Race Recap: Cyman Triathlon 2015

Last Sunday I went and raced my first Olympic-distance triathlon and the first collegiate conference race I've ever been to and it was FANTASTIC. Here's the day by day:

Friday: Took an afternoon 6 miler run, went fairly easy, it was hot and I wasn't trying to actually work out so much as just get my legs going. I don't normally do runs that distance this close to a race, but I had been feeling sort of sluggish all week and I wanted to get in a little bit more. Really I just wasn't confident that the taper was doing the right thing for me. I know we're always told to trust in the taper, but I have a hard time with that, and I figured 6 easy miles weren't going to ruin anything for me so I went for it. It definitely still felt sluggish, but I came out of it with a bit more confidence in at least my ability to finish. The numbers: 6.11 miles, 58:47, 9:37 pace.

Saturday: Henry had arrived late on Friday and we got loaded up and ready to go nice and early on Saturday. Molly drove us and we got into Ames, IA around 3:30 pm, picked up our race packets, and went to our homestay's house. For the most part I spend the day working (in the car, at our homestay's, etc.) because that's the med school life. Lunch had been Thai food (pho and a lot of egg rolls) at a random small town in Iowa and dinner was penne from Noodles and Company. All the carbs! We went to bed pretty early, around 9:30, for a 6:45ish alarm the next day.

Sunday: The race had a nice late 9:00 am start, but we did have about a 40 minute drive out to the venue so we left around 7:30 am. It's nice how routine race mornings feel to me now, I have a sense for how much I should eat (this time it was a bagel with cream cheese and a banana) and drink (half a bottle of water, most of a bottle of fruit punch Vitamin Water) before we leave and how I like my set up for transition and what I like to do pre-race (take a gel 15 minutes from the start, washed down with the remaining Vitamin Water, typical pre-swim warming up).

We were told the lake was 77F, but in reality it was probably closer to 67F, I think they just messed that up. It was wetsuit legal but since I thought it was warm, I opted not to use my wetsuit. It was an in water start and I was really cold waiting for the start, but in all honesty it would have still be too warm for the full sleeved wetsuit. I definitely think I'll have to invest in a sleeveless wetsuit because it is a disadvantage to be without one and there are going to be frequent weather conditions like in this race where the sleeveless would have probably been helpful.

The mass start was all the collegiate athletes, which meant it was predominantly male. I was really freaked out in the start, I got trapped between some huge dudes and it was quite intimidating. My swim was disappointing IMO, it was a 27 minute split for a mile and I think I really could have done better than that. The glare on the swim out was really bad though which made sighting almost impossible and in all honesty my swimming just hasn't been very en pointe lately. That's something I'm really going to try and hammer out in the late winter and early spring to make sure I'm capitalizing on my strengths in future races, especially when collegiate nationals comes around. I was the 5th girl out of the water, 19th (of 34) overall, which wasn't fantastic. I'm not used to getting dropped by the lead pack but that was what happened. I did come out of the water footsteps after two of my teammates though, so I took that as consolation and did my best to get ahead and stay ahead the rest of the race.

My transitions were fantastic this weekend, 59 seconds out of T1 and 34 seconds out of T2. Part of that was that the transition area was small, but I also genuinely think I was moving very well and I was very happy with that. The bike started off great and sort of faltered as time went on. The way out involved some tailwind and net elevation loss and I blasted through it. It was a two lap course and about halfway through the loop there was a turn into an uphill into a stretch that was straight into 9 mph headwind, which was a struggle. I got passed by a fair number of people, mostly on TT bikes but also one or two on road bikes, so I know I have room to improve and I can definitely still work on my biking strength. I finished on a 1:27:08, just under 17 mph, which I was okay with given the distance and the headwind. I do want to be faster and I definitely think I can be faster, so I'm just going to keep working.

What I enjoyed most about the ride though was that I really hammered the entire way. I went out at a hard effort and just kept pounding at it and I was much more bold with that effort than I thought I would be. I'm really proud of myself for committing to that and having the conviction that I was fit enough to push that sort of effort the entire race, I really do think it paid off.

