Pep Talk

Most of the time, I think I’m ready.

Like, right now, sitting on my couch drinking an appropriate-for-the-night-before-an-athletic-endeavor amount of beer with my feet up watching basketball, I think I’m ready. Packing up what felt like a literal ton of food earlier today, I felt ready. Picturing myself coasting into my hotel parking lot in Santa Cruz tomorrow, I feel ready.

Sometimes I don’t feel ready. Wednesday afternoon, I managed to work myself into a frenzy about Devil’s Slide (the one serious climb and the sketchiest bit of road on the ride — at least, that’s what I’m told). I don’t want to admit how much time I spent looking at maps and watching YouTube videos of bikes riding through the new-ish tunnels and looking up every hill I’ve ever ridden to see if I’d done anything equivalent, but let’s just say I ended up finishing quite a bit of work from home later that night.

But that’s the exception.

I am not sure I have the right to feel ready, that I’ve done the work to ride a century-and-a-half, when I’ve never done a century, when I’ve never ridden in a group or a pack like this, when I don’t really have any idea what I’m getting myself into.

I’ve had some good rides, though. I’ve been consistently riding more weekly and monthly mileage than I was capable of conceptualizing back in January. Last week I accidentally rode 60 miles instead of 45 because I failed to read a ferry schedule properly, and it felt like a casual cruise. I rode over the Golden Gate Bridge and didn’t panic (much) for the only time ever. I’ve gone up Twin Peaks at the tail end of a weekend of tough rides, still climbing strong with a lot of miles on my legs.

Barely more than two years ago, I rode my bike clipped in with a group for the first time. It was sort of a fiasco and I could not really imagine it getting much better.

Tomorrow I’m going to ride to Santa Cruz. On Sunday I’m going to ride back.

I think I’m ready.

Most of the time.

What to Wear for 160 Miles

I sent my deposit. I signed the waiver. Next weekend, I’ll be biking to and from Santa Cruz.

Last week was my biggest of training, with a goal of 160 total bike miles — because if I can do it in four days, I can do it in two, uh, right? I made it to a little over 40 during the week with one bike commute and one intense computrainer class. That left me with 120 for the weekend, which I split as 45 Saturday/75 Sunday.

Saturday’s 45 crawled by. I’m not sure if I was just tired of the route (home to Aquatic Park to the Presidio to Ocean Beach to Lake Merced until I’m sick of going in circles to Twin Peaks) or if I ran too much with TAG in the middle (I meant to run no more than six miles but a combination of hill repeats and running by time instead of mileage left me at almost 7.5). All I know is that I spent the better part of an hour fantasizing about how good it was going to feel when my Garmin finally clicked over to 38 (I’d ridden 7 miles to TAG earlier in the morning, which might be cheating, but whatever: my rules).

Or maybe I was just nervous about Sunday. That 75 miles was my longest ride to date, and I had absolutely no idea how my body would react or how I would entertain myself for what I figured would be five to six hours on a bike. My solution was to favor company over novelty and did the first leg of my ride twice — out and back to the Cheese Factory with the TAG group, then out again on my own. It seemed a little silly to make the full out-and-back loop when I didn’t have to — especially because part of it goes through stoplight-studded Novato — but having people around for the first 25 miles made a world of difference. I was at 36 by the time I hit the Cheese Factory for the second time, 45 in Point Reyes. The last 30 miles were not fast — it was more than two hours of riding — but they were so much less of a slog than any part of Saturday’s ride. I did get a little lost at the end — which, it turns out, a way to make me angry is to have me ride randomly through a neighborhood at mile 73 of a 75-mile (now 76-mile) ride — and I started wanting food that didn’t come in bar or gummy form after a couple of hours. But physically I was fine, and mentally I was 90% there, even when I rolled up to my car after 5.5 hours covered in road grime and dead bugs with only a bag of Chex Mix to look forward to.

(I do wish exercise were more meditative for me, because I can only imagine what big thoughts I might have had over the course of all those solo hours on a bike. Instead I sing dumb songs to myself and occasionally think about how much I wish I could think better while exercising.)

