Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Morning swim and TNT

In an effort to get my workouts in this week, I went to my gym pool instead of meeting my group for our workout and then went to TNT to get my lifting in.

Today's swim was:
wu - 300 swim and drills; Drills - 1 arm drill, fingertip drill, 6 kicks each side drill; 15-25 x 50yds on the 1:00 -1:10 min. depending on your pace (10-15 sec rest in btwn each). Stay within 3-5 sec of your best time.

I did:
wu - 300 swim and drills; Drills - 1 arm drill, fingertip drill, 6 kicks each side drill; 12 x 50yds on the 1:00 -1:10 min. depending on your pace (10-15 sec rest in btwn each). Stay within 3-5 sec of your best time. cd - 100

Total: 1000m

If I had more time, I would've gotten in a few more. Ah well. My fastest was :40. I did about 3 of them at this speed. Crazy fast for me. My slowest was :56. I'm pretty happy with those times.

Then it was to TNT. I HATE lifting in the morning. My body revolts. I managed to struggle through. I met some of J's normal workout partners. One of them was like "Oh! You're his wife, the triathlete!" I just laughed, and said, "Yes, I'm Heather. Nice to meet you." I was so glad when 6:45 came, I was so relieved. I'm usually not like that, as I love to lift, but man I hate doing it in the morning. Glad it's in for the week though!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

To spin or not to spin?

So... I skipped my track workout this morning. Sometimes, 4:20am is just too early to get out of bed. Today was one of those days. I have to figure out where else to fit in the workout this week, but I have a couple of options. Thursday may end up being the day, but we'll see.

Also, since I lifted yesterday, there was none of that today. There will be more tomorrow instead of Thursday as well.

The question of the day was to spin or not to spin. I asked my husband, who was home for once, if he wanted to go with me and he actually said "sure!", so we went. I'm so glad we did. We had 4 minute hill intervals today - 1:45 in the saddle, :15 out, 2 min in, :15 out. Gotta love how D plays. Great workout. My legs are still recovering a bit from Sunday's ride, but it felt good.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Monday TNT

Today was a bit weird for me. I did TNT on one of my "old" TNT days - Monday! It was a good class - just 4 of us (all from the Tuesday 5pm class... wonder who he'll have today!). The gym was super hot. T really pushed me, which was good. Glad to have one of the two lifting workouts done for the week!

Oh! I asked if J told T about our 40 mile bike ride on Sunday. Apparently J didn't. One of the other ladies, was like "you rode 40 miles and you're still here?!" T told her I'm a freak. I laughed - but it is kind of true. :)

Sunday, June 26, 2011

This week's workouts

Here's this week's workouts. I'm going to be all sorts of off plan this week. TNT on Mon/Wed this week and spin on Tues like normal.


Monday
Day off
TNT (pm)

Tuesday
Track  - Running drills - 6-10 x 200's
Spin

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 300 swim and drills; Drills - 1 arm drill, fingertip drill, 6 kicks each side drill; 15-25 x 50yds on the 1:00 -1:10 min. depending on your pace (10-15 sec rest in btwn each). Stay within 3-5 sec of your best time.
TNT

Thursday
Bike - wu 20 min.; 3-6 x 4 min. Time Trial with 4 min. easy spin

Friday
Swim - wu with drills and swim 500 yd; 3 x 7 min. intervals with 3 min. rest in btwn.; cool down

Saturday
Run -  Tempo run (just under race pace)
olympic distance - 10k
half ironman - 10 miles

Sunday
Brick - 120 min. ride/20-30 min. run

Sunday Bike

My spin instructor, D has been bugging me to join her group on these long rides that they do. This is the first week I've actually been free (no races, no other events), so I decided to go. I drug my husband, J with me. We rode 38.1 miles in about 2 and a half hours. It was a good ride. Some W&OD trail riding, some road riding. My legs are screaming at me now, but it was great to do it.

