Rhoto Ironman Boulder 70.3 Recap

Holy crap. That was One. Long. Race. That’s all I need to say about that. The End.

Okay, okay, here’s the play-by-play…

Preparation

It was a tough training season for me:

• I shopped for a house (using Wes Hobson, a world-renowned triathlete, as a realtor – he is also an actual realtor)
• I bought a house
• I moved into the house
• I had about a hundred job interviews
• I switched jobs
• I went to Mexico for 4 days to lay on a beach, drink cocktails with umbrellas in them, and eat some very yummy food between jobs
• I had a cyst on my knee drained
• I had knee surgery to remove the remaining scar tissue from the cyst
• I had a weird pain in my shoulder that lasted for almost a week

In short, I could have trained with a little more… focus… and discipline.

Sleep and Waking

Of course, I got absolutely no sleep the night before the race. First of all, I had to get up at about 4:45 in order to get to the course and have everything set up by 6:20. I went to bed about 10pm and woke up every hour from 12am to 4am wondering if it was time to get up and start moving. Second, I was very well hydrated so I got up to use the restroom every hour, on the hour, all night. It was ridiculous.

4:45am came way to fast. I stumbled down the stairs in the dark, pulled on my tri suit picked up my bag and headed out into the cool pre-dawn air. I rode my bike to the triathlon course, you know, because it felt weird to have only a 56 mile ride planned later and I figured it only made sense to make it an even 60-mile day.

On my way to the course a cab and another car both pulled over and offered to give me a ride, but I actually felt like being on the bike was a good warm up. I also noticed, just as I rounded the next corner, that cars were backed up about a mile and a half to get into the reservoir parking lot. I cruised right by them, pausing just outside of transition to let someone write my number on my arms with a big Sharpie: 1448, and my age on my calf: 30.

There is some strategy around choosing your space in the transition area. You can set up your bike, shoes, food, and other supplies by someone who looks nervous, someone who looks friendly, or someone who looks like this is not their first triathlon. I opted for a veteran and racked my bike next to a guy who obviously knew what he was doing. I asked him questions and organized my space just like his. Towel on the ground, gear sorted by discipline. Running stuff together, biking stuff together, swimming stuff in plastic bag to take to the beach, food and liquid everywhere.

Swim

Once my transition area was set up I headed down to the shore to find someone to talk to. Chatting with other athletes and spectators helped me get my mind off of the 70.3 miles that stood between me, a shower, a nap, and a decent breakfast… or dinner… actually. I tried to eat a cliff bar but gave up a little over half way through. I was so nervous and excited I could barely choke it down.

I was sitting on the ground, with one foot in a plastic bag and pushed through the first leg of the wetsuit (see my guide for putting on a wetsuit) when someone started singing the national anthem. I paused in my struggling to listen and contemplated the ridiculousness of the whole event. I couldn’t help but smile. I was a little surprised that, despite the fact that 4 months ago, I struggled to swim 10 laps in a pool, I was at the start line of a half Ironman.

Once the wetsuit was on I went down to the water to watch the pros start, get water inside my suit and check out the course. The buoys looked really far away. Seriously, very far. I asked a girl next to me if it looked far. “Yeah, it looks really far.” She agreed. Here’s the map of the swim. That little triangle is much bigger in person.

My wave (women 30-34) started at 7:30. I wadded into the water with the other athletes. We wished each other luck and I heard several, “oh no, you go first, I’m slow,” and “please, don’t kick me in the face or swim on top of me”s. So polite!

Finally, the gun went off and I wadded out until I couldn’t touch the bottom anymore. My wetsuit helped me stay on the top of the water and I started my stroke on the outside of the group. It was about the time I reached the first buoy (going clockwise) that I realized that I was kind of tired. I took stock of my body and found out that I wasn’t actually physically tired, I just realized that all my training in a pool prepared me to get a break every 50 yards when you turn around and go the other direction. I started trying to get into a rhythm where I would take 20 strokes and then take a few side-strokes or flip onto my back and count to 10 before flipping back over for another 20 strokes. This gave me a rhythm to get into and worked until the second buoy where the wave of men who started behind us began to catch me.

