Back At It

Exactly 30 days since the NYC Marathon and 104 days since the Timberman 70.3 (my last triathlon), I hopped on the bike trainer to start my training for IM Canada 2011. It's 30 degrees and windy so I was more than happy about an indoor ride.

After a year away from Ironman, I'm looking forward to the serious training. For the 1st time in 3 years, I'm going the self-coaching route. I'm a bit anxious about whether I can create a strong enough plan and stay dedicated enought to PR at both the 70.3 and 140.6 distances. I'm hoping the blog will keep me honest...

*Can anyone guess the background show?

News from Ironman Canada?

I received this email from NA Sports (owner of Ironman Canada) on Friday evening, sent to my inbox with the subject line reading: "News from Ironman Canada"

Dear Subaru Ironman Canada Entrant,

As many of you may be aware, effective July 1, 2010 British Columbia moved to a harmonized provincial and federal sales tax at a combined rate of 12%.  This has been a controversial and confusing tax change but it is the law and therefore must be collected on all sale of goods and services.  Unfortunately when your entry to the 2011 Subaru Ironman Canada was processed through Active, HST was not collected on the entry fee.  This has recently been brought to our attention and we are obligated to collect that tax.

To that end, the credit card that you used to enter the race will be charged $69, the amount of the HST on the entry fee. We will begin processing the charges on Monday, November 29th and these will be complete by December 10th.   Should you wish to have this charge applied to a different credit card or if the one you used to enter has expired, please contact our athlete services center at admin@nasports.com or 877-377-2373.  We apologize for this error and any inconvenience it may cause.

Ironman Canada Triathlon

First off, seriously? Screw that. This error was made on their behalf, not mine, therefore, is it not my responsibility to now pay that tax. If I bought a TV several months back and the store forgot to charge the HST, they would most certainly not come hunting me down today looking for that money. NA Sports and Ironman are not "obligated" to collect that tax, they are choosing to place that cost on their athletes. Excellent customer service would be for them to man up to their mistake and pay the lost money out of their own money-filled pockets. But I guess it's no surprise that they suck at customer service.

Second, from reading forums about this issue, I learned that they are in fact charging too much since part of the 12% was already collected at registration for GST. At most the HST should be ~$40. In fact, Active now shows that it is charging $644 for this race (I paid $603.75) which you assume is now factoring in the HST... through math, they should only be charging $40.25 to athletes who have already signed up.

Third, this is not about the money (though nearly $700 for one race is absurd), it's about how they are handling it and principle. This was a planned tactic, and one that screws the athletes the most. They send the email the day after Thanksgiving - a holiday weekend when most people are traveling and away from their email. They say they are going to start charging this fee on Monday which means we had ZERO business days to return to our computers, our email and become aware of the situation. They do it at a time when most people are buying the bulk of their holiday gifts (Black Friday & Cyber Monday) in hopes that people will just overlook the charge on their credit card statement. They have the subject line read: "News from Ironman Canada" as if it's no big deal. How about adding in there somewhere about how you are going to be charging my card?! Last, they do not offer any sort of alternative options if we do not want to pay this additional fee. It's their way or what? I have a say in this too, thanks.

Fourth, um - I am pretty sure it is unlawful to retroactively charge a credit card without authorization. Do not TELL ME you will begin the charges on Monday, you ASK ME if you are allowed to charge my card.

With that said, I've written an email telling them they are not authorized to charge my credit card until a full explanation on their calculations and a refund option is provided. I've also asked them to explain to me why they thought it would be a good idea to come back to the customer for this money. Not my error, not my problem. I know it will be a lot of money for them to pay out of pocket but I guess that's the price you pay for your mistakes AND for great customer service.

I am SO over Ironman.

Now I wait on a response (as do so many other athletes) and hopefully before they take the action of charging my card because I will dispute it. I'm so fed up with them and they have no right to treat loyal athletes like they are idiots.

BAM! ...and YAY!

Lunch by the water, anyone?

We were fortunate enough to have ANOTHER warm weekend, nearly 70 degrees on Saturday so Justin and I headed out for our first bike ride since our last tri (not including the trainer). Wanting to take it real easy and enjoy the fine weather (especially because Justin still needs to recover from his marathon), we biked down to Mount Vernon and back, a total of just under 40 miles. We stopped in old town Alexandria for lunch at a creperie and enjoyed some delicious food and apple cider - yum. However, we would have much rather preferred lunch at the picnic table located in the water - too bad we weren't able to make it quiet there, but we tried!

Check out this very cool shot I took of Justin along the route - how great is that tree?

NYC Marathon- Race Report

After much ridicule from Liz, I'm finally writing a new post...

For the last 5 years I've tried to gain entry to the NYC marathon but was never selected in the lottery so instead I watched from the sidelines as Liz and her family each ran. As a spectator, I've seen the incredible crowds on 1st Ave and cheered on runners as they've turned the corner into Central Park but miles 16-26 are all I've seen of the course. So as a 3-time reject, my time was finally here to run.

