my one year iron-versary

Facebook has some features that I find to be rather irksome at times, but today, I thought it was pretty cool that in the side bar, it had "On This Day in 2010" along with the two status messages I'd posted one year ago today. 

The first status message, posted in the wee hours of the morning, read:  It's a great day for 140.6 miles in Louisville!

The second status message, posted at the very end of the day, read: Anne-Marie is an IRONMAN! :) 13:23:20! 38th/120 age group starters, 942th overall. I got clocked in the head on the swim, I am sunburned, chafed & blistered, and I probably won't be able to walk normally for a week, but this was such an incredible experience for me! I loved every minute of it (ok, *almost* every minute)! Thanks so much for the support, well-wishes & congrats. It means more to me than you probably think :)

(Side note:  apparently completing an iron distance race leads to lapse in basic brain function and/or such euphoric conditions that one writes "942th" instead of "942nd"!)  

It's crazy to think that it's been exactly one year since I did this.  A few friends of mine did Ironman Louisville yesterday, and it was fun to stalk them online check in on their times throughout the day and reminisce and try to remember what I was thinking and how I was feeling at particular parts of the course. 

But what I think is more important is to look at how finishing Ironman Louisville changed me.  I think we've all heard the adage, "You can do anything you put your mind to."  While finishing IM Louisville is an example of this in itself, I think having reached that goal has given me the confidence boost I needed to actually believe it.  I also think it gave me the confidence I needed to take my training and racing to the next level.  

I don't think I would have even attempted the Dirty Dozen bike ride last fall if I hadn't done Louisville. (In a way, the Dirty Dozen training filled the training void in my life after Ironman training ended.)  It also gave me the confidence to get back into road racing this summer and pursue the category 3 upgrade after thinking I'd never be able to move beyond category 4, and to believe I had a shot at qualifying for the elite amateur wave at the Philly Tri this summer.  

Ironman really is a life-changing experience, and I think it essentially comes down to this mentality:  "If I can finish an Ironman triathlon, I can (fill in the blank here with seemingly difficult or impossible task)."

I've had a blast doing a lot of relatively shorter races this summer, and over the course of the summer I had wondered if I'd want to do another Ironman in 2012 as I'd planned, or if I'd rather continue with the shorter races for another season.  Tracking the race yesterday, and re-reading my post from last year today, has reignited the spark to go back to Louisville next year.  Guess it's time to start saving up and allocating funds for the entry fee!  

Tour de Millersburg - Aug 12-13, 2011

After having a blast racing the Tour of the Valley (ToTV) stage race, I decided to sign up for Tour de Millersburg (TdM) in central PA since I’d heard it was a fun, well-organized stage race that drew a large and competitive field. There were 21 participants in the Cat. 4 women’s field, the biggest field I’ve raced in.

The residents and businesses of Millersburg were welcoming to the racers!

The first event on Saturday morning was the time trial. The Cat. 4 women were the first to start, and since the starting order was alphabetical, I was first, and found myself “chasing a ghost” like I did at ToTV. I’m used to time-trialing from my triathlon experience, but even though drafting isn’t allowed, you can still focus on catching and passing those ahead of you. With no one to chase, I relied on perceived effort and my power meter to let me know how hard I was riding. The course was a 9.5 mile out-and-back, comprised mostly of false flats and shallow rollers. Since I felt like I had a little too much left at the end of the time trial at ToTV , I focused on pushing harder early on. I was a little disheartened when, at the turn-around, I realized that the girl who’d left 30 seconds behind me had caught up to me. She passed me soon after the turn, but I kept her in my sights for the remainder of the race. This left me unsure of how I would fare in the time trial, but when the results were posted, I was excited to see that I’d snagged a 5th place podium spot – and $50!

After a quick lunch and a brief nap, it was time for the criterium race, an 0.8 mile rectangle through the narrow residential streets of Millersburg. I had a chance to ride the course a few times as a warm-up and realized that the turns would be very, very tight. The crit was a little frustrating because no one seemed to want to sit on the front and pull. A racer I’d met earlier in the season who is from Erie, PA, and I sat on the front for most of the race and talked about trying to work together to get a break. We made several attempted attacks, but never got away from the field. We did 19 laps for a total of 15 miles, and with about 5 laps to go, I could feel my energy fading. I dropped back in the field a little to try to conserve energy. With about a lap and a half to go, I got behind a bad wheel going into an uphill turn. The girl braked a lot going into the turn, and was not a strong climber, so we fell even further back behind the field. At that point, I had nothing left to chase down the leaders and finished in 12th place.

