New year, new training goals

At the end of September, I made some grand plans for 2013. I stated them loud and proud. Now, a mere three days into 2013, I’m not a shamed at all to say I was full of it.

As it turns out, I cannot dive head first into a year of training while moving (this Saturday!) into a new house, getting a divorce, sorting out custody arraignments and working two and a half jobs. 

Since so much has happened since I last posted, I’ll spare you all the minor details and give you the bullet points.

Austin Marathon

I’m still headed to Austin and I plan to run, just not the full marathon. I just don’t  have the time, mental capacity, drive or desire to train properly for the full marathon, so I will run the half. I had been tossing around the idea of only running the half for a few weeks when I started out on a planned 16 mile run. I didn't feel good about this run from the start and at about mile 10, my body said stop. My hip started bothering me and I realized I just couldn't put myself through another long injury recovery period. Clearly I wasn't treating my body well enough to put it through the rigors of a full marathon. Maybe next year.

Triathlons

The thing about getting a divorce and moving on with your life is that you realize pretty quickly how little time and money you have when half your support system is gone. My free time will now be spent with my children. I have been spending time in the gym working on my strength, but my endurance has suffered since I haven't been logging many miles running, swimming or biking. I just don’t have the time to devote to the hours needed for these endeavors right now. Maybe I’ll change my mind in a few months after life settles down. The desire to race is there, the funds and time just aren't. I promised a friend I’d do a race with her this year, I will keep my promise but my focus will be on fun… not competition.     

Life is good

While so much negative stuff is going on, there is a sparkle of hope and happiness I'm holding on to. Divorce is never easy, no matter how hard you try. There is no easy way out; there is no way to get through it without hurt feelings... but there is hope. I have found  happiness reuniting with friends I haven't spent much time with; I've found that I have the drive to work hard to get the things I need. I've found confidence and I found friends who promise to be there - and actually are there - when needed. Most of all, I've found that my children are strong, resilient and see the silver lining in almost any situation. I am proud of them. I want them to see me as a strong, independent, determined woman who will do anything for them. I want to show them how to live healthy, how physical work equals physical strength. I want to give them peace and security and I want them to be happy, without compromising my own happiness. For me personally, 2012 was a very hard year on all levels. I cried at the stroke of midnight, said good-bye to 2012 and opened the door to 2013. A brand new year with brand new opportunities.  

(btw, if you live in the Montgomery County, Pa, area and want to schedule a free trial MaxOut workout with me, comment below or simply visit the site and request a free trial. Also, if you're interested in any of the hundreds of AMAZING Herbalife products, including the new Herbalife 24 made for and by athletes, visit my website and place an order or comment below and I'll get in touch with you)

What if? Organizing marathon fears

As we embark on the second week of training, I'm struck by fear. Here are my biggest fears about this marathon:

Injury
I'm scared out of my mind about re-injuring my hip. It's not like I can stop running and focus on my swim and bike while my hip heals. I cannot, absolutely cannot, inflame my hip. It CANNOT happen. To combat this problem, I'll be doing a strength workout once a week. This, combined with the change in my run gait I worked on this past season, should stave off any injury. If it doesn't work, I might cry.

Asthma
The timing of this race is a little nerve-wracking for me. The race is Feb. 17. In Pennsylvania, February tends to be very cold. In Austin, it'll be beautiful. However, all of my training will be done here, not Austin. Once it gets cold, I'll only be able to run in the the bitter cold for so long. After about the 35 degree mark, I have to move inside because my lungs cannot handle the cold. Dry, cold air literally closes my lungs and I cannot breathe. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing a majority of my long runs on the treadmill; the thought of which makes me cringe.

Paging Dr. Ross... Regarding the above two concerns, I will be coming to the Performance Lab again very soon.

Weather
What if it snows? OK, so I know this fear is a stretch, but I have a plane to catch. If the weather is bad, will I even be able to get to Austin? Will I have trained so long, spent hundreds of dollars on airfare and race registration for nothing? I will not know the answer to this until the day my plan is set to fly.

