Ironman training recap & goals post

So far most of my blogs have been recaps of training weekends. As I stated when I started this thing, my memory is HORRIFIC so this blog is my way of making sure I remember what happened. But now that we are two weeks from the race, I feel it's a good time to give my overall thoughts/lessons learned from training and my goals for the race itself.

This last 9 months has been an incredibly fulfilling experience. I have poured my heart and soul into this training. Despite a few lapses in motivation, I have made all but one of the big training rides/runs and in doing so have built some great friendships. I rode farther than I ever have before and have shifted my viewpoint on what constitutes an "easy" ride or run. No matter what happens September 9th, I am declaring this Ironman journey a success. Yes, something could go wrong and I may not finish the race. But I am confident that the "something wrong" will not be me not being fit enough, or in shape enough, or dedicated enough. It will be a mechanical issue that I am incapable of fixing, an unexpected illness, or something else outside of my control. At this point I have put in the work and I believe it will pay off in two weeks. But if it doesn't, I will just try again.

Overall random thoughts:

1) After a summer of eating honey stinger gels (which is basically shots of honey with added electrolytes), I think I have lost any desire to ever taste honey again (or for a very long time). This saddens me more than words can express.

2) After a summer of eating peanut butter in a variety of forms (mmmmm, uncrustables!), I could still eat peanut butter every day.

3) I have succesfully learned how to ride back on a dropped chain (a chain that fell off the gears) and now only have to stop about 25% of the times I drop my chain (which happens a lot). Success!

4) My next Ironman (yes, I do plan on doing more just not right away), I really want to focus on nutrition outside of exercise.

5) Team Z is an incredibly supportive community with so many amazing people - I can't imagine this journey without them. I am so grateful to Sherri for letting me talk myself into signing up for the race (despite me disappearing for a year) and cheering me on even when injury delayed her Ironman journey. And I am thankful for my favorite Kiwi's, Mary and Mark, who never fail to offer me encouragement/good advice that have increased my knowledge and confidence. The last time I was on the team, I met people, but I did not throw myself into the team like I did this year and it was easier for me to walk away for awhile. As with anything, the more you put into something, the more you get out of  it. I can't imagine NOT being on the team now.

6) Before this year, I wasn't comfortable riding a bike without being clipped in (wearing bike shoes that clip into the pedals). The fact that I rode 50 miles this weekend in sneakers  (and the fact that I consider the 50 miles to be an "easy" ride, even in sneakers) is a true testament to how much stronger of a biker I have become.

7) I cannot wait to sleep in! and watch the first two seasons of Downtown Abbey! and do some hot yoga! and get back into strength training! and go hiking! and see all my friends I have neglected! and sleep in! and just completely veg all day! after sleeping in!

8) Did I mention I can't wait to sleep in? And perhaps being physically capable of staying up after 9pm?

9) After the race, my plan is to do nothing for two weeks, do hot yoga before work for two weeks, then slowly ease back into running/biking. After that I will pick my next adventure...perhaps a spring marathon? perhaps not?

10) Swimming and I are more at peace then we used to be, but I cannot wait to not swim for a solid month or two or three or four or even five. Any more than five give me a stern lecture.

Bonus: I have a 90 minutes massage scheduled two weeks after the race! Yes!!!

Goals
Now for goals. My main goal is to just finish. Ideally, I would like to finish in 15 hours feeling awesome. My biggest concern is the bike cutoff (5:30pm) because with my pace I will be cutting it close. I should be able to do it though. After that, I have 6 1/2 hours to do the marathon. When I have blown up at miles 18 or 21 of two of the marathons I have done, I still managed to finish in under five hours. My new favorite motto "keep calm and carry on" will be my mantra for this race.I think my time splits will be as follows:

Swim: 1:40
Bike: 8 1/2 hours
Run: 5+ hours

No matter how I feel, I want to make sure I take time to really enjoy the experience. I want to moo at the first swim turn buoy (an Ironman MOO tradition). I want to enjoy the scenery on the bike (I think my choice of this race is in part because I am a farm girl at heart despite growing up in the suburbs). And most importantly, I want to get as many high fives as I can on the run course. I might even stop and walk the finisher's chute to soak in the energy and enthusiasm of the crowd. No matter what happens in the future, you   only complete your first Ironman once. I want to cherish this moment, as I have the 9 months of moments leading up to it.

