Even Triathletes Need a Labor Day

Lets start this off by saying I love hiking 14'ers. I've done a total of ten different peaks before this mountain and have summited 14 times (some of them multiple times). But with triathlon training I don't get much time or lead way to partake in these adventures. That's because they can be very strenuous and leave me pretty sore afterwards, mostly from the downhill hiking and the toll it takes on the legs. So I was ecstatic to be able to do Mt. Huron this year on Labor day. I've been having some running injuries and couldn't even run on Sunday, but I could hike! I headed up the night before and slept in the back of my new Toyota. Getting to the trailhead was interesting and nerve racking. I have a new vehicle and this was the first time I took it on a 4-wheel drive road and over creek crossings. Here's some pictures from my excursion. 

My "camping" spot

Views from the camping spot

More views 

The trail up, right before tree line

Almost to the top, about 30 more minutes of hiking

Views from the top of Mt. Huron

Looking to the East from Mt. Huron

My 11th summit

The craziness of Chicago

   For once I'd really like a triathlon to be boring. No surprises, just race hard and go home with a tan. Oh well, this is triathlon after all and things will probably never go on 100 percent the way you expected. This is my first race back after having a foot injury that took five weeks to heal. I've also switched coaches mid season and am now working with Justin Trolle (Vanguard Endurance) and its been going well. We have changed my biking position and I have a good feeling it will help with my bike split and having less pain on the bike. I've had this annoying adductor cramp/pain every time I race and haven't been able to push it as hard as I feel I can on the bike all year. So I have high hopes for this race. The pro start time was 11:30, so a little later in the day and after all of the age groupers. 

   Race day morning I wake up and have a horrible crink in my neck, a stinger. This is basically one of my worst nightmares come true. I have problems with this off and on, but usually only get it once or twice a year. It's an impingement of a nerve between the clavicle and you can't move your head at all to one side (my left this time) or to look up. Interestingly this is a common football injury, they get it from the impact of a linebacker charging into their shoulder/neck. Usually when I get this injury I don't go near the water because it's far too painful. Not an option today, I'm racing whether its painful or not. I accepted the fact that the swim is most likely going to be slower than I want, but no reason to be distressed. There are two other elements to triathlon and I can race those as hard as I can and compare my times to the rest of the athletes. 

   I head down to the race start and set up and start doing my warmups. My neck was even incredibly painful  just on my warmup run, this was a bit stressful to me but surely it will loosen up a little bit...It's time to start heading down to the swim start and getting a good 10 min warmup swim in today is incredibly important. The race organizers have warned us that its going to rain but will only last about 30 minutes and pass through. During my warmup swim I had a really hard time trying to turn my head to breathe which prompted a lot of panic. It's not a calming effect to have your head face down in water and no good way to get air. So again I accepted the fact that this is going to hurt like hell and you just gotta do it. No excuses. Gun goes off and I swim as hard as I can, but am already behind a bit before the first buoy. I'm trying hard to not let them get too far ahead of me, thankfully there are two other girls still behind me. 

     

Coming out of the water, it is raining. I had a pretty good bike even though it was down pouring the entire time. I didn't have ANY adductor pain and was very excited about that. I guess alot of people were crashing on the corners because they were very adament about slowing down and being safe. No crashes for me today. Don't need to add that to my list of injuries.





Onto the run, I caught one girl but suffered through the rest of the run. I'm not feeling the strongest on this element since I haven't gotten much run training due to my foot injury but still had a competitive time in relation the the rest of the pros and was right in the mix. I finished 14th today, but I'm confident that one of these days all elements will come together on race day.