Time management
When the going gets tough, workouts tend to fall by the wayside. Let's be honest, I have a lot of things going on right now. Between a full- and part-time job, the kids and my new relationship status, things are getting a little hectic. I think I'll manage to do all my running workouts, but will my swim and bike may suffer? If they do, what does that mean for next year's triathlon season?

Confidence
What if I can't run 26.2 miles? I'm not even talking injury.. what if I just cannot run 26.2 miles? That's some serious distance. I can tell you that during the last 5k of any half marathon I've ever run I thought my legs would fall off... what happens when I double that distance? First off, I train for it, that I know. It just seems so huge to me right now.

Phew... Now that all my concerns on in front of me in black and white, I feel a little better. Organizing fear, anyone else find comfort in it?

Triathlon is a part-time job I need time to do

Here's the thing, I LOVE that I have a coach to get me through my training, but I hate not knowing the future. When I would get weekly workouts from Joanna while training for Eagleman, they were so packed with goodies that I only focused on getting through each week. Now that it has only running on it, the schedule looks weak. I can only guess that's going to change, but I don't know for sure since I cannot predict what torture training Joanna has in store for me in the following weeks.

This week my schedule includes speed work, an easy run, a tempo run and a long run. Mixed in are a few gentle reminders to get my ass on the bike and swim, which I have woefully neglected. But I have an excuse. A good one: There are only so many hours in the day and I can only be so many places at once.


How did I ever manage to train for three sports? I better figure it out ... and fast.

Triathlon training goals for 2013

My life kinda fell into shambles after Eagleman in June, hence my lack of posts and my lack of miles. My husband and I decided just two weeks before Eagleman that we were going to separate. Not a huge shocker to me, but a life-changing event nonetheless. Two months later I raced Steelman, which I did on Joanna's encouraging so I'd have something to focus on to keep me motivated. I raced, I had a great time, but I really felt pretty down when all was said and done.

But, during this time of flux, I've been reevaluating who I am, who I want to be and what I want out of life. What I've determined is that I'm not going to let a change in my relationships status determine the outcome of my life. So I began plotting out my race schedule.

Every good triathlete has a night of drinking with an equally crazy friend to determine their race schedule for the following year, right? No? Well, that's what I do. Don't judge. Anyway, we started researching Ironman race courses. We wanted a flatter course, but not pancake flat, but shouldn't be major hills, like Lake Placid. We found Ironman Cozumel, and fell in love. But the realist in me knows that with my life influx, maybe an Ironman in 2013 isn't a great idea. However, if I make 2013 a building year, and Ironman in 2014 is a certainty.

Here are my goals:
First, I'm going to run a marathon. Probably a good idea if I'm considering an Ironman, right? This was another decision made during a night of drinking, but this time it was with my cousin, who was up this way from Austin.

She said, "I think you should run the Austin Marathon. It's in February and it's a great time to be in Austin. Plus our condo is 2 miles from the start, right along the race course." While sitting at the bar, I sent a quick email to Joanna asking her if she thought I could be ready for a marathon by February. She said, and I'm paraphrasing, if we start soon, I think you'll be ready.

A few days later, I registered, booked airfare and committed my brain to a marathon. Beginning Oct. 1, Joanna will be helping me train for my very first marathon.

Heaven help me.

Next on the list are a few Olympic distance races for 2013. I'd like to do Red Bank again. It was a beautiful course and I'd like to redeem myself from my terrible showing on the bike. I also want to do Steelman again because it was so much fun. My crazy triathlon friend suggested the Bethany Beach Triathlon, that I'm considering that as well as New Jersey State Triathlon.

As far as another half distance next year... I haven't decided yet. I think it might be a good idea to do one, but I don't know which to do. Eagleman was too hot and really early in the season. Diamondman was fun, but I'm not sure I want to repeat that again. So, I'm open for suggestions. I'm thinking Pocono 70.3, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet.

VIDEO: 7 tips for bicycle safety

A few weeks ago, I got up at the crack of dawn for work to help put together a video on bike safety with the help of some of my fellow coworkers. This is basic bicycle safety, but extremely informative for drivers as well as cyclists.

Here is the video. It's totally ok if you laugh at my expense.

