Washington's Crossing

A few months ago, in preparation for her Bay Swim event next weekend, Andrea suggested doing the Swim Across the Potomac event.  Since I have Eagleman next weekend, a little extra open water swim practice sounded perfect, so I signed up.  That morning, I met Andrea and new friend, Anne, who is also doing Ironman Maryland, at sunrise at National Harbor to begin our adventure.

We got ourselves checked in and body marked, and had a few minutes to sit around.  Well, I sat around while Andrea and Anne applied their body glide and put on their wetsuits.  I'd brought my wetsuit, but decided to do this swim without it.  Water temps were in the low 70's and I just didn't feel like going through the struggle.  Then it was time to board the boat that would take us to the Virginia side of the river.  We settled in on the top deck as we listened to details about the swim as well as "an ironic safety announcement.... in case of emergency, life jackets are located on the bottom deck..." - ha!

Check out the distance this swim was supposed to be!

The boat stopped and we lined up to jump off.  I followed the girls off of the front of the boat and kind of heard Anne exclaim about the coldness of the water.  Indeed, it took your breath away, and I would have probably screamed also, except... wedgie!  Yikes!  Kinda wished I'd had my wetsuit on for that 3ft jump!  Thank goodness we weren't in the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean!  And indeed, crystal blue waters these were not.  Brown, murky water with debris floating around was what we were greeted with as we swam over to the starting area to wait for the horn to sound.

Everything started out fine, and I was OK with not having a wetsuit.  After the initial shock, the water started feeling good, and there wasn't too much contact with the other swimmers.  I think I was swimming next to Anne for awhile, as I noticed the bright green strap of her watch, but then all of a sudden I couldn't see her anymore.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't see anything!  My goggles had fogged up so much that they had even blocked the sun!  I stopped to rinse them out and must have slammed them back on my face because I ended up with the worst. headache. ever.

Now check out how far I swam...

After swimming for awhile, I felt like I was making some good progress and looked at my watch.  20 minutes.  Wow, this swim is going really well!  I looked around for the buoy that we were told would mark a third of the swim, but didn't see it anywhere.  Weird, I must have passed it without knowing it?  Oh well, onward!  Except, my headache was getting worse and worse.  I had to stop and take my goggles off and do a few strokes of breaststroke just to give my head a break.  Of course, there was no way I'd make it across that river doing breaststroke the whole way, so I made sure to only stop for a few minutes.  And of course, the headache immediately came back.

I should have arrived at the finish from the south side... complete opposite direction!

After a few more stops of breaststroke, I looked at my watch again.  40 minutes.  I was awfully close to the Wilson bridge.  I didn't think we were supposed to be so close to that bridge.  Then I looked to my right.  There in the distance (like half mile away) was that dang buoy!  I was really off course!  Yikes!  Now I was just annoyed.  Every once in awhile I'd see another swimmer around me, so I knew I wasn't the only one off course, but geez.  Even the [longer] Save the Bay swim in Newport, with no buoys at all, I wasn't that far off course!  55 minutes had now passed and I was nowhere near the Maryland side of this river.

This swim should not have taken me this long.  The thing is, my swimming didn't feel awful, and I'm sure that part of the slowness had to do with a) not wearing a wetsuit, and b) stopping so many times to do breaststroke because of my headache.  So, I'm not super disappointed with this swim, just annoyed.  Andrea and Anne both reported swimming off course and close to the Wilson bridge also, but their Garmin's read 1.35 and 1.39 miles respectively, so my 1.47 was way off.  What the hell was I doing out there?!

Of course, the main reason we do any of this is for the post-workout food and drink, so Andrea and I made our way over to the Redstone and grabbed a table outside.  The wait staff asked us if we'd gotten the bronze medal for something... and we said absolutely we did!  It's the closest I'll ever get to a podium finish!

Tommy was supposed to do this swim with us also and bailed at the last minute, but Paula still came to join us for brunch.  It was lovely weather and good company, though we were all completely exhausted by the end.  If it hadn't been for being in the Potomac all morning, I would've seriously considered bypassing the shower.  I was thankful this was a recovery week and I got to spend the rest of the day lounging around.

fighting the gorilla

"Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired."

- Greg Henderson

I'm tired.

I am always tired.

My alarm goes off in the morning and before I can get myself out of bed, I have to mentally plan for the next time I will be able to get into my pajamas.  Sometimes it's a nap before my evening workout.  Sometimes it's an 8pm bedtime.  For real.

And I hurt.

Thanks, Mom, for the compression socks!

My whole body hurts. All the time. My calves, my quads, my arms, my shoulders, my back.  Massages hurt.  You know you're in trouble when massages hurt!

Heidi, Darcy, Me, Joann, Angelika... wineries the day after Kinetic!

My friends have started seeing a grumpier version of me.   I am always complaining. I am always hungry.  I even ate McDonald's once!!

Ironman is my gorilla!

But Ironman doesn't care how tired I am.  Ironman doesn't care how sore I am.  Ironman doesn't care if I get to hang out with my friends, or if I get all of my housework done. 

Though... despite being tired and sore, I am making progress.  In May I took my first vacation day from work to get in a ride before a weekend getaway... and did my longest bike ride ever!  Solo! 

And then I hopped on a plane to celebrate Heidi and Dan's wedding (and a bonus reunion with Chris and Meredith - Go Hoos!).  Travel during build weeks takes a special kind of effort (exhibit A: girls weekend in Vegas).  But I got it done, including a beautiful run along the coast of Narragansett.

