Janus

In elementary school we learned that January was named after the Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings and endings.  He is literally two-faced at once looking both backward and forward.  Thus, it seems like a good time to look forward to this year, while looking back at how 2011 went.

2011 was a year of experimentation with my triathlons:  new bike, new hydration and nutrition strategies and at the end of the year a new coach.  I competed in six races and placed in 4 of them, a new record, and I got to go to the Age Group National Championship (but damn, those girls were fast).  That's the good news.  Though clearly the run was still a struggle.  In AGNC, Mooseman and Mass State, I dogged the run.  From my other races, it seems that I can run a good race.  I just have to make it to the end with the endurance to run.  So that's the big goal for this year, getting that balance right.  And breaking 2:40 at an olympic.

Also, injury free.  The shin update is that I stopped running just before new years, to allow for some more healing time.  I've also been treating it like it's a stress fracture, just in case.  Going to see the specialist in another week or so.  Right now it's completely pain-free, so that's progress.

And now a look back at what really matters:  the schwag.  This year's race t-shirt round up has had some surprising results.

As I said last year, what makes a good race t-shirt for me is:  1) size 2) something I'm not afraid to be seen in public wearing and 3) material.

This year, I didn't have a clear favorite, partially due to a disturbing trend.  My race t-shirts have gotten fatter.  Many races are offering extra-small t-shirts, which I wholeheartedly support, but those t-shirts are getting wider.  Check out this comparison of 2011's Lobsterman t-shirt under 2009's Lobsterman t-shirt: 

The same size shirt from the same race has gotten much bigger.  Check out the AGNC shirt.  It is wider at its waist than it is in the shoulders:

That's not foreshortening:

I guess the upside is if I ever fall pregnant I won't need to shop for workout shirts.

In the most improved category, I give you the Jingle Bell 5K.  You'll recall that last year, this race has the worst shirt of the season.  This year, they had extra-smalls, and though the logo is somewhat misleading (Somerville in December is not the island paradise depicted), this is a huge improvement over last year's barren warehouse district illustration.

Finally, the coveted worst shirt of 2011.  This honor goes to the Devil's Chase 6.66 miler.  This was such a fun race, but the shirt was disastrous.  It was so bad that I have already sent it on to greener pastures, so I don't have my own photos of it.  First, the cut was bizarre, the small arrived roughly at my knees with arms so wide I could wear them as tights.  Here's two women in the shirt at the race: 

[photo credit tdavid12]

Second, the logo is a naked, muscley devil, who is just managing to conceal himself while running. It's just awkward.

There you have it.  2012 is looking to be a huge year:  planning a wedding, starting a new job and going back to AGNC, just to name a few.  Looking forward to it.

Rebranding

I've come to the conclusion that it's time to rename the blog.  The URL will stay the same, but, honestly, The Trouble with Living in Sin never quite fit.

When I started the blog back in  2007, I was moving to Australia, and I wanted to write a travel blog.  A few weeks before my departure, I was perusing a handy book of Australianisms, reading them aloud and laughing at their ridiculousness.

"''Chuffed!'  It means happy.  'Knackered' means tired.  'Seppo' means American.  'She'll be apples' means 'Everything is going to be all right.'"

"Shelby apples?" my friend asked.

"No, 'She'll be apples.'  Although, I sorta like the sound of that 'Shelby Apples.'  A misunderstanding of Australian culture, but meaning everything will be ok.  I think I'll name my blog Shelby Apples."

And thus, Shelby Apples was born.

One side note:  I don't think I ever heard any actual Australians use the phrase over the two years I lived there.

Then, I moved back.  Shelby Apples didn't feel like it fit anymore.  Paul and I had just moved in together, and discovered that neither of us owned the essentials like cutlery.  I was griping that the trouble with living in sin was that there's no registry, and a coworker commented that The Trouble with Living in Sin would make a great blog.  I thought that I'd be blogging more about my adventures with Paul, so the name would fit.

Obviously, that's not what's happened.  The blog is clearly triathlon focused.  So, baring any fantastic suggestions from my loyal readers (Paul is pushing for Team Riegle, but I'm not sure that fits), I'm going back to Shelby Apples.  It's a good story.

But, there's another reason why it can't be called The Trouble with Living in Sin.  Cause my days of living in sin are numbered.  On December 31, 2011, Paul proposed to me, and after some prompting (my head kept saying yes, but my mouth was stunned), I accepted. 2012 is going to be an amazing year.

Fun with numbers

I saw this comic at xkcd this other day (If you don't know xkcd, you should check it out.  It's always super geeky, sometimes culturally-relevant and once in a while incredibly informative), and it reminded me of the mnemonic I use for counting laps at the pool. 

Over the summer, I was reading Moonwalking with Einstein, a book that chronicles how the author became the US Memory Champion (yes, it's a thing).  That may seem a bit dull, but he starts roughly a year before the championship as just an every day guy, and then he infiltrates this subculture of competitive memorizers.  It's fascinating.

