Endurance, strength, speed, taper, recovery.

The link below takes you to the full article:

The Five Phases Of Swim Training – Triathlete.com

They have example workouts and detailed descriptions.

We went down to the race expo and packet pickup the day before at about 1 pm. And that’s when I found  out I had to set up my T2 (Transition 2 area) the day before the race. In other words, that very day. I had not brought any of my running gear with me. No shoes. Nada. So we had to drive back home, get that stuff, and come back. I guess next time I shall read the emails better.

Turns out Chris had some sidewalk chalk in the trunk of the car, so I copied other people’s idea to mark my transition spot (I was lucky my spot was on the paved trail and not in the dirt like some of the others). My markings were much more artistic than the others. They did help the next day with locating my rack space at the end of the bike. Basically, I put my running shoes and a cap in the Walmart bag, loosely wrapped, on my bath mat. Didn’t want the stuff just sitting out in the open overnight.

Next morning we arrived early. Parking and Transition 1 opened at 5 am. We got there shortly after 5. I racked my bike and set up my stuff in the dark. At least this time we remembered to bring a flashlight. Very useful in the portapotties.

I did a warmup run around 6 am or so, and then got my wetsuit on and headed down to the lake start area. By 6:30 am I was wondering why no one was warming up for the swim. Race start was 7 am. My wave started at 7:04 (this was very different…usually they make the old ladies go last, but this time we got to go 2nd).

So I asked one of the several guys standing at the water’s edge, staring out at the water, if we were waiting for something…like for the lifeguards to give us permission to swim or something (I’m the one in the pink cap to the left). No, they said. As far as they knew we could go in. And so I did. First one into the water. Right after that everyone else started to warm up for the swim, too.

A wetsuit was not absolutely necessary for this race. I had checked the lake water temps on Friday, and they had been 74F. I had looked at online pictures of the previous year’s race, and it looked like most people did not wear wetsuits for this race. However, I decided it would be best for me to wear one, since my tri top does not fit tight around the waist and the back pocket is loose. I thought it would create a fair amount of drag. Plus, I could use the boyancy from the suit. So, for a 1500m swim, about 30 minutes for me, I figured the advantage of the wetsuit would compensate for the extra transition time to get the thing off. Turns out, though, that pretty much everyone in this race was wearing a wetsuit. They did announce the morning of the race, that since the lake temperature was below 78F that wetsuits would be allowed. I’m guessing it was between 74-76F.

So I did three warmup swim repeats. Basically, dash into the water and do a short swim sprint out about 20 yards or so. Then float a bit and swim back in. I was less than thrilled to find I felt tired already. These warmup sprints were leaving me out of breath. I had not slept well the night before, and although I had got some good sleep on Friday night, I had several other bad nights of sleep the week before the race. And I had not tapered so much as to feel well-rested. Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.

A short time later, my wave was lined up at the water’s edge, ready for the start. I was very close to the front of the water’s edge (probably off the right of the picture above). I was still determined to charge into the water and swim pretty hard.

And we’re off. I believe I’m somewhere up near the front of the mess above. So some of the women were pretty fast swimmers. Our wave was “Women 35 and up.” I wanted to swim pretty hard, but since I was already a bit tired, I didn’t want to overdo it. I didn’t have the same aggressive frame of mind that I did for my last tri at Malibu. I was more in survival mode than attack mode. And I watched these faster women just swimming away from me. It was kind of discouraging. I would have had to kill myself to get closer to them, and even then I don’t think I could have stayed with many of them. I told myself that a lot of the women in the wave were considerably younger than me, which made me feel better, even though it was a lie. Turns out there were 10 women in my age group that were faster swimmers than me.

I also did some weird zig-zag swimming. I sight pretty well, and I could see where I wanted to swim to, but then I would put my head down, swim a bit, look up and I’d be zigging off to the left. Correct myself, put my head down, look up after swimming a bit further and I was zagging off to the right. This was really annoying and I don’t usually do this, so I have no idea what was going on. I was at the first buoy before I realized it, turned sharp right and at the 2nd buoy pretty quickly and then swim into the boat launch a short distance further and run up the ramp and out. I did have some calf-cramping about the last third of the swim, but not too bad. Tried to relax the legs a bit and not kick too hard.

