Ice, Ice, Baby!

Saturday was my last long brick workout before the race.  The schedule had us riding 40 miles and then running 16.  A bunch of veteran IM T3 folks volunteered to come down to Circle C where we were doing all this training and set up water/food stops for us with all the nutrition that would be available on the course on race day.  It totally rocked! 

We started the ride at 7:00 sharp, and there was some nice cloud cover to keep the extreme heat away.  I busted out 40 miles in under 2 hours and felt great, slipped on my trusty running shoes, and took off with my friend Meredith at a solid clip.  A mile into it, we saw the first waterstop, and I almost tripped over my own feet when I saw my name chalked on the sidewalk.  "Go, Jennie, you'll soon be an Iron-Woman!"  It is so awesome to train with cowbell-ringing friends.  They flooded us with water, Gatorade, PowerBar gels and fig newtons, and we continued on our run.  I was able to hang with Merciless Meredith until about mile five, when she said, "we're averaging 8-minute miles."  "Um, ok, I need to slow it down then."  Meredith went on her way, and I plugged along.  We were fully exposed to the sun by 11:00, and I was getting hot. 

At the next stop, my friend Jerry grabbed the back of my shirt and poured a cup of ice down it.  It was AWESOME!  He also told me to run holding ice in my hands to keep cool.  Totally worked!  It was 88 degrees for the last 10 miles of my run, but I kept a solid clip.  I hydrated right, never bonked, and finished with a smile and a spark.  And I learned a great lesson:  Ice is gold!  Jerry's done multiple IMs before, and he said it's not always readily available on the course, especially later in the day.  So I'm tasking Jody and whoever else is out there on race day with that one thing:  ICE! 

T-minus one month.  Getting excited, folks!  Thanks for sharing in this with me.

What to Expect

A T3 friend posted this link to a YouTube clip of the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.  It's incredibly motivational and also scared the living daylights out of me.  It's a 10 minute clip, but the beginning is the best part - incredibly exciting, motivational and frightening all at the same time. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLbThAUrxro

Training with the Alamo

180 miles.  17 water bottles.  9 Gatorades.  Countless bananas.  2 shots of Bulleit Bourbon. 

Jody and I rode in the MS150 this weekend with our friends from Team Alamo Drafthouse.  We met Friday afternoon to load bikes, hopped in the van, and made our way first to LaGrange to stake out our camping area for Saturday night. 

Then we traveled on to Houston and had a great team party at one of our rider's homes. 

It was early to bed, as we planned to roll out the next morning at 6:30 for 100 miles.  13,000 people ride in the MS150, each raising at least $400 to help with research and treatment for those living with multiple sclerosis.  It is incredible to be a part of something so huge.  But we hoped to not be right in the middle of that huge something, as you can feel like herded cattle if you're stuck with the masses on the days of the ride.  Our 6:30 roll-out was an effort to get and stay at the front of the pack.  Unfortunately, due to some bad karma on my part, we had to make a bike shop stop Saturday morning before riding, so Jody and I didn't get on the road until closer to 8.  This meant starting behind most of the 13,000 riders.  It was a lesson in patience but also incredibly entertaining.  A lot of people that do this ride don't regularly cycle.  We saw a couple guys in jeans (ouch! - talk about chaffing), a number of women wearing tutus and enormous headpieces, and one of the St. Arnold Brewery riders dressed up as St. Arnold himself, complete with the cone hat and robe.  Here is a pic of the most obnoxious bike shorts of the day:

These folks were clearly having a great time and didn't care one bit about how long it took them to get to LaGrange.  It was a good reminder of what this ride is all about - people taking on a personal challenge in support of a great cause and having fun while doing it.   Unfortunately, the crowds in the middle of the group also created a more dangerous situation than I experienced last year.  Last year, I never saw a crash or a rider down on the pavement.  This year, we were stopped three times on Saturday to clear the roads in order for ambulances to get through.  I saw two people unconscious on stretchers and at least five others down on the road with some serious scrapes and bruises.  I guess this is inevitable when you have that many folks on bikes in one area, but it made me wary.

Jody and I rolled into LaGrange about 1:30 Saturday and were greeted by the awesome Alamo Drafthouse staffers with cold beer, burgers, and a massage therapist ready to dig deep into our tired muscles. 

Tim League, owner of the Alamo Drafthouse, organizes this whole thing, and he does it right!  We relaxed the afternoon away, eating enormous amounts of food, and shooting a little Bourbon in honor of one of sponsors, Bulleit Bourbon.  Nice stuff.

  

Sunday morning we were up early again and, this time, were successful in our efforts to beat the crowds.  Six of us ended up riding the whole morning together, forming pacelines and drafting off of one another to make it home (and off the saddle) as quickly as possible.

Tim, Glenn, Nosh, Jody, Jennie, RF

About halfway through the morning, we latched on to a group of speedy ConoccoPhillips riders, and they pulled us along for 20 miles at over 25 mph.  Trying to keep up with their pace was the hardest I've ever worked on a bike, but it was awesome.  I've spent so much time riding alone while training for the IM, and this reminded me both of how much more fun it is to ride in a group and how it makes me a stronger rider.  We rolled into Austin at 11:15 and toasted with Schlitz, our other beverage sponsor, to a great weekend and some fantastic riding!

(Post-ride lounging at Tim's)



Humbled by the Heat

Blazing heat, brutal humidity.   That is what's in store for me on May 21, and the Galveston 70.3 this weekend was a great precursor to that race. 

