Exhausted but that's OK

I am tired, really tired. Like workout-tired, I want to take a nap (but won't) tired. Between traveling to the race last weekend and racing and then jumping right back into the swing of things I am feeling a bit fatigued. Usually I can fake it and suck it up and keep going, but right now all I want to do is put my legs up (because they are throbbing) and slumber away. But being the good student of my body that I am (no major injuries in over a year which is ALOT for me!) I am going to listen and let it tell me what it wants to do. It is only February after all and there is no need to carry this fatigue with me throughout the spring and/or summer. Because by that time I will be racing my rookie pro heart out and will need to feel as springy as possible at all times!

With the wind blowing a steady 60mph (it doesn't even faze me anymore, although I wish I would have kept track of all the non-windy days we had this winter, which would probably take up less than a third of all the days) I am summoned to my trainer for an easy spin, maybe an hour. I know I have some bigger things on tap this weekend and I want to make sure I don't bonk (like I did 5 min into my run two days ago, when I also almost passed out from standing too long, kind of embarrassing)

Which brings me to a topic that I find highly relevant to feeling tired and fatigued: Dehydration! I have noticed that in the winter I don't drink nearly as much as I should, because a) it's colder outside and I don't sweat as much (or so it seems) and b) because I am a Gatorade snob and barely ever drink JUST water. Bad I know. But when there is no Gatorade around I am suddenly not as thirsty... This can lead to more chronic problems which I'm well aware of. I am going to make a conscious effort to drink more water. I'll see if I notice a difference in my performance.

Today at noon masters I had the pleasure of swimming a lane over from none other than Ms. CW, who was swimming with her coach and his wife, going twice as fast as me. Very humbling, but then again she is the World Champion and I am not. Ha. Sadly I don't think she stuck around long enough to rub her speed off on me as she had disappeared less than halfway through the workout. There is always hope for another time I guess.

With my performance at the race last weekend I got thinking about racing Elite Du Nationals, which are held in Birmingham, AL this year with this format: 8k/53k/8k. That's a good ten miles of running and about 40 (I think) of riding. That should play up my strengths a little better than last weekend which was all fast-twitch! If I can gather up some funds I would love to give it a go, Duathlon hurts, but it hurts so good! :-)

Desert Classic Duathlon

I spent my weekend in sunny and warm Phoenix, AZ to participate in the Desert Classic Duathlon, consisting of a 3.5mi run/ 21mi ride/ 2.7mi run. Obviously shorter than what I usually do, but I thought it would be a good way to get a hard effort in early on in the season and also to make my debut with the big girls. The starting list originally had about 9 girls on it but 4 more were added last minute, including some rather big players of the sport. I swallowed hard at the thought of competing in the same race as them, but realized that if I don't try now, I might as well go back to being an age grouper. I chose to take this chance and I would be ready to take defeat because racing with the big girls is no piece of cake.

I flew into Phoenix on Friday and was picked up by my home stay Denise, who took me in for the weekend and helped me get to various places I had to get to in prep for the race and the race itself on Sunday morning (she got up at 5 a.m. with me!) Thanks Denise! Friday night after taking care of race logistics we met up with some of her friends for a tasty Pizza dinner, and then went home where I fell asleep in minutes. Saturday was a quick run and spin on the bike to make sure everything was dialed in; my seat post has been acting funny lately and likes to slide down ever so gradually on a ride, that when I finish I find myself a good few inches lower than when I started. With new bolts and a bit of grease, I think I tricked it into staying put and it did not cause any issues on the ride in the race. I spent the rest of the day hanging around the house with Denise's two dogs.

Sunday morning arrived early! I got to see part of the IM AZ bike course as we drove to the race site. Hm, thoughts ran through my head of doing this race at some point... Denise dropped me off at the parking area, which was a good mile away from the transition area. I walked myself and my bike in pitch black on a dark road, where besides my white jacket, I could not see a thing. It was just before 6 a.m. and I felt like I was walking in the middle of the night into complete darkness. Finally I saw some lights in the distance and music coming from the transition area. At last I arrived! Funny thing was, it was too dark to even attempt to set up my transition, so I scurried over to the tables that had our timing chips and picked that up. Finally I saw some orange in the sky, and at last the sun started to come up. Time was almost 7 a.m., and I made my way out on some roads for a warm-up. After dropping trou a good 3x in the bushes (surrounded by thorn bushes and cacti, which little did I know, would accompany us on our runs) I was headed back to transition to finally find it filled up with bikes! I was the first pro there, besides Amanda who got there even before I did. The strange thing was that I wasn't really nervous now that I was minutes away from my first race as a pro. I had some minor doubts the days leading up to the race, wondering whether or not I "belonged" there, and whether or not I had enough training in me. Having run a marathon as my last big race, I knew this one would hurt as it would require alot more fast twitch than slow twitch muscles.

