Help Wanted

Anyone that has spend more than 30 seconds around me during the last few months will quickly find out that I haven't been that busy at work lately. And by "lately," I mean a few months. I love where I work, but the downside to working at a "lifestyle friendly" law firm is that sometimes things get slow and I have nothing to do for days on end. For some of you out there, this may seem like paradise. I am, however, a guilt-ridden, results and schedule driven control freak. The only thing that scares me more than chronic boredom and lack of productivity is clowns.

About a year ago, I started to think about doing more non-work related writing-but didn't do much about it other than this blog. I am now starting to think about finding that feeling of enjoyment I get from blogging in other writing projects. Maybe even get paid for it.

One of the first rules of writing is to write about what you know. So I've started to outline a piece on the top 5/10/20 things new triathletes should know about. I'm seeking some fun (and ultimately informative) answers to the following questions:

What do you know now that you wish you knew before your first race?

If you’ve never raced before, what are your burning questions?

I'm also interested in any entertaining/silly/humiliating anecdotes about first race experiences.

And because no blog entry is complete without a photo, here is a demonstration of running in place while wearing a neoprene swim bonnet:

The End of Constipation

This is officially the end of a seven month bout of writer's block. I'll start with the clif notes version of my misadventures since Seattle to Portland:

1. I spent July and August swimming, going to PT and cycling whenever it didn't cause pain. So my tri season effectively ended at Hagg Lake. I did do some short track mountain bike racing at PIR in July and early August, which was simultaneously hilariously fun and scary as shit. During the last race of the season I was in a position to win the beginner women's race, then hit a root and did my first endo into bush and some spectators. I don't remember a lot about it, but my boss saw the whole thing and said it was awesome.

2. Finished the 25th running of the Cycle Oregon. It was a fantastic experience that can be be summed up like this: wake up. eat. ride up a hill. eat. ride down a hill. shower. eat. drink beer with Doug and Walter. eat. fall asleep in a tent. rinse and repeat. I did about 440 of the total 490 miles (thank god for rest days) and still managed to climb almost 30,000 feet in 6 days. The payoff was some of the most beautiful scenery every witnessed from a bike and lots of photo ops.

4. Cross was full of lots of ups and downs this year. I raced B women the entire year and managed to work my way up from the cellar to a top-10 finish at Estacada. After Estacada, things generally went downhill as I spent most of the next race falling off my bike into the Hillsboro mud and finished the season by DNF-ing at two races-one mechanical and one ladybits-meets-top-tube incident. There was this great quote on Bike Snob NYC about cross that pretty much sums it up: "Cyclocross is the opposite of sex--if you're doing it right it hurts, and it's only fun before and after." Except for when you can't have sex because of cyclocross-then nobody wins.

5. I have three new love interests: two bikes and a human male by the name of Brian. The first non-human is a used singlespeed cyclocross bike, an On One Il Pompino. For those of you out there not fluent in Italian, "Il Pompino" means "blow job" in Italian. Those British are so naughty. The frame is turquoise and the tires and bar tape are (duh) pink. So basically it is the bicycle version of a drag queen.

The second addition to my two-wheeled family arrived in Oregon today and will be replacing the much maligned, but forever beloved, Hornet: a 2008 Kona Kapu. OSU orange steel frame with polished lugs. I'm going to have to fight the urge to name it the Beaver. But then again, maybe I won't fight it.

The human love interest is Brian. Brian is pretty awesome. Mostly because he is smart, funny, kicks ass at cyclocross and knows how to cook, but partially because he wore an orange tuxedo t-shirt to the Cross Crusade prom and almost got kicked out for having a flask full of whiskey. The latter incident was enormously entertaining, even though I feel sort of guilty as I had already consumed most of the flask's contents and he was the one who got busted. But it ain't really the prom 'til someone gets busted. Here is a photo from that event. Yes, I am wearing a tiara, my date is carrying a pimp cane and there is a bust of Jesus in the background.
6. Team in Training has started again. We have 114(!) people on the team. This year they have been foolish enough to make me Seth's Girl Friday/Half Ironman Team Captain. Some of the alums are already starting to call me "Captain Fabulous." That is much better than Calamity Jane. Just wait until they see me on the On One....Captain Fabulous' Drag Show Extravaganza.

STP. SAG. DNF. WTF.

This last weekend was the Seattle to Portland bike ride. In a move that I will later come to regret, I chose to ride the Hornet. Here is my STP photo diary.

