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August 31, 2006

The Tri That Almost Wasn't

Back in October, I was sitting at work when an interesting e-mail came through: The company I work for is the title sponsor of the big tri here in town, and as an employee I was eligible for a discounted entry fee. The idea of a tri had been sort of hanging out in the back of my mind - I'd spent the summer reading race reports of everyone else's triathlon experiences, and it sounded interesting. It was at least worth seeing what the entry fees looked like with my fancy employee discount. Let's just say that I was surprised - these tri things are expensive. Even though my registration would be approximately half-off, I couldn't quite get my head around dropping that much cash on the sprint event. Wait a minute, though, what's this? A super sprint? With free entry? Well, hell. For the cost of a USAT event permit, I was in.

I then proceeded to pretty much forget about it for the next month or so. Then I joined a gym, and started thinking really hard about swimming once a week. Some weeks I'd get in, some weeks I wouldn't. However, once training really ramped up for Mad City, the swimming went out the window. I even took a couple of spinning classes here and there, but dropped those, too, as Mad City approached. At the end of May, I hadn't been in a pool or on a bike in well over a month. I was beginning to seriously consider just forgetting about the whole stupid thing. Not only was I not cross-training at all, but I had equipment issues. I had a mountain bike, but I hadn't been on it in years, and I wasn't even sure what kind of shape it was in. Clearly, worrying about this was going to be more trouble than it was worth. Screw it.

Then in mid-June, my neighbor offered to clean up and tune up the mountain bike for me. I started riding it around the city to run errands and such, and quickly discovered that I did not like riding it at all. It was heavy. I tired out way too quickly. Plus, it wasn't particularly comfy. Sure, it would work for the race, but I wasn't at all excited about it. Also, when was the last time I was in a pool? Ummm... I have no idea. February, maybe? No clue. I should probably work on that...

Finally in mid-July, I got my crap together. After a year of thinking about it, I caved and bought a road bike. I couldn't believe the difference! Riding this one wasn't something I had to deal with to get from A to B, it was actually a lot of fun. Which meant that my one excuse for skipping out of the tri - no bike - was gone, and I should really, really get my behind in the pool. This wound up not being much of a challenge at all as Chicago found itself in a horrible heat wave and the idea of spending an hour or so in the pool suddenly became much more appealing. On top of that, I'd started mentioning the tri to people, and so now I either had to go through with it or explain that I'd wimped out for no good reason. Looks like I was going through with it. I wasn't worried, though. I checked the event web site to find out exactly how far I'd have to swim, bike and run and just about laughed out loud. Turns out that "super sprint" isn't some sort of fancy wording for a regular sprint tri. No, it's even shorter than a sprint tri. This particular event consisted of a 375m swim, a 10k bike, and a 2.5k run. My jaw dropped and I said, "That's it? Heck, I could do that in my sleep. No problem." I figured I'd be done with the thing in an hour - on one hand, it was almost too short to justify hauling all my crap up to the way north end of town for the race, but on the other, if things started to go downhill? At least it would be over quickly.

So, after 10 months of waffling, I arrived at packet pickup on Friday afternoon excited and ready to go. As it turns out, working for the title sponsor of an event has its benefits - there was a separate chip/bib pickup for employees, which reduced the number of lines I had to wait in by one (I still had to wait in the general lines for chip check, body marking, swim cap pick-up and t-shirt/goody bag pick-up), and I got a ton of extra free stuff - sunscreen, a chip strap, and a race number belt. It was all corporate branded, of course, but, hey! Free race number belt and chip strap! Not a bad deal.

The morning of the event had me up and ready to go on time. I'd (over)packed my bag the night before and set out everything I needed to wear, so all I had to do was get up, eat, get dressed and get all my stuff up to the beach. I was there by 6:30, which gave me 45 minutes to get everything set up before transition closed. This was plenty of time. I found a spot for my bike. I set up all of my shoes and clothes and hats and whatnot. I took a stroll around the transition area and found all the entry and exit points (we were assigned rows by race number - I was nice and close to the swim in/bike out spots, but on the other end of the world from the bike in/run out spots). I walked down to the beach and back using the path I'd have to take from swim to transition. Finally, I got my swim stuff together and headed down to the lake.

While we were hanging around the beach, listening to the course talk and waiting for the race to start, I noticed quite a few corporate branded chip straps on ankles. Now, I work for a large company, so the odds of running into someone I actually knew were pretty slim, but it was starting to worry me. Having to make small talk with someone I work while wearing a swimsuit? Not my idea of a good time. Thankfully, I never actually saw anyone I know, and before I knew it my wave was off.

