Friday, September 12, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
WILL SHE TRI IRONMAN WISCONSIN? THE ANSWER: YES! SHE DID!
And I now say this: Ironman Wisconsin will make you very sore, even if you don't finish the bike and run.
*********************************
Seriously, I had a profound, amazing, incredible, magical experience that rose to the level of the spiritual. I am very grateful to everyone who helped me and my body to that line.
Race report in a few days.
Will she try Ironman Wisconsin again? She just might. She just might.
Thanks, everybody!
*********************************
Seriously, I had a profound, amazing, incredible, magical experience that rose to the level of the spiritual. I am very grateful to everyone who helped me and my body to that line.
Race report in a few days.
Will she try Ironman Wisconsin again? She just might. She just might.
Thanks, everybody!
Friday, September 5, 2008
All that's Left: Donate and Pray.
Dear Friends, Family, and Community Members,
Thanks again so much for your contributions to the Plumpy’Nut Ironman Challenge of 2008!
We knew when we started that we could make something amazing happen, and I am writing now, a day away from our final accounting deadline (2 pm CST Saturday September 6), to let you know that is the case.
As of today, by pooling our resources, we have raised more than $10,000 for Doctors Without Borders to use in the purchase of Plumpy’Nut, the medicinal-grade peanut butter food that is saving children from dying from starvation---at an amazing $40 a kid.
That means we’re on the edge of literally saving the lives of 250 children.
I was trying to wrap my head around that this morning, and what I saw was this:
A kindergarten with 25 children in it, captivated by a litter of kittens, playing soccer, learning to write an alphabet, practicing singing on key, preparing to tell their mothers and fathers and siblings what happened in their four-year-old lives that day.
Our fund makes that room full of kindergarteners possible. Plumpy’nut and its delivery by Doctors Without Borders makes the difference between whether those 25 kids are alive and well and learning numbers or not alive at all.
Once I could envision that room of 25 children, thanks to you, I could multiply it to ten rooms full of 25 kindergarteners with hopes and dreams and futures possible, to 250 high school graduations, to 250 weddings. These are the 250 children in whose lives our collective contributions have made all the difference.
It is amazing---and we’ve made this amazing thing happen.
Now, it’s time to multiply again.
The great appeal of the Janus Charity Challenge is that it rewards us for raising as much money as possible by offering the incentive of additional large donations to an athlete’s charity of choice. The awards to the top five funds raised are the largest. As best we can tell, we are currently in the sixth position. This will bring Doctors Without Borders some additional money, but far less than they need to address the needs of the 4.5 million children who are severely malnourished in Ethiopia this year, let alone the 14 million worldwide.
In Ironman training, you learn to dig deep, to push just a little further.
So we’re going to ask you to help us dig deep right now, as we approach the finish of this particular competition---just before 2:00 Central Standard Time Saturday.
If you have intended to pledge, but haven’t yet had the chance, please dig deep today and chip in. If you’ve already donated, “digging deep” may mean asking somebody else to join the Plumpy Nut Ironman Campaign; it may mean digging deep for quarters in the sofa; it may mean passing the hat at work on Friday, or writing to all of your triathlete friends or cycling buddies or feminist listserves and asking them to make a tax deductible contribution to Doctors Without Borders.. Every contribution helps---when $40 saves a life, $10 makes a significant impact, hard as that can be to believe from a North American perspective. If we can move into even the #5 slot in the Janus Charity Challenge, Janus will award Doctors Without Borders an additional $2,000---that’s another 40 infants or children’s lives saved. If we can move higher, the Janus contribution is greater.
Here are the links to our Plumpy’Nut Ironman donation sites.
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=250249&lis=0&kntae250249=078E99DA3F354110A8AFA4764D0321C2
http://www.firstgiving.com/amberault
As many of you know---because many of you have helped support me in changing this the last few years--- I am a non-athlete coming from a very sedentary, unfit background, still struggling to get healthy. Taking on Ironman has given me many rich moments ---- and has also involved some serious challenges. I have been raising money for Doctors Without Borders because it felt close to my heart and a bright spot in the difficult landscape of my training….and because my performance in the race would not affect the fund or the awards Janus gives to charities.
This has been especially true the last few weeks, when my sluggish thyroid has slowed me down considerably, probably impaired from the training, and when I broke a toe a few days ago in a freak swimming accident---- it was funny, in a cosmic way, but made Ironman look rather impossible—if not plain stooopid. These are both small things, in the big picture, but they have had me considering postponing my Ironman debut until ’09. “Thank God the Plumpy Nut fund isn’t affected by whether I race,” I thought as I’ve been limping around this week, because I’m not feeling quite in the place or shape to do it, instead of enjoying that “bring it on” state I’d expected after a year’s worth of training.
Today, however, I read the fine print: to participate in the Janus Charity Challenge, athletes “must register for and race in” the Ironman---broken toes and depleted thyroids not exempted.
Game on, friends. Game on.
Because I will dig deep for Plumpy’Nut, I’ll be at the starting line of Ironman Wisconsin Sunday, one plump social justice nut among a sea of 2,000 amazing athletes. Thanks for everything you have done so far for our campaign, and whatever you can do now to dig deep with me.
Let’s go!
Thanks again so much for your contributions to the Plumpy’Nut Ironman Challenge of 2008!
We knew when we started that we could make something amazing happen, and I am writing now, a day away from our final accounting deadline (2 pm CST Saturday September 6), to let you know that is the case.
As of today, by pooling our resources, we have raised more than $10,000 for Doctors Without Borders to use in the purchase of Plumpy’Nut, the medicinal-grade peanut butter food that is saving children from dying from starvation---at an amazing $40 a kid.
That means we’re on the edge of literally saving the lives of 250 children.
I was trying to wrap my head around that this morning, and what I saw was this:
A kindergarten with 25 children in it, captivated by a litter of kittens, playing soccer, learning to write an alphabet, practicing singing on key, preparing to tell their mothers and fathers and siblings what happened in their four-year-old lives that day.
Our fund makes that room full of kindergarteners possible. Plumpy’nut and its delivery by Doctors Without Borders makes the difference between whether those 25 kids are alive and well and learning numbers or not alive at all.
Once I could envision that room of 25 children, thanks to you, I could multiply it to ten rooms full of 25 kindergarteners with hopes and dreams and futures possible, to 250 high school graduations, to 250 weddings. These are the 250 children in whose lives our collective contributions have made all the difference.
It is amazing---and we’ve made this amazing thing happen.
Now, it’s time to multiply again.
The great appeal of the Janus Charity Challenge is that it rewards us for raising as much money as possible by offering the incentive of additional large donations to an athlete’s charity of choice. The awards to the top five funds raised are the largest. As best we can tell, we are currently in the sixth position. This will bring Doctors Without Borders some additional money, but far less than they need to address the needs of the 4.5 million children who are severely malnourished in Ethiopia this year, let alone the 14 million worldwide.
In Ironman training, you learn to dig deep, to push just a little further.
So we’re going to ask you to help us dig deep right now, as we approach the finish of this particular competition---just before 2:00 Central Standard Time Saturday.
If you have intended to pledge, but haven’t yet had the chance, please dig deep today and chip in. If you’ve already donated, “digging deep” may mean asking somebody else to join the Plumpy Nut Ironman Campaign; it may mean digging deep for quarters in the sofa; it may mean passing the hat at work on Friday, or writing to all of your triathlete friends or cycling buddies or feminist listserves and asking them to make a tax deductible contribution to Doctors Without Borders.. Every contribution helps---when $40 saves a life, $10 makes a significant impact, hard as that can be to believe from a North American perspective. If we can move into even the #5 slot in the Janus Charity Challenge, Janus will award Doctors Without Borders an additional $2,000---that’s another 40 infants or children’s lives saved. If we can move higher, the Janus contribution is greater.
Here are the links to our Plumpy’Nut Ironman donation sites.
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=250249&lis=0&kntae250249=078E99DA3F354110A8AFA4764D0321C2
http://www.firstgiving.com/amberault
As many of you know---because many of you have helped support me in changing this the last few years--- I am a non-athlete coming from a very sedentary, unfit background, still struggling to get healthy. Taking on Ironman has given me many rich moments ---- and has also involved some serious challenges. I have been raising money for Doctors Without Borders because it felt close to my heart and a bright spot in the difficult landscape of my training….and because my performance in the race would not affect the fund or the awards Janus gives to charities.
This has been especially true the last few weeks, when my sluggish thyroid has slowed me down considerably, probably impaired from the training, and when I broke a toe a few days ago in a freak swimming accident---- it was funny, in a cosmic way, but made Ironman look rather impossible—if not plain stooopid. These are both small things, in the big picture, but they have had me considering postponing my Ironman debut until ’09. “Thank God the Plumpy Nut fund isn’t affected by whether I race,” I thought as I’ve been limping around this week, because I’m not feeling quite in the place or shape to do it, instead of enjoying that “bring it on” state I’d expected after a year’s worth of training.
Today, however, I read the fine print: to participate in the Janus Charity Challenge, athletes “must register for and race in” the Ironman---broken toes and depleted thyroids not exempted.
Game on, friends. Game on.
Because I will dig deep for Plumpy’Nut, I’ll be at the starting line of Ironman Wisconsin Sunday, one plump social justice nut among a sea of 2,000 amazing athletes. Thanks for everything you have done so far for our campaign, and whatever you can do now to dig deep with me.
Let’s go!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
10 Days Before Ironman, The ER Doc Says to Me
"Yes, Indeed, You Broke It" and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Is it the universe's sense of humor, or simply mine?
After all of the kvetching and bitching and moaning and procrastinating and fussing and fretting and worrying about both the state of Lake Monona and my ability to swim in open water without giving myself respiratory distress, there comes this day of reckoning. D-Day. The day of deciding. Will she try Ironman Wisconsin? Will she put more than a toe in the water?
My coach sent me to Lake Monona to do a 10-minute swim. My swim teacher met me there with other ideas. I suited up and we went to the end of the pier. He jumped off. I decided to slide in, rather than jump in, and in turning to drop onto the end of the pier, slammed my foot into the metal post at the end of it. That hurt, but I got in and, after a little tenuous warming up, which was really cooling off, since I'd been baking in my wetsuit for 15 minutes, we started to swim. Mark would set a landmark goal for me, and each time, I would swim to it.
At some point he said, "Hey, your 10 minutes has passed." Indeed, more than 30 had.
I love Lake Monona. She was as I remembered her---green. Not creepy green, but zen mist green, alive green, cool green. Being in open water is like being in the womb of the planet, inside the Earth's core, inside the rhythm of the bigger tides that turn all of the water in all of us. I love that. I had a little discomfort here and there, but faced it down, with Mark's help. The swim out was in three or four segments; the swim back was continuous....we swam maybe a mile or a bit more, me taking it easy and Mark swimming with fins and paddles, occasionally swimming dolphin-ish, rising out of the water with a kind of ease and grace that is easy to read as joy when we see other mammals do it. I felt happy to be part of a school of swimmers, though it was just the two of us.
Mark says I am on line for a 1:30 Ironman swim. He says I can actually slow down, though I felt as though I were swimming excruciatingly slowly. How is it that everybody in the pool swims faster than me all the time, if I am able to swim a 1:30 comfortably? Can I believe him?
While we were swimming, I was thinking that it may simply be true that I am physically ready for this and not mentally yet prepared. How long might that take? 10 days? 10 minutes? another year? as long as it takes to get the thyroid dialed in?
So, when Mark and I stopped to chat in front of the windows in front of the Terrace, I said, "Dude, I think I broke that toe." When I got out of the water, I thought again "I think I broke that toe." I came home and in the shower, I tried to raise my right leg ---still sore from resistance running Tuesday---in order to clean the lake water out of the blisters left over from Saturday's marathon walk. So, I'm standing on my left leg, noticing it's hard to balance because of how much that little toe is complaining, and how absurd it is to try to be washing water from the swim out of blisters from the run while standing on a foot broken from clumsiness, and then I think, "Now, this is what I thought Ironman training was supposed to feel like. Finally."
So, after I throw gobs of antibiotic stuff on the blisters, gingerly put my shoes back on, go off to a haircut, and miss my core class, I decided maybe it would be good to know if the toe or more is, indeed, broken. I drive to urgent care, limp to the waiting room, and wonder why, on one of the most important nights in the history of the US, football is on the waiting room TVinstead of the Democratic Convention. But that's a different blog. Eventually the doc examines my foot, pronounces that I have hurt my toe, tells me that there's nothing to be done whether it's broken or not---I have told him my own diagnosis is "broken"--- but that how fast it will heal depends on whether it's broken or not. One scenario is 10 days; the other is four weeks. He asks me if I want an x-ray. Hey, I don't come to this spa for doctoring as good as I can give myself at home, so I say "x-ray." I limp down the hall, have them x-ray my foot, and wait. "Yep, you sure broke it," the good doc says.
"So," he asks, "were you planning on *winning* Ironman? 'Cause this could really get in the way of that. In fact," he says, "you aren't going to do too well. And it's really gonna hurt."
It could just be me, but do any of all y'all find it funny that on the way to facing down my Mononaphobia, on the way to discovering that all of that tethered swimming is transferable, on the way to having a swim that doesn't involve pulmonary edema, a nosebleed, or a vocal cord issue, on the way to discovering I could do a freaking IM swim in 1:30, I break my toe? Maybe I'm still giddy from not dying in the lake, but I've gotta think that whoever runs the show is laughing his/her/its ass off. And I am laughing right along.
And also getting a little p***ed. Which is probably a good thing.
I didn't run tonight, but I rowed instead. And now it's RICE and off to bed.
Is it the universe's sense of humor, or simply mine?
After all of the kvetching and bitching and moaning and procrastinating and fussing and fretting and worrying about both the state of Lake Monona and my ability to swim in open water without giving myself respiratory distress, there comes this day of reckoning. D-Day. The day of deciding. Will she try Ironman Wisconsin? Will she put more than a toe in the water?
My coach sent me to Lake Monona to do a 10-minute swim. My swim teacher met me there with other ideas. I suited up and we went to the end of the pier. He jumped off. I decided to slide in, rather than jump in, and in turning to drop onto the end of the pier, slammed my foot into the metal post at the end of it. That hurt, but I got in and, after a little tenuous warming up, which was really cooling off, since I'd been baking in my wetsuit for 15 minutes, we started to swim. Mark would set a landmark goal for me, and each time, I would swim to it.
At some point he said, "Hey, your 10 minutes has passed." Indeed, more than 30 had.
I love Lake Monona. She was as I remembered her---green. Not creepy green, but zen mist green, alive green, cool green. Being in open water is like being in the womb of the planet, inside the Earth's core, inside the rhythm of the bigger tides that turn all of the water in all of us. I love that. I had a little discomfort here and there, but faced it down, with Mark's help. The swim out was in three or four segments; the swim back was continuous....we swam maybe a mile or a bit more, me taking it easy and Mark swimming with fins and paddles, occasionally swimming dolphin-ish, rising out of the water with a kind of ease and grace that is easy to read as joy when we see other mammals do it. I felt happy to be part of a school of swimmers, though it was just the two of us.
Mark says I am on line for a 1:30 Ironman swim. He says I can actually slow down, though I felt as though I were swimming excruciatingly slowly. How is it that everybody in the pool swims faster than me all the time, if I am able to swim a 1:30 comfortably? Can I believe him?
While we were swimming, I was thinking that it may simply be true that I am physically ready for this and not mentally yet prepared. How long might that take? 10 days? 10 minutes? another year? as long as it takes to get the thyroid dialed in?
So, when Mark and I stopped to chat in front of the windows in front of the Terrace, I said, "Dude, I think I broke that toe." When I got out of the water, I thought again "I think I broke that toe." I came home and in the shower, I tried to raise my right leg ---still sore from resistance running Tuesday---in order to clean the lake water out of the blisters left over from Saturday's marathon walk. So, I'm standing on my left leg, noticing it's hard to balance because of how much that little toe is complaining, and how absurd it is to try to be washing water from the swim out of blisters from the run while standing on a foot broken from clumsiness, and then I think, "Now, this is what I thought Ironman training was supposed to feel like. Finally."
