Holy Stressball Day

I did not sleep well Wednesday night. I fell asleep around 11:00 and woke up at 2:30 and could not go back to sleep. I eventually decided to get up at 4:15 and did my swim workout at the rec center at 5:45 when the pool opened (after a quick stop at Kings to pick up some Advil PM for future reference). My 1600 yard workout only took half an hour, then I was home by 6:30. I sent the boys to school for 2 hours so I could get in my 30 minute bike ride and shower in peace.

I picked the boys up at 10:00 and we headed over to temple for services with my Dad. We ducked out a bit early to be home by noon, then I did my last minute packing. I got on the shuttle bus to the airport at 12:55 and got on my 3:05 flight without a hitch.

My grandmother picked me up at the airport in Madison. I've debated putting in this next bit for the sake of family harmony, but it did happen and I'm over it. On the way home from the airport, my grandmother asked what I thought about my sisters' crazy plan to run a half marathon in Chicago the morning of my race. This was news to me - no one in my family had breathed a word of it. And while I thought it was pretty crappy of my sisters to tell me they were coming to my race and then duck out for half of it and not even tell me, the part that made me livid was that they expected my dad to drive to Milwaukee Saturday afternoon to pick up Ariel at the airport, for whom we would be responsible for until my sisters arrived Sunday afternoon. I made it known to everyone - especially my dad - that there was no way in heck Jeremy would be in charge of 3 kids while supporting me at my race. My dad had his own plans of riding out to the bike course during the race, and how could he do that with a 4 year old? And my grandmother couldn't watch Ariel, she cannot hear the frequency that kids talk at. After a bit of going around we worked out a babysitter for Ariel in Madison until my sisters could come and take responsibility. And in the interest of family harmony, as soon as we had a solution I was over it (and was probably more upset then I would normally be because I so much nervous energy and no where to put it) but in the future, I appreciate being told the truth.

See ya on the flip side

Well kids, this is it. I leave for Madison tomorrow, but as I need to get in a quick swim and bike in the morning, followed by Rosh Hashana services before the airport, this is my last check in.

First, I'd like to reminisces a bit about the last year. I want to give Alison a big thank you for sending me on this journey, no matter what happens at the race, I'm glad I had this year. Al's been an awesome training partner as well and it's going to be great doing this race with her. This year, I think I remained sane (for the most part) and focused and yet pushed myself to new levels. In the fall I was able to improve my running a little (always room for more improvement!) and set new 5k and 10k PRs. During the winter I was enjoy snowboarding with my family while still training. I got hooked on a new sport - riding at the velodrome - and I'm excited to start riding there again this fall. I had a super fun half marathon road trip with my sisters - I'd love to do another trip next year. This summer I finished a very challenging half Ironman and set more PRs in other triathlon distances. I did 5 training rides over 5 1/2 hours, including two century rides. On top of that, I kept my shit together - the house was mostly sanitary and stocked full of food, with a decent dinner most nights.

The year in numbers:

Swim: 196 miles
Bike: 2517 miles (not including the hours at the track)
Run: 861 miles

I would never have accomplished what I did this year without the awesome support from my family and friends. Especially Jeremy, who never did think this was a great idea from the start, but nonetheless has supported me 100% this summer, whether not minding spending an entire Saturday with the boys, or riding 100 miles with me (which is now 2 hours longer than his preferred biking distance).

I saw this on another blog awhile back and thought it was a neat idea. It really helps me to know people are thinking of me on race day (got me through those last 3 miles at Boise without walking). I'm going to print this list out and carry it with me on the run (don't worry, I have to wear my over-pocketed shorts to carry my gels anyway). Everyone gets a mile dedicated to them (somewhat in order of importance, but don't read TOO much into it ;) ).

1. Christina
2. Ginny
3. Abby
4. Sarah A.
5. Ellen
6. Dan
7. Michelle
8. D3 girlz - Courtney, Kathy, Sally, Leena, Erica
9. D3 boyz - Jay, John, Jon, Andy
10. Amanda
11. Liz
12. Al
13. Mike
14. Crissy
15. Grannie Shirley
16. Devon
17. Sarah T.
18. Greg
19. Judy
20. Mom
21. Laura
22. Becky
23. Dad
24. Adam
25. Alex
26. Jeremy

So if you want to check in with me on race day, I think this is the link. And if that doesn't work, http://www.ironman.com should have a link to the right place. So how do you know how I'm doing? I'm going into this race with only the goal of finishing under the cut off time of 17 hours. But I also have a general idea of how I could race if the stars are aligned and I have the perfect day.

