Vineman 70.3: Week Zero

I’ve spent the year saying that I wasn’t training for anything important to me. Not really. Not yet. Napa was an interesting checkpoint, and Wildflower was a celebration of others’ success, but neither of them was my race, my real race.

And then last Monday, it hit me: there are no more distractions, no more thinking it doesn’t matter how I train or what I do. In just nine weeks, I have 70.3 miles to cover. That’s a whole lot of miles.

I’m nervous — terrified! — but I’m also so excited. I looked in TrainingPeaks yesterday and I could see the sketches of my schedule starting to trickle in — a few big weekends, a note that it was “time to start adding up the miles.” I’ve been happily bookmarking 50-mile bike rides and calculating run mileage and finally getting the quick-release kit set up for my Garmin. July 14 seems way too soon — and yet, this is the work I’ve been waiting for since the moment I submitted my registration form back in November.

(We’ll see if I’m saying that after I run the Escape from Alcatraz course, sand ladder included, the day before an Olympic tri or do a half-marathon the day after a 70-mile ride.)

This week was a transitional one — I didn’t need Wildflower recovery, per se, but considering that I trained straight through Napa, I was probably due for a cutback week. So I took the start of the week easy — then met my training group on Saturday for our first ride and run, got my next 10 days’ marching orders, and started quaking a little in my Ravennas. But only a little. Mostly, I just feel ready.

Bringing back the weekly recaps, Vineman edition …

Monday: Rest after a late return home from Wildflower.

Tuesday: 1920 yards of swimming, including a ladder of 500-400-300-200-100 trying to get faster per 100 yards in each set.

Wednesday: Took a week off from track and ran easy around Stow Lake in the morning with a podcast in my ears. I wanted to do two loops but left late after cleaning up some various messes my cats made and ended up with just about 3.3 miles.

Thursday: First, 10 bike miles including 3 El Camino Del Mar repeats. Then, a quick shower and another 5.5 miles to work for my first Bike to Work Day. Later, 6.5 miles home, including a stop in the middle for a meeting. I thought I’d missed the “Energizer Stations” after the first mapped location I passed had no sign of one — if you know me, you know I’d have been pissed to miss free stuff — but there was another one a bit farther down the road, and I scored a wonderful, tiny San Francisco bike map and some other goodies.

Friday: Rest. I think I planned to aquajog, but it didn’t happen, and that’s OK.

Saturday: First group ride of summer training: 28-ish miles, including 1900+ feet of climbing via Chapman Road repeats and Paradise Loop. The day got off to an unpleasant start about a mile into the ride, when we realized a brake pad had popped off my friend’s bike and was nowhere to be found. While the rest of the group headed down into Mill Valley post-hill-repeats, she and I gingerly picked our way back to my car. She did a long run while I rode Paradise the other way and found the group in Tiburon, just a few minutes ahead of me. Hooray for still being in TAG Captain troubheshooting mode! Chased the ride with a 20-minute run on the bike path. I had a few low moments on the ride — I tire of Paradise really quickly (har har) — but I reminded myself to keep eating and drinking, and I eventually snapped out of it. I think my favorite moment in all of Northern California cycling is when Paradise turns from a potholed, rutted shitshow into a nicely paved, perfect road.

Sunday: Met up with some Golden Gate Tri Club folks for an early Aquatic Park swim and felt good in the bay for the first time all year. Turns out, it’s lovely not to be fighting a surging tide! Garmin recorded just under a mile in 34 minutes. Drove home to grab a parking spot before the weekend park surge hit (and so I could run in dry clothes for once), then ran 8 miles through the park before the fog cleared. That’s my first time over 6.5 miles since February, and it was clear — but not as rough as I expected it to feel. I’ve decided to go back to running without music/podcasts until Vineman’s over, and I believe this was my longest run without music or friends ever.

Zero Week in a Nutshell:

• swimming: 3640 yards
• cycling: 50 miles
• running: 13.6 miles
• strength-training: nope
• yoga: nope
• most proud of: bumping up my long-run distance
• need to focus on: getting back to yoga
• can’t wait for: a 40+-mile ride next Sunday

Wildflower 2013

I think I understand the Wildflower magic now.

Last year, I loved the race. I fell head-over-heels for triathlons, and I had one of the most magical, expectation-blowing races I’ve ever had in any corner of the sport. But I didn’t feel any particular pressing need to go back. I said several times that the one thing I knew I wouldn’t do this year was Wildflower. There are a lot of races out there; why keep going to one that’s so hard and hot and logistically complex?

This year, I spent more time on the other side of Wildflower — as a spectator and cheerleader, a jumping-around-er and a “here-you-can-have-my-windbreaker”-er — than I did racing, and from that side, I get it. Standing by the finish chute for an hour watching people sprint to the end and limp to the end and grab their children by the hand and jog the whole family to the end, I kept yelling to anyone who would listen, This is the most fun I’ve ever had!

And it was … possibly because I wasn’t really racing.

Team Brew Masters by jkoshi on Flickr

***

Racing isn’t really what this Wildflower was about for me, but let’s get it out of the way anyway. I was swimming the first leg of the Olympic distance relay, with Pete biking and our friend Jess tackling the run. We camped with the Golden Gate Tri Club, where once again I had no problems sleeping through most of the night, save for an incessant need to pee that I managed to put off actually doing until it was light out. We got ourselves out of the tents around 7, and had “first breakfast”: bread and peanut butter for me, plus some luxurious campground coffee made by Jess and her husband. I hardly ever drink coffee before morning workouts, but with nearly four hours to kill before my start, I figured it couldn’t hurt.

It was cold, gray, and windy — windy enough that leaves were pelting the tents at the campground, windy enough to send up big dust clouds — and, more than anything, confusing. Wildflower is hot and sunny! Yesterday was 90 degrees! Pros couldn’t wear wetsuits! What is going on? I actually wanted to get my wetsuit on sooner just to stay warm.

