Category Archives: race support

Race Report: Patriot Half-Ironman Aquabike

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Patriot Half!

I signed up for this race back in December hoping that I would have a good solid race before my final build to Lake Placid. However, sometimes life throws you curveballs and you just need to change your plan. I decided a month ago after my knee/hip issues started that I would drop down to the aquabike. I didn’t really want to, but I decided to be smart and not do anything stupid… like run a half-marathon with an injured leg. 

The week before the race I managed to come down with a nasty cold (again). I succeeded to do absolutely nothing last weekend in order to get rid of the cold. It helped, but my nose was still pretty runny and I pretty much lost my voice. I hadn’t been in open water yet either. Luckily, one of my co-workers offered (okay, maybe I bribed him) to kayak for me Thursday night so I could try on my wetsuit and get in the water for a bit of swimming. This week was pretty crappy weather-wise. Lots of rain so the lake was freezing. It was also windy and choppy. I lasted a whole 7 minutes in the water. Yikes! Hopefully race day will be much better!

Excited to swim in Sebago Lake

Excited to swim in Sebago Lake

I headed down to Massachusetts on Friday night and stayed at my coaches house. I got to see her herd of puppies. They are completely crazy and lovable at the same time! I had a pretty good night of sleep. Going into this race I wasn’t really nervous. At this point, mentally I was considering this more of a training day than a pure race. The ultimate goal is Lake Placid so I treated this as a day to a) complete my first real open water swim of the year, b) get nutrition timing down, and c) work on pacing throughout the bike course.

Pre-race:

I got up at 4:15 and had a quick breakfast of a bagel with cream cheese and applesauce. No issues with breakfast going down. Guess I really wasn’t that nervous. Got in the car and turned the GPS on. Had issues with the GPS losing satellite the entire drive to Freetown. Awesome. I made it with plenty of time. Got my race packet. Racked bike. Set up transition. Felt like I was missing everything since I didn’t need my running shoes. Took Azul (my bike) for a quick spin. Used the porta-potty. Put on the wetsuit. Quick warm-up in the lake. Water temperature was about 60 degrees. Waited about 40 minutes until my swim wave went off.

The Swim:

I was in the last wave with both men and women aquabikers and the relay peeps. I seeded myself in the semi-middle third row back. The gun went off and so did we. I found open water pretty quickly. I didn’t have any major issues of anyone swimming over me or kicking me. I kind of wish that they did in a way so I could “practice” for Lake Placid! The first third of my swim was rough. I couldn’t settle in. My stroke was horrible. I’m sure I looked like a dying fish out of water. Finally, I was able to settle into my swim stroke and was making my way towards to first turn buoy. It felt like it took forever to get there! As you got further out into the lake it got a bit choppy. I made the first turn and headed for the second one. I could see that I was passing a few people in the previous waves so I was feeling okay about my swim, but I knew that I was slow. Before I started the race I set my watch to beep every 10 minutes during the swim so I had an idea of the time. The second beep went off shortly after I rounded the first buoy. I made it around the second turn buoy and started to pick up the pace towards “home.” The third beep went off and I knew I was looking at a 40+ minute swim. Definitely very slow for me, which I was slightly bummed about. However, I guess that’s what you get when you haven’t swam open water since last August. Finally I made it shore!

Swim: 42:02 (2:00/100 yards) 5/12 AG; 20/49 OA

T1

Did my hair. Did my make-up. Just Kidding. I had a hell of a time getting my wetsuit off. It took forever. Best part of it was the fact that I managed to strain my left calf muscle while taking my suit off. Awesome. An hour later…

