So, with those goals in mind, and trying not to overload myself with too much and too many different types of goals, I’ve made (what I think is) a pretty darn well planned 2012 racing schedge.  Nothing more longer than 13.1 or 70.3 and nothing too jammed together (and the fall to be filled out with some B/C races)

• 01/22/12: Dog Gone Cold 5K (C) (goal: top 3 OA dogs)
• 01/29/12: Miami Half Marathon (B) (goal: sub 1:48ish)
• 02/18/12: Tundra Time Trial (C)
• 03/03/12: Snickers Half Marathon (A Race) (r)(goal: sub 1:40)
• 04/22/12: Zooma Atlanta Half Marathon (C)
• 04/28/12: Twilight Criterium (C) (goal: not crash and die)
• 05/20/12: Atlanta Irongirl Tri (B)
• 06/10/12: Eagleman Aquavelo (A Race) (r) (goal: sub 2:40 bike)
• 07/21/12: Mistletoe Sprint Tri
• 09/30/12: Augusta 70.3 (A Race) (goal: 5:00, 2:30 bike)
• 11/18/12: Philadelphia Half Marathon (A Race) (goal: sub 1:37)
• 12/??/12: Celtic Solstice 5-miler (A race) (goal: sub 36min)

Oh and the beyond part…2013, a return to the IM…IMFL

Well hello.  Remember me?  I used to post…like every day.  Yep.  Remember?  Oh, the good ole days.

I have no good reason for not posting this race report…oh…7 days ago.  Because it was actually a good race.  But, for some reason, maybe its the constantly being tired from IM training, I’m just not in the mood to be funny.  And, well, why post if I’m not funny.  Right?  Right.

I’m not going to lie.  I’m not going to do this again.  Ever.  IM training that is.

Until, of course, I finish IM Wisconsin and decide to sign up for IMFL next year.  But that’s for September.  (Mommy, pretend you didn’t just read that last part about me racing IMFL next year, K?)

So, after a horribly disastrous ING Marathon, an underwhelming (yet not bad) Langley Pond Int’l, and a…well…there are no words for the Eagleman race Swim/Bike, I was DETERMINED to have a good race.  Because I was starting to question everything.  Questioned why I raced at all, why I had thought an IM was a good idea, how I was ever considering trying out for an olympic/national team at some point in my life (no, not for tris…I’m not that delusional), how i was ever that good of an athlete…compared to now.

So a “C” race, for which I was granted no taper by my coach, became the object of my “comeback.”  The stage? Aflac Irongirl Atlanta Sprint Tri.  My first triathlon two years ago, would become my first good triathlon of the season in 2010.

Swim: Oh, the usual.  Thrashing, kicking, etc.  Spotted well.  Lengthened out well.  Not too bad overall.

Bike: Hopped on the bike with the 45th overall fastest time (out of 1000+), but I didn’t know that.  And since my AG was the last swim wave, the bike transition area seemed pretty darn empty.  Used to being a darn bad OW swimmer, I assumed I was pretty far back.  So, I hopped on the bike and began to boogie.  The goal was to avg 20+mph.  So, I cruised out of the park area passing people right and left.  (I used to count, but, I lost count).  This course is the opposite of Eagleman (which is flat as a pancake).  This course has no flats.  I’m convinced.  And the hills aren’t really rollers.  The downhills are the kind where you can get going upwards of 35+mph.  But the uphills…man, they are the kind that even if you attack them at 35mph, the high grade slows down you to 8mph in just 15 seconds.

But, I’m a hill girl, so attack the hills I did.

About halfway through the course, I realized no one had yet passed me.  And so the rest of bike leg was spent focussing on preventing anyone from passing me the whole leg.  And, actually, it was a pretty easy goal.  I comfortably rode in, having made up many many spots.  And passing at least 6 or 7 in my AG.

Run: I hopped off the bike, and managed to not slice my leg open requiring stitches (like last year).  (My sole goal of T2 was not to require stitches.  Even when you set the bar low, a success is a success.)

