Well, if by "sensational" you mean, "sensationally incompetent." But I did finish the Danskin tri, and I wasn't even the last one to do so. Click OPEN WIDE for race report.
I knew I wasn't prepared to do the full event...especially the swim but I wasn't so hot on the run either. My 4 month training plan didn't really work out, so I went into this thing with absolutely no expectations.
This tri weekend was full of fiascos from start to finish. First off, the packet pickup on Saturday had a hard-close time of 3:00 pm. We live about 2 1/2 hours' drive from the site, so absolutely had to be on the road by noon at the latest. Still, I thought that keeping the beginner "field trip" ride on the schedule would be manageable. After all, it's only 24 miles, it starts at 7:30...even if it's the worst ride ever, it'll be done by 10:30, right? Besides, I had missed leading the last two field trips because both my trips to WI fell over the first Saturday of the month, so I was feeling a little guilty asking someone else to lead yet another one.
So of course, it was the worst ride ever. One girl had two flats in the first 6 miles, we ran out of flat-changing gear, everyone turned around at the 8 mile mark and I flatted on the way back as well. Then I sat on an anthill while waiting for the others to come back with the truck, and ended up with half a dozen ant bites on my ass. Woo! We (a triathlete friend--E.--went with me) were still out of town by 11:30, but it was with extremely-rushed last minute packing and a flat rear tire on my bike.
We got to the packet pickup at around 2:00, which was plenty of time. The pickup went smoothly, as did the bike drop-off (I did a field-change of the rear tube in the parking lot, since the bikes had to be dropped off by 4:00 that afternoon). We stopped at a bike shop and picked up some flat supplies, then headed to the hotel. After a little bit of confusion about which exit to take (the guy who answered the 800 number had some trouble differentiating between "north" and "south"), we got there, got checked in, prepared our transition bags and relaxed a bit before dinner. Then we had dinner with one of E's friends, and turned in early. I was beginning to think that things were going to be okay.
Bright and early Sunday morning, we gathered our tri stuff and headed out of the hotel an hour before the transition area closed. Plenty of time, right? Well, yes, if there hadn't been a line of cars a mile long going into the parking area, and only 5 shuttles to the transition area to transport ~2500 racers and all the spectators. We got to the bus area at 6:40, the bus left at 6:45, and we got there just as they announced that the transition area was closed. Um, I don't think so. So we ran in, ignoring the constant admonitions over the loudspeaker that "the transition area is now closed! The race is starting! Get out now!" No time to set out transition gear, air up tires, de-stress in any way...I just dumped my bag and bugged out.
Then I went back and got my swim cap.
Then I went back and got my goggles.
As I was getting my body markings, I realized that I had forgotten to take off my shoes. Grr. Thankfully, these were not shoes I would need again during the event, so I didn't worry too much about it. I took them off and set them by a tree about 100 yards from the swim start. (and forgot to go back for them after the event...good thing they were $10 Target specials)
The swim start area was a madhouse, and I was glad that I had a seasoned triathlete with me...if I hadn't, it would have been terrifying. Well, more terrifying...I was already practically sick at the thought of a 1/2-mile open-water swim. Those buoys? They were far.
About 10 minutes later, I was on the starting line, listening to Sally Edwards give her little pep talk, trying not to vomit or pass out. 6-5-4-3-2-1, and we were off! I tried freestyle for a little while, but was kicking too much and wearing myself out 20 yards in. I tried breaststroke, and discovered that I suck at breaststroke and couldn't make myself go anywhere. I flipped over on my back and tried backstroke for a while, which worked fine...until I flipped back over and realized that no matter where I aimed myself, I was veering left. Hello current! Meanwhile, the first buoy was still far ahead. Behind me, another red cap (that was my wave) was signaling for help from the swim angels, and I felt a perverse surge of relief. Though I was fading rapidly, at least I would not be the first.
I started survival swimming...sort of a hybrid freestyle-breaststroke-doggy paddle, where my head was out of the water the whole time, but I was still moving at a satisfactory pace. When I got tired, I flipped and floated. This lasted me till about 10 yards from the 2nd canoe, when the next wave of swimmers started to pass me. The water was choppy, I was tired, and every time I tried to breathe I was getting water up my nose. My feet were sinking. My arms were shaking. My goggles were fogging. I could no longer even see the buoy through my goggles, so I shifted my focus to making it to the nearest canoe. I made it there and hung on for a couple minutes to catch my breath, the terror starting to tighten its grip. This was a half-mile swim, and I hadn't even made it to the first of the 4 buoys.
I tried to give myself a little pep talk, then set off again. Less than 20 yards later, I was frantic, flipping over to float, then trying a backstroke, veering off course, trying a freestyle, wearing myself out, sinking, breathing water, oh-dear-god-where-the-fuck-is-the-next-canoe-I-AM-GOING-TO-DROWN. After I somehow made it to the kayak, I rested and tried to calm down. I set off swimming slowly, breathing every couple strokes, but I didn't feel like I was moving at all. The terror hit me when I was almost to the first buoy--I surrendered and raised my hand for help. A swim angel made it to me and talked me in to the canoe behind the buoy, where I rested for a ridiculous amount of time, babbling incoherently and practically crying.
I composed myself finally, and tried to set off again. By this time, I had reached the point where both the wind and the current were directly against us, and waves of stronger swimmers were coming up fast behind/around me. After about a minute of this, somewhere around 300 yards into the swim, my resolve broke completely. I flailed, I sank, I swallowed/inhaled about a gallon of lake water, raised my hand for help. I have never felt more mortal or pathetic in my entire life. Once again, I was rescued by a swim angel.
"Hey, you're doing fine...what's your name?"
"Joy. I don't think...I can make it the rest...of the way." [hitching sobs, coughing]
"My name's Denise, and I'll be with you right till the end. We're about 1/3 of the way now."
I burst into genuine, hopeless tears.
She handed me a swim noodle, and became my new favorite person in the entire world. We sat there a minute or two, while she asked me about myself, slowly got me moving again. Every so often, she'd encourage me to swim without the noodle, then give it back when I started to flail. As we went on, she'd stop and help others, and I'd wait all weak and kitteny, not wanting to keep her from doing her job but too scared to leave her side. Gradually, agonizingly slowly, she talked me around the buoys while I thanked her for sticking with me and apologized for being such an under-prepared drama queen. Finally, maybe 10 yards from the finish chute, I figured I could make it out of the water without the noodle. I handed it back, thanked her again, and swam to the end where there was a big burly volunteer to yank us out of the water. I have never been more grateful.
I took off my cap and goggles, and did the walk of shame up the chute to the transition area, trying to get my land legs back. By the time I got back to my bike (it was one of only two still in my row), I had mostly recovered my wits. Still, with the panic still wearing off and my stuff still crammed in my bag, it took me a while to get everything together...during which time I discovered that I had packed neither socks nor running shorts. Awesome! Luckily, my bike shoes are designed so that they're not outrageously uncomfortable without socks (no inner seams). I threw them on, grabbed my helmet, checked my bike tires, and jogged toward the bike start. About halfway there, I had to go back for my bike computer. Doh!
Finally, I was on the part of the course I was comfortable with. I passed a bunch of hybrids on the way to the first corner and was feeling pretty good about myself (one of the nice things about being slower than Christmas in the water is that most of the fast cyclists are already long gone by the time you hit the bike course. *grin*). I hit the corner at around 18 mph, no problem, and ran straight into a short steep hill. I had been warned about it by a girl in the port-a-potty line, so I was still feeling pretty confident. Unfortunately, she could not have predicted that crosswind, or the fact that they caution tape between the cones at the side of the road had been draped with too much slack. Before I really knew what was going on, a huge gust of wind came from the right side, the caution tape blew over my head and had me by the neck. Luckily, I was able to stop before it completely clotheslined me, but the spectators got some cheap entertainment. There was a guy with a camera about 10 feet away...I almost asked him for pictures. :)
So, I shook that off and finished climbing the hill. The rest of the course was pretty uneventful. After the next turn, it was all tailwind for 5 miles or so, and I felt like superwoman...all passing people left and right, going 25 mph uphill, 35 mph down. Then we turned, of course, and I was a mere mortal again. I also had to walk up the last part of one hill that kind of snuck up on me. It was right after a downhill 90-degree turn, and I was overgeared when I started going up again. I tried getting out of the saddle and powering through it, but it just wasn't happening. After chugging up another hill at about 8 mph, I reached down for my water bottle and discovered...I didn't have any. I had left them in transition. Awesome! By this point, though, I was 3/4 of the way through the course so it wasn't a big deal. The last uphill was brutal, too, with a semi-steep incline and a 15-20 mph headwind, but I managed to stay on my bike for it. Even with the hills and wind, however, the bike course was by far the most fun part of the event for me. I was almost sad when I had to rack Keiko up again and hit the run.
Or, in my case, walk. By this time, I wasn't even pretending to be "racing". I sat down next to my bike, took my time wiping off my feet and changing my shoes, clipped on my race number and stroooolled on over to the run start. I got some water, ate some jelly beans, and set off for a little 3-mile power walk. Nothing major really happened on this part...I ran for the cameras the first time, then tried again about a 1/2 mile later. I yelled encouragement to the bikers as they passed us, made conversation with the other walkers/runners as we passed each other. After what seemed like forever and yet no time at all, I could see the finishing chute. Dude, I was sooo ready.
With spectators shouting encouragement, ringing cowbells, waving, snapping pictures, I made it to the Danskin banners and started jogging to the finish line. Sally Edwards was there to give us a high-five as we crossed the line, and I was DONE. Footsore and exhausted, I picked up my finisher's medal, grabbed a bottle of water, and started looking for E. She was sitting just off the finish, looking refreshed and kind of bored (she had been done for over an hour). We picked up our stuff from transition and began the long walk back to the expo center with bikes/bags/assorted crap in tow (the shuttles couldn't load bikes, so we had to walk them back to the parking area). Now really feeling my blisters and the effects of too much sun, I was very grateful that we had parked on the end closest to the bus drop. We found the car, packed up, hit the showers at the hotel, and went home triathletes. Mission accomplished!
Once I got home I looked up my official results: 2306/2592 overall, 387/406 in my age group. Say it with me now...
I totally wasn't last! :)
*for each wave of swimmers in the Danskin triathlon, Sally Edwards (founder and champion of the event) does this pep talk that ends in a cheer ("what kind of swimmer are you?! What kind of biker are you?!", etc.), and give each wave a different word to answer. Ours was "sensational".
