Well, this sucks.
I've been putting off an entry post-Everest since... well... post-Everest. That last post was the last time I would be in a relationship with my vegan roadie boyfriend, who, upon return to LA vanished to ruminate on his DNF for over a day and then declared himself incapable of being a good boyfriend. He has since been MIA. This was a big shock to me, as, if you could not tell by the fact that I climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest on a bike for him, I didn't see any end in sight for the current moment. Otherwise I maybe wouldn't have what... climbed Mount Everest on a bike for him.
It puts a serious damper on your training when the sight of your bike makes you burst into tears, when trying to do 100 miles out in Malibu reminds you of him cheering you on during your first podium race, when you have to stop during long runs to sob and when your friends say, "How was Everest?!" your face contorts like a baby who's just been accidentally smacked in the face. But I kept on training, of course, because what option do I have? Stop life? Nope. Painful as it's been, I've been putting in my miles. I also conveniently stopped eating most of the time, which, if you can't do the math, means I'd have already increased caloric deficit from the added volume of my peak training days with now an inadequate amount of fuel. So I lost over 10 pounds. In under three weeks. So... Hooray for race weight? I went to the body fat truck recently (yes it is a real thing, a mobile body fat test center... look it up online!) to get dunked in a tank of comfortably warm water and find out my real composition. Tanita be damned. I'm down to 141, and 21.4% body fat. Another six pounds and I'm at peak race body fat of 18%. Strange to think about winning Malibu at 151... I wonder how much of that weight was also muscle... not too much I hope...
This month has been an ongoing torture fest of me hoping and hoping and hoping to get some explanation or closure, and I'm finally at the conclusion that, if a person who claims to have loved and respected me can toss me out like a sack of garbage, can ignore my texts for five days after promising to meet up, can treat me like I'm less than nothing... well... the love and respect thing doesn't really hold. And since he won't fill in the gaps, I have to create my own piece of the narrative. Namely that he never cared and I should forget those months as they were fiction. They seemed awfully real to me, though. But I can't keep spending my hours on the bike going over and over this in my mind. He won't put it to rest for me, so I have to move on without understanding. Which is the ultimate and most lasting way to injure someone you dumped... make them feel like the entire relationship was a farce.
Is this entry too much personal information? Hell yes. But I have all these unresolved feelings, and no place to put them. So I'm putting them here, and hoping they go away, so that I may continue swimming, biking and running without them dragging me down anymore. I have been through a series of terrible romantic encounters, which stuck me in a series of ruts over the past year. It hurt my training, hurt my heart, stalled my life. I'm determined to not let that happen this time. It's just truly pathetic that something simple and nice turned into this horrible plague of brokenheartedness. Earlier in the month, when I was waiting for the talk that never came, I said "I feel like I'm underwater and I'm waiting to catch a breath or develop gills." I think I've developed gills. It's time to scar over.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
Everest Challenge
Here are a few things I learned this weekend:
1.) Stage races make you stupid.
2.) Sometimes boredom is worse than pain.
3.) Being mentally strong is more important than physical strength.
So, firstly, I say bike races make you stupid, because both Jake and I spaced out multiple times after racing, to the point where it was as though an alien had blacked out our memories and made us forget everything. Among various random things getting misplaced, Jake lost his keys (they got locked in the car), I lost my phone, and left my ID in La Grange's support van on the way home. Luckily all this things were found, but every time we'd blank we'd think "ok, this is the last idiot moment". But no... we were permenantly idiots for the weekend. I think stage races shouldn't be done by people with children, because they'd forget they even had families.
Second, I spent a lot of fearful moments ruminating on the pain and suffering I was going to have to endure this weekend, and likened it to thinking about what it's going to be like to give birth. I still stand by this metaphor insofar as, now that it's over, I can't adequately remember the pain, and while I was on the race was constantly saying "this is bullshit, fuck this, I'm not doing these things ever again" but now feel like "eh, I might do something insane like that again". The one thing I think Everest Challenge has that giving birth does not was a LOT of monotony. The problem with doing a race you haven't trained for is that you're gonna be slow. And when you're slow, that's a LOT of extra race. At least when you're competative, you get to stick with the pack, but I was-- understandably-- dropped within the first hour of riding. I resigned myself to this pretty early on, given that I hadn't even climbed a hill on the bike since Santa Barbara (wtf, why did I do this race?? Crazy.) But once dropped, it was just me on this big, long, sad ride... because even those who'd catch up to me would, in turn, speed ahead at a rate that I wasn't down with (I had goal heartrates for survival, had to keep it lower than 175, yo). If anything, I felt crappy about not training just because I knew if I were stronger, the damn thing would be OVER already. What made it even worse is that I am still a very poor descender, which, I don't know if you've figured this out, but it's an essential part of climbing a mountain... coming down it. Yeah. So while we'd all be slogging up these giant climbs for miles, I'd even pass a few people going up, but on the way back down I'd be lucky to get up to 30mph, riding the breaks like a total lameass, while even those riding as "tourists" were confident enough to cruise back down, crouched over, hands well clear of the brakes. (Meanwhile, I'd have hand cramps by the end of every descent and near anxiety attacks from crosswinds shaking the TT frame and the vast vast expanses and steep drops flipping me out.) Jake says I just need to gain the ability to NOT think about it, the way I don't think about the danger of tripping when I run down a trail, I just find the line and take it. I believe I need better health insurance. The plan I got the day before this race needs me to call before I go to the hospital or "coverage isn't guaranteed". Yeah, that will help. I crash my bike: "OMG, call an ambulance!" "No, no wait, please call this number on this card and ask them first. I'll just wait and bleed, it's cool."
Speaking of ambulances, the major bummer of this whole experience was that Jake didn't finish: he was way ahead and riding really strong, strong enough to pass me on the first descent, in his little pack of first place Cat 4s. I saw him again about three miles left up on the second climb as he was descending, and he looked super stoked and happy, so as I was dragging my ass through the rest of the ride, I thought at 6 hours "Jake's probably done now," and at 6:45, "he's probably relaxing by now, getting some food..." while I was still working my way through the hot hot shadeless climb to Tom's Place before the last 11 miles to the summit. Of course then I get pulled aside and am told that Jake's in the hospital because he got heatstroke and asked for an ambulance to be called. Of course that just completely wrecked me... the only reason I was even here was because I wanted to support him on his big race weekend, and thought it would be a cool way to show solidarity. This was his race to win... he'd been training all season, even last season, but missed last year because of a crash. I was told that he was okay, and of course I was relieved that he wasn't hurt or something, but I immediately felt totally overwhelmed with how sad and disappointed he was probably feeling, and just felt like crying and didn't even know why to bother with this stupid thing anymore. And of course I felt really worried because I had no idea what to do: Jake had the car keys, I'd left my cell in the car, and I didn't have his cell number memorized (cautionary tale, everyone.) I'd thought of taking my phone, but then left it last minute, when having an early morning freakout about going to the bathroom ahead of time. Now I had absolutely no contingency plan to him finishing ahead of me and meeting me at Tom's Place with the car. And I felt like an idiot. And of course just wanted to hug him and say how terrible I felt, since I knew how much this race meant to him. But I still had to climb 11 more miles. Yeah. It was hard to stay positive, but I tried to think how he'd want me to finish, and how I had to finish so I could get a ride with Steve, the race director, from the summit (he also had Jake's bike.) It got me through it, and of course once at the top I burst into tears, since I'd spent the whole time suppressing empathic depression. And I just finished over 88 miles and over 15,000 feet of climbing, and was at 10,000 feet of elevation, so, it was hard to keep it together. Very happily, it all got sorted out, though it took some time: I went with Steve back down along the race course to take down signs while he told me war stories from the 508, and somewhere along the way, Jake got Steve's cell number and reached us (it was late, so he was already well out of the hospital, and sounding super cheerful and well, which was an enormous relief.) We finally rendezvoused back at the car, where Jake'd been for a while, and drove home.
The second day is supposed to be shorter, and therefore, I suppose a little easier, but the mental strain of the day, the fact that we didn't get home until nearly 8, and the feeling that it was dumb to do this race anyway because this wasn't even my race to do all sort of added up to make Stage 2 WAY more of a challenge. When I think of Stage 1, it feels very long, but I can remember a solid few nice parts: the first climb was chilly but gorgeous: actual fall foliage up in the mountains to admire and all that. The second climb was a horrible sunny death march, but even the stressful last climb worrying about Jake had a pretty view of a lake. Stage 2 I honestly think I was in a pissed off angry mood the entire time. I was just a big old grumpy asshole. I tried to find something positive to focus on, but it was not happening. It started early, and mitigating circumstances just made the day feel worse and worse. I got dropped on the way up the first climb, feeling very weak... HR was barely 150 and I already felt like I had no strength-- I suspected an early bonk-- didn't have time to eat a real dinner the night before because of the late day and was too tired to wait for seating at the one local pasta joint in Big Pine, so I just ate random frozen foods from the convenience store, and woke up in the middle of the night to eat a banana and a half a PB&J I made blindly. I was probably still pretty calorically deficient and doubt I'd adequately restocked my glycogen stores. So I ate a Bonk Breaker and banana at the top of the climb, and then had my minor panic on the descent, which had a HUGE drop off to the right and cars still coming up on the left, no guardrail, and racers whizzing by asshole-breakriding-terrified-me at over 40mph like it's no big whoop. The grade was even too steep at points to be able to stop, not to mention that there was no shoulder. Of course, had I been a confident strong descender, I would have been moving too fast to notice this. Instead I hardly even broke 19mph. On a DESCENT. What the eff. It's like I've never ridden a bike before. That basically demoralized me, and my hands, neck, and arms were already super sore, and I felt like crying from feeling like I sucked-- literally EVERYONE was better than me on downhills, even people who didn't try, it made me feel like crap. The intense fear of death added into the constant reminder of being a failure and the fact that it was 2.5 hours into the ride and that climb wasn't even the long one made me feel totally demoralized and I was already pretty weepy-whiny to Jacob at the aid station before the Death Valley Road climb. Another volunteer said something encouraging about me doing better than most people by making it that far, and to not worry about other racers and just do tempo. I said I wasn't going to give up, but that I just felt very unhappy.
And that was basically how it went. I kept trying to get past being a d-bag, but shit kept going wrong. I put in a good effort up the second climb, and was actually making a good time, with little sprints and good cadence, but then the turnaround wasn't at mile 37, where it was supposed to be, and I'd timed out my water and fluid for that, so then I had ANOTHER anxiety attack moment where I got minorly hysterical as more and more road with cyclists on it kept extending ahead of me, and my bottles were emptying and I hadn't refilled at the vans because I thought "oh, it's just 1.25 miles away". But no, BY MISTAKE, they'd put the turnaround at mile 40, another BROILING unshaded 3 climbing miles away. Of course, having put in some good efforts, I was pretty spent, and it was really hot by that point, so I was sweating out a lot. It felt like a Sisyphean hill climb, where you keep thinking "this is it!" and then another bend or dip reveals ANOTHER stretch, and no turnaround. I did reach the turnaround, because what other option was there but to continue? Of course I was grumpy about that, and then had another shitass descent where everyone cruised down like it was a steel rollercoaster and I couldn't get any speed because of crosswind fear and general shittiness. But all that was left was more climbing, so that was oddly comforting (that is seriously how bad I am at descending, how pathetic.) Of course now that the aid station had been at mile 40, I had no idea what the end mileage was going to be, and I am very much a goals and numbers person. I saw Jake again at the bottom of the road, and he said, "don't think about the mileage, you know you have to get to the top, just keep going." Well, yes, but when you don't know where the top is, there is no way to mark progress and you feel like you're in hell. (I believe I said aloud "I am in hell" multiple times this weekend, btw.) Stage 1 was like purgatory, because it seemed endless but I knew I was progressing. Stage 2 was hell because I'd think I was progressing and then it would turn out I had to go way further.
Jake pointed out the number of cars that had left as people who'd abandoned the course, and encouraged me to feel good that I was still going, since my goal was just to finish anyway. There were only a ragtag few of us by then, and we were the last through each aid station before cutoff times. I found out at the next aid station, six miles away at 6,000 feet elevation that the aid station was a mistake, but no one could tell us what the final mileage was gonna be. I thought we had 11 miles left, but then we were told 14, which, again, kinda made me cry. I was soooo whiny. It's embarrassing. But it was my way of getting the bad feelings out I guess, because it certainly didn't make me actually quit. I think I just needed to bitch to feel better, since otherwise I was just suffering alone the whole time. Those 6 miles were really rough, SUPER hot and steep, and there wasn't any shade to look forward to in the future, either. We all took our time to douse ourselves with cold water (unfortunately I got my shorts wet-- soggy chamois is NOT GOOD for chaffing) and refuel before another heavy effort. The next (and last) aid station was at 8000 ft. elevation and was 7 miles away. I thought I remembered the map saying the last aid station was 5 miles from the finish, so I just kept chugging alone like a very very slow little Engine that could while being whiny about it, and Jake was able to drive alongside and give me some chammy cream and words of encouragement, which really helped me, and then I was on my own for the final climbs in the park. Of course, hell that the day was, the last aid station wasn't five but eight miles from the finish, which might not seem like a lot, but involved a LOT of climbing up to 10,000 feet. I filled up my bottles and took a last pee break and thought of Jake's advice to keep going, sang Disney songs in my head, thought about finishing soon and how that was the best news ever. Then I had ANOTHER anxiety moment where I was four miles into the last 8, and didn't see any chalk marking on the road indicating that the end was near. I was over 9000 feet and it was over 9 hours by that point, so I was barely holding it together. Of course I knew I was close to the finish, but by this point I didn't trust anyone, and when I didn't see any sign of progress like the previous day, I started to worry that it wasn't 8 miles, but 12 miles, or God knows what. A bit over 70 miles, I saw another steep climbing up a switchback turn and literally had to stop because I just randomly started to cry. Crying at this point very much resembled hard breathing, which was also happening, so I'm sure I just looked like any other suffering person. But yeah, I was just crying like a child, because I just really needed to know that it WAS four miles, and that that was the truth, because I knew I could make it that far, but couldn't handle another fake out. A woman in a car said some encouraging words, and I asked how far, and she said "my husband guesses about 4 miles," and that was all I needed: proof that there wasn't going to be a 10k mark in another mile, but that I had already made it this far and only had four more to go. Of course there was another guy who said "one more mile" when there were three left, and the woman saying "just one more hard section and then 2 more miles" (uhm, yeah, it wasn't easier, but sure.) I saw one of the guys I'd been sticking with taking a cellphone picture of the vista to the left, and all I could think was "ugly stupid crapass mountain". I was super over it. Grumpy with a horribly sore butt and emotionally ragged. After all the fake outs, I sort of assumed there'd be another climb when someone said "just around the corner," and as I rounded the corner and climbed up this last incline, two ladies at the top said "you're almost there" and then I saw at their feet, no I wasn't almost there, I was literally there, it was the finish line. With just two ladies. What the eff??? Super anticlimactic! I thought I'd see the food tent and would be able to really go for it for one last reserve. But the whole day was a mindfuck and the finish was no different. For a second I thought "oh man, I'm so slow they already packed up everything else and now I have to go back down alone!" But really the food and drop bags were just a little further down, out of sight down the hill. So that was nice, though I basically didn't even feel like it was over, I was so disoriented. Tee shirt and medal say otherwise, though, and I was super lucky to find a friend in the La Grange guys, who, seeing how desperate I'd looked, offered me a ride down to where Jacob was (the thought of me trying to do more tight-fisted descending after that made me want to cry... some more.) I felt immediately better once I stopped, because hey, it was over, and no one could add in anymore climbing for me to do. And my mood was the best mood ever, and I felt bad for being a crabby asshole. So, I apologize world, that I was a crabby asshole. I was working through some issues on my bike.
