Razorxp & KC Mentor team RFP CLOSED (Page 37)

Totally agree.  There is an aerobic wall we pass through early on in the swim...when I started it was about 200 yards.  Struggled.  The coach said just keep swimming, it passes.  It really does.  Something about the way our bodies use oxygen and burn energy. There is a transition that occurs.  Once you get through and pace you feel like you can swim forever.  I still have it on the run when I first start.  I asked why.  Duh.  My HR is 50 resting.  So when I start, my body takes time to adjust to the demand. I am in O2 deficit at first.  Now, I warm up by running a little including short sprints and running backward.  Then put on the wet suit and climb in the water...swim some strokes  ..get the hr up.  Jump, swing my arms to keep it up until it's my turn.   

George/Kevin/Mary - awesome job on the races!  George - the fact that you even did a race after everything you've done is amazing!

My weekend was a complete BUST! Well, not completely but I didn't race yesterday.  I feel pretty stupid even admitting to it but what I learned this weekend: don't plan too much on a race weekend. 

My weekend went something like this: Training group had a 50 mile outdoor ride Sat morning out in one of the suburbs.  Theres a 25 mile loop that is well known and great for hill training.  It was cold and rainy...not real rain but that misty, annoying kind of rain.  Anyways, it took me a little longer than expected and we had to do a 15 min transition run afterwards.  I started the run and couldn't feel my toes.  I stopped after 10 for a few minutes to catch my breath and try and get the feeling back in my toes.  Then I went back out and finished the last 5 min.  

My cousin was coming in for her summer internship and flew in from Seattle so I had to go and pick her up.  Original plan was to ride, go home & shower, pick her up, go get race packet, and then grab lunch in Koreatown.  Well, the ride took longer than expected so I got home later than expected. And then, you know, the whole ripple effect.  We were on our way to lunch and I looked at my clock and it said 2:07.  I'm like "F*CK!"  Cousin is all like "what?! what is it?"  Me: "packet pickup closed at 2."  By that point, it would've taken me at least 45 min to get to the packet pickup place.  Also, by that point I was starving and was not about to miss korean noodles and KFC (korean fried chicken)

The race website said no race day packet pickup.  I guess I could've called and tried to work something out...but I wasn't feeling 100% from riding in the cold/rain earlier that day.  And to be honest, it wasn't a race I was really looking forward to b/c of the pool swim.  I guess in my mind it wasn't a "real" race b/c of that.  I looked at the results and it looks like they took out the bike part too b/c of the rain/wind, etc.  

I had originally wanted to sign up for a sprint tri in Galena that is this coming weekend but one of my training coaches suggested the Tower Y tri instead. (don't have to drive 4 hours, etc, etc) Which is why I signed up for this race in the first place.  Another lesson learned: don't sign up for a race b/c someone else thinks you should.  That's an obvious one though so again, I feel pretty dumb 

Oh well.  I'm not gonna dwell on it, it is what it is.  I've got the Soldier Field 10 miler at the end of this month and the SheROX tri June 12. I definitely won't miss that one! 

Yesterday weather was pretty crappy (rain/windy/cold) so I didn't even do the scheduled 80 min run.  Instead, baked cookies & cupcakes and hosted a 7 year old girl's birthday party. 

George-- Yeah, I totally freaked out during my first wave start swim...ended up swimming on my back for about 2 minutes near the beginning.  It took a lot just to settle myself down.  Did better this time!!!  Only 10 seconds of panic on Saturday!

Sarah--That totally sucks!  At least the weather was bad so it was nice to stay indoors!!!

Got in a long ride/short run brick Saturday after the race.  Decent swim on Sunday, but I could tell I was tired.

Slept in this morning...currently on lunch break from our super long surgery today.  Prob like 12 hours?  Sigh...

Hey Team.

Not feeling so good today for some reason . Weather real bad here today - cold, rainy again, windy. I brought the bike to the basement and put it back on the trainer and did a measly 30 minutes. I am going to try to swim tonight - I will see how I feel when I get there.

