Rio Grande Sprint Triathlon 2014

I did the Rio Grande sprint triathlon over a month ago. I’ve done it twice before. ( 2012 and 2013 )

This time my favorite photographer kindly got out of bed at an unholy hour on a Saturday and took pictures. Thanks dear!
I’m the only dork wearing long sleeves and no spandex. So uncool.

This year I’m in a new age group. The 30-34 one… Yikes I’m old. But let’s compare stats just for fun anyway.
2012: 93/170 overall, run split 8:39, bike split 18.2 mph, swim time 8:19, 6/11 age group, overall time 1:08:55.
2013: 161/319 overall, run split 9:17, bike split 16.8 mph, swim time 9:28, 8/16 age group, overall time 1:17:21.
2014: 149/325 overall, run split 8:40, bike split 15.9 mph, swim time 8:25, 9/25 age group, overall time 1:15:11.

Man, I better do more biking! I have actually done more biking this year than last year, but I think the problem was that I have done no real endurance training. In the past, I would mostly rely on long runs for endurance training, but this year I’m battling foot problems yet again and haven’t run more than 3 miles at a time. By time I got on the bike my legs were just tired. What we can conclude is that long runs do nothing for your running speed, since I did none this year and was much faster than last year. Yay speedwork.

Since that race I have not run at all, ridden to work a few times, and went swimming once. We’re calling it lazy May. We did hike 38 miles in May though, so it’s not like I’ve been completely inactive. June shall be different. I promise.

February mileage

Now that March is almost over, in February I:
Swam 12700 m
Biked 93.75 mi (on the trainer, so ish)
Ran 13.5 mi
Strength training: 3 sessions
Skiing: 4 times (2 downhill, 2 cross country)
Hiked 3 mi

So that’s resounding success on the swimming and biking fronts, and plantar fasciitis on the running front. Again. I thought I fixed it last spring when I changed my running stride. I don’t know if I got lazy about the new stride or what, but my left heel became unbearable after the second week of February, so I stopped entirely for three weeks. For the past three weeks I’ve been rather gingerly running once a week to test out if I’m ready to start again. I think if I give it one more week off, keep wearing my compression sock and massage it every day I’ll be ready to go again. We shall see.

I’m on track to hit my March biking, swimming, and strength goals, which is great. I should be exceeding them, since I’m obviously not hitting the running goals, but I’m not THAT motivated. I should probably just be happy with my small successes.

January distances and a broken binding

You will be pleased to hear that in January I:
Swam 3000 m
Biked 13 mi
Ran 25.5 mi
Strength training 4 sessions
Skiing 0

So, that’s a failure on the swimming, biking, and skiing front, but pretty decent success on the running and strength training. We’ll take what we can get.

So far the first week of February has not gone overly well, but I think I may do pretty well on the biking this month because the Olympics are on AND for the first time in 4 Olympic games (that’s since the 2006 games, people) we have both a TV and an antenna that can actually pick up NBC. So that’s 3 hours each evening for the next couple of weeks that I could spend on the trainer in front of the TV. Granted, last night I spent it on my butt with my laptop… But still. It might happen.

We did also go skiing at last Saturday at Taos. They’d gotten four or five inches of snow at the top which was on top of some nasty icy stuff from December. We had fun despite the ice at the bottom of every run. My cousin even took us hiking up the ridge to the runs that go down from there, which I have always been too afraid to do because they’re all double blacks, and Ken has always been too out of shape to do. I loved it. Ken hated it. (“Why would I pay $80 for a lift ticket, then hike?”) Unfortunately, the last run of the day was all on blue groomers which were completely devoid of anything resembling snow more than ice. Ken lost it and broke a clip on his binding. I think having only the one edge on a snowboard makes ice harder to navigate, because I saw several snowboarders do the same thing (fall down, not break bindings).

His bindings are the old step-in style that nobody makes anymore, and he doesn’t really want to get new equipment (although while watching slopestyle last night he WAS perusing the Burton website). So… He ordered some epoxy and he’s going to carbon-fiber it back into place. Fun stuff.

