It has been awhile, sorry. I think the last time I (A) blogged was right before the Steamboat Springs Stage Race over the Labor Day weekend. Gulp! What happened to my regular updates? I guess life got in the way! That was a full bit of time with a 4-race holiday weekend with the GS Boulder ladies in Steamboat, then a ½ ironman race the next weekend at Harvest Moon (great race by Without Limits Productions) where I PRed and finally broke my 5-hour curse with a 4:40 and change, followed by a hot and dusty cyclocross race on weekend #3. At the start-line for the cyclocross race, I just had to laugh at the wide variations in racing venues over the past few weeks.
Anyways, this update is supposed to serve as a catch up. So, here you go:
Steamboat Springs Stage Race: I did well and had fun racing my bike. I went in without enough points to upgrade to cat-3 and came out with an automatic upgrade after accumulating lots of points over the 4 races. I started with a win in the prologue TT, was second in the circuit race and had the GC lead by 1 second, raced a good road race with my biggest GC threat where we rode together until the final climb and then she threw down the move I had planned to make, and held on to 2nd in the GC in the crit by finishing in the pack. To top it off, most of my teammates had great races, too. Lorna ended 3rd in the GC! Unfortunately, we did have a teammate in a very scary crash. Jennica is a trooper, though, and is planning her come back, as a cat 3, at the Gila in a few weeks.
Harvest Moon Triathlon: This race was so fun! I got to sleep in my own bed (too many years of Ironman has made that a novelty!). E was my race sherpa. My swim was solid, my bike was solid (may have had more to give, but really wanted a fast run). I had some very slow transitions (this used to be a strength, but I guess I’ve gotten soft) but otherwise a great race. I was spot on nutritionally, made one quick potty stop near the halfway of the run, and finished 3rd overall woman behind Sonja Wieck and Mandy Mclane. I got a chance to work on good run cadence and just focus on motoring along. The best was the finish line: a slip-n-slide to dive into! Anyways, I think my old half-iron PR was 5:09, so a 4:40 was an awesome result (Sonja and Wendy were neck-and-neck a good 10 minutes in front of me, so there is always room to grow!).
Cyclocross: E has already posted some pics and blogged about his season. This was an interesting year for me in ‘cross. I was playing with the big girls this year as I took an upgrade to cat-3 at the end of 2009. They are fast! There were plenty of highlights (3rd at state behind two fast riders from Hudz-Subaru) and lowlights (scary course preview crash an hour before my start that had me frightened and cramping, where I finished 30th of 33 racers), and lots of good been and friends along the way. I met some new friends (fast ladies out there, tough, too), and really got a chance to push my comfort level. Riding my bike on dirt scares me. A lot. But I’m slowly getting over that, learning skills, trusting my bike, AND remembering how to push my body to new levels of pain (from physical, aerobic exertion, not crashing, lol!). I was a blast chasing Margel, Karen, Lisa, Amanda, Melanie, Lorna, Melissa, Kat, Nicole, Sara, Erin, and all the rest of you around and around the course each week. I’m already excited for the 2011-2012 season.
Everything else: Since cyclocross ended, work has really ramped up and has taken up most of my time. We had a good break around Christmas, which we spent in Coloradothis year, just the two of us. The highlight was lots of yummy cooking, baking, and a few trips into Grand County to ski. E and I did sneak in enough training to prepare to race the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon. We love this race, and always think of it as a good gage of our February fitness since we have done it so many years now. That race report will be coming next, but I’ll lead into it by saying we both had good races this year, but “I want to go faster!”
2011 blogging plan: don’t hold me to it, but I have a plan to get over my lazy blogging habits: posting once a week at a minimum. Consider this the update for 2011 Week 9.
Ketchup: this was really just a play on words, and a check to see who would read this whole thing. Sorry if I kept anyone hanging.
Cheers!
Showing posts with label racing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racing. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Friday, August 13, 2010
IM Lake Placid Race Report: A's version
As E already relayed, we had a nice trip out from Denver to Burlington, VT (who knew that tons of other people would be trying to catch the parking shuttle at 4:30 in the morning?). The 6 am flight was a bit rough, but we were prepared with homemade meals, and a ~2pm arrival was a nice treat (flying East is always a chore from Denver, but this was better than our usual red-eye into NYC where you leave at ~midnight and arrive at 6am, the perks of traveling to race, not for vacation or business!).
Lap 1 of the run... see my potty stop at mile ~10?
Lap 2 of the run.... what happened with 8 miles to go, and can you see where I was walking the aid stations?
A nice late lunch on Church Street got us fed a decent, bigger meal, then we pointed the rental car North and West and headed for the ferry crossing of Lake Champlain. Our plan was then to drive in and preview ~1/2 the bike course, from Ausable Forks all the way to Lake Placid as we made our way over to our lodging in Saranack Lake. Heavy rain challenged this plan, you couldn't see much, but we got a sense that the area was green, pretty, and somewhat hilly. Once we found NCCC (North Country Community College) we had some trouble finding check-in for the dorms. Eventually we backtracked and parked near a building with "Visitor" parking spots, only to read a sign with directions on where to go to check in (back out towards the entrance, then left, right, left over the RR tracks, right, and first building on the right. No we did not get it right on our first try, but by our 3rd or 4th try we found it!).
As we moved in, we learned that our accommodations were a bit more rustic than we anticipated. Luckily, we were able to just roll with it. We unpacked our clothes into the dresser and headed out for a quick run to loosen up and shake out the travel, then found dinner and a grocery store (bought bars of soap and contemplated a cheap shower curtain).
That was Wednesday. The next couple of days we settled in, laid low, and got ready to race. We had 2 GREAT swims in mirror lake, picked up our bikes from TriBike Transport, rode the only flat miles of the course to spin out the legs and make sure the bikes shipped fine (between Upper Jay and Jay), and read and rested. I was sleeping well (not the case before St. George), we were fueling well (cutting back on fiber, still no coffee for me until race morning), and all signs were good. The only small hiccup was my watch dying (I use the timer to remind me to eat and drink on the bike) during our second Mirror Lake Swim. I swung into the expo, though, and picked up a new one at the Timex booth (I may have paid too much for it, but it sure was convenient to just stop in there and get a new one right away).
This trend continued race morning. We woke early (4 am, I think) and tried not to make too much noise and wake our suite-mates, Tommy (from Long Island) and Rob (from 'Jersey). A breakfast of pop-tarts (no fiber), banana, juice with carbopro, and coffee (no coffee maker or french press, so some Starbucks via thingies from the grocery) and we were out the door. Rob had shared his secret parking spot with us the night before, so we headed there and got pretty close to transition. Then we got body marked, did a warm-up hike out to the special needs drop off spots, and headed back to transition to add nutrition to the bike, pump up tires, apply body glide, and turn in our dry clothes bags. Somewhere in there I lost my swim cap, but I easily picked up a new one on the beach.
Once we were fully in our wetsuits, we headed into the water, swam a tiny bit, then floated over to the shore opposite the beach to stand and wait a bit for the pro start before finding our spots. We ended up in the middle, ~3 people back from the banner (start line). It was a beautiful morning, a great day to race! Off in the west, a tunderstorm cloud was building, but it was also sunny where we were.
The cannon fired and we started to swim. This swim is 2 loops, a short beach run in the middle. The course is a long, skinny rectangle and the buoys are set on a cord that runs the length of the course, a meter or two below the surface. The whole way out to the turnaround on the first loop I spent passing people. I was to the right and just out of sight of the cord, but tracked well due to the total number of people also tracking off that line.
Part way down, my right hip flexor started to cramp. Uh-oh! I ignored it as best I could and swam on. The return of that first loop went smoothly, but I began to notice some rubbing under my right armpit. I was in my sleeveless wetsuit and the leash for the zipper was caught up in there. I fixed that during my beach "run" (more of a walk for me as I was fixing my clothing, and I still forgot to look for my split time on the clock!) and all was good for the second lap. Except now it seemed like everyone was passing me, not the other way around. I swam steady and strong, but added a left calf cramp to my right hip flexor stiffness/pain and got a small nick in my nose from another racer's watch (I think that was my only real contact during the swim, pretty good for a 2700+ person start in a tiny lake! At that point, though, we were almost done and I decided to just chill a bit, there was no reason to get hurt too early in the day). My 1:04 was an OK time. A tad slower than the 1:00-1:03 I was hoping for, but in the ballpark. My sleeveless wetsuit is easy to strip and I was soon carrying it and running down the road toward T1.
T1 was as quick as I could make it (on with the helmet, race number and belt, socks and shoes, sunglasses, and a swipe of chamios butt'r) but the long run on the road from the lake to the Oval makes this a slower T1 than some. I had a much smoother mount than at St. George, and was soon flying through town and out onto the course.
The first loop of the bike went well and I finished it right on target for pace and effort (both perceived exertion and heart rate, but I was only glancing at this every so often and getting "real time" readings). E passed me early in the first loop, after Keene I think. We ended up staying close to each other for ~10 miles before he moved on ahead. My nutrition was spot on for the whole bike: 4 powergels, 1 bottle of carbopro-nuun with ~200 kcal, 4-5 bottles of Powerbar Perform drink (really like that stuff, goes down easy and worked well for me), and 4-5 bottles of water in the front aero bottle with The Right Stuff electrolyte concentrate added (this was the key to good nutrition for me, I think, 4 doses of The Right Stuff). Oh, and 1 gasX. I meant to take 2 of the 3 gasX I was carrying, but lost my 2 spares somewhere out there on course. My second loop on the bike felt good, solid, and strong, and I hit a faster speed on The Big Downhill since it was less crowded this time (just over 55 mph, I think), but I lost a bit of focus on the climb up from Wilmington and gave up a fair bit of time (7+ minutes!) there unintentionally.
As I rode back into town that last time, I was focused on a fast T2. I had decided to ride with my road shoes, not my tri shoes, so I was not able to get my feet out and leave my shoes on my bike (I tried, wasn't going to happen), but I was still able to run in them, grab my bag off the rack thingy, get into the right change tent, swap shoes, socks, and headware, and get out in ~2:30. What I forgot to do was pee. And I had to GO. Luckily, I have skills, and before the first aid station (at 0.4 miles, I think they said) that problem was gone. All this might explain why I said nothing to Lisa as she cheered for me on the way out of T2 (thanks Lisa, I was just in the zone, and it wasn't even the run zone yet!).
I quickly settled into my pace on the run. I felt good. After my pee, and a gel and gasX, I was flying. Comfy, steady, on target. I was happy. I was making my dreams come true! This feeling survived until I was back in town and nearing mile marker 10. Kerrie had just passed me looking strong (on her way to running the fastest run of the day for the female age groupers) but I knew something was off with my tummy. I had been taking in a cup of drink at each aid station and using the icy sponges to stay clean and cool, but my lower GI was off having its own raucous party. And the party was OVER. A quick (1:33 or so) pit stop in a non-locking porta-potty and I was back, running very strong, and cruising uphill and into town. Justin Daerr passed me on his way to the finish and I used him to pull me up the hill, through the second turn around, and then to slingshot me off into my last run lap.
I started my 2nd lap and felt strong and solid. It was time to hold onto that feeling and start creeping up, faster if I could. I held steady until mile ~18, then noticed my hands and fingers start to get tingly. It was odd. Odder yet was my response: I just settled in, on auto pilot, and got it done. I started taking cola at each aid station, and upped it to 2 cups of drink, too, so that was at least 3 cups per aid station. My tummy felt great and stayed that way until the finish (this is a MAJOR victory for me, first time in 7 ironmans that the nutrition was spot on). I started having to walk the aid stations, though, so that I could grab all those cups before I got to the other end. I moved onward, but in kind of a blur. And I guess I was in full-on shuffle mode here, not really "running" anymore.
But I was not aware of any of this. I was getting it done and was just unaware of how much I had slowed. The final 8 miles were a blur. That is really all I remember. I came back into town, climbed the hills, got a big smile as I saw E heading for the Oval and the finish as I headed out for the final turn around, and then joined him there myself. Here are some screen shots of the first and second loops of the run. You can see my potty stop, and then how pace slowed with ~8 miles to go, and where I walked the aid stations.
Lap 1 of the run... see my potty stop at mile ~10?
In the end, I PRed the race by 49 seconds and PRed the run (for an Ironman) by ~2 minutes but missed my goal times (total and for the run) each by ~16 minutes. That's a lot. Could I have made that up all on the run? Not sure. Am I frustrated? Yes. Am I still oddly pleased at that race I have, the effort I gave, and the outcome? Yes. Do I have any clue what happened and why? No.
I was really ready to run a 3:40. Trained and ready. It was not a reaching goal, not a pipe dream, it was doable, oh so very doable. In the end, though my nutrition finally seemed spot on, I was likely under fueled on the run. I had planned to use race drink as my sole source of fuel, but had neglected to think about dosing using their cups. I probably was not getting enough of anything. And the gel I grabbed, off the table after some hunting and gathering, with 2 miles to go was too little, a lot too late.
After finishing, I was exhausted. And Sore. All over, everywhere. I saw E, bust still used my Volunteer Catcher to walk over to the athletes food area and sit. 1 bottle of water, 1 slice of pizza, 1 ham sandwich, pretzels, grapes, 3 cookies were consumed while we sat and chatted with Kerrie and Kau. Then I changed into better clothes, and we went to the car to drop off gear and grab the wheel bag. Next was a trip to tribike transport to drop off the bikes, then we headed onto the run course to cheer for people. We swung into the Lake Placid Brewery, but the wait for a table was over an hour, so we went to their tent out front and bought a hamburger and chips to share, and 1 beer each. Then we headed back to the dorms and chatted with our room mates (Rob had a good day cheering, but Tommy missed the bike cut-off and was trying to cope with his first DNF). As usual, I slept very little that night due to being sore everywhere.
The next day, I was still sore all over! Deep breathing was impossible (so was deep sighing, like when the 3rd and final Kona slot rolled to 4th place and she took it, I was 5th). And laughing? Not an option.
We had a good morning in Lake Placid before rolling out and heading to Plattsburgh where we had a room booked in an awesome B&B (it was Eric's birthday, AND this was halfway back to the airport). It was so relaxing there! We ventured into town for dinner, then picked up a pint of banana fudge ice cream for dessert, which we shared in their mosquito-proof gazebo.
