the epic 120/20 weekend - peak training!!

It's been sitting there on the calendar since the beginning of the season, the epic 120/20 weekend, peak training for ironman.  That is, 120 miles on the bike, and a 20 mile run.  Though for full disclosure, my weekend was more like 100/16... here's how it broke down:

Some of us slower folks were invited to start the long ride early, giving us an hour head start on the rest of the group.  So, we showed up at Nokesville Park at o-dark-thirty and prepped for our 6am start.  It was a little hard getting everything ready in the dark!  I hadn't even considered needing a headlamp or anything. 

Prepping Xena in the dark!

I started out with Maddison and Kate C.  I do have to say it was really pretty riding so early in the morning with the sun just coming up.  There were more hills than I expected, pretty early on in the 74 mile route.  I always fall back from the group on the uphills and then catch up to them on the way down.  But the hills are disheartening, and I just had to remember that Maryland will be flat. 

Kate and Maddison

Oh, in the last week, I also made a trip to Bonzai in search of a new saddle.  Mine had been killing me and I couldn't imagine doing another long ride on it.  I'm not sure it's the best idea to switch something right before the longest planned ride, but I knew it wouldn't be worse.  After testing out a few, I decided on one that was unfortunately out of stock and had to be ordered, but they let me keep the tester saddle so I could start riding with it.  I also bought a new pair of cycling shoes that would hopefully address the hot spots I'd been getting, specifically on the outside of my right foot.

I'm happy to report that the saddle worked well!  We picked up Kim O. around mile 30 and the 4 of us continued on together, with a quick potty break around mile 45 and then the aid station at mile 55 that Val and Kim N. had fully stocked with food and goodies.  I was feeling good, happy to be sticking with the pack and happy with my decision to buy that new saddle.  My feet on the other hand were not so great.  The new shoes were too narrow and squeezing my feet.  Funny that I bought the shoes to address a problem on one foot and the result was both feet hurting!

Kim, Kate and me!

Back at the cars at the end of the first loop and I was relieved that I still had my old shoes in my car, so I changed back into them.  Maddison wasn't feeling well and decided not to go back out for the next loop.  I started out with Kate and Kim, but they immediately took off and there was just no way I was going to be able to keep up, I didn't even try.  I wasn't feeling it anymore and this ride was no longer fun.  I put myself in a super low gear and just started spinning, going forward inch by inch.

Around mile 85, I was on a long slow incline, and I was done.  I got about halfway up, pulled over to the side of the road, texted Joann that I wanted to quit, and just stood there for awhile, trying to get my breathing under control and my head back in the game.  A bunch of Zers passed me in both directions, asking if I was OK and cheering me on.  Later Kate V. told me that as she was passing me and cheering for me, a truck came speeding down the road and terrified her.  When she looked back, she couldn't tell if I was laughing at her or crying.  To be honest, I'm not sure either!  It was definitely a low point in that ride.

I knew there was a gas station at mile 90, so I figured I could make it there and just sit for awhile. What I didn't know is that some of the SAGs set up an aid station there.  I wasn't in the mood to talk to a bunch of people, but they did have cold towels and Gatorade.  I hadn't realized how hot it had gotten!  Other cyclists came and went and I just sat there.  Linda and Katrina (the awesome SAGs) told me I was done and wanted to pull me, but I had decided that I wanted to at least get to triple digits.  I didn't do the full 110 ride a few weeks ago, and I was determined to at least do another century. 

The next aid station was 5 miles up the road, so I figured I could make it there and then do a small out and back to get to 100 miles.  And that's exactly what I did!  100 miles!  I guess I'm happy with that.  I had wanted to do 120, or at least 112, but it was hot, humid and hilly.  And I knew the last 5 miles of that route had a bunch of hills also... there was just no way, not how I was feeling.  Everyone says I'm fine.. I hope so!  I hung out with Val and Kim N. while they packed up the aid station and then caught a ride back to the park. 

I drove home, took a shower, ate some pasta salad and crawled into bed.  Another early day was greeting me on Sunday... the long run!  I arrived at Lake Accotink at 6:30 and joined the long line of Zers waiting for the gates to open.  The run was to be a 3-mile (each way) out and back route, plus there an additional 1-mile out and back route for anyone who needed an additional 2 miles.  We had a 4 hour time limit on this run, so I knew I wasn't going to get in all 20, but thought I'd get 17 or 18.

