Kerrville 70.3 Prelude: Donkeys and Sunsets

Sometimes things just come together so perfectly that you surprise even yourself.  I've had a super strong training and racing year and my training for Kerrville 70.3 followed that trend.  I had more "life" happen during this training cycle than in most and I didn't get to follow my training plan down to the detail, as is my usual tendency.  Regardless, I felt so much stronger and more prepared than I felt heading into my first 70.3 triathlon exactly one year ago at Redman.  In fact, I felt downright chill and had a calm that was almost eerie.  I was so mellow about the whole thing that I started to worry that I was a little too calm.  Did my mind really comprehend what we were about to do?  I did the typical race weather stalking, but the forecast got worse with each peek that I took.  It started with a 60% chance of rain early in the week and ended with a 100% chance of thunderstorms by the time I looked on Friday.  I decided to stop looking at it or even thinking about it as it was something that was totally out of my control.  We would either race, or we would not race.  We would get soaked, or we would not.

Texas, y'all.

On Friday afternoon, Mr K and I packed up the car and headed towards Kerrville.  Driving through the backroads in the Texas Hill Country as it was bathed in the beautiful sunlight of the golden hour filled my heart with happiness.  Those roads and that scenery are like a love letter to my beloved state and seeing them looking so gorgeous really set my soul at ease.  As we passed through Hico, we saw a man walking with a donkey who was pulling a cart that said "will work for carrots." I hollered with excitement at Mr K "DONKEY! DONKEY! I THINK I SAW THEM ON CHANNEL 8 ONCE!!" Well, if you know Mr K then you know that he has never met a stranger and before I knew it he had pulled over on the side of the road so that we could meet them.  As chance would have it, I was right, Charlie and Smokey had been featured on a story on WFAA earlier this year (go watch the story here - it is a good one!). It was such an honor to meet them and talk with them for just a little bit.  As you might know, I consider the donkey to be my "spirit animal" and their random appearance along the road gave me an overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be alright.

We took it pretty easy on Saturday morning before meeting up with Coach Frank and his group from Tri-Now for a practice swim.  Many thanks to Frank as he was super supportive of Mr K and I all weekend and included us in some of their team events and the Saturday evening meal.  The place where we swam was all too familiar to me as I had been there on two prior occasions. Two and a half years back, when we were at a spring base camp with Tri-Now, I stood on the shore of the Guadalupe River and watched Mr K do his first ever open water swim.  I thought that those triathletes were so cool, but I couldn't imagine myself ever swimming like that.  The water didn't scare me as I spent much of my childhood in Lake Texoma, but the act of swimming itself seemed downright daunting.  I visited this same area later again that same year when the FIGJAM group came down to the Hill Country for a long bike weekend.  This time I watched Drum and Julie swim in those same waters and again, I thought that the were pretty awesome.  Now it was my turn, life is funny that way.  Mr K and I both did the practice swim in our wetsuits only to learn later that the water was too warm and it was not going to be wetsuit legal.  I'm not sure I've ever swum that far in the open water without my wetsuit and I tried not to let that worry me too much.

The rest of Saturday was spent hustling around town, dropping off bikes at the first transition area and bags of running stuff a couple of miles down the road at the second transition area.  I've never done a tri with a split transition before and it takes a little bit more pre-planning.  There is just so much stuff involved - thank goodness for check-lists! Everyone was optimistic about the forecast since the thunderstorms had been taken out and the rain was scheduled to come in later in the day.  This thing just might happen after all!  I don't think that I have ever had such a happy and positive feeling before a race.  I wish that I could bottle it up because it was a pretty amazing feeling.

Vivace and I were ready to tango.

We enjoyed a nice dinner with the Tri-Now folks and soon it was time to head off to bed.  The big day was finally (almost) here and I could hardly wait for my alarm clock.

OWS Challenge & Aquathlon: Oh Buoy!

After my rather...umm....dramatic swim at Redman 70.3 last year I decided that I would like to gain more experience with open water swimming in a race situation.  I got a big dose of experience at the Texas Man Tri in May (hello chop!) and I eagerly signed up for the Open Water Swim Challenge & Aquathlon in mid-July.  This race is produced by our friends at Tri-Now and I wanted to do it last year, but it was cancelled thanks to the spring floods.  I chose the Olympic distance, which consisted of a 1500m swim followed by a 10K run.  Because life is...well...life, I didn't get a chance to do any open water swims between Texas Man and the Aquathlon, but that is okay as my goal was getting a good experience in a race environment rather than swimming a fast race.  There were no bikes at this event and I felt like I was forgetting something as Mr K and I headed out on race morning.  It reminded of just how much "stuff" bicycles add when they are involved.

