It's the End of the World as We Know it and a little bit of Chicken Fried

I've had some requests to share some cycling workouts and I thought I'd do it here. I'm calling these "sample workouts" instead of classes because the laws for licencing music for Group Exercise Instructors are complicated and restrictive so consider these my personal indoor biking workouts. Since I'm usually at the YMCA when I indoor cycle, I try to be respectful of language and content so I often use covers (these are also usually more in line with what's allowed legal-use-wise).

I couldn't resist a few political commentaries in song form though I wanted to keep things light and positive for the most part. Like many Americans I'm sad and confused by the outcome of this election. I really love my life here, and am grateful for this country, I think this country has been great all along (not perfect but great) and I am not convinced that the changes on the way are for the better. I don't want to be told "it will be ok" as I've seen enough of the effects of the hate mongering this election has wrought to know that that is just not true for many people. Here's to working out our frustrations in a productive way:

Cycling November 2016 "It's the End of the World as we Know it and a little bit of chicken Fried

1.	Nobody But Me	Michael Buble	2:59	Warm Up Surges
2.	My Way	Calvin Harris	2:53	Warm Up Climb
3.	Still Falling For You	Ellie Goulding	5:41	Climb
4.	It’s the End of the World As We know It	R.E.M.	4:06	Long sprints 1:30 min on 0:30 off
5.	Send Them Off	Bastille	4:58	Long climb
6.	American Idiot	5 seconds of Summer	3:03	Sprints
7.	Move Your Body	Sia	3:37	climb
8.	Pushing	Andy Grammer	3:09	Seated accelerations (push 5-10 rpms harder at "pushing all my life" part)
9.	Waste All My Love	Denjy	3:49	Climb
10.	Fireproof	Coleman Hell	2:50	Hard Tempo
11.	Highway to Hell	AC/DC	3:28	Sprints or  Seated accelerations
12.	Kids	One Republic	3:58	Climb
13.	I Wanna Be Sedated	The Ramones	2:29	Sprints
14.	Warhead	The Presidents Of the United states...	1:54	Hard Tempo
15	Grandpa’s Groove	Parov Stelar	2:20	Climb
16,	Grow Up	Olly Muirs	3:44	Cool down
17.	All we know	Chain Smokers	3:26	Cool Down

18. Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band...to leave on an upbeat note because I still love this country.
Thanks for checking this out.

2016 Triathlon Season Recap

As winter approaches I have been looking to next year's race season and itching to sign up for some things.  Before I do that I want to look back at this past season and see how I could make 2017 even better.  I didn't race a lot but here's a recap.

I started this year with Troika Long Course Tri.  I felt under trained but my diet had been really dialed in.  My little sister's wedding was the next weekend and I had been following a whole thirty style eating plan with no sugar, lots of fruits and veggies, clean protein, and no grains.  I didn't lose any weight but I felt amazing.  For race and training nutrition I had switched to using Generation UCAN.  I don't eat dairy so I added vegan protein powder to the superstarch and UCAN Hydrate for electrolytes.  It worked like a dream for the half iron-distance.  I  rode Watson in our last race together and passed a bunch of fast swimmers.  The run was where I knew I would feel my lack of preparedness and sure enough it was painfully and much slower than I wanted to run.

I also got stopped by a train at mile 7 but the Eric with Nomadz adjusted for it as it didn't affect my age group placing (2nd).  It did however mean I beat David's time and I got to win our good natured rivalry.

Troika was my first ever long course triathlon several years ago.  This was my first time doing it since the course was changed and I really liked it.

Becky's wedding was beautiful the next week but it did mean I stopped my great new  eating habits.  I'm still trying to get back to it.

I also found it a bit harder than I expected to keep my training mojo going.  I found that taking a break to hike or kayak instead of always swimming, biking, or running helped a lot with that.

Getting a new bike also inspired me to ride a lot more.  It is soooo awesome.  Thank you Wade and Julie and Fleet Feet Spokane!  My first race on it was Ironman Calgary 70.3 and you can read all about that in
my previous post if you'd like.

My next race was Plutonium Man, an olympic distance in Richland Washington.  This is what I wrote on Facebook:

First the price: $42.00 for an Olympic. That is pretty hard to beat. No medals and you can choose to buy your shirt separately but they did have post race food and drinks. Plus 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything in it. And my age.

The race now has a single transition which is always nice logistically. It's at the WSU tri cities campus so there is adequate parking and a really nice 3 mile run trail right there.