Swim: 1:15 - 1:30
Bike: 6:15 - 6:45
Run: 5:00 - 6:00

Both transitions together should be about 20 minutes (I'm doing a wardrobe change, plus you have to run up a couple stories of a parking structure helix). So I should be finished anywhere from 13-17 hours. The race starts at 7:00 am CDT. So for folks back in Colorado, I should be finishing between 7:00-11:00pm MDT.

Tomorrow I fly to Madison, while my intrepid husband, father and sons start the drive (with my bike). My awesome sisters fly in on Saturday and we will all stay at my Grannie Shirley's house. I'll have a great support team on site, which means more to me than they know.

Wish me luck, I'll see you on the flip side.

Turkey Toe Weekend

I haven't had much time to take mini vacations this summer, so the opportunity to go to Westcliffe the week before my race (and during taper) was perfect. We had a couple cool days in Boulder last week and I was expecting Turkey Toe to be cold (it's at 8,000 ft) but we had a clear warm weekend:



On Saturday, Jeremy and I rode from Mackenzie Junction (below) to Bishop's castle:



That road happened to be part of the Bike with Pike Century ride. Initially, we were worried about riding on the same road as an organized ride, but apparently when you have an organized ride through the Wet Mountains, you still have fewer riders than any given road on any given weekday in Boulder. But because of the ride, we got some road signs and support vehicles looking after us, which was nice since cyclists are more rare down south:



The ride to Bishop's castle was surprisingly difficult. The road starts up a 4 mile hill, then there are 2 more 2 mile climbs and then you turn around and do it again. So we were climbing for 10-25 minutes and had a 3-5 minute break on the descents. I'm really hoping the Wisconsin hills are shorter than that, I only averaged 13 mph for the whole ride.

And the end of the ride - crazy Bishop's Castle (hand made by Jim Castle over the last 40 years or so - this website gives the warning, "Bishop's Castle may look like Hogwarts, but Jim Bishop is no cuddly Dumbledore. He's a tough-talking man with strong, extreme beliefs, and sometimes he expresses them bluntly and loudly. If you or your children want to avoid potentially offensive rants (involving politics and race), you may want to steer clear."):



I had a 20 minute run after our ride and when I trotted past the century ride's aid station in my bike kit, I got some funny looks.

I took Sunday off, while Jeremy, Sarah and Devon had adventures climbing Horn Peak. I did that hike about 11 years ago and it's pretty challenging. I was happy to loaf around the ranch.

Sunday night we had a big fire. Everyone had turns with the cattails soaked in diesel (this picture does make it look more dramatic than it really was):



And then we lit firecrackers (the firecrackers were way more cool than the picture makes them look):



On Monday I had a short run which Sarah joined me on. I don't know if it was the altitude or the screaming winds, but it was not an easy 40 minutes.

We came home Monday night to the Four Mile Canyon fire raging in the mountains above Boulder:



And here's a time lapse video from the top of Flagstaff last night:



The fire is about 7 miles from our house and we are not in any danger, but thousands of Boulderites have been evacuated. The air quality is really bad, so I will have to do my hour bike ride inside today.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 9400 yards
Bike: 75.3 miles
Run: 17.1 miles

Total: 11:30

Where *is* my taper?

Yesterday, I rode 38 miles. Today I ran for 90 minutes (8.7 miles) and then swam a master's class for an hour. It sure doesn't feel like a taper! But even though my volume is still a bit high, it feels fine. The 90 minute run (at a 10:23 pace) still came out with an average heart rate of 147 (my zone 1) and everything felt fine. I did have an adventure where I really needed a bathroom around mile 5 in a non-squatting-behind-a-tree-way and planned on using the East Boulder Rec center. Which was sadly closed for their yearly cleaning. Making it home without crapping myself was quite the achievement, I'm very happy there will be port-a-potties every mile in the race.