Big smiles from Mr K, Marshall, and Keith

The weather wreaked havoc on the race crew with the big storms that came through the evening before the race.  Thankfully Frank and Marshall and the crew worked tirelessly and were able to get things prepared our race to go off on time.  The weather was pretty good for a July morning  and they water was just about perfect without any chop. There were several swim distances that day including 750m, 1500m, and 4K and there were various buoys noting each distance.  Since I was swimming the 1500m, I would do two of the smaller loops.

My swim wave went off first and I just worked on getting into a good groove.  There area was big enough that there was not too crowded and I never did swim into too much traffic. The course was set up like a big square that we basically had to swim out to.  I made it "up" the first side of the square and turned at the buoy and began to look for the next buoy.  We were swimming directly into the sun at this point and my goggles had fogged up, so I was having a really difficult time seeing.  I could not see the buoy, but I was hoping the others around me could and I could follow their lead for a little bit.  It was then that I heard swimmers talking to each other and I realized that they couldn't see the buoy either.  I wasn't sure what to do at this point, but remained calm and tried to work out a plan.  I could see the a couple of kayaks ahead and I knew that I could pause there long enough to clear my goggles.  The kayaks kept moving away from me and I could hear that they were also trying to tell people where the swim course was.  Eventually I reached them just in time to hear one of them say "I am the buoy! I am the buoy!" I was very thankful to make that turn once I reached them and cleared my goggles.  Now to finish that loop and do it one more time.  Thankfully, by the time we came around the second time the buoy had been placed and things seemed a little more normal.

Big smiles on the run (Pic: Carin S.)

I happily got out of the water and headed on to transition for my run.  I did not know what to expect as I have never gone directly from swimming to running like that.  It was a challenge to get going at first, but I settled into a groove.  The run course was two loops of the park path - park of it on sidewalk and part of it was a crushed granite type surface.  There was a good amount of shade, which I was very thankful for.  I didn't pay too much attention to my pace, rather ran by feel and kept things nice and even.  I was happy to see that my pace was trending faster with each mile while my heart rate was staying fairly controlled.  I had not been doing any speed work at this point in training and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Because it was two loops, I saw many runner faces multiple times and it was fun to cheer on my friends who were also running.

I promise there were more than 2 of us (okay, so there were 3...)

I gave it my best for a strong finish (and my fastest mile of the race), but honestly had no idea how I did. While I feel fairly confident about my run, I know that I am not a fast swimmer so I had no idea how I placed amongst the others.  I didn't see any other women my age on the run course, so I took that to be a good sign.  I was thrilled when I checked the results and found that I was first in my age group.  (Never mind the slight detail that there were only 3 people in my age group...) with a total time of 1:32:30 - 37:00 for the swim, 52:56 for the run, and 2:32 in transition.

This race was super fun and provided another good experience in the open water - add "can't find my buoy" to my list another with high chop and lost nose clip. I always come away from these wishing that I was able to spend more time in the water and knowing that I am better for having another one under my belt.

TexasMan Tri: She's Going The (Olympic) Distance

Did I ever tell you about the TexasMan Tri, my first Olympic distance triathlon?  It happened back in mid-May at Lake Ray Roberts.  An Olympic distance triathlon consists of a one mile swim, a 23 mile bike ride, and a 10K (6.2 mile) run.  You may remember that I did three sprint distance triathlons before my Half Ironman distance triathlon last year.  It was my plan to do an Olympic distance race during my training, but the epic spring rainfalls left most local lakes closed for the summer and forced many races to be cancelled.  I was looking forward to giving the distance a shot as it sounded like a good challenge.  I was also planning to use it as good baseline measure of my fitness level heading into training for my second Half Ironman distance triathlon coming up in September.  The swim would be fairly close to Half Iron distance and the bike and run were just shy of half the distance.

Post Race with Sandie and Andy (Pic: Andy)

Mr K and I arrived plenty early and went about the business of setting up our stuff in the transition area.  I am getting the hang of this, but still feel like a rookie at times as I forget important stuff.  This time I forgot to take my bike food out of my bag, but fortunately I remembered it before I took off. The weather seemed to be pleasant with temperatures in the low 70s and a slight breeze to blow around the ever-present humidity.  We saw lots of friends as we donned our wetsuits and headed down to the beach area for the start.  The sprint distance race started before us and Mr K and I were in the last two swim waves of the Olympic race, so we had plenty of time to visit with friends.  I think that we were all trying to distract ourselves for the chop that was happening out on the water.  We all knew that this was not going to be fun swim.

