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Monday, April 30, 2007

ST ANTHONY'S RACE REPORT

I haven't done this race in 6-7 years as far as I can recall but since I qualified for the elite amatuer division this year, I thought I would give it a shot. I knew there were going to be some blazing fast women in this group but didn't want that to detract from my goal of racing my own race. This was, afterall, a training race in my build up for Florida 70.3 in 3 weeks so didn't have any delusions of a high placing or anything. I wanted to get a good idea where my fitness was right now and compete as well as I could. Did a couple days pretty easy last week to allow my wrecked body chance to rest a bit for this race since I felt so bad at the last race two weeks ago. We spent a bit of time in Outspokin booth at the expo on Sat and this tired the legs out a bit but we wanted to help out since they sponsor us. Since I was in an early wave, we wanted to get down there pretty early to get set up and walk over to swim start. I ended up jogging to the swim start because I miscalculated how long it would take to walk over there! No worries. Wet suit on, lubed up, couple minutes in the water to situate the wet suit better and we were off. The weather was absolutely perfect for a race, we were really lucky with that! There were about 40 women in the wave so the start was super clean, no clobberfest like normal! I concentrated on my stroke mechanics and really never breathed hard during the swim, felt really good. I sighted well, swam straight but never got on any feet to draft so was pretty much on my own which would prove to be the theme of the day! I thought I could swim around 22 minutes if I was having a good day. If I hadn't had so much trouble getting up the steps, I would have broken 22! Very happy with the swim. Unfortunately, half the girls in my wave were already on the bike course. I basically did most of the bike all by my lonesome, worried about being on the right course at some points! This was nice but I would have liked to have a few people to pace off of! Oh well. Legs felt pretty tired on the bike but I really wanted to get under 1:10 and managed to accomplish that on my solo time trial (I was happy I did my speed bike workouts all by my lonesome at Fort Desoto)! When I got off the bike, my quads were cooked! I went into auto pilot for the first part of the run, even though I wanted to try and run with Cosgrove who was in front of me. I managed to keep the pace under 7:00/mile which wasn't fast but ok for how I felt. I finished in 2:16 for 15th in the elite category (placing went higher due to a couple DQ's). I am happy because this is a huge PR for me and I kept competing and pushing even though I had nobody to really key off of which can be difficult mentally. Today I feel really sore so I know I raced hard. I don't have the best swim, bike or run but I feel I'm getting to be pretty even in all three which is what I have been working on. I have a relatively hard training week this week then will start into 2-week taper for the half ironman on 5/20. We are planning to do a 2.4 mile open water swim race on Sat which should be fun, if that's possible! Congrats to everyone who raced on Sunday, it was a great day!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

FEELING GOOD AGAIN

Well, I've gotten over the disappointing race at Fort Desoto and have had some good workouts since then. Most notably, during the past weekend. Rode in the hills Saturday for a little over 80 miles at a steady clip with a small group and felt pretty strong. I rode conservatively (because of St Anthony's triathlon 4/29) but felt strong on the climbs, flats and in the wind. I did a 30 minute brick solo afterwards and felt pretty strong there too, about 4.2 miles covered. I broke a cardinal rule of training with the MarkAllenOnline program and forgot my HR monitor but it was nice just to listen to my body and instead of constantly staring at my heart rate! On Sunday, I ran 1:50 aerobic run and felt quite good. I was able to hold much faster average pace with same aerobic heart rate as compared to previous runs this Spring. Things are looking up! Like I said, we have St Anthony's tri this coming Sunday which is a huge race. It is not my goal race so not much taper for this but I feel good about my fitness right now in build up for the half ironman in May. I have chosen to race in the new elite amateur division which is quite stacked so my goal is to stay within myself and race my own race and see what happens. The Dane is back from Denmark and all is right with the world on this, our six-month anniversary! It's sushi night! Yum..

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I just want to say how disturbed I am for the families that have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech. I don't know any of them personally but feel terrible just the same. I have watched the video of the young man that committed these terrible murders and am saddened for all of them. Seems to me something could have been done as there were numerous warning signs. None the less, we deal with tragedy and, hopefully, move on. I am lucky to go on with 'life as usual' and do my work and my training and complain about races. I am lucky. Thank and hug the ones you love as much as possible because you can, while they're here. I do think of this often and try to do it as much as possible but get 'caught up', as we all do. So, to my friends and family, never forget I love you and think of you often. Peace...