2013 in fitness

In 2013 I ran 352 miles, rode 788 miles, and swam 38 miles. In comparison, in 2012 I ran 222 miles, rode 1125 miles, and swam 42 miles.

That half marathon really piled on the running miles. This is definitely my highest mileage ever for a year. I’ll wait for all you actual runners out there to stop laughing…

Are we done yet? Ok. I trained less for the triathlons I did in early summer compared with 2012 (and my times showed it…), but I kept working out throughout the late summer and fall more successfully than in past years.

I went skiing (including both cross country and downhill) 8 times in 2013, did 36 strength workouts, and hiked approximately 85 miles.

Goals for 2014:
Take the dogs for a walk every day. My poor dogs. I am a bad dog owner.

Keep up the running, it’s the easiest thing to get out and do, although the hardest for me to enjoy. Topping 350 again would be great.

Ride more. Those 337 miles I didn’t ride this year are definitely on my car, costing me money and wear and tear (225,000 miles on the Civic as of mid-December). There are approximately 30 weeks in which I am realistically likely to ride (mid March – Mid October), if I aim to ride to work 3X a week during that period I should exceed 1000 miles.

Do one strength workout a week. I wasn’t even close last year! Most of those were the crossfit classes last January – March. More consistency is required.

Finally figure out this long-distance nutrition deal. I realized that every single event I’ve done which has taken me more than 2 hours (2 olympic triathlons, one Xterra Olympic triathlon, and the half marathon) has ended with me bonking at the end. I bet if I went back and analyzed the time after starting at which I bonked, they’d all be about the same. Clearly I have not figured out how to eat properly. This year is the year where I change that.

Beat my reverse sprint tri time from 2012. I really enjoy this event, and I think I’m in a position (position = a couple of pounds lighter) to be able to beat my initial time if I put in the miles between now and May.

Other races:
Olympic tri – I haven’t looked at the dates for the local races this year yet, but maybe I’ll attempt one I haven’t tried yet. I’m not a big fan of hard training through June (because it gets hot. So HOT.), so a race in early June would be great.

Fall half marathon – I need to get below the 10 min/mile mark before I can give the half marathon a rest. Otherwise it’s just embarrassing.

This leaves a race gap in late summer – maybe a 10K? Haven’t run one of those in several years, and I found running relatively easy to accomplish in the morning before work this past summer.

What about you, any plans?

Thoughts recently

I’m going to interrupt this lovely reflection on the beauties of Washington with some breaking news that I’m excited about. In increasing order of excitement, interspersed with not necessarily relevant photos:

1. Homegrown tomatoes are SO much more flavorful than store bought. Mine are finally ripening and I’ve been enjoying them like never before. I’m enjoying them so much that I’m eating enough to stay ahead of four bushes of tomatoes!

2. Last Sunday morning I took a shower and it felt good. Like the warmth was welcome. Amazing. Incidentally, that’s also the day these cats were snuggling together. Apparently highs in the low 80s are chilly…

3. We have baseboards sitting in the garage all finished and ready to be put into the house everywhere that we refinished the floor. I touched up the paint where we ripped out the old baseboards and other places we’ve beat it up in the past couple of years, so all we need now is time to install them. Maybe tomorrow morning we’ll get started. They’ve been ready to install since Tuesday but,

4. I got Ken a gas powered chainsaw for his birthday and he’s been cutting wood every night since. It’s kind of amazing how much wood we’ve got to deal with on our 0.8 acre of desert. We are going to be well stocked for the winter.

