… dumped ground flax seed on a piece of pound cake in an attempt to lower the Glycemic Index of the cake.
I needed to share that with someone who cares.
I took the entire first week off after the race. To be fair, for the first two days, I could barely walk, let alone workout. I ran a 5k race on Saturday morning, nice ‘n easy – my first workout since the big one. It went. Not quickly, but it went.
I’ve been eating whatever I want, and quickly realized that sometimes what I “want” isn’t actually what I want. It’s what I think I want, and when you allow yourself to eat anything, you end up feeling like crap. For example: I ate 7 mini Reeses cups in the car the other day on the way to a training session. Then I felt like crap. For further example: I ate pasta for lunch and dinner last week, several days in a row. Then I felt like crap. I think I crave the carbohydrates in pasta and baked goods, but when you eat them whenever you feel like it you remember that your body likes things like, let’s say, vegetables and protein, more.
3 more days of this eat whatever you want mentality. One of the meals in those three days WILL be chicken and waffles. Then I’m back on it.
I’ve played racquetball, run for the fun of it, and worked out only when I wanted to.
I’ve also baked cakes.
And gained 5 pounds. In two weeks.
Like I said, back on it on Monday. On Monday I’m going to start with a serious weight lifting program for the winter. I’m shooting for 3 days a week of weights. I’ll need to buy some more protein powder. Interspersed with weight lifting will hopefully be some bike riding. And some running. I’ve promised my mother-in-law that we’d run a 5k in under 30 minutes on Thanksgiving morning. Totally doable, if she’ll commit to running with me 3 days a week. Mary – are you reading this?? Pressure’s on!
I keep reading the updates from people in Kona, and I feel that tug that says “do an Ironman”. Actually, more than that, I feel the tug that says “go to Hawaii”. Thanks. When I was getting my hair cut yesterday my hairdresser asked if I would ever do another half ironman, and I told her that actually, one day I would do a full. And she said, “When?”.
That’s a great question. When indeed. If I take next year off of triathlon to focus on bike racing, and if it goes well and I focus on bikes only for a couple of years, we’re probably going to start thinking about having a kid after a few of those years. And in my estimation, I’d have to do the full before a kid, right?
Ha. I said kid. Outloud.
- Bib #: 259
- Swim: 00:37:10
- T1: 00:2:36
- Bike: 02:54:40
- T2: 00:03:14
- Run: 02:35:30
- Total: 06:13:08
Man, I forgot how much fun the post-race glow is. When you race a distance that you’ve raced 5 times before, that feeling dissipates a little each time, but as soon as you step it up to the next distance, it’s back in full force.
I finished a half Ironman distance race on Sunday, a little slower than I had hoped, but hell, I finished. I was undertrained for this race, and very unprepared for the trail run. But after two years of anticipation, I’m really glad to check it off the list.
Pre-Race Day:
We have to start with the week leading up to the race. I came down with a cold on Sunday, had to wake up at 2:45 in the morning on Wednesday, 4:30 in the morning for work on Thursday, and felt pretty dreadful by Friday. Meanwhile, Aaron was in Vegas, also sick. On Friday I called in sick to work (and proceeded to work from home a full workday anyway), and had a massage scheduled for 12:30. I went to my appointment, told her about everything that was wrong, and she said she was going to try to help work the cold out of my system, and obviously not go too deep into the tissue since 2 days was not enough time to heal before the race on Sunday. I went to a mandatory meeting at work at 4:00, still feeling horrible, and unable to communicate. But, miraculously around 5:30, I realized that I was suddenly feeling much better. My nose wasn’t stuffed up, my chest felt clear, and my headache had gone away. I felt amazing. I called and left a message on Sage’s mom’s voicemail (funny how small the world is – Team Pegaus teammate Sage is from close to Roanoke, his mom is a Massage Therapist, and I’ve seen her twice now) telling her she was amazing.
Saturday, woke up at 6:30 to leave the house at 7:00 to pick up a very sick Aaron from the Raleigh airport. I got lost on the way to the airport (I’m useless without a map or a gps), and he had to sit there for an hour, having just taken a red-eye back from Vegas. We were able to check into our hotel in Raleigh early, so after grabbing 2 eggs and some whole wheat toast from Ihop we went and checked in. Aaron immediately fell asleep for like 7 hours, and I tried to watch the Michigan game. I made it through the first half, and then just couldn’t sit there any longer. So I went to packet pickup. Got my number (259), picked up two tubes of Margarita Salt Bloks, and went to the grocery store to get pre-race breakfast. Peanut butter, bananas, frozen waffles, and chocolate chip cookies. And a can of Pam for my wetsuit.