OK - for some good news, non health related - 1st sprint entered  see below.

Have a good night team.

KC

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WOOHOO!!!  KC is racing

I did a 45 minute ride last night--felt good for the first 30 minutes then got a liitle tougher.  I have a run planned for after work length is undetermined at least 30 minutes.

Have a great day of training every one!

Good Morning Team.

Thanks Kev - I am excited and nervous . That will be my first official. The only other one I have done wa a Try a Tri late last August.

Still not 100 % this morning but going out for a short run to keep breaking in these Newtons - cool and windy out there - brrrrrrr  Then off to work, Junior Golf Clinics tonght and then, of course, a swim.

Have a great day everyone.

KC

PS - hope you got home safe and sound Coach.

Just a thought;  I wear ear plugs to keep cold water out of my head to avoid that groggy feeling and to stop from being affected by the incessant panic going on around me. The testosterone, the racket of nervous people all chattering about nothing, the blaring music.   I get centered within myself, picturing the first few strokes as "easy, smooth, easy, smooth..." and picturing myself out of the water after a good swim, grabbing my bike, heading out to ride the course, coming in, going for a good strong run. Positive thoughts.  And I SMILE.  I emailed Chrissie Wellington on FB once just to say how much I appreciated her good image for triathlon, her insistence on returning to the finish line after a shower and change of clothes to welcome in the age groupers.   Her advice to me was, Keep Smiling!  I figure if the world champion tells me something, I better do it.  Did you know smiling has been shown to reduce your real perceived effort?  True fact.  Smile and you can go harder.  Also,it totally throws off everyone around you.    So after my swim warmup, I get on the beach and center myself and smile.  No panic.  This is about FUN! 

great job- kc!  now all your hard work will pay-off with a great race.  enjoy it!

Congrats, KC!  You're racing!!!  We're all cheering for you!

Sarah, that's a pretty funny story.  Definitely sounds like something I would do.   Given the choice, I would choose yummy Korean food as well.  There's nothing better than a delicious plate of well marinated kalbi or bulgogi.  I'm drooling as I think about it.

Ice, my daughter's current motto is "Easy Peasy."  I found myself saying that on my bike and on my run this past weekend.  Now that you mentioned it, maybe I should've been reminding myself of that during the swim.

George - She's a cutie!!

KC - Glad to see you signed up for one!!!  Same weekend I'm doing mine! 

Scott - If Chrissie does it, I'm going to start doing it to!

CUTE KID!  Lucky man, you are.  (I sometimes speak Yoda.)  

You are right - smiling in the midst of this takes practice.  But it works.  Try it.  I wrote a column recently about how I when I started running, I was not that very happy about it.  Then I got to where I was OK with it because of the weight loss and other things it did for me.  Then one night I was running and something happened.  I pictured the little boy I used to be running with me.  God he loved to run.  Run for running sake, run the bases, run any time.  That kid was smiling that night running with me...skipping sometimes, the little turd. Where does he get all that energy?  Since then, I have only to conjure up that little boy to run with me.  He is always happy to run, always smiling and he makes me feel joyous too.  I have since learned to take him in the pool and the bike.  It keeps it fun.  I live like a 15 year old on Saturday morning on my best days.  Try practicing smiling.  Remember how fun all this was when we were kids.  That's how it should feel now, I think.

George – very cute

IceMan – great advice – I practice that all the time on the golf course so I better implement it on the race course and in training as well.

Keith – I don’t wear anything like that when I train – but it might be a good idea to keep me focused, I guess I would just have to come up with something meaningful for me? Maybe you could get another similar bracelet to the one you wear now?

The pictures I have attached are from the beach behind my sister’s cottage on Lake Erie, where I will be starting to do my OWS this weekend (I hope). That is my niece on the beach. She is moving out there for the summer this weekend and I have my wet suit ready to go. I am guessing it will be a bit cool, but oh well, have to take the plunge sometime – right?

