Hogpen Weekend, Polar Bear 5k, and Resting
Right now I am taking a break from training. A mandated two day break. After a few weeks of continued decline in workouts and training, it’s needed.
I am fixated on one question. How could I forget what I am like without training to take the edge off my personality? I am absolutely impossible to live with. Impossible. And I’m just talking about me living with me. Who knows what’s running through the heads of my nearest and dearest.
So January has been fun, busy ,and very stressful.
I will focus on the training end since this is a triathlon blog. Soon, I hope to have exciting bike news, too that is deserving of its own post! All I will say is that I may or may not have appeared to be a beached whale with scoliosis on my bike (entirely due to my own fitting tweaks.. I get all the credit for that one) and that Soon I may NOT look like that! I may look like a poseur cyclist on a shiny bike, instead.
So here’s the recap on all the other training stuff….
Hogpen weekend
This weekend is soo much fun. It comes with goals attached. The Hogpen Trifecta is threefold and quite difficult to achieve. It includes maximum pain and maximum fun, then more pain. Therein lies the paradox of the hogpen trifecta. Specifically, it includes the following
1. Race up hogpen 11.5 miles and 4352.3 million feet of climbing
2. Sing karaoke that night in Helen
3. Ride your bike up hogpen the next day.
Last year was the inaugural year of the trifecta and I am proud to say that only three of us achieved this formidable goal. This year I wanted to try and recruit others, and was successful at the getting people rallied part. Unfortunately I messed up the actual planning and execution. I was tired and grumpy pre-Hogpen and it was slated to rain nonstop so we made the last minute decision to leave our bikes behind.
After a lackluster run up the hill, (eight minutes slower than last year. Yes, there was a course change that made it longer, but most people’s times were similar or faster because the added part was pretty much downhill at the beginning)it was time for the extreme fun portion.
We had a LOT of fun and karaoked until Helen closed down. The next day’s ride was not to be for anyone, as one, you generally feel sleep deprived and sore after the first two phases, plus the part about not having our bikes.
So I was bummed but I was even more sore and exhausted than last year, and am not sure that I could have pedaled the minimum watts to keep the bike from rolling down the hill backwards.
Onward to the Polar Bear 5k this past weekend. Fun because the club was sponsoring it and I believe we succeeded in getting a lot of people fired up about wanting to do a triathlon. Also, yes the actual running of it. After the way I was feeling and my Hogpen run I was the opposite of excited about this race. I wasn’t even sure if I would break 20 minutes much less the goal that I set awhile ago of wanting to break 19 sometime this year. In the end, pure ego allowed me to run the essentially the same time as last year.
Though there was like 1500 people in the race John, rich, rosemary, and I finished in succession, despite john and rich being almost 20 seconds ahead. They were going for 19 and rosemary was going for 19:30. After getting passed like I was standing still by them and many, many others the previous weekend I couldn’t go down without a fight. I started running and my legs immediately felt like someone had taken all the blood vessels, mitochondria etc, out of the middle and filled them with iron instead. Very strange, usually at least the first mile should feel easy, but I was in end of 5k pain from the gun.
John finishing (behind Rich) in a Hair over 19.
Anyways, I lost rich and john but managed to stay behind rosemary .. barely. Every uphill she pulled away and every downhill I managed to reel her in..the last 100 yards I put in a kick with the look, sound, and agony, I imagine, of a dying elephant and crossed the line 1 second before.
Last 100 yards…
Right after we finished.. photo credits to John’s dad!
The next day was the Mountain Madness preview ride which I was Very excited about ..nothing was going to stop me. Not the 20 degree weather, not the fact that my legs were filled with molten iron as I mentioned previously. I managed to convince Rich and Ted to attend and it turned out that Lauren Fogarty and Paul were also there. (not that I saw Paul ..or Ted..after the first five minutes..showoffs)
So we started out riding casually or what I call “lazy riding.’ Lazy riding is where you don’t get in aero, pretty much keep in the small ring, and coast everything that is coastable. I was trying to stay super positive and was helped on that path by the beautiful scenery, Lots of Coke, and Rich’s company, who is perpetually chatty and positive. I kept reassuring him we weren’t slow because xy and z.
Lauren, Rich, and I at the first ‘aid station’ I look like I’m trying not to be grim and Rich appears to be contemplating some hand warmers.
So it turns out I was pretty tired because at first, I kept wondering why everyone was so fast. Second, I kept thinking well everyone out here is just really hardcore, and then I thought well they are just trying to see how fast they can ride the course. And THEN I noticed, when we were climbing the mountain part that I was climbing in low zone 2 and when I tried to pick it up, I really couldn’t and THEN I noticed at the halfway point that we were already 2:40 in .. yikes! I was thinking total ride time would be about 3:15 and instead it was 4:22!!!!!!!!!! After looking at my data later and my mouse-like average watts, it’s clear that this rest Is due.
*By the way, I have to mention that if you are considering Mountain Madness half distance you should totally do it! The scenery and the course is awesome, and though I will be occupied during the actual race, I plan to be at the preview rides as much as possible. Zone 5 proved they are awesome at organizing this weekend, too. I really had my own personal SAG.. even though I hope this is the first and last time I will be with the SAG
** I had several friends tell me at Hogpen that they are thinking about donating to Sadie’s cause. I really really need more people to donate. In fact, I need YOU to donate.. just ten or 20 will do the trick. YOU will make a difference helping shelter dogs and I really really need your help. And I will stop bugging you and not send you a personal letter if you go ahead and donate now