Connecting the Dots

Triathletes are supposed to take advantage of their off season and work on technique to become efficient as we are always looking for ways to conserve energy.  During this process, coaches often break our sports into parts and drill us.  Then some how, some way, you take that information and feedback and try and put it all together to become faster, stronger and better than you were before.  This is what I call "connecting the dots".  If only someone had numbered the dots, my picture might already be complete.  I am going to go out on a limb and say we learn more from the process of putting the pieces together no matter how long it takes to get there.  There are small moments of realization and eventually more of the dots are connected.  I am certain that athletes that stand on the podium are much better at connecting their dots!

I am feeling awkward and slow on my bike and run, but this week, I finally experienced what many call "feeling the water".  Swim was my strong sport, the one I was most comfortable with and it seemed to fall apart as I have spent the past year redefining my stroke.  If you allow a coach to dissect your stroke, be prepared for the work ahead in putting it back together.  As I am prepping for my base training, I am getting back in the pool and usually pick one thing to focus on at a time that coaches have pointed out and from ideas I find in books and on swim blogs I follow.  This week, I finally felt myself moving forward and producing some power with my arms.  I still feel a strong asymmetry that I am not sure where the root of is except for some tightness on my left side that I am going to try to even myself out with some stretching/yoga.  We keep finding possible culprits to my zig zagging and work on them, but in the end, I am still veering to the right.  I also found a paddle that was designed to help athletes "feel" the water.

The areas I work on are my head position, arm and hand position with high elbow, the pull and following through, extending my arms, hip rotation, and keeping my head close to my arm when I breathe.  The pieces are coming back together.

These small glimmers of hope are what keeps us going.  In my reading, YOUR BEST TRIATHLON by Joe Friel, he talks about being happy when you are coming back form your off season with decreased fitness/conditioning because that is where you should be.  You don't want to be performing at a high level all the time as your body cannot sustain the workload and the chance of peaking at the right time goes out the window.  So let all your friends pass you and smile when they do because that just means you are on track to begin your training.  It is not called a training plan for nothing....

Here is a poem I wrote in my head after one of my swims this week:
Humpty Tri-umpty Sat on a Wall
Humpty Tri-umpty Had a Great Fall
All the bike, run,& swim coaches & friends couldn't put Humpty Back Together Again

She reached out and "felt the water" today as though for the very first time
And Humpty Tri-umpty began to re-align
It is not easy putting delicate pieces back together
There may be hope for Humpty Tri-umpty even in this weather

2014 could be a fine year
From my pool to yours, wishing you many a good cheer.

CROSSING OVER from MULTISPORT TO SINGLE SPORT

If you are old enough to remember, most triathletes started out as something else.  We were swimmers, runners or even cyclists.  How many of us grew up tri-ing? (well I actually did one triathlon when I was in college and then my next was about 25 years later).  At some point, we watched TV coverage of Ironman but we never dreamed of attempting such an unimaginable goal, that was for the god like mutant people.  Starting as small local events in swimming pools and parking lots, it was not long before triathletes were coming in drones taking over the fitness scene.  For many of us, all it took was one race and we were hooked.  Today we see IRONMAN tattoos painted on people's bodies and 70.3 and 140.6 stickers popping up on cars.  Popularity of this sport has skyrocketed.....but let's not forget our roots.

Many of us were runners back in the day until we found triathlons.  We crossed over into the world of multisport and our lives have never been the same.  It is almost unheard of to go run 13.1 or 26.2 miles without a 56 or 112 mile bike ride right before (who does that?). Soon, runners and cyclists that wanted a piece of the action started signing up for adult swimming lessons so they could participate in these multisport celebrations.

Let the truth be known, on occasion triathletes have an off season depending where you live, but most of the ones I know, schedule running races during their off season thus crossing back over to that other planet.

There are some obvious differences when you attend a Running Event after doing running races the past 2 weekends.  You can easily identify the runner vs. the triathlete:

1. The runner wear short shorts and the least amount of clothing of bright color while the triathlete wears a form fitting tri-suit.
2. The runner wears their favorite race shirt and the triathlete wears their team uniform or their Ironman gear.
3. The runner tends to be longer and leaner while the triathlete has more body mass (though I am happy to see all body types participating in both events).
4. The runner uses safety pins to fasten their number on and the triathlete uses a race belt.
5. The runner travels light and the triathlete packs their own snacks.
6. The runners drink water and gator aide and 1 GU near the end of the race while the triathlete wonders where's the coke, food and the sponges.
7. The runner fights for a good spot at the start and sprints out of the chute and the triathlete starts in the back and starts off slowly as they know they have a long run ahead.
8. The runner is obsessed with their splits and winning and the triathlete is there for a training run.
9. The runner talks about what marathons they are doing this year and qualifying for Boston and the triathlete talks about which Ironman they tried to get into.
10. The runner logs 60 miles a week and the triathlete logs 15-20!
11. The runner elbows his competitors and the triathlete stops and make friends along the route.
12. Runners get faster and triathletes become slower runners.
13. BOTH ARE HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!