Steelman Olympic distance race report

The sun coming up over Lake Nockamixon.

Knock-knock. Anyone there? Yes, I have been MIA for the last two months because, I will be totally honest, I have a lot going on in my life right now. Most of it I can't write about, which absolutely effects the stuff I can write about and makes the stuff I can write about far less interesting. At least to me. BUT through it all, I managed to get in one final triathlon this season: Steelman at Nockamixon State Park in Quakertown.

Let me start by saying the two months since doing Eagleman my training has been less than stellar. In fact, I can honestly say I've been in the pool maybe twice and been swimming at the lake twice. That's a grand total of four swim sessions in two months. I've ridden my bike a little more frequently, once a week on most weeks, and I may have logged 15 - 20 miles running. Seriously, I was behaving as if this race wasn't going to happen.

Yes, every picture I have is before sunrise because I got to the part before 5 a.m.!

But as I stood among 2,000 athletes ready to start a race they actually prepared for, I completely questioned my sanity. I tried to remind myself that I did finish a 70.3 two months ago. I can totally do this distance. But the buoys looked so far away. Everyone around me was smiling in anticipation. I was shivering with fear. In fact, I spend the whole weekend fighting off the fear that something terrible was going to happen to me during this race. I was going to a race with no one. I had no support with me. Just me. Alone. I wrote my kids a note in the morning reminding them that I loved them, just in case.

Clearly, I was feeling out of my mind.

See those buoys? Can you see them? Look how far they look?

Swim:
Back to the water's edge. Lake Nockamixon is actually a really beautiful lake, but on Sunday I didn't see its beauty, I simply focused on its size. With a water temperature of 80 degrees, it was not a wetsuit legal race, so I wore my skin suit. We had the option to wear wetsuits, but you'd be disqualified for awards. I sort of wish I had chosen to wear mine. I'm not winning any awards, but I wanted to try without it. In hindsight, I should've worn it. When the gun went off, I started swimming. It seemed to take an eternity to get to the first buoy. The next buoy also seemed very far away. I focused on swimming buoy-to-buoy. One after the other I swam passed them. None seemed to come faster than the next. I got out of the water and saw the :40 min mark and although that time was disappointing, I knew I had no business expecting to swim any faster than I did. My official swim time was :40:03

Bike:
I will admit I heard nothing but horror stories about the hills on this ride. I had no expectations other than to ride as hard as I could. That's what I did. The climb out of the park was tough, but not nearly has hard as I thought it was going to be, and the rest of the course pretty much followed that same line of thinking. There were a few pretty good climbs, but nothing that was insanely difficult. During the first climb out of the park, the little packet in my pocket that held my Enduralytes fell to the ground. Fortunately, it fell right in front of a volunteer who ran to it and yelled what's your number, I'll get it back to you. I panicked for a second worried that I'd cramp like crazy without them. But sometimes you just cannot worry about things beyond your control. So, I just let it go and focused on the ride. My ride time was 1:31:22, that's a 17.7 mph average. I am happy with that.

Run:
I started this run waiting for my legs to cramp. Having no Enduralytes to help if they did, I was just waiting... but guess what. They never cramped. This was encouraging. I felt strong the entire run. It was a beautiful paved, shaded course through the park. I really enjoyed the run. Water stops were frequent and stocked with Gatorade, water and ice. I was feeling so good, I really thought I was going to make the 10k in under an hour. I was close, 1:02:43, but not quite. I finished feeling great. I was a little disappointed to not have my kids meet me at the finish like they normally do, but I was happy to see Joanna there at the end.

I finished this race with the time of 3:19:17. This is 15 minutes faster than my previous best Olympic distance time. Seriously, I cannot believe it. I didn't really deserve to PR during a race I wasn't prepared to do, however, I will take it. 

Overall, I thought Steelman was a great race and we were blessed with beautiful weather. As an athlete who is not finishing in the top half, it was nice to see volunteers at all the stations throughout the entire race. I hate when you're running and you come to an aid station that just has cups and coolers because the volunteers left. It's defeating, but this was not the case at all at Steelman.