Just as last year, I remember thinking I’d be so bored waiting for hours in transition — and, just as last year, the time flew by in a steady rotation of saying hi to people, braiding hair, and cycling through the porta potty line. A bunch of TAGers were worried they would be cold on the bike, so I doled out all the warm clothes I had in my bag. Around 10, I wriggled into my wetsuit and headed down for the women’s wave starts.

From the boat ramp, it was clear that the wind was chopping up the lake. I saw a lot of people drift way to the left, and the kayakers had the course boxed in pretty tightly. I remember saying to my coach, “This is going to be really slow, right?” and him nodding hard.

During the warm-up, the water felt amazing. I do love that lake, even when it’s about to beat me up. Since the relay start was co-ed, I wasn’t sure where to put myself and ended up about 2/3 of the way back and as far to the right as was physically possible. I probably should have started further up, as it turns out, but no harm done that the lake wouldn’t have done anyway.

The first stretch, coming out past the boat ramp, was fairly unremarkable — a little contact, a little kicking — but as soon as we hit clearer water, the waves picked up. I breathe to the right, so it constantly felt like my left cheek was being slapped, and I was having to pull fast and hard just to get my head up far enough for clear air to breathe. I’d been legitimately afraid of being the last person out of the water, but it quickly became apparent that a lot of people were having very rough days. I passed a few that were just floating and looking worried, and I tried to say “you’re good!” but couldn’t manage it without a mouthful of water, so I kept plugging along.

Sighting was … not an option, really, but the clockwise course is a pretty easy one for me to stay on, so I just kept bobbing and diving through the waves, trying not to get seasick. (I heard later that a bunch of people puked in the water, and I don’t even want to think of what I might have swallowed.) I was, honestly, incredibly grateful for all of my terrible, tide-battling swims this spring. I knew I could keep making forward progress, and I knew I’d get to the buoy eventually, if I just kept bobbing and ducking, bobbing and ducking.

The short stretch between the two far buoys was hilarious — there was really no way I was staying on course, so I just went where the water took me —  but after that, we picked up the wind going the other way and had a somewhat easier ride back to shore. As I approached, I could see a 3 at the end of the clock and had no idea if that meant 33 or 23 or 43 (I was wearing a watch but hadn’t bothered with the logistics of looking at it). It turned out to be 33, and with the short, steep run to the top of the boat ramp — a .1-mile journey that I swear must have spiked my heart rate into the 200s and left me with a stomach cramp — my final time was 34:03.

A couple of remarkable things: that was 1:43 slower than my Wildflower swim last year, but it placed me substantially higher (804th overall this year, 1325th last year). It was faster than my Napa swim, which was in much easier water. And it’s maybe the first open water swim race where I felt not even a second of panic, even though by all rights I should have. I had a moment early on where I thought, “well, this is gonna be reeeeeeeal shitty,” and I think acknowledging that let me let go.

***

After that, the hard part of my day was over. I stood with my coach for a while to cheer the last few TAGers in out of that roiling lake, and I asked him if he thought after that I could handle the ocean swim I’ll be doing for Santa Cruz (he laughed and told me that after that, I should sign up for an Alcatraz crossing). I kept my watch going so we’d have a vague sense of when Pete should be back, and he biked an impressive 1:36 in some rough winds. Jess took off (to kill the run with a 10K PR in the 47s, netting us 11th of 40-something relays in our division) and I went out to the finish line with my camera to try and get pictures of the TAGers finishing.

And that’s when I really fell hard for Wildflower.

***

One of the other TAG captains told me later that if this year’s Wildflower had been her first triathlon, she probably would have never done another. Kristina blogged something similar. And I can’t say I disagree. I know a lot of people really struggled. Plenty of time goals came and went — including mine — and that can be tough to swallow after all that training. A few folks in my group didn’t make various time cutoffs and were pulled off the course, and while they’ve taken it in stride (and are already plotting next races), it couldn’t have felt good on the day.

I think that’s part of what made what I saw at the finish line hit so hard. This wasn’t a race you can just show up and do. You have to fight for Wildflower, and shockingly often, Wildflower wins.

But sometimes, you win.

Sometimes you get to tear down that chute and hear the announcer say your name and smile.

Sometimes you high-five every single person you see.

Sometimes you don’t want to ever take that medal off.

Sometimes you can’t believe the sweet relief of being done.

I can’t really even talk about some of the things I saw in the finish chute without tearing up. Two of my teammates running in side-by-side, stride-for-stride, smiling big. Another one with an injury that had kept her from running for several weeks, nearly getting passed in the finish chute and putting on her “oh hell no” face and sprinting it in ahead of her pursuer. My friend’s relay teammates jumping into the chute, helmeted and capped and goggled, so they could cross the line together.

I love this sport. I love this group.

And I love this stupid race, even though it so rarely loves anyone back.

Miscellany

Some other nonsense that’s been going on around here:

It’s Wildflower week!
And I cannot wait. In the midst of writing a pump-up email to the TAG-ers earlier this week, I realized I was pretty pumped, too. Our tents are on the way down to the site, we’ve procured sleeping bags and head lamps, and I’m obsessively checking the weather. This year is so different from last: I’m just swimming a relay leg, and my only two goals are to swim fast enough that I’m not literally the last person out of the water and to yell as loud as I can, as long as I can for every TAG athlete on the course.

I’m not sure what on earth I’m going to swim; last year my swim split was 32-something, and I’d really like to be closer to 30, but the way this spring has gone, anything under 35 minutes will be a victory. I love that lake, but the less I’m in it, the happier I’ll be. (I may be going back in June to swim for as long as I want to, but more on that later.) (Also someone today posted that there were leeches in the lake, so that goes double for wanting to get out of there fast, ideally without stepping in any mud.)

What I really care the most about is being the best captain I can be for the people who are getting introduced to triathlon or to Olympic-distance racing for the first time — not just the TAG team but also the other two members of my relay team, one of whom happens to be my spouse. I’ve got a bag stuffed with extra Gu and Body Glide and safety pins, plenty of food and water, good music and extra headphones … I just need to track down a cowbell or loud whistle (or kazoo?) , and I think I’ll have everything I need.

