Race Recap: Vineman 70.3

If racing is a celebration of training, then my time at Vineman on Sunday was one big 6-hour, 34-minute, 54-second party. It seems cold to say that the day was all just execution — where’s the drama in that? where are the crazy highs and lows? — but the number one thing I felt throughout the day was well-prepared.

And what that preparation got me was a bunch of times faster than the ones I thought I could pull off. I spent most of the day with a big dumb grin on my face. Part of it, I’m sure, is the sheer joy of the automatic PR, the fact that as long as I finished, I’d be doing something I could barely conceive of a year ago. But most of it was a confidence I don’t think I’ve ever felt before in racing — that I’d done everything I could to be ready, and now all I had to do was do it.

I don’t know where that confidence came from, but I’m glad it was there, because from the moment I got to Santa Rosa on Friday night, I felt calm. My phone was full of text messages with other people’s nerves, and I kept expecting my own to kick in at any minute, but they never did. On Saturday, we hit up some Sonoma County favorites: Flying Goat for coffee, Arrigoni’s for sandwiches and snark (overheard: “What gluten-free options do you have?” “Well. All of our sandwiches come on bread.”), Powell’s for candy. I went to the athlete meeting, got my wristband and packet, set up my T2 stuff, and lazed around the hotel until it was time for dinner with Michaela, Courtney, and friends. (And pros! Michaela’s post about chatting with a pro is fantastic.)

I started trying to put myself to bed around 10 p.m., and with the exception of one wake-up, I slept solidly until the alarm went off at 5:30. I picked up my friend from his hotel, drove back to mine to load the car, and Pete drove us both to Guerneville. By chance, we ran into my parents while looking for parking, so all of us walked to Johnson’s Beach together, and then it was up into transition and down to the water.

Swim — 40:18

I was in wave 17 of 23, starting at 8 a.m. The waves were split six minutes apart, but from the time we were called to get in to the time the horn went off, it felt like an hour. The water was warmer than the air — 70-ish degrees, warm enough that steam was rising off the top — and I was glad I’d chosen the sleeveless wetsuit even given the chilly morning.

In my practice swims, I’d always started toward the far bank of the river, so I found a spot on that side toward the front. I’m not sure how many people were in the wave — 50? 75? Vineman split up many of the traditional age groups to even out the waves, so I was with women 30-32 — but we were really spread out, and I felt very little contact getting through the start.

I was waiting for the first shallow bit with the plants sticking out over the surface, just after the bridge, but I never found it — I must have been just slightly to one side. In fact, I never encountered any particularly shallow spots; after the turnaround, I touched the riverbed a couple of times, but mostly I was able to swim normally. I saw people ahead of me dolphin-diving once or twice and spotted some people walking at the edges, but it seemed like most of my wave was swimming most of the time.

I felt like I was doing a good job staying in the thick of my wave — which is not something I’ve always done. I caught my first purple cap from the wave in front maybe halfway through the outbound leg, and it took longer than that for the first dark green cap from the wave behind to catch me. The river is narrow enough that I honestly wasn’t doing a whole lot of sighting, other than just making sure I was rounding the buoys on the right, and I know that benefited me.

The one tricky part was figuring out a line to the swim exit, and I swam more of the last .2 with my head up than I wish I had. I just couldn’t quite get a handle on the angle of the exit ramp. I saw people start to stand up but I kept swimming as long as possible, then picked my way over the rocks as quickly as I could and got over the ramp.

I was shocked, honestly, to see 40:xx as my time. I felt like I’d had a good swim relative to my normal open-water swims and, from what I could tell, relative to my age group — but that would be a good time for me for that distance in the pool. That said, swimming in a current-less, shallow, narrow river is probably about as close as it gets to swimming in a pool, so I suppose it makes sense.

T1 – 7:07

I mean, yeah, that took forever. I’d never done a two-transition-area race before, and I probably should have practiced shoving all my junk into a plastic bag with haste. I also walked the whole way out of transition through the sandy parking lot. I wasn’t doing myself any favors on time, but my footing wasn’t awesome and I’d long ago decided it wouldn’t be worth running my bike out, especially if I was going to walk the little gravelly hill out of transition …

Bike – 3:24:50

… which I did. And then there was still some confusion about who was going to mount where and so I kept walking, up and around until the road was flat. It probably took an extra minute on either side of the timing mat, but two minutes weren’t going to make a difference in my day.

As soon as I got settled on River Road, my first order of business was food. I had a Gu ripped open and ready to go, and I nibbled on it for a couple of miles. So glad I did, because as before, I didn’t manage to get any food down during any of the especially jostle-y parts of Westside, and I didn’t get fully on my regular food-drink-salt pill schedule until an hour into the ride. I was nervous about the tight right turn off River — perhaps the only thing about this course that qualifies as “technical” — and I’m still surprised by how steep and precarious it feels, because on foot it doesn’t look like much. But the people around me heeded the warnings to slow down and we went into the turn single-file, which made me feel much more secure.

After that, I just rode. And rode. And ate. And rode. I sang to myself. I kept an eye out for friends — Ron caught me on River, I caught Lisa on Westside, and Cristina and I leapfrogged for much of the ride. I kept clicking off miles under 4:00 and knew I must be averaging over 16 mph. I think I previewed the course exactly the right amount: my two rides were enough to always know what was coming next but not enough to plunge me into boredom.

