Runner Leana (the retired blog)

Blog on the move

2011-11-12T10:27:00.001-07:00

After 4.5 years of blogging here I've finally decided to move to a new blog address:

http://runnerleana.blogspot.com/

I'm sticking with Blogger but I think this address is a little bit more "me." Please update your Google Readers and your bookmarks and join me at my new home!

Ironman Canada 2012

2011-11-09T17:32:00.001-07:00

I have to admit that I have been rather cagey about this whole Ironman Canada 2012 thing. From the moment registration opened in August I’ve thought about signing up. If you can remember back then (from the only post I wrote in August) I knew that signing up right when general entry opened was not the right thing to do.

I had so many questions I needed to answer. I’d taken so much time off that running and working out was really hard. I had no idea how difficult or how easy it might be to fall back into training. You ask a lot of your body as you build towards Ironman and I had lost my base training that I had going into training for my first Ironman. As I continued to get back in to regular training the legs came back and the workouts started to feel better and better. I started to believe that I could be ready. Thankfully I had quite a bit of time between when general entry closed and when the community fund slots would open up to gain confidence back in my athletic ability. Friends and old teammates would ask me if I had signed up for Ironman and my response would be, “No, I’m not registered for Ironman at the moment.”

With my body and brain feeling more ready came the next question to answer. I want to train for Ironman and I want to be a good wife. The first time I signed up for Ironman I was single so it was easy to be selfish and say “I want to do this for me and it isn’t going to affect anyone.” I now know that signing up for Ironman is really not an individual decision. During training you are busy, tired, grumpy and hungry! It can be difficult to be the best friend/girlfriend/fiancé/wife during this time. I’m going to do my best to ensure that I take time out for us during training. The Husband is terribly supportive of me racing again (in fact it is one of the things he loves about me) so that helps to make this crazy journey a bit easier.

So I’m sure you are wondering about why I wanted to sign up for 2012. After all, didn’t I say that Ironman will always be there? Why race in 2012 instead of waiting until 2013? The truth is I really want to race with my friends. Ironman is a big journey and having close friends going through it at the same time as you is huge. My closest girlfriends and teammates Tara, Kelly and Pam are all racing in 2012. I would have been really sad to miss out on this experience with them. They certainly reminded me of how much they wanted me to race with them as well on a fairly regular basis these past few months. It feels great to have such amazing friends.

Photo by the amazingly talented Sakura Photography

On August 26th, 2012 we’ll be on the beach together in Penticton…no doubt wearing decidedly different clothing. I’m looking forward to it!

Here we go again…

2011-11-07T20:11:00.001-07:00

There is so much to say, but I’ll let the picture do most of the talking for the moment.Ironman Canada 2012. Let’s do it!!

Immediately after registration the Husband said, “I’m so excited for you!”

I said, “I think I’m going to barf!”

Banff Winterstart 5 Miler–Race Report

2011-11-06T21:35:00.001-07:00

This weekend the Husband and I set out to Banff so that I could run the Winterstart 5 Miler on Saturday night. The Husband was right in the middle of working night shifts and he managed to get one night off to come out to the mountains with me. After he finished work early Saturday morning and had a bit of a nap we hit the road.With the race starting at 7 pm I was in a quandary about what and when to eat. A twitter friend suggested small meals. I had oatmeal in the am. When we hit the road around 2:00 we popped by Starbucks so I could grab an eggnog latte (maybe not part of the meal plan but boy is it yummy) and a cheese and fruit box.I had a couple pieces of apple along with a couple pieces of cheese – just enough for a little snack.Soon we were at the Banff National Park gates! It was a gorgeous day…After checking in to our hotel we made our way to the Elk & Oarsman for a late lunch/early dinner. I really wanted pasta with tomato sauce and chicken. Thankfully they had that option on the kids menu. Yup…33 and ordering from the kids menu!Beer is carb loading, right? And yes, I know. The Husband and I are totally matchy matchy with our striped sweaters over white t-shirts. That was not planned. I ate maybe half of my pasta and maybe half my side green salad. It wasn’t amazing, but it hit the spot.I then had to make a quick stop at the packet pick up to change my race registration into my name. I missed officially registering for the race but I managed to find someone selling their spot on the Calgary Road Runners website. The host hotel, the Caribou Lodge, was decorated for the event with brightly spray painted running shoes. After taking care of everything we want back to our hotel, the Fox Inn and Suites, to relax before the race. Our one bedroom suite was awesome. A huge and comfy King bed……with a sofa, TV and kitchenette attached. It was perfect for us since the Husband was on night shift time and was not ready to sleep at the same time as I was. Anyhoo, back to the race report.The sun set, it was about -6C and it was time to get ready for the race! I layered up but I planned to wear my Run: Swiftly long sleeve tee, my Team Tri Life jacket (which is crazy warm), tights, Smartwool socks, a toque and gloves. I also brought along a bottle of water to sip on and a gel to eat 10 minutes before go time.Before I knew it, it was time to line up for the race!Winterstart is an out and back course. You run 1.5 miles out of town, turn right to run up Tunnel Mountain for a mile, then turn around and run back. I really wanted to run a sub-11:00/mi pace and to run that hill as best as possible. I had to walk a couple of times but I felt pretty strong overall heading up. I tried to take advantage of the downhill and wanted to keep going strong to the finish line. I had a couple of walk breaks in there, but overall not too bad. It was going to be tight to come in under that 11:00/mi goal! I tried to pick it up over the last 1/4 mile…and when I crossed the finish line my Garmin said 54:45. Sweet! The Husband found me and we made our way to the after party in the parking lot of the Caribou Lodge. I didn’t go in search of food too much, but I did find a post-race beer!We hung out with some teammates for a bit, then went to the Chili’s in our hotel for a bite to eat. The good news is my stomach felt great on the run so what, when and how much I ate obviously worked. Unfortunately my stomach was not interested in any more beverages or food after the race so it was off to bed for me. All in all it was a really fun weekend in Banff and I really enjoyed the race. It was a nice little weekend away!As for the official results…

54:47 (10:58/mi)
Overall 1051 out of 1410
F3039 243/330

Three Things Thursday

2011-11-03T10:10:00.001-06:00

One of my goals for November (that I completely forgot to write down) is to incorporate core work into my routine more often. I already get a few minutes of core at my Tuesday and Thursday strength classes, so 10 minutes after my Sunday spins seems like the perfect time to add some extra work in. The problem is - 10 minutes is a long time! And you can only do so many crunches. What are some of your favourite and most effective core exercises? Please feel free to share!

Image by Sarah A. Friedman/via Runner's World

Through the wonders of twitter last week I won a free Chef's tasting dinner from Home Tasting Room here in Calgary for the husband and I. We sat at the eating bar and got to chat with the chef about where he gets his food from and it was truly an amazing experience. Hot house tomatoes with wild arugula and local mozarella, bison tartare, slow cooked lamb shank with bone marrow mashed potatoes...it was all amazing. If you live in Calgary I highly recommend it! Because I was too busy scarfing the yummy food down to take pictures here's a view of their open kitchen.

Image via Home Tasting Room

I'm racing this weekend! On Saturday night I'm running the Banff Winterstart 5 Miler. I last ran this race back in 2007 (old race report here). Back then I ran it in 51:30. I'm not quite back to low 10:00 miles (I don't think) so we'll see how I do this weekend.

Image via The Tech Shop

October in Review, November Goals

2011-11-01T12:25:00.000-06:00

Can you believe it is November already? Where has this year gone? It seems to be flying by in the blink of an eye.

My goals for October were to:

Continue to get comfortable with running again. I signed up for two 10Ks in October to keep me motivated.
Create a training plan that incorporated three days of running, up to three days of spinning and two strength workouts per week. Attempt to follow that plan!

I did a pretty good job of following the plan I laid out for myself and I felt great along the way. I wasn't sure if that many workouts would be asking too much of my body but I feel like every single one of my workouts has been a quality one. The spinning and strength training is definitely helping my running. I can tell that slowly but surely my legs are starting want to go a bit faster.

In October I:

Ran 57.82 mi in 11 hours, 33 minutes
Cycled 9 hours, 9 minutes
Went to 7 early morning strength classes

My hopes and plans for November are to:

Start building the mileage on the long runs. It is time to start building to the Disney Half Marathon in January!
Keep on doing what I'm doing with spinning and strength training.
Focus on what I'm eating a bit more. I'm eating out more often than I'd like. I'd really like to start doing a better job at meal planning and having things on hand so I don't have to resort to eating out as an easy fix.
Drink more water!
Monitor my health and wellness. I've been using the Sleep Cycle app on my iPhone to monitor how much sleep I'm getting and its quality. I definitely notice a difference between getting 6 hours and 7 hours of sleep and the alarm system on the app means that I'm waking up at just the right time. I'm jumping out of bed instead of hitting snooze. I also recently ordered the Withings wi-fi body scale (awesomely reviewed by DC Rainmaker) to help monitor my weight. Of course all of the sleep and weight data then goes in to Training Peaks so I can see what happens with that and my training.

What are your goals for November? Do you have any tips or tricks to help me with my trickiest goal of all - focusing on eating better and not eating out as much?

Who doesn’t love a photo card?

2011-10-30T09:16:00.001-06:00

Do you send out Christmas cards to your family and friends? I love getting photo cards in the mail (my aunt sends one every year) and I’ve sent a few myself out in the past. In fact, this was our card last year, courtesy of Shutterfly.The quality of the card is amazing. The picture is vivid and bright and the cardstock is thick and great quality. As someone who spent a lot of time thinking about paper quality for wedding projects I know what I’m talking about.

With so many gorgeous wedding pictures to use, how about sending a gorgeous holiday card like this to our family and friends?Or this one, that shows our first look in frame by frame detail?Or how about this card that has a few more pictures to show what else the Husband and I have been up to this year besides getting married?Or maybe my mom and dad would love an awesome picture mug to drink their coffee out of every morning? (Because seriously, how cute is my niece, aka their granddaughter?)So if you are looking for some fun and unique holiday cards, Christmas cards, gifts or even calendars go check out Shutterfly!

If you are a blogger and you’d like a chance at 25 holiday cards courtesy of Shutterfly, then go here to register by November 11th.

Halloween Howl 10K–Race Report

2011-10-29T23:03:00.001-06:00

For the purposes of telling my story (and in the interest of full disclosure) I probably ought to fess up on what my race times have been like lately. Since…you know…I casually forgot to leave that out of my Melissa’s race report.

Back on September 24th I finished Melissa’s in 1:16:57. Now granted, there was a huge hill to climb in the middle of the race and it was my first race in awhile so I’m not disappointed. That was the fastest I could run that day and Kelly and Pam were amazing company on the race course. I don’t think I would have wanted to race without them. Quite honestly I was about ready to bail on doing the race until Kelly asked me to run it with her for fun.

Three weeks later on November 9th I toed the line for the Thanksgiving Memory 10K run in Calgary.Given that this course was a lot flatter than Melissa’s I just really wanted to do better than that time. I didn’t really have a plan for how to race it but I knew there would be walk breaks in there. Starting out I was in with a big shmozzle of people. There was someone who had evidently set up some kind of a workout or goal in their Garmin (be it following pace or heart rate). Whatever they were doing, they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do and their Garmin yelled at them about every 30 seconds to either speed up or slow down. Boy that was annoying to listen to!

Anyhow, the route was a straight forward out and back. I felt pretty good on the way out but I definitely slowed down and had to walk more on the way back. I finished in 1:12:02, a definite improvement over Melissa’s three weeks ago.

Two weeks later it was back to the line to race the Halloween Howl 10K. The route would be almost exactly the same as the Thanksgiving race, except this time I had some friends for company.Once again I didn’t start out with much of a plan, just goals. Pam and I figured we’d hang out together and I figured I’d see if maybe I could keep up with Kelly. Kelly planned on running 9:1s with her husband Mitch helping to pace her.I got a bit caught up in the excitement and the crowd and started a bit fast, but Pam reigned me in. Soon we settled in behind Kelly and Mitch. The pace was a bit faster than two weeks ago so I made it my mission to just hang with her and not focus on much else. I felt strong on the way out but I was still a bit worried. I fell apart a bit on the second half of my previous race and I really wanted to run the entire thing as consistently as possible.

At the turnaround Pam decided it was time to aim for a negative split so she took off with our friend Danny. Kelly, Mitch and I hung with them for a bit but then we decided to settle back in to our previous pace. I think Kelly and I were both a bit worried about blowing up. Pam and Danny were strong all the way through the second half of the race.Kelly has been super supportive and encouraging and we’ve been running a lot together recently. She thinks I’m back to my old speedier self although I’m not quite convinced that I’m entirely there yet. As she started to struggle on the way back I wanted to stick with her and to try and encourage her as much as possible. I tried to focus on remembering the great runs we’ve had lately and to try and emulate that same feeling. I was hoping that she’d hang with me on the final sprint to the finish but unfortunately I think I took off a bit too much.When it was all said and done I was really happy with my race. I felt a lot better on this race than two weeks ago…plus I beat my time! I finished in 1:07:54 which was a definite improvement from the Thanksgiving race. I owe many thanks to my friends who kept me company along the way.

Next up is the Banff Winterstart 5 Miler next weekend!

*PS – If you are reading this post in Google Reader I have finally updated my header and blog layout ever so slightly. Have a look and let me know what you think! Here’s the old header, so not too different….

Testing the Waters

2011-10-23T17:39:00.001-06:00

This week was a bit of a trial. I wanted to see how my legs and body would respond to the training schedule I laid out for myself. Here’s how the week went down:

Monday: I met Kelly for an easy 45 min run at lunch, running 4:1 intervals.

Tuesday: I started the day off with a 45 min strength/body sculpting class that felt great. In the evening it was back to Tuesday night spins with my old triathlon coach at Bow Cycle. These workouts are never easy! I was glad that I had been back on the bike a couple of times before this class. Overall I felt pretty great on the bike and it was great to see my old teammates again.

Wednesday: Kelly talked me into joining her for her run workout. It was a 10 minute warm up followed by 5 x (3:00 @ 10K race pace/2:00 recovery), followed by cool down. I thought my legs would be zonked after a big day on Tuesday but I actually felt really strong on this run. Our five intervals were all really consistent too. Good stuff!

Thursday: Another early morning body sculpting class followed by a short spin at home.

Friday: A well deserved rest day!

Saturday: A 70 minute spin.

Sunday: The Halloween Howl 10K! I hoped to do better than when I raced the Thanksgiving Memory 10K two weeks ago. I’ve been feeling great and more like my old self these past two weeks so I figured that would be a good sign. How did I do? You’ll just have to wait for the race report! (…although if you follow me on twitter you probably already know how it went…)

All in all I felt great this week. The only change I plan on making is taking out a brick run after my weekend spin. It is just too chilly around here these days that I’m not feeling that motivated to bundle up and run outside after a spin.

Run: 2:36:10
Spin: 3:29:35
Strength: 1:30:00
TOTAL: 7:35:44

Time for new shoes!

2011-10-21T07:00:00.001-06:00

My poor ol’ cycling shoes are a little worse for wear. Way back in July 2010 I was at my Ironman Canada training camp on a ride from Penticton, up Richter Pass and Yellow Lake. There was some construction happening on the highway we were riding on and we had to ride through a massive mud puddle. I was covered in mud, there was mud on my helmet and my shoes were all dirtied up.

Most importantly I also came to the realization that my cycling shoes are also a size too small. They fit fine initially but as my feet swell I can tell that they aren’t as roomy as I’d like. It is time for some new cycling shoes!

I ordered the updated Shimano WT-52s from Superfly Cycles. Luckily they arrived just in time for our first spin class at Bow Cycle this Tuesday! Aren’t they pretty?They felt great at spin class and on the bike last night.

Are you looking for some new cycling shoes? Superfly Cycles has all of their 2011 styles on for 20% off right now. And if you are in Canada the shipping is super easy and pretty inexpensive.

Happy Friday all!

Spin Studio: Resurrected

2011-10-16T21:35:00.001-06:00

Ages ago I had set up a little spin studio in my garage. I had a TV in there, a DVD player, a small player to plug an iPod into… It was pretty sweet.When the husband moved in the spin studio disappeared as his moving boxes needed a place to reside. When we had a garage sale a few months ago we took the opportunity to get rid of the TV and DVD player since I didn’t actually like watching TV while spinning. Eventually all of our bikes just lined up on the side of the garage…the tires going flat from disuse (*tear*).I’ve still got my Ironman Canada number on the bike.What on earth is in this bottle? I’m afraid to find out given how long it has been in there (luckily it was just water).My old spin studio. Time to clean up!I found my old gear check back from Ironman, with my bike helmet, gloves, CO2 cartridges, deodorant, Body Glide…I swapped the rear tire out with my trainer tire. I forgot how hard it was to do this!Finally the bike had been cleaned up, set up and ready to go. I picked a short but sweet workout and I had forgotten how good it felt to be on the bike. All done!It is almost hard to believe that fall is here and spin classes at Bow Cycle start up this week. Bring it on!

A Goal Has Been Set!

2011-10-13T22:27:00.001-06:00

I haven’t had a lot of time to blog this week but I have so many things to catch you up on. I set my spin studio up again! I raced a 10K last weekend! But first and foremost, I’ve been working on a goal and a plan to reach that goal.

If you’ve followed my blog for awhile you’ll know that I need to have something tangible to work towards. That carrot on the stick for me?

Image via Disney Sports News

The 2012 Disney World Half Marathon. My mom is racing the Goofy Challenge next year so I figured it would be fun to tag along for the Disney Half. The husband has never been to Disney World before so this should be fun for the both of us! I wanted to keep my goal tangible and achievable…hence running the Half. I’ll just cheer my mom on at the full.

I needed to come up with a plan to get me to the start line. I spent quite a bit of time looking over my old programs where I was building to a half marathon under my old coach. I followed a similar build in activity to my old programs. I set it all up in Training Peaks.

I planned to take September and October getting used to running and if everything felt okay I figured I’d be good to go for signing up for the race. I then created a plan with three days a week of running (plus one brick run). Two mid-week runs and building long runs on the weekend. Three spins per week (including Team Tri Life’s Tuesday night spin class that starts next week). Two strength sessions.

As another motivator I signed up for Amanda of Run to Finish’s Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge. If you are looking for something to keep you on track during the holiday season then maybe you should check out the challenge too!

Cursing the Fitness Ball

2011-10-05T20:35:00.001-06:00

Back in August the husband and I had a garage sale to make an attempt to clear out some of the clutter. In the sale pile was my fitness ball that I hadn’t used in ages and couldn’t figure out how to pump up. I sold my fitness ball that day for a whopping $0.50 along with a set of wine charms to a couple who assumed the wine charms were jewellery and not for alcoholic beverages (since they asked me what the heck they were after they paid me for them). I’ll be honest, I’m kind of sad that ball is gone now even though it was flatter than heck.

I really want to incorporate strength training on a regular basis as I get back to things. In fact, strength training is taking the place of where I probably would have fit swimming in. I have a membership to the gym in the basement of my office and they have a 45 minute 6:30 am strength class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have been to three classes so far and it has been a different instructor every time. This Tuesday the regular instructor was back to teaching.

She has this signature workout that involves using a stability ball.

image via duraBall

You start off nice and easy, sitting on the ball. Then you start bouncing on the ball. Bounce, stand up. Bounce, stand up. Lather, rinse, repeat. Fast. 15 seconds in and my legs are on fire. Where has all of my leg strength gone? This bouncing – reverse squat routine goes on for the entire duration of a Lady Gaga song. The instructor is grinning and bouncing on her ball and I just want to sit on my ball and whimper. I left class feeling a little dejected, like I hadn’t given my workout my all because of this whole bouncy ball routine.

I have made it my goal to get this. I know this is good for me! And given that if I reach any kind of uphill on a run outside and my legs just die I know I need to get my leg strength back. Between regular strength training classes and getting back on the bike I’ll get there.

Oh, and speaking of this running/spinning/strength training plan thing I’m working on, I decided to check out Training Peaks for the first time. I lost my entire online log when the Buckeye Outdoors server went down sometime in the past year so it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to try a new log out now. Did you know that you can a 3 month premium membership via Trinero for $24 ($49 value) right now? There is a freebie option for Training Peaks, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to see what going premium gets you. As for what this training plan is or is for…you’ll just have to wait for that one!

