Frost Yer Fanny Duathlon 2015 - Déjà Vu.

Another "Way Past Due" post. Get with it girl!

Sportspectrum and Shreveport were once again hosts to the USAT South Midwest Duathlon Championship. The race was Sunday, February 4th in Downtown Shreveport. The forecast called for rain and so the race organizers moved the transition area under Festival Plaza!

I've never had a race set up under cover, and it was great! Fortunately the rain held off and we had a relatively dry race. But just as the awards finished and the crew started breaking down the bike racks the sky opened up and it poured! Bet they were very happy at this point to have moved transition so that they didn't have to get soaked loading up everything.

I wasn't expecting a stellar race, since I haven't been on the bike much. The run should be okay though.

Lots of teammates out for this race! The Sunrise Triathlon Club, The Cobb Mobb, and Team Cambridge all in attendance! I'll tell you what, I've never heard more "Go Ginger!" in my life, that was a lot of team support, it was very cool!

Held back as usual on the first 2 mile run, Garmin had it a tad over 2 miles and my pace was 7:16.  I'm pretty sure I was about 6th at the end of the first run.

ICEdot Band Sighting!!!! 

We had a south wind for the bike and it was a double out and back with each loop being 8+ miles, I averaged 19.8 - was trying to get it to 20 but I eased up a little just before coming into T2.

Here is the Déjà Vu part.....
I think I passed 3 girls on the bike, and headed out onto the run in 3rd or 4th, but then...... da da.... da da.... da da da da da da.... (jaws music insert) made the turn at the half way point and low and behold all three of the girls were right there.... can I hold them off? NO. Dang it. Passed by all three. Rats. Ended up finishing 6th overall female and won the Grand Masters. One of the girls who passed me was over 40 and took the Masters. Looked her up, big time Duathlete, Worlds and all that, very fast! (bet she can't swim.. heh, heh!).

Was really hoping to hang onto that 3rd place. Rachel and Denise were running 1st and 2nd and I thought it would be cool to have all 3 of us taking the top 3 spots. That thought exited my mind when the 3 women passed me. Dang it.

Have to say I'm pretty happy with my race, better times in all 3 segments than last year. I'll take that!

Rachel, Denise, and me!

Team Cambridge!!

The Cobb Mobb!

My Sunrise peeps brought me this!

And a fried of mine picked this up for me at the Regional Banquet
the night before the race! I finished 2nd in my AG in the region! 

ITU World Triathlon Race Report!

Wow, where to start? The anticipation of going to this race was crazy! So much planning, so much training, so much anxiety! Then it's come and gone in what feels like an instant.

Bill and I left for Canada and the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final in Edmonton on Thursday - my race wasn't until Monday. In retrospect it might have better to arrive a day or two later and then stay for a few days post race. That way we could have enjoyed Canada without all of my pre-race nervousness. I wasn't nervous about the race, like you are an Ironman where you are thinking did I do enough, am I ready?

I knew I was physically ready; I stayed disciplined and focused in my training and have seen the improvements this season in my bike and run in previous races. My anxiety stemmed from the logistics of this race! No cars allowed at or near the venue. You had to take a shuttle on the LTS (Light Transit System) over to the site. Figuring out when and where to catch the rail.....   AND then where to catch the shuttle....  and what time do we need to get to the rail....   AND how much time do we need to allow ourselves to get over to the venue.....  If you know me at all then you know that I wanted to "practice" on how to get there. We had to go over to the venue several times anyway for different things and so by race morning we were pros with the transit system.

Thursday afternoon we drove over to the mall in Edmonton, it's the largest mall in North America - being retailers of course we had to see it! Thursday afternoon at this place looked like a busy Saturday at the Galleria or North Park Mall in Dallas! It was crazy with people! We wandered around for a bit saw the indoor wave pool, the giant play area for kids, and the seal exhibit (poor seals living in a mall!).

