While it started with a nice, leisurely morning, waking to no alarm, walking the dog, lounging about, by about 1PM, it was time to head over to the House of Pain, aka, Harpoon Brewery. Now most would think of the Brewery as a neat tourist spot, a place to catch a tour, have a few drinks in the pub, buy some beer. But for me, yesterday, it was the house of pain. The spot of the 2010 Harpoon Indoor Time Trial presented by Fast Splits.
It would be a long day, as I was slated to race first in the women’s pro heat, then again in the team competition some 3 hours later. Oh, and coach threw in a quick 35’ run in the middle just for measure. That would be the easiest part of the day.
They were running a bit behind with the heats, so our women’s pro heat, scheduled for 2:45 went off at more like 3:40. More time for warm up. That’s a good thing, if, for no other reason, that it would delay the inevitable!
Now I hate to take the mindset of being a “glass half empty” kind of girl. But here are the facts:
• My natural speed ranks somewhere in the realm of negative
• Where in past years, I’d done at least a little top end work in preparation for the Indoor Time Trial season, this year, I’d done a total of none.
• The 8 mile course would take somewhere just over 20 minutes to complete, meaning that my heart rate would be some 30 beats above where it’s been in 3 months for at least 19.5 of those 20 minutes.
• While there would be free beer (thank you, Harpoon!) because I had a second go of it some 3 hours after the fact, with a run in between, Davey G would be the beneficiary of my free beer. Not me.
In spite of all of this, I still somehow thought it was going to be a fun day. And in the end, if you subtract out the last 15’ of my individual TT, where I thought seriously about whether anyone would notice if I just stopped pedaling, dismounted my bike and cheered on the rest of the riders, it was fun! This, in spite of the fact that I was at LT+3 bpm within about 5’ of the start, and things were looking like what we in the business call UGLY!
I went out exactly at the effort my coach, Jesse had instructed. I couldn’t and still can’t decide if a) Jesse is a masochist, b) Jesse had been smoking a bit of the herb prior to coming up with said instruction or c) if he genuinely thought I could hold the wattage he’d indicated.
At the base of the 5% hill, a small napalm cloud went off over my Compu Trainer. I could hear Caitlin snow grunting and wheezing on the trainer next to me. “Good,” I thought, “misery loves company.” All the company in the world couldn’t help me up that hill. Once over, I figured the final downhill stretch wouldn’t be nearly so bad. Yep. It was nearly so bad. Pain, PAIN, PAIN!!!
In the end, I was 3rd and about 7 watts below what Jesse hoped I could average. Still, not so bad, I guess, for zero quality work these past 3 months. Karen Smyers took top honors, earning herself a beer between rounds (oh, she’d be in on the team event as well), and proving that age is just a number and that she’s still a force of nature in the sport. Watch out, ladies. You thought Smyers was out? She’s just getting warmed up! Second went to a kick-a$$ cyclist I'd never met.
After a short run, some calories and some more caffeine, we were ready to take to the team competition. Team Psycho vs. Blue Hills Cycling Club vs. the Boston Tri Team. Our Psycho contingent had practiced the team event once, prior to race day. Still, the multi rider software was different that what we were all used to, and we had two teammates, NuffDaddy and JRod who couldn’t make our 90’ training camp, so we had 2 new riders in the mix. This could get interesting.
We decided, as a team, to take the first minute out at about 300w, then find our assigned positions in the pace line. Karen and I would ride in position 6 and 7, with Alec, the HairyMan, Petro riding sweeper to help collect our sorry-selves, should we get dropped. After a few minutes, we sort of settled in. Sort of. Keep in mind, some of these guys are capable of taking pulls at nearly 500 watts. I .....am not. It was like a crazy roller coaster. At one point you are thinking “WEE!!! This is FUN!” and about .4 seconds later you are thinking “MOMMY!!! I don’t want to die!”
Getting dropped from the draft was like getting hit in the face with a 2x4. My wattage would range from somewhere in the mid 300s, to zero as I’d coast to try to fall back into a draft.
