My Perfect Storm at Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon

When I was planning my race season this year, I thought twice before including the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon.  Warren & I raced it last year - it was where he got his qualifying slot for the 70.3 World Championship in Clearwater.  My day there last year was less than impressive....I went into it feeling undertrained as my coach at the time was bringing me very slowly along toward a peak for the 70.3 at the end of September. My time was very slow and I was a disappointing 7th in my age group.

But a race you can drive to is always much less of a hassle, so among 70.3 races in early summer, it was between BSLT in Lubbock and the one in Kansas.  We did Kansas in ’08 - not a bad race but we figured if we went to Texas we could also see our daughter who lives in Austin ( a mere 6 & 1/2 hours away from Lubbock). Plus BSLT offers the rare situation of both one Kona slot and at least one Clearwater slot in each age group - since my age group is smaller than most others, we only get one Clearwater slot.  The goal for me this year was to qualify for Clearwater, and so I thought I had a better chance of getting lucky on the rolldown.  And, BSLT has a reputation as a tough race with hills, heat and wind - which apparently keeps a lot of people away because the race never sells out.  So, maybe less people competing with me for those magic slots? Maybe.

Unfortunately, one of the women in my age group is many-time Ironman Age Group World Champion, the legendary Missy LeStrange.  I saw an article online listing her as one of the top 10 all-time Age Group Champions in Kona.  So, pretty much if she shows up for the race, it’s a given that she will win the age group. I googled the names of some of the other 55-59 women that had also signed up for BSLT this year.  There were some strong contenders based on their previous race results, but I thought MAYBE if I trained hard and was able to bring it on the day, I might just have a shot at the podium.

Last year’s BSLT race was rainy and humid, but not as hot as it had been in previous years where the temperatures rose above 100 degrees. This year the forecast was for low-mid 90’s.  Hot, but not too bad.  The worrisome thing for me was that the water temperature was really close to being non-wetsuit-legal.  I think they even said “don’t count on wearing wetsuits” at the pre-race meeting (which I didn’t attend).  Facebook posts the day before kept saying “no wetsuits at BSLT.”  Of course we wouldn’t know for sure til race morning. Though I had borrowed a skinsuit just in case wetsuits were no-go, I’d never swam in it.  Though I’ve come a long way in terms of being comfortable in open water, my wetsuit gives me just a little more confidence, and this was going to be my first non-wetsuit triathlon.  Our resident Aussie pro triathlete Tim kept telling me that he thought I might even swim better without the wetsuit, but it was a matter of a voice in my head saying “no wetsuit...OMG!”  In my conscious mind, I kept telling myself, "no worries! You’ve been swimming well, this is all good" - but nevertheless, the night before the race that worry voice in my head kept waking me up giving me another dose of “oh crap! no wetsuit!”

As we walked into the transition area on race morning, the Race Director was shouting to the arriving athletes “Wetsuits are legal.”  Oh happy day.  My stress level immediately dropped about 80%.  Would I have been OK without my wetsuit?  Probably just fine.  But it’s all about what’s going on in your HEAD, not necessarily reality.

The game plan was to try to push the swim more than I have in the past, then steady on the bike, picking it up in the last 10 miles if possible, and steady on the run picking it up in the last 3 miles if possible.  The time goal was 6 hours.  

I was in the second wave, set to go off at 6:35.  The good thing about that is that we get started early hopefully to finish before it got too hot.  The bad thing is that faster waves behind me will be swimming on top of me.  And they did.  I got my goggles knocked off my eyes not once but twice.  My vision is about 20/400 so without my contacts I’m blind as a bat and wouldn’t have been safe on my bike had I lost them.  So, twice, I stopped dead in the water, shook the water out of my goggles, got them back on my eyes and then started swimming again.  Frustration.  I felt I was swimming pretty well.  I know I need to do a better job of swimming behind another swimmer for the drafting advantage - I tried and did a few times.  My tendency when it gets congested out there is to avoid those aggressive swimmers who are swinging arms fast and furious, and kicking hard...the best way to do this is to stay off the main traffic line, which obviously means I’m not really swimming the shortest most direct route start to finish.  So this obviously cost me some time on the  swim.