On the whole, I think the moral of the story is, a.) triathletes are EXTREMELY data reliant-- Jake was so casual about the miles discrepancy-- "eh, it happens, you just keep going", whereas for me it was like the end of the world and b.) when you feel like a crabby asshole, you will not ride fast, and when you feel hopeful and happy, everything will be easier. Stage 2 took about 9.5 hours, while Stage 1 took 9hours and 16 minutes. And Stage 1 was considerably longer, even if Stage 2 was longer than planned (73.5 miles instead of 65, for the record.) So there you go: it's all mental. I did know intellectually not to be negative, but it was just a toughass day and grumpypants was the situation. I'm usually the person on the course who smiles at everyone even when it sucks, but I was just so past my good mood threshold at that point. I'm just happy I finished. Let's not do that again, though. Grumpy racing is NO FUN, and so very slow!
In the meantime, I was also convinced during the first day that it's kind of dumb to spend this much time doing something that gives me fear of death and makes me feel lonely, and that I should probably invest more time in something that makes me unique, like my songs or, I dunno, my LIFE/career, since we basically know that I have the capacity to suffer, so it's not even that exciting for me to do this kind of thing anymore, right? So I will probably not do as many ultra endurance things... at least not until I can do them faster and can descend like a fucking adult. Heh. Just don't like the waste of time. And I miss people. And if I were trained, I wouldn't have felt as grumpy, too.
So in conclusion... do races you train for and be happy when you do them. I feel like that's how most of my tris go, and they've been pretty nice. So there: I did Everest Challenge without specific training, it was really awful, but I did it, and next year Jake's gonna come back and win. And now I know IMAZ will be even easier, because that 140.6 ain't going NOWHERE.
1.) Stage races make you stupid.
2.) Sometimes boredom is worse than pain.
3.) Being mentally strong is more important than physical strength.
So, firstly, I say bike races make you stupid, because both Jake and I spaced out multiple times after racing, to the point where it was as though an alien had blacked out our memories and made us forget everything. Among various random things getting misplaced, Jake lost his keys (they got locked in the car), I lost my phone, and left my ID in La Grange's support van on the way home. Luckily all this things were found, but every time we'd blank we'd think "ok, this is the last idiot moment". But no... we were permenantly idiots for the weekend. I think stage races shouldn't be done by people with children, because they'd forget they even had families.
Second, I spent a lot of fearful moments ruminating on the pain and suffering I was going to have to endure this weekend, and likened it to thinking about what it's going to be like to give birth. I still stand by this metaphor insofar as, now that it's over, I can't adequately remember the pain, and while I was on the race was constantly saying "this is bullshit, fuck this, I'm not doing these things ever again" but now feel like "eh, I might do something insane like that again". The one thing I think Everest Challenge has that giving birth does not was a LOT of monotony. The problem with doing a race you haven't trained for is that you're gonna be slow. And when you're slow, that's a LOT of extra race. At least when you're competative, you get to stick with the pack, but I was-- understandably-- dropped within the first hour of riding. I resigned myself to this pretty early on, given that I hadn't even climbed a hill on the bike since Santa Barbara (wtf, why did I do this race?? Crazy.) But once dropped, it was just me on this big, long, sad ride... because even those who'd catch up to me would, in turn, speed ahead at a rate that I wasn't down with (I had goal heartrates for survival, had to keep it lower than 175, yo). If anything, I felt crappy about not training just because I knew if I were stronger, the damn thing would be OVER already. What made it even worse is that I am still a very poor descender, which, I don't know if you've figured this out, but it's an essential part of climbing a mountain... coming down it. Yeah. So while we'd all be slogging up these giant climbs for miles, I'd even pass a few people going up, but on the way back down I'd be lucky to get up to 30mph, riding the breaks like a total lameass, while even those riding as "tourists" were confident enough to cruise back down, crouched over, hands well clear of the brakes. (Meanwhile, I'd have hand cramps by the end of every descent and near anxiety attacks from crosswinds shaking the TT frame and the vast vast expanses and steep drops flipping me out.) Jake says I just need to gain the ability to NOT think about it, the way I don't think about the danger of tripping when I run down a trail, I just find the line and take it. I believe I need better health insurance. The plan I got the day before this race needs me to call before I go to the hospital or "coverage isn't guaranteed". Yeah, that will help. I crash my bike: "OMG, call an ambulance!" "No, no wait, please call this number on this card and ask them first. I'll just wait and bleed, it's cool."
Speaking of ambulances, the major bummer of this whole experience was that Jake didn't finish: he was way ahead and riding really strong, strong enough to pass me on the first descent, in his little pack of first place Cat 4s. I saw him again about three miles left up on the second climb as he was descending, and he looked super stoked and happy, so as I was dragging my ass through the rest of the ride, I thought at 6 hours "Jake's probably done now," and at 6:45, "he's probably relaxing by now, getting some food..." while I was still working my way through the hot hot shadeless climb to Tom's Place before the last 11 miles to the summit. Of course then I get pulled aside and am told that Jake's in the hospital because he got heatstroke and asked for an ambulance to be called. Of course that just completely wrecked me... the only reason I was even here was because I wanted to support him on his big race weekend, and thought it would be a cool way to show solidarity. This was his race to win... he'd been training all season, even last season, but missed last year because of a crash. I was told that he was okay, and of course I was relieved that he wasn't hurt or something, but I immediately felt totally overwhelmed with how sad and disappointed he was probably feeling, and just felt like crying and didn't even know why to bother with this stupid thing anymore. And of course I felt really worried because I had no idea what to do: Jake had the car keys, I'd left my cell in the car, and I didn't have his cell number memorized (cautionary tale, everyone.) I'd thought of taking my phone, but then left it last minute, when having an early morning freakout about going to the bathroom ahead of time. Now I had absolutely no contingency plan to him finishing ahead of me and meeting me at Tom's Place with the car. And I felt like an idiot. And of course just wanted to hug him and say how terrible I felt, since I knew how much this race meant to him. But I still had to climb 11 more miles. Yeah. It was hard to stay positive, but I tried to think how he'd want me to finish, and how I had to finish so I could get a ride with Steve, the race director, from the summit (he also had Jake's bike.) It got me through it, and of course once at the top I burst into tears, since I'd spent the whole time suppressing empathic depression. And I just finished over 88 miles and over 15,000 feet of climbing, and was at 10,000 feet of elevation, so, it was hard to keep it together. Very happily, it all got sorted out, though it took some time: I went with Steve back down along the race course to take down signs while he told me war stories from the 508, and somewhere along the way, Jake got Steve's cell number and reached us (it was late, so he was already well out of the hospital, and sounding super cheerful and well, which was an enormous relief.) We finally rendezvoused back at the car, where Jake'd been for a while, and drove home.
The second day is supposed to be shorter, and therefore, I suppose a little easier, but the mental strain of the day, the fact that we didn't get home until nearly 8, and the feeling that it was dumb to do this race anyway because this wasn't even my race to do all sort of added up to make Stage 2 WAY more of a challenge. When I think of Stage 1, it feels very long, but I can remember a solid few nice parts: the first climb was chilly but gorgeous: actual fall foliage up in the mountains to admire and all that. The second climb was a horrible sunny death march, but even the stressful last climb worrying about Jake had a pretty view of a lake. Stage 2 I honestly think I was in a pissed off angry mood the entire time. I was just a big old grumpy asshole. I tried to find something positive to focus on, but it was not happening. It started early, and mitigating circumstances just made the day feel worse and worse. I got dropped on the way up the first climb, feeling very weak... HR was barely 150 and I already felt like I had no strength-- I suspected an early bonk-- didn't have time to eat a real dinner the night before because of the late day and was too tired to wait for seating at the one local pasta joint in Big Pine, so I just ate random frozen foods from the convenience store, and woke up in the middle of the night to eat a banana and a half a PB&J I made blindly. I was probably still pretty calorically deficient and doubt I'd adequately restocked my glycogen stores. So I ate a Bonk Breaker and banana at the top of the climb, and then had my minor panic on the descent, which had a HUGE drop off to the right and cars still coming up on the left, no guardrail, and racers whizzing by asshole-breakriding-terrified-me at over 40mph like it's no big whoop. The grade was even too steep at points to be able to stop, not to mention that there was no shoulder. Of course, had I been a confident strong descender, I would have been moving too fast to notice this. Instead I hardly even broke 19mph. On a DESCENT. What the eff. It's like I've never ridden a bike before. That basically demoralized me, and my hands, neck, and arms were already super sore, and I felt like crying from feeling like I sucked-- literally EVERYONE was better than me on downhills, even people who didn't try, it made me feel like crap. The intense fear of death added into the constant reminder of being a failure and the fact that it was 2.5 hours into the ride and that climb wasn't even the long one made me feel totally demoralized and I was already pretty weepy-whiny to Jacob at the aid station before the Death Valley Road climb. Another volunteer said something encouraging about me doing better than most people by making it that far, and to not worry about other racers and just do tempo. I said I wasn't going to give up, but that I just felt very unhappy.
And that was basically how it went. I kept trying to get past being a d-bag, but shit kept going wrong. I put in a good effort up the second climb, and was actually making a good time, with little sprints and good cadence, but then the turnaround wasn't at mile 37, where it was supposed to be, and I'd timed out my water and fluid for that, so then I had ANOTHER anxiety attack moment where I got minorly hysterical as more and more road with cyclists on it kept extending ahead of me, and my bottles were emptying and I hadn't refilled at the vans because I thought "oh, it's just 1.25 miles away". But no, BY MISTAKE, they'd put the turnaround at mile 40, another BROILING unshaded 3 climbing miles away. Of course, having put in some good efforts, I was pretty spent, and it was really hot by that point, so I was sweating out a lot. It felt like a Sisyphean hill climb, where you keep thinking "this is it!" and then another bend or dip reveals ANOTHER stretch, and no turnaround. I did reach the turnaround, because what other option was there but to continue? Of course I was grumpy about that, and then had another shitass descent where everyone cruised down like it was a steel rollercoaster and I couldn't get any speed because of crosswind fear and general shittiness. But all that was left was more climbing, so that was oddly comforting (that is seriously how bad I am at descending, how pathetic.) Of course now that the aid station had been at mile 40, I had no idea what the end mileage was going to be, and I am very much a goals and numbers person. I saw Jake again at the bottom of the road, and he said, "don't think about the mileage, you know you have to get to the top, just keep going." Well, yes, but when you don't know where the top is, there is no way to mark progress and you feel like you're in hell. (I believe I said aloud "I am in hell" multiple times this weekend, btw.) Stage 1 was like purgatory, because it seemed endless but I knew I was progressing. Stage 2 was hell because I'd think I was progressing and then it would turn out I had to go way further.
Jake pointed out the number of cars that had left as people who'd abandoned the course, and encouraged me to feel good that I was still going, since my goal was just to finish anyway. There were only a ragtag few of us by then, and we were the last through each aid station before cutoff times. I found out at the next aid station, six miles away at 6,000 feet elevation that the aid station was a mistake, but no one could tell us what the final mileage was gonna be. I thought we had 11 miles left, but then we were told 14, which, again, kinda made me cry. I was soooo whiny. It's embarrassing. But it was my way of getting the bad feelings out I guess, because it certainly didn't make me actually quit. I think I just needed to bitch to feel better, since otherwise I was just suffering alone the whole time. Those 6 miles were really rough, SUPER hot and steep, and there wasn't any shade to look forward to in the future, either. We all took our time to douse ourselves with cold water (unfortunately I got my shorts wet-- soggy chamois is NOT GOOD for chaffing) and refuel before another heavy effort. The next (and last) aid station was at 8000 ft. elevation and was 7 miles away. I thought I remembered the map saying the last aid station was 5 miles from the finish, so I just kept chugging alone like a very very slow little Engine that could while being whiny about it, and Jake was able to drive alongside and give me some chammy cream and words of encouragement, which really helped me, and then I was on my own for the final climbs in the park. Of course, hell that the day was, the last aid station wasn't five but eight miles from the finish, which might not seem like a lot, but involved a LOT of climbing up to 10,000 feet. I filled up my bottles and took a last pee break and thought of Jake's advice to keep going, sang Disney songs in my head, thought about finishing soon and how that was the best news ever. Then I had ANOTHER anxiety moment where I was four miles into the last 8, and didn't see any chalk marking on the road indicating that the end was near. I was over 9000 feet and it was over 9 hours by that point, so I was barely holding it together. Of course I knew I was close to the finish, but by this point I didn't trust anyone, and when I didn't see any sign of progress like the previous day, I started to worry that it wasn't 8 miles, but 12 miles, or God knows what. A bit over 70 miles, I saw another steep climbing up a switchback turn and literally had to stop because I just randomly started to cry. Crying at this point very much resembled hard breathing, which was also happening, so I'm sure I just looked like any other suffering person. But yeah, I was just crying like a child, because I just really needed to know that it WAS four miles, and that that was the truth, because I knew I could make it that far, but couldn't handle another fake out. A woman in a car said some encouraging words, and I asked how far, and she said "my husband guesses about 4 miles," and that was all I needed: proof that there wasn't going to be a 10k mark in another mile, but that I had already made it this far and only had four more to go. Of course there was another guy who said "one more mile" when there were three left, and the woman saying "just one more hard section and then 2 more miles" (uhm, yeah, it wasn't easier, but sure.) I saw one of the guys I'd been sticking with taking a cellphone picture of the vista to the left, and all I could think was "ugly stupid crapass mountain". I was super over it. Grumpy with a horribly sore butt and emotionally ragged. After all the fake outs, I sort of assumed there'd be another climb when someone said "just around the corner," and as I rounded the corner and climbed up this last incline, two ladies at the top said "you're almost there" and then I saw at their feet, no I wasn't almost there, I was literally there, it was the finish line. With just two ladies. What the eff??? Super anticlimactic! I thought I'd see the food tent and would be able to really go for it for one last reserve. But the whole day was a mindfuck and the finish was no different. For a second I thought "oh man, I'm so slow they already packed up everything else and now I have to go back down alone!" But really the food and drop bags were just a little further down, out of sight down the hill. So that was nice, though I basically didn't even feel like it was over, I was so disoriented. Tee shirt and medal say otherwise, though, and I was super lucky to find a friend in the La Grange guys, who, seeing how desperate I'd looked, offered me a ride down to where Jacob was (the thought of me trying to do more tight-fisted descending after that made me want to cry... some more.) I felt immediately better once I stopped, because hey, it was over, and no one could add in anymore climbing for me to do. And my mood was the best mood ever, and I felt bad for being a crabby asshole. So, I apologize world, that I was a crabby asshole. I was working through some issues on my bike.
