Summit County Ride

This weekend I hosted some tri friends in Breckenridge so we could do a long ride in Summit County. We originally planned to do the Copper Triangle, but the Courage Classic was up there that weekend riding from Leadville to Copper Mountain on our Saturday so we decided to steer clear of them.

Instead, we rode from Breckenridge up Vail Pass. Vail Pass is pretty easy, when it doesn't come at mile 90 of the Triple Bypass.

So we have Dan and Al (doing Wisconsin), then Jay, me and Liz (Jeremy took the picture)



Jay - I swim with him and he's done 4 Ironman



Al and I coming up Vail. We ride well together, about the same speed:



Dan - he's done 3 Ironman and is coming out to Wisconsin with 4 chicks:



And Liz - just one Ironman under her belt:



Jay and Liz are doing the Boulder 70.3 on 8-8 (well, so is Al) so they decided to go back to Breckenridge after Vail Pass. The rest of us rode to Leadville and back over Fremont Pass. Jeremy took a picture riding behind me and Al:



And at the top of Fremont Pass, you find Climax Colorado!





And my favorite part about Fremont Pass? The opportunity to discuss not only Climax, but molybdenum. Really, how often does molybdenum come up in casual conversation?



Jeremy even partook in eating beef jerky at the top of Fremont Pass. He offered me some but I declined. I had already switched over to Coke and my teeth were not up to the task of chewing anything, much less jerky.

I had been worrying about this ride all week, the forecast was calling for a high of 65 with lots of possible thunderstorms, but it turned out to be a perfect riding day. I'm not sure what the temperature was, but it was plenty warm without being too hot. We didn't get any rain or thunder. The first time up Fremont Pass we saw these clouds to the south and got a little worried, but they never did anything.



And those clouds on the way back. More ominous but still not threatening:



Our ride ended up being about 85 miles long and 5 1/2 hours riding time. Dan and I finished up with a 40 minute run so our total time was from 8:40 to 3:20 - about 7 1/2 hours.

The Bay at Broomfield

I took the boys to the Bay about 10 days ago and we decided it was pretty fun. It's kinda a poorman's Water World but for smaller kids it's fine. There's no wave pool or lazy river, but there are a couple of fast slides and an inter tube slide. When it was just me and the boys I went down the slides a couple of times, then sat under a tree and read a book. With Ariel today, I needed to go with her on the slides and that was fine too. She really liked the inter tube slide and we spent half our time there in line for that. But she tried out the other slides and just swam with the boys too.



We got there around 11:30 and left around 2:00, when the thunderstorm came in and the pool closed anyway. We headed over to Dairy Queen for a snack:



Ariel left me wondering if she'd ever had ice cream in a cone before:

Little Miss Ariel

We haven't seen Ariel all summer. She spent a couple of weeks in Texas with her dad, she's also been taking swimming lessons in Arvada and staying with Grandma.

Adam and particularly Alex were so happy she'd be coming to our house today.

In the morning, I tried to do some cleaning up and I realized (I guess not for the first time) that it is impossible to clean with kids in the house. And if I take the kids somewhere else, then I can't clean either. So I got my kitchen/dining area picked up for a new and bigger mess in Adam and Alex's room.

I swam the noon master's class and the kids went to daycare. Afterwards, we all went back to the pool.

Ariel *was* pumped:



And for the first time, I let them get fruit bars from the snack stand. Alex liked his, but both Adam and Ariel wanted to bail after half a bar. At least I have a good reason to say no next time.



We swam for about 2 1/2 hours. A great time was had by all.

Recovery-ish Week

My coach and I were emailing this week and he took another look at my plan and downgraded me from a 15 hour week to a 10. From here to the race, I'll be doing 2 hard weeks, then have an easier week. This is fine by me and this weekend was a great weekend to have a shorter week as Jeremy was in Breckenridge helping Devon celebrate his 30th birthday.

Week Highlights:

- Tuesday group run - 3 x 1 mile repeats. While I didn't break any land speed records, I did manage to go slightly faster each mile. I have learned that I am not my speediest in the evening. And after our miles, we had a surprise 800, which I pumped out in 3:52 on shear desire not to be beat by one of the "slow" girls.

- Wednesday morning (probably way too close to Tuesday run) I retested my bike power. I increased my VO2Max from 196 watts to 212 and my FTP went up 7 watts. You don't have to know what those numbers mean, it's just important to note they went up since end of April.

- The boy's last swim meet was on Saturday and after 8 hours (this could be its own post) I dropped them off at my mom's house and went for a 2 hour bike ride. I haven't ridden in Arvada in a very long time and half the roads I remember riding on didn't have bike lanes. There wasn't too much traffic but it was not the most pleasant 30 miles I've done this summer.

