It has taken me all YEAR and then a month after the event to realize the difference in a big training day and a racing event. My plan was to train around races this year in preparation for IMAZ. Surely I would PR at every race because I would be in the best condition of my life. I raced Oceanside 70 in March, Aquabike full in July, Chula Vista Challenge Olympic & Lake Stevens 70 in August and SOMA 70 in October. Every race brought me disappointment. I never PR'd. My runs were the most disappointing of all. I couldn't understand why until I heard the words "deep fatigue". It was like a symphony of bells went off in my head. I have hit about 99% of my coach's training plan this year. I have asked for more. I have swam on my off days. More More More...If I felt like I was going to drop dead, I'd take a real day off. After all my events this year were complete except my A race, I learned to respect TAPER . When you plan a year of events, your goals need to reflect the level of effort to achieve them and include the proper 2 week TAPER time to give yourself a fighting chance to hit those numerical goals.
Two weeks before SOMA I trained 14.5 hours; One week before SOMA, I trained 3 days of cycling and then 3 days of swim/run in Kona, and 1 day of walking all day at the World Championships. (That's actually quite a leg workout!) This was a 10 hour training week where I missed a 1:30 run due to deep leg fatigue in humidity hell in Kona. Then add the 17 hour day walking around to watch the Champs as well as the race closers before midnight. We took the red eye out of Kona Sunday night, landing Monday morning in SD and by noon, I was on a 5 hour bike ride. So I basically had an exhausting 2 weeks and then nearly dropped dead for the next 5 days prior to SOMA somehow expecting a PR!
As the days closed in on race day, I started pressuring myself to finally PR my last race before IMAZ. Even my thoughts were exhausting.I finally decided I had no actual numerical goals. I just wanted to be satisfied that I had improved at SOMETHING! "Just be positive!" was my mantra.
Last year I was upset with the SOMA swim because the exit was clogged up with racers and only one way out on the far right side which delayed the swim time as well as the swim clock ended far from the swim exit adding mileage as well. I decided this year to be sure to swim wide to the stairs and was lucky to only have one person in front of me. As soon as I stood up, I hit LAP on my garmin so "my T1" would start where it should be. I needed to see my actual swim time without the run to transition and I was happy to see a 5 minute swim time improvement. When I got to the swim time mat at T1, I saw it took me another 2 minutes to get there so WAALAA, not only did I really swim faster, but last year wasn't as bad as I thought either because I didn't realize the T1 run was so long. Finally I had a positive attitude in T1!
Last year on the bike, I pushed hard every lap and by the one little hill at mile 50, I got a severe thigh cramp which ruined my run. This year, I tried to ride steady, hold back just a little, and be sure to spin in the easiest gear up the little hill and NEVER stand up! My goal was to be steady and save some for the run. I also noticed my garmin distances were different than the previous course. I think since they added an Olympic course that they added mileage this year to fix the half distance in preparation for the Olympic distance. 2013 bike 54.35 and 2014 bike 55.38. My end result was 3:10 for both years. However, you can see, I rode over one mile more and had no cramps. Yea, another positive ending! I also patted myself for taking the 12 uturns much tighter by gearing down and slowly gearing back up on the straight away. I never felt like I was surging to make up for lost time.
It was close to 100 degrees last year and this year more like 90s and I really did feel the difference. I still had my ice cooler like last year and wore my pre-soaked cooling towel during the run. I wore my KONA hat instead of a visor because I liked that it was netted at the top for cooling but yet my head was covered. I had to lift my hat for ice water dumps but it seemed to help keep me cooler with some coverage. I verbally beat myself up bad last year on the run. This year I just wanted to be positive. I tried a 5 minute run/ 30 sec walk with hopes of making it to the aid station in the next 5 minutes so I could walk and recover another 30 seconds. This worked pretty well until about mile 5 and my legs turned to stone. Instead of hating my legs, I asked them why? They were not speaking to me. They were pissed off. What could I do to keep running and not walk the next 8 miles? Do what Julie did when she was in pain during IM Canada. Count. I counted 75 left, rights while jogging, and then walked 25 counts. It kept my mind occupied and there was no room for negative talk. I kept this up until I felt better and started only counting the right leg to I would run longer.
I was grateful to see Marcus a couple times on the run. He had a freak ankle issue as soon as we arrived in Tempe but somehow we popped air out of the joint or something and he was able to walk/run the entire half.... and he had a GREAT attitude. He didn't PR like he expected. But we agreed it was awesome that he could finish. I was a little sad about my slow run and not beating my time from last year, but I knew that I was underestimating "taper" and my legs were just cement toast. I was grateful they were still working without painful cramps. I had worked out hard for my A game event on Nov 16. I had thoroughly exhausted myself in Kona. My body just couldn't give anymore so I crossed the finishline and said thank you to my legs for getting me there. It was a hard training day, not a racing event for me. That was good enough for me. I am looking forward to my IMAZ taper so I can perform at my best.
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