Sad time at Bertie’s Bakery

So there comes a point in every household that you just have to do some gutting. Others would say “house purging” or simply “spring cleaning”. This occurrence has been happening around my house a lot lately. After a while, you run out of space. I could just make a massive pile of things and stack, squeeze, cram, and jam things into every nook and cranny like we are accustom to seeing on the newest reality TV shows about “hoarding”, but I personally believe in the less is more concept. If I were designing a house or cake studio of my own, minimalist would be worked into the style.

So why is this a sad time?

Because it was time for some of Bertie’s Bakery’s first cakes to go:

Don’t scream…

But the Award Winning Triathlon Cake had to go too. You know this cake STILL ranks in the top of all of my page views week after week! Over two years later you guys are still showing the love! Don’t worry, someday I’ll make a new and improved triathlon cake!

There’s more:

To this day, the tuxedo cake is still one of MY favorites! I am surprised there are not more “grooms cake” requests for it. I think it looks really classy on a side table next to a big elegant wedding cake. But that’s just me.

And yes. The triathlon cake went in the garbage sideways. The cake base was too big to fit otherwise. You could definitely say that the swimmers in the bottom left had corner are lucking out with a “down river” swim! Ha! (I know I am not funny).Realistically this isn’t “that” sad. The triathlon cake was ridiculously well documented by The Boss who photographed the bejesus out of it. It will not be forgotten among the the triathlon community nor by me at the bakery. The other cakes as well have all seen their time in the spotlight and are now fading, cracking, or simply collecting dust. It was time.

So again, you might ask, why is this “sad times at the Bakery” if I am so okay with the cleaning up and moving on process? Well, for me, putting the cake in the garbage was one thing. I said my good bye’s (no really, I talked to the cakes for a while… the Boss was both laughing at me and worried), the cakes understood, they new it was time.

But what I couldn’t handle, what really really wrenched my heart was when I came home in the evening after the garbage man had done his rounds and saw this:

It was a massacre. I was horrified. I had hand molded each and everyone of those swimmers. Their little hands, swim caps, and goggles. That was it. That was what made these “sad times”. Seeing my little guys smooshed into the driveway. That’s just no way to go.

I’m just hoping that the long weekend (here in Paris!) will be enough to take my mind off of them!

Au revoir!

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Triathlon Cookies

In this household my bakery goes hand in hand with my involvement in triathlon and running. At first that might sound strange, but before you wonder for too long about how in the world does triathlon connect with baked goods, I’ll tell you. For the majority of us triathletes (yes, even us injured ones) we love our food! And rightfully so. After enduring brick workouts, long rides, and tempo runs where athletes have to follow very strict nutrition plans to have successful workouts, we deserve a little reward at the end of the day! It is this “reward” that often comes in the form of sweets! … well for me anyways.

Earlier in my bakery days I created a triathlon cake that showed off my love for designing triathlon themed goods. Now I’m back at it again, only this time you can ship these these triathlon goods!

Can you say “Triathlon Nom”??

These particular cookies were ordered by a super supportive wife who used this gift/ design as a way to say Happy Birthday to her husband while also taking the opportunity to honor all of the hard work and dedication he has shown in his preparations for his first M-dot 70.3! A great idea if I may say so myself!

On that note, good luck to everyone who is reading and has a big race, long run, or training ride this weekend. Remember, there is always cookies at the end, so just keep going!

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2012 Race Calendar… errr, Lack there of

Many of you have e-mailed or asked in person “what’s next” on my race calendar? After a very successful 2011 race season, what does 2012 hold for me?

Currently I do not have any triathlon or running race on the schedule. Instead I’m picking up competitive Paddle Boarding.

I’m sure that some of you are scratching your head wondering where the heck that came from? But first, let me explain. As a disclaimer, I am not complaining. Stuff happens, and it’s what you do about it that counts… with that said, “stuff” has hit the fan so far in 2012. For the foreseeable future (errr first half of the race season), I will only be cheering at races. 