I got my first full body massage of the season this afternoon and am feeling very relaxed. On the plan for tomorrow - a 4800 yard swim. Speaking of swimming, I always count my yards during masters and log them in training peaks. So that way I know in the last year, I have swam 192 miles! Doesn't that seem like a lot??? Especially since I've only run 850.

And etcetera

I've always maintained that the most difficult part of the Ironman is not the hours of training, but rather signing up a year in advance, in essence saying, "Yes, in one year from today I will be healthy, fit and ready." A lot can happen in a year. A lot can happen in two weeks.

On Sunday Alex started complaining of a stomach ache. He wasn't having any other stomach bug symptoms and the pain started to get worse. Eventually I decided to take him to urgent care to rule out appendicitis. After numerous test including a strep culture (because apparently sometimes strep presents as a stomach ache in kids) and a blood draw, we were sent home with the diagnosis of "tummy bug." But a day later we got a call back that while the instant strep culture came back negative, the 24 hour one was positive. Alex missed 2 days of school but after a day on the antibiotic was feeling back to normal. So now my main goal is to also not get strep. In fact, as a precaution I got a strep test myself yesterday, though the doctor rolled her eyes and assured me that since I wasn't actually sick and my throat looked fine, I was probably good.

So with 11 days left, things are looking good. I did my training. I have a race plan. I appear to be healthy and uninjured. I need to stop worrying about the weather, that is out of my control. I have three more training days left that have volume in the 90 minutes to 2 1/2 hour range and then it's easy taper time.

That '70's Party

So what do you do when you buy your dream house in your dream neighborhood, only it's a bit outdated? If you are my sister-in-law Sarah and her husband Devon, you throw a groovy '70's housewarming party:



Oh yes, I was groovy:



And oh yes, Jeremy was groovy too. I can't tell you how many people asked, "How did you get him to wear that???" I think after 11 years of marriage, he's just worn down:



Groovy kids:



Alex rocking the aviators:



Almost as good as his dad:



Even Kyle grew some mutton chops and a mustache for the party. But Devon's wig was the best:

Last long ride

I'm starting to get to home stretch here in my training. I just did a fairly intensive month of training, now my volume will taper down again to give me time to recover for the race. Today was the last long ride - 5 1/2 hours on the schedule. I rode again with Al and Dan. Al chose to do part of the route Jeremy and I did a month ago - up St. Vrain Canyon, Peak to Peak highway to Ward and down Lefthand Canyon (Jeremy and I added the out and back to Nederland to make it an even 100). I rode a bit more aggressively at the beginning of the ride and that turned out fine.

Our first pit stop was at the park in Hygiene:



We had a brief water bottle refill in Lyons before the climb up to Raymond. On the climb I tried to keep my power at 140 again and that felt fine. Al and I rode together and chatted the whole way.

And you know, everyone does love Raymond.



Raymond has a weird little general store that sells snickers bars and water. We ended up waiting almost 20 minutes for Dan. Good thing he had a flat or we would really had to have said something. He's a good guy though, we always ride faster than him but he doesn't get all weird about it like some guys do. I can't tell you how many times I pass a guy that I've been gaining on for a mile, only to have him sprint by a minute later.



Next, the 12 mile, 1,500 ft climb on the Peak to Peak to Ward. Ward was strangely normal, or as normal as it gets. If you sit on the porch of the general store (which also sells snickers bars and water but only if you have cash) this is your view:



We had a brisk headwind going down Lefthand Canyon and I had to peddle the whole way. We took 63rd home again to get some more practice on the rollers, then I headed home while Al went out to round up to 80 miles. Since I rode from my house, I ended up at 84 and just a tad over 5:30. I used the same amount as energy as I did on our 100 mile ride 2 weeks ago so if we hadn't done 5,000 ft of climbing I think I would have done 100 again today. Al and I had plenty of time to talk today and we decided that after climbing for 3 straight hours at 7,000 ft, any one mile hill Wisconsin throws at us is going to be a piece of cake.