I was keeping up with them while I was doing the crawl, but would drop behind when I started side-stroking. The water got super choppy, which made it hard to breathe without also inhaling reservoir water. I decided to let the front row of them past me and tried to ignore the headache that was developing due to the fact that my goggles were on so tight to prevent getting water in my eyes or being kicked off.

There were smaller buoys in between the big buoys which kept us on track and gave me little milestones to go between. There were about seven from the last turn buoy to shore. About three buoys away from shore was the low point of the swim for me. I felt like I was so close to being done but I didn’t feel like I was making any progress. I started to swim in little zigzags and tried to focus on just making forward progress.

About that time, I saw Jason standing on the beach and could tell he was looking for me. He waved when he recognized me – still not sure how he did that – about one buoy away from shore. I finally felt my feet touch the ground and stumbled up onto the beach. Jason was able to get right up next the the chute into transition, “That was so fast!” he called, “53 minutes! You are doing great!” I had hoped to finish the swim in less than an hour so I was pretty happy. I meant to thank him for coming. I meant to be excited at this positive news. Instead, I’m pretty sure all I said was, “That swim was really $%&*@ long!” and headed through a little shower and into the transition area.

Bike

It took me a good 5 miles before I realized that I was on a bike. My stomach was a little upset and I had a headache. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. I tried to force myself to eat a granola bar that I taped to the top tub of my bike and tried not to tip over. “This is the fun part,” I told myself. It took 10 miles before I believed it. I finally started to relax.

One of the many downsides to starting in such a late wave was the pros and early waves had an hour head start on me so they were on their second lap of the bike course as I was just starting out. It made me grumpy to think that they were so far along and I had so far to go, but I tried to keep a good attitude and eventually found it kind of fun to watch them whiz by me. On the second loop, I was all by myself on the course and was kind of lonely.

The volunteers were fantastic. Not only had they mastered the art of handing open bottles of Gatorade and water to moving cyclists, but as the day continued to get warmer, they would spray us with Super Soakers and other misting bottles as we passed through their aid stations. I focused on hydrating, staying relaxed and getting some more food in me. Here is a map of the course and the elevation changes:

When I was about 5 miles away from the finish of the bike leg, the wind started picking up. I was going directly into it and up a false flat. This means that the ground looks flat, but you have to work a lot harder because it’s really a slow ascent. I was tired and wanted to cry just thinking about the fact that I still had to do a half marathon. I considered crying but I felt like I was getting a little dehydrated and didn’t want to waste water – or salt – on tears so I told myself to suck it up, take it one pedal stroke at a time and finish this ride out.

Run

I started the run a little before 12pm. The wind had continued to pick up and the air was hot and dry. I focused on going slow and steady, taking small steps to shake out my bike muscles, and tried to get into a running grove. “Restart.” I told myself. “Forget that you have already been moving about 4.5 hours.”

I saw Jason and my friends Wylie and Mike leaving transition. Jason jogged up to the road and said that they missed me on the bike. They arrived at the course long after I had passed and they had been looking for me ever since. Jason announced that I was, “killing it.” I had forecasted about 4 hours for the bike and I finished in about 3.5. At this point in the race, I was about 30 minutes ahead of my self-projected finishing time. I wanted to pick up the pace, but I knew it was going to be a long, hot run so I kept it nice and steady.

There were aid stations every mile on the run stocked with water, ice water, flat Coke, GU shots, energy bars, and sponges soaking in ice water. Oh, the sponges. I will smile at every sponge I see for years. They saved my life!

My sweat was just evaporating off of me, leaving my skin hot, dry, and salty. I couldn’t keep myself cool. The first time a volunteer handed me a sponge I almost hugged her, but that would have been very, very gross for her so I restrained myself. How you carried your sponge became a funny form of self expression that kept me amused for a mile or two. Some people had their sponges tucked in the back of their hats. Others used them to wipe their sweat off.