So, after I throw gobs of antibiotic stuff on the blisters, gingerly put my shoes back on, go off to a haircut, and miss my core class, I decided maybe it would be good to know if the toe or more is, indeed, broken. I drive to urgent care, limp to the waiting room, and wonder why, on one of the most important nights in the history of the US, football is on the waiting room TVinstead of the Democratic Convention. But that's a different blog. Eventually the doc examines my foot, pronounces that I have hurt my toe, tells me that there's nothing to be done whether it's broken or not---I have told him my own diagnosis is "broken"--- but that how fast it will heal depends on whether it's broken or not. One scenario is 10 days; the other is four weeks. He asks me if I want an x-ray. Hey, I don't come to this spa for doctoring as good as I can give myself at home, so I say "x-ray." I limp down the hall, have them x-ray my foot, and wait. "Yep, you sure broke it," the good doc says.
"So," he asks, "were you planning on *winning* Ironman? 'Cause this could really get in the way of that. In fact," he says, "you aren't going to do too well. And it's really gonna hurt."
It could just be me, but do any of all y'all find it funny that on the way to facing down my Mononaphobia, on the way to discovering that all of that tethered swimming is transferable, on the way to having a swim that doesn't involve pulmonary edema, a nosebleed, or a vocal cord issue, on the way to discovering I could do a freaking IM swim in 1:30, I break my toe? Maybe I'm still giddy from not dying in the lake, but I've gotta think that whoever runs the show is laughing his/her/its ass off. And I am laughing right along.
And also getting a little p***ed. Which is probably a good thing.
I didn't run tonight, but I rowed instead. And now it's RICE and off to bed.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
My Unconventional Ironman Training Techniques
First, it was the tethering of oneself to the diving blocks and swimming in place.
Then, there was scoring a week's pass to the only gym in town with a resistance pool for water walking and swimming upstream in that, on Friday night, around love birds and water walkers and various other obstacles appearing in the oval shaped pool with an island in the middle of it---kind of like Kona, except the island didn't have any spectators, and the spectators who were there were clearly curious why anyone but a masochistic lunatic would swim in this thing.
Tonight, it was walking 20 miles in the dark, just like I'll be doing in two weeks...if my feet recover by then.
Thyroid still making me tired, but I do what I can. I do what I can.
Then, there was scoring a week's pass to the only gym in town with a resistance pool for water walking and swimming upstream in that, on Friday night, around love birds and water walkers and various other obstacles appearing in the oval shaped pool with an island in the middle of it---kind of like Kona, except the island didn't have any spectators, and the spectators who were there were clearly curious why anyone but a masochistic lunatic would swim in this thing.
Tonight, it was walking 20 miles in the dark, just like I'll be doing in two weeks...if my feet recover by then.
Thyroid still making me tired, but I do what I can. I do what I can.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Seven Miles Before Breakfast
I did not want to run.
An object at rest stays at rest.
Still, an object in motion stays in motion, and I put in an hour and 20 before breakfast, on half a thyroid. Not fast, but finished.
Last night, I bagged the run because there seemed some small hope that I might actually sleep. For the first time in months, I slept deeply enough to have and remember a dream. Here it is:
I was with a group of friends at my aunt and uncle's house, and we were hanging around their pond. The pond had muck in it, so we didn't go in. Time passed and the pond cleared. We were happy and decided the water was clean and safe---only to discover that it was only clean and safe in a very small area, and that two-thirds of the pond was still contaminated with blue-green algae.
Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream? Me thinks insomnia has its advantages.
Have I mentioned Lake Monona is full of sewage? My run gave me time to ponder the question: how does one discern the difference between courage and stupidity? Is it brave to swim in Lake Monona, or just stupid? Pulling someone out of a burning car is brave, in part because of the potential gains and risks. Swimming in Lake Monona, well, begins to not look like pulling someone from a burning building but instead like covering yourself with kerosene and lighting a match. Brave? Stupid.
Of course, it won't be the only stupid thing I have ever done.
An object at rest stays at rest.
Still, an object in motion stays in motion, and I put in an hour and 20 before breakfast, on half a thyroid. Not fast, but finished.
Last night, I bagged the run because there seemed some small hope that I might actually sleep. For the first time in months, I slept deeply enough to have and remember a dream. Here it is:
I was with a group of friends at my aunt and uncle's house, and we were hanging around their pond. The pond had muck in it, so we didn't go in. Time passed and the pond cleared. We were happy and decided the water was clean and safe---only to discover that it was only clean and safe in a very small area, and that two-thirds of the pond was still contaminated with blue-green algae.
Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream? Me thinks insomnia has its advantages.
Have I mentioned Lake Monona is full of sewage? My run gave me time to ponder the question: how does one discern the difference between courage and stupidity? Is it brave to swim in Lake Monona, or just stupid? Pulling someone out of a burning car is brave, in part because of the potential gains and risks. Swimming in Lake Monona, well, begins to not look like pulling someone from a burning building but instead like covering yourself with kerosene and lighting a match. Brave? Stupid.
Of course, it won't be the only stupid thing I have ever done.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Dairyland Dare Ride Report 2008
Want to be impressed? Check out the elevation profile at the bottom of this .pdf:
http://www.dairylanddare.com/assets/DLD_CUE_2008.pdf
I'm happy to say that I finished the 100k---and that I loved this ride.
But for the patience and ministrations of riding companion Melissa, it likely would not have been so.
I arrived at Melissa's at 5 a.m, with a bike fresh off the trainer and suffering some weird form of wheel lock. Melissa, being an engineer, quickly diagnosed the problem and cured it. We were soon on our way to Dodgeville, watching the sun slowly emerge over a chilled Wisconsin landscape.
I continue to experiment with bizarre fueling strategies. This time: Bunky's pasta the night before, followed by a lot of Nutter Butter cookies. In the car on the way to Dodgeville, I ate half a bagel and some ham....my variation on Mark's recommended "sweet roll and three strips of bacon."
We arrived at Harris Park, changed clothes, assembled bikes, had the rockin' mechanics further repair mine, collected our great schwag, performed various ablutions, and got ourselves underway at about 7:10...40 minutes later than originally planned, thanks to my inertia. The descent out of Harris Park was delightful, but on the first hill I was wondering how I would knock out 200k. I tried to tell myself that the first half hour is always the hardest. Somewhere around then, a radical thought occurred to me: why the hell am I out here? My thyroid is on empty and I am dragging, dragging, dragging. Maybe I should rest. Funny how this hadn't really seemed a possibility until then. Then I realized that this would really probably be the last long ride before the IM taper. Thinking that gave me a new motivation to just get it done, this one last thing.
After the first few hills, I settled in and began to enjoy the scenery, which was gorgeous. Melissa and I were able to chat as the miles rolled by and had hit upon a topic so compelling by the time we reached Barneveld that I didn't realize we were actually on that hellacious climb into town until it was pretty much finished and we were approaching the first rest stop. The rest stop was well stocked and had a festive atmosphere. We enjoyed bananas and some peanut butter and a cookie or half and got on our way. Stage two was even more beautiful, and included one climb that I needed to walk--or thought I needed to walk. The elevation chart shows Roberts Road as actually becoming a wall, so I don't feel too bad about it. There was a water station at the top, and the folks gathered there were cordial---a bit unlike the HHH riders, who seemed to be in chronically bad moods. Between the Roberts water stop and the second real rest stop at Tower Hill, we began contemplating paring back to the 100k for various reasons, and decided to take it one rest stop at a time. When we arrived at Tower Park, we found another festive rest station. Melissa stretched and I failed to resist another cookie (okay, it became the cookie ride), and we both chatted up fellow riders. We took our time, and decided we were happy enough to go on.
From Tower Park to Pleasant View included some challenging climbs, including on a road with "School" in the title. It also included an incredible descent---Upper Wyoming Road, I believe---through a wooded valley. As we were flying down the hill, I found myself pelted by small objects. Animate? Inanimate? The gooey stuff smeared on my arms was suggestive. When we got to the bottom, I asked Melissa if she'd had a similar experience, but she'd avoided becoming a human windshield. Just as we were celebrating this fine moment, I screeched. STUNG again. Damn! Apparently, I picked up a free rider down that hill, and she was not happy to be caught in my Jersey. While my physical reaction was negligible this time (this is Sting 4 this summer), my emotional reaction was not negligible...as usual. So we were standing out in the middle of some road, me baring my back, Melissa reporting on the entomological features of the offender and the lack of swelling at the sting, and me having images of my demise in the middle of this lovely ride. I wish I could report that I did not act like a lunatic about this for the next hour, but such is not the case. We did, however, ride slowly to the Pleasant View (Pleasant Ridge? Pleasant Pinnacle? rest stop, which we shared nicely with a biker bar. It was amusing to realize that the climb was hard enough that it would have been impossible to tell if I was having a bee-related breathing issue, since I always have a breathing issue on the hills. Melissa was the consummate model of patience, which helped me sort out the difference between the biological impact of the sting and its emotional impact.
We got to the next rest, where, thanks to a ham operator who had come by, a medic person was ready to check me out. She reported that many people had been stung by bees that day, and that most were in the same place on the course, and that most people were doing okay. She hit the bite with an ammonia pen. She told me she does ski patrol at Devil's Head in the winter---admittedly not the site of a lot of bee action--but that her professional assessment was that I would live. Melissa stretched. I ate another cookie and chatted up a CVCer who had arrived. Somebody announced that the 200k course cut-off had come and gone. Oops. Good we'd been leaning toward the 100 already. We decided to peddle the remaining 9 miles back to Harris to put in our 100k. Someone warned us about a horrible climb into Dodgeville.
Between Rest 3 and Dodgeville, there were several climbs, and I kept playing leapfrog with a 50-something Dutch woman visiting her sister in the states and riding a borrowed commuter bike. She was great! We climbed and descended, climbed and descended, and finally climbed a rather challenging hill that made me wonder what was left. I stopped at the top and had a hit of gel, thinking that the killer hill that was coming was going to be damned impressive after this one. Descended into the valley, made a turn, and discovered that we were riding the last little climb up to Harris Park. Who knew? One good gel spent only on the finish photo.
Our average pace: 12.something/mile. Don't believe whatever you see as our official pace---we stop for bee stings. We were both pleased enough about persevering that we bought DD jerseys to commemorate the adventure, then enjoyed the post-ride meal, which was good recovery food.
I did more climbing on this ride than on any other, and liked it more. All I can figure is that the temps were better. And maybe the cookies did their job. Oh, yeah, and that training effect.
This week on the Headhunter list, someone said we should stop running in the morning and do it instead at night, when we are exhausted, because that's how it will be at Ironman. So, that's the plan for tonight...long slow run way past my bedtime.
Oh, the idea about resting the thyroid? No such luck. 14 hours on the plan this week, so I'm going to keep slogging through as much as it will let me.
http://www.dairylanddare.com/assets/DLD_CUE_2008.pdf
I'm happy to say that I finished the 100k---and that I loved this ride.
But for the patience and ministrations of riding companion Melissa, it likely would not have been so.
I arrived at Melissa's at 5 a.m, with a bike fresh off the trainer and suffering some weird form of wheel lock. Melissa, being an engineer, quickly diagnosed the problem and cured it. We were soon on our way to Dodgeville, watching the sun slowly emerge over a chilled Wisconsin landscape.
I continue to experiment with bizarre fueling strategies. This time: Bunky's pasta the night before, followed by a lot of Nutter Butter cookies. In the car on the way to Dodgeville, I ate half a bagel and some ham....my variation on Mark's recommended "sweet roll and three strips of bacon."
We arrived at Harris Park, changed clothes, assembled bikes, had the rockin' mechanics further repair mine, collected our great schwag, performed various ablutions, and got ourselves underway at about 7:10...40 minutes later than originally planned, thanks to my inertia. The descent out of Harris Park was delightful, but on the first hill I was wondering how I would knock out 200k. I tried to tell myself that the first half hour is always the hardest. Somewhere around then, a radical thought occurred to me: why the hell am I out here? My thyroid is on empty and I am dragging, dragging, dragging. Maybe I should rest. Funny how this hadn't really seemed a possibility until then. Then I realized that this would really probably be the last long ride before the IM taper. Thinking that gave me a new motivation to just get it done, this one last thing.
After the first few hills, I settled in and began to enjoy the scenery, which was gorgeous. Melissa and I were able to chat as the miles rolled by and had hit upon a topic so compelling by the time we reached Barneveld that I didn't realize we were actually on that hellacious climb into town until it was pretty much finished and we were approaching the first rest stop. The rest stop was well stocked and had a festive atmosphere. We enjoyed bananas and some peanut butter and a cookie or half and got on our way. Stage two was even more beautiful, and included one climb that I needed to walk--or thought I needed to walk. The elevation chart shows Roberts Road as actually becoming a wall, so I don't feel too bad about it. There was a water station at the top, and the folks gathered there were cordial---a bit unlike the HHH riders, who seemed to be in chronically bad moods. Between the Roberts water stop and the second real rest stop at Tower Hill, we began contemplating paring back to the 100k for various reasons, and decided to take it one rest stop at a time. When we arrived at Tower Park, we found another festive rest station. Melissa stretched and I failed to resist another cookie (okay, it became the cookie ride), and we both chatted up fellow riders. We took our time, and decided we were happy enough to go on.
From Tower Park to Pleasant View included some challenging climbs, including on a road with "School" in the title. It also included an incredible descent---Upper Wyoming Road, I believe---through a wooded valley. As we were flying down the hill, I found myself pelted by small objects. Animate? Inanimate? The gooey stuff smeared on my arms was suggestive. When we got to the bottom, I asked Melissa if she'd had a similar experience, but she'd avoided becoming a human windshield. Just as we were celebrating this fine moment, I screeched. STUNG again. Damn! Apparently, I picked up a free rider down that hill, and she was not happy to be caught in my Jersey. While my physical reaction was negligible this time (this is Sting 4 this summer), my emotional reaction was not negligible...as usual. So we were standing out in the middle of some road, me baring my back, Melissa reporting on the entomological features of the offender and the lack of swelling at the sting, and me having images of my demise in the middle of this lovely ride. I wish I could report that I did not act like a lunatic about this for the next hour, but such is not the case. We did, however, ride slowly to the Pleasant View (Pleasant Ridge? Pleasant Pinnacle? rest stop, which we shared nicely with a biker bar. It was amusing to realize that the climb was hard enough that it would have been impossible to tell if I was having a bee-related breathing issue, since I always have a breathing issue on the hills. Melissa was the consummate model of patience, which helped me sort out the difference between the biological impact of the sting and its emotional impact.
We got to the next rest, where, thanks to a ham operator who had come by, a medic person was ready to check me out. She reported that many people had been stung by bees that day, and that most were in the same place on the course, and that most people were doing okay. She hit the bite with an ammonia pen. She told me she does ski patrol at Devil's Head in the winter---admittedly not the site of a lot of bee action--but that her professional assessment was that I would live. Melissa stretched. I ate another cookie and chatted up a CVCer who had arrived. Somebody announced that the 200k course cut-off had come and gone. Oops. Good we'd been leaning toward the 100 already. We decided to peddle the remaining 9 miles back to Harris to put in our 100k. Someone warned us about a horrible climb into Dodgeville.
Between Rest 3 and Dodgeville, there were several climbs, and I kept playing leapfrog with a 50-something Dutch woman visiting her sister in the states and riding a borrowed commuter bike. She was great! We climbed and descended, climbed and descended, and finally climbed a rather challenging hill that made me wonder what was left. I stopped at the top and had a hit of gel, thinking that the killer hill that was coming was going to be damned impressive after this one. Descended into the valley, made a turn, and discovered that we were riding the last little climb up to Harris Park. Who knew? One good gel spent only on the finish photo.
Our average pace: 12.something/mile. Don't believe whatever you see as our official pace---we stop for bee stings. We were both pleased enough about persevering that we bought DD jerseys to commemorate the adventure, then enjoyed the post-ride meal, which was good recovery food.
I did more climbing on this ride than on any other, and liked it more. All I can figure is that the temps were better. And maybe the cookies did their job. Oh, yeah, and that training effect.
This week on the Headhunter list, someone said we should stop running in the morning and do it instead at night, when we are exhausted, because that's how it will be at Ironman. So, that's the plan for tonight...long slow run way past my bedtime.
Oh, the idea about resting the thyroid? No such luck. 14 hours on the plan this week, so I'm going to keep slogging through as much as it will let me.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Ironman: The Horror Film
There are moments when you wonder why anybody would do an Ironman race, aside from having been kicked in the head too many times at the shorter distances.
