Sick Days

I tell my body to work harder, lift heavier, run faster. Sleep. Eat. Drag that freezing butt to the pool and get in. I tell it to get on the bike and ride for three hours or more without complaining. How dare it tell me no! How can I be sick? Ha! All too often, we don't think about our true well being until illness forces us to. Day two of sitting on the sofa, ordering spicy food so I get at least 20 minutes to breathe clearly...it's giving me plenty of time to think about it now.

My swim with a hero

I'm the kind of person who just puts herself out there all the time. Often, this leads to disappointment, heartbreak and frustration, and makes me kick myself for being so "open." But then something happens or I meet another really interesting, amazing person and I realize it's a quality I must embrace.

Case in point: about six months ago, I'm swimming, sharing a lane with a big but gentle guy wearing fins. He's creating a decent current and some "chop" and I joke that I'm enjoying it because it's good open water swim practice. He tells me I'm fast and challenges me to a race (him in fins, me not). I grin and accept -- anything to make my swim more exciting.

I happen to be on the side of the lane that has some crazy metal lifeguard chair that's attached in the water by a big metal pole. As I swim past the pole, I hit the back of my hand on it so hard that it instantly turns blue and starts bleeding. We finish the race (which was a close one, btw), he sees my hand and starts apologizing profusely. I think he was more upset about it than I was.

So I hadn't seen him since, but just this Monday, there he is. We recognize each other right away (and of course he still feels bad about my hand). Turns out, he is Marlon Suson, owner of the Ground Zero Museum downtown. Marlon was the official photographer at Ground Zero, the only photographer granted access during the recovery following the attack on 9/11. What Marlon did to document this sad part of American history is unbelievable. I'm visiting his museum this weekend and I recommend anyone who hasn't been there to go as well. Through his museum, Marlon continues to support all the heroes of September 11, 2001.

Do you carry star anise?

Has it really been this long since I've blogged? I wish I could say that with the season at a close, I took up and traveled somewhere exotic for the past few months. In reality, I think the most exotic place I've been since September is the ethnic spices isle of Whole Foods. Yeah, that pretty much sums up the past few months. Lots of cooking, eating, drinking, spending time with family. All the things I really don't get to do in the summer. But, before I settled into the easy life, I had two more big races after Toughman. A quick rundown:

October: MightyMan Montauk 1/2 IM. I went into this race thinking I could go sub-5:00 for the first time, since Toughman was pretty close and I had all those silly issues (even more than I felt comfortable blogging about at the time but let's just say not only did I forget and then lose 3/4 of my nutrition, but I also was dealing with "female" issues that by the run had become apparent to pretty much every other athlete and spectator. Use your imagination). Anyway, back to Montauk. By early morning, I saw how windy and cold it was. Even the lake seemed to have whitecaps! I knew sub-5:00 probably wouldn't happen and it didn't. I finished in 5:10, but good enough to be third female overall. I fought hard for the podium and can't thank my friends from Terrier Tri enough for helping me through the run. You guys are a class act.

November: NYC Marathon! This was my second marathon ever, 2009 being my first (also NYC). I can't believe the difference a year can make, both mentally and physically. On race morning, I felt so good. Not at all nervous like I was the previous year. It occurred to me as I began running over the Verrazano that in 2009, I was so petrified I didn't enjoy much of anything. This time it was different. I felt great, had confidence in myself, never hit a wall and actually pushed through the last 10k feeling like I could go even harder. I took 9 min. off my time, finishing in 3:14. I was 35th in my age group and 190th female overall, including pros! Even better, recovery was faster and easier than I remembered it being the previous year. I'm already registered to do it again this year.

After taking a bit of a Christmas holiday watching the snow fall and the firewood burn, I'm now three weeks into training mode, though not quite as much as I will be another month from now. I'm also dealing with some tightness in my lower left leg that's causing my achilles tendon to scream whenever I run. So, I'm back to my ART doc again to work that stuff out. Could be worse, could be July!

Toughman Half Ironman Race Report

A friend pointed out to me today that I always seem to have some kind of funny or weird story about every race I do. This is definitely true for the Toughman half ironman I did on Sunday.

Race day began as ordinarily as they come. Transition set up went smoothly, body marking…check, timing chip…check. I laid everything out the way I always do on my towel and made my way over to the water’s edge as I ate an Odwalla bar.

It was super low tide, so when the horn sounded, there was a whole lot of hopping, dolphin diving, more hopping, trying to swim…nope…more hopping. When I finally started to swim, I settled quickly into my pace and reminded myself that I need to race in the water and not once I get out, like I seem to always want to do. I’ve been doing a lot of sighting practice all summer since whenever I swim off the boat, I’m always watching out for other boats, rocks and whatnot. This proved to be valuable experience, as I was a lot better at staying on course and navigating the buoys. A couple times, I found the feet of a strong swimmer and drafted for a bit. It’s amazing how much energy this saves. Coming back to shore, again, it was swim, swim, hop, hop, dolphin dive, hop, hop. This is a lot of work to do before starting my ride, I thought.

