Sheba’s Training Blog

I have only been seriously working on this since May. With this goal I have been more committed to exercise in the last 3 months than in the last 20 years. I pretty much owe a huge part of it to Coach Brad. But I will give myself credit for the hard work that I did do. Something has clicked in me.

The night before, I went to spend the night at Coach Brad’s. We had a fun quick bike ride before dinner, a nice meal of pesto pasta with chicken sausage and then we picked up the race packets and checked out the bike trail. That night as I tried to fall asleep, I worked on visualizing my race. I had several mantras that I repeated in my mind along with deep breathing. “I am relaxed and swim smoothly through the water.” “My bike ride is strong and without accidents or tire failure.” “Transitions are quick and easy.” And finally “I run more than walk and I race without injury.”

Despite falling asleep with positive mantras and visualizations, I had nightmares. I dreamt that the transition area was in a big tree house. The dimensions of the tree compared to the house were not safely matched. So when everyone in the transition tree house went to one side to look out the windows in order to hear the morning race meeting, the whole house tipped dangerously in that direction. A bunch of us ran to the other side to balance it out, but it was a lost cause. The house was rocking back and forth and bikes were flying every where. My bike was destroyed, we were almost killed and I didn’t get to race. I was very worried about what insurance would be buying me a new bike.

Morning of the race I was up at 4:30am and had some oatmeal. We got dressed and headed out for the race. My gut was feeling awful, mostly nerves and excitement. As soon as we parked, we ran into Brad’s physical therapist. His company Real Rehab  was the event sponsor so he got to have bib #1. He said he was not ‘racing’ just getting in a little workout before going into work. Geeze. I wish! We got set up in the transition area. At the beach, while we waited for the race meeting (which IF it happened we didn’t hear or find it) I ran into Marne (a gal I met at the Luna Chix events ) She was there with her husband who was racing, but she didn’t pre-register, and since it was sold out she didn’t get to race. Then we ran into Auggie’s Dad who was there to support his tri group and also not racing. Finally, we ran into Tina in the water. She is both a sweat 365 and a Luna Chix person. She was at the bike transition clinic on Tuesday; she said I was “Aggressive” on the bike. (I think that is a good thing.) So even on my first event, I am getting into the race community.

We were friends and family wave 10 (out of 10, so we were last) We got into the water, which turned out to warmer than standing barefoot on the dewy morning grass. (Note to self, remember to bring sandals of some kind to wear after leaving running shoes in the transition area)  I did a little warm up swimming and waited for our turn, chatted to people. With all the people (about 60 in our wave) the water was pretty choppy. I have done enough open water swimming at this point, but not with tons of people making waves. I started out ok with my crawl stroke, but quickly turned to a combo of side, back, breast strokes to deal with the choppiness. I was getting winded, mostly from the intensity and excitement, so it was hard to do my crawl stroke with proper breathing. I tried to calm down and deep breathe in back stroke in the hopes of getting back to crawl. I did a couple of times, but it was a mix of strokes. Brad was watching and encouraging the whole time, while even keeping an eye on his watch and telling me how fast I was going. Don’t know the official times but Brad says we did the swim in about 13 mins. This is 3 mins shorter than my predicted time, but matches my best pool 400 meters time. I ran out of the water cheering that I was not last out of the water! I did not get hit, grabbed or swam over, which was a big relief.

It sucks being the last wave. There were a ton of people at the beginning cheering as people got out of the water, or transition area for the first 5-6 waves, even a guy with a big cowbell! But by the time we got out there was a very quiet sprinkling of supporters that remained. There were even people starting the run as we were getting done with the swim.

I don’t really remember too much about T1 except that Brad was ready before me. I forgot to have my shoes untied ahead of time. My bike shirt was ready with my race number, some beans and a gel, lip balm and a small sweat cloth in the back pockets, plus Water on the bike and an extra one for my back pocket. But as we were running out of transition (it was the same shoot that bikers from all the previous waves were running IN), my chip didn’t register so some lady told me I had to run back over the mat. She held my bike, but that meant we were clogging the lane and I had to u-turn into the incoming bikers and runners, run over the mat and u-turn again back to my bike. I was a bit confused and flustered so I had a hard time navigating the crowded area. I had a guy yell at me “Get out of the (Expletive implied) way!” But I managed to get my chip to read, get back to my bike, and get out of the shoot. As we are riding off, I hear “Go Sheba GO” and look over to see my mom with a big sign. I didn’t expect her to be there until the kid’s tri so I was stunned and immediately started bawling! No one told me I need to do practice training runs while crying my guts out! Brad kept telling me things like “great job, you’re doing awesome” and other encouraging things, which at this point only made me start crying again. Even though I had him there for this exact reason, I had to tell him to please stop so I could stop crying. We passed over the street going into the parking lot and saw Adrien’s car coming it and heard a honk. The girls had made signs so I was looking forward to seeing them on the course at some point.