I'm glad I did this race. I wasn't going to, but Joanna helped make it possible for me. Thank you Joanna. It was a great race to end a tough season. Oh, and as a side note, my packet of Enduralytes were sitting at my transition when I got back to it. How awesome is that?!

Ironman Eagleman 70.3 Race Report

I've been working on this post for months. The whole reason I started this blog was to write about this triathlon, Eagleman. The race that was going to take me to the next level. Instead, I was humbled by this race and this report is just not writing itself. So, let's start at the beginning.

We had plans to stay at my friend Tammy's in-laws place in Lewes, Del., about an hour and a half away from the starting line. This wasn't an ideal situation, but it was free accommodations and there wasn't a hotel within 50 miles of the race that had any open rooms. But, in an extraordinary stroke of good luck, Joanna had a nutrition client who booked an extra room and offered it to us. So on Saturday, I met Tammy and fellow dailymiler Patrick, in Media to start our trek to Cambridge, Maryland. 

I had no idea until I got here that Ironman was such a community event. Clearly businesses welcomed us.

Once in Cambridge, we went to the race expo and packet pick up. There was a pro athlete forum that was going on while we were picking up our race packets. We stayed just long enough to take a blurry picture ...

Ironmen

... and pick up our race numbers. It was so hot and crowded.

Packet pick up and expo

Next stop was the transition area to rack our bikes and check out the transition area. We did some stalking while we were there... you know, killing time.

Transition area with bikes racked

Yeah, so it's not every day I come within feet of Ironman Champions

After checking into our hotel room, heading to dinner and packing, unpacking and repacking everything we needed for the next morning, we settled in at about 8:30 p.m. for our 4:15 a.m. wake up call.

"Shuttle," AKA school bus, we took in the morning to transition. Patrick is pictured.

I have to admit, I was not nervous about the race. I did have a few moments of anxiety, but generally I felt pretty confident that I was going to conquer this race.

We quickly learned that if Patrick was anything, he was positive.

We learned that for the first time in two years the race would be wetsuit legal, so my confidence was pretty good. The pros started at 6:45 and Tammy and I had an hour to walk around and wait for our wave start.

Transition area set (sort of) and ready to go.

The swim:
At 7:40 exactly, our wave was ushered into the water. As we walked toward the water, volunteers handed us safety pins to put on our timing chips if our wetsuits didn't cover them. I thought this was a brilliant idea since at my last half iron, my timing chip fell off twice during the swim. Anyway, two minutes later, the blow horn sounded and we were off.

Choptank River, not nearly as scary as described by athletes.

I will admit that the stories of jellyfish, sharks and rough waters of the Choptank River (you can't make up that name), scared me a little prior to the start. But I found the waters to be cool and lightly salted. Not nearly has salty as the ocean. I had some trouble sighting because my goggles were super foggy (Patrick, the defogging stuff did NOT work) and the buoys were a little further apart than I'm used to in races. I stayed pretty wide and to the left throughout the swim because I did not want to get kicked in the head again. The first half of the swim I stayed calm and took my time. About half way through I remember that there was no reason to hold anything back today, and I picked up my pace. Before I knew it, I was coming into to the swim finish. I felt strong and ready for the bike. I finished the 1.2 mile swim in 44:49. In transition, I stripped off the wetsuit, took a long drink and hopped on my bike.

The bike:
I pushed the entire time on this ride. The course was completely flat, not a single hill. We road through some scenic parks with a lot of trees. Of course there were stretches with nothing more than an open field, but my confidence was high. I was passing a lot of riders on the course and with little effort maintaining an easy 18-19 mph pace. Around the halfway mark, maybe a little further, I was honestly trying not to look at my bike computer and only watched the time, I hit some headwind that pushed me to a pretty steady 14 mph. That was a little harder to recover from, but I kept pushing. This was about the time I saw a woman throw up twice while riding. My first thought was, "That woman is hardcore." My next thought was, "I wonder why she's getting sick."

The last 6 miles seemed to take forever, but those last six miles is where I started to see the runners. Many were walking. No one looked happy. At the end of that 56 miles, which I did in 3:11, I walked my bike back to my transition spot. I was in no rush to start this run.

