Bike Favorites!

I love to ride my bike.  Most of the time my biking is the strength that can save me from a sad sad swim in triathlon, and in the fall when I am very bored with triathlon  I LOVE to get dirty and race cyclocross.

Here is my long over due post on bike favorites. Favorite bikes, bike workouts,  places to train and race on the bike. I'm not big on knowledge of gears, bike components,  but I will share what I love and works for me.

Favorite Bike:

TT bike: that would be Scotty P. The Scott Plasma Premium. This is my second Scott plasma. It is smooth fast and of course looks great. I loved it so much the first time I went back for more! He has given me numerous fastest AG bike splits over the past 2-3 years which have helped me get to podium finishes.

PLASMA helps me go fast

Cyclocross Bike: my Cannondale Super X!  super light to fly over the barriers , extremely cool looking (of course) and fast enough to help me survive in  a few UCI races with the pros.

Place to Ride (non-local)= countless, but Tuscon Gates Pass and MT Lemmon rate at the top; Clackamas  Highway from my parents house in Oregon, and 6 Gap Ride in North Georgia are my favorite epic rides. Notice the theme with these rides, that would be hills, mountains and tough terrain.

Place to ride (local):  Campton Hill repeats just 5 miles from our house.  My favorite killer local workout is one from a previous coach Simon Thompson, Thomo. The workout is:
 ride easy to the hills;
Then do 2 x Campton in Hard gear low cadence, 2 x Town Hall all out....recover on the down hills and repeat entire sequence 3 x. OUCH

Triathlon Race, Bike course: There have been many favorite courses over the years. I loved the ITU Worlds multi-loop hilly course in Switzerland, except I got a flat. Recently my favorites are St. Croix, because I loved attacking the Beast and climbing all the hills after that no one talks about. Vegas World Championship course is also a favorite because of hills heat and heavy competition.

The start of the BEAST

Cyclocross Race Venue: Madison Nationals 2011 hilly, some mud and suprisingly warm for January, and locally Campton Cross, tough home course with the addition of Halloween costumes

CX Nationals 2011, race was surreal

Nutrition on the bike: power gel, green apple, and powerbar lemon chews. Not only are  the packages are the easiest to open while still hammering down the road; they taste great and go down easy and keep me rolling along

Bike Experts: The Bike Shop, Glen Ellyn. The carry the best stuff, (Scott bikes !), and  Rich and Drew have helped keep my bikes working to perfection over years.

Recently I had the chance to be re-fit on by bike by Nes with StudioDNA. I hadn't had a complete bike fit for a few years and the new position is awesome. I truly believe part of my hip injury last year was my bad position on aero.   Having your fit dialed in can not only keep you from getting injured, but can keep all your parts comfortable and give you more watts and power

Nes, working it

Happy Riding!

short summer update

Lots of summer has happened since Ragnar. 

I have been working on my post about bike favorites but have gotten busy,....riding my bike.

Scotty P and I have been spending some great time together including a big training weekend in Wisconsin on the Madison course and Horribly Hundreds course the next day.

Scotty P and friends resting

I 've seen a lot of this lately, 

and am thankful for this.

smooth ride

Truly I am just happy to be training hard right now. It was this point in the season last year things got ugly, and then went from ugly to worse with a very screwed up hip.  Ending my triathlon and CX season.   I took things pretty easy for a good chunk of time following NOLA leading to some gross efforts in races and key workouts, but Vegas is the goal and making it there healthy fit and ready to race this time. 

And thanks to fellow Wattie teammate Aaron D. who made these banners for the team.  I get bored easily so this is a fun change to the blog.

Remember to stretch and keep your butt strong, so you can race and train hard.

RAGNAR

I'm pushing pause on my posts about favorites for swim bike and run, so I can write about my Ragnar experience.

