Disney Half Build 2 recap

I'm having a hard time being committed to working out. It's easier to sleep in in the morning or just go straight home after work. When it's a group workout, except for swimming, I can still make it out, but the winter self-motivation of the last two years is sort of lacking.

However, I'm not just sitting around idle! I cleaned my house enough that I was able to have people over and have kept it up! I've also tried some new recipes, and am most pleased with the deliciousness of pickled red onions. My cranberry sauce recipes were good this year as well, one with slices of ginger and the other with walnuts and crushed pineapple.

Finally, in non-workout news, with the clean table, I've been able to start working on the backlog of baby quilts I feel like I owe my friends. That consumed most of Thanksgiving weekend, but if I hadn't been crafting, I probably would have just watched TV, so that's not an excuse for not exercising.

Mini-goal assessment 

• Bike commute 30 miles - nope! I let laziness win and also this was a really high number to pick!
• Get to 4 yoga sessions - Almost! There were 4 available, but I made it to 3.
• Do PT/Hip stretches 10 times - Success! This was going really well during the build weeks, but I slacked off during recovery

Review of last three weeks

• 1 bootcamps
• 3 Yoga
• Swam
• 3 times
• Ran
• 2 run leads
• 1 track practices
• 1 weeknight bonus short run
• 10 mi long run
• 11 mi long run
• Biked
• 2 spin practices
• 2.5 hours long spin
• 30 miles long bike
• 0 assorted commute miles

Mini-goals for the next build cycle (Nov 28-Dec 19) 

• Clean & organize linen closet
• Have Cookiefest!
• Do PT/Hip stretches 10 times

Post-run brunching, and all the prerequisites

While marathon and Ironman training last year, I had a feeling I was giving up "other" stuff, like keeping my house tidy, other hobbies, having people over for food. Probably in 2014, I didn't actually keep my house any nicer than I did in 2015, but now that I don't have those training excuses, I want to try to make my house a place I'd like to live, instead of just the place I sleep in between exercising and work.

Step 1! Plan to invite people over for brunch.

This led to what should have been Step 0, clean frantically!

I started on Wednesday, and started with trying to resolve the deal-breaker question. With some carpet products, can I erase the evidence of my cats angry tummy and other spills and stuff that had gotten on the carpet over the last few years. Thankfully, the answer was yes, and after spraying some who-knows-what chemicals on the floor and vacuuming it up, I had a much nicer carpet.

Then, I tackled some of the main placed I'd been storing piles of paper and found some clean surfaces underneath a lot of accumulated junk. What isn't shown in the picture below is all the stuff I piled up on the couch as an intermediate step

After the carpet success, I was ready for Step 2! Actually invite people over.

Thursday evening was Step 0.1, continuing the cleaning. I focused on the kitchen, organizing some cupboards to fit things that had flowed out to the counters, cleaning the stovetop and microwave, and moving and wiping down everything. I need to remember that this took like less than 10 minutes and then I had a clean and functional kitchen instead of one where there's no room left to actually cook anything. I wish I had a before & after photo, but before was too embarrassing, and after just looks like a kitchen.

Friday was Step 3, plan the menu and make a shopping list. I knew I wanted to make an eggy breakfast casserole but also wanted to make some vegan food and a hearty soup sounded good.

1. Breakfast casserole: I used a red pepper, instead of green, didn't add sausage, and put in apples, onion and garlic (didn't think that through very carefully, but wanted to use up an apple), and while it wasn't my best breakfast casserole, it also wasn't awful
2. Oatmeal casserole: This was a new thing that came up while I was searching for an eggy dish, and it worked really well. The leftovers this morning were sort of too soggy, so it's best as a 1 day thing, or maybe I made it too moist. I didn't put in the chocolate chips, but it was plenty sweet without.
3. Cauliflower soup: This was very tasty. I added two chopped & sauteed leeks, and then didn't blenderize it,  but did mash it up so the chunks of cauliflower were small. I also added two cubes of veggie bouillon, and it had really great flavor and texture. Since I didn't blend it, it wasn't creamy.
4. Salad + vegan dressing: I was excited to try out nutritional yeast and had had this great dressing which was basically nutritional yeast, dijon mustard, and oil at a friend's party, so I got notes from them and imitated it. It was super tasty, and a great find. I can't find a recipe online that is a simple as hers, so for my records it was: 1/2 C olive oil, 2T dijon mustard, 2T nutritional yeast, salt & pepper as needed, and water if it is too thick. Mix well. 

Saturday was Step 4, shopping, and Step 0.2, clean off the couch. I was amazed that I was able to get the heaping piles of everything condensed into 2 boxes: (1) homeless crafty supplies and (2) things that should get filed in my desk. Those boxes got moved into the bedroom, and ta-da! My house was clean and ready for brunching.

Finally, Step 5! Cook & eat. When Sunday rolled around, it was almost anti-climactic to actually have people over :) The gaps in my planning were filled in when guests brought fruit salad, muffins, cranberry bread, rosemary bread, and a brunching essential, mimosa-makings.

For next time, I would prep the French Press for coffee beforehand, and I might have more pre-eating nibbles or activities. Or, I'll have a smaller group over for a winter dinner and actually use my nice plates and serving dishes. I could have accommodated more (we had 9 people eating), but it would have had to have been with some people sitting on the couch & chairs and eating with plates balanced on their lap.

So the goal of doing something that isn't training in this non-marathon, non-ironman season, has been met! Hopefully I'll not go as long before the next time I host people again :)

IMChoo: Let's go running!

First, a brief recap. When we last left our intrepid athlete (me), I'd left T2 with appropriate gear. Success! I was on top of my nutrition for the day and ready to run a focused, well-paced marathon.

I'd talked with my track coach and asked the internet what a reasonable Ironman-marathon goal would be, and set my best-day goal based on that -- so I was dreaming of a run that would be about 30 minutes slower than my stand-alone marathon.

I had plans that went out to a 13:00 min/mile pace and had told my parents that as long as I am making the cut-offs it is still a good day. Since my starting position, bike and swim had gone so well, I had loads of time before cutoffs became a problem, so I was feeling quite good.

Run

Run Visualization from Race Plan (Part 1)

I started off the run like I had most of the brick-workouts this year with what I've called a run-pyramid. It eases me into the running and gives me lots of things to think about and pretty soon 3-4 miles are done, and you are fully in run mode!

