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.

Vineman Race Plan and Goals

I’m sitting here surrounded by stuff. Our trip to Vineman starts after work today, so I wanted to get as much packed as I could ahead of time.

I don’t know why I feel the need to write out my entire packing list by hand every single time, but I do, though it really doesn’t change that much from tri to tri. I think it’s one last little way to exert control before going into a somewhat unpredictable environment. And frankly, checking things off lists just makes me feel like I’m Doing Things Right.

In the past few days, I’ve gotten a few things out of the way: a bike tune-up and final ride; a last swim; an aquajog subbing for my regular shakeout run (my calves were tight after last Saturday’s run, and I’m not taking any chances, which seems like the kind of mature and reasonable decision I’m hardly ever capable of making). If anything, I’ve tapered too much, but I’m not sure I believe that’s a thing. Riding my bike home from the shop yesterday, I wanted nothing more than to keep riding, but I was out of time and told myself it would be better to save it for Sunday anyway.

So, all that’s left is thinking through the day and then executing what I’ve trained and planned for. My overall time goal is to finish under 7 hours, but that could break down a lot of different ways. But I had to figure out some rough time estimates to tell spectators where I’ll be, and to figure out how much food and water to carry, so, here’s how I’m hoping each leg will go. (Note that there’s an implied “just finish!” goal for each of these.)

Swim
A goal: 42 minutes
B goal: 45 minutes

I’ve gone 41-42 minutes in both of my swims in the river this year, but a) that didn’t include actually getting out of the rocky river — something I’m ashamed to be a wimp about but am a wimp about nonetheless — or any issues that arise from swimming in crowds, and b) looking at my swim times in the pool and at other races, a 42-minute swim would, frankly, be beyond my demonstrated abilities. I hear that happens sometimes on race day, and if it does, that’s great, but I’ve been expecting to swim 45 minutes this whole time, I think that’s in reach, and anything faster would be icing.

Other stuff:

• Eat and drink throughout the morning — a little bit at a time is fine.
• Try. Act like I’m swimming in a race, not just out for a lazy Sunday float.

Bike
A+++ goal: 3:30
A goal: 3:45
B goal: 4 hours

My first course ride came in at 3:44; my second, with a few minor detours and a long water stop, was 3:55. My initial goal was to be able to hold 15 mph, which would be 3:45, and I’m sticking to that. Before my water stop on the second ride, I was closer to 16 mph, hence the A+++ goal — but I did stop and am expecting to stop at least once during the race (either to refill water or to stretch or to use a bathroom or all of the above), so I don’t expect 3:30. Still, I’m going to see if I can hold 16 mph until the turn onto 128.

Other plans:

• Two bottles on the bike: Rocktane in the front and either water or Skratch in the back. Plan is to supplement with aid station water — and I could do a full swap at mile 29, if I want to. I still haven’t decided.
• Salt caps in the outside stretchy pocket of my bento, one every hour.
• Food! I will, will, will get a whole Gu down in the first five miles before we’re off River Road. I’ve waited too long to eat both times I’ve biked the course, and it really catches up with me around mile 40. Not this time! I’ll also have a Picky Bar and Shot Bloks in my bag, some extra food stashed in my pockets, and a special treat — either a Fig Newton or gummy watermelon rings, whichever I’m in the mood for — after Chalk Hill.
• My main goal is to not avoid the crushing low I’ve felt both times after the turn onto Chalk Hill Road. It’s a rough part of the course, I’ve been baking in the sun for hours, and I’m just ready to be done. I think not eating enough has been a big part of the issue on previous rides, but part of it is also attitude, and I want to psych myself up to be as positive and happy as I can be on that stretch, no matter how the rest of the ride is going. It’s kind of the “three-hours-to-go” mark of the day, and that’s awesome, but three hours is still a long time and I want to have the best energy I can going in.

Run
A goal: 2:20
B goal: 2:30

Oh, who even knows with this run. I really think it’s going to come down to weather. I thought at one point that if I had a really blockbuster day, I could run 10-minute miles, but I deeply doubt that now — especially since I’m planning to walk the aid stations.

I barely ran 11-minute miles on my first course run, the day of 95 degrees and the emergency garden hose. The weather forecast has gotten more favorable since then, but “more favorable” still means 80+ degrees. I ran at a 10:15 pace last weekend for 10 miles of the course, but it was only 70 degrees and I’m not banking on that for Sunday.

I don’t mean to use weather as an excuse for my performance, whatever it may be. It’s not an excuse. But it is a fact that I run poorly in heat, and while I’ve done what I can to get up north to practice, three hot runs does not equal acclimation. I’ll be armed with salt and Nuun and water and I’m going to do as much as I can without ending up in a med tent.

2:20 feels reasonable; I ran the SF half in 2:07 a month ago, and while I think that course is slightly easier, a whole minute per mile should be enough to play with. But if it’s exceptionally hot or sunny, all bets are off.

Other plans:

• Walk every aid station at least in the first half. Water on me, water down the hatch, eat whatever sounds good.
• Tri club friends will be at mile 4, after the worst of the hills. High-five everyone. Draw on that energy.
• Turn the Garmin to a useless screen if needed. If it’s a rough run, just finish.

And there it is. I start at 8, I’m number 1818, and I’ll be back on the other side of 70.3!

Vineman 70.3: Week Eight

This week was packed with Vineman recon: a solo ride of 90% of the bike course on Thursday, a group brick including 10 miles of the run course on Saturday, and an intense amount of forecast-stalking on most days in between.

I’d debated how to structure this last big week of training — there were plenty of options besides what I did — but when I got to the end of Saturday’s workout, I only felt relief. I learned so much from being on each of those courses one more time, about the race and myself and when I felt good and when I’ll want extra motivation (read: food) to get me through a tough spot. It was a lot of driving, and a lot of time in the heat, but I’m happy with how I chose to spend this week.

Now it’s taper, which means trying to keep busy and not freak out about anything I am or am not doing. To this end, Pete and I went to a local nursery and bought a bunch of plants yesterday. If you need me, I’ll be in the garden potting herbs. And maybe obsessively checking the weather … but mostly potting herbs.

