Monday, March 26, 2007
Wildflower training weekend
So I get over the flu, over my sinus infection, I'm just starting to get back into a training mind set and get into the swing when all of a sudden - wildflower training weekend! I had originally hoped to use the weekend as a gauge of my Wildflower race but with everything that had happened I figured that I would not be 100% for the weekend and should just focus on staying positive and learning the course so i would know what to work on for the next several weeks preparing for the actual race. As it turns out, being sick may have been the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to lower my expectations for the weekend.
We get out to the water before dawn to set up transition and get ready to go. The weather is beautiful! No rain, warm and sunny (well the warm and sunny actually come later but we were anticipating a warm and sunny day). The water was cold but not frigid (my guess would be 60 but i could be off by 5 degrees either way). We get the signal to go and we are off. I need to back up for a second and remind everyone that I have never had a good fresh water swim...ever... in fact nearly drowning in these waters the previous year marks my last fresh water swim. Needless to say I was a bit nervous. I knew that I was 10 times the swimmer that I had been back then but until you actually do it, it hangs over you. I head out and feel pretty good. The nerves settle quickly and I settle into a rhythm. Not a good one because i can still feel some junk in my lungs rattle around a bit and I am just feeling a little off. Maybe its remnants of the flu or maybe just warming up still in the cold water, but i am off a bit. I swim a bit and then stop to catch my breathe and then repeat the process. I start to warm up a bit and start to make better progress. Everyone around me is having a great swim!!! It encourages me to just push a bit harder. I make it to the turn around at about the 40 minute mark - 80 minutes for 1.2 miles is not great but would still mark the fastest race swim I have ever done so definitely a good sign but it is a bit off of the pace i need for Ironman. I duck my head and start to swim back, fully expecting to repeat my normal pattern of swim for a bit and rest for a bit repeating as my breathing allows, however I don't seem to be becoming winded (my natural state in the water). I just keep swimming... and swimming... and swimming with only a brief stop to sight better (the sun is now in my eyes so sighting is an issue). I make it back to the start area still feeling good and with some energy left to keep swimming if i needed to but i am happy to get out ... in 65 minutes!!!! I swam the back half of the course in 25 minutes!!!! My swim confidence is now soaring through the roof!!! I still need to work on my swim but fears of missing the swim cut are rapidly fading and I am now left with the confidence that the real test will be the bike course which is the place I would rather focus on anyway.
Speaking of the bike course... it is time to get on the bike. I start off and wind through the park a bit heading towards beach hill (the first and steepest hill in the course) and manage about 1/2 way up before needing a break (very steep). Stefanie is nursing a bad knee and is walking the hill so I decide to join her... its a long day and maybe pushing up this hill at mile 3 is not the right way to start (at least that is my justification for walking). We get near the top and remount and head off. Last year I rode the Olympic course and I am familiar with the next 12 miles or so of the course and remember it as very hilly - lots of long slow climbs and speedy descents. Somehow the climbs don't seem as bad this year (perhaps I am a bit stronger this year) and rarely find the need to descend into my climbing gear on these early hills. I am sticking to my nutrition and focusing on staying positive no matter what happens (again that is my focus today - don't get distracted by things that go wrong). So far that is an easy plan as I am still flying high from the swim and the ride is not going too badly. As we approach the first water stop at about mile 20 I am starting to feel like I am missing a bit of push in my legs, not a lot but just a bit. I can't quite seem to push my normal gear and I am riding just 1-2 MPH below what I had hoped to be riding at this point (this is some of the flattest terrain in the entire ride). Dan offers me an option of Sagging from the next water stop past Nasty Grade but I put that off until we get there. Dan knows that I have been sick and is trying to make sure I have options to not over do it. Also the coaching staff did a great job of making the day about a long workout and not about doing the full course (the training weekend is much earlier then normal and many of us are a bit under trained for this course). We ride on and I am still feeling a bit sluggish on the bike but not terrible. This is where I would normally start to feel a bit down. The day is moving on and I am falling behind my pace with some of the hardest hills still to come, but my new training philosophy seems to be working and i just keep trudging on. we get to the next water stop at about mile 35 (well over 1/2 way there but very close to Nasty Grade). I opt to keep going as I really want to challenge Nasty and see what it is like. I know that if I don't then it will hang over me for the next month and be a big fear on the bike ride in May. All of the riders around me have been picked up and sagged in to start the run but I feel very strongly that I need to keep going. The last Sag vehicle says that it is my last chance or I will be out all alone. Again I think "just one big hill" to the water stop and if I need to sag from there I will feel OK about it. Finally at about mile 42, I make the left hand turn up nasty and it isn't so bad. It is steep and long but not super steep and I can just drop down into my climbing gear and grind away. I am feeling that the hill is definitely defeatable. The only problem is that it is hot and exposed. I am baking in the direct sun and there is no wind. My own speed is down around 5 mph so there is really nothing to cool me off. I make it maybe 1/2 way up before I lose the battle mentally. I really believe that I could have beaten that hill but after the swim and the 40 miles of riding and the heat and sun on that hill, I just couldn't keep going... so I walked the last 3/4 mile up the hill which was not significantly easier then riding as it turned out. It sucked but I am still glad that I tried it. I now know what to expect on the hill and I really believe that I can beat it and I know what to expect mentally at that point and now I can prepare for it. I make it to the top and get a ride back into base from there missing the last 12 miles or so of the ride. For those of you who might be doing the race yourself, when you get to the op and turn right... there is more hills. You haven't made it to the top yet there is still several more good climbs after turning right. Just thought you should know.
