BigSkiesMentorGroup - COMPLETE! (Page 16)

Nice to see some of you are racing. I'm still anxious waiting for the 29th. (my first try a tri)

Today was the first day in almost a week that it was not freezing cold out. Actually very warm today  at 18 celsius (64 farenheit).

I went for a bike ride and it was nice but very windy. We have sunny days ahead so I'm going to stop  the spinning classes.

I have not much to add at this time. Most of my training was indoors this week. I'm a little bit worry about the next two weeks because there will be 3 days on each that I won't be able to train at all due to work.

Maybe I could go to the Y before work. Even one hour will be better than nothing.

Thanks Veronica.  It's was disappointing but I'm over it now.  Time to move on.  I can't wait to race again.

Good luck with your race today.  Hopefully the masses of people will be behind you (and the winds if they happen to be blowing)!!

Great attitude!!

I've only done races with 300+ at the most, but I also am doing a large, womens' sprint later this summer in Mpls.  and will love to hear what you think of such a large race.

How the heck can you have a pool swim with so many people????  Won't it take all day???  I've done a pool tri but with a lot fewer people.  They had 8 lanes and 2-4 people/lane and about 8 waves and that took quite awhile.

Denise

Howdy everyone -

Wellll....my 10K just sucked yesterday. I didn't sleep well as we took our RV to cut out having to get up at 5am and drive to the race site. Must have eaten something the night before because I had serious GI issues when I went to bed Friday night and upon waking Saturday morning. I spent the entire race hoping I wouldn't throw up or poop my pants. The wind was gusting to 25mph...overcast. Of course, I over dressed and chose the wrong lenses for my glasses. 

The setting was cool (Guthrie, OK was originally the capitol of Oklahoma until some crazy redneck stole the state symbol and moved it to OKC) so the downtown area is very ornate and almost Victorian-looking. It was a benefit run for a no-kill dog sanctuary called "See Spot Run" (the race, not the sanctuary). Some people ran with their dogs....it was hilarious. Until I got Chihuhua'd, Basset Hound'd and Schnauzer'd. I thought getting strollered was bad - imagine being outran by a Chihuahua. Seriously though...I couldn't stop laughing the first mile because the dogs were hilarious. Luckily, none of the dogs wanted to race the 10K distance so I didn't get passed by anymore of them after the 1.5 mile mark. 

Oh, I forgot to mention all the HILLS. I didn't do my homework when I picked this race, so I was unaware that it was all hills. Hill after hill after hill. At one point after I crested a particularly steep hill a race volunteer said "That was a pretty tough hill, huh?" to which I responded "Who was the sadist that picked the race course?!" He just laughed. I wasn't laughing. I had no idea we had so many hills in the flatlands of Oklahoma! I was certainly severely fatigued after the race. Came home, bathed and crawled into bed and slept. Still tired today. It must be my GI problems as I've ran a 10K before and didn't have any ill after effects.

Denise - I will let you know how my first Oly goes. It's a huge one. Over 3000 racing! I probably should have picked a smaller race for my first Oly, but the race is in Austin, TX and sounds like so much fun! Looking forward to hanging out in one of the coolest cities in the SW part of the US.

Steve - Thanks for the advice on not tackling all my swimming flaws at once. My coach said the same thing, and I'm going to heed that advice. Oh, and I don't have any elbow aches so I think your post was meant for someone else. (Thank goodness I have no elbow aches....my back is enough.)

Hope everyone had a better race experience than I did this weekend. Mine did little to boost my confidence going into my first Oly, but I do know for a fact that there are NO HILLS during the run portion of my Oly. Thank goodness!

Forgot: My sweet, dear hubby gave me a new saddle for Mom's Day - a Terry Butterfly. I tried it out Thursday and it feels pretty darn good! So far I feel comfortable recommending it to other women. Give me another couple of months and I'll give a definitive thumbs up or down. 

I had to do something as I lost so much weight my bum started getting bony and my saddle was killing me. So glad I found one that I think is going to work.

Steve - Not buying your trick of the light saddle story. I'm thinking you just hate change and prefer to ride lopsided. Bet that gave you some interesting back, hip and leg issues...

If I tried to correct all of my swimming form issues at once, I'd surely sink like a rock. Or I'd stay in one place churning water like an eggbeater. I will do my "thing" come race day, but I am going to start working on the crossover and kick immediately. Hopefully one or the other will improve a bit before the race.

No, I haven't heard of Poopman, do tell! 