This week, somebody told me the story of the guy who had his jaw broken during the swim and was so far from kayak support that he had to swim to shore directly.
This week, somebody told me about the year so many people had diarrhea in the swim that by two hours into the bike the ER's were full of people who were full of bacteria that came from, well, swimming in a sewer.
This week, I heard about the guy whose intestines lost it 90 miles into the bike because his cytomax was stale.
This follows the story of the woman who blew up during the swim because she'd taken too many enduralytes, the story of the woman who was first crashed into and then run over on the bike (actually the same woman!), the story of the woman who was pushed under and held down while some other big male swimmer swam over her, making it possible for a whole school of other swimmers to swim over her and difficult for her to surface, the story of the woman who landed in an ER 10 days after the event with a bacterial overgrowth in her gut traced to, yep, Lake Monona.
Holy cow.
I am a social scientist. I understand that people talk about the stuff that's salient because it's salient---remarkable, mortifying, unusual. Maybe people tell me these stories as object lessons (e.g., don't take electrolytes before the swim if you don't know what they'll do...).
As of Sunday, I don't want to hear it. I only want to hear stories about people who did the damned thing without landing in an ER, without sustaining injuries, without have fist-to-cuffs with other swimmers or accidents with other bikers. I only want to hear stories of people being kind to each other on the course, inspiring each other on the course, helping each other out on the course.
You got a story like that? Send it my way.
Oh, and: I'm working up a concept for an alternative event. What's that, you say? It's IronFran...an event closer to the roots of the original race than IM as we know it, and one that you can do on your mountain bike in cargo shorts...if you so choose. Are you tough enough to be an IronFran?
This week, somebody told me the story of the guy who had his jaw broken during the swim and was so far from kayak support that he had to swim to shore directly.
This week, somebody told me about the year so many people had diarrhea in the swim that by two hours into the bike the ER's were full of people who were full of bacteria that came from, well, swimming in a sewer.
This week, I heard about the guy whose intestines lost it 90 miles into the bike because his cytomax was stale.
This follows the story of the woman who blew up during the swim because she'd taken too many enduralytes, the story of the woman who was first crashed into and then run over on the bike (actually the same woman!), the story of the woman who was pushed under and held down while some other big male swimmer swam over her, making it possible for a whole school of other swimmers to swim over her and difficult for her to surface, the story of the woman who landed in an ER 10 days after the event with a bacterial overgrowth in her gut traced to, yep, Lake Monona.
Holy cow.
I am a social scientist. I understand that people talk about the stuff that's salient because it's salient---remarkable, mortifying, unusual. Maybe people tell me these stories as object lessons (e.g., don't take electrolytes before the swim if you don't know what they'll do...).
As of Sunday, I don't want to hear it. I only want to hear stories about people who did the damned thing without landing in an ER, without sustaining injuries, without have fist-to-cuffs with other swimmers or accidents with other bikers. I only want to hear stories of people being kind to each other on the course, inspiring each other on the course, helping each other out on the course.
You got a story like that? Send it my way.
Oh, and: I'm working up a concept for an alternative event. What's that, you say? It's IronFran...an event closer to the roots of the original race than IM as we know it, and one that you can do on your mountain bike in cargo shorts...if you so choose. Are you tough enough to be an IronFran?
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Midtown Road
There's a hill on the ironman Wisconsin course with which I have a history. In some ways, it doesn't look like much...it doesn't have the distance of Old Sauk Pass or the steepness of Timber Lane. Nonetheless, Midtown Road kicks my tail.
That is, it used to.
Tonight I dragged my sorry, thyroid-depleted self out to Midtown. I parked the car in the ditch and did hill repeats on Midtown Road. 12 of them. In less than an hour. It was late, because this is when I seem to have the most juju, so I was out there with the deer and the bugs and the dusky-drivers...and with a gorgeous sunset and a beautiful view of what must be Blue Mound off in the distance.
12 hill repeats on Midtown may not be enough at this point. With more synthroid on board, I might have been able to do 15. But I am proud of myself for fighting back a little, for going on when the tank is empty, and for making it up Midtown a dozen times, with no walking involved.
It seems I do better when I can study a hill, get to know it, understand it a little, work with the hill, make it less scary. I told my coach I was going to go make friends with Midtown. "Friends?" he said "Attack the hill." I understand that this might be one way of getting at it, but in my thyroid-depleted malaise, I don't even feel much like attacking dinner, let alone attacking any hill. No, I prefer loving the hill up, literally, trying to befriend it, trying to appreciate the hill as a part of the pathway to a height from which I have a heckuva view.
For those less romantically inclined: I have now staged the hill....it's a short one...only three-tenths of a mile...but it definitely has stages, and each one can be navigated differently. I now have a strategy for each stage, and on my last couple repeats, I was finishing the final stage at a blazing 7 mph. It may not sounds like much to you, gentle reader, but that was faster than the first time up, faster than the times I've walked that hill,
and I was able to breathe and continue at the top, which was the ultimate goal.
The jury, composed of a couple of coaches and docs, is still out on the question of should I do IM WI, but I am continuing the training as though I am. This weekend: Dairyland Dare. Between now and then? Swim and run, swim and run.
That is, it used to.
Tonight I dragged my sorry, thyroid-depleted self out to Midtown. I parked the car in the ditch and did hill repeats on Midtown Road. 12 of them. In less than an hour. It was late, because this is when I seem to have the most juju, so I was out there with the deer and the bugs and the dusky-drivers...and with a gorgeous sunset and a beautiful view of what must be Blue Mound off in the distance.
12 hill repeats on Midtown may not be enough at this point. With more synthroid on board, I might have been able to do 15. But I am proud of myself for fighting back a little, for going on when the tank is empty, and for making it up Midtown a dozen times, with no walking involved.
It seems I do better when I can study a hill, get to know it, understand it a little, work with the hill, make it less scary. I told my coach I was going to go make friends with Midtown. "Friends?" he said "Attack the hill." I understand that this might be one way of getting at it, but in my thyroid-depleted malaise, I don't even feel much like attacking dinner, let alone attacking any hill. No, I prefer loving the hill up, literally, trying to befriend it, trying to appreciate the hill as a part of the pathway to a height from which I have a heckuva view.
For those less romantically inclined: I have now staged the hill....it's a short one...only three-tenths of a mile...but it definitely has stages, and each one can be navigated differently. I now have a strategy for each stage, and on my last couple repeats, I was finishing the final stage at a blazing 7 mph. It may not sounds like much to you, gentle reader, but that was faster than the first time up, faster than the times I've walked that hill,
and I was able to breathe and continue at the top, which was the ultimate goal.
The jury, composed of a couple of coaches and docs, is still out on the question of should I do IM WI, but I am continuing the training as though I am. This weekend: Dairyland Dare. Between now and then? Swim and run, swim and run.
The Body Wins: Tri and Thyroid: The Wisconsin Ironman Thyroid Supplement
I have spent much of my life as a social constructionist. I have believed that "that which we take as real is real in its consequences," that reality is a social product, that how we make sense of even corporeal reality---like race, sex, gender, sexuality--shapes and creates that reality.
My thyroid is teaching me that this is, in some measure, bullfeathers.
The last few weeks have been difficult. I have been trying to do what I am supposed to do, according to my training plan, but my tail has been dragging and my attitude has been poor. Sleep has been difficult and strange when it comes, and my ability to fulfill my ambitions of rising early, getting on the bike or the pool, and starting my day with movement have been all but impossible to fulfill. I have been able to train late in the day, but have been disappointed with my paces, even with hard effort. I have had some good days, but have continued to be concerned that although I now believe I can do these distances, I am not fast enough to do them by the cut-offs. Two weeks ago, after bailing out of HellBrick, I sat in my car and wept with frustration after a friend asked "How did it go?" I hadn't had the juju to finish, I hadn't been able to keep up, and I hadn't been able to get as far up Blue Mound as I had at Horribly Hilly two months ago. And I am not a person who believes that is worth crying over. Honestly. But there I was, inconsolable and asking, "What am I not getting here?'' Is it dropping the weight, eating differently, training differently, different equipment (this I have ruled out, since I own the DIVA!), or just attitude? I have worked on all of these things, and still can't ride the bike like the other kids. What am I not getting?
Thyroid supplement.
I should have known.
It's a little organ, but it seems to run the show. I had a phase like this in the winter, where I would burst into tears on the spin bike or the elliptical after 45 minutes or so, even though the only time I felt good was on the bike or the elliptical. Labs showed that my thyroid was out-of-control. I'd had this corrected and things improved. My last labs, back in June, were where they should be. Yesterday, concerned about my attitude and energy, I asked for a CBC and a thyroid panel, expecting the former to be suspicious and the thyroid actually to be fine. Wrong-O, MaryLou. Out of whack again.
The good news: I have an explanation, and something can be done about it. The bad news: it's going to take four weeks.
The question becomes: what will be the impact of training hard on a half-functioning thyroid when the levels return to normal, when 'training hard" on a half-thyroid is nothing like training hard well?
I used to think that the thyroid was only about having a little slower metabolism and a tendency toward dry skin. I have learned over the years that it gets the credit for a whole host of other things: energy, mood, attitude, memory, libido, sleep, hair, cholesterol, even. Still, IM training has brought my appreciation to a whole new level, and given me a new set of signs and symptoms to watch for. If I see myself having a meltdown after a ride (I love riding, so should not be crying!), I need to say to myself: "Hey, have you had your thyroid checked?"
Beyond this, I have learned two new and interesting things about the thyroid recently:
1) The wild fluctuations in mine could be a result of using generic medication to treat it. It turns out that the generics are made by multiple companies, and that the local pharmacy buys its supplies month to month from the lowest bidder, so that the generic I have this month may be made by a different manufacturer than the one I had in June...and they are all slightly different...and slight differences make a big difference to the thyroid. So--as of today, I will insist on the brand name stuff, as an endocrinologist recently advised me to do.
2) When I am "over supplemented" by medical standards, I feel like what I imagine thyroid-normal people,feel like in their regular lives: energetic, optimistic, happy. Being slightly over-supplemented brings its own risks, however---for example, of bringing on a heart attack. It's a fine line to walk. I was "over supplemented" slightly by medical standards for the first time last fall, and I felt fine, fab, functional. It brings up real quality of life issues. I've always been big on not doing risky things, but in this moment, I'm beginning to lean toward taking the risks associated with running very close to that line, once I get back there, because it allows me to run at all.
It is hard to accept this thing as a disability, but it clearly is one. Having knowledge of it, what I do with it---including defining it as a disability--- is my choice, obviously, but it would appear that the joke in some ways is on me: the body ultimately wins.
Will she try Ironman Wisconsin? Stay tuned.
My thyroid is teaching me that this is, in some measure, bullfeathers.
The last few weeks have been difficult. I have been trying to do what I am supposed to do, according to my training plan, but my tail has been dragging and my attitude has been poor. Sleep has been difficult and strange when it comes, and my ability to fulfill my ambitions of rising early, getting on the bike or the pool, and starting my day with movement have been all but impossible to fulfill. I have been able to train late in the day, but have been disappointed with my paces, even with hard effort. I have had some good days, but have continued to be concerned that although I now believe I can do these distances, I am not fast enough to do them by the cut-offs. Two weeks ago, after bailing out of HellBrick, I sat in my car and wept with frustration after a friend asked "How did it go?" I hadn't had the juju to finish, I hadn't been able to keep up, and I hadn't been able to get as far up Blue Mound as I had at Horribly Hilly two months ago. And I am not a person who believes that is worth crying over. Honestly. But there I was, inconsolable and asking, "What am I not getting here?'' Is it dropping the weight, eating differently, training differently, different equipment (this I have ruled out, since I own the DIVA!), or just attitude? I have worked on all of these things, and still can't ride the bike like the other kids. What am I not getting?
Thyroid supplement.
I should have known.
It's a little organ, but it seems to run the show. I had a phase like this in the winter, where I would burst into tears on the spin bike or the elliptical after 45 minutes or so, even though the only time I felt good was on the bike or the elliptical. Labs showed that my thyroid was out-of-control. I'd had this corrected and things improved. My last labs, back in June, were where they should be. Yesterday, concerned about my attitude and energy, I asked for a CBC and a thyroid panel, expecting the former to be suspicious and the thyroid actually to be fine. Wrong-O, MaryLou. Out of whack again.
The good news: I have an explanation, and something can be done about it. The bad news: it's going to take four weeks.
The question becomes: what will be the impact of training hard on a half-functioning thyroid when the levels return to normal, when 'training hard" on a half-thyroid is nothing like training hard well?
I used to think that the thyroid was only about having a little slower metabolism and a tendency toward dry skin. I have learned over the years that it gets the credit for a whole host of other things: energy, mood, attitude, memory, libido, sleep, hair, cholesterol, even. Still, IM training has brought my appreciation to a whole new level, and given me a new set of signs and symptoms to watch for. If I see myself having a meltdown after a ride (I love riding, so should not be crying!), I need to say to myself: "Hey, have you had your thyroid checked?"
Beyond this, I have learned two new and interesting things about the thyroid recently:
1) The wild fluctuations in mine could be a result of using generic medication to treat it. It turns out that the generics are made by multiple companies, and that the local pharmacy buys its supplies month to month from the lowest bidder, so that the generic I have this month may be made by a different manufacturer than the one I had in June...and they are all slightly different...and slight differences make a big difference to the thyroid. So--as of today, I will insist on the brand name stuff, as an endocrinologist recently advised me to do.
2) When I am "over supplemented" by medical standards, I feel like what I imagine thyroid-normal people,feel like in their regular lives: energetic, optimistic, happy. Being slightly over-supplemented brings its own risks, however---for example, of bringing on a heart attack. It's a fine line to walk. I was "over supplemented" slightly by medical standards for the first time last fall, and I felt fine, fab, functional. It brings up real quality of life issues. I've always been big on not doing risky things, but in this moment, I'm beginning to lean toward taking the risks associated with running very close to that line, once I get back there, because it allows me to run at all.
It is hard to accept this thing as a disability, but it clearly is one. Having knowledge of it, what I do with it---including defining it as a disability--- is my choice, obviously, but it would appear that the joke in some ways is on me: the body ultimately wins.
Will she try Ironman Wisconsin? Stay tuned.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Four Weeks and Counting
Four weeks from now, if all goes well, if I'm lucky, if the weather is good, I'll be somewhere on the Ironcourse, hearing that, with two hours to go, there is time for me to get to the finish.
As we approach this momentous date, I've been reflecting on all of the experiences I would not have had without Ironman training. For example, without IM training, I would not have:
1) Swum for an hour tethered to a starting block at the fitness center pool, going absolutely nowhere fast. Well, in my case, going absolutely nowhere slow.
2) Served as a case manager for a drunken goose next to Lake Monona.
3) Run up the elipse at the Monona Terrace under cover of darkness in only shorts and a sports bra.
4) Listened to more than one person say, "YOU are going to run a marathon? I can't believe that."
5) Eaten ham.
6) Led a bunch of undergraduates on a trail run through the Arb.
7) Swum in Lake Wingra.
8) Bailed out of Hell Brick and hitched a ride for me and my bike home with stranger guys in a Jeep.
9) Eaten Salted Nut Rolls by the case.
10) Demand extra fast service from the wetsuit repair people because, "dude, I have an Ironman in four and a half weeks."
It's true: Ironman training takes you to places you've never dared go before, even if those places are 10 feet out from the diving block for hours at a time.
As we approach this momentous date, I've been reflecting on all of the experiences I would not have had without Ironman training. For example, without IM training, I would not have:
1) Swum for an hour tethered to a starting block at the fitness center pool, going absolutely nowhere fast. Well, in my case, going absolutely nowhere slow.
2) Served as a case manager for a drunken goose next to Lake Monona.
3) Run up the elipse at the Monona Terrace under cover of darkness in only shorts and a sports bra.
4) Listened to more than one person say, "YOU are going to run a marathon? I can't believe that."
5) Eaten ham.
6) Led a bunch of undergraduates on a trail run through the Arb.
7) Swum in Lake Wingra.
8) Bailed out of Hell Brick and hitched a ride for me and my bike home with stranger guys in a Jeep.
9) Eaten Salted Nut Rolls by the case.
10) Demand extra fast service from the wetsuit repair people because, "dude, I have an Ironman in four and a half weeks."
It's true: Ironman training takes you to places you've never dared go before, even if those places are 10 feet out from the diving block for hours at a time.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Drunk...Drunk...Goose
Thank god for recovery days!
