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I raced the 15th Annual Tri for Real in Pleasanton yesterday. It was my 4th time doing this race and if you are interested you can read my history with eventhere. My goal for this race was to do it in under 2 hours and I did!

Before the race I met Muppet Dog Molly who was having a bad morning. I wished her well and went off to join my team mates at the edge of the nasty, duck poop infused waters of Shadow Cliffs. When you stepped in the water you had black goo squishing between your toes. It was majorly nasty. Once we got away from shore the water was fine and I did my best to draft. Coming in we had to swim through these nasty water weeds which was gross but c'est la vie with this race.

I was not last out of the water! My race club goes in our own wave and most everyone else at Forward Motion is way faster than me so I was happy. T1 was pretty quick due to my not wearing a wetsuit and I was out of there fast but then I got passed on the bike within a quarter mile by a couple of people. The last one to pass me took 5 or 6 miles and happened when I had stopped to help a fellow team mate with a flat.

As far as the stopping goes - I probably lost a minute or maybe 90 seconds but the rest seemed to really help and when I started riding again (because she told me to get going) I was much faster so worst case it was a wash and best case it really helped. Sadly, my friend's race was over.

When I got to T2 there was a trio of FoMo ladies screaming at me "GET OUT OF THERE!!! HURRY UP, PAMELA!!! GET MOVING!!!" at the top of their lungs. After I recovered from the red hot sting of feeling chastised I grabbed my stuff and hauled out of there yelling "You Guys are Making me Crazy!" with a huge smile on my face. Good times and I had my very best transition time ever.

I passed the guy on the run who last passed me on the bike but he was the only Forward Motion person I passed. Everyone else was way ahead of me. I got passed by several women in their 20s and 30s who had started behind me but the further I got on the run the better I felt when they passed me because it took them so long to catch up! I felt less excited about the 66 year old guy who passed me but what are you going to do? I just kept running, reaching for that sub 2 hour finish.

As I approached the finish I looked up and saw 1:55.something on the clock and was SO happy. I can't wait to see that finisher pic!

I waited a few minutes until Molly came in. She started 20 or 25 minutes after me so the fact that she was behind me by 2 or 3 minutes meant she had a great race. I told her there was a rule that if we didn't get a picture no one would believe we had met. Here we are - she is adorable and I look like an old but very happy hag

So here are the stats as I pulled them off my Timex watch (I didn't wear a HRM)

Swim - 700 yards 15:05
T1 - 1.45 (that's what no wetsuit will get you)
Ride 16.7 miles - 58:42 (17 mph)
T2 - 53 seconds! (That's what having 3 women screaming at you will get you!)
Run - 4 miles - 39:53 (it was hilly)

Total time 1:56.12

PR - 10 minutes off last year. Life is good.

What's next?

For sure:
Nike 1/2 Marathon on Oct 19
Oceanside 70.3 on April 4, 2009
Weight training and Abs Watch! Stay tuned for that.

Maybe
California International Marathon December 7
A 10K some time since it's time to have a 10K PR

I wish I could tell you I was floating on air with this PR - I should be. I feel good about it and it shows remarkable improvement in my ability but something is just not 'there' Maybe writing this post will help me figure this out.

As usual this will not be your standard "work up at 4, had a cup of coffee, pooped, loaded the car...." race report. I leave those to Steve Stenzel (if you haven't watched his latest video you must) and Amanda Lovato. When it comes to poop posts they are the pros!

So here's my race report:

Night before Prep: 2 Sammies from Quiznos (Sonoma Turkey and Bistro Steak Melt) and a cup of broccoli/Cheese soup) Perfect.

Pre-Race:

1).Did the packet pickup, put numbers on bike and race belt and forgot to put my number on my helmet - oops. I guess I'll have to find my pictures in the lost and found section when they come out. I think we all know that for me, the race is all about the pictures. I WILL find them.

2). Why is is so damned hard to get a wetsuit on? And why is it that no matter how much BodyGlide I use on my neck I always, always, always get a wetsuit hickey? So annoying.

Swim:
1). I used anti-fog spray in my goggles for the first time and could see the WHOLE TIME! I didn't have to stop once to clear my goggles and I didn't bump into a single kayak. So awesome!

2). At this race last year I had a major cramping problem when I came out of the water. You have to run over river rock to get out and once I stood up my right leg cramped up so painfully that I fell down and sat there screaming for help. I got none and it took 2 attempts and 2 or 3 minutes to be able to use my leg and get out of there. I was SO hoping that didn't happen this year so I took extra Potassium the day before, drank a double dose of Nuun on the ride up and ate a banana in the morning and was very careful to keep my feet relaxed during the swim. I felt fine as I got to the finish but alas....