On the whole, I think the moral of the story is, a.) triathletes are EXTREMELY data reliant-- Jake was so casual about the miles discrepancy-- "eh, it happens, you just keep going", whereas for me it was like the end of the world and b.) when you feel like a crabby asshole, you will not ride fast, and when you feel hopeful and happy, everything will be easier. Stage 2 took about 9.5 hours, while Stage 1 took 9hours and 16 minutes. And Stage 1 was considerably longer, even if Stage 2 was longer than planned (73.5 miles instead of 65, for the record.) So there you go: it's all mental. I did know intellectually not to be negative, but it was just a toughass day and grumpypants was the situation. I'm usually the person on the course who smiles at everyone even when it sucks, but I was just so past my good mood threshold at that point. I'm just happy I finished. Let's not do that again, though. Grumpy racing is NO FUN, and so very slow!
In the meantime, I was also convinced during the first day that it's kind of dumb to spend this much time doing something that gives me fear of death and makes me feel lonely, and that I should probably invest more time in something that makes me unique, like my songs or, I dunno, my LIFE/career, since we basically know that I have the capacity to suffer, so it's not even that exciting for me to do this kind of thing anymore, right? So I will probably not do as many ultra endurance things... at least not until I can do them faster and can descend like a fucking adult. Heh. Just don't like the waste of time. And I miss people. And if I were trained, I wouldn't have felt as grumpy, too.
So in conclusion... do races you train for and be happy when you do them. I feel like that's how most of my tris go, and they've been pretty nice. So there: I did Everest Challenge without specific training, it was really awful, but I did it, and next year Jake's gonna come back and win. And now I know IMAZ will be even easier, because that 140.6 ain't going NOWHERE.
Friday, September 28, 2012
To the pain.
On the way to Big Pine, 30 minutes away from our race start in Bishop, where Jacob, myself, and my fly bike (his bike too) will be engaged in extreme self-combat over the course of this weekend.
I'm never one to shy away from big endurance challenges without proper training, because I'm stupid like that, so when Jake asked me at the end of last month if I wanted to do this ridiculous stage race with him Sept 29th, I said, "sure!" Subsequently, everyone I've told about this has looked at me with wide eyes upon hearing "Everest Challenge"... when I got my lactate thresholds retested (update on that to come... newsflash, I'm stronger!) Gareth said, "do you know what you've gotten yourself into?" Answer: no. I have a vague idea that it is going to be extremely, terribly punishing, but that's about it. Because look at topography all you want, it's never going to translate to the actual stress on your quads, the sweat, the pain, the heinous suffering, the saddle sores and trembling legs that whimper after Day 1: not again!
I've never done this race, so I don't know what that's like really... except intellectually that, as a matter of fact, suffering will occur. So, uhhhm, I'm kinda scared. Scared in the way a young expectant mother fears impending labor. Everyone looks at you with a kind of pity, knowing the suffering you'll endure, and you just hope lamaze can help. Much like a pregnant lady, I've resolved it won't help at all to think about how much it's going to hurt. It's going to suck ass, but that's just life. Birth is painful, and so is biking up mountains. But you suffer through it, because that is also life, suffering, and eventually it does end, and then you forget the pain, because that's how we're built. I can't do much at this point to help myself except not worry. Worrying will hurt my sleep and my rest and build cortisol. I gotta be the best most rested version of my current self to get through this. So I'm just not going to think about it, and drink lots of electrolytes, and trust that having a compact and 28 will be enough to get me up these monsters. I'm mostly nervous because of the thin air... I have NO elevation training at all. I just hope I can dig into the Muller reserve and do that achieving thing.
Very little chance of being a contender here, friends... I am in no way adequately conditioned. I'm moderately conditioned, but I'd been preparing for a sprint triathlon with some rollers. This is a 204 mile stage race with over 29,000 feet of climbing... hence the name, since that's the elevation of Mt. Everest. We are climbing Mount Everest on bikes. (Oh my God, I just thought of what that means... what the eff have I gotten myself into!!? Ok, don't worry, just do lamaze...) It's really too great a figure to really comprehend. It's not going to sink in until I'm on the first 21 mile climb and think "I have to do this TWO MORE TIMES today... and then TOMORROW, too." Yup, that's gonna happen. And I will do it. Because this is war. The other day I looked down at my legs when biking around town on my foldie and I said, "you can do this, right, legs? You are some powerful things, you won't quit. You can do it." I hope so.
I've gained 30 watts of power on my bike, and we did some (very minimal comparatively) climbs earlier that I felt good on, and the gearing is very climb friendly on the new bike... sooooo.... eeeeeeeek. Gerardo thinks I'll get through it, William thinks I can, and Gareth says just try to keep the HR under 175 and eat a load-- and offered the reassuring fact that "you don't have to run after!" When I think of that, it DOES make me feel better... I can get through the first grueling day, and relying on my Wolverine skills of recovering, I'll drag my sore ass through the second day and use it all up, 'cause there's no marathon, half-marathon or even a 10k left to run after! Right? That's good! And the overall time over the two days is comparable to an Ironman. So... I'm like... doing an Ironman that I didn't specifically train for. Meh.
The VERY good news is, while I'm not going for time here, just finishing, it will be FANTASTIC conditioning for AZ... is far enough away from the race that it won't harm, but will help increase my power, and those flat aero rides will seem dreamy after brutal climbs. Accentuate the postiive, right? What does not kill you makes you stronger. And I can kickstart some fat burn, too. No big whoop. ;-) (I already forsee myself thinking about this while suffering on the hill and calling myself an asshole in my mind.) 200 miles away from Bishop, which is the equivalent of what we will cycle this weekend... only more mountains. Meeeeh! Updates to come... depending on time, strength and mood, might be during or after... and maybe one more just before bedtime. Depends on how much I'm freeeeaking myself out. Ok. Let's not freak out. Let's just get it done.
I'm never one to shy away from big endurance challenges without proper training, because I'm stupid like that, so when Jake asked me at the end of last month if I wanted to do this ridiculous stage race with him Sept 29th, I said, "sure!" Subsequently, everyone I've told about this has looked at me with wide eyes upon hearing "Everest Challenge"... when I got my lactate thresholds retested (update on that to come... newsflash, I'm stronger!) Gareth said, "do you know what you've gotten yourself into?" Answer: no. I have a vague idea that it is going to be extremely, terribly punishing, but that's about it. Because look at topography all you want, it's never going to translate to the actual stress on your quads, the sweat, the pain, the heinous suffering, the saddle sores and trembling legs that whimper after Day 1: not again!
I've never done this race, so I don't know what that's like really... except intellectually that, as a matter of fact, suffering will occur. So, uhhhm, I'm kinda scared. Scared in the way a young expectant mother fears impending labor. Everyone looks at you with a kind of pity, knowing the suffering you'll endure, and you just hope lamaze can help. Much like a pregnant lady, I've resolved it won't help at all to think about how much it's going to hurt. It's going to suck ass, but that's just life. Birth is painful, and so is biking up mountains. But you suffer through it, because that is also life, suffering, and eventually it does end, and then you forget the pain, because that's how we're built. I can't do much at this point to help myself except not worry. Worrying will hurt my sleep and my rest and build cortisol. I gotta be the best most rested version of my current self to get through this. So I'm just not going to think about it, and drink lots of electrolytes, and trust that having a compact and 28 will be enough to get me up these monsters. I'm mostly nervous because of the thin air... I have NO elevation training at all. I just hope I can dig into the Muller reserve and do that achieving thing.
Very little chance of being a contender here, friends... I am in no way adequately conditioned. I'm moderately conditioned, but I'd been preparing for a sprint triathlon with some rollers. This is a 204 mile stage race with over 29,000 feet of climbing... hence the name, since that's the elevation of Mt. Everest. We are climbing Mount Everest on bikes. (Oh my God, I just thought of what that means... what the eff have I gotten myself into!!? Ok, don't worry, just do lamaze...) It's really too great a figure to really comprehend. It's not going to sink in until I'm on the first 21 mile climb and think "I have to do this TWO MORE TIMES today... and then TOMORROW, too." Yup, that's gonna happen. And I will do it. Because this is war. The other day I looked down at my legs when biking around town on my foldie and I said, "you can do this, right, legs? You are some powerful things, you won't quit. You can do it." I hope so.
I've gained 30 watts of power on my bike, and we did some (very minimal comparatively) climbs earlier that I felt good on, and the gearing is very climb friendly on the new bike... sooooo.... eeeeeeeek. Gerardo thinks I'll get through it, William thinks I can, and Gareth says just try to keep the HR under 175 and eat a load-- and offered the reassuring fact that "you don't have to run after!" When I think of that, it DOES make me feel better... I can get through the first grueling day, and relying on my Wolverine skills of recovering, I'll drag my sore ass through the second day and use it all up, 'cause there's no marathon, half-marathon or even a 10k left to run after! Right? That's good! And the overall time over the two days is comparable to an Ironman. So... I'm like... doing an Ironman that I didn't specifically train for. Meh.
The VERY good news is, while I'm not going for time here, just finishing, it will be FANTASTIC conditioning for AZ... is far enough away from the race that it won't harm, but will help increase my power, and those flat aero rides will seem dreamy after brutal climbs. Accentuate the postiive, right? What does not kill you makes you stronger. And I can kickstart some fat burn, too. No big whoop. ;-) (I already forsee myself thinking about this while suffering on the hill and calling myself an asshole in my mind.) 200 miles away from Bishop, which is the equivalent of what we will cycle this weekend... only more mountains. Meeeeh! Updates to come... depending on time, strength and mood, might be during or after... and maybe one more just before bedtime. Depends on how much I'm freeeeaking myself out. Ok. Let's not freak out. Let's just get it done.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
There's a *first* time for everything...
Oh damn!
Well, sometimes, races just don't go like you'd hoped. You get a flat, you bonk, you have GI distress, you cramp, and so on and so forth. Other times, they go exactly as you've hoped, and you achieve greatness. You never know which it will be, or if it'll be somewhere in between the two. That's where the jitters come from. You want to hope for the best, but know how fragile the balance is. I've been lucky enough to never get a DNF, knock wood... you always see a few on the list of times, and you think "there but for the grace of God go I." This time, my friend skidded out on her bike, crashed, and didn't finish. And she's a roadie. It can happen to anyone. (For this reason, I feel I need to ride more and get better at fixing flats, for the inevitable time when I'm "that person" stranded on the road's edge.)
This time, however, was happily a case of the perfects. I had a mental image of what I wanted to happen that I saw very clearly the night before (aka beating David Duchovny.) I wanted a 1:45 time. What I got was very close to that (and Duchovny wasn't even there, so, who cares) at 1:46. And to make it sweeter, I made my FIRST podium... and not just podium, but I WON!!! As in, I got FIRST in my age group!!! Say what???! Of course, I feel like I don't deserve it, as I've been slacking and am not even at race weight (blah blah who cares) but ultimately, uhhhhmmm... I WON. It was a pretty close race between the top 3, but I came out on top thanks to everything going exactly as I'd hoped. One false step: a sloppy transition, a bike problem, a foot cramp, and all would have been lost. But there were no false steps, so I got first. Amazing!
Here are my splits:
In brief, my swim was WAY faster than hoped (I got out of the water in 15, across the mat by 15:51) and put me ahead of the others (I gained a minute or two on 2nd and 3rd here, mainly.) I was about fifth fastest in the group.) Both my transitions were very good, I think I was the fastest in my group in T1, actually, 2nd fastest on the bike (2nd place beat me in that split by three seconds) and 3rd fastest run (I coulda picked it up a wee bit earlier at the end, but have my reasons, as I shall explain.) In an exciting finish, I wound up getting first by 12 seconds, and my aforementioned friend Angela (who is a fierce competitor and beat me at Wildflower) got third, being a very close three minutes behind. So truthfully, it was anyone's race. Like I said... if I tripped or something, I could've lost it. But would have still been honored to be up on that podium, because it was a really solid performance by all. [We can pause to appreciate, with the new bike, according to the numbers, my bike is now as solid as my run. HOLY CRAP! That be some news.] I'm pretty honored to have gotten 1st, and can't believe I'm the 9th best out of overall women and in the top 10% of all finishers. This is my first sprint... so, uhhh... maybe I should do more sprints? ;-) I keep going over it in my mind and thinking of how delicate the balance was that made this success possible. It's so crazy to me that I won. I mean, I believe it, but at the same time, I feel so lucky that it all fell into place so perfectly for the day. Very happy and lucky!
Now, for the play by play: We woke up at 4:30am, had some oatmeal I'd made the night before (smart idea!) and rolled into the Malibu parking traffic by 6am. I got my transition area set up, hit the port-a-potty, saw my LA Tri buddies, and felt nervous. They tried to lock us out of transition after our safety talk, but I luckily snuck in to put away my water bottle, get my tri glide on under my wetsuit and take a beta alanine (I swear it helps.) I saw Angela was racing too and thought, "oh shoot, she'll totally beat my ass", since she's the real deal, but then noticed the podium had five spots and thought, "oh, well we can both podium, and if there's five spots, I can definitely get up there!" I started to get nervous again when I saw the ocean. There were some pretty big waves coming in by our 8am swim start, and I'm not the most confident about open water swims in the sea ever since that one time at the Sunday Zuma swim when I got totally owned by a wave that bitchslapped me on my way back to shore when I had my back turned. (Never turn your back on the ocean... it is a notorious asshole and will try to kill you whenever it can.) I was then bucked back up by Will, who said that the current would make it a fast swim, and that he thought I could do it in 15 or 16 minutes. Well, leave it to Will to call it: any time he says something I find mildly over-optimistic, I choose to believe it (like sub 4 Santa Barbara-- almost) and I do it. He has the years of tri experience and an objective viewpoint that makes me think "if he says so, it must be true!" I was wearing a gold cap for my wave and joked with my group: "Gold for gold!" (I was secretly hoping for podium, but didn't know that gold was a tangible goal.) So those moments pre-race were the usual high and low of "what's gonna happen!?!?!?" excitement/anxiety with a rising heartbeat, until the cannon went off and we all ran into the ocean.
I'd positioned myself at the front right, and they said to account for the current for hitting the first buoy. I guess it didn't really drag too much, because I was right in line with it and wound up precisely in the right place. I think this is what gave me that edge in swim time, efficient entrance. (I often wind up zig zagging a little. Maybe if my lines are better I will cut more time in future events!) Getting in wasn't a big whoop: just dove under the first big crashy wave, and was able to swim up over the next two big swells and then was at the buoy. Cake!
