Running, Biking, & More: June 2008 Archives

First things first about this morning's Y Freedom Tri: I finished 6 minutes faster than last year, repeated as 1st place Athena, and averaged more than 20 miles per hour on the bike for the first time ever! Yee-ha!

Since my mom is in town, I even have photos of my race. I think she enjoyed watching the race -- it was the first time she'd ever been to a triathlon. And I definitely enjoyed having a cheerleader! We had to get up just after 5:00 and left my apartment at 5:30 to drive over to Pearland. We got there with plenty of time to walk over to the park and set up my transition area. I'd made sure to get there early because I had a box of BAM jerseys to deliver to some racers, but I managed to immediately pass those off to a BAMmer who wasn't racing.

Mom took a photo of this guy's shirt -- his daughter had made it for him and on the front it said "Go Jen Go" or something like that. I guess I need to make one for my mom the next time she comes to a tri! Since she only visits once a year, that won't be for a while though. Still, cool shirt.

Here I am mere seconds away from starting the swim. It was a pool swim (obviously) held in the 50-meter public pool at Independence Park in Pearland. It was nice that I'd just swum in a 50-meter pool last week at the Sugarland Women's Tri, so I expected the wall to feel far away. There was a lot more congestion on this swim than there was last week, and I passed 3 or 4 people in the water. There were stairs at the end of the pool that made it very easy to get out of the water, so that was nice. I ran out of the pool, through the grass, and finally crossed the timing mat into transition with a time of 6:34. Actual swimming time was probably about 6:10, which is exactly what I reported (which put me at #106).

There I am running into transition. I got in and out of there in 52 seconds. There was carpet down in the aisle of transition to make it easier to run in bare feet (the parking lot was very pebbly and uncomfortable), but it make for some slippery running in bike shoes. Thankfully I made it out unscathed and hopped on my bike. The 12 mile course is flat and fast, but there are four U-turns that force you to slow down. Still, it's fairly easy to get a good rhythm going. What I couldn't do was break free of a pack of three other women! We leapfrogged each other for the entire 12 miles, none of us ever really breaking away. We maintained enough space between us so as to not get penalized for drafting, but that was it.

I finished the bike in 36:22. Now, if the ride was exactly 12 miles, that's an average of 19.8 mph. But my Garmin measured 12.26 (and last year it measured 12.25), and tris are notorious for rounding the distance to the nearest whole number. Assuming 12.25 miles, that's an average of 20.2 mph! This agrees with what I saw while riding -- I hardly ever saw my speed drop below 20 or 21. And since I didn't give myself credit for 20+ last week since Garmin read 9.5, I'm going to stick with Garmin and pat myself on the back for my first race where I averaged greater than 20 mph on the bike! Woohoo! Next goal: average 20 mph on both the Garmin and the official results. ;-)

I got through T2 in 50 seconds and headed out for the run. Not much to say about it. The first mile follows a crushed gravel path along a bayou, so that's a scenic route. The next two miles are through a neighborhood, and there was the occasional homeowner outside cheering, but other than that it was pretty quiet. I was not wearing my watch, and I actually felt like I was running pretty solidly, but my time shows otherwise. 33:56. Ugh! I really thought I'd covered the distance about a minute faster than that, so I was a little bummed.

Nonetheless, I finished the race in 1:18:34, which is more than 6 minutes faster than last year. The difference is entirely due to a faster bike. My swim and transitions were slightly faster, while my run was about a minute slower. I repeated my title as 1st place Athena and got a cool pint glass with the race logo and "Athena Winner" on it! I liked the award a lot.

All in all, another fun day at the races. We had more than 20 BAMmers out there and many of them placed in their age groups, so it was a successful day all around. I'm not actually sure what my next race is -- but it will probably be the Webster Duathlon at the end of July. Oh, and I'll probably show up at one of the 4th of July 5Ks on Friday.