Close to the 4H Fairgrounds, there was a biker down. Apparently, he (or she) got hit by a car. I felt horrible. Thankfully, there was a group of bikers and 2 cars who had stopped to help. They were already on the phone with 911 and an ambulance was on the way. I hope the biker will be ok and that no serious damage was done. It was a good reminder to not assume that cars are going to play nice.

We had lunch at a local BBQ place on the side of the W&OD. Great location for them - they clean up in the summer with all of the riders! The ride felt good, but man was I glad to be done at about 40 miles. I don't know how much more I would've been up for!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Saturday Swim

I was supposed to do this swim yesterday, but instead of that, I got a haircut and we closed on our refi of our house. So, I did the swim today. Here's what the workout was:

wu with drills 300; tempo swim - 35 min straight swim. Just below race pace. trying to cover as much distance as possible. Record distance; cool down

I can't lie, I was a bit scared about this workout. I know exactly why this week's workouts were what they were. It was all things that I've talked about with Coach L. Today, I got out there and did my 300m warmup, the 35 min swim, and a 200m cooldown. When I got in, I was sharing the lane with a guy who knew what he's doing. Very easy to share with. About 20 minutes into my 35 minute straight swim, this woman shows up and is basically flailing all over the place, swimming straight up in the middle of the lane, and generally trying to take over the lane we're now sharing. I have to say, that when I swam past, I didn't hold back from hitting her on a couple of strokes just to make the point. I was hugging the lane line and doing my thing. It seemed to get her to move out of the way for the most part. I really don't mind sharing the lane, as long as the other person can share the lane easily.

Anyhow... so here's my total distance:
WU = 300m
Swim = 1600m
CD = 200m
Total = 2100m

I'm thrilled with it!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

TNT

Tonight was a TNT night. We had weigh in and body fat checks. My weigh in was 130.0 and body fat was 16%. I'm pretty happy with the breakdown. 109.1 lbs of lean body weight, 20.9 lbs of fat weight.

I was a little annoyed that our class was 9 people and only 2 of us actually belonged to the class. I get that T wants you just to show up whenever you can, but man that's annoying.

The workout itself was pretty good; was glad to get it in.No cardio today, just needed to give myself a little break. My back's been hurting recently. I think my massage therapist got this one knot out and now it's coming back. UGH!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Wednesday Swim

Today's workout was this:

wu - 300 swim and drills; 4 x 5 min. intervals with 2 min. recovery btwn rounds. Cover as much distance as possible; Cool down - 200 kick/pull/ non free

I actually finished all of it! I soooooooo wasn't in the mood to do the swim this morning, but I had no choice since J's sister is coming to stay with us tonight. Ah well, it was good to get it done.

In each of the 5 minute intervals, I swam 250yds. I feel like I probably could've pushed it a bit, but given that I didn't even feel like being there, I'll take it! I'm really trying to focus on getting my left arm straighter and out of the water higher on the recovery. I'm also trying to focus on keeping my head down more.  I'm also thinking of taking swim lessons this winter. J may join me in that. Yea!

Total: 1500 yds

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Tri-Forces Sprint Triathlon turned Aquathon

Tri-Forces Sprint Triathlon Race Report
  • Race Name: Tri-Forces Sprint Triathlon turned Aquathon
  • Race Date: June 18, 2011
  • Race Location: North Beach, MD
  • Race Distance: Sprint  (planned to be 750m swim,12.35 mi bike, 5k run – turned into 5k run, 750m swim, 5k run)
  • Division: F 30-39
  • Total Time: 1:22:50
  • Time Breakdown: weren’t given for this race
  • Age Group Placing: 4/9
  • Overall Placing: 35/59 (overall) 15/29 (female)
Pre-race
Registration was online and went just fine and the fees were reasonable. The race was definitely not organized well. Before the race, the race organizers really needed to pass along information in a timely manner. Also, the website should’ve been updated with the most current information so that the few links they posted just a few days before the race and the rest of the website matched up. There was a lot of conflicting information. Thankfully, the course maps were provided online and updated as needed.