I came back to the hotel, saw the end of the Michigan game (Blue is Back!), and planned out my race-day nutrition. Still couldn’t sit still, so I went to the course talk at 6:00 p.m. Then, I got the brilliant idea to drive part of the bike course. The only problem with this is that the bike course was one 56 mile loop. And once I started driving it, I couldn’t stop, because I had no idea where I was. So I drove the entire 56 mile bike course. I was completely stressed out after mile 20 because it was 7:30 at night, I still had 30 miles left to go, and I was 20 minutes from my hotel. HELLO… dinner! I was already off schedule. My plan had been to eat dinner at 7:30, take a Benadryl at 8:30, and be asleep by 9:00, up at 5:00. So not only was I in the middle of nowhere, in the rain, following small orange “bike –>” signs, but I was starving and totally screwing up my plan. I was in a panic. So I called my parents, who had come in for the race, and they went and picked up dinner, and met us back at the hotel at 8:30. I ate salad and some pasta (I couldn’t stomach much), and was asleep by 10:00.
Race Day:
I woke up at 3:00, 4:00 and 5:00, despite the Benadryl. At 5:15 the alarm went off, and I went to the bathroom. The first thing I usually do is put in my contacts, but I was a little more drowsy than usual. So I used the toilet, washed my hands, then went to put in my contacts. I put in the left one successfully, then put in the right. But it didn’t feel right… it felt like it was folded over in my eye. But I was tired, so I went to flush the toilet (this order of events is important… sorry for the detail), and then back to the mirror to figure out what was wrong with my eyeball. I started digging around, and couldn’t find my contact in there. I started to panic. I looked on the counter top, in the sink (which had no drain cover, just a gaping openness into which anything could have fallen), and I was standing over top of the toilet (it wasn’t a spacious bathroom). I searched the floor, my body, my clothes, the towels, my socks that were drying on the countertop. I searched the toilet seat, the base of toilet. And then I tried to remember the order in which I had done things, and, my heart pounding, realized I had flushed the toilet…. I was certain that I had flushed my contact down the toilet. In a panic I woke up Aaron, and he stumbled into the bathroom to help me. I already had my new race plan figured out. I would swim with one contact in, and sight with one eye, the put on my glasses for the bike and the run. I was so upset that this was how my race was going to turn out. Then Aaron started searching through his shaving bag, which been open on the countertop, and he pulled out a small shriveled disc of blue and raspily blurted “I found it”. I knocked the breath out of him I hugged him so hard.
Crisis averted, we got out of the hotel, into the truck, and to the race site on time. The nice thing about smaller races is that you don’t have to get there 2 hours before your start time. We arrived at 6:30, the race started at 7:30, and my wave went off at 7:46. It was perfect. I ate a banana, a cup of coffee, and one bite out of a waffle. I couldn’t handle anything else.
The last race I did my wetsuit felt like it was trying to kill me. I couldn’t breathe, and almost had a panic attack. I decided after swimming with the wetsuit in the pool that the reason it felt so tight was because I didn’t have it pulled up in the crotch high enough, and it was pulling down on my chest and shoulders, but the thing suctions so tight that I couldn’t figure out how to get it up higher on my legs. Thus, the Pam. It’s a crappy wetsuit anyways, so I just sprayed pam all over my body and the wetsuit glided right on. I felt great. I even got in the water and tested it out. The water was so murky that I couldn’t see more than 6 inches around me, and as I started to step into the water to warm up the girl next to me told her friend to watch out for snakes, that someone had just spotted one. Fantastic. Swam around, felt good in the suit, and got out to wait for the start and eat a Gel… Vanilla Powerbar gel, non-caffeinated.
Only 6 waves, and I was wave 5. It was misty, had been raining for 24 solid hours, and didn’t look like it was going to clear up soon. Our group walked down the slippery boat ramp, and treaded water for 2 minutes before the gun went off. I was planning on taking my time in this race, and I seeded myself towards the back, hoping to get clear water from the get-go. It worked! I had the best swim I think I’ve ever had. I sighted well, swam in a straight line, and had clear water most of the race. It was a counter-clockwise rectangular course, and I stayed to the inside of the spot buoys before swimming around the outside of the triangular ones. My swim time was 00:37:10, a full 8 minutes faster than my goal!