We got so lucky with the weather. It stayed foggy and gray until I was going past the Dry Creek General Store around mile 25, when I started seeing streaks of blue peeking out over the vineyards. By the time we hit the Canyon descent, it was bright and sunny, and that’s one of those moments I’ll always remember from this race — flying down that hill, warm sun and mountains and vineyards all around me, feeling happy and strong.

My obsessive over-planning of snacks paid off a handful of times. My bento box ejected my baggie of Shot Bloks (I’d only eaten one of the six!) and the last bit of my Picky Bar as I went over various potholes, and my extra Gu must have gotten lost somewhere during the swim or in transition. But I’d stuffed more Shot Bloks and a Fig Newton into the zippered compartment, so I had quite the rolling buffet. Every time I started to feel tired or sore or angry, I thought, “Let’s throw some food at that problem,” and I did, and it worked great.

My saddle started to bug me around mile 30, and I stood up a bunch on the flatter bits to stretch. Between that and the little climbs leading up to Chalk Hill, I kept waiting for my speed to drop — and it did, but only a little. The way the aid station before Chalk Hill was set up, I didn’t even realize we’d made the turn until I was hitting the sharp incline that serves as a warning shot for the real climb. The hill itself was kind of a mess — people walking to the far right, then people passing them but riding slowly in the middle, then people who were stronger climbers trying to pass them, and the few really strong climbers all the way on the outside flirting with the yellow line. As a (relatively) stronger climber (in this field, on this hill), it was tough to get enough open space to climb at my pace while also not blocking people coming up even faster.

But then it was over, with a short downhill and then a few little bumps on the part of the course I hate. I’d packed a goody bag — a handful of cherry cola and watermelon candies — for this stretch, and every time I started to feel rough, I thanked myself for my foresight and ate a treat. As we came into Windsor, a few cars got aggressive and I did a little talking back, but mostly it was smooth sailing all the way to the high school. After Chalk Hill, I was pretty sure I could come in under 3:30; then I had a stretch where I wasn’t sure and picked up the pace again; then I knew I was going to make it and relaxed for the final miles. I waved to the goats, coasted through the turns, tried to stretch my legs, and finally spotted the high school roof and Pete and my parents cheering near the bike in. I couldn’t believe I was done.

T2 – 9:38

When I got off the bike and stood up, the backs of my butt and legs — basically where my hamstrings and glutes connect — were in searing pain. The same thing happened in Napa with my old saddle, and I’d gotten through the run there fine. I knew I could do it again, but those first few steps were not pleasant. I took my time walking my bike a long way — my Garmin recorded almost a quarter mile! — to my T2 spot and spent a few more minutes stretching once I got there. Eventually, I dumped the last of my bike water bottle into my handheld, stuffed food and the contact lens case I’d loaded up with salt pills into my pockets, and took some long steps to stretch out more as I headed toward the run course.

Run – 2:13:01

I hit the run out and started to jog, and I immediately realized that running felt a lot better than walking. It was a relief, and as I ran through the enthusiastic spectators in the first half-mile of the course — the only part where crowds were allowed — I was choking back happy tears. I knew I was well ahead of my goal, and for the first time, I also knew I was going to stay there. “You’re doing this!” is what kept popping into my head, and I’d smile and then start to cry and then remind myself to keep it under control because there was still a long way to go.

So, I ran. I walked the aid stations as I planned to, and went through every sprinkler and got sprayed by every garden hose, and in between, I ran. When I went over the timing mat at mile 6 at just under an hour, I knew I was right on pace; little did I know that the online tracker claimed the mat was at mile 6.6, and Pete and my parents briefly thought I was going to pull out a sub-2 half!

The high point of the run was probably the archway of misters at the start of the La Crema winery loop. The low point was absolutely the out-and-back on a boring road right after the loop. By that point, I was getting hot — and I know, I was so lucky, it could have been so much worse, but it was still full sun and 80 degrees — and I took a little more time at the aid stations to grab water and ice (where there was still ice; several aid stations had had theirs melt already). I dropped a Nuun tab in my handheld bottle around mile 9, but the heat and fizziness somehow combined to build up pressure in the bottle, and half the water went shooting out across the street. I could only laugh, but it still felt like a very long way to the next aid station and a refill.

I was tired, absolutely, and getting majorly chafed from all the water I was dumping on myself, but I felt weirdly … awesome? I was talking to the people around me, and keeping an eye out for friends, and while I wasn’t moving particularly fast, I never doubted that I could keep running. Non-volunteer spectators were only allowed on the last 1.5 miles of the course, so hitting the crowds was a big milestone. Then it was 10 more minutes of running, then five. Then I spotted my friend Ron again — he’d just dyed his hair red, and I’d been making wine jokes ever since, saying he’d gone Cabernet or Zinfandel for Vineman — and as I came up behind him, I yelled, “Hey, Pinot Noir, you coming with me?” He laughed but waved me on, and then I was at the last intersection before the high school, and then I was turning into the chute.

The chute wound through the parking lot, and I really wasn’t sure how much further I had to go, but I knew I had the dumbest smile on my face. A friend called out and I smiled even bigger — then Cristina was at the fence cheering — then it was Pete and my parents — and then it was the finish line. The announcer said my name, and I threw my arms up, and I was a half-ironman finisher. Total time: 6:34:54.