The night before the race, there were two sets of storms that came through that ended up putting trees and debris all over the roads of Calvert County. Because of this, the bike leg was in danger of being canceled. Instead of just making the call Friday night, many people worked through the night trying to clean up as much of the course as they could. At 2:30am, we got an email stating that they were still working on everything. By 5:30, they should’ve have had a definite answer, but they were still up in the air. I know no one wants to make a call like that, but then that left them scrambling to figure out the set up for a run-swim-run when they finally did make the call.


In the latest pre-race updates, packet pick-up was supposed to start at 5:30am. It still wasn’t ready by 6:15. That was super annoying. I understand that many of the race officials had been up prior to the race dealing with the presents that were left by the weather, but things like “do you have the race bibs?!” shouldn’t have been an issue. There was also no direction about the bike racks (which were being used for our wetsuits instead of our bikes) and where people should be setting up. When I finally did check in, no one checked my ID or my USAT card. The swag bag was “eh”, nothing special. They have lots of small things to fix. I’m not sure if I’ll race it again or not.

There were a good number of volunteers. They probably could’ve used a few more, but it was good. There were two port-a-potties, but that seemed to be enough. It was a REALLY small race, only 59 people finished. There were so many people who didn’t start or chose not to finish, so I’m not sure what the actual number of people who were registered and probably would’ve done the race had it stayed a triathlon.


Setting up transition was odd since there was no bike to set up. The weather was great, nice and sunny. The humidity was a little high, but nothing horrible. They did the pre-race warm-up (I find these pretty useless, so I didn’t participate). We had our last briefing before the race and then lined up. This was the second race this year that there was no National Anthem. Weird, very weird.

Run 1
Run 1 (aka: the start of the race) was great! I wasn’t sure how to approach the run since I haven’t run 10k since October 2009, right as I was injured. I decided just to take it easy and let the run happen as it was going to. I think my average pace was about 9:42, which wasn’t too bad. It was a pretty flat course, so that helped a lot!

There was one water station about half-way through, which was good. They even had COLD water! No hat today, though it might have been nice to have a visor.
Swim
When they measured the water temperature in the Chesapeake Bay in the morning, it said 78 degrees. I think that was the surface temperature. It was probably more like 74. The swim was definitely wetsuit legal, but we were STRONGLY encouraged to not use it since we’d be swimming after the run and it might lead us to dehydration. I wouldn’t have been able to put on a wetsuit after a run if I had tried. Thankfully, getting in the water was a bit refreshing!

The water was super calm, which was nice since it gave everyone time to calm their breathing down from the run. My goggles fogged up, which made it difficult to see… especially the green turn-around bouy. It was sunny, but I’m glad I didn’t wear my tinted goggles, as I’m not sure I would’ve been able to see the green bouy at all.

I was actually really happy with this swim. I’m sure there’s tons of room for improvement, but it was 750m, open water, with no wetsuit. I finished it, and it was great!
Right before we reached shore, there was a bulkhead under water. Guess who ran into it?! I did… along with several others (according to my family). That made my knee a bit sore and distracted me a little from how I was feeling otherwise. I was just glad to be done and on land again!

Run 2
Run 2 was pretty good too. Again, I wasn’t too sure how to approach it since it was basically the second half of a 10k. That being said, after the swim and hitting my knee, I knew my first mile was going to be a bit slower than I wanted it to be since my knee was sore. Other than that, my legs actually felt pretty good! I averaged about 9:45 for the second 5k, which is only a minute slower than my stand-alone 5k time, so that’s good in my book!

Transitions

The transitions for this race were a little odd given that it wasn’t at all the race I thought I was doing. Both went well – it was just weird! I could’ve probably sped it up a bit, but it wasn’t really a race I was doing for time, so it didn’t matter all that much.
Post-Race

I felt great at the finish line! I probably could’ve run the second run harder, but that’s ok. This event was all about showing my family what it is that I do. There were plenty of food and drinks (especially since Vita-Coco was sponsoring the event). The awards sucked (quite frankly). The race director flat out admitted that they ran out of funding for the awards and that was why they lumped the age groups the way they did. The race results didn’t get to us until Tuesday, June 21, 3 days after the race. The distances were off a little bit, but not by anything worth really noting (.1 on the run, not sure about the swim).