At a Memorial Day BBQ, I was talked into doing Ragnar by my friend Melissa. She had lost a member of their 12 person team and needed a replacement. Ragnar is a 12 person relay running 195 miles from Madison to Chicago.

I had margarita or something that night and wasn't sure what I was getting into, but it sounded fun. I have forever wanted to do Hood to Coast relay as it starts just a few miles up the road from my parents house in Oregon. Not sure Madison to Chicago would provide quite the same experience, but I was on board for some good training and new adventure.  My training has been in a little slump for a few weeks and sometimes doing something really different can shake it up.

Team: "yea right!"

my home for 2 days

We started in Madison Friday around 12:30 pm. A few of the people on the team are from my subdivision. My neighborhood has many fast fit triathletes runners and bike racers! Its a little mini Boulder in the far western suburbs!, but the other new friends on the team were a blast, hilarious, and had me laughing right away, so I knew it would be a fun weekend. The atmosphere was so different from a huge competitive 70.3 race which was such a nice change of pace from tri-geekdom.  In fact the competition might have been for  cutest team shirt, or decorative van, which we of course didn't win.

My 3 segments were not long, so Scott and I came up with a strategy, which was run the first leg hard. 2nd easier, 3rd fast again depending on how I felt. The first run was about 4:00 in the afternoon Friday. It was on open roads through Wisconsin. It was hot (maybe 75 LOL!), no shade and hilly country roads. It was supposed to be 6 miles but ended up 7. I felt great despite sitting in a van for several hours, but was more concerned about going off course. I passed 2 people right away and then found my self solo out on long open country roads, just hoping I was still on course.  I kept looking back to make sure those I passed were still there.  I was running hard and trying to push the uphills, got to mile 6 thinking I was done and saw the 1 mile to go sign!

My second run a 4 mile stretch along a wooded parkway at about 3:00 in the morning! It was chilly and very dark. I had tried to sleep a little before but it didn't go so well. I was cold standing and waiting my turn and threw on an extra long sleeve top at the end and stood with a blanket around me waiting with my teammate Ryan who ran after me while everyone else slept.  I don't run fast in the dark, I feel like I tip toe because I can't see where I'm going. My legs were stiff but after the first mile it felt better, ran with my eyes open wide as I could to see and not miss a turn.  I just ran and didn't care about pace and tried not to get lost. After our night shift was done we drove through the dark to Racine where we had a few hours to rest while van 2 ran their sections.  I finally slept about an hour and a half curled up in a ball on the van seat. I was so tired, that even though short, I was out cold.  I woke up to this beautiful sunrise, and realized we were basically at the start of  Racine 70.3.

  We still had a little time before our first runner had to go and everyone was in search of coffee. We drove the streets of downtown Racine.....no coffee. Serious? Not even gas station coffee was available! What place survives like this?  I always stay at Danny Delgado's lake house for the half ironman, so I've never had to go on a coffee hunt in Racine.

Van 2 found coffee while we were running

My last run was 5.5 miles on a gravel path/trail. It was straight and unscenic. This is the run I was supposed to go hard again. I was mostly excited to get it done and head to the beach to celebrate. I took the first mile to warm up and then tried to run fast 1 mile, 1 mile easier/ 1mile hard etc for the rest. I did get  15 "kills" though, because most people were dying at this point and were really slow. Kills are how many people you pass.

ryan's sand-angel 

After our last runner finished, we celebrated in the van! then headed into the city to wait for van 2 to finish. We ate pizza at Lou Malnadi's unshowered, sweaty and  partly still in running clothes, then headed to the beach to wait for Melissa who was running the last leg. It was a big party at the finish on the beach at Montrose.

cheers to fun

At the end of the trip I had run 17 miles in about 15 hours. Not completely epic and certainly isn't what they do during an ultra, but it was solid running with enough quality miles to trash my legs.  I was tired for a few days, and when I tried to run Tuesday, there wasn't much there. I felt like the hunchback turtle I saw crossing the road in the middle of somewhere Wisconsin.