- Sunday morning I ran with an acquaintance that I haven't run with since February. I was just doing an hour and she went way faster than I would have done on my own. But she's 51 so I just gritted my teeth and stayed with her. We ran 6 miles at a 9:30 pace and my average heart rate was in zone 2, but the last 20 minutes I was in zone 4. In the afternoon I had to do another 20 minutes but I put the boys on their bikes and they rode with me. I was surprised at how tired my legs were after only 6 miles in the morning, I do wonder how they would have felt if I had run closer to my normal 10:30 pace.

Swim: 9800 yards
Bike: 67.25 miles
Run: 15.7 miles

Total: 10:30

And now begins the real training

With the Boulder Peak being my last triathlon before Wisconsin, my training this week started being Ironman focused. I did do the Stroke & Stride again on Thursday (but only because it was on my plan) and once again got my butt kicked. I did meet my goal of doing it under an hour (57:46) but I really doubt I had any increase in speed. My 5k did go from 27:40 to 27:19 but I know my swim didn't really get faster by 5 minutes. That's the problem with swim courses - the buoys move around and they are never the same length in any race. I had an epiphany out on the second lap of the swim though that might help the next time. The last leg of the lap is directly into the sun and it's impossible to see the one buoy. I realized I could sight of the top of the building behind the swim area and my second lap was much smoother than the first.

This weekend really brought on the volume training. I rode with Swift to Jamestown and then convinced a couple of (yes, much older) guys to ride with me out to Hygiene. When we got back to South Boulder, I still had half an hour left to make my time, so I rode to Marshall by myself. That put me at 60 miles in 3 1/2 hours. I was supposed to do 40 minute run afterwards but the heat really got me. By then it was 1:00 and 95 degrees in the shade and most of my run wasn't in the shade. My first mile downhill was ok, but the next 2 did not go well. I couldn't keep my heart rate under 165 bpm and that was even at an 11:30 pace. I did a lot of walk breaks and later congratulated myself on not pushing it and getting heat stroke.

I was afraid of having a similar experience when my sisters and I made a run date at 2:30 on Sunday. But we got very very lucky. Almost as soon as we started running, there was a good rainstorm (and hardly any thunder) and we got soaked. And then it stayed overcast for the rest of the run. We were up north at Teller Farm, it looked much hotter and drier in South Boulder, where I probably would have run on my own. And I swear, the second I hit the stop button at 1:33 (and 8.8 miles) the sun came out and it was instantly 15 degrees warmer. Becky took this shot of me and Laura:



And then we got back to the car and I realized that the key I so painstakingly took off my key chain was to my minivan, and not to Jeremy's car. I rarely lock my car, but I had left my purse in there so I thought it was a good idea to lock it. My poor sisters had to drive me home and back again. But I'm glad I did it with them and it wasn't too much trouble, you can be sure than every time I take a key off now I will double check if it has the Honda or Toyota symbol on it!

I'm adding a few pictures to my Boulder Peak race report, fyi.

Swim: 7184 yards
Bike: 138 miles
Run: 19.5 miles

Total: 14:45

Boulder Peak Triathlon

Boulder Peak - 1.5 km swim, 42 km bike, 10k run

Last year I had big plans for the Boulder Peak. When I did the race in 2000, my time was 3:05. Last year I had a goal of going under 3 hours and I bombed. To be fair, it was around the same time I got my iron tested and found out my ferritin was only 12. I fell apart on the run and as everybody (and I do mean EVERYBODY) passed me, all I could think was that maybe I could do a bit better when my body was healthier.

Fast forwarding to this year... I still wanted to go under 3 hours but I didn't want to put too much pressure on myself either. This is the last triathlon I plan on doing before Wisconsin and I wanted to feel good about it.

The Peak starts ungodly early - at 6:30. That meant I wanted to get there no later than 6 so I could have my transition set up before it closed at 6:20. I rode my bike out to Boulder Rez and it was a great warm-up, plus I felt vindicated when I passed the long line of cars on the Diagonal and 55th.

Liz and I before the race. Turns out wetsuit pictures are much more flattering from the neck up!



The swim went well. I followed the buoy line pretty well on the way out, but messed up the turn. Before we went out, we were told there were 2 yellow buoys. On was a 45 deg turn and one was more like 110 degree turn. Somehow I never saw the first yellow buoy so when I hit the second one I didn't turn sharp enough. I got all turned around and confused. I was in wave 4 so there were roughly 300 people in the lake... somewhere, but I was out by myself. I could see the shore and there were a couple of lost souls with me so I don't think I messed up too much. My swim time was 29 minutes - I knew I could go under 30 minutes, but my recent performances haven't been close. I had a big swell of relief when I looked at my watch getting out of the water - last year I was at 34 minutes and just thought, "Well, there goes under 3 hours." And I think I have a weird thing going on with triathlon swimming. I'm not fast enough to be in the lead pack of my wave, but I'm also faster than the average for my age group. So that leaves me between the two groups with no one to draft off of.