In all, we were like a well-oiled machine, with 3 coaches; Shag, to instruct riders to slow down, speed up, pick up someone who got dropped…and who isn’t going to listen to a 200+ pound former pro hockey player who served more than his fair share of time in the sin bin as a hockey player?......ATB, who had ridden with us for the training camp and knew how this was supposed to go down….in theory anyway, and my own Davey G who spent the entire heat crouched in the front of the screens to update Shag on how far ahead or behind we were from the other team.
I yelped for help on a few occasions, calling for a ride back on to the pack, and thanks to Alec, the HairyMan, Petro and Double D for responding to the call.
Team Psycho made it across the line first, ahead of the other 2 teams, and I felt a small sense of relief that the double time trial (plus run) day was over and done.
Thanks to Fast Splits, and to everyone at Harpoon. What a great day, though ironic that in the 8 hours I spent at the brewery, I didn’t drink a single beer! Thanks to Jesse for making me hurt (I think it’s good for me, anyway). Thanks to Kestrel for my awesome bike. Granted, it stayed in place for the entire day, but it is still a dream to ride!
Congratulations to Scott Hammond, my Austin homestay who flew in special for the event and walked away atop the podium for the “old farts” division. And of course, congratulations to Karen Smyers who made winning look easy, proved that age is just a number, and reinforced for me, the fact that she is the BOMB!
Back to base stuff today. 3.75 hr trainer ride, 2 hr run up next. ….maybe the ITT wasn’t so bad after all!
After my last post, my "Weight Room Rant", I got a lot of positive reaction and more than a few laughs. But I also got a single response that had me a little taken aback. One reader wondered if I'd gone too far - be it with sarcasm, perhaps the hint of improper language. This reader wondered if I had offended my sponsors. I was saddened by this reader's reaction and have actually given it considerable thought. Clearly I'd be horrified to have offended anyone, MOST OF ALL, my sponsors.
So I thought about it. A lot, actually. I gave thought to removing the post because I care deeply about my reputation and wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize it in the slightest. I decided to leave it up, but thought I'd post my response to this reader, lest anyone else be offended.
" Wow.
Um. Well, I'm not sure, actually. Your message has taken me aback a little and my knee jerk reaction was to say "oh, crap....I better take it down."
But then I thought on it honestly and here's what I came to.
Was it 100% politically correct? Perhaps not.
Is my blog usually 100% politically correct? I don't really know what politically correct is, but I know I try hard to write a blog that is anything but your standard "Today I swim 5 x 1000 as my main set at the pool. The middle 400 of the 3rd one was a bit sluggish, but otherwise, I was able to maintain exactly the 1:08.7 aerobic pace coach told me to. I then went out on the bike for an 80 mile ride with the group where I consumed 5 bottles of my Infinit Nutrition blend and capped the ride off with some 1st Endurance Ultragen...." and blah, blah, blah.
I think I approach my blog from a different perspective. Oh, sure, a lot of people think it must be really cool to be a pro triathlete, and they are spot on correct. It is. But I like to talk about the lifestyle of being a pro that people may not consider.
What triathlete hasn't gone to the gym and not been intimidated by people who look like they live there? What triathlete doesn't intentionally go to the gym at distinctly low traffic times so they don't get "the look", as if to say "That's all you got?" And what person, regardless of sport background or level ISN'T frustrated by someone who can't manage to return weights to their proper place when they are done using them? It's a common space, and as a common courtesy I think it ought to be treated as such.
So do my sponsors appreciate it? Again, I don't know.
(Insert Name), I'll be the first to tell you....I am far from the most talented athlete in the world. I've spent the better part of my life as an athlete of one kind or another, and never a particularly good one. My first sports "award" if you will was a "Persistence and Determination" award I got at summer camp because I was the only darn kid in camp that couldn't pass a single skills test in one single sport. Canoeing? Nope. Tennis? Not even close. Archery? I think the camp counselor still has the scars to prove....not even a little. They felt sorry for me and gave me the "PD" award. In middle school, I played some basketball, but the practice schedule got too demanding and I had to decide between swimming and basketball. I labored over the decision, not sure which to choose. I ultimately and belaboringly chose swimming only to have a high school swim coach tell me I better study harder if I wanted to go to Stanford. My Stanford coach told that I clearly lacked talent, so it was a good thing I liked to work hard. ....come to think of it, that "PD" award was a lot easier to swallow than the head coach of the US National Team, US Olympic Team and Stanford University telling me I had no talent.