Favorites/Swim

SWIM

I decided to dedicate my next few blog posts to some of my favs for each discipline: swim bike and run including my favorite workouts,  stretch/and or exercise tip,  gear, training venue or whatever to make it more fun, faster or better in some way.   I am certainly not an expert by any means at any of the 3 or…. all 3 put together. But I have raced for (hmmm ++ years!) and I manage to fit it in training around a whole gob of life, work professionally to treat the injured in our sport,  and I'm married to someone who is always up with the latest and greatest and …sometimes I listen!

So we start with the swim. My weakest of the 3. Do I have anything favorite about the swim? Not much other than a cute suit addiction, or maybe the cool down. 

Lately I do 90% of my swims at 5:00 a.m. at  Delnor,  our local health club.  The water quality is bad, and I smell like Delnor the rest of the day,  but they have good locker rooms, and  M-F Kelly Perry is always there with a great swim set. This has been good enough to pull me out of my swim rut, just a smidge. The outdoor pools are opening soon which means outdoor swimming and maybe an extra hour of sleep!

post swim sunrise!

FAVS:

Training suit: Betty Designs of course. Absolutely a must because crawling out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to go swim needs a little extra motivation. Not only are they super cute, but they actually do last much longer than most. (or maybe that is because I don't swim enough) I do have several suits and switch them up for variety, type of workout etc. Plus rotating suits makes them last longer!

newest Betty!

Wetsuit/speedsuit:   I of course prefer wetsuit swims, and thankfully I have BlueSeventy helping me make the swim portion go smoother. If its too warm the Blue Seventy PZ3XT is the way to go. I wore this in Vegas 70.3 World Champs last year and it fit like a glove and helped me glide through that water murky warm water, and surely saved me seconds with the lack of swimming  I did going into such a big race. But the new Helix recently arrived and not only does it look fast ...it is! I took it for its first swim today (mostly to make sure it fit!) and also to get the feel for it before my next race. It was amazing! I was gliding through the water and felt almost as fast as the fasties I was trying to keep up with! PLEASE be a wetsuit swim at Leon's so I can wear my HELIX!

HELIX rocks

Workout: (is there such thing as a fav swim workout?) I like swim workouts that keep me moving; keep me focused, and make me work, otherwise I will think of million others things to do like get out of the water and go have coffee. I can keep my focus on the bike and run no matter what the workout, but swimming solo, bad news for me.  My favorite main set for a swim looks a little like this:  (400 pull, 2 x 200  build by 50,  4 x 100 t pace) x 2 ( each 400 having an increased effort), maybe even some IM in there the 2nd time through.  Yes I can swim the other strokes (sort of), and mixing it up keeps it interesting and increases swim strength.

Place to Swim: 

Local: Otters Cove St Charles outdoor pool. Lap lanes always open,water slides if kids are in tow and its outside. Yesterday was opening day, but they were closed because it is still winter here.

Cool places: Univ of Arizona outdoor pools!

Open water: not a huge fan, but Kona Pier would have to do

Swim venue for a race: Hayes Lake,  Queenstown NZ Worlds, dock start where everyone had 1 hand on the dock ITU style,  in a beautiful lake with turquoise water and amazing  mountains all around with a long killer steep uphill run to transition to tire out the non-runners.

Swim Stretch: Posterior shoulder stretch; all those hours hanging out in aero bars tighten the posterior shoulder, which can eventually lead to shoulder pain and impingement while swimming. 

How: put elbows, forearms and hands together just above shoulder height on a wall; then squat down a little until you feel a stretch in your lats or back of shoulder. NO cheating by letting your elbows come apart! This is great to help increase shoulder mobility help reach and pull.