I swam as straight and hard as I could, keeping up my buoy sighting, which was super easy because it was short swim. I noticed there weren't many gold caps around me, so I had to be up front, and that was rad. I was also catching up to the yellow caps, and some very slow white ones, which is also a good sign. Before I knew it, it was time to get back to shore. This proved a little annoying and awkward... getting out of an ocean with big waves always is, cuz it tries to suck you back. But I did a little scissor kick on my side some I could keep an eye on the wave and ride it in correctly, and was lucky to not time it wrong and get bitchslapped again, and I trudged out as fast as I could, and was astounded to find 15 minutes on my Garmin: Will was right!!
Put ahead by the swim, I rushed to get through transition as quickly as I could. I had my new tri shoes ready with powder in them for my soggy feet (I found going sockless didn't bug me on the ride and would save time-- socks on the run wouldn't take long and the feet would be dry by then) and was up on the bike in no time flat. I saw Angela running in shortly after me, so I knew it would be close.
Race wheels, aero helmet, and new TT frame all combined, I felt strong and efficient and ready to fly. I could see myself from outside my body, bent over, in the drops, weird Tron helmet on, speeding by folks barking "LEFT!" I was the fast one! I was the one who, on the first tri I did, I let go by and thought, "Damn." I wasn't a dick about it... I try to be nice... but dude, if I'm flying up, you need to get left so we both don't die. And I got a nice few "good jobs" on my passings that I said thanks to. There was one 40-something year old man who I played back and forth with, he kept joking "you let me pass you again?!" We stuck with each other until the final timing mat, where I slowed down again due to the volunteers and I told him "they told me to slow down!" It was extremely headwind-y, which was annoying, but I had my Tron helmet, so I felt like I could still cut through it pretty well. I of course was a little slowed down on the uphills, but blasted it on the flats, coming out with an easy 26 mph without feeling like I was going to die. What a difference a bike makes!! There was ONE scary coulda-been-bad moment-- actually, two, the other being that someone's errant helmet sticker got caught in my front brake, but I brushed it away without incident. There's a BIG descent right before a very sharp right, and you can get your speed real high before you notice "oh snap I have to slow down, pronto." This happened to me, 'cause I was thinking, "fear not the descent" and trying to embrace it, and now I'm going 30 mph and have to slow down in like 200 feet or something shitty. Braking was making my bike tremble, because it put tension into my arms, and I had a minor freakout that I was going to crash, but I managed to gently pump the rear brake-- I thought I'd fly over the front if I hit the front brake-- and slowed down JUST (and I mean just) in time for that right. Evidently this is the area where Cheryl crashed. It's not surprising. I was a little shaken up by that and biked rather timidly for a few minutes after. But I still averaged 19.6 mph, and finished in under 55 minutes, which was slower than my ideal goal, but still within the range of my hopes.
Transition 2 was also respectably fast, with very few bikes on the racks (I saw Angela run in shortly after me again!), so I was up and running quickly, trying to maintain a lead. I felt a little ragged, which was expected after holding threshold for that long, so I was pleased to find that I was still already running under 8 minute miles, though I was hoping to average 7:30s. I made the sensible decision that I'd let the first mile or so be slower as long as it wasn't over 8, so I could save a little for the finish. I passed one woman with a 26 on her calf and hoped she wouldn't catch me. Then, at around 1.5 miles in, a woman in a WB jersey with a 27 on her calf came loping up and passed me, getting about 10 feet ahead. I had a flashback to Santa Barbara and thought, "oh crap, is that going to happen again?" I figured it would be in my best interest to stay on her heel, and then if she picked it up to 6 minute miles, I would still be ahead of a bunch of other women, and she'd deserve first anyway. (At this point, I had a feeling we were the top contenders, judging by the lack of bikes I'd seen on the racks.) I stuck with her, grabbed some extra Gatorade and water, and at around 1 mile left, I caught her and we were side by side. "Not much longer," she'd said to me. "Yup," I said, "Just .6 miles!" She was nice and clearly a very strong athlete, and I was entirely convinced that she was going to pull ahead in these last moments, so I wanted to save my sprint for the finish. But then I noticed her pace was slowing: earlier, I'd been doing a 7:20 to stay with her, but now with under a half mile left, we were back at 8 minute miles. "This is too slow," I thought, and I decided, the hell with it, I'm putting in the final push, even though I was afraid I'd burn all my matches too quickly and she'd catch me. My Garmin had been beeping the miles about a tenth too early, and I heard it go off shortly after I pushed ahead. "Here we go!" I thought, as I dug into that horrifying last reserve and pumped out that last effort down the carpeted corridor, around the bend and across the timing mats. I vaguely recalled in that moment the announcer at the prerace meeting saying, "Don't forget to smile!" and noticed the multiple cameras catching my look of anguish. I remember thinking "I will smile when I'm fully across these mats and I know she hasn't caught me." And I did! I saw her come in a little bit later-- apparently 12 seconds later-- and I congratulated her on a strong run. She was a good sport, and congratulated me on a great finish. I'm aging out of our group, so I hope she wins next year, 'cause she's awesome. And if she'd pulled away and won, I would have felt honored to be silver to her gold.
Jacob said he thought I might have gotten first, and I suspected it might be so, too, since, while the gold caps and our racks included all females from 18-29, I was still competing only with my age group. We waited in line to look it up... first time, nothing appeared, annoying... then checked back again and-- voila!!! I was first in my division! For a moment, I second guessed it, as Will told me sometimes ranks change, like if someone races in a different swim wave or something, but I checked another time and yes, I was still first.
I got to stand up on the podium, and, for Carrita's sake, thrust my fist in the air and yelled "Tonight we dine in hell!" (And the announcer said, "she just said "drinks are on me"-- ha, ha.) Everyone was so thrilled, proud and surprised-- it felt a lot like college, where I did a lot of theatre and extracurriculars and was very social, and then stunned everyone by getting highest honors in my major even though I wasn't an introverted library invalid. Suddenly I had proven that I, the fun comedienne triathlete, who likes to work hard but also play hard, wasn't only a good time, but also a totally solid badass and capable athlete. And that I, indeed... am a contender.
Oh, and if it weren't epically victorious and amazing enough of a day, I also met IRONMAN LEGEND Chrissie Wellington... who gave me not one, but TWO hugs. WORD!
Prerace jitters.
So it's nearly 5am, and time to drive to Malibu for the Classic. My goal is to beat David Duchovny, which evidently means 1hour, 45 minutes. I've mathed it out and I think, with my new race wheels hammerin' it hard, this might be feasible. I'm thinking 18 minutes on the swim (maybe better???), 50 minutes on the bike (or at least under and hour) and 30 minute run. Add 5 minutes for transition and... well it's a ballpark.
This also means I could be a contender: that time would put me up in top three from last year's finishers in my age group. But, knock on wood. This knowledge makes me nervous. And it's the fastest race I've ever done, so it's threshold the whole time. If I don't... that could make all the difference!
But hey, ultimately... it doesn't really matter. So I should just enjoy myself. I will report back soon! Time to pump it up with Queen's "Princes of the Universe".
This also means I could be a contender: that time would put me up in top three from last year's finishers in my age group. But, knock on wood. This knowledge makes me nervous. And it's the fastest race I've ever done, so it's threshold the whole time. If I don't... that could make all the difference!
But hey, ultimately... it doesn't really matter. So I should just enjoy myself. I will report back soon! Time to pump it up with Queen's "Princes of the Universe".
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Introducing Grane, redux!
A quick post to introduce you to my new bike! I'm still calling it Grane, after Bruennhilde's steed, and I shall ride it to glorious victory! Right now, we've got my old components on it, and will convert over to the aerobar configuration after the Everest challenge, since aerobars a.) aren't legal and b.) aren't helpful for all day climbs. But boy is it gonna fly on those flats in AZ!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Santa Barbara Long Course
After the raging glory of Wildflower, I had an extremely quiet race season, with nothing but a little July 10k between May 4 and late August. I was super off my game for about a month-- June til July-- thanks to my bout of sadness, and gained back the weight I'd lost in my concerted efforts since LA Marathon (alas!) Lots of late night beer drinking and Pattaya Thai 4AM karaoke and noodle sessions are going to equate to a certain calorie surplus.
Fortunately, a slow turnaround back to normal got underway. I got back in the swing of things exercising, stopped drinking too much, and yes, even started dating a man! (Jacob, the previously mentioned cyclist man.) Fun story, we weigh the same even though he's 6'2". Ah, skinny vegan cyclists. Since we started dating he's started to outweigh me by a pound, which means he's building muscle (the boy just does not have any fat, period) and I'm losing fat. I think the former is due to the fact that he's sleeping more and I feed him and the latter is because he doesn't drink so I don't drink when we hang out. Plus, we can use quality time together as cycling time. Hooray, it's win win! It's nice to have the person you're dating go on rides with you. Well, at least when he's in zone 2. He's fast.
Fast forward to August, and it's time for me to be a triathlete again. I've forgotten how to taper, that I have to hydrate, carbload, what have you. In trying to stay Paleo (yeah, trying being the operative word... succeeding, maybe not as much) and I've grown wholly confused as to what the carbload entails. I guess mostly yams and fruit... I'm trying to stay whole food based, but sometimes some gluten-free noodles are good. (She says as she eats some gluten-free angel's hair.) I've learned that a gluten-free diet is all sorts of related to healthy goodness, since it's thought that
Jake drove us out to Santa Barbara ass early in the morning that Saturday (4am) and we arrived with enough time to find parking, do packet pickup, and leisurely prepare while compulsively refreshing the ebay app on my Droid, since I was bidding on a 54 Felt frame (two years and a full tri on a 52 frame, it was time to upgrade to a bike that fits properly... I'd saved up a bit, and the cost of a build with my old components would be much less than getting a full new bike. We found a Felt B2 (read: aero as hell!) and the price was increasing all week, but looking at the original cost ($2,000 for the frame, $6,000 for the full bike), it would still be a steal at a grand. I was stressed, though, since bidding ended at 8:45am, namely RIGHT when I'd be cruising through the bike leg of my race. Oy! Jake promised to keep an eye on it for me, like a good sherpa, since he knew it'd just distract me from giving it my all. So I was able to relax and do my best, knowing he'd take care of it. Hooray.
The weather was perfect, cool and just slightly drizzly, with the ocean calm and easy to swim through. Shortly before the start, Will said I should do sub-4, and since I don't know any better, I decided, hey, let's see if I can. My mile took 33 minutes, and there were still plenty of bikes racked when I got in. Of course, I wish I could be one of the 28 minute ladies, but five minutes is not so terrible, and a new bike could shave that. Transition was fast, just under three minutes, and soon I was out with Jake on the bike. Since it wasn't a closed course, he was able to bike with me in his Animal Liberation kit, keeping track of my auction and helping me keep a good pace. He pulled to the side, since about 20 minutes into the ride someone tried to outbid me, and then caught up, saying I'd won! Yay! I was now the proud owner of a badass aero Felt frame. The rest of the race wasn't no thing.
I guess the bike frame gave me some extra gumption, 'cause I kicked it up a notch for the second half of the ride and finished is just around two hours, which was my hope. I had to pee like a mad man, and had to run in the opposite direction in transition from the run out in order to do so, so my T2 took over 3 minutes which I'd wished weren't so, but hey, peeing is very necessary. (I'm looking forward to Malibu, since it'll be the first race I do that's fast enough that peeing won't come into play. What a relief.)
I was feeling very good on the run, and was keeping up my 8:30 minute mile., even with the steady uphill on the run out. I smiled at everyone and kept an eye out for calves with my number on 'em, since Jake said he really hadn't seen many other women before me on the swim out, and thought maybe I could be a contender. On the way downhill, I increased my pace, and looked at my Garmin... I was getting close to 4 hours, but thought maybe I could do it! Running sub 8-min miles, with two left, a lithe leggy 28-year-old whizzed by me, and I tried to keep her in my sights, but she was GONE. Must have been doing six-minute miles or some madness. I pushed it as hard as I could, slowed slightly by the annoying sand patches and finished at just over four hours (darn!) Of course, the most exciting part would be right before the finish line, I spotted a woman who was finishing and had a 27 on her calf, and I sprinted to outstrip her. So I got 5th, and she got 6th, by one second. (If I were her, I'd be pissed.) The chick who passed me got 4th, beating me by two minutes. The podium ladies beat me by about fifteen. That's not too terrible a spread. Though speedy 4th place lady did her 10 mile run in, I believe, 1:09, and ranked somewhere like 46th OVERALL on the run (that includes all the men and elites.) In other words, she is fast as hell. But her bike was very slow. So if I get as speedy as we all hope I will with a new aero bike that fits, maybe I can still be a contender! (Although I looked up my age group for next year... 30-34, eeeek, and they are all EVEN FASTER. DAMN IT!!)
But I'm pretty pleased with how that went, and hoping I can put in a good show at Malibu. It's my third tri of the season (yikes, slow season) so I can finally get a ranking. Will be fun to find out how I'm doing!
Fortunately, a slow turnaround back to normal got underway. I got back in the swing of things exercising, stopped drinking too much, and yes, even started dating a man! (Jacob, the previously mentioned cyclist man.) Fun story, we weigh the same even though he's 6'2". Ah, skinny vegan cyclists. Since we started dating he's started to outweigh me by a pound, which means he's building muscle (the boy just does not have any fat, period) and I'm losing fat. I think the former is due to the fact that he's sleeping more and I feed him and the latter is because he doesn't drink so I don't drink when we hang out. Plus, we can use quality time together as cycling time. Hooray, it's win win! It's nice to have the person you're dating go on rides with you. Well, at least when he's in zone 2. He's fast.
Fast forward to August, and it's time for me to be a triathlete again. I've forgotten how to taper, that I have to hydrate, carbload, what have you. In trying to stay Paleo (yeah, trying being the operative word... succeeding, maybe not as much) and I've grown wholly confused as to what the carbload entails. I guess mostly yams and fruit... I'm trying to stay whole food based, but sometimes some gluten-free noodles are good. (She says as she eats some gluten-free angel's hair.) I've learned that a gluten-free diet is all sorts of related to healthy goodness, since it's thought that
Jake drove us out to Santa Barbara ass early in the morning that Saturday (4am) and we arrived with enough time to find parking, do packet pickup, and leisurely prepare while compulsively refreshing the ebay app on my Droid, since I was bidding on a 54 Felt frame (two years and a full tri on a 52 frame, it was time to upgrade to a bike that fits properly... I'd saved up a bit, and the cost of a build with my old components would be much less than getting a full new bike. We found a Felt B2 (read: aero as hell!) and the price was increasing all week, but looking at the original cost ($2,000 for the frame, $6,000 for the full bike), it would still be a steal at a grand. I was stressed, though, since bidding ended at 8:45am, namely RIGHT when I'd be cruising through the bike leg of my race. Oy! Jake promised to keep an eye on it for me, like a good sherpa, since he knew it'd just distract me from giving it my all. So I was able to relax and do my best, knowing he'd take care of it. Hooray.
