All you can do is tri

So today started out with a visit to the pool for the first time in months since I’ve been swimming in the lake instead.  300 wu, speed intervals 25 x 4, 50 x 6, 25 x 4, 200 cd.  The speed intervals were hard for me since I’ve not really ever done them before.  They did get easier the more that I did them, but I did notice that I would start to fatigue towards the end of each 50 and had to focus on form.  And so starts my voyage to becoming a faster swimmer. 

Then I hopped on my bike and rode to Seattle (20 mi) to meet my friend Lisa for dinner at a yummy mexican food joint next to Green Lake.  Hopped back on my bike and rode home only getting 14.5 miles.  For the last 5 miles of the portion back home my chain kept skipping and not catching onto the intended chain ring.  It also came completely off 4-5 times before the end of my biking journey.  Completely annoying.  At 14.5 miles, during the ride back.  The chain had come off once again as I shifted and forced me off only to find that part of my rear derailleur had come apart.  Thankfully most of the parts were under the bike on the ground.  After trying to fix it for 5 mins, unsuccessfully, I contemplated my options now that I was 5.5 miles from home with a bike that would not be taking me the rest of the way.  I could get a taxi or I could run home in my socks….  I chose the latter since I was feeling pretty good and was unsure if a taxi would even be able to find me since I was in a funky location.  I would have called friends to pick me up, but it was 12:30 at night.  I didn’t want to bother anyone.  Besides, I’m a triathlete.  I can definitely run it.    I hid my bike, left unnecessary items with it, including my shoes, grabbed my water bottle and began my barefoot adventure.

Running in socks wasn’t too terribly bad.  Stepping on rocks definitely hurt like a mother, but that happened maybe less than 10 times.  The run, although slow, felt pretty good despite my previous training today.  The balls of my feet hurt the most and my socks are ruined and there is one blister that came out of it.  But all in all, not too bad for my first barefoot run.  The carpet in my apt felt soooooo nice and soft on my feet.  It was like heaven!  My calf actually seized up on me after I put on my running shoes once I was home.  With running shoes on I jumped in the car and went to get my bike, which was still there.  Again, I was in a remote spot so I wasn’t too worried about leaving it behind.

And that is the story of my random, unintended triathlon.

Last night I met up with my team, Emerald City Multisport, for an OW swim at Seward Park.  There were tons of women out last night.  Most of them (not part of our group) were getting ready for their first Danskin in a couple of weeks.  It was fun to see, since that was where I raced my very first tri.  Then there was our group, where only three of us were from our club.  The rest were a Team in Training group that our President coach’s. 

I got there a little late since I rode my bike in. More on that later.  Once I was finally ready to go, everyone had left already.  I waded in and joined them.  We were swimming to the farthest bouy to stay out of the way of the newbie swimmers and their noodles (to give them confidence while being in the water and security that they won’t drown) on their way to the first bouy.  Rumor has it, it’s 1 and 1/2 miles out and back.  Thus the farthest I have ever swum.  It felt great too.  Just found the zone and focused on form and enjoyed the whole thing.   I would have to say this was my first perfect swim.  The last four have been good as well, but I’ve been so focused on “Are we there yet?” that I haven’t been able to find my zen.  My stroke felt great, solid.  The deltoids are still a little sore, but not like before.  I guess I may just have to swim OW more often throughout the week rather than just on Saturdays. 

So the bike out to practice sucked.  Hard.  It started out okay, but all hills basically wore me out.  I was carrying about 20 lbs or so more than usual with my pannier bag and my wetsuit, bike lock, etc., in it.  Oh and water weight of my bottles.  I’ve come to the conclusion that my sleep habits suck as much as my shift work.  I work nights.  On my last day of work, I stay up for a few hours (as many as I can) and then I crash for 24 hours.  I tend to wake up every four hours for a bathroom break, a snack and maybe a glance at email.  I either feel like I need this much sleep or sometimes I have to force myself to sleep that long in order to stay up all night because I need to sleep all the next day in preparation for work that next night.  Hope that makes sense.  Sleeping that long can decondition you.  Take your strength away because you’re just laying there and not using your muscles.  8 hours worth is recuperative.  More than that can decondition.  This is what I believe happened, because it’s happened before and I’m just now starting to put it all together.  I think I only have 5 more weeks of night shift left before I start the day shift, thankfully.  But I can’t go letting that happen again.  It’s so discouraging to get out there for a workout and have it feel horrible.  There’s no speed, no endurance, no energy.  Today, I was so close to turning around and going home. “I can’t believe I did a HIM 6 weeks ago.  What the hell am I doing out here?”  I forced myself to just do it.  There was this portion that has this unbelievably steep hill.  I pushed so hard up it and only made it up half way on the bike and had to walk the rest.  As soon as I got to the top, I felt like I wanted to puke from the effort.  Again, “Who am I kidding?!”.  I rested for a few minutes and got my breathing back to normal and carried on.  I wonder why I was late??    Anyhow, I finally got to the swim and went into automatic - well after settling some tummy discomfort from the ride.  My legs were happy for the rest that the swim brought.  After the swim, I felt good on the bike.  I was able to ride with speed and consistency.  It felt like the ride out to practice had never happened.  ???  I even caught up to and passed two of the other women who were at the practice and had biked in as well.    

