Will Tri For Food: July 2010

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

You big dummy!

This past weekend, Justin and I took a ride to his office to see what he would be looking at if he wanted to bike one day a week. Most of the ride is on trails, so away from cars, which was nice. It was hot outside (in the high 90’s) so we prepared by taking as many liquids as possible ( three water bottles for me). I’m not sure what went wrong but when we got to his office, I was starting to get cranky… WARNING! A sign of bonking. I had gone through all my water bottles and the grocery store across the street didn’t have any cold Gatorades, just waters. So I rehydrated by downing a large bottle of warm Gatorade and refilled the rest of my bottles with half Gatorade and half cold water. I snacked on a Powerbar and apologized to Justin ahead of time that I was probably going to be slow on the way back.

Slowly but surely we were kicking away at each mile when about halfway through, dark clouds starting rolling in. I know far too well that this meant bad things ahead. Trying to out ride the clouds, we started cranking away. That plus a gusty tailwind from the oncoming storm meant we were flying in the 35+mph range. It was very cool and fun. However, not fun was when the clouds inevitably caught up and we took shelter under a bridge as the downpours, lightening and thunder did their thing. About 30 minutes later, the sun started coming back out so we hopped back on the bikes to finish the ride. Reminding you that just before we stopped at the bridge, we were flying on the bikes, which means I was in the hardest of gears, which means when I got back on the bike and tried pedaling up the short hill coming out of the bridge underpass, I couldn’t get enough power and ended up falling flat on my side. Awesome. After a minute to regroup myself, I walked the bike up the hill and got on at the flat. Not even 10 minutes later, Justin, slows down after a split in the path and yells “go left!” but I’m already past bonking and had delayed reactions and ended up slamming on my brakes and sliding out from the wet path, once again falling over and skidding on the cement. This is why you ALWAYS wear a helmet, because you never know what is going to happen even on the easiest of rides. I hit my head (thank you helmet), but out of instinct I threw my hand out and ended up with a nice cut on the side of my pinky finger and shoulder, let’s not mention the bruise on my leg. Instantly I started crying because I was hurting and thought I might have broken my wrist. Jus rinsed the cuts down with some water and told me not to look at my hands (at the time, they were quite bloody). When I had calmed down, we walked about a quarter mile while pushing the bikes. Getting the guts to get back on, we attempted one last time to finish the ride biking. This time I was truly going SLOW as I didn’t have much use of my hands. We made it home, and I immediately tended to the wounds.

My wounded hand (it's much grosser and painful than it appears here)

Now that it’s been a couple days, the only thing that still hurts is the cut on my hand. It’s still trying to scab over, and I hope it does before the weekend because we’re racing and I don’t want to have to worry about it. Ugh to unsuccessful rides!

Some pics (PS: I have no idea why there are borders around every picture... stupid blogger):

We're now playing kickball... this is our field - awesome!

On a long ride last weekend where we saw ridiculously large houses.

Under the bridge... I look happy (and sweaty, ew).

Under the bridge... bored, taking pics. HI JUSTIN!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Hot Summer Days

Acclimating to the DC weather has been a work in progress. My wake up call was racing EagleMan – it was absolutely brutal. I drank 6 full water bottles on the run alone, never mind filling my hat with ice AND eating a cup of ice at every water station.

I think I could easily estimate that since we’ve moved here, 90% of the days have been 90 degrees or above. I learned this morning that this past month was the hottest June recorded worldwide. That is pretty insane, and scary. I receive weather bug alerts multiple times a day on my cell warning me to stay inside due to air quality and heat advisories. Last week I noticed a camera man from the news taping me run down the National Mall – it was hitting the 100’s that day and I am sure they aired footage that night with something along the lines of, “don’t be this crazy idiot, stay indoors.”

I simply cannot though – I need to train, plus, I like working out outside!

Before I head out the door, I load sunscreen onto my face, hands and shoulders, the three areas I burn easiest. There is a bottle of sunscreen sitting on the table next to the door just so I don’t forget! I’d pass on wearing a tank and opt to wear just a sports bra so just to remove one extra layer but I don’t for the very reason that I think I would get yelled at by the building I live in on my way out. Seriously, we don’t meet eye to eye : )

The other day I went for just over a 9 mile run along the Mt. Vernon Trail. I thought I was going to die from the heat. I kept a very decent pace but the entire run is in dead sunlight (as it seems all run paths here are). After a long stretch around the Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary (gross name) that seems endless, I took cover under a tree for a few minutes. It was just so hot. I continued on but decided to turn around early, cutting the run short by a total of 10 minutes – no big deal. I was quickly running out of water and the path doesn’t have any fountains, so it was smartest to just turn myself around. On my way back, I stopped 3 more times to get shade coverage for just a minute each time. Even though it was brutally hot out and I was soaked in my own sweat at the end, I was happy and felt fantastic.

The new shoes are working out great, too. I’ve taken direction to powder my socks and glide my feet where I commonly get blisters. Haven’t experienced any pain yet, so that is good news on my end! Yay! My running shoes have been a size 7.5 since I can’t remember but they put me in a size 8 this time around. Maybe my big ol' feet just needed some extra room?

This weekend is our FIRST weekend in DC (outside of when Cork and Kyle came down), and we’re looking forward to exploring new places while getting some bike miles under our belts. I love weekends.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Hi. Have you missed us?

It has been awhile – sorry! We’re now back and hopefully we’re here for good!

A lot has been going on. In short, Justin accepted a job offer down in DC so we quit our jobs and made the move south, but not without running away to Europe for two weeks first. Training was strong up until that point but we pretty much took the entire month of May off.

We raced TriRidgefield the first weekend from being back with not such stellar results but I guess you can’t expect much from taking a month off. Not helping the situation, we then went on to race EagleMan 70.3 the following weekend. Let’s not talk about that one. Well… ok, let’s.

EagleMan is located in Cambridge, MD and the swim is in the Choptank River. When Jus and I showed up to rack our bikes the day before, we decided to swim some of the course to get a feel for the water. We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. We fought waves, lost sight of the buoys, couldn’t see a foot in front of us it was so brown and brackish, our goggles kept fogging… oh boy. We took it for what it was, headed out to our hotel and only hoped for the best for race day. On race morning, we were told the swim would be wetsuit illegal – wonderful. Along with all the other athletes, we sat on the docks and watched one wave group after another go off. An hour and 25 minutes later, my wave set to the water. 57 minutes later, I exited into T1… yes, 57 minutes. That is 1.2 miles, 57 minutes. No, I’m not lying. I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain that one. Bike and run can be summed up in three words: no shade & HOT! Given all conditions, this race was a tough one. But I hate leaving a race with a bad taste in my mouth so I will be signing up for it next year to redeem myself.

TriRidgefield Results

Liz:
Swim: 18:08
T1: 3:00
Bike: 41:42
T2: 1:10
Run: 24:15
Total: 1:28:15

Justin:
Swim: 18:24
T1: 2:41
Bike: 38:03
T2: 0:55
Run: 23:10
Total: 1:23:13

EagleMan 70.3 Results

Liz:
Swim: 57:26
T1: 2:17
Bike: 3:02:31
T2: 2:47
Run: 2:21:35
Total: 6:26:36

Justin:
Swim: 1:03:07
T1: 2:02
Bike: 3:02:55
T2: 3:09
Run: 2:31:17
Total: 6:42:30

We signed up for a local sprint in Culpeper, VA for August 1. Let’s hope we both see some improvements by then! Haha.

I’ll leave you now with some pictures… pictures taken with intentions to write blogs for each… but have failed, of course. Will be back writing soon! PROMISE.