May was a big month with 4 build weeks and only one recovery week:

Some other firsts (during May and the first week of June):

I had my first Ironman meltdown following a terrible, terrible ride in 100 degree weather.  This was recorded as either the hottest or second hottest May since they started recording weather.

I also had my first Ironman dream.  I'd heard of this happening.  I had finished the swim and headed into the T1 changing tent.  I saw a bunch of people sitting on folding chairs changing into their bike stuff.  I went to get my gear bag, but couldn't find it anywhere! Rather than a tent, we were in a large warehouse with racks of clothes and I was tearing through all of them trying to find my bag. Then the other athletes kind of disappeared and it was more like a real warehouse and I kept trying to get someone to help me, but everyone was too busy. I woke up in a panic that I had spent over an hour in T1 and there was no way I was going to make the cutoffs. It actually took me a minute to realize it wasn't real.  Strange!

And this is only just beginning.  I still have the whole summer to go.

Can someone please slip this gorilla a Xanax or something?!!

Herndon Festival 10K [and one terrible bike ride]

My running motivation lately has been zilch, zero, nada.  So, I started to search for local running events to try to force myself to get in a good run.  I found the Herndon Festival 10K and it was perfect.  I wanted to get in more than 6.2 miles, but figured I could just add on an extra couple on my own after the race, and even if I didn't feel like it, at least I'd have done 6.2.  So I signed up.

The weekend didn't start out so great.  I had an 80 mile bike ride on my schedule for Saturday.  Originally I had planned on doing the Team Z ride, but they canceled the Saturday ride, and I already had plans on Sunday, so once again I was on my own.  Luckily, Deb agreed to keep me company and we met out in Leesburg at 7:30am, hoping to beat the heat.  It was going to be a scorcher.

The plan was to do 2 loops of 43 miles each.  I knew that the route would start off mostly uphill but then the last few miles would be all downhill.  Sure enough, that first five miles were hard, but manageable.  Then we found ourselves on a busy road with signs announcing a parade and road closure at 11am.  Hmm... Then we continued on and came upon a small road that was closed for a half marathon.  The nice officer at the end of the road told us it was fine to bike down the other side of the road, so we continued on, having to jump off the road into the woods to allow vehicular traffic to go through (interesting considering the road was closed!). 

We had a pretty good little stretch, albeit on terrible rough road conditions, and then turned onto Loyalty Rd.  I hate hate hate Loyalty Rd.  That ten mile stretch was some of the hardest cycling I have ever done, and I was not prepared for it.  It was so demoralizing for me.  I guess the positive - if you really want to see a positive - is that I did not have to stop and take any breaks (or walk) at all on those hills (and trust me, I wanted to!).  When we finished the first loop, we both agreed we did not want to do that same route again, especially with the road closures (and my flat out refusal to do Loyalty Rd again), so we mapped a new route.  Of course, we got lost, but ended up forging our way around, making it up as we went along.  It was miserably hot at this point.  We found a water fountain and I tried to soak my head, but it didn't help.  I puked around mile 55, not sure if it was the heat or the salt tabs I was taking (first time with those) or my mood or what.  I knew I was done and we circled back to the cars at just under 65 miles.  Terrible.

Andrea sent this to me and Paula after my terrible bike, before my run!

I am thankful for good friends like Joann, Rob, Paula, Tommy and Andrea who talked to me and helped get my head back on track.  Still, given the awful training day on Saturday, I wasn't sure how this 10K was going to go, if I was going to be able to move at all.  I pulled myself out of bed, popped a few Advil, chugged some water and nuun, and started driving out to Herndon.  It was a small race (maybe 250 people) and immediately I wondered if I was going to be the last person, if I would even make it the whole distance.  But as they started us, I started jogging along, slow and steady.  I'd decided against intervals, that I would run when I could run, and walk when I needed to.  I ran nearly the first mile, took a short walk break and finished that first mile in just over 12 minutes.  For me, that's fabulous!

The next few miles slowed down, but still in the 13 min/mile time frame, which again is amazing, especially after a long ride the day before.  I was leap-frogging some people for awhile but eventually got far enough ahead of them that I couldn't even see them when I turned around.  I was thankful there were 3 water stops versus the one they advertised.  It was another hot day, even with the 7:30am start!  I saw some runners in front of me and wondered if I could catch up.  I did.  I was consistent the whole way and finished strong with an official time of 1:23:21.  Not my fastest, but felt good.  This run made me happy, and I was glad to end the weekend on a positive note.

Before getting in my car, I decided to do an extra couple miles on the W&OD trail which was right there.  A few steps in, I had a sharp pain just under my front hip bone and I think I pulled something (biking or running?  who knows.. ice later).  So, I basically walked / hobbled the additional couple miles, but I got in the distance for 8 miles total.  I will take it.  And for a bonus, I got back to my car, checked my phone and had a text from Jon telling me he was proud of me for getting in my workouts this weekend. 

Tired legs!

I drove home with a stop at Panera and spent the rest of the day at a couple wineries with Jon, Sweeney and Anjelika.  I made it to recovery week!!  Yippeee!!  I've never been a huge fan of yoga, but damn that felt good on Monday.  Then Tuesday morning at swim practice, Linda told me that she was a SAG for the team ride on Sunday and many people there had issues with the heat also, so it wasn't just me.  Feeling a little better... and looking forward to my massage this evening!