5 Mile Lake Sprint Race Recap

I signed up for 5 mile lake triathlon about a week after I finished Boise.  My thought was, I'd be rested enough, yet still have all the training from Boise.  I secretly hoped I could get a top 3 finish.  It is a small, local race, so I figured I had a chance.

Pre-race- I woke up at 4:45.  It was cold and I seriously thought about just staying in bed.  I made myself get up, had some coffee, got dressed, and made a peanut butter sandwich. I got all my stuff together and headed out.  The park is about an hour from my house, and I had to get their early enough to pick up my race packet.  I arrived around 6:30.  As I pulled in, the rain started.  I sat in my car for awhile and did some people watching.  EVERYONE I saw had a tri bike.  There were disk wheels and aero helmets. It seemed so crazy. This is a little, local race.  Why was everyone so professional looking?  I tried to put it out of my mind and just concentrate on my race.  I got my stuff ready in the transition area and went down to listen to the race talk.  I had no clue about the course, so I figured I should attend.  The announcer welcomed us all and mentioned this race was the Pacific Northwest Sprint Triathlon Championship! That explained all the super fit athletes.

Swim 7:58 - The water was around 67 degrees so I wore a wetsuit.  It's a short swim (.25 miles) so I thought about going without it. As soon as I got in the lake, I was glad I wore it.  The swim was pretty uneventful.  I got kicked a few time, but I felt good for the most part.

T1-2:05- It was pouring and I was freezing.  I thought about putting on a long-sleeve shirt, but no one else was wearing one, so I decided against it.  I put on my sunglasses and they fogged up, so I decided not to wear them.

Bike 49:30- I really wanted to do this in 45 minutes.  I could have, but I was so afraid of crashing in the rain, I took it easy on all the turns and probably went slower than I needed to.  The course wasn't closed to traffic.  Between that and the rain, I was kind of a wuss.

T2-1:10-Almost fell running with my bike into T2.  After that I decided to walk.  I changed shoes, put on my racebelt and visor, and headed out.

Run 25:46-I am SUPER happy with my run!!! I felt really good. I passed a couple people, a couple people passed me, but I felt strong the whole time.  This might have been my fastest 5k EVER!

My goal (aside from finishing in the top 3) was to be under 1:30.  My official time was 1:26:29!

I'm happy with it.

Plans

I'm the queen of making plans.  Not plans like "Hey, let's go out tonight.", plans like "I'm going to make sure the kids do enough school work over the summer so they will be ahead next fall."  Or " I'm going to make a detailed marathon training plan that includes yoga, weights and Pilates."

Those are both good plans, and still (some of) my goals for the summer, but things keep getting in my way. Like the chaos I'm living in.  Chaos never used to bother me, now it consumes me.  My brain can't work in chaos.  For some reason I can't think of running 3 miles when there is a laundry mountain on the kitchen table and papers covering the counter tops.

So, I've come up with a plan!  That's right.  Another plan to be able to implement the original plans.  Here it is.....Between now and Sunday when I go to sleep I need to:

• Figure out the kids summer "school" plans
• Clean the house
• De-clutter the house
• Make sure the kids have everything they need for camp (sunscreen, hats, beach shoes...)
• Get curtain rods for the kid's rooms (random, I know, but I have curtains and no rods and it's driving me batty)

That's a tall order to complete in 4 days but totally do-able.  Starting Monday I'm back on track!  I'll have a little less than 100 days to get ready for Portland.  Plenty of time (I've been told).

 It has been a difficult/emotional start to summer break.  I need these days to get myself together.  Then I'll be ready to tackle marathon training AND all the amazing summer adventures we plan on having.

Slow Start

Last week was technically my first week of marathon training.  It was also the kid's first week out of school. Those 2 things didn't really work well together.  I got in a few runs, but didn't stick to my schedule.  What are you going to do?

We did get to do cool summer things, like go on an awesome hike and a ferry ride.

I'm planning on getting back on track this week.  Today is the first day of summer camp. WAHOOO!!!  I'm spending the day cleaning my house.  Tomorrow I'll get back on the training wagon.  I've got 15 weeks.  Plenty of time, right??

I have a sprint tri this weekend, so that's exciting.  I have no idea what to expect.  I haven't been on my bike in a couple weeks. I'm hoping my Boise training will get me through.

Happy Summer!!!!!

Week 1-Marathon Training

Today starts week 1 of my marathon training.  Best part about it....today is a rest day :)  My kind of training plan.

Here's how the week looks:

Monday-rest
Tuesday-3 mile run/weights
Wednesday-5 mile race pace
Thursday-3 mile run/weights
Friday-swim/bike
Saturday-6 mile run
Sunday-swim/bike

It seems doable.  Although I have no idea what my marathon pace is...

My Next Challenge

I'm putting Boise behind me and moving on.  It's been a rough few days but the time has come to get.over.it.

What's next??  The Portland Marathon!!!  My first full marathon.  I'm super excited and super nervous.  I am injury prone so training for a full marathon is a little sketchy.   I've downloaded Hal Higdon's Novice 2 program (Has anyone used it?).  It looks like it will work for me.  Only 4 days of running each week.  I'm going to stick in some strength training, yoga and Pilates.  That should get me through the next 16(ish) weeks ready to go and uninjured.

Training starts Monday!

Please feel free to send my some marathon training advice!!

Boise 70.3 2014

I went back to Boise this year to redeem myself after last year.  Things did not go exactly as planned.  Here are all the race details.  I'm going to do some reflecting on what happened and try to figure out what went wrong and what I could have done differently.  I feel like my training was pretty solid and I was uninjured the whole time.  This should have been my year.  It didn't work out that way, and it's a hard pill to swallow.