The guy who marked my age on the back of my leg got a little creative yesterday. I didn't even know it was there. Jose noticed it when I got home, and it made me laugh.

After the huge storms that rolled through last night, it was actually a fairly nice morning for a tri. Nice for June anyway. Humid, but not too hot. I signed up for the Sugarland Women's Tri about a week and a half ago on a whim. And though I hate driving to Sugar Land, this was a great race for which to make that sacrifice. I did this race 4 years ago in its previous incarnation as the Speedo Women's Tri, so it was fun to return to a course that I only vaguely remembered.

I arrived with just enough time to set up my transition area without being rushed, then head over to get my chip, make a stop by the bathroom, and walk over to the pool deck. This race is held at a really nice aquatic center, and the pool was the nicest I've ever been in with the exception of the pool at Georgia Tech (which was built for the 1996 Olympics). I was one of only 5 BAMmers doing this race, and the only one wearing a spiffy BAM jersey, so I wasn't sure if I'd find the other girls or not. But I met Kathy while in the bathroom line, and saw Stephanie on the pool deck later. I saw Cathy (a different Cathy) after the race as well.

The swim was once again seeded by estimated 300 meter swim time. I'd estimated 6:10 which put me at #85. This was a 50 meter pool, so it was big enough to start two people at once, one on either side of the pool with the exit in the middle. I lined up with the odd numbers. As the race began, there was a girl (#90-something) who was standing between me and the girl in front of me. She was making all sorts of crazy comments about the people in the water -- saying things like "oh that person's gonna get caught," and "look at her form, it's crap!" I thought it was pretty presumptious of her to critique the form of the women in the pool who were obvious faster than her (given her race seeding), but whatever.

I hopped in the water and was off. I haven't been in a 50 meter pool since last year at the Y Tri, and though my brain knows that it's twice the distance of my normal pool, it still feels like it takes forever to get across the pool. Where was that wall?? I passed two girls in front of me -- one who had stopped because she was having a problem with her goggles, and another who was just going slow. Three laps later I was done in 6:11! Did I seed myself correctly or what?

(As a side note, I looked through the results and there were only 2 people -- myself and another girl -- within plus/minus 15 bib numbers that swam anywhere close to a 6:10. This is the part of pool swims that I hate. My bib number was 85, I swam within 1 second of what I predicted, but 6:11 turned out to be the 38th fastest time overall. That's almost 50 people who seeded themselves too fast! People just do not seed themselves correctly! Pet peeve!)

The volunteers at the end of the swim were a little overzealous in dragging me out of the pool, and I ended up with a couple minor scrapes on my knees. No matter. I was on my way into transition in no time. Shoes on feet, helmet on head and I was off while the girl who'd started the swim just ahead of me was still putting her stuff together. T1 time 50 seconds.

I got on the bike and started pedaling. I'd like to average 20 mph in a race sometime this year, and I was determined to give it my best effort. My run is always slow, so I don't see much point in holding back on the bike. I might as well go hard. I whizzed down the road, passing a lot of girls in the process. I probably passed 20-25 people over the short course, and no one passed me. I rolled back into transition in 29:05. The race was advertised as a 10-mile ride, but my Garmin read 9.5 miles -- so I was either just over or just under a 20 mph average. Either way, that is my fastest bike split ever in a race, so I was very excited about that. And as I came into T2, I was greeted with a bunch of empty racks. The racks were laid out in order, so the first couple racks were full since the people who'd started the swim far ahead of me had already headed out for the run. But there was still a lot of empty space in the 40-80 bib number range. I was #85, but I beat the majority of the 50s, 60s, and 70s back into T2. That was a good feeling.

I got through T2 in 58 seconds. It was a little slower than T1 because I had to run farther in my bike shoes (slow) and I had to pause at the rack for a couple seconds to keep from falling over as I reached down to change shoes. Yep, I rode hard on the bike.

