Oktoberfest

Well, Oktoberfest marks the end of the 2009 tri season. I had been on the fence about even doing this race but when I volunteered for the Tri Babe race last month, I earned a discounted race entry. Triathlons aren't cheap and I do LOVE splaving, plus it was nice to have a goal to keep me working out in September.

The Oktoberfest course is the same courses as the Tri Babes race I did last year (except they didn't short the run by 1/2 a mile this time) and the Summer Open I did in May. Going in, I had four goals.

1. To beat my Summer Open time.
2. To go under 1:20.
3. To beat fellow TriBabe Rachel. (Does that seem less snarky if I told Rachel that was my goal beforehand?)
4. To go under 28 minutes on the run

The swim went well. You never know with these things. Sometimes the course is long (*cough cough* Boulder Peak). Sometimes you have a panic attack (uh, Wildlflower?) and sometimes you just have a crappy swim. My swim felt fine and I was relived when I glanced at my watch and saw 13:xx. My official time was 14:04, a minute off the Summer Open.

TI went fine. Unlike the Summer Open, I didn't loose my bike, which is always nice and got me a few seconds closer to beating my Summer Open time.

The bike was fine. I took a minute off my Summer Open time but I don't know if it's because I'm in better biking shape, or because I was racing in my nifty aerohelmet. I mostly wear it for the intimidation factor, but who knows, maybe it does make me go faster:



My only biking snafu was somehow my magnet got misaligned and my bike computer wasn't working. Maybe that was better, I just put my head down and hammered.

T2 was also uneventful. I glanced at my watch on the way out and it was about 50 minutes, so I knew if I ran ok, I would go under 1:20. Woot! for goals 1 & 2.

And the run was ok. I tried to hold it in the first mile, and it was somewhere around 9:30. A bit too much holding in, but then there was the only uphill of the course. I got up the hill and then did all I could. Somewhere after the turn around I saw Rachel going the other way and cursed at her (literally. I think I screamed "damn you!"). I was sure she was going to catch me. I felt her on my heels the whole way in but she never passed me. My 5k time was 28:14. Dang, there went goal 4. Ah well, something to work for next year.



My total time was 1:18:56 and Rachel came in 8 seconds after me. I was a bit faster on the swim and bike than her, but I really beat her in transition, or as Jeremy calls it, Competative Clothes Changing. I had over a minute on her in T1 & T2 and that is way longer than 8 seconds.

Now, being that this event was called Oktoberfest, wouldn't you think there would be beer served afterwards? I mean, there was beer after all the 5430 races. But no, there was some issue with permits and non profits and blah blah blah and NO BEER. Luckily, I swam a masters class coached the race promoter and knew this beforehand and brought my own beer. See, it's St. Pauli's Girl - German and girly! And no, there's NOTHING wrong with drinking deer before 10 in the morning. NOTHING!



And the big surprise of the day, I won my age group! Now, much like Danskin, the 30-34 group was underperforming (I would have been in 5th place in both the 24-29 and 35-39 groups) but there WERE 30 women in my division so it's worth something, right? I was 18/172 women and 73/288 total.

And even more fun, TriBabe Michelle won the 35-39 group (she's hardcore, she was 8 *minutes* faster than me) and Rachel got second in 30-34. Well, Michelle won until we got home and looked at the results and she was bumped to second. But we both still got the first place prize of Zeal sunglasses.

And here's a really crappy picture of the three of us - somehow Rachel's husband kept taking video instead of stills with my cell phone and this is as good as it gets.



The award was a beer stein with an Oktoberfest engraving. Decorative AND useful.

So, that's it for this year. But stay tuned for next year and Ironman Wisconsin!

Updated - A decent picture. That's Rachel, Me, Michelle and Namino on top:

5430 Long Course

The week before the Long Course did not go as I had anticipated. I had been fighting a cold/cough for over 2 weeks but up until the Sunday before the race, it had just been annoying. A week before the race, I did my last long run of 70 minutes and posted my worst pace of the year and had a small vomiting incident around 5 miles. It was not boding well for racing.

I swam on Monday and Tuesday, and did a bike ride Tuesday evening. I only ran 30 minutes on Wednesday and at least it was better than Sunday. And then my low point was Thursday morning at 2:10am. I awoke in the middle of the night with excruciating neck pain. I can only guess that in one of my coughing fits, I gave myself whiplash. As I lay on the heating pad, I actually wondered what the process was to get a medical waiver. Would I need a physician's signature? I really did not know if I would be able race.