I’m center front in the pink cap. By the way, after I was about 2/3 of the way through this swim, the wetsuit started feeling too warm to me and I wanted to take it off. It’s the first time I’ve ever worn the thing and felt too warm during a swim.

Swim Results: 33:23 for 1500 meters. 11th out of 28 in age group. Overall satisfied with this under the less-than-rested conditions. My 2nd best tri-swim ever.

So I was determined to have a better T1 this time than in my last race. I had used TriSlide before putting my wetsuit on. I really wanted to get that suit off fast, unlike my last race where it just stuck on me. But I ran up to the transition area and went up the wrong aisle, two aisles over from where my bike was, and got lost and disoriented. So then I had to stand there and think where my bike was. That was very disconcerting. Must have added an easy 30 seconds to my transition time. The suit did come off better than last time, but still not as easily as I would have liked.

T1: 3:29. Very bad! 18th out of 28 in my age group. Ugg! 11 women made it in less than 3 minutes.

When I finished with T1 I grabbed my bike, ran out and to the bike mount line.

I was ready for this ride. I think. Well, I knew it was going to be very hilly. I had driven the course the afternoon before, and the first 6 miles were all uphill. Turns out that after I started my quads were burning almost immediately. Not a good feeling. But I know I can push 28 miles or so pretty hard, as a result of doing a few rides up and down PCH this summer with the L.A. TriClub. So I just worked it as hard as I could. I was getting passed by lots of men, but not too many women. And there were a couple of women that I recognized as we traded places with each other back and forth throughout the bike course. One lady in particular, with a very nice bike and a “51″ on her calf to represent her age, was someone I tried to hang with. I figured with such a nice bike she was a serious cyclist (or so I told myself) so it made me feel like I was doing pretty decently if I could stay with her. Eventually I passed her up around mile 16 and never saw her again.

One thing funny that happened…around mile 17 or so a 48-year-old dude passed me and said, “Damn, fine legs, miss. Damn fine.” That made me laugh. I said, “Thank you.” Always nice to get whatever compliments you can on the race course.

Anyhow, this bike course seemed very hard. When we drove it the day before the race, I thought it seemed comparable to riding PCH north of Malibu. But when riding it during the race it seemed quite a bit harder. My Garmin gave me a 16.8 mph average reading, which is slower than I’ve recently ridden on PCH, so it makes me think it was indeed harder. Or I was tired. Or mentally psyched out. Not sure.

At about mile 20 or so the course goes from the road onto a bike path, and that bike path was sweet. Downhill and fast, mostly. Nice way to end the bike as we approached T2.

Bike results: 1:23:44. This is less than 1 second off the time shown on my Garmin. Garmin said 23.5 miles. 7th in age group out of 28. I think this is my best bike result in a tri ever. I’m very happy with this.

Garmin data for the bike: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/52489441

T2: 1:17. 9th in age group out of 28. Not terrible, but room for improvement.

The run started off on the bike path. It was mostly a gradual downhill at the start, with some rolling hills. I was sooooo tired by this time, after all that pushing on the bike. I just tried to keep moving. Then after about 2 miles on the bike path, the course cut through a park and up a small hill and onto trails. From this point on it was hill after hill after hill on a twisty set of small trails, for the most part. Except where it came out onto a road and went up a BIG hill. I think this is the most difficult 10K course I’ve ever done. I did not walk any of the hills, though. I made myself keep “running”…although some of the uphill was very slow. My Garmin went a bit whacko at the start of the run course, and so not all of the run was recorded (I lost about a tenth of a mile of data and the elevation profile is bonkers). But the course was way over 6.2 miles. My watch showed it more as 6.6. My average pace, according to my watch, was 7:07 min/mile. I’m a little astounded at that. I must’ve run the downhill parts very fast, I guess. I sure didn’t feel like I was moving that fast.

In the end, I was just dying and wanting to finish. Pushed as much as I could, but there wasn’t much left. Couldn’t really kick at the finish line, either.

Run results: 48:13. 4th in age group out of 28. For what was really a training race for me, I’m quite happy with this.

Garmin data for the run: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/52489443 (incomplete and corrupted though it may be)

Overall finish time and results:

2:50:06 . 5th in age group out of 28. Pretty good finish.

