Not afraid

Cue Eminem music:


Yeah... something like all that minus the dick in the dirt part because that sounds gross. And although Eminem wrote this song for his comeback, mine isn't really one yet. Or maybe it is a different kind of comeback and that's what I want to talk about.

I've been living in fear of injury for over two years now. As a result, at first sign of discomfort when I run, I stop. I honestly thought that I was smarter than others for listening to my body and being cautious, with the thought that it would serve me in the long run (pun intended), and that my recovery would be faster. And while I am no longer injured per se after all this time, I have learned in the process that my soon 42 year old body cannot function properly without a certain amount of maintenance and conditioning. Besides, I have no financial means to have a physio therapist on speed dial. I see people doing all kinds of crazy stuff to keep themselves together (cortisone injections, dry needling, acupuncture - so many needles!), but this sounds more like a band-aid to me. I want to be CURED of all my aches and pains. I want all my boo-boos to go away, to feel like a brand new coin coming out of the mint. I want, I want, I want... The Universe seems to have other plans for me though, and it all starts to make sense now. (I should really not write blog posts while drunk, but I'm sticking to this story, at least for the rest of the post).

I don't believe in God, but I believe in karma. Does this make me spiritual? I guess it depends where I am in my menstrual cycle. When all those hormones come rushing to break havoc on my psyche, I cling onto anything to make myself feel better, especially ice cream. And some days I just want to believe that things happen for a reason.

Like my return to Taekwondo. About 10 years ago I was sinking into the black hole of depression and decided to throw away all my belts, uniforms etc. I must have said something like "screw this, I'm too broken for this shit". Yet I kept one uniform and my last belt, safely in my Taekwondo gym bag. The same bag that went on accumulating dust in my basement and that I took out in a similar situation last December. I remember being on my bike and not being able to pedal without pain and once again I said "fuck all this, I am too broken to do triathlons". And I went back to Taekwondo. The loop was looped, a bit like the infinity symbol. I should get a tattoo or something. Since then I worked my way around injuries by doing a good amount of painful workouts in the dojang paired with enough swim/bike/run workouts to keep myself from thinking that I've given up.

I told you a little wile ago that I was going to have my first belt grading at my current school on August 27. Twelve years later since I got my blue belt. I worked hard to re-learn to do a proper sine wave, to bring my hips into submission to do a side kick, to remember half a dozen patterns, to speak Korean "taekwonese", to learn the purpose and method of each movement, to follow protocol, and most and foremost - to FOCUS with the goal of bringing my mind and body together and stop losing my shit. On top of it, I had to do it all this in front of my instructors and whoever else was going to be in audience. Anxiety reached its peak. I lost countless nights of sleep. To say that I was scared was an understatement. Yet when the day came I showed up and I did my best. It was not perfect by any means of the imagination - I am still pretty rusty after all - but at the end of the day, I did not break. And that my friends, was monumental.

(Photos courtesy Miss Julia Sapershteyn)

A couple of days later I went out for a run and decided to push the pace. Once again, I pushed the fear aside and told myself that I am a better runner than 9 months ago. Last year I could not do 20 lunges without being sore for 4 days. One night at the dojang I did 600 lunges and the next day I went back for more. In January I could not do a kick in slow motion. Now I can do 4 dozens. My flexibility and strength have increased tremendously. It cannot be for nothing. I still feel my IT bands being tight every once in a while, but I've rarely felt pain during my runs this year. So I kept telling myself while I was running that I am no longer broken, that I can be a runner again. I still need to follow a proper progression, of course, but I should be able to run a little longer if I wanted to. And so I signed up for my longest running race of this year, the Toronto Zoo Run 10K on September 24. I am working towards it, and my goal is to keep the pain at bay.

Last but not least, yesterday I conquered another fear. Two years ago when I turned 40, I made a "to do" list of sorts which I called "40 steps to 40" and one of them was to try stand up paddle boarding. Not sure what kept me from making it happen - maybe it was fear, maybe competing priorities with the Ironman training... Looking back, maybe I just procrastinated until it was too late. Yesterday I was tired from a lot of time spent in the saddle two days in a row and a hard taekwondo workout the day before, so I let Zin swim by himself at the quarry and I decided to rest instead. Soon enough though, that plan went out of the window because a couple of ladies returned from a SUP trip on the lake and left their paddle boards beside me. The lake was calm as glass and the conditions looked ideal for trying. I asked them if they rented the boards and they said yes, and that it would only cost $10. Another sign that it was meant to happen as I had brought exactly $10 with me, even though I had not planned to pay for my swim.

This was the plan

Then this became the plan. Only idiots don't change their minds, right?

I knew that I would have no issues swimming if I were to fall in the water, so I did not wear any extra safety. I just hopped on and paddled away. It took about 30 minutes to feel comfortable on it and release the tension in my legs. Being in the middle of a lake standing up on a wobbly board with nothing to hang onto is a little unnerving, for sure. But eventually I let go of my fear and managed to have fun. I spent about 45 minutes on it, at times paddling pretty hard, so it was no surprise that when I came back my arms and back were aching. So much for resting, haha. I'll leave that for another day, when there will be no bucket list items waiting for me.

Until then, Carpe Diem!!

