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.
1 comment:
awesome recap! Congrats on the great race!
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