I got a Garmin!
I may have mentioned that ever since I started using the REI credit card as my primary credit card (almost three years ago, when my old card jacked its rate and I was on the verge of becoming a poor grad student so wanted to get a good deal while the getting was good), REI Dividend Day has become a serious holiday. I’m one of those people who stalks the REI forums (yes, there are REI forums) and furiously Googles for any hint of the day my Free Money to Spend on Sportz will arrive. I plan purchases well in advance, and in years with no big purchase on the horizon, I go on a shopping spree of shorts and sunglasses and socks. It’s the best.

This year, I decided to go big. I’d been eyeing the Forerunner 910XT since it came out, but I’d decided it was more than I needed. Then my cadence monitor broke (I mean, it’s been broken forever, but it finally stopped working at all), and I thought I’d use the dividend on a new one, even though the ones I looked at were notoriously unreliable. I thought maybe I’d also get a heart rate monitor, but there’s only one option compatible with Nike+. And once I was already into the realm of buying gadgets, wouldn’t it make sense for me to start thinking about the future and pick a system I could grow into rather than spend money on solutions I knew were imperfect?

Yeah, I can be very persuasive when I’m trying to buy something.

It wasn’t as good a deal as I anticipated (REI’s 20% off coupon doesn’t work on things with GPS capabilities), but the “triathlon bundle” still ended up being essentially half-price, so I went for it. But weirdly, I got it home and didn’t feel compelled to set it up right away. When I finally opened the box several days later, and found bags of bundled pieces I couldn’t identify and quick-start guides in 20 languages, I nearly gave up. I, quite simply, did not need this much technology.

And then, the weekend of TAG’s triple-brick workout, the screen of my Nike+ watch suddenly got a spot of condensation inside (on a dry, 75-degree day), which then became a whole puddle of condensation, and the screen went blank … forever. It’s as though it decided to commit seppuku rather than get sadly cast aside in favor of a shiny new toy. I’ve already replaced that watch once under warranty, and it’s out now, so that’s it, I guess.

The Garmin and I are still getting used to each other. I haven’t set up all the quick-release stuff yet or tried out the heart rate monitor, and it took a while to figure out how to make it sync to my computer (I blame my computer). It doesn’t work beyond being a glorified stopwatch in my pool, which is 20 yards (the smallest it’ll let you set is 22 yards or 20 meters), but it’s pretty cool outside. There’s just so much data available that I can’t decide what I want on each screen, though probably that will be something I can only figure out by using it. And I keep forgetting that I have to turn it off (who turns a WATCH off?) so it doesn’t helplessly try to find satellites on the couch all day while draining its battery down to nothing. I’m sure I’ll adjust.

I got faster!(?)
Last week at track, we ran another two-mile time trial. I was so happy with how I ran this in March, but I was not necessarily feeling the repeat. It was a surprise, for one thing — our Training Peaks workout was a bunch of 800s, so I’d been steeling myself for that, plus we’d just run a bunch of stairs during our warm-up so my legs already felt a little trashed. For another, I was relatively rested when I ran that 16:37 — so replace my fears about running hard with no base of hard training with new fears about running hard after weeks of hard training and a decently tough race. I also was “between watches,” as they say — Nike+ had died, Garmin was still boxed — so I was running with just my Timex stopwatch. Which really should be all I would need for something like this, if you assume I’d need a watch at all, but one gets used to a certain level of feedback.

Anyway, I spoiled it in the section header, so might as well hop to: For all my fears, and my assumptions about/resignations to a slower time, I ran 16:23, split as 8:15/8:08. And while I’m not saying I had a lot left in the tank at the end, I also did not feel as wrecked the next day as I felt back in March. I still had a rough time pacing — my first lap was right around 2:00, just as it was the first time, and I once again totally freaked out and pulled back too much and then spent a little bit of time digging myself out of a hole. One of these days I should go out hard and try keeping it there, but I was so concerned about negative-splitting that I just didn’t do it this time around.

The second I have a benchmark, I get worried about re-testing and “failing” — exhibit A: I’ve only run one 5K; exhibit B: I haven’t done mile repeats since I surprised myself by running one that started with a 7; exhibit C: I felt legitimately nervous before this track workout. So it was a nice confidence booster to actually improve, as unlikely as that seemed at the time.

Oh, and “the girl in the Tempos,” my rabbit from the first time trial? Smoked my ass with a 15:xx. Training: it works.

(Now if only it would work for me in the pool, where I’ve been swimming a 2:03/100 pace for 18 months now. But that’s a story for another post.)

Race Report: HITS Napa Olympic Distance Triathlon

A couple of weeks ago, before everything went sideways for a little while, I drove up to Lake Berryessa with Courtney for the HITS Napa triathlon. We spent the day before the race picking up packets at an Italian restaurant/general store/only outpost of retail anywhere the race, buying ridiculous socks to turn into arm warmers at Target, eating cupcakes and ravioli at Firewood and Sift, and doing race-day crafts at the Motel 6. (HITS gave us stickers for everything, including the race number, which was two large stickers that had to be placed back-to-back; mine looked like it was assembled by a well-meaning but clumsy toddler.)

I slept pretty solidly for about five hours, then dozed until Courtney’s alarm went off at 4 a.m. The drive to the race site felt a little creepy — lots of winding roads, few lights — but we were making good time right up until the last quarter-mile, when we got stuck in line to park. I think we made it in around 6:15, but the race organizers wanted all sprint athletes out of transition by 6:40, so Courtney got hustled into her transition area while those doing the Olympic were pulled aside.

A few minutes later, they let us in, and I found my transition spot at the end of a row, right where two of the temporary fences overlapped. The first thing I did was step on the overlapping legs of the fences, lose my balance, and fly into said fences, which seemed like an excellent sign. I was hoping to see Courtney and my TAG-ers before they hopped in the water, but I was a few minutes too late, and instead I waited with one of the other TAG captains to cheer for people coming out of the water.

