An early Thanksgiving...

I'm a fiercely independent person... I was pretty much single (dating) for most of my twenties and thirties, getting married at age 39, so I had a lot of time to practice taking care of myself, never asking for help. Not even really knowing how to ask for help...

4+ years ago I met my soulmate (Blanco) and over the past few years, he's softened my edges, taught me to let my guard down and acknowledge that I cannot (and do not have to) do everything. These lessons have come in handy recently. I seem to have asked for a LOT of help in the last few months.

For the past 15 months, we've been remodeling a house... It was due to be finished in late June/early July. The residential construction industry is notorious for being over budget and never on time. Why did I believe our project would be the exception? We had an August 15th deadline to be out of our rental but with October 1st the *new* expected completion date for our own house, we were staring down 6 weeks of homelessness... in a very tight SF housing market!

Some serious life stress on top of the training stress, as Blanco and I prep for Kona. Add to this fact that Blanco is carrying a lot of work stress too, traveling out of the country for the better part of July and August. It meant that I was flying solo on managing the construction project, assuring our anxious landlord that we'd move out in time... all while finding us a place to stay.

I asked for help.

I am beyond grateful that my friend Monica reached out to offer us space in her home for 6 weeks. I'm also appreciative of all the other suggestions friends offered. Yesterday, I packed up and moved most of our stuff into storage but kept everything I thought we might need between now and our trip to Hawaii in early October.

With all the move craziness over the past week, I've been uncharacteristically scatterbrained. On last Saturday's ride, I missed a turn and inadvertently tacked on an extra 20 miles to an already long ride. Poor Meredith was about to jump in her car to hunt for me when I finally found my way back to the car! Thank you Mere for your concern over my whereabouts... It's just not like me to get lost!


Of course, I made checklist upon checklist for our move this week... What can go into storage and what we need over the next 6 or so weeks for work, upcoming trips/races and of course, the big trip to Kona. I was so annoyed when I realized I had not packed my swimskin. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but nevertheless a potentially costly mistake by my scatterbrained mind! Once again, friends leapt in with ideas... Thanks to Audra, Jen, Caroline, Meredith, Hailey and Kristin for your offers of swimskins... I am now all set with one... Just need to continue working on the swim to do the suit justice.

One thing I did remember to do this week was to apply to the Betty Designs "Are you a Betty?" Brand ambassador campaign. What a fantastic opportunity that Kristin is offering... There's still time to apply... Sep 1st deadline!

Traincation part 2: Bend, OR

When I first conceived of my recent traincation idea, I had in mind a Southern California adventure visiting friends in Santa Monica and San Diego... but that plan backfired when my San Diego based friend, Beth, noted that she would be out of town :( However, my smile quickly turned around when she shared that she would be training in Bend, OR, for a month and that I was welcome to crash the training party for a few days :)

The one drawback to this plan is that I don't like driving... and Bend is located 450 miles north of Truckee and 500 miles north of San Francisco. Time to suck it up buttercup and head north in search of fresh training roads with motivated and fun training partners.

 

After a great swim at Tahoe Donner's Trout Creek recreation center last Monday, I grabbed a breakfast and a packed lunch at Truckee mainstay, Wild Cherries, gassed up the family truckster and headed north, arriving in Bend some 7hours and 15mins later. This was perfect timing for dinner with some friends that had relocated from the Bay Area to Bend a year ago. The drive was pretty as you stay in the high sierra desert the entire way, only descending below 4,000ft and hitting the greenery of the Deschutes in the final miles.

On Tuesday morning, I got up early and ran along the Deschutes River trail... just an easy 6 miler to take in the scenery and do a little discovery of my new environs. After a leisurely breakfast, I headed over to the Juniper Pool in Bend to meet up with Beth. We ended up jumping into the noon masters program at the pool which was fine but I think the main set was only 1,200m so I was a little disappointed... I really thought the coach was going to flip over his whiteboard to reveal a second set. After the swim, we hit the gym for a little functional strength session... making up the workout as we went along.

Wednesday was set to be big ride day. After a 6am swim session of 30x100m, we climbed aboard the TT bikes for a big day in the saddle... Well, we did also stop for breakfast and coffee at a local Bend coffee house, Thump. Apparently, it is Bend's finest but I don't drink coffee so hard for me to opine... I did bring home 2lbs for Blanco... just in time for his Kona decaffeination prep... Oops!

