Boulder Peak

Yesterday was the Boulder Peak - my second Olympic distance tri and my first time ever racing the same tri in a different year. Warning - this post is really long.

Goals

When I first joined CWW, my coach gave me (and everyone else) a little zip-up pouch with a very specific purpose. She reminded us that when doing a triathlon, there is so much gear to gather - goggles, wetsuit, bike shoes, helmet, running shoes, water bottles, etc. But, in the haste of gathering everything, it's important not to forget the reason that you are there. Thus, she gave us the little pouches to hold perhaps the most important thing - our goals. It's all about the power of visualizing what you want to accomplish and committing it to writing. If you write it down, it will happen. (Though goals should be realistic and focused on you - who wins or how you place depends on who else shows up, not you.) I forgot to write down my goals before the 5430 Sprint last month, and perhaps that's why I felt so discombobulated and disappointed afterward. I thought of goals in my head before the race, but it's not the same. Also, my goals were number oriented, which is just a set-up for disappointment.

The goals I wrote down for the Boulder Peak were:

-Have fun and work hard!
-Enjoy and revel in the fact that you are a triathlete!
-Appreciate the crowd, the views, and fellow racers
-Push it from Rez to Olde Stage
-Crank it up Olde Stage - relax and breathe
-Run so you will be sore Monday
-Smile and wave at CWW teammates and coaches when you cross the finish!

The race t-shirt this year had a similarly inspirational message: "Training at ALTITUDE means i get up everyday BELIEVING i have the CONFIDENCE to SWIM 1.5k across the REZ . . . KNOWING i have FUELED my body enough to BIKE 42k and POWER up OLDE STAGE . . . and REALIZING that no matter how HOT it gets out there, i will hit the 10k RUN with EVERYTHING i have left in ME and i WILL cross that FINISH line!"

The theme of this race for me was having fun, doing my best, and not worrying about the numbers. I did have a few numbers in the back of my mind and was worried that I might finish 15 - 20 minutes slower than last year. But, I ended up easily finishing in the same ballpark as last year, which I felt really good about.

Swim

At last year's Peak, my age group was in the very last swim wave. I didn't start until about an hour and a half after I had to be out of the transition area. This year, I was in the second wave, starting at 6:40, only 20 minutes after the transition area closed, so less time to wait around and get nervous. I hopped in the water right away to warm up and then stood to listen to the Star Spangled Banner while the sky-divers parachuted down with a huge American flag. I was really excited at this moment and glad to be doing the race.

The first wave was most of the older age groups together, so there was a 10 minute gap between their start and ours to give them a head start (all other waves were 5 minutes apart). The first wave got a lead kayak that steered toward the buoys through the glare of the Boulder sun and we got a lead kayak too, since the swimmers from the first wave were 10 minutes ahead. The course was kind of a pentagon shape (with the fifth edge being the shoreline between the swim start and swim finish). The first leg of the swim, I just tried to follow the kayak and the streak of the sun in the reservoir, conveniently masking the buoys. One buoy, I literally did not see until I was a few feet away from it. Once I got to the first turn, I was astounded by how clearly I could see the buoys now that they were out of the sun. I thought to myself, this is almost too easy! After the second turn, into the third pentagon leg, I started to freak out a little bit. Right before the swim started, I was thinking about how thirsty I was. The day before at the packet pick-up, the race director was talking about how important it was to take water on the bike because you'll likely leave the swim deydrated, especially if you wear a wetsuit. I started obssessively thinking about how my wetsuit was dehydrating me and constricting me and it even occured to me to wave down a kayaker, strip off my wetsuit, and hand it to them to take it to shore for me. But, I tried to put that out of my head. During this third leg, I started to see white swim caps from the wave ahead of me, which meant I was catching people with a 10 minute head start. But then, I also started seeing purple caps from the wave behind me starting to infiltrate. I knew that this wasn't going to be my best swim, but thought my time would be typical for me. Once I made the third turn and could see the red arches of the finish and cranked up the speed.

I ran out of the water and up to the transition area and was shocked when I saw the timer clock: 45:39. What? Subtracting 10 minutes to account for when my wave started, that meant I had a time of 35:39. My swim time at last year's race was 29:26 (though I remembered it as 26-something). Either way, 5-10 minutes is a HUGE amount of time when it comes to swimming and it really stunned me that I had gone so slowly. But, when I got into the transition area, about the same number of bikes were still there as usually are when I come in from the swim. And, as I was putting on my bike gear, I saw a teammate come in who usually finishes the swim a couple minutes after me, so I figured something must have been off with either the swim course or the timer. (Many people had the same experience with their swim time and it seems like the course was a bit long.)