This weekend I’ll do something like 45/25 and then I’m ready to go. I guess. I mean, I have no idea. But I’ve decided that’s what it means to be ready, so it is.

Except there’s one last question: What the hell shorts do I wear?

Background: Last year I switched to wearing tri shorts exclusively. I’ve never been a fan of bike shorts (diaper-y) and I also thought it was a little unwise, if I was training for triathlons, to have comfort in training that I’d never have on race day.

Here’s my current roster:

• Houndstooth SOAS: I bought these last spring after being convinced by the damn blogosphere that they were worth it. I was skeptical of the no-drawstring waistband (I do not have the kindest proportions for keeping pants in the right place with my body alone — or, as a friend put it, “that seems like an idea that doesn’t scale well”), but to my great surprise, they stay up. I wore my houndstooth shorts for every significant ride last year. I’m not saying they’re magic, and they still have some seams and some weird chafe-y parts in unpleasant places. That said, I think they’re my favorite all-around tri shorts.
• Teal SOAS: I was wearing the other shorts to death, and when I saw some of the older patterns going on sale last year, I bought a second pair. But the shorts I got as pair #2 don’t fit as well as the houndstooth ones — even though they’re the same label size. They’re shorter and smaller in the waist (see below), and the fabric feels heavier to me.

  

  I still wear them, because even on sale they weren’t cheap, but I feel itchy and uncomfortable in them and I don’t have a particular desire to feel that way for 6-8 hours.

• Cheapo Zoot tri shorts: I have 2 pair of these. Super thin/light under a wetsuit, but they don’t have enough padding to even vaguely consider wearing them for 75 miles (or, like, 30 miles).
• Coeur Chevron: When a bunch of the former SOAS blog ambassadors started repping Coeur, I was curious — and more so when I found out Coeur was the new project of one of the SOAS founders. But I didn’t like the designs, so I’d more or less written them off. What got me back was this blog review pointing out that the chamois padding goes all the way down the leg, meaning no weird crotch seam to rub between my seat and my leg. How is this not even mentioned on their own product page? (They did finally blog about it this week, but seriously? I’d be screaming it from the rooftops if I were them!) The fit is very similar to my SOAS shorts, but the fabric is lighter (more like a bathing suit). The downsides are that they feel flimsier/more likely to slip — which I don’t care much about in this case since I’m not running — and that the gray fabric shows sweat/moisture extremely quickly. It’s not a fashion show, I get that, but I try to minimize the amount of time I spend looking like I’ve just peed on myself. I wore these on Sunday and for about 60 miles they were very comfortable, then after that I really wanted to not be sitting on a bike any more. (But that might not be only about the shorts.)

So the Coeurs will cover me for one day. But will I want something more forgiving on Day 2, especially since I’ll be sitting on my bike for another 6-8 hours and, oh yeah, probably riding into a headwind?

I’m interested in seeing if I can find any traditional, more heavily padded bike shorts that won’t chafe or feel saggy. I’m not getting my hopes up too high, but I am going to REI, armed with a gift card, to see what I can find.

My question, for anyone who’s done multi-day or otherwise long rides before: What might I want on day 2 that I’m not thinking of? I have noticed that changing brand/fit of shorts between the two days makes a big difference for me, but is my instinct right that I will want more padding on day 2? And who’s got a favorite pair of shorts to recommend?

(Yep, this has been a lot of words about my bum.)

Race Recap: Santa Cruz Triathlon

tl;dr: met most of my goals, had the bike of my life, and PR’d by 11+ minutes.

Pre-race

Sara and I stayed with our husbands in a cottage a few minutes from the start. We drove down mid-day on Saturday, picked up our packets, and laughed like crazy at dinner with teammates (during which Michael Imperioli was sitting behind us, but none of us noticed — our waiter had to tell us later). Pete and I went for a beer after that — why stop now? — and I was asleep by 11 and out until just before 6 a.m. My pre-race sleeping game is pretty spot-on.

Sara’s husband drove us to the start, and I rudely passed up transition spots next to some teammates for a spot near the bike in/bike out, figuring that even though it might be a longer run in from the swim and out on the run, it would mean the least running in bike shoes. Blah blah porta potty, blah blah transition set-up, blah blah running out of time to put my wetsuit on so carrying it down to the beach. We missed the “mandatory” pre-race meeting but had plenty of time to warm up, get in the ocean (not much colder than Aquatic Park), and take some pictures before they called our wave.