I wanted to be sure to get this entry in before midnight, so that I can continue trying to post every day.
Urban Dare is complete, and I plan on having a race report up sometime tomorrow afternoon (for real this time, not one of those where I tell you there'll be a full race report and then never actually write it). It was a lot of fun, though I would've liked it to be a bit shorter. Our course, with backtracking and lost-getting, ended up a little over 9 miles. On foot. NINE MILES. If I were a marathoner, I'm sure this would seem like nothing, but since I'm not? That's a long damn way. :) We left town around 7:00 this morning and got back around 10:00 tonight, and what with the driving and the racing (9 miles!), I'm pretty beat. More on this tomorrow.
Screw it--I've paid the entry fee, I've done some training, I've got someone to carpool with. I'm just gonna go for it. Someone's gotta be last, right? May as well be me. Besides, if I do it now in this kind of shape, just imagine how much improvement I'll show in next year's event. :)
I'm going to pick up my packet this afternoon.
Instead of doing the run-bike-run workout I planned for today, I did another run-bike brick. About halfway through the run, I came to the bitter realization that I am not at all ready for the duathlon on Sunday.
When I have to talk myself through 3-minute run intervals just to make it through a damned MILE, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to survive 2 2-mile runs. With only two days left till the event, the only way I could conceivably do it is to give up on the running. Walk 2 miles, bike 12, walk 2. Risk the ridicule of spectators, all the while feeling like I let myself down. Which I did, whether I actually choose to do the race or not.
I planned to be in so much better shape by now, you know? I signed up for this thing 5 months ago thinking, "Five months, man, I can totally lose 25 pounds, get up to 20 mph on the bike, work up to 5 mile runs...I'll be a MACHINE!"
Now, here I am, 5 months later, 2 lbs heavier, topping out at 18 mph averages (at least I improved something), and unable to run for 5 minutes straight without gasping for air and hating every second of it. So much for THAT.
And now I don't know what I'm going to do. If I were doing this by myself, I'd just skip the event entirely. Wave goodbye to the entry fee, beat myself up a bit about how out of shape I am, and shoot for next year. Unfortunately or not, depending on how you look at it, I made plans to carpool with another girl from my club ride. She's faster than me so we wouldn't be doing the race together anyway, but she was happy that there would be someone else she knows doing the race. I hate to let her down. On the other hand, I hate to have her waiting at the finish line for a half-hour waiting for my sorry ass so that she can go home. I don't know.
The bottom line is, five months ago I signed up for more event than I could handle. Training did not go as planned (injury, vacation, etc.), and now I cannot possibly be ready to do this race to my own satisfaction. Do I race anyway, trying to content myself with simply finishing even though everyone else will likely have gone home by the time I cross the finish line? Or do I call my carpool buddy and just tell her I'm not ready? "Sorry, I'm a dumbass, good luck, maybe next year?"
What would you do?
Oh, and by the way, the Wisconsin trip was very nice. The flights were a nightmare and it rained all weekend, but it was great to see everyone and the wedding was lovely.
I don't expect this post will be terribly interesting, but I wanted to get it out here so that I have some kind of accountability. I have less than two weeks before my event, and 5 of my training days will be eaten up by the trip to my dad's wedding. So, I need to get some kind of schedule in place, or I'm going to end up walking most of both runs and feeling like a gigantic loser*.
To that end, this is my plan:
Today - treadmill run, 4:1 intervals, 30 minutes (after some research, I've decided that this will be my strategy for the running. Not only will it make the runs tolerable, but it will probably make me faster overall than trying to gut it out and run two miles straight)
Wednesday - spin class AM, outdoor walk PM
Thursday - very short bike/run (3 mi/half-mi? I'm hoping to do this in the morning so it will be cooler, but that doesn't give me much daylight)
Friday - treadmill run, 4:1 intervals, 45 minutes (also, scramble crazily trying to get everything ready for our afternoon flight, run around DFW to make our connection, etc.)
Saturday - Dad's wedding (elbow exercises, mostly, and maybe some ridiculous dancing)
Sunday - rent bikes, do the rail trail
Monday - find some way/where/time to run 4:1 intervals
Tuesday - walk
Wednesday - more airport shenanigans
Thursday - run/bike/run (1/5/1)
Friday - rest day, maybe do some transition practice
Saturday - go easy on the club ride
Sunday - Just do it.
*Note that I am not implying that anyone who walks most of the runs is a gigantic loser. Just that I would feel like one, because I know I could have done better if I had avoided injury and been less of a slacker over the past 6 months. And lost 30 lbs, like I had planned.
(Note: I'm going to try to keep the duathlon training posts from dominating the entire site, but I expect that there'll be at least a few more. Since I'm scared to death that I'll crash and burn on this event, it's always on my mind.)
Tonight, while procrastinating on cleaning out my car, I decided to do a run-bike brick. I wanted to get some idea of the kind of bike speeds I could sustain after running, so that I know how much time I can make up on the bike and how fast I'll really need to run in the duathlon overall. I also wanted to see how my legs reacted to running on pavement, since I've been doing all my run training on a dirt track or the treadmill. The street behind my house is asphalt, which is a little easier on the bones than concrete. It's also newly repaved, which makes it a bit softer. I figured it was as good a place as any. I decided on a 1-mile run, 6-mile bike, since it cuts both du distances by half.
It went better than I expected.
Since I'm not yet ready to run a mile straight through (especially when it's 90+ degrees out there), I did one-song run, 1-minute walk intevals, and my average speed for the mile was 4.4 mph.* Running in bike shorts was surprisingly comfortable...though I WAS wearing my RS Flexes, which are the most comfortable bike shorts in the universe. They also have a relatively thin chamois, which helps where running is concerned. Definitely my race day shorts (and a great gift idea, since I only have the one pair and would love to have a closetful. Just a note, for any readers who might be married to me. *grin*)
It took me about a minute to change shoes, slap on my helmet, and get on the bike, and I was off. My top speed wasn't all that much different after running than it is on any other hard ride--I averaged 17 mph for right around 6 miles. I thought for sure I would be slower than that, so this sets my mind at ease a bit. (And, yes, Rob, you were totally right.)
Funny story...at about mile 5, I was riding in an unfinished section of a subdivision, and the only traffic was a couple ladies out walking. I was on the home stretch, so I decided to push the pace. As I passed one of the walkers at about 22 mph(on the other side of the street, giving her as much clearance as I possibly could), I heard her say "Whoa." I don't get very many of those. :)
So anyway, I completed the entire thing in about 34 minutes. If you figure on 3 more 11-minute miles + let's say, 3 minutes for the dragging-ass factor in the 2nd run, that's 36 more minutes of running for 1:10. Add a 1-minute transition and 30 more minutes of biking, and I'm looking at a 1:40 total time. I can accept that. And if I keep working on the running between now and then, and work in a bike-run brick or two, it might just improve to the 1:30 I really want.
*Per the Edge, which I've discovered works just as well for running as it does on the bike. Woo! I hit the lap button after the transition and slapped it into the bike holster, so that I could track the speeds separately...worked like a champ.
Well, I ran 2:1 intervals again yesterday, and I'm happy to report that I can totally walk today! My shins are a just a little splinty this morning, nowhere near last week's 4-day trip to DOMSland. Part of this is that I was completely unable to minimize the heel-strike yesterday, so my bones and joints took more of a hit than last time. Still, it's not bad.
Performance was, eh...progressive is a nice way to put it. I made it all the way through the 2nd run interval (woo!), but lost my will to live about halfway through the final 5-minute interval (boo!). My 2-mile time was just over 25 minutes, which needs some improvement. My fastest 1/2-mile was 5:26, which was all jogging. I'd like to see a little better than 11-minute miles on fresh legs, because I can pretty much count on a slower 2nd run on event day. If I can't muster more than 5.5 mph fresh, what will it be like after a 12-mile bike leg?
Another option I've considered is just to plan for walk intervals on race day. Maybe shoot for a 5-minute run, 1-minute walk sort of thing? I'd feel like kind of a dork walking during a race, but it's not like I'm going out there to win or anything. And that might do a better job of keeping my HR under control (my biggest problem right now...though I haven't been wearing the monitor, I can feel it about to leap out of my chest). Also, better to walk some during the first run than be forced to walk the entire 2nd one because I have nothing left. We'll see how the next couple weeks go, though...if the runs get easier, I'll try to gut it out for the whole thing.
I'm telling you, though...I'm beginning to wish I had waited till next year to do the multi-sport thing and shot for a 5k this year instead. It's starting to depress me a little that instead of coming into these final weeks wondering if I will make a respectable showing, I'm wondering if I'll be able to do it at all. I mean, sure, there was the ankle injury to contend with and whatever, but there was also a lot of laziness and procrastination. Also, the injury was mostly due to the laziness, since it probably could have been avoided had I lost 10-20 lbs this year. Since I can't turn back time, however, there's not a whole lot I can do about that now. All I can do is keep plugging along with the training and hope I don't humiliate myself too thoroughly.
I was just checking out last year's race results for the duathlon I'm doing in October, and I feel a little better about it than I did before. For one thing, I should be able to make up some time on the bike course, since the top Athena (women 150+, the class I'm racing) last year had an average speed of 16.5 mph. I can totally do that, especially on a traffic-controlled course. Now, can I do that after running two miles? I don't know. I think I might pull off 17 mph if I go easy on the first run. Of course, then I'll have to get off the bike and run again. Sigh. I just don't know.
What I do know is that the slowest posted time last year was 1:47ish. So if I figure on a 15 mph bike speed, that's 48 minutes right there. Plus...lets say, 3 minutes for transitions, that's 51 minutes. Therefore, to avoid coming in DFL, I'd need run speeds in the 27-28 minute range, or a 13 to 14-minute mile. If I can make up time on the bike, I could possibly go as high as 15-minute miles. But that's if my ONLY goal is to not be the last racer on the course, which--while an acceptable and realistic goal for someone of my size and fitness level--is not really my heart's desire.
What I'd really like to do is complete the entire thing in around 1:30--40-45 minutes on the bike, 20-25 minutes per run, 1-2 minute transitions. Considering that it's only three weeks away and I have yet to run a full mile straight through OR try a single run-bike/bike-run transition, that's a pretty tall order. :)
Good news: I think my running form was considerably better yesterday than it has been since I started back on the treadmill last month.
Bad news: The reason I think this is that my calves are so sore today that I can barely walk. And stairs? I walked down three flights this morning and thought I was going to cry.