As you might remember from a few posts over the past few months, I have mentioned that I had several long time injuries that escalated from nagging to screaming. Unfortunately since the New Year these injuries have kept me from training.

First there was the IT band issue.

I finally went to see a physical therapist, who diagnosed me as being gluteus-ly challenged! She said that having zero gluteus muscles contributed to a terrible running form, which in turn caused terrible strain and stress on the IT bands.  So for six weeks I really backed off the running to let the inflammation and irritation in both knees cool off and focused on functional core and glute strength training. By the end of the sixth week I was running relatively pain free up to around 10 miles.

Back to running: Check!

While all of the running issues were being worked out, I was also getting a long long looooong time injury checked out. My shoulder. I have no idea what I did to this shoulder, but for about 5 years I haven’t been able to lift my right arm over my head. I know, “WHO NEGLECTS SOMETHING LIKE THAT???”. Well, school teacher insurance wasn’t so hot and I found ways around not using my right arm above shoulder height! Problem solved :)Unfortunately my physical therapist didn’t think this was as cool of an adaptation as I did, so She sent me off to a specialist. Where you see the arrow (above) is where they stick a very unfriendly stent/needle and “distend” your shoulder joint with an entire bag of saline solution and MRI dye. Had I known the MRI was going to go down like that… I would probably still be adapting to new ways to avoid use of my arm!

In the end there was absolutely nothing wrong with the integrity of the joint. Meaning it was my muscles and my brain that were not communicating very well. With almost complete atrophy of some rotator cuff muscles along with over built and stiff other rotator cuff muscles… we had a lot of work to do! However, as of yesterday I am back in the pool!

Back to swimming: Check!

Now you’re thinking, “if all of her injuries are on the mend and almost completely recovered, is she really going to switch to paddle boarding?”

Well my friends. Since this spring has been full of rehab mixed with a little homesickness, my Coach and I decided that I would benefit from a break from his vigorous training schedule. I wasn’t focused, I wasn’t healthy, and I needed time to recover. So, once I was recovered enough to run around and be active again I signed up for the one and only thing that my coach always asked me to stay away from while in competitive training mode! You know how it goes, you were told “not” to do something, so as soon as the opportunity arises you go an do it. That something would be soccer! Yep, that’s right, I was playing in an Arlington women’s leauge. The only problem was that once people saw that “your back” in the soccer world the phone starts ringing for you to come play pick-up, sub for their team, etc. and you end up with more than one game on a given day.

You have to remember that soccer was my LIFE for almost 20 years, that’s something that you can’t just forget about. Mentally I suppose. Your brain can’t forget about your first love, but your muscles sure can.

Even though I’m no longer a fraction of the technical player I used to be, I still play as hard as I did then. And thus with efforts like that… you tear your unprepared muscles. That’s right. I went ahead and played too many games in too short of a time, and ended up partially tearing one of my quad muscles. Nice job!

Back to Running: Fail.

So, I hope that through my tone you can understand that while I am pretty disappointed I’m not walking around with a black cloud over my head. Life is still good, and I am in good spirits finding other things to do with my time.

Mostly those “other things to do” include driving my husband crazy, messing up the kitchen, cleaning up the kitchen, and day dreaming about moving to a tropical island to spend my time paddle boarding around! That would take my mind off of running.

Thanks to everyone who has sent along words of re-hab encouragement and interest in racing life. There will be race reports again some day!

On that note, I’ll leave you to ponder moving to a tropical island.

Enjoy!

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Cake Show & Running Recap

You might remember from last year the Triathlon Cake that I entered into the National Capital Area Cake Show. It was a pretty big hit in the triathlon world, and continues to round up comments even a year later.

Well, now that it is a year later that means it’s once again time for the cake show! Yup, I’m all signed up and working hard on several entries! Hence why posting has been so light this week!