Hanging on the beach with Andy (Pic: Goat)

Swim
It probably took 45 minutes from the start of the race until it was time for my swim wave to go.  I heard that they were allowing more time between each swim wave to insure that there was enough kayak coverage to keep everyone safe.  As we stood on the beach, itching to get going, they announced that a boat was bringing in a swimmer from a previous wave who could not make it. Upon seeing this, I immediately thought "do not be on that boat." I wanted lots of open water swimming experience this training cycle, this would certainly count as experience!  We were finally off with a splash as the waves were hitting me in the face.  My initial thought was "I can't do this. I just can't!" I took a second to take a deep breath and focus on the task at hand.  I could and I would do this.

That chop was no joke (Pic: Andy)

The swim course was a triangle shape and my first goal was to get out to the buoy halfway between the start and the first turn.  It was not easy and I had trouble even keeping it in sight at times, but I did it.  Once I made it there, my next goal was to make it to the first turn.  I really couldn't allow myself to think about the fact that I was swimming out into a super choppy lake, forward progress was the name of the game.  There were a few swimmers around me and I just focused on staying with them.  I hoped that once I turned the first corner things would get better as I would not be swimming directly into the waves anymore.  It felt like I was swimming forever, but I made it across the "top" of the triangle and to the final turn.  Swimming towards the shore was a big mental boost - I was going to make it!  I thought that it might feel like a tail wind after the final turn, but it didn't quite work out that way.  I was so happy when I could put my feet on the ground and run towards the beach. Knowing that I could survive that choppy swim was a great feeling, especially after the swim drama at Redman 70.3.  My swim time was 49:11, good enough for 5th in my age group - I'll take it!

T1
I'm not sure that there is anything more awkward than me with the wetsuit strippers.  Maybe I should practice this at my next open water swim - haha!  I think that it is just not a natural skill for me.  A random button on my watch got pushed during my wetsuit removal and I spent precious time in transition trying to mess with it.  I was quite distracted when I heard Goat holler at me to go faster - I really wish that I could have some of that time back, but I consider it another lesson learned.  I got back to hustling and headed towards the bike course.  My T1 time was 4:33, smack in the middle of my age group, but I can do better.

Celebrating with Nikki, Mr K, and Nestor (Pic: Nikki)

Bike
I was super excited to take Vivace, my new bike, out for a race...after the most awkward bike mount ever.  I had been riding my road bike so much and the tri bike was still a little new to me, so getting clipped in and finding the handle bars was a little tricky.  I kinda slow rolled off to the left and hoped like heck that I wasn't about to lose my balance and fall over.  I was embarrassed too as Goat was standing right there and witnessed the whole thing.  The weather was pretty nice for the bike, not too windy and the sky was still overcast.  There were some rollers on the course which made it interesting and fun.  My main thought during the bike was to keep my cadence fast so I would have legs for the run. Since it was my first time at this distance, I wasn't sure what to expect or how to pace it.  I kept my efforts pushed, but manageable and focused on cadence.  I enjoyed the ride, but I was ready to be finished by the time we made it back to the park.  My bike time was 1:23:46 (17.3 mph), the fastest bike split in my age group.  I might be the most proud of that as I have worked hard over the last year to become a stronger cyclist.

Big smiles as I finish up the bike (Pic: Goat)

T2
I'm still working at getting more efficient with these transitions and I think that it is something I will get better at with experience.  This one was fairly uneventful and I was out of there in 2:32. Time for my favorite - running!

Run
Much like the bike, I thought about having fast and light feet.  The run course was two loops so I settled into a pace that felt slightly pushed, but manageable.  There were lots of faces to see as this was a two-way course and I tried to let that distract me a bit.  I didn't look at my watch until the first mile chimed and I was absolutely astounded to see 8:20.  There was no way I felt like I was running that fast....but I was really happy about it!  Taking Meb's advice and focusing on one mile at a time, working to run that mile the best I could.  I was thrilled again and again as the next two miles came in at 8:17 and 8:16.  The sun was out now and I could feel the heat and the humidity.  Where did that breeze go?  I felt fatigued a bit as I headed out on my second loop, but knowing I was halfway done was a good thing. I was grateful to see Goat's face occasionally, he is a great cheerleader!

On the run (Pic: Goat)

 It was during this loop that I remembered that I could pour water on my head - not sure why it took me so long to remember that, the first few warm weather races are rough!  My next mile came in at 8:48 so the struggle was real.  This course isn't "hilly" but there are lots of false flats that make it challenging.  Mile 5 was my slowest at 9:09 as I walked through an aide station just to rest for a bit. It was a huge boost to come to the end of the second loop and take the turn that headed towards the finish line.  The last mile was 8:31 - not a "last one, fast one" but I did rally a bit for the finish.  My run time was 51:27 (my watch measured the course at 6 miles instead of 6.2 making my average pace 8:33) giving me the 2nd fastest run time in my age group - I missed the fastest by 3 seconds, so close!

