TRIng to Survive: 5/1/11

Growing up I always thought I was horrible at athletics and thought I would never get faster or better even if I worked at it. Of course I was wrong, I mean I'll never go pro, but I have definately improved from where I started. Upon the completion of my first olympic triathlon I thought I would take a look at my old times and reflect on how I've improved and set some goals.

My first long Sprint: Luna Bar Tri at Rancho Seco Park

My love of endurance athletics began with my completion of my first century ride in Solvang. So my first area of focus is the bike. Cycling tends to be my strongest event so I'd like to make it a little stronger. During my second long sprint tri I averaged a 16.8 pace for 20 miles, now this is actually faster than my pace from Wildflower, but Wildflower has several rolling hills that slow me down to 16.2. I would like to improve my time for the Pleasanton California International Triathlon by at least 1mph on the bike. I plan to do this not only by training, but by getting a better bike.
Right now I ride a 2008 fuji finest 2.0 with purple flowers. Although I love my bike it weighs a ton. It is aluminum with a carbon fork and has all Tiagra Shimano components except the rear derailer which is a Shimano 105 derailer. If I lighten my load a bit I'll be able to fly a little faster. I have a few bikes in mind and I might possibly head in the tri bike direction, but as for now I'm more of a road cyclist

Now for the swim, during the Luna Bar Tri I swam 800 meters in 17:48 which means I may have swam an olympic at that time in 32 minutes or slower. During this event I struggled, went out too fast, and even resorted to back stroking. Luckily with the help of tri-valley masters and Pleasanton Club sport masters I managed to cut my time down. This past weekend I swam faster than I predicted at a bit over 28 minutes. Right now I've really only been getting in the pool 2x a week and I've been neglecting masters swim so I really am going to try and push myself to go to masters and get in the water 2x or more. This is the perfect time of year to work on my swim because the weather is nice to test out the open water. I'll have the summer off so if anyone wants to head to Shadow Cliffs to swim open water hit me up. My goal is to cut off 30 seconds to a minute on my time.

As for the run, I have improved tremendously on the run. I went from running a 10:35 pace for 4 miles at Luna to a 8:48 pace at Wildflower. My half marathon has gone from 1:51:57 a 8:33 pace to a 8:08 pace at primos to a 1:41: 57 a 7:47 pace. I have even dropped a full minute off my 5k time. This year I'll be marathoning again at CIM in December so I'll really be focusing on my run come august. I'd like to work on improving my half marathon while I work on my marathon and I'm trying to decide which one to do this fall so if you have any suggestions please let me know. I would like to cut down my half by about 5 seconds per mile meaning a 1:40:52 half marathon. I've learned that I can't really force it or I'll blow up so I'm praying to the running gods to keep me healthy and help me improve my speed, but I feel as though I'm really going to have to increase my mileage to meet this goal. So here I go!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, my stomach is dropping, yep folks that means it is Wildflower! One of the most popular and most difficult races around, hosted by the students of my alma mater Cal Poly SLO. Nick headed out to get my grandfather's RV in Placerville a few days before our departure so we wouldn't exactly be roughing it, but when you camp out 3 days before your big race you want to be fairly comfortable.
At 2:00p.m Thursday I raced off from work to meet Nick, Ryan, Glenn and Eric in Walnut Creek to load up the RV and head out. By 4 p.m. we were on our way hoping for as little traffic as possible. Now I usually have a lot of pre-race anxiety, but not this time, after feeling a bit sick throughout the week, having Nick break his clavicle, and only getting two workouts in for the whole week, I had only one goal in mind, SURVIVE! We arrived in Bradley around 9p.m., set up camp, and headed to bed.

On friday we all started to get our act together, ate breakfast and headed out for the festival area. So people always say Wildflower is hard and they will go on and on about how hard the course is and give a detailed explanation of what miles to watch out for, but what they don't usually tell you about the hills you have to battle to get to the festival area or how if you lose someone it is about as hard to find them as it is to find someone at disneyland because of the lack of cell phone reception for anyone except Verizon carriers (Glenn and myself were the only ones with steady reception). Anyway, we picked up our packets, t-shirts, and swim caps and this is where I was designated POWDER BLUE. This was it I was really doing this race, but I got a little nervous upon running into a fellow FOMO friend in my age group who had a white cap. Apparently I was in the faster group of my age group, which scared me a bit because my swim was no where near faster group status, but I figured no point in worrying about it now. After checking out all the displays we took the shuttle back to camp and waited for my awesome friends and wonderful spectators Mary, Tom, and the new puppy who has yet to have a name. The afternoon was filled with bocce ball, ladder golf and laziness.