The swim was a lot harder than I expected. Partly because I hadn't actually been in the pool in a few week, and partly because I haven't done any actual open water swimming since I was 10 and at Girl Scout camp. I couldn't get into a groove, I could tell that my form was off and I was forgetting about everything I'd relearned over the past year. On top of that, I couldn't see where in the hell I was going. I tried lifting my head up and looking forward every few breaths, and while it helped navigationally speaking, I felt like it just wore me out and threw off the rhythm I was trying to get into. The few times I did manage to get into some sort of groove and start to catch my breath, I'd see feet right in front of my face which made me bring my head up out of the water lest I get kicked. I probably wasn't in any danger, so, again, something to work on - swimming while seeing someone's feet directly in front of me and not letting it throw me off. I wound up doing sidestroke for most of the swim - it let me catch my breath, I could see where I was going, and it moved me along at a respectable pace. However, it wasn't terribly efficient, energy-wise. By the time I got out of the lake (in just under 7 minutes, which would have suprised the pants off of me had I been wearing pants), my heart was racing and I felt tired and like a giant limp noodle. On the jog up to transition from the beach, I didn't even think about the fact that I had to go back out and bike and run, still.

I wasn't the last one from my wave (5) out of the water, but I was close. However, I knew going into it that the swim was my weak spot, and so I'd pretty much expected to get my ass kicked. I'd make up for it on the bike and run, I was sure. Once I got into transition, I pulled on my shorts, tank, and race number. I had set a second towel out to wipe the sand off my feet, but decided it just wasn't worth the time it would take. On went the socks, shoes, and helmet, and I was off.

The bike course was 3 laps up and down an access road. I started out taking it moderately easy, still trying to recover my heart rate a bit from the swim. However, "taking it easy" didn't last long, and before I knew it I was riding pretty much all-out. The first turn-around took my by surprise and found me on the inside of the turn as I'd been trying to pass this girl. I'd slowed down a bit, but not enough to make the sharp U-turn that was in front of me. For added fun, we had to ride over a chip mat just after the turn (to make sure everyone completed all three laps), which meant that the course was far narrower coming out of the turn than going into it. Somehow, I managed to get through the turn without crashing into the other girl or falling over. I probably cut her off, and she probably called me some nasty names, but we all got through it in one piece. To be honest, though, the thing that I was most proud of was not clipping out one of my feet through the whole thing - I wanted to, as I was sure I was going to go down, but I didn't and it was fine. For the rest of the turns, I made sure I was on the outside, even if it meant slowing down so I could get behind somebody.

During my 3 laps on the bike, I was passing people left and right. It was hard to tell if I was actually getting ahead of them, or if I was just passing them by, since I had no way of knowing what lap they were on. When I spent most of my final lap around the bike course passing people from the 4th wave, though, I felt pretty good, as I'd clearly made up some of the time I lost on the swim. The down side was that my legs were pretty much shot by that point - the gear I shifted up into after coming out of the turns got progressively lower with each lap, and I was really feeling the wee little hills (which, really, were more like "short up and down inclines") on the course. I probably could have slowed down a bit, but I had a hard time justifying it to myself. The run was only a mile and a half! If I can drag my ass through a five and a half hour marathon, I can run a mile and half on dead legs.

I hit transition again, changed my shoes and traded my helmet for a hat. Since I'd totally ignored the bottle of Gatorade on my bike during the actual bike, I figured now would be a good time to take a swig. Then out to the run!

Damn, yo, my legs were, indeed, fully and completely shot. They didn't have much left in them, and running was certainly not their idea of a good time. Their idea of a good time at that point would have been more like "sitting in the lake with a large fruity drink," but, whatever. It's a mile and a half - I can do that in my damn sleep. I told my legs to shut up, deal, and GO. My heart rate was sky high during the whole thing, but I kept on running, and I was passing people. Some of them were walking, but some of them were actually running, just more slowly than I was. Just a few minutes into the run, I came up behind a girl that had a "3" on the back of her leg, and I almost couldn't believe it. I spent the rest of the run passing by people from the 3rd and 4th waves, which was a pleasant surprise. It helped take my mind of the fact that this was easily the longest mile and a half I have ever run in my life - just before we hit the turnaround, I was starting to wonder if it was ever going to end. The second half went by faster than the first, and once I was in sight of the finish line, I gave it everything I had left. I didn't expect much of a finishing kick out of my legs, but they surprised me and I flew through the line. I was done, and damn was I tired.

Going into it, I figured the whole thing would take me about an hour. I checked my watch as I crossed the line, and was just about shocked to see a time of 49 minutes and change. Official times:

Swim/T1: 10:42 (258/526)
Bike: 21:59 (95/526)
T2/Run: 16:43 (234/526)
Overall: 49:24 (160/526, 15/98 in class [F20-29])

An amazingly good experience for the first time out - I can't even tell you how glad I am that I didn't wimp out of this in the end. There are definitely more tris in my future.

