2009

Happy New Year!
I always enjoy this chance to take stock of the last year and set goals for the year to come.

My goals for 2009:

Learn to love training and racing again - stop freaking out about it all
Sub 61 min IM swim
Sub 3 hr IM run
3 top five IM finishes
Qualify for and race in Hawaii

Steps Along the Path - Ironman Arizona

IronMan Arizona - 12th, 10:06.  Not at all What I thought that I could do coming into the race.  

An amazing pre-race week.  Once again, the Norquists who I'd stayed with in April were kind enough to have me and I got to hang out with Haley Cooper and my buddies Alexia and Brian from Vancouver.

I got all my panicking done the day before my race, first discovering that one of the bolts that holds my hydration system to my bike was missing (YAAY Home Depot!) and then learning that in my obsession with my bike, I managed to leave my wetsuit hanging over a fence in the Expo ... a fence that was no longer there when I went back (YAAY Heather Fuhr for retrieving that for me)

All in all, I got to the start line feeling fit, happy and very keen to race.  

Swim was a 1 min PR. More of a straight line would have been good!  Tinted goggles do not work so well before sunrise - that was an incredible moment of panic when I put them on and realized that I couldn't see the buoys or really, well, anything.  On the back half of the swim when the sun was well up, they were very welcome, though.

I JUST missed actually making a group of swimmers.  Sprinted to catch a few girls but killed myself to do it and couldn't stay with them.  Next time ...

T1 was a bit of a mess.  I was running and taking my time about getting the top half of my suit off when I realized the the wetsuit strippers were RIGHT THERE!  OOh ... OK ... I guess I'll just let them have at it.  Well, the top down zipper on the Helix works great but it also fools a lot of people.  Eventually, man triumphs over rubber and off I go to seek my faithful steed.

I rode pretty well for me.  Felt good, kept up a solid steady effort, ate, drank, loved life.  Saw a lot of really shameless drafting, some of which really bummed me out but fortunately, none of the packs were too hard to sty out of.  

30 Watts better than my ride of April 2007.  Unfortunately also a minute slower.  I guess that's the reality of a real solo TT as opposed to passing 1100 people on the bike.  That or I've really goofed up my position somehow.  

I was not thrilled with the time that I lost on the bike but, it was what it was and it was time for the best part, RUNNING!  I've been having such great runs in training ... I couldn't wait to see what I could do in a race.

Coming off the bike, I felt awesome ... ready to take on the world!  6:50 through the first mile with no effort ... ummm ... better chill out just a little so I settled into knocking off 7:10ish miles, just cruising along, chatting with the volunteers, smiling at everyone ... only one problem, I could not figure out what to eat!  I'd brought a baggie of my favourite Clif Bloks that I LOVE to eat when I run hard off the bike in training well ... no way that I could choke those down.  Gels really weren't any better.  I was gagging just trying to eat them.  So, I just hoped that Coke would be enough.  I know better.  Then, I just hoped that I could tough it out ... really doesn't work that way!  So ... I did the classic thing and ran the first 13 miles in 1:30 and the last 13.2 in closer to two very painful hours .  Definitely a puzzle to solve. Perhaps more real food and fewer gels on the bike ... that's the main thing that I did differently in all the training sessions where I was totally eager to eat on runs much harder than the first half of this one.

So ... back at it ... lots of work to be done.  Time to find, As Heleen put it in her victory speech, my "Bike Monster"!

Thanks to John Barr and DJ Hanson for the awesome pics!

Hiding in the Desert

A view from my front door

Looking down from Yacqui Pass on a regular ride/run route

Prickly!

Greetings from Borrego Springs, California.

It's gotten to be so long since I've updated my blog that I almost don't know where to start.

Ironman Wisconsin - an awesome place, lovely course, really well organized race and for me, a great day up until mile 95 on the bike where I just lost it and went from hammering along feeling awesome to feeling totally dizzy and struggling to ride in a straight line.  A few smart people told me that I simply bonked so that makes me happy ... lesson learned is that I need to be a little less cavalier about nutrition when I am trying to go that little bit harder.  Otherwise, I met some great people including my wonderful homestay family Chris and Ron, got to watch Chris and my homestay from the Spirit of Racine, Daryl, finish their first IMs, was totally excited to swim a 3 minute PR, 1:08 ... finally getting under that 1:10 mark that I've been hammering at for so long.

After Wisconsin, I was just done.  I went home to Vancouver and spent a week hanging out with Dave and doing as little as possible.  Then, I drove down here.  27 hours of driving and a long stop at US secondary inspection later, I arrived in the land of hot and dry!

Borrego springs is a town of 3000 people smack in the middle of the Anza Borrego dessert, basically 70 miles from anywhere!  When I first arrived here, I did a huge shopping trip and bought a printer  Unfortunately, I bought the wrong cable for it.  That was an eye-opening experience for someone who is used to rectifying such mistakes with a 6 block trip to London Drugs!  Needless to say, I am learning all about mail order!  

Biking is incredible.  There is an 11 mile climb (the Montezuma grade) a few miles from my door, long stretches of flat time trialing through the Borrego Valley and everything in between.  Lots of great roads and trails to run and a few really nice pools.

I've been working hard and, despite some struggles with the heat, things seem to be going really well.  Starting to get excited about IronMan Arizona!

Wisconsin!

Off to have another go ... IMNA was kind enough to let me into IM Wisconsin at the last minute. Sounds like a gorgeous tough course. I can't wait!

So just how badly do you want to do this anyway?