It starts with a 30 second run, 30 second walk, to get yourself going, and then goes to
1 minute run, 30 second walk
2 minute run, 30 second walk
3 minute run, 30 second walk
...

Until you are finishing the run intervals comfortably and feel like you have left your weird biking legs behind you. Usually for me that would happen around the 6 or 7 minutes step.

On race day, I worked up to the 4 minute ladder and then changed strategy to a half mile run, 30 second walk, so I would be more likely to be walking at the aid stations, which were pretty close to the mile markers.

My best 5 miles of the day was miles 0-5 where I was running a little too briskly, but it wasn't so fast that I regretted it later. I'd made a list of things to look for in the first part of the run, and also wanted to add some new stuff to keep an eye out for for the second loop. So I got to say hello to the back-side of a marsh, hello to the Subway, hello to the swim start, etc.

I put some savings in my karma bank when I came across a cheerer who had scraped her knee. I had some (Ironman) bandaids in my run belt and gave them to her, and thanked her for cheering. It felt good to take that micro-break to do something for someone else.

There were 4 bridge crossings for the day and I love counting things down, so crossing bridge #1 was a great marker for the day. I was happy and strong and moving well. The post-it of my dreams, with the 11:30 pace run was fore-front in my mind for a lot of the run, and I tried very hard to stay around that, or a little ahead, so I could have some buffer for later in the day.

Run Visualization from Race Plan (Part 2)

 The TeamZ cheer station for the run was around mile 9, 11, 22 and 24, and I was super excited to see everyone as I came down the hill for mile 9 (fastest mile of the day included that glorious downhill). I had successfully dran my bottles of Skratch that I left T2 with and was refilling the bottles with coke from the aid stations (which then would fizz out all over my hand) and was on top of my calories. This was after one of the big-hill crests of the day where I kept my head up and walked with purpose.

The loop to get back to the TeamZ tent had the rest of the hills of the course and for that, I used a phrase "Roll through the hills". In my Monday night runs, I'd found a nice up&down section that I called a roller-coaster and treated it as if it was a fun and exciting adventure to run down & up, and I brought that mentality with me to race day.

I was feeling good, and ran from the TeamZ tent to bridge crossing #2. I did that first half marathon in 2:29 and was completely on pace for my perfect day

Run Visualization from Race Plan (Part 3)

Right after that was special needs where I picked up some cookies, and some new bottles with Skratch, which was a nice change from the coke I'd been drinking. I saw my parents near there which was neat -- I was so proud of them for finding me somewhere on the course that was off of my basic-cheer-guide-script and also I was happy to have them there to hand off my arm-warmers to, since I was on track to not need them at all!

Shortly after special needs I saw a training friend who is a biking-machine and started working to reel her in. We were both having great runs, so that took a long time, which was a good thing! Watching her kept my head up and gave me something to aim for and since she was having a good day, the target stayed in front of me for quite some time.

All day long, I had been working to keep my focus small and to "stay in the box," and around mile 15 while passing her, "stay in the box" got a little crazy in my head. I started visualizing boxes of Christmas presents, with like wrapping paper and a bow and everything. At mile 15, I got to unwrap the mile 15 box, and I had to enjoy that present (ie. observe my surroundings, celebrate strength, work on my cadence, look for things I'd noticed on the first loop) for that whole mile. Like watching little kids unwrap things, I "played" with each new toy as I got it, instead of rushing on to the others. It was a pretty vivid mental image and it worked really well for a number of miles that could have felt desolate or isolated otherwise.

During this presents-part of the run and into the side-stitch part of the run, I got to enjoy an amazing sunset. We were running west on a river-front path with scenic bridges in front of us. The sky turned a beautiful pink and we were out playing outdoors and being strong and successful.

For the run, I started with that run-pyramid plan, and I also had a "get back on plan" plan, and I also had a "fall back" plan. I started getting some side stitches around mile 20, and was walking more than I had wanted to. While running back down the river, saying goodbye to Marsh1, goodbye to Marsh2, goodbye to the swim start, I had to fall back to a run/walk and forced myself into 2 minutes of running, 30 seconds of walking. "2 minutes of running is just 100 seconds plus a bit, so of course you can do that" I told myself, over and over. That worked until bridge crossing #3, which was probably the lowest point of the day. (It was not a very low point in the overall scheme of things)

At bridge crossing 3, I was having some serious side pain and was trying deep alligator breaths where I pushed the air down to the bottom of my lungs, big exhale lion/dragon breathing, and 4 step inhale 4 step exhale circular breathing, and nothing was really solving it. Everyone around me could totally hear me coming though as "quiet" was not one of my breathing goals. Finally, I tried bending over to see if I could/needed to throw up, and that twist relieved most of the pain, and it stayed better when I stood up again! Working through that and then cresting the big hill took about a mile and a half, and added about 4 minutes to my finish time.

At the time, this was hardly a negative thing. I had passed on the run two teammates who had had their dream-race derailed by angry-tummies so having a side-stitch that made me walk, this late in the race, was not a big deal. Now, with some perspective, I can even see it as a positive. I've finally had a side-stitch come on me in a race, and overcome it to some degree!

Run Visualization from Race Plan (Part 4)

Throughout the run, I tried really hard not to say anything negative out loud, or especially to join in any negative conversations. There were a lot of people groaning about the steep hill on the second loop, but instead of thinking about that, I cheered for the downhill runners saying things like "I want to be like you someday... maybe in like 20 minutes" and totally cracked myself up.

Cresting the big hill for the second time, I was excited for many things

1. I was running downhill again
2. I was running after the drama of the side-stitch
3. My legs were still able to go downhill from all the practice I'd been putting in since the half on the relaxed-downhill-fall
4. I was going to get to see the TeamZ cheer station again and pass off my fuel belt and sunglasses so they wouldn't be in my finish picture.
5. I was starting to think about finish pictures!!

Running past the TeamZ cheer tent for the third time

The neighborhood hill loop after passing TeamZ was harder than the first time through (of course, since I'd run 13 miles since then!), and like on the bridge, I did a lot of loud and purposeful breathing during my walk breaks, but I was joking about it and passing people who weren't running as much or weren't walking as purposefully. I tried to start my present-visualization back up again, but was spending too much focus on managing the side-stitch, so just remember a few things, like seeing the beautiful big moon shining down on us, and trying to call out fun and positive things to people who were having block-parties cheering for us.