The weather was perfect, cool and just slightly drizzly, with the ocean calm and easy to swim through. Shortly before the start, Will said I should do sub-4, and since I don't know any better, I decided, hey, let's see if I can. My mile took 33 minutes, and there were still plenty of bikes racked when I got in. Of course, I wish I could be one of the 28 minute ladies, but five minutes is not so terrible, and a new bike could shave that. Transition was fast, just under three minutes, and soon I was out with Jake on the bike. Since it wasn't a closed course, he was able to bike with me in his Animal Liberation kit, keeping track of my auction and helping me keep a good pace. He pulled to the side, since about 20 minutes into the ride someone tried to outbid me, and then caught up, saying I'd won! Yay! I was now the proud owner of a badass aero Felt frame. The rest of the race wasn't no thing.
I guess the bike frame gave me some extra gumption, 'cause I kicked it up a notch for the second half of the ride and finished is just around two hours, which was my hope. I had to pee like a mad man, and had to run in the opposite direction in transition from the run out in order to do so, so my T2 took over 3 minutes which I'd wished weren't so, but hey, peeing is very necessary. (I'm looking forward to Malibu, since it'll be the first race I do that's fast enough that peeing won't come into play. What a relief.)
I was feeling very good on the run, and was keeping up my 8:30 minute mile., even with the steady uphill on the run out. I smiled at everyone and kept an eye out for calves with my number on 'em, since Jake said he really hadn't seen many other women before me on the swim out, and thought maybe I could be a contender. On the way downhill, I increased my pace, and looked at my Garmin... I was getting close to 4 hours, but thought maybe I could do it! Running sub 8-min miles, with two left, a lithe leggy 28-year-old whizzed by me, and I tried to keep her in my sights, but she was GONE. Must have been doing six-minute miles or some madness. I pushed it as hard as I could, slowed slightly by the annoying sand patches and finished at just over four hours (darn!) Of course, the most exciting part would be right before the finish line, I spotted a woman who was finishing and had a 27 on her calf, and I sprinted to outstrip her. So I got 5th, and she got 6th, by one second. (If I were her, I'd be pissed.) The chick who passed me got 4th, beating me by two minutes. The podium ladies beat me by about fifteen. That's not too terrible a spread. Though speedy 4th place lady did her 10 mile run in, I believe, 1:09, and ranked somewhere like 46th OVERALL on the run (that includes all the men and elites.) In other words, she is fast as hell. But her bike was very slow. So if I get as speedy as we all hope I will with a new aero bike that fits, maybe I can still be a contender! (Although I looked up my age group for next year... 30-34, eeeek, and they are all EVEN FASTER. DAMN IT!!)
But I'm pretty pleased with how that went, and hoping I can put in a good show at Malibu. It's my third tri of the season (yikes, slow season) so I can finally get a ranking. Will be fun to find out how I'm doing!
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Knowledge is Power (to Weight Ratio)
So, back in February, I upped my tri game with some REAL knowledge. Yes, I got my lactate thresholds tested! (I mentioned this in passing... at some point.) This has proven to be a serious game changer. My run is faster, and I'm able to push harder with the knowledge of what my thresholds are. For example, when I get up to 190 on my run, people used to say "Isn't your heart going to explode?" No, silly! I'm just at the top of my Steady State Threshold! I haven't even hit VO2 Max, son! Turns out I just have the heartrate of a baby mouse. Disappointing, since I'd always hoped my epic cardio would slow that shit down or something. (When I put my head on my cyclist man's chest, it sounds like his heart is forgetting to pump it's so slow... like 40 bpm. I'm still in the high 50s. But then again, he's trying to be pro... and I'm trying to be a comedienne or whatever. What's the normal resting heart rate for a comedienne? I'm sure I've got them all beat.)
Here are my fancy looking results from February:
I got tested with Will, and we discovered that my power to weight ratio is higher than his. Now I will never let him live it down. Bwahahahaha. Of course, it also makes me want to lose some more of that unhelpful body fat so I can have an even MORE amazing ratio... but you can only lose so much weight before you lose power, so it's a delicate balance. I did get down to 143 during the internet video madness, but there wasn't much fitness there, just lots of forgetting to eat and no sleep. So my power probably suffered. Currently I'm back where I was, trying to lose, but doing pretty well getting the power back. Plus I'm scheduled to hit some serious hill climbs pre-AZ in fall racing, so... that's gonna be some shit.
By now, this data has probably changed (at least it ought to have...) I am well overdue for a retest, and with the big race coming up, I need to make sure I know what my Zone 2 is for reals so I can burn my fat for fuel on the long haul of the Ironman. And for the Zombie Apocalypse. Won't have time to eat dinner when we need to start the 200 mile escape into the mountains.
Yes, this blog started more budgety, but this test, second only to a bike upgrade, is the most bang for its buck in terms of improved performance. I mean, for goodness sake, I finished 17th at Wildflower after being a solid upper midpacker all the rest of this time. And the 10k I did on July 4th I got 11th place out of 82 women in my group, so, word, I'm getting faster. (I also was dehydrated and under-rested for that one... damn you, new job where beer drinking is unavoidable!)
Were I to be a true budget seeker, I'd redo my thresholds on my own. Apparently if you do thirty minutes of full effort (bike and run alike), you can find your thresholds by taking the average heart rate of the last twenty minutes (first 10 is getting used to it, I guess) and then mathing out the zones with your resting heart rate, which you find by strapping on your monitor in the A.M. and hitting the snooze button, then checking when you're back to minimal movement and stuff. But dude, that's too much math. And max effort by yourself... are you ever going to REALLY max it out? Paying a dude over $100 to watch you max out seems like a better guarantee. Plus, it's like a concentrated coach that you can "just add water" to for the next few months and basically have your workouts planned. Since LT testing comes with workouts, it's like cramming all the info goodness of a real coach into two informative pieces of paper: the data is you-specific, unlike training manuals, so you know precisely what to do, and it gives you three workouts per week to guarantee improvement (seriously, GUARANTEED, if you do them, of course.) And, as previously stated, who gives an eff about the swim? Just get in the pool n do shit.
So yes, for the budget triathlete who's been in the game for a few years, but still can't afford a coach, go fake coach and get your LT zones tested. The info is super worth it.
Here are my fancy looking results from February:
I got tested with Will, and we discovered that my power to weight ratio is higher than his. Now I will never let him live it down. Bwahahahaha. Of course, it also makes me want to lose some more of that unhelpful body fat so I can have an even MORE amazing ratio... but you can only lose so much weight before you lose power, so it's a delicate balance. I did get down to 143 during the internet video madness, but there wasn't much fitness there, just lots of forgetting to eat and no sleep. So my power probably suffered. Currently I'm back where I was, trying to lose, but doing pretty well getting the power back. Plus I'm scheduled to hit some serious hill climbs pre-AZ in fall racing, so... that's gonna be some shit.
By now, this data has probably changed (at least it ought to have...) I am well overdue for a retest, and with the big race coming up, I need to make sure I know what my Zone 2 is for reals so I can burn my fat for fuel on the long haul of the Ironman. And for the Zombie Apocalypse. Won't have time to eat dinner when we need to start the 200 mile escape into the mountains.
Yes, this blog started more budgety, but this test, second only to a bike upgrade, is the most bang for its buck in terms of improved performance. I mean, for goodness sake, I finished 17th at Wildflower after being a solid upper midpacker all the rest of this time. And the 10k I did on July 4th I got 11th place out of 82 women in my group, so, word, I'm getting faster. (I also was dehydrated and under-rested for that one... damn you, new job where beer drinking is unavoidable!)
Were I to be a true budget seeker, I'd redo my thresholds on my own. Apparently if you do thirty minutes of full effort (bike and run alike), you can find your thresholds by taking the average heart rate of the last twenty minutes (first 10 is getting used to it, I guess) and then mathing out the zones with your resting heart rate, which you find by strapping on your monitor in the A.M. and hitting the snooze button, then checking when you're back to minimal movement and stuff. But dude, that's too much math. And max effort by yourself... are you ever going to REALLY max it out? Paying a dude over $100 to watch you max out seems like a better guarantee. Plus, it's like a concentrated coach that you can "just add water" to for the next few months and basically have your workouts planned. Since LT testing comes with workouts, it's like cramming all the info goodness of a real coach into two informative pieces of paper: the data is you-specific, unlike training manuals, so you know precisely what to do, and it gives you three workouts per week to guarantee improvement (seriously, GUARANTEED, if you do them, of course.) And, as previously stated, who gives an eff about the swim? Just get in the pool n do shit.
So yes, for the budget triathlete who's been in the game for a few years, but still can't afford a coach, go fake coach and get your LT zones tested. The info is super worth it.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Apologia... and some updates. And... WILDFLOWER!
So, I left off this blog some time ago, back around Wildflower prep time, and haven't written in months. So I'm going to LIE and backdate this blog entry and try to update somewhat. A few crazy things took place in my life, namely a brief moment of extreme "cewebrity", where this rap video I made blew the hell up, and suddenly I was on CBS This Morning talking about my views on student loans, being a brokeass overeducated artist type and how I don't date boys from Wharton business school. All the excitement led to a lot of not sleeping and frenzied... everything, general lack of normalcy, and a solid three weeks of NO training, namely because I didn't think I should train if I wasn't getting at least five hours of sleep a night. So those hours I'd steal for a run or ride, I was instead spending passed out for a minute before trying to figure out tee shirt orders and the like. I didn't really have time to update the blog on how Wildflower went (it was rad... as you shall find out.) But being a Hollywood Triathlete... the show biz stuff has to come first. Sorry! I do eventually want to do Malibu in the celebrity division, you know. So I can SMOKE THEM ALL. (Take that, David Duchovny! Naw, you're all right. But seriously... I want to beat David Duchovny.)
Anywho, after the frenzy died down, I had a little post youtube-partum bout of depression, as it's back to the drag of the usual hustle-hustle-hustle. This was then deepened by a d-bag who dumped me on the eve of my 29th birthday... "you have no sense of normalcy, have felt very isolated by your crazed weeks of pseudocelebrity, and now you are about to become 30 and no one loves you! You will die alone, and a failure. Time to drink too much beer and get malaise-y." So yes, deep sadness is also not conducive to creative activity. Happily, I am rebounded enough to the point where a.) I am training well again and showing gains in performance... I think b.) the five pounds of cortisol-beer weight I regained are starting to shed and c.) I finally thought OH, I want to WRITE again!! For we are fast approaching IMAZ, and there have been race things to speak of! Also, I have been doing lots of cooking experiments in Paleo and vegan cooking (never the two shall meet? Perhaps you never heard of RAW food) thanks to the new Cat 4 vegan cyclist boyfriend I've acquired. He's so aero. AND my new carbon fiber Felt B2 frame is too. So there's lots to talk about and get excited about. I've had well enough of the doldrums, I want to get back to what's exciting. Woot!
Firstly, let's do a Wildflower recap. This year I was clever enough to not give blood the Tuesday before the race (yep) and was nicely hydrated. My Ragnar running seemed promising, and while my bike descents were still wobble-ville central due to my rigged up 52 bike frame for my 54 bike frame body frame, I was feeling decent about it all. I was sharing a tent with my boys, Will and Dave (Dave, still recovering from his crash, was there morally supportive and providing shelter, while Will was doing the bike leg of a relay) so I felt comfy and cozy and knew I wouldn't oversleep (best part of racing with others... they will be more responsible than you.) As usual, I was feeling undertrained on the swim, but we all know I don't given an eff, because the hours of effort to shave five minutes off a swim invested elsewhere (i.e. on the bike) would return up to 20 minutes. At any rate, I'd been trying to do actual drills n' stuff, instead of the usual plop in for laps, varying up efforts, doing pulls, lalala. And I guess it helped, because even though I'd done my 1.2 miles in the pool in 37 minutes and was hoping to swing a 38 swim split, I was across the mat at 36! Dang! Respect!
Wildflower swim-bike transition is always kinda long because of the schlep from the water, so that wasn't ideal, but my bike felt extremely strong, especially compared to last year's headwindy nightmare. I did have a moment of panic where, after Nasty Grade, I was totally dehydrated and out of water, and started to think of poaching extra bottles off of passing cyclists, I was so desperate, but well planned as they are, an aid station appeared just in my moment of need and I was able to rehydrate and finish my 56 miles easy peasy. (Well... relatively easy. Not like the death march of yesteryear... I was thinking, "yeah bitches, bring on the run, it is ON!") I did pee twice, and NOT on the bike... I was not prepared to smell homeless, and found empty port-a-potties that I could hit real fast. (I do wonder about my pee race habits and if they slow me down too much, but am always afraid of not drinking enough. Oh the disgusting musings of a triathlete!)
Pee breaks and all, my ride was over in 3hrs, 33 minutes, shaving off almost a full half hour from last year's time-- BOOYAH. In and out of transition, it was time for some hot-ass trail running in the evil sun. [Side note: all the gents of Fortius coaching mused how "it's not that hot" on the run at Wildflower, and I replied, "What are you talking about? It's always AWFUL!!" and they said, "oh, well you start an hour later." DAMN YOU, SEXISM! Making me suffer for my gender. Fuck the patriarchy and their late swim wave times for women!] Despite strong efforts on the bike, I was in good shape on the run, maintaining a pretty ripping 8:30 pace along the trails at first, and then totally ate it at around mile three and got a Charley Horse in my right calf, fully flat on the ground in the dust with a crowd of concerned racers staring as I said "cramp cramp cramp! I'm ok, keep going". One dude goes, "Take your time." Eff that, holmes, this is a race! Quickly I was back up and washing my scrapes with water at the aid stations like a boss.
It was very wise that I'd snagged a Gatorade bottle and continually refilled it, because it was broiling hot and the aid stations every mile were not enough alone. I'm also pretty sure Henry and Pei were my saviors, since they gave me "as many salt tablets as I'd like", so I had Motrin and salt galore in my pack, which made me the ambulatory pharmacy of the course-- I gave some to an LA Tri Club guy and another dude who was epically cramping. I felt like the Molly Pitcher of salt and painkillers. Only way more baller.
I'd felt pretty ragged with all the hills of the run, but was able to catch all those skinny tiny fast gals on the descents, since I can attack those like a goat. I flew down one past an older triathlete gent, who said, "Woah." Hellz yeah dude, that's how I roll. It definitely paid off, because a few fast runners I thought I wouldn't catch early on I definitely passed on the downhills and never heard from again. Win! Around mile 7, I suddenly felt revived and superhuman, like I could really own this thing. A naked college boy on the trail with his bikinied girlfriend cheered me on, and I felt validated.