Unfortunately I am not signed up for the cupcake challenge this year. Even though I was runner up last year with my “Bertie’s Hard Lemonade”, I decided I have too much going on that weekend, and there comes a point you can only juggle so many items. Currently I am juggling a “Tiered Novelty Cake”, “Wedding Cake”, and (drum roll please) A set of 6 “Decorated Cookies”. Yes, you counted correctly, that is three entries into the cake show competition.

On a totally different note, I would like to say good luck to all the runners in this weekend’s National Half and Full Marathon (now called the DC Rock and Roll Marathon)! I ran this race last year and really enjoyed it (well minus the fact I was just recovering from Whooping Cough and the surprise hills that The Boss failed to mention during training).

Pictured above I am forcing a smile after falling just short of the goal. I finished with a 6:55 overall pace, and total time of 1:30:38.I was bummed after the race, but eventually found satisfaction in the performance considering my health leading up to the race. I bet if you had asked me after this race if I’d ever run a marathon I would have told you no! Oh my, how things change within a year!

I hope to bring you some updates on training here sooner or later. I’m just finishing up my physical therapy for my recent knee injury, and am finally back to running. I managed a few 8 mile Z2 runs last week, and next week I’m hoping to kick in a few intensity/mile repeat workouts. Maybe then I’ll be able to get some running races on my calendar for the year. I’m not sure if triathlon will be happening this summer :( I’ll explain why and save the results of my MRI for for another post soon, I don’t want my Friday post to get long winded!

Happy Friday, and have a great St. Patty’s weekend! Like I always said to my high school students… Be safe!  :)

Later!

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My First Ever Marathon Race Report!

I wasn’t going to write a “Philadelphia Marathon Race Report” but I think when I get old one day it might be nice to look back on it and re-live the painful experience! So here goes.

Many of you didn’t know I was going to run a marathon. In fact nobody knew I was planning on running a full marathon other than The Boss and my coach (and a few smarty pants who got suspicious and checked the participant list). I kept it a secret; not even my poor ol’ parents knew what I was up to. I really did this for only one reason; because I am one very self critical person and if you have read any of my race reports you’d know I really really love competition. Competition is in my blood and I have one hell of a family legacy to keep up with. I have been extremely fortunate to have competed at the levels that I have and I wouldn’t go back and change a thing, however, there comes a point where a person experiences “burn out”. I think I have said here before that I was a very active and competitive athlete since a pretty young age (ahem, I traveled to my first out of province squash tournament in 4th grade! the racquet was as big as me!), and have never really stopped since. I left home after high school on a full NCAA Division I soccer scholarship, after four years of intense training and being under the microscope of all of your teammates and teammate’s parents (it’s a great thing to receive a sports scholarship, but god forbid you have a bad game), continued onto semi-pro, and then finally landed on the triathlon scene. I always expect a lot out of myself, and this year for the “Parsons-Maker” household was no exception. I was planning our wedding ANNNND somehow thought that I really really wanted to qualify for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas! Oh how I soooo very badly wanted to qualify for that race. I put my entire being into training for the Ironman 70.3 Boise in hopes to grab a top 2 age group placement and slot into the Worlds. My whole life this spring was training and wedding planning only. I’m not even sure why my sister still hangs out with me because I know that I was probably NOT a barrel of fun this past spring. Anyways if you don’t know how that race turned out you can click here and read the report, but in short I came 3rd in my age group and did NOT receive a slot to the Championships (there were only 2 slot available for my age group). It was after that experience that I knew there was something wrong. There I was standing on an Ironman podium holding my very own M-Dot trophy, smiling, yet I was still harboring this deep feeling of failure.

So a long story short, after a much much needed break (our honeymoon) I realized what many of you are probably thinking right now: “This girl is Bat Sh*t Crazy”!  It’s time to start really really enjoying my accomplishments for myself rather than for any other reason out there. So that (albeit rather long winded) is in short why I trained “incognito”  all fall for my first marathon. I knew that I was training just for me, and thus, I had one of the best race experiences of my life this past weekend!

