Ironman World Championships 70.3 and Me

Raced the Ironman World Championships 70.3 this weekend so wanted to capture some of my thoughts.

Drove down Thursday from Raleigh to Clearwater, FL for 11 hours with 3 kids in the car with choruses of “are we there yet, Mommy?”. Cut out alcohol this week but could have used a strong drink after that ride.

Went to race expo on Friday and checked my bike and gear bags. Race helmets, race wheels, cervelos everywhere. Athletes speak lots of different languages, have no body fat, shaved legs, big calves, etc. I have never seen a group of athletes like this before!!

As background, the past couple of months have been crazy from a health perspective. I couldn’t train much for two weeks in September because I had some skin cancer removed from my back and ten stitches to hold things together. Also, came down with bronchitis two weeks before the race and just finished up my antibiotics. So I had no idea how this would pan out for my race day. My goal was just to race against the clock.

Go down to practice swim Friday morning. A side-note for my girlfriends – the American guys wear their tri suits under the wetsuits but the European men wear little speedos. Hubby refused to hand-over camera :-(.

Practice swim felt good. Between the wetsuit and the salt water I actually stay on top of the water like real swimmers do. No scary sea creatures appeared during swim.

Race morning

Woke up at 3:45 and couldn’t fall back to sleep due to nerves and excitement. Get on shuttle bus at 5:20. No one on the bus was speaking English - wished I had my tri buddies with me to calm me down. Heart pounding and breathing shallow. Am I having a panic attack? Oh dear.

Get to race start, do body-marking, tire-pumping, etc. See Joanna Younts from the NCTS circuit. We hang-out together until the race starts – watch the pros start, chatter, check morning bags, I slide in to my too tight wetsuit, do short warm-up swim, etc. Having company calms me down – thanks Joanna.

The swim

Our swim wave was the biggest wave in the race making for a crowded swim. They combined females 18-29 with older ladies 40-44. In addition, the 45-49 year old males went right behind us.

The gun goes off. Run off beach in to water in to a mass of bodies, staying to outside to avoid massive crowd close to buoys. I didn’t go out too hard to try and get breathing under control due to cold water and overall frenzy.

Get out to turn-around and here come the fast, older men. Some dude swam over me and elbowed me in the back and head. Swallow lots of salt water. Yuck.

Despite the mean men and crowds of ladies, out of water in 34 minutes (that is fast for me).

The bike

Navigate through gear bags and changing tents and get to bike. Got on bike and felt fresh from the get-go. Felt great on bike the whole way and tried to keep my speed up. Didn’t look at heart-rate much but checked it a few times to make sure it didn’t get too high. Had a tail-wind for the first 10 miles and kept saying “wee!!” like I was on a roller-coaster.

The bad thing about this course is the many, many packs of riders. People got into groups of about 10-20 riders and formed peletons. Is this illegal? Yes. Did anybody seem to do anything about it? No. This was a very well-run, Ironman event so I was surprised there were not more referees on the course.

The dangerous thing about these packs of riders was when they flew by you at 26 miles an hour and were a few people wide. At one point I almost got pushed off the road by a pack of Italian riders. Suddenly the speedo dudes were not so cute.

I ate every 15 minutes on the bike (Gatorade endurance, couple bites of power bar early in bike, hammer gel and carbo pro) for those interested in food details.

The tail-wind turned in to a head-wind for the last 15 miles. ‘Wee’ turned to ‘uggh’. Finished the bike in 2:37ish. I would describe my pace as steady but not hammering (zone 3 for HR geeks like me). Volunteer took my bike from me as soon as I entered the transition area – pretty neat.

The run

The run transition went well due to the amazing volunteers. I had one volunteer spraying me with sun-tan lotion while I was putting on my shoes. The other was packing my bike stuff back in to my gear bag. I would like to volunteer at an Ironman event one day.

I wore racing flats during run – this REALLY helped since they are lighter weight and my legs felt heavy from the ride. Started off easy just trying to get my run legs moving. At about mile two I started to pick up the pace. Didn’t eat anything on run for the first few miles except water to avoid tummy trouble (an issue with me on run part).