For several miles I just shoved one right down my top. The water would run out and soak my shirt and the top of my shorts. Unfortunately, the water warmed up and I couldn’t feel it so I found it worked best to grab two sponges and shove them under the straps of my top near my shoulders.

My stomach started cramping near mile 7 so I started walking once in a while and jogging when I got fresh sponges. I tried to eat my Honey Stingers, but I couldn’t stomach any more gooey sugars and carbs. At mile 11 I spotted something that made me happy. Pretzels. I wanted solid food. And salt. I wanted salt so much that I picked up a handful, shoved it in my mouth grabbed another handful to go and a cup of water. This did not leave me a hand to get my sponges out so I stopped at the end of the aid station, where a volunteer (God bless her) took my sponges out from my top, dunked them in ice water and bravely put them back in my top. She then removed my visor, dunked it in the ice water and put it back on my head. As I started trotting away, she followed me, running a sponge over my back. This woman was a saint.

About the same time, I started feeling blisters on my pinky toes. I wasn’t able to get all the sand off my feet after the swim and still had some in my socks. My toes hurt when I ran, but my hamstrings hurt when I walked so I switched awkwardly from one gait to another before finally settling back on running. “I would get there faster,” I figured. But not by much.

The last mile was miserable. The wind was blowing 25-30mph and it was about 97 degrees. I jogged it in, but I felt like I had to steal every breath I took from the wind that was trying to pull it out of my lungs before I could use it for fuel. Finally, the finish line, and my friends, were in sight. I don’t know how I picked up the pace through the chute, but I finished. 7 hours and 33 minutes after I started. (The clock in the picture says 8:33, but I started an hour after the first gun went off)

It was the slowest half marathon I ever ran, but I had never swam and biked that far before starting a half marathon. I’m usually done with half marathons when restaurants are still serving breakfasts.

My friends, M.E., Seth, Wylie, Mike, and of course, Jason were there at the finish, supportive and amazing. I didn’t really know what to say to them except for, “wow, that was a really long race, thank you for being at the end of it.”

And now, I am half an Ironman.

What to Wear for a Half Ironman?

It seems simple, but it’s a complicated question. What can you wear under your wetsuit that will stand up to the wear and tear of a bike seat and not get in your way on the run? I posed the question to the BeginnerTriathlete.com forum and here’s what they had to say:

• It really just comes down to personal preference. I see most athletes in two pieces, tri shorts + tri top. I like that combination personally for a few reasons. First I don’t think anyone looks remotely good in a one-piece tri suit  and second it’s much easier to use the bathroom with the 2-piece ensemble.
• I second the two piece, I had GI issues my first HIM which put me in the porta potty each mile of the run, a one piece would have annoyed the heck out of me!
• I’m a two piece guy. Also, it needs to be tight(er).  I bought my first outfit too big and ended up rarely using it.
• I like to rock the onesie.
• I just started wearing a one-piece this year, and really like it.  I agree they don’t look as good as the two-piece, but I’m getting over that.  I have worn it at a few sprints and an olympic and am likely to try it for my upcoming HIM.  For a full IM though, I really think I would go with the two-piece for two reasons: 1.  The porta potty thing 2.  At T2, depending on conditions, it might really be nice to quickly trade in that tri-top for a clean, dry, and perhaps loose-fitting top.  Wearing a 2 piece, and keeping that spare top in your T2 bag, you have that option.

I decided to try out the two piece ensemble. I splurged and ordered Pearl iZumi’s Pro Tri Singlet and Shorts:

If you are near the Boulder Reservoir on Sunday, August 7th and you see an exhausted girl with short brown hair wearing this, start cheering, because it’s me!

by Lindsay Brust

Half Ironman is One Month Away

Holy Crap. How times does fly. I looked at the calendar yesterday morning to find that the Boulder 70.3 Half Ironman is exactly one month (31 days) from yesterday. Here’s where I currently stand:

• Currently 23.5% body fat. I started at 24% with a goal of 18%, so I have made almost no progress. I even suspect that that .5% was actually the scar tissue surgically removed from my knee.
• 2.75 miles run in the past week. Give me a break, I had surgery.
• Approximately 645 glasses of champagne consumed. I attended a wedding with an open bar and celebrated the birth of our fine country the best way I know how.
• 20 hours spent laying on the couch under the influence of anesthesia and the after effects of that champagne.
• Watched the Tour de France. Does it count when you watch people ride a bike?