I rode down Saturday with my friend Brandi.  She and I have been swimming and doing track workouts together, and she's a great training buddy, always pushing me to my limits.  A side benefit to training with her is that she's a journalist, and I get to hear about news stories on the criminal justice beat before they make the paper.   Meeting new, interesting people like Brandi is, in my opinion, one of the best reasons to do this whole triathlon thing.

Arriving in Galveston, we immediately noticed the horizontal palm trees - full force wind at 22 mph.  By Sunday morning the wind had died down some but was still around 18 mph.  This made for a choppy swim.  I was tossed around but felt good overall and was pleased with a 40-minute 1.2 miles - not a PR, but a solid time for me, especially given the conditions.  The first half of the bike was spent fighting a headwind.  We rode from Moody Gardens south down the seawall, across San Luis pass, and then turned around to head back.  The tailwind back was helpful and certainly improved the overall time.  My bike split was 2:58, again, not a PR but a solid speed at 19 mph.

Then came the "run."  At the start, which for me was right around noon, the sun was blazing overhead.  My stomach hurt, and I felt light-headed.  And I walked.  The course was four loops all within Moody Gardens.  I probably walked almost half of the first lap.  Then I saw a porta-john and used that as an excuse to stop moving altogether, spending at least 3 minutes basically resting in the can.  Emerging, I saw my friend Craig.  He was keeping a good clip, so I decided I'd try to stick with him for a while.  It was just the push I needed to get my head back in the race.  I couldn't keep up with him for more than a mile, but I'm so grateful I saw him.  I was able to continue the race mostly running after that point and finished the half-marathon in about 2:17 with an overall time of 6:00.  Of the three half irons I've done, it was my slowest; however, my fastest was only 4 minutes faster.  I'm nothing if not consistent. 

Despite my time, I'm glad I did this race.  I think it will help tremendously with my prep for IMTX, and there are a number of lessons to be learned.  I thought I hydrated well on the bike, but apparently I could have hydrated a lot more.  I need to practice the bike to run transition.  Given that the second half of the run was 10 minutes faster than the first, it's clear that my problem was more mental than fatigue.  And most important - I've got to get some new bike shorts with better padding and/or a different bike saddle!  Oh, holy mother, was I ever in pain on the second half of that bike ride. 

Click here for a link to a picture of some of our group pre-race on Sunday.  My friends Teresa (5th from the left) and Seth (tall guy in the middle) are both doing IMTX.  We'll all be sporting those blue T3 jerseys on race day, so we'll be easy to find.   

Time for a Trial Run

T-minus 6 weeks to IM Texas.  T3 encourages us to do a training race prior to the big day to make sure that our clothing, gear and nutrition plans are all functional, so this Sunday I'll be racing in Galveston.  It also just happens to be the US Pro 70.3 Championships, so the field of athletes at this race is going to be awesome.  Fortunately, they will start over an hour before I do, so I won't have them swimming on top of me as I make my way through Galveston Bay. 

I've never done an ocean swim before, but apparently the saltwater makes you more bouyant - Yay!  The fear of ocean-dwelling creatures will probably also result in a record swim for me.   I realize the likelihood of sharks in the water is small, but I do remember my cousin getting a nasty jellyfish sting on a Galveston family trip when we were kids.  Was the jellyfish remedy perpetuated by that Friends episode (where Joey pees on Monica's sting) a myth or medical reality?  Let's hope I don't find out on Sunday!

Celebrity Swim

A local race group hosted an open water swim Sunday morning out on Lake Travis - 2.4 miles, the IM distance.  I was excited and nervous to see (1) whether I could do it, and (2) how long it would take.  But those nerves were nothing compared to the nerves I felt upon realizing that the guy in front of me picking up his swim cap from the race coordinator was Lance Armstrong.  Here are just some of the million thoughts I had in the course of the 3 seconds between the time I realized it was him and when he walked away:

That is AWESOME!  I'm going to race against Lance Armstrong.
God, I hope he doesn't lap me.
I wonder if many swimmers dope?
I wonder if he's got any juice in his system right now?
I wonder if he'll win?
WTF is he doing out here?  This is supposed to be a "practice" for amateurs.
Maybe the rumors about him becoming a pro triathlete are true.
Wow, he has a personalized wetsuit.
Wow, he really is short.

Then he walked away and I gathered myself, got my swim cap, and joined my friends at the start.  I took a paparazzi shot with my less-than-advanced iPhone camera:

LA is the second from the left (in the distance, can't you see him?) and with him is professional triathlete James Bonney, whose feet Lance drafted off of the entire race.  They finished the 2.4 miles in about 48 minutes.  Wow.  Lance came in 3rd.

Here I am with my friend Paulina:

Paulina is doing the IM too, as is her husband, Buddy.  We did not beat Lance Armstrong, but we did not get lapped by him either!  I finished my first of two laps in 41 minutes, 7 minutes before Lance finished his second...  I finished the whole thing in 1 hour, 31 minutes, which is 49 minutes ahead of the race-day IM cut-off.  Rock on!  I think I can do this thing!  It was more of a mental challenge than anything else, and there was definitely a period where I was certain that the buoy I was swimming to was being carried further and further away by the wind.  Coming around that final buoy felt incredible though, and I'm excited and confident about the swim on race day.  Bring it!