Racine 70.3: Anatomy of a Magical Day

 Before I start my race report on the Racine 70.3 that I did this weekend, I want to tell a little story about a completely different person, competing in a completely different race, 15 years ago.  But hang with me:  this is relevant.

But first a pretty picture of the Lake

I ran track in high school and competed several times against a girl from a neighboring school named Lauren.  Lauren and I had similar PRs in the mile…somewhere between 5:05 and 5:10.  Good for high school runners, but not amazing.  In 1998, Lauren appeared to be having a somewhat rough season. I’d heard she’d shown up to practices in March out-of-shape and discouraged, was struggling to break 6 minutes.  As the season wore on, she improved, and managed to eek her way into the State meet for the mile run, but just barely.   She was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a favorite.

Fast forward to that Saturday in June when the milers lined up in Ohio Stadium for the State Championship.  The gun fired, and Lauren, who was not expected to even crack the top 10, bolted to the lead.  She came through the first quarter mile several seconds ahead of the field, running way, way faster than any of her previous racing should have indicated.  I was sitting with my coach watching, and we turned to each other.  “What the heck is she doing?”  We assumed she’d blow up, we thought she’d end up crawling to the finish.   But another lap passed, her lead grew and she just kept running.  The rest of the racers had let her go, had made no effort to go with her, they thought she was running like an idiot.  She was!  But Lauren just ran and ran and ran, and when it was over, she had won the State Championship by a huge margin in a time of 4:54- I believe something like 15 seconds faster than she’d run even at her best in previous years.  A 15 second PR in a mile, at that level, is HUGE. 

Lauren crossed the line, having just raced out of her mind, and immediately covered her face in disbelief.  You could tell by her body language that she was as stunned as anyone out there.  Where the hell did THAT come from? You could see her sobbing, crying shocked tears of joy.  The girl who got second, the defending State champ who knew Lauren very well and had raced her dozens of times, was quoted in the paper saying something like, “I honestly didn’t give Lauren credit.   She went out so fast, I just didn’t think there was any way she’d be able to hang on, and then it was too late.”   

I’ve thought about that day and about Lauren a lot in the 15 years since then because it was honestly one of the most inspiring sporting moments I’ve ever seen.  I’ve wondered a lot about that dream day and how it happened.   Did Lauren know she could do that?  Did she sense the magic, did she feel it coming?  What switch turned on that allowed her to find a greatness, a whole ‘nother level inside herself that neither she nor anyone else knew was there?  Really, where the hell did that come from?

I’ve also dreamed of having my own magical race day, and I wondered what it would feel like.  I imagined that someday I’d show up to a race, feeling amazing, just oozing with confidence, having trained perfectly, just knowing today was my day, and would feel on fire the whole time.  That’s how I figured it had to go.

On Sunday, I had my magical race day.  And it was nothing, NOTHING like any of that, at all.

The Results

To not bury the lead any more…. I won on Sunday.  I won my age group, I won the overall amateur title (neither by small margins), I set a PR of something like 17 minutes, and I vastly exceeded ANY of my own expectations.   I had a Lauren moment when I crossed the line….complete and utter disbelief followed by a whole lot of sobbing.   I’m still a little emotional.   I found a greatness inside me that I truly didn’t know was there, and it was meaningful and profound in ways that have nothing to do with sports.

And the crazy part….I almost didn’t even line up.

The Lead-In

Details aren’t important, but on a personal level, I had an extremely difficult and stressful week leading into this race.  To say I was a wreck, emotionally, is an understatement.  Sometimes I am strong, but oftentimes I am weak when it comes to handling the tough times in life.  I was already pretty well on the weak side from various stressors when a few big hits came at me last week.  Frankly, I completely crumbled.  Pre-race workouts were mostly unstructured and pretty horrible, when I was even able to complete them.  Planning for the race….out the window, I was just trying to hold myself together.  There wasn’t much sleep, and there most definitely weren’t many smiles.  Some amazing and wonderful friends helped prop me up and to them I am extremely grateful and I hope they know that.  But the number of times that I said, absolutely, 100% seriously last week, “there is no way I’m going to be able to race this weekend,”…  well, I lost count.  Melodramatic, yeah, sure.  But I’ve never claimed to be anything otherwise.:)

I think it was Thursday when I finally committed to racing, and it wasn’t until Friday, on my way up to Wisconsin, that I actually started to think about the race.  I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t have a schedule, and honestly, I no longer cared AT ALL about the outcome.  I’d once had some quite ambitious goals for the day but now, I pretty much just wanted to get through it.  This was NOT a magical day in the making.

But there was also a small voice, way, way, way far in the back of my mind, telling me that greatness was still there, that knew that I was going to have a great day, precisely because I had stopped caring. 

So that’s the lead-in, and because I’ve already blathered on long enough, I’ll spare you more words about the pre-race stuff except to say that when I left my hotel room the morning of the race, I checked my emotions at the door and just told myself:  for five hours out there, I’m going to allow myself to be at peace, to relax, to stop thinking, and to enjoy the simple process of swimming, biking, and running.  And that’s all I need to do.

Blaine, Super Sherpa Extraordinaire

Race Day

I think Racine is the largest half Ironman I’ve done, and apparently the ladies my age are flocking to triathlon, because there were so many entrants in my age group that they had to split us into two waves.  I was in the second wave, starting 4 minutes back.  Practically, this meant that it was going to be harder all day to really know where I stood in my age group, but since I’d stopped really caring about the outcome, it didn’t bother me too much.   That said, I had looked at the start list a few weeks ago and knew of two girls, strong swimmers, who were in that first wave and with the head start, would surely exit the water ahead of me. Let’s call them A & B (because I don’t know them well enough to call them out on my blog).  I figured if I wanted to place well in my age group, I’d need to chase them down on the bike.

Swim

Oh, Lake Michigan.  Crazy Lake Michigan.  It’s so unpredictable.  One day, cold.  One day, not cold.  And then, on Sunday, mimicking an ocean, with real waves and chop, chop, chop.  We were doing a beach start, dealing with sand bars and waves and all that jazz to get going.  Before the start, I tried to practice my entry, running in and dolphin diving into a wave.  I was promptly thrown backwards, my goggles ripped from my face by the crashing wave.  Great start.  I tried again, was more successful the second time, and then headed to the start, lining up right next to my friend Taylor.  