Summary and Lessons Learned
I was glad that I was flexible enough to stay and do the race. While the race coordinator was pretty disorganized, the run course was nice and the swim wasn’t bad either! I need to remember to dip my goggles before the swim. They almost always fog up. Who knows if I’ll do this race again, but I’m glad that I did it this time.

Tuesday Bike, Run, TNT, Spin

Today's morning workout was a bike/run hill repeat workout. I got in 4 hill repeats on the bike and 1 hill run. Not quite what I wanted, but oh well. It was a good workout. My quads were killing me after the 3rd hill on the bike. It was kind of humid this morning, so that wasn't helping!

TNT was good. We got to do reverse push ups, which I LOVE. Yes, I'm sick in the head. There's really not much to say about the class, but it was good.

Spin was good. D had some issues with the music - first her iPod died and then the cd that was in her bag was super scratched up. She lead a great class even without the music. We did speed intervals - 6 minutes of 30 min on, 30 sec off. Tough, that's for sure!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Monday - seriously I should rest

Since I took off Sunday, I decided I needed to get in a light bike ride. J and I went for a 9.1 mile ride and finally got off the W&OD trail! It was a pretty good ride. Average pace was 14.1 mph, so pretty slow. Just what I needed (and I was able to enjoy a beautiful "spring" day!).

Sunday, June 19, 2011

This week's workouts

Coach L sent our workouts early. This week looks ROUGH!


Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Bike/Run hill repeats (Note - bring bike, bike shoes, helmet, running shoes)

Wednesday
wu - 300 swim and drills; 4 x 5 min. intervals with 2 min. recovery btwn rounds. Cover as much distance as possible; Cool down - 200 kick/pull/ non free

Thursday
Bike - wu 20 min.; 4 min. on 3 min. off/2 min. on 30 sec. off/ 1 min. on 3 min. off/2 min. on 30 sec. off/ 4 min. on; cool down

Friday
Swim - wu with drills 300; tempo swim - 35 min straight swim. Just below race pace. trying to cover as much distance as possible. Record distance; cool down

Saturday
Women's Distance Festival - 5k
if not - 5k time trial (with 1 mile warm up and cool down)

Sunday
Brick - 120 min. ride/20-30 min. run

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Tri-Forces Triathlon: North Beach, MD

I'll post a race report in a different post, but the skinny is this race was super disorganized. Because of storms last night, we ended up doing a the race officials didn't make the call until probably 6:15 this morning, and it just should've been made earlier. Having driven part of the course yesterday, I knew there was no way we'd be safe to bike it even if they worked all night to clean up. But really, the bike being taken out was the least of their problems. I don't know if I'll do the race again next year, but I do hope that this group gets things better organized and that their tri continues to grow.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Friday rest day

Usually Fridays are swim days, but today is the day before a race, so it's a rest day. We're heading to Calvert County tonight to be able to easily get to packet pick-up in the morning.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Thursday TNT and Swim

Since I slacked off yesterday, I had to double up today. I decided to get in the swim first and then do TNT.

This was Wednesday's swim workout:
wu - 400 swim and drills; 20 x 50yd. with 20 sec. rest in btwn; Cool down - 300 kick/pull/ non free

This is what I did:
wu - 200 swim and drills; 14 x 50yd. with 20 sec. rest in btwn; Cool down - 100 free/non-free

The swim went ok. I didn't push it too hard because I've got a race on Saturday with a long swim (750m is a long swim for me).

