Rife with Possibilities

Gateway Cup - Day 4: Benton Park Classic

2011-09-16T18:12:00.001-05:00

I really liked that I got to ride the course yesterday before the first race started. We decided we'd show up early again today. The first race was scheduled to start at 10am. We showed up around 9:30 which gave me plenty of time to ride the 1.8 mile loop which started at Benton Park, went by the Busch Brewery, curved back through a neighborhood, and finished back at Benton Park. The course was flat with the exception of a small incline right at the start/finish line. The real challenge of this course was the TEN 90-degree turns! All the other courses in this series had FOUR corners.

Despite the fact that EVERY SINGLE tree, pole, post, whatever had a No Parking sign posted on it, some people apparently did not get the message. Nine cars were left parked on the closed race course which meant nine cars had to be towed away before the races could start.

Hard to miss the No Parking signs on every tree and pole.

Nine cars at 10 minutes per car to tow it away meant Monday's first race was delayed a full 90 minutes.

Unfortunately the hour and a half late start caused the race organizers to cut the first few races short. The women's 3/4 race was supposed to be 30 minutes + 3 laps. Instead, they cut our race down to 5 laps. FIVE LAPS! Period. Basically that meant it was going to be a dead sprint for about 15 minutes.

I made sure I was well warmed up, knowing the warm-up today was key. Even so, when we started, I struggled to get my stuff together on the first lap. I was holding on fine, but didn't feel ready to attack or react to attacks. The pace was fast and not letting up.

About halfway through the 2nd lap, I managed to work my way up near the front of the field. A girl in front of me moved over and the path ahead of me opened up. I knew I had to jump on it. I attacked and hit corner 8 in the front of the pack. I got out of the saddle again and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw I had a decent gap on the field. I hammered through corners 9 and 10 with no one on my wheel.

As we came through the start/finish line, the bell rang indicating a prime lap. I could feel someone had caught my wheel, so I let up my effort a little but no one overtook me. I continued to pull through corners 1, 2, and 3, through the wind by the brewery, through corners 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. As I was on the front, I had an open line through every corner while everyone else had to worry about getting boxed in and having to touch their brakes.

As I came around corner 9 I began to wonder if I could maintain the lead and win the prime. I came through corner 10 and hammered the 3 blocks to the finish line. I was out of the saddle the last 2 blocks, but got caught right at the line again and lost the prime by half a wheel. Damn!

I'd been pulling for a lap and a half and now we only had 1 lap to go. It was a windy day, so I was reluctant to keep my position at the front. I tucked in behind a couple other girls through corners 2-7, but found myself boxed in and had to touch my brakes around the corners. I was forced to take the outside line on corners 9 and 10 and even with a hard sprint was not able to pick up many spots.

I finished 15th in a field of 35. Still not a horrible finish.

Overall, I was happy with my races at the Gateway Cup. I wanted to finish in the top 50% of the field and managed to do so (not including my DNF on Saturday). More importantly, we had a fantastic weekend in St. Louis. I can't wait to come back next year!

Gateway Cup - Day 3: Giro Della Montagna

2011-09-14T08:28:00.000-05:00

Today we headed to The Hill neighborhood for Day 3 of the Gateway Cup. Today's course was not around a park, but through a super cool Italian neighborhood. The course was a big rectangle, 4 blocks long by 1 block wide. There was a "hill" on the back side of the rectangle, but since there was a downhill going into it, it was not a significant factor in the race. The bigger factor was the narrower streets which made changing position a lot harder than the other courses we've done so far.

I showed up at the race site super early and was able to ride the course for a good 15 minutes before the men's 4/5 race started. I spent the rest of the time warming up on the trainer. Today was a much nicer day as it was cloudy and in the mid-70's... a HUGE change from the last 2 days which have been over 100 degrees!

I lined up at the start line feeling fairly confident today. Unfortunately that confidence went out the window about 0.1 seconds into the race. The whistle was blown and I went to start only to find my rear wheel would not turn!

I jumped off my bike to figure out what had happened. No one had run into me. The chain was in place. Then some guy jumped out of the crowd telling me my rear wheel was not attached to my bike!

I have no idea how that happened since I had been riding my bike for the last hour without any issues. I didn't know what to do. A race official told me to run back to the pit and get my bike fixed. I would be given a free lap. Since my wheel wouldn't turn, I picked up my bike and ran in my bike shoes down the sidewalk, back about a block to the pit. I had no idea how to enter the pit, so I threw my bike over the fence and told the guys my wheel wouldn't turn. Fortunately the pit crew was totally relaxed. They helped me figure out how to get around the fence, calmed me down, fixed my bike, and then tried to convince me I owed them a six-pack of beer and a back rub for their services. At that point I was more than willing to give away beer and back rubs just as long as I could get back in the race!

I was pushed into the race about 1/3 through the field and spent the first 5-6 laps hanging out in the back of the pack, like usual. Today's group was STRONG. I had to work just to hold on! My cornering sucks so this course was particularly challenging for me to try to hold my position. I was not in any sort of position to go for the first prime and instead just tried to stay in the draft.

Coming around Corner 1 early in the race

For the 2nd prime, I worked my way into an OK position but stood no chance on the sprint. I crossed the line 5th, but was happy to be with the lead girls for the first time in this race.

As the remaining laps ticked away, I found myself bored in the pack. I could tell some girls were getting tired and I felt like I wasn't working at all. I decided I needed to do something, figuring if I went hard and died, at least I would have tried.

With one lap to go, I attacked. I doubted I could get away, but at least I got recognized for my effort as they announced my name over the loud speaker. I hit corners 1 and 2 in first place which gave me the opportunity to make it through 2 corners without hitting my brakes. I hammered up the incline on the back side, but could see shadows of girls coming up on either side of me. I hit corner 3 in about 5th place and then got passed by some more girls before corner 4. I had a crappy turn on corner 4 but was able to catch 3 to 4 girls on the 3 block sprint to the finish line.

Despite my crappy start, I managed to finish 13th in a field of 39.

Gateway Cup - Day 2: Tour des Hills

2011-09-11T11:47:00.000-05:00

Today we headed to Francis Park, a 1.3 mile rectangle that was half inclined and half declined. There were no "hills", but you could see and feel the incline/declines.

Found a shady spot for my warm-up. It was near 100 degrees on Saturday!

After convincing myself that my rear rim was completely ruined yesterday, I realized that the rim tape was not entirely covering one of the spoke holes. This is where I was getting holes in the tubes. I put a dollar bill between the rim and tube, and somehow convinced myself this was the answer to my issues.

Of course, I was wrong.

The women's 3/4 field at the start line.

Obviously not paying attention to the pre-race announcements - oops!

The race:
For the first prime lap, an attack was launched at Corner 3. I moved with the attack as best I could and crossed the line in about 8th place. I got to the front a couple of times, but wasn't able to do anything good. For Prime #2, I was on front and pulled through corners 1 and 2. I tried to stick to the front of the pack, but ended up mid-pack when we finally got to the line.

26 minutes into the race - hanging out in the back of the field.

At 30 minutes I was not feeling it at all. I just wasn't racing well today. I prayed my bike would hold up, but knew from experience my chances of finishing without a flat were slim. Sure enough, with 2 laps to go, I felt my back tire go flat. I promise I'm really ready to admit the rim is done! No more thinking otherwise! I've spent way too much money on tubes and way too much time on changing tires. I'm sticking to my spare wheel for the rest of this weekend!

I pulled off and started to cut through the park to the finish line when a race official stopped me. He told me I could get scored if I stayed on the course and crossed the line. If I pulled myself out I would get a DNF. I soft-pedaled through corner 4, crossed the line and called it a day.

I don't feel entirely bad that I wasn't able to finish the race. It's not the first time a rear wheel flat has cost me a race. Besides, I wasn't racing awesome today. I just didn't feel it. In fact, I was starting to wonder if I had a brake rubbing or something stupid. I'm sure it was just the feeling of the tire slowly going flat. Whatever the reason, I just felt heavy and slow today.

Thankfully I've got two more days of racing ahead! I'll do better next time!

Gateway Cup - Day 1: LaFayette Park

2011-09-08T19:35:00.000-05:00

The Minnesota cycling season officially ended a couple of weeks ago for us roadies. I wasn't quite ready to call it quits on my season, so I headed to St. Louis for the Gateway Cup races. The Gateway Cup consists of 4 races over 4 days throughout some super cool St. Louis neighborhoods.

Since I don't have a sponsor and have to pay 100% of my own expenses for races, gear, and travel, I knew I needed to convince my husband that this trip to St. Louis would be a fun vacation. Fortunately my husband hasn't yet realized that all our vacations have something to do with me racing....

...like that week we spent in Boston in 2009 (when I ran the Boston Marathon)

....or that romantic weekend we spent in Door County Wisconsin for our 5 year wedding anniversary (where I completed my first half ironman)

Since St. Louis is a 9 hour drive from St. Paul, we decided to split up the drive with a stop at my parents house in Cedar Rapids, IA. I managed to finagle my way out of a late afternoon meeting at work on Thursday and Husband and I were able to hit the road by 6pm. We spent a whopping 11 hours in Cedar Rapids (sorry Mom and Dad!) and continued our way to St. Louis on Friday morning.

We arrived at the race site with no time to spare. I immediately grabbed my bike and headed out to warm-up.

Unloading the car at LaFayette Park.

Unfortunately, there was really no place to warm-up on the streets around LaFayette Park. Next time I'll be sure to warm-up on the trainer! The good part of my warm-up was running into Rebekah D. from Nebraska who I met when we raced in Clear Lake, IA in July. We warmed up together until she turned off to head back to the park and I set off to do a couple more efforts. This was the point where I got my zillionth flat of the season. I have been plagued with rear wheel flats all fricking year. I think this was flat #11 or 12. I've changed the tires, I've changed the tubes. I've done everything except admit the issue is the rim. I checked out the damage from today's flats and have concluded the wheel is definitely done. Time to get some new wheels!!

I was good mile away from the park, not entirely positive how to get back, it was 3:55, and my race was to start at 4:15. Complete panic set in. I did not have my cell phone to call my husband. I ran down the block, only to find it was not the street that would take me back across the bridge and to the park. Instead, I waved down a car to ask for directions. The guy had a general idea where the park was and as he was giving me directions, I decided I was too pressed for time to listen.

"Can you give me a ride to the park?" I asked as I was assessing the leather interior of his small car and wondering how I was going to shove my bike into his back seat. Only then did I realize he had a bike rack on the back of his car! Thank you, God! I threw my bike on his bike rack, jumped in this complete stranger's car, and got a ride back to the park.

Thank you, Brad from St. Louis, for completely ignoring everything you've ever learned about stranger danger and giving me and my bike a ride back to LaFayette Park!

I ran the 1/2 mile around the park until I found my husband, switched out my rear tire and then was extremely thankful that the men's 4/5 race was running behind schedule. I had about 20 minutes to gain my composure as much as possible before we were called to the start line.

The race:
As usual, I was not warmed enough and spent the first 4-5 laps hanging out in very back of the pack. I was thankful no one made any big moves in the first few laps because my body was not ready to react. On the first prime, I used the lap to move up to the front of the field. Since the course was completely flat and wide open, I moved up on the outside. We could easily go 4-5 wide around the corners. I was in good position on corner 4 and sprinted for the prime, but quickly realized I was not in good enough position. I sat up and crossed the line in 3rd. We had a group of 4 off the front a tiny ways. No one was interested in taking advantage of that gap, and I'm definitely not aggressive enough to make it happen on my own, so we let the field catch back up to us.

On the 2nd prime, I took the same approach. I used the lap to work my way to the front, pulled through corner 2, tucked in for corners 3 and 4 and then sprinted up the outside for the prime. I thought I had it, but Rebekah took me at the line. I knew I hadn't given 100%, so I'm OK with losing the prime. I'm happy Rebekah was able to win it as she has improved tremendously since the last time I raced against her. She definitely deserved the money.

The sprint for prime #2 at LaFayette Park.

Before I knew it, we had 5 laps left. The laps went quickly and, as usual, came down to the final sprint. I wasn't in perfect position coming around corner 4, but sprinted with everything I had and was able to pass 2 girls on the home stretch. I finished 10th in a field of 36 which is exactly where I wanted to finish.

Race #1 complete!

A couple more RAGBRAI pics

2011-08-29T19:05:00.000-05:00

Saw this photo on Facebook and couldn't resist reposting it. For anyone who hasn't been on RAGBRAI or isn't familiar with the sheer volume of riders on it, here's a perfect picture of what it's like:

The bowels of RAGBRAI (photo stolen from New Guy Jack's Facebook page)

When RAGBRAI starts to look like the photo above, it's time to find a shade tree and pull the maneuver in the photo below:

Always make sure at least one guy on your team brings a cross bike with a rack on the back. You never know when you'll need to make your own beer stop while waiting for the roads to clear out!

RAGBRAI 2011

2011-08-20T20:31:00.000-05:00

I realize it's been 3 weeks since we returned from RAGBRAI, but better late than never. Here's the report from that week:

I'm not going to lie. Out of the 11 RAGBRAIs I've now completed, this was one of my least favorite. I will admit I didn't really want to go in the first place, but quite honestly I couldn't think of anything else to do with my vacation time. You know your life is pathetic when you consider riding 450 miles over 7 days and camping in 100+ degree weather a viable option for a vacation.

Saturday morning was hotter than shit, so I started my usual pre-RAGBRAI workout at 6am. I made it about 1/2 a block before I ran into Waterboy who was already at Timmer's house getting the van ready. He decided to join me on my run which was kind of fun since I haven't run with him in a couple of years now. Just as we were returning, Dr. Nuts showed up in a cab from the airport. It was time to start our week.

Saturday: We loaded up the bikes and headed to Boone, Iowa to pick up the Red Barron. He is the lone Trousermouse living in Iowa, so we have to meet him somewhere along the way. Since we prefer to camp in strangers' lawns, we drove the RAGBRAI route in reverse from I-35 and made arrangements to camp in Boone, Carrol and Atlantic before heading to Glenwood to meet up with the Short Bus. The Short Bus was sans the short bus this year and ended up with a van and a U-Haul as their transportation for the week. It made it a little harder to spot them, but as with most years, we just can't seem to avoid those bastards.

Sunday: Apparently if you drink nothing but alcohol for an entire day, you will feel like absolute shit the next morning. That was my Sunday morning. It was a 4-H day: Hot, Humid, Hilly, and I was Hungover. It was so uncomfortably hot we ended up riding through towns just to stay on the bike. At least on the bike we were creating a little breeze. Once you stopped, you were cooking.

First beer stop of Ragbrai. At this point I had been really drunk, really hungover, ridden a lot of miles, eaten a ton of pancakes.... and it was only 10:30am on Sunday morning. It was going to be a very long week.

Monday: I was finally fully hydrated again and actually felt pretty good on Monday. We managed to score a spot in an air-conditioned VFW for the afternoon and caused a little of our own trouble. Today's RAGBRAI challenge went to the Red Barron and SS: 3 beers, 20 seconds for the Red Barron to shotgun and SS to crush the empty cans on his head. Mission accomplished. While there is video of the shot-gun/can-crush spectacle, I won't post it on this blog. I'm assuming some people's bosses and/or clients might not find the event as impressive as I did.

Team Trousermouse in some VFW in some town in Iowa.

Maria and I well shined up outside the VFW with The Captain in the background.

Tuesday: I'm blaming the heat for the fact that by Tuesday I was still completely bitchy. The Red Barron and Steve-O were both planning to head home on Tuesday night. I was jealous that they would be heading home to air conditioning while I still had 5 more days of sweating my ass off. By afternoon I decided to take the advice of one of the Short Bussers who told me that if I wasn't having fun I needed to lower my expectations. Good advice. Thankfully there was a beer garden that finally had it figured out and had tents set up to provide some sort of shade.

The crew in the beer garden - Finally found a little shade!

Wednesday: Wednesday morning Dr. Nuts woke up the team at the ass crack of dawn claiming it was going to rain. Every day we received an email from the Team Trousermouse meteorologist who could not make this year's trek. Based on the Weather Man's email, Dr. Nuts was convinced it was going to rain and made sure we were all on the road as early as possible. Of course it did not rain and instead we had to fight our way through the bowels of RAGBRAI riders for the entire morning. (True RAGBRAI jedi's know you should never take off before 9am. The average RAGBRAI rider rides at approximately 12mph. If you want to go any faster than that, it is best to give everyone else a 3 hour headstart.)

Random picture of the team. I don't know that this was taken on Wednesday, but I don't have any other pictures to post from that day, so we'll go with it.

Thursday: One of the funnier moments of my RAGBRAI occurred on Thursday. First, we have to back up to Tuesday. Tuesday night we were camped out in a lawn in Boone. We hung a clothesline from a tree branch to the van to hang all our nasty cycling clothes. When we got up the next morning, I noticed the top to my swimsuit was missing from the clothesline. I was a little annoyed, but since the clothesline was right along the sidewalk, I figured some drunk ass probably thought it would be funny to steal a bikini top as they were walking by. Oh well.

Fast forward to Thursday. We were stopped at a free beer stop when all of a sudden Timmer yells out, "Jennifer, I think that fat guy is wearing your swimsuit!" Sure as shit, some fat dude was at the beer stop wearing MY swimsuit top! Fortunately he was a real sweetheart and thought it was hilarious that I called him out on stealing my clothes. He even gave the swimsuit back.

Thursday's free beer stop, right before we found my missing swimsuit top.

Friday: Friday was the Captain's 40th birthday. It was bound to be trouble. Add in 2 free beer/alcohol stops in the last 9 miles of the day, a stretch SUV to haul us around Iowa City/Coralville at night, and trouble is exactly what you'll get.

Saturday: The Captain announced he never wants to turn 40 on Ragbrai again. I should hope not. I barely survived Friday night! It was a 65-mile ride to Davenport on Saturday and no one seemed to be moving very fast. There was no chance we were going to get back to the Cities before sunset. I'm still not sure how I managed to finish that day. It was long, hot, my legs were dead, and I was still struggling from the Captain's birthday. Somehow we managed to drag our asses into Davenport and could finally call it quits on the week. Another RAGBRAI in the bag!

In Davenport - RAGBRAI #11 complete!

Sweatbrai 2011

2011-08-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

Yeah, we were there. Seven days, eight nights, 450 miles of sweating our asses off. I'll write more later when I start to come out of my post-RAGBRAI depression. I'm also waiting for the pictures and videos to make their way onto Facebook and You Tube. I've never taken a single picture on RAGBRAI, yet I can always find plenty of photos of us on the internet.

Here's the first one we found (from the Des Moines Register) - Trousermouse and Short Bus on Friday:

More to come later....

Not So Great Weekend

2011-07-17T17:46:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I decided to head to Clear Lake, Iowa to race. Although there was a big local crit in the Twin Cities, I'm desperate for upgrade points and knew I could do well in Iowa. I couldn't get any Birchwood 1/2/3 women to join me, so I set out to recruit girls from other teams in the metro. In the end, we showed up with 5 Twin Cities girls at Saturday's crit and 3 of us stuck around for the road race on Sunday. Not a bad turn out for a make-shift team!

Unfortunately my weekend turned out about as horribly as I could have imagined. I finished the weekend with a DNF and a DQ, no money and no upgrade points.

The frustrating part is that I'm in shape for the podium and my results didn't show it. I've never had a DNF before, but I got myself in a bad position and was pushed into a line that took me straight through a pothole. I flatted with 2 laps to go and then had to watch people I know I can beat take home all the money. At least I won a prime earlier in the race, so I wasn't completely a loser.

All Photos by NorthIowaSPIN

The start of the women's 1/2/3 race.

The field coming through the back side of the course.

The pothole that ended my day.

On Sunday, I had a super great road race. I felt like I was reading the field well and anticipating all the attacks. At the end, I was able to give Bianca a good lead-out for her to take 2nd and I crossed the line in 4th. I was pumped that I would be going home with money and upgrade points, until I found out I had been DQ'd for a center line violation!

I'm not going to say it was an inaccurate call. I did cross the line. I will admit that. At one point I reacted to an attack without thinking about where I was in the road. Someone yelled at me for it and I thanked that person for the reminder. They were right. I shouldn't have followed the attack on the left side. However, everyone in the field was as shocked as I was that I got DQ'd over it. Everyone I talked to said that if I got DQ'd, there were other girls that should have also been DQ'd because they were over the line a lot worse and a lot more often than I was. What really gets me is that I got DQ'd in a race that didn't have a follow car. That meant the girl who turned me in (and I know who she is) actually went out of her way to track down an official after the race and tell him to disqualify me.

Part of me understands that I did, in fact, fuck up and I really should pay for that. The other part of me wonders why no other rules were enforced in the race (i.e. The girl who leached onto the back of a men's field as they passed us and drafted off them for a number of miles... Why didn't she get DQ'd too? Drafting off another field is also illegal in road races.)

All Photos by NorthIowaSPIN

Me and Dee.

Me and Dee again.

The women's 1/2/3 field.

It took me a good three days before I was finally able to put these shitty races behind me and turn my focus to upcoming races. Even with the bad results, I will still admit I had a great time in Iowa and look forward to returning for future races. I will definitely do the Clear Lake races again next year... After all, I doubt I could do any worse!

My First Century Ride

2011-06-26T11:22:00.000-05:00

There were no races on Minnesota's cycling calendar this weekend, so I headed out for a long training ride. I'd never done a century ride before. Not that 100 miles is all that challenging, I've just never had the desire to do it. RAGBRAI includes a 100-mile option every year, but when that day comes along, I've always thought it sounded kind of boring. Given the choice of hammering out 100 miles or sitting on a curb with 50 of my friends drinking warm Coors Light, I've always gone for the beer.

It's about time I put the beer aside and got a century ride under my belt.

Saturday 10 Birchwood racers headed to Red Wing, MN for a century ride along Lake Pepin. I have no idea why Red Wing seems to be the go-to place for long rides. The riding in the Cities is nothing less than wonderful (Minneapolis is ranked the #1 most bike-friendly city in the nation!), but I'll admit it can get boring riding the same routes all the time.

We were promised 75 degrees and sunny skies by local meteorologists. Unfortunately, this summer sucks (can you even call this "summer"?) and we were left with mid-60's, clouds, and 20 miles in a driving rain. Not ideal, but the humor in the group still made it a really fun day.

We left Red Wing, climbed the infamous Bay City climb, cruised through Maiden Rock, Stockholm, Pepin, Nelson, Alma, and then climbed a monstrous hill to some overlook outside of Alma.

A quick stop in Pepin to refill water bottles at about mile 35:

Ryan and Jim

Wendy, Scott, and Adam

Mile 49 - The top of the cliff outside of Alma:

Due to the rain and a 20-minute lunch break that turned into a 60-minute lunch break thanks to the craptastic service at the cafe in Pepin, we ditched our plan to climb out of the river valley a few more times, and headed straight back to Red Wing.

We reached our cars with 97 miles on our computers. No way was I going to leave with less than 100 miles on my computer, so we all rode back and forth on a frontage road until everyone's computers showed a 3-digit number.

Mission accomplished!

Menomonie Amateur Crit

2011-06-18T23:15:00.000-05:00

Saturday I headed to Menomonie, WI to race in the Nature Valley amateur crit. It was a short race, but had no entry fee and still paid out 5 places. I figured it was worth the shot at making some money.

Although we were in Wisconsin, the usual Twin Cities crowd showed up to race. We all stayed in a pack for most of the race. Mel Dahlman, who had ridden 65 miles prior to the start of the race, pulled most of the time. She's a rockstar! I sat 4th or 5th wheel for pretty much the entire race. I had no energy to make any moves. It was tough enough just trying to hold on!

With 3 laps to go, I ended up as 2nd wheel. I was afraid the girl in front would roll off and I'd be left pulling. I did not want to pull at this point in the race! There were far stronger girls in the pack and I knew getting out on front was going to ruin my chances for a good sprint. Fortunately, Terra James made a move on the hill, took over the lead spot, and I settled back into my spot at 4th wheel.

With 2 laps to go we realized there were only 5 of us in the lead pack and no one was in sight behind us. 5 girls, 5 places paid out. We were all going home with money. We pretty much sat up and cruised through a lap until Laura Kruger popped up from behind us, forcing us to give one final effort.

We dropped Laura pretty quickly and it was back to the 5 of us. Bianca and Mel battled it out for the win (I believe Bianca won it), Terra took 3rd, I was on her wheel for 4th and Gracia was on my wheel for 5th.

Overall it was a fun course with little uphill, a little downhill, and 6 corners to shake things up a bit. The race came out pretty much as I expected. I was just happy for the opportunity to break out the Birchwood blue again after 10 days off from racing. Coming home with some cash in my pocket was pretty nice too.

After my race, I grabbed a few beers at the Silver Dollar, a bar near the finish line, and waited for the pro fields to come into the finishing circuits. Both the men and the women had pretty exciting races. Both fields will see a new leader in the yellow jersey tomorrow as they head to Stillwater for the final stage!

See you all tomorrow on Chilkoot Hill!

Nature Valley Crash

2011-06-18T06:26:00.007-05:00

No blog posts in awhile here... Why? Because it's Nature Valley Grand Prix week! Every cyclist in about a 90 mile radius of the Cities has been out watching the best of the best compete in a series of races around the metro area.

The women's races have turned out to be the races to watch. I'm a little biased because I am a woman, but also because we all know United Healthcare is going to win for the men. They were expected to win. They are winning. Boring.

The women on the other hand, is anyone's game. Shelley Olds won it last year and is back to defend her title while Kristin Armstrong is back to reclaim the top spot she held for 4 years before taking a year off to have a kid.

If you've been following the Nature Valley races, you've probably heard about last night's crash in the women's field. Cyclingnews.com called it a "horror crash". That is not inaccurate. It was by far the scariest crash I've ever seen, including the ones I've watched on You Tube.

I'll skip ahead to the gory stuff, but highly recommend everyone read VeloNews and/or CyclingNews to read about the first 27 laps of the race. It was a really amazing race with great team tactics playing out.... until that damn last lap.

Fellow Birchwood racer, Marie, and I had rockstar seats in the bleachers about halfway between the final turn and the finish line. As the women were coming up on the bell lap, my eyes followed the leaders of the pack until I heard the woman sitting next to me gasp and say, "Oh my God! They crashed!"

I looked back to my left and saw an ENORMOUS pile of women and bikes. The pile literally spread from curb to curb and was at least 3 bodies deep in the middle. I've never seen anything like it.

I expected it to be like other crashes I've seen where people pop back up, check out their road rash, examine their bikes, and ride off. That wasn't the case here. Everything moved in extreme slow motion. None of the girls seemed to be moving off the pile of bodies. No one was popping up and dusting themselves off.

My eyes were immediately drawn to Kristin Armstrong. For one, her yellow jersey stands out, but also because she was in the center of the crash, at the very bottom of the pile of bodies, and screaming her head off. The scene reminded me of Nancy Kerrigan crying hysterically when Tanya Harding's boyfriend crow-barred her legs. There was Kristin Armstrong, sitting on the ground with her legs twisted awkwardly under a pile of wreckage, and screaming so loudly we could hear her over the announcers.

Eventually we could see the girls at the top of the pile wiggling around trying to get their legs free and work themselves out of the wreckage. It seemed to take minutes before the volunteers and medics realized that this was not a wreck that was going to clear itself up. (It was probably more like 30-45 seconds, but it felt like FOREVER before people started reacting to the scene.)

Finally a troop of volunteers sprinted down the race course and started plucking bikes and girls off the pile. I completely expected Kristin Armstrong's legs to be broken, but her teammates eventually were able to extract her and pull her onto her feet. From what I've read online, her ankle, ribs and elbow are a little jacked up, but overall she is still in one piece.

At that point Marie leaned over and said "Do you see that girl in the fence? She hasn't moved yet."

On the left side of the course, across the street from us, was a small blonde woman, laying on her side in the gutter of the street, her head pushed up against the fence that holds spectators off the race course. No one seemed to notice her as all the medics and volunteers were plucking girls and bike parts off the main pile, and tending to the dozens of other injuries spread across the street. The girl in the fence was not moving at all. We realized then that it was defending champ Shelley Olds.

From where we were sitting, I thought for sure she had a serious head or spinal injury. I could see her eyes were open and blinking, and when a medic finally came to check on her, we could see her mouth moving as she talked, but no other part of her body ever moved. She was eventually put on a backboard, then a stretcher and hauled off in an ambulance. I read online today that she suffered some rib injuries which is awesome news compared to what things looked like last night. Apparently my prayers for her did not go unheard.

Three other women were similarly put on backboards, stretchers and hauled off in ambulances. From where I was sitting, I couldn't tell who they were or the extent of their injuries. By that point, the entire street was full of ambulances, medics, teammates, support crew, photographers, etc.

The race was ultimately nullified which means we all have to pretend it didn't happen. Even as a mere spectator, it's frustrating to see how hard those women worked for 27 laps and know it doesn't count now. Oh well. I guess we should all be grateful that no one came out with any serious injuries (at least not from the injury updates I've seen).

Even so, I'll continue to pray that all the women recover physically and emotionally from last night's events.

Today I'm headed to Menomonie. It's been over a week since I've raced, so I'm going to do some amateur crits this afternoon and then watch the pro racers finish their road race. After last night, let's hope for an uneventful day!

Split Rock Camping Trip

2011-06-12T08:59:00.000-05:00

My life isn't all about the bike. Occasionally I will spend time with my non-cycling husband. Last weekend we gathered up our crew of friends and headed north to go camping and hiking. As none of us had ever been camping or hiking before, we figured we'd give it a try and see if it is something we could all do as a group regularly. Fortunately we all had a great time! We lucked out with weather and had two beautiful, warm, sunny days. I think the temps got up near 80 which is unusual for Northern Minnesota in early June.

My husband, Jon, and his buddy, Drew, drove up to Split Rock on Friday afternoon to hike out and secure a camping site. Steve, Nina, Sam (their dog), and I came up after work, arriving there around 10:30pm. It was pretty fun hiking the 2 miles through the woods in the dark to get to camp.

Jon and Drew on their hike to secure our campsite.

Our campsite.

Breakfast Saturday morning -- Pancakes over the fire! (For the record, I made all the pancakes. Steve is just holding the spatula while I took a break to eat!)

The weekend's crew:

Jon and me

Drew and Sam (the dog)

Steve and Nina

Split Rock

The trail was described as "moderately challenging". We all agreed that is pretty accurate. This was no walk in the park, but it was completely do-able.

It was actually rare to see wooden steps on the hills. Most of the time, there were only boulders and tree roots to use for stairs.

This was no limestone walking trail. There were so many roots and rocks, you couldn't take your eyes off the trail without tripping.

More random pictures from the weekend:

Steve, Nina, Drew, and Sam (the dog) resting on the bench by the waterfall.

Our lunch spot along Lake Superior

Drew and Nina by the river. It was so hot, and we were so tired after the afternoon hike, nothing sounded better than dipping our feet into the icy waters of the Split Rock River. I was so exhausted, I fell asleep sprawled out on a rock.