Melissa’s 10K Road Race–Race Report

2011-10-02T20:28:00.001-06:00

Can you believe it – I have a race report for you! I have run Melissa’s every year since 2007 so it feels like a bit of a tradition. I signed up way back in February and almost forgot about the race last weekend. Truth be told, I also contemplated not running it this year. I was almost ready to bail when my friend Kelly asked if I would run the 10K with her as a fun run. Who can say no to that?

My friend Pam was swayed by the idea of a fun run and my mom also snagged a bib at the last minute. It was a gorgeous day in Banff – definitely the warmest I’ve ever seen at the start of the race. We met all of our friends at the start and grabbed a quick picture between trips to the porta-potties. Kelly was awesome. To keep things fun she brought Pam and I baggies of gummy candies as little rewards for each kilometer finished.Soon it was time to line up for the start! We had agreed to run 3:1 intervals and to walk the big hill. Gotta keep it fun! We were on our first walk break when I spied my dad with the camera so we picked it up to run for the photo op.The route was different from previous years with a different climb up Tunnel Mountain. No matter how you slice it, the hike up Tunnel Mountain is a long one! We agreed to run the downhill and to keep our minds occupied we started playing a game. We all went through the alphabet, coming up with different foods we wanted to eat once we crossed the finish line. Apples…burgers…quesadillas….x-tra crispy fried chicken!

Before I knew it we were down the hill and I spotted my husband and my dad.We had a short out and back section left to go, then it would be on the the finish line. I was fading here. How long has it been since I ran 10K?? A long time.The girls were awesome and we stuck together. We would cross that finish line together!!After we were done we managed to find the rest of our friends, plus we found the beer line too…While I may be a long ways away from my 55:10 10K PR pace it felt great to race again. In fact, I went home and signed up for a couple more 10Ks in October!

Thanks again for making this race fun Kelly and Pam! I really appreciated the company and motivation along the way!

Foretelling the Weather?

2011-09-28T22:13:00.001-06:00

Knock on wood I’ve never broken a bone apart from a fractured nose when I was a kid (I fainted and hit my nose on my bedside table when I was pretty young). I remember reading The Babysitters Club and one of the characters falls off a swing and breaks her leg. From then on her leg aches whenever the weather changes.

Image via goodreads.com

Just over five years ago I decided that after years of not running I wanted to train for a marathon that was five months away. Guess what? It was too much too soon and I developed a stress fracture in my right ankle. Since then I’ve noticed that my right ankle gets achy when there is a shift in the weather. Kind of weird, eh? Now that I’m essentially starting at zero and trying to get back into running regularly I need to be really aware of not doing too much too soon. I’m a little paranoid about hurting that same ankle again….so no speed work and no hills until I’m fully back up to snuff!

Yesterday my ankle was so achy!! Every once in awhile I took a look at it…any swelling? What have I been doing…have I overdone it? How would it feel the next day? Is the weather changing or is there something else going on? Thankfully I woke up this morning and my ankle was back to normal and it was grey and drizzly out. Ah ha, the weather had shifted from sunny and warm to fall-like.

So the ankle is all good but it is a good reminder to really keep my running build in check to avoid injury. Have you every had a stress fracture before, and do you notice if it is sensitive to the weather even years after healing?

Running in Las Vegas

2011-09-25T08:44:00.001-06:00

Last weekend the husband and I were in Las Vegas for my cousin’s wedding. We were there for five days and it was quite the trip! We got a phenomenal deal to stay at the Bellagio and I may or may not have tried the $20 trick upon check in. This was the view from our room:The hotel is gorgeous and the room was really nice. The best part of staying at the Bellagio was being able to watch the fountain shows from our room. We never ate at our hotel at all – instead opting for more casual meals at the Paris or the Forum Shops and fancier meals at other restaurants on the strip. Probably our most amazing dinner was at Tom Collichio’s craftsteak.I admit it, we are huge Top Chef fans and the head judge’s restaurant did not disappoint. We also went to Firefly on Paradise (delicious tapas and pitchers of sangria), Scott Conant’s Scarpetta in the Cosmopolitan Hotel (delicious, highly recommend), and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in the Venetian (also very nice).

We drank delicious cocktails – I highly recommend the Fusion Latin Mixology Bar in the Palazzo and our favourite, the second floor of the Chandelier Bar in the Cosmopolitan. There are three levels to the Chandelier, each very different. The second level is where the bartenders get super creative. Tell them your favourite liquors, if you like sweet, sour, savoury and they will mix a unique drink for you.We also took in a few shows (Cirque du Soleil’s O and Mystere – call and ask for Canadian resident discounts), we walked the strip and we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower.We even spotted Elvis as he was officiating my cousin’s wedding.We checked out the Welcome to Las Vegas sign.And we ventured outside of Vegas by spending the afternoon exploring Red Rock Canyon (only 20 minutes west from Las Vegas).I also took advantage of the fact that running shoes are so much cheaper in the US than in Canada ($140 versus $200…yikes!) and picked up a new pair of Asics Kayano 17s.Then I put them to test while running the strip one morning! I went out around 8 am when much of the strip was still shady, so even though it was hot out it was still relatively comfortable. Outside the Monte Carlo.Over the Brooklyn Bridge at New York New York.On my way to the Excalibur.As I ran past the Planet Hollywood I realized I needed water. I had hoped to find a bathroom and water fountain near the entrance of the shops but no dice. Instead I ducked into the casino and drank out of a tap. Blech, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do! Then as I ran past the Flamingo we got detoured off the sidewalk and into the smoky casino. That was interesting! Outside the Venetian.And the Palazzo with the Wynn in the background.At Treasure Island – time to turn around.At Caesar’s Palace. From the Bellagio down to the Excalibur, then up to the Palazzo, over to Treasure Island and back to the Bellagio was about 4.1 miles. It was nice and quiet out there with tons of runners. This was my first trip to Vegas where I’ve actually been up early enough (and motivated enough) to go out for a run.

Hiking: Tower Lake and Rockbound Lake

2011-09-14T00:00:00.001-06:00

On Sunday we decided to tackle a slightly longer hike in Banff National Park – Tower Lake and Rockbound Lake.The first 4.5 km is a good climb on on a wide path through the trees. Every once in awhile you get a fleeting glimpse of the mountains through a break in the trees, but otherwise it looks like this for the first half of the hike.As you keep going you start to see some neat improvements that have been made to the trail in some of the wet spots. Eventually the pathway narrows.The trees give way to meadows and views of the mountains.And wildflowers are in bloom.Finally 2.5 hours in at 7.4 km (4.6 mi) we reach destination #1 – Tower Lake!At this point we were ready for lunch! We picked a comfy spot with a good view and spread out our picnic. We had my father-in-law over for dinner the night before and we brought some leftovers for lunch: grilled beef tenderloin, fresh buns, roasted eggplant dip, pita chips and some sliced red peppers.

With fuller bellies it was time to continue on to Rockbound Lake! Only 1 km left to go!Check out the view of Tower Lake on the trail up to Rockbound Lake.The trail definitely gets more difficult on this final stretch. In fact, just after this point I said that Rockbound Lake better be beautiful because it was certainly tough work getting up there.Finally, we finished climbing, entered a meadow and Rockbound Lake came into view.It was well worth it! It was such a beautiful clear day and it was so stunning.We couldn’t stay too long as we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to make it back to the car. All in all, it was a stunning and amazing hike on a beautiful day in September!

Tower Lake and Rockbound Lake in Banff National Park, AB
11.69 mi (Round Trip)
3,956 feet of elevation gain
2.5 hours to Tower Lake, 3 hours to Rockbound Lake, 5 hours 20 minutes round trip (not including our lunch break)

Breakfast of Champions

2011-09-12T20:30:00.001-06:00

Now that I’m working hard to get back into things I know I really need to pay attention to what I’m eating. It all starts with breakfast.

I definitely eat breakfast every day, but I generally wait to eat until I get to work. I want something healthy and filling because if I just have toast I’m hungry 30 minutes later. I soak some oatmeal overnight in double the amount of milk, along with some cinnamon and a touch of dried fruit. At work I pour the oatmeal over half a diced apple and some almond butter.It keeps me full all the way until my lunch time workout so that cuts down on my desire to run and grab a coffee. I view that as a success so far!

I’m curious though, what is your favourite healthy breakfast? Do you have any tips to share with me?

Hiking: Sulphur Mountain

2011-09-06T20:48:00.001-06:00

On Saturday morning the Husband and I decided to tackle a relatively short hike right in Banff, the hike up Sulphur Mountain. You can hike up and down, or you can decide to take the gondola down from the top instead. You have to buy your ticket down from the base. This was our lucky day, the ride down from the top was free (normally $15 I think). There is a short walk through the parking lot for the gondola before you reach the trail.There were some great views from the parking lot! The trail goes through the trees, following a bunch of switchbacks up the mountain. Every once in awhile the trees clear and you can see the gondolas passing overhead.The trail is a pretty popular one and there were a couple of groups ignoring the “please keep on the trail” signs. This miffed the Husband and I a little…Finally, we made it to the top!Thank goodness for the snack shop at the top – those salt and vinegar chips tasted amazing!!!Check out the views from the top!Shall we catch the gondola down??

Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park, AB
3.56 mi trail (one way)
2,400 feet elevation gain
1 hour, 45 min (one way)

Hiking: C-Level Cirque

2011-09-05T17:31:00.001-06:00

Just because running isn’t that easy right now doesn’t mean that there aren’t other ways to get my fitness back, right? The Husband and I were out in Banff for part of the long weekend for a friend’s wedding and we figured this would be a great opportunity to get in a hike or two. We didn’t have much time so we couldn’t venture too far so we opted to revisit a hike we had done before – C-Level Cirque.

We first hiked this in September 2007. It was actually the first hike we ever went on together.

Us, way back in 2007Us, in 2011

Back then the trail was covered in snow, today it was beautiful and clear. It was also a lot steeper than I remembered it. Funny how those things tend to happen? When did this trail get harder??

As you hike up you pass these old abandoned mine shafts, plus the old building you can see in the picture above. Just past the old building there is a short trail off to the side that gets you to an amazing lookout.

You are otherwise in the trees the entire way up and it isn’t until you reach the very end of the trail that you get another glimpse of some amazing views. Here is the actual cirque (an amphitheatre-like valley head, formed at the head of a valley glacier by erosion – courtesy of Wikipedia).The views were so different this time, compared to when we were there in 2007.It felt so much bigger and impressive since we could actually see the top of it this time. All in all, a great hike!

C-Level Cirque in Banff National Park, AB
2.28 mi trail (~4.6 mi round trip)
1937 feet elevation gain
2 hours, 15 min

Confessions of a (Former) Ironman

2011-08-30T08:37:00.001-06:00

Tap, tap...is this thing still on? Dear blog readers (if there are still any of you out there), it has been seven months since my last post. I've been pretty busy in those seven months...planning a wedding, getting married...the time has flown by!
You know what I haven't been doing in those seven months? A lot of running. I can honestly say that I have not had a good run in over a year. Ugh. When those good runs weren't coming very easily post Ironman in 2010 it became easier to stop running. Now when I try to run my shins hate me, my knees hate me. I'm back at square one. Bummer. Um, it probably doesn't help that I've definitely gained weight in the past year. That would make anyone's joints hate them as you attempt to pound the pathways, right?

It is pretty hard to believe that a year ago yesterday I finished Ironman Canada. For the last few months I have not felt a burning desire to do an Ironman again. I just want to be able to train and enjoy the process, so I need to figure out what will get me back to that point. Then on Sunday I watched the live feed from Ironman Canada online. I tracked my friends that were racing and virtually cheered them on. I felt emotions well up inside of me as finishers crossed the line, arms raised in triumph, as I remembered how it felt when I finished last year. God, that was the best feeling. I went from saying, "I never want to do an Ironman again if I am going to fall off the wagon as badly as I did after the first one" to saying "I think I need some redemption on the Ironman course."

Then I found out that my previous training partners in crime for Ironman 2010, Kelly and Tara, signed up for 2012. And my good friend Pam, who I really want to train for an Ironman with, also signed up for 2012. And I soooo want to sign up.
I have a million reasons not to, the first one being that starting at square one and going to an Ironman in one year sounds like a ludicrous prospect. I really think I should focus on losing that weight I managed to put on and just get back to training and seeing how it feels. I need to have faith that if I do that the good runs will start coming back. Ironman will always be there and I want to enjoy the process to get to the start line. I'm not sure what it is going to take to get that mojo back, but I believe I can do it. It is time to start trying.

Disney World Half Marathon–Race Report

2011-01-26T20:57:00.001-07:00

The fireworks went off and it was time to get going on this half marathon!

I tried a couple of new things in this race. I wore my Garmin on my left wrist and my Timex on my right wrist. I had the Timex set to beep 4:1 intervals as I knew that would be my key to get through the race. I also decided to wear my iPod. I haven’t raced or even ran with music since…oh…2006? But I figured the music might be helpful if the going got tough.

I wanted to make it my goal to get as many pictures with characters as possible, so I was pretty delighted when I spotted Eeyore and Tigger on the side of the road. I shoulder checked, ran across to the other side of the road and nabbed a picture. Eeyore is my favourite Disney character ever, so I was happy that he was the first character I saw.I was feeling pretty warm so I had tied my heavier top around my waist. As I ran toward the Transportation and Ticket Center I hoped that I’d see my parents so I could pass it off. I also knew that my friend Maddy would be around there too, but I didn’t manage to spot anyone I knew there. Gotta love running through there though as there are so many people and it is so loud! You also don’t have to far to go to the Magic Kingdom either. Which…I probably should have remembered for the next day, but oops…

I was keeping on schedule with my walk breaks and taking in GUs every 45 minutes and I was feeling good. On to Main Street! I was again trying to scour the crowd for my folks here but no dice. I remember running down Main Street and Christmas carols were playing. A lady in front of me complained, “Why do they have to be playing my least favourite carol as I run down the street? I hate I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas!”

On to Future World and there was Buzz Lightyear! Also one of the best things about arriving in Future World is the opportunity for a real bathroom with flushing toilets and running water. Yeah, I stopped – thumbs up for bathrooms!I then had my first character picture fail as I missed the Alice in Wonderland folks by the Tea Cups! The line was long and I didn’t realize it was a line up for characters until it was too late. Oh well, on to the next folks – Peter Pan, Wendy, Captain Hook and Smee!Then around the corner where there was a lot of action by the castle. The Fairy Godmother!The Trumpets!The Ugly Stepsisters! I’m so sad that this picture is out of focus. I think it was one of my favourites from the day.And finally, Cinderella and Prince Charming! And then it was time for the highlight of the race – running through the castle!Then I spotted my parents. Let’s run over and say hello!Oh, and I can pass my long sleeve top off as well!Then the woman in front of my parents was telling me to move out of the way since I was apparently blocking a picture for her.OK, pass the top off, time to get going again!Ah yes, I did just post a serious of rather unflattering pictures just for your enjoyment! Time for more character pictures. I’m going to guess that is Tiana and Prince Naveen along with Louis the Alligator from Princess and the Frog. I haven’t seen the movie yet (although I do own it on Blu-Ray) so yes, I had to google those character names just now.Now on to Frontierland and a couple of characters from the Country Bear Jamboree. I totally felt like how they looked…Then on the way out of the Magic Kingdom I paused for a seat on the front of the train.Time for the hard part! After you leave the Magic Kingdom it gets a bit tough. You are on such a high running through the park and now you are on a pretty darn boring road running past the the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian. I had another character fail as I ran past Mary Poppins. I was on the wrong side of the road and it was just too crowded to cross. Luckily I had plenty of time to spot Donald and Goofy up ahead though.Somewhere after here I was starting to hurt. My legs were saying, “Yeah, you remember all of those long runs that we DIDN’T do? Yeah, we aren’t so happy anymore.” My quads were feeling pretty stiff. As we made our way back on to the highway the sights were becoming few and far between. This hot air balloon shaped like Epcot was pretty cool though!And the green soldier from Toy Story was a hoot as he tried to motivate the us as we ran past in his own unique way.Mile 11 – guys on stilts! No clue where these guys are from, but I was hurting (and mostly walking by now) so I was happy to stop for a picture.And the last characters on the course! Guess what, I have NO IDEA who they are! I just really wanted an excuse to stop forward motion for a bit. I’m pretty sure they must be friends with Tinkerbell but that’s about it.Finally, mile 12 just before we entered Epcot. By this point in time I was not only dealing with tired and hurting legs but I had hot spots on both of my feet. Sure, maybe I could walk the marathon with sore and tired legs but those hot spots were completely unpleasant. There was no way I would attempt the full marathon if I wasn’t going to have fun so I knew in my heart of hearts that this was it for racing.I attempted to run a bit more as we entered Epcot and then finally, the finish line was in sight. I high fived Goofy and then finally…I was done!I managed to set a new Personal Worst as I clocked in at 3:15:57. BUT I did manage to get a lot of pictures with characters and I did have fun. That being said, next time I will definitely make sure I train for something like this. Bad Leana for falling off the bandwagon so badly this fall.

Anyhow, stay tuned because the stories aren’t over yet. I have one heck of a dramatic spectator report for my mom’s marathon.

It involves a plan, a major math error, transportation malfunctions, beer and a black eye. Really!

I’m also hoping my mom might write a guest post with her marathon race experience for me too. Plus I have so much to talk about what I’ve been up to lately and where I’m going this year!

Disney World Half Marathon–Before the Race

2011-01-18T21:55:00.001-07:00

Boy oh boy, Disney races start so early… The half marathon was going to start around 5:35 I believe and they wanted you through bag check by 4:30. Craziness! I figured if we left the hotel at 3:50 I would be at bag check soon after 4 am, I could meet some blog buddies and then be in my corral in time for the start.

Um…yeah…that is not what happened.

We turned out of our hotel and made out way to the main highway to get to Epcot. We ran into the most insane traffic I have ever seen. We were barely moving. I watched the clock tick.

4:30 came and went and I knew my blog buddies were now making their way to the start. We were still really far away. Inch, inch, inch towards Epcot. Finally at about 5:15 we were on the edge of the parking lot. Dad slowed to a stop and I jumped out of the car. I left my sweats in the car, raced through bag check and hit the porta potties on the other side. While I was in there the announcer was frantically telling us to get to the start as the race was about to start. And oh yeah, I was supposed to be in the second wave so I was pretty sure I’d miss that opportunity.

From the porta potties I raced the long way to the start. I found the final corral but I wanted to see how far up I could get. The fireworks went off signalling the start for the first wave. Crap! I managed to make my way near the front and spied the B Corral. I was able to make my way through to the back of the corral just a moment before we were supposed to start.

Alright, time to run a race I hadn’t really trained for…

By the way, I’m not sure if there were too many people on the road or what was going on, but I was quite disappointed that traffic control was not in place to help move traffic into Epcot before the start. It shouldn’t have taken us over an hour to drive what normally takes less than 10 minutes. My one gripe from the weekend.

Buzz & Woody’s Best Friends 5K

2011-01-18T06:09:00.001-07:00

The alarm clock went off bright and early at 5 am on Friday morning. It felt pretty chilly outside (even for this Albertan), so I dressed in capri tights, a long sleeve top and a midweight base layer. My plan was to leave my top at the bag check, but the bag check was right after you got out of your car. I wasn’t quite ready to give it up yet so I decided to race with it. I hit the porta potties, started taking a couple of pictures, and then the announcer told us to start making our way into the corrals.

The corrals were crazy busy! At first there was no getting in a corral as they were just too full. Finally a barricade near the front was removed, a few people moved up and I was able to make my way in. Yes, I was still cold…As the race drew closer Buzz and Woody came over to the start to cheer us on. Then at 7 am we were off! The course was so crowded to begin with. This was a non-timed fun run, but you were asked to line up by pace. A bunch of walkers set themselves up near the front of the race causing quite a bit of congestion for the runners around us that wanted to get by them.