Then, I had a quick change and got my butt to TNT. It's T's birthday, so he was sure to share the love and gave us a hard workout. Enjoyed it though!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Slackin off Wednesday

When my alarm went off this morning, I literally couldn't get out of bed. I changed my alarm to an hour later, my normal out of bed time, and skipped my morning swim. I figured I'd do it in the afternoon. You know what? I didn't. My body told me I needed the rest, so I took it. You've gotta do what you've gotta do. I'll do the swim tomorrow after TNT since I did a couple of bike rides earlier this week.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tough Tuesday

Today's track workout was 10x200s. It was TOUGH! S and I kept a pace of :49 to :53 for each 200. The :53 was by far our slowest, and was the second one we did. By the 10th one, I was exhausted! But, I guess that's kind of the point, push until you can't push any longer. The weather was beautiful, the humidity was perfect (read: not there), and I was feeling motivated.

TNT was good tonight too. I was a bit tired, but nothing too bad. Pretty normal weight lifting workout. I'm finding that some of the people are ubber lazy, which I hate. T's birthday is Thursday, that'll be a fun workout!

Spin class was another tough workout! We did long, hard hills today. 3 1/2 minute hills... 8 of them! The last 3, my hills weren't as steep as D probably would've liked. My legs were still pretty tired from the morning workout.

After spin class, I was walking by one of the later TNT groups (my weight lifting group) and they were finishing up their legs. T stopped me and said "Ms .Heather! Speed squats with the group since you're passing by." I played along and said "oh, ok" He joked that he was going to put weights in my bag, to which I said "no thank you!". D walked past when I was doing them and asked what in the world I was doing, so I explained that T is my 5pm workout before her spin class. She laughed at me. It was a good ending to my crazy tough workout day!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Monday Rest... oops?

Well, I rested yesterday, so I decided to spin tonight. It was a high cadence spin for about 30 minutes. Just enough to work the legs. Love it!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

This week's workouts

6 days until the Tri-Forces Sprint tri. My entire family's coming - can't wait! Here's this week's workouts to get there:

Monday
Day off (I may do an easy spin since I didn't get it in yesterday and took it as a rest day instead)

Tuesday
10 x 200 (working on form)
TNT
Spin

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 20 x 50yd. with 20 sec. rest in btwn; Cool down - 300 kick/pull/ non free

Thursday
Bike - 90 min. ; wu 30 min/ 10 x 1 min. on 1 min. off/ cool down
TNT

Friday
Swim - wu with drills; Broken mile

Saturday
Run - Easy 4-6 miles (won't do)
TRI-FORCES SPRINT TRI

Sunday
Brick - 90 min. ride/20-30 min. run

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Saturday Treadmill Run

I HATE treadmills. They are the bane of my existance. I really can't describe how much I truly hate them. Can you guess where I did my run today?

We went to J's 10 year VillaNova class reunion, so I wasn't exactly in a familiar place, so the hotel gym it was. I did a 3 mile run on the treadmill and called it a day.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Friday Swim

Today's workout was:

wu with drills; 5 x (100 swim, 100 pull, 100 kick)

I did exactly that. 200m warmup, 5 x (100 swim, 100 pull, 100 kick), and 100m cooldown.

Total: 1800m

I managed to do the entire thing, even though I was REALLY trying to talk myself out of doing the last two sets of kicks. I've decided I hate kicks, but they're probably a necessary evil.

A funny thing happened in the pool today. I was the only one in the pool when this happened. The lifeguard who is normally on duty was walking around the pool deck after having just come in from the outdoor pool. I was doing a set of kicks and I hear her say "Oh crap!"and she's down on the pool deck with her arm in the pool. I realize she dropped something in the pool and said, "I'll get it" and swam over (across the other two lanes). The manager came over when I got over to where the lifeguard was... and as I went down to get the object, I realized what it was... her phone! Poor thing. So, I told her to get some rice and to let the phone dry in it. Hopefully she did. Right after that happened, a little girl puked on the deck of the outdoor pool. It was not this lifeguard's day.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Thursday Weights

Today was a strictly TNT day. It was a pretty good, uneventful workout. I forgot my gloves at home and remembered why I wear them during the workout - OW! Ah well, just need to remember them next time.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Wet Wednesdays

