Marching Onward

March was a good month. No, not because my decimated bracket still somehow has a chance at 2nd place in our pool. There's no prize anyway! But March was a good month for plans and for progress!

First off, I am now OFFICIALLY signed up for the Rev3 Knoxville Olympic race on May 9th. This will be my third Olympic tri, after Sufferfest '08 and Impromptu '09. This isn't my big target race for the season, but I think a PR might still be a strong possibility. The course will be a little tougher than either oly I've done, but I think I'll be coming into it with better fitness than either prior olympic tri. And that elusive sub-30 swim is still lurking out there...

Next! I got to retest my running fitness last week. I'm pretty happy here. My last run test was in January, and I'm not sure what was up with myself, but it was terrible. Stomach felt bad, heart rate was out of control high, and my pace was all over the place. This time? My mile paces were a whopping 0:02 apart, my HR recovered like it should, and my pace was almost a minute faster per mile! Now, I don't think I ACTUALLY improved that much in two months; I think a lot of it was a bad day during the first test. But it was nice to see my feelings about the January test validated along with the work I've put it. The best part was comparing it to last year's test, which was about the same length of time before IMCDA as this year's test is before Rev3 Cedar Point. I've cut 0:13 off per mile! And that's legit pace gain - same track, similar HR, and all.

I also got to retest my swimming. While this one wasn't as big an improvement as the run test, it still showed some growth. It seems like every time I do a swim test, I tell myself not to go out too hard. I then proceed to go out too hard, and am dying by the end of the test. This time, I reeeealy told myself to hold back, and actually did. Over the whole test, my pace per hundred only varied by 2 seconds! I managed to tie my swim test PR, but I think this one was a stronger effort overall since I didn't have one super-fast (for me) 100m artificially making my average look better.

And finally, in the biking world, spring has finally sprung in the midwest, and I got to do a 2:45 ride in the great outdoors. It's funny how much your race calendar affects your training - this time last year I was busy doing 10 5 (Really? Only 5? Seemed like more) hours on coach's computrainer. Meredith came along for half the ride, and boy did she pick the wrong half. We fought our way through a deceptively strong headwind toward home, and when I rode back to the car, I reaped the benefits. Mentally, I've sort of had a block with 20 mph on the bike. I figure if I'm cracking 20, I'm probably working too hard and I back off. With the aid of a tailwind to get me started, I just decided to see how long I could hold it on this ride, and began to realize that my bike fitness might just be improved over last year. Funny how that works, huh? I'm excited to see if that can translate into some good bike splits. This weekend is supposed to be super-nice in Columbus, so I'm looking forward to a good day, and cracking 3 hours for the first time this year.

So, it's on to April... One month till the outdoor race season kicks in, and I can't wait!

Grady Indoor Triathlon Pics

Wave 1 on our bikes.



Don't I look like I'm having fun? Bonus points for the hair - maybe next time I'll wear my helmet.

Race Report - GRIT And Bear It Indoor Triathlon

Hooray, it's race season! Meredith and I headed up to Delaware EARLY Saturday morning for the first race of the year. We had a wake up time of 5:00 AM, hopped on the road, and rolled into Ohio Wesleyan's campus in plenty of time. We even got a scenic tour of campus, as I read the map wrong and we ended up on the wrong side. Little did we know that we drove right by it. Oops!

This race was a 15 minute swim, 15 minute bike, and 15 minute run format. At the end, your paces for each were extrapolated to a 750y/20K/5K sprint tri format. We got our bikes turned in, our swim suits on, and we were ready to get 2010 underway! Meredith and I were in wave 1, so we got on over to the pool. Maybe it's just our gym, but we're used to some pretty cool water and the OWU pool was nowhere near as cold. Nice surprise on a 14 degree morning. We got in a few warm-up laps and discussed the possibility of drafting since we were in adjacent lanes and we swim a similar speed. And then I almost missed the start since I forgot there's no "Set" in swimming, just "Swimmers take your marks...Go!".

I kicked off at a good pace and almost immediately dropped Meredith, who was being a little more conservative. Oops, guess we should have discussed our pacing strategies too. My stroke felt smooth and strong, and I kept pushing at a "comfortably hard" pace. For some reason, I completely forgot to count laps, so I had no idea where I was in the swim. At some point, I decided to start, thinking there couldn't possibly be time for more than 10 more laps. And there wasn't. I came to the wall, saw Meredith standing up, and realized we were done! I ended up doing 975 yards in 15 minutes, which would be a 1:40/100m pace. For reference, this was exactly the pace I did in last year's indoor tri, but for a 15 minute swim instead of 10 minutes. Very excited by this, I had in my mind that I would be thrilled with 950. It turned out that I finished second in my age group in the swim, and 8/69 overall.

Swim: 975 yards (1:40/100m)

I stopped off at my locker for a quick gel and change, and it was out to the fieldhouse for the bike leg. One thing I really liked about this indoor tri was the chance to ride your own bike! We had a few seconds to warm up here, and I quickly realized that the resistance was a lot higher than what I was used to at home. As we started our ride, I settled in around 18-19 MPH depending on the gear. I played around with gearing a little, but eventually just held a pace for the first half of the ride. Halfway through, I decided to crank up the gearing and held it around 21 MPH. And every minute or two from there out, I increased my speed until I was going around 23 at the end. In retrospect, I might have been able to go a little harder, but compared to the competition here, a few tenths of a MPH wouldn't have made much difference - nobody that finished above me overall averaged under 24 MPH! I ended up 10/16 in my age group on the bike.

Bike: 5.1 miles (20.4 MPH)

After getting off the bikes, I remember commenting to Meredith that my legs didn't feel great. (I know, what else is new coming off the bike?) We had a 5 minute transition, and the 5 people in our wave toed the start line of the indoor track. (Another nice thing about this indoor tri - no treadmills!) Within the first 200m, it was obvious that I'd be running by myself: Meredith and another guy were about a quarter lap ahead, and the other two were well back. Once again, I settled into "comfortably hard", and since I'm not used to running a 200m track, I didn't bother trying to do pacing math, I just ran.

Soo...maybe I should "just run" more often? When we finished up and I sprinted the last few meters to eke out my last half lap, I had done 15.5 laps, or 3100 meters. That was good for a 7:47/mile pace. Um, when was the last time I ran that fast in a race? My 5K PR pace is a 7:42. Interesting. Hopefully that bodes well for the coming year.

Run: 3100m (7:47/mile)

Total: 1:13:05 Predicted Time

I won my wave, but as the day went on my position slid down to 6/16 in my age group, 10/29 men, and 10/69 overall. That's right, I would have been first overall woman. Probably the first time I can say that, actually. :) I would have loved to have placed in my age group, but this year brought some tougher competition than the results we saw from last year. That's fine, though! I was thrilled with my swim, surprised by my run, and have some work cut out for me on the bike. Bring on 2010!