The next day we took the ferry over to VT, drove down to Burlington, and spent a few hours roaming Church Street and the lake front. It was a nice day, but HOT, so we didn't walk too much or too fast. Our flight wasn't until after 7 pm, so we had time to kill. We wandered, then lunched at the Vermont Brewery, then went to the used book store, then wandered some more. In the end, we went to this "museum" called the Outdoor Gear Exchange and looked at a lot of things made in Colorado. I enjoyed Burlington, the state of VT, and the Adirondacks very much, and would love to go back there again. It was a great trip!
One final thought: I am not sure why I am so troubled by missing my goal times, and the Kona slot. I had a great race. I was fairly steady loop to loop. I nailed my nutrition, before (can anyone say breakfast for dinner???) and during the race. The weather was PERFECT for me, definitely not too hot like it can be at Canada. I am plagued by some of what Kerrie says, here, yet for me some of it IS about the journey, and for me, I get to share the training hours and miles with my family (and my best friend, E). Yet I missed my goals, and that is very hard (for my ego) to swallow and move on.
I guess the conclusion I am reaching is that Ironman is just not for me. I did well, learned lots, and had fun preparing and racing 7 of these things over the last 5 years, but I am just not as good at this as I want to think I am. I can run a good open marathon, I can rock an Olympic distance tri, I'm a good skier, and I can hike with the best of them, but this Ironman thing, not so much. That's OK, next year's race still sold out before lunch the next day, so there are enough others out there to keep this thing going! And I am trying to tell myself that this is not giving up, it is moving on to something else. Work with me here.... and come along for the ride if you wish.
-A
Friday, July 30, 2010
A's NY reflections
Hi All! E and I had a great trip to NY and VT for Ironman Lake Placid. We were well prepped for the race and had a great trip. The end, with a B&B stay and then wanderings around Burlington, VT, before our flight home even felt like vacation! The vacation extended a few days here in Boulder as I finished my reading from the plane and am trying to get back to "normal," whatever that is. So nice!
So...... After 7 tries at the iron-distance, I set a small PR (49 seconds!), had my highest placing in my age group (5th), and had a well-executed race where I really have no excuses or interesting happenings to report from the swim, bike, or run. I was excited to have a race where I felt like I gave it everything I had to give.
Unfortunately, I did not earn a Kona slot, and I also missed my goal time, by a lot, so my emotions are a strange mix of elation for a race where I felt I went hard, took risks, and used up all my resources, frustration at the missed Kona slot and final time/place, and confusion at what I could have done differently since my prep was awesome and I thought my execution went pretty well. Maybe I'm just not as fast as I want to think I am? Anyways....
We are moving on now after 5 years of ironman racing. No WTC or ironman in our future for now. I am a bit lost on how to cope without a race of this magnitude to prepare and train for. I know I will need a focus soon, but don't feel rushed to find "what's next" just yet.
This was not meant to be a race report, that is still coming, just a quick update to say we had a great vacation, and I had a good race but one that has me searching for something new to chase. Hopefully that something is a good challenge, but also something I can achieve and find some satisfaction in. The road has been fun to travel on so far, let's see what's around the next bend!
-A
So...... After 7 tries at the iron-distance, I set a small PR (49 seconds!), had my highest placing in my age group (5th), and had a well-executed race where I really have no excuses or interesting happenings to report from the swim, bike, or run. I was excited to have a race where I felt like I gave it everything I had to give.
Unfortunately, I did not earn a Kona slot, and I also missed my goal time, by a lot, so my emotions are a strange mix of elation for a race where I felt I went hard, took risks, and used up all my resources, frustration at the missed Kona slot and final time/place, and confusion at what I could have done differently since my prep was awesome and I thought my execution went pretty well. Maybe I'm just not as fast as I want to think I am? Anyways....
We are moving on now after 5 years of ironman racing. No WTC or ironman in our future for now. I am a bit lost on how to cope without a race of this magnitude to prepare and train for. I know I will need a focus soon, but don't feel rushed to find "what's next" just yet.
This was not meant to be a race report, that is still coming, just a quick update to say we had a great vacation, and I had a good race but one that has me searching for something new to chase. Hopefully that something is a good challenge, but also something I can achieve and find some satisfaction in. The road has been fun to travel on so far, let's see what's around the next bend!
-A
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Deer Trail Road Race report
This last Sunday, I did something a little crazy: I did a bike race only 2 weeks after an ironman. In my defense, the plan was to get in about a 2 hour ride of moderate intensity anyways, I figured I could sign up for the race, ride in the pack, and work for my team mates as needed, either pulling, attacking, or blocking.
There were 6 of us SW4 (senior women, category 4, beginners) racing for GS Boulder Trek. Four of us live in Boulder. I have a station wagon that fits 4 people and a rack on top that can take 4 bikes, so I volunteered to drive. The plan was for the other 3 to all meet at Tasha's house, I would pick them up there, and we would roll out at 6 am since we had ~1.5 h to drive and an early start time. I have been avoiding coffee to try and fix any potential problems with not sleeping after my IM St. George race week was so out of whack, but decided to have a travel-mug's worth today since it was a race. Good call! E makes the BEST coffee, it was perfect. It made the early timing of our plan seem very manageable.
The plan got a little interesting when I was ~5 min late (still the first to Tasha's house), then discovered that the 4th bike tray on the roof rack was stuck and didn't want to secure latch onto the last bike we were loading. We had just gotten a new tool kit for the car, but it was still so new it was zip-tied shut. Then as Tasha was getting me the kitchen sheers to work on the zip-tie removal, Ninety, the cat, escaped from the house and hid under the neighbor's car. The three of them coaxed Ninety out with some string and a few cat toys while I "persuaded" the skewer lever to turn and tighten with a crescent wrench. Then we loaded up and rolled out, only ~10 min later than planned.
As we left Boulder, Tasha called Jacqui, who we were meeting at the next exit. She was driving solo to the race and we figured we could send one of us over to ride with her to enliven the ride. Soon were were pulling into the Conoco station, our meeting place. Jacqui was not there yet, so I topped off the gas (I had this weird sensation that we were driving way out into the boonies and should have a full tank of gas to start the trip). Still no Jacqui. Virg ran in to use the restroom. Still no Jacqui. I went to use the restroom. Still no Jacqui. Shortly after that, though, she rolled up, we redistributed passengers, and we were off. The rest of the drive was uneventful.
Once we got into Deer Trail, we followed the signs to race parking, then snagged two spots on the street, right up-road from the start line. A foot race for the two porta-potties ensued between Tasha and Virg, but neither won as both potties were occupied. I was the last of our group over to the toilets and by the time I got there, there was quite a line. It was moving slowly, so I ended up standing there for about 20 minutes. A query of the other racers informed us that there were more toilets a few blocks away at registration, but only another 2, so I hung out in line. I was getting ancy though, I still had to register, pin my jersey, dress, spin out the legs some and try to warm-up, and get to the start line early.
I eventually made it to the toilet, was quite productive thanks to the long wait, threw on my kit, quickly got through registration, pinned both my numbers on with ease, and discovered I had no race socks, just pre- and post-race socks (long, wool). Our parking neighbor lent me a pair (what a sweety, thanks Jen, you are a great stranger-turned-new friend). Then I threw on some sunscreen and headed to the start area, there had not been time to warm up! Ugg.
At the start, we rolled through town (about 3 bocks, including one 90 degree turn), bopped under the interstate, then headed out to the course. The course is a big L-shape and we were riding the bottom line of the L first heading East, then turn back and do the back of the L heading North, then turn back and repeat the bottom of the L, ending about 4 miles from the corner of the L after a third 180 degree turn around. All of it is pretty good road surface, but filled with rolling hills. And it is open prairie, so there can be great wind out there too.
E raced here last year and told me that his group still was in a big pack at the first 180 degree turn, causing him to have to slow enough for the turn that he had to unclip from a pedal. He warned us to try and be at the front for that first turn to avoid the same thing from happening. Jacqui and Lorna took that to heart and made a small break from the pack once we got out on the main roads. The pack let them go for a bit. I was sitting dead center from front to back and tucked away on the right. Soon I was ancy to get closer to the front so I could cover any attacks and see how everyone was riding. I had no thought of getting to the front of the pack with my girls up there off the front, but I also wanted to be up closer to the front and where it was more open and safer. Soon a small gap appeared on my left and I merged into the middle line, then again out to the left when a slot opened. With a bit more work, I was sitting 3rd row back on the left - perfect. We had a slight tailwind and were rolling along nicely.
There was a solo attack that we let go. She was soon absorbed back into the pack, and Jacqui and Lorna remained in front. Then a girl from Pro Design moved and the leaders moved to cover. Before long, we caught the two GS Boulder girls out front, but they seamlessly swung into our group. We rolled along. Somewhere before the first turn the pack split and I was in a group of 10-15 (we had a field of 53 starters) at the front. Our group would change leaders, some of the taller and bigger girls were naturally coming forward on the down hills and the better climbers would lead the uphills. I took a few pulls at the front to do my share, but was not in the mood to do too much work yet. Then when the first turn came in sight, I put in a bit more effort and made it to the turn first for a nice, clean swing around the orange traffic cone.
I looked over my shoulder and realized I had intentionally dropped the pack coming out of the turn. We were now going down hill so I soft pedaled and let them catch me. I did not want to do too much work yet, and we had a bit of a headwind in front of us. As we rolled onward, I tried to pull, then back off. I found myself working on the front more than I wanted, but the legs felt pretty good, so I went with it. After one of the harder uphills, Jacqui rolled up on my left and asked how I was doing. I felt pretty toasted at that exact moment from the small climb we had just summitted, but I panted out "I'm doing OK" and we rolled on.
The bit right before the corner of the L is a false flat that is actually downhill. I was pulling here and very aware of the fact that we were going pretty slow. I felt good, and no one wanted to come around as the wind was shifting to the north and I was providing a great block to anyone wanting to echelon off my rear wheel. To minimize this, I was riding right in the very middle of the road, but there was chatter of feeling great and not having to work going on behind me. I figured I'd pull to the corner, get through that cleanly, then let the others take their turns (I had just been in front for my "turn").
We made the turn and I tried to fall back. This sort of worked, but I was always near the front somehow. I was good at finding excellent draft pockets, though, even off of the tiny girls, and I used them fully. Then, as we rolled along with no-one really committed to working and trying to keep the pace up, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the follow car was right behind us, and behind them was a chase pack of another 10-15 girls. We were about to get caught. Virg was in this group and it sounds like she had then echeloning and working together as champs. She soon rolled to the front of our group and tried to get the same system working, but either no one got it, or no one cared enough to take their turn and the front and use the power of the group to battle the leftish headwind (NNW) that was slowing us down. It was a bit unorganized.
I took a self evaluation and realized I felt good, I was riding strong, and I might have a shot at placing well by the finish. So much for helping out a team mate for this race! Sorry guys. I began to plot where/when I should make my move to try and drop the field. I knew my advantage would be in a longer lead out rather than a field sprint, so I figured I should go somewhere before the last 90 degree turn and last out-n-back, so with about 13-15 miles to go or so.
As I mused on this more, we rolled up to the second (of 3) 180 degree turns and I executed it the same way as before, only this time I put my head down, stood up, and made a small surge before the turn to get some clean space on the road to do the turn.
A glance over the shoulder after the turn told me I had a gap, and in a split second I decided to go for it and see if I could hold this all the way to the finish. A few things told me this might just work: 1) I felt really, really, good and had been able to cover any moves made already by the girls in the race, 2) we now had a tailwind, so riding in the pack became a smaller advantage to me being out front solo, 3) they were NOT organized, 4) I had Jacqui and Virg in the pack and knew they would not work to catch me, 5) I had 20-22 miles to go, that is about an hour of hard riding, I can do that! I was also testing them to see if they would try and work together and chase or let me go. If they caught me, then the game would change, but if they didn't, I was free to ride hard, stomp the hills, use my weight on the downhills, corner cleanly, and hope to high heaven that I did not blow up.
One girl did bridge up to me, but the pack seemed to let us go. I pulled her for a while, then she took a pull, then I went to pull again and dropped her. She was breathing very, very hard, so I let her go. The draft had been nice, but waiting for her would only get me caught. I used the hills and tailwind fully and tried to find a line with less bumps (this was the only bumpy section of the course). I also knew that the finish would be into a cross-head wind, so I tried to save something back for that section, where the pack would have an advantage on a solo rider.
All was well until about 2 miles before the last 180 degree turn when I saw another solo rider approaching. She caught me quickly and then just kept going. I was fading slightly , missed her wheel, and she was gone. She did re-light my fire, though, and I stepped on the gas and tore it up to the finish. In then end, I was ~1.5 minutes back from the winner and another ~1 minute in front of third. Two more small packs (4th through 7th, then 8th through 11th) rolled in about 1.5 minutes later. Virg ended 8th, Jacqui was 13th, and Tasha, Lorna, and Janey were back a bit further. All in all, it was a great day for GS Boulder SW4s and GS Boulder overall (another 2nd and 8th in the SW1-2 and a win in the SM4).
We rolled back into town, changed into dry clothes, checked results, picked up awards (3 random bottles of beer and a single Lara Bar), and tried to get milkshakes at the Dairy Hut, but they were closed. We wanted to support the town for hosting the race, but weren't up for waiting for Brick Oven Pizza, so we hit the grocery section at the gas station then headed back to Boulder.
Once I dropped everyone off, it was time to start thinking about our second, easy ride for the day. E and I spun up to Niwot and then out onto 95th. It was a great evening ride, the mountains were gorgeous and from up there you get a great view, and the legs needed an easy spin.
We had been planning an easy spin into town to check out a new pizza restaurant, Basta, but decided to BBQ some chicken at home instead and then go out on Monday night. This was a good call since Basta is currently closed on Sunday's, according to their website. In the end it was a great idea, though, very, very yummy! We'll be back, and next time it will likely be by bike.
-A
There were 6 of us SW4 (senior women, category 4, beginners) racing for GS Boulder Trek. Four of us live in Boulder. I have a station wagon that fits 4 people and a rack on top that can take 4 bikes, so I volunteered to drive. The plan was for the other 3 to all meet at Tasha's house, I would pick them up there, and we would roll out at 6 am since we had ~1.5 h to drive and an early start time. I have been avoiding coffee to try and fix any potential problems with not sleeping after my IM St. George race week was so out of whack, but decided to have a travel-mug's worth today since it was a race. Good call! E makes the BEST coffee, it was perfect. It made the early timing of our plan seem very manageable.