Song: Fighting in a Sack (link removed)
Today, I strapped on my ankle brace and ran on the treadmill for the first time since July. 1-song run, 2-song walk intervals, after warming up for the first 5 minutes. I don't feel like I have time to give this the full Couch-to-5k treatment anymore, so I'm starting somewhere in the middle.
Overall, it was solidly not bad. My HR was high on the run intervals, but I didn't feel bad...not gasping for air, etc. On the last minute or so of the last run interval, my legs felt sort of heavy, but that was about it. My ankle felt pretty good throughout, but the outer edge of my left foot would start to get cranky if I didn't concentrate on rolling all the way in on each footfall. I think my under-pronation is more pronounced on the left side, which could explain why I have more trouble with that foot/ankle than the other. The right foot points outward slightly by nature, so any knee problems happen on that side. Knee on one side, foot on the other...I'm a mess. :) But I'm running!
My plan is to keep with the 2:1 walk/run ratio through the rest of this week, then make it 1:1 next week. Then go 1:2, 1:3, etc, until I eliminate walk intervals altogether. If you figure the average song is around 4 minutes, I won't be able to eliminate the walk intervals completely before the duathlon...however, I can get pretty close. Close enough that I can stick out at least one non-stop 2-mile run on race day, and hopefully two. At least, that's my theory. I also need to try a brick or two before October, but I'd like to wait to do that until the new bike is ready.
Speaking of bikes...I was too wrapped up in my bike shop anxiety to mention it last post, but I had 16 PEOPLE at the beginner ride Saturday. The ultra-beginners had 10, also. I think it was a combination of great weather and...I don't know what. A perfect storm of circumstance, I guess? Twenty-four people showed up to ride with us this week! That's so awesome! While I was doing the safety announcements, I was practically giddy with excitement. We've come a long way since last June, when I was riding most weeks by myself. If it gets much bigger, though, I'm going to have to start recruiting a regular to either lead or sweep...it's hard to make sure I don't drop anyone otherwise, especially in the first part of the route. Still, more the merrier--bring me your old, your slow, your cycling newbies yearning to ride free...:)
Song o' the day: We Run This (link removed)
you know what's awesome? Going through all the trouble of bringing spin-class clothes to work for a 12:15 class that you want to try, leaving work an hour beforehand to be sure to get there on time (I wasn't sure how long the drive would be that time of day), and then hanging out at Barnes & Noble for 30 minutes before walking over to the gym only to wait another 15 minutes before discovering that THE INSTRUCTOR COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO SHOW UP. Grr.
I suppose at that point I could have just walked into the spin room and made up my own workout for 30 minutes, but I always feel kind of weird getting on the class bikes without an instructor there. So I did abs instead, then changed and grabbed lunch before heading back to work. It better not be like this on Thursday, I can tell you, or I am so done with that 24-hour fitness location. (I'm sure they're shaking in their boots...)
Song o' the day: Change (link removed)
It figures. Not two weeks after I say that I'm only going to count odometer-recorded mileage in the 5,000 miles needed for the Pilot's retirement, my bike computer stops recording anything altogether. About 3 seconds into the club ride on Saturday (literally--the time recorded is 00:00:03), speed went to zero and the timer stopped. I tried to hit it a couple times to make it work again(this had been successful in the past), but all it succeeded in doing this time is knocking the computer head off the handlebar mount and into the ditch. D'oh!
A couple of my regular riders was kind enough to find it for me after the ride (I did look, too, but didn't have any luck), and it seemed no worse for wear. However, the distance still says 4604.7*, and I've had enough of that crap. It's bad enough that I'm only getting 20-40 miles per week the way it is, and now my paltry mileage isn't even being documented?! Also, I'm already pissed that the cadence meter stopped working around the end of June. It's time to shoot this Cateye into the trash.
I had already started doing a little research on wireless computers a month or so ago (around the time the cadence sensor quit), and was seriously considering going to the Cateye Double Wireless. I did a few ebay searches, and had mostly decided on it for the new bike. But then nearly every Cateye in our group crapped out in the rain last Saturday, and I began to wonder about quality control. So, as much as I like the look and feel of the Cateyes, I started to look for something more resilient to inclement weather conditions. I mean, I'm kind of a lightweight, but even I ride in the rain occasionally. You'd think that a company that makes devices for use on outdoor equipment would design for weather other than "partly cloudy."
So, I thought and I looked and I asked around, and decided to go whole-hog into information overload with a Garmin Edge 305. Wireless! GPS! Heart rate! Cadence! Uploads! Software! And most importantly--waterproof.
It should be here by Wednesday. Since it is wireless, I'm even going to try to install it myself. That should be a laugh.
Song o' the day: Get Ready 2 Rokk (link removed)
*which is what it was on 7/11, too--I rounded up in that last post. Then I forgot the head on the desk when I went out on last week's club ride, and then this week...well, you know that story.
Did I say I was at absolute zero with my swimming endurance? Well, I was wrong--I'm at about -50. Five laps, stopping after every length, sometimes using an effing kickboard, and I had to talk myself into starting up again every single time. On the lengths where I experimented with "real" swimming (the kind where you put your face in the water most of the time and do that rhythmic breathing thing from the red cross classes I took when I was 7), I thought my head would explode and/or I would pass out and drown by the time I got to the end of the pool. I think I might be doing it wrong.
On the bright side, there was no one in the pool room to point and laugh. Also, I did swim 250 meters...even if it was 25m at a time and took me nearly 16 minutes. And even if I was all rubber-legged and starving afterward and could barely drive home. Also good? It didn't hurt my ankle at all. (just my lungs, and my head, and that crampy muscle in my calf...)
As I was driving home, I tried to console myself by remembering that it was just 5 years ago that going 11 miles on my bike seemed like a challenge, and that walking 3 miles in an hour set my legs shaking afterward. Now, those things are easy, right? So swimming will someday be easy, too, and I'll look back on this post and oh, how I'll laaaugh!
Still, I think tris/open-water swims are a long way off.
Well, the results of my Achilles poll so far seem to lean toward treating the injury...rest and medical attention. Which I kind of expected--the "no pain, no gain" folks would have been driven away by my lackadaisical weight loss style long ago. :)
I probably will go to the doctor next month* if it doesn't significantly improve by then, but for now I've been treating it with rest and anti-inflammatories. It was a little better this morning, I think, but I'm not going to go run marathons or anything. Kristi mentioned swimming in the comments, which is a great option that I had completely forgotten about. Not only is it zero impact, but it'll also build up my swim endurance. Currently, I'm at absolute zero on that, so there's nowhere to go but up. I'd to do a sprint triathlon sometime next year, and working on my swimming while I'm temporarily off the exercises I normally do seems like an excellent way to go. Right now, I'd consider one non-stop lap a victory. Hell, I'd settle for a length.
I am going to keep riding on weekends, and going to the spin classes on Mon/Wed. My Saturday ride keeps a pretty slow pace lately, so I think I can keep that up without putting undue strain on the tendon. Also, work is preventing me from doing any weekend rides until August anyway, so it should heal some by then. The spin classes don't really stress it either, except during the out of the saddle/high resistance drills. If I keep my entire workout seated/low resistance and just alter my cadence to match the class effort, I think I can still keep them as part of my routine.
Of course, you know that part of the reason I'm keeping the cycling in is so that I can get to 5,000 miles on my bike by September. At last odometer check, I was at 4,605. The actual total is a bit higher, since my computer has been temperamental lately. For the last couple rides, it's been pretty consistent about recording speed/distance, but before that it would just check out for as many as 20 miles at a time. I've decided that for new-bike purposes, computer malfunctions won't factor in--only the recorded miles count. Of course, my new-bike deadline really isn't going to matter much if I can't run in the duathlon in October anyway.
In non-bike, non-injury news, I picked up my new car today! The truck did not blow up in the parking lot, nor did it start randomly shedding parts on the way to the trade-in...maybe it wasn't conspiring against me after all. The dealership put my new hubcaps on last night, and they stayed put at least until the truck wasn't my responsibility anymore. Here's hoping the new owner won't have any further trouble.
I also detailed it myself last night, which was kind of fun. Normally, the only work I like to do on my car is signing the credit card receipt at the dealership/car wash/repair shop/whatever. Cars just aren't really my thing, and cleaning one out and returning it to showroom condition on a 95-degree summer evening is not my idea of a good time. However, by the time I stopped by the dealership and had the hubcaps put on, it was too late to go to the detailing place. So I stopped by the Walmart for some basic supplies (armor-all, upholstery shampoo, wheel cleaner), ran the truck through a car wash on the way home, then set to work on the inside. In just about an hour, it was spotless and new-car-smelly, and I had saved $50. Woo!
I'm not sure yet whether I like the new car...it rides lower than my truck, which takes some retraining. I find myself still wanting to push up with my left leg and vault myself into the driver's seat like I did with the running boards on the truck, which is not really necessary or comfortable, and looks supremely dorky besides. The feel while driving is completely different...the suspension seems more bouncy, which is suprising to me since I'm going from a light truck to something more car-based. You'd think it'd be a smoother ride, right? There are things I do like about it...the stereo has an aux port for my ipod, there's enough cargo space inside for my bike so I don't need to worry about stopping somewhere on the way home from my rides, and--most importantly--it gets double the gas mileage. So I think I'm going to like it, after the initial break-in period.
I also took my son to the doctor this morning, where we found out that the sinus infection we thought he's had since this weekend was actually a raging case of tonsilitis with a side of severe nasal allergies. The solution was the same as a sinus infection, though--antibiotics, rest, allergy medicine refill. He's supposed to be feeling considerably better by Friday, and I certainly hope so. I used to get either tonsilitis or strep throat every single winter until I had my tonsils removed, so I feel for him. It's a miserable, miserable way to spend a week.
Song o' the Day: Welcome to the Black Parade (link removed)
*Due to a change in work schedules, that's the soonest I'd be able to make an appointment.
...now with half the ankle pain!
I started the C25k again yesterday, on the treadmill. I put it on a 0.5% incline, and alternated between 3.5 mph walking and 4.0 mph jogging for 25 minutes after a 5-minute warmup. It wasn't too bad. My right knee complained a bit (it's bruised from the UAR this weekend, and prone to injury besides), and my left Achilles was surprisingly pain-free. It'll take a couple more workouts to know how healed it really is, because the pain didn't really come on until the 2nd week last time.