Welland Sprint Triathlon Race Report

How do you write one of these race reports again? Well, screw that. There are no rules. But I should talk about race day at least... and mine started early. Like really, really, really early. Something like 2am.. That's about right. It's around the time that I stopped sleeping. I pet the cat. I checked my phone multiple times. I watched my hubby sleeping. I listened to the sounds of the house. I wondered if the boys had gone to sleep. I brought the cat a little closer, asked him to purr some sleep into me. Didn't work. I was super nervous, but not as much about the race as I was about a last minute decision to drive back in town right after the race and attend my Taekwondo's school belt grading. And it didn't help that I had not talked to my instructor about this and I sent him an email just before going to sleep and I was expecting him to say not to bother, but instead he said it was my call. Doesn't he know I suck at last moment decisions?? Aaaaargh. Keep calm and try to sleep. One, two, three sheep.

I had no choice but to get out of bed once the alarm clock went off... It was 5am. I hopped in the shower, then had breakfast with hubbs. A slice of bread with prosciutto and a chocolate croissant. We stopped by Tim Hortons for coffee, then started the 1.5h drive to Welland. Made it there with 1h to spare and I was the one to be cool as a cucumber while Zin was the Energizer bunny. Dude, chill... it's just a sprint distance. It'll be over before you digest your toast.

We lined up with Emma for registration, then we grabbed our paperwork and hardware, aka bib and chip. I don't know about the others, but I also got a semi-permanent tattoo on my calf, judging by the fact that 3 days later I still have a big fat 42 sharpied on. In transition I found myself a little spot on a rack in the middle of everything, just to get confused enough to see my synapses firing early in the morning.

I went to a portapotty to put on my tri bottom and take care of a last minute business, then put on my wetsuit. Given that I don't fit in my TRS tri top, I decided to swim in a sports bra under my wetsuit, then wear my bike jersey on the bike and run, which will be the modus operandi for the rest of the season. That's what happens when you get fat(ter) and Coeur decides to change the fabric and make the tops smaller.

Fast forward to the swim start, this was going to be a time trial with each athlete starting 5 sec apart. I was number 167, so I had some time to warm up and chat with a few friends from our FMCT tri club. Oh, look, it's Bob Hatcher the photographer! Let's take a picture in our rubber suits. Zin, take your hand off my boob!! What is it now, "touch a boob" for good luck? (Jeez, I can't take him anywhere.) Bob captured the moment just a second later.

Aren't we cute in our matchy-matchy caps and goggles though? Too bad that I don't fit in my ROKA wetsuit either. *Sigh* We would have been perfect for advertising. Anyway... swimming on... 3.. 2..1.. GO! I went straight for the first green buoy, found the sighting line, hugged the line, turned at second green buoy, then third green buoy, found the sighting line again, hugged the line, made a last turn towards the exit. The End. Most uneventful swim evah. I stayed in the zone, swam happy and made it around the pond in 14:39 with zero contact. I think the course was a little short, or maybe was for those who knew how to swim straight. I don't remember coming close to anyone in the race... I often wondered if they knew about the line and why they were swimming way over there when they could have swum way over here where the buoys and the line were.

I was a little confused coming out of the water because I thought we were going to turn right and take the stairs up to transition like at Barrelman, but instead I was instructed to go on the grass, around the building and through the above passage that made for some crappy pictures and longer swim times.

In transition I had a hard time closing my bike jersey and it seemed like it took forever. Lesson learned, over the head it goes next time. I went sockless in my bike shoes as usual, but another surprise was the run out. So freaking long, all the way to the road, which is another difference with Barrelman, where we took the path along the water instead. This also skewed our averages but thankfully someone created a Strava segment for the road portion only and we can all hang onto our pride for a little longer.

Despite my lack of training, I managed to push enough watts for a 31km/h average. I'll take it. I remember having a lot of fun trying to bring my heart rate down, but to no avail. Average 177bpm, yikes! Is that called riding the red line or I'm making things up? I'm the queen of false idioms, so what the hell do I know. Someone will tell me that my English sucks eventually. But I do look good on the bike, so there.

I remember passing a bunch of people, none in my AG though, then being passed by the fast dudes who made me feel that I was standing still. I ate a gel at km 10, drank some water. It was freaking hot out there, but somewhat enjoyable thanks to the headwind on the way back to T2. It took me 38min to ride the 20km and overall I had a lot of fun. However I knew that once I'd start running my joy would disappear in a heartbeat, pun intended.

And just like I thought, after changing into my running shoes, it hit me. This was going to be my first brick of the year!! Happy happy joy joy! NOT. Are we done yet?? Wait, is this a HILL on this path? (it was just a bump, but it felt like a mountain) And where is the first kilometer marker dammit!? My watch was in multisport mode and it was not showing my pace. I had no idea how fast I was going, just that it felt dreadful. I decided to hit lap at each km marker to see my average. First km, 5:58, but effort level was feeling like a 4:58. I decided not to look at my heart rate and go by feel. By death feel that is. I kept pushing and started the mind games and inner monologues. At TKD I ran 5:15 for 6km, this is freaking slow. I can do this. Yeah, I know that my HR had been in Z5 for 45 min, but it should only take 20 more minutes. I won't die in 20min, I promise. Look, I can almost see the 2km marker. I even saw the top athletes coming back, so I am not THAT slow. I will pass out before I die and there are enough people on the path, one of them must know CPR. I can do this. Look, someone calls my name. Oh, right - I am wearing my bib.