The compression sleeves are the best
way to pick me out of a crowd :)

The course was really technical. I’m not the most experienced crit racer, but this course had the narrowest roads and tightest turns I've seen.  For the first time, I caught an inside pedal on the ground going into one of the turns and it was the scariest. thing. ever.  The metal grinding on cement made this awful noise, my bike did a little skip forward, but, miraculously I stayed up, held my line, and didn't cause any crashes.  I watched the men's 1/2/3 race, and they were pretty much riding single file the whole time! They looked ridiculously fast and everytime they passed a big gust of wind followed them.

Sunday afternoon was the 36-mile road race. Of all 3 races at TdM, I was looking forward to the road race the most. The course was very different from the courses I’ve raced in Western PA, lacking significantly long climbs to break up the field. Millersburg is pretty rural, and the majority of the course was cornfields, farms, and farm animals.  One part of the road went through a big Amish farm and we even passed an Amish man driving a horse and buggy.  The majority of the course wasn’t technical, although there was one section of the 18-mile loop that had a sharp turn going downhill and then a short power-climb uphill. This would’ve been the ideal place to break up the field, but being that everyone had the same idea, no breaks were successful. More people took initiative to sit on the front than at the crit, and I once again tried to work with the Erie cyclist and an unattached cyclist from DC to get a break, but we were unsuccessful… this was a really strong field! With the exception of 2 or 3 riders who got dropped, the field stayed together for the entire race. The last mile or so is on a gradual downhill, and I knew I needed to move up early on to be in good position for the final sprint, but I waited too long. I crossed the finish line in 7th place.

One of the men's fields on the power climb. Couldn't find
one from the ladies' race, and I thought this was a really cool shot. 

I ended up in 8th place GC (General Classification, or the overall position from all of the races), which did not meet my goal of finishing on the GC podium (top 5). I can’t be upset over this though, because this race was a completely new experience for me and was a great learning experience. I learned I need to be better about double-checking my gear- I forgot to take my sunglasses to the time trial start with me, but luckily, one of the officials let me borrow his for my race.  (Hooray for nice people!)  I learned that I need to limit my time sitting on the front in a crit, even when I’m frustrated with the slow pace.  I learned about positioning in road racing and how important it is to get into a good position early. I learned what it is like to sit in a dense pack for 36 miles, constantly watching wheels and trying to anticipate a break. And most importantly... I had fun!

One of the unique aspects of this race worth mentioning was that they offered an “Adopt-a-Racer” homestay program, where residents of Millersburg opened up their homes to cyclists to stay with them during the race. The family I stayed with had 5 children between the ages of 6 months and 14 years, and were just awesome! They really made me feel at home while I stayed there and came to cheer me on at the crit race and the road race finish. Going into a race where I knew absolutely no one, it was so cool to have some familiar faces and voices in the crowds.

All around, TdM was a first-class event, and I am looking forward to racing it again in the future!

a good deal

I am backlogged on both writing and reading blogs, but wanted to share this deal through Active.com/Schwaggle:

50% off (either buy $40 and get $80 or buy $60 and get $120) at all 3 sports:

http://schwaggle.active.com/deal/2403/half-off-gear-at-all3sportscom

Hooray - it's like Christmas in August for me :)

Musselman Half Iron Tri Race Report - finally! (July 17, 2011)

This is by far my longest lag between a race and writing a race report... three full weeks, ack!  No reason for the delay in blogging about it other than shortage of free time.  I almost decided to skip writing a race report for this, but I want to be able to record some of the details before they totally fade from my memory AND I know a few people were looking forward to reading it, so here goes...

So, as you may have picked up from my post about the Musselman Triathlon experience, I had a great long weekend in the Finger Lakes region of New York.  This was not planned as an "A" race for me.  I had laid out my race schedule so that I had three consecutive Oly tri's, ending with the Philly Tri which was an "A" race.  Since Musselman fell exactly 3 weeks after Philly, my coach suggested we use this race as a benchmark to see where I'm at for this distance, since I hadn't raced a 70.3 in two seasons, and also because it would be difficult to target my training for the Oly and 70.3 distances at the same time.  Surprisingly - I was alright with this.  I had some big expectations/goals going into the 3 Olympic tri's I'd done so far this season, and it was a nice break to go into a race with very lenient expectations.  I can't say there were no expectations, because I was thinking that something around a 5:30 finish should be do-able for me.  

