Jitters

I feel like if I write about this maybe my jitters will go away.  But right this second my hands are shaking so badly that I keep typing an “f” when I’m looking for the “g” key and an “m” when I’m looking for the “n”.  It’s hard to spell “shaking” without the n and the g.

I haven’t raced since October, during which my lackluster performance at Track Nationals left me with a pretty sour taste in my mouth.  The answer probably would have been to get back out and do another race immediately, but being that it was October and that I live in VA now, there were no races left.

My last road race (and, coincidently, first ever road race) was back in July of ‘08.  Again, a lackluster performance left me with a bad taste in my mouth for crits.  I came in 23rd out of maybe 33 people?  Lovely.

So here I am, about to race my first bike races of the season.  I’ve got one triathlon down so far, and did well in it, but that’s a whole other world away from bike racing.  Bike racing is in a pack, with other people, head to head.  Triathlon is a race against the clock.  I can race the clock.  Racing against other people scares the shit out of me.

I reached the conclusion yesterday while out riding that your second race is the easiest race you’ll ever do.  This is especially true in Triathlon.  During your first race, you’ve been training for months, and you’re biggest challenge is just finishing.  Once you cross the finish line you’re overwhelmed with joy, excitement, and incredulousness over having completed this momentous feat that you’d been training for for so long.  Then you turn around and sign up for your next race, and you do it again.  Wow!  I’m good at this racing thing!  I didn’t come in last and it’s only the first or second race I’ve ever done!

Then comes the tough transition.  You start to wonder what it takes to get faster.  You start training with more focused purpose.  You start eating better.  Trying to lose weight. Working on strategy.  Reading books and magazines.  And racing, either bike or triathlon, becomes a way of life.  It becomes a focus in your day and you devote more and more time and energy to it.

When you start setting aside time every single day and preparing for a race months in the future, or setting even longer goals like transition or preparation seasons or years, the stakes become higher.  You’re no longer racing to see if you can finish, you’re racing with these specific goals in mind.  Goals that, you’ve been told, you can accomplish if you just do the work.  If you do the training and eat right and stay healthy.

So the fear of failure becomes immense.  It becomes consuming.  It takes the fun out of racing.  What if I didn’t do enough?  What if I’m not as fast as I think I am?  What if the two to five hours I’ve spent every day of the past 4 months is not enough to make me faster than Girl X, Y and Z?  What if I come in last?

For me, the fear of failing in a bike race is tangible.  If I come in last everyone will know because I’ll be the last person across the finish line.  If I drop off the back everyone will know because my family will be wondering where the hell I am when the pack comes around the corner.  In triathlon, there really isn’t such a thing as failure.  If I’m 40 minutes slower than my last olympic distance race, no one will know except me.  If I walk up hill, no one will know but me.  If I get passed on the bike, no one will know but me and the person who passed me.

I love triathlon.  I love racing against myself.  It’s much harder to fail when your goals are only time based.  When other people’s performances can’t swoop in and ruin your perfectly planned day.  The only one who can ruin my perfectly planned day in Triathlon is myself.

In a bike race, there is no such thing as a perfectly planned day.  Every race is different.  There is no set distance that you can compare from race to race to race.  There are people who have to be taken into consideration; people who may be having good days, who may be peaking for this race, who may be way faster than you.

I like control.  And planning.  I like to know that I’m taking a gel 20 miles into the triathlon’s bike ride and finishing 2 bottles of liquids before the run.  I like knowing that I’ve done it that way in training and that I’ll do it that way again come race day.  I like knowing that if I finish the swim in under x number of minutes I’m already building a cushion later in the race to beat my time goal.

There is no control in bike racing.  There are very few well laid plans in bike racing, especially when you don’t have teammates in the race with you.  There are fast corners and unseen gravel and shaky riders and gaps and breaks.  I like the predictability of Triathlon.

But I really like the feeling of winning a bike race.  Along with the increased risks comes the heightened feeling of satisfaction when it all DOES go right.  Unfortunately for me, right now, the day before my second ever road race… all I can think about is the risk.  I don’t remember that feeling of satisfaction.  The glory of winning a race.  The feeling of accomplishment.  All I remember is gasping for air up a hill that I’d already climbed 20 other times that day, falling to the back of the pack and trying to catch back on.