I didn't feel today as though I physically needed to recover, but it's an indulgence to spend some time taking care of home basics.
Since last I wrote, I've had one good OWS in the quarry in Verona, and a couple of good pool swims, though I haven't been in the pool now for several days. The swim in the quarry was especially sweet because friends joined me there, and I had a personal swim escort in the daughter of a friend---she's a college swimmer and very easy-going; knows I've been having OWS issues, and just came along as a comforting presence. She swims so gracefully that it was relaxing to swim with her. It took me a long time to warm up and to relax, but once I did, the swim went well. So: I can swim in a wetsuit w/o having a respiratory issue; now the question is whether I can swim in Wingra and/or Monona w/o it, or whether I'm allergic to something there.
I've also been attending to the bureaucratic details of IM preparations...two more bike fittings, more rounds of visits to various docs, experts, consults, etc. If I could put as much time into training as I do into talking about training, I might see some progress.
This weekend, I went on a beautiful 25 miler that was supposed to be followed by a run. Somewhere in the last four miles of the ride, I felt a sudden sharp stabbing pain in my thigh, as though a very sharp thorn had impaled me. Would that it were so. I still don't know the true identity of the little bugger who got me, but when we collided, it wasn't good for either of us. Friend Monica, my ride companion, put up with me neurotically monitoring myself all the way home for signs of anaphylaxis. I did have a local reaction to the poison, but the neurotic panic was definitely greater. In some ways, it may have been a good thing---this kind of incident is on my list of Top 5 Things That Can Turn A good Bike Ride Bad so to have it happen and not result in a fatality is somewhat reassuring. It did bring me, however, to pan my run that evening.
Sunday, I did two loops of the IM course, per special instructions of The Coach after a consult on Friday. Friend Judy met me for this adventure, thank heavens, which made it a lot easier to get it under way. It was a beautiful day for riding. First loop went well; second loop was harder (gee!). We gave ourselves the liberty of several leisurely stops, so it became a long day. My pace is perhaps just enough to get to T2 by the cut-off. I had hoped for better this year, and will remain hopeful that there are still gains to be made. The hills the second time through were more challenging than the first; on Timber Lane, all I could do was put my head down, shift into the easiest gear, and count my breaths until I discovered the grade give way; on Midtown, I was see-sawing my way up to the top. Still, after that, I felt strong and happy, and arrived at Verona again feeling fine.
I was amused by how my diet went out the window on this training ride. I ran into my bike fitter and my running teacher, who are buddies, and who both live to bike, at the Kwik Trip in Mt. Horeb the first time through. They both had chocolate chip cookies in their hands. "Hey, is that your fueling strategy?" I asked. You betcha. Hey, I'm no fool. So, a Kwik Trip cookie it was for me too at each of the little towns on the second pass of the loop. Throughout the course of the day, there was also: a banana, three or four gulps of hammer gel, a scone at the Cross Plains bike store, a salted nut roll, a few gulps of perpetuum (ech.), some peanut butter pretzels, some ham (yes, two decades of vegetarianism are currently out the window!), and a handful of gorp. The Garmin says I burned maybe 5500 calories; I think all of this stuff didn't actually balance the scales, though I wasn't hungry at the end of the ride. Stopped at the local grocery and got a protein smoothie cause that's what you're supposed to do; drink half of it because the whole thing is 450 calories, and that became dinner because of what happened next.
I felt mighty fine after this ride, so decided to do the run I had missed the day before. Came home, did some transition stuff, and headed down to the bike path around Lake Monona for the run. As I was doing a walking warm-up, I came across a goose who appeared to be very sick and/or dying. Thinking that the police could have animal control transport her to the Emergency Clinic for Animals, I called them; they told me I was the third call, and that someone was on their way and would be there in half an hour. As I was finishing this conversation, two women approached---they had already called and were wondering what was happening. They were international visitors here to hear the Dalai Lama---good Buddhists with lots of compassion for our poor friend, who now was coming around a bit and munching hungrily at the grass. Every once in awhile, she wowuld try to move, and would stumble, fall, roll, lurch, and get still again. I wasn't certain whether she was poisoned or injured or otherwise sick. I did notice that she didn't seem to roll just one way or another, so the problem seemed less and less like a foot injury. This observation, conversation, and phone research with the police and three other entities went on for at least an hour, after which the police said that animal control would come in the morning...definitely unacceptable to me and the Buddhists, given that this creature could flop into the path of either a car or a cyclist at any moment. More conversations ensued--including devising a plan by which I would drive Maria, the Columbian, to the emergency vet with the goose wrapped in a blanket---as the goose became more animated and began to stagger around a bit more. She was heading toward the lake and making hard-won progress when a police officer arrived. It's Madison, so the guy has an undergrad degree in aquatic ecology. He studies the goose, taking a tenuous step or two and then falling down on her face, and offers the opinion that the goose is...well...drunk. And somehow this analysis seems to fit---for me, and for the two Buddhists, who have been keeping an eye on the bird for three or four of their precious hours of vacation. As she makes it past the mucky edge of the water, into which she goes face down momentarily, and gets into water deep enough that allows her to swim, the goose appears to do better. By now, the city calls and says they think a volunteer can come and get the goose. I tell them she's water-borne now and likely that's good because she'd have to be cited for under-age drinking if she came back around. We all feel somewhat relieved that the bird is swimming, and by the idea that it's "just" alcohol that's causing the problem. The party breaks up.
It's nine o'clock. I have been playing "drunk, drunk, goose" for an hour and a half...and I have enjoyed it. IM training teaches you ever more who you are, and it was clear to me last night that I am not the kind of person who will ignore a dying duck because I have to get my run in---and I don't want to be. I did do my run, but for only an hour. I felt fine, though I would have liked to say I ran 1.5 hours. I told my coach about this today and he laughed and said, "let's hope there aren't any drunk geese on IM Day." Right: or other cyclists with issues or kittens up trees, or spectators from out-of-town who need directions cause I am just the kind of Type C athlete who will attend to these issues the Type A athletes just ride on by.
I didn't feel today as though I physically needed to recover, but it's an indulgence to spend some time taking care of home basics.
Since last I wrote, I've had one good OWS in the quarry in Verona, and a couple of good pool swims, though I haven't been in the pool now for several days. The swim in the quarry was especially sweet because friends joined me there, and I had a personal swim escort in the daughter of a friend---she's a college swimmer and very easy-going; knows I've been having OWS issues, and just came along as a comforting presence. She swims so gracefully that it was relaxing to swim with her. It took me a long time to warm up and to relax, but once I did, the swim went well. So: I can swim in a wetsuit w/o having a respiratory issue; now the question is whether I can swim in Wingra and/or Monona w/o it, or whether I'm allergic to something there.
I've also been attending to the bureaucratic details of IM preparations...two more bike fittings, more rounds of visits to various docs, experts, consults, etc. If I could put as much time into training as I do into talking about training, I might see some progress.
This weekend, I went on a beautiful 25 miler that was supposed to be followed by a run. Somewhere in the last four miles of the ride, I felt a sudden sharp stabbing pain in my thigh, as though a very sharp thorn had impaled me. Would that it were so. I still don't know the true identity of the little bugger who got me, but when we collided, it wasn't good for either of us. Friend Monica, my ride companion, put up with me neurotically monitoring myself all the way home for signs of anaphylaxis. I did have a local reaction to the poison, but the neurotic panic was definitely greater. In some ways, it may have been a good thing---this kind of incident is on my list of Top 5 Things That Can Turn A good Bike Ride Bad so to have it happen and not result in a fatality is somewhat reassuring. It did bring me, however, to pan my run that evening.
Sunday, I did two loops of the IM course, per special instructions of The Coach after a consult on Friday. Friend Judy met me for this adventure, thank heavens, which made it a lot easier to get it under way. It was a beautiful day for riding. First loop went well; second loop was harder (gee!). We gave ourselves the liberty of several leisurely stops, so it became a long day. My pace is perhaps just enough to get to T2 by the cut-off. I had hoped for better this year, and will remain hopeful that there are still gains to be made. The hills the second time through were more challenging than the first; on Timber Lane, all I could do was put my head down, shift into the easiest gear, and count my breaths until I discovered the grade give way; on Midtown, I was see-sawing my way up to the top. Still, after that, I felt strong and happy, and arrived at Verona again feeling fine.
I was amused by how my diet went out the window on this training ride. I ran into my bike fitter and my running teacher, who are buddies, and who both live to bike, at the Kwik Trip in Mt. Horeb the first time through. They both had chocolate chip cookies in their hands. "Hey, is that your fueling strategy?" I asked. You betcha. Hey, I'm no fool. So, a Kwik Trip cookie it was for me too at each of the little towns on the second pass of the loop. Throughout the course of the day, there was also: a banana, three or four gulps of hammer gel, a scone at the Cross Plains bike store, a salted nut roll, a few gulps of perpetuum (ech.), some peanut butter pretzels, some ham (yes, two decades of vegetarianism are currently out the window!), and a handful of gorp. The Garmin says I burned maybe 5500 calories; I think all of this stuff didn't actually balance the scales, though I wasn't hungry at the end of the ride. Stopped at the local grocery and got a protein smoothie cause that's what you're supposed to do; drink half of it because the whole thing is 450 calories, and that became dinner because of what happened next.
I felt mighty fine after this ride, so decided to do the run I had missed the day before. Came home, did some transition stuff, and headed down to the bike path around Lake Monona for the run. As I was doing a walking warm-up, I came across a goose who appeared to be very sick and/or dying. Thinking that the police could have animal control transport her to the Emergency Clinic for Animals, I called them; they told me I was the third call, and that someone was on their way and would be there in half an hour. As I was finishing this conversation, two women approached---they had already called and were wondering what was happening. They were international visitors here to hear the Dalai Lama---good Buddhists with lots of compassion for our poor friend, who now was coming around a bit and munching hungrily at the grass. Every once in awhile, she wowuld try to move, and would stumble, fall, roll, lurch, and get still again. I wasn't certain whether she was poisoned or injured or otherwise sick. I did notice that she didn't seem to roll just one way or another, so the problem seemed less and less like a foot injury. This observation, conversation, and phone research with the police and three other entities went on for at least an hour, after which the police said that animal control would come in the morning...definitely unacceptable to me and the Buddhists, given that this creature could flop into the path of either a car or a cyclist at any moment. More conversations ensued--including devising a plan by which I would drive Maria, the Columbian, to the emergency vet with the goose wrapped in a blanket---as the goose became more animated and began to stagger around a bit more. She was heading toward the lake and making hard-won progress when a police officer arrived. It's Madison, so the guy has an undergrad degree in aquatic ecology. He studies the goose, taking a tenuous step or two and then falling down on her face, and offers the opinion that the goose is...well...drunk. And somehow this analysis seems to fit---for me, and for the two Buddhists, who have been keeping an eye on the bird for three or four of their precious hours of vacation. As she makes it past the mucky edge of the water, into which she goes face down momentarily, and gets into water deep enough that allows her to swim, the goose appears to do better. By now, the city calls and says they think a volunteer can come and get the goose. I tell them she's water-borne now and likely that's good because she'd have to be cited for under-age drinking if she came back around. We all feel somewhat relieved that the bird is swimming, and by the idea that it's "just" alcohol that's causing the problem. The party breaks up.
It's nine o'clock. I have been playing "drunk, drunk, goose" for an hour and a half...and I have enjoyed it. IM training teaches you ever more who you are, and it was clear to me last night that I am not the kind of person who will ignore a dying duck because I have to get my run in---and I don't want to be. I did do my run, but for only an hour. I felt fine, though I would have liked to say I ran 1.5 hours. I told my coach about this today and he laughed and said, "let's hope there aren't any drunk geese on IM Day." Right: or other cyclists with issues or kittens up trees, or spectators from out-of-town who need directions cause I am just the kind of Type C athlete who will attend to these issues the Type A athletes just ride on by.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Full Moon Run: The Lunatics Are Loose!
Last night, I participated in Movin' Shoes' annual Full Moon 5k. Several kids from my running class showed up, and I enjoyed chatting with a couple of my fellow back-o-the-packers before (and during) the race. My pace was about 11:20 per mile...I'm not quite sure why I'm not getting faster, since my training runs in class allow me to go faster than that...but it's a long way from the 16 minute miles I turned in at my first 10k., and definitely moving in the right direction.
An extremely nice thing happened during the run. I had been chugging along in the dark, listening to the voices of a pair of women behind me...I'd passed them early on, but hadn't gotten very far ahead of them, and had been hearing snippets of conversation f rom them most of the run. I caught something about somebody having a nice pace and steady rhythm the whole way shortly before I took a scheduled walk break and allowed them to pass me. As they came by, one of them said to me "You have a really nice stride." I was quite taken aback, and it made my whole night. Maybe working on my form in running class is paying off. Maybe this is just what kind people say when they pass someone! Either way, I'm holding onto it...the first shiny compliment I've received about my running, and one that balances out the not-so-encouraging words of my college running class instructor 25 years ago...amazing how words can shape one's perceptions--in both directions. That moment was definitely worth the discomfort of a hot and sticky run (though the pint glasses, socks, and blinky lights in the goody bags were pretty damned fine, too). Thanks, stranger.
An extremely nice thing happened during the run. I had been chugging along in the dark, listening to the voices of a pair of women behind me...I'd passed them early on, but hadn't gotten very far ahead of them, and had been hearing snippets of conversation f rom them most of the run. I caught something about somebody having a nice pace and steady rhythm the whole way shortly before I took a scheduled walk break and allowed them to pass me. As they came by, one of them said to me "You have a really nice stride." I was quite taken aback, and it made my whole night. Maybe working on my form in running class is paying off. Maybe this is just what kind people say when they pass someone! Either way, I'm holding onto it...the first shiny compliment I've received about my running, and one that balances out the not-so-encouraging words of my college running class instructor 25 years ago...amazing how words can shape one's perceptions--in both directions. That moment was definitely worth the discomfort of a hot and sticky run (though the pint glasses, socks, and blinky lights in the goody bags were pretty damned fine, too). Thanks, stranger.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Emotional Road to IM is as Hilly as the Bike Course
So, I did not want to swim tonight and I did not want to bike. Repeat. You could not make me, Sam I Am.
But I made myself go.
Since when do I say, "I had to cut my swim short; I only got in 2,000 meters?" Since today, 7/15/08.
I had a good time at the pool, actually. When I arrived, a water aerobics class was still going on, so I needed to wait about 10 minutes. I fooled around warming up in the "open swim" section of the pool, trying out my sculling and rotation drills. I enjoyed listening to the music for the aerobics class, and, at some point, asked the lone kid in the pool if he wanted me to throw rebounds to him from the basketball hoop set up in the shallow end of the pool. That was a blast---and it totally relaxed me for the swim, when it started.
Given all the dramarama around the swim lately, I decided to go back to Swim Coach's last written pool workout for me, instead of a long continuous swim, and instead of my Tri Coach's swim assignments, which I find undoable still. I got through about 2,000 meters of the Swim Coach's drills it before it was time to get on the (stationary) bike so I could get in an hour before the Y closed.
I experimented tonight with a new way of breathing---exhaling only through the nose...which actually seemed to work well. Of course, the evening's festivities were not without their usual dose of humility...I was cruising along, from my perspective, when I was joined in my lane by a woman who did a slow, graceful, breast stroke...and totally lapped me w/my freestyle pull. Just when I was congratulating myself that, for the first time ever, I was not being lapped by the free-stylin' guy in the lane next to me, the universe sends me this effortlessly smokin' breast stroker. Confidence is short-lived, young tri-athlete! Training is this perpetual roller coaster, it seems...not just one long uphill climb. Again and again, I learn to stay in my own race from all of these teachers of mine.
Tomorrow, I'm going to wear my wetsuit in the salt water pool at a local gym to see if the Weird Symptoms come on that way...variable by variable, I'll try to figure out the root cause of that particular form of suffering....and eliminate it.
I only swam 2,000 meters today.
But I made myself go.
Since when do I say, "I had to cut my swim short; I only got in 2,000 meters?" Since today, 7/15/08.
I had a good time at the pool, actually. When I arrived, a water aerobics class was still going on, so I needed to wait about 10 minutes. I fooled around warming up in the "open swim" section of the pool, trying out my sculling and rotation drills. I enjoyed listening to the music for the aerobics class, and, at some point, asked the lone kid in the pool if he wanted me to throw rebounds to him from the basketball hoop set up in the shallow end of the pool. That was a blast---and it totally relaxed me for the swim, when it started.