Sunday evening, as I stumbled across the finish line in Penticton, I was about ready to be done with triathlon. This has not been a great month for me.
I raced Spirit of Racine at the end of July, hoping for a decent outing after not being able to start in Lubbock two weeks previous. Had a great trip, met some awesome people, actually had a decent swim for once in my life and then spent the remainder of the race struggling to breathe.
From Racine, I journeyed home to Vancouver where I put in a couple weeks of pretty kick ass workouts then struggled through PMS hell for a week before heading up to Penticton where I thought that I was finally ready to put together a decent Ironman. Instead, I spent the whole day throwing up everything that I tried to eat and finished last in my category, pretty close to my slowest time ever.
It's been a funny thing training full time. On the one hand, almost every morning when I wake up, I am so glad for the opportunity to focus on what I love to do. On the other hand, I find it really hard to accept that I won't always make progress as fast as I would wish to. I'm putting everything that I can into doing as well as possible and it's incredibly painful to see mediocre or worse results. I have really struggled this last month to keep believing that I do really have "what it takes" to succeed.
Quite the odd thing, though, how sometimes the worst failure can really fire you up to do better. After going to bed in despair, I woke up Monday morning just furious about the opportunity that I had wasted and dying to find another chance. That evening, I was so glad that I went to the IMC awards banquet to hear about how high Belinda G is setting the bar for us all on the bike, to listen to Graham Fraser talk about Lisa Bentley's evolution, to watch Heather Wurtele up on stage again, overcoming the disasters of last year. I am inspired. I am amazed by the support of my partner, my coach and all of my wonderful friends and teammates. While it would be so much easier to fade back into the corporate world, that's not where I want to be. I want to race and I want to win. I know that I can and will do this.
I can't wait to run tomorrow. I am itching for another chance to get out there and give 'er!

Ironman Canada

Dave and I headed up to Penticton on Tuesday and stayed with my friend Mark Shorter for a few days before moving to our hotel on Lakeshore. While we missed the gorgeous Okanagen weather of years past and I cursed myself more than a few times for not bringing all of my Gore-Tex, it was still amazing to be back in Penticton. IMC is always like a huge reunion and this year, having been away in Boulder for months, it was more that way than ever.We had a great pasta party the night before the race with several of the women from slowtwitch and I got to see Tracy and meet Bree Wee at the pro meeting so also lots of fun to meet new people.Race morning, I woke up feeling a little queasy. Nothing too unusual. I always get nervous before races and this is THE race of the year. Kinda struggled to down my usual Ensure and coffee but, hey, I got it done. Time to walk down to transition. I'm still feeling sick. I have to stop and visit a bathroom halfway down ... wow ... gotta chill girl!Into transition, I get my tires topped off, SRM on the bike, Gatorade in it's holder and off to the porta potty line. YIKES! I don't remember ever seeing a line this long. By the time I get near the front, they start calling us down to the water. It's all OK, though. I get my dry bag dropped off and scurry down to the water just before they start sending all the AGers through. Once on the beach, I actually have a decent amount of time to get my wetsuit sorted and even do a short warm up. Now that I'm here, I can't wait to get started. The lake looks just beautiful with those beautiful cliffs rising up around it. I can feel the energy of all of the other competitors around me.The gun goes off and I am on my own. I can't believe how sick I feel as I'm trying to swim. The water is like molasses and it's like I am going backwards through it. You know you're way way back when you end up with your own escort kayak! Aaargh ... To make matters worse, the nice lady in the kayak was trying to keep her boat really close to me and I ended up whacking into it with my hand on every other stroke. Eventually, I asked her to give me a little more room which she very kindly did but then, when she went in front of me, I couldn't see past here to know where to aim for the buoys anymore. Eventually it was over. 1:13 - way slower than I had hoped but it definitely could have been worse. Unfortunately, running through transition did not feel any better than swimming. I kinda struggled a bit with my helmet and so forth and then got on my bike.Through town and out by the lake, I just rode a really conservative effort. I was trying to figure out how to settle my stomach down. I tried a bit of Gatorade ... bad, a little water ... BAD Ten minutes of riding easy without taking anything in ... no change. OK. We're now about 40 minutes into the ride, almost two hours into the race and I haven't taken anything in. This is not going to work. Time to start eating and see what happens. Gels really really don't appeal. Thankfully, I have this really tasty Apple Cinnamon PowerBar so I try a bite of that. Hmmm ... maybe gels are a better idea after all.A little before Oliver (40km or so into the 180km ride) I just threw up spectacularly. I hoped that would reset things and I could start again on trying to eat. Unfortunately, that was not to be and I made a few more attempts at eating, threw up a few more times before deciding that I was probably better off if I just didn't eat. What followed was my slowest ever IM bike split and by far the most painful. The whole universe passed me including many friends and people that I knew. I couldn't believe how many wonderful individuals slowed down to try and offer me food, salt and words of encouragement. I was amazed that I made it up Yellow Lake without walking! It really is possible to ride up there at < class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Penticton is very special to me, though and I was VERY bummed not to make a decent showing there.

Better :)

It's so nice to have energy :)

This week was a big improvement over last.  Still no real rockstar results but I've been getting a good amount of training in with lots of solid sessions which I'm happy with for now.

Another few days of good work to come and then next Thursday, I'm flying off to Chicago en route to Racine Wisconsin for the Spirit of Racine Half.

I watched the video from last year and the course looks just beautiful with a nice cool lake swim, a great mix of flats and hills on the bike and then a fast two loop run.  Should be lots of fun!  I think that I'm pretty fit and hopefully after a few days of rest, I can hammer out a decent race ;)

After Racine, I'll be driving back to Vancouver for my final block of training before IMC.  I'm going to miss Boulder but I'm totally stoked to see Dave and Ocean and all of my friends back home again.