Best swim performance:  I guess for me it would be  AG Worlds in SUI. Swim was in Lake Geneva, the real one, not the Wisconsin one. I came out of the water with the main pack (not the lead pack with those first few uber swimmers). Back then to get ready for this race I swam twice a day some, and put in some weeks of a whole lot of yards, it gained me a whopping 40 sec. I don't have that kind of time now for an entire :40 sec so, I like 70.3s better these days.

And when the swim is done, its time to bike!

The Mom in Me

The mom in me can sound like a nagging b+*&;.  I tell my kids to turn out the lights when they leave the room, put a new toilet paper roll on if it runs out, pick their clothes up off the floor and put them away. I tell them to rinse their food down the drain instead of just leaving it soggy in the sink (hate that its gross). I repeat myself daily saying don't talk to strangers, come straight home from school and to wash your hands before dinner. The mom in me sounds like my mom.  

The kids going crazy because it was nice 1 day

The mom in me tells them try their best and to have fun. I tell them they can do anything if they believe they can and work hard. The mom in me still loves to go watch the school musical, to see whatever artwork comes home and watch whatever sport is in season. These days the mom in me is on the lacrosse sidelines, which I must admit is kind of fun.  I'm still learning the rules, but its more entertaining than baseball was.

confused at lacrosse

he is number 5, it took me a whole quarter to realize it was him since he's gotten so big

But, the mom in me loves to swim bike, run and race a cyclocross bike. Unlike a lot of moms, I like pushing myself until it hurts, riding my bike with boys, or through mud. 

CX.....since it triathlon season

I still love having goals for myself that challenge me. I admit it adds to the craziness of a busy house, sometimes stresses me out, but I'd be bored otherwise. Plus having a goal and something of your own teaches the kids, its not all about them all the time. The mom in me cracked at work on Monday. I cried and I never cry in front of people, especially work people. This mom is usually tough as nails, but fatigue, an overloaded week and weather in May that feels like November pushed me over the edge. But I recovered quickly from my meltdown and even though Tuesday this week felt like Friday, I managed to go to work, plus an extra meeting, fit in a work out, go back to work for CPR recertification to come home and record the TBC podcast about  If you haven't heard it check it out. Adam and Scott, interviewing 3 women......priceless.

The mom in me still likes to put on girly clothes and high heels, blow dry my hair go on a date with my awesome husband and do something not related to triathlon or kids. What mom wouldn't want to lose the pony tail and sweat pants for a night out!

1 of my favorites, mtn biking in day, cirque de soleil at night

The mom in me is even published in the book Tri-Mom..Swimming Biking and Running through Motherhood.  Several other crazy moms who also have an endurance habit sat still long enough to put real stories down on paper to make  to this fun book about working training and being a mom. 


 The mom in me still has mom guilt, at times and is always fighting hard to keep the balance of not letting work racing and training overtake life. The mom in me gets more stressed about how to fit workouts in vs doing the workout itself and I admit to skipping a workout if something important comes up for the kids and my usual plan gets derailed. 

The mom in me might swim bike run, ride a bike through dirt in mud, run around in spandex or workout clothes with sweaty wet pony tails, but I also love  to make waffles for kids on the weekend mornings,  see them walk in the door after school excited about the day, try new sports, and at the end of the day tuck them in and hear them say I love you mom, you're the best mom ever.

1 crazy week ending with the jackpot!

This was a taper week like none other. I'm sure it will never be repeated. Nor do I want it to.

Its one for record books on how NOT to go into your first big race of the season with the goal of qualifying for Vegas. A lot was on the line with this race (yes put on my shoulders ALL  by me).  My taper was awful, my race very average, but I managed to get what I went for, a spot to Vegas, and a lesson learned...don't give up even when its ugly

I opted to skip the upcoming  trip to St. Croix with AZ  (even though I loved that race) because now that I work full time,  I am trying to spread out days of work.   I want to   have a few extra days in Vegas and Kona and do summer training trip. Plus  I just spent time in Tuscon and San Diego. The people I work think I'm crazy for sure.   NOLA can be done on a quick trip.  Just ask my coach, Scott! and I managed this race without missing any time off work. The pressure was on  though because damn it I got up at 4:20 in the morning to meet people to swim,  or drug myself to the basement in the dark to run on the treadmill or do intervals on the trainer, and I didn't want that to go to waste!  Plus there is a lot of relief getting the spot early and being able to pick and choose what I do all summer.