A misty swim start
I took my time in transition. Put on a bike jersey that I prefilled with supplies – salt tabs (which I’ve never taken), 6 Advil, a tube of Margarita Shot Bloks. Put on my shoes, then remembered to put on the knee brace I’ve been wearing ever since my left knee mysteriously started hurting on the bike about 3 weeks ago.
Putting on a knee brace AFTER putting on my shoes
I had my gels already taped to my top tube. My nutrition plan for the race was as follows:
- 2-3 gels during the bike, with caffeine
- 6 Shot bloks during the bike, with sodium
- 3 bottles of water
- 2 gels during the run
- Sips of water, Coke, Heed as needed on the run
Total calorie intake: 600-700
I stuck to my nutrition plan exactly, and it worked! I had no cramping, I sipped Heed on the run when I felt like I was getting cold chills, I never had sloshy stomach, and even though I had to force myself to take the last 3 gels, they never upset my stomach or gave me acid reflux. I started with two bottles of water in my Aero bottle, and put a third in there at a water stop on the bike. I never like the taste of sports drink while biking, so the water only plan plus Shot Bloks with salt worked perfectly. Amazing!
The bike was hard, but no harder than what I train on around Roanoke. The only thing I wasn’t used to was being in Aerobars for 56 miles straight. My shoulders ached by the end of 56 miles (honestly, they ached at the end of 10 miles). I got passed by a few people, passed a few people, and in general had a non-eventful bike. I tried not to push too hard, knowing that I needed to save my legs. I had taken 2 Advil right before the swim, in preparation for the knee pain, and I took two more Advil towards the end of the bike. My knee was sore, but not painful, until I had about 15 miles left. Then it just started throbbing. And I kept on pedaling. I would have liked a 2:30 on the bike, and probably could have done it, but my bike riding has been pretty non-existent for the past 4 weeks, and I really wasn’t in good bike shape. I hobbled off the bike a transition, barely able to stand for a moment.
Locked elbows = fatigue
Still smiling!
I sat down in the bike to run transition to put on my shoes, and it felt soooo goooood to sit. I put my IT band strap on my right knee, switched from a bike jersey to a tri top (again, prestocked with gels), and put on my headband with secret iPod. OK… so I have to admit something here. I kind of cheated. I know it’s against USAT rules to run with headphones, and in this race it was a 2:00 penalty. I was ready to accept that. I just couldn’t figure any way I was going to make it through that run without music, and Aaron had purchased the Fat Cyclist setup with the iPod shuffle directly attached to headphones. I wore a headband over it to keep the earbuds in my ear. I had a 2.6 hour playlist loaded, and after I got through the crowds and onto the run course I hit play. I did not receive a penalty from a USAT judge, although several other people did.
I actually felt pretty good for the first 3 miles. I took stock, and my body felt fine, my legs felt good, and although I was moving slowly, I was moving. However, the course was H-A-R-D, and by mile 4 I was struggling. The course was all on dirt or gravel trails, and up some very, very major hills. Added to the fact that it had rained the previous 24 hours, and it was like doing a half marathon on wet sand dunes. Up hill, down hill, only to go back up again.
You thought I was kidding about that hill thing.
The run course was really entertaining though, almost like a cloverleaf. It was a two lap run course, with a stem, and an out and back (or a loop) on each side, repeated x 2. There were lots of aid stations, fully stocked with drinks, food, and gels. I started taking orange slices and they were just fantastic. Just enough sugar and juice to get you to the next aid station. I took a couple flat cokes, and some sips of water. My left knee started hurting really badly again, around mile 5, so I just gave into and walked up all the hills. I was getting passed left and right, but was way more focused on just finishing. (I am not embarassed to tell you that I got passed by several women in the 40-50 year old age range. Man… I sure do hope I’m still doing half Ironmans at 40 and 50 and passing people.)
I had pebbles in my shoes the entire 13 miles (from the gravely parking lot transition area) but I was afraid if I stopped to get the rocks out that I wouldn’t get back up again. So I ran with them, and got some blisters for it. I was way past the aspirational 5:30:00 goal, and didn’t look like I was going to make 6:00:00 either, so might as well just do the work, get it done, and try not to do permanent damage to my knees. In the last mile I took off my headphones and started the final, glorious hobble-stepped shuffle (a little faster than the similar shuffle that got me through the previous 8 miles) that would take me to the finish line. Thank God the final .5 mile was downhill, then flat on pavement. I ran through the finish line, they called out my name, and I let someone cut off my timing chip and hand me a finisher’s medal.
