Super class with Joanna. 9min climb, 10min endurance (z2 95-105rpm), 2 x 9min as 3min endurance 3min hard climb 3min :30 sprint :30 recovery. Red zone!
Then 1hr lovely restorative yoga.
1hr spin
1hr yoga
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Spin!
It always makes me very happy to go to Joanna's spin class! Fridays this semester in general have commitments that will make it impossible (next week I'm in New Haven for a conference for instance), but I was very glad to get there today. Rode my bike down (a few weeks of not riding a bike make me dread it, but really it is very nice once I get over the hump of the first few blocks - it's not the riding I don't like, it's the part where I'm about to start!), did class, showered & ate and rode home. HR still a little higher/slower to recover than normal, but I think it's getting back to where I can do "proper" exercise again.
10mi round trip
:45 spin (2 x 9min z3/4 "climb")
10mi round trip
:45 spin (2 x 9min z3/4 "climb")
Thursday, September 26, 2013
(Short) run!
Monday through Wednesday were just overwhelming in terms of work and fatigue, and I tried to take Brent's advice to heart about respecting the recovery debt post-Ironman! Unfortunately next week I will need to be in New Haven Thursday to Sunday for a conference, and it will undoubtedly be very tiring. In the meantime, though, I am over the hump of the demanding part of this week, and I had a lovely little morning run with L., who I haven't seen since she had her baby in June! She had intimated she was running very slowly (like 13-minute miles), but really she's not any more, we did 3.35mi in 37:41. We are doing the half-marathon together in Philadelphia in November, and I'll try and get out to Prospect Park for a weekly run meetup with her in the meantime - we're shooting for Monday afternoons on a regular basis. Afterwards went back to her apt and met the baby - there is also a v impressive jogging stroller that will be called into action in coming weeks (whoever feels faster that day gets to push the stroller up the hills I think).
3.35mi, 37:41
I will do a hot yoga class later I think - I have been missing it, but have been too tired/too overscheduled to fit it in....
3.35mi, 37:41
I will do a hot yoga class later I think - I have been missing it, but have been too tired/too overscheduled to fit it in....
Monday, September 23, 2013
Not sporty
but the two funny cats now really are friends! (Jose - tabby tuxedo cat in foreground - has come to live with us on a permanent basis.)
B. rightly urges me to take time for recovery post-Ironman - it makes me feel lazy, but I am taking the day off!
B. rightly urges me to take time for recovery post-Ironman - it makes me feel lazy, but I am taking the day off!
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Run
I have a lot of work that needs to be done for tomorrow, but I also have a very hard day ahead, and it seemed clear that the best thing I could do for mental health and mood stabilization would be to use my morning time for a good run. It is beautiful weather - I did the full park loop, plus 1mi or so each way.
Week's totals: 18mi. This coming week I want to be back on a real full exercise schedule. Good rule of thumb for the semester (it is very busy, life is complicated) is a non-negotiable 6hr/week minimum, with more when I can. Will try and establish some routines - still figuring out what the shape of the week is going to look like.
c. 8mi, c. 1:26
Week's totals: 18mi. This coming week I want to be back on a real full exercise schedule. Good rule of thumb for the semester (it is very busy, life is complicated) is a non-negotiable 6hr/week minimum, with more when I can. Will try and establish some routines - still figuring out what the shape of the week is going to look like.
c. 8mi, c. 1:26
Friday, September 20, 2013
Short run
Couldn't fall asleep for ages last night, and then slept poorly and fitfully. Had set alarm for 7, with desire to run - that run I had the other day was so good for my mood, and the weather is too good to waste! Really I needed the sleep more and would have turned it off and reset, only I was awake before the alarm anyway - grumpily got up and figured that though I felt mediocre, I should run regardless. First two miles not bad but eyes burning from ragweed/lack of sleep and slightly stomachachey feeling. Stopped and used the bathroom at the 2-mile turnaround just past the Boat Basin, felt much better on way home. Definitely worthwhile. It is not a hugely demanding day, but it has a lot of moving parts - now I need to shower & get myself to 10am meeting!
4mi easy (43:00)
4mi easy (43:00)
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Best run EVER!
Running is the best, and it is the best season for running!
Crisp, cool, sunny, still, mid-50s - could there be a better day for running along the Hudson?
Now I need to get on with my day, but....
I have been coveting exercise, but it hasn't been quite feasible - very busy beginning of the semester, many daytime and evening social obligations, general fatigue post-Ironman but also the specific woes of RAGWEED ALLERGIES.
Today was the first morning I really could realistically carve out the time, but I need to get back on a regular schedule, it is too important for mood and general mental health to let it go!
You really can't hold onto all of the fitness from a big training cycle, but it's clear to me that the one thing I will make sure to keep is the 2hr run. It takes a long time to build back up to it if you lose it (it is very easily lost, in my experience - it falls victim to illness, travel, overwork, general stress, etc. etc.).
So the plan for the fall: a LOT of running; quite a bit of hot yoga; boxing and spinning as I can fit them both in. Rest of this week still very busy, I have late-night evening obligations tonight and Friday and Saturday, but I think after that it gets a bit calmer.
6mi easy on the most beautiful fall running morning ever!
1:03
Crisp, cool, sunny, still, mid-50s - could there be a better day for running along the Hudson?
Now I need to get on with my day, but....
I have been coveting exercise, but it hasn't been quite feasible - very busy beginning of the semester, many daytime and evening social obligations, general fatigue post-Ironman but also the specific woes of RAGWEED ALLERGIES.
Today was the first morning I really could realistically carve out the time, but I need to get back on a regular schedule, it is too important for mood and general mental health to let it go!
You really can't hold onto all of the fitness from a big training cycle, but it's clear to me that the one thing I will make sure to keep is the 2hr run. It takes a long time to build back up to it if you lose it (it is very easily lost, in my experience - it falls victim to illness, travel, overwork, general stress, etc. etc.).
So the plan for the fall: a LOT of running; quite a bit of hot yoga; boxing and spinning as I can fit them both in. Rest of this week still very busy, I have late-night evening obligations tonight and Friday and Saturday, but I think after that it gets a bit calmer.
6mi easy on the most beautiful fall running morning ever!
1:03
Sunday, September 15, 2013
IMWI race report
Really I have too much to say - I want to write a book about triathlon, or at least a Kindle Single or similar! But I do like race reports, and I want to write one before I have forgotten the basics.
(I have read and reread Brent's report of his experience at the same race in 2007 many times; mine will be less concise and more rambling! NB that was just weeks before I met Brent for the first time - I had been corresponding copiously with Brent and Wendy by email, having found their blogs online by virtue of my utter triathlon obsession, and I was mighty tempted to get a plane ticket to Wisconsin and join Wendy to spectate Brent's race, but it was not feasible. Brent came to NY at the end of October instead for some theatergoing and conversation, and that was the beginning of a very good new stage of my life!)
It was a lot harder than I expected. Now, that is a ridiculous thing to say: it's Ironman, of course it's hard; if it wasn't, everybody would be doing it!
The swim was much, much more challenging than I expected. It was a windy day, and there was both chop and current on the longest leg of the one-loop swim, to a degree that under other circumstances wouldn't at all have phased me - I am a confident and happy open-water swimmer, mercifully - but that meant I had to work incredibly hard for a pretty long stretch of time, with a grim sense of the toll this was taking and the consequences it would likely have for the bike.