I had not ridden over 4 hours since February so I was a little nervous about the 5hr and 90+ mile ride that Beth had specc'ed out... I did not want her to be forever waiting for me to drag my slow ass up the hills... since with 5,000ft of climbing, there would be hills.

Thankfully, we balanced each other out fairly well, as my *heft* allowed me to catch up on the downhills, after Beth spun away from me on the uphills. Our ride took us up, down and around Mt. Bachelor. It was a quick ride out of town and then we were on very quiet roads... so quiet that Beth and I could ride side by side pretty much the entire way... not that we were chit-chatting... we were focused ;) Bend was experiencing hotter than usual summer weather last week (mid 90s) but we lucked out with cloud cover on the mountain the day we rode... or maybe, it was bad luck since I need all the heat training I can get for Hawaii? I survived the ride and we actually kept the watts up and the pace fairly hot right until the last couple of miles into town. Beth hit the treadmill for some *easy* 7min/miles while I did some functional strength work on my back... I was surprised but happy that a t-run was not on my schedule... and I'm not one to seek *extra credit* when Ironman training.

Thursday was my big/double run day and I started off by driving out towards Bachelor and hitting some trails that would lead me down to the river trail. I was hoping for wide, flat trails (along a river, right?) but it was a bit more rolling and single-tracky that I had bargained for. Not 10mins into my 90min run, I tripped and found myself falling towards earth... but somehow, with large strides and arms flailing, I saved myself right before I hit the deck. Phew! I was just congratulating myself on the *save* when I tripped again and this time face-planted quite hard on the trail... so hard that I felt rather winded. It was a dusty, sandy trail, so I was covered head to toe in dust when I pulled myself up. A ridiculous sight. Thankfully, the injuries were just a few superficial scrapes and I was able to continue my run, though I used up 3/4 of my water bottle rinsing dust out my scrapes.

After the run adventure, I drove to the pool and met up with Beth for a midday swim (so luxurious to swim outdoors that I swam every day in Bend) before hitting the treadmill for my second run of the day... 45mins of building pace to tempo. It was very refreshing to run in the temperature controlled gym since the temperatures outside were well into the mid-90s by this time of day. I know, heat training outside might have been better but I was also licking my wounds from the first run of the day.

Kids play area adjacent to the Juniper 50m pool

Friday morning came around far too quickly and I was sad to bring my traincation to a close... though not before hitting the pool for an easy 3k. Post-swim was a fantastic breakfast at Chow (delicious food and they grow their own produce right out back of the restaurant) and then the challenge of packing up my belongings into the car and hitting the road for the 499 miles back to San Francisco.

The early miles of the drive were pretty as the route skirted around Mt. Shasta in Northern California. The entire drive was incident-free with the exception of one event about halfway through my drive. I-5 is a two-lane freeway (runs north-south through CA) with a 70mph speed limit. There was traffic on the roads but it was not too busy and cars were moving close to the speed limit. I was driving around 60mph in a line of cars as we passed an on-off ramp. I spotted a police car stopped with another vehicle on the side of the road (possibly an earlier accident or a ticket?). The cars ahead of me slowed down but not so dramatically that anyone was slamming on the brakes and I felt very comfortable slowing to match their speed... unfortunately the car behind me must not have been paying close enough attention as I suddenly hear a screech of brakes and I see in my rear-view mirror that the car behind is fishtailing and then completes two 360 degree turns. I braced myself for an impact in all of this and my heart was beating faster than during any training session that week. Remarkably the car behind came to a complete stop in the wide center median without touching another car. I kept on driving, along with the rest of the traffic stunned at what had just happened but relieved that no one was harmed.

I made it home in time to greet Blanco off his HKG-SFO flight, very happy to be reunited with him but sad to be back in foggy, cold San Francisco summer weather.

Traincation part 1: Lake Tahoe, CA

Post Vineman 70.3, the plan was always to launch into *focused* training for Ironman Hawaii. The last few months of training have had 70.3 specificity with less focus on LONG (4+hrs) rides and longer runs.