The race went off on time and all 13 women and 12 men sprinted off like deer being chased by a coyote or something. The first half mile or so was on a road, but the the course veered off into the trails, very narrow trails, very technical trails with lots of cactus and thorns and rocks and uneven terrain. Fun! I found myself running right behind A. and another girl, and although I felt comfortable I wanted to go faster, but couldn't make a pass. Every time I was ready to, the trail would wind one of its many turns and I would have to be careful not to throw myself out of the turns and fall into some thorny bushes. If anything, I told myself, this would just save me some more energy for later. I finally made a pass with about a quarter mile to go, and although at this point I had lost sight of the top three women, I believe I was in 5th position coming into T1.

The bike course was described as "never flat" and lots of ups and downs. Jax had told me to make sure to work the downhills as well, so with that in mind I set off on my ride. The bike had me a little worried because it's been winter here in CO and although it's been nice outside for most of it, it's also been windy and I haven't been able to go fast, at least as fast as I would need to go to hold on to these girls. The ride started uphill gradually for about 3 miles, and I felt the burn! The a slight decent to the gates of the park, where we exited for another stretch to the turnaround at 10.5 miles. I started getting passed by a few more girls at this point but not one to accept defeat, and also knowing that if I let them get too far ahead, I'd never catch them on the short second run, I put my head down and let my quads burn. Two girls and I played catch up all the way back to T2, including the long climb back into the park. The roads were a bit rough so I had to make sure to hold onto my bars tightly, otherwise I would probably have landed myself on top of one of the cacti lining the roads.

The second run is where the race really starts I think. I was probably in 8th or 9th place at this point and I had 2.7 miles to make up as much time as I could. I passed two girls within a quarter mile after exiting T2 and kept telling myself to just play catch-up. The second run also included a hill that everyone had talked about prior to the race. It presented itself right after I maneuvered through more cacti on a trail and picked a few thorns out of my hands (ouch). It wasn't as steep as everyone had said, but it had lots of loose rocks, and that can make things very interesting when you are full on racing. I had to brace myself on the decent as not to trip and fly down the side of it. I saw a few casualties in front of me and didn't want to be one of them. The finish came up rather quick and all of a sudden, for the first time since the first run, I found myself behind familiar feet, just seconds ahead. I tried hard to give it all I had, but it felt like I was running in slow motion (the fact that it was a slight uphill didn't help) and fell just one second short of finishing in fifth place. I am happy with my time and how I placed, especially considering the depth of the field we had this year. Last year my time would have gotten me second place!

We stuck around for the awards and some fun raffle shindigs, and then made our way back to start my packing process. The race was something I had never done before, and I felt very one with nature! It was literally sticking out of me. At the finish many racers had scratches all over their bodies (see pics of mine here) and some were picking thorns out of their sides. It was like we had been in battle, maybe they should rename the race to 'Battle in the desert' :-) I am happy I got the chance to compete against a stellar field in such a unique setting. The race seemed a full on success and will be sure to attract many more in the future. I met alot of cool new people, who may not know it, but helped make my transition to this whole new ball game a lot less stressful and worrisome.


The ouchies to arm and legs, much more drastic in real life! ;-)

My flight back home was pretty eventless except for a kid who threw up his dinner two rows in front of me. I had to cover up my nose because I was getting the gag reflex smelling it. Poor thing was hurling all the way to the gate. I didn't think the ride had been THAT turbulent... The way out was a different story though. I really.do.not.like.flying. I seriously thought we wouldn't make it a few times during out bumpy take-off from Denver, it was bad! My fear of flying is thus increased tenfold and I think I might have a problem. I seriously can't even focus on anything because all I can think about is when the next lil turbulence will shake the plane. Silly, I know, but since all these planes have been crashing lately, I guess I am just becoming a huge worry wart. Meanwhile, no one else on the plane seemed to mind, while I was clutching my arm rests and holding on for dear life...

Today I woke up surprisingly not that sore at all, which is probably due thanks to the off-road running and less pounding, although now is a different story -delayed onset soreness-... Maybe I should look into Xterra races after all! (joking, I'd break my neck trying to navigate a bike on a trail)

Anyways, it is good to be back home, and although the warm temps (around 80 each day) were nice, it did feel a bit off in February! Glad to be back in the 50s for now. One race down, many more to come :-)


A nice shot of the pro awards, I stole it off of slowtwitch :-)

Results are here

The Secret to a Champion and a random and painful 5k

I think I am finally coming down with something. It is February after all and that is when I usually get sick. I can feel it in my throat, and I don't think it's from the 5k I ran this morning, even though that might have helped speed up the process. I am going to do everything I can to stop it in its tracks, because I hate being sick and it's happening at a rather inconvenient time. I have my first race as an official pro in 2 weeks and I would like to be as ready as I can be!

