Triathlon Interrupted

My last post was a few days before the Mach Tenn Triathlon, which was to be my first tri of the season.  However, that didn't happen.  The night before the tri, I received a late-night call from my parents.  Lightning had struck their house and it was on fire.  At the time, my dad made it sound like they had a little kitchen fire, but in actuality, it was "catastrophic."  My parents are, thankfully, OK, but the due to fire, smoke and water damage, the house is pretty much a total loss.  So - rather than racing Mach Tenn that morning, I headed up to DC to help my parents deal with this situation.

This was my childhood bedroom...

Unfortunately, my travels also changed my training plan.  Well, actually it went from "Let's do this" to 10 days of nothing.  NOTHING!  Not that it really mattered at the time.  But I'm back now and am trying to make up for lost time.  And it hurts, I tell ya, it hurts.  Hopefully, between Coach Andrew and Coach Jessica (FTP Coaching) kicking my butt and my regular runs with East Nasty, I'll get back some sort of fitness soon.  

While I missed my race, my husband finished his first multi-event race this past weekend - the Du Run Run.  It's a 2-mile run / 10-mile bike / 2-mile run.  It was hot out here on Sunday, so I'm sure Dudley suffered a bit while he was out there, but I think he had fun.

Go Dudley Go!! 

Since my Mach Tenn was derailed, I signed up for the Old Hickory Tri this weekend.  This will be my first tri since Augusta.  It's a sprint, but it's open water.  As usual, I'm afraid I'll blow up on the run.   We'll just see how it goes!  

Time to Get Serious

   Play time if over.  Time to start REALLY training.  Don't get me wrong - Andrew and Jessica at FTP have been kicking my butt during the off-season - and it's been paying off.  I've gotten a PR in a recent 5k AND I'm getting faster in my swim.  It's just that I haven't really been training with an end-goal in mind; so therefore no detailed spreadsheets counting down the weeks to a race and no daily diary of how I felt after each workout.  A part of me loves the freedom in this.  Just to work out and then race and see what happens.  But the detail-orientated spreadsheet geek in me is kind of freaking out.  Especially with Augusta slowly sneaking up on me.  So it's time to get serious now.   I'm not sure what that will entail yet, but I'm sure it will include spreadsheets.

   On a side note, Dudley, me and the crew from FTP rode the CRAM (Clarksville Rotary Annual Metric) on Saturday.  This ride (along with it's sister ride on Memorial Day) is somewhat legendary because it's FLAT, FLAT, FLAT.  Though it's named after the metric - there is also a century ride.  People travel from all over the country to try to break a 4:00 century.  If fact, I think the national PR for a century was done on this course.  However, we only did the metric - which was enough on a 95-degree day.  Good news is that I felt great.  The longest I had ridden this year was 40-miles, so I wasn't sure how 62 was going to feel.  But it was really a lot of fun.  Had a great open-water swim on Sunday, too.  Maybe only swam 1,500 meters, but that really helps with my mental state.

Next up - Mach Tenn!  YIKES

Catching Up

Tri season is here and I need to catch up on this blog.  Since I last wrote, I've only competed a one race - the Country Music Half-Marathon.  The race was fine.  It, as usual, was crazy hot.  In fact, I had never seen a race where more people needed serious medical attention.  It was worse than Augusta, which was technically about 15 degrees warmer.  Fortunately though, I haven't heard of any serious injuries.
Here are my FB observations from the race:

CMHM Observation #1 - iPods and large races don't mix. I can't tell you how many people almost took me out today because they were futzing with their iPods, or were in their own worlds and not paying attention to where they were going.
CMHM Observation #2 - White spandex shorts probably shouldn't be worn by anyone.
CMHM Observation #3 - Some people will do ANYTHING to get in front of a race photographer. Really? There are about 50 of them along the course. Is it that important to get your picture taken by
EVERY ONE of them?
CMHM Observation #4 - This is more of a suggestion than an observation... When hiring people to shuttle runners back to the start - make sure the driver knows how to get there. My driver got lost going from LP Field to Centennial Park.
CMHM Observation #5 - Every year while I'm running this race (3x so far) I think, "I'm never doing this again." And then when I get home I think, "That wasn't so bad." :-) Thanks to everyone who ran with me over the past few months training for this thing, and a huge thanks to the volunteers. Congrats to all of the runners. See you next year.