Ugh.  I think I hate bike racing.  It’s way too easy to fail.

West coast pictures are up. Oh, and training.

Aaron finally got all of our West Coast vacation pictures up on Flickr. We had such a fantastic time and got in some really amazing riding.  If you haven’t heard the story yet, check out the caption on the picture where I’m reading a ticket and there’s a cop car in the background.  Stupid-ass Reno 911 cop. Wait, not even a cop!  A Highway Patrol Officer!  Even better.

There are also pictures like this:

Coppola Vineyards, 5/23/09

We were still pretty sober at that point, seeing as this was the second vineyard we rode to.  But beyond this, things just got silly.  I fell asleep at 8:45 that night, a plate of Thai food still in my lap.  Ah… such is the life.

In other training news, last week was a pretty solid week.  I got both weight lifting days in, and I even managed to keep myself from doing the leg work.  It’s really hard to walk away from something that is WRITTEN DOWN and not do it.  But with these races coming up next weekend I was trying to look ahead and realize the benefit of not doing any heavy leg lifting for two weeks.  Ugh.  I like the instant (almost) gratification of being sore the next from lifting and feeling like you’re doing something measurable way more than cutting back on something and *praying* that it makes you better a couple weeks down the road.

I got in a full swim practice, finally, as well as a quick run on Friday.  I’m not nearly up to where I should be distance-wise in my running plan.  But I also took a spin class on Saturday morning which made me feel much less slow than I have been feeling.  I’m really not looking forward to these races next week.  Like I told Aaron, bike races make me nervous for weeks in advance.  Stomach in the throat, gut-wrenching type of nervousness.  Triathlons only make me nervous about 20 minutes in advance.  Far less stressful!

We’re getting ready to start tapering down the training for next weekends races.  Next week is only one hard bike workout and a couple of super easy days.  Races start Friday.

This week is supposed to look something like this.

Schedule for the week:

Mon: Weights, 1:30

Tues:  Recovery ride, 2 hours

Wed: Weights, 1:30 and run intervals

Thurs:  Swim 1:00

Fri: Rest

Sat: Long ride, wind sprints

Sun: Recovery ride

June focus: July 4th races

I’ve decided to switch out the Morgantown Half IM with the Williamsburg Patriot’s Half IM in September.  There were a couple of reasons, none of which are worth writing about.  However, this pushed the need to start training back a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, Aaron and I decided to race the 4th of July races here in Roanoke.

I’ve been lifting religiously and loving it.  I finished with the 2nd phase of lifting and have moved on to the third.  I’m lifting two times a week, and I feel like I’m starting to see some physical changes (that no one else would ever likely notice).  However, as is also emphasized in the book, I’m starting to realize that bulking up (lifting) while training for endurance sports (for which you need to be slimmed down) is stupid.  Well, not stupid, just counterproductive.  I mean, in lifting you’re essentially trying to put on weight (although in muscle, obviously not fat) while as in endurance sport you want to be carrying around as little weight as possible so that the muscle you do have has the least amount of work to do possible.

BUT, I don’t think I can quit lifting.  I mean, obviously I can… but I don’t want to!  I’m having fun lifting, I like being sore, and I like the change in routine.  I’m contemplating just doing upper body weights until the end of the season, but I really like lunges and squats…

So as I’ve said, Aaron and I put 3 days of back to back racing on our calendar in July.  And unfortunately both of us have spent the past 3 weeks totally slacking off and hardly riding at all.  So I sat down and wrote out a training plan for the next 4 weeks that will hopefully get us back close to peak shape by July 4th.

Somewhere in the midst of all this cycling I’m going to need to find some room for a little running and swimming.  And maybe I should stop eating so many cookies.

Schedule for the week:

Mon: Weights, 1:30

Tues:  Recovery ride, 2 hours

Wed: Pyramid Intervals

Thurs:  Swim 1:00+ Weights

Fri: Steep Hill Repeats, 8%, 4 x (2 min climb + 4 min recovery)

Sat: Run 60 min

Sun: 3:00 Endurance Ride

Golden Gate Bridge

If you need me, I’ll be under the bridge. Or at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Or biking around Lake Tahoe. Or up north near Portland. Or back south in Napa. One of those places, for the next week.