Here comes the turn around, but wait... why are these people running on this parallel road? So this isn't the turn around after all. Fuck. I take a bit of water at each station, mostly on my head and down my back. I am SO glad this is just a 5km race. I cry for hubbs and our friends who are going to do the long course the next day. I finally reach the turnaround and think about the rest of the people on my way back. I did not see anyone in my AG passing me. This is encouraging. I can't be in front because I'm a slow swimmer, but where are the other athletes? Behind me I hope. Just STAY there. I can do this. I started feeling sick. Stitches left and right: one from the stomach, one from the ribs, one from the spleen, most likely another one because it can. I must stay under 6min/km. I MUST. One more km. I should pick it up now so I look good running down the chute. Boom chakalaka!

These people behind me look impressed. Or maybe I farted really loud, I don't remember.

Two steps later... OH THE AGONY

And FINALLY...

Happy to see Bob and the finish line. No matter what, he'll make me loo good. 

Dramatic, eh? Just wait.
I shake John's hand, I take three steps towards the girl who removes the ankle chips. She takes it off, then I say... I GOTTA PUKE. I lean above the gate and leave it ALL on the gravel. It felt like never ending, so the folks from the medical come over and ask me if I was ok. They bring me water. I drink 4-5 cups, I don't remember, then I make my way towards the exit. Now that's how you end a race, although I don't wish it to anyone else. Gives a literal meaning to leaving it all on the course I guess.

I finished the run in 29:57, mission accomplished to stay under 6min/km, but with a HR average of 180! The overall time was 1:27:21, which is 4 minutes slower than my PR on this distance, but for a first race and no training it's quite the accomplishment I'd say. From the beginning until the end I was 9th/16 in my AG, so that explains why it felt like I was racing alone.

I met with Emma and Zin, we took a pic, then I lied down because I was not feeling right.

Is it hot as balls or is it just me?? Why aren't there more naked people in the picture??

Yup, this hurts. And no, I am not giving birth. And don't ask me while my knees are blue, I have no freaking clue.

I took a few minutes to collect my pains, then noticed Zin and Emma had jumped in the water. Now, that's a brilliant idea. I took off my jersey and dove in as well. What a glorious, glorious feeling. I must have spent a good 10 minutes in there, doing the starfish and feeling the aches leaving my body miraculously. I may or may not have peed as well. Then we all went back to the transition and asked someone for a "fresh" picture. What a difference a cold swim makes!!

Let's do it again!!

By that time it was already 11am and too late to drive back to Brampton for my Taekwondo grading. Besides I was starving and dizzy and I hadn't even started packing. The grading plans went flying out of the window and I told myself "what the hell was I thinking??" I could not imagine a single minute driving back and spending another 5h in the dojang. One more lesson learned. I'll have to wait two more months. I already waited 12 years, who is still counting?

I went to grab some food while these two started packing. We found out that Zin had placed second in his age group, so we decided to hang around for the podium and the prizes. He won a Timex watch too, yay! I think we finally left the race site around 1pm and went to Swiss Chalet for lunch, then to the residence to check in for the weekend, since these two were going to do it all again the next day. Crazies. And this is where my first race report of the year ends. Hope you had fun watching my descent into agony and rising from the ashes, hahaha. It's all good, triathlon is fun!! Over and out.

2015 Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon Race Report

Last week was absolutely insane. I was busy every single day from the moment I woke up until late at night, mostly because I procrastinated with a few things that I had planned, which ended bringing me a great deal of anxiety and didn't leave me any time for rest. As a result, I only managed to fit in a bike and a run workout before the longest race of the year to date, the Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon. The plan was to go to Wasaga to race on Saturday, then from there, drive straight to Huntsville to meet my friend Wendy and volunteer the following day at Ironman Muskoka.

I was happy to hear that the race had a late start, which meant that I could sleep in. We still had 1.5h drive ahead of us, but at least I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn. Waking up at 7am on a race day sure felt wonderful. I prepared my bags the night before since I needed to pack for a few days worth. I had everything ready by 10pm, then I went to bed.

A reluctant thumb up. Let's do this, yay?

It all feels like such a blur, I don't even remember what I had for breakfast. So I'll skip that part. I just know that by 8am on the dot, hubby and I were leaving our driveway each in our own car, direction Wasaga Beach. I was nervous as hell, not knowing if my legs were going to hold for 10km on the run without pain, since my longest run this year was 8km (once). The drive was very scenic, straight north on Airport Rd and all its roller-coaster hills. It was a nice way to start the morning instead of battling the crowds up the dreadful Hwy 400. Shortly before 9:30am we were pulling into one of the many parking lots along the Lake Huron waterfront.

I started taking my paraphernalia out of the car when all of a sudden I notice that I don't have my helmet. FML. But of course, I didn't even think about going in the garage after it. Damn, damn damn. What do I do?? Thankfully Zin had his spare one in his car and after a quick check that it fit (sorta, but please don't tell the officials mmmkay?), I decided to race with it. YOLO! Moving on...

I picked up my race kit, chip, got body marked, then wheeled my bike into transition where I set up my little slice of real estate in the middle of a rack because all the premium spots were already taken, haha.

It was early enough and nerves were slowly dissipating, so I walked around transition for a bit and chatted with Kyra and her husband Alasdair, then took some pictures with them and hubbs.

Awwww. Aren't we cute.

Love Alasdair's kit - I recognize him everywhere we go!