The nerves started to tingle a little as I walked through the expo’s grand entrance! All of those nights running mile repeats, Yasso 800’s, and Long-Long runs, were going to culminate tomorrow morning!

A nervous smile as The Boss takes my picture with my very own Marathon bib! It’s funny, I have been to a bazillion packet pickups over the past 3 years of triathlon, but I have actually only really raced 2 open running races before! Other races that I have entered have just been with friends and not really paying any attention to the time.

Also… I swear I had filled in the option for “preferred name”… I think someone called me Bertha at one point

Since my parents did know I was going to Philadelphia to cheer on Ray they of course sent a “good luck Ray” e-mail earlier in day, I waited until after packet pickup to reply. At this point I was actually feeling pretty bad about having not told them. I’m a really bad secret keeper when it comes to my mom and I had to actually lie to her at one point about my training and why I would be going for a random 22 mile run. I think I told her I was just vanity training and that I was trying not to get fat “post wedding”… I’m not sure if she really ever believed that. Anyways, my conscience couldn’t take it anymore so technically I never did tell my parents what I was up to, I simply just sent them the above picture with a “I love you” and “I attached a really cool picture from today”.

Morning of 5:30am pictures! Otherwise known as “what was I thinking” photos! Lucky for me, race morning was going according to plan! We found optimal parking, a short line to the porta potties, and the temperatures were perrrfect! Now it was just time to calm down, warm up, go to the bathroom one more time for good measure, and run a great race!

Time to hand in the clothing drop bag, give the Boss a smooch, and find my corral.

You can see that I have one of those nifty “pace bracelets” on my right wrist. The race pace that is there is for a 3:10:00 marathon. With all of my training we actually hoped for me to come in somewhere between a 3:07:00- 3:10:59! Everything in my training was going outrageously well all fall, and I was on target for a very successful race. I will note that I don’t believe anyone can go through a marathon training regiment flawlessly, so I will note that for the last 2 months I was in the A.R.T. doctor’s office at least once a week. I had a really really angry calve muscle and a “fairly” inflamed IT band (all on the same leg), ANNNND if you’re reading this as a referral from DCRainmaker blog then you know that we have traveled pretty much every single week/weekend since September! This is not an ideal calendar for training nor for recovery! I should slip in here a “Sorry” and “Thank you” to my coach for making it all work!!

I will also say, that although others thought I was a crazy woman, I actually really really enjoyed my weekly Thursday night 12x 1 mile repeats at faster than race pace workouts! You have to do the hard work to make for a great race!

Some of you who already know the finishing time might be reading and doing the math. I was about 10-13 minutes off of the race goal. How did the race go so long wrong? Well, for one, my race started off with me having a minor heart attack! As my corral is making it’s way to the starting mat I cleared the warm-up off of my Garmin and was ready to press start button right as I crossed the timing mat. Only problem there was, my Garmin did NOT start. In fact my Garmin did not want to do anything; not start, lap, scroll, turn off, the damn thing wouldn’t even give me a beep! Sooooo now what do I do? 26.2 miles is a long way to run without knowing your mile splits/paces and heart rates. I couldn’t very well go back to the starting line and ask someone for a “do-over”. At this point I am screaming at the irony that my husband is the Garmin “know it all” and I hardly pay any attention to his “In-Depth Reviews” and have absolutely no frigging idea how to get this damn watch to do anything! Oh yeah and did I mention… I have already crossed the timing mat and am running like crazy with the rest of the pack! So picture me running wildly with both hands bracing (as I referred to it at the time) this Piece of SH*T, pressing all buttons at the same time and praying to the running gods someone will take mercy on me and get my running crutch to start working again! Sure enough, I found out that if you try every combination of buttons together at the same time and hold them down for long enough you will eventually confuse your Garmin into shutting off! I really really hope everyone can appreciate that technology fowl ups happen in our household too, and while I wasn’t laughing at the very moment that this was all happening, I was smirking at the ridiculousness of the event around mile 6-7.