So, after getting through the bike leg without being passed by anyone, I made that my goal for the run portion too.  But, a quarter mile into the run, a 16 yo flew by me.  But, that was the only person to pass me the whole run.  I just kept on trucking,  up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill (the run course was a lot like the bike course…no flats…).  The three miles flew by, and then I was finishing.  I felt strong.  I felt not exhausted.  I felt good.  And proud.

And then I found out that I placed in my Age Group.  And I was thrilled.

Stats:

• Overall Time: 1:34:07, 3/98 AG, 24/1000+ OA
• Swim: 9:07 (1:32/100m), 45OA, 11AG
• Bike: 57:20 (19.8MPH), 20OA, 2AG
• Run: 22:34 (7:32/mi), 29OA, 5AG

Yep, folks.  That was my first AG placing since I was 16 and underweight.  And, this is a pretty big race too, so, I’m pretty f-ing stoked.  Not to mention that I finished the race completely comfortably and ready to go for my long ride afterwards (yes, Ironman training is f-ing nuts).

My awards picture:

Hope you all had FABULOUS Fourths!

You know that midnight train from Georgia? Well, it became a midnight train back to Georgia without a single post being written. I could chalk it up to many things, not the least of which was my laziness. And just general malaise. But also, I needed some time to regroup. To forget about the stress and anxiety…and, well, shocking sheer craziness of my life in Augusta. So, regroup, I did. And I returned to work yesterday morning in pleasant spirits…for about 3 hours.

It was a great vacay…except the one major fail. My first ever DNF.

Yep, folks…this past weekend was my only half ironman of the year. And I did not finish that sucker. I’ve been through many stages of grief. Anger. Denial. White hot self-rage. And, finally, I’ve mostly come to accept it. Because, what else can one do? Not much. But, accept it, learn from it, and move on. An integral part of learning from it, though, is the race report. So here goes nothing.

PreRace: Drove down to Cambridge, MD from Baltimore on Saturday. Picked up the packet, they didn’t have anymore shirts in the size I ordered, so they offered me a W’s S (um, have you met me? I haven’t been a WS since I was in middle school) or a M’s L. Neither work. Boo. Whatever, it’s not like I wear many of those shirts anyway. So, I leave the expo and we head to our motel.

A motel that was 45 minutes away. Because, yes, that was all that was available when I booked the motel 4 days earlier. Because…well…because, I apparantly forgot to book a hotel. I could have sworn I did. At some point. But I couldn’t find an email confirmation last week. And I couldn’t remember what hotel I booked, so I called every hotel in the area asking if they had a reservation for me. Nadda. Oops. This maybe should have been the first clue that the race wasn’t meant to be. The shirt was the second.

The morning of, I stomached half a bagel and PB and a nanner. My swim wave was the last AG wave, so I had an hour and a half to wait around before I got to swim. So, I sipped on water, tried to stay hydrated and in the shade. Mostly I just snuggled.

Swim: At 7, they announced that the start would be delayed 20 minutes. So, my 8:30 swim start became an 8:50 swim start. Which is WAY late in the day. But, I jumped on in and started swimming.

It was not wetsuit legal, which was fine, but did mean that I was going to be a lot slower than planned.

As I swam, I just tried to stretch out and have nice long strokes. And I did. And I sighted well and swam a tight course. But, the swim still felt like an eternity. With about 300m to go, I started feeling nauseaus. Like, OMG, I’m going to puke my brains out from being seasick, nauseaus. At one point I stopped swimming, looked at the shore and thought, about quitting right there. I also wondered if I puked in the water while swimming wheether I might aspirate the vomit and die.

Eventually I kept going and finished.

And then I get out and looked at my time and thought: WTF?! Almost twice as long as my Augusta HIM swim time?! WTF?!

Turns out the course was 1.5 instead of 1.2 miles…which explains the slow time. But, once I saw that time I knew that my goal of sub 5:30 was not gonna happen.

T1:

I was still feeling nauseaus, but wanted to move quickly. The transition went relatively well…but that’s it.

Bike:

I started out the bike with gooey legs. I don’t normally have that after the swim. Usually I start out the bike feeling fine. But, this time, I was nauseated and I still had sea legs. Seasick and sea legs.