Here’s week eight:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: Lacking swimming motivation — as well as my gym card, which I now suspect I may have lost at the gym — I met a friend at her pool. The accountability and the chance to swim long-course meters for the first time ever were well-worth the $15 drop-in fee. Swam 2600 meters (~2800 yards) including 4 sets of 400s with the first 300 easy and the last 100 speedier plus some hard 50s.

Wednesday: Track workout of 6×600, 2×300. We were supposed to go as far as 6×300, but when I checked in with our coach after the 600s and she found out I’d been speeding up on each one, she — rightly — guessed that I was holding back for fear I’d slow down or not finish. So, she sent me out with instructions to do just two 300s but legitimately run them as fast as I could. I ran 1:23 and then 1:17 (7:15 pace!), which I admit IS far faster than I thought I could run. My legs and back were sore after, though — perhaps proof that a) I’m not made for sprinting and b) I’m ready for taper.

Thursday: Solo 56-mile ride, 50 of it on the Vineman course, plus a 1-mile mini-brick run. I started from Windsor High, which replaces the first 5 mostly flat miles of the race with 5 other mostly flat miles and meets up with the course on Westside. For the first 30 miles of the ride, I felt amazing; despite a few brief stops (stoplights, retrieving a Gu that flew out of my bag when I hit a pothole, fixing my speed sensor), I was trucking along at 16 mph average — HUGE for me over that distance. I was smiling at passing cyclists and memorizing wineries on the course to tell my family where to spectate and looking at the scenery and, honestly, getting a little emotional. Western Sonoma County is where I started hiking, and started thinking of exercise as something more than drudgery in a gym, and started to fall in love with being outside. Being on my bike for hours out there, alone, was cathartic in ways I wouldn’t have expected.

The last 26 miles were tougher — a combination of the heat (I had plenty of water, but it had heated up so quickly it was hardly refreshing), a warm headwind, getting lost, and knowing the worst of the ride was ahead of me. I stopped for several minutes at the store around mile 36 to reapply sunscreen and refill my bottles with cold water, and I never really got momentum back after that. I kept waiting for the shady part of 128 that I remembered from my first ride on the course, but I apparently made it up. Chalk Hill was fine, but I let myself believe that it was all downhill from there, while actually the next five miles continue to roll — and roll over some of the choppiest pavement on the course. It’s really not till mile 50+ and the turn back towards Windsor that you’re solidly downhill on good roads.

Still, with all stops included, I pulled up to the car in 3:55, making me feel pretty good about my race goal of 3:45. I also learned how to swap water bottles from my front cage to the back and to drink out of my back bottle and replace it without crashing. And as a bonus, I even learned how to take salt pills, which was a major victory considering I often feel like I’m going to choke when trying to swallow even an Advil. My phone said it was 90 degrees at the end of the ride, and my car said 100; I’m inclined to align myself more with the car, because while it had been sitting out in the sun for four hours, so had I.

Takeaways: I really need to eat earlier in the ride (my goal will be a whole Gu before I’m off River Road during the race in addition to my every-20-minutes food plan). I may do a quick full stop to swap/refill water bottles for the second half of the ride if it’s a hot day (I thought I’d do a bottle of Rocktane and a bottle of Skratch on the bike and supplement with aid station water, but the stuff in the bottles was grossly warm after 30 miles). I need to save myself a special treat — mint chocolate Gu or a fig newton or something; jellybeans? — for the stretch between the Chalk Hill descent and Shiloh. Dry Creek is a great place to truck it, and Canyon really isn’t bad.

Friday: Rest. Skipped a short, optional swim because of silly logistical failures, and while I could have gone back out later in the day, I took it as a sign to just chill.

Saturday: My last big workout with the group: an hour out-and-back bike ride, then 10 miles of running on the Vineman course. It was overcast, but as Pete always used to remind me when he lived up there, there are two kinds of Sonoma County summer days: the ones where it’s cloudy in the morning and hot and sunny by noon and the ones where it’s sunny and hot in the morning and you just want to die all day long. Indeed, by the time we were starting the run at 10:15, it was sunny — but temperatures still hovered around 70. And it was delightful. The first four miles felt rough, but apparently it was just an extra-long transition, because my legs eventually got some spring back. I know it was a tease; I know it’s more likely than not to be 85+ on race day. But the run felt so much better when I didn’t need an emergency garden hose infusion to cool off.

Sunday: One mile of slow and choppy swimming at Aquatic Park. I didn’t notice the wind until I made the first turn along the buoy line and suddenly got slapped in the face with incoming waves. I felt strangely relaxed, though, and just rolled with it, enjoyed the ride, and thought about now nice swimming in a nice, calm river will be.

Week Eight Stats

Swimming: 4600-ish yards
Biking: 71 miles
Running: 15 miles
Other: A good amount of stretching/foam rolling

Most proud of: A solo long ride; making it to taper feeling good.

Need to work on: Plans for getting myself out of low spots should they hit on race day; laundry?

Excited for: SUNDAY.

Vineman 70.3: Week Seven

Week seven: The week of waffling.

Sleeveless wetsuit or full-sleeve for race day? Salt caps or good ol’ fast-food salt packets? Email the bike fit dude that I still don’t love my seat or give it one more ride? What workout for my last weekend before Vineman: short bike/long run or one last 50-mile ride?

I’m at a weird point in training, in which I’ve hit a bunch of milestones — including week seven’s triple brick and run on the race course — and yet things feel unsettled. Vineman is still two weeks away. I’m not fully tapering yet. I still have a bunch of decisions to make about how to approach race day. And at the same time, is anything I do now actually going to make any difference? Or is my barn — to steal an overused blog metaphor — full of all the hay it’s going to get?

I guess this is why I train with a group: to have a coach on the other end of my dithering.

While I wait for him to tell me what to do, here’s what I actually did last week:

Monday: Rest.