My taper week started off with watching the Boston marathon at work, in awe of how awesome the women's race was to only find out at lunch time of the horror that was unfolding. And yes, the first I heard of the news came from none other than Joe Lotus from facebook.  I knew a lot of people there and thankfully they were all ok. But I found myself in tears, hearing that people actually died, and lost limbs, and one of the people killed was an 8 year old boy waiting for his Dad to cross the line. Jack is 9. It just hit too close to home.

Meanwhile it started raining and never stopped. AZ and I woke up to thunder and pouring rain at 1 in the morning.  It just kept on raining. It was rain on top of more rain and we couldn't sleep.  On a whim he checked the basement, and it was a bad dream come true.  The sump pump had quit and there was water sloshing around on the carpet in our newly finished basement complete with new furntiture and theater system. We were up all night getting it fixed so it wouldn't do more damage. I went to work exhausted, missed whatever workout I was supposed to do. In fact all my workouts that week went awful because I was so tired and stressed.  AZ insisted I still go race went into contractor mode and got the basement under control. So I worked 1/2 day Friday, boarded the plane and arrived in NOLA with just enough time to get my packet and see that suspect #2 had been caught!

Secret Service style

For the rest of the weekend, I  was in princess mode, because my bike was being shuttled down by Scott who drove,  and my friend DL and I were being chauffered around by our friend Dan who was also racing. He scored a blacked out secret service style  suburban  at the rental agency with only 4 miles on it so were riding in style! Friday night we took a walk down Bourban street after dinner. A sober view is  much different I'm sure  than if you've had a few hurricanes. After such a stressful week it was fun to just watch and laugh at  crazy drunk people.

Bourban St.

I woke up Sunday excited to race. Its been really since Kansas last year since I raced a triathlon thanks to the ugly injury. Going into this race I had been working hard on my swimming which has been horrific that past few years mainly due to just not getting in the water enough. I can and have done better swimming when I put the time in. So I  have worked hard to try to  get some of it back.  I have been swimming with Kelly Perry 2-3 days a week. She smokes me. Bad.  But keeps me honest, and is always there early which works for me. I also have been working hard on my running coming back from being hurt and I have had some great workouts and have been  running as well as I ever have. So was so excited to test it out in NOLA. 2 years ago there I ran 1:37,  and my goal Sunday was to beat that because I have been running better than I was then.  Its so funny how things can wind up in a race though.

finish line seemed to take forever

The new swim course was actually nicer than expected. ,A  little choppy and a super long wait if you were 40+ female (like 2 hours), but we swam!  It was a time trial start, I had no idea where I stood, because our group included anyone 40+.   Bonus= wetsuit strippers! By the time we actually started the bike the wind was crazy. No complaints from me. We bike in this all the time, but the long 30 miles straight into headwind made it very  tough!  I didn't feel good and knew I was under prepared some on the bike thanks to our horrible never ending winter. I think I rode outside a total of 3 x.  I wan't happy with how the bike felt and how slow the time was turning out to be. But I felt some relief when I got to transition, there hardly any bikes racked. I was able to run my first 2 miles at my goal pace but then it all fell apart. I was getting charley horses in my quads, then several miles later my calves,or arches. I had to walk a lot to get them under control, and ended up running slower than my easy run pace.  Even when I was falling apart no one passed me on the run other than 1 girl from the 25-29 age group, so it must have been ugly for everyone.  Not sure why,  other than the wind was extreme. It wasn't hot, actually perfect. 73 sunny degrees. For me I'm blaming lack of bike fitness and going out hard to race.  I finished 2nd in the AG, with 4th fastest swim (wow, me?)  and fastest bike in AG, and held on enough to get a spot to Vegas.  We barely made it to the airport in time to fly home. Sorry to those around us as we were still sweaty with race numbers. I was home at midnight  just in time to go to work the next day.

podium

Every race teaches you something.  This race,  it was to keep pushing even when the plan is falling apart because you don't know what is happening around you. My run goal went up in smoke, but didn't give up even though I was way off pace. First race is done.