I thought the bike ride would be both physically and mentally easier than my very hot windy last 112-mile ride in Cayman (which took me around 6:40). It wasn't - it was more physically comfortable, certainly (not so hot, and my 'real' road bike is a much better fit than the one I have in Cayman, so my hands and feet don't get so sore), but I was racing the cutoffs the entire time, and not at all sure I was going to make it.
(I had not realized the extent to which it would take absolutely perfect conditions for me to have the nice half-hour or forty-minute buffer I thought I would manage. Conditions weren't terrible, especially in the sense that it wasn't as hot as it had been the day before and would be the day after, but the wind was fairly serious on the bike as well as the swim, which significantly slowed me down, given that it's already a hilly course.)
I made the cutoff for the transition from bike to run by the skin of my teeth - really, literally, five minutes later and I wouldn't have been allowed to continue!
But once I was sitting getting changed for the run, I was in the most blissfully elevated mood, and the whole rest of the evening was perfect - I felt physically strong, my stomach was fine and I was never in any doubt that I was going to make it before the final cutoff at midnight. So in a sense the 'run' (more of a walk-jog hybrid) can be thought of as the reward for having survived the swim and the bike!
My full results are here. I'll give those numbers, then proceed in more detail through each stage of the race. (I've covered some of this in brief posts earlier in the week; apologies for repetition.)
Rankings are by division (W40-44), overall and gender (F). Here's some data on the race more generally - looks like there were 2343 finishers total.
swim: 2:04:49 (123/2412/601)
t1: 10:29 (you run up the "helix" in wetsuit, it is not a fast transition!)
bike: 8:11:13 (13.68mph) (119/2383/586)
t2: 7:44
run: 6:11:11 (14:10/mi.) (118/2306/559)
I only passed 29 people on the bike, but I passed 77 more on the run, and really I was very strong on both of those legs, just slower than I would like, especially on the bike!
130 women started in my age group, and 12 of them didn't finish: 4 didn't make the swim cutoff, 7 more didn't make the bike cutoff (this is where I almost joined them) and 1 made the swim and the bike but not the run. I was 118/118 finishers in my division, and feel very lucky to have come in on the right side of that divide. I gained more than a hundred places over the course of bike and run, which may not mean that I paced well but certainly suggests I paced less badly than others, and that I was sufficiently trained for the event!
Pre-race
Everything went pretty smoothly. I had time Friday morning after I registered and picked up my bike from Tribike Transport to drop my bike at the Trek tent for a safety inspection, which always relieves my mind pre-race. On Saturday, Brent and I had coffee with the Wimmers, who are just as delightful in person as I imagined they would be. I got to bed early on Saturday, and the whole thing was in striking contrast to my experience at the Vermont triathlon in early August, where I was way too frazzled and couldn't sleep at all the night before. It makes a big difference to be able to get there a few days beforehand, and I'm going to try and prioritize that for future high-stakes races.
The swim
It was a one-loop course in Lake Monona. The first leg was uneventful, and in fact easy enough that I thought "Gosh, they really need to make these Ironman swims harder!" Then I turned left around the red buoy at the end of the first line of buoys and had a rude awakening. There was a ton of current and chop, so that you were rising feet into the air with every stroke; it is realistic self-evaluation rather than self-praise when I say that I am a strong and relaxed open-water swimmer (slow but strong), I don't have an elegant stroke but I can swim forever at my easy pace, breathing every three strokes on alternate sides and sighting either every six or every twelve strokes depending on what's needed. I had imagined I'd be able to swim 2.4mi in 1:45 and at very easy effort levels throughout; instead I found myself breathing every two on my left side, working about as hard as I have ever worked on a swim, for close to an hour as we struggled along this stretch across to the second turn. People all around me were clinging to kayaks and buoys; there was a lot of panic. I didn't have any panic, just a grim underlying awareness that this was taking much, much longer than I had imagined, and more worryingly that I was working in zone 4 (maybe even zone 5) to a degree I had not at all anticipated! I didn't look at my watch, as I was frankly swimming as hard as I could, but I had about fifteen minutes where I worried obsessively about whether I might even be close to missing the cutoff. Once I turned around the second buoy, the swimming got a lot easier, and there were enough others still around me that it was clear we weren't right up against the cutoff. The finish itself was uneventful, but when I saw 2:05 on the clock I knew the day was going to be much more precarious in its timing than I had imagined.
(Note: I initially thought that really this meant I was undertrained on the swim, but further reflection reminded me that I had only two priorities for this Ironman training cycle. The first was to cycle at all costs and as much as possible, even at the expense of any swimming or running; the second was not to get sick. Swimming-pool chemicals are one of the two big things that really stress my lungs and immune system - the other is anxiety-triggered asthma on the bike - and really it was right that I shouldn't have done more this time round. To some extent, the fact that I was able to maintain a steady hard effort on the bike and continue to gain places on the run means on the contrary that I was sufficiently trained on the swim - trained for completion rather than for speed and freshness, but it all worked out OK.)
Here is a picture of me looking very happy to be done with the swim!
The bike
The first half of the bike was mentally agonizing. It is a "lollipop" course - you ride out to the west of Madison, then do two big clockwise loops, then ride the lollipop stick back into town. It was unpleasantly clear to me right away (my Garmin wouldn't turn on, which was annoying, so I only had actually HR data after I'd already ridden five miles and the device finally picked up a satellite) that my HR was much, much higher than it had ever been in training. There was nothing I could do to get it back down - even when I pulled back on effort, it stayed in the mid-140s, Friel zone 3. My goal had been low zone 2 for first half of the ride (cap at 135 excluding hills, then let it rise to c. 138 for second half). But it was stuck in the mid-140s; average HR for the ride came in at 146 (my cycling zone 3 is 138-48), and I had a ton of time in zone 4 and more than seems at all desirable in zone 5 (highest HR was 167, which is a few beats higher than I ever usually see in training). It was also clear from the numbers that my pace was significantly slower than I had hoped. The combination of hills and wind was devastating, and very bad for morale.
I am mentally fairly tough, and it's also a strength of mine that I have a very good feel for pacing, particularly considered in the vein of "how hard can I work now and still have that effort level be sustainable for seven more hours." But I hadn't really perused time and place of bike cutoffs closely (I have a good sense of time but a poor sense of geography), and I spent the whole first half of the ride - four hours - desperately worrying whether I was going to get pulled at the halfway mark (there are subsidiary cutoffs at various points on the bike as well as the big cutoff where you need to be into transition by 5:30).
My effort levels probably weren't that much higher than they usually would be on a long ride (i.e. my legs were very capable of doing the work, and I felt extremely strong on the hills, even late in the race), but HR still wouldn't go down. I rode as hard as I could, and stayed hydrated/fueled (I was wearing a Camelbak-style pack with a 100oz hydration bladder inside it - it had the Carborocket "333" Half-Evil, and I remixed a second set of that after picking up my special needs bag. Total consumption of fluids and calories on 8+hr bike: 200oz Half-Evil, a.k.a. 2000 calories, plus about 30oz additional water and 2 lumps of almond paste, say another 300 calories). I felt slightly queasy almost the whole time - more the queasiness of riding too close to lactate threshold than the queasiness of actual stomach distress - periodically I would burp a little and have a few minutes of feeling better, but I did actually worry at several moments whether I might throw up.