Given all the dramarama around the swim lately, I decided to go back to Swim Coach's last written pool workout for me, instead of a long continuous swim, and instead of my Tri Coach's swim assignments, which I find undoable still. I got through about 2,000 meters of the Swim Coach's drills it before it was time to get on the (stationary) bike so I could get in an hour before the Y closed.
I experimented tonight with a new way of breathing---exhaling only through the nose...which actually seemed to work well. Of course, the evening's festivities were not without their usual dose of humility...I was cruising along, from my perspective, when I was joined in my lane by a woman who did a slow, graceful, breast stroke...and totally lapped me w/my freestyle pull. Just when I was congratulating myself that, for the first time ever, I was not being lapped by the free-stylin' guy in the lane next to me, the universe sends me this effortlessly smokin' breast stroker. Confidence is short-lived, young tri-athlete! Training is this perpetual roller coaster, it seems...not just one long uphill climb. Again and again, I learn to stay in my own race from all of these teachers of mine.
Tomorrow, I'm going to wear my wetsuit in the salt water pool at a local gym to see if the Weird Symptoms come on that way...variable by variable, I'll try to figure out the root cause of that particular form of suffering....and eliminate it.
I only swam 2,000 meters today.
Wheels Coming Off
I have heard this phrase: "the wheels came off." For some reason, it's been running through my head as I try to juggle workouts and work and my flagging energy.
Here are the paradoxes currently making me crazy:
1) To get up hills faster, drop weight.
2) To drop weight, eat more protein.
3) To have the energy to get up the hills, eat more carbs.
4) Eat more carbs, gain weight, get slower on hills.
1) To lose weight---and get healthier and faster---stop eating refined sugar and junk food.
2) To not bonk, eat hammer gel, salted nut rolls, pretzels, and flat coke...the more glucose the merrier.
3) Eat a good diet on normal days, a sugar diet on race days.
4) Race as you train, train as you race.
1) To avoid dehydration, drink lots of water.
2) To avoid stomach issues on the swim, go to fluid carbs.
3) Drink lots of water and fluid carbs before the swim, and get swim-induced pulmonary edema.
4) Don't drink before the swim, get dehydrated.
5) Don't eat before the swim, bonk.
6) Eat before the swim, get indigestion.
7) Don't swim, get indigestion from not following plan.
1) I rode my commuter bike to work today and the hills felt easy.
2) Nobody rides a commuter bike in IM. ...Until Now.....
1) I had a new fitting on my bike to make myself more aero, faster, efficient and comfortable
2) The new fit seems to have caused me to sprain or break my thumb. Riding one handed while whining "ow" over every bump is not more efficient.
Can anybody help me solve these zen koans? Or better yet, offer up a plan?
Here are the paradoxes currently making me crazy:
1) To get up hills faster, drop weight.
2) To drop weight, eat more protein.
3) To have the energy to get up the hills, eat more carbs.
4) Eat more carbs, gain weight, get slower on hills.
1) To lose weight---and get healthier and faster---stop eating refined sugar and junk food.
2) To not bonk, eat hammer gel, salted nut rolls, pretzels, and flat coke...the more glucose the merrier.
3) Eat a good diet on normal days, a sugar diet on race days.
4) Race as you train, train as you race.
1) To avoid dehydration, drink lots of water.
2) To avoid stomach issues on the swim, go to fluid carbs.
3) Drink lots of water and fluid carbs before the swim, and get swim-induced pulmonary edema.
4) Don't drink before the swim, get dehydrated.
5) Don't eat before the swim, bonk.
6) Eat before the swim, get indigestion.
7) Don't swim, get indigestion from not following plan.
1) I rode my commuter bike to work today and the hills felt easy.
2) Nobody rides a commuter bike in IM. ...Until Now.....
1) I had a new fitting on my bike to make myself more aero, faster, efficient and comfortable
2) The new fit seems to have caused me to sprain or break my thumb. Riding one handed while whining "ow" over every bump is not more efficient.
Can anybody help me solve these zen koans? Or better yet, offer up a plan?
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Hill Repeats
Today, my run coach had the class do hill repeats up some long, slow hill a block or two from Camp Randall stadium. Five times up, five times down, in the heat. At the bottom of my fourth descent, I hollared to the two kids loitering at the bottom of the hill. "Hey, who is gonna help an old lady up this hill? C'mon, I need your help! I can't do it alone." One of the two took me up on it, and we climbed the hill together---her fourth repeat, my fifth. She didn't think she could do it, and her heart rate was maxing out at 190 at the top. I might not have done it but for the audience, the assignment, and the company, even though my HR was only in the 150's at the top...clearly I need to push harder. Still, I was very in touch with who I want to be, who I am...the person who hangs with the back of the packers and, there, can pretend to be brave. I jogged with this kid all of the way back, even when she was walking. I can't keep up with the front of the pack, but I am glad I am now strong enough to share some of my juju with the folks at the back when it's helpful. If only I could have a Little Friend on Ironman day, I could likely talk her through it. Hmm...maybe that Little Friend is me.
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Day After Ironman: Eight Weeks and Counting
Where did this year go? Some days, I feel the future hurtling toward me just as fast as my optimism is hurtling away. How the heck am I gonna do this thing? Eight weeks from now, we'll know.
Friday night, had to be towed from the lake for the third time in about as many weeks by Swim Coach, after the mystery malady struck again after about half a mile of swimming. Went home and googled "open water breathing coughing" or some such, and am fairly well convinced that I may have swimming-induced-pulmonary-edema in these episodes, on top of the vocal cord issue. Am I a hypochondriac? You betcha. And triathlon gives me three sports to worry about! But just because someone's paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not being followed, as they say. Trust me: I do an internship at a mental health center, and we keep a close eye on folks who suffer from paranoia.
I suspect my swim coach, whom I actually adore, thinks it's all mental---I also suspect he doesn't quite understand that it's normal to get concerned when you're having breathing trouble out in the middle of a lake. As he was trying to ferry me back to the beach Friday by having me clamp onto the underside of his kayak, he said "Are you tense?" " Dude, I'm on my back in the water clinging to a kayak running over me while I'm coughing and having chest pain. No, I'm not tense." I look forward to the day when these little adventures are just funny anecdotes I get to tell over Sunday brunch after sleeping in, like normal people do.
On the up-side: I got into the pool on Saturday and swam 2.4 miles...not fast, but if it were race day and this were my time, it would do. No issues...so, what's the difference? Did two hours of speed intervals before that. On Sunday, rode out to Verona and then did a loop with some of my favorite riding peeps, then did an hour on the elliptical at the Y as my run segment. The ride was great. I was surprised that our pace, according to all computers involved, was 13.1 miles an hour---so much for the increased speed promised by the aerobar guy....it was my slowest loop ever. Still, everybody has been saying the wind was wicked, so we'll just count it as a windy training ride.
Today was a recovery day, so Meghan and I went to the campus radio station and made our Doctors Without Borders/Plumpy'nut Ironman pitch. ..which was far more fun than being hauled around a lake like a barnacle on a kayak. Ironman: take the bad with the good and keep moving forward.
Friday night, had to be towed from the lake for the third time in about as many weeks by Swim Coach, after the mystery malady struck again after about half a mile of swimming. Went home and googled "open water breathing coughing" or some such, and am fairly well convinced that I may have swimming-induced-pulmonary-edema in these episodes, on top of the vocal cord issue. Am I a hypochondriac? You betcha. And triathlon gives me three sports to worry about! But just because someone's paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not being followed, as they say. Trust me: I do an internship at a mental health center, and we keep a close eye on folks who suffer from paranoia.
I suspect my swim coach, whom I actually adore, thinks it's all mental---I also suspect he doesn't quite understand that it's normal to get concerned when you're having breathing trouble out in the middle of a lake. As he was trying to ferry me back to the beach Friday by having me clamp onto the underside of his kayak, he said "Are you tense?" " Dude, I'm on my back in the water clinging to a kayak running over me while I'm coughing and having chest pain. No, I'm not tense." I look forward to the day when these little adventures are just funny anecdotes I get to tell over Sunday brunch after sleeping in, like normal people do.
On the up-side: I got into the pool on Saturday and swam 2.4 miles...not fast, but if it were race day and this were my time, it would do. No issues...so, what's the difference? Did two hours of speed intervals before that. On Sunday, rode out to Verona and then did a loop with some of my favorite riding peeps, then did an hour on the elliptical at the Y as my run segment. The ride was great. I was surprised that our pace, according to all computers involved, was 13.1 miles an hour---so much for the increased speed promised by the aerobar guy....it was my slowest loop ever. Still, everybody has been saying the wind was wicked, so we'll just count it as a windy training ride.
Today was a recovery day, so Meghan and I went to the campus radio station and made our Doctors Without Borders/Plumpy'nut Ironman pitch. ..which was far more fun than being hauled around a lake like a barnacle on a kayak. Ironman: take the bad with the good and keep moving forward.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
My Mama Rides an Upright Bike (and) God Bless America Triathlon Race Report
My mother headed back to Ohio this morning after her annual visit...with a beautiful new Raleigh Detour 3.0 loaded in her trunk. Oh, yeah!
Mom accompanied me to the God Bless America Triathlon on July 4 (her first tri experience) and later that day bought this yummy new bike. My last two training runs have benefited from her companionship on the bike. I jog along and she keeps saying "I love my bike." I run ahead to see if the intersections are clear, and run back if they aren't because she's a little wobbly in the stopping department because she likes her saddle high.
What a delight to be out running around next to my mother on a lovely Wisconsin day. I am sorry to see her head back to Ohio, but am glad that bike is going with her. Next year, she'll be dropping me on the hills, no doubt!
As for the God Bless America Triathlon---well...last year, the thing was Over the Top: there was a doughnut aid station after the 200 meter swim; there were extra wide transition spaces whose numbers lined up with our race numbers; there were well-trained spectators; there were huge mile marker signs on the bike course, and there was a fabulous feed after. All of these elements were missing this year. In addition, there were no volunteers at the timing mats, and the mats seemed to be "strips," so it was hard to tell where each leg began and ended. People were allowed to ride up to the transition gate w/o being DQ'ed. Mom saw folks ducking under the transition flags to take shortcuts to get to their bikes--God Bless America!---without being DQ'ed. So--the lake was still clear and the courses still fine, but this wasn't the Amazing event it had been last year. I guess the economy is affecting us all!
I shaved seven minutes off of my overall time, even with adding a minute to my swim. WTF? Last year I swam with my head above water the whole way; this year I actually swam...I didn't wear a wetsuit, but you would think that would be irrelevant, given how slowly I went last year...maybe this year's focus on relaxing in the water introduces this element of drag! The worrisome thing is that if I keep that pace at IM MOO, I won't make the swim finish. Maybe I've become a little too relaxed!
I haven't done an open water workout since last week's Thunderstorm Swim, and my swim coach is nowhere to be found. I guess this is all part of the Mental Training....
Off to the pool.
Mom accompanied me to the God Bless America Triathlon on July 4 (her first tri experience) and later that day bought this yummy new bike. My last two training runs have benefited from her companionship on the bike. I jog along and she keeps saying "I love my bike." I run ahead to see if the intersections are clear, and run back if they aren't because she's a little wobbly in the stopping department because she likes her saddle high.
What a delight to be out running around next to my mother on a lovely Wisconsin day. I am sorry to see her head back to Ohio, but am glad that bike is going with her. Next year, she'll be dropping me on the hills, no doubt!
As for the God Bless America Triathlon---well...last year, the thing was Over the Top: there was a doughnut aid station after the 200 meter swim; there were extra wide transition spaces whose numbers lined up with our race numbers; there were well-trained spectators; there were huge mile marker signs on the bike course, and there was a fabulous feed after. All of these elements were missing this year. In addition, there were no volunteers at the timing mats, and the mats seemed to be "strips," so it was hard to tell where each leg began and ended. People were allowed to ride up to the transition gate w/o being DQ'ed. Mom saw folks ducking under the transition flags to take shortcuts to get to their bikes--God Bless America!---without being DQ'ed. So--the lake was still clear and the courses still fine, but this wasn't the Amazing event it had been last year. I guess the economy is affecting us all!
I shaved seven minutes off of my overall time, even with adding a minute to my swim. WTF? Last year I swam with my head above water the whole way; this year I actually swam...I didn't wear a wetsuit, but you would think that would be irrelevant, given how slowly I went last year...maybe this year's focus on relaxing in the water introduces this element of drag! The worrisome thing is that if I keep that pace at IM MOO, I won't make the swim finish. Maybe I've become a little too relaxed!
I haven't done an open water workout since last week's Thunderstorm Swim, and my swim coach is nowhere to be found. I guess this is all part of the Mental Training....
Off to the pool.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Has Your Wetsuit Ever Smelled of (Dead) Fish?
If your wetsuit smells like fish, clap your hands.
If your wetsuit smells like fish, clap your hands.
If your wetsuit smells like fish and you hate fish as a dish,
If your wetsuit smells like fish, clap your hands.
If you don't know how to clean it, clap your hands.
If you don't know how to clean it, clap your hands.
If you don't know how to clean it, and you really, really mean it,
If you don't know how to clean it, clap your hands.
If you want to buy my wetsuit, clap your hands.
If you want to buy my wetsuit, clap your hands.
If you want to buy my wetsuit and you're ready to get to it,
If you want to buy my wetsuit, clap your hands.
I will throw some noseplugs in, at no cost.
I will throw some noseplugs in, at no cost.
I will throw some noseplugs in and won't bother you again,
I will throw some noseplugs in, at no cost.
God Bless America Triathlon is tomorrow. Can we tell that somebody has pent up energy when she "tapers" and carb loads for a super-sprint? What the heck are we in for in August?
If your wetsuit smells like fish, clap your hands.
If your wetsuit smells like fish and you hate fish as a dish,
If your wetsuit smells like fish, clap your hands.
If you don't know how to clean it, clap your hands.
If you don't know how to clean it, clap your hands.
If you don't know how to clean it, and you really, really mean it,
If you don't know how to clean it, clap your hands.
If you want to buy my wetsuit, clap your hands.
If you want to buy my wetsuit, clap your hands.
If you want to buy my wetsuit and you're ready to get to it,
If you want to buy my wetsuit, clap your hands.
I will throw some noseplugs in, at no cost.
I will throw some noseplugs in, at no cost.
I will throw some noseplugs in and won't bother you again,
I will throw some noseplugs in, at no cost.
God Bless America Triathlon is tomorrow. Can we tell that somebody has pent up energy when she "tapers" and carb loads for a super-sprint? What the heck are we in for in August?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Sacred, Profane, Profound, Mundane
I have decided to enroll in the Janus Charity Challenge at Ironman Wisconsin, and to raise money for Doctors Without Borders--and, specifically, for their work in delivering the high energy peanut-based medicinal food called "Plumpy'nut" to kids at risk of death from malnutrition and starvation---it seems a true revolution in addressing malnutrition. Check out this newscast to understand why, besides the Plumpy'nut name, I chose to put my fund raising energies here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/19/60minutes/main3386661.shtml
Talk about true endurance.
Check out my Janus Charity Challenge website to make a donation:
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=250249&supid=225436667
Doctors Without Borders is a Nobel-prize winning non-profit (yes, your gift is tax deductible) that manages its resources well. $40.00 (yes, 10 Starbucks lattes, three or four pairs of running socks, two trips to the movies with a date..) buys them enough Plumpy'nut to turn around the health of a kid facing death from malnutrition and starvation. Through the Janus Charity Challenge, by pooling our resources, we stand to win another $10,000.00 contribution to Doctors Without Borders from Janus, an investment firm. How many children can we afford to save this summer? Let's get creative and make this happen!
My friend Meghan, who is adopting a child from an area in Ethiopia where childhood malnutrition is especially serious, is joining me in this effort to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders---she's asking folks to donate to the fund in lieu of baby shower gifts. Another friend is considering taking this project on as her Sedaka mitzvot as she and her children convert to Judaism. The possibilties are as great as the needs. When do we have the chance to do so much for so little? Please consider making a contribution, telling your friends, asking your company to match your gift, or making a donation as a gift in honor of a doctor, a care provider, an Ironman, a mother ..or in honor of the person who kept you in peanutbutter as a kid!