With my husband away for 2 weeks on a business trip, rather than ride and run the same old routes around Marin County, I decided to take my training on the road and escape the summer fog in the city... Side note: that reminds me of my favorite billboard around town right now.. "Don't call it Frisco... Or summer..." :)

Lake Tahoe

The first stop on my traincation was the Lake Tahoe area. I've been coming to Tahoe in the summers to train since I first qualified for Ironman Hawaii in 2005. The access to quiet roads to ride, great trails to run and open water swimming in Donner Lake are great and the training benefit is further heightened when you consider the 6,000ft elevation.

My friend, Mimi, not only offered to host me for a long weekend, she was also a willing partner in my training plan since she is training for Ironman Lake Tahoe AND Ironman Hawaii right now! Since she's on the IMLT plan, last Friday she and I met up with a fellow Olympic Club member to ride a loop of the IMLT course.

Dean, Mimi, Jordan at Squaw

Wow! The race is going to be a toughie... we were lucky enough to have access to Martis Camp (private road) and were able to ride an entire loop of the course (note: actual course is 2 loops plus a bit) and there is a lot of climbing. There is a small climb within Truckee (along back roads and bike paths) but the real tests of the course will be the climb up Martis Camp (~800ft) followed quite quickly afterwards with a climb up and over Brockway summit (~1,000ft) where the altitude tops out at 7,120ft. I would typically race the Ironman bike leg focused solely on watts, but the altitude makes a huge difference, especially as I am coming from sea level. If I were racing, I'd be paying quite close attention to heart rate as well. After our little trio finished the ride (we staged out of the Squaw parking lot), I went for a 20min run on the IM course. The course starts with a gentle descent so it could be a nice way to warm up the legs coming off the bike in the race.

On Saturday Mimi and I decided to ride the loop of Lake Tahoe... a 72 mile ride that hugs the Lake's shoreline and offers spectacular views. It's one of my favorite rides and I'll be back to ride it again later this summer! We made the smart decision of staging at Sunnyside (on route 89 a few miles south of Tahoe City) so on our return, we did a quick soak of the legs/body (closest thing we were going to get to a shower) in Lake Tahoe before joining some friends for a late lunch at Sunnyside. They had just competed in the Trans-Tahoe swim race across the lake so after lunch they offered to take us out on the boat for a quick swim! So fun to be in the middle of the lake on a boat :)

Sunday morning's training plan called for open water swimming so Mimi and I launched from the east end of Donner Lake at 7am for an hour long swim.

Mimi & Jordan at Donner Lake

Even though we wore wetsuits, the water is currently a balmy 73f, so we could probably have survived without them... if we swam briskly! Post-swim, we took off for a 90min run around the lake (~1.5 laps).

Monday morning was a travel day for me as I embarked on the 2nd part of my traincation... but before I left the Tahoe area, I snuck in a 3.5k swim at the Trout Creek rec center in Tahoe-Donner. I was happy to have the pool pretty much to myself.

Trout Creek pool

A weekend in the Sonoma vineyards...

Well, Vineman did not go at all to plan. Admittedly, I had been feeling a bit *blah* all week but I was hoping that it was the taper and that I’d get a little bit of Race Day Magic to give me that extra spark to go sub-5hrs there.

Swim –33:54 was exactly the same time as two years ago so I wasn’t psyched to see that time as I do think my swimming has improved in the last 18 months… BUT everyone else seemed to have a slower swim (from the pros on down), so I’ll take the swim as a positive! Blanco used to outswim me by 6mins and our gap on Sunday was only 4.5mins, so perhaps another indicator of a decent swim? The one bummer of my swim was that I was completely solo… the front group(s) seemed to get away and that left me swimming solo with just yellow caps from the mens’ wave ahead to swim through.

Bike – 2:37:39 was my fastest ever for the Vineman course and 3^rd fastest of the AG, though I was amazed when Cherell Jordin blew by me. There was no way I could have stuck with her. She ended up riding the best split of the age group with a 2:31. Speedy! I was definitely working on the bike but all my typical checks were that I was spot on… watts, heart rate, able to get food down, plenty of Nuun drunk etc.

