That's A Wrap!

I suppose I could have titled this post the Season That Never Was, but that would be looking at this race season in a negative light.  I'm trying to stay away from that mindset and look at the good things that came from this season.

Yes, I got injured and didn't compete in my A-race.  Yes, that sucked big time.  There were tears.   But, after that race day came and went, I focused on what I could do and that was swim and ride my bike.  I spent a lot of time in the saddle this summer.  I worked on my swim stroke.  And I worked on fixing all the little things that contributed to my injury in the first place.  I'm not 100% sure that everything is fixed but I'm definitely feeling and moving better.  

I went back to Dr. Galea last week to go over the results of my MRI.  I finally got an injury diagnosis and it told me what I suspected all along:   "Mild tendinosis at the origins of the hamstrings bilaterally.  Low grade partial tear of the posterior fibres of the semimembranosus tendon origin from the left ischium"

Essentially, I tore my hamstring tendon at the insertion point.   It was small tear but it was painful.  There is some scar tissue kicking around in there still so that will have to be worked out because I still feel like there is some restriction of movement through the gait cycle.  I also still feel some pressure in and around my glut / upper hamstring.  So it looks like I'm going to be working on strengthening my hamstrings for the next little while.  The good news is that Dr. Galea thinks that this is all fixable via gait retraining.  He said that my left glut either doesn't fire or fires late (previous gait analysis has shown that it fires late).  Right now it's not even firing and that's probably due to the injury.  He's recommended that I go see a physio by the name of Laura McIntyre at The Urban Athlete so that's where I'm off to tonight.

I am hoping that I come out of this stronger and more aware of my body and how it functions.  

On to the really positive things!  

Despite not running, I still managed to get a couple of races in.  And because of all the riding I had been doing, I actually set a new 20 minute power record on the bike at the Ontario Women's Triathlon.  That really surprised me.  I went from 221 watts to 233 watts.  I still can't believe that.  Once I got injured, I stopped training with power and I just rode.  Paolina always told me not to be a slave to the numbers.  I figured I wasn't training for anything anymore so I didn't need to pay attention to the data.  It paid off.

This past weekend, I did the swim leg of The Barrelman Half Ironman with my two friends David B and David L.  Or the Double D's.  Our team name was Phaedra and her Spectacular Double D's.  Yup.  We went there.  The guys thought it was really funny.  I was a bit upset at first (I had suggested PK vs. my actual name) but, I couldn't deny it was pretty hilarious.    

If you've been reading this blog for the last few years, you know that open water swimming is not my favourite and that it gives me a fair bit of anxiety.  I have slowly been getting better at dealing with said anxiety.  I know I could have said "No" when David asked me if I wanted to be the swimmer but I thought 1) it's a chance to race 2) I get to spend the day with a couple of my favourite people and 3) it's only the swim, not the entire race.  I figured I'd be fine.

Leading up to the race, I was ok but the day before I could feel the nerves setting in.  I didn't sleep well the night before.  Race morning there was a fair bit of griping.  I was nervous.  I hadn't swam more than 1800m in open water in my wetsuit this year and that was with stops.  This would be 2km straight.  Although I could have stopped if I wanted but it's a race.  I don't like to stop.

I knew a ton of people that were going to be racing so race morning was very social which really helped to alleviate my anxiety.   There was so much chatting and hugging and laughing that I could feel my nerves easing.  David B got all set up in T1 and I started getting myself sorted.   I wedged myself into my wetsuit gave the Double D's hugs and made my way into the water to do a good warm up.  My wave went at 9:05 and I was in the water by 8:45.

Me and my spectacular Double D's.

I swam to the other side of the canal and then back to the middle.  Off to the other side, back to the middle.  I floated for a bit, swam over to the edge, got out to fix my wetsuit and went back in.  Everything felt fine.  My wetsuit was comfortable.  My goggles were snug.  I was ready.  I tread water, listened to the National anthem and smiled.  I felt relaxed.  There were some nerves but not the anxiety that I normally felt.  The pros went off to a loud cheer from the crowd.  Then wave two went off.  My wave was up next.  I fell to the back and off to the side a bit.  No need for me to be up at the front in the fray.  The horn went off, I hit start on my Garmin and let the crowd go.  A few seconds later I started slowly swimming and caught my first pair of feet.  I navigated my way towards the shoreline of the canal away from the pack.  I figured I'd be better off out here for the first little while.  I may not get the benefit of the draft but at least I could get into a good rhythm.