I feel GREAT about supporting Doctors Without Borders and about competing in the Janus Charity Challenge. I have my doubts about winning Ironman Wisconsin this year (LOL), but I think that, working together, we can win the Charity Challenge and that $10,ooo from Janus for Doctors Without Borders...250 more lives that will not be lost simply because of lack of access to food.
Oh, and, how's my training coming? Today I swam in Lake Wingra in a thunderstorm. Without boat support. My training pal Polly shared this experience, about which I will write more later, when I have stopped humming the lyrics to that song that starts "Thunder, lightnin,' oh Baby, it's fright'nin'..."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/19/60minutes/main3386661.shtml
Talk about true endurance.
Check out my Janus Charity Challenge website to make a donation:
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=250249&supid=225436667
Doctors Without Borders is a Nobel-prize winning non-profit (yes, your gift is tax deductible) that manages its resources well. $40.00 (yes, 10 Starbucks lattes, three or four pairs of running socks, two trips to the movies with a date..) buys them enough Plumpy'nut to turn around the health of a kid facing death from malnutrition and starvation. Through the Janus Charity Challenge, by pooling our resources, we stand to win another $10,000.00 contribution to Doctors Without Borders from Janus, an investment firm. How many children can we afford to save this summer? Let's get creative and make this happen!
My friend Meghan, who is adopting a child from an area in Ethiopia where childhood malnutrition is especially serious, is joining me in this effort to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders---she's asking folks to donate to the fund in lieu of baby shower gifts. Another friend is considering taking this project on as her Sedaka mitzvot as she and her children convert to Judaism. The possibilties are as great as the needs. When do we have the chance to do so much for so little? Please consider making a contribution, telling your friends, asking your company to match your gift, or making a donation as a gift in honor of a doctor, a care provider, an Ironman, a mother ..or in honor of the person who kept you in peanutbutter as a kid!
I feel GREAT about supporting Doctors Without Borders and about competing in the Janus Charity Challenge. I have my doubts about winning Ironman Wisconsin this year (LOL), but I think that, working together, we can win the Charity Challenge and that $10,ooo from Janus for Doctors Without Borders...250 more lives that will not be lost simply because of lack of access to food.
Oh, and, how's my training coming? Today I swam in Lake Wingra in a thunderstorm. Without boat support. My training pal Polly shared this experience, about which I will write more later, when I have stopped humming the lyrics to that song that starts "Thunder, lightnin,' oh Baby, it's fright'nin'..."
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Mental Training for Triathletes
Would you, could you, swim two miles?
Would you, could you, do time trials?
Would you run in wind and heat?
Would you lose nails from your feet?
Would you, could you, live on gels?
Would you let your house go all to hell?
Would you, could you, pay too much cash
To buy a bike you just might crash?
Would you, could you, rise at dawn
After sleeping with your wetsuit on?
Would you, could you, read triathlete blogs
And keep your own top secret training logs?
Would you, could you, treat food as fuel?
Would you wear a TT helmet because you think it's cool?
Would you, could you, drink chlorine?
Would you, could you, love a girl in neoprene?
Would you, could you, say "Yes, I could and can?"
You might just be a future Ironman.
copyright The Juice 2008
Would you, could you, do time trials?
Would you run in wind and heat?
Would you lose nails from your feet?
Would you, could you, live on gels?
Would you let your house go all to hell?
Would you, could you, pay too much cash
To buy a bike you just might crash?
Would you, could you, rise at dawn
After sleeping with your wetsuit on?
Would you, could you, read triathlete blogs
And keep your own top secret training logs?
Would you, could you, treat food as fuel?
Would you wear a TT helmet because you think it's cool?
Would you, could you, drink chlorine?
Would you, could you, love a girl in neoprene?
Would you, could you, say "Yes, I could and can?"
You might just be a future Ironman.
copyright The Juice 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Staying in My Own Race/How This Nut Rolls
I was signed up for the High Cliff half ironman distance race this Sunday. I didn't go. Now, I have a DNS to add to my illustrious triathlon career.
It wasn't an easy decision, nor one I'm easy with now. I am probably more exhausted from the rumination about going or not going than I would have been from travelling to and from the race and doing it. Factors ranged from a little medical issue that arose at the end of the week to feeling generally overwhelmed by the tasks-at-hand, to knowing that while I have now discovered I can swim a mile, I have no experience with pack swimming, to not knowing the course, to being tired from Horribly Hilly, to not knowing my new bike, to a deep cache of morbid fantasies about Things That Could Go Wrong Far Away From Home starring killer bees, massive blood loss, and keeping the race organizers in the park until midnight. I suspect, however, that all of this dramarama covered a simple truth: I wasn't ready.
I wasn't ready, gentle reader, so I did not go. I was sad and frustrated that I was not ready, embarrassed to bail out on myself and on my loyal fan base, but it was the right decision, which I discovered when I held my own private 70.3 Sunday instead.
That's right: I swam a mile, biked 59, and ran 13.1 and some change. Why? Because I was ready for *that,* and someday soon, I'll be ready to do it in a crowd.
So: here's The Juice's 70.3 race report:
1 Mile Swim
Perfect weather and calm water greet me, a lone Athena, and a single age grouper when we assemble at Lake Wingra at 7:00 for a 7:20 wave start. I discover early in the race that my wetsuit is chafing me, so exit the swim course, apply body glide, and re-enter the course. Course marshalls are surprised by this maneuver, but couldn't find a USAT rule against it, so the event continued---my lead was such that it did not affect my relative ranking. At 8:20, the age grouper says she's had enough, so we declare the swim finished. My place: first Athena. Age grouper's place: 1st among all age groupers.
T1
After a certain amount of congratulatory chitchat among the racers, I go to my car, strategically placed in T1. Grab half a PB&J while unloading my bike; put wheels on bike; put helmet and gloves on ground; pump air into tires; put wetsuit on plastic cloth in trunk; lay out run clothes for T2. Discover running shoes are missing. Swear. Consider biking home, picking up running shoes, and biking back to T2, but reject this idea for various logistical reasons. Take wheel off of bike, put bike and wheel back in car, throw wetsuit in front seat, drive across town to house. Have a snack; rehydrate. Take a shower---hey, I'm home! Call Polly. Wanna ride? Yes! Put on bike clothes and shoes; lay out run clothes, including shoes and fuel belt; grab helmet and gloves; assemble bike; check e-mail one last time. Leave. Transition time: 1 hour 15 minutes. My place: first Athena.
59.5 Bike
Ride to Polly's. Greet Foz the dog and Ben the boy. Polly has picked a route and we get underway, playing Ironman trivia. Polly is very kind to me, knowing that I am in my own private 70.3. We ride around rural Wisconsin, practicing fueling and hydration. I am living on Pearson's Salted Nut Rolls left over from Horribly Hilly and Emergen-C that I am learning to drink without carbonation. At mile 30, I need to get more water on board. Polly's mother lives in the vicinity, in Stoughton. Polly asks me: "Mom's or Kwik Trip?" We go to Polly's Mom's house, visit with Peek-a-Boo and Heidi, the dogs, re-fill the water bottles, and talk about the last books we've read. Isn't this a nice aid station? These race organizers are great! We get back on the road and take a long way home so that I exceed my goal of 56.0 today. Hit home just as a thunderstorm breaks over us. Ride mileage: 59.5. Fuel: 1.5 salted nut rolls; Emergen-C; water. My place: first Athena. Polly's place: 1st among all other women and men.
T2
I finish off the second nut roll, discovering myself to be a bit hungry. Pop a couple of peanut-butter filled pretzel squares. Listen to the thunder, change clothes--hey, I'm so organized!--contemplate options: run outside; run on the treadmill at the Y, go to Sun Prairie Athletic and run on the track. Choose the track. Pack hydration belt and warm-up clothes for after this adventure. Talk with Polly, who has made it home; give her Garmin numbers; get her computer read-outs. Drive to Sun Prairie Athletic Club. Retrieve guest pass (that rocks!); and get directions to the track. T2 time? 1:10. My place: well, smokin', obviously.
13.1 run
So, the person on the phone had said that 9 times around the track a mile does make, so I had carefully done the math on my way to SPA. When I got onto the track, I saw a sign that said 9.5 times around equals a mile. No worries: I have plenty of time to do the math.
The track has three lanes: a walkers' lane, a runners' lane, and a passing lane in between them. The track surrounds a couple of basketball courts, but is fenced off from them, and is enclosed on the other side by an exterior building wall. So for 90 percent of the distance, the runner runs in a narrow tunnel--wall on one side, courts on the other; the three lanes are maybe 5 feet across--total. I threw my stuff down in a corner so that I could grab my water bottle every so often and dig snacks out of my fuel belt as needed. I'll let you calculate re: how many times around a 9/10 mile track makes a half marathon. Ironically, I turned in my best 13.1 time ever--honestly--and had no blisters, IT band issues, or other problems, save for the song lyrics, "You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy, But I Just Might Be the Lunatic You're Looking For" repeating themselves in my head. At some point, I begin to wonder whether the walking lane was 9.5 laps to the mile and the running lane was 9 laps to the mile, and begin to wonder whether I could go back to running 117 laps instead of 125. I recognize this inner mathematical saboteur for what she is, however, and am not going to let her steal my first 70.3 from me! 125 laps I go, on one Nectar Bar and one raspberry goo---jeez, let's just eat Hostess Fruit Pies! I did not use my ipod, lest a course marshall DQ me, though I amuse myself by counting the number of times I drop some guy wearing a "Grill Master" t-shirt and the number of youngsters who start their runs and then abandon them after only 5, 10, 15, 25, or 40 laps. I may be slow, but I can outlast them. I alternate run and walk laps.
13.1 run/walk time: 2:35. My place: first Athena.
Post race: stopped at the desk and asked for track distance clarification. "That's the first time anybody has asked," they say. Jeez, am I beginning to feel like a time-obsessed triathlete. Walk out into the rain and stretch. Drive home, shower, don't feel like eating, but eat soy yogurt with oats, blueberries, and almonds anyway. Check on Geek Girl at CDA, someone in a real race today; wonder about Waddler, someone with courage. Go to a party. Am amazed I can still walk, have no blisters, and feel pretty damned good. As I walk in, my friend says, "Here she is, just in from her first 70.3 race."
Kinda sorta. What's the difference between a 70.3 or 80.0 brick and a 70.3 race? Crowd support? A t-shirt? A medal at the end? What did I have today and what did I not have? Guts? Confidence? Four hours? Double my brick time and I'm in for a 24 hour IM.
Today I stayed in my own race. I also organized it, refereed it, handed out the penalties and awards, and organized most of the aid stations. It was a bit of a consolation prize for not having the juju for High Cliff. My body can go 70.3. It just has. I am still not quite ready to race it, but I learned some things today that brought me a few steps closer. It's coming.
So be it: that's the way this nut rolls.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
If a Person Goes 70.3 Without a Timing Chip, Can She Still Put the Sticker on Her Car?
Stay tuned for my 70.3 brick report.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Finding a Rhythm
M/T/R: Running class in the a.m.
T/R: Swim in the afternoon.
Pre-run schedule: get up, throw clothes in washer, eat, pack wetsuit, cap, goggles, body glide, towel after retrieving them from where they've been drying from the last round, into one bag. Pack swim suit into computer bag so that I can change into it before I leave work. Pack day's food in computer bag. Dress in running clothes; take hydration belt. Pack work clothes. Pack change for meters at stadium where class is held. Shoes? Oh, hell, running shoes at work is popular in the city, right? Pack transition bag--shampoo, etc. Eat? No? Might be snacks in car left over from yesterday.
Drive to running class; wonder about the irony of this.
Discover meter-free parking today. Score. Park, go to running class. Miss my computer science running buddy, but leap frog my way from the back of the pack to third or fourth from the front by the time we arrive at the stadium. What up with that? These poor kids: dropped by a chubby old professor type. Especially hard on the boys.
Go to car; drive to other campus gym near office; show ID; shower, dress for work. Hang towel from hook in back of car, hoping it will dry by swim class.
Repeat.
Today, my Ironman watch, purchased two summers ago, fell apart while I was doing "body boards" after running. Is it a sign?
T/R: Swim in the afternoon.
Pre-run schedule: get up, throw clothes in washer, eat, pack wetsuit, cap, goggles, body glide, towel after retrieving them from where they've been drying from the last round, into one bag. Pack swim suit into computer bag so that I can change into it before I leave work. Pack day's food in computer bag. Dress in running clothes; take hydration belt. Pack work clothes. Pack change for meters at stadium where class is held. Shoes? Oh, hell, running shoes at work is popular in the city, right? Pack transition bag--shampoo, etc. Eat? No? Might be snacks in car left over from yesterday.
Drive to running class; wonder about the irony of this.
Discover meter-free parking today. Score. Park, go to running class. Miss my computer science running buddy, but leap frog my way from the back of the pack to third or fourth from the front by the time we arrive at the stadium. What up with that? These poor kids: dropped by a chubby old professor type. Especially hard on the boys.
Go to car; drive to other campus gym near office; show ID; shower, dress for work. Hang towel from hook in back of car, hoping it will dry by swim class.
Repeat.
Today, my Ironman watch, purchased two summers ago, fell apart while I was doing "body boards" after running. Is it a sign?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Things My Body Did Today
Today, I ran with my running class, even though a run was not on my Plan, and I had a great time---especially because I stayed behind the pack, pacing with a new runner, a woman soccer player and graduate student from a country that doesn't allow girls to play sports; when the class got back to the facility where we started, I ran with a former colleague on the track and immediately fell in love with it (the track!). Both of these experiences reminded me of the benefits of being at the back of the pack---the chatting, the stories, the hanging together---even though I am often these days frustrated to be there...still. Did I mention I nearly flunked out of college because of a running class? Today, I could have run all day---albeit at my slow, steady paces.
Today, I swam my first open water mile. Less than a month ago, during my first OWS experience of the season, I totally freaked out--physically, emotionally, publicly. Today, I swam the distance in Lake Wingra. There was a certain amount of stopping to chit chat with my coach involved on the way out, into the current. Kinda like this:
Me: ten strokes, then "Blechhh. Dude, there are weeds."
Coach: "Yes, I know. The weeds are our friends."
Me: three strokes: "Hey, what about that guy who drowned because of the weeds?"
Coach: "Urban legends. I've got you covered."
Me: three strokes. "Hey, how is my stroke?"
Coach: "How about you let me see more of it?"
Me: twenty strokes. "We there yet?"
Coach: "250 yards."
Me: 100 strokes. "How's it going?"
Coach: "250 yards"
Me: 100 strokes. "We there yet?"
Coach: "Just keep following me. Almost there."
Me: 100 stokes. "Where are we?"
Coach: "250 yards."
Me: "Dude, I'm having trust issues."
Coach: "Oh, um, well, I have a bad sense of distance."
Me: "Oh. Remember when the water was 50 degrees and you said it was 65? Guess it's a
temperature thing, too."
Coach: "Keep swimming."
Me: 100 strokes. "Damn, we're here already?"
Coach: "Okay, on the way back, no talking."
Out: 33 minutes; back 22.
When we got back to the beach, I took a moment to really let it sink in. Did I mention I nearly flunked out of college because of a swimming class? Three months ago, I was out of breath at the end of 25 yards; a month ago, I lost it in the open water. Today, I got some of it back.
Then I went home, ate a salty nut roll, and got on my bike.
Today, I had it all: swim, bike, run, delight, and celebration. And, like always,there was also defeat, despair, and worry. I'm amazed at what I can do now---but it feels so far from being enough for Ironman. It feels like I am now almost fit enough to really *begin* training for Ironman---like for an Ironman in '09. But Ironman Wisconsin is my race, and it is this September, not next. Or maybe next year is my A race and this year is just a training event. Maybe in 09, I will be the long, lean, buff, built, athlete of my dreams--you know--the one who kicks some serious tail...the one who passes for a fit person? Maybe this year, I will finish in the chubby but surprisingly functional body I have now, chatting up some other woman in whose country or in whose biography girls weren't allowed to play sports, some person reclaiming his or her heritage to move as I am reclaiming mine. And that wouldn't be a bad way to finish...right?
But first, this weekend: my first half ironman. I am more ready than I was a week ago, but I have some serious reservations. Half Ironman---that's kind of a long day. Wonder who I'll enjoy knowing at the back of the pack there?
