Work, work, work to play, play, play

Talked with Lawrence about the Mont Tremblant course and went over the maps with him. Would like to ride a certain section before race day and run a little of the course. I guess it is pretty hilly. While swimming that long swim on Thursday I was struggling with my race goals. Not wanting to set up unrealistic expectations. I think understanding the course helps a little. What do you think about the hills? Do you think my run can handle that? After hills on the bike? I would like to talk about goals and expectations a little. I am still very much wanting to focus on each moment and doing the best I can at that moment. 

Super relieved. I was kind of being a headcase because I wasn't sure how the start at Mont- Tremblant was going to be. They made it sound like a mass start. No, it is not! It is a wave start. I am happy about that. Think it will help actually be able to show my swim fitness.  I am one of the last waves which is kind of annoying because it will probably make for a lot of passing, but that is okay and who knows this is a different ball game.

Started feeling a bit like I was getting a cold this week. My head was really heavy and felt kind of achy. Feel okay by Tuesday but Thursday,  Friday and Saturday I was definitely fighting something

Schedule- Leave Thursday!!! I don't have anything out of the ordinary at work this week or next. As far as I can tell a lot of work, but nothing with significantly long hours or anything. 

Thursday swim- If I really concentrated I could get those 75's done in 1:06. I did the math and that is a 1:28 100. That is a less than 15:00 minute 1000. Woohoo! When I was concentrating, I was concentrating on form not speed. I actually feel like I not not trashing through the water trying to swim a 1000 pace anymore, or on this day. Good swim. Felt strong. It made it easier when I finally established I wanted to get a 1:06. Focused on each 75, not on how many I had left.

Met really good Hoyas swimming man. He is really nice. And cute. Did I just say that.

Friday- Rain, rain go away. I totally intended to ride out to the pond party and hitch a ride home. However, it started raining right when I left work. Decided to take my bike commuting for the week as that ride and call it good. Party was hilarious. We ended up jumping in the pond in the cold weather and rain and then all of us huddling in Julie's steam shower. A bunch of Masters swimmers can't get together without getting wet. 

Saturday- Rain, rain all day. It started raining on Friday night and did not stop until Sunday morning. Crazy. Did a really good PT session and rode the trainer for an hour. I think the rain may have been a blessing in disguise. I still wasn't feeling very good. Took it pretty easy and even took a little nap. 

Sunday- Got some really good sleep on Saturday night and was ready to ride. Waited around until noon because it wasn't super warm out. Worked hard on those 40 minute intervals. Found as many rolling hills as I could. Ended up in Amsterdam when the last 40 minute interval ended. Had a mildly long ride home. Ride ended up more like 4:30. Got to running right off the bike. Felt pretty good. Was super tired. The kind of take a bath tired instead of a shower because I didn't want to stand up anymore. 

Monday- Nice easy swim. Good long run. Ran up South Cottonwood to the 4th bridge. Got rained on and ran for about 1.5 miles in the dark. Was totally freaking myself out about bears and mt lions. Felt like a crazy woman out in the woods. 2:10 was total time. Sometimes those trails have a way of grabbing hold of me and won't let me leave. 

Tuesday- A bunch of spinning around town and a PT session. Got some leg and plantar massage and a good working out of my shoulder. Really excited where the shoulder is going. Hope it helps my swimming in the long run. Took a little time to get to the house and get some cleaning done also ran a bunch of errands that I really needed to do. (Saying this before it is done. Kind of worried I may have a flat on my townie)

Wed.....

working.....

I have a new favorite song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ChoM2Rh60
I think this would be a great spinning class song!

Funny story- My friend LeAnn who is awesome BTW sent me an email telling me how Polson was. She said " you know how they have pro and AG categories at most races. At Polson they should have "people who train with Matt" and AG categories. "

Schedule- There is a little get together for a friend who is moving away. It is at 4pm at a friends who has this super awesome pond. I would like to go, but if it interferes with training I don't have to. 

       Work- Boss gets back on Wednesday. I don't expect much in the next week. 

       Weekend- Staying in town. Want to buckle down and get some good training in. 