Tuesday: In the morning, 2360 yards of swimming, including a total of 18 100s (3 sets of 5, one set of 3 and then had to dash to a conference call) at somewhere just under 2:00 each. In the evening, about “30 miles” of indoor riding at a computrainer class, with a total of 15 minutes (5 times through a set of 30, 60, and 90 seconds) at Zone 5 watts. I’d been debating whether to cry uncle on my newer, narrower saddle, but I made it through this class with no major issues — a far cry from the previous class with my old saddle, where I was uncomfortable from the get-go. Finished with a ~.75-mile misty transition run on the nearby bike path, which was absolutely covered in snails.

Wednesday: Track workout of about 4.5 miles, including a main set of 3×400 targeting 2:00, 3×1200 targeting 6:09. It was sunny, warm, and humid for San Francisco — I have to emphasize the for San Francisco — and while I hit all the intervals, I felt alternately like I was suffocating and drowning for the duration of the workout.

Thursday: 16 miles total of bike commuting (12 to/from work, 4 to/from yoga) and then the last yoga class with my favorite teacher, who’s taking a break from teaching. Yes, this makes me regret every single time I’ve skipped yoga since first finding her class last year.

Friday: Base Pace Test swim: warm up, swim 3×400, divide by 12, get base pace for 100 yards. I swam 8:16, 8:06, 8:04, putting my base pace exactly where it’s been for 18 months. I’m a little frustrated, but at the same time, I felt better on the 8:06/8:04 swims than I think I ever have during a base pace test; if I had another 400 to do, I bet it would have come in even faster.

Saturday: Second in our “peak weekend” series of workouts: the triple brick. I feel like I should be calling it The Dreaded Triple Brick, but having now done three triple bricks in my short triathlon experience, I can honestly say it’s one of my favorite workouts.

This was my first crack at the long course version: 18-mile ride, 30-minute run, 18-mile ride, 20-minute run, 18-mile ride, 10-minute run. Each loop was a circuit around Paradise Loop from Tiburon, including going up and over Camino Alto at miles 12, 30, and 42. First loop clocked in at 1:20, not speedy but steady. First run felt amazing — 9:14/mile pace, chatting briefly with friends along the way. I’ve been saying all year that I don’t know why I’ve been running well off the bike, but I think there’s actually an easy answer: my bike fit. When I run, I’m warmed up but not already worn out; I can use biking muscles for biking now.

Second loop, I was on track for a speedier ride, and I’d just hit the lovely part where the pavement smooths out when I heard a massive pop and felt my back wheel skid out of control. My previous flats have all been of the slow-leak variety, and I’ve been terrified of the explodey kind since I started riding, but in the moment I calmly understood what was happening, unclipped, and got off the road. Started dumping out my flat kit and realized, OH, that’s not tube, it’s tire — there was probably a two-inch frayed section that looked like ripped-up carpeting. I’d been telling passing cyclists that I was fine and had everything I needed, but clearly this was a bigger problem. Luckily, one guy had stopped despite my protests and had a patch that he figured would buy me a couple of miles of easy riding. I realized I could either get back to our starting point or keep going down the hill to a bike shop — and only one of those options would get me a new tire. So, kind stranger fixed my flat and followed me down the hill, where I rolled up to City Cycle and asked for a new tire right now, thanks! Finished up the loop on my sweet new tire, but the whole thing took 1:52.

My 20-minute run again felt great — I had lots of nervous/angry energy to burn — but then I had to decide what to do about the third loop. It was already 2 p.m., I was way behind schedule, and nobody was going to stick around to watch my stuff in our “transition area.” But I hadn’t just spent a bunch of money and time getting a new tire to bail on the workout. So, I packed up the car and set out for loop 3. The wind had picked up by then, but I think the sheer power of not giving up made it the most enjoyable ride, and I came coasting back to our starting spot in 1:16. Locked the bike to my rack, took off for another 10 minutes of running, and finally finished the workout at 3:40 p.m., six hours after starting. Not exactly the day I was expecting, but I’m so glad I didn’t quit.

Sunday: Talked Courtney into a trip up to Guerneville and Windsor for a Russian River swim and run on the Vineman course. The swim went well — same shallow parts as the week before, slightly faster time (41:15) — and I tried out the sleeveless wetsuit. Point for: definitely cooler. Point against: more time to get sunburned. Then we drove over to Windsor High to run, and oh my goodness, I thought I was going to actually wilt. My Garmin claims it was 93 degrees and cloudy, which is hilarious, because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky; my car, on the other hand, said 98. The first three miles are rolling with a little more shade than I expected, and I was actually looking forward to the end of the run … until I realized the course actually loops back on a parallel road with zero shade. We ran everything but the loop around the winery (about 7.4 miles), walked several times, and barely scooted in under 11-minute/mile pace — which is fine except my race goals were premised on 10-minute miles. Time for new goals. We also drank out of someone’s garden hose. Desperate times and all that.

Week Seven Stats

Swimming: 6150 yards
Biking: 101 miles (55 road miles, 16 commute miles, 30 trainer miles)
Running: 19 miles
Other: One yoga class

Most proud of: Finishing the triple brick after the tire situation

Need to work on: Heat acclimation, however possible

Excited for: Race day?! It’s starting to feel close.

Vineman Course Preview Day 1

When I finally got home on Saturday, after the drive up and the drive down and the ride and the other ride and the wetsuit that smelled like feet and the bar quesadilla and the mud clumped in my cleats and the heavenly Cherry Coke whose mere promise had kept me going for hours, after the shower and the beer and the other beer and the misty walk home, I tweeted the only thing I could think to say:

Do you know how long it takes to bike 70 miles? I didn't. The answer is: all f'n day. (And it was a blast.)

— Kimra (@kimretta) June 23, 2013

Days after my first attempt at the swim and bike courses of Vineman, that still covers what comes to mind when I think about last Saturday. It was a long day — a longer day than I ever would have guessed when I saw the training schedule. (Vineman will be longer.) And it was a hot day, hotter than I think any of us were prepared for. (Vineman might be hotter.) But it was also a delight, and I hope Vineman can be that, too.