So while I very well can’t blame Garmin for my lost 13 minutes of time, I thought you might appreciate that tidbit!

So then, what did happen?

Well, I hope that everyone reading this knows the “Rules of Racing”, and basically there is really only one main, cardinal rule to race day: DO NOT DO ANYTHING NEW ON RACE DAY!!! That includes everything from what you eat for breakfast, gels your are taking in, running shoes, clothing, race gear, etc. I don’t care if it’s as simple as what aftershave or sunblock you use, DON’T make any changes on race day!! Now technically I was not in violation of this rule. See I had been running and high intensity training in my Spibelt (a running belt that allows you to stuff things into a small pocket) for the last few months. I had worn it and figured out just the right tightness and position on my hips to make it unnoticeable. The only thing was that for the marathon I would need to carry more gel packs than I was used to, so I figured I would just wear two spibelts (double the fun!).

Like I said “DON’T do anything different on race day!”

Mile 9 comes along and I start to get this incredibly painful cramp right in my hip/butt area.

The wonderful gluteus area that is circled above in yellow is precisely the area that began to HATE me. At this point I am only at mile 9, so for those of you doing some more math you are realizing that I still have 17 miles left. This is not an ideal time to start hurting. Besides, I run 9 miles for the fun of it (sick, I know) there is no way on the green earth I should be experiencing issues at mile 9 and certainly not with my hip!

So at this point I am absolutely convinced this is 100% mental and not possibly a physical pain, I keep running.

Mile 13 comes along and at this point 2 of the guys I’ve been randomly running with are thanking me for letting them use me as their pace keeper (even more ironically they noticed my Garmin early on and asked if they could hang out!) and they were bailing because they were sane enough to register for the Half Marathon. At this point the pain in my hip is so intense I had to stop. I stopped and stretched, thumbed through the muscle, and seriously seriously contemplated going to the medical tent. Then I proceeded to curse myself for thinking of DNF-ing and decided to keep running. The cramp had slightly subsided and was tolerable to run on. The most frustrating thing was that everything else in my body was feeling 110%

Once I started again and did some quick math I knew I was fine, I still had plenty of time in the bank, my heart rates were perfect (186-188 with an absolute limiter of 190bpm), and with the exception of this random hip thing I was golden!

I was golden until about 1.5-2 miles later when the hip totally seized up again!!! WTF??? It is becoming intolerable again and I think something is tearing. So I stopped, stretched, thumbed through the muscle… this is actually an extremely hard muscle stretch while you are standing up and with a high heart rate.

I’m still golden. I’m not going to break open a 3:07:00 anymore but as long as I get back on pace I can still hit 3:09 or so. So I start running again. And the hip starts again.

The only thing that actually keep me running was that it was more painful to walk than to run!

As you can see the race pretty much went in the wash, rinse, and repeat cycle after mile 13. Stop, Stretch, Run. Stop, Stretch, Run.

The only thing that sucks more than having to stop every 10-15 minutes and watching 30-40 seconds get added to your time, is having to restart running. I’m sure many of you know that when you’re running long distances it’s fine, just keep moving forward. Stopping however is dangerous! Once the legs have felt the stopping sensation they are not too sure why you would want to start again… especially once they’ve just thrown down 22 unappreciated miles!

Now as you can see, the crowds have started to catch me.

At mile 23 I just down right stopped and started walking… at that point the balloons for the 3:20:00 pace group passed me. My exact words were this (and excuse me) “Oh, F*ck That” and of course, I started running again in attempt to catch up and stay with them. If there are any Canadians reading, please picture my “running” as more of a tribute to the Terry Fox trot! Anything to keep the weight off of this randomly painful hip….WHY HAS MY HIP BETRAYED ME??? Was my hip jealous all of the time and attention that my calves and IT band were getting?

