I’m taking a couple weeks off from running. I got a massage on Wednesday last week AND bought new shoes, and nothing is seeming to help my right knee. So after running 4+ painful miles on Wednesday night, I decided to a.) not do Steelhead and b.) give myself some real, quality recovery time from running. I’m going to have to restart my half marathon training from zero sometime next week, and I’ll now be shooting for the Duke Liver Center Half Distance on Sept. 14, 2008 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Physical Therapy, here I come! I’ll get this knee back in running shape yet.
Well, kind of. So my knee has been bothering me to the point where I’ve finally sought help. I tried new shoes and that didn’t help, I’ve been stretching and strengthening and still I can’t run farther than 2 miles without my knee stiffening up and getting really painful.
So I went to Athletico for a screening and was sent to get a prescription for physical therapy. After a visit to a doctor, I returned to Athletico, eager to begin. The woman I’m working with is also a triathlete and is doing a half IM in two weeks, so I feel really confident that she not only understands but will be able to help. I have my next PT appointment tomorrow, and I’m taking the entire week off from running.
Given the circumstances, I’ve decided not to compete in the 1/2 IM that is on my race calendar in August. I was going to do Steelhead, and have been planning on it since February. I’ve been training specifically for the race and have been making plans around that August 2nd date, but I think I’m going to be miserable if I try to run a half marathon in 3 weeks. Fortunately, I hadn’t signed up for it yet (I was banking on CES saving me a spot until I had the cash to pay for it), so I’m not out any money by making this decision. I’m going to focus on the Track instead for the next few weeks as I slowly begin to build up my running base again.
I’ve decided, instead, to do the Duke Liver Center Half distance on September 14th in Raleigh, NC. It should be a great race, and it’s $75 cheaper than Steelhead! I still won’t be super speedy by then, but it will be better than 0 to 13.1 miles in 3 weeks.
Why Raleigh, you might be asking? Oh yeah, because Aaron and I are moving to Virginia over Labor Day weekend. More on that later.
What a perfect Saturday. It started off with Tristan texting me at 7:00 in the morning saying he wasn’t going to come with us to Indianapolis. I, in my sleep deprived state, texted back exclaiming that we were counting on him and he was going to ruin the whole trip, maybe even my LIFE if he didn’t come with us. He succumbed to my guilt trip and agreed to continue on with our day trip as planned. Whew, always good to start the day off with a healthy dose of bitch-induced conflict with someone you plan on spending over 6 hours in the car with!
Aaron, Tristan, Andrew and I drove down to Indianapolis on a perfect summer day for an afternoon of bikes and more bikes. Don Walker was opening his first storefront in Indianapolis on Main Street and there was racing at Major Taylor Velodrome. We finally got out of the city around noon and we were at Don’s shop by 4:30 Indy time. Only a stop over at Arby’s (yeah, fries for lunch. Genius.) took us off course for a brief gas/food detour.
Don’s shop is pretty incredible. Aaron was excited to see it since he’ll be attending Yamaguchi frame building school in October. I, of course, was nervous to race and didn’t have much patience for hanging out and drinking beer with everyone. So I went off to the track with promises that I’d come back and pick the guys up later.
I got out to MTV (about 10 minutes from Don’s shop) and pulled in right behind Val Brostrom and her boyfriend Josh. We got our bikes ready and went into the complex… and I was amazed. Major Taylor is an incredible track. There is full grandstand seating (that holds about 2500) and a tunnel that goes UNDER the track into the infield. The track itself is more round than oval and is banked the whole way around, going from probably 5-10 degree banking in the straights to 28 degrees in the turns. The track seemed a lot more steep than Kenosha, but according to each track’s website they’re supposed to almost the same - 27 degrees at Kenosha and 28 degrees at Major Taylor. I’m guessing that the track is wider at Major Taylor, making the banking seem steeper, but that’s just a guess. It’s a 333 1/3 meter track with a really awesome 33 foot wide apron, making it possible to warm up on part of it. The coolest thing, though, was the way the sprinter’s lane and the apron meet up - at Kenosha and Northbrook the lanes and the apron flow into each other in a gradually sloped plane, and then the apron gives way to grass. But at MTV the sprinter’s lane and the apron meet at an angle. This means that the apron is completely flat and the track is banked all the way around, forming a crease at the point where they meet. I don’t know what it does functionally, but it looked really damn cool.
(the track from the skirt, looking out)
I’m glad I had a full hour to warm up (I got in, got everything set up, changed, and then went to pick up Aaron and Andrew. I got back to the track by 6:10, racing started around 7:15). I had a warm up gear on my bike for the first time (a 16T cog), and was so thankful for it. The paceline was stupidly fast and after rolling around with them for a few laps (and taking one pull) I bowed out and did some more warming up on my own. I wanted to try a few jumps just to see what it would feel like, but I still wasn’t super comfortable out of my saddle. My main goal in the next two weeks is to spend more time out of the saddle and sprinting (I’ve gotten comfortable on my tri-bike but haven’t found the balance on the track yet).