Not feeling great about my progress over the past week. I’m going to have to be a lot more disciplined. Here are my goals for the next 31 days:

• Eat whole foods as much as possible and cut back on sugar and alcohol.
• Be disciplined about my training. Focus on strength building and good form to avoid injury.
• Get more sleep to help with recovery and motivation.
• Do a few strength training exercises to balance out these huge muscles I’m developing.
• Get used to my wetsuit and do a couple of open water swims.
• Pick out race day outfit and wear it a few times to make sure it fits in all the right places.

Am I missing anything? Should we start a “Will Lindsay Survive” pool? Which way would you bet? Would you bet differently if I told you I was considering going to Mexico for 5 days?

Lindsay Brust

Boulder Half Ironman Bike Course

This morning I attempted the Boulder Half Ironman bike course for the first time. I thought it might be a good idea to see what I was getting myself into on August 7 when I will have to ride the course, not once, but twice after swimming over a mile. Then I will have to run a half marathon. Here’s what the course looks like from my house:

You can see a more detailed route on MapMyRide as well as the course elevation:

Kind of rolling, not too bad… until you get to that last part. That long slow ascent is deceiving on a bike. It’s not quite steep enough that you would notice it, but it’s frustrating because the whole time I’m wondering why I feel like I’m working so hard and not going any faster.

This morning was absolutely gorgeous, and not just because today is officially the first morning that I passed more people on a bike than bikers passed me. I unintentionally timed my ride during the Boulder Sprint Triathlon and joined their route for a little while about the time that the slowest swimmers and riders were just starting out. I’m sure I looked fresh by comparison as I hadn’t woken up at 4am for an early morning swim in the Boulder Reservoir. I felt like a rolling cheerleader, passing people, shouting encouragement. It was awesome.

Views like this don’t hurt either:

This is the turn from Highway 36 onto St. Vrain. See how it goes downhill? That makes me happy.

I also stopped on 75th just south of St. Vrain to snap a photo of Long’s Peak, who made a snowy appearance on my ride:

Almost everyday, I think to myself how lucky I am to live in Boulder. Lindsay Brust

Biking from Boulder to Ft. Collins

I don’t really care for riding loops or out and back routes on a bike. I think I was spoiled by a bike trip I went on where we scouted a bike tour through the Belgian countryside. Recently, I also did the ExperiencePlus! Bicycle Tours Pedaling the Andes tour with my friend M.E. (I blogged about it here and the PTA series here) We woke up everyday in one awesome spot, we got on a bike and rode through awesome spots to another awesome spot where we would spend the night and do it all over again. I decided to try to simulate this experience here in Colorado – fortunately, I’m already in an awesome spot. Lindsay Brust

I woke up in Boulder yesterday morning, and after work, I started riding to Ft. Collins. Google Maps told me it was about 50 miles away, and while I was only suppose to ride 75 minutes I felt like a 50 mile ride would give me a little confidence about the 56 mile biking leg for the half Ironman. Plus, it’s a long Memorial Day weekend I don’t have any other plans, so what the heck. Here’s the route I took.

The elevation wasn’t too bad either. A long slow downhill north.

I started off about 3:20pm fueled with this fantastically delicious yogurt, granola, strawberries and blueberries concoction.

My friend and co-worker, Lauren rode me out the first 26 or so miles. It was a beautiful day, though I spent most of these first 26 miles with my eyes glued to her back wheel knowing that I wouldn’t have to work as hard to keep up if I stayed in her draft.