Bike

I did my best to put my swim time out of my mind and headed out on my bike. Even though I didn't write down a goal for bike speed, I knew that I had averaged 15.1 mph last year and came in two minutes behind the 78-year-old nun from Spokane, WA. This year, I was determined to beat that nun's time!

To give you a sense of the bike course:










It is a steady climb for 5 miles, then about an 800 ft elevation change over the span of two miles - the infamous climb up Olde Stage Road. After that, it's all down hill, rolling hills, easy cheese. I've practiced that hill about 5 times this year and I know that for the worst part of it, I hover between 3-4mph. I knew that I would be able to make up a lot of that speed on the downhills, but I also didn't want to go in to the steep climb with too much of a speed deficit. Ergo, one of my goals was to push that gradual incline the leads up to Olde Stage and not lose too much time.

It was perhaps a blessing in disguise that my cadence sensor wasn't picking up. Usually, I aim for a cadence between 80-90 rpm and shift gears accordingly so I have the most efficient pedal stroke possible. But, I can pretty much do it by feel now - I know when I'm spinning too easily and when I'm grinding too hard. I realized about halfway through the gradual incline that I was still in my big ring (harder to pedal, but propels the bike further and faster). I think I stayed in the big ring much longer than all the times during my practice rides and I think it helped me rack up the average speed I wanted going into Olde Stage.

I finally got to the hardest part of the hill and just focused on breathing and pedalling one stroke at a time. There were huge crowds cheering us on and a big sign for CWW. It was definitely grueling, but I had practiced it enough that it didn't even feel that hard. When I got to the top, there was another CWW sign that said, "You are one tough cookie!" (My coach even drew a picture of a cookie.) After that, it was flying time, down the hills, which was fun on my new, lighter bike. I took me until about mile 20 of 26, but by then I could tell from my computer that I was safely out of "nun territory" and ended up finishing with an average mph of 15.6 with a time of 1:40:09 - almost two minutes faster than Sister Madonna Buder's time from last year! Suck it, Sister! (Just kidding - I think you're awesome.)

Run

Towards the end of the bike, I tried to visualize how good it was going to feel to run after the hilly bike ride. I'm not sure if it helped, but I transitioned from the bike and was off. I gave myself about half a mile to work-out the jelly in my legs and settle into a comfortable, doable pace. When I looked down at my watch, I was glad to see 10:23/mi. It felt more like an 11-11:30/mi, so I was really happy that I felt able to sustain a sub-11 minute mile pace. It did get hard at parts. I walked through the water stations at each mile so I could get little breaks and have something to look forward to. Between mile 2 and 3, I freaked out a little. It was like I stepped outside of myself and looked at what I was doing. I started thinking, "What the hell am I doing? How am I going to get out of this?" I was able to refocus and just keep running for the most part, but I never quite reached the zen of "I'm racing right now, it sucks, but just take one step at a time and it will be over soon."

I did fall back to an 11:00+/mi pace several times, but I was able to think "I need to pick it up and run a little faster" and have my body actually respond. It was nice, because often my body says, "That's great that you'd like to run faster, but it ain't happening." I kept telling myself what I wrote in my goals - you've got to make sure you'll be sore tomorrow. (I felt really disappointed in myself the day after the sprint because I wasn't very sore, which made me feel like I hadn't given 100%). The last mile was probably the slowest, but I cranked it up to 9min/mi when I saw the finish line (and my teammate and coaches). The announcer called my name and city, which is always an exciting touch, and the race volunteers handed me the wet "Boulder Peak Finisher" towel (this race's equivalent of a medal). I finished with a 10:43/mi pace and a run time of 1:06:23 (about a minute and a half faster than last year). Oh, and I am definitely sore today!

My overall time was 3:29:16. About three minutes slower than last year, but that seems to be because of my inexplicably slower swim. Had my swim time been on par with my time last year, I would have beat my previous time by 2-3 minutes. It was most imporant to me to make improvements on the bike and run legs. I was also glad to prove that I haven't majorly regressed since last year, which was the main thing I was worried about.

Overall, it was a great race and I met all of my goals. Just a few more weeks of hard training until the Long Course on August 9th.

