Mental Attitude for Ironman

by ironguides on May 26, 2010 in Triathlon Training

In the final days before you race an Ironman it is essential that you keep a few things in mind.

Ironman essence – Gratitude

The Ironman hype in the final week before race day often makes you forget the reason you are racing in the first place. Excitement is running high. Triathletes are everywhere, discussing race goals.

This is a good time to remind yourself why you started in this sport. It is very likely you were attracted to triathlon, Ironman, because of the lifestyle it provides you; its health benefits; the opportunity to visit the great places around the world where triathlons are held; and for the unique friendships that develop between athletes.

Ironman is a way to celebrate life: it is a gift to the have time, the health and the finances to take part in such a unique event.

Remind yourself of the above in race week and try to focus less on your splits in each discipline, age-group placing or Kona slots: those are only consequences of a great race execution, based on your fitness and mindset. 

Setting goals

Crossing the finish line is always at the top of the list.

Then you have secondary goals that are usually linked to finish times and/or improving splits in each discipline.

Be careful how you set them and what benchmark you use. Always keep in mind that race day conditions are unique and hard, if not impossible, to predict. If you want to improve your finish time of the previous year, or from another other race, you have to take into account that the conditions such as wind, temperature and currents will most likely be different.

Another problem with predicting finish times, especially for first-timers, is using times done in training: unless you have done an Ironman simulation it is impossible to know how you will react during the final half of the Ironman run. The result window is massive: you might have a solid day and run those 21km in 100 minutes or less, or if you may get cramps and take 3 hours, or more.

Confidence

Maintaining confidence in your training and race strategy in the final days before Ironman can be a challenge. As soon as you arrive at the race venue you bump into all those sponsored athletes walking around in and with the latest equipment, showing off their lean and vascular legs. Such sights can be quite intimidating to the first timer or beginner athlete.

Remember: before a race everyone looks like a champion – don’t let this hurt your confidence.

Another common thought on race week is: “I should have trained harder!”

You have already done the best you could. Perhaps you had to take a week off training due to work, family or health issues but those are situations we all face. Every single triathlete on the startline of an Ironman had to overcome some sort of challenge during their preparation so don’t worry, you are not alone.

Be realistic

One of the biggest differences between the short races and Ironman is that the latter provides a better opportunity for the athlete to perform according to ability. Never forget this on race day. If you are not feeling great in the swim or the early stages of the bike, stay calm: there is a long day ahead and you will have the opportunity to get into your rhythm as the race progresses.

Other examples are a slow transition or a flat tire: unlike the short course events where your race would be over due to those setbacks, in Ironman you can still catch up on the lost time.

There is no such a thing as having a great race based on experience or “luck”. At best you minimize potential problems by going under-trained into an Ironman but no miracle will happen. Your best choice is to adjust your goals and expectations to avoid frustration.

Rational vs Emotional

Keep your emotions in check on race day: don’t let them take over your race strategy. Adrenalin released in the first few hours of the race, with the type-A and competitive personality of each triathlete, plus the fact that everyone is well-rested and tapered is a perfect recipe for disaster.

The main mistakes happen in the cycling leg, especially during the first hours, when athletes are excited and forget a very long day is only just beginning. As a result, people start to race each other or just ignore their nutrition plan.

Another common mistake that results in an emotional, rather than a rational, approach is after a setback such as a flat tire or a penalty is that athletes tend to “make up for it”. Don’t. Stay calm and be patient in those situations instead. Ironman is a long race and you can slowly, over the next hours, catch up on the missed minutes. Please do not try to do it within the next 60 minutes.

Positive attitude

It takes between 8 and 17 hours to finish an Ironman. That is a lot of time for everything to go as planned, especially considering the myriad of factors the athlete can’t control. It is very likely that something will go “wrong” at some stage during the race.

After I wrote an article about the mental attitude towards the race day challenge last year, several athletes came to talk to me after finishing their Ironman and mentioned that already in the swim leg their race wasn’t going as planned: they couldn’t see the buoys and went off course.

Ironman is all about overcoming obstacles. The challenges start with your training routine, how you manage your work and family commitments with those long sessions that take a lot of your time and energy. The training is 90% of the Ironman experience and is the biggest challenge. Race day is only the celebration of getting to the start line. You will still be tested during the event, be it physically or logistically, but with your Ironman determination you will find a solution and make it to the finish line. 

Have a great race!

http://www.trifuel.com/training/triathlon-training/mental-attitude-for-ironman

Saturday I tentatively tried training again. Shoulder and side are seriously sore still – but I thought I’d better give it a go. Serious props to Traumeel though! Traumeel is a homeopathic remedy with arnica and other assorted herbs and things in it. There are drops, and a cream. I applied the cream on the really nasty bruises on my hip/shoulder/back – and they were GONE by Saturday. They still ache, but the bruises are nowhere to be found. Interestingly, I didn’t “realize” I had bruises also on my calves, one up on the back of my thigh – and THOSE spots (where I did not apply the cream) still have bruises on them!

So, Saturday we were to do an 8 mile run at our Tempo pace. I figured I would run to the JCC and back, which gave me a place to refill my water bottle. By about mile 5-6 my shoulder ACHED. I practiced changing my hand position, arm “angle,” etc. – and it would relieve it a bit, but not by much. My doctor cautioned me yesterday (Monday) that I might want to just not train AT ALL until the race – because if things hurt, it might affect me mentally more than anything else. If it hurts on the race, I gut it out. If it hurts before, it might make me afraid of it hurting. I think there’s something to that – but think I’m going to do the swim anyway today.

Sunday was our last Team Meeting and a swim in Del Valle lake. We were to go out for 1/2 hour and then back. I actually made it out a mile before it was time to turn around. As I was getting back to the dock, I realized I was the last swimmer. This sort of bummed me out, until Teammate Patricia told me that no one had done the full hour but me! Oh – okay…

We had our briefing meeting with Coach Simon and LLS Merla – only Maria and I were there from Team Louisville. It’s so odd that we are only like 6 people versus the whole big Vineman “crew.” It was so wonderful to see how many people came all the way out to Del Valle to support us! I was also supremely grateful for Patricia, who drove. After the swim, I was stiffening up pretty good and was glad I could just rest.

I discovered on the swim (which I did “commando” a/k/a no wetsuit) that though Jane and I did a practice in Aquatic Park, the wetsuit makes a BIG DIFFERENCE. Now, no, you don’t know why, so stop nodding your head (smile). I obviously know the wetsuit adds flotation and all that jazz (duh). The thing is, that in a wetsuit, you are swimming like a gigantic sausage. When you turn your hips, it rotates your whole body. And, yes, I also know that’s how it’s “supposed to be.” HOWEVER, what I found out in the Lake is that I have been “lazing out” when swimming without the wetsuit. I seem to only turn my upper torso, not so much my legs. How do I know this? Because a few 100 yards into the swim, my side started to ACHE. Bad. As in “where is the kayak” bad. Since there was no kayak around me, I just started swimming slower, and practicing turning my WHOLE body. It took some doing. I also had to kick a bit more than I’m used to. But I finally got the hang of it – and the ache calmed down. Glad that I figured this out before getting

to Louisville!

Monday was an “off” day – today I’m off to BNI to substitute, then I’m going to go swim. I think it’s like a 1500 or something on the calendar. I’m just going to go slow. More biofeedback with the wonderful April Blake this afternoon, then PACKING! (Oh joy! Oh ecstacy!)

The most exciting thing that has happened in FOREVER is that Jodi purchased the last of my “sponsored miles” this morning! I am so blessed. I had sent out a SendOutCards tri-fold with all my donors, and the miles that they sponsored. Unfortunately, I had an hour or so at the very end of the run (not the final 2 miles – those were sponsored – but about 5-6 miles before the “bitter” end) that were not sponsored. I made up a list of “when” I should be at each mile, so that my donors could send me good Magic at that time, and perhaps check on ironman.com (number 730!) to see how I am doing. Now, I’m not “out on my own” in the dark at the end of the race. THANK YOU JODI! You are the best!

And finally, a few “You Know You’re Iron When”‘s…

You know you’re iron when you are seriously distressed that your pee is yellow. (ok, graphic, but if you’re laughing & nodding…you’re WELL on your way to being Iron!) also…

You know you’re iron when you pass a “man down” capsule on the road and from 10 paces can tell whether it’s an Endurolyte or a Thermalyte.

I recently joined “Team Beef” on the Louisville Ironman. (Yes, for me, Beef…it’s what’s for dinner!) They actually have a “Team Beef” jersey, but I mentioned to the Marketing Director Alison Smith that I would be wearing my Flames jersey for Team In Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

She wrote back: “I am excited to see you wearing the Leukemia jersey as I am going to wear one in October. My mom has Leukemia and I am working to raise $1400 for a half marathon – just had a little one so starting slow.”

This is a picture of her son, with his “Gramoo.”

Let’s cure this doggone disease, shall we??? Who’s going to join me on Team In Training next year? Think about it – get in shape, and help cure Gramoo’s cancer to boot. Who’s going to get on the green-and-purple-flames train!

IRONMAN LOUISVILLE 2010 RACE WEEK SCHEDULE

Thursday, August 26

• 6:35 PM Arrival in Louisville
• Relax, unwind and get settled.

Friday, August 27

• 9:00 AM Bike Pickup / Short test ride
• 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Expo & Athlete Check-In
• 11:45 AM IronTeam Optional Run
• 5:30 – 7:30 PM Ironman Louisville Welcome Dinner
• Immediately following dinner: Mandatory Age Group Athlete Race Briefing
• Get some rest!

Saturday, August 28

• 7:45 AM IronTeam Swim (Waterfront Park – Swim Finish)
• 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM 2010 Ford Ironman Louisville Registration
• Pack Transition Bags
• 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM IronTeam Inspiration Luncheon
• Noon – 5:00 PM Mandatory Bike and Gear Check-In (Great Lawn)
• 7:00 PM Evening Relaxation Session

Sunday, August 29 – IRONMAN RACE DAY!

• 5:00 AM Transition Opens / Body Marking & Special Needs Bag Drop-off (Body Marking Volunteers are TNT’ers from the local Kentucky Chapter so make sure to give them a GO TEAM!)
• 6:30 AM Transition area closes, all athletes to the Swim Start
• Transition is a 15-minute walk (3/4 mile) from the Swim Start
• 6:50 AM – Pro Race Starts
• 7:00 AM – Age Group Race Starts
• Approx. 9:20 AM Swim course closes two hours and twenty minutes after the last athlete in the water
• 6:20 PM – Bike course closes
• 12:00 MIDNIGHT – Race Ends at 4th Street Live
• 6:30 PM – 12:30 AM Mandatory Bike & Gear Recovery

Monday, August 30

• 6:00 AM Finishers’ Gear starts being sold!
• 8:00 AM – NOON Bike/Bag Drop-off at Tri Bike Transport
• 8:30 AM – 2:00 PM View and Order Race Photos
• 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM Ironman Louisville Awards Banquet
• 6:00 PM IronTeam Victory Dinner

Tuesday, August 31

• 11:00 AM Hotel Check-Out
• 3:50 PM: Depart Louisville

**To track me during the race, log on to IRONMAN.com on Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 7:00 AM Eastern Time. My Bib # is 730.

First of all, I should say – I’m healing. After biofeedback, chiropractic, massage, acupuncture (oh, and Vicodin from the allopathic docs), I am feeling better but not great. I haven’t done anything at all, except eat like a rock star for the past week. I think that’s what I must do when I get depressed or anxious. Bad. CheeseIts are NOT taper food. I did swim in Aquatic Park, and though my shoulder hurt, it was OK. Biked a bit before putting it on the transport, and that hurt my side – that worries me. Walked with my friend Francine a mile or so, and that went OK. Going to try a wee run tomorrow.

NOW, for the entertainment (smile). This is to the Beverly Hillbillies theme song:

Let me tell y’all a story about my good friend Sandy
She was gettin’ kinda bored & feelin’ just dandy,
Just the other day she said, ‘Damn I KNOW I can!’
So she packed her bags for Luhvull, to do the Ironman
Triathlon that is…
140.6 miles…
Swim, bike, run…

She started off the swim by jumpin’ in the river
The water was warm so she didn’t even shiver
And when she got out later she was in a good position
So she sprinted up the slope towards her very first transition

Swim to bike…
wet stuff off…
Chamois Butt’r…

Once she’d changed her stuff, she hopped onto her bike
(Luckily she found it since they all look just alike)
Headin’ down the road you could almost hear her sing
Mashin’ on them pedals grindin’ in that big chainring
Tall girl, red Camelbak…
rollin’ by the horsies…
singin’…

Then she got off that bike to head out on the run
Took off like a rabbit that was shot at from a gun
When she got to Mile 20 she didn’t hit the Wall
She finished that damn thing smilin’, I have to tell y’all
Ironwoman…
140.6 miles…
yahoo, and all that …)

So, I guess that I wanted to have an eventful taper. Was slated to do a 45 mile “rolling hills” ride with H yesterday. We went out from home and up and over Camino Alto – the idea was to do it at race pace/heart rate, but H wanted to check out some nurseries along the way for something he’s looking for, so that flew out the window fairly fast. We went from Camino Alto up and over/around Strawberry, then to Tiburon, around Paradise, down past Cost Plus (found the “pedestrian/bike crossing” to the Larkspur ferry we were HOPING was there), past the Ferry Building to a left on Anderson, then down Second Street past Trader Joe’s, with the idea that we would go around China Camp and ultimately, home.

We were out Second well past Trader Joe’s, and there is a part of the road that’s uphill, without a lot of room – 2 lanes of traffic in a divided highway, plus cars parked along the side, and a wall on the left so cars can’t swerve, either. It’s never been one of my favorite places. I wear a mirror on my glasses to be able to see traffic behind me, and I glanced up to see if I could move over just a little bit away from the parked cars.

WHAM!

From 17 MPH to 0 is not pleasant. I must have subconsciously “jagged” away from the traffic towards the parked cars, because there is no other explanation as to why I hit a rear-view mirror. It stopped me dead – this must be a bit like being “doored.” I went over my handlebars, and was on the pavement in a second. The bike was out in the street, but amazingly, the gal in the front car nearest me stopped. Her passenger was out of the car so fast I’m not quite sure the car was actually stopped all the way.

I got up, and actually felt OK. Angeline was obviously NOT OK, poor sweetie.

H (as usual) was pretty far ahead of me, but you couldn’t miss the WHUMP, I’m sure. He came back, and was upset and yelling “What did you DO??” (scared, I’m sure). I was able to stand, turned and twisted, all that jazz – and so he sat me down in the shade to go back and get the van (which was about 10 miles back, at home). After he actually found my contact that had popped out, sitting on the road (yes, it’s fine. Wild).