I was going to wait till next month to start this back up, but I was so dismayed by my run performance at the race this past weekend that I decided to start early. The run from the start line to the bike area was maybe 1/4 of a mile (downhill!), and I had to walk part of it in order to have any energy left to get on my bike. Suck! I may be heavier than I want to be, but I like to think that I'm still in fairly decent shape. Not being able to run from here to there without collapsing from heat exhaustion (hat tip)? Humiliating. Especially since my 17-year-old teammate was all composed and rested by the time I even got to the bikes, so I got to feel old as well as unfit. :)
So anyway, running on the treadmill for now. I'm not ordinarily a treadmill fan, but the heat is too much for me in the summertime, especially when just starting out. I'm looking into a membership at a gym with an indoor track, since it's a more forgiving surface & temperature than my outdoor options. The only thing stopping me is cost--the one I've been looking into would cost about $150 to start, and then $35/month. Since they don't have spin classes or extended hours, though, I'd have to keep my 24Hour membership as well. Considering that I only hit the gym once or twice a week, it hardly seems worth $80/month. The indoor-track gym does have 3-month and 6-month membership options, though, so I'm considering signing up just for the summer. We'll see...if the treadmill proves to be tolerable over the next couple weeks and I don't hurt myself again, I may just stick with it until the weather cools off. Whatever I decide to do, I need to stick with the running from now till October, or I'll never be ready for the duathlon.
Here are the HRM/treadmill stats from this first workout:
Time: 35:25
Distance: 2.01 mi
Walk speed: 3.5 mph
Run speed: 4.0 mph
HRMax: 174 bpm
HR avg: 147 bpm
~13 minutes in 60-70% HR zone, 12 minutes in 70-80%, 11 minutes in 80-90.
The HRs are a little higher than I would have liked, but I know those will come down over time. Right now, I'm more concerned with staying injury-free than staying aerobic.
I'm hitting the treadmill again today at lunch, and this will really start the true test of my ankle...will it hold up to two running workouts in one week?
Song o' the Day: Run Runaway - Slade (right-click, save-as, per usual...I'm trying a new thing here, attaching a song to each post rather than posting a handful on Fridays. What do you think? UPDATE: link removed.)
Man, did I hate that yoga class. I lasted about 10 minutes, and 2 of that was spent in mat placement and introductions.
Part of it is that I didn't know any of the moves, so rather than being able to focus on breathing and centering and whatnot, I had to keep looking at the instructor every time there was a new move. It kind of took me out of the moment, you know? That, and I'm not terribly into the more new-agey aspects of yoga in the first place. Maybe I'm just not spiritual enough to get it, but I had a hard time taking it seriously. I just felt silly and clumsy the whole time.
I don't feel like I've given it enough of a chance to be able to say that yoga is definitely not my thing, but I do know that I won't be going to another class until I've had a chance to get a little bit familiar with the terms and movements involved.
I’m now in my second round of the 1st week of Couch-to-5k, and I’m putting it on hiatus, effective immediately.
This week, I ran Sunday, Monday, and today, which may have been a little too ambitious, in retrospect. The Sunday-Monday schedule is the part that really messed me up, as is evidenced by the following stats:
Sunday
Total Time: 30:35
Total distance: 2.055 mi
Monday
Total Time: 30:17
Shortest Lap: 7:01
Longest Lap: 7:59
Average Lap: 7:34
Lap 1: 7:59
Lap 2: 7:01
Lap 3: 7:27
Lap 4: 7:50
Yes, Monday was faster than Sunday, but it was a bit shorter and hurt quite a bit more. Ankles, knees, arches, hips…every muscle and joint below my waist was screaming in protest and my legs felt like lead. If you compare it to the stats for Friday (when I was last on that track), it’s even more pathetic…especially when you consider that I had 5 additional minutes of run intervals on Monday. I think that in addition to the consecutive days, the decrease in performance was also because of the increased temperature (mid-80s at noon, v. mid-70s at 11:00 on Friday, or at 6:30 pm on Sunday) and the wear and tear of the pavement run the day before. Or not. But whatever the cause, I sure did suck up the place on Monday. Today was even worse:
Total Time: 32:53
Shortest Lap: 7:08
Longest Lap: 9:10
Average Lap: 8:13
Lap 1: 8:05
Lap 2: 7:08
Lap 3: 8:28
Lap 4: 9:10
As you may have guessed from the lap times, I stopped the running intervals in lap 3 and spent the remaining 2 laps trying to walk off pain. I’m pretty sure my left Achilles tendon in injured, or at least strained past the point where it would be prudent to continue running. The right one isn’t in such hot shape either, and both feel fairly swollen. My right knee is also unhappy, but that was really the least of my worries. I expected that…this Achilles thing was a-killing me. (Hee…I am so sorry, the pun was irresistible.)
As I was thinking about what might be causing this new pain, a couple options came to mind. The most obvious is that I weigh about 20 lbs more now than I did the last time I seriously tried running. Secondly, my all-cycling, all the time exercise regimen hasn’t done much to stretch or limber that tendon…in fact, it probably contributes to shortening, since most of my pedaling is in a flat-foot or toe-down position. Also, I’m sure my running form is total crap, since I haven’t been devoting any concentration at all to posture or gait…I’m just putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to die. And finally, I think that my casual shoes are partly to blame. In the past 6 months, I’ve gradually gone from wearing 2-inch heels nearly every day to wearing primarily flats. So my heel is closer to the ground on a regular basis, which has been stretching that tendon more than it’s used to, and then the running just completely stressed it out. Whether wearing heels for several years or the move to flats is the problem, I don’t honestly know. I don’t know if it’s a factor at all, actually…I just know that my damn heel/ankle area hurts to the point where I couldn’t run on it at all this afternoon, and have barely been able to walk since then.
Whatever the cause, my new running plan is to stop running--for now, at least. I’ve got over 19 weeks until the duathlon, which is still plenty of time. If I figure I’ll need 9-10 weeks of training in order to run two 2-mile segments, then I have an additional 9-10 weeks beforehand to get my body ready for that training. This will take three things:
Hopefully, #2 & #3 will contribute to #1, but I need to really crack down on my diet also. Food has always been my weakness, and I haven’t really made any significant progress in that arena recently. I’m eating less than I was last month, but not by much. My danger zone is still between 3:00 and 11:00 pm. That’s where my calorie count goes to hell every single day, no matter how carefully I plan before that. It’s partly a willpower issue, partly a blood sugar issue, partly an emotional eating issue…and does it really matter at this point? Examining the root causes of my inability to put down the donut (or candy, or chips…) in the afternoon hasn’t done shit to keep me from picking it up in the first place.
I am so, so tired of being all talk. Four years I’ve been doing this, and I’m still flirting with the 200-lb mark. It’s not as if I don’t know how to lose weight—I’ve done it before. It’s not as if I don’t want to. I just keep rationalizing and making light of things, turning every negative step into some sort of positive, starting over every single day, until I can justify any stupid choice I make.
The line between holding myself accountable and beating myself up isn’t as fine as I pretend it is, and I need to quit avoiding the first one’s territory to avoid accidentally stepping in the other’s. The “fiddle dee dee, tomorrow is another day” method I’ve adopted over the past year may have kept me from completely hating myself as I’ve gotten fatter, but it’s also kept me the same unhappy size. Now I can’t run for 60 seconds at a time without straining myself, and that sucks. Also, it’s entirely my fault, and it’s time to actually start doing something about my food choices and calorie counts, instead of just talking about them. Even when I’m tired, even when I’m frustrated, even when I’m feeling lazy, I need to do the right thing anyway. There will come a day when I don’t need to think about every single morsel that goes into my mouth, but today is not that day. Tomorrow ain’t looking too good either.
I used my own music, and was slightly faster. I'm pretty sure these things are unrelated, but whatever. Here are the numbers:
Total time: 29:35
Shortest lap: 6:47
Longest lap: 7:56
Average lap: 7:23
Lap 1: 7:53
Lap 2: 6:59
Lap 3: 6:47
Lap 4: 7:56
I was surprised by the increased speed...I'm still fairly sore from Wednesday's run, so I was trying to take it slower. So not only do I suck at running, but I have no idea how to control my speed either. :) I might have gone faster because of the weather, also...it was significantly cooler out there today than it was Wednesday, and my performance is always better in cooler temps, in any sport. And who knows--maybe it was the music. In any case, I'm still turtle-slow, and was glad when each 60-second interval was over. I think it's going to be a long time before I actually enjoy running. If I ever do.
I started the Couch-to-5k plan again. What's this, my 3rd time? 4th? :) Here are the stats from my four laps on the 1/2-mile track today, according to the stopwatch on my ipod:
Total time: 30:26
Shortest lap: 7:02
Longest lap: 8:22
Average lap: 7:36
Lap 1: 7:57
Lap 2: 7:02
Lap 3: 7:03
Lap 4: 8:22
Not such a bad start...though my heart was pounding a little more than I would have liked. I didn't have the chest strap on today, so I have no idea what my HR actually was, but I'm betting that I was flirting with the anaerobic threshold on every run interval. And they were only 60 seconds! Hopefully, that will improve over time.
With 21 weeks between now and the duathlon, my plan is to do each week of the plan twice before moving on to the next one. After I finish the 9-week program (in 18 weeks--kind of reminds me of my college career), I'll just keep running 5k's 3x/week until the event. Or I may bump it up to 4 miles in those last couple weeks, since that's the full duathlon distance. I read somewhere that your body doesn't know the difference between 10 minutes of exercise 3x a day and 30 minutes all at once, so maybe I need to be preparing for 4 miles straight to ensure that I'll be ready for two 2-mile runs. Or maybe I'll suck so bad at the first few weeks of intervals that I'll decide to do a third repeat of some of them. Whatever the case, I'll have plenty of time.
I'm also trying out the Couch-to-5k podcast (itunes link) that someone mentioned in the comments the last time I tried running. I was a little skeptical at first, because I'm not a big fan of the style of music he uses. It's the same problem I had with the cardio coach workouts...I like my music with words in it. However, I ended up really liking the workout...his instruction is minimal and not irritatingly perky, the strong beat of the music was good for keeping me motivated. My one minor complaint is that there were a couple run intervals where he didn't explicitly say "go", which was a bit confusing. Still, when he didn't say anything else for 5-10 seconds after the "ready?", I caught on that I was supposed to be running. Also, what kind of jackass complains about a free product, anyway? :) All in all, I think this series is going to be a good companion to the running program. Thanks man!
Hey, guess what I did yesterday? I signed up for a duathlon.