5430 Sprint

My first tri of the three-part series in Boulder was yesterday. Overall it went fine. It wasn't my best effort or best race, but it wasn't my "A" race either. Yesterday was a nice warm-up to the longer distances later this summer that I really care about -- the Boulder Peak and the Long Course.

The swim was nice and easy. No major waves, panics, or collisions with fellow racers. The only slight hiccup was that I didn't have a good understanding at the course ahead of time. With the glare of the sun, it usually takes a couple minutes before I can sight the buoy and know where I'm heading. Before that happens, I just follow the crowd. I finally spotted the triangle shaped buoy, thinking that was the turning point. Once I got there, everyone else was still swimming straight ahead, so I figured I must have gotten it wrong. Luckily, following the crowd worked and I eventually made it to the second buoy, which was the actual turning point.

The bike was probably the highlight for this race. Though I'm still worst at cycling of the three sports, I improved the most on this leg. The course (17 miles) was a slight, but definite uphill for the first five or six miles, then mostly downhill with a few rolling hills for the next six, then a mostly uphill, though not as steep, climb back to the transition area. I had practiced the exact course two weeks ago at my team's rehearsal. During the rehearsal, I was really hoping to have an average speed of at least 16 mph, but I ended up averaging 15.9 mph. Urgh! So my main race goal was to average 16mph+ on the bike portion. For the first third of the race--the uphill portion--my average speed hovered between 12 and 13 mph. I was worried I wouldn't be able to overcome that deficit, but ended up making good use of the downhills once I got there. I even caught my speed at 31 mph a couple times. Towards the end of the descent I had an average speed of about 17.1 mph. I was worried that the final miles uphill would lower my average a lot, but I ended up with a final average speed of 16.7 mph! Woo hoo!

I had a pretty quick transition to the run (read: no bathroom break needed). I don't know if it was because I pushed harder than usual on the bike, or because I just wasn't feeling it, but my run wasn't quite up to par for that distance. During the rehearsal, I averaged 10:10 min/miles and was hoping to get closer to a 10 minute mile if not sub-10. Yesterday my pace was 10:30 min/mile. I'm really not sure if I just didn't have anything left to give or if I just wasn't motivated to dig deep and push through.

I think my feelings about the run explain why I've wanted to move up to longer distances in recent years. Since it's doubtful I'll ever mutate into a speedy machine, most of my satisfaction from doing these races comes from enjoying the course and the crowd and just finishing. Now that I've finished the sprint distance several times over, I know I can do it, and "just finishing" doesn't do as much for me anymore. As much as I'm dreading the upcoming 10k following a 24 mile bike and (yikes!) the half-marathon after a 56-mile bike, I think finishing will probably seem a sufficient accomplishment. The Boulder Peak will be a little trickier mentally because I did the course last year and will likely be a little disappointed if I don't beat, tie, or come close to my previous time. But for the half-ironman, I'll be happy if I manage to limp across the finish line before they close down the course.

My overall time was 1:55:28. My other goal was to finish in less than two hours, so yay! In my age group of 111 women, I was 30th out of the water, 84th on the bike, and 88th on the run for a final placing of 73/111. Not bad and fairly typical for me. As the race director said during the awards ceremony, Boulder is a tough place to compete. Most of the podium finishers had at least been to Kona and many of them had placed there too!

After the race on Sunday, I went home and slept away most of the afternoon - I was so tired! But this evening, I'm barely even sore and bounding with energy, which makes me feel guilty that I really didn't give it my all yesterday. Again, it doesn't really matter because this wasn't my "A" race. And, I have two more chances where I'll probably have no choice but to give it everything I've got.

Duathlon Rehearsal Re-Caplet

Today was the first time this year that I put together biking and running in an official-ish capacity. My tri club put on a duathlon rehearsal and we had the choice of doing an Olympic distance (1 mile run / 22 mile bike / 6.2 mile run) or a Sprint distance (1 mile run / 11 mile bike / 3.1 mile run). I did the Olympic distance, which is what I did last year, too. I remember last year, I felt obligated to do the Olympic because that was the distance I was training for. But, this year, I didn't so much feel obligated (even though I am), as I felt the Sprint du would be too easy, or at least a waste of waking up early, packing up all my gear, and driving out the 'burbs.