I used Race Day Transport to get my bike to the race. But that meant driving it 3+ hours to Dallas to the participating bike shop. RDT did a great job with my bike and I would use them again in the future. I talked with one of the folks there yesterday about the drive and they told me that if we had 5+ bikes heading out of Shreveport for an event that we could arrange a pickup from a local bike shop!! The advantage was my bike was right next to transition and all I had to do was wheel it out. The only bad part was that once you checked it out of RDT it was yours. And I didn't want to schlep it back and forth on the buses and trains, so I left it with them for a few days. I was worried about it being out in the open but then noticed as we were leaving that they cover all the bikes with giant tarps at night.

 We had to check our bikes in on Sunday and they give you a one hour window per age group for this. (found out later that it is really more of a suggestion). My time slot was from 10:00-11:00 on Sunday. Checked it out around 9:30, and got to ride it back and forth on about a quarter mile of blacktop in the park before I had to take it into transition. Rode for about 30 minutes - did some pick ups to get the legs moving. There was another race going on and so I couldn't take it out on the course. Actually a lot of the race course was closed to cars for most of the daytime hours due to races going on so I didn't get to drive the course and see what it had in store for me. Just looked at the map and talked to a Team Cambridge guy who had raced the sprint. He gave me some heads up on the hills. At the pre-race meeting we were told that if you were from Colorado they were hills, but if you were from Florida they were mountains. I would say for me - Mountains.

Bill took this because I was next to the Japanese!  

Bike Check In - had to show your helmet, race number, uniform. They made me tighten the chin strap on my helmet. okay. Rack Q. During the pre-race meeting we were told that the transition area wasn't fair. No kidding it wasn't fair. My rack (since my swim wave was last) was the farthest away from the swim entrance, and the bike and run out. End of the line. So all of us old ladies got to run the entire length of the transition area 4 times more that the people on Rack A. Think it doesn't sound like much? A third of a mile in each transition. My Garmin showed T1 was .37 of a mile and T2 was .34 in transition distance, it took me 3:15, and 3:11 respectively . And why is this important? Only when it comes to me figuring out what kind of race I had (*I'll get to this later).

Walking the transition area with my new friend!

While I was racking my bike I chatted with a couple of the women in my age group nearby and found one who wanted to walk the in's and out's of the transition area with me. Kathy was from Canada and lived about 20K from the race. How nice is that? We covered every in and out and I felt so much more at ease afterwards.

Showing Kathy that the tents were across from our bikes.

No transition towels allowed so I checked around for a marker or something to help me find my bike instead of my pink Hello Kitty towel. Fortunately the red tents we had to pass under to get into transition were directly across from my bike, perfect land mark! Notice how we are on the absolute last row of bikes? The empty ones to the right stayed that way. The laminated numbers hanging by zipties on the racks were all wet and floppy, so I used a couple pieces of electrical tape to hold my number flat. Put a little piece on the bottom corner of the number too so I'd have something else to look for in transition.

Okay, done with all that pre-race stuff so now I could relax and get mentally set for the race. Oh, we did go to the pre-race meeting. It was okay - some good information covered. They allowed questions at the end of the meeting and geez..... some people ask some really strange questions. Mostly on things that were already covered and they must have been snoozing during that part of the talk. Or saying things that weren't questions but more like complaints. Nothing that the Team Managers could do anything about- really strange things. "The ankle strap is too thick." o-k-a-y..... We were told that if you wanted to wear something over the uniform it either had to be the team jacket or a clear jacket and that you would have to wear it during the run too. One lady complained that the only jackets left for sale for the team at the host hotel were too big. I loved when she was told that it had been for sale for months on the website. She said it again, and was responded to with exactly the same comment. Haha - loved that part!

Okay.. so race morning!

Transition area open from 6:00-7:15am. My swim wave: 9:43am. Air temperature 41 degrees. Hanging around outside for almost 4 hours. Only brought one pair of running shoes, my racing flats. Mistake.... no shoes to run and warm up in- running in UGG boots.... not really practical. Found refuge in the Boathouse building! Warm. Thank goodness! But way too much chatter from all the other nervous triathletes. Have you ever noticed that when talking with other triathletes that most sentences start with " I "? A friend of mine and I were talking today and she had a great point... if you want to tell your triathlon stories over and over again.... WRITE A BLOG! Hahaha... love that!!! p.s. She writes a blog too.

