Monday, September 27, 2010

Corpus Christi Training Weekend

On Tuesday Adrian invited Jeff and I to go down to Corpus in the new coach for Conquer the Coast. I decided it was a great idea since my Galveston ride did not go at all as planned. But then I started looking at the forecast and it really looked like it might be a repeat of Galveston. I decided to take my trainer and if nothing else I'd spend most of Saturday on the trainer in the coach. Even with a plan I stressed about the weather all week. Conquer the Coast is a 65 mile ride so I needed to add on 35 extra miles, when I started to look for a good route I realized Corpus is not the most bike friendly city and adding on mileage would be a challenge, I came up with a couple of plans and figured we'd make the final call on Friday night.

On Friday morning we packed and headed out to the coach. We were all excited about the first trip in the new coach and I was really impressed at how comfortably 3 people, 3 bikes, and 5 dogs traveled for 4+ hours. Katie, Ahbear, Bonzi, Riley, and Connor (just his tail in the picture) relaxing on the way to Corpus.
Adrian loved how comfortable Bonzi was hanging out on the dash. It rained off and on on the way down and we even saw a big double rainbow! Shortly after we got there we realized there would be no hanging out in the lawn chairs enjoying a nice summer night in Corpus. There were millions of gigantic, vicious mosquitoes everywhere! Instead we hung out inside and figured out the ride plan. I planned to do the first 50 miles of the ride and then meet Jeff and turn onto the Padre National Seashore road and do a couple of out and backs there.
The coach all set up at the campsite
We were running a little late Saturday morning but still got there before the start and even found Ron & Leslie. Me, Leslie, Ron, & Adrian just before the start- Ron looks really tall next to all of us short people!

We started and almost immediately my legs felt a little sluggish, I figured I just needed to warm up. Annette found me in the crowd of over 1000 people and we chatted as we started up the first causeway. She got ahead of me after a couple of miles and I couldn't figure out why my legs already felt tired and I was going so slow! I caught Ron & Leslie after they had stopped at the first rest stop and told them "my legs feel like crap! this might be a really long day, just go on ahead and don't wait for me" They went ahead and soon I saw Annette waiting for me at the side of the road. She asked if I was ok and I told her I was having a tough time. She said she wasn't in a hurry and if I didn't mind the company she'd ride with me, totally fine by me! At 12.5 miles I was still feeling bad and decided there was no reason for it, so I stopped to make sure there wasn't a problem with my bike. I got off and everything looked ok, I spun the back wheel- fine. I spun the front wheel and it didn't even make half a revolution! CRAP! My front brake had been rubbing, and not just a little bit, for the first 12.5 miles! What a stupid mistake! I usually check it when I put air in my tires, but we were in a big hurry at the start and Jeff aired up my tires for me. I didn't know whether to be happy that it was something easy and I could have a good ride now or to be mad that I made such a stupid mistake and it took me 12 miles to check it! Within a couple of minutes after fixing it, Annette said "Wow! There's the Heather I know!" Thanks for hanging out with me even though I wasn't my happy, smiley self for those first miles Annette!!

After that, Annette and I chatted, enjoyed the scenery and had a great ride all the way to the ferry. Crossing the bridges and looking out over the water was awesome. Most of the route was chip seal, which I generally hate, but this wasn't the horrible chip seal that makes you feel like you're getting shaken to death, it was just slightly annoying. At the ferry landing we found Melissa and on the ferry I found Ron & Leslie. Annette & Melissa on the ferryme on the ferry
Annette had to make a stop in Port Aransas for shrimp spices, she brought a bag to put in her jersey pocket and everything! I decided I wanted to keep riding instead of shop for spices, she said there was a "gravel pit rest stop" a few miles up and I could meet her there, I told her that sounded good, if we could find each other- great, if not- no worries. Even though I was riding alone, I really enjoyed this part of the ride, they called it the "Toughest 18 miles in Texas" but we had a cross/tailwind, the views were really nice and the weather was beautiful, so I didn't think it was tough at all. I was at least 3 miles past the "gravel pit rest stop" when I realized that what I had blown by was probably the "gravel pit rest stop" so I missed getting to ride with Annette again. At mile 48 I came to the next rest stop and Jeff was there waiting for me. He suggested we put my bike on the jeep and drive down the coast a mile or 2 to get away from the traffic- good call!