The weird part is I’d had a bit of a prescience about the whole thing. When we were on the back side of Paradise, I hit a pothole in the shade that was deep enough that it snapped my neck back and my teeth shut, and hurt my wrists. At that moment, I had a thought “What would I do if I went over the handlebars?” Well, my Grrl Leann and my Grandboys Cody and Caleb have been practicing for their karate belt test, and one of the things that we have been texting about all week is “tuck and rolling,” which Leann was having trouble with. As I was riding away from the pothole, I thought a lot about tucking and rolling. Left shoulder to right hip, avoiding the head, go diagonal, keep your hands in, etc.

That’s what I must have done when I hit the pavement – because my left shoulder (even though I was wearing 3 layers, to “simulate heat conditions” in Louisville) has a big raspberry on it – and my right side between my ribs and my hip hurts like the dickens. I also have a raspberry on my left calf, and two cuts on my face – H surmises this is where my glasses broke and cut me (broke my good glasses! Argh!)

Once H was back, we headed out to the Recyclery and were able to get the exact same wheel for a great price. They only take cash, and I was trying to figure out how we were going to handle that, when H reminded me he had actually stopped at his ATM to get cash, about 15 minutes before the crash. It was a little odd how “prepared” we were in that respect.

After a lot of running around (H noticed what looked like a crack in Angeline’s frame which of course sent me into a crying fit – we took it to Ceasar’s Cyclery where they are the biggest Giant dealer around Marin – they were just closing, put her up, and said it was 95% just chipped paint, etc. etc.), H wanted to know if I want to go to the movies; I said I wanted to blow my taper diet and go to Left Bank and drink wine and eat fatty foods. So that is what we did. I even dressed up – makeup and everything. (I think I was trying to distance myself as much as possible from the crash!)

Got home around 8:00 and went to bed with 6 ice packs and a cup of tea. I’d taken a couple ibuprofen waiting for H after the crash, but I could feel everything starting to stiffen up and hurt. Woke up this morning, and oh lord, I feel like I was hit but a truck.

Or, a rear view mirror.

Left shoulder and side of neck are super stiff and painful. I can’t reach out straight or overhead. That could have interesting ramifications for swimming, I’m sure. Breathing REALLY hurts. Ride side, between my ribs and the top of my hip bone, REALLY hurts. The shoulder thing is pretty awful. I have an “emergency call” in to a chiropractor my masseuse recommended – mine is on vacation for 2 weeks – and an emergency call to her too. Interestingly enough, I have a free biofeedback session at 2:00 today with a gal from my BNI – not sure how that will help, but I’m sure it will.

Ouch.

It’s Taper Time. I also got a great book called Paleo for Athletes (something like that – Kevin Koskella from TriSwimCoach.com suggested it), and it’s been super helpful, especially as they really break down nutrition in the final Endurance/Taper stage. Nothing much new, just good stuff to remember.

Jane and I did our last “long” swim in Aquatic Park on Wednesday. I swapped the Tuesday swim and the Wednesday run around, so that we could go out and do the open water. I won’t go by myself, and Jane is nice enough to go with me when she can. We have been generally swimming on Sundays, but I wanted to make the mid-week swim an open water one, too.

We took a few photos on her phone for “posterity” – then into the water we went!

It actually wasn’t as cold as it has been in the past, but by the end, we actually wound up getting out “shy” of the distance that we were trying to do. It has been very grey here in the S.F. Bay Area, and it was choppy out in the water…grey, choppy, swim, swim, swim, swim, swim…not the most pleasant. The last time we went (last Sunday) the sun came out

and it felt SO NICE – though we got cold also on that day.

I’m QUITE SURE I will have NO problem with that in Lousville!

I was reading a write-up that Coach Simon sent out, and part of it says that the “good thing” about Ironman Louisville is that “everyone can anticipate” that it’s going to be hot and humid, and have “plenty of time” to prepare by working out in the heat of the day, etc. I guess they were talking about anywhere BUT San Francisco this year.

Off to do a bike/run brick – a Taper Tapir’s work is never done! Snort snort snort.

And here is an interview that I did on the great TriSwimSecrets podcast :-)

So, about 5-6 months ago, I came to the realization that I was going to need a Secret Weapon during the Ironman event. When was this? During my 1/2-Iron at Sedona. When I ran up to the car where H was waiting with hydration for me and said that I was really feeling sick (which wound up devolving into The Nastiness that followed & I’ve already written about), his reaction was to tell me to “Tough It Out” and drive away. Now, that’s all well and good if someone is going through what you are, and understands where you are coming from. But (though he had done the biking with me), I felt very angry and hurt because I thought that I was being told to “dig deep” by someone who didn’t really have a physical feel for what I was going through.

So I asked a guy on my IronTeam whether he’d be willing to be my Secret Weapon at Louisville. My idea (before finding out that you aren’t allowed to carry a phone) is that I could call him up, and get an Atta Girl or a “Tough It Out” from someone who HAD done it. (As he was signed up for Vineman so would have done his Ironman-distance race before me.) Not only that, but we were both former Military, and so hearing “Tough It Out” from him would have a bit more weight and that “Gunny-ness” that I could yell against and be pissed at in my head, but then just go out and DO…because the Gunny never EVER tells you to do something that they have not or would not do themselves.

In response, I promised to be at Vineman for him. This seemed rather an empty promise, since he was an ex-pro cyclist, and a far faster/better runner than I. Now, granted, we had actually become Friends on the team because he sucked at swimming, and I gave him lots and lots of friendly advice, answered questions, sent YouTube videos of what I was talking about, etc. But that was matched against – when H said that he would buy me a “good bike” for my Valentine’s Prezzie - Will taking hours and hours and going round and round with what sort of bike would be best for me (including taking measurements, talking about details, giving me the “math” that would get me a compact crankset that would be similar to my old tried-and-true triple, etc.)

He was dating a gal on the team, and sadly, they broke up a while back. That meant, as she had done TNT for years and had been the one to get him involved, that he felt it necessary to step off the team. I was sad, because he was always good to kid around with, and (more importantly) even when I was riding my 20-year old P.O.S. downtube shifter bike with basket pedals, made me feel like I could Do It. He also was really patient explaining stuff to me that I wanted to know, but was too embarrassed to ask, about cycling “in general.” (You know, things like “which way do you lean when you do this,” or “how do you stop from falling down if you have to unclip going slowly on a hill?”…This last being a lesson I am still digesting, I might add.)

We had emailed a bit after he left the Team, and he said he was still going to do the event. I said well, that meant I would be there to support him, and be there for him “if he needed me.” To me, that just basically meant hangin’ around and cheering. The only place he MIGHT need me might be the Swim (there’s nothing like 1,000 people crawling over you as a fairly novice swimmer to spazz you out bigtime), and that was the one place I could NOT be. Well, except at the Exit, to cheer him on for NOT drowning.

Teammate Paula and her boyz Will and Jack picked me up at 5:30 a.m. to head out to cheer on our Peeps. H had told me he would pick me up that evening, so I wouldn’t need to drive home at midnight. Will and Jack had made a great banner to cheer on our IronPeeps, and they were very excited…until they fell into a wonderful snoring heap. (More on that later when I can actually figure out how to get MY photos out of my camera…all the ones here are from other folks.)

It was an IMMENSELY foggy day, and I realized that I definitely didn’t have warm enough clothes. Oops. We swung by Rohnert Park to pick up Becca (I had to call to actually get the name of the offramp -  it was so foggy I couldn’t make out landmarks), and off we went to the Swim start.

Folks were already in the water when we arrived – there are 7 races that go on that day – the full Ironman, Aquabike (the Ironman

without the run), Barb’s Race, relays, etc. It was a bit of madness. We cheered as our teammates exited the water - but the first person out that I recognized was my old swim coach, DeAnn, who was obviously swimming for a relay. (She got out of the water with the guys – as the relay folks were slotted after the women who were after the men, she had done that doggone 2.4 mile swim in some insanely short time.)

It took a while (I think it was a bit over 2 hours), but Will finally emerged from the water, and headed out to the transition area. Becca had a big sign that she held up but I cautioned her not to shout, because if something was left at Transition, nearly always the Shouter is blamed!

We ran over so that we could see all the folks that I knew come up the hill out of transition, then found Will’s truck and drove out to the next transition area – Windsor High School - where the finish would also be. We were super lucky to have very little traffic out of the small town where the swim is held, and even got a parking spot in the High School lot. We caught up to some of the coaches who were having breakfast, and then set up to cheer right before the bike Special Needs bag stop at about mile 60 or so.

(I had dropped a couple of “Atta Girl” notes off to Teammate Lil’ Laydee Baby Calf Melissa the week before for her Bike and Run Special Needs bags, and was hoping she was having a good day. I’d missed her coming out of the swim, but saw her come by on the bike.)

Once we’d seen the bulk of the team go past and had confirmed that Will was still in the game, we all moved to a corner transition spot that would be passed 6 times on the run. This is where the rest of the TNT supporters had set up. As Teammate BK said, the run was to be a “Groundhog Day”-esque event – three loops on the same roads.

We heard that Teammate Nate (who was doing Aquabike) had come in 3rd in his age group – yippee! – and saw Teammate Carolyn streak by at an unholy pace. Nate actually was running too – I

missed out on why, maybe he just “decided” to do a full Ironman “for fun”? (He’s doing Ironman Canada the same day as I’m doing Louisville.) Teammate Rick was right with them – it was just so great to see all these folks as they headed out up the run course smiling.

After a while, I started to get concerned, because I hadn’t seen Will around the time I thought I might. So I asked Becca to watch my stuff, and jogged back down the line to the Transition area (about a mile from where we were all sitting on the corner). As I came down the straightaway and then to the corner, I saw Will, and he looked BEAT. He was walking, and said he wanted to walk the entire first lap of the three.

I happened to know, doing the math, that if he did that, he wasn’t going to make the 9:00 p.m. cutoff, though I just agreed with him “for now.”

He had gotten way behind on the bike (his forte) because he had helped not one but 3 other participants with their bikes that had broken down/gotten flats/etc. – and had also stopped to block the racers from an errant mole that was trying to cross the course. (That one made me laugh. “A MOLE? With those FLIPPER

hands?” Yup.)

He felt like crap, too, because he hadn’t taken into account the fact that the 2 hours he was swimming, he was still using up carbs, salt, sweating, etc. He didn’t have enough nutrition fast enough to fill up that “black hole,” and, worse, he had used a nutrition mix that had made him bloat. (He was noticeably bloated – it did NOT look comfortable.) OK and he’d done a 23 mile crosscountry race, at pace, the week before. (Oh. THAT.)

As we were walking, I of course had my Infinit bottle in the back of my jersey, plus I had stuffed the triple-salt Margarita Shot Blocks and some GU in the other pockets. I got him to down a whole sleeve of the Shot Blocks, and then start sipping the Infinit. After a while, I actually could see that he was feeling better. So we started to “run the downhills” (the run course is VERY hilly), and when I surreptitiously looked at my watch, I realized that just doing this would likely make up enough time for us to MAYBE make the 9:00 p.m. cutoff. (You have to start your third lap by 9:00 p.m. or they take your chip – if they take your chip, you are listed as “DNF” – did not finish – even if you continue. They even make you sign a waiver if you want to go out again.)

Some of the TNT folks that we ran into were coming back in on their 2nd round or even their 3rd as we were heading to the turn-around. Apparently there has been a lot of “unfriending” going on with respect to his old girlfriend (still on the team) and such, so he wasn’t sure how he would be “received” as he saw folks that he had been friendly teammates with just months before. Everyone was very “Atta Boy” to him, which I think was a relief.

We came in and around to the transition area to end the first lap, and I had to ‘leave him and pick him up’ on the chute out. Mentor Margaret checked in with me to be sure I was OK, and as we were supposed to run 18 miles that day, I figured I was just getting my training run in if I kept this up! The problem, though (I realized later) was that I personally wasn’t paying attention to my own hydration, I had put aside the sandwich Maria had brought me, etc. and so by the end, I was kinda a mess. But not at that point. Then, I was just concerned to get my friend back out there and then back to transition, to make the 9:00 p.m. cutoff. I was Ms. Adrenaline with a Goal. :-)

We headed back out, and now that he was on the Infinit (and I was happily acting as mule, carrying whatever from the Support tables he wanted in my 2 side jersey pockets – pretzels, caffeine shot blocks, cookies, etc.), he was feeling better. He was able to pitstop away some of the bloat on the way out, and then he looked way better. We were not only running the downhills, but the straightaways as well. (At one point I broke out in Jodies – Military run cadences – which made him laugh. You know the ones… “C-130 rollin’ down the strip/Me and my team gunna take a little trip/Stand up, buckle up, shuffle to the door/Step right out and shout MARINE CORPS!/If I die in the combat zone/box me up and send me home/pin my medals upon my chest/tell my Mama I did my best…Stand up…1-2….Stand up….3-4…Stand Up…1-2…1-2…3-FOUR!)

We were pacing with Teammate Sara – who was on her 3rd round – and teasing that she would pass us, but then she would stop to do her walk (I think she was doing a 5:1 run:walk), and we would “elephant” up on her (she runs without a sound – I would definitely not say the same of the 2 of us). As we got about 2/3 of the way down the front of the loop out, she started breathing funny, and I realized she was starting to have an asthma attack. BEEN THERE! I didn’t have my inhaler on me (silly really, I kept thinking of myself as a “helper” not as really a “runner”) – and I am not sure I would have given her medicine anyway – but I certainly could see the panic in her eyes and knew what was going on. Will was doing fine so he kept running, and I stayed with her.

I rubbed her back, not only because that feels comforting, but also if she actually passed out I knew that I could grab her quickly behind the knees that way with my other hand and swoop her up/stop her from hitting the dirt. I told her to look up, because that opens your lungs up so that you have a little more surface area for the oxygen to try to work with. I just did the whole soothing “It’s OK, been here, this is an asthma attack” thing, and when she could talk, she said she had had a panic attack that felt similar; my fear had actually been she would have a panic attack BECAUSE of the asthma attack, and maybe go into bronchiospasm. We were literally out there, sun going down, with no one really around. I was able to surreptitiously check my phone (also in a back jersey pocket) and made sure I had reception – if she went down I wanted to be sure I could 911 her out of there ASAP.

Luckily, a bit of a walk, some talk, rub rub on the back, and the asthma broke. She was breathing fine, and stopped at the final Support table before the turn-around, and said it was OK for me to catch back up with Will. I thought later that maybe I shouldn’t have left her, but she came in over the finish line fine, so no worries (Thank Goodness!).

As Will and I were coming back down after the turn-around, we started asking other runners about the 9:00 p.m. “cutoff” time. It wasn’t my race, so I hadn’t really read the rules, but from other races I had done, I was 90% positive that if he didn’t make it, he was DNF. Turns out that was correct. So we started running more than we were walking. It was going to be tight – I actually was not completely sure we were going to make it. I also managed to mis-judge the route at one point, thinking we had reached the mile 2 support table, when we were really at mile 3 (e.g., we still had an extra mile to run before hitting the transition area). We didn’t let up though, and when I came around the corner and realized I was a mile off in my calculations, and apologized for it, we just dug deep and toughed it out. (It sucked.) We had to run actually faster than I am personally comfortable running, but if HE was running that fast, for goodness’ sake, ~I~ was going to, too.