We started in the river, sweltering in neoprene while we got our instructions. My race-day attire remains up in the air, but I wanted to see how my regular wetsuit felt. I expected to be grossly overheated, but I felt fine once we got moving. And yes, I was grateful for the extra loft and protection as we went through the shallow parts, one maybe 200 yards after the start and one at the turnaround. I was also grateful for my short arms; I never had to alter my stroke, even when I felt sure I’d touch bottom. One thing I didn’t expect: plants in my face! In the shallower parts, the plants that grow up from the riverbed are tall enough to stick out over the top of the water, and for about 10 strokes it felt like swimming through the top of a cornfield.

My butt is one of those butts.

I’d been swimming with a friend I know is faster on the way out, but I think I was getting a bit of an assist from the current, because after the turnaround, she surged ahead and I never caught back up. Still, according to my Garmin, I finished just over 1.1 miles in just under 40 minutes, and if I could swim the full course anywhere in the low 40s on race day, I’d be thrilled.

We had a generous amount of time after the swim to prepare for our ride, and while at first I was grateful, I slowly realized it meant we were going to be riding at the hottest part of the day. It must have been 11 a.m. before we rolled out, and 80+ degrees in the shade. (It went on to hit 96.) Our coach told us to drink water generously; he’d be following us around for refills.

The ride didn’t start out well. My jitters about clipping in around a large group meant I started at the back of the line and moved slowly through Guerneville, and then the small group I was with took a wrong turn and rode a couple of steep hills until finally hitting a gravel driveway and realizing we were lost. We had directions that referenced road signs we never saw, and it wasn’t until mile 10, when we caught up to the last of the bigger group, that I was sure we weren’t riding the course backwards. In the confusion, I’d also gotten way behind on eating and drinking, and I could tell that was contributing to my crankiness, so I started doubling up on food and drinks right before the one-hour mark.

The next stretch had some nasty potholes — potholes actually understates it; it’s more like broken ground that feels like riding over a tortoise’s shell — and a few little hills but also our first water refill stop, for which I was wildly grateful. Just a few miles up the road we turned onto Dry Creek Road, and I occupied myself with picking out wineries I’d visited when Pete lived in the area and trying to remember what wines they made.

Our second water stop was right around 25 miles, and I finished my Roctane bottle and refilled — and then drank most of that and refilled again. I should have done that about three more times, because that would be the last water for 30 miles.

That wasn’t how it was supposed to be, especially not on a day that hot. It wasn’t anyone’s intention. But the heat caused problems for people who weren’t expecting to have problems — sickness, blown-out tires — and the SAG vehicle had to do its main job of picking up struggling riders. So after mile 25, it was anyone’s guess where the truck and its water would show up next — and I never caught it.

It was OK, at first. I had finally caught up with a friend, and we chatted and kept a good pace on the long, straight stretch after Geyserville. Somewhere in there I dropped my water bottle, stopped to rescue it, and decided to dump in the rest of my water from my backup bottle and add some Pineapple Skratch, which I’d bought on a whim and was, in that moment, the best thing I’d ever tasted.

Around 40 miles, things started getting dicey. I was down to about half of my water, and I knew I still had the course’s only major climb to come. But surely SAG would be around here somewhere for a refill, right? No dice. Chalk Hill was a slog — and was the first time I’ve ever thought, “How much longer can I go without water before I have to call SAG?” Two big sips left for the last 10 miles.

Thankfully, they were downhill; thankfully, I could ride them with friends, who also confirmed that they hadn’t seen water for miles. We got each other through it, telling stories and taking turns in the lead and convincing ourselves there was going to be water at the high school, there would have to be water at the high school, obviously there was water at the high school. I drank my last sip of water just as the high school came into view — 56 miles down, my longest ride to date.

And yes, there was water at the high school — though my friend and I wandered around for at least 10 minutes too stupid to find it and had to ask more than once for directions to the fountains. I have no idea how long we were there — half an hour? — but we finally admitted that it was time to get back on the bikes and ride back to Guerneville.

For some reason when I’d seen the two options for this workout — 56 miles with a car at either end of the route, or a 70-mile round-trip — I’d never questioned doing the 70. What’s another 15 miles? Well, for one thing, it’s 15 miles longer than the longest ride I’d ever done. It’s also, when moving at a decent clip on streets with some traffic, an hour. Why I never questioned whether after almost 4 hours on a bike I’d really want to sign up for a 5th, I have no idea, but I cursed it in that moment. The road back had a handful of little rollers that felt like mountains by that point, and my butt no longer wanted to be anywhere in the vicinity of my seat, and I did more coasting than peddling, and the road was a mix of giant potholes and bumpy, tarred creases. By the time our coach drove by calling “five more miles!” I had no positivity left and sent him a death glare severe enough he apparently texted my carpool buddy to warn her about my mood.

But oh, when we rolled into Guerneville at last! I have not felt that kind of exhausted elation since some of the longer runs of marathon training. “How are you?” “I’m not sure. I might be dead. Am I dead? Is this heaven?” “Are you going to run?” “No, I’m going to puke and then drink a margarita.” It took me 10 minutes to take off one shoe. I thought about running, but only in the vague way that one might contemplate what it would be like to fly. I thought about standing in the river, but it seemed really far away. I ultimately decided to go to the bar with my teammates, mostly because I could drive there. And there, everything was amazing, in an exceptionally loopy way. Lots of sweaty hugs, and funny faces in photos, and the $2.50 quesadilla (chosen off a food menu of “quesadillas, corn dogs, and bloody marys”) that will forever go down as one of my life’s greatest moments of having expectations exceeded.

In the end, that stupid, sun-drunk, goofy, give-me-all-the-salt, holy-shit-did-we-just-do-that feeling stayed with me for all the rest of Saturday, and even carried me through 11 rickety miles on Sunday. And that’s what keeps me coming back to this sport.