PT- I really think my shoulder, even with the smaller amount of PT I have been doing is feeling better. I think I am able to keep a higher elbow in the swim and on the bike yesterday I noticed not getting quite so stiff. All that from a couple of exercises and a stretch. 

General stuff- TYR is sending me a new wetsuit! Mine was defective from the get go. So glad they were able to step up!

Ali told me about this pretty sweet deal with Hammer. Is that why you wear the Hammer kit? I really hate my Mule kit. Got new shorts for this year and some stupid person on the team put in these awful gray panels on the front. At least the Hammer kits look much better. Might buy one. 

Thursday swim- Here is a perfect example of my OCD. I counted 42x2 tubes during the day in rows of 12. That is 3 rows which equals 36+ 6 twice. Then I went to swim at did 3 groupings of 1200. Wow, way too much the same.
Anyway, that was kind of hard. My legs and arms were screaming. I definitely got a little slower on the kick as I got to #6.

Saturday- Actually got up fairly early and drove to a trailhead. South Cottonwood is a pretty gentle uphill. It was so amazing. Found a new trail which was a little steeper and even had to wade across a creek, what an adventure. Ran for a total of about 95 minutes. Felt so good. I miss running for having the time to work life out. I am having some problems with The Bobcat and having it affiliated with the Tri Club. Finally was able to see the forest through the trees and have a new plan of action for how to proceed next year. Feel so relieved to be unweighted from that burden. 

Sunday-
Swim- Okay. My right shoulder was sore for the 1st 12- 15 minutes. Picked up the pace after that and it felt better. Worked on sighting while going harder.
Ride- That was the loooongest 75 miles I have ever ridden. Even had the thought that my odometer isn't working right. Never give Julie bike mechanical work. I changed my cassette from one wheel to another and a- bent a tooth and b- forgot to tighten the cassette on the new wheel. I made it out to Kelly Canyon before I knew something wasn't right. Thanks boy at Owenhouse for tightening my cassette so I didn't have to go all the way across town. Then spent the rest of the ride not using that one chainring. Went and did a bunch of big hills. Kelly Canyon, Jackson Creek, the pass, and back. By then I was at mile 50, had no water, and feeling tired. It was hot and windy which was hard. Finished the last 25 on a flatter loop. Stopped to refill water and drink a coke and stopped at beginning to fix cassette otherwise just kept riding. Man that was tough. A big mental battle. One thought was, worlds, and then Ali. Hahaha.

Monday- 

Nice good swim. Felt tired. Worked hard on the 5x100 kick. I really do think my kick is coming around. 

Racing for training

Felt really good about my life organization this week. Got in some good PT sessions, showed face at the house and got that done at reasonable hours, got in some good quality work hours. This week makes me feel like I can manage. Hopefully I can keep it up. 

Monday- My legs and feet are feeling pretty good (Plantar, achilles) even though I raced yesterday. No pain anywhere when just moving around. 

Schedule- Saturday- Wedding in Helena at 1pm. Will go over and come home on the same day. Kind of in the middle of the day to get much done. 

Work- This week Wed and Thursday are going to be pretty crazy busy. Next week has no experiments planned. 

PT- Jason looked at my shoulder last week. I had an AC separation years ago and it has had its aftermath. He gave me a couple of strength exercises and a stretching exercise and said that it would definitely help me with swimming. 

Weeks highlights:
Sunday- I made this a very important workout and worked very hard. The race was small but a lot of very good people and it was kind of fun to race in such a small event. I led the swim, led the bike (saw a fox), and led the run. Took the big W for the race. However, I was running scared. A newbie triathlete who was a runner at Gonzaga, up until she graduated this year, was close enough behind that I was definitely worried. Also, those were the most painful 6 miles I have run in a long time. It was slightly uphill, at 7500 feet and basically straight for the whole run. I could never quite catch my breath. Also, carried water and food since there was only one lone water jug at mile 3. Forgot how hard it is to run with a bottle. 

I would totally recommend this race for other people wanting to have a good hard day. I would not recommend this race for a big triathlon race experience. We didn't even have numbers. Not to mention splits. The gravel road shouldn't deter people. It is pretty smooth and oiled. I even got into the aero bars for a bit. 

The new girl is starting graduate school at MSU. She has a lot of potential. Think she will do The Bobcat and hopefully join the MSU Tri club.  I was also glad to have the competition.