Jeff and I started riding down the park road with an insane tailwind! We talked about my ride and Jeff said he had driven the route and that Adrian was leading the ride for at least the 50 miles he had driven, apparently Adrian decided to race the charity ride and won! We laughed about how easy the ride was and we couldn't really feel the wind, but we knew we'd be miserable when we turned around. The chip seal was starting to bother me more so I was really happy that the last 6 or 8 miles of the park road was smoother. In 14 miles the road ended at the beach, we turned around and got blasted by headwind! It was almost impossible to talk over the wind noise- no more laughing, talking, and joking! After 12 miles I stopped to turn around and ask Jeff if he wanted to do the last 25 miles with me or not. He said no way, can't blame him, that headwind was crazy! So he went and got the jeep to come back and follow me while I turned around for more.

I was disappointed in Galveston when I didn't get to find out if the tailwind going out on a second loop would make me feel better after a long miserable stretch of headwind. The answer is Absolutely! Within a minute of turning around I was going fast and feeling great again! My hands and butt hurt from all the chip seal, but otherwise I was still happy to be riding at mile 88 when I hit the beach again! I told Jeff I was DONE riding on chip seal so I rode back on the park road until the chip seal started and turned around to do the last few miles on the nice road- apparently "slightly annoying" chip seal becomes really annoying after 100 miles! 100 miles in Corpus accomplished! I definitely got some good wind training in and I need to remember that when I get out of the headwind in Cozumel I'll feel better again. I ran 4 miles with Jeff following me and giving me water, and then I was done with my longest training day ever! I couldn't have done it without Jeff, he rode 28 miles with me and then followed me around in the jeep telling me I was doing great for over 2 hours! I couldn't ask for a more supportive or more awesome husband!

We got back to the coach and Adrian, Ron, & Leslie all seemed surprised that I was happy and feeling pretty good. We hung out, cleaned up, had a margarita or 2 and went out for a big seafood dinner-yum!

As usual I was worried that my Sunday run would suck after such a long day on Saturday. I started running a little before 7am and was immediately attacked by the giant, vicious mosquitoes. They were annoying, but I just dealt with it, so I guess if there are a million giant, vicious mosquitoes at Cozumel I will just deal with it then too. My legs felt pretty tired and sore for the first 3 miles, but after that I felt pretty good for the next 10 miles. The route I ran was a little boring since I couldn't see the water except in 1 place, I did see some roseate spoonbills there. I couldn't believe that in 16 miles I didn't see another runner at all, except Adrian, definitely not like Austin! At 13 miles I stopped at the coach for more water and the last 3 miles were tougher, maybe because I stopped at 13 even though it was just for a minute or 2. But I did it, a 16 mile run the day after 100 miles on the bike and a 4 mile run!Connor, me and Riley relaxing after my run

All that worrying about the weather was for nothing, I didn't see a drop of rain the entire time we were in Corpus! This was a perfect training weekend, I got to experience all of the things I'm worried about in Cozumel and some I hadn't even thought of- wind, humidity, salt spray, a little blowing sand, and gigantic, vicious mosquitoes. I dealt with them all pretty well so that's a big confidence boost for Cozumel!Katie, Connor & Riley excited to be home

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Galveston Ride

Sandra and I wanted to do a 100 mile ride in Galveston since conditions there are similar to conditions in Cozumel (flat & windy with salty humid air). Ingrid, Jon, Del, Kim & Cassie decided to join us on Saturday morning for the ride. Sandra and I left on Friday around noon to have enough time for an ocean swim.
Little Spinnaker didn't fit on Sandra's bike rack, but fit fine in the back seat.
Sandra loading up her bike on the rack.