So now i am back to transition and getting ready to run when I see people starting to come in and finish from the run! Not only are they finishing before I start, I never even finished the last of the ride! Anyway, i strap on my belt and head out. About this time is when i realize that my lungs are on fire. I have always had some asthma symptoms but usually after a workout in the cold and never ever during a workout, but it is killing me now. I can't run for more then a minute or maybe 2 at a time before I am just gasping for breathe. This is not good. I run walk out for a bit making really poor time but still moving. I have 3 hours to make it back before they close the course and I know that I am the last participant on the course. I make it to the first water stop and one of my old run coaches (Terry) is there and gives me a big pep talk and motivates me to take off out of there and push through for a while but eventually the burning in my lungs sucks the motivation from me. The sad part is that I still have a little bit of pep in my legs and I am thinking that I could have made a real run at finishing in 3 hours if I could just breathe. That brings me to mile 4 :-) Mile 4 represents the end of the first part of the run and the beginning of the Hike. From mile 4 to about mile 6 it is all crazy hills that just make running not an option for me. With my lungs in the condition they were in, even walking the hills was very stressful. I kept trudging along and chipping away at the distance and was shocked to realize that I was still relatively positive at this point. I was hot and tired and disappointed with mu lungs but I noted that I have been going for the better part of 8 hours at this point and it really didn't seem like it had been all that long. I think the mental toughness just develops in the background during your training and you don't even know it. Anyway, to shorten this already super long post, I keep going and workout with the coaches that the right course for me is to just keep going but to skip the campgrounds and the pit and just head down lynch to the finish (about 8.5 miles). I even manage a weak run at the end (at the urging of Dan and Steve... I would have been content to just fall across the line).
When all was said and done, I completed a 1.2 mile swim, 44 mile bike ride, and 8.5 mile run on a very difficult course hot conditions in about 10 hours. Not so much the pace I had hoped for but I still felt pretty good about the experience. I have no confidence that I will finish Wildflower in the time limit now but looking forward to Canada I'm thinking ... If I have come this far in such a short time, where will I be in August? Maybe ready to cross the line by midnight :-)
We get out to the water before dawn to set up transition and get ready to go. The weather is beautiful! No rain, warm and sunny (well the warm and sunny actually come later but we were anticipating a warm and sunny day). The water was cold but not frigid (my guess would be 60 but i could be off by 5 degrees either way). We get the signal to go and we are off. I need to back up for a second and remind everyone that I have never had a good fresh water swim...ever... in fact nearly drowning in these waters the previous year marks my last fresh water swim. Needless to say I was a bit nervous. I knew that I was 10 times the swimmer that I had been back then but until you actually do it, it hangs over you. I head out and feel pretty good. The nerves settle quickly and I settle into a rhythm. Not a good one because i can still feel some junk in my lungs rattle around a bit and I am just feeling a little off. Maybe its remnants of the flu or maybe just warming up still in the cold water, but i am off a bit. I swim a bit and then stop to catch my breathe and then repeat the process. I start to warm up a bit and start to make better progress. Everyone around me is having a great swim!!! It encourages me to just push a bit harder. I make it to the turn around at about the 40 minute mark - 80 minutes for 1.2 miles is not great but would still mark the fastest race swim I have ever done so definitely a good sign but it is a bit off of the pace i need for Ironman. I duck my head and start to swim back, fully expecting to repeat my normal pattern of swim for a bit and rest for a bit repeating as my breathing allows, however I don't seem to be becoming winded (my natural state in the water). I just keep swimming... and swimming... and swimming with only a brief stop to sight better (the sun is now in my eyes so sighting is an issue). I make it back to the start area still feeling good and with some energy left to keep swimming if i needed to but i am happy to get out ... in 65 minutes!!!! I swam the back half of the course in 25 minutes!!!! My swim confidence is now soaring through the roof!!! I still need to work on my swim but fears of missing the swim cut are rapidly fading and I am now left with the confidence that the real test will be the bike course which is the place I would rather focus on anyway.