Sorry to hear this weekend's races didn't go off as planned and that many of you are plagued with weather issues.  Thursday we had a near record high of 93 degrees, the previous record was 94 ... but a cool front blew in and we have had beautiful weather since ... blue skies, a bit breezy with lows in the 50s and highs in the low 80s.  Ironman Texas is next weekend and and this would have been the perfect weekend for that (as good as it gets for May in Texas).  This week the highs aren't supposed to get out of the 80s, so hoping those 90+ days with 90% humidity stay away until after IM Texas. 

LISA

I just wanted to give a quick race report from the Trirock Annapolis Sprint I did on Saturday.  I had an absolute BLAST doing this race.  I enjoyed this race so much more than Cascade Lake.  The amount of bands they had playing, the people out supporting, the total atmosphere was amazing.  If anyone has done the Richmond Marathon / half marathon it will really remind you of that. 

Going into this race my goal was to just do better in all areas than I did last year.  I knew my transitions were going to be better this year since my son wasn't going to be there this time.  Last time when he was there during the transitions he wanted to give me hugs and kisses and flowers that he picked for me. 

I had a hard time getting to sleep Friday night.  The person I made arrangements with to pick up my son from daycare bailed on me at the last minute.  I was so keyed up physically with trying to drive over 3 hours to get to daycare in time and then drive back south to get the race packet, then getting everything ready for race day and for my parents to get to my place I didn't get to sleep until 1:07am (last time I looked at the clock) and my alarm went off at 3:10am.  Needless to say I was less than pleased to find out that even though it said numerous times on the website that there was no race day packet pick up that they in deed did have it. 

I was afraid that the swim was going to be slower than the tri I did last.  The Chesapeake Bay was choppy and there were boats going by close enough to create waves.  I'm not sure how I did it but I shaved 2 minutes off of my time from last year!  I'm sure a lot of it has to do with not having to mess around with the wet suit like I did last year but even with the choppy water and swimming agianst the current I was able to complete it in about 12 minutes.  I do have to say that I did waste about 1 minute waiting in line at the dock to get out.  They only had 4 ladders on the floating dock for people to use to get out.  You weren't able to hoist yourself up onto the dock either.  You had to wait for a ladder, otherwise I would have just done it myself.  

My transition from the bike to the swim was the longest at almost 3min.  I didn't have my glasses after the swim, and didn't put contacts in that morning either, so it took me a bit to find my bike again.  they had moved the trailer that I was using as my land mark.  The roads were a little slick from the rain but I was glad that I did all the hill work during my lunches.  The hills on the course were a piece of cake!  I still worked hard because of all the people on the course and not being able to keep the speed/pace that I wanted to but I was really pleased with the outcome.  I kind of feel guilty now for not trying/pushing harder on the bike portion but next time LOL!  I lost a little bit of time at the end of the bike.  It wasn't clear where the turn to the transition area was.  The cop that was suppose to be directing the bike traffic was texting on his phone when we came into the area.  We were suppose to turn left but instead we went straight.  He caught the girl infront of me at the last minute.  She turned left but turned so sharp that she fell.  I was turining right after her and almost hit her with my front tire as she slid but was able to redirect to go straight and avoid crashign into the people standing on the sidewalk and antoher biker who had gone straight to avoid our mess.  Luckily, everyone was fine, no injuries or road rash, and we all got back on and finished.

The run was the most fun for me.  I was feeling a little tired on this portion but once I got into my groove it was easy.  I ended up talking to some people along the way back and we were all encouraging each other...the perfect atmosphere for me! 

The icing on the cake was when I was coming close to the finish line the I had just passed two people and the spectators were really rooting for me.  They were telling me to keep the pace up and that I had these two on my tail...really rooting for me.  Then they called my name as I crossed the finish line!  I love hearing that LOL!

This race was just so great.  They had bands playing on boats in the water so you had some music to hear while swimming.  A couple of bands playing on the bike route and running route.  The volunteers had SO much energy and were so encouraging it was just a great experience!

The only two things that I did not like was the no race day packet pick up and the fact that they only had 15 port-o-potties for all the athletes.  There were over 800 athletes there!!!    Those two things are not going to prevent me from doing it again next year though.  I can't wait!!

First, congrats to Shemmer - your report is very encouraging.