But, the race plan called for dropping my HR to 150-155 and sucking down liquids for the first 5 miles. So, I tried to still take in some nutrition. With the seasickness, I didn’t want to stomach anything. So, I forced some GU chomps down my throat and attempted to drink the water out of my aero bottle.

For the first 15 miles, I averaged 19mph. It wasn’t as fast as I wanted, but it was acceptable. And then, at mile 20, the winds started up. And holy winds. My HR was up to 160-165, a whole ten BPM over what I was aiming for. I could have backed off, but then I would have been really slow. And, well, I don’t like going slow. So, I just pushed on hoping that my HR would settle down and I would settle into a fast pace.

The middle chunk of miles were rough. It was windy and flat. Flat meant I was pushing hard to keep going the whole time and the winds were pushing against me. It was then that I missed hills. Because as much as uphills suck on the bike, you can really get your speed up and going on the downhills. And once the speed is up, it’s easier to keep it up. But, at this point, I became resigned to the idea of a 3:00 bike leg and not a 2:45 bike leg like I had planned.

I settled in to a 18mph pace that was still very difficult, far more difficult than any ride that I’ve done this year. I was still not taking in liquids at the rate that I should have because of the seasickness; so, when I hit the second aid station, I made myself grab a Gatorade. And: success of the day: I made it through the bottle exchange without stopping or crashing!

At mile 40, I started considering dropping out mid bike. It felt as though I was riding through quicksand. I had to gear down to my small ring, even on this completely flat course. It was also 95 degrees and i was melting. Melting and dehydrated. My swim was slow, my bike was slow, and I was just giving up. I was frustrated that I could seem to ride like I do at home. And, so then all the mean negative thoughts started popping up in my head.

You are slow. You suck. You are a lard ass cyclist. You will never qualify for Kona. You should never have qualified for Boston. You are a fraud. And a shitty athlete. Your days are over. You will never be as good as you want to be.

Once those thoughts start going, the game is over. When I’m on top of my mental game, I’m unstoppable (see e.g. Chicago Marathon or any random erg test from my college rowing days). When my mental game sucks, I cannot handle endurance events (see e.g. GA ING marathon).

At mile 50, I could barely keep going. I was averaging 15mph, and was barely staying upright. At this point, my head was pounding, I was lightheaded, and was trying not to vomit all over my bike.

When I got to mile 54, I decided that I was not going to run. I wanted this all to be over with. I felt horrible, and not just “I’m competing in a half-ironman horrible.” And, I knew my time was going to be at least an hour slowing than my HIM PR. Without a hope for a PR, I thought, why the fuck go on? Right? So, I gave up.

Sure, I felt horrible. I wanted to vomit. My vision was blurry. My head was throbbing. But, could I have completed a half marathon? Sure. Of course I could have. I could have done that in my sleep. Was it worth landing myself in the hospital? Probs not.

Do I think I made the right decision? Don’t know…still deciding.

T2: As soon as I crossed the line into T2, I saw my dad and Brennan. I ran over to them and gave Bdog a BIG scratch behind the ears.

And then said “Dad, will you be mad at me if I don’t run?” I felt seriously guilty for dragging him down to a race that I wasn’t going to finish…so, I considered finishing it. Because he was there. But, he said he wouldn’t be mad. So…I packed up my stuff in transition. And left.

Run: Yeppers. Didn’t do this.

Lessons Learned: There will be more on this later because I plan to devote an entire post to learning from a DNF. But, biggest lesson learned? Shit happens. Also, I like hilly courses. Also, my brain can fuck me over.

Ok, anyone else ever DNF-ed? What did you learn from it? And, how did you move on?

You remember this?  The whole “ironman” thing?  Yea, I haven’t posted about it in 3 weeks…oopsies.  But I have been training…A LOT.  Which is also why I’ve been kinda MIA.  So, here goes updating (in brief) three weeks of training so I can catch up…

The highlights: my first race of the year, my first bike crash of the year, my first concussion of the year.