Heading into race weekend, I was extremely excited to run. Having done a few 70.3's and shorter races this year, I hadn't been this 'pumped' since IMLP last year. All of my long training runs have been done around 8 min miles so I set a 3:30 goal time in NYC. With this in mind, I knew my biggest issue would be holding back for the 1st 13.1 miles.

Race Day:
This was probably the most well organized race I've done. I took the subway from Grand Central to the Staten Island Ferry and hopped on for a 7am take-off. I met up with Joey's friend, Rooney, and tried to gather all the advice I could get from a NYC Marathon veteran. Rooney hooked us up with a ride from Staten Island to the race start and after a quick chat with team continuum, we split off for our respective 'villages'.

Bathroom and coffee lines were short so I took care of business and walked to my start corral at 8:50am for a 9:40 start. As the gun went off, I started with the 3:30 pacer and found a surprising amount of space on the lower level of the bridge. It was windy and cold on the bridge but I held an 8:40 pace for the 1st mile and an 8:05 for mile 2 so I warmed up quickly. The crowds started around mile 6 and were pretty steady throughout. With all of the cheering, I turned off the ipod and concentrated on the cheers and my stride. I was forcing my to stay at an 8 min pace b/c I felt like I could go a lot faster. Even though I felt good, I was pretty surprised by all of the hills and knew they'd eventually take their toll. I was prepared for the verazano, queensboro and the trek into central park but felt like 90% of the course was uphill.

With a steady headwind and all of the uphills, I finally started to slow around mile 14. The smaller uphill in Queens right before the bridge killed me. I struggled to keep running but had dropped to 9:15 min miles and knew the rest of the race would be a battle. Not wanting to show my fatigue, I put on a smile and sped up around mile 16.5 as I knew I'd be seeing Liz, my mom, Joey, and Jen for the 1st time. Their cheers and the overall 1st ave mojo kept me going strong until the Willis bridge in Harlem. Unfortunately, it turned ugly from there. I slowed significantly and started cramping at mile 23. It tooked everything I had not to start walking and if my race crew hadn't been waiting at 24, I probably would have. Getting another boost from them, I was able to finish the last 1.5 miles strong with a final time of 3:37:15.

I missed my goal by 7 minutes but PR'ed by 8. Overall, I am very happy with my time and felt I gave it everything I had. I still believe I have a 3:30 in me and am strongly considering going for it this Spring. In the meantime, I'm trying to recover quickly so I can run the Rosaryville 50k this weekend. Right now, I'm way too sore and wouldn't be able to run but we'll see how I feel on Friday.

A big thanks to everyone that came out to cheer me on, gave me advice, and made it such a great race weekend. Hopefully this will kick start my return to blogging...

Justin ran NYC

On Sunday, November 7, Justin ran the NYC Marathon. He killed it, setting a PR at 3:37:15, good enough to place in the top 24% of his age group, which is so rad. CONGRATS JUSTIN, I'm so happy for you! We got to track him in real time with the sweet athlete tracker Joey put on his ipad (such an improvement from the delayed text messages that usually overflow your phone once the runner has FINISHED the race).

I'll get him to post a race report soon - maybe this will be his official return to the blog? Maybe ;)

In the meantime, here are some pics from race day:

Justin's on the right in the yellow shirt - mile 16.5

Support crew, toughing it out in the cold.

GO JUS GO - mile 24.5, so close!

At the finish - YAY!

With finishers medal :) Now time to get some grub!

Justin's last 20 mile run before NYC!

It was summer time in DC this past weekend (and this entire week, too)! With temps in the mid to upper 70's, we took full advantage of what could be one of our last warm weekends and spent a a lot of time outside. Saturday, Jus and I headed out to the Shenandoah Valley - I wanted to see fall foliage. We drove the Skyline Drive from the most north entrance and completed about 35 miles where we ducked out and drove through farm towns back to DC and did a last minute wine tasting (our first wine tasting ever!). It was a lot of fun! We got a bottle of red wine that will be at it's peak in 2018! That will be stored away until Justin's 36th birthday!!! HA - kinda scary to think about!

The Shenandoah Valley was not as colorful as I thought it would be but the weather man did say that the colors are very muted this year. It was still very pretty though. We stopped at scenic views and did about a two hour hike. Picture is from a stop we made along the drive. It was very quiet and creepy at times at how secluded the trails were. I was freaking out the entire time again about bears because the guide said are in hibernation BUT will come back out on mild days to do some last minute eating. At 73 degrees, I'd say that's a mild day. So of course, I was on edge the entire hike. Fun times!!

Sunday morning was the Army 10 miler (pic above). Lucky for us, the course went right by the street we live on at mile three. We rolled out of bed at 7:40 and made ourselves cozy on the middle medium by 8 to hear the first wave gun go off. 8 minutes later, the first runner came by - that's 4 min/mile pace!!!! 30,000 people run this race which is A LOT but I found it to be pretty cool. We stayed out from the very first to the very last person. The runners were SUPER friendly and were screaming their thanks to us for being out there and cheering them on. It was a fun way to start our Sunday.