So what do I do with my talentless self? I work my tail off. Day in and day out. No excuses. And I compensate for my lack of talent with a self-deprecating humor. I can't tell you where that sense of humor came from, but it's what I got.
So my sponsors may not have loved this particular blog. I honestly don't know and I'd be embarrassed if they were offended by it. Clearly that is not my intent and I rest easier knowing that I think my sponsors know me and know that was certainly not my aim.
What I do hope my sponsors think is cool is that they have invested in someone who is thoughtful, smart, articulate, genuine, approachable and while not the best, at least one of the most consistent performers going. I hope they think it's cool that I know my place in the world. I don't have a sense of entitlement, I work tirelessly to give back to the sport, I care tremendously about my reputation in the sport and I know that while we all work hard, no one works harder.
So maybe I was off the mark with my most recent blog. Clearly I was with you and for that I apologize. Truly. I can only hope that my sponsors will see the forest for the trees.
Dear Jerk-off At the Gym Who are Strong Enough to Leg press and Squat 10,000+lbs,
I understand that the steroid use may have gone to your brain, such that it doesn’t function properly any more, but try to play along with me here. I will use small words so you can keep up.
If you are GD strong enough to be squatting such absurd amounts of weight, you think, just MAYBE you could be man enough to remove said absurd amounts of weight when you are done with the exercise? Oh, I know….you like to leave it on there so everyone can wonder, “Wow, I wonder who was strong enough to lift all that weight?”. And “Holy smoke! The weight on either side of that bar is making the bar bend.” I am sure it is your dying wish that the entire gym looks around, catching a glance of you, all sweating with your brain vein bulging out from your head like the incredible freaking hulk, and wonders “Was it him?”
I got news for you, you Roid Rage, discourteous jack-a**. I don’t give a flying gosh darn! When I go to the gym, I may not lift heavy weight. I hardly lift any weight at all, in fact. I am a weakling. That’s why I am at the gym lifting weights.
But here’s the real rub of it, you testosterone junkie….when I go to the gym, it is often my 3rd of 4 workouts on the day. I don’t have time to be cleaning up your crap after you. Like I don’t got enough stuff going on in my life that I have to clean up after your negative 14% body fat a**.
Best: Escaping the late winter weather to go train in Austin, TX with great friends, old and new! Awesome training!
Worst: Getting dropped less than 20 miles into Marble Falls ride with Austin gang and having to complete the 130+ mile ride alone. Squatting to pee during a break around mile 90 on a mound of fire ants was no picnic either.
Best: #4 TPW. Yeah, boyz!! I got the popsicle stick to prove it!
Worst: Broken shifter, broken aero bar cap, flat race tire….all within 72 hours before IM Brazil.
Best: Best new bike sponsor ever in 2009 in Kestrel; had the parts to me within 15 hours. Bike problem solved.
Best: Another Ironman win in Brazil, where I made very many new friends!
Worst: Foregoing port-o-potty lines at Timberman, venturing into the woods, instead, to take care of business pre-race. Succumbing to a raging case of poison ivy, yes, “there”, 24 hrs post race.
Best: Proudly watching Davey G. complete his first ½ Ironman at Timberman. Luv u, Davey G!
Worst: The “Unhappy Diet”
Best: Going into 2009 IM Hawaii lightest and leanest ever.
Best: Being the uninvited guest at the surprise wedding of friends Pat and Courtney in Kona on Monday, pre-race.
Worst: Bonk at mile 9 of the marathon in Kona and subsequent “Tough love” from Davey G and Smyers from mile 9-13 of the marathon in Kona.
Best: Michael Lovato’s inspiring words in the Energy Lab, and using that inspiration to run my way back into the top 10.
Worst: Post-Kona chaffing and sunburn.
Best: Triathlon-free vacation with Davey G to Napa in November
Worst: Getting on the scale after best triathlon-free vacation to Napa with Davey G in November.
Best: Setting up 2 good friends, both triathletes, who live in different cities, and finding out a month after they met that they are engaged!!