Some assorted notes on the course that I don’t want to forget:

• The first 30 miles trend gradually uphill. It’s a flat course on the whole, but the trend until Canyon is ever so slightly up. Do not feel discouraged if it feels like you are riding uphill sometimes, because you are. Almost all of the climbing is done before Chalk Hill.
• The road conditions really are pretty gnarly. I’d heard it, I believed it, but I was still surprised at just how bad some stretches were. The worst of it seemed to be in the first 20-ish miles.
• The 10 miles between the two climbs — from Canyon to Chalk Hill — are mostly flat and should be a place where I can pick up the pace on race day. It’s also unshaded for long stretches, and we had a bit of a headwind.
• The big Chalk Hill climb doesn’t start until several miles onto Chalk Hill Road. There are a couple of rollers before that, but no, they are not just Chalk Hill “starting early.” It’s legitimately at mile 45.
• Chalk Hill is steep but no worse than an Orinda “Bear.” Maybe a 4-to-5-minute climb.
• After Chalk Hill, it’s all downhill to Windsor High. What with having to obey stoplights, I didn’t get a good sense of what that would do to my overall pace, but I have to imagine it’s only good things.
• My Garmin thinks I hit 37 mph somewhere on the course. If true, that’s … awesome? Terrifying?
• It’s a beautiful course. Remember that when things get tough. Remember to look around.

Vineman 70.3: Week Six

OK, so I learned my lesson from Week Five. Week Six — or, at least, the weekday part of Week Six — had a nice, big dose of recovery. Easy spins, easy runs, no track, lots of quality time with my compression socks and my foam roller.

And it’s a good thing, because the weekend brought the start of peak training.

The plan I’m following has what I consider two “peak weekends.” There’s a small increase in weekday volume in between them, too, but the big jump comes in both distance and importance of the weekend workouts. This weekend was the first — a swim, and my first 56-mile bike ride, and then more riding, and then a double-digit run 12 hours later (with a bit of sleep, and some beer, in the middle). It started in the Russian River, hit 96 degrees in the middle, included a photo of me giving our coach the finger (in jest…sort of), and ended with me collapsed on top of the foam roller in a shirt so thick with fog-rain I could wring it out.

It was awesome.

Just when the logistics of training were starting to get to me — just as I was stomping around angry about having to drag the stupid bike rack out of the stupid garage and put it on my stupid car at seven stupid o’clock — this weekend came around and woke me back up. Endorphin-drunk (and, OK, maybe also the kind of drunk you get off three sips of beer after riding your bike for 70 miles when it’s 96 degrees outside), awed at what my body can do, dreaming up new challenges. This close to Vineman, I think it’s a good place to be.

Dailies:

Monday: Rest. In retrospect I might have wanted to swim out some of the post-race soreness, but the foam roller was good for that, too.

Tuesday: In the morning, 2400 yards of swimming, including a main set of 3x(3×100, 300). At night, I hopped on the trainer for a few minutes and then rode to get burritos. ~10 miles total.

Wednesday: Skipped track in favor of a chatty run through the park with a friend, punctuated with a photo session for a Top Secret Project (TM). Just over 5 miles total.

Thursday: In the morning, a 3×600 tempo swim that went far better than last week’s. Again shooting for 12:18, and I squeaked under that marker two out of the three times. At night, “12 miles” of easy spinning in the basement while watching the NBA finals online.

Friday: Rest. I wish I could find a Friday morning yoga class, or convince myself to get up on Friday mornings and do some yoga, but I also like sleeping.

Saturday: Vineman training day: 1.2-mile swim in the Russian River, then 56 miles of cycling the race course from Johnson’s Beach to Windsor High. Then, because simply riding my longest ride ever wasn’t enough, I’d chosen the option of riding back to Guerneville, so my day ended with 15 hot and cranky miles back to the car, probably coasting as much as I pedaled. Full post to come once I’m done stealing pictures from other people.

Sunday: 11 miles of running through soupy gray fog. Chased a couple of friends for the first 8-ish, then slowed it down for the final 3 home.

Week Six Stats

Swimming: 6900 yards
Biking: 92 miles (70 “real miles,” 22 trainer/city miles)
Running: 16 miles
Other: A lot of foam roller QT

Most proud of: 70. Freaking. Miles.

Need to work on: Keeping a good attitude in bad conditions — something I did reasonably well on Saturday, but it took a lot of concentration, and friends, and promises of beer and soda and gummy candy. I’m good at whining, but whining is the easy way out; being border collie excited takes more work, but it also pays off big.

Vineman 70.3: Week Five

Week five (!?) was a funny one. It came after one race and ended with another, but because neither was a race I cared much about independently, it was hard to know how to position what I was doing. Was I recovering? Tapering? Just normal training?

For most of the week, I felt great — endorphin-high from racing, so darn happy to be swim-bike-running. A couple of friends warned me to make sure I wasn’t getting too tired or burned out, and I’d just chirp back, “Nope! I’m awesome! I want to run! I feel great!” And then Thursday night’s swim rolled around. The thing with me and swimming is, swimming never lies. I can push through a run or a bike ride; the sheer joy of being outside and going places is usually enough to overwhelm whatever sluggishness I feel. But swimming is a true barometer, and Thursday’s was a slog. Friday’s rest day helped, but I definitely learned a thing or two about the effort racing takes, whether I’m capital-R Racing or not.

Dailies:

Monday: Rest. Sleep. Not enough stretching.

Tuesday: In the morning, 1760 yards of swimming, including a main set of repeats of 6 40s and a 200. (It was supposed to be 5 50s and a 200, but: 20-yard pool). Feeling good! Recovered! Awesome! At night, my second computrainer class, which I liked much more than the first (positioned myself in the corner away from the mirrors; brought food). Brought shoes for a transition run after, but my coach made me sit down and watch the “I am injured; I am an Ironman” video instead. Point taken.

Wednesday: I went to track and — surprise! — it was 2-mile time trial night. I thought seriously about ditching, and waited for the typical “taper/recovery/new runner” option to appear…but it never did, and I ultimately decided that as long as I was there, I’d give it a shot (and quit if I felt terrible). I ran 16:29 (8:14/8:15), the middle of my three times this season, which left me itching to run a 5K once all this craziness is over. 4 miles total for the night.

Thursday: Biked to/from work — still feeling awesome! — then went to swim, at which point I just could not work hard enough to get my “tempo” 3×600 anywhere near my base pace. My closest was 12:22 (I was shooting for 12:18 or under) — and that’s only because I was circling with a fast collegiate swimmer who was rightfully none too pleased to have ended up with Breaststroking Lady and Flailing Freestyler (<–me) for the last few minutes of her own workout.

