A Tale of Two Races - Interlude

Random Training
(or lack thereof)
Up and Down the Eastern Seaboard
(ie, Northern NJ and Massachusetts, I'm not really sure what a seaboard is)

circa September 2010

Between T-Man and the second race in this two race tale, I was supposed to rest for a week and then transition directly into marathon training. When I threw in a come back race I didn't really deviate from that plan.

Thus in the one month between the race in which I almost quit triathlon, and my comeback race I rode my bike 4 times (one of those times was the hybrid bike at the beach and two of those times were "easy spins" on the gym bike).

So that is one bike ride on a road bike between races. And that ride?

Well, I had planned to travel to the race site early one Saturday with a random girl I met on the internet (sort of - the triathlon club message board) and pre-ride the course. We planned and discussed all week and then the Friday before the Saturday ride I left work with a fever.

A smart person would have bailed. Note: I never claimed to be smart.

I took advil, napped, took more advil, ate dinner, took more advil, went back to bed, woke up and took more advil and drove with the random girl out to the race site. I might have taken more advil when we arrived. The night before this advil fueled adventure we realized that there was an organized course preview this day so we also had the opportunity to preview the swim course.

So what I'm saying is that I swam an open water mile and then rode my bike for 25 miles most likely with a fever that was only held at bay by the copious amounts of advil I had consumed in the preceding 18 hours. I survived, but barely.

This race was all uphill. There were tons of steep, 4 mph, ifIgoanyslowerI'lltoppleoverbutIdon'tknowifIcankeepupthispacebutI'malreadygoingtooslow-

toclipoutsoI'mprettymuchscrewedisthereanicepatchofgrasstolandin

slow. And when we weren't dealing with that ... false flats. The course started and ended in the same place so there were obviously also some downhills but they were the white knuckle feather the breaks and try not to die sort of downhills - the sort of downhills on which, if you're me, you can never make up enough speed to make up for the slow, slow, slow uphills!

Honestly, I can't imagine how the people the encountered this for the first time on the day of the race handled it.

Somehow, the day after this adventure, I managed to run 19 miles. I'm still amazed that I survived that weekend. But I did survive and I threw in one extra swim (for a total of 4 bike rides and 2 swims for those keeping track at home) and then headed to the race for real ...

A Tale of Two Races - Part I

Part I

T-Man Half IM, New Hampshire

or, The Day I Almost Quit Triathlon

circa August 2010

The Good

At the end of the day, I remembered that I participate in triathlons for fun. And fun to me is certainly "racing" my own best times and "competing" with myself, but it's also being out there suffering with and cheering for others and in turn being cheered for.

The Bad

For reasons that I can only sort of articulate, T-Man was not fun.

The Ugly

(aka, the reasons I can only sort of articulate)

The race is huge. I was good about getting things done early this year but the traffic and people still seem to take a lot out of me. Everything takes so long.

I was in the last wave. In a race this big, the last wave is over an hour after the first wave.

The conditions deteriorated as the day went on (and, did I mention I was in the last wave?). Thus, the water was choppier - disorganized lake chop - and I couldn't wait to be done swimming. That is never a good way to start a long day.

Starting that far back and being a less then super biker, made for a pretty lonely 56 miles. It also started raining. I dropped my chain. I forgot that the end of the course was net uphill.

I was happy to be off my bike but as I set on the run, I saw most of my friends finishing up the run. It was raining. I wanted to put on my sweatpants and hang out. But instead I had to run a half marathon. In the rain.

Maybe it's the back of the pack, or maybe it was the rain, but last year it seemed like everyone on the double loop run was cheering and chatting and having a good time. This year ... *crickets*. Except for the poor dudes who commented on my smile and friendly demeanor (seriously, this is one of the rare times in life when I'm friendly and chatty with strangers) the third time I saw them I made them promise to stay on the course until I passed them again. Of course as soon as they promised and I was pass them, it stopped raining and started pouring. I hoped they would go back on their promise and go inside. They didn't, they were still there as promised and it made me smile.

But, at the end of the race, I still declared myself unfit for triathlon. I was going to look for a new sport. Or maybe just run.

(More Good)

Then I drank a beer. Or three. And ate an oreo cookie, or 8, and remembered the good and started plotting a come back - I could find a small, local race perhaps reminiscent of my most favorite race and it could be fun ...

I woke up at 3 am unable to sleep and ate some more oreo cookies and looked up races on my iphone. One month later I would be back ...

One weekend in August

found this in the drafts ...

My mother has tiny, tiny feet and she claims that they used to be smaller - that while she was pregnant with me, her they grew half a size. Right before I graduated from grad school my feet grew half a size. And I assure you I was not pregnant. This leads me to believe that her feet would have grown that year regardless.

This summer, I feel like I've been nesting. I've done my share of travelling but sometimes, when Friday rolls around, I just want to relax, eat sushi, watch Friday Night Lights and follow that up with a mellow weekend at home enjoying August in the city with half the population at the beach. I can still assure you I'm not pregnant which makes me wonder if sometimes everyone needs to nest, regroup and then emerge back into the craziness.

Anyway, this nesting (or, if you don't buy into my theories above, staying at home and being anti-social) has left me with plenty of weekend time for training which is good because I have a half IM coming up. Two weekends ago I had volunteered to lead our club's less aggressive ride and woke up in plenty of time to pump up my tires and fill up my bottles. Plenty of time until the tire valve broke and I wound up needing to do a quick tire change and, unfortunately for me, "quick tire change" isn't really in my repertoire. I notified the group to head out without me - they offered to come help me, but I was too frazzled and knew that there probably weren't any less aggressive people there waiting to be led - and I took my time tire changing and left about 30 minutes late. This would have been fine but somewhere in the madness I ate like half a granola bar for my entire pre-long ride breakfast. If you've ever wondered if the pre-race/ride meal is really important, I'm here to tell you that it is!

I was rather starving in the middle of my ride (at which point I hate some pretzels) and in the middle of my run (at which point I stopped running and went home and inhaled some eggs and waffles) but I did get in a 4 hour ride 25 minute run all solo and was quite proud of myself. The first long, long solo ride of the year always freaks me out a bit and this year, this was the long, long solo ride. After eating I rested and headed down to the beach to meet some friends (b/c nesting or not you can't be reclusive all the time) and amazed them with the amount of food I ate before I declared myself comfortably full. I then told them about my 60 mile ride/2+ mile run and I think they found that more amazing then the post ride food.

After a fun night out I got up the next day, ate some breakfast (having learned my lesson) and headed out for a run. I told my friends I'd be gone for awhile but didn't let on as to distance. Pretty much as soon as I left it started pouring but it was kind of nice because it scared all of the people away and I had the roads to myself and I ran and ran and ran and jumped through puddles and wrapped my iphone in a garbage bag which kept it dry for 14 miles! And with that marathon training commenced.

Probably as close to the perfect combination of reclusive athleticism and summer fun as I'm going to get ...