After

I ran into Layla at the finish and she was eating watermelon, so my next move was clear. I made it over to the food tent and piled a plate with watermelon slices and pasta salad, grabbed some water and chocolate milk, and looked for friends. Eventually, I slowly made my way back to T2 to gather my stuff, found my T1 bag (full of ants who’d gone after my throwaway bottle of Nuun-water, which I clearly should have actually thrown away), did some expo shopping, and walked back to the car. Walking away from the high school got us through the worst of the traffic, and within 45 minutes, I was eating nachos and drinking beer at Lagunitas in Petaluma.

I have more to say that’s all feelings-y, but this post is long enough. I’ll just say that when I look back on the day, there’s not much I would change, and that’s a pretty exciting way to feel after my first 70.3. There are things I could do better, places where I can build on this. But my pie-in-the-sky goal back in April was to hold 16 mph on the bike at Vineman, and I did. My motivation all year was to finish this race under seven hours, and I did. And knowing I could do this at all — that the girl who started running at 25 and learned to ride a bike at 29 could finish a half-ironman at 31 — is the craziest and most awesome thing, period.

It Always Means More Once the Calendar’s Marked

So it’s February and I’ve written barely a word about my 2013 race calendar. Not because I’m going for some sort of blogger restraint medal but because, frankly, I have nearly no idea what I’m racing this year.

The centerpiece is set — Vineman 70.3, in July. This is the race that first got me thinking about triathlons, googling “race swim Russian River” as we drove away from another glorious afternoon at Memorial Beach in Healdsburg. Pete lived in that part of Sonoma County when he first moved to California, and for the better part of a year, I spent every weekend hiking up mountains and getting tipsy developing my wine palate in Windsor and Healdsburg and Guerneville. I don’t know those roads as well as I used to, but I still love them the same. And I know you’re not “supposed to” have time goals for a first race of a new distance, but I want to train hard and make myself proud of what I can do on this course. So that’s the main one.

Everything else? I really just don’t know at all.

I started looking for races with a few principles in mind: 1) one sprint, 2) one Olympic, 3) no Wildflower. I’m glad Wildflower was my first big triathlon — it’s certainly an experience — but I didn’t love the logistics and I’m not much of a camper, and I’d honestly really like to know what I can do in an Olympic-distance race on a different course. (OK, fine: on an easier course. I would get some measure of satisfaction out of trying to better my time in a tough race, but I’d also like to experience something a little less … grinding.) I also wanted to put the Olympic roughly at the same time as Wildflower, because I plan to join back up with my training group from last year for Vineman, and many people in that group will go through the Wildflower program as well, so the start date and workouts are pegged to that timeline.

So, fine. Months to work with, right? Welllll.

I thought I found that Olympic in HITS Napa, in April. It’s a little early (3 weeks before Wildflower), but I figured, oh well, I’ll just start training a little earlier. But then I didn’t see a ton of sprints before mid-April, so I started to second-guess it; would I rather do the sprint there?

Meanwhile, I started talking with my group coach from last year about working with the Wildflower program in some way even if I don’t race Wildflower — and if that happens, I’m sure I’ll be writing more about it, because there are some cool potential opportunities there. That group is racing the Napa sprint as the prep race — replacing the trail-run-freakout Ice Breaker from last year — so racing that weekend makes sense no matter what. But what distance?

Then we booked a trip to Japan. And I refuse to stress out about training when I have monkeys to find and hot springs to sit in and ramen to eat, but realistically, the trip erases a week and two weekends of training in late March (and rules out three races I’d been toying with the idea of doing — the Oakland Marathon relay and the Marin County 10K/1500-meter swim double dip, which are all on weekends we’re gone). I’d still have one week to prep before Napa, but I certainly wouldn’t be going in at my peak. Point for the sprint?

Then, I may have said that if I work with the Wildflower group, I’d be happy to go to the race to support everyone, and it may have been suggested that if I’m going to be there anyway, I might as well at least do a relay.

So as of now, I’m thinking: Napa sprint on April 14, run leg of the Wildflower Olympic on May 5, and I still need a damn Olympic race.

I’ve caved a little on racing after Wildflower; my coached Vineman workouts are only on Saturdays, so shuffling in a Sunday race early in training isn’t out of the question. So, right now, I’m considering:

• Folsom Lake, May 11. Pros: close to Wildflower, so I wouldn’t be much behind the group; I’m semi-familiar with the course. Cons: I’m semi-familiar with the course, as it’s the site of my great fall-down-go-boom from 2012, and I’m still not much of a trail runner, so I’m not sure I see it going much better for me this time.
• Rancho Seco, June 15. There’s a lot to like about this race — it’s close, it’s relatively cheap, it sounds like a good course for me — but it’s a little late in the spring/a little close to Vineman, and it’s a Saturday, so I’d miss a group workout (which, whatever, but every workout I miss is something I paid for that I’m not getting, which bugs the financially sensible side of me).
• Reservoir Triathlon, June 16. I really wanted to do this race last year but couldn’t, and it’s the same weekend as Rancho Seco but on the Sunday, which is better. It’s also still later than I’d like to race.
• Silicon Valley, April 21. It’s the week after Napa. Could I race an Olympic the week after racing a sprint, realistically? I’d also miss a week with the Wildflower group, if that’s a factor for me. And it still doesn’t give me that much time to be functional again after Japan.
• Folsom, June 9. Still late, but earlier than the other June races. And a Sunday, which is good. I know literally nothing else about this race. I’ll be out of town the weekend before it but already have plans to train while away, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

So, yeesh. There’s not really a perfect option. What I want, I think, is for Silicon Valley or Reservoir to be on May 11, but that’s not real life.