Don’t break into my house. The guy who’s dogsitting would not be happy.

So to you, my 30 regular readers (50 on a good day), I’ll be driving up and down the other coast for the next ten days. Not caring about workouts, not caring about protein, not caring about lifting weights.

I can’t wait to not care.

New Workout, New You

I began a new weightlifting program last week, which was on my schedule as “strength” for an hour, two days. The first day left me sore for the rest of the week.

Also, I ran 6.2 miles on Saturday, the longest I’ve run since August. No knee pain, but my quads were throbbing from the weight lifting last week. My legs were numb by the time I got home. Hills are hard!

The schedule for this week is a little light. I debated whether or not to take a rest day on Monday this week, seeing as how I had worked out for the previous 7 days straight my muscles were TIRED. But the flip side to that coin is that Aaron and I are going on vacation for 10 days starting Friday night, so I have some built in rest days at the end of this week while we’re flying to San Francisco. In the end, I decided to take the rest day Monday. I was just exhausted from the increase in training last week.

I met all my goals for last week, and felt really strong from the weight lifting.  But yesterday I went to the gym after a very, VERY long day of traveling for work, and I decided I should run my intervals before lifting.  So I got on the treadmill, ran a 10:00 mile to warm up, and then ran my intervals.  When I got off the treadmill, I went straight to the squat bar, and immediately felt pain in my right quad and left hamstring.  I finished lifting, but my quad and hamstring got increasingly tight, making lunges really difficult later on.  I tried to stretch really well, then took some ibuprofen and iced down my injuries when I got home.  I even had Aaron take a rolling pin to my hamstring.  I’m hoping they’ll feel better by tomorrow so I can lift well, since I won’t be lifting at all next week.

We’re going to San Francisco for 10 days.  We have a rental car, and we’re taking our bikes.  We’ll be riding in Santa Cruz, and have plans to stay in Lake Tahoe for 2 days and bike around the lake.  After that, we might head up to Portland.

There will be lots of photos up on Flickr.

Schedule for the week:

Mon: Rest

Tues:  Strength, 1:00 and Run, 0:30

Wed: Swim, 1:00

Thurs: Strength, 1:00 & Run, 0:35

Fri: Swim, 1:00

Sat: Travel

Sun: Bike?  3:00? in the CA sunshine?

A trophy for my non-existent trophy shelf

The Appalachain Power Smith Mountain Lake Triathlon on Saturday was such a well run, well organized event!  Thanks to Setup Events for the great sprint distance race.  Let’s start with the good stuff – I got second place in my age group!  I was hoping for a Top Ten overall finish, and wouldn’t you know I was only 24 seconds off from that.  But, as I said on Friday, I have not been specifically training for this race, nor had I tapered, or swam in a wetsuit since July, or practiced transition, or done any bricks…

Saturday morning started at 6:00 a.m. after going to see the Walkmen play on Friday night.  I woke up, took the dogs out, had a cup of coffee and rechecked that all my gear was in my transition bag.  I loaded the bike up on the car, put my race wheels in the back, and put some Nutrigrain Waffles in the toaster.  I woke up Aaron (he grumbled the whole way there about how bike races always begin at reasonable hours… wtf is wrong with triathletes?), put some yogurt, maple syrup, a spoonful of peanut butter and two waffles in a bowl, and we headed down to the lake.  Unfortuantely, we left 15 minutes late.  The drive was going to take us an hour, and packet pickup closed at 8:15.  As we got closer to the state park, my stomach started to turn.  We arrived right at 8:15, and Aaron dropped me off at transition to get my packet and my chip while he switched out my wheels.

There was plenty of room on my rack still, with only 5 bikes allotted per rack.  I believe there were 450 people total who were registered, so it was a great size race.  I was in the second wave, and there was a mandatory 8:45 pre-race meeting on the beach.  I got set up, had time to change and use the bathroom, and made it down to the beach with my wetsuit half on by 8:45.  I didn’t get to warm up, but the sun was out and it was humid as hell, and I was already sweating in my wetsuit.  I tested out the water just to make sure it wasn’t a total surprise.