Pre-Race

The  race starts at noon so I didn't have to wake up super early.  I got up around 7, had some coffee and a yogurt, then headed to Shannon and Virginia's hotel.  I had some oatmeal when I got there.  We walked over to put our bags at T2 and waited for the shuttle.  We got up to T1 around 11, I think.  Shannon and I got our bikes set up and went down to the reservoir to wait.  It was a warm day, but no where near as bad as last year.

Swim

I'm not sure I've ever had a swim that was this slow.  I didn't position myself in the right spot.  I was about 3 rows back when the horn went off. I thought I would be able to get around people but it never happened. A bunch of people were going inside the buoys. I stopped and asked which side we should be on and someone in a kayak said we needed to go outside.  It would have been faster to go inside and get around people, but I didn't want to get disqualified 10 minutes into the race.  But I don't really think they DQ'd anyone for that. So I spent the whole swim in a crowd. I new things were bad when the group behind us started swimming up.  I got out of the water a little upset, but I knew the swim isn't a huge part of the race.  I still had hours and hours to make up time.  

2014 swim- 42:05

2013 swim- 40:43

T1

Again, the wetsuit strippers are amazing.  This guy got my wetsuit off in like 2 seconds.  I waked to T1 feeling a little pukey from the swim, but not too bad.  I took my time getting my stuff on, ate a ginger mint and was on my way.  I saw Virginia on my way out.  That was fun.

2014 T1-5:45

2013 T1 7:07

Bike

I was looking forward to having a better bike.  I felt like I was faster this year and I knew more of what to expect.  For the most part it was better.  There were far fewer tears than last year.  I saw my cousin and his family around mile 12.  That was a wonderful surprise.

Shannon caught up to me a little after mile 18.  We talked about how it was windy, but not too bad.  I guess we jinxed things.  From about mile 20 on the wind picked up.  I was still feeling so much better than last year.  I knew I was going to crush my time.  About mile 40 the headwinds really picked up.  It was kind of defeating to be that close to the finish and have to work so hard to keep my pace up.    My time wasn't as fast as I had hoped for but I finished feeling SO much better than last year.  I was ready for an awesome run.

2014 bike- 3:36.27

2013 bike-3:43:16

T2

Pretty uneventful.  I saw Shannon headed out for her run as I was pulling in.  It's always nice to see people you know.  A lady almost stepped on my hand with her bike shoes. That would have sucked.  I got my stuff on, had some wonderful volunteers put some sunscreen on me, and took off. 

2014 T2- 5:01

2013 T2- 4:39

Run

I was ready for a great run.  I'd really been feeling strong on my training runs.  I'd done a ton of speed work and knew I was faster.  I was sure there was no way I could make my race goal time of 6:30.  That was unrealistic to begin with. But I was certain this run would be way faster than last year.  Last year I was dead after the bike. I had no energy and it was a billion degrees. This year I felt pretty good after the bike and it was cloudy.  Perfect.  I made it .5 miles before I knew I was in trouble.  I thought I was going to throw up.  My stomach was a mess.  I tried some flat coke at the first aid station but that didn't help. I tried a potato chip, pretzel, orange....nothing helped. I decided not to eat anything for awhile, that didn't help.  I walked until I felt ok, then I'd run until I felt sick.  It sucked.  I was so disappointed.  I finally told myself the only thing left was to try to beat last years time.  A time I thought I would crush.  It took all I had to beat it.  I crossed the finish line defeated.  I'm sure the look on my face was awful.  I should have been happy just to finish.  I wish I would have been.  At least to enjoy that moment.  

2014 run-2:43:31 

2013 run-2:40:23  

2013 race time-7:16:08

2014 race time-7:12:49

I'm feeling better about things now.  Still disappointed with the day, but I finished when I wanted to quit. That counts for something.  I'm going to re-group and see if I can figure out what went wrong.  I've got the Portland Marathon to look forward to, as well as some sprints over the summer.  I might try to get in another half next month.  Need to see if my body (and my family) is up for it.

This is it!

Tomorrow I head for Boise!  I'm super excited, and nervous.  I know I'm ready, but still feel unprepared.  Maybe it's because I'm not packed, I don't know how to take my bike apart, and I'm unsure how I'm getting to the airport.  Or maybe it's because I haven't done any exercise in at least 5 days.  Either way, I'm headed to the airport, bright and early tomorrow.  Ready or not.

These past few weeks have kind of put my race in perspective.  Pnut hasn't slept through the night in 2 months.  That's not entirely true. There was one night, when I was in Atlanta.  Since she hasn't slept, I haven't slept.  This has caught up with me recently.  I'm exhausted.  To tired to workout.  Too tired to eat (except brownies).  Really even too tired to speak.  I'm not sure I've formed a complete sentence in the last week.

While I'm excited about the race, and want to do well, it's one small day (6 1/2 half hours if all goes well) in my life.  By the time I get home Sunday, it will be back to doctors, sleeping pills and just trying to make it through the day.  I know that's dramatic. One day I'll look back and realize it wasn't as nightmarish as I'm making it out to be.  But now, in the middle of it, there is nothing else.

That said...I'm going to take these few days and make the most of them.  I'm going to enjoy some "me" time. I'm going to race my heart out, knowing Brian is holding down the fort.  Knowing I'm well trained.  Knowing I can do this.

Here's to being awesome!!!  I'm number 578 if you want to track me!