Anyway, he gives examples of how he memorizes names, numbers, to do lists, etc.  And it occurred to me, maybe I could use a technique like this when I'm counting laps.  You see, and this may come as a shock to some people, but I'm terrible with numbers.  Or at least, I'm terrible with numbers if I can't write them down.  Even simple math, if I don't have the calculation memorized, the numbers swim around, mix themselves up, and I end up being the MIT grad at the table desperately trying to divide the bill into 4 equal parts long after the cash has come and gone.

It's no different with remembering the lap that I'm on, particularly in the pool.  Even short sets like 3 x 300 start to become difficult.  Was that lap 4 or lap 5?  So here's what I do.  I associate images for each of the numbers 1-10.  Each of them has some relevance to the number, so it's easy to remember.  Then I place that image (usually person) at the end of the lane, mentally.  I picture them as I'm swimming.  If I'm not sure which lap I'm on, I just check the end of the lane.  Who's there is the lap.

For instance, the number one is Paul (cause he's my number one guy - AWWWWW)

Number two is my parents.  There is actually a specific photo that involved theatre t-shirts and suspenders, but I don't have a physical copy of it, so for your own enjoyment, here's a picture of my super cute mama (and a butterfly):

At three things start to get creative.  Three is the three kings:  the burger king, King Friday (the puppet) and a very sad looking Prince Charles (cause he's not actually a king).  In the book he explains that the more ridiculous the image, the stickier it is.  And for that reason the number six is the Easter Bunny, holding a basket of a dozen eggs and making a peace sign.

But isn't thinking of all these images just as hard to remember as remembering the number itself?  Well, no.  I don't really understand the science behind it, but somehow the images are easier.  Maybe it's using the other side of my brain or something.

Give it a try.

I don't want to go home yet

It's been a while.  I started running again two weeks ago, and my shin is not better.  It's been frustrating.

Last week Paul's dad suggested that someday (someday soon) I wouldn't be able to keep running.  My shin wouldn't recover.  What the hell?  Sure, I don't expect to be running when I'm 95, but at 32?  Come on, I'm bound to have a few good years left.

Then today, one of my running buddies went to the orthopedist for some nagging quad and knee trouble and came back with a recommendation to give up running or face knee replacement.  I guess we're not invincible after all.

It's got me sorta bummed out. Maybe three weeks wasn't enough time to heal.  I've tried ART, massage, acupuncture, changed my running gait, more aleve than any one should take and so much ice.  This shin is just stubborn.

Last weekend, I ran in (but didn't race) the Jingle Bell 5K.

This race was the largest in Somerville's history and featured runners dressed as 8 inflatable reindeer, Santa with a shopping cart sleigh, and a woman dressed as the lamp from A Christmas Story.  How could you miss that?

Recovery can be fun too

It’s been almost two weeks since the Chilly Half and exactly that long since I last ran.  And I feel ok, both physically and mentally.  Yesterday, I missed my first race due to this shin splint, and I didn’t have that nagging feeling of missing out.

As I trained for the half and the pain in my shin waxed and waned, I went through periods of despair that this injury would end my bid to run my best half marathon ever.  The morning of the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K, I made peace with the thought that I was going to need to take some time off from running and forego the Chilly Half to allow my shin to heal.  But, then the week after the 5K my shin improved.  It was still not pain-free, but I could run on it without it impacting my stride.

I picked up my t-shirt and bib for the Gobble, Gobble,Gobble 4 miler last weekend, knowing full well that only half of those items would get any use.  Yesterday morning, I went out to the race course to support my friend A as she continues to make fantastic strides in her running (serious negative split and beat her goal!), and to cheer on both BPC and BTT athletes.  As I stood at the finish line, a man next to me asked why I wasn’t running, and I replied that I was signed up but had a bum leg.  It was as if fate had sent him to tell me, “See you’re not disappointed.  Taking care of your body and not running is ok, too.”

Of course, I miss running.  Maybe it’s that setting a PR at the Chilly Half has instilled a new confidence and calm within me.  I feel a bit like a kid in a candy store:  which PR do I want to tackle next, all of them are within reach.  I’m very tempted to return to the half marathon distance again this season with an “adequate endurance base.”  

You see the week before the Chilly, my coach told me that although I would likely set a PR at the race, I did not have an “adequate endurance base for a quality half.”  Can you hear the sound of tires screeching to a halt in my brain?  WHAT? I’d been training for 9 weeks for this race, and it’s not like I was starting from a couch potato fitness level.  What Alan meant was, there’s a difference between having the fitness to go out and run a half (maybe even your best half to date) and having the fitness to run the best half your body is capable of running.  Despite the long miles I had run in preparation, I hadn’t even come close to running the 20 mile long runs for 8-12 weeks that is necessary to prepare for that best half ever time.  

Since I’ve stopped running, I’ve been swimming and biking more, and I’ve added some legitimate weight training.  For the last several months, my strength training has been limited to body-weight core exercises (think planks and bridges).  Though I enjoy these, it doesn’t compare to the pleasure of hitting the gym for bench presses and lunges.  The weight room at one time was a place that raised my heart rate just by going in.  After training with Paul two years ago, it’s no longer daunting.  I know what I’m doing, and I emerge feeling stronger for it.