My friend Angela, similar to me in age category, East coastness, rad attitude and general baller status (except she's like me squared, being an actual personal trainer and faster than me by a bit) waved to me on the way back from the death march, that awful concrete descent to a turn around before the final effort, and I started the final countdown. I upped my pace after I got back up the hill, did my goat thang on that gigantor final descent, and finished as fast as I could, with a 2hr 2minute 13.1 mile run time, also nearly 30 minutes faster than last year. Yes, I basically shaved a full hour off my time. YOW. Also, for the first time, I can say I finished top 20: Angela was 15th, and I was 17th in our age group of Female 25-29. Out of 77 other women. Yes yes y'all. We ruled it. Will and David were there at the finish, yelling, "Yeah, bitches!" You know it, son!
Once again, I am faced with the information that I am better than I thought I was. And it gets tempting to think "ooo... top 20... how about... top 10? Podium?" But those girls are insane. And yet I'm still trying to get to that race weight, because I think, why not try to be the most amazing I can be? So long as I can also keep up with my career. (Because really, when I lose sight of my career is when I start focusing extra hard on my splits. Best to remember what my real job is, right??)
Anywho, after the frenzy died down, I had a little post youtube-partum bout of depression, as it's back to the drag of the usual hustle-hustle-hustle. This was then deepened by a d-bag who dumped me on the eve of my 29th birthday... "you have no sense of normalcy, have felt very isolated by your crazed weeks of pseudocelebrity, and now you are about to become 30 and no one loves you! You will die alone, and a failure. Time to drink too much beer and get malaise-y." So yes, deep sadness is also not conducive to creative activity. Happily, I am rebounded enough to the point where a.) I am training well again and showing gains in performance... I think b.) the five pounds of cortisol-beer weight I regained are starting to shed and c.) I finally thought OH, I want to WRITE again!! For we are fast approaching IMAZ, and there have been race things to speak of! Also, I have been doing lots of cooking experiments in Paleo and vegan cooking (never the two shall meet? Perhaps you never heard of RAW food) thanks to the new Cat 4 vegan cyclist boyfriend I've acquired. He's so aero. AND my new carbon fiber Felt B2 frame is too. So there's lots to talk about and get excited about. I've had well enough of the doldrums, I want to get back to what's exciting. Woot!
Firstly, let's do a Wildflower recap. This year I was clever enough to not give blood the Tuesday before the race (yep) and was nicely hydrated. My Ragnar running seemed promising, and while my bike descents were still wobble-ville central due to my rigged up 52 bike frame for my 54 bike frame body frame, I was feeling decent about it all. I was sharing a tent with my boys, Will and Dave (Dave, still recovering from his crash, was there morally supportive and providing shelter, while Will was doing the bike leg of a relay) so I felt comfy and cozy and knew I wouldn't oversleep (best part of racing with others... they will be more responsible than you.) As usual, I was feeling undertrained on the swim, but we all know I don't given an eff, because the hours of effort to shave five minutes off a swim invested elsewhere (i.e. on the bike) would return up to 20 minutes. At any rate, I'd been trying to do actual drills n' stuff, instead of the usual plop in for laps, varying up efforts, doing pulls, lalala. And I guess it helped, because even though I'd done my 1.2 miles in the pool in 37 minutes and was hoping to swing a 38 swim split, I was across the mat at 36! Dang! Respect!
Wildflower swim-bike transition is always kinda long because of the schlep from the water, so that wasn't ideal, but my bike felt extremely strong, especially compared to last year's headwindy nightmare. I did have a moment of panic where, after Nasty Grade, I was totally dehydrated and out of water, and started to think of poaching extra bottles off of passing cyclists, I was so desperate, but well planned as they are, an aid station appeared just in my moment of need and I was able to rehydrate and finish my 56 miles easy peasy. (Well... relatively easy. Not like the death march of yesteryear... I was thinking, "yeah bitches, bring on the run, it is ON!") I did pee twice, and NOT on the bike... I was not prepared to smell homeless, and found empty port-a-potties that I could hit real fast. (I do wonder about my pee race habits and if they slow me down too much, but am always afraid of not drinking enough. Oh the disgusting musings of a triathlete!)
Pee breaks and all, my ride was over in 3hrs, 33 minutes, shaving off almost a full half hour from last year's time-- BOOYAH. In and out of transition, it was time for some hot-ass trail running in the evil sun. [Side note: all the gents of Fortius coaching mused how "it's not that hot" on the run at Wildflower, and I replied, "What are you talking about? It's always AWFUL!!" and they said, "oh, well you start an hour later." DAMN YOU, SEXISM! Making me suffer for my gender. Fuck the patriarchy and their late swim wave times for women!] Despite strong efforts on the bike, I was in good shape on the run, maintaining a pretty ripping 8:30 pace along the trails at first, and then totally ate it at around mile three and got a Charley Horse in my right calf, fully flat on the ground in the dust with a crowd of concerned racers staring as I said "cramp cramp cramp! I'm ok, keep going". One dude goes, "Take your time." Eff that, holmes, this is a race! Quickly I was back up and washing my scrapes with water at the aid stations like a boss.
It was very wise that I'd snagged a Gatorade bottle and continually refilled it, because it was broiling hot and the aid stations every mile were not enough alone. I'm also pretty sure Henry and Pei were my saviors, since they gave me "as many salt tablets as I'd like", so I had Motrin and salt galore in my pack, which made me the ambulatory pharmacy of the course-- I gave some to an LA Tri Club guy and another dude who was epically cramping. I felt like the Molly Pitcher of salt and painkillers. Only way more baller.
I'd felt pretty ragged with all the hills of the run, but was able to catch all those skinny tiny fast gals on the descents, since I can attack those like a goat. I flew down one past an older triathlete gent, who said, "Woah." Hellz yeah dude, that's how I roll. It definitely paid off, because a few fast runners I thought I wouldn't catch early on I definitely passed on the downhills and never heard from again. Win! Around mile 7, I suddenly felt revived and superhuman, like I could really own this thing. A naked college boy on the trail with his bikinied girlfriend cheered me on, and I felt validated.
My friend Angela, similar to me in age category, East coastness, rad attitude and general baller status (except she's like me squared, being an actual personal trainer and faster than me by a bit) waved to me on the way back from the death march, that awful concrete descent to a turn around before the final effort, and I started the final countdown. I upped my pace after I got back up the hill, did my goat thang on that gigantor final descent, and finished as fast as I could, with a 2hr 2minute 13.1 mile run time, also nearly 30 minutes faster than last year. Yes, I basically shaved a full hour off my time. YOW. Also, for the first time, I can say I finished top 20: Angela was 15th, and I was 17th in our age group of Female 25-29. Out of 77 other women. Yes yes y'all. We ruled it. Will and David were there at the finish, yelling, "Yeah, bitches!" You know it, son!
Once again, I am faced with the information that I am better than I thought I was. And it gets tempting to think "ooo... top 20... how about... top 10? Podium?" But those girls are insane. And yet I'm still trying to get to that race weight, because I think, why not try to be the most amazing I can be? So long as I can also keep up with my career. (Because really, when I lose sight of my career is when I start focusing extra hard on my splits. Best to remember what my real job is, right??)
Friday, May 4, 2012
Ragnar, Prep for Wildflower
So it's past midnight, and tomorrow morning in the AM I have to drive up to Paso Robles with my gents, William and the injured David Gray (bike crash going fast down a curve: we are happy the clavicle is all that was hurt... clavicles are repairable, David Grays are irreplaceable.) But I wanted to write at least a little something-something.
It's time for my first TRI of the season, oh yes children, both swimming and biking AND running!! I've become a little accustomed to just to one of the multisports I hardly recall what it's like to Body Glide up my life and strip that wetsuit off and hop all soggy onto my saddle. But like everything, race day is upon me before I even know it, and I can just hope for glory. Or at least moderate glory.
Glory was attained during Ragnar a few short weekends ago, where Van #2 of the Fortius team kicked it so hard in the race nuts it was gasping for air. Firstly, everyone was chill as eff and rockingly positive in mood, and totally down to partake in Golden Road brews after our first hot and steamy Anaheim miles, and kept up the morale even after sleeping on a lawn for an hour and then getting rudely awoken by sprinklers. (I was in the van, where I wasn't sleeping but instead thinking of having to pee and listening to an overactive digestive tract.) My three legs had been shortened and Alison's had been lengthened (significantly... her last was to be 11.1 miles), and what with her lawyer job sleep depriving her all week, and her Leona 50-mile trail run coming up, I offered to swap out come lap 2 and be a mensch. Plus I was interested to see if I could bust it up on a near half marathon after little sleep and previous ass busting. Sure enough, though we just all garnered a few hours in our van nap that morning after a Denny food fest, everyone practically PRed for the race pace-wise, giving a fabulously strong finish. I was super proud to maintain an 8:32 pace for my 11.1 (WITH traffic light stops--there were at least five, and this monster hill in the middle-- wretch!!-- and frogger dodging pedestrians on the boardwalk come mile 9.5. Almost knocked over a big dude eating an ice cream cone. Shit was so real.) In the end, our team came in fourth in our division, which is rad, especially since we had a coupla snafus and only missed rank 3 by six minutes, that, had all gone swimmingly, we woulda had on lock. But no worries, we still were glorious champions (as evidenced by my learning of "We Are the Champions" on ukulele in the van, grace a my cell phone. Oh internet!) To feel like you were there, you may watch the kickass video I threw together afterwards, featuring the Gotye theme song of van 2, which played on repeat on Alison's iPad.
I do declare, I'm getting into pretty good running shape, and am kiiiiinda interested to see what's going to happen at Wildflower. Kinda. The rest of me is like, "Oh shit, I have to DO that? UUUUUGH." To review last year's travails... regard: http://hollywoodtriathlete.blogspot.com/2011/05/wildflower-long-course-epic-saga.html
Word on the street is the winds shouldn't be over 10 mph, whereas they were 30 last year (bitchass winds!) So that already should make the bike slightly less awful. Then there's the whole pint of blood not missing from my blood stream, which might be helpful as well. And I've been training according to some plans I got based on my lactate threshold with decent amounts of fidelity (one of these days I will post that)... of course my swimming's bleh, but I did my length in 37 minutes in the pool, and I'm just trying for 38 to match last year, so we're already in a good place. So what should my goal be? I have no idea. With the lack of wind and good run training, I could viably shave off a good amount of time. But for now, I'm just going to say, under 7. Maybe 6:30. Maybe better. But let's not get too cray. We all know this course is a bitch, and this is all, knock on wood, if all goes TOTALLY IDEALLY. So whatever, in the end, lez just do it.
Ok. Time to see what I haven't packed. And sleep. And keep pounding my Gatorade so I hydrate up what my time in the brewery hath taken away from me. More to come, of course. Woot woooooooot, Wildflower, year four, triathaversary!!
It's time for my first TRI of the season, oh yes children, both swimming and biking AND running!! I've become a little accustomed to just to one of the multisports I hardly recall what it's like to Body Glide up my life and strip that wetsuit off and hop all soggy onto my saddle. But like everything, race day is upon me before I even know it, and I can just hope for glory. Or at least moderate glory.
Glory was attained during Ragnar a few short weekends ago, where Van #2 of the Fortius team kicked it so hard in the race nuts it was gasping for air. Firstly, everyone was chill as eff and rockingly positive in mood, and totally down to partake in Golden Road brews after our first hot and steamy Anaheim miles, and kept up the morale even after sleeping on a lawn for an hour and then getting rudely awoken by sprinklers. (I was in the van, where I wasn't sleeping but instead thinking of having to pee and listening to an overactive digestive tract.) My three legs had been shortened and Alison's had been lengthened (significantly... her last was to be 11.1 miles), and what with her lawyer job sleep depriving her all week, and her Leona 50-mile trail run coming up, I offered to swap out come lap 2 and be a mensch. Plus I was interested to see if I could bust it up on a near half marathon after little sleep and previous ass busting. Sure enough, though we just all garnered a few hours in our van nap that morning after a Denny food fest, everyone practically PRed for the race pace-wise, giving a fabulously strong finish. I was super proud to maintain an 8:32 pace for my 11.1 (WITH traffic light stops--there were at least five, and this monster hill in the middle-- wretch!!-- and frogger dodging pedestrians on the boardwalk come mile 9.5. Almost knocked over a big dude eating an ice cream cone. Shit was so real.) In the end, our team came in fourth in our division, which is rad, especially since we had a coupla snafus and only missed rank 3 by six minutes, that, had all gone swimmingly, we woulda had on lock. But no worries, we still were glorious champions (as evidenced by my learning of "We Are the Champions" on ukulele in the van, grace a my cell phone. Oh internet!) To feel like you were there, you may watch the kickass video I threw together afterwards, featuring the Gotye theme song of van 2, which played on repeat on Alison's iPad.
I do declare, I'm getting into pretty good running shape, and am kiiiiinda interested to see what's going to happen at Wildflower. Kinda. The rest of me is like, "Oh shit, I have to DO that? UUUUUGH." To review last year's travails... regard: http://hollywoodtriathlete.blogspot.com/2011/05/wildflower-long-course-epic-saga.html
Word on the street is the winds shouldn't be over 10 mph, whereas they were 30 last year (bitchass winds!) So that already should make the bike slightly less awful. Then there's the whole pint of blood not missing from my blood stream, which might be helpful as well. And I've been training according to some plans I got based on my lactate threshold with decent amounts of fidelity (one of these days I will post that)... of course my swimming's bleh, but I did my length in 37 minutes in the pool, and I'm just trying for 38 to match last year, so we're already in a good place. So what should my goal be? I have no idea. With the lack of wind and good run training, I could viably shave off a good amount of time. But for now, I'm just going to say, under 7. Maybe 6:30. Maybe better. But let's not get too cray. We all know this course is a bitch, and this is all, knock on wood, if all goes TOTALLY IDEALLY. So whatever, in the end, lez just do it.
Ok. Time to see what I haven't packed. And sleep. And keep pounding my Gatorade so I hydrate up what my time in the brewery hath taken away from me. More to come, of course. Woot woooooooot, Wildflower, year four, triathaversary!!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
LA Marathon, looking forward, looking back.
This entry might be a tidbit epic. Let me pause and read the last ambien-scrawled entry to see what may or may not have been coherent.
Oh wow. That was a special, magical time. Can we all applaud my lack of grammatical mistakes? (I honestly don't remember writing much of that. But it sure sounds nice and poetical. And is factually accurate, on the whole.)
To recap, last season, post Vineman, I did two more long courses (aka 70.3s), Orangeman in late September and Pumpkinman in late October. Orangeman was a last minute impulse buy via active.com's doorbuster half off rate (who can resist a deeply discounted half Ironman!? Okay, maybe a lot of people, but not this girl.) When you're a budget triathlete such as myself, the allure of a long course within driving distance (a bit south of Long Beach) at half price is just too strong to eschew. So I didn't. I also, being 150lbs, said what the hey, and signed up for Athena. I of course won, because... well, there were maybe only four of us. And second place didn't finish until hours later. Same thing happened at Pumpkinman, that beautiful but brutal Nevada course. I saw only one other Athena on the course, and in the end, I won and had no one else to podium with me. That race was remarkably ill planned. There was an Olympic the same day, and all the support flaked out early, while we long coursers were getting dehydrated and bonking in the heinous 94 degree weather. My hands were completely swollen on the run, but I managed to power through, and even caught the little ladies I was chasing. Say what you will about my ass size and mass, but I sure do have some power to me. Mullers finish strong.