Slowly the 3:20:00 pack started to put distance between us. And before I knew it I was coming up on mile 25. At my current pace I probably wouldn’t have a prayer of breaking 3:20:00… I guess once you’ve stopped 3-4 times for 45+ seconds each along with a painful fade your extra time adds up quickly.

And then, at mile 25, there he was… my night in shining armor (I know that that sounds extremely extremely cheesy to you right now, but the feeling of relief to see him standing next to the 25mile timer clock was over whelming) to run me into the finish. I actually converted what was a 8:20ish m/mile into an almost sub 7:00m/mile for the last mile-point-two. The ability to switch gears just because he was there with me was kinda crazy (I could have used him a mile earlier). I am so tired at this point that my brain is kind of mushy and I ask the Boss “How did you do???” his simple reply was, “I haven’t finished the race yet; I came back for you”. I think at this point I am more emotional than when he proposed, and I knew the only way I could show him my gratitude was to just keep running as fast as my little chops would go!

Having absolutely no idea what my total race time was so far (remembering my Garmin-Fail earlier on) and I had somehow convinced myself there was still hope for sub 3:20:00… Ruuuuuun. We seriously charged down that last mile taking the finishers chute by storm. There was no words to describe how happy I was to get to share that last 7 minutes with my Hubby, even though I ran the first 25 miles on my own, he seriously made my race what it was and was absolutely the only reason why I didn’t actually walk/hop/limp the last mile of the race.

3:20:26 … I think it’s kinda cool to have the “26” seconds on the end of the race time. I am very proud of that time, and even though I was over a mile off of where I would have liked to have finished, I truly embraced the experience and finished a pretty happy camper!

And just so you know… the minute I took off the Spibelts (yes, the two of them) my hip cramp and incredible hip agony immediately dissipated. NEVER NEVER change anything on race day :)  I have learned my lesson, and I’ll get ‘em next time!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed my long winded explanation of why I trained and raced in secret and how I almost blew it with a rookie mistake!!

Happy Thanks Giving!

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Triathlon Baby Shower Giraffe Cake

A month or two ago, two local triathlete ladies contacted me and inquired about the possibility of a “Triathlon themed Baby Shower cake” for their friend. How could I resist?

The expecting couple had declined the knowledge of the baby’s gender, so obviously I didn’t know if I should go pink or blue, and that is where the idea of a plush toy came in. I did know from the beginning that the two parents are triathletes and that would be a critical idea to tie into the cake. I really wanted to pull in a lot of detail about what “gear” triathletes tend to race with, along with keeping the fun and playful aspects of a child’s plush toy.

The Gear:

(race bib with Baby’s due date)

(Baby “booties”? These are racing Baby Flats!)

(Baby hydration bottles attached via race belt)

Plush details:

(Tail is held on by a button)

(Baby giraffe’s have Mohawks!)

 

  And your 360º view:

 

I have to say, whether this Baby is a boy or girl it’s going to be well prepared for it’s first race day! Good luck to parents to be!

 

 

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Ironman Boise 70.3

Yup, there it is in all of its glory! My little M-Dot trophy!   :)

Now before anyone gets too excited, there is a LOT of back story to this event, and although I am super stoked to be adding this podium finish to my resume (and please don’t get me wrong during this post, I am SUPER stoked about the AG finish), June 11th- Boise 70.3, was certainly not my dream race.

