Monster Cookie Metric Century

April 30, 2006
Salem, OR
100k (62 miles)

First organized event of the season is always fun :) I had a delicious pre-birthday lunch with my best friend and spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying my rest day. Preston offered to drive me down to Salem which was awesome.

We left around 8am after I filled my bottles and got my sunscreen on. After torrential showers yesterday I was happy it had dried out and the skies were clear but it was pretty chilly so I opted for my long sleeved jersey. I kissed Preston goodbye and I was off. I have to admit I was definitely lonely because the first time I did this ride, I did it with Karie but with a new baby she's not quite back on the bike so I was off on my own.

The first 10 miles wind through the capital city of Salem and there were several pace lines that sped past while I dodged lots of mountain bikers and yahoos wearing headphones, weaving etc. I had to say "on your left" a lot and after a while I just stopped saying it cause people weren't paying attention anyway.

About 5 miles in an older guy on a mountain bike starts drafting off me and I'm like "uh hello dude, proceed at your own risk" because as anyone who's ridden with me knows, I'm a nervous rider when others are really close to me. So I dropped him and continued along until the first rest stop at mile 15. I hopped off my bike and quickly refilled my bottles, mixed some more GU20 and proceeded toward the turnaround.

The second 15 miles is where the majority of the hills are which I actually climbed faster than 3-6MPH (my usual hill speed) so that was good. Unfortunately because I wasn't riding alone I had to brake several times on the fast downhills because there were slower riders and it seemed dangerous to pass them at like 40 MPH in the aerobars. Did a few WOO HOOs for good measure as I went down the fastest descent. One thing I really tried to focus on was hydration and nutrition and I think I did pretty well. No stomach issues at all.

The turnaround was also the lunch stop but since there is no lunch stop during a 1/2 IM I figured that wouldn't really add to my experience. I did refill my bottles again, grabbed a cookie and stood in a really long line for the facilities before I was off again. At this point I had been riding for about an hour and 55 minutes and gone about 30 miles almost all of it into the wind. Fingers were crossed for a tailwind on the return trip.

The 3rd leg is always the hardest on the bike for me because you're not quite to the final leg and my body is usually starting to get sore and tired. This would be no exception as I started to have a lot of lower back soreness. I stretched, hydrated and happily picked up the speed as the wind had died down and I was easily spinning at about 18.5 MPH. Along the way I got lots of comments about what a nice bike I had and my aero set-up but most of the guys were flying along so it wasn't like a conversation starter. With about 10 miles to go I came upon a guy with a tri-bike who was also doing a lot of stretching. I asked him about his bike and we started chatting. Turned out we were about the same speed (I may have been able to go faster but it was nice to have company) so we paced each other, careful to ride parallel instead of drafting because we were both training for races where drafting isn't allowed.

The time passed quickly and we parted ways at the 3rd stop (mile 45) where I again hopped off my bike for a restroom break, bottle refill and another cookie. At this point I was keeping a good speed and I knew I had just 20 miles to the end plus it was starting to warm up so I picked up my cadence and focused on riding consistently. I checked my time at mile 56 (since this is where I'll be hopping off the bike during my 1/2 Ironman) and was pleased to see 3:19. Not bad considering the wind and hills.

Before I knew it I was back in town and looking for the car :) It was wonderful to have Preston there so he could grab my bike and take care of the drive home. We stopped at Red Robin for a garden burger and some steak fries, yum!

Total Ride: 64.66 miles
Total Time: 3:51.47
Top Speed: 37.8 MPH
Average Speed: 16.7 MPH

Not All Triathletes Are Alike...

So I'm prepping yesterday for my long ride and I decide given my frustration with the aerobottle that I'd go to the bike shop and get a 2nd cage put on and look at Camelbacks. Now I've always thought people wearing Camelbacks during races were kind of dorky but I was going to set that aside in the interest of hydration and racing success.

I am getting my bike out of the Element (I drive an awesome Red Honda Element with custom plates that read TRI GRL) and this bike shop guy comes out and offers to help like I can't lift my super light bike or something. Anyway he starts talking about how that's a nice bike and where did I get it because he's the shop's tri guy etc. I was like that's cool. I got it here, maybe before you were working here. I head into the store with my bike and I explain what I'm looking for and he's like "you aren't actually going to wear that in a race are you?". I was so mad about his comment I totally put aside my perceived dorkiness factor and was like "yes I was thinking about it". In the meantime I'm getting my cage put on and he's telling me all about how he's trying to get a media slot for Ironman Florida.

Okay, I know about the media slots. So I say what's your story? Why do you deserve a coveted PR slot? Apparently he broke his leg in multiple places and was in the hospital 18months ago and couldn't walk. Now he's ready to do Ironman. Now this is going to sound mean but seriously dude there are soooooooooo many people out there who have come back from more major injuries than that and they don't try to get a PR slot. They just train and do the race. So I just looked at him and I was like huh, well good luck. Those slots are pretty competitive.

He then proceeded to talk to me about how I should get behind the seat cages instead of a Camelback and I'm like dude, you don't know me and there's no way I could get the bottles behind my seat, hello my butt's just a little bigger than your average triathlete. Next he starts talking about how I should switch my pedals to some that are faster and that was the breaking point for me.

NOT ALL TRIATHLETES WANT:

Faster, slicker pedals
$4000 bikes
Carbon bottle cages

and especially not after I asked this question:

How fast do you think you'll do IM Florida? He said 10:30 hours. Dude, hello, you are talking to someone who would kiss the ground at the finish line if the clock still reads 16:XX. You're thoughts on carbon cages and pedals are totally lost on me.

Lesson of the day: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!!!!