I haven't run since forever (or, you know, last fall), but I figure that with 5 months to train, I can probably manage 4 miles. Especially since they were kind enough to make it the bread in the multi-sport sandwich--2 miles on each end, with the biking in the middle. Maybe all duathlons are like this, I honestly don't know. This will be my first one. :)
So, whatever possessed me? Well, there was a triathlon in town a couple weeks ago...in fact, the same one that I mentioned in passing last year. Probably goes without saying that I didn't do it this year either. However, someone from my beginner ride did, someone else is doing the Muddy Buddy this week, and I am still trying to find a teammate for this year's UAR...so I've had competitive/multi-sport events on the brain lately. Then we were having dinner the other day, and Rob's friend called. They started talking about training for the Cinco Ranch Tri in September. I jumped at that, until I realized that it was the same weekend as my dad's wedding and a business trip. Trying to squeeze a long, stressed-out workday, a Wisconsin wedding, three plane trips, and my first triathlon into one weekend would definitely be a recipe for The Crazy. I had to pass.
However, with all the talk of tris and adventure races, the seed that had been planted at the bike skills clinic a couple weeks ago* took root. I wasn't giving up that easily. I started googling around for tris in the fall, and hit upon this duathlon. As soon as I saw it, I knew that it was the answer...mildly competitive, reasonable distances, and--best part!--no swimming to worry about. Count me in!
Now I just need to learn to run again.
*which I just realized that I didn't write about here. Hmm. Short version: four hour clinic put on by the club, covering cornering, bumping, pacelines/echelons, time trial starts, general bike handling. About a dozen people showed up, mostly race team with a few of us recreational riders in the mix. It was fun, a good way to get out of my comfort zone and see how my bike-handling skills measure up. Answer? Not all that well...I was repeatedly shown up by the 10-year-old mountain bike racer. However, so were some of the race team, so I didn't feel quite so bad. :) Anyway, kind of a reality check where racing is concerned, but totally worth the $10.
While escaping the hotel Sunday morning, I started to formulate a plan for the second day. My cell phone had died during the night, so I was pretty sure I would be flying solo all day. The girls I had ridden with on the first day were planning on connecting via cell in the morning, and that would be pretty hard to do when my phone wouldn't even turn on. On the bus ride to La Grange, I kept an eye out for Walmarts and other places where I could maybe get a battery or a pre-paid cell phone on the side of the highway. There was a Walmart on 71, but it was on the opposite side of the highway from where I would be riding. How would I sneak over there? No idea. I started to get sick to my stomach.
By the time we got to the fairgrounds and unloaded, it was 6:00 and the line of bikes at the start line was already down the block and edging around the corner. One of the veteran MS150 riders on the bus was saying that there was no way we would get out of there before 8:15, arriving "so late" like we did. Man, I totally should have taken the 4:30 bus.
I would have gotten lost on the way to my tent again, but there were some riders on the bus with me who were riding with the team whose tent was next to mine. I asked them if I could follow them, because I had no idea where I was or where I was going. They were happy to oblige, so I found my way without getting clipped by any sag wagons this time. :) After dropping off my bag and picking up my bike, I headed out to find the end of the line. About 5 seconds out of my tent, I heard someone call my name. It was my girls! They had just happened to be walking by as I was coming out. Talk about your perfect timing.
After we hit the team port-a-can and refilled our camelbaks (separate errands), we sought out the end of the line....around the corner and back about 50 yards. Yikes. After nearly two hours of idle chit-chat, we finally got on the road at just after 8:10.
Once my legs loosened up and my butt got used to the saddle again, the second day of riding wasn't so bad. It was hillier than the first (we did the "lunch express" route rather than going through the park...maybe some other year), but I used the first day as sort of a crash course in effective shifting. Mostly, I handled the hills by getting into the biggest gear I could safely spin 90 rpm on the downhills, which was usually either the 2nd or 3rd-highest on the bike (53-13 or 53-14, for the bike geeks). Then once I started feeling some resistance I'd either go down one or two or just drop immediately to the middle ring, depending on the grade/length of the hill (shallow/short stayed in the big ring, long/steep got the middle treatment). The strategy was to ride on momentum for as long as possible, then shift to a manageable spinning gear to survive what was left. Probably not the best technique in the world, but it worked. Surprisingly, I only used the granny gear (third chainring) once on the 2nd day.
I know I've said this more and more in the past few weeks, but I'll say it again--I have fallen in love with the big ring. It feels so much smoother and more powerful than the middle, which is where I used to spend most of my time. I was always kind of afraid of the big one, because I thought I wouldn't be strong enough to push any of the higher gears, and I didn't want to be in a cross-chain position all the time. In certain situations, though, I've discovered I can spin the high end of the big ring pretty comfortably now--tailwinds, downhills, smooth flat roads if I'm feeling strong or riding with a group. So, as I've started to get comfortable with the big ring, I find myself staying there as much as possible.
Aaaanyway. :) I called Rob from the last rest stop from Kellie's phone, to let him know we would be coming in between 3:00 and 3:30. It was too noisy at the finish for him to hear it, though, so I left a message and hoped that I would be able to spot him as I came in to the finish. Our little group got separated on the hills into Austin (and those were some hills--damn), with me somewhere in the middle. I rolled across the finish line sometime around 3:10-3:15, which put my total time for the 2nd day at just over 7 hours for 66 miles. I saw the first girl right after I crossed the finish, so I rolled up to talk to her, and then we walked our bikes to the sidewalk and waited for the last one to come in. She did, and just when I was starting to wonder whether Rob and Noah saw me come in and how on earth we would find each other, I spotted Rob across the street! Sadly, he hadn't seen me come in, because he was looking for me in a team jersey and I wasn't wearing mine the 2nd day. Damn...I should have mentioned that. Still, I was so glad to see him, and he finally got to meet some of my bike friends. We took one last picture, and got on the road.
While part of me was kind of looking forward to riding solo the second day, I'm glad that I was able to hook up with the same girls again. We didn't talk a whole lot on the ride, but it was nice to have someone to hang with at the rest stops. We stayed at them a bit longer than I would have by myself, but that's a fair enough tradeoff. I wasn't looking to break any personal records on this ride, just finish and have fun doing it. Mission accomplished!
Thanks again to everyone who sponsored, encouraged, or otherwise helped make my first MS150 a success. I couldn't have done it without you!
It's over! I survived! And I actually feel pretty okay. The entire distance ended up about 172 miles(~106 Saturday, 66 Sunday)...I say "about", because there was so much going on at the finish on both days that I didn't think to mark the distance on my computer. Ditto on the total times, and the average speed. I can say that we averaged right around 16 mph the first day and something like 14.2 on the second. With stops...well, let's not talk about our with-stops averages, k? I was on the road for over 9 hours on Saturday, and over 7 on Sunday. Remember when I was worried about getting into La Grange 3 hours before the shuttles started running? Oh, was that a steaming pile of wishful thinking. I got in about 20 minutes before the shuttles started running. It was sort of a moot point, though, since I bummed a ride with a friend (thanks Jarrod & team!)
Nothing was really much like I expected. The Woodlands start was good, and some other members of my team actually started there as well, so that was cool. I didn't ride with them, but I did talk to their support person and she hooked me up with directions to the team lunch stop. I ended up riding with the same two girls from the club both days, the first day deliberately, the second day by fate. (More on that in the Sunday recap.)
La Grange wasn't at all the way I pictured it...I don't know, I guess I thought there'd be more open space, more people milling about and not every square inch of the place covered in tents. I also expected that my team's tent location would be on the posted maps, but it totally wasn't. I'm glad that the coordinator did send an email with landmarks (on Thursday), or I may still be wandering around that place right now. As it was, I was able to get to the tent in about 10 minutes (but not without being bumped by a SAG wagon when I stopped to ask directions!), park my bike, grab a burger, and get out to the road to catch my ride. That was all of the La Grange experience I wanted, now or ever. Well, I suppose I could have done with a massage, but since I was already 2-3 hours later than I expected, I didn't want to make my ride wait any longer. That, and I was exhausted, disoriented, and kind of in fight-or-flight mode in that tent full of strangers who all seemed to know what they were doing. Also, my cell phone was beeping about low battery, and I wasn't sure how long I would be able to even call him before the thing went completely dead. (Answer? About 4 hours.)
The ride to the hotel was uneventful, but things went rapidly downhill on arrival.
Desk clerk: "Hi, can I help you?"
Me: "I have a reservation for Joy ----."
DC: [looks at her checkin slips, checks computer] "We don't have a reservation in that name."
Oh, no she di'nt. See, I've called about this reservation 3 times. In November, I asked about my credit card, since the one I used to hold the reservation had a March expiration date. Then I called again in February when I got my renewed card, asking if I needed to provide my new information. Both times, they found my reservation, and told me that they don't charge the card until arrival, so it was no problem. Then, I called on Friday to confirm that I had a reservation with them. I did. On Friday. This Friday. So, sometime between 2:00 pm Friday and 6:15 Saturday, my reservation disappeared. Incensed does not even begin to describe how I was feeling at that moment. Thankfully, I had printed my confirmation, they had vacancies, and it all worked out after a little bit of bitchery back and forth. Well, moreso on my end.
But it was totally deserved...dude, this hotel sucked so hard. I paid an insane rate for the room because it was an event weekend, right? Then they lost my reservation, so they tried to give me a different room (two doubles) for $20 more than my reserved rate. When I insisted on the room I had reserved (n/s king) at the price I reserved, they didn't have any. I still refused the doubles, so they ended up giving me a king suite at my original rate. Fine--one issue down. Then they asked me about a wakeup call, but I was so flummoxed at that point that I just waved my hand and babbled something about letting them know.
When I got to the room, the toilet was dirty. Not, you know, filthy...just maybe someone was not as diligent with the brush as they could have been, you know? And if you can't be bothered to make sure there aren't cling-ons in the bowl, it kind of makes the whole rest of the housekeeping sort of suspect. I was too tired to care, though, so whatever.
After I showered, I weighed my options on calling Rob. I could use my nearly-dead cell phone, or I could use my hotel ripoff-rate room phone. Since I left the wall charger for my cell in WI the last time I went and haven't gotten around to getting a new one (I know, totally stupid, and I'll be picking one up tomorrow), I decided to conserve my battery as much as I could while I had another phone to use. As long as I didn't have marathon conversations, it wouldn't be so bad. So I followed the instructions on the phone to make a long-distance call. Which didn't work. I tried again--fast busy. The hell?
After looking both on the phone itself and in the (useless) welcome packet in my room for the number for the front desk, I tried to call the standard local number. Local calls didn't work either. Awesome! So I threw on some shoes and slogged down to the front desk (did I mention that this was a traditional motel, with all doors open to outside?)