It was harder than usual to spot people — each race had just one swim cap color — but I saw about half our group finish the swim, and somehow Michaela found me and introduced me to Jana. I puttered away the rest of the time chatting with them and making a (barefoot) trip to the porta potties (not recommended). As soon as the last sprint swimmer hit the boat ramp, the horn went off for the Olympic. When the second wave went in, I bobbed around by the boat ramp and got some water in my wetsuit, and those four minutes between waves went by fast, because all of a sudden I was swimming.

Swim – 34:15

The swim was two 750-meter loops, with a short run out of the water between loops. All the women in the Olympic-distance race started together, and not that far behind the men, and there was definitely more contact than I’ve felt before. The first buoy was right in the path of the sun, so I popped up a couple of times to get my bearings, but that just led to swallowing water, and after sputtering through that a couple of times, I decided I’d just go where all the wetsuits around me seemed to be going.

Swimming has been rough for me this spring. My times in the pool have been fine, but they’re not improving, and the couple of open-water swims I’d done before Napa had not been great. I’ve been changing the way I breathe in the pool — I breathe less frequently now — but in open water, trying to swim with that rhythm has been making me seasick. So for this swim, I went back to breathing every right-arm stroke, figuring that even if it made me a little slower, I’d benefit by not feeling pukey.

Somewhere after the first turn, I was still in a big crowd, and I remember thinking, “Wow, I’m never not going to be swimming on top of people.” And then, a few minutes later, I was swimming totally alone, wide of the course. I pulled it back in, and I think I swam pretty decent lines the rest of the way. My first lap was 17:xx as I came out of the water, and then I did the run around the buoy on the concrete and dove back in.

My second lap was smoother, and I managed to find some feet to draft a few times. The water felt fresh and cool, maybe a little choppier than I expected but so much nicer than salty, 53-degree Aquatic Park. I could have happily kept swimming, but instead I found myself approaching the boat ramp again, and I headed up the carpeted path and over the rocks to transition. I’m not sure where the timing mat was, but it wasn’t right out of the water, so I’d guess my second swim loop was 16-ish minutes. Considering my confidence level going in, I was satisfied.

T1 – 4:57
Slow, but not as slow as my 6+-minute transition at Wildflower. Improvement! I’ve learned that putting sunglasses + helmet on first doesn’t work for me — I’m dripping water, my sunglasses fog — so I worked from the bottom up: socks and shoes, race belt, switch watches, spray of sunscreen, sunglasses, helmet, go.

Bike – 1:34:51
My brain was still waterlogged as I started biking, and I didn’t register much about the ride between transition and the main road. I did notice that I’d forgotten to turn off manual lap on my watch, which meant that instead of beeping every mile, it was beeping every time it got jostled — which meant every time I went over a substantial bump in the road. Which meant I ended up with 57 “laps” for the course.

Luckily, I wasn’t using the lap info for anything, but the beeps were driving me nuts. It took several miles for me to get a song in my head to tune them out. The mental debate I had over whether I should reset my watch and lose my overall time info but stop the infernal beeping — and whether I could actually pull off that much button-pushing without crashing my bike — did help pass the time, though, including the first big hill. Also throughout those first few miles, I spotted some of the TAG crew coming in from the sprint race and did a lot of cheering.

My goals for the bike were to practice riding in my big gear — did I mention? I can do that now! — and to manage nutrition well. As always, I was getting passed a bunch, but I was also doing my share of passing. I had this story I told myself when I hit a hill and had to drop down to my smallest gears, which was this: Hey, you’re really good at climbing. It’s your thing. Nobody else here is better at it than you are, so might as well use all those gears — that’s what they’re for! I don’t remember seeing any mile markers — just kidding, I did see them, scattered all over the road, having apparently fallen out of a truck — but I was focusing on drinking every 15 minutes and eating every 20-30 and trying to keep my effort steady. Right before the turnaround, we hit a long, curving downhill facing a pretty dramatic tree-covered mountain. I picked up speed and found myself wondering if I could bike under 1:30, which I figured would get me in around 3:15 total. But of course that long downhill turned into an equally long uphill after the turn — not steep, just forever — and I stopped thinking about 1:30 and 3:15 pretty quickly.

Somewhere after the hill, I started settling in near the same little group of women. We were spaced pretty far apart on the course, but that spacing wasn’t changing — the one in front always seemed the same amount in front. I’d catch the next girl in the line on uphills, but I could never get past her before the next downhill or flat. Still, keeping the three of them in sight was a good goal. Barring disaster, I realized, this was going to be the fastest I’d ever ridden my bike.

The last six or so miles were tough. My bike endurance is good for this distance, but what I don’t do much is ride at race effort, and I was starting to feel it. I also became very conscious of the edges of the saddle digging into my legs and was standing up a bit more to relieve the pressure. Bad race math had revised my goal for the bike to 1:40, and given that and how interminable everything after mile 18 had felt, I was shocked to make the turn into the park right around 1:31. The last stretch of road was a disaster — more a broken-up gravel trail than pavement, lined with large speed bumps. I heard the TAG coach yell my name, and I yelled back “this road is bullshit!” and then shut up because wouldn’t it be perfect if I had the best bike ride of my life and then got disqualified for profanity. I coasted the whole bumpy mess with one foot unclipped and was just happy not to fall over before the dismount line.

T2 – 2:35
Fast enough to feel like I must be forgetting something.

Proof…that someone with my childsize head shouldn’t wear hats if I want my face to be visible?

Run – 57:22
My only time goal going into this race was to do the run under an hour. I’ve been running well off the bike, and I figured I’d throw down a solid first mile before my body realized what the hell it was doing. One thing I hadn’t considered was not being able to feel my feet: standing shoeless on a concrete boat ramp for 45 minutes plus the swim and bike had done a number on them. The road out was the same as the bike in — rutted, broken up, speed bumps — and I was concentrating hard on where I was stepping, because I certainly wasn’t going to feel the landing.

It was warm and sunny by then, and I walked through the water station at the sprint turnaround to take a couple of deep breaths. There was another little hill just after the water stop, then a mile of downhill all the way to the turnaround. On the other side of the road, I saw lots of people walking back up, and I mentally caved a little and assumed that on the way back I’d be one of them.

