But why?

Along the lines of Gale Bernhardt's 13 Weeks to a 13 Hour Ironman, can we please get a 9 weeks to a 9 hour Ironman? Coach, are you on that?

Since my first IM of the year is in 19 days (I got a little stomach flip there), I think it's time for Bob Mina's 140.6 Reasons to Do an Ironman. Now, these are a little old, especially for most Ironmaners, since Bob wrote this in 2001. That year just happened to be the year of my first ever Ironman. That year I had to remind myself over and over again just why I wanted to do this. Now it's just a subconscious pull toward the training and the racing. Most people that have done one know how you miss the training when it's all over. Some people have even said it's anticlimactic to race the race. I love the actual race, but since it's an insignificant amount of time compared to all the training involved, it's only a small fraction of the pull to Ironman. I love a lot about the training, from the long swims to the dreaded bricks after 100 mile rides. I even enjoy the feeling of fatigue in my legs as I'm walking up the stairs at work. I particularly love the volume of food I can eat without seeing the scale change. And if I didn't get to see Nancy every 12 hours, I don't know what I'd do with myself. :)

I'm not ready for it to be over so soon, and luckily, it won't be. After Louisville, the real fun begins: training with Laura, Steve, and Jonathan for #85 on #37.

race pics

I got some pictures from the "race" over the weekend. You can see how much fun we're all having, since it had stopped raining at that point.


Some people, like Sam, tend to make funny faces when they race. I don't know what you can call the face that I've been caught making either during or after races. Man, I have a huge mouth.

26 days, 19 hours, 5 minutes, 47 seconds. Approximately.

Where's that countdown clock on the Ironman Louisville website? I need something to intimidate me with the ticking down of the seconds until race start. I've also read that starting in 2010 there will be no more searchable participants lists for any of the WTC races. How am I supposed to search for every 30-34 female's results from past races since 1999 in a timely fashion when I have to look through the entire participants list and pick out names? Will we also be regressing to paper only results that are mailed 3 weeks later like I received for my first few tri seasons? Those were actually kind of fun.

This past weekend was my last race before the aforementioned Ironman. It was the Summer Sizzler, which, as Laura mentioned, was anything but sizzling. More like a summer soaker. Starting out in the rain, er... thunderstorm, didn't create much enthusiasm by me, but it was only to going to be 30 miles and I figured I could suck it up that long. With Damie cheering us on, we began the first of 6 wet laps. The rain actually stopped eventually, and the river that crossed the road got shallower with each lap. We practiced some rotations and attacks, and unfortunately my big breakaway was thwarted by the Cat 5 guys coming through, which required us to soft pedal a few minutes. It was a nice break. In the end, Andrea planned how we would lead Casey out to the finish, with me leading first, and therefore getting dropped first, then Marda, Andrea, and Casey sprinting in. I guess it went as planned; I was far enough off the back of that hill after my max 2 minute effort (it was probably more like 30 seconds; it seemed like eternity) that I didn't see how it all went down. We piled all the money together and took away a nice amount for the post race meal.

I felt a huge sense of relief after the race was over. I hadn't even realized that I was stressed about it. I had to get in a few extra miles of riding, which I did the morning before the race, and ended up feeling the best at the end of the day. This was helpful to my mental state, knowing that I am still a long distance person after all, which should come in handy in 26 days, 19 hours...

a reason to sleep in!

I knew swimming was bad for me: Are Indoor Pools Bad for Your Lungs?

A few years ago I learned that pools with broken chlorine pumps are also bad for your eyebrows (they disappeared), your swimsuits (went through several in one month), and your old silver ring you forgot to take off (it turned black). And that's not to mention the flu-like symptoms that wouldn't go away.

No more swimming for me! Oh, but isn't the downtown Y's pool saline? Darn.

T minus... 6 weeks?!