We got to the straightaway before the turn towards the transition area, and I realized we were actually going to MAKE it. We had to keep running though. My favorite part of the run (I think because we actually laughed through our somewhat grim “get it done” demeanors) was when I said that we had to pick it up just a tad for the cutoff, and he said very loudly “F*CK ME!” I immediately said “No, thank you” and then we both burst out laughing. It was like getting a 2nd wind.

As we ran into the “cone zone” where he would go into transition, Mentor Margaret stopped me. She said I had to stop running NOW – because I was at where I should be for my training, and I think she probably realized I hadn’t been paying any attention to myself and was kinda wasted. Honoree Frankie and his girlfriend the wonderful Meghan stepped up at that point – they were fresh, and rarin’ to go. They said they would take him out on the 3rd and final lap.

I sat down, and finally had my lunch sandwich! It was dark, cold, and I was beat. I was so grateful that I had been of service, though, to get him over that 9:00 cutoff. I was actually pretty amazed, because (seriously) there is NO WAY that I had thought I – WAY less of an athlete than he is – would be able to help AT ALL when we made our “pact.”

I watched Melis’ come in at about 9:13 and realized she was going to be chipped, and wasn’t sure she would keep going. She did – she was very upset, and called at our corner for someone to go back out with her. I stood up, but Mentor M. forcibly pushed me down and said “NO.” She was right – though I had the will to go do it to help my buddy, I’m not quite sure I had the “way.” Team Mascot Belinda went out with her into the dark. (One great thing I saw on the course – LED “flashlights” that were clipped to the brim of folks’ caps. Very cool – I need to see if I can find one.)

I stuck around with the Team for a while, and Becca went and got me a hot chocolate (Nectar of the Gods!) because I was freezing. I did have dry clothes to change into – just not WARM dry clothes. (Duh.) We went to sit in the truck for a while as we were both definitely chilled, and just at that point H called to say he was in the Windsor lot too, to pick me up. It was 10:30. I felt bad, because I knew that meant that I couldn’t stay and cheer on my peeps, but I was also relieved, because I was freezing and beat. He came and got me from the truck, and I sent out some Facebook posts to try to say “Bye!” to people – and off we went.

The next day I found out that Will had come in 13 minutes past the midnight cut-off, and was bummed out and trying to think if that “really” made him an Ironman. I reminded him he had helped not one but THREE people on the bike course (AND a MOLE), and asked him if that had taken more than 13 minutes. “Way More.” So – in my view – though he didn’t make the midnight cutoff, he was definitely Iron after factoring that part in. I’m not sure why – I think that if he had had a bunch of flats himself  and crossed after midnight I would not have said the same thing – that’s just “dumb luck” as it were, and you don’t make it by midnight, you don’t make it. Maybe I should be more hard-*ssed – you are, or you aren’t – you make it by midnight, or you don’t. But I guess to me there is “special dispensation” for helping others (2 and 4 legged!) and then being a tiny bit over.

H and I went out for the 75 mile bike ride that was slated for the next day – and I made it to 50 and actually had to have him go get the car to bring me back. Stick a fork in me – I was DONE. The whole week, I felt like crap – and today (Saturday) when I was supposed to do a Century (our final last “push” before the Taper), I woke up with a serious sore throat, headache, and golf-ball sized lymph glands. Arrrrgh. I went back to bed (I wound up sleeping a total of something like 14 hours), and got up in time to help H with a couple things – I was going to drive up to Yountville to cheer in my IM-L and IM-C homies on the Century, but H said that I “look like Death” and he doesn’t want me to drive. I was supposed to do an Open Water swim with Jane tomorrow too – we’ll see. It was freezing last time we did it, not quite sure that’s the smartest thing to do.

So – that’s my Vineman writeup, for what it’s worth. The experience was really different than I expected – in a good way, though. I love to be of service, and I really do know that I was helpful to both Will and Sara. I was so excited to watch my Teammates tough it out. I must admit, I’m sad that there won’t be more of us out there for IM-L – I can really see how passing the “flame jerseys” on the run or an out-and-back could be a real boost. I was particularly glad and humbled that lil’ ole non-athletic me could make a difference for big athletic Dude (and little awesome athletic dudette Sara). I am so thankful for this experience; hopefully I will get over this “creeping crud” soon, and I will be able to join all my Iron Homies who now “Know They Are Iron”!

Marina’s addition to the “You Know You’re Iron When” list….You Know You’re Iron When You Cross the @#*$&#@&*$ Finish Line! (Ha!)

Too funny not to share – from Coach Sedonia. :-)

A dating guide to understanding your triathlete (or runner or cyclist…)

 ”I am an outdoors type of person.” Really means: I train in any type of weather. If it’s raining, snowing, 90 degrees w/100% humidity, or winds gusting at 30 mph. I don’t want to hear any complaints because I will still train in it and you’re just a big wuss for complaining about it.

 ”I enjoy riding my bike.” Really means: With or without aero bars, alone or in a peloton, I don’t care. If you can’t do a spur of the moment 30 miler then you’re not my type. I will let you draft, but if you can’t hang and I drop you – I will see you later. I am a capable mechanic, but don’t expect me to change your flats or tune your bike. You need to learn that on your own.

 ”I enjoy jogging.” Really means: Let’s run hills until we puke. I have just as many shoes as you only mine are better because they are functional and all look the same.

 ”I enjoy dining out.” Really means: I enjoy eating out, in or anywhere else I can find food. Don’t be shy because with the amount of food I eat, you can have that main entree instead of a salad and you will still look as though you eat like a rabbit in comparison. Don’t get your limbs too close though as I may take a bite out of you. Most importantly don’t expect any taste off my plate unless you can bring something to the party like more food. Eventually though if you’re not burning 4,000+ calories a day you’re going to plump up and have a terrible complex due to watching me eat desserts and not gain any weight. Friends and family will eventually decide not to dine with us anymore due to my horrid table manners. Oh, and no talking during breakfast, 2nd breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, afternoon lunch, dinner or recovery dinner as it does not lend to efficient food intake.

 ”I enjoy quiet walks on the beach.” Really means: A 20 minute warmup walk on the beach breaking into an 8 mile run and then plunging myself in the ocean for a 2 miler. If you get in my way, you’re going to find out what “mass start” means, and let me assure you that you don’t want to find out.

 “I find fulfilment in charitable work.” Really means: If I am not racing, I am volunteering or cheering on my buddies and I expect you to be there alongside me as I stand out in 90 degree weather for 8-18 hours handing out sports drink to cyclists going 20 mph. Just stick the ol’ arm out there and hope it doesn’t get taken off.

 ”I enjoy sharing quiet moments together.” Really means: It’s taper time. Just back off because I am strategizing, trying to get into the zone and in a pissy mood because I am worried about my “A” race and can’t work out.

 ”I am an active person.” Really means: Aside from my 40 hour job (and the 8 mandatory hours of sleep a night), 10 hours a week are devoted to myself during the off-season and 20 during race season – leaving us 4 hours. 2 of which will be spent inhaling food and you not talking to me (see above), so let’s make the best of the 2 hours we will spend together on average each day.

 NOTE: If you are a licensed message therapist or doctor this would make the most optimal use of our time together. Nutritionist is also acceptable, but I probably already know just as much as you.

 ”I enjoy road trips and vacations.” Really means: You have your choice of British Columbia, Louisville, Wisconsin, Idaho, Florida, California, Arizona, and New York, but don’t expect to do much site seeing. But if I get enough support from you, we might be able to include Hawaii in there.

 ”I enjoy sightseeing.” Really means: Let’s grab a mountain bike and get our HR’s up to 90% powering up the hill. There’s plenty of time to look around on the descent as trees and bushes whiz by at 40 mph.

 ”I like stimulating conversation.” Really means: while we are running, we can talk about food. Then we can talk about how we decided what to wear on this run based on the temperature at start time versus the temperature at the time we expect to finish, how horribly out of shape we are, how many miles we did last week, and how many we will do this week and next week. Then we can talk about food.

 ”I enjoy relaxing soaks in the tub.” Really Means: I’m going to stop on the way home and buy two bags of ice, throw them in the tub with some water, and sit in this torture chamber for 30 minutes.

 ”I’m interested in photography.” Really Means: My camera is permanently perched on a tripod in front of my trainer. I obsess over taking photos of my bike position and analyzing them to get the perfect set-up.

 ”I’m into in technology.” Really Means: My heart rate monitor and bike computer are my best friends. Until you can give me some hard data that can improve my training, don’t bother trying to buddy up to me. You could one day break into the top three if you recognize and feed my dependancy by buying me more gear.

 Article courtesy of an anonymous Triathlete who is likely still single, from Toronto, and who competed rather well the Lake Placid Ironman in 2006. For a small fee we’ll connect you to this handsome and successful individual…(works “downtown” Toronto in the “money business”)

I stole this post from Maria M-Dot’s website. We are tinkering with “race strategy” back and forth (I hope that we worry this subject to death so that we’re all set when the Event rolls around) – but this really was a great post so I thought I’d share, too.

Your First Ironman: A How-To Guide
A guide that takes you from check-in to the finish line for your first Ironman triathlon – as suggested by Beginner Triathlete.

Here it is, the event you have been waiting and training for. The last 6-9 months have all been geared to this day; your training has been perfectly orchestrated and planned so that you can be as ready as possible for the Ironman. But what exactly happens on race day?

While you can go to the Ironman website and read all the rules and schedules, I wanted to give you a broad picture of what to expect and highlight some key points. To read the IM rules and schedules, go here.)

The race actually starts two days prior, as you must arrive and check in/register two days before the event – Ironman rules.

Bring with you:
An official photo ID
USAT card
Confirmation number (if you signed up on the Net).

At registration you will:
- Confirm your athlete number
- Show your USAT card
- Weigh in (just tell them what you weigh- this is for medical reasons, as they may weigh you during the race to check your hydration status)
- Pick up your registration packet that contains your race numbers (one for each of the following: the front of your helmet, your bike frame , the back of your bike shirt, and the front of your run shirt), your swim cap, your timing chip, safety pins, bike ties for the bike number, and stickers for your gear bags.
- Get your gear bags and other goody bags.

The day before the race there will be a mandatory Pre-race meeting. This is very informative, and as I stated, is mandatory!

This is also the day that you drop off your bike and gear bags (not special needs or dry clothes bags—those you drop on race day).

What are these “Gear bags?”
You are not allowed to leave anything by your bike, so all your gear is in bags that you will pick up when you need them at each transition. The bags are stored in boxes.

You get 5 bags for the following:

** Swim to bike transition:

Put everything in here you need for T1 – helmet, glasses, shoes and socks, gloves, food, and anything else you need for the bike section. Are you wearing your biking gear under your wetsuit? If not, put it in the T1 bag.

** Bike to run transition:

Put everything in here you need for T2: hat, glasses (if different from your biking glasses), shoes and socks, different shirt if necessary, food, etc.

** Bike special needs:

Nutrients and anything else you think you might need during the ride—Vaseline, frozen sports drink bottle, gel flask just in case, etc. You pick this up about midway through the ride.

** Run special needs:

Maybe a change of socks, Vaseline, salt tabs, pain killers (but not NSAIDS), special food, a long sleeved sweater in case it is cold when you run in the dark (tie it around your waist, so you have it). This will be available about half way through the run.

** Dry clothes bag:

For what you can change into after you finish.

Do not put anything you ever want to see again in these bags as it is highly unlikely you will get them back.

On race day, if the gear collection area is not congested, a volunteer will actually hand you your gear bags, but if it is busy you will have to get them yourself, so know where your bag is!

The day before the race

1. Affix all your stickers and tags to everything. Figure out where your gear bag is located, where your bike is and where you should leave your special needs and dry gear bags on race day.

2. You need to have reflective tape on your run gear: a piece on the toe and heel of each shoe, a piece on the right and left of both front and back of shirt and shorts! Do this before you even leave home!

3. Lastly, label all your gear, including shoes before you leave home.

What are you wearing for each portion of the race? Some people actually wear two pairs of shorts for the bike: one compression pair (that double as running shorts-Sugoi and DeSoto have some) and one bike pair. Both can be worn under the wetsuit, or you can add the biking pair in the change tent. Make sure that the compression shorts have no seams in the crotch! Once in T2, you can just remove the bike shorts.

The day before the race, it is a good idea to do a pre-race brick: 30 minute bike ride and 15 minute run – all at race pace. A good idea would be to ride some of the run course.

I would also take advantage of the open water swims in the mornings leading up to race day.

Race Day

NOTE: absolutely no assistance of any kind is allowed from spectators and friends and family – this includes running, biking or driving with you, giving technical support, and/or handing you any food or anything else. You will be disqualified.

Remember to race within yourself and follow your pacing plan. Do not be tempted to run anyone else’s race. Use your HR to guide you, if you have been training with a monitor. Whatever happens, use your mind as well as your body to deal with it, as a race this long is not won, or finished, by just being fit enough. Mental training should be as much a part of race prep and race execution as all your other training.

Get up in plenty of time to eat the breakfast you always eat before your long training sessions, and do whatever mental preparation you have been training with. Remember, you are trained and ready for this event!

Gates to the transition area are open at 5:30 and close at 6:30 a.m.

- Bring your swim cap, wetsuit, special needs and dry gear bags, timing chip. If you have a friend there, you can bring your pump too and give it to them after you have finished pumping your tires. Please note, there will be bike assistance people there to pump up your tires, so it is not necessary for you to bring yours.

- Stow your special needs and dry clothes bags, go to the body marking area and then go and put on your wetsuit (if applicable). If you pumped your own tires, hand off your pump to your friends.

- Go down to the water to wait for the race to start. Note: I do not think there are any porta-potties on the bike course, but there are toilets available for the run. Of course, there are plenty of porta-potties at the transition area.

Swim

- Out on the swim course, there will be race crew to help you with directions.

- The swim course closes after 2 hours and 20 minutes. If you are still out there after this time, you will be DQ’d and not allowed to continue.

T1

- Once out of the water, you will be directed through timing chutes that lead you up and through the wetsuit strip area and showers. There are special wetsuit strippers there to help you get out of your suit — let them do the work!

- Then head up to the gear racks and into the change tents. There are volunteers in there who will give you anything you ask for: Vaseline, sunblock, etc. Do not be afraid to ask for assistance — use the volunteers!

- Make sure you are fully clothed and ready to get on your bike before you head out to the bike storage racks. Get on your bike and go!

Bike

- You must have your race numbers on. You can wear it on your race belt – in the back for the bike and in the front for the run.

- When you first get on the bike, take in some plain water and, as soon as you feel able, start taking in nutrients. Follow your pre-designed and well-practiced hydration and nutrition plan to the letter throughout the ride. Set your watch alarms for every 20 minutes, and eat and drink as you have done in practice.

