Post 400

Welcome to my 400th blog post here. I know some of these have been downright bitchy and others boring but I think some of them have been pretty good too. I enjoy sharing my horses and triathlon stories so even though I've never gotten even one single comment, I'll continue to do this.

Tri news: I am tired, but then, I am always tired. Todays ride was 38 miles in 3:08 and it was hot outside.

Horsey news: They are all doing fine and Joey & Reign are happy to be together.

Napping ponies

Big Training Days

Tomorrow is a big training day for me.

3:30 bike

:50 run

:30 swim

On Monday we rode over 4 hours, 50 miles, 3338 Feet of elevation gain. Tomorrow I'm NOT going to ride hills, oh, there will be some but not that many.

Today I swam a mile in 44 minutes, there was a lot of 'Ewwwww' ing when we touched lake scum or came to plants. Yesterday I ran 6.25 miles with Suzie.

I'm already tired and haven't even done all of the workouts I'm supposed to get to.

See Jane Run Half Marathon

I had high hopes to PR on this race, its mostly flat and the weather was expected to be perfect.

I had been told about the bottle necks at the out & backs but I wasn't prepared for parts where only 2 people could squeeze through IF they were going in the same direction so I had to slow down for a couple places like that.

Things were going great until I got to about mile 8 when my stomach started to feel icky. Used porta potty, barely went. Continued on but didn't feel better. Knew I needed to poop but even when I used next porta potty things weren't happening. Had to walk to keep discomfort level down. That was when I realized I forgot my Ninja Moves aka Ginger. I had planned on testing it out at a race and yesterday would have been perfect.

And I forgot my GPS so I didn't know my pace. I can't believe how fast I became dependent on a watch. I asked one lady her pace at mile 6, she said 12 something but I felt like I had been going faster than that. Then at mile 9 I asked another lady and she said 10:49 and that felt closer, even with the walking.

At mile 10 I started to speed it up, so I'd be done faster and could stop sooner but at mile 11

I SAW A LADYS LEG SNAP AND BREAK

right in front of me. She was running toward me, I heard a snap and she went down, I turned to assist and she had rolled onto her back, holding her leg and
even though there was no bone sticking out IT WAS BROKEN above the ankle, similar to this photo.

I realized in nanoseconds that it was beyond me so I yelled out 'Somebody call 911', people were converging on her, another girl was already calling 911 so I continued on to the turn around. It really freaked me out, I had to walk. What if I break my leg like that? She didn't trip, I thoroughly checked out the ground and there wasn't anything to trip over.

So anyway, my finish time was 2:39:15 and I had hoped to beat 2:24. Oh well, not all races go as planned and this was just another training day.

I was 40/66 in my age group, 542/767 total finishers, my pace was 12:10. I'm good with that.

At the end they gave us a great lunch and champagne and we got to keep our glasses.

Bike, Run, Bike

Lately I have been getting up early to start my days. After Lan gets ready for work but before he leaves, I am out of bed and ready to get going. Usually I just get dressed in my workout clothes because I have to do that first, no reason to change later.

 

Today I rode out at 7:30am and met Linda over at Banner Forest for a trail run.

It was a good warm up to ride first, leaving home was chilly but not cold at all. Its 6.6 miles to the parking area.

 

I'm getting pretty tan on my face, arms & mid thighs down to my ankles.

 

 

 

Once there, I stashed my bike in her van and we ran trails for 40 minutes, went about 2.73 miles. Look how dusty my legs got and my feet inside my shoes and socks weren't any cleaner.

 

After the run I continued my ride, went another 12 miles. Along the way I found a passport, some dude from Dominican Republic. There was an old Chevy pickup truck there & I'm sure it was his so I left it under his wiper blade.

 

After I got home I painted the bathroom and ironed a patch into my wetsuit.

 

Horsey News:

Lan suggested switching out horses so probably tomorrow Joey and Reign will come to the front pasture and the girls will go into the back pasture. We'll see how that works out for them.

My Own Ironman Training

Yesterday I put the 1000th mile on my tri bike since January when I started this ironman training.

 

 

It was 7:51am and I was just down the road from home and beginning my hour long ride around our block.

 

Many of these miles were done on the bike trainer and when I was just starting I'd only get 10-12 miles per hour of riding. Now I'l going outside and usually average 14-ish but its hilly around here so I'm OK with that. On the flats my average is a LOT higher.

I've been working on riding into the head winds as much as I can, its usually windy in Arizona and I don't want to be the one person who says I wasn't expecting winds. Duh! You're supposed to know your course.

 

You need to check out the elevation and know what its going to be like so there are no surprises. This might scare some people but its only 400 feet up over 19 miles and 300 of that over about 5 miles. Its not terribly steep.

But the winds can be pretty tough, last year there were 30-50 wind gusts. not only was it beating up the riders but it was also blowing tumble weeds into the road, causing a reported 600 flats.

 

The run is like this

I don't think its going to kill me either.

 

 

 

IMCDA 2015

I had two real live friends that I know and love and some facebook friends that I've never met do Ironman Coeur d'Alene last weekend. It was blazing hot, reports of up to 107* in some places, the asphalt was 140* and blistering feet out on the bike course, burning through the cycling shoes as they rode.

I felt for sure Windy would finish but she wasn't able to, the heat was too much and she was smart enough to stop before she got injured, at mile 82 of the bike. Connie stopped at mile 80 but she had that planned.

Steve did finish, at 10:48pm, with just barely 12 minutes to spare. 16:48:40

Jim did not finish, Vicki did. Jim reported that at a couple of the bike aid stations there was no water and ice. That is unacceptable. Ironman knew WEEKS ahead of time that it was going to be hot, unreasonably and unusually hot. There is no acceptable reason for them to have no water and ice for all these athletes who paid so much money to be put through this.

I've been at several half marathons where they ran out of water or cups but it wasn't nearly this hot and it wasn't a full distance Ironman.

Vicki had blisters from her cycling shoes so she hobbled the entire marathon with them, just like I did (but mine weren't from the heat).

Ironman isn't about being easy, there are supposed to be challenges and heat is just one, others being cold water, high winds, steep hills and anything else you can imagine. You know, train and plan for this but if your body cant do it then it cant do it.  I feel bad for every single person who DNF'd.

Harstine Island Half Marathon

Last Saturday I participated in and finished the Harstine Island Half Marathon in Shelton. Its a local race, there were 88 people who signed up and started and 86 finished. There were 63 females, 13 in the 50-59 age group (they didn't do age groups, I am just using them to compare against me) and I finished 4th our of the 13. My time was 2:35 their time, 2:31 my time. (I didn't count the time to run all the way to the restroom, it was 1/4 mile off the run route). It was also very hilly, 941 feet of elevation gain, most of it at the beginning. Mile 8 was my fastest and it was flattest. There was no one I knew running with me.

I am happy with the results and if they offered it again next year I would do it.

It starts right at the tip of this arrow

and Lan sleeps