Taylor the super swimmer

OK, I think Taylor is probably sick of me talking about what a fantastic swim she had, but I’m not about to shut up.  Taylor was doing her first half Ironman on Sunday.  You’d never know it from her swim:  she swam like an absolute pro.  This was a rough swim, very rough, chop the whole time, but I think the trickiest part by far was navigating through the waves of swimmers that had taken off before us.  The chop spread everyone out and there were numerous floaters and bobbers.  Within 200 meters, Taylor swam next to me, and I decided to just settle in right behind her.  She did ALL the work.  She dodged floaters, she wove around, no joke, hundreds of swimmers, and she never slowed down a bit.  For 30 minutes, ALL I thought about was trying to hang on Taylor’s feet, to just follow her every move.   If I zoned out for a second, she’d start pulling away, and I’d have to accelerate to catch her.  She led me through that mess (at least until the last couple minutes when I lost her) and she did an amazing job.   Taylor had the fastest swim of the amateurs, in her first race.   I came out 20 seconds behind, at just over 30 minutes.  I saw the clock as we exited and was a little disappointed….that’s a decent but not amazing time for me.  Certainly not enough to have made much ground on the girls in the first wave of our age group (at least I didn’t think so). Certainly not magical. 

Turns out, Taylor and I actually swam great for that day and those conditions.  Everyone was slow.  Unbeknownst to us, we caught and passed all the girls in that first wave of our age group.  I had no idea.  I still figured there were several ahead of us.  But to Taylor….drinks on me this weekend, sorry again for making you do all the work, but you did it so well!

Bike

After a long run up the beach, the typical frantic nature of transition, and a steep hill right out of transition, I spent the first several minutes of the bike just riding really easy and trying to bring my heart rate down.  I always have power showing on my bike computer, but for quite some time, I didn’t look.  I didn’t care.  All I wanted to do was ride and not think.  I was tired of thinking.

So I rode nice and easy, just chilling out.  Then I looked down at the power reading, finally, and was shocked at my average power thus far.  It was really high.  I was riding really easy.  That small thought entered my mind:  this could be a good day.

Just chillin', twiddling my thumbs like a dork.

I kept on going, staying at a relatively easy effort but passing people with ease.  I was going fast, averaging 23 miles per hour, I knew that.  But I knew nothing about the course, figured it was really fast, figured everyone was speedy today.  Yes, I was passing people and no one was passing me, but I still hadn’t found those girls I knew started in the first wave of our age group.  I was still chasing (or so I thought).

I wish I had much to say about the bike, but honestly, I didn’t think about much and I don’t really remember much.  I was just riding.  I was kind of in a daze.  I didn’t have extreme highs.  And for the first time all week, I didn’t really have any lows, either.  I felt good on the bike, I felt strong, but I didn’t feel magical, by any means.  I drank a lot, I ate my food when I was supposed to, I sang silly songs in my head, but that was about it.  At one point, I dropped my chain, and stood for 40 seconds struggling to get it back on, but once I got going again, I got over the momentary panic almost immediately.   It was, basically, the most even keel and uneventful ride I’ve ever had in a race.  Apathy?  Maybe.  More likely….I’d finally stopped caring so damn much.  I just rode my bike.  There was no magic.  There was nothing.  I just….was.

Soon enough, the end came, and I had my fastest split ever, by a lot.  It was a great ride for me.  I did not get passed, not once, but I figured I still had work to do.   Blaine saw me coming into transition.  “You are absolutely killing it,” he said.   I didn’t know what that actually meant.  I didn’t really care enough to ask. 

Run

Heading out on the run my legs felt OK, but I was still a bit robotic, mentally.  I was breathing a little harder than I thought I should have been at that time, but I didn’t panic.  I asked myself, “does this feel like a pace you could hold for 13.1 miles?” and I could honestly say yes, so I just carried on

Coming up on mile one, Liz was by the side of the path.  “What is this???”  she yelled, seeming pretty excited.  “You are the first [non-pro] woman!”

I’m not going to lie, I thought she was messing with me.  I still hadn’t seen the girls I thought I was chasing from the first wave of my age group.  Yeah, I’d passed a good number of people on the bike, but there were three waves of women who’d started before me.  Surely I hadn’t worked my way through all of them.  There was no way.

 

Shortly thereafter, I saw Anne.  “I think you’re winning!” she said, and I started to believe.  Then a few more people told me the same thing.   All I could think:  there is no way.

Racine is a two-loop, out and back course, and I spent the first 3+ miles to the turnaround trying to just run easy and maintain form.  When I turned around and started heading back, I had the chance to start scoping out who was chasing me.  And honestly, it was a long time before I saw another woman.  I looked at my watch and I was running fast (for me), and it felt good, it felt sustainable.  I had that momentary thought:  what if I blow up?  But it was momentary.  I knew I wouldn’t blow up.  Not today.

Approaching the end of the first loop, it was sinking in.  THIS was the magical day I’d dreamt of for 15 years since I first saw Lauren sobbing at the finish line at the State meet.  THIS was really happening.  I started smiling, and I just couldn’t stop.  Liz saw me again and told me something like “you had an 8 minute lead off the bike.”   In other words, this is yours to lose.  On another day, I would have panicked:  oh my God, what if I lose this?  Today:  no flipping way.  This was my day.  I wasn’t going to lose this.

This is my "oh my God, can you believe this is happening??" face

For the rest of the run, I just sustained and tried to keep running hard.  There were moments when it felt difficult, when my breathing felt incredibly labored, but I’d look down at my watch, see I was still maintaining a good pace, and I’d relax.  After the last turn around, I told myself:  this is your victory lap, enjoy this.  And I did.  I smiled.  I reveled.  It hurt, and I wanted it to be over, but in a way, I didn’t want it to end.   This was the only time I had emotion all race, and it was pure, unadulterated joy.

Kicking it in

I ended up running way faster than I thought I could -- just over 1:30, a great, great split for me.   I crossed the line in a state of shock, I found Blaine, and I had my Lauren moment….I broke down and just cried and cried and cried. I felt overly dramatic….this was Racine, it wasn’t the Olympics, it wasn’t Kona, but for me, it meant so much.  After the week I’d had, when nothing felt magical or even all that good in my life, when I almost hadn’t even started, I somehow managed to pull out that truly magical day.  And all I could think: where the hell did that come from?

I’m still a bit on a high, I’m still a bit stunned, and I still haven’t fully processed my magical day, but I will say, in a lot of ways, it felt transformative.  Triathlon’s just a hobby, it’s just a sport, but it teaches so many great lessons about life in general.  And from this I learned that magic and greatness is there, it’s possible, and it may just appear when you least expect it, and most of all, when you stop looking so hard for it.

Final Results: 

4:33:40 (1^st Age Group; 1^st Overall Amateur)

Swim: 30:11 (2^nd AG; 2^nd OA Amateur)

Bike: 2:28:21 (1^st AG; 1^st OA Amateur)

Run: 1:30:31 (1^st AG; 2^nd OA Amateur)

Major highlight- hanging with Maggie (3rd overall, absolute stud!)

New friend Matt, Team TriSports.com sweeps the overall amateur titles!

And then this.  Of course

Pleasant Times at Pleasant Prairie (Race Report)

In the spirit of hitting all the hottest spots in the Midwest, this weekend I headed north to lovely Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin (a suburb of Kenosha) for the Pleasant Prairie International Distance Triathlon. 