We started through the parking lot and back lots of Epcot, then made our way into the park right by the Mexican pavilion. There were several characters out along the way. I saw Mulan in China and Minnie was waving to us from the Japanese pavilion. My dad spotted Chip & Dale there when he went by. When I saw Remy in France I had to stop for a quick picture. I absolutely love running around World Showcase in Epcot so this was a pretty fun 5K for me. Finally it was back towards Spaceship Earth, then out of the park, into the parking lot and on to the finish line. I crossed the line in 35:47. I got my first medal of the weekend and then waited for my mom and dad to cross the finish line.Once the race was done we figured we’d get an early jump start on the parks and head to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We wanted to ride Toy Story Midway Mania before it got too busy. Yes, I was that cold that I was wearing the many clothes while standing in line! After two rides on the midway and a turn on Aerosmith’s Rock n Roller Coaster we had done everything at the park we were keen on. We left for a quick lunch of fish and chips at Raglan Road, then back to the hotel where I wound up conking out for a 2 or 3 hour nap on the couch. Half marathon tomorrow!!

WDW Marathon Weekend–The Prelude

2011-01-16T21:09:00.001-07:00

Wow, the Disney Marathon weekend was last weekend and I’ve yet to write anything about it. Time to get cracking! Truthfully I wanted to enjoy the rest of my vacation so I didn’t write anything, then my computer died when I got back. Now with a new HP laptop in hand it is recap time!

I was down in Orlando with my parents again. All three of us were signed up for the Buzz & Woody’s Best Friends 5K on Friday, I was signed up for Goofy and my mom was registered for the marathon on Sunday.

We hit up the expo on Thursday afternoon. I grabbed all of my packets and looked at all of the gear for sale.

Ah yes, look at all of the Goofy gear. I looked at it all and didn’t buy a thing.

CONFESSION: I hadn’t made up my mind on what I was going to do. I had signed up for Goofy and I did NOT train for it. I was going to run the half marathon for sure. But a part of me thought that if I could run, walk or run/walk the full, have fun and not injure myself I might give the marathon a shot. But I wasn’t going to make up my mind on that one until after the half marathon on Saturday.

So I looked at the gear but didn’t buy a thing as I didn’t want to have any “I Did It” shirts purchased before the fact since I think that is bad luck. And on that note, I couldn’t believe the number of people wearing various “I Did It” shirts around the park before the races!!

Now, let the recaps begin!

A Tag!

2010-12-20T23:01:00.001-07:00

Meg is asking that I brush the dust off the blog and come out of hibernation to answer a tag. Truth be told my training has been sporadic at best so there has been very little for me to actually talk about lately. But…I am still going to Disney! If you are going then let me know, maybe we can arrange to meet up. You know, if there is anyone still reading this blog…

Anyhow, on to the tag!

What are you most proud of accomplishing in 2010?

Without a doubt it is training for and finishing Ironman Canada. A few years ago I never could have contemplated such a challenge. There were so many highs and lows during the training, but race day was like one big party. It is almost hard to believe the race is over and done with…

What are your running goals for 2011?

Hmm…that’s a good question, I really don’t know right now! At some point I’d really love to run a sub 2:00 half marathon but I’m not sure if that is a goal I want to set for next year or not.

What was your favourite race?

I don’t know if I can narrow it down. I love the Great White North Half Iron in Stony Plain, AB. The volunteers are amazing and the course is well laid out, making it easy to spot your friends racing. Ironman Canada is also a pretty phenomenal race. The spectators make you feel like a rock star out there and the marathon course is like a 26.2 mile catered party. What more could you ask for? For running races I definitely love the Walt Disney World marathon weekend. You get to run through Disney parks…also amazing volunteers…super cool medals… There is a reason why I’ve run so many races at Disney.

What is your favourite holiday guilty pleasure?

Without a doubt, eggnog and mincemeat tarts. Love them!!

What is your most embarrassing running moment?

Oh boy… This was something I never meant to share in detail on the blog. I can recall a couple of run commutes into work this summer. I would get going early…early enough that my digestive system hadn’t really gotten a move on before I got out the door. About 20 minutes in the digestive system would sort itself out, right in front of a Husky gas station.

That would always be closed when I ran by.

So it would be a painful 10 minutes to the open Esso down the street. Sometimes it would be an interesting hobble those last few minutes to the gas station. Enough said.

Tricommitment Spin-a-thon

2010-11-23T21:22:00.000-07:00

If you live in Calgary and you aren’t busy on Saturday then how about partaking in the tricommitment spin-a-thon? Spinning starts at 9 am, ends at 2 pm and takes place at the Eau Claire Market.

I could go on and on about how you’ll get to spin among friends and that there are some pretty stellar items up for auction. Money raised from the spin-a-thon goes to support two of Calgary’s own triathletes – Jordan Bryden and Janelle Morrison. But…

…on Sunday Janelle was driving from Penticton to Calgary to help organize the spin-a-thon and was involved in a very serious car accident. She’s currently in intensive care in Kamloops. Jordan is asking that the triathlon community come together come together to support Janelle at the spin-a-thon. If you can’t make it (or don’t spin) there is an after party at Spur Gastropub in the evening, or else you can support Janelle directly here.

If you haven’t met Janelle, she is one of the sweetest most positive people ever. I hope you will consider attending the spin-a-thon and thinking speedy healing thoughts for Janelle.

How long does it take?

2010-11-04T21:34:00.001-06:00

Er….um….yeah…. Things have been pretty quiet around here. I generally like to follow the old adage of “if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.” So I guess I don’t have anything nice to say about running.

I’ve been racing for quite a few years in a row now. I guess I just thought I would take some time off after Ironman, then I’d be ease back into things and then I’d be back where I was before the race. The truth is it has been over two months and running sucks. I’m tired on runs. I’m nowhere near my pace from earlier in the year. Talk about a surprise.

Truthfully it is getting harder to accept too. Sure, in October I could say, “I’m still recovering so take it easy on yourself.” How long does it take to recover though? And why…oh why…did I sign up for the Goofy Challenge in January! On my last run on Tuesday (for 30 minutes) I wondered how I would run the Last Chance Half in less than two weeks, then continue to build to the Disney Marathon. A few friends suggested I run Last Chance for fun, but considering that there is nothing fun about running right now it didn’t sound all that appealing to me.

I talked with coach and we are switching things up. I sold my spot to Last Chance. I’m not giving up on running at all though! I feel behind the curve for marathon training, but I guess that is the good news about my Goofy Challenge entry. I have a bit of flexibility and I can train for the Disney Half instead. Building to a half marathon is definitely doable and hopefully I’ll be able to get back into form in time for that.

So there you go, that is the latest from me. If I had any advice to give people, it is to not underestimate how long it will take you to bounce back. Be patient with yourself. It will happen, just don’t push yourself!

Changing up the scenery

2010-10-17T19:16:00.001-06:00

This morning I met my friend Pam for a run. We are both racing the Last Chance Half next month so getting a long run in together seemed like a good idea. Plus Pam has two dogs that like to run and need a lot of exercise. Perfect!

We met up at the Eau Claire Y. It was sunny but pretty brisk. Nice in the sun, but it is definitely cooler in the mornings around here! Pam suggested running eastward towards the zoo and Inglewood which would be new scenery for me. Let’s go! We started along the north side of the Bow River and made our way to the zoo. At first we were following a 4:1 plan but I found we were getting in a groove so I lengthened the run intervals out a bit. When we hit the zoo we crossed the river and made our way into Inglewood. Such pretty houses! New pathways I had never been on before! At times it can be a little sketch so I’m not sure I would run here on my own, but with Pam and the dogs it was good. We continued back along the south side of the river, past Fort Calgary. I discovered a cute place – Deane House Restaurant – for brunch and lunch.All in all, it was a great run. The company was great and it was nice to be out enjoying the sunshine and seeing new parts of my town. 1:15 run, done!

After that Pam and I grabbed a coffee and then I made my way over to the Eau Claire Y. I had a little business to take care of. Cancelling my membership. I put my membership on hold until November 1st, but that was as long as I could put it on hold for. I’m not planning on swimming for awhile so this seemed like the right decision. I can’t keep a membership at the gym downstairs at work and at the Y at the same time. So…I’m sticking with the gym downstairs for awhile to keep up with strength training and Friday yoga!

Whose legs are these?

2010-10-14T22:24:00.001-06:00

For those of you who are friends on Facebook, you may know that I ran the Thanksgiving 10K this weekend. That’s right, it was Thanksgiving in Canada here last weekend!

Well, there isn’t too much I can say about the race. My legs were still super tired. I ran faster than Melissa’s, but that was mostly thanks to the flat pathway we ran along the river in downtown Calgary. Post race was fun as my mom ran the race as well along with my friend Pam. We met at the finish line and grabbed our free mini pizza from Papa John’s and gabbed over food.

I ran for 30 minutes on Tuesday and the legs still felt awful. Tired and still so far from the paces I was running before Ironman. Today I had a 45 minute run on tap and it was the first time that my legs actually felt like they were on board! My pace was still slow but I’ll take it. Just the fact that my legs felt like they weren’t going to collapse under me was a good start!

Total Body Blitz

2010-10-07T22:17:00.001-06:00

I probably should have been more specific when I said I was back on a plan. True, it is a plan, but these first few weeks are just about getting my body used to running again. My runs range from 30 minutes to 1 hour with no real speed work. Just a few fartleks at the end of one run or running drills at the end of another. Slowly but surely running is starting to feel a bit better. I ran with Kelly on Tuesday and we had a good run where we pondered just how much we thought we had recovered. The conclusion that we came to? That while we feel good on a day to day basis we are still tired and workouts are still feeling harder then they used to. I guess it does take awhile to recover from an Ironman…

Following my plan to mix things up I went to my first group fitness class in ages to the gym downstairs at work on Wednesday. It was called Total Body Blitz and it promised a total body strength workout that would give me that Hollywood sculpted look. No kidding! It was a 45 minute class with a ton of squats, lunges, push ups, dead lifts, bicep curls…you name it. By the end of the class my muscles were shaking. Thursday was a total case of delayed onset muscle soreness. I had completely forgotten that I had some of these muscles in my body.

Yeah, I’ll totally be back next week…

Getting back at it…

2010-10-04T21:39:00.001-06:00

Wow, is it really October already? September seemed to just fly by. I pretty well took the whole month off and just enjoyed doing other things…besides training. So what have I been up to?

I ran a whopping three times, one of which was the Melissa’s 10K Road Race. And yeah…that race pretty well sucked since running felt awful. I honestly felt like I hadn’t run for a year, not just a month. On the plus side I got to meet Laurel who is just as wonderful as you would imagine!

Anyhow, I’m back on a program now so it is time to get my butt off the couch. A program for what you might be asking…

I decided that I am going to drop the half marathon part of the Goofy Challenge. I’m going to run the 5K as a warm up and train for the marathon. I’m hoping to gain some speed back and make a good attempt at a marathon PR. Right now I’m not sure how much speed is going to come back because I have slowed down a lot….but that is the goal! I am dropping swimming for the moment and I signed up for a Friday yoga class to mix things up a bit. Hopefully I can get some strength training in too.

So there we go….back on a plan!!

First Run Back

2010-09-15T22:01:00.001-06:00

I did it, I finally did it! I had my first run post Ironman! Truthfully it was my first workout period, but hey…that’s okay, right? The gloom in the skies cleared for a short period today around the lunch hour and I just happened to have my running gear in the office. I changed, pulled my Ironman Canada finisher’s hat down on my head and took off to meet Kelly.

She had her Garmin on but I was just wearing my Timex. I didn’t want to look at any numbers as this was my first run back. No expectations. At first my right knee felt a little niggly, just in the muscles around the side of my knee into my quad. By 12 minutes in those niggles were gone and I was actually feeling pretty good! We chatted the whole way and 34 minutes flew by. Not bad for the first run back really!

My bike is hiding behind a stack of moving boxes in the garage and I’ve put my membership at the YMCA on hold for a short period so I’m not too sure when I’ll be biking or swimming again though…

Singing a different tune

2010-09-14T21:40:00.001-06:00

Well, not a whole lot to report on the training front. I still haven’t officially ran since Ironman or done any other type of workout other than a bunch of walking. I’m not too stressed about it, nor am I feeling antsy. The weather has been pretty miserable here in Calgary lately. It seems like September 1st hit and cold wet weather arrived. The weatherman is even throwing around the evil four letter “S” word for later this week. Seriously, no kidding! The poor weather isn’t making me itch to get out there, that is for sure. I should probably try a run or two this week though seeing as how I have a “race” next weekend! That’s right, the Melissa’s 10K in Banff is next Saturday! I think I may leave the Garmin at home for the race and just concentrate on having fun out on the course.

I also haven’t put a lot of pressure on myself to make a decision about January. Basically I’m debating whether I would like to train for the Goofy Challenge or whether I’d prefer to drop the half and focus on racing the marathon well. I’m pretty sure I know what my heart is telling me to do though. Hopefully I’ll be able to chat with Angie about it soon as we prepare to start in on formal training again come October 1st (which seems like will be here before I know it).

In non-training news I’ve decided to start a completely new and different blog. When I started Runner Leana back in April 2007 I never imagined that I would enjoy writing so much, or that people would actually want to read what I have to say. In some ways it feels like a pretty natural extension that I’d want to gab about things wedding related. I’m planning to write about crafty little projects, my quest to eat as many cake samples as possible at bridal expos and other various shenanigans along the way to the nuptials next year. I realize that blog is targeted at a completely different audience though so my mom might wind up being my only reader. In any event, Runner Leana is most definitely sticking around, and sticking to things related to training and racing.

Reliving the Moment

2010-09-10T06:33:00.001-06:00

The Ironman Canada video has been released – and I’m in it! Look for me just after the 5:30 mark. It is really hard to believe that it is done…that I did it. It all seems so surreal looking back now.

I know a lot of my friends are getting antsy and plenty are contemplating another IM next year. For me, I haven’t hit that. I’ve been enjoying my time relaxing. I figure next week I may start some easy runs but I’m off formal coaching for September. I know that I need to give my body and brain some time to recover before jumping into marathon training in October.

I also got a chance to see some of the professional pics from the day. Here they are…and then I think the book on Ironman Canada 2010 has been officially closed!

Thanks again for all of the congratulations on the engagement. We are definitely excited! What a couple of weeks it has been. Unbelievable!

The Cherry On Top

2010-09-08T06:21:00.001-06:00

Getting engaged on Friday night!

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Finish

2010-09-05T11:03:00.001-06:00

For starters, this picture cracks me up! Funny pose, but at least it captures the elation on my face. The camera on the other side of the carpet grabbed a much better shot though that hopefully I will be able to post later.

As soon as I crossed the finish line my teammates Leslie Anne and Trevor were there to catch me. It was so great to have people I know catch me at the finish line. It was also fitting that Leslie Anne was one of my catchers as she was the first person I ever met from Team Tri Life, now she was there at the end of my big journey. A race official asked me if I was ready for my medal and he placed it over my neck. Leslie Anne grabbed my finisher’s shirt and hat. Another wonderful volunteer grabbed my chip and put my strap back on my ankle. (Oh yeah, FYI, at this race they give you a chip but you have to have your own ankle strap to put it on.) They led me over to the photographer to get a picture with my medal. I hammed it up for the photographer and he laughed, saying I had the best pose of the night. I was feeling great, lucid and not in need of the medical tent so we headed over to the food. I grabbed a piece of pepperoni pizza and a bottle of water, then Leslie Anne and Trevor headed took me out of the athlete only area to the big tree that I had designated as the meeting point with my dad the day before. Finally my parents and Boyfriend were able to wind their way through the barricaded streets toward me. Big hugs all around and time for more pictures! I thanked Leslie Anne and Trevor and wished them good luck at the sign up for 2011 the next morning. It was time to go home! Luckily my dad had my bike check ticket so they were able to grab my bike and all of my gear bags well before I finished so all I had to do was walk to the car. As soon as I started moving, holy smokes I was stiff! Thankfully I had my Zoot recovery sandals in my dry clothes bag and it felt so good to get my feet out of my sneakers. I thought I would be so hungry after I finished, but it turns out I had eaten so much along the run course that I was actually feeling pretty full! No late night trip to Denny’s for us! The ride home was a little uncomfortable and you would have thought that the two steps I had to go up to get from the garage into the house was a mountain that I had to climb! As the Boyfriend drove me home I caught up on the over 50 e-mails I had received over the course of the day from everyone who was tracking me. I was so overwhelmed by all of the support. So many folks had stayed up well past their bedtime to check in and see how I was doing. Tea, you were especially awesome!

Sleeping was rough that night. My left hip was so sore that every time I wanted to roll over in bed I had to wake up to do it. My alarm went off super early too as I wanted to hustle back to Penticton to buy finisher’s merchandise in the morning. Walking around Ironman Village wound up being great for working out the stiffness though and I continued to feel better throughout the day. It was almost hard to believe the weekend was over!

And so with that, some final thoughts:

I am so happy that I smiled almost the whole day. I think my only real low moment was the final 5 km on the bike into the ridiculous head wind. Even though it was a slow go on the marathon I was so happy. I’m really pleased with how my day played out.
Sure enough, I woke up with a massive cold on Monday morning. I was getting sick on Sunday. Great, excellent timing!
Next time I would put some yummy candy in my run special needs bag. I kinda wish I had put my regular glasses in here too but then I wouldn’t have known what to do with my sunglasses.
I didn’t want to throw anything out so I hung onto gels, tubes, CO2 cartridges, tubes of Vaseline, you name it. Hey, that stuff costs a lot of money! Don’t worry, I didn’t run with the bike tube and CO2 cartridge!
Boy I really wish there was music at the aid stations along the run course.
Have I mentioned how awesome the volunteers and spectators were? Thanks for making me feel like a rock star folks. The amazingness of the day is so hard to put into words.
I have the best family, friends and teammates on the planet. They deserve a post to themselves. Tara and Kelly, we did it!!! :)
Wow, the finisher shirt is not attractive. Way too big and a sorta blah beige colour. Last year’s were much better. Julie’s thoughts on the shirt are hilarious!
Did I sign up for next year? Nope, I sure didn’t! For so many different reasons. The journey to get to the start line takes a huge commitment, not only on my part, but on the part of my loved ones. I’d like more time to hike and camp next summer plus do other fun things! I also think I need some time to forget how much this one hurt before I sign up for another. And I think I would do it again…sometime…the experience is unbelievable out there and there is no feeling like it on earth.
Did I get/will I get a tattoo? Nope to that one too! I’m just not a tattoo person and I know I’m an Ironman inside as do my friends and family. I’ll just wear the finisher gear around all the time instead. ;)
What next? Good question! I’m signed up for the Goofy Challenge at Disney World in January but I’m taking September off from formal coaching. I’m letting my mind and body recover before building back into marathon training. I’m also doing a bit of thinking about what I want out of those races in January so stay tuned for news on that. I had originally thought that after Ironman I might be done with the blogging thing, but I think I still have stuff to talk about. So I’ll still be around! I still have plenty of exciting things to share with you guys… :)

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Run

2010-09-05T10:19:00.001-06:00

I got off my bike at the dismount line. Right away there was someone there to grab my bike for me and they asked me if I had everything that I needed off my bike. I had put my Garmin Forerunner on in T1 but left it off as the battery wouldn’t last the whole race. The unit takes a long time to catch satellites so I turned it on just as I rolled into transition. I grabbed my bike to run bag and ran into the change tent. I sat on the first chair I saw which probably wasn’t the best choice. I was very close to the tent opening and some male volunteer or official was standing right outside. He may have gotten an eyeful but I was too lazy to move to a different spot. I had the best volunteer ever! She dumped all my gear out and went through everything making sure I had what I needed. I changed out of my bike shorts and put on a running skirt instead plus I changed into new socks. I kept the same tri top on. Once I was all geared up I ran out of there, hit the porta potty then made my way on to the run course.

T2 – 7:20 – not bad considering it included a bathroom break.

As you leave transition the atmosphere is unbelievable. Folks were going crazy as the first finishers were rolling in. Seriously…they are done and I have a marathon to run? People were cheering so loudly as you ran past that it was amazing. My legs felt good right away. It was hard to believe that I had really just cycled 180 km. I ran the little loop down Lakeshore Drive then made my way out on to Main Street. I was grinning from ear to ear because this day is unlike any other. You really and truly feel like a rock star out there.