"Hi, what's the number to call you guys from my room?" I was being much more pleasant now.
"Just dial 0."
"Ok, also, my cell phone's dead, and I was trying to use the room phone, but I just get a fast busy when I try to make a long distance call."
"Oh, you can't make long distance calls."
"..."
"You have to put down a deposit." And you didn't mention this at checkin...why, exactly?
"Ok, how much is the deposit?"
"It depends on how much you plan to use it." This from the other front desk guy.
Sigh. Aaaand there goes my patience. "Ballpark it for me."
"$10-20."
"Fine, can you just put that on the same card as the room?"
"Sure."
The girl pipes up. "And if you need anything else, you don't need to come down here. You can just dial 0." So, I may have been all extra sensitive, but I kind of took that as "Leave us alone, you high-maintenance bitch." Fair enough. But maybe if you printed the words "Front desk: Dial 0" ANYWHERE IN THE DAMN ROOM, you wouldn't even be seeing me now.
When I got back to the room, my line was activated. Yay! They did something right! I called and talked to Rob a couple minutes, let him know I was in safely and that my cell phone was nearly dead. After I hung up, I realized that I forgot to confirm the La Grange shuttle times for the hotel. So I called Rob back and asked him to check the MS150 website. It said 4:30, 5:30, 6:30 for Bastrop hotels, but to ask the bus driver about exact times. Great...except that I didn't ride the bus to the hotel. So I dialed 0.
"Front desk."
"Hi, Do you have information about what time the MS150 shuttles run from here to La Grange in the morning?"
"No, I'm sorry, we don't have any information about those." From her tone, I'm pretty sure she didn't even know what the hell I was talking about.
So now, to recap: Lost my reservation, tried to charge me more for a different room, the room they put me in was less than clean, and they have no information about an event for which they triple their room rates every year. But it gets better!
I resolved the shuttle time issue myself by staking out the front of the hotel until the next drop-off and asking the bus driver. After that, I was feeling a little peckish, so I went back to my room and got money for the vending machine. Whose dollar slot was broken, so I got to go harass the front desk kids some more.
"Hi, I need change for the coke machine--the dollar thing doesn't work. Also, do you have a food machine, or just drinks?"
"Just drinks. But there's gas station down the road by the Comfort Inn."
"How far?"
"About a half mile." Well, it's a good thing that I didn't bike over 100 miles today, or I'd really hate the thought of that ten-minute walk through the ditch along the side of the highway at dusk to get a damned snack. Oh...wait.
And just for good measure, and since the room had no alarm clock at all... "Thanks. Also, I need a 4:00 wake up call."
"[My room number]?"
"[My room number]."
And that was the end of my dealings with the front desk for the night, thankfully (on both sides, most likely). I walked down to the gas station and got snacks, came back, read a little bit, set 2 backup alarms, and went to bed.
I'm happy to report that the wake-up call did work, and only 1 minute behind my other two 4:00 alarms. (Since I'm hardly Ms. Atomic Clock, I figure that's close enough.) After calling Rob and working out a tentative game plan on my phoneless and most-likely-solo day two, I headed for the lobby, since I couldn't see the shuttle stop from my room. I figured I could check out, then hang out on the couches there and wait. I walked around the building to the front door...and it was locked. Oooookay. I went around to the rear door, where a sign was posted "This door locked between 9:00 pm and 6:30 am. Use front door." Back to the main entry. I went to the night window, peered in. Didn't seem to be anyone back there. I knocked on the window, called hellooooo...nothing. Well, this was par for the course, I guess. A couple more people came by, I apprised them of the situation, they tried the same tactics with the same results. Just as I was beginning to picture some kind of horrible "robbery-gone-bad" scene in the back room, the guy came out of hiding and let us all into the lobby. The other guys were pissed that there was no coffee, but I was so beyond that point. I had my chair, my coke from last night's gas station trip, and my drastically lowered expectations. Five minutes later, the bus came and the Bastrop Best Western was out of my life forever.
So, to summarize, last night I stayed in a motel with no restaurant, a drinks-only vending machine (that didn't accept dollar bills), in a room with a dirty toilet & no alarm clock. I paid the same price for this experience as I did a room at the Westin at Christmastime. Including the room-service breakfast.
That said? It was still 100x better than camping at the fairgrounds. If I ever do the MS150 again, I'll be hotellin' it all the way.
Just not that hotel.
I went and picked up my bike last night, and she was very happy to come home.
For those of you waiting with bated breath to find out which pedals I put on to replace the clicky ones (all 0 of you), I went with the Quattros. It sort of breaks the rule of not trying anything new at a major event...well, no "sort of" about it--it totally breaks the rule. However, I figured I have a couple days to get used to the only-slightly different clipping mechanism, and the larger platform will be nice to have on back-to-back long rides. That, and they're a new toy! I wanted to play with them as soon as possible. :)
In other decision making news...the company team leader told me when I picked up my jersey last week that he would be sending out an email with the route and start details "on Monday". Now it's Thursday, and still no email. I appreciate that he's a busy guy, and running the MS150 team is not his only or his primary job. However, I can't handle this waiting till the last minute for everything. I'm not sorry I signed up for the team (free jersey, if nothing else), but I'm going to ride from the Woodlands. The communication from the team running that start has been excellent, and I feel comfortable that I'll know exactly where to go and what to do if I start from there. Sure, the route's a little longer, but it comes out to about 103 miles on the first day instead of 90. I've done 100 miles before, right? Piece of cake! (*snort*)
Distance: 100.02 miles
Total time: 7:16
On-bike time: 6:30
On-bike avg mph: 15.3
Avg. mph, incl stops: 13.8
High speed: 24.3 mph
My first century!
Instead of doing a play-by-play (because it's been a long day and it's all sort of hazy at this point), here's a list of things that sucked/were awesome:
Suck: Realizing that I left my saddlebag at the house, about 45 minutes too late to go back for it.
Awesome: Not needing it--no flats, no mechanical problems, despite seeing more flats on this ride than on any other event I've ever been to. I passed one poor couple twice. The second time, I jokingly called "Aw man, AGAIN?" The guy replied, "this is the fifth time!" (Though I didn't say it, after 5 flats on one ride, maybe it's time to look into some new tires, dude. Or check the air pressure. Or maybe try not to run over shit. Of course, now that I've typed this, karma dictates that I'll have, like, 9 flats on my next ride.)
Suck: Riding in the rain for the first 20 or so miles, and into the wind for the first 40-50.
Awesome: The rain stopped shortly after rest stop 2, and the last half of the course was all tailwind.
Suck: How badly I wanted to turn at the 40-mile turnoff...I was soaked through, miserable, and tired of battling the wind.
Awesome: I went straight for the 100-miler anyway. (Rain be damned...I'm so hardcore!)
Suck: At rest stop 2, between getting my ipod into a plastic baggie and wringing about a gallon of water out of my gloves, I dropped my car keys.
Awesome: I noticed the key drop right away...if I had made it to the finish without them, the suck list might have included "total nervous breakdown."
Suck: Climbing the steepest bridge in the universe (well, maybe not...but it felt like it at the time).
Awesome: This was the only hill on the entire route.
Suck: Missing the (UNMARKED, thankyouverymuch)turn onto Hwy 171, causing me to have to climb another bridge...twice, since I climbed the other side during the backtrack.
Awesome: I also got to do the downhill twice. And those extra miles came in handy later.
Suck: Getting to the 84-mile rest stop 10 minutes after the 100-mile course closed and being forced to take the shortcut to the finish, knowing full well that if I hadn't overshot the turn onto 171, I totally would have made the cutoff. I also felt really bad for another girl at the stop with me. She was so upset that she was going to come up short of a century...when I saw her come out of the port-o-potty, it looked like she had been crying.
Awesome: Those extra 4 miles that made me miss the cutoff were also just enough to make it possible for me to ride a century on the short course.
Suck: Crossing the finish line with my odometer reading 99.71 miles. (I'm pretty my exact words were, "Aw, HELL no.")
Awesome: Doing the victory lap around the parking lot to my truck to hit the 100-mile mark. I eyeballed it perfectly, too...the odometer flipped to 100.00 just a couple yards from the tailgate. :)
Now, to further accentuate the positive, some more things that were awesome:
Distance: 65.2 miles
Total time: 6:01*
On-bike time: 4:18*
On-bike avg mph: 15.1
Avg. mph, incl stops: 10.8
High speed: 28.3 mph
*times are estimates, since I forgot to turn off my watch timer for about 10 minutes after we pulled in, and didn't think to check the bike computer until after I got home. I figure I rode about 1/4 of a mile after I crossed the finish line, so I deducted .2 miles from the 65.4 my computer reported and recalculated the average speed.
(WARNING: This recap still turned out reeeeally long, even after editing out 3 whole sections. Sorry..."concise" is not so much my middle name.)
I learned a few things on this ride. In order of discovery:
So, I once again misjudged how long it would take me to get to the ride location. Again, I should have known how long it would take, because I've already been to this place twice for the Tour de Pink. Still, I managed to get there about an hour early, which turned out to be a good thing anyway because a TON of people were already there. I mean, there was a line of cars stretching back almost to the freeway, and they were already parking cars in the field when I got there. I don't know where they would have put me if I had gotten there at 7:30 as planned.
Lesson #1: And they shall know us by our bottle cages
So, I parked the truck and started to unload my gear. As I was doing this, the girl parked next to me struck up a conversation. It was the usual "how far are you going, man can you believe all these people here so early", pre-ride small talk. Then she got her bike out of the truck--light blue Pilot 5.2, matching bottle cages. I knew that bike! But I had to tread carefully, because I also remembered how I knew it. If she wasn't the same girl, I didn't want to offend her...some people get weird about riding the SAG wagon. A pride thing, I guess.
"Hey, did you ride the Katy Flatland last year?"
"Which one was that--with all the wind?"
"Maybe, it was last summer. I just remember the heat."
"I don't remember...maybe I did."
"The reason I ask is that I think I recognize your bike, but maybe it was someone else..." And then I just decided to go for it, "...I sagged in from mile 54, and I think we were on the same truck."
The light went on. "YES! That was the one where it was so HOT! In JULY! I was riding with..." Then she gave me the whole story of who she was riding with and how they ended up on the SAG truck and didn't get weird about it at all, thank god. Then we talked about how dehydration sucks and how neither of us had any desire to try the 100-mile course at Katy ever again. It was a nice bonding moment.