My slowest mile of the day was coming up past the TeamZ tent for the last time and cresting the big hill, but from then on, the excitement started building.

My abs had decided they had done enough for me, so I had a new kind of downhill pain. My legs felt ok, but I had to hold my stomach in place otherwise it hurt as I jostled down the hill.

I also remember some fake smiling through pain, using the study I'd heard about that even fake smiles relieve stress.

Bridge crossing #4 meant I was really actually close and it was time to start having epic thoughts and perhaps a transcendental life revelation. That didn't really happen, but I did take a pause where I could see the finish line, but the crowds weren't too dense to walk a bit and think about the day. I tossed away my glow necklace and started running down the hill.

I heard the announcer say "Debbie, a first timer from Alexandria, VA, You Are An Ironman!" and I waved my arms in the air a bit, apparently at different angles, and not in a triumphant fist-pump kind of way, so there's some room for improvement there, but having two teammates dive for me to get to give me a medal was pretty exciting

I was shuffled through the finisher area and passed off to my sherpa and family easily. Again, I was super proud of my family for being there together at the right time and making it easy for me to meet up with them. This is the sweaty smile of a very self-satisfied person, but I hadn't yet realized that I'd finished the marathon in 5:04 overall, which meant my second half-marathon was only 6 minutes slower than the first, and that my overall day was basically a complete realization of the post-it of my dreams.

Disney Half Build 1 recap

Post-Ironman, I wanted to recover while not forgetting how good it feels to be strong. This last month was mostly focused on that. I can feel the difference between my strongest self and my current self, but overall am pleased with the amount of fun I was able to pack in while not focusing on exercise, and hope that the differences I am seeing in performance will help motivate me when I'm ready to chase

Mini-goal assessment

• Keep TSB score positive while starting to move again - Success! I was able to overcome the "all exercise all the time" mentality for a few weeks. I could have used a bit more balance, but it worked out well with life
• Go out to weeknight events! (Movie, book reading, theater) - Success! I went to see The Martian and enjoyed the full movie theater experience with popcorn and also went to see a show at Woolly Mammoth. The book reading was superseded with other events, but that's ok.
• Cheer for friends! (IMMD and Tussey) - Success! IMMD was great fun cheering and volunteering, and at Tussey, I ended up relaying in a team of 4, so it was mobile cheering!

Review of the weeks since Ironman

• No bootcamps
• 2 Yoga
• Swam
• at only 3 practices
• Ran
• 4 run leads
• 0 track practices
• 1 weeknight bonus short run
• 6 mi at long run - should have been 9
• 13 miles at Tussey
• Biked
• Tough 10 miles the week after IM
• Recovery 2 hours at PWF
• 67 delicious miles at Great Pumpkin Ride
• 30 mi long ride
• Night out at 80's concert
• Night out for Halloween

Mini-goals for the next build cycle (Nov 7-27)

• Bike commute 30 miles
• Get to 4 yoga sessions
• Do PT/Hip stretches 10 times

Great Pumpkin Epic Tussey Weekend

The Great Pumpkin Ride was great, as advertised. I met up with some friends (who had just done IMMD the week before!!) and we rode the 67 mile route together. I had a little ego battle riding from the first to second aid stations and really paid for it at the end of the ride by completely running out of energy.

There were three aid stations, so 4 segments of the ride, and for the third and fourth segments I was dropped by my teammates pretty terribly. 2 lessons learned - 1. Don't ride too hard if you don't want to pay for it later, 2. Don't expect much from your biking power if you take almost a month off.

From there, I drove up to Tussey to meet up with my teammates to relay 50 miles through the woods. It was amazingly beautiful, and cheering for our friends who were racing the 50 miler as individuals was also amazing. Autumn woods are almost my favorite scenery, right after spring daffodils, and this course definitely came through in that respect

With three legs each for us relayers, it was easy to run too hard, which made Monday after this epic weekend pretty tough. My legs were screaming almost as much as they do after an A-race, but I'd done it to myself by scheduling too much fun in two days. I hope to talk people into this relay again next year, and just have to remember not to assign myself the role of the second person in the rotation. I think that was definitely the hardest position of the day.
Besides that, I've also transitioned to a new job within my company, which is adding a lot of non-workout stress to my life. It's very hard to go from being really good at your daily job to being a novice, but hopefully this will continue to get better week by week.

IMChoo: Let's go biking!

T1

My main goals for T1 were to remember to put on face sunscreen before chamois cream and to eat my first Gu of the day. I did that successfully, changed into my other tritop that is more comfortable to wear for the rest of the day and headed out!

Without running, I got through transition in 7 minutes, when I had allocated 10, so that was perfect.

Bike 

I had some power numbers from a free trial of Best Bike Split that I was hoping to use as guidance, but also wanted to make sure my heart rate didn't get too high and that I stayed on top of my nutrition.

The course was a lollipop with 11 miles to ease into the idea of biking. This included some railroad crossings, which given my recent bike-fall-down, I was super cautious around. I even went so far as to unclip one foot to be ready to catch myself if my wheel slipped. I called out my intentions loudly to all the people whizzing past me, so hopefully didn't disrupt anyone's day.

From the 70.3, I had observed "Get bottles that fit well in cages. Noteworthy bumps in first few miles left nutrition on the side of the road." Apparently a lot of racers didn't read my note because there were bottles all over the place, which made the crossings even more treacherous. I didn't lose anything myself, so still had 3 Gu's, two bars, and two bottles of Skratch keeping me company as we headed out of town and into Georgia.

For the next few hours, I biked and ate, and biked and drank. Everything was marvelously uneventful and I kept my focus small. Like the swim, I stayed "in the box", which I implemented by pretending it was a training ride, and using my fake cue sheet to look for the next road, and not thinking about how many more miles there were in the day.

Heading out, I read down the left side of the road names, and on the return half of the loop, I read up the right side. I needed a compact view to be able to fit this all onto my handlebars. Some year, when I get a tri bike, I expect to plaster the front handlebars with information, since there is so much more real-estate to work with, but until then, I have to keep it compact.

The best part of the loop was on the way back after passing Halls Mill, I could start looking forward to seeing family and friends at the cheer station at Pigeon Mountain Grill.

Soon after that was bike special needs, where I took my ziploc of tube + CO2 and put it in my back pocket, reloaded my bento box with Gus and bars, and took 2 more bottles of Skratch. Then I headed off down the road, and used the next few miles of mostly uphill riding as a chance to eat Cheetos, holding the open bag with my left hand, since I wasn't shifting into the big ring any time soon, and wiping cheese dust on my right thigh. That was pretty delicious and thankfully sat well in my stomach.