The aid stations are supposed to be every mile so i changed my Garmin to lap every 0.5 miles. That way I could walk for one minute halfway between the aid stations and then again walk through the aid station. I had hoped my heart rate would settle in as I ran. It had stayed nice and low on the bike but as soon as I started running I was up in the 170s. I decided to walk until it would come down into the 140s but as soon as I would start running it would shoot up again. Hmm.

Around 5 km in I passed my coach Angie, my parents and the Boyfriend and a bunch of TTLers. Angie was so excited for me, but she confided that she had been a bit worried for me when the whipped up on the bike. I had made it though and I was out on the run course. I told her about my heart rate issues and told her I would manage things as best as I could. Then it was time to say goodbye and get out of there!

As I ran on I started to see the first of my teammates coming towards me. I love that this is an out and back marathon course. You get to see everyone! What a boost. I continued on with my run/walk but it was getting harder for my heart rate to recover on the walks so the walk breaks got longer and longer.

Something that I didn’t mention about the bike was that my throat started to feel very dry during the last one third of the ride. I kept drinking but it wasn’t going away. I remember thinking that it was almost like I was starting to come down with a cold… As I continued running I got these weird body aches. My stomach muscles were in pain. The up down motion during running started to create some pretty bad shearing pain in my abdominal muscles. As this continued on it became too difficult to ignore coupled with my heart rate. I didn’t know why I was feeling this strange pain (perhaps because I was getting sick?) and I knew that if I continued to push the heart rate at this level for much longer my stomach would shut down shortly. So I knew it was time to start walking. I think the toughest part about this decision was that I was hoping I would be able to catch up to Kelly on the run course but this would make that impossible. I did have Tylenol with me that I debated taking but I wasn’t sure if that would cause a stomach issue. I didn’t want to risk the unknown of taking something and making it even more painful. I knew I could walk this and that I had plenty of time. My main goal for the day was to smile and be happy that I was doing an Ironman. Walking would make sure I met this goal.

I knew my friend Pam was volunteering at an aid station on the run course, but I wasn’t sure which one. I knew her shift ended at 7 and as I passed aid station after aid station and she wasn’t there I was worried I would miss her. The clock ticked over to 7 pm and no sign of Pam. About 15 minutes later I hit an aid station and I saw a very excited girl in a red volunteer shirt bound up to me. “LEANA!!!!!” “PAM!!!!!” I was so happy to see her! She walked with me for a bit and we chatted. Pam and I trained a lot together last year but we haven’t been able to see each other too much since last fall as she’s been travelling for work. Despite all of that she wanted to be there for my first Ironman. It meant so much to me that she was there. Thank you Pam!!

As I continued on I saw Kelly coming towards me, Keith, my teammates Nola and John, Shannon. They all had huge smiles on their faces and I was so excited to see them. I also really have to give it up for all of the volunteers and spectators that were out there. They were so encouraging! I would say about 95% of them pronounced my name correctly (which doesn’t normally happen) and I loved that they were encouraging me on personally. Love having the name on the bib!

I hit special needs with about an hour to spare before the cut-off there. Plenty of time. A fantastic volunteer handed me my bag and I dug through it. Four more gels, some Vaseline, a packet of Honey Stinger Chews, a long sleeve shirt that I love but that has perma-stink so I wouldn’t be too upset if I tossed it, another note from the Boyfriend. I wished I had put some wine gums in here too as that would have been a tasty treat.

My boyfriend’s note was great. He reminded me of something that Steve King had said in our Friday night banquet. It isn’t about the time you get doing the event, but about the time you have getting the time you get that counts. It reaffirmed things for me because I was having the time of my life even though I was walking. Every once in awhile I’d try to run again but the heart rate would shoot up right away and my abdomen would be in pain…so yeah…still walking.

The sun was setting and it was cooling off so I put my long sleeve top on. I had really lucked out that day as the temperatures only got up to about 21C (70F). Those are definitely manageable temperatures for me. Darkness started to set in so I put my glasses on the brim of my hat. Things were fuzzy now! As I continued along the side of Skaha lake it didn’t take long to go completely pitch black. There are no street lights out there so race officials on motorcycles came along to hand out glowing necklaces. There were still people coming towards me, most walking, some running. All trying to beat the 9 pm cut-off at the turnaround point on the run.

I wound up walking with one lady from Ottawa for a bit. We were having a good chat but I realized that trying to keep up a conversation was taking more mental energy than I realized. We hit the next aid station so I split off at a porta-potty. Sometimes company is nice but I realized that I enjoyed being in my own space out there.

At another aid station I grabbed a cup of chicken soup. The volunteer looked me right in the eyes and said, “Leana, you look great out there.” I had a moment…I looked at him…how does he know me?? Oh…right, name on the bib! I actually felt pretty good out there and I so appreciated how awesome all of these volunteers were. The aid stations were pretty well stocked too. By now I didn’t really feel like eating any of my gels. So what did I want? Would it be water, Gatorade, Pepsi, chicken soup? Would I like some chips, cookies, grapes, oranges, pretzels? I wound up alternating between all four fluid choices, grabbing two different cups at each aid station. I had a little baggie of grapes that I ate from for awhile that tasted so good.

Boy this walking thing was taking awhile. My eyes had been itchy and were watering like crazy (sick??). That coupled with my slightly poor vision with no glasses made it really difficult to keep my eyes open. I was getting tired. This is normally my bedtime and I’m out here walking on the course! I realized that I could quite possible fall asleep standing up the way I was feeling. Hmm, better grab some Pepsi and get some caffeine at the next aid station!

Finally I started to hit the houses coming into town. Spectators were still out there cheering us on. They were amazing and I thanked them all for being out there so late at night. They were saying, “You can do this, you still have plenty of time to make it!” Out in the dark along the lake there had been at least one person barfing on the side of the road. I tried to ignore that and keep moving on. Then as I approached town a lady caught up to me and wanted to talk. She asked how my day was going and I told her I was having a great time out there. She replied that her day was tough and that she could never get her nutrition down and always wound up being sick on the side of the road. Oh no! I didn’t want to get sucked into hearing about her rough day or about how she was sick so I decided to pick it up. I wished her luck and power walked outta there! As I continued on, getting closer to the finish line I realized how close I was. It still hurt to run so I just picked up my walking pace. Given all of this though, I didn’t want to finish the race walking. I wanted to run that last mile in.

We used to have to run the mile in school and I was terrible at it. I would consistently be one of the last ones in. I’d run really fast in the beginning, peter out, and walk and run the rest of the mile. Well, this was one mile I wanted to run strong out here!

I turned the corner on to Lakeshore Drive. You are right at the finish line, yet you have to turn away from it and run out and back along the road. I saw my teammate Christine and she went crazy when she saw me and that was exactly where I was starting to run. My glowing necklace bounced up and down. I took it off and gave it to a spectator. Richelle and her some of her athletes were out there, going crazy as soon as they saw me. There was one final aid station out there. At first I wasn’t going to grab anything but my HR was out of control so I stopped to get some water and walk towards the turnaround. All of a sudden my teammates, Angie, the Boyfriend saw me and starting cheering, “Go Leana go!” Darn it, guess I’d better start running!

I high-fived my most amazing training partners Kelly and Tara. They had finished ahead of me but they wanted to be there for me at the finish. Thank you guys!! Angie yelled that I was going to be an Ironman!!!! I told her that I still had a bit to run and that she was making me cry. I just had a short ways to go to the finish, maybe just over a quarter of a mile?

Keep in mind that it is after 11 pm out there. Most of the folks around me are walking it in and look rough. I was on a huge adrenalin high and I felt great running out there! Spectators were saying, “Oh my god, look at her run! She looks great! Look at that stride!!” I passed folks and we exchanged quick congratulations. Then there it was – the blue carpet, the spectators in the stands cheering, the finish line. I was alone on the blue carpet. The crowd was cheering so loudly and banging the plastic ad boards tied to the barricades. I had “Go Leana go!” in my head. I raised my arm. I was here, I had made it home. I crossed the finish line.

I was an Ironman!!!!

Run (cough, cough) – 6:35:48

And all done in 16:07:57!

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Bike

2010-09-01T22:28:00.001-06:00

Coming out of transition and getting on the bike was a completely surreal experience. You ride down Main Street and there are so many people out there! It sounds like they are all cheering just for you!! As soon as teammates and friends saw me ride by with my Team Tri Life top on they started screaming. It was awesome! I had a huge smile on my face, what a terrific feeling.

I had one moto on the bike – patience. I knew that the first 65 km of the ride would be fairly flat and I needed to keep my effort in check to ride the hilly part of the course strongly. I had my Garmin Edge on my bike and I had it set to watch my heart rate. Ideally I wanted to keep it around the 130s so long as I was riding the flats. I watched people pass me by, knowing that this was how I needed to play the game for me to have a successful day.

We reached the turn off for McLean Creek Road quickly. Time for the first hill on the course! There were clumps of riders together and it got a little hairy as we started to climb. I was amazed by the number of people in the aero bars as we rode up. I was concentrating on riding up when just head of me something happened and a guy fell over on the climb. I think the guy next to him swerved a bit, causing the other guy to fall over. People were asking if he was okay, he said he was and I kept on riding. Close to the top I saw a lady walking her bike. I tried to encourage her and tell her that she was almost at the top. I hope her day went okay.

I kept watching my heart rate along the road to Osoyoos, just smiling and checking out the scenery. Drinking my Infinit. I had packed some peanut butter wraps for this part of the ride but it turned out that I was happy just drinking my Infinit. As I approached Osoyoos I kept looking for the next aid station as I had to pee. It seemed like there was a pretty long stretch here between aid stations. Finally after we turned the corner at the Husky station in Osoyoos and there was a big aid station. I pulled off, took a look at the massive line up for the porta-potties and decided I did not want to wait in line. I could roll up Richter and wait for the next aid station.

I was elated climbing up Richter. I knew my parents and the Boyfriend would be watching out for me part of the way up. There they were! I was so happy! As I continued up Richter there was an aid station up maybe 2/3 of the way. I pulled over as there was a nice and minimal porta-potty line! The rest of the climb up Richter went really well. I was at the top before I knew it. Time to descend! The wind was so loud in my ears and it was fun flying down. I definitely took it far less cautious than the last couple of times I rode this route.

I flew through the rollers. The wind was picking up but it wasn’t nearly as bad as when I rode the course in camp. All seven of the rollers were over before I knew it. Through Cawston and on to the out and back. Two things left to get through, the out and back and Yellow Lake. I was excited for the out and back as I’d have a chance to see some of my friends. The wind had really picked up by now but I pedalled along, barely noticing it. I saw Tara and Kelly…they both looked fabulous and so happy!

Next thing I knew I was at special needs. I had packed a spare tube and CO2 cartridge, some chamois butter, a gel, another 4 hour bottle of Infinit, some wine gums and the Boyfriend had left a secret note in the bag for me. The note put a huge smile on my face. He knew exactly what to say to keep me motivated and moving forward, nothing sappy! I had lucked out and not had any flats up until here so I didn’t really have anywhere to store the tube and cartridge. I didn’t want to throw money out the window so I stuffed it in my back pocket. I reapplied some sunscreen and was on my way. Those wine gums were tasting yummy!

As we exited the out and back and turned towards Yellow Lake the weather started to turn a little nasty and rain started to fall. Oh well, just gotta keep riding through it right? I focused on the spray painted numbers on the side of the road. They count off every 0.1 km and when you hit 17 you are at the top. The crowds at around 14 km were awesome. I’ve heard that this stretch of road is likened to the Tour de France. Pedal, keep pedalling strong…up to the top of Yellow Lake. I made it! Truth be told I suspect the majority of the spectators had left since I was near the back of the pack on the bike. I wasn’t fighting the cut off at all, I just seemed to be near the back.

The descent off Yellow Lake was fun. I was so glad that we had practiced the descent here a few days earlier. And that was it, just a little bit left to get back to Penticton. With 5 km left to go I turned down Main Street, back towards the crowds and transition. And smack into the most ridiculous head wind EVER! I felt like I was going nowhere and this was probably my lowest point of the day. I just hated that the last little bit on the bike was taking forever. Finally…finally…there was transition just ahead. The bike was done!

And honestly, despite the last 5 km of the ride I had the best. Ride. Ever. It was the most comfortable ride I ever had – the seat was comfy and I had even forgotten to put on chamois butter all day!

180 km done in 7:45:16.

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Swim

2010-08-31T11:21:00.001-06:00

2 am. I roll over and peek at my watch to see the time. I still have just over an hour until my alarm is supposed to go off. All of a sudden my brain says, “I’m doing Ironman today!” And that is it. My brain starts whirring and there is no going back to sleep now. Instead I lie in bed until the alarm goes, then I jump out and get in the shower. I realize the shower is a bit of a moot point, but I like to start my races fresh and clean. I put on the clothes I plan to wear for the first two segments of the day – my Zoot cycling shorts and my Team Tri Life top. I throw on some warm clothes that will eventually go into my dry clothes bag, grab my stuff and go. My friend Tara was staying with me at my parents’ place in Kelowna so we head off in the car together, with the Boyfriend driving us to the start. My parents will arrive a bit later. The roads are dark and quiet and the drive goes by quickly. I manage to eat my peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich along the way and drink some coffee. Boy the coffee tastes good!

We find a parking spot along a residential street, fairly close to transition but away from the road closures. We arrived at Main Street pretty quickly and I had to say goodbye to the Boyfriend as we entered the athlete only area. I expected it to be harder, but we just said goodbye and perhaps “I’ll see you soon.” As I walked away I realized I could still see clearly and I had forgotten to give him my glasses! Oops! Luckily he wasn’t too far away and I passed them off to him. I’d mostly need my prescription sunglasses during the day and I didn’t want to risk losing my regular glasses. Luckily I can see well enough without them that I can make do.

We dropped off our special needs bike and run bags into the appropriate cardboard boxes, then made our way to transition. I found my bike and started loading nutrition on it – one bottle of regular strength Infinit in my aero bottle, one four hour bottle of concentrate in a bottle cage. Peanut butter wraps and pretzels in the bento box. I gave the tires a squeeze and they felt fine so I didn’t bother taking them over to bike support to have them pumped. Tara’s tires hadn’t lost any pressure overnight so I was sure that mine were fine too. After that it was time to start the porta-potty dance! I kept finding friends and teammates in transition. I also ate a banana and sipped on a bit of Infinit to make sure I would be properly fuelled. After all, it would be a long time between my peanut butter sandwich and when I’d first be able to eat on the bike. Pretty soon it was 6:15 and it was time to get the wetsuit on. My friend Kelly and I made our way onto the beach together and right away I spotted the Boyfriend, right up by the railing. I ran over and gave him a hug and then I was almost ready to cry. I got in the water, got wet, checked the goggles were working and then the pros were off at 6:45. The final 15 minutes until the age groupers were to go flew by. All of sudden it was 7 am and it was go time!!I walked through the water and underneath the flags signalling the start line. A lot of people were still walking so I followed suit as I didn’t want to swim into a bunch of legs. Finally more and more people ahead were swimming so I started swimming too.I quickly found a rhythm, bilateral breathing. I kept repeating in my head, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” over and over again. I just needed to focus on swimming and nothing else. I started around the middle of beach and I wound up swimming quite close to the buoys. Inevitably folks would reach the buoys, pop their heads up and start breast stroking. I had to be careful not to get kicked in the face. A couple people were a bit aggressive out there, pulling arms and legs, but as we spaced out it got better. The buoys were all numbered…13 out to the first house boat I think? At the house boat there were all kinds of folks on board cheering and it was awesome!! I turned the corner and swam to the second house boat with more people cheering. It went by so quickly. It looked like the folks on the house boat were having a BBQ? I bet it was yummy. As I turned the corner I spotted a diver below. I tried to wave at him or her but I don’t think they saw me. At this point I decided to take a peak at my watch. I was floored, it was way earlier than I anticipated. On the way back I was having trouble sighting and found myself veering of course a bit. Luckily it wasn’t too bad, I’d just notice from time to time that there wasn’t anyone beside me. Finally I was past the last few buoys and the water was getting shallow. I could touch the bottom, but the bottom consisted of big huge rocks. People around me were walking but I didn’t want to walk over big, uncomfortable rocks so I just kept swimming until the last possible moment. I stood up, stumbled over the rocky bottom and made my way up the beach. As I walked out of the water I unzipped my suit and had it down over my arms and at my waist to make things easier on the wetsuit strippers ahead. The crowd was amazing! People were standing in the water, cheering us on and it was so loud. Steve King said my name as I crossed over the timing mat. Ironman swim done – check!

3800 m swim – 1:33:56 – a good 10 minutes faster than I figured it would take!

I had checked my prescription sunglasses in at the table right at the swim exit. They had marked my left cheek with green zinc sunscreen and as soon as the volunteers saw me they had my glasses out and handed to me. I pointed at two wetsuit strippers and they had my wetsuit off quickly. They helped me up, handed me back my suit and I ran to find my bag. Luckily I was very near the front of my row for bags so I grabbed it quickly and ran into the change tent. A volunteer came over right away, told me where to sit and proceeded to go through all of the gear in my bag. Helmet, socks, bike shoes, Garmin. I had a wet washcloth in a Ziploc bag to rub my face with (and to make sure I could rub that green zinc off). I had a small towel in there to dry my feet and get rid of any grass before I put my socks on. I decided to forgo my arm warmers. I sprayed my face and shoulders with a small bottle of sunscreen, then I was outta there! Luckily my bike was super easy to find as it was at the very end of its rack (and well, let’s not kid, a lot of the bikes around mine were already gone). I turned my Garmin on, grabbed the bike and walked out. Overall a pretty efficient transition I think!

T1 – 5:37

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Short Story

2010-08-31T09:17:00.001-06:00

I did it! I raced and completed Ironman Canada in 16 hours, 7 minutes and 57 seconds on Sunday. What an amazing day!!!! Despite some tough parts I smiled pretty well the entire time and just had the most unbelievable experience. It is going to be hard to put it into words but I will try.

I have the best family, friends, coach and teammates possible. They were out there, cheering me on late at night. They were tracking me online and posting updates on Facebook. You all were fantastic and I was floored by all of the support. Thank you so much!!! Now let’s get to the story, shall we? :)

Race Report:

The Swim
The Bike
The Run
The Finish

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Prelude in Pictures

2010-08-28T21:09:00.001-06:00

At the start and the finish!With Keith! Food at the athlete banquet. Dropping the bike off at transition on Saturday.The blue carpet, ready to get rolled out! Nutrition prepped, with a ton of labelling. Just to make sure I know what I’m doing on Sunday! I have a one hour bottle of Infinit to sip on before the swim start, a one hour bottle to dump in my aero bottle and two four hour bottles of Infinit concentrate, with one hour volume increments marked off. One goes on my bike, the other one goes in my bike special needs bag.

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Prelude In Words

2010-08-28T20:57:00.001-06:00

Wow…it is Saturday, August 28, 2010. Where has the time gone? Tomorrow is the big day, the day I race Ironman Canada! This year has flown by and it is hard to believe that something that seemed so intangible a short time ago is almost here.

The week leading up to the race has been a great one. The Boyfriend and I had an amazing couple of days in Vancouver where I successfully forgot about the big race. I think this was a good thing. I focused on having a fun time and not stressing out about the race. The weather was beautiful, the food was terrific and I even managed a great run around Coal Harbour and into Stanley Park.

We arrived back in Kelowna on Wednesday evening. I never thought about staying in Penticton for the race, not when I could relax at my parents’ place in Kelowna. Sure, it is 40 minutes from Penticton but it is a bit more of a comfortable place to be and I’m happy to be away from some of the buzz to tell you the truth. Not to mention it is a bit more budget friendly…

I made my way into Penticton early on Thursday morning for a 7:30 am swim with my team. As I drove that morning I really felt the butterflies for the first time. This was real, Ironman was almost here. The lake felt great and I felt calm in the water. On Thursday afternoon I had a great meeting with Angie to go over my race plan and talk about my thoughts and feelings concerning the race. I never had a chance to write up a race plan before I left Calgary and I think Angie was a bit shocked that I was winging it on such a big race. I’m pretty firm on my goals for this one though and what I want to do so my race plan was almost easy. Angie mostly gave me tips for dealing with nutrition on the bike and run and we talked about thoughts to get me through the day. Later in the day a few of us got a ride up to Yellow Lake and we rode the descent down into Penticton. It was great to get a reminder on this final part of the route and it gave me a lot of confidence going down the big hill.