Saturday, April 14, 2007


N JOUR SANS

For those of you who don't speak French, like myself, I'll translate.........."A DAY WITHOUT". That describes my race today. I would end my blog there but then you all would hang at the ends of your collective seats and I don't want that. Yah, right! Kidding, of course.
I had a little, well, mishap, stupid kind of injury that occurred on my Wednesday run that affected the rest of my week and my mental psyche for this race. No excuses and I won't discuss this further unless it becomes an issue in my training for my actual goal race, IM FLORIDA 70.3. None the less, I decided to race in the elite wave for this race because, time-wise, I was third overall last year and won my AG by quite a bit last year and feel I'm in better shape at this time. However, I'm doing a different program this year with max-weight sessions and hard speed sessions currently. I am probably more fatigued than I like to admit to, being someone who enjoys training until I drop. Unfortunately, I will be 40 in a month and it's possible that my body is not hip to this to the same degree any longer......that doesn't stop me from trying! Anyway, I wasn't sure that I was going to race until I got in a good warm up run this morning and felt things weren't 100% but good enough for a C race. I had a decent swim (.5 miles), 3rd overall, which is quite an achievement for a former non-swimmer such as myself! I'll suffice to say it went all downhill from there. I felt absolutely horrible on the bike (10miles), worst ever, I can honestly say. Got passed by girls that shouldn't be anywhere near me and dealt with it, thinking all along, I'll see you on the run. Not happening..... I got off the bike and it didn't get any better, only worse. The run, for me, was more of the same.......LACTATE NIRVANA. The run is usually my strength but today was just a prolongation of agony. I had no race gears, no pep, no body. It was like my mind wasn't connected to my body. Asking for more power but the body said no with authority. So, I took what the day and body gave and was extremely happy that this was my C race and not my A race! I've beaten myself up enough about being beaten by those who normally don't beat me and will take this as a good workout and a good assessment of my current swim fitness, which I feel isn't too bad. Got to take positive out of every situation......even though I hate losing! I will regroup, recover, reassess, retreat (not really) and really get onto the business of getting my ass in proper condition for IM FLORIDA 70.3. Don't lose hope, I haven't.....and never will!!!!!!!

Friday, April 06, 2007

APRIL ALREADY?

Hard to believe it's April already. The unofficial beginning to the tri season in our area is one week away at Escape From Fort Desoto Sprint Tri. It's a big traditional first race for most around here. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons. For one, I enjoy racing, it breaks up the training and gives me some handle on where my fitness is currently. Two, I get a little break in training which I likely need! Swam 5000 yards this morning before work which is the most I've ever swam at one time! I calculated out, it's 2.84 miles of swimming. When I looked ahead in my MAO program several weeks ago and saw I had a couple 5000 yard swims I just laughed and thought, "no way am I going to be able to do that"! Note to self, never underestimate the program! Obviously, I've built the yardage up enough to be able to tackle this volume in a single workout which is one of the great things about this program. I never would have done this type of yardage on my own but, being a runner prior to my tri career, I understand about doing overdistance training. I never really did that swimming but did running and cycling. The great thing about overdistance swimming is it doesn't take a huge toll on the body as do running and, somewhat, cycling. And, it doesn't take a ton of time as the others. I finished the workout in less than 90 minutes, got ready for work in 20 minutes and out the door! Thank goodness the Dane makes lunch for me everyday! I'm so lucky! I'm on track for a 16,000 yard swim week, which is a lot for me. I need to improve my times out of the water to better compete with the girls that are at the pointy end of the age group! I think my cycling is improving and my run training is going well. All of this leaves me excited for the upcoming races. Unfortunately, we are getting a cold front this weekend so not going to ride in the hills Saturday because it's going to be too cold. Oh well, it's a swim-focus week anyway. I think the long swim for Ironman build with MAO is 6000 yards (which I never did in prep for IM Hawaii, mistake) and now I feel like I can definitely do that volume as long as I can find the time! Wish the days were about 26 hours long! LIVE FULL, DIE EMPTY! (my new favorite saying)