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!!

Culpeper Sprint Race Report

When we moved down to DC, we started looking immediately for local triathlons to race in. One of these races was the Culpeper Sprint. It’s put on by Setup Events who covers a crazy number of races in Virginia and the Carolinas.  Hands down, this was one of the best races I’ve ever been to. Well organized, friendly, beautiful area, sufficient water/Gatorade/food/port-o-potties, a great transition area, and everything else you could ask for in a race. Count me in for more of these events next season!

We woke up at 4:20am, showered and jumped in the car for the 1:20 drive to Culpeper, VA. When we showed up at 6:30am, the place was buzzing with people already. It’s an 8am start so I was surprised to see lots people there, hanging out, relaxing before the race. And, these people looked like serious competitors – decked out bikes and fit. We checked-in and set up transition and had an hour to hang out ourselves. We jumped in the water and did a short barefoot run.

Swim:
[Liz: 16:14] [Justin: 17:10]

Justin was the first wave group, men 35 and under, I was second. It was an in water start, wetsuit illegal (water temp was 84… 14 degrees warmer than the outside temp at the start!). Lots of weeds in the beginning but it didn’t bug me so much. The start of the swim was kind of brutal. I wanted to try to swim hard but I was getting caught behind other girls or sandwiched between two. I found it hard to break from the group but at the first buoy turn, I found my space and decided not to kill it as I was pretty tired from fighting the group. And, let’s face it; I’m an awful swimmer, so killing it would probably mean I would come in 20 seconds faster than I had, haha.

T1:
[Liz: 1:28] [Justin: 1:33]

The mounting line was up a short hill which sucked because you had to push your bike up but other than that, an uneventful T1.

Bike:
[Liz: 54:39, 17.7 mph] [Justin: 52:23, 18.3 mph]

The bike course was a 16 mile, rolling hills through the farmlands that just made for a beautiful ride. I tried hammering out the bike but the uphill’s always get me, though I think I did well on the downs and flats, at least I was happy with my pace. I love seeing how many girls in my age group I can pass on the bike. I feel fairly confident in my biking outside of hills so it’s always a fun game for me to play to pass the time. I passed three or four girls, mostly all within the first 15 minutes of riding. The bike went by quickly and before I knew it, I was heading into T2.

T2:
[Liz: 1:33] [Justin: 1:25]

We had to run our bikes down the same hill we had to run them up at dismount which wasn’t so fun. I need to start learning how to dismount barefoot, it would have made running downhill much easier and my time at the rack quicker.

Run:
[Liz: 24:23, 7:51 min/mile] [Justin: 25:02, 8:04 min/mile]

Running out of T2, a girl in my age group passed me and she had great speed. She ended up placing second in my age group. I tried to just keep a good pace as the first half mile or so is slightly uphill – no walking allowed. My feet were a bit numb but they always are after my bike. I thought I was running slowly, as it certainly didn’t feel as though I was going very fast. You break off from the main road twice onto side roads for two out and backs. I saw Justin on the first out and back which is always nice to see a familiar face when you need it! Each back in the out and backs were slightly uphill but didn’t seem so bad when running them. With about a half mile to go, I heard a girl coming up on me breathing quite heavily. She passed me and I looked down at her calve to see the number 28 and thought, OH NO! I’m not letting you pass me this close to the finish! So, I picked up the speed and passed her back… she passed me back again. I see, she’s a fighter. The last stretch to the finish is on grass and there is a sharp curve that turns right into the straight away to the finish. I passed her again as we reached the grass and just kept screaming at myself in my head to go fast. She was on my heels until we hit the sharp curve in which I dug deep and shot out a full out sprint, finishing first! :) Exhausted from the final stretch battle, I took a second to breath, turned around, gave her a high five and we laughed at what a nice finish that was. It was fun.

Total:
[Liz: 1:38:15] [Justin: 1:37:31]

So…from the results Justin ended up beating me by 44 seconds. Whatever dude, I beat you badly in EagleMan!!!!!

Post Race:
We grabbed some food and packed up our stuff and put everything into/onto the car and headed back to relax and hang out for the awards. The race waited until the very last finisher came in before the awards ceremony started which was pretty cool and very respectful. AND, even cooler, most of the racers stuck around for the awards ceremony so you had a large crowd… most races everyone leaves immediately but this was cool that people actually wanted to stick around.

This race was awesome! Will def. be doing it again next year!!