Jon and me in our tent. Everyone agreed a post-hike nap sounded like a great idea.

Our last group picture as we headed out of the woods on Sunday.

MN Memorial Classic - Target Criterium

2011-06-01T18:44:00.000-05:00

Monday was the final day of the MN Memorial Classic. We headed to Brooklyn Park for a criterium.

I pulled up just as an ambulance was tending to a crash in the men's 4/5 field. Unfortunately, that crash involved at least 4 Birchwood men. There was a lot of blood, a lot of lost skin, and a dislocated shoulder, but fortunately no major injuries. Thankfully Dr. Heather T. was there to mend our injured men.

Some of the Birchwood crew had set up a tent with 3 trainers for us to warm-up under. As it was over 80 degrees and very hot out, I was thankful for the opportunity to warm-up in the shade. Paula decided to join Stefanie and me for today's race, so the three of us warmed up together.

Our race was 40 minutes long which really doesn't mean anything. Basically you race a few laps and then an arbitrary number gets thrown up on the lap counter. I think we raced a total of about 11 laps (give or take) and finished in around 35 minutes.

There was a killer wind out at the race course. Overall, the race was uneventful because of the wind. No one wanted to break away in fear of getting stuck in the wind alone. The attacks that were made in the tailwind sections never stuck through the headwind. Ultimately, it was basically a bunch of girls riding together in a circle.

On the last lap, I somehow got lucky again. I started the lap in last place, but moved up on the inside of the first turn to position myself in 3rd place through the tailwind section. I fought for my position throughout the lap, keeping myself in the top 4 places through the final turn.

On the sprint, I stayed right on the wheel of Angie Johnson from Subway. This was the headwind stretch, so I forced myself to sit back as long as possible. Finally, I came out from behind her and sprinted with everything I had. I pulled up next to Angie, but wasn't able to pull in front of her. She crossed the line ahead of me by a wheel.

For the day, I came out 4th in the crit, and 3rd in the Cat 3's. That was good enough to push me into 4th place for the weekend.

Of the Birchies that raced the entire omnium, Mike came out in 4th place in the men's Cat 4, I came out 4th and Stefanie finished 5th in the women's open. Three Birchies in the omnium, three Birchies going home with money in their pockets!

I ended the weekend feeling great about my performances. I still have plenty to work on, but I feel I did pretty well for my first few races as a cat 3. I earned a couple of upgrade points and came home with some prize money. I couldn't ask for anything better than that!

A huge congrats to ALL the women in the open field this weekend! I couldn't have asked for a better field to race against! I can't wait to race with everyone again!

MN Memorial Classic - Watertown Circuit Race and Time Trial

2011-05-30T20:44:00.000-05:00

Sunday took us to Watertown, MN for a circuit race followed by a time trial.

The Circuit Race -
The circuit race was a 7.4 mile loop that we did 3 times. At each lap, we could sprint for bonus points that would count toward our overall points for the weekend. Stefanie and I had surveyed the course during our warm-up. There was a 90 degree turn about 1 block from the start/finish line. We knew we would need to be in the top 3 or so coming around the corner to be in good position for the sprint.

About 1 block into the race, Theresa Moriarty threw the hammer down. I was very thankful that I had warmed up properly and was able to react to her attack without too much trouble. The first lap was full of attacks. Coming into the final stretch, Stef attacked at the top of a hill. I jumped on her wheel knowing this was where we needed to get into position for that final turn. I stayed on Stef's wheels through the corner and then took off on the sprint. Unfortunately, my "sprint" is worthless in this field. I was immediately smoked by Theresa and Abby Ruess from GP. I was somehow able to hang on and cross in 3rd place, collecting 1 bonus point for myself.

On the second lap, I ended up on the front of the pack through the tailwind section. We were quickly approaching the final turn before the sprint. Again, I knew I had to get myself in position for the sprint. Sitting on the front, I was worried that someone would attack and I would be left at the back of the pack going into the turn. To prevent that from happening, I attacked from the front of the pack and came through the turn 1st. Again, since my sprint is worthless, I got passed by just about everyone before we crossed the line. I got no points on that lap.

On the third and final lap, I simply got lucky. As we came around for the final turn, I was sitting last in the pack. Lee Penn from GP was right in front of me and decided to make an attack. I saw her go and jumped on her wheel before anyone else could. We came through the final turn in 1st and 2nd. I sprinted with all my might, but again got passed by Theresa and Abby. Even so, I still managed to get my slow ass across the line in 3rd place.

I was thrilled to finish 3rd in a women's open field! Unfortunately, Sunday's races were a package deal. The circuit race and time trial would be scored as one event, so my 3rd place in the circuit race really meant nothing.

The Time Trial -
I had a couple hours between the circuit race and the time trial. Since it had rained the entire time during the circuit race, I was hoping to find a laundromat to dry out my race clothes. Unfortunately, we were surrounded by shitty little towns in the middle of nowhere and none of them had a laundromat that was open on a Sunday afternoon. (Why would a laundromat be CLOSED on a weekend afternoon?? That doesn't seem like the best business plan in my opinion!)

Instead, I cranked the heater in my SUV, repositioned all the vents, and hung my race clothes from the rearview mirror. That actually worked pretty well. Only the strap of my timing chip and my shoes were still soggy by the time the 2nd race started.

The time trial was seeded in reverse order of how we finished the circuit race. Since I finished 3rd, my time trial start was 3rd to last. I took off in hopes of chasing down Lee Penn. She was on a regular road bike, so I was hoping my TT bike would give me enough advantage to catch her. Unfortunately, that dream did not come to fruition. 1.2 miles into the race, Abby Ruess came flying by. Damn. That meant I was 30 seconds behind her. At 3.3 miles Theresa Moriarty came flying by. Damn again. That meant I was 60 seconds behind her. My race was not going well. I felt like I was hammering with all my might but everyone in front of me was getting farther and farther away. I tried getting out of the saddle to close the gaps, but that didn't seem to work either. I ended up finishing 2nd to last, which completely threw my 3rd place finish from the morning out the window.

I ended my day feeling frustrated, humbled and disappointed. I know I'm not as fast as the other girls in my field and having a time trial exposed that fact. Occasionally I can get lucky in other types of races by positioning myself in the right spots, but when it comes down to individual strength, I straight out suck.

I threw myself a little pity party Sunday night as I struggled to come up with any positive thoughts on my performance so far. I knew Monday's race needed to go off perfectly if I wanted to come out of this weekend with any money in my pocket. At that moment, I had nothing but doubts in my head. I contemplated drowning my sorrows in a bottle of wine, but ultimately decided I should still give 100% on Monday and see what happens.

I was a little closer, but still not ready to admit defeat!

MN Memorial Classic - Lester Prarie Road Race

2011-05-29T20:42:00.001-05:00

The MN Memorial Classic kicked off Saturday with a road race in Lester Prarie. This was my first road race as a Cat 3 and I wasn't sure what to expect.

The course was flat and fast. There were literally NO hills in the entire course. Fortunately, we lucked out and the wind wasn't too horrible either. Instead we kept things interesting with lots of surges and attacks.

The first lap was tough with all the surges in speed. I worked hard and was able to react to each attack. On the 2nd lap, there was 1.2 miles of gravel that we had to go through at speed. (On the first lap, this was neutral ground so no one could make any moves.) I knew someone would attack there. Sure enough, Theresa Moriarty from Flanders took off and we were left to chase her. I hit so many potholes in the gravel that I thought my bike was going break in half! Fortunately, that part was over quickly and we were back to our usual race.

With about 5 miles left of the 46 mile course, I made an attack. I really had no game plan, I just felt it and went for it. I hammered for a few seconds and when I looked back, I only had one other girl with me. The pack was just a few seconds back, so the girl I was with (Lee Penn from GP) and I ran a constant, rotating paceline to increase our gap.

"You've got a 20 second lead!" the motorcycle guy exclaimed as he pulled up along side us. We continued to work our asses off. I was finally getting my second wind, but I was beginning to doubt I could hold out at that speed much longer.

"15 seconds and you've got a men's field coming through! Keep racing!" the motorcycle guy yelled out as he pulled up alongside us again a few minutes later. Shit. Our lead was diminishing and I could picture Theresa Moriarty coming at us like a freight train.

The men's 4/5 field came through and created a giant cluster fuck. The motorcycle guy was yelling at the men to stay to the center line which would allow Lee and I to continue our race on the white line. Unfortunately, the men didn't seem to care about our race and once the leaders passed us, they moved to the white line forcing Lee and I to sit up and swing around behind them so we wouldn't be in the draft of their 50 man paceline. (Drafting off other fields can get you disqualified.)

Of course, once you sit up and let 50 jackasses pass you by, your 15 second lead becomes 0 seconds. We were back in the pack.

We were quickly approaching the finish line and got stuck with another pack of those damn Cat 4/5 guys. Our two groups were going about the same speed and we couldn't get around them. Had the guys been thinking, they probably should have realized that their group was fighting for about 30th place in their field. Our group was fighting for 1st place, not to mention that the Women's Open race is the premier field for the women, while the men's 4/5 race is not a premier race.

In the end, all the women were forced to sprint for the finish line while dodging jackass men. It was a mess and definitely not a very safe situation.

My sprint is pretty much worthless in the women's open field, so I was just happy to not finish last. I finished 2nd to last. Overall, I was just pleased that I was able to stay with the group the entire 46 miles, and had the balls to launch some attacks, even if they didn't stick. I still have plenty to learn in this new field. I'm not ready to admit defeat yet!

Ronde van Bastardia III - Judgement Day

2011-05-27T18:26:00.000-05:00

If Harold Camping says the world is going to end on May 21, who am I to question to him?

Since Saturday was supposed to be my last day on earth, I figured I should spend it with my two most favorite things.... booze and bikes.

(In my list of favorite things, my husband would come in a close 3rd. Mom, Dad, you'd make top 10 for sure.)

I found it no coincidence that May 21 and the supposed day of rapture happened to be the same day as the Ronde van Bastardia. This is another pointless RAGBRAI-type ride. As Team Trousermouse has Oktrouserfest, Los Bastardos have the Ronde van Bastardia. This ride consists of 70 miles of Wisconsin country roads leading us from townie bar to townie bar.

The official attendance list, written on the wall in Steve-O's kitchen.

The Ronde van Bastardia was created by Team Trousermouse teammate, Steve-O. Steve-O was originally a Bastardo, but joined forces with Team Trousermouse a couple of years ago as Los Bastardos kind of disbanded. The Bastardos aren't completely extinct, but their team is not as dominant in RAGBRAI circles as it was a few years back.

It's beginning to look a lot like RAGBRAI in Steve-O's yard.

The first leg of the ride was an easy 20 miles to Eleva. The first beer stop was the Full House. I'm not sure the elderly townies knew quite what to do when their bar was randomly taken over by a bunch of dudes in spandex.

Me, Sarah, and Denise getting friendly with the locals and the PBR.

The next leg was another 20 miles except this time we got to ride through pouring rain. Thankfully the air temps weren't too bad, so it wasn't one of those super cold, shivery rains. Even so, I have to admit I hate the feeling of rain water filling my cycling shoes. We all rolled into Gilmanton looking like drowned rats (or maybe drowned mice, as in Trouser Mice!).

I'm not sure if Steve-O called ahead and supplied all the bars with the "RAGBRAI Soundtrack" or if it just so happens that all townie bars play the same 10 songs. Whatever the reason, it definitely felt like RAGBRAI to be in a shady bar, soaking wet, dancing to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" and singing "Sweet Home Alabama". (If we were truly on RAGBRAI, we would have most definitely added Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and busted out a line dance to "Strokin'".)

The G-Stop in Gilmanton.

We managed to sit out the rest of the rain at the bar in Gilmanton. The 10 mile jaunt to Mondovi was nothing less than beautiful. In typical midwestern fashion, the sun broke out and we were left with nothing but blue skies for the rest of the day.

About to get a buzz on at Buzz's.

After Mondovi, we had 30 miles back to Eau Claire. As this was supposed to be a RAGBRAI-type ride, there was no way we were going to ride 30 miles without some sort of alcohol stop.

Only a true RAGBRAI jedi would know to always plan for periods without beer stops.

While this is probably neither legal nor safe, remember that Harold Camping told me this was my last day on earth. On my last day, I care not about safety or legality.

After a good climb, we all treated to ourselves to way too many pulls off a bottle of Crown and a bottle of Captain. In fact, with 21 of us, we managed to polish off the bottle of Crown in about 10 minutes. Now that's teamwork!

A few miles later, someone felt we should stop again for some more drinks. This looks like a good place.

Random spot in the middle of nowhere.

Um, are you sure this is the right way?

Just a little wash-out in the bike trail. Nothing 21 people full of Crown Royal couldn't hop right over.

Finally we arrived back in Eau Claire just in time to hit up Happy Hour at the Joynt. (What bars have Happy Hours on Saturdays?? I guess that's Wisconsin for you!)

The Joynt in Eau Claire

This is where my hiccups kicked in, we lost Sarah's husband, and everyone started to get a little bit loud. It was time to move the party over to Steve-o's house...

but not before Denise snagged the shirt off this guy's back. How dare he wear Trousermouse blue hibiscus!!

Thankfully he had a sweater underneath that shirt.

So low and behold, Harold Camping's math was a little off and the world did not end on May 21. Instead, we were all forced to suffer through our hangovers on Sunday morning. Turns out, according to Mr. Camping, the real end of the world will be closer to the time of Oktrouserfest.

That sounds about right.

OPUS - 5/17/11

2011-05-20T21:58:00.000-05:00

Our first race as Cat 3's!! Welcome to the hurt locker!

Stef and I both upgraded this week and raced in the women's 1-2-3 race with our teammate, Paula. Paula warned us that most of the girls in this race were sprinters. She told us the sprint laps were killers, but then everyone pretty much chilled out on the other laps.

We decided that since Stefanie and I really stood no chance at earning any points, we might as well see what we can do to get Paula some points. We agreed we'd launch some attacks to see if we could break up the pack a little. I agreed to attack on lap 4, Stefanie took lap 7.

The race started pretty much the same as the Cat 4 races. There was a brief attack finishing the first lap that made us all sprint through the lap just to keep our places in the group. On lap 3 we had our first sprint. These girls start their sprint WAY sooner than the Cat 4's. The 1-2-3 women are hammering the instant we hit the big hill. I quickly learned I have no endurance to sprint up a hill and then hold onto it for another 50 yards to the line. I ended up in the very back of the pack, but was still holding on.

On lap 4, I waited until we were at the top of the hill before I launched my attack. I took off and hammered through 1.5 laps. It wasn't enough to lose anyone, but at least I got to feel cool having some big name girls sitting on my wheel. On the lap 6 sprint, I was completely out of go-go juice and lost the pack as they sprinted for points.

I spent 1.5 laps off the back, riding alone, while Stef launched her attack on the group. I could see Stef roll off the front, and I decided there was no way I was going to finish my first Cat 3 race by myself. I put my head down, got out of the saddle and bridged myself back up to the pack. Neither Stef nor I had anything left for a final sprint, but at least we managed to finish with the pack.

Here's the amazing finishing photo from the women's 1-2-3 race with Bianca Bergman taking the win. (Photo by Anthony Kwan of the Minneapolis Musette.) Notice how I am not in this photo as my slow ass is still somewhere about 50 yards back trying to make it up the hill!

Overall, I worked my ass off and was left with absolutely nothing at the end of the race. I have no regrets about that. We have a pretty steep learning curve, but that's what this year is all about. I achieved my goal of upgrading. Now I will spend the rest of the season helping my teammates achieve their goals.

Next race will be the Memorial Classic. Three days, four races around the metro area. Until then I plan to have a little fun....

On Saturday, May 21st, we head to Wisconsin for some real RAGBRAI training! What better way to celebrate the end of the world than a day of debauchery with Los Bastardos!!

OPUS - 5/10/11

2011-05-11T13:47:00.000-05:00

I knew this would happen. The weather in MN skipped right over spring and went straight to summer. This week it was 83 degrees as I was riding out to the OPUS complex. For once, I was organized enough in the morning to ride my bike to work and then could ride straight out to the race. (Usually I pack my bike in my car and then have to drive out.) Funny thing is, I was able to cut about 30 minutes off my commute to OPUS by riding my bike rather than driving.

The ride out was good, but I was a little nervous about what my legs would feel like during the race. I'm used to a 50 minute warm-up and then a race. This time I had a good 30 miles on my legs before the gun went off. My legs didn't feel great, but didn't feeling horrible either.

I ended up in the front for the first 2 laps. That's not where I wanted to be, so I let Martha and Meredith get in front for the 3rd lap. Ideally I'd like to be about 3rd in the pack going into the sprint. For the first sprint, I started too soon and didn't have enough go-go juice to hold it through the line. One of the SPBRC girls beat me, taking the 5 points and leaving me with 3. After that I ended up in front again and was hoping a good effort on laps 4 and 5 would drop the pack. Unfortunately the girls were extra sticky this week and I couldn't quite shake them from my wheel. I got through those laps and then sprinted again for the points on lap 6. This time I started my sprint at the right time and got to the line first with Stef about 1/2 a wheel behind me.

"We've got a gap. Let's go!"

That's the statement I was waiting for! Stef and I had finally managed to drop the pack and were off on our own again. Neither one of us seemed to have anything in our legs. I was struggling to hold onto her on the downhills and she was struggling to hold onto me on the uphills. With 1.5 laps left, we knew we had a significant gap and slowed down a little. For the last lap, Stef admitted she had nothing left and dropped back as I rode toward the finish line. I tried to give one last good sprint effort, but could barely get myself out of the saddle. My legs were done! Thank God we had a good lead on everyone else!

I crossed the finish line first, with Stef a second or two behind me. I'm not sure where the other Birchies finished. I immediately left the race site to try to ride the 18 miles home before the approaching thunderstorm hit. (I made it as far the Midtown Freewheel before the tornado sirens went off and the hail started. Fortunately the storm was over in about 20 minutes.)

This is the 5th race in a row Stefanie and I have finished 1st and 2nd. We have both sent in our requests to upgrade to Cat 3, although I'm not sure when those upgrades will take effect. Soon enough we will be racing with a whole new group of girls! I can't wait!

OPUS 5/3/11

2011-05-10T08:17:00.000-05:00

The sun finally made another appearance in Minnesota. By 6pm it was about 55 degrees. I felt chaotic today. I was super nervous although I have no idea why. The women's races were fairly well attended. There were 14 in the women's 1-2-3 race and 13 in the Cat 4's.

At the start, Martha took off to pull through Lap 1. For Lap 2, the pack slowed down a little with some Grand Performance girls in front. I was sitting about 3rd, hoping to keep myself in position for the sprint points on Lap 3. As we came up the hill, the GP girls were still pulling strong and were about to make their move. I moved to the outside and hammered my pedals to get across the line first. I probably gave a little too much effort for the first sprint. I was hurting, but then Stef rolled up beside me.

"Let's keep the pace up! We've got a gap!"

Shit. So much for a recovery lap! Stef took the lead and we hammered through the next 2 laps trying to keep our speed up so we wouldn't get caught from behind. I never looked back, feeling confident that our gap was growing.

On the 6th lap Stef asked if we should race against each other for the points. "Sure!" I exclaimed. Although Stef gave me the win on Saturday, I felt like I needed to prove that I could win on my own. We both sprinted to the line, but I crossed first.

At this point my lungs were burning and my legs were on fire. 2/3 of the race was done and I was praying the last 1/3 would go by quickly and painlessly. We cruised through laps 7 and 8. On the final lap, Stef took off in an attempt to drop me. I clung to her wheel as best as I could and managed to put myself into perfect position for a final attack. I stayed on her wheel until the last second and then threw it into a hard gear and hammered for the line. I crossed in 1st, taking all the points for the night!

For the rest of the team, Stef came through immediately behind me for 2nd and Martha cruised in behind us from her own solo break-away to take 3rd. Meg came through in 6th, and Ellen finished 9th in her very first bike race!

Another fine night for Birchwood!

Marty Road Race Report

2011-05-02T20:45:00.000-05:00

I've given up on spring. It's not coming. At this rate, I'm beginning to doubt summer will ever come either. All I really want is to be able to race in something other than long sleeves, tights, and shoe covers. Of course, Saturday was not that day. We did luck out on missing the rain though. The morning races had to suck! It was POURING rain all morning! Major props to anyone who raced in the morning! By afternoon, the sun was shining, but it was windy as hell.

Our race started off into the wind and no one wanted to take the lead. My greatest weakness right now is patience. I hate sitting in the pack! I told my teammates I would pull as long as someone would save me eventually. I pulled for awhile, taking full advantage of the moments we curved out of the wind. This course had so many turns in it you were never in the wind for too long, but it was also impossible to figure out where you were.

About 1/2 way through the first lap, I got bullied out of my position in the pack. I was on the right side of the group, out of the wind, and a Subway girl literally crowded me out until I gave up my position. "You just let that girl bully you out of your spot!" Meredith exclaimed. "Yep. I did." was my reply. (Note to Subway Girl: Good job on working yourself into position to get out of the wind!!) (Note to self: Don't be such a push over!!)

At this point I was sitting in the very back of the group. My impatience was kicking in. I was contemplating making an attack when all of a sudden Meredith attacked. Apparently she can read my mind! I grabbed her wheel and we broke off the front of the pack. No one seemed too interested in chasing us. Meredith eventually fell back to block, and I was left alone off the front. Too bad I don't have the balls to take off in a solo break-away! I was too chicken to attempt riding through the wind on my own, and eventually let the pack catch me on a hill. We turned a corner and came up on the largest hill of the course. It was very much like the High Bridge in St. Paul - not real steep or long, but one that requires a good effort. Exactly like every other race, Stef shot up the hill like it was nothing and I was left chasing her down. A Silver Cycling girl stuck to my wheel and we were left with 2 break aways - Stef off the front with a 30 second lead on me and the Silver Cycling girl, and the pack 30 seconds behind us.

Meredith and Martha win the prize for being my favorite people of the day. They worked together to block the pack and let us increase our lead off the front. I know the other girls in the pack were getting annoyed with them, but that's team tactics for you!

The Silver Cycling girl that I was with was not a super strong rider and I knew I had to catch up to Stef if I wanted any help in the wind. I had no problems with that girl being on my wheel. I figured I was basically just out for a bike ride, and if she wanted to come along, that was fine with me. My position on the podium was pretty much guaranteed at that point.

It took me forever to reel in Stef. I finally figured out that I needed to put in some short sprints to cut the distance between us. In the tailwind, I got out of the saddle and did some 15 second sprints a few times and that was enough to catch her.

Stef was not happy that I had done all the work to bridge up to her. She let me know that I should have been sitting in on the Silver Cycling girl rather than letting her sit in on me. She had a point, but I was feeling great and wanted to push myself rather than draft off someone else. (Remember, I have no patience!)

The three of us agreed to work together, but somehow that didn't work out. I got up front to pull, but somehow ended up dropping Stefanie and the Silver girl. I rode alone for a few miles until I heard Stef call out my name from behind. "It's just us!" She exclaimed as she rolled up beside me. She had dropped the Silver girl.

We were about 10 miles from the finish line and had some long stretches of tailwind ahead of us. We agreed to do short pulls, almost a rotating paceline to finish off the race.

Before I knew it we could see the finish line. "Would you like to win today?" Stef asked. "Yeah, I think I would," I replied. I took off in a sprint with Stef right behind me. The two of us finished with a 1:20 lead on 3rd place. Not too shabby!

Overall, I think today reinforced that the Birchwood women are an amazing team. Stef and I seem to work very well together as we both chase down our goals of upgrading, while Meredith and Martha take the cake for knowing the importance of hanging back and controlling the pelaton.

Yet again, I couldn't be more proud to wear Birchwood blue!

Ken Woods Memorial Road Race

2011-04-28T08:44:00.000-05:00

Saturday we headed to Cannon Falls for another road race. We knew the women's Cat 4 field would have their own race separate from the women's 1-2-3 field. I figured that meant our team tactics might actually work. Sure enough, the race went off about as perfectly as I could have imagined.

It was kind of cold, about 45 degrees, windy and cloudy. Typical road race weather for Minnesota. The women's Cat 4 field was pretty big. We had 25 women start the race! The first 1-2 miles was a neutral start which meant we couldn't make any moves. I was nervous as hell, so I made sure all the Birchwood girls were lined up near the front of the group as we rolled out.

We had planned to try to break up the pelaton early in the race. Our first stretch of the race was a tail/cross wind. The pace of the pelaton wasn't as fast as I feared it would be. Instead, everyone rode along in silence. I was worried about my positioning and Gabriella must have picked up on my nervousness. She came up on my left side and said "Let's move up". I moved into position behind about 4 girls. I now had Stefanie in front of me and Martha to my right. We were in a good position to launch some attacks.

As planned, Stef attacked on a couple of rollers. A couple of Lifetime Fitness triathletes chased her down as the rest of us stuck to their wheels. Although we couldn't tell at the time, this attack was enough to divide the pack into 2 large groups.

We turned into the wind and the Lifetime Fitness girls took the lead. We echeloned in behind them. I managed to keep myself in perfect position to avoid any of the wind and enjoyed the free ride. When we turned north into a cross wind, I found myself out of the echelon and in the wind. I knew that if I couldn't protect myself, I needed to protect my teammates. I positioned myself to keep Stefanie on my left so she would be out of the wind. Meredith and Martha were right behind us, working together in the wind.

I was doing a good job of watching the race unfold around me and saw the road was going to curve out of the wind for awhile. Sure enough, the pace of group picked up as we enjoyed the brief tailwind. Then the 2 Lifetime Fitness triathletes took the lead and time-trialed back into the wind. Those girls were strong!! We were holding steady at 27mph into the wind. I thought it would be a brief pull, but it seemed to go on forever. I was giving it my all just to stay in the draft. At one point, I had fallen back about 1/2 bike length. Thankfully Stef realized what was happening and swung around me to fill in the gap and keep us connected to the lead girls. After about 3-4 miles of this, the triathletes FINALLY let up on the pace. I looked back and was surprised to see that we had dropped everyone else. It was now just me, Stef and the 2 triathletes. I didn't know it until days later, but those other 2 girls were Julie Hull, the triathlon and duathlon superstar, and Patti Schmidt-Iverson, the rockstar mountain biker and triathlete. I'm glad I didn't know who they were during the race, because I'm sure I would have let myself be intimidated by them and wouldn't have stayed with them.

The stretch to the finish line was out of the wind, but had a long, gradual 1.5 mile climb. Stefanie knows her weakness is the sprint, so she planned to attack on the hill and try to drop the other 2 girls. Her plan worked flawlessly. With one quick surge, she put a 14 second gap on us and cruised across the line to take the win.

I was left chasing her down. I hammered up the hill as hard as I could, managing to drop Patti Schmidt. I didn't want to look back, but when I did I realized I still had Julie Hull right on my wheel. It was going to come down to the line.

I picked an orange cone as the point I would start my sprint, but then Julie came around from behind me before we reached that point. I knew I had better get out of the saddle and start hammering or she was going to get away from me. I was hoping that as a duathlete, she wouldn't be strong on the sprint. In multi-sport races and time trials, you are never in the situation where you have to sprint against an opponent to the finish line (at least not while on the bike). I hoped that would work to my advantage. I got out of the saddle and sprinted with everything I had. Timmer always tells me to "sprint until you see stars!" and that's exactly what I did. I felt like I was going to throw up, but I kept hammering until I crossed the line with one wheel ahead of Julie.

Overall, this was probably the most fun I've ever had in a race. Thanks to Julie and Patti, I worked harder than I ever have before, and Stef and I still managed to walk away with a 1-2 finish, 1st and 2nd places in the Rider of the Year competition, and the upgrade points we came for.

As for the Birchwood ladies, we finished with a pretty successful day: Paula took 2nd place for the Cat 2's, Amy took 1st in the Cat 3's, and Stef and I took 1st and 2nd in the Cat 4's. Another good day for Birchwood!

OPUS - 4/19/11

2011-04-22T21:02:00.000-05:00

No winter weather advisory can keep the Birchwood Betties from racing!

Last Tuesday, it was 68 degrees and sunny when our race started. This week, it was 40 degrees, cloudy and we were under a winter weather advisory for an approaching snow storm. I love Minnesota!

Stefanie, Martha, Meg and I were there to represent the Birchwood women's team. I was well warmed up. I had ridden around the OPUS campus for a good 15 minutes, stopped to stretch, and then ridden another 15-20 minutes. In fact, I had to pick up the pace to finish my warm-up in time to get to the starting line. That was a good thing though because with the cold weather, the instant you stopped moving, you were going to get very cold. I had just watched Timmer drop out of his race because he was not properly warmed up. On days like this, if your body is fighting to get warm, it's not going to fight to give you a good race.

There was only one Cat 1, 2, 3 woman who showed up. Another hint that sometimes just showing up is all you have to do. She just had to finish the race in order to take home her win! Hats off to Terra James for coming out in the cold when no one else would!

Birchwood Betty's lined up and ready to go!

Since Terra was all alone, they ran all the women together. True to form, Stefanie and Martha shot off the start line. We stuck together as a group the first couple of laps.

Approaching the start/finish line on one of the early laps..

Crossing the line for lap 2.

Me and Meg.

On the third lap, we all sprinted for points. I had been pulling that lap and didn't give a very good effort for the sprint. I crossed the line 4th, but still got a point since Terra was ahead of me and technically not in my race. The 4th and 5th laps were much faster than last week thanks to Stefanie. She is very competitive and she made sure the pace of the pack did not let up. It was a great workout for the rest of us. On the 6th lap, I realized we were in a lead group of 4 people: Stef, Martha, me and Terra who was not in our category. There was really no need to sprint for points since Birchwood was going to take the top 3 spots. We rode effortlessly across the line and collected our points.

On the final set of laps, the Birchwood girls each took a turn pulling a lap. Martha pulled lap 7 after losing a clete sometime before that. She was only clipped in on one foot and still rode like a rockstar! Stef pulled lap 8 and I pulled lap 9. On the final sprint, since I had been pulling, everyone else rode around me to start their sprints. Terra took off with Stef chasing her. Although I wanted Stef to win, I couldn't resist one final push myself. I was kind of boxed in behind Stef and Martha, so I just yelled out "Coming up the middle!" as I sprinted up between them. They gave me a little more space and Stef and I battled each other to the finish line.

Birchwood finished the women's Cat 4 race with Stef winning it, me in 2nd, Martha in 3rd and Meg coming up behind us in 4th. Another night of Betty domination!

RAGBRAI Video - Trousermouse Style

2011-04-22T13:41:00.000-05:00

Whether you're a RAGBRAI veteran or have never heard of RAGBRAI, you need to watch this videa. Created by one of our own from Team Trousermouse, this video outlines a number of Ragbrai "rules". If you haven't already seen the 7-minute movie, you need to watch it now. It's quickly spreading throughout the internet and you don't want to be left out!

Watch RAGBRAI or Hawaii

Durand Road Race

2011-04-21T08:15:00.000-05:00

You gotta love it when you have to brush the snow off your car to go to a bike race in mid-April. I love Minnesota!