(warm up)
Racing started with a Men’s pro/1/2 Keirin, 2 elimination rounds and then a final round. The announcer actually talked from the motorcycle, so that was extra entertaining. After those three races we had the first women’s race, a 3 lap scratch. 3 laps is super short, but I figured it would be enough time to see who I was racing against and what kinds of legs they had. There were 7 women total, Val, Imelda and I from Chicago, two Depauw girls, one Marian College girl, and a girl in a red and blue skin suit who’s team I don’t remember.
I started the 3 lap scratch in the back and quickly got trapped on the inside behind a rider I KNEW was going to be slow. At the start of the second lap I cursed out loud when I realized what my poor strategy was doing, but I didn’t have my wherewithall to get myself out of it. I sucked her wheel through the second lap and into the start of the bell lap. Finally in the back straight I backed myself out of the pack and came up and around in turns 3 and 4 and sprinted for a 4th place finish. I definitely could have done better if I had positioned myself more smartly, but my sprint for 4th was really strong. I was still in my warm up gear at that point, convinced that I was going to stay in it all night because of the banking, but as I came off the track Don Walker, my rent-a-coach for the night told me I was spinning out and I needed to switch.
I protested, telling him that I didn’t think my legs could push more gear, but he insisted. And in case you didn’t know, Don is an imposing figure who is not easy to argue with. So I switched out for the next race.
(in the picture below, Don is on the right).
(and below is a picture that Don has framed on his wall of himself in the ‘84 Olympic trials)
The next race was a miss-n-out, probably one of my least favorite races. I was the third person called out (coming in 5th overall) and was pretty disappointed not to have done better. I know the key in that race is just to stay in front, but I was still pretty timid at that point and I let myself get stuck in the back again. Tactics are not yet one of my strong points.
The final race (after a 15 minute intermission, which was a nice way touch in the evening’s program) was an 18 lap points race with sprints every 6. I asked Don what my strategy should be for that race and he told me to just suck the Marian college girl’s wheel. We knew she’d take points in each bell lap, so as long as I was up there with her I should take some points as well. I took a brief pull for Val after the first bell lap and then settled in behind Marian College girl. We were riding in two pace lines really high on the track, and it was the closest I had ever been to other riders for that long. Imelda and I were hand to hand and I was right on the wheel in front of me. It was nervewracking, I’m not going to lie. The second bell lap came after a $20 prime, which one of the DePauw girls took while everyone else set back, more interested in winning the race than the prime. On the final bell lap I saw Val dropping down for the sprint out of turn two (she was above me) and I took the jump at the same time, getting perfectly behind Val and blocking out the Marian girl. I let Val lead me through turn 3 and then came out uptrack to sprint in next to her for the finish (the Marian girl had dropped off the back at that point). I ALMOST edged her out. Like, to the point where when I got off the track all the guys thought I had (and I kind of thought I had too) but alas the judges saw her wheel cross first.
I still left the track feeling great though, happy with my tactics, my sprint, with just about everything. I took 3rd in that race (and won $10!) and was happy to have the whole night end on such a good note.
I like track racing again. I didn’t blog about it at the time, but I was pretty disappointed with my showing out at Kenosha on Tuesday and was pretty much convinced that I was slow and the first three weeks had just been a fluke. I got a bunch of 4th places, but I had gone into the night with much higher expectations for myself. Tuesday was practice for Saturday, so in that regard my plan came together well.
I think I’m going to focus on the track for the next few weeks, and put triathlon on the back burner. More on that in my next post. In the meantime, I’m really eager to get back to MTV. I’d love for Aaron to have the chance to ride it - it was such a fast track. It’s amazing how the banking really helped to increase speed on jumps. I know I’ll keep getting better as the season progresses, but at this point I sure do wish I was better at strategy. I’m gettin’ there…
I’ve spent a large part of my life coming up with excuses. Just ask my high school friends and college roommates - I was the self-appointed Queen of turning in term papers a semester late (not a lie), taking an exam a week after the original exam date, and coming up with reasons why I needed an extension for this and a few extra days for that. My all time FAVORITE ‘excuse’ [OK, in reality it was a bold faced lie], which I used more than once, was that my computer messed up a file. I was always too busy with my full course load to get papers turned in by the due dates, and I had to come up with something to buy myself some extra time. This method was usually used on some sort of term paper that was being turned in via email. I would convert the entire text of some piece of writing into an unintelligible font resembling code. I would save it as a PDF and email it off, often at 5:00 on a Friday, knowing that the professor had no intention of looking at our papers until Monday, at the earliest. Then I would have all weekend to finish the paper that I had been too busy to finish by the assigned deadline. When the teacher emailed me a few days later to tell me that he/she couldn’t read/open the file, I’d happily send off the real file with a brief apology (as to not overdo it) and appreciation.