Run: 1:48:27 - I ran the first couple of miles in 7:4X but then had absolutely nothing… It’s as if the lights went out. My legs felt heavy and dead and I struggled to turn them over and push any sort of pace. By the last few miles of the run, 8:30 pace felt hard! This was my WORST run ever on the Vineman course. It was much slower/worse than an easy 10+ miler I ran last Sunday at just over 8:00 min/mi pace. Fuelling was consistent with other recent races and I did not have any nutritional issues… so I don’t have many answers to what happened?

Total time: 5:07:55… my slowest time there in a LONG time… maybe ever…

Here are my ideas for why it was such a bad race…

Option 1: Just an off-day

Option 2: I biked too hard

Option 3: I’m not fit

Option 4: Life stress

I’ll catch up with coach tomorrow as the next race up is Ironman Hawaii… not being fit for Kona is NOT an option!

Post-race, it was fun to catch up with friends and hear about so many successful races… the highlight was of course, Meredith’s defense of her Vineman title.

Some words on Mere… the girl does WORK! Meredith puts the time and effort into her training and it is so rewarding to see her commitment bear fruit, even more so after the recent adversity… she is ALWAYS the first in the pool in the mornings, swimming 1500-2000yds warm-up before Matt Dixon starts the workout. She completes every repeat that Matt instructs us to do on the runs, even when it seems 2-3 more than we feel capable… and she rides each bike interval down to the last second countdown, even if it means she has the towel between her teeth to avoid biting through her bottom lip. It’s inspiring to be able to train alongside (or a ways behind!) Meredith and it’s motivating to know that she cares how the folks around her are doing, whether it’s a pre-race good luck text from her or a post-race congrats and her wanting to know how MY race went.

My other hero of the day was Blanco. The guy has the most positive attitude about everything in life of anyone I know (well, he could be tied with Mere for that title!)… it’s awesome to have him as my number one supporter in racing and of course in life J He had a solid race and scored 3^rd in his AG and brought home a nice bottle of La Crema wine.

 

We have a busy few months ahead of us as we complete the renovation on the house we bought last year and move in… and build up the training for Ironman Hawaii in October.

 

claus•tro•pho•bia

noun \ˌklȯs-trə-ˈfō-bē-ə\

Not much truly scares me. I am not fond of snakes or spiders, and walking over a trestled railway bridge yesterday made my heart leap a little but these things don’t really scare me. However, the one fear I do have is that of “having no escape” and/or “a feeling of suffocation”. Claustrophobia.

I was recently watching a show, Property Brothers on HGTV - we’re renovating a house so it’s now my go-to channel! - and the presenter needed to crawl under a house to fix a pipe and had about 16” of clearance in which to do it. I found my breathing rate increase and my body tense up as I watched him crawl under the house to fix the problem. Last week, I was at the dentist, and my knuckles turned white as I gripped the chair when the dentist/hygienist had all the equipment in my mouth… you’d think I was being water-boarded given the panic that gripped my body. I felt claustrophobic…

The Property Brothers

This fear has affected my swimming over time… In fact, I did not learn how to exchange air while swimming until my first Ironman in 2004. When I first learned to swim, I hated to put my face underwater and keep it there so I swam head’s up/doggy paddle for 3 years in triathlons! Even now, it takes me a few hundred meters of warm-up swimming before I’ll start to flip-turn and totally feel comfortable breathing in the water.

I’m currently preparing for Olympic distance and half-ironman distance races over the next 6 weeks and in the last couple of months I’ve been attending swim/bike/run training sessions with Matt Dixon of PurplePatch. I’m coached by Chris Hauth of aimpcoaching.com and he choreographs the larger training plan (Kona is the A race) and gives me guidance for the effort levels in each session but he’ll leave the details to whatever Matt has in store for the group… trusting I will use my experience to adjust as necessary.

In the pool, Matt pushes us hard, upping the ante in swim sets by frequently demanding that we deck up between intervals and dive in for the next interval. The swim effort level might only be at threshold (80-85%) but the strength and agility required to quickly deck up and then dive back in adds an anaerobic element to the session. I am usually sucking wind as I dive back in and need to figure out how to settle my breathing without coming to a complete stop in the pool. I find it suffocating… it’s claustrophobic… I have to fight the urge every interval to hang out at the wall and take a breather. Thankfully, the camaraderie and support of my lane-mates (Monica, Ariane, Danielle) help me to keep my head in the game and not give in to my claustrophobic fears. Besides, being caught hanging on the wall would make me the target of Matt Dixon’s next joke which is something I’d rather avoid, not least because he’s not funny ;).