I finished in 2:46:28, which was fine with me. (It was fun using the multi-sport feature on my Garmin - it even clocked my transition times!) I didn't have a goal going in, I just wanted to see how I did. Ideally I'd like to improve my bike and run pace a little, but I still have time, so I just may. I'm realizing that for longer distance tri's, it may not be a realistic goal to run a sub-10 min/mile pace after the bike portions, especially when it's hot and sunny like it was today. I averaged just over an 11 min/mile pace this morning. I wouldn't say I was giving it my all, but I don't think I would have been able to go much faster. At the Boulder Peak last year, it was 104 degrees and I felt like I had to slow way down from my normal pace and ended up averaging 10:55 per mile. In future races and rehearsals, I'm going to make a point of hydrating more on the bike so I'll be more prepared for the run. In sum, the two things I learned today: I'm used to the longer distances enough to not be tempted to take the shorter option and I need to hydrate more on the bike!

Speaking of hydrating on the bike, I'm riding 65 miles tomorrow, the majority uphill, from Boulder to Ward. Yikes!

AA BBig ImprovEEment

The t-shirt slogan for this year's BolderBoulder (BB) was Altitude Attitude (AA) and I qualified and registered to run in Wave EE. YipEE!!!

As it turned out, I didn't actually get to start with my wave, which was only disappointing because of the previously mentioned correspondence to my first two initials. The reason I didn't get to the front by the time my wave started was because I got stuck in the line for the FedEx mobile locker (to transport to the finish line any belongings I didn't want to run with). I was so COLD after last year's run that I basically packed enough extra clothing to be prepared in case of a post-race blizzard. Even though it's not my initials, Wave FB was a fine wave to start in. I mostly just wanted to start with people who were my pace or faster so I would get off to a good start rather than have to spend the first mile weaving through joggers and walkers. The race used chip timing, so the actual wave you start in doesn't really matter for purposes of clocking your time. Added bonus--according to the announcer at the start, Wave FB included the only couple ever to get married during the BolderBoulder!

I set my trusty Garmin's virtual partner feature to pace me for a pace of 9:49/mile, which was my goal based on my 5k time last week at the Federal Cup and last year's BB time. The first part of the race is down hill and that coupled with the excitement of the start meant for a very fast first mile. I caught my pace at sub-8 min/miles several times, so I knew I needed to slow down, but I also felt pretty good and thought I would be able to keep up a pretty fast, consistent pace and would likely exceed my goal. Because of such a fast first mile, my average pace was just over 9 min/miles for the first 2-3 miles of the course. I decided to slow down a little for miles 3 and 4 so I would be able to speed it up again at the end. (That was a convenient decision because much of miles 3 and 4 were uphill.) This strategy didn't work out exactly as planned because I ended up getting a cramp around mile 5 and couldn't push quite as hard as I wanted. But, I pushed on, got a good laugh out of two guys wearing gorilla costumes, and saw that my average pace was right around 9:30/mile -- I was psyched! For the last 2K, I really wanted to keep my pace fast enough so my average pace would stay the same. I checked my Garmin and was nearly 2 tenths of a mile ahead of my "virtual partner," so I knew I would easily beat my goal and just wanted to beat it by as much as I could. As I neared the CU Stadium, I thought the visual of the end would be all I needed, but I completely forgot how steep the last hill leading into the stadium was! I had to slow way down to make it into the stadium and my average pace dropped by a few seconds. Once I got into the stadium itself, I was able to speed up and finish strong in a Ralphie-style victory lap.

My Garmin beeped as I crossed the finish-line, signalling that I had finished my 10K at an average pace of 9:36/mile with a total time of 59:41. That's 18 seconds faster per mile and almost 2 minutes faster overall than my time from last year! This was actually the first time I've ever done the same exact race more than once (it's hard when you move all the time) and it was exciting to be able to compare my performance year to year, even more exciting to beat my previous time by so much.

But, when I got home, I checked my results online and they told a slightly different story. The timing-chip clocked me at a 9:41/mile pace with an overall time of 1:00:11.57. Not too disappointing because it was still faster than last year's time and my goal time, but it would have been nice to have the official results show that I broke an hour. It's a bit perplexing because my GPS watch should have been accurate. If it were only off by a few seconds, I would have assumed that I didn't start my watch at the right time, but 30 seconds is a pretty big deficit. I haven't decided which time I'm going with . . . it's hard for me to understand why the time I clocked was off by so much, but it's also hard for me to go against something official and on the internet. I guess I'll go with my official BB time. If for no other reason, it will be easier to beat my time next year.