There weren't too many buoys along the course so instead of playing the count your strokes between buoys game to keep my brain occupied, I just counted strokes, period.  I focused on making sure I exhaled as soon as I put my face in the water so there was no panicky breathing.  I swam at a very comfortable pace for the first little while.  Not pushing it but not too slow either.  I had had a massage on the Thursday night before the race and David had really worked at freeing up my T-spine and getting a bit more mobility through my ribs and shoulders.  I felt really good.  I actually felt like I could breathe better as well.   I chugged along comfortably.  I came up to the 250m mark sign on the embankment and had one small moment of "holy shit I'm only at 250m???" .  I quickly dismissed that thought and started counting strokes again.

I hit the 500m mark and thought ok, I'm 1/4 of the way through and knew that I would be coming up to the first green buoy soon so I started sighting properly.  I didn't bother for the first bit as I just used the riverbank as a guide.  I started to swim in towards the buoy and surprisingly didn't get caught up in much of a crowd.  WOOHOO!

As I swam towards the other turnaround buoy, I remember thinking to myself that I was feeling really warm.  And I was hungry.  The water was 24 degrees, which is pretty toasty for a full wetsuit.  I lamented the fact that I probably should have drank my entire bottle of Roctane before I got in the water.  Oh well.  I got around the second big green buoy without incident and thought "Woohoo, I'm halfway done!"

Shortly after I passed that buoy, I kicked a bit hard to pass someone and my right calf cramped.  Shit. I stopped kicking with that leg and just used my arms and my left leg for a bit until the cramp subsided.   I picked up the pace again.  I had gotten into a really good rhythm and was now working a bit harder.  I could see the 500m sign on the embankment and thought "Awesome only 500m to go!"  I felt like I was swimming really well.  I had caught a bunch of people from the wave in front of me.  Just after I passed the 500m mark my right calf cramped again so I went back to the one-legged kick. It eventually went away and I went back to kicking normally.  I could see the final green buoy coming up so I started to swim harder.  As I came up to the finally buoy my left calf cramped so hard it stopped me in my tracks.  I felt like someone kicked me really hard in the calf.  I stopped swimming and yelled OUCH.  I couldn't point my foot.  It hurt way too much.  Even when it was flexed up, it hurt.  I reached down to massage it and that hurt.  I was almost in tears it hurt so much.  I kept saying ouch, oh fuck, ouch ouch ouch.   I was so close to being done and I was swimming so well.  I was pissed.  I tried moving forward but my calf spasmed some more.  That resulted in a very loud FUCK. A swimmer stopped and asked if I was ok and I said no.  She asked if I wanted her to flag someone down and I said yes.  She waved and I think she got the attention of someone on a paddle board.  I tread water for a bit more and then put my face in the water and just used my arms.  My entire left leg was hurting at this point.  Eventually I tried kicking with my right foot.  That helped.  The cramp started to subside enough that I could kick but my calf still really hurt.  I swam as hard as I could to the swim exit.  As soon as my hands started grabbing gravel, I stood up.  I hobbled out of the water and started pulling off my wetsuit.  I was boiling hot.  I ran by David L and my friend Jen and David was yelling that I didn't have to get my wetsuit off.  I was so hot, I just wanted to get out of if.  I ran into T1 and found David B.  I yanked the chip off my ankle, passed it to him and he was off.   I hobbled out of transition to find the other David.  My calf was sore for the rest of the day and it's STILL sore today.  At least I'm almost walking normally now.

I hit stop on my watch as soon as I got out of the water.  Even with my stop for cramping I managed to swim 36:23 for 2km.  Not a PR by any stretch but pretty darn good given that I haven't focused on any real speed work in the pool.   The best part?  Not one single moment of panic.  I felt in control the entire time.  I'd call that a race day win and it's something I'm going to make sure I remember going into next year's race season.  I feel like maybe, just maybe, I've conquered the swim anxiety  demons that have plagued me for the last few years.

With my portion of the race done, I was able to chill out and spend the rest of the afternoon cheering people on and socializing.  I couldn't think of a better way to end my season.  In the car on the drive home, I was thinking about all the fantastic people I've met because of this crazy sport.   As I said on Instagram the other day, I feel pretty darn lucky.

Now it's "maintenance mode" time.   Time to really focus on fixing all the little things before I start to get back into the swing of things in January.   Next year there is another huge group of us heading to Tremblant do to the 70.3 and then myself, G, Irina and Zin have signed up to do Lake Placid 70.3  Yup, two half Ironmans in the span of 2.5 months.  If that isn't motivation for me to get better, I don't know what is.

The Gong Show Goes Around The Bay

Fun Fact:  Around the Bay is North America's oldest road race.  True story!  I've run this race so many times as an individual participant and I have to say 30km is a perfect race distance.  It's longer than a half so it's still pretty challenging to train for and even more challenging to race well.  It doesn't beat me up as much as a marathon does.   That last 12km in the marathon is what does me in.

