So, apparently I'm not very good at this blogging thing. Well, I guess I don't know the average time between blogs for others, but 3 months seems pretty long. Oh well.
Let's see where to start...since my last entry.....May started off ok- training was going well until a couple of hard running workouts injured my back. It wasn't that they were hard, it was the fact that I did some fast 400's that was too much for my tight and weak hip flexors. Since they attach to the front of the lumbar spine it gave me quite the flare-up in low back pain that I haven't had before.
I stopped running, but cycling and swimming were fine. And since I've been a little suspicious about my back for a while, I decided to see a physician. I went to Marla Kaufman, MD, at University of Washington, Bone & Joint clinic. She is fantastic and x-rays ruled out my fear of a spondylolisthesis (one vertebra slipping too much on the one below it). So this lead us to believe it was likely just super tight hip flexors which have plagued me before. I began stretching them and doing some more core work and tried a couple light jogs w/out pain. But then we left for Italy right after that.
Italy was amazing. We spent the first week on an organized bike trip in the Piedmont region. We decided to use the provided bicycles so we didn't have to haul our bikes to Europe on the plane and risk losing them as we connected through Terminal 5 at Heathrow, aka the black hole for luggage. Their bikes were plenty fine. Each day we had an established bike route of 30-35 miles and then an optional "extra loop" that would add 10-15 more miles. I chose this option most days. The scenery was amazing as we rode through beautiful little hill towns and some slightly more major towns like Alba and Asti. Besides the biking we had amazing food. Lunch was about 1/2 way through each ride- frequently multi-course with wine. This made it slightly difficult to get back on the bike for the rest of the ride. I learned to go easy on the wine and drink lots of water. Even still, it took about 20 min to feel good in the afternoon ride. The dinners were simply amazing. They weren't overly fancy usually, but very well-crafted and delicious. Again, the paired wine was yummy and dangerous.
The second week of the trip was spent in Italy with Justin's parents, his sister, and her fiance. We rented rooms at an Agritourismo in Tuscany, about an hour south of Florence. This was a nice and relaxing week with some fun little day trips to picturesque towns in Tuscany. I ran 3 or 4 times this week, but hadn't run at all the first week in Piedmont. There was a pool at our B&B, but it was small and I could only tolerate a few minutes of the super short lap swimming.
The day we came home I had a sore throat and a head cold developing with sinus drainage increasing steadily on the flights. Luckily I had taken the day after we got home off from work already. I was able to return as planned to work the following day. However, I still didn't want to run while trying to get over this cold.
So, all told, I only ran about 4 times in 5 weeks. Not a great training plan when I had a 1/2 ironman (Lake Stevens 70.3) scheduled 2 weeks after getting home.
The race really wasn't too bad though. I swam fairly average for me: about 32:30, then biked ok in 2:37. My run is where my lack of training really showed and I could only muster a 1:26 (compared to 1:21 that I ran on the same course in 2007). Now I had 4 weeks until my next race, a 1/2 ironman (Troika) in Spokane on August 3rd.
I trained hard those few weeks and saw good improvement in my cycling and tempo runs and the swimming started to feel better as well. I also entered the Fat Salmon open water swim (1.25 miles) in the non-wetsuit category, and ran a 5000 meter race on the track. I was not rested at all for the 5 km but squeaked out a victory in 17:05. Not stellar, but it was fun and I ran hard and got a good workout out of it.
I tapered well last week leading up to Troika and but a fun new toy for motivation: the Garmin 405 GPS stop watch with heart monitor. I learned how to use it on Saturday and decided to race with it on Sunday.
The swim felt hard from the start and it was in a warm, gross, lake (Medical Lake). My goggles fogged horribly and I stopped and rolled on my back to clear them at 1/2 way which made the 2nd half much more pleasurable. I pushed hard the rest of the way in and was fairly light-headed in transition as my body tried to get blood back to my head. I had worn the HR monitor strap in the water, but the GPS watch part says not to submerse in water for long periods so I had to put in on in transition after doffing wetsuit, cap, and goggles. I threw on my aero helmet (had purchased for Lake Stevens), grabbed my bike (with shoes already attached) and jogged out of transition. I mounted my bike and started my stop watch (and GPS function) and then got pedaling and up to speed before slipping my feet into the shoes. I first tried this technique at Lake Stevens to see if it could speed up my transition w/out losing too much time trying get my feet in while riding. It worked quite smoothly there and was pretty good this time too. Depending on how the transition zone is set up (gravel, rocks, grass, carpet) I'll probably continue this technique in the future. Besides saving time, I think it just looks cool to run barefoot through transition with the shoes already attached like the pro's do. :-)
On the bike at Troika it was fun to look at my HR, pace and distance on the watch as they didn't have markers out on the course and I know that my bike computer is a little bit off since I changed the battery and didn't set it exactly right for the tires I have on it. The GPS seems very accurate. For pace I chose the units of "Minutes/mile" instead of MPH since that would be more helpful to me on the run. But on the bike it was funny to see I was biking 2 1/2 minutes per mile. It made me feel fast.