My shin is improving, too.  I can run my finger over the spot that once was too sensitive to the touch and have no pain.  I’m still on NSAIDs, so I’m not quite ready to declare victory just yet, but I’m encouraged. They say that triathletes are either injured or racing or both.  My goal for right now is to be neither, so that come August I can be firmly in the racing camp.  Of course, a lot can happen between now and then:  there are no guarantees.  All I can do is put my faith in the process and enjoy the (bike) ride.

Signs of good things to come

I can now wholeheartedly recommend actually training for a Half Marathon. 

I was surprised at how nervous I was for this race.  I'd had three less than optimal runs this week that didn't do much for my confidence.  Saturday was all about the details:  what to wear, how to use my watch, what time to arrive.  Luckily, I have a very detail-oriented coach who loves getting into this stuff.  Seriously, we were discussing the blend of polyester and spandex in my tights to determine whether or not they would be appropriate for the slightly warmer than anticipated temperatures (they were).  And he gave me the ok to use not just the virtual partner, but also the advanced workouts in my garmin (so I could have a visual on pace and an auditory alert if my heart rate exceeded the prescribed zone for each portion of the race).

Sunday morning with my wardrobe approved and my watch programmed, I felt ready.  I got to the race course early, and got a great parking spot.  The race began and ended at the Newton South High School, which was great to have a structure to wait in and indoor plumbing!  I caught up with a few friends, and before long it was 7:05, time to warm up.  I ran my 16 minute warm up, ate a gel, drank some water and headed for the start line. 

Despite having finely tuned my garmin, as I was attempting to lock the bezel, I managed to start the watch.  I think about 30 seconds elapsed by the time I realized this and stopped it.  I didn't have time to reset the watch, so I just restarted it when the gun went off.  This meant that when I started running, I was already well behind my virtual partner.  I tried to stay a consistent number of seconds behind the VP.

And that worked until I got to the first hill.  You see, This course covers some of the heart break hill area from the Boston Marathon.  I've heard it referred to as the Chilly Hilly Half.  I was prepared for the "big hill" at 5.6 miles, but there was still a fair bit of "undulation" before you got there.  I decided as I floated down a hill, pulling my VP back to 10 seconds ahead of me that this was ok.  Having an average 7:45 was the goal, I can't expect to go the same speed uphill as downhill, and I might as well take advantage of the free speed on the downhill.

Touring some expensive neighborhoods in the western suburbs of Boston, the miles peeled off. It was mile 10, and I was feeling pretty good, but also getting a bit anxious to be done.  I wanted to pick up the pace, but of course the plan was to stick to the 7:45s til 11.1.  And I was very glad that I did.  I picked it up at 11 and started passing people, only to hit one last hill at 12 that allowed some one to pass me back.  Ok, none of that, keep picking people off.  Just as the finish line came into view, a woman sprinted up next to me.  No way.  I dig deep, find my last ounce of effort, and sprint past her, finishing 2 seconds ahead.

I came in in 1:40:02.  Two minutes faster than my goal and over six minutes improvement on my previous PR.  And 10th in my age group out of 154.  This race gives me a lot of confidence for the coming season.

Of course in every race, there are things that you could do better, in this one, I did not negative split.  As best I can tell I ran 49:55 for the first half and 50:04 in the second (oh, and according to my watch the course was short by about a tenth of a mile).  And the first half of the course had more climbs (247 ft versus 146 ft), so that only accentuates my getting slower over the race. 

My shin felt ok throughout the race.  Not recovered, but it didn't bother me.  In fact, right now the thing that's bothering me most is my left hip.  Maybe it was all the climbing or descending, but it's very sore.  Regardless, both will have 3 weeks to recover with no running as I take a break to try to get back to injury-free running.

Chilly Half Race Plan

The Newton Chilly Half is just 5 days away.  It will be my seventh half marathon, and the first that I've really trained for.  You see, three of those half marathons were part of half ironmans.  Totally different game.  My first half, back in Australia was just after I had moved to Brisbane, I used it as an excuse to keep myself training, but I think I only did one ten mile run in preparation.  Then two BAA Half Marathons, each on the tail ends of tri seasons where I was taking some time off from training, but not racing.  The danger of half marathons is that they are just short enough that I feel like I can just go out and run it without training.

Not so this time.  That is not the Coach Alan way.  I've been training for 9 weeks with increasing distance each week, starting around 7 miles, topping out around 11.

Race starts at 7:30, it's gonna be about 35 degrees then with winds around 10 mph.  I'm planning on wearing the same gear as the Devils Chase.  Brief warmup.  I'm gonna be racing at a 7:45 pace (hopefully with my virtual partner on my Garmin if I can get everything working right) with heartrate varying with the HILLS. 

That's right, this course has several of the hills from the Boston Marathon itself.  So, yeah there's that.

My current Half Marathon PR is 1:46.  I'm feeling pretty confident I can beat that.  If I hold my 7:45s, I'll come in at 1:42.

Finally, the most important part of the half marathon:  the BPC Brunch.  No training can prepare me for that.  See you on the course.

Calculating your resting heart rate

As I've mentioned before, I've started tracking my daily resting heart rate.