So a bit of revelation and some zen to finish it off.  Man, endorphins rock!  Too much sleep does not!     

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!

Don’t worry.  They didn’t cart me off from anywhere on the road today.  I’m thanking them, well one particular fire fighter, for giving me accurate directions for my ride today when I was completely lost.  I was attempting to ride around Lake Washington today.  There are signs in various places claiming that there is a Lk. Washington Loop, meaning a trail all the way around the lake.  That would be a loop, no?  Well, I was in the middle of Redmond/Bellevue with no lake in sight.  I had passed said fire station before I had decided to stop and ask for directions.  I was just going to ask to take a look at their map, but this fire fighter had actually ridden around the lake a few times and knew the route.  I was off the mark, but not terribly astray.  Within 2 miles, I was looking at the lake again.  Whew! 

The ride around Lake Washington is somewhere around 60+ miles.  I didn’t actually find out since I cut the ride off at the distance I needed to cover and cut across I-90.  I ended up riding 57 miles today in about 4 hours.  Slow, but I got the distance done and that’s all that matters.  My race next weekend is 58 miles.  Now I’m probably going to just lay off of the bike until the end of next week before the race.  In the past week, I’ve ridden 99 miles and I can feel it.  I could feel it at mile 30 actually.  I was tired.  Hills were no longer manageable.  And even just keeping my speed at 15 mph was a chore.  So I think my legs are a little tired.  I did ride up a lot of hills on my way to mile 30.  Pacific NW = Hilly terrain.  I think I went up a few hills that were a few miles long.  I was able to cruise up those, but apparently I was paying for it later. 

To start my day, I ate a big breakfast.  Went for a 30 min swim.  Had lunch with a friend.  Then around 4pm I left for my ride.  I felt really strong in the beginning, which made the end feel treacherous.  I was comfy and flexible in the aero position off the bat.  Rode there quite a bit in the first 20 miles.  In the beginning of my ride, I was passed by a commuter on a Mt. Bike.  Grrr.  I was feeling a little rediculous on my Cervelo.  But I WAS taking it easy since I had a long ride ahead.  After this, I was greeted by another triathlete who is doing IMC this year.  It was cool to be encountered like that on the bike.  We talked about our upcoming races, etc.  After a few minutes, he said good day and took off on his Softride and his IMC tat on his right calf.  Pretty cool.  Further up the trail I re-encountered the commuter and asked him if I was on the right track for the trail.  He led me to the next trail 5 miles down the road and then we parted ways.  Fast forward to the Redmond Fire Dept.  The next 10 miles were pretty uneventful.  I got back to the Burke-Gilman trail (finally something familiar!).  This is where things got interesting.  I lost a CO2 cartridge (scratching head).  It fell off of my X-lab hydration kit.  I went back and got it, but was a little confused since I had just screwed it on before I left.  Apparently not as tight as it could’ve been.  I screwed it back in nice and tight and went on my way.  Stopped at a park bathroom to refill my water bottles.  I had three of them.  I had gone through two already and was currently working on my third when I stopped.  Shortly afterward, I went over a bunch of bumps in the asphalt where tree roots had begun to make their escape to the other side.  There were a bunch of them in a small area.  This was enough to catapult one of my water bottles in the back cages.  Lost some water, but not much.  This is where I began to really feel tired.  Not good since I had 30 miles or so left.  Was it the lingering effects of the 42 miler from last week?  Was it the swim earlier in the day?  Don’t know. 

Hmm… upon review of my next to last post, I’ve ridden 137 miles in the last week and a half.  Good thing I’m staying off the bike for a week or so for my taper. 

