NJ State Olympic Tri Race Report

My second Tri, first Olympic distance, stepping stone to my half Ironman in September. As usual, I'm full of doubts of what I'm capable of for the 70.3 so I wanted this race to be enjoyable, confidence building and a learning experience. Thankfully, it was all three of those things!!

Leading up to this weekend I was so busy at work I didn't even have time to stress over the race and by the time Saturday rolled around, I was so exhausted that laying on the couch and zoning out was the perfect pre race day. I slept pretty well Saturday night and didn't experience any pre race nervousness that kept me up. Up bright and early on Sunday, I still felt really calm. Unfortunately, my stomach was not. I had some pretty unpleasant stomach fun from the time I woke up until literally 3 minutes before my wave lined up to enter the water. I think this was something more than pre race jitters because I never had it last so long and I really wasn't that much of a basket case. Yes, I got teary more than once when telling Andy that I didn't think I could swim that far, but I didn't think I was that much of a mess. My stomach will continue to be a mystery.

So, enough poo and back to the race...I headed down to the start of swim area for the pre race warm up. I knew I needed to do this to prepare myself for any panic that might set in and thought it was better to get some of it out of the way before the gun went off. I walked calmly into the water, which was 88 degrees and felt like a cess pool, dunked my head and started swimming. I couldn't see shit in the brown, murky water but I focused on keeping my breathing under control and just did my thing. It was the best feeling ever that I didn't experience any panic whatsoever.

After the practice swim we huddled in whatever shade we could find with all the other athletes trying to do the same in hopes to keep cool. It was only 7:30am and already hot as heck, around 90 degrees, and the humdity was terrible. Poor Andy, he just loves the heat and humdity and he had a long morning ahead of him spectating. But once again, he won the husband of the year award and sucked it up. He also provided a lot of hugs as I stood there sighing, a telltale sign that I'm nervous, and telling me I could do this.

Waves went off every 5 minutes for the swim and as I waited to line up, I told myself that I wasn't going to win this race and I definitely wasn't going to win the swim so I should just take it easy and keep myself under control in the water. We entered the water and while we treaded water waiting for our start, I took a bunch of deep breaths and told myself it was nothing more than 65 laps at the pool. When we started, I easily slipped into a rhythm and did my thing. I was nudged and hit a bit, and did a little hitting back, but it didn't faze me. Prior to the start when I saw how long the swim course looked, I was really worried but once I got moving, the bouys just kept ticking by. The only thing that messed me up during the swim was that my goggles fogged so badly and when we turned around and were heading into the sun I couldn't see a darn thing. I basically searched for any moving water in front of me to keep on track with other swimmers. When we reached the final turn to head out of the water, I couldn't believe I made it and didn't freak out once along the way!! That in itself was a huge accomplishment!!

Swim - 37:41 (now that I know I can handle it, I'm ready to push harder!)
T1 - 2:13 (didn't feel this long!)

Out of the water and into transition I went feeling great; not like the sprint I did in June where I told Andy the swim was the worst experience of my life. That was so not the case today and I think I might have even had a smile on my face! Transition went smoothly and I was headed out on my bike for 2 loops / 25.2 miles before I knew it. Nothing exciting on the bike except that I felt pretty good. Still not sure how much to push myself to save my legs for the run, so I decided to just go by feel. I did a fair amount of passing and also got blown away by some serious triathletes on their fancy bikes. It was hot but bearable since I was moving and somewhere on the second lap I downed a Gu. I wasn't drinking as much as I probably should and with my stomach issues before we started I was worried I was going to bonk. I wasn't hungry or interested in food or water but I knew I needed something. I finished the bike feeling strong and didn't crash as I clipped out and dismounted! Another success!!

You can't see it here but I'm grinning ear to ear!

Bike - 1:20:38, average 19mph
T2 - 2:05

From the second I switched from my cycling shoes to my running shoes, I knew the run was going to be a struggle. Finally stopping and not having the breeze from the bike, the still air, heat and humidity got me. I trained for a 7:30-7:40 pace for the run but I immediately knew when I started that I'd take anything that got me to the finish. The first mile started with me passing a ton of walkers and it got to me mentally. I found myself at one point calculating how long it would take me to finish if I just stopped and walked the rest of the way. If everyone else was walking, why couldn't I? Thankfully I realized that even if I shuffled I'd finish sooner and I needed to do anything to just keep moving forward. I made it to the first water stop, which was also handing out cold towels which were a god send, and took a few seconds to walk, grab a drink and pour water down my back. I never in a million years thought I'd walk a water stop at a 10k but the heat was just horrible. I pushed along as my pace slowed but I was still running which was more than I could say for a lot of people out there. It wasn't only me the heat was affecting, for the majority of the race there were more walkers than there were runners. My legs were fine but the heat held me back and I ended up averaging a minute slower than race pace. Far from what I wanted but it got me to the finish alive and smiling. In fact, as I was approaching the finish with about a quarter mile to go, a spectator said to me, "that's the first smile I've seen all day." Another goal achieved, I had fun!!