We bottomed out at the second aid station and I dumped a cup of water down my back, which felt amazing. I decided I’d run the hill until my run was slow enough that I might as well be walking, but it never got that bad — just like running home from the ocean through the MLK hills. My next goal became to get through mile 4 without walking, and when that was fine, I figured I’d get to 45 minutes. By then, I was cramping a little in the heat, but my legs were still going, so I shot my fast food salt packet and started picking people off as I moved into the downhill section to the finish.

When I crossed the line, I immediately spotted Courtney and a teammate who’d crossed just a couple of minutes before. I fished the watch I’d had going since the swim out of my jersey pocket and saw 3:15:xx and just started laughing.

Race math is always wrong.

Final Thoughts

• I finished in 3:14:03 official time, 9/28 in my age group and a big PR for the distance, if that sort of thing even counts in triathlons. (Does it? Courses are so different!) I ran a few minutes faster and got through transitions a bit quicker than I did at Wildflower, and swam a little slower, but the big time drop all came from the bike. That’s awesome, because it shows what gains I’ve made as a cyclist (and also shows this was a bit easier of a course). And it also sucks, because if I’m going to keep dropping time, the bulk of it is still going to have to come from the bike. I mean, I ran just a couple of minutes off my standalone 10K PR, and I’m never going to get that much faster in the water.
• That said, I have thought that breaking 3 hours in an Olympic-distance tri would be a reasonable goal for me over the next couple of years — and now it seems closer than I would have expected, especially considering that I wasn’t perfectly trained or rested for this race. I want to give it a good shot this year, but I’m not sure if I want to pick something else this spring/early summer or wait till after Vineman, when I can really make it a focus.
• I definitely need to do more race-effort riding on the trainer or try one of my coach’s computrainer classes if I’m going to make another jump on the bike. Last year I was focusing on getting comfortable on the road, and riding indoors seemed like a cop-out. Now I see how it can play into an overall plan for becoming a stronger rider.
• Nutrition nonsense: I had some bread with peanut butter and water with Nuun in the car on the way to the race around 5 a.m., then had some more water while watching the swim and a Gu around 7:40, about 10 minutes before I started. On the bike, I had a bottle with Roctane, which is on the higher-calorie end of the options I train with, but I hardly ever get a whole bottle down on a hilly course, so might as well maximize what I do get for a race? I also ate 2 or 3 shot bloks and half a Picky Bar. I’m loving the Picky Bar for the bike — it’s soft but doesn’t melt, and it doesn’t taste like fake sugar. I don’t actually remember eating on the run, but I had a Gu and some shot bloks with me, so let’s assume I ate about 100 calories of something. I ran with plain water in my handheld bottle but had a Nuun tab (broken in half, wrapped in foil) tucked into the ID slot in case I wanted it, along with a salt packet.
• HITS Napa is a second-year race, and while I heard mixed feedback from spectators, things moved pretty smoothly from my perspective. We were spoiled in the transition areas (stools! Big bins for our bags!), though I would have loved some additional cover for the rocks. The stickering of all of our stuff was not really necessary — we were supposed to put stickers on our swim caps, but they mostly washed away in the water and I saw a whole pile of them drifting to shore at the swim exit — and I know some people got stressed out about the race tats. The only thing I’d really ding them for is the awful road in and out of transition, and I’m not sure how to fix that, other than putting transition in a different place entirely. {ETA: I’d also ding them for having the ribbon on our medals read “Napa Valey.”}
• More races should have oyster crackers at the finish.

Finish Lines

I wasn’t always a person who crossed finish lines, but I became one four years ago, and it changed me.

I crossed a finish line on Sunday, elated, hugging friends and looking around for strangers who had become instant buddies over the length of the race course. I was writing about that finish line yesterday, and then I heard about Boston.

Boston shouldn’t feel any closer to me or mean any more to me than so many other horrible events. It’s not my tragedy. But maybe because I’ve become a person who crosses finish lines, Boston feels both more relatable and even more unimaginable.

I’m not saying that people who cross finish lines are different from anyone else. I’m saying that I’m different from the person I was before I crossed finish lines. A finish line to me is a marker of growth and perseverance and power, and it’s a celebration with friends and loved ones who supported me while I became the person who could get across that line. I’ve been cheered on at a finish line, and I’ve been there to cheer on others, and it’s always felt like this wild little community — hugs and cowbells and orange slices and tears, volunteers and medics and racers and supporters and dreamers. I picture that, and I try to reconcile it with what I’m reading and seeing, and I can’t. My brain won’t bend that way; it doesn’t make sense.

But what this has made clear is that the weird little finish line community? It continues long beyond those finish lines. It’s the people running today in race shirts, and reaching out to the runners and athletes they know, and checking in, and vowing to be there again. There’s a lot of love out there, and I’m trying to reach for that today.

Comedy of Errors Workout Weekend

So, back to regularly scheduled sporadic and random training talk …

Back in February, I was publicly dithering about whether to stay signed up for an April Olympic triathlon or drop to the sprint or drop out entirely or do it but pick another race as a real goal. The weekend before we left for Japan, we had a pretty tough weekend of group workouts — a 7-mile run on Saturday and a 2000-yard swim/24-mile bike/10-minute run brick on Sunday — and I felt good enough that I figured I could survive an Olympic even after a training break.

When I got back, I hopped right into my first open water swim of the season on a jet-lagged Sunday morning (in the lovely, green-scum-filled, 53-degree water of Aquatic Park), then took the rest of the week easing back into training. By the time last weekend rolled around, I was feeling fairly normal, if a bit more coffee-dependent than usual. Most of my group was down at Lake San Antonio for a Wildflower training camp, but our coach had left behind some specific (and slightly daunting) instructions for workouts for those of us staying behind, and I decided to treat the weekend like a dress rehearsal for Napa.

Um, what’s that saying … bad dress rehearsal, great performance?