Posted by Dawn at 07:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 23, 2006

Ouch

Last week was kind of a big week for me - 34 miles.  It's the most I've run in a single week in a long time - since before Madison.  In theory, my training plan has been building up to that peak gradually, with a recovery week this week before I go back to hitting the high (for me) miles as I gear up for Grand Rapids.  In reality, however, heat waves and work and other realities of life have meant that last week was the first week in over a month that I've actually run all my scheduled miles.  Instead of gradually moving up from 25-mile weeks to 35-mile weeks, I jumped up to a 35-mile week after 3 weeks of hitting 20-25 miles.

Oops.

The big mileage increase last week was the main reason I was expecting Sunday's long run to suck.  My legs had been feeling tired all week anyway, and I figured they would just be toast by Sunday morning.  However, all was A-OK.  Yesterday was a rest day, but I wound up taking the bike out for a bit, mostly because I wanted to take it in for a pre-tri safety inspection.  (I wasn't concerned about there being anything wrong with it, but the inspection was free so I figured I might as well get it checked out, rather than discover Saturday morning there was some sort of problem.)  That's when I felt the extra miles.  That's when I realized my legs were most definitely toast.  On top of that, it was exceptionally windy out, which made for some pretty slow riding as I was determined to take it pretty easy.

By yesterday, I figured it would be OK.  I had an easy 4 miles scheduled for the afternoon, and I wasn't worried about it at all.  I didn't run on Monday, so surely by Tuesday evening I'd be recovered enough so that an easy 4 miles would be nothing.

Oh, how very wrong I was.  I took it incredibly easy during the whole run because I had to.  Everything hurt, and by the turnaround point my shins were screaming for me to stop.  It wasn't fun, but it sure as heck kept my pace down.  Today?  Everything from my knees down is just achy.  I'm trying very hard to not think about the fact that I have a track workout tonight, because absolutely no good can come of it.  I'll just have to make sure I go into it well-hydrated, try not to set any land-speed records, and spend a lot of quality time stretching afterwards.

Meanwhile... ouch.  At least I've learned a valuable lesson about sticking to my schedule and finding ways to get the miles in, though.  I hope.

Posted by Dawn at 07:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

August 22, 2006

Still Here

I'm still here.  Still hanging in there.  Still running.

My coach has come up with a new way to torture me: 13-14 mile long runs, with the last 3-4 miles at 10K to half-marathon pace.  I did the first one two weeks ago, and it sucked.  The last three miles were hard and seemed to last forever.  Somehow, though, I stuck it out, dropped my pace down like I needed to, and lived to tell the tale.

This past week, I did it again, and you know what?  It was a little easier.  The last mile was a little rough, but that might also have been because I ran it in just over 9 minutes.  There's a part of me that can't quite believe that I can run a 9-minute mile at all, never mind after 13 miles of running.  Clearly, progress is being made.

I've had some races recently, too.  The other weekend, I returned to Michigan for my 2nd Run Thru Hell.  It's a 10-mile race over some decently hilly terrain.  Last year, I was walking the hills by the halfway point and finished in 1:52:32.  This year?  I flew through the course.  I never had to walk any of the hills, and I finished with a new PR of 1:39:29.  That's 13 minutes off last year's time.  I know that most of that came from not having to walk any of the hills this time around, but, still, it's mind-boggling to look at.

What does all of this mean?  It means that I'm right on track for a 4:30 marathon in October, and exactly where I need to be right now.  This is a good thing.

Posted by Dawn at 01:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 04, 2006

Plan D?

The situation: I had dinner plans at 7.  Prior to that, I had to put in a full day of work and get an hour of running in.

Plan A: Get up at 5:30 and run.  Get to work around 8, enjoy some time to relax between getting home from work and leaving for dinner.

Problem A: At 5:30 there was rain of near biblical proportions.  Not so good for running, largely because it made the neighborhood dark and gloomy, and I just wasn't comfortable going out running that early in the morning in it.

Plan B: Get up at 5:30 anyway and go in to work early.  Leave work early, have time to run, shower and change before leaving for dinner.

Problem B: I have to kick off some batch jobs, but I can't do that until our production admins move some files around.  They say they'll be done by 5.  Which means they'll be done at 5.  There's no way I'm getting out of work by 4. 

Plan C: If I leave right at 5 and don't have to wait too long for transit, I can probably squeeze in a little run.  Maybe.

Problem C:  Hell, I'll be lucky if I have time to go home at all.  Stupid admins.

Final verdict: Get up early, get to work early, stay at work late.  Run home, quick change, attempt to relax on the way to dinner.  Still no running this week, although I mostly blame the fact that it was just too damn hot to run up until yesterday.  Which kind of makes yesterday even more annoying, since it was the best running weather we've had here in a while.  Oh well.  I'll just cross my fingers that this deliciously cool weather hangs on through the weekend.

Posted by Dawn at 07:49 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack