Long preparation for a short race

(this originally appeared on the USA Triathlon Championships Blog, September 11, 2015)

When our family sits down to Thanksgiving dinner, we often laugh about the meal that takes days and hours to plan and prepare that is then is wolfed down in half an hour. But we never question that it’s worth it for the chance to come together and enjoy a delicious feast!

Getting ready to race the ITU Grand Final in Chicago is similar, with preparations starting well over a year in advance for races that will take just over an hour (sprint) or two (Olympic) to complete.

What goes into the ITU swim-bike-run racing “feast”? Here’s a sampling of my preparations.

Of course it all starts with the training! Over the past 12 months, I’ve logged about 430 hours that includes about 900 miles run, 300,000 yards swum, 2900 miles biked, and about 42 hours in the gym. For every training session, there’s been at least another hour spent getting dressed, readying equipment, programming technology, downloading/uploading workouts, posting my workout on Facebook (just kidding, only sometimes), communicating with my coach, showering, and refueling.

Registration spans the year as it is not the single-step process of a regular race. We secure our commitment to Team USA immediately after Nationals, then when ITU opens registration, we register with USAT who formally registers the team with ITU.

Throughout the year we receive regular correspondence from USAT, Lauren Rios the Team USA Coordinator, and the team coaches.

Logistics work starts about a year ahead when I make reservations at the hotel that is as close as possible to the race venue. There is a LOT of walking back and forth race week, multiple times per day. I am at the team hotel, which is right across from Buckingham Fountain and the finish line!

Transportation takes some thought and I explored the financial and time tradeoffs of all train, plane, and automobile options for the trek from Virginia to Chicago before settling on “plane.” The bike is a separate issue. It can be up to $200 each way to check the bike on the plane, so I opted to fly the bike there (quicker), then ship it back from the hotel via BikeFlights (cheaper). Disassembling the bike, packing it, then reassembling it is all part of the fun. That’s when bike parts you have looked at for years suddenly appear strangely unfamiliar! (At Nationals I was convinced I had lost part of my rear wheel.)

Around mid-summer we order team uniforms. Sizing can be tricky and my advice is always to order a few sizes and send back what does not fit. To add sponsor logos, the uniform has to go to a local custom tshirt shop, and the logos must follow ITU’s strict guidelines on size and placement. They do check!

The bike gets some pre-Worlds love with new tubes and tires and a thorough check-over by the local bike shop. They know I have a big race coming when I start obsessing about things like tire selection, and I say things such as “how do we know the cables aren’t fraying somewhere that we can’t see them?”

As race week approaches, the body seems to draw extra attention to sore and tight spots. Part of my race prep has involved bodywork - visits to the chiropractor and to my favorite (ouch) sports massage therapist to loosen up a tight and knotted upper back, probably from too much computer work. I also become reacquainted with my roller.

I start packing about a week before, staging everything on our dining room table, because what triathlete has time to entertain and actually use their dining room table for its intended purpose? In addition to race gear, there’s training clothes, regular clothes, rain gear, food I must have from home, some basic in-room meal prep type supplies, and everything stars-and-stripes that I own. If the flight is not direct I consider very carefully what goes in the checked bag and what is in the carry on, planning for the worst case scenario!

A certain amount of second-guessing of equipment is inevitable with a Grand Final race. I may be wearing a new helmet in Chicago. Enough said.

Then it’s time to put together the race week schedule – packet pickup (by country), expo, swim familiarization, bike shake-out, team meeting, bike check-in, transition area open/close, swim wave, bike and gear pick-up, then repeat for the second race.

On the “real life” side of things, preparation for the Chicago races means getting work done ahead of time to clear the decks for the busy days to come. It also means getting the family situated to weather six days without the chief chauffer, cook, scheduler, and manager. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law who steps in and keeps things going smoothly, and for a large freezer that holds plenty of frozen pizzas, the manna of teenage boys.

By the time I get on the plane, and the full year of preparation is behind me, I let out a giant sigh, and flip the switch to race mode. The race really is the reward. It’s the Thanksgiving feast that I hope to gulp down in personal record time!