Leaving T2, again, smiling!

Run - 53:12, average 8:35

I had some time goals for this race which I didn't share because I knew with this being my first one I shouldn't focus on time. But my main goal was to finish happy in under 3 hours, which I did. Another win for the day! I have been analyzing everything all day and know where I could have done better, etc but the bottom line is that the heat was just a little too much today. Considering this was my second Tri, I'm happy with how it went and I already have plans to go back to this course next year and come home with a huge PR.

Total time: 2:55:49

F35-39 - 16th

Overall 418/944

I left this race with a lot of thoughts about where I'm going in the sport of Triathlons and honestly, I might be a little confused. I'll be taking it easy the next few days with some light workouts, and lots of thinking about goals, as I work my way back into the thick of training...Quakerman Half Ironman is only 7 weeks away!

3 More Sleeps

I swear the work Gods are against me. Every week before a race the shit hits the fan at work and it's complete chaos. This week has consisted of stressful, long days and this 5 minute mental break for this post will hopefully keep me from screaming. The only good part of this craziness is that it's keeping my mind off of this little thing I have scheduled for Sunday....my first Olympic Tri!!

On Sunday I'll be racing my second triathlon, first Olympic distance. The race consists of a 0.93 mile swim, 25.5 mile bike and a 10k run. I'm usually all about goals, even when it's my first time doing a particular race, but with the heat wave we're currently experiencing, my only goal is to not over heat and die. If you're not part of the fun on the East coast, we have temperatures exceeding 100 degrees today and tomorrow and the humidity is making it feel closer to 110. When I left for work today at 7am it was already a toasty, humid 84 degrees. The temperatures are supposed to fall a bit by Sunday with highs only in the mid 90's. With the race starting at 7:30am, hopefully it won't be too bad.

I have some general times for each part that I'd like to hit but I'm not going to beat myself up if I can't nail my race pace on the run. In a way, I think the heat is almost a good thing. It's keeping me much more relaxed and I'm not so focused on what finish time I want to get. With this being my first Olympic distance, it should be more about the experience and what I can learn, than how quickly I can get it done.

But with all that being said, I feel pretty good about it. A little anxious about the swim, as I start in a wave with men, but I'm trying to tell myself it's just goofing off in the water and not to take it too seriously. I had my final brick last weekend with a 2 hour bike and an hour run. With both covering distances longer than I'll see this Sunday, and my first three miles of the run around a 7:30, I finished up peak week feeling pretty confident. I put in the time for this race, even a little extra, and I'm ready to have some fun!! Knowing there's a beer garden at the finish and that this kicks off a week of vacation is definitely helping!

3 more sleeps till the fun begins!

Holy Hills!

The Half Ironman I have scheduled for September became so real the other day when I received my training plan from my Coach. I knew it was creeping up on me and I knew training would get more intense, but having never done one of these before, I didn't know what to expect. Thankfully I've been training a little more aggressively than what I need for my Olympic Tri in just over a week so that softened the blow.

When I first opened the plan, I just stared at it. Then I closed it, opened it again, and stared some more. Not sure what I was expecting to change, but I think I closed and opened it like 10 more times. The format is the same, with 3 doubles a week and some brick workouts on Saturday. The biggest change, obviously, is the training hours I'll be putting in each week. My shortest week consists of just under 9 hours while the biggest week takes me to 14 hours. It terms of workouts, my time in the saddle increases significantly and my runs get progressively longer. Thankfully, the hours I'll be spending in the pool won't change much. This was huge because expecting longer pool workouts was messing with me mentally.

So after staring and analyzing the plan for a good 2 days, I decided that I had to get up and ride the bike course of the race to know what I was up against. The course is hilly, to say the least, and not closed to traffic...two things I desparately need to gain some confidence with. Since I upgraded to clip pedals and bought myself some gaudy cycling shoes the weekend before, I figured what better way to break them in then to check out the race course!

The race course is 3 - 18ish mile loops and I easily managed two loops, with only one fall while trying to clip in at an intersection. Lucky for me there was a flower bed to cushion my fall and I walked away with just some minor scraps and covered in mulch. I even conquered some of my fear of going fast and hit 30mph (crazy thing is I touched the breaks a few times) on a downhill, while on a small shoulder and cars flying by next to me. That in itself was huge since I do NOT like to go downhill let alone go downhill on an open road! But after all was said and done, my legs felt great and I definitely had another loop in me. And to be honest, I felt like I could have easily run after riding the 36 miles. While that ride definitely built up my confidence, I know I still have a lot of work to do. I want those hills to feel like nothing on race day and I want to know every inch of that course. So, my goal for August: eat those hills for breakfast every weekend.

