Playing catch-up: Armadillo Ride and Splash&Dash.
Fell a little behind in my event-reporting, so here's details from the Armadillo Ride last Saturday and Splash&Dash on Tuesday.
Armadillo Ride
I had a 3 hour ride on my schedule with intervals, so I decided to head out to Liberty Hill and do it at the Armadillo Ride. I decided on the 50 miler, figuring with the intervals, I'd be going faster than my standard easyride 14mph, so I'd get SOMEwhere near 50, even if it was perhaps a little long.
The workout was "3.0 hrs ride as 30 min ez spinning then do several short efforts to complete w/u, 45 min TT effort with 10 min ez spinning, 30 min TT effort with 10 min ez, 15 min TT effort" (where TT is Time Trial).
The day actually started out cold! Unseasonably so, in the high 50s. It was hard to stand around in a sleeveless jersey (in fact, I changed into a short-sleeved, because I'm a wimp), but I tried reeealll hard not to complain about the wonderfully cool temperature, since it was likely the last we'd see of it until.. December.
Pictures courtesy of the always-fabulous Jake North Photography
The ride went really well. The 45 minute TT effort involved a lot of headwind, but I pushed through it and felt pretty strong. Helped that I passed a lot of people, since they were just out for a ride, and I was panting and pushing as I went by. I was one of Those People. The ones who pass me huffing and puffing, and I think, "Dude, this is a ride for fun, not a race." The good part is, I was totally winning the race.
The 30min TT was unremarkable, and then the 15min TT was lovely due to finally having 15min of tailwind (how can one have 15min total of headwind in a 3 hour ride? unfair..).
What? I saw my good pal and photographer John Chung. I was happy. I'm fairly sure this wasn't during a TT effort part. I hope.
The last bit I just spun in easy. I noticed as I went over the bridge where Karen and I saw young boys throwing themselves off the bridge into the water below last year... there was no water below this year. They would have thrown themselves directly onto some rocks. Hurray, drought.
Despite my pessimism, I finished my 50.47 mile ride in 3:03:54. Spot on, and faster than anticipated. Hurray, getting faster on the bike!
Hopped off and headed out for my run: "40 min run off the bike - 15 min relaxed running focused only on leg turn-over, 20 min strong effort, 5 min ez c/d". It was still relatively cool outside, and I went too fast for the relaxed part. I didn't notice that the run course HCRC had laid out went the opposite direction from the bike route, so I just ran 20 minutes out on the bike route, and got cheers of encouragement and looks of disbelief in equal parts. Mostly the former. Hurray, triathletes who understand!
By the time I got back to the water stop, about 30 minutes done, I was feeling a little unwell. A little nauseous. I probably should have eaten something as I started the run. But I stopped a moment and drank some water and some gatorade, then finished up my last bit strong. All told, 4.91 miles in 0:40:19.
Overall, a fun event, as Armadillo always is, and a confidence-building workout, as well. Which is nice.
---
Splash&Dash
Instead of our standard Tuesday night Texas Iron run workout, we headed out to Quarry Lake to do Splash&Dash. I don't love S&D. We have some history. Wherein I feel like I'm going to vomit, and my times aren't anything I'm happy with, especially given how I feel like I'm going to vomit. But it'd been a few years, so I was ready to give it another try.
The bad: Standard S&D weather, really hot, really humid. The good: Everyone in the world that I knew was out there.
I got up pretty close to the front for the swim, even though I knew there were probably some really good swimmers up there. It's hard to know how you compare to 100 other women, but I knew things were going to get ugly in the middle of the pack, so I wanted to stay out of that if I could.
And things actually weren't bad, once we got started. The people in front of me zoomed away immediately, and nobody behind me tried to kill me, so I had my own water pretty quickly. I was fairly alone the whole swim. Every so often, someone would pass me, and I'd try to get on their feet, but it just never happened. I tried to swim as strong as I felt like I could without knowing how it was going to feel to push that hard for 750m. I know what I can do for 2.4 miles (go pretty moderate). I know what I can do for 300m (push really hard). But this was a distance I hadn't done for a while in a race. Passed some side-stroking men from the wave that started 4 minutes ahead of us. Did some Swimming In A Random Direction as we came back into shore directly into the sun, hoping I wasn't going to speed my way head-first into one of the platforms. Tried to use my arms more and relax my legs as I came into shore and exited the water.
I had set up my transition area pretty close to the water's edge, so I high-stepped it over the rocks to my stuff, jammed my feet into my shoes, sockless, swapped goggles and swimcap for sunglasses and garmin, and ran up the rocky hill to the run course.
I was wearing a normal watch, and I'd started it when the swim started, but I also wanted to wear my garmin for the run. The paces listed for my runs in the results for S&D always seem slower than I felt like I ran, so I wanted to have the garmin tell me what I really did. I was now wearing two watches, one of which was GIANT (damn garmin), and it was incredibly uncomfortable. But dammit, I wanted to know my times/paces.
