So
today I had the bright idea of heading downtown to Jack and Adam’s and
join the shop ride. They’ve been having daily rides during the Tour de
France and every day the shop ride mimics the terrain for that day’s
stage (i.e. flat ride for flat stages, hilly rides for “medium mountain”
stages, big hills on Pyrenees and Alps stages).
I
thought, well, the ride is hilly, and my schedule calls for a hilly
workout, so.... why not go check it out. I got there early and started
talking with some of the other riders. They were discussing how some of
the riders like to speed it up the whole time and how they don’t slow
down even in the inclines and how they had averaged 20mph in previous
mountain stages. Hmm, maybe this is not my kind of ride. But, since I
was already there I decided to give it a try.
The
first 10 minutes of flat riding were fast, but I was able to keep up,
so I naively thought that maybe, just maybe I would be able to do it.
Ehm, no! At the first sight of a hill, not even a mountain, I absolutely
knew I was not going to make it. I decided there and then -12 minutes
into the ride- to go back the same way I had come. One of the other
riders had a mechanical (his chain broke) so he was also turning back. I
offered to go get my car and give him a ride back to the shop, but he
declined saying he was going to do some barefoot running on the trail.
(WTF! but, hey, it’s a free country.)
As
I was hauling back my sorry, slow butt to the car, feeling stupid for
even considering that I could ride with the cool guys, I remembered
there is a cross street going back Barton Springs Rd that has a somewhat
steep hill going up to the Barton Hills neighborhood. Miguel and I had
parked there not too long ago and I remembered it being quite a hike on
foot. So, since crazy-let’s-go-run-barefoot-at-the-trail guy didn’t
need a ride back, and since I was already downtown ready for a hilly
workout I decided to turn into the hill to check it out. Once I was at
the top, I decided to continue riding through the neighborhood streets,
taking every opportunity I could to go up the hills. And so I kept
riding, street after street of this unknown neighborhood, hill after
hill on this impromptu ride.
I
ended up riding for an hour and not feeling sorry for myself anymore. I
might not be fast or powerful enough to go out with the good guys, I
might never be, but I’ll keep riding, taking every mount-- I mean, hill I
can at my own pace.
My adventures as a middle of the pack triathlete.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Lake Pflugerville Tri and Chiqui Roo’s debut
This is probably the best, and also the most uneventful race I’ve had to date.
A few weeks back, for my birthday, Miguel and a few of my alcahuete friends put some money together to help me start a new bike fund. Thanks to their pretty sweet birthday gift, and with some good old financing help, I went down to Jack and Adam’s and, after trying it out for a week, got a new Quintana Roo Dulce.
I had been using the new bike for a few weeks now, and it was obvious that it was faster than my Felt, but I hadn’t had the occasion to test just how much faster it was. So, with that in mind and in order to do some final training Lake Pflugerville Tri, I decided to go out and do the LPT bike course a week before the race. I ride around Pflugerville often and even time-trial there every once in a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was able to comfortably do the tri course at 17.4mph when my best TT speed to date had been 17 flat (and that was pushing it the whole way). With that in mind, I decided to set some goals for LPT. I played the numbers game and decided I wanted to do the 500m swim in 12:30 (2:30/M), the 14mi bike in 47 minutes (17.9mph) and the 3mi run in 27:30 (9:10min/mi) and that would leave me with three minutes in transitions to finish in an hour and a half. Other than the swim time --which wasn’t so much of a goal as it was a realistic assessment of my abilities-- I knew I was going to have to sweat it every minute of the race in order to beat those times.
Come race day I woke up extra early, as usual. Everything went according to plan, which meant we actually did make it out of the house by five and were at Lake P by 5:30. Ok, that was a little too early, considering the race started at 7:30 and I had the dead last wave at 8:09. Once everything was unloaded from the car, I made it to transition where Carolyne body marked me. Jess was also there, and I asked them about the TriZones rack, but neither of them knew where it was, so I decided to rack on the best place available, which turned out to be four racks from the bike in/out. I took my sweet time to set up transition since I had what seemed like all the time in the world. Once I was done I was heading out when I finally saw the TZ rack. I guess it was a good thing that I didn’t rack there because it was packed!
I waited patiently in the team tent until it was time for the pros to start; said my hello’s, my good luck’s, you know the usual deal. Once it was 7:30 some of us went closer to the lake in order to see the swimmers make it in and out of the water. I watched all the men start and once the women waves were about to begin, I decided it was a good time to make my way to the start line. Before I left for the start I reminded Miguel of what my goal times were, so he would have a good idea of when to expect me at the different spectating points. Off went everyone close to the start line, and soon enough there were only white caps left. We were starting 49 minutes after the Open wave, so I made some quick calculations to figure out that I had to cross the finish line before the race clock read 2:09 if I wanted to beat my goal. It didn’t take long before they send us off.