3). My swim went well. I let the pack go at the beginning so I didn't freak out or hyperventilate going too fast but I caught up to the middle of the pack by the turn around and passed a few people on the way back. My legs were relaxed and I felt good and as I came out the water I just stood up and started to go for it and then... next thing I knew -KABLAM! I had a giant cramp and fell down. ARRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! I sat there pulling back on my toes with people running around me asking - "are you okay" and saying "whoa - look at that!" because my foot was so contorted. Fortunately a course marshall stepped in and gave me a hand up so that I could stand without putting pressure on it until my leg was straight. I thanked him and off I went.

Time 29:00 compared to 33 last year. I hit T1 happy as could be under the circumstances.

T1: good enough and I'm out of there, minus my Garmin. I did have a stop watch with laps so I could capture my time (sort of). I only show 35 seconds. So Swim + T1 = 30:07. Not bad.

Bike:

1). I had forgotten to re-set my bike computer so I attempted to do that while on the ride. The problem is that because of my clip on aero bars it's hard to get both buttons at once and it's kind of a 2 hand operation. I almost biffed it big time and started to run off the bike path into the weeds. It was a perilous, wobbly moment in which I could have crashed and had a very bad start to my race. I left well enough alone and just focused on riding.

2). Last year I got passed often and constantly. This year, not so much. My goal was not to get passed by anyone in my age group.

3). No such luck. It took them about 10 and 12 miles to do it but I got passed by 2 women in my division. One of them had the audacity to pass me going downhill and say "Whheeeee!" as she did it. I wanted to kill her. I tried to stay on her and even passed her at one point but alas, she got away from me.

4). You know that old rule about always have your own water? It's a good one. Last year they handed out water bottles at the 1/2 way point so I counted on that. I had my aero bottle full of Infinit but that was all. This year - no water. So that was a drag but since I had the Infinite I was okay and I did take in the entire 300 calories on the ride. Lesson learned - always take a water bottle.

5). Aero bottles with those mesh things suck. I wore at least 50 calories of Infinite on my glasses and handlebars so make that 250 calories downed on the ride. I need a cap for my aero bottle.

6). I saw a woman fixing a flat and I called out "do you have everything you need" and she called "my pump is broken" and I started to stop and then, for some reason, I decided that she said she was fine (I swear I heard her say "I'm fine- thanks") and I kept going. I know that wasn't true because after the race the announcer said "to the guy who gave up his bike pump -you can pick it up at the stage". I feel like such a heel and I'm so sorry. I should have just stopped and handed her my pump. SORRY! I hope that next guy, the nice one, wasn't too far behind me.

Ride time: 1:23 which works out to 18 mph. GO ME! Last year I DREAMED of hitting 17 and didn't come close. Much better. 15 minute improvement over last year.

T2: less that 2:29 which is what the watch says but I forgot to hit the lap button for a while. Nothing of note except that not every single person from my race club was done already as was the case last year. I was very happy about that.

Run:

1). It was hot but it was okay. I just kept chugging along and was pulling sub 10 min miles for a while. My Garmin which I picked up in T2 and spent way too long getting on, kept telling me I was running 12:35 or 11:55 or some such nonsense and I'm starting to hate it. I had to hold it up to the sky to get it to register half the time. So annoying.

2). I did slow down toward the end as it starts to go uphill but I did okay and I passed a woman in my age group. I passed a lot of people and I was happy about that. I was also just cooked by the end as in 'stick a fork in me - I'm done and I don't think I'll EVER race again". However - last year I got passed just before the finish by a woman in my division and I let her go. She beat me by 18 seconds and I was NOT going to let that happen again so I really pushed it.

3). 3 women from my club where at the finish cheering me. I can't tell you how much that warmed my heart. I'm going to send them an email and thank Julie and Caroline and Kimberly - you're the best!

Total time: ~1:05 which is not what I wanted but not too bad.

Update - Official results 10 out of 18 in the 50 - 59 division (6 out of 13 in the 50 - 54)

Swim 0:29:29.5
T1 2:20.2
Bike 1:23:29.1
T2 1:29.5
Run 1:05:35.1
Finish 3:02:23.3

I don't know what I did to my watch but obviously something is off.