Today's workout was:
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 5 x 125 medium pace as follows:75 kick followed by 50 swim (:20 rest); 150 swim easy pace; 3 x 75 fast pace (:30 rest); Cool down 300 mixed strokes

I did:
Swim - wu - 200 swim and drills; 5 x 125 medium pace as follows:75 kick followed by 50 swim (:20 rest); 150 swim easy pace; 3 x 75 fast pace (:30 rest); Cool down 200 mixed strokes

Total: 1400

I was SO PROUD of myself today. My 75 fasts were all done at 1:13 or 1:14 each. That means that each 25 yd length was done at an average of 24 seconds. That's super fast for me. My 100s would've been 1:37 or so and not my normal 1:50. I wouldn't be able to keep that tempo up for long, but it felt good. I felt strong.

I ordered a few items to help in my training. 1) "Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier" (I'm very excited to read it.) , 2)"Swim Workouts for Triathletes: Practical Workouts to Build Speed, Strength, and Endurance", and 3) "The Triathlete's Guide to Off-Season Training (Ultrafit Multisport Training Series)". The first two should be here today - can't wait to get reading!

I need to find a book on cycling more confidently - as well as some drills to go out and do. The swim and bike are definitely my weak areas and I'd really like to improve them!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Tuesday Track

This morning's track workout was NOT what I expected at all. I was expecting to do some short speed work style drills. We concentrated on our running form today. Coach L was showing us information on the POSE running form. I need to do a bit more research on the topic, but it was all very interesting. Now, I feel like I need to get a "real" run in later today... especially since I'll be missing spin tonight (again).

I'll probably update this later tonight with what I ended up doing and TNT information.

Update:
I went to TNT and had a blast. I love the day after cardio week. It hurts so good. :) Many of the other members of my class didn't like it so much. Ah well... they need to actually do their cardio. You can easily tell who did their 5 days and who lied about their 5 days. Slackers. (My husband's included in that "Slackers" comment.)

After TNT, I went to spin class. I decided I'd just leave at 6:30 to change and get over to Transition Triathlon for the seminar. Spin class was great. I wish we'd have a weekend that I didn't have anything to do so that I could actually meet up with D's group. It sounds like it'd be much more fun than my current plans for this weekend!

The seminar was on mental health for atheltes. It was interesting, but not really what I expected. It was good to hear other women and their issues, goals, and mental battles with all things surrounding the sport of triathlon.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Yoga Monday

Originally, I was thinking of doing last Friday's swim today to be able to get it in. After having issues (again) with the cat and taking another trip to the vet to get medications for her, I figured it'd be best if I was home after administering the first dose. So... it's not in the cards to get this swim workout in.

I decided to do some yoga instead. My left calf is a little tight after Sunday's race and I figured it might be best just to stretch it out. I probably should've done the "runner's general" instead of the "swimmer's general" on my Yoga for Athletes DVD, but eh. I've forgotten how much I enjoy yoga. I really need to incorporate it in more. It's just a great stretch, cleansing of the mind, and generally very relaxing (even when in difficult poses).

Sunday, June 5, 2011

This week's workouts

Even on race day, there's always a new set of workouts!


Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Track  - 5:15 am (You know you're in for a fun workout when there's nothing but the time listed!)
TNT - will have to do cardio before hand since I have to miss spin :(
Transition triathlon - Mental training (evening meeting)

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 5 x 125 medium pace as follows:75 kick followed by 50 swim (:20 rest); 150 swim easy pace; 3 x 75 fast pace (:30 rest); Cool down 300 mixed strokes

Thursday
TNT
Bike - 90 min. ride

Friday
Swim - wu with drills; 5 x (100 swim, 100 pull, 100 kick)