Recently, in Matt’s computrainer classes at VeloSF, we’ve been doing increasingly longer intervals of Z4 watts. The pinnacle was a workout last week where we held Z4 for 16mins, 12mins, 8mins and 4mins… and we were not spinning easy between those sets either! The first few minutes are comfortable but then you hit a point as you sit on the bike in the packed and airless studio where it becomes “uncomfortable”. Frequently, coaches and athletes refer to the concept of “get comfortable being uncomfortable”, you’re not blowing up as it’s still somewhat aerobic but it requires focus to keep the pedals moving and to quiet the internal voice that is telling your legs that “it’s okay to quit”. Matt said: “this will feel claustrophobic” and I think that was the best description I’ve ever heard for this kind of athletic effort level. For me, I’m on the edge of discomfort but I’m not quite at failure, so I can keep going but it’s suffocating and it becomes a mental battle of head over legs and conquering my fear of claustrophobia.

Treadmill sessions have the same effect on me. Last week’s session was 5x10mins where I alternated 7mins at 20secs faster than Ironman pace and 3mins at 20seconds faster than half-ironman pace… and I forgot my iPod so it really was just me and the mental battle!

Thankfully, the past weekend, I was given a break from the claustrophobic sessions with aerobic trail running on the schedule… Chris tailored my training plan perfectly around a weekend trip to Oregon. We were in Mt. Hood for a wedding. While several members of the wedding party hiked up Mt. Hood the morning of the wedding, my husband and I joined Sami Inkinen and his wife Meredith for a lap of Timothy Lake. The trail was a 20mile drive from the resort (we stayed at Timberline Lodge) and thankfully we lost 2,000ft of altitude in those miles so our run was at a more comfortable level of 4,000ft. The lake trail was almost exactly 11 miles around and was for the most part very cushy underfoot. It helped that there was a trail marathon taking place, marking the course with floaty pink ribbons. At the end of the run, it was fantastic to cool off in the ice-cold lake waters… and of course, my husband decided to take a running leap into the lake!



Blanco

Three races in three weeks...

The last time that I raced three times in three weeks was 2005 when I raced Ironman Hawaii, Xterra Maui and the San Diego Triathlon Challenge on consecutive weekends. This time around my three races in three weeks was a much gentler affair with a half-marathon, a 5k and a Sprint distance triathlon.

After the Oceanside race, I returned to San Francisco and got sick... crazy, snotty, head cold sick... it even migrated a little bit to my chest so I spent the first few weeks in April laying low and doing light workouts to keep the body moving. It also meant that I missed two 10k running races that I had planned. A key focus for me right now is to develop some more run speed as I prep for my next major race this season (Vineman 70.3 in July) and I wanted to incorporate some running races to give me some goals, get me used to hurting on the run and to have some *results* to show for my training!

Thankfully, towards the end of April I was recovered enough to start training full bore once more and to slowly ramp up the running. I still had one more running race on the calendar but I had definitely lost a few weeks of training so pace goals were out the window!

On May 5th, I toed the line at the Pleasanton half-marathon. Pleasanton is in the East Bay and is a solid 45min drive from SF so I was up at 4:30am to eat breakfast and then make the drive east for the 7am start. I positioned myself alongside the 1:40 pace group, hoping that I would be able to inch my way ahead of this group and run 1:3X something. I started running 7:35 min/miles and felt fine for about 2-3 miles but that pace required focus for sure! I maintained this pace through 8 miles when I had to take a bathroom break and suddenly recorded an 8:30min/mi. I got back on pace for mile 9 with a 7:35 min/mi but started to struggle for miles 10-12 with the pace slipping to 7:50. I ate a couple of Clif Bloks and recovered with a last mile of 7:30 and finished with a total time just over 1:40, a few minutes off my PR of 1:37:15. However, at such a small race, it was good enough for top ten overall (9th female) and first place in my age-group. While far from a great result, the run pacing was as fast as the 10k that I did in March, so it illustrates a little progress... more than twice the distance... same pace!