Came out of the water in 39 minutes.  Last year my swim time at BSLT was a ridiculous 51 minutes.  39 minutes is not GREAT but better and I find hope in improvement.  

Wetsuit strippers waiting to pull off your wetsuit.  I love that.  On to T1.

So my coach George had told me that I’ve spent too much time in transition in previous races, and he's right. So I was determined to get in & out of there ASAP.  Shoes & helmet on...grabbed my bike....ran out and across the timing mat....then realized I had left my sunglasses back in the transition area on my towel.  Damn!  For a moment I thought, just go without them!  But the wind was already blowing and I thought how bad it would feel  for 56 miles with the bright sunshine glare and dried out contacts - I knew I had to go back and get them.  There was a volunteer standing there and I yelled to him “hey take my bike please - I have to go back to transition” - he looked a little confused but took the bike and I started off to my towel at the OTHER end of the big transition area, running in bike shoes,  and I heard a crashing noise in just a few seconds - I looked back and my bike was on the ground!  Damn again!  I kept running (in bike shoes) back, dodging other athletes with bikes coming toward me in the narrow walkway toward the bike exit - really frustrating for me & them!  Got my sunglasses, started back toward the bike exit, got behind two people with bikes who weren’t in much of a hurry to get out of there - damn again! - finally back to where my bike was on the ground.  Now I’m noticing that all my liquid nutrition that was in the bottle between my aero bars has spilled out on the ground.  There goes my nutrition plan!  I’m starting to calculate in my head how I will replace those calories...guess I’ll be drinking gatorade on the course.  Plus my bike time is going to be 2-3 minutes slower than it should be as I’d already crossed the mat and then had to run back to transition.  Damn again.

Finally on the road on the bike.  Hmm, it’s a little windy.  I’m passing people, it’s good.  One of the few upsides of being a slow swimmer is passing tons of people who beat you out of the water.  :-)  Passed a couple of women in my age group in the first 10 miles.  

Then up the road a bit I see a woman who looks like Missy.  Is it her?  Really?  Can I really be passing her?  OMG. Go for it Pam - pass & keep going.

Now it’s really in my head.  I think it was her!  And, by golly, she is NOT going to catch me.  Bring the heat, push the bike, go!

By the middle of the ride, the wind has picked up.  There are 7 big hills on the bike course, but those annoyed me way less than the headwind in the last 10 miles.  Took in some salt tabs in the last half of the bike as it was also getting hot. The bike was hard, but knowing that I had to hold off Missy, I tried to keep pushing it with the best pace I could muster and staying relaxed in my upper body.  Really glad to see the bike finish line.  

My second transition went better than my first.  Bike shoes & helmet off, sox & run shoes on, hat on....go!  

The run was pretty slow but it was steady.  I slowed to a walk for a few seconds at about half the aid stations but then picked it back up to run.  Took gatorade and water(to drink and pour on my head & body).  They ran out of coke, I hated that - needed some caffeine!  I used the wet cloths they were giving out, those helped cool me down a lot.  I was passing some people and though some men were passing me, only a few women did.  I came up on a woman in my age group around mile 6 and passed her - gave me some added incentive to stay steady so she would not pass me back - and she didn’t. 

The last 3 miles were especially hard.  I didn’t have any cramping which was good, but my legs just didn’t have much life in them anymore after the hard bike ride.  So that was when I knew I was going to have to dig in and find some happy in my head to get me through this.  Physically I focused on keeping my arm swing strong and letting my legs follow, and staying relaxed.  I remembered some of Mark Allen’s articles and his book Fit Soul Fit Body, and started find that connection to nature to draw on that strength, and reminding myself how grateful and blessed I am to be out here doing this in the first place.  It worked; even as tired as I was I found an extra reserve of energy to pick up the pace after mile 12.  Something about knowing the finish line is near works wonders.

My finish time was 6 hours 4 minutes.  I had taken 28 minutes off my 2009 time at this race.  It felt good!  I saw Warren right after finishing and he told me that Missy had come in before me - so I was wrong about having passed her.  Damn again!  But, doing the whole race feeling like I was “hunted” instead of my usual “hunter” position, it was a good thing because I knew I had to keep the pressure on and not ease up.   Was it super fast...no...but it was as fast as I could go on the day and THINKING that I was ahead of her gave me a boost.