Swim – 32:53

In all my excitement about having something to sight on my breathing (right) side, I’d failed to learn that the swim course doesn’t go straight along the pier. Instead, it’s a diagonal cut across the ocean from a spot a couple of hundred(?) yards down the beach, then around the back and straight to the beach along the other side.

Based on earlier waves, the advice I heard was “start right, stay right.” I lined up on the right, and I went into the water on the right, but by the time the crowd had sorted itself out, I was somehow on the left. That gave me a decent view of the furthest buoy, though, so I kept shooting for that. Could I have cut it closer? Certainly, since my Garmin swim distance was 1.08 miles (…again).

The return leg was a mental struggle — and not one I was anticipating. After all, I’d have the pier on my breathing side and the beach in front of me; how could I go wrong? By swimming totally solo, for one thing. By worrying that I was drifting left, for another. I thought I must be spinning around and swimming in the wrong direction. An intermediate sighting buoy or a kayaker on the left or anything would have helped, because everything looked the same and I felt like I was bobbing randomly in the open ocean. (No sea lions, though I could hear them and I’m told others felt them!)

Anyway, I was sure I’d been in the water for way more than 40 minutes, so when I looked down to see a time starting with 32, I was stunned. That’s my best Olympic swim of the season, though it probably felt the worst. I think the lack of markers and the disorientation messed with my sense of effort and distance. If I could swim that course again now that I know what it looks like, I think I could do it better, but I can’t really complain about a season best.

T1 – 6:24

I was dreading T1. It’s a .4-mile run up the beach, across train tracks, and down a long path, and I have wimpy, sensitive feet. I was hoping the swim would numb them, but it didn’t quite. I did manage to run the whole way without needing to walk or puke, though, so that was a win. Honestly, I’ve had T1s slower than this in a race where I didn’t have to run .4 miles.

The previous race I’d spectated on this site had bike mount/dismount about halfway up the small hill out of transition, but this race moved it to the top of the hill — a relief, because I saw some sketchy mounts/dismounts at the other race. Yeah, it took me longer, but I didn’t fall over.

Bike – 1:23:49

My main objective for the first part of the bike was to catch Sara, who’d left transition a minute or two ahead of me. At the random out-and-back in the early miles, I calculated that she was about three minutes ahead, and when we hit Highway 1, I started pushing.

This bike course was perfect for me. It’s not flat after all; it’s a roller coaster of several (smallish, 50ish-foot) hills. I must have finally figured out how to use momentum, because I’d see a hill looming in front of me and by the time my brain could go “what the…” I’d be halfway up it. I rode the whole time in my big ring and even pedaled most of the downhills, because the road was straight and reasonably well-paved and because I figured out that cruising at 23 mph is amazing.

I was passed a bunch in the first few miles, then settled into a leapfrogging relationship with a guy and a girl for the next stretch. I’d pass on the uphills; they’d pass back on the downhills. I lost the girl after the second round, but it took me four or five times to solidly ditch the guy. Every time I went around, I’d say something — like “on your left, see you on the downhill” or “on your left, hi again” — and he did not appear to be into it, so the last time I said “on your left, I’m really sorry” and he finally laughed.

I found Sara just before Davenport, but when we hit the last hill into the turnaround, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hold that pass. My legs felt dead pushing up the incline and through the aid station, maybe just because everyone’s pace dropped a lot while we squeezed through? It was pretty narrow, and I was happy to get back on the road upright.

I was bracing for a headwind on the way back, but it seemed fairly calm. I was feeling pretty good about coming in sub-1:30 but really wanted to crack 17 mph while I was at it, so I kept pushing through the rest of Highway 1, then stretched my legs out a little as we wound through town. My Garmin read the course a little short, so I thought we still had half a mile to go when I suddenly saw the “prepare to slow down” sign. I braked harder than I meant to but dismounted cleanly (no thanks to the guy who ended up with his bike horizontal across the right-hand side of the line) and walked the hill into transition because I was sure I was falling on my ass otherwise.