Pleasant Prairie is a great local triathlon that attracts a lot of speedy triathletes in the Illinois and Wisconsin region.  I did the Sprint distance at this race a couple years ago when I was just coming back from my knee surgery.  I was fat and slow (want proof?  I found pictures last week and contemplated posting them here as a sort of "wow, look how far I've come" self-congratulatory sort of thing, but then I realized the pictures are way too embarrassing), but I loved the race, and knew I'd be back someday, in better form all around. 

My primary goal for this race, particularly after my little debacle at the Naperville Esprit de She a couple weeks ago, was to finish happy and proud of my effort.  I know that sounds cheesy, but really, I just wanted to get back on the horse again, shake off the demons, get through the swim unscathed, bike hard, run hard, and put myself back on a positive course for the rest of the season.  Sure, ideally I'd be proud of the effort, happy, and fast, but I figured the fast part would follow the other, less tangible process goals. 

Pleasant Prairie's only about an hour from home, but race morning wake-up calls are already really, really rough for me (hey, I just spent 10 months not working....would you get up super early in the morning if you had all day to do your workouts?), so I opted to drive up on Saturday and get myself a cheap little hotel room a couple minutes from the course.  Good choice.  On race morning, 4 AM in a hotel room a couple miles from the race was rough.  3AM with an hour drive ahead might have made me cry, and the tears are supposed to come after the race, not before.  (Just kidding, this has been a tear-free zone starting the day after the Naperville race.)

Spoiler alert, or Clif's Notes version, or whatever you want to call it...the race went just fine.  The swimming was fine, the cycling was below average but still fine, the run was pretty good.  I saw friends, one of whom meow'd at me during the race just at a time when I was struggling enough that it didn't phase me one bit, I placed exactly where I wanted to, and I walked away with some cold hard cash.  And most importantly, a smile. Winning all around.

Post race smiles/ goofy faces with Nic, who meow'd at me during the run, claiming it was an "Eye of the Tiger" kind of thing.

And here are some deets:

Swim
After last race's panic attack --> quit --> unquit disaster, the confidence I have always had in the swim was a little lacking.  After Naperville, I'd proven to myself that I still knew how to swim when four days after the race, I had probably the best swim practice of my life that concluded with a 1000 IM.  That's not a typo.  Crazy Coach Liz (just kidding, she's not crazy, except when it comes to her very bizarre love of butterfly, which is without a doubt, crazy) came up with that gem as a challenge after a practice that had already been pretty darn difficult.  Despite the fact that since age 16, and possibly even before that, I have not done more than 4 lengths of the pool butterfly at any one time, I somehow managed to rise to the challenge and (slowly and ugly-ly) got through 10 lengths of butterfly, staying legal the whole time.  So I knew, physically, I could still swim.

This was how happy I felt about that 1000 IM malarkey

I still worried, however, about whether I could mentally handle the mass start.  Rationally, I had nothing to be scared of.  More realistically, I was afraid that panic would start to become part of my repertoire.  I really didn't want that.

This particular start was a little more nerve-wracking, too, because this year Pleasant Prairie added a co-ed Elite wave.  That's a welcome addition to any tri, but it meant starting the swim in the midst of a bunch of fast, hard-charging dudes who always seem to play rougher than we civilized lady swimmers.  Plus, Pleasant Prairie has this very odd (and in my view, totally dumb) first 100 meters, where everyone starts on a tiny little beach, and then we make a 90 degree turn probably no more than 15 yards after the start.  Take a pack of aggressive, fast-starting swimmers, put them all together, and force them to change directions within the first 20 seconds of the race, and that's a recipe for disaster.

The plus side:  I knew it would be bad, so I spent the minutes pre-race just calming myself down, reminding myself to expect the worst, to prepare to be punched and grabbed and dunked, coming up with positive self-talk and mantras.

And yes, I was punched and grabbed and dunked and punched some more.  I started a bit behind the front line and purposely held back a little in the first 200 meters so as to stay a little calmer, but I still got the snot beat out of me.  But I was ready for it, got through, and when clear water opened up, I was fine.

My swim wasn't amazing, but it was fine.  I wasn't looking for amazing, I wasn't willing on this day to take anything even remotely resembling a risk, I wasn't willing to redline, I just wanted to get out without incident, and I did.  I think I was the 4th woman out of the water, with some super fish ahead of me, and that was just fine and dandy.  Demon, exorcised.  Now back to business as usual.

T1
In an effort to look and act more like a real triathlete, I decided to try starting this race with my shoes already in the pedals.  I practiced getting into and out of them several times the day before and thought I was good to go.

Not so much.  One shoe flipped down and dragged on the ground, acting like a sort of brake.  I could not get started and there may have been a few choice words uttered (quietly).  And then, when I was trying to slide my foot into one shoe, I managed to kick the velco strap out of the metal thingamabob that it loopy-de-loops through.  I lack the writing skills and vocabulary to explain it better, but basically I could not fasten my shoe unless I reached down to re-thread the velcro strap through the thingamabob, all while moving.  My bike handling skills are questionable at best without messing with my shoes, downright scary with shoe shenanigans, and I would not be surprised if I lost a minute or more during the bike coasting and trying to fix my stupid shoe.  What a rookie.

Bike
There's a mystery right now (well, it's a mystery to me and my coach) and that is....why can Amanda not put together a decent bike in an International distance race?  I got on the bike, and immediately, my right hamstring and glute were sore, sore, sore, threatening to cramp, and basically making me very unhappy.  This very same thing happened in Terre Haute.  It doesn't usually happen in training.  The current theory (or at least the theory I like)...I'm kicking too hard in the swim and jacking up my leg in the process.  I'm a kicker when it comes to swimming (hey, my best race back in the swimming days was the 50, this is what I was taught!) and I think it's working against me.  Any fishes out there who have experienced something similar?  Drop me a line, if so, and tell me how you figured out how to NOT kick so much (just saying "don't kick" doesn't work, it's a rhythm thing).

Anyway, my legs were not cooperating on the bike.  My power was low, low, low, to the point that I stopped looking altogether because it was just frustrating me to be working really, really hard and only putting out the kind of power that is absolutely no problem at all during training.  At one point, I said to my legs, "come on, legs, work with me."  They didn't.

I was frustrated with my slowness, and extra frustrated with another woman passed me at mile 18 and I tried to go with her, to take a risk, but I just could not do it.  But I didn't let my mental state get too low and instead focused on doing the other stuff right-- hydrating sufficiently, taking in a couple gels, taking salt (actually I failed at that after dropping BOTH of the salt tabs that I'd taped to my bike in the span of 15 seconds).

