Patriot Half - My First 70.3 Triathlon

Patriot Half - My First 70.3 Triathlon 

6/20/2015

The swim

Overall I’m happy with my time – it would’ve been even better if I hadn’t swam off course so many times.  I actually swam 2,351 yds @ 2:26/100 pace. 

I need to work on sighting better and managing the chaos.  At one point I had one person hook my left arm while someone else grabbed my right ankle.  It was only momentary but I all could think was – I’m going to drown and I only have 2 buoys left – God damn it!  I also almost got run over by a kayak!!!

I was happy that when I stood up I didn’t have any vertigo – that was huge!!!

T1

I lost a lot of time trying to get my wetsuit off.  I need to become more efficient at this.  I also was a little flustered when GU’s wouldn’t stay under the leg of my tri shorts. I had practiced this in my rehearsal but it was with my bike shorts and I wasn’t wet.   I lost a couple of them trying to run to the bike mount line.  Need to figure out where to put them until I get on my bike.

The Bike

I am really happy with this time – my goal was 4 hours and I did it in 3:44 and averaged 15 mph.  I had a little trouble initially trying to clip in with everyone watching but I just told myself to relax and take my time.  Once I did that I was off and I felt great then I realized that I had forgotten to take my watch off my wrist and put it on my bike.  I thought about how to remedy this for a bit because it would meant I had to let go of the handle bars with all these other bike whizzing by and tight turns that were congested.

Before I left T1 I had some coke so I knew I had some sugar on board giving me time to settle in and get thru the tight squeeze areas around Dunkin Donuts. A couple of miles in I decided to get some more nutrition on board so I had a couple of potatoes.  Now I had to fix my watch situation.  I decided I had 2 choices – stop to fix my watch or be courageous, slow down a little and switch it – I opted for the latter and was very proud of myself when I was successful.  Now I could settle into my race and tried to stay on race plan watts.  I also tried to be conscious of my fueling.  In hindsight, I could’ve done a better job on this aspect of my race, but at the time I thought I was doing a good job. 

I managed to get over the railroad tracks without losing any of my water bottles but I did see the water bottle carnage from the faster riders who lost theirs and carefully navigated Oz around the mess.

I had a lot of riders’ whiz by me and it seemed to me there was a fair amount of drafting going on but I didn’t worry about anyone but me.  I did pass 5 riders and they never passed me during the rest of the ride so that made me feel good.  I still struggle on hills but I am getting better at managing them and being conscious of ‘pulling’ up – which when I remember helps a lot.

I somehow pulled my groin muscle on my bike and so the further into the race when I tried to pull up on hills it ‘reminded’ me not always so gently that it wasn’t happy.  It wasn’t bad enough that I needed to stop and adrenaline helps a lot with the mind over matter. 

I’d practiced on the course 3 times prior to race so I knew that, for me, the last 2 hills, although short, were going to be snotty because they were the last 3 miles of the ride.  I just reminded myself of this and that once I got over them I was back to the beginning and time to get off and run.

T2

Again, this was slower than I would like but I didn’t fall over on my dismount and that was really important to me with my daughter, coach and team mates standing there.

The Run

Coming out of transition my daughter was standing there and I couldn’t help but stop and give her a hug and kiss – it was awesome.  Then my coach, Patricia Brownell, joined me for the first ½ mile or so to see how I was doing and how my stomach was doing.  I told her about how my groin hurt but other than that I was ok and my IBS, to that point wasn’t an issue. 

The paces that Peej has planned for me were slower than what I had been running lately and we had talked about it and she assured me that I’d want those paces.  The first 2 miles were sub 12 min. miles which were faster than she wanted me to run so I tried to slow them down.  I figured that it would happen organically because I planned to stop at each water stop for water, Gatorade and coke.  This was the first race that I didn’t wear my fuel belt and just had my gels. 

By mile 3 my groin had started to hurt more than I had anticipated so I had to come up with a plan on the fly because I wasn’t going to DNF at this point in the race.  I didn’t care if I had to walk the whole way – I’m just too stubborn and I had worked too hard, and even more important to me – Melissa was waiting for me at the end and her face is what kept me going.

Running up the hills seemed to hurt the most so I opted to walk those and run the flats.  At each aid station I took water, poured some ice down my shorts to help my groin muscle (I know - TMI), and alternated between coke and Gatorade.  Unfortunately the Gatorade didn’t always agree with me and I had to stop a couple of times to ‘get rid’ of it.

After the last aid station at mile 12 I knew I was close – I could feel it and when I saw Camp Cathedral I started to cry.  The last ¾ mile all I could do is cry and kept repeating to myself – ‘I did it! I did it!”

I’m still awed that I finished this and in under 8 hours. My friend and teammate took the series of pictures below and they sum up how I felt in that moment more than any words I have.  Thank you for these Jess!

Peej trying to reach over the fence since it's taller than she is.

I can't believe that I did it!

I see Beth waiting for me!

No words - just joy!

Sums up how I felt because there are no words!

 

There are so many people to thank and that helped me get to the start line but at the the top of my list is my daughter, Melissa Lawless.  You have no idea how much it meant to me to be able to share this with you. Melissa had never seen a triathlon and I'm sure she wasn't expecting it to be an all-day affair. But giving her a hug on my way out for my run and knowing that she was at the finish line made it an extra special day.