There was a really moving motivational speech by Dick Kelly, a triathlete in Roanoke who was diagnosed with AlS in January.  For everyone out there who’s complaining about not meeting their goals in their first races of the season… 5 months after being diagnosed Dick is now wheelchair bound.  He was hoping to be able to complete at least 50 yards of each leg of the triathlon, but was unable to do so come race day.  He instead sat on the beach, in his wheelchair, reading off his notes that his wife and grand children helped him to hold.  Last year in this race he was third in his age group.

After Dick’s speech the men 35 and under were the first wave to go.  There were three minutes between the waves, and I quickly found myself in the water in a horizontal position.  I tried to hit the start button on my HRM, but accidentally hit the totals button instead.  Oh well, so much for timing myself.  My swim started off horribly.  I don’t think I had my wetsuit on correctly because for the first 2 or three minutes I felt like I couldn’t breathe.  The water was cold, but it was certainly warmer than the ocean a couple weeks ago.  I spent the first half of the swim trying not to hyperventaliate.  I sputtered, lifted my head a few times, and finally got into some open water that I could start to calm down in.  My heartrate was skyrocketing through the entire swim, and I exited the water in 12:41.  It was such a relief to get that damn wetsuit off.

I jumped on my bike and started off through the rolling hills.  I slowly started passing people, and my legs felt pretty good.  There was a tailwind on the way out, so that helped to calm my heartrate, and I tried to force myself to drink some water.  We opted to leave the QR set up as a road bike instead of a TT for this event.  I knew that the bike course was going to be hilly, and it just didn’t seem worth it to put aerobars on for a measly 12+ miles.  Of course, there were plenty of dudes out there in full aero helmet/bars/disc wheel setups, but I was totally comfortable with just my carbon race wheels.  I purposely tried to save a little for the run this time, and I made sure my heartrate was low as I came into transition.  I came in first in my age group in the bike, and going into transition I was 6th overall.

Into T2

Aaron found me in transition 3 and was yelling supportive things.  I think I looked back over my shoulder and said something grumpy about the run ruining it all as I started off on the 5k course.  It was supposed to be “flat to rolling”, but it was mostly rolling, up hill on the way out and down hill on the way back.  I started off slow, but maintained my pace through the hills.  I took water at the two stops, mostly dumping it down my back instead of drinking it.  I didn’t take a Gu or any nutrition with me on this race since I expected it to be over in under an hour and a half.  Mile one went by fast, and I got passed by two or three women by the time I reached mile 2.  I had one girl I had passed on the bike that I was specifically trying to hold off, but right past mile two she flew by me, and I couldn’t keep up.  Mile 3 wasn’t marked, so I probably only sprinted the last 200 yards, instead of the last 2/10ths of a mile.  But I came into the chute in 1:20.56.

In the Danskin Women’s Triathlon I ran a time of 1:19:08.  That’s almost 2 mintues faster, BUT… Danskin was the end of July, it was a flat course, and I averaged 8:30 on the run then (and 8:56 on the run now).

So the first trophy on my shelf is for a 1:20.56, good enough for 2nd place in my age group.  Not a bad way to start the season!

Finish

NOW

As promised, the 1/2 IM training begins…

Schedule for the week:

Mon:  Strenth, 1:00 & Run, 0:30.00

Tues:  Swim, 1:00

Wed:  Bike, 1:30

Thurs:  Strength, 1:00 & Run, 0:35.00

Fri:  Swim, 1:00

Sat:  Bike 2:00

Sun:  Run, 1:15

First race of the season.

Tomorrow marks my first race of the season. It also marks the Strawberry Festival and the Chili Cookoff in Roanoke, both exceedingly appropriate recovery food categories, in my opinion.

This is going to be short. This race is not a high priority race on my calendar. I’ve basically trained through it, haven’t tapered, and am not super stressed about the results. It’ll be a good baseline to see where I’m starting from. Also, tomorrow marks the first official day of Half Ironman training.

Furthermore, I’ve quit whale watchers. It’s been a full 4 months, and I’ve determined that the lack of protein is really negatively affecting my weight loss goals. I understand why I lost 10 pounds immediately and haven’t budged since, even though my workouts have doubled. Weight Watchers is not intended for athletes, and there aren’t enough concessions for people who need to get more protein (to get enough protein and still stay within my daily points I would have had to consume 5 protein shakes a day, and eat those shakes with some sides of fresh vegetables. The end.)