We had to assemble 30 minutes before our wave went off and be "escorted" to the swim corral by a guy playing the bagpipes wearing a swim cap and goggles. Classy. We get over to the corral and I realize that I forgot to take my gel, but right before my wave goes off I see Bill on the other side of the fence about 7 feet away. Was able to ask him to get the gel out of my bag that he's carrying and he flings it to me, and I actually caught it!! People around him applauded!

We line up with one foot against the blue "blocks" and wait for the starter. During the pre-race swim a couple days before a girl and I practiced our starts, figuring out how many steps before we should dive into the water. I was also told that the time between when they said "take your mark" and the gun was really short, so I was ready. Bill caught this picture of my wave start!

See the girl closest to the camera in the streamline? That would be me!

About 100 yards into the swim, I start thinking. And then I start to get the wetsuit panic. It's not good. I reach around and unzip my wetsuit to let some cool water in and it feels better, then reach back around and try to zip it back up and I can't get it. Now I'm really upset. I came all this way and I'm thinking that I'm going to have to get out of this thing and swim in the 62 degree water without my wetsuit. I managed to swim over to the first paddle board and get him to zip me back up and swim on slowly. I even freaked out a little again and looked back to see how far I was away from the paddle board because I considered going back to it. But it was already 20 yards away, so I put my face in the water and forced myself to swim slowly and calm down. After another 200-300 yards I was able to get a grip on things and pick up my pace a little. After that I was fine and tried to swim hard for the 2nd lap of the 1500 meters.

Me, freaking out!

As I came out of the water and was running to the transition area I saw Bill and he told me I was 7th out - now that really surprised me because I know with all the freak out I lost a bunch of time out there. (It turns out I was 8th out of the water in my age group, one girl had yanked off her cap before Bill could count her.)

2 loop course around this little island.

LONG transition... over a third of a mile. I took the time to put on some gloves (didn't want the Tri-Tyler race experience again with frostbite hands), and headed out onto the bike course. Two loops on a tough course. Couldn't get my gel off my bike, I'd taped it on too well, so I passed on that. Glad I brought the
e-Fuel for the bike bottle so I really didn't need the gel. I passed a lot of people, got passed by people, and came to realize that if you live in a country where you drive on the left hand side of the road you don't know where to ride if you are racing in a country where they drive on the right hand side of the road. Where we live we call it "blocking". I can't tell you how many people from Great Britain and Australia that I had to pass on the right. Either that or it is the triathlete entitlement attitude where it is Worlds and I can ride wherever I darned well please. At any rate, I let that go and had a great ride! It was tough - there was a hill just out of transition and on the second loop I looked down and was going 7 mile per hour. Other hills I ran out of gears on the decent, but managed to average 21.1 mph!

Back in to the long transition and out onto the run. It was a two loop run with almost 2 miles of each loop on trail. Hard pack dirt trail through some really nice woods. I took my e-Gel right away since I hadn't been able to take one on the bike, initially was planning on taking it halfway through the run.  On the plane ride to Canada I finished reading "Born To Run", and while I don't advocate the whole barefoot running thing I did take away 4 little words that helped me on the trail. "Light, Easy, Smooth, Fast".  And it worked. I had the best 10K run that I've ever had in an Olympic distance triathlon. I passed so many girls and just felt awesome. On the last loop in the last 1/2 mile or so of the run I went by some spectators and one of them shouted out "NICE RUNNING, SPANSEL!!!" Finished with a 7:48 average!! (prior best? 8:00 per mile).

This is what hurt looks like.

Sub 2:30 with a wetsuit freak out, hilly bike, and almost 2/3 run on trail, and extremely long transitions.  I'll take that! (*taking out 4 minutes from the transition runs would gave given me a 2:25:30 - that's a PR too!)