Friday: Easy biking — a few minutes on the trainer at a bike fit follow-up (swapped for a narrower saddle; we’ll see…) and then a few miles around town to get my packet at the SF Marathon expo and make a return at REI.

Saturday: Awesome, endorphin-full day. Started with ~35 minutes of swimming including my first trip around the perimeter at Aquatic Park (no sea lions but a decent view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the gap at the end of the pier). Then solo-biked 45 miles over the bridge and to Fairfax. I still hate the bridge, and I absolutely gave up and walked around the pylons on the way back, but the rest of the ride was a blast, and to be able to ride through all of West Marin by myself, without even needing directions? I’ve come a long way.

Sunday: San Francisco Second Half Marathon, which I ran mostly easy but wish I’d taken even easier, in retrospect. I disobeyed the first rule of “run easy,” which is that I judged my pace and picked it up beyond where “easy” probably should have been for the second half of the race. Finished in 2:07:16, which is I think #3 of my 8 half-marathon finishing times. Paid for it by being stupidly sore. But, I did run the whole race without music, which accomplished one of my goals.

Week Five Stats

Swimming: 6020 yards
Biking: 90 miles (21 commute miles + 45 “real miles” + 24 computrainer miles)
Running: 18 miles
Other stuff: no yoga, a little core, a little stretching

Most proud of: Going back to the computrainer class and hating it less

Need to work on: Being smarter about recovery this week

The Quiet Place

These are the things people told me about riding Alpine Dam and the Seven Sisters:

– That I’d never get a break from climbing.

– That I’d hit some stretches that seemed impossibly steep.

– That my hands would hurt from braking on the downhills.

These are the things nobody told me about riding Alpine Dam and the Seven Sisters:

– That I’d ride so high I’d be above the clouds.

– That the biggest hill I climbed in training in 2012 would now look and feel like a mere bump.

– That deep in the woods, I’d discover an incredible stillness.

***

It says something about my tenuous grasp on geography that even when I saw Alpine Dam on my training schedule, even when I saw the reference to the Seven Sisters and the 3300-plus feet of climbing, I didn’t realize we were basically climbing up Mt. Tam. That would be this guy —

Photo by Jesse on Flickr

— where we just ran the Dipsea, where some of my wedding photos were taken, where when a friend recently told me he used to ride up it all the time, my response boiled down to “LOL, that’s nuts.” That Alpine Dam. Those Seven Sisters. That mountain.

Granted, we didn’t go all the way to the top peak. (Though people do that — crazy people.) My vague understanding of the route is that we basically looped around the back side, climbing to the top of that second, smaller peak off to the west in the photo above, then descending around the front side of the mountain before coasting back to our starting point.

I woke up a nervous mess, and the chatter in the car ride up — three of us talking about the various horror stories we’d heard about the route — didn’t help matters. We stocked up our support vehicle with sunscreen and windbreakers and extra water, picked up cue sheets, and rode easy through some residential neighborhoods, chatting to distract ourselves. One of the women in our group was a local who’d done this ride many times, and she was the most wonderful coach — telling us “it’s going to get steep for a while” or “you get a downhill after this” or, most often, simply “settle in.”

We hit the first big climb right out of Fairfax, a steady three-mile rise with a couple of tougher pitches. I was afraid I was going to hit a stretch so steep I wouldn’t be able to unclip — I didn’t want to stop, but once it occurs to me that I can’t stop, the only thing I can think about is stopping — but there was none of that, just long, continuous climbs. Our de facto coach called back that we were about to hit a bit of downhill, and all of a sudden we came coasting up to this:

A bridge over deep blue water, surrounded by tall trees: Alpine Dam, living up to its name.

We stopped there for a while, took some pictures, celebrated making it that far, and then heard what was next: a little roller or two and then three miles of switchbacks, which I’d later learn was about 900 feet of climbing. “Settle in,” our local expert told us, and we headed deeper into the woods.

I was still expecting the road to point straight up at some point; how else could we climb so much? But the grade stayed reasonable (mostly, except for a few curves). It was just … up. Up and up and up. Around a curve and up. Our mountain coach had told us to never look for the top, and so I tried to keep my eyes on the road ahead. Pedal, pedal, pedal, curve around and up. Pedal, pedal, pedal, curve around and up.

I was breathing hard and I knew it, and I searched desperately for something to tune it out. I’d somehow pulled ahead of the little group I’d been with at the dam, and the closest people to me were two other friends climbing together, talking about birds. I listened to their conversation for a while — an osprey’s nest? — and then, eventually, I wasn’t listening to anything.

It was quiet.

***

I don’t know how it got so quiet. The phrase that popped into my head was “go to the place where it’s quiet” — just like that, awkward grammar and all. I don’t know where these things come from, or why they only come when my heart is pounding and sweat is pouring down the tip of my nose, but they come sometimes, and that was Saturday’s. I don’t know where “the place that it’s quiet” is, or if it’s even a place. What I do know is that in that moment, it was a place where I didn’t hear my breath. Where I didn’t hear the bird ladies. Where I didn’t hear my bike, or my thoughts, or anything except the occasional reminder to snap back into the quiet place. I was riding among redwoods. I was climbing a mountain. And yet I was still.

Pedal, pedal, pedal. Curve around and up. Stay in the quiet place.

***

What snapped me out of the quiet place were the biting flies. One perched on my shoulder and dug in. A few others dive-bombed my chest or buzzed around my face. At one point I yelled out “leave me alone!” — because flies, as we know, frequently respond to orders. It was definitely not quiet anymore.

Luckily, when I started to lose it, I wasn’t far from our coach’s water drop. Just a few more curves and I came upon half my teammates and five gallons of cold water and a safe place to hop off the bike for a while.

We didn’t stay there long — the flies again! — and soon we were back to climbing, shorter and steeper hills this time. These were the Seven Sisters, and we’d been told to count them so we knew how far we were, but I didn’t even know what counted as a hill at that point. Was the one with the dip and rise one Sister or two? What about the steep one that wrapped around the ridge? Nothing to do but keep on riding and to try not to look too far ahead; there was less total climbing in this stretch, but some of the Sisters were monstrous. We were riding a rollercoaster on the ridgeline, pushing up and rolling down.