I spent Thursday trying to fix my neck. I had a chiropractor appointment with a friend's guy (mine, of course, was on vacation). Then I had a doctor's appointment and got some antibiotics ("If you've been sick for 3 weeks, it's probably a sinus infection"), a cortisone shot and 3 muscle relaxer pills. I was able to do an hour ride in the evening, though the thought of swimming still scared the crap out of me.

The kids had their triathlon on Saturday morning. As usual, super cute. Then me and some of the TriBabes did our last brick practice. We only rode 30 minutes and ran 10, it barely seemed worth the effort. It was nice to think that a 40 minute workout had become beneath notice.

Race day came and while I did not feel like I was at the pinnacle of fitness, I did feel ok. My neck was mostly better, as long as I did not look straight up and to the left. I thought I could manage not to do that during the race.

Even though I was in the last wave, I still had to have my bike racked by 6:15. I was there around 5:40 and got a nice spot on an aisle. My age group shared wave 10 with the 20-24 men and it was weird racking up next to a big guy.

The morning started out nice and cloudy, until right before the start of wave 9 when the sun broke through the clouds. Which was really frustrating because the longest leg of the swim course was right into the sun. I gave up trying to spot on a buoy and just followed the crowd. Luckily, I did not end up off course. My swim was just so-so. I've felt stronger before but I really did navigate ok and like usual, my swim ended up being my best sport compared to the rest of the racers.

When I got into transition, I noted that the guy I racked next to still hadn't gotten on his bike. My transition was short because despite waffling on this all summer, I decided not to change into bike shorts and just wore my (not padded) triathlon shorts. I figured I might as well race it as fast as I could.

The bike was, as usual, was where I felt the strongest. I had already rode the 28 mile loop 3 times the week before. I worked hard where it was hilly and chilled when it was downhill. We even lucked out with a bit of a tail wind up Foothills, which is slightly uphill and not the most scenic of the race anyway. My only mistake was thinking that just because I could eat solid food while training, I would be able to eat while racing. I only ate 3/4 of 2 cliff bars and 1 1/2 of 2 cliff shots. I was thinking there would be Hammer Gel every aid station, but at least 2 of the 4 did not have any. I did drink Gatorade most of the race. If I ever race a longer race, I would need to do the nutrion much better. I squeaked by this time, but I could see getting in trouble too.

The best part of the bike was that I made my goal of under 3 hours with a time of 2:57. And the guy that I racked next to had not put his bike back yet.



The run, as expected, was the hardest part of the race. For the first mile, my left foot hurt in a weird and new sort of way, but it sorted itself out as things unually do after a mile. For the run, I had a goal of running to the aid stations and walking though, thinking about it as a mile by mile race. My first mile was sub-10, way too fast but I soon leveled out. I walked the aid stations, taking water every time, sometimes gatorade too. A girl from last year told me she put ice in her hat and I did that too. My mile to mile race worked pretty well until mile 9, then I was just hot and tired and ready to be done. I ended up walking most of the hills (there weren't that many, maybe 4 per loop, for 2 loops). My hips and legs started getting sore and achy, but at least they were sore and achy in a normal sort of way and not an injury sort of way. I got my second wind about 300 yards from the finish line but at least I was able to run through the crowd with some energy.



And I tried for a good finishing picture, instead of my usual pose of checking my watch.



Post race with the Babes:



There were actully two others that raced, one so fast that she had gone home (she finished about an hour before me) and the other a bit slower and not yet done.

All and all, I was pretty happy with my race. Before I got sick, I made a goal that if I raced well, I could finish in 6:10. I finished in 6:13. The run was hard, but in an expected sort of way, not at all like my marathon of 9 years ago way. When I finished the marathon, I was so sore and dejected, I did not run again for 7 1/2 years. The week after this race, I swam some, walked a bit and then even ran a couple 5k. I would have biked too if I was not 2,000 miles away from home in Maryland. I was a bit sore for about 3 days after the race, but I think the recovery was pretty easy.