Other than that I’ve been back and forth, going for swims, registering at Ironman Village, buying swag, and going back and buying more swag, then checking the bike into transition. I’ve run into Sister Madonna Buder a few times and said hello – what a wonderful lady! Plus I’ve also seen Keith!

And with that, tomorrow is the big day. My goal for the day is PATIENCE. I plan to take it super easy on the bike, as easy as possible, so that I can have a successful run. I haven’t done any math at all to compute a finish time. I just hope to be crossing the line before midnight. Check ironman.com for a link to athlete tracking. I’m bib number 2307. Thanks to all of you for your great comments over the past year and for all of the encouragement. I’ve been overwhelmed with all of the e-mails of well wishes and the posts on Facebook. As my friend Tea reminded me, tomorrow whenever I cross a timing mat, remember that I have a crowd of fans cheering me on. I will definitely be remembering that! Thanks everyone!

On the road!

2010-08-23T07:33:00.001-06:00

On Sunday I packed all of my gear up for a week off and the big race and hit the road to Kelowna. Traffic was pretty light and smooth on Highway 1 heading west until about 10 km outside of Golden. All of a sudden things ground to a halt and folks started getting out of their cars. There was a good Samaritan who looked like he’d just come off the set of a cheesy sci-fi movie (teal and purple jumpsuit tucked into black boots over a beige turtleneck sweater) that was spreading the news that there was a three car accident up ahead. No serious injuries but two of the cars would need a tow truck. It would be awhile before traffic could get moving.

In my rush to get on the road I had missed my 30 minute run in the morning so I got up and started walking on the side of the road, up and down the mountain. There were a bunch of folks – I’m guessing – that were on the road to Ironman. Plenty of tri bikes on the back of cars. I saw a few folks running up and down the mountain as we were stopped. I decided to walk toward the accident and some guy in a Jetta pulled his car over to the opposite shoulder and he pulled out his bike and trainer for a workout.

I walked up the mountain towards the accident and ran back down. It felt good to have the legs moving. On my way down I ran into my family who was stuck a bit further behind me on the road. After about an hour and a half later traffic started to move and we were on our way. I’m now in Kelowna at my parents’ place, but not for long! The Boyfriend and I are heading to Vancouver this morning for a couple of days of fun before all of this Ironman craziness starts.

2307…

2010-08-20T06:53:00.001-06:00

Yup, I’ve been pretty quiet lately. My ride on Saturday was only 120K (did I really just say that it was ONLY 120K???) and it did not go well. I was pretty demoralized and upset after it was over and I didn’t even upload my workout data off of my Garmin until just now. Friday morning. I had a good chat with Angie and my friends about it and the ride is done. Moving on!

I am a mixed bag of emotions. I am excited, nervous, ready to barf/cry at the drop of a hat, and somewhat wishing it was August 30th already. I still have to write up a race plan but I’ve been swamped trying to finish things up at work before I leave on Sunday. I have a lot of good ideas in my head though. The most important part is that I want to be smiling and happy. I have no thoughts on time at all. I have not done any math in my head on how long things may or may not take and that is how I want to keep it.

It is hard to believe that the race is so close. Next weekend! Thanks for all of your great comments along this crazy journey. It means a lot to me! I’ll be wearing number 2307 on race day. Sounds like a good number to me!

Three Things Thursday

2010-08-12T21:03:00.001-06:00

Today was my final long run into work. 2.5 hours with 3 min accelerations every 30 min. I was out the door at 5 am again. Luckily this time there was no unfortunate incident with a curb! The run went really well and I ran 4:1 intervals again. I also took two gels in addition to drinking Infinit along the way, something I haven’t done on my long runs before. The extra gels gave me that extra oomph and I didn’t feel nearly as depleted after today’s run as I have in the past. It only took me until August 12th to figure out that maybe I’ve been needing a few more calories. Better late than never!
I totally was coveting Cat Deeley’s dress from the SYTYCD finale this evening. It was gorgeous. Wish I could find a picture of it!
Wow, IM emotions are a funny thing. I get choked up at the most random things. Just reading the notes from my coach on my final training block to IM made me all misty eyed. Yesterday just listening to Angels & Airwaves – The Adventure was enough for the ol’ tear ducts to activate. No clue why!

Hope everyone has had a great week so far!

Taper Time!?

2010-08-11T05:43:00.001-06:00

Well, after a major case of the “I don’t wanna’s” last week…I survived.

After my trip and fall on Thursday I felt like I’d been hit by a truck on Friday. My entire upper body was stiff and sore. Discomfort in my ribs (from where my heart rate monitor strap likely pushed into my body on impact) made it painful to cough and I was unable to sneeze. A sharp intake of air was uncomfortable enough that it would stop a sneeze in its tracks. Given all of that I opted not to swim that day as things just hurt too much.

I did survive our final 180K ride though! The ride started out as a bit of a gong show. We were planning on riding Highwood Pass, however more than one person told us we were crazy for attempting that route – with so much climbing – on an already hard day. On Friday night we made the call to ride closer to Calgary instead. We didn’t have a specific route in mind, just places to go. We broke the ride up into chunks – a 50 km out and back to Springbank Airport, 30K out to Bragg Creek, another 10K out to Elbow Falls, return to Calgary and ride the 50 km out and back again. This helped me to not focus on the entire distance and just think of the ride in smaller pieces. It is the strongest mentally I have felt on a long ride so far this summer.

On Sunday I finally got that 4000 m swim in. It actually went pretty well. It was boring…but I survived.

And now we taper!!!!! (If you can consider that a 14 hour training week versus a 16 hour training week is tapering….)

Skin Meets Pavement

2010-08-05T21:00:00.001-06:00

The alarm went off this morning at 4:30 am. I jumped out of bed, washed my face, threw on my running clothes. I had some water and some Honey Stinger chews. It was sadly a little too early for my digestive tract to get things moving… I was out the door and running at 5:05 am. It was dark and cool out and it felt great. I wore my GPS for distance on my left wrist and my Road ID and my Timex on my right. I set the Timex up to beep 4:1 run/walk intervals. I figured that if I want to run them at IMC I better set my watch to beep them.

There is some road construction happening outside of my neighbourhood. New bike paths and intersections have been built. I was crossing the road, 20 minutes into my run. I’ve ridden over this sidewalk and curb recently and have thought, wow, that was poorly constructed! The curb is pretty high. I must have been a little tired and not picking my feet up properly. I must have caught a toe on the curb. All I knew was that all of a sudden I was falling.

I’m falling…why am I falling? I don’t want to fall!

Thud.

I sat there for a second or two, feeling thankful that it was so early in the morning and there were no people driving by to witness my humiliation. I surveyed the damage.

Road rash on my right forearm. More road rash on my right hip (but the squishy part, not the boney part), bruising on my right arm where my watch must have been pushed into the skin on impact. I got up and there was no pain.

Alrighty then, run on!

Things went well for the next 10 minutes. But then the activity had gotten my digestive system moving… I ran past a Husky gas station, but at that time in the morning the lights were off and no one was home. OK, 10 minutes away is an Esso station and a Mac’s in a shopping complex. Hopefully one of those would be open. I wanted to cry tears of joy as the Esso came into sight and the lights were blazing! I think the guy working this morning was a little surprised to see me come in that early, but after a quick stop and the purchase of a bottle of water I was on my way.

The 4:1 intervals were great. On every walk break I would take a sip of Infinit from my Camelbak or water from my newly purchased bottle. And it just happened to be recycling day in the neighbourhoods I was running through so once the bottle was done I was able to put it in someone’s recycle bin. 2-1/2 hours in my legs started to feel a little creaky and I was losing steam but I think that was a combination of feeling like I should really be getting to work soon and the fact that I was running out of nutrition and it was heating up. But there we go, 3 hour run done! Now here’s hoping my road rash doesn’t sting in the pool too much tomorrow!

Are we there yet?

2010-08-04T20:47:00.001-06:00

Coming off of camp I had a bit of a cut back week last week. Training still totalled almost 11 hours though! A couple of swims, a couple of longish runs and a couple of bikes including a 100K ride. I was falling asleep every night before 10 pm (including before 9 pm on Saturday night). Wow…just so tired… In fact, if I’ve been a little silent on commenting on blogs lately now you know why. I’ve been reading, but I’m way behind at 244 unread posts. My apologies, I promise to catch up in September!

Things started off this week with a glorious rest day coupled with a day off of work for Heritage Day on Monday. No work and no training? It was awesome! The day was spent running errands (including plenty of time spent at IKEA) and completing home projects. The pantry was completely reorganized, organization was started in the basement (including additional shelving in the basement for pantry items), the fridge was cleaned out and the bar was cleaned up. So much was accomplished!

Then back to work on Tuesday, both at the office and on the training front. This will be the biggest week of training:

Tuesday: 2 hour ride with hill repeats up Cochrane hill
Wednesday: 3000 m swim
Thursday: 3 hour run
Friday: 4000 m swim
Saturday: 180 km ride and a 30 min brick
Sunday: 40 min hilly run and a 2000 m swim

But seriously, are we there yet? Can it just be September already? I don’t want to run for 3 hours tomorrow, I don’t want to do a 4000 m swim, and I really don’t want to ride 180 km on Saturday.

I don’t want to arrive to work late tomorrow only to feel like my brain can’t comprehend work. And I’m not so keen to take a half day off on Friday so I can fit in my long swim but not leave my dog at home too long during the day. And I really don’t feel like spending 8 hours riding only to come home and feel like a zombie for the rest of the evening.

Can I just have my life back?

But really, I just have to suck it up for this week because this is the final push to the big dance on August 29th. I think people have said that the toughest part of Ironman is the journey to the start line. And it is so darn close! At times I catch myself imagining things that I see happening on the day – seeing my coach Angie, my family, my incredible teammates who we’ve all trained so hard together – and I start tearing up. How will I feel as I come down the blue carpet? I know it will be worth it – the long hours, the sacrifices, the highs and the lows.

August 29th.

It will be here before I know it!

Lessons Learned From Training Camp

2010-08-02T07:53:00.001-06:00

I can swim over 3800 m in open water!
180 km is a really long bike ride.
The cycling shorts I was planning on wearing race day are…ahem…not quite as opaque as I thought. I realized I was in trouble when Nola asked me if I had had my bike shorts for a long time or not.
I have to wear gloves on the bike or else it is ridiculously uncomfortable.
I need to make sure I am on top of my nutrition on the bike. Luckily pretzels and peanut butter wraps combined with Infinit seem to be working well for me.
The time to eat solids is well before Osoyoos and after climbing Richter. I don’t want to be attempting to digest solids while my heart rate starts increasing over a climb.
If your feet get hot on the bike, step off. Pouring cold water on them too can help on race day.
I will need to carry chamois butter in my bento box!
Start off slow on the run! Focus on getting to the next aid station, don’t attempt to contemplate the marathon as a whole!
Running 4:1 intervals will probably work really well for me on race day.

It is really hard to believe that the race is less than a month out. Wow, time flies!

Team Tri Life Ironman Canada Training Camp – Day 4

2010-07-30T06:52:00.001-06:00

Sunday was our last day at camp and we had only one thing on the agenda – a long run. The plan was to start at 7 am, we’d run along the marathon course around the east side of Skaha Lake to the turnaround at Okanagan Falls, then turn back. Total run time would be up to 3 hours. This run was a bit of an unknown for me. I had been experiencing hip pain the week before and had barely run. My left knee wasn’t feeling 100% either. And it was going to be a hot one out there. It was already 18C out at 7 am and the temperatures were expected to climb to the mid 30s. Definitely not temperatures I am used to!

We had a support vehicle carrying ice, water, Coke and Infinit so we’d be able to refill our bottles along the way. I brought some gels but I’d mostly rely on Infinit’s run formula.

It was a beautiful morning as we set off along Skaha Lake. Things were feeling great as I started running. Because I knew it was going to be hot I made a conscious effort to start off slow. I had started behind the main group as I needed one last trip to the bathrooms and within about a mile I caught up to Kelly. I wanted to run with her for a bit for some company so I joined her on her 4:1 run/walk intervals. We ran nice and steadily and I was having so much fun that I wanted to stick with her to the turnaround. There was another group out running – super nice guys! – and they asked if we needed anything from their sag wagon. We were okay at the time but they told us it would still be there when we turned back around in case we needed anything. Thanks guys!

We hit OK Falls feeling great! Time to turn around. Some of the hills seem a bit bigger and longer on the way back so we walked a few of them. I wanted to approach the run the same way I would approach it on race day, and some of those hills I think I’ll be better off walking instead of attempting to power up them and risk tuckering myself out.

I really was having the best run – running with Kelly was great and my body seemed on board with the run. I had a huge grin on my face. As we ran back toward Penticton there were more and more runners on the road. I was thankful that we had started at 7 as most of our way out had been shaded, but as the sun continued to rise there was now no shade to be found. In the last half hour my knees started to feel a little achy. I was still with Kelly on the 4:1s but I’d pull ahead a bit on the runs then we’d join up at the walk breaks. Finally, there we were, 3 hours done! And I’d had a great run!!!!

And with that, camp was over! We didn’t make it all the way back to the parking lot so we caught a ride with our support truck, chatted with the group about our day and then slowly but surely folks started dispersing. I had survived camp…

Day 4 Volumes:
Run – 3 hrs

Total Camp Volumes:
Swim – 1 hr 55 min
Bike – 238.6 km, 10 hr 27 min
Run – 3 hr 36 min
Yoga – 1 hr 30 min
TOTAL – 17 hr 28 min

Team Tri Life Ironman Canada Training Camp – Day 3

2010-07-27T09:12:00.001-06:00

At 7 am on Saturday morning we gathered by the Peach in Penticton. This morning’s plan? A 4 km open water swim. It was a beautiful morning out but it was already starting to cook. My wetsuit has a “performance fit” to it. That means it fits tight and it takes me about 15 minutes to put on and requires lots of adjusting. It is a workout in and of itself. This way I’m not dragging half of Lake Okanagan around with me on the swim though. I was sweating trying to put the wetsuit on which made it even more difficult. That, and my left hand wasn’t working so well. Riding without gloves on my 180K ride resulted in a little swelling on my left hand and my ring and pinkie fingers were not cooperating.

Finally my wetsuit was on, I put my Garmin in a Ziploc under my swim cap and started swimming. There are buoys that follow the shoreline and from the Peach to S.S. Sicamous and it is about 1 km. Since I was last in the water it felt like I had the entire lake to myself. I just swam nice and calmly, staying in a happy place. The only negative part of the swim was that I couldn’t quite get those fingers on my left hand to cooperate so I wasn’t pulling the water very well on that side. Swimming back toward the Peach the sun was coming up and sighting was a lot more difficult. Something to keep in mind on race morning. After the swim my Garmin said I’d only gone 3250 m and I was feeling a bit bummed that I had somehow managed to short the swim. Angie didn’t trust my Garmin, and lo and behold, when I uploaded the data to SportTracks mapping indicated I swam 4250 m. I guess there must have been some loss of signal in the water at some point?

After the swim we all walked over to Smith and Company for coffee. It was nice to have some downtime to talk, to rehash the swim and look forward to the next activity, as opposed to rush, rush, rush. If you ever pop in I highly recommend a Zoe’s Heaven – half a bagel topped with egg, cheese, ham, green peppers and banana peppers. Good stuff!

After coffee we grabbed our bike and run gear and met back at Skaha Beach for a ride. This was no easy recovery ride we were going on… We rode out to Okanagan Falls, keeping it in zone 1/2. It was really warm by the time we made it to OK Falls. Luckily we had a support truck out there and we went through two bags of ice and a bunch of water after only 35 min of riding.

From OK Falls the real work started – we turned on Green Mountain Road, affectionately known as “the wall.” There is a 9% grade and several hairpin turns. Angie wanted us to try and climb to the top and there was no pressure if we couldn’t make it the whole way. I’ve been up Green Mountain Road before. In a car. To get to the winery at the top. On the bike was a whole new experience! I made it to the first hair pin turn. My heart rate hit 183. I pulled over and unclipped and I had to put my head down on my aerobars for a minute. My legs were shaking. I contemplated walking up and trying to then ride a bit further, but when our support truck came driving by I felt pretty comfortable with my effort for the day.

We were going to continue on the road, meet up at Highway 3 and do the descend from Yellow Lake to Penticton again. The wind was just as ridiculous as the day before and it was way hotter. Given how quickly we were going through ice and water Angie decided we’d be safer to turn around and ride home. I made it back to Skaha for a quick 10 min run, which luckily ended right outside of an ice cream shop. That is a great way to end a workout! There was more yoga in the evening and luckily I was feeling a bit more flexible.

Day 3 Volumes:
Swim – 4250 meters, 1 hr 38 min
Bike – 38.58 km, 1 hr 43 min
Brick Run – 10 min
Yoga – 1 hr

Team Tri Life Ironman Canada Training Camp – Day 2

2010-07-27T00:40:00.001-06:00

Day 2 of camp – Friday – was the biggest and most important day of camp. We would be riding up to 190 km over the Ironman Canada course. We were meeting and riding from East Skaha Beach again, cutting off the section of the bike course out from transition and through town. There is so much stop and go from lights and traffic on the road that there isn’t a lot of value in riding this part of the course at the moment. In order to bump up the mileage we had the option of doing two loops along McLean Creek Road to Okanagan Falls instead.

There would be two groups going out on the ride – those expected to take more than 6 hours to ride 160 km would leave at 6:15, those expecting to take less than 6 hours would leave at 6:45. I knew I wouldn’t be in the faster group of riders so I planned to leave early.

We were lucky enough to have two support vehicles so we were able to give them a lot of our nutrition so we would have less to carry. I made up 6 bottles of Infinit, two peanut butter and jam wraps and I put pretzels in a baggie. I also had a bottle of Coke waiting for me, post-ride, in a cooler. It was a beautiful day, but it was already fairly warm as we set out on Lakeshore Road. Groups of different paces immediately formed. I was behind my teammate Nola and I pedalled behind her, keeping in my mind that I needed to start out easy as the day would definitely get tougher. When we got to the turn off for McLean Creek Road there were no police cars today, we were able to ride on through. As we pedalled up McLean Creek the firefighters were assembling, getting ready to resume fighting the fire. We wished them well as we rode past them, and luckily they were able to contain the fire.

The road up McLean Creek has a short, steep winding section. The first time up the hill it felt tough, but the way down was a lot of fun! On our way back out to McLean Creek Road for loop number two we saw a deer run across the road in front of us. As we pulled over and stopped a fawn leaped across the road behind the adult, followed shortly by another fawn! There was another adult waiting to cross the road and as we watched they went for it too. Such an amazing sight!As we took our second loop up McLean Creek Road we caught up with the group of faster riders. Somehow the hill felt easier the second time around?

The ride from Okanagan Falls to Osoyoos was beautiful! This section of the course is reasonably flat and there are orchards and vineyards on either side of you for much of the way. Keep in mind that from T1 to Osoyoos is only 1/3 of the course. It is still early in the day here and you need to be careful not to go too hard on this section or you will pay for it later. I really watched my heart rate along this stretch, making sure I kept it low. Along this stretch of road Nola and I just naturally stayed together, riding along and chatting. Our abilities were well matched and I was happy to have company. Around this stretch I ate part of my peanut butter and jam wrap, trying to get the calories and protein in while my heart rate was low and I could digest solid food. Just before we arrived in Osoyoos we rode through some construction on Highway 97. There was a big puddle of mud that we had to ride through, and as we passed through it I could feel the mud spraying up on my back and it covered my bike and shoes. It even hit my helmet! Yuck! Not much we could do about it though, but my bike definitely looks like it has been off roading.

As soon as we turned on to Highway 3 at Osoyoos we were smacked with wind, right in our faces. It added an extra challenge on our climb up Richter Pass. There was a bit of a downhill reprieve on the climb up Richter’s, but because of the wind I had to pedal hard or else I wouldn’t have been moving forward at all. I made it to the top of Richter all smiles though – my day was going great so far! Angie was at the top with one of the support trucks, ready with smiles, hugs, pretzels, nutrition and sun block.