The Ladies in Pink

Took a last portaloo break, chatted a bit more, and finally put on my wetsuit and walked to the beach for a warm up swim. I looked at the water and wondered what Steve Fleck meant by "flat swim". I mean, seriously, dude... This was no flat swim. Or maybe it was getting choppier by the minute. Fact is, I tried taking a few dolphin dives and felt like jumping into a wall of water every single time. Okay then... this was going to be interesting. The previous three years the swim was cancelled at this race, so I considered myself lucky that I was going to do a triathlon that day. I remember a few rough swims at Professor's Lake, and of course, last year's IMMT swim that was the worst in all the years they had the race there. But this... this was something else. I wasn't sure how I was going to swim out against the waves, and even less, make it out and back unscathed. But I reminded myself how much I love open water swimming and started laughing at the situation and joking with the other athletes. I could actually see myself running to the first buoy instead of swimming and for some reason I thought it was hilarious. This swim was going to bring all kinds of challenges for sure.

I was in the third wave and soon enough the gun went off and I jumped in with both feet so to speak. I tried kicking for a bit, but fighting with the waves was tiring enough. Being mentally prepared for a personal worst, I shut the legs off and concentrated on my stroke, or whatever was left of it. I noticed that half of the time I was either trying to stay horizontal and not over rotate, or look for a buoy. Since buoys were hard to sight, I settled on the boats instead.There was a lot of boat movement around though and people everywhere. I think they were trying to keep everyone on course, but I bet it wasn't easy. The waves were pretty insane. I was constantly going up and down and I was expecting to get sea sick at any moment. To reach the first turn buoy felt as long as an Ironman swim, and that wasn't even half of it. My husband said it well, it was just like a washing machine and I felt like covering more vertical space than distance.

Eventually I reached the second turn buoy and started moving towards the beach. At this point, I could not see a thing, and especially not the exit arch. I decided to follow a gentleman and put my faith in his sighting skills. Everything was blending on the shore and all buildings looked the same to me. In hindsight, I should have settled on a better landmark than the arch before I started the swim. Oh well, lesson learned. I finally made it to water shallow enough that my hands were touching bottom. I stood up and walked the rest. I don't know why I was looking so cheerful in the photos, but I guess I was happy to be done. It must have been before I looked at my watch. 38 minutes, yikes!! Definitely my worst swim time evah.

I had an uneventful transition and hopped on my bike, eager to get going. About 2/3 of bikes were already gone, and I was wondering how far ahead they were. I could not have been the only one to have a crappy swim, right? (insert some pretty mean wishful thinking there).

The legs weren't feeling that great, and about 5km in, a stitch decided to settle into the right side of my stomach, just below the ribs. Great. I wasn't sure where it was coming from - this was a first. I held off drinking and eating until about 30min in, but then I got thirsty. I had a bottle of Endura with me and 2 gels. I started drinking the Endura, but with difficulty because the damn stitch was rather stubborn. Although the course was relatively flat with a few short climbs, I didn't feel like pushing too big of a gear. I kept passing people, at least that was entertaining. Played leap frog with a guy for a while, then I told him "break's over, let's get to work", but he didn't follow. I felt very lonely on this ride, mostly because for the first time this year it was not an out and back and I realized that I was not going to see my hubby before the run.

All this time the stomach kept hurting and I didn't know what to do. I wanted to pee, but I could not concentrate enough to pee on the bike, and I was not going to stop for it without an urge big enough. With 15km to spare, I turned onto another road and then BAM, headwind. I saw lots of people slowing down, but I had just eaten my gel and I was feeling stronger than when I started. When I think about it, I wasn't doing any better, it was just a matter of perspective. You learn about it in physics class, I suppose. As a matter of fact, I was still feeling like shit and I could not wait to be done. Again. Another picture of me smiling as I was finishing the second leg of this race.

It looks like I was having fun, but not really. And that helmet? LOL!

Another quick transition and then the run... the stomach was hurting so much, I didn't even bother taking my Clif Blocks with me. By that time I was in survival mode. One step in front of the other... and one more hour of pain. I figured that it must be gas pain from swallowing too much air during the swim, but I admit to have been spoiled in 6 years of running and only once I had to deal with it, during Welland Half last year. But that race had cola and cola makes all gas come out eventually. This race only had water and Heed (yuck) and I was feeling defeated already.

I tried treating it like a stitch and breathe out while striking the ground with the foot on the opposite side... or was it the same side? For the life of me, I could not remember, so I tried both, to no avail. There was this guy on the bike cheering us on, and he made me smile. I love it when people call out my name and say encouraging things. Too bad it didn't make the pain go away. As I was approaching the end of the first loop, I wanted to be done, to drop out of the race right there. But I saw my old coach and he encouraged me and I didn't want to disappoint him. I ran by him and said, "I'm feeling like hell", then went on to the second loop.

The legs were not hurting - so I didn't have a good enough reason to stop. I marched on. I saw Kyra not far behind and I was thinking that she was going to catch up with me in no time. When I reached the split on the road and took a right turn into a side street, I hit pit bottom. I walked for a minute or two, pressing into my stomach, angry at my body for giving me grief (and not moving the gas fast enough). I started having a panic attack and over ventilating, which of course was not helping. At that point I was seriously thinking about knocking on doors and begging for Coke. I managed to pull myself together just before I turned left towards the main road. I saw the guy on the bike again and I told him that thanks to him I was moving again. He said "I have the easy job!" and he made me smile once more. At this point I think I had about 2km left and I told myself: "15 minutes left, max! You can run for 15 minutes. It's almost over". About 200m before the last water station I pass a lady in my age group who was walking. Then she starts running again and passes me back. I wasn't going to run after her for sure. I said "good job", but inside my head I was saying "knock yourself out, you've got nothing to fear - I am dying here". To my surprise, I passed another lady in my age group who stopped for a drink at the last water station. Then 100m later, I saw the first lady walking again and I passed her too.