1.2 mile swim: 40:19
T1: 2:02
56 mile bike: 2:57:21 (average 18.9 mph)
T2: 3:16
13.1 mile run: 2:30:10 (average 11:28 miles)

Total: 6:13:06

Danskin Trophy

Yesterday, I received this in the mail:



It's quite puzzling, as I did not actually get 3rd place. I was a solid 4th, almost a minute behind 3rd. I know, I checked very carefully. And yet, now I have a trophy. I went back and rechecked the results and from what I can gather, about 18 girls were disqualified, including the 1st place winner of my age group, who beat me by 6 minutes. In reviewing the rules, the only grounds for DQ that I could find (beyond some blatant cheating) is that USAT mandates that only only must you wear a helmet during the race, but that if you are seen riding your bike BEFORE or AFTER the race without a helmet - DQ. Now, the race parking was way out in BFE, probably 1/2 - 1 miles from the transition area. A lot of people rode their bikes from to and from their cars (I sure did) and I did see quite a few girs doing it without their helmets. So there you go, 3 rules to remember:

1. ALWAYS wear a helmet
2. ALWAYS play by the rules
3. ALWAYS wear pink when racing

PS - I have been very humble about this race (especially after getting my ass kicked in the Peak) but for the record, there were 142 girls in my age group.

The Boulder Peak

The Boulder Peak was my first olympic distance race in 9 years, and coincidentally the last olympic race I've did. It is also a very competitive big kid race.

The swim went well. I got ahead out the main pack and felt like I swam strong and didn't get off course. So I was bummed when I got out of the water and checked my watch and was at 34:22. I had hoped to break 30 minutes. This week I have had many people confirm that the swim was long, by 200-300 yards (or 4-5 minutes for me). That's racing.

The bike went well. I was 2 minutes faster than 9 years ago.



And the run kinda bombed. I warned this guy not to draft and he didn't for long. He was also like 60, almost as old as DAD. In fact, MANY old people passed me on the run. And I did not pass a single one. A bit demoralizing, actually.



And the blessed finish:



I had a stretch goal of breaking 3 hours but with the long swim and a poor 10k (66 minutes) that didn't happen. 3:08.

Danskin

This is not a triathlon I would have signed up for, but through the Tri Babes I ended up being a mentor and that gave me a free slot. And I don't know if you know this, but triathlons are expensive, like $80/race. And because I like splaving, I raced.

This race is a woman-only event and geared towards newbies. This was most evident in the swim. I was in the 7th wave, and the waves were starting every 3 minutes. By the time I got to the first buoy, the race course looked like a ship wreck. There were hundreds of women bobbing up and down with about 5 different wave cap colors. So, the rest of the swim was spent navigating around the floaters.

The bike course was similar, an out on back on narrow roads. It was hard to get in a groove. And it was hard because I was so excited about my new aero helmet that I forgot my sunglasses:



And I ran better than I did in the 5430 sprint, but still not as well as in May.





I hung around to see results and was VERY surprised to see I placed 4th in the 30-34 age group. However, I think there was something weird going on with the 30-34s, I would have been 14th in 25-29 and 7th in 35-39 AND 40-44. But I'll take it :)

5430 Sprint

Today's triathlon went well, but not quiet as awesome as last month's. By several accounts, the swim was a bit long. I felt like I did pretty well given I was in another big wave and there was a lot of contact. Plus, the timing mat was at the transition area instead of at the edge of the water. So my swim was 2 minutes longer than the Summer Open.

The bike is always my strongest leg. The Summer Open was 3 loops and practically flat. The 5430 has some up and down and real hills. My average speed dropped from 21.4mph to 19.7, and the course was also 5 miles longer.



And the run is where I'm most disappointed. It was hot and I didn't push as hard as I could. My 5k time was over 30 minutes, 2 minutes longer than last month. But I'm nitpicking, overall it was a good race.

Here I am in the middle, post race with the Tri Babes:



Me and my coach, Andie:



And I gave Jeremy the camera and he got 3 pictures. On of me on the run which was NOT flattering, one of the kids playing at the Res, and me post race:

Summer Open Triathlon

Well, I've got the first triathlon under the season under my belt and it went really well. The Summer Open is a sprint with a 750 meter swim, 12 mile bike and 5k run. I was ridiculously nervous about the race all week. Mostly about the water, I heard it was cold and hadn't been in open water since last September. I kept having flashbacks to my first open swim last year, where I got about 100 meters out and hyperventilated and almost didn't even do the workout.