I felt good as I started out with my 2/1 run to walk intervals.  Again though with the hills!!  Some people decided to run the trail around the lake instead because it's flatter, and maybe I should have joined them, but wanted to be with people.  Usually it takes me until mile 3 or 4 to start feeling OK on the run, but I actually felt pretty good that whole first loop.  Kate V joined me for miles 3-6(ish) and it was nice to have someone to talk to while running.  That almost never happens for me.  I hate holding people back though so I was happy she decided to speed up a little for the 2nd loop. 

I spilled half my water bottle as I was trying to refill my hydration pack - oops!  As I started the 2nd loop, my legs were beginning to feel every mile of the bike ride the day before.  I maintained the intervals, minus walking up all the big hills, for the first half of that loop.  Then I started walking more than I should've.  I was definitely slow moving.  My pace for the first loop and a half was in the 14-something per mile range, and I could see it slowly creeping up.  Oh well.  About a mile from the park is where Joann and Daz found me, as they were there to cheer.  As a bonus, they gave me a water bottle which was awesome since I was completely out.  I realized that I would not have time to complete a 3rd loop, and decided instead to do the smaller 2-mile loop twice to get to 16 miles.  My goal at this point was to make this my longest run, and to do all 4 hours. 

Joann helped me refill my hydration pack this time so I didn't end up spilling anything.  Then she walked the first part of the loop with me.  Her and Daz leap-frogged the rest of the loop and Joann would get out and walk parts. That was awesome!  I walked a lot, ran when I could, but was getting bad calf cramps when I tried to run, to the point of not knowing if my legs would keep my body upright.  Then Allison appeared and joined me for my final stretch!  Those 4 miles seemed like they took forever and I was so happy to finally get back to the park and finish that run.  My socks were completely wet from all my sweat and blisters were forming on my feet.  Actually, all of my clothes were completely soaked.  Disgusting. 

I changed into a towel to drive home, took a shower and then it was off to a winery to celebrate being done with the peak training weekend!  I am only going to have to bike and run that far again during the race.  I can't say that it's all downhill from here, but we should definitely start winding down as we head into taper. 

We had a fun afternoon at the winery, stuffed our faces, drank lots of wine, and I was home and in bed by 6pm!  It's sad when you're actually looking forward to a Monday morning because it means you can sleep in longer than you were able to either weekend day (and still be at work by 7:30)!

Challenge Poconos (DNF)

When I signed up for this race, this was the description of the bike course:

This is a point to point course, so all those descents don't necessarily have an ascent associated with them.

Sounds good!  Unfortunately, a week or so before the race, they published the athlete guide which made mention of some changes, notably the swim location had changed, thus changing a good portion of the bike course (no longer point to point).  Hmm... there weren't many details and the website still read "gently rolling out and back ride".  OK.. not sure about this, and the elevation and course maps on the website hadn't changed, so no way to really know.  Nothing I can do about it now though, I'm committed.

Jon and I drove up to the Poconos on Saturday morning and straight to the race site.  Right away I saw Jen M and Kate who had attended the earlier athlete briefing.  Apparently they spoke of hills... uhh, wha???  Kate said that she drove the first 4 miles of the course, and indeed it seemed hilly with a big hill around mile 3.  Immediately I started freaking out about the bike portion of the race.  I went through check-in, racked the bike, and headed to Kalahari resort.  I hadn't realized how far away the resort was from the race area, and so Jon and I decided to skip the team dinner and just relax at the hotel restaurant.  Sweeney arrived at some point after I went to bed, not that I slept very well at all, thinking about those hills....

There were no complaints about the early wake-up time, even after I shifted our departure time up 30 minutes because I forgot to take air out of my tires and was worried about them popping overnight.  I wanted time to deal with that, just in case.  Of course when we arrived at the race site, my tires were fine and fog had delayed the start of the race for 15 minutes.  Oh well, better safe than sorry!  I had a few more conversations with people about the hills on the bike course and I was dreading that more than anything.  It was all I could think about. 

And we're off!

I waded into the water when it was time for my wave to start.  It actually dropped off quicker than I thought and we had to really work at treading water to keep from floating backwards down the river.  Too bad we were swimming upstream to start!  There was definitely a current.  Luckily there wasn't too much kicking and grabbing as we all started swimming, and the water was cool and clear.  I immediately felt some chaffing on my neck but tried not to think about it as I watched the rocks and mussel shells on the bottom of the river.  Shame on me for not knowing how many buoys we had to go past until the turn.  I kept thinking the next one would be it, but then saw everyone continue forward.  It was definitely hard swimming against the current.