I'm not very good at this technical stuff, but here's a rough profile of the course with elevation. Good thing I picked a nice hilly course for my first 70.3!

My Name is Denise and I'm Addicted...

Last week, right after my burned out post, my coach mentioned that I might not feel like myself as I went through a week of recovery. While I really do think I was a little burned out, and part of my emotional roller coaster was due to that, my coach said something with regards to recovery weeks that really made me think.

"Think of it more as 'training' and less as an 'addiction'."

I know I'm very passionate about working out and don't feel myself if I don't get it in, but am I addicted to it??  According to Merriam-Webster, addiction is:

"Compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal"

Hmmm, "compulsive need?" "Physiological symptoms upon withdrawal?" Sounds a little too familiar.

I thought back to my time off from the Achilles injury and how crazy I was; having breakdowns left and right and funky all the time. I literally fed my lack of exercise with too much food and thought since I couldn't do as much as I wanted, I might as well do nothing at all. I was anything but myself during these times.

Then there are the times where life gets in the way and I have to make changes to my training schedule.  I definitely don’t handle this well and feel really anxious about missing a scheduled workout or not having it be exactly as planned. For weeks I've been thinking about how I'll fit workouts in while I'm away later this month and am worried I won't get in as much as I should. What I should really be concerned with is making sure I have a ton of fun and get plenty of naps in on the beach!

And then there's last week. A cut back week and me feeling like an alien I was so out of sorts.  But mid way through this week, with the highest intensities yet of my training, I feel like a million bucks. And over the weekend, I was looking forward to the two weeks ahead of me because they are chock full of hard workouts. Maybe I was excited to get "my fix."

So maybe I am addicted to exercise. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.  It's not like I'm addicted to crack. And I'm taking recovery days/weeks as scheduled so I'm making sure my body gets the rest it needs. But with that being said, I do want a healthy relationship with working out and think it's something I should work on...wouldn't hurt to have some flexibility and not take everything so serious.  But at least I now know that the next time I start to have a melt down during a cut back week, I can blame it on my addiction.

I thought all of this was interesting and explained a lot about my ups and downs during training periods. What about you guys? Do you "train" or is exercise your "addiction?"

Rode Through It

I should have acknowledged it earlier in the week, but I was in denial. Even though I'm putting in a decent amount of hours training, with 3 doubles a week, I still don't feel like I'm doing that much. But when you add in work and life, I guess it does exceed what the average person does in one day. So when the week started off with me not being able to roll out of bed on Monday morning for my easy recovery swim, I chalked it up to me being too old for the beer fest I attended on Saturday and decided I'd make the workout up on Tuesday. I suffered through Monday feeling exhausted and blah but pushed myself out the door after work for an easy 4 mile run.

When Tuesday morning rolled around and I woke up from a horrible nights sleep (again), it was all I could do to drag my body down to the basement for an hour session on the bike trainer. My plans for making up my swim before the bike session, out the window. Usually missing a workout would upset me, but I was so exhausted I didn't even care. Again, I should have recognized what was going on. I got through the workout and Tuesday went just as miserably as Monday. I headed to bed super early in hopes of making up for lost hours the past 2 nights and waking up refreshed for a double first thing Wednesday morning.

While I didn't sleep well, I managed to be in the pool at 5am and followed the swim with a 5 mile run with speed work. I suffered through the swim, my back half sinking and breathing harder and louder than normal, hitting my moderate intensity effort by swimming like it was a recovery day. While my run felt good, when I left the gym, it felt like everything had been sucked from my body...and my mind. My spirit for training, completely gone.

I spent the day feeling really lonely. Wondering why I was training. Missing my running friends. Starving. Exhausted. Warm and sweaty in my frigid office area. And then the doozy...I actually said out loud to Andy "I don't think I want to train anymore." Hunh?? After that little outburst, I immediately sent myself up to bed.

I finally acknowledged what was going on when I woke up this morning at 5am and the first thought I had was, "I don't want to do an Ironman." I'm not even training for an Ironman (yet) and I'm already ruling it out? What was this crazy talk? But as I hiked up my sausage shorts and looked at the bags under my eyes, I shook my head and acknowledged what the signs had been pointing to all week. I'm a little burned out.

Rather than crawling back into bed and pulling the covers over my head, I marched myself down to the basement. The first 10 minutes on the trainer were misery but then the next 10 were better. And the next 10 even better. Then all of a sudden I felt like a weight had been lifted and I was pushing hard and enjoying it. When Andy came down to say good morning, I happily said, "I know what's been wrong all week. I've been burned out. But I just rode through it!"