T2 – 2:09

Shoes off, shoes on. I tried a new trick of leaving my water bottle and race belt inside my hat so I could just take the whole bundle out onto the run course, and I liked it. I saw my total time as I was leaving transition, and I knew that I’d need a big 10K PR to break 3 hours, and I found that oddly relaxing. Maybe that was the wrong reaction — I’ve been thinking a lot about that — but in the moment, I took it as a sign to have the strongest run I could, versus chasing an arbitrary time and ending up disappointed.

Run – 57:14

You know what’s hard? Running after biking at 17+ mph. Oh, you knew that? I did not. My brick workouts have been a strength of my training this year — but running after biking the fastest I’ve biked in my life was new, and it hurt. I almost walked up the little hill (speed bump?) coming out of transition, saw a pace in the 11s, got sad, yet somehow still hit the first mile marker in 9:04. I had the great idea to lap my watch at the marker, forgetting that lapping in multisport mode ends the workout, so I got my little “you just finished a triathlon!” beepy song with 5.2 miles to go.

The run is flat but unshaded, and I wilt in those conditions, so I never felt good — though if a 57-ish 10K is my new “not feeling good” pace, well, OK. I walked all three aid stations for sips of Gatorade and water, and I topped off my handheld bottle twice. I saw almost everyone I knew on the course at some point during the run, and it was an amazing distraction to look for them. I knew Sara would run me down at some point, and I was pleased to make it a couple of miles before she came flying by. I saw her again at the turnaround, followed quickly by three training partners in a row coming the other way, and then Lauren, whom I ran over to hug. Coming off the path, I saw a few teammates with their medals on, cheering that the finish line was right around the corner, and — much like the bike finish — I didn’t believe them, but then I saw the arch and Pete and that was it. Final time: 3:02:29.

Minutae

• I said when I finished that I’d be mad about that 2:29 later, and it’s been three days, and I’m still not mad. Did I leave 2:30 somewhere? Not all in one place. Maybe I could have picked up a minute on the bike and a minute on the run, but I’m not sure. Would this have been sub-3 in a race without such a long run to T1? Maybe, but that also wouldn’t have been this race. Would I have run 2 minutes faster if I hadn’t stopped at the aid stations? I actually doubt it; I think those breaks enabled me to keep the pace I was running.
• That said, now I really want that sub-3.
• My final PR was by almost exactly the amount of my bike PR, and that’s cool, but I can’t ride that gravy train forever. My bike had the most room to improve going into this year, and I’ve improved it. Do I think I can still get faster? Sure, but the gap is getting smaller, and I’m not sure I’ll ever routinely ride faster than 1:20. I’ve got to drop time from the swim and run now too, which is scary, because I think I’m a lot closer to my speed ceiling in those sports. Maybe not. We’ll see.
• I ended up 16th/28 AG and one of four women from my tri club who occupied the 13-16th spots, all within six minutes of each other.
• Nutrition nonsense: toasted roll with almond butter when we got into transition, about half of an english muffin with the rest of the almond butter about 45 minutes later, and some water with Nuun throughout the morning; 3/4 of a bottle of Roctane and three shot bloks on the bike plus a salt tab; and lots of water and two more shot bloks running. I could have used some plain water on the bike and wished I’d taken another salt tab once it was apparent how warm and sunny it was, but this general plan works for me.
• New favorite finish line food: grapes.
• One of the super-fast ladies in my age group? Sonja Wieck, whom I recognized on the sidelines as I was walking to meet my friends. I did that awkward “I know you…from…the internet!” thing and we did some chatting and some cheering. Only later did I find out she won the women’s race.

Racing on the Last Sunday of September

Racing on the last Sunday of September is apparently a thing I do now, if you stretch journalism rules a bit and call two a trend. Last year, I was already in Berlin, picking up my bib for my first marathon. This year, I’m about to head down to Santa Cruz for (perhaps) my final tri of the season.