This whole Athena versus age group question was weighing on my mind (weighs... weight... ugh) heavily (uch, more puns) and continues to be a minor nuisance if not a mild plague on my psyche. Were it not enough to be an actress, I now have an additional bonus reason to be weight-obsessed. HOORAY! I've been working on this... the more stressed out I get, the less weight I lose, and even seem to gain it. Having cut out alcohol entirely before the LA Marathon, I lost not a single pound, and felt depressed and shitty about it. Guess what's not helpful for anything? Feeling depressed and shitty. This was also tied into a general malaise/anxiety/existential crisis, due to my lack of anything resembling a career and overall crumbling of certain things I'd grown to rely on, namely my tutoring client, some creative endeavors, and feeling shit about my wounded foot-- I appear to have gotten a bit of plantar fascitis in my left foot from some pre-Christmas marathon training with the Roadrunners, which means my heel THROBS with pain. (Wonder why I didn't update sooner? Well, when you're depressed and feel like you're encased in cement, blogging suddenly becomes an almost impossible task. I had every intention of it, but would just stare at the computer impotently, as if it were an entirely impossible task.) Depression doesn't suit me at all, but it's not something you can easily shake, and it really did take me more than a few college tries this time around. I did have a couple of cry fests that ended in me curled in a fetal ball on my bed in the middle of the day that interrupted some training. Nothing quite like going out for a run only to have to walk home sobbing five minutes later. Dignity!
I also don't really like to spread my shit around-- unless of course, ex post facto, as I am now-- so I tried not to be too much of a sad sack around other people, and did still manage to get my miles in, despite the throbbing heel and lack of pound droppage. (I am convinced this is mainly due to the unbelievable amount of stress I was experiencing... cortisol makes you hold onto bellyfat like crazy. Seriously, how else couldn't I lose weight having cut out all the alcohol calories? Nonsense.) Happily, I turned a corner shortly before race time, and started the slow climb out of that tremendous rut. No more doing distracted standup shows and then bursting into tears elsewhere, thank God. I started making plans for new creative endeavors, took measures to heal myself, take care of myself, and even got a job interview. Hi there, turn of fate! The weekend before the marathon I went home to New York for my friend's wedding, which always serves as a nice palate cleanser, and by the time I was back, I was ready to make some moves. Of course, I was pissed off by the dreadful weather forecasts, and anxious, as I've never tried to run so long so fast (doing a marathon is one thing, but doing it sub four... dag, yo.)
Saturday was raining and cold as eff, and it didn't look too promising. As mentioned in vague terms in the poetical Ambien blog, I rallied the funds to sign up for Ironman Arizona (not a budget road by any means, FYI) with our Dirty Half Dozen... Mike Ruhland, David Gray, William Hurst and Michael Wimer (as well as a few other of our pals, but we're the O.G.s) This will, of course, lead to significant further blogging adventures, as I embark on a quest to be an MDotter, not just a generic Ironman. I'm thinking with this marathon training under my belt, and my awesome dudes there to train with, I'm gonna be SO much better prepared than I was for Vineman, which I nearly fell into backwards. So, that's kinda thrilling. As it were, William, Wimer and David and I have been training in Group 4 of the Roadrunners this whole time, trying to get that sub-4 marathon. Wimer and David were smoking the finish every run, but I wasn't so sure how I'd fare. I was excited that we were all in it together, though, and excited to start our quest that will end in November in Tempe. (Oh, getting chills already! Just being there, seeing people finish, hearing that "YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!"... that is so worth the extra four hundo. Ew. I said hundo. What a douche.)
At any rate, Wimer offered up his wonderful apartment for an athlete slumber party, and we all zonked out (some of us more drugged than others... ahem, me) by around 9PM and woke up ass early to get on a 4:30 AM shuttle over to Dodgers Stadium, where we waited around and ran up and back to the bathroom a billion times, what with all the hydrating. I again had my anxious battle against my digestive system to make some moves before the race, if you know what I mean-- and I know you do-- and that ultimately worked out to a sufficient end. It was freezing cold and we all had ponchos on, prepared for the imminent rain, and our throwaway warmup gear. Slowly the sun started to appear, and slowly we saw... clear skies. And the rain which was inevitable suddenly was nowhere to be seen, and by our 7:30 start, we were running under blue skies entirely, and by the time we were looping back out of Chinatown and into Echo Park, I had to take off my poncho to let my skin breathe. (I kept it at my waist just in case the weather turned, but it turned out I didn't need it at all.)
I was so excited and thrilled by the glorious weather the running part seemed almost immaterial. I was reading a bit about Chi Running, and just thinking about the idea of that effortless running, and how your energy sort of just moves through you, and I really felt that that day. We ran out the first five miles nice and easy, never going a full 9 mph, then kicked it up as we entered East Hollywood (hi, my home!), and kicked it up more as we went along, following our perfect metronome of a pace leader, Adrian. The man is a beautiful and accurate running machine, and we swarmed him like bees to their queen. I don't think I've ever smiled so much during a race. Yes, there was fatigue, but mostly I was just taking in the empty streets, the gorgeous skies, the happy people all around me, and I felt so, so so so grateful to be there, to be able-bodied and running, and I didn't feel tired or like I was trying, even... at all. It was super zen. I was at one with the LA Marathon.
Of course my chi flow was vaguely blocked by the incredible pressing urgency of my bladder-- having to line up in our starting corral an hour before the race started, there was no last minute pee break possible, and things were getting dire. I was afraid I'd never catch up to our steady, relentless pace group if I ducked out to a port-a-potty, so when we hit that downhill on Crescent Heights, I blasted off like a rocket and kept it up through WeHo and all the way into Beverly Hills, where I, at long last, saw a vacant pee place, ran in, used my amazing ninja speed pee skills honed in college (we had girl pee races... who knew that was going to be so useful!? Or useful ever in life??) and blasted back out, seeing Adrian speed through the mass of runners, as he too had taken a break. I caught up, and felt even more stoked, as now I was happy, with the group, feeling my chi, and significantly lighter and less deeply uncomfortable. We ran through Century City and past mile 18, and I still felt totally kickass, smiling like a fool, high fiving cheerleading high schoolers alongside the route, grabbing water and keeping up my Gu schedule (I ate way less than suggested and did just fine... trying to figure out the whole nutrition thing this season.) I knew we had the dreaded hill at the VA, though I didn't really know what that meant or what to expect, but I felt good about it, and couldn't wait to be on San Vincente for those glorious last home stretch miles we'd run during practice so many early Saturday mornings.
Mile 20 came... and then mile 21... and there was the hill... and it was totally fine. Who knows what alchemy combined to make the marathon go so well... perhaps our exponential taper really did the trick, or my crazy low glycemic pasta binge the day before stored up my energy well. But mostly I'm thinking it was my turn of mood recently, and my positive outlook. Everything about that marathon was beautiful and awesome. The hill was a part of it. I floated up and felt fine. There was a photographer at the top of the hill snapping pictures of everyone looking like death and I'm looking at him like I'm five years old and just got a puppy:
By this point, I KNEW I was going to make my sub-4 time, and I was super thrilled about it. And I was doing it without feeling like utter death, which was even cooler. I was totally pumped to hit those final miles on San Vincente and, like I've been saying for the past few months, "bust a move." i.e. "I'm hoping I can keep up with the pace group the whole time and then bust a move at the last few miles." A.K.A. finish strong, Muller style. Cuz that's how I roll, with mah negative splits, holmes.
(I'll stop.)
Of course, trying to negative split on a marathon gets a little rough, and our pace group was already running 8:40s by that point, but I was all about it, and after seeing my friend Lisa Z, who said, "Wow, you're way out front here!" I felt even more rad, and started to zoom-a-zoom zoom. I caught up to my friend Nancy, who's always been wicked solid during our pace group runs and out ahead with Wimer and Dave, and then caught up to Michael, who'd been ahead of the group the entire time. Our friend Lisa, who's tiny and fast as hell, was picking up the pace too, so I tried to stick with her for the last few miles. It was starting to feel pretty ragged, and it didn't help that my Garmin was showing me to be a full half mile ahead than I was (you often pick up nearly an extra half mile on a course, just since you zigzag when getting water, etc.) My chi was less flowy, and it was battle time. I stayed with Lisa, the bunny to my greyhound, and we rounded the bend to Ocean Ave, where that finishers chute couldn't have seemed possibly more far. I was getting to that very uncomfortable place, where all you want to do is slow down, but you know you shouldn't and you can't, because this is all you've got, this last moment, and this is what it's all been for, but oh my GOD why am I not DONE yet, and is that chute getting FURTHER AWAY?? Lisa seemed to be outstripping me, as was some random other girl who I, for whatever reason, suddenly decided was my mortal enemy. Maybe because she had on headphones and I was jealous. Or that she looked effortlessly sporty in that moment. And because we had the same body type so we were basically doppelgaengers and I had to destroy her. Ya know, the usual. I was making exhausted cries like a pro tennis player with every gasp at this point, and thank God, there was one last water station before the last hurrah, so I downed a few, and then true move busting took place, and I overtook sporty doppelgaenger AND Lisa my bunny, watching that timer click on the 3:54, knowing I was going to finish two minutes faster than hoped, and crossed with great warrior victory, with Lisa coming fast behind me commending me on my crazy power swell, though I couldn't talk to her, because I thought vomiting was inevitable. According to the Garmin, I got up to a 5:22 pace-- probs for like... four seconds-- and a max heartrate of 199, so, yeah, the vomit part seems to make sense.
I didn't vomit (yay!) and was nearly too out of breath to even have my happy crying catharsis, but man, did I feel awesome. And then immediately like I was 80. I could not believe I possibly ran that long doing an average of 8:50min/miles with my last three down to 8:27, 8:06 and 7:53 respectively (and an average pace of 7:22 on that last stretch) and now literally could not walk ten feet normally. We were all hobbling around like invalids, but glorious champion invalids, and we even were given capes-- it was ridiculously windy, which, in my tunnel vision warrior state I did not notice whatsoever, and our warming blankets became victorious superhero gear that flew valiantly in the wind:
I sure look way more awesome still than I did moving... shortly after this, I climbed over a fence to get into Michael's apartment building, since security wasn't going to let us through, and it was like an octogenarian trying to be a cat burglar: worst sneaky maneuver ever. Happily no one saw me, and I hobbled up to the apartment, where we all took horrifying but beneficial 10 minute ice baths in Michael's tub. Even after the trail marathon, I don't know that I felt this sore... I was practically hauling myself around via furniture. And then when I went to take a shower and took off my compression tights, my left shoulder seized up into a Charley Horse so intensely painful I felt nauseous and nearly blacked out and had to sit down. (It would have been super awkward if I blacked out in the bathroom with no pants on. Yikes.)
Michael had invited our coterie of kickass over for a most glorious recovery celebration meal on the rooftop room next to the pool, which had a gorgeous view of the ocean and the runners trickling in below and a masseuse doing recovery rubdowns (SO BALLER.) It was the perfect end to our first major event of the season, and it was so nice to have everyone there who'd been through it all together, even Adrian, our fearless leader. Dave had run into some mega cramping issues, but was happy to have finished, and William finished at under 4:30, which he confessed was his secret realistic goal that he didn't tell anyone-- having been sick, his training was a little off. Michael finished right on my heels, having a fantastic first marathon EVER, and even slowing down to kiss babies and friends on the victory lap in (I don't kiss babies if they're on the way to the finish line, I SLAP THEM DOWN.) Okay so I don't know if Michael kissed babies, but I like that mental image. :-) Lisa, of course, had a strong race, but something went awry shortly after, so she took a catnap in the sun and recuperated. So it was a mixed bag for the group, but by the time we were all noshing on salmon and sipping our beers, everyone was feeling pretty damn good about themselves. I just felt so proud of everyone and myself and so insanely grateful to be there with my amazing, loving, generous friends. It was nearly like I was in a dream-- I'd been looking forward to this moment after, all of us together up there on the roof, looking down on Santa Monica like a set of demigods on our little mini Olympus. And there we were... all with finisher medals on, and we'd done it. We DID it. I did it... in time. Holy shit! And yes, all the crappy feelings of previous months were terrible, but suddenly I felt like, wow, I can do anything, and I just did something truly awesome, I'm a beast, I can totally do this, whatever this might be. And so sure, I do still want to get out of Athena range and see what kind of contender I could become (I have some stats to share in a later time about my conditioning... for inquiring minds and such) but I don't feel shitty about it, because I know that even with some extra weight and a bum heel, I'm a solid runner, and I can handle my business. That's a really good feeling.
So I'm focusing on the positive in every part of my life, and it's spreading like a glorious virus of joy. I'm putting up little reminders (one including the not so subtle poster: GET SHIT DONE) to get my ass in gear more effectively when at home (I like to hibernate and tend to think that watching epic amounts of TV shows on Netflix while "tidying" or cooking counts as being productive) and have started to make a training plan to get ready for the dread Wildflower long course. Next up, first, is the 200-mile Ragnar relay race, which I'm now feeling pretty good about doing my legs at an 8:45 pace... if I could do the marathon as fast as I did, I can do a six mile, two mile, and eight mile leg faster. Right? HELL YES. I like this feeling. The old weak sad crap fat feeling was so unbecoming. Happy positive and righteous Nik is what's up. Life is for the alive, so let's keep living it (said Sweeney Todd before throwing Mrs. Lovett in the oven... though it's a great quote.) It's springtime, bitches! Let's do some bricks!
More to come soon, on lactate thresholds and my Paleo process...
Oh wow. That was a special, magical time. Can we all applaud my lack of grammatical mistakes? (I honestly don't remember writing much of that. But it sure sounds nice and poetical. And is factually accurate, on the whole.)
To recap, last season, post Vineman, I did two more long courses (aka 70.3s), Orangeman in late September and Pumpkinman in late October. Orangeman was a last minute impulse buy via active.com's doorbuster half off rate (who can resist a deeply discounted half Ironman!? Okay, maybe a lot of people, but not this girl.) When you're a budget triathlete such as myself, the allure of a long course within driving distance (a bit south of Long Beach) at half price is just too strong to eschew. So I didn't. I also, being 150lbs, said what the hey, and signed up for Athena. I of course won, because... well, there were maybe only four of us. And second place didn't finish until hours later. Same thing happened at Pumpkinman, that beautiful but brutal Nevada course. I saw only one other Athena on the course, and in the end, I won and had no one else to podium with me. That race was remarkably ill planned. There was an Olympic the same day, and all the support flaked out early, while we long coursers were getting dehydrated and bonking in the heinous 94 degree weather. My hands were completely swollen on the run, but I managed to power through, and even caught the little ladies I was chasing. Say what you will about my ass size and mass, but I sure do have some power to me. Mullers finish strong.