The swim was long (I swam almost 2400 yds) but it was with the current so I swam my fastest pace ever (1:18/1800 yds, a PR that may never be broken). The water was clear and the start was deep water which is kind of cool.

T1 was Boise-esque (long run up from the water) but without wet suit strippers. The weather wasn't Boise-esque, it was perfect if a little windy with some gusts. I got there early so I had a great spot right next to the only other Argon 18 in the race. He mentioned he was hoping for fastest bike split male and I was secretly hoping to do the same thing on the women's side.

The new bike course is fantastic. Wide shoulders, fairly good pavement, zero (yes zero) traffic, and just enough hills to be interesting. I moved into 1st place a little over half way into the bike, knowing with my lack of run training lately that it would be really tough to hold onto that spot but I would give what I could to keep it.

I managed to get my feet out of my shoes before T2 so that was smooth and quick.

The run isn't as pretty add the old one and is two loops (which I love but others aren't so fond of). They're were for aid stations on the loop though so that meant 8 total in the 10k. Combined with relatively decent temperatures this meant I could push my run fitness (or lack) to its maximum. I expected to be passed by another female at any second. I kept playing over in my head what I would tell Wade (coach)..."I held the lead through the first quarter mile..." then I was finishing my first loop...."I held the lead for the first half of the run"...there were some open stretches but the second part of each loop was slightly down hill for a long section. "I held the lead until the last mile..." with half a mile to go I peeked behind me as I rounded a corner and saw no women in view. It started to sink in that I might win this race. So with legs and lungs burning I started to tell myself "it's just one fast 400 like in Swifts practice." "I can hold this!"

One thing with a looped course and teams is people don't really know who is where on the course so no fan fare as I crossed the line. I thought I might have missed another female athlete ahead of me so I asked my favorite timing guy Eric Ewing of Nomadz if he could tell and sure enough I won! I also realized Ken (among a few others) had done an extra loop. 2400 swim and a 9 mile run, he almost did a half iron today :). On 2 hours sleep.

It turns out my rack neighbor and fellow Argon 18 rider had won overall. (Missed the fastest bike by 1 second). I did have the fastest female bike split and won $20 at their local bike shop.

So Titanium Man's relaxed atmosphere now has some great new digs. I recommend it highly. It's also a USAT sanctioned race.

I did Sunday Sundae a week later and while I love that race I only made it to mile 8 before my IT band once again spoke up.  Grrr.  I was not happy about it but I let it go and signed up for Valley Fest Duathlon.  

This tiny race is in its fourth year but only the first as a Duathlon.  I was the overall female winner and 2nd overall including the men.  My fellow Fleet Feet Racer and Ironman training partner from 2013 Jeremy Anglin was the overall winner.  

I really liked the race and it was my first duathlon so I hope it gains momentum as a race and is around for a while.  Did I mention it has a cheap entry fee?

The other highlight of my season was a race I watched rather than participated in.  I got to go to Kona and watch the Ironman World Championships!  It was amazing! I volunteered, cheered until I was hoarse, and got to rub elbows with my heros.  It was the experience of a lifetime.

I had some nerves and apprehension coming into this race because my original intention for it (back in December when I signed up) was to train hard and try to qualify for Worlds in Chattanooga next year. I didn't get to train how I had hoped to and felt unprepared for what I would need to do on the swim and the run. 

My inclination was just focus as hard as I could and do my best with the training I had.  Get to Calgary, get organized,  be nervous up to the race.  My awesome boyfriend Ken, had other plans for me.  He planned a really cool road trip for us.  On the way up we went through Lussier Hotsprings and camped there the first night.  It was gorgeous and took us through Banff the next day as we headed into Calgary.

We hit a some traffic outside of Banff and couldn't figure out why we were stopped on a big freeway....when we finally got up to the slow down we saw a transport truck on its side with crews unloading watermelons, and watermelons strewn through the median. 

Google Maps is the best invention ever and helped us so many times during this trip.  It took us straight to "package" pickup.  I was excited for this because I am a 2016 All World Athlete and had been told I would get a little bit of VIP treatment for that.  Nope.  Calgary is the only Ironman  branded not-for-profit race. I did get a cool black AWA swim cap though.  

The pre-race meeting was informative and I had an ART guy work on me for a few minutes.   He only did my right hamstring (not the left) which I thought was weird and felt a bit unbalanced.  We also went to a pro-panel Q&A session that was really fun.  We checked out T2 and then drove over to the swim start.  We met a really nice couple named Nelson and Wanda who gave us some intel on the course.  Calgary 70.3 seemed like a logistically complicated race but I was still optimistic about it.