Today, I swam my first open water mile. Less than a month ago, during my first OWS experience of the season, I totally freaked out--physically, emotionally, publicly. Today, I swam the distance in Lake Wingra. There was a certain amount of stopping to chit chat with my coach involved on the way out, into the current. Kinda like this:
Me: ten strokes, then "Blechhh. Dude, there are weeds."
Coach: "Yes, I know. The weeds are our friends."
Me: three strokes: "Hey, what about that guy who drowned because of the weeds?"
Coach: "Urban legends. I've got you covered."
Me: three strokes. "Hey, how is my stroke?"
Coach: "How about you let me see more of it?"
Me: twenty strokes. "We there yet?"
Coach: "250 yards."
Me: 100 strokes. "How's it going?"
Coach: "250 yards"
Me: 100 strokes. "We there yet?"
Coach: "Just keep following me. Almost there."
Me: 100 stokes. "Where are we?"
Coach: "250 yards."
Me: "Dude, I'm having trust issues."
Coach: "Oh, um, well, I have a bad sense of distance."
Me: "Oh. Remember when the water was 50 degrees and you said it was 65? Guess it's a
temperature thing, too."
Coach: "Keep swimming."
Me: 100 strokes. "Damn, we're here already?"
Coach: "Okay, on the way back, no talking."
Out: 33 minutes; back 22.
When we got back to the beach, I took a moment to really let it sink in. Did I mention I nearly flunked out of college because of a swimming class? Three months ago, I was out of breath at the end of 25 yards; a month ago, I lost it in the open water. Today, I got some of it back.
Then I went home, ate a salty nut roll, and got on my bike.
Today, I had it all: swim, bike, run, delight, and celebration. And, like always,there was also defeat, despair, and worry. I'm amazed at what I can do now---but it feels so far from being enough for Ironman. It feels like I am now almost fit enough to really *begin* training for Ironman---like for an Ironman in '09. But Ironman Wisconsin is my race, and it is this September, not next. Or maybe next year is my A race and this year is just a training event. Maybe in 09, I will be the long, lean, buff, built, athlete of my dreams--you know--the one who kicks some serious tail...the one who passes for a fit person? Maybe this year, I will finish in the chubby but surprisingly functional body I have now, chatting up some other woman in whose country or in whose biography girls weren't allowed to play sports, some person reclaiming his or her heritage to move as I am reclaiming mine. And that wouldn't be a bad way to finish...right?
But first, this weekend: my first half ironman. I am more ready than I was a week ago, but I have some serious reservations. Half Ironman---that's kind of a long day. Wonder who I'll enjoy knowing at the back of the pack there?
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Horribly Hilly Hundreds: Finally Freakin' Finished
And what a ride it was!
Horribly Hilly Hundreds provides riders with stunningly beautiful views, along with sometimes painfully challenging climbs, in the rolling terrain of Southern Wisconsin.
Despite the devastating weather of the last few weeks, today dawned clear and cool; temperatures climbed to over 80 by the afternoon, but the rain stayed away until after most riders had safely finished the route, it seemed. The roads on the course were intact and mostly dry, if a little gravely from recent rains, though I heard talk today of one rider who slid out on a slick spot early in the course.
My ride was shaped by false starts and wrong turns---we got underway at about 8:20 and then spent time being re-routed onto a gravel patch exiting town, thanks to my keen sense of direction (hmm, are these not features of my 50k race report, too?). After these early challenges, the rest of the ride went without incident--though I thought I might expire in a Porta-Jane that was parked in the sun and must have been 150 degrees...(what a way to go...literally and figuratively!). I expect my official speed to be about 8 mph, given the late start and early delays; there's no chip timing, so I suspect the clock just started at 7 a.m. and riders are "timed" at the finish. My actual pace was a bit faster than I thought, though slower than I hoped, even with my orientation toward this thing as a touring training ride...and the long marches that the adventure involved. We were out there more than five hours, with the total ride time being 3:49, according to Garmin. It's amazing how "paused time" can accumulate when you are lost, looking for maps, chatting up drivers, and visiting with the EMT and her little dog at the rest stops!
Some highlights:
1) Incredible scenery all the way
3) Excellent company of Ride Companion the whole trip
2) The chalked messages on the final climb really helped pull me forward--and up!
3) Friendly conversations with fellow riders
4) Finishing upright and uninjured
5) Hydration (camelbak..) and nutrition--if you can call Salted Nut Rolls that (2 for $1 at the gas station, people, and more protein than a gel)---seemed to work well.
Some observations:
1) This thing is *hard.*
2) I saw less carnage than I was brought to expect---however, I heard far more kvetching, whining, and complaining than I'd expected, too---and it wasn't all coming from me!
3) HHH was an interesting place to observe gender differences...Men having a hard time think the course sucks; women having a hard time think our riding sucks. This is a classic in social psychology---external v. internal locus of control, and how it breaks down along gender lines.
Also on this score: there was a guy who passed me riding up the next-to-last climb up Blue Mound; I happened to be walking at the time, I confess, who said "all the men are riding; all the walkers are women, and this is what insanity looks like." Everybody is a gender scholar! Anway, thought this was worth contemplating. BTW, it was not true of the day in general---I saw lots of guys today walking those bikes: the hills are the hills for men and women alike.
4) Despite the foregoing, it was a young, fit woman who expressed the sentiment at the last water stop that she would like to throw her bicycle and had never hated a ride like she was hating this one. I was surprised--I wasn't exactly hating my bike or the ride...though I wasn't too happy with my riding. One of the benefits for me of this sort of thing is to help me see that hard is hard sometimes---it's not always a result of my inadequacies.
5. I like the wind. Other people were hating it today, so I decided I was best served keeping that to myself.
6. When you have a ride-not-a-race mentality, it is easy to see the scenery and to be grateful. As hard as this was, I was grateful all day long that I am alive and well enough to be having this incredible experience. How many people whose homes are flooded, whose kids are starving, whose health is fragile would give a million bucks to have their biggest concern be whether to walk or ride the last mile up gorgeous Blue Mound? I am a fortunate person today, indeed.
Horribly Hilly Hundreds provides riders with stunningly beautiful views, along with sometimes painfully challenging climbs, in the rolling terrain of Southern Wisconsin.
Despite the devastating weather of the last few weeks, today dawned clear and cool; temperatures climbed to over 80 by the afternoon, but the rain stayed away until after most riders had safely finished the route, it seemed. The roads on the course were intact and mostly dry, if a little gravely from recent rains, though I heard talk today of one rider who slid out on a slick spot early in the course.
My ride was shaped by false starts and wrong turns---we got underway at about 8:20 and then spent time being re-routed onto a gravel patch exiting town, thanks to my keen sense of direction (hmm, are these not features of my 50k race report, too?). After these early challenges, the rest of the ride went without incident--though I thought I might expire in a Porta-Jane that was parked in the sun and must have been 150 degrees...(what a way to go...literally and figuratively!). I expect my official speed to be about 8 mph, given the late start and early delays; there's no chip timing, so I suspect the clock just started at 7 a.m. and riders are "timed" at the finish. My actual pace was a bit faster than I thought, though slower than I hoped, even with my orientation toward this thing as a touring training ride...and the long marches that the adventure involved. We were out there more than five hours, with the total ride time being 3:49, according to Garmin. It's amazing how "paused time" can accumulate when you are lost, looking for maps, chatting up drivers, and visiting with the EMT and her little dog at the rest stops!
Some highlights:
1) Incredible scenery all the way
3) Excellent company of Ride Companion the whole trip
2) The chalked messages on the final climb really helped pull me forward--and up!
3) Friendly conversations with fellow riders
4) Finishing upright and uninjured
5) Hydration (camelbak..) and nutrition--if you can call Salted Nut Rolls that (2 for $1 at the gas station, people, and more protein than a gel)---seemed to work well.
Some observations:
1) This thing is *hard.*
2) I saw less carnage than I was brought to expect---however, I heard far more kvetching, whining, and complaining than I'd expected, too---and it wasn't all coming from me!
3) HHH was an interesting place to observe gender differences...Men having a hard time think the course sucks; women having a hard time think our riding sucks. This is a classic in social psychology---external v. internal locus of control, and how it breaks down along gender lines.
Also on this score: there was a guy who passed me riding up the next-to-last climb up Blue Mound; I happened to be walking at the time, I confess, who said "all the men are riding; all the walkers are women, and this is what insanity looks like." Everybody is a gender scholar! Anway, thought this was worth contemplating. BTW, it was not true of the day in general---I saw lots of guys today walking those bikes: the hills are the hills for men and women alike.
4) Despite the foregoing, it was a young, fit woman who expressed the sentiment at the last water stop that she would like to throw her bicycle and had never hated a ride like she was hating this one. I was surprised--I wasn't exactly hating my bike or the ride...though I wasn't too happy with my riding. One of the benefits for me of this sort of thing is to help me see that hard is hard sometimes---it's not always a result of my inadequacies.
5. I like the wind. Other people were hating it today, so I decided I was best served keeping that to myself.
6. When you have a ride-not-a-race mentality, it is easy to see the scenery and to be grateful. As hard as this was, I was grateful all day long that I am alive and well enough to be having this incredible experience. How many people whose homes are flooded, whose kids are starving, whose health is fragile would give a million bucks to have their biggest concern be whether to walk or ride the last mile up gorgeous Blue Mound? I am a fortunate person today, indeed.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Horribly Hilly (Part 1)
I am registered for the Horribly Hilly Hundreds. Tomorrow. O.My. Gawd.
An article in the paper yesterday said that 25% of people who start it don't finish. What are the stats at an Ironman?
I drove out to Blue Mounds again today to study the climb up Blue Mound and to buy some salty nut rolls from the corner grocery before heading to Mt. Horeb to pick up my number and my Biking Like a Viking jersey. As I approached packet pick-up, I heard someone call out to me. It was Angie, who passed me on a hill at Quadrupedal last year. On a tandem. With a seven-year-old in tow. "You riding tomorrow?" she asked. "Yep--and you going to drop me on a tandem again?" We laughed. "This will be fun," she said, and I think she is right...even though it's been called a "sufferfest."
I too easily allow myself to be intimidated by the macho bravado surrounding these things. For example, we could think of the Ironman bike course as the centerpiece of what has been called "the world's most gureling one-day athletic event" or we could think of it as a scenic Wisconsin ride from Verona to Mt. Horeb to Cross Plains. I may suffer from a Competitive Spirit Disorder....I would much rather think of Ironman as a nice long group swim in my hometown lake with 2000 other fine club members, followed by a nice scenic Wisconsin bike trip, followed by a nice long walk around my lovely town, during which I'll have a chance to catch up with some people I haven't seen in awhile (like since IM training began), than think about Ironman as the world's most grueling athletic event. Of course, my CSD may be just some compensation for my not actually being competitive (as in, what the heck am I doing out here with these fit people?), but still, it calms me down to reframe things...Horribly Hilly: "sufferfest" or a nice hilly training ride witha lot of other crazy happy cyclists trying to figure out the perfect food to fuel their ascent up Pinnacle, Barlow, and Blue Mound? Guess we'll know tomorrow.
And for someone non-competitive, I gotta say I am relieved the damn thing isn't chip timed. That will happen soon enough: as in High Cliff Half Iron race is next week, and I have yet to swim an open water mile.
An article in the paper yesterday said that 25% of people who start it don't finish. What are the stats at an Ironman?
I drove out to Blue Mounds again today to study the climb up Blue Mound and to buy some salty nut rolls from the corner grocery before heading to Mt. Horeb to pick up my number and my Biking Like a Viking jersey. As I approached packet pick-up, I heard someone call out to me. It was Angie, who passed me on a hill at Quadrupedal last year. On a tandem. With a seven-year-old in tow. "You riding tomorrow?" she asked. "Yep--and you going to drop me on a tandem again?" We laughed. "This will be fun," she said, and I think she is right...even though it's been called a "sufferfest."
I too easily allow myself to be intimidated by the macho bravado surrounding these things. For example, we could think of the Ironman bike course as the centerpiece of what has been called "the world's most gureling one-day athletic event" or we could think of it as a scenic Wisconsin ride from Verona to Mt. Horeb to Cross Plains. I may suffer from a Competitive Spirit Disorder....I would much rather think of Ironman as a nice long group swim in my hometown lake with 2000 other fine club members, followed by a nice scenic Wisconsin bike trip, followed by a nice long walk around my lovely town, during which I'll have a chance to catch up with some people I haven't seen in awhile (like since IM training began), than think about Ironman as the world's most grueling athletic event. Of course, my CSD may be just some compensation for my not actually being competitive (as in, what the heck am I doing out here with these fit people?), but still, it calms me down to reframe things...Horribly Hilly: "sufferfest" or a nice hilly training ride witha lot of other crazy happy cyclists trying to figure out the perfect food to fuel their ascent up Pinnacle, Barlow, and Blue Mound? Guess we'll know tomorrow.
And for someone non-competitive, I gotta say I am relieved the damn thing isn't chip timed. That will happen soon enough: as in High Cliff Half Iron race is next week, and I have yet to swim an open water mile.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Aquatic Talk
Some funny things have been happening lately:
1) I went to the Y the other day to swim and asked the front desk peeps when the Y closed. "At 7:00," they said. It was then almost 6:00. "Okay," I replied," I'll swim fast." "You've got a whole hour," they said, like this was a long time to swim, which I found funny. My, how one's perspective changes.
2) Tonight, went to OWS and because of recent rains, the lake was high. And choppy. Swim coach didn't think it was a good idea for him to take his kayak out, it was that choppy. We swam in that choppy water. I swam in the choppy water. And I LOVED IT. My, how a little education on how to work with the waves instead of trying to work against them makes the swim a happy place! I can't believe I actually liked swimming in the waves, but I really, really, really did. And I swam straight and didn't drink in half the lake. Of course, I was last, but I'm not worried about that right now...it's all about survival and comfort, baby, and after so long of having no comfort while swimming, this is pretty fine.
3) Yesterday, my throat/voice/speech/breathing therapist taught me how to breathe. WTF?! This turns out to be crucial in sports, as I had intuited from those times like last week, when I feel I cannot. She tried to get me to see the image of an umbrella re: my diaphragm, but I find this logistically too distracting. Instead, I'm calling it bullfrog breathing. She's teaching me to accelerate proper breaths with increased work...the idea being that you can get as much air while you're exerting as while you're at rest. Totally revolutionary to me! If I can master that, I'll soon be kicking my own ass.
4) Am reading a book on mental training for triathletes. Authors say there are internal focusers and external focusers...I am definitely the latter...which means I freak myself out when I'm too internally focused...much better to think..."hey, I'm swimming in a choppy lake and as I rotate to breathe, I can see the half moon rising over the lake" than "hey, I'm swimming in a choppy lake and running into weeds and people kill weeds and weeds kill people and this is gonna kill me..." ... I mean, "hey, look at the gorgeous moon..." Definitely gotta work with this...
1) I went to the Y the other day to swim and asked the front desk peeps when the Y closed. "At 7:00," they said. It was then almost 6:00. "Okay," I replied," I'll swim fast." "You've got a whole hour," they said, like this was a long time to swim, which I found funny. My, how one's perspective changes.
2) Tonight, went to OWS and because of recent rains, the lake was high. And choppy. Swim coach didn't think it was a good idea for him to take his kayak out, it was that choppy. We swam in that choppy water. I swam in the choppy water. And I LOVED IT. My, how a little education on how to work with the waves instead of trying to work against them makes the swim a happy place! I can't believe I actually liked swimming in the waves, but I really, really, really did. And I swam straight and didn't drink in half the lake. Of course, I was last, but I'm not worried about that right now...it's all about survival and comfort, baby, and after so long of having no comfort while swimming, this is pretty fine.
3) Yesterday, my throat/voice/speech/breathing therapist taught me how to breathe. WTF?! This turns out to be crucial in sports, as I had intuited from those times like last week, when I feel I cannot. She tried to get me to see the image of an umbrella re: my diaphragm, but I find this logistically too distracting. Instead, I'm calling it bullfrog breathing. She's teaching me to accelerate proper breaths with increased work...the idea being that you can get as much air while you're exerting as while you're at rest. Totally revolutionary to me! If I can master that, I'll soon be kicking my own ass.