After that, Justin did his FINAL 20 mile run - WOOHOO!!! He told me he would write a blog post about it, but look how successfully he was at doing that! I'm telling ya, I'm going to change the name of this blog soon to cut his name out of it! :) Feeling motivated, I decided to try to run 13 miles (or 2 hours, whichever one came first). I've let myself get way too lazy and thought this would be a nice way to shock my body ;) I trailed behind Justin for the first few miles up and through Rockcreek Park and then started slowing my pace down. I don't need to hurt myself. Rockcreek Park is a REALLY nice run. There is a sidewalk throughout the entire park AND one of the roads is closed off completely on weekends to cars so lots of people head out to bike, roller blade, walk, run or just sit by the river and relax. I took some pics, as usual... here they are...

Step AWAY from the Snickers!

Well, it's been just about two weeks since I ran my marathon and I've gotten a total of two workouts in since! I'm on a roll... I was so excited to be in my off-season and I think I took it to the extreme. I'm not thinking twice about it though, as my body needs to enjoy the sugars, fats and utter laziness that it so rarely gets to enjoy. Luckily, Justin has the NYC marathon in a few weeks so he's still sticking to a strict diet, despite my wanting bad foods. So, at least dinners have been healthy. My snacks, however, not so much. Reese's peanut butter cups and snickers! CVS had them on sale -$3 for two bags - who can resist that deal!! Not me. So these bad boys sit in the freezer just waiting to get eaten, which will be soon :)

Today I went for a nice, leisurely run. Nearly 70 degrees with sunshine, it was the perfect day to be outside. I switched between running and walking for about an hour and half - love the workouts where I don't need to pay attention to my watch. Part of my run today was an exploration through Roosevelt Island. This loop was pretty cool as you're on trails the whole time and away from traffic. It's escaping to the "woods" in the middle of a city. Here are some pics I took along the way...

And, just so everyone knows, I successfully registered for the Boston Marathon 2011! Registration opened at 9am on 10/18 and I was on the site ready to sign up right when it opened. I started to panic because the registration page kept refreshing to a empty form whenever I clicked the submit button. Freaking out that I was doing something wrong and wouldn't get in (Justin told me earlier that week that it was expected to fill fast), I headed to Twitter and searched for #BostonMarathon to see what the deal was and if everyone else was having the same issues I was. Turns out, they were. An hour later someone sent out a working link to registration (BAA had a broken redirect due to heavy traffic, apparently) and I got in first try - phew! Just 7 hours later, the marathon filled and registration closed - a record breaking time (last year it took 2 months). It's not a huge surprise, based on the stats showing the rapid growth of marathon runners over the years, but still, no one was truly expecting a one day sell out. As you can imagine, with the major fall marathons having not even happened yet (Marines, NYC, Philly), there are a lot of angry peeps out there that have been training their butts off to get into Boston and now can't. Given the massive backlash BAA has received, I'm pretty sure there will be major changes next year - adjustment of qualifying times, getting rid of some of the charity slots (5,000 slots are held for charity runners), increasing the race size, introducing a lottery system???? All are options (some good, some very bad), I'm interested to see what they decide to do to fix the issue. But, for now, I am thrilled to be registered - this has been a goal of mine since I started running marathons and I can't wait for April 18th!!

Mohawk Hudson River Marathon 2010 Race Report

This past weekend was the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon. We headed out Friday night and stopped by Joey's for the night in Jersey. We spent Saturday morning there and left around noon to finish the trip up to Albany. We went straight to check-in, which was quick and painless, then took a detour as an excuse to see the area out to an apple orchard and got hot apple cider and apple cider donuts - both of which were fantastic. We made it to the hotel early, ordered take out from Olive Garden, set-up shop in front of the TV and laptop and watched Florida State football and Kona World Championships for the rest of the night. Jenny and Roger got to the hotel around 9:30 and we stayed up chatting until about 11:30.

Race morning we woke up at 7 - Jus was awesome and had gone out and gotten coffee before we even woke up. We headed out around 7:40 and made it to the race start at 8 which gave us a half hour to use the restroom and relax. This marathon is a point to point course that starts in Schenetady and ends in Albany. The course was beautiful as it runs along the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers the entire time. Majority of the course was on a bike path so you were off roads and surrounded by trees that are bright orange and red this time of year, so it made it a very pleasant scene. Really nice course.

I was nervous before the race because the day before and the morning of, I felt like I was suffering from a heart attack. My chest hurt and I was getting crazy pains and pinches. Jenny and Roger assured me it wasn't a heart attack and offered some alternative causes for the pain :) That helped calm my worries (but I'm still going to make an appointment with the doc to get it checked out).