I also included a map so you have an idea of where it is. If you could see right across the lake in the background you would be looking right into the Coach's home state of OHIO. (I put a black line on the map so you know what I am talking about)

I probably won't try to swim to Cleveleand this weekend though

Off to junior golf camp and then a swim tonight.

 Have a great afternoon everyone.

KC

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Sorry for being awol for a couple days.  I am going to try and catchup quickly!

Marry: Michael jackson/Marley??? lol  are you trying to sleep..  Those are some great splits for your race, glad your not in my AG! 

Naked Kevin,  your RR sounds like it was a fun swim!!  I'm like you and try to swim away from most of the crowd.  What do you mean by "tune bike with wheels on" ?  Either way great job!

KC: How are you liking the newton? they are alittle weird at first but great once you get used to them.   Buddy dropped out of the race due to hating the hills!lol  I was almost right with him.    I don't feel so bad about my time/speed as the winner in the AG category was only 21mph (very slow in half standards, so all speeds were down quite a bit).    When are you swimming this weekend? If I'm free I think I should start training.

George:  AWESOME job, the key for you was to finish your 1st race.  Once you get the swim figured out your golden!  If you struggle in the swim its nearly impossible to have a good race as you stress your body so much it cannot recover.  The key is to just get into a groove no matter how slow and get through the swim.  great pic!!!

Sara: Don't sweat the weekend and missing the race, there are many more races this year.

Brian: I think we just need your screenname to be bpeterson! lol    BTW what in the heck were you taking latin in 8th grade? are you in mensa?

Heather: Great run of 11.5 miles how did you feel afterwords?  Do you play soccer or coach?

Deb: You like to drive wayyy too much, I remember last session you drove hours for just a quick dinner (or something). Congrats on the anniversary again.  A quick fix could be as easy as adjusting the tab where the cable goes into the dérailleur.  You can usually turn it by hand clockwise/counter.  If you want to try I can post more on what to do.

Keith I know alot of people that wear them and I don't think they do anything but if they keep you focused then it would be well worth the $30

Hey Coach - welcome back safe and sound - if you are free Saturday or Sunday, you could jump in Lake Erie somwhere between Toledo and Cleveland, start swimming and we could meet halfway LOL. So far, I really like the new runners, they make me feel like a bit of a faster turtle -almost as fast as a snail  which reminds me of my favorite joke.

Here you go:

A turtle got robbed in the forest next to the pond one day by a pack of snails. After the assailants fled, Mr. Turtle called the cops. The cops showed up and were interviewing Mr. Turtle. They asked him to explain what happened and as he was telling the Police that he was robbed by a pack of snails, the police asked him if he could describe his assailants. Mr. Turtle looked at the police and said "I will try, but you have to understand, it all happened so quickly"

God I love that joke!

KC

I haven't had time to do a RR for this weekend but it could have been a whole lot better and worse 

A) already told you about near collision with deer.  

 B) arrived got race number 666   who in the heck gives a racer (in the bible belt) that race number.  It was kind of funny to me but some were actually offended  as if I picked the number.  I didn't number my left arm as I was afraid some idiot would run me off the road after seeing it.    Even when I finished the announcers and crowd were commenting lol  oh well nothing bad happen but still kind of weird

as for the race it is a great venue and would recommend it to anyone: River start where your treading water until the gun went off.  About .25 miles upstream then back downstream for the rest.  Swim was normal with a couple collisions but nothing too hard.  My time was very slow but I was not pushing as I needed to save everything for the bike/run.

Got on the bike course and immediately they changed it from last year as we were climbing from the he start.  Once we got the the country the fun began as it seemed like we were uphill the entire race, nothing like going uphill for 5 mins @ 5mph then 40mph for 30seconds then 6mins uphill.  About 12 miles in I was ready to drop out as my legs had nothing.  Just hung on and plugged away as the miles ticked off and once I hit 28 miles mentally I felt better as I half way.  Then It seemed like the hills got worse. :-(    Finally got back in T2 and stopped and told angie that I would go a few mile to see how things felt.