She eventually decided to head back and turned around at an intersection about 6 miles south west of Loveland. I plugged in some music and braved the east blowing wind on my own until I made it to the meeting point M.E. and I had settled on in Loveland. I chowed down on a packet of Justin’s Nut Butter (Chocolate Almond) and waited for my next set of friends to pull me the rest of the way to the Fort.  It’s a good thing I have friends who know something about bikes because as I waited, the air slowly deflated from my back tire. By the time they arrived my tire was totally flat. It turns out I had picked up a tiny piece of glass somewhere along the way. Fortunately, Seth (M.E. fiance) had a patch kit with him and after about 10 minutes of fiddling with my tire, we were ready to hit the road again. I just hoped this approaching cloud didn’t decide to dampen my adventure.

We made it the rest of the 10 miles to Ft. Collins in a light sprinkle and pulled up to their house just before my boyfriend Jason arrived in the car to have a yummy dinner and then drive me back to Boulder. Today, I feel great, and tired. My legs are a little heavy and I’m a little sleepy. I couldn’t be happier with my adventure. If you are training for a tri, or anything else, I would highly recommend two things:

1. Great people to keep you company
2. Turning your workouts into adventures. It takes them off of your to do list and put them on your fun list.

Did You Know it’s Light Out at 5:30am?

Now that I’m actually on a schedule, I feel like I have harder training days because I can’t just think, “oh, I’ll finish this workout tomorrow” or “maybe I need to work in some more rest time.” The schedule has other plans. I’m suppose to do something else tomorrow. I can’t put this workout off.

Yesterday was one of my harder days so far. First of all, it was Monday. That’s hard in itself. Secondly, I needed to ride for 75 minutes and swim for about, oh, a million laps or something. In order to do both, I got up at 5:20am to get to a 5:45 cycling class. (Did you know it’s actually light out at that hour? I had no idea.) Then, when everyone else headed to the showers at 6:30, I stayed in the cycling studio and rode another half hour. Insanity.

I worked a full day and headed back to the gym for some swimming. I made it about 27 laps. My shoulder started aching a little bit so I stopped at that point. I usually try not to strain myself, but Monday the H.IM had other plans.

The good news is all the swimming workouts I’m not quite finishing must be paying off. My friend who has been giving drills and tips said that my stroke is looking much better these days. Progress is good. Lindsay Brust

Tri… Backwards

My long workout last weekend was a backwards triathlon. I made some coffee and put on my running clothes before taking a little time to lay out what I was going to wear for the bike ride. Then I put all my swimming gear in a backpack with some clean dry clothes so I could grab it quickly on the way to the pool.

I started out by running for about half an hour along a trail near my new townhouse. The trail was well packed dirt and gravel and gently rolling under shady trees. It was awesome. What a find! I felt well rested, refreshed from a couple of days off due to my knee draining. My iPod recently quit on me so I used my iPhone. I have been hesitant to introduce my iPhone to my sweaty hobbies for fear that it would get salty, dirty, and gross. But, since my choices are, use the phone I already have or shell out $100 for a new iPod, I stopped worrying about the potential saltiness of the phone. I downloaded the Nike+ GPS application and covered about 3.4 miles in about 32 minutes. Anything under a 10 minute per mile pace is pretty good for me. I was excited. Lindsay Brust

Next, I biked about 60 minutes in the rolling flats north east of Boulder. I am very bad at planning what to wear on a bike. I always under dress. I think it’s because I run so slow that I always get so warm from the lack of breeze that I don’t compensate for the fact that I ride slightly faster then I run. Regardless, it was a gorgeous day with just a couple of things I needed to slow down for.

By the way, this train wakes me up at night pretty frequently at it passes about a block away from the new townhouse. I underestimated how loud train whistles are. I should know better.

My swim, as usual, was the hardest part of the workout. I was a little warn out from the run and the bike — which, for the record is two workouts for anyone not living in Boulder. Normal people would throw in the towel at this point and go get breakfast and take a nap. Not me. I had to go not drown for a while.

