Winning

Note:  This is a long entry.  But this is my journal.  And, a lot happened this weekend.  

This weekend was our 3/4 to Iron Training Weekend up in Clear Lake.  Thanks to a very generous Ironteam alum, who opens up his gigantic party home to Ironteam each year, we have a great training environment and "home base" to swim, bike, run, and celebrate from.   We arrived on Friday night, dropped off our bikes at the house, and headed to the not-so-lovely Anchorage Inn in Lakeport to prepare our nutrition for the next day and get to bed.  

I commented that our hotel room looked like a meth lab.
The next day I learned that Clear Lake is the meth capital of California.  ha ha

At 6:30am, I was in the water for a 2 mile swim.  I remembered to take a Dramamine to combat my newfound  seasickness.  I still got a little nauseated coming back toward the house, but managed to keep my breakfast down.  Win #1  

I was happy with my time and just finally felt "good" in my swim.  Win #2

The bike ride was a different story.  I learned a lot this weekend about nutrition, my mental state, the emotional roller coaster I will experience, and my physical abilities, etc. (which I guess is a lot of why we do big training weekends like this).  

First of all, I didn't eat in between the swim and the bike.  Bad idea.  While I am not a speedy swimmer, swimming is very second nature to me and I tend to forget that it does use up energy, calories, resources, etc.  By Mile 10, my glutes and hammies were cramping and I had already drank a full bottle of water and at least 1/2 of my liquid nutrition. I stopped at Mile 13 to get more water and take some electrolytes to help with the cramping.  

Probably somewhere around Mile 14-16 was lots of climbing, I was still cramping, and the first tears came.  It was the whole "What am I doing?  I am only 1/6 into my day.  How am I going to do this?" pity party.  After feeling demoralized for maybe half an hour, I made it to the descent.  And, it was a reminder that I need to remember, "For every uphill, there is a downhill."

I was warned of "The Wall" and as Sedonia and Phil passed me, I asked how far into the ride before we find it.  About 10 minutes later, Sedonia yells from way ahead, "I think this is it, Jess!"  Just pure coincidence that I found her about that time so I had fair warning.  I geared all the way up, rounded that curve and hauled ass down that hill.  And, yet even though I had been warned by so many people, and even though I knew what was coming, I literally yelled "Oh shit" as my bike rounded the curve and all I saw was pavement going vertical right in front of me.  Luckily, I had so much speed going down that I got halfway up "The Wall" before it became hard again.

At the top of "The Wall".  If only we could have taken a picture
from the bottom of the hill to give its name justice.

Around Mile 40, I'm having a hard time again.  Nick catches up to me there and he rides with me to Mile 53, which is the main water stop and where we have our special needs bags.  I eat half a sandwich, refill my bottles, reapply sunscreen and chamois butter (as most of us girls are already in pain).  I spent longer at the park than I should have, but it was shady and they had wet towels for us.  *sigh*

From there, it's a 30 mile out and back.  The road sucks and is full of potholes.  More climbing.  And, now I've been in the sun for 5.5 hours.  I know the climbs weren't as sustained or as long, but at this point I did a lot of cursing and yelling of "I'm tired of climbing!" and "No more fucking hills!" and "This isn't fun anymore."  And, I was just pretty much in a very dark place, almost lost control of my bike on one of the curves, and thinking bad thoughts about crashing and how no one would find me for at least an hour.  I realize now how pathetic this sounds, but it's pretty surprising what goes through your head after being on a bike for 6 hours and about 5 hours of that being alone.  At one point, I said to myself, "I need help."  And then I had to remind myself that I needed to do this alone.  Maybe 30 minutes later I saw Sedonia again.  She could tell I was not in a good place and turned around to find me.  By now I'm in full on tears and I ask what she is doing because I know she needs to train for her event, too, and not be bothered with me.  She tells me that we train with a team so that we aren't by ourselves.  I tell her that we have to be by ourselves on race day and she reminds me that we have spectators there.  And, every single spectator, most of them a stranger, is rooting for every participant to finish.  She's right.  We get to the water stop at Mile 69 and she asks if I want to turn around.  But, I am determined to finish 100 miles.  So she gets one of the volunteers at the water stop to ride the small loop with me.  Of course, it's more climbing.  But, he does his best to make me laugh and tell me jokes and helps me just spin through it all.  An hour later, we are back at same water stop.  They hook me up with Advil, some Beljum Budder, more sunscreen, peanut butter pretzels, water, and some "Yeah!" by Usher and I'm in a good mood again.  Win #3

At Mile 87 we are back at the park.  And, so a group of 8 of us ride back to the house together.  It was great to all be together and I learned how to draft.  Win #4 

At Mile 96 I'm hungry again.  I ate a few Energy Blasts and holy crap talk about a second wind (or maybe that was the 10th).  So the last six miles were good.  I had energy and I finished strong (and with a smile)!  Win #5

If this picture was bigger, you'd see the 102!

All I could think about was how nice that lake was going to feel as soon as I got back.  I got off the bike down, found my flip flops, grabbed a Coke, and ran into that water.  Win #6

On Sunday, it was time for our 3 hour run on very tired legs.  Due to my lack of running skills, in addition to a foot injury, I still hadn't run more than 7.29 miles in my life.  Our running coach said the first mile would be tough as we loosened up our legs, which it was, and that we could ease into each mile a little more as we feel comfortable.  I did a 4/1 run/walk and after half an hour I realized that I was going to get 10 miles in!  That gave me a huge boost of confidence, not only because it was the most I ever ran, but because I was doing it with legs that swam 2 miles and biked 102 miles the day before.  I definitely did not take enough calories with me on the run (any other day, it would have been enough, but with the huge calorie deficit, I burned right through them).  However, I managed to get in 11.25 miles in 3 hours!  Win #7

Mile 11

  

Summary:

Swim 2 miles - 1:10

Bike 102 miles - 9:57 

Ride time - 8:34 (yes, I definitely lallygagged quite a bit.  And, I noticed I can only ride 9.5mph while I'm crying) ha ha

Run 11.25 miles - 3:07

When I compare the time to our 1/2 Iron Training Weekend only 8 weeks ago, the times are drastic improvements.  Win #8 

Is it fast enough to meet a cutoff?  Not yet.  But I still have 6 months to Arizona.  I'll get there. 

I learned a lot this weekend about my body, my mind, my nutritional needs, and my spirit.  But, mostly, I learned that I can do this.  Win #9