Anyhow, lost another bottle out of the back cages next to the UW medical center.  This is where I learned I can make the “grab”, for lack of better words, tighter by squeezing the cage and making it more narrow.  This is a terrible way to explain this, but it’s all my brain can muster at this point.  Fixed that.  Got myself to the I-90 bridge.  Hallelujah.  BUT, there is a giganto steep hill up to the bridge bike lane.  I made it up part of the hill, but almost fell over when I had to turn and ride up the rest of the adjacent hill.  I decided I would walk up since I didn’t have the energy or the muscle power to get up that hill on my bike.  Lame?  Yes.  But I had to push on.  I absolutely hate walking up hills in bike shoes.  I sometimes have to do it when I’m in the same situation but on other unfortunate steep hills, but not too often.  So I took the shoes off and walked in my socks.  That felt good.  I was a bit embarrassed everytime I was passed by a cyclist going down hill, but I HAD just ridden 45 miles.  One guy asked if I was okay.  I just replied, “Yeah.  Tired, tired legs and 45 miles.”  Got to the top, reapplied shoes and hopped on the bike.  Ah, I-90.  I was almost home.  At least it wasn’t windy on the bridge today like it was the other day.  Didn’t make it nearly as bad.  By this point, my neck was hurting, the aero position was not an option and I was sore.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t muscle soreness.  I can’t figure out if it’s the seat, my bike shorts, or my anatomy.  I apologize if this is TMI, but skin was getting pinched in my groin and it basically hurt for 2/3’s of the ride.  OUCH.  It was pretty much uncomfortable to ride for the last 30 miles.  I’m so glad to be off the bike, but what am I going to do about race day?  Gotta figure something out. 

As for nutrition, I went through 4.5 bottles of water.  One of which had a tablet of Nuun Tri-Berry in it.  I also took in three Accelerade gels.  I learned that this was probably not enough nutrition.  I think I might have been in a better place at the end had I had more calories on board.  Good thing I found this out today.  I think I’m gonna end up filling up one of my bottles with Ensure or Soy milk for more calories on top of the gels.  Hopefully, that plus the rest I’ll get this week will help me out on the bike portion next week. 

Afterwards, I ate a little something and then spent 30 mins in the hot tub at my apartment complex.  When I got back to my apt, I had no energy or creativity to cook anything.  So I hopped in my car and ended up at a mexican restaurant.  I scarfed down the beans and rice in less than a few minutes.  Inhaled is more like it.  By the time the waiter came over to see how everything was, the beans and rice were gone and I was already going on the huevos rancheros.  YUM!!!!  And homemade tortillas!  I was in heaven!  I felt super full afterwards, but it was well worth it.  

During the last 30 miles, I was thinking about how to say thank you to the fire fighter for leading the blind home.  I thought about the brownie mixes I had in the cupboard.  Perfect!  Except that I didn’t have any cooking pans.  I don’t know how I expected to cook them for myself.    I figured they have to stay up all night and they have access to a kitchen at their station, so . . . I took them two boxes of triple fudge brownie mix and one box of blueberry muffins.  When I got to the station, the same fire fighter was in the garage on the phone.  Awesome!  I got to thank him in person and give him his gift to share.  He said it wasn’t necessary, but I thought it was.  His directions were right on and he got me back to the side of Lake Washington that I am familiar with.  

Today was also a good challenge for my mental training.  There were times when I wanted to stop and rest and try to recover for the rest of the ride.  But I kept telling myself - I’m not going to do that in the middle of a race so I just need to keep pushing.  I need to know that I can do the distance without stopping, with the exception of flying CO2 cartridges and water bottles.  I made it with out having to stop which was good mental training.  Hopefully, it will come through next weekend. 

So there it is.  My half great/half treacherous bike report.  I’m hoping it’ll be a bit different next weekend.  Time to drag my weary a$$ to bed now.      

Since I have this rockin’ head cold, I wasn’t sure if I should be exercising or not.  Would it make it worse?  Would it help it out?  You may be thinking, she’s a nurse, wouldn’t she know?  Yes, but the athlete in me kind of wants to take over and just push through it. 

The athlete won today.    I ended up going for a long ride of 42.2 miles in order to visit my favorite tri shop and have them install my Xlab water bottle holder/CO2 cartridge holder because for some reason, I was having an inept moment when I tried to install it myself.  Turned out that as long as I was riding, my head cold didn’t rear its ugly head.  Unfortunately, when I stopped, it came right back.  So midway through my bike ride, I got to the tri shop and then stopped off for some coffee and sushi for a snack.  Yum!  Okay, maybe not together, but separate yums!  Ugly head reared half of that time.