Stuff I’m wondering: How close together can you reasonably race a sprint and an Olympic? How close together can you race an Olympic and a 70.3? How much will flying to Asia and back destroy me? If I don’t think I can pull my shit together by April 14, is it at all reasonable to think I could be any better by April 21? I’m asking rhetorically, but if you’ve got answers, by all means, answer away!

Or, I could just race Wildflower. Which is the one thing I didn’t want to do, but it’s starting to seem a lot more sensible in the scheme of things.

Race Recap: San Francisco First Half Marathon

As I’ve noted, the San Francisco First Half Marathon was not a race for me — it was 13.1 miles of a 14-mile run that came with a T-shirt and Irish coffee. But I’m a completist, so, hey! A recap.

The San Francisco Marathon has two half-marathon options (start to the park; park to the finish): I picked the first half because I wanted to finally run over the Golden Gate Bridge. One of the cool things about this race is that runners get to use two lanes of the bridge deck; one of the less-cool things is that because of that, the race starts absurdly early. My original start time was 5:44 a.m.; I dropped back a couple of waves to start with a friend at 6:04. We planned to get to the start around 5:30 and relax — I’d run my first mile, we’d use the portapotties, no big deal.

Any hope of relaxation went out the window when I woke up half an hour after the alarm I never heard and had 20 minutes to meet my friends. I scrambled around and housed a piece of pumpkin bread and then heard that the cab hadn’t showed. While they hailed another, I gathered up the last bits of my stuff and bolted out the door. I’d pre-loaded the pockets of my shorts with my building and door keys, but in my rush, I pulled out the wrong key, put it down somewhere, and sprinted to the waiting cab, upon which I realized the building key was gone.

Happy SFM! I ... just locked myself out of my apartment building. Oops.

— Kimra (@kimretta) July 29, 2012

I had my door key, plus karma from four years of buzzing in other people’s UPS deliveries, so I didn’t think I was locked out forever. But the confusion forged itself into pure adrenaline, and by the time I got out of the cab, I was ready to run. I looped around the block for a too-fast warm-up mile, then headed to the corrals.

I wasn’t racing, but I wanted to practice race execution — starting conservatively, running my own pace, and taking liquids from aid stations. My friend got stuck in the portapotty line and latched onto a later corral, so I started alone. I’d planned to run without music, but (understandably) few people were out and I’d used up my entertaining thoughts during the warm-up, so my headphones were in after about 10 minutes.

I had energy to burn and concentrated on not burning it; I focused on breathing calmly. There are a couple of challenging hills in the first few miles — one short and steep, one more gradual but longer — and I slowed down but never needed to walk.

It was foggy enough that I almost didn’t realize we were coming up on the bridge. I started looking for familiar faces among runners coming the other way, and before long, I was calling out to Susan, whom I’d met at the expo. The bridge had some slick metal bits and people running elbow-to-elbow-to-elbow-to-elbow, and I decided to pick it up a little — enough that I wouldn’t lose my spot of clear pavement. Miles 7-10 were all in the 9:50s, closer to marathon goal pace than smart long run pace, but it felt like drafting on a swim.

At the end of the bridge, I took a Gu and grabbed my first water since ditching my bottle during my warm-up mile. On any other day I would have needed to drink sooner, and I probably should have anyway, but given the weather, I never felt thirsty. I got my phone out to snap a picture, and seconds later my friend came up behind me (on her way to a sub-2 finish in her first half!) and we chatted briefly. My legs felt a little dead around mile 10, as we got off the downhill slope of the bridge, but on the next uphill I focused on keeping my feet light, and the lead feeling passed.

Heading into the park, I chatted briefly with a guy who did a comically major fist-pump as we crossed the 12-mile marker and resisted the urge to kick. The fact that kicking crossed my mind was insane, because I never have a kick. No, I wasn’t racing, but I was en route to tying the longest distance I’d ever run, and to finish that feeling strong was a relief.

I crossed the finish at 2:13:32, got my medal, found my friend, and beelined for the Irish coffee. We wandered for a bit — lovely in a “heyyyy, drinking in the park before 9 a.m.” kind of way — then got a kind stranger to take a picture for the Internet and headed toward some park restrooms …

… in which my building key magically reappeared. I didn’t see it, just heard the jingle as it hit the ground. It was definitely not in any of my pockets, so maybe it got stuck in the liner as I was running out of the house. (And then stayed there for 13 miles?) Regardless, I was happier just knowing I could take a warm shower in my own apartment. A San Francisco Marathon miracle!

Final thoughts:

• My time was a few seconds faster than I finished Nike last year. Nike is both hillier and I think tougher because of the crowds, but still, I did at least attempt to race it. That said, this was a mixed result in terms of ignoring the race atmosphere (or my own ego); I definitely took the bridge more aggressively than I would have solo.
• I drank at three aid stations (miles 7, 10ish, and right before the end) and not much at any of them. Had it been warmer or sunnier, that would not have been enough. I think that means my handheld is coming to Germany.
• Worst. Race photos. Ever. I thought concentrating on my form was supposed to fix that ish.
• This is as much as I’ve ever done — train up to 14 miles, run a half. It’s all new from here!