Set out for the run, and Julie passed me immediately. Used her as my rabbit until I couldn't see her anymore, then just settled in. One of my main goals was to hold Priscilla off as long as possible. I figured I had beat her on the swim, but she can massively outrun me, so I imagined her breathing down my neck the whole time. I actually felt better on this S&D run than I ever have. It was hot and humid and I HATEHATEHATE the deep gravel out there, but I felt strong. I was passing people, I was keeping my breathing relatively calm, and my legs felt pretty okay. I tried to cheer for the people I knew, though I didn't have a lot of breath to spare, so I'm not sure they even heard. I tried to push as hard as I could without feeling like I couldn't keep that up for 3 loops. I split each time I passed over the timing mat. I tried not to cry as I was finishing my first loop and Richie Cunningham was walking back toward his car, fully dressed, looking like he'd not even exercised (Jamie later made me feel better about this by telling me Richie had just done the swim, hadn't done the run.. whew).
Then before I knew it (which never happens at S&D), I was rounding the final corner, and pushing for the finish line! I was afraid to look back, lest I see Priscilla bearing down on me at the last minute, but she never caught me. (She wasn't right behind me either, but she did assure me that had she gotten close enough to see me ahead of her, she totally would have done everything she could to run my ass down.) I felt really strong the whole run. It was good.
I spent a few minutes breathing heavily and chatting with people and cheering other people in, then realized I hadn't stopped my watch. Or my garmin. So I didn't know my finish time. And I hadn't split my watch for anything.. the swim, the run, any of the run loops. And when I checked my garmin later, it turns out that.. I never started it. I split each time, but since it wasn't actually RUNNING, it recorded nothing. My entire arm was covered in watches that ultimately gave me zero information. Yay!
Now that the results are up, though, I'm actually really pleased with my performance out there. 17/114 women. Swim+T1: 13:53. Run paces, according to the results, were 8:58, 8:50, 8:32. I actually felt like I was running much faster than that, and I'm a little confused as to where they even got those paces. Supposedly that loop is ~1k, and 1k in 5:07 (which is what the results say my last loop was) is 8:14/mile. And my garmin said the loop was actually 0.65 miles (I was smart enough to work my garmin during the warmup loop, at least), which would make my third loop 7:52/mile.
But still! I feel good about whatever it is I did out there. I felt strong for both swim and run. And even though I still don't like the gravel on the run, I don't fear S&D as much as I did before. So maybe I'll do it again. We'll see. Weeeeee'll see, S&D.
Armadillo Ride
I had a 3 hour ride on my schedule with intervals, so I decided to head out to Liberty Hill and do it at the Armadillo Ride. I decided on the 50 miler, figuring with the intervals, I'd be going faster than my standard easyride 14mph, so I'd get SOMEwhere near 50, even if it was perhaps a little long.
The workout was "3.0 hrs ride as 30 min ez spinning then do several short efforts to complete w/u, 45 min TT effort with 10 min ez spinning, 30 min TT effort with 10 min ez, 15 min TT effort" (where TT is Time Trial).
The day actually started out cold! Unseasonably so, in the high 50s. It was hard to stand around in a sleeveless jersey (in fact, I changed into a short-sleeved, because I'm a wimp), but I tried reeealll hard not to complain about the wonderfully cool temperature, since it was likely the last we'd see of it until.. December.
Pictures courtesy of the always-fabulous Jake North Photography
The ride went really well. The 45 minute TT effort involved a lot of headwind, but I pushed through it and felt pretty strong. Helped that I passed a lot of people, since they were just out for a ride, and I was panting and pushing as I went by. I was one of Those People. The ones who pass me huffing and puffing, and I think, "Dude, this is a ride for fun, not a race." The good part is, I was totally winning the race.
The 30min TT was unremarkable, and then the 15min TT was lovely due to finally having 15min of tailwind (how can one have 15min total of headwind in a 3 hour ride? unfair..).
What? I saw my good pal and photographer John Chung. I was happy. I'm fairly sure this wasn't during a TT effort part. I hope.
The last bit I just spun in easy. I noticed as I went over the bridge where Karen and I saw young boys throwing themselves off the bridge into the water below last year... there was no water below this year. They would have thrown themselves directly onto some rocks. Hurray, drought.
Despite my pessimism, I finished my 50.47 mile ride in 3:03:54. Spot on, and faster than anticipated. Hurray, getting faster on the bike!
Hopped off and headed out for my run: "40 min run off the bike - 15 min relaxed running focused only on leg turn-over, 20 min strong effort, 5 min ez c/d". It was still relatively cool outside, and I went too fast for the relaxed part. I didn't notice that the run course HCRC had laid out went the opposite direction from the bike route, so I just ran 20 minutes out on the bike route, and got cheers of encouragement and looks of disbelief in equal parts. Mostly the former. Hurray, triathletes who understand!