Saturday morning we woke to a snow-covered lawn. I was secretly hoping to receive an email from Stef or Martha saying they wanted to cancel the trip. I didn't get any emails. It was 35 degrees, windy as hell and the ground was covered with snow. A great day for a bike race!

At 8am, we loaded our bikes into my Trailblazer and off we went to Durand, WI. This race was not a sanctioned event, so it was kind of a practice race for us. We knew they would be scoring all the women together, regardless of category. We were all a little nervous about racing against the Cat 1-2-3 women, but we wanted to get the experience so we could go into next weekend's race with a little more confidence.

We arrived at the race site with plenty of time before our race. After registering, Stef, Martha and I headed out for a warm-up. The race course was a 13.5 mile rectangle. The wind was coming out of the north-northwest at a steady 18mph. We would basically have a long stretch of cross/tailwind, a long stretch of headwind, and 2 very short sides that didn't really amount to much of anything.

The races all started at 11am, with 3-5 minutes between the different groups. The women were the last to start which gave us plenty of time to stand around shivering. It was aweful! I was praying I would warm up once the race started, at least enough to feel my fingers again.

Once we started our race, Stef and Martha took off like jack rabbits. I immediately found myself in the back of the pack, struggling to hold on. My body was not warmed enough to take off at 30mph! I struggled through some rolling hills and a couple of turns until we were in the headwind. There was one giant hill that we all hammered up, and then the leaders attacked. I fell off the back and found myself in that horrible position of trying to decide if I could bridge the 50 yard gap to the leaders. I hammered out a few miles but couldn't reel them in. I decided I would have to finish this race on my own.

As I finished off the first lap, Martha and another girl, Julie, came up from behind me. The three of us worked together to finish off the 2nd lap and the sprinted to the finish line. Of our group I crossed first, then Martha, then Julie.

Stef proved she is ready to cat up as she was the only Cat 4 girl to hold onto the lead pack for the entire race! Martha, Julie and I were the next group across the line. Overall, the Betty's finished 5th, 8th and 9th.

Durand was a good race to measure our fitness on the open roads and gave us our first taste of racing against the higher category girls. Next week's road race will be the true test of what we can do against other Cat 4 girls!

But first, another crit at OPUS!

OPUS - 4/12/11

2011-04-14T19:02:00.001-05:00

I keep telling people that Birchwood is building an army. For the last few years, very few women have been racing for Birchwood. This year, we had 5 women show up for the first race of the season! It's going to be a great year to be a Birchie!

The OPUS format is a little different than most crits. The races are 9 laps long. Points are given on every third lap to the people who cross in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. The person with the most points at the end of the race wins.

The women's races are all run together, but not really. The Cat 1, 2, and 3 women line up at the front and get a 45 second head start on the course. Their race is scored separately from the women's Cat 4 race. The course is an easy one, with no 90 degree turns. It's basically a circle that is 1/2 uphill and 1/2 downhill. The finish line is at the top of the hill.

We were given two goals for the night: stay safe and learn something. That's exactly what we did, but we had a lot of fun too!

We got Paula up to the front to start her race with the Cat 1, 2, 3 women, and then Martha, Meredith, Meg and I lined up to start our race. We took the first lap fairly easy, trying to navigate around the pot holes in the course.

The Cat 4 women starting the race with Birchwood Betties leading the way!

The 2nd lap was also slower. I knew the 3rd lap could earn me some points, so I jumped up on the inside and went for the line as it came into view. I ended up crossing in 2nd place and earning myself 3 points. Timmer was watching the race and yelled out to take it easy. I sat up and spent lap 4 recovering from the sprint.

Meredith took the lead to pull Martha and me for awhile so we could recover a little.

Working as a team!

We stayed in our line through lap 5 and again I went for the sprint on lap 6 and earned myself another 3 points. We had a little lead on the pack, so I spent the next lap recovering and waiting for the pack to catch back up. At that point we had 2 laps left and Timmer yelled out that we had one girl in our race who was out ahead of us. I hadn't seen her get away from us, but I guess she had been out there by herself for most of the race. Meredith asked if I wanted to try to go after her, but I said no. I knew I could hang out in the pack and finish in the top 3. If I went after that girl, there was a chance I could blow up and not make the podium at the end. I decided to be selfish and go for my own personal goals.

On the last lap, Martha gave me a huge lead-out, hammering through the entire lap and setting me up for a good sprint to the finish. I could hear the Birchwood crowds cheering as we sprinted up the final hill and crossed the finish line. I finished the race with 12 points (3 points each for laps 3 and 6, and 6 points for the final sprint) which put me in 2nd place for my race.

Video highlights of the women's races: Click this link to see the video!

The fast group is the Women's 1, 2, 3 race. Paula (the only Birchie in that group) is in the pink jersey. Our race is obviously a much slower-paced event, but you can pick out the Birchwood blue in our pack! (I'm the one on the bright blue bike.)

P.S. Mom - Watch the video. You can see Timmer around 1:50 into the video coaching us along. Proof he is fulfilling his big brother duties.

Birchwood Mini Training Camp

2011-04-13T21:48:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, 24 members of the Birchwood Race Team met up in Red Wing, MN for a mini training camp. Some people rode 3 days, some road 2, some only came for one day. I joined the team on Saturday for a 72 mile ride around Lake Pepin.

The crew gearing up for our ride:

Stef putting on arm warmers - The day ended up being around 55 degrees and cloudy.

Aaron, Mike and Amy

Martha (her back is to the camera), James (behind Martha), Bruce, Tom, and Ben. Tom pulled for about 95% of the day!

We had our first of about 10 flats before we even got out of Red Wing. With 24 people, 48 wheels, and 72 miles of springtime grit to ride through, flats are inevitable. For the first one, we waited as a group. As the number of flats increased, our group ended up breaking apart.

For the first flat, we waited on opposite sides of an intersection. Once the flat was fixed, we all took off but somehow I ended up leading the group from the far side of the intersection, trying to bridge up to the lead group. Unfortunately the lead group was not going slow. I hammered up and over a bridge and then continued to hammer as I tried to reel in the lead group. I was going 23-24mph and the group ahead of me did not seem to be getting any closer. Finally, after about a half mile, I could finally see I was making up some space. I was burning through my fuel and wasn’t sure I would ever bridge the gap. It probably took me over a mile to finally catch their draft. I was dead by the time I got there and we were only 2.9 miles into the ride!

There was a long, long hill coming out of Bay City that broke our group apart. Four of us girls ended up in a group together on the 2.5 mile climb. We worked together and finally made it to the top, but it took a lot of energy out of my already tired legs and I was hurting after that.

After regrouping at the top of the hill, the line was keeping a steady pace at about 23mph. I kept finding myself at the back of the line, and then falling off the back. Twice I fell off completely and Ben, being the sweetheart that he is, had to come back to bridge me back up to the group. It was not an easy task for him, but I was grateful to be back in the draft and not have to ride alone.

At mile 29 we reached Pepin and stopped to regroup at a gas station. I was teetering on the edge of bonking. I had burned through my calories miles ago! I literally wanted to curl up on the sidewalk and take a nap. I was tired and cranky and had no idea how I was going to finish this ride. I needed energy and I needed it fast! I looked at the nutrition information of an oatmeal cream pie. 50g of carbs and 310 calories of pure sugar. That would do the trick! I ate that and instantly felt better when we climbed back on our bikes a few minutes later.

We turned into a fierce headwind and I again was struggling to hold onto the line. I had more energy thanks to my sugar high, but I was still struggling to hold onto the break-neck speed of the paceline. Fortunately the windy stretch was only a couple miles long. Once we got out of the wind, I was right back up there.

We rolled into Wabasha as a group. We took a right turn and the leaders attacked. I got boxed in on a hill and lost contact with the leaders. I hammered through a couple more hills trying to catch the pack, but couldn’t quite reach the draft.

I was about to admit defeat and sit up when Mark pulled up next to me and asked if I wanted to try to bridge the gap. “Let’s go!” I replied. Mark took the lead and hammered at about 28mph. We were within about 50 yards of the pack. We hit a hill, Mark rolled off and I hammered up the hill trying to maintain our speed as much as possible. When I saw my speed was dropping down near 20mph, I rolled off to let the next person pull...

except there was no one behind me.

I thought we had a good group of 4-5 in our line working to bridge the gap, but apparently no one else had jumped on when Mark and I took off. Mark had apparently blown himself up because he was nowhere in sight either. I was left to either try to bridge the gap alone (not plausible) or to ride the next 15 miles of rolling hills by myself. I sat up and rode alone for awhile until Mark caught back up and we finished off the hilly stretch of the ride.

We rolled into Lake City just as the lead group was getting ready to take off again. We jumped back on the line and cruised the last 18 miles, enjoying the flat roads and tailwinds. The paceline rode steady at 23-25 those last 18 miles and I knew we were going to finish the day with an awesome overall average speed. We finished the day at just under 72 miles (71.7 according to Mark’s computer) and a 20+mph average.

After the ride, most of the team headed to the bars in Red Wing, but I headed back to St. Paul to hang out with my husband, brother and sister-in-law for the evening.

I am glad to have gotten in a super hard, long ride over the weekend. Now it's time for a much needed recovery week as we start to get into our races!

Next up, Tuesday Night Worlds at OPUS!

30 Days of Biking - The First 8 Days

2011-04-10T17:59:00.000-05:00

My 30 Days of Biking did not last 30 days. It sounded like an easy task. It was not. By Day 8 my body was completely dead. For the record, I had already been on the bike for a number of days leading into April, so technically I didn't do too bad. Even so, here is the break down of the first 8 days of April:

Day 1 - It was 48 degrees and sunny when I stumbled out of the bar after Happy Hour. If 48 degrees sounds cold to you, you are obviously not from a northern state. For Minnesotans, 48 degrees and sunny is about the equivalent to 75 degrees anywhere else. Everyone comes outside! Today's ride was a quick and easy one. I stuck to the trails so I wouldn't be tempted to go too hard. After a week of 2-a-day workouts, my legs needed a recovery ride. I rode up River Road to Franklin Bridge and came back on the other side of the river. 11 miles in 43 minutes.

Day 2 - The RAGBRAI boys are slowly but surely coming out of hibernation. I haven't even posted anything about RAGBRAI yet this year because no one seems to be training for it. No worries, we'll get there. On Saturday, the Timmers threw out a challenge for the team.... Stillwater. Riding to Stillwater is a 62 mile ride of hills and headwind. It is usually the longest ride we do in our RAGBRAI training. We have never done it this early in the season, but I am not one to turn down a challenge. Butch, Timmer, and I made the trip on a 55-degree Saturday afternoon, stopping for our usual burgers and beer by the Stillwater lift bridge. I would highly recommend the half-pound Freight House Burger.... unless you have 31 miles of hills left to ride. Then you'll have a half-pound rock sitting in your stomach for the remainder of your ride. Not the greatest idea I've ever had.

While I was out on my bike all afternoon, my loving husband was at home painting our guest bedroom. We are reaching that point of the year where I spend the weekends on my bike while my husband sits at home being annoyed that I'm gone all day. Get used to it, dear husband. This season is just beginning!

Day 3 - Since I was in the doghouse for being gone all Saturday afternoon, I spent Sunday helping my husband in our guest bedroom. This was the last room in our house that we had to paint. We bought our house as a foreclosure 2 1/2 years ago. It was such a crap-hole that EVERY SINGLE room had to be repainted, including the ceilings. It has been a long process. I have to admit, the room turned out pretty well.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

It was after 9pm before I got out on the bike. I wasn't going to do it, but my husband wouldn't let me give up on my 30-day goal on Day 3. Instead, while my husband took out the garbage, I grabbed my mountain bike from the garage and rode around the 2 blocks that make up my little tucked-away neighborhood. 0.46 miles completed. It counts.

Day 4 - Monday is usually my day in the pool. I headed there after work for some 500 yard repeats. Although I've decided to dedicate this year to the bike, I can't quite bring myself to let go of the swimming and running. However, my time in the pool has diminished in the last month or so and that is showing in my splits. It annoys me that I'm not swimming as fast as I was 3 months ago. This day's ride was a recovery spin on the trainer after I got back from the pool. My legs were COMPLETELY dead. The quick spin was probably a good idea to flush out my legs.

Day 5 - The first Betty ride of the season!! It was 35 degrees at 7am. Anything above 30 degrees, in my mind, is good commuting weather. I rode the 8.7 miles to work in the morning and then met up with the Birchwood women's race team after work for our Tuesday night "whoop ass" ride. Unfortunately, it was my ass that got whooped this week. I am learning that to ride well, I need calories. Lots and lots of calories. My legs pretty much felt like shit for the first 8 miles. We always race up the High Bridge and Smith Ave. It is about a one mile climb and I hate getting beat on it. This day Stef beat me by about a block and a half! I was not happy! Fortunately, the GU I had at the bottom of the hill was starting to kick in and I felt much stronger after that point. We got stuck riding with the Now Fitness men's team for the middle part of our ride. Their Tuesday night route is annoyingly similar to ours. I didn't want to be rude and draft off them, but we were all going about the same pace and there are just enough stoplights along the route that our teams couldn't really get away from each other. Instead, we let them hammer and we rode about 20 yards behind them for a good 45 minutes. Finally, we turned in opposite directions and Stef and I hammered out the rest of our ride. It felt great to ride hard and work in the wind with my teammates. I finished the day with 52 miles on my bike.

Day 6 - It was another nice day in St. Paul. I went for a run after work. Lately, I've been doing most of my running on the indoor track at my gym over my lunch hours. It felt weird to run outdoors. It took me 2 miles to really get warmed up. Like my swimming, my running speed has gone to hell since my concentration has turned to the bike. It is frustrating to see how slow my pace is right now. I am running slower than I have in the last 5-6 years. I know it is because I haven't been running much and when I do, it is never speed work or threshold runs. It can be expected that my run splits will suffer, but it is still frustrating to me. After my run, I did a quick 30-minute cool down ride up and down the trails along the river for a total of 8 miles.

Day 7 - Yet another nice day! I'm beginning to think spring is finally here to stay! The snow in my yard has FINALLY melted completely. I rode my bike to work this day. I took my mountain bike which desperately needs its chain greased. After spending so much time on my road bike, it felt like hell to get on a slow, squeaky mountain bike. I felt like I was red-lining the whole time and not getting anywhere! Total mileage to and from work is around 17 miles.

Day 8 - I did not ride this day. My 30-days of Biking did not happen, but I can't say I feel bad about that either. My body is screaming for some recovery time. My legs feel like shit and I've got some big days of riding ahead of me. For now, a day off is a good thing.

A new streak will start tomorrow as the Birchwood Race Team heads to Red Wing for a mini-training camp!

30 Days of Biking

2011-04-01T19:35:00.000-05:00

In a last minute decision, I have decided to pledge the month of April to riding my bike. I received an email from the sponsors of 30 Days of Biking. To participate, all you have to do is ride your bike for 30 days. Simple enough. Count me in!

For the next 30 days I will be riding my bike and posting my adventures on this blog. Keeping in mind that a number of days in April are already booked with biking events, I don't think this will be too challenging. Then again, I live in Minnesota and there is a very good chance we could still get significant amounts of snow. My fingers are crossed for good weather!

More Pics from San Diego

2011-03-30T21:34:00.000-05:00

Some more pictures from our trip to San Diego that I stole off Red Bear's Facebook page.

Day 1 - Somewhere north of Encinitas.

Dr. Nuts and me at a brewery for dinner our first night in town.

Day 2 - Bloody Mary's at lunch near Mission Bay

Day 2 - Cabrillo National Monument. Notice the dog behind me in The Cone of Shame. Poor pup.

Our bikes at the top of Cabrillo, overlooking Coronado which you can't see through the clouds.

A decent picture from the top of Cabrillo showing the hill we had to climb to get back out of there.

I haven't had much else to post about lately since the Minnesota winter doesn't seem want to give up. With snow STILL on the ground, I've been spending my hours in the pool, on the trainer and on the treadmill. BORING!!

Next up on the agenda, another mini training camp. On April 9th and 10th, the Birchwood army will be taking over southern Minnesota for a couple of long, intense days of riding before the race season kicks off.

Spring or no spring, we will be ready to go!

San Diego Training Camp

2011-03-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

I survived our training camp in San Diego! Red Bear, Dr. Nuts and I had a great time and I was able to prove to myself that I'm not in as bad of shape as I had feared. Here's the low-down on the trip...

Day One:
My trip to San Diego did not start well. First off, you should know that I hate traveling. I like getting to visit new places, but I hate the process of actually getting there. During this trip, I learned that if I don't eat breakfast before a 6am flight, I will pass out during the flight and the stewardess will have to give me oxygen so I will maintain consciousness for the remainder of the flight. I later learned this is entirely common and can be prevented by keeping your blood sugar regulated (i.e. eating regularly). Lesson learned.

After arriving in San Diego, renting a car, and picking up my bike from a Fed Ex location, the Red Bear and I headed to Dr. Nuts' condo to rebuild our bikes. We learned that no matter how you decide to travel with your bike, your bike chain will arrive in such a snarled state that you will spend 45 minutes trying to untangle it while yelling "How the F*** is this even possible?!". After about an hour of bike building and cursing, we had two complete bikes. For our first ride, Red Bear and I headed north on Hwy 101 for an out-and-back route. I have to admit it felt great to be out on a road bike again. For those who live in places where your winter is less than 5 months, you probably don't realize that some of us basically have to re-learn how to ride our bikes every spring. That's what Friday's ride was all about. We weren't sure how many miles to go on Day 1. Neither of us had ridden outdoors in months. We decided not to push ourselves too much and only went about 32 miles, but that was fine since the ride ended with a giant climb of a 12% incline to get back to Dr. Nuts' place. I'm not sure how I did not notice this hill when we were descending it on the way out, but I definitely noticed it on the way back.

Day Two:
Dr. Nuts took us to a great place for breakfast in Del Mar called the Stratford Court Cafe. Their coffee is amazing! After breakfast, Nuts gave us a quick tour of Del Mar and La Jolla, including a drive up the infamous Mt. Soledad. Driving up the steep side is nothing less than scary. It is steeper than steep. I couldn't wait to come back and do it on my bike! After our tour, all three of us hopped on our bikes and rode through Rancho Santa Fe. We took some pictures next to orange and lemon groves.

Me and Red Bear

Then Red Bear and I continued to climb up a beautiful hillside to the town of Escondido while Nuts turned back to get his car. Red Bear and I met Nuts in Escondido and the three of us headed to a local brewery for lunch.

Dr. Nuts at the Stone Brewery.

Me and Red Bear with our Stone Brews.

After lunch, the Red Bear and I decided we still wanted to bike more. We rode back through the Elfin Forest, stopped for some pictures, and eventually got back to Dr. Nuts' place in Carmel Valley.

Day Three:
It was cloudy and cooler on Sunday. Dr. Nuts had been called into work the night before and didn't get home until 7am. Red Bear and I left him to sleep, grabbed breakfast and then hopped back on our bikes. We rode up through Torrey Pines to La Jolla, stopped for some pictures at Seal Beach, and then continued on toward Cabrillo.

Me and my bike at Seal Beach.

Around lunch time, Dr. Nuts woke up and decided to try to meet up with us along the route. We met up for a quick lunch in Mission Bay before Dr. Nuts got called back into work again. (My respect for doctors has increased exponentially after witnessing firsthand the crazy hours they have to work!) Red Bear and I struggled to find a good bike route to the Cabrillo National Monument, but eventually we made it. At one point we were riding through a not-so-pretty neighborhood that reminded me a lot of Ottumwa, Iowa. No sooner had that thought entered my mind when the Red Bear calls out, "If this were Ragbrai, this is where we would find the Timmers. It looks like Ottumwa!"

We finally made it Cabrillo National Monument and took lots of pictures. The hillside was amazing! There was a long, winding road from the shore up to the top of the hill. I couldn't wait to climb it! I made Red Bear ride all the way to the bottom so I could climb back up the side of the bluff. I don't think he was as excited about it as I was, but he was a good sport about it. He got me back a few hours later when he made me climb Soledad.

Red Bear.

Me.

Me at the bottom of the hill at Cabrillo. We had to climb back up that hill to get out of the park.

On the way back to Dr. Nuts' place in Carmel Valley, we stopped for a quick Coke in La Jolla. It was starting to get dark out and we were still indecisive as to whether or not we wanted to climb Mt. Soledad. Finally Red Bear made the decision - We were going to do it! We rode to the base of the hill and I took a quick picture of the cross at the top. After confirming the way on my phone's GPS system, we started climbing. We went up via Hidden Valley / Via Capri. This route is about a 15% incline with spots that are much steeper. I was very thankful the Timmers had decided to switch out my 12/25 cassette for a 12/27 for this trip. I don't think I could have climbed that hill without it! I was determined to make it to the top of the hill without stopping. First of all, I wasn't sure it would be possible to get going again if I stopped on that steep of an incline. Second of all, I knew the others had stopped on the climb when they did it a few years ago and I wanted to prove to myself that I could beat them. (I kind of cheated because, having driven it earlier, I knew how far it was to the top. The others had no idea how long the climb would go on when they did it.)

This picture is a little hazy, but it is from the bottom of the hill looking at the top of Soledad. At the very peak of the hill is a large cross that you can see for miles.

This is me at the top of the hill in front of that cross.

My bike overlooking the view from the top of Soledad.

At this point, the sunlight was fading fast and we still had quite a ways to go to get to Nuts' house. Red Bear took off at a time trial pace, I grabbed his wheel and we raced back to Carmel Valley.

Day Four:
Monday was cold, cloudy and rainy. We still wanted to climb Palomar Mountain, but I wasn't sure we would get to do it with this weather. We decided to drive out there, hoping the weather would clear up along the way. We packed the car full of as many clothes as we thought we could wear at once. We weren't sure where to start, so we checked out some blogs and took someone's advice to start at Dudley's Bakery. Note: This was bad advice. Do not start at Dudley's Bakery! You end up approaching from the back of the mountain, cutting off a good deal of climbing (remember, I love climbing!), and once you get back to Dudley's Bakery it will be closed. Starting there was totally not worthwhile. Lesson learned.

It was just under 50 degrees when we stepped out of the car. We added a few more layers of clothes and stuffed whatever else we could carry in our jersey pockets. It was VERY windy and raining lightly. It was not ideal riding weather, but I've been in worse. We started riding toward the mountain. The road had no shoulder and the traffic didn't seem to mind passing us at speeds well over 60mph while providing us with about 3" of passing space. It was cold, and windy, and rainy, and not fun. After 18 miles, Red Bear stopped to check out the map. I was starting to get grumpy at this point. I had no idea where this mountain was, and I really didn't feel like being out in the rain any longer. After 21 miles I told Red Bear that if we didn't find Palomar ride within the next 9 miles, I was turning around and going back to the car. Fortunately, about a mile later, we finally came to Palomar Road. We stopped at the bottom to collect ourselves. We were both soaking wet and cold. Red Bear was now grumpy, but I was excited to have finally found the mountain and was excited for the climb ahead. We added more layers of clothes to our cold and soaking wet bodies, and finally started our ascent. I loved every second of it! At a steady 7% incline, I knew it wasn't going to be as physically challenging as it would be mentally challenging. As a marathoner, I know how to play head games with myself. I was timing my ascent and challenged myself to see how long I could go without checking my watch. I made it 16 minutes and 32 seconds. The second time I looked at my watch 28 minutes had passed. After 33 minutes, the wind kicked in and I was starting to have to work. I decided I would wait until 45 minutes to eat the last of my Clif Shock Bloks which are quickly becoming my new favorite calorie replacement. I took my time eating those and killed off minutes 45-47. Then, before I knew it, I was passing the 5000 ft sign and I knew the top was near. I finished climbing South Grade in 61 minutes. Red Bear was just a few minutes behind me.

It was about 38 degrees at the top of the mountain. We immediately headed for the one convenience store to dry off and get warm. We made ourselves at home in the store and devoured candy bars and hot cocoa while putting on the layers of clothes we had left in our pockets. We knew the descent was going to be COLD.

At this point I was wearing a windbreaker, a long sleeved jersey, a hoodie, a long sleeved base layer, and arm warmers on my upper body. I had also stuffed paper towels between my skin and clothing to keep the wet clothes off my body. On my lower body, I was wearing bike shorts, running tights and compression sleeves on my calves (more to have another layer than for the compression). I bought a pair of dry socks at the convenience store and stuffed paper towels in the toes of my shoes to keep the wind out. I really wished I would have had shoe covers and full-fingered gloves.

We descended by way of East Grade Road. The descent went quickly. It was extremely foggy to the point where I could only see a maximum of about 50 feet in front of me. I tried not to think about how far up we were since the edge of the road had no guardrail. Before I knew it, we were at the bottom. We rode the last 12 miles back to the car as quickly as possible so we could get warm and dry.

Day 5:
Red Bear and I were originally planning to pack up our bikes Monday night, but were too burned out to do it once we got back from Palomar. Instead we did it Tuesday morning only to find out that taking the bikes apart took a fraction of the time it took to put them together. Another lesson learned. Next time we will be sure to get in one last ride before packing up the bikes. Before we left town, Red Bear made me go down on the beach and touch the water so I can say I've been in the Pacific Ocean. (This was my first time on the west coast!)

Our final hours in San Diego!

Now I'm back in the snow in Minnesota, hoping that spring will come soon so I can get back out on my road bike! At this point, it feels like the snow will never go away, so I am extra thankful that I had the opportunity to get away for a few days.

Five weeks and counting until the race season begins!

Preparing for San Diego

2011-03-03T13:53:00.000-06:00

My bike is on its way to San Diego and by tomorrow morning, I will be too. At the ass crack of dawn tomorrow, I head out to San Diego for my vacation / training camp. I am anxious to see how all the hours I've spent on the trainer and in spin classes will translate to real riding. There is a good chance I've got a one-way ticket to the hurt locker. My only hope is that Red Bear will be right there with me. He, too, lives in a place that sees lots of snow and sub-zero temperatures. I'm not sure we'll be able to handle snow-free roads and 70 degrees, but I'm willing to find out.

As I booked my flight for this trip, I realized this will be the first time I've ever done a long-distance trip with my bike. Every triathlon, road race, or RAGBRAI trip has been within driving distance from my house. I've never had to think about how to get my bike to my destination. For this trip, I had three options. 1. Rent a bike once I get there. 2. Fly with the bike. 3. Mail the bike in advance. After comparing prices, making a decision, doubting my decision, re-checking prices and finally confirming my original decision, I chose to mail my bike to San Diego.

Since I spent about 3 days researching my option for traveling with a bike, I figured I might as well share what I learned...

Option 1: Rent a bike. For my situation, this would be the most expensive option. Usually bike rentals around around $50/day. Since we are hoping to get in 5 days of riding, that would be very expensive. Also, I would have to find a way to get to/from the bike rental place which isn't easy if you are someplace where you don't have a car. If this were a weekend trip, this would definitely be the way to go. Anything longer would probably require one of the other options.

Option 2: Flying with your bike. You can't use a very big box. The cardboard box I got from my local bike shop was too big to be accepted by the airlines. You can buy a hard-sided bike box to use for the plane, but I've heard they are pretty expensive. The Timmers has one I could have borrowed, but he claims it is a bitch to travel with. Apparently it is pretty heavy and it does not have wheels. Also, airlines charge you the cost of a checked bag if you want to fly with your bike. Since I'm using different airlines for each direction, it would have been $50 with one airline and $100 with the other. This option is not a bad one, but it is slightly more expensive than mailing your bike (at least it was for me).

Option 3: Mail the bike to your destination. With this option, I could use the cardboard box from the bike shop which I got for free, but had to find my own packing materials. To mail your bike, the box has to be less than 130 inches, calculated as L + (2 x H) + (2 x W). The box I used was 51" long, 28" high and 8" wide or 123 inches total inches. (Go ahead and double check my math. It's right.) I checked price quotes for UPS and Fed Ex. UPS was around $96 and Fed Ex was around $76. However, those estimates may be high because when I actually paid to have the bike shipped by Fed Ex, it only cost me $53 each way. The downside of this option is that you have to have someone sign for your bike once it is delivered and someone will have to take your bike to a Fed Ex location to send it back to you at the end of your trip. It could be kind of a hassle. Also, I also learned that if you go with this option, you should be sure to ship your bike out well in advance of your trip. I took my bike to the Fed Ex store last Thursday night and they told me the earliest it will get to San Diego is Thursday (today). Since Red Bear and I get there on Friday it shouldn't be a problem as long as Dr. Nuts happens to be available to sign for the package when the Fed Ex man comes. If no one is around to sign for the package, we could end up spending Friday afternoon waiting for the delivery rather than riding our bikes. My fingers are crossed for everything to go smoothly!

I am hoping to have a lot to report on when I get back next week. Hopefully the report will not include stories of a lost bike shipment or lost luggage. There is a huge snowstorm predicted to hit Minneapolis/St. Paul at the exact time I will be flying back home next Tuesday. I'm hoping that means I will get snowed out and have to extend my vacation a little longer! Bring on the snow!

Belated Valentine

2011-02-19T09:27:00.000-06:00

On Valentines Day this year, I received the news that my husband will be returning to the Twin Cities for good. For the past 3 months he has been working in Iowa while I've been working and keeping up our house in Minnesota. We've only seen each other a hand full of times since Thanksgiving. He was supposed to be back in MN two weeks ago, but a snafu with some paper work extended that out another couple of weeks. The paperwork is complete now and I am excited to finally have him back home.

Doing the long-distance marriage thing isn't uncommon for us. In the 9 1/2 years I've been with my husband, this is our 3rd period in a long-distance relationship. I chalk it up to one of the few side effects of getting married young. As we've grown into adulthood, sometimes our lives take us in opposite directions for awhile. Fortunately, we always come back together with our marriage a lot stronger in the end.

Sometimes I think the breaks are good. It is a good reminder for me to realize how much I depend on my husband, and it makes me appreciate him even more. I've spent the last 3 months wondering how the hell people can survive without a spouse. I most certainly cannot do it. I am totally helpless living on my own.

Case in point - My recent trip to the grocery store: I needed a container of ricotta cheese, but the only ones left were waaaaay in the back of the very top shelf at the grocery store. At 5'3", the top shelf is nowhere near within my reach. This is where my 6'3" husband comes into play. BUT, since he was not there (we always do our grocery shopping together), I was stuck trying to decide how to get the much-needed ricotta cheese off the way back of the very top shelf. I considered asking someone else's husband to help me, but there were no other husbands around. In fact, there were very few people in the grocery store at all.

The only other person around was some dirty looking college kid. I spent a good 5 minutes watching him compare yogurt labels as I contemplated whether 1) I had the balls to ask a complete stranger to help me and 2) whether he would even be tall enough to reach the way back of the very top shelf. He was definitely not as tall as my husband. When I told my husband this story, he laughed at me and said I was probably creeping the kid out by staring at him for so long. OK, so there is probably a good chance that while the guy seemed to be studying the labels of yogurt containers, he was really debating if he could conjure up some Chuck Norris-like skills to defend himself against the crazy blonde woman staring him, or if his best bet would just be to drop the yogurt and run like hell.