I only made it about 20 laps, which is crazy because a few weeks ago, I was really proud of myself for not drowning for 20 laps. Now, it’s just 1/2 as much as I’m going to need to do and 1/3 as much as I should be doing. (I dislike fractions almost as much as I dislike swimming.) Anyway, I survived. I treated myself to mimosas, sweet potato fries and laying on the couch watching a chick flick. You know, what many people skip directly to on Saturdays.

Biking and Laps. Always Laps.

According to my new program, I needed to bike for about an hour and then swim another insane amount of laps last night. I’m exhausted just looking at the schedule. The good thing about being on a schedule is that it takes a lot of the emotion out working up the motivation for me. I just try to do as much as I can. I still haven’t been able to complete a “full” swimming workout yet, but every time I get in the pool, I need to rest a little less and can go a little further. It’s a good guide for me to follow… or try to. You can find my schedule here. Thanks BeginnerTriathlete, for keeping me moving. Someone has got to do it. Lindsay Brust

I would have loved to get out on an actual bike yesterday, but since I had to do all my training after work, I decided to go to a spinning class. Despite my comment about motivation in the previous paragraph, I try to make it as easy as possible to go from one workout to another. I’m very gifted at coming up with excuses for not completing my workout so I have to organize things in a way where I have as few ejection points as possible. Having the pool with plenty of lanes, and all my gear, in the same building makes it more difficult to get side tracked by the happy hour special less then a block away.

The spinning class was good. We did a lot of intervals which is a sneaky way for me to get stronger. I have the “I can do anything for a minute” approach to biking. Then, I just spin. So you have to make me work for short amounts of time. Following the spinning class, I was suppose to do about 29 laps in the pool. I did 21 and called it a night.

I’m having my draining procedure done on my knee today. At least it’s a good excuse for a couple of rest days. Wish me luck.

Don’t Think. Just Go.

This is what I repeat to myself over and over when I’m trying to get myself to work out. I’m extremely good at coming up with different rationalizations for not working out. Here are some of my favorites:

• You’ve worked hard (even if I’m still in bed). Give yourself a break.
• You can go later.
• You don’t want to strain yourself or burn out pushing yourself too hard.
• It’s windy out.
• It’s cold out.
• It’s too nice out to work out.
• Swimming sucks.

Unfortunately, I need to start swimming more often. So this afternoon, I got out of my cycling class and stopped myself from thinking about how I can just swim tomorrow. Don’t think. Just go. Put on your suit. Don’t think. Just grab your stuff. Just go to the pool. Do 8 laps. Just 8. That’s 400 yards. Don’t think. Just do it.

Today was an especially tough day for me. My legs feel heavy after the weekend and I’m tired from packing (I’m moving this weekend). After one tough hour on a spin bike and 15 minutes of thrashing around in a pool trying not to drown in 3 feet of water I got in my car to drive literally the 2 blocks back to my apartment. I feel so slow, weak, and tired that I almost cried.

I remember when I was training for my first marathon. I was nervous, but fortunately there is little chance of drowning while running for 26.2 miles.

During training, I know it’s normal to have days where you feel good and days you don’t feel as good. Today was the first day where I strongly feel like I might have bitten off more then I can chew. What do you do to get over that feeling?

Hello Leg Muscles!

What I find most frustrating about doing my long Saturday workouts is that they aren’t cumulative. Every Saturday, I get up and get on a bike and have to start all over again. No matter how far I have been swimming, biking, or running, I start from scratch. My workouts during the week didn’t even allow me to start at mile 3 or mile 5 and there is so far to go. Every week. So far.

After taking Thursday and Friday off last week, which lead me to drown my guilt in a giant piece of carrot cake (It’s good for you because it has carrots in it) I headed to an 8am cycling class at the gym on Saturday. In the mirror at the cycling studio, I found leg muscles. My leg muscles.

Apparently all this training is cumulative in some way. I’ve got muscles now! Ones that you can see when I riding a bike! I also felt so fresh after taking two days off that after my cycling class, I ran 5.5 miles. Maybe I’m going to be able to do this after all…