T1: 3:53 min

The Bike

The course is a two loop 28-mile course that is relatively flat with some rollers. It was a pretty course with views of lakes and nice houses. It reminded me a lot of Pumpkinman and a little bit of the Maine Rev3 course. It took me a bit to settle into the bike. My head was still a bit cloudy from the swim. The first couple of miles had a bunch of turns so it wasn’t very fast, but I did managed to pass a few people right off the bat. I concentrated on staying in my power zones and riding the course smart and consistently. My goal was to do the first loop a bit easier and then pick it up for the second loop. About 10 miles into the course I passed a woman and she asked if I was on my second loop. I laughed and told her I was only on my first loop. She said “oh, you have a pointy helmet so I thought you were on your second.” Thanks for thinking I’m super fast lady! I just might have to wear my aero helmet from now on. Ha! Shortly after that I came upon two tom turkeys trying to cross the road. Both were running around in the middle of the road like deer in headlights. Great! Luckily, they moved quickly to the side of the road and I was able to pass them without coming to a complete stop. At this point I started to play cat and mouse with an older woman named Shirley. This would go on throughout the entire ride. I would pass her and then she’d get a second wind and pass me only to have me pass her later on down the road. Great fun and a great motivator! Around mile 15 or so we came up to a road between two lakes. Just as a came around the bend a flock of Canadian geese and baby geese were trying to cross the road. Seriously! Turkeys and now geese! I kind of made a “no no” sound to get them to stay on the side of the road so I could pass and one of them hissed at me! I didn’t think Geese could hiss! Yikes!

I kept moving and soon Melissa passed me like a rocket! I skipped the bottle exchange at mile 18 and kept plugging along. Soon I passed by transition and headed out for my second loop. I picked up the speed and started focusing on passing anyone I could. At this point the headwind picked up again. It was there on the first loop, but definitely picked up a bit more on the second. This time I passed both mile 10 and 15 without any birds trying the cross the road. I did see a turtle at one point. Around mile 45 or so Shirley and I started playing cat and mouse with a man named Craig. Right around this point the bike traffic started to pick up a bit and becoming a bit of a cluster-f***. The roads were a bit narrow and there were cars trying to pass. Things got a bit slow. At this point I was getting frustrated and finally when I had a chance I just put my head low and hauled ass by about 10+ cyclists. Shirley and Craig were long gone at this point. I passed the bottle exchange again and knew I had roughly 10 miles left. At this point I picked it up again. I passed a bunch of people knowing that I didn’t have the run. In the final miles I saw the elite men heading to the finish of the run looking strong. Then I saw transition and was done. It was a nice feeling knowing I didn’t have the run now. But, I sort of missed not being able to run….

Bike: 3:11:56 (17.5mph) 6 AG; 29 OA

Overall, I felt good during the race. I was a bit disappointed with my time overall. I was slow, but I haven’t been training much in my half-ironman zones. That coupled with my cold, I did the best I could on that day. I was just glad that I didn’t have any major coughing spells during the swim or bike. Looking at the results afterwards there were a lot of slow bike times. I was really hoping to go sub-3 on the course and it is definitely within my capability. I think the headwind played a role in the slower times. I compared how I did in the aquabike to my age group for the Half and I would have placed well there if I didn’t have my knee injury. But you never really know. I did accomplish my goal of the day – to have a good solid ride. My VI for the ride was 1.09, which is really really good for me! I was happy about that. My legs felt good at the end, minus the calf strain. Now, onwards to my final build to Ironman Lake Placid!

Overall: 3:57:48.6 6/12 AG (Women under 44); 10/28 Females; 26/49 Overall

My awesome Garmin watch tan lines!

My awesome Garmin watch tan lines!

Race Support – We Can’t Do It Without You!

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I grew up riding horses competitively for over ten years. Over those years I had three horses that were kept less than a mile down the road. Horses are a lot of work. Mucking stalls, grooming, feeding, throwing hay up in the loft, etc. You get the idea. Luckily, I had tremendous support from my mother. She did all the morning chores while I got ready for school and we often split the evening chores. She carted my and my horse’s butt around the state and New England just about every weekend for shows and events. She was my number one supporter during those years. And I certainly miss her and her support everyday…

Getting ready for showmanship

Duke, Phoebe, and my Mom

Triathlon is an individual sport. We swim, bike, run all by ourselves. Our loved ones often think we are crazy to get up at the ass crack of dawn for an early swim workout, ride our bikes for 5+ hours on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, or run any where up to 20 miles for fun! They wonder why instead of putting thousands of dollars into our children’s college fund we invest that money into expensive race wheels that will make us five minutes faster. They complain they never see us or when they do we are the walking dead because we are hungry, sore, and tired.