I can’t tell you how many times that worked.
Consequently, since I was so damn good at making up excuses, I was rarely held accountable in my late teens/early twenties. If I screwed something up, I figured out how to get out of it. If I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it, I’d figure out how to apologize for it. And if I couldn’t figure out how to apologize for it, I’d… well, quite frankly that rarely happened.
I’ve spent much of the past 4-5 years learning how to be accountable, not only to jobs, bosses, and peers but to my friends and loved ones as well. As an adult I found that people are a lot less likely to put up with bullshit and they can smell it from a mile away. I realized that it I was no longer going to be able to slide through life on excuses alone. I started by facing my credit card debt and then rolled that over to little things like simply being on time for appointments. Not that I’m always on time, mind you, but I’ve realized that it’s simply rude to always keep other people waiting. I’m trying to take more responsibility for my own actions (most of the time).
As an athlete there are always excuses and things to blame. Some people have even mastered the art of pre-emptively excusing themselves from a poor performance before the race even begins. Bum knee, messed up bike, bad night’s sleep, and the list goes on and on and on.
When we race well early in the season we feel that if we do anything less in subsequent nights we’d better have a reason as to why we “performed poorly” (in our own words). As athletes we’re so focused on winning every time, or beating a rival every race, or whatever your personal driving forces and goals may be that we forget to give ourselves some leeway. We beat up on ourselves and cry to our teammates about this thing going wrong and that thing acting up, and we lose sight of the real reason we race. We materialize external pressure and expectations out of what we assume people are thinking, and we make ourselves miserable trying to live up to some pretension that was never explicitly stated in the first place.
The truth in racing is that sometimes you’re dialed in: great nutrition, ample rest, proper bike fit, well-running machinery; and sometimes you’re not: you’ve got a cold, you drank too much the night before, you haven’t been training, or you went too hard during you preceding week’s workouts. All the other pressure we feel is placed on ourselves, by ourselves, as a form of sick, twisted motivation that only another athlete can identify with and understand.
Last night I was simply not dialed in. I left the track feeling like I could have done much better, and that’s all there is to it. I can list the reasons, or excuses, if you will, but it won’t give you anymore insight into my actual performance. The underlying message in that list of excuses would be “please don’t think I’m slow just because I didn’t win, OK?”.
Not me and not this time. Last night I simply just didn’t have it. The women’s field was combined and it was tough, and there were 4 to 5 people who were faster than I was. Sure, I think if we were all to meet again and all the stars were aligned I could probably have picked off one or two more, but last night the stars weren’t aligned (although the full moon was incredible!) and I just didn’t have what it took to place higher in the combined women’s field.
We had 12 women racing, including 4 cat 4s and 2 Juniors (one of whom won at least one race last night) and the other 6 were pro/1/2/3s. There were some people out who I had not raced against before, including Julie on the blue Cannondale, and someone on a green Waterford (I’m still trying to get her name). Val Brostrom was out and looking great, as usual, as was Jen Greenburg (who claimed it was her first night on the track since Velocity last summer). Jessie, the Junior who won the tempo, is quite a contender (gross understatement), winning one and placing in all three races.
The first race was was a 12 lap Tempo. I sat back for the first few laps, trying to sit on Jessie’s wheel but getting edged out by Imelda March and and the girl on the green Waterford a couple times. I didn’t pull any points in the first few laps, but managed to take a second place in a middle lap and first on the last lap, giving me enough points for 4th place overall. That was my best finish of the night. (Scoring for a Tempo, for those who don’t know, is 2 points to 1st and 1 point to 2nd per lap, person with the most points overall wins).
The second race for the women was a 24 lap points race. Let me just say that I really need someone to help coach me on strategy for these points and tempo races. My plan was to sit back for the first 4 points laps and then to step it up for the last four, but that plan failed miserably. Last time I raced, you might remember, I got 5th in this same race (also a combined field). I think last night I may have pulled out a 6th place. Maybe. I sat back, as planned, but then Tamara from xXx (a fellow cat 4) pulled out front on at least two points laps and took either a first or second place, and really made the rest of the field chase her. She looked great, and really had a fantastic race. I’m pretty sure she came in 5th overall, with Jessie, Val, and Jen taking 1-2-3. Not sure who got 4th. I tried to stay on the outside of the field, 3 or 4 people back so that I wasn’t doing all of the work, but when the jumps came (always in turn 3) I wasn’t in position to follow. Bad strategy on my part.