So George called and said that I’d finished second in my age group, which meant, woo hoo....I would get my Clearwater slot!  Missy was first and of course she would get the Kona slot.   We tried to find out if she had maybe already qualified for Kona at another race, but didn’t find anything to indicate that was the case.  No worries... I was happy...my Clearwater goal had been achieved!

Fast forward to the Awards Ceremony that night.  I saw Missy and went up to congratulate her.  I introduced myself...she apparently recognized my name as the second place finisher.  Then she spoke the golden words, “You know, I already have my Kona slot so I won’t be taking it today.”  OMG.  I am getting a Kona slot.  No Clearwater for me, baby!

I was stunned.  I hugged her - she probably thought I was a complete babbling idiot - I was shouting to Warren amidst the loud music playing and it was completely surreal and unbelievable.  As it turned out Missy put her name in the Ironman Lottery this year and got a slot that way.  Wow, really?!  Whatever! - it was my good fortune that the Lottery gods smiled on her, which opened the door for ME to get the Kona slot in Lubbock!   It was indeed the Perfect Storm of conditions setting this up for me - her getting the lottery slot, me choosing BSLT to race after being disappointed there last year, me thinking I'd passed her so I pushed myself more, coming in second to her...  Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen....I always thought my trip to Kona would be as IronMate to Warren when he qualified.  The only way the day could have been better would have been if he’d gotten a slot at BSLT too.  He is so deserving and will get there one day, I’m sure of it.  Thanks so much for your support of my race and my dreams, my Big Wazza! (Tim’s new name for him! :-)  )

So I ended up finishing less than 8 minutes, behind Missy.  She kicked my butt in the swim by about 11 minutes (!!!)) - but I beat her by about 7 minutes on the run.  She was a little faster on the bike, but then she probably didn't have to run back & get her sunglasses. ha.  I feel good about keeping it together mentally in delivering my best performance on a tough day & a tough course, against world-class competition.  

Thanks so much to all my friends who sent good wishes after hearing the news of my unbelievable good fortune!!!  The support has been so great and I will definitely be looking to all of you IM Hawaii alumni for advice as I begin this journey.

OMG.  I’m going to Kona.  Now the REAL training begins.  After all, I'm sure Missy's afraid of me now.    (Even bigger ha ha)

Cheers, everyone!

Good News & Bad News

I raced the 5430 Sprint Triathlon today in Boulder and finished 4th in my age group, against what is always stiff competition on the Mecca of Triathlon.  The good news....I took over 5 minutes off my finish time in this race from 2009, and had the fastest run of my age group.  The bad news...my slow swim was once again the reason for a disappointing non-podium finish.  OMG.  I'm so tired of having decent bike and run splits being cancelled out by a crappy swim.  This is, after all, a triathlon, and riding and running well just doesn't get it done.

There's gotta be a way to fix this, or looks like I'm doomed to be a duathlete.

No Mojo in the Water Tonight

Every week in the summer in Boulder there's a "splash & dash" series called the Stroke & Stride.  Swim 2 loops of a 750 meter course in the Boulder Reservoir(total 1500), then run 5K.  It was with weekly swims at the S&S over the past couple of years that I was able to let go of that open-water swim fear.  At the end of last summer I had even dropped my S&S swim time down by several minutes.  

I wore my sleeveless wetsuit tonight - water was colder than 2 weeks ago when we last swam there, but it feels less constricting so I like it better than the long sleeve wetsuit.  The long sleeve one makes my arms  fatigued after awhile.  That's another reason that I thought I'd be looking at a faster time tonight - though my arms were chilly especially in the second loop.

My swim time at the S&S tonight was among my slowest ever, and I'm trying to figure out why.  Possible reasons:

1 - Poor sighting technique means that every time I left my head to see where I'm going I stop my forward momentum, then have to build it again - over & over again.

