Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Training Weekend......Vegas Style!

I might be kind of crazy, but I love training in Vegas! AZ and I have trained there a bunch,( I even met Wattie and HJ here once!) plus I raced at Vegas 70.3 last year, so I am pretty familiar with the area. Follow up a long day of training in the desert with some pool time and a casino night and that is a fun day!

This trip though, I went with a couple of friends from my local tri club Multisportmadness.

Sue and Danny

Sue is training for Kona, me for Vegas, and Danny is kicking off his IM CoZ training. We came up with the idea of training in Vegas mostly for a change of scenery mid season….. because long rides around corn fields for months start to get old, and some heat (um yea we had that). So while AZ was jetting off to the wind tunnel and having play dates with pros ….I was getting pretty revved up for my own little training trip to Vegas! Truth be told however, .........I even got to hang out with the IM World Champion some before I left to include an easy 1 hr 20 min ride from our house! Luckily it truly was and easy ride, but I was still nervous as hell with him riding behind me. He did actually think our flat open roads through the corn were cool and good for riding!

We arrived out at Lake Las Vegas which is the start of the race…and from here you can easily ride out from your hotel door and be at the start of the bike course, have good roads to run on and be about 10-15 min from Henderson where there is an awesome outdoor pool, Whole Foods and some other great restaurants. After putting the bikes together we made sure everything was working right by taking a little spin at about 3 in the afternoon when it was 105. To get out of the resort you must climb a very long hill (yes this is the first 3 miles of the race). We were all choking on our own throats because it was so hot and dry. For sure we had to start early in order to be able to do a long ride. So we started our first big workout Fri morning at 5:30 to be the heat.


lucky for some cloud cover early on

Because much of the riding is within Lake Mead National Park, there isn’t a gas station every 5 miles so we were timing the heat and 1 store being open on the return. We road the first part of the Vegas 70.3 course and then beyond to a lookout on Northshore Rd. at the top of a big climb (I secretly wish this hill was in the race) On the return we took a detour off the course down to the lake for more drinks. And yes it was down, because it was a long climb back up after our pit stop. These roads are in perfect condition, there are very few cars (esp. early in the morning) but there is absolutely no protection from the elements. You are completely exposed once the sun starts to really heat up.


a smidge of shade by the lake

We road about 4 hrs followed by a 3 mile T run. By this time it was 100 plus . Day 1 also included a trip into the STRIP for amazing food at STACK and the Beetles Cirque show …”LOVE”.


my toes are curled up because my calves were still cramping!

if only all recoveries could be poolside with people serving you

The second day we road the other way around the lake toward Hoover Dam. Danny was doing a long run and had the car with a cooler at Boulder Beach which was very tempting to just leave the bike and take a swim. A little bit of a later start, and no cloud cover like day one and it felt much hotter, so the idea of swimming in the lake was so tempting.


I rode from there back towards town and added in the back half of the Vegas course which heads in towards Henderson and T2. When I did the race last year this is the part that actually caught me off guard with some false flats, wind, and a few more decent hills. This was a Saturday and I was surprised how many people were out biking and training on the course. And for some reason, I felt better on day 2 than day 1!

Sun morning I got up early for my long run. We had hoped to run the course but the logistics of driving to where T2 is running and coming back to pack up and get to the airport seemed like so much work at 5:30 am Lake Las Vegas provided plenty of big hills to run on, just like the run course for the race which is basically 3 loops of either going up or down. I was happy and relieved to feel great running again and even pushed it the last few miles. I had to skip Racine 70.3 because of a hip that wasn’t happy. I rested it some, treated it nicely so I could do this training trip and have some good training weeks going into Vegas. Training Vegas style was a success for me….I’ll be back for more of the desert in September!