Worst: Losing former swim coach, Richard Quick to brain cancer. Watching friends Maggie and Duffy lose their son to brain cancer as well.
Best: Tricked out new computrainer room! Thanks to Davey G!
Worst: Broken finger from adjusting Compu Trainer class students cadence sensor and having said student start pedaling while my hand was still in his wheel.
Best: Greatest sponsors, supporters and husband in the world.
Worst: Swine Flu 2009.
Best: Plans for an even more epic, more fierce 2010!
Things have been busy, but not so much with the normal “swim, bike, run”, though there’s been a bit of that as well.
After Kona, I debated another race…..Clearwater being an obvious choice, as a “World Championship” event. We hemmed and hawed, and pretty much decided to take a pass. Clearwater is not a great race set up for me….I go in a bit banged up from Kona, and the course is…well, you know the course. It’s flat, there’s too much auto traffic. It’s not safe, it’s not well marshaled and I am not sure it produces the kind of results you can feel good about, assuming you don’t get hit by a car first.
Still, it’s tempting to look around, to try to find a use for all that fitness you worked so long and hard to achieve. Seems silly to just let it wither away when it’s only October.
Fact being, I have never…and I mean NEVER raced well after Kona, no matter what the distance, so we decided to pull the plug, and get fat and lazy for a while. I did some maintenance training to bide my time until our “triathlon free vacation”, the week before Thanksgiving. I put in a good 3 weeks of “fluff”, which was uninspired at best.
Then I took the dreaded week “off”. Nothing. No HR > 100. Living a busy, active lifestyle, it’s not easy to decompress like that. Oh, sure, I made use of the time; I cleaned my house top to bottom. Ordered Christmas cards, started Christmas shopping, walked my dog till she could walk no more, slowly though (no HR>100). Then I went to Cape Cod and did yard work till I could clip, prune, trim, and rake no more. I was the Tasmanian Devil of yard work. And then it was Wednesday…..
I survived my week off and was then able to start with some light workouts. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly it all disappears. The fitness rushes out like a busted dam, and the fat giggles come on with seemingly only one or two decadent indulgences, and I will spend the next 10 months getting back there to where I was only a week before….sigh. But you got to get slow to get fast, so slow I got!
I made some changes in my program, which was a difficult choice. I’ve had the privilege of working with one of the greatest coaches I know. She’s one of my best friends, she’s my training partner and for the last 7 years, she’s been my coach. We decided, though, not for any dissatisfaction with my performances, to try something new. Freshen things up a bit. Maybe come at this from a slightly different approach. And in the end, she’s still one of my best friends and is still my training partner, my pal and my confidant. It’s just now, my workouts come from a different place.
So that difficult decision made, Dave and I returned from a fabulous “triathlon free vacation” in the Napa Valley (extraordinary!!), and I got back to work. New program, new coach, all systems go and then……
Sputter, sputter, pghthththththhthththth.
Swine flu.
Now perhaps I shouldn't have gotten so cozy with the pig, but he was just so darn cute.
It started on a Monday, I think. I’d had 2 pretty good days of training over the weekend and was slowly starting to feel like an athlete again. Both days, after my run, I had a bit of a cough, but chalked it up to the cold that is moving into New England to mark the start of the dreaded winter months. My lungs don’t typically do well in the cold, so since it was the first real cold we’d had, I assumed it was a little cold air hack and thought nothing of it.
Until Monday. By noon, I wasn’t feeling so well, so I took my temperature. 100. Not so bad, but best to be cautious, so I canceled my afternoon meetings and got on the couch.
I called my doctor and said “I think I might have the flu”. They asked me my symptoms, which I reported back, “Slight cough. Fever”.
“Did you get a swine flu shot?” the nurse asked me?
“No. You guys said I wasn’t important enough.”
“Oh. Well, seems like maybe you’ll get your immunity the hard way then.”
Lovely bedside manner, don’t you think?? At least he wrote me a prescription for Tamiflu. I went to CVS, and while I wanted for the Rx to get filled, I started to decline. Fast.