So I’ve got some other ideas in the works, which I’ll detail eventually. For now, Strawberry shortcake is the motivating factor to get through tomorrow’s Sprint Triathlon in 60 degree water.

Biggest Loser, Bathing Suit Season and Vegan Cookies

Well hello there.  The puppy woke me up before my alarm this morning with her digging.  In the past few nights she’s gotten through the entire night without peeing in her crate, and I figured the sound of scratching meant that pee was imminent, so I crawled out of bed, put on Aaron’s robe, and took the dogs out.  The puppy went first, and then it was Hugo’s turn.  Have I told you that our dog Hugo is an asshole?

He ran directly to my elderly neighbor’s doorstep.  I called, quietly seeing as how the sun wasn’t fully up yet, and he wouldn’t budge.  He just sat on her doorstep, staring back at me.  So I trudge through the 45 degree dewy grass in my bare feet and oversized robe (not to mention disheveled hair and glasses), grab his collar, and look up to see Ms. Beverly, her adult son, and a baby staring back at me through a glass storm door.  I mumbled something in the form of an apology and “I don’t even know what time it is”, to which I hear a cheerful “It’s 6:45!” echoing back through the glass.  I marched Hugo back to our doorstep and went inside to find that not only was I indeed up thirty minutes earlier than usual, but that there was no coffee.  NO COFFEE.  So I threw on some clothes and ran to get some coffee beans.

I went to bed last night absolutely exhausted.  I was very anxious all day at work, and I couldn’t figure out why, so I went to a weight lifting class at 4:45.  I barely lifted at all last week, so I was due a couple of sore days this week.  I planned on staying for a 5:45 spin class in order to get some intervals in too, especially since it was SUPPOSED to storm yesterday (of course it didn’t) and I didn’t think I’d be able to ride outside.  After spin class, I did some more weights for abductors and adductors, hard muscles to target just doing squats and lunges, and then realized that an abs class was getting ready to start.  So I went to the abs class and did crunches for 30 minutes.  2.5 hours later I was done working out and STARVING.

I had dinner with a friend, then went home, watched a couple episodes of an HBO show with Aaron (can’t remember the name) and fell asleep on the couch.  What a joy I must be to be married to!

“Hey Honey, how was your day?  Yeah?  Let’s watch a Netflix.  What are your plans for tomorr….zzzzzzzz.”

Biggest Loser airs on Tuesday nights, so that means I can listen to it at work on Wednesday.  Ah, I love BL.  It’s such a weird obsession.  I’m fascinated that people can lose 10 lbs in a week, hell I’m fascinated that people can lose 145 lbs in 15 weeks!  I love seeing what workouts the trainers have them doing (note:  need to get a Bosu), and it’s so gratifying to see the actual changes in the contestants from the beginning of the show to where they are now.  I’m also really curious as to how they do it.  I mean, wouldn’t you like to know more about the day-to-day on the Ranch?  How many times a day do they work out?  Is there secretly a chef cooking spa food for them for every meal?

The other side of the fascination is seeing that 175 lbs really doesn’t look bad on some people (talking women specifically) especially when they used to weigh 275.  It’s nice to have a little perspective like that.  Which takes me to my next point, Bathing Suit Season.  This weekend I’m going to the beach with the CnD ladies from Chicago, and I will be sporting a bathing suit, not for swimming purposes, but for evening out the tan line purposes.  See, this past weekend when Aaron and I rode 75 miles to the Peaks of Otter and back, I liberally applied sunscreen (SPF 30) to my arms and legs before leaving.  I wore a sleeveless triathlon jersey, knowing that it was going to be pretty warm out, and after I got out of my post-ride shower I had the gret misfortune of seeing my back in the mirror.  I had missed my shoulder blades, and now have a horrible sunburn in crescent moon shapes (with craters made of fingerprints) on my back.  LOVELY.