The run was really a mental exercise for me. I was tired and it was hot and sunny (no-shade). The first part of the run was hard because I knew I had 10 more miles to go but was ready to slow down. Tried to stay in the moment and focus on running from landmark to landmark (lamp-posts, stop-signs, etc) instead of thinking about the total distance left in the run. Watched heart-race to try and keep it up. Played songs in my head, imagined my tri buddies cheering me on, tried to smile, counted people that I passed – anything to take my mind off the pain and tired state of my body.

After the first few miles, I ate oranges, water and gatorade along with some gu (with lots of water). Put wet sponges in my tri-suit at every water station to try and cool my core temperature down. May look a bit like Pamela Anderson in the race pictures – I will frame these :-)

At about mile 11, I ran by an Ironman message billboard and I saw, “K. Troester You Rock”. I can’t tell you how great that was to see – thank you to whoever sent that to ironman.com.

My kids and hubby were out on the run course. The kiddos were great and rang little bells and screamed “Go mommy” every time they saw me.

Ended up doing a 1:34 half-marathon and finished in 4:53 – a BIG PR for me.
It was a good day.

Putting it all in perspective

On Tuesday, September 23rd I had some minor surgery to remove a squamous skin carcinoma (i.e., mildly aggressive kind of skin cancer) on my back. I had a biopsy 4 days before and got the results on Monday. Doctor didn't recommend waiting so I went in the next day. I now have 10 stitches on my back and can't run or swim for 12 days.

As it is only 6 weeks until The Ironman 70.3 World Championships, this is kind of a bummer. I also can't race the Pinehurst triathlon on Oct. 4th, putting me out of the running for any local NCTS awards.

Hate to say it but BFD - I am so glad to be healthy. I have a new inspiration as I sit on the ^*%&%( elliptical machine and spin bike - so glad I can do something. Worlds may not be as speedy as I'd hoped, but I will race it with a new attitude and zest for the day.

The good, the bad and the Wilmington

There are good races...and then there was the Wilmington Sprint Triathlon this past weekend. I knew race was going to be ugly because I trained through it (i.e. didn't rest or taper) and it involved a long ocean swim.

I'm not sure where to start with what went wrong....

- swim - A big 'thanks' to Dave 'Diesel' Babson who informed me on the bus ride to the race start that I would be swimming during shark feeding time (i.e., dusk). Cold and scared of large fish with fins, I 'putzed' through the water and swam off-course in an attempt to dodge any lingering man-eaters.

- bike - took wrong turn out of transition then couldn't get my shoes on. It doesn't sound like rocket science to get your shoes on but I tried to be fancy-schmancy and put my shoes on while riding the bike. In theory, I thought this would save me time. In reality, I battled with gravity and shoes that didn't want to go on my feet. During the ride my HR monitor didn't work and my legs hurt (note to self, avoid blue moon ale the night before and squats 2 days before race). Fell off the bike while trying to do fancy-schmancy move of taking off shoes while on bike. Note to self - I have failed coordination test of putting on shoes while on moving bike. Go old school and put shoes on while on stable ground.

- run - couldn't get shoe on before run - note to self, must sit with my kindergartener and practice shoes on and off together. Good run (19:24 5K) despite galactically (again, is that a word?) slow race.

Have been finishing in top 10 in most races - finished 28th in this one and got beaten by everyone. Humble pie for me.

Was bummed out about race and contemplated quitting triathlons. However, went on cool ride with two friends today, Mark Luckinbill (Lucky) and Dave Babson (Diesel). Rode 68 miles and discussed thoughts on zen life-style. Newly infused by the spirit of the Dalai Lama (and two candy bars during the ride), I will continue on my tri journey :-).

BTW, have two sick kids at home (throwing up, sore throats) and feel like #*%(#& myself. Galactically slow race may be due to evil virus invasion - will keep posted.