The plan got a little interesting when I was ~5 min late (still the first to Tasha's house), then discovered that the 4th bike tray on the roof rack was stuck and didn't want to secure latch onto the last bike we were loading. We had just gotten a new tool kit for the car, but it was still so new it was zip-tied shut. Then as Tasha was getting me the kitchen sheers to work on the zip-tie removal, Ninety, the cat, escaped from the house and hid under the neighbor's car. The three of them coaxed Ninety out with some string and a few cat toys while I "persuaded" the skewer lever to turn and tighten with a crescent wrench. Then we loaded up and rolled out, only ~10 min later than planned.
As we left Boulder, Tasha called Jacqui, who we were meeting at the next exit. She was driving solo to the race and we figured we could send one of us over to ride with her to enliven the ride. Soon were were pulling into the Conoco station, our meeting place. Jacqui was not there yet, so I topped off the gas (I had this weird sensation that we were driving way out into the boonies and should have a full tank of gas to start the trip). Still no Jacqui. Virg ran in to use the restroom. Still no Jacqui. I went to use the restroom. Still no Jacqui. Shortly after that, though, she rolled up, we redistributed passengers, and we were off. The rest of the drive was uneventful.
Once we got into Deer Trail, we followed the signs to race parking, then snagged two spots on the street, right up-road from the start line. A foot race for the two porta-potties ensued between Tasha and Virg, but neither won as both potties were occupied. I was the last of our group over to the toilets and by the time I got there, there was quite a line. It was moving slowly, so I ended up standing there for about 20 minutes. A query of the other racers informed us that there were more toilets a few blocks away at registration, but only another 2, so I hung out in line. I was getting ancy though, I still had to register, pin my jersey, dress, spin out the legs some and try to warm-up, and get to the start line early.
I eventually made it to the toilet, was quite productive thanks to the long wait, threw on my kit, quickly got through registration, pinned both my numbers on with ease, and discovered I had no race socks, just pre- and post-race socks (long, wool). Our parking neighbor lent me a pair (what a sweety, thanks Jen, you are a great stranger-turned-new friend). Then I threw on some sunscreen and headed to the start area, there had not been time to warm up! Ugg.
At the start, we rolled through town (about 3 bocks, including one 90 degree turn), bopped under the interstate, then headed out to the course. The course is a big L-shape and we were riding the bottom line of the L first heading East, then turn back and do the back of the L heading North, then turn back and repeat the bottom of the L, ending about 4 miles from the corner of the L after a third 180 degree turn around. All of it is pretty good road surface, but filled with rolling hills. And it is open prairie, so there can be great wind out there too.
E raced here last year and told me that his group still was in a big pack at the first 180 degree turn, causing him to have to slow enough for the turn that he had to unclip from a pedal. He warned us to try and be at the front for that first turn to avoid the same thing from happening. Jacqui and Lorna took that to heart and made a small break from the pack once we got out on the main roads. The pack let them go for a bit. I was sitting dead center from front to back and tucked away on the right. Soon I was ancy to get closer to the front so I could cover any attacks and see how everyone was riding. I had no thought of getting to the front of the pack with my girls up there off the front, but I also wanted to be up closer to the front and where it was more open and safer. Soon a small gap appeared on my left and I merged into the middle line, then again out to the left when a slot opened. With a bit more work, I was sitting 3rd row back on the left - perfect. We had a slight tailwind and were rolling along nicely.
There was a solo attack that we let go. She was soon absorbed back into the pack, and Jacqui and Lorna remained in front. Then a girl from Pro Design moved and the leaders moved to cover. Before long, we caught the two GS Boulder girls out front, but they seamlessly swung into our group. We rolled along. Somewhere before the first turn the pack split and I was in a group of 10-15 (we had a field of 53 starters) at the front. Our group would change leaders, some of the taller and bigger girls were naturally coming forward on the down hills and the better climbers would lead the uphills. I took a few pulls at the front to do my share, but was not in the mood to do too much work yet. Then when the first turn came in sight, I put in a bit more effort and made it to the turn first for a nice, clean swing around the orange traffic cone.
I looked over my shoulder and realized I had intentionally dropped the pack coming out of the turn. We were now going down hill so I soft pedaled and let them catch me. I did not want to do too much work yet, and we had a bit of a headwind in front of us. As we rolled onward, I tried to pull, then back off. I found myself working on the front more than I wanted, but the legs felt pretty good, so I went with it. After one of the harder uphills, Jacqui rolled up on my left and asked how I was doing. I felt pretty toasted at that exact moment from the small climb we had just summitted, but I panted out "I'm doing OK" and we rolled on.
The bit right before the corner of the L is a false flat that is actually downhill. I was pulling here and very aware of the fact that we were going pretty slow. I felt good, and no one wanted to come around as the wind was shifting to the north and I was providing a great block to anyone wanting to echelon off my rear wheel. To minimize this, I was riding right in the very middle of the road, but there was chatter of feeling great and not having to work going on behind me. I figured I'd pull to the corner, get through that cleanly, then let the others take their turns (I had just been in front for my "turn").
We made the turn and I tried to fall back. This sort of worked, but I was always near the front somehow. I was good at finding excellent draft pockets, though, even off of the tiny girls, and I used them fully. Then, as we rolled along with no-one really committed to working and trying to keep the pace up, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the follow car was right behind us, and behind them was a chase pack of another 10-15 girls. We were about to get caught. Virg was in this group and it sounds like she had then echeloning and working together as champs. She soon rolled to the front of our group and tried to get the same system working, but either no one got it, or no one cared enough to take their turn and the front and use the power of the group to battle the leftish headwind (NNW) that was slowing us down. It was a bit unorganized.
I took a self evaluation and realized I felt good, I was riding strong, and I might have a shot at placing well by the finish. So much for helping out a team mate for this race! Sorry guys. I began to plot where/when I should make my move to try and drop the field. I knew my advantage would be in a longer lead out rather than a field sprint, so I figured I should go somewhere before the last 90 degree turn and last out-n-back, so with about 13-15 miles to go or so.
As I mused on this more, we rolled up to the second (of 3) 180 degree turns and I executed it the same way as before, only this time I put my head down, stood up, and made a small surge before the turn to get some clean space on the road to do the turn.
A glance over the shoulder after the turn told me I had a gap, and in a split second I decided to go for it and see if I could hold this all the way to the finish. A few things told me this might just work: 1) I felt really, really, good and had been able to cover any moves made already by the girls in the race, 2) we now had a tailwind, so riding in the pack became a smaller advantage to me being out front solo, 3) they were NOT organized, 4) I had Jacqui and Virg in the pack and knew they would not work to catch me, 5) I had 20-22 miles to go, that is about an hour of hard riding, I can do that! I was also testing them to see if they would try and work together and chase or let me go. If they caught me, then the game would change, but if they didn't, I was free to ride hard, stomp the hills, use my weight on the downhills, corner cleanly, and hope to high heaven that I did not blow up.
One girl did bridge up to me, but the pack seemed to let us go. I pulled her for a while, then she took a pull, then I went to pull again and dropped her. She was breathing very, very hard, so I let her go. The draft had been nice, but waiting for her would only get me caught. I used the hills and tailwind fully and tried to find a line with less bumps (this was the only bumpy section of the course). I also knew that the finish would be into a cross-head wind, so I tried to save something back for that section, where the pack would have an advantage on a solo rider.
All was well until about 2 miles before the last 180 degree turn when I saw another solo rider approaching. She caught me quickly and then just kept going. I was fading slightly , missed her wheel, and she was gone. She did re-light my fire, though, and I stepped on the gas and tore it up to the finish. In then end, I was ~1.5 minutes back from the winner and another ~1 minute in front of third. Two more small packs (4th through 7th, then 8th through 11th) rolled in about 1.5 minutes later. Virg ended 8th, Jacqui was 13th, and Tasha, Lorna, and Janey were back a bit further. All in all, it was a great day for GS Boulder SW4s and GS Boulder overall (another 2nd and 8th in the SW1-2 and a win in the SM4).
We rolled back into town, changed into dry clothes, checked results, picked up awards (3 random bottles of beer and a single Lara Bar), and tried to get milkshakes at the Dairy Hut, but they were closed. We wanted to support the town for hosting the race, but weren't up for waiting for Brick Oven Pizza, so we hit the grocery section at the gas station then headed back to Boulder.
Once I dropped everyone off, it was time to start thinking about our second, easy ride for the day. E and I spun up to Niwot and then out onto 95th. It was a great evening ride, the mountains were gorgeous and from up there you get a great view, and the legs needed an easy spin.
We had been planning an easy spin into town to check out a new pizza restaurant, Basta, but decided to BBQ some chicken at home instead and then go out on Monday night. This was a good call since Basta is currently closed on Sunday's, according to their website. In the end it was a great idea, though, very, very yummy! We'll be back, and next time it will likely be by bike.
-A
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Race Report Follow Up
Hi. I forgot a few things yesterday. Here goes.....
Thanks!
Thanks!
Thank you to those who read this blog! Your interest and support is priceless. Thank you to my parents and to Sunny, the first two phone calls I got after finishing. It was great to talk to you 3 and share some thoughts and feelings while they were still fresh. Thanks for your love, your support, your belief in me (and E), and your understanding at how silly I must have sounded after nearly 12 hours of movement. Thanks to my two sisters, too, who were interested all along the way and kept me grounded in reality with your phone calls, emails, and facebook updates. Thank you to E, my love, my biggest fan, my supporter, and my training partner. It was neat to share another IM (training and the race) with you.
Thanks to coach J for keeping us focused and getting us to a May 1 IM after a snowier-than-normal winter, while keeping us challenged, and full of joy at the lifestyle this sport has given to us. Thanks to Kerrie for the neoprene caps: no ice cream headache for us during the swim. Thanks to Wolfgang and Curt (and my awesome lanemates) for good challenging swims every week. Thanks to Izzy-dog, a great run partner.
Things that went well:
Clothing/shoes/gear: I wore my new 2XU tri shorts and Oomph top (lots of compliments on the green stripes during the run) and they worked great all day. Full sleeve wetsuit (duh!) and neoprene cap (little bit of neck chafage from one of these, but not noticeable until the day after), speedo vanquisher goggles: all worked flawlessly. Regular bike shoes with toe covers and smartwool socks (slower than tri shoes, but my bike shoes are more comfy and that mattered for a 112 mi ride), aerohelmet, big Rudy Project sunglasses (the mono-lens, but good optics and wind protection), cheap socks as arm warmers, knee warmers, and gloves: I was bundled up and less aero, but never overheated nor got too cold, I was just ready to get down to work and ride my bike. I shed the gloves, arm and knee warmers, and changed socks for the run. I also wore my Nike Lunar Glides (training shoe, not racing flat, but a good call with the pounding downhills on that course). Visor, fresh sunglasses, and fuel belt and I was ready to rock the run. I really liked having my hands free as I often carry a hand-strapped water bottle for water and ice if it is hot.
Bike: my bike (Javelin Lugano) rocks right now! It fits well, rides solid and fast, and is comfortable. I was geared well for the climbing and was able to descend in the crosswinds with no issues. All thanks to the great fit from Ryan Ignatz and Colorado Multisport! Wheels were 50 mm rims, no disc and rode well on that course.
Peeing: It is an ironman, it happens. I peed once in the water before the start, once during the swim, 4 times on the bike, and once while running. Now you know.... And now you know why all volunteers wear disposable gloves at an ironman.
The finish line: crossing it is amazing (a bit of a blur this year, but very satisfying), but coming back to it after a shower and some food and watching the people who finish near midnight is awesome. I always get very excited for them and a bit emotional at the whole experience. This time was no exception.
Nutrition: Carbopro-nuun (concentrate) for calories, water on the bike and run courses, and some addition of nuun (regular concentration) to my front aerobottle during the bike. 2-3 salt capsules on the run and one cup of Gatorade with less than 3 miles to run. Worked the best yet of anything I have tried, but there is some room for improvement here....
Things that still need work:
Nutrition: Despite following practiced timing for water and calories, I still had a bit of a sloshy/gasy tummy at the end of the bike and start of the run. This held me up a bit every now and then as my run pace slowed to allow me to maintain control of my innards without using a porta-potty for a pit stop. It all ended well on that count, but I want to run without the water-belly someday. It is just weird to hear yourself sloshing. Weird. I also want to not gain multiple pounds during an ironman. Yup, MULTIPLE pounds. This time it was only 5.5, not the 8 I saw at the last two IM Canadas and IM AZ (April 2008), but that is extra weight to lug around AND calories/water that is not getting to my muscles. I was getting into a bonk the last 2+ miles of the run, yet I had gained a little weight during the day. My stomach was acting as gate keeper and had decided to close down that boarder crossing for the day. I have tried everything osmotically possible to keep it processing fuel and fluids, and was regularly peeing throughout the race (a good sign of progress), yet I still was fighting this frustrating problem. After I finish an ironman, things start to work again and I will have to pee every 30 minutes until my system is back to normal (a few hours, normally). This year I was back to normal sooner, but still, I need to figure this out and fix it. Any thoughts? Anyone? I'm doing about 200-250 kcal per hour with ~24-30 oz of fluids (normal strength nuun mostly or straight water) on the bike, same calories with 1-2 cups water at each run aid station. This is not excessive.
Race anxiety: I'll be honest, I think I'm fixing this, but I'm not so sure that is true. I never, ever had a problem with this until I was doing my second IM in 2007 at age 29. I have been racing since middle school and at a high level since high school and college with no problems. In 2002 I raced age group worlds in Cancun, no problem. Since 2007, all "big and important" races will cause me a moment (or longer) of panic. I am sure that is why my sleep was disrupted for so many nights before the race this year. I even slept poorly our last night at home before our trip even started. This time the whole thing was subtler than some of my full-blown panic attacks of the past, but it was VERY annoying, seemed to streach on FOREVER, and was not conducive to good race prep. Self-talk of "it is just a race" and "getting nervous only makes it worse" and "RELAX!" did not change anything, not for a moment. Any help on this one from blog-land? How do I get my confidence in check (and not get cocky) so I can keep from being my own worst enemy?