(Not sure why it says weight.  It should say pulse.  I promise I don't weigh 61 pounds.)  So, first it's pretty erratic, but what I can see are tough workouts.  Like say, Saturday's race.  On Sunday, my resting heart rate was up to 59.  After 2 days it recovered (only to spike again today, I don't have a good rationale for that one).

But trickier than figuring out what the heart rate data means, is figuring out what my resting heart rate is.  I've taken to keeping my garmin next to my bed.  When the alarm goes off, I pull on the strap, start my watch, and snooze/check my phone for >5 minutes.  Then I upload this data to garmin connect.  It looks like this:

As you can see, it moves around quite a bit, and it always has a peak near the beginning as my heart rate recovers from putting the strap on.  I couldn't just use the average over the whole interval cause that peak would throw it off.  I had been eyeballing the average heart rate over what looked like the minimal minute.  But the engineer in me just couldn't cope with the inaccuracy.  I needed... a spreadsheet!

I've created a google spreadsheet, although the same functions work equally well in excel.  You're welcome to just use it to calculate your minimum heart rate, or you can read further where I'll explain how I created it.  

Either way, you'll download a TCX file from garmin.  Excel whines a bit and throws several errors about the data, but after accepting the risks and data formatting problems, it will open.  In the file, you'll see a column with the time you started the workout, the max heart rate, average heart rate, then observation times, heart rates at each observation.  Those last two are the only ones you need.

Those first two columns are directly from the TCX, just copy and paste.  If you're creating your own file in  excel, you'll need to paste as text, in the google spreadsheet you can just paste.  You're calculated minimum heart rate over a minute will display in cell J3.  

Now, if you're still with me, here's the fun stuff.  First, we need to get the time stamp out of the string in that first column.  We can do that using the =time() function and the =mid() function (which just takes characters out of a string).  I'm not worried about the the hours here, so I just set it to zero.

   

Next, I want to find the time that is one minute before the time stamp (this is the time I'll be looking for to determine how many rows to go back to average).

=D2-time(0,1,0)

Then I confirm that I have at least a minute of data to average by comparing the minute back time to the first time stamp in the set (don't forget the absolute reference otherwise bad things may happen).

=if(E3<$D$3,false, true)

Now for the magic.  You see, the garmin doesn't record obervations at regular intervals.  If it loses its connection to the heart rate monitor, then it doesn't record anything, so we can't just do a rolling average of say, the last 10 records.  We have to figure out how many observations were in that last minute.  We use the =match() function.  This finds the greatest value that is less than the sought value, so if we're looking for the minute before an observation at 2:59, match will look for the greatest value that is less than 1:59.  The result is the number of cells from the top of the field where that minute starts.

  

Now all we have to do is compute the average.  We use the =offset() function to compute the range of observations to average.  Offset takes an initial cell, shifts from that cell down a number of rows and columns, and then returns an array of the number of rows/columns specified, so we give offset the first heart rate value B3, shift by the index we just calculated, and then tell it the number of rows from that cell to the cell we started at.  

That was easy.  Now we have a column that gives the trailing average heart rate, we take the minimum of that column and we're good to go.

Planning for 2012

Got any good recommendations for spring races?  I'm thinking of another half marathon before the tri season and I'd like to get in a few more 5 and 10Ks. 

Tentatively, I've got:

• Feb 5:  Super Sunday 5K/10K, I think, website not updated from last year
• Mar 18:  Ras Na hEirann (or an Ras Mor)
• Apr 15:  BAA 5K
• May 13:  M.O.M.'s Day 5K
• May 27:  Run to Remember 5mi/Half Mara

What do you think?

Devils Chase Race Report: Following the plan

Coming into the last mile of the Devil's Chase this morning I had one thought in my mind: My coach was right. He was right about the pacing, he was right about using the virtual partner on the watch, he was right about what to wear.

This was my best running race in I don't remember how long. Like many good races, then pre-race had a few hiccups, but I'll get into that later. First, the race. 1200 people, at least half dressed in some devil-themed fashion, including a guy in a red speedo and body paint and many variations of deviled eggs (unofficial pictures here).

The plan was to run 7:34s throughout the race, monitoring my heart rate and reducing pace if the heart rate rose too much. I didn't want to go out too hard like I had in the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K. I've spent a lot of my run training in low heart rate/ low pace zones, so I was a little worried about how fast 7:34 would feel. Turns out, it felt great. Comfortable for the first few miles, then hard, but not impossible.

I love using my garmin for to manage my run. Because the plan was pretty straightforward and because I can only program 1 "advanced" workout into my run, I had uploaded the warm up workout. Unfortunately, I had cut it a bit too fine and didn't have time to reprogram the watch for the actual race. So I just had the instantaneous pace displayed to work with. I hadn't appreciated just how much this metric varies. I'd look down and see a pace of 8 minutes then of 7, then back to 7:20. I knew I wasn't varying that much, so I tried to keep it fast and consistent. Next time I'll definitely use the virtual partner for this type of run.



Just past mile 2, a woman caught up to me. I held with her for a bit, then saw that we were some where near a 7:15 mile. Too fast. I thought about what my coach had said about catching people holding my pace and catching people at the finish. I let her go. She never got out of sight, and I caught her and held her off around 4.5 miles. :)

At mile 5 I was still feeling good. We came around a corner close to 5.2 miles, and I decided it was time to see what I still had left in the legs. I started picking people off. I got passed by one guy between there and the 6 mile mark. After that no more.

