All you can do is tri

Ran six miles tonight.  Felt okay.  Definitely need to run more to improve my form and breathing.  The run seemed to go pretty fast, which was interesting since it took me 70 mins to complete.  It must have been the dark streets I had to run through.  I was too distracted by what could possibly lie in the bushes or the shadows.  Not the brightest thing in the world to do, but when I have to stay up all night in order to sleep all day so that I can work the next night, there’s not a whole lot to do.  Might as well train…  or have the mystery of the night speed me along my session.    My back was a little annoyed with me, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  I need to find a nearby track to do some intervals on next. 

Yesterday was the typical long training day. Had a friend, Mike, join me for once. We did a 1 mile OW swim in roughly 40 mins.  I’m getting more and more confident with my swim in the wetsuit.  Still having to get used to rotating more than usual and my deltoids being sore from the restriction of the suit.  But all in all, it’s going pretty well.  Since the suit helps keep my feet up at the surface though, it’s making my lower back arch more than I would like and making it sore.  Guess I’ll have to work on my core bit. 

We refueled with breakfast and then headed out for a 30 mile bike ride. Right before we left Mike jokingly said, “You haven’t had a blood transfusion recently or are doping? ‘Cause I don’t ride with dopers….” I retorted, “Have you seen my socks?!?” He looks down and sees that they say “Dopers Suck”. I thought it would be fitting to wear them on the last weekend of the TdF.  I’m not so sad now that I’ve missed the whole thing due to not having cable.  The Tour de Dope has been no loss for me.  Maybe this will change cycling.  Maybe not. 

We had a good ride.  Spent a lot of time between 17-19 mph and even a little time at 22 mph on our way back.  At the end of our adventure was a large hill.  A very large hill.  Similar to the 7% grade 1 mile hill of STP.  It wasn’t so bad on my road bike during the STP because I have the typical 3 chain ring on it.  My Cervelo has the typical TT 2 chain rings which are not useful for climbing when I’m used to climbing in my comfy 3rd ring of the road bike.  I think I was going 3 mph during part of it.  About 100 yards from the top, I could feel my legs start to shake as I pushed on the down stroke.  I’d already decided to add a third chain ring a long time ago, but I’m pretty dead set on it now.  That was painful.  Before the hill I could’ve probably done 15 miles more.  After the hill, I barely had the last three miles in me to finish. 

Six mile run tomorrow instead of today since my lower back was feeling vulnerable and my tendons were feeling tight despite stretching. 

Back in February, I got a call from my friend Marisa asking me if I wanted to do the Seattle to Portland (STP) bike ride this year.  She was interested in doing it and since I had done it before she wanted me to join her. 

I had to say yes, since one of my friends finally wanted to join me on an endurance adventure.  I always end up doing them by myself despite my invitations to friends.  I wasn’t about to pass this up. 

She did some training from March until the ride, with 40 miles being her longest ride.  I shouldn’t have told her that my longest ride before my first STP was 48 miles “and I did just fine.”  I had done many endurace events before my first.  This was her very first endurance event, ever.  Oh well.  She’s knows differently now. 

She arrived in Renton Thursday and we went to a Mariners game, like we always do when she’s in town.  Friday we picked up our packets and then put together my bike rack that goes on my hitch.  Love it!!  Then we met up with my aunt, uncle and cousin for dinner, as they were going to be our sag wagon for the weekend.  A plan was formulated and pasta was loaded on. 

Saturday morning, we were supposed to be up at 4:15am, but someone’s alarm clock didn’t go off (oops! Bad hostess).  I woke up around 5:30am, realized my mistake and woke up the troops.  We loaded everything up and got to the start line at about 6:30am after a quick trip for coffee.  The start line was open from 5:15 to 7am.  The ride started off pretty well.  Marisa’s comfortable speed is not the same as mine so I would look back for her often and slow down to catch up/back to her.  Later on, I found it was easier to just stay behind her and then I didn’t have to look for her anymore, risk losing her or risk crashing.  At about mile 42 we came to the dreaded hill that everyone talks about.  It’s a 1 mile 7% grade hill with a relative flat area in the middle for about 300 feet.  Lots of huffing and puffing could be heard by all.  Marisa only had to walk the 2nd half of the first portion before the flat area and rode the rest of the way up.  It’s a tough hill and being from TriCities where it’s basically flat desert land, I think she did pretty damn well.  The rest of the day I think we averaged 10 mph.  Towards the end 9 mph.  Which was kind of hard, but she did as much as she could.  After 10 hours of being on the road and 85 miles behind us, we were toast.  Drove to our motel, took a lovely hot shower, ate dinner, lounged in the hot tub for a while and then crashed into a deep, deep sleep. 

