Lake Washington ride

Today I got the opportunity to ride around Lake Washington - something I had wanted to do all summer. The ride started off at 7am at Starbucks in Bridle Trails where we met up with Jill. We took off around 7:15am and started with the south end of the lake working our way up north and back around. I'm definitely the rookie of the team, but everyone has to start somewhere right? All that practicing all summer paid off as I was able to keep up for the most part - still need work on climbing hills. I was proud of myself - 56 miles...that's a half Ironman distance bike ride!

I was trying out new nutrition - CarboPro and did really well with it. I put one scoop into my Gatorade and 2 scoops into my CamelBak with water. This seemed to give me enough calories during the ride. However the last 10 miles were the toughest...we ended the ride with a nice hill climb up Old Redmond road - phew! According to online cycling calculators, I burned over 2000 calories on that bike ride.

So what's up with the bike picture? Well, I've been eyeing this bike all summer. I told myself that if my half Ironman training (I was planning on doing Lake Steven's next year) goes well that I would get this bike! Now I have even more motivation to train hard!

Chronicles of an overtrained triathlete

Happy Labour Day everyone! Yesturday I took the day off to give myself a nice 4 day weekend. However, I didn't rest - it was all labour for me! The alarm clock was off at 5:30am so that I can meet Guy for our usual 7am open water swim at Idylwood. Coach Josh told me that 2 laps of all 4 buoys would be close to an Olympic distance swim. So that was the goal I had set out to do - 2 laps of all 4 buoys. I got to Idylwood on time, but Guy was late - usually I'm the one that is late. It took me a million years to put on my wetsuit and by that time, Guy had arrived. We got into the water and proceeded to swim. He has never swam the distance either so we went buoy to buoy as we needed to practice sighting as well. It was definitely a long swim for me but I am glad that I got through it. After the swim, I had PT at 8:30am where Shelly made me do all these squat jumps and butt burners. When I got out I rushed back to Idylwood and continued my brick...a nice bike around Lake Sammamish. That bike was really hard as I didn't do so well with nutrition so I was tired. I'm still no comfortable with pulling my water bottle out of my cage while riding...however I did manage to go down on my drop bars! So I'm hoping that one day out of the blue, I will feel comfortable with my bike handling such that I can drink and ride!

Today I am thinking about taking a rest - a little shopping and time with good friends. My knees are a little achy from yesturday. The rest of my body is noticeably fatigued. However, another part of me is toying with doing 20 minutes of hill repeats up Juanita Woodinville way. Tomorrow we have a 56 mile bike around Lake Washington with Jill. I can't wait to do this ride as I've always wanted to ride around the lake.

My Olympic dream

So the Danskin has come and gone with little fanfare. Now I am concentrating on my preparations for my first Olympic distance triathlon. I have not committed to it yet because I need to see how my knees are feeling. But I will make an effort to train for this. I am NOT in running form right now. I have not run in 3 months so I can't expect much. I know I can run 5 km because I did that at the Danskin. But can I run 10 km after a 1 mile swim and 40 km bike without my knees failing on me? This is still up in the air.

I must admit that being able to complete an Olympic is something that I had dreamed about about doing all year. So do I go after this dream or not?

Danskin Race Report

Today was the day of the big race - and I mean quite literally as there are 4000 women registered for the Danskin triathlon.
Pre-race
Woke up to the sound of thunder and lightening at 4am. My thought was, "Oh no! The Danskin is cursed!" Last year it poured.
I had a bowl of cereal and 1 hard boiled egg for breakfast then left the house at around 4:30am. I had packed everything the night before so I was all set to go.

SWIM: 1/2 mile
This was challenging. The wave was so huge - like at least 100 women. I placed myself too close to the front and when the count down ended, it was madness! I was shoved around, pushed and kicked. Only when the mass of women were ahead of me, could I really start to swim. I passed the first buoy without incident, but then had trouble seeing the next buoy - it was so far away! I felt like I was swimming all over the place. This half mile swim took me 20 minutes - a little longer than I had hoped. After the race, I heard that a lady almost drowned. She was taken to Habourview and put on life support. She is recovering now, thank God!
Time: 00:20:39

T1:
I made it a goal of mine to improve on my transitions from Issaquah. I ripped off my wetsuit coming out of the water and ran to transition. I had used Body Glide on my ankles and my arms so that I could rip off my wetsuit - which helped. I didn't put socks on or gloves for my bike. Still with all that, it took me 3:17 to transition. It was a pretty long run to transition from the water, so most people had poor T1 tmes.

BIKE: 12.4 miles
My bike went really well - they closed off I-90 for our bike portion. I left transition very light, not even a water bottle. Because I was in one of the early waves there weren't many people on the road, so I was able to reach top speeds with not too many issues. The steep climb up to I-90 was open so that was not a bottleneck for me. But coming back, that tiny on ramp was packed. A few people had crashed there. My average speed was 20 MPH.
Time: 00:36:03



T2:
After my good bike, I ran to transition, racked my bike, put on my socks and shoes and took off. I was trying out new nutrition, Nuun tablets...this would end up being a bad decision. You should never try anything new on race day. This transition took just under 3 minutes.

Run: 3.1 miles
The first mile of the run was hard as my quads and hamstrings were tight from all the lactic acid build up from my bike. Not only that, but my tummy was not feeling so well. I realized after the race that carbonated drinks don't do so well for some people. I started off around 10 MPH and eventually speed up to 8 MPH but there was not enough road left to make up for my slow start.
Time: 00:28:26

Overall: 481 out of 3710
Time: 01:31:20

Danskin T-2 days

Yesturday in swim class we did timed 1000 yards (914.4 meters) and it took me 21m 15seconds to complete it. This is way better than I expected. I'm starting to get a little nervous about the race because it is a half mile swim and I will be surrounded by hundreds of people. Also, I'm hoping that my knees will hold up during the run. In any case, the Danskin is not your typical triathlon, very supportive and non competitive. It is the world's largest triathlon for that reason and many of the participants are cancer survivors. I look forward to it. Now if I can only figure out the logistics of how to get to the race I will be set.

On another note, I expressed interest to race the Black Diamond Olympic triathlon in September. I spoke with my coaches and they think I can do it - of course that's what they are suppose to say right? They are in the process of putting together a training plan for me for the next few weeks leading up to the race. This means I will need to put in a lot of open water time as the swim is 1 mile!

Weekend in the Olympics

Our annual camping trip this year was in the Olympic National Park where we stayed at Hurricane Ridge. Though we did bring our bikes, we didn't get to ride them because it rained the first day and we hiked the second day. Well at least I got some activity - about 8 miles of hiking. However I doubt that it made up for our level of gluttony. I had tons of smores!

We got back today at 3pm, thus I decided to repent but cycling to my boot camp workout where we did our usual movement preparation, strength training and a 4 mile hilly run, and finally I biked back home which meant I had to climb Juanita Woodinville Way hill. I did all this but not without some minor feet injuries. I have 2 blisters and 1 purple toe nail.