OK, I knew I forgot a few things yesterday as soon as I hit "publish post" but I think that's all for now. Let me know if you have any suggestions for my "needs improvement" items...
-A
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
A's race report: IM UT 2010
Where to start? After all, this is an ironman race report, and an ironman is a fairly epic day. Then again, it is also just a race (sorry, just started to read Three Cups of Tea and it is hard to take a silly race to seriously with that as a counter reference). Anyways...... I'll make this a race report to me, again, so I can continue the learning process.
This race I have had trouble sleeping, and only got one good, solid, over-7-hour night of sleep in the 5 nights before the race. I was feeling fresh and fairly rested, but was slightly unnerved by this unusual turn of events. It is something I'd like to prevent in the future, and may even consider OTC sleeping pills if it happens again. Normally, once my head hits the pillow, I'm sweetly dreaming nearly instantly.
Race Morning:
Anyways, when the alarm went off at 3:30, I was not as fast to rise as I might be with better sleep, but soon I was dressing in my chosen race apparel, sloshing on the first layer of sunscreen, and donning my warm, warm, warm warm-ups while downing some instant oatmeal, coffee, and apple juice. I pocketed a large banana and a peanut butter packet, and grabbed my transition bag, which was already loaded for the 4 drop-offs I needed to make: special needs bike, special needs run, T2, and stuff for T1. Luckily, I also remembered to stuff my wetsuit in there the night before, it had almost been left neatly hanging in the closet.
We got onto our school bus, got a seat together near the front, then were moving out into the dark morning on the ride out to Sand Hallow State Park. I was a bit wound up and the chatter of the other passengers was making me a bit nervous, but soon the bright lights of the transition area came into view and we were unloading into the cold morning air. Bathroom, air in tires, bottles/fuel on bike, more sunscreen (including sharing some with a QT2 girl and Beth) and it was time to shimmy into the wetsuit and drop off the morning clothes bag. Then we joined the other racers and moved towards the beach.
As soon as we were able (shortly after the pro start) E and I waded into the chilly water and swam a few strokes away from shore. It was cold, but we soon adjusted and swam some more to further acclimatize and warm up. By the time we had 5 minutes to go, we moved to the second row of starters, all the way out to the left, by the blue kayak. All was well until the guy next to me decided to tread water using a breast-stroke kick and clobbered me with every whip of his feet, I moved left and avoided him. Then the cannon fired and we were off.
The swim: 1:06:14
The course was a counter-clockwise rectangle. My swim was uneventful for the first two sides of the course, but then I seemed to want to veer right (outside of the race course) on the 3rd side. There was also a light chop here coming from the front/right side during this section. By the time I was nearing the island we swam around I had to pee, but try as I might that did not seem likely to happen. Then, as I rounded the island and was leaving it for shore, I was finally able to find some relief, and warmth in my suit, as my bladder relaxed enough to empty itself.
T1: 6:29
Up the carpeted boat ramp, through the wet suit peelers, grabbed my bag, and fast baby steps on my Popsicle feet into the women's change tent. It was already crowded! I glanced at my watch somewhere in between setting out my socks, shoes (already wearing their toe covers), helmet, and glasses and saw 1:11. SLOW! Oh, well, time to try and force the tight knee and arm warmers onto my wet skin and get moving. I got a volunteer to help in the tug of war with my clothing and she even helped me don my full-fingered gloves before I stuffed my feet into my bike shoes, clipped on my number belt, and tossed the aerohelmet and sunglasses onto my head. Then I was running toward my bike. The volunteer there to grab it for me was not ready, but since I was the first bike on the rack, right by the isle, I just grabbed it myself and kept moving. After the mount line I tried a flying mount (practiced all fall during cyclocross) but only managed to knock off my rear water bottle, which I needed for later on. I retrieved the potential escapee, mounted successfully, and rode onward.
The bike: 6:25:38
I got on the bike and started to motor. I felt good, but very chilly in my still-wet race top and shorts. I was safely and legally passing lots of people, and trying to get in some liquids. Soon I found my rhythm and we were out of the park and onto the roads into Hurricane. I tried to settle in and find a strong steady pace since were were in for a nice hard bike ride and I wanted a chance at a good run afterwards. E passed me while we were on the frontage road to I-15 at about mile 20 of the bike (right before starting to climb up Red rocks Parkway). This was earlier than expected, but I had a slower-than-normal swim, so I tried to not let it get in my head and just tried to keep him in sight along with a girl from my age group that had just passed me and was keeping speed with him. They slowly pulled away from me, though, and soon I could not spot E's race suit up ahead. She would come back to me, he did not. Onward we motored.
I was fueling well and my the aid station in Santa Clara I was dropping bottles and picking up water to fill my front bottle and mix into the rotation with my concentrated nuun-carbopro solution. By the time we were passing the village on the Indian reservation I had to pee again, and luckily there is a downhill right after that where I was able to do so.
The remainder of the first loop and the entire second loop were not too eventful. I survived the 4 cattle guard crossings in each loop, picked up a bottle, or two, of water at all but one aid station each loop, took in the right amount of calories every 30 min, got warmer, got chilly, got warmer again, did not grab my special needs bag, and bombed that lovely downhill as fast as I could. We did not race on the disc wheels, and that was likely a good call with the crosswinds on the decent, but the rest of the course could have gone either way, nothing was very, very steep or excessively bumpy (I did not like the bumpy patched sections, but they were no worse than CO-36 between Boulder and Lyons). The most interesting parts were 1) when an older male racer passed me going uphill and exclaimed "you make the scenery even better," 2) climbing the steep, but short, hill after Gunlock and having another racer say "this must be the wall" to which I replied "Oh no, no, no, just wait, the wall is loooonger," and 3) looking at my Garmin at one point and trying to do math which had me figuring on being lucky to break 8 hours on the bike (I biked slow, but not THAT slow).
T2: 3:33
The end came quicker than I expected and I ended up leaving my shoes on my feet and running with them into the change tent. My volunteer was awesome. I tried to pick up my bag of gear as I was running through the isles of transition bags, but she already had it and carried it for me into the change area. I forgot to take off the knee warmers before tying my shoes but was able to bunch them up and get them off in one quick motion. I decided to run in my training shoes (Nike Lunar Glides) and to tie the normal laces rather than using elastic race laces because they fit better and don't move that way. I grabbed my visor, fresh sunglasses, fuel belt with one concentrated bottle of carbopro-nuun, and ditched the heart rate monitor and strap since they weren't reading and since I didn't want them for the run. Then I was off and running.
The run: 3:58:36
I had some goals for the run: run the whole thing (no walking), nutrition (and no potty stops), and set a PR. I did all 3! I also wanted to run between 3:30 and 3:40, that did not happen this time, but I gained some major confidence which will roll with me into the next race where I hope to tackle this last goal. I started out thinking of light feet and finding a rhythm for the first 2 miles. Then I just kept plugging away. At the turn around on the first loop, I felt good, and just focused on holding steady back into town and running, not shuffling. I was hot most of the first loop and grabbed plenty of ice-cold sponges at every aid station and drank a cup or two of water at each, too.
At the ~11 mile mark, as I was heading into the Ford Inspirational Mile for the first time up in the golf course parking lot, Sully (Eric Sullivan) passed me on his way to the finish (and an AG overall win) and proclaimed "today, we are LIONS!" With that thought in my head, I soldiered on, strong and fierce.
As I moved through special needs at ~12.9 miles, I grabbed another fuel belt bottle and left the extra clothes. At the halfway point, you swing intoxicatingly close to the finish line as you run a circle around a round-about in the road, then you head back out for lap 2. All was proceeding as planned, and a quick glance at the watch told me that if I held the same pace, I'd break 4 h and PR for the run. With that happy thought, I found my focus and began to slay the final lap of my marathon and my ironman. It hurt. A lot. There were times when my sloshy stomach slowed me a bit, but as soon as I could, I picked it back up. And my body, and mind, let me do it this time. I started to get COLD and stopped taking sponges. I considered the chicken broth, just for warmth, but passed that up in fear of botching my still-working-just-fine-thank-you-very-much nutrition. I passed a lot of people out there, and was passed myself by faster racers, too. I saw E, Beth, many of the women's pro field, Sandy Cranny, and offered encouragement and cheers where I could. And I focused. I knew I was moving much slower than I had hoped for, but I was moving, and did not stop once, not one step, to walk and let my tummy settle. I ended up taking in 2-3 salt pills between miles 18 and 23 as I noticed some crusty residue on my clothes, and I felt good, just tired and sore up until mile 24, then I was getting really cold, tingly, and my arms got stiff and my hands stopped working.
Just before mile 24 I grabbed a cup of Gatorade, then nothing more for nutrition until after the finish line. The turn and hill up to the loop in the golf course parking lot was not too bad the last time through, but the decent back to Diagonal Road and the long straight away to Main Street were PAINFUL. I was progressing to zombie status and knew I needed to get to that finish as fast as possible. I was glad Diagonal road was all a gentle downhill and I tried to pick up my feet and float down hill as fast as I could. The turn onto Main Street was blissfully sweet as the finish line was now in sight and the grade became steeper, almost letting the road propel me there with no more effort required. As I headed into the finish chute, I pumped my fist twice in triumph of a race executed as planned. What JOY!
Total: 11:40:30
After crossing the finish line, all I wanted was a massage. My lower calves were trashed and my back was uber-tight. My catchers asked for my t-shirt size and I said "small" which has worked 5 times before, but this time they were giving out synthetic-fabric shirts that are sized smaller than the normal cotton ones and a small is really, really, really small. I think it is women-specific in cut, so I should probably have a large. This one might be going to my nearly 2-year-old niece for dress-up, as it won't fit on any adult I know. Then I walked on towards massage and food. I got on the massage list and grabbed two pieces to cold pizza (I thought it would be hot, it was not, ugg). Then I spotted E and I melted. The day was done. I was tired to the core (and wondering how all my gear was getting back to our hotel, a mere 3 -4 blocks away).
We eventually made it to the hotel, dropped our stuff off (and made a mini-tornado in our room, at least that is what the evidence suggested), showered, and headed to Nielsens for Frozen custard Concretes before they closed. Best. Post-race. Food. EVER. Especially the chocolate-almond concrete (like a DQ blizzard, but WAY better). Then we headed back to the hotel and I napped lightly while E puffy-panted in the NormaTec MVP.
He told me I was 7th in my age group, less than 12 min out of third, and I started to get sad. Could I have gone harder? Should I have biked faster? Could I have "given it" more on the run? Luckily, I have one more chance to go for it at Lake Placid in July.
It has been over a week now and my recovery is going well. I bounced back faster than average for every-day-feeling-good kind of activities, but still detect an endurance cap on my run and cycle fitness. My swim is going well (maybe even faster than before the race?) and the run/bike are coming around, I just feel no need (nor have any need) to go very fast right now, at least for another few days.
And that, my friends, summarizes my race pretty well, right down to the after-effects of elation, then self doubt, then motivation to go "no holds barred" and give it my all at Lake Placid in a few (10.5, but who's counting) weeks.
Finally, St. George was a great town, with great people, for an Ironman. We have planned to take a break from Ironman for a bit after 2010, but both agreed that we would be willing to race here again. It was fair, hard course, and we both felt that we have some unfinished business with the course and want another chance at the challenge it offers.
This race I have had trouble sleeping, and only got one good, solid, over-7-hour night of sleep in the 5 nights before the race. I was feeling fresh and fairly rested, but was slightly unnerved by this unusual turn of events. It is something I'd like to prevent in the future, and may even consider OTC sleeping pills if it happens again. Normally, once my head hits the pillow, I'm sweetly dreaming nearly instantly.
Race Morning:
Anyways, when the alarm went off at 3:30, I was not as fast to rise as I might be with better sleep, but soon I was dressing in my chosen race apparel, sloshing on the first layer of sunscreen, and donning my warm, warm, warm warm-ups while downing some instant oatmeal, coffee, and apple juice. I pocketed a large banana and a peanut butter packet, and grabbed my transition bag, which was already loaded for the 4 drop-offs I needed to make: special needs bike, special needs run, T2, and stuff for T1. Luckily, I also remembered to stuff my wetsuit in there the night before, it had almost been left neatly hanging in the closet.
We got onto our school bus, got a seat together near the front, then were moving out into the dark morning on the ride out to Sand Hallow State Park. I was a bit wound up and the chatter of the other passengers was making me a bit nervous, but soon the bright lights of the transition area came into view and we were unloading into the cold morning air. Bathroom, air in tires, bottles/fuel on bike, more sunscreen (including sharing some with a QT2 girl and Beth) and it was time to shimmy into the wetsuit and drop off the morning clothes bag. Then we joined the other racers and moved towards the beach.
As soon as we were able (shortly after the pro start) E and I waded into the chilly water and swam a few strokes away from shore. It was cold, but we soon adjusted and swam some more to further acclimatize and warm up. By the time we had 5 minutes to go, we moved to the second row of starters, all the way out to the left, by the blue kayak. All was well until the guy next to me decided to tread water using a breast-stroke kick and clobbered me with every whip of his feet, I moved left and avoided him. Then the cannon fired and we were off.
The swim: 1:06:14
The course was a counter-clockwise rectangle. My swim was uneventful for the first two sides of the course, but then I seemed to want to veer right (outside of the race course) on the 3rd side. There was also a light chop here coming from the front/right side during this section. By the time I was nearing the island we swam around I had to pee, but try as I might that did not seem likely to happen. Then, as I rounded the island and was leaving it for shore, I was finally able to find some relief, and warmth in my suit, as my bladder relaxed enough to empty itself.
T1: 6:29
Up the carpeted boat ramp, through the wet suit peelers, grabbed my bag, and fast baby steps on my Popsicle feet into the women's change tent. It was already crowded! I glanced at my watch somewhere in between setting out my socks, shoes (already wearing their toe covers), helmet, and glasses and saw 1:11. SLOW! Oh, well, time to try and force the tight knee and arm warmers onto my wet skin and get moving. I got a volunteer to help in the tug of war with my clothing and she even helped me don my full-fingered gloves before I stuffed my feet into my bike shoes, clipped on my number belt, and tossed the aerohelmet and sunglasses onto my head. Then I was running toward my bike. The volunteer there to grab it for me was not ready, but since I was the first bike on the rack, right by the isle, I just grabbed it myself and kept moving. After the mount line I tried a flying mount (practiced all fall during cyclocross) but only managed to knock off my rear water bottle, which I needed for later on. I retrieved the potential escapee, mounted successfully, and rode onward.