Jenny and I lined up behind the start and soon enough the horn went off. This race is known to be flat and fast with several nice downhills where you can pick your pace up a good bit. It was cool at the start - in the 50s but within the first mile, I was taking my long sleeve shirt off. In the process I managed to break my water bottle top but saved it enough for it to carry me through till I got my replacement from Justin at mile 14. I went out way too hard but in a way, it was hard not to. The first half of the marathon was FAST. When I crossed the 13.1 mile marker and saw the clock at 1:43 I thought "YIKES! I gotta slow down or I'm going to crash" That is the fastest half I've ever run (by 3 minutes)! I had a lot of conversations in my head from that point on. "Slow down, but not too much" "Well, go fast when it's a slight downhill but take the flats easy" "I want to stop" "My legs HURT" "Why do I do this?!" "If I had music, this would be a lot easier" "So many people are passing me now, I'm slowing down too much" "Where is a port-o-potty?!" "If I keep this pace, I'll have 12 minutes to run my last mile" "I hate racing" "Gosh, I wish I had music"

I got to see Justin and Roger at several points along the course which was awesome. At mile 14 I stopped to use a port-o-potty but totally rushed the pit stop so that I didn't lose too much time. At mile 17.5 there are train tracks and in the runners guide they said if you get stopped at the train, they'll adjust your time, but there were no mats so I'm not sure how they handle that but all I was thinking after I hit mile 17 was that I didn't get stopped by a train! I listened carefully and ran faster than I should have for that half mile till I passed the tracks. Phew - made it!

Most of the course was quiet. There were spots where there were good sized crowds but for the majority of the race, it was just the runners. When I hit mile 24, I had something like 23 minutes to finish the race - this is when I knew I was guaranteed a Boston qualifying time (even though I ran the second half of the marathon 10 minutes longer than the first half). I got really happy and just kept telling myself to get through these last 2 miles. At this point, runners had spread out. Mile 26 was the L-O-N-G-E-S-T mile EVER!!! I thought I was going to lose my BQ time on this mile because the end felt like it was never coming. However, it did... finally, the crowds appeared, people screaming "JUST AROUND THE TURN AND YOU'RE DONE!" I got a crazy cramp in my side in the last .2 miles and had to walk a minute and stretch it out but I ran the rest of the finish and read the clock at 3:36! WooHoo! I'm going to Boston!

After the finish I immediately took off my sneakers to reveal a huge blister that had formed around the top of one of my toe. I could not put any pressure on it - it felt as though I broke it. I was in pain. It's looking better now that it's been a few days but still hurts. I also got to make friends with an adorable 4 month old puppy at the finish - so cute!

                                           

Soon after, Jenny came running through the finish and looked amazingly happy to have completed the marathon (without training!) ;) Congrats to Jenny - I am very happy she decided to do the marathon!!!
                                    

And so, it's time to let my legs relax. I get to sit back and watch Justin train for the NYC Marathon and not feel the slightest bit guilty for not working out as hard as he is :) It's going to be a great feeling.

Running long

In 12 days, I'll be running the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon. To do my final prepping, I ran long today (20 miles). This was my one and only long run between Syracuse and the marathon. Last week I did a couple hour runs at an easy pace to remind my legs that they are not in their off season yet. 12 days legs, 12 days.

Today was hugely successful and has lifted my spirits quiet high! Given that I've let myself eat a good amount of junk food last week and that I haven't worked out hard, I thought my run was going to be a struggle. Even with the strong headwind and raising temps, I managed to pull out a 19.84 mile run in 2:45:22 for a pace of 8:20min/mile ON THE DOT! (I don't use my running pacer, this is all off feel). I had to stop a couple times to breath quickly because once I hit the Mt. Vernon trail, there were no water fountains to fill up on for 1hr 25min, so I had to go easy on the hydration so that I had enough to last me through to the next water fountain. Anyways, I'm really happy about today and I hope I can keep it up for the marathon so that I can get me one of them Boston Marathon spots :)

I am crossing my fingers a million times for good weather on race day. This year has been kind of a wreck when it comes to my races and weather. Goofy Challenge: rain/sleet/snow/40 degrees both days, TriRidgefield: rainy, EagleMan: hot/more hot/100 degrees, Timberman: rainy/cool/60 degrees, Syracuse: rainy/super foggy/60 degrees. What I would love for my marathon is partly cloudy, high 60's to low 70's. That would be ideal for me. Cross your fingers, too!

Syracuse 70.3 Race Report 2010

The race is done and in the books and now there’s just a marathon standing in my way of the complete off season! Here’s the race report…

Justin and I drove up to Syracuse Saturday morning. We headed straight to registration to get all the hassle out of the way. This was the races inaugural year so I was a bit concerned about how smoothly things would go. To my surprise, I was in and out, back in the car within 15 minutes. From there we were off to rack the bike which was about an 18 minute drive away. I did a quick ride; made sure everything was ready and racked my bike. I headed down to the water where Justin went for a swim to feel the water and oh good lord, the water was frigid. I didn’t even get knee deep before I decided I’d skip my short swim for the day. After that, we checked-in to our hotel and met up with Hirsch and CREW for dinner at pastabilities (yum). I was in bed at 8pm.