The run was pretty good by my standards, especially given that I hadn't been running very much in the lead up to this race. It was under an hour, which was the goal (the reach goal was under 55 minutes, but I knew I was going to need a lot more training to get there). I split a 56:54 on a nice flat course and great weather conditions (despite the wind, it was a nice 57F air temperature wise which made for great racing weather). I felt way more relaxed the entire run than I imagined I would which I think was super key to the performance. I was also extremely consistent pace wise from mile to mile despite not having any indication of pace on my watch (I had it set to give me cumulative time only) which I was very happy with. Yes, it got rough towards the last few miles but that was more because I was trying to turn it up and squeeze a little more speed out of my legs than because I was faltering or anything. I had taken a gel in the last 5 miles of the bike and drank my entire Gatorade bottle and some water from my just water bottle so I was well fueled and well hydrated the entire run. Even though for the most part, it was people passing me on the run, I also passed one of my teammates, which I was very proud of seeing as I literally never pass people on the run.

All in all, I finished in 2:52:37 (27:00/00:59/1:27:08/00:34/56:54), which I thought was phenomenal. Getting the sub-3:00 finish in my first Olympic race made me really proud. It was a super fun race, I really tackled it with a sort of conviction and aggression I don't get from myself often, and everything went off without a hitch! I couldn't have asked for a better day or better first Olympic experience. I really loved the distance, I know that it would probably have been super brutal on a harder course (like the course I raced last weekend), but this is really the distance I want to train towards getting better and better at. Loved every moment!

The rest of the day was sort of a mess of driving and eating outrageous amounts of terrible (for you) but delicious (awwwww yeah) food. The things eaten: a butt ton of free bagels (with my leftover cream cheese) and a banana immediately post race, McDonald's for lunch (Big Mac meal, 6 chicken nuggets, iced tea), an ice cream bar from a rest stop, Pi's deep dish for dinner. Awwwww yeah. My MFM professor who has been lecturing us about healthy eating all semester would be so disappointed in me. But it was post-race! I deserved it!

In any case, we came home, I did some work while eating and watching primetime football and getting my legs rubbed out. Then it was getting ready for the week and sleeping!

Monday: Henry and I's second anniversary (yay!) and a rest day!

Tuesday: That's today! I was planning on going for a short 3 miler this morning but ended up Skyping home for like an hour. It was worth it to miss a recovery workout for some quality family time. The rest of my day is insanely busy so I'm probably not going to try and make it up or anything, will just let this one go, it doesn't hurt to take some extra post-race recovery.

Moving Forward: My next race is the Rock n Roll St. Louis Half Marathon which is just under 4 weeks from now. The plan is to take it easy this week (maybe slowly ramp up a bit towards the end of the week) and then go hard with the running for two weeks and take a week of taper (which also happens to be my midterm exam week). I do have a vague structure planned for workouts for the two key weeks but I really want to prioritize life and medical school right now above racing since I've put such a big emphasis on racing these past two months, so how well I stick to that will depend on how busy my schedule continues to be. The goal for Rock n Roll will just be to run the best race I can, get more experience, have some fun. I won't worry too much about the speed. Don't get me wrong: I'm going to race it. I'm just not going to put any pressure on myself in terms of goal times or anything.

Hit rates: I finished the training block in the lead up to last week's race at a 61/67 (91%) hit rate. That definitely reached my 90% goal (and crushed the 80% minimum I set for myself) and lo and behold! My races went great. I think this is a great way to think about training and the workouts that I hit or miss and is a nice easy metric that helps keep my anxiety levels down while allowing me to be realistic about balancing training with all the other things going on in my life. The next serious training cycle I get into, which probably won't be until the spring when I do the build up into nationals (which will hopefully be about a 3-4 month build), I will definitely use this system again to keep track of my progress. For now though, I'll step back and be a bit more relaxed about training and take some time to prioritize everything else like friends and school and generally taking care of myself while doing some road races to keep me going with the running.

Second summer/fall of triathlon racing = complete! Can't wait to see what the next year has in store. (:

Much love,
Jess

Back to short course!