The BolderBoulder was the official kick-off to an all-Boulder, all the time race season. My next race is the first of the Boulder Triathlon Series: the 5430 Sprint on June 21st!

Race Report: Fed Cup 5k

I did my first official race this morning: the Federal Cup 5k. The race is a "a fun and low-cost fitness event that honors the entire U.S. Government workforce and their families" and apparently the longest consecutively run fitness event specifically for federal employees.

The weather was great for running - overcast and temperature in the 50s - but not so great for hanging around before and after. The sun did start to come out around Mile 2 and it has since turned into a typically beautiful sunny Denver afternoon. I ran as a member of one of EPA's two teams, "EPA in the ZONE," but the whole team thing was just for fun. We didn't run together or have matching t-shirts or anything. I think they just calculated the team winner by adding together the top 2 male and female finishers from each.

The run itself went fine, great actually, but I had a pretty bad attitude for about 2.5 miles of it. I've pretty much accepted that I'm a slow runner and I'm never going to improve that much, but it's hard not to get a little annoyed when co-workers who say that they haven't run in months or who don't train nearly as much as I do still easily beat me. So, I childishly spent the first half of the race wondering why I even bother training and thinking how delusional I am to think I have any right to race a half-ironman this summer. But, with my trusty Garmin on my wrist I knew that I was making good time and maintaining a pace that was faster than I was hoping for.

When I was in law school, before I did any regular running, I was in career services freaking out because I hadn't found a summer job yet and everyone else in my class had and I was never going to find one and my life was over (you know, because it was November and summer was only seven months away). I ended up getting what was probably the most useful advice that I ever got out of the career services office. My adviser occasionally did marathons and other running races and said that when you get the starting line, it's really easy to pay too much attention to what the other runners are doing and get worked up or run too fast at the outset. But, what you're supposed to do is know what your own pace should be and focus on maintaining that. "Run your own race," she told me, "don't worry what other people are doing." Good advice for running and for life, I guess, so I kept that mantra in mind as much as I could and my bad attitude mostly subsided by the time I was in sight of the finish line. I still feel a little bit down that I'm never going to improve my running speed that much, but if my choices are go out there and run slow or stay in bed, it seems like a no-brainer.

My official time was 28:59, which is a pace of 9:21/mi. Despite my whining, that's actually a really good time for me, probably the best I've ever done. I haven't felt all that great about my running lately, and I was really hoping to run around 9:30/mi but worried I wouldn't be able to do much faster than a 10 minute mile. So, in terms of my internal personal goals, I did great.

This actually gives me a lot of confidence going into the Bolder Boulder 10k next weekend. Based on my time last year (1:01:32, 9:54/mi) I qualified for the last of the qualifying waves, Wave EE. Since those are my first two initials, I decided I had to do it even though I wasn't sure I'd be able to make that pace again. My goal for next weekend is to do the same as or faster than last year. According to an online calculator using the Bruce Hamilton method, my 5k time means I should be able to run a 10k at a pace of 9:44/mi. I think I'm going to play around with my Garmin, figure out the "Virtual Partner" setting, and set it to pace me at 9:49/mi (splitting the difference).

On an unrelated note, I'm eligible to upgrade my cell phone. I'm thinking about getting a Blackberry, but I'm not quite sure I'm ready yet. The cons for me are the extra money for the data plan and that I'm afraid I'll start obsessively checking my email, when I'm not the kind of person who gets enough email that she would need to check it obsesively. On the pro-side, I am the kind of person who gets lost and confused enough that there would be advantages to having access to my email, directions, and the internets when I'm on the go. I'm putting off getting a new phone until I know what I'm doing for work after June (I guess some things never change). Any thoughts?

Apparently my latest hobby is power point...

Here's a power point I made for my Toastmasters speech about organizing my apartment...


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by emma.garrison

Here's another one I put together a few weeks ago about storage options for my new bike. (I got this new bike that I'm paranoid about keeping on my back deck, but I don't have much room for it in my apartment and I want to install a hook to hang it from, but that requires drilling, which is against the rules, but I ended up getting special permission as long as I get someone to help who knows what they're doing and promise to be responsible if and when I take out a chunk of drywall. A friend is coming over this weekend to install it for me.)

Any-who...


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by emma.garrison

Inauguration!

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by emma.garrison

I spent a ridiculous amount of time putting this together and figuring out how to upload it, so I hope you enjoy! (Click button in the lower right corner for "Full Screen" to see the pictures better.)