The bike: 6:25:38
I got on the bike and started to motor. I felt good, but very chilly in my still-wet race top and shorts. I was safely and legally passing lots of people, and trying to get in some liquids. Soon I found my rhythm and we were out of the park and onto the roads into Hurricane. I tried to settle in and find a strong steady pace since were were in for a nice hard bike ride and I wanted a chance at a good run afterwards. E passed me while we were on the frontage road to I-15 at about mile 20 of the bike (right before starting to climb up Red rocks Parkway). This was earlier than expected, but I had a slower-than-normal swim, so I tried to not let it get in my head and just tried to keep him in sight along with a girl from my age group that had just passed me and was keeping speed with him. They slowly pulled away from me, though, and soon I could not spot E's race suit up ahead. She would come back to me, he did not. Onward we motored.
I was fueling well and my the aid station in Santa Clara I was dropping bottles and picking up water to fill my front bottle and mix into the rotation with my concentrated nuun-carbopro solution. By the time we were passing the village on the Indian reservation I had to pee again, and luckily there is a downhill right after that where I was able to do so.
The remainder of the first loop and the entire second loop were not too eventful. I survived the 4 cattle guard crossings in each loop, picked up a bottle, or two, of water at all but one aid station each loop, took in the right amount of calories every 30 min, got warmer, got chilly, got warmer again, did not grab my special needs bag, and bombed that lovely downhill as fast as I could. We did not race on the disc wheels, and that was likely a good call with the crosswinds on the decent, but the rest of the course could have gone either way, nothing was very, very steep or excessively bumpy (I did not like the bumpy patched sections, but they were no worse than CO-36 between Boulder and Lyons). The most interesting parts were 1) when an older male racer passed me going uphill and exclaimed "you make the scenery even better," 2) climbing the steep, but short, hill after Gunlock and having another racer say "this must be the wall" to which I replied "Oh no, no, no, just wait, the wall is loooonger," and 3) looking at my Garmin at one point and trying to do math which had me figuring on being lucky to break 8 hours on the bike (I biked slow, but not THAT slow).
T2: 3:33
The end came quicker than I expected and I ended up leaving my shoes on my feet and running with them into the change tent. My volunteer was awesome. I tried to pick up my bag of gear as I was running through the isles of transition bags, but she already had it and carried it for me into the change area. I forgot to take off the knee warmers before tying my shoes but was able to bunch them up and get them off in one quick motion. I decided to run in my training shoes (Nike Lunar Glides) and to tie the normal laces rather than using elastic race laces because they fit better and don't move that way. I grabbed my visor, fresh sunglasses, fuel belt with one concentrated bottle of carbopro-nuun, and ditched the heart rate monitor and strap since they weren't reading and since I didn't want them for the run. Then I was off and running.
The run: 3:58:36
I had some goals for the run: run the whole thing (no walking), nutrition (and no potty stops), and set a PR. I did all 3! I also wanted to run between 3:30 and 3:40, that did not happen this time, but I gained some major confidence which will roll with me into the next race where I hope to tackle this last goal. I started out thinking of light feet and finding a rhythm for the first 2 miles. Then I just kept plugging away. At the turn around on the first loop, I felt good, and just focused on holding steady back into town and running, not shuffling. I was hot most of the first loop and grabbed plenty of ice-cold sponges at every aid station and drank a cup or two of water at each, too.
At the ~11 mile mark, as I was heading into the Ford Inspirational Mile for the first time up in the golf course parking lot, Sully (Eric Sullivan) passed me on his way to the finish (and an AG overall win) and proclaimed "today, we are LIONS!" With that thought in my head, I soldiered on, strong and fierce.
As I moved through special needs at ~12.9 miles, I grabbed another fuel belt bottle and left the extra clothes. At the halfway point, you swing intoxicatingly close to the finish line as you run a circle around a round-about in the road, then you head back out for lap 2. All was proceeding as planned, and a quick glance at the watch told me that if I held the same pace, I'd break 4 h and PR for the run. With that happy thought, I found my focus and began to slay the final lap of my marathon and my ironman. It hurt. A lot. There were times when my sloshy stomach slowed me a bit, but as soon as I could, I picked it back up. And my body, and mind, let me do it this time. I started to get COLD and stopped taking sponges. I considered the chicken broth, just for warmth, but passed that up in fear of botching my still-working-just-fine-thank-you-very-much nutrition. I passed a lot of people out there, and was passed myself by faster racers, too. I saw E, Beth, many of the women's pro field, Sandy Cranny, and offered encouragement and cheers where I could. And I focused. I knew I was moving much slower than I had hoped for, but I was moving, and did not stop once, not one step, to walk and let my tummy settle. I ended up taking in 2-3 salt pills between miles 18 and 23 as I noticed some crusty residue on my clothes, and I felt good, just tired and sore up until mile 24, then I was getting really cold, tingly, and my arms got stiff and my hands stopped working.
Just before mile 24 I grabbed a cup of Gatorade, then nothing more for nutrition until after the finish line. The turn and hill up to the loop in the golf course parking lot was not too bad the last time through, but the decent back to Diagonal Road and the long straight away to Main Street were PAINFUL. I was progressing to zombie status and knew I needed to get to that finish as fast as possible. I was glad Diagonal road was all a gentle downhill and I tried to pick up my feet and float down hill as fast as I could. The turn onto Main Street was blissfully sweet as the finish line was now in sight and the grade became steeper, almost letting the road propel me there with no more effort required. As I headed into the finish chute, I pumped my fist twice in triumph of a race executed as planned. What JOY!
Total: 11:40:30
After crossing the finish line, all I wanted was a massage. My lower calves were trashed and my back was uber-tight. My catchers asked for my t-shirt size and I said "small" which has worked 5 times before, but this time they were giving out synthetic-fabric shirts that are sized smaller than the normal cotton ones and a small is really, really, really small. I think it is women-specific in cut, so I should probably have a large. This one might be going to my nearly 2-year-old niece for dress-up, as it won't fit on any adult I know. Then I walked on towards massage and food. I got on the massage list and grabbed two pieces to cold pizza (I thought it would be hot, it was not, ugg). Then I spotted E and I melted. The day was done. I was tired to the core (and wondering how all my gear was getting back to our hotel, a mere 3 -4 blocks away).
We eventually made it to the hotel, dropped our stuff off (and made a mini-tornado in our room, at least that is what the evidence suggested), showered, and headed to Nielsens for Frozen custard Concretes before they closed. Best. Post-race. Food. EVER. Especially the chocolate-almond concrete (like a DQ blizzard, but WAY better). Then we headed back to the hotel and I napped lightly while E puffy-panted in the NormaTec MVP.
He told me I was 7th in my age group, less than 12 min out of third, and I started to get sad. Could I have gone harder? Should I have biked faster? Could I have "given it" more on the run? Luckily, I have one more chance to go for it at Lake Placid in July.
It has been over a week now and my recovery is going well. I bounced back faster than average for every-day-feeling-good kind of activities, but still detect an endurance cap on my run and cycle fitness. My swim is going well (maybe even faster than before the race?) and the run/bike are coming around, I just feel no need (nor have any need) to go very fast right now, at least for another few days.
And that, my friends, summarizes my race pretty well, right down to the after-effects of elation, then self doubt, then motivation to go "no holds barred" and give it my all at Lake Placid in a few (10.5, but who's counting) weeks.
Finally, St. George was a great town, with great people, for an Ironman. We have planned to take a break from Ironman for a bit after 2010, but both agreed that we would be willing to race here again. It was fair, hard course, and we both felt that we have some unfinished business with the course and want another chance at the challenge it offers.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The next phase of Progression
February has now ended, and with it the Olympics have opened and closed, the last glass has been raised for stout month, and another Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon has been completed. We got in a good block of training, and enjoyed life.
Now March is upon us and it seems like more than just the flipping of another page in the calendar. Our workouts have more purpose and focus (and are longer in duration!), and free time is getting tighter as both E and I have work obligations ramping up. The athletic focus is Ironman St. George. The work focus is projects that will finally be going Big Time, requiring us, the engineers, to provide technical support to the other staff running the manufacturing-scale equipment (this is just a little stressful, but also exciting to see our projects move into their next phase of progression).
All this has me thinking. Actually, it started a few weeks ago after Mt. Taylor and while the Olympics were still going on, I just haven’t had time to sit and reflect enough on it yet to get something composed enough to post here, but I digress.
Anyways, lately I have been thing about progression and growth. It fist started after Mt. Taylor was done and I noticed the close groupings of my finish times. Each year has its own story (the first year when I was only a few months out from peaking for agegroup worlds in Cancun, the year I got food poisoning AND forgot my bike shoes, the big-headwind-on-the-bike-down year, the “let’s try the ski up with no skins” year, the year of the new bike, etc.) yet all but 2 of the 7 finishes have me finishing within an 11 minute span that falls between 4:41 and 4:52. And I really want to be consistently under 4:30, which I have only done once, and just barely. Despite this fixation on a 4:30 finish time, I have not significantly changed my training, preparations, or mindset going into the race since year 2 (the goal year 1 was to finish and scope it all out). I want to “play with the big girls” without doing the work to move up to their level.
And that, my friends, is the problem: I keep putting the same “variables” in and expect a different output back.
I am a smart and intelligent person. I would never expect to use the same ingredients in a cooking recipe and get a tastier result. I would never expect to run the same chemical process at work and have a better yield or faster cycle time. Why, then, am I expecting to show up to Mt. Taylor with a good fitness base but no real hill climbing work, no snowshoe races, no change in training volume, effort, or composition (ratios of hard, easy, long, etc.) and expect to magically be 15-25 minutes faster than I always have been? Since the mountain is not getting shorter, less steep, or closer to Grants, NM, the only way I will race faster is if I get stronger, faster, smarter, or fitter. None of these changes come from wishing for them, they come with harder and smarter training.
This was a rough realization for me. I honestly had been thinking why can’t I break out of this mold and race faster at the Quad? I did the same things I’ve done every other year, and…… Oh. Yeah……Right. Guess it doesn’t work that way, does it. Well, shoot!
I’m only thankful had this little self-awakening before doing the next 2 ironmans, for that is something where I am also no newby yet feel like I have not yet reached my fullest potential. And so, with this little gem of knowledge re-learned, I continue on my athletic journey. A journey with a jam-packed 2010!
To keep focused and on track as this busy year progresses, I need to stay keenly aware of the fact that it doesn’t get any easier. The training, the personal choices and sacrifices needed to reach a challenging athletic goal all get harder to do as the bar is raised to a higher, better, faster goal. Exponentially so. Just to achieve past success takes a bit more effort, so any improvement will always require lots of creativity and hard work.
With that sobering, thought, I am ready to proclaim I AM READY. And I don’t mean maybe.
I am taking rest and recovery seriously this year (that almost seems like I’m showing my age, but faster, longer, harder doesn’t cut it anymore, I am no longer a twenty-something…..). I am making true efforts to make our healthy diet even healthier (tonight’s crock-pot dinner of red cabbage, sweet potatoes, apples, vinegar, and summer sausage is colorful, from scratch (except for the sausage), and anti-oxidant rich). I am willing to get on the trainer any night the schedule says to (we finally made peace sometime in February, the trainer and I), but I am also trying to hit target workout times right on the nose, no extras. I’m getting good sleep. I’m scheduling regular massage and supplementing that with good home-care. And I’m dreaming big, excited by the challenge, ready for the journey.
This brings me to my second reflection point of February: why I am an athlete and why I race. I started thinking about this during the Olympics when a high-school friend from long ago mentioned on facebook that she has the hardest time watching the Olympics, or any sporting events, because she finds it heartbreaking to watch people’s life-long dreams shattered in a split second if things go wrong.
While I think she has a point (there is no do-over in the Olympics, no insurance that if you Try Hard you will have Success, no assurance that you won’t get hurt), I also think she has completely missed the point. When an athlete shows up to the Olympics, or to any major event for them, they don’t bring their B-game. They bring their A-game. Something they have thought about, dreamed about, trained for, sacrificed for. Along the way they have grown and changed, shaped by the challenge before them. If the stakes are high enough, they might be a bit nervous, but also in awe of the opportunity they have had to grow, change, challenge, learn new things about themselves and what they are mentally and physically capable of, and now humbled by the opportunity to compete and further test and challenge themselves.
Yes, only one person wins the Olympics. They do not give out finisher’s medals, you have to be top-three to get hardware there. While everyone stating each competition might feel they are worthy of a medal, only 3 people will come away with one. And that can be heartbreaking. But rarely is it will-breaking. Even in defeat, we saw Olympians who were gracious, honorable, and continuing in their journey of learning and self discovery. And when it matters most, like at the Olympics, is when we give the most of ourselves. Todd Ludwig’s performance during the first Nordic Combined race was a classic example. This man had come out of retirement for these games because the US had a chance to finally medal in a sport where they have long lingers at the fringes. During the race he worked hard at the front while the lead pack drafted off of his efforts. In the final sprint to the finish, he ended up forth and was clearly frustrated that he had no medal to show for his enormous effort. Yet his teammate, Johnny Spillane, had hung with him and earned the US its first Olympic Nordic Combined (silver) Medal. And now the bar has been raised and more work will be needed to compete with the best in the world....
Bottom line? This is not a pony-ride, folks. You don’t expect to put in your penny and bob up and down for a few minutes while the music plays, and then have that very thing happen. To dream big, to risk big, is risky business. It can be very rewarding. It can be very disappointing. But, to me at least, it is also very life-giving. Taking that risk is hard, but the journey is oh so very worth it.
Here’s to hoping you all have something worth taking the risk for. Dream big….
-A
Now March is upon us and it seems like more than just the flipping of another page in the calendar. Our workouts have more purpose and focus (and are longer in duration!), and free time is getting tighter as both E and I have work obligations ramping up. The athletic focus is Ironman St. George. The work focus is projects that will finally be going Big Time, requiring us, the engineers, to provide technical support to the other staff running the manufacturing-scale equipment (this is just a little stressful, but also exciting to see our projects move into their next phase of progression).
All this has me thinking. Actually, it started a few weeks ago after Mt. Taylor and while the Olympics were still going on, I just haven’t had time to sit and reflect enough on it yet to get something composed enough to post here, but I digress.