I chickened out on asking him for help and instead set out to see if I could find a grocery store employee to help me. Just my luck, on this particular weeknight the only worker in the entire grocery store was a Hispanic midget. Great. I guess that's what I get for doing my grocery shopping after 9pm on a weeknight. I contemplated asking him for a step stool, but then decided it would take too long to wait for the tiny man to find one and then walk all the way back across the store to the dairy aisle. Instead I decided I needed to solve this problem on my own, climbed right into the dairy case and used the shelves as a ladder to climb up and get my much-needed ricotta cheese.

Thank God my husband is finally home again so I won't have to relive that experience!

In other news, my spring training is coming along pretty well. I've been kind of holed up doing my own thing lately. This winter has been nothing less than brutal. I've made it outdoors to ride twice now, but with snow, ice and mud puddles, they weren't very productive rides. Most of my time has been spent on the trainer in my basement.

Knowing it will be another month or so before outdoor riding becomes enjoyable, I put out word that I was interesting in heading someplace warm for some spring training. I had a few options pop up, but none of them seemed too inviting until the Red Bear suggested we head out to San Diego. The Red Bear is a fellow TrouserMouser on our Ragbrai team. We have been trying to do an event together for awhile now, but we haven't been able to coordinate vacation times with times we both have money (thank god for tax returns and year-end bonuses!). Somehow our schedules finally worked out this time. In a couple weeks we will fly to San Diego to invade the condo of Dr. Nuts (yet another TrouserMouser), and spend 5 days on our bikes. I can't wait! My poor road bike has remained untouched since November. It is ready to get outside!

Besides, here is today's forecast for the Twin Cities:

"Snowfall topping 10 inches is bearing down on the metro area and elsewhere in Minnesota, with strong winds thrown in for good measure."

Our trip to San Diego can't come fast enough!

Winter Carnival Not-Quite-A-Half-Marathon Race Report

2011-01-29T12:16:00.013-06:00

After declaring to the world that I am focusing primarily on the bike this year, I went ahead and signed up for a running race. My bad. It's winter here and in my opinion, it's a lot easier to run in the winter than it is to bike in the winter.

I ran into Steve at Dome Running last week (yes, I was running again) and he was telling me that he was planning to do the half marathon at the Winter Carnival again. Although I haven't been running much lately at all (I've been averaging a whopping 5-8 miles a week for the last 3 months), I did manage to pull an 11-miler out of my ass the other weekend with the Barefoot Runners Society. If I can do 11 miles with no training, I can do 13.1. It wouldn't be fast, but it would guarantee I would do a long run that week. I decided to do it.

Race Morning:
I drove the 8 miles from my house to downtown St. Paul. Since I started working in downtown Minneapolis 13 months ago, I find I don't ever go to downtown St. Paul anymore. That's too bad. Fortunately, the race courses (there was a 5K, 10K and half marathon) were altered this year to do a loop around downtown before heading out for the out-and-back section on Shepherd Road. I picked up my race packet and hung around inside until it was time to run. I skipped a warm up because 1) I was just running this for fun and really didn't care how fast or slow I ran and 2) it was pretty cold out there. It was about 24 degrees, but had a windchill of around 15. I really had no desire to stand around outside any longer than I had to. I was beginning to wonder why I decided to sign up for the half marathon. Why didn't I sign up for the 10K? All of a sudden, the 10K sounded a lot more fun than the half. Oh well. It was too late to change my mind. The race was about to begin.

Miles 1-2: We looped around Mears Park and the St. Paul Farmers Market, ran up the long hill on Kellogg, and ran a quick loop around Rice Park where the Winter Carnival ice sculptures were all set up. I haven't ever gone to any of the Carnival events other than the race, so it was super cool to finally get to see the ice sculptures.

Miles 3-6: We started the not-so-entertaining part of the race.... the out-and-back along Shepherd Road. Besides a few grain elevators, there is absolutely nothing to look at between downtown and my neighborhood along this road. In my head, I broke up this section of the race by landmarks and concentrated on getting to each one. After my first two landmarks (the intersection at Randolph and the intersection at Otis) we were a little over 5 miles into the race. A guy I was talking to mentioned he thought the turn-around would be coming up soon. I thought we had a couple more miles to go. The faster runners were already on their way back toward downtown, so I gave a quick shout out to Steve as he passed by. I knew the turn-around point would be after we crossed under 35E, but I wasn't sure exactly where it would be. Apparently the race organizers weren't exactly sure where the turn-around should be either.

Miles 6-8: These miles didn't exist. After the 6 mile mark, I came up to the turn-around point. I ran around the barricade as the policeman instructed and headed back toward downtown. Almost immediately after the turn around was mile marker 8. We all knew this was inaccurate since we had just passed the 6 mile marker about 7 minutes back. There was no way we had just run 2 miles in 7 minutes. In fact, we were running slow enough that there was no way we had run 1 mile in 7 minutes. I figured some kids were trying to play a prank on us and had moved the mile markers. Unfortunately, that is not an uncommon thing in races. We all ignored the mile marker and just kept running.

Miles 9-10: A little while later we passed the 9 mile marker. I wasn't really watching my splits, but it seemed like this marker was about a mile after the last one. I noticed this marker was pretty official looking and had the name of the organization putting on the race on it. At this point I wasn't quite sure what was going on. My legs were starting to hurt, so I slowed down my pace while I got some calories and fluids in my body.

Mile 10-13.1: At the 10 mile mark, there was a clock and a guy. The guy was announcing that the race course was short. We only had 3.1 miles left. At this point, I didn't care that the race would be short. In fact, I was pretty happy to hear that. I wasn't hurting, but I wasn't having a ton of fun either. I was so happy with the news of the short course, I decided I wanted to race the rest of it. Up until this point I was just running. I was probably averaging between 8:50 and 9 minute miles. After mile 10, I picked it up a little and kept my last 3 splits under 8 minute miles.

I have no idea what the actual distance of the race turned out to be. I would guess it was somewhere just shy of 12 miles. I finished in 1:38 which is an hour and 38 minutes of exercise that I wouldn't have done if I hadn't signed up for this race.

I got outside and got in a good workout on a 20 degree morning. What more could I ask for?

New Focus and First Outdoor Ride of the Season!

2011-01-12T18:39:00.016-06:00

2011 will be a very different year for me. This year it's all about the bike. I've done the marathon thing. I've done the triathlon thing. It's time to try something new.

I've been riding fairly seriously for the last four years, but cycling has always been my cross training activity. It has never been my focus. I've belonged to a cycling club for a couple years now, but when I joined, it did not have a race team. In the last six months, that has all changed. A lot of work has been done to build up the women's racing team - monthly meetings, email lists, weekly group "rides" on the bike trainers, and coaching seminars. It's the perfect environment for my rookie year.

Focusing on the bike brings me some new challenges. First, I've never done a season of cycling before. How do I set goals for something I've never done before? One of my teammates suggested I focus on process goals. So I've decided my goal for this year is to just do it. I will overcome fear of criterium races and actually do one. I will complete that century ride that I've been putting off for the last 5 years - my list of excuses for not doing it is pretty impressive. I will learn to work with teammates - coming from a running background, I've never actually had to rely on teammates in my races before. I will work to develop better bike-handling skills - hopefully there will be no broken bones in achieving this goal.

My second challenge with cycling is the calendar. The cycling season is very early in Minnesota, at least compared to running and triathlon seasons. Road races are in April and May. Criteriums and time trials are in June and July. Doing Ragbrai in late July will provide no fitness benefit to me since the race season will be pretty much over by then. I need to be in racing shape by mid-April, which means I need to be working hard now.

I will not stop running and swimming, but will now consider them my recovery or cross-training activities. My focus for the next 3 months will be on building up endurance and speed on the bike.

To kick off my new training plan, I completed my first outdoor ride of the season. It was a new record for me. Last year the Timmers and I got out at the end of February, but usually I don't get outside until March. Today was in the 20's, and although we got 2" of snow last night, the trails in the Twin Cities were in pretty good shape. I took the mountain bike out for a slow ride up the river. The east side (Saint Paul) was really nice. The trails were snow covered, but well-plowed and packed down pretty well. The west side (Minneapolis) and the Greenway were not so well plowed so I had to go a lot slower and got a much better test of my bike-handling skills through the deeper snow. All in all, the riding conditions were pretty good and the weather was perfect for a 90 minute ride.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Minnesota weather is going to get a lot colder this week, so I will be heading back to the gym for the rest of the week's bike workouts.

A few quick pics from my weekend workouts...

Saturday I did a long run with the Minnesota Chapter of the Barefoot Runners Society. I'm not one of those crazy minimalists, but they were nice enough to let me tag along on their group run... and even let me wear my "snow tires" (running shoes with Yak Trax).

For MLK Jr. Day, I headed outside for an afternoon ride. It was snowing very lightly and was perfectly quiet along the Greenway. I couldn't resist stopping for a quick pic with my phone's camera. First outdoor ride of the year!!

Fall update

2011-01-06T21:07:00.013-06:00

OK, it's been way too long since this blog was updated. I haven't fallen off the planet, but I've been keeping plenty busy. I've got a lot of things brewing in my life, including what I think is going to be a very successful racing season. More about that in future posts. First off, I suppose I'll fill in the last few months...

I left off at the Minneapolis Duathlon. It was pretty much a joke. I showed up on my time trial bike, thinking this was a race. Apparently it was more of a "come out and participate" event. It sounds horrible, but I was coming off RAGBRAI in the best shape of the year, and started on the line with a bunch of chubby girls running with iPods. (Fast runners don't run with iPods!) I guess there was an elite field, but I didn't know about it. Oh well, an age group win is still a win.

Coming into T1 after the first run.

The good thing that came out of the duathlon was that I realized I have no excuse for not riding my bike to work. To avoid parking fees, I rode my bike to the duathlon which started in downtown Minneapolis. From my house to my office, it is less than 9 miles and all but 2 blocks of it can be ridden on bike paths or in bike lanes. NO EXCUSE for taking the train to work! I also learned that I could cut 6 entire minutes off my daily commute time (big time savings!!), I could log a minimum of 18 miles a day on the bike, and I could ride straight to Birchwood and pick up the Tuesday night women's ride which was forced to start an hour earlier with the diminishing daylight. I wasn't riding very hard, but I was logging a ton of miles on the bike this fall.

Besides commuting, I spent my weekends on the bike too. The Ragbrai boys were determined to be in peak performance shape for Oktrouserfest (more on that in a bit), so we kept on training together. The highlight of Oktrouserfest training came one cool September morning, somewhere in eastern Minnesota. We had no route planned other than to stop for a few brews at some bar in the middle of nowhere. After leaving the bar, we turned onto an unfamiliar dirt road figuring it would eventually lead us to someplace one of us might recognize. This dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, Minnesota turned out to be the site of the greatest event I have ever witnessed...

The Captain and I were riding along when he admitted that just one more beer would put him in his happy mood. Immediately upon saying those words, a women driving a golf cart cut across the road about 50 yards in front of us. Coincidentally, her golf cart was filled with beer! NOTHING beats the magical appearance of a beer girl!

The magically appearing beer girl. Note the results of Timmer's foraging mission in the lower right hand corner. Always good humor with this bunch!

October brought the greatest annual event in Minnesota (or not). Oktrouserfest is the fall reunion of our Ragbrai team. The humor in that is that most of our team lives within a one-mile radius of each other and the remaining members are spread out throughout the metro area. We see each other all the time. There is really no need for a reunion other than it gives us an excuse to misbehave while riding bikes around St. Paul. Oktrouserfest is a grueling, day-long event that covers an entire 25 miles and includes 11 beer stops. We all survived, fully intact, although the same could not be said for the number of bottles of liquor that the Timmer's broke when he tipped over FIVE TIMES! I think it's time to elect someone else to pull the burley full of alcohol.

The Burley with bottles still intact.

The morning portion of the route changes from year to year, but the afternoon/night route is the same. This year's beers stops included the Longfellow Grill, the bike path by the U of M, Shady's front lawn, the "beach" by the river, the Glockenspiel, the riverboat, that spot along the river where JB got a flat, another spot along the bike path where we all randomly stopped, Lucky's 13 in Mendota, Sea Salt and the post-party at Shady's house.

Bloody's at Longfellow Grill

Beach Beers

Down by the boats in downtown St. Paul

Some random spot on the bike path

After Oktrouserfest, I started my "off-season" training plan. I have been following a 20-week half-ironman training plan. I'm not actually training for a half-ironman, but I figure it will keep me in shape through the winter. The training plan includes a ton of swimming which I think is a great off-season focus. I've got some big goals set for this spring, but it's still a little too early to focus on the race season yet.

In upcoming posts.... My 2011 goals, my race schedule (no running events this year!), and a look at the Birchwood women's super secret winter training.

Stay tuned!

Minnesota State Championship Road Race - Race Report

2010-09-03T06:50:00.001-05:00

I had a very busy weekend with back-to-back races on Saturday and Sunday. First up was the Minnesota State Championship Road Race on Saturday. This was the race the Birchwood Bettys decided would be our first team race. The team is in a transitional year. In the past few years, all the female Birchwood racers have moved onto other things in life. We are in the process of building up the next generation of racers. Seana has stepped up as coach and has been literally kicking our Betty asses for the last 2 weeks in preparation for this race.

Saturday morning we all made the 90 minute trek up to the middle of nowhere to race through the Minnesota countryside. Seana, Gabriella and I warmed up for a good 30 minutes while Stef and Meredith warmed up on trainers in the parking lot.

With 15 minutes to go, we all met up to discuss last minute strategy. Fortunately we had Barb with us. Barb has been racing for many years and can tell you everything you need to know about every woman you'll be racing against.

The Birchwood Betties, ready to race!

A little pre-race scheming. Barb's got the low done on everyone!

We rolled out to start the race. The course was two 18-mile loops. The game plan was to sit in on the first lap and then race the second lap. I will admit it is hard to be patient. I came to race! Sitting in for 18 miles was not fun! I did appreciate my teammates and all the work they did to protect me from the wind. It's humbling to know their job is to work their butts off to keep me out of the wind so I will have something left in my legs to sprint at the end. I watched Gabriella and Barb fall off the pack and knew it was because they spent lots of time out in the wind for my sake. Thanks, Gabriella and Barb!

The wind was tough but not the worst I've been in. There was a pretty steady 18mph wind from the south but since each lap was basically a giant square, we also had some time in tailwind. There was one pretty significant hill on the course. It wasn't a killer hill, but the finish line was placed at the very tip-top of that climb. I had a feeling the race would come down to a sprint up that hill. I was right.

We climbed the hill and passed the Birchwood cheering section as we finished the first lap.

Coach Seana watching for Birchies.

Me (white helmet) and Stef (yellow helmet) finishing the first lap

Gabriella climbing the hill on her 1st lap.

The second lap started on some sketchy pavement so no one made a move. Finally someone shot off the front but no one followed. I was getting antsy. I took off expecting my team to follow. I wasn't working too hard but when I turned corner #2, I saw the pack was about 1/2 mile behind me. No one was on my wheel. WTF?! I debated taking off and time trialing the rest of the race, but figured I would probably blow up in the wind with no one around me to work with. I decided to play it safe and go back to the pack.

The pack seemed to be getting slower and slower, or maybe I was just getting antsier and antsier. I wanted to ride hard. We were not riding hard. Everyone seemed to be scared of the wind. No one wanted to pull. I finally got up front because I was about to lose my mind sitting in the pack. I was not working hard up front. It was just that no one wanted to get around me. At one point I wondered how slow I could go before someone would get frustrated and take the lead. I got the group down to 13mph for awhile and FINALLY someone decided to get up front.

At this point there was about 5 miles left in the race. I was nervous. We hadn't even started racing yet! "Should we take off?" I asked Stef. "No, let's wait it out," she replied. We could see the hill slowly approaching us, signalling the finish line was near.

Right as we entered the hill, the pack jumped. I somehow ended up at the back of the pack on the first part of the hill. Thankfully Birchwood has a weekly hill ride that has put us in awesome hill climbing shape. I passed 50% of the pack on the first 0.6 miles of the hill.

Now we just had a left hand turn and 0.3 miles of climbing to the finish line. I couldn't get in a good position, so I took the corner wide and then jumped on Stef's wheel. It felt like we were going too slow, so I stood up, went around Stef and starting hammering for the finish line.

The 1st place finisher... You can see the pack waaay in the background on the right.

Eventually I saw the GP girls start to fall back. I knew I had to keep hammering until the line was behind me. I finished in 2nd place with Stef and Meredith right behind me in the pack.

Me (white helmet) pulling away from the pack to take 2nd.

Meredith reaching the top of the hill.

Barb finishing on the hill

So the team tactics didn't play out as well as we had hoped, but from what I've heard, women's Cat 4 races can be like that. This was only our first team race. There will be plenty more to come.

The best part of coming in 2nd.... Unlike triathlons and running races, cycling pays out money! (Or "cash money" as my husband would say!)

I broke even on the day, learned a lot about racing and came away feeling like Birchwood may have a pretty awesome women's team next year.

I can't wait!

Double Header Weekend

2010-09-01T08:48:00.003-05:00

This past weekend was a busy but successful one. Saturday was the Minnesota State Road Race Championship and Sunday was the Minneapolis Duathlon. The Birchwood blue was out in force for both races. Thanks to the teamwork of the Betties, I was able to pull off a 2nd place finish in Saturday's road race and followed it up with a 1st place win in the F30-34 age group in the Duathlon on Sunday.

Race reports and pictures will be posted soon!

Ragbrai 2010 Recap

2010-08-04T19:39:00.032-05:00

I never bring a camera on Ragbrai. First, because the #1 rule is "Don't bring anything on Ragbrai that you don't want lost, broken or stolen", and second because there are plenty of things we simply don't need documented.

Even so, there seem to be plenty of pictures out there from our week in Iowa. Here are a few of the highlights from our team adventure:

A new team rule was created this year: The Two Handle Rule - You must bring 2 handles of liquor to get in the van. Done.

Who brought the Simple Green?!

Day 1: Sunday, Sioux City to Storm Lake
About 1/4 mile into the day we witnessed our first bike accident. Some poor guy hit a stick in the road, crashed and broke his collar bone. Good thing we had our Orthopedic Surgeon with us this year. Sucks to be that guy though. His Ragbrai was over before it even started. Game off for him.

The day was kind of hilly but that was completely cancelled out by a sweet tailwind. Unfortunately there were A LOT of people out riding. Estimates came in at approximately 28,000 riders that day. Everyone who is a Ragbrai veteran agreed that this was the largest amount of cyclists ever to ride on one day. It pretty much sucked. Riding around slower riders was difficult and annoying. We got our first "Fuck you guys" from one elderly man who I think had a grudge against us from another year. We honestly were not doing anything that warranted his temper tantrum, but he let it be known that he was not a fan of us. We kindly ignored him, but it was still an interesting confrontation.

After pancakes, we rolled on to meet up with the Short Bus crew.

After a couple of hours of hanging out in some town I don't remember the name of, the teams rolled on. Red Bear and I got left behind when we had to make a bathroom stop. We had about 15 miles of good riding together, rotating positions and pulling each other at a good pace to the next town. We somehow found Shady and some Short Bus guys and spent the next few hours drinking beers and hanging out in Quimby.

We finally arrived in Storm Lake a couple hours behind the rest of out team. Our campsite was about 2 blocks from the lake so we headed there to "shower". The lake was literally like bath water. It felt so good to go for a swim after being in the hot sun all day.

That night we created the "circle of trust" sitting in the middle of the street in the beer garden. We played duck, duck, goose (or duck, duck, gray duck depending on where you are from) while some news crew filmed us for their nightly newscast.

Day 2: Monday, Storm Lake to Algona
It was another hot day but at least there was a little more cloud cover. I seriously considered doing the century day but then decided that really didn't sound like too much fun. The mileage for the day was already set at 82 miles. What did I really have to gain in doing another 18 miles other than missing out on a hour of fun with the group?

The first town we rolled through was Varina. We got a good laugh seeing that one letter on all the signs had been changed. I'll let you guess which letter was changed on the "Come Eat in Varina" sign.

We rode hard on Monday. Like really hard. Like 28mph averages in the tailwind hard. Fortunately my legs were feeling perfect and I was able to correctly anticipate when the leaders were going to take off. Even with my 650c wheels, I was able to hold onto the group. We dropped a couple people from our team so I felt extra cool that I was able to hold on.

Unfortunately I blew up shortly after that. About 45 miles into the day I had a super crazy cramp in my glute that left me limping the next 10 miles to the next town. Thank God the Short Bus has a masseuse on their team. One outstanding ass massage later, I was good to go. The rest of the day felt pretty good.

Our campsite in Algona was right along the Ragbrai route so all our friends stopped by as they rode into town. Tommy B rolled by. He's a physical trainer in Chicago. I told him about my ass cramp issues so we did a good hour of yoga and stretching. That was exactly what I needed.
Yoga time with Denise and Tommy B.

Day 2: Tuesday, Algona to Clear Lake
The wedding day!!! Now days it seems that Team Trousermouse and Short Bus are pretty much one and the same. We are separate teams but we spend a lot of time together. One of our Short Bus buddies decided to get married on Ragbrai. This was not your typical wedding. All the guys wore dresses. All the girls wore tuxedo t-shirts and skirts. Everyone wore polka dots.
The wedding party

The wedding was set for 2pm at the Tiki Bar in Clear Lake. The shitty part of that was that it put us on a time schedule. I HATE being on a schedule on Ragbrai. Time should be irrelevant that week. Fortunately we ran into the wedding party somewhere along the route and we all decided to cut the course together. It was quite the sight to see about 100 people turn off the Ragbrai course to blaze our own trail. Actually the short cut was quite nice. The roads were completely dead so we all just rode in a giant pelaton down the middle of the highway. I think we cut about 10-15 miles off the day and made it to Clear Lake right at 2pm. Thankfully we were still ahead of the bride and groom.

The Bride and Groom

Clear Lake was a fun town to stay in. We had a good time in the beer garden that night and dancing in the streets, but nothing could really compare to the fun we had that afternoon at the Tiki Bar.

Day 4: Wednesday - Clear Lake to Charles City
The Captain declared this would be the day he would change Ragbrai the way the Segway Scooter changed human transportation.

He was right.

This days heckle scene involved a rainbow striped baby pool, a squirt gun and some skittles. We'll leave it at that....

A sneak peak into the day:

Charles City (Chuck Town) is always a great Ragbrai overnight stay. We had quite the camping spot as the local police set up their DUI check point right next to us. Note to townies: If you're going to spend all night partying in the Ragbrai beer garden, DON'T PLAN TO DRIVE HOME!

Day 5: Thursday, Chuck Town to Waterloo
The Captain's birthday! Today's heckle spot included an uphill beer can slolem and, of course, road cake!

Usually the bigger towns in Iowa do not make good Ragbrai overnight stays. Waterloo is a bigger town. We expected it would be a boring night. There is no central location for Ragbrai in the cities. Instead, they set us up out in some field by the casino. There are really no nearby neighborhoods to camp in and the residents are usually not all pro-Ragbrai. In smaller towns, the residents love Ragbrai. In the larger towns, it's just different. We always knock on doors to ask people if we can camp in their yard. This was the first town where people said no. We had to ask three different families before someone allowed us to stay in the yard. Our campsite was over a mile away from the Ragbrai festivities but that was about as close as we were going to get.

Fortunately, the big towns seem to know that they suck so they really try to make the most out of the situation. Waterloo had some really great bands lined up for their beer garden. After the beer garden shut down, half of our team headed to the casino to blow some money and hit up the all-you-can-eat buffet. After eating every meal off your lap while sitting on a curb all week, it was nice to actually eat off a plate while sitting at a table.

The downside of going to the casino is that Ragbrai riders are mixed in with regular people. You start to notice that you smell like you showered in a lake and you look like you combed your hair with a plastic fork. Better to be back with our own kind.

Day 6: Friday, Waterloo to Manchester
At about 7am it started to rain. And it didn't stop. We could either haul balls to pack up camp and try to outrun the rain or we could hang out for another 4 hours and wait out the rain. We decided to go back to sleep and wait out the rain. A couple hours later, it was still raining. We packed up our soaking wet tents while getting rained on. We climbed onto our dripping wet bikes and headed out in a downpour to start the 80 mile day. It sucked. I've ridden in rain before, but this was just ridiculous.

We stopped for Chris Cakes in Gilbertville but they had already closed down service for the day. That can happen when you don't roll out until after 10am. Fortunately we found a great VFW that was serving pancakes and bloody marys. We were all soaking wet and shivering but fortunately we spent enough time there that we sat out the rest of the rain and were greeted with sunshine once we finally rolled out from the VFW.

Although we were thankful for the sun, we were also given our first good dose of headwind. We ran a rotation of 60 second pulls to get our team through the next 40 miles in the wind. It was not fun. Finally we pulled into Quasqueton where we met up with the Short Bus gang. (There is really no avoiding them.) We spent a good amount of time in a bar's beer garden and then rolled on to set up heckle spot in Winthrop.

Probably because of the rain, no one seems to have pictures from Friday. Probably a good thing.

Day 7: Saturday, Manchester to Dubuque
The final day! This was the first day my legs were not quite with me - probably due to Friday's headwind. It was pretty hilly and, typical of the last day of Ragbrai, pretty uneventful.

We climbed Potter Hill which was not easy. It was not as steep as Ramsey Hill, but it was still a bitch of a climb. Probably 90% of Ragbrai walked their bikes up the hill. Of course, all the Trousermice rode up the hill, but we made sure to heckle the shit out of everyone who didn't, particularly that Short Bus guy on the single speed.

Heckling on Potter Hill

Quitters!!

We finished off the day, bid farewell to the Short Bus and headed back to reality in St. Paul.
Short Bus Quitters

Ragbrai 2010 - Game off!

Ragbrai 2010

2010-08-01T11:12:00.015-05:00

Snap back to reality.

Another Ragbrai is in the books. Seven days on the bike. 450 miles across the state of Iowa. Way too many handles of liquor. Can't say it was an epic week but will admit that we may have had our best bunch of people yet and had fun every day from sun up to sun down.

Team Trousermouse headed to Iowa to take on another Ragbrai. We sure didn't look so clean when we got back to St. Paul a week later.

Since moving to MN a few years ago I realize that not everyone knows what Ragbrai is. Although I'm not sure how anyone who rides a bike can avoid knowing about it, here's the scoop: Seven days on a bike, Sunday through Saturday, riding about 450 miles from west to east across the state of Iowa with about 15,000 other people. The ride occurs the last full week of July every year and although the course changes each year, it's pretty much the same crew and the same great week. Unlike other bike rides across states, Ragbrai is much more fun-oriented than bike-oriented. It is basically like spring break except instead of being on a beach surrounded by 20-year-old hard bodies, you're in Iowa surrounded by beer-bellied, pork-eating cyclists. Ragbrai is not a race but my team will claim to win it every year until someone can outdo our antics.

Good luck.

I make up the female side of Team Trousermouse. The team was formed 21 years ago by three teenagers who thought "trousermouse" was a funny word. A couple decades later it has lost some of its humor but we can't seem to shake the name. We wear bright blue jerseys with white hibiscus flowers that stand out perfectly against the backdrop of Ragbrai. We always ride as a team and we do not ride slow. You will always notice us but that also means we can never hide.

I found this picture somewhere on the internet from Friday. The jerseys seem to stand out everywhere, even when we may not want them to.

Unlike most Ragbrai teams, ours is very small and we know each other way too well. Most Ragbrai teams are just a bunch of people who claim to be on the same team. Our team consists of many pairs of siblings, a few close friends, and no spouses. The majority of us live in St. Paul, MN. We ride together. We drink together. We hang out together. We share a lot of laughs. We make a great Ragbrai team.

We like to have fun and love to heckle the other rides. We always set up at least one good heckle spot each day. Most of the time we get some good laughs out of people. Sometimes we just piss people off. It makes no difference to us. This is our vacation. We will make our own fun.

I will continue to post the Ragbrai report and pictures throughout the week. For now I've got a steaming bag of laundry and a tent full of mildew to tend to.

Door County Triathlon - Half Iron Race Report

2010-07-19T06:36:00.012-05:00

My first half iron triathlon is in the bag!

The summary:
Door County Triathlon - Half Iron Distance (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run)
Goal - Finish the race and give myself an idea of what I can do at this distance
Results - 5:22:28, 10th in age group, 32nd overall female

The race report:

I was severely undertrained for this race. In fact, my training has been pretty much non-existant for the last month or so. Work has been my priority lately. I haven't swum more than a mile in my entire life. In fact, I haven't swum more than about 1500 yards since early may. I haven't done any runs over an hour since my last half marathon in early June. All of my biking has been done with other people so I have no experience of riding without a draft and my tri bike has remained untouched since my last triathlon which was over a month ago.

Even so, I knew I could complete this race.

Husband and I drove the 5 1/2 hours from St. Paul to Horseshoe Bay on Saturday. We arrived at packet pick-up, wandered through the vendors and then sat through a preview of the race course. If you're looking for a cheap, but excellently organized half iron race, this is the one you want.

The course preview consisted of thorough instructions of each leg of the race, a review of rules, a walk through of the start/finish area, reports of weather and water temperatures, and a video with actual pictures of the race course showing every single turn and landmark. It was very informative and left me with knowing exactly what to expect going into race day.

Race Day:
Transition opened at 5:30am, but it had assigned spots, so there was really no reason to get to the race site early. We arrived around 6:45ish and that was probably still too early. The race wasn't supposed to start until 8am.

At about 7:30, the race director announced that we were supposed to have a thunderstorm with lighting roll in right at 8am. They delayed the race start 30 minutes.

Somewhere in transition I must have gotten bit by a mosquito or something. I am super allergic to mosquitos. My foot instantly turned into a giant red welt and the itchiness was starting to spread throughout my body. This was bad. I saw my husband and was going to tell him that I needed to find the medical tent when he pulled a tube of prescription strength cortisone cream from his pocket. "Would this help?" he asked. This may have been one of the weirdest encounters I've ever had with my husband. Seriously?! What are the chances that he would just happen to be carrying cortisone cream in his pocket when I get bit by a mosquito on race morning??? For all the times I bitch about how much my husband can annoy me on race morning, he was quickly redeeming his spot as greatest sherpa of all time!

That storm that pushed the start time back 30 minutes never came through. At 8:30 the first waves started. My wave started about 40 minutes later.

The swim:
The swim was awesome!

We swam out to the end of the pier and then started our way around the triangular course. There were some pretty significant waves right as we got around the pier. It felt like trying to swim while laying on a water bed. Fortunately the waves seemed to die down almost immediately and then the water was perfectly smooth after that.

The water in the bay was so clear! I have never swum in a lake where I could see anything at all in the water. Here, I could see the bottom of the lake, I could see swimmers to my left and right when they were about 5 feet away, I could see the cords running from the buoys to the lake bottom. I could see everything! It made spotting almost unnecessary. I just tried to keep someone to my left and someone to my right the whole time.