By the time I got home, my fever was 103 and I was starting to have a hard time breathing. By 5, my doctor called to see how I was feeling. The “hard way” nurse had reportedly given her the low down that I was low and down, so she called to check in. I’d barely said hello when she said “Oh, boy. You have H1N1”. Awesome.
Since I could barely breathe, never mind speak and since my fever was now 104, she asked if I might come up to her office.
Negative, ghostrider. I couldn’t have imagined sitting up, never mind walking down 5 flights of stairs, and up 5 blocks to the doctors office.
Davey G to the rescue. He left work, went to my doc’s office and got me a nebulizer machine. The rest is a blur; a fever induced haze of about 24 hours I don’t much remember. I do recall, there was strong debate over an Emergency Room visit, but the thought of a cold plastic chair put me over the edge. In my fever induced delirium, I managed to strike a deal with Davey G that if my fever crossed the 105 barrier, we’d go. Until then, we stayed. So there it was. I had a goal. Keep the brain boil to < 105. It's good to have goals.
Gradually, my fever abated. And then came the congestion. Long story short, swine flu sucks. Ass, in fact. It sucks ass.
I am well on the mend now, but still having fits of uncontrollable coughing; somewhat awkward in the middle of a 4 hour Compu Trainer ride, or 3 x 800 in the pool….but press on.
And that 2 weeks of steady training I’d gotten under my belt? Gone. Poof. Back to square one. My coach says it’s not gone…just hiding. It will be back.
In his last email, he simply said, “Trust me now. Believe me later.” OK then; trust and belief. I can manage that. I think.....
Every triathlete knows that one’s bike becomes one’s BFF.
Many hours spent together, me and my bike. I’m not always nice to it, nor it to me, yet we always find a way to muddle thru and come out the other side. While not a brilliant conversationalist, my bike is an excellent listener. My bike never minds stopping for pee breaks on long rides, but if we’re in the middle of a race and there’s no time for pee breaks, my bike is just fine not stopping. That’s saying something, since it means that my bike is, in fact, getting peed on, yet it doesn’t seem to mind.
I’ve got friends who have named their bikes. There was Mr. Zippy. He was small, and energetic, but was soon replaced by McStealthy who was still energetic, and fast, but in a much hotter way. I never named my bike. Yet still, my bike never seemed to mind its anonymous existence. My bike is good to me, though nameless.
So it is with great joy that I am able to say that my bike and I will continue our relationship for years to come My Kestrel Airfoil SE and I will be hitting the road together again in 2010 (though don’t tell it….it may be upgraded to a Kestrel 4000 any day now, but fear not, I will be as good it in retirement as it was to me during its career, though no more peeing on it!)
So yea for me! Yea for Kestrel and yea for my awesome agent, Wing, for getting the deal done! Me and my BFF will be BFFs F and I couldn’t be more pleased.
Stay tuned for updates on the Kestrel 4000!
In other exciting news, it is a little known fact that I grew up in a town that essentially wrote “The Preppy Handbook”. You remember “the Preppy Handbook”; a 1980 book about all things Preppy; prep schools, preppy names (I think my brother actually changed his name to “Biff” for a while), preppy clothes. This miraculous handbook was followed up with “Get Preppy”, the song. It was all the craze and I was right there in it. All things pink and green. I had wide whale cords with embroidered whales on them. And oh, how I layered. The turtleneck with the oxford with the sweater. I looked like Nanook of the North, but man, I was Preppy!
Some people think Preppy died. But oh, no. It just went into hibernation for a while. And like all good things….it's BACK....in the form of Vineyard Vines! From day 1, it has been true love between me and Vineyard Vines. Every catalog I flipped thru, I wanted more. Dave took to hiding the catalog from me when it arrived, knowing out bank account couldn’t handle it.
Then one day, my dreams came true. Dave went golfing. …and met a new friend who worked at Vineyard Vines. Filed under the “you never know if you don’t ask” column, Dave said to his new golfing buddy, “Would you consider sponsoring a professional triathlete?” And blamo! I have myself a new casual apparel sponsor!
Thank you Vineyard Vines for your support. This triathlete will wear Preppy with Pride!!
WTC just decided that being in the top-10 in the world (for 3 years in a row, mind you) isn't good enough to earn a paycheck at the World Championships.