Special needs came around the halfway mark, just after the start of the second loop. The only thing I wanted was the sport drink powder - all the snacks I'd stowed seemed revolting - but I was very happy to learn that there was a full half-hour remaining before the special needs area would shut down, which meant I was further ahead of the midrange cutoff than I had feared.
The second half was actually much better mentally. I knew I had four hours and that it would be close, but I also knew that it was feasible and had a much clearer notion of exactly what I had to do. I had some good stretches of "living in the moment." I also had some ongoing stretches of negative thoughts of various kinds.
(Samples: Ugh, this is a vanity project - if I don't make that cutoff, I really will feel like I need to try again, only I can't set aside time again for 2-3 years, and I must have spent THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS on this race once you add up registration, airfare and taxis, bike transport, hotel, sundries - am I really so vanity-driven that I would spend ANOTHER THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS just to try for an "official" Ironman finish? Hmmm, but the upside if I don't make this cutoff - I always think it makes me a better advisor of my graduate students if I have failed at certain things I care about. My academic career has been really joyful and easy in all sorts of ways, when a PhD student ends a multi-year job search and seven years of work with no job offer my condolences may not ring true - but this experience really would be a disappointment of gravity, I have been working towards this for seven years at least, it matters to me a good deal! Oh, God, this is just hard - really if I get pulled at a subsidary cutoff it will be a mercy, I have HOURS more of this otherwise!)
None of the hills individually are as challenging as some I ride regularly, but it's an unrelentingly rolling course, and the wind made it much harder. Great crowd support on the steeper hills, though really I am unlikely to take my hand off handlebars to high-five anyone, especially when I am moving slowly and feel more tippable than normal!
I feel good about my cycling fitness, all things considered. I am a hugely more capable and confident rider than when I started. A high point was seeing professional triathlete Hillary Biscay blast past me on the bike (here is her race report). I've been a fan of her blog for a long time, and got to talk with her in person at the pro panel on Friday - she had asked what I'd be wearing, so that she could spot me on the course, and she yelled out something along the lines of "You work it, girl!" as she passed me. It was a lovely moment!
Around 4:30 the volunteers with the most experience are keenly aware of time running short; a helpful one said to me and the couple gentlemen I was riding near (it's a no-drafting rule, but it's hard to avoid some proximity), "You can still make it, but you need to stay focused. Fifteen miles in one hour - you can do that!" Yes, I could do that - but it was WINDY! We were riding straight into the wind, it seemed like; you'd have a brief respite, then there'd be a turn and it would be brutal headwind again.
I continued behind these other two fellows for a few minutes more, then after having pondered times and numbers called out to them, "OK, guys - we still really can make it, but it's not at all a given. If we want it, it's time to hammer. Anyone with me?"
They just kept on pedaling along, so I overtook them and HAMMERED IT for the last hour!
I passed quite a few riders here, including a couple women I saw again and chatted with on the run. It is interesting the extent to which it is mental. I mean, if you're really undertrained, your body simply won't do what your mind asks. But I was riding behind a racer in an orange shirt who I saw visibly give up. She'd been flagging on hills - I'd pass her riding up (another rider called out to me, admiringly, "You are a BEAST on the hills!," which made me have happy thoughts of Gerald Moore and his "Beast" boot camp), then she'd zoom past me riding down - she still looked very comfortable and relaxed on downhills and flats, but she almost got off on one hill, and then she did get off her bike.
It was just a small rolling hill, not a long way to the crest - I said to her (I have a bossy and comforting teacherly persona when I am racing, it is potentially annoying but also useful for some!), "Just walk it up to the top if you need to - but stay focused, we still can make this, but not if we don't keep riding strong." She did that. And then after a few more hills - it must have been half an hour of riding close to each other - I had fairly definitively passed her - out of the corner of my eye I could see her drop back and come to a halt. Her day was over, unless I am much mistaken, and I felt blessed that I have the kind of grit that really makes it not hard for me to continue when I am already working as hard as I can and feeling mediocre.
(Nothing is as hard as - I remember this moment! - coming home at 9pm the day before your tenure materials are due, after a demanding first week of fall-semester teaching, and knowing that you need to do one more full copy-edit of your book manuscript before handing in the materials by the end of the next day - counting about 18 hours to 5pm Friday and figuring you can afford six hours of sleep/break but that you need to keep up an unrelenting fast work pace in order to have time to proofread the final copy as well!)
So for the last hour, I basically just was working as hard as I could - I needed to be able to slow down for last mile, as there is a slightly less safe area as you navigate the bike path back to the hotel and have to ride up the helix - but it is a strength of mine to be able to make a very good assessment about exactly how hard that work can be, and fortunately for me it was just hard enough.
I came in at the bottom of the helix with six minutes to spare - dismounted at transition with barely five minutes left before the cutoff.
Run
After that it was all good. Stripped off socks and shoes and put cream on feet so that I wouldn't get awful blisters. Always very happy to be on my own two feet and with no worries about mechanical failure etc. I still felt a bit queasy, and my left foot was seizing up from something to do with bike cleat arrangements, so I took the first three miles slow. I had a nice chat with an older man called Gary who said, truly (we were setting off around 5:45, with 26.2mi to go and a midnight cutoff), that if we held a 15:00/mi. walking pace we'd make it. I said this to another racer, Theresa, and she said, negatively but accurately: "Barely!" So once my stomach was settled, I set out to make up the time - I was using the very simple metric (your brain doesn't function so well after these long days, but I like mental arithmetic!) that I needed to "beat the :15" - each mile needed to come in a little "earlier" against the ":15," and I would track pace based on that.
(I'd left my Garmin on the bike, I wasn't sure the battery would hold out and I also really like the simplicity of just using a regular watch.)
I had seen the smiling faces of Jenny and Mike Wimmer as I came in off the bike, and Brent was there to say hello regularly on the run course (including passing on Julie's advice about picking up the pace). My fastest pace for a segment was 11:16, my slowest was the first 3.7mi segment at 16:03. I definitely could have finished the marathon at least :20 more quickly, and possibly more than that (I think 12:00/mi. pace in some future Ironman marathon is feasible), but I wanted to play it conservatively - tripping and falling and banging yourself up, or just overdoing it so that you couldn't walk speedily any more, would be foolish! I took in calories at every aid station (gels, pretzels, coke) and my stomach really felt great in comparison the bike leg. I'd jog downhills and walk briskly the rest of the time - I got a lot of compliments on my fast walking!
I had many very pleasant bits and bobs of conversation. If all you're shooting for is an official finish and you don't mind it that you're walking, it is a lovely experience (at least if you're not feeling sick to your stomach or woozy, as many racers were!). I was in a giddy elated mood, I never had a low, I knew I was going to make it and I am really very happy doing a mix of run-walk - my lungs were rather wheezy when I ran, that was the limiter, but I felt very strong. (Zombie Apocalypse Pacing!)
Joined a little group for the last stretch, and had to talk one racer back into positive spirits and mental focus (a gel helped also), but the last stretch was celebratory, and I came in pretty safely at 16:45:26 - i.e. with almost fifteen minutes buffer, which was enough to make me confident throughout.