This is where the Hornet started STP.










This is where it finished STP at mile 125 after my left knee became a fiery ball of searing pain:

Bad hornet.








The adventrue started out at 2PM on Friday. Joel drove the minivan and successfully got all of the bikes in the back of the van. The Hornet is quietly plotting my demise.



Here is Joel. We like him even though he wears a polka dotted hat everywhere. He was a good driver and even though it took us 2 hours to get through Olympia and Tacoma, he did not yell or swear at anyone. That is the reason that I was not allowed to drive the minivan. My favorite part of any vehicle is the horn.

Five hours after leaving Portland, we arrived in Seattle. After a meal of mediocre pasta and good beer, we settled in for the night at Sue's house.

By 6AM, we were ready to rock n' roll.

Smokin. Pink. Kuota.

An old picture, but for those of you who haven't seen it, this is the still unnamed speed machine. Yes, that is a pink seat and pink bar tape. It now also sports pink pedals, pink water bottle cages and a pink bento box. You wish you could be this sexy. Pink bike + bulgarian wrestler tri-tard=I'm going to rock your ass on the bike.

Hagg-Laga-Ding-Dong

July 7, 2007. Hagg Lake. The day of the obligatory yearly sprint triathlon. Sigh. My least favorite distance, but also the one that I inevitably podium in. The irony. Yes, I am a huge whiner for no reason.

I knew this day would be a good one, though. The date was 7-7-07 and our wave had PINK swim caps. PINK.

We were the second wave in the sprint event. I took off like my ass was on fire. Since I only breathe off of my ride side and couldn't see anyone, I had not idea where I was until the first buoy. At the buoy, I saw one other pink cap and though "holy s#*$, I'm in second!!" Turns out I was really in third, but hell yeah. Swim-ming-mach-ine.

I busted through T1 and got out on the bike before the two women that beat me out of the water. It was the first time I've ever lead a race (although I know it isn't a real lead, but work with me here). The ride was hard. Up the hill, down the hill. Up the hill, down the hill. Not my favorite thing to do. The course itself is already tough, but I had a hard time getting into the sprint mentality on the bike. I kept settling in until someone would pass me and then I would remember to pick it up. I'm sure that annoyed everyone around me. Two women in my age group passed me at mile 8 and I stayed within spitting distance of them until T2.

Had a great T2 and felt great until the first downhill out of the boat ramp. The a massive side stitch took up residence in my right side. I could only breathe deep enough to maintain about a 8:30 pace and watched the two women in my age group quickly pull away from me. My frustration probably didn't help matters, as did my refusal to stop and try to stretch it out. Which culminated in my all time favorite race photo. Its like I've just realized that I actually have to get myself to the finish line.

With a half mile left, one more person from my age group passed me. She wasn't moving too fast, so I made up my mind to try and stay with her as long as my aching side would let me. Up the last 300 meter hill, the stitch miraculously cleared and I was able to sprint up the hill, past age group lady and into the finish area.

Stats:

Overall 1:22:27
Swim 13:44
T1 2:22
Bike 38:44
T2 1:24
Run 26:13

Third in my age group. Eighth overall female. Good results even with the log roll/run.

Pacific Crest 1/2 Ironman-Take Two

Pacific Crest has been my nemesis race since 2004. In 2004, IT band problems forced me to run the Sunday 10K instead of participate in my first Olympic distance race. In 2005, my back derailleur broke during the first miles of the bike and only with the miracle work of Seth was I able to get back on the bike and finish the race. In 2006, the central Oregon heat and the physical stress of climbing Mt. Bachelor contributed to a nosebleed/face hemorrhage that slowed me to a walk for the entire last third of the race.

June 23, 2007. Time to face the beast again. But this time I was armed with the rockin' pink Kuota, many more running miles logged, some skull armwarmers and a healthy respect for racing at 4500 feet (manifested by the dissected tampons in my fuel belt-a perfect solution to bloody noses).

The weather report was looking favorable, as was the change in the bike course, which due to paving, was bypassing Mt. Bachelor (otherwise know as the 6th level of hell) and instead taking a route that turned out to be time-trial specialist's dream. So it was with a searing sense of vengeance that I approached this year's race.

The days leading up to the race were mostly without incident. We had again taken up residence in Bobcat #4...the original post-half ironman party palace. Eat, drink beer, talk bikes, make fun of Carver, rinse, repeat.