5. I ran the Chips and Salsa half marathon about two weeks ago and finished. It wasn’t fast (10:20 average miles), but I managed to train for and run it without injury! I did run out of energy at mile 9, I was averaging sub 10s before that. I think doing my 12 mile run at sea level messed up my determination of how much fuel my body needed per hour. For future reference, I think gels at mile 4 and 8 might be about good. Not that I’m convinced I need to run another one. It was kind of tedious. It would be nice to get a decent time though… I feel convinced I could do sub 10s for the whole thing. And from there it’s not SO far to a sub 2 hour race… That’s why you should never do a race, you will be trapped into trying to outdo yourself forever.

6. Now, the MOST exciting thing of all. We’re going to Maui with my whole family! I bought tickets last night! So exciting! We’ve talked about this for years, and it’s finally happening. My only regret is that I was kind of looking forward to the Cable Bridge Run and we won’t be doing it. Oh well, we can have our own beach race!

Animals at the zoo

After the wedding we started the real vacation. And I started it with a 12 mile run. A 12 mile run which I had been dreading. But I got to six miles and was running a minute faster than my usual pace and like I had just started. It was a miracle! I thought I had super powers! Best (also only) 12 miles of my life! I kept up that fast pace, and I felt great at the end. Considering it later, after the endorphins had drained away, I decided that I did not actually develop super powers. The 6000 foot elevation decrease was probably the cause. If only I could transport some of that oxygen home with me.

After the run we went to the zoo with Ken’s family.

Baby sun bears playing together.

And it’s September already

Whew, I’ve managed to sneak in a post before a month has elapsed. Amongst a ridiculous amount of stuff to do at work, working on the truck, possessing a very naughty dog, going on vacation, both of us traveling for work, fixing every single pair of Ken’s pants, doing a bunch of stuff for church, consuming too much zucchini, and trying to train for a half marathon there has not been a lot of blogging time.

Maybe now that vacation is over and there is at least the potential that my work might slow down in a week I’ll manage to post some more. No promises.

I made some pesto right before we went on vacation in a desperate effort to save the basil from certain death by drought while we were gone.

It seemed like there was more basil after I picked it.

I used walnuts from Washington to make the pesto when there are pinion pine trees on my property. Go figure.

If I were a good, organized blogger (spelled that blooger the first time, thought you should know) I’d have pictures of the final product. But since it was nearly my bedtime two nights before we were leaving on vacation and the dog had escaped from a six sided cube of chain link, pictures weren’t a priority. But if you come visit me I can open the freezer and show you the several containers of delicious pesto that I made.

City of Lakes triathlon 2013 race report

We spent the night before the race camping at a state park about 20 minutes from the race start. There were three problems with that brilliant plan. 1. Sleeping in our 3 man tent with 2 dogs is never particularly restful unless the dogs have been totally exhausted by a good long hike. 2. While the air cooled off the the upper 70s, the ground we were sleeping on never did. 3. The heat from #2 necessitated sleeping with the door unzipped, which make for a very buggy night. We forget about mosquitos because it’s generally to dry for them, but it’s been raining a lot (hooray!) so they were out in force. Well, for NM anyway. We didn’t have any bug spray along. We’re still scratching.

It’s a miracle that anybody got any sleep whatsoever.

After a long night, we got up at 5:30, packed up the tent, and headed to the race. I got all set up, body marked, then went to get in line for the porta potties about 40 minutes before the race started. And stayed there for half an hour. They needed more.

I was in the third wave, we did 2 laps around a diamond shaped course in a somewhat stinky little lake. Not as stinky as Findley Lake in Ohio was though… I didn’t push hard at all on the swim, probably should have. I came out 45th overall (out of 67) at 28:35. Not as good of a rank as usual, but a minute faster than last year’s mile time at the XTERRA 4 Corners race. I think the distance from the water to the timing sensor was similar in both races, so I’m going to say I swam faster this year. Is that because I didn’t have a wetsuit, or because I’m in better shape? We’ll never know. I was very glad I didn’t wear my wetsuit, although most people were wearing them. I would have been seriously overheated!