The CSP Master's team moved indoors after Labour Day, but I hadn't been back to practice with race taper and all and finally decided to go today and it was FANTASTIC! I really like sprint days. Which makes me feel like distance free is probably not the right thing for me swimming wise, but oh well. I've definitely lost a ton of top end speed during long course time, as a combination of the fact that I mostly went to distance or mid-distance days and long course just tends to make me more of a moderate swimmer than a sprint and try really hard swimmer. So it was good to go and work on getting some of that speed back, even though objectively speaking the sprinting was pretty bad today.

Today's Workout: AM CSP Practice
Summary:

• WU: 500 swim (should have been 600 but I got in a tad late)
• Main Set:
• 8 x 50 @ :50, odds break out, evens break in
• 8 x 25 @ :30, odds fly build, evens back fast turnover b/w flags
• 5 x 100 as 25 mod/50 FAST/25 mod @ 1:45 (I did the first two back)
• 100 free MAX
• 8 x 75 kick w/ fins @ 1:10, 25 fly underwater 2/3 of way FAST/50 choice kick
• 100 swim easy
• 10 x 75 free @ 1:30 in sets of 3
• 1 - ALL MAX
• 2 - 50 MAX/25 easy
• 3 - 25 MAX/25 easy
• 10 = easy
• 200 back easy
• 100 MAX (I swam back)
• WD: 200 easy
• Total Distance: 3650 SCY

Hit Rate: We're gonna put this on pause for a bit. I think what mattered to me was keeping track of this in the lead up to the racing, now that I'm in the midst of racing, it doesn't matter as much. I'll write a recap post about this at some point or I'll just include it in my race recap for Cyman once that happens.

Overall I had a great day, not necessarily because the swimming was great, but because I had an awesome time. It was just one of those days where I felt really blessed to get to do everything I love: learning to become a doctor, swimming/biking/running, generally having the freedom to steer my life in the direction I want it to go, it's all pretty fantastic. And the fact that Hap's practices are fun and he's a really motivating and focused coach helps a lot too. 

I also commuted out on my bike for the first time! It's about 30 minutes out and 30 minutes back, which isn't too bad. I figure this will force me to work on my biking, even though it is a very relaxed ride. And being out on the roads more definitely can't hurt my bike fitness! All in all, good way to start the day. Skipping classes this morning because I have an awkwardly timed physio appointment - gonna get that back checked out and hopefully get some advice about how to progress with strength training and rehab/prehab so this doesn't happen again ever. Three times is enough. Yay!

Much love,

Jess

USAT Club Nationals 2015: Race Recap and Updates

Here's the day by day breakdown of last weekend's race at the Innsbrook Resort for USAT Club Nationals!

Thursday: Day off! I had a pretty loaded day so it was nice to not have the added task of fitting in a workout. I also got to enjoy a super fun evening of PATRIOTS FOOTBALL with friends which was nice and relaxing. Cut a bit into my sleep time, but oh well, totally worth it.

Friday: Went to class in the morning, ate, got packed up and ready, headed out around 3 pm. We got there at around 4:30 and picked up our race packets and took a quick dip in the lake. It was nice and warm in the water despite it being quite chilly and windy on land. We swam the Olympic course because it was a bit further and got a feel for the slight chop that we may be encountering the next day with the wind conditions as they were. Afterwards, we went to the hotel, unloaded all of our gear, got cleaned up, and went to Applebee's for dinner (where I ate a ton of pasta and sweet potato fries and nachos, which I guess isn't the healthiest food, but hey carbs right?). I went to sleep around 10 or 10:30 pm.

Saturday: Woke up around 5:30 am, readied all the kid, ate breakfast, and headed out to the course. We were sort of rushed when it came to transition (had about 15 minutes) which was sort of stressful, but it all worked out fine in the end. Club Nationals were being held at the Halfmax race this year, where they added Olympic and sprint distances especially for nationals. Most of the team was racing the sprint distance, a few of our boys did the Olympic. The sprinters all had about an hour of downtime between when transition closed and when our race started, so we wandered around a lot and hydrated and tried to stay warm before our start.