Once the swim started I went out about 100m and my goggles started to fog; it wasn’t a problem for the first two buoys, because they were pretty big and bright, but I couldn’t see the turnaround buoy, so I had to stop for a moment and clear the goggles. They started fogging again as I was turning back to the swim exit and I had to stop one more time to fix them. Other than that and some hydrilla at the end, which I was expecting, the swim was pretty uneventful. As I was running out to T1 I saw Miguel who said I was on time.
I made it through T1 at a decent pace, not the disaster that was Rookie T1, and since I was pretty close to the bike out, I didn’t have to run too much in my cleats. Once comfortable in my bike I started to purposefully pedal ((c) Coach Jen 2012) my way through. The first stretch of the course on Weiss Ln is always pretty fast because there is usually a strong tailwind. Supposedly, there wasn’t going to be any wind in Pflugerville for the race --yes, 7-8mph wind in Pflugerville is NO wind-- but I was still going pretty fast, so I was convinced the gods had decided to blow a little for me. The only good thing I can think about starting on the dead last wave, is that hardly anyone passes you. I’m a slow swimmer, so not only was I on the last wave, I also made it out of the water pretty close to last. The thing is, not only was I not getting passed, I was passing a lot of people --rare occurrence for me. In what felt like no time I was out of the rolling hills and on to the recently super smoothly paved segment of Cameron Rd, and I was again convinced there had to be some wind out there helping me out. After the making it out of Cameron and into Pecan, I decided to look at my watch. Any day that I can make it to the corner of Pecan and Weiss before 35 minutes is a good day; when I looked at the watch it read 29 something. Holy crap! That hour and a half goal is starting to feel very real! I kept on pedaling on to 130 and then around the lake to finish the bike leg. When I made it back to Weiss I looked at the watch again, it was reading 18.4 mph. Oh yeah! When I dismounted on T2, I saw Miguel and shouted something about blowing my time and being so happy. Then quickly made it out to the run.
If I had to chose just one word to describe the Lake P run, it would be boring. If I had to fancy it up, I would say uneventful. There is not much to look at, but the person in front of you, not much of a scenery, very few spectators, not even a tree. Still, one good thing about it is that you can see -and hear- the finish line from about a mile and a half out, which I find very encouraging. (Actually, you can hear the finish line all the way through). So I just focused on keeping my pace and trying not to get passed. The first goal was accomplished, the second, well, not so much.
As I approached the finish line my Garmin was reading 9:05 for my average, so I knew I was doing good in time. Then, once at the finish line, I was able to see the race clock reading 2:06:something. Yey! At least two minutes less than my goal time. I just couldn’t believe it! My teammates and I stayed until the last person crossed the finish line, and then watched the award ceremony.
Finally, at home, I was able to check the official results:
- the swim: 12:31, pretty much what I expected. I need to do something to get faster...
- T1: 2:05
- the ride: 45:18, and 18.6mph. Holy cannoli, that’s fast, very fast for me. It must have been the new Chiqui Roo :-)
- T2: 1:05
- the run: 26:16, and 8:45min/mi. Well, that’s fast, but it’s also questionable. My garmin read the distance as 2.8 miles and that would put me closer to 9:05min/mi, much more believable...
Total time was 1:27:11, almost three minutes better than my goal time. Yey for the little victories that keep us racing!
A few weeks back, for my birthday, Miguel and a few of my alcahuete friends put some money together to help me start a new bike fund. Thanks to their pretty sweet birthday gift, and with some good old financing help, I went down to Jack and Adam’s and, after trying it out for a week, got a new Quintana Roo Dulce.
I had been using the new bike for a few weeks now, and it was obvious that it was faster than my Felt, but I hadn’t had the occasion to test just how much faster it was. So, with that in mind and in order to do some final training Lake Pflugerville Tri, I decided to go out and do the LPT bike course a week before the race. I ride around Pflugerville often and even time-trial there every once in a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was able to comfortably do the tri course at 17.4mph when my best TT speed to date had been 17 flat (and that was pushing it the whole way). With that in mind, I decided to set some goals for LPT. I played the numbers game and decided I wanted to do the 500m swim in 12:30 (2:30/M), the 14mi bike in 47 minutes (17.9mph) and the 3mi run in 27:30 (9:10min/mi) and that would leave me with three minutes in transitions to finish in an hour and a half. Other than the swim time --which wasn’t so much of a goal as it was a realistic assessment of my abilities-- I knew I was going to have to sweat it every minute of the race in order to beat those times.