Saturday
Run - Easy 4-6 miles

Sunday
Brick - 2 hour ride / 20 min. run

Broadlands Infitive Sprint Tri

Broadlands Infinitive Race Report

The stats:
  • Race Name: Broadlands Infinitive Sprint
  • Race Date: June 5, 2011
  • Race Location: Ashburn, VA
  • Race Distance: Sprint  (400m pool swim, 12.1 mi bike, 5k run)
  • Division: F 30-34
  • Total Time: 1:26:41
  • Time Breakdown: Swim – 9:21, T1 – 3:15, Bike – 42:49, T2 – 2:08, Run – 29:11
  • Age Group Placing: 5/14
  • Overall Placing: 29/75 (women only)

Pre-race:
Race registration was online only and was fine. The race was $85. The course maps were available online and at packet pick-up. I wish they told us where parking was going to be before packet pick-up, it would’ve been one less thing to worry about. Packet pick-up for this race was pretty good. Kind of annoying because you had to bring your bike & helmet to pick-up to be checked, so everyone’s standing around with their bikes & helmets trying to walk through the line to get their packets. Also, the first table, where they checked your id and USAT membership, they had divided into 2 lines, alphabetically… except, none of us knew that! You only figured it out once you got to the table. The swag was ok, t-shirt, hat, a fizz tablet, and a lot of paper.
The race was pretty well organized. There were plenty of volunteers and officers on the course, which was great. The bathrooms at the start/transition/finish were in the pool house, which seemed to be fine. There weren’t really any pre-race activities, which was fine.
The race was at the Broadlands pool. The only thing that was a bit odd to me was the long run from the pool into transition – which was in the pool parking lot. The bike course was local roads and the run was on a neighborhood trail.
Race morning, I got up around 4:20, got dressed, ate breakfast, put everything in the car, and headed out. We got to the parking area at around 5:20. We started the walk to the transition area and then hung out until they handed out the chips, did body marking, and opened transition. I got in, set up my bike and all of the other stuff, and had plenty of time to relax. I helped our friend RH get set up as well since it was his first tri. The weather was perfect for the race – mid 60s and no rain! YEA!
There were about 200 people there, which turned out to be a nice size.
The only thing I found a little weird was that this race didn’t have the National Anthem at the start. I don’t know that I’ve ever done a race without it.

Swim:
Today’s swim was a 400m snake swim in a 50m pool. The pool water wasn’t bathwater warm, but it definitely wasn’t cold either. Obviously, no wetsuits for this swim. I probably should’ve done a warm-up in the pool since they were allowing it, but oh well. I wore clear goggles for this race. My tinted goggles seem to fog faster than any other pair I own, so I don’t know how much I’ll wear them. I did get passed by one person. The fact that it was only one person meant that those of us in that time estimation seeded ourselves correctly. Go us! I was a little disoriented coming out of the water, mostly because I couldn’t find the stairs to get out of the pool. It was a long run into transition and I got reoriented pretty quickly.
I need to concentrate on moving faster through the water in general. I’m starting to consider swim lessons or reading books about swim technique to become more efficient as well.


Bike
The course was a double loop, some hills course – and was set up much better than the one at Annapolis. When we turned the corner to come back, you didn’t have to pick your lane as you turned the corner, which was great! There weren’t any potholes to note, no food/water stops (given that it was 12 miles), and was basically a full lane of the road that was closed to traffic.
I had a car pull into the bike lane in front of me. I was glad that he was in front of me and not behind me – at least I could see what he was doing.
I need to work on tackling hills on my bike. I feel like if I can get stronger on hills, then I’ll be in a much better position. Also, I need to get more confident in my bike handling skills. It’s obvious to me that I’m not confident with my bike. I’ve got some drills I need to give a try.