2 - Swimming to the far right or far left of the straight line distance to each buoy and having to swim extra distance to get over to the buoy in order to go around it(more than once)

3 - Intentionally swimming away from other swimmers instead of  in their wake to get the aerodynamic benefit...sometimes I change my course if it appears someone might be in my path or I might be in theirs

4 - Not doing well at pacing my swimming, with regard to going fast enough to be more competitive yet slow enough to comfortably do the distance - given the bike & run to follow

5 - Wasted time between laps (exiting the water, running down the beach to enter the water again, taking off goggles to clear fogging ....then slowly but steadily starting off into second loop)

6 - The answer is probably "all of the above"

I thought the second loop was faster but as it turned out they were pretty close in time.  I FELT like I was swimming fairly well - not super fast, but not that slow either.  I don't get it, because I've been feeling faster in the pool lately.  Warren saw me on the run - he was coming back less than a mile from the finish line when I was still in my first mile of the 5K run. He said "are you ok?" as that was a really slow swim, even slower than I usually go.

I had to let it go & focus on the run.  Since I'll be racing a Sprint triathlon in two days(Sunday) the plan was to do the run fairly easy and save the legs.  There is a lady in my age group who also does this event, and she swims faster than me(duh, who doesn't?), but my run is typically several minutes faster.  I saw her tonight on the run, and she was WAY ahead of me on the way BACK on the out & back course, when I was in going out.  I thought I didn't have much chance of running her down, but I continued to gain on her, but ran out of road and she crossed the finish line about 10 seconds ahead of me.  Bummed me out.

The cool thing about that, however, is that I didn't give up and made the effort to catch her  - and almost did.  Maybe not the smartest thing to do a couple of days before a big race, when I had decided to just go easy - but I'm starting to cultivate the competitive drive that makes me push myself harder.  Just participating in a race is fun, but taking it to the next level in performance expectations is a place I'm not so familiar with - I'm starting to enjoy going there. 

I raced in a swimsuit tonight for the second time in my life, and the first time in years.  It was cooler in the warm temperatures and the comfort and freedom of movement was great.  I'm liking the feel of it.

My triathlon friends are all trying to help me figure out why things fell apart tonight.  I am not AT ALL thin-skinned about constructive criticism of my swimming skills, and I welcome feedback - if you have ideas on where I need to go from here - please share it with me~!  I believe there must be something I'm missing and there is a way to turn this around.

Liquid Sunshine

The forecast for a rainy Saturday has proved to be true.  I love the way rain greens everything up, but we've been spoiled with many warm sunny days lately.  It has been wonderful being outside!

So it's off to the Computrainer in the basement, but the good news is that it could be a good thing for me to ride the Buffalo Springs Lake bike course.  I did the race last year, so I know what to expect.  Or do I?...like childbirth one tends to forget some of the worst moments as time passes.  My friend Dave suggested that pulling the computrainer into the sauna would be a good simulation of the Lubbock heat & humidity.  It is indeed impossible to train for the humidity out here in Colorado.  Which is perfect because the other big race I've picked out for the year is Ironman Louisville - ANOTHER super-humid venue.  What's a girl to do.

On tap for the entertainment/sanity during the ride...."Jerry McGuire" DVD, then I'll pull an old NBC video of  some random year of Ironman Hawaii.

Warren chose to flee the bad weather indoors at Flatirons Athletic Club with one of his favorite workouts, a 15 minute bike spin/5 minute run....repeated 5 times.  Sounds like a good workout that would be not too bad mentally because you get to switch things up often.  I've been wanting to try it.  But I always follow my coach's instructions to the letter.   I never skip a workout,  or change it - and follow directions just as precisely as I possibly can.  And today's instructions say 3-hour ride, so it's time to stop procrastinating - off I go....

I'm finally warm

We can safely say now that summer is finally here in Boulder, and it is, in a word, awesome!  When I was leaving the pool tonight, the air was warm and fresh.  The sun had gone down behind the mountains yet still illuminated them from behind.  Many Boulderites are now transporting themselves on two wheels instead of four whenever possible for the summer.  School is out and the neighborhood sounds include voices of kids happily enjoying their newly found freedom.

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a visiting professional triathlete here training for the summer.   We have taken in one of Australia's pros for the summer, and he's the perfect houseguest/live-in dogsitter.  It's going to be fun watching him race all over the world this year.  And he's agreed to teach me to play the guitar....so I can check off another item on the bucket list!

Training continues to go well - I'm following the plan, keeping the injuries at bay and feeling stronger all the time.  I'm also learning to keep my head and emotions in check and really focus my physical and mental energy, an important part of racing well that I have yet to master but I'm starting to get, I think.