Second, I did my first "brick" - well kind of.  I've been able to run my >5k, ride my >14 miles and swim >800 yards so I wanted to do something to kick my training up a notch.  This morning I rode a short loop (@2.7 mi) then hopped off my bike put on my running shoes (@ a 3 min transition) and then ran my 5k (my scheduled workout for this morning)  Best part, I still did sub 10 min miles on my run.  The only problem was that my lower back started to hurt a bit.  I'm not sure if that was the cycling shorts w/ pad or something else. 

That being said, I think from here out I will always finish my ride with a short run or start my run with a short ride. 

Off to work now...

Sarah,

Great job on the race!  It sounds like fun!

Concord,

Nice job on your brick!  They are never much fun but are a necessary evil.

Trina,

Are you coming to Austin for CapTex?  I'm in for the Aqua-Bike this year.  Doc says no running, so I can't do the full Oly but I really like this race.  It's very well organized and run well for the large # of participants.  This will be my 5th or 6th year at CapTex.  (It helps that it's in my backyard.)

George -

Yes, I am doing Cap Tex later this month. My first Oly! I'm so happy to hear another positive report about the race, as there have been plenty of negative comments about it. Something about packet pickup, late swim start and numerous loops on the bike. For some reason people seem to get cranky if the bike's not an out-and-back. My coach told me that many races are going the multi loop route to make the race easier to marshall, as well as spectator friendly. I'm curious as to how it's going to pan-out with thousands of people all on a 6 mile loop at the same time. How did you like it?

The Women’s Triathlon that I participated in yesterday is a great event!  This is an event with a lot of enthusiasm and support for each triathlete. I’m working on my race report but if you are interested here is an article in our local newspaper and I was quoted. I didn’t win but got in the paper!  There is a potluck banquet tonight so they don’t post everyones results until after the banquet so I don’t know standings but they did send my preliminary results and I am pretty happy with those. Only one problem (see below), even with that I think I managed to make the top 100 and that’s pretty good in my book. I promise to follow up with a race event report soon but thought I would respond to your posts.

Denise - I think you will love the atmosphere of an all womens triathlon. Several years ago I did the Danskin Triathlon in Seattle and I believe it was about 3000 women, same supportive, enthusiastic crowd.

For this Alaska Gold Nugget Women’s Triathlon they have this pool swim stuff down to a science! The short story is it is a long day for those in charge of the pool and below is the long story.

The swim is 500 yards in a 50 meter pool. So they move the bulkheads to the center with a small opening for warm-ups. This allows for (2) 25 yard pools with 8 lanes across. They seed the first 50 triathletes with the first 32 starting on the gun and they get to split a lane. When those top 32 are all out of the pool the next 32 triathletes start and they continue to split the lane up through number 150 with another swimming entering the water as each swimmer exits. Numbers 50 up through 150 are for people who pay extra for a lane and some of the volunteers. After number 150 the triathletes start circle swimming entering as a swimmer exits.  Oh, also after number 150 the numbers are randomly assigned to the triathlete, so swim times may vary. Each swimmer has a volunteer lap counter/timer and that volunteer puts a board in the water to let the swimmer know that it is their last lap and then to stop. (This is the tricky part because some of us that do flip turns, don’t see the sign because we are already going into our turn. Yep! That’s me. Due to my inability to count my own laps or to see the yellow board during a flip turn, I swam an extra lap before saying okay this has to be enough, looking up and seeing them wave the stop board! I think the volunteer doesn’t realize it needs to be submersed in the water.)

Actually there are a lot of tricks to this pool swim, they also try to match up swimmer ability though it doesn’t always work out as hoped. This year they tried to have lanes designated slow(more than 15 minutes), medium(10-15 minutes) and fast(under 10 minutes). As you can tell with this range, there are backstrokers, breaststokers, sidestrokers, doggiepaddlers, you name it, they get through the 500 yards. So during the circle swim there is some passing necessary and quite often some frustration but you know its coming and prepare for it going in. Don’t expect a PR swim. So, the triathlon started at 9:10am and I believe swimming was finished by about 4:30pm. Yes long day!

I was number 626 and got into the pool about 12:10pm. A friend was number 1381 and we watched her run into the finish at 5:15pm! Also had a couple of friends in that first seeded group and they finished before 10:30am.  

So I tried the "Icks" workout Steve posted awhile back, only I did a much shorter version.  I did a bike, run, bike, run, bike.  Bike segments were 15 minutes (on the trainer) and the run segments were 1 mile on a sandy, hilly trail.  I think this would definitely be a good way to get more accustomed to running off the bike.  I'll have to do more of these, but it will take a while to build up to the work out you posted, that's lots of B's and R's! 

Thanks!

Jessica