Jaden's triathlon adventure

Another triathlon addict is born. Today Jaden did his first triathlon – 50 yard swim, 1 1/2 mile bike, 1/2 mile run. As background, he has been asking to do a triathlon all summer. I finally found one that would let a 5-year old race – the Kids in Training Series. He did a race down in South Raleigh at Eagle Ridge.

Jaden has been very serious about his training. Every day he asked me what we needed to do for training. He has even been turning down the free cookies at the grocery store because “I’m in training”.

So he woke up bright and early this morning rearing to go. At the race, we set up his transition area and he decided just to pin his race number on his little swim suit because “putting on a shirt could take a long time”.

He did a great swim and then raced like a madman to his transition area. Once he got on his bike he was off in a standing climb up the first hill. Mark was volunteering on the race start and said that Jaden was flying and making sure no one passed him. He then took off on his run and didn’t walk for the whole 1/2 mile.

I can’t believe it but he took 3rd in his age group. He was racing against 6 and 7 year olds so this was a big deal. And most important, he had a HUGE smile through-out the whole race and wants to do another one “tomorrow”.

Very cool.

Timberman 70.3 Can Be Fun

They say it takes a village to raise a child. I think the same goes for a big endurance event. I had the luck to race the Timberman 70.3 this past weekend - it couldn’t have happened without an amazing set of in-laws, great training partners, supportive hubby and my coach. My in-laws flew from St. Louis to watch my 3 kids for 4 days while we went up to the race in NH – I now refer to them as Saint Grandma and Grandpa!!

I wanted to do the Timberman 70.3 race to experience the whole big, Ford sponsored kind of event. I knew I wouldn’t be doing an Ironman any time soon (3 young kids + 1 hubby + 1 bad hip + 1 part-time job = no ironman for this lady) so figured a 70.3 would be a great way to experience it.

We flew up to NH which meant I had to pack my bike and check it on the airplane. Lots of work and lots of $$ to do this. As my hubby and I watched while TSA unpacked the bike box (for airport security purposes) that he had just spent two hours packing, we swore that we’d never do another race that we couldn’t drive to.

What an amazing weekend!! There were 2,000 racers doing the 70.3 on Sunday and the race had a huge expo on Saturday. The venue was gorgeous – a crystal clear lake set in scenic hills and in a quaint New England town.

One of my favorite parts of the expo was the Q&A session with the pros that included Chrissie Wellington, Andy Potts, Michael Lovato, Simon Lessing and Amanda Stevens. They answered lots of questions, including mine that was “How do you deal with the pain of a long race?” Chrissie Wellington answered that she always smiles when she is hurting and it makes her feel better. So I tried that during this race and I think it helped – a little. At least I won’t have Pat Webster and John Wilkins making fun of my grumpy race face 

One of the really cool things that the pros all said is that we need to enjoy our sport. They all stressed taking the time to do rides and runs that are just fun. My favorite of the group was Chrissie Wellington because she showed a real love of the sport. She gave me her autograph on my water bottle and let me get a picture with her (see photo at top of page). She is very humble and inspiring!

The other very cool thing was meeting Dick Hoyt, father of Rick Hoyt, who races with his son that is disabled. You can learn more about his story at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnrLv6z-mM. He pulls his son in a raft during the swim, pushes him on the bike and run. I met him at the expo and then started behind him in the swim.

So the race:

Pre-race I really focused on my nutrition. I had big tummy trouble at the White Lake Half so wanted to try a different approach this year. Stuck with bland, basic foods for the few days before it, drank Gatorade endurance and snacked on salty, high carbohydrate foods instead of big, heavy carbo-loaded meals. Worked like a charm. Also stuck with hammer gel and carbo-pro mixed with Gatorade endurance on the bike. No solid food on the bike and no tummy trouble.

The swim – started out hard the first 100 yards or so to get out of the ‘pack’. Then just got in to my ‘groove’ and looked for folks about my speed to draft/swim with. Got stuck trying to pass slower folks from the group that started in the wave in front of us. It got really choppy at one point but I just started breathing on one side. Happy with swim.