The bike course itself was nice enough.  It's a new course, and from what I can tell, more challenging than before.  There were some nasty headwinds to deal with, some false flats, some overpassess disguised as hills, and we rode right by the Jelly Belly factory twice.  I'm newly in the midst of a month of no gluten, no sweets, no alcohol, no junk, and I love, love, love jelly beans almost as much as I love Arby's, so that was kind of a mean tease.  At least the bike course didn't take us by an Arby's.

I love jelly beans.  I miss jelly beans.

I came off the bike in 4th place, having given up huge chunks of time to the other girls in the race.  Boo.    

T2
It was getting really hot out there, and I'd dropped all my salt tabs on the bike, so I did some weighing of consequences in my head and decided that in the interest of not melting on the run, I'd sacrifice my transition.  Here's a first.  I got to transition, racked my bike, walked over to the backpack I'd brought all my stuff in (stashed a bit away from my transition area), found the bottle of salt tabs in the bag, opened the bottle, and shook out a pill.  Which I promptly dropped on the ground as I was running out of transition and accidentally put my visor right over my eyes such that I was running blind for a couple seconds.  You better believe I grabbed that salt pill right off the ground.  Five second rule!

Run
Continuing within the theme of klutziness and errors, I tried to start my Garmin when the run started, but actually managed to turn it off.  I wasn't going to look at it anyway, it's becoming clear that I run better without data, but I would have liked to see my splits afterwards.  Oh well.

I got going on the run feeling not too shabby, but I had no idea of my position or whether there was anyone within striking distance.  Sharone was standing by the exit and said something to me about "two minutes" but I had no idea if that was to the next person, or the first person, or just a general Sharone-like non-sequiter, so I just ran and tried to turn over my legs.

The run course at Pleasant Prairie basically goes out-and-back-and-out-and-out-on-a-path-and-back-on-same-path-and-around-the-lake.  Got it?  In other words, lots of places to scope out the competition and assess where you are.  There was a turnaround at about 1.5 miles, and as I was approaching, I saw that I was gaining on a girl who I later figured out to be Mary B., a long-time top triathlete in the area whose name I knew from looking at results over the years.  I tried to be all strategic-like, tucked in behind her for a little, and then surged so as to "pass with authority."

But maybe surging wasn't such a good idea, because a quarter mile later, I was dead, totally toasted, and wondering if I was going to be able to finish without walking.  There's really few more frightening feelings in triathlon than being in trouble at mile 2 of a 10K.

The thing I love about racing is that no matter what happens, there are valuable lessons and experiences to be gained from each race.  This race-- the valuable lesson was how I dealt with the low in mile 2.  I've heard so many people say, especially when talking about Ironman racing, that you have to learn how to deal with ups and down all day long, and not get too stuck in the "downs" because often, they will pass.  For me, they've never passed, and that has always been my struggle.  If I'm feeling decent all day, great, I'll keep working.  But when things spiral downhill, when I start feeling horrible, in the past I've always let my mind take over and remained entrenched in the "down" for the rest of the race.

I'm just throwing in random pictures to break up the words, work with me.

This race, I think, was the first time I've been able to successfully pull myself out of a really rough patch.  Some of it was mental approach.... I told myself I was doing well, that I was in third, that third pays money, I thought back to some of my rougher workouts when I've felt completely and utterly toasted with miles to go but managed to hold it together (it's great to think of those awesome workouts but sometimes it's the rough ones that provide the most motivation when you're struggling....it was like, I survived that day, I can survive this one), I tried to push out the negative chatter.  A lot of it was just problem-solving.  I started struggling and I set out to try and fix it.  I doubled up on the water at the next aid station, took some salt, took a gel.

And wouldn't you know it, by mile 3, I felt great again.

It got hot out there, but I just chugged along.  I could tell from all the turnarounds that I was pretty safely in third and barring a miracle, wasn't going to be able to move up any more places, so I just tried to keep working and running smart.  When I saw Nic and he meow'd at me....that was special.  At the next turnaround, I had enough energy to give him a high-five.  That was special, too.  When all was said and done, despite the heat and humidity (people were positively melting out there), I had my fastest 10K in an Olympic distance race, ever.  I'll take it.

In the end, I ended up in third place behind Lauren Jensen, an absolute stud who has been dominating short-course racing in this region for what, decades now?, and Kimberly Goodell, another Wisconsin stud.  Those two have been first and second at Pleasant Prairie for the past four or more years, I think, and I knew going in it would take an extra special day to change that.  Basically, I was thrilled to take third in such a stacked field, and happy with the day.

On the podium with two Wisconsin rock stars

The bonus?  I got paid!  This was my first payday in triathlon (not a ton of races offer money for amateurs and those that do tend to be pretty darn competitive), so I consider it pretty momentous.  It wasn't enough money to retire on ($100, which I spent all of and more at Whole Foods just a few hours later) but it made me smile.

Posing with my check like a big ole' dork.

One of the things I really like about the Chicagoland area (and when I say Chicagoland area, I'm being a little big city-centric and including the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan) is that there is no shortage of incredibly talented short-course racers, and as a necessarily corollary (oof, I'm talking like a lawyer again) lots of competitive short course races.  We've got Galena, Leon's, Evergreen Lake, Elkhart Lake, etc. etc.  I think Pleasant Prairie fits onto that list, particularly on the men's side.  Let's just say, when USA Triathlon's Next Great Hope shows up and does not win, well, that's a competitive race.  (And as an aside, based on what I witnessed and heard, said Next Great Hope might want to brush up on the fundamental difference between draft-legal and non-draft-legal races, and maybe think twice next time before berating volunteers at a local triathlon for not being able to provide accurate splits during the race, but I digress (and I'll probably delete this within minutes.) I'm not a short course specialist, as is obvious by all the little mistakes I made, but it's fun and inspiring to throw it down with girls that are just FAST.

So that's Pleasant Prairie.  Great way to spend a Sunday, and now it's back to the (alcohol and junk-food free) grind!

Getting Over Thyself

You know what's fun?  Writing race reports about races that go well, races with positive outcomes and general fun and merriment.

You know what's quite a bit less fun?  Writing race reports about races that do not go as planned.   Re-living painful or straight up embarrassing moments.  It's hard, it's procrastination-inducing (hence a race report going up on my blog almost a week after the race), but I think, for me, it's necessary. Because it's in the tough moments when the real lessons are learned.

And with that lead in, I'm sure you can guess that I had a bad race last weekend.  Here's the story.

The scene of the crime was Naperville, a place where I've spent a lot of time in the past year or so, so much that the race felt a bit like a hometown affair.  The race itself was intended to be low-key in the grand scheme of my race schedule:  the Esprit de She Women's Sprint Triathlon.  I knew it'd hurt, sprints always do, but I also knew the race environment is inspiring and a celebration of so much more than just triathlon.  I was really looking forward to this race.

