Long Training Day

Coeur d’Alene IM is only 4 weeks away!!!  Time to start watching the Rocky movies again.

My training the past few weeks has been a mix of easy days with one hard/long day.  Last week the long day included a swim, bike and run all based from Hyalite. 

7:15 AM – Left house, drove to Hyalite.

8:15 AM – Acclimating in the water, then swimming at 8:30 AM.  The swim was 2.4 miles (IM swim distance) in the Hyalite Reservoir.  It was my first time swimming up there this year.  The wind was blowing which made the water choppy.  I have not had much experience swimming in choppy water and I found it difficult and a bit unsettling for about the first 20 minutes.  A few times I would turn my head to breathe and would get a mouth full of water instead of air because of the choppy waves.  I think it was good experience for me though because the CDA Lake is likely to be choppy.  I finished the swim in 1:45!  WOW!!  I will be ecstatic if I can do that kind of swim in CDA. 

Pretty morning for a swim

 11:00 AM – Changed into dry clothes and then I was off on the bike – 82 miles.  Bike down Hyalite, over to Gallatin Gateway, back to Bozeman via Gooch Hill Rd, then out Bridger Canyon to Kelly Canyon (will come back to my thoughts on biking up Kelly Canyon), then work my way back to Hyalite via Bear Canyon and Tayebeshockup.  It was a hot and windy day (probably also good practice for CDA IM), with lots of hill climbing.  Ok… Kelly Canyon… UGH!  Kelly Canyon is a decent climb on both sides however, one side is a more gradual climb than the other.  I have done the ‘gradual’ side many times in the past couple years but, I have never done the ‘steep’ side.  Matt had planned my route for this day and when I saw that he had me going up Kelly Canyon from the ‘steep’ side, I initially thought it was a mistake.  Here’s the conversation:

Me: The route has me climbing Kelly Canyon from the Bridger side, that’s STEEP!  Is it even possible for a bike to get up that side?  :)  Is that what you intended? 

Matt:  See what you got, you may have to walk  

One thing about Matt, he never lets me quit or have an excuse to not do something (unless I am injured).  When I doubt myself/ability he always encourages me to just try it and see how it goes.  And it always goes just fine or even better than fine!  :)  And guess what, I did bike up Kelly Canyon – no walking!  PHEW, it was tough and when I got to the steepest part and I did have to zig zag in order to finish it without walking.

Sister Jen, bringing me my restocking supplies.  Drinks and food!

5:30 PM – Back at Hyalite, stowed bike, switched into dry running clothes.  Run for 1:15 on the trails at the Reservoir.  Oh boy, my legs did not want to run uphill so for the first few uphills I power hiked.  After that initial period though I was able to run for the next 35 minutes or so, but, then my legs were really feeling tired and I ended this run with power hiking all uphills and running all flats/downhills.  It was a good workout but, I wouldn’t call it a ‘run’ since it was probably an even split of running and power hiking. 

8:15 PM – 13 hours later and I’m finally home!  Long day done!  Now I just need to eat, shower, stretch and go to bed!  I slept well that night. :)


 

Spring Meadow Triathlon Race Recap 2016

RAINY, WET, CHILLY!

 Pre-Race
Pat and I got to the race about 6:30 a.m.  It was raining, a little windy, and quite chilly.  We sat in the car for a few minutes while I tried to figure out if I even wanted to do the race.  The weather at that moment was really messing with me and I really considered not starting the race.  I even said that out loud to Pat (although I have to say, even though I was thinking it, deep down I knew I was going to do it).  Pat immediately jumped in with the pep talk – he is really awesome that way.  But, I wasn’t quite ready to accept the pep talk – I was complaining about how the wet conditions were going to affect my bike time (safety first when roads are wet, and I always go a little slower).  Again Pat jumped in and told me that “Today isn’t going to be about time, just go out there and have fun”.  SIGH… Ok, maybe I should go set up my transition area.   Amazingly, that’s all it took!  As soon as I got my stuff set up, I really came around, started enjoying the weather, smiling, hopping around and basically had a complete mood shift. :)  YAY!  It was going to be a fun day!