My training was a little all over the place week 5 and 6 because I had a stomach bug right before my race and missed a double workout day…and then week 6, I missed my 2 hr long run because of the concussion.  So, both of those weeks should have had more like 14hrs of training…

WEEK 4: APRIL 12

• Total Time: 10:32
• Swim Distance: 5301 yds
• Bike Distance: 92.91 miles
• Run Distance: 18.00 miles

WEEK 5: APRIL 19

• Total Time: 11:35
• Swim Distance: 3300 yds
• Bike Distance: 105 miles
• Run Distance: 13.6 miles
• Race: Langley Pond International: 2:40:44…bad swim, great bike, goodish run…

WEEK 6: APRIL 26

• Total Time: 9:52
• Swim Distance: 6124 yds
• Bike Distance: 91.50 miles
• Run Distance: 8.98 miles

You know you have a skewed perception of “a lot of training” when you look at a week of less than 10hrs of training and think “man, what a light week”

Also, I’ve finally started updating the IronPerson page.  Most of the info is in the subpages…with more to come!

And now, I need to go crash so I can get up at 6am for a long ride followed by a 6mi run tomorrow…followed by a make up swim sesh.

So, I was already planning on posting about my playlist for the marathon (the post about ipod v no ipod can be another day…because, screw it, I’m ipoding it during the race…), and then one of my formspring questions was: “top 5 musicians/bands . . . go!” And figured, what a great joint post.  Yes.  (also, note, I’m totally enjoying the questions.  They’ll all get answered!  Promise. )

Well, My favorite bands/muscicians are kinda embarassing.  But, I don’t claim to like “good” music.  I claim to like happy music.  I’m the queen of guilty pleasure music.

1. Abba (Happiest music.  Ever.)
2. Queen (Need I explain?)
3. Mika (A combination of Abba and Queen.  Seriously?  My dream musician)
4. Michael Buble’ (Because, who doesn’t like an adorable, single, present day, crooner?)
5. And, currently, Lady Gaga (I reserve this 5th spot for the passing fad musician.)

So, moving on to my marathon music and my marathon plan. My marathon playlists are very deliberately crafted…and can take hours and hours to make.  There are “stages” of music (which match my race plans):

Pre-race: Mellow. It’s just what it sounds like.  I try not to waste energy on being hyped up, so I use a lot of the music I would use for yoga classes.  Just zen…trying to let the external distractions fall away.

Mile 1-3: Chill. There is such a tendancy to go out way too hard…and well, I mentally don’t do well when I hit it hard and start to fade.  So, I have some more relaxed music to remind me to just “relax” into the first few miles.  The first few should feel eeeeeeasy.  I’m just settling into the pace.

Mile 4-13.1: Happy. My “happy” runs are my best runs.  Where it feels effortless, bouncy and happy.  That is what I’m going for in this chunk of the race…so the music mimics that, happy, bouncy, light.  And, yes, this includes Miley Cyrus, numbers from musicals, and songs from Disney soundtracks.  Don’t knock it until you try it.  But, for the rest of the first half of the race, I’m just enjoying it.  Or trying to enjoy it.  I don’t want to waste my mental energy (or physical energy just yet).

Mile 13.1-20: Tough. This is where you start to doubt yourself.  I always need to remind myself how tough I am.  So, the music turns to harsher beats.  More deliberate messages to listen to, lyrics that I can channel and stay tough and moving forward. (e.g. Feelin Alright by Joe Crocker or Stronger by Kanye)

Mile 21-25: Angry. These are the miles that HURT.  I have to get angry to push through it.  I think of crap that makes me angry and I listen to angry rock music and and I push.  I push hard through those miles.

Mile 25-26.2: Balls to the wall. At this point I’m just pushing as hard as I can and probably won’t even be noticing the music anyway.

Ok, so sorry I’ve been a bit MIA lately, I’m battling getting sick, so I’ve been sleeping and drinking lots of water, hoping to get better before the marathon.  But, it appears I’ll just be running the race sick…in thunderstorms. :-/

But, folks, I’ll be back full force on Monday.  If you want to stalk me during the marathon, because who wouldn’t…my bib number is #384 and you can get race day updates here.

And, what’s your favorite running song?