On the third section of the triangular course, I felt like I was passing everyone. It felt awesome. I was passing a number of men and they had started two waves in front of me!

Again, the clear water made the swim finish a piece of cake. I didn't have to look up to determine how far the finish line was. I could see the bottom and the people around me. I just kept swimming until I saw everyone else stand up and start running.

T1:
The wetsuit strippers are awesome!! Having someone else take off your wetsuit for you saves so much time!! I wish they would do that for all races.

The Bike:
The bike was flat for the first 16 miles. I tried not to go too hard. I needed to keep reminding myself that 56 miles is a long way. I have ridden that far more times than I can count, but never without stopping. I tried my best to stick to my nutrition plan and actually felt great on the bike. It was a little windy miles 16 - 25 but that part of the course was an out-and-back so I knew I would have a tailwind later.

I tried not to look at my computer. The bike course was marked at each mile, so I knew exactly how far I had gone. I didn't want to get discouraged by watching my speed. Today was about finishing. Not about speed.

Thanks to my nutrition plan, I felt great the entire bike ride. 56 miles actually felt pretty short. I knew by looking at my watch that I was not going as fast as I would have liked, but as my first half-iron race, I knew it would be smarter to play it safe and race conservatively.

T2:
I entered T2 and saw 2 girls standing near my spot talking. I'll never understand how people just do these events for fun. This is a race! You're supposed to be racing!

The run:
My goal was to keep my pace under 8's for the half marathon. My first few miles were fine. I kept spotting girls up ahead, chasing them down and passing them. Husband was at mile 4. "How is it? Is it kicking your ass?" he asked. (He's so supportive!) "No!! This is WAY easier than marathons!" I replied.

NOTE: This was mile 4 of the run. Had he asked me this at mile 10, my answer would have been significantly different.

At mile 5 I stopped for a second to examine my shoe. It felt like I had a rock in it but it turned out my shoes were just rubbing weird since they had sat out in the pouring rain all morning. The only thing I could do was try to ignore it and run through the pain.

Still feeling awesome, I passed a TON of people on miles 5-7. There was a huge hill on mile 6 that everyone was walking up. I put my head down, kept running and passed probably 10 people just because I kept running and they did not.

By mile 8 I was starting to hurt. My pace had slowed to about 8 minute miles but I figured that was still OK. Today was not about pace! I forced myself to take another gel knowing I need it for "the bluff" at mile 9.

The bluff was everything they said it would be. A 20% incline covering about a half mile. I had told myself I was going to run the entire thing. NO ONE was running it. I made it about halfway and then walked. It was even hard to walk up it!

There was a girl ahead of me that I knew I had to catch. About 3/4 of the way up the hill I started running again and was able to get around her before she started running again.

Miles 10-12 put me in the hurt locker. I kept telling myself that I was not going to throw myself a pity party! A lady passed me and warned me that I had 2 girls in my wave gaining on me. Turns out those two girls were significantly faster than me. I guess if I'm going to get passed in the last couple of miles, I might as well get smoked. I was not going to get beat on the sprint or have any close calls!

At mile 12.5 the race course headed down a huge hill. It was basically a dive bomb to the finish line. I tried to stride out and let gravity move me, but it did not feel good.

I crossed the line in 5:22:28.

Immediately after crossing the line, I knew my shoes needed to come off! I looked down and saw one shoe had a lovely blood stain.

Turns out my shoes had rubbed a nice little hole in my foot during the run. Fun!

Race done, shoes off, ready to head to the beer garden!

The race is done and now we can finally look forward to next week. The bright blue hibiscus jerseys will be making another appearance in the great state of Iowa as I complete my 10th RAGBRAI!

Liberty Triathlon Race Report

2010-06-26T18:30:00.001-05:00

This race report is extremely over due and I apologize. My work has blocked access to Blogger and let's face it, who wants to come home after 9 hours in front of a computer and get back on the computer?! It's summer. I have better things to do.

Even so, here it is:

The summary:
Liberty Triathlon - Independence, MN - June 12, 2010
Olympic Distance (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run)
Goal - See what I can do
Results - Set a new PR by almost 2 minutes!! 2:28:19, 5th in my AG, 9th overall female

The race report:
I wasn't ready to race. Not even close. My tri bike had made it out of my basement exactly 3 times this year. My last brick workout was sometime last August. The last time I did any sort of transition was in my last race... last September. I had done zero open water swims. As of two nights before my race, my race wheels were still sitting in my basement, untouched since last summer. My carbon brake pads were packed away in a box. My running shoes did not have elastic shoelaces in them.

I wasn't ready to race. Not even close.

Due to my severe undertraining, I figured this would be a good "see where I'm at" race. Of course, that didn't change any of my pre-race rituals. My obligatory "night before the race" alcoholic beverage turned out to be a double-dose: a Peche Lambic with dinner and a Coors Light I had down at my brother and sister-in-law's place. (I still swear alcohol is the key to my triathlon success!)

Pre-Race:
I invited my husband to come along to this race. I'm never sure if that is a good idea. Combining his horrific road rage, my non-existent sense of direction, and a few unexpected areas of road construction made for an interesting car ride to the race site. Needless to say, by the time we reached Baker Park, we were no longer speaking to each other.

I still managed to arrive with plenty of time to get body marked and set up my transition area. Unfortunately, body marking was my first reminder that I have moved up age groups this year. I've always enjoyed getting older and actually look forward to my birthdays. That is, until now. There it was. In black permanent marker, prominently displayed on my left calf. That number that represents not my current age, but the age I will be at the end of the year. That number that did not start with the number 2 and that I was not happy to see written on my body. I am not 30! I will pretend that I am 30 for triathlon races, but let's be clear... I am not yet 30!

Thankfully I was immediately distracted from my body-marking pity party by my fellow Birchwood Betty's (Jen J. and Courtney). We chatted for awhile and before I knew it, it was time to head to the beach for the pre-race announcements.

The Race:
Swim - I had plenty of time to warm up in the lake and was feeling ready to go. The water was kind of cool - 68 degrees. However, the air was even colder (low to mid-60's). Everyone was hanging out in the water to try to keep warm. Once my wave took off, I found myself in the middle of the pack. NOT an ideal spot! I was getting kicked and hit all over! To top that off, my googles had leaked in my right eye. I wondered what kind of diseases and infections I could get from having disgusting lake water splashing back and forth across my eyeball for that long. I wondered if my contact lense would eventually fall out and then wondered how I would complete a 40K bike ride and 10K run while only being able to see out of one eye. Finally I decided that a half-blind race and inevitable eye infection was not worth the few seconds it would take me to stop and re-adjust my goggles. After doing that, I was good to go. The rest of the swim was uneventful.

T1 - I got out of the water and tried my best to run up the hill to transition, while trying to remove my wetsuit. I struggled a little with the wetsuit, but was still able to get on my bike fairly quickly.

Bike - The bike was uneventful too. I had a lot of people around me, so I had to be careful to stay 3 bike-lengths away from everyone so as not to be penalized for drafting. I spent the entire 24.8 miles playing leap frog with a shirtless guy on a Raleigh. I would pass him. He would pass me. I would pass him back. He would pass me back.... for the entire bike leg. It started raining lightly while I was on the bike, but it was barely noticeable.

T2 - In the last couple miles of the bike, I got passed by the first female Olympic competitor I had seen all day. (Most people were doing the long-course race.) Coming in to T2, she had dropped a shoe and had to go back for it. I figured I could pass her in T2 and maybe get a good lead on her for the run. I racked my bike, switched into running shoes and took off running.... except when I looked up, that girl was already ahead of me!! She must have had one awesome T2!

Run - That girl had about a 50 yard lead on me. I tried to keep her in my sight, but I also didn't want to go out too hard on the run. I climbed the giant hill and finished my first mile 30 seconds faster than I did last year! Despite the fact that I had a grand total of zero brick workouts under my belt this year, my legs were feeling fine.

By mile 3, I knew I was on pace for a PR. I concentrated on reeling in and passing as many girls as I could. I passed that girl I had been chasing off the bike and picked off a couple more girls too. I was able to finish the run with a great kick and finished with nearly a 2 minute PR!

Even with a good PR and a 3 1/2 minute improvement from this race last year, I did not make the podium for my age group. The 30-34 age group is MUCH more competitive than the 25-29. My time would have won the 25-29 age group, but I came in 5th for the 30-34 year olds. I've got some serious work to do if I want to compete against these girls!

Overall, the race was a huge confidence booster for me. I have not been training as hard as I should or could. I was feeling frustrated for awhile, but I am realizing now that it doesn't really matter. I don't need to be a practice hero. I can still pull off a PR race when I need to.

Now it's time to really focus in on the last few weeks of half-iron training.

Only 3 weeks to go!

Minneapolis Half Marathon Race Report

2010-06-06T20:14:00.017-05:00

The summary:

Minneapolis Half Marathon (by Team Ortho)
Course: mostly flat with a few ginormous hills
Goal: didn't have one this time
Finishing Time: 1:42:34
Place: 5 of 482 in my age group, 32 of 2206 females, 188 of 3369 overall

The race report:

Pre-Race:
Jon and I met up with some friends from the Coe College days for dinner Saturday night. True to my pre-race ritual, I had a glass of wine with dinner. I'm convinced that alcohol is the key to a good race performance!

After dinner, we headed down to my brother's house to figure out logistics for race morning. I was going to head to/from the race with Katie who is my sister-in-law's sister-in-law. (That would be my brother's wife's brother's wife.)

Katie convinced Christina and me to try chia seeds mixed in lemonade. Katie gave us the run down of all the benefits of chia seeds. I just wanted to try it to see if it was as disgusting as it sounded. When you put chia seeds in water, they turn into this weird jello stuff. It looked like clear jello with poppy seeds in it. Then you mix that into lemonade and drink it. It tasted like lemonade but had the consistency of tapioca pudding. Not bad tasting, but definitely weird.

Katie mixing up chia seeds with water

Spooning the gelatinous seeds into lemonade

It looks disgusting but really wasn't too bad

Race Day:
At 5:29am my husband was in the car, in front of our house and HONKING for me to hurry up. I'm sure the neighbors appreciated that! At 5:40 we were at the 46th street station of the light rail ready to head to the start line.

On the light rail, bright and early

We found the start area, checked our bags, warmed up and then headed to the starting line.

Miles 1-4: I started out right on pace for another 1:40 half marathon. The pace groups were all messed up. At one point the 8:01/mile group was running AHEAD of the 7:38/mile group. By mile 3 things had settled down a little and everyone seemed back on pace. The first 5 miles were pretty much the same route as the Get Lucky 7K I ran a few months ago. It was pretty boring. I was running on pace, but was also contemplating quitting at that point. I was NOT having fun!

Miles 5-7: Mile 5 looped back by the starting line and the spectators were awesome! After mile 5, the rest of the race was an out-and-back. College buddy Michael had warned me there was a HUGE hill at the finish. I was not familiar with this part of the course, so I was glad we had the opportunity to view it on the way out in the ou-and-back part. He wasn't lying. Almost all of mile 6 was on a huge descent. The great part was that I love hills! Although my mile splits were slowing down, I was starting to really enjoy this race!

Miles 8-10: Mile 8 included a ginormous uphill. No joke. It was huge. Like Heartbreak Hill huge. I was determined to avoid throwing myself a pity party and focused on getting up the hill without walking. I did it. At the top was Franklin bridge. I was in familiar territory now! I focused on reaching all my usual landmarks from Franklin bridge to Lake Street, knowing the half marathon turn-around point was just after Lake Street. I saw Steve out cheering and gave him a quick wave as I ran by.

After the turn around, I started looking for all my friends who were running behind me. I saw Michael right on pace for a huge marathon PR and Katie running in her barefeet. I was amazed at the number of compliments she got for racing 13.1 miles with no shoes! Katie is the only barefoot runner I know, but apparently it is much more popular than I realized!

Miles 11-13: I knew I still had that huge hill to climb before the finish line, but I was still feeling pretty good. My pace had gone to hell, but I was OK with that. I was actually having a lot of fun on this part of the course. I ended up passing a lot of people on the final hill and crossed the finish line in 1:42:34. Nowhere near a PR, but this was not a PR course. I still placed pretty well in my age group.

Post race:
What better way to celebrate a great race than with free beers at Kieran's Irish Pub!

Katie and I sat on the patio, enjoying our Irish Ales and thinking about how much pain all those full-marathoners were probably in at that time.

I'll take beers over marathons any day!

My First Road Race! - Race Report

2010-05-25T13:54:00.010-05:00

After a year of successful excuse-making, I decided it was finally time to quit being a chicken and do a cycling race. I decided there was no better race than our own team-sponsored road race at Square Lake.

The course was described as 70% pavement, 30% hard-packed dirt. The people who created the course told us that the dirt sections were well packed and perfect for road bikes.

They lied.

The course seemed more like 50/50 pavement/gravel. (The actual statistics showed there was 4.4 miles of gravel in the 12 mile loop, or about 37% gravel.) There were 3 gravel sections in the 12 mile loop (which my race did 3 times). The first section was about 3 miles long. It wasn't great but it wasn't impassable either. If you could find a tire tread and stay in it, you were alright. If you needed to get out of that tread to pass someone, it got a lot scarier. The second stretch of gravel was the worst. It was mostly loose sand and had a giant hill in it. By the 2nd lap, we had learned that it was best to be in a small gear and spin your way up it. If you tried to power up the hill, you ended up spinning out. The 3rd stretch of gravel was short and pointless. It had a long downhill that made for a nice white-knuckle ride as you prayed you could keep your bike out of the loose dirt and still have your wheels under you for the 90 degree turn at the bottom.

The race started off well. Meredith and I were the only Birchwood Bettys to race. There were 11 in our wave which included Cat 3, Cat 4, Jr. Females and women 40+. We had a rolling start and immediately got into a single file line. I had no intention of doing any work within the first half of the race, so I hung out near the back. Since this was the first road race for either of us, Meredith and I agreed we would simply sit back and see what happens.

I made one rookie mistake in the first few miles. I was watching the wheel in front of me when Meredith rode up along side me and said "Hey, Let's go!". "Are we making a move?" I asked. But then I looked up and noticed that the girl I had been following had actually fallen off the back of the pack, taking those of us behind her along. Oops! I had even been warned to always watch TWO people ahead. Lesson learned. I quickly bridged the gap back up to the leaders and was very thankful I had a teammate out there to catch my mistakes!

We cruised the first 6 miles with ease and then hit the gravel. It was super scary. Bikes were sliding all over the place. I looked at my computer and saw we were going over 28mph! In gravel. On road bikes. NOT fun! I watched Meredith pull out some super human powers to regain control of her bike after a nasty fishtail in loose dirt. I still don't know how she managed to save herself on that one!

After the 1st stretch of gravel, our pack had completely broken up. I ended up riding with a girl named Iman from LGR/Behind Bars. We finished the first lap together and started in on the 2nd lap.

At 18 miles we agreed that there was no benefit in losing each other. We would finish the race together.

At 22 miles the Junior boys group passed us going into the gravel. At mile 22.25 those boys crashed in one big pile-up at the bottom of the giant hill. Their support car then pulled right in front of Iman and me... AND STOPPED! Iman and I just about slid into the back of it! We then had to dismount our bikes and walk around the car. WTF?!

Obviously the guy driving the support car was completely oblivious to any racers other than his group. He did, however, give Iman and me a push up the hill to allow us to clip back into our pedals and get moving again. However, at that point, we were barely able to find enough grip in the dirt to get up the hill. It was not an ideal situation.

On the third and final lap, we picked up another girl, Nikki from SPBRC, who had also lost the pack. The three of us rotated through a pace line on the paved roads and took turns leading through the gravel for the last 12 miles.

The sprint to the finish was only about a quarter mile long and I knew my untrained, slow-twitch muscle fibers stood no chance of pulling off a good sprint. Iman and Nikki finished a few seconds ahead of me, taking 6th and 7th while I finished 8th.

Overall, I had a really fun time. I wish there had been a little more "road" to this road race. The gravel was not ideal. I really think I could have hung unto the lead pack a lot longer had we not had to spend so much time in the gravel. I guess that just gives me an excuse to race again! Too bad my schedule is full of triathlons this year. I will have to wait until next year to try this again!

Click here to view the final race results.

Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon Race Report

2010-05-06T21:24:00.006-05:00

This report is a few days over due, but better late than never....

The 45 mile bike ride 14 hours before a half marathon race may not have been the brightest idea I've ever had. Then again, racing 70.3 miles may take the cake for dumbest thing I've ever done, but I'm still going to do it just to find out.

The summary:
Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon
Course - Rolling hills
Goal - Finish the race in a reasonable time (anything under 1:45 would have been fine with me)
Results - 1:39:13, four seconds off my PR.
Placing - 6th of 278 in my age group (F25-29), 39 of 1384 women, 209 of 2468 total runners

The race report:

Pre-Race:
Late Saturday morning I headed out to the western suburbs for packet pick-up. I didn't really need to drive the 60 minute round-trip since there was an option to do packet pick-up immediately before the actual race, but I didn't really have anything better to do and it turned out to be a good thing that I did go on Saturday. First of all, I had no idea where I was going and ended up missing a turn. (Actually, I was rocking out to Usher on the radio and not paying attention to the Garmin.) I immediately realized my mistake except that I was out by Lake Minnetonka where there are absolutely NO places to turn around. Immediately to my right was a lake. Immediately to my left was a lake. I had to drive a couple miles out of my way before I could find a side street to turn around on.

I finally arrived at the mall where packet pick-up was held. It was PACKED! I couldn't believe the number of people standing in line to get their stuff. Apparently this is a much bigger event than I realized. It probably took me 30 minutes to make my way through the line to pick up my bib, timing chip and shirt. I was super excited to see that this race actually had extra small T-shirts! I can't tell you the number of race shirts I receive that go straight from my goody bag to my stack of things for Goodwill. It's about time someone realized that a lot of women runners are smaller than the size small shirts. If the race fees include shirts, it would be nice to receive ones that actually fit. I've gotta give the coordinators of this race major props for figuring that one out!

Race Day:
The biggest benefit of going to packet pick-up the day before the race was that I now knew exactly where I was going, where I could find parking, and how long it would take me to get there. I was up at 6am for my pre-race breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and was on the road by about 6:35. I arrived at exactly the right time. I scored a rockstar parking place and watched the parking lot fill up almost immediately after that. The lines to the bathrooms were a little ridiculous. It took me 30 minutes just to get through the line. At that point it was 7:40 and my wave started at 8:00. (There were 3 starting waves. I was in the first one.)

I had a little bout of nervousness as I realized I had not trained at all for this race. I did a 75 minute run 3-4 weeks ago. That had to be at least 10 miles, right? Since then I haven't run more than 60 minutes at a time. I know I can run 13.1 miles, but there was a good chance it was going to hurt a lot more than I was prepared for.

I jogged around for about 10 minutes, stretched a little, checked my bag, and lined up with my pace group. My game plan was to stick with the 1:40 pacer (7:38 per mile pace) until mile 10 and then see if I could pick it up a little.

Miles 1, 2 and 3 - I tucked right in off the left shoulder of Pacer Brandon. The first mile had a little climb to it, but wasn't bad. It always helps to have a pacer on hills. I concentrated on staying right on Brandon's shoulder. The uphill in Mile 1 was offset by a long downhill in Mile 2. At this point we had run the first 3 miles in splits of 7:24, 7:02 and 7:27. Pacer Brandon was getting frustrated. Afterall, it is his job to run consistent 7:38's through the race. I was feeling great at this point, but was starting to worry that running too fast, too early would cost me in the later miles.

Miles 4 and 5 - Brandon was still ahead of his pace and needed to back off. I had a decision to make: Do I drop back with him and keep him as my pacer or do I keep my current pace and try to go it alone? I decided to go it alone. I was still feeling good but didn't feel like I was pushing myself too hard either. There were enough people in this race that I had plenty of other people to pace off of and try to hold onto to. I took miles 4 and 5 at a 7:32 per mile pace.

Miles 6 through 8 - By about mile 6.5, I was getting smoked. It seemed like group after group of runners were passing me. I figured these were probably people who were trying to negative split the course (run the 2nd half faster than the 1st half). I spent these three miles repeating over and over in my head: "Run smart. Run YOUR race." I kept my steady pace and let all those people run on ahead. My splits stayed pretty even at 7:41, 7:35 and 7:34.

Mile 9 - I was starting to hurt. I felt like I had picked up the pace a little on this mile but I was actually slowing down. My split for this mile was 7:41.

Miles 10 and 11 - My mantra changed from "Run smart" to "2 miles easy, 2 miles hard". I had four miles left and didn't want to push too hard too early. I was really hurting now. My new game plan was to try to hold my pace until mile 11 and then give it my all until I crossed the finish line. Splits for these miles were 7:37 and 7:46.

Mile 12 and 13 - I was in a world of hurt. My head was still in the game, but my quads felt like someone had stabbed knives into them. I could barely lift my knees. The hills were starting to annoy me. Thankfully I have always been a good hill runner, so it was good motivation to see how many people I could pass on each hill. I crossed the 12 mile mark in 7:43 and then tried to pick it up the last mile. The last mile was on a limestone path that was a nice change of scenery and felt great on my feet. In my head I was counting down the minutes it would take me to finish that last mile. Unfortunately, the last 600 meters or so included one giant hill. Again, I was thankful that I'm good with hills. I got to the top and then strided out to cross the finish line. My last mile took me 7:56. I was running on fumes! Thank God that was the end of it!

Overall, I thought it was a great race. It was very well organized. I would definitely run other events by this race coordinator just for the organization. The course was a little hillier than I imagined. I believe it was advertised as a flat and fast course. I believe it is definitely possible to PR on this course, but it is definitely NOT FLAT. At points, it felt like you were on a roller coaster with the hills coming one right after another. Even so, I think this may become a recurring race on my annual race schedule.

As for my training, I felt this weekend was a good test to see where I am at. My legs were pretty beat from Saturday's long bike ride, but I was still able to come within 4 seconds of my half marathon PR. That gives me a little more confidence that I will be able to finish the run portion of the half ironman in a reasonable time and gives me a lot more confidence that I should be able to PR at my next half marathon.

I've got a couple races that may work their way into my calendar in the next few weeks, including my very first bike races! Stayed tuned for more race reports!

Week 1 of the New Plan

2010-05-01T20:57:00.011-05:00

After a week of recovery and a switch in the training plan, I was ready to hit this week hard. With the new training plan, I felt a lot more in control of my training and I feel the week went exceptionally well.

Monday Morning: Swim - 1 mile time trial. Took almost 30 seconds off my time from 2 months ago. Not bad.
Monday Evening: Run - I turned my 45 minute run into a 10 minute warm-up, 25 minutes of hill repeats at Hidden Falls, and a 10 minute cool down. I could have done a few more hill repeats but didn't want to over-do it on Day 1 of the new plan. Nonetheless, I got that burn going in my legs and felt awesome. It's been a long time since I really pushed myself on a run and I needed it.

Tuesday Evening: 33 mile ride with the Birchwood Betty's. Only 4 of us showed up this night. Our attendance is lacking lately. There was some discussion on moving this ride to another night, but for now we will stick to Tuesdays.

Next week is the first Tuesday of the month which means the women's ride is open to the public. If you'd like to come out to test your group-riding skills or just want to ride with other people, come to the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis on Tuesday, May 4. We take off at 6pm sharp for rides of 28 or 38 miles. Sorry guys, this is a women's only ride.

Wednesday Evening: The Hill Ride!!! This is my favorite ride of all time. It's another Birchwood team ride that we do every week. It's an ass-kicker but for some reason, I felt great this week. We even had some of the women's team show up!! It is not uncommon for me to be the only girl on the ride, so I was totally stoked to see a group of 7-8 women along this week! I actually felt the first 3 hills were pretty easy. On Hill #4, I was able to bridge myself back up to the lead pack when I fell behind on the High Bridge, but then had nothing left for a final sprint to the top of the hill. I started to die off after that, but I would still count the ride as one of my more successful hill rides.

Thursday: Off. We had our Birchwood Cycling Team spring meeting Thursday night to discuss the upcoming/current season and pick up our new threads. I must admit, Scott Shore and Lure Design did one awesome job on the design of our kits this year. They are pretty sweet!

Friday Morning: 60 minute run on the dreadmill. My only free time this day was from 5am to 6am. I'm not a fan of running in the dark, so the treadmill was really my only option. I warmed up and cooled down 10 minutes each and did 4 minutes easy/1 minute hard for the middle 40 minutes just so I wouldn't die of boredom. It felt good to pick up my strides and push a little on the "hard" minutes and the hour was over before I knew it.

Saturday Afternoon: 45 mile ride in the hellacious wind. It was really windy. I mean REALLY windy. In fact, MSP had to re-route all the incoming planes over my neighborhood because of the wind. That only happens a couple of times a year. I decided it would be good for me to test my strength riding in the wind. I headed out on my tri bike to see if I could remember the Birchwood Betty Long Course. I haven't done that route since last fall, but I was able to remember it just fine once I got out there. My average speed was less than spectacular (17mph), but I was really going for miles rather than speed this day. This was my longest ride so far this year, so I was pleased with that.

Sunday Morning: Half Marathon Race. I really ran this as more of a workout than a race. Obviously there was no taper involved in preparing for this race, so going for a PR was most definitely not in the plan for the day. My goal was to run steady, cover the distance and see what I can do on tired legs. The race report will be posted soon.

Conclusion of Week 1 with the New Plan: This is most definitely the plan for me! I felt like my training was more of just doing fun workouts around my neighborhood or hanging out with friends. I had a great week. I'm in a great mood. I'm ready to do it all over again. I feel like I'm working hard and getting back on track to where I think I should be at this point in my training. I needed this week to build my confidence back up and that's exactly what happened.

Now on to the next week. 11 weeks to go!

Plan B

2010-04-24T15:00:00.020-05:00

After eight weeks of training, I have come to the conclusion that the training plan I'm following is crap. I probably should have looked through the plan a little more or did a little more shopping around before choosing a plan, but I did not. Had I looked through the plan, I think it would be obvious that this is not the plan for me.

I've been using the plan "Preparing for a Half Ironman" from www.beginnertriathlete.com. Basically I have concluded that the guy who wrote it must come from a swimming background. I think his swim workouts are awesome. Unfortunately, I don't think he knows jack about running or biking. That may be a little harsh, but there is really no intensity in his bike or run workouts and I believe it has negatively affected my fitness this spring.

Most of the bike workouts in his plan are 60 minutes long. If I'm pushing myself, I can do a maximum of about 20 miles in 60 minutes. 20 mile rides are not going to get me in shape for a 56 mile bike race. Following this training plan, the maximum ride is 2.5 hours. Again, I don't think a couple of 2.5 hour rides are going to get me in good enough shape for the race.

For the run, there are NO track workouts. None. As a runner, I'm a big believer in speed work. I'm also a big believer in hill repeats. There are NO hill repeats in this training program. None. The course description for the race I'm doing specifically uses the words "CHALLENGING" and "HILLY". I think some hill training would be wise. I'll admit, the author of this training program does a great job of covering long runs. However, again, I'm not sure I'm a big believer of his approach. There are A LOT of 90 - 120 minute runs in his plan. Not counting the half marathon I did when I was 14 years old, I have never taken 2 hours to run 13.1 miles. Why do I need to do 2 hour training runs for a portion of the race that will (hopefully) not last anywhere near 2 hours?!

I decided earlier this year that my approach to the season would be to focus on my strengths (the bike and the run). This plan does the exact opposite of that. The main focus is on the swim. The swim only amounts to about 1/8 of the total time I expect it will take me to do a half-ironman race. I just don't see the benefit of focusing my efforts on the sport that will take the least amount of time. While I have seen progress with my swim using this program, I feel like my running and biking have diminished significantly over the last 8 weeks. It's time for change.

Enter Plan B.

I've decided to switch over to a Half Ironman training plan from www.trinewbies.com. For one, it fits my schedule better. I think part of my problem with the Beginner Triathlete program was that I struggled to stick to the plan as written. There are a lot of weeknights that require 2+ hours of workouts, not including the time it takes to drive to/from the pool, change into workout clothes, pump up bike tires, etc. My life simply doesn't accommodate spending that much time working out on a weeknight. In the end, I end up switching workouts around, skipping rest days, and doubling up workouts on the weekends. I get the workouts done each week, but skipping rest days isn't a smart thing to do. I'm basically putting myself at risk for injury or mental burn out.

The new plan seems to fit my life a little better. There aren't as many back-to-back workouts, so I can do the shorter workouts in the morning before work and then can do my second workout after work. That also allows me the freedom to catch a lot more group activities like the Run Club at my gym or any of the Birchwood rides. The new plan also designates longer workouts for the weekends when I typically have more free time. In my world, it simply makes more sense to have my 2-3 hour workouts on the weekends rather than on a weeknight.

I can work in a lot more quality workouts for the run and bike portions using the new plan too. The bike training is based on mileage rather than time which works better with my mindset. As a former runner, I always go off mileage. I know I need to cover 56 miles in the race, so I feel more confident pursuing that mileage rather than trying to figure out how long it will take me to go that distance and then training for that amount of time. I don't think one way is necessarily better than the other, but I am more comfortable training with the mileage approach.

Just in case anyone is looking for a half-ironman training plan, I thought I would highlight the pro's and con's of the one that I have worked with. Again, I'm not saying it's a bad plan, it's just not the right plan for me.

"Preparing for a Half Ironman" plan from www.beginnertriathlete.com:

PROS:
1. This plan has great swim workouts. Each week contains a speed day, a race-specific day and a long day.
2. The plan has a good variety of workouts and their order in the week. For example, some weeks the long day will be on Thursday and the next week it will be on Tuesday. Sometimes you will swim and ride on Monday and the next week you’ll be off on Monday.
3. Good use of rest/recovery days to optimize strength building. A rest day will be set the day before a hard day so you can prepare for an intense, long workout, or rest days will come after hard workouts to be used as recovery days.

CONS:
1. Lots of long hours on weekdays. Weekday workouts are instructed to be “back-to-back” and can last well over 2 hours, not including travel time to/from the pool, time to inflate bike tires, change into workout clothes, etc. You really need about three hours to complete those workouts.
2. Plan is hard to follow as written if you have a life outside of training. (See Con #1.)
3. Lots of rest days on Saturdays when I have more free time. I’d rather take a rest day on a weeknight than on a Saturday.
4. No speed workouts for running. Long runs are overly long.
5. Bike training is based on time and I’m not confident it is long enough to get me in shape for the race.

I am 8 weeks into my training and feel like I have a ton of work left to do to get in shape for this season. Hopefully the new training plan will help me gain a little more confidence in my fitness and come July 18th, I'll be ready to take on 70.3 miles!

12 weeks and counting!

Running Opener 10K Race Report

2010-04-04T18:25:00.016-05:00

Saturday morning was the Running Opener 10K at Lake Phalen.