This year I also had the pure pleasure of watching my Team in Training mentees tackle their first half. I had a serious bunch of studs on my hands and was looking forward to seeing what they could do. Got so distracted that I forgot to pick up my bus pass and had to scramble to convince Sue to get up at 6am and drive me up to the lake.

Race day dawned clear and cool, but I didn't mind having to put on gloves and extra socks before heading over to set up T2. Frost on the ground meant probably no heat exhaustion in the afternoon. I could deal with that. What I could not deal with was the fact that Carver mentioned that he had the song "I'm All Out of Love, I'm So Lost Without You" stuck in his head. Which means that it immediately became stuck in mine. Which is better than having Jack Johnson or Paris Hilton stuck in my head, but not that much better.

I was trying out a few new things for this race, including the debut of my new tri-tard, purchased after deciding that I could no longer handle (1) my belly pooch hanging out in all of my race photos and (2) the distraction of pulling my singlet down every 30 seconds during the run. The decision to compete looking like a Bulgarian wrestler was not an easy one, but a girl can only handle so many bad race photos.

Spent an hour or so milling about at the lake before the race started. I like this time because the more chaos around me, the more intense the zone I can get into by race time. This year I did a pretty substantial warmup in the water, mostly because I had to pee every 1.3 minutes and the bathroom lines quickly became unbearable. I am Lindsay, human faucet.

Because I recently turned 30, I got to start the race with the big boys and girls. I've discovered that this has advantages and disadvantages. Advantage: not having to swim over people from the earlier waves. Disadvantage: being caught in the wake created by the 20 year old pros as they blew past me. Advantage: less butterflies because no 20 minute wait after the first gun goes off. Disadvantage: less people to chase on the ride.

Swim was great. Jessica H. and I had planned on drafting off of each other, but I thought I had lost her in the start. Little did I realize she was the person tapping my foot at each bouy, our predetermined passing signal. Which I chalked up to some other annoying person drafting. Doh. The last 400 or so I got a little off course, but still came out of the water feeling fast and read to rock.

Newbie lesson: ride your bike after you mount your water bottles. Because if you don't and your front mounted water bottle is loose when you ride on chip seal, you will spend the entire day covered in Gleukos. Which is not cool at hour four of the race when you discover that you hand is sticking to your face everytime you adjust your sunglasses.

Jen caught me about 6 miles into the race and we agreed to set a pace and stay legally together for the remainder of the bike course. I dropped off once at an aid station to throw out the offending water bottle, but we pretty much maintained a steady ass-kicking, blue-jersey rocking pace the rest of the ride. We kept looking at each other, trying to gauge if we were going to fast. The ride just felt too good. Peed twice on the bike. (People ask me how I do this- the keys are a complete lack of modesty, practice and some killer Kegel muscles. And a water bottle to rinse off afterwards.) The last 400 meters of the ride were the most frustrating as we had been funneled into the transition chute behind a duathlete going about 3 miles an hour. We made fun of her until she blasted by us at mile 2 of the run. Ha Ha Ha!?!?

This year I took another step forward in gross triathlete-dom. I was able to pee while tying my shoes. I figured it was this or a 10 minute tri-tard contortionist act in a 100 degree porta potty.

Then we ran. The first two miles were slow as Jen needed to stretch and I mistook the numbness in my feet for rocks in my socks and emptied my shoes at least ten times. The next nine miles were not bad. We walked the water stops and maintained a pretty good pace between stops. I was really excited to actually be running and at the possibility that we would break 6 hours if things went well.

The final two miles felt like Round 11 of a heavyweight title bout-heavy, cranky and sweaty. There was no more dancing around. Our feet only cleared the path by an inch or two with each stride and the walk breaks were numerous. At about 11.5, some jackass runs by us and states that we should pick it up because there was beer at the finish line. No shit. It's not like we are kind of folks that aren't motivated by beer. Its just that on this day, that beer would have to wait a minute or two. Jen and I simultaneously gave him the double bird, much to the amusement of the man that had settled in behind us, apparently finding our shuffling pace to suit him as well.
After the slowest two miles ever, Jen and I finished together with our hands raised in the air. We had survived. It was a great feeling to cross the finish line together, after all of the training and trials and tribulations this spring. I couldn't have done it without her!

The stats:

Total Time: 5:36:02
Swim 0:35:23
T1 2:28
Bike 2:42:15
T2 3:06
Run 2:12:50

Good for tied for 8th in our age group, 30something overall for women.