Most of all, I want to thank everyone for your support on this journey! I could not have done it without everyone's encouragement along the way. I promise to come up with a new conversation topic in October (because September will be spent recapping the race...sorry in advance).

Luray Race Weekend - Best Weekend of the Summer!

As I stated in my last post, I definitely hit burnout pretty bad after the 20/120 weekend. The Luray race weekend definitely helped me find my love for triathlon again. I drove down to Luray Friday night, picked up my packet for the olympic tri saturday morning and chatted with some other random participants, and then went to the Luray race site where Team Z was grilling/camping all weekend. I set up my tent (one amongst 50 or so) then met several new people while enjoying a delicious pasta dinner.

Saturday morning I woke up early, walked over to the transition area (about 100 yards from my tent and 50 yards from my car), and set up for the race. Then as I tend to do, I realized over the next hour I had forgotten about 500 things so had to keep going back.

The race itself was great. It's a hilly course, but it is BEAUTIFUL. Luckily, the lake was cool enough that we could wear wetsuits (a real rarity for Luray). The course is pretty hilly, but the slowest parts are also the most scenic. I was happy to not get passed by many women on the bike, and then enjoyed saying hi to people on the run. To be honest, I don't remember too much about the actual race itself, just that overall I enjoyed it. The best part was meeting up with my friends Graham and Parisi at the end (I didn't realize they'd be there)! My time was pretty consistent with two years ago when I did it, but the splits varied. I love this race and hope to do it again next year.

With the hard work for the weekend done, the rest of the day was spent hanging out in the lake (NOT swimming in it), going into town to get ice cream (Yum!), eating dinner at the tents (fajitas and cobbler!), and just hanging out with the Team Z folks, some old friends and some new to me. It was nice and relaxing, just what the doctor ordered.

I volunteered to man a water station for the sprint race on Sunday with some other people on Team Z. My aid station all dressed up as Superheros and it was so much fun seeing all the racers pass and chatting with the other people (and dogs) at the station. The best part of the sprint is it is a lot of people completing their first triathlon and it is awesome to be able to offer them encouragement/aid. One of my favorite moments was when a woman (towards the back) spotted one of our two dogs, stopped, said "you know I don't care about my time," and came over to pet the dog. The other highlight was having my aid station burst into laughter (me included) after a 50+ racer told me in addition to water, he would "take my home number as well." Sadly, we were only authorized to give out water. Unfortunately, it POURED on us at the end and I had to walk 1 1/2 back to the race site in order to avoid hypothermia before a shuttle could come get us. After some more food and chatting (and trying to get warm), I packed up my tent and headed home, refreshed and happy.

This was probably my favorite weekend of all summer. The triathlon was beautiful and just plain fun. But more importantly, I really enjoyed just hanging out at the campsite and relaxing. It was a great weekend to remember why I got into triathlons in the first place and what an incredible community it is.

This weekend was a 50 mile ride and a 12 mile run. I apparently have forgotten how to prepare for a long ride because while I remembered to go back to my house to get sunscreen (and apparently the GPS watch and salt tabs I forgot), I failed to realize I didn't have my bike shoes. Luckily, a woman on the team (Tamara) had a spare pair of running shoes so I rode 50 miles in sneakers which is a lot more difficult than with normal bike shoes (which clip into the pedal, allowing you to "pull up" through the stroke in addition to just pushing down on the pedals). It wasn't that  But it was also another great ride with some more great people (again, some old friends, some new). I also scored some "badass" points by the rest of the riders. I love this life :)

Now for some pictures:

Team Z campsite

Picnic Tables aka Bike Racks

Team Z tents, professional massage therapists included

Swim Start! - Sadly the weather for the sprint was much gloomier than for the olympic

The most important member of Team Z - Iwan kept the grill going ALL WEEKEND

They kept spilling the water so we stopped letting them try to hand it out

the other aid station was 80s

I think he actually owned most of this outfit?

