2016 Disney Half Race Report

As should be painfully obvious from the training logs leading up to this race, I was barely trained at all. My left hip had been aching and I'd barely started PT for it, so a big goal for the weekend was to get through the race (and the parks!!) and still be comfortable walking around.

My training runs leading up to this were mostly in November and December and maxed out at 11 miles, mostly around 11:30 min/mile pace, which was my Ironman pace, so I was hoping that I could slip back into that default for the race day, even though I'd been giving up a lot of fitness since Ironman (see figure below)

All red dots on the bottom are days where I did nothing. The blue line is a measure of fitness

So, without PR goals, I guess I'd just run this thing "for fun"? It was a strange concept for me after years of trying to consciously improve in so many different things. I think I'd decided that it was a non-PR race almost as soon as I'd signed up, and that was probably a lot of the background reason for all the skipped workouts. No regrets or recriminations -- I think I needed the break, but it's hard to see the slide out of fitness knowing that I'll have to build it back up again to realistically expect to improve over past years performances in my A races later this year.

Leading up to the race, I spent A LOT of time at the parks. Landing on Thursday morning, I headed straight to the Magic Kingdom and through the scheduling magic of FastPass covered most of FrontierLand and AdventureLand, and stayed out late for the Electric Parade and fireworks. Friday morning, I was up early to cheer for teammates doing the 10K, and then immediately after the race, off to Epcot. At Epcot, I managed to see almost everything I wanted to, but am embarrassed to admit that the late night and early morning caught up to me in a long slow ride, and I actually dozed off while Ellen DeGeneres was telling me stuff about science. After the nap, I was good through dinner and through the Epcot fireworks, then back to the hotel to lay out my race outfit and get out the door.

Race morning, I planned to catch the shuttle a bit earlier than I had for the 10K, but unfortunately, that put me in the security line with the peak of other racers and cheerers, so I missed meeting up with teammates before the start :(

I headed up to my very fast corral (earned with a super fast half marathon last spring), and enjoyed cheering for the thousands of people who passed me throughout the race. I felt a little bad about using a pace I wasn't aiming for for the corral assignment, but I was running reasonably, and on my own, so hopefully dodging around me didn't delay anyone too much.

Overall, I ran the half marathon in 2:30:16. I got excited towards the end that I might be able to break 2:30, and did speed up consciously in the last mile or so, but didn't worry about it too much.

Some previous best half marathons were

1. 2014 Shamrock - 2:35
2. 2014 Watermans Half-iron - 2:17
3. 2015 First half RNR marathon - 2:13
4. 2015 Second half RNR marathon - 2:11
5. 2015 Rumspringa - 2:03

So this won't rank with them, but I am pleased that my "average" run has gotten so strong.

Also, I did have some other successes during the race

1. I made a plan for a walk break every mile to help my undertrained legs survive the day
2. I negative split the run
3. I really enjoyed getting to run around the parks, and loved seeing the Magic Kingdom castle lit up in the pre-dawn darkness. 

The rest of the day was a success as well as I was able to cavort around Animal Kingdom until it got too rainy and cold, and I was able to follow it up with a full day at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios on Sunday, staying up to see the Fantasmic show. I'm not sure I could have packed any more activity into the 4 days I was there, and to be able to mix in a half marathon with a good performance in there is amazing.

Post race, I spent January and February doing more than I had been, rebuilding some fitness, continuing PT, and looking forward to some great progress before A races this summer

Positive slope on the fitness line is a positive sign!

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.

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)

Lake swim race report

There isn't much exciting to report from the race itself.

I prepared well

1. eating a reasonable breakfast reasonably early
2. wearing a swimsuit that I was ready to see turned murky from the algal lake-life
3. packing relatively new goggles with tint and polarization for the long part of the swim into the sun

And I did well!

I was seeded in the fifth wave, which meant that I got run over a bit, but the big pack of wave 6 swimmers didn't catch me until the first turn.

I had Garmin set up to buzz every 10 minutes, so I had a "reset button" to restart my attention to form and the fact that it was a race.

I had grand hopes of a sub-30 finish, but given my history, that would have been a little ridiculous, so instead I was happy when the watch buzzed 30 minutes as I was coming up to the last turn.

Overall, it was my best 1 mile lake swim yet at that venue! Hooray!

2009 - 36:28
2010 - missed signup deadline
2011 -  35:18
2012 - 33:28
2013 - 33:20
2014 - went camping on Memorial Day weekend instead of swimming
2015 - 32:33

IMChoo/2 Race Report

I went to Chattanooga last weekend and tried to race the 70.3 as if it was half of my Ironman. It was great reconnaissance, and I feel way more confident about my race. 