So, of the 1500 or so people I could have parked next to at this ride, it turned out to be someone I had met before. Funny, that.
Lesson #2: My kingdom for a Starbucks...or not
This makes two rides in a row where I wanted to grab a latte on the way and was thwarted. Last week, my usual Starbucks was on the way, but hadn't opened yet when I was driving by. Then I didn't see another one for the remaining 50 miles to Manvel. You'd think in a city with over 200 stores in the metropolitan area, I'd pass at least ONE within sight of the freeway. Alas, no. I even tried to get coffee at the Burger King/gas station in Manvel, but it wasn't open yet either. Arrgh! So I did the ride without my customary hit of caffeine, and it went fine. Better than fine, actually...I felt better after that 88 mile ride than I did after the 65-mile ride the week before.
Yesterday, it was more of the same. The route I chose to take to Prairie View didn't have any standalone Starbucks stores, and I didn't want to go to Kroger just for a latte. Besides, those in-store branches are kind of hit-or-miss with their business hours and espresso skills, so I didn't want to chance it. I figured I'd see a standalone location somewhere out by Fairfield, but no--my latte jones was denied once again.
And once again, my ride felt better than my previous, caffeinated rides. Hmm...I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Maybe it doesn't give me the push that I thought it did. Or maybe I do better with my caffeine coming later in the ride...the Shot Bloks I like have 100mg of caffeine per package, and I've gone through a full bag on each of the past two rides. That's about 1/2 as much caffeine as I would get from a pre-ride grande latte, but it's being dispersed more gradually, and later in the ride. Also, with 100% less milk. Aw hell, I don't know...no one ever accused me of being Ms Wizard. All I know is that I've felt better on these last two rides, so I'm going to stick with what's working.
Lesson #3 - Let's get on down to the main attraction/With a little less talk and a lot more...hydration (Apologies to Toby Keith)
I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to find anyone to ride with yesterday, so I packed my ipod just in case. As luck would have it, I spotted a club jersey just as I was pulling into the parking lot. After I finished up the conversation with my parking buddy (who was riding solo, but only going 48 miles...otherwise I may have offered to ride with her), I rode back over there to see who it was and how far they were going. It was one of my semi-regular beginner riders, and her riding partner was the girl who rode with me at the Continental Classic. Score! They were planning to go 82 miles, though, so I asked if they minded me tagging along with them until the turnoff. And just like that, I had riding buddies.
When we got to the start line, we ran into another couple club riders who were doing 63, but they were riding with their MS150 team. Still, this made my girls sort of waver on their commitment to the 82-mile course. Then the announcement came that all courses would be closing at 2:00, and that settled it. They weren't sure that they could make the deadline, so they decided to plan on 63 instead, but make the final decision at the turnoff.
Well, they chose the 63, so my ipod stayed in my pocket. By the time we got to the 2nd rest stop (we had skipped the first one), I had begun to realize that while it does make the ride faster and more enjoyable to have a riding buddy, I have a harder time remembering to drink regularly when I have someone to talk to. After about 25 miles, I still had 1 1/2 of my two bottles of water left. Something that also sucked? The rest stop ran out of food and gatorade about 2 minutes after we got there. Not so bad for us, really, but I don't imagine that the couple hundred riders behind us were very happy about it. This was also a pattern that repeated at the next two rest stops...by RS5, things had pretty much caught up to us (and we camped out at that one for about half an hour anyway), but by then it would have been too late for someone who was really suffering. I'm not sure the organizers were prepared for the turnout, or else they didn't weight the food distribution as well as they could have.
Lesson #4 - click...click...click-click...click...AAAARGH!
My bike hasn't had a proper cleaning in about 2 months. I mean, I do relube the chain every now and again, but I've had a hard time finding a really good degreaser so the thing is pretty grimy. It also hasn't had a tuneup for about 2500 miles, and I've changed 2 rear flats since then and taken the front wheel off about eleventy-thousand times. So yeah...my bike is not in peak mechanical shape, and it's finally started to show. A couple weeks ago, the shifting started to get dodgy in the lower gears. In typical Joy fashion, I didn't worry about it much, because the bike was still driveable (for more info on this tendency, see also: Spring Breakaway, Brakes section and My 1999 Corolla, Catastrophic Brake Failure Of). This week, I started to hear a persistent clicking noise while pedaling. Didn't matter what gear I was in, didn't matter what the cadence was or the speed...if the crank was turning, the bike was clicking. By rest stop 3 of this ride it was driving me INSANE, so I stopped by the mechanic and had it checked out.
The first thing he did was tighten the mount for my saddlebag. With that eliminated, he ran through the gears and lubed the chain. Still clicking. His diagnosis? Bottom bracket, and nothing we could really do about it in the field. Also, he wasn't 100% sure that was the problem anyway, because, and I quote, "your bike shifts so badly that I can't really tell." Oy. He then advised that when I do take it in for a tune-up (in fairness, I had admitted to him earlier that the bike was badly in need of one), I should ask them to clean and repack the bottom bracket. Which I did, when I brought her into the shop yesterday. I'm also having them replace the chain and recommend a good degreaser. I'm picking her up tomorrow, and that infernal clicking had better be gone. If not, I might be building the Orbea a wee bit early.
Lesson #5: REAPPLY
This one's short and sweet...racerback jersey + camisole-width straps + one half-hearted pre-ride sunscreen spray = brand new tan lines! Well, eventually. Right now it's a mildly painful sunburn on parts of my back that I can't quite reach. A new travel-sized tube of sunscreen has been added to my ride essentials.
Lesson #6: $1/minute, and worth every penny
This ride was the first time I've ever used the massage guy, and I gotta tell ya...totally worth the half-hour wait. My shoulders were so sore, and after 10 minutes' work, I felt like a whole new person. Totally worth paying for, and you bet your ass I'll be hitting the massage table in the team tent on the MS150.
Lesson #7: I did not bite off more than I could chew, after all
After my fourth metric century (or longer) in as many weeks, I finally feel like signing up for the MS150 was not a huge mistake of optimism over ability. I've gotten more confident with each ride, I can feel myself getting stronger, and I'm constantly discovering what works for me and what doesn't.
This weekend will be my last long ride before the big event--100 miles at the Space Race on Sunday--and then I'm going to keep the distances down to 20-30 miles/day on weekends. I'll try to make a point of hitting the spin classes during the week to keep the weekly mileage up, but no more centuries (standard OR metric) until the big weekend. Maybe three weeks is too long to taper, but with Easter and everything, I figure this is a good a time as any to start backing it off. I'm as ready as I'll ever be. :)
Distance: 88.55 miles(!!)
Total time: 6:42
On-bike time: 5:54
On-bike avg mph: 15.0
Avg. mph, incl stops: 13.2
High speed: 26.3 mph
OPEN WIDE for the recap.
This ride was longer than advertised, which I figure is karma coming back around for the short Continental Airlines ride. Luckily, this route was flatter than Kansas, and laid out perfectly for a southeast wind...all the tailwind was on the last third of the route, so by the time the wind started to pick up, it was at our backs.
I was a little worried about hydration at first...since I didn't drink enough the last time I used my Camelbak, I decided to try bottles on this ride. I had two 24-oz bottles ready to go, but forgot that the big bottles are too tall for my seat-tube bottle cage. After several attempts to cram the second bottle under the top tube, I gave up and left it behind. In retrospect, I think this turned out to be a good play, since having only one bottle made me hyper-aware of how much I was drinking. Since the rest stops were super close together, I had already decided to only hit every other one, so I gave myself a goal of emptying the bottle between them and refilling. If the bottle wasn't empty when I got to a stop, I finished it before I refilled.
Fuel wasn't a problem...I brought two packages of shot bloks, and the rest stops were well stocked with fruit and girl scout cookies. I even managed to snag the last Samoa at mile 39. Woo! :)
My biggest issue on the ride was with my feet. I took advantage of the monthly club member sale at our sponsor shop to buy a new pair of shoes, and I made the mistake of breaking them in on this ride. My cleat placement was okay, thank goodness, but I cinched the velcro WAY too tight initially. By the first rest stop, my toes were screaming at me. Once I loosened them a little, my feet gradually got better, but they still bothered me for most of the ride. I've no doubt the shoes will be great once I've worn them a few times, but making their maiden voyage my first 80+ miler? Probably not the best idea I've had.
My shoulders were better on this ride than the last one...I made a conscious effort to keep my shoulders down and back, and I think it made a huge difference. My back's still a little sore between the shoulder blades, but not nearly as bad as it was last week. Maybe the flatter course made a difference as well, who knows.
The other thing that made a difference in my overall enjoyment of this ride...my ipod. Since I knew I would be riding alone, I decided to flout the rules and bring my headphones. I mean, I love me some me, but spending seven hours with nothing but my own thoughts for company? No thanks. I figured they weren't going to bust me as long as I kept the volume low and one ear free, anyway. It did work really well to keep me motivated, and I think I'm going to have to figure out some way to take music on the MS150 without feeling guilty.
I didn't end up riding the whole ride by myself...most of it I did, but on the second time through the nastiest part of the headwind (the 68-mile & 84-mile routes had a loop at the southmost part of the route--the 68 milers did it once, the 84-milers did it twice), I got passed by a group of three bigger guys that weren't going all that much faster than I was. Since I had had enough of fighting the wind by myself, I upshifted after they passed and latched on to the end of their paceline. Ah, relief! I stayed with them until the next rest stop, and made sure to thank them for pulling me along back there.
That would have been the end of it, except that we were some of the last riders on the course, so some of the corner marshals (volunteers who sit on the corners and direct the riders where to turn) had already packed it in. These guys were all from the area, so I decided to tag along with their group and let them figure out where we were going. Plus, I wanted to practice my paceline skills and maybe take a pull for them, since they helped me out earlier (whether they were aware of it at the time or not).
By the time we got out of the rest stop, I was feeling really good. I had been careful to pace myself conservatively in the first part of the route, so now that we had a tailwind and I was riding with a group I was feeling like a superstar. Still, I stayed in the middle of the group for a while, until I happened to get through an intersection first. I got out in front, and one of the guys called up in a joking way, "So, you gonna drag us along for a while now?"
"I'm gonna try...I don't know how long I'll last, though."
And so I started to ride. The wind was pushing us along, and I didn't want my joining of their group to slow them down, so I set the fastest pace I could comfortably keep...about 17-18 mph. This went fine for a while, then a couple things happened at once: we turned into the wind, and Here It Goes Again (itunes link) came on the ipod. I matched my cadence to the beat of the music and threw all my concentration into maintaining a respectable pace for my adopted group.
