Bear with me this one is a bit long. A few weeks ago, my primary care physician (close
to my age) and I were talking about how I've been frustrated this spring with
my body being this ever-changing alien state for me. He's seen how hard I
work at the gym as we often work out at the same time in the winter months. He
made the comment that sometimes we just need to remember to be grateful that we
are able to keep exercising and meeting goals even if they aren't as fast or
big as they used to be now that we are getting older. And while that is true, I
am not willing to accept defeat, because if I do my MS will progress and I will
lose mobility and my sanity. That said I
knew I could run into issues going into this race and I told my partner/sherpa
Steve that my time would likely be somewhere between 6 hours and 45 minutes and 7:30 depending on
what the day delivered and my body produced.
I have been working with a professional triathlon coach
since February and had a good base of swim, bike and run before that as I never
took much in the way of time off after my half marathon (13.1 mile) and half ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) races
last fall. It made it easier to jump
into a training routine in February but seems it is now causing issues because
as it turns out my body needed that rest. My run times have been getting slower and slower while my peri weight
popped up to 12 lbs. gained almost overnight by December. While I have noted in another post I am now on hormone
replacement therapy but that takes time to dial in and I continue to carry the weight and the
training load.
So, to the race. My
coach does videos on a variety of topics, and she sent me a race prep one for
long course races early last week. Carb
load like it’s my job 1-3 days before the race, onboard salt, hydrate and
rest. The week before I was traveling
for work to Salt Lake so I got some altitude training there and honestly have
never had issues with altitude below 8000 feet.
I did this same race on a slightly different course in 2019, so I knew
what to expect. Even so we chose to
leave Tuesday night, so we had a shorter drive on Wednesday. Thursday,
we drove up into the mountains for some short hikes at 14 and 13k feet and then
went to see the Cubbies play the Rockies for an afternoon game on a cooler day,
sitting in the shade. I continued to carb load, salt, hydrate into Friday
morning.
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In the swim shoot right before the start
with my hand up |
For the first time ever, Friday I rode my bike to the course where
I met Steve to get checked in and then did a short open water swim practice. The water was great and I felt strong and
ready to race. After a hearty brunch I was chilling
with books while Steve hit some local disc golf courses.
Race day I was well hydrated, had a light breakfast and
headed to the course. I was surrounded
by first-time racers in transition so that was fun. I went to the swim coral with about 30 minutes left after doing the
dance of the wetsuit. I lined up where I
guessed I’d be timewise as the start is self seed, but it turned out the lake and mother nature had other
plans. We were hyped for the race and
groups of four started loading into the water.
But the night before the wind, which had been on and off since we got
there, never went back to off and besides people chop there was a fair bit of
wind chop. I’d say just shy of white caps,
and we were swimming into the wind for the first leg. I did A LOT of backstroke
and was not alone in that. I was focused on keeping my head above water to
breathe and struggled to get my arms over the waves each stroke with front crawl.
It was still choppy on the crossover but part way I finally got into a rhythm
with crawl and had the wind with me on the way back to shore. This was the first race ever where I
seriously considered stopping at a kayak and I have had two choppier swims than
this but much shorter. time around 42 minutes (slowest 1.2 miles by a lot). I drank a lot of lake and that factored in with trying
to get hydration on at the start of the bike.
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Pumped and ready to go
|
I used a lot more energy than I planned on the swim, so I
took a couple of minutes in transition to take on some carbs, burp up some
lake, and get ready to head out on the bike. Before I left the park, I had one of my three water bottles fall out, I
stopped and switched locations so my two fuel hydration bottles were on the
frame. My other cage is behind my seat
but had shifted down on the drive out and I didn’t want to stop and fix it, so
when I lost another water bottle before getting to the road I just left it as
it was my water one and I knew I could stop on course and get that refilled. At
this point I was a bit rattled and frustrated. This was not made better by a 5-mile shallow climb into the foothills
with my bike in the wrong front ring. I
figured out my issue at around mile ten rolling the base of the foothills, and
by then was in a goove and picking up speed.  |
Having fun on the second lap.
Almost done on the bike |
It is a two-lap bike course and I took on liquid carbs
every 5 miles with food in between, so I stopped at mile 20 hydration station
to use the restroom (still well hydrated) and take on some food carbs. I saw Steve shortly after and kept pushing
hard to the next aid station where I filled up my empty water bottle with water
and ate some more food carbs, then went back to it for the last 25 miles. The bike
felt strong, and I never had negative head space like I usually do. I could have kept riding as I was having a
lot of fun. My fueling plan seemed to work well but that all went out the
window once I got back to transition for the run. Averaged just over 17 mph on a fairly hilly bike course for a time of 3:18.
It was in the high 70s by then so I put on my cooling bolero
to keep the sun off my arms and keep my upper body cooler as it drops my skin
temp about 5 degrees if I can keep it wet while I run. I chugged the last of my
bike fuel, but I figured out quick in the run that this was not going to be my
day. My runs have felt heavy for most of the spring, and I have struggled with
spiking heart rates so I use a heart rate monitor for all training all runs and bikes. Coming onto the course my legs I
knew I should have been around a 12-minute mile, but I just couldn’t get things
going at all.
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| Darn it one more lap to go. |
I kept pushing forward at the pace my body wanted to go
which was closer to a 14-minute mile. I
walked through all the hydrations stations onboarding ice and water for my
person, drinking water, and every other station took on some sort of carb as
either pretzels, bananas or a gel. On
the second lap I started adding a little bit of electrolytes as well but since
I hadn’t trained with those, I didn’t go crazy. I even had some flat coke at one of the last couple of aid stations because
at that point I was run walking just to keep moving forward. I never felt like
I was bonking, I just didn’t have any gears to work through on the run. Second slowest half marathon in 15 years of racing at 3 Hours 8 minutes. Steve and I ran through all six of my 70.3 races on the drive home. The race reports of all of them can be found on the race reports page linked above.
I was upset when I finished as this is just another disappointing
run to continue the streak this year. I know
something has to change in my training, nutrition and such, but I fueled well
and really didn’t feel affected by the elevation during the race. In the end I was happy
to finish my sixth complete half ironman race. I had a lot of fun with the
three prairie dog neighborhoods we passed on the two laps of the run. It was a beautiful day, in a beautiful part of the country, and a quick but fun
trip out to Colorado with my favorite adult human. I know it won’t be my last 70.3 but I am already
making changes in my training. I am planning for two weeks of very light training, doing whatever feels right each day,
adding 2-3 strength workouts a week, and building in a second rest day for yoga
and reading books.
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Official finishing photo
Time 7 hours and 24 minutes |
Ultimately, I just want to FINISH Ironman California in
October. It does not have to be fast, I
just want to make it under the 17 hour cutoff so my plan is to focus on building
a strong swim and bike to try to get that part done in under 8 hours 30 minutes, and do
the bare minimum for run/walk training as I can walk the whole marathon if I
have to. I meet with a nutritionist in two weeks and my coach next week to
restructure my plan going forward so hopefully with time I will trim some of
the peri weight my body is clinging too and find my run legs again.
Always hard to find the right balance and not aggrevate my MS. For the 10th year I am raising funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society along with
my inspring MS running group RAMMS so if you want to contribute to this year’s fundraising effort,
I would really appreciate the support.
Donate here: https://events.nationalmssociety.org/participants/857805
As always thank you for reading. Get out there and chase your goals no matter how big or small they may be.