Brent greeted me at the finish and helped me navigate the retrieval of morning clothes bag and return to the hotel. I was still talking a mile a minute! Ate cold pizza and drank a beer - couldn't really sleep, too excited.
Elation and happiness continued through next day - everywhere you went in Madison, even the airport, people were congratulating you (I was wearing finishers shirt and wristband still) and sharing stories of volunteering and spectating. My flight was delayed and I didn't get home till almost 3am Monday, which was slightly overwhelming; this week has been a scramble, but hopefully now things are a bit more back to normal.
(Short answer to question of whether I will do another one - yes, but not for a few years, and with a flatter bike course! IMFL or IMAZ in fall 2016 or 2017, I think, depending on when I next have a semester of leave and am not trying to start or finish a book - training for Ironman is compatible with writing, but not with the obsessive kind of immersion in a single project that you need at those particular junctures. Next year: I am back to Survival of the Shawangunks, assuming I can get a spot. It is my favorite race ever! I really love the small bucolic races better than the big corporate ones - the expo at IMWI is a temple of commerce more than it is a temple of endurance sport.)
Madison is absolutely gorgeous. Thanks to Molly for taking me to the Old-Fashioned, where I had "Ironman macaroni and cheese" (tomatoes, scallions and bacon - almost all the restaurants in town had race-related specials, and we were made to feel hugely welcome); to Jordan for buying me a fancy cocktail at the gorgeous rooftop restaurant on top of the art museum and coming to say hello on the run course; to Mike and Jenny Wimmer, two friends and triathletes I've known virtually for many years now and was delighted to meet in person (so great to see their smiling faces so many places on the course!); the race organizers, for putting on what is surely the best North American Ironman race (and also one of the hardest!); the crew at TriBike transport for the amazing service, including the valet service, which means that they retrieve your bike and transition stuff for you and you don't have to worry about it at all till the next morning, which is fantastically good; to all the volunteers and other racers who made the day so special; and especially to Brent, who has encouraged me all along the way as well as answering questions that fall along a continuum from utterly foolish (which foot should I use to clip out with at intersections?) to needlessly complex (won't even go there!) with patience, knowledge and good humor!
My only great regret about this race is that Wendy wasn't there. I know she would have been there to cheer me on if it were humanly possible, and I thought of her very often over the course of the long day. I am grateful to her not just for all she taught me about swimming, though that was a huge thing too, but for her sense of the value of participating in endurance events because of what it shows you about the triumph of the human spirit! My first swim teacher in adulthood, Doug Stern, died only about six months after I first met him; and my inspiring boot camp coach, Gerald Moore, died only a month ago. They were all much in my thoughts.
There are countless others, still alive, who also helped me on my way - I think of my first personal trainer, Paulo, and my beloved NYC trainer Mark Plaisir; of swim teacher Irina and brilliant swim coach Jim Bolster; of Coach Mindy at the Running Center; of Joanna Paterson's amazing indoor cycling classes at Chelsea Piers, which helped me hugely in gaining confidence and fitness riding outdoors; of sometime triathlon training partners and fellow racers Liz and Lauren, and everyone else (Stasi, Craig!) I ever go for a run with - yoga teachers galore - I am sure I am forgetting many more.
But it is especially sharp and painful to think about those I've lost. I don't like it when people confidently impute thoughts or feelings to those who are dead, it strikes me as sentimental at best and often self-serving or even delusional - but in this case I will indulge myself by thinking about how happy Wendy and Doug and Gerald would have been that I achieved this goal I've been working towards for so long.
(I have read and reread Brent's report of his experience at the same race in 2007 many times; mine will be less concise and more rambling! NB that was just weeks before I met Brent for the first time - I had been corresponding copiously with Brent and Wendy by email, having found their blogs online by virtue of my utter triathlon obsession, and I was mighty tempted to get a plane ticket to Wisconsin and join Wendy to spectate Brent's race, but it was not feasible. Brent came to NY at the end of October instead for some theatergoing and conversation, and that was the beginning of a very good new stage of my life!)
It was a lot harder than I expected. Now, that is a ridiculous thing to say: it's Ironman, of course it's hard; if it wasn't, everybody would be doing it!
The swim was much, much more challenging than I expected. It was a windy day, and there was both chop and current on the longest leg of the one-loop swim, to a degree that under other circumstances wouldn't at all have phased me - I am a confident and happy open-water swimmer, mercifully - but that meant I had to work incredibly hard for a pretty long stretch of time, with a grim sense of the toll this was taking and the consequences it would likely have for the bike.
I thought the bike ride would be both physically and mentally easier than my very hot windy last 112-mile ride in Cayman (which took me around 6:40). It wasn't - it was more physically comfortable, certainly (not so hot, and my 'real' road bike is a much better fit than the one I have in Cayman, so my hands and feet don't get so sore), but I was racing the cutoffs the entire time, and not at all sure I was going to make it.
(I had not realized the extent to which it would take absolutely perfect conditions for me to have the nice half-hour or forty-minute buffer I thought I would manage. Conditions weren't terrible, especially in the sense that it wasn't as hot as it had been the day before and would be the day after, but the wind was fairly serious on the bike as well as the swim, which significantly slowed me down, given that it's already a hilly course.)
I made the cutoff for the transition from bike to run by the skin of my teeth - really, literally, five minutes later and I wouldn't have been allowed to continue!
But once I was sitting getting changed for the run, I was in the most blissfully elevated mood, and the whole rest of the evening was perfect - I felt physically strong, my stomach was fine and I was never in any doubt that I was going to make it before the final cutoff at midnight. So in a sense the 'run' (more of a walk-jog hybrid) can be thought of as the reward for having survived the swim and the bike!
My full results are here. I'll give those numbers, then proceed in more detail through each stage of the race. (I've covered some of this in brief posts earlier in the week; apologies for repetition.)
Rankings are by division (W40-44), overall and gender (F). Here's some data on the race more generally - looks like there were 2343 finishers total.
swim: 2:04:49 (123/2412/601)
t1: 10:29 (you run up the "helix" in wetsuit, it is not a fast transition!)
bike: 8:11:13 (13.68mph) (119/2383/586)
t2: 7:44
run: 6:11:11 (14:10/mi.) (118/2306/559)
I only passed 29 people on the bike, but I passed 77 more on the run, and really I was very strong on both of those legs, just slower than I would like, especially on the bike!
130 women started in my age group, and 12 of them didn't finish: 4 didn't make the swim cutoff, 7 more didn't make the bike cutoff (this is where I almost joined them) and 1 made the swim and the bike but not the run. I was 118/118 finishers in my division, and feel very lucky to have come in on the right side of that divide. I gained more than a hundred places over the course of bike and run, which may not mean that I paced well but certainly suggests I paced less badly than others, and that I was sufficiently trained for the event!
Pre-race
Everything went pretty smoothly. I had time Friday morning after I registered and picked up my bike from Tribike Transport to drop my bike at the Trek tent for a safety inspection, which always relieves my mind pre-race. On Saturday, Brent and I had coffee with the Wimmers, who are just as delightful in person as I imagined they would be. I got to bed early on Saturday, and the whole thing was in striking contrast to my experience at the Vermont triathlon in early August, where I was way too frazzled and couldn't sleep at all the night before. It makes a big difference to be able to get there a few days beforehand, and I'm going to try and prioritize that for future high-stakes races.