This year I decided to do the race as part of a two person relay and I convinced my friend Kiki to do it with me.  We called ourselves the Gong Show because that's usually the happens when we get together.  I took the back half of the race which is where most of the hills are as I figured it would be good prep for the run at Tremblant.  After all I went through in January and February I was genuinely concerned I might not be able to race this.  But when I banged out a pain free 16km run in Florida two weeks before, I knew I was good to go.   I texted Kiki when we got back from Florida to let her know I was 100% in.

My coach's instructions were to race it and to negative split it.  We settled on a goal of 1:10 for 15km.  I figured the hills would slow me down for sure and I wasn't 100% sure I'd be fully recovered from training camp.  So many doubts.  But I didn't let them get to me.  I filed them away and focused on the fact that this would be a test of where my running fitness was at.  Plain and simple.   Sometimes you have to take the emotion of out it because it can mess with your head.

I had an optional 2h and 30 minute ride on Saturday.  I opted to ride for 45 minutes just to spin my legs out.  I wanted to be as fresh as possible for Sunday.  We spent the afternoon at my parents having a belated Easter dinner and we drove home in a snow storm.  I hadn't figured out my race day ensemble yet so as soon as I got home I checked the forecast (again) and then checked Instagram to see what other people were wearing, ha ha.  I came up with this.

It was supposed to be cold and windy.  I had originally thought about wearing my Zoot wind tights but knew that I get really warm in them so I opted for my Zoot biowrap tights with another thin pair of tights underneath.  I wore a long sleeve with sleeves underneath it - I figured if I got warm, I could pull them off easily enough.  My vest is completely wind proof so I knew my core would be fine.  I brought my wool Buff along and wore another one to hold my hair back and cover my ears.  I hoped it would be warm enough.

Race morning, Kiki came by my house and we loaded up the car and headed off in search of coffee.  We hit Tim Horton's and when I tried to roll down my window, it was frozen shut.  So going through the drive through became a bit of a debacle.  But we managed.  Thankfully there wasn't anyone behind us.  I'm pretty sure there would have been some honking, ha ha.

We whipped along the QEW and made it out to the Hammer by just after 8:00 am.  We found some primo parking and sat in the car and stayed warm.  We were just down the road from our secret bathroom stop so we each had a washroom stop in the warmth before we had to head out to our respective spots.  I was carting all of Kiki's warm stuff with me as we'd do the hand off of everything at the relay exchange point.  That meant I got to keep my toasty warm jacket on and that she'd have it waiting for me after.

Around 9 we made our way over to the relay buses and Kiki got on for a few minutes to keep warm.  It was SUPER windy out and the wind was COLD.  She jumped off as it started to fill up and before I knew it, we were on our way.  I was chatting with a lovely woman from Brantford who was my seatmate.  We were at the exchange point in about 15-20 minutes.  The bus pulled over and we were able to stay in the warmth until we wanted to get out.  We sat there for a while, a bunch of us trying to figure out when the best time to get over to the exchange point would be.

We watched the leaders come flying by and eventually people started to trickle out.  I had wanted to do a warm up but didn't really have much opportunity to do so as I was wearing a heavy coat and carrying a knapsack.  And, I had to use the porta potty again.  So I got in the line up and hoped that I wouldn't miss Kiki.  I was watching for my friend David but I never saw him.  I can only assume he ran by when I was in the porta potty.  I got out and ran up the road, watching for Kiki's Boston jacket. A few minutes later I saw her and waved her down.  I grabbed the zip ties and toenail clipper to remove the chip from her shoe and transfer it to mine.  My hands were so cold, I couldn't get the zip ties on so she did that while I shed my layers.  I shoved my jacket into the knapsack and took off.  I booted it up that first hill and had to calm myself down.  I was passing people all over the place.  The wind was brutal through those first 2km but I knew as soon as I turned onto North Shore that it would be fine.

My legs felt a little rough, probably due to the lack of a proper warm up.  But once I got warmed up, I felt really good.  My first two km were sub 4:30.  My goal pace was 4:40.  But, this was about seeing what I was capable of.  So, I figured I'd aim to stay just below that for the first 10km.  And I did, with the exception of the climb just after the 20km mark, which is a long grinder of a climb.  That km was 4:45.  I was amazed at how strong I felt going up hills.  All that glute work paid off.  My form work has also paid off (for the most part).  Normally I'd over stride on the down hills and totally fry my quads but I didn't.  I focused on landing under my body and leaning forward.  There was so much form check chatter in my head the entire race it was crazy but in the best way possible.  I kept telling myself to keep my chest out and arms back.  I have a tendency to drop my right shoulder / arm out a bit so it's almost like a chicken wing, ha ha.  It wasn't hard for me to do at the start of the race but by the end, I was getting fatigued and I could feel my form starting to go.  You can see it in my race photos too.  It's crazy.  My entire right side just collapses.  But that's another post for another day.