I'll preface this race report with a recap of the last week: Last weekend I put myself in the hurt shop with a two hour ride with the Birchwood boys. It was my longest ride of the season, and I was a little nervous about keeping up with those guys. I held on just fine and even took my turn at pulling the pace line. On Sunday, my legs were a little sore but I managed to pull off an awesome 60 minute run. The loop I did is a little over 8 miles and I did it in 59 minutes. That was the first time I had ever completed that loop in under an hour!

My legs were feeling pretty dead once Monday rolled around, so I decided I would give myself a recovery week before the next weekend's 10K race. I really wanted to PR, so I figured a little taper would be a good idea.

Unfortunately, the taper did not pay off. The race did not go well.

I woke up Saturday morning to one of my least favorite type of days.... the kind where the sun is shining, it looks beautiful, but then you go outside and it's freezing cold out. Let me also point out that the temperatures on Friday got to about 83 degrees in the Twin Cities. Saturday morning was 39 degrees. Fantastic.

Being the genius that I am, I chose to believe that since it is officially spring, I should dress like it's spring (i.e. short sleeves). Not my best decision.

I got to the race site only to remember that cold and windy in my little protected neighborhood is very different from cold and windy along an open lake front. The wind off the lake was downright brutal. (I later checked the weather to find the winds were at a steady 8-10mph that morning with gusts up to 20mph.)

Here's my gripe for the day: I chose to do the packet pick-up on Friday night at the local running store. I had pre-registered a couple weeks ago. The packet pick-up guy told me he had run out of small shirts, but he could give me a medium and I could exchange it at the race Saturday morning. Fast forward to Saturday morning. I went to exchange my shirt and the boys at the table told me they had completely run out of smalls. For the most part, I don't really care, but I have to admit, I was a little annoyed to have registered early and still did not get the shirt size I wanted.

Ok, enough griping.

My goal for the race was to finish in the low 44's. I lined up with the appropriate pace group. I asked the girl next to me what pace she was hoping to run. She told me she was going to run 6 minute miles. I wished her luck and moved behind her. I would not be keeping up with her!

The guys at the start line were discussing the hills on the course. Wait. What? Hills? There was no mention of hills in the course description!

The gun went off and we started running. The first mile was flat, but COLD. I could not feel my arms at all! It was not good. We finally found a sunny stretch and I started to thaw out. I crossed the 1 mile mark and was feeling great. I felt like I could hold that pace all day.....

until we turned into the wind.

Lake Phalen is long and narrow. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing from the NW, so we had a cross-headwind the entire length of the lake. My 2nd mile was over a minute slower than the first! I didn't feel like I had slowed down at all! I found the big hill on the 2nd mile. It wasn't obnoxiously long, but it was steep enough that it made me want to puke once I'd reached the top.

The 3rd mile curved around the north end of the lake and then came back through the start/finish area. I knew by then that I was not going to PR. Even so, I tried to keep a steady pace and fight my way through the wind.

The course was 2 laps around the lake, so miles 4, 5, and 6 were exactly the same as the first 3 miles. The wind seemed even more brutal on the 2nd lap. At one point I reached up to adjust my headband only to find it was no longer there. It had apparently blown right off my head and I didn't even feel it!

I crossed the finish line in 46:48, well behind my goal time.

I was extremely frustrated. I wanted to PR so badly and I felt like this race was nothing more than a giant set back. It took me a few days to get over it, but I realize now that not every race course is a PR course. Not every day is going to be my day. Not every race is going to go as planned. That's just part of the game.

Even though I didn't get my goal time, I still finished in the top 10 overall women, so I guess I can't complain too much.

It's time to put this race behind me and look ahead to the next one!

Get Lucky 7K race report

2010-03-21T09:51:00.010-05:00

Although my main focus for the year is on triathlons, I still use running to measure my progress. My background is in running and I still like to see if I can pick up a few more PR's (that's "Personal Record" for you non-runners) each year.

I chose to do the Get Lucky 7K as a stepping stone to measure my progress in my attempt for a 10K PR. I ran a 5K last month and I will run a 10K next month. I figured a 7K would be the perfect test of my progress between those two races.

Pre-Race:
Friday was The Captain's annual March Madness party. The usual Ragbrai team was there with a few other friends and spouses mixed in. Very little basketball was watched but a shit load of Coors Light was consumed. Friday night's party was bitter sweet as it was the final party at the River Residence. The Captain and his family are moving out of their current house on River Road and heading to the 'burbs in a couple of days. I think we are all a little bummed that the Captain won't be a part of the neighborhood crew any more.

I never sleep well the night before a race. Even a half dozen beers couldn't help me there. I woke up at 3:45 and the ceiling was spinning. Not good. Thank God I wasn't taking Saturday's race seriously because I was going to be seriously hung over.

Race Day:
I woke up at 8am for my usual pre-race oatmeal and coffee. My husband and I agreed we would leave the house at 9am since the race started at 10am. At 8:56, I was still trying to get my husband's ass out of bed. He had had an equal amount of fun the night before and was equally as hung over. I thought about Maria's recent blog post about her great sherpa and decided that my husband needs to be demoted from sherpa duties. He sucks.

I was quite surprised when my husband finally did get up. Based on the fact that he was trying to play dead when I was shaking him and telling him to get up, I would have bet money that he was going to try to whine his way out of going.

I was a little annoyed that we were running 25 minutes late, but it turned out to be OK. This was a Team Ortho-sponsored event. I can't help but rave about Team Ortho. These are people who know how to run an event! As I approached the starting corral, a guy on a load speaker announced there were 20 minutes left until the gun went off and port-o-potties were located at the end of the starting corral. Perfect! That's exactly what I needed to know! I headed off to the bathrooms and found a sea of port-o-potties with NO LINES! You know the race is set up well when there are 3,000 people and enough bathrooms that even 20 minutes before gun-time there are no lines!

I did a quick 10 minute warm-up run and a few striders to get my heart rate up. My legs felt awesome. My stomach did not. This could be interesting. For some reason, I tend to race really well when I'm hung over. I hoped today would be another of those races.

After my warm-up, I concentrated on trying to not puke in the starting corral. I considered lining up with 8 minute mile group and just running the race slow, but figured I should probably put a little more effort into it. I lined up a little behind the 7 minute mile group.

The gun went off and so did we. The race course followed the river and was pretty much entirely flat. I was actually feeling pretty good. I crossed the 1st mile mark in 7:02. I was pleased with that but my first mile always tends to be a little fast. I decided the next couple of miles would really determine how I was going to do.

The course was marked at each 1K as well as each mile. It made the race seem to go by a lot faster since I was keeping both splits. We climbed a hill across a bridge and then raced down the other side to the 2 mile marker. I crossed at 7:05. Still on pace.

The next mile felt like it was slightly uphill, the kind of uphill that you can't really see but can feel in your legs. I kind of got lost in the scenery at that point but crossed the 3 mile mark in 7:05 again. At this point, I started laughing. I was running really well. My 5K split was actually 5 seconds faster than the 5K race I ran last month!

We turned onto a cobble-stone street. I hate cobble-stone. Sure, it's pretty, but I spent the next 7 minutes watching my every step so as not to trip or roll an ankle. I started day-dreaming for awhile and then remembered that I was supposed to be racing. I picked up the pace since I usually slow down when I'm not concentrating. I crossed the 4 mile mark in 6:56! I guess I didn't slow down as much as I thought!

We were now on the Stone Arch Bridge and I could see the finish line 400 meters ahead. I took off and found the finish line did not seem to be getting any closer. I was starting to hurt. I wasn't sure if I could hold onto my kick the entire way. There really wasn't anyone around me to try to catch or avoid getting caught by, so I just tried to hold my speed.

I crossed the finish line in 30:33 with a 7:02 per mile average pace. That's a faster pace than my last race and right on par for a 10K PR! I finished 8th of 435 in the 25-29 age group and 16th of 1722 females.

Conclusion:
At one point of my life, I decided I was going to take athletics seriously and see what my body could do if I fueled it properly and trained it properly. I gave up drinking any alcohol, ate perfectly, and trained well. I did that for 9 months and then ran the worst marathon of my life.... by over an hour!!!

My current Olympic-distance triathlon PR was set when I was hung over. I ran my fastest pace at this race and I was extremely hung over. It could be that alcohol has secret powers beyond making ugly people seem attractive, or it could be that I have no expectations when I'm hung over.

Whatever the reason, I think I need to drink before every race!

Week 2: Mid-Week Update

2010-03-11T20:04:00.016-06:00

Week 2 (or 19 depending on how you want to count) is going MUCH better than week 1. My mood is much better and I've been pretty motivated with my workouts.

Monday I ran on the treadmill for 30 minutes in the morning. My body is getting used to getting up at 5am. I felt much more awake than I did last Monday morning. That night I headed to the Highland Park Lifetime Fitness for Walker's spin class. I absolutely love Walker's class, but I've got to admit I'm looking forward to Daylight Savings Time when we'll be able to ride outside on week nights.

Tuesday I gave myself the entire day off from working out. I think I needed that.

Wednesday morning I did a quick workout on the bike trainer. I usually dread the trainer (even more so than the treadmill) but I seem to have a lot of unexplainable motivation right now. That night I headed to the pool to do 10 x 100 except I'm blonde and apparently can't count to 10, so I somehow ended up doing 11 x 100. I'm a freaking genius.

Thursday night I headed to the MetroDome for the final night of Dome Running. I've decided the half-ironman plan I'm using doesn't have as much intensity in the running portions as I would like. The official plan doesn't incorporate any intervals or specific speed work. I love intervals. I like running fast, even if it's only for a short period of time. After 2 weeks of no intervals, I was dying to get back to the Dome. I did 4 x 2 1/2 laps which equates to 4 x 1500 meters. My first interval was pretty pathetic. I chalked it up to the fact it's been 16 days since I last did speed work. Pharmie showed up to run with a friend. I don't know what it is about having someone you know there, but I suddenly felt the need to show off. I know she was paying absolutely no attention to what I was doing, but having her there somehow motivated me to run 3 more intervals at 10-15 seconds faster than that first one. Thanks for the extra motivation, Pharmie!

I've got a few more workouts to complete but so far am considering it a good week.... at least it's a better week than the last one!

Pissed Off

2010-03-04T20:10:00.019-06:00

I'm done with Week 1 (or Week 20 depending on how you want to count) of this half-ironman training plan. I noticed something this week that I've never noticed with any other training program. I was pissed off. My mood sucked all week. I was angry and I don't know why. (No, it had nothing to do with my menstrual cycle.) It could be that I was tired. It could be that I wasn't eating enough calories to support the increase in training. It could be that I was not eating the right foods. Whatever the reason, I was pretty much annoyed with the world all week.

I was annoyed with the jack ass talking loudly on his cell phone on the train. (Apparently he and his ex-wife were having an argument regarding each other's approach to parenting. I don't really care either, but if I have to sit there and listen to that shit for 20 minutes, you should at least have to spend 20 seconds reading about it.) I was annoyed with the crazy woman yelling at no one on the street. (She scares me.) And most annoying of all was the teenage girl standing in front of my building holding a hand-written, cardboard sign asking for money and claiming she had kids at home. Seriously? Exactly where are these children and who is watching them while their mother is busy panhandling? More importantly, why the hell hasn't our security guard kicked her off the premises?

Finally I reached the point that I was annoyed with my own pissed off mood. I tried to think of things that make me happy to offset my shitty mood. I decided I needed a good book to read. I needed something to distract me for awhile.

I decided I would go to the library and check out a book. I can't even remember the last time I was in a library, let alone the last time I read an actual library book. However, it seemed like a great idea. The library is 3 blocks from my work and just a block off my daily commute. It's convenient. It's free. It was just what I needed.

I walked there and was directed to a kid who talked with a stutter. I told him I wanted to get a library card. He asked for my ID and I promptly gave it to him.

Library guy: "Oh, you're from Saint P-P-Paul. Do you have your lib-library card from St. Paul?"

Me: "No. I don't have a library card. That's why I'm here asking you for a library card. If I already had a library card, I wouldn't have to ask you for one."

Library guy: "F-F-First you need to get a card in St. Paul. Then you can bring it here and we will add you to our system. We d-don't have access to St. Paul's computers."

Me: "Yes, but I don't want to use the libraries in St. Paul. Those libraries aren't convenient for me. I work in Minneapolis. Three blocks from this library. I want to use this library. In fact, you can go ahead and add my information into your system and then you'll have it right there."

Library guy: "But this is the H-H-Hennepin County Library. Your address is in St. Paul, in Ramsey County. Y-You have to go there."

Well that's just great. There is a perfectly good library that I want to use, that is completely convenient to use, and yet I can't use it. So much for that plan of action.

Congratulations, Hennepin County Library. You just made my shit list.

Thank God for the Barnes & Noble down the street. I can't say I've ever gone to a bookstore with no idea what book I wanted, but there is a first time for everything. And thankfully, the new book helped put me in a much better mood.

Go Time

2010-02-28T21:03:00.011-06:00

February is officially over. I had a little training plan that I was following for January and February, but now it is time to step it up and start the official training for my first half ironman distance race. I'm following a 20-week training program that I found online. Tomorrow is exactly 20 weeks from the Door County Triathlon. Game on.

The game plan for Week 1 includes 7 hours of training over 6 days. Six days a week is usually a challenge for me. I like to try to spend some time with my husband besides the times when we are sleeping. I'll just have to see how this first week plays out to see how much tweaking I'll do to this program.

Along with the official training program, I have a goal to ride 200 miles in March. That's 200 miles, outdoors. That may not seem like a lot of miles, but keep in mind that I live in Minnesota where the temperature hasn't broken 40 degrees since about October and we've still got 3 foot snowbanks lining the streets. Riding outdoors in March is always a crap shoot. You can bet that any time the sun is out, I will be calling around for some riding partners.

The good news of my week... I actually dusted off the bike and rode outdoors today, setting a new personal record for earliest outdoor ride of the year. My bike has been patiently waiting in my basement since I put it there in mid-October. It was time for it to come out. It was 39 degrees and sunny this afternoon, so the Timmers and I headed out for a quick ride. It was actually pretty nice. We both nailed the "what do I wear to ride in this weather" dilemma. We weren't too hot and we weren't too cold. The snow wasn't too melty. The air wasn't too icy. It was just about perfect.

I'll be back in Cedar Rapids next weekend. Expect that I will meet up with the old CVRA crew sometime during the weekend for a long run. I'll be bringing my bike along too. My weekend workout specifically says "Get outside, no matter the weather".

Here's to hoping for good weather!

Charities Challenge 5000m Run Race Report

2010-02-14T11:58:00.008-06:00

My first race of the season is in the bag. I ran the 5000m run of the Charities Challenge indoor track meet at Bethel University this morning.

I chose an indoor track meet because I wanted to run hard. Racing in the Minnesota winters is not easy. If you run outdoors, there are always other factors involved, particularly snow and ice. I wanted a race that would give me an accurate look at where my fitness is right now. Slipping and sliding through an outdoor 5K wasn't going to give me that, so I headed indoors to the track.

Going back to the track was a little nostalgic for me. I've run more 5000m races on indoor tracks than I can count. Walking into the rec center brought me right back to my college days: the hard track that hasn't been resurfaced in years, the shin splints from running on that hard surface, the dry air that burns your lungs and gives you nose bleeds, the over-developed right quadricep from the constant counter-clockwise turning... the joys of indoor track!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into this race. I would love to go out and run the 5K times I did in college, but I need to be honest with myself. I am a lot older now. I have spent the last few years focusing on marathons. As much as I hate to admit it, I just don't have the speed that I did in college. For now, I am focusing on breaking the 7-minute mile barrier. That's almost embarrassing to have to say. There was a point in my life when crossing the first mile mark of a 5K in over 6 minutes was completely unacceptable, but I am a different person now. I need to focus on who I am today, not who I was 10 years ago. It will take some work, but this year I will break that 7-minute barrier again.

So, the race report:

My original plan was to take splits every 200m, but as I started running I realized that was going to be distracting. I changed the plan to only take my split at the mile marks. I started off feeling strong. There were only 2 women in this race, so most people cheered for me the entire way. My name was announced every time I crossed the start/finish line. That was pretty sweet.

I finished the first mile in 6:48. That was a great pace but I know my first mile is always fast. It's hard not to take off too fast from the start line. The second mile was a little tougher. My game plan was to run 13 laps and then really focus on a strong 2nd half. When I finally hit the halfway mark, I could feel I was slowing down. I wasn't dying but I could feel I was working harder now. I completed the 2nd mile in 7:06. Not good, but not horrible.

At this point, I had a little over a mile to go. I tried to visualize myself in a marathon. Hitting that "one mile to go" point in a marathon is awesome. It means I'm almost done. One mile is nothing. My legs suddenly come back. I start to smile again. I forget about the pain. The "one mile to go" mark in a 5K is not like that. One mile feels like forever. It hurts. My lungs are on fire. My legs don't want to turn over. It just plain sucks.

I concentrated on counting down the laps I had left. Since the men and women were all running together, I had been lapped 3-4 times by the lead guys. On the other hand, there was a group of people that I had also lapped 3 times. I'm always amazed at how the officials can keep track of everyone's laps in these longer races. With 5 laps to go I was feeling pretty good and started to concentrate on finishing hard. The last 3 laps flew by and I crossed the finish line in 21:53.

My average pace came to 7:03. I didn't hit my goal of running under 7 minute miles, but I have a good starting point now. I have an accurate picture of where I'm at. There is still a lot of work to do, but it is still early in the season. I have time. The speed will come.

Congrats to everyone who raced at today's indoor track meet and Thank You to Charities Challenge for organizing the event!

I have a few weeks of hard work before my next race. I'm running Team Ortho's Get Lucky 7K on March 20th. (What the hell is a 7K? Who came up with that distance?!) I'm a huge fan of Team Ortho events, so I expect this race will be a lot of fun. It's filling up fast! If you're interested in racing it, sign up soon!

That time of year again - The RAGBRAI route

2010-01-31T11:32:00.009-06:00

In response to the half dozen people who emailed me this week asking if I've seen the RAGBRAI route: Do you know who you're talking to?! OF COURSE I've seen the RAGBRAI route. My sole purpose for living is to be able to ride my bike across the state of Iowa with 10,000 of my closest friends every July. Do you honestly think I would not know when the route would be announced?

This year will mark my 10th (non-consecutive) bike ride across Iowa. This year’s route is supposed to be one of the shorter, flatter routes in RAGBRAI history. Because of that, I’m going to bet there will be a number of people who will show up completely out of shape this year. Sorry folks. I’ve been on enough rides to know that even with a flatter course, you can’t ignore the possibility for headwind and high temps that could make any ride completely miserable. You won’t catch me showing up for RAGBRAI in anything less than tip-top riding shape.

Where will we be going this July?

Day 0 (Saturday) - Sioux City: Saturday is the day we depart from St. Paul in a 15-passenger van to head to some designated town in Iowa to start our week long adventure. This year the party starts in Sioux City. Last time I was in Sioux City was in 2001. I don’t have any memories from Sioux City, so it couldn't have been that exciting. Hopefully we can find something to make the town a little more memorable this time around.

Day 1 (Sunday) - Storm Lake: The real fun starts Sunday morning with a 69 mile ride from Sioux City to Storm Lake. I don't know if it this route will be exactly what it was in 2001, but at least I know I've done it (or something very similar) before. In 2001, it was raining like mad when I pulled into Storm Lake. We’ll hope for a little better weather this time.

Day 2 (Monday) - Algona: 77 miles will get us to Algona. I was last there in 1999. We stayed at an airport on the very edge of town (not in town) and got to partake in absolutely none of the usual RAGBRAI festivities. Thankfully we have a different group now and I'm confident we will have a hell of a lot more fun this time in Algona.

Day 3 (Tuesday) - Clear Lake: There are only 51 miles on the route from Algona to Clear Lake. I'm guessing this will be one hell of a good time. I was last in Clear Lake in 1999. One of my all time favorite RAGBRAI parties was about 5 miles outside of Clear Lake in a town called Ventura. The last few miles of the day follow the lake and are absolutely beautiful. It rained the night we were there in ‘99 so we spent the entire night dancing at the Surf Ballroom. Usually, I can't replicate really great nights, but I'm hoping Clear Lake will be just as much fun as I remember.

Day 4 (Wednesday) - Charles City: This is a new one for me. RAGBRAI went to Charles City in 2002 but I was broke college student at that time and did not make the ride. I've heard good things about Chuck Town, so I hope it will make my list of most memorable RAGBRAI towns. This is only a 52 mile day, so I expect there may be some time devoted to the consumption of alcoholic beverages somewhere along the route.

Day 5 (Thursday) - Waterloo. Another new town for me. This will be a little hillier, longer ride. RAGBRAI hasn't been to Waterloo too much. Knowing how the ride usually works, this is going to be a boring night. When the ride goes into bigger towns, the riders all spread out. You don't randomly run into the riders you know. There is no central location where everyone is going to be. I'm predicting an uneventful night in Waterloo this year.

Day 6 (Friday) - Manchester. I'm going to put my money on Friday being the fun day this year. It's a 62 mile day which isn't too tough but not too easy either. The last time I was in Manchester was in 1999. It was about a gazillion degrees out that day. We camped under the largest tree in the world. There was an extremely humorous incident involving one of our teammates passed out naked, my mom, and a pie plate, but that's a story for another time. Manchester was a really good time in '99. I'm hoping we can score our awesome campsite under the huge tree again and have an even crazier time this year.

Day 7 (Saturday) - Dubuque. I can't say I've ever ended the ride in Dubuque before. The last day is always uneventful. We ride. We finish. We load the van. We go home. That's about the extent of what will happen in Dubuque.

I'm a little bummed that my two favorite triathletes will not be on the ride this year, but they have much more important things going on that week (like the birth of their first child!). Someone needs to create a future generation of RAGBRAI riders and it sure as hell is not going to be me! On the flip side, we've got a few others who have decided to make a come-back after a couple years off from the ride. No matter who comes along, I guarantee it will be another RAGBRAI to remember.

166 days and counting!

Week of 1/18 - 1/24

2010-01-24T16:22:00.018-06:00

I'm attempting to update this blog at least once a week. Truthfully, I don't have anything interesting to write about, so this week you're getting a summary of my workouts. Not exciting, but proof that I'm still alive and not being completely lazy.

My goal for January and February is to get 8 workouts done each week: 2 runs, 2 rides (or spin classes), 2 swims and 2 yoga classes. I think 8 workouts is a good goal for this time of year. It's enough to give me a pretty solid fitness base but isn't too much to cause me to mentally burn out.

Weekly Recap:

Monday Afternoon (MLK Day = No work!): Swim - The locker room at the downtown St. Paul gym was undergoing renovations so I had to use the "Executive Locker Room". Sorry, Execs. I don't know what you have to pay or do to get into the Executive locker room, but it is completely not worth it. Aside from the full-size lockers and a pot of stale coffee, there is absolutely no difference from the regular locker room. I swam a quick 2000yd workout - 1x300, 3x100, 6x50 for my mainset. My 100yd splits were a second or two faster than last week, so I was happy with that.

Monday Night: Spin class at the Highland Park gym with Walker. It was less crowded than the last couple weeks. Are those New Years Resolutioners dying off already? The class started pretty hard but overall wasn't too tough.

Tuesday Night: Interval workout at the MetroDome. One of the local running clubs sponsors winter running at the Metro Dome. Two nights a week you can pay $1 and run around the 2nd floor concourse. Running on concrete isn't the most ideal situation, but it sure is nice to have a place to do some speed work other than on a treadmill or a 200m indoor track. I stole Steve's workout idea from last week and did a ladder. If you run the inside track of the concourse, one lap is approximately 600m. I did a ladder of 1 lap, 2 laps, 3 laps, 2 laps, 1 lap. Interestingly, my first 2 intervals had splits that were significantly faster than 2 weeks ago. I was pretty happy with that until I started my 3rd interval and my motivation went completely out the window. It wasn't that hard. My head just wasn't in it and I finished pretty slow. I still didn't have my head in the game on my 4th interval, but still pulled off a negative split. I really kicked it in on my last interval and finished that lap significantly faster than my 1st interval. Overall I was happy with the workout but need some work on staying mentally strong.

Wednesday Night: After a couple of pretty intense workout days, I took it easy on Wednesday. I went to an 8pm yoga class. I'm starting to figure out which classes fit my new schedule. Unfortunately I've had to give up the classes with my favorite instructors. The Wednesday night yoga guy was OK but I miss my Tuesday/Thursday AM guys. The Wednesday night guy was all about winding down the day and not doing any poses that were too "energizing". He's probably right, but I like to leave yoga class feeling like I got a good workout and that was not the case this night.

Thursday Morning: I got up early for a little run on my treadmill. Like anyone with any sensibility, I hate the treadmill. I would prefer that my 2nd run workout of the week be on hills, but since the sun wasn't up yet and it was 17 degrees with freezing rain, the treadmill was about my only option. I ran 4 miles varying the incline every 1/4 mile. I wasn't running exceptionally fast, but then again, it was 5:30am. The workout got done. It counts.

Friday Morning: I got up REALLY early to head to the pool - 4:45am. Thank God I'm a morning person. I can get my ass out of bed and get a workout done much easier than I can motivate myself to workout after a long day of work. I'm not sure what "renovations" the regular locker room was undergoing on Monday. Absolutely nothing was different. I did another 2000yd swim using a workout Waterboy gave me a few years ago when I was training for sprint tri's. I wondered if maybe I should be swimming farther since my races are longer now, but then again, it's January. I've still got plenty of time to increase my distances as my races get a little closer.

Saturday Morning: I couldn't sleep. I laid in bed staring at the clock from 5am to 6am and then finally decided I might as well get up and start my day. I decided I'd head to the 7am spin class instead of my usual 8:15 class. It actually worked out well. Immediately after the spin class, there was a 60 minute yoga class that wasn't on the schedule. It was a vinyassa flow class, which isn't my favorite style, but I went anyway and fulfilled my 8 workout goal for the week.

I was happy that I got all the workouts done that I wanted to. (The previous week I was short a couple, but I also had two after-hours work functions that kept me out of the gym those nights.) Hopefully I can keep the momentum going. I've decided to add a 5K to my race schedule in February, so hopefully that will keep me on task over the next few weeks.

Starting the New Year

2010-01-09T18:45:00.000-06:00

I already broke my one and only New Year's Resolution - to update this blog once a week. Oops.

I started my new job on 2 weeks ago. I love it. It was a HUGE change for me, but I was ready for the change and excited for the new challenges. I've been spoiled being able to work out of my house for the last 15 months. Although that was a pretty sweet deal, I was ready to get back into the "real world". The most challenging part has been having to trade in my sweatpants and slippers for suits and heels. Ugh!

It took me two weeks to really get into my new schedule. With the commute into work, long work days, and after-hours work events, I've struggled finding time to work out. That has been especially frustrating since I consider January the official start to my "in-season". I feel like I'm already behind on my training.

Right now at my new job we are taking personality tests to determine our strengths and weaknesses. The idea is that if we focus on our strengths, we'll be more successful, happier, and go farther in our careers than if we focus on trying to improve our weaknesses.

Relating this concept to triathlon, that pretty much negates my entire approach to training last year. Last year, I tried to focus on my weakness... the swim. I am not a swimmer, so I thought that if I could improve my swim, I would be better balanced in all 3 sport and therefore have more success in triathlons.

Now I realize that focusing on my weakness isn't really going to improve my overall tri times the way I thought it would. If I focus on my strengths, I can make far more progress and have a lot more fun with my training. My strengths are the bike and the run. With some real work, I know I can increase my bike average by at least 1 mph and take 20-30 seconds per mile off my run. Those improvements will take far more time off my overall time than I could by just improving my swim. This year I will aim to maintain my swimming abilities but really focus on improving my bike and run times. I think I will find a lot more enjoyment with that approach since I love biking and running but find swimming pretty frustrating. The swim will always be my weakness, and I'm OK with that.

I did 3 Oly's last year and finished all three around 2:30. I'm hoping to bring those times closer to 2:20 this year. That's going to require a lot of hard work, but I'm up for the challenge. I know that I can't slack off like I did last year. I can't make excuses. I can't take the easy way out. The new job and busy schedule should actually help me with that. I simply don't have time to work out just for fun. I don't have time to go out for a 4-6 mile run. If I'm going to run, it's got to be a quality workout - intervals, hills, tempo runs, etc. If I'm going to ride, it needs to be with people who are going to push me and on courses that are going to challenge me. If I'm going to swim, it needs to be a real workout and not just a lap swim. I need to focus on quality over quantity. We'll see how that works out for me.

My 2010 race calendar is coming together. My first tri won't be until June but I've got a couple half marathons before that and may even try my hand at some bike races this spring.

Since I doubt I'll update this blog before next weekend, GOOD LUCK to everyone who will be running the Winter Carnival Half Marathon. I should be out on the course near the turn around point to cheer everyone on!

Merry Christmas to me!!

2009-12-21T11:32:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in awhile. It's been an interesting holiday season to say the least. My holidays started out not so great, but have been improving throughout the month of December.

Thanksgiving started off my not-so-great time. My boss called me 2 days before Thanksgiving to let me know I'd been laid off. Wonderful. To be honest, I knew I would be laid off eventually. When I moved to MN last year the company agreed to keep me on and let me work remotely full time. This is NOT a typical arrangement for that company. I knew my unique work arrangement would put me on the chopping block whenever they had lay-offs, so I was not surprised when they finally cut me. Actually, I came away in a pretty good situation. The company agreed to keep me on the payroll until Christmas Day and then gave me a pretty sweet severance package on top of that. Financially, I didn't have anything to worry about for awhile, but even so, getting laid off sucks.

I spent my first two weeks rotating between agressively searching for jobs and laying around feeling sorry for myself. Fortunately, the job searching paid off and I had a job offer (with salary raise!) within 2 weeks. Whew!

The best part of that is that I won't miss a beat with pay checks and my severance package has turned into a Christmas bonus! Who knew that getting laid off could be such a huge benefit?!

On top of the new job, my Christmas got even better when my husband and I went car shopping. I didn't necessarily NEED a new car, but my previous car was the one I bought myself when I graduated from college in 2003. Most of my friends have had 2 or 3 new cars since then! A few test drives later, I drove away with this beauty.

In typical fashion, my husband loves it for the all-wheel drive and safety features. I love it for the heated seats and sunroof. And let's face it, I look damn hot driving it!

You'd think my awesome Christmas couldn't possibly get any awesomer... (We'll just pretend that "awesomer" is a word)... but then this morning I got an email from Steve letting me know I'd won a new one piece Sugoi tri suit in his drawing!! SWEET!!

My Christmas present from Steve:

I'm kind of amazed that what could have been a really crappy Christmas for me has turned out to be an exceptionally awesome Christmas so far (knock on wood!). I hope everyone else has a great holiday season, and I wish the best of luck to all my former co-workers who are still looking for jobs. (Hint: Move to the Twin Cities. There are TONS of companies hiring right now!)

Half Marathon Pics and Post Race Thoughts

2009-11-06T08:52:00.000-06:00

Some pictures and thoughts from last weekend's half marathon:

Steve and me before the races.