Anyways, lately I have been thing about progression and growth. It fist started after Mt. Taylor was done and I noticed the close groupings of my finish times. Each year has its own story (the first year when I was only a few months out from peaking for agegroup worlds in Cancun, the year I got food poisoning AND forgot my bike shoes, the big-headwind-on-the-bike-down year, the “let’s try the ski up with no skins” year, the year of the new bike, etc.) yet all but 2 of the 7 finishes have me finishing within an 11 minute span that falls between 4:41 and 4:52. And I really want to be consistently under 4:30, which I have only done once, and just barely. Despite this fixation on a 4:30 finish time, I have not significantly changed my training, preparations, or mindset going into the race since year 2 (the goal year 1 was to finish and scope it all out). I want to “play with the big girls” without doing the work to move up to their level.
And that, my friends, is the problem: I keep putting the same “variables” in and expect a different output back.
I am a smart and intelligent person. I would never expect to use the same ingredients in a cooking recipe and get a tastier result. I would never expect to run the same chemical process at work and have a better yield or faster cycle time. Why, then, am I expecting to show up to Mt. Taylor with a good fitness base but no real hill climbing work, no snowshoe races, no change in training volume, effort, or composition (ratios of hard, easy, long, etc.) and expect to magically be 15-25 minutes faster than I always have been? Since the mountain is not getting shorter, less steep, or closer to Grants, NM, the only way I will race faster is if I get stronger, faster, smarter, or fitter. None of these changes come from wishing for them, they come with harder and smarter training.
This was a rough realization for me. I honestly had been thinking why can’t I break out of this mold and race faster at the Quad? I did the same things I’ve done every other year, and…… Oh. Yeah……Right. Guess it doesn’t work that way, does it. Well, shoot!
I’m only thankful had this little self-awakening before doing the next 2 ironmans, for that is something where I am also no newby yet feel like I have not yet reached my fullest potential. And so, with this little gem of knowledge re-learned, I continue on my athletic journey. A journey with a jam-packed 2010!
To keep focused and on track as this busy year progresses, I need to stay keenly aware of the fact that it doesn’t get any easier. The training, the personal choices and sacrifices needed to reach a challenging athletic goal all get harder to do as the bar is raised to a higher, better, faster goal. Exponentially so. Just to achieve past success takes a bit more effort, so any improvement will always require lots of creativity and hard work.
With that sobering, thought, I am ready to proclaim I AM READY. And I don’t mean maybe.
I am taking rest and recovery seriously this year (that almost seems like I’m showing my age, but faster, longer, harder doesn’t cut it anymore, I am no longer a twenty-something…..). I am making true efforts to make our healthy diet even healthier (tonight’s crock-pot dinner of red cabbage, sweet potatoes, apples, vinegar, and summer sausage is colorful, from scratch (except for the sausage), and anti-oxidant rich). I am willing to get on the trainer any night the schedule says to (we finally made peace sometime in February, the trainer and I), but I am also trying to hit target workout times right on the nose, no extras. I’m getting good sleep. I’m scheduling regular massage and supplementing that with good home-care. And I’m dreaming big, excited by the challenge, ready for the journey.
This brings me to my second reflection point of February: why I am an athlete and why I race. I started thinking about this during the Olympics when a high-school friend from long ago mentioned on facebook that she has the hardest time watching the Olympics, or any sporting events, because she finds it heartbreaking to watch people’s life-long dreams shattered in a split second if things go wrong.
While I think she has a point (there is no do-over in the Olympics, no insurance that if you Try Hard you will have Success, no assurance that you won’t get hurt), I also think she has completely missed the point. When an athlete shows up to the Olympics, or to any major event for them, they don’t bring their B-game. They bring their A-game. Something they have thought about, dreamed about, trained for, sacrificed for. Along the way they have grown and changed, shaped by the challenge before them. If the stakes are high enough, they might be a bit nervous, but also in awe of the opportunity they have had to grow, change, challenge, learn new things about themselves and what they are mentally and physically capable of, and now humbled by the opportunity to compete and further test and challenge themselves.
Yes, only one person wins the Olympics. They do not give out finisher’s medals, you have to be top-three to get hardware there. While everyone stating each competition might feel they are worthy of a medal, only 3 people will come away with one. And that can be heartbreaking. But rarely is it will-breaking. Even in defeat, we saw Olympians who were gracious, honorable, and continuing in their journey of learning and self discovery. And when it matters most, like at the Olympics, is when we give the most of ourselves. Todd Ludwig’s performance during the first Nordic Combined race was a classic example. This man had come out of retirement for these games because the US had a chance to finally medal in a sport where they have long lingers at the fringes. During the race he worked hard at the front while the lead pack drafted off of his efforts. In the final sprint to the finish, he ended up forth and was clearly frustrated that he had no medal to show for his enormous effort. Yet his teammate, Johnny Spillane, had hung with him and earned the US its first Olympic Nordic Combined (silver) Medal. And now the bar has been raised and more work will be needed to compete with the best in the world....
Bottom line? This is not a pony-ride, folks. You don’t expect to put in your penny and bob up and down for a few minutes while the music plays, and then have that very thing happen. To dream big, to risk big, is risky business. It can be very rewarding. It can be very disappointing. But, to me at least, it is also very life-giving. Taking that risk is hard, but the journey is oh so very worth it.
Here’s to hoping you all have something worth taking the risk for. Dream big….
-A
Thursday, February 18, 2010
A's race report for the Mt. Taylor Winter Quad 2010
I win, I win! I got my race report posted first! No pictures yet, but lots to read. Enjoy (if you have the time to sit a bit and read all this!)
Even though this blog post is a race report for the 2010 Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon, it is written mostly for myself for next year and the years to come. This year marked my 7th year racing The Quad. Each year the packing and prepping seems to get easier to do, yet there is always an underlying sense of urgency and anxiety to get everything done at home and in Grants, NM, before the race. This year things went very smoothly, so I though I should blog about it sooner than later and help keep the “things I need to remember for next year” fresh by the time next year rolls around.
First, though, before I start writing myself notes, I should probably explain what the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon is for anyone unfamiliar with this fun, tough, unique race. The race can be done as a soloist, pair, or team of 3-4 people. The soloists race always starts at 9 am on the Saturday before Presidents Day in February. Racers bike 13 miles from the Grants, NM, Chamber of Commerce up the canyon for 13 miles to the end of the pavement. Then you switch to running gear and run 5 miles up to the start of the ski. Here you again switch equipment, grab your backpack with your snowshoes, and ski up 2 miles to the snowshoe start. From there it is only 1 mile more to the top of Mt. Taylor, where you get to turn around and do everything in reverse back to Grants (the ski down is the only part that is a different course, for safety).
2010 marked the 27th year of the race. It is an El Nino year, so the mountain had lots of snow (snow-packed for the whole run and beyond, a first in the years I have done it since 2003). As usual, the race volunteers were the best part of the day, but the tough course and long standing race history make the event very special, too. Grants is a smaller town, about 1 hour west of Albuquerque on I-40, and The Quad is a big event for many of the folks in town. And it shows. Where else can a $65 entry fee get you support for a 42 + mile race, gear schlepping up and down a mountain, an all-you-can-eat spaghetti feed the night before hand, a $7 meal voucher good at most restaurants in town (El Cafecito!!!!), Subway sandwiches after the race, and pretty affordable hotels right in town? The main race coordinators work hard to get people to come do this race, yet still keep it grass-roots in feel. It is a gem.
Anyways, back to the 2010 race report….. This year we started the packing the weekend before with assembling snowshoes (running shoes already bolted on), skins, ski boots, extra gloves and hats, wheels, bike shoes, and random gear bags lining up in the spare bedroom.
Here is what finally went up the mountain:
in bag #1 (bike-to-run): light weight racing shoes (lunar racers) with screws, visor, stretch-gloves, water bottle;
in bag #2 (run-to-ski): ski boots, ski gloves, water bottle;
in bag #3 (run-to-ski): skis with skins on, poles;
in bag #4 (ski-to-snowshoe): snowshoes with shoes attached, hat, extra socks, extra gloves, lightweight wind pants (just in case) and a gel;
wrapped separately for the way down:
in bag 2 (ski-to-run): different screw shoes (heavier, dry), run socks, gloves, visor, wind breaker, vest;
in bag 1 (run-to-bike): buff for the head, vest;
Then I wore triathlon racing shorts (some compression, light weight pad), tights, long smartwool socks, a camelbak shirt with a 64 oz. reservoir, short-sleeved poly undershirt, my new heavy weight GS boulder jersey, and a buff for the head and cycling gloves (full finger) for the ride. I also carried 1 gel, 64 oz (6 scoops) of carbopro in water, over mittens, and a light weight jacket. I used regular bike shoes and put on my toe covers. I rode the road bike, no aero bars (they might be good to have, but this is my lightest bike) with race-wheels and sew-ups.
This year the race started off at a good clip and I lost the lead pack before the 4 mile mark (at the prison). My legs were just not feeling capable of catching back on, and the group easily split and broke free out front while I was left worrying in their wake about my fitness. Only two women made the break, though, so I was still sitting OK, with a lot more racing left to do. Looking around, I saw my friend B. Hunter and my wonderful E right with me. We worked to bridge up to the leaders, but only B made the jump. In the process, though, we caught the second place woman, J. Smith, and towed a couple of gents along for a bit. Up front the pack was starting to splinter as the climb began. I had L. Isom, lead woman, in my sights, but never could close the gap, and as the climb continued, she slowly pulled further away. Things moved along, ebbed and flowed as the climb continued. Luckily, E and I were racing at a similar level this year, and I was able to use him for a good draft as we had a steady headwind to fight as we climbed the ~1800 feet to T1. In the last mile or so, J. Smith reappeared and woke me up a bit as I grabbed her wheel for the final ride to the top of the bike portion of the race. We finished in a small pack of 4 (2 other guys got swallowed up in the final push) with E a mere 15 s behind us. Time for bike up + T1: 1:00:44.
On with the racing flats, visor, a swish from the water bottle, and I grabbed a handful of my stretchy gloves and took off. The timing mats have me 1 s up on J. Smith, but she soon moved in front of me and never looked back. I was contending with cold, stubborn feet who did not want to wake up. I focused on a staccato tempo as I tried to be light and airy for the next 5 miles and ~1200 feet of climbing. I figured my feet would come around by the ~2 mile mark where there is a water stop. This is where things usually start to feel good (right before it starts to get steeper) but they never did. Not even when the guy wearing the “barefoot shoes” passed me. Instead, my calves both started to feel stiff and numb. It was a very interesting sensation. I plodded on, though, and hoped that my inability to feel anything was a blessing in disguise since I would never know if I should be in pain and suffering (then again, my lungs and upper legs had plenty of suffering going on, so I guess I was in the thick of the race either way). Oddly, though the run portion seemed much loooooonger than I remembered, it also seemed less steep. The camelbak was only sloshing a little and provided easily accessible, readily absorbed nutrition. Soon I was making the final approach into T2 with E and J. Smith both still just in sight (a relay team member waiting in T2 shouted out that I was only a few minutes out of 2nd). Time for run up + T2: 54:07.
I found the volunteer who had grabbed my bags and brought them to the benches, so I plopped down and started switching my run shoes for ski boots. Glove switch, hat switch, another swig of water and I was ready to clip into my skis and continue marching up the hill while strapping on my poles. A few meters out of transition and up the first few bumps of the climb and I saw E turned around and headed back towards me. He had forgotten to grab his backpack with the snowshoes and had to head back to T2 to retrieve them. Onward I plodded. This year, the snow had already been tracked into grooves by the skiers before me. I simply did my best to march along in their wake. I was approaching something of a kick-and-glide even with the kickers skins we had on, especially on the few flat or even slightly downhill sections. Next year, though I need to be more careful with my skin placement so that less overlap hangs off the sides. They may even need to be trimmed. And they definately need to be mounted farther back, with the fronts no further up than "C" in "RXC" on the Kestles.
Most of the uphill ski is steep. And uphill. It is also mostly through some beautiful trees. Onward I staggered, then crossed the first meadow. Next I was passing the “Quad 20” road sign (Garmin said 19.99 miles), then out through the second meadow, dashing through the last bit of trees, then breaking out into the sunshine with only Heartbreak Hill in front of me. By this time, no one had passed me on the ski, no one was really insight in front of me on the ski, and a few snowshoers who were on teams (they get to hike up from the start of the ski) were all I had for company. My legs were burning, my glutes were fried. Getting up that hill was not sounding like a good idea, but it was the only way to continue on, so it was what I did. One ski after the other. Often I was able to step straight ahead, but at times it was too steep for that, so a herringbone step was required. Then, after a good long haul, I neared the top of the climb, glided over the ridge to transition, and was quickly changing gear for the snowshoe. Time for ski up: 39:16.
Off with the skis, boots, poles. Off with the skins (fold those onto themselves and toss into the snowshoe bag). Snowshoes went on quickly and were just as quickly cinched using my lace toggles. Then I was off. My plan is always to run the flat part of the snowshoe and power hike the steep part. This year that was a struggle, and I even walked a few steps a couple of times on the flat section to get my camelbak hose in my lips. My legs were heavy and tripping seemed eminent. I was getting tired, but knew this leg was my best bet for getting nutrition in. The flat seemed to be more of a struggle than normal, but it was also very soft from all of the new snow. And it was very uneven. Then came the Edge of the World. I turned down the shot of J. Daniels and hurried on past the volunteers in their party attire to the steep part, the climb up. Quickly I pulled out my wind jacket and threw it on over the top of my other clothes. I even put on the hood. The wind was blowing here and I was sweaty and wet from the rest of the climb, so I knew the windbreaker would be key to a good decent. No one was in sight in front of me and there was a gap (back to E I think) behind me, so I only had my thoughts to keep me moving up, up, up. The track here was “groomed” by snowmobiles and was often rutty and off camber. And if you looked down and studied the snow a little bit, you could see the hoar frost thickly covering the ground. Time for T3 + snowshoe up: 25:11.