Thanks to my Multisportmadness friends crazy enough to brave Vegas in July with me!!! You guys will be tougher! KSWISS for making the KRUUZ of which I ran 12 hilly miles around Lake LV on tired legs (luv them!) Bike Shop GE for reassuring me my bike wasn’t cracked when I unpacked it, TBC for my tough workouts, and WattieInk and BettyDesigns for the training clothes that survived the heat of the desert!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

50 Shades of My Triathlon Life....

It’s true; I am reading the trashy novel, 50 Shades of Grey. I am getting through it at a moderate zone 3 effort, where many of my friends, and co workers have raced through in zone 5. Not that I don’t think the book is worthy of a zone 5 effort, I’m just pacing myself since I've been fitting a little more swim bike and running in amongst work and kids summer activities leaving less time for sitting still to read. It gets a bit crazy but the goal is Vegas!



When I finally do sit down to read it at night, I find it disturbing, yet interesting and juicy, but most of the time 50 shades of my life catch up to me and I crash after about 1 or 2 chapters. This is a PR however, because most of the time I get through only 2-3 pages of a book at night. 50 shades of my life during the heart of triathlon season are why I haven’t gotten through it as fast as my friends. However, I am close to the finish line of book 1, and purchased book 2 today; 50 Shades of Darker. Should I be afraid of 50 Shades Darker?


girls night= plenty of 50 shades secrets shared

Some examples of my 50 Shades of Triathlon Life during the middle of race season!

1. The dishwasher runs non stop mainly due to the fact that is full of water bottles coated with Infinit, Coke, Gatorade and what ever other sugar coated liquid comes to the rescue

2. The washing machine also runs non stop filled with spandex, and all that spandex rarely makes its way back into the drawer when clean

3. The entire house has become a triathlon oasis…. of gear….. shoes, bike parts and tools, race and or recovery nutrition, usb cords, garmins power tap and IPod cords all rest comfortably throughout the entire house. No room left untouched.

4. My flowers and plants (RIP) have died and become part of the earth because I relied to heavily no mother nature to take care of them vs. myself and I can’t remember when it rained last

5. yoga starts to sound very appealing because my body feels twisted

6. My toe nails turn black then fall off, I’m on number 4.

7. My car looks like I live in it with swim bags, towels, wet suits, running gear from lunch, change of clothes to meet up after work, and water bottles from a workout that haven’t made it to the dishwasher.

8. The foam roller, stick, Trigger Point pieces, and my favorite the baseball just remain on the family room floor. Not just as a reminder to use them, but I’ve gotten tired of continually putting them away

9. I begin stalking Peapod. com because I think grocery shopping is a completely inefficient chore and we can't keep food in the house

10. UPS guy stops by our house frequently with more awesome KSWISS, Cliff Bar, Infinit, WattieInk, and Betty Designs gear!!


A pair of Kswiss for all the right moments!

Multiply it all by 5, (because trust me there is more!!!)= 50 shades of my triathlon life.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Work...

Its been back to work for me since Kansas. So this is kind of short and sweet. It seemed to take a while longer than normal to recover this time after Kansas, but I did jump into Big Foot Tri and felt mucky like mud through the whole race. I managed to sneak out and AG win but not with impressive times. Big Foot is a fun race and I love the hard rugged trail run, but really the highlight of the weekend for me was SUP!!!

YUP!,

I had to climb on from a dock/ then I stood up and never fell in!

I have done this several times in Kona and luv it. Can't wait for more this Oct.! We did a little SUP up near Lake Geneva after the pre race brick! I’d get my own board and get into this more but………wait there is nothing but cornfields close to me, and sorry I will pass on the Fox River. I will save it for my fun adventures out of the Midwest.

Because Big Foot felt like mud and I have been racing a lot, I told Scott I needed to get back to work. For the rest of the season I really only care about Vegas. Last year my goal was to get there and do well. This year my goal was to go back and place higher in the AG. I am signed up for Racine but am not sure if I will do it. Right now doing some solid work for Vegas seems like what is needed and may be even heading to the desert to train on the Vegas course. So some tweaks to the training plan and there’s been little more volume than whats normal for me… Its challenging because I’d rather go hard, and fast then be done.


pit stop


Scotty taking a breather

And speaking of work…...just watch those Olympic athletes!!!.. Its been dreamy having Olympic swim trials on (speedos) and the start of the Tour (bike kits), on tv! Oh, and I guess I also love seeing athletes step up to compete for something they have worked hard and dedicated so much work and energy to for year. Amazing and inspiring!

Back to work....!