At one point, I passed a guy who knew the route and asked what Sister we were climbing. “Six,” he said, “or maybe seven.”

“Wait, what? Six?”

“At least.”

“Oh, thank god. I thought you were going to say two!”

After the summit of that Sister, we had a little downhill to a wide vista point, and I was stunned to see this:

Clouds as far as we could see. Big, cottony pillows. Big, cottony pillows we were far above.

A quiet place.

***

We descended from there, and it was, to be honest, not my favorite — winding and windy, and steep enough in parts that I did worry I wouldn’t be able to brake hard enough. We had a water refill stop after the first long stretch of downhill, then a few miles congested with cars that stressed me out, and I was so, so happy to bottom out at Highway 1.

There was one last climb before we got back, up Camino Alto, and my little group laughed all the way up it. This hill? This hill that we dread on a normal day? This hill felt like nothing! We were spinning up in our easiest gear and feeling like we were cheating. Nice try, Camino Alto, but you’re hardly a Sister.

***

The final stats: 32.7 miles, 3,405 feet of climbing (most of that between miles 4 and 16), and a peak elevation of 2,008 feet, per Garmin. Tired quads and burning hamstrings, hands tired from braking and my Shot Blok stash destroyed.

And quiet.

Vineman 70.3: Week Three

Week three: commence freakout(s).

Specific freakouts: that I’m not doing enough. That the weeks of group training I’m missing or altering will mean I don’t finish Vineman. That I’m not riding hard enough. That I’m not running easy enough. That my stupid swimming base pace has been the same for the last 18 stupid months.

All of these thoughts are easy enough to tamp down with a workout or a cookie or a moment of looking at my training schedule and really counting the remaining weeks. There’s a lot of work left to do; I shouldn’t be ready to cover 70.3 miles today; dailymile shows numbers going up and graphs don’t lie, right?

And yet. It nags at me that I haven’t done one of those really key workouts yet — a tough ride over 50 miles, or a day on the Vineman course, or a big, meaty brick. They’re coming, I see that, and I trust my coach and know I’ll get there when it’s time. I also know that the changes I’ve made to the schedule are crucial for keeping my life in balance. But it’s still hard to see the rest of my group ride the Vineman course one weekend and race the next when I haven’t done either.

Rational brain says this: I’m plugging away. I’m doing the work. I’m doing things other people in the group aren’t doing. I’m making this plan fit my life the way I like it. I know I can ride 56 mostly flat miles. I’m about to prove, again, that I can run a half-marathon. And swimming? In that river? That’s what I spend every summer longing to do. The pieces will fit. It just takes time. And contrary to what I see when I page through TrainingPeaks, I do still have time.

Here’s how I spent week three:

Monday: Rest, though I did walk a couple of hilly and drizzly miles to retrieve Seattle Memorial Day indoor picnic supplies.

Tuesday: Mini brick: 13 miles of biking with hill repeats (1300′ of climbing up El Camino Del Mar and Clement), then a mile transition run. When I got home from work, the weather was sunny and still; by the time I got my stuff together and figured out how to reinstall my bike pedals, it had turned cloudy and windy and made for a rather scary descent down to Ocean Beach.

Wednesday: Track workout — warm-up, 4-5×1000 with 200m recovery, cool-down. I’m still getting my legs under me for these relatively longer track intervals and ran 5:18, 5:28, 5:27, 5:19, 5:19. Totaled just over 5 miles by the time I got home.

Thursday: In the morning, I lifted some things and put them down in the living room while watching the French Open — about 20 minutes of squat and deadlift variations. Here’s how often I’ve “lifted weights” since we moved in October: the weights live on a built-in bookshelf, and when I picked them up, some of the bookshelf paint came up too. In the evening, I swam 2200 yards in a crowded pool where some people refused to circle and others said they would but really just wanted to chat and mostly it was all stupid. The workout included a whole bunch of 40s with different prescribed paces, but I just swam what I could when I could.

Friday: “Long Ride,” Part One. I’d thought about trying to ride long on Sunday after the beer festival, but when we worked through the logistics, driving the bike down seemed like a terrible idea. Instead, I decided to split up the miles into two rides, Friday and Monday. This one was ~23 miles including two laps around Lake Merced, finishing with a 20-minute transition run. Lake Merced isn’t the most challenging ride, but frankly neither is Vineman, so I got a little “race pace” practice in. I had a presentation at work that morning and gave myself permission to cut the run short before I’d even started, but for some reason the phrase “this is what your house is built on” popped into my head as I ran, and I decided the extra 10 minutes would make more difference for Vineman than for the presentation. Also, I think the word I was looking for was “foundation.”

Saturday: Rest via tastes of many beers, with the New Belgium Prickly Passion Saison surprising me as a favorite. It was nearly 100 degrees and I was sweating just standing around, so I’m happy with the decision to take this as a full rest day.

Sunday: On the way home from the festival, 1.2 miles in Lake San Antonio, sans wetsuit. The water temperature was probably high 60s, but the air temperature was still in the 90s and the idea of putting on a wetsuit made my brain boil. I finished just under 50 minutes and was not thrilled with that time, but it gave me something to reference when I think about going wetsuit-free for my (hot) races later this year. I closed out the week with a 10-mile run once we got back to the city, cheating on my no-music rule to make sure I’d get out of the house.

Week Three Stats

Swimming: 4350 yards
Biking: 39 miles
Running: 18.5 miles
Other: lifting things for ~20 minutes
Most proud of: Getting up with a 5 on the clock and riding when the sun came up on Friday. I could have let the timing of some work stuff derail my plans, but I didn’t, and while the ride wasn’t as long as I initially wanted it to be, I can confidently say I made the most of my time.
Need to focus on: Time in the damn saddle. That’s where I most feel like I’m playing from behind right now. Luckily, partially owing to Long Ride, Part Deux on Monday, week four’s bike miles will be relatively huge.
Can’t wait for: Racing again this weekend, more to come …..