4) Am reading a book on mental training for triathletes. Authors say there are internal focusers and external focusers...I am definitely the latter...which means I freak myself out when I'm too internally focused...much better to think..."hey, I'm swimming in a choppy lake and as I rotate to breathe, I can see the half moon rising over the lake" than "hey, I'm swimming in a choppy lake and running into weeds and people kill weeds and weeds kill people and this is gonna kill me..." ... I mean, "hey, look at the gorgeous moon..." Definitely gotta work with this...
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Three Months and Counting
Intense storms, some with 70 mph winds, are moving through my part of the world tonight. After a humid day with intermittent rain, it's become a cool evening with torrential downpours and cloudbursts. It is three months to the day from IM WI. If I'd made it through the swim and off the bike, would I have the wherewithal to make it to that finish line? You bet your bike I would.
A friend told me a story about someone doing her first Century ride yesterday. When she was four miles short of the finish, a race official told her they were calling the event because of reported tornadoes. "Like hell you are," she apparently responded. There's a new Century rider in the world today. I need to remember that attitude.
Stray things I have learned this weekend:
1. It is not wise to wear yellow into state parks in Wisconsin in bee season. The two bees that stung me yesterday were my teachers on this point. The nice state park ranger who sprayed Windex on one of those bites taught me two lessons: 1) ammonia can help these things and 2) it helps to laugh in the face of these adversities. Oh, yeah, and it's stupid to leave your epi-pen in the car when you go into the wilderness. D'oh.
2. The quickest way to improve your speed on the bike is to have your computer checked. Holy crap: my average speed increased by 3mph after I had the batteries changed on Friday.
3. It pays to stay in your own zone. After the weather calmed at mid-day, I decided I could get in a short ride; others in my trusted inner circle advised against it, given more storms were on the way. I decided to trust my gut, and was able to get in a nice 40 miler before the next wave of storms. Because I was doing a loop, I also kind of found a zone I haven't before on the bike, even though this was suburban riding. My quads are tight tonight in a way I like; the zone found me sprinting up little climbs in new ways and at higher cadences, instead of simply coming out of the saddle to grind up a hill. It felt g-o-o-d.
4. I have been deep in bike lust for a few months now and am working hard at the moment to rationalize the purchase of the object of my affections. Current rationalization: If I buy a bike that costs enough to feed several villages in Niger for the next decade, one I probably shouldn't really buy, I will have to chop my own food budget to pay for it. So: through excessive spending, I can cut both excess body weight and excess bike weight. And if I become a charity rider for plumpy nut, which seems like lifesaving food for both starving infants and casual triathletes, it will be an investment in the world's welfare...right?
5. It became clear to me today that I have to think about this Ironman, at least this first Ironman of mine, as being a very different "race" from the Ironman other people might have....and plan accordingly. For example, I spent some time with a friend who will probably finish the thing in eight hours or so, and we talked about nutrition--his plan: Gatoraid and gels. I am skeptical about this stuff since it's only sugar or worse. It's true I can ride a long time on water alone (though I need a lot of it), I'm discovering, but I know I need to refuel. Still, the people who finish in eight hours will have showered, eaten a pizza, had dessert, and then have eaten another pizza by the time those of us who will finish at midnight are at the run turnaround, staring down the evening. I suspect that 17 hours of effort requires a different fueling strategy than 8 hours of effort; seventeen hours maybe even affords you a few minutes to eat a sandwich! I need to remember that there was no cutoff for the original race...the goal was to finish. So, if I stop at the Qdoba for some beans in hour 15, am I less an Ironman than the original competitors, who were eating Big Macs en route....Big Macs given them by their crews, no less? But I digress: Bottom line: I need to get this fueling thing figured out relatively soon, so that it can be practiced over the next twelve weeks.
6, Listening to the thunder tonight, I am making lists of what I would want to have in my special needs bag if we had this weather 9/07/08....Dry socks, a wicking towel, my wicking thermal run cap, and some of those stick-on foot warmers come to mind. Hey, how about an umbrella and a thermos of Mexican hot chocolate?
7. But I get ahead of myself. Ironman is three months away, and there are other races along the path. I have many miles to go and promises to keep, miles to go and promises to keep, before I sleep. Next up: Horribly Hilly Hundreds, o my!
A friend told me a story about someone doing her first Century ride yesterday. When she was four miles short of the finish, a race official told her they were calling the event because of reported tornadoes. "Like hell you are," she apparently responded. There's a new Century rider in the world today. I need to remember that attitude.
Stray things I have learned this weekend:
1. It is not wise to wear yellow into state parks in Wisconsin in bee season. The two bees that stung me yesterday were my teachers on this point. The nice state park ranger who sprayed Windex on one of those bites taught me two lessons: 1) ammonia can help these things and 2) it helps to laugh in the face of these adversities. Oh, yeah, and it's stupid to leave your epi-pen in the car when you go into the wilderness. D'oh.
2. The quickest way to improve your speed on the bike is to have your computer checked. Holy crap: my average speed increased by 3mph after I had the batteries changed on Friday.
3. It pays to stay in your own zone. After the weather calmed at mid-day, I decided I could get in a short ride; others in my trusted inner circle advised against it, given more storms were on the way. I decided to trust my gut, and was able to get in a nice 40 miler before the next wave of storms. Because I was doing a loop, I also kind of found a zone I haven't before on the bike, even though this was suburban riding. My quads are tight tonight in a way I like; the zone found me sprinting up little climbs in new ways and at higher cadences, instead of simply coming out of the saddle to grind up a hill. It felt g-o-o-d.
4. I have been deep in bike lust for a few months now and am working hard at the moment to rationalize the purchase of the object of my affections. Current rationalization: If I buy a bike that costs enough to feed several villages in Niger for the next decade, one I probably shouldn't really buy, I will have to chop my own food budget to pay for it. So: through excessive spending, I can cut both excess body weight and excess bike weight. And if I become a charity rider for plumpy nut, which seems like lifesaving food for both starving infants and casual triathletes, it will be an investment in the world's welfare...right?
5. It became clear to me today that I have to think about this Ironman, at least this first Ironman of mine, as being a very different "race" from the Ironman other people might have....and plan accordingly. For example, I spent some time with a friend who will probably finish the thing in eight hours or so, and we talked about nutrition--his plan: Gatoraid and gels. I am skeptical about this stuff since it's only sugar or worse. It's true I can ride a long time on water alone (though I need a lot of it), I'm discovering, but I know I need to refuel. Still, the people who finish in eight hours will have showered, eaten a pizza, had dessert, and then have eaten another pizza by the time those of us who will finish at midnight are at the run turnaround, staring down the evening. I suspect that 17 hours of effort requires a different fueling strategy than 8 hours of effort; seventeen hours maybe even affords you a few minutes to eat a sandwich! I need to remember that there was no cutoff for the original race...the goal was to finish. So, if I stop at the Qdoba for some beans in hour 15, am I less an Ironman than the original competitors, who were eating Big Macs en route....Big Macs given them by their crews, no less? But I digress: Bottom line: I need to get this fueling thing figured out relatively soon, so that it can be practiced over the next twelve weeks.
6, Listening to the thunder tonight, I am making lists of what I would want to have in my special needs bag if we had this weather 9/07/08....Dry socks, a wicking towel, my wicking thermal run cap, and some of those stick-on foot warmers come to mind. Hey, how about an umbrella and a thermos of Mexican hot chocolate?
7. But I get ahead of myself. Ironman is three months away, and there are other races along the path. I have many miles to go and promises to keep, miles to go and promises to keep, before I sleep. Next up: Horribly Hilly Hundreds, o my!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
My Miracle Mile/It's My Tri and I'll Cry If I Want To
After a strong training weekend last weekend, the week fell apart.
I took Monday as a rest day, though I had an open water swim lesson that went well; on Tuesday, I swam a short distance in the quarry, then transitioned to a 30 miler with my tri club, then did a three mile run. Sounds good...except from the moment I was on the bike, I felt as though I were breathing through two teeny tiny straws...sometimes fewer.
We started out on the same hill I'd started my good ride on Sunday, but unlike Sunday, I was struggling and immediately dropped by the group. This discomfort continued through the run. I'm glad I stayed with it through the run, but was so exhausted from the breathing issue by the end that I felt totally full of stress hormones...like crying was going to be the only way to get them out of my system. I didn't quite go there, but it was right under the surface, even though I thought I was being philosophical about the whole thing....if philosophical means accepting the truth that this is impossible, that is...
I discovered later that most of the riders in the group are fast, elite, experienced endurance athletes, so I felt a little better about totally being dropped, but it is frustrating to feel there's some sort of physiological impairment---this chest tightness/breathing issue---that keeps me from doing everything I know my legs are capable of. At any rate: Wednesday night, I did intervals in the arb; Thursday night, started a run, but discovered there was nothing in the tank. Took it easy Friday, though taking it easy was not on the schedule. Felt like taking it easy today, and worried over how easily *that* could be a habit. Two open water swims in two days were cancelled b/c of weather. My goal had been to swim my first open water mile this weekend, but inertia was setting in. I did go cheer friends on at the Capitol View Triathlon, and was totally intimidated by how far the Olympic swim seemed to be. Again I wondered what the heck I have been thinking.
Finally, I required myself to go to the Y and swim. Got in the water by 6:06; Y closes at 7. Comfortably swam 1800 continuous meters in the following 50 minutes---no hurry, worry, muss or fuss. I thought that was 1 mile and discovered later that it is actually a bit more, which is good, given that I should swim the mile faster. STILL: it is my first continuous mile w/o fins or a pull bouy (let alone a wetsuit), so tonight I feel like crying for different reasons---joy, relief, amazement at how far the swim has come in the last month. I could have kept going, save for the pool closing. It was actually almost relaxing, dare I say? It's still a long way to 2.4 in open water, and it's freakish short time between now and the weekend after next, when I'm scheduled to do a half ironman in two weeks---am I ready?---but it is a sign of progress.
Ironman Wisconsin is three months from today, by the numbers, 12 weeks from tomorrow by the day. As I write this at 10:48, I recognize that I could be coming in the final turn just about now. I suspect I might be crying then, too.
I took Monday as a rest day, though I had an open water swim lesson that went well; on Tuesday, I swam a short distance in the quarry, then transitioned to a 30 miler with my tri club, then did a three mile run. Sounds good...except from the moment I was on the bike, I felt as though I were breathing through two teeny tiny straws...sometimes fewer.
We started out on the same hill I'd started my good ride on Sunday, but unlike Sunday, I was struggling and immediately dropped by the group. This discomfort continued through the run. I'm glad I stayed with it through the run, but was so exhausted from the breathing issue by the end that I felt totally full of stress hormones...like crying was going to be the only way to get them out of my system. I didn't quite go there, but it was right under the surface, even though I thought I was being philosophical about the whole thing....if philosophical means accepting the truth that this is impossible, that is...
I discovered later that most of the riders in the group are fast, elite, experienced endurance athletes, so I felt a little better about totally being dropped, but it is frustrating to feel there's some sort of physiological impairment---this chest tightness/breathing issue---that keeps me from doing everything I know my legs are capable of. At any rate: Wednesday night, I did intervals in the arb; Thursday night, started a run, but discovered there was nothing in the tank. Took it easy Friday, though taking it easy was not on the schedule. Felt like taking it easy today, and worried over how easily *that* could be a habit. Two open water swims in two days were cancelled b/c of weather. My goal had been to swim my first open water mile this weekend, but inertia was setting in. I did go cheer friends on at the Capitol View Triathlon, and was totally intimidated by how far the Olympic swim seemed to be. Again I wondered what the heck I have been thinking.
Finally, I required myself to go to the Y and swim. Got in the water by 6:06; Y closes at 7. Comfortably swam 1800 continuous meters in the following 50 minutes---no hurry, worry, muss or fuss. I thought that was 1 mile and discovered later that it is actually a bit more, which is good, given that I should swim the mile faster. STILL: it is my first continuous mile w/o fins or a pull bouy (let alone a wetsuit), so tonight I feel like crying for different reasons---joy, relief, amazement at how far the swim has come in the last month. I could have kept going, save for the pool closing. It was actually almost relaxing, dare I say? It's still a long way to 2.4 in open water, and it's freakish short time between now and the weekend after next, when I'm scheduled to do a half ironman in two weeks---am I ready?---but it is a sign of progress.
Ironman Wisconsin is three months from today, by the numbers, 12 weeks from tomorrow by the day. As I write this at 10:48, I recognize that I could be coming in the final turn just about now. I suspect I might be crying then, too.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Things You Still Can Learn
Ironman training is teaching me lots of things:
1. Training actually makes a difference.
2. Experience makes a difference.
3. The hills are psychological, as well as alive with music.
4. Everybody has a theory about What to Eat, including a guy today who told me to eat a PDQ sticky bun and two strips of bacon for breakfast before IM.
5. I am way stronger than I realized.
6. If you run slowly, but ask somebody ---like your coach---what is up, you could go from running 12 minute mile to running 8 minute miles in like, nothing flat. Who knew?
7. Putting a 12-27 on the bike makes those hills a whole lot more friendly.
Today, I rode my first full 2008 circuit of the Ironman Loop. In 2006, I rode the loop once, at the end of my first biking summer, with someone preparing for IMWI 06. Walking was involved, although the ego prevented the crying. In 2007, I attempted the route three times and had issues each time. In 2008, I have taken it piece by piece--one trip from Verona to Mt. Horeb to Cross Plains a few weeks back, one out-and-back from Timber Lane up Old Sauk Pass and down Old Sauk and back, a night of hill repeats on Old Sauk, and a couple of car trips around the full loop. Today, I put it together---and had a great ride. The weather was great, the wind was good, and no walking was involved---these all were important factors. Still, I suspect the deciding one was totally excellent company---a group of riders enjoying the day, not worried about pace, and very sweet about and encouraging of my IM aspirations, despite my limitations. Being in such good company on such a fine day totally took my mind away from the usual worries and allowed me to just ride my ride...which resulted in my ironloop PR. Hills I walked two years ago, I now ride; places I've had probelms before, are just places I know. I am feeling very fortunate....and also hoping that IM day is no warmer than this---the aborted missions all happened in the heat. It's all about the attitude, the company, the weather, and the nutrition. Oh, yeah: and the training.
Today's ride followed a good run and a great swim (relatively speaking) yesterday (good god, pool swimming is easier now that I've been in the lake!!). IMWI is 3 months and 6 days away. There's a lot to do and learn, but this weekend gave me evidence that it is coming together. I am on the edge of having the confidence to ask people to put it on their calendars.
1. Training actually makes a difference.
2. Experience makes a difference.
3. The hills are psychological, as well as alive with music.
4. Everybody has a theory about What to Eat, including a guy today who told me to eat a PDQ sticky bun and two strips of bacon for breakfast before IM.
5. I am way stronger than I realized.
6. If you run slowly, but ask somebody ---like your coach---what is up, you could go from running 12 minute mile to running 8 minute miles in like, nothing flat. Who knew?
7. Putting a 12-27 on the bike makes those hills a whole lot more friendly.
Today, I rode my first full 2008 circuit of the Ironman Loop. In 2006, I rode the loop once, at the end of my first biking summer, with someone preparing for IMWI 06. Walking was involved, although the ego prevented the crying. In 2007, I attempted the route three times and had issues each time. In 2008, I have taken it piece by piece--one trip from Verona to Mt. Horeb to Cross Plains a few weeks back, one out-and-back from Timber Lane up Old Sauk Pass and down Old Sauk and back, a night of hill repeats on Old Sauk, and a couple of car trips around the full loop. Today, I put it together---and had a great ride. The weather was great, the wind was good, and no walking was involved---these all were important factors. Still, I suspect the deciding one was totally excellent company---a group of riders enjoying the day, not worried about pace, and very sweet about and encouraging of my IM aspirations, despite my limitations. Being in such good company on such a fine day totally took my mind away from the usual worries and allowed me to just ride my ride...which resulted in my ironloop PR. Hills I walked two years ago, I now ride; places I've had probelms before, are just places I know. I am feeling very fortunate....and also hoping that IM day is no warmer than this---the aborted missions all happened in the heat. It's all about the attitude, the company, the weather, and the nutrition. Oh, yeah: and the training.
Today's ride followed a good run and a great swim (relatively speaking) yesterday (good god, pool swimming is easier now that I've been in the lake!!). IMWI is 3 months and 6 days away. There's a lot to do and learn, but this weekend gave me evidence that it is coming together. I am on the edge of having the confidence to ask people to put it on their calendars.
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