Run
After making it out of T2, they had us cross over a timing mat. At some point shortly after, I realized that our run started literally as soon as you cleared the transition area where the mat was. At least this time I remembered to put on my watch! Since it was only a 5k, I didn’t bring any fuel with me. They had water on the way out to the rest of the course and then twice on the course. They also had a sports drink mix on the course too. I didn’t wear a hat – I never do, so that wasn’t an issue for this run. There was a good bit of crowd support. One mom and daughter duo even sat on swings at a playground on the trails and cheered everyone on!
It took me about 2.5 miles to feel my legs again. I obviously have been slacking on my BRICK workouts. All of my BRICKs that I’ve done up to this point, I’ve cycled at a 14-15 mph pace before hand. Being race day and having done 17 mph pace, my legs were definitely more tired this time. The hills in this race weren’t too bad, but there were a lot of them. You’d go down one and up another almost immediately. Pretty short, not too steep, but ever present.
I need to do a more BRICKs and also make sure I’m getting my longer runs in. Speed work is great, but will only get you so far.

Transitions
The transitions went pretty well. I managed to cut some time off of T1, partly due to not dealing with the wetsuit, I’m sure. T2 went well – I need to throw the watch on as I’m running out of T1. A simpler watch with pace only would be good, the whole “locating satellites” thing takes too long.
Post-Race
I felt really good after the race. My left calf (upper part of it) was a bit tense, but overall, everything felt good.
As soon as I was finished the race, I was handed a bottle of water and a smoothie. I found the table of bananas and assorted carbs. Seemed like a good spread. They were posting the results every 15 minutes or so, so that was nice. Once I figured out that I wasn’t placing in my age group (small race = possibility), then I decided we could leave. The distances were all accurate. The race officials were fair; two DQs because they only did one loop on the bike course and two time penalties for race equipment being incorrect/inappropriate.
Official race results were posted that night. No word of when the race photos will be out.

Summary and Lessons Learned
Overall it was a good race. I’m happy with my overall performance and was able to tell where my weaknesses are. I need to work on my swims (duh!) and overall confidence on the bike. Once my confidence on my bike is higher, that part of the race should be a lot smoother. I think my run was pretty strong, although I probably could’ve pushed harder.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Saturday = packet pickup

Again today, instead of working out, I gave myself an excuse. This week's been a "lazy" week. Today was packet pickup for the Broadlands Infinitive Sprint Tri. Got all of my questions answered, bike checked, numbers and shirt picked up.

Later in the evening Coach L brought over an Amazia jersey for me. Yea! Can't wait to wear it tomorrow!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Thursday & Friday

I've skipped both workouts... and really shouldn't have. Thursday's, I skipped because we were going to see Bill Cosby at WolfTrap. Worth the skipped workout, but I do feel bad about it. Friday's I skipped because my kitty needed to go to the vet. She needed to get a shot to help with some potential inflamation, so no leaving the house for a workout until my husband got home. We had dinner when he got home so no workout for me tonight.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

It is Wednesday... Right?!

This morning's workout was a swim, per the usual:

Swim - wu - 8 x 75 swim (:15 rest), odds - breast/back, evens - free; 2 x 200 free medium pace (:25 rest); 100 swim easy pace (1 min. rest); 200 free - fast pace (:30 rest); 4 x 100 free - medium pace (:10 rest); cool down

I did:
200m wu; 8 x 75 swim (:15 rest), odds - breast/back, evens - free; 2 x 200 free medium pace (:25 rest); 100 swim easy pace (1 min. rest); 200 free - fast pace (:30 rest); 100 free easy (as cooldown)

Total: 1600 yds

Usually, I get to the pool around 5am and there's someone else from our group there around 5:10 or so. This morning, no one else showed up until almost 5:40! Coach L wasn't there, so I need to email her to make sure everything's ok since she said yesterday that she'd be there. It was such an odd feeling to be at practice and no one else showed up. I was glad D and J showed up so that I wasn't just chillin alone.

When I went to bed last night, I felt horrible. I even told my husband that if I got up to puke, I'd be ok, I just didn't feel well. So unlike me. I didn't get up to puke, but I probably should've forced the issue. When I woke up at 4:20, I still kind of felt like crap. Who knows what that's all about.

Given that little tid bit... my swim was just OK today. Definitely not great. I got through the workout, but I felt like I was just getting through, and not doing great. I'm glad I skipped spin last night (even though I REALLY should've gone). I'll try to hit it up tonight if I can. We'll see.