As I emerged, I looked up to see my friend Kristin with a look of both shock and excitement on her face. She shouted that I was fourth out of the water and not far behind the leader. Sweet! I entered transition feeling really pumped. Just as I’m mounting the bike and congratulating myself on such a fast transition, I realize I’ve forgotten to grab my nutrition. All I have are the two water bottles on the bike, each with only 90 calories of carbs in it. Crap. I shook it off and figured I’d ration the two bottles and use the bottle exchange at mile 36 if I felt I needed to.

Throughout the bike course, I kept thinking, “they don’t call it ‘Toughman’ for nothing!” This is a challenging course. But wow, is it beautiful. At least there’s some reward for all the work the athletes put in. Not to mention the volunteers and cops at each intersection and along the course who were just amazing. Just as I finished my first bottle, I approached the bottle exchange. I slowed a bit, but decided I still had a whole other bottle and felt really good so I’d pass. Not more than a mile later, I hit a huge bump and there went the second bottle. Double crap. But instead of letting this get me down, I told myself, “Now you’re lighter. Move!” I know my pace picked up in the second half of the bike. I think it was partially because I just wanted to get back to T2 where I knew I’d have my Odwalla bars and gel flask waiting for me. That and there’s a nice elevation loss on the way back.

Back into transition, someone told me I was still in fourth. I was hoping to move up at least one spot on the bike, but given I was at such a huge caloric deficit, I was happy to have not been passed.

Finally getting some calories into my body felt great and though my legs were a bit wobbly, I was happy to be running. The run course is absolutely breathtaking. A large portion of it is through a park with gravel and dirt trails and for a while, I got to run through a beautiful park all by myself! Thankfully, the route was so well marked that I never had to worry about being off course and was able to just enjoy the moment. Like the bike course, the run is quite challenging. Because of all the hills, and changes between dirt and paved sections, my mile splits were all over the place, but I focused on pushing myself just enough and tried to not worry about the numbers so much.

At around mile 7, I reached a turnaround and saw a woman behind me moving in fast. I brought my pace up and tried so hard to hold her off but by mile 8, she passed and I knew I wasn’t going to catch her. In the end, over 70.3 miles, she was the only woman to pass me. I approached the finish and learned I was fifth female overall. Considering I did the entire race on about 300 calories, I’m happy with this and even happier to have taken 14 minutes off my previous ½ ironman PR; down to 5:05 from 5:19! Next up, Montauk MightyMan in three weeks, where I’m hoping to break 5 hrs. Anyone who knows me knows how much Montauk means to me and how much energy I draw just from being there. I’m really looking forward to that race!

Looking back...and ahead

This dry, cool weather has shown up at just at the right time. After taking a bit of a recovery week following Eagleman, I jumped back into training a little too quickly and ended up angering my calf right down to my foot last Wednesday while doing some speedwork. I forced myself to back off, which wasn't too difficult considering how hot and humid it got around here, and just as the oppressive weather broke, I felt ready to train. So, this past week, I've had some great workouts, including a 72-mile ride up to the orchard near Pomona, NY and back to Manhattan. On that ride, I think I climbed the cruelest hill I've ever encountered. It was so hard I felt it in my abs yesterday, but I followed through with my plan and had a successful 6x800 track workout followed by some strength training in the gym. Today, I'm looking forward to an early brick in Central Park and then it's back out to the boat, where I'll be getting in plenty of open-water swimming and trail running.

I'm also bringing my bike, which my family isn't too happy about. I never thought they were superstitious, but apparently, they are! They keep asking why I want to ride on July 4, exactly a year after my crash, on the same roads. My mom says she isn't taking a picture of me this time (the one here was taken the morning of my crash just after I ran the 10k to my parents' house and before I headed out on my ride). I guess it's just my way of exorcizing the demons that still plague me sometimes and rewriting the past.

Back in the saddle

Turns out my body was still a little sore from Eagleman, so I decided I needed some extra time off to recover. Nothing a few days on the boat can't cure! Between Friday and Sunday, the most I did was a 4-mile walk on the beach, a few sets of pullups using the metal bar across the back of the boat (yeah, that gets a few weird looks) and some pushups with my feet elevated on a tree stump I found on the beach (yes, weird looks there, too).

I also took some time to plan my workouts from this week through the Toughman 1/2 ironman on September 12. It feels good to wake up and know exactly what I have ahead of me for the day, but I still reserve the right to change it around to accommodate the weather or when my cycling partner can get out for a long ride. Yesterday was going to be my first brick since the race, but instead I had one of the best 56-mile bike rides over the GW Bridge I've had in a while. We rode my favorite hills (Ash, Bradley, Tweed, Mountainview) and I felt really strong on all the climbs.

Looking over my race results, I've come to the conclusion that I'm a climber. Consistently, when I race a hilly course, I do so much better, not only among the field of competitors, but also in setting PRs. I think a lot of it is mental. When I'm riding or running a flat course, I tend to settle into a slightly uncomfortable pace and stay there. By the time I realize I could have been pushing harder, the race is pretty much behind me! But where there are hills, I'm forced to power up them and to see how much more I have in me. Thinking about this makes me want to register for another flat race and push my mind to keep up with my body!

Eagleman 70.3 Race Photos