California 70.3, SoCal....and a BOOK!!!!

The calendar says its spring, all the stores have super cute spring clothes out, but the end of March has still been winter like. My friends and I were whining while sitting in a local bowling alley with our kids during spring break while everyone else was away in sunny places. They really should have "shhhh'd" me though,  because at the end of the week I was able to escape the midwest and head to San Diego to watch Adam race IMCA 70.3, and spend a few extra days afterwards being part of a very cool project!

I landed mid day Friday, with enough time to hang out with AZ a bit and have an early dinner before race morning. I must say seeing him get ready to race was getting me pretty fired up for my first race in a few weeks. Early race morning I hooked up with a good friend who had mini Razor Scooters for he and I  to get us to the race start quickly  from our parking spot!  Yep we took the Razors for spin through the dark on our way to the start line! I have raced this and spectated Oceanside before and it has always been pretty chilly at the start, but this year it seemed perfect. As I was scoping out a great spot to see Adam come out of T1 I saw fellow midwest Wattie Karin Langer, and she immediately saw none other than Massi!  We knew we were in for a very special spectating experience having Massi in the mix! aka...#eurostar!

Massi!

#OGs!!

 Lots of Wattie teammates were also there cheering and racing.  During the bike Karin and I wandered around the pier with coffee, soaking up the sun,  and wondering why we stick around Chicago.

Langer!

 I also checked out a few surfers.  The time flew and before we knew it pros were already coming in to start the run. We scored a great spot to watch the run on a downhill corner and cheered for everyone.

 It was awesome to see Adam having a great race and start to his season. He has been working extra- incredibly hard this winter.

I say it all the time……hard work, discipline = goals met. Just saying.

AZ on the run!

Of course a great race, being in southern California, and tons of friends around deserves a reason to celebrate. The post race party with Mules= fun

After AZ left to head back home, I went for an amazing run on a hilly wood chip trail. Finally a chance to run without all the layers. I was supposed to be putting in some race pace miles, but the hills slowed those miles down, but gave my legs a good workout. Race pace miles have to seem easier after that, and I actually felt sweat dripping off me. 

I had to be in another part of San Diego later that day for the start of the special project. So i spent the rest of the afternoon, checking out the beach, surf shops, and coffee shops.  I could get used to that sort of life, so different than the midwestern burbs of Chicago! (how many years left until the kids graduate from high school?)

I can't say very much about the special project I got to be a part of for a few days, but it involved me taking off work during the week,  photographers in the middle of the desert, a crazy schedule each day and hanging with some cool pros. We ate salads for dinner on the side of the road out in the desert with the sun going down, 

in bloom!

saw the the Octillio bush in bloom with the sun coming up and celebrated with delicious Mexican and Margaritas the final night. I had a 3:30 a.m. wake up call the next day to fly back home to real life.

Yum

And, if you've been following my blog you know March was going to be a busy month. Not kidding!  After about 2 years in the making our book is finally OUT!!! I practically cried when I got the email from Deb Hodgett who took an idea that came about with she, Carla Hastert and I were having a "girls night" sitting around the table at a pizza place while our kids played video games. (now thats a classy girls night !) I don't care if it only sells a few copies, we have a book in print!  "Tri -Mom: swimming, biking, and running through motherhood"  is out now on Amazon. Its full of funny stories about trying to train and race, while trying to still be a good mom. Check it out!!