But the swim went remarkably well. It was cold, but not unbearably cold. I stayed very conservative and even though I didn't swim as fast as I can, I had no moments of panic and came out of the water feeling great:



Here's me in the left in the wetsuit running into transition 1. Right before I ran past my bike, twice. I think I confused myself with changing my towel, I was looking for purple and should have been looking for blue:



And coming back on the bike. I rocked on the bike, and most of it has to be the new bike with aerobars. My average speed went up 3 miles per hour from last race. This was also a coed race, and I had fun picking off a lot of guys out on the course:



Starting off on the run. I did a bit better than expected, especially since my last timed run was the Panicking Poultry last year that did NOT go well:



And sprinting for the finish:



Woot!



My final time was 1:22, which was 2 minutes faster than the same course last year (which also was a mis-measured shorter course.) And I also beat 44/164 guys. Or as Jeremy said, I girled them.

September 22, 2008

I think I must have some sort of super power to fit so much into a weekend. The boys had Friday off from school, so Jeremy came home early and we went down to Colorado Springs for his 15 year high school reunion. Yeah, I know 15 years is a weird reunion, but their 10th got screwed up so they planned this one. Friday night, Jer and I went to the Manitou Springs Homecoming football game and YES it was very exciting. Well, they won at least. And afterwards we met up with the other alumni at a bar. Lots of pictures were taken, just not with my camera. I happened to get one taken of me next to George Stultz of 7th Heaven fame, without even asking too. Now, I just have to figure out who's camera that was and find the picture. Hopefully it will surface on Facebook. I mean, George Stultz for gosh sakes.

On Saturday, we went to a picnic (with Alex and Adam) and spent some time in downtown Manitou. We took off after dinner to get home before the boys' bedtime.

And Sunday was my race. It went FABULOUS. First, it was a great size, 200 girls vs the 3000 in August. The swim was much better, though colder and I wore my wetsuit. I took 6 minutes off my 750 meter time with a finish of 13:49. The bike was fine and I ended up doing the same mph as Aug - 18.4. I had a minor incident at the beginning - my chain fell off when I took my bike off the curb and I was so full of adrenaline that it took probably close to a minute to get it back on. The bike was the most crowded course, it was 3 laps around a residential area.

And then the run, I completely surprised myself. I checked my watch after the first mile and was at a 9:45 pace. That was good, I wanted to complete the 5k in under 30 minutes so my total time would be under 1 hour 30 minutes. Then I started to pick it up and somehow finished the 5k in 26:40, which is faster than I've ever run a 5k, under any circumstances. Guess that track business paid off. My total time was 1:24 (vs 1:38 last month), which put my in 50th place out of 222 women, 12 out of 46 in my age group. I'm super proud of myself that all my hard work and training paid off this summer, and I can't wait until next year!

And some pictures - here I am in my TriBabes uniform. The Babes are all about the pink.



And here I am with Coach Andie. On Saturday she competed in the age group nationals race and placed mid-field. As you can see by the hat, there's a reason for the pink.



And here are about half the TriBabes that we could round up for a group picture. On the very left is Coach Angelina who has babysat the boys a few times so I could do my workout.




7:15 Drop off. The boys had just finished breakfast and the kids played dress up in their new Halloween costumes. Alex is Comander Fox from the Clone Wars - which I did not see and have no idea who he is. Adam picked Bobo Fett and Ariel wore the standby Darth Vadar. It was very cute and picture worthy but I was busy packing lunches and eating breakfast and did not take one. Sue me.

7:55 Dropped Alex off at school.

8:05 Breakfast - Ariel had some yogurt.

8:45 Took Ariel to school.

9:30 Enjoyed my kid free time with a nice trip to the dermotogist. Yes, I know how how to live it up.

11:00 Stopped by the grocery store before picking up Adam.

11:30 Adam pick up.

12:20 After lunch, we stopped by Safeway to drop off a prescription. Then we stopped by Starbucks, because we were there. Dorothy was working and Crissy, I told her that Carmel Macchiato was coming for a visit and she said to stop by for a hug.

1:00 Pick up Ariel from preschool. The report today - she had a good day and needed an outfit change due to fun outside water play and not the other kind of liquid accident.

1:15 Picked up my prescription from Safeway.

And this was bugging me, when I blogged on Monday I forgot about this picture, it was left dangling at the end of the post. This is Ariel and Adam at the entrance to Safeway after Adam said, "Ariel, let's hold hands!" I don't get these two, one minute they are trying to kill each other and the next they are happily playing.



1:35 Home and down for a nap.

4:30 Pick up.