I'm a firm believer in looking to what was good and what went right in your races as opposed to what was bad and what went wrong. I know that I went into this race more prepared than I have ever been for a short course race. I'm so very pleased with my race and have zero complaints! Here is what I looked like coming across the finish line. Do you think I was happy?

I found Bill and we went to the Beer Garden! Someone told me we could see results online and I pulled up this! I don't know if you can see it, but it said I was 5th in my age group! I have to admit I got teary eyed when I saw it. You see with our wave going off last in the swim, I was honestly worried about finishing last in the entire race. Was hoping to finish somewhere around mid pack with my age group. Secretly wished for a top 10 finish but really didn't think it was possible. I got to enjoy what seemed to be a 5th place for a day, and then online results showed that I was 8th in my age group. A little let down after the exhilaration of thinking I was 5th but still a top 10 finish and 5th American!!

What a fantastic experience!  Loved it, even with all the drama of my nervousness. Here are some photos that we took during our stay in Edmonton!

My handsome husband!

In the winter this lake is an ice skating rink!

Awesome little English Pub where we ate more than one meal!

Really pretty trees in Canada!

A big thank you to my sponsors!  Team Cambridge and my friend and Team Manager, Scott Eder.
Scott Eder Sports.  Sportspectrum and Matt Brown! Cobb Cycling, John Cobb, and the Cobb Mobb! Eternal Water, and ICEdot! You guys, rock!!

How To Get Faster

You want to get faster? I know the secret. You can read tons of material and follow all kinds of programs, but one of the easiest and less mentally consuming ways to get faster is to train with fast people. That's it, simple right? Mmm hmmm.

Be prepared to hurt like all get out though. My Dad used to say that you need to work your "jaw muscles", in other words - grit your teeth.

I started swimming once a week with the COSST Varsity kids, I'm in the second to slowest lane. The coach wanted me to move into the next lane up, but I think I'll stay here for awhile, it's not the speed that's killing me but the distance. The only day I can swim with them is Friday because I'm coaching my swimmers the other 4 days a week (if I could I'd be there 3x a week). 5,000 yards - in less than 2 hours, lots of different stroke work - not all freestyle. Both days we've pretty much finished in 1:40 - but that is when Butch decided to play what I am calling "Sprint Trivia". In other words he asks a question, usually History or Geography based and if we get the answer wrong we sprint a 50. Last week press outs and some dryland were incorporated in between the questions and sprints. I am so sore, not quite a bad as week one - that week we did one set of 16x100 with fins and paddles, arms were like noodles after that one!

Now that the weather is warming up the weekly brick workouts with the Sunrise Tri Club have started up again out at Cypress Lake. I've ridden with these guys a couple times. Last Saturday we rode to a place called Plain Dealing.... I wondered what this town was named for, so I looked it up:

"Tradition states Plain Dealing was named for the Virginia plantation with the golden rule name. Plain Dealing, both the town and the plantation’s namesake, stood for honesty and integrity as their name implies." I like that!

The guy in front of my was really squirrely so I had
to back off his wheel - he made me nervous,
had to go around him.
He wore a tri kit on a road ride.... ????

Back to the ride - it's not really too bad, I can hang with them... EXCEPT for on the hills. And the hills are not really that bad but the other riders are much stronger on them than me - talk about a sufferfest. But I did hang, got dropped once along with a couple other guys and one bridged us up going 28+ mph. We did a little over 54 miles and averaged 20.1 (it was 20.6 at the turn but the wind was with us going out). Plus, something that I've been meaning to blog about - they pretty much ALL ride their race wheels, we're talking 880's and even disc wheels. I don't get it. So I did some searching online about race vs. training wheels and of course I found people advocating both sides. On one it said you should get used to how your race wheels handle on turns, bumps, etc. And the other front which said, why would you chance of damaging your $$$$ wheels.

I ride my training wheels except for race day. They are heavier and make me work much harder, and I can't afford to replace them if I crash and damage them - and I want to feel that speed on race day. I will admit that I have ridden them twice with this group, once the day before a race and I'd already put them on my bike in preparation for the next day. And one other time when I had been too busy/lazy to take them off after a race. And guess what.... both times it was MUCH EASIER to hang with the group - big news flash there!