Nola and I descended Richter and boy, Nola likes to attack those downhills! I opened it up a little more than the last time I rode the route in May and just tried to enjoy it. Then it was time to tackle the seven rollers. Here the wind was definitely a factor. It made the climbs up the rollers seem that much harder and the downhills seem like less of reprieve. It felt like I was going nowhere. I didn’t want to attack the wind though as I still had a lot of riding to do. Slowly, slowly through the rollers where I could have sworn I counted ten instead of seven. On to Keremeos and the out and back. At this point in time things were starting to feel more uncomfortable. I had forgotten my bike gloves in my hotel room and my hands were hurting. Between the pressure of them on the handlebars and the rickety-ness of the road they were in definite pain and my fingers were tingling. I felt chaffing around my lady bits. My left foot was getting hot (a common problem as your feet swell in hot weather and nerves get pinched). And what was up with this wind? I looked at my Garmin, knew how much of the course we had left to ride and immediately started to get down on myself. This was going to be an 8 hour ride.

8 hours….really?? Last week I rode 160K (on an admittedly less difficult route) and I did that in less than 6 hours. What on earth had I gotten myself into??

Nola and I climbed Yellow Lake…up, and up and up. If you ride Yellow Lake on its own it isn’t that difficult, but coming this late on the course that climb is hard. A little tip though, as you ride up you notice numbers spray painted on the shoulder. Those numbers are 0.1 km markings. The top of Yellow Lake is at the 17.0 km marking (because it is 17 km from Keremeos). My heart rate was going through the roof at the top of the climb and I was so happy to see Hope and Joanne in the support van at the top. I wanted to bawl to Joanne….how come it was so slow going??? (Umm, it was the wind…) She gave me a pep talk and told me I was doing great and I so appreciated her words. As we were chatting another cyclist was riding past and I heard them call my name to say hi. Julie, was that you?

From here on out it was mostly downhill back to Penticton. The wind was ridiculous as we descended Yellow Lake and the shoulder was terrible so I didn’t feel like I could open it up and enjoy the downhill. Finally we were back at at the Skaha Beach parking lot, 182 km and 8 hours later. I quickly racked my bike on my car, put my running shoes on and set out on my brick run. Everyone else was done cycling and was loading up to go home. As I ran off I started crying, pissed off at myself for being at the back of the pack and that everyone else was done. Crying quickly turns to hyperventilating when you are running and my heart rate sky rocketed. Nola caught up and asked if I wanted her to run with me. Why was I so focused on this number of 8 when I had no time goal? I rode well within my ability so I could ride strong on the course. The wind and heat made it a tough day. I’d had company the entire way with Nola. Sigh, chalk it up to Ironman emotions I suppose. As we ran my heart rate stayed in the 170s and whenever we would stop I’d feel lightheaded. We kept slowing down and finally 25 min in we just walked the rest of the way back to the car. Talking with Nola helped a lot and I really appreciated having her with me that day.

Once we made it back to the parking lot I had to hustle back to the hotel room to shower and make it to yoga. Yoga was a bit of a gong show as I was so tight I couldn’t do any of the poses. I also hadn’t eaten anything after the ride so I kept getting lightheaded. Luckily Angie had some grapes and chocolate milk in her car so I could down some nutrition halfway through class. It was a tough day out there, but one that was full of learning.

Day 2 Volume:
Bike – 182.2 km, 8 hours 4 min
Brick Run – 25 min
Yoga – 30 min of holding some poses and some random stretching when I couldn’t get into other poses

Team Tri Life Ironman Canada Training Camp – Day 1

2010-07-26T19:16:00.001-06:00

On Thursday afternoon I arrived in Penticton, ready and raring to go for a weekend of training for Ironman Canada. We weren’t getting together until 5 pm, so this gave some time to check into the hotel and run to the grocery store for supplies. Three hungry ladies training for Ironman sure know how to fill a shopping cart…
As we made our way to East Skaha Beach for our 5 pm meeting there were stories on the news about a fire out on McLean Creek Road. Our plan was a quick shake down ride along the east side of Skaha Lake, up McLean Creek Road and back, but with the fire we weren’t sure how far we would get. We set off in two groups along the east side of Skaha lake, taking it easy and enjoying the scenery. Angie warned us that this was not a workout to hammer. Sometimes people want to race, sometimes there are tears that inevitably seem to come when Ironman emotions take over. We were just supposed to be out enjoying the scenery. When we made it to the turn off for McLean Creek Road we ran into a police car diverting traffic and only allowing residents through. We stood for a few moments, talking and watching the helicopters lower in to the lake to take on water to douse the fire.
We turned back towards Skaha, pedalling nice and easily. Once we all made it back we were supposed to go for a quick swim. I don’t think that any of us really wanted to swim as it was cloudy and windy out, but there was no convincing Angie. We had to get our wetsuits on! We did a short swim in Skaha Lake, practicing sighting and running off the beach into the water. Day 1 was over. Time to grab some dinner, head back to the hotel and prep nutrition for a big day on Friday – a 180 km ride on the IMC bike course.

Day 1 Volume:
Bike – 17.8 km, 40 min
Swim – 17 min

Stomping through the weekend

2010-07-19T05:59:00.001-06:00

Wow, what a weekend! I hope you guys all had great ones!

On Friday I did my longest…swim…ever! I had a 4000 m swim on tap. It was a great workout of 3 x 400 m, 3 x 300 m, 3 x 200 m, 3 x 100 m, plus a warm up and cool down. Having all the little sets broke the swim up and I didn’t feel like it was that long. The workout called for me to swim at IM pace and take 10 seconds between each 100, 1:00 or rest between each set. I decided to bag bits of rest and just swim straight through. The whole swim went really well!

After the swim was over it was time for my one and only Stampede related event of the year – the Oxford Stomp. The Stomp is a private function that brings in some big named acts and you get a concert, beef on a bun with coleslaw, baked beans and fruit salad. This year Steven Page (formerly of the Barenaked Ladies) and Blue Rodeo were playing. I love Blue Rodeo, they truly are an iconic Canadian band. They put on a great show, plus I even got to meet the lead singer after the show. Such a fun evening!

Saturday dawned bright and early. 160K ride out in the mountains planned! Kelly, Tara, Ally and I met up just outside of Canmore in Harvie Heights. We rode along Highway 1, through the Banff park gates, past Banff, then slipped on to the Bow Valley Parkway toward Lake Louise. I just swapped out my rear cassette of a 12/25 with a 12/27 earlier this week, so I was keen to see how the hills would feel. The swap was recommended by my coach to give a couple of easier gears for IMC so my legs don’t get so trashed on the bike. Swapping out the rear cassette is a much cheaper option than switching out for a compact crank. I felt great on the hills and I’m definitely glad I made the switch.

I was also trying some new stuff for nutrition. I had a peanut butter and jam sandwich in the morning for breakfast. I carried 4 bottles of Infinit with me. I also had pretzels and a Flat Out Wrap with peanut butter and jam inside. I brought a banana with me, but I never really felt like eating it. I think the pretzels and the peanut butter wrap were great and I’m going to continue working with them for nutrition on the bike.

We lucked out with a fantastic day in the mountains. The weather was beautiful! We also saw a fox and some big horn sheep along the ride (but unfortunately no pictures of either). The 160K went really well. I started feeling a bit uncomfortable around 140K as we pedalled into a headwind, but otherwise I tried to be really mindful of keeping my shoulders down and arms relaxed and it paid off in the end.

On Sunday I had a long run of sorts to do. The left leg/hip/knee is feeling better, but there was no way I was going to put it through a 2.5 hour run, especially the day after riding 160K. I started from the Y and ran a nice 33 minute loop outside and felt great. Then I popped inside to finish things up with 2 hours on the elliptical. Wow, that is a long time to be on a stationary piece of equipment! Have you seen treadmills and ellipticals lately though? They have come a long way! The one I was on had a jack to plug your iPod into so you could manage your tunes directly through the elliptical’s screen, plus you can see how your distance equates to you running around a track or an island.

Yes, I am pretty sure the guy next to me thought I was nuts for taking pictures of the screen, but you gotta do what you can to keep yourself entertained! The 2 hours was mind-numbingly painful and all I could think about for the last hour was how I really wanted a burger when this was all over, but I made it through. Fingers crossed that I’ll be able to do my long run outside this week for I fear that the novelty of the flashy elliptical screen will wear off soon…

Turn that frown upside down!

2010-07-14T21:48:00.001-06:00

My headspace has been a little down lately as I’ve been concerned over the state of my hip. I’ve been for two ART sessions so far and have been stretching and foam rolling. There is no pain walking or riding my bike. Every time I’ve had to hustle across a cross walk I can feel the pain. But only when I’m trying to move quickly. What’s up with that? The original plan for tomorrow was to run for 2.5 hours tomorrow morning but after a hustle for the train this afternoon I knew I couldn’t do it. The pain starts almost immediately.

I almost wanted to cry while I was on the phone with Angie, but afterward I realized that I needed to focus on what I could do. And gosh darn it, I could ride! Luckily Mother Nature was on my side for the first time this week.

Just as a side story about Mother Nature NOT being on my side earlier this week? We had a crazy hail storm roll through town Monday soon after lunch. Hail the size of golf balls. Let’s just say that my car has a new aerodynamic dimply exterior. And while I am still waiting to hear back from my insurance adjustor apparently dent repair shops are booked through September. Efffff….. And on Tuesday it rained and rained and rained….so there was no outdoor riding.

Anyhow, as soon as I made it back home after work I changed into cycling gear and headed out. My plan was to ride out to Cochrane, get in a few hill repeats up the big hill, then head home. It is about 16K from my house to the edge of Cochrane. I spent my time riding out there in aero and feeling good. Then it was time to tackle the hill! The hill was repaved over winter and it is in great shape now. There is still some gravel on the shoulder though, so I had to watch out for that. I managed to get in three repeats up the hill, about 2K of climbing, and each repeat was pretty evenly paced. It was then time to head home along 1A. On my final repeat I was passed up the hill by a guy and I managed to catch him on the flats along the way back. I am definitely a stronger rider on the flats than I am on hills. He saw me approaching and he kept looking over his shoulder, seeing how fast I was coming. When I realized I was almost right on his tail he started getting up and out of his seat to try to gain some power and fend me off. It didn’t work. I totally blew past him and chicked him! It was awesome! It just goes to prove that flats are indeed my thing…

Anyhow, it was a great ride on a beautiful day out in Calgary. And I’ll keep doing what I can to make my hip feel better. In the meantime, I can still focus on cycling and swimming, and I’ll keep my run fitness up with the super fun and exciting elliptical.

Rough Weekend, Part II

2010-07-12T21:06:00.001-06:00

We made it to Kelly’s house and popped in for a quick bathroom break. I wanted to break off on my own and ride home but the girls convinced me to keep riding with them. As we set off from Kelly’s house Ally wobbled and wound up falling, landing sharply on her elbow. We were concerned something was broken, but Ally wanted to keep riding. I would have rather called the ride right there…but we forged on.

As soon as we were back on the highway, right away, I got dropped again. I was ready to turn my attitude around though, so I got comfortable with being in the back. I figured I’d just ride along and perhaps make a turn later to take me back to Cochrane then back home. I did want to get my entire 5 hour ride done.

As I kept riding I realized that my legs were getting shaky and I was seeing spots. Classic bonk. I pulled over and started having a bit of a picnic, having some Infinit, some Fig Newtons and a bike to Honey Stinger bar. Ally and Kelly saw I had stopped, gave me a call and I rode up to meet them. I don’t know what happened but I just started crying.

Apparently, bonk = tears. According to my coach.

Ally was hurting so we turned back around. The good news for Ally is that nothing is broken, whew!

But wow, this ride was one heck of a roller coaster of emotions. I wound up heading home, having lunch with the Boyfriend, and we went for a nice ride nearby. It was easy and it was fun, just what I needed to fall back in love with my bike.

So, lessons learned?

My ride is my ride. I need to worry about my speed only, and not worry about keeping up with my riding buddies. Not if it is going to affect me so negatively.
Um, welcome to Ironman training…an emotional roller coaster!
Calories matter, but so do the type of calories. I needed to have some protein earlier on in the ride.

Anyhow, time to move on and looking forward to a better week of training this week!

As for my hip? I saw my ART practitioner today and it isn’t my IT band. It is just off to the side of my IT band. It will be fixable…hopefully with my session today and one on Wednesday I’ll be good for my long run this week….let’s keep our fingers crossed! Walking and riding don’t cause a problem luckily. but hopefully things will be good for running!

Rough Weekend

2010-07-12T05:48:00.001-06:00

Wow, this weekend was a rough one. Really… I met up with Kelly on Friday for a 90 min long run. My instructions were to run for 90 min and if I was feeling good and thought it was safe I could push it up to 1:45 or 2:00. But otherwise take it easy and feel good! It was a warm one out on Friday and it was nice to be enjoying the sunshine. We were running nice and easily and running 4:1 intervals. We ran towards Edworthy and even met up with Tara for a bit. Around 40 or 45 min we started running at the end of a walk break. I stepped out with my left foot and all of a sudden there was a shooting pain in my left hip. I thought it might work itself out as I ran along….maybe I just stepped badly? It actually got worse so I had to stop and walk. After walking for a bit it felt like things had loosened up, but as I tried running again it immediately started hurting again. My gait was terrible trying to compensate for the pain. That was it, I made it back to the office on a walk, feeling dejected over the pain in my hip, something very new for me. I had a chat with coach Angie after I got back to my office. I’m pretty sure it is my IT band, so I have instructions to not run until there is no pain, and to stretch, foam roll and go see my ART provider stat this morning. Because it came on so suddenly that is generally a good sign (not a chronic injury) and I can tell that things are feeling a lot better in there today on Monday morning than they did on Friday afternoon or even Saturday.

Cut to Sunday, the day of our long ride. The plan was to ride nice and easy for 5 hours, no distance plan at all. I had asked if we could start at 8 am so we could get done just a bit earlier. Somewhere along the way I forgot I said 8 and thought we were meeting at 9. When I asked Kelly what the weather was like out her way at 8 am, no wonder she was surprised that I wasn’t on my way! I wasn’t ready to go, I still had nutrition to prep. I told them to ride on, I’d get ready and ride towards Cochrane and we’d meet up somewhere along the way.

First downfall of the ride – nutrition. I had used the last of my Infinit bike formula at Great White North and my new order hadn’t arrived in time. I substituted with three bottles of my Infinit run formula – made with sugars for a shorter duration workout and no protein. I also decided to pack along a Honey Stinger protein bar and some Fig Newtons. I wanted to try out a real food option on the ride.

I felt great riding to Cochrane. The weather was looking iffy, but I was feeling good. About an hour in I ran into my riding mates. From here we waffled on where to ride. One of the guys in our group didn’t want to ride for 5 hours so he was interested in turning back. We decided to turn back towards Kelly’s house and ride part of the Calgary 70.3 course. As soon as we rode south out of Cochrane I was dropped like a hot potato. This was not an easy pace…. We were also riding into a headwind and I just wasn’t able to pick it up enough to catch up. Cue the demons in my head and the disappointment over not being able to hang on with the group.

We turned off of Highway 22 and rode east along Springbank Road. It was lovely and flat and this is where my power is. I flew down this road, all of a sudden feeling great about my ride and enjoying the scenery. When we then turned south again the hills picked up and I flew of the back of the group. As I watched them pedal further and further away I got more and more disappointed. I thought that maybe I should ride to Kelly’s house and turn around to ride home on my own as this race pace of a ride was not helping me mentally. My emotions were just as hilly as the course we were riding. Well, when we made it to Kelly’s house, that is where things got even more interesting…. Stay tuned.

Great White North Half Iron – Race Report

2010-07-07T23:10:00.001-06:00

How on earth has Great White North snuck up on me? Is it really July already? That means that Ironman is next month!

I had a few goals that I really wanted to meet on this race. I had such stomach problems at the Chinook Olympic race that I knew I needed a positive race here to take me into IMC. So with that I decided not to focus on a time goal and instead aim for process goals:

Swim: To have a happy swim. I’ve been feeling great on the swim in my last two races this year, so I just wanted to keep that feeling!
Bike: I wanted to race the bike strong, but not to the point where it might hinder my run.
Run: Have a strong run by keeping the pace reigned in at the beginning, aiming for a strong second half. If I experienced any stomach problems at all I needed to address them right away instead of letting it manifest.

Pre-Race:

I got to transition pretty soon after it opened at 6 am. There was a lot to think about as T1 and T2 are in two different locations. Prior to the race you bag up whatever you want on the run and drop it off with the helpful volunteers. The rest of your swim stuff will get bagged up by the wonderful volunteers after everyone leaves T1 and it will be waiting for you in T2. I took my time getting my gear set up, running through the porta-potty line several times and saying hi to friends. I was even able to spot Keith! As the clock ran down to race start I ate a banana, got into my wetsuit, ate my gel, and splashed into the water to check the seal on my goggles. The water was very nice and warm, a nice change from my last race! I made a last minute decision to race with my Timex on throughout the race so I could keep track of my overall time. It was 8 am…go time!

Swim:

The swim is a 2000 meter, double loop course. I did the same thing I’ve been trying on all my races this year. Lining up about 3/4 of the way back, toward the outside. The water was warm, but also pretty silty so you couldn’t see too much of anything. The ground around the edge of the lake was also pretty soft and there was a quick drop off. I was in the mix fairly well on the first lap and just stayed in the middle of the pack. I was feeling good! Things were pretty cozy on this lap as people really wanted to fight to maintain their position. As I was on my way back to the beach I figured this was a good time to try peeing. It took a lot of work…but ahhh…so rewarding! I hit the beach, ran around the buoy and looked at my watch. 23 minutes and change. If I could keep this up I’d be poised for a slightly better swim than last year. As I dove back into the water for lap two I all of a sudden felt very alone. Where was everybody? I was confident I was swimming in a straight line and just went with it. After rounding the first buoy for the second time everyone magically reappeared. From here on out I felt boxed in. There was someone on my left, someone on my right and someone in front. The person in front kept stopping to sight and I felt like I was slowing down so much, but couldn’t get away from the other people around me. Oh well, just keep swimming, try to empty the bladder again and hang in there. When I got out of the water I looked at my watch. 48 min. Wow, I really slowed down on the second lap. Oops.

2000 meter swim: 48:30
548 out of 627…still apparently not a middle of the pack swimmer yet…

T1:

I ran over to a wetsuit stripper and I was having issues! My wetsuit didn’t want to come off over my watch or over the massive new timing chips that are being used at races this year. Finally success (thanks volunteers!) and I ran over to my bike to get ready. I felt slow….why did I care whether my race belt was right side up or not? I finally made it out of there in 3:02.

Bike:

I definitely biked too hard at Chinook so my goal was to dial it back here. I had set up my Garmin so that the largest display was heart rate, and distance and time were teeny tiny. Unbeknownst to me I had also adjusted the contrast of the display so everything was very faint, making it even harder to see! I wanted to keep my heart rate below 160 unless I was going up a hill or passing someone. It was a little congested through town so I was hoping the drafting officials wouldn't be too gung ho out here as there just wasn't enough room for everyone to space out. Right away my stomach was sore. Uh oh. I was feeling super afraid about taking in calories and how my stomach would react. I sipped a bit of Infinit and grabbed some water from an aid station but it felt like my stomach was locking up.

On the way out we had a headwind but it didn’t feel that bad to me. I was going back and forth with a couple of guys. I'd pass them, then later they would pass me. One of them was a teammate, Lyle. I was thinking about passing Lyle at one point but some guy was sitting right on his back wheel. I waited for him to pass but he wasn't moving anywhere. I decided to go for it and as I passed the this guy I turned to him and called him out for sitting right in Lyle's draft zone. Despite the wind on the way out I was able to keep the HR down and keep my cadence high and easy. It was especially fun as soon as I started seeing my teammates coming back toward me. Everyone looked so great! The ride back went well, especially once we had a tail wind. Loved that and I felt so fast! I was still concerned about my stomach and I wound up taking in about half the calories I had intended to. Probably around 350? I was prepared to bike over 3 hours to reach my goal of taking it easy on the bike to set up a great run, but I managed to come in around 2:55, 3 minutes faster than last year. Average HR on the bike was below 160 and average cadence was about 89?