Loop two was lonelier, and I no longer had people passing me decisively, so I had to work a little harder to avoid drafting, but I kept my power up, and my heart rate only drifted up a little. The perfect weather continued, so I wasn't overheating at all, and after making the turn to come back on the loop, I was able to start making up time towards meeting my biking goal -- while also reminding myself that this is not a bike race and to be smart about this.

One of my goals for the day was to "Experience the day," which sounds a little cheesy now outside of context, but I wanted to stay aware of what was going on around me. On the first loop, I saw some goats and sheep, and signs for bulls, pigs and chickens for sale. It was great countryside and I enjoyed seeing it. The next loop, the animals had moved on to other pastures, but the bulls, pigs and chickens remained for sale.

I looked just as happy passing the cheer station a second time, and am pleased to see from the photo that I hadn't developed any weird posture quirks

"Only" a marathon's worth of biking to go and still on pace and smiling!

My bike held up really well to all the shifting, even with getting rained on the night before. For the half, I had noticed a lot of people dropping chains on the hills, so I worked on being aware of upcoming conditions, so I wouldn't get surprised and need an unexpected front-ring shift. I hope to spend more time in the big ring next season as I continue to get stronger on the bike.

Thankfully, I did not consciously think of the distance I had left to bike, or left to go in the day, and just kept on pedaling, eating, and drinking.

For the return stick, I changed my bike computer's display to show me cadence. I wanted to avoid the tendency to coast that had been happening at the end of my long rides, and I wanted to finish appropriately strong. With cadence, power and HR showing, I tried to keep my effort at an appropriate level and succeeded quite well.

I was super pleased that I had eaten all of my food by that point, and kept sipping at the Gatorade bottle I'd picked up to try to catch up on hydration. My plan had been to get through about a bottle per hour, with 3 calorie bottles per loop and the rest of the drinking as water, but I didn't manage to finish that up. Thankfully it didn't come back to haunt me later, but I should either accept it takes 5 drinks to finish a bottle and plan calories appropriately, or work on taking larger drinks so it only takes 4.

With 3 miles or so left, I increased my cadence which was nice for my running legs, but bad for my speed and power, so I might have to add some high-cadence drills to my biking next year to get a better handle on how to do that without compromise.

I finished the bike in 7:15, which was perfect.

T2

This was also uneventful. I remembered to take my Garmin off my bike, changed socks and shoes, ate a Gu, used the restroom and left to go running.

Somehow this took 5 minutes, but that was what I'd budgeted, so again, perfect!

IMChoo: First IM means incredibly long race report

Visualization FTW

I thought a LOT about this race beforehand. Some of my thoughts were calculations and helped me figure out time goals, and others were trying to imagine how different parts of the day would feel. I wrote out some of my best-case visualizations and read them to myself in the weeks leading to the race. This helped me to not invent worries and to feel good about my decisions.

Once I reached step 3.c of the morning "Start time uncertainty has been resolved, because you have a place in line." I was ready to try to stay relaxed and wait, but first I had to get there.

Pre-Race - Race day

Check, check, check!

Visualization 1.a "With two alarms, this will be easy. Your race day outfit is laid out and you put on timing chip, tri shorts, sports bra, HRM, tri top, and Garmin. Put on a layer of sunscreen. Over that add warmer clothes, old sneakers"

The checklists continued on race day. I made a ziploc of my race-day race clothes, and velcro'd my timing chip to my tri-top. This meant that I didn't wear it around with me all day on Friday and Saturday while also not worrying about losing it.

My race day breakfast was a fairly significant variation from my regular long-workout-breakfast, but it was hotel-compatible, while my regular breakfast (of egg&cheese burrito) was not. The toaster waffle + salted caramel peanut butter sat really well for the pre-race brick; it had slightly less fat & protein than my regular breakfast, so I wasn't expecting any surprise stomach behavior. I also loaded up on warm liquid calories with instant coffee + instant hot chocolate for a "camping mocha" and two scoops of apple-cinnamon Skratch, which was a great treat while sitting in line. Finally, while in line, I enjoyed one of the free Little Debbie snacks around 6am, so I had 90 minutes of digesting before race start.

But, rewinding a bit, before getting into line and finishing eating, I dropped off special needs bags, and made Katie go stand somewhere obvious wearing blinking green bunny ears. I'd wanted to eliminate the potential stress of not being able to find my wetsuit or chair (or sherpa) and the light up ears were a great solution.

In transition, I said good morning to my bike, put on my bottles and stashed my Gu's, and then taped my nutrition cheat sheet and my pseudo-cue sheet to my handlebars so I would be able to treat this like a training ride. I also set my checklists in a puddle, but thankfully was still able to check things off. Whew!

As it turned out, they had already announced that the race was not wetsuit legal while I was setting up transition, but letting Katie carry my bag of wetsuits back to the room was not acceptable, so, exhibiting excellent sherpa behavior, she continued to carry that bag, the chair, and my drinks around for me.

My paranoid schedule that had us waking up at 4A and at transition when it opened at 4:30A, worked out super well and we were on an early shuttle, and were able to join up with Jen in the swim line.

Getting in line resolved one of the major controllable uncertainties in the day and as I settled into the chair to wait, it was easy to continue working on eating my breakfast and drinking my calories.

From the half, I had these notes to myself:

  ·        Get on shuttle early and get in line for swim. Getting into the water early, and hence onto the bike course early was perfect for me – avoid passing people on the bike.
  ·        Bring something to sit on while in line. Send it back with your sherpa
  ·        Gu or other small snacky before swim start

Success! on all counts, except that my snackys were more like 300 calories :)


My family came out to the swim start line at a much more rational time, good wishes were shared all around, and loads of photos were taken.