1. Race Report
   a. Swim: 31:00 – Half iron PR, lovely downstream swim. Stayed relaxed and sighted well. New long sleeve wetsuit was a cozy hug in cool water, but I prefer sleeveless if temperature is above 70 degrees
   b. Bike: 3:23 – Half iron PR. Aimed for Z2 and only went above it for 12% of the ride.
   c. Run: 2:27 – Negative split. Aimed for Z2 but implemented as a sawtooth of running too fast and walking.
   d. Overall: 6:29:52 – within 10 seconds of my half iron PR, and on a training day no less!
   
2. Course notes and focus points
   a. Lodging
     ·        When I found out my nice hotel wasn't serving breakfast until 7am on race morning, I switched to a cheap motel out of town, close to Waffle House. No regrets!
     ·        I recommend the Lookout Mountain cluster of motels over the airport cluster -- closer to town.
     ·        Last year, when I was checking out the course, I camped at Raccoon Mountain Campground and found that to be a great location as well.
   b. Pre-race
     ·        Wake up early, get breakfast in. Picked up 500 calories of food at 4am, and ate it after setting up transition.
     ·        For IM, clean transition area, so just need to say hi to bike and put on bottles.
     ·        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
   c. Swimming
     ·        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
   d. Biking
     ·         Get bottles that fit well in cages. Noteworthy bumps in first few miles left other people's nutrition on the side of the road.
     ·         Get a trusted tune-up. I saw lots of dropped chains and inability to get into desired gearing.
     ·         Mentally, break ride into 6 parts.
       1.       Stick (outbound) – 11 mi – settle in
       2.       Loop front half – 21 mi – slower
       3.       Loop back half – 25.5 mi – faster
       4.       Loop front half – 21 mi – slower
       5.       Loop back half – 25.5 mi – faster
       6.       Stick (inbound) – 11 mi – fly home
   e. Running
     ·         Practice evening running in heat by coming to Monday night runs!
     ·         Practice running bravely downhill and avoid the braking quadkiller http://running.competitor.com/2013/11/training/improve-strength-and-speed-with-downhill-running_53833
     ·         Two loop course, climb in 1^st mile
     ·         1 mean little climb on the south side of the river. Battery Pl. Quarter mile with 4% grade
     ·         For IM course, 1 hill up & down on the north side of the river, Barton Rd. Quarter mile with 5% grade up, 0.4 mile with -4% grade on the backside. Face that in the other direction a few miles later

Half-iron relay: bike leg

I was the bike leg of a relay for a half-iron this last weekend, and had an amazing bike that greatly exceeded expectations.

This is awesome, because I'd been a little anxious that my current bike plan of prioritizing friendship and bonding for long rides was going to have a negative impact on my ability to reach my IM bike goals. But the results from Saturday helped me feel good about keeping the hard work hard, and the easy work very easy.

So, back to those expectations. How did I set those?
I am a data junky, and have years of Garmin files from bike rides. I've found feet of elevation gain per mile to be a good normalization factor, so I've made some plots to answer the following question:

By year, for rides over 30 miles, what was the relationship between speed achieved and the climbiness of the ride?

I've broken it down by year, but re-started the data collection on 2013, when I started riding a carbon-fibre road bike, vs my older aluminum one.

Also, I wanted to separate my 2013 results from the 2014 results, since I purposefully dropped weight throughout 2014.

Here's the data I've collected over the last 2+ years:

Speed vs. Climbiness for bicycling

From this chart, using last year's line, I had a notion that for the course I was going to do this weekend, at around 30 feet/mile of climbiness, I should expect something around 14mph.

As you can see from the little blue dot hanging out up in the sky, I actually came in much closer to 16mph, which was amazing! But also a little nerve-wracking, since I was part of a relay and was worried the runner wouldn't be expecting me yet.

As it turns out, everything worked out fine, and I am going to continue treating most long rides as wonderful time with friends. I'll check in again with an individual brick workout in mid-June to verify that this plan is still working.

Colonies Zone 1000y FR Race Report

Finally! Improvement in swimming!

I've raced this event at the April meet 5 times, and have a number of ways this was my most solid performance yet

2010: I was still in my first year at Team Z and identified myself as a swimmer. I had no idea how to pace a 1000, and my splits showed it with a 17 second positive split between the 500's.

2012: Nothing special performance 9 seconds slower than 2010.

2013: Aiming for some redemption, I started from the blocks, and then had a person in my heat to chase down for the second half. There was only a 2.5 second positive split between the 500s. I took 2 seconds off my 2010 time, and had a great race.

2014: I started from the blocks, but had a hard time pushing the limits on the pace. When it felt uncomfortable, I backed off, and had my slowest performance yet, almost 20 seconds slower than my PR.

