Yanti & Salty Straight-Up Ridiculous Manatees Part 5 - FULL (Page 47)

Homework completed.  Not really pace booty, but I do tend to watch it closely.   Good beer too.

Run 1:55 and change

Finish 5:44 and change

Holy cow that bike course is a killer!  You do some monster long hills 3 times (8 Cat 5 climbs).  I tried my best not overcook the bike but that still wasn't enough.  Run was tough but still managed sub 9 pace.

I had only one HIM before this one and I PR'd my swim and run.

This race is a fantastic event, the race environment is great, especially the run.  It's 3 loops so your friends/family can cheer you on many times.

RR to follow in the next day or two, maybe tonight while it's fresh in my mind.

Run 1:55 and change

Finish 5:44 and change

Holy cow that bike course is a killer!  You do some monster long hills 3 times (8 Cat 5 climbs).  I tried my best not overcook the bike but that still wasn't enough.  Run was tough but still managed sub 9 pace.

I had only one HIM before this one and I PR'd my swim and run.

This race is a fantastic event, the race environment is great, especially the run.  It's 3 loops so your friends/family can cheer you on many times.

RR to follow in the next day or two, maybe tonight while it's fresh in my mind.

This is an oldie but I can't resist posting considering we had beer photo homework ...

These are bottles of our national beer, yessirree it's Indonesian and not half-bad (owned by Heineken, they bought it a few years back) ... Bintang Beer. (means Star)

They are sporting ultra-chic beer burqas, straight from Afghanistan (our friend is a CNN photojournalist who plops into Bali to decompress for a couple of weeks every time he comes back from Iraq or Afghanistan before heading back to New York).

Homework completed.  Not really pace booty, but I do tend to watch it closely.   Good beer too.

BIKE COACH REPORT....it's bigger than most race reports....warning...

Well we got to the park in 9 degrees but sunny - just that wind chill factor.  And here comes Mark - definitely a tall slim piglet...all good in my book.  DH decided he would run the lap of the park (5km) and Artemis would ride - she got on her bike and fell off immediately - good start - way to impress the bike coach!

Anyway off we went - so he wants me to start by just showing him my clipping in on my left in and out in and out - yep I'm good at that.  Oh and now show me how you stop - hehe!  Well I did stop but when I was stopping I've got the right foot at the top of the stroke and leaning way left to reach the foot to the floor - always with a calf cramp and of course got a bit of motion still going so I hop along the ground a few steps.

So Mark says - you want to unclip left, brake, right foot to bottom of stroke, weight in the right foot, move forward off the saddle and put your left foot down.  Well I just repeated my own thing and still was shocking...

Anyway he left it and we went to the grass - I was to ride around him in a tight circle super slow as slow as I could and even come to a stop without unclipping and if I felt like the bike would topple then set off again - pretty good at this.  Then try stopping - ah yes forgot to unclip then and down she went - but I'm on the grass and all good!  Now more terrified than ever that I'm not going to get this.

So Mark says we got to get you used to having your right foot down at the bottom and weight on that leg but forward off the saddle - so how do you feel about riding out the saddle - mmm never tried it - up and down doing that, nearly came unstuck once but pedaled and righted myself, he was impressed.  a bit more stopping but I'm still not getting it - just terrified Im going to put weight on right leg and go down that side (as I have before)

So next he takes me to a carpark area - we are to practice tight turns - leaning into the turn, turning head into the turn, leaning the body weight in that down leg no need to turn handlebars, the bike will follow you.  A lot of this....ad nauseum.  He then said I want to demonstrate to you how much grip the bike has - so off he goes to do a circle low to the ground and pretty fast - guess what Manatees - he fell off!  I was so pleased!  Just goes to show....

Lesson nearly over by now - 50mins and i've not mastered stopping, I suddenly thought, oh hold on I think I get it.  I said 'hey Mark watch' and i did it, I got a high five!  I did it over and over again - I just kept my right foot on the down part of the pedal turn unclipped my left got comfy with my left foot hanging, braked and hopped down off the saddle.

Manatees I'm so pleased by now!  Then he says okay you are good at stopping when you want to, now let's do 'an emergency stop' - oh sh*t.  so we're going at a bit of a pace and he says 'STOP!'.  I unclip, brake and hop down - OMG I can do this.  I got it!

for his last trick. How about we try and stop with unclipping the opposite foot - mm didn't happen.  Baby steps - as he said though, if there is a gutter or grate or something sometimes it may be worth unclipping the other side, have it in your artillery.