Also having my coach Patricia Brownell there was special - and she helped me keep my head on straight and re-assured me that I could do this distance.

And what can I say about my E3 Training Solutions teammates and coaches - each of you have been the best support system a girl could ask for - especially Jana Richtrova - who I've asked a million questions and Stephanie Feltman, when I was having a meltdown. There are no words to express my appreciation and gratitude.

The End Of My First "Triathlon Off-Season"

Having started this short journey as a runner there really was never an off-season.  My friends and I still ran outside all winter training for a spring marathon. This year however I decided that instead of a spring marathon that I'd like to do the next distance in triathlon - the half Ironman. This race consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) run for a total distance for the day of 70.3 miles. Weather wise I couldn't have picked a better winter to do most of my training indoors. We had a blizzard, broke several snow records including the snowiest winter ever.

In triathlon there is an 'off-season' - where you focus on improving your performance and strength while not "training" for a specific race necessarily. I've  had a few people ask me which sport I was going to focus on during the offseason which leads me to think that's what some athletes focus more on one aspect and just keep a base in the others ... but I'm not sure. In my case my coach has me focusing on swimming and riding because those are the newest sports for me.

E3 Tri-Team has a swim coach, Karen Vasso, and she has been running open water swim classes on Thursday nights at MIT - which is a beautiful pool by the way. I have been attending class since October. The classes have gotten increasingly difficult - which they should - but I have struggled at times often feeling that my swim experience (read - speed) is far behind everyone else in the class. The support and encouragement that I get from everyone though is wonderful and it keeps me going back. I swam my longest distance a couple of weeks ago, 2600 yards - a little under 1 1/2 miles, and while it wasn't non-stop it's still a long way and a lot of time and if felt great!

E3 also holds indoor bike trainer classes at one of our sponsors - Landrys Bikes - which is ideal for me because my coach, Patricia Brownell, leads the class.  At the beginning of the session we do heart rate or power test to see where your fitness level is.  I had done this class last year and I increased my fitness level a lot of the past year.  As my coach put it - "Someone has learned how to pedal"!  That meant a lot to me, especially since I really love riding my bike.

The weather finally broke and I've been able to get some outdoor riding done and have even gone out by myself which was a huge accomplishment.  Its still a bit to cold for me to get into the open water which is frustrating but it will happen.

Tomorrow, May 10th is Mother's Day and my first race of the season.  Originally I had signed up for the triathlon but decided, with my coaches "help", to change to the duathlon because the water temperature was only 58-60 degrees.

In comparing tomorrow's race to my first race of last season, I am still nervous about getting to the start line but this time its not because I'm not sure I can do it - this time I KNOW I can do and that I really like it - its nervous anticipation and excitement.

Here we go - bring on Triathlon Season 2015!!!!

My first triathlon season comes to an end or how I spent my summer vacation

My first triathlon season has come to an end and I've had so much fun that it never felt like training - it was like being on vacation.  Below are a few of the highlights of my summer - in no particular order.

Jerome was my partner in crime for the majority of the summer with Beth joining in on some of our rides and swims.

False starts - this is when I'm on my bike and stopped at a stop sign or a red light and it takes more than one attempt to get started again due to nerves and cars. On one particular false start poor Jerome got stuck on the wrong side of Rte 2 because it took me until the light turned yellow to get myself going again.

Bricks (when you run after riding)  - My first "brick" - I found out really quick why its called a brick.  I think I only had to run for 10 mins - the entire time I was thinking how I'd made a big mistake about this 'tri' thing, that I couldn't possibly run 3 miles.

One of our first long - rides the "Sweet Virgina " loop - description: flat with  gently rolling hills. Well, in my humble opinion that was a bit of a fib.  There was nothing rolling about the hills and it was one of my first long rides. At mile 13  I ended up falling over going up one of the hills - I panicked a bit, dropped my chain, fell over - still clipped in.  Banged up and bloody I finished the ride, it rained a little, washing off some of the blood.  We got lost and ended up going about 35 miles.  I had to do a short brick after the ride and my ankle didn't feel gret but then this was only my second brick and nothing felt great so I didn't think anything of it until we were back at the car and I took my sneakers and socks off. That's when I realized the golf-ball sized swelling on my ankle wasn't a good thing - I'd sprained the damn thing.

Wet Suits -  it takes a village to get the damn thing on the first (second or third) time.  The first time I wore it at Walden Pond I was swimming with Jerome we were swimming to the first point, only problem was every time I looked up to spot I was facing the house.  Apparently, its really important to make sure that you have the wet suit all the way up on BOTH sides or you swim in circles.  When I uploaded my information on Garmin I you could clearly see that I had swum in a circle several times before I just decided to doggy paddle to the point and fix myself.  It was pretty comical after I got done being frustrated.

First swim across Walden Pond - The first time I swam to other side of Walden, I stood up and looked across to the bathhouse and welled up with tears - I was so overwhelmed at what I had accomplished.

For my Olympic I wore an earplug for my swim - I didn't realize that I had left it in for the entire race until I was done and sitting with Tyler of Race-Pak in his tent and reached up to get a piece of "hair" out of my ear.

And of course - crossing the finish line - NOW I'm a triathlete!  An amazing, adrenaline-filled, unexplainable feeling!