The swim
It was a one-loop course in Lake Monona. The first leg was uneventful, and in fact easy enough that I thought "Gosh, they really need to make these Ironman swims harder!" Then I turned left around the red buoy at the end of the first line of buoys and had a rude awakening. There was a ton of current and chop, so that you were rising feet into the air with every stroke; it is realistic self-evaluation rather than self-praise when I say that I am a strong and relaxed open-water swimmer (slow but strong), I don't have an elegant stroke but I can swim forever at my easy pace, breathing every three strokes on alternate sides and sighting either every six or every twelve strokes depending on what's needed. I had imagined I'd be able to swim 2.4mi in 1:45 and at very easy effort levels throughout; instead I found myself breathing every two on my left side, working about as hard as I have ever worked on a swim, for close to an hour as we struggled along this stretch across to the second turn. People all around me were clinging to kayaks and buoys; there was a lot of panic. I didn't have any panic, just a grim underlying awareness that this was taking much, much longer than I had imagined, and more worryingly that I was working in zone 4 (maybe even zone 5) to a degree I had not at all anticipated! I didn't look at my watch, as I was frankly swimming as hard as I could, but I had about fifteen minutes where I worried obsessively about whether I might even be close to missing the cutoff. Once I turned around the second buoy, the swimming got a lot easier, and there were enough others still around me that it was clear we weren't right up against the cutoff. The finish itself was uneventful, but when I saw 2:05 on the clock I knew the day was going to be much more precarious in its timing than I had imagined.
(Note: I initially thought that really this meant I was undertrained on the swim, but further reflection reminded me that I had only two priorities for this Ironman training cycle. The first was to cycle at all costs and as much as possible, even at the expense of any swimming or running; the second was not to get sick. Swimming-pool chemicals are one of the two big things that really stress my lungs and immune system - the other is anxiety-triggered asthma on the bike - and really it was right that I shouldn't have done more this time round. To some extent, the fact that I was able to maintain a steady hard effort on the bike and continue to gain places on the run means on the contrary that I was sufficiently trained on the swim - trained for completion rather than for speed and freshness, but it all worked out OK.)
Here is a picture of me looking very happy to be done with the swim!
The bike
The first half of the bike was mentally agonizing. It is a "lollipop" course - you ride out to the west of Madison, then do two big clockwise loops, then ride the lollipop stick back into town. It was unpleasantly clear to me right away (my Garmin wouldn't turn on, which was annoying, so I only had actually HR data after I'd already ridden five miles and the device finally picked up a satellite) that my HR was much, much higher than it had ever been in training. There was nothing I could do to get it back down - even when I pulled back on effort, it stayed in the mid-140s, Friel zone 3. My goal had been low zone 2 for first half of the ride (cap at 135 excluding hills, then let it rise to c. 138 for second half). But it was stuck in the mid-140s; average HR for the ride came in at 146 (my cycling zone 3 is 138-48), and I had a ton of time in zone 4 and more than seems at all desirable in zone 5 (highest HR was 167, which is a few beats higher than I ever usually see in training). It was also clear from the numbers that my pace was significantly slower than I had hoped. The combination of hills and wind was devastating, and very bad for morale.
I am mentally fairly tough, and it's also a strength of mine that I have a very good feel for pacing, particularly considered in the vein of "how hard can I work now and still have that effort level be sustainable for seven more hours." But I hadn't really perused time and place of bike cutoffs closely (I have a good sense of time but a poor sense of geography), and I spent the whole first half of the ride - four hours - desperately worrying whether I was going to get pulled at the halfway mark (there are subsidiary cutoffs at various points on the bike as well as the big cutoff where you need to be into transition by 5:30).
My effort levels probably weren't that much higher than they usually would be on a long ride (i.e. my legs were very capable of doing the work, and I felt extremely strong on the hills, even late in the race), but HR still wouldn't go down. I rode as hard as I could, and stayed hydrated/fueled (I was wearing a Camelbak-style pack with a 100oz hydration bladder inside it - it had the Carborocket "333" Half-Evil, and I remixed a second set of that after picking up my special needs bag. Total consumption of fluids and calories on 8+hr bike: 200oz Half-Evil, a.k.a. 2000 calories, plus about 30oz additional water and 2 lumps of almond paste, say another 300 calories). I felt slightly queasy almost the whole time - more the queasiness of riding too close to lactate threshold than the queasiness of actual stomach distress - periodically I would burp a little and have a few minutes of feeling better, but I did actually worry at several moments whether I might throw up.
Special needs came around the halfway mark, just after the start of the second loop. The only thing I wanted was the sport drink powder - all the snacks I'd stowed seemed revolting - but I was very happy to learn that there was a full half-hour remaining before the special needs area would shut down, which meant I was further ahead of the midrange cutoff than I had feared.
The second half was actually much better mentally. I knew I had four hours and that it would be close, but I also knew that it was feasible and had a much clearer notion of exactly what I had to do. I had some good stretches of "living in the moment." I also had some ongoing stretches of negative thoughts of various kinds.
(Samples: Ugh, this is a vanity project - if I don't make that cutoff, I really will feel like I need to try again, only I can't set aside time again for 2-3 years, and I must have spent THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS on this race once you add up registration, airfare and taxis, bike transport, hotel, sundries - am I really so vanity-driven that I would spend ANOTHER THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS just to try for an "official" Ironman finish? Hmmm, but the upside if I don't make this cutoff - I always think it makes me a better advisor of my graduate students if I have failed at certain things I care about. My academic career has been really joyful and easy in all sorts of ways, when a PhD student ends a multi-year job search and seven years of work with no job offer my condolences may not ring true - but this experience really would be a disappointment of gravity, I have been working towards this for seven years at least, it matters to me a good deal! Oh, God, this is just hard - really if I get pulled at a subsidary cutoff it will be a mercy, I have HOURS more of this otherwise!)
None of the hills individually are as challenging as some I ride regularly, but it's an unrelentingly rolling course, and the wind made it much harder. Great crowd support on the steeper hills, though really I am unlikely to take my hand off handlebars to high-five anyone, especially when I am moving slowly and feel more tippable than normal!
I feel good about my cycling fitness, all things considered. I am a hugely more capable and confident rider than when I started. A high point was seeing professional triathlete Hillary Biscay blast past me on the bike (here is her race report). I've been a fan of her blog for a long time, and got to talk with her in person at the pro panel on Friday - she had asked what I'd be wearing, so that she could spot me on the course, and she yelled out something along the lines of "You work it, girl!" as she passed me. It was a lovely moment!
Around 4:30 the volunteers with the most experience are keenly aware of time running short; a helpful one said to me and the couple gentlemen I was riding near (it's a no-drafting rule, but it's hard to avoid some proximity), "You can still make it, but you need to stay focused. Fifteen miles in one hour - you can do that!" Yes, I could do that - but it was WINDY! We were riding straight into the wind, it seemed like; you'd have a brief respite, then there'd be a turn and it would be brutal headwind again.
I continued behind these other two fellows for a few minutes more, then after having pondered times and numbers called out to them, "OK, guys - we still really can make it, but it's not at all a given. If we want it, it's time to hammer. Anyone with me?"