I wasn’t super out of breath, I just couldn’t move my legs any further. I guess that’s a huge difference when you’re not really fully trained for a long distance race… you don’t get your heartrate up to the point where you’re about to pass out. But my legs were stuck. I couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand, couldn’t really move. It felt good to just stop.
Hobble-step, hobble-step, finish.
ahhhhhh.....
At one point during the bike, as I was riding by myself, unable to draft off of people, pushing into what seemed like an eternal headwind, I realized that I really do like the tactics and logistics required for mass start bike racing. I like planning attacks, and using other people’s draft to get an advantage. Sure, people are way nicer in Triathlon (sorry, but it’s true), but there’s something fun about racing a different race every time.
I will still do an Ironman one day, but at some point during the course of the 1/2 IM I realized that racing road had turned out to be alot of fun this past year. I started off nervous and unwilling, but after I got a couple of races under my belt and reminded myself that I really can stick with the pack, it became less fearsome and more enjoyable. Plus, in bike racing I actually have the chance of winning something. There’s not much in it for me in triathlon, other than the thrill of knowing that I finished… and like I said in the beginning of this marathon post, that feeling dissipates a little each time you do the same distance over and over and over again. I will never be a runner. I will never win a big triathlon. Sure, I might come close in some small races, but running is not a strength of mine, and never will be. Unfortunately… I like the thrill of winning alot, and with more risk comes more reward, right?
Next season I will focus on bikes only. I’ve always known that it’d be impossible to excel in bike racing while maintaining a triathlon training plan too, and you never know what you can do until you really devote some time to doing it… so 2010 will be the year of the bike.
The sun cam out during the run, and I could feel it beating down on my bare skin, making the wet ground below me steamy and unpleasant. No one had bothered to put on sunscreen since it was so rainy at the start of the race. My skin tingled with the beginnings of a sunburn, one last bad tri-tanline before the winter sets in….
Time for rebuilding, recovering, re-planning, renewing, and reconnecting. I abosolutely love this time of year!
I can’t believe that 6 days prior to my race I’ve managed to snag a cold. I’ve never gotten sick during a taper. Of course, this is also the first time I’ve worked a stressful job and trained at the same time, so maybe I’ve had it coming. I’m just mad that after training/planning for almost 2 years for this half ironman something as stupid as a cold is gonna bring me down.
So what do I do? Do I do my scheduled workout (a one hour run) or do I sit at home and nurse my cold with tea and sleep? I know the answer is the later, but after already feeling like maybe my training wasn’t enough, it’s hard to do even less.
The last time I got a cold I used my old voice teacher’s remedy and took 1000 mg of vitamin C an hour until I felt like I was going to vomit ascorbic acid. 2 days later I felt much better. I was out of C this morning, so instead I took Cranberry supplements all day – they have lots of c in them, so I’m hoping it was equivalent. I’ll skip the workout tonight and try to get a good night’s sleep, because wednesday and thursday are going to be bad bad bad work days.
I should probably publicly apologize to Aaron for being such a bitch last night when he came to bed. But the dog started barking, I was in a Benadryl haze, and all I could think about was how much it sucked that I was getting sick right before the race. I need earplugs and a sleep mask.
I thank that was blasphemous. Oops.
It has been 2 months since my last post. Helllllooooo (ooo) (ooooo) (ooooooo).
Anyone out there?
I gave up on you for two months. Work got crazy, I amped up the training. I stopped blogging. I doubt anyone cared, I’d bet most of you cancelled your Reader subscriptions. Sorry I suck.
Let me double space this whole blog so that those of you who are still there get thoroughly fed up and never come back.
Kidding.
So in 10 days I will be finishing a Half Ironman. My first. I’m scared, under confident in my training, and worried about my injuries. My goal is to finish in under 7 hours. Last year when I was training my goal was 5.5 hours. Oh how the times have changed.
What is most scary is that the part I’m most concerned with is the bike. How has it come down to that? After the ride Aaron and I took out to Floyd, VA 5 weeks ago (95 miles in 95 degree heat), my bicycle riding has been, um, intermittent. Let’s see. Since that day, I’ve ridden, oh 4 times. Maybe 6. And since that time, I’ve started having intense pain in my left knee, only when riding (not running, not swimming, not walking or sitting). I’m worried about making it 56 miles. How sad is that?