It’s funny, looking back to last year. Berlin was the capper to the straight-up craziest month of my life, in which we spent three out of the first four weekends at weddings, had an offer accepted on a house, scraped together the downpayment for said house, discovered Pete had to go on a last-minute international trip, talked a friend into accepting our power of attorney in case we were in Germany when we had to close on the house, sent Pete off to Chile, closed on the house with exactly enough time left to get to the airport (as I recall, I rolled up five minutes before the flight to Frankfurt closed), flew to Germany, reunited in Berlin with my parents who had been traveling in Italy, and — oh yeah — ran 26.2. It was wild and crazy and it’s all happening-y, and when we came back to San Francisco, we were marathoners and home owners and about to enter another major phase of our lives.

This year, September hasn’t been quite so…dramatic. Aside from a trip to Portland last weekend (Cliffs Notes: a run on my favorite path, Pine State Biscuits, getting rained on before seeing Frightened Rabbit and The National outdoors, probably a top five favorite meal at Ava Gene’s, and a lot of beer), we’ve just been here. Doing normal things. Living the life that got put in motion last September. No complaints — normal is good! — but wow, I’m coming into this particular race weekend with a significantly smaller dose of pure adrenaline.

When I first decided to keep training after Vineman —  and that it seemed like my body and my brain could hang on for at least one more hard effort this season, which was not at all a given, since I started in February and that’s a long time for me to continuously train — I had Big Plans for Santa Cruz. I’d heard it was a forgiving, flat course, and I got it in my head that I’d be able to go under three hours. That would be another 15-ish minutes off my Olympic-distance PR (from Napa in April) and a nice, round number that I’ve had in the back of my head for a while.

Realistically, though, I don’t think that’s going to happen. My running has apparently gotten somewhat faster, but I haven’t pushed speed at all on the bike, and my swimming is stuck at the same pace it’s been since March 2012. Flat courses aren’t necessarily better for me, especially when they have a reputation for being windy. (My best Olympic ride ever was at Napa, which had two rated climbs. I rode significantly worse at Folsom, which was flat as a board but into a headwind. I think there are two things going on, even if you subtract wind from the equation: I’m good at climbing, and I’m bad at pedaling consistently with no breaks.) I’ve never done an ocean swim. And Santa Cruz also features a long run — half a mile? — from the ocean to transition; I think the fastest transition time I saw in my age group last year was 5 minutes.

I still think I can PR the distance, though, and I’ve got a couple of other goals. The big one is to really race; this may or may not be my last Olympic tri of the year, but the other one I’m considering would be maybe 75% caper/vacation, 25% triathlon — so I want to race like this is it for 2013. As for the rest:

Swim: I would like to be closer to 30 minutes than to 35, which roughly encompasses the range of times I’ve had this year. I would also like to take advantage of the fact that the pier we swim around is on my right (breathing) side and swim in a relatively straight line for once. And if a sea lion comes near me, for the love of god, I am throwing out all of my swim goals and hanging out with that sea lion! (I don’t think the sea lions come to the people who want to swim with them, though.)

Bike: This is the big one: I want to bike under 1:30. I’ve been relatively close twice this year, and I hit the 25-mile mark under 1:30 at Vineman, but that doesn’t count. If we’ve got 20-mph headwinds, this won’t happen. Otherwise, I think it can, and I’m going to push for it.

Run: It would be cool to run something in the 56- to 57-minute range. My 10K PR is just over 55 minutes, and I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to come close to that, but 57-ish seems doable. (I did that in Napa, but there’s no way that course wasn’t short.) B-goal is under an hour.

Transitions: I would like to not be embarrassed by my transition times. That said, I expect my T1 will be on the order of 6-7 minutes, so my overall hope is for under 10 minutes total.

If I hit those numbers, I’d be coming in around 3:05-3:10 — which would be a more than 30-minute improvement from my first Olympic tri, and while that hardly counts because that was Wildflower and Wildflower will always be slower than everything else, it would still be cool.

Overall B-goal is to PR (under 3:14). C-goal is to beat my Folsom time of 3:22 — my current best on a flatter course — which should be doable as long as I don’t repeat my pre-Folsom trick of slicing open my finger the day before and having to waste 7 minutes in T1 searching for a band-aid.

And seriously, all time goals go out the window if a friendly sea lion wants to play.