If I were to do this race again, I would probably go out and train on the bike and run courses. I always do so much better if I know the course. I’m sure some of it is physical, but a lot of it is mental. Not sure if I will do this one next year, but it is a possibility. Try to beat this year’s time.

Official results at http://www.y-events.com/10octrif.htm

Picture set on Flicker at OC Int’l Tri 2010 (19 photos including ones shown above)

Today I did the Orange County International Triathlon. An Olympic distance triathlon. I want to post a full race report, but the full results are not available yet, so I’m just going to post a brief summary for now. The official splits for the race results will not be available until Wednesday morning, which I cannot believe. In this day and age, the technology should make this much faster. Certainly tomorrow they should be available. Oh well. My Garmin 305 malfunctioned at the start of the run, but between time stamps on pictures my hubby took plus my final race time and what I could get from my Garmin, I have approximate information.

I did not sleep well last night (3 hours). I did sleep very well Friday, but I didn’t sleep well earlier in the week. And my taper did not go so marvelously–I felt tired all week. So I was not surprised that I felt tired almost immediately upon starting this race. Still, I managed somehow to get through the 1500 meter swim in about 33:19, which is over 2 minutes better than I did in the pool for practice a week ago. I am pretty happy with that.

I ran into Transition 1 (T1) and went up the wrong aisle of racks, got lost and couldn’t find my bike. This has never happened to me before. Ugg. So I lost time looking for my bike, finding the right rack, etc. The wetsuit came off more easily than in my last tri, but still not quite as easily as I might’ve liked. It looks like my T1 was about 3:31. I really wanted to be under 3 minutes. I’m sure that the confusion contributed to being over.

The bike is supposed to be 40K (which is about 24.8 miles). My Garmin logged it as 23.5 miles. I just don’t understand all these races that seem to have shorter distance than they advertise on some parts. That’s OK, the run ended up longer than 10K. Haha. Anyhow, this was a very hilly bike ride. I think this course was the worst for hills I’ve ever encountered in a triathlon. (This was my seventh triathlon.) I got 1:23:43 according to my Garmin, which was 16.8 mph average speed. I’m happy with this considering my legs were burning right from the start and I just had to keep telling myself to push it and go. The hills were crazy!

Transition 2 (T2) was 1:22.72 according to my Garmin. I’m pretty happy with this.

So my Garmin went whacky on the run part and had a whole bunch of bogus laps added at the beginning. I deleted those, and I still get (for a 10K which should be 6.2 miles) 6.52 miles and this doesn’t include part of the distance I ran. I think the run was closer to 6.6 miles. The run was also very hilly and I felt slow on all the hills. But I pushed myself and would not let myself walk. I must have ran fast on the other parts. My Garmin gives me an average pace of 7:07, which I have a hard time believing. I guess so. Hmmm. I didn’t feel that fast at all. Overall I got close to 47 minutes for what they are sure to call a 10K so my official pace will come out something like 7:34. Will have to wait and see.

At the race they posted my final time as 2:49:53.7. But on their website it is now showing 2:50:06. According to the timestamps on our photos, the first time was more accurate. Yeah, yeah. Why am I getting so picky about 9 or 10 seconds? Well…because!

The temperatures were reasonable for this race and I got 5th in my age group (women 45-49). Overall, I was happy with the result given how I felt when I started the race today and the very hilly nature of the bike and run. It was good training for my last tri of the season coming up in 4 weeks, and I’m going to KILL that one. I feel like I’m probably going to be sore tomorrow and/or Monday and tired for this week’s training. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ll post more details and follow-up later this week. And pictures.

And then I started my Masters Swim workouts. And the coach was having me do a fair amount of kicking. Although I thought I didn’t really need to be doing kicking drills, I tried to just suck it up and say nothing. After all, I was seeking the expertise of the coach. He knows more about this than I do, right? That’s why I was doing the Masters Swim. Eventually I did ask him about it and he said I needed to keep that end of my body up, or something like that. So…ok. Still doubtful but…just doing the drills like he said.