As I ran out of T2, a girl ran up beside me and said something like "wow, #85, you're amazing!" (I wish I could remember what she actually said, because it was better.) She was #42, so I must have passed her on the bike. I couldn't help but laugh as I said "I may be a pretty good swimmer and biker, but you haven't seen me run yet. 11:00 miles, oh yeah." But it turns out that she was a lot like me and runs the same pace. "Who cares," she said, "you just smoked all of us on the bike!" That was definitely a confidence booster. I pulled ahead of her on the run, but I looked at her results and she must have finished just a few seconds behind me real-time (a few minutes chip time). I saw her again after the race and we congratulated each other.

The run was, as usual, sucky. Yet again, I am forced to admit that, without question, the run is where I have the most room to improve -- by leaps and bounds. Each mile felt like an eternity. But I managed to keep it steady and ended up finishing the 3 miles in 33:50. I had hoped to get 11:00 pace, but it was not to be.

My final time was 1:10:54. The race had no Athena category so it wasn't a hardware day for me, but I did finish 13th (out of 32) in the 30-34 age group. In my age group I was 6th in swim, 4th in T1, 4th on the bike, 4th in T2 (if it had been an aquabike, I would've placed 5th!)...and 21st on the run. Sigh.

Overall it was a very fun race and I'm pleased with my results. Maybe next year at Lonestar I'll enter the aquabike and go for my first piece of "legitimate" hardware... ;-)

So I fell off my bike last night. Off my bike that was stationary on my trainer. Actually, I suppose to be more precise, I should say that my bike fell off the trainer, and I happened to be on it at the time.

I was on my new tri bike, which I have put on the trainer without issue twice before, and was only about 8 minutes into my almost hour-long session. Suddenly, I felt myself shifting. Amazingly, my brain processed what was happening very quickly. Things went into slow motion. "I'm falling," I thought. And so I was.

As you can see in this photo from a year and a half ago, my apartment is pretty tiny, and my bike is set up between a chair and the coffee table. I fell to the left, and so it actually wasn't too much of a disaster. My left hip landed on the coffee table, and my reaction was quick enough that I was able to catch myself with my left arm. My left foot came out of the pedal, but my right foot remained clipped in. One side of the trainer ended up stuck between the spokes of my rear wheel, but upon removing it and inspecting it closely, there does not appear to be any damage. No damage to the bike, yes, but I did not escape the fall totally unscathed, and I now have a bruise on both sides of my left knee -- one from hitting the table, and one from the bike hitting me!

I quickly figured out the culprit. One side of the rear skewer that I thought was a metal cap that screwed onto the end of the skewer to hold it in place is actually just a plastic cap covering a very small metal nut. It was only a matter of time, it seems, before I fell off, since obviously the plastic was not capable of holding the load of the bike plus me. A quick trip to the garage to retrieve a different skewer remedied the problem, and I was riding again within 10 minutes.

All in all, a funny story, although the bike ride itself was not good. I felt totally worn out and lacking energy. My usual plan on the trainer is to pull up an hour-long show on the Tivo, and cycle hard through the commercials as intervals. After the first commercial break, I could not maintain it. I tried to cycle hard through the remaining breaks, but I kept on having to use lower and lower gears. I was pooped, so I stopped at 15 miles, or just shy of 55 minutes. (I recently got around to installing the Garmin speed/cadence sensor, and now in addition to cadence, which I never had before, I can also get speed and distance even when I am indoors.) I spent the rest of the night in a funk because I felt fat, slow, and tired. Ah well. Just one of those days.

In other athletic news, my name was not drawn in the NYC marathon lottery. This is actually an ok thing, since I will be in Japan the same weekend that the marathon takes place! This is year #2 that I have not gotten in. One more year of rejection and I get an automatic spot. If I don't get in next year, I'll be automatic to get in for 2010. I'd really like to run this race sometime, so I'll keep playing the lottery! Congratulations to June, who did get in this year. I know how badly she wanted it, so I was very happy to see "accepted" next to her name. She's gonna do great.