Picture of the sun taken by my husband while waiting for me to finish the race.

The run:
After putting socks and sneakers on and taking another long drink, I trotted out of transition and onto the course. Immediately my quads cramped. I tried to ignore it and took two Enduralytes, but the cramps coupled with a shooting pain on the right side of my right foot forced me to a walk. Less than a mile into the course Tammy caught up to me. I think I said outloud, "Oh seriously." She was in good spirits and walked with me for a bit. I encouraged her to keep running. A few feet later I met Dan, an athlete wearing a knee brace. He and I walk about 3/4 of a mile together until the first water spot. He walked through it and I stopped and strategically placed ice in my tri suit and wet my sun sleeves hoping to stay cool. After that, I walked/ran the entire course.

I stopped at every water spot and poured ice water all over myself. The temperature was 100 degrees and there wasn't a single patch of shade anywhere. Patrick described it as a death march and I can't think of a better description than that. I watched seasoned triathletes walking. Men and women who I am sure are much stronger and fitter than I am put their pride aside and simply walk. Where there were neighborhoods, many residents had tents out and sprayed athletes down with garden hoses. If any of them ever read this, THANK YOU!

After the first 6.6 miles, I realized my hopes of having a half iron in the 6 hour time range was not going to happen. I ate a snow cone, and the sugar helped push me the next 4 or so miles.

The last mile and a half was the absolute worst. I felt my body actually falling apart. I had been drinking water and electrolytes and taking Enduralytes like they were candy, but I wasn't eating. I would've killed someone for a pretzel or potato chips. I needed salt, I needed calories. I had three Gus in my pocket the entire run, but I couldn't bring myself to eat them. Probably my downfall. But the heat called for drinking, not for eating. With each step I took, I felt weaker. With one mile left, I choked down a Gu and it only served to turn my stomach.

With 400 yards left, a group of athlete sat in the shade encouraging, no, yelling at us to run. "There's only 400 yards left, one loop around the track. Run! Don't be weak," I heard them shout. So I ran. I ran and I have no idea how I did it. It was the longest 400 yards of my entire life. Each step was filled with pain. Every muscle in my body hurt, my feet burned and I was crying. I saw my kids right at the shoot and I lost it. Crossing the finish line I just bent over and sobbed. 3:09 was my run time. A medic came over to me and put a wet towel on my neck, held me up and asked me if I wanted to sit down. No, I wanted to see my kids.

Hobbling toward the finish line.

The entire time I was walking/running, all I could think of (when I wasn't in shock at how my body felt like it was falling apart) was all the time I had spent training. All the hours, all the effort, six months of training and nutrition and my half iron time was 4 minutes better than the last one.
4 minutes.

After cooling off, eating and pulling myself together, I texted Joanna. I said, "Finished and getting ready to leave. That may have been the hardest thing I've ever done. Wow" She called me immediately. I don't know how I managed to not cry while talking to her, but she was nothing but encouraging. She knew my goal and I failed. I failed. She said, "I don't think you would've finished the race at all if you didn't train the way you did. You can't prepare for that heat. You did the best you could. I am proud of you." Those words meant the world to me.

The truth is that I didn't fail. I finished a race where many did not. I improved my swim time by 11 minutes and my bike time by 7. I took an extraordinary 6+ minutes in transition from bike to run this time and my run time was increased by 11 minutes from the last race. The heat was brutal, my nutrition fell apart and therefore my body fell apart. I have always been my biggest critic and I continue to be that critic.

I did it!

I walked away from the race with a few thoughts: 1) I will never do a half iron again. It's just not my race. Eagleman decided that. 2) I am strong. Those were two facts I held fast for the last two days as I've hobbled from one place to another. I held fast as I suffered through dehydration and the inability to keep food down for the last two days. I held this truth until I thought about my next race. When someone said, "So, what's next?"

Truth is, I will race again because I am racing against myself. Probably not this year, but I will next year. Actually, who am I kidding, as soon as I am able to train again I will probably find a race and shoot for it. I will not let this stop me from doing what I love. I am a triathlete. I am strong. I will reach my goal of a 6 hour 70.3.