After the ride, I did a 4 mile run. My legs felt fine (and I averaged a 10:30 pace easily) but my gut was a little off. It was another hot day and even though I lucked out with some cloud cover for the run, it was still 90 degrees. This is one area for the race that is worrying me - my stomach seems more unhappier the hotter it gets.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 9024 yards
Bike: 107.94 miles
Run: 22 miles
Walk: 7 miles

Total: 16:51

Last long run

After trashing my legs at the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half marathon, I didn't really run for 9 days. I did that very short brick run a week later and I walked 10.5 miles, but really no running. On Tuesday I did the D3 track workout. We did 5 x 800 (I hit between 3:40 and 3:50) and a 400 in 1:38. My Newtons felt most excellent on the track and I didn't have any calf soreness. The workout was better than I had expected for going so long with no running.

Today was my last long run day. I had a 12 mile run that wasn't all slow - 2 x 25 minutes in zone 2, 2 x 12 minutes in zone 3 and a 5 minutes in zone 4. The first 50 minutes (20 minute warm up and first zone 2) went very well. I wore the Newtons and kept a sub 10 minute pace and felt great. Then I went home and changed to my old shoes and headed out for the rest of the workout. My old shoes felt *very* weird after just running in the Newtons. And the rest of my run didn't go well. I probably went out a little hard in the first hour and in the second hour I was hitting my target heart rates but my pace was much slower. I wish I could have worn the Newtons the whole time, but I was starting to feel my calves when I switched so I'm sure it would have been a bad idea. I'll not be wearing them for the Ironman, either.

I came home and had a recovery shake and some lunch and 90 minutes later headed out again for a 2 hour hike. My legs felt fine for this, but my feet were a bit tender and blistered by the end. I hit nearly 20 miles in about 4:10.

Guess which day was more exhausting?

The only thing on my schedule today was a 2 hour hike. I was pretty tired from yesterday so I didn't set my alarm early or anything to get this done before Jeremy went on his own bike ride. So I rallied the kids to walk with me. I was going to hike up into the hills and do a real hike but Adam wanted to go to Pearl Street. It was hard enough to get them pumped to walk anywhere, so we did Adam's idea. We made it a bit over 2 miles (in nearly an hour) before we made a pit stop at Starbucks. And we did make it to Pearl Street (in about 1:07) but I quickly saw that there was no way we would be able to walk back home. Jeremy was back at that point, so he came down and joined us for lunch, then we went to Gateway Park to play miniature golf.

I see now why I haven't done this with the kids before. As you may know, I'm kinda anal. And if you are playing golf of any sort, there should be rules and turns and general etiquette. The kids were playing like it was a hockey match, I gave up keeping score on the first hole. I think they had fun, I did not. But I tried.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 12828 yards (7.3 miles!)
Bike: 138.4 miles
Run: 1.8 miles
Walk: 10.5 miles

Total: 16:30

Swim/Bike Day

I supposed the good news is, today I swam 2.4 miles and I was fine. The bad news was, the race I signed up for was only supposed to be 2 miles long. Boulder Aquatic Masters puts on 3 Bare Bones swim races over the summer, I joined them for the last one. It's a casual, not chip timed swim where I saw not only half the triathlon community but people like Olympian Matty Reed. Yes, Boulder Casual.

I was anticipating the swim to take me 1 hour to 1:10, as most my 1500 meter swim times this year have been slightly under 30 minutes. It was a 2 lap course and we didn't get out of the water so I didn't look at my watch in between laps. Being a mile course with only 9 buoys, it was pretty spread out. And the swim groups spread out quickly so that while I could feel someone on my feet, there was no one in front of me. The first lap, I wasn't sure where I was going half the time. So when I got out of the water and saw 1:25 on my watch, I was confused. Did I accidentally hit the lap button and it really said 1 minute 25 seconds? How could I possibly swim 2 miles in that long a time? But after much discussion with other swimmers, it was acknowledged that the course was a bit longer than 2 miles. Jay had swam the Horsetooth 2.4 mile swim the week before in 1:14, today he swam 1:17. So in fact, the course may have even have been 2.5 miles.

My goal time for the Ironman is between 1:15 and 1:25. I think I'll swim faster when I'm clumped around a bunch of swimmers - it's easier to pace and draft when there are people around you. But if it's so crowded I can't get a clean stroke in, I may be a bit slower. At any rate, the distance is not a problem, the extra 2300 people doing the course will be the challenge.