Conclusion:

I ran under the finish clock when it said 3:32 and my wave went off 30 minutes after the start. My watch said 3:00:43 and I didn't really put 2 and 2 together in that moment. I knew I had 30+ minute PR and I was happy but in a second I went from wanting a big PR to wanting a sub 3 hour finish. When I saw my official time of 3:02 I was disappointed because my watch said 3:00 and I liked that better. And then I was disappointed that I spent time messing with gadgets because that alone cost me a minute, I'm sure. And if only I had picked it up here and there I could have had my sub 3:00 finish. The big problem is that I will not do this race next year because that cramping business is just too unpleasant so now I have no chance to redeem myself.

Please - feel free to slap me into reality I had a 31 minute PR on an Olympic distance race and that is cause for celebration not remorse. I guess I'll just have to make up on the New York Triathlon or the Nations Triathlon next year. Yeah - that's it. There's always next year. And there's Sept 21 when I will do my "A" race which is a sprint and I WILL go all out.

Sunday is Vineman day and I am SO excited. IronMomJenny is coming Friday and we are driving up to Sonoma for the weekend to hang out and race together. Ms. Muppet Dog will be there, too as will some folks from over at Trifuel. Too much fun. Anyone else going?

Jenny has enough racing cred that she doesn't care about her time so she's doing this thing with me. I know she will have plenty of time to blog real time from her iPhone while she waits for me in transition and then she will get me through the run. What a lucky girl I am!

Today is Monday, my normal rest day and I always appreciate a Monday when I feel I have earned it and need it. Today qualifies - my legs are tired. I rode by myself Saturday because there was a particular ride I wanted to do and I wanted to do it at my pace and I didn't have any available riding partners so off I went to ride the Berkeley Hills via Wildcat Canyon Road. I love this ride. I loved it all the more Saturday because I had one of those experiences that affirms your faith in humanity.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I can get lost in a walk in closet. Put me on a 43 mile ride on winding roads and you have a recipe for serious disaster. I had looked at the map. I had committed the major turns to memory. Did this help? Not much. I was fine until I got to an intersection I knew I was supposed to turn left. There was a sign pointing left that had the name of the wrong town for me on it, though. The only street sign I could see had the wrong name on it. I was confused. I thought I had to turn around and head back up the hill because I'd missed the intersection where I was supposed to turn (not that there had been one but, you know). I asked 2 women who were on bikes but stopped and chatting how to get to Pinehurst and they said they thought I should go left but they weren't sure and then a man rode up the other side and they asked him. He said "go straight until you hit Skyline and then it runs in to Pinehurst". Bliss. That was left for me so off I went. Then I got to the next intersection where 4 roads meet and got totally confused again but I finally figured it out and kept going. And then I finally got to the intersection where Pinehurst and Skyline meet only there are 3 other roads that meet there, too and it was ugly and confusing only the guy was there, waiting for me! She pointed the right way and said, "just head straight down there!" How nice was that?! So thank you again Mr. VeryKind Cyclist. You made my day.

Straight down is the operative word. Truth is I could have gone riding with my race club but they were doing this thing from the other direction (coming up Pinehurst) and I just didn't want to do it that way:

Okay so the way I went up looks just about as steep as the way I went down but it isn't - trust me.

My time on this ride was 47 minutes faster than a year ago. Rock on.

Sunday I swam with my race club at an open water swim clinic. It was both good and bad. I swam at a reasonable pace but I managed to introduce a whole new problem - cross over. This has never been a big problem for me before. Sigh... I have 2 more swims before Vineman and I'll just have to straighten that out. On the plus side I test drove my sleeveless wetsuit and although the neck felt really tight at first I quit noticing I even had it one after a while. More bliss.

After the swim I ran for 70 minutes and honestly I thought it would be horrible because my legs were tired. I didn't really care, though which was a nice change of pace. Any run would be a good run as far as I was concerned. My pace was about a 10:15 which isn't bad and I didn't die which is great so mission accomplished!

And here, for your final viewing pleasure is Bruise Watch - Day 11. Almost gone:

In conclusion let me just say - BRING ON THE VINEMAN! I'm ready.

It was a good weekend - good for training, good for racing, good for having fun and I was productive, too. In fact I'm feeling so good I'm going to expose myself to you on the internet. Consider it a free treat!

Thursday night I went for a ride with a couple other FMRC people. This is the same ride I wrote the Goofus and Gallent post about only it was just the host and the woman who paced me in my 5K last year. The ride was the same route as last time so I thought it would be a good benchmark of my progress. I thought wrong.