In the end it was fine because I had a great ride all the way up to Hagg Lake which is really challenging and I determined that I definitely needed my lowest gear to get up the HUGE hill there. I did get sunburned but I also clocked a top speed of 40.4 MPH.

OMG - On a bike, with no brakes. Once I saw that number I started freaking out a bit and had to get out of my aerobars so I could brake a little bit. That is a scary speed on a bike.

Great run this morning - seems this Leopard is getting speedy after all. 4.4 miles at an average speed of under 12 min miles. WOO HOO!!!!

Leopards don't usually like water...

This leopard definitely didn't like the water. Swimming was my least favorite of the 3 disciplines. I couldn't stand it. Could have been because it took planning. You had to pack your suit, towel etc. You couldn't just throw on your running shoes and fly out the door. It could have been because you have to take another shower to get the chlorine off. Or it could have just been that it wasn't my strength so therefore I hated it.

What's weird is I used to have a love relationship with swimming. Swimming was the first sport I participated in. I swam in high school on the varsity team. Through swimming I made great friends, got in the best shape of my life and learned that practice and discipline are great traits to take in other parts of life.

So why am I posting about this today. Well when I first started back in February with David (my coach) he said he wanted to make me love swimming, or at least hate it less. I'd heard that it was really smart to train your weakness but since I wasn't fond of swimming I never wanted to focus on it. So slowly but surely he's focused me on swimming. Improving my stroke, learning about rotation, getting more power and longer glide. I've swam in Hawaii, Shanghai, Vegas and here in Portland and today I had what many would call a breakthrough.

For the past 2 seasons I've averaged about a 1:21 per lap (50yd). In the past 2 months with David I've gotten that down to 1:15 per lap. Not bad, considering my first triathlon I was doing about 1:30 per lap.

Today I swam 1:00 per lap, not once, not twice but consistently over 10 laps. 500yds at 1:00 per lap pace. OMG!!!! I wasn't fatigued, I was a little winded after each lap but all in all I felt great after the workout and I swam every lap in 1:00.

This leopard could end up taking to water after all :)

Jumping Off the Hamster Wheel

Spring is here and I'm moving off the hamster wheel (also known as treadmill) and out into the world - HOORAY!!!!

After a long winter inside staring at TVs and breathing recycled air I broke out of the gym and took my new running legs out for a test drive :)

After 6 weeks of working on getting comfortable with ratio workouts where I'm running at different speeds for different time periods, I decided yesterday was too beautiful a day to stay inside.

I'd been kind of skeptical on how well I'd be able to do trying to feel out a pace on the road without the feedback of the display on the treadmill telling me I was for sure going 5 MPH etc. Fortunately I ended up near a pond I used for training on my last 1/2 Ironman which I know is .33m around so I did the math for my workout and held my breath hoping I would just know how a 12min mile felt.

My workout today called for:

10min warm-up on the bike then 5 min @ 4MPH and 5 min @ 4.5MPH

After that I did 5 min @ 4MPH and then 6 min @ 5MPH three times followed by a 5 min cool down. I ended up running faster than the pace a few times which made me happy that I could do that although I did try to dial it back when I realized I was going to fast.

Today I'm taking my tri bike out for a ride from the office so we'll see how that goes what with traffic and all.

An Oasis in the Desert...

After a long and tiring week which resulted in a grand total of 18hrs sleep over 4 days I found an oasis on Friday afternoon. It was about 75 degrees with clear and sunny skies and amazingly no wind. I had hoped to get to a pool somewhere and was happy to discover that just before I hopped on my plane I was able to swim for an hour in the hotel pool.

Most hotel pools are indoors and small, shaped weird or too hot or too cold so to find an outdoor pool, that was square, the perfect temperature and even had lines on the bottom was totally awesome. I had packed my suit into my computer bag and was able to make a quick change, spend an hour doing my workout in the warm sun before jumping back into my business clothes and heading home.

It was truly an oasis to have that one hour of sun and get a swim in.

It's 3am, do you know where your Marketing Team is?

It's 3:12am and the show opens in less than 7 hours. The Product Management team is here trying to get over our booth traumatic stress disorder. We ate dinner at 11:30pm which sucked although I did get Broccoli and Sweet Potatoes which was fabulous. I'd forgetten how horrible working a tradeshow can be.

It's hard to imagine I managed tradeshows when I was over 300lbs. Yikes! I do feel good though because I got my workout in this afternoon. Off to finish the booth. Tomorrow (ie today) is going to be brutal. My product demo is questionable because their firewall is blocking external addresses. ACK!!!!!!!!!!

Keep your fingers crossed that I can get them to punch through the firewall :)

Sleepy leopard out.

Flying like a Fool

I took my new bike off the trainer today and rode it on the road for the first time. It was AWESOME!!!! I felt like I was flying. On the flat road I was going 3-4 miles faster per hour than I did on my old bike and even into the wind I was maintaining 14MPH with relative ease.

I actually had to ask Preston several times to ride next to me and tell me what his speedometer said because I thought mine was playing an April Fool's joke on me. But it was giving me the straight scoop and I was indeed a Speed Leopard on my new ride :)

In spite of a little rain and a lot of wind, we did 20 miles and I never felt like I was pushing it. I felt good in the aerobars til the last 15 minutes or so when I had to stretch my back but otherwise I was on my new bike, wearing my new regular sized bib shorts (a huge accomplishment since I started out in a 4X cycling short 3 years ago) and enjoying the sunshine when it wasn't raining with my husband. Hooray!!! I even got comfortable getting my water bottle from my cage and being in aero with only one hand.

I now have to get back to work as I've been heads down since I returned from China preparing for a major tradeshow in Vegas on Tuesday.

Viva Las Vegas, until then I'm flying high :)