How do you ever know if you’ve trained enough? I really started following my training program completely about 6 weeks ago. Prior to that, I was training (swimming and running), but not necessarily following a training plan. I approximated it, with long runs and long bikes on the weekend, and shorter stuff during the week, including weight training 2x per week. But you know, it was kind of haphazard. I know there are people out there who train without plans, but how do you know if it has worked? How do you trust your training if you haven’t been following a plan?
My longest run was 2 hours, and it was fantastic. I finished strong, felt good, and was excited about running. That was 2 Saturdays ago. I also had an awesome swim that week, finishing 54 laps in under 45 minutes and feeling great the whole time. But since then, I’ve felt like crap. My legs have been heavy, my swims uninspired. So was that it? Did I peak 2 weeks ago, never to be heard from again?
I know taper is supposed to feel like crap, but I don’t even feel like I’m tapering. I feel like I’m lazy. Like I couldn’t do more if I wanted to.
It’s the promise of an Ice Cream Sundae at the end of the race that’s getting me through. I’m ready for training to be over.
Coming off of a good (first) weekend of racing, Aaron and I wanted to try to keep with the momentum, so we found a race in Bowie, MD on the following Sunday. We were already going to be in Richmond for the BFF, and Bowie was only 2 hours north. We packed up the dogs and the bikes and headed to Richmond after work on Friday. There was probably more drinking during the weekend than most people would recommend prior to racing, but nothing ridiculous. On Sunday we drove up to Bowie and arrived with plenty of time to warm up. It was 90 degrees in a completely unshaded course in some sort of tech park. There was a major headwind on the back side of the course, and the dogs were not happy to be out of the A.C. for so long.
Aaron raced a great race, but cramped with just a few laps to go. He warned me to take two bottles out with me, so I filled up a second with boiling hot water and lined up for the start. There were lots of teams represented, and one of the girls who raced really well the previous weekend was there. My goal was to stay on her wheel the whole race. This was an open 1-4 race, and as far as I could tell there weren’t many 4s represented.
I actually started off racing really well. I chased down anything that went off the front, stayed on a wheel into the headwinds, and maintained position at the front of the pack. But with 6 to go a girl attacked into the headwind, and I made the mistake of following her. She motioned to me to take a pull, I pulled for 30 seconds and was just done. I motioned for her to take the lead, and I let the pack swallow me up an spit me out the back. I contemplated sticking on someone’s wheel, but it just didn’t seem worth it.
I’ve never in my life quit a race. I guess everyone needs a first. Everyone needs to know what it feels like to quit. How shitty it feels. I was racing so well, and holding my own with a strong 1-4 field, and if I had stuck in the pack probably would have finished top 10, if not top 6-7. The break that I ran with stuck, and two other girls bridged up for 1-3rd places. I’m sure I could have sat in and taken the sprint at the end. But no, I quit. I’ll never actually know what I could have done, because I gave up.
What a shitty way to end a race.
I went into this race knowing that I was giving myself a pass on it. I had only ridden once since last weekend, and we had been in the car for far too many hours during the course of the weekend. I told myself going in that this should just be an educational race, but damnit if that didn’t set me up for failure.
The good: I know that I can keep up, consistently, with an open women’s field. I know that I can counter attacks, and rotate through the pack effectively. I know I can ride in a pack of strong riders, and that helped to build my confidence ever so slightly.
The bad: I quit.
So there you go. 4 races, 2 weekends, 4 totally diverse results. And now I’m in the car on the way home wondering why the hell I wasted $35 to go out and train for 50 minutes today.
Races numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5. In which I survive, win, win and quit.
As someone who is getting started very, VERY late in the season, it’s difficult to judge my fitness and abilities. Aaron and I raced our very first bike races of the season over July 4th weekend. For me, the three days of racing made for the 2nd, third, and fourth road races I’ve ever competed in. As of today I’ve got numerous track races, 5 triathlons, and now 5 road races under my belt. It’s so strange being able to count all these races on hands alone – I would have thought that at this point I would be buried in race results. But as it turns out, racing requires lots of commitment. And money. And time.