The following weekend was the Girls on the Run 5k. This spring I have been a running buddy to an 8 year old girl (Lyla) as she trained for her first running race . I discovered that pacing does not come naturally to 8 year olds so in training we focused on "talking while running". Also, her love of animals made some of the training run challenging as she would want to stop and pet every dog in the neighborhood on our runs! However, I was super excited to help her run the entire course of the 5k race and in a great time... she averaged ~11min/miles which is pretty impressive for such a tiny little girl! The highlight for me was seeing her happy face when she received her very first finisher's medal... She also designed and wrote me the sweetest note... melted my heart!

 

The final race of my trifecta was yesterday's Morgan Hill Sprint triathlon. It's a long sprint race as the distances are 0.75mile swim, 16mile bike and a 5mile run. With such a short bike and relatively longer swim/run, it hardly caters to my strengths but I figured it would be a fun test of my recent swim and run training (with Matt Dixon of PurplePatch).

 

I attempted this race in 2012 but flatted 200 yards out of T1 (I was not carrying a spare) so I re-racked my bike and just did the 5mile run. What's more, on the drive home from that race, my TT bike flew off the car in the middle of the freeway and was destroyed :( I wanted some major redemption at this race!

Rich did not want to race so I drove down solo. Unfortunately, the drive took longer than anticipated and I arrived with much less time than I was hoping to prep my transition area... I also had a horrible parking spot and a terrible position in transition. Note to self: get there early at these small races!

I set up transition, did a 10min warm-up jog and then it was time to get the wetsuit on. The male waves went first follwed by the female waves. There were two female waves with women 39 & under 4mins ahead of my wave of women 40+. My wave was also the second to last wave so there would be a lot of traffic in the lake and on the road ahead of me. I have been swimming fairly consistently with Matt Dixon's PurplePatch swim in the last year and a half and I think the tough sessions are beginning to yield results. My goal on the swim (and the entire race) was to be on the very edge of blowing up. Last year I swam a 23:03 here so I was psyched to see 21:22 on my watch as I hit the timing matt.

T1 left something to be desired (must work on it) but I was soon out of there and on the bike. My dear husband had set up the bike for me the day prior, including calibrating speed and power on my SRM control which I swap between my road and TT bikes. However, I had forgotten to "check his work" in my hurry that morning so it wasn't until I saw the power registering at 300w + that I realized that I had not adjusted the zero offset... I can't blame Rich as he did not know to do that... I should have pre-ridden the bike! I wasn't planning to focus on the numbers but it would have been nice data to have post-race. I was focused on what I call "scraping the bottom of the barrel" on the bike... basically translates to going as hard as I can and really pushing the power. It was a little challenging with 300+ athletes already out on the course and roads that were open to traffic. I found myself continually passing folks for the entire 16 miles and was not passed by a single athlete. I did get caught behind a car, that was caught behind some other athletes, for the better part of one mile during the ride... but that's just what happens in these small races, I guess.

As I came into T2, I noticed that I had not seen any women in the last few miles of the bike so I figured I must be close to the front of the race. It also dawned on me that I had completely forgotten to put on my race belt (still in my backpack!) so I would need to find it before I hit the run. I racked the bike and spent far too much time  looking for the belt such that time-wise T2 > T1. I would rue that extra minute by the end of the race!

The 5 mile run was out and back, gently climbing for the first 2.5 miles to the turnaround. There were no other women around me but plenty of guys to focus on catching. Rich had asked me my goal pace for the run and I told him that I didn't really have any but I thought to myself that I wanted the average pace to be closer to 7:00 than 7:30. Last year, I ran the 5 mile section at average pace of 7:32 but did not bike.