Happy it is almost time to go

Swim

From the half, these were my swim notes:

  ·        Flow controlled by upstream dam. 8000 cu ft/whatever for 70.3 race day. 24000 cu ft/whatever last year on IM day. Calibrate expectations
  ·        Remember to start watch on the dock
  ·        Practice jumping in and starting swimming at swim practice. If I feel breathless at practice, the next day, jump in and swim slower.
  ·        70 degree water was ok with long sleeve wetsuit. For race day, last year, it was too warm for wetsuit. Research swim skins

For race day, we were looking at 6000 whatevers, so while it was a nice current, it wasn't the raging torrent that last year's swimmers had. I kept my planned swim goal the same, twice the half time, rounded up to the nearest 5 minutes, but was willing to accept whatever it showed when I came out of the water, since it was non-wetsuit :(

My visualization paragraphs for swimming included the great sentence "Your wetsuit is eager to give you a cozy hug" but unfortunately my wetsuit will have to wait for another day to embrace me.

I had researched swim skins, and decided that since I couldn't rent one and since they were expensive, I would just wear my tightest tritop and move on with my life.

I had some anxiety jumping from the dock at the half in May and had been practicing jumping in at all swim practices since then. While jumping in still doesn't feel easy, knowing I had done all that practice helped on race day. When we were being rushed down to the dock, I knew I had done everything I could have to get ready to jump off that dock, so I did it!

No excuses, no regrets.

My next visualization sentences were
"5.a. Stay relaxed & steady – start time uncertainty has been resolved!
5.b. How many buoys are there? Count them down."

This led to the first, and probably biggest, mental hurdle I had in the day (which should tell you how perfect the rest of the day was). 10 minutes into the swim, my watch buzzed, and I was just at the third buoy!! Since the announcer had said they were going to be about 100m apart, that would have meant a record slowest swim. I worried about that for a breath or two, decided the swim felt good, so probably the buoys are farther apart, and calmed myself down.

Starting to worry 10-20 minutes into my day also almost kicked off a spiral of crazy, but I worked on focusing on where I was, not on the big picture, or in other words, I stayed "in the box". I used that box All Day Long! and it never let me down.

The announcer had also said the buoys would switch color half way through. When that happened around 30 minutes into the swim, and after 10 buoys of the first color, I extrapolated that there would probably be 10 of the other color, and stopped worrying I was going unnaturally slowly.

The rest of the swim went well. I dunked someone, but he bobbed up OK, and I apologized. Otherwise, it was a very spacious swim. Every once in a while, I jumped on someone's hip to draft as they passed me, but generally kept it super relaxed -- even to the extent that I consciously noticed I was sliding my hand through the back of my stroke instead of pushing the water. Oh well! I decided not to try too hard to fix it, but it is an area for improvement and something I wouldn't've gotten away with if we hadn't had the current assist.

In a glaring oversight of prep, I had thought we would only swim under two bridges, until I was sighting and realized there were actually three. I'd only been driving/walking across these bridges for the last 3 days, and somehow didn't put that together.

I finished the swim in 1:02, which was perfect.

IMChoo: Leading up to the race...

Weds pre-race - Great day of driving and eating

I started the drive to Chattanooga after 1 last track practice and had an uneventful drive. The only good part of road trips is planning in good food stops so for this trip, I had

1. an unplanned gas station CrackerJack refuel stop
2. lunch at Harvest Table in Meadowview
3. coffee and a snack for later from Blackbird Bakery in Bristol
4. and a pizza to go to eat in my room from Community Pie in Chattanooga 

Harvest Table was even better than I had hoped. The town of Meadowview is rather desolate, but ending up at a place that is so committed to local/seasonal foods that they couldn't have tomatoes on the hamburger since they had stopped growing for the year was a great find. I had the trout cakes and it was an entirely appropriate lunch size portion. If I hadn't been aiming for Blackbird Bakery in less than an hour, I absolutely would have had dessert as well.

Blackbird Bakery overwhelmed me with choices as usual and I took away a slice of chocolate pie for later after sotcking up on iced coffee, water and ice cubes for the next long leg of the drive.

Community Pie, thankfully, still carried the Sweet Fig pizza that I'd enjoyed there in May, so I got that, and started vacation with some binge TV in my hotel & pizza and pie. mmm.

Thurs pre-race - More eating! Checking off checklists

Breakfast - Check!
Julie Darling Doughnuts - Salted Caramel on the left, Oreo/Vanilla on the right

Registration and packet pickup - Check!

I had a pretty extensive race plan document that included a number of checklists, so I was excited to start checking off things.

Registration went super well, I bought my mug, which I decided I wanted to own, even if the whole race day fell apart in some dramatic manner, and picked up a new Little Debbie water bottle, two Oatmeal Creme Pies and a Little Debbie magnet.

The athlete briefing was good as well. It was rather sunny, so I was glad to get it done at 11A instead of waiting until it was hotter in the afternoon. When I watched IM Mont Tremblant last year, they got buoys every 100m on the swim that were numbered. I was hoping for that for us as well, and the announcer said that the buoys would be about 100m apart, but I didn't go down afterwards to ask how many there were, which was one of my prime questions that I wanted answered from that meeting.

Lunch - Check!
At Milk & Honey, I had a turkey, brie and raspberry jam sandwich. Yum!

After lunch at Milk & Honey, I went to The Hot Chocolatier and bought loads of presents for my extensive support network. It was great fun, and even more fun to hand out surprises to people.

Then finally, some downtime before meeting a rolling group of friends for dinner at Taco Mamacita, which I found while in the plaza for lunch. It was a great find and it was nice to enjoy a margarita, trying to put some of the fears to rest. Luckily I was joined at first by people who had done this Ironman thing before, so they kindly didn't laugh at me for wearing my timing chip on my wrist because I was so anxious about misplacing it.

I wrapped up the day with a massage to work out twinges that had built up over the last 6 weeks and new ones that came from the driving.

Friday pre-race - More eating! And some much-needed seclusion

My Friday checklist was much less extensive. I briefly considered getting the short bike in that I had skipped from Thursday, but it was rainy, so I mostly hibernated in my room.

I'd intended to go to Waffle House, but realized that what I really wanted was a fluffly waffle with whipped cream and strawberries, like it should be, so with a little help from Google, I found the perfect solution at the Wafflez Factory

Then some foam rolling, lunch at Cracker Barrel, and more television watching, and finally my family came to town.

After spending the day mostly with myself, I was ready to talk as much as was needed to hopefully make my family feel ready to share in this selfish adventure. I hadn't explained much about the race before hand, so we took a wander around the river front and used my dinner voucher at Pucketts where my dad had his first (of many) tastes of BBQ for the weekend, and looked at maps, and talked about time lines, and so on.

Saturday pre-race - Brick and more planning

Saturday had another fairly extensive checklist, mostly concerned with packing, but before I could pack my bags, I had a quick mini-tri on the schedule.

Swim with friends, bike carefully on rainy roads, and a happy run finish.

After the brick, I changed into dry clothes and we had an early lunch at Mellow Mushroom. This was super important, because I needed left over pizza in my hotel room in case I was post-IM-starving! Also, it was another chance to let my family ask questions and plan for race day with some more experienced Ironman racers, Mary and Katie (my main sherpa for the weekend)

Then I packed my run and bike bags, using a lot of ziplocs for sub-bag control. Like, 1 gallon ziploc had everything I had to put on or use in some way from swim to bike, so I knew in T1, if I touched each item in that bag at least once, I would be ready to go biking. There were also a few optional things, so I put those in a separate ziploc so I wouldn't get confused. After dropping these off Katie watched me pace the room while packing special needs bags, and basically doing a terrible job of staying off my feet.

More checklists means more control, right?

Pre-race dinner at Alleia was amazing, though it was rather too crowded and noisy for me to enjoy at the time. I got to hand out support-crew treats that I'd got on Thursday, and got to enjoy extra helpings of the family style food that wasn't vegan by carefully seating myself near vegetarian and vegan friends. I also got a second helping of the chocolate cake for dessert by seating myself next to Katie - the non-chocolate-liking anomaly :)

Ed and Alexis had an amazing skit that helped introduce some of the crazy and disgusting things we get used to in training to our families while relating a (supposedly real) Waffle House interaction, and then it was time for photos and bed!

Racers and team-mates who came down to cheer, with no particular direction on where to look

Lights out at 9 meant there was a chance for at least 7 hours of sleep before race day, which was really reassuring, so at 9, I stopped chattering about everything in my head, and settled down to try to sleep.

The sleeping was somewhat disrupted, but I told myself that my goal for right then was to go back to sleep, and all of the race morning tasks and checklists would be waiting for me when it was actually time to wake up. This worked surprisingly well, and I'll have to remember it for regular days as well.

IMChoo: First-timer from Alexandria, VA... You are an Ironman!

I did it!

Below are my results, compared to my plan, so you can see, the day was pretty much perfect.

Mini-goals for the next few weeks:

• Keep TSB score positive while starting to move again
• Go out to weeknight events! (Movie, book reading, theater)
• Cheer for friends! (IMMD and Tussey)

IMCHOO Build 8 recap

So this was taper. Mostly it still felt like work, but thankfully not like my real job since I wasn't smart anymore and couldn't hold a thought in my head.

I worried a little that I wasn't feeling bad enough, after listening to friends complain, but if my body wants to combat fatigue with stupidity instead of with failing to meet exercise goals, I guess that's what I'm stuck with.

Mini-goal assessment

• Focus on nutrition, really this time - At least the eating was more controlled than the previous 3 weeks, but it was not easy to control food-wants when tired, so I know I caved in to some unnecessary eating.
• Do at least 2 2.4 mile straight swims - Un-success. I had good yardage at the 90 minute swim practices, but only did 1 long straight swim, and that probably came in around 2 miles (forgot Garmin, see stupid taper brain above)
• Finish packing checklists - Success! Thank goodness I worked on this. I am packing bags and car tonight and tomorrow and am so thankful for these lists that I have been putting together.

Review of last three weeks

• 1 Monday bootcamp
• 1 Weds bootcamp
• Swam
• at 6 90 minute swim practices
• 1 time at the outdoor 50m pool
• 1 time at a warm lake, in full wetsuit. Great practice in staying steady to avoid overheating.
• Ran
• 3 Monday night run lead
• 3 track practices
• 6 mi at long run - should have been 16
• 12 mi long run on "light weekend"
• 6 mi long run on last weekend
• Biked
• 3 flat workouts
• 1 hills workout - got the 5x hill
• 44 Skyline miles
• 50 mi on "light weekend" - complete with bike "fall down"
• 30 mi on the trainer on last weekend
• 14 assorted commute miles

Goals for race

• Swim relaxed
• Stay in Z2 for the bike
• Stay focused on the run
• Cheer for others
• Experience the day

Race day is next Sunday. I'll be printing out the athlete guide, the TeamZ Cheer Guide, my race plan, and stashing them together in a binder, and hopefully, that plus all this training, will get me through the day!

Taper continues

I'm getting things checked off my to-do list during taper, including some things I wasn't expecting to do

Biking to-do's

1. Get bike tune-up - Check! My store looked it over and we replaced my tires, chain and cassette. I knew the chain would be due soon, so I'm glad to get that done now
2. 50 mile taper ride - Check! Took my freshly tuned up bike out into fall drizzle and had my lowest-energy ride of recent history. It's ok, I don't have to feel good for practice.
3. Bike crash - Check! Got that out of the way. It was super minor, and more like a bike-fall-down, but some rail tracks grabbed my front wheel and I fell down. My elbow is a little scraped and my hip is trying to bruise, but it's ok. Good reminder to really be cautious on rail tracks.

   

   Showing off the scrape

   

   Amazing bandage

   
   
4. Get bike checked again - in process. After the crash, there were some slightly bad noises coming from the bike, so I want to make sure the derailleur isn't going to suicide itself into my rear wheel or something terrible like that.
5. Re-pack saddle bag - Check! Since I had to take it off to leave my bike at the store, I decided to figure out how to fit two tubes, two CO2 cartridges, levers and multitool into my saddle bag. Pleased to report success, though if I have to unpack it, it may never all fit again.

Running to-do's

1. Get new shoes - Check! They are a different color than usual, but I think they fit the same as my regular ones.
2. Break in new shoes - In process. They carried me around for a nice 12 miler with no new blisters.
3. Recalibrate footpod - Check! Oh, the responsibilities of being a data-junky are never ending.

Swimming to-do's

1. Pack OWS stuff together - Check! Wetsuit, gloves, and two pair of new goggles are bundled together in the wetsuit bag and ready for pre-race brick.
2. 90 minute swims - In process. I've made it to 4 of 6, with 2 more this week. Getting it done.

Other things that remain to do include buying many sizes of ziploc bags for all of my ziploc needs, buying unscented trashbags to make throw-away warmups to leave in T1/T2 & special needs bags in case of a rainy/cold day, and buying more bars for my bike nutrition since I ate my last one this weekend!

It's coming together well and except for being tired and stupid, I am super proud of how I am holding up to the taper crazies.

