Beer Drinkers Appreciation Society (BDAS) 2023 Mentor Group - ALWAYS OPEN (Page 61)

Good luck today Gretchen!

And go Warriors!!

An easy ride long today on the menu, and maybe a quick swim if I have time before hockey on tv.

Happy to report that I did manage a short strength session this week.

Have a great weekend all!

HILLY 28mi (~45km) bike race done! I finished in 1:58:21, wich was just squeezing under my goal of sub-2 hours. It was an interesting experience. I enjoyed the first 13’…then…well, then not as much. Ok, it wasn’t that bad, but at 13’ was when I dropped my nutrition bottle—and the top came off and it exploded everywhere! I had a second bottle of water, so I was mostly ok. To be honest, if I weren’t also doing the HIM tomorrow, I probably never would have bothered with the Infinit for a race I was planning to finish under two hours, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t screw up tomorrow’s race unnecessarily. Ended up getting a Gatorade at the aid station (mile 14 ish?)—lemon lime (ugh!) and a total of about 150 cal in what I managed to drink during the race. My Infinit blend has 366 cal/bottle and I likely would have finished it. I guess at least I won’t be tired of the taste tomorrow? Anyway…came in straight MOP with 6/13 AG. Spread was 1:34:xx-2:24:xx.

One upside to losing the bottle on the course—now I don’t have any choice but to wear my camelback tomorrow. I could only find two bike bottles before I left and was waffling between using bottles and knowing I would have to stop and mix some Infinit versus wearing my camelback and lugging the extra weight up all the hills. Decision is now made for me, because I need both water and Infinit on course (water to rinse Infinit sweet out of my mouth). Camelback it is!

Nice warm up race Gretchen, good luck today!

Great job for your race Gretchen. Especially with the drop all your nutrition plan. This is probably too late, but good luck for your HIM.

Mike, sounds like a good day for a treadmill run, rather than 5k race.

@Warriors. Unfortunately the dream is over. We got an early lead so started to believe an upset might be on the cards, but Broncos far to good in the end. To be fair, the 2 best teams from the whole season are in the final, so no complaints. Instead of it's our year, it's 'maybe next year'

Time to shift focus to the rugby world cup. And of course cricket world cup which starts next month (cricket just to confuse the Americans)

Another solid week for me. Not perfect, but happy.

The weekend was a bit much though, Saturday got home from the in-laws about 7, kids to bed, onto zwift for a 2 1/2 hour ride. Went well, finished pretty close to kick off for my game, That finished about midnight, then off to bed. Up at 5:30 to meet my mate for a Sunday morning run. The part we forgot was daylight savings started this weekend. So the body thought 5:30 was 4:30. 3hr 55 min sleep...

Safe to say Sundays run was not great. Cut it a bit shorter than ideal, but glad I got something in.

For the week

Swim: 0. Lifes gonna Life
Bike, x3, 5hr 30 min
Run, x4, 3hr 33min
Strength and Mobility. x1, 15 min.

Just a touch over 9 hours of B/R for the week.

Goals for this week, Bike and Run, more of the same. Swim, at least x2. S/M x2.

Have a good week all.

Well…how do I put this? Cataclysmic word-I-can’t-use-on-BT show. Let me preface this with three bits of information. First, I was the ONLY woman who signed up for the half distance triathlon, second I didn’t have a chance to recon the bike course, and third, I’m okay.

The day started a bit rough. After eating the exact same breakfast (coffee, protein shake, sausage biscuit) as yesterday and countless other race days in my life, I had to pull over to barf on the way to the race venue. I was super queasy all though transition setup and the general milling about before the race. It was chilly—50F with a slight breeze. Everyone was getting into their wetsuits really early, just for the warmth. We started the race on time and the swim was okay, except my goggles were leaking from the beginning and my left arm was numb from elbow to fingertips after 500yds (side note: have an appointment with surgeon on Tuesday and will likely be having surgery to fix this issue—soon, I hope). Swim was a bit slower than I wanted, but I was very cold going in and, you know…one hand was numb and not really catching well.

T1 was fine. I took a bit of time, knowing I was going to be on the bike for a while I changed shirts so my hydration vest wouldn’t chafe the skin where my tri top doesn’t cover on my shoulder.