This would be the first time I'd run the course without the big hill in it so I was looking forward to NOT having to run up that lung buster.  I figured that would also help me in terms of my negative split.  I am horrible at doing running math so but I figured if I picked up the pace in the last 2-3km I should be good.

I made it through the hills and rollers feeling pretty good.  My legs didn't feel sore or tired at all, which totally blew my mind.   The only thing that hurt were my feet.  I could feel blisters happening, which annoyed me as the socks I had on were ones I had worn multiple times before.  No matter, I was still catching people as I went along.  When we turned onto Plains Road, we had a fair bit of wind to deal with.  I draft hopped people as I went along.  I'd get up behind someone, sit behind them for a bit to break the wind, then pull out and move along to the next person.  The road started to change direction so the wind ended up being at my side, which is much better than running into it.  The big hill had been replaced by flat so I was really happy about that!  I kept checking my pace and doing the math.  I was definitely going to make it under 1:10, the question was, by how much?

I started to push the pace with about 4km left, gradually increasing my speed with every kilometer.  Of course I had to high five the Grim Reaper at the 28km mark as I flew by.  This year there were TWO of them!  I was starting to feel tired and I could feel my form falling apart.  I had to force my shoulders back as I was staring to slouch.  I could see the 29km mark and I really started to push.  I wanted that last km to be the fastest of the day.  I heard someone call my name as I ran towards the entrance to Copps Coliseum (or First Ontario Place as it's now called) but I didn't see who it was.  I took my sunglasses off as I made the turn onto the ramp.  I turned onto the finishing chute and as I came towards the finish line, I heard the announcer call out our team name which made me smile.  I hit stop and glanced at my watch:  1:07:55.  WOOHOO!  I booked it hard those last few hundred meters to try and get under 1:08 and I squeaked by.

I ran into my friend David as I left the arena area and we chatted for a while.  Kiki called me to find out where I was so I went to grab our medals and then went off to meet her.  I changed out of my sweaty shirt and bundled up in my nice warm jacket. Kiki was checking sports stats and said we finished 14th.  I thought that was pretty good.  I texted G to tell him we were leaving and he told me that we were 4th in the open female category and 14th overall.  We missed the podium by 32 seconds, ha ha ha.  If this race went by chip time we would have been on the podium but they use gun time (old school) and the 3rd place team beat us by 31 seconds.  Oh well.  I didn't have any expectations for that so it was a pleasant surprise!

After I downloaded my Garmin, I went back and checked my splits.  Sure enough, my last km was my fastest.  My 2nd last km was my 3rd fastest km.

I was beyond happy with my effort.  I feel like I actually raced smartly for a change instead of going out too fast like I normally do.  And, more importantly, it proved to me that these legs still have it.  There is nothing wrong with the engine, it just needs a bit more fine tuning and that will come.

I had a blast doing the relay and it's definitely something I'd consider doing again.  Especially that early in the season.   The bling ain't that bad either.

My next race will be the Mississauga Half on May 1st.  Can't wait for that one!

Real Deal Showdown

For the last week or so I've hinted at something that I *might* be participating in.  Well it's official, I received my registration confirmation yesterday.

I'm going to be racing in the inaugural Barrleman Half Ironman on September 21st...BUT...I'm not doing it alone.  I'm doing it as part of a relay team.  Real Deal has entered two relay teams and to make things fun, there is a "losing team buys dinner" wager.  The teams break down like this:

Team One:  Colin Campbell (swim), Larbi Benhabib (bike) & little old me (run)

Team Two:  Leanna Lee (swim), Mike Mandel (bike) & Coach Ming (run)

Ming actually emailed me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I'd be interested and I jumped at the chance.  I wasn't planning on running a half marathon so soon but I figured what the heck, I might as well, it will probably be a lot of fun.  And I couldn't resist the chance to go one on one with Ming.  He's a strong runner and will be coming off the 70.3 World Championships so he should be in good form.  I'm crossing my fingers he won't be fully recovered because I think that's really the only way I stand a chance at beating him.  It's definitely going to be a very close race.  To top it all off, I'm racing my last triathlon of the season the weekend before.  Yup, nothing like cramming in a little last minute speed work, ha ha.  

Here's hoping my knees hold up over the next few weeks.  I was hoping to be able to add some track work in but I don't think that's going to happen without my knees getting really angry.  So, I'm just going to have to wing it and hope my legs are ready to go fast on September 21st!