I did the 6th mile in 7:17, then sped up a bit more and did the final 6 tenths at a 7:04 pace. (Note: the first lap is 3 miles.)


I did the first 10K in 45:47 which is right around my best 10K time. I was so happy with this. I was the 104th person out of over 1200 and the 6th in the women 30-39 age group. So pleased.

Ok, back to the start. We got to the course a bit later than planned. You see 95 and 128 are pretty much synonymous in Boston, but apparently as you get to the north shore, they diverge. Andrea and I were engaged in a very in depth conversation about cords of firewood and missed the split. We still got to the course well before the start, but with registration and port-o-potty queues and dropping our warm, outer layers at the car, there wasn't a lot of extra time. So as we were dropping our clothes off, I thought I'd rather just run into the bushes to pee, rather than risking missing the start waiting for a port-o-potty. I searched out a spot that wasn't visible from the road and squatted. Then I noticed there was a bur on my gloves. Wait, there are burs on my jacket. Oh, no there are burs everywhere, outside and inside my tights. I did my best to de-bur-ify myself, but those were some scratchy tights. Luckily, the cool temperatures were numbing.

This little guy followed me home:

What to wear for cold weather running

Double post today!

One other factor I'm thinking about for the race Saturday is weather. It's supposed to be 35 degrees And sunny (it's sleeting right now - hooray, Boston). I was talking with my coach last night about how best to dress for that weather.

Coach Alan sent this link along to me that I wanted to share with you: http://www.runnersworld.com/cda/whattowear

My plan is tights, long sleeves, gloves and newly purchase headband to protect my ears. And I'll bring a light windbreaker as well.

Race prep: Salem Devil's Chase 6.66 miler

After five days at the beach and a visit to my coach in DC, I'm back and settled in to my routine and ready to take on the 6.66 miler this weekend.

The trip to Galveston for Paul's family reunion was fantastic. I still did some training: one open water swim, a little over 20 miles of running and a fun bike, but mostly it was about hanging out. My days looked like this.

Catch the sunrise

Relax

This weekend is the 6.66 mile Devil's Chase in Salem. I've been training for the Chilly Half Marathon coming up in 2.5 weeks. This weekend's race is a fun one, to practice for the half.

The plan is to not go out too hard (again, just like the 5K, except this time, I'll follow the plan). I've got a pace to hold and heart rates to stay under. I'm feeling good about it.

This weekend is also R's second 5K. I'm looking forward to cheering her on Sunday at the Superhero 5K.

Finally, I was a little nervous about working with a coach at a distance, but it's been great. Getting to run and swim with him last week was definitely a highlight. And then today, I got my feedback on my last run, including this:


Look at that cadence improvement. Yay.

The Anti-Social Triathlete

It's been four weeks since I started working with my new coach. I have a few thoughts on how it's going.

1. Holy running, batman.
   
2. I'm becoming an anti-social triathlete.
3. I'm officially hardcore.

1. Running.
Fall running season is upon us. The Newton Chilly Half is just 5 weeks away, and as a result I've run 74 miles in the last 4 weeks. That's not a lot for real runners, but for me, let's put this in perspective. Prior to starting with the new coach, it took 10 weeks to get to 74 miles. Over the last 4 weeks running has made up 38% of my training time.

I've been struggling to balance this volume with my low shin splint. It hurt a lot in the warm up before last week's 5K. I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel on the half. But, Coach Alan gave me Tuesday off from running to help it recover. That meant, I didn't run from Saturday until Thursday of this week. The rest in conjunction with some ART and my own "squatting stretch" has helped immensely. (This stretch is one I made up a few years ago that seems to help with my shin splints. It's just squatting down with heals off the ground and shifting weight from one side to the other. I think it's stretching my tibialis posterior. At a minimum it feels good. Do you have any suggested stretches of your own?)

Thursday's run felt ok. Not pain-free, but it was the first run that was actually better than the previous one. I ran again yesterday, and it seemed ok again. So, I'm hopeful that the half marathon is still in the cards.

2. The Anti-Social Triathlete

I've done a lot more of my workouts over the last four weeks on my own. Sure, I've done my Thursday runs with Lauren, a ride with Chad, a few swims and a trainer ride with Andrea, but I've done a majority on my own. I was worried that I might get bored or lazy without that local person to be accountable to, but instead, I sort of enjoy having a few workouts all to myself.

You see, the workouts are very prescriptive. An 80 minute run with a heart rate between 151 and 159 means that the only people I can run with are those who are willing to run at the pace that gets me to that heart rate. Sometimes it works out, like it did yesterday with some BTT folks out by the river, but sometimes it's just too hard to make the logistics work. And, other times it's nice to just tune into my workout, no distractions.

And that got me thinking. My friend R who's just started running doesn't like to run with anyone else. When I first started running, I didn't want to run with any one else either. But slowly, as I developed confidence in my running, I started wanting to run with people. And, as I started running with people, I started getting faster. Now I'm not superfast, but it is interesting to feel this shift away from the social element of my training.

