Staying positive

Schedule- Leave Friday morning for Helena. Leave around 7 or 7:30 get there around 9. Drive to Calgary. Would it be a good idea to swim when we get there? Check out the venue. Lawrence and I did that last year and it was really nice. Cool off from the car ride with a nice swim.

Work this week got crazy. We got a comments back on a paper which caused us to switch gears so I have a huge day on Wednesday and a long day on Thursday. Hopefully I can get organized enough to that the work day stress is minimal. Will probably get in around 7am on Wednesday. Hopefully don't have to stay too late. Got a lot of my Calgary organization done over the weekend, so not so stressed about packing and stuff like that. Funny how it gets easier to pack as the years go on. Will need to figure out a time to get the bike cleaned up and ready though. Maybe that is what husbands are for :)

Next week- Tuesday is the day that I signed up to volunteer for the bike race. Remember my dilemma a few weeks ago? I lose track of my life sometimes.

Calgary plan- Food- 3 hours worth of liquid food with some gatorade or lime to give it flavor. I am also going to carry a flask with some gel and some endurolytes since the maltodextrin is just that. If it is hot I will try to take in a lot more endurolytes than if it is cool. I have a bottle for water that I can easily refill at aid stations. I probably won't take anything on the run. They have gel and Perform at aid stations depending on how my stomach feels.
Plan- Go hard on the swim. As hard as I think I can. Probably the same effort as Spring Meadow. We are starting in waves, so I may start on the outer edge if the wave is huge. I hope to align with the buoys better this year to minimize my distance swimming. I will try to do this after we spread out a bit. Better ideas?
Bike- Settle into the bike a bit. Not get worried when it takes a while for my legs to come around. In these shorter races it has been 6 miles, maybe longer since the swim is a little longer? Then, go my pace. Try to not get distracted and go. Stay positive.
Run- Settle in and find my form. Mentally let myself do this. Give myself the time to settle in. Settle into a hard but doable pace. Hopefully this pace will stick for the whole 22km. Is that the distance? I always forget and then think about it a lot during the race. Eventually asking a Canadian and feeling really stupid or else they think I am joking and don't answer me.
Goal- Have a great race. Stay positive and do the best I can at every moment. 

Training

Wednesday- Didn't have any work that day, so I stayed home to get other stuff done. Made a deal with my friend that I would get certified to flag traffic. Took on online course for this on Wednesday. Four hours later I can officially stop traffic. Good stuff to know as a race director though. Did the bike ride after that. Wow. That was a little harder than I thought and a lot of miles. I was going all over the valley. The pace may have been a little harder than I would do in a half. I have been having one thought. I definitely go harder uphills than downhills. I think if I didn't I would just go slower overall. I am not one to love downhills.  I think it is a 50 something male thing to love to ride downhill. I would rather work harder and go slower uphill or on curvy roads or something. It gets so boring. Calgary has a long downhill so I am going to have to suck it up.

Thursday-
Run- Longish run. Felt good. Really good actually. My legs are feeling like they want to run. Not like, ouch, stop doing that to me. I know now the signs of beating up my legs too much. This is a good thing for the future. As long as I listen to the signs.
Masters- Swam pretty hard, actually. We had 10x150 as the main set with 1-5 100 smooth 50 fast and 6-10 100 fast and 50 EZ. I swam the hard as hard as I could. I was sore the next day.


Friday- Nice ride on the TT bike. I was tired and not super stoked for it, but it is really nice to go easier.

Sat-
Swim- It was hot, so I swam in the pond without my wetsuit. It was a good swim, but my core was definitely cold for the second 15 minute lap. The pond has this outdoor shower. It is really funny because it splashes the picnic tables and is very exposed. Very poor design. However, the water that comes out is comfortable/perfect shower hot. Sometimes the little things in life are pretty amazing.
Run- Fine. Tired this day for some reason. Maybe even kind of bonky on the run.