It was another chilly day and the water temperature had dropped slightly overnight and was just barely wetsuit legal (I think it was around 75F?). I am totally not comfortable swimming in a wetsuit in water that warm because I tend to overheat, so I stuck to just a trisuit. One of my teammates and I made a point of getting right to the edge of the water in the first row for the swim start since we were both strong swimmers: We came out of the water second (her) and third (me) out of the women's wave. Our wave started 5 minutes after the sprint men, which was sort of annoying because it meant that I was playing dodge the slow swimmer the entire last 100 yards, but overall it wasn't the worst. I didn't have the greatest swim ever, I took off pretty well from the gun but then slowed down and felt sort of sluggish and minimally motivated the rest of the way. I came out of the water in 7:57 (1:36 pace) where I was met with a long transition run uphill to T1.

I was actually in and out of T1 quite quickly, beating my teammate who had come out of the water before me to the start of the bike. The first 5-6 miles of the bike were super rough, something like 1300 ft of elevation gain in that period in the form of a series of short but super steep hills. It leveled out a bit after that and I just went into high cadence cruise mode. There was also one major hill towards the end that was also pretty rough. There were grades on that bike course that I had never seen in my life before and I definitely was surprised to see that some people had to clip out and push their bikes up some of the hills. I've never actually had to clip out on an uphill before though and am pretty sure I wouldn't actually be able to do it, so when I was struggling I just kept saying to myself that it was between getting to the top and falling over halfway. Thankfully I did make it through all of the hills, which was a massive blessing.

The bike course was fun because (a) I didn't get passed as early by one of the other girls on the team as I thought I would and (b) I hung with another teammate for a few miles in the latter portions of the race, just exchanging back and forths before I finally pulled ahead more consistently. There were actually 2 or 3 riders that I hung around pretty consistently the entire ride and they helped push me along pace wise. I ended up averaging 17.2 mph which I found to be super impressive given the hilliness of the course, so I was very happy with that.

T2 was pretty standard and fairly quick. The teammate I rode with in the later bits of the bike blew past me on the start of the run but I was expecting that since he comes from a running background. The run was also extremely hilly, pretty much just endless up or down with very few flat spots. It was 3.4 miles though so I just tried to stay steady and managed to churn out an 8:48 pace which I was happy with. There was one older guy who was originally from the New York area but now lives in St. Louis who ran with me basically the entire way. We sort of shuffled back and forth most of the way and talked briefly around the 2-2.5 mile mark on the way in before I pulled ahead on the final uphill into the finish. Speaking of which, the final uphill (which was also the first downhill) was the most ridiculously steep thing I had ever seen in my life. The thing about a lot of these hills were that you couldn't get up them by just being consistent and keeping the turnover high, you really had to drive hard in order to make your steps even count, so it was a lot of work. Coming off a hilly bike, it meant that every uphill my legs filled with acid and just burned the whole way and coming down I just did my best to not let the pace stutter and not let the form fall apart so I wouldn't hurt myself.

Overall, I finished in 1:47:53, 2/4 in my division, 9/74 for women, 70/181 overall. I got to take home a medal, which I don't really think I deserved, but it was still nice. I think the big takeaway from this race for me was that you really do work hard the entire time. There is no relaxing, not on the swim, bike, or run. There's effort management so that you don't blow up at the end, but expect to be breathing and working hard. I guess what goes hand in hand with that is knowing that I have the physical ability to work at that level for just under 2 hours without blowing up. That will hopefully help me with being afraid of inducing early pain in the longer race I have coming up this weekend.

A note on nutrition: I had a full breakfast in the morning and a single bottle of potassium laced fruit punch Vitamin Water and a gel roughly 15 minutes before the start. I did not take a gel on the bike like I had planned, but I did drink about 80% of my bottle of endurance mix Gatorade. It worked out well, I didn't feel like I was ever glucose short, so that was ideal. For the longer race this weekend, I will make a point of taking that second gel regardless of whether or not I think I need it, because the run will take me around an hour and I will more likely need it than not.

We ended up staying at the race venue way later than we wanted to waiting for the timers to sort out results and present medals. I got home around 3 pm, took a nap, got up, went grocery shopping (the active recovery begins!), made/ate dinner, and passed out.