I hit mile 1 in 7:14 and felt okay but the day was warming and I had not drunk enough Nuun-water on the bike. I picked up some fluids and ate some Clif bloks during mile 2 and hit that mile in 7:22.  I climbed up to the turnaround and was excited to be on my way home. I had counted just four women ahead of me... though they all seemed younger, very fleet-footed and three of them seemed to be quite a ways ahead! I hit mile 3 in 7:10 and just as I approached the mile 4 marker, I spotted a woman ahead of me. I could see "38" on her calf (not my age group and she started 4mins ahead of me). I was hurting and I briefly debated settling into my rhythm or lifting my pace to close the gap and then I reminded myself that I needed to stay on the edge! I picked it up a little and as I approached her shoulder, I told her that I was 42 (I forgot to body mark... are you counting the rookie mistakes here? #5 or so) and she said thank you. Mile 4 was a 7:07 and then I finished up with a 7:16 for mile 5. The total race time was 1:48:18.

My time was good enough for 4th overall... 3rd place was just a minute ahead (darn T2!) so I was a little bummed to miss the overall podium. However, I did win my age-group which was a first for me at a distance shorter than Ironman! My bike split was the second fastest on the day... just 60 seconds slower than 1st place... which was another bummer as there was a $100 bike prime! At least I won a new pint glass to add to our collection, plus a nice bottle of wine!

I have a couple more races (half-marathon and Olympic distance triathlon) coming up in June but the real focus for the next two months is training for Vineman 70.3. I've finally begun to pick up the bike and running volume in preparation for Vineman, and with an eye towards Kona in October. It's "no excuses" time of year :)

Ironman California 70.3 race report

Rich about to go paddle-boarding post-race.

Having watched my husband and so many friends toe the line in Los Cabos just two weeks ago, I was really looking forward to getting my own race season underway this weekend. I was a little slow to get really focused in training since last November’s Cozumel race but I had been having some decent swim and great bike workouts in recent weeks. The run had been looking particularly questionable, but I’d even had some fantastic runs in the last 2 weeks!

The lead up to my first race of the season could not have been much better. Rich and I flew down to San Diego on Friday morning and immediately drove to meet our host for the weekend, Katya Meyers, at the PAC pool in Carmel. After a short, stretch-out swim, we headed to meet Nick Nicastro, the man behind SagMonkey to pick up our bikes for a quick spin and run to shake out the legs. Nick was staying in a house convenient to transition so he offered to keep our bikes until the following morning rather than pile everything into the rental car. I cannot say enough wonderful things about Nick and the service he provides. The rest of the day was chilling and we did not even have to think about dinner as a friend who happens to be a personal chef, Jess Cerra, had generously offered to cook up a pre-race dinner for Beth Walsh, Rich, myself and a few other friends. It was delicious and so nice to not have to worry about shopping and cooking.

 

The alarm sounded at 4:15am and after a lazy 15mins checking email and Twitter, we finally got up and dressed and ate a breakfast of almond butter and bananas on toast washed down with some Nuun-infused water. 

We drove to meet Nick at SagMonkey and picked up our bikes, dropped off our run gear and then headed to T1 to get set-up. It’s great to race with my husband. He came to check on me as soon as he was organized and we spent the time leading up to our race starts together. He was set to start 16mins after me and we figured that I should see him about halfway into the bike, as I am usually 5-6mins slower on the swim and he usually rides 15mins faster in a half-ironman.

My wave departed at 7:17am and the gun took me a little by surprise as I never heard the 10 second warning. It was a smooth start and I was barely touched as I set off swimming. I swam tight to the yellow buoy line and had clear water to the first red turn buoy at which point, I found some feet and never left them for the rest of the swim. I found myself fighting a few times to hang on as the feet seemed to swerve (or I did?) but those feet dragged me to the finish. I was beyond ecstatic to see 31:XX on my watch. Last year I swam 36:XX and the year before was 34:XX. This is the fastest swim I have ever done and I thought to myself right there: “I don’t care what else happens today, I just got a swim PR and I’m happy!”. People have talked about a short swim and that’s possible (my Garmin measured 1.18mi) though Andy Potts only swam 1min faster this year. I think the conditions were much calmer this year with no swells.