The bike went great. I have been feeling not as strong this year but I had a good race today. I couldn't believe how quickly 5 miles came up, then Olde Stage was Olde Stage. After getting up that accursed hill and getting past the 35 mph downhill speed zone, I got in my aero bars and hammered, in a smooth and controlled way. I passed a lot of women, mostly in the 30-34 age group that went off 10 minutes earlier (I think the women in my age group that bike faster than me also swim faster). And I got passed by a ton of men - all the men but the 65+ went after me, so there was a lot of passing to be done. I didn't pay much attention to my power meter or my time so I was surprised when I got home and saw that I took 4 minutes off my time from last year.



The run went really well. It's pretty discouraging to be running as well as I can (9:18 miles) and be getting passed by all the people running 6:00 miles (did I mention all those men folk that started behind me? Ok, plenty of women passed too.) But unlike last year, I actually passed 3 or 4 people. I managed to run smoothly on the way out and then speed up for the 5k back. Probably for my own good there were no mile markers on the way back so I stopped worrying about my mile splits and just ran. My final time: 57:39, my first triathlon 10k under an hour.





And my total triathlon time - 2:50:48. That's almost 18 minutes faster than last year and nearly 15 minutes faster than 2000. I'm powered by cow now!

And my favorite part of racing, hanging out with all my triathlon buddies. I'm bummed I didn't get a picture with Michelle - we've been riding and swimming a lot together this summer and she did great, 6th in our age group with a time of 2:30.

Lots of D3 teammates to look for on the course and cheer for and hang out with afterwards. My D3 friend Liz took 41 minutes off her time from last year!



Team D3 - PR's all around!

More Swim Meets

In addition to a home meet two weeks ago, we went to our first away meet today. Adam swam the 25 free, 50 free and 25 free in the 100 free relay. Alex swam 25 free, 25 breast and 25 breast in the 100 IM relay. The Spruce pool is not heated, and warm ups at 7:00 were hard on the kids, but they started having fun when the sun came out.

Adam had a mousie snack:



This is actually from 2 weeks ago, Adam is in the middle, ready to start back stroke:



Here's Alex in his relay - the other kid just came in doing back stroke and he went in for breast. The 8 and unders only do 100, so each kids swims just 1 length of the pool which is how Alex ended up on the side without blocks:



A champion breast stroker. I believe he got 3rd place today:



And Adam on the blocks:



Adam freestyle:





And all the Rally kids had way too much fun on this baby slide. Not a great picture, but this thing doesn't even go into the pool. At one point there were probably 10 kids playing on it:



Here's some video. The first is Alex doing 100 IM two weeks ago. I'm proud of him for trying, he doesn't even like 50's. And fly is hard, I can barely do 25 yards.


And here's Adam doing a 50 free. I'm kicking myself for not catching his "flip turn."

Another bike fit and odds and ends

Starting with the odds and ends, here are some pictures from last week's race:

If I bought race pictures, I might buy this one. The angle is cool (though the photog right on the turn made me nervous at the time):



Pushing through the last bit of the run:



And 1 minute after finishing, "Can I take your picture?"



So, for the last 6 weeks ago, I've been having some issues with my upper back. I don't notice it in my daily life unless things get so tight that I get a tension headache, which has only happened a couple of times. But I've been going to my chiropractor on a weekly basis since Boise and every time I have some really tight spots that are not loosening up. He says it's very common in cyclists, just the way the neck has to support the head.

So in my proactive mode again, I scheduled another bike fit to see if I could fix it from that end. University Bikes has really improved their bike fit system since my last fit when I got the bike last February. They now have 2 video cameras. They watch the video in slow motion, then take some stills to measure angles. The pictures on the left are before and the right after. I ended up getting a new shorter stem, which should help with the back ache and then he put me in a position that should get me some more power buy lowering the handle bars and raising the seat a tad. I plan on spending a lot of time on the bike in the next 2 1/2 months, hopefully this will make it more comfortable.



And back to odds and ends, Crissy came out to visit me this week. I tried to get my workouts in early so we would have lots of time to play. She was going to come to Stroke & Strides to experience the wonder that is multisport, but the race was canceled due to contamination - ie bacteria in Boulder Res. Since I'm racing there next weekend, I'm just going to put my fingers in my ears and sing la-la-la-la. I'm sure that water is as pristine as a glacial waterfall.

Besides an aborted Stroke & Stride, Crissy and I had lots of adventures and if I get organized I may even post some pictures. The boys spent the week at camp at Har Hashem and I may even post some pictures of their escapades.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 9115 yards
Bike: 70.25 miles
Run: 16.3 miles

Total: 10:15