Finally, onto the Vegan cookies.  I weigh in on Friday before I head down to the beach, so of course that means that WW will be the furthest thing from my mind this weekend, ’cause I’m a Monday – Friday afternoon dieter (thank God I have more discipline than that when it comes to working out.  Imagine if I was just a Monday-Friday afternoon athlete!).  I’ve asked Amy if she’d mind bringing her recipe for Vegan Peanut Butter cookies so that we can bake while we’re at the beach.  ‘Cause nothing goes better with friends and wine and sun than vegan cookie dough (we all determined that the plausibility of the cookie dough making it into the oven and actually getting baked to cookie form was pretty unlikely).  Just one question… when guys go on vacation with each other do you think they plan their cookie consumption prior to departure too?

Can’t wait for this weekend!  Oh, and there’s a little sprint triathlon next weekend that I’m all signed up and registered for.  60 degree lake water, here I come!

Maybe 153 is where it’s at?

Man, losing weight is a bitch. You know, I haven’t actively tried to lose weight in a long time, since before I graduated from high school. It has always just kind of come and gone depending on life’s circumstances. Break up with a boyfriend, lose 20 lbs. Move in together, +15. Start training for a triathlon, -5. It’s like a neverending game of Chutes and Ladders. But now that I’m actively trying to get to race weight, I’m realizing what a chore losing weight really is.

By the way, I can’t believe I’ve gotten to a point on this blog where I actually discuss my weight so frankly. Look how much changes in a year.

I’ve been half-assing Weight Watchers since January 22nd. As of today’s weigh-in I’ve lost 9 lbs, but I was up .2 from last week.  That’s only 9 lbs in 12 weeks.  And yes, of course I’ve been gaining muscle… I’m still weight lifting 3x a week.  But I don’t think I’ve gained *that* much muscle (although, when I flex now you can see my biceps.  I didn’t even know I owned a set of those!).  At certain times of the week I’ve seen numbers on my scale at home that have me losing as much as 12 lbs total, but by mid-day on Friday when I actually weigh in for real, it’s never that low (and yes, before you have to ask, I have compared my scale with their scale, and it’s accurate within .2 of a pound).

The problem is, I really am half-assing it. I mean, I add up my points daily, unless it’s right after a 4 hour ride. Or during a 4 hour ride.  Or the weekend.  I don’t count the 400 calories I consume while riding, or the pizza I gorge on immediately afterwards. And I usually have a couple drinks on the weekend. I’m more of a Monday through Friday (at noon) kind of gal. And so far, that has worked for me… until now.

Two weeks ago I decided I needed to change my eating habits to get down below 150. I started eating yogurt for breakfast, and cut out all diet sodas. And that week, I lost 2 lbs (I even saw the magic number 150 on my scale at home that week). Why, you might ask, is 150 magic? Because that’s the official cutoff for the Athena weight class in triathlons. Do you know how many races I could have won if I had registered to compete in the Athena class? At least two! But I refuse to admit that I’m actually OVER 150 lbs. So for this season, I wanted to be well below that. *145 lbs*  That’s at the high end of the “normal” range for my height, and it seems totally reasonable, right?

But damn it all to hell if I can’t seem to get those last seven to eight lbs to go the fuck away.

Sorry mom.

And the worst part is that I was trying to get this all done during the base miles portion of my training. But as of next week the build phase officially begins, kicked off by a sprint Triathlon on May 2nd. And as anyone who trains 6 days a week, 1.5+ hours a day knows, it’s almost I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E to lose weight when you’re working out that much because you’re constantly hungry and in need of food for recovery.

In today’s meeting the Weight Watcher’s leader asked everyone to raise their hands if they had a hard time getting motivated to work out.  I was the only person in the room who didn’t raise her hand.  Then she asked people to describe what they hated about working out.  She wrote answers on the flip chart like “It hurts” and “Insecure feeling in the gym” and “I don’t like to sweat”.  I’m pretty sure I was the only in there who thought of myself positively when wearing spandex (although let’s not kid ourselves, we all have our days).  And forgive me for saying it, but sweating is one of the best feelings in the world.

Guess I may be carrying those extra 7 lbs up the sides of many mountains this season, unless Aaron divorces me.  Then I could be down to 130 in no time (don’t get any ideas, babe).

It all depends on what motivates you, and fortunately for me I’m motivated by sweat and pain and sunburn and fatigue.  And pizza at the end of a long ride.

And one more…

How about a little sprint triathlon on May 2nd? Why not, it’s 45 minutes from home.
Have I trained for it?

That’s a resounding no. Should be fun!