I'd be interested to know what you ride for your weekly training. Do you train on your race wheels?

See my jersey in the photo? And the little round yellow sensor on my helmet? You should check out ICEdot!

"ICEdot Products and Services Overview

ICEdot is an emergency ID and notification service innovating safety technology for athletes and outdoor enthusiasts. ICEdot syncs a secure online profile with products such as a band, helmet stickers or it’s latest product, the Crash Sensor. In Case Of Emergency, ICEdot has the ability share predesignated health and geolocation information over sms/text.

ICEdot ID products allow first responders to retrieve emergency information stored in an ICEdot profile. First responders send an SMS text message containing the PIN found on the ID product to the number specified and an immediate response message is returned containing information on the individual.

The Crash Sensor will mount onto any helmet and connects with your ICEdot Profile via a smartphone app. The system is able to detect motion, changes in forces and impacts. In the event of critical forces, the device triggers the app over low-energy Bluetooth to sound an alarm and initiate an emergency countdown. Unless the countdown clock is stopped, the app will then notify your emergency contacts and send GPS coordinates of the incident so that appropriate follow up actions can be taken."

ICEdot

We are an emergency identification and notification system.

Race Report Catch Up! Crawfish and Indians!

I've been negligent in blogging. We have moved from Hattiesburg, MS to Shreveport, LA and it has been kookoo! Packing for 2-3 months in a corporate apartment and getting the house organized for the movers left me busy and frazzled. So albeit late, here is my reports from the Crawfishman Triathlon on May 5th and also the Indian Creek Triathlon that I raced yesterday.

First - Crawfishman!  "Spanish Moss In My Hand, Turn Me Into Crawfishman!"

I love this race, maybe it's a Louisiana racing thing. Wave start swims (as opposed to time trial starts - meh..), great post race food, beer, and party! Come race in Louisiana! You will love it!

This was my third year in a row to race Crawfishman and I'll be back next year! The guys who put this race on do a great job and this year even ordered up some very nice race morning temperatures for us. The water was cold enough to be wetsuit legal, booooooo.... don't like wetsuit swims. Had a mild panic about 100 yards into the swim. I went out hard to get out of the melee and promptly freaked out a little. Unzipped the wetsuit and swam for a couple hundred yards before settling back down and reaching back and zipping up the stupid suit. Consequentially, I didn't have the best swim. Oh well.. c'est la vie!

Me - 1st Masters Female and Denise Joplin - 2nd Overall Female

Onto the bike, slightly chilly but comfortable. I'll tell you, anything after those cold temperatures at the 70.3 Austin race last October everything else feels warm, so it was no big deal. Racing on the 404's for the 2nd time and they were awesome! I think the bike course is shorter than advertised so the 21.4 mph on the results is probably a bit generous. But I had a nice ride and felt really fast!

Patrick Lewis - Team Aquaphor!

The run course is out and back with a few little hills (hills in Louisiana would be nothing for the non-flat-landers). Saw Denise headed back in, she was having a great race. Saw fellow Aquaphor teammate, Patrick on the way back in and cheered for him to go faster. Brinn and I came into T2 together and she promptly ran away from me, saw her just after the turnaround and yelled "quick-feet" to her. Saw Lesley, Deanna, and Judy on my way back in and managed a wave to my friends. For me, seeing people I know when I'm racing gives me a boost. It was nice to catch site of all of them!

Finished with a 7:47 average for the 4 mile run. "Advertised" 4 mile run... it was actually 4.25 this year. Won the Masters Category :) and a cool piece of art designed especially for the race. Was 7th Overall Female, same place as my last race at the Girl Power race.. hmmmm is there a trend starting here?

Hattiesburg represented well and we took home a lot of hardware!! Be back next year? Absolutely!