Why I like swimming and biking

What do you notice about the top two photos? 

I'm essentially laying down. 

Swimming is like napping on a water bed, with arms and legs moving. 

Biking is like being propped up to read a book or watch TV, with just the legs moving.

There are parts that can be a little lazy if they want to be, while swimming and biking. 

Running is nothing like napping, nothing like reading a book or watching TV. Nothing can be lazy. Everything has to be committed to forward motion. 

It's totally vertical.

That's why my expression usually looks like this by the run.

I'm hurrying to the finish, to hurry to be lazy.

Is interest in swimming waning?

Our local pool is closed this week for maintenance so our swim group is on hiatus. Swimming still needed to happen though so I headed to the Christiansburg Aquatic Center, the 50m x 25y competition pool one town over, about a 15 minute drive from my house. We'd had a home football game the night before, where our Virginia Tech Hokies lost badly to Ohio State. At 7 am, with most of the town sleeping/crying off the game, this giant pool had exactly one person in it. One. I doubled the number by jumping in, but my fellow swimmer left and it was just me for a while.

I was mesmerized by the giant flag at the end of my lane. As I swam, I thought about the flag and my upcoming races, but mostly I thought about how great the water felt. I also wondered why swimming isn't a more popular activity among adults in our town?

I spoke with Chrystal Jones, Aquatic Center supervisor, who took the photo above. We got to talking about the oddly empty pool and our common desire to promote swimming among our adult population in the community. Our kids' program, H2Okies, is large, strong, and successful. There's no reason a corresponding adult program couldn't be too! 

We have an intelligent, fitness-oriented population. We have multiple pools including this state-of-the-art competition and recreation facility. We have talented coaches and swimmers. It just seems like our swimmers like to do their own thing on their own schedule. It's a shame because there's so much more fun to be had in a group setting, not only during the swim session, but also with the chatter before and after!

Perhaps group swimming has a bit of an image problem. It is often seen as two ends of a spectrum - as a relaxed splash-around social activity, or as an intensely disciplined competitive sport of fractions of a second.

But there is plenty of middle ground where one can learn to really enjoy the feel of the water and appreciate and improve upon the nuances of one's body balance, position, and movement. Yes, that still means sets and laps and some time goals for fun but the variety is what makes it interesting. And when you learn to let the water support you, and you get that sensation of lying balanced across the surface, gently flutter kicking, reaching, and pulling through it, it's an amazing sense of capability that is different than what one gets from the bike or run. It's almost artistic in a sense.

I fear that interest in swimming may be waning.

I was excited to hear from her the the county school system is going to be instituting a program to teach all second graders to swim (I think I have that right). Where I grew up, we had a pool in our High School and swimming was part of our gym class (which I hated at the time). Meanwhile, in neighboring Roanoke, I read that several of their public pools are in danger of closing due to lack of use.

I'd like to see a resurgent interest in pool and open water swimming. I'd like to see master's programs bursting at the seams with morning, mid-day, and evening options to suit all schedules. I'd like to see regular open water swim practices and races in our region's lakes (Claytor Lake, Smith Mountain Lake, Lake Moomaw).

Nothing drives home the importance of fresh, clean, water like swimming in it. Key to protecting this critical natural resource is public understanding that water doesn't come from a store, a tap, or a hose. It comes from the natural bodies of water around us! With swimming we are reminded of our interconnectedness with water.

There are so many reasons to jump in and get swimming - especially with a group!

Gearing Up for a World-Class Celebration

(this originally appeared on the USA Triathlon Championships Blog, September 8, 2015)

I love the sport of triathlon. I get excited just typing the words as I think about its many gifts – community, challenge, confidence, and adventure! When I swam my first breathless laps and rode my first shaky miles on a used bike in 2009, I had no idea of the adventure that awaited me, the journey that has led me here to my third ITU Grand Final in Chicago.

Think of the word “athlete” and I’m pretty sure you are not envisioning a 48 year-old married working mom of two teenage boys who dreaded running the mile in high school and barely made the four laps around the track. But here I am, in final preparations to race the Sprint and Olympic distance races in the Female 45-49 age group.