I had 1km left and I was running strong again. I had made the decision that none of them were going to pass me again. It was stupid and foolish, but it worked.

I reached the chute and just seconds from the finish line, Paul, a friend from the FMCT snapped this picture of me. I don't think I looked back once in the last km, but I was sprinting like a mad woman, and I remember feeling that I was going pass out from lack of oxygen, pain or whatever else was going on with my body. I had never pushed like that in a race, so this was all unknown territory.

I crossed the finish line and I remember John Salt shaking my hand. I wonder if he thought that I was going to puke right there, it would not have been a first. I've seen other finishers leaving it all on the course, but I don't know how many had shitty races because of freaking gas pain. The next two pictures are the worst I've seen myself crossing a finish line. Yes, you can laugh, I totally look like a zombie. Is there a casting call near by?

I took a few more steps and drank a cup or two of water, then started sobbing. I had never felt so overwhelmed in my life. It's like my body could not decide whether to collapse or not. It's hard to explain. Kyra crossed the finish line about a minute later and said "it looks like you need a hug". Indeed, it was all that I needed. And I cried like a baby in her arms (thank you so much!). Legs were shaking and I was feeling lightheaded, so I went to sit down on the beach, looking incredulous at my stomach that had the shape of a balloon. And I had yet to pee as well. As for my legs? ALL GOOD. What about that, eh. I finished in 3:04, not my best time, and not my worst. I got 7th in my AG and remember the 2 ladies that I passed? They finished 15 and 20 seconds after me. Now that was satisfying!

Not sure how long I sat there, but the awards ceremony was going to start and I still wanted my cola. I wasn't hungry, but mind was still in problem solving mode. Remember that scene in Alien, or Prometheus? I wanted that Gas Baby out!! Right away!! I drank a Pepsi, but it had all its bubbles. Didn't help. I ate a few tiny slices of orange and a two-bite banana, then chatted for a while with friends. I waited for the draw to be finished, just in case I won something, then went to transition to pack my stuff. Exchanged more hugs, said goodbye to everyone I knew, gave a kiss to hubbs, then I left for Huntsville, glad to be resting my limbs and hopeful that soon enough I was going to be able to eat something more substantial.

For the rest of the weekend, you'll have to wait for the next blog post. I'm too tired to edit this one and I want to press Publish. YOLO again!

IMMT Training Week 28: It is what it is

If you thought that taper was cruel, imagine what's it to taper for 6 weeks. Week 28 was the 4th week of doing less than 10h of workouts (due to being injured, not by choice) and you cannot imagine how damaging to the psyche that is. When everyone else was piling up monster workout after monster workout and solid 16-18h weeks, I barely managed to accumulate 7.5h, and that included 1h of ping-pong at the office. Yes, at this point everything helps to get the legs moving and keep the mind distracted from exploding into a million of pieces of self damaging thoughts. Two more weeks to Ironman and at this point, I'm just trying to ramp my body back up with minimum of pain. I was looking for a 20h achievement badge, but maybe I'll get to 10h after all. I am constantly on the verge a breaking up in tears and wanting to punch a hole in a wall. Having friends around helped a lot and being an extrovert, I've been looking for any opportunity to get social. Just don't leave me alone with my thoughts, PLEASE.

Swim

Only one swim this week, but a quality one. I could have swum more if I had put the effort into getting my ass to the pool, but bouncing between walls with no distractions was not going to keep my bad thoughts at bay. Instead, I decided to swim another 3.8km in the lake on Thursday and I enjoyed every second of it. I even got lost in the lack of thoughts so to speak, the 5 loops went by in a blink and I came out of the water with the biggest grin that my face could make without getting a cramp. It also happened to be the fastest Iron distance swim this year and seeing a time under 1h20 always gives me a mental boost for the big day to come.
The second OWS that I had planned got cancelled because of bacteria in the lake, but it didn't bring me down. If I keep swimming long every week it should be enough to keep me BELIEVE.

Bike

Coach told me to add 15min to my bike workouts this week and turn up the intensity a tiny notch, while remaining within the "easy" realm. So on Tuesday I set up a trainer workout for 1h15 and gave myself the goal of keeping the legs spinning above 90rpm and the watts above 100. I watched the last episode of True Blood and stayed on target.

Then on Saturday (drum roll)... I went outside!!! It had been 2 full weeks since I had rolled my bike out of the garage and it made my heart sing!! We only went for a quick 1h15 loop, but I loved feeling the wind on my face and ALL THE SPEED! Zin knows me so well. On our way back, he told me to draft behind him on a speedy Strava segment and said that he was going to help me get a QOM (fastest woman on this section among all Strava riders that had done it). I didn't get the QOM, but I moved in 4th overall with a 40kph average (up from 33.9kph on my own!!). It was glorious!

Was it a silly exercise? Maybe, but I can's say no to speed induced euphoria, especially assisted by hubbs. It was a beautiful team effort and sometimes it's good to remind ourselves how much we can do when we push and trust each other. Sucking someone's wheel at 40-45kph takes guts and I'm trying to build a good reserve of courage to bring with me on the Ironman course. #Win.