And then the consultant in me had to make a visualization.


3. I'm hardcore.

If you're still with me, thanks! I promise this is worth it. Yesterday, I was running the river with two other people. At almost 8 miles in, something hit my eye. What was that? I wiped my eye and came away with bird shit. EW!!!

But here's the thing. I kept running. Didn't even mention it to my running buddies. There's not much that could be done about it at the time. When I finished the run, I went into a Dunkin Donuts and washed up.

Told you it was worth it. :)

SHC 5K Race Report: Jack rabbit starts always hurt

This 5K felt like a race, which was weird. How did I know it was a race? I made a morning schedule:

• 6:45 - Wake up, check heart rate and weight, eat, bathroom, warm up ankle, bathroom, grab wine (as you do... see below), water
• 7:10 - Leave home
• 7:30 - Arrive at R's, assemble strata for brunch (hence the wine)
• 8:20 - Head to the race
  
• 8:39 - Warm up
• 8:55 - Water + gel
• 9:00 - Race
  

I usually approach road races as just fun training, but yesterday I was out for a PR. Then again, it's also been 18 months since I've run a 5K (I know, I was surprised by this as well), and I've gotten more competitive in that time.

This being the first race with the new coach there were several new elements to it. Like a warm up. Coach gave me about 2 miles with progressively harder effort to get warm and ready. I've been struggling with the development of a low shin splint (originally occurred just before nationals, but keeps acting up). It hurt on this warm up, but the combination of the adrenaline and the warm up made it pain-free during the actual race.

The race strategy was to not go out too hard and to negative split the race. I got to the start line just as the gun went off. I tried to stay with friend D. But within a few yards, it was clear that keeping up with him was out of the question. I tried to keep the feeling of pushing hard, but not crazy. And then I passed the 1 mile mark. 6:52. Shit. That's way too fast. Ok. now I'm trying to maintain a hard effort, but still have something left in the tank for the last mile. Not the plan.

The second mile was 7:19. Gah, over-correction. Ok, all out for this last mile. This hurt. And then it was over. In fact, that was the thing about this race, the time felt like it went fast. And it was fast 22:17. A new PR (and 5th of the 116 women aged 30-39). But Coach says if I had followed the race plan, it would have been even faster

But that's not the end of the story. I wasn't the only one with PR. Coworkers D, J and K all posted PRs too. And as I mentioned in my last post, my officemate R was running as well. I've been playing fake coach and real cheerleader to R over the last 6 weeks. This was her second attempt at the 5K distance. She ran the whole thing and smashed her goal of running in twice my time. In fact she ran sub-40 minutes. (We're gearing up now for the Jingle Bell Run 5K in 9 weeks.) To celebrate, we enjoyed a homemade brunch crepes, coffee, potatoes, fruit salad, banana bread and, yes, strata. The only thing we were missing was some post race photos.

Running in the Blue Ridge Mountains

This past weekend, Paul and I went down to Asheville for my sister's wedding. It was a beautiful day with a very laid-back ceremony and reception. Absolutely perfect.

But beyond the wedding, we had a weekend to hang out in this fantastic log cabin way up on a mountain. The image above is from the driveway, looking back down to the street. Here's the topography of the neighborhood (yes, that is a 20% incline, and that doesn't even include the driveway which was the by far the steepest part of the trek).

Needless to say, I didn't do my Saturday run from the cabin. Since I've started my new training regime for the fall running season, I've been running 3 days a week. One long zone 2 run, one long run with mile repeats at pace and one long treadmill hill run. See a pattern here? It's only been two weeks, but here's my mileage:

24 miles last week. Whew. Considering my previous weekly run distance was closer to the 6-10 mile range, this is a big step up. Saturday's run was one of the zone 2 runs. I set my garmin to beep at me if I go out of the zone 2 range, I drove out of the neighborhood, and I took off. I've also discovered that I can download workouts to my garmin, so I can specify heart rate or pace goals, and it will beep at me when I'm outside of them. Very nice for those 2nd type of runs.

This week will be much shorter (~13 miles) with my first 5K race of the season on Saturday. Expect a race report on Sunday. By the way, if you know my officemate R, wish her good luck in the 5K race. She's gonna PR (and she's not gonna walk - unless it's at a water stop).

Ch-ch-ch-changes

September already and another New England triathlon season has come to a close. Those Brisbanites have it so good with races straight from October to March and "winter" training that still includes outdoor rides.

This has been the most successful season on record. I competed in 6 races, podiumed in 4 and went to the National Championship.


I have the coaches and athletes at BPC to thank for that. When I first arrived back in Boston, I was looking for a team similar to my Aussie team, the Brisbane Tri Squad. I wanted more than just a team, and I wanted more than just a coach. I was looking for a team that offered group coaching to keep me motivated (nothing gets you out of bed like knowing your friends will all be at the pool). BPC was that team.

Over the last two years, I've gone from a participant to a competitor. With Duxbury last year, I took my first climb up the podium, and I qualified for Nationals. After my first taste of victory, there was no turning back. I bought a tri bike, and I kept myself mostly injury-free. This season has been all about getting ready for and competing at Nationals.