Sunday: I took Sunday off, although there was some bike commuting to a volunteering obligation in the morning and some time spent with a family I'm mentoring through a school program that involved running around in a park shooting Nerf guns, so more active recovery!

Monday: Easy AM run, 3 miles, super chill pace, legs were actually feeling really good and not sluggish at all (although the easy pace probably helped with that).

Tuesday: Took a run with a friend, just under 3 miles, would have probably liked to go faster but she's just getting back into running so we went slow. I don't really know if I even want to count that as a workout, it was more of a brief escape from studying type thing.

Wednesday: Today! I got up earlier than I expected, spent 40 minutes on the bike trainer (10 minute warm up, 8 x 1 minute as 40 MAX/20 easy on base/base/+1/+1 repeat, 2 minutes recovery, 5 x 3 minutes as 2 @ 90-95 rpm threshold/1 @ recovery, 5 minutes warm down) while listening to a lecture I skipped like two weeks ago (feeling like a hardcore med student). It felt way tougher than it should have, but that was probably more due to dehydration than anything else. Whatever, I got in there and did something more resembling a workout than what's been happening the previous days so I'm good with that.

The plan is to take a swim tomorrow morning with the Master's team, sandwiched with a ride out and a ride back (putting that new commuting bike to work!) and a run in the afternoon (probably a tad longer, closer to 4-5 miles) on Friday. Saturday will be off for travel and Sunday is race day! Hopefully things will go well and I won't have to worry about qualifying for Collegiate Club Nats in the Spring. Fingers crossed!

Much love,
Jess

Taper taper taper taper taper

I love taper! So I took a swim last night (and then picked up the bike I'll be commuting with! It's a used bike I bought off of a tri team teammate) and a short easy run this morning. I am the luckiest girl in the world to have the most supportive fiance in the universe when it comes to supporting my training. He's currently in Florida on business right now but we Skyped a bit before I left for my evening swim and he gave me a great pep talk and made me promise to think back to that conversation when things got tough in the swim and it really helped me pull through during the set.

I'm not very happy with where my swimming has been recently. I think the combination of long course practice and injuries has left me very willing to be not aggressive about the training and I can feel the changes and slips in my technique that are making me very slow even when I try to go fast. I went on pretty conservative easy pace times for this workout and I was still feeling like the interval was pretty hard, so I really need to change that. I need to make more of an effort to inject serious speed into my workouts (read: more lactate threshold work, more short short sprints) and commit to some of the pain that comes with fast 200 sets as well. The balance and thoughtfulness has been sort of missing from my training, so I know that's something I'll need to work on in the winter to get back to where I want to be. But I sort of let it go because it's taper. The practice was a bit shorter distance wise, a bit boring set wise, but I went in there and did what I had to do so I'm good with it.

Yesterday's PM Workout: Rec swim @ the Danforth AC.
Summary:

• WU: 1000 SKIPS
• Main Set:
• 3 x 200 free @ 3:00
• 4 x 100 IM @ 1:45
• 3 x 200 free @ 3:00
• 4 x 100 IM @ 1:45
• WD: 200 choice easy
• Total Distance: 3200 SCY

Hit Rate: 60/66 (90.9%)

This morning I took an easy recovery run. It was outrageously slow, but I guess that's what easy recovery runs are supposed to look like. It was raining and dark out because the sun keeps rising later and later, but I'm glad I got out there and did what I had to do.

Today's AM Workout: Easy run
Summary: 3.28 mi, 33:21, 10:10 pace.
Hit Rate: 61/67 (91%)

Tomorrow is going to be a nice full day off, I'm trying to really focus as much as I can on getting schoolwork dealt with while I sort of have time for it. It's going to be a crazy couple of weeks with racing taking up most of my weekends, so I need to be as efficient as I possibly can. Random updates:

• Brian is lending me a team tri suit to race in if I want to use it. I haven't decided if I'm going to yet because I'm afraid of swim related drag, but the thought of having a chamois is also nice, so...tbd.
• I need to go to Big Shark tonight to pick up gels and some random things for this commuting bike.
• I just spent like 2 hours chilling with my old lab mates and it was totally unplanned and definitely cut a solid chunk out of my day (time I really should have spent working...) but it was also really relaxing and definitely something I needed to help get me through. Remembering that you can't just hammer all the time, both when it comes to training and life in general. The recovery is just as important.