- Initially, try to keep your HR in Z1-2 so you can settle into the bike. No matter how good you feel, do not let your HR out of Z2 for the first 30 miles!

Keep the intensity / HR and cadence you have been training with. During the middle of the bike, it would be OK if your HR crept up to the low end of Z3, but preferably you will stay in Z2 for the duration. It will be hard at times to resist the urge to go faster. But remember, you have to conserve energy and try to use fats for energy, and this is only possible if you are totally aerobic. Go faster and you start using up your glycogen stores, you build up lactic acid, and bonking becomes much more of a possibility. Today is about finishing, not speed. So, do NOT be concerned with your speed on the bike — just HR and cadence, just like in training.

- Bike aid stations are every 10 miles or so. They will have: water, Ironman PERFORM (in bottles), PowerBar Gel, fruit and cookies. Call out what you want and slow down appropriately to safely get it.

- There will be technical vans out on the course to assist you. BUT, you should know how to deal with minor problems – flats, etc. So maybe take a beginner course in bike maintenance. Ensure you have had your bike thoroughly checked over before you leave home.

- There will also be medical vans out on the course and at aid stations. Getting medical assistance does not automatically mean your race is over.

- Bike course closes 10:30 hours after the race start and if you are still on the course you will be DQ’d.

T2

Again, there will be volunteers to assist you in the change tents. Full medical facilities are available there.

Run

- You must have your run number and reflective tape. You can wear your number on your race belt — in the back for the bike and in the front for the run.

- Aid stations are located about every mile and will have the following: water, Ironman PERFORM, Cola, PowerBar Gel, fruit and cookies and chicken broth.

- Once again, follow your hydration and nutrition plan to the letter!

- The special needs bag will be available about half way through the run – take out your long-sleeved sweater and tie it around you waist so you have it just in case.

- Self-illuminating light sticks are available at the aid stations, and after dusk you are required to have one.

- The run course closes at midnight, but you may finish if you want. If you do not want to continue, you will be brought back to the transition area.

Post race

- Finisher t-shirts and medals will be awarded at the finish line!

- Drink up! But not plain water — some form of carb drink is best. And eat what you can. Remember, to assist in recovery, a 4-1 ratio of carbs to protein in best within 30 minutes of finishing.

- Keep walking so that you do not cramp up, change into some dry clothes and then go and get a massage!

For your support crew (friends and family) there is an “Ironmates” designated area where they can get info about how you are doing on the course and track your progress.

There is a medical information board here too, which they should check periodically to see if their athlete’s name is posted. If it is, check with a volunteer and they will provide more info. Personal messages can be posted here, and this is the best place to meet up once the race is over. Ironmates are not allowed in the finish chutes.

…this is from TN-teammate

Missy. We had a bike workout last week that involved keeping track of your RPMs, going up and down (“hill simulations”), varying the speed, varying the timing, etc. She was having trouble keeping track – so she discovered the perfect system….

I mean, what better system than counting with colored bears?

I ask ya!

(smile)

(courtesy of Missy)

 Here is the historical weather for Louisville on Aug 29th from weather underground:

Daily Precipitation: The Average Daily Precipitation is 0.06  with a historical range of 0.00  to 0.38  There is a 43% chance of a Precipitation Day.(6 days out of 14 in historical record) Most consecutive days found in historic record: 1

 

Cloud Cover: Average Cloud Cover is mostly sunny There is a 29% chance of a Cloudy Day.(4 days out of 14 in historical record) Most consecutive days found in historic record: 1

 

Wind: The Average Wind is 5 mph with a historical range of 0 mph to 8 mph There is a 0% chance of a Windy Day (average wind over 10 mph / 15km/h).(0 days out of 14 in historical record) Most consecutive days found in historic record: 0

 

Humidity: The Average High Dew Point is 71 F with a historical range of 66 F to 76 F The Average Low Dew Point is 64 F with a historical range of 50 F to 70 F There is a 57% chance of a Sweltering Day (dew point over 70°F / 21°C).(8 days out of 14 in historical record) Most consecutive days found in historic record: 0

 Here are the highs from 2009-1995 (newest first):

81, 94, 96, 83, 76, 80, 89, 88, 89, 96, 82, 82, 87, 91

The actual highs show that it is either hot (88-96) or fairly moderate (less than 82) in Louisville on the 29th, but rarely between 82 and 87. 

Also, it’s not very likely that we will face a strong wind or rain.  Most of the rain that they factor in were trace amounts around .1 inches for the day.  Once they had .39 inches for the day, and that is not enough rain to cause big problems.

 

(courtesy of Head Coach Dave)

The 99 steps of a typical IM trip

1. Arrive in town.
2. Find over-priced accommodations you are staying a minimum of four nights at
3. Unpack bicycle, spread gear around room randomly.
4. Attempt to reassemble bicycle, realize you forgot to mark your seat and handlebar position before disassembly. Guess position and tell yourself it won’t make a big difference.
5. Drive bike course at slow speeds while making wrong turns. Annoy locals.
6. Find swim venue. Put wetsuit on, stand around for 15 minutes. Swim 10 minutes, take wetsuit off. Look around to see if you impressed anyone.
7. Walk around expo looking for free stuff.
8. Go to registration tent, stand in line, get bag, check bag for goodies.
9. Go back to hotel, arrange energy products into different piles. Stare at piles.
10. Spend 2 hours preparing for bike ride with race wheels and drink systems. Go for 30 minute ride. Go back to hotel.
11. Decide that this would be a great opportunity to learn how to rebuild your rear hub to fix the play in it. Disassemble hub.
12. Drive to house where your club mate, the bicycle mechanic, is staying. Show him the pieces of your rear wheel. Beg for help.
13. Go to swim start Friday morning. Look for tell-tale wrist-bands on other competitors; look condescendingly at all those swimming who aren’t participating in the race.
14. Go back to hotel, spend 4 hours attaching numbers to your bicycle, helmet, and race outfit. Panic that you don’t have 8 pieces of reflective tape for your run outfit, even though IMNA has never been known to enforce the rule.
15. Drive down to expo at the last minute, stand in line, pay $10 for a strip of reflective tape. [LOVE this one]
16. Drive back to hotel, place energy products into various bags.
17. Pack transition bags.
18. Unpack transition bags.
19. Repack transition bags.
20. Drive to Carbo-dinner. Stand in line, proceed through buffet with poor food selection, sit at crowded table, remember you paid an extra $20 each so your family could enjoy this food. Listen to IMNA personnel tell same jokes as last year. Realize that Dave Scott has apparently discovered the fountain of youth. Stand in line to leave.
21. Prep bike to drop off on Saturday, discover your tire has a slow leak. Drive to expo, stand in line, pay $80 for tubular tire. Get back to hotel, realize you don’t know how to glue on a tubular, drive back to expo and have them do it for you.
22. Drop bike off, spend time covering bike with various plastic bags because everyone else is doing it.
23. Drop off your transition bags, realize you forgot your salt tablets, drive back to hotel to get them.
24. Drive back to hotel again, arrange race gear for tomorrow morning.
25. Pack special needs bags.
26. Unpack special needs bags.
27. Repack special needs bags.
28. Realize there is nothing more you can do to get ready. Sit down and relax.
29. Panic.
30. Eat early dinner
31. Go to bed, lie there in a cold sweat.
32. Wake up at 2:00 am for 1000 calorie bottle of nasty-tasting concoction, “because Gordo does it”.
33. Lie awake listening to horrible weather move into town.
34. Wake up at 4:00 am, listen to spouse complain.
35. Get in car, drive to start. Stand in line to enter the transition area.
36. Check transition bags.
37. Stand in line to get body marked.
38. Check bike, stand in line to get tires pumped up.
39. Stand in line for porta-john.
40. Realize you left your water bottles with special nutrition needs in the fridge at the hotel. Drive back madly to get them.
41. Get back to start, wait in line for parking spot.
42. Stand in line for porta-john.
43. Get wetsuit on, stand in line to enter swim area.
44. Realize it’s too late for a warm up. Stand in line to enter water.
45. Stand in water with 2000 other people while sun comes up and national anthem is sung by local high school girl. Realize that few moments of your life have been this beautiful.
46. Gun goes off, 2000 people attempt to swim on top of you; realize that you are in mortal danger or drowning and few moments of your life have been this dangerous.
47. Get kicked in face, goggles come off, panic and tread water trying to get them back on while people hit you. Remember you paid good money & trained a year to do this.
48. Exit swim, stand in line to get into transition.
49. Stand in line to get out of change tent. Get bike, stand in line to get out of transition.
50. Start bike, realize that there is no way 1000 people can pack onto a course within 20 minutes without massive drafting problems. Hope that poor bike handlers don’t crash in front of you.
51. Ride bike.
52. Panic that you’ve already fallen off the nutrition plan that your coach gave you.
53. Make up for lost calories and fluids in the next 15 minutes. Feel ill.
54. Ride bike.
55. Get saddle-sore.
56. Ride bike.
57. Decide to piss while riding to save time.
58. Spend the next 30 minutes soft-pedaling, coasting, and practicing mental imagery trying to relax enough to let it go.
59. Give up, get off at aid station and spend 30 seconds in porta-john, get back on bike.
60. Ride bike, feel queasy and bloated, take 3 salt tablets at once to make sure you’re not low on electrolytes. Throw up.
61. Get off bike, sit in change tent wondering why you are doing this. Listen in disbelief to volunteer telling you you’re almost done. Proceed to marathon course.
62. Realize that you should have practiced the 1000 calorie drink at 2:00 am before race day.
63. Throw up, walk, jog, repeat for 26 miles.
64. Start gagging at the thought of another energy gel.
65. Sample the variety of food at aid stations. Discover Oreos, the food of the Gods.
66. Invent the form of locomotion called the ‘ironman shuffle’. Feel proud that your 12 minute mile is technically not walking.
67. Pass your spouse. Make them swear to never let you do another one of these. Discover flat Coke, drink of the Gods.
68. See finishing chute. Sprint madly down the road high-fiving people and cheering while announcer screams your name. Realize it was all worth it.
69. Get to finishing chute, wait in line while a man takes his extended family over it with him.
70. Cross line, collapse into arms of patient volunteers.
71. Spend next two hours in med tent realizing that you should have drunk more fluids when it got hot.
72. Go to massage tent, eat cold pizza and wander around in a daze while wearing an aluminum foil blanket.
73. Stick around finish line until midnight to share in “the ironman spirit”. Beat 12-year-old to grab free socks thrown into crowd.
74. Look in disbelief at fresh and bouncy professional athletes dancing at the finish line.
75. Cheer last few athletes into the finish before midnight. Ask your spouse if you looked that bad. Be amazed that they spent 17 hours out there moving the whole time.
76. Go back to hotel, collapse in bed.
77. Wake up, go to bathroom, collapse back into bed. Repeat all night until the 6 IV’s the med tent gave you are through your system.
78. Wake up at 4:00 because your legs hurt so much.
79. Eat first breakfast.
80. Sit around until spouse wakes up, eat second breakfast.
81. Shuffle around town Monday morning wearing finishers T-shirt and medal. Smile knowingly at other fellow shufflers. Graciously accept congratulations from locals thankful you came to their town to spend money.
82. Eat third breakfast at all-you-can-eat buffet.
83. Go to Official Finishers merchandise tent. Stand in line. Pick out $200 worth of clothing with prominent logos on it. Stand in line, pay $600 for clothes. Contemplate getting a tattoo to immortalize your achievement.
84. Fall prey to peer-pressure and marketing techniques. Cough up $450 to sign up for the race next year – since it will sell out today, and this is your only chance to sign up!
85. Proceed to IM Hawaii roll-down. Hold out hope that, even though you finished 80th in your age-group, this will be the year everyone leaves early and you get the last spot.
86. Eat first lunch.
87. Go back to hotel, stare at the disgusting, sticky, smelly mess that is your bicycle and race clothes. Start packing things up to fly home
88. Eat second lunch.
89. Go to awards dinner, stand in line. Get poor food from buffet, remember you spent $20 a head so your family could enjoy this magical moment with you.
90. Watch hastily-produced race video. Closely examine each frame hoping they caught a glimpse of you on the course. Be disappointed.
91. Watch age-group athletes get their awards. Wonder how many of them actually work for a living, and where you can get some of the performance enhancing drugs they appear to be on.
92. Realize that one has to go all the way up to women’s 70+ age group before finding an age-group your time would have won.
93. Listen to long, excruciatingly boring thank-you speeches from various professional athletes.
94. Stand in line to get out of awards dinner.
95. Go to Airport, stand in line. Deliver $5000 bike to Neanderthal-like baggage handler. Pray. Reluctantly take finishers medal off to pass through metal detector. Proudly tell TSA personnel what you did on your weekend.
96. Get home, contemplate unpacking disgusting bicycle, decide to leave it until tomorrow.
97. Eat Bon-Bons and watch TV. Contemplate unpacking your bicycle and training again, decide to leave it until tomorrow.
98. Repeat above step for 2-10 weeks. Step on scale. Look at your fat, disgusting self in a mirror and remember you signed up for next year’s race. Unpack bike, chip mold off of seat tube. Show up at swim practice again.
99. Get ready to do it all again next year…

Today’s been crazy. VERY chilly swim at Aquatic Park (mid-50s I would say, and overcast with a breeze, plus a very strong and cold tide coming in). Jane and I got out after 45 minutes - we felt energetic, we were just super chilled, enough that we couldn’t talk. Another lovely surprise was on our 3rd lap when a bruiser guy ran RIGHT into me (after “skimming past” Jane – she shouted to try to warn me, but too late). KONK. And then he was mean about it. Jane’s reaction – and the reaction of the amazing 70 year old Danish woman with just a bathing suit and cap, no goggles or wetsuit - ”You should have told him if he’s such a great swimmer, why did HE run into YOU?”

Networking EARLY this morning, 1/2 hour cat nap, pack, swim, Sports Basement trip (to FINALLY replace our floor pump after it tore not one but TWO tubes as H prepared to take Angeline out for a ride), hang with Jane for a bit, drive home, collapse, read new Lava Magazine, work on the new front doors/picking colors for same with H…really tired now BUT had to sit down to get this down.

SO excited to go cheer my IronVinePeeps on tomorrow! Paula will drive me up with the kids, then I will hang with Mentor Margaret, then H will gather me up in the evening.

And for you VineIronPeeps, the most important thing to remember is:

THIS IS JUST A 140.6 MILE VICTORY LAP!

If you’ve gotten out there, gutted through all the workouts, puked through changing nutrition, bonked through understanding hydration, listened seriously to our coaches, gone from a guppy to a fish, gone from walking up Pig Farm to riding it, gone from surly puffing through runs to being able to walk and joke…that’s the Work. As they say in the country folks, “The Hay Is In The Barn.” Now it’s just time to do your Victory Lap.

Go VinePeeps!

I’m tired.

Mentor Margaret says that’s what happens about now. You’re just so tired of  training, tired of getting up at 5 a.m., tired of the pool, tired of your run courses, and perhaps particularly tired of your bicycle seat.