Once we turned and crossed the river, we started swimming downstream.  This was so much easier!  The vegetation was significant though, and we were swimming through masses of seaweed and underwater forests.  Every stroke resulted in a ton of stuff hanging from my arms and stuck to my legs.  Yuck!  I could see the swim out section and had two buoys to go.  I looked at my watch.. 40 minutes.. oh well, no way I'm going to make it to the end in only 10 minutes, so I guess I'd have to settle for a 50+ minute swim.  I started thinking about that bike course again and wondering if I should slow down to put off the inevitable.  I was not excited to be done with that swim, but I climbed out of the river and started the long trek back to transition.  I saw Jon and Sweeney along the path taking pictures and cheering, and then I noticed I'd forgotten to hit the lap button of my watch.  It said 51 minutes, so maybe I did come in right around 50?  Jon told me later that indeed, my time was 49:40, so yay!

I was pretty efficient in transition, not wasting any time (like I'd wanted to) putting on my shoes, gloves, sunglasses and helmet.  7:42 isn't great, but did include the long walk from the water before I even got to transition.  Ready or not, it was time to start that bike ride, starting with a short but steep hill just to get out of the beach area and onto the main bike course.  I could tell this was going to be a long day.....

The first couple miles had some rollers and then I started up a pretty significant hill (in my opinion) and really had to crank it out to make it to the top.  The road pavement was equally as bad as the elevation.  Very, very rough roads.  I glanced at the mileage on my Garmin and it read 2.8.  Hmm.. this must be the hill that Kate was talking about.  Maybe it will get better now........

Nope!  I barely completed that thought when we were climbing again.  Only this one was so much steeper, and with the turns, I couldn't even see the top.  All I could see were there tons of people walking their bikes.  I didn't want to walk, not yet, but I ran out of gears and just couldn't go forward anymore.  I fell off my bike, right onto my knee.  I started having an asthma or panic attack (not really sure the difference), was dizzy and had to sit down.  As I sat on the side of the road, I saw 4 more people fall off their bikes.  I thought about quitting right there, but finally got myself together and walked the rest of the way up the hill.  It just HAD to get better now, right?

One of the few hills I actually made it up without walking!

Nope!  Another hill.  More people walking.  More people falling off their bikes.  I made it halfway (maybe a third-way?) up and got off my bike.  I walked to the top, put my bike against the wooden side railing and sat down.  I was done.  I could see the next hill already and just couldn't fathom 56 miles of this.  I didn't want to quit, but there was no way I could go on.  Less than 5 minutes later, another girl, who I now know as Amanda, joined me.  She was done too.  Many others stopped and chatted with us, taking a break and trying to convince themselves they should continue.  We encouraged them, and I even offered my inhaler to another girl struggling to breath. 

I am so thankful for Amanda's company as it took the race over 2 hours to come pick us up!!  2 hours!!  We saw people on their way out and again on their way back.  Linda passed us twice, and on her return trip we asked her to please mention to someone back at transition that we were waiting.  She'd be the 4th or 5th person to alert the race that we were there.  Several other athletes told us they'd reported to volunteers that we were waiting for a ride.  Even the final racer who was a Challenge employee passed us and made a phone call to ask someone to come get us, but nobody ever showed.  Weird that there were no SAG vehicles at all that passed us. 

Yeah, it doesn't really look that bad (although it IS a little worse than the photo shows)...
It actually doesn't really hurt much either, but a battle wound is a battle wound!

The logistics for this race were a little odd also.  There was no parking past 8:30am at Smithfield Beach, which is where transition was located.  There were also no shuttles for non-athletes between Smithfield Beach and the finish line/expo.  This means spectators could drive to Smithfield beach to watch the swim and bike start, but then had to move their cars and just sit at the finish line until their athletes finished.  In many cases, that's upwards of 7 hours of doing nothing!!  Jon and Sweeney were surprised to see me wandering around the expo so early, but they should consider themselves lucky that I didn't finish that race!