We’ll see about the great performance part, but the bad dress rehearsal part isn’t even debatable. Let’s see:

• I got up to meet my tri buddy at 8 a.m. on Saturday and it was raining. It barely rained all winter; now, on the first weekend of April, I walked out into thick drizzle. I decided, as one who lives in my particular area of San Francisco often does, that it must be specific to my location and it would clear up by the time we got to Aquatic Park to swim.
• It did not clear up by the time we got to Aquatic Park to swim.
• I had failed to account for the time it would take to load and unload our bikes a bunch of times, nor had I packed well for Aquatic Park. I’m used to having someone around to watch my gear, and I hadn’t thought through the process of taking only what I needed for the swim down to the beach with me. There was a lot of “oh crap, I need my bike lock.” “Dammit, I just locked the credit card I was going to use to pay the meter in my bag in the trunk.”
• I also hadn’t thought about the potential problems of swimming with an electronic-entry car key. Luckily, I had a spare plastic baggie, which didn’t keep it dry but kept it dry enough that it still worked.
• We locked our bikes to the wrong side of the Aquatic Park railing (they have to be touching the road, not the bleacher platform), so a park ranger almost snipped our locks. Tri buddy got out of the water and saw what was happening just in time.
• Somewhere between the bleachers and the car, I lost my favorite goggles.
• We were a solid hour behind my theoretical schedule by the time we got to the parking spot for our ride.
• We had to cross under a tunnel to the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge to start riding. There were confusing construction signs everywhere, and we wandered in circles for a while before finally finding the right path, seconds before we’d resolved to give up and just drive to a parking spot a few miles further into Sausalito.
• The right path had slippery wooden stairs.
• It was still raining. We employed the San Francisco cyclists’ mantra of “it’ll be nicer in Marin!”
• It was not nicer in Marin.
• I got overly excited by a Bay Trail marker and tried to take us off the main road too soon — leading to a traffic-y detour that ended in more wooden stairs.
• On the way back, I managed to ride on the wrong spur of two different roads on a route I have taken at least a dozen times.
• I couldn’t remember exactly how to get back into the bridge parking lot. The route ends on a long climb, and I’m a stronger climber than my tri buddy, so I figured I’d get there first and then could text her directions. My mistake was using the word “tunnel” to describe an underpass — not realizing there was a real, significant tunnel off to the right — and she got stranded in the Marin Headlands.
• We finished the day’s adventure about an hour and a half later than planned, despite the fact that I cut my transition run short and she didn’t run at all, what with being stranded in the Headlands.
• I spent Sunday stalling on my workout all day and finally left around 5:45, figuring I’d have just enough time to squeeze in the scheduled 45-minute ride and 6-mile run before sunset.
• I got a flat about 15 minutes into the ride. I did at least manage to change it — my first successful tube change in a situation where it actually mattered — but not quickly and not without dumping the entire contents of my saddle bag onto the sidewalk and coating my favorite (light blue) tank top with bike grease.
• I ended the ride at sunset, setting myself up for a 6-mile run in the dark.
• I guess nothing that bad actually happened on the run, beyond the unfortunate circumstances of it. At least I know my headlamp works?

All things considered, though? The results of the actual workouts were fine, even good. I came close to swimming a mile at Aquatic Park in 30 minutes, I held a reasonable-for-me pace even with all the stairs and detours on a 26-mile bike ride, my transition run felt smooth and speedy, and I ran a 9:20/mile 10K in the dark at the end of Sunday’s easy ride.

Now I’m hoping all my dumb mistakes are out of the way so I can just go race on Sunday. I don’t have a ton of expectations or goals, other than a vague desire to beat my Wildflower time — and this is supposedly a somewhat easier course (though still plenty hilly). Every tri is different, though — as my “surprise, it’s a trail run!” race taught me last year — so I’m trying to keep an open mind about what might happen.

I am happy to have stayed in the Olympic, all things considered. I have that fun, jittery, “I want to go race nowwwwwwwwww” feeling that I haven’t had since Walnut Creek in December. If nothing else, it’ll be a good to know where my fitness and nutrition are going into Vineman training — and a good excuse to eat a grilled cheese on a waffle for lunch on Monday. Will race for food, always.

On Japan

I’ve never felt particularly competent when writing about travel.

In theory, it should be a union of two of my favorite things. But realistically, it’s a struggle, much the way that writing coherently about music has always been just out of reach for me. It may be because I process both music and travel more as a series of impressions and feelings than as a narrative — images and moments and memories, but not necessarily a story.

So here’s how I’ll remember Japan: a forest of cherry blossoms and a sea of ramen bowls, elbow-to-elbow crowds in Ikebukuro and Shibuya and stunning quiet along the Meguro River. Arriving for a short stay in Takayama and wishing I could stay for a week. The slow build of Kyoto, from wondering why we’d decided to go at all to flinging my arms open to it, aided by a hike among monkeys and a night tasting sake poured by a trilingual sake expert while listening to The National as salarymen got tanked all around us.

Bustling food markets, fancy toilets, colorful bicycles, rice balls for breakfast, coffee cans from a vending machine, Green Da-Ka-Ra, cartoon mascots everywhere, songs in the subway, fifty-dollar apples, Hida beef, dogs in tutus, arcades filled with claw machines and photoshop photo booths, matcha everything, prayers tied to trees. Umeshu and soda, yuzu and peppers, kabocha pudding, sushi rolls with sushi rolls inside. It was so much muchness, all excess, everything done with precision and care — tiny ice packs taped to to-go food, routines practiced for arcade performances of Dance Evolution, trains rocketing through towns at nearly 200 mph. And so many contradictions: hygienic masks everywhere but no sanitizer at the airport fingerprinting station; all the restrooms where I could dry my rear but not my hands.

It’s the most foreign I’ve ever felt — being functionally illiterate will do that, I suppose. And yet, there was so much that clicked from the start: the pulse of a city, the love of nature, the way “beer nerd” is a universal language. I could never begin to understand Tokyo, but it vibrated at a rhythm close to one I could recognize.

I want more — more tiny cans of coffee, more hot springs, more snow-capped mountains, more intensely functional public transit, more fresh fish, more delicately pickled radishes. But more will have to wait for later. For now, I’ll be content with that one packet of pickles and the funny stationery and the wooden owl staring down at me from the living room shelf and the stuffed Kirby I won at the arcade in Shibuya, memories and moments, impressions that stick.

