The Highs and Lows of Training

Over the past couple of weeks, I've experienced some definite highs and lows of training. Comes with the 30 week long training process I suppose....

First the high - on June 13th I did the Capitol View Olympic Distance triathlon (1500 meter swim, 24.85 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run, about 1/4 of the ironman distance). Being the first race of the season, as well as the first triathlon I've done in three or four years, I was a bit nervous. Plus, this race took place just outside of Madison, so the majority of the racers were people using the race as a tune-up for the ironman - lots of Ironman tattoos out there and serious bikes. The weather was pretty perfect - no wind, overcast, and about 70 (although pretty humid).

The swim - The swim ALWAYS makes me nervous, because I'm afraid I'm going to panic - its kind of a circular reference - you panic once, then you get panicky that you're going to panic next time, which inevitably causes you to panic. Anyway, I just tried to clear my head and settle into the swim and NO PANIC! Yay! Mini victory! Overall, the swim was good - the full wetsuit felt good, and no major contact with other swimmers. The one AWFUL part of the swim was that it was extremely weedy - like every stroke your arms were covered in weeds. Not fun.

Swim Time: 27:54, 7/22 in my age group

The bike - I am so average at biking. My decent swims will always be followed by being completely crushed on the bike. I spent the ~25 miles being passed and not really passing anyone. Course was fairly hilly and pretty difficult for an olympic distance. I could have gone harder, but the point of my race was to simulate the ironman, where I will bike conservatively in order to save my legs for the run.

Bike Time: 1:26:19, 17.3mph, 14/22 in my age group

The run - Ok, this was BY FAR the hardest 10k I've ever done. The run was through grass fields and trails, and was so hilly. The kind of hills that were straight up and straight done, followed by another one. Luckily, I was kind of pissed off about being passed on the bike, and made it my mission to pass lots of people on the run. I was successful, as I probably passed 40 people, and only got passed by one person. Even though it was hilly, I ran really well - my hilly runs in Central Park definitely helped get me ready for this!

Run Time: 51:46, 8:20 pace, 6/22 in my age group

Transitions were uneventful and pretty fast (picture to the right is my transition area), which resulted in my total time of 2:51:34, almost 10 minutes faster than my goal of getting under three hours! Further, much to my surprise, I finished 5th in my age group of 22! Wow! I was pretty excited given the competition!

Total Time: 2:51:34, 5/22 in my age group

Ok, so now for the low.

The following weekend, I was ready to go for the Horribly Hilly Hundreds 100k - ~65 miles through ridiculous hills just west of Madison. I know you are thinking - hills in Wisconsin? Seriously, these hills were crazy. Steep and L-O-N-G. It was brutal. Again, there was great weather - crystal clear blue sky and not too much wind. Yes, I knew I should have used a road bike for this kind of ride, but all I had was Stella, my triathlon bike. Needless to say, maybe 5% of people were using triathlon bikes - I was already at a disadvantage.

So although the course was brutal, I was enjoying myself, relatively speaking. Just after the first aid station, about 25 miles into the ride, I was going up a brutal hill at like 3mph, when I hear a crunching on my bike, lose all ability to pedal forward, and just barely unclip and get my foot down before falling (any cyclist will tell you that unexpectedly having to unclip is scary). Turns out I was experiencing something called "chain suck", where the bike chain falls off the ring and gets stuck in the frame. Yeah, not good. So, I fix the chain and hope it doesn't happen again....

No such luck - over the next 10 minutes, my chain fell off FOUR MORE TIMES in the low gears. This is not good, as I needed those gears to go up the many hills of the course. Standing on the side of the road and near tears that I'm 30 miles into my 65 mile ride and my bike seems to be broken, I decide to just ride and hope that there weren't too many hills before the next aid station. I got lucky - over the next 15 miles, I only had two hills where I would have had to be in my low gears (and therefore in danger of dropping my chain, and potentially falling over and hurting myself, my bike, and/or someone else). I walked up those two hills....

Finally to the aid station and I have a mechanic look at my bike. When I tell him what happened, he did not have a good reaction. Uh oh....so he works on it a bit, and sends me on my way. Not fixed. Two miles later, it happens again, so now I turn around, crying, knowing my day is done, and head back to the aid station to call the SAG wagon (the support vehicle that picks up riders with injuries or mechanical issues). I was beyond disappointed. Although I still think I made the right decision since continuing would have been extremely frustrating and potentially dangerous, I felt like a complete cop-out and failure. Plus, I was so upset that I had only rode 40 miles when I was supposed to do 65!

Took my bike to the bike shop a couple days later, and they decided my chain was stretched and so I had a new chain put on. So far, I have ridden a couple rides on hills without those major issues, although my shifting is off a bit. I am worried that since I have now had this fairly major mechancial issue (at least in my experience), that something else is going to go wrong and I really can't trust my bike. That is really the most concerning. Going to be extra careful with maintenance and bring the bike to the bike shop every couple weeks for a quick tune-up to avoid this happening again!

So - I went from a great weekend to an awful weekend of training. Hoping that the Horribly Hilly ride is as bad as it gets and I have smooth sailing from here on out! :)