COUNTDOWN IS ON - 7 weeks to go.

(Summary of June 9 - 15)

A number of people had told me it takes a while to recover from a 150+ km ride so I was preparing for the worst Monday morning after doing 165km from Kingston to Ottawa as part of the RLTC. But, actually come Monday morning, I was great?! No soreness, no stiffness ... I was like "BAM!" 

But then Tuesday and Wednesday morning rolled along and it took everything in me to get out of bed in the morning. Still no soreness or stiffness, just overall fatigue. (In hindsight though, I probably could have avoided this if I ate more and went to sleep earlier). I didn't end up doing much that week except a long run (26km) on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday were spent resting up for my training weekend in Lake Placid. 

My plan was :

•  Saturday: two loops of the bike course (second loop without the "out and backs" = 150km),
  then a short run (5km). 
•  Sunday: do a loop of the swim course (2km) and a loop of the run course (21km). 

The short of the long is, I didn't get it all done. And the weekend was more mental toughness training than physical training.  

Saturday started off with a bit of disappointment. When I got to where I was supposed to be (meeting up with some people from Ottawa to ride the bike course) I found out that I had missed the group that was riding 150km (mix up was not my fault this time!) So I ended up riding with the group that was doing 90km (one loop) and figured I would do a second loop myself afterwards. 

Right off the bat, the course felt different. I was tired after the first climb and after about 40km, I was laggin' behind the rest of the group. I mean, not by much but I couldn't help but think ... WTF? I've been training for an IM for the past 10 months and these guys haven't so why are they out-riding me? Am I really ready for the IM??? It also felt like I was pushing a lot harder than the last time I did the course but my ride time didn't reflect that at all. Maybe only a 2-3 minute difference. The only explanation I could come up with was that these guys were going all out for the 90km, where as I was conserving, knowing that I would be doing another loop. Also, it was a lot hotter this time around and ... maybe I still was recovering from the previous weekend. 

Anyway, we finished the first loop, I thanked them for their company and I started my second loop. Again that first hill seemed killer and mentally I took a real nose dive over the next little while. I kept wavering, trying to decide whether I should just turn back or not. I was worried about riding by myself (some of the LP drivers had proven to be real jerks); I was worried about descending the Keene hill by myself; and I was worried about not having enough in the tank and being stranded in the middle of the course somewhere. At some point though, I just went into autopilot and time just seemed to fly by. Second loop was done. I then went for a 5 km run. It felt ok but my Garmin had cacked-out on me at the end of my ride so I had no idea if I was running at my usual pace. Taking a lesson from the weekend before, I had a big dinner (almost ate a whole large pizza by myself) and went to bed early with the plan of waking up at 7am to swim.

Turns out I still didn't eat enough because Sunday morning the alarm went off and I felt like shit. Went back to bed, woke up, still felt like crap. Remembered something my physio told me ... "try to eat, even when you're feeling nauseous", had some leftover pizza and went back to bed. Woke up feeling better. By this time it was about 10am. I packed up all my stuff, checked out of my cabin 

and went into town, not sure what I'd do. 

I drove by Mirror Lake and it was deserted. I didn't want to swim by myself (safety reasons) and swimming is probably my least favourite discipline so I convinced myself not to swim but to run instead. Then it started raining. 

I sat in my car for literally 10 minutes, struggling with whether to run or not. I had almost convinced myself to just go home - that I could run when I get home - but then I snapped out of it, changed into my run clothes and took off. To make things a little harder for myself (after having decided not to swim), instead of doing a loop of the course I did two loops of the hilly part of the course. Still 21 km but, more difficult. Or so I told myself.

When I got back to my gym locker (aka: my car), I thought about going swimming again but canned that idea quickly. It was still raining and already about 3pm. Instead, I just started the 3-hour drive home and the most exhausting mental struggle of my life. It involved a few fits of tears, and about 5 times I decided NOT to do the IM. But then I'd start to think about all the friends I have coming to watch and cheer me on ... and how crappy it would feel to tell them I'm backing out. So, I'm still in it.
That's all I can say for now.

COUNTDOWN IS ON - 8 weeks to go.

(Summary of June 3 - 8)

Monday - Another run test.
Result: My Zone 1 finally budged! After 7 months it was about f'n time.
Interestingly enough, during my test (with my trainer already privy to early results), she asked if running was feeling easier lately. I said no. But since the test, I have noticed a difference. Real or mental? Not sure.

Thursday - Another bike test
Result: Another 10 Watt improvement in my Zone 1. Booyah!
I love biking. It's my favourite discipline right now. I especially love hills. My quads are pretty strong so I can get up out of my saddle and grind them out but with my new bike and its compact crank I can also stay seated and just spin them out. Love it!

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday I took off because I was expecting to go to Lake Placid that weekend to take another shot at the bike course (two loops this time). I was really stoked too as I had found some people to bike with as well. Thursday night though I realized I had got my dates mixed up (eeeediot!) and Lake Placid was the following week. Arrrg!

This turned out being a blessing in disguise though because in Ottawa that weekend there were two really great events (1) first Somersault Du/Tri series of the season, (2) the Rideau Lakes Cycling Tour (RLCT). The RLCT is a weekend bike tour from Ottawa to Kingston (Saturday), then Kingston to Ottawa (Sunday). The question was how could I do both ...