The bike was TOUGH. It was twice as hilly as my 140.6 last month and there were a ton of hills with no run up to it, so all muscle up the hill. It was tough, but doable. Then I turned onto Siler “Rd”. I use the term road very loosely—it was a path through the trees mostly covered with swaths of super soft sand. I tried to ride through it at first—that did not work and I ended up on the ground with my bike on top of me. Fall 1. I walked out of that sand trap and then mounted my bike and started riding at the next bit of hard pack. Then…more sand. This time, I thought I was going to be smart and I *tried* to ride just off the road in the woods on the “berm”(?). This was working really well, until I hit a patch of sand up there and rode my bike directly into a tree…okay…technically I rode my shoulder right into the tree, but it amounted to the same thing. I had a pretty hard stop (but at least I stopped, because on the other side of that tree was a pretty big drop off). Oh…and I think the tree was covered in poison ivy/oak/sumac, but I don’t get to know that for a couple more days. At this point, I was seriously questioning why I had registered for this race at all. I gave myself a mental limit. If I fell again, I was going to quit at the halfway loop point. I fell three more times before I got to that point. I was just done. I simply do not have the gravel bike skills for this race at this time. The RD (who is my old coach) met me in his truck about 0.25 miles from the loop around and he asked if I wanted a ride home. I did. I did not want to hurt myself and while I’m confident I could have done the course again, I think on more tired legs I would have really chanced injuring myself.

I ended up volunteering for the rest of the afternoon, which was fun. I’ve never volunteered at a race before, so I got to see a whole different side of the beast. The race staff told me all the gossip about how many people were super jerky for things that were their own fault (examples: being mad they were required to wear a helmet he didn’t bring; being mad his gf couldn’t go into transition with him at 8:55 when he showed up for a 9am race).

Overall, I still enjoyed the weekend. It didn’t go off as I’d hoped, but I had some fun.

Gretchen. I'm glad you enjoyed the weekend regardless. At the end of the day enjoyment is why we do these stupid things isn't it.

Sounds like a humbling experience. Good on you for being smart enough to know your limits and call it a day before damaging more than your pride. Hopefully you're wrong about the poison oak encounter :/

Am I right in thinking you're racing again next weekend?

At least you don't have to wait long for a revenge race.

Thanks Andrew. Yes, HIM next weekend.

Nice week Andrew, you are rolling now! Sorry about the Warriors. Next year !

Good luck to the All Black in the world cup. I am kind of following it through my various contact in the UK & Ireland (one of them is South African and was licking his wounds as he said this morning, while my Irish rep was laughing). I hear France (where I was born)is one of the favourites.
I never got into cricket, even though I really tried when I lived in England. Not enough action for me, and that was before I even knew what ice hockey was.

Sorry to hear about your race Gretchen but glad you had a good day anyway.

Kind of good that the race was cancelled Mike, no regrets

Didn't have a great week trainingwise. Played golf twice though, I guess that's something. Donated blood on Thursday and felt like a shipwreck on Friday.
Managed a short strength session (yeah!)

S = 0. still warm enough but I didn't find the time
B =1 27k 1 hour- cut short by thunderstorms
R = 3 21k 2:30 hours. social 10k, intervals and a slow 3k
St = 1 20 minutes

Have a great week!!

Edited by Rollergirl 2023-09-25 8:56 AM

@Gretchen. Back on the road, back in your happy place. Rest up well during the week and be ready to smash it out of the park on the weekend.

For what its worth, my bike handling skills are so average I'm 100% confident you lasted longer than I would have

@Nat, yes, France are definitely one of the favourites. Unfortunately for them their half back, whos probably the best player in the world at the moment got a nasty injury on the weekend and might be done for the tournament.

@Me, Monday rest day. Did nothing. But that was the plan. Should be an hour run, and maybe some stretching/bodyweight tonight.

Oh man, Gretchen, so sorry to hear about the Sunday race! That sounds downright miserable. Agree that you made the right choice. You could've gotten injured on a fall if that continued. I think it's good you went for it, and without some of those weird conditions I think you would've been fine.

Mike, definitely for the best that that race got cancelled. What a gross weekend.

I completely failed this weekend. I let having fun get in the way and ended up drinking way too much and completing none of my goals. I'm pretty disappointed in myself but am using it as motivation to get back on track. And I'm going to plan ahead for this weekend, where I will be at a music festival all weekend. Luckily one of the people I'm going with is pregnant (though she loves to encourage drinking).

I am also disappointed that you failed ( ) but as long as it fuels your motivation to get back on track, just forget about it and look forward!

I'm also disappointed for you. But this kind of brings us back to when you first told us your year of self improvement. If my memory is right there was a bit of discussion about taking on so many changes in one go.

Maybe you should consider focusing on 1 aspect (say your yoga) for a month. Get that habit locked in and ticking along how you like and then adding another. Repeat until all your list is happening every week.

Rather than changing everything in one go, taking things in bite sized chunks might set you up for more long term success?

Just a thought.

Easy 1 hour Z2 treadmill run Tuesday night. Followed by a short stretching routine.

This morning I swam on the way to work, 800m pyramid set (Ugly number, was supposed to be 750, miscalculated) A short swim, but the first time I've done intervals longer than 100m in ages, so happy. The kids are spending a couple of nights at my inlaws this week (school holidays) so that makes morning swims much easier. Will probably have another one tomorrow.

@Gretchen, how is the post offroad/poison ivy recovery going? Are you feeling you're going to be ready for the weekend?