Speaking of the bike course... it is time to get on the bike. I start off and wind through the park a bit heading towards beach hill (the first and steepest hill in the course) and manage about 1/2 way up before needing a break (very steep). Stefanie is nursing a bad knee and is walking the hill so I decide to join her... its a long day and maybe pushing up this hill at mile 3 is not the right way to start (at least that is my justification for walking). We get near the top and remount and head off. Last year I rode the Olympic course and I am familiar with the next 12 miles or so of the course and remember it as very hilly - lots of long slow climbs and speedy descents. Somehow the climbs don't seem as bad this year (perhaps I am a bit stronger this year) and rarely find the need to descend into my climbing gear on these early hills. I am sticking to my nutrition and focusing on staying positive no matter what happens (again that is my focus today - don't get distracted by things that go wrong). So far that is an easy plan as I am still flying high from the swim and the ride is not going too badly. As we approach the first water stop at about mile 20 I am starting to feel like I am missing a bit of push in my legs, not a lot but just a bit. I can't quite seem to push my normal gear and I am riding just 1-2 MPH below what I had hoped to be riding at this point (this is some of the flattest terrain in the entire ride). Dan offers me an option of Sagging from the next water stop past Nasty Grade but I put that off until we get there. Dan knows that I have been sick and is trying to make sure I have options to not over do it. Also the coaching staff did a great job of making the day about a long workout and not about doing the full course (the training weekend is much earlier then normal and many of us are a bit under trained for this course). We ride on and I am still feeling a bit sluggish on the bike but not terrible. This is where I would normally start to feel a bit down. The day is moving on and I am falling behind my pace with some of the hardest hills still to come, but my new training philosophy seems to be working and i just keep trudging on. we get to the next water stop at about mile 35 (well over 1/2 way there but very close to Nasty Grade). I opt to keep going as I really want to challenge Nasty and see what it is like. I know that if I don't then it will hang over me for the next month and be a big fear on the bike ride in May. All of the riders around me have been picked up and sagged in to start the run but I feel very strongly that I need to keep going. The last Sag vehicle says that it is my last chance or I will be out all alone. Again I think "just one big hill" to the water stop and if I need to sag from there I will feel OK about it. Finally at about mile 42, I make the left hand turn up nasty and it isn't so bad. It is steep and long but not super steep and I can just drop down into my climbing gear and grind away. I am feeling that the hill is definitely defeatable. The only problem is that it is hot and exposed. I am baking in the direct sun and there is no wind. My own speed is down around 5 mph so there is really nothing to cool me off. I make it maybe 1/2 way up before I lose the battle mentally. I really believe that I could have beaten that hill but after the swim and the 40 miles of riding and the heat and sun on that hill, I just couldn't keep going... so I walked the last 3/4 mile up the hill which was not significantly easier then riding as it turned out. It sucked but I am still glad that I tried it. I now know what to expect on the hill and I really believe that I can beat it and I know what to expect mentally at that point and now I can prepare for it. I make it to the top and get a ride back into base from there missing the last 12 miles or so of the ride. For those of you who might be doing the race yourself, when you get to the op and turn right... there is more hills. You haven't made it to the top yet there is still several more good climbs after turning right. Just thought you should know.
So now i am back to transition and getting ready to run when I see people starting to come in and finish from the run! Not only are they finishing before I start, I never even finished the last of the ride! Anyway, i strap on my belt and head out. About this time is when i realize that my lungs are on fire. I have always had some asthma symptoms but usually after a workout in the cold and never ever during a workout, but it is killing me now. I can't run for more then a minute or maybe 2 at a time before I am just gasping for breathe. This is not good. I run walk out for a bit making really poor time but still moving. I have 3 hours to make it back before they close the course and I know that I am the last participant on the course. I make it to the first water stop and one of my old run coaches (Terry) is there and gives me a big pep talk and motivates me to take off out of there and push through for a while but eventually the burning in my lungs sucks the motivation from me. The sad part is that I still have a little bit of pep in my legs and I am thinking that I could have made a real run at finishing in 3 hours if I could just breathe. That brings me to mile 4 :-) Mile 4 represents the end of the first part of the run and the beginning of the Hike. From mile 4 to about mile 6 it is all crazy hills that just make running not an option for me. With my lungs in the condition they were in, even walking the hills was very stressful. I kept trudging along and chipping away at the distance and was shocked to realize that I was still relatively positive at this point. I was hot and tired and disappointed with mu lungs but I noted that I have been going for the better part of 8 hours at this point and it really didn't seem like it had been all that long. I think the mental toughness just develops in the background during your training and you don't even know it. Anyway, to shorten this already super long post, I keep going and workout with the coaches that the right course for me is to just keep going but to skip the campgrounds and the pit and just head down lynch to the finish (about 8.5 miles). I even manage a weak run at the end (at the urging of Dan and Steve... I would have been content to just fall across the line).
When all was said and done, I completed a 1.2 mile swim, 44 mile bike ride, and 8.5 mile run on a very difficult course hot conditions in about 10 hours. Not so much the pace I had hoped for but I still felt pretty good about the experience. I have no confidence that I will finish Wildflower in the time limit now but looking forward to Canada I'm thinking ... If I have come this far in such a short time, where will I be in August? Maybe ready to cross the line by midnight :-)