The Lead-Up

Backing up a bit, however, to the weeks preceding.  I've stayed a little quiet on my recent goings on, but it's been an eventful last few weeks.  First, my condo was finally vacated, so I made the big move from the 'burbs back to the city.  Then last Monday, I started back at work.  Yes, I'm back at the law firm I left ten months ago.  My position is a little different, I'm working a slightly-reduced schedule, and understandably, I lost my lake-facing office.  But the firm was incredibly gracious in taking me back without making me grovel for it too much and working with me to devise a schedule that will allow me to train adequately for that big race I have in October, and for that I am thankful.

Which is not to say the adjustment has been easy.  It's been anything but.  These past few weeks have worn on me far more than I anticipated (and I certainly did anticipate a rough adjustment).  Moving's no fun.  And, starting a new job is always exhausting, but I will say that returning to an old job after a substantial break, trying to get your feet back under you, and being keenly and acutely aware that it's really, really important to re-prove your commitment, loyalty, and ability is even more exhausting. 

All of which is a long way of saying that I arrived in Naperville on Saturday, the day before the race, completely and utterly worn down, far more fatigued than I've felt in a really, really long time.  Friday and Saturday, I was struggling to walk up flights of stairs.  My workouts all felt horrible, not withstanding the fact that I cut them all in half in an effort to try to find some energy.  I wondered at times if I was getting the flu, but I knew I was just incredibly fatigued from life stress.  It's hard to give credence to life stress (what's so tough about work?  I'm just sitting behind a desk) but it's real and it hit me hard.  But, I honestly wasn't worried about the race.  I'll get through it, I told myself.  It's short, and it's going to hurt, but I'll be fine.

Race Day

Bree, me, Taylor

Race morning, I felt marginally better, got to the race site early, set my stuff up, and then chilled out for a while chatting with my friends Taylor and Bree, both of whom were racing in the Elite wave with me.  Bree I've known for a couple years through Well-Fit...she's a phenomenal swimmer who competed for USC and used to regularly lap me in the pool (I'm sure she still would, we just haven't had a chance to swim together for a long, long time).  Taylor's my newest most favorite swim buddy who I share a lane with when I go to Masters' practices in Naperville.  We're similar paces in the pool and work well together, trading off the lead and always pushing each other to the next level.  I was so excited to have both Taylor and Bree in the race and knew if I could stick with one or both of them in the swim, I'd be off to a good start.  So that was my strategy for that first leg of the race.....just stick with Taylor and Bree. 

The swim at the Naperville race is a funny little swim.  It's in a quarry, which is essentially a big pool.  To complete the 750 meter swim, you kinda snake back and forth, essentially completing three out-and-backs.  A-like so:

There are lane lines.  It's so shallow at times that you can walk.  I've swum in the quarry a bunch of times.  It is so NOT a scary swim.

Which is why I was and am completely bewildered and flummoxed about the fact that I had a panic attack in the middle of the swim, stopped, and quit the race after two out-and-backs. 

I've heard about people having panic attacks in the water, even pros, and even pros with swim backgrounds, but I guess I never thought it could happen to me.  I grew up in the water.  I was that pool rat that lifeguards hated, the little girl who just always wanted to be in the water, playing, swimming, doing flips off the board, didn't matter the weather, didn't matter the time, I was always at the pool.  In triathlon, the swim leg has never, ever been something I've even remotely stressed about.  I'm not scared of the swim.  Ever.

But something happened on Sunday and now it's a whole new game.

After a pretty inspiring pre-race ceremony honoring the women starting in the second wave, all cancer survivors, and listening to the National Anthem being passionately sung by a young woman who had a cancer diagnosis so bad that she was told she may not speak again, much less sing, we walked into the water for the start. 

I'm the one adjusting her goggles

The gun fired, and we were off, sprinting that first 100 meters or so, as you have to do in a race as short as this one.  I jockeyed for position, saw Bree swimming on one side of me and Taylor on the other, and figured I was in good shape.  It hurt, A LOT, but that's how it goes.  So far, so good. 

Just a couple minutes later, starting the second out-and-back, no longer so good.  Suddenly, I was completely and totally overtaken with fatigue.  I felt like a piano dropped on my back.  Just boom, I went from feeling OK to being able to hardly get my arms out of the water.  I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, I questioned whether I was going to be able to finish.  Bree and Taylor quickly pulled away.  Girls behind started passing me.  I grew more and more panicked....what is going on? Something is wrong.  This isn't right.  I flipped on my back for a moment, tried to breath, then I slowed down the pace significantly, just trying to get a hold of myself.  And when I got to the end of the second out-and-back, where it got nice and shallow, I put my feet down and I walked out of the water.  I quit. 

At first the volunteers cheered me as I walked towards the swim exit, thinking I'd just blown away the field, until they saw me shaking my head and, yeah, crying a little.  I sat down, trying to catch my breath, trying to figure out what'd just happened.  The volunteers were concerned.  "Do you need medical?"  No.  "Are you OK?" Yes.  "Is this your first triathlon?" Not exactly.  Blaine came running over, concerned something was truly wrong.  "Was there contact?  Did you get hit?  Do you need your inhaler?"  No, no, no.  "What happened???"  I have no idea.

 I sat there for a bit, more stunned than anything.  I just dropped out of a womens' sprint triathlon five minutes in.  There were a ton of thoughts and emotions running through my head, and at the risk of sounding too melodramatic, the primary emotion:  self-loathing.  Triathlon's my hobby, it's fun, and I was competing in one of the most positive, celebratory events, full of first-time triathletes just trying to finish, cancer survivors proving to themselves and the world that they had triumphed over life stresses that I can't even begin to comprehend, and here I was, sitting by the side of the water, having dropped out of the race because I wasn't winning the elite wave, because it felt hard, because my inability to keep up freaked me out.  How self-absorbed and lacking in perspective.

A couple more minutes passed, and knowing that my anger at myself would only get worse if I walked away, that quitting once would only make quitting again that much easier, I made the very, very tough decision to get back in, to finish the race.  I stripped off my wetsuit, I handed it to Blaine, and I headed back to the water to swim that last out-and-back, by myself.  By this point, every single woman in my wave had finished and was on to the bike.  I was in dead last place, having just spent at least five minutes (an eternity in a race this short) sitting out.  My "race" was over, but in a way, it was just beginning.  I think in that five minutes, I finally got over myself.  It's been a while coming.

I can't say the rest of the race was easy, it wasn't.  To be that far behind was beyond humbling, and it took a lot of willpower to keep on pushing and to keep my emotions in check.  But it also taught me a lot.  I was embarrassed by what had happened, I was embarrassed to be so far back.  Yet at one point, the volunteers cheered for me as I made a turn on the bike.  "You're awesome, you're amazing!"  My first thought, I am so not awesome.  Do you see me out here, miles behind?  But then I realized that was just my own judgment.  They didn't know.  They didn't care that I was having a bad race, they truly thought it was awesome that I was even out there.  And you know what?  It was.  It really was.