The ride back home was pretty tiring for some reason.  I had to go slow on all hills.  Grrr.  Oh, maybe it’s because I rode 38 miles on Saturday and haven’t really been keeping up with my long rides like I should have?  :)  And I’m sick.  Go figure.

And the cold?  Well, it’s back with zest.  Throat wasn’t hurting this morning.  It is now.  Gonna try an get a lot of sleep tonight to counter act the athlete’s silly decision, as well as pop some vitamin C and Emergen-C.  I might throw some Cold Season tea in there too.  Again, not all at once. 

So that sleep thing hasn’t happen much.  My throat hurt too much and then I started coughing up yellow junk that probably festered while I was biking because it wasn’t flowing.  Fixed the throat eventually, but here I am at 5:30a up typing on my blog and not asleep…  So much for the plan.  Maybe NOW I can get some sleep.  At least it will get me prepped for staying up all night and sleeping all day tomorrow before I go into work.  This could be the bright side of it.  I’m off to find the sandman. 

Didn’t do as much as I would’ve liked this weekend, but did get some training in. Didn’t do anything Sat since I got off of work at 7:30a that morning.  I take that back.  I commuted by bike to work the night before and back home that morning.  Almost forgot about that.  

Went to the swim clinic on Mercer Island with a friend yesterday.  Seems I lost some of my technique in the last month from not swimming.  I found out I’m putting my head under water when I swim which makes it harder in several ways - turning to breathe and going forward efficiently - and angling my hand upward after it enters the water, before I bring it down to pull.  Funky swimmin’.  Easy fixes though.

Today, ran 3.67 miles in 40 mins.  Slow, but not bad for not having run much lately.  Followed it up with a 10 mile bike ride over 48 mins.  Not as fast as I thought I was going.    I tried working on the uphills by actively using my calves to crank the pedals and increase my cadence.  Even though I was trying to spin up the hill, I think I ended up mashing up the hill due to the extra effort of the calves.  That was tough.  There were a lot of bugs out today.  Swarms of them.  Thankfully, I wore my sunglasses.  Definitely ate a few, spit one out and collected the rest on my shirt and shorts. 

I’m having to admit to myself that I’m constantly dealing with my inner demons.  I try to trick myself that I’ve dealt with them once and they won’t return ever again and I can move on (hence some of my posts), which is extremely naive of me.  This is not the case in any way, shape or form.  I have to deal with them in everything I do on a daily basis, as I’m sure everyone does.  Waking up.  Getting out to train.  Doing anything all the way rather than half fast.  Etc.  Today, it was getting out of bed.  So tired today.  Got to the bottom of an uphill on the bike and tried to talk myself into turning around and going home.  Why??  Why say no to getting stronger, faster, fitter?  Why say yes to not becoming the athlete you want to become.  This was my inner dialogue during the ride.  Even before I left for my run, I had to tell myself to not think, just do. Just get dressed for the run.  Don’t think about anything else.  Focus on getting dressed and out the door.  It worked, but sheesh.  I’m really amazed and disappointed that it takes this much to get me out of the house.  I’m fine once I get out of the house, but it’s almost as though the house is magnetized and I have a hard time getting away from it’s pull.  I want to get out and train and know that I should, but I get stuck. 

If you’re reading this, sorry about the rant.  I guess I just needed to get all of that out of my head and into some concrete space where they can swim bedsides in my head. 

Today I did pick ups on the trainer.  10 minute warm up followed by 5 x 1 minute pick ups in light resistance, no bouncing, with 2 minute recovery spin between each.  Finished it with a 7 minute cool down. 

Now I’m off to work in a little bit. 

This is one of my first dreams come true!  To own a Cervelo P2K! 

Which will help me along on my voyage towards my next two dreams which have recently become missions.  Pacific Crest Half IM ‘07and IM Canada ‘08.  My blue rocket is fast and lovely.  I’ll definitely need to ride it a lot in the spring time to get used to it.  Luckily, its previous owner gave me tips on how to weave safely, take care of it and other handy tips.  I feel very fortunate.  Plus, she is also a nurse! 

Btw, I’m HTML disabled, which is why the pic is so small.  It’s a wonder that I even got it on here.  I welcome tips on how to make it bigger.  I guess I could go and see what has been said on the forum…  I did manage to post some more pics on Yahoo! photos. 

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/toniburkeholder/detail?.dir=/a1f1re2&.dnm=ae17scd.jpg&.src=ph