I consider the ITU Grand Final to be the Olympics for short course age groupers. After experiencing my first World Championships in Auckland, New Zealand in 2012, my primary goal each year has been to earn a Team USA spot by racing to a top-18 age group placing at USAT Age Group Nationals.

This year is extra special to me for several reasons. The ITU Grand Final is in the US for the first time since 1996 and that means we get to race for a hometown crowd and logistics are far simpler! The other reason this race is special is that I had just 12 weeks to train for the Nationals qualifier (in 2014) following surgery on my external iliac artery to restore blood flow to my left leg. I was not sure if or how I’d come back from that or if I’d run healthy again.

To be running healthy and to be in the final countdown to Chicago fills me with nothing but happy anticipation. What’s so great about it, you might ask?

The host city takes on the feel of a United Nations – albeit one in spandex and compression and with shiny fast bikes! There’s something so beautiful about seeing a whole group of triathletes out together clad in matching team gear in the colors of their country. Come race time, the course becomes a symphony of uniforms, and we hear shouts and encouragement in many languages. While we may not know the exact translation, the intention is well understood!

The ITU Grand Final is four days of world championship racing that includes the sprint and Olympic Age Group races, paratriathlon, juniors, under-23’s, aquathalon, relays, open races, and of course the men’s and women’s elite events that will decide the series champions. We get to be spectators as well as competitors and we race on the same course as the likes of Javier Gomez, Jonathan Brownlee, Hunter Kemper, Gwen Jorgensen, and Sarah True.

After a full season of racing as an individual it’s refreshing be a part of Team USA and enjoy all the support from the staff and fellow teammates that goes along with that. Sitting down in the pre-race team meeting with Tim Yount addressing the room it all becomes real, even more so through the Opening Ceremony, Parade of Nations, and team photo.

Some of my greatest racing challenges and experiences have been at the Grant Final. In 2012 we faced the toughest swim I’ve ever done in the choppy 55 degree waters of the industrial Auckland Harbor, complete with freighters. In London in 2013 I had the privilege of serving as an assistant to paratriathlete Sarah Reinertsen, where I learned I got far more nervous when I was a part of someone else’s race than I ever got for my own!

The ITU Grand Final is a showcase and celebration of the best of triathlon. I can’t think of another sport that includes its juniors, para-athletes, amateur age groupers up through their 70’s (or possibly 80’s), and professional elites all in one event on a common course. Every athlete there has a story of challenges met and overcome and has earned their spot to be there.

Chicago will be the backdrop for new stories, and as my own unfolds, I look forward to sharing the experience!

The Belief of a Coach

When I was reviewing my training plan for the week, I noticed a double-brick on the schedule for today. The bike-run-bike-run format is not unusual for me, but upon closer examination I noticed the second run included:

Run #2: 20 min. as first 2 miles @ sub threshold (6:50 pace), then upper aerobic during the remaining. 

This second run was to follow a bike ride that concluded with 30 min at threshold so the legs would not be fresh.

My confidence in my running has been a little shaky this season. My average standalone 5K pace the last two years is around 6:50 (spreadsheet here) and my triathlon 5K pace has slipped to closer to 7:00 pace. I worried that this workout was setting me up to fail. I don't like to fail. 

I rarely ever question or second-guess Coach Jim's expectations for me, but I emailed him a few days ago and said,

I'm not feeling optimistic about 6:50 for two miles in the second run on Sunday.

He replied,

You can think what you want and it will probably come true. I believe that you can and should be able to hit 6:50 pace for 2 miles. If you’ll keep your cadence at 90, 91 or 92 during the run and up into the mid/upper 80’s on the bike, then I am way confident that you can make it happen.

I've been thinking about (aka stressing about) this workout for days. My faith was not sufficient, so I carried his belief into the run. And what do you think happened? I not only met his expectations, but exceeded them, hitting those miles at 6:37 and 6:35. (The first half mile was a 6:24 pace, yikes).

I almost cried.

The belief of a trusted coach is an incredible force. When I don't have enough belief in myself, it's nice to be able to lean on his. I could not push myself beyond my preconceived limits without him.

happy me enjoying a post-workout soak in the creek!