The blue girl and me in the last mile, passing all the slower 10 mile runners.

My final push to the finish line.

After the race.

Although there were a few things that weren't so great with this race, I didn't want to leave people thinking this race wasn't something they should do. This was my first Team Ortho sponsored event and I'm completely sold on them. Some thoughts on the race and Team Ortho as a sponsor:

Pros
- The start line was PERFECTLY organized. They had big flags seperating out the paces, and enough space between them that everyone could line up appropriately.
- The pacers were extremely motivating, ran even splits and finished within their goal times.
- Team Ortho sponsored training runs for 8 weeks prior to the race. The training runs were well organized and lots of fun. Water, Heed, and Hammer Gel Nutrition were provided.
- There are a few rolling hills, but overall, it's a flat and fast course.
- This is a great event for a "fun run" if you want to dress up or run with friends, but is also a good course to PR on if you're looking for a competitive race.

Cons
- The race felt backwards: The first few miles were open and spacious, and it gradually became more crowded as the race went on.
- Water stops were scarce in the first 5 miles but then were almost too frequent in miles 5-10.
- That snafu with the city buses at Chicago Ave. The race director needs to look into this for next year.

Overall, I think it was a GREAT race. Obviously, I'm a little biased because I did PR here, but I still think it is a race that everyone should try.

Monster Dash Half Marathon Race Report

2009-10-31T14:01:00.000-05:00

If you're like me and only skim blogs for the good stuff, here's the scoop:

Monster Dash Half Marathon
Previous 1/2 Marathon PR - 1:43:25
Goal - Break 1:40
Results - Finished in 1:39:07, 15th of 402 in my age group (F25-29), 36th of 1565 women.

If you want the full race report, keep reading.

Saturday morning Pre-Race:
I got to Harriet Bandshell early thinking I would be able to snag a good parking place. Apparently a few thousand people had that same brilliant idea. By 7:15, the area was packed with runners. I found parking, headed down to the bandshell to do nothing, went to the bathroom for the first time, headed back to sit in my car and do nothing there. I waited until about 7:40 and then started my warm up. I ran into Steve and stopped to chat with him for a few minutes, then stopped at the bathroom again (trip #2) and finished my warm up. It was cold out, but I decided I was overdressed and headed back to my car to shed a layer. I headed toward the half marathon start line, stopped at the bathroom again (trip #3) and contemplated how my body could seriously have to pee 3 times in less than an hour. I found my place at the start with the 1:40 group (7:38 pace), introduced myself to those around me and chatted with training buddy Chris for a few minutes. The race director announced we had 13 minutes until the gun. I noticed a line of port-o-potties right by the start line and decided I should probably go one more time. Thankfully the line was moving quickly and trip #4 to the bathroom only took a couple of minutes.

The race:
Mile 1 - Pacer Paul took off like a frickin' jack rabbit. Usually races are crowded enough that you can't start right at pace, but Pacer Paul made sure he was on pace instantly. Surprisingly, there were a number of people we passed in the first mile. I'll never understand how some people line up at the front of the pack and then start running WAY slower then everyone else behind them. Did these people not see the giant 8 foot flags along the start line indicating how the different paces should line up? Did they not see the numerous pacers holding their signs with the pace and finishing time they would run? What the hell? Oh well, we passed all those people and finished mile in 7:40 - right on pace, but I felt like I was running a lot faster than that.

Mile 2 - The 2nd mile felt awesome. Despite my 20 minute warm-up, I think I needed that 1st mile to get into my groove. Mile 2 felt great and we passed the 2nd mile marker in 7:26. Awesome.

Mile 3 - I needed water. My mouth was dry, but I felt awesome otherwise. Mile 3 split - 7:27.

Mile 4 - We finally got to the first water stop. I couldn't get to the right side of the road right away, so ended up going to the last volunteer in the row. He had 2 cups of water in his hands, but right as I was reaching out to him, 2 people in front of me grabbed those cups. Dammit!! The volunteer guy felt really bad, but I knew I would be OK without water for a few more miles.

Mile 5 - Hills, hills and more hills. Not big ones, but lots of rollers. I finally got water right before the 5 mile marker. I missed the 4 mile marker (I think it was at the top of a hill where there were lots of spectators and distractions.) Mile 4 and 5 split = 15:05, still a few seconds fast but I was still feeling great!

Mile 6 - We were starting to pass the slowest of the 10 mile runners. This mile was flat, but we lost a few seconds and finished the mile in 7:50.

Mile 7 - Yet another flat mile. I chatted with training buddy, Chris, for awhile. He was running his 1st half marathon and was doing great. As discussed in our training run, we agreed we would stick with the pace group until mile 9 and then assess whether or not we felt we could kick it in a little. Mile 7 split - 7:43.

Mile 8 - CROWDED!! The 10 mile runners were coming back on one side of the road while we were running out on the other side. There were cones running down the center of the road to seperate us. I couldn't find a good place to run. I stayed in the middle and weaved in and out of the cones. It sucked. There was just too much going on with cheering on everyone and checking out people's costumes. We were all distracted but our pace was actually pretty good - 7:32.

Mile 9 - We were a little slow on our overall time, so Pacer Paul tried to make up a few seconds. I felt like we were finally working a little. Unfortunately, just as we got to Chicago Ave, the police started yelling at us to stop to let the cross traffic through! WTF?!! Stop during a race?! Apparently the city buses needed to stick to their schedules. People were yelling at the cops to let our pace group through and the cops were yelling at us to stop and let the buses through. A couple guys ignored the cops and ran through the intersection. I followed. As long as I got across, I didn't really care what happened to the rest of the pace group (yeah, I'm stuck up like that). I guess everyone else followed suit because the pace group reunited very quickly after that. Mile 9 split - 7:50. I figured that was OK since we had that little hang up at the intersection and there was a pretty significant hill right before the mile marker.

Mile 10 - We needed to pick up the pace a few seconds this mile. The course was still VERY crowded with the slower 10 mile runners. We were constantly bobbing and weaving through other runners. I even had to jump up on the curb a few times to get around people. It was a mess. I felt like we had made up some time but this turned out to be our slowest mile yet - 8:06! Damn!!

Mile 11 - Pacer Paul was worried. We were off pace a little and with the crowded roads, it was going to be tough to make up time. I started to wonder how I was going to finish. My plan was to take off on my own after mile 9, but Pacer Paul seemed to be taking off with me. We were pushing the pace and I could feel it. Most of our pace group had fallen apart and a lot of people had fallen back a few seconds. There were 2 girls in our pace group that were dressed up like pigs. One little piggy fell off pace, but one little piggy could run! There was one pretty big hill on this mile and I was working hard to keep up with that piggy. My legs were hurting! We crossed the 11 mile mark in 7:00. Wow! I guess that explains why I was hurting!

Mile 12 - Paul knew he had made up time and could finish the race at our 7:38 pace, but I was still feeling great. He could tell and told me that if I was feeling it, I should take off. I did. The fast little piggy took off with me. A lady in a blue shirt and blue hat was right there with us too. I knew the 3 of us could hold onto our faster pace for the rest of the race, so we took off leaving the pace group behind. We finally caught and passed a guy dressed as He-Man. He was just ahead of our pace group for most of the race. Apparently, not even the Power of Grayskull was enough to last him an entire 13.1 miles. Without the pace group around me, I could feel the wind a lot more. My right quad was starting to scream, but I knew we were almost done. Mile 12 split - 7:21.

Mile 13 - Our little piggy fell back, leaving me and the blue girl to finish the race alone. We were running hard. The roads were still crowded with the slower 10 mile runners. I kept yelling "On your left!" to warn them that faster runners were coming up behind them. They were all very respectful and let us pass without incident. The blue girl finally started yelling "Slower runners, keep right!" I wasn't sure I had the authority to say that, but it seemed to work, so I started yelling it too. The 10 mile runners obediently moved right, leaving us with plenty of space to pass. Mile 13 split - 7:17.

Blue girl, me and some dude in a tie-dyed shirt pushed each other across the finish line and all came in right around 1:39.

My official time was 1:39:07, well under my goal of 1:40! I think with a not-so-crowded race course I could have run a little faster, but overall, I ran smart and that's still a PR by over 4 minutes. I can't complain about that!

Looking ahead

2009-09-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

My husband and I were at the neighborhood drug store the other day.

Husband: Why is there so much Halloween candy? Is Halloween coming up?
Me: When do you think Halloween is?
Husband: I don’t know. Next month?
Me: What day do you think Halloween is?
Husband: (pause) October 10th?

Although my favorite holiday does fall on October 10th this year (more about that later), October 10th is NOT Halloween. In case anyone else is as ignorant as my husband, Halloween is on October 31st. That is also the day of my next race, the Monster Dash Half Marathon.

I haven’t run a half marathon in over 2 years. My positive thought is that I’m a hell of a lot faster than I was 2 years ago. A new PR should be easily attainable (knock on wood). My negative thought is that I haven’t done any real distance running since training for the Boston Marathon last spring. In fact, the last time I ran more than 9 miles was on April 20th (the day of the marathon). I’ve got some work to do.

I’m hoping to break 1:40 at this race which would give me a 3+ minute PR. I’m thinking that is a very plausible goal since this course is supposedly flat and fast. However, there are also over 1000 runners in it, so I have to consider that the first few miles will be spent fighting the crowd. Even if I don’t break 1:40, I still think a PR is in order.

So… about October 10th. You may have already checked your calendar only to find that there is no holiday listed on that date. Well, apparently your calendar is not aware that October 10th is the 4th Annual Oktrouserfest. What is Oktrouserfest? By definition, Oktrouserfest is a reunion of Ragbrai riders, congregating in the city of St. Paul for a day of cycling and beer drinking. It is held every October and was created by the founders of Team Trousermouse. Hence, Oktrouserfest.

The first Oktrouserfest consisted of 2 guys on bikes, riding the usual “highbridge loop” but stopping for a beer at every bar along the way. The next year, our entire Ragbrai team joined them, using the event as a chance for our team to reunite outside of our annual ride across Iowa. The route was concretely defined as an 18 mile loop with 6 beer stops and made an annual event. On Ragbrai, there are 2 other teams that we hang out with regularly, Short Bus and Los Bastardos. The Bastardos usually have some representation at Oktrouserfest, but it appears this year we will also have representation from the dirty south, Oklahoma , Chicagoland, and I would not be surprised if there is a sighting of Colorado's elusive Red Bear. No matter who shows up, it will be one hell of a good time.

Next weekend, I have friends in town to run the Twin Cities Marathon. I will be out cheering everyone on. If you’re running or spectating, let me know and I’ll keep an eye out for you!

St. Croix Valley (Olympic Distance) Race Report

2009-09-06T12:09:00.000-05:00

Pre-Race:
"Should you be drinking the night before a race?" my husband asked as I poured my second glass of wine Saturday night.

That's the difference between an A race and C- race. I was racing for fun, not for a PR or a place. I highly doubt a few glasses of wine would make or break my race. So, dearest husband, while I appreciate your concern for my alcoholic tendencies, please pipe down!

I always lay out all my gear the night before a race. I couldn't seem to find anything that I needed. (It didn't help that it's been 2 months since I last raced! Where the hell did I put all my tri gear after Lifetime?!) After a minor temper tantrum, I finally got all my shit together and packed for the race.

Sunday morning the alarm went off at 5:10am. I don't mind early mornings (and 5:10 isn't really all that early for me), but this time my husband was coming along and he is most definitely not a morning person. An anxious athlete and a tired spouse do not make good travel companions on the way to a race. Thankfully this race was only 30 minutes away.

We got to the race site. Husband set off to find a cafe where he could get some coffee and breakfast. I headed down to get body marked and set up my transition. I learned my lesson at my last race and really attempted to set up a good transition area. Fortunately this was a smaller race so it wasn't too crowded and I had plenty of space.

The race director held the usual pre-race meeting and we all headed down to the beach to start the race. I was walking with Pharmie and Steve and mentioned how I was anxious to get in the water so I could pee. Some guy in front of us turned around and said, "I dont want to be behind you!" He was totally disgusted! We wondered if perhaps this was his first triathlon. I thought about that for a second and decided that maybe we need to explain to tri newbies what to expect at their first triathlon. Everyone pees in the water. During warm-ups, during the race, everyone pees. Some of us pee off the bike. Some of us pee while standing in transition. In fact, if a big race came down to the run, some of us would even be willing to shit our own pants and fling the poo to the side of the road if it meant we could pull off a big win.

That's triathlon. Deal with it.

The Swim:
All the guys took off in the first wave and the women and relays started 3 minutes later. This wasn't a big race so I found open water pretty quickly. The swim course was 2 laps around a rectangular course. I liked that a lot. I had a good pace right away but had to keep telling myself not to go too hard too early. I made my way around the rectangle and once I was heading back toward the beach, I decided to try to catch a few people. I'm not a fast swimmer, so it took me awhile to reel in each person and then get ahead of them. I was battling a girl in a purple swim cap forever, but finally I caught her feet, then worked my way up next to her. We were pretty even in swim skill, so we swam together for a long time. Together, we passed a few people. Finally, I started to pull ahead a little and was able to get in front of her. On my second lap, I could only see men around me. That was a good sign. They started 3 minutes ahead of me and I was catching a lot of them. I concentrated on staying competitive. I picked out a bobbing swim cap in front of me and went after it. Once I was ahead of them, I picked out the next person to go after. I felt great. I could feel my swim form was falling apart the last few meters, but I was almost done. I was out of the water in 28:51! A HUGE personal best for my swim! (That's almost 2 1/2 minutes faster than my swim at Lifetime!!)

Transition 1:
It's not uncommon for me to come off the swim and be completely dizzy and disoriented. I didn't feel that way at all. I was calm and and relaxed. My wetsuit came off relatively easy. It's very easy to get panicky when my wetsuit doesn't come off quickly, but I didn't have any of that today. I didn't even have to sit down to get it off. Wetsuit off, bike shoes and helmet on, off for the bike.

The Bike:
The bike isn't necessarily my strongest leg, but it's my favorite. I had new race wheels on my bike, so I wasn't sure how today's ride would go. It started out OK. It usually takes me 7-8 miles until my legs are ready to ride hard. Today my legs showed up at around 6 miles. It was a pretty hilly course at first. There wasn't any wind, but I wasn't riding fast. My computer was pretty steady around 18-19mph. Not good, but I wasn't getting passed either so I figured it must just be a slow course. The ride was pretty uneventful. The field was spread out. I wasn't catching anyone but no one was catching me either. I was pretty much just riding alone. The way back toward the park was a little faster. My computer was holding a steady 21mph. Still not fast, but better. This would be a slow bike split, but I was OK with that. There was one huge downhill at about mile 21. I was flying down it when I heard a clanking sound. I looked down and my chain was dangling from my bike. DAMMIT!! I've never had a mechanical during a race before. I had to stop in the middle of the hill, untangle the chain from my derailleur and put it back on. I got back on the bike knowing I had just lost some major time. Everyone else was flying down that hill pushing 40mph and I was sitting there at 0mph. Great. My saving grace was that I knew this was a C- race. I couldn't be discouraged because I was only out there to have fun. No matter how many people had passed me, I was out there to run my own race and enjoy the day. I finished the bike leg with a personal worst time. Ironically, before the race my husband had asked how long the bike part would take. I told him that if I was having a good race, I would be done in under 1:10 and if I was having a bad race I would be done in 1:13. My bike split was 1:13.

Transition 2:
Bike mounted, shoes changed, helmet switched out for a visor, off on the run.

The Run:
My husband was cheering about 1/2 mile into the run. I told him that I dropped my chain on the bike and lost a few minutes, but I was still feeling OK with that. Really, what could I do? I got passed by a girl a few seconds later and I was OK with that too. I was out to run my own race. Although I love races sponsored by Final Stretch, their run courses are notorious for having the mile markers off. I figured I was running around a 7:20 pace. That's OK for me. Not great, but definitely not bad either. I could see the woman ahead of me and wasn't sure if she was within reach. She looked strong. At the 3 mile mark, my total time was 2:08. That's when I realized that I was still within PR range. I decided I would give it a go. I tried to keep my pace steady, but then ended up dropping my gel flask and having to stop to pick that up. I don't know what the hell was going on with me today. My bike and my run just felt sloppy. I finished the run in 44:38.

My total time was 2:30:16, a personal best by almost a minute and a half! Not too bad for a C- race! I ended up 4th in my age group and 7th female overall. I was OK with that. Some girls are just faster than me. I had no regrets with today's race.

I was really hoping to break 2:30 this year, but I'm still happy with my season. I finished this race over 5 minutes faster than I did Lifetime, and Lifetime was my A race of the season! I guess not training and drinking the night before works well for me!

Congrats to everyone who raced at St. Croix Valley this weekend! Sounds like there were a lot of PRs!

St. Croix Valley Pre-Race Thoughts

2009-09-05T09:46:00.000-05:00

Although I’m not looking at this weekends race as anything other than a fun run, I figured I’d still write up a few pre-race thoughts.

I haven’t been in the water in over week. I haven’t even touched a wetsuit since my last race (almost 2 months ago!). That’s not good. However, the swim is the shortest part of the race and is always my worst leg. How bad can it really be? I’m a little nervous about swimming in a river, but I’ve heard that it’s in a spot of the river that doesn’t have a current and feels exactly like swimming in a lake. Works for me. Like always, the plan is to go out, try not to drown, and attempt to be out of the water in any place other than last.

I haven’t touched my tri bike in 2 months except for a few trips to Timmers house which is half a block away. I don’t think that counts. I have been getting some miles in (on the road bike), but not like I was pre-Ragbrai. Apparently the Ragbrai boys train only for that trip and are now in hibernation until next spring. I’ve been riding with my fellow Birchwood Betty’s on Tuesdays and the LTF boys on Wednesdays. Some girl named Steph has been coming to Birchwood for our public rides the last couple months. That chick can ride! She is doing her first Olympic tri this weekend. I’m going to bet she will finish at the top of her AG. Good luck, Steph!

I've been running really well lately. I still don't quite understand why my running has come together so much this summer when I've been focusing mainly on the bike. Whatever. I'll take it. I haven't been doing any hills and I have a feeling this is going to be a hilly course. Oh well. Hills have always been my strength, so I think I'll do alright. It's all mental, right?

I have no plan for the bike or the run other than to keep my head in the game and go out and catch as many girls as possible.

I'll post the race report in the next couple of days. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Football season has begun!

2009-08-26T21:00:00.000-05:00

Keeping with my "fun" theme, I spent last weekend at the Packer's pre-season game against the Bills. This was a family vacation, and since it was all about football, you can probably guess that it was planned entirely by my father and husband.

I am really not a family oriented person. In fact, I was pretty much dreading the thought of having to spend 2 entire days with my parents. Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad and I actually had a really good time. (I'm sure the 24oz beers at the tailgate party had something to do with that!)

M husband and my parents headed to Green Bay Friday afternoon to spend some time with the Buffalo Bills at their hotel. One of our close college friends is the 2nd string running back for the Bills, so they wanted to spend some time with him before all his game day chaos.

College buddy Mike, my husband, and Freddy (Bills #22)

I, unfortunately, got stuck at work, so my brother, sis-in-law and I didn't make it to Green Bay until very late Friday night.

Our hotel was right next to Lambeau and within stumbling distance of about 5 different bars with huge tailgate parties. The tailgate parties were like any other beer garden: adults dressed like idiots, endless amounts of warm beer, Journey cover songs played by extremely loud bands with lead singers who would occassionally break out in an air guitar solo. Very Ragbrai-esque.

Husband and Dad at the tailgate party

Me and my mom getting our drink on.

There isn't a whole lot going on in Green Bay outside of the Packers. In fact, there is nothing going on in Green Bay outside of the Packers. Packer fans are nuts, but lots of fun to be around too.

Me and "the Bishop". Notice the guy on the left who has his head painted like a helmet - Told ya these people are nuts!

Best thing I saw that day... An airplane pulling a banner that said "Hey Packers, we moved your cheese!" and was signed by a Minneapolis radio DJ. Classic!

After an afternoon of tailgating, we headed to the game. There were just under 70,000 people in attendance. What are the chances of having your friends randomly end up with seats right in front of you in a stadium that seats 70,000? Apparently, really good. Mike and his wife Tanya (who we didn't know were going to be at the game) had seats right in front of us!

Me, husband, Mike and Tanya

Freddy doing his pre-game drills. Go #22!

Husband and me at the game

So, the Bills got beat, but Freddy had a decent game. We were thankful for another chance to see him, and see him play.

Me and Freddy, post-game.

Overall, it was a really fun weekend. I was glad we got to spend time with my family and got to see a few of our college friends too. Now it's back to work for a few more weeks until our next pre-season game when the Vikings host my husband's favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys!

Having fun

2009-08-15T08:05:00.000-05:00

Everyone keeps asking me what I'm training for. The answer is, I'm not training right now.

It seems like everyone has something big on their plate right now: Ironman, a marathon, a 70.3. I have nothing. I was feeling a little guilty about that until my husband reminded me that I'm doing exactly what I set out to do this year... nothing.

Back in March, I was on a ride with Waterboy and we were discussing my goals for the year. As a pro triathlete, he is constantly on my ass to take the sport more seriously. I know I have the potential to lead my AG, and I would like to get to Kona someday, but right now I just don't have the desire. Running marathons killed me. For the last 4 years, I've been running, and running, and running. Last fall, it finally all came crashing down on me and I didn't even make it to the start line for Chicago. I burned out. I forced myself to run Boston this spring, but it was ugly and I'm still embarrassed by my performance there. I don't miss marathon training at all!

So when Waterboy asked me what I wanted to accomplish this year, I told him I wanted one year to just have fun. I was tired of feeling guilty for not wanting to workout, tired of feeling guilty if I skipped a workout, tired of feeling guilty if I got all my workouts done but couldn't remember the last time I saw my husband. Tired of it all.

This year I wanted to rewind and find the fun it all. I didn't want to have a training schedule tacked up on the wall with each completed workout crossed off and each upcoming workout hanging over my head. I didn't want to spend my weekends watching my husband go out with his friends while I went to bed early in preparation for the next morning's long run. I didn't want to be the designated driver for every girl's night out. I wanted to have fun.

And that's exactly what I've been doing.

Unfortunately, that also means I am not ready for my next race. In fact, St. Croix Valley has slowly been demoted from an A race to more like a C- race. I'm not ready. I'm not going to be ready. I'm just going to go out and have fun. If I come in first or dead last, it won't matter as long as I have fun.

Fun has been my theme lately. I am no longer doing workouts. I'm just enjoying swimming, biking and running. I run when I feel like it, for however long I feel like running. I do whatever swim workout I feel like doing that day, and if I feel like cutting it short, I do. I've decided that my Wednesday nights will no longer be spent killing myself on Birchwood's hill ride. I've been riding with a couple of guys from Lifetime Fitness instead. They are WAY more fun. We make up the routes as we go, depending on what we feel like doing and how far we feel like going. We ride hard. We have a good time. I like having a good time.

I know I'm not working as hard as I could be, but there is always next year. Next year I will be focused. Next year I will be competitive. Next year I will take this sport seriously. But next year is still four months away.

Right now I am having fun.

Results

2009-08-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

Participants of the Gear West Splash and Dash. (I'm front and center)

As I expected, I came in 2nd at the Splash and Dash. The girl in the blue tri suit (who you can't see the picture above) won it for the women. Although we each won a set, her overall time was a little faster. The splits I took on my watch differed a little from the "official" times (which were done on Curt's cell phone!), but either way, the results were the same.

Here is what Gear West had to say about the race:

The second round of the Splash and Dash was held last night in... can you believe it... BEAUTIFUL weather. After the first round being cancelled due to weather, and the official first round in July had sketchy weather as well. This time we had a park full of 'specators' with sunny skies and temps in the 80s. We had 16 total participants, with 8 men and 8 women. 5 of the 7 participants from the first Splash and Dash returned to compete again. That's a 71.4% participant return rate, speaking to the awesomeness of this event.

Returning champion Steve Stenzel returned to defend his title, as well as single lap record holder Jason Midgarten who was looking to stay on course this time and challenge Steve for the overall. Returning women's winner Suzie Finger was notibly absent, leaving the top women's spot up for grabs with several new women showing up to give it a go.

For the men's race, Jason again used his swim prowess to garner a lead heading into the run, hoping to hold off Steve and S&P newcomer Cliff Owen. Steve ran a 5:48 and Cliff ran a 5:41 to close to within 1 second, but it wasn't enough to overtake Jason at the line who came in in 8:48. The second round was equally as close, with Steve and Jason coming around the last corner neck and neck. Steve put in a burst at the line to cross the "tape" first in 8:50. Adding up the totals, Jason squeaked out the win with a time of 17:39 with Steve 7 (17:46) seconds back and Cliff 11 (17:50) seconds back. All 3 were under Steve's S&P #1 winning time of 18:02.

The women's race came down to a running race, as the top 4 women were out of the swim within 15 seconds of each other both times. Newcomers Tracie Kent and Jen Rife battled it out on the run with Tracie clocking a 6:38 mile to come in first on round 1 in 10:11 to Jen's 10:37. Round 2 was much closer with Jen getting out of the water a little quicker and really putting the hammer down on the run to clock a 6:37 mile. Tracie closed slightly with a 6:35 mile, but finished 5 seconds in arrears. But with the 26 second cushion from the first round, Tracie came out on top with a total time of 20:17 to Jen's 20:38. Rounding out the "podium" was returning competitor Kris Mielke coming in at 22:17.

Thanks again to Curt and Gear West for putting on such a fun event!

Splash and Dash

2009-08-11T20:53:00.000-05:00

I think I'm finally over my post-Ragbrai depression. Ok, not really, but it's time to move forward any way.

I needed something to get me out of my funk, so when Steve suggested doing the Splash and Dash race, I figured that was a pretty good idea.

I showed up at the race site early. (I can never judge how long it will take to get through rush hour traffic on 94 and 394. It didn't take nearly as long as I had feared.) I parked next to a girl in a blue tri suit. She looked fast. She had the suit and the shoes and all the Ironman brand gear. I was intimidated. Immediately I started to have doubts about this race. I suck at swimming! Why did I sign up for a swimming event?!

At that point, it was too late. I had committed to the race. I was going to have to do it.

The race was 2 sets of a 200m swim followed by a 1 mile run. The swim was 2 laps of 100m. You swam out 50m, back up to the beach, ran around a cone and then did it again. The run was an out-and-back course that was uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back.

First set - Total time 10:32

Swim:
We started in a wave start. I pretty much swam the 1st 100m on top of Pharmie. I was completely tangled in arms, legs and bodies. It sucked. On the 2nd lap, the field started to spread out a little. I was tired. I think I started too fast. Fortunately, the swim was so short that once I started to feel tired, I had about 25m left to go. Piece of cake.

Transition:
I ran to the transition square (it was literally a 5x5 foot square of grass marked off by orange cones), wiped some of the sand off my feet, realized 95% of the sand was not worth the effort of wiping off, threw on my shoes and took off on the run. I hit my watch on my way out of transition - 3:40.

Run:
There was a girl right in front of me. I could tell she was not a runner. I am a runner. I passed that girl and looked ahead to the next person. The girl in the blue tri suit was next up, but she was a ways ahead of me. I knew the course would be downhill on the way back, so I figured I would make a move then and see if I could reel her in. I hit the turn around at 3:44. I flew down the big hill, but the girl in blue was still pulling ahead. I wasn't reeling her in. I ran hard and finished the mile in 6:51. I was a little disappointed that I didn't catch the blue girl, but it was still a good negative split.

Second set - Total time 10:01

Swim:
I am a runner, not a swimmer. I decided to use my strength and run the swim. The water was shallow. I could touch the bottom for at least 2/3 of the swim. We all took off and I ran through the water, doing a few dolphin dives when I could. It worked. I passed a ton of people on the first lap and ended up in a somewhat open area where I could actually swim without getting kicked by other people. My goggles were leaking, so I shook them out on the turn around and did my 2nd lap the same as the first. I ended up coming out of the water ahead of almost all the other girls!

Transition:
I knew there was a girl on my tail. I looked at my feet. There wasn't much sand on them. I didn't even wipe them off, just threw on my shoes and took off on the run. Swim + Transition time - 3:24.

Run:
I could hear the girl behind me. I was running fast but she was staying with me. There was another girl ahead of me. She must have had one hell of a good swim because she had a big lead on me. However, like most great swimmers, she wasn't a great runner. I surged past her and then kept up the pace to pass another guy. I was now the lead female, but the girl behind me was still right on my tail. I hit the turn around and saw it was the girl in the blue tri suit. I flew down the hill, trying to put some space on her. It didn't work. We turned the corner and I could see her shadow was only about half a step behind me. I decided I was not going to let this girl pass me. We were about 400m from the finish. I didn't know what else to do, so I kicked it in and prayed I wouldn't blow up before the finish line. With 200m to go, I looked down and saw her shadow was no longer right at my feet. I was able to hold her off and finished that mile in 6:36.

The official results aren't in yet, but I think I did pretty well. I was happy that my 2nd set was 31 seconds faster than my 1st. Probably could have pushed the 1st run a little harder, but I'm still happy with that performance. I kind of wish they would have done a 3rd set because I wasn't quite ready to be done yet. Guess I'll just have to pick up another race soon.

Congrats to everyone who raced last night and a big thanks to Gear West for putting on the event!

I'll post official results when I get them.

RAGBRAI Recap

2009-07-30T11:14:00.000-05:00

Day 0 – Two hours into our vacation and Shady was already sitting in a cop car. Nice work, team. Fortunately, it was just a speeding ticket, but a comical photo op, nonetheless. We picked up the Water kids in Des Moines and then continued the trip to Council Bluffs. It took forever. Fortunately we had all our Ragbrai cronies on cell phone to compare ETA’s and send harassing text messages. It made the time go by a little faster. We finally arrived in Council Bluffs and set up camp next to the Short Bus crew. We started hanging out with these guys a few years ago. They are trouble… exactly what we are looking for. MG started off the night with a stellar case of food poisoning. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone throw up in mid-sentence. It was pretty cool, but a little scary too. Good thing we had a doctor nearby. The weather was unseasonably cold. By the end of the night, I had given up on my efforts of layering clothes and succumbed to standing around in my sleeping bag. Since MG was on his death bed (which doubled as a horseshoe pit), we all stayed at camp that night. We entertained ourselves by watching some teenage townies make out on a picnic table. Good stuff.

Day 1 – If you want an example of a typical Ragbrai day, this was it. The sun was shining. The weather was nice. The hills were plenty. It was a short day (50-some miles). We rode out 15-20 miles and stopped for pancakes. Pancakes are a necessity on Ragbrai. If you miss out on pancakes, it throws your whole day off. We eat our pancakes in the baking sun then roll out through a few more towns. We stopped for an hour or so in one town, but nothing fun was going on. We rolled on to the last “in between” town. This is usually where the fun is. The overnight towns aren’t that much fun. Townies get mixed in with Ragbrai riders and it rarely ends well. The ride-through towns are where the real fun happens. Today the fun was at a bar with a magic marker. We all got “ragbrai’d” in some way or another. Trixie forgot her stranger danger lessons and made friends with some weaker riders who later caused her to crash. Again, it’s a good thing we had a doctor nearby. We stayed in Red Oak that night which was a typical Ragbrai overnight town. It was small, so all our friends from other teams were still within a block or two of our campsite. We all ate fried food in a gravel parking lot. I managed to find a grilled chicken sandwich. We introduced Wally to the fried tenderloin and Shady introduced us to a $3 cup of bacon. Gross.