Taming the Open Water Beast

Last night was the first Boulder Stroke & Stride, a weekly event including a 1500m swim followed by  a quick 5K run along water's edge at the Boulder Reservoir.  They are an excellent opportunity for people like me to recover from our affliction...  "Hi, my name is Pam, and I had a history of irrational fear of swimming in open water."  (all together now..."Hi Pam!")  :-)

The ease and speed of some swimmers is really amazing to me.  Yes, the fact that they've been doing this much of their lives is significant and I do know how far I've come since first learning to swim a few years ago.  Also common to good swimmers appears to be that they look forward to their swim training sessions with eager anticipation and maybe even  consider swimming the most fun part of a triathlon.  God bless 'em - can't say I'm THERE yet, but my attitude toward swimming IS something I can control and I'm working on it, every time I jump into the water.

I love/hate my wetsuit.  It makes me buoyant and on top of the water...a good thing.  It keeps me warmer in cold water...a good thing.  But I hate that constricted feeling of a long sleeve wetsuit and what's up with my arms getting tired?  That never happens just regular swimming "naked" (no, Mom, that just means without a wetsuit, not without clothes) over the same distance. Chances are that Ironman Louisville will not be wetsuit legal this year, so I may have a chance to do my first triathlon "sans wetsuit" there.  I am not worried about that.  (believe me?  I'm trying to)

So last night's swim was not among my best but I'll chalk it up to early season shaking out the kinks.  There's a run down the beach between the first and second loops of the 750m course.  I took my sweet time starting to swim on the second loop....took off my goggles that were fogged up and put them back on (twice).  So second loop time was 3 minutes slower but it included that goofing around time, so I'm thinking the second loop was probably about the same time as the first.

The important thing is that every time I get into that water and keep my head together, it proves to me that I can do this thing because I've conquered the part of it that was hardest for me.  I know that I can and do continue to swim faster, and I've been able to focus on that now that I have discovered how to tame the Beast.

I love how life lessons work like that.  In working through conquering fears and limitations, then you realize that you have inner strength to apply when other areas of your life present challenges.   Cool how that works.

Let's go swimming.

Running Bold in Boulder

The Bolder Boulder race officially kicks off summer on Memorial Day in our fair city. The spectacle of over 50,000 runners and walkers making their way through town, entertained by local musicians, costumed dancers, patriotic decorations and lots of enthusiastic spectators is extremely cool! Runners finish inside of the University of Colorado stadium, which is fun, but I must say that I was happy to see some random Colorado State University tshirts and caps out there....gotta “defend the Fort!”...I gave them a high-five “go Rams” salute!  

The Bolder Boulder yesterday had a different focus for me as it was the first concrete assessment of my fitness since starting training for several long distance triathlons coming up this summer.  I’m trying to take my performance up a notch and see where I can go with it.  This year, someone besides me was actually going to take notice of my finish time.  Holy Accountability, Batman! My coaches are so supportive and I didn’t want to disappoint them .... or myself.

In 1992 at the age of 37, I ran my 10K PR of 46:06. That was also the day of my 20th high school reunion, and I’d been running a lot because of course you want to look good for people you’ve not seen in 20 years, right? 1992 was also the year before I did my first sprint triathlon.  After that I didn’t run as much as I was spending time on my bike and trying to learn to swim well enough not to drown in open water. Whatever running speed I might have had back in the early 90’s went dormant soon after. I haven’t been tracking racing times over the years, but the fastest time I can find online looking back at my 10K run results is 52 minutes back in 98.  I’ve gotten close to that in triathlons in recent years (yes, I seem to be faster in a triathlon than a standalone running race...wierd), but certainly never close to that ’92 PR.  

So for the past 10 years or so I’ve become Queen of Long Slow training.  It was just so darn pleasant and easy to be out there for hours on my bike or running, enjoying the sunshine and daydreaming, while my mind and body drift into that auto-pilot mode and time just floats by. It’s a great way to become a slow runner - DUH - and that’s exactly what I taught my body to do.