Like I said, I don't feel like I'm doing too much, I really don't. But then again, I'm the type of person who will keep going and going until I can't physically go anymore. Something was definitely telling me all week that I needed a little break and I didn't want to listen. Maybe physically I was fine, but my mind needed a rest. Either way, I think the worst is behind me and I'm going to tackle the next 3 weeks before race day with a vengeance.

No Pool Love

I was sitting here thinking about how good I feel. My body feels great and mentally, I'm strong and focused. I'm not sure what clicked but ever since the Sprint TRI, things just seem to be...right.  I'm in the midst of one of my highest training hour weeks and I feel like I have a lot more in me. Running is going exceptionally well and when running by feel I'm knocking out some paces that are surprising me. What used to be my "sort of push it pace" is now my easy pace and my speed work paces are getting quicker, too. I'm feeling great on the bike and have learned how to really push the intensity and get a great workout. I'm even excited about my long rides on the weekend and am not sad I traded long runs for the bike at all! It all seems like it's coming together so nicely...with one exception. The pool.

I just don't love the pool. I know I'm not going to love everything, but the pool sort of sucks. On a good note though, I find the pool more tolerable on a hard workout day than an easy day. For some reason pushing myself to the point where I'm gasping for air and feel like I might hurl makes the time go by so much faster. And I guess I'm just a little frustrated because you can't see improvements with swimming as easily as you can with, say, running. Sure I can knock time off but if that sacrifices form, then I don't think it's worth it. I need to come out of the water feeling great so I have to find the balance between speed and form, where I'm not sacrificing one for the other.

I mentioned to Andy the other day my frustrations about swimming and that "I'm just not good in the pool." His response sort of shocked me when he said, "Good!" When I asked what the heck he meant by that he said he thinks it's good for me to not be good at everything, that it's not realistic and it's like a kid getting everything they want. I didn't bother to have a debate with him about this because we've had countless discussions about how I want to be good at everything I do. I'm not the type of person to do something and not try to perfect it. If I'm doing it, I want to be the best I can at it. So instead of discussing it further with him, I walked away knowing I'm going to keep at it until I AM good in the pool.  I may not love it, but damn it, I'll be good at it!

Quick gluten free update...going great!! On day 4, feeling really good. Had a little stomach trouble early in the week but I know I need to give it more time. The only thing I'm struggling with is finding snack options for my late afternoon carb snack at work. I need to hit up the GF section at the store so I'm prepared for next week. If anyone has any GF suggestions for a healthy carb snack, can you let me know? Right now my staples are oatmeal, quinoa and brown rice as my carbs.

The GF Experiment

I am the Queen of stomach aches. It's rare that a day goes by where I don't get some sort of discomfort which can range from bloating to full on I-can't-stand-straight-up stomach pain. I've never been able to narrow it down to what causes it but I do know that I can NOT eat sour dough pretzels. I figured this out through marathon training as pretzels were my carb load food of choice the day before a race. That and twizzlers. :-) Anyway, within minutes of eating pretzels I'm in such pain I walk around hunched over and usually end up in the fetal position moaning. Andy and I did a little experimenting and while all pretzels bother me, sour dough are definitely the worst. So sad, they were my favorite.

After doing some reading about food allergies and knowing some friends who are gluten free, I saw a connection between some of the symptoms of gluten intolerance/allergies and what I was experiencing. On top of the stomach aches/bloating, I also have extremely dry, itchy skin that no lotion can help and some days it's all I can do to not scratch my skin right off. And every now and then I get waves of nausea out of no where after eating and on most days I'm dog tired. Now the tiredness could be training but even on light workout days, I'm still pretty exhausted. There are tons of sites out there citing different symptoms but here is a general list of symptoms of a wheat/gluten allergy:

• Abdominal pain & cramps (check)
• bloating (check)
• headaches
• foul smelling stools (hmmm, TMI??)
• vomiting
• osteoporosis
• diarrhea (probably more often than the normal pooping person)
• allergic rhinitis
• anemia
• muscle cramps (hell yea!)
• eczema (check)
• swelling around the mouth
• tingling in the feet and legs
• irritability (what? not me!)
• depression (check)
• hives (check)

So, I figured, what do I have to lose (besides not being able to eat bulgar which is by far my favorite grain)? I'm going to try a little gluten free experiment and see how things go. I'm not doing this for training purposes or anything thing like that because honestly I don't understand the connection between gluten free and performance. I'm simply doing it to see if the stomach aches subside and if there's any change in how I feel overall. I'm going to attempt no gluten all this week with the exception of Saturday since we're going to a beer festival. Come on, it's not a life or death situation. I can deal with the beer induced stomach ache for the sake of having fun!

I'll update mid week on how I'm feeling and post an example of what the food intake in a gluten free day looks like. I really hope this solves the stomach ache mystery and if it does, I'm going to be crushed I can't eat twizzlers anymore the day before a race.