A few more big wind gusts and I reached the top, went through the timing chute, grabbed a Dixie cup of water, paused to drink it and discard the cup in the trash, then started the free-fall-descent-on-snowshoes of the steep part. I love that feeling of riding your tails down a steep powdery hillside. This trails was again “groomed” by snowmobiles so it was a bit grabby with the cleats in some places, but it was still magical. The last two years they have made the steep up and steep down of the snowshoe two different routes. This has plusses and minuses. I like the new trail down. I like it a lot. But I miss the chance to see everyone in front of and behind me, to look them in the eye, to wish them good luck, to scope out the competition. Soon enough my magical free fall down the steep powder hill ended, I was back at the Edge of the World and facing head-on traffic from all the racer nearing the top of the mountain and the halfway point of their race. Many were wobbly-legged (as was I, still). That, combined with a trail that was more rutted and deformed than normal made for a few interesting passes and near collisions. In the end, catastrophe was avoided (at least on my watch) and I was back to my skis ready to change gear once more. Time for snowshoe down: 10:10.
I picked the snow clumps off my socks, changed gloves, stuffed my feet back into my ski boots, threw the snowshoes into the backpack and then onto my back, then grabbed my poles and clipped into my skis to start the glide back down the mountain. Once moving I strapped my poles on. Again, there was no one in sight as I began my descent. Soon, I would see I was the next racer to follow a snowcat groomer as he kept moving down the hill. The wind was swirling fresh snow onto the trail and he was trying to keep a track open. At the first tight corner, after crossing the meadow, he pulled over and I zoomed by. This year I carried more speed into the turns, but the snow was also soft and slow, so my time was comparable to year’s past. Near the bottom, in the whoopty-whoop section, I passed two racers. I caught another in transition, but he soon motored past me on the run down. Time for T4 + ski down: 17:24.
In transition I threw on my shoes, grabbed a handful of stretchy gloves, threw on my visor, took a swig of water, and shot off. Unfortunately, as I was now a human popsicle, I was still wearing my wind jacket with hood. The visor slipped on over all of this easily enough, but the extra jacket and hood nicely hid my ski hat that I was also still wearing. As I started to thaw, I pulled off the jacked and stuffed it into a back pocket, and only then discovered my hat. I knew I wouldn’t need it for long, but the easiest way to carry it would be to keep wearing it, so I did just that from most of the run down, until it got flatter and warmer and was just too much to leave it on my head. The run down this year felt good. I focused on feeling light and having quick turnover with the feet. I was very happy to have chosen my racing flats for the trip down, too (I had a second set of screw shoes that were beefier, more of a training shoe, that I thought might be well suited for the greater impact of the steep sections in the initial portion of the run. The Lunars held up well, though, and were awesome later on when things got flat and the legs were feeling heavier and tired. Feet held up OK, too, only a few blisters that likely would have happened in any shoe. Time for T5 + run down: 39:39.
Into the last transition. My bike was WAY down at the end (women get the low numbers and are racked at the start of the transition on the way up, which is the back of the transition on the way out. Both the first and second women were late to register and got high numbers, so were racked at the other end from me. Of course, by now, they were so far in front of me that I never saw them, but technically they had less running to do since riding in this transition is allowed). Anyways, my nice boy-scout volunteers convinced me to throw on a vest (didn’t hurt, but cost some time probably) and a head band (buff). Then a change of shoes, donning of the helmet, and I was off. I took the upper curves cautiously after Roger’s spill from 2008. The road was in good shape, though, and I was soon cruising through the flatter parts, thankful for no head wind this year. I was trying to discern if it was a tail or cross wind all while going as fast as I could. A few times my compact crank set-up had me maxing out with no more gears to shift into, so I just spun as fast as I could. I felt OK now, but really, really, really wanted to get done with this race. I had not looked at my watch after the top of the hill and had no idea where I was at, time-wise, I just was ready to stop moving for a bit. The entire bike down, I saw no one, again (this was very strange all day, as I usually jockey around with a few guys and start to know who’s who. No teams even passed me, this may have been a first). Back in town there were a few head-wind sections as we jogged our way back over to the chamber of commerce (wind was definitely from the west now), then I crossed the finish line. Time for T6 + bike down: 34:44.
Total race time for 2010 was 4:41:12 and good enough for third woman. A hearty 8 min from second and 17 min from first. E was the next finisher, 7 min back.
Total times from year’s past:
2003 – 4:42:48
2004 – 5:05:31 (food poisoning and forgot bike shoes, used run shoes and home-made toe straps)
2005 – 4:44:39 (major headwind on bike down = major bonk)
2006 – no snow, we did not race
2007 – 4:52:35 (no skins, bad, bad decision)
2008 – 4:44:02
2009 – 4:29:26 (break through year, great race)
2010 – 4:41:12
This year was strong, but the fresh snow made it slow. Clothing was good (changed gloves a lot but never changed socks). Nutrition was good (has been a problem). We also did not train especially for this race or taper for it at all. We trained right through it. And as a test of fitness….. I think we’re fit!
From coach J: “Wheww! Glad this one is done and you were strong and no worse for the wear. So great that you were able to hit 3rd without any focus on this event besides being in good general conditioning which you certainly are. …and think of all the sports energy you still have to put into your St. George Training. Be pleased!”
Be pleased…. I think I am! Until next year. Then it will be off to break 4:30 again, or maybe even 4:20….. until then, stay tough!
Even though this blog post is a race report for the 2010 Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon, it is written mostly for myself for next year and the years to come. This year marked my 7th year racing The Quad. Each year the packing and prepping seems to get easier to do, yet there is always an underlying sense of urgency and anxiety to get everything done at home and in Grants, NM, before the race. This year things went very smoothly, so I though I should blog about it sooner than later and help keep the “things I need to remember for next year” fresh by the time next year rolls around.
First, though, before I start writing myself notes, I should probably explain what the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon is for anyone unfamiliar with this fun, tough, unique race. The race can be done as a soloist, pair, or team of 3-4 people. The soloists race always starts at 9 am on the Saturday before Presidents Day in February. Racers bike 13 miles from the Grants, NM, Chamber of Commerce up the canyon for 13 miles to the end of the pavement. Then you switch to running gear and run 5 miles up to the start of the ski. Here you again switch equipment, grab your backpack with your snowshoes, and ski up 2 miles to the snowshoe start. From there it is only 1 mile more to the top of Mt. Taylor, where you get to turn around and do everything in reverse back to Grants (the ski down is the only part that is a different course, for safety).
2010 marked the 27th year of the race. It is an El Nino year, so the mountain had lots of snow (snow-packed for the whole run and beyond, a first in the years I have done it since 2003). As usual, the race volunteers were the best part of the day, but the tough course and long standing race history make the event very special, too. Grants is a smaller town, about 1 hour west of Albuquerque on I-40, and The Quad is a big event for many of the folks in town. And it shows. Where else can a $65 entry fee get you support for a 42 + mile race, gear schlepping up and down a mountain, an all-you-can-eat spaghetti feed the night before hand, a $7 meal voucher good at most restaurants in town (El Cafecito!!!!), Subway sandwiches after the race, and pretty affordable hotels right in town? The main race coordinators work hard to get people to come do this race, yet still keep it grass-roots in feel. It is a gem.
Anyways, back to the 2010 race report….. This year we started the packing the weekend before with assembling snowshoes (running shoes already bolted on), skins, ski boots, extra gloves and hats, wheels, bike shoes, and random gear bags lining up in the spare bedroom.
Here is what finally went up the mountain:
in bag #1 (bike-to-run): light weight racing shoes (lunar racers) with screws, visor, stretch-gloves, water bottle;
in bag #2 (run-to-ski): ski boots, ski gloves, water bottle;
in bag #3 (run-to-ski): skis with skins on, poles;
in bag #4 (ski-to-snowshoe): snowshoes with shoes attached, hat, extra socks, extra gloves, lightweight wind pants (just in case) and a gel;
wrapped separately for the way down:
in bag 2 (ski-to-run): different screw shoes (heavier, dry), run socks, gloves, visor, wind breaker, vest;
in bag 1 (run-to-bike): buff for the head, vest;
Then I wore triathlon racing shorts (some compression, light weight pad), tights, long smartwool socks, a camelbak shirt with a 64 oz. reservoir, short-sleeved poly undershirt, my new heavy weight GS boulder jersey, and a buff for the head and cycling gloves (full finger) for the ride. I also carried 1 gel, 64 oz (6 scoops) of carbopro in water, over mittens, and a light weight jacket. I used regular bike shoes and put on my toe covers. I rode the road bike, no aero bars (they might be good to have, but this is my lightest bike) with race-wheels and sew-ups.
This year the race started off at a good clip and I lost the lead pack before the 4 mile mark (at the prison). My legs were just not feeling capable of catching back on, and the group easily split and broke free out front while I was left worrying in their wake about my fitness. Only two women made the break, though, so I was still sitting OK, with a lot more racing left to do. Looking around, I saw my friend B. Hunter and my wonderful E right with me. We worked to bridge up to the leaders, but only B made the jump. In the process, though, we caught the second place woman, J. Smith, and towed a couple of gents along for a bit. Up front the pack was starting to splinter as the climb began. I had L. Isom, lead woman, in my sights, but never could close the gap, and as the climb continued, she slowly pulled further away. Things moved along, ebbed and flowed as the climb continued. Luckily, E and I were racing at a similar level this year, and I was able to use him for a good draft as we had a steady headwind to fight as we climbed the ~1800 feet to T1. In the last mile or so, J. Smith reappeared and woke me up a bit as I grabbed her wheel for the final ride to the top of the bike portion of the race. We finished in a small pack of 4 (2 other guys got swallowed up in the final push) with E a mere 15 s behind us. Time for bike up + T1: 1:00:44.
On with the racing flats, visor, a swish from the water bottle, and I grabbed a handful of my stretchy gloves and took off. The timing mats have me 1 s up on J. Smith, but she soon moved in front of me and never looked back. I was contending with cold, stubborn feet who did not want to wake up. I focused on a staccato tempo as I tried to be light and airy for the next 5 miles and ~1200 feet of climbing. I figured my feet would come around by the ~2 mile mark where there is a water stop. This is where things usually start to feel good (right before it starts to get steeper) but they never did. Not even when the guy wearing the “barefoot shoes” passed me. Instead, my calves both started to feel stiff and numb. It was a very interesting sensation. I plodded on, though, and hoped that my inability to feel anything was a blessing in disguise since I would never know if I should be in pain and suffering (then again, my lungs and upper legs had plenty of suffering going on, so I guess I was in the thick of the race either way). Oddly, though the run portion seemed much loooooonger than I remembered, it also seemed less steep. The camelbak was only sloshing a little and provided easily accessible, readily absorbed nutrition. Soon I was making the final approach into T2 with E and J. Smith both still just in sight (a relay team member waiting in T2 shouted out that I was only a few minutes out of 2nd). Time for run up + T2: 54:07.
I found the volunteer who had grabbed my bags and brought them to the benches, so I plopped down and started switching my run shoes for ski boots. Glove switch, hat switch, another swig of water and I was ready to clip into my skis and continue marching up the hill while strapping on my poles. A few meters out of transition and up the first few bumps of the climb and I saw E turned around and headed back towards me. He had forgotten to grab his backpack with the snowshoes and had to head back to T2 to retrieve them. Onward I plodded. This year, the snow had already been tracked into grooves by the skiers before me. I simply did my best to march along in their wake. I was approaching something of a kick-and-glide even with the kickers skins we had on, especially on the few flat or even slightly downhill sections. Next year, though I need to be more careful with my skin placement so that less overlap hangs off the sides. They may even need to be trimmed. And they definately need to be mounted farther back, with the fronts no further up than "C" in "RXC" on the Kestles.
Most of the uphill ski is steep. And uphill. It is also mostly through some beautiful trees. Onward I staggered, then crossed the first meadow. Next I was passing the “Quad 20” road sign (Garmin said 19.99 miles), then out through the second meadow, dashing through the last bit of trees, then breaking out into the sunshine with only Heartbreak Hill in front of me. By this time, no one had passed me on the ski, no one was really insight in front of me on the ski, and a few snowshoers who were on teams (they get to hike up from the start of the ski) were all I had for company. My legs were burning, my glutes were fried. Getting up that hill was not sounding like a good idea, but it was the only way to continue on, so it was what I did. One ski after the other. Often I was able to step straight ahead, but at times it was too steep for that, so a herringbone step was required. Then, after a good long haul, I neared the top of the climb, glided over the ridge to transition, and was quickly changing gear for the snowshoe. Time for ski up: 39:16.
Off with the skis, boots, poles. Off with the skins (fold those onto themselves and toss into the snowshoe bag). Snowshoes went on quickly and were just as quickly cinched using my lace toggles. Then I was off. My plan is always to run the flat part of the snowshoe and power hike the steep part. This year that was a struggle, and I even walked a few steps a couple of times on the flat section to get my camelbak hose in my lips. My legs were heavy and tripping seemed eminent. I was getting tired, but knew this leg was my best bet for getting nutrition in. The flat seemed to be more of a struggle than normal, but it was also very soft from all of the new snow. And it was very uneven. Then came the Edge of the World. I turned down the shot of J. Daniels and hurried on past the volunteers in their party attire to the steep part, the climb up. Quickly I pulled out my wind jacket and threw it on over the top of my other clothes. I even put on the hood. The wind was blowing here and I was sweaty and wet from the rest of the climb, so I knew the windbreaker would be key to a good decent. No one was in sight in front of me and there was a gap (back to E I think) behind me, so I only had my thoughts to keep me moving up, up, up. The track here was “groomed” by snowmobiles and was often rutty and off camber. And if you looked down and studied the snow a little bit, you could see the hoar frost thickly covering the ground. Time for T3 + snowshoe up: 25:11.
A few more big wind gusts and I reached the top, went through the timing chute, grabbed a Dixie cup of water, paused to drink it and discard the cup in the trash, then started the free-fall-descent-on-snowshoes of the steep part. I love that feeling of riding your tails down a steep powdery hillside. This trails was again “groomed” by snowmobiles so it was a bit grabby with the cleats in some places, but it was still magical. The last two years they have made the steep up and steep down of the snowshoe two different routes. This has plusses and minuses. I like the new trail down. I like it a lot. But I miss the chance to see everyone in front of and behind me, to look them in the eye, to wish them good luck, to scope out the competition. Soon enough my magical free fall down the steep powder hill ended, I was back at the Edge of the World and facing head-on traffic from all the racer nearing the top of the mountain and the halfway point of their race. Many were wobbly-legged (as was I, still). That, combined with a trail that was more rutted and deformed than normal made for a few interesting passes and near collisions. In the end, catastrophe was avoided (at least on my watch) and I was back to my skis ready to change gear once more. Time for snowshoe down: 10:10.