Well, about a week or two ago I saw this article on TriSwimCoach.com that discusses this very thing. His point is that in triathlon while we don’t need the kick for propulsion, we do need it for balance. It will help a lot with the swim with just some bit of kicking. Really good article: A Little Kick Goes a Loooong Way in Triathlon Swimming

Then today someone on Daily Mile shared a link to this YouTube video of Dave Scott giving tips on kicking drills. Dave Scott being, of course, one of triathlon’s all time greats and 6-time winner of the Ironman World Championships at Kona. These kicking drills look really good. I think I would enjoy trying these.

Well, the kicking drills from Masters Swim are seeming to finally pay off for me. I’ve actually been feeling more balanced in the pool, like my back end is floating up higher. And the coach even told me a few days back that my kicking was looking good. Or did he say “better”? Maybe it’s not good, yet, but just better. Hahah.

But nothing brought home to me how important it is to keep the back end up when swimming like a drill he had me do this past Tuesday. He had me do a “pull” drill, with the paddles. But I was not kicking or using a pull buoy. Instead I had to cross my legs at the ankles and just let them trail behind me. This was VERY tough. My legs just sank. I could not really swim. I was almost vertical in the water at some points. He told me I had to pick my tempo up and have a faster turnover (faster stroke). I tried and that did help some. But wow, how much harder it was to stroke and pull with all that dragging.

http://www.active.com/swimming/Articles/Survive_the_Surf__Entrances_and_Exits_in_Open_Water_Swims.htm

Well, at some point I will probably look into the whole heart rate thing. Here is a good article on the topic that seems to go into quite a bit of detail and I will want to come back and review it again. Seems balanced. Pros/cons. Alternatives. Etc.

Triathlon Training Principles: Heart Rate Training | Trifuel

In my race schedule for this season, I had picked to do the Oxnard Splash-n-Dash on Sept. 13th. But I didn’t realize when I picked that (which I have not yet registered for) that it is a 1 hr 45 min drive from my house. Yikes. Such a long drive for a relatively short race. I was going to do the long course (1000 meter swim followed by the 4 mile run).

I looked for alternate events that have an ocean swim on a weekend between now and November when I’m not working or already doing another race. Kinda tough. Iron Man & Half Iron Man distances are too much for me right now!

But look at this: Mermaid Tri in Santa Cruz on Sept. 27th. Instead of Oxnard Splash-N-Dash Sept. 13th. Is it crazy to drive 5-6 hours on Saturday for a Sunday race? And then pretty much drive right back home? And if I drive that far, I’d want to do their Olympic Distance course, not the Sprint distance. Am I up for an Olympic Distance for my 3rd triathlon? What if we stay overnight on Sunday and drive back at the crack of dawn on Monday. My 7th grade daughter would miss school. That is wrong and bad. I shouldn’t take her out of a day of school for my race. Sigh. But I want to. Don’t want to drive right back on Sunday.

Also, my older daughter goes to UC Santa Cruz, so we would get to see her (if briefly) that weekend if we drive up. Hmmmmm.

So…

1. Which event? Oxnard Splash-n-Dash Sept 13th (“local” but pretty far) or Santa Cruz all women Mermaid Tri Sept 27th?
2. Am I nuts to do Olympic? I can already swim 1.5km and running a 10K is nothing. Just have to up my bike mileage which is pretty low right now (max dist of 15 miles).
3. Take my daughter out of school Monday or drive our butts right back on Sunday?

I should be able to make these kind of decisions myself… I guess I really just want to do Santa Cruz but driving 5.5 hours up and back Sat/Sun just seems like such a drag. Boo!

Not to worry. I did a 6 mile bike ride yesterday. And today I did my own triathlon: 1500 meter ocean swim in 45 minutes; 3 mile run in 23 minutes; later in the day 14.8 mile bike in 1 hr 6 minutes on a hilly course. Tomorrow I will swim laps at the pool.

Anyhow, I do need to sign up for events and put together some more training. And I’ve finalized my events up through March 2010. Here they are:

Aug. 2, 2009 (Sun) 5K Paws for Cause

Aug. 16, 2009 (Sun) Hansen Dam Triathlon

Sep. 13, 2009 (Sun) Oxnard Splash-n-Dash (I think the long course)

new -> Sep. 27, 2009 (Sun) Mighty Mermaid Triathlon Santa Cruz (olympic distance)

Oct. 11, 2009 (Sun) Long Beach Half Marathon (completes my California Dreaming award)

Nov. 7, 2009 (Sat) Catalina Triathlon

Nov. 26, 2009 (Thu) 10K Turkey Trot at Dana Point

Feb. 7, 2010 (Sun) Surf City Half Marathon – I think I have to do this every year. I’m a legacy runner for this race.