Sunday
Ride- Good ride. Rode with Art for a while and Lawrence for all of it. We have a friend who lives en-route who has a pond. We jumped off her dock and got a good cool down. We ended up being out most of the day. Not riding hard except for the workout, but I think the sun and the wind took it's toll on me.

Monday-
Tired on this day. Swim was good. Stretched out and just got my body moving. Not hard.

Gettin' ready for Calgary

And another week of training: This week was a little hard with all the stuff going on. Work dinners, booze cruising, and house building  led to a hectic week. Bought a bunch of groceries yesterday to cover dinner for most of the week. That relieves a lot of time.

Schedule- Here this weekend. Nothing but house building going on Saturday. Work has the potential to be kind of busy, I just don't know right now what that is going to look like yet.

Thursday- Left work a little later than I wanted and then decided to swing by and start the 3 sandwich ride with everybody. Of course my husband was 30 minutes late so I was very late. After a lot of anxiety I decided to not swim and just get in the time on the bike. At least make one thing good and not both mediocre. I am glad I did because it took a long time at the house. I had to move 20 or so 16 foot long 2x6 up onto the roof. (16 feet is really long). I didn't leave until sunset. Would have been there in the dark if I had swam. Lesson learned from this day- get my shit done. I don't have time to wait around for people.

Friday- Finally, a longer trail run! Went up South Cottonwood. I nice little shady/not so steep trail. It felt so nice to get out in the woods!

Saturday- Good, hot ride over Battle Ridge to Wilsall and back. Lots of good climbing in the hot weather. One small little problem. I found somebody to do the ride with and overestimated his riding ability. I think he pushed it a little hard on the way out and I had to do a lot of waiting on the way back. Finally, at the top of Battle Ridge I said "See ya, I got to get home," and ditched him. I feel bad, but I wasn't prepared to wait so much. Definitely had the thought that in training I need to be much better about my own agenda and sticking to it better. The waiting is when I actually get demoralized. I always road my own pace just had some breaks in between.  There was road construction on the other side of Battle Ridge and the road was grooved for about 6 miles. That made the climbing a little harder on the way home and bumpy on the way out. Also, found a plethora of sex toys on the side of the road. That made me laugh. Did good with nutrition and hydration. My maltodextrin tastes pretty good with lime. It's like cocktail hour all day long. (margaritas)
Swim- The swim this day was pretty hard. Lots of swimming. Felt pretty good. Like the building. Feel like I can start out with good form and sighting and try to carry it through to some faster swimming.

Sunday- Nice little jaunt around the neighborhood for the run. My legs were tired to start, but I feel like I settled in pretty well.
Ride- Nice ride. Again it was hot. Got out into the mountains. Rode for about 3 hours with two significant climbs and some nice downhills. It was good to get out on my own (learned my lesson from above). I am not a fast downhiller and it is nice to ride without the pressure of good downhillers. I actually had talked to Lisa and John about riding with them on Sunday and I am glad I didn't. Lisa got a new trail bike which she can ride so fast downhill her contacts fall out. Terrifying! So glad to be outside.

Spring Meadow Triathlon

Schedule-
Question: There is a ride that has been termed Three Sandwich Ride on Thursdays. It is a long mt bike ride leaving from town. Can I do that instead of the ride and the swim? And/or, can I do a long mt bike ride on Sunday? I have not been in the mountains this summer and am just dying to get out. Saturday should probably be a work on the house day mixed in with swimming and running or shorter riding.

No work conflicts next week. Waiting on an assay to start another experiment.

House- I am not sure if we talked about this yet. If we did just ignore it. My Dad wants us to go over the the house every evening and clean up and move wood around for him etc. Basically, I think it would be good to get him set up for the next morning. So, that is what we have been doing. Usually the very last thing of the day. It has been a little exhausting, but we are trying to do better with having more groceries on hand or easier food to cook so that the evening doesn't get too late. It is nice that the sun is up so late as well.