On the Racing Rat Race

I love races. I do not always love the act of racing, but I love the aura of races. I love scouting for good deals at crowded expos; I love race T-shirts even when they’re ugly and ill-fitting; I love hoovering up orange slices from the post-race food bins. And I love the motivation racing provides: I might never have run more than five miles if I hadn’t signed up for a 10K, and I certainly wouldn’t have run more than 10 if I hadn’t split a bottle of wine with some friends and talked us all into registering for a half-marathon.

I love races. And they’re also a pain in the ass.

Races cause all this commotion. There’s a rush to get in, to commit now — before the race sells out, before prices go up, before you realize that maybe there are things you’d rather do than run 6 or 10 or 26 miles on that particular day. When the chatter around races makes them seem like they might sell out in minutes — and then they actually DO — it amps up the pressure for a type-A with a plan-A who doesn’t want to be fishing for a backup race because she was too slow on the trigger.

And then! Then the race is on the calendar. The date is set. The money is paid. If it’s a far-away race, travel plans are made, or at least budgeted for. All of a sudden, this idea of racing X miles on Y day is a very real thing that’s going to happen. There’s an answer to “What are you training for now?” and “When’s your next race?” And when something goes awry — which, in my experience, it’s practically guaranteed to — there’s a looming deadline with all this time and money and logistical brouhaha tied in.

Berlin’s an extreme example. We started thinking seriously about the race last September, once we realized we could attach the marathon weekend to the Oktoberfest vacation we’d dreamed of taking. In late November, we saw that there were only a few thousand spots left. We bugged a friend to finalize a wedding date so we’d know if we could make the trip. We made sure we had the cash on hand to register, because a quirk of the registration site meant we had to use debit. We figured out how we’d best travel between Berlin and Munich, and we reserved hotels at each location. When cursory Kayak searching turned up fares we couldn’t refuse, we bought plane tickets. Then we counted up the vacation days we’d need to take and mentally removed them from our vacation day budget for 2012. All in roughly 72 hours, ten months before the race.

Some of that was unnecessary and maybe even a little dumb; we didn’t need to buy plane tickets that early, and that’s clearly the biggest financial hit we’d take if the trip didn’t happen. But heck, we’d have to buy plane tickets at some point; I’ve had race-killing injuries two weeks before a race, too. Was the stress exacerbated by my own haste to get the travel plans settled? Sure. Could I have avoided some of this by choosing a race I could drive to rather than cross an ocean for? Definitely. Do I love Berlin no matter what I do there, and is Oktoberfest going to be a blast even if I haven’t run 26 miles the weekend before? Ja. But we picked this trip, this year, to run a marathon in Berlin.

The bigger point is that having to commit to any race months ahead of time, months in which any number of things can happen, is a huge source of stress for me. I’ve learned this spring that dropping out of a race isn’t the worst thing in the world; I’ve done it twice, and nobody died. But I felt — feel — overwhelmingly guilty about it. And why would I choose guilt when I could choose not to feel that way?

Races do sell out, though, often early. I do want to run fun races in places I adore, and I do want to turn my bigger races into events where I go somewhere awesome and maybe get a vacation at the end, because…that’s how I want my life to be. And I do need to, y’know, train, with a goal and deadline in mind. I like, and crave, the motivation. These things seem fundamentally at odds.

When I started pulling together my marathon training plan, my instinct was to sign up for a boatload of other races. Supported long runs? Race-morning energy in droves? Nothing sounded better. But a schedule as written isn’t a schedule as lived. And I just don’t want the guilt, and the stress, and the worry that if I did that, and I couldn’t run Berlin or any of those other races, I’d be digging myself deeper into the “I’m spending money on this race I can’t even run” hole.

Luckily, I live in a place where outdoor activities are pleasant enough pretty much year-round, and the stacked race calendar proves it. Some races will sell out, but others won’t. Most will hike their prices for week-of or race-morning registration, but I’ve come to realize that I’d rather pay $85 for a race I run than pay $65 four months ahead of time for one I sit out.

So, this summer, I’m playing my schedule by ear. There are a few races I’m particularly curious about, and I’ve marked those dates on my calendar, but I’m not committing to anything new until the week of the race. If it’s sold out, well, I’m running 16 miles for free that day. And if I like it, maybe this will become my standard operating procedure: pick some target races close together, train like I’m going to race one of them, and not commit until I’m reasonably sure I can get it done.

There are holes in this plan, and races I could never do this way. But for now, I’ll trade those things for this little bit of relief.

Race Report: Ice Breaker Sprint

Heyyyyy, triathlete.

And I finally got my both-feet-up flying photo, too.

The Headlines
I broke two hours, but not at all the way I hoped to. I freaked out during the swim start but pulled it together, rocked the bike, and went face-first into muck on the run. And then I ate popcorn chicken and sweet potato tots at Sonic. Boom.

Pre-Race
Pete and I drove up to Roseville on Saturday afternoon and had dinner with some training partners at a little Italian restaurant at which I believe the entire staff came out to wave goodbye when we left. Our coach wanted us at the race site ready to go at 8 a.m., so I was still up early to pack and re-pack my transition bag, coat every inch of my body with sunscreen and body glide, and wonder how to feed myself. I picked up my numbers, swim cap and T-shirt, spent way too long figuring out where all the numbers were supposed to go, racked my bike, set up transition, and then stood around. I was going to write something like “I don’t make a habit of showing up to races last-minute, but …” but actually, I kind of do (exhibit A: Kaiser 2011, in which I ran to the start not as a warm-up jog but as a “oh crap I hear the countdown” sprint; exhibit B: Nike 2011, hitching a ride with some random girl’s cousin after the 6 bus didn’t show), so the waiting around was weird.