Dumb Adventures Abroad: Japan

The backpack is back.

I’m writing this from the airport, waiting for the short flight that will take us to Los Angeles, where we’ll catch the longest flight I’ve ever taken — to Tokyo!

We’ve been talking about taking this trip with friends for probably four years now, so it’s a bit hard to believe that we’re actually doing it. We’ll be in Tokyo, Kyoto, Takayama, and maybe somewhere else, depending on train schedules and weather and general attitudes toward taking random buses.

My Type-A usually shines the most during travel, but this time I’m going in with few set plans or goals. I’m not sure if that’s more because I’m the only one in our group of four who’s never been to Japan or because I’m expecting to be totally overwhelmed and so am practicing letting go. Either way, other than a moment last night when I PDF’d a bunch of train timetables, I’ve been happy to leave the details in other people’s hands.

Triathlon training will, uh, be on hold for the next 10 days while I focus instead on PRing in ramen consumption. I do have my running shoes, and I intend to use them in Tokyo at least, if only to check out the running stations — glorified day-use locker rooms — I’ve heard are sprinkled throughout the city. But while my tri group is getting its first open-water time of the season, I’ll be tracking down as many odd Kit-Kat flavors as possible and possibly eating Cup Noodle from a vending machine, and I’m just fine with that.

Off to the future!

In Which I Try to Figure Out How to Feed Myself

Ever since I went back to training with TAG, I’ve had a tough time figuring out how to eat on our weekend workout days. I don’t remember this being a particular problem last year, but I didn’t have a plan for anything last year, so it’s probably not surprising that my lack of food routine didn’t stand out.

But now that I know where our Sunday workout pool is, and where the best parking spots are at Aquatic Park, and just how many times I can snooze before I really have to start putting the bike rack on the car, I’m starting to put a bit more mental energy into figuring out what and how and when to eat. It’s not so much an issue for Olympic-distance training — last year I was perpetually underfueled/underhydrated because I couldn’t confidently eat or drink on the bike until April, so anything I take in feels this year like an improvement — but with a 70.3 and many longer, hotter training days coming up, I want to get some kind of handle on what I like (and don’t like) now.

I’m not struggling with what to eat, necessarily; that’s a process of experimentation, but it’s at least one I enjoy, because if something is good I have a new fun thing to eat during workouts and if something is bad, well, I get a hilarious story to tell the internet. A few weeks ago I bought one of every packet and powder and bar and gummy thing Sports Basement sells — only slight exaggeration — and have been trying them in a semi-methodical rotation. (Should I round these up? The short story is that every “recovery drink” I’ve tried tastes like spoiled artificial milk; Cytomax was winning the war of “citrus-flavored drink powders” until I saw they reformulated at least some of their line with Stevia, which, no; and my favorite drink mix so far has been the “red fruits” PowerBar powder that was a freebie from the Berlin Marathon expo, which sucks because I think it might only be available in Germany.) I also have big plans to make some of my own portable energy treats, like Kristine’s pumpkin spice bars or Victoria’s brownie batter balls (hee, balls) (balls) and see how those hold up.

So, that part’s fine. It’s more about when and how much to eat, especially when I’m spending a lot of time prepping for/driving to/searching for parking after workouts. To wit, here’s how last Sunday played out:

7:15 — wake up; curse awakeness; hear cats start yelling for food
7:25-8 — feed cats; sunscreen self; fill water bottles, make breakfast, assorted other prep
8-8:15 — carry backpack and bike rack to car; drive car to house; illegally park in front of house; load bike on car
8:20-8:55 — drive; eat breakfast
9-1 — group workout, consisting of: 15 minutes of core; 1900-something yards/60 minutes of swimming; 24 miles/an hour and 45 minutes of biking; 10 minutes of running; and transitions, racking bike, bathroom stop at bike turnaround, etc.
1-1:30 — stretch; chat with teammates; text with friends about plans for the afternoon
1:30-2:10 — drive back to San Francisco
2:11 — have genius idea to drive to favorite sandwich shop, which Yelp promises is open
2:25 — arrive at favorite sandwich shop, which is closed
2:40 — arrive in neighborhood
2:40-2:55 — look for parking; drive in circles
2:56 — give up and settle for a spot a few blocks away
2:56-3:05 — unrack bike; take bike and backpack to garage; walk back to car; remove bike rack; stash bike rack in garage; see parking spot open up directly in front of house; curse life
3:10 — walk to sandwich shop; order sandwich
3:11 — realize it’s going to be a long wait for a sandwich
3:25 — obtain sandwich; stuff into face

And here’s what I ate during that, before the sandwich:

8:20 — one hard-boiled egg; two pieces of sourdough toast from the bakery co-op around the corner (<– I was trying to come up with the most "San Francisco" food item possible; how'd I do?) topped with a little peanut butter and Brummel & Brown spread; one water bottle with a Nuun tab. ~400 calories.

10:45, post-swim and pre-bike — 1 Roctane. 100 calories.

Between 10:45 and 1, on the bike and run — 1/2 Picky Bar, split into chunks; 2 (maybe 3, can't remember) Shot Bloks; 1 water bottle with PowerBar powdery stuff. ~300 calories.

1:30ish, while driving home — other half of the Picky Bar, gross Hammer vanilla protein powder drink. 170 calories.

So, that's roughly 1,000 calories, with "real meals" still to come. I say that without judgment, because frankly, I'm not sure how to judge it — if it's a lot, too much, poorly timed, not enough, etc.

The protein drink on the drive home is my current concession to needing to eat SOMETHING after the workout — it was 2.5 hours of stretching, driving, parking, and unpacking between workout-end and sandwich-start — without taking away the chance to eat a real meal later. One of my teammates has started packing peanut butter sandwiches for the drive home, which sounded delicious, but I wonder if that would seem too lunch-y to me. I occasionally stay and eat with people after the workout, but not always; sometimes I need to get the car back or just have other plans in the city. So right now, I’m trying drinks, but they’re all so nasty. I can choke them down, but I really prefer to ENJOY my food.