About 3/4 of my Teammates are doing the Vineman ironman-length race on Saturday – 2 days away! So exciting! [NOTE: It's "ironman-distance" not a sanctioned Ironman race - that's why they can't use the "M-dot" logo.] I will be up there most of the day to support them, and hope that everyone does great. I’m kinda jealous, I might add. Because on the day they have the Vineman, we have a 75 mile bike ride; on the day after, when they are DONE, we have an 18 mile run. And another century the week after. And a…

I’ve had some trouble dragging my sorry *ss to work out. I still have the nagging psoas issue, but I just feel tired all the time. Starting August 1, H and I will be going full-bore back onto a Good Eating regime – meaning, stopping all that “good stuff” that has crept into our gullets over the last few months. Alcohol, caffeine, bread/starchy carbs, milk products, gluten…no mo’. I’d like to lose a bit more of my “fuel belt” (a/k/a belly) before the event, and this is the only sure way I know to do it. By cutting out sugar/caffeine/etc., too, during the Ironman, things like the Coca-Cola that they pass out at the final miles of the marathon give you a real Kick. I’m all for that!

One of the big things that happened last week was my SOC Lifestyles interview went up. Michelle Bateman and I had a BLAST doing it. Here is the link. You can “scroll through” the talking parts if you don’t want to hear it (how I went from Couch Potato woman to an endurance athlete in 8 months), but you should definitely watch the parts where I take Michelle out to “do the sports.” We had to film it backwards – Run first, Swim last – for “hair and makeup issues” – and I surprised Michelle with not only a “finish line” (made up of a bunch of my scarves tied together!) but also by talking very seriously about how “technical” the bike part was – and then unveiling a TINY pink girl’s bike and a big white beach cruiser (with a basket) for her to choose from. It was such a blast.

So what else is up? I’ve been swimming at Aquatic Park with my new buddy from the JCC, Jane. Each time we go she’s been more comfortable; last week she smoked me. (She’s an amazing swimmer – just not an open water swimmer.) Last week we worked on sighting; she can now swim straight, too. It became a running joke that I would look up to make sure she was OK, not see her, stop swimming, and discover she’d basically set off at a 90 degree course to her previous line during the 3 breaths I had not watched her! It really was funny.

This time at the Park we had a little bit of an adventure. First, when we were getting into our wetsuits, a guy walked by on a cell phone saying “…oh YEAH, amazing, yup, a shark in Aquatic Park…” and then he walked on past. Jane didn’t hear him, but I did, and I was PISSED. She was just getting her heart rate down on open water swims – the LAST thing that she needed to worry about was a shark. I am quite sure that the guy was just being a jerk.

Then, just as we were at the end of our hour swim, we “ran into” a sea lion. I had made Jane purchase a flourescent pink swim cap so that I could see her – we joked that the sea lions needed to take up the “colored cap” as well! That was a big big surprise.

And now, for the Triple Brick. Last weekend was the “Triple Brick” for us Ironman Louisville/Canada folks (30 mile bike/hour run/30 mile bike/hour run/30 mile bike/hour run without stopping – it took something like 9-10 hours). (Vineman folks are on their Taper, so came out to do a bit of a bike and then cheer us on). Cue Music Here. (ha!) As head Coach Dave said in his email to us: “Triple brick is Freaking Hard and it’s meant to really test your plan, which is exactly what we saw out there.”

My biggest “question mark” going into the Triple Brick was still whether my nutrition plan would work. As I have said before, I have moved totally over to Infinit Nutrition. (If you click on that link, I get some “Infinit bucks” so I’d love you to use it.) They custom-make a “brew” for you with all the salts/carbs/protein/amino acids/caffeine/etc. that you need. I had used it for the Century, and some other training, but not for a long cross-sport training like the Triple.

I started the first 30 mile loop rarin’ to go – all sunscreen’d up and following Margaret, Josh, Sedonia and Nick. The course was fairly similar to the course that we had done the Double Brick on a few weeks before (when the Vineman folks did their Triple). Very pretty – out in Danville. My DailyOM Horoscope for that day was guiding my day: It was entitled Flowing Tranquility:

You may be feeling laid back which could make it easier for you to go with the flow and take things as they come today. Perhaps this sense of serenity might be due to your recognition that there is really little in life that you have to worry about if you allow yourself to put your trust in the hands of the universe. Being able to simply let go and let life take you where it will may not be easy, but you can give yourself gentle reminders throughout the day should any fearful or doubtful thoughts arise such as “I feel relaxed” or “Life flows easily through me”. As you do this, you could notice that this gives you greater peace of mind through a more permissive and accepting attitude of whatever may happen to you today.

Trying not to control things but instead to simply let them take their course brings more tranquility into our lives. Our ability to release into whatever might occur may not be something that comes to us easily – even when we are the most relaxed, negative and worried thoughts may crop up. Once we know this however, we can easily come back to our state of peacefulness by using simple affirmations or prompts to gently help our minds release any thoughts that we are holding onto which also hold us back. By letting yourself go wherever life takes you, you will find tranquility in the quiet acceptance of the way things are today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sedonia and Nick rode side-by-side down the back country road, and Margaret and Josh rode side-by-side behind them. There was no traffic for miles. I was behind them; I had a mirror on my sunglasses, so could see traffic and give the “CAR!” warning if anything came up that would need everyone to get back single file.

Well, almost anything.

We were a bit of a ways out of a lazy curve in the road and I glanced up, and saw a GRILL in my mirror. I couldn’t even formulate “CAR” – I just shouted “YIKES!” Everyone pulled into a quick single-file…as a Ferrari Club tore on past! It was SUCH an amazing sight to see! A 1/2 dozen or so Ferraris, different styles, all red (one maroon) roaring down this gorgeous sunny country road. Vrrrrroom!

The last car in the line was obviously a BMW that had gotten “caught onto the tail” of the Ferraris as they slowed down to get past us. I smiled and said to Margaret,” That’s their mechanic!”

I lost the “speed demons” on the back 1/3 of the ride (uphills, of course!) – but then along a straightaway that has a LOT of stop lights, I caught back up. Nick had a blowout that involved a NASTY puncture by a twisted safety pin (Sedonia stopped to help); Margaret, Josh and I followed the directions that said to turn RIGHT on Camino Tassajara and wound up doing an extra 5 miles when we found out that what the directions were “supposed” to say was stay on the road we were ON, it BECAME Camino Tassajara. Even with the detour, the whole tour took 2 hours. Then it was time to take a pitstop, and get off on the run.

The run was an out-and-back along a paved running trail (flat). I felt good, and did my “Airborne Shuffle” run. (Just running, no walking.) Coach Mike was out there to be sure that everyone looked okay and that the heat wasn’t taking its toll. My only misjudgment was not using the whole Infinit bottle (one bottle = 1 hour). That worried me a bit, because I try to be assiduous about “doing what I’m told” nutrition/hydration-wise.

Back into transition, and into the potty again for me (CERTAINLY hydrated!) I also saw Teammate Maria (“M-Dot”) Afan’s mom and dad – I had known Susan at a previous job, and that’s how I had initially met Maria. It was great to see her! She looked amazing. She was up in No Cal and had come to cheer Maria on.

Heading back out on the ride, I realized I was having to “guesstimate” a bit on the nutrition, because my Camelbak holds 3 hours’ worth of nutrition/hydration for me…and the bike only took 2. I still had “about” an hour’s worth of nutrition in the Camelbak, so I added 2 hours’ worth more and water. I figured that I should do my best to finish all of it, since I hadn’t finished off the entire hour’s worth on the run, and it was getting hotter.

Out and around the course…stopping a couple of times to do what I have realized REALLY helps me – just stop and stretch my back and shoulders. It makes a WORLD of difference.

On this round, on the “straight away” portion back (after dumping my chain on the way out – oy!) I ran into a cyclist, Raf, who said he had been on Ironteam before, and wanted to ride with me to Transition to see if anyone he knew was there (Mike Kyle, Kristie, etc.) Well, we got to talking and ONCE AGAIN, I missed a turn! This time we rode the “straight road” all the way to the highway! I was a bit embarrassed; we turned back around and came up the “correct” road, which added another 5 miles onto the route. I was going 2 for 2!

Out on the run again – and this time I wound up running OUT of hydration before getting back to transition! It wasn’t that far out (maybe 5-8 minutes), but far enough. After hitting the potty AGAIN (laugh), I mixed up the Camelbak and headed out.

On my first sip, I could tell that I hadn’t gotten the mix “right” – it was too weak. I had obviously put in 2 hours’ worth, not 3. I told myself not to sweat it – in actuality, the ride only TOOK 2 hours, so I should just try to get it all down, which would give me more hydration at the hottest part of the ride, anyway. And it was HOT! The “backside” of the ride had new tarmac, and the heat beat up from the smooth black surface. My feet were getting REALLY warm, but I couldn’t figure out a way around it. I just sucked down the Camelbak, stopped a couple times to stretch my back, and kept at it. I caught up to Sedonia and Paula turning down the last mile or so, and they looked a bit hot and tired. I suddenly got a surge of energy, and pumped on by. It was bizarre. Paula hooted at me!

The last run sucked. :-) I got off the bike, and Margaret told Paula and me that we should just run to the aid station and back, “no reason to kill ourselves.” I had to (can you guess?) hit the potty, then I headed out. Though the first 2 rounds I had been able to “Airborne Shuffle” through the entire run, I knew I would do a 5:1 run/walk combo. I also carried not one but 2 bottles of Infinit, because I was feeling low energy and a bit of a headache coming on from the heat. Oh and maybe a LITTLE from the fact I had been out there doing this for 9 hours!!

I was pretty much set to turn around at the Aid Station, but each time I would do the 1 minute walk, I would start up again and feel better and better. I thought I needed to remember that feeling for the actual Ironman, and so instead of stopping, I did the full hour out-and-back. By the end of it, I was feeling a LOT better, and was very surprised. That was a great learning for me. Just “keep on keepin’ on” and you can get through it.

Sedonia ran me in part way, and then near the end Simon and his wife were there to cheer me on. Then it was back to the cars to enjoy the sandwiches that Helen had purchased for us, and to pass around the “You Know You’re Iron When” T-shirt that Kathryn and I had made up (she did the iron-on and fit it to the shirt; I had of course collected the phrases). Once the Vineman is over, we’re likely to do it as a fundraiser. Too much going on this week!

And a few more “You Know You’re Iron Whens”…

“You know you are Iron when you email your personal trainer the race course description, map and elevation chart and her reply is: “OMG”.” (IronWu)

“You know you’re Iron when you’re heading down the freeway applying Body Glide to your neck to prepare for your open water swim.” (Jen Jay)

Mental Attitude for Ironman

from Triathlon Training

In the final days before you race an Ironman it is essential that you keep a few things in mind.

Ironman essence – Gratitude

The Ironman hype in the final week before race day often makes you forget the reason you are racing in the first place. Excitement is running high. Triathletes are everywhere, discussing race goals.

This is a good time to remind yourself why you started in this sport. It is very likely you were attracted to triathlon, Ironman, because of the lifestyle it provides you; its health benefits; the opportunity to visit the great places around the world where triathlons are held; and for the unique friendships that develop between athletes.

Ironman is a way to celebrate life: it is a gift to the have time, the health and the finances to take part in such a unique event.

Remind yourself of the above in race week and try to focus less on your splits in each discipline, age-group placing or Kona slots: those are only consequences of a great race execution, based on your fitness and mindset. 

Setting goals

Crossing the finish line is always at the top of the list.

Then you have secondary goals that are usually linked to finish times and/or improving splits in each discipline.

Be careful how you set them and what benchmark you use. Always keep in mind that race day conditions are unique and hard, if not impossible, to predict. If you want to improve your finish time of the previous year, or from another other race, you have to take into account that the conditions such as wind, temperature and currents will most likely be different.

Another problem with predicting finish times, especially for first-timers, is using times done in training: unless you have done an Ironman simulation it is impossible to know how you will react during the final half of the Ironman run. The result window is massive: you might have a solid day and run those 21km in 100 minutes or less, or if you may get cramps and take 3 hours, or more.

Confidence

Maintaining confidence in your training and race strategy in the final days before Ironman can be a challenge. As soon as you arrive at the race venue you bump into all those sponsored athletes walking around in and with the latest equipment, showing off their lean and vascular legs. Such sights can be quite intimidating to the first timer or beginner athlete.

Remember: before a race everyone looks like a champion – don’t let this hurt your confidence.

Another common thought on race week is: “I should have trained harder!”

You have already done the best you could. Perhaps you had to take a week off training due to work, family or health issues but those are situations we all face. Every single triathlete on the startline of an Ironman had to overcome some sort of challenge during their preparation so don’t worry, you are not alone.

Be realistic

One of the biggest differences between the short races and Ironman is that the latter provides a better opportunity for the athlete to perform according to ability. Never forget this on race day. If you are not feeling great in the swim or the early stages of the bike, stay calm: there is a long day ahead and you will have the opportunity to get into your rhythm as the race progresses.

Other examples are a slow transition or a flat tire: unlike the short course events where your race would be over due to those setbacks, in Ironman you can still catch up on the lost time.

There is no such a thing as having a great race based on experience or “luck”. At best you minimize potential problems by going under-trained into an Ironman but no miracle will happen. Your best choice is to adjust your goals and expectations to avoid frustration.

Rational vs Emotional

Keep your emotions in check on race day: don’t let them take over your race strategy. Adrenalin released in the first few hours of the race, with the type-A and competitive personality of each triathlete, plus the fact that everyone is well-rested and tapered is a perfect recipe for disaster.

The main mistakes happen in the cycling leg, especially during the first hours, when athletes are excited and forget a very long day is only just beginning. As a result, people start to race each other or just ignore their nutrition plan.

Another common mistake that results in an emotional, rather than a rational, approach is after a setback such as a flat tire or a penalty is that athletes tend to “make up for it”. Don’t. Stay calm and be patient in those situations instead. Ironman is a long race and you can slowly, over the next hours, catch up on the missed minutes. Please do not try to do it within the next 60 minutes.

Positive attitude

It takes between 8 and 17 hours to finish an Ironman. That is a lot of time for everything to go as planned, especially considering the myriad of factors the athlete can’t control. It is very likely that something will go “wrong” at some stage during the race.

After I wrote an article about the mental attitude towards the race day challenge last year, several athletes came to talk to me after finishing their Ironman and mentioned that already in the swim leg their race wasn’t going as planned: they couldn’t see the buoys and went off course.

Ironman is all about overcoming obstacles. The challenges start with your training routine, how you manage your work and family commitments with those long sessions that take a lot of your time and energy. The training is 90% of the Ironman experience and is the biggest challenge. Race day is only the celebration of getting to the start line. You will still be tested during the event, be it physically or logistically, but with your Ironman determination you will find a solution and make it to the finish line. 