I've booked another lesson people - he wants me to be steady enough to drink and eat and signal etc. 

I'm still nervous but I will try again and again.

The park was a great venue - black swans everywhere but no magpies.  I'm going back there to practice some more.

Wow - who knew.

Just on that basis I award myself

Thanks everyone for working with me through my crisis yesterday. I am feeling emotionally a bit better today, although I'm still angry with myself for not sticking with the plan and blowing up at the end. Someone said it well (Chris?), if I had stuck with the plan and finished in the time I did, I would be satisfied. It's that it was so hard, and that I made it so, that makes me angry with myself. I should have known better than to rely on the course for water, as slow as I am. And I did not train properly.

Physically, I am not better. My run soreness has eased considerably, but the back of my shoulders is sore (carrying the water bottle, I guess?), and Ben and I have come down with some kind of intestinal thing. He woke up in the middle of the night sick. I got up to help him, then I woke up this morning sick. So a rest day in bed for him and me.

But after I got Jayson to school, I made myself some apple pancakes and slathered them in pumpkin butter. A yummy pancake can fix almost anything. I should have made some last night. :-)

Run 1:55 and change

Finish 5:44 and change

Holy cow that bike course is a killer!  You do some monster long hills 3 times (8 Cat 5 climbs).  I tried my best not overcook the bike but that still wasn't enough.  Run was tough but still managed sub 9 pace.

I had only one HIM before this one and I PR'd my swim and run.

This race is a fantastic event, the race environment is great, especially the run.  It's 3 loops so your friends/family can cheer you on many times.

RR to follow in the next day or two, maybe tonight while it's fresh in my mind.

Yes, ma'am.

Asalzwed - 2012-09-23 6:03 PM

KansasMom - 2012-09-23 5:55 PM

Asalzwed - 2012-09-23 2:03 PM I've also done my homework but will wait until I'm at my computer to post as well as my RR. I won overall women and am happy with my race but I'll save the details for the RR. it should be a good one,

Great, great job! You are amazing.

I'm dying to hear about your race! How did it go? How'd the toe?? Did you host your own 2:30 group??

I'm at my computer now, not the tablet, so I can type a little better.

I feel like such a baby. Seriously, I want to just crawl into a quiet corner (yeah, right) of my house and cry for about an hour or two.

After the race, I stretched a little, had some astronaut ice cream (the benefit of having the Cosmosphere in town), chatted with the third place finisher in my age group from last week's race (she did the half in 2:12!!!), chatted with a student from my college who was there to support her running coach (She prayed with me before the race started, and seriously, that prayer got me through the darkest times of the race). Took the shuttle back to my car. None of us in the shuttle could even remember which parking lot we were in. Hobbled off the shuttle, made it to my car, drove to Jimmy Johns to get lunch for the family. Drove 30 minutes home. Showered. Then we all loaded back in the car (hubby driving this time) and spent 3 plus hours at the Highland festival in another town 45 minutes away.

So I feel like a baby because I didn't want to do any of that other stuff. I wanted to go soak in the pool and nap, but we ended up not going to the family thing yesterday, so we had to do it today because it's only a two day thing. I feel like a baby because I had to drive myself there and back. Just feeling bratty and whiny.

Anyway, I will write up the race report, but I'm in such a poor emotional state right now. Weepy for no reason at all. This is the first race I've done where I truly felt like I was doing a death march. I felt sooo slow. My legs hurt from the hips down, and I can barely move. And chaffing -- under my arms and on my thighs. Seriously. The first time ever. I was (am) so demoralized.

And negative split?? What a joke. I did the first 6.55 in 1:12 -- the second in 1:19 -- that's more than a minute a mile slower, right?

Sorry for the downer. I hope I have a better attitude about it tomorrow.

Oh, there is some good news. My toe doesn't hurt any worse now than it did yesterday, and it really didn't bother me much at all on the run.

Congratulations!  

I was trying to track on on the site but it got stuck after you left T2.  Thanks for checking in ;-)

Well my race is done. Missed my public goal by 1 minute. Missed my secret goal by 11 minutes. Too much drama. They ran out of water at the second and third water stops. And the fourth water stop had run out, but they refilled the thermos from a garden hose, I guess. It was nasty. I can't even describe it. I was almost in tears. I panicked. Once we got off the biking trail, into a neighborhood, at mile six, some guy had water bottles (and cans of beer, if we preferred) and skittles, because of course most of the course food was gone, too. So I ran the rest of the way with a water bottle. I passed on the candy. I don't understand that as race food.

More later. I can't type properly, and auto Correct is changing everything.