Day 2 – It was cold. For the first time in 9 Ragbrai’s I wore long sleeves. I thought this was July in Iowa. Apparently I was wrong. It was really cold. The route was 70-some miles and hilly again. I’ve been training on hills a lot, so I was feeling strong. We spent a little time heckling on a hill in Villisca but then it started raining, the light, misty-type of rain that was going to last all frickin’ day. We had no choice but to ride in it. I took off with the group and soon found the guys all sitting in on my wheel. My goal for this year was to be strong enough to be able to pull the guys. This was the first time they actually let me do it. I was feeling amazingly strong on the hills. Waterboy and I were pulling when I noticed that our light, misty rain had turned into big, fat raindrops. I was soaked. After about 10 miles of rain and hills, I announced I was 75% miserable. My legs finally got tired and I rotated off the front of the line and took Steve-O’s wheel. Instantly, I was 98% miserable. Riding in the rain sucks, but sitting on someone’s wheel in the rain is absolutely horrible. I might as well have been licking his wheel for the amount of dirt and water I was getting in my face. By the time we reached the final ride-through town, I was covered in mud and shivering so hard I could barely hold my wheel straight. It was horrible. We stopped for a little while trying to get warm again. We bought T-shirts for an extra layer of clothes. It didn’t help. I had 2 cups of coffee. It didn’t help. Red Bear hugged me until I stopped shivering, but the second he left, I was shivering uncontrollably again. Miserable. Finally, we decided to just get riding again. We rolled on to Greenfield and finally warmed up once we got out of our wet clothes. That night some of us found a local winery with some really good house wine. We bought a number of bottles and shared them on the porch of the house we stayed at. The homeowners were the greatest people on earth. At first they didn’t want any riders camping in their lawn, but they warmed up to us quickly and we shared stories all night. The next morning, they gave us coffee, muffins and egg casserole for breakfast. Such sweet people.

Day 3 – We set a new team record for latest start time. There was some confusion over who was sagging (driving the van to the next town) and who was riding. It was pushing 11am before we finally got our bikes on the road. (We usually hit the road around 9am). Fortunately, the late start allowed us to miss the morning rain and we stayed dry all day. It was another long day – 77 miles. We all agreed to try to get in at least 50 miles before we stopped. Most of Ragbrai would have started much earlier than us, but would also be stopping along the way. We figured 50 miles would get us caught up pretty easily. It was windy. We had a wicked cross wind. We had to try some different draft patterns before we finally settled on riding in a diamond shape to allow some of us to get a draft. Somewhere along the line, we met up with Short Bus. Having an extra 20 people made drafting a lot easier than it was with our group of 6. The Short Bus likes to heckle other riders. Today’s heckle spot was on a long uphill around mile 45. It was the perfect place to stop. We had a little fun watching people ride through our beer can slalom and then we rolled on to the next town. The sun came out and we spent a good deal of time at some house in the middle of nowhere that was throwing a big party to raise money for some disease that I can’t remember. They had water slides set up, a volleyball court, some carnival games and lots of good music to dance to. To support the cause, we purchased a large number of beverages. We stayed in Indianola that night with a very young couple with lots of kids. They grilled up some kick ass chicken wings for our group and even let me shower in their house – the one hot shower I had all week! We got a sweet surprise from Greyt Times who supplied our entire team with water bottles filled with candy – Thanks! We spent a little time in the beer garden that night, but I think I was back at camp by 11pm. I’m not really a night person. Waterboy showed up at my tent to heckle me a little. I like to give the Water kids a hard time about being too serious on Ragbrai. Every time I heard them bring up watts or heart rates or complain about not having vegetables to eat, I’d call them out on it. After all, it’s Ragbrai, not training camp. Tonight Waterboy finally decided to fight back a little. “You know, you act tough, but you’re just a really big dork,” he declared. "I see you with your gels and recovery bars and Zensahs." It made me laugh. Touché, Waterboy.

Day 4 – Someone is making a documentary on RAGBRAI. They were doing all the filming this year. One of our acquaintances is one of the investors (or something like that) and he asked if they could take some footage of our team in our pace lines. Our team is pretty well known for our pace lines. For one, we wear these incredibly ugly, bright blue kits splattered with white hibiscus flowers (the girls also have equally ugly sets in pink). They were originally created as a joke. However, we’ve learned the obnoxious color makes it exceptionally easy to find each other among the thousands of other riders. Besides our very noticeable outfits, we always ride as a group in a double pace line. We’ve all been riding together for years, so we’re comfortable with each other’s skill levels and ride in tight formations. We’re pretty picky about who we let ride with us because riding like that requires skill and trust. We often get compliments on our riding. Anyway, the filmmakers asked if they could throw a tandem with cameras in our pace line. They filmed us for about 10 miles. We rode in our usual double pace line, but rotated every 30 seconds off both lines. Generally, our rotation rule is to pull for 10 miles or to the next town (whichever comes first), so the 30 second rotation was really just for show. Sometime after that we ran into the Short Bus again (surprise, surprise). Today they were heckling on a downhill instead of their usual uphill. Either way, it’s always fun with those guys. The film crew came through again and asked if they could take us all off the Ragbrai course for some additional filming. Of course, we all agreed. We headed off course a few miles. This time we had a truck with cameras running along side and up and down our line, taking film from every angle possible. It was kind of fun, but everyone was a little excited and our pace was crazy fast. I was pretty tired after that little ride and got dropped on the very next hill once we got back on the Ragbrai course. Tommy B and I decided to hold back and ride alone (we only had about 10 miles left on the day). We watched the group pull farther and farther ahead until we couldn’t even see them any more. B popped up out of nowhere and let me grab his wheel. I had the perfect draft off him. Little by little he kept increasing the speed and before I knew it, he had bridged us back up to the group! The film guys had given us some beer money for letting them film us, so we all stopped outside Cheriton to sit in the sun, drink some beers and heckle other riders. That night we had some team drama. The film crew called us up again asking for even more film of us. We agreed we would meet up with the film crew at 1pm the next day. Unfortunately, since we don’t have a designated driver to haul our stuff, someone was going to have to sag the next day and would therefore miss out on the filming. Of course, no one wanted to sag. When no one volunteers, we draw straws. There were only 4 of us that hadn’t sagged yet, me included. I knew I would be pissed if I had to sag, but it was a fair process. I tried to mentally prepare myself in case I drew the short straw. I went to bed early that night. Waterboy gave me some earplugs and I slept surprisingly well until a storm woke me up in the middle of the night. We were all caught off guard by the storm. No one expected it and our in-house meteorologist never mentioned the possibility. WTF, weatherboy?!

Day 5 – I woke up knowing the sagging situation had not yet been resolved and that we were going to have to draw straws soon. Fortunately, sometime overnight, Dr. Nuts had decided to take one for the team and volunteered to sag for his 2nd time of the week. Woo hoo! No sagging for me! Unfortunately, the drama wasn’t entirely over yet. Trixie had been feeling like ass for the last day or so and decided to go home. (We later learned she had suffered a concussion in her crash on Day 1.) We had to meet the film crew at 1pm in Moravia which was 42 miles out. We figured we had plenty of time to get there. Of course, we ran into those damn Short Bus guys again and before you knew it, we were all sitting alongside the road drinking beers. At 12:46, we figured we should probably get riding again. We were still 5 miles out of Moravia. We took off, crested one hill and then saw the sign… Free Beer. It is a team rule that you must stop for free beer, no exceptions. Even though we were pressed for time, we had to stop. We all chugged a free beer, inhaled some pulled pork sandwiches for lunch and finally made it to Morovia. We called up the producer only to find out he was out filming other things and had to cancel with us. WTF?! I was so annoyed! This is my vacation. I do not enjoy being on a schedule. That is not Ragbrai. After that, we all said F it and had a lot of fun the rest of the day. That night we stayed in Ottumwa. Ottumwa is a very special place for our team. We stayed in Ottumwa in 2000 and have since referred to it as the “epic sag day”. In 2000, we let AG and Timmer choose our campsite. They chose an empty lot in downtown, surrounded by a strip club, an adult bookstore, a bar, and a XXX cinema. Classic. We did not camp there this year, but spent most of the night reliving the glory days. We went to our old campsite, had a beer at the bar and went to the strip club (my first experience in such a place). We debated how much we would pay to see strippers in Ottumwa, Iowa and agreed the maximum amount we would pay is $5. The cover charge was $2. After watching a couple $2 strippers, we headed out to find the Short Bus. Timmer turned on his Kel-dar (a whole new level of gay-dar) and within seconds had located the bus. Unfortunately, the bus was empty, so we headed to the beer garden to find our friends. After that, we attempted to go to a bar but encountered a huge Townie vs. Ragbrai fight, complete with 4 cop cars and 2 state troopers. We all agreed it was time to go to bed.

Day 6 – Ragbrai rule #14: “Sometime during the week, you will miss pancakes. You will have loose meat sandwiches and Mt. Dew for breakfast and like it.” Today was that day. My day started badly when I unknowingly rolled up all my money and my ID in my sleeping bag. Fortunately, I didn’t hold the team up too badly, but I was still annoyed with myself. We rolled out to the first town in search of pancakes and found none. We had some trouble with strangers leaching onto our line that morning. I could tell the girl beside me was working pretty hard to hold onto Liz’s wheel and we were only going 20-22mph. MG looked at me, I nodded, he took the lead, I grabbed his wheel, everyone else filed in behind us and we took off pushing 30 mph. The leaches were dropped instantly. Nice work, team. We kept the pace high and found the first few towns were “faux towns”. Ragbrai sometimes will list places as ride-through towns, but they turn out to be a house with a barn or something else that does not represent a town at all. Those are the worst, particularly when you’re in dire need of some pancakes. We had gone over 30 miles before we found any place with food. Unfortunately they didn’t have any breakfast food, so I settled on a grilled chicken sandwich. I guess that works. We rolled onto Brighton and spent some time watching B and MG turn cycling into a full contact sport. We had a tough headwind into Lockridge, so we rode slower and stuck together as a group. Some of the Trousermice (or Meeces as the Short Bus calls us) met us in Lockridge. Some beverages were consumed. We finally rolled out to finish up the day, but encountered 2 free beer stops in the last 11 miles into Mount Pleasant. Team rule. We had to stop. It was the perfect day. We reached Mount Pleasant just as the sun was setting. We ate a tremendous amount of food and then went out in search of more trouble. It was raining that night, so there was no beer garden. We made our own fun on top of the Short Bus and in some bar. Shady showed off his 80’s dance moves. Larry showed up with some steaming hot pizzas. It was the best night ever. I wish it could have lasted forever, but eventually all good things come to an end. Ragbrai was almost over.

Day 7 – I woke up in my own personal Ragbrai fog. Shady attempted to get us on the road early since he wanted to get home. However, when you’re traveling in a group, you can only go as fast as the slowest person. I was most definitely the slowest person that morning. Sorry, Shady. We still managed to get on the road a little earlier than normal (8:30am) and got 17 miles in before stopping for pancakes. In my fog, I had misread my map and thought we had 55 miles to go that day. I was wrong. We only had 44 miles. We would be done in no time. Timmer felt like hammering out the miles. I rode with him for awhile, but then decided I just didn’t feel like working that hard. We didn’t stop again until we reached Burlington. I wanted to ride up Snake Alley, so I was happy to learn that the course included that. It was easier than I thought, but I don’t think I’d ever want to race there. Waterboy had our van right at the top of Snake Alley. We took a quick trip down to the river so Spokes could dip his tire (this was his first Ragbrai), and then we headed back to load up the van. Only a handful of the Short Bus guys had ridden on Saturday and for the first time all week, we hadn’t run into them on the ride. Timmer decided we should wait around to say good bye to them. They live all over the country, so we don’t get to see them outside of Ragbrai. We heckled on Snake Alley for a few minutes until they all arrived. We said our farewells and then began our long trip back to reality....

I miss Ragbrai

2009-07-26T14:39:00.000-05:00

It's the Sunday after Ragbrai... my least favorite day of the year. This day marks the beginning of my usual post-Ragbrai depression that only ends when I finally accept that Ragbrai is really over and I have to wait a whole other year until it comes around again.

Unfortunately, the more fun I have on Ragbrai, the harder it is to go back to reality. I would have to say this was probably my favorite of the 9 Ragbrai's I've done so far. Going back to work tomorrow is going to suck.

At the end of Ragbrai, I always feel like I'm ready to go home. I'm ready for a hot shower, clean, dry clothes to put on, and a bed to sleep in... but once I get home, I want to be back on Ragbrai.

I woke up this morning at 3:30am. For a second, I wondered if it was a train horn that woke me, a local teenager squeeling the tires of their pickup truck, a barking dog, or maybe JB screaming F-bombs at the top of his lungs at a townie who lied about being a Marine. It was none of those things. I was no longer on Ragbrai. There are no more trains, no more townies, just me at home, dreading my return to reality.

I live for Ragbrai. Ragbrai is really the only place where I can totally relax and be myself. It's the one week of the year that I just don't care what other people think of me. I say what I want, I do what I want, I swear a lot, I drink a lot, I eat what I want. It's the one week where I really don't give a f*** about anyone but myself. I love it.

Ragbrai is one of the few places where image doesn't matter. No one cares who you are the other 51 weeks of the year. No one cares if you have a 6 figure salary or no job at all, if your bike costs $500 or $5000, if you're a high school dropout or a PhD. It just doesn't matter. We come from all walks of life with one goal... to get across the state of Iowa on a bike and have one hell of a good time doing it.

Mission accomplished.

I'll post more on Ragbrai later. Right now I've got a steaming bag of laundry that requires my attention... or maybe just some lighter fluid and a flame.

Game off.

LTF post race thoughts and RAGBRAI!!

2009-07-16T10:38:00.000-05:00

I’ve had a week to think about my performance at the LTF triathlon last weekend. Overall, I’ve got a “oh well, whatever” attitude about that race. I feel like nothing went right during the race. I felt distracted. I wasn’t concentrating on the task at hand, and it showed in my times. I trained hard for this race and that training was not reflected in my performance. On the other hand, it’s just a race. It was only my 2nd Olympic distance and my 2nd year of triathlons. I need to expect that there is a learning curve. And besides, crossing the finish line last weekend marked the point where I could start looking ahead to RAGBRAI!

What went wrong? Transitions. This seems to be a repeating theme with my races. This time was pretty pathetic and it’s 100% my fault. I laid out my transition area incorrectly. I should have come out of transition using a different aisle. It would have made the flow smoother. It’s just a little frustrating to look at your times and know you could go toe-to-toe with the best athletes on any leg but your transitions are preventing you from winning your AG. I will learn from this experience.

This course was not a fast course like I thought it would be. The rough roads on the bike really made the bike leg hard. Plus, I’m better with strength than speed. Hilly courses are really my forte. This course was not.

I need to focus on the task at hand. On the swim, I was thinking about how I had to pee and how my timing chip was dangling from my ankle. On the bike, I was thinking about how my computer wasn’t working. I’m really not sure what happened on the run because I felt great. It could be that there were just too many people around. That second lap around the lake was crowded. I also prefer out-and-back courses so I can check out the competition ahead of me. On this course, I had no idea how far ahead the next girl was.

On the other hand, I finished 5th in my AG against some tough competition. I can’t complain about that, especially since I’m still a newbie in this sport.

My next triathlon isn’t until September 6th, so I’ve got a couple weeks to have fun before I buckle down with training again. What can I do to have some fun in the next week or so?? Oh yeah, RAGBRAI!

We pack up the van tomorrow night and ship out Saturday morning. We’ll arrive somewhere along the Missouri River on Saturday night and Sunday will start our 7-day trek across the state. I can’t wait. I’ve put in over 1200 miles on my bike(s) so far this year. My previous pre-RAGBRAI maximum mileage was around 250. This year is going to be cake!

I was going to write up a pre-RAGBRAI post, but I see my fellow Trousermouse, ELF, has already done that. Rather than waste my time writing exactly what she has already written, I’ll send you to her post.

I will not be posting for the next week or so. I take my vacations seriously which means no computers, no cell phones, no Twitter, no Blogger, no connection to reality. I don’t care what anyone else is doing next week. I’m on RAGBRAI.

If you want to know what Team Trousermouse is up to next week, follow ELF, the undisputed King of RAGBRAI, or the Shady Sicilian.

P.S. For all of ELF’s athletes - If you go a few days without hearing from her, just assume that my incessant peer pressure has finally worn off on her and she is in jail. If you receive a collect call from any Iowa county sheriff’s department, go ahead and accept the charges and she will provide your workout. :-)

RAGBRAI, here we come!

Lifetime Fitness Race Report

2009-07-11T12:07:00.000-05:00

So-so, average, mediocre, whatever.... that pretty much sums up my feelings of my performance at the Lifetime Fitness Olympic triathlon.

I missed a PR by 4 minutes and for the first time in my life, did not make the podium. On the other hand, I feel like I worked hard, I had fun, and I really don't have any regrets.

The details:

Finish Time: 2:35:19.5
Category Place: 5 out of 65 Women 25 to 29 finishers
Overall Place: 201 out of 1040 International Course finishers
Gender Overall Plc: 27 out of 296 Female finishers

The splits:

Swim 1.5K
Time: 30:11.1
Pace: 2:00 /100m (my slowest swim pace ever - ugh!)
Category Place: 18
Overall Place: 354
Gender Overall Plc: 80

Transition #1
Time: 3:45.5
Category Place: 36 (Super sucky transition)
Overall Place: 648
Gender Overall Plc: 185

Bike 40K
Time: 1:13:32.1
Pace: 20.8MPH
Category Place: 4 (Crappy pace, but decent placing)
Overall Place: 227
Gender Overall Plc:16

Transition #2
Time: 1:53.6
Category Place: 18 (A little less sucky transition, but still pretty sucky)
Overall Place: 329
Gender Overall Plc: 73

Run 10K
Time: 45:57.0
Pace: 7:25/M
Category Place: 4 (Another slow pace, but decent place)
Overall Place: 155
Gender Overall Plc: 16

The race report:

At 4am, I was awakened by a noise. Unfortunately, that noise was my alarm clock. It was time to get up and start my day.

By 4:45 Husband was driving me to the race site. I was fully awake and excited to race. I couldn't stop smiling. It was going to be a great day.

5am - Body marked and heading into the transition area to set up my stuff. The computer on my bike has been giving me troubles. Although it's brand new (only used once so far!), it has apparently decided to only work intermittenly. I played around with it for a good 20 minutes before finally giving up on it. I tried to mentally prepare myself to have to ride without knowing my distance or MPH's.

6am - I ate the 2 granola bars I had brought for breakfast. Unfortunately I had forgotten my water in the car, and I didn't want to drink the Gatorade I had on my bike. I asked a volunteer and they graciously gave me a bottle of water from the volunteer tent. They were so nice!

6:25am - I decided to wear my wetsuit for the swim. The water was just under 75 degrees (74.9, I believe) so I was on the fence about wearing it. I think I asked every person around me if they were going to wear theirs and most people were going to. I stood around with the girl racked next to me, trying to figure out why no one seemed to be putting wetsuits on. Finally I decided just to commit to it and put mine on. We only had 5 minutes left before the transition area closed!

6:32 - My rack buddy and I headed to the beach to find no other athletes there. I was so confused! Where the hell was everybody?! Apparently we were just the first ones to leave transition, and eventually the other athletes starting making their way to the water.

6:45 - I saw Maria and introduced myself. We chatted for awhile and then headed out to the water for a little warm-up.

7:02 - I wished Maria good luck as she headed off to start her race. I head back out in the water to ~~pee~~ continue my warm-up.

7:17 - I made my way out of the water to line up in my wave. It was a time trial start, so we lined up in numerical order by our race numbers and were sent off every 3 seconds. The group ahead of me were having problems keeping sight of the buoys in the direct sunlight, so the race coordinators had to hold back my wave until boats could get out and redirect the swimmers back to the course.

7:22 - I started my swim. I immediately passed a group of 4 girls who had started a few seconds ahead of me. I felt relaxed and strong. The TT start allowed me to get into a rhythm and stay there since I wasn't constantly running into people. I still hit and got hit by a number of people, but it was managable.

I turned at the first corner (it was a triangular swim course). I kept getting caught by people. I could feel the timing chip slip out from under the leg of my wetsuit. It was loose. I prayed that no one would hit my leg and accidentally pull it off. I debated stopping to tighten it, but decided to keep on going and hope for the best.

I made the 2nd turn and started heading back to the beach. I had to go to the bathroom. It must be the water because I had already peed 3 times that morning! I figured if I was going to have to pee during the race, the water was the place to do it. Unfortunately, peeing anywhere other than in a bathroom is not something I'm good at. Peeing while swimming turned out to be impossible. I was approaching the beach and knew that my window of opportunity was closing. I could see two red swim caps ahead of me. I decided the pee attempt was futile and decided to just hold it and chase down those 2 girls instead. I caught the girls and exited the water.

7:53 - I jogged out of the water and up to the ENORMOUS transition area. I overshot the turn I needed to make to get to my bike rack. I took a small detour around some volunteers and got myself back in the right aisle. To my surprise, only a couple of the bikes on my rack where gone when I got there, but there were a couple girls right behind me. I got my wetsuit off with only a little struggle and got all my bike gear together. Unfortunately, my transition area was not set up well and I struggled getting my bike off the rack. I accidentally knocked a bunch of my stuff into the next girl's area. I took a few seconds to get all my stuff in order before taking off on the bike.

7:57 - Out of transition and on the bike course. My bike computer was working fine... for about 2 minutes. Then it turned off completely. Wonderful. I passed a crap load of people in the first mile or two. I knew the first half of this course well. A friend had told me that although the bike course was flat, the rough roads made it a slow course. He was right. The course sucked. We had a headwind going up West River Parkway. My legs felt tired, but I remembered it took 7 miles for my legs to show up in my last race. I ate a gel for some calories and that helped a little. I concentrated on passing as many people as possible. Overall, it was a decent ride, but I never felt strong or smooth through that leg.

9:10ish - Off the bike and entering T2. Again, I had trouble with my transition. It was just set up all wrong. I struggled to rack my bike and then struggled to grab all my run stuff since I had knocked everything around in T1. I also took an extra second to finally tighten the timing chip around my ankle. I didn't want to have to run with that bouncing around on me.

9:12ish - Starting the run. I looked at my watch. My total time was at 1:50. I knew it would take me 45 minutes to run the 10K and that would put me 5 minutes past my goal time. Even if I pushed the run, I knew my goal time was out the window.

I missed the first mile marker, but passed the 2 mile marker in 15:15 (7:38 pace). Not great, but the run seemed to be going by very quickly. Before I knew it, I had completed my first lap. Husband, Timmer and Shady were around the 3 mile mark and by that time I was feeling great.

The second lap of the run was crowded. A lot of people had started on their first lap and it was hard to distinguish who was on what lap. The guy next to me was also on his 2nd lap. I could tell he was starting to slow down. "Let's go get some people," I challenged him. We picked up the pace and finished miles 3 and 4 in 7:20 and 7:17. I walked through a water stop and lost a few seconds on my new running buddy, but kept him within my sight. My 5 mile split was 7:37 - What the hell happened there?! I don't know. One mile to go and I started to pick it up. I felt strong and fast. I headed toward the finish line at a good clip and once I could see the line, I kicked. I had a great kick and even caught 2 guys in the last 10-15 yards.

10am - I was finished! I missed my goal time by 5 minutes, but I didn't feel like I could have pushed any harder in any leg. Of course, my transitions cost me a lot of time, but I can't say I really care either. I'm out there to have fun. When I decide to start taking triathlons seriously, then I'll work on things like transitions. For now, I'll just swim, bike, run and have a good time doing it.

A few pictures taken by friends:

Coming off the last turn toward the bike finish.

My sprint to the finish line.

Well, that race is over and now it is finally time to look ahead to the next few weeks... particulary that little bike-themed vacation I have coming up in just a few days! ;)

LTF Pre-race

2009-07-09T14:23:00.000-05:00

2 days to go until my next race. I am ready. I worked my butt off these last 3 weeks. Last week I could feel my legs were ready for a taper. I had pushed myself to the limit and I was hurting. Now I’m tapering for a week to be ready to go on Saturday. I’m dying to get out there and race again!

I’ve been over to the race site a couple of times this week. All the tents are set up, the barricades are standing along side the intersections, and the place is buzzing with triathletes getting in some last minute workouts. This race is a very big deal.

Some things I’ve noticed this week:

Swim :
The lake is gross. Prepare to get tangled in seaweed. The water is super warm. I’m thinking wetsuits will not be allowed (kind of hoping for that). I swam this morning (without the wetsuit) and it was wonderful. The water was way warmer than the air temp and the lake was calm. I checked out the weather and I’m thinking it will be similar on Saturday. I'm contemplating swimming without a wetsuit even if the lake stays under 78 degrees. It's pretty nice out there and I like the idea of not having to wrestle out of a wetsuit in T1. The swim starts in a time trial fashion. I’m not sure what to think about that. I've never done a TT start before. I’m hoping it will go smoothly and I’ll be able to catch a few people.

Bike:
A good number of the potholes on West River Parkway have been filled for the race. Minnehaha Parkway is still a little sketchy, but with the closed course, we should be able to spread out and avoid the cracks and holes. The course is entirely flat and has lots of long, straight stretches. I had my bike tuned up last weekend. I'm ready to fly through this course. It's going to be a fast one!

Run:
The course laps the lake 2 times. I’m hoping spectators will spread out so the south and east sides of the lake won’t be too quiet. I’ve run around this lake quite a bit, so there shouldn’t be any surprises on Saturday. It appears that there will be water stops every mile. That will be nice.

Good luck to everyone who is racing! It’s going to be a great day! Check back in a few days for my race report.

Independence Day 10K Race Report

2009-07-04T11:42:00.000-05:00

I've decided to try my hand at a few road races again. It's been awhile. In fact, the last race I ran (excluding the Boston Marathon) was last September. September! I used to race every week! (That's probably why I burned out so badly.)

My running has been going well lately, so I wanted to go out and race just to see what I could do. I decided to run the Independence Day 10K at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.

I've only done 2 10Ks in my entire life. One was a few years ago at Midnight Madness in Ames, IA. The bank clock at the start line showed 96 degress that night. Not ideal conditions. The other one was the Winter Carnival race I ran in January. It was supposed to be a half marathon, but the -21 degree temps forced race officials to shorten it to a 10K. Not ideal conditions.

I figured a PR was pretty much guaranteed today. I really had no goals other than to get my PR and see what I am capable of doing at this point in my training.

The course was 2 laps around Lake Harriet, which I figured would be good practice for next weeks Lifetime Fitness triathlon which ends with 2 laps around Lake Nokomis. The terrain was pretty flat with just a couple little hills on mile 2/5 (depending on what lap you're on).

Mile 1 - 6:59. I was wondering if I could run 7 minute miles, so this was a good starting point.
Mile 2 - 7:05. Still pretty good pace.
Mile 3 - 7:18. Still OK. I walked through a water stop on this mile. It was humid this a.m.!
Mile 4 - 7:07. Back on pace. Caught and passed the guy ahead of me.
Mile 5 - 7:14. Um, not sure why I slowed down so much. Oh well, whatever.
Mile 6 - 7:16. No excuses for the slow pace here either. Guess I was just ready to be done.
0.2 miles - 1:24. Crossed the finish line in 44:25 (unoffical time)

My previous 10K PR was 48:19, so I was pretty happy with my time today. My overall average pace came to 7:09 which I'm definitely pleased with.

In Iowa, there aren't too many 10K distance races. Most of the races are 5Ks or 8Ks. I was happy to realize that my 5 mile split this morning would also have been an 8K PR by almost 1 minute! Pretty cool to be that much faster than I was last year. Hopefully it will continue to pay off in my triathlons.

I'm off to continue enjoying my holiday weekend. Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!

Getting trashed

2009-06-26T18:22:00.000-05:00

For the last week and a half, my goal has been to get trashed every day.

No, not that kind of trashed.

Trashed as in trying to make my body hurt, trying to tear my legs down until my quads feel like they’ve been sent through a meat grinder, trying to force my heart rate so high its on the verge of beating right out of my chest, trying to run at paces I never thought possible, and making myself breathe so hard I feel like I’m drowning on dry land….

That kind of trashed.

I worked my butt off last week and now I’m trying to better those workouts this week. My Wednesday nights have been spent on the infamous Birchwood hill ride. If you’re not familiar with the course, it includes all Saint Paul’s biggest hills… Edgcumbe, Snelling, Ohio, High Bridge, Indian Mounds, Ramsey, and a few other not-so-notable climbs. It’s a killer. Last week my goal was to finish the ride. I finished fine and felt like I could have pushed harder. This week, I was determined to give 110% on the hills. I didn’t just want to get up the hills, I wanted to attack them. As usual, I was the only girl. I was determined to not get beat on the climbs. When the boys attacked, I went with them. When a sprint broke out, I sprinted too. When the guys were out of the saddle, hammering on the pedals, I was too.

It hurt.

But it felt good too. It felt good to make my legs burn and keep pushing when I didn’t think I had anything left…. and then do it all over again on the next hill, and the next hill, and the next hill. I surprised myself because I thought I would burn out eventually, but I didn’t. Ramsey Hill is always our last hill. Either I’m getting stronger or that hill is getting smaller. Every time I climb it, it feels easier than the last time. Funny to think that before this spring I was too scared to even attempt it.

My legs were pretty much toast after that hill ride. My early morning yoga class was pretty pathetic. I couldn’t hold a chair pose to save my life, but that was the goal for this week. Get trashed, then get trashed again. So that’s what I did.

Last night I met up with Steve, Pharmie and Borsch for a track workout. (Pictures courtesy of Steve)

I did 5 x 800. I wanted to do 6-8 x 800, but everyone else was finishing their workouts, so I quit too. I feel kind of guilty about that, but I think I still got a good workout in.

Here are my splits:

1st 800 = 3:08 – that's pretty fast for me...

2nd 800 = 3:08 – ...or maybe that’s just my new pace?

3rd 800 = 3:13 – starting to hurt

4th 800 = 3:13 – losing motivation, but at least I’m keeping a steady pace

5th 800 = 3:11 – workout done!

I’m in a strange place with my running. I have no idea what my pace is. I have no goals. I’ve surpassed what I thought I could do, and now I don’t know what to expect. I was thinking my 800’s would be around 3:20 since my mile repeats a couple weeks ago were at 6:40-6:45. I guess I'm faster than I thought.

I’ve still got some more big workouts ahead of me, but right now I'm feeling pretty trashed.

Mission accomplished.