2015: I was late to the event and was placed in the last (slowest) heat. I'm very thankful that they made room for me, and talked with my heat mates in the hour leading up to the event explaining and apologizing -- hopefully I didn't seem like a speedy jerk who didn't understand seed times. After all the traffic anxiety getting there, I made time for a long warmup, including some 100's with and w/o pull buoy to try to hold the memory of what good body position feels like
I had a great dive, and strong first 100. After that, I settled into what felt like steady pacing. My splits agree with that with 1 second between the fastest and slowest 50's for the main part of the race. I was able to kick it up for the last 50 (probably should've tried harder for last 100) and got my fastest non-dive split for the finish.
The end result of this steady, pushing swim was a 15 second PR and a pace of 1:32/100y

In the grand scheme of triathlon-ing, swimming faster won't affect my day much, but it's my favorite part, and seeing improvement at something I've been doing for so many years now is lovely.

Data nerding:

2015 Rumspringa Half Race Report

A whirlwind 25 hours worth of driving, sleeping, racing, and eating, and I managed to squeeze in a half marathon PR.

 A friend suggested this spring-time half after seeing the awesome finisher prizes and I bought into the idea. Originally, I thought I would still feel run-over after the marathon and planned to go enjoy some sunshine and sausage, but since feeling pretty sprightly (or even manic) after the immediate marathon aftermath, I started to think about actually racing it.

I planned to start off in high Z3 and then try to hold on to whatever pace that put me at, but unlike the carefully executed marathon, when I felt good, I just threw that plan out the window and raced recklessly downhill.

My HR monitor stopped monitoring accurately around mile 8 (or I suddenly started running with about the same effort as industrious emailing), but until then, I was averaging a low Z4 HR and a 9:22 pace. That got me through the worst of the hills in the middle of the loop, and then I just had to will myself into finishing strong on the uphill return on the stick of the lollipop.

This included some of my favorite mental tricks, including counting to 8 over and over again, and telling myself that 4.5 miles is really just 45 more 0.1 mile segments!

I gave in to 4 hill-induced walk breaks in the last two miles, but managed to hold on to a 9:24 overall pace for a 2:03 finishing time.

Previous best half-marathons include
1. 2014 Shamrock - 2:35
2. 2014 Watermans Half-iron - 2:17
3. 2015 First half of RNR Marathon - 2:13
4. 2015 Second half of RNR Marathon - 2:11

So I had hopes of a 2:0x result, but this was better than my expectations. There are very few moments in that run where I think I could have gone any faster. Perhaps I could have used a little more fortitude to not succumb to one of those last walk breaks, but overall, I'm exceedingly happy with this result.

Looking forward, I plan to be disciplined over the summer and work on staying in Z2 for long runs. While this might make me have to run a smidge slower, it is still much faster than I was running last summer, and it now fast enough to make it feel like I am really going somewhere when I run for a few hours.

After the race, my travel buddy and I managed to fit in a full day of food-centered-touristing as well with visits to
1. Wonderful Good Market - some delicious olive bread and artisan cheese
2. Achenbach's Pastries - I had high expectations that they didn't quite live up to, but I got to try a "Long John" and got a tasty Boston Creme doughnut to tide me over to lunch.
3. Strasburg Creamery and Deli - Lunch and tasty ice cream with a fresh waffle cone

Great adventure. If I come back again, I'd wear a costume to have a better chance for one of the prizes

2015 RNR Marathon Race Report

This season brought new distances, new speeds, new goals, and best of all new running buddies. The long runs gave me a chance to work on a lot of mental and physical goals, and I got to use that strength in the race.

Date	Distance	Location	Lessons Learned, Lessons Used
Nov 1	8	PRR	Run Clinic, use your butt
Nov 8	Hash	Arl	Hills, remember how far you’ve come
Nov 16	9	Columbia Island	Time for friends, time for work, neg split
Nov 22	10	Burke Lake	Run with self, neg split
Nov 29	Cheering	CZM	Giving back, pay it forward
Dec 6	11	Manassas	Pre-run to get it done
Dec 13	12	Accotink	Crankypants attitude adjustment, nutrition
Dec 20	6	Vacation run	Hills, run with self, get it done
Dec 27	10	Vacation run	Time for friends, enjoy the scenery
Jan 3	14	PRR	Hills, rain, neg split
Jan 11	6.5	EAC	Recovery doesn’t mean OFF
Jan 18	10	EAC	Cold rain, get it done
Jan 25	16	Bike Lane	New longest, nutrition, neg split
Jan 31	5		Hills, recovery, time for friends
Feb 8	18	EAC	New longest, neg split, finish strong
Feb 14	14	Fletchers	Get outside your comfort zone, finish strong, neg split
Feb 21	20	Ed’s	New longest, finish strong, nutrition, restraint, snow
Mar 1	6.5	Haines Pt	Run with self, icy Garmin, 10K PR
Mar 7	8	Treadmill	Run with self, get it done, pacing
Mar 14	26.2	DC	Time for work, run with self, crankypants attitude adjustment, rain, enjoy the scenery, hills, use your butt, soak up the energy, get it done, nutrition, be uncomfortable, new longest, neg split, finish strong, 13.1 PR, 10 mi PR, time for friends.

First marathon

4:24

50/152 in my age group (top third performance!!)