Unlike the recent shuttle launch, my race will commence. Six weeks and three days to get into Ironman shape from whatever blobby shape I'm in right now. But things are looking up. As much as I joked about missing my running legs, it was a really hard time for me this spring. It started with a half marathon that was 5 minutes slower than last year's, and it was all downhill from there. The New Orleans 70.3 was just a few seconds off my worst half ever. Next up was the MIM double, for which I had a terrible cold. I attributed that poor 10k to the inflammation in my chest that caused some major hacking for days before and after the race. I was over the sickness for Heatwave and hoping to improve on that awful 10k time. Instead I managed the worst run since my very first olympic distance in 1998. Lots of friends were having difficulties from injuries and such during this time as well. The problem with mine was that there was no diagnosis of a fracture, no recent surgery, nothing that could excuse all of this.

When is it all in your head and when is something really wrong? I still haven't figured that out. The doctor who drew the labs for me seemed to think it was in my head, especially when everything came back outstandingly normal. If it hadn't been before, it was starting to get to my head. So with nothing else to do, I ignored the problem. I tend to ignore things I don't want to deal with. I did do the workouts assigned and tried to have patience. In all my 13 years of racing (and 10 years of actual training), I've never regressed so much. One triathlete even suggested that it was age; I laughed at their ignorance of endurance athletics. But slowly my lack of -- what, fitness?-- has seemed to turn around. It's definitely not back where it was even 4 months ago when this all started, but I can tell it's changing in a positive direction. If this trend continues, I may make it through two Ironmans in the next 12 weeks after all. And eventually you may even see me do this while running:

Race Yourself

I reminisced over my first few triathlons this weekend. It's been a long while, with my very first triathlon being Mightymite in 1996, since I've felt like such a newbie in a sport. Granted, part of that is because I have found one that I enjoy so much that I rarely (have time to) branch out, but also I avoid sports that I will do exceedingly poorly in, those being most you can probably think of. So my first newbie mistake during the Smith & Nephew/Marx & Bensdorf Grand Prix road race was of the number attachment variety. Ok, I've been doing 5Ks since I was 15 and triathlons, which sometimes require multiple numbers, since I was 19. So how hard can number attachment be (especially after you read the rules about it)? As it turns out, I did it all wrong. You know those things you have to learn from experience about triathlon that make it glaringly obvious that you're new to this whole racing thing? Like, you know, riding in basketball shorts, helmet on backwards, number pinned to the back of a running singlet on the bike, wading pools set up in transition.. Well apparently in bike racing, pinning your number on through the holes in the number is one of those mistakes. Luckily I had Jimmy there to rescue me. He secured my two numbers with about 8 pins each, strategically placed to reduce any hint of drag. Now I appeared to be experienced, right?

Due to the extreme temperatures of the day (I'm assuming), and the 11:25 a.m. start time of our road race, they shortened it to 2 laps, for a total of 32 miles, instead of 3 laps. This hurt my feelings not one little bit, even though I tend to get warmed up only after a good 30 miles. Just as Mentor Casey had explained, we started off slowly, and only had a surge now and then to try and thin the field a bit. The field consisted of only 17 women, with not many dropping off the back, at least that I counted. My goal was to be one of those still with the main pack at the final sprint. It was fun watching the dynamics of a dozen women, some of whom knew each other and their racing strengths, when one would take off in an attack, or like in Susan's case, just to get a different perspective of the field. Each time Susan would move toward the front, a handful of girls would assume she was attacking and take off in pursuit. Usually Susan would just be going up front for a pull, or a chat, or just for fun, but they didn't know the difference.

With maybe 5 miles to go in the race, Maggi took off the front. We had seen her pull a good portion of the race, and I figured she felt like I do riding with my niece: I will fall off my bike if I go this slow! But this time she left us in the dust, with Kelsey right on her wheel. We didn't chase, and soon they were out of sight. With 4, then 3, then 2 miles to go I kept expecting the next attack. I knew the last 400m were uphill to the finish. Unbeknownst to me, and apparently Susan as well, Andrea and Susan lead Casey out for the final sprint. It worked! She easily won the sprint, with me, Susan and Andrea a few places behind.