Other highlights:

Had a couple of great PT sessions of the week. Did them at the gym after running and got everything done including the srtength stuff. 

Wednesday ride- Hyalite is my sufferfest hill. That workout was harder than I thought. Going for 3 minutes at a 20 k pace after a build from a 1\2 ironman pace was hard. Suffered through and got it done. 

Just got in everything else. Lots of shorter runs that have generally been feeling good. 

Calgary and post Calgary

This is a really bad write up. I feel like I am all over the place. Lost my focus last week. Or never got it back after going to Calgary. I apologize. Next week will be better.

Mont- Tremblant- Got plane tickets and a place to stay. Or actually my mom did. She is a very good travel agent and sponsor. :) Gave me airmiles for my ticket. Leaving here Thursday and come home Wednesday. Hopefully spend a few days in Montreal or somewhere else fun. Then bust my ass for the Bobcat for a couple of weeks. The anxiety that race brings on is unreal. We got sent a contract and a bill from MSU yesterday saying it would cost 885$ to use the pool. Awesome. Thanks for telling us that sooner. Even a mild suggestion that we would have to pay for the pool would have been nice. Let the negotiations begin. I think we can get the price to closer to 500$. They had us using the pool until 6pm which doesn't make sense.

Sort of sad I didn't get around to writing a race report for Calgary. Someday, I might want to look back on all these blogs. So I am going to do a very brief summary.

Best race (in my mind) ever!
Fastest swim for a half IM (7th in AG out of water, usually I am like 25th)
Fastest bike for a half IM
Fastest half marathon ever
Fastest time for a half IM
AG 35-39 ist
World Championship in Mont- Tremblant qualified!


Question: Would it be out of the question to do the Madison Triathlon on Sunday. I would do it as a total training race. No expectations. http://www.themadisonmarathon.com/register.html#mt. Actually, don't want to do this. Would rather be home this weekend.

Schedule- Boss leaves tomorrow however he gave me a lot of work to do while he is gone. This week on Wed. and Friday I have mouse takedowns. They aren't stressful or a lot of work. Can work around them. Two days next week I will have really long days. This is for a paper rebuttal so need to get on same page as Alayna for those. Hopefully she is in today when I get in.
That was a lot of description for not very much information, huh?

Okay, now this week. This week did not go as you or I planned or expected. I was so tired all week. Each evening I tried to get enough sleep, but with work demands and let's face it social demands, I am still not recovered by Saturday.

I missed three workouts. The OWS on Wed. Was really tired and decided getting my shit together was more important. Then the ride and the swim on Friday. My grandma, aunt, and cousin were in town. It involved a long lunch and dinner at my sisters. I could make excuses why, but basically I haven't seen my grandma in a long time and really wanted to spend some time with her. (sidenote: got a paper accepted on Friday!! I am first author. Boss brought in a bottle of champagne). Did ride my bike around all day. Probably not for 1:30 though

My body is feeling recovered by Saturday, but my sleep and tired feeling is not. Erik even told my on Friday night to take it easy because I have been coughing at night. He never tells me to take it easy.

Anyway, now it is Saturday. I got up early to flag for the 5 and 10k and went on a ride on the TT bike with Lawrence. My legs feel pretty good. I am spending the rest of the day getting caught up with crap I don't have time to do this week such as Bobcat stuff, clean house, unpack from last weekend. PT!! I am going to go do a nice short trail run this evening.

Sunday- Work part of the day to infect mice for an experiment.
Swim was good. Felt really good. Got good sleep and am feeling a lot more energetic
Ride- Rode mt bike to Triple Tree and back. Nice little trail section. Can't believe it only takes two hours to do that.

Monday- Had a lot of work and a Bobcat meeting in the evening so ran in the am. My legs hurt. Felt really crappy. My right achilles and lower calf was pretty painful. Ended up cutting the run short and limping home. Took some advil and wore compression socks all day in addition to doing a lot of stretching. Hopefully legs feel better for Tuesday run.
Swim was good and hard. I swam most of those between 1:25 and 1:30. Thought I could go really hard on the last 3 with the longer rest, but those were slower.

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.