Have a great race!

http://www.trifuel.com/training/triathlon-training/mental-attitude-for-ironman

OK, first of all, let’s just get this out of the way – look at this:

OK, I know that you can’t really read this. But you can “kinda sorta see” the hills. Suffice it to say that the highest percentage was FOURTEEN percent. Yes, a 14% grade.

Yo. Mama.

Here is actually a URL that shows the route - though the elevation map somehow spreads out and “averages” the elevations, so nothing looks as high. Hardie-har-har.

But I get ahead of myself. I haven’t blogged in a while. Before this, on Saturday (a week before this ride), Mentor Margaret and Swim Coach Sedonia and I did a 16 mile rolling hill run in Napa, which was great. I wound up running a lot harder than my set V-DOT (we ran at average 11 minutes/mile), but I felt OK about it because we did a 5 minute run/1 minute walk routine. I’m definitely going to use that during the Ironman. I used the Infinit I had gotten (more on that below) and it worked out well, as did running in a cycling jersey instead of a running shirt with a belt to hold a bottle. The next day (Sunday) was “Honey Do” day for me – Herbert had a LOT of things for me to do around the house, and so we got those done; Monday he and I did the 75 mile ride that was on the schedule. We went from home out Lincoln to the Marin Metric Century course, but we didn’t turn immediately right at Nicasio Lake – we turned left first (so heading out towards Pt Reyes), to Sir Francis Drake Blvd., then turned around and rode back and then up and over to the Cheese Factory. Instead of doing the big hill at Walker Creek, we turned left (away from the hill) and had a really lovely ride on the rolling hills out that direction, up to and a bit past Walker Creek Ranch. Then we turned around and came back out Hicks Valley Road and rode on back. Big Rock and the hill “up and over” to the Cheese Factory were not pleasant, but they were do-able. I did the whole ride on Infinit and was pretty confident I had FINALLY found the energy/salt/hydration solution for me. Tuesday I went running with my brother Jeff out in Ross around Lake Lagunitas (70 minute run) – it was great to catch up. There were some seriously steep spots and Jeff is an a-c-e runner, but he was patient with me when I had to walk or just jog. It was so great and a gorgeous day. Wednesday I did the spin workout on Angeline - Thursday I was out with Les, Jen and Melissa to Crown Road in Ross – which looks “over towards” Lake Lagunitas (Jeff had even actually pointed Crown Road out to me on our run, across the valley). We did a 60 minute run, and Melissa looked 1000% better since she had been able to kick her sinus infection. I had so much to do Friday I didn’t get a workout in – bad me – but I also knew that Saturday was going to be a killer! So that’s a week without swimming which is NOT good, since I am in Dallas this week and there is no pool to be “had.”

I spent Friday night at Maria M-Dot’s over in the East Bay so that I wouldn’t have to get up at an INSANE hour to get on the road by 6:30 a.m. as scheduled. We got up at 4:30 a.m., mixed nutrition, puttered around a bit, and pasted on our snazzy Safeway tattoos. (I had gotten a sheet of these for the Clear Lake 3/4 Iron, and found them when packing. I picked a little Tahitian design, Maria picked this “tat” which means “DREAM.”)

Then we headed on over to meet the “usual suspects” – Carol, Patti, Susie, Janice, Mel, Tiffany, Dana, Marina, Kathryn, Paula, Mary (I think that’s it) in Heather Farms Park.

We were a bit later than we expected (I was dragging, I admit it), and so what with all the to-ing and fro-ing (and pottying!) that generally needs to take place before a ride, Maria and I wound up being about 10 minutes behind the main “pack” of the Earlybirds.

We got on the road after a few false turns, and headed out through Mt. Diablo State Park. I have never actually been to Mt. Diablo, and certainly don’t know the East Bay. I had admitted to Maria driving over that I was scared of this. Even more scared than I’d been for any of the other workouts. This was going to be a bear – Three Bears, actually! – and that’s not the least of it…8,732 vertical feet of climbing including Grizzly Peak, The 3 Bears, Pig Farm, Reliez Valley Road, Tice Valley Road - “oh and” Mount Diablo and Skyline Blvd in Berkeley/Oakland.

I had decided to do the ride solely using Infinit, the new beverage that I had had made up on my training mate Missy’s suggestion. I believe I’ve mentioned it before – it contains all the calories, salts, etc. that you need – and they pride themselves that the “osmolality” of the drink is such that it won’t pull water OUT OF your system to “dilute” it. Apparently that’s a real problem with some energy drinks – if the “osmolality” is over 300 (parts of drink mix per x ml of water), your body can’t digest it without sucking water OUT of your system. It’s just simple Osmosis like High School Biology. Many of us mix “power bottles” of mix with Carbopro, energy beverage, etc. in them, then suck down water “as well,” but if you don’t drink enough water to “dilute” the osmolality of the “power bottle” this can happen, leading to gastric upset. I was hoping that this would work (I had my Bento Box full of Thermolytes, GU, etc. “just in case” it did NOT).

We got to the gate at Mt. Diablo and though Maria and I had talked about how nice it would be to ride together, she was a bit slower that morning than it’s comfortable for me to go and so with waves and Atta Girls we parted. She had said Mt. Diablo wasn’t that bad (Coach Mike calls it “relentless”) – but I have to disagree – I think it was brutal. And right at the beginning! I am sorry at times like this I do not ride in the East Bay, as the East Bay contingent of our team goes out midweek and “tackles” this hill. I wish that our North Bay cadre lived closer, and had that sort of thing set up. I think that would really help me. I don’t like to ride alone, and so I wind up spinning most of the time instead of getting out and doing hills, etc.

I wound up catching up with Dana after a bit, and she said she wasn’t feeling that great. After a couple turns I ran into Tiffany and Carol, then at a little ranger station before the Junction I ran into Janice. I pulled over to have a stretch, and she had me fill her Aerobottle – no way to get water in there when it’s all strapped down on the aerobars, and her “other” water bottle was filled with energy drink! I nearly poured MY energy drink into her bottle, but was smart enough to take a swig first (Infinit is clear). I put my water into hers, then filled up my bottle at the drinking fountain. We rolled up Janice’s jacket as small as we could, and I stuffed it into her back pocket; with the obligatory “potty break” we set off again.

I got to the Junction and headed down South Gate road, which was a blessed relief after all the climbing. At the end of the road though – WOAH! – the road is SO BAD! I managed to lose my GU bullet, which flew off (Maria lost her Garmin, but luckily was able to find it and it was OK). I am not sure I have EVER seen a road that bad, including the bad bit in Clear Lake.

I rode solo for quite some time, and in fact missed the first TNT water stop at Shannon Park. I’m not sure how I missed it – but when I took out the typed directions and looked at where I was, I was a couple turns past it. Somewhere along the way I passed Marina and Mel – Melissa had gotten her FIRST flat (in like 6 YEARS of cycling!) and was changing it. I asked if they were OK and they said they were – she had the tire off – but come to find out that after she got the new tube seated, etc. she didn’t have the right CO2 cartridges! I guess that’s how we all learn these things! (I have now had PLENTY of flats – especially as if H gets one he has me change it, too, for “practice.” On the 75 mile ride, he got a back-wheel flat RIGHT at a spot I had had TWO flats about 4 months previously. Something is up there.)

I did finally see a TNT stop where Dana’s wife Ro was womanning a station. That was good because it was 3 hours in and time for me to juggle getting the Infinit mix/more water/etc. into my Camelbak. I had made a 3 hour “concentrated” bottle and one of just plain water, and those were on my bike. Ro helped me top off the Camelbak with more water (and ice), and then I had another 3 hours’ worth of powder that I made another concentrated bottle with, plus the other bottle of water. After a potty break (which made me feel I was doing well with my hydration), I was off to climb up the hill from Ro’s car. I had seen someone taking off as I was coming into the stop. I had thought it was Paula, but after a bit of a ride I caught up, and it turned out to be Susie (Paula and Kathryn SMOKED the ride – I never even saw them). She stopped on the side of Dublin Grade and we shouted Atta Girls at each other, then off I went.

My hands/wrists were getting tired as was my right shoulder. Not sure “what up” with that – I had had Rand re-fit me with new handlebars after I had had SO much pain in the Wine Country Century (WCC), and everything had been going well until that day. I wasn’t sure what was up, but I decided that I would have to do what I had learned in the WCC – when I felt that I had to, I just pulled over and stretched my shoulder, my back, my neck. It felt like a little luxury, even though I generally wasn’t stopped for more than a minute. During one of these stops the “big guns” from the group that started at hour after us passed by - first Carolyn and Nate, then a bit later, Chris, BK, Jim, then Rocky, Sara, Josh, Tony, Nick, etc. As usual with our wonderful team, everyone wanted to be sure I was ok – “Just Stretchin’!” – and off they went.

There were some amazing and breathtaking views on Grizzly Peak Road and also Skyline Blvd. I have never been up that way, and it was magnificent. I was in a bit of a grumbly phase though along the way – the roads were a little bumpy, and my shoulder was hurting. There was also really no place to pull over and stop. I turned a corner and there was a big TNT stop and I saw all our “peeps” including Honoree Laura, the “fast folk” and Coach Dave. I had had a noise emanating from my bike that had actually made me pull over a couple times (I could never find it) but as I started to head out of the stop after topping up with water, I saw that my bike bottle looked odd. Turned out that my cage was almost rattled off! Coach Dave had the right tool, and so we tightened them right up. Oy! That would have been REALLY bad – losing the GU bottle wasn’t that much of a loss (as the Infinit was working), but dumping my water bottles (WITH the cages attached!) would NOT have been okay.

I rode with Les and Jen and Tony for a bit, as we were tackling the “bears.” We were on the middle “bear” (Mama?) – I think – the one with the false summit – when Jen Jay was there in her car around a corner. I was SO glad to see her. I was nearly out of water, and though I knew Meenu and Claudia were up ahead, I felt much better to be able to square my hydration away. Les and Jen caught up at that point and Les mentioned this was a “false” summit. That did not make me feel so great (laugh!)

I remember on “Papa” Bear, Simon pulled up alongside, and I was definitely feeling it. I could tell there was a car next to me, but I couldn’t even look up. It was all I could do to keep pedaling. Then I heard someone clapping and I looked slightly left, and realized it was Simon. He shouted “You’re more than 1/2 way up Papa Bear! You’re doing great!” and then off he went. (I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know there was still about 1/2 “to go” but I really appreciated the Atta Girl.)

Once I reached Meenu and Claudia’s “best TNT stop ever” (complete with butt’r, sunscreen, Meenu Bars, red vines, salt, chocolate, cold washcloths, what-have-you) I was on my way. I checked with them to see what was coming up, and they said “Yes, more hills, and of course Pig Farm.” I wasn’t exactly sure where that was. Somewhere along the way Bike Coach Nick and I had chatted (might have even been right there at the stop), and he asked me what my strategy was. I said that Pig Farm had “bitten” me twice – once on a training ride, and once on the Louie Tri. I had had to walk the bike up the hill. I knew that the highest I had gotten was to a “sign” that’s on the first of the ”steeps” on the hill (it is steep, levels out for a second, then steep and steeper). My goal was to get past that sign – then I knew that I had done better than I had either of the other two times. I said that if I walked up it from there, I would still be satisfied, because I would have done better than ever before, AND would be 60 or so miles less “fresh” than those other 2 times, to boot!

I headed away from Meenu and Claudia’s stop (Nick had gone up off ahead), and was riding alone along the hills and dales of the countryside for a while. After a while, I saw a WALL of road ahead of me. I was really bummed – this looked nasty, and I wasn’t sure I could take it and Pig Farm too. I just geared down and started pedaling, but I got about 1/2 way up and I was exhausted. I realized that I could start up again after I had rested a bit (I had been practicing this “feat” of starting up again on an uphill), and so I rested, stretched, and then got back at it.

The top of the hill was REALLY steep, and as I was coming up to it at my snail’s pace I realized that there was someone with a TNT Jersey up there to the side. I got up to the top, and I saw it was Nick. The first words out of my mouth were: “Is Pig Farm harder than that?” Nick looked puzzled. “Harder than what?” “Harder than that climb. I don’t think I can do it.” “That was it.” “That was what?” “That was Pig Farm hill. You just did it.” “I WHAT?” Nick started laughing…”Yes that

was it, you did it. I knew you’d said that you were going to be OK if you walked it and I saw you stop your bike, but you surprised me and got back on and finished it. You did it!” I slapped him a High 5 and could feel the adrenaline COURSING through me. I DID IT!

Interestingly, I wonder if I had KNOWN that it was Pig Farm, if (once past the sign that I wanted to pass) I would have “given up.” It’s a curious question – but one I don’t need to know the answer to!

I was PUMPED riding down from Pig Farm. I put the pedal to the metal and RACED down. Nick was right behind me and at one point he said “You have REALLY gotten to be such a good cyclist!” That made me feel AWESOME! Nick peeled off to join Jen and Les at another of Jen Jay’s impromptu water stops, but I just waved on by, and headed up the dreaded Reliez Valley Road. I had not anticipated that Muthah – and it was HARD. I asked Coach Mike after if we had done that in the Louie Tri (because we had done Pig Farm, of course) and he said no – we had peeled off on another route before hitting it. The funny thing is as I was on it, I thought that we MUST have done it on the Louie, so I was “determined” since (in my mind) I had done this months and months before (on my old bike) and hadn’t walked…ah, the Mind is so interesting. (On the Louie, I had only walked the Pig Farm part.) But of course we hadn’t done that at all. And boy, It SUCKED. But I persevered – and every now and again, stopped, and stretched. I can’t explain what a difference this made. And thinking I had “done this before” (on the Louie) and I “must just be more tired” because I was hitting it 70 or so miles into a ride. As I said, ah, the Mind…

I rode along again, and ultimately wound up turning on Olympic (there was another TNT Stop there in the shade, but I didn’t need it), and then hit Tice Valley Road. For me, this was the final insult. (laugh!) It was REALLY HARD! I was an unhappy camper and really just SO DONE with hills already! I wound up missing the turn back onto the bike path trail when I was sooooo close to being back, but some passers-by helped me find it. At the first part of the bike trail the pavement was like moguls – honestly – they were big waves up/down/up/down/up/down. It was odd because you couldn’t really ‘see’ them because of the afternoon light, and so I wound up just going “Woah! Woah! Woah!” Luckily Nick met me about then and I followed him in – I say “luckily” because at one point the trail we were supposed to follow went “up and over” a bridge that went over the highway, and NO way would I have gone the right direction as there was another seemingly “better” trail to the side. Thanks Nick! You rock!

I got back to the Park, and I had 9:26 of full elapsed time, 8:38 of moving/riding time. I had only prepared “Nutrition” for 9 hours, but had been able to top up about 1/2 way through my final (third) Camelbak with water so I was fine. The Infinit worked like a champ, and I was able to sit down and lounge with the team (and stretch my aching right shoulder) and munch lumpia, Pringles, Meenu Bars, Coke, and the like!