Into transition and the run was long and slow as I was stuck behind a few folks on the narrow carpet but I was soon on to the bike and feeling pretty good. I began drinking and fuelling (Nuun and Clif Bloks are my 70.3 nutrition of choice) and was flying past lots of people with no one passing me. The course can be a little tricky with lots of bumps in the first few miles (and last few miles since you return the same way). 11 miles into the bike course, I hit a bump really hard and heard a loud “smack” noise. I continued riding but quickly realized something was wrong, as I was not moving very fast in spite of the 200w I was supposedly putting out. I thought that I had a flat. I pulled to the side and got off the bike to check the tires, review the wheel speed sensor (it had stopped working so I wondered if it was hitting the wheel or was caught somewhere) - all good - and then get rolling again. The issue had not disappeared. I ride a few more hundred yards and then pull over again. A guy stopped (such nice people racing in triathlon!) and asked if he could help. I thanked him and said I was fine, just trying to figure out what was rubbing my wheel. I watched as a few girls in my age-group rode by (Sandrine Micoleau who had exited the swim with me, Polly Crawford and Cherell Jordin, both of whom usually swim slower than me). I was getting frustrated trying to figure out what was rubbing. I did think to myself that my husband would probably be along in a few minutes so if I was still on the side of the road, he’d stop to help me. I was trying to be methodical, checking things on my bike, reviewing the front and rear brake calipers to see if either were catching. The front wheel was causing the problem but however I adjusted the brake caliper, the wheel continued to rub. I was beginning to feel chilly and frustrated but I kept reviewing playing around with the front brake caliper/wheel. Suddenly, as I was spinning the wheel, trying to adjust the brake, the front wheel almost slid out of the fork… the skewer was loose! OMG. That’s why I could not fix the brake… it was the entire wheel that was unstable. I quickly tightened it and got back on the bike and became focused on catching back the ladies that had just passed me by. I was doing a little cursing to myself as I had really wanted to ride a 2:3X:XX bike split (and had told my coach and Rich that was a goal) and knew that with good conditions, it was within my capability. I also knew that with my swim time, I could possibly race close to 5hrs which would be a dream time on this course. I know… I was getting ahead of myself!

I quickly got my head back in the game and focused on re-catching the ladies that had passed me by. Rich rolled up around mile 20 and I gave him a quick recap of the events before he was on his way to a speedy 2:24 bike split (13 days after Los Cabos!). I was riding hard and looking for the Nytro kit of Polly Crawford, as this would give me some confidence I was back in the race. I caught Polly on the rollers after the big hill and we traded places back and forth a few times on this section before I rode away from her on the flats (riding steady watts usually means I pull away on the flats). I continued to fuel well and feel good through the rest of the bike ride and watching my SRM, I was thinking a sub 2:40 bike time would be close! Indeed, I hit T2 in 2:39:40 but of course, that did not account for the time on the side of the road :( My official bike split was 2:46:09.

After a quick transition, I hit the run course and was feeling pretty good. I clicked off the first few miles in around 7:40 pace (did not eat anything the first 3 miles?!?!) but was pretty disillusioned to see Angela Bancroft leading the AG, quite a ways in front of me (and running fierce! She looked awesome). Rikka Aramo was not far behind her and I spotted Cherell also way ahead of me and looking very strong on the run. I think I gave up right about that point. I walked the next aid station, took in some food and thought to myself that this would be a nice run but I didn’t need to make myself hurt since I wasn’t catching anyone! The miles slowed to 8min+ but I was just fine with that. Polly ran by me but I was fine, giving out a few cheers to fellow OC team-mates and watching my husband back up his recent Ironman AG win with a very solid race here. My stomach was in a good place all day and as the miles clicked on, I picked up the pace a little more, bringing the miles splits back under 8mins. I crossed the line in 5:10:00, slightly faster than last year but not a PR for this course, and it was well off the top 3 in the AG. It was good enough for 5^th place.Rich also scored 4th in AG so we showered and ate Mexican food at Katya's house before heading back to Oceanside for awards.

5th place AG

Women's and men's 40-44 podium

Men's 45-49 podium

Who knows what would have happened without the mechanical, I couldn’t control that part of the race… but I could control how I ran… and the effort was not good enough!

I have a few more running races coming up over the next few weeks before my next triathlon in late May. Time to make myself suffer on the run!

Spring-time mule cocktail at The Pearl

Rich and I spent Sunday morning hanging at the beach with Katya and her husband, Andy, before meeting up with Linsey and Chris Corbin, Steph and Britt Swanson and Luke McKenzie for a late lunch at the Pearl… awesome food and cocktails!

Seal pup

Huge halibut that divers caught off Tides Beach