This whole Athena versus age group question was weighing on my mind (weighs... weight... ugh) heavily (uch, more puns) and continues to be a minor nuisance if not a mild plague on my psyche. Were it not enough to be an actress, I now have an additional bonus reason to be weight-obsessed. HOORAY! I've been working on this... the more stressed out I get, the less weight I lose, and even seem to gain it. Having cut out alcohol entirely before the LA Marathon, I lost not a single pound, and felt depressed and shitty about it. Guess what's not helpful for anything? Feeling depressed and shitty. This was also tied into a general malaise/anxiety/existential crisis, due to my lack of anything resembling a career and overall crumbling of certain things I'd grown to rely on, namely my tutoring client, some creative endeavors, and feeling shit about my wounded foot-- I appear to have gotten a bit of plantar fascitis in my left foot from some pre-Christmas marathon training with the Roadrunners, which means my heel THROBS with pain. (Wonder why I didn't update sooner? Well, when you're depressed and feel like you're encased in cement, blogging suddenly becomes an almost impossible task. I had every intention of it, but would just stare at the computer impotently, as if it were an entirely impossible task.) Depression doesn't suit me at all, but it's not something you can easily shake, and it really did take me more than a few college tries this time around. I did have a couple of cry fests that ended in me curled in a fetal ball on my bed in the middle of the day that interrupted some training. Nothing quite like going out for a run only to have to walk home sobbing five minutes later. Dignity!
I also don't really like to spread my shit around-- unless of course, ex post facto, as I am now-- so I tried not to be too much of a sad sack around other people, and did still manage to get my miles in, despite the throbbing heel and lack of pound droppage. (I am convinced this is mainly due to the unbelievable amount of stress I was experiencing... cortisol makes you hold onto bellyfat like crazy. Seriously, how else couldn't I lose weight having cut out all the alcohol calories? Nonsense.) Happily, I turned a corner shortly before race time, and started the slow climb out of that tremendous rut. No more doing distracted standup shows and then bursting into tears elsewhere, thank God. I started making plans for new creative endeavors, took measures to heal myself, take care of myself, and even got a job interview. Hi there, turn of fate! The weekend before the marathon I went home to New York for my friend's wedding, which always serves as a nice palate cleanser, and by the time I was back, I was ready to make some moves. Of course, I was pissed off by the dreadful weather forecasts, and anxious, as I've never tried to run so long so fast (doing a marathon is one thing, but doing it sub four... dag, yo.)
Saturday was raining and cold as eff, and it didn't look too promising. As mentioned in vague terms in the poetical Ambien blog, I rallied the funds to sign up for Ironman Arizona (not a budget road by any means, FYI) with our Dirty Half Dozen... Mike Ruhland, David Gray, William Hurst and Michael Wimer (as well as a few other of our pals, but we're the O.G.s) This will, of course, lead to significant further blogging adventures, as I embark on a quest to be an MDotter, not just a generic Ironman. I'm thinking with this marathon training under my belt, and my awesome dudes there to train with, I'm gonna be SO much better prepared than I was for Vineman, which I nearly fell into backwards. So, that's kinda thrilling. As it were, William, Wimer and David and I have been training in Group 4 of the Roadrunners this whole time, trying to get that sub-4 marathon. Wimer and David were smoking the finish every run, but I wasn't so sure how I'd fare. I was excited that we were all in it together, though, and excited to start our quest that will end in November in Tempe. (Oh, getting chills already! Just being there, seeing people finish, hearing that "YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!"... that is so worth the extra four hundo. Ew. I said hundo. What a douche.)
At any rate, Wimer offered up his wonderful apartment for an athlete slumber party, and we all zonked out (some of us more drugged than others... ahem, me) by around 9PM and woke up ass early to get on a 4:30 AM shuttle over to Dodgers Stadium, where we waited around and ran up and back to the bathroom a billion times, what with all the hydrating. I again had my anxious battle against my digestive system to make some moves before the race, if you know what I mean-- and I know you do-- and that ultimately worked out to a sufficient end. It was freezing cold and we all had ponchos on, prepared for the imminent rain, and our throwaway warmup gear. Slowly the sun started to appear, and slowly we saw... clear skies. And the rain which was inevitable suddenly was nowhere to be seen, and by our 7:30 start, we were running under blue skies entirely, and by the time we were looping back out of Chinatown and into Echo Park, I had to take off my poncho to let my skin breathe. (I kept it at my waist just in case the weather turned, but it turned out I didn't need it at all.)
I was so excited and thrilled by the glorious weather the running part seemed almost immaterial. I was reading a bit about Chi Running, and just thinking about the idea of that effortless running, and how your energy sort of just moves through you, and I really felt that that day. We ran out the first five miles nice and easy, never going a full 9 mph, then kicked it up as we entered East Hollywood (hi, my home!), and kicked it up more as we went along, following our perfect metronome of a pace leader, Adrian. The man is a beautiful and accurate running machine, and we swarmed him like bees to their queen. I don't think I've ever smiled so much during a race. Yes, there was fatigue, but mostly I was just taking in the empty streets, the gorgeous skies, the happy people all around me, and I felt so, so so so grateful to be there, to be able-bodied and running, and I didn't feel tired or like I was trying, even... at all. It was super zen. I was at one with the LA Marathon.
Of course my chi flow was vaguely blocked by the incredible pressing urgency of my bladder-- having to line up in our starting corral an hour before the race started, there was no last minute pee break possible, and things were getting dire. I was afraid I'd never catch up to our steady, relentless pace group if I ducked out to a port-a-potty, so when we hit that downhill on Crescent Heights, I blasted off like a rocket and kept it up through WeHo and all the way into Beverly Hills, where I, at long last, saw a vacant pee place, ran in, used my amazing ninja speed pee skills honed in college (we had girl pee races... who knew that was going to be so useful!? Or useful ever in life??) and blasted back out, seeing Adrian speed through the mass of runners, as he too had taken a break. I caught up, and felt even more stoked, as now I was happy, with the group, feeling my chi, and significantly lighter and less deeply uncomfortable. We ran through Century City and past mile 18, and I still felt totally kickass, smiling like a fool, high fiving cheerleading high schoolers alongside the route, grabbing water and keeping up my Gu schedule (I ate way less than suggested and did just fine... trying to figure out the whole nutrition thing this season.) I knew we had the dreaded hill at the VA, though I didn't really know what that meant or what to expect, but I felt good about it, and couldn't wait to be on San Vincente for those glorious last home stretch miles we'd run during practice so many early Saturday mornings.
Mile 20 came... and then mile 21... and there was the hill... and it was totally fine. Who knows what alchemy combined to make the marathon go so well... perhaps our exponential taper really did the trick, or my crazy low glycemic pasta binge the day before stored up my energy well. But mostly I'm thinking it was my turn of mood recently, and my positive outlook. Everything about that marathon was beautiful and awesome. The hill was a part of it. I floated up and felt fine. There was a photographer at the top of the hill snapping pictures of everyone looking like death and I'm looking at him like I'm five years old and just got a puppy:
(I'll stop.)
Of course, trying to negative split on a marathon gets a little rough, and our pace group was already running 8:40s by that point, but I was all about it, and after seeing my friend Lisa Z, who said, "Wow, you're way out front here!" I felt even more rad, and started to zoom-a-zoom zoom. I caught up to my friend Nancy, who's always been wicked solid during our pace group runs and out ahead with Wimer and Dave, and then caught up to Michael, who'd been ahead of the group the entire time. Our friend Lisa, who's tiny and fast as hell, was picking up the pace too, so I tried to stick with her for the last few miles. It was starting to feel pretty ragged, and it didn't help that my Garmin was showing me to be a full half mile ahead than I was (you often pick up nearly an extra half mile on a course, just since you zigzag when getting water, etc.) My chi was less flowy, and it was battle time. I stayed with Lisa, the bunny to my greyhound, and we rounded the bend to Ocean Ave, where that finishers chute couldn't have seemed possibly more far. I was getting to that very uncomfortable place, where all you want to do is slow down, but you know you shouldn't and you can't, because this is all you've got, this last moment, and this is what it's all been for, but oh my GOD why am I not DONE yet, and is that chute getting FURTHER AWAY?? Lisa seemed to be outstripping me, as was some random other girl who I, for whatever reason, suddenly decided was my mortal enemy. Maybe because she had on headphones and I was jealous. Or that she looked effortlessly sporty in that moment. And because we had the same body type so we were basically doppelgaengers and I had to destroy her. Ya know, the usual. I was making exhausted cries like a pro tennis player with every gasp at this point, and thank God, there was one last water station before the last hurrah, so I downed a few, and then true move busting took place, and I overtook sporty doppelgaenger AND Lisa my bunny, watching that timer click on the 3:54, knowing I was going to finish two minutes faster than hoped, and crossed with great warrior victory, with Lisa coming fast behind me commending me on my crazy power swell, though I couldn't talk to her, because I thought vomiting was inevitable. According to the Garmin, I got up to a 5:22 pace-- probs for like... four seconds-- and a max heartrate of 199, so, yeah, the vomit part seems to make sense.
I didn't vomit (yay!) and was nearly too out of breath to even have my happy crying catharsis, but man, did I feel awesome. And then immediately like I was 80. I could not believe I possibly ran that long doing an average of 8:50min/miles with my last three down to 8:27, 8:06 and 7:53 respectively (and an average pace of 7:22 on that last stretch) and now literally could not walk ten feet normally. We were all hobbling around like invalids, but glorious champion invalids, and we even were given capes-- it was ridiculously windy, which, in my tunnel vision warrior state I did not notice whatsoever, and our warming blankets became victorious superhero gear that flew valiantly in the wind:
Michael had invited our coterie of kickass over for a most glorious recovery celebration meal on the rooftop room next to the pool, which had a gorgeous view of the ocean and the runners trickling in below and a masseuse doing recovery rubdowns (SO BALLER.) It was the perfect end to our first major event of the season, and it was so nice to have everyone there who'd been through it all together, even Adrian, our fearless leader. Dave had run into some mega cramping issues, but was happy to have finished, and William finished at under 4:30, which he confessed was his secret realistic goal that he didn't tell anyone-- having been sick, his training was a little off. Michael finished right on my heels, having a fantastic first marathon EVER, and even slowing down to kiss babies and friends on the victory lap in (I don't kiss babies if they're on the way to the finish line, I SLAP THEM DOWN.) Okay so I don't know if Michael kissed babies, but I like that mental image. :-) Lisa, of course, had a strong race, but something went awry shortly after, so she took a catnap in the sun and recuperated. So it was a mixed bag for the group, but by the time we were all noshing on salmon and sipping our beers, everyone was feeling pretty damn good about themselves. I just felt so proud of everyone and myself and so insanely grateful to be there with my amazing, loving, generous friends. It was nearly like I was in a dream-- I'd been looking forward to this moment after, all of us together up there on the roof, looking down on Santa Monica like a set of demigods on our little mini Olympus. And there we were... all with finisher medals on, and we'd done it. We DID it. I did it... in time. Holy shit! And yes, all the crappy feelings of previous months were terrible, but suddenly I felt like, wow, I can do anything, and I just did something truly awesome, I'm a beast, I can totally do this, whatever this might be. And so sure, I do still want to get out of Athena range and see what kind of contender I could become (I have some stats to share in a later time about my conditioning... for inquiring minds and such) but I don't feel shitty about it, because I know that even with some extra weight and a bum heel, I'm a solid runner, and I can handle my business. That's a really good feeling.
So I'm focusing on the positive in every part of my life, and it's spreading like a glorious virus of joy. I'm putting up little reminders (one including the not so subtle poster: GET SHIT DONE) to get my ass in gear more effectively when at home (I like to hibernate and tend to think that watching epic amounts of TV shows on Netflix while "tidying" or cooking counts as being productive) and have started to make a training plan to get ready for the dread Wildflower long course. Next up, first, is the 200-mile Ragnar relay race, which I'm now feeling pretty good about doing my legs at an 8:45 pace... if I could do the marathon as fast as I did, I can do a six mile, two mile, and eight mile leg faster. Right? HELL YES. I like this feeling. The old weak sad crap fat feeling was so unbecoming. Happy positive and righteous Nik is what's up. Life is for the alive, so let's keep living it (said Sweeney Todd before throwing Mrs. Lovett in the oven... though it's a great quote.) It's springtime, bitches! Let's do some bricks!
More to come soon, on lactate thresholds and my Paleo process...
Saturday, March 17, 2012
A sloppy, weary, hazy prelude to the Los Angeles Marathon
First of all: happy new season. I don't believe I've gotten you caught up on the denouement of the last. Perhaps that will be a goal after we kick off this season right, to catch up with time past. There were two more half ironman races, races in Athena weight, and won, but newly I'm coming to the conclusion that that is an honor I'd rather not have, and instead would like to discover how I could excel by dropping those ten pounds and upping my speed and become more of a contender in my age group.
This race is both the first and the last of some of these things. Yes, I am still Athena, though there's no weight division in the categories. We are trying to race sub 4, and I will, all with the knowledge that running that long and hard with ten fewer pounds would be a great joy. And so, I hope, and I imagine myself onward into an efforted victory, that the upcoming seasons will show more success, with less effort, and more happiness, and a slimmer self.
Why am I writing so weird? I'm on Ambien, and the page seems to be moving back and forth.
I wanted to write something before the race, something to catch you up to speed on the trials and tribulations, the victories and defeats, and most importantly, the decision to all sign up for IMAZ together. Tomorrow, Four of our crew shall enter into that battle and we shall emerge bonded for life. And then, in November, we will be all the more ready to slay that dragon within ourselves. Marathon is step one. I fear nothing. We are together, cold rain or no, and we are gonna carry each other through to victory. Here's to 2012, a year in which Nikki races WITH. The struggle lies within, the strength lies without.
This race is both the first and the last of some of these things. Yes, I am still Athena, though there's no weight division in the categories. We are trying to race sub 4, and I will, all with the knowledge that running that long and hard with ten fewer pounds would be a great joy. And so, I hope, and I imagine myself onward into an efforted victory, that the upcoming seasons will show more success, with less effort, and more happiness, and a slimmer self.
Why am I writing so weird? I'm on Ambien, and the page seems to be moving back and forth.
I wanted to write something before the race, something to catch you up to speed on the trials and tribulations, the victories and defeats, and most importantly, the decision to all sign up for IMAZ together. Tomorrow, Four of our crew shall enter into that battle and we shall emerge bonded for life. And then, in November, we will be all the more ready to slay that dragon within ourselves. Marathon is step one. I fear nothing. We are together, cold rain or no, and we are gonna carry each other through to victory. Here's to 2012, a year in which Nikki races WITH. The struggle lies within, the strength lies without.
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