess there was more up than I remembered but that's what happens when you devolve into a death march:

The biggest problem is just when you've had enough you have to run down Lynch Hill and try not to have your legs tie themselves into knots. And then you're done!

Here is the Golden Bear elevation map of the run we were supposed to have but the watershed people changed it. I forgot to reset my Garmin so all I have for an elevation map is the bike and the run together
Planned:

Actual:

Mostly what it felt like is climbing 11ty billion feet and finding no water at the water stops - just diluted Heed. That was punishment #2 for being slow. And then the return trip is mostly down - only it's not. This was really brutal and I did walk the steep hills but I did my best to run everything else:

Okay - I might have walked that last hill and then burst through the trees running like I had run the whole thing - maybe.

Marty who owns the store that sponsors my race club was giving out medals and he smiled at me and asked, "how was it?" as he hung my medal around my neck and I looked up at him, all sweetness and light and said, "THAT WAS F#CKING HARD!"

The bike at Golden Bear was only 22.76 miles compared to a full 25 at Wildflower and the swim was short but the runs were the same.

Times: Wildflower - 4:39 Golden Bear 3:28 which included about 2 - 3 minutes of going the wrong way and having my bag go to the wrong guy in T2. Not a bad improvement, eh?

My race club, FMRC had a small but powerful showing. Our relay team took first and the women took 2nd in 35-39, 1st in 40-44, and 1st in 50-54* and the men took 2nd in 45-49 and I think that covers everyone who raced. We rule!

Trifreak did a great job with this inaugural race and are even going to return the bike shoes I left in T2 to my local running store, Forward Motion. I recommend their races to anyone.

* that was first out of 2 but be that as it may - I beat her and a win is a win!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

3:28:28 which included going the wrong way for a bit (probably cost me 2 minutes) and a mess in T2 where a girl gave my bag to someone else and I had to hunt it down.

Not bad for a beautiful Saturday AM. Go ME!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

I have my first Triathlon tomorrow. I'm racing The Golden Bear which is a 1K swim (2 loops with part of it coming out of the water and running to the entry!), 28K bike and a hilly 10K run on a trail. I think I'm ready. I know of 2 women in my AG and we are all pretty evenly matched so my strategy is to really kill it on the bike and try to get out ahead and stay there.

Wish me luck!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I took the names of the people who are interested in winning The Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior and put them on little pieces of paper and shook them up and picked one and the winner is....

The Black Knight!

Please ring in and send me your snail mail address in an email so I can get you the book. It might take a while to get there and we are behind schedule with this thing. We all know that a PLAN MUST BE ADHERED TO! So as usual, I'm screwing up the plan.

sigh..

Book review forthcoming.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekend I had my metric century ride up in Sonoma.

It was 4 hours of looking at this sort of thing

And maybe a little of this

It was one of those things where you ride for 10 miles gawking at the scenery and then stop for some food - maybe a 1/2 a banana and some M&Ms; and then you ride for another 15 miles picking out your favorite house and marveling on the splendor and beauty of life and then you stop for lunch where they custom make a sandwich for you and you can have cookies and pretzels and chips and fill up the bottles and then you go for another 10 or 12 miles and stop for another snack and then you do the last part which, of course, has the hardest hill but then you get to head downhill and go to a BBQ. Can you spell g-l-o-r-i-o-u-s?? It's the sort of thing where if you aren't careful you can gain a couple pounds by the time you finish.

Here's the elevation map which makes it look way harder than it was. I don't even remember that first hill but the second one is called Chalk Hill and takes some energy to get up, particularly when you've got 50 miles on your legs. I got up it, just fine, though even passing some people and leaving my friend Cindy in the dust and that's a first, for sure.

I highly recommend you click here and get the map of this ride and then make a point of doing it yourself sometime - probably without all the support and food.

This ride was super fun for several other reasons, as well.
1). At check in we bumped into a woman we swim with who was thrilled to have some riding partners. I was pretty impressed with the pace she was setting and then, after the first stop she met up with the guys she rides with from Berkeley and I learned just how much she had been holding back. Once she hooked on with them she was gone like a shot.

2). At lunch I bumped into a friend from college I've been meaning to call. She is an avid rider and I've been thinking of calling her to go for a ride together. No excuses now!

3). Riding is a lot easier when you are lighter. As Greyhound pointed out I've improved my weight to power ratio and I really felt it.