By the time I got back to the water stop, about 30 minutes done, I was feeling a little unwell. A little nauseous. I probably should have eaten something as I started the run. But I stopped a moment and drank some water and some gatorade, then finished up my last bit strong. All told, 4.91 miles in 0:40:19.
Overall, a fun event, as Armadillo always is, and a confidence-building workout, as well. Which is nice.
---
Splash&Dash
Instead of our standard Tuesday night Texas Iron run workout, we headed out to Quarry Lake to do Splash&Dash. I don't love S&D. We have some history. Wherein I feel like I'm going to vomit, and my times aren't anything I'm happy with, especially given how I feel like I'm going to vomit. But it'd been a few years, so I was ready to give it another try.
The bad: Standard S&D weather, really hot, really humid. The good: Everyone in the world that I knew was out there.
I got up pretty close to the front for the swim, even though I knew there were probably some really good swimmers up there. It's hard to know how you compare to 100 other women, but I knew things were going to get ugly in the middle of the pack, so I wanted to stay out of that if I could.
And things actually weren't bad, once we got started. The people in front of me zoomed away immediately, and nobody behind me tried to kill me, so I had my own water pretty quickly. I was fairly alone the whole swim. Every so often, someone would pass me, and I'd try to get on their feet, but it just never happened. I tried to swim as strong as I felt like I could without knowing how it was going to feel to push that hard for 750m. I know what I can do for 2.4 miles (go pretty moderate). I know what I can do for 300m (push really hard). But this was a distance I hadn't done for a while in a race. Passed some side-stroking men from the wave that started 4 minutes ahead of us. Did some Swimming In A Random Direction as we came back into shore directly into the sun, hoping I wasn't going to speed my way head-first into one of the platforms. Tried to use my arms more and relax my legs as I came into shore and exited the water.
I had set up my transition area pretty close to the water's edge, so I high-stepped it over the rocks to my stuff, jammed my feet into my shoes, sockless, swapped goggles and swimcap for sunglasses and garmin, and ran up the rocky hill to the run course.
I was wearing a normal watch, and I'd started it when the swim started, but I also wanted to wear my garmin for the run. The paces listed for my runs in the results for S&D always seem slower than I felt like I ran, so I wanted to have the garmin tell me what I really did. I was now wearing two watches, one of which was GIANT (damn garmin), and it was incredibly uncomfortable. But dammit, I wanted to know my times/paces.
Set out for the run, and Julie passed me immediately. Used her as my rabbit until I couldn't see her anymore, then just settled in. One of my main goals was to hold Priscilla off as long as possible. I figured I had beat her on the swim, but she can massively outrun me, so I imagined her breathing down my neck the whole time. I actually felt better on this S&D run than I ever have. It was hot and humid and I HATEHATEHATE the deep gravel out there, but I felt strong. I was passing people, I was keeping my breathing relatively calm, and my legs felt pretty okay. I tried to cheer for the people I knew, though I didn't have a lot of breath to spare, so I'm not sure they even heard. I tried to push as hard as I could without feeling like I couldn't keep that up for 3 loops. I split each time I passed over the timing mat. I tried not to cry as I was finishing my first loop and Richie Cunningham was walking back toward his car, fully dressed, looking like he'd not even exercised (Jamie later made me feel better about this by telling me Richie had just done the swim, hadn't done the run.. whew).
Then before I knew it (which never happens at S&D), I was rounding the final corner, and pushing for the finish line! I was afraid to look back, lest I see Priscilla bearing down on me at the last minute, but she never caught me. (She wasn't right behind me either, but she did assure me that had she gotten close enough to see me ahead of her, she totally would have done everything she could to run my ass down.) I felt really strong the whole run. It was good.
I spent a few minutes breathing heavily and chatting with people and cheering other people in, then realized I hadn't stopped my watch. Or my garmin. So I didn't know my finish time. And I hadn't split my watch for anything.. the swim, the run, any of the run loops. And when I checked my garmin later, it turns out that.. I never started it. I split each time, but since it wasn't actually RUNNING, it recorded nothing. My entire arm was covered in watches that ultimately gave me zero information. Yay!
Now that the results are up, though, I'm actually really pleased with my performance out there. 17/114 women. Swim+T1: 13:53. Run paces, according to the results, were 8:58, 8:50, 8:32. I actually felt like I was running much faster than that, and I'm a little confused as to where they even got those paces. Supposedly that loop is ~1k, and 1k in 5:07 (which is what the results say my last loop was) is 8:14/mile. And my garmin said the loop was actually 0.65 miles (I was smart enough to work my garmin during the warmup loop, at least), which would make my third loop 7:52/mile.
But still! I feel good about whatever it is I did out there. I felt strong for both swim and run. And even though I still don't like the gravel on the run, I don't fear S&D as much as I did before. So maybe I'll do it again. We'll see. Weeeeee'll see, S&D.