Saturday was the big day for some Forward Motion athletes as they took on the half iron course. We got up bright and early to see the pros take off and cheer on Leanda Cave a FOMO friend. After seeing the pros blow through the swim we changed locations to watch the bike take off and then headed back to camp to see the run. We were entertained by a Wildflower record holder who decided to yell PENIS! as he passed us. After cheering on Leanda at mile 11 (Women's overall winner) we decided to rest our legs and call it a day. I went for a short 2 mile run to loosen up my legs and a quick ride to make sure everything worked on my bike and then carboloaded my evening away. Of course, it wouldn't be wildflower without the Cal Poly coeds jogging through camp completely NUDE.

Eric, Nick and I purple caps head out long before me

Now came Sunday, it was my turn to have at it. I was estimating it taking me 3 hours to complete the race so I coordinated various locations with my friends and family and then headed off to transition. After being branded with my race number, finding my rack with a very intimidating woman next to me and my morning warm-up jog, I stretched, grabbed my wetsuit and headed off to hang out with Nick since I wouldn't be starting until 10:10. Here is where all the nerves set in, I was trying to take deep breaths as Nick told me "You'll do great!" I still worried about my powder blue status, but my nerves were occupied by a few pre-race kodak moments.

Ryan is hoping his 3 swim sessions pay off

The groups headed out before me

The beautiful weather and the transition area

I am somewhere out there

Glenn would be the first to take off so he headed down to the water while Kat tried to calm my nerves with her positive energy. As the guys got in the water 1 by one I stood on the sidelines cheering them on when they reached the shore until it was finally here, my turn.

Before you start you get a few minutes to swim out and feel the water and then come back in for the horn. I figured my swim is not very strong so I got close to the back. I tried to shake all my nerves out and then it blew, I was off. I tried to settle into my stroke and with every blow someone hit me with I just prayed I wouldn't get a kick to the face, saying to myself "not the goggles, not the goggles." Before I knew it I was around the first bouy. I felt great, I was passing people blue caps, purple caps, bouy after bouy until finally I was back on shore. The water was fairly calm which I think I was lucky especially considering the heat I would be battling soon enough. I raced out of the water thinking "Goggles on head, unzip, take off top of wetsuit, now cap and goggles, don't run into anyone." After dodging everyone in transition I finally made it to my spot. I raced to get my socks and shoes on and then off I went (yes I wear socks, I'm not that hard core yet).

I loved every minute on the bike, I felt great, I got road kill after road kill while old men said "You better be 20," "you're just going to pass me like that," "way to make me feel bad," I yelled "great job," "go team," and "you look great," as I passed competitors. I worked hard on every hill and enjoyed every downhill. At last, my bike was done and then I cringed as I saw the run coming.

I kept saying "You can do this, you got this Lauren, keep going." Then off I went on the run, with water bottle in hand knowing the heat and hills were obstacles I would have to takle. I started slow and just kept going feeling good that I was passing people. I saw Nick on mile 1 which made me smile and push a little harder. I knew though mile 3 was the butt kicker so I needed to conserve some energy. I made it up the first difficult one throwing water on myself along the way, then came mile 3 and half way up I had to take a walk break with my hip hurting, but I pressed on and eventually got a bit of a second wind. Just as I wanted to walk again I saw Mary and Tom cheering me on and thought well I can't walk now someone would see me. Just a half mile until the down hill and I'll be off my legs will just follow the lead. Then it came, the long downhill as I breathed a sigh of relief it was almost over. I came in seeing the clock and the finish line. I gave the last bit of effort I had buried in me and crossed the finish line. I did it! I finished my first olympic tri WILDFLOWER! And if this post wasn't long enough here are my stats and pictures.
total time: 2:59:46 Swim: 28:57 Bike: 1:31:56 Run: 54:38
28th in my age group 104 in my gender and 542 overall
For my age 50th on my swim 27th on my bike 32nd on the run