After the last of us was in, we were off to Sports Basement for a 20% off spree (THANK YOU Sports Basement) and a team pizza-and-beer meeting. Then it was time to gather Maria up and drop her off, then get back home. I was nearly there and my tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks. I really dragged myself those last 3 miles of driving – and got home, showered, and hit the sack!!

The next day (Sunday) was supposed to be an Open Water Swim and a Run – I was set to go with Mel to meet a gang up to the Vineman course, but H was feeling a bit left behind so I texted her that I wasn’t going to be able to make it, and got back in bed. I woke up at NOON – no Herbert, sun streaming in! He “hadn’t wanted to wake me” and had taken off on Angeline for a ride around Paradise to Sausalito for brunch!

I cleaned the house a bit, and then prepared to be interviewed for SOC Lifestyles. We had such fun. They did the main “sit down” portion of the interview on Sunday, and then Monday (yesterday) we “simulated” an Ironman. I surprised Michelle (the presenter) with a few things – I had strung together a bunch of my scarves and held them across the path so that she could “break the tape” and presented her with an Ironman (coffee) visor…I had also gotten a TINY little girl pink bike with streamers, etc. and a huge white beach cruiser with a basket for her for the bike (after being very serious on camera about how “technical” and “important” the equipment was on the cycling portion) – then we all went out to swim at Aquatic Park. I had such a blast, and we just laughed and laughed. I hope that it comes out on the video.

We got out of the water at Aquatic Park with the usual post-open water/salt/bay swim “Oh So Sexy” look (yeah…and FILMED, too), and then I took them to Sports Basement (Michelle wanted some Injinji socks for her husband) and then they were off to the South Bay. I hightailed it home and Sue Bird was already there for the Goal/Manifestation Workshop that we were holding that evening. I jumped in the shower, warmed up, washed out the wetsuits, and then it was time to get the Workshop going. 4 of my teammates came, and I think we all really had a fantastic and profound experience. YAY! This morning, up at 6 a.m. to go sub at BNI at McInnes Park, catch up on emails from being off the computer for 4 days, write this blog (and you wondered why my blog posts are few and far between?), approve the draft of my new Fempowerment Playbook for “blue line” (draft) publication (we get one that we look at before it goes to full print), and today I think I will run. Tomorrow I have a MUCH needed massage in the morning, have some more time to “catch up” with things falling off my desk, then I have to pack for Dallas. I am leaving Thursday from Oakland airport at SIX so I have to get up around 3:00 - the plane takes OFF at 6:00 a.m.! I guess it’s long term parking for me – not a chance I can get a ride at that hour! Then in Dallas through Sunday at 10 p.m. I plan to run outside there (humidity, come and get me) and use the spin bikes in the Hyatt gym. They don’t have a big enough pool to make a difference, but I will take a suit anyway and maybe I can find a time to do some drills.

So – that’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it!

More You Know You’re Iron When’s from the weekend…

…when you take 20 lbs of ice to the tub with you and don’t even flinch. (M-Dot)
…when your cat drinks from your ice bath. (Kathryn)
…when you catch yourself talking about energy/nutrition and you sound like you’re part of an underground drug ring. As per an email from Maria: “I caught myself saying to Phil yesterday… ‘So you’re off the Cytomax now?  How long has it been?’ ”
…when you can unlock your water bottle with your teeth while climbing up to Mt. Diablo Junction. (Melissa)
…when you go to the bar for a drink and realize all your money is in your bento box. (Nate)
…when you didn’t even REALIZE that THAT was Pig Farm! (me!)

Team,

This week we say goodbye to the June calendar page and move onto the July page. That’s right folks, some of you are ON YOUR LAST PAGE.  And we have finally added our Canada and Louisville athletes to the “single digit weeks to race day” club. To quote the Grateful Dead, What a long strange trip it’s been!

This weekend was another one for the record books. And we are not just talking about the weather almanac here folks! We completed our first ever double/triple brick from the Yountville City Park and by all accounts it was a very successful day. Thanks to captain Les for coordinating the training day and working behind the scenes to ensure we had all the support we needed out there during the long and very hot experience. Huge props to Coach Sedonia for coordinating the delivery and execution of the Sandwiches. We heard more than a few “this is the best sandwich ever” comments. Also thanks to Mom & Pop “Yosh” for being the best darn transition area helpers EVER and Meenu, Mike, Simon, Laura, Jen Jay, Merla and Mike K. for the added support and smiles all day long, it was sometimes just what the doctor ordered.

On a special note, a few of you got a firsthand opportunity to meet our newest “Honoree”, a passerby who stopped to thank you for what you are doing since he was diagnosed with blood cancer only a week ago. In that moment when you guys were contemplating turning back a little early, he arrived to remind you that the journey is far from over and that you needed to keep pushing for a cure to the disease that until only a week ago was “someone else’s burden”. It’s moments like that which truly ring home our task at hand and how incredible you all are doing at fighting the good fight.

The 2X/3X brick workouts are not without their challenges. Many of you had “ah-ha” moments of self discovery about your nutrition/hydration plan and generally how your body responds in adverse conditions this weekend. A couple of you worked out the kinks in your bike set-up, had a crash course in blister management or learned a thing or two about the impact that heat has on your ability to absorb nutrients. All of these lessons will add to your ever deepening understanding of yourself and your abilities come race day. Make no mistake, we have said it over and over again. If this were easy, it would be called Plasticman, not Ironman.  This is Ironman and it is hard, perhaps harder than you ever imagined. Some of you have overcome some pretty incredible physical and mental roadblocks to get where you are today and you should be very proud of yourselves. Nobody will think less of you because you didn’t complete every inch of this weekend’s brick workout due to injury or special circumstances. Nobody will think less of your if you do not make a cut-off or reach a particular time goal at your chosen event. Your success in reshaping your life, reaching for new milestones and becoming a more focused and centered human being is reward enough. We are Ironteam and there’s nothing and nobody that is going to take that from us. Only you can decide how you manage your circumstances on race day, but we know what kind of people you are, and that regardless of the outcome on race day, we know you will always be a member of an elite group of dedicated and truly exceptional people called Ironteam.

Let us step back from this moment in our time together and reflect a little bit about how far we have come. While we are not yet awaiting the starting gun for our event, we are very close. Everyone is now into single digits when counting the weeks until event day. Think back 34 weeks ago to that classroom in Berkeley when Simon had run-lovers and run-haters huddled in opposite corners of the room or when you were telling a complete stranger about the virtues of your favorite food or childhood memory during the modified speed dating session. There is not a single person among you that is even a shadow of your former self from that room at kick-off. The coaches looked over the room that day and saw a lot of scared faces, peppered with self doubt, fear and a whole lot of “what the Hell have I done”. Sure, there are lingering thoughts of doubt that creep in from time to time, but a vast majority of the time the thing you are doubting today is your limits. Some of you were a bit freaked out when we started mentioning the number of weeks until race day. Now we are hearing you plotting your course for that day, not how to make it go away. It just doesn’t get any more Iron than that.

The week ahead:

Monday:              OFF

Tuesday:              Swim (See calendar)

Bike – 90′ (TR-7 Pyramid) or hill repeats. Keeping with the hill climbing theme from June, we will continue the training opportunities in the far East Bay with a little twist this week. Endurance athlete and sports nutritionist, Matt Fitzgerald, will be speaking at Sports Basement in Walnut Creek starting at 7:00PM on Tuesday. If you would like to see Matt speak, there will be a group meeting at 5:15 to ride hill repeats together and be back in time for the start of Matt’s talk. If you would rather not attend Matt’s discussion, the regular meeting time of 6:30 is also good, consider it an athlete’s choice workout. Captain Tony will let you guys know his plans to a near east bay ride as well.

Wednesday:      Brick (50′bike + 30′run @ IM Marathon pace) – If doing an outdoor bike ride, choose a mildly hilly course without a lot of climbing. Short, repeatable loops will work well too.

                                Stretch afterwards for 20′

Thursday:            Run & Stretch (See calendar for workouts and past coaches emails for prior guidelines for stretching)

                                FINAL RECOMMITMENT

Friday:                  Swim (See Calendar for workout)

                                Strength workout: Core Routine with flexibility

Saturday:             MENTOR GROUP RUN

                                VM – 18mi. ~ LOU/CAN – 16Mi (See calendar for specific instructions) Mentors will send out meeting time and place information by Thursday PM.

Sunday:                OW Swim (OYO) – Get together with your teammates for some open water fun on independence day.

                                Bike (VM-45mi ~ CAN/LOU-75mi)

                                Fireworks !! (Happy Fourth of July)

You guys continue to amaze us!

Have a great week,

Sedonia, Simon, Mike & Dave

But back to songs. Iron Maria found the greatest blog. She shared it with me – it’s a gal who did IM Brazil. One of the things this gal mentioned was having 5 “go to” songs for when things got tough during the race. Maria and I have been bandying about what songs we are going to include – we both have Journey’s “Any Way You Like It” and ZZ Top’s “La Grange” – I have a very quirky list in fact which I will winnow down as the event approaches – but this Commodores song is on it as of now. I also ordered the Eagles Greatest Hits Vol. 1 from half.com for 50 cents which just arrived today – nothing like songs from high school (Take It To The Limit; Desperado) to get me howling away tunelessly as I bike along…

I picked up Mel at her house at 6:30 a.m. and off we went to Yountville – though I had had to return home not once but TWICE for things I had forgotten for the workout. The next day I received my checklist from my trusty elance.com Virtual Assistant Fiona from Connemara, Ireland – so I will not be stuck again! I sent Fiona all the checklists I had found, had, been given, etc. with respect to equipment/strategies/etc. for doing an Ironman, and she prioritized everything and put it into one “uberlist” for a shockingly low cost. Fiona Is A Goddess. It’s fantastic. If you want it, email me – I’m not putting this out for every Tom, Dick and Harriet. Besides, then I know that you’re reading my blog…

Mel had been sick, which sucked. I had the unenviable task of telling her that it was going to be in the 90s to possibly 100 degrees in Yountville – she hadn’t watched the news all week, and so that was a shockeroo. I was trying out my new Personal Iron Mix from Infinit Nutrition. (DO NOT ORDER YET if you are  thinking about it – I’m trying to get an Affiliate deal so that I can get anyone who orders it a discount.) There are “sliders” on the Infinit Nutrition website where you can customize your own energy “brew” – and a “real person” will go over it with you as well. Since it’s supposed to replace ALL your needs (salt tabs, carbs, etc.), it is WAY cheaper than the alternatives. Also, if the mix is “wrong” they will re-make it for you after you report what didn’t work for you. I have tried the new Ironman drink that they are now using on Ironman-sanctioned courses – it’s from PowerBar – and it DOES NOT work for me. Probably because of the Fructose. I was super bummed they moved from the new Gatorade formulation, which has neither fructose nor HFCS. Ah well.

We got to Yountville, set up our transition areas, and with a “GO” from Coach Dave (who was on crutches and Vicodin from knee surgery that week – big smile on his face…good drugs!) we were off. We went through the Town of Yountville, and I started feeling very “wary” – these are fairly narrow streets and I KNEW that the cars were probably 90% tourists…who would “door” you without even thinking about it. I wound up riding just about in the middle of the road, as did many of my Teammates.

We went under the Highway and then down a few streets, ultimately winding up on Dry Creek Road. Just past the highway underpass, I realized I had “mis-dressed” myself – something was whacky between Camelbak/jersey/sports bra. I pulled over (I was midpack), and the thing I SO LOVE about IronTeam is that I spent the next few minutes just saying “I’m Good! I’m Good! I’m Good!” because everyone slowed down and wanted to be sure I was OK. LOVE my teammates!

Once I had gotten myself “sorted” I was way-hay-hay at the back of the pack. I started out in this position at the beginning of our Adventure in Iron, back in November. As Marvelous Mentor Margaret always reminds me with a smile, I was the gal with a 25 year old steel frame bike with downtube shifters and pedal baskets, plastic Bell helmet of the same vintage, and my cotton sweats tucked into my white tube socks (and sneakers, not bike shoes) when we started. I’ve come a long way, bay-bee… 

I slowly caught up to the pack, then just kept my speed and picked off folks. My goal was really just to keep to an 80-90 cadence and keep my heart rate in the middle of my Zone (155). I was sipping the Infinit, and a little scared as to “when” I would bonk just using it and no Thermalytes, GU, what-have-you. The day definitely started heating up as we headed out hilly Dry Creek Road.

I wound up riding with Marina a good part of this time. We made a pretty good cadence team. I did my “Look Patricia”s on her – including a wonderful patch of pink flowers in the sunbeams between some oak trees, and two huge metal dinosaur sculptures that were up a driveway on the route! We made it to 13 miles in an hour, and turned around. (The deal was 15 miles, or 2 hours, whichever came first.) We headed back, and caught up to Coach Les and tailed him on the way home. He turned left MILES before we thought we were to turn off Dry Creek – good thing we found him, Marina and I might have blithely ridden back to Marin!

We changed from our jerseys, bike shoes, etc., loaded up with energy drink for the run, and headed out together. Coach Sedonia pointed out that I had my shirt on backwards – as I wear a fuel belt, that meant taking everything off and re-dressing myself. What WAS it with me and clothing…? This bit was to run for an hour or 5 miles, whichever came first.

Man, the day was really heating up by this point. Marina ran at my “slow run/trot” pace (I think it’s about 12 minutes/mile), and I kept saying “don’t forget I am only doing TWO of these, you have to do THREE.” I really liked having the company, but I didn’t want her to exhaust herself when I was running and biking with the knowledge that I only had to do TWO sets (Vineman folks had to do a Triple, Louisville a Double, because their race is a month before ours).

We ran out for 1/2 hour – after commenting on the lovely herd of cows with One Big Bull on the side of the road (with crazy horns) – and met up with Maria, then turned around. We were shy of the 2.5 mile mark; Rocky pointed it out to us, but it was way farther along, so we turned. We also realized that we were both a little spastic in the “run and drink” department, so started to walk when we would reach bits of shade, to be sure that we drank our whole bottles down. I had mixed up an hour bottle for the run, and when we got back, remixed another Camelbak full for the 2nd bike. Mrs. Yoshida was honestly an Angel, fluttering around with ice cold washcloths, filling up our bottles with ice water, and the like. We are all so in love with the Yoshs!

Marina and I headed back out through Yountville, both of us being even more careful this time around, as there were lots and LOTS of tourists out and about. We did have one odd “you first, no YOU first” with a truck – but that was it. No dooring, no cars pulling out without looking, etc.

We got through the streets that ultimately got us to Dry Creek Road,and caught up with Kathryn, Maria and a few others. Marina said that Kathryn was one of her biking buddies, and so she hung back to chat. I knew this was my last round, so I wanted to see how well I could do. The Infinit was working like a charm – I had had a “potty break” when coming in from the run, but nothing bad, and I felt very hydrated and happy. I caught up to Les and Jen then, and wound up going past them as well. I had a good cadence going, and I had one of my “Soundtrack Songs” going in my head (I Can Transform Ya). I felt great.