Race Morning
I was up at 4:30am, plans to leave at 5am. Walking out to the car, I was (twice now) pleasantly surprised that our hotel had breakfast out for the taking (I was not expecting this as it was the races inaugural year). We grabbed a (small) cup of coffee and left. Expecting temps in the 40’s, I was again (third time now) pleasantly surprised that it was in the low 60’s at 5am – SWEET! Though, there was on and off mist/light rain. 18 minutes later we pulled into the enormous grass parking lot (holds 4,000 cars) without any traffic backups. The morning was going smoothly. With plenty of time before race start, Justin and I found a spot under a tree (to stay dry) near the water, sipped on more coffee that we got at the race site and just waited. I guess everyone wanted to show up later rather than early because they ended up delaying the start by 15 minutes due to heavy traffic of athletes trying to make their way to the race.

                       

Swim [39:02]
Since there was a delay in the start, they condensed the time lapse between each wave group. The start seemed rush but I didn’t mind, I always find it annoying when I start an hour+ after the first wave. I was nervous about how cold the water was so I didn’t even feel it that morning until my swim start. Again, (fourth time now) pleasantly surprised that the water didn’t feel as cold as the day before. Maybe because I had a wetsuit on but the temp was def. doable, actually comfortable with a wetsuit on, at 62 degrees. I kept a groove in the water the entire time. The water was a bit cloudy but I could see the space around me which is all I need to feel alright. Buoys were easy to spot, too.

T1 [3:24]
                           

Bike [2:57:18, 19mph]
The day before, Jus and I drove the first 10ish miles of the bike course. It was nothing but one hill after another. Sweet Road ain’t so sweet (pictured above). I figured from the elevation chart, the course should be semi-flat after 15 miles or so. I decided not to kill it until I was through with the early hills. After which I got going with some consistent, fast speeds. There were a good number of rolling hills throughout so by no means was the bike “easy”. It was not at all what I was expecting it to be going in. I decided not to wear arm warmers or glasses which was a smart move. There was a mist the entire bike so you were never dry and my helmet dripped water throughout. The fog was crazy at certain points (pictured below – not me in the pic). Roads were in good condition, farms all around, not much to complain about here. 1 loop course – gotta love that!

                        

T2 [2:01]

Run [1:48:03, 8:15 min/mile]
My feet were super numb coming off the bike. I think this is due to shoe fit (need to buy some new, wider shoes for next season). It takes about 4 miles until my feet feel normal. The run course was a point to point run which I'm not a fan of. Because of this, you had

to drive to transition once done to collect all your things – annoying. By the time I started running, the mist/rain had stopped and it was just overcast. For the most part, the run was flat but it did have a couple small hills and false flats. But overall, I’d say the run course was easy. A bit boring as you run on one long, straight, 4 lane, divided road for most of the time. By mile 6 I was ready to stop. I didn’t want to race anymore. I was tired, my legs hurt, and I still had 7 miles to go. Ugh. Working through my negative thoughts, I stopped looking at my watch and just kept putting one foot in front of the other, counting down the miles at every mile marker. Coming down to the final stretch everyone was screaming “just around the corner and you’re done!” Well, where was this corner?!?! It felt like FOREVER to get to THE corner but they were all right, you turn it and there’s the finish – LOVELY! I checked the watch and it said 5:29 and change… holy cow, another PR (by 10 minutes) and sub 5:30 ;) !! I was close to running my fastest half marathon in this race – which right now is a 1:46. I was ecstatic.

                      

Total Time: 5:29:45
AG Standing: 16th/68 (Only one girl came in sub 5 in my AG so that is promising, ha)

I personally really enjoyed this race. There were a lot of things that made it nice. Well organized, small town feeling, great volunteer support (including the police and army/navy guys), normal, calm, friendly participating athletes (not like the tool bags that flocked to Timberman), the surrounding towns totally embraced the race and athletes, even the cows and horses that stood at the farm fences to watch us (it was really cute!). The only thing I would change is to have the run end at transition (I know this defeats the SYRACUSE part but whatever, it’s close enough). HUGE thanks to Justin for all his help and crazy ability to show up in about 50 different spots of the race to cheer for me :) And, love and thanks goes to my family of course for tracking me and sending their positive vibes!

And with that, my tri season is now complete. Until next year…

Soon to be on our way!

I'm packed up and ready to go! Tomorrow AM, we hit the road for Syracuse for my last tri of the season!

Crazy how fast the spring/summer went - seriously, it flew by! I'll have one last big race this year and that's the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon, which I'll be running with my sis, Jen - YAY! I have to say though, I am kind of (REALLY) looking forward to the off season. I love this time of year... the fall, cool air, picking apples, Halloween, leaves changing colors, carving pumpkins, apple pie, Thanksgiving, delicious & yummy food, time with the family, Christmas, yearly vacation with Justin's family, New Years, snow, my bday, freezing cold weather... lots to look forward to in the coming months. This is all that I was thinking about while packing for the weekend :)

I think I'm going to do some shorter distance running races throughout the fall and winter. I've never done a 5K or 10K (outside of work associated races) but I'm definitely thinking about doing some soon. AND, I think I know someone nearby that might want to do them with me, maybe (ahem, Courtney) :)

Well, see you on the other side of the weekend... Syracuse 70.3, here I come!