90K bike: 2:55:55
90K ride + T1 + T2: 3:00:38
358 out of 627

T2:

I had a fantastic volunteer as she ran me to my spot and opened up my run bag. She said she wasn't supposed to, but she was helping out us TTL folks. Thank you!!!! I grabbed my other Garmin, my hat and got out of there! 1:40.

Run:

I carried two Gu with me on the run but after my sore stomach on the bike I was pretty sure I wouldn't be interested in taking gels. OK, Coke it would be! I watched my Garmin to make a concerted effort to slow down. I was feeling great and I was super happy that it was overcast and a comfortable temperature. As soon as I hit the out and back sections around the pathways I started to see my teammates. Everyone looked great and I loved seeing them. This is definitely my favourite thing about this race. When I hit the aid station around the gazebo I grabbed a coke and a water. All of that liquid in there started to feel sloshy so it was time to address things right away and take a walk break. Anytime my stomach would start to feel sloshy, walk break. Don't let it manifest into full on stomach shut down. I was feeling good until the 9K mark and then my legs started to get progressively more tired. Seriously? I had dialled it back in the early part of the race so I could pick it up and instead I was fading. Maybe it was calories, maybe it was just fatigue. I am not good at negative splitting, so who knows. I saw Kelly just before I hit the turnaround and I was able to catch up with her and run with her for a bit. Kelly and I try to run together during the week if we both have lunch runs so it was a nice boost to see her and say hi. When I hit 11K I picked it up as I needed to run my own race so I wished her well. Sadly I still wasn't able to speed up like I had hoped but I kept forging on. Finally, 5K left to go and I saw Ally. She offered to run with me for a bit and I was grateful for the company and the distraction. I just listened to her talk. I turned to her at one point and said, "Ally, no matter how I look right now I just really want you to know that I'm having a great day." And I was! I was addressing the stomach sloshing when it would come up and I was feeling positive. I just wasn't keeping the speed up.

When I turned the corner and saw the TTL tent I heard everyone cheering for me. I felt awful. I had this knot in my stomach and I was worried I might barf, but I so appreciated the cheers even if I wasn't smiling. I turned the final corner to the finish and I heard my name. It was my friend Lori! I met Lori back in 2001 when we were roommates on a 3 month training course in Tulsa. I first heard about triathlon from Lori maybe 5 years ago as she started getting into the sport. She's a super strong athlete and she raced IMC last year, IMNZ this year. She lives in Bakersfield, CA now, but she just happened to be in Edmonton for the weekend visiting a friend. Thanks to the wonders of Facebook we realized we were close and she decided to come down to the finish line to cheer me in. When I spotted her I almost started bawling I was so overwhelmed and happy.

21K run: 2:16:20
456 out of 627

Of course, silly thoughts enter your mind while you are racing and when I got off my bike I had looked at my watch and thought, hmm, if I can just run this fast a half marathon I'd be able to come in around 6 hours. When that looked like a pipe dream in the final 5K the goal became, try to beat last year's time. I just wasn’t able to do it and came in 41 second slower than last year. 41 measly seconds on a 6 hour day. I beat myself up over that a little bit, but then I realized it didn't matter. My bike/run combo was still 1:30 faster than last year so I can't ask for much more. And in hindsight my lack of calories over the course of the day, not taking in as much water as I should have, and an average heart rate of 176 on the run (my max is about 182) just made it not possible. But I didn't have the same stomach issues as past races, I still ran fairly well and didn't hit the wall, and I did have a happy day on the course so I really did hit my goals for the day.

Final Time: 6:05:27
442 out of 627 finishers overall
Women 30-39: 59 out of 87

Thoughts for the end of June

2010-07-02T08:20:00.001-06:00

How is it already July?? Let’s see how the end of June played out.

Sunday:

I got together with the girls for an 80K ride out in Kananaskis, starting at the Stoney Nakoda Resort & Casino. The plan was to ride 40K at race pace. Our route was pretty hilly and we were riding into the wind on our way out so there were not thoughts of race pace at all. The way back though? We were flying! After the ride we popped into the casino for lunch and I got carded!

Monday:

My orders for the day were clear – REST HARD! No problem!

Tuesday:

Our Tuesday night bike ride was out in Bearspaw. I was feeling a bit dizzy at the end of the work day, but I went home had something to eat and opted to ride out to our meeting point. I got to the parking lot and I was feeling really dizzy. As Angie was telling us our workout I was thinking, wow, I cannot handle intervals on the bike! As people took off for I talked with Angie. She looked at me and proclaimed that I did not look good and that I needed to go home. So I rode the few minutes back home and hung out on the couch the rest of the night. No fever and no real idea of where the dizziness was coming from.

Wednesday:

Oh, what to do! I still had some moments of dizziness in the morning that luckily went away after breakfast. I met up with Kelly for a run with the proviso that I could run for 10 minutes, but if I was still feeling off I needed to call it a day and walk it in. Luckily I felt good on the run and I made it through just over 6K with 4 x :30 hard/1:30 easy.

Thursday:

Canada Day!!

And with that, it is time to head off north to Great White North. Half iron on Sunday!

Saturday

2010-06-28T22:37:00.001-06:00

On Saturday I was up at 6:30. I vacuumed the bedroom, dusted the furniture and started in on laundry. Then I packaged up my empty beverage containers and put them in the car. After gathering my swim gear it was time to go. First a stop in at the bottle depot to drop off the empties and get my $17.55 refund. Then on to the pool for an 1800 m pull/paddle workout. Out of the pool, shower, change and grab a quick lunch at Good Earth. From there on to Costco. Yes, I braved Costco on a Saturday afternoon. After buying more salmon, asparagus, zucchini and red peppers than one girl would know what to do with it was time to head home. In order to make room for the Costco groceries I had to clean out the fridge, then run off to the gas station to exchange my propane cylinder for the BBQ. All before 5 pm.

Gee, with all this time to get stuff done do you think I might be tapering?

Swim/Bike/Run Thoughts for the Week

2010-06-27T17:35:00.001-06:00

Swim:

I have not been a good little swimmer for most of June. I didn’t realize it, but I’ve been averaging one trip to the pool a week this month. Except for this week! I got in all three of my swims this week – 2800 m on Wednesday, 3500 m on Friday and another 1800 m on Saturday. The 3500 m swim was great. I swam consistently the whole way through. There were no drills, no pull, no paddles, no kick. Just swim. Surprisingly I wasn’t bored, but that may have been because I had to pee so badly I was concentrating more on making sure my bladder didn’t burst!

For Saturday’s swim I got there and the only lane with no one in it was the fast lane. OK, well I’m not fast, but I decided to go for it anyway. As the swim went on floaters would come in and jump into the medium speed lanes, then hang out and chat at the edge of the pool. I guess you don’t have to be fast, but if you show up with a lot of pool toys you look serious! Unless of course someone who is actually fast shows up…

Bike:

On Thursday I had a two hour ride to take care of. The weather has been so crazy here in the evenings – warm and sunny during the day, showers and thunderstorms in the evening. I was really hoping I’d be able to make it for two hours without the weather turning. In addition some of the team was getting together for a time trial workout later in the evening. Kelly also volunteered to keep me company for part of my ride. I did a quick loop through Bearspaw, met up with Kelly and did another quick loop before meeting up with Angie and the team. Their plan was to ride a time trial out 1A from the edge of Calgary to Cochrane, then coming back along some quieter country roads. Most of the team was still warming up. I wanted to do the route, but not the time trial, so we took off ahead of the team and vowed to try and stay ahead of them the entire time. The winds were getting crazy!!! We had one heck of a headwind out along 1A so I don’t know how the time trial went for everyone else out there. If I had pedaled as hard as I could and if I had pedaled any slower I would have been going backwards! Once we turned off of 1A we got to feel those winds as a crosswind. Wow, I’ve never had my bike blown around so much before and it was a little scary! We turned another corner and now we had a tail wind and just booked it! That was fun. Luckily I made my 2 hour ride in before the heavens opened up.

Run:

This has been a bit of a cutback week for running in anticipation of the Great White North half Iron distance triathlon next weekend. Short with lots of intensity. Half marathon pace intervals on Wednesday, and 1 minute hard intervals on Friday. My calves were super tight after the Wednesday intervals and the fire drill, but luckily they felt good while running. The 1 minute intervals went fairly well but my stomach was really acting up. I made it through the intervals but by the time I made it to the cool down I had to walk as my stomach just couldn’t handle running. Wow, what is up with my digestive system?? I’m hoping I can really figure this out…

Three Things Thursday

2010-06-24T06:34:00.001-06:00

Why is it that when you lean forward on your bike to drink from your aero bottle that it is the perfect position for all of the snot to promptly run out of your nose? Lets just say that I’m getting good at the farmer blow (aka snot rocket)…
The weather in Calgary has been conspiring against us lately. It will be beautiful in the day, with thunderstorms rolling in just as it is time to leave work. Fingers crossed for some nice weather this afternoon as I have a two hour ride.
Yesterday I ran some half marathon pace intervals over lunch. My legs were zonked and it was so hard to hold pace. After I was done running I was waiting at an intersection to cross and I actually had to sit down on a nearby ledge it was that hard to stand up. Then jump to 2:00 pm where we had a fire drill at work. And I work on the 30th floor. If my legs weren’t unhappy before that, they sure were unhappy after that. Very tight calves today!

Recovery? Ride

2010-06-22T22:37:00.001-06:00

After the Chinook Olympic race on Saturday it was time to keep rolling on the road to Ironman. That meant that a recovery ride was on the schedule! How about a nice, easy 4 hour ride? We rode out Highway 8 to Bragg Creek, then out towards Elbow Falls, aiming for a 100K ride. My legs were feeling great! Had I really raced the day before? The last time I rode this route my legs were yelling at me on every uphill, this time I barely noticed those uphills. Perhaps part of the reason for that was the great tail wind we had on the uphill out of town?

For this ride I carried my Infinit bike formula plus I also carried some sandwich wraps. Kelly has turned me on to this concept – sandwich meat (turkey, ham), some cheddar cheese, all rolled in a corn tortilla. We stopped in Bragg Creek an hour in and I had my sandwich. We also ran into Angie out there so I was able to chat with her a bit about my race quickly.

The ride out to Elbow Falls was busy. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon so there were plenty of drivers on the road. After we turned around the road got even busier with massive RVs as they vacated the campgrounds. Some of them were so large and there were some crazy drafts off of them as they blew past us.

We also managed to see some great sights along the way – a deer and a group of wild horses including two foals! Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me though. At first I thought they were horses that had gotten loose and were crossing the highway, but the girls later confirmed that they were wild.

The head wind on the way back was wicked… I was really tightening up between my shoulder blades. I had to stop and stretch it out, but otherwise the ride went well. Thanks to the wind our 100K ride was a bit short of the 4 hour goal, but we called it good for the day.

After the race I started noticing that I had some painful spots on my neck that were turning really red. Check this one out: Wetsuit bite from Saturday’s race?

Chinook Olympic Triathlon – Race Report

2010-06-21T22:38:00.001-06:00

So if you read the prelude to my race report for the Chinook Olympic Triathlon you may be discovering what the word of the day is: crap!!!! So without further ado, let’s talk about the race!

The Swim: 1500 m

We crossed the timing mats and stood on the beach, waiting for go time. I seeded myself about 3/4 of the way back, just behind some men. 9:15 came and it was time to go!I took a few steps into the water, then started swimming right away. For all my worries about the cold water, race adrenalin is a pretty amazing thing. I didn’t feel cold. I was able to put my face in the water and breathe normally. I tried to stay within a pack, swimming and popping my head up every once in awhile to sight. We were swimming to yellow buoys, but there were some further out orange buoys from the half Iron distance swim. The yellow buoys were a bit smaller and I was having trouble seeing them. We were swimming in a triangle, two laps of 750 meters. As I rounded the second buoy heading back to the shore I realized I was right next to my friend Tara. She moved in front of me and I decided to just slip in behind her and hang on to her feet. All of a sudden I was back at the shore. I ran out on to the beach, around the buoy and got in for lap number two. Let’s get this done! I was amazed that I was still within a pack of people on the second lap. I tried to hang on to feet. On the final lap I realized I’d better hurry up and pee on the swim so I worked hard on that. Peeing on the swim is important to me, especially in Ironman! It is free pee time, right? :)

Anyhow, all of a sudden, the swim was over. I was close to the shore and people were standing up around me and walking in from there. I waited until I could grab sand in both handfuls. I stood up, grabbed the neck of my wetsuit as I stood up to let water in and tried to start getting that wetsuit unzipped. Over the timing mats. All done with part one!

1500 meter swim: 36:17 (172 out of 247)

Transition:

I tried to get my arms out of my wetsuit and have it around my waist before I got to the wetsuit strippers. All the strippers were busy though and myself and a lady got to a guy to strip at the same time. She hadn’t unzipped at all and he started helping her right away. Argh! So I just pulled off the wetsuit down to my ankles, sat down and someone came over to pull the suit off. Let’s go!I ran down the pathway and into transition, put the bike gear on and got ready to ride!

The Bike: 40 km

It was crowded coming out of transition and the adrenalin was pumping. I really wanted to have a great ride. The traffic was really heavy as we turned on to Highway 22X. The drivers didn’t really have a clue what was going on and I almost had to come to a stop as I was trying to merge on to the shoulder and a driver was trying to merge on to 22X. The ride is a fairly rolly out and back. I played leap frog with a few people, passed a few people and a few people passed me. It was a slight uphill on the way out so I really wanted to push it on the slight downhill back.

I decided to try something different on the ride given that this was an Olympic distance race. I recently made up a new formula of Infinit for my long training runs. It doesn’t have any protein in it and I decided to drink my calories instead of go for water and gels. 200 calories on the bike, just like at Oliver.

All that pushing it and I was back to transition.

40K bike: 1:14:24
40K bike + transitions: 1:18:48 (84 out of 247)

Transition:

I made it to the mount line, got off my bike and ran the bike into transition. I flubbed a bit trying to push the bike by the seat, the front wheel whipped off to the side and I almost tripped over my bike. Oops! I racked my bike, changed out shoes, grabbed my hat, fuel belt, Garmin and booted it out of there.

Run: 10K

I decided I wanted to try something different, I was going to run with a fuel belt. I wanted to know how it felt in case I wanted to use one at Great White North or at Ironman. They were also serving Heed on the race course, of which I’m not a fan, so I decided to run with Infinit instead. I struggled to put the fuel belt on, turn my race number around and I hadn’t even put my Garmin on yet.As I tried to move the race number around it came off. Crap!! Two races in a row with race number issues. I folded the number up and put it in my back pocket. As I put my Garmin on I looked down. What on earth? I had it set in “Other” sport mode from my open water swim on Thursday and I had forgotten to set it back to “Run” mode. Crap! I wouldn’t know my average pace for the entire run, but oh well…

I also discovered as I forged on was that my legs were dead. Hmm, maybe I had biked too hard? I slowed it down hoping that my legs would come around, but the feeling never changed.

My nervous stomach from earlier in the morning also reared its ugly head. Ugh. Stomach problems, seriously? Crap!! It was one slow 10K run. There would be no sub-1 hour run today. Thank goodness for the finish line. Someone yelled at me that there was a girl right on my heels so I managed to find a second gear to hold her off. Good thing too, as she was in my age group!10K run: 1:04:14 (207 out of 247) sigh….

Final results: 2:59:18 (happy to squeak in under 3 hours)
Overall: 158 out of 247
Women 30-39: 21 out of 31

Lessons Learned:

I hate running with a fuel belt. If I could have ditched it and gone back to pick it up later I would have. It bounced around and it just drove me nuts.
Stomach problems…again? Ugh… There are a few possible culprits. My heart rate was really high on the bike – like run rate high. Did my stomach shut down thanks to that? My stomach was already having issues long before the race, before I ate breakfast… And then I remembered the carbo load and the meat lasagne I ate. Ugh oh….beef and I are not good friends when I eat it the night before a race. Sigh… Who knows, maybe it was a combination of many factors?
More important than bike splits and run splits are bike + run splits. Going hard on the bike can wreck a run…
SPF 30 is just not nearly enough SPF for me.

I’m not disappointed in my race though. I think I learned some important lessons, and 2 out of 3 isn’t bad, right? After the race I was chatting with friends, I reach up around my neck and realized my chain was funny. It turns out the chain broke during the race and I lost my RoadID tag. I have a new one ordered already though.

So that’s it for the short races. The Great White North Half Iron distance triathlon is coming up in less than two weeks! Thanks for all of your great comments!!

Chinook Olympic – The Prelude

2010-06-21T07:21:00.001-06:00

I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately about not making it to a race on time. Needless worry? Premonition?

Well on Saturday, it just about came true! I had been stressing about the set up of this week for awhile. On Thursday at 7:30 I had a practice swim at Lake Midnapore (the lake we would be racing in) booked. On Friday we were all supposed to attend a pre-race meeting/carbo load way down south, on the other side of town from where I live, at 6 pm. Then our race started, way down south, early Saturday morning. Transition opened at 7 am and all bikes had to be in transition by 8 am. Between all of this there seemed like very little time to actually pull my gear together and get ready for the race.

The carbo load was pretty fun. I was able to run into some old friends I haven’t seen for awhile. Dawn was there, as she was racing her first Olympic tri. I also ran into an old co-worker who first told me about Angie and Team Tri Life and he now coaches too. Martin Parnell was also there to talk to us about his quest to run 250 marathons this year. But I was getting stressed. As we approached 8 pm the meeting was still going on and I still needed to get my gear in order. After listening to the talk about the swim, the bike course and the rules I decided to head home so I could pack up.

All of that stress made me wired and I finally rolled into bed around 11 or so I think. Needless to say when the alarm went off at 5:30 I barely remember registering it. All of a sudden my eyes snapped open at it was 6:30. Crap!!!!! I bolted out of bed, hurried up to get ready, took my breakfast to go and started the drive to the race site. Thank goodness for minimal traffic as the drive only took half an hour.

The car was parked at 7:30, everything unloaded, and then a short walk to transition. Wow, all the bike racks were pretty full… I found a few teammates and made some space for myself on the rack. I’m sorry, but you do not need to be laying a big huge beach towel out on the ground to save a bunch of room for yourself in transition. I gently moved the edge of the big huge beach towel in, hung the bike on the rack and started setting up. Friends were finding me to say hi and I was just one big bundle of nerves. But my bike had made it into transition by 8 am so I was in good shape, right?

Then the race director came by with a big megaphone informing us that transition would be closing in 15 minutes. Crap!!!!!! There is also a half Iron distance race that starts at 8 am. Our swim wouldn’t start until 9:15 am, but we still had to be out. Panic!! I laid out my bike gear and run gear, kept all of my dry clothes, wetsuit and swim gear in my bag and headed out of transition. I sure I hope I hadn’t forgotten anything!

After the stress of getting to the race site and getting set up in transition, it was now just time to hang out and wait. We watched the half Iron athletes start their swim and we cheered them on as they would come out of the water, finishing their first lap and jumping in for lap two. There was one poor guy who cramped up right away and had to be helped up the beach. He tried to work it out, got back in the water again, but after swimming maybe 250 meters his day was over and he got a ride back to the beach.

As we hung out I realized I’d better hit the bathrooms before wriggling into my wetsuit. I was actually trying to save myself for peeing in the wetsuit, but uh oh, my stomach was getting nervous. Darn it… Visit to the bathrooms done, it was time for the wetsuit. Luckily some folks form Tri-It were on hand to help us with adjustments.Then it was time for a gel and a warm up swim. Wow, the water was still really cold. I was having trouble putting my face in the water so this may be interesting…By the way, I forgot to mention our timing chips. Check that thing out! I wasn’t sure if it was a timing chip or Lindsay Lohan’s alcohol monitoring ankle strap…Before I knew it we were being called out of the water and back on to the beach where we had to cross the timing mats first. It was time to race…

Where are we?