During today's half marathon, I felt exactly the same as I did at the end of my Ironman.  I find it very fascinating that one could be out there for 13 hours or 2.5 and still experience they same sensation.   It was an exercise of mental toughness and a baseline for how much work lies ahead.  I was faster than my triathlon times but far far away from my old PRs when I used to be a "runner".   So my first goal for the next 2 months is to get lighter and faster.  And then I will cross back over to the land that I love.......TRIATHLON!
 

Juggling Act

Life is a juggling act.  Juggling is one of those skills that I never quite got.  Even though I think I have pretty good eye hand coordination add two more balls and that spells trouble.  I consider myself to be a slow learner and what some people may learn after one or two attempts, I might get after 20 or 30.

I persisted in fitting my workouts in this week regardless of a schedule packed with work, chauffeuring, social gatherings, power holiday shopping and my first race since the summer.  As I was running the first few miles of the HOT CHOCOLATE RUN yesterday on a very brisk AZ morning (perfect for warm clothing and a cup of steamy hot chocolate), I thought to myself....."why do we (us athletes) keep signing up for these events, why do we pay money to do something that we can do for free in our backyard and why do we do it over and over again".  This was one of those races that you could consider a party and another smart business plan...motivating people to run using "CHOCOLATE".

People sign up for races for motivation to train, peer pressure, personal goals, to spice up their social life, or to help raise money for charity.  I was influenced by all of these for this race as a friend asked me to sign up, it would be motivation to work on my running (my slowest of the 3 disciplines) and it was a good cause (Ronald McDonald House which houses families of children receiving medical care)......not to mention the great sweatshirt, mug and chocolate all for 70 dollars.

I am not usually attracted to big races with lots of people but for the reasons mentioned above I decided to try this one out.  When I signed up my plan was to be prepared for running 9.3 miles by being well over the distance.  Somehow I got in the first corral and when the gun went off, I knew to hold myself back as I had not run 9 miles in over a month or two, let alone run faster then an 11 or 12 minute pace.  So I hung in the back and was happy to be close to a 10 plus min mile for the first 3 miles.  I knew this might not last for too long, but I felt ok.  I even had a girl drafting me (not even kidding, she ran directly behind me on my rear, I finally warned her I may be stopping), but we were friends by the end of the race because I kept saving her place every time she stopped at the aide stations and would catch up to me. I started having some cramping and tightness in my legs around mile 3 so I started taking some electrolytes and shortening my stride.  So much for a negative split as I slowed down a little bit over the 2nd 3 miles.  I even tried chocolate and gatorade at the 6 mile mark for a boost (No better time to test this out then on a hot choc run).  And finally over the last 3 miles my engine really struggled to maintain forward momentum.  I contemplated where I was and were I needed to go to be able to run a marathon at the end of an Ironman in less than 300 days.   I knew I was not really ready for this distance and was thinking how I probably should not run the half marathon I am signed up for next weekend.  But for the reasons stated above, I will probably show up and gather more baseline data.  It is fascinating how much slower I am in running then I used to be before I turned triathlete, but it really is not apples to apples.

Results:  1:36:38 ave pace 10:23 mph, 63 out of 132 in age group and 690 female out of 1330

Next weekend, I will probably go out a little bit slower, like a 10:15 to 10:30 pace and see if I can maintain that versus slowing down every 3 miles.  Oh and a little training might help too.  I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be just a runner again.  Would I be faster again?  I will probably never know the answer to that question as I like "Tri-ing" too much to go back in time.

This week I juggled 3 bike workouts (1 session on rollers, 16 mile ride, 26 mile ride), 2 swim workouts, and 3 runs (1 hr, 30 min, and 15K).  Slowly learning to juggle everything that life throws at me.

I am looking forward to a trip to Seattle over Christmas and reading my 3 new triathlon books by Joe Friel, "Going Long", "Your Best Triathlon", and "Triathlon Bible".  I will turn off all my technology and get a lot of reading in to move forward on the next journey to Ironman, Part 2.

Keep Calm and Juggle On!

How to Train for the Hot Chocolate Run in 1 day!

Life became busier than I hoped and crazier then I planned over the past few months.  I have slowly been adding workouts back into my routine after my last set back and here I find myself starting over once again.  Every time I am forced to miss multiple workouts, it certainly feels like whatever small gains made have slipped away.  Each time I have tried to build up my distance, start a strength training program, improve my nutrition or begin to add some interval training over the past few months, it seems some life event happens and pulls me away from my plan.  I guess you could say it has been 2 steps forward and 1 step back, but that still means I am ahead of where I started from, so we must be moving in the right direction.

This week, I made it to the pool 2 times, on my bike 3 times, and on the run twice.  Before my car accident, I was heading to get ready for a 9 mile and 13.1 distance races the next 2 weekends.  I was up to 10 miles running and 45 miles on my bike....but life happened again and it was a struggle to pull off a 30 mile bike ride and a 7.5 mile run this weekend.  The next 70.3 and 140.6 are going to be hard earned in 2014!

Today when I went out for my run, I decided I wanted to try to run for at least an hour.  The weather was cool and clear and I decided I was well enough I should push it out a little longer so the following weekend, I would only have to go 1.5 miles further than this weekend.  I knew if I paid a little more today, I would suffer a little less next weekend, so that is what I did.  It make me feel like I just trained for a race in 1 day!  Ready or not.....time to head back to the races.