Seattle Biking Adventures

A key component — no, the key component — of my Seattle training camp idea last weekend was a long bike ride. The idea of seeing a place by bicycle is a new one for me — something that was completely out of the question for much of my adult life — and it’s novel and exciting every time I have the chance to do it. (It doesn’t always go well — steering a heavy beach cruiser through Kyoto was frankly terrifying — but my enthusiasm for the idea still lands somewhere around WHEEE BIKING WHEEEEEEE!) Plus, I was staying with friends who regularly bike in the city. Double plus, Michaela lives there now. I was going to ride my bike a very long way around Seattle, end of story.

OK, not my bike. After some investigation into flying with a bike, I decided instead to rent from a Seattle shop. I am nervous enough about bikes, especially road bikes and especially ones I intend to ride kind of far for kind of a long time, that I only wanted to rent if I could find a bike that I knew would fit me and that I knew I’d be comfortable riding. Lo and behold, Gregg’s had the Trek Madone — Penelope’s fancy carbon big sister — in my size for $50/day. Renting with them was so easy: I reserved online (of note: the only two bikes reserved before the weekend were the two smallest women’s bikes; short ladies are fiercely protective of our bikes?), and brought my own pedals, lights, flat kit, and helmet to Seattle. Turns out the latter two things were included in the rental, but better safe than sorry, I suppose. At the shop, they put the pedals on, adjusted the seat, and sent me on my way.

I had asked around and Googled for some options, and ultimately this 50-mile route around Mercer Island, through Bellevue, and around Lake Washington via Woodinville started to stand out. We could hop on near our friends’ place, they could vouch for the quality of the Mercer Island loop, and after that — well, it would be an adventure.

We went to sleep on Saturday with the weather predicting a consistent 70 degrees and sunny. We woke up on Sunday to rain and predictions of more rain every hour for the rest of the day. We whined in our friends’ living room, ate bagels, whined some more, called the bike shop to see if we could extend my rental for another day, whined, lined up a rental bike for Pete just in case the weather cleared, whined, waited, and all of a sudden we could see the mountains that clouds around the lake had previously rendered invisible. Clearing? Maybe? Other than one final rain shower while Pete rode his rental bike back from the shop, things were looking brighter. We made a break for it.

Now seems like the time to really spell out that among the five of us, three had never ridden in Seattle, two were on unfamiliar rental bikes, one of us was riding her road bike for the first time, and none of us had ridden 50 miles in months, if ever. We were perhaps not, as they say, operating at full capacity. And I’d like to blame that for the fact that not even two miles into the ride, as we went to make a tight turn onto the bridge to Mercer Island, I totally wiped out. I thought we were stopping, so I unclipped my left foot, and then I realized we were actually just turning slowly onto a narrow path. I thought I could still make the turn, so I leaned hard to the right with my right foot clipped in and no momentum and, well, that’s how I ended up on the ground underneath Penelope’s carbon big sister. An auspicious beginning.

I knew I was fine; I was more freaked out about the bike, and once I finally disentangled myself from it, I could see that it was fine, too. I squirted water on the scrape on my knee, hopped back on, and rode over the bridge, figuring that at the very least, I’d learned something about how to deal with that situation in the future. (Except I hadn’t, because I did the same damn thing on another tight right turn later in the ride. I think I’m OK on my falling quota for a while. Sorry to the family I cursed in front of; it was awkward for all of us, really!)

When we finally hit Mercer Island, I encountered some of the most blissful bike riding I’ve experienced in my life. The roads were well-paved, the weather was perfect, the cottages were fun to ogle, there were hiking trails everywhere, and traffic was minimal and bike-aware. Pete sped ahead but the rest of us kept a solid pace, too, and something like 12 miles later, we pulled up at the far edge of the island, near the I-90 intersection.

Photo stolen from Michaela. That shirt dyed the rest of my clothes (and body) pink.

The next five miles were the only un-fun part of the ride — a long out-and-back through the stoplights and strip malls of Bellevue, engineered solely to get us to the other side of I-405. We knew from the map that it was going to be obnoxious, which didn’t stop us from rolling up to every single stoplight and saying “Well, this is obnoxious.” I would look at how long those five miles took relative to the rest of the ride, but it would be too sad.

We finally made it out of Bellevue and onto the 520 bike trail, and I got a bit worried that I’d led us astray. While nicely paved and separated from the road, this trail also just does exactly what its name suggested (parallels Route 520), which turned out not to be much to look at — some marshes, maybe, but mostly traffic. But things perked up significantly at mile 20, when we a) stumbled upon a 7-11 and b) made the turn onto the Sammamish River Trail.

It’s possible that the miraculous appearance of (a) had some bearing on my enjoyment of (b) — there were 49-cent slurpees, and hot dogs, and string cheese, and I finally found a proper band-aid, and we had a long and serious debate about whether to go to this Celtic-Cajun bar and grill(e) in the same strip mall as the 7-11, so it was a pretty solid rest stop. But I think I would have loved the Sammamish River Trail under any circumstances: 10 miles of wide, paved, flat, beautiful, generously bathroomed pathway. (It also connects to the East Sammamish River Trail, which isn’t paved yet, but when it is, that will add another 10 miles of bliss, and then, oh, Seattle, I will be back.) Michaela and I were riding along at a totally comfortable, chatty pace, and yet one 15+-mph mile after another rolled by — unheard of for me. At one point, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had to shift gears. Flat roads: They’re something special.

From there, we picked up the Burke-Gilman trail, a member of the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame, a thing that exists. Again, Seattle really got this one right. While the number of intersections that required stopping picked up as we got closer to city limits, we were still basically on a bicycle freeway — and one with hilarious fish-shaped water fountains, gorgeous lake houses, and playful husky puppies to watch along the way. We took the trail onto the University of Washington campus, then hopped onto city streets for the final downhill miles back to our friends’ place.

Nobody should get away with 50 miles in Seattle on a day with rain forecast for every hour without at least a few sprinkles, and sure enough, in the last five minutes of the ride, it started to rain. It only seemed right.