We cheered on a teammate who was doing the super-sprint distance, braided hair, applied temporary tattoos (yes, this basically was like high school dance team), and finally decided to go splash around in the lake and see the men’s waves off. The lake was cold. I couldn’t pee in my wetsuit. The swim course looked really long. And all of a sudden, the pink caps were on the beach lining up and someone yelled “go!” and we were running back into the water.

The Swim
I started to the side of the group and got into waist-deep water before starting to swim. I got my face in fine, but I didn’t have much rhythm, and there were feet close to my eyes, and I popped my head out to get a better idea of the landscape and immediately got a mouthful of water. I sputtered and coughed and tried to start again, but I swallowed more water on my next breath, and then the next, and I gave up and decided to tread for a second. I realized I was toward the back of the wave with all the other people who were freaking out, and for a second that freaked me out more, and then I thought, “No, we can all calm down together.” I treaded in a little circle and then did a few breaststrokes and then a few regular strokes with my head out. A girl went by me saying “you’re OK, you’re OK,” and I know she was talking to herself, but I decided to pretend she was talking to me.

At that point, I realized the first buoy wasn’t too far off. I thought back to Saturday’s open-water practice and remembered how much it had helped to focus on the shore when I breathed, so I picked a tree and kept my eyes on it. Then I started counting like I always do — 10 right-arm strokes, then reset — and suddenly I was up at the second buoy and turning left. Along the back of the course, a kayaker pulled up alongside our group and I focused on staying with him and realized I was catching up to the back of the pack.

One more left turn and I was heading back to shore, surrounded by more pink caps and some of the last of the men’s wave. The current was with us for this stretch, and as the water got shallower, I could see how fast I was speeding along the bottom as sand and sticks flew by. I decided to sight for the exit arch every time my count hit 10, and after maybe four rounds of that, my hands hit sand and I was up and out of the water.

This race didn’t have timing chips, so I stopped for a volunteer to rip the tag off my wetsuit pull — she was yelling “you can keep running!” but I couldn’t figure out the mechanics of that in the moment, and anyway, I wanted to make sure I could see straight and wasn’t going to boot my breakfast — and got the wetsuit half off and hit the parking lot and checked my watch and saw 17:xx. Well, OK then.

T1
I could not get the stupid wetsuit off my feet. Most of the bikes around me were gone, so I took all the space I needed and finally got free of the sucker. A spray of sunscreen, socks, shoes, chomps in my pocket, race belt, done. It took me a few seconds to remember how to clip in, and I’m sure the woman next to me at the bike out was thinking I was going to be a disaster, but soon I was turning right and starting the course.

The Bike
The bike started with a long straightaway, and I headed out fast for me (17-18 mph). My cadence was well over 100 and I remember thinking “whoa, hummingbird, chill.” The fastest men were starting their second loop, so I got passed by a lot of them at the start, and then a lot of women after that, but that wasn’t surprising. The course was winding, and I could never tell if the people I saw on the other side of the road were ahead of me or behind me. I just tried to keep seeing numbers I was happy with — over 15 on the flats, whatever I needed on the uphills, “just don’t look” on the downhills. At one point there was a tight U-turn and I know I pissed off the aero-helmet guy behind me by having no idea how to ride it, but the rest of the time I felt like I was riding well.

Closest thing I got to a Katie-style ass shot.

I slowed down to dig out some chomps right before the turn-around and was shocked to see 25:xx on my watch. On the way back down the straightaway I got a few sips of water, and I should have had more, but I was nervous about getting the bottle back in the holder before the first hill. In the second loop I actually passed a woman (!) and then ended up riding close to an older man who wasn’t great at climbing. I passed him on one uphill, and he flew past as we rode down. On the next hill, I caught back up and said, “On your left, but I know you’ll smoke me on the way down” and he laughed and then came speeding past again a few minutes later. I passed him again on the last longer hill; he said “there you go again!” and I didn’t see him for the rest of the ride.

After the turn-around, I’d gotten in my head that I could maybe have a 50:xx bike. I probably hammered the last straightaway harder than I should have, but I wanted that 50, and if I didn’t get there, I came close. (My official bike time is 58-something, but that includes both transitions.)

T2
A couple of teammates came into transition within a minute of me, and we debriefed while pulling on shoes/spraying sunscreen/gulping water. I spotted Pete at the run out and managed to not look like a total idiot.

Like I'm Miss America or something.

The Run
My feet were numb. It felt like I imagine it would feel to run in those Sketchers Shape-Ups — like my feet weren’t hitting the ground. I was running around an 8:50 pace but my breathing was a mess, and I saw some friends and yelled out, “I don’t remember how to run!” They hollered back that I’d be fine in a half-mile. Just when I’d started to feel normal, we hit the trail.

I talk a big game about wanting to run more trails, but the fact is, I’m terrified of running downhill. I don’t like hiking downhill. I freeze. I don’t know how to dodge roots and rocks or how to deal with pitted stretches of uneven footing. I would have been fine walking the uphills. It was when I realized I was also going to be walking the downhills that I turned into a giant mess.

The first freakout came after a short hill down to the beach. I was fighting to control my momentum, mostly unsuccessfully, and when I hit the sand I felt defeated and pulled off to stretch. Someone ran by me and yelled “who put all this sand here?” and that at least made me chuckle.