Mar. 7, 2010 (Sun) Napa Valley Marathon

Mar. 21, 2010 (Sun) Los Angeles Marathon

Apr 23-34 (Fri-Sat) Ragnar Relay L.A. (Santa Barbara to Dana Point)

OK, so I have to get my credit card out and start registering for some of these. And tomorrow I’m going to have to hunker down and start writing my training schedule for at least through November 2009. That is always so much work.

So, from no events to 9 events. Really, though, I’ve been thinking about most of these for a long time. Just hadn’t committed to the registration and written out my training plans. Working on it, working on it!

Me on the left & Nina (Twitter friend) on the right at Santa Monica Ocean Swim.

So I bought an xTerra Vortex 3 last Friday, June 26, 2009. And I was eager to try it out. Wanted to make sure it fit properly and was easy to move around and swim in it. So I planned to go to Huntington State Beach on Monday and get in a short ocean swim.

The original plan was to hit the beach before noon, short swim, picnic lunch with Jenny on the beach, play and relaxation time before heading home. Unfortunately, due to a comedy of errors, we didn’t actually get to Huntington until 3 PM. I talked to the Life Guard briefly, put my wetsuit on, and ventured out.

In watching the surf before I suited up, the breakers hadn’t looked too large to me. So about 20 minutes later I was wading into the surf. Life guard had said water temp was 62˚. It didn’t feel cold to me at all, especially with the suit on. Waves still looked ok, and I proceeded out to my chest. I felt the cold water coming through the suit at the zipper on the back. Just interesting, not a problem. Kept going and got out past most of the breakers. But there was one row left to get past, and they seemed pretty big. I was not comfy with it. I decided to go back in and try ocean swimming in my suit another day.

I did feel good about the suit, though. It fit nicely and I was able to move easily in the water. Arms didn’t feel restricted. In fact, while I was trying to get out past the waves, I didn’t even think about the suit at all. I wasn’t even aware of it or that I was wearing it. The waves had my full attention. The suit does feel a bit loose around the lower legs when the water comes in, but I think that is OK. It’s kind of interesting how the suit expands/stretches and adjust on you when it gets wet.

Jenny and I did stay at the beach for another hour just relaxing and playing in the sand, but it was getting cold and windy and unpleasant. So we left a bit after 5 pm and met up with the hubby for dinner. I considered the ocean experience a success, even though I didn’t actually swim. Baby steps. I will just keep at this until I’m comfortable and good at it.

Well, through the magic of Twitter I found a friend who lives in the L.A. area and belongs to the L.A. Tri Club. She convinced me to come out on Wed. morning July 1st for an open water swim at Santa Monica Beach. Wow. I had to get there at 6 am. Left my house just after 5 am for the drive. Was worried about traffic, but I think I got lucky and made it in only 45 minutes. This swim is attended by over 100 members & guests of the L.A. Tri Club. It is a regular weekly event. The surf conditions were pretty decent that morning. Not as calm as ideal, but not too bad.

I really liked being with a group. I stayed towards the back and entered the water after most other people. But it was good to be going in with others. The waves weren’t too high, but still…it gave me confidence to see other people successfully going through the waves. Made me say to myself, “If they can do this, so can I.” So I dove right in, jumped through the waves, and headed out.

The swim we were doing is described as a triangle. There is a buoy 250 meters from the shore which is one point of the triangle. Two cones are placed on the beach about 100 yards apart for the other two points. Start at one cone, swim out on a slant to the buoy, swim from the buoy in to shore to the other cone, then run to the first cone. This completes the circuit. Do one circuit or more.

Well, I was swimming out there, and most of the other swimmers were faster. I was getting left behind. And my goggles were letting water in. So I was fidgeting with them. It seemed like I still had breakers to get over, but I guess not. It was just a decent sized rolling swell. And I couldn’t see the buoy any more. I could follow the other swimmers. But I couldn’t see how far I needed to go…my goal. It seemed so far away. I thought, “Maybe this is enough for today. I can just turn around now and get out.” But when I looked behind me I saw that I was quite far from shore. At least halfway to the buoy for sure. Oh, what the heck. I might as well just finish and swim to the buoy.