On Sunday our tri club organized a simulation day (without the swim because of the poopy lake water - it's all the birds' fault! PSA: stop feeding them, people!) and Marlene decided to join us. I couldn't wait!! It's been so long since I've seen her in person... And she's such a bundle of positive energy to have around you, that I couldn't pass on the opportunity. The day before we talked "race strategy" and decided to do the 40km bike course and run as many loops around the lake as our legs felt like. So that's exactly what happened. We hopped on our bikes and made our way through the residential area and onto the long stretches of pavement that divide the Caledon countryside, and we had an awesome time.

Run

Oh the dreaded 3 letter word. The RUN. What used to be my solace, it's now a leap of faith. I was told that I have two choices: avoid running altogether until the Ironman, and wait to see what happens, or keep trying and work with my mind to make it stay put in the right place. The hardest mental exercise has been to go beyond the disappointment of feeling pain when I run since it's showing me that it's too late to "fix" my legs now. I have to start the Ironman knowing that sooner or later I will be in pain and the way I will tolerate this pain will be the key to MY success in this race. No kidding, everyone says that the Ironman is mostly mental, but I will have to start with a deficit on the pain threshold scale and that is quite is frightening.

Anyway, enough with the doom and gloom and back to the actual workouts. Tuesday I did 45min of elliptical, pretty intense I should say, given the amount of sweat produced. I don't sweat a lot, so maybe it was too hot in the office gym? It didn't feel like it, so I'll stick with the intensity explanation.

Then on Sunday, during the simulation day, I ran with Marlene a loop around Professor's Lake. It was very hot and muggy and I forgot to drink before starting the run. Not a good race strategy for sure. But I powered along her, keeping the pace high enough match the length of Marlene's legs and the pain in my knees away. I knew at the end of the first 3km loop that a second one would not be wise and I returned to the "transition area" to join the rest of the people that had finished their workouts.

So if you're following along with the 2 choices that I had for running, I went with "B": HTFU.

In a nutshell

I'm moving (forward), I'm sweating (hard), I'm still improving (my swim time), and I'm still a work in progress in everything else, especially when it comes to my mind. But I will prevail. And I can do this!

2014 Belwood Triathlon Race Report

Winner winner chicken dinner! Wait... what?? No, I didn't win the tri, not even close, but I won this race entry, thanks to a contest put together by Multisport Canada and one of their sponsors, Vorgee.

I received the news that I had won the entry the week of the Toronto Triathlon Festival and in a small measure it contributed to my DNS because I had another race to fall back to. And when I made the decision not to start TTF, I just could not wait to go to Belwood and really RACE! Now where on Earth was Belwood? Was it even in diving distance from my place? Phew, only 70km away, I may even be able to bike there!

I admit that the thought crossed my mind until I realized that it meant carrying my transition bag to Belwood and back. Thanks but no thanks. Zin wasn't going to join me as he'd raced TTF the week before, so I had to find another plan that included a century ride in it, and maybe a partner in crime miles too. Cue in my friend Amanda who is also doing Ironman Mt Tremblant. It was a last minute ask, but maybe she had nothing else to do than join me in another crazy adventure? After all, it was only a few weeks before that I took her up and down the hills of Caledon on our longest ride ever. And she was game! Alright then... How does this plan sound: race the tri at Belwood, then ride 130km extra to get to 160km as scheduled? Isn't it exciting!!? (*evil laugh*)

We left Brampton at 6:15am with the plan of reaching the race site no later than 7:30am. Thankfully we encountered no traffic and before we knew it, we were rolling our bikes into transition. Packet pickup went without a hiccup, then we walked around for a bit to familiarize ourselves with the venue. I took a potty break and ate my banana, then I went to talk to Mike Cheliak, the race photographer, who was supposed to take a picture of me with the Vorgee sign. His son took the photo after all and I was impressed to see that they were both using cameras (Nikon) connected through WiFi. It explains why their pictures make it online so quickly!

I returned in transition and I went to say hi to Cody Beals, with whom I had been talking online for about a year, but never met in person. He's one of the smartest, fastest and funniest (have you read his blog lately?) guys I know and I could not wait to finally meet him and say thanks for being so helpful, supportive and open to give advice to noobs like me.

He was "in the zone" and I didn't bother him for long, but after the race we talked some more and I even asked for an autograph because I believe in him big time. Just watch him, he's turning into a force to be reckoned with.

The pre-race meeting was on too, and I just couldn't focus on the background talk. I was eager to start, but I wasn't even in my wetsuit (like everyone else around me, oops). I had to go back to my bag and look for my sunglasses, and when I finally managed to collect myself (and all my stuff) I noticed that we were 10 min away from the race start. I put on my wetsuit, and I was about to run out of transition when I saw that I was missing my watch. Rats! I had left it in my helmet. More running around before reaching the swim start, like I had legs for it! If you remember my last recap, I had not ran for 10 days coming into this race and I was rather apprehensive about feeling pain in my knees.