And now on to new things... I met 4x Kona Champion Chrissie Wellington this week! She was in town for a book signing so me, Dudley and about 300 other tri-geeks went up to ACME Multisports to hear her speak and buy a book. She seemed very nice, although I had a hard time relating to her because she's SO GOOD. She's never lost an Ironman distance race! It almost became comical as her achievements were listed - she almost wins every race she enters. I KNOW she trains extremely hard and is VERY focused, but the way she described her races was almost "I woke up one morning and decided to race an Ironman - and I WON." She's a legend. It was very cool to meet her.

Dudley and me with Chrissie

The FTP crew with Chrissie

Now, as far as what's next - I have the Mach Tenn tri next week. It'll be interesting to see how I do compared to last year. I know more of what to expect, but my training is so-so. The Preds season really cut into my training time. I tried to fit in what I could, but I know I didn't swim as much as I should have, or ride for that matter. However, thanks to FTP and my buddies at East Nasty, my running is pretty strong - for me anyway. I did two sub 8-minute miles at Tuesday AM training, which I've never done previously. How that will translate to a tri - I have no idea. We'll see!

 

Rock & Roll USA Half

   This has been a month in the works - I'm a little behind.  Here, finally, is my recap the Rock & Roll USA Half-Marathon, which was March 17th.  We (Dudley, my parents and me) started our morning at 6am and headed down to the Metro, which was the suggested transportation from the Race Directors.  They made it very clear that parking was limited and racers would need to Metro down.  Being that I'm from the DC area, taking the Metro was a no-brainer.  There was a stop right at the Start / Finish line.  SO much easier than driving downtown....unless the train breaks down.  Which it did.  Apparently, so many people got on the Metro at the stops leading into the race area, that the doors of the train broke.  So here we were sitting on a VERY crowded Metro train, just waiting for things to get fixed.  We were on the train for about 20 minutes before an announcement came over stating that we have to evacuate the train.  It is now 7:30.  The race starts at 8:00.  No announcement about if another train is coming, or when this one is going to get rolling again.  Just "Get off the train."  So we do.
   Immediately, about 1/3 of the runners start running towards the escalators leading out of the Metro station.  I know from the signs that we're at the Smithsonian station, but unfortunately, I have no idea where that is in relation to where the race start.  All I know it that's somewhere behind the Capitol.  (And when I lived here, "somewhere behind the Capitol" is NOT a place where you'd want to get lost.)  After a short discussion with my parents, Dudley and I decided to make a run for it.  That we would just follow the other runners the 2.5 miles to the start.
   So we exit the station and it looks like a scene from an Armageddon movie.  Runners are everywhere trying to figure out where to go.  They're pounding on cabs, trying to get their attention.  They're running across busy street to get to the DC Rental Bikes.  It's nuts.  Again, it's now about 7:35.  I figure we'll be able to cover the 2.5 miles in time for the race to start as long as we hustle.  It'll just be a good warm-up, right?
   Wrong.  I'm not sure who the person was that told me it's 2.5 miles to the race start, but they had no idea what they were talking about.  We walked for about 20 minutes and had just passed the Capitol when we saw someone ahead of us finally hail a cab.  We started yelling and were able to get them to wait for us.  We still had about another 2.5 miles to go!  We never would have made it if we had tried to walk the entire way.  We pulled up to the start at about 8:10.  The race had already started, but we were in Corral 16 so we had a little time to spare.  We waited in line forever for the Port-a-John (all the while a volunteer was yelling at us to get in our corrals) and then moved to the race start, where we jumped in with Corral 20.  What made me mad here is that there was a REALLY long line for the Port-a-Johns right at when you got to the race, but there were about 30 that were not being used at all just out of sight, around the corner.  REALLY?  Why not move those so people knew to use them?
   Anyway, we finally get started.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day in Washington, D.C.  with a clear, bright blue sky.  Unfortunately, it got a little hot on the route, but not too bad.  All was well until about mile 4 when I needed to use the Port-a-John again.  Nerves from the crazy morning, I guess.  I saw one behind a band stage, but there were about 15 people already in line.  I knew there were two about a mile up the road, so decided continue on to there.  BIG MISTAKE.  We waited in line for TWENTY MINUTES.  It's one of those situations where you're damned if you wait and damned if you don't.  We thought about moving forward to the next set, but we didn't know how far up the road they were.  (They weren't marked on the map or at every mile like most big races.)  It turns out the next set wasn't until around mile 8, so it was good we stopped, but it just KILLED our time.   All together, I counted SIX Port-a-Johns on the course.  No where near enough for the 25,000 runners there.
   Other than that, the race itself was pretty standard.  I felt OK.  I was pretty much ready for the race to be done at mile 10.  Dudley did great.  I guess my Couch-to-Half Marathon training program worked OK for him!!  Overall, I think it was a good race, on a beautiful day in one of my favorite cities.  It just would have been nice to know what our race would have been like without the Metro madness and the twenty minute delay in the middle of the race!