Riverkeeper Triathlon : That's the
happy face of a FINISHER!

I really wanted to do one of the Somersault races to get some more experience in open water (Swim was at Britannia Beach) and transitions. I had the choice of doing a Sprint (500m swim, 23.3km bike, 5 km run) or the Olympic (1.5km swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run). I wanted to do the Olympic since it had the longer distances but I had let my swimming go lately and hadn't been in the water for about two weeks so wasn't sure how I'd feel doing 1.5km. Also it would only be my second time in a wetsuit and my first time with A LOT of bodies around me in the water.

RLCT: 40km left and feeling great!

I also really wanted to do the RLCT because (a) it's a super fun time and (b) it would be a great way to get in a 100+ km ride -- so far i'd only done a few 90kms. Thing is, RLCT is two days, 180 km each day (so couldn't really fit in the Somersault event on Saturday). Also, registration was full. Spots sold out a looong time ago.

End result?

I had a pretty stressful Thursday night scouring a local tri-site for RLCT bibs for sale (a number of people usually sell there bib shortly before the event because they either get injured training or haven't trained enough and don't think they can do it.) but I found one (including an overnight stay at Queen's University with dinner and breakfast), and bought it. I decided I would do the Sprint Tri Saturday morning. Then get to Kingston somehow and do the Kingston to Ottawa ride on Sunday.

My hubby : Have I mentioned how
awesome this guy is??? He took four
hours out of his day to get me to Kingston
(two to get me there and then
two driving back, by himself). 

Soooo ... hat was supposed to be a jam-packed training weekend in Lake Placid turned into a jam-packed training weekend in Ottawa. The Saturday morning triathlon was a great, great first time experience and RLCT didn't disappoint. Ended up riding with some speed demons the whole way and we flew! At the end I even felt like I had some still left in the tank. Overall it left me feeling great about the IM 8 weeks down the road.

First open water swim-ish ...

This past weekend I had my first OPEN WATER SWIM ... kinda.

It was part of a one-day triathlon clinic I went to over the weekend. Held by the Ottawa Triathlon Club, the clinic covered key skills in each of the three disciplines, transitions and program planning. There was no intense work out involved so I didn't have to worry about my injury.

The day started with open water swim skills - the first of which was how to put on your wetsuit. You wouldn't think it would be that hard but it takes some real finesse, and man those things are tight! Once we all had our wetsuits on we headed into the cold Ottawa River from a local beach.

I was super surprised at how quickly I got in the water given the temperature. In the summer at the cottage it takes me about 1/2 hr to get fully submerged in the water. This past weekend, it took me 5 minutes. The feet and head were the worst as they were completely exposed but, I did a few bobs and I was good to go.

The instructor then set up a little swim course with two buoys and we proceeded to swim around them a few times, practicing sighting and practicing keeping our cool with so many bodies around us, splashing all around, etc.

Good first time experience. I will (obviously) have to do some more open water swims to get used to the wetsuit. I really liked it at first because it gives you additional buoyancy so I felt like swimming was easier, but eventually it did start to feel a little constricting, especially around the neck.

First injury ...

After 9 months of training I finally have my first "injury". Not that I've been looking forward to it but, I just figured it was inevitable with the training hours I've been putting in. I'm actually lucky at how non-serious it really is (on the mend now), but it put me out for a few days, including a weekend -- which is usually when I get my long swim, bike and runs completely -- so it ticked me off.

You may ask, "How did you get injured?" Well, essentially I fell off my bike ... while standing still.

Middle of last week I went to the Gatineaus to do hill repeats and I had a friend join me for some motivation. I had just finished my 5th repeat when we ran into people he knows so we stopped to say "Hi". I unclipped, came to a full stop and was taking a drink while my friend chit chatted. A few seconds later he gave me a soft warning that a group was coming up the hill. I was slightly left of the shoulder line so I thought I would move in. Mistake.

New (SpeedPlay) clipless pedal.
Root cause of my injury :)

Turns out one of my feet was still clipped in and when I went to move to the side, it totally threw me off kilter and I fell over. It all looked pretty harmless at first. Just a little knee scrape and a bruised ego, but I managed another two repeats and a full climb to Champlain. The next day was a completely different story. 

The next day I had a huge welt on my butt and my left shoulder/trap/neck was a mess. All knotted up from when I put my hand out to break my fall. Shoulder and neck mobility was considerably limited for a few days and I didn't swim/bike or run at the fear of exacerbating it. 

Thankfully I had an appt. with my physio already lined up for tonite so she took care of it with some dry needling. Still sore right now after having the knots released but tomorrow it will likely be good to go again. 

Side note: I recently got new clip-less pedals (speedplay). I blame that for my fall. They have a lot more float (aka : wiggle room) than I'm used to so that's why I thought I was unclipped when I really wasn't. Anywho, all this to say the new pedals are awesome. The shoe that accompanies them is a lot stiffer than my old shoes so power transfer from leg-pedal-bike is a lot more efficient. I'm a whole two gears lower on my hill climbs. Booyah!