As I start looking toward next season (and, yes, I'm already thinking about and planning for June 2012), I've decided I want to try something new with my coaching. I started researching coaches online, reading bios, talking to friends about their coaches, reading blog post after blog post on why I need a coach and why I don't. I narrowed it down to four coaches who all came highly-recommended and who I thought would be a good fit.

I put together a bunch of questions on their athletes:

• How many?
• Breakdown of long versus short course?
• Athlete profile (just getting fit versus national champ)?
  

their training philosophy:

• Hours per week and breakdown by discipline?
• Periodization?
• Role of recovery and forms?
• Role of strength training and forms?
• Training metrics (e.g., power, heart rate, speed)?
  

and their communication style:

• Forms?
• Frequency?
• Number of weeks in a program? How far before starting the program will I receive it?

In the end, I'm lucky to be working with Coach Alan of DCRainmaker fame. First goal with the new coach is the Newton Chilly Half Marathon in 8 weeks. It will be the first half marathon that I've really trained for, so I'm excited to see how far we can go.

Lobsterman Race Report: Bringing it home

The final race of the season was a gorgeous one. Before we get into the recap though, I have to recognize how well this race was organized. Not just for the athletes (most races have knowledgeable volunteers and well-marked courses), but for spectators as well. This may seem small, but they had spectator food. Many races just have their sponsors (e.g., a protein shake, a yogurt sample) available, but for a longer race like this, it's really nice to have breakfast available to the families out there supporting. So, thanks, Lobsterman.

One note, more to myself than the organizers, get the extra-small shirt. The vendor for the shirts has clearly changed their sizing. My small shirt from this year's race is about 2 inches wider than the one from two years ago.


Onto the race. The water which I was expecting to be quite cold, was fine. They announced it was 68 when they measured in the morning (before the tide had really come in). I think it was a little cooler than that, but still nothing compared with two years ago.

The swim was only 3 buoys: 3 turns, a diamond shape. The way out to the first buoy was smooth sailing. I could see I was in second place about 20 feet behind the first place girl, but she wasn't putting any more water between us. It was a little seaweedy, but reminded me how much I love swimming in salt water - so buoyant. Making the first turn it was tough to find the 2nd buoy: sunshine, rougher water, catching the wave ahead of us and about 400 yards of distance all made it difficult, but no repeats of Nationals.

Coming out of the water, a friend told me I was in third for the age group. Transition was tough. I struggled to put on my garmin after the swim. I needed to use it so that I'd have heart rate data for the ride, but I can't swim in the watch. It felt like forever. Looking back, however, my transition time wasn't that far off. Onto the bike.

Note to Future-Laura: Next time you do this race, remember that first hill deserves a granny gear. It looks like it's not that tall, but it just keeps turning and climbing, and I definitely attempted it in too high of a gear, which is clear from that heart rate spike in the first mile. There was not a single foot of flat on this course. And heading out it just did not feel very fast, but I just kept grinding away at it. I got passed by several women in the 40-49 age groups (geez, those ladies are fast), but wasn't until about half way that I got passed by a woman with 34 on her calf. Then at mile 20 or so, I got passed by Lauren. I thought that put me in 5th.

Off the bike, I thought about what my coach told me, about getting faster throughout the race. The first thing you have to do is go back up that killer hill. Ok, head down, cadence up. Not much really stands out from the run: it was hilly, and it hurt. I didn't look at the watch much other than to occassionally check my pace. That was it, just run hard.

Coming back into the park, I knew I'd be close to my 2:40 goal. I hadn't timed the swim, but I knew the bike and run were coming in just under 2:10, that meant if my swim and T1 were on target, I would hit it.

And the verdict: 2:40:20. So close to breaking into the 2:30s. I can review every detail of this race to try to find those last 20 seconds. Could I have gotten that watch on more quickly, could I have pushed the downhills just a little bit more? I'm not going to beat myself up about it. 2:40 is still a minute better than nationals on a much trickier course. And I felt good throughout the race.

Here we have it. Looks like I was second out of the water, and further passed the first person in transition, putting me in first as we went out onto the bike. On the bike I was passed by two people, putting me in third, which I held for the remainder of the race.

Here we are winning our mugs. I was awarded second (once again my height makes me look like third. As best I can tell, the woman who came in second had a bib number that was out of the range of our age group. I'm guessing this meant she registered late, so she didn't get included in our age group awards. That is definitely a shame.

Next up, fall running season!

Getting fitter

Way back in 2008 I got my first heart rate monitor. The first thing I did with it was to measure my resting heart rate: 72. Hmm. That was a little higher than I expected, but still in normal ranges. I tried again. Same results. I resigned myself to the fact that I just had a high resting heart rate. I chalked it up to being a mathlete for so many years.

Last night I took my resting heart rate again: 57. That's 15 beats. I'll take it.

UPDATE: Thursday night, it was down to 52!

Lobsterman Race Plan: Last Dance (for this year)

UPDATE: I came down with a cold on Wednesday. I'm taking it easy and trying to get myself better, but there's a real chance I don't make it up to Maine this weekend. Disappointing, but I don't want to do it if I'm not 100%.