I picked the snow clumps off my socks, changed gloves, stuffed my feet back into my ski boots, threw the snowshoes into the backpack and then onto my back, then grabbed my poles and clipped into my skis to start the glide back down the mountain. Once moving I strapped my poles on. Again, there was no one in sight as I began my descent. Soon, I would see I was the next racer to follow a snowcat groomer as he kept moving down the hill. The wind was swirling fresh snow onto the trail and he was trying to keep a track open. At the first tight corner, after crossing the meadow, he pulled over and I zoomed by. This year I carried more speed into the turns, but the snow was also soft and slow, so my time was comparable to year’s past. Near the bottom, in the whoopty-whoop section, I passed two racers. I caught another in transition, but he soon motored past me on the run down. Time for T4 + ski down: 17:24.
In transition I threw on my shoes, grabbed a handful of stretchy gloves, threw on my visor, took a swig of water, and shot off. Unfortunately, as I was now a human popsicle, I was still wearing my wind jacket with hood. The visor slipped on over all of this easily enough, but the extra jacket and hood nicely hid my ski hat that I was also still wearing. As I started to thaw, I pulled off the jacked and stuffed it into a back pocket, and only then discovered my hat. I knew I wouldn’t need it for long, but the easiest way to carry it would be to keep wearing it, so I did just that from most of the run down, until it got flatter and warmer and was just too much to leave it on my head. The run down this year felt good. I focused on feeling light and having quick turnover with the feet. I was very happy to have chosen my racing flats for the trip down, too (I had a second set of screw shoes that were beefier, more of a training shoe, that I thought might be well suited for the greater impact of the steep sections in the initial portion of the run. The Lunars held up well, though, and were awesome later on when things got flat and the legs were feeling heavier and tired. Feet held up OK, too, only a few blisters that likely would have happened in any shoe. Time for T5 + run down: 39:39.
Into the last transition. My bike was WAY down at the end (women get the low numbers and are racked at the start of the transition on the way up, which is the back of the transition on the way out. Both the first and second women were late to register and got high numbers, so were racked at the other end from me. Of course, by now, they were so far in front of me that I never saw them, but technically they had less running to do since riding in this transition is allowed). Anyways, my nice boy-scout volunteers convinced me to throw on a vest (didn’t hurt, but cost some time probably) and a head band (buff). Then a change of shoes, donning of the helmet, and I was off. I took the upper curves cautiously after Roger’s spill from 2008. The road was in good shape, though, and I was soon cruising through the flatter parts, thankful for no head wind this year. I was trying to discern if it was a tail or cross wind all while going as fast as I could. A few times my compact crank set-up had me maxing out with no more gears to shift into, so I just spun as fast as I could. I felt OK now, but really, really, really wanted to get done with this race. I had not looked at my watch after the top of the hill and had no idea where I was at, time-wise, I just was ready to stop moving for a bit. The entire bike down, I saw no one, again (this was very strange all day, as I usually jockey around with a few guys and start to know who’s who. No teams even passed me, this may have been a first). Back in town there were a few head-wind sections as we jogged our way back over to the chamber of commerce (wind was definitely from the west now), then I crossed the finish line. Time for T6 + bike down: 34:44.
Total race time for 2010 was 4:41:12 and good enough for third woman. A hearty 8 min from second and 17 min from first. E was the next finisher, 7 min back.
Total times from year’s past:
2003 – 4:42:48
2004 – 5:05:31 (food poisoning and forgot bike shoes, used run shoes and home-made toe straps)
2005 – 4:44:39 (major headwind on bike down = major bonk)
2006 – no snow, we did not race
2007 – 4:52:35 (no skins, bad, bad decision)
2008 – 4:44:02
2009 – 4:29:26 (break through year, great race)
2010 – 4:41:12
This year was strong, but the fresh snow made it slow. Clothing was good (changed gloves a lot but never changed socks). Nutrition was good (has been a problem). We also did not train especially for this race or taper for it at all. We trained right through it. And as a test of fitness….. I think we’re fit!
From coach J: “Wheww! Glad this one is done and you were strong and no worse for the wear. So great that you were able to hit 3rd without any focus on this event besides being in good general conditioning which you certainly are. …and think of all the sports energy you still have to put into your St. George Training. Be pleased!”
Be pleased…. I think I am! Until next year. Then it will be off to break 4:30 again, or maybe even 4:20….. until then, stay tough!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon race report
I am sitting here wondering where to start with my return to blog-land and figure that a belated race report is a good place. This past February, E and I headed down to Grants, NM, for the 26th annual Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon. As usual, we had a car loaded with bikes, run shoes (with screws for the snow and ice), skis, skins, poles, and snowshoes. New this year, we brought with some other Boulder athletes and shared our hotel room. It was good to share the race experience with new companions, but it was a break from the tradition we had kept for the last 5 times we have done the race.
Friday we left Boulder early, drove to Grants without issue, picked up our materials at registration, and dropped off all of our gear for legs 2-4 at the fire house before settling into the hotel (away from the 24-7 rail road tracks) and then heading back to town for the complimentary pasta feed. A few last minute bike prep steps back at the hotel, and we headed to bed.
The race started Saturday at 9 am and we made it there in a single trip (years past have seen us rushing back to the hotel for timing chips, forgotten medication, etc. I do not know why, but this seems to be the one race where I can forget something vital and cause a ruckus race morning). We arrived at the start early enough to get great parking spots and with plenty of time for a good bike and run warm up. Unfortunately, as E already mentioned in his post, we had enough time to find some glass on the road's shoulder during our warm-up that led to some drama pre-start.
I didn't know it until I was trying to drop off a few last minute things at the car and ride to the line, but I was getting a flat front tire. I sprinted to the start, found E quickly, told him what was going on, and swapped wheels with him while he made a bee-line to the race mechanic's tent. I was able to stall the starter long enough for E to get the tire changed and head back over to the start. Unfortunately, E now had no spare tire, which cost him later as he had a slow leak in the rear due to more glass.
And with that, the gun was fired and the field was off. We all rode in a pack through town and out towards the county corrections facility. I was with two of the top women, but soon saw a pack breaking off the front and worked to bridge up to them, leaving Lisa and Keri close behind me, but out of site. At ~ 9 miles they reappeared and passed me as we flew down the only down-hill in the first leg and then started the steepest portion of the climb. Lisa was gone in a flash. Keri lingered a little longer due to shifting issues, but was out of sight by the time I moved into the first transition (T1). A few other strong riders (women) where there this year, and I entered T1 in 5th place for the female soloists. Just in time to miss the dirt and debris getting kicked up by the helicopter trying to land next to T1!
I was in and out of T1 quickly, and soon passed my nearest rivals. This year I made some strategic shoe choices for the run that had a positive impact on my race, and I was zipping along nicely through the early rollers and up the steeps. It was a beautiful day for a race. My nutrition was going well, and the legs and lungs were feeling OK, considering we were climbing ~1200 feet over the 5 mile run.
Friday we left Boulder early, drove to Grants without issue, picked up our materials at registration, and dropped off all of our gear for legs 2-4 at the fire house before settling into the hotel (away from the 24-7 rail road tracks) and then heading back to town for the complimentary pasta feed. A few last minute bike prep steps back at the hotel, and we headed to bed.
The race started Saturday at 9 am and we made it there in a single trip (years past have seen us rushing back to the hotel for timing chips, forgotten medication, etc. I do not know why, but this seems to be the one race where I can forget something vital and cause a ruckus race morning). We arrived at the start early enough to get great parking spots and with plenty of time for a good bike and run warm up. Unfortunately, as E already mentioned in his post, we had enough time to find some glass on the road's shoulder during our warm-up that led to some drama pre-start.
I didn't know it until I was trying to drop off a few last minute things at the car and ride to the line, but I was getting a flat front tire. I sprinted to the start, found E quickly, told him what was going on, and swapped wheels with him while he made a bee-line to the race mechanic's tent. I was able to stall the starter long enough for E to get the tire changed and head back over to the start. Unfortunately, E now had no spare tire, which cost him later as he had a slow leak in the rear due to more glass.
And with that, the gun was fired and the field was off. We all rode in a pack through town and out towards the county corrections facility. I was with two of the top women, but soon saw a pack breaking off the front and worked to bridge up to them, leaving Lisa and Keri close behind me, but out of site. At ~ 9 miles they reappeared and passed me as we flew down the only down-hill in the first leg and then started the steepest portion of the climb. Lisa was gone in a flash. Keri lingered a little longer due to shifting issues, but was out of sight by the time I moved into the first transition (T1). A few other strong riders (women) where there this year, and I entered T1 in 5th place for the female soloists. Just in time to miss the dirt and debris getting kicked up by the helicopter trying to land next to T1!
I was in and out of T1 quickly, and soon passed my nearest rivals. This year I made some strategic shoe choices for the run that had a positive impact on my race, and I was zipping along nicely through the early rollers and up the steeps. It was a beautiful day for a race. My nutrition was going well, and the legs and lungs were feeling OK, considering we were climbing ~1200 feet over the 5 mile run.
I entered T2 in 3rd, but knew I had a few women close on my heels. I took a final swig from my hand-held water bottle that I carried for the run, threw on my skate boots, clipped into my skis, swung my bag with snowshoes onto my back, and started to quickly walk out towards the timing mat at the end of T2 while strapping my poles on. The amazing volunteers were still loading my rejected run equipment into my bag as I transitioned from trudge to shuffle and skied out of sight.
The ski is always steep and painful at the Quad. 2009 was no exception. By now my muscles are screaming for oxygen and any motion feels like you are engulfed in lactic-acid derived quick sand. I fought on, driven by the thought that the race leaders, the women I emulated, and my own time goals, were within reach if I could stay focused and drive steadily onward.
At T3 I saw the men's race leader leaving to start the ski down as I was ripping my skins off the skis and shoving my feet into my bolted-on run shoes on the snowshoes. As I ran along the flat portion, I saw Brian Hunter ahead. He had passed me on the ski up and we would continue to jockey back and forth for the next 40 min or so, spurring each other on. I had a gel. Declined the whiskey but took water at the edge-of-the-world, and somewhere in there put on the light weight windbreaker that I had been carrying in my jersey pocket since the start. This jacket was a life saver, and the decisions to wear it was one that eventually propelled me to a great total race and 15 min PR (after having 4 of the previous 5 years all be within ~5 min of each other). Keri and Erin were not as fortunate. Both eventually were pulled off course by medical due to potential hypothermia. The winds were brutal at the top of the mountian and we were all very wet due to the efforts we exerted to haul ourselves up the mountain. My jacket (an awesome find at Golite) packs down to a lump smaller than most supermarket apples and weighing less than its volume in marshmellows (its small and light) and had been out of sight and mind until I needed it and quickly remembered having it and threw it on mid stride. Then I passed the Edge of the World and started to assend the steep section that would send me to the half way point distance wise, also known as the top of Mt. Taylor.
At the top I paused briefly for a 2 second look at the view, then followed directions and started down. This year they sent us down a different way than we went up. It was a very fun section to descend, but I missed seeing where everyone in front of me was like I could when the top used to be an out and back.
Before I knew it, I was back in transition trying to stuff my feet into my wet ski boots, attach my boots to my bindings, and plop my snowshoes into my backpack for the ski descent. As I started to shuffle off I was still trying to jam my hands into my poles. I had a few close calls this year when my skis got caught in a rut or when I was maneuvering around other racers on some of the tight hairpin turns, but I made it down in decent time with no falls. Near the bottom, in the middle of the whoop-do-woos, I shot past Keri, much to my surprise. After that section there is a short up and then flat-ish section where I always skate. I pushed on, worried that Keri was just behind me. She is strong and has multiple wins here, and she can run!
By the time I made it over the timing mat and into transition, the volunteers had grabbed my gear bag, removed my skis from my feet, and were directing towards a bench where I could sit briefly and prep for the downhill run. On with my shoes, run hat, and handful of gels, and I was off. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to grab my water bottle in the rush. That ended up not being too much of a problem, but having it with me would have been better. Part way down, after turning off the steep road onto the flatter road and getting ready to cross the second cattle guard, a headwind picked up and nearly blew my hat off. I pulled it loose from my ponytail and stuck it in my race belt. The last bit of the run is rolling and gets ugly. I always think this is the hardest leg of the race because I'm starting to tire, ready to be done, and assuming all is downhill, but it's not. The last mile has noticeable uphill sections and lots of flat that seems to go nowhere. Regardless, keeping one foot in front of the other seems to get one through this part and on to the bike.
The bike down this year was uneventful. The headwinds picked up throughout the bike, but by now I almost expect that (unlike 2005 when I was on par for a significant PR and expecting a 30-35 min decent, only to go 50 min and nearly bonk since I had not grabbed food and expected to be done much sooner). I crossed the line in second place, a major accomplishment! I chatted briefly with the radio station announcers, tuned in my chip, drank copious amounts of gatorade, then turned back to find E. He wasn't too far behind, but was further back than I expected. I soon learned that he had also found glass during our bike warm-up that left him with a slow rear leak. A number of stops to top off the tire with CO2 got him to the finish, but he had ridden the last bit up at the beginning while standing, cautiously descended the steep parts at the top on the way down, and had to stop at the top of the little climb during the end bike to refill.
The rest of our acquaintances drifted in and we learned that Lisa had won, Tom was done in excellent time, better than expected, and both Eric and Keri got to ride down together in a cop car after the medics pulled them off course for hypothermia. We used our meal ticket to have lunch with Keri and catch up on her latest adventures. I think this lunch at El Cafecito was my favorite part of the trip. Keri is a neat person, and we really only see her at races, often only at Mt. Taylor. And the food at El Cafecito is AWESOME, true NM cuisine.
Then it was back to the hotel to start cleaning up, packing gear, packing the car some, vegging out, etc. We headed back in to town for awards that night, then hit the hay. The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel, then said goodbye to Eric, loaded Tom and the last things into the car, and turned towards Boulder. The 2009 Mt. Taylor Quad trip was done, but we'll be back next year. You should join us in Grants, NM for the race, it is one of a kind and a true gem.
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