Back to yesterday’s race...The plan was to start at a moderate pace, gradually increase and then pick it up to achieve negative splits, which is usually not that hard to do as I typically am out for 30-60 minutes before I’m feeling warmed up and happy.  I was hoping to average an 8 minute mile & go sub-50 minutes, which would have been 2-3 minutes faster than any 10K I’ve run in the past 10-12 years.  I have started paying attention to hydration as I'm not very good about drinking water.  I have been having some achey pain in my left foot for a day or two, and still have a weird hip flexor pain on the left side that won’t seem to go away and I feel like it’s inhibiting movement running & cycling.  But besides THOSE things, I was feel good.  Warren and I had planned to run together but I lost him in the crowd when he went to the porta-potty before the race - couldn’t find him again til afterward - so I was on my own, and that was fine.  Sometimes it’s a good thing to only have your own energy to deal with and manage.

Off we went at 7:09, the CC wave.  In previous years I would take in all the sights along the course and try to enjoy the race while running a "decent" time - but this year it was strictly business.  My focus was on finding the best line through the crowd of runners, hitting the splits button on my Garmin at the mile markers, trying to keep a steady pace, letting negative thoughts go & getting the job done.

I would love to report that it was fun.  It was not.  It felt hard at the time but looking back and comparing this effort to other hard efforts, it was probably an  8 or 8.5 on a scale of 10 so  certainly not a red-line situation the whole time.  My heart rate average was 165, which is in zone 4 (max is 5) but I went as high as 178 near the end.  There was a good bit of negotiation going on between my body and head.  My head finally won, keeping the mantra “calm, steady, strong” over and over for 6.2 miles. 

I have also realized that I have so much to learn to develop a strong race mentality.  I really don’t do it well, both in the moment and in preparation. I’m learning to accept discomfort and outright pain as OK & normal & even that I should seek it out when training and racing. I’ve read interviews with professional and elite endurance athletes - when they are asked what emotions they use to motivate them to push thru when it gets hard, some say fear(of losing or of their competition); some say anger(toward their competition or to otherwise prove something to themselves or others) but others say they use the motivation of things they care about(family, a cause they support, etc)- and still others say that they try to quiet their mind of all that negative mental noise and find the flow and the place of ease.  In the past I’ve been all over the place in terms of motivation and mental management, but I do see that conquering one’s negative thoughts can make all the difference when the going gets tough.

Some triathletes do a lot of pre-race reconnaissance work.  They know exactly who their competition will be and those key players strengths and weaknesses.  They know the nuances of the course, how their own abilities can be best maximized by the conditions of the course and weather.  They have a detailed race plan that may indeed fall apart, but yet they are prepared with a best case scenario for strategically striking with surges or patience as the day unfolds - and contingency plans for pulling out the best outcome no matter what happens.  They have specific nutrition and hydration plans and everything about their bike setup is meticulously adjusted to get the most power from every pedal stroke.  I do none of these things.  I’ll never be a professional athlete, but I could certainly take a page or two from the playbooks of the best athletes around - many of whom are right here in Boulder.  

So here’s how it came out...My official 10K finish time was 49:47.  Big happy face here!  I looked at the results online when I got back home and was surprised to see that I ws the fastest 55 year old female in the race.  Holy cow, did I really win my age group at Bolder Boulder?  (Yep)  Bigger happy face!  This was a beautiful gift that I think I earned but I’m nevertheless totally grateful to have been able to do.  My neighbor Sue is very fast and is also 55.  She runs Bolder Boulder most years, but lucky for me she was out of town (and injured) and wasn’t able to race this year.  It was the Perfect Storm for me.  

So last night I was having a glass of celebratory Merlot and thinking, “ok, so, now, how can I learn to be faster?”  Cuz, this is getting kinda fun, seeing where I can take it.  Like childbirth, how fast you forget the pain and remember the happy.

Cheers!

PS...

Things that went well:

• Good hydration in days before the race
• Peanut butter toast is a good pre-race meal
• H2O at 4 aid stations, just a swallow or two
• Steady pace, fairly even splits, slightly negative splits in last 2 miles

Opportunity for improvement:

• Don’t walk thru the aid stations; learn to drink while running
• Don’t carry my phone with me in my hand (didn’t mean to...long story)
• Learn to get through the crowds better while running
• Address my two injury issues before they become a problem