At the end of the beach, we scrambled up some rocks, and I walked part of an uphill, just trying to move forward. I never really felt the big uphill the map showed, because the terrain was so varied (the rock scramble might have been part of that hill?) and because I was walking the steeper stretches. But what I did notice was the downhill after it, because after about two steps down I got the quad-shaking, gasp-breathing panic I know all too well.

I got as far off the trail as I could and stood there, wobbling, knowing I was making a scene. A teammate passed me and asked if I needed help and I told her it would be fine, I just hate downhills. Two other ladies asked the same and I said, “yes, it’ll be OK, just please go ahead!” because the one thing that makes me panic more is the thought that I’m delaying other people. If I could just get a break in the crowd, I knew I could get down, and eventually I did, gingerly.

At mile 3, I was well over 30 minutes and knew 40 wasn’t going to happen. I took some water at the aid station and saw that the trail was flattening out and got focused on finishing around 43. I’m not totally sure what happened next, but I remember thinking, “Oh, this is a muddy section,” and my left foot either slipped or got stuck and I rolled my ankle and went down face-first into the mud/sand/muck. This poor woman who’d been just ahead of me for most of the worst of my run/walk/panic heard me go down and turned and was like, “Oh my god, are you …” and I hope I laughed. I know I said, “I think this is my worst nightmare run course! I’m not a f-ing trail runner!” And then I got up, brushed myself off, and started running toward the finish.

I wanted to be done. And I thought, you know, my cushion is big enough from the bike, I might still get under 2 hours. And nothing hurt that much yet, so I went for it. My last mile, fall included, was 9:10, and as I got to the finish arch, I saw 2:18 on the clock and knew I had a 1:58:xx and saw Pete and got my breathing back enough to say, “That run sucked.” But it was over.

The Aftermath
I’m happy with my swim. I wish I hadn’t panicked, but I found my stroke and ended up putting up a time that was well under my goal. I need to learn how to use my left arm more — my right side did all the work, and while I’ve been working on that in the pool, it hasn’t transferred to open water. I have only good things to say about the bike, other than that I should have had more to drink. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a worse experience on a run, but considering how much I wanted to ask a passing mountain biker to give me a ride to the finish, I’m just glad I got through it.

I’m writing this with my foot in a bucket of ice water. Of course I had to roll my left ankle (way to outdate an MRI before it’s even been read), but I expected to wake up this morning in a world of pain and instead I have full range of motion and can bear weight without crying, so I’m not too concerned. It’s fascinating how much better I feel overall than I would after a half-marathon that would have taken roughly the same amount of time; nothing is particularly sore or tight except the things I hit while falling on my face.

Most of all, I can’t wait for the next one. I’m trying not to focus on the suckiness of the run; I’d rather remember the part of the day when I was flying around the bike course with a big dumb grin on my face. I never thought I’d be saying that.

Lessons Learned
– get more Foggle wipes
– focus on the horizon if my breathing goes wonky during the swim
– start the swim on the side closer to the buoys
– take the handheld bottle on the run. yes, even if there are aid stations.
– it’s probably time to figure out what my big bike ring does
– maybe don’t sign up for a race with a trail run if I haven’t been on the trails, oh, um, ever

Official Stuff, for Posterity
Swim: 17:22, bike + transitions: 58:30, run: 42:30, overall: 1:58:22, 14/17 AG, 211/259 overall and nowhere to go but up.

And On The Last Possible Day, She Raced

So in January, I made this goal to race once a month. My January race was wiped out by a sudden trip out of town, but I made my own race and decided that was good enough. But then injury killed my February goal race, and as I was going on my registering spree the other night, I realized: With triathlon training starting next weekend, if I wanted a race for February, I had to do it now.

I’d heard great things about the Bay Breeze 10K, but having run about a total of a 10K since returning to running, that didn’t seem like a smart call, much as I would have loved an octopus shirt. (I just realized right now that Bay Breeze had a 5K. Oh well.) So I checked in with the Dolphin South End run club and learned that the club’s weekly race was a Sunday morning 5K starting just past the turnaround point of my usual short run. And, like most DSE races, it was $5. Done.

I jogged about 1.75 miles to the race start, being mindful of my leg and figuring I’d decide on the way if I wanted to have a time goal. On the one hand, the race goal wasn’t made to be some cupcake thing I could knock off just by showing up; “I want to get into the habit of showing up to a race to race it,” is what I wrote at the time. On the other hand, in this one case, I figured I’d be OK with meeting the goal in letter if not in spirit and hopping back into things full-force in March.

The other thing is that before Sunday, I’d never raced a 5K, nor had I even run casually in one. I had absolutely, positively no idea how to race a 5K. But since my triathlon running will all be relatively shorter distances, I was curious what a comfortably hard 5K would be. A tempo 5K, I guess, maybe? Something to set other paces from, a not-full-out effort but still a bit of a test. I figured that would land me somewhere around 27:00 — just under 9 minutes a mile, my tempo pace back when I was training for Kaiser. On the way to the race, I was feeling pretty good, and so I set that number in my mind: 3 sub-9 miles, with a result around 27.

I lined up somewhere in the middle-back of the pack — there were maybe 100 people? — and totally missed the actual race start fumbling around with my stuff, but within the first few hundred feet, I got into a groove. And then I looked at my watch, and I was running around an 8:20 pace. Wait, what? OK, well, that couldn’t possibly last. I started focusing on people I thought were running my pace so I could key off them, but all of a sudden, I was passing them. Huh?