Hit the run and felt ok started out at 7:45 for about 1mile then hit the hills.  pace slowed but still running pretty good.  Then they made another change and it took us into a very nice neighborhood but there wasn't a flat part on it.  These hills were 20x larger than any hill I have within a 50 mile radius of my house. (I train on roads like KC picture last week).  Needless to say the pace slowed.  Started walking up the hill and trotting down.   Had alot of fun as everyone was very nice and the views were great.  Somehow got through the race although over 1 hour slower than I should do a HIM, but I more than carbed up that night with some good friends! lol

The best part was my nutrition for the race:  1.5 packs of gu chomps, 1/4 bottle of gatorade, 6 grapes, 3 pretzles.   So about 200 cals in 6 hours. lol   I guess I should have planned better!  Actually my stomach was hurting after the swim and never got better so I didn't want to eat anything, I fought to get the chomps down.

My race wheels have a different cassette then the training wheels

race has 12-27 and training 11-25 (I think that is right)  So I did an initial fit before I left and all was good tune and shifting right. When I put my race wheels on at the hotel I tweeked the cable some but I did not fully double check and I was slipping on the middle cogs the whole race so I basically used the upper 2-3 and the lower 2-3 the whole race

Huh?

(Now that figured out how to use the image function, watch out!)

Coach, great job on pushing through and not giving up.  Your distance and persistence definitely inspires me to not give up.  After all, I'm only doing a quarter mile swim, 12 mile ride and a 5k.  So thanks for sharing these stories.

Oh KC, keep the bad jokes coming...

Hey, way to go coach!  I'm impressed, either way.

Good thing you got those grapes in... 

About to head to the OR again (yes, it's 5pm, oh well) and on call tonight.  May be able to get in a trainer ride?  Maybe not...

George - my 6 year old niece liked it - does that count?

OK - how about this one - she loved this one LOL.

Q: What did the snail say when he hitched a ride on the turtle’s back?

A: Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Mary - I don't know what to say other than your dedication to your job and this sport is amazing.

KC

I'm really late in replying to this (and did see that you got in already - well done!), but the best way I know of to get into a sold out race is to find someone who registered,  but can't race, and buy their bib. I don't know about triathlons, but a number of road races will let you transfer a registration from one person to another.  In fact (and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention another forum here, but I'll try it), the Running Room forums have a whole thread for people who want to transfer a race entry.  Worth keeping in mind for next time. Of course, some races don't allow transfers at all, in which case, I have no idea what you could do to get in...

After the long run, I felt great - definitely like I could have finished off the full HM distance!  I'll be interested to see how this race goes compared with my last one, as I decided to try a new training program this time (with a shorter longest "long run").. I also just discovered Gu Chomps and they are my new favourite mid-long run snack (I like them so much better than Sports beans!)

Unfortunately my attempted run tonight was not so good.  I'm not sure what happened, but both calves were cramping up and it was just miserable, so I cut it short.  I keep trying to run my commute home, but never seem to have a good run when I do this, so I will likely switch my schedule so I'm not commuting on foot any more.

For soccer, I play. In the winter I was playing twice a week (both 7 aside), in the summer I will be on playing three times a week (twice on smaller fields, and once on a full-sized field).  I tend to treat the full field games as a mid-week run - I usually play midfield and get to run lots; but will add a short run to the smaller field games.

KC - I liked your first turtle/snail joke!

Mary - I can't imagine how hectic your schedule must be - I'm super impressed..

Hey Team.

Hope everyone had a succesful day.

Was not able to make it to the pool tonight - something came up - oh well, life gets in the way sometime I guess.

Back at it tomorrow.

KC

Suck! I'm sorry for the pity party that is about to commence.   

10:56pm and just now out of OR.  Two folks in ER to see and sew up.  Definitely not getting on the bike tonight....at this rate, I"ll be happy to get home for some sleep before work starts again tomorrow.

Unfortunately the only place open here at night is McDonalds.

Get this-- They're out of chicken.  out of quarter pounders.  no salads.  Basically they had filet o fish, chicken nuggets and apple dippers.  great dinner.