But, at the end of the day many of them still love us and support us. While at Lake Placid this year I saw so many athlete’s family members wearing team shirts and carrying signs to support their athletes over their 140.6 mile journey. Some family members were glad when the day was over because they get their athlete back. Others have been through the drill numerous times before and still do it over and over again. The atmosphere at an Ironman is insane and very contagious!

Often times athletes forget to tell their friends, families, volunteers, and complete strangers how grateful they truly are for their support, encouragement, and smiles on race days. Many spectators don’t realize what a simple smile or “good job” can do for an athlete when all they just want to do is curse the world, puke, and lie on the side of the road and die. It can completely change an athlete’s perspective of the race and encourage them to finish.

For me personally, seeing a friend or family member on the side line means to world to me. Rev3 is on Sunday. I’m lucky that the race is on my home turf so I know a ton of people racing. Seeing a familiar face is always a wonderful thing. I’m really hoping that many people will come out to support me and my fellow racers. I know I have been working my butt off for the past 8 months to train for this race. It’s my big race and I would love to see my friends and family at the finish line for a smile, a hug, or a simple slap on the back and a “good job.” I know many others feel the same way so take a few hours out of your days and come support ALL the athletes racing on Sunday in OOB. Your smile or “you’re doing great” can really make a difference in an athlete’s mind!

~ See you all Sunday! 🙂

Weekend Rap-Up

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So last week “grammar nazi” The Midnight Baker pointed out that I spelled “Weekend Rap-Up” as “rap-up” instead of wrap-up. I just want to point out that clearly I did that on purpose because you are all suppose to rap my blog posts out loud like some famous rapper! Duh! Ha, I wish that was the reason, but nope. I do spend time spell checking all my blog posts before I publish them, but obviously I need to spell check my post titles too because it should be “weekend wrap-up.” However, I will still continue to call them “Weekend Rap-ups” just because….