The drive to Galveston went really well, we didn't hit any heavy traffic through Houston so we were in Galveston by 4. It rained a little on the way down, so we wanted to get our swim in before it got dark or started raining again.
"Red: Flown when conditions are determined to be out of the ordinary, such as presence of strong wind, strong current or large surf. Adult swimmers should stay in water no more than waist deep and non-swimmers and children should be kept along the surf line."
Sandra seemed a little concerned when she saw the water off the seawall and I wasn't too happy to see a red flag flying which means dangerous conditions. But I thought we should at least get in and play in the water a little and decided if we could swim in it. So we got in and quickly decided we could at least try some swimming. We stayed together and shallow enough we could touch bottom. We stayed between 2 jetties and would swim 30 strokes, stop and check on each other and repeat over and over. The waves totally knocked us around, but it was actually a lot of fun! It was great practice for getting salt water in your mouth, nose & eyes and for getting goggles pulled off, the waves knocked my goggles off at least 4 or 5 times. It was a fun swim and a great confidence builder especially since the beach at Chankanaab where we will be swimming usually looks like this:After the swim we had dinner on the patio at Fish Tales
I checked the weather obsessively Friday night, but it said only a 20% chance of storms and 15-20 mph wind.

When we got up on Saturday the weather seemed pretty nice, humid and cloudy but no rain. We started riding just before 7, we had a screaming tailwind and were going 20+mph with almost no effort, we figured "just enjoy it while we can, because the return miles are going to be TOUGH!" We planned to do 2 loops, 60 miles the first loop and 40 the second. The first 30 miles were really nice, tailwind, a few rain showers but nothing major, beautiful views of the water and even a big rainbow! Sandra and I turned around at 31 miles and got blasted by the headwind! But we knew to expect that and just started pedaling. It was easy to go 20+ on the way out, now we were working hard to go 12. Within a few miles it started to rain again, hard enough that the rain drops stung when they hit me. I kept thinking about how Jeff and I are always saying training rides in the rain aren't worth the risk, it's just too easy to crash on slick roads. I was not happy to be almost 30 miles from the car in pouring rain. Sometimes the rain would let up and I'd think, "this isn't so bad, we can get in our second loop if it will stay like this" but then it would start raining hard again and I really didn't want to ride 60+ miles in pouring rain. The last 10 miles were probably the worst since it rained hard that entire time and our nice big shoulder turned into a tiny narrow one just when traffic really picked up, some of the RVs and trucks were definitely passing too close for comfort. Del finished and came out and drove behind Sandra and I with his flashers on for a little way, I don't know how long since I had no idea he was back there until he told me after the ride. I also started seeing flashes of lightning in the last 5 or 10 miles and I remembered Coach Jen saying on Thursday "if there is lightning I want your asses inside where it's safe!"
Del took this picture from his car just as Sandra and I finished. Ingrid met us at the end of the beach access road on the Blade and said "Well, I think we're ready for Cozumel now!"
Just as we started talking about at least trying to run a little we saw more lightning and heard a big thunder boom and decided no way! We were done! As we started trying to load up, a police officer came by to see if we were ok, and he told me he had been "seeing funnel clouds all morning" Yikes! I was drenched, cold, and miserable. Jon suggested McAlister's for lunch and drying off. I looked at Ingrid and said "McAlister's has SOUP!" Her eyes lit up as if I had said Gordough's!
Even though the second half of this ride was pretty miserable and we only got in 60 miles instead of the planned 100 (I think this is the first time I've set out to do a ride and not completed it, makes me pretty sad), it was still good Ironman Cozumel training. Ingrid pointed out that we rode 30 miles into a strong headwind and in Cozumel it will be 3 loops with about 10-12 miles of each loop into the head/cross wind so we rode about the same number of hard, windy miles as we will in Cozumel.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Austin Tri

Photo by Tom Marek

Race morning everyone woke up on time and Sandra showed up at my house at 5:00, 10 minutes early. We picked Julie up at 5:25- she said it was 5:26, but close enough :) Jon dropped us off close to transition, it was nice to not have to worry about finding a parking spot and then carrying all our stuff a long way to transition!
I got my transition area set up and Bonnie was racked just a few bikes down from me. Richard came over to say hi and good luck. Since my Garmin attachment is slightly broken from Hell Ain't This Hot, I have been taping it to my bike until it gets fixed. Not a big deal, except I didn't want to leave my Garmin on my bike in transition all night which meant I needed the tape gun in the morning. What a dumb thing to take to a triathlon! Someone asked for tape at the Tri Zones tent later and I pulled out the big tape gun and of course everyone laughed and asked why in the world I had a tape gun.
Pulling out the tape gun Photo by Shayla Neris. I think this is also the only picture where you can see my new tri top- no more old faded pink tri top!

