Long Ride with Some Ladies!

Yesterday morning I joined Malia on a Bicycle Village Group Ride for women only. We took a "lake tour" of the area, starting at Sloan's Lake, then heading to Bear Creek and over to the Arvada Reservoir before circling back to our starting point. It was a gorgeous Colorado day, and the scenery was beautiful (as usual)! Our group of seven girls did a pretty good job of staying together despite there being some decent climbs on this route. I'm not completely comfortable with groups of this size yet and chose to hang out near the back for most of the ride. I need to build my confidence on this point! I'm just not very good yet at signaling and everything like you should do in a group.

The girls - minus Malia, who was taking the picture. (Photo courtesy of Malia, who I stole it from)

Overall the ride was fantastic - 47 miles. I was pretty zonked when I walked in the door because it was so hot and dry out. I did not do a very good job at staying hydrated or fueled. Lesson learned! 

Power, Baby!

I got a new toy this past Friday - my new PowerTap SL+! As these babies are expensive, this was made possible by the people at Saris who gave our team a bit of a deal. Thank you!!

It was pretty easy to install, thanks to help from my teammate Jon (let's be honest, I didn't really do anything; I couldn't even pump up my tire because of my stupid sprained hand), and I took it out for the first time yesterday morning. I have no idea yet what the wattages mean, but I do know that it will give me an extra tool to measure my progress by. I am also excited to finally have a cadence sensor again. My Garmin one has been broken for awhile and I've been counting my cadence or matching Malia's to try to get mine up. NOT as effective as having a sensor to do it for you!! It will also be nice to have a tool to judge effort on the trainer. My coach has already started adding power numbers to my workouts, and I have a field test next week to really push those numbers!

New toys are always fun!

Little Mishaps

It happens to all of us, I suppose, and we just have to deal with it and thank God (or our lucky stars, rabbit foot, etc.; whatever your personal preference is) that it's not any worse than it actually is. On Tuesday during my easy run I managed to trip over a tree root and of course broke my fall with my left hand. The force was enough to break the watch strap on my Garmin somehow.

Fortunately, it did not break me! I now have a sprained left wrist/hand with a super cool splint I get to wear for a week or so. Hopefully I can take it off before then. I have some training to do next week!

Counting my blessings: 1) it could have been broken, but it's not, and 2) the timing is pretty good since this is a huge recovery week for me.

Also, yesterday a 2-lb jar (plastic, luckily) of Miracle Whip fell out of the refrigerator and onto my toes last night. Yes, I yelled bloody murder. The dog was concerned. It's looking like this is my week!! Maybe it's good that I have to stay off the bike for a few days. Hoping that I don't lose that toenail to match the one on the left foot that I lost from a sick day of skiing this winter.

Here's to clumsiness! Happy training, everyone!

Third Place AG Finish! Boulder Sunrise Race Report

I must say that I am extremely happy with my performance yesterday at the Boulder Sunrise Olympic Triathlon, especially considering that it was my third race in three weeks. I went into it on tired legs and with very few expectations. I came out surprised!

Race morning felt a little rushed. Transition opened at 6, and our wave was set to go off at 7:05. That leaves very little time to get all the gear situated, get warmed up, grab some GU Chomps, get a very small wetsuit on, get in the water to allow your feet and face to go numb, and be ready to race. My coach had prescribed a 30 minute long warm up run. That didn't happen - it was more like 10 minutes (sorry, Winston!). There just wasn't time. Or so I thought. It turned out that we had to wait 25 minutes for the paramedics to arrive, so we stood around for quite awhile. Fine by me. I, of all people, know that paramedics are an important race day fixture!

1500 m swim: 22:09
Once the swim finally started, I found myself out in front pretty quickly. This was only my second time swimming with a long-sleeved wetsuit, and I am really enjoying the Aqua Sphere Phantom. It's a little difficult to get on and off, but it seemed to be easier yesterday than it was the first time. The material in the shoulders is super stretchy, so I didn't even notice it while racing.  I caught up to the the back of the guys' wave pretty quickly and felt like I was having a great swim. A little ways into it, however, I had this feeling that I was heading toward the wrong green buoy. We had to head straight out to one green buoy, turn right, and turn right again at a second green buoy that was pretty close to the first one. I sat up, pulled my goggles up, and realized I was heading toward the second one instead of the first. Shoot. I re-adjusted my path and headed back toward the correct buoy. This totally played tricks in my head because I thought I was then having a horrible swim. I was pleasantly surprised when I came out and people were yelling, "You go, girl! Second woman out!". Sweet...while I'm pretty sure I would have been the first out had I not goofed up, I was still pleased. I ran into T1 (rough concrete hurts so much on really cold feet), shed the wetsuit, grabbed my bike, and was off.

T1: 1:41 Getting better!


26.4 mile bike: 1:21:35 (19.4 mph)
The bike course started out pretty hilly, especially over the first 8 miles or so. My quads were not happy with me, and I was worried I would be in for a long couple of hours. After the initial climbing, however, the rest of the bike course was pretty tame. There were some fast downhills and then some rollers toward the end. I took two GU's on the bike - one pretty close to the beginning and another at mile 20. That plan seemed to serve me well. I was also sipping on some diluted electrolyte drink - I dropped a GU Brew Tablet into about 36 oz of water. Looking at my bike split now, I can see that I was really feeling the fatigue and that I have some hill training to do. I also wanted to save something for the run...

T2: 1:17

6.2 mile run: 47:55 (7:44 min/mile)
The run completely surprised me. My legs were tired. My form was not good. Honestly, every time I glanced down at my Garmin I was shocked. I was keeping up a great pace (for me)! It was a two-loop out and back course, so I had plenty of opportunities to scope out the field. My Train Right teammate (and friend!) Malia passed by me a little past the halfway mark. She's very speedy. I kept expecting more women from my age group to catch me, but they didn't. I didn't really know where I was in the field, but I was feeling pretty good about my race. The last couple of miles were painful, especially because it was getting hot, but I finished strong, and with a 10K PR. This was the second 10K PR I set in a week!

Total time: 2:34:34 3/22 in age group, 10/104 women

After the results were posted, Malia came up and told me that I had podiumed! I was third in our age group. I've only podiumed once before, so I was extremely excited. It was, once again, a strong showing for Team Trainright. Malia was second in our age group, and Cameron was first in his! Though I haven't been training with CTS for too long, I attribute my sudden increase in run speed to the coaching I am receiving. I think it's a combination of the rest I'm taking and the few speed workouts I've done. I'm excited to see what I'll be able to do after a solid month of training with Winston!

Winston, Cameron, Heather, me, and Malia.

Cameron: #1 M20-24

F25-29 Podium

Me and Malia after the race.

Third race in three weeks...

So, I'm not sure how smart this was, but I signed up for three races in three weeks. The Summer Open Sprint, the Bolder Boulder (race report still to come), and today's Boulder Sunrise Olympic Triathlon. Although Coach has given me a nice recovery/rest week, I'm not sure if my legs are going to cooperate today. My attitude going in is that I'm treating this as a training day. Since it's only my 2nd race at this distance, I'd like to learn a little more about it before one of my 'A' races of the season - the Boulder Peak Tri - in a month. Guess we'll see what happens!

Hope you have a wonderful day!