I don't think there is one word to describe how I felt during the race.  I can honestly say that I ran the gamut of emotions from frustration to elation over 5 hours and 38 minutes of racing.  

I woke up on race day morning, ate my standard bagel with almond butter, banana, and coconut water.  I had taken my bike to transition the night before, so I just had to grab my gear and I was out the door with plenty of time to spare.  Less than 10 minutes after leaving my dorm room, I was parking my car and walking towards transition.  Hooray for easy race logistics!  

I had my things set up in transition with nearly an hour to go before my wave, and I came to the conclusion that I always need to plan on getting to transition as early as possible.  I was so much more relaxed knowing that my things were ready and I had plenty of time to get ready for the swim start.  

The swim start for this race was a first for me, because you had to walk out into knee/thigh-deep water for the start, and the water remained that depth for quite awhile.  I was in the sixth wave, so I noticed from the waves before me that some people were running/walking through the water, while others started swimming right away.  When it was my wave's turn to start, I walked/ran a little bit, keeping note of where I was relative to others who were swimming.  I tried to swim, but it was shallow enough that my hands were brushing the bottom in some places, so I went back to the walk/run thing.  I finally got into waist-deep water and started swimming.

  

With that, I began the worst tri swim experience of my life. Maybe not the worst from a time-perspective, but it was not in any way the swim I had envisioned (which involved swimming in calm, crystal clear waters that easily allowed for swimming in a straight line, while admiring the zebra mussels and aquatic plants on the bottom of the lake).  Because Seneca Lake is pretty big, there were waves.  Not huge breaking ocean waves, but waves and chop nonetheless.  The first ~2/3 of the swim is in the lake, but the last ~1/3 is in a canal that everyone said would be very calm.  I am extremely prone to motion sickness (as in, I have gotten sea-sick while kayaking on a lake - yes, I am that pathetic!) and I realized after a little bit that swimming in waves had the motion-sickness-inducing feeling.  As soon as I started feeling nauseated, I backed off the pace and focused solely on getting to the channel.  All I could think was how humiliating it would be to DNF because I got sea-sick during the swim, and wondered if doing so could lead to an embarrassment-induced withdrawal from the sport.  I wanted out of the water more than I have ever wanted out of the water during any swim - period.  I think I may have cried a little bit at some point, and I know that at more than one point I swore off triathlon for good in favor of road racing. 

Thankfully, I made it to the channel and it's calm waters without getting sick.  I still didn't want to push myself on the swim too much and fully expected to see a 50:00+ time on my watch when I finally reached the dock since it felt like I was in the water forever.  When I saw 37:xx on my watch I felt immensely relieved - it wasn't the 33-34 time I had been anticipating ahead of time given my recent Oly times, but it was faster than I expected during the swim.  

**Side note - anyone ever had this problem with the swim-induced sea-sickness? anyone know any solutions?  I haven't done a google search or researched it much myself, but figured I'd put it out there.  My next tri is Rev3 Cedar Point, where the swim is in Lake Erie which has been known to get choppy at times, so I'm a bit worried... Friends I've talked to have suggested eating ginger root before the start, taking dramamine (not liking this idea though - dramamine makes me super tired), getting those stick-on things you put behind your ears, and the accupuncture-like wristbands (I'm afraid these may not stay tightly in place during the swim though).  Any and all input is much appreciated! 

I ran into transition, grabbed my bike and helmet and headed out.  There was a nice flat area for mounting/dismounting, so it was good for my semi-running mount.  The bike course was really nice and offered some scenic views of Cayuga Lake.  My stomach seemed to settle a bit after the first few miles.  I knew which power zones I should try to stay in, so I rode by power instead of speed.  Which was probably a good thing, because the first long straight part of the course was into the wind, and, I later found out, on a false-flat uphill.  I kept looking at my speed and thinking, "shouldn't I be able to ride faster than 17mph on this?"  After the course made a turn or two and switched directions, the wind was no longer an issue, and we were on a false-flat downhill that made averaging 25-26mph easy.  There was only one hill on the course and a 2 mile section of gravel that were a bit challenging.  Otherwise, it was lots of flat/false flat, straight sections.  I felt good until about mile 50.  I think the heat started getting to me at that time, and for some reason, my stomach started feeling a bit queasy.  I knew from my Garmin that my bike split would be slower than what I'd thought I was capable of doing, and I started dreading the run.  Bike time = 2:58:03, 18.9mph average.  