Anyway, I made it to the lake (river?) just in time for a quick warmup and 2 minutes later the first wave started. I was in the second wave and I chose to position myself close to the buoys. I believe that both men and women were in my wave and for the first time in my life I got to experience anxiety in the swim. Right off the bat I got shoved under water a few times and I started feeling tightness in my chest and a little panic creeping in. But I collected myself quickly as I decided to steer away from the pack and regroup inside my bubble. Soon enough my breathing returned to normal and I could focus on finding some feet. I found a matching pair at the first buoy and stayed with them for the entire time that we swam across until we made the last turn towards the exit. I passed them shortly afterwards and from then on I tried to keep the pace up and swim in a straight line. I was very curious to see if I swam faster than in previous races. This was my first sprint triathlon after all and I was glad to see that I finished under 14min. Not very fast, but fast enough for a PR!

We had a good run up to transition (150m) and it counted in the swim time. That's ok, I know what my watch said, despite the 1:15 extra that showed up in Sportstats.

I struggled to take off my wetsuit, especially on my leg with the chip, so I ended with a T1 time somewhat slow (2 min). But then I was really happy to be on my bike and start chasing people.

For the entire ride only one other girl passed me on the bike, and she was a duathlete, so that was ok. Many guys passed me as usual, but I also passed back a ton. In the end I am super stoked with my bike split, and with the few rolling hills, it felt like a lot of fun. Absolutely gorgeous course too, which put Belwood at the top of Sprint courses in the Multisport series for me. Will definitely do it again!

Ok, so I spent a little under 1h on the bike for 30km, I had a gel if I am not mistaken, and some water because I forgot my Endura at home. It was overcast and not too hot, so I didn't need the extra electrolytes anyway.

Coming back in T2, I didn't have to struggle with any pieces of equipment and quickly started the run. This course was an out and back along the dam and onto a limestone covered trail. It was beautiful, however the trail was rather narrow and I'm glad that the race wasn't too crowded. I ran the best I could and pushed the effort, but never looked at my watch because it was all screwed up. I wrongly assumed coming out of the water that if I was going to change sports it would save the previous activity and start a new one, but after leaving on the bike I noticed that despite having the watch in the right sport, it was still showing the fields from the swim and it was rather useless. So I decided to keep it rolling so to speak, and hope for a different outcome when I downloaded the activity.

I was still pretty darn happy when I started the run. These pictures were taken about 0.5km out as we crossed the dam. That lady with the number 215 passed me shortly afterwards, as many other people after that. I am definitely not a very strong runner, but in retrospective I am very happy with my effort as I managed to run the 7.5km (I think it was shorter by 300m by the way) in 39min.

And what about my knees? They hurt. Yep, started bothering me after 2km and the pain intensified as I kept running, but not to the point of taking my smile away and the great feeling of accomplishment.

According to Sportstats I finished in 1:56:38 gun time (1:53:45 chip time), enough for a 5th place out of 12 in my AG. I was stoked! I will take a top 5 any time!! And guess who beat me by 18 seconds? Cody Beals' mom with a run split of 32:49. Here's proof that the fast gene runs in the family!!

Another speed demon, Amanda, also finished ahead of me, by 9 minutes nonetheless (told you she was fast!). You can see her in the Coeur top and purple hat to the right of the previous picture. She took 3rd in her AG, so medal oblige, we stuck around after the race, waiting for fresh pizza and taking advantage of the compression boots in the Recharge with Chocolate Milk booth.

I think it was around noon when we finally decided to leave the race site and continue onto our long bike ride. We drove to a sports complex in Fergus and the plan was to do 2 loops of 65km through Elora, Kitchener and Guelph countrysides. However, as soon as we rolled out of the parking lot, we started having some difficulties reading the map. Alas some of the steps that were accompanying the map were not quite right and we found ourselves in a few dead ends and construction areas before making it out of the city and onto the country roads.

But eventually we got to the scenic parts and it was a treat. However, ominous clouds kept following us and we were expecting the skies to open up at any time. We took the time to stop and say Hi to the cows because they were oh so pretty!

By the number of people dressed alike and horse carriages around, we understood that we were passing through Mennonite Country. It was quite a strange feeling to be immersed into this world, and all I could think was that I wouldn't have minded if someone invited me to lunch. I was getting hungry, alright.

I kept munching on my Clif bars, but I was getting more and more tired of them. This whole day was starting to feel long and tiredness was taking over my brain. Amanda's company was great as we chatted every once in a while instead of staring at the back of our wheels the whole time. Our legs were not cooperating as much as we thought they would though. As we arrived on the last stretch before coming back to Fergus, we ran into a dirt road again, but this one was frightening. It was covered in big gravel and we could only ride in the middle of the road on the tire tracks.

We had to walk our bikes for a bit, then we literally started seeing our lives flashing before our eyes as cars were coming fast and furious in the opposite direction and did not care slowing down or moving over to leave us more space. 6km of dirt, that was a LONG LONG time riding with the heart in our throat. By the end of this stretch, we were mentally exhausted and absolutely DONE for the day. We decided to put an end to our misery. 100km in the saddle, and what we did not cover in distance, we certainly made up for in intensity.

Although this day was all worth it and it taught us more lessons than we anticipated, it asked for a lot of mental fortitude. All in all, a good training for the Ironman, but I'm not ready to repeat the experience any time soon.

I loved the race and will do it again, but it took all energy out of our legs. This shall be a good lesson in pacing ourselves, otherwise we're going to crash and burn.

Another epic day in the books!

IMMT Training Weeks 14 and 15: The meltdown

The rollercoaster ride continues. Two more weeks that taught me new ways of rising and falling, with a huge meltdown in the process. It took a good cocktail of adrenalin and endorphins to get over it, but below is the tale of how it all went down, literally.

