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??)
Sunday, May 6, 2012
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!!
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