In transition 2, I realized how hot it had gotten - the temperature was in the low 90's at this point.  I think I said something to the girl a few bikes down from me along the lines of, 'ugh, I really don't feel like running a half marathon right now', but shoved my bare feet into my Newtons and headed out, anticipating a hot and slow run.  I was definitely not in my best mindset at that point.  

This is where the surprise of the day came in.  My legs felt great on the run!  The rest of me didn't feel so bad either.  I didn't have a Garmin so I didn't know what pace I was doing until I saw the first mile marker and saw an 8:15ish split on my watch.  My second mile was around 8:24.  I started talking to a guy near me who wanted to average 8:30 splits, so we ran together and chatted a bit until we came to the big, evil, gravel hill around mile 7.  I think having someone to run with had a huge positive impact on my race.  I don't know how else to explain the shift from negative to positive outlook that occurred over the first few miles.  

Then there was the big hill.  This was undeniably my least favorite part of the course - the only part, in fact, that made me think, "really? they couldn't have found an alternative to this?"  My running buddy opted to walk this hill, but I continued running (what ended up being close to an 11:00 mile).  After that, I had a hard time getting my pace back down to where it had been pre-hill.  I'm not sure if I tired from the hill, or if I lost the motivation of having someone to keep up with.  

At some point shortly after, I lost track of the mile markers and thought I had one more mile to run than what I actually did, and started getting discouraged about my potential finish time.  When mile marker 10 appeared and I realized I had only a 5k left (instead of 4.1 as I thought), my mood did a complete 180-turn and I realized I wouldn't be too far from the 5:30 ballpark I'd hoped for.  I tried to pick up the pace for the last 5k, but the same thing happened towards the end of the bike - my stomach started getting that queasy feeling.  It was weird to be at that point in a race and know that it was my stomach and not my legs or cardiovascular fitness that were seemingly holding me back.  I ran side-by-side with a girl from my age group for the last 2 miles, and we passed another girl from our age group with about a mile to go.  When the finish line came into view, I kicked the pace up a notch and she fell behind.  I smiled across the finish line, suddenly very happy with my race and the fact that I hadn't fallen apart on the run.  Run time = 1:59:06, 8:57/mile average.  

Best part about crossing the finish line:  kiddie pools filled with ice water for post-race ice baths! So, so sooooooo amazing.  More races really need to do this!  

Official finish time = 5:38:25.  I've learned that no matter my time is, I am always going to want to be faster.  I'd hoped for a 5:30, but if I would've finished in 5:30, I would've wanted to have finished in 5:25, etc.  Given my loser stomach issues, the heat, and my focus being on Olympic distance rather than half-iron going into this race, I have no complaints.  I executed a smart race, learned a few things, and didn't let the negative thoughts get to me too much.  Now, I have a starting place for formulating goals and what I can realistically hope to accomplish at my upcoming 70.3 races in Sept and Oct.  

At this point, I need to give major props to the residents of Geneva, NY and the race organizers and volunteers.  On practically every residential street we ran through, there were multiple residents out with sprinklers and hoses to cool the runners off.  Really, this was an amazing and much-needed treat.  It was great to have so much encouragement and support from the locals.  The race organizers did an amazing job with having fully-stocked aid stations (water, Heed electrolyte drink, salt tablets, coke, snacks) at every mile and ample volunteers.  

Despite the choppy swim experience and the gravel hill on the run, I LOVED this race.  There are good races, and then there are first-class races, and Musselman was a first-class event in every way.  I highly, highly recommend it.  My parents came along to spectate, and they noted that it was the most spectator-friendly race they've been to.  The race offered lots of the usual post-race snacks like bagels, cookies, and bananas to athletes, but they also offered a choice of hot meals from Wegman's.  

I think I've said the same thing after every race I've done this year - "I want to do it again next year."  With an Ironman in the forecast for 2012, I know I am going to have to trim my race calendar down quite a bit.  This race will definitely make the cut though - and actually, I think I want to do the Double Mussel next year, which combines the sprint race on Saturday and the half iron race on Sunday.  Doesn't that have Ironman training written all over it? :)