---

It's been two years since I've been to the Lobsterman race in Maine. It was one of the few races I did in 2009 after moving back to the states, and what stands out in my mind is that it 1) still holds the record for the coldest tri-swim I've ever done and 2) has a very hilly bike.

On top of this, Lobsterman is my final triathlon of the 2011 season, which feels like it went really fast. And I still haven't cracked 2:40. With this last tri, I will try once again to make this barrier tumble.

Water temperature today ranged from 61 degrees to 63 degrees, so I think it's safe to say it's gonna be a cold one again. Plus, the air temperature is only supposed to top out at 68. Generally a great air temperature for riding and running, but less exciting after 30 minutes in the some cold water. So... good news: I will not overheat at this race. Bad news: I may need to consider adding a layer in T1, so I don't have a repeat of Mooseman.

Onto the bike. I'm still not going to get a chance to preview the bike course before the race. And this year, there's apparently a significant stretch of road that is currently packed gravel. Two years ago, I completed the bike course with an average speed of 17.25. Last year's top speed for the course in my age group was 21.5. I doubt I'm gonna hit 21 mph, but I think high 18s seems possible, given Griskus average of 18.8 and the new bike.

The run's focus will be high cadence and bringing it home strong. I'll report on how it went on Sunday.

Cranberry Sprint Race Report: Going fast.

After a whole season of races that take more than two and a half hours, it was really nice to have a race that I finished in just over an hour. That's not to say that I wasn't sore after this race or I didn't take a mondo nap. It's just nice to go fast and be done.

[Bikes racked, goggles checked, ready to race. ]

I had planned on it being a wetsuit legal race, but when I got there, the water temperature was 79 degrees. At that temperature, wetsuits are allowed, but you're not eligible for prizes. The swim was supposed to be a half mile. I had estimated that without a wetsuit, I'd probably finish in about 14 minutes.

Another change: I had decided to try out a different top this time around. Both my head coach and one of our assistant coaches race in the "running singlet" rather than the tri top, so I thought I'd give it a go (the tri top zipper sometimes chafes).

I started the swim on towards the front and on the left with all the other women in 30-34 and 35-39. When the horn sounded I started swimming hard. Quickly, I was out ahead of the mele. I could see about 6-7 girls ahead of me all swimming together, but I was mostly alone. Without my wetsuit the top swished around a bit in the water. Not a big deal, but my heart rate strap also came dislodged and started inching its way down my waste. Just at the final buoy, I saw another woman from my wave come up on my right. I held onto her as best I could, but she got out of the water about 5 seconds ahead of me. Paul was waiting for me on shore and told me I was less than a minute behind the leaders and in 8th or so place. My watch said 7:30. That swim was short! Afterwards the officials said it was closer to 0.3 miles.

[trying to get the heart rate strap back in place]

[I had pretty decent rack positioning, near the bike out, though a bit off to the side]

I beat the woman who overtook me in the swim out of transition by about 40 seconds, and successfully mounted my bike. The bike route was two loops of 5.5 miles, and it went pretty fast. On the first lap, I was passing people, but never sure if I was passing people in my age group. I saw a few 25-29, at least one 35-39, and I was pretty sure one 30-34. I did get passed by the elite woman toward the end of the first lap. On the second lap, all bets were off. I was passing people a lot, but I stopped even trying to keep track of age groups. I didn't get passed by any other women.

[heading out on the run]

Paul was waiting for me at T2. I asked him how many girls were ahead of me. He said he thought I was in 5th place (out of 30-34 and 35-39). Off I went. Got about 300 yards outside of transition and decided I really didn't need to be running in my visor. It was cloudy and misty out, no need to shield my face. So as we rounded the corner of the parking lot, I tossed it onto the fence post.

I got passed by a few men but mostly just focused on picking people off. At the one mile mark, I saw a guy pull over and star to walk. As I made the pass, I reminded him, "Only 2 more miles, dude." He said thanks and started running again.

I got to the hill and saw a female runner up ahead of me. I forced myself to up my cadence and direct my eyes down at the pavement. Whew, made it to the turn (the halfway point in the hill), and I've gained some ground on this woman. Eyes down, cadence up, and we've cleared the top of the hill and come into the water stop. Just after the water stop, I caught up to her. I asked, "Are you 37?" She said, "yes, and you?" I told her 32. She said, "oh, well done then." I said, "you, too." She said she would have wished me luck even if I had been in her age group. Isn't that nice.

My next mark was a 50 year old man, but I just couldn't seem to pass him. I followed him all the way back to the park. Just as we were about to turn in, I finally catch him. The volunteer rightly tells us, it's about two tenths of a mile to the finish (I hate it when they throw out completely inaccurate numbers). And I try to squeeze out every last drop.

[my favorite shot from the race: the finish line, just after I had crossed it]

Paul tells me he thinks I was 4th in my age group. But I ask if that included 35-39 year olds, and he wasn't sure. We wait for Andrea and Rachel to finish up and snap this shot:


The results come in: 3rd place in age group. We find a dry spot in the tent for the awards, just as it starts to rain.

[Third place and looking pretty short on that podium]

It's not quite the win I'd planned, but I feel like I really went hard, and I'm very satisfied with the outcome.