And I guess, overall, that’s my biggest struggle. I’ve never been a “food is fuel” type; I’m way more the “food is delicious” type. But when I’m doing a 3-hour workout, within a 6-hour block that also involves getting to and from said workout, it is fuel. The first two weeks, sans protein drink, I stumbled in the door hangry after every workout (twice I almost cried looking for parking!); now I feel a bit more stable, but I also don’t want to go too far to the other side, where I gain unnecessary weight or eat a ton of things I hate that are more chemical than food anyway.

It’s a tough balance, and I know everyone’s stomach and system is different, but if you’ve got an awesome story about locking in your fueling plan — or just recommendations for protein drinks that don’t taste bitter and weird — I’ll take them!

Review: Moving Comfort Endurance Racer Sports Bra

I wrote recently about my problems with sports bra chafing, and I finally decided to woman up, open my wallet, and do something about it. It always makes me shudder a little — sports bras for the well-endowed are pricey, so I expect them to be made of magic and last forever — but my No. 1 rule for spending is “If you touch it every day, it’s worth the money,” and this definitely qualifies.

I planned to order a new Juno to see if maybe mine were just worn out. But on the way, I encountered Moving Comfort’s new Endurance Racer. The colors were good, the keyhole back was a new style for me, and the price ($52) and size options (bra sizes, not S-M-L) were in line with what I was expecting, so I ordered it instead. Moving Comfort has a 30-day wear-and-see return policy, so I’ve been putting this bra through its paces over the past month. Here’s what I’ve found.

(Source)

Fit, Fabric, and Aesthetics
The one review that had been posted when I ordered noted that the straps were short, so just in case, I ordered two different Endurance Racers — my usual size as well as one band size up. The straps fastened fine in my regular size, so I never even took the bigger one out of the bag. The shoulder straps use the same adjustable velcro as most other Moving Comfort bras I’ve owned, and the back strap was comfortably snug on the loosest hook. I know people who have trouble fastening the clasps of Moving Comfort bras or who have had the velcro come loose during a workout, but in five years, I’ve never had either issue. Given that, I didn’t find the bra any easier or more challenging to put on and adjust than anything else in the Moving Comfort line.

The fabric is a lot like Moving Comfort’s Jubralee, and it feels thinner and silkier than the Juno. This is a plus for me: One of the things I’ve disliked about the Juno is its foaminess/sponginess, which makes it bulky (it takes up a good amount of space in a drawer or suitcase, compared to the Jubralee). I also think the Juno can be a little slow to dry — not so much when it’s just doing normal sweat-wicking but more when it’s thoroughly drenched, as it can be during rainy runs or when worn on a triathlon swim.

I was curious to know how the back straps would sit, and the best news was that on initial try-on, I barely noticed them. Straight straps sometimes slip off my shoulders, and racerbacks can feel hot and constraining, so the wide, open keyhole of the Endurance Racer hits a sweet spot. I tried several running tanks with it, and while the narrowest racerbacks in my collection (think Lululemon’s Cool Racerback) left quite a bit of strap exposed, slightly wider-backed shirts like the REI Fleet tank or the Athleta Wick-It tank I wore in Berlin covered everything fully.

The front, though, is where the Endurance Racer disappoints me. The seams around the mesh area at the front of the bra aren’t flat; they’re raised upward and outward. So under any sort of thinner shirt — aka, almost every shirt I own — the outline of the cup area is quite visible. Now, I recognize that it’s not going to be news to anyone who sees me run that my chest requires a sports bra. But when I wear the Endurance Racer under a plain tank, it essentially looks like someone has drawn a circle around each boob, and those circles are now showing through my shirt. I’m not striving to hide the fact that I’m wearing a sports bra, but I’m also not trying to advertise or draw more attention to my chest, and the Endurance Racer left me feeling exposed.

On the Run
Aesthetics aside, how did it perform? So far, I’ve worn it during three easy runs, two track workouts, and a bike-run brick. I wore it under thin shirts and under shirts with built-in sports bras, under short sleeves, long sleeves, and no sleeves. And across the board, it felt great. I shortened the shoulder straps after feeling a bit too much movement during my first track workout, and I still had plenty of room to tighten them further. The longest I’ve run in it is 6.5 miles, so I don’t know how it will do on a true long run, but my Junos start chafing around 5 miles these days, and I didn’t have even a whisper of chafing with the Endurance Racer.

Most notably for me, it was a dream under the Athleta PR Tank, a shirt I bought specifically for cycling and triathlon and wore during both of my tris last year. The PR Tank has a built-in sports bra that’s the worst of all worlds: not supportive enough for me to run in alone but stiff and bulky enough that with a Juno on under it, I feel smushed (and, in the case of triathlons, damp). The Endurance Racer is enough thinner and lighter that I felt almost sleek with it on under the PR.

In the blue color I ordered, it shows sweat readily, so if you’re a sports-bra-only runner, that may be worth bearing in mind.

The Verdict
So am I keeping it? I have about 24 more hours before my 30-day trial period closes, and I’m torn. On the one hand, I do like how it performs, especially under the PR Tank that I’m likely to wear in at least one triathlon (and plenty of training days) this year. On the other hand, the front design really does make me feel uncomfortable. When I went out for my group run this morning, I spent a while trying to find a top that didn’t make the giant boob circles quite so obvious (good: anything printed or patterned; anything with a built-in shelf bra; thicker race shirts that have that waffle-y weave. bad: anything silky, thin, or even remotely clingy), and while I eventually found some options, the entire effort just bothered me. I want to throw on a top and go, not worry about what’s showing and what’s not! I don’t consider myself an overly modest person, but I also like maintaining some measure of secrecy about just what’s happening under my shirt. The Endurance Racer didn’t chafe, it fits well, it dries fast — it’s everything I want, except for those damn seams. If I keep it, it will be largely because of how well it will work for tris, but $52 seems like a lot to spend for a utility player in my bra wardrobe.

Disclaimer: I bought this bra with my own funds and wore it in accordance with Moving Comfort’s 30-day satisfaction guarantee.