I got dropped instantly - I mean instantly. I could not keep up for a second and I was really struggling and SO frustrated. This was not unlike the last 2 rides I took with the Good Doctor where he rode curlicue - dropping me and then circling back to try to get me to hook on. I couldn't do it. These guys made no pretense Thursday - they just rode on. And then I got lost. And then I figured out where I was and carried on, up Dog Hill.

I finally see them coming back and they yell "are you going to the top?" and I yell "Yes - just keep going" and on I go - for a minute. Then, just as I'm really working a lot harder than I should need to my rear wheel locks up and down I go - BAM! I get up and see that my knee has a little cut that is bleeding. I really don't care about that but I'm puzzled by my bike. The rear wheel is crooked in the frame and stuck. I discover that the skewer is loose. Nice. I've been riding on a bike with a loose rear skewer for over a week. I monkey around and get the wheel seated better and try to get on the bike only to find that the handlebars are twisted. Yikes. I've got no bars on the cell phone and no company. Minor panic sets in but then I think "you have a mini-tool, you have a brain, it's just a bike - deal". So I get out the tools, inspect the screws and figure out what to loosen. I get the thing re-aligned and carry on.

My friends rode back up as I was coming down and we all rode to the start together. I had little trouble keeping up on the way home. Hmmm.. interesting.

Friday as I am warming up for the 5K I realize that my butt is sore and figure I must have hurt it falling off the bike. On later inspection I find this:

Ow. Not "Ow" enough to stop me but ow. Today I looked at it again and it looks like this now:

Still hurts. I won't tell you exactly where that spot is but if I had any decency I would not post these pics on my blog. I'm sorry - I'm just a lost soul.

Saturday I rode with the friends I started my cycling days with and it was about time - I miss them. On the way out as I was pushing the bike along my porch the rear wheel locked up. I got it centered with the aid of my face as something to push against while I tightened the skewer wondering all the while, "do bike mechanics use their faces when they repair your bike?" I didn't have a good feeling about that. Several hundred yards into the ride it locked up again - clearly the face technique was a failure. I almost gave up the ride but not willing to be balked by my bike I finally took the wheel out of the frame and got it in correctly without having to use my face - success! My ride was like being on a new bike. Very pleasant. Especially the part where we stopped and had a latte and a pastry. Best part of the ride, for sure.

That afternoon, in addition to a pain in my a$$, my abs were itching. On inspection I found this:

Which in close up looks like this:

It itches like hell!!

Please feel free to hate me for those abs. Did I mention that I'm 53 and had 3 big babies (7 lbs 14 oz, 9 lbs, 2 oz., 8 lbs 10 oz). Yeah - did I also mention how much I LURVE training? Really. It's the new me but I'm not done yet. By March I intend to have a visible six-pack. Please hold me to that.

Anywho... Saturday night I had dinner at a friend's house and that was oh so fun and Sunday I did a trail run up Mt. Diablo. We managed 1200 feet of climb. The run down that last part was wee bit dicey - that really isn't a GPS artifact. It was very steep which made it that much more fun. Okay it might be a little bit of an artifact but still - it was steep. When I stood at the bottom of the ridge and looked up and saw how high we had climbed I felt like Superwoman - it was great.

After the run we all met back at a very nice house and sat around the pool with our feet in the water eating fruit and treats and chatting. Have I also mentioned how much I love my race club? Love them.

Sunday afternoon I started cleaning up my yard in preparation for IronMomJenny's visit. She has landscape envy but there is nothing enviable about my yard - it looks horrible. I'm working on it, though, but not today. Monday is my day off. No swimming, no riding, no running and now it's too hot to garden. Oh shucks. What it isn't too hot to do is be very, very thankful that my rear wheel did not decided to jam itself up against the frame when I was screaming downhill at 30 MPH. A thought like that could be a real buzz kill.

Saturday I set out, once again, with Dr. McBikey and some other people from FMRC to conquer Mt. Diablo. The goal this time was to make it all the way to the top, starting from the Danville side. My previous attempts ended at the junction which is labled 'ranger station' in the image below. That is at about 2200 feet or something like that.

I made it! All except the last little bit known variously as 'The Grind', 'The Wall', or 'The Cherry On Top'. In any case that last 50 yards is really steep and very difficult to climb and I was too freaked out about falling over to attempt it so I stopped and pushed my bike up the last part.

Here is an elevation map of the last 5 miles ending just below 'the cherry' (click to enlarge)

I made it up 3749 feet of vertical climb so I'm declaring victory! Now if you'll excuse me I have to go attend to my training tapeworm!

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.