So many GU flavors to choose from for the race... shall I have Jet Blackberry, Vanilla Bean or... um, Jet Blackberry or Vanilla Bean. Oh wait! I spy 1 Orange and a few Espressos... ok, good, I thought I was really limited there for a second ;)

Our Sunday of fun

The Nation’s Tri was yesterday, here in DC. We had plans to head out for the start of the race and be spectators for a good part of the day with Cork but the rain was coming down and staying in bed sounded a whole lot better. 8:15 rolled around and Jus and I finally woke up. We logged onto the computer to check out how everyone was doing in Rev3 and decided to take a stroll down to the race since the rain had lightened up. After a quick stop at Dunkies, we headed down to the race to find that, at 9:15, wave starts were still going off!! It took over two hours to get all the wave groups out into the water… so crazy, so long (the race started at 7am)! We got to see the last two wave groups start, some stragglers almost swim straight into the rocks on the river line, and then walked the bike/run course around the tidal basin (the long route) to the finish. Rain was on and off the entire time. It was no fun. Once we made it to the finish, we took a seat and cheered on the finishers, one man after another… after another…. after ANOTHER! Where were all the women?! Well, given the first female wave group went off over an hour after the first wave group, I guess it made sense that we weren’t seeing them. By the time they started coming through the finish, we were tired of watching and headed back up to the apartment for a lazy day which included grilled cheese and soup for lunch and a long, much needed nap on the couch. Man, I love weekends.

Congrats to everyone who competed in Rev3 yesterday! You all did an awesome job. AND, way to go Joey for going sub 13, just 2 weeks after IMLOU! So happy we got to see you finish this time on the live camera!!

Some pictures from the Nation’s Tri…

Swim...

Run...

This kid in the mask frightened me.

What's with the 3 minutes?

Today was my last long run before Syracuse 70.3 next weekend. I left the apartment at 9am for a 2 1/2 hour run. The second I started running I knew it would be a good run. I felt refreshed (even though I'm not), light and fast. It was quiet on the streets and cool - it was about 72 degrees throughout my run (loved it)! The results, I'm really happy about: 18.4 miles, 2h 33m for an 8:18 min/mile pace with three quick stops for water refills. Last week I did the same run at the same time of day, except it was 90 degrees when I started and mid 90's when I finished. Results from last week: 17.06 miles, 2h 33m for an 8:58 min/mile pace with about 10 stops to cool down/stretch (would have been A LOT slower had I not stopped). It was a TOUGH run for me and I def. struggled through it. Having trained day in and day out in the heat, the run in the cool, crisp air this morning was a nice change and I guess it showed :) I hope it pays off in the marathon and I can do a Boston qualifying time (fingers crossed).

Now here is something I can't figure out. Whenever I go for these long runs, it ALWAYS, ALWAYS takes me exactly 3 minutes longer to run back then it does to run out. It is always 3 minutes to the dot. I find it really interesting, and I guess it shows that I am at least consistent, ha, however slower on the way back! On every long run, I contemplate turning around 3 minutes early at the half way point to factor in this inevitable delay on the second half of the run, but I never do because I convince myself that this time, I'll do an even split, but I never do. Never. At least it stays at 3 minutes and doesn't increase with each week :)

Just a couple more days until I fall into my 1 week taper. Looking forward to Syracuse!

(Pic: Dead tired on the floor post run. Why the peace sign? Cause it's what I always do, unconsciously, at the finish line of races... I never MEAN to do it, I just do it, haha. In fact, when I finish races now, I tell myself over and over as I cross; "don't do the peace sign, don't do the peace sign" haha). Thought it was fitting for my final long run!

IMC... it's on!

Well... IT'S ON! Justin, my brother and I are all signed up for 2011 Ironman Canada!!

What did I just get myself into?!??!???!?

GO JOJO!! Rock IMLOU Sunday!!!!!!

Bright and early tomorrow morning, Justin and I are headed out to Banff for a long weekend to celebrate a friend’s wedding. We’re psyched to explore new land in chilly weather – can’t wait! Except, Justin found out that berries are in full bloom right now which means there have been a ton of bear sightings – EEK! Scary. I’m def. buying my bear-be-gone spray.

Since we’ll be out in Canada, we’re unfortunately going to be missing Joey (http://www.ironjoe.blogspot.com/) race his third Ironman down in Louisville on Sunday. We couldn’t be more bummed out about this. Though we won’t be there in person, we’ll be tracking him online when we’re on the ground and cheering him on from 30,000 feet up in the air during our flights home. I’m happy my sister Jenny, her fiancé Roger and my parents are all making the long trip out there for his race. Emotionally, I think any Ironman athlete would agree that having friends and family there cheering you on and supporting you throughout the entire day is the most important thing you could ask for. And, let's face it, they're pretty darn good at cheering!

Joey doing IMLP 09

Joey- BEST OF LUCK ON SUNDAY!!! Hope your 8 week training/nutrition crunch pays off ;) It will be hot, it will be sunny, it will be a hard race, but we know you’ll rock it and finish strong! Would you rather it be hot, hot, hot and sunny or cold and rainy, rainy, rainy (ahem, your first IM) – I guess you’ll be able to tell us after you’re done. Looking forward to tracking you and mentally sending our positive thoughts on race day…haha. ROCK ON!