Guys were jostling around me early on the bike: I would pass some people, while others would pass me and then slow down. This leap-frogging continued for about 15 miles but then most people settled into their comfortable pace and there wasn't much passing. Luckily I was within sight of an athlete who seemed about the same pace as me. I used him as a guide and stayed 5-6 bike lengths behind (within 4 bike lengths is "drafting" and is illegal in most triathlons). We road at a very steady pace, about 20-23 mph and my HR hovered around 145 bpm. About mile 35 we started to see some athletes ahead of us. I don't think we were speeding up, just maintaining our established speed better. I think these guys went out too fast and were starting to fade. I caught and passed about 5 riders over the last 15 miles including my good friend and training partner, John Bergen. Normally I would not catch John in the bike but he is training for Ironman Louisville in September and did not rest for this race. In fact he ran 21 miles just 3 days earlier in training. Catching him on the bike meant he was pretty tired from all the training. He stuck with me after I caught him on the bike and he actually got into T2 a little ahead of me. We both had good transitions and started the run almost together (he was about 10-15 sec ahead). I ran hard and caught him in the first 1/2 mile. From his bike, I knew he was tired so I figured I would out run him fairly easily since I was rested and usually a better runner. As I started to pull away he said some encouraging things and I tried to go catch some other guys up ahead. Around mile 4 I heard a spectator yell "go guys!" and there was no one in front of me in sight so I turned around and saw that John was still within 100 feet of me. Wow, I thought to myself, he's pushing hard and maybe I relaxed a little. I should pick it up a little as I really should be pulling away from him. I finally caught someone and asked him if he knew how many more guys were ahead of us as I didn't know what place I was in. He said he thought I was in 6th place now. Very cool because I would have guessed 10th.
The run is an out-and-back so I knew eventually I would see who was ahead of me as they headed back to the finish. I eventually saw the race leader, Matt Sealy, who is a pro triathlete from Montana. He had a decent lead of 2-3 min over 2nd place, Michael Gordon, who is a friend and local professional from Seattle. 3rd place was another few minutes back, Jeff Smith, and also a pro, but I'm not sure where from....I think Spokane area. In 4th place was Ben Bigglestone, who is also from Seattle and I've become friends with through the triathlon community. He and his wife both race and are very nice people. We cheered for eachother as we passed. He was many minutes ahead of me and looked very strong and I had no chance of catching him with him running so well. Then, as I approached the turn-around myself, I could see 5th place ahead of me. He was about 1 min ahead and as I made the turn I saw the John was still quite close- maybe 20 seconds behind. Argh! Surely his fatigue from training will start to slow him down on this 1/2 marathon, right?
I tried to push a little more to catch the guy in front of me and to hopefully not let John catch me. Within the next mile I caught the 5th place guy and he immediately tucked behind me and continued to run right behind me for the next 2 miles. During this time John did bridge the gap and catch us. At the next water station, John and I got through without slowing too much and dropped the other guy who must have slowed to take in extra fluid. So then John and I ran side by side for a while, trying help each other and not let the other guy catch back up. I felt ok at the pace we were running, but then John increased the pace. I tried to respond but was already at my threshold and he started to pull away from me. Now I desperately just tried to maintain my pace and still not let that last guy catch back up. At the next turn in the course I glanced back and couldn't see him so I was able relax but still tried to keep up the pace. When I was about 1/2 mile from the finish I saw an athlete up ahead who wasn't running very fast- he was in a gray top, so it wasn't John (who was in the same orange Pauole Sport top that I was wearing) and I realized it must be Ben. I pushed a little more just to see if I could get close to him before the finish. I was then able to catch right at the last turn, about 200 meters from the finish. I didn't care about beating him- being 5th or 6th by a few seconds wasn't a big deal to me and I wasn't concerned about my place in my age group at this point, so I encouraged him to run in with me, but just as I caught him he stopped to walk and told me to go on ahead. I didn't want to walk at this point so I did go ahead and finished in 5th and Ben was a few seconds back in 6th. 7th place was another 30 seconds behind Ben.
All in all, it was a good race. I had a decent swim, a very solid bike, and although my run was just 1:25 on a flat course, I pushed really hard and fought all the way. It was the best my body would allow considering my lack of run training this summer. And it turns out that 3 of the 4 people who beat me were pro's. Of course, that 4th place guy, John, was in the middle of heavy training for an Ironman and beat me at the best part of my race: the run. It just shows how incredibly fit he is right now and how mentally tough he is at the same time to fight through significant fatigue and claw back from 8th to 4th in the run.
So please think very positive thoughts for John as he races Ironman Louisville on August 31st. He is very fit and just needs one more solid race and he should qualify for Kona.