This contrast sums up the spirit of this race.  Yes, it's a race, but all sorts are out there, celebrating life and the ability to do this.  (And that's me in the background being all aero-like)

Time-wise, my bike wasn't great.  My legs and head weren't really into it.  The run wasn't stellar either, but I hung in there, I kept on working, I even caught a few girls in my wave. 

And while the moments after this race were filled with confusion, anger, a little fear, I have to say that during that run, I was awfully proud.  Proud to have turned it around and gotten over myself, proud to have gotten back out there and finished the race, proud to still be working hard even though the result was going to be bad.  I didn't have a lot of strength during the race, physically, but actually, mentally, I found some strength and courage that I didn't know I had.  It took, perhaps, falling to a low, low place to find it, but there it was.

And now....onward to bigger and better days!    

Terre Haute "Thunder in the Valley"

This weekend, I traveled to among the most glamorous places I've been so far:  Terre Haute, Indiana.  I made a very, VERY last minute decision this week to go ahead and jump into a triathlon and finally get this 2013: Phase II Season underway.

Terre Haute (I stole this from the Internet.  Work with me, my writing's not good enough to survive without some pictures)

I had planned to race several weeks earlier, but I've had a bit of a rough go since Ironman New Zealand in early March.  As I've recounted in varying amounts of detail here, I went into that race slightly injured, took two weeks completely off post-race to go on a bender in Australia and heal, then started to build back into things.

Which went well for a couple weeks, until, BAM, achilles/calf pain.  We cut back significantly on the running mileage for a while as I got treatment, but things just kept getting worse and worse while I no longer felt like I was running or even jogging, but instead was hobbling through my training.  After a few weeks of that, I waved the white flag and stopped running altogether for 8 days or so.   When it no longer hurt to walk around, I eased back into things.  And I mean, seriously eased.  As in... starting with 15 minutes of EASY running at a time.  I've only been easing back in for about two weeks now.

The time off was a good call.  Once I got back into running, I finally felt like I was actually running, not just surviving. Last weekend, I did a 5ish mile run with Blaine (my "long" run, his taper run the weekend before Ironman Texas) and felt about as good as I had in months.

So for some reason that still eludes me, once I got through that run feeling like I was actually running (finally!) I started trying to find a triathlon to do the following weekend, knowing that conditioning-wise the run could be ugly but trying to convince myself that I didn't care.   Time to get back in the saddle again.

The really competitive race in the area this weekend was Galena, a hilly, beast of a course that always attracts the top Chicago talent.  Honestly, I wanted no part of it.  I'm not afraid to admit that at this point, I wanted to dodge the competition as much as possible.  With my still-healing leg, the hills weren't enticing, either.   And then, of course, that race was sold out.  Phew. 

Instead, I looked into the Terre Haute "Thunder in the Valley" Triathlon, a long-standing triathlon (this was it's 28th year!).  Chris was heading to Terre Haute, as were a couple of other people I knew from Well-Fit, and it's always nice to see some friendly faces at a race.

On Wednesday night (like as in 2.5 days before the race), after I'd gotten the medical OK from my physical therapist, I completed the online entry and quietly set about trying to get myself in the right frame of mind.  Season kick-off races are always a little nerve-wracking.  Season kick-off races when you've been injured and inconsistent and have no sense whatsoever as to whether you'll even be able to complete the run, much less in a speedy fashion....a lot nerve-wracking. 

Chris and I made the 4 hour drive to Terre Haute together, leaving on Friday afternoon for a Saturday race.  We checked out the course (nice, in a state park), then headed out to dine at the best Italian restaurant we could find in Terre Haute -- the Olive Garden-- and then checked into our $60 dollar rooms at the Quality Inn, which hadn't been updated in seemingly decades and in which my "non-smoking" room smelled distinctly like an ash tray.  Glamour, all the way.

Flash backs to high school, which is pretty much the last time I ate at the OG

Race morning came quickly.  Gotta say, it felt pretty awesome to suit up in my new TriSports.com kit  (seriously, go buy your goods and use my code).  We arrived at transition early, set up our gear in the free-for-all transition area (yay small races) and then just milled around a little, socializing and killing time before heading over to the lake to start.

Terre Haute's a weird distance tri--- an abbreviated Olympic distance, or something like that.  800 meter swim, 40K (24.6 mile) bike, and then a 5 mile run.  Here's the run down:

The Swim
There was an elite wave of 25 people or so, based solely on projected swim time, with the rest of the field going off in the time trial fashion.  I put myself in the elite wave and was only one of 2 or 3 girls to have opted to do so.  Being surrounded by fast dudes, I knew the start would be rough and I'd probably get pummeled a little.

And pummeled I was.  It was a really rough start, and especially after not having done any open water swimming for a really, really long time, it startled me a bit.  I'm rusty, and that initial 200 meter sprint-while-trying-not-to-get-too-beat-up really took a lot out of me and left me questioning, as always seems to happen at some point in a race, why exactly I do this sport.  But I just chugged on forward, trying to keep a good effort, and got out of the water in a pretty good position-- second female behind a younger gal, who I think is a very recent college swimmer, and within 10-20 seconds of Chris, who'd I'd been chasing throughout the whole swim.   The swim was either short or I've suddenly gotten really close to swimming at a sub-minute/ 100 meter pace.  I'm going to go with a very, very short swim, as much as I'd like to tell myself I've suddenly become world-class.

T1
We had a long and rocky run from the lake and my achilles hurt with every step.  Bad sign.  I tried to ignore it, figuring that being barefoot wasn't helping matters, but it was in the back of my mind that I might not be able to run today.  So I committed to having a strong bike and keeping my fingers crossed for the best.

Bike
We set out on a 24.6 mile ride on country roads outside the State Park.   I had chosen a power range for the bike that I wanted to try to hit, and I immediately started watching my power and trying to get it into that range.  No dice.  My legs just weren't there, and it was taking a effort that didn't seem sustainable to hit the range.  So I backed off a bit, hoping the legs would come around.  They never really did, which surprised me since I've really been cycling a lot recently and figured the bike would be my strongest leg today.  Triathlon's unpredictable like that, I'm learning.

The course was nice, albeit a bit lonely.  There were some rollers, but nothing horrible, seemingly a head wind in both directions (but maybe that's just me).  Mostly, the bike just felt hard.  24.6 miles is long, but not that long, so you gotta go hard, and the effort level required at the Olympic distance just straight up hurts. 

Anything fun to report?  Not really.  There were some pretty flowers along the side of the road.  I puked a little in my mouth at one point.  I got sort of stuck behind a car, which was stuck behind the rider in front of me, for a stretch.  But other than that, not a lot to say.  It hurt, and I was ready to be done.