Blue Lake Race Report 2007

I'll second a recent assessment by Seth that the smoother the race, the less entertaining the race report. I've written some classic race reports involving peanut butter in my hair, feeling like the swim start was akin to a bunch of blindfolded hamsters in a fish tank, aggressive middle age male age groupers who refuse to get beat by women, men in see through speedos and my friend jon making semi-obscene gestures at me during a race. Alas, there is nothing that funny to report from Sunday, other that the fact that, for the first time in 5 years racing, I felt that I left it all out on the race course. I couldn't have run another 100 meters. It felt AWESOME. How awesome you ask? This awesome:

To start this race report, I'm going to shatter all of your preconceived notions that TNT mentors and coaches have this whole race thing all figured out. Guess what....we don't. Personally, my achillles heel is my mental issue with the run. Several times in the last few years, I train appropriately and have gone out and rocked the swim and the bike, only to talk myself out of pushing my limits on the run. One of my goals this year was to just get the hell over that. Part of that has been the longer runs that we've been going and losing my fear of the distance and discomfort. Part of that has also been telling myself constantly that, yes, I am a runner. Which is particularly ironic because I actually have a state track title and a school record under my belt and I ran track briefly in college. Somewhere along the way, as I got older and no longer weighed 120 pounds, I forgot that I am still a runner.

I've been doing a lot of mental exercises the last two years (i've got a great book on mental training for triathletes if you are interested in the issue) and had been looking foward to putting them to use at blue lake. One of these mental exercises was to walk through my race in my head several times before the race started: once before I fell asleep, once when i woke up and once in the car on the way to the race with really loud music blaring from my car (the latter to help with the waking up process as the starbucks next to my house wasn't open yet). This involved not only visualizing the swim start and transitions and pacing, but reinforcing the key words and phrases I wanted to repeat to myself while I'm racing so that there is an appropriate balance of paying attention to what is going both on internally and externally during the race. But here is the key to my mental exercise. As soon as I parked my car, I stopped the mental walk through. At that point, its time to quit analyzing and fretting and just TCB (take care of business). At this point, I know what I need to do and I know that most of what is going on around me is irrelevant to what I need to do to get to the finish line.

(as a sidenote, i used to feel sort of ridiculous going into my zone before a race because I felt that it was silly because I am not an elite athlete. if you feel like that, get over it. we are all entitled to a game face and to get pumped up and have the opportunity to go out there and be excited to push ourselves beyond where we ever through we could go. where you ultimately finish in the pack is irrelevant)

I'll spare you the details of most of the race, because what was most important to me was the last 15 minutes before the run and the run itself. To that point I had been focusing on not thinking about the run and just concentrated on my bike. As I got closer to T2, I just start to tell myself, "you are a runner" "you are a runner", over and over again. Once I was through T2, I broke up the race in my head by each mile, with the goal of keeping a steady pace throughout. which meant starting faster than i really wanted to. when things got tough, i used a trick that someone on my college track team taught me...chanting "keep it up, keep it up, keep keep it up" in rhythm with my foot strikes. By consciously controlling the thoughts in my head, I can try to prevent ones like "this sucks" "i suck" and "i just want this to be over" from sneaking into my head. It still happens, but the key is to prevent those thoughts from going onto the repeat cycle.

(as another sidenote, i am the first to admit that controlling your mental processes is a really hard thing to do in endurance events. especially when things go awry. For those of you that don't already know, I have never raced Pac Crest without having some sort of incident. In 2005, my back derailleur broke and only through Seth's magic was i able to finish the race. Last year, my nose started bleeding during the run and I had to walk most of the 1/2 marathon to avoid bleeding to death through my face. Last year I made a choice to finish the race and took the extra time to really enjoy the race experience. But not before I spent several miles in tears walking along pissed off at my own perceived failure. Because I came off the bike near the front of the field, I was passed by an enormous number of people during the run. Many of those people took their walk breaks with me and I ended up sort of reveling in the experience for what it was.)

The moral of this race report: we all have the physical capabilities and conditioning to finish our races. But take the time to fine tune your mental game. Take notes of your positive and negative mental self talk and think about how that affects your physical performance. Come up with key words and phrases to repeat through each stage of the race. The End.

Stats:
Overall: 2:33:56
Swim 26:42
T1 2:49
Bike 1:12:45
T2 2:09
Run 49:30

8/36 in Age Group, 37/172 Women

Gratuitous Wetsuit Shot: