This weekend was a big one: I did my first triathlon of the season, the Columbia Triathlon in Maryland. It was my third Olympic distance tri and it wasn’t a PR for me, but each race is so incredibly different. I was only a couple minutes off of my finish time from the Reston Triathlon, but it was a different animal of a race. Truthfully, I felt like I had a very mediocre performance in all three sports – there wasn’t one leg that I felt like I rocked. My race recap is coming, but here is what it will say: HILLS.
I don’t mind hills in general (hey, I PR’ed a hilly half marathon course a few weeks ago in Columbia!) and I love a challenge, but I did start to wear out after a while on the bike hills, and the run was a little harder than I expected. I’ve ridden the course the past two weekends and that really helped. But I hadn’t run the course.
The entire sport of triathlon I just can’t wait to get to the run. So when the run doesn’t feel amazing, it leaves me feeling a little disappointed.
I know what I need to work on, and one of those things is to nail down the nutrition elements of triathlon training and racing. For example, on Sunday I didn’t eat my usual breakfast since it was 4am when I woke up. Breakfast didn’t even occur to me at that time of the night/morning, but luckily I had brought something in my bag to eat while setting up my transition spot. Then during the race, I had a bar in my pouch to eat on the bike and it went flying into the street when my fingers pulled it out of the wrapper. So I survived on mostly Gu for the race. I’ll work on nutrition more on my long workout days in the weeks leading up to Ironman 70.3 Eagleman next month.
I knew that doing May and June triathlons would be hard for me. My schedule is crazy during our concert season at work, and school/sports season for the kids, and the past two years I’ve had the summer to train and work up to a triathlon. I feel like we just had the long, hard winter and then a very brief Springtime and suddenly it’s racing season and I’m so not ready.
Am I a Debbie Downer this morning? Maybe. I’m almost always a glass-half-full, looking-on-the-bright-side, positive person. But I have had a sore throat since Sunday and I feel a little run down. Am I getting sick or am I just worn down from the weekend? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
So here’s my training and weekly recap. It’s not pretty, and I missed several workouts, but I like to share the not-so-successful weeks along with the successful. We last left off with training recaps on Tuesday last week.
Wednesday I had my usual track workout with the LUNA Chix and it was great! We did an 800m warmup, then 1600m at a 5K pace, then 8 400s at a faster pace. Then we had 800m cool down. It came out to 4 miles of speed work before 7am and it was an amazing to start the day! If you’re in the DC area, come check out our track workouts – info here.
On Thursday, life got in the way. I overslept my bike trainer workout in the morning, so I intended to do it in the evening. I had to take two kids to the allergist. I only have one who has known allergies, and he was doing a Sunflower oral challenge. That’s when the doctor’s office feeds them a tiny bit of the allergen and then increases the amount every 15-20 minutes if there’s no reaction. We’ve long thought that he is no longer allergic to sunflower seeds/oil, but he wouldn’t cooperate for a food challenge we once tried. The night before this I ran around to 3 stores trying to get the non-peanut-contaminated sunflower seeds and Sunbutter to do the challenge the next morning. Maybe that’s why I overslept my workout that morning.
The result? Success! He’s no longer allergic to sunflower!
I also brought my daughter for allergy testing since pineapple makes her tongue feel itchy and weird and awful.
The result? Success! She’s not allergic to pineapple, just sensitive.
So did I get the workout done that evening? NO! We had an awesome family dinner with my extended family – cousins were visiting from the Philippines. I thought about not having a glass of wine and going home to get on the trainer, but in the end I had one. Or maybe I had two…
Honestly? The family time was more important than the bike trainer, but it left me regretting that I didn’t get up and get it done in the morning. By the time we got home and the boys got to bed, it was well after 9pm. I then had to write my Friday Five post, get some things ready for the next day, and finally go to sleep kind of late.
Friday, it was Kindergarten Orientation time for my middle child! No workout that morning either. Fail, fail, fail. I was finishing filling out the Kindergarten paperwork and had no time.
I then worked all day through an evening concert and got home after midnight from work. I was so tired.
On Saturday, we had a LUNA Chix group bike ride. In my household we were going three different directions with soccer games, bike rides, and our au pair going to a class, so I could only show up for the bike ride to take our group photo with no bike, and my two boys in tow. I didn’t want to ride 21 miles the day before a race anyhow.
When we got home, I fed the kids lunch and then got in a mini keep-it-loose ride and run. Just 10 minutes on the bike trainer and a 2-mile run. I had been feeling stiff and anxious about the race, so this helped me get mentally prepared more than anything.
After that, I went to pick up my race packet and rack my bike.
And that is where I leave you – my race recap will pick up from there with the Columbia Triathlon.
As I mentioned, I’m a little under the weather with a sore throat and feeling run down, and that left me sitting in the kitchen in my running clothes this morning, never getting out the door. So hopefully I’ll kick this sore throat and get back on track this week!
Do you do a day-before-the-race run or workout?
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