After the swim, a group of us set out on a ride. We initially started with a group of 6, and biked to hwy 52 and I-25. At that point 3 peeled off for a measly 2 hour ride while Al, Jay and I continued east. Jay only wanted to go as far as I-76 so Al and I continued on another 10 miles by ourselves. We turned around at 45 miles, which was exactly in the middle on nowhere:



Other points of interest:

- Somewhere around mile 30 while riding about 20 mph, Al was riding behind me and tagged my back wheel with her front. As usually happens, I stayed up while she went down. Miraculously, she just had some scrapes on her shoulder and a bruise on her knee. Her bike was fine, she was fine. And she still rode 70 more miles.

- I think I drank too much Mexican Coke the second time at I-25. I like having a soda near the end of the ride and I really like finding ones that have sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. And while it tasted good, I had a gut ache on the short run I attempted later.

- It was hot today. Somewhere around 90 and I was drinking way more than I usually did but was not having to pee. There's also not a lot of shade in Eastern Colorado.

- I did not have a lot of pep on this ride. I was fine on the way out, but the way back was more uphill and sometimes into the wind and while my legs were not sore, they had no go.

Plantar fasciitis

For the last few weeks (and prior to the Newtons), I've been noticing my heels in the morning. They aren't particularly sore - I'd probably say tight - and it doesn't feel like I've stepped on a nail. I brought it up with my chiropractor today and he thinks it's the very beginning stages of Plantar fascitis. We are speculating that my increased cycling is making my calves tighter, which in turn is pulling on my heels. But it can also be related to pronating, which I do, though I hope my orthodics are correcting the problem. I've known several people who have developed this and it wasn't something that was ever on my list of things to go through. Luckily, this is just the very early stages and my chiropractor thinks we can nip this in the bud. I need to do more calf stretching and massage and a couple foot strengthening exercises.

First Day of School

I don't know where the summer went, but the first day of school was still a glorious occasion. Adam is finally in full day school, so the kids are gone nearly 7 hours. I cleaned up my house, swam, did an unpleasant and expensive task from my to-do list, all in peaceful bliss. Now, if I wasn't expected to be gainfully employees this year, it would be heaven.

Another day, another Century

I sincerely hope this was the hardest weekend of my training program. When I woke up this morning after yesterday's shenanigans, I was still very stiff and sore. But no matter, I had a 6 hour ride on my program and so that's what I did.

Jeremy and I rode with Al and Dan to Masonville, pretty much the Buffalo Bicycle Classic ride. Only, when we got to Masonville, no one wanted to ride up the hill to Horsetooth Reservoir, so we turned around.

Here I am riding up the dam to Carter Lake. It doesn't seem that long ago that Carter Lake was a perfectly reasonable long ride on its own. From my house, it's a bit shy of 75 miles. Today, it was just a pit stop:



And the highlight of the ride, noxious weed eating goats on East Campus in Boulder:



We got back to Boulder and I was 8 miles short of a century. I convinced Jeremy to ride a little longer with me. We ran out of ideas that didn't involve going up hills and Jeremy bailed with 5 miles to go. Me, I rode a big loop around my subdivision. It's a lot easier to hit 100 miles from 92 than it is from 0.

So for how sore my legs were, this ride was went ok. I didn't have any pep on the hills, but I was practicing keeping my power from spiking anyway. I felt consistent the whole day and it could have been much worse. I topped the day off with a 35 minute run after the ride, that probably could have been skipped. And lemme tell you, I was 10 times more sore at the end of the day. When walking around in the afternoon, my legs would periodically give out. I couldn't bend my knees at all.

And I forgot to do weekly totals from 2 weeks ago:

Swim: 10644 yards
Bike: 169 miles
Run: 11.7 miles

Total: 17:25

And the totals from this week:

Swim: 9600 yards
Bike: 138 miles
Run: 25 miles
Walk: 7.5 miles

Total: 17:56

Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon

I added this race in a couple weeks ago to add excitement to a long run training day. Since it was net 1,000 ft downhill, I thought it would be fairly fast and easy. It was neither. Here's the elevation profile from my Garmin. The race started at 8500 ft in Georgetown and ended at in 7600 ft Idaho Springs:



But you see all those bumps along the way? Those were some decent hills. I hardly ever noticed the down, but I sure felt the up. My Garmin (which I don't think is so accurate on this front) had the total ascent at 2029 ft and the decent at 2929 ft. While I'm not sure of the numbers, I think the ratio is about right.