T1 went fine, I wasn’t the fastest person, but it was not too ridiculously slow either: 2:13 Last year at the XTERRA race it was over 4 minutes… Good improvement! Perhaps I can chalk it up to not struggling out of a wetsuit. Ken got flattering pictures of my rear…

The bike was slower than it should have been. I kinda held back on the first time out (it was twice over an out and back course) because I knew it was hilly and didn’t want to kill myself. Everyone passed me. It was really a beautiful course over some hills, along a river, and by some farms. There was a bit of a headwind on the second time out that slowed me down a bit, but nothing grueling. My only mishaps were related to my finicky front gears. I had to shift down with my foot to nudge the chain over every time, and once the chain got jammed between the front two gears and I had to stop and yank it out by hand. If those gears ever get worn down I think I might get a more modern system to replace them. With a new derailleur. And maybe 3 gears? Guess I better ride more to wear down those gears. I’ve already had to replace the gears on both mountain bikes, and I don’t ride them nearly as much. I’ve put at least 1200 miles on this bike in the past year and a half, probably at least 500 miles more than that since I got the bike, and those dang gears are still nearly good as new. Guess they used to make gears sturdier than they do these days.

Right, I was writing about a race, not vintage equipment. I finished the bike at 1:38:31, an embarrassing 61st place and 15.8 mph average. Oops. Guess I should ride some more next year…

T2 went nice and quick (1:19), but I made a big mistake. I didn’t bring my water bottle on the run with me. I wasn’t feeling overly hot, I’d consumed 2 water bottles of liquid on the bike, and thought that getting water at the aid stations would be enough. I was ok for the first mile, then I realized I was going to have trouble. The digital readout on the high school I trotted past said 94 degrees, and I was HOT.

I felt awful when I got to the 2nd aid station and needed to pour some water on me to cool off, but all the had left for us slowpokes was gatorade! I settled for drinking some, and trudged off up hill. At this point I had probably close to 4 miles to go and I was mentally ticking off the signs of heat stroke. I decided that walking for a minute would be better than having to quit, so I walked. Many of the people around me were walking. By the time I finished the next half mile my body must have managed to absorb some of the gatorade I’d thrown at it, because I was feeling considerably better. There were of a lot of people suffering those last 3.5 miles. They did finally get more water at the aid station by the 3rd time (out of 4) that I passed it, and man did it feel and taste good.

Eventually I managed to drag my overheated carcass across the finish line after 1:10 of running/walking (11:21 pace, yikes!) for at total time of 3:21:02 and 52nd place overall. Not fast, but I finished and I wasn’t last.

So here’s the crazy thing. Even despite my walking, I was 47th on the run. That’s almost the same place I had after the swim! I am NEVER the same rank in swimming as in running. My only explanation is that I was not the only one with hydration and heat management issues.

Special thanks to Ken, who did all the things he hates (sleeping in the heat, getting bitten by bugs, getting up early, waiting for his slowpoke wife for 3 1/2 hours while wrangling the dogs, and driving my slowpoke underpowered car) without a single complaint. And he took all these great pictures! What a guy!

Run club

My co-worker talked me into participating in a run club sponsored by our benefits department. The club exists over a six week period during which we have a training schedule to follow with the goal of decreasing our 5K times. We meet together on Tuesday mornings before work to do speed work.

I have never done speed work before. That is probably why I am so slow. I’ve been enjoying it; it’s cool to set a pace you think there’s no way you will be able to keep then push yourself to make it.

Today I kept an 8:15 pace for 5×800 yds. Incredible!

My beginning 5K time (for the class) was 27:45, and my official goal is to get 27:07, and my super secret goal is to get a PR, which would be faster than 26:14.

The race I’m signed up for starts at 7PM though, so I’m thinking there’s a 95% chance that the temperature will be greater than 90F. I’ve been doing all my running before 7AM (and here in the desert that means it’s a reasonable temperature like 60-70), so I may be destroyed by the heat. On the other hand, I ride my bike home three days a week between 4:30 and 6PM, so that’s about as hot as it gets so maybe I’ll be accustomed to the heat. We shall see.