The course was downhill on JFK, uphill to Stow Lake, one turn around the lake, and back up JFK to the finish. I somehow managed to miss every single lap on my watch, but the mile markers were chalked on the ground, so I had a general sense of where I was. I checked my instant pace a few times, but mostly I was running by effort (um, effing finally) and chasing down various people in front of me. Which — again, what? That’s not what I expected to be doing in this race.

For the first 2.5 miles, I felt so much stronger than I guessed I would. The last half-mile was like, “Oh. Uh. Can I walk now?” But I take some comfort in the fact that my legs didn’t start feeling like short leaden stilts until I could see the finish line clock. I crossed at 26:04 — nearly a minute faster than my goal, my fastest ever pace in a race, and with my first and last miles both clocking 8:17. (Mile 2, which had the biggest hill, was 8:31.) Automatic PR! And I made it to the last 90 seconds before thinking I might puke.

Back when I was training for Kaiser, I was able to hit mile repeats at around an 8:15-8:20 pace, but I had no idea I could a) still do that, b) do that on a road, and c) get faster after slowing down during a tougher mile. Basically, this is exactly the kind of “try hard and maybe surprise yourself” experience I wanted to have when I challenged myself to race more. Part of this, I’m sure, is an ignorance-is-bliss situation; I had moderate expectations for pace and zero expectations for the race as a whole. But it was cool to be out of my head for a while and thinking only of running down that girl in the purple T-shirt or not letting the guy in the short briefs pass me back.

Also, yeah, like everyone else in the world already knew, DSE races are the greatest. There was chocolate cake at the end. Cake! And huge platters of grapes, and bagels, and peanut butter pretzels. It’s actually kind of depressing how much more I’ve paid for a far worse race experience.

I wound up with 6.5 miles on the day, and sadly, I feel it today; it’s been a while. My leg’s a little angry, enough that I’m going to get in touch with either doctor #1 or doctor #2 to see if they think a few physical therapy sessions wouldn’t be such a bad idea (I can’t just show up; thanks, HMO!), but I don’t think I’ve led myself down a path of utter disaster. I seem to have two kinds of days these days, and they’re completely distinct: days where only running hurts and days where everything but running hurts. Yesterday was clearly the latter, or I never would have raced; today is mostly the former.

This week I’m commuting an hour each way to a client site every day, and with tri training starting on Saturday, I’ve been thinking of declaring this a week of sloth — or, at least, a week in which I only do what I need to do for my sanity. That may mean fitting in a head-clearing swim and a quick little run, or it may mean milking every last second of sleep I can get. Regardless, I’m glad I got to send February out with an effort that suggested maybe, just maybe, I’m getting back in the game. Maybe.

Three Race Thursday

Dear credit card, dear downpayment dream-of-living-in-a-place-with-affordable-real-estate fund, dear closet full of old real-girl clothes that aren’t getting replaced anytime soon:

I’m sorry for all of these:

Triathlon training program? Check.

Ice Breaker Sprint Tri? Check.

Wildflower Olympic Tri? Check.

(Race #3 is a 5K that starts halfway down my regular running route this Sunday, but since it costs a whopping $5, I’m not paying Active for the privilege of automating my registration.)

I’ve been mentally committed to this schedule for a while, but for some reason — or some combination of reasons — I held off on registering. There was the intimidation thing and then the leg thing, the who-knows-what-I’ll-be-doing-in-April thing, the do-I-still-want-to-run-another-half-marathon thing … basically a lot of excuses to keep me from actually saying, “Yes! I am, in fact, going to do this crazy triathlon thing.”

But then last night, I went to the first meeting of the training group. Everyone was new to something. Nobody is going to be the worst at everything. And when my tri club friend greeted me by saying “why aren’t you on the registered list yet?” … that was the last little push I needed.

So I handed over my credit card. My weekends between now and May. My control over my training schedule. My reservations about adding two new sports to my life. A hefty amount of my pride (well, I guess I still technically have my pride, since nobody’s seen me sob hysterically at the idea of climbing up a hill on a bike yet, but that time will come). And I registered.

I don’t really have a good idea of what’s going to happen next. Well, that’s only sort of true. I know that I’m going to show up to our first practice in 10 days with all my favorite gear so the coaches can tell me what else to buy and what I don’t need to worry about. I’ll probably still spend too much money on crap I don’t need. I’m going to ride up a hill on my bike, with other people, and I’ll probably hate it and curse myself the whole way, but I’m going to do it. And then I’ll drive to Marin and put on a swimsuit and see if someone can figure out what the hell my left hand does while I’m swimming.

I’ll get a training schedule that, if it’s anything like the one we saw last night, will make me want to vomit, but that I also 100% know I can do if I trust myself.

And beyond that, it’s a mystery. Maybe I’ll make friends for life from this little group; maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll be ready to clip in on the bike in three weeks; maybe I’ll ride on my plastic pedals forever. Maybe I’ll fall in love with triathlons; maybe I’ll never do another one after May. Maybe I’ll find out I’m secretly talented at open water swimming or riding on hills; maybe it’ll turn out that “middle-of-the-pack runner” is the kindest athletic description one could apply to me.

I do know I need a bike rack for Max, stat. The rest, I’ll take one Training Peaks day at a time.