2010-06-18T07:17:00.001-06:00

I feel as though somehow in the middle of the night, someone picked up Calgary and put it back down at the exact latitude and longitude of Vancouver. The weather has been uncharacteristic here this June as it has been mostly grey, rainy and cool. More like Vancouver! It really feels as though the ELF’s post On Success has been the theme for this week!

Yesterday the rain and wind continued, but there was speed work on the schedule. Time to suck it up and get out there in the rain! I threw on capris, a long sleeve tech shirt, a rain jacket and a hat and met up with Kelly over the lunch hour. For interval work I’m a big fan of setting up a workout in my Garmin so that it will beep at me at the appropriate times as opposed to me watching the time. Finally the Garmin caught satellites and it was time to go. The rain was nice and soft as we got started on our ten minute warm up. I then had 8 intervals of 2:00 hard, 2:00 recovery. The first interval felt pretty good and then I slowed it down for the recovery. All of a sudden the recovery was over. Was that really two minutes? I wasn’t paying attention. I ran through the second 2:00, then looked down when it was over. Oops! I had accidently set the recovery time for 1:00, not for 2:00. Oh well, less recovery, who cares?

The intervals in the rain felt good, but as we finished up our last interval the rain was starting to get heavier and heavier. Good timing to be done!

On Thursday night I had a practice swim at Lake Midnapore for my Chinook Olympic Triathlon on Saturday. As I’ve mentioned, it has been grey and rainy all week. I was a little scared of how the water would feel. I struggled into my wetsuit, but luckily Brian from Tri-It showed up for his practice swim and he was offering to help people with getting wetsuits on and adjusted. It is amazing the little tweaks you can make to the comfort of a wetsuit by pulling it up properly around your arms, shoulders and neck. Luckily the good folks at Tri-It will be on hand race morning to help us out with wetsuit adjustments!

Ok, now the wetsuit was on it was time to suck it up and get into the lake. It was supposed to be 18C…maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t? Wow, I don’t know if I’ve ever been in water that cold. My feet went numb within a minute. A few brave souls dunked and started swimming right away but I wasn’t sure if I could get my head underwater. I doggy paddled it for a bit, but that wasn’t going to help me at all. Time to just go for it and dunk!

BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I started swimming I kept my breathing to one side as it seemed like my face didn’t have to get as wet that way, then eventually I was able to start bilateral breathing. I swam along the edge of the lake for a bit, then picked a spot across the lake to swim to and practice sighting.

Once I got to that spot I decided that was good enough for me. I had gotten in my wetsuit, gotten in the water and practiced swimming and sighting. Staying in the cold water with the wind blowing wouldn’t help me too much more, so time to swim back. It was good enough for 600 m or so.

So there we go….now time to race on Saturday! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Suck It Up Buttercup!

2010-06-15T22:21:00.001-06:00

I read a terrific blog post the other day – On Success. I highly recommend you read the post. Go read it, and come back.

Or if you are strapped for time, here’s a part of the post the really resonated with me:

Successful athletes step up – to the challenge, to the race, to the competition. The race director says no wetsuit, they say no problem. It’s just another obstacle to overcome on race day. They are confident they can overcome anything because they are prepared both mentally and physically. Many athletes show up to race day physically prepared. Few are mentally prepared. Perhaps because they don’t step up in training. It’s raining, I’ll run on the treadmill. So, will the race be on the treadmill too? It’s windy, I’ll ride the trainer. Will they cancel the bike if the wind exceeds 10 mph? Step up so you are physically prepared and so you can learn to be mentally prepared for dealing with whatever is thrown your way.

The weather in June has been less than ideal. Last week our Tuesday night ride was called due to rain. Big, fat drops of rain. This week the skies were cloudy, grey and nasty. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I pulled into my garage after work those big, fat drops of rain started to fall again. Sheesh! The rain drops fell off and on during the 30-45 minutes I had at home before my bike workout. I thought there might be a chance the rain would end so I changed and loaded my gear and my bike into the car. As I put the bike on the bike rack I noticed that I still had quite a bit of dust on my bike. It picked up a bunch of dust as we drove away from our campground in Highwood a couple of weeks ago. Hmm. Must remember to clean that off….

Then as I pulled out of the garage I realized that there was all this stuff falling on the car. Rain! Drat! Our meeting spot was only 10 minutes away from my house so I knew that the situation wouldn’t be any better on the bike. The car had been loaded up though, and I had a few friends I needed to see at the workout so I forged on.

As soon as I parked the car I was told to just hurry up and go, don’t stop to talk! Wow, it was wet. And kind of cold too. On the plus side it was knocking off all that dust on my bike!

The workout was supposed to be bike/run repeats. One 5K loop on the bike, a quick run, then repeat. I set off on the bike and realized that there is a fundamental problem with wearing glasses while riding in the rain. It is hard to see! Oh well, suck it up Buttercup! What if it is raining at the race on Saturday? I can do this… I rode fairly tentatively as I didn’t want to wipe out on a corner on the slick road. Wow, seriously, this rain was getting intense! Then….what?? Is that hail???

Yikes! I made it back to my car, changed from bike shoes to run shoes and got running. The rain was most definitely not letting up. Where is the line between sucking it up and knowing when to call it quits? I think we were there. Luckily Angie felt that way too, so one bike/run repeat it was. On my short drive home I felt like I was hacking up a lung. Oh well, it was definitely a learning experience and character builder out in the monsoon and hail today!

Mental Health Day

2010-06-14T22:16:00.001-06:00

I woke up around 7 on Sunday morning. The sun was streaming through the blinds and I could tell it was beautiful out. A quick check of the temperature on my iPhone confirmed it. It was already 10C out. I shuffled downstairs and started to get rolling on making coffee. I was almost out of ground coffee so I grabbed the coffee grinder and the beans in the freezer. Peet’s Coffee – Major Dickason’s Blend – best stuff ever that I picked up in Seattle. As I shook some beans out of the bag and into the grinder a big clump came out, splattering beans on the countertop and on the floor. Oh no, not my precious Peet’s coffee!! I bent down to clean up the beans off the floor and then I saw it. I saw it all.

Salt, dust, itty bitty pieces of food. Yuck.

Then I stood up and saw the mess on the countertop.

That was it. I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. The coffee spilling on the floor was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sure, originally I was planning on doing my 2 hour long run, but I felt like this took precedent. I needed to clean for my sanity as I was tired of feeling overwhelmed by how dirty my place felt to me. So instead of running I vacuumed, mopped, cleaned the carpet on the landing (thanks Finlay for making that polka dot for me!), dishes, shredded some of the piles of paper that were piling up on my desk, cleaned the bathroom. And when it was done I had a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, then it was off to meet Kelly to see SATC2.

So was it a good training day? No. But at least it lifted a weight off my shoulders. I came home from work today and knocked out that 2 hour run today instead. It was actually about perfect out. It was overcast and about 13C with a slight breeze. Perfect for running long! I took the run fairly slow – I am racing on Saturday after all! That’s right, the Chinook Olympic Triathlon is almost here!

Banff National Park Long Ride

2010-06-13T22:15:00.004-06:00

We are now entering new territory….longest bike rides ever! This weekend called for 140K (87 mi). Phew….that’s a long way! Kelly, Tara and I met up in Harvie Heights, just between Canmore and the border of Banff National Park on Saturday morning. The plan was to ride along Highway 1, past Banff, then out on to the Bow Valley Parkway toward Lake Louise. Then ride back!

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride///792127648842950734"&amp;gt;Harvie Heights to Bow Valley Parkway&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride//"&amp;gt;Find more Bike Rides in , &amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

It looked liked it would be a gentle climb with some good uphills at points along the way out, then downhill on the way back. The weather has been off most of this week, with plenty of rain. Luckily by the time Saturday rolled around the sun was out. It was warm without a cloud in the sky. The sky was the most amazing blue ever. We were definitely lucking out on the weather!

The ride out from Harvie Heights to the turnoff for the Bow Valley Parkway was gently rolling and I loved the ride. Even though we were riding on Highway 1 the shoulder was definitely generous. I was surprised that it took us 26K to get to the Bow Valley Parkway. Had it really been that long? From there on out the bigger climbs started. Predictably I wasn’t able to keep with the girls on the climbs. Sigh…I know the girls are strong climbers but it started to get to me that I couldn’t keep up.

The original plan was to ride all the way to Lake Louise but it was becoming readily apparent that my calculations were just slightly off. We were about 7K from Lake Louise when we hit 70K on our ride. Somehow or other 140K was enough to wrap our brains around, but 154K seemed like just a bit too long. Plus we had to be back in Calgary by 5:30 pm and the timing was starting to get tight on that. I also expected the ride back to feel a bit easier than it actually did. Wasn’t this supposed to be downhill? On the plus side we got to see some wildlife! We passed a deer, plus some elk!

The last 20K of the ride was tough. I was so ready to be off my bike! I was tensing up between my shoulder blades and my lower back was starting to ache. Were we there yet? I know my legs could go further but the mental aspect is mostly what seems to get to me. I’m really going to have to work on this…

Finally we were at the gates to the park…just a couple more kilometres to go! 5 hours and 142.5K later and we were done! Unfortunately we were out of time though and had to head back to Calgary right away, so no opportunity for a brick run. This bike was a good learning experience though:

While a ride may take 5 hours of active time, you are actually out there for much longer. Today it took about 6.5 hours including stops!
While I do like drinking Infinit on my rides I need to bring along some solid food as my stomach starts to get growly. Kelly carries sandwiches of turkey and cheese rolled in a corn tortilla. I think I may try something similar.
I may not be a fierce climber but I am learning that my power comes on the flats. We all have our strengths and weaknesses!
Ironman training really is a roller coaster…

Exhausted

2010-06-09T20:13:00.001-06:00

Exhausted…with a capital E! When the alarm went off at 4:30 am for my swim I barely acknowledged it and fell right back asleep. Ugh…

All day long of been drinking tea and water like it is going out of style.

As I drove home from work the exhaustion continued. I could barely handle the thought of making dinner, let alone going home to sit on my bike for up to an hour. Then it clicked. My throat had been sore when I woke up. There is a reason I’m feeling so exhausted….and I don’t like where this has the possibility of going. I decided a rest day was in order as I’m worried I’m on the verge of getting sick. I’ve heard rumblings of friends having some buggy stuff and I want no part of it! I’ve had my behind parked on the couch all night, relaxing and drinking water. Hopefully I’ll be able to jump out of bed tomorrow at 4:30 for that swim, but we’ll see how it goes!

Oh, and as an aside, I have had at least three triathlon related dreams in the last four nights. The common theme seems to be forgetting about the race until the last minute. The race is about to start and I haven’t even set up transition yet. Think I may be a little preoccupied??

Highwood Pass

2010-06-07T23:08:00.001-06:00

After our 110K ride on Friday it was time to pack up and hit the road! The Boyfriend and I were joining Kelly and her husband camping that weekend. The plan was to camp about 45 km west of Longview out in Kananaskis, on the south side of Highwood Pass.

At an elevation of 2206 metres, Highwood Pass is the highest point in Canada that can be reached by paved highway. The highway is also closed from November/December through the middle of June. The closure is for the elk, big horn sheep, deer and moose that do their spring grazing during that time. The closure is only to motorized vehicles only though, and it is a popular route for cycling just before the pass opens to vehicles.

Last year I was supposed to ride the Pass the weekend before it opened but a massive snow storm blew into town. Then I went out to ride it last July and 13 miles in my chain broke. Fail!

We drove out to our campsite after work on Friday, the Boy and I set up our tent and Kelly and her hubs set up their trailer. After getting a campfire going it was time to chow down on smokies and S’mores for a little post/pre-ride fuel. After a fun night around the fire it was time to get some rest. We woke up in the morning to some breakfast sandwiches with ham, cheese, egg, tomato and cucumber on a bun with some bacon on the side. It was gourmet camping! After breakfast some friends from Calgary arrived, we loaded up our bikes and hit the road to start our ride. There were a ton of cars just outside the gates – there would be a bunch of cyclists on the pass! You might be able to spot the gate faintly there, and right after the gate the road starts to climb, up and up. And it keeps climbing for about 40K with only the odd bit of flat or downhill in between. The plan was to ride for about 2 hours or 60K.

Riding on a highway completely closed to traffic was a pretty amazing experience. It felt almost…private! The scenery was fantastic.Also fantastic? How my legs were feeling! The day before my legs were screaming on any little hill. Today I was climbing and feeling strong with no hint of the 110K that had happened the day before. Part way up the hill Kelly and I looked at each other and decided we wanted to try and go a bit further to reach the summit.From there the ride turned epic! At the 30K mark we rode through an ice pellet storm. Thankfully it didn’t last long, but those little pellet/hail things really stung when they hit! Plus I haven’t mentioned that we were riding into the wind as we went uphill. Oh, and we had really only brought enough nutrition for a 2 hour ride. As we kept forging on, surely the summit was right around the next corner, right?

I thought we would only have a couple of kilometres left, but then the bonk started. My legs felt instantly weaker. My arms were getting shaky. All I could think of was my desire to eat something and that sounded a lot better than pedalling forward. We stopped at the entrance to Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. I had four Honey Stinger chews in my bento box. I scarfed them down. After that I only had half a bottle of Infinit left. We were just over two hours into our ride and Kelly had as much nutrition with her as I did.We stopped at the sign, checked out the map and tried to figure out how far we were from the summit. At that moment some guys on mountain bikes rode down past us. They told us we had about 30 minutes left to go. Um…yeah…I did not have 30 minutes of climbing left in my legs. We decided to head down. When I got home and mapped the ride I think we were only about 4K…at the most…off of the summit. Sigh…Oh well, time to descend! We figured we’d fly down as hopefully that headwind would turn into a tail wind. It was also a great opportunity to practice descending (thanks Ally for those great tips!). The ride down was a blast! We even saw a few deer.Strangely enough the tail wind didn’t last too long and we battled a cross wind and a head wind on the way back. Despite that, what took over 2 hours to climb took just over 1 hour to descend. All in all, 71K ridden, about 730 meters of climbing. Despite the bonk it felt like a really successful ride and it was so much fun!

Thanks to everyone for a fun weekend of camping and some amazing riding. I couldn’t have asked for more!

Going Long

2010-06-06T20:59:00.001-06:00

Thursday was my long run day – 2 hours! My number one favourite thing to do for long runs is to run from my house into work. It is about 12.5 miles in and it helps me to get that long run out of the way nice and early. I dropped a bag of clothes and toiletries off at the office on Wednesday. In the evening I prepped my nutrition. I’ve tested out Infinit’s single serving Run formula before and it works pretty well. I just drink that and don’t worry about hauling gels with me. I fill up a Camelbak with the Infinit and left it in the fridge.

Thursday morning my alarm rang bright and early. I hopped out of bed, checked the weather (11C – warm!) and put my run gear on. My route from home to work is hilly. 244 feet of climbing, 536 feet of descending. The majority of the climbing seems to happen in the first few miles of the run and it took a good 4 miles before my legs actually realized that we were supposed to be running. They just weren’t getting into the groove and they were tired. Then things were good until about 1.5 hours and then my legs were just ready for this run to be over. The only way for the run to be over was to get to work though, and I wasn’t walking….so trudge, trudge, onwards to work. Painfully slow. But the run got done! I made it into work, grabbed my bag of clothes and a guest pass to the gym in the basement of my office and that was it. It felt good to have the run done. Shortly after getting to the office it started to rain, so I was definitely happy that I missed the rain!

On Friday I took the day off of work to meet up with my IMC partners in crime, Tara and Kelly. Tara was racing a sprint on Saturday and had instructions to ride 120K the day before. Kelly and I both offered to take the day off of work to keep her company. We decided to ride from Calgary out west and then south towards Bragg Creek, then on to Elbow Falls. The route is mostly flat until after Bragg Creek with just the occasional hill. Every single baby hill my legs were screaming at me. I felt good on the flats but the hills were just draining. And apparently my brain wasn’t capable of doing math either. For some reason or other I kept thinking I was riding 62 miles (100K), but I really needed to go for 74 miles. I was so wrong on where I thought our turnaround point ought to be.

Part way through the ride I made a big decision….

I changed my Garmin Edge from miles into kilometres. All my rides are given in distances and it is getting a little tiring converting back and forth. So into kilometres we go! Kelly welcomed me to Canada when I made that little change over. :)

We wanted to avoid the big climb to Elbow Falls so we turned around a bit early, making for a total ride distance of 110K. We were all pretty knackered so no one had the desire to tack on those extra 10K. We did trudge through a pretty painful brick run afterward though.

There we go, two more long workouts in the bank for IMC. Thankfully there were some fun things in store for the weekend!

A Premium

2010-06-02T21:09:00.001-06:00

Time. During Ironman training time is a premium.

Initially you sign up for Ironman and it is a year away…you still have a lot of time. Now my countdown timer is telling me that it is less than 90 days away. Is it really June already?

It is now starting to feel like there is less and less time in the day. I come home, look at my house and sigh. My house needs a vacuum and I am slowly working my way through laundry. Earlier this week I actually contemplated the idea of taking a day off of work so I could just stay home and clean my house up. I truly admire people that train for an Ironman with spouses and families.

In order to give myself a bit more time in the evening I’m trying to get back in the groove of early morning workouts. This morning I was up…somewhere around 4:40 am. At the pool and in the water at 5:45 am. I ran through a 2000 meter set and still made it into work before 8 am. Tomorrow I have a 2 hour long run planned. It sounds like the perfect opportunity for a 12.5 mile run from my house to the office. Hopefully I’ll get into a groove and have more time and energy in the evening to keep things a little tidier around the house! Of course part of the process does involve realizing that I can’t do everything so I may just wind up making friends with the dust bunnies around my place…

Hills, hills, glorious hills…

2010-06-01T22:06:00.001-06:00

I totally dropped the ball on the cookie story at Yellow Lake. Ally and I were riding to the top of Yellow Lake for cookies. Imagine our disappointment when the place we were looking for wasn’t at the top! Apparently the good cookies are at the start of the climb… Disappointing! So when you ride the IMC bike course look for the Bear fruit stand on the left just outside Keremeos. Apparently the cookies are amazing.

Last week was all about hills. Hill repeats on the bike on Tuesday. It started raining while we were out there and I kept hearing a squeak, squeak, squeak. Angie heard it and tried to replicate the sound which only seemed to happen when someone was riding the bike. Turns out it was my rear wheel that had slid forward slightly and was rubbing on the bike frame. It is a lot easier to ride up hills when your rear wheel isn’t rubbing. It also turns out that I am a complete scaredy cat riding downhill in the rain.

On Thursday I had a 90 min run with 3 x 2:00 hill repeats with 1:00 of squats at the top. I wanted to knock the run out early as it was supposed to cool off and rain later in the day. My run went fairly well. At one point I looked down at my Garmin though and I saw that my heart rate was reading 240 bpm. Seriously? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be running so well if my heart rate was that high. After reading through a few forums this seems to be a common problem with the new soft strap. I’m not keen on the idea of going back to the old strap as it causes some really bad chaffing, but if the heart rate data is so erroneous there isn’t much point in wearing the strap. Despite that one thing the rest of the run was good. I picked a tough hill for my hill repeats and my legs were mad at me…

On Friday I had my longest swim ever…3500 meters. Welcome to Ironman training! It was long, kind of boring, but it went well. I was reminded by Ryan to just take it stroke by stroke and that I would make it. It actually wound up being my best swim this week.

On Saturday the plan was to ride 110K but we woke up to snow. Snow at the end of May!! I guess it really wouldn’t be Calgary is it didn’t snow at some point in May. There would be no riding outside on this day. I swept out the garage, cued up a DVD of the IMC bike course and Tara and Ally came over to knock out a 2.5 hour ride on the trainer. 2.5 hours is a long time on the trainer, but thanks to great company, great conversation and some good tunes it actually flew by. Thanks for coming over ladies!

Thankfully the snow stopped and I managed to get in a fairly pleasant run on Sunday morning – a 60 min hilly run around my neighbourhood. All of these hills! My legs were toast but I still managed to feel strong and steady. I found some good hills to run too…

And so that was last week in a nutshell! This week? We are bringing back the early morning workouts…

Oh, and go check out Rainmaker, he’s giving away a very fancy scale!