But backtracking a bit... This race was a chance for team Bee Rad to run together again. My sisters have been off running half marathons this summer while I've been doing my tris. My tri friend Liz also joined us. The start of the race was very similar to Canyonlands. We had to park in Idaho Springs and take a school bus to Georgetown. Thankfully it was not nearly as cold, though there were similar problems of lack of sufficient port-a-potties. The frontage road we started on was fairly narrow and there was a lot of bottle-necking as 3,000 runners and walkers tried to go at once. I was at least 2 minutes back from the start line. Between the port-a-potties and the mass start, I lost sight of Laura and she ended up starting in front of me. I saw her at about mile 2 and thought I'd catch up with her but at some point she took off and I never saw her again.

My first 8 miles went really well. I tried to stay in my zone 2 heart rate and everything felt great. I raced in my old running shoes and not the Newtons. But somewhere after mile 8 my legs started getting sore. The road was very canted, usually lower on the right side, for water drainage and I started feeling that in my right quad. I also went out a tad bit faster than I should have and when I got to the last 3 miles, I didn't have much kick. Dad met us at the finish line:



My watch time was 2:02:00. I was hoping to go under 2 hours but it was not to be. I was at least 90 seconds faster than Canyonlands, a race I trained and tapered for.

Team Bee Rad had a fine finish:



In the afternoon after lunch, an ice bath and later a warm shower, I did a 2 hour hike. Cross training will start showing up more on my training program as a way to get me used to being on my feet all day without the added stress of more running. I thought I was walking at a fairly brisk pace, but my 10k time was on par with Alex's Bolder Boulder time. My legs felt stiff after the run, but it wasn't until I took my shoes off that I felt how sore my feet were. Between the race and the hike, I did over 20 miles today.

Aquarium Day

Pretty much every day this summer, my kids woke up asking what adventures I had planned for the day. And to be honest, I rarely had an adventure in mind. I hope they'll look back on this summer fondly, remembering they spent nearly every day at the pool. But compared to previous years, it's been quiet. With that in mind, when they asked for adventures this week, I told them we could go to the aquarium on Thursday, my rest day. It's a frequent request from them, and seemed easier than something like Eliches or the zoo.

I didn't want to go until after lunch so they spent the morning with Ariel watching The Secret of NIMH (that's the latest in our books made into movies quest). I think they enjoyed the movie, though they were a bit confused on why so much of it was different than the book. And speaking of movies, they watched The Dark Crystal yesterday. That was one of my favorite movies as a kid but holy cow did it look dated.

After lunch, we drove down to the aquarium. It was a pretty typical visit. Ariel is still terrified of the flash flood cave. Not only did I have to carry her through that section, but she whimpered the rest of the trip about having to go through again, despite my reassurances that it was a one time thing.

The tiger was out and about:



I've always wondered why he doesn't eat the fish in his lagoon:



And the aquarium has added another attraction - a mermaid show! We missed the underwater show in the tank, but got to do the meet and greet after wards. Ariel greeted with, "Hi, my name is Ariel, that's a mermaid too!"



And outside the aquarium there was a bouncy tent that was actually free. We did that until each kid cried in different bumping accidents. Then we caught the end of a street show performance. Adam and Ariel stuck around at the end and learned how to juggle a Chinese yo-yo (B, notice he is wearing 26.2 socks):



Adam wanted Dairy Queen at the end but I talked them down to much cheaper drumsticks at Target (where we also unsuccessfully looked for a last minute birthday present). Judging by Ariel's general crankiness at pick up time, we had a successful adventure today.