Swim – 33:02 
Yep, it’s still raining but, the water temperature was warmer than the air temperature so I wasn’t cold at all during the swim.  I had a problem with my googles though, they were leaking… UGH!  They weren’t leaking during my warmup but, as soon as we started the race they leaked.  I stopped for a second to suction them onto my face but, they continued to leak.  I didn’t stop again to work on them, just kept swimming and every time I turned my head to breathe the water sloshed into my eyes  - not fun and kind of distracting.  I panicked when we started swimming because of the goggle problem, started breathing way to hard/fast and before I was done with the first loop(it’s a 2 lap course) I was feeling tired.  I knew I had to stop thinking about the goggles and just try to focus on my swim.  I did recover but, because of my problems in the first part of the swim. my time was a bit slower than I had hoped for.

Finishing the swim - RAINING!

T1 (Swim to Bike) – 1:51 
My wetsuit got stuck on my timing chip and it took longer than it should to get out of my wetsuit.  Other than that, uneventful except for the pouring rain!

Bike – 1:15:55
It was wet, it was cold!  I opted not to put on my coat in T1 (I tried but, I was so wet and the coat was wet I couldn’t get it on so I gave up and decided to go without).  My hands got really cold during the ride which made it hard to shift.  I couldn’t get a grip on the shifters so there were times when I needed easier or harder gears and couldn’t get to them.  Also my legs got so cold it felt like I wasn’t even moving so I kept checking my speed and cadence to make sure they were actually moving! :)  I had hoped to practice getting my food out of my food bag and eating it while on the bike and I couldn’t do that either.  My hands were not working.  I didn’t need to eat for energy, the main purpose was to practice grabbing it, unwrapping it, and eating it while moving.  I need to do this for the CDA IM so I like to take every opportunity I can to practice that.  Not a big deal for this race to not have the food though, so I wasn’t worrying about the fact that I wasn't getting calories.  Overall though, it was a really good bike ride considering the conditions.  It was 5 minutes faster than last year with average speed 19.6 MPH!  WHOO!  Rainy, wet conditions??? What was I worried about??? :) 

T2 (Bike to Run) – 1:58 
This was difficult.  Hands were numb and I couldn’t feel my feet.  I had to sit down and use both hands to get each sock and each shoe on, and it seemed to take forever.  I couldn’t even get the socks on right, they were all wrinkled and I finally just gave up and figured they would work themselves into the right position as I ran.  Next I had to ask a volunteer to unbuckle my helmet because I just couldn’t get my fingers to do it. 

Run – 55:30 
I couldn’t feel my feet for the first 2.5 miles and my legs were still cold so I really couldn’t tell how I was running or where my feet were landing.  I kept looking at my watch to make sure my cadence and pace were where they should be because I just couldn’t judge it.  After 2.5 miles, the feeling started coming back in my feet and as I got more feeling I realized I had little pebbles in both shoes but, I didn’t want to stop and empty them so I just tried to move them around into more comfortable spots.  The rest of the run was really good.  I started warming up and actually ended up pouring water on my head at 2 of the water stops to cool back down (guess my body had gotten used to the cold and it wanted to stay that way!).  HA! :)

Summary 
Overall it was a really good day!  5 minutes better than last year and a new PR!  Pat is the statistician in our family and he was looking at my Spring Meadow results for the last 3 years.   Below are my results since 2014 when I first started doing triathlons.   Everything has improved!   It’s so exciting to see so much improvement!

	Swim	T1	Bike	T2	Run	Total
2014	42:54	3:35	1:22:36   18.0 MPH	1:59	1:04:54	3:16:00
2015	33:27	2:09	1:19:56   18.7 MPH	1:18	56:29	2:53:20
2016	33:02	1:51	1:15:55   19.6 MPH	1:58	55:30	2:48:18