Swim

The last two weeks have seen some decent swims, whenever I did not skip them. Yes, it did happen twice for various "reasons". I actually had some valid excuses for once, so I won't get much into the "why". Just trust me on this one. The 4 swims that I did had everything I could wish for. Fast intervals, long intervals, bands, pull, paddles, flip turns and non stop bouncing between walls. One even had an underwater camera since I had to test it for our tri club's swim stroke analysis. No, I didn't analyse myself, but I certainly noticed the boob drag and the revealing view all the way down to my navel that I get with my vintage swim suits. Time for a complete wardrobe replacement!!

One of my favorite swims was this one, which I did last weekend after the 5K race/11k run:

Warmup:
200m free
300m pull
Main set:
8x50m (25 fast, 25 ez) on 1:15
100m breast stroke
2x300m pull 30sri
2x200m (150m free, 50m breaststroke) 20sri
4x50m (25 fast, 25 ez)
Cooldown
100m breaststroke

The next Tuesday I did another long, uninterrupted swim, the longest so far with 2500m straight pull, concentrating on THE "perfect stroke". Scored the perfect goggle marks too.

I recently came across this excellent blog post by Mama Simmons (thank you!!) and something "clicked" in my head. The key words were "lead with your wrist". I've always paid attention to have a high elbow and finish my pull with the hand near my thigh, but never really thought about the angle that my arm had under water. And I realized that my elbow was indeed leading, not my wrist. Since I've been paying attention to this, I noticed an increase in speed and overall more water resistance against my arm, which means that my "feel for the water" is now better and my stroke more powerful. I could definitely feel my lats engaging, and that, my friends, is quite an epiphany. One that needs more muscles in these places, alas. It makes for a HARD workout!!

You can definitely see me leading with the elbow in the video below, dating from last October (mostly because I drop it too low).

Now all I need is a new stroke analysis video and hopefully we can see the difference ;-).
Here's before and after the eureka moment. It seems that I managed to save 1 stroke/length and 4sec/100m. Hey, I may not be the fastest swimmer, but progress is progress!

Bike

Ahhh, the bike.... Or rather, AAARGH!!! the bike. Whose idea to increase my FTP was anyway? That's how you progress, I know, but damn... I did not get a break at all! I was so looking forward to my "recovery" week and what do I get? more sweet spot and MVO2 intervals!! I had to send my coach an email begging for less intensity during my recovery weeks, at least to have some rest to look forward to. These last 2 weeks broke me. The good news is that I managed to last 10 minutes more than the week before at sweet spot (before crashing and burning again) and that I nailed the MVO2s.

But trying to do a double 20min threshold ride after 7 days of workouts and no rest was a lousy idea. Given my increased tiredness and stress at work which led to having to take a full day off from work for physical (and mental) exhaustion, I obviously failed miserably, even though I managed to break 4 more personal records in the process.

In retrospective, maybe I should just stop saying that I failed, because all these ups and downs are part of the journey, but I can't help it being hard on myself and getting more and more discouraged when it happens week after week. Just like this past weekend. On Thursday I tried kickstarting my strength training (again!) with a few squats and lunges and my legs and glutes were so sore afterwards, despite having the Friday off completely, that I spent most of the Saturday long bike ride on the trainer crying my eyeballs off. I had to step off after 2h15, only to return later in the day to finish the 3h45 workout. Every single pedal stroke was a battle of the guts and pushing through the physical pain was downright infuriating. I knew that it was only muscle soreness, and that sometimes all you need is a good dose of HTFU, but I just didn't have it in me that day. More emails to coach followed, interrupted by endless crying spells. I must have spent as many hours crying on Saturday as I spent on my bike. In the end I was ordered 2 full days of rest and a good dose of protein and carbs after EACH workout. Coach is worried that I do not recover properly afterwards, given how I usually go straight to bed after my workouts and neglect fuelling those aching muscles. We'll see how it goes. Maybe I will see the light sometime in the next few weeks. If it were easy everyone would do it.

Run

I had some challenges in this department also, but hopefully they are not as alarming as they feel. I started getting some post tibial tendon pain, like shin splints above my ankle, on the inside of my leg. They would come after 1km, 8km or not come at all. So random. I tried changing shoes, but the results were not consistent. I even saw a podiatrist who said that it's nothing serious that a bag of frozen peas won't solve. So I've been icing, stretching, massaging and staring at my leg, imploring it to stop bothering me. Not sure whether it heard me, but thankfully it allowed me to do all my long runs, including the Mississauga Half Marathon on Sunday (race report to follow) with little to no pain at all.

Another notable mention goes to the first run of the year in the rain. Hubbs and I went to the track for some speed intervals and surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it.

The proof is in the smiles!!

In a nutshell

Mentally, I've hit rock bottom. I am scared because it's still early in the training cycle and there has to be enough room for crashing even harder. I know I will. Fuelling appropriately and recovery/muscle soreness may be related, and living with the feeling that I already eat a lot, too much maybe, is a constant challenge. I may not be fuelling at the appropriate times or the right stuff. I know little about recovery science and about the foods that I put in my mouth beyond them being healthy or not. I need to make some changes, but they are not guaranteed to work. Maybe I should just believe more...in myself, in the process, in being able to turn my mojo around and enjoy training despite the (occasional) pain (in the ass).

I think it's time for some swimsuit shopping and signing for a race or two. It should help, right?