By the time the song was over, I was starting to get tired. I slowed down the pace a bit, figuring that I had made decent go of it and someone would come up to relieve me any second. Didn't happen. I slowed a bit more, tried to control my breathing--still nobody. Finally, I chanced a look back as I rounded a curve.
There was no one there. The closest guy to me was a good 50 yards back. In trying to not embarrass myself by being too slow, I accidentally dropped the lot of them. Crap! Well, at least now I didn't need to worry about backing off. :) I was, however, of two minds about it. On the one hand, I felt like a shitty paceliner, since I didn't bother to check that my group could keep up with me. On the other, I RULE. Even after over 60 solo miles, I was TOTALLY stronger than these guys. :) They caught me again at the next intersection, and the same guy was all, "Where'd that burst of energy come from back there?" All I could come up with was, "Dude, I have NO idea. I thought y'all were right behind me...sorry about that."
The next time I took the lead, I was careful to maintain the same pace of the guy who was leading before me. Even then, though, a different guy from the back came up almost immediately and pushed the pace up a couple mph. Huh? Do I offend?
I shrugged it off and stayed with him, again figuring that the other two were right behind me. They weren't, but caught up at the next rest stop. So was that dude just going off the front on his own for a while, or was he expecting everyone to keep up? I don't know. By this time, I was kind of unsure of myself re: the whole group dynamic, but I still wasn't confident I could find my way back to the start by myself if the signs were gone. I also wasn't sure whether it would be more rude to just leave on my own at this point, or to continue to tag along with them and take turns at the front. They didn't seem to mind me, but I didn't want to be that weird girl that wouldn't go away, either. So I stayed back toward the tail end of the group for those last 7 miles, then ended up first through a light and beat them to the finish by about a minute. I waited to thank them for letting me tag along with them, smiles and waves were exchanged, and that was that.
So, yeah...sore feet and paceline etiquette questions aside, it was a good ride. I paced myself well in the beginning, the wind situation went mostly in our favor, the ipod was a godsend, and my overall average speed was exactly where I like it to be. Also, now I know I can do an 88-mile ride, which is just about equivalent to an MS150 day. If there had been hills, it may have been a different story, but I'm still more confident of my readiness than I was last week.
Distance: 64.69 miles
Total time: 5:36
On-bike time: 4:35
On-bike avg mph: 14.1
Avg. mph, incl stops: 11.6
High speed: 30.2 mph
The course was shorter than advertised, which is always good. There were some hills, particularly between miles 22 and 39. The granny gear was used...extensively. However, I also made use of the big ring, which I almost never do. It balanced out. Once again, I got confused about wind directions, and went into the ride believing that a south wind meant we'd have a tailwind on the back (ie, southward) half of the course. Needless to say, we did not.
I got to Montgomery plenty early, having misjudged how long it would take to get there from my house. I really wish I had known ahead of time, because I had stayed up till 2:00/3:00 Saturday night to monitor the daylight savings time change, and getting up at 5:30 was pretty rough. Had I known it would only take me 45 minutes to get to the place, I could have squeezed in an extra hour of sleep.
I had planned to ride alone, but I ran into someone from my club rides at the registration/map pickup area who was also riding alone, so we decided to ride together. The last time she rode the beginner ride a month ago, she was on the slower side, so I figured we would be well matched. What I didn't count on is that she's been riding 4 times a week and training with her MS150 team on weekends since then. Whereas, I can barely be bothered to make it to one spin class and a club ride every week. All this to say, the girl has improved. I kept up with her reasonably well for the first 40 miles, but she dusted me on those last 20. She was at the last 2 rest stops a good 3-5 minutes before I pulled in. We did finish together, though, so that was good.
It's so much nicer to ride with a partner or group...that's one of the things I enjoy most about being part of a club. Even if I go to one of these events by myself, I usually run into someone I can ride with, or at least tag along with for a while.
The only mechanical problem I had was with my seat...I moved it back and tilted it to a level position (v. pointed slightly down) before the ride, and I didn't tighten the bolt enough. By the time we got to the first rest stop, it was tilted up about 20 degrees. In order to fix that, I had to take all the electrical tape (yes, I did upgrade to electrical)off my saddlebag strap, which meant that it started to rub my leg again at around mile 30. By the 40-mile rest stop, I was seriously worried about ruining another pair of shorts. And since I was wearing my best pair, this concern was enough for me to approach four different volunteers until I found one with electrical tape. We bound it up again, and everything was fine for the rest of the ride. Today, I ordered one of these. Look ma, no straps!
This was my first long ride with the new handlebar, and honestly? I can't tell if it's better or worse. On the plus side, my hands never went numb and I don't have the upper shoulder/neck soreness anymore. However, those muscles between my shoulder blades were killing me by about halfway through the ride. I think the narrower grip just uses different muscles, and I have to retrain for the difference. I also think the shorter reach has my weight too far forward, because my front wheel started creaking and clicking toward the end. That could be because I didn't twist the skewer as tight this last time as I normally do, also, so I don't know. By the time it started getting bad, I was too tired and too close to the finish to really worry about it. I am going to keep the 75mm stem, though, because I think it's going to be a better fit when transferred to the Orbea. I can work with it for a few months.
So, overall, the ride went well. Since I did it on 2 hours' sleep, I crashed as soon as I got home (after I made sure the boy took his medicine, Rob). After 14 hours of sleep, I feel considerably better. :)
...did you know that OK Go has a treadmill workout album (iTunes link)? And that it is completely awesome?
I tried it for the first time at the gym last night, and enjoyed every minute. The interval workout was designed by a professional trainer, and the OK Go guy's coaching is excellent--cues and encouragement in all the right places. He makes a lot of references to that treadmill dancing video they did, so some things may be lost on you if you haven't seen it...but who hasn't, by now?
The 30-minute continuous mix with the coaching voiceover is an album-only track, so you have to buy the entire thing to get it. It's totally worth the $15 all by itself, though, so getting the full versions of all the songs besides is just gravy. Go check it out!
Total distance: 67.01 miles
Total time: 5:31
On-bike time: 5:00
On-bike avg mph: 13.4
Avg. mph, incl stops: 12.1
High speed: 25.9 mph
So, that makes it the longest ride I've done to date. The course was very flat, but also cold and very windy. The last few miles were really rough--I was down in my granny gear, less than 10 mph, telling myself lies just to make it to the next curve ("maybe it'll be tailwind this time", "only 2 miles to go now", "oh, wait--NOW there are only 2 miles...", etc). But I made it!
Lessons learned to follow, sorted into pairs by topic.
Brakes
Wind
Food
Gear
I went to my usual spin class this morning, and it was the hardest that class has ever been for me. I don't know if the instructor was feeling mean today or what, but it was just one interval after another without much rest between...completely kicked my ass. Of course, I also forgot to eat before I left, which is not so good. One of the many things I've learned about myself in the past couple years is that I bonk mightily when I exercise on an empty stomach.
Anyway, I usually average about 75-80% of max HR in these classes, with my peak hitting anywhere between 92 and 99%. Today's peak? 106%! Which is, of course, impossible. All that really means is that my max HR setting in my monitor is set too low.
What's funny is that when I put the number in manually, I was worried I was setting it too high. By the age method (220-age), the watch told me that my max is 187. I knew that wasn't right, since I see higher numbers than that pretty regularly. So, I did what the average non-scientific exerciser would do, I think--I added 10 to that. :)
This class is the first time in a long time that I've felt like I was really pushing my limits. I could very well have hit my true max today, and if that's the case? It's somewhere around 208.
I guess this shouldn't surprise me. On longer rides where I'm not really pushing myself much, I generally average about 70-80% of max on my watch. I've worried that I've been working too hard without realizing it, so I've been purposely slowing the pace of my club rides to keep my HR in the low 70s. However, if my max HR is 12 bpm or more higher than I thought it was, then those numbers were right where I would expect them to be based on how I felt (65-75%, roughly).
Hmm...something to think about.
After several failed attempts despite the best of intentions, I've determined that I'm not going to add miles to my Saturday ride. However, I'm way behind on my mileage goals, and I don't feel very ready to ride 150 miles in two days in April.
So, I've given myself some external motivation--charity rides. I had already planned two next month, but now I'm actually registered for them and 3 more between now and 4/1:
March 4 - Spring Breakaway, 65 miles
March 11 - Continental Airlines Classic, 68 miles
March 18 - Great Escape Ride, 84 miles
March 25 - Bluebonnet Express, 63 miles
April 1 - Space Race, 104 miles
That's what--385 miles? Plus 5 weeks of club riding is 498, and if I commute on Fridays, that could be as much as another hundred. My odometer is currently at just under 3500, so this will put me over 4000 by MS150 time. It doesn't look like I'll make 5000 by then, but I'll probably hit it by June. And you know what--that'll be about the time my new bike will be ready for assembly!
Heh...I love it when a plan comes together.
You ever have one of times where it seems everything in your life is leading you to do a specific thing? I just had a minor one of those.
First, I decided to buy the Orca. Then I decided to wait until I could afford all new components rather than move the Pilot components over to the new machine. Then I started shopping for what I wanted and planning my budget.
While I was doing this earlier in the week, I got a newsletter from a local bike store chain about their "Women's Weekend" thing going on this weekend, with clinics and rides and whatnot. One caught my eye...a representative from Specialized was coming to do a clinic on women's products and bike fit on Friday night. And there would be wine! It was like they had been reading my diary. As it happened, I had a meeting yesterday that was going to get me out of work about an hour earlier than normal, so I would have plenty of time to get across town to this thing. I signed up.
Last night, I made it to the clinic, and it was really great. However, since I got there about 45 minutes late (the universe may have aligned to send me there, but traffic did not), I had missed the main thing I wanted to hear--the part about reach. Because, as I've mentioned a time or a thousand to everyone who will listen, I have reach issues on my current bike, and I am worried about perpetuating them on the new one.
So, after the clinic, I approached the Specialized girl with my reach questions, and after I described my shoulder pain, she mostly* confirmed what I already thought--my handlebars are probably too wide. She rolled out a 51cm Ruby, had me stand over it and put my hands on the hoods.
LOVE.
Not only did the narrower grip feel more natural, but the the drops were shallower and more curved, so the reach to every hand position was reduced by as much as 5mm. Lemme tell ya--my legs may not be suited to womens-specific geometry, but my arms sure as hell are. :) Though I didn't test ride, I was pretty sure this was exactly what I had been looking for. I got the name of the carbo