Sunday.  I was soooo tired.  Neither of us wanted to get back on our bikes but we knew we had to.  She felt she had about 50 miles in her and wanted to ride into Portland, so we drove to Kelso and were dropped off.  The good thing about this ride is that you can start and stop in the middle where ever you want.  Couples with kids will take turns riding and driving the sag.  Others will ride as a group splitting sag driving responsibilities.  You can basically mold it into whatever you want.  You’ve paid for the experience and road support and you basically make it your own kind of adventure.  Marisa had a hard time with not riding the whole thing, but I reasoned with her that this was her first endurance event and now that she knows what it takes she can train more this next year and come back and ride the whole thing next year.  I think the factor of the unknown kind of freaked her out and was also draining a little bit of her energy as well. 

So off we went from Kelso.  We rode over the Lewis & Clark Bridge which is really cool to ride on.  She was a bit faster today then she was towards the end of Saturday.  On hills she would say “meet you at the top”, letting me zoom up to the top to wait for her.  Sometimes if there were multiple hills I would just ride them all and then wait for her at the end.  I would ask her if she needed to rest or if she wanted to keep going, her answer was always “Keep going”.    We had fun through out the whole thing.  Stopped for coffee on Sunday and met up with my aunt and uncle as needed.  We even got to enjoy popsicles that they bought for us!  Yum!  Our ride support was phenomenal!  This happened to be half of my same race support from Pac Crest.  They made us sandwiches, filled our water bottles, sat us in the shade…  It would have been much harder without their support.  Rode about 60 miles this day. 

Marisa’s inspired to do the whole thing next year.  My aunt and cousin are inspired to train and try it next year.  Still working on my uncle. 

145 miles total.  Marisa did pretty good for her first endurance event!  Good thing is, she’s caught the bug!    Congrats Marisa!

Today I conquered my issues involving my wetsuit. I got in, breathed every other stroke and did really well. No hyperventilation. No swallowing water. No swimming with my head above water, except to sight. It felt good. The swim area I went to was 60 yards wide. I probably swam 50 yards each way since I didn’t go all the way to the logs. Then again, there were a lot of waves from boats so maybe I swam more?

For a couple weeks now, I’ve been telling myself I should run down to the local park, swim for a while and then run back. Rather than continue to talk the talk, I chose to walk the walk. Gotta start some time, right? AND I really needed to deal with my wetsuit issues. See if it was the wetsuit itself (too constricting?), the excitement of the race start, or the fact that I really did need to put my head under water to get past not wanting to put my face in.

I ran about 1 mile to the park down the road where there would be less people to gawk at the wetsuit girl.   I live across from a large park where there are tons of people walking, sunning, playing volleyball, BBQ’ing, etc.  I’m not courageous enough for that yet. Took it slow on the way there, since it was my first run in two weeks. Then began the wetsuit tango. Made extra sure I had the wetsuit up enough in the legs, then the torso and finally the arms. I think this was the best suit up I’ve done so far. All the other times have been moderately rushed and I probably didn’t pull everything up enough.

Turns out the wetsuit is fine. Limits my range of motion in my arms, as expected, but that was the only thing I could find.

I think the adrenaline of the start does get to me. Everyone around me jumps in, starts thrashing for space in their quest to find their groove and I guess I get caught up in it and take on that energy to be my own. Maybe it’s the word “race” too. What do you think of when you hear the word race? I think - fast, speed, quickness, run for you lives! Gets my heart beating too rapidly to be endurable. At least with a wetsuit on. Today was the opposite. Calm (except for the water), serene and MY pace. And to test the face in the water theory, I dove right in to get past that part.

All in all, today was a confidence builder. I didn’t swim for long since the swim area was only open for 30 more mins once I got my wetsuit on. I’m pretty sure I got laughed at by some young guys, but I wasn’t out there for them and they don’t know what I’m all about. One of them did ask what I was training for, so at least one of them had a clue. Another asked if I was going to go scuba diving. “No I’m practicing swimming in my wetsuit.” No pressure now!

Afterwards, I ran the mile back home, nice and easy.

Little steps is what it takes. Just gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other and it will all come together eventually.