We had lots of time to wait around at the tent since transition closed at 6:40 and aside from Andrew none of us started until 7:50.
Coach Jen laughing at us all putting on wetsuits Photo by Tom Marek
Photo by Tom Marek

My goals for the Austin Tri this year were to go faster in each sport than last year and to go below 3:30 overall.
Cool new Tri Zones flags! Photo by Tom Marek

Finally it was time to head down to the start and get ready to race! I got in the water and was SO glad I had decided to wear the wetsuit- it felt colder than 75 to me. I started right at the front of my wave and tried to go out fast, but immediately I felt out of breath. At first I was worried about having a bad swim, but then I remembered they didn't let us do a warm up swim, so I slowed down for a couple minutes, then I started feeling good and could speed up again. I didn't have much contact the entire swim, which was kind of surprising, I think I was in between the fast swimmers and the slow swimmers, there just weren't many people around me. I tried to do some Sheila T. swimming and really get a hold of the water, I was definitely going faster when I did it, but it made me tired quickly so I had to alternate going hard and backing off. I was surprised to pass so many pink capped girls from the wave ahead of me. As I turned the last corner and was sighting the finish I noticed it was raining. This did NOT make me happy, but as I got out of the water I saw that my watch said 32:xx- that made me happy! This year's swim time- 32:22, last year's 35:51!

The Austin Tri has a fairly long run up to transition and I took it slow. I was not happy about the rain and it was raining pretty hard. I got to my transition area and pulled my wetsuit off, it caught on the huge new timing chip and scraped my ankle, but I knew to expect that since Ingrid and I had practiced after seeing how HUGE the new timing chips were! My socks were wet and hard to put on. I put my sunglasses on but couldn't see through the water spots and decided to go without them. I have never raced in the rain before and I'm not a huge fan of riding in the rain, especially trying to ride fast with 2000 other people! As I was leaving the transition area I saw Kristen and she yelled "great swim Heather! You're the first Tri Zoner out of the water!" For whatever reason that made me really happy- so thanks Kristen! T1 this year was 5:57 compared to 5:31 last year, I'm ok with that considering I had a wetsuit to get off and rain to deal with.

I got on my bike figured my goal of beating last year's 16 mph average was just not going to happen and my new goal was just to stay safe. I rode conservatively up Congress to the first U-turn then as I was going down the hill on Congress I started to feel better and let myself go a little faster, I rode toward the Capitol faster and was feeling pretty decent even in the rain after the first 3 or 4 miles. Toward the end of my first loop it had mostly stopped raining but the roads were still wet and slick. The volunteers were yelling at everyone to take the turns slowly and Bob H. told me he saw a lot of crashes because people were taking turns too fast. I took all the turns slow (ok, I take the turns pretty slow anyway), but I rode the straights pretty hard, maybe not quite Mopac TT hard, but pretty close. Loops 2 and 3 went great and I loved seeing most of the Tri Zoners and Ingrid on the course! I just put the name license plate Julie gave me on my bike before Hell Ain't This Hot, so this was my first real race with it and tons of people I didn't know said "Hi Heather" to me on the course. It was also fun to see Lynn cheering us up the hill on Atlanta on every loop! By loop 2 I was having a great ride and thinking the Austin Tri is one of my favorite races! By loop 3 I knew I would be really close to beating my 16 mph goal, so I pushed really hard to the end and got a 16.3 mph bike pace compared to 16.0 last year! I'm super happy with that, especially considering the rain! I'm actually kind of happy it rained, I have always been afraid of racing in the rain and now that I've done it, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

I got to T2 and I wished I had left a second pair of socks, although now that I think about it they probably would have been just as wet as the socks on my feet! My socks were so wet I could have wrung them out and I think there were puddles in my bike shoes- yuck! T2 this year was 3:25 compared to 3:24 last year.