I was trying to pace myself, because I knew there were a lot of hills and I would need the energy. But I was booking along at 16/17 MPH (fast for me) Brad said that, of course, that was the adrenalin. We kept going along and eventually my pace evened out and we met up with our first hills. The east lake Sammamish road has a very strict speed limit, so it is posted with these signs that read your speed. I rode as fast as possible to see if I could get the sign to read me. It tracked 30mph, but I was only going 20 something, so it must have read the cars coming up behind me. At about 5 miles, and right before one of the bigger hills, I had to stop for some water. I am still working on the skill of riding while drinking or eating. As I want to increase my riding and do a 50 mile bike event next year, I will need to do more practice with this. I can pretty much drink only while coasting. A bit after this hill, we crossed a guy that had a flat. I can thankfully say that I did not have to walk my bike up any hills and I did not get a flat. We asked if he needed anything as we passed. He declined assistance. Brad yelled out “thanks” and other words of appreciation to all the police and volunteers as we went along. He also hollered kudos to the bikers coming back from the ½ way point. We didn’t get passed by anyone really, as we were the end of the end of the end. We hit the ½ way turn around, my legs were feeling a bit tired and I think we were still averaging a 12mph pace. Someone did come up behind us, a lady, but despite passing us on the flat; she ended up walking the big hill up ahead. I can proudly say I granny geared it to the top without stopping to walk. Although, I did take another quick water rest before tackling it. She hit the downhill before us though, so I never caught up with her. On the way back we passed the flat tire guy, still working on his bike. Again our offer of help was turned down. The next person we encountered was this guy that commented “wow these hills seem harder going back that coming out.” Brad pointed out that his dragging under the seat bag might be slowing him down. The crazy kid thought he would hold it up with one hand and keep riding, rather than stopping to fix it. THEN he seemed to think he would fix it while still riding. This caused him to almost crash right in front of me. Thankfully, I passed him safely and we continued. Towards the end I saw a pick-up go by that was clearing the bike course. The back was filled with cones and a bike. I guessed that it was probably the flat tire guy. My legs were getting really tight and heavy by the end. Mom was still waiting to cheer for me on the way into transition. So, of course, I started crying again.

I double stomped my feet as I went over the timing mat, to avoid the problem I had going out. My T2 was pretty fast, as I didn’t have to change shoes or anything. I just had to take OFF stuff. Brad had to hit the bathroom, so he said he would catch up with me. Right past the bathrooms on the beginning of the running trail stood my nieces and their posters cheering me on. I gave little Za hug as I went by and did my best to jog on my tired legs. Brad caught up with me and kept a close eye on the time. He wanted to make sure we were back in time to see my niece start he first TRI. We met up with the lady (I think) that had walked her bike up the hill. Brad tried to make some friendly chat with her about, if this was her first tri or not and her answers were confusing. She stayed ahead of us till mostly the end. Flat tire guy eventually passed us. He had actually been disqualified and picked up as they closed the bike course, but he wanted to finish anyways. Then crazy butt bag boy caught up and passed us too. We were the last of the last. I told Brad that when we got to the finish he would have to come in the shoot behind me so I wouldn’t be last (My biggest fear in doing this was that I would be the fattest and slowest.) Since he was there for my 100% support he agreed. What an amazingly supportive brother! I finally got ahead of the other woman because the trail was poorly marked as we got back to the parking lot, she went the wrong way for a while before getting redirected. So in the end, 2 people came in behind us. As I crossed the finish, I sprinted/ leapt across the mat. Someone took off my timing chip, as I started crying. (no I am not going to puke in that picture, I am sobbing.) Someone else put on my finishers medal, handed me a water bottle and I fell into my mom sobbing. Brad sprinted off to the kid’s area.

Mom and I walked over and we started the second half of this amazing day, watching my niece compete her first tri! She did great race, despite crashing on some gravel with her bike. She kept on going with blood dripping down her legs and elbows the whole run. The whole family went out for fancy pizza, shared stories and had a fun, relaxed afternoon.

These pictures are courtesy of my mom, I hope to get some additional ones form the official photo service and my camera as well. (we took some pre-race photos)

Next Goal: Pumpkin Push 5K fun run

Filed under: Goals, triathlon