So to get things started, we left Dulles International around 4pm on Thursday afternoon expecting to arrive in Boise via Denver around 7pm mountain time. In theory this was perfect, we would arrive, eat, rebuild bikes, and sleep! Friday we would take the bikes for a quick cruise around to make sure all is good after travels, and then basically eat and rest the entire day! So like I said “in theory”. Upon arrival into Denver we were notified that our connection to Boise was delayed, then delayed again, then the flight was just outright cancelled. I’m going to keep this part of the journey pretty short, but basically I was sitting alone in the airport until after midnight (the Boss had access to a priority lounge where he went to use the executive customer service agent to fix our flights) not really sure if we would make it to Boise at all the following day, that alone make it to Boise in time to check in our bikes for Saturday’s race. Also at this time we were unsure of where the rest of our luggage was since somehow our bikes made it on board the plane in DC, but our suitcases did not? After several hours of working some magic at the customer service counter, the Boss finally snagged the last two seats into Boise for the following day, everything else on every other airline and via many other airport connections was sold out. Anyways, now that the time is well past midnight (2am eastern time) we found ourselves in a cab enroute to the airport hotel. The following morning our flight, none to my surprise, was also delayed, and delayed, and delayed again. By the time we landed in Boise (5pm) we had 1 hour to get to packet pick-up, and then out to the “Lucky Peak” reservoir to re-build our bikes, ride the bike for 10 minutes, and then check the bikes into transition for the night. Shhhheeeeesh. Not the “relaxing day” I was hoping for.

I would like to take a second and showcase this picture for all of you sitting there saying “how bad can sitting at the airport be?”, I get it that some of you “fully grown” peeps don’t mind hanging out in the airport, you know, listening to music, watchin’ a DVD on your computer, reading a book, etc. etc., but for people of my “stature” sitting in the airport terminal chairs STINKS!… since my feet don’t actually reach the ground, after 2 hours of just letting your feet “hang” it seriously stresses out your knees and pulls on your back. After about 30 minutes of me squirming, whining, and tapping the Boss on the shoulder he eventually caved in and helped me pull in the entire row of double chairs (that were too heavy to inconspicuously drag on my own) that was across from us!

:)  I win!

Anyways, I survived, and by the time we got to the reservoir we even took the time to take a few candid shots at the bike check in at “Lucky Peak”.

Finally the bike is dealt with, now go check in to the Hotel and relax!

The next morning came faster than I ever imagined. Before I knew it I was checking my run bag, and lining up for the shuttle bus to the start of the bike! (The course was a point to point, so there were two different transition areas and all transitions were “clean”)…

So after our $16 shuttle down (or I should say “Up”) the road we departed the bus and headed to the transition area to prepare for the “clean T1”.

Pink is ready to Rumble!!

SWIM:

So I’ll get straight to why I said Boise 70.3 was certainly no “dream race”. The picture above looks like a “normal” swim start. Except “Lucky Creek Reservoir” should simply be named “Frigid Creek”, period. I SERIOUSLY underestimated what 52 degree water would feel like. Basically when I hopped into the water off of the dock my whole day changed. I have to say I like swimming, I may not be the fasted swimmer in the pack, but generally I am a good swimmer… not today. Immediately hyperventilation kicked in, my entire chest tightened up like boa constrictor had gotten hold of me, and this is all before the horn went off. Once we actually started swimming it was pure carnage in the water. People couldn’t get their faces in the water and I was no exception. Every time I put my face in the water and took a few strokes I would have to sit up and gasp for air; this has never happened to me before, and I was really struggling to breathe. I thought that that was the end for my day and I started to make my way over to the Kayak to get pulled out of the water; half way I stopped myself and told myself to pull it together. By now the entire pack had left me, and I started side stroking. Eventually I mixed the side stoke with a few free style strokes, and soon enough I was in full swim form. The only problem was at this point (other than I am at least 4 minutes behind where I should be) is that I still couldn’t get my chest to relax and take full breaths. This paired with being so tense from the water temperature I could feel a serious stitch building in my abdomen, which eventually lead to a pulled muscle in my ab. Honestly… I would rather break my knee cap again over pulling an abdomen. You can’t do ANYTHING with a core muscle in sheer pain. 37 minutes later I had amazingly caught up with and passed most of my wave and headed to the swim ramp; here I found my cold, cramped body being pulled out of the water by the volunteers. It took a few moments for my legs to cooperate with the upright position and I don’t think my abs ever did! (10th AG out of the water)