4). It's great to have some strategy for hill climbing. Thank you Monica! I was pretty awesome on those hills.

5). This was a ride, not a race and my average speed which was diluted by rest stops and slowing down in some spots to wait for my friend was 14.8 mph. That compares rather favorably to last years 11-ish. In fact, I did this 62 miles in 4:09 compared to last year's Wildflower 25 mile ride in 2:06.

6). The circular part of this route is the same as Vineman 70.3. It starts a little different and ends a little different but mostly it's the same and it is fabulous. I've told Jenny about 20 times how gorgeous this is - she is doing Vineman with me. We are going to have such a fine time! (if you are also doing Vineman 70.3 please let me know!)

7). I had 90 minutes of running on the schedule for Sunday and I whined about it all day thinking it would be awful. It was not - it was a great run and I averaged 10:40 mph which is great for me on any 8 mile run and especially good when I've had a long ride the day before.

8). I'm glad I got the sight-seeing out of the way so I can bust a move at Vineman. Jenny wants to do it together which means I'm going to have step it up quite a bit because that woman is a smokin' fast triathlating ma-sheen!

9). There are no cars on the back roads of the wine country between 7:30 AM and 10:00 AM and then there aren't many before noon. Bliss!

10). My first triathlon is Saturday - I'm feeling a PR coming on.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I've mentioned that I've lost 6 pounds in the last 3 months, right? (about 100 times, I know - SORRY!)

One of the things I did was have a come to Jesus meeting with myself over how much whole grained goodness I enjoy and cut a bunch out. No granola for breakfast any more; I have a protein powder miilkshake made with water, berries and protein powder. No 2 slices of whole wheat bread sandwiches for lunch any more; I have a salad in pita bread now. No potatoes, rice or pasta for dinner any more; I eat other stuff.

Result? I am not one of these crazy people worried about a global rice or flour shortage. I'm pretty sure that the 1 pound bags I have of each will last just about until hell freezes over or until I've enjoyed enough occasions to make treats for other people to use them up, and that works for me.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

It's Tuesday! So shoot me - I just didn't feel like writing yesterday. I thought about all of you all week and all weekend as I blogged in my head repeatedly. I thought about how it's the little things in life that make a lot of little smiles grow into a big one. Little things that happened that made me smile:

1). The cat ate a teeny, tiny piece of turkey that I didn't have to cram down her throat. And then she stopped and it was back to the force feeding. At least she tried.

2). The cat has started leaving my bed to come sit on my lap when I'm watching TV. This is HUGE

3). The cat visciously attacked my hand the other day while I was petting her - she's coming back to life!

4). I had a great call with Humbly Ann who was struggling with some stuff and I helped her feel better. Nothing warms a Mom's heart more than helping her child out of a shadow. (That and learning that she didn't get eaten by a shark - see previous post).

5). I was good about getting my 2 weekday rides in. I even rode the road that has the hill that kicks my butt and it did not. Good times!

6). The weather was gorgeous this weekend. My 90 minute run did not suck as much as last weekend's 70 minute run so I was very happy about that.

7). I ran out of book on the run and started listening to music and heard the most perfect, sunny day running song, Sunny Day by Hyim If you click on that link you can hear it, too. The tempo is a little slow but on a hot sunny day when you are out running it feels just right.

8). I went to a bike maintenance clinic and not only learned some stuff but was finally told I look like I've lost weight. It wasn't really the first time. Humbly Ann told me I looked skinnier in early April but I hadn't started noticing it yet so it didn't have the same impact as me noticing I'd lost weight and then not hearing that from other people. Now I SO appreciate both comments. I'm 6 pounds down and doing fine.

9). I climbed to the junction of Mt. Diablo again on Sunday. It wasn't quite as hard as it had been the week before. The rest of my group went on to the top but I just didn't feel like it was my day to do that so I'm scheduling that for May 17.

10). I have 2 events coming up! Next Saturday I am riding the Wine Country Century (metric) and May 10 I have my season opener triathlon, The Golden Bear. I'm excited!

11). I went to swim clinic Saturday morning and went from flailing in the water like a crazy person to actually pulling some water and making some progress. It was really great to have that experience BEFORE my first tri where I'm sure I would have gone nowhere fast for the first 10 minutes of the swim, otherwise. I love my race club!
And all of those little things add up to big things - sunny days, training progress and happiness.

This is my life with the cat now. We do this 2 or 3 times a day:

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)