Boulder Sunrise Century ride

Today was one of my longest training days before the race. It was supposed to be even longer, but I cut the swim out. I had planned to swim at 6:00am before the ride and set the alarm for 5:00. Luckily before I left, I thought I might want to double check when my gym actually opens on a Saturday, and it turned out not until 7:00. A quick scan of all the Boulder pools showed that 7:00 is the earliest. So out of deference to my sweet husband and riding partner (who needed to go into work at 3... on a Saturday??? a whole 'nother can of worms...) I skipped the hour long swim.

Since the forecast was calling for a high of 95, we decided to do a ride up on the Peak to Peak highway. I remembered seeing a flier for the Boulder Sunrise Century and since 100 miles was my goal today, we did that. Obviously, we started from out house, but here is the gist - Hygiene to Lyons up St. Vrain to the Peak to Peak to Nederland, back to Ward and down Lefthand.



7,000 lovely feet of climbing:



A difficult century (having only done E-Rock and the Triple, I can say subjectively yes, it is somewhere in the middle):



The climb up St. Vrain was longer than I remembered. I used my power tap today (instead of last week when I just rode how I felt like riding). I tried to keep my climbing power at 140 watts, which was much easier to do at the beginning of the ride, than at the end. My 140 corresponds to Jeremy's 230, which makes me feel better about my numbers - it's hard being a small girl and talking power with the big boys.

At the bottom of the canyon, a girl came flying by without saying anything. We kept at our constant pace and a couple miles from the top of the canyon, we passed her. Apparently she had a bit of a competitive streak, because she had to repass us. As we were getting close to Raymond, we saw that we were gaining on her, keeping at our 140 watt pace. At one point she looked back at us and saw we were there and sprinted! It made my day!!! Anyway, the point of this story is that the 140 watts was a good effort for me and I think it helped me stay consistent today.

I forgot how much of a climb it is on the Peak to Peak to Ward, and we went down to town to get more water and snacks. Then we had to climb that little nasty hill back to the Peak to Peak and headed to Nederland. On the second down hill, I ran over a giant roofing nail and got a flat tire. Jeremy was ahead of me and didn't hear me yell, so he went on without me. Luckily I am a modern woman and fixed my own flat, in under 10 minutes. But I am a weak modern woman and could only get about 20 lbs of air in my tire with my frame pump. Jeremy did eventually stop when he realized that I wasn't back there and a woman who went by me carried the message that I was stopped. We rejoined and got to Nederland, where we found a floor pump to get my tire back up to happy pressure.

The climb back up to Ward was probably the toughest part of the ride, we were at about 65 miles and feeling it. Lefthand Canyon was a great relief. There wasn't too much of a headwind up the canyon and we kept up a good pace. Jeremy made me go in front in case I fell into trouble again and there was a car that wouldn't pass him, and by the time we got to the fork for Jamestown we had a whole line of cars behind us. Oh, and I ran over a mouse. I didn't want to hit the guy, but I have learned from experience that it's never a good idea to swerve while going 25 mph.

Our total riding time was 6:58 but I think we were out from 6:30-2:30 (the tired changing and subsequent hunt for a floor pump took more rest time than we had anticipated). Back in 90 deg Boulder, I cranked out a 50 minute run. My legs felt surprisingly ok (and I wore the Newtons) but my stomach started complaining after about 30 minutes. I was drank 6 Infinit water bottles on the bike and took 20 oz on the run. I may need to experiment with just gatorade on the run.

All in all, I was out 9 hours today. I'm ok with missing the swim.

Hummingbirds!

This is our 3rd summer having hummingbird feeders. The first year we got several female Rufous hummingbirds that stayed through July and August. Last year we didn't get much action at all, though those Rufous' came through. This year was very slow until about 2 weeks ago, when some Broad-Tailed males found the feeder. We now have them, plus some Broad-Tailed females and the Rufous females. All the birds are very territorial and aggressive and they are constantly fighting over the feeder. When males fly, their wings make a buzzing noise that almost sounds like a giant insect and when they fight they chirp at each other and it sounds like little machine guns. Personally, I think I have enough sugar water for everyone, but we are enjoying the action in our backyard.

Male Broad-Tail



Female Broad-Tail



Female Rufous:

Newtons

This Spring, I read Born to Run. It's a really interesting book about ultra running and evolution. One of the author's main findings was that the modern running shoe - circa 1970's - has not only slowed down the average runner, but is *causing* most of the running injuries. The running shoe has a cushy heel which makes it easy to heel strike, a movement humans would never make barefooted and one our skeleton is not designed to do. The solution is to run either barefoot, or in shoes that allow the same movement as barefoot running.