Yay that's all I have for today. Looking forward to the rest tomorrow and a final tune up ride or run on Friday morning before we roll out for Innsbrook! So pumped (:

Much love,

Jess

Back injury update, start of taper!

So after my redemption brick, my back injury got way worse and I ended up spending a week doing very minimal training and just trying to rest it off. The only workout I got in that week was a short trainer ride that back pain cut short. I got back on the train the week after though, despite continuing back pain, because I figured if it wasn't getting better or getting worse, I had nothing to lose by just trying to tough it out until the races. I also saw a doctor during that time period, who put me on some NSAIDs and referred me to PT, although my appointment isn't until next week so that's not looking to be helpful for a while.

The combination of getting back in the pool and NSAIDs seems to have helped and the back pain seems to be easing up day by day. What's important is that I can swim and bike and run on it fairly unencumbered for now and that's all I need to be able to race this weekend and next. I would give you the full rundown of workouts from the last week, but my med school life is mildly insane and I don't really have the time for all the details, so the vague outline sketch will have to do.

8/31 Monday: AM CSP practice, distance free day, 3200 LCM, I fell off during the middle of the main set mostly because of back pain, but I did what I could. 51/55 (92.7%)

9/1 Tuesday: AM CSP practice, mid-distance free day, 3500 LCM, back starting to get slightly better (really sore when I wake up, eases up as the day goes on). 52/56 (92.8%)

9/1 Tuesday: PM short easy run, 4.28 mi, 39:24, 9:12 pace, way better than I thought it was gonna go. Could definitely feel the loose back, but I focused on form and it was never really pain so things were good. 53/57 (92.9%)

9/2 Wednesday: PM tri team swim practice, 3600 SCY, sort of a hot mess because it was fairly disorganized but I got what I needed to do done. I was also planning on taking a ride but decided against it because I needed to put time towards school work, which is the priority. I counted that as a missed session. 54/59 (91.5%)

9/3 Thursday: PM easy ride, 3 laps of Forest Park w/ friends, 2 easy, 1 fast, 18.99 mi, 1:22:36, 13.8 mph. 55/60 (91.6%)

9/4 Friday: AM CSP practice, IM day, 3600 LCM, some back pain off during the short axis strokes but things were generally improving. 56/61 (91.8%)

9/4 Friday: PM base run, this was really bad and it turns out I had a bit of an illness that day (combination of dehydration, slight fever, heat, stomach pain). I ended up having to walk a significant portion of it and the pace was real slow. I did technically finish the intended distance, but I felt pretty low about it and it really knocked my confidence when it came to pushing through pain. 6.66 mi (on 7 mile route around Forest Park), 1:07:22/1:14:32, 10:07 pace. 57/62 (91.9%)

9/5 Saturday: AM tempo ride brick, Midland-Ashby route and 4.5 mile run, restored a little bit of my faith in myself after Friday's terrible run. 58/63 (92%)

9/6 Sunday: OFF - Had been a planned workout day, but I needed to focus on school so I opted out. Hilariously enough, Henry and I ended up doing that timed 100 push up challenge again (I did really poorly compared to last time, so we're not going to talk about it) and I did some core work afterwards (fueled by my discontent about the push ups). I'm not counting that as a real workout, although in hindsight, it was pretty real...58/64 (90.6%)

9/7 Monday: AM tempo ride brick, Midland-Ashby route and 6 mile run, taking advantage of Labor Day and making sure I can go the distance on the run. 59/65 (90.7%)

The next few days will be taper followed by a race this coming Saturday (Club Nationals - sprint distance), lots of recovery, and another race the next Sunday (Cyman Triathlon - Olympic distance). I'll try and be better about these updates, but honestly, med school is pretty real so we'll see. At the very least I'll do reflections on the race weekends. Forgive me! I'm doing my best. (:

Much love,

Jess