August 4, 2008

Well, hello there and welcome back. It was quite a long and busy month without Ariel, I'll try to sum it up for you.

First, we did the 4th of July with Grammie in Colorado Springs. Adam stayed up for his first firework show.





On July 8th, we traveled to Maryland to visit Crissy and family. We had a very relaxing time. We spent a lot of time at the pool and a lot of time just hanging out. Our only kid adventure was going into Baltimore to the National Aquarium, and one night we hired a sitter and Crissy took me out for crabs. Pictures are here (and if you've already looked, I just added some more with my new underwater camera).

We stayed in MD for 10 days. The week after we got back, the boys went back to Grammie's house for a week of art camp. They were both pretty skeptical but of course ended up enjoying it. And I enjoyed my week off. I worked on my "real" job stuff, I did a few photoshoots and updated my website.

The next week (or last week, depending on how you look at it) the boys and I did a lot of swimming and a trip to the museum. I took them to see Beavers at the IMAX theater earlier in the month and they wanted to go back to see Greece (and no, not the movie with John Travolta). We also spent an obscene amount of time at bird dioramas. Alex has turned into quite the bird nerd this summer. Well, we all have and it's quite fun. We've done several bird watching hikes and the kids do much better if they have something to look for. They might not be complete wusses after all. Some of my more exciting bird pictures are here. Oh, and Grammie, we finally got a hummingbird to our feeder. It's a migrating Rufous, but she's been hanging around for a week. We only saw the male one day.

Female:



Male:



And talk about Bird Nerd, right away Alex identified the female because she didn't buzz when she flew, "Mommy, only males flap their wings fast enough to buzz." Oh, of course.

And yesterday, I completed my first triathlon in 8 years. I did the Tri for the Cure at Cherry Creek Reservoir in Denver. And for just picking up the sport again in June, it went pretty well. I did fine on the swim, I was consistent and confident, if not fast. I rocked on the bike (Jeremy's so funny, now that he knows I'm actually decent for a female triathlete he's encouraging me to get aero bars and try his time trial helmet). And then the run... didn't go as well as I hoped. First, it was hot by the time I started and the run was a hard course. It went up to the Dam road and the whole course was visible at all times. Because of the elevation and because THERE WERE NO TREES. I didn't stay hydrated and ended up walking some. Well, first I just walked the water stations but then I just kept on walking. And, oh yeah, I thought I'd save 10 seconds by not wearing socks and I ended up with some nasty blisters. Anyway, I wouldn't have wanted to do spectacular, now I have some (lots!) room for improvement before my next one September 21st.



And that pretty much sums up the month of July. And now, onto today's exciting installment of Adventures with Ariel.

7:15 Drop off one Ariel. All cousins were excited to see each other again. At least for the first 1/2 hour.

7:45 Small breakfast of oatmeal.

8:15 Ariel demanded pink toes, I gave pink toes. Then Adam asked for blue toes and got those.

9:00 Left for our Adventure of the Day - swimming at Boulder Res with Ellen and family.







Much fun was had by all. Alex and Adam did a little swimming, Ariel waded in up to her waist. But they spent the most time playing in the sand. One popular game was sliding down the hill on their bottoms, which put sand in places I didn't even want to think about.

11:00 For lunch, Ariel actually ate half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some pretzels.

12:00 The Res closed to due lightning, but it was time to get going anyway. All three kids took a shower in the locker room to try and remove some of the aforementioned sand.

12:30 Got home, threw kids into the bath. I decided some soap was also needed. Plus, my own kids have had about 5 baths this entire summer and I'd been meaning to get around to it for a week or so (c'mon, doesn't swimming count as cleansing?).

1:00 Lunch Part II - Ariel finished her oatmeal, had a string cheese and a bowl of spaghetti o's. Who is this child that eats?

2:15 Super fun trip to the grocery store. SUPER fun.

3:15 Got home and unpacked the groceries. The kids were out of my hair until I mentioned that I was baking zucchini cookies and then all three wanted to be in the kitchen on chairs "helping." Oh, and back to zucchini, my small garden is doing pretty well, inspiring me to plant more next year. We have mint and basil, tons of cherry tomatoes and zucchini. The big tomatoes are just starting to ripen and the carrot tops look good.

3:45 Gave up on cookies and talked to Crissy on the phone.

4:25 Ariel pick up. No, she did not have a nap. And yes, she was fine until Mommy walked in the door. Oy.