Why yes, Wonder Woman was at our aid station

First racers! We dubbed them serious guy (red) and fun guy (blue). Not sure if either won. This is when the pictures ended because it was time to work.

And we finally have burnout

About a week and a half ago, I finally reached burnout. And oh boy am I feeling burned out. Similar to the month leading up to the marine corps marathon, I am obsessively checking out the bikram yoga facilities in the area because after the race, rather than swimming/biking/and running, I just want to do hot yoga and stretch out my sore, tired muscles for a couple of weeks (after resting, of course). My tentative plan for after the race is 2 weeks off completely, 2 weeks of hot yoga, and then slowly picking up running/biking again.

Two weekends ago was the last major build week in our training cycle (3 hour run, 120 mile bike ride), which also happened to correspond with one of my best friend’s all day Indian wedding (2 ceremonies plus a reception). Looking at this weekend on my calendar, I realized I needed to take Friday off of work to fit it all in.

Friday I woke up early and headed out for my run around a local lake. It went pretty well, although I slowed down a lot at the end. I then used the day to complete some errands I hadn’t been able to get around to, like going to the post office to get my mailbox lock replaced and the hardware store to get new house keys made (I may or may not have recycled my keys…a result of how tired/out of it I have been lately). I also put together the hammock I bought over a month ago and let me say, it is the best purchase I have made this year! I have never really been a hammock person but I saw it on groupon goods and had a weak moment. I think that the hammock will be my key to rest/relaxation for the rest of the taper and recovery.

Saturday I went to my friend’s wedding. It was so fantastic to see her happy and to see that she met a guy who is worthy of her (which I can assure you is hard to do). It was also great to spend the day with some of my best friends from high school (and life in general). But to be perfectly honest, I felt pretty sick most of the day and was thankful for a couple of breaks we had so I could go home and take a nap. It also was a really long day with her first ceremony starting at 9am. After 2 ceremonies and about 20 rounds of delicious Indian food, her reception got started around 9pm. I stayed until around 11:15 (had to fit in dancing!) before heading home, freaking out about how little sleep I would get. It didn’t help I had a lot of trouble falling asleep (see freaking out and 20 rounds of Indian food).

Sunday I woke up at 5am (after 4 hours of sleep) and headed off for the ride. I was lucky enough to join a large riding group that made the day pretty fun. The first couple of hours were pretty shaky (including when I crashed into Janet at an intersection because my reflexes were not up to par), but once I got into the swing of it the lack of sleep didn’t impact me much. We got back to the parking lot after 75 miles and headed back out again, into the wind and up a false flat. The first 12 miles after the parking lot were extremely demoralizing but then our group had a well-timed flat that allowed us to stop and regroup. The rest of the ride was much better and I am so excited to have completed it!

After that weekend, though, I definitely reached the full-on burnout I had managed to avoid up to this point. I missed both my mid-week bike rides in favor of increased time in the pool, and couldn’t get myself to work out after work to make them up. I also spent the entire week dreading my long ride over the weekend (40 miles in the mountains of skyline drive).

I went for a massage on Saturday (shoutout to www.fitpromassage.com) and expressed my dread over the upcoming bike ride. The massage therapist is on my tri team and is also an Ironman and basically said to me 1) she missed half her long rides and was fine for the race, 2) this is supposed to be fun but people forget that, 3) if I am dreading it so much, I should probably not do it, and 4) the training program is just a piece of paper and isn’t fit for everyone so I should listen to my body. This is exactly what I needed to hear. I can get so focused on the goal sometimes that I need the outside perspective.

After hearing that, I decided to skip the bike ride (intending to go on a more local one). I went to a minor league baseball game Saturday night (go p-nats!), and went to bed late. When I woke up, I realized I had no desire to ride my bike. Instead, I spent the morning in my pajamas, started (and finished) a new book, walked my brother’s dog, cleaned my house (SORELY needed), and volunteered at the animal shelter (aka cuddled with cute dogs). It was EXACTLY what the doctor ordered.

These last few weeks before the race are going to be pretty difficult. I am so ready to be done with the Ironman but my body needs to rest/recover. This weekend I am heading to Luray for an Olympic triathlon and will camp out Friday/Saturday. Then it is 3 weeks til the race!