The final race was an unknown distance race, and given my performance on the points race I figured I would try something a little riskier for this race. I talked to Tamara and we agreed to jump on the 5th lap, 3rd turn and to take half lap pulls from there. Ann Barnes (Cat 4), trying to make things interesting, took a couple of sprints in the first 4 laps and made us chase her down, but mostly the field stayed together. As we came around for the 5th lap I positioned myself on the outside with Tamara right behind me, and as we rounded corner 3 I took the jump. I lead out to the line (when they conveniently rang the final lap bell) and pulled up on the bank in turn one hoping Tamara would swoop in and take the half lap pull, as we had planned, but she never came around. I guess she didn’t make it out of the pack to follow me and I was out ahead all by myself with no one there to help. I got swallowed up by turn 3 and spit out the back for either 5th or 6th place. Oh well, at least I tried something uncomfortable to see what it would feel like. (It felt like shit, in case you’re wondering).
So as I alluded to at the beginning, it wasn’t my best night of racing. I could go on and tell you about how I was feeling and what wasn’t coming together, but the long and the short of it is that it just wasn’t my night. But at least I walked away from it with a few lessons learned, a few more laps around the track under my belt and the general knowledge that even when I’m having a bad night I can still keep up with the Pro1/2/3 field. Not too bad for my third night of racing.
In other news I’m planning on going out to Major Taylor in Indy for the June 28th night race. Val and Imelda will be there too, and it’ll be great experience being on a short, fast track. I’m going to try to take a recovery week next week to be well rested for Saturday - I have a feeling that all this track racing is hampering my triathlon endurance training (and vice versa) but I’m going to have to keep fighting it this season since I’ve committed to both disciplines. I’ll probably need to narrow it down next year to make any real progress in either sport. But for now “next year” still seems decades away.
(Major Taylor Velodrome)
Yesterday was not only my first open water swim of the season, but it was also my first swim ever in a wetsuit. I bought a base line Quintana Roo wetsuit from a girl who’s a little taller then me but a little slimmer too, for $50. It’s got one little nail gouge in the thigh, but I think I can repair it (and it doesn’t go all the way through.) When I tried on suits in the store I was looking at all long sleeved sausage casings, but this one happened to be short sleeved - and I’m glad I got it. The long sleeved ones were all really restricting in the shoulders and chest, and I think I’ll be happier for this season to be able to move about (read: spastically flail) freely.
It was really warm yesterday and quite humid again, so I was actually pretty excited about braving the 61 degree water. I got to Ohio Street beach around 6:30 and started the comedy act of trying to get my wetsuit on, only to be upstaged later by my trying to get the damned suit back OFF. Fortunately it was much easier with a full tri-suit on underneath than it was the time when I tried it on naked at the house. Who forgot to warn me not to be naked when I tried on my wetsuit? I can think of nothing less attractive then my white naked butt sticking out of black neoprene trying to pry the suite off my calves and ankles. I had to call Aaron for emergency backup and he had Jaws of Life on speed dial.
Truth be told the suit is probably one size too large. I did feel a little pool of water form in my legs and crotch at one point (and no, I didn’t pee in my suit). But I also need more practice getting the thing on so that it sits in all the right places. There is definitely an art to putting on and taking off a wetsuit.
The swim itself was rough and cold. It took a good quarter mile for me to get comfortable enough to swim without gasping in air. At one point my goggles fogged up so I couldn’t see anything around me and I tried to put my feet down to wipe them out only to find that the water was deeper than I thought. Trying to put your feet down and not finding bottom when the waves are crashing around you can be slightly unnerving, so I panicked a little until I was able to get my goggles washed out and then back horizontal and swimming again.
It was supposed to just be a thirty minute swim but I didn’t have a watch with me, so I just followed the guys out front of me. I swam the whole mile in around 35 minutes, which normally would be slow but for yesterday’s conditions felt great. I was definitely more bouyant and warm with a wetsuit on, which I think is the point of them, right? Last year I did all my swims in just a tri-suit and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not this early in the season.
I got my normal post-swim headache. I really wish I could figure out why that happens - I’ve tried a variety of things, from breathing more shallow to exhaling harder to dipping my head down further in the water to rolling more to loosening my goggles, but nothing seems to help. Whenever I start putting a little bit of effort into my swim I get a headache after about 10 minutes and it only subsides if I lay down immediately after getting out. I’m going to try drinking more electrolytes before my next hard swim and see if that helps, but I’m kind of at a loss. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas let me know. This is a pretty severe headache that develops, no light headedness, just pounding in my temples. I used to get severe migraines, but now I really only get headaches from hangovers or working out, namely swimming. It’s very rare that I get an actual migraine anymore, but I can’t figure out how to keep from getting this exertion headache when I swim. And I promise I’m one of the most well hydrated people out there, so that’s not the cause. Feel free to comment.
Good swim, felt good to swim that long this early in the season. My new stroke was perfect for the choppy water, relaxed up top with high elbows to get over the waves. Next up is a long brick on Saturday.
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