Goodbye boom-er-ang hill, see you next year!

At the beginning of this season, I faced down the trippple hill with a little fear, and came away with a PR result that I haven't beaten since.

However, I have improved in a lot of ways on that hill.

1. The repeats have gone up - Last night, I rode 5 strong repeats, which is the most I have ever done ever. 
2. My consistency has gone up - The first time I did 4 repeats, the times sort of got faster (which is a good thing), but the time between slowest and fastest was ~45 seconds. Yesterday, for 5 repeats, I was able to keep the gap to ~10 seconds.
3. My pacing has gotten better - I have been trying to descend across the repeats. It's nowhere near as good as my swim-pacing, but, if I exclude the third loop, I descended super steadily for the other 4.

Next year, when we come back to the hills, I think I want to focus on being less scared of how bad it feels to really work hard. I know I am stronger than I was when I set my PR in April, but that repeat hurt! I probably won't be facing down 4 or 5 repeats in my training plan next year, so I should work on making them each hurt a little more.

I also want to continue to get more confident in my bike handling. Over this season, I think I have improved in my descending but I should be able to U-turn in a wide street or in a cul-de-sac without unclipping my inside foot, so I'll work on that next year.

IMCHOO Build 7 recap

Time moves forward, so I have known all summer that eventually, I'd be checking off the longest long-workouts of this training season, but it's pretty amazing to be on the other side of them.

The mental reprieve that came from my camping vacation has continued. I'm not nearly as peaceful as I was while taking a week off, but I am also not nearly as cranky as I was before the vacation.

The left hip aches have continued, but continue to disappear within a few days. I have a massage scheduled tonight, so hopefully that will help reset my muscles for the last push of training.

Mini-goal assessment

• Focus on nutrition - Absolutely an un-success. While not lashing out at the world with a cranky brain, I have been giving into every eating desire I have had. This includes lowlights of a Slurpee and 3 Musketeers for dinner one night and Panda Express + Haagen Daaz another.
• Leave the cranky-pants at home for 20 mile peak run - Success! There were a lot of ways I could have complained about the 20 mile run, but I tried really hard not to focus on them, and ended up having a lovely run where I met my goals.

Review of last three weeks

• 2 Monday bootcamp
• 2 Weds bootcamp
• 2 Yoga
• Swam
• at 6 swim practices
• 2 times at the outdoor 50m pool
• 1 time at 20m outdoor pool. Tiny pool means super fast!
• Ran
• 3 Monday night run lead
• 2 track practices
• 6 mi at long brick
• 14 mi long run on "light weekend"
• 20 mi peak run
• Biked
• 1 flat workouts - skipped one with tummy ache
• 1 hills workout - thunder canceled the week where I was going to go for 5x hill
• 58 mi at long brick
• 80 mi on "light weekend" - wonderful to repeat Monocacy 80
• 118 mi peak bike
• 14 assorted commute miles

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Focus on nutrition, really this time 
• Do at least 2 2.4 mile straight swims
• Finish packing checklists

Peak weekend

This peak weekend was pretty awesome. I have watched many waves of IM-trainees struggle through the 120 mile bike and the 20 mile run to various degrees and, while I was hoping for some good days, I also knew there was a chance for meltdown, as I'd seen many other athletes end up in that condition.

We continued to have the luckiest summer weather ever. For the 7AM bike start, I was happy to have arm warmers, which bodes for a perfect day.

Bike

My riding partner and I had agreed to experience our own days, so she started earlier, and I was sort of on my own. I certainly took advantage of friends riding the same direction for some wonderful drafting, but I didn't try to adjust my pace to keep up with or hold back for anyone. This meant I also got to deploy my primary triathlon super-power of "not messing around" and was able to bike for 8:05 hours and be moving for 7:45 of them.

That means I had 2.5 minutes of stopping time per hour, counting traffic lights, refuels and a bathroom break!

Next year, I would like to ride a little more assertively sometimes, and on the completely opposite side of that coin, would also like to ride a little more socially, which would mean stopping with others. But for this weekend, a result like that was an amazing training result for me.

I had a nutrition plan that would have been good for 9 hours, and ate all of the Gu's and bars, but fell behind on liquids a bit. One of my take-aways was that my backup run nutrition plan needs to have an option to rely less on liquid calories because there is a chance I will be tired of drinking after the bike portion.

The random musical selection continued. The biking song of the week was "76 Trombones," which proved remarkably adaptable. "One hundred and 10 miles I have biked today, with 8 more miles to go...." or "70.1 miles and I will turn, turn turn turn turn right". There were short intervals of "3 blind mice" but the trombones were with me on & off for about 3 hours.

Run

Then Sunday came around and it was time for a 20 mile run in a moderately hilly neighborhood. I was super lucky to have run company for the 2nd hour, and then company again for the last 4 miles. As rough as my hip and foot started to feel, for that workout, the hardest part was finding a reason to keep going. If I had walked the last mile, I would have made my time goal, but it sure felt good to run it in, so I need to feed the loud mental voice that says "keep going!" instead of the one that says "good enough", especially on race day.

This run 4 loops, so I had 3 chances to refuel, and I got to use my super power again, with 5 minutes difference between total time and moving time, or less than 90 seconds per hour. While I'm proud of that, I also need to remember that it is like running 15 seconds per mile slower, at the speeds I would like to be going. Any stopping is not forward progress, but less stopping is better than more.

I'd been feeling a little stalled in my running progress this summer, but when I looked at some numbers for runs over 15 miles, and this weekend's run fit really well in there

Three of these dots are from Spring marathon training and three are from Ironman training, and I am super pleased to see them melding well together. Next weekend, I hope to add another point to the data set with a 16 mile run, then taper should start to actually kick in

Better than Christmas?

Biking gives you a lot of time to think, which can lead to a lot of time to stew, or grouse, or whine, or on a glorious day like Sunday can lead to a lot of time to imagine and laugh.

I present the result of a collaborative effort from Saturday's ride

10 Things of Monocacy (to the tune of 12 days of Christmas)

On a sunny summer Saturday, we went riding together, with

10 ounces of milk
9 llamas looking
8 scoops of Skratch

7-ty-plus Z'ers riding

6teen hundred calories
5 covered bridges
4 15 crossings
3 descents on Blacks Mill
2 cue sheets
and a 1 hour drive to start


I love being at a point in my training where an 80 miler on a nice day can be so achievable that it leaves energy for creativity like this.