TexasMan Finishers! (Pic: Goat)

My total time was 3:11:31.  The results were never posted, the names were just announced during the awards, so I had no idea how I did in my age group.  I discovered later that there was a mistake in the first place person's time which would have given me 3rd place in my age group.  I never got this corrected, officially, but I am happy just knowing I did it.  All in all, I was quite happy with my first attempt at the Olympic distance.  It is a challenging race distance as it has you going hard for a few hours and I look forward to taking another shot it at sometime in the future. I am super pleased with my base heading into the next round of 70.3 training and I feel happy to finally have a successful long open water race swim, such a confidence boost.

Quick Hits: Summer Funnin' Edition

The typically busy end-of-school-year and laid back beginning of summer means that I have not checked in here in quite a while!  I think about it often, just never seem to find the time to sit down and crank out a blog post.  So how about some quick hits, summer funnin' style?

Life on the patio

Back In The Saddle

School was out on a Friday afternoon and I was at the Mesquite Rodeo Ride bright and early on Saturday morning.  It felt great to hit the open road again and I was missing my bike, Johann, as I had not been on it much at all this spring.  The folks in Mesquite always put on a nice rally with a well marked route, officers at the intersections, precious little chip seal, and delicious food at the end.  I was ready to be done by the end of the 40 mile route and very thankful that I was not riding the 60 mile route that day.

The next Saturday brought another favorite, the Collin Classic.  I had memories of last year being hot, windy, and miserable at the end and I looked forward to getting that monkey off of my back.  It turned out to be a great day with lots of cloud cover and the occasional rain shower.  Hard to top that in June!  Once again we were treated to a great rally with a nice route and terrific food at the end.  This time it was 45 miles and I was ready to be finished and grateful that I was not riding the longer course.  I think I am finally starting to realize that I don't have to chose the longest route every single time.

Leaving My Comfort Zone

I got up super early on the second day of summer and headed towards Mesquite again, this time for an open water swim clinic put on by Tri-Now Endurance.  I was so nervous and excited and I knew that I was taking a big step out of my comfort zone - which is exactly why I should be doing it.  I have taken to swimming fairly easily in the pool and I spent countless hours in Lake Texoma growing up, but it had been many years since I had set foot in a lake.  I took a moment to collect myself upon entering the lake, and then I was off.  I did not swim too far away from the shore as I had trouble seeing with my non-smoked goggles and I had not taken the clinic yet.  I swam around for a while, getting a little farther out each time, before the clinic began.  Coach Frank taught us some of the finer points of open water swimming and gave us a chance to practice these things in the water.  I was having so much fun, I didn't want it to end.  I can't wait to get back in the open water again; however, the lakes nearest to me are still extremely high due to the record rains this spring.  I am looking forward to getting back out to an open water swim with Tri-Now very soon!

Open Water Swim Clinic - I'm one of those bodies in the water! (Pic: Tri-Now)

Half Ironman Training....and go!

Soon after my hugely successful second triathlon in April, I decided to take a leap and sign up for Redman 70.3 in late September.  You can only imagine how sweaty my palms were as I hit the "enter" key on my registration.  Training started on the first Monday of summer vacation and I have really been enjoying it.  I really am a geek for training, I love the process, the hard work, and the nitty gritty of it all.  I was able to focus just on training during the first two weeks as there was a break between regular school and summer school.  I am excited that most of the training will fall during the summer months so that I can treat training like a part time job.  I've been swimming twice a week, riding my bike 3 times a week, running 3-4 times a week, and hitting the weights a couple of times each week.  The workouts will increase in time and intensity over the coming weeks and I'm very much looking forward to it.

No swimming...or running...here for a while!

Frundraising

If you have followed me for a while, then you know that I like to chose one big race each year to "give" to the American Music Therapy Association.  I am happy to announce that I will be tri-ing for music therapy this year at the Redman 70.3 Triathlon.  My fundraising is already off to a strong start and I look forward to reaching my goal in the coming months.  I would love it if you would check out my page here and pass it along to those who may be interested.

Of course...Rangers baseball

I can't leave out baseball!  I was lucky enough to catch a Rangers game last Thursday and I hope to get to some more games soon.  I love a summer weekday game, it is so worth the sweating just to feel like you are "getting away with something" while everyone else is working.  

I can hardly believe that June is already behind us and I am hoping that July passes by a little more slowly!  I am already looking forward to Liberty by the Lake 5K and El Scorcho 25K and many more adventures on the bike and in the water.