PT appointment on Tuesday for hamstring- I think I was still sore from racing Sunday so appointment may not have been as effective at is should have been. However, there may be some nervous system stuff going on. If I do upward facing dog it seems to relieve a bunch of the tension in my leg. Jason also gave me some stretches and strength exercises. He is on vacation next week but returns the following week and I have another appointment set up. For now I need to include those exercises into my routine for my achilles and plantar.

Comment: Have you ever seen those cartoons that talk about running and the funny things that runners think and do when running. My favorite is the one where they talk about runners comparing distances. The distance left in this race is 4 laps around a track. I do that all the time. I can do this again. Easy.


The week;

Wed- Longer run felt horrible. I almost went home early. However, I decided to stick it out. I think having terrible feeling runs are good comparables for racing.

Friday- Met a couple of friends at Hyalite for a swim on the 4th. It was frickin cold. I think 58 degrees. I had flashbacks to CDA. It was a good swim. My friend thought 2 miles but I don't think it was quite that long. Started to get cold when we turned around. My hands wouldn't close and I was afraid my wedding band was going to fall right off. It was a fun adventure though. Did a little lap on the trail by the lake right after and got warmed up.

Saturday- Rode in the morning and then drove over to Ennis. Cory took the Mule Van with all the poles for the racks for the race to Ennis. He thought it was conduit for our house. Worked it all out. Corey ended up going to Helena with us that day and driving the van back to Ennis Saturday evening. Stayed with Byron DeFord at his new house that Erik designed. It was fun to really see what Erik is thinking about for our house.

Race Report-
Swim- Didn't feel super great starting. Into the second lap though I decided I was going as fast as I  could go. If I tried to speed up I felt like I was pushing it too much. I get super anxious in the swim and just assume I am in the back of the pack. It's not like I can put my head up and really evaluate where the fast swimmers are. I think my swim time was about 27:30. I think that is exactly what I was aiming for. Also, I guess it wasn't too bad because I think I only passed two people on the bike and then there were 5 left in front. One guy and 4 girls. I seem to pass a lot of people in transition too. Funny. They should all work on that. Me too.

Bike- Didn't get my biking legs until mile 6. Same as last weekend. Finally at mile 6 I really noticed feeling good. That is also where the hills started. It was so much fun. I pretended I was in a road race trying not to get dropped up the hills. Even standing to really power over the tops and really tucking down on the steep hills. I like that ride and held those girls really well. Didn't gain much time but didn't lose any either. Did good with nutrition. Had water and food in a bottle. Made sure to eat and drink. My helmet was too tight and hurting so bad on the way back. I need to remember to loosen it for the next race. Came into T2 at 5th female overall. I did allow myself to get a little demoralized when I wasn't catching any of those girls on the ride. However, I just told myself to go as hard as I could and stay in the moment.

Run- Felt pretty good right away on the run. Maybe it was because of the long downhill at the end of the bike. Gave myself some time to settle in. My foot was a little tight for the first 10 minutes but that was all. Not pain, just tight. On lap # 1 I saw Renee in front of me. Stayed patient and just ran my pace. Passed her before 1.5 miles. Then another girls was in front. I stayed patient again and caught her at the beginning of lap 2. After that I couldn't see anybody else so I just ran my pace until probably the last 1/2 mile and I picked it up. It was hot so I stopped for a few steps at aid stations to take in food and water. I think that was important for keeping going. Wish I had remembered my gel flask. Next time. My run time was 1:45:30. Definitely happy with it. Still amazed at what healthy legs can do.

Was super stoked to make the podium. I guess that is only in my mind. They only recognized the top person. Bummer. Also, again my pet peeve. They have all these races going on Olympic, Sprint, Aquabike whatever and nobody knows who is finishing where. I think a race promoter should only do one distance and really engage the racers and the spectators at the finish.
Also, someday Holly W. is going down. I don't think she is getting faster. She is just fast enough that currently she keeps winning. Also, she isn't very nice. Or isn't friendly. Which makes me want to beat her more. Faster swimming, running, and biking for me.