Ouch...

Had my first post-Half run yesterday.  Wow - that was hard.  Only three miles, but my legs felt like lead.  I tried to do a few hill repeats just for kicks and they didn't go well AT ALL.  I thought I'd be recovered better by now.  Guess not.  Hopefully, I'll be OK when I join the East Nasty 11-mile training run on Sunday.  Should be interesting.

On a different note, I'm trying to pay more attention to my eating habits.  I'd love to drop about 10 pounds by the Country Music Half Marathon.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm not really "dieting," but trying to be more careful about snacking.  Anyway, this is a yummy recipe Dudley made last night.  Seems pretty lean. Check it out.

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/chicken-roasted-sweet-potato-salad-00000000008027/index.html

It's Been a While

   So, it's been a while since I've posted.  The good news is that it's been due to laziness in blogging rather than activity.  I've been BUSY.  While full tri training hasn't kicked in yet, I've been steadily training for half-marathons since January.  I even ran one - the Birmingham Half in February.  That will definitely go down as the COLDEST race I've done so far.  It was 20 degrees with a 13 degree wind chill at the start.
   A week later, I had the coldest training day ever.  This time it was around 30, but there was rain, which turned into snow, then turned back into rain.  It was a 12-mile training run, which was fine for the first six.  That's when the chills got to me and I just froze the the remainder of the run.  Not a whole lot of fun.
  But now, it's mid-March and it's warm, and the plants are blooming and it's LIGHT again for our night runs, which is fantastic.  I was getting sick of running in the dark all the time.
  Which brings me to today.  I'm currently sitting in my parent's kitchen in Northern Virginia.  Tomorrow is the Rock&Roll Nation's Capital USA Half Marathon.  This has been the race that I've trained for since January.  I'm physically ready... except for one thing.  My toe.
  I'm not sure what the heck happened because everything was fine for my six-mile run on Sunday.  No pain at all.  No pain on Monday (rest day) either.  Then Tuesday, the top of my foot started to hurt.  I figured it was the heels I was wearing.  We went for a 5.5 miler after work, and while it hurt, I was able to finish.  I figured it was just a one-day thing.
  But it wasn't.  It's now Friday and my foot still hurts.  I haven't been running in hopes that it would heal, and it has a bit.  I can walk, but I still feel "it."  I'm REALLY hoping it's not a stress fracture, though it has the symptoms of one (WebMD is not my friend).  My thought with this is that if it is a stress fracture, I'm out for six-weeks no matter what.  I may as well try to run the race tomorrow.  If it gets too painful, I'll pull out.  But I'm hoping I wake up tomorrow with no pain and ready to kick butt! I'm especially excited because my husband is running this with me tomorrow.  We haven't run a race together in about two years.  I hope I can do it!

What's Next

  I've taken a pretty decent sized break from this blog, and unfortunately from training.  It wasn't really on purpose.  I took about two weeks off after Augusta to recoup and rest.  I was pretty burnt out after 5 months of training.
  But then I caught a cold and I've been fighting that for the past two weeks.  That hasn't been fun AT ALL and I haven't been able to train.  I feel like my 5 months of training have completely gone down the tubes.
   Not that I'm feeling better, it's time for me to get off my ass and training again.  I know I have several goals for next season.  1) PR in the Half-Marathon.  My PR is 2:13 so anything better than that would be fantastic.  I would LOVE to break 2:00.  Would. LOVE. To.  My goal race for that is the Tom King Half in March.  It's completely flat and would be a good course for it.  Kicker is that it's on a greenway so the potential to get caught up in traffic is likely.  But still going for it.  
   Also on the list- the Birmingham Half as a warm-up in February and the Rock&Roll Half in DC as a "fun race."  It's the week after Tom King so I won't be in any shape to run it.  But it's in my hometown so I'm really looking forward to it.
   As far as tris - I'm thinking about the New Orleans 70.3 in April.  Might be too much with all of the Halfs, but we'll see.  Definitely going to hit either REV 3 in Knoxville and/or Memphis in May triathlons.
    I'm doing something really crazy tomorrow and registering for the lottery for the NYC marathon.  I have no desire to run a marathon EVER - but would LOVE to run NYC.  So I figure, what the heck?!  Enter the lottery and see what happens!  :-)
   Training starts tomorrow!!  See you on the roads!