Come race day I woke up extra early, as usual. Everything went according to plan, which meant we actually did make it out of the house by five and were at Lake P by 5:30. Ok, that was a little too early, considering the race started at 7:30 and I had the dead last wave at 8:09. Once everything was unloaded from the car, I made it to transition where Carolyne body marked me. Jess was also there, and I asked them about the TriZones rack, but neither of them knew where it was, so I decided to rack on the best place available, which turned out to be four racks from the bike in/out. I took my sweet time to set up transition since I had what seemed like all the time in the world. Once I was done I was heading out when I finally saw the TZ rack. I guess it was a good thing that I didn’t rack there because it was packed!
I waited patiently in the team tent until it was time for the pros to start; said my hello’s, my good luck’s, you know the usual deal. Once it was 7:30 some of us went closer to the lake in order to see the swimmers make it in and out of the water. I watched all the men start and once the women waves were about to begin, I decided it was a good time to make my way to the start line. Before I left for the start I reminded Miguel of what my goal times were, so he would have a good idea of when to expect me at the different spectating points. Off went everyone close to the start line, and soon enough there were only white caps left. We were starting 49 minutes after the Open wave, so I made some quick calculations to figure out that I had to cross the finish line before the race clock read 2:09 if I wanted to beat my goal. It didn’t take long before they send us off.
Once the swim started I went out about 100m and my goggles started to fog; it wasn’t a problem for the first two buoys, because they were pretty big and bright, but I couldn’t see the turnaround buoy, so I had to stop for a moment and clear the goggles. They started fogging again as I was turning back to the swim exit and I had to stop one more time to fix them. Other than that and some hydrilla at the end, which I was expecting, the swim was pretty uneventful. As I was running out to T1 I saw Miguel who said I was on time.
I made it through T1 at a decent pace, not the disaster that was Rookie T1, and since I was pretty close to the bike out, I didn’t have to run too much in my cleats. Once comfortable in my bike I started to purposefully pedal ((c) Coach Jen 2012) my way through. The first stretch of the course on Weiss Ln is always pretty fast because there is usually a strong tailwind. Supposedly, there wasn’t going to be any wind in Pflugerville for the race --yes, 7-8mph wind in Pflugerville is NO wind-- but I was still going pretty fast, so I was convinced the gods had decided to blow a little for me. The only good thing I can think about starting on the dead last wave, is that hardly anyone passes you. I’m a slow swimmer, so not only was I on the last wave, I also made it out of the water pretty close to last. The thing is, not only was I not getting passed, I was passing a lot of people --rare occurrence for me. In what felt like no time I was out of the rolling hills and on to the recently super smoothly paved segment of Cameron Rd, and I was again convinced there had to be some wind out there helping me out. After the making it out of Cameron and into Pecan, I decided to look at my watch. Any day that I can make it to the corner of Pecan and Weiss before 35 minutes is a good day; when I looked at the watch it read 29 something. Holy crap! That hour and a half goal is starting to feel very real! I kept on pedaling on to 130 and then around the lake to finish the bike leg. When I made it back to Weiss I looked at the watch again, it was reading 18.4 mph. Oh yeah! When I dismounted on T2, I saw Miguel and shouted something about blowing my time and being so happy. Then quickly made it out to the run.
If I had to chose just one word to describe the Lake P run, it would be boring. If I had to fancy it up, I would say uneventful. There is not much to look at, but the person in front of you, not much of a scenery, very few spectators, not even a tree. Still, one good thing about it is that you can see -and hear- the finish line from about a mile and a half out, which I find very encouraging. (Actually, you can hear the finish line all the way through). So I just focused on keeping my pace and trying not to get passed. The first goal was accomplished, the second, well, not so much.
As I approached the finish line my Garmin was reading 9:05 for my average, so I knew I was doing good in time. Then, once at the finish line, I was able to see the race clock reading 2:06:something. Yey! At least two minutes less than my goal time. I just couldn’t believe it! My teammates and I stayed until the last person crossed the finish line, and then watched the award ceremony.
Finally, at home, I was able to check the official results:
- the swim: 12:31, pretty much what I expected. I need to do something to get faster...
- T1: 2:05
- the ride: 45:18, and 18.6mph. Holy cannoli, that’s fast, very fast for me. It must have been the new Chiqui Roo :-)
- T2: 1:05
- the run: 26:16, and 8:45min/mi. Well, that’s fast, but it’s also questionable. My garmin read the distance as 2.8 miles and that would put me closer to 9:05min/mi, much more believable...
Total time was 1:27:11, almost three minutes better than my goal time. Yey for the little victories that keep us racing!
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