T2
OK, season kick-off lesson?  Just because it's a last minute triathlon that you're trying not to get too worked up about...don't skip the small stuff!  Like scoping out the transition area and figuring out where the run starts.  I got into transition, which was pretty darn empty, did all the stuff you do between the bike and the run in a somewhat non-frantic fashion (see? Rusty), and then set out to run, but really, had no idea where to go.  I spun around a little confused, looking for the exit, until a volunteer kindly pointed me in the right direction.  It's not like this was a big or terribly confusing transition area, either.  That little pre-race reconnaissance really matters.  And spoiler alert...this wasn't the last time in this race that I had to ask for directions.  What a rookie.

Run
I was nervous about the run....kind of a lot nervous.  The five miles we were to run was pretty much the longest I'd run since my downtime, and I hadn't done any fast running yet.  I knew it could be ugly.  I had a decent lead at that point, so I tried to really start the run gently in the interest of preventing a massive blow up, or worse, walking.  The leg felt fine (phew) and actually, it felt pretty good to be out there running.  This wasn't feeling anywhere near as horrible as I thought it would!

I rolled through the first four miles, flat out-and-back on a bike path, trying to build the effort with each mile.  Miles 1 and 2, I just sang to myself (not out loud, in my head, and the song was "Fifty Nifty United States" for those of you who are interested, which is pretty much my go-to I'm trying not to think about the fact that I'm doing something uncomfortable song), ran smooth, waved and shouted to Chris, over a mile ahead of me, when I saw him on the out-and-back (no response or acknowledgment, awkward, but like most people, Chris seems better able to fully focus on the task at hand than I can), and stayed pretty well dissociated.  At the turn around, I allowed myself to pick it up a bit and start chasing guys and when it got a little tougher, I started practicing my mental tricks, mantras, etc.  It's going to be a long summer of practicing mental toughness, so best to get a start on it now.

The last mile went a little XTerra-ish on us, with a run up a steep and unmowed grass hill followed by some real up-and-downs on a trail around the lake.  I didn't want to do anything stupid that'd set back the leg healing, so with the hills and uneven surface, I took the effort down and just cruised in the last mile.  Sometimes it's great and really important to finish a race feeling like you gave everything you had.  But what I'm learning is that sometimes it's important to be smart, too, and in this case, holding back a bit and not attacking hills with a somewhat sore achilles made the most sense, so I did that, and certainly crossed the line feeling like there was a good amount left in the tank.  That's OK.  For now.

I ended up as the first female in this race, which made me pretty darn happy.  This was only my second overall win, I'm still getting used to the idea of going out there and actually racing for the win in the right circumstances, and it felt pretty sweet.  I was riding back to Chicago with Chris (who was second overall in a stacked men's field), and he was pretty eager to hit the road as quickly as possible, even if it meant missing the awards ceremony.  No way, buddy, I told him.  I'm not skipping out on any awards ceremonies....this doesn't happen that often for me and I wanted to savor it!

Damn right we stayed for awards

But aside from place, I ended up very happy to get out there and get back into the rhythm of racing.  My run, which I worried so much about, actually ended up going well, much, much better than I anticipated.  I wore a Garmin but didn't look at any of my splits until after the race, and was really pleasantly surprised to be running at a pace faster than I raced at last year, despite all the inconsistencies, set-backs, and limited run training lately.  I've never been one to bounce back from injury downtime very quickly when it came to running.  But I've also never spent injury downtime busting my ass on the bike and swim, and the fitness transferred over a lot better than I expected.   Hooray for happy surprises. I truly think I'm back on track.  Relief.

Oh....the highlight of the day, without a doubt?

Yup.  It's been WAY too long and that Roast Beef hit the spot. 

California Dreaming

I spent the last several months traveling around the world, looking for that elusive “perfect” place, and lo and behold, it turns out that the one of the best spots out there was just a quick Southwest flight across the U.S. – San Diego.

I know that I live in Illinois, and I know that I pretty well skipped the worst part of winter and hung out in New Zealand instead, thus giving me really no right to complain about cold weather, but since my return to the States in March, I’ve whined about the cold with the best of them.  “Another trainer ride?  Oh, COME on!”  I’d moan, with a complete lack of self-awareness about the fact that I’d been spared months of trainer riding that my Midwestern friends had to endure. How annoying.

It was on one of those cold early (maybe even snowy) April days when Liz suggested heading out to San Diego for a weekend of warm weather training.  I hesitated about half a second before agreeing.  I needed the sun!  

 

 Liz is my coach and has been for the roughly 1.5 years that I’ve been taking triathlon seriously (that actually sounds like a really short amount of time when I write that).   In that time, she’s also become a friend, role model, mentor, etc. etc., and, together with her husband and kid, have really generously welcomed me into their home for a couple stints this year when I’ve found myself back in Illinois, but lacking access to my own home, which is rented out.  I train well with Liz… she’s a speedy little booger, so I always need to up my game to stick with her.  We definitely push each other but don’t really get competitive in that catty way that can happen sometimes.  It works, and I think the training I’ve done with Liz has made me a much better athlete.  The San Diego weekend was no exception.  

Thursday  

We left Chicago at o’dark-thirty on Thursday morning.  My plan for the trip was basically to ride my ass off for four days, swim a little, and enjoy getting to know San Diego (and its beers) between workouts.  Liz and her husband have been to San Diego for training vacations many times, she clearly loves the place, and the excitement with which she talked about all of her favorite spots (both riding and drinking) was infectious.  Liz’s plan incorporated running, too, but while I’m not going to use the dreaded “i” word here, I will say that I did not run a step in San Diego, nor had I run for a few days prior (and it’s a stretch to really call the hobbling around I was doing in the preceding weeks “running,” either).  Another blog entry, maybe (probably not) but that's that.   

Anyway, upon arrival, we made what we thought were respectable efforts at assembling our bikes, with only a few fruitless searches for how-to videos on YouTube, and then set out for a fairly easy ride along the coast.  Holy bike lanes, Batman!  I’ve never seen a city so accommodating to cyclists.  It was awesome.

Well over an hour into the ride, we stopped in at Nytro Multisport to have our bike assembly double-checked.  Turns out, our efforts were maybe not so respectable.  The skewer for my back tire, for example…not adequately tightened.  Meaning I was lucky that my back tire never just fell right off and rolled into the ocean, and confirming that which I’ve known for months—I should not be allowed to have nice things, and when it comes to bikes, I’ve got just about no clue.  I need a mechanic on staff.   