Nutrition practice

The long rides have been a great chance for me to practice and refine my nutrition plan and my method of displaying and remembering the plan.

From working with a nutritionist, I aim for 60-90 grams of carb per hour of exercise (after the first hour, since I can coast off breakfast for a while). Usually I aim for the low side end and feel fine. I also have an awesome stomach that will eat anything, and only got sort of cranky at me when I drank 20 oz of improperly diluted Gatorade Endurance during a hot ride (like possibly not diluted at all when it was supposed to be 1 part concentrate to 5 parts water).

So, for example, this was my plan for a ride that should take between 5-6 hours

The section on the left in the black box is what I taped to my handlebars. For each hour (row), at each 15 minute increment (column) what am I planning to eat?

I always plan to take a drink every 15 minute interval. For this ride, I started with two half-strength bottles since it was going to be hotter and I wanted to get more liquid in me, so my first two hours have 80 calories of Skratch.

Then I started eating 1 gu per hour and half a bar on the half hour. This ended up calculating to be at the high side of my nutrition goals, but it was a long ride early in the season, and I didn't want to feel hungry and I was just starting to work out my plan.

The plan has been refined, and a recent Gran Fondo gave me a chance to try out my IM plan, which hopefully will not also feature poorly diluted Gatorade Endurance

I used the aid stations to refill liquids, filling up with Gatorade Endurance once I had emptied a Skratch bottle, and then mixing two bottles of Skratch up about half way through the day.

Since that early ride, I've learned that I can delay starting the bars until I've finished two hours of riding without feeling hungry or tired later. This is nice because it gives me something to start looking forward to when the day gets longer without getting sick of the snacks early.

For that particular Gran Fondo, I was excited to substitute an Oatmeal Creme Pie for one of my packed bars, even though it meant carrying the bar around with me all day long :)

Looking forward to Ironman, I think I'm going to go with a plan remarkably similar to this, with two refill Skratch bottles waiting for me in special needs, and one Gatorade Endurance bottle from an aid station in each half of the ride.

If it's a hotter day, I'll drink water in between these calorie drinks, but I'm not a heavy sweater and don't get super thirsty, so I don't expect that to be a significant factor in the day.


For my longest training bike ride, it will have three loops and one thing I've discovered is that I love Gu's even more when they are cold, so I'll be mixing up the order of bars and Gu's to make it so I can eat two fresh-from-the-cooler Gu's when I come back around to refuel in the middle of the ride. :)

I also predict that there will be team mates with snacks out on the course, especially for the third loop, so I might replace the Gu or bar calories with surprise snacks -- maybe Cheetos!

IMCHOO Build 6 recap

This last three weeks flew by! I love how well my body is handling the training load. I'm having some left hip aches after long or fast runs, which I also remember from marathon training, but it's not bad.

My brain is having a harder time with the training, and I have reached new levels of ongoing and pervasive crankiness. After vacation last week, I feel a lot better, so hopefully I can maintain this mental equilibrium for a while.

Mini-goal assessment

• Visit Mile marker 21 at Skyline - Success! I rode out to Hogback. I had a bit of disappointment when I realized I was almost exactly the same speed as I was last August, but I believe I did this ride at a more appropriate intensity.
• Do hilly Gran Fondo 100 miler -Success! I started off too strong and cocky, and paid for it in the last 17 miles, but it was a "learning experience" not a "bad day"
• Focus on nutrition - Success-ish! Except for vacation, I met my nutrition goals 13 of 20 days, which is a pretty good record when it comes to food and long training days.
• Celebrate recovery with a camping vacation - Success! 2 camping nights, including a three mile hike-in to Lena Lake. Hike-in sounds easier than backpacking.

Review of last three weeks

• 2 Monday bootcamp
• 1 Weds strength training
• 1 Yoga
• Swam
• at 3 swim practices
• 1 mi at lake swim
• 1 time at the outdoor 50m pool
• Ran
• 3 Monday night run lead
• 1 track practice, only one of which was "track"y, the other was 40 minutes easy
• 10 mi long run on "light weekend"
• 18 mi long run on build weekend
• Biked
• 2 flat workouts
• 1 hills workout, and proved the 4x hill wasn't a fluke
• 44 mi on "light weekend", at Skyline
• 102 mi at hilly Gran Fondo
• 20 assorted commute miles

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Focus on nutrition
• Leave the cranky-pants at home for 20 mile peak run

IMCHOO Build 5 recap

I finished this build cycle feeling strong and confident. The 100 miler went really well. I tried out the DeSoto 400 miler bike shorts and had no negative feelings towards them.

I've recovered from my 90-miler induced hamstring ache, and have a number of new exercises to add to my PT regime.

Looking forward, I feel like if I woke up tomorrow and the Ironman was this weekend, I would be able to finish. It would be rough, but I'd finish. Over the next weeks, I want to bring a little more intensity back to my running so I can feel more optimistic about my dream run pace.

Mini-goal assessment

• Go to 2 Monday bootcamps - Success! I think I've gotten this back in my regular habits.
• Do 1 bike hills workouts with unprecendented 4x trippple hill - Success! I even paced it well so the 4th was the fastest. Having a day about 20 degrees cooler than the 3x hill workout helped a lot
• Responsibly address new leg ache with preventative PT - Success! Some new hamstring exercises and some ART and the acute ache has receded.
• Be independent with a long run on the holiday weekend - Success! I aimed for 10-12 miles, and came in at 10.5. Good enough
• Celebrate summer at 4th of July party - Success! Two parties and lots of celebrating! I managed to miss most fireworks, but that can be a goal for next year.

Review of last three weeks

• 2 Monday bootcamp
• 3 Weds strength training
• 2 Yoga
• Swam
• at 6 swim practices
• 3 times at the outdoor 50m pool. Only once was warm enough to feel like staying in a long time though. Brr!
• Ran
• 3 Monday night run lead
• 2 track practice, only one of which was "track"y, the other was 40 minutes easy
• 10 mi long run on "light weekend"
• 16 mi long run on build weekend
• Biked
• 2 flat workouts
• 1 hills workout, and nailed the 4x hill
• 60 mi on "light weekend"
• 100 mi -New longest! I was on my own (within the group) but felt great
• 56 assorted commute miles

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Visit Mile marker 21 at Skyline
• Do hilly Gran Fondo 100 miler
• Focus on nutrition
• Celebrate recovery with a camping vacation