The bike:

So, I didn’t even know this was a very challenging, hilly bike course until the day before the race. The web site said ‘rolling hills’ – ha!! My friend Dave Babson called me on Saturday – he had just done the sprint there the day before – to let me know that this was one hilly, mean course. During the pro Q&A they were talking about tactics to race in a hilly route like Timberman and Lake Placid. I was about to try and get a refund right then and there!! Then hubby and I drove the course. Hubby tried to calm my nerves telling me the hills that we were driving over weren’t big – but I knew better. It was going to be a very long 56 miles!!

And it was. Every time I turned a corner there was another $&#*%(#& hill. This was the hardest bike route I’ve ever ridden. Long, steep, winding – every kind of nasty hill was on this course. So I just turned my HR monitor over so I couldn’t see the read out and suffered through it. During the flats I tried to pick up some speed and then glide down the down-hills. But the uphills were just nasty. My chain dropped a couple of times going up hill – had to get off bike and fix it. Kind of an annoyance and might have cost me a couple of minutes but it could have been SO much worse (flats, crashes, etc)

The run:

What a fun course!! Lots of bands and folks in cool costumes - the crowd support was amazing at this race. There were a couple of decent hills during the run course. I know my legs were tired because I could hear my feet slapping the pavement – good form was out the window. At about mile 6 I realized something really bad was going on with one of my toes. Tried to stay focused on the present moment (thanks for that tip Lucky) and think about doing my best at that very point in time.

I was really ready to stop a couple of times so I basically ate my way through 13.1 miles to keep going. However, got really bad stomach cramps at mile 2 after trying to inhale an ‘espresso love’ gu. Lesson learned – do not inhale a caffeine-filled gu early in the run segment. Wait for stomach to settle before taking it in. Ran through stomach cramps - they went away after about ½ mile. Stuck with orange slices, Gatorade and coke for the rest of the race.

Happy with finish at 5:11. I know I tried my hardest during every part of the race. Yes, chains drop, the stomach may cramp and toes ache but that is just part of this sport. I’ve learned to treasure the things that go well and laugh at minor mishaps. Although my toe is really looking nasty right now…..

Well, off to worlds in November. Thank you so much to my friends, family and training partners for all the warm wishes and support!!

Topsail for Training and Toasting

Just returned from a week on Topsail Beach in NC. With just two weeks until my Timberman 70.3, I knew I had to get some training in.

The biking was great down there. Despite major headwinds on some roads, it was very flat and the roads had bike lanes (imagine that :-) ). Road almost every day. Running was also good despite the heat.

The swimming...well, it didn't happen. Had on my plan to do 2 open water swims. As many of my training partners may know, I am a bit nervous about swimming in cloudy water. Add to that the possible of having a fish with large teeth in the near vicinity and I'm kind of worthless. So, there were two additional things against me this week. First, it was shark week on the Discovery Channel. I become glued to this show and then my imagination takes over when I am in the water.

Second, and most important, Topsail Beach had become invaded by sharks the week we were there. My dear hubby was trying to convince me that the water was safe. Well, on day 2 of our visit we went out on the fishing pier and learned about all the 6 and 7 foot sharks that had been spotted and caught over the past couple of days. Dear hubby knew there was no convincing me to go way out in the water with him now. And later in the week we saw a tiger shark right in front of our rental house. No way, no swimming.

Anyways a fun week. Lots of wine and margheritas so hoping I detox by Timberman.

Triangle Triathlon - Swimming in Brown Muck

Total procrastination takes over. Should be working but thought I'd add a note about my latest adventure at the Triangle Triathlon.

Man, I hate sprints. Since I am not a zippy swimmer, this race doesn't give me much time to catch folks on the bike or run. And the swim was in lake Crabtree - a large body of brown yuck. Got out of the swim and my tri top was permanently stained brown.

Bike went OK - no speed records. Lost contact lense at mile 10. Finished rest of race legally blind.

Ran a zippy 5K in 19:09 - not bad for a forty-year old mother of 3 boys.

Getting ready for Timberman 70.3 in August. Body starting to resent hard training - hope I can walk upright for another month and get through this race.