 

BIKE: The bike, oddly enough, ended up being my favorite part of the day! Not only was areo-position the most comfortable position for my poor ab muscle, but I actually felt GREAT on the bike! I was able to hold 170+ watts for over 2 hours, and averaged close to 20mph for the 56 miles! Seriously I couldn't have asked for any more from my little chops! At mile 45 I started doing the mental math and with the swim as poor as it was, and the climbs of Boise, Idaho slowing my “goal” bike time, I knew that a sub 5 hour race was now out of reach. Still staying positive and knowing I was having a great bike, I pushed on!

THE RUN:

Hmmmm, the love/ hate relationship. Kind of an unfair relationship actually, because I LOVE to run, I would run 3 hours a day if my body (and Coach) would let me! And I LOVE to run fast!!! However, I feel as though my body and running do not love me so much? The run for me I would like to categorize as a “BONK”, although my Coach would disagree as I nailed my nutrition; in hindsight the run was greatly effected by the physiological stress of the ab muscle and the rest of my chest tension not allowing me to take full breaths. The goal for the run was to stay sub 7:30. Which I did for the first 3 miles :)  Then things started to fall apart a little. The goal slipped back to sub 8. Then around mile 8-9 the “sub-8” was out of reach and the new goal was to simply keep running!! NO STOPPING, NO WALKING. Then comes mile 11… ahhhh me and mile 11. Here I would like to describe my little ol’ legs as pudding! At mile 11 I found a good looking park bench and used it to just hold myself upright for a while (because at this point, my abdomen was so painful that it certainly wasn’t doing the job). At this juncture, my “NEW” goal was “no crying” hahahahahaha seriously, is this too dramatic? This is actually how it all went down. From here, something clicked in my head that said “get off of your sad pony and get running” (in reality I cannot tell you what I said in my head because I try to keep my cursing to minimum on this blog, and the things I said in my head were not very nice). So I did. I started running again, and actually pulled out some 8:10ish paces for the last 2 miles… all the way into the volunteers arms at the finish line. Once my eyes saw the carpet that lined the finish line, that was quitting time for my legs. Final run time… a whopping 1:48… 8:21 minute mile. Not my best show.

 

THE CONCLUSION:

I did not by any sense of the matter accomplish my “set goals” for this race. A 5:24:04 was a far cry from and about 30 minutes longer than what I had hoped. However, to sit back and put it all in perspective, you can’t set the same “block time” for every 70.3 race. Every venue is going to have its different challenges, and it’s really how you deal with those challenges that you should judge your day by. Sub 5 hours was simply not in the cards for me this race. In fact, I question if finishing the race was really in the cards. Looking back on it all now, I sure am glad that I did not make it all of the way to that kayaker; my day would have been over before it ever started. So for that I AM REALLY PROUD of my day! As for picking up that slot to the world championships in Las Vegas… my age group only allowed for the top 2 competitors to pick up the entry slots, so 3rd place just wouldn’t do. It’s okay, the two girls who placed 1 & 2 had exceptional races and my hat goes off to them both!

 

THE PHOTO SHOOT:

If you were wondering why we all look like turtles with no necks, it is because by the time awards happened the winds had picked up and the temps dropped dramatically! Sun and wind burnt, we were all freezing!!!

And for one of the most rewarding parts of my day…

Oh man, what I would have done for ice cream while on the bike course! I wonder what my Coach would say if I asked him if we could change up my nutrition regime for the bike from now on?? hahaha

Well folks, thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed my story of the battle field. I really appreciated all of the comments and e-mails of encouragement!!

Check back soon for what’s up next this week:

Training Wise: Monday we turn around and head BACK to West for a couple hour group ride in the mountains of Golden, Colorado!

At the bakery: It involves 4 tiers with black and purple Zebra stripes!

 

By for now…

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