Heading out on the run course I knew all I had to do was match my run time from last year to get my sub 3:30! I felt great starting the run and I looked at my pace on my Garmin, it said 9:35- ahh yeah, I never run 9:35 for anything over 3 miles so I slowed down to a very comfortable pace and the Garmin still said 10:20, still way faster than 10K pace for me, but I figured I'd just slow down when I started to feel it. About half a mile into the run, a group had an unofficial rest stop set up with icee pops! I love icee pops and that might have been the best icee pop ever! Blonde Pam caught me near Jack & Adam's and we ran together for awhile. Near the end of loop 1 I passed the Tri Zones More Cowbell Corps and high fived everyone, I was having so much fun!
High fiving the More Cowbell Corps! Photo by Tom Marek
Waving to Tom and Nydia, I really was having a blast! Photo by Tom Marek
I expected loop 2 to be harder than the first loop but this year it really wasn't. I walked the aid stations, but otherwise my pace stayed around 10:20-10:30, I kept thinking maybe my Garmin was messed up, but according to the mile markers I was going even faster (I think the mile markers were a little off). One of many reasons I love the Austin Tri is the awesome crowd support on the entire run course, I felt like there were people cheering for me everywhere and it was just so much fun! I got a second icee pop on loop 2, this time they gave me a lei too, and before I knew it I was running by the More Cowbell Corp again and about to finish!Photo by Tom Marek

My run time this year was 1:06:17 for a 10:41 pace- which is really fast for me! Last year's run was 1:15:15 (a 12:08 pace).

Last year's overall time was 3:32:53 this year's was 3:19:30 for a PR by 13:23! I have definitely been training hard this year, and the weather was cooler than last year, but I definitely didn't expect a 13 minute PR, so I was (and still am!) super excited about it!
Post race, I had fun cheering in the other Tri Zoners Photo by Tom Marek

After cheering in all the Tri Zoners, Ingrid decided that since she, Sandra, and I all had big PRs we needed to celebrate with Gordough's!

Saturday at Julie's Lake

I had planned to go to Julie's super early on Saturday to take advantage of the early morning calm water while Ingrid and Jon were at the swim clinic, but since we had our pool session Saturday morning we all went out a little later
I did try to ski but only for about a minute since the water was crazy choppy
Then it was time to relax, we hung out in the lake on floaties for hours! and it was awesome!
Richard in the hammock chair
Shayla made cakeballs and Ingrid was super excited to try her very first one!
Julie and her cakeball
Peggy brought out her new stand up paddle board and we all took turns trying it out

I think Julie has pictures of others trying it out, but I only ended up with pictures of me on it.
It was funny to see the stand up paddle board going up the hill on the golf cart.

Thanks for another awesome day on the lake Julie and Richard!!

Monday, September 6, 2010

Sheila Taormina Swim Clinic

Sheila Taormina an Olympic swimmer, triathlete, and pentathlete did swim clinics for Tri Zones last week. She is 5'2" and is the smallest person to ever win an Olympic gold medal in swimming! That has to be some kind of good juju for me!
Look at Sheila's guns! Seriously, I have never seen such big arm muscles on such a small person before. Photo by Tom Marek

The best part of the clinic is that I feel like we got some really good information. I tried to incorporate Sheila's advice during my Friday swim and I felt like it made a big difference. Obviously I need lots of practice and time for my muscles to strengthen, my shoulders and lats were sore after my Friday swim and swimming never makes me sore!
Tri Zoners listening intently Photo by Tom Marek
Sheila showed us some strength exercises to do with our new strength bands, I'm not doing a great job in this picture. Photo by Tom MarekPhoto by Tom Marek
It was so great working with Sheila, her enthusiasm and passion for swimming are contagious and she has an awesome attitude! She said so many things that Ingrid and I both found really inspiring.
She even brought her gold medal from the 1996 Olympics. I had never seen a real gold medal before so that was pretty cool too! Photo by Tom Marek
Then I got to wear it!
Ingrid working on her pull with the strength bands Photo by Tom Marek
Sheila and Coach Jen hamming it up for Tom Photo by Tom Marek
Sheila demonstrating proper kick technique, this was Ingrid's favorite demonstration Photo by Tom Marek

We all got copies of her book "Call the Suit" too, so far I'm loving that too. I tried to incorporate Sheila's advice during the Austin Tri too, it was tougher to do during a race since it isn't really natural for me yet, but when I was really working on it I passed lots of people.