We stuck around for awhile and cheered on the finishers of the Olympic distance race.  Then we went on a driving tour of that bike course.  I had to down-shift the gears in the car to make it up those hills!  My biggest gripe about this event is that they never warned us about the bike course.  Most of the people I talked to signed up with the same impression that I had, that this was going to be a gently rolling course.  I understand it's not their fault they had to change the course at the last minute, but the lack of communication absolutely was their fault.  Not knowing about these hills until the day before played with my mind and I psyched myself out, especially since I have been training for IMMD's flat course.  There was no way to prepare for this based upon the description on the website, that even now doesn't accurately describe the course.

I found this comment in someone else's race report and I think it captures it perfectly.  Case and point, I would never sign up for Savageman:

[I'd] rate the race and Challenge higher if they we're transparent about the course and didn't make changes after most athletes registered. The aid stations and volunteers were great.  If you look at Savageman they we're always upfront about the course. You knew what to expect. Challenge Pocono ought to take a cue.

The three of us together got pretty dang close to the top of this chute!

But... moving on.  "Finishing" the event that early meant that we got back to the resort a lot earlier than expected, and with me a lot less sore than expected.  We spent the next day and a half lounging around at the water park at Kahalari, frozen drinks in the hot (warm) tub swim up bar, lazy river, water slides.  That part was fun.  I'm really happy Jon and Sweeney were both able to come up to Poconos and hang out. 

I have very mixed feelings on not finishing this race.  On one hand, finishing would have given me a nice confidence boost for Ironman.... maybe.... would a 9+ hour finish really have helped in the long run?  I do feel like maybe I gave up too soon, but I was miserable.  Physically I think I could have done it - Kate later told me that after the first 5ish miles, it wasn't so bad - but I psyched myself out mentally.  I missed out on the long ride and long run that day.  I should have just turned in my chip and done the half marathon anyway, but I didn't think of that.  The worst part is that there is no chance to redeem myself before Ironman in October.  That's going to stick with me, I think.

...and who knew I could develop such a long race report for a race that ended for me at mile 4.3 of the bike!

just plugging along

"Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic."

- Tim Noakes

To kick start July, I did my longest ride ever.  80 miles!  I'd had enough of all the hills and decided to do this one on my own, starting in Shirlington and riding the W&OD trail all the way out to Purcellville and back.  I also got my first Ironman training injury, around mile 60 of this ride:

This HURT!  It was a long 20 miles back to the car!

The next morning, it poured rain on Paula and me as we did our long run and crossed 3 states -- started in Virginia, ran through Georgetown in DC, and then up the Capital Crescent trail and into Maryland:

The picture does not do justice to how wet we were!

One week later, I did my new longest ride ever, my first century!  100 miles!  And I ended up with my second training injury:

No idea how I hurt myself - it didn't hurt - I had to be told I was bleeding.

Sometimes we did our long runs in the evening after work -- a makeup run after skipping it the previous weekend -- oops.  That might have been a lesson learned based upon how sore I was on Friday at the office.  People stared at me using my stick roller on my calves and ice pack on my ankle all day!  I did this run with Paula, but only took a selfie as I finished a few minutes ahead of her.  I was pleased with this performance, being able to go under 15 min/mi while doing 2 min run + 1 min walk intervals:

Holy blisters!  Luckily none of them hurt, just make my feet look disgusting.

We also ran in very HOT weather!  This was a mid-week run and I opted to skip the team's Power Run that was on the schedule (1 mile run + 10 min boot camp circuit, repeat 3 times) for a shaded trail run with Jessie, Eileen and Henry.  It was still ridiculously hot though:

This was the one time I forgot my Garmin... luckily I had my phone, but it's WEIRD running without my Garmin!

I drove down to Cambridge with my team to ride the Ironman Maryland course.  Of course it was another hot day!  It was supposed to be a 110 mile ride, 2 laps of 45 miles each plus 1 additional 20 mile loop.  I only made it the 2 loops of 45 miles.  One of my teammates, Adele, talked to me and told me I needed to listen to my body, that I seemed dehydrated and done.  I'd wanted to do triple digits though, so I climbed back on and set out for an out-and-back.  About a mile and a half down the road, I realized that my will to be off that bike was greater than my will to do triple digits.  So, 93 miles it was.  I don't regret it:

Love how they label the one hill of the course :-)

And that wraps up July.  Plugging along, plugging along.... I've actually biked over 1100 miles so far this year, by far the most bike mileage I've ever done (In 2014, I was just under 700 miles for the year).

It's hard to believe there's less than 2 months to go.  I'm not sure if that excites me or terrifies me...  one more month of hard work and then taper!