OK, I felt great until I hit the Pothole From Hell, which was right in the middle of some dappled shade. If you’re a cyclist, you know that dappled shade is NOT your friend. The road was either very well paved or it was awful (as in, the sort of awful just before they grade a road), so this pothole came as a complete surprise. Angeline hit it so hard that it knocked my teeth together (I bit my tongue so hard it bled), and my shoulders were rocked back into their sockets. I honestly thought I had just thrashed my bike (and shoulders) and that there was NO WAY she was going to come out of it fine. That bike takes GOOD care of me – because when I pulled over and stretched my shoulders, looked over the wheels, etc. – everything was fine. OK except my tongue. Yowch.

This time, I made it to mile 14 just a bit before the hour turn-around time. There was a downhill that came next going towards mile 15, so I decided to turn a bit before the hour mark because otherwise I would be turning around in the middle of that hill. I had passed Rocky with a flat (being helped by Sedonia and Mary), and he wound up passing me right at the point I was stopping. With the usual wonderful IronTeam way, he slowed down (he was booking, obviously trying to reach 15 and make up for lost time) and I just shouted “I’m Good!” and he laughed and sped on by.

Marina caught up with me somewhere along Dry Creek (I think she said she turned around at mile 13), and so we rode together again for a while. Coach Sedonia rode with us as well, and that was a lot of fun. She had a great cadence and I was kind of laughing to myself, as we were keeping the same cadence, but the bar of her bike was like a foot closer to the ground than me! (Well, that’s an exaggeration, but suffice it to say that I am about a foot taller than Coach Yosh.) Last time we were together we were singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (Weem-O-Way) at the top of our lungs at Clear Lake while I was getting loopy at the end of the 16 mile run.

Marina and I changed again into run clothes, and I made the mistake of picking up my recovery drink bottle instead of my Infinit bottle. And it was warm. UGH!!!! We headed out, and it was really scorching on the pavement by this time. We ran from tree to tree, shade to shade – and Marina put up with me gagging down the not-energy drink and complaining with every swallow. She looked tired and I kept saying she should slow down because I knew she had the triple (though I really didn’t want her to leave me!) We got to 15 minutes out and I thought we should be more systematic with our walk breaks, so we started doing a 4:1 (4 minute “trot” then 1 minute walk). We did that for the rest of the first 30 minutes, and made it farther along the road that we had gotten before. Then we turned around, and came on back.

After getting more water (and Red Vines!) at Coach Simon’s SAG table, we caught up to Maria. We all ran together for a while, though she was running on a timer on her Garmin and her pace was faster than ours. Then Coach Sedonia came out – first running with Maria and picking up her pace, then running with me for a bit, then running with Marina. When she left me, I kept to the 4:1 until we were close to the turn to head back to the Park. I saw that Maria was on the walk break of her 4:1, and so I summoned up the energy to get up to her, which rallied her. :-) It was actually fun, because she had said she was having some issues (can’t remember what – nausea? headache?) and she didn’t look so great when she stopped for that walk break (hands on hips, head down). I wanted to be sure we both came in strong, since we are both doing Louisville so we were both coming in on our final “bit” for the day (“only” 2x brick not 3x like the Vineman folks). She rocked that run in!

Marina was a ways behind and she looked beat. She ultimately did get out and do the final bike – not sure how far she went – but she Ironed up and gutted it out. Mel had been having troubles as well, and Mentor Margaret rode out with her on her final bike ride. She was having the issues I have been having – super HOT feet on the bike. Margaret mentioned I should try wearing H’s shoes (which are a size larger) – so I am going to see if I can remember to try that on the next bike ride. IronPhil, Rocky, BK, some others had issues – it was a “humbling” experience, if that’s the right word – all these super duper athletes puking and the like. It was a hard and HOT workout, that’s for sure. I mentioned Infinit to BK who was having serious cramping issues. I am not saying it’s for everyone, but it sure worked for ME.

Unfortunately I had to cut out because we were having our Neighborhood Picnic that night – and where they set up the tables is right in the court under our driveway! So I was sad that we weren’t able to stay for the Spirit Cape presentation. As usual, something happened in the car that made me start laughing so hard I nearly had a wreck – Mel calls it our “Homeward Bound Ab Workout” - it made me laugh and laugh and laugh the rest of the day and into the next. I remember what it was about, but I will just keep that a secret.

Today is Tuesday – Monday was a rest day, and today was a 3500-ish swim and then a 90 minute Spin. I did them back to back at the JCC after subbing at the McInnes Park BNI at 7:00 a.m. I got home at like ONE! I have to admit, it will be NICE to have my life back after the race…at least until I decide to do some other darn’ fool thing. :-)

Songs on my current Soundtrack (not in order, and  subject to revision and addition):

Any Way You Want It
I Can Transform Ya
Summer Nights
We Belong to the Music
Mercury Blues (David Lindley)
Pour Some Sugar On Me
Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing
Express Yourself (Glee cast)
Ice Ice Baby (Glee cast)
Relax
The Lion Sleeps Tonight/Wimoweh
Solsbury Hill (live)
I Gotta Feeling
Beautiful Day
Down
It’s Raining Men (live)
Love The Ride
The Stroke
Lady Marmalade (Moulin Rouge version)
Spirit In The Sky
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Little Willy
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
Baby I’m A Star
Bad Romance (Glee cast)
Just Dance
Hollywood Nights
Fever (L.E.X. Bette Midler’s On Fire Radio Mix)
Heads Carolina, Tails California
Brick House!

I haven’t blogged in a while – lots going on, including finalizing my second book (a Companion Playbook to my first book). Also getting some speaking gigs, taking care of “Honey Do” projects and – surprise! – the ubiquitous Iron Training!

I’ve had an Open Water swim and LOVELY bike ride with Iron Mel, a “dropping my drawers” incident in a flip-turn at the JCC (watched by a bunch of kibbutzing old men in long swim shorts and kippot – just too funny), some “You Know Your Iron When” stuff…but right now what’s on my mind is my BONK yesterday.

BONK! (OK I find it COMPLETELY hilarious that on this link to the word “Bonk” on dictionary.com, there is a paid link for Power Bars. Yeah that should have warned me…)

Yesterday was actually a rest day – I did Sunday’s workout yesterday, because Sunday (Father’s Day) was a serious Honey Do day for me at home, then we went over to Mom and Dad’s for a BBQ . . . no time for a 14 mile/2 hour run (14 miles or 2 hours, whichever is less). So yesterday, I did this run – from my house to Buckeye Point in China Camp, and back.

I had a lot of stuff to do yesterday, too, and so I actually didn’t get running until about 4:00 p.m. I had a few things on my agenda – to see whether I could actually run on just water and GU/salt tabs as a lot of my teammates do (quick answer: NO), to practice good form, to try to run at ”around” my Easy/Long pace (about 12 minutes/mile). It’s tough, because I don’t have a Garmin, so unless I go out and map each mile and look for a milepost, I have to sort of “feel” how I’m doing.

I started from home, actually using my GU Brew mix, with a GU Bullet and Thermalytes. It wasn’t all that warm, a pretty nice temperature actually. I felt pretty good. HOWEVER, somehow I had it in my mind I was supposed to do EIGHTEEN miles, which, at my pace, would be just under FOUR hours. Don’t ask how I got this in my head. I have no idea.

I got from home to the JCC (about 4.5 miles) and was trying to pay attention to keeping my shoulders back and chest more open (I have a tendency to ‘cave in’ that H keeps trying to fix when we run together). I stopped in, filled my bottle with water (to try my “running on just water/GU/Thermalytes” tactic), had a pit stop, and back out I went. The best part was the (70 year old) guard asked me what I was up to, and when I told him I was running out to China Camp and back, he said “Are you on a college track team?” When I told him I was a few decades past that, he made me take my sunglasses off and he said “You look GREAT! I hope you don’t mind my saying so.” HECK no, bring it on! Of course I was wearing my running skirt and my tall injinji Compression socks (so, knee-high white socks) – I probably looked like some schoolgirl fantasy. I mean, if you took your contacts out. And had a glass of wine or two. And were about 200 feet away.

My plan was to turn around at Buckeye Point, which has water and a restroom. I ran along, and was feeling OK – though I was using up the water a lot faster than I thought I should, so I tried to “conserve” some. I’m always a bit wary that there will be a “problem” wherever I have planned to get water (however, I didn’t have a backup). I also started feeling a little sick in my stomach. At this point I “remembered” from when I used to work out (that was 20 years ago, mind you) that the REASON that I always added something to my water was that my stomach doesn’t handle straight water all that well. Even out gardening, etc. – water makes me feel a little sick. Did I have a “backup pack” of GU Brew to dump into it, just in case? Um, no…

I get to Buckeye Point in the time that I had set to get there – 2 hours. Remember, I had somehow gotten it in my head that I was to run FOUR hours or 18 miles. I think that I was thrown off because some of the Facebook postings of Team members had said they had run 16 or 17 miles – whatever – anyway that’s what was in my head.

NO WATER.

There was a couple camping at Buckeye Point – and she said that the Restroom AND the Water were locked “for some reason.” The big bruiser husband was snoring away on top of a picnic table, the wife was standing and rocking/cradling their sleeping child (she was tiny – it was sort of funny, the kid was nearly as big as she was, and it was just a small boy). I whispered to her did she have any water, and she pointed down to her feet to a Coleman, and said I could check in there. She didn’t speak much English (she was Thai). I opened the cooler, and there were 3 beers and a big fish. I shook my head, and she made a face like she was sorry.

Not as sorry as I was…

So, back I went. I had been “nursing” the water on the way out to Buckeye Point, “just in case” there wasn’t water there – but I really hadn’t EXPECTED not to get water. So now I had 1/4 bottle of water to get back out of the Park. I stopped on the way at a few guys putting up their mountain bikes, etc. – no one had water.

By the time I reached the climb on the road out of the Park, I realized I was Not Doing Well. I started feeling a little dizzy, and just “odd.” I had my phone, and knew that I could call H to pick me up, but I also in a way wanted to feel how this was going to go, so I would have the “experience” and work through it. Though I had had an awful time in Sedona at the 1/2 Iron, that was due to too much protein and getting dehydrated by diarrhea in the run – a different ballgame to this.

I walked up the uphill out of the park, and then actually “ran” (trudge-jogged) on the downhill. I was still using the GU and the Thermalytes with small sips, trying to get “something” to make me feel better. But obviously, what I needed was fluid.

I remembered suddenly that not only had I put a $10 bill in my pocket upon leaving (my Run Angel was DEFINITELY looking over me), but that there was a 7-11 about 1/2 way between the end of the Park and the JCC. I just kept focusing on the fact that I was going to get there, and get something, anything, that would rehydrate me.

At a really low point, when I really thought I was kinda “done for,” I saw a penny on the road - Teammate Liz says that when she sees pennies, she knows that her brother is with her – so I asked him to help me. I have to find out his name – I just kept saying thank you to “Liz’s Brother” for the help. I kept talking to him (he is not someone I know, but he is one of our Honorees in LLS – he sadly passed away from cancer, far too young). It helped me out. I was so glad to have him with me.

I thought the 7-11 was around a bend, and then…it wasn’t. I felt really defeated. I actually was whimpering. Then I saw another penny. This one was really shiny, face up. It was almost saying “LOOK AT ME.” I had this feeling that Liz’s brother was telling me that the 7-11 WAS coming, it would be okay. I wasn’t so sure, but I put my trust in him.

I finally got to the 7-11 two turns later, and was feeling pretty surreal by this point. I was trying not to whimper as there were people around. I was all set to get something like Snapple (which uses sugar, not fructose or HFCS) and add some salt to it – but wonder of wonders, they had the new Gatorade “Perform” which doesn’t have fructose or HFCS – and it was 1/2 off! So I bought 2, count’em 2, 32 oz. bottles (for $2.00 total), and as there was a long line, I cracked one open right there in the store waiting for my turn behind all the lottery-pickers and chaw-buyers and giggling middle-school-girl-Slushie-flirters, and sipped away. By the time I got outside, I was about 1/2 way through the first bottle.

I added the 2nd bottle to my empty water bottle (it’s a 32 oz. bottle), and then walked away, still sipping the 1st. Knowing me, I was more than a little perturbed that I didn’t have to use the Restroom at the 7-11, THAT is when I REALLY knew I was dehydrated!

Well, all I can say is, Gatorade = Miracle Cure. I was about 1/2 way between the 7-11 and the JCC (where I was going to stop if I didn’t feel any better, and call H to pick me up), and I felt WAY better. So I ran from there to the highway underpass without stopping, then as I turned onto Lincoln from there, walked up the uphill (which is rather long), but then ran down the downhill. I told myself that I would run to Mission, then see how I was doing.

I got to Mission, and more than anything else, my feet were hurting. I could also feel that I had a blister going on the side of my big toe (though I was wearing my Injinji socks). I decided to walk up a block or two, and turn onto Fifth.

I was feeling a LOT better (and not sloshy – I was about 40 oz. into the Gatorade by this time but no slosh). That’s when I remembered Uncle Chris my Run Angel. I asked Uncle Chris to get me home. I explained to him that I would run until I got to a stoplight, and it was up to him to turn the lights red so that I could rest.

OK, so when the FOURTH light in a row turned green JUST as I was approaching it, I started talking to Uncle Chris out loud. “NOT FUNNY, CHRIS, NOT FUNNY!” I’m lucky no one was on the sidewalk with me – that’s why Team Workouts are so much better, it’s no fun getting Athletic Tourettes alone.

On the SIXTH light I finally got a red, and then walked into Sun Valley. I told myself I would run from J Street to “the stopsign” (going up Racquet Club) or 4 hours – whichever came first. I saw Sun Valley Market, and was going to stop there – but I didn’t. At that point, I had been out 3:58. I only had 2 more minutes to go – but when I rounded the curve, there was the Stopsign. I was whimpering a wee bit (there were folks walking dogs ahead – didn’t want to scare them), but I knew I needed to go all the way to the Stopsign. So I did.

The slow, slow, SLOW walk up Racquet Club to River Oaks to Moody to home took about 15 minutes (usually, about 8). I got home, and turns out H hadn’t gone to the gym after all – so he was there. I walked in and I’m sure I looked like a train wreck. He got me up to the shower, and then made me dinner and sat me on the couch and massaged my feet and legs. My hero.

Yes, so, I know, lots of “I should NOT haves…” in this story (for example, I SHOULD NOT HAVE run out into a desolate wilderness area without being 100% sure the water was on that I would need to make it back out). Lots of “I SHOULD haves” too (for example, I SHOULD have had a little baggie of drink; I SHOULD have looked at the schedule to check the distance/time). But the one thing I know is that I survived, and that I can “come back” if I feel truly awful. This is a good learning for me – because, besides the Sedona “runs” issue, I have never even come CLOSE to this feeling.

Now, I will NEVER EVER do it AGAIN! That’s ENOUGH!

Time to go Swim and Bike Hills. Yeah, so Iron.