They just kept on pedaling along, so I overtook them and HAMMERED IT for the last hour!
I passed quite a few riders here, including a couple women I saw again and chatted with on the run. It is interesting the extent to which it is mental. I mean, if you're really undertrained, your body simply won't do what your mind asks. But I was riding behind a racer in an orange shirt who I saw visibly give up. She'd been flagging on hills - I'd pass her riding up (another rider called out to me, admiringly, "You are a BEAST on the hills!," which made me have happy thoughts of Gerald Moore and his "Beast" boot camp), then she'd zoom past me riding down - she still looked very comfortable and relaxed on downhills and flats, but she almost got off on one hill, and then she did get off her bike.
It was just a small rolling hill, not a long way to the crest - I said to her (I have a bossy and comforting teacherly persona when I am racing, it is potentially annoying but also useful for some!), "Just walk it up to the top if you need to - but stay focused, we still can make this, but not if we don't keep riding strong." She did that. And then after a few more hills - it must have been half an hour of riding close to each other - I had fairly definitively passed her - out of the corner of my eye I could see her drop back and come to a halt. Her day was over, unless I am much mistaken, and I felt blessed that I have the kind of grit that really makes it not hard for me to continue when I am already working as hard as I can and feeling mediocre.
(Nothing is as hard as - I remember this moment! - coming home at 9pm the day before your tenure materials are due, after a demanding first week of fall-semester teaching, and knowing that you need to do one more full copy-edit of your book manuscript before handing in the materials by the end of the next day - counting about 18 hours to 5pm Friday and figuring you can afford six hours of sleep/break but that you need to keep up an unrelenting fast work pace in order to have time to proofread the final copy as well!)
So for the last hour, I basically just was working as hard as I could - I needed to be able to slow down for last mile, as there is a slightly less safe area as you navigate the bike path back to the hotel and have to ride up the helix - but it is a strength of mine to be able to make a very good assessment about exactly how hard that work can be, and fortunately for me it was just hard enough.
I came in at the bottom of the helix with six minutes to spare - dismounted at transition with barely five minutes left before the cutoff.
Run
After that it was all good. Stripped off socks and shoes and put cream on feet so that I wouldn't get awful blisters. Always very happy to be on my own two feet and with no worries about mechanical failure etc. I still felt a bit queasy, and my left foot was seizing up from something to do with bike cleat arrangements, so I took the first three miles slow. I had a nice chat with an older man called Gary who said, truly (we were setting off around 5:45, with 26.2mi to go and a midnight cutoff), that if we held a 15:00/mi. walking pace we'd make it. I said this to another racer, Theresa, and she said, negatively but accurately: "Barely!" So once my stomach was settled, I set out to make up the time - I was using the very simple metric (your brain doesn't function so well after these long days, but I like mental arithmetic!) that I needed to "beat the :15" - each mile needed to come in a little "earlier" against the ":15," and I would track pace based on that.
(I'd left my Garmin on the bike, I wasn't sure the battery would hold out and I also really like the simplicity of just using a regular watch.)
I had seen the smiling faces of Jenny and Mike Wimmer as I came in off the bike, and Brent was there to say hello regularly on the run course (including passing on Julie's advice about picking up the pace). My fastest pace for a segment was 11:16, my slowest was the first 3.7mi segment at 16:03. I definitely could have finished the marathon at least :20 more quickly, and possibly more than that (I think 12:00/mi. pace in some future Ironman marathon is feasible), but I wanted to play it conservatively - tripping and falling and banging yourself up, or just overdoing it so that you couldn't walk speedily any more, would be foolish! I took in calories at every aid station (gels, pretzels, coke) and my stomach really felt great in comparison the bike leg. I'd jog downhills and walk briskly the rest of the time - I got a lot of compliments on my fast walking!
I had many very pleasant bits and bobs of conversation. If all you're shooting for is an official finish and you don't mind it that you're walking, it is a lovely experience (at least if you're not feeling sick to your stomach or woozy, as many racers were!). I was in a giddy elated mood, I never had a low, I knew I was going to make it and I am really very happy doing a mix of run-walk - my lungs were rather wheezy when I ran, that was the limiter, but I felt very strong. (Zombie Apocalypse Pacing!)
Joined a little group for the last stretch, and had to talk one racer back into positive spirits and mental focus (a gel helped also), but the last stretch was celebratory, and I came in pretty safely at 16:45:26 - i.e. with almost fifteen minutes buffer, which was enough to make me confident throughout.
Brent greeted me at the finish and helped me navigate the retrieval of morning clothes bag and return to the hotel. I was still talking a mile a minute! Ate cold pizza and drank a beer - couldn't really sleep, too excited.
Elation and happiness continued through next day - everywhere you went in Madison, even the airport, people were congratulating you (I was wearing finishers shirt and wristband still) and sharing stories of volunteering and spectating. My flight was delayed and I didn't get home till almost 3am Monday, which was slightly overwhelming; this week has been a scramble, but hopefully now things are a bit more back to normal.
(Short answer to question of whether I will do another one - yes, but not for a few years, and with a flatter bike course! IMFL or IMAZ in fall 2016 or 2017, I think, depending on when I next have a semester of leave and am not trying to start or finish a book - training for Ironman is compatible with writing, but not with the obsessive kind of immersion in a single project that you need at those particular junctures. Next year: I am back to Survival of the Shawangunks, assuming I can get a spot. It is my favorite race ever! I really love the small bucolic races better than the big corporate ones - the expo at IMWI is a temple of commerce more than it is a temple of endurance sport.)
Madison is absolutely gorgeous. Thanks to Molly for taking me to the Old-Fashioned, where I had "Ironman macaroni and cheese" (tomatoes, scallions and bacon - almost all the restaurants in town had race-related specials, and we were made to feel hugely welcome); to Jordan for buying me a fancy cocktail at the gorgeous rooftop restaurant on top of the art museum and coming to say hello on the run course; to Mike and Jenny Wimmer, two friends and triathletes I've known virtually for many years now and was delighted to meet in person (so great to see their smiling faces so many places on the course!); the race organizers, for putting on what is surely the best North American Ironman race (and also one of the hardest!); the crew at TriBike transport for the amazing service, including the valet service, which means that they retrieve your bike and transition stuff for you and you don't have to worry about it at all till the next morning, which is fantastically good; to all the volunteers and other racers who made the day so special; and especially to Brent, who has encouraged me all along the way as well as answering questions that fall along a continuum from utterly foolish (which foot should I use to clip out with at intersections?) to needlessly complex (won't even go there!) with patience, knowledge and good humor!
My only great regret about this race is that Wendy wasn't there. I know she would have been there to cheer me on if it were humanly possible, and I thought of her very often over the course of the long day. I am grateful to her not just for all she taught me about swimming, though that was a huge thing too, but for her sense of the value of participating in endurance events because of what it shows you about the triumph of the human spirit! My first swim teacher in adulthood, Doug Stern, died only about six months after I first met him; and my inspiring boot camp coach, Gerald Moore, died only a month ago. They were all much in my thoughts.