GO JOJO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Timberman 70.3 2010 Race Report

Going into this race, I wasn’t expecting much. This was my first time doing Timberman and Justin’s second (it was actually his 70.3 debut back in 2007 so I think it was an exciting time for him to return to the scene of the crime). I was calm. I hadn’t taken a real taper as my A race is mid-September, so I was looking to race well but certainly did not have any high expectations.

Justin and I arrived at race check-in around 3:45pm on Saturday. Right off the bat I fell into a rotten mood. First, what’s up with K Swiss’ shirt sizing? As with every race, I marked off a size small and when they handed me my shirt I gave it a quick glance and asked with all seriousness, “is this a kid’s shirt?” It looked like the perfect size for my 9 year old niece. They assured it was a woman’s size small and said I would have to come back at 7pm when everyone has checked in to exchange it for a different size. Screw that, way too much effort; I just won’t be wearing it around (which is too bad cause they were nice shirts). Second, we ran into the expo shop to pick up a pair of yankz shoe laces for me and saw that they were charging $5 for a Timberman water bottle (which they typically give you for free in your goody-bag, but not this year). All the other ridiculously overpriced branded items in the expo made me want to ban these races forever – I hate seeing money hungry corporations. Then, as we left, I stopped by the information tent to ask how much tickets were for the pasta dinner. There response: “We don’t have any information about the dinner, it’s not run by us so we don’t know” GIVE ME A BREAK! Really?! The freakin’ pasta dinner is put on by the police department where the proceeds go to a cause and because they're not getting any of the money they’re not going to give out any information about it? Christ, so ridiculous!! A bit ticked off, we went to transition, set up our bikes and made our way to Applebee’s (where we had the most boring dinners ever but healthy nonetheless) and then our hotel. We were in bed around 8pm. Wakeup was 4:20am and we were out door at 5am.We lucked out on parking and got a spot across the street from transition – happy we didn’t have to wait in the shuttle lines after the race! As for weather, it was an overcast day, high 60’s at race start with some sprinkles that arrived later during the bike and run.

Swim
[Liz- 39:41,  Justin- 44:31]
Last weekend I tried on some wetsuits at a local tri shop. I was in the market for a new one because I hate the one I was using. One suit I tried was the QuintanaRoo Hydrofull suit and I fell in love – the easiest, most comfortable suit I’ve ever tried on. That night we did some internet searching and found the suit for a nice price and ordered it. I received it in the mail on Friday, hours before heading out the door! I was a bit concerned about doing my first swim in the suit at the race, but luckily I had no issues. It felt awesome. I did dolphin dives up to the first bouy since it was so shallow, after which I caught a groove and just swam. I got stuck in a couple jams before the first turnaround and the waters were choppy so it wasn’t ideal but either way, I think this was the fastest half swim I’ve ever done so I was happy with what I posted. I’m just ready to get faster because the swim really hurts my time.

T1
[Liz- 2:15,  Justin- 2:57]
I ran into transition just behind Justin. Fairly quickly, I was out and on the bike.

Bike
[Liz- 3:00:04 for 18.7 mph,  Justin- 2:57:55 for 18.9 mph]
I was expecting the bike course to be a lot more difficult than it actually was. To my surprise I was able to hold a decent pace for most of the ride. There were a lot of false flats which I am really good at going fast on. What I’m not really good at going fast on are hills and for each one that I approached I was passed over and over again. Hills drive me absolutely crazy and I’ve decided that hills need to be a major focus of mine for next season. If I can conquer hills, I’d be pretty fast on the bike. It started sprinkling halfway through the bike but thankfully, it just sprinkled. My stomach started getting weak at mile 36 so I decided to skip on taking more GU’s. Justin passed me (surprise, surprise…on a hill) somewhere around miles 40-45. I caught him again on a downhill (he’s a big ol’ chicken and was breaking down a hill because the roads were wet from the rain) but only to get passed by him again on an uphill… haha. At mile 52-ish, I decided to take a 2x caffeine GU to help me make it through the run. I wanted to throw up the second I took it and told myself I wouldn’t take anymore GU’s until absolutely necessary for the remainder of the race.

T2
[Liz- 2:33,  Justin- 2:30]
I was happy to be off the bike. I threw my sneaks on, pulled my hair into a pony-tail, left the sunglasses behind and started my run. As I was leaving transition, fellow CREW member Grant told me Jus was just ahead of me and to go get him. Happy he didn’t make up too much time, my next goal was to catch Justin ;)

Run
[Liz- 1:54:41 for 8:46 min/mile,  Justin- 2:04:28 for 9:31 min/mile]
With every race, I tell myself to run the first mile or two at a nice and easy pace. I can catch my breath, undo the numbness in my feet and get my running legs together. This is exactly what I did this race only to find out my fastest running was the first several miles! The first 3 miles I apparently paced an 8:14min/mile! Surprised again, the run course was not too difficult. I caught Justin somewhere between mile 2 or 3, chatted quickly, and was off. The run was pretty uneventful. They had plenty of water stations and food along the course which was really nice. 13.1 miles of running (no stopping to walk for me!) and I finished with a personal best! I was SUPER excited. I waited at the finish to see Justin run threw and get awarded his finishers medal from Chrissie Wellington which was super awesome.