Boulder Peak, Pro Town Showdown

   
     This race was such a good race for me last year that I had a lot of positive feelings coming into it. Last year I won the Elite Amateur division with a strong run to pass a competitor that I have a lot of respect for. As usual, I was nervous about the swim and not excited that the water temp was too warm for my Blueseventy Helix wetsuit, which means I'd be in my skinsuit. There was only nine of us at the start so I knew I'd have to attack the swim extra hard to stay in contact with all of these super fast pros. I started off very aggressive, usually I'm the one that is getting shoved and punched, but this time I think I was the person to avoid. I wasn't going to give up those feet for anything. I stayed in contact with the main group for the first 500 meters than found my self swimming with two others that caught up to me. I excited the water with the two other women, one ended up being Amanda Lovato, and was feeling pretty good about being in contact with others to start the bike.  
     I biked as hard as I could and pushed it, keeping close watch on my cadence to make sure that I didn't slack off. Unfortunately, this wasn't good enough. My bike time was actually slower than last years time by one minute and 45 seconds. This may not sound like a lot, but when you expected to be at least two or three minutes faster than last years time it hurts. I started the year off with higher power numbers on the bike than last years numbers. This was a very disappointing fact that I would examine later after the race, but I never fixate on this during a race. I consider each component to be separate on race day and once I have switched from one discipline to the next it is history and time to focus on the present.  
   I could definitely feel the fatigue on the run from the hard biking. I was at present nursing an injured foot from an aquaman race I had done during the week which caused a bone in my foot to shift and become painful. I honestly didn't even think I'd be able to run in time for the race so you could say this was a good little workout. I ended up 8th Pro for the day and overall was content knowing that I had given it my all and wasn't "complacent" on the swim or bike portion. 

    
RESULT: 8th PRO

Rev 3 Knoxville

    Knoxville Olympic distance was my second race this year with Rev 3, and I love their organization and attention to detail. You can always be assured a practice swim the day before, which I especially appreciate. Although one of my downfalls and biggest stresses is racing urban triathlons. It also seems that every time I do an urban triathlon I am without my "pitcrew."  When you have no family or support at a race it makes it a bit weird to finish and not really have anyone to high five or hang out with.  Fortunately I was rooming with another pair of pros and got to know them on this trip, which added a fun element to this triathlon.
    The swim was in a river, we swam up current and than back down and had to pull ourselves up and out onto the dock. I had a much better swim here than I have had in the last couple of races this year. It was a wetsuit legal swim for the first time this year and I go to wear my new Blueseventy Helix wetsuit and I think it made all the difference. I came out of the swim in 14th place out of 26 pro females, so I was feeling pretty good about the race so far. Anytime your not last as a first year pro you're doing well!
    The bike was actually pretty hilly and a more technical course, which is usually more of my style. Usually. I managed to lose contact with other riders in the event and found myself out on the bike course unable to see anyone, which sometimes makes it hard to push the pace and see where all of the turns are coming up at.
    Onto the run I pushed hard trying to catch other athletes and my perseverance paid off! I caught three girls by the end of the run. A new thing that Rev 3 is trying this year are tubes of water on the run, and they are amazing! Its like being given a superlight bottle of water to hang onto and drink during the race.  I wish every race had this as an option. I finished the run in 39:57, not a bad time for an early triathlon, thank you to Alaina Case for pushing me all the way to the finish line. My overall place was 18th out of 26 Pro Athletes.  Overall the bike course was really pretty and the run was on a peaceful bike path, I would definitely go back next year!

The transition area featured banners of every Pro in the race, super cool!

ITU Draft Legal Clermont Triathlon

This was my very first ITU style race and I was really excited and probably the most nervous I've ever been to do a triathlon. This was also my very first Pro race and my Aunt, Uncle, Mother, and 88 yr old Grandmother were coming along for the trip! Unfortunately, the lake was extremely dry this year and that will forever be the talk of THAT triathlon. They lined us all up and than had us walk about 250 meters out to the start line in knee deep water to ensure that we "swam" the full 750 meters of this sprint triathlon race. This made it pretty interesting when it came time to exit the water! Anyways, the gun went off, and me being all the way on the right side of the line immediately fell into last place, after all the dolphin diving ended and we began our actual swim. It was fast, furious, and all I could think was oh my God, I'm in last place and it's only 15 second into the race. 

The starting line, pretty much all of this water that you see was higher than knee deep!

It was an interesting swim, everyone swam in one straight line as you can tell by how we came out of the water. I ended up gaining two positions and didn't come out of the water last, but came out too far back to make the first bike pack or the second. I ended up chasing for the whole race with two other girls. 