There are countless others, still alive, who also helped me on my way - I think of my first personal trainer, Paulo, and my beloved NYC trainer Mark Plaisir; of swim teacher Irina and brilliant swim coach Jim Bolster; of Coach Mindy at the Running Center; of Joanna Paterson's amazing indoor cycling classes at Chelsea Piers, which helped me hugely in gaining confidence and fitness riding outdoors; of sometime triathlon training partners and fellow racers Liz and Lauren, and everyone else (Stasi, Craig!) I ever go for a run with - yoga teachers galore - I am sure I am forgetting many more.
But it is especially sharp and painful to think about those I've lost. I don't like it when people confidently impute thoughts or feelings to those who are dead, it strikes me as sentimental at best and often self-serving or even delusional - but in this case I will indulge myself by thinking about how happy Wendy and Doug and Gerald would have been that I achieved this goal I've been working towards for so long.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Marking the occasion
(As I wait for Garmin data to transfer....)
I have been coveting one of these necklaces for a very long time, ever since I first saw them. They are made by the lovely Renee Frances, a friend of friends Liz and Nico. Now I have actually purchased the one with the purple seat! Really I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the actual bicycle, but I think this will be a nice little token....
I have been coveting one of these necklaces for a very long time, ever since I first saw them. They are made by the lovely Renee Frances, a friend of friends Liz and Nico. Now I have actually purchased the one with the purple seat! Really I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the actual bicycle, but I think this will be a nice little token....
Spin!
Gosh, tiring week. I went to Joanna's spin class for a recovery ride - legs feel very good (aside from some very painful chafing on inner left thigh - the curse of the fleshy triathlete!), but body/HR are clearly exhausted. It was way too easy to spike the HR way up, so I stopped doing work intervals and just rode easy in zone 2.
I thought I might write my race report this afternoon, but probably a nap is a higher priority. I need to recharge my Garmin before I can get data off it - it really is an imperfect device.
:45 spin
I thought I might write my race report this afternoon, but probably a nap is a higher priority. I need to recharge my Garmin before I can get data off it - it really is an imperfect device.
:45 spin
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
One more thought
(though really I need to get off the computer, go to bed and go to SLEEP so that I can finish preparing for class in the morning!)
130 racers started in my age group (W40-44). I am putting together data from a couple different sources, so it's not guaranteed accurate, but it looks to me like 4 didn't make the swim cutoff, 7 made the swim cutoff but not the bike cutoff, and 1 made the swim and bike but not the run. I am a lucky woman - I was 118/118 in the division!
(I am laughing, I said several times over the summer that if less than 10% in my age group didn't finish, I would be OK, but that if weather conditions tipped it up to 12% I would be in trouble! I was correct - that is the utility of doing a race like the Syracuse 70.3 which had related conditions on bike course and in terms of constituency/cohort.)
130 racers started in my age group (W40-44). I am putting together data from a couple different sources, so it's not guaranteed accurate, but it looks to me like 4 didn't make the swim cutoff, 7 made the swim cutoff but not the bike cutoff, and 1 made the swim and bike but not the run. I am a lucky woman - I was 118/118 in the division!
(I am laughing, I said several times over the summer that if less than 10% in my age group didn't finish, I would be OK, but that if weather conditions tipped it up to 12% I would be in trouble! I was correct - that is the utility of doing a race like the Syracuse 70.3 which had related conditions on bike course and in terms of constituency/cohort.)
Monday, September 9, 2013
Quick thoughts from airport
Will probably wait to write full race report till I'm through with this week of teaching. Normal life has been on hold! But I am just now looking at my race results, with detailed splits and rankings.
I didn't pace well on HR/effort - I couldn't afford to. A good stretch of the swim was so rough that I was truly swimming as hard as I could just to move forward - normally I swim at a lovely easy pace in this sort of race, one that I can maintain forever (I like the bilateral breathing because it reminds you of the way swimming is like a waltz - I sight every 6 or every 12 strokes, depending on conditions, after breathing on the left side). But it was so choppy that it wasn't just that you couldn't breathe on the right without taking in water and air in unwanted combinations - I had to move into absolute utmost power swiping, breathing every two and coming up and sort of plunging back into the water on pretty much every stroke. I can feel a lot of muscles in my shoulders and chest that I don't usually use swimming much, but the more worrisome part was the "burning of matches" - the grim mood in which I spent a good part of the swim wasn't to do with the physical sensation (I find that kind of swimming exhilarating, and if it had been a standalone race I would have had a huge grin on my face, so I am lucky that way - many others were panicking and clinging to kayaks, even very strong swimmers), it was due to the knowledge that this swim was taking much, much more out of me than I had imagined. Fortunately all was well, but my HR really never went back down afterwards.
But the rankings on each leg are another way of thinking about pacing, and there I really do think that I trained as well as I could. (My limiter is the tendency to respiratory ailments - after having had countless interruptions to training and racing over the years, including not being able to race IMCDA due to bad bronchitis, I cut back on anything that I thought was risky [pool chemicals are a trigger for instance] and focused on cycling.) If you are very fast in one sport and not in the others, then this does not apply, but one way of thinking about pacing is to say that you want to gain rather than lose places as the day proceeds. You may not have paced well, but you have paced more wisely than others! And the numbers really paint a good picture - of course really I am a stronger runner than swimmer or cyclist, but it's still good, I am happy looking at it.
division/overall/gender
swim: 123/2412/601
bike: 119/2383/586
run: 118/2306/559
[ED. Post corrected for typos - clearly I am more tired than I realize, usually I don't proofread and it comes out fine!]
I didn't pace well on HR/effort - I couldn't afford to. A good stretch of the swim was so rough that I was truly swimming as hard as I could just to move forward - normally I swim at a lovely easy pace in this sort of race, one that I can maintain forever (I like the bilateral breathing because it reminds you of the way swimming is like a waltz - I sight every 6 or every 12 strokes, depending on conditions, after breathing on the left side). But it was so choppy that it wasn't just that you couldn't breathe on the right without taking in water and air in unwanted combinations - I had to move into absolute utmost power swiping, breathing every two and coming up and sort of plunging back into the water on pretty much every stroke. I can feel a lot of muscles in my shoulders and chest that I don't usually use swimming much, but the more worrisome part was the "burning of matches" - the grim mood in which I spent a good part of the swim wasn't to do with the physical sensation (I find that kind of swimming exhilarating, and if it had been a standalone race I would have had a huge grin on my face, so I am lucky that way - many others were panicking and clinging to kayaks, even very strong swimmers), it was due to the knowledge that this swim was taking much, much more out of me than I had imagined. Fortunately all was well, but my HR really never went back down afterwards.
But the rankings on each leg are another way of thinking about pacing, and there I really do think that I trained as well as I could. (My limiter is the tendency to respiratory ailments - after having had countless interruptions to training and racing over the years, including not being able to race IMCDA due to bad bronchitis, I cut back on anything that I thought was risky [pool chemicals are a trigger for instance] and focused on cycling.) If you are very fast in one sport and not in the others, then this does not apply, but one way of thinking about pacing is to say that you want to gain rather than lose places as the day proceeds. You may not have paced well, but you have paced more wisely than others! And the numbers really paint a good picture - of course really I am a stronger runner than swimmer or cyclist, but it's still good, I am happy looking at it.
division/overall/gender
swim: 123/2412/601
bike: 119/2383/586
run: 118/2306/559
[ED. Post corrected for typos - clearly I am more tired than I realize, usually I don't proofread and it comes out fine!]
