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??)
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