Final
[Liz- 5:39:14,  Justin- 5:51:58]
This is the fastest half I’ve ever done and I can’t wait to see what I can do in next month’s race. I am still unsure of how many girls were in my age group (official results haven’t been posted where they tell you) but there were over 100 and I placed 25th – which I’m really excited about. I have been training really hard and hope that with some more serious workouts, I'll be in a good position to finish my last tri of the season strong. Justin posted a great time even though he was in a calorie deficit most of the race. Congrats, Justin! We need to find some better race day fueling as GU’s don’t seem to be doing it for us anymore.

We headed to the food tent and filled our plates with food. However, I only ate the clam chowder, roll and banana in the pic below... everything else went into the trash.

Parting thoughts
I had a lot of fun racing Timberman. Take out the greediness that makes up these races and the “God’s gift” athletes that seemed to flock to this race and I’d have to say it was a beautiful race and well organized. I had a great time. The drive was a little too much for me, especially our drive home which took over 11 hours thanks to heavy rain and major traffic. All-in-all it was a successful day and happy I came out to race! I received a text from my brother congratulating me on the finish and said he’s bringing the competition next season… need to be doing 5:20’s – BRING IT!!!!

Timberman check in. This is my last scheduled tri of the year before a run focus. Even though I'm not trained for this race its fun to come back 4 years later to my 1st long distance race. And same as the 1st go round, wake up temps will be in the low 50's...

Timberman- Transition Area

A little running, a little biking

As I write this post, I am 2 hours into my recovery from a long run. I headed out late morning ready to rock a 2hr 15min run. It was hard to get myself out the door given the severe storm that was rolling through the area making it look more like 10pm than 8am. I waited out the storm by falling asleep on the couch while watching the news and when I woke at 9am the sun was shining. When I stepped out the door at 9:45am it was hot and humid – ugh. I tucked my shirt up, pressed play on the shuffle and started the watch to count me down to my turnaround. I ran around the Mall, over the Memorial Bridge and down the Mt. Vernon trail until I hit 1h 7m 30s. I back tracked the same route home. My purpose of doing the Mall twice is 1) the high activity of tourist keeps me preoccupied from my actual run, 2) there are water fountains so I can refill the needed 2 times throughout the run, and 3) there are bathrooms in case of emergency. I did a total of just under 16 miles, running 3 mins longer than planned, coming out to an 8:46 min/mile pace. Not too shabby, I must say! Let your mind wonder and your legs do the work and you’ll be running faster than you actually think you are.

Speaking of which, Justin read an article in Men’s Journal about a new sports mix that is getting signed into the market. It’s called the Sims drink. A woman has researched the most ideal sports drink for over 8 years and has finally come up with the formula. Through her test, she found that runners who drank her formula ran 15-20% faster. We decided to give the formula a try and have been drinking it for a couple weeks now. I haven’t done any self-tests as to if it’s actually making me faster, but I def. haven’t felt fatigue on any of my runs and given today’s pace, I have to say that maybe it’s working. Here’s the formula if you want to try it out:

32 oz. water
¼ cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
2 sachs of Emergen-C
½ packet of unsweetened Kool-Aid powder for flavoring

Fruit Punch is good – but really fruity. Lemonade is DISTGUSTING. Orange is superb and our favorite so far. Here's a pic of the special brew:

Onto other news, last week, we were up in CT for a visit. On Saturday morning, Justin and I left for a 60 mile ride. I mapped the ride out myself and purposely went out of my way to find hill after hill to make up the ride. YIKES! I didn’t know it would be as hilly as it actually was. We started with Hilltop, of course, and then continued onto the Hilly 100 ride. We cut off the route near Sherman for our turnaround but not without doing the hill that makes me want to cry from pain. Joey took me up this hill last year (I think it’s Kirby Hill Rd) and I didn’t realize I had included it in last weeks ride.  When we approached the hill, I said “what is this?!” and not far after I realized, “oh god, this is THE hill”. We were both out of the saddle just trying to pump the pedals as fast as possible. I was gasping for air as my legs were shaking, certain I’d fall over at any point. Well, we both made it up! There is no better feeling than completing a hard hill with a nice downhill on the other side. Near the end of the ride we took Joes Hill Rd then Dingle Ridge Rd, both of which are NOT easy. We ended up climbing about 6K ft total. It was a tough ride but I certainly don’t regret it :-D When I got home, my sister’s dogs, Reese and Bailey attacked me with kisses in an attempt to lick up all the salt!

I’ll leave today’s post by showing off a bowl that my nieces, Jillian and Haley made for Justin and I. They asked us for our favorite colors a few weeks back and this weekend we received this adorable, and my most favorite, bowl!!