Since I didn’t recap last weekend, I’ll start with that. The first race on Friday was a time trial up the side of a mountain. Since the mountain was in the place where we’re living, I had the luxury of preriding the course a couple of times. The very first time I ever road this course was 3 years ago, when Aaron had first gotten me on a bike. He took me up to this narrow road of switchbacks, and I stopped, started crying and began rolling backwards downhill. You might think this sounds familiar.. and that’s because there were several mountains that made me cry that first year of riding. You can go ahead and add “crybaby” to my repetoir.
So, having ridden up the course a few days before the race, Aaron and I made our race plan pretty conservative. We’d start off slow, and we had a point marked out where we’d sprint to the finish. Come race day, I stuck to the plan, but didn’t have much left to finish out the sprint. Which meant, I pretty much just road slow. There was an omnium for the three days of events, and my time (which is still to be debated), was enough to earn me a couple of points.
Now why, you might ask, is my time still to be debated? Well, it turns out that the officials screwed up. Badly. There were close to 200 riders participating in the time trial, and the start times were posted the day before the race for people who had pregistered. The day of the race, when Aaron and I got our race numbers, our time had gotten moved back by a minute. We were fine with that – racers were being sent off every 30 seconds, and Team Pegasus were numbers 123 and 124. We got to the start house at the bottom of the mountain, Aaron went off off, and I went off… and we rode to the top. Aaron had someone call out his time at the top of the mountain, and based on that we figured that he had scaled the mountain in over 11 minutes, but less than 12. I was over 12 minutes, but less than 13.
But when the actual times were posted, something terribly screwy went on. The officials, who had a start list at the bottom of the mountain and a stop watch at the top, had forgotten to skip start times for riders who didn’t show. That would be easy enough, except that no one had any idea WHICH RIDERS HADN’T SHOWN. So the officials arbitrarily added 1:08 to half of the field, based on where they “thought” the missing riders had been. This put both Aaron’s and my final times a minute longer than we thought they should have been. And put me in 6th place for the omnium. Had that minute not been added, I would have been in 3rd or 4th in the hillclimb. You’ll see why this is important later.
The second race on Saturday was a short little crit in downtoan Roanoke. It was a good course, some fun turns, and a nice little hill that helped to string out the field. My nerves were calmed slightly from having finished the time trial without tears the day before, but this would only be the 2nd mass start road race of my career. And it was all the women, 1s-4s, racing together. I started off strong, and managed to go off the front in chase of a break with one other girl. Unforrtunately, two of her teammates were in the break, and she wasn’t willing to work with me to bridge. So I sat on her wheel. I knew she wasn’t going to let the pack catch us either, because she wasn’t going to chance a sprint finish. So I figured if she wouldn’t work with me, then I’d just let her do all the work.
That tactic ended up paying off. One of her teammates fell off the break, and the three of us worked to finish out the race. I KNOW I could have outsprinted them, but I was in too small of a gear. Ah well that’s what racing in the 4s is all about, right? I finished 5th overall, and 1st 4.
Race day 3: 60s degrees and pissing rain. Ohhhh how I didn’t want to race in the rain. The course for day 3 had some tight turns and some cobblestone sections, metal grates, and lots of man hole covers. I figured I’d be down just a couple of laps in, since I’m still not super confident of my bike handling skills. The race went off and 4 people went off the front. I tried desperately to tack onto their break, but my legs weren’t up to it. I really just felt unwarmed up in the 60 degree temperatures and I couldn’t hold the pace that early in the race. I ended up with a girl named Jessica on Artemis, and she and I took lap pulls for the entire rest of the race. We couldn’t catch the girls up front, but we sure as hell weren’t going to let the pack catch us either. We lapped some people, and generally held our position. It poured down rain, and I was glad for my long sleeved skin suit for warmth. Jessica and I worked well together, took turns at some primes they threw our way, and then I outsprinted her at the finish, for 5th place over all and 1st 4 again.
As I said, that hillclimb fiasco ended up coming back and biting me in the ass. With solid 5th place finishes all weekend, I should have been 5th in the omnium. But because of the hill climb times, someone who didn’t get 1:08 tacked on to her time ended up taking 1st in the time trial, 7th and 8th in the two other races, and she slid in to the 5th place omnium slot. I’m still of the opinion (which I expressed to the officials) that if they weren’t positive about the finish times then they shouldn’t have counted the towards the omnium. But, what are you going to do. I said my peace and no one cared, and they left the hill climb times as they originally posted them.
2, 3 and 4 down… 5 yet to come.
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.
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
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