A picture of me exiting the water at Clermont. 

After getting organized with two other girls we attempted to chase down the bike pack, but only had about 12.5 miles to do it. We were definitely gaining on them, but frustratingly never quite caught up. I also ended up working alot harder on the bike than other girls that were in larger bike groups and able to save more energy for the run.  Never the less, I loved doing this race. The tactics involved during an ITU draft legal race is definitely exhilarating and makes for a more fun race. 

Onto the run, which is my strength, I was able to pick up at least five positions and finish the 5K feeling strong. 

I definitely encourage every athlete to run with their tongue out!! (really it was just great timing)

My Uncle, no doubt, sharing his wisdom and perspective on how the race went, lol (it was his first triathlon spectating). Also my Grandmother and other members of my family hanging out post race. 

Rev 3 Costa Rica

     I remember the first time I clipped my shoes onto my bike for T1 during a triathlon and declared; "this is either going to be great, or its going to be a disaster." It was GREAT, I saved a lot of time in transition and mounted my bike much faster. I wish I could say the same of my recent exploit in saving time in my transitions. I've been skipping socks for the run in order to save time in transition and during this race, which included a beach run and a course that resembled something of an obstacle course and car dodging mayhem, it seemed to be a disaster.
    This is my first year as a pro and has definitely been more of a challenge, but also great at the same time. The practice swim on friday was alot of fun. I practiced in my new Blueseventy Swimskin (PZ3Tx) and my new Blueseventy siren goggles. I have to say that out of all the goggles I've used to race in; these are definitely the best, no fogging and no sunglare! The water was very rough and choppy making it hard to spot buoys. I actually prefer it to be a bit choppy and was hoping that race conditions would be the same. Unfortunately race day the winds had calmed down for the mornings swim of two laps in Playa Conchal in Costa Rica. I exited the water having to chase down the girls in front of me. The swim is a bit of a weak point and I'm working on my swimming and getting used to drafting off others and staying with the group.
    The bike course was a bit brutal, it starts off on a short section of gravel leaving transition and climbs and grinds up a long steep hill. The total elevation gain on this course is around 2300 ft. The bike was going pretty well until the final two miles. I lost my chain and had to stop to fix it, costing me probably around 30-45 seconds. Next I hit the gravel section and it jarred me and the bike so bad that I lost my chain again and it jammed into the gearing and couldn't be undone. I ended up running my bike about 150 meters into transition!
     Onto the run, it started on the beach and at times was a bit hard to tell where I was supposed to be running. I ended up developing huge silver dollar blisters somewhere around mile 2 and just suffered to get to the end of the race. Lessons learned on a difficult course! I ended up Tenth overall and on a tough course against stiff competition, I'll take it.

Doing an interview at swim practice on Friday

Post Race, icing my poor feet after getting silver dollar blisters and running  unnaturally for four miles

Rev 3 website for race
http://rev3tri.com/costa-rica/costa-rica-news/
Link to a video for the Pro Race Recap.
http://vimeo.com/38892119

New Year, New Gear

This being my first year as a Pro Triathlete I decided that I should take it up a notch and get a G.P.S. to train with, maybe even a heart rate monitor. I might even go crazy and get a power tap for the bike.  Training with all these devices has never really appealed to me. I've always prided myself on not needing all the latest gadgets and just walking out the door and using what I have and going off of feel and not worrying about numbers all the time.  That being said, most people that I talked to were a bit surprised to learn that I trained with nothing. We have a great running trail in Colorado Springs that has mile markers, so at least I've gotten some feedback on my run pacing in the past and that was always good enough for me. But now I will have a complete log of the run, elevation, and heart rate data with my new Garmin Forerunner 110.
    I'm also excited to be swimming in Blueseventy this year! I'm hoping to have all the gear before my very first ITU race in Clermont, Florida on March 3. I'm super nervous and excited to be racing ITU, it seems like I've waited five years to experience this racing style. Actually, I have waited five years to get a shot at ITU.  I love the head to head competition and knowing exactly where the leaders in the race are and being pushed hard to compete.