We had planned to be as low budget as possible for this trip and Ken and I both are easy going. So we ate dinner,  found a YMCA to shower at and it just happened to be next to a Walmart where other frugal travelers were already parked.  It worked for us pretty well until the ladies in the RV two spots over started talking and laughing really loudly in Spanish. One had the most awesome carrying laugh that I would have loved at any other time than 6:00 am.

Once packed up,  we headed back over to the swim start and T1 to drop my bike and run gear.  I spent a while putting stickers on, testing out my bike, doing a little run and sorting gear into bags. I then dropped everything off where it went.  I ran through transition a few times to get my bearings. 

The swim was in a beautiful man-made lake in a subdivision type community.  It was surrounded by really nice homes and had a community center/beach park on one side. That beach is where myself and the other intrepid racers were lucky enough to get to go for a prerace swim.  Unfortunately I only made about 300 yards before I couldn't stand my leaking goggles any more.  The right lens was filling completely up with water from a broken seal.  While I had a spare pair they weren't really better.  So out of the (beautiful) water I came and asked the closest triathlete where I could go buy goggles.  He was super nice and even looked the store up,  checked that it was open, and called them to ask if they had my brand of goggles.  Canadians!

Google maps came through for us again and we found this great Aquatics Team Supply store hidden in a little industrial area not too far away.   They had all the models of Aquasphere goggles and I was able to try on a couple of styles I hadn't seen before.  I actually picked a different one from my usual (something new on race day,  uh oh) and a Canadian print swim suit (80% off). Ken got me a matching Canada swim cap too.

My mom texted me that she was almost to Calgary and she was going to watch my race.  I was really excited since I live far away from my family they hadn't really seen me race before.  She told me my little sister was going to come later too. We had enough time to drive the bike course then meet up with her. 

So we headed out onto the bike course, only to find that the name of the main road we were to ride on had been changed on the hwy signs but not in Google maps or the course map.  Kinda confusing.  The first part was on a legit freeway too. Scarey! Once we were out on the main part of the course it was really beautiful though.  Really hilly (uphill) going out,  gradual downhill on the back side of the loop. I was kind of worried about the wide rumble strips that took up half the width of the shoulder because I'm a weak swimmer but strong cyclist I spend a lot of time passing people and really need the room to get by.

The drive ended at Glenmore Park. No scratch that: North Glenmore Park. Which was of course T2. I had explained to my Mom as well as I could where we were but she still ended up on the other side of the giant reservoir and wetlands area. She eventually found us and Ken had had time to take a quick nap while I wandered around and explored.  I spoke to a race volunteer who was setting up and got hear more positive things about the race. Mom got to get her bearings for the next day and we decided to leave her car there and go for dinner and then back to her hotel where we would sleep as well.    We found a cool restaurant that served locally sourced, clean food with a twist.  You went up to the chefs at different stations to order and they swiped a card to track what you wanted.  Then a server brought it to your table all plated up pretty and stuff.  Since you spoke directly to the chef it was exactly what you asked for.  I had some really good roasted veggies,  chicken and a salad. 

Back at the room,  I laid out what I needed and measured my nutrition into my bike bottles so I could just add water and go. I set my alarm for 4:15 and went to sleep. OK sort of went to sleep.  It's always hard to sleep the night before but I know I was asleep when the alarm went off. 

I hopped up,  dressed in my kit,  made sure to remember my HR monitor strap, even though I hate wearing it and loaded my gear,  mom, and boyfriend into the car. 

It was not a clean transition so I set up what I needed by my bike and grabbed my wetsuit and my new. ...goggles? Where had I put them?  Ken went back to the car while I struggled to encase myself in neoprene. In transition I was pleased to see that my bike rack neighbor was Nomi Martenson, and that Jayne Anderson, Trish Mack, Kim Bellamy and Ivan Tucker were all close by too. We took some selfies and my goggles magically appeared on the other side of the fence in the hands of my handsome,  cheerful man.  Did I mention that the transition was in two tennis courts? With normal sized "doors"? This would be interesting.

It was suddenly time to warm up so I took my goggles out of the package for the first time and stuck them to my face and dove on in.  Much better with goggles that worked.  I was actually wishing I had my sleeveless wetsuit but since I had a sleeved jersey that wouldn't have worked anyway.