Anyway, this long holiday weekend weather has been beautiful! I spent 6 hours on Saturday working my new job. I recently became employed as a “health enthusiast” at the Vitamin Shoppe part-time on Saturdays. Come and visit me! Apparently, I need to be watching Dr. Oz because it appears everyone who comes into that store is looking for something he talked about that week on his show. Then Azul got a nice little tune-up at the bike shop and now she is shifting smooth as butter! I also got my new book “Developing Endurance” in the mail and I have been reading it the past few nights. The book is written by the NSCA and shows “how to achieve optimal stamina to race your best through science-based aerobic, anaerobic, and resistance training.” I purchased the book for several reasons. The first being that since I’m an endurance athlete I like to understand the rhyme and reason (no pun intended 🙂 ) of why my coach assigns certain workouts and what my body is doing during those workouts. I also am developing bike shop boy’s training plan for Beach to Beacon and hopefully (the key word) he will listen to me and follow it (but I have a feeling that will not be the case). I recently just learned that the USAT is having a Level One Coaching Certification clinic in September in Providence and I’m pretty sure I am going to attend it and thus I think I shall get a head start studying. 
I had my first open water swim Sunday morning at Crystal Lake. The water was super warm! It was also the first day I have put my wetsuit on since Pumpkinman last September. It went on super easy, but mostly because I’ve lost a lot of weight and thus it’s actually too big for me now. It will work for now, but I will have to get a smaller suit later this summer. We swam from the boat launch to the point and then back, which is about a 1.2 mile swim. Many of the camps have not put out their docks or floating rafts yet so there was not much to spot off of, but I just used the shore line to spot. The other girls used me to spot off of because I just took off from them. I finished the total distance in about 32 minutes and I actually kicked most of the way too! 
Can you tell we are excited to swim?!
I was suppose to ride with someone Saturday afternoon but he ended up having to work. I understand his need to work, but I will admit that I was disappointed. I look forward to our Sunday afternoon rides because that is to only time we ever get to hang out. I told my new employer that I can’t work Sunday afternoons because he and I usually ride together. Now I’m questioning if that was such a good idea… Anyway, I ended up riding solo from my house. Between my coach and I, we can’t do math. My ride was only suppose to be two hours, but ended up close to 2.5 hours instead. She provides my training in two week blocks through Training Peaks. She will give me the total time for the workout and then in the notes will provide the breakdown of each workout. She had edited my long ride workout, but apparently forgot to edit the details. As I was uploading the workout into my Garmin, I didn’t even think to double check her math. I headed out on a 40 mile route that I knew would take me about 2 hours to complete. About three quarters into the ride (mileage-wise) I realized that I wasn’t even halfway through my actual prescribed workout and started mentally adding the numbers. Yup, my workout was more like 3 hours so I stopped doing the workout out after my second 15 minute power interval and just rode easy the rest of the way home. My ride wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. I spent most of the time avoiding the vast array of dead animals on the side of the road, bad drivers who came close to hitting me, and avoiding an 18-wheeler water tanker that almost ran me over on a really crappy country road with no shoulder! 
Now that I have a powermeter my coach gives my intervals in terms of power zones. Apparently, I can’t hit a power zone if it was right in front of me! It was a rough workout. My Garmin computer kept beeping at me because either my power was too high or too low. When I uploaded my data this morning for my coach she informed me that I need to change my settings on my computer from one second to 30 seconds power reading. It will be a much smoother power reading and hopefully my Garmin won’t beep every 10 seconds at me! I had a 30 minute transition run after my bike yesterday. As I was riding up the hill to my house, I was really dreading the run. My crotch hurt because I finally decided to commit to the Cobb Plus saddle this week and now I have to “break in” my new saddle. I probably should have just kept the test saddle till after Mooseman because I was use to it, but I would have felt really bad if I actually did pee on it… (my coach also informed me that I need to learn to pee on my bike. Poor Azul…)
The first 200 yards of my run just plained sucked! However, I started to settle into an easy pace and felt really comfortable and strong! I kept the pace easy, but my legs wanted to go faster. I just kept reminding myself that next weekend I will have to run 10 more miles in addition to what I was currently running! This morning was another swim at Crystal Lake. Today it was full of pollen, but the water was still warm! I really LOVE open water swimming. I’ve always been very comfortable with it since I spent most of my summers growing up living in the water at our camp on Sebago Lake. It’s practically second nature to me.   
Mooseman is in less than a week. I have mixed feelings about it. I have learned that the water temperature at Newfoundland Lake is 65 degrees! That made my day! I guess the lake is notoriously cold and I was kind of dreading the water temperature. Mostly, I’m dreading the bike portion. Secretly, I have a time in my head that I want to beat; however, I know this course will not get me the time I want. I hope to PR at this race, but again, from everything I have read and heard about Mooseman, it is not the course to PR on. So, we’ll see. My goal is really to just finish (in one piece)! There are a few people I know doing the race whom I have a target on their backs. I want to beat them, mostly for my own ego. I think the main reason I’m dreading the race is that I will going to it solo. My coach will be there and some of her other athletes whom I will probably meet, but really, I will know no body and have no race support. My father is not really supportive of my sport and I know he will not come to my race. I practically had to beg him to come to Pumpkinman last year. I already told him about a month ago that I will probably be doing Lake Placid next year and that he will be coming. He argued with me a bit about it but I kindly reminded him that I will be picking his nursing home someday and that he should be nice to me! Just kidding…. but I did tell him that doing an Ironman will be one of the biggest days of my life and I would appreciate the support. Last year I had great support from my Tri ladies at Pumpkinman which was awesome! But this year they are all racing the Dynamic Dirt Challenge that day and of course I don’t have a significant other so I guess I just need to suck it up and race. I’ll get through it, but it’s always nice to have supportive friends and family there to cheer you on! 
Happy Training!