So I kept going. Mind you, I hadn’t even really broken in to freestyle yet. I wasn’t very big on putting my face in the water. The goggles weren’t working very well and I was afraid of losing a contact lens. And the water is very salty. Tastes bad. I was dog paddling, breast stroking, side stroking, back stroking. And mostly keeping the head up. I guess I put it down 2 or 3 times on the way out to the buoy, but not for long.

Eventually I saw the buoy and the current had pushed me past it. I thought, “Gosh, I’m not even going to go around the buoy. Bummer.” Then I decided the heck with that, I certainly WAS going to go around the buoy. So I had to swim back and around it. There was a club member treading water out there with a waterproof camera. He said some encouraging things to me and I told him this was my first time swimming out to an ocean buoy. He said it was too bad the conditions weren’t very good. I was kind of surprised. I didn’t think it was that bad.

And around the buoy and back towards shore. I did try freestyle a couple of times, and put my face down in the water briefly. But again, the goggles just weren’t working right for me. I decided backstroke was OK and mostly backstroked it in. Getting in past the breakers wasn’t too hard. Overall a success. I wasn’t panicked during this swim like during my triathlon and I felt like I could possibly do another circuit. But I decided not to. I decided to stop at one this time. Next time I’ll do two.

Afterwards I waited and said good-bye to Nina (my Twitter friend) and her husband and then I did a five mile run along the shore. I went up past the Santa Monica Pier. Last time I was there was when I did the Santa Monica 10K Classic in April 2006.

Anyhow, this whole experience was so positive, and I want to do it again. So I joined the L.A. Tri Club that afternoon. I am planning to attend a number of their training events. I’ve RSVP’d for next Wednesday’s “Ocean 101” and I hope that this Sunday I will go out and do their “Chicken of the Sea” swim. I figure I gotta just keep doing this and the more I do it the more comfortable I’ll become and I’ll get pretty good at it.

Jenny at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas after Wetsuit Purchase

So I’ve been going back and forth over the whole wetsuit thing for a while now. To buy one or not? Finally decided to buy one. Then which one to buy? And how to buy? Or to rent? 

Basically, I plan to do enough tris that rental costs would add up quickly and be more than a purchase price. Plus I want to have the suit available to me for practice and to become comfortable in it. And even though I have a few friends who’ve done a number of tris with no suit, I have so many people encouraging me to get one not just for warmth, but for bouyancy as well, that I decided to go ahead and buy.

Early in June someone on Twitter posted a sale link to xTerraWetsuits. Half price deal on some of their popular, top-of-the-line suits (sale ends June 29, 2009 but it looks like they’ll be having additional promos in July). I was infatuated really with the Vortex 3 full suit. But afraid to order online without trying on.

Me in my New Wetsuit - not the most flattering but...

Friends on Facebook and Twitter encouraged me to go to a local shop and try wetsuits on, rather than order online. So I did go to a local bike shop on Wednesday and try on some wetsuits. Quite an adventure.

Still, enamored with the Vortex 3, I looked on their site and saw they did have walk-in hours at their San Diego location. So an expedition for Friday was planned, to drive down there, try suits on, and if I liked, buy one. There was an investment of time (about 3.5 hours in freeway traffice all told for the day), but got a suit that I like and I know it fits and a good price. I’m happy with the results.

We left the house a bit after 11 am on Friday June 26th  and made it to their offices before 1 pm. They were really helpful and nice. The one thing I regret is that I made a fingernail tear in my new suit just trying it on, and I was incredulous as I was being SOOOO careful. But the employee said it is very easy to make these. I got some instructions and materials for patching it and it is already patched.

We left there at 1:30 pm with a new suit, got gas and headed back north. Jenny was with me, and we stopped at Giovanni’s on the 101 Hwy for lunch  in Encinitas and then spent some time at the beach there before getting back in the car to power the rest of the way home.

Moonlight Beach in Encinitas where we stopped after lunch

Since I’ve written the above I’ve already been to the beach twice with my wetsuit and tried it out. Will have to write about that next…