I thought I had come up with a good compromise by working on my running form but keeping my shoes. Then I went into Newton last weekend and found out otherwise. The average running shoe has a 12-15% slope from midsole to heel. Even though I was concentrating on keeping my feet under my body and not heel striking, my shoes made that impossible. Either I would heel strike (because of the raised heel) or overstride (the Newton's employee's opinion on why my quads hurt so much in Boise).

Newton shoes have a 2% slope, wearing them feels like the midsole is actually higher than the heel even though it's not. There are also squishy lugs on the midsole, which make it feel like there is a hump in the middle of the shoe.

Newton let me take a pair of shoes outside for a mile run and I really liked how they felt. If you remember from my shoe saga earlier this year, I have been unable to find different shoes that don't hurt my feet. That first mile in Newtons felt great, no foot pain or anything else pain. They showed me how to refine my form - lean and just lift foot. Don't throw your foot out in front of you, don't try and push off the ground. Just lean and lift.

Against Newton's recommendations (they suggest that when you switch over, stop wearing your old shoes and only wear Newtons for a mile at a time for the first week, then gradually increase distance over several weeks), I decided to wear them for last week's Stroke & Stride. I figured that I would just run easy in them and those extra 2 miles wouldn't matter. And in fact, I did take the first mile really easy, about a 9:15 pace. And then Liz ran by and I stayed with her a bit. My next mile was 8:30 and that felt so well that I pushed it a little on the last mile to finish in 26:20 (though I have always believed that course is short, probably only 3.05 miles). Either way, it was a full minute faster than when I did SnS two weeks ago and I felt way less beat up.

That went so well that I wore them for my long brick workout on Saturday in Summit County - about 3.5 miles at an easy pace with a minute of walking. My legs tolerated that well, so I took them out on a two hour run. And this is where I messed up. I even brought my other pair of shoes with me, thinking I could run 30 minutes, then come back and change. But at 30 minutes everything still felt good so I went out another 30. That meant when I turned around at 60 and my legs started hurting, I still had an hour to run. That last hour was not fun. My calves were very stiff and I was very worried about injuring myself. I was gimpy all day and took ice baths that night and the next to help with recovery. It's Thursday now and my calves are still a little sore, but everything else feels fine and not injured. I don't believe it's the design of the shoe, but rather my legs are not used to using those muscles while running so they are unconditioned.

For my group run on Tuesday I went back to my old shoes. The run was not spectacular but it didn't hurt either. I just got back from an easy 2 mile run in the Newtons. They still felt great but what I really notice is that I'm much more efficient in them. When I did these same two miles 10 days ago, my average heart rate was 146 bmp. Today it was 130.

So now I have the conundrum of how to switch over to the Newtons without injuring myself under my Ironman deadline. I think they are fine for 30 minutes, but not over at this point. I will probably not wear them for the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon next weekend. I may have to bring two pairs of shoes for longer training runs and switch out halfway through. But my review so far is that I like these shoes, I only wish I had tried them earlier.

Summit County Run

Everyone but Jeremy and I went home Saturday. Jeremy didn't want to ride again Sunday and I had a two hour run. Because the Courage Classic was riding from Copper Mountain to Breckenridge on the bike trail, I needed to find a new spot to run. Jeremy suggested Tiger Run road and it was pretty good. The way out was all up hill, but not up the side of a mountain. The way back was a great downhill and I would have really enjoyed it if I had not made the bonehead decision to wear new shoes for this adventure (post forthcoming). My calves got very sore from the new shoes, but I was able to run at a lower heart rate than ever before, averaging 130 bpm. Of course, I was also averaging 12:00 minute miles with walk breaks but it was at 9600 ft.

The way back to town with views of the Tenmile Range (that's Ten Mile, not tenmilé, as I first thought when I saw it as one word. What? There's a lot of Spanish named peaks around here):



Totals for the week:

Swim: 8585 yards
Bike: 118 miles
Run: 21.75 miles

Total: 14:45

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.