Thursday night B and I went to the Boulder Book Store to see what Mark Allen's new book is all about. Well, actually more to see Mark Allen. He is pretty much the only "legend" that hasn't crossed paths with us in Boulder yet. The crowd was big and the talk was interesting... "Fit Soul, Fit Body" is the title of the book, and although a good amount of time was spent on talking about that, what I remember most is the nutrition education Mark gave. According to him, back in the day (80s and 90s), supposedly, an arch rival of his (who was winning Kona at the time) whose name rhymes with Rave Plott used to measure out and drain/rinse his cottage cheese to make it as healthy and pure as possible to eat. Ew!!! Cottage cheese and I will never get along, the texture, the taste, the name... but I digress, to each his own.

Mark on the other hand had handfuls of cookies from Mrs. Fields after long rides. Ata boy! I like him! Until he said that he realized that he wasn't fueling his body properly (point taken) and that cookies, despite being calories, were empty calories for the most part (yes true) and were doing nothing to repair and refuel his body after a hard workout. So he -gasp- cut all sweets out of his diet! While I agree that alot of sugar and sweets as an only fuel after a workout are wrong, I can't believe he would torture himself and not touch sweets anymore for good! I know I can't go a day without chocolate, I have tried! I get VERY moody and I can tell my brain is imbalanced. Anyways, he goes on to tell that after he started eating "right", he started winning Kona. Hm. Is that what it takes to be a champion? Do I really need to cut all treats out of my diet? Don't I work out so I can eat sweets? I am not sure if I could pull this off, but perhaps that is what it takes to be great. I am hoping there is another way, and I am hoping to prove it :-)

Someone is quite excited for their first race

Today was a special day as B is now the proud finisher of his first 5k road race! His goal going into it was to maybe break 20 minutes. Mind you he started running on and off about 4 months ago, after getting inspired to do triathlons in Kona. After about a week he was already keeping up with me on hour-long runs. We both realized that he could probably go faster in the race but wanted to be safe, and not set too lofty a goal. On top of it he had some kind of food poisoning two nights ago where he yacked up his dinner for half the night. On a whim I signed up for the race as well, if only to pace Brandon, since my legs were not 100% recovered from AZ yet. Not sure what to expect of the course, we warmed up on it as it was being mile-marked in the morning. Lotsa turns and slight ups is what we noticed. (The 5k to benefit the CU triathlon teams looped in and around the CU campus with tons of sharp turns and lots of hard sidewalk running) As we were readying to start, I gave B one last tip "Just have fun" (how cliche, I know) and off we were.

Looking cool in my Tifosi shades pre-race

I immediately got tangled up in a group of overzealous guys, most of whom dropped around the 1/4mi marker. And then I couldn't believe my eyes! B was running right in front of me! And he was moving and not letting up! I had several thought going through my head at this point: "Wow, I am really sucking today, I am getting paced by B instead of the other way around", "Man, all that cycling really pays off for him, he is like the lil engine that could", and "I think I might want to drop out, I am getting beat by a first-timer". I quickly switched to positive thoughts and had a proud moment, while nearly dying to get to the first mile marker. I kid you not, I believe we were doing 5:30-5:45 pace and I could feel it. I had penny taste. The first mile marker took forever and I didn't even look at my watch. It was slow. I ran the rest of the race, staring at B's butt and running next to an annoying "I don't wanna get chicked" character, who would not let me pass him. Grrr. I settled in behind him after realizing that if I passed him. I'd probably be pulling him home. And knowing from riding my bike that leading a draft wastes more energy than drafting, I let him have his 4 second lead. I was hanging by a thread and feeling miserable. It also didn't help that my legs magically got sore overnight last night after taking most of the day off from exercise! (I mentioned this before, but the notion of tapering and I don't match)

Around the last corner I got really close to B, who could hear me breathe down his neck. He opened up a tiny gap and we came across the line about a millisecond apart. How is that for getting your ass whipped by a novice?! ;-) Just kidding. I managed a first place overall, despite being almost a minute off my CO PR from just 4 months ago, but I won't argue. Most people I have talked to said the course was a wee bit long. I know one thing. Three weeks ago I split a faster 5k coming through in my marathon. So I know I am not THAT out of shape. I'm excited to see what B can do in his next 5k. My bet is that he will come awfully close to breaking 18 mins, and then world, watch out! Pair that with his evil bike speed and some more swim improvement, and a speed demon will emerge on the race courses this summer!Happy face post-race

Those who train together, finish races together.(for now)