It seemed like no time until the horn sounded and I was heading to the first of many bouys.  The first was the most memorable as I really should have gone wide there.  Full on combat swimming.  Soon the good swimmers pulled away from me though and I found some open water.  I drafted a couple of times but I kept losing the bubble trails.  So many turns to make it a one loop course!  I swam a 2:20/100 m pace which is heartbreakingly slow compared to what I've been doing in the pool but it was finally over and I was heading into T1. As I was coming out of the water I took my watch off and held the strap in my teeth while a friendly volunteer stripped my wet suit for me. 

With suit, goggles and watch in hand I hurried up to my bike and put my feet into my new bike shoes  (sockless) while I bundled my wetsuit,  goggles, cap, etc into  the appropriate bag, and did up my helmet straps.

I ran up the hill to the mount line,  and saw a familiar Fitness Finatics kit next to me.  Trish and I headed out together.  It felt so good to finally be able to go fast that I passed three people in the first block when I remembered that I hadn't pushed the appropriate buttons on my watch at almost the same time that I realized my watch was not there.  I had put it in my T1 bag with my wetsuit and goggles.  Crap! Oh well,  thank goodness the race chip would track me. 

That in mind, I got moving.  I learned that the rumble strips weren't that deep and when people wouldn't get over I just went (noisily) around them.  It's always way hillier by bike than by car but I felt really strong until near the end when I got a bit behind on my nutrition without my watch to remind me to take in calories.  I ate some pieces of bars and took in some U can and Ucan hydration.  That made me feel better and I passed two women in my age group near the end of the bike.

T2 was uneventful, and it was so great to hear my mom and Ken cheering me on.  I decided to take off my sleeved jersey because it was hot and run in my Oiselle bra top. My bike shoes were clipped to my bike still so I didn't need to worry about them, so a quick roll up of my socks,  slipped on my running shoes,  grabbed my hat,  race belt and a gel and off  I went.  I grabbed water on my way by and put on my belt and hat as I went.  The first mile or so of the run always feels kind of bad and this was no exception but soon I found a rythym and even though I don't know what pace I was running I wasn't getting passed very much.  I had no watch to gage pace so I concentrated on form,  cadence and staying mentally strong.  I did the math to figure out what mile each kilometer meant.  Then at the 10k point I felt a slight twinge in my left knee.  Not good.  I concentrated more on my form, especially core.  Suddenly my left leg gave out on a step.  I stumbled but didn't fall.  I walked a few steps and massaged it.  Started running again.  It hurt so much.  From then on every up hill, every down hill I had to walk and massage it.  I wanted to cry. I found I could run on the flats so I tried to make up for the times I had to walk. 

A woman in my age group went by me,  then another and another.  I was so frustrated! Nothing to do but move forward.  The big hill I had been able to run down early on was excruciating to climb back up.  At the top of I had to run by the finish line and out 2k, knowing I then had to run back 2k. I made the turn and was trying to remember how far 2k was.  Less than a mile?  I heard a woman behind me.  No way was she going to pass me!  Except my leg wouldn't listen. I massaged it as quickly as I could as she passed me and I saw the faded 43 on her calf.  This.  Was.  Not.  Happening.  So I ran.  I passed her again and ran just ahead until the pain stopped me again but she wouldn't let me.  This amazing lady put her hand on my back and said "no! We are so close,  let's go!" I mumbled thank you and picked up my cadence,  trying to land as lightly as I could.  1k to go. The longest 1k I had ever run. I finally came around a corner and could see and hear the finish line.  I found a kick somewhere and got it done.  My mom, my little sister,  her boyfriend and Ken were all there cheering waiting for a hug. 

I collected my giant belt buckle medal and went over to the fence to talk to them. I got some post race food (good stuff, not cold soggy pizza). I chatted with the amazing Kelly Craree who had an enormous PR. I looked for a massage table but couldn't find one.  I went back to my family and visited while I waited to find out if there was any chance for a roll down spot for Worlds. 3 spots in my age group only one was claimed before the awards ceremony. 

Ivan was also hoping for a spot as he was also in the top 10 of his age group. (I was 8th even after that horrible run).  The Spokane contingent were nice enough to wait with us while we stood there with fingers crossed while the RD called out the names of the people just a little faster than us and the spots rolled within one of our names before they were claimed.  So no spot.  Yet. :)

Reflecting, I would definitely recommend Calgary 70.3 for the beautiful scenery and friendly people.  It's a challenging course but fast and well organized.  It was really great to have Spokane friends out there and so amazing to have my family and Ken.