Here we are before the start of the race. Andrea, Cara, Casey, me, Maggi, and Susan:

It was over with before I knew it and then on to recovery, which consisted of floating around in my parents' pool. The time trial was just under 6 hours after the end of our road race, and it consisted of about 3.75 miles of false flats: easy out, uphill back. I thought I was doing awesome when I passed my 30 second girl at the turn around. Then I saw results. Oh well! I went absolutely all out; the spectators even heard my raspy gasping for oxygen at the end, and noticed my pained face (and thanks to Tom for pointing it out!). I ended up 3rd for the cat 4s in both the road race and TT. Considering that for my race distance of choice, race plans include "take the first hour easy, build through 60 miles...," I knew this wouldn't be MY race.

Don't let the guy's face deceive you; he is holding me by the saddle.

It seemed like no time at all had passed when Sunday morning's crit came. Lucky for us, we got a cool time slot, 8:25. I warmed up well, or so I thought, and got to ride a few laps of the .8 mile course before the start. You know in adventure races or ultras how the race starter just yells go? Maybe they're even so unenthusiastic that you don't realize this is the start? Well it doesn't matter in a race of 5 hours so much. In a race where you'll get dropped off the back in the first lap only to ride by yourself for the remainder of the 35 minutes (except for the girl that is attached to your wheel, like a dingleberry (thanks Lisa!), throughout), I need a little more excitement! Can you imagine starting a 400m track race without a gun to make you jump into action? Where's the cannon? Or at the very least give me the siren on a bullhorn. But an ambivalent, "Riders ready? [yawn] Go."? Really? Needless to say, I learned that lesson. Kill yourself to do it, but get in the pack from the gun. Oops, I mean from the word "go."

The word of the day Sunday was Humility. Not that I hadn't had plenty going into the races Saturday. But of course I had just come off my annual win at the small town 5k on Friday night, which is always a good confidence boost. (Side note: this is the annual battle with the belly, and I won for the second year in a row. Made it to the bathroom and didn't have to stop on the course a la 2 years ago.) But anyway, you too can increase your humility by racing off the back of the pack, coming around every few minutes through the spectators, who clap for you with sympathy and try to encourage you to keep it up! Actually they were all very supportive and friendly, I was just embarrassed by my inabilities.

Six pounds of water later I got home and weighed myself to find that I was still down about 4 pounds from normal. It's truly amazing what the body can do, or what it tries to do to cool itself. It does amuse me that it sweats and sweats until it's running off my elbows in streams, then says, hey, I'm still not cool, let's sweat some more. You'd think there'd be some kind of back up system, like panting. But I digress. Even though my homeostasis was disrupted by the weekend racing, my brain was very excited about it. I learned a few things, such as feed zones = drop the thirsty zones (I caught back up), go means GO!, somebody always has to be last--and if it's a crit maybe spectators will get confused and think you're winning. I see how working as a team could be lots of fun, especially when you outnumber the next largest team by 4.

And finally, I'm hoping it's possible to race myself back into shape. If not my body, then my brain. The weekend of racing may have been just what I needed to recover my motivation for sport.

p.s. Charlie raced very well this weekend, but I'll let him detail his experience.

the challenge

Saturday consisted of just over 6.5 hours of heat training on the hills of east Tennessee. See below for the profile. My Garmin profile doesn't look exactly like that since I hitched a ride for 8 of the hottest miles. I have no problem with that either. I still got 110 miles and over 15,000 feet of climbing. I just avoided the impending heat stroke.

It was really beautiful out there, with streams and flowers and Smokey Mountains. I wish somebody had gotten a picture of the road 2 feet in front of me. That seemed to be all I looked at for an hour or so of climbing at 5 mph. At that speed you have to really concentrate on not falling over.



This is my angry face that Joel captured probably 5 miles into the ride. I really had nothing to be angry about at this point. My sunscreen/sweat slick had only begun to form, I still had water in the bottles, food in the tummy, I hadn't gotten a flat yet, and we still had 40 miles before the hills.
The new bike did well enough last weekend that I'm taking her racing on Saturday and Sunday in the Smith & Nephew/Marx & Bensdorf Gran Prix Omnium. It'll be my first attempt at a real road race, and if all goes well, I'll be in the time trial and crit as well. I plan on using the angry face, as seen above, as an intimidation technique. Grrrr.