Friday  

Since Friday was forecasted to be quite hot, we decided to use that day to climb Palomar Mountain, which would be a bit cooler and more shaded than the other routes on the agenda.    Now this whole mountain-climbing thing is still pretty new to me.  I did climb some mountains during my little training trip in Spain last fall, and they pretty well killed me, but Palomar was a bit longer and steeper than any of those climbs.  Add to that that I wasn’t terribly confident in my bike fitness or my ability to haul my self up hills, much less mountains, with any sort of speed, and I was more than a little nervous about that climb.  Liz didn’t make it a whole lot better when she started in on the trash talk, asserting her proven prowess over Palomar Mountain and making it clear that I had “no idea what I was in for.”  

  

 And she was right.  I had no idea what I was in for.  

 I haven’t had a whole lot of breakthrough workouts lately as I’m still just trying to get back into the swing of things and manage my aches and pains, but I’ll give this Palomar ride the “breakthrough” title because for me, it started really, really badly, but I managed to turn it around and have a very good day.   I don’t know if I wasn’t ready for the climbing or just a little overheated or what, but once we got on Palomar Mountain and started climbing the initial, very steep section, I was just about to throw in the towel and head back to the car.  We were only 10 minutes into a climb that would take a bit less than 90 minutes, I was out of gears, I was rapidly going through my water, and it was all I could do not to start making dying animal noises as I gasped for air.   The idea of continuing on like that for another hour + seemed, well, impossible, and when we got stopped briefly by a construction worker, I turned to Liz and said, completely seriously and a little on the verge of tears, “I don’t think I can do this.”  Mentally, I was done before we’d even started. 

But Liz is smart, blunt, and I think as a coach has learned how to deal with me and my way-too-frequent moments of self-doubt.  “Yes, you can do it,” she said simply.  “It doesn’t have to be fast, just get up the mountain.”   End of discussion.

So I did.  I stopped thinking and just rode. I took in some salt, I sucked down a gel, I hydrated myself, and I got back to work and accepted my fate for the next hour+.  Pretty soon I was in a rhythm (2 gasps in, 2 gasps out), climbing well and actually enjoying myself.  The road was steep but the views were spectacular, I was hurting, really, really hurting, but I knew I was having a good, confidence-boosting ride and that propelled me forward.  

 What seemed like a million switchbacks later (actually 21), I’d gotten to the summit, my legs feeling a little jello-like and the hamstrings on both sides cramping up as soon as I got off the bike.   The sign of a good ride.  

A little more climbing to the Palomar Observatory, and then it was a long, hot descent.  I enjoyed every minute.  The best part of climbing a mountain?  Descending back down that mountain.  No question. 

 

From there, my day further descended downhill, in terms of health & responsibility, with the “vices” piling up on my end while Liz continued to do everything right.   Liz went running; I drank a beergarita in the shade.  Liz was ready to head home; I coaxed her into a casino, throwing down money at the craps table that I don’t really have.  After dinner, she spent the evening laying in bed with her computer, working and recovering and preparing for the next day like a good, responsible athlete and person.   By contrast, I took at nap at 7 PM (who does that??) then went out and walked all over La Jolla, checking out the ocean and the barking seals and then treating myself to a massive frozen yogurt.   I may not have recovered as well as I could have from the ride, but that frozen yogurt and those sunset views?  Worth it. 

This is how I "recover" from hard rides

Saturday 

By Saturday, Liz had figured out two of my weaknesses -- 1. breakfast food 2. ability to shift between my big and small chain rings without dropping my chain --  and absolutely exploited them, first suggesting a “proper” (read:huge) breakfast before leading me on a ride heading towards and through the Elfin Forest with numerous short, steep climbs that required the skilled shifting that I lack.   After the first hour+, when I’d already overextended myself a bit on the early climbs and cursed that big breakfast about 27 times, we hit Elfin Forest.  Liz owns Elfin Forest.  She sprinted onwards, taking me a little by surprise, and started really attacking the hills, getting out of her saddle, hammering each one and then taking the next one even harder, while I followed suit and just tried to hang on, to keep her in reach, to make up time on the downhills where my size is of benefit.  At one point, I wondered if Liz was trying to kill me; death by hill sprints.   She might have been.  I’m still not sure.  But it was an amazing workout, and I was pretty proud of myself for ignoring the rapidly accumulating lactic acid and powering through. Day 3 of California riding, down.

La Jolla

And then there was this.

Sunday

I squeezed in one more ride on Sunday, doing some repeats of the famous Torrey Pines hill until I got to a point, about 90 minutes in, when I was completely spent, just totally over the edge in terms of fatigue.  I struggled to get home, downing gels like candy, willing my legs to keep turning over, and when I staggered back into the hotel room, I knew my work was done.

  

The Good Stuff 

Between all the riding was the really good stuff:  4000+ yard swims in two different pools, which for those of you playing along at home, brings my 2012-2013 World Travel pool total to 39.  Amazing craft beers, chosen from a menu that was completely overwhelming due to its sheer size, and enjoyed while sitting outside around a fire pit at Stone Brewery.  Brunches.  Coffee, lots of coffee.  Barking seals.  Beach walking.  Shopping.  Carb-filled, but mostly healthy dinners.  Outdoor seating.  The aforementioned casino.  Good conversations, lots of laughs.  Sunshine.  Basically all of my favorite things (well, except running, but we’re getting there) squeezed into four days.  It was fantastic.

Masters at the UCSD pool

I do really love these little occasions to just get on my bike, take risks, race up hills, go hard when I want to go hard, then set the bike away and do it again the next day.  I’ve now had three of these little “bike” vacations – (1) RAGBRAI, last July in Iowa, when I rode my bike with reckless abandon from small Iowa town to small Iowa town, breaking up the rides with beer and pork chops on sticks (hardly performance food) but still really putting it all out there on the bike;  (2) my bike week with Vamos Cycling in southern Spain last fall, when I chased British roadie boys up and down mountains, breaking up the rides again with junk food, this time in the form of sausages and fried fish; and (3) this weekend’s San Diego trip, where the rides were most certainly NOT punctuated with consumption of junk food, unless you count Power Bar Gels and salt tabs as junk food, which I do not.   We won’t talk about that one orange soda I bought on the top of Palomar Mountain.  That doesn’t count.  

Every one of those little bike trips has been a good opportunity for me to really test my limits as a cyclist.  Each time, I’ve used my road bike (a cheap-o that I bought on Craigslist), which has none of the bells and whistles of my tri bike, meaning no access to power data, or really, any data other than miles per hour, (a metric that means approximately nothing to me when doing the sort of climbing we were doing.)   As a result, I’ve thrown away any sort of notions of pacing, and just gotten out there and worked hard, hammered when I wanted to, risked blowing up early in rides, just had fun with it.   And each time I’ve seen a pretty nice bump to my bike fitness, which I’ve already observed in the days that I’ve been back in Illinois.  

Heading out to San Diego was just what the doctor ordered, and I arrived back in Illinois to warmer temperatures (didn't last long), feeling stronger and more motivated.   Now, I just have to start figuring out the next adventure!

Seals