Brinn Strange - 1st AG, Shelly Sheppard - 5th AG, Ginger Spansel - Masters Female,
Lea Paslay - 3rd AG, Denise Joplin - 2nd Overall Female, Chris Boyd - 2nd AG,
Sam Hudson - 2nd Overall Male, Judy Hudson - 2nd AG.

Next - Indian Creek Triathlon!

Team Aquaphor and Team ICEdot! (see the band?)

I found this little race online when I found out that we were moving to Shreveport. I went digging around for races within driving range on race morning and the Indian Creek race showed up in Alexandria, LA. It is about a 2.5 hour drive... yawn.. that means an early morning; we got up at 2:45am. On the website it said that there was prize money for the top 10 men and women! Sweet! A chance to make some money to help pay for race entry fees! I told Denise about the race even though it meant the loss of one place for me - nice of me, huh? We had planned on going in and sharing a room the night before but she and her husband were attending a wedding in Mobile, Alabama the evening before. So they drove through the night and got to the race site around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and caught a nap in their car before the race. My awesome husband, Bill agreed to come with me and drive down on race morning.

You want to know what prize money will do for a race?  Last year the winning women's time was 1:40:15 - this year?? 1:24:10 with all top 10 women going under 1:37. Are people motivated by money? You betcha!

My training had been flaky since moving. I was nervous yesterday morning, and I think that was why. Two weeks out before the race I swam twice, ran once and rode once. Then the movers showed up and I didn't do anything for 4 days. Then the week of the race I got in 2 swims, 2 runs and one bike ride (the day before the race). I didn't think it was going to be a good day. I was hoping for top 5.

Judy Hudson - 3rd Fastest Female Swim!

Non-wetsuit swim! YAY!! The water was warm, really warm. Judy and I swam the course and added some pick ups before the race and I felt overheated when we finished and we weren't even going hard. Lined up between Denise (my lanemate in Hattiesburg at HubFins Masters) and Judy (former Auburn swimmer). Stayed relaxed and long and was able to stay on Denise's hip or feet for the swim - really happy about that. Thank you, Denise, for the draft!! I came out of the water right behind her and my watch had 12:18 for the 800 meter swim.

That was pretty much the last I saw of Denise until the out and back sections of the bike and run. She took off and was gone! I had a great bike ride! Wearing my new Rudy Project Wingspan helmet for the first time, loved it! It was light, and comfortable and I felt fast! Saw some big numbers on the computer and was really happy to see a 21.8 average on the bike. THE fastest bike average that I've EVER had! Sweet!

Chose not to wear socks for the run. Got some new shoes with a sock-liner and thought I'd give it a try. It was okay, felt a tiny little hot spot on the arch of my left foot but no blister. I wouldn't run more than a 5K without socks though, any farther than the 5K and I would have been in pain.

The run felt MISERABLE! My Garmin was good up until the run then it wasn't scrolling so I had no idea of the pace. Stopped and restarted it and saw the number 8:00 A LOT. Not good. Was in 5th going into the run and at the turnaround. I saw Denise as she was headed back in and she looked good running in 4th place. But saw a girl running fast just behind me at the turn. It was Elodie Burlet from Shreveport and the Sunrise Triathlon Club. I had posted earlier in the week on the message board asking if anyone was going. Elodie had replied and we were hoping to meet each other at the race. I also knew that she was fast. Good cyclist, great runner. I knew it would only be a little while before she passed me. And pass me she did, like I was a fence post! She averaged 6:36 miles!  Saw Judy and she yelled for me, all I could get out was "Go Judy!"

Denise Joplin - 4th Overall Female!

I averaged 8:00 on the nose. Bah. Need to run more. Still, I managed to hang on to 6th Overall (broke that 7th Overall streak) and make a nice $175!! Denise finished 4th Overall!! Judy and Sam Hudson came over from Hattiesburg to race, Sam placed 8th Overall Male and Judy won her Age Group!  Another great day for my friends!

Jambalaya and cold beer after the race - yes! Thank you Louisiana!

Hmmmm.. next race, also Louisiana... that's races so far this year in Louisiana... coincidence? I think, not!

See you at River Cities also in Louisiana!!