I got it!
Just a very quick update - I need to eat and drink things and start winding down. A hard day out there - wind made both swim and bike significantly tougher than I expected - but once I made the bike cutoff I felt great and I knew I could walk/jog the marathon before midnight. 11:45pm finish (i.e. 16:45 elapsed duration), though Athlete Tracker is down and I don't have exact details. Zombie Apocalypse Pacing worked extremely well, and Madison is a beautiful town.
Fuller report to follow, possibly from airport tomorrow afternoon but more responsibly on Wednesday evening after I frenetically catch up on the start of the school year & teach my Tues. and Wed. classes!
(Special thanks to Brent for serving as local digital town crier re: news of my movements on the course.)
Fuller report to follow, possibly from airport tomorrow afternoon but more responsibly on Wednesday evening after I frenetically catch up on the start of the school year & teach my Tues. and Wed. classes!
(Special thanks to Brent for serving as local digital town crier re: news of my movements on the course.)
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Friday, September 6, 2013
Dateline: Madison
Nothing much to report - Madison is beautiful, B. is here now too, I am registered & have retrieved things and will drop off bike and gear in the late morning tomorrow (still need the long complicated session of sorting out and packing bags). I am less nervous than I expected; I have prepared as well as I could, and I have a good shot at an extremely enjoyable day on Sunday!
(I am convinced that the bike ride, though it will have stretches of mental lowness, won't be nearly as tough as the last long one I did in Cayman.)
Also: this gets my vote for most inappropriately named product spotted at the expo!
(I am convinced that the bike ride, though it will have stretches of mental lowness, won't be nearly as tough as the last long one I did in Cayman.)
Also: this gets my vote for most inappropriately named product spotted at the expo!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Zombie apocalypse pacing!
Actually this was just a normal run - what a pleasure, it's only 75F, though still grotesquely humid (90% when I checked before I left) and subjectively warm while running. Four easy miles (low zone 2 on feel), 32:00, c. 10:30 pace. Felt extremely strong and fit (taper finally working beneficially rather than just producing overwhelming fatigue?); looking forward to doing a LOT of running this fall. It is the best season for running; as temperatures get cooler, you get faster regardless of fitness gains! I am going to run short, long, fast, slow and mostly just OFTEN. It will be great!
I was amusing myself on long treadmill runs in Cayman by contemplating the notion of Zombie Apocalypse Pacing. (ZAP!) The point about zombie apocalypse pacing is that zombies in your near vicinity top out at 4mph and will be unlikely to catch you if you are sensible; but you are going to have to keep outrunning them for 26.2 miles, so you can only run 5mph (12:00 pace) for the first couple hours if it's not going to cause your pace in last 10mi to drop below 15:00 miles. Otherwise you will be eaten by zombies!
Also (really I just like the sound of this sentence, but it is true): I am used to racing the kind of triathlon where all your stuff is dumped in one pile by your bicycle. I do not have unguent redundancy! I only have one Tri-Slide and one chamois cream. I think I have to find some single-use ones (I may actually have some of these around if I dig, they are the kind of thing you get at race giveaways), or else hit the tri store or race expo and stock up on big ones - I need them for morning swim bag, swim to bike transition, bike special needs, bike to run transition and run special needs (or waist pack). That blister on the bottom of my fourth right toe is still bugging me when I run, despite attempts at foot care - I definitely need to change socks in the bike-to-run transition and put some cream on feet and more particularly lubricate that spot.
Off shortly to teach my first seminar of the semester. It is a hyperactive week - first lecture tomorrow, then fly to Madison Thursday!
4mi easy!
I was amusing myself on long treadmill runs in Cayman by contemplating the notion of Zombie Apocalypse Pacing. (ZAP!) The point about zombie apocalypse pacing is that zombies in your near vicinity top out at 4mph and will be unlikely to catch you if you are sensible; but you are going to have to keep outrunning them for 26.2 miles, so you can only run 5mph (12:00 pace) for the first couple hours if it's not going to cause your pace in last 10mi to drop below 15:00 miles. Otherwise you will be eaten by zombies!
Also (really I just like the sound of this sentence, but it is true): I am used to racing the kind of triathlon where all your stuff is dumped in one pile by your bicycle. I do not have unguent redundancy! I only have one Tri-Slide and one chamois cream. I think I have to find some single-use ones (I may actually have some of these around if I dig, they are the kind of thing you get at race giveaways), or else hit the tri store or race expo and stock up on big ones - I need them for morning swim bag, swim to bike transition, bike special needs, bike to run transition and run special needs (or waist pack). That blister on the bottom of my fourth right toe is still bugging me when I run, despite attempts at foot care - I definitely need to change socks in the bike-to-run transition and put some cream on feet and more particularly lubricate that spot.
Off shortly to teach my first seminar of the semester. It is a hyperactive week - first lecture tomorrow, then fly to Madison Thursday!
4mi easy!
Monday, September 2, 2013
Hot yoga!
Ran into friend and sometime training partner C. late Friday afternoon and arranged to meet up for hot yoga this morning. First part was GRUESOMELY warm and humid, I felt quite queasy and had to sit down for a good stretch - in the mid-class transition, I moved my mat over to the window, which was cracked open a bit, and the second half (always more manageable in any case because you are lying down rather than standing) was much better.
(I had another LONG SLEEP last night, and am beginning to feel as though actually the rest time is doing me some good! It is a very long time, I realize, since I have really tapered for a race - over the last few years, I've been "participating" more than racing with a goal, and for instance the way I made up my schedule for this summer I was "training through" rather than tapering for all my races, then having a recovery week following the race. My dim memory of tapering for marathons is that you feel annoyingly full of energy, in a bouncing-off-the-walls kind of way - but I guess it makes sense that with much higher-volume triathlon training, the first stretch of the taper is more fatigued and less bouncy. I didn't run last night - it was the grotesque humidity and feeling of inertia - instead I went to bed at 8:30, with the help of half a sleeping pill, and slept for over twelve hours!)
It's finally started raining, but not the dramatic thunderstorms promised. I wish the air would clear! First day of classes tomorrow, rest of day will now be spent tidying up and preparing for Tuesday and Wednesday class, plus getting some more packing done for Thursday travels.
1.5hr hot yoga
(I had another LONG SLEEP last night, and am beginning to feel as though actually the rest time is doing me some good! It is a very long time, I realize, since I have really tapered for a race - over the last few years, I've been "participating" more than racing with a goal, and for instance the way I made up my schedule for this summer I was "training through" rather than tapering for all my races, then having a recovery week following the race. My dim memory of tapering for marathons is that you feel annoyingly full of energy, in a bouncing-off-the-walls kind of way - but I guess it makes sense that with much higher-volume triathlon training, the first stretch of the taper is more fatigued and less bouncy. I didn't run last night - it was the grotesque humidity and feeling of inertia - instead I went to bed at 8:30, with the help of half a sleeping pill, and slept for over twelve hours!)
It's finally started raining, but not the dramatic thunderstorms promised. I wish the air would clear! First day of classes tomorrow, rest of day will now be spent tidying up and preparing for Tuesday and Wednesday class, plus getting some more packing done for Thursday travels.
1.5hr hot yoga
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