With Ironman 70.3 Mont-Tremblant long on my calendar as my A race for the first half of the year, spring events have been about preparing for these. Or at least that was the plan.
I had some nagging pain in my left hip last August/September and when I finally went to the sports doc in October I discovered I had a stress fracture. In the short term, this meant my fall events and Dallas half marathon were a no-go. I took 3 months off running but tried to ride my bike as much as I could (not weight-bearing so earned doctor seal of approval) and added in walking to condition the hip again. It was a frustrating time not being able to do much and feeling like I was losing the fitness I'd developed for Victoria. And when running is your time to let your mind wander and come up with ideas, losing that can make you grumpy.
So it was nice in January as I started to feel better. But after a few weeks of cautiously easing back to running I felt hip pain again, just before we headed to Disneyland for a family vacation. I worried I had managed to break it again and that all the walking around the park would make it worse. But I decided I wasn't going to compromise my kids' first Disney trip, I'd just have to soldier on and it it set back my recovery, so be it. To my surprise I found that all the walking was actually just what I needed. The hip felt great by the end. I resumed running again a few weeks later and have been fine since.
First up on the spring calendar was the Rock N Roll half marathon in late March. Ideally this was to be the race where I tried to earn a new PR. Given that I was doing it on only a few weeks' training and my longest training run was only 7 miles I didn't go in with any expectation other than just to wing it and see what kind of pace I could hold. I felt surprisingly good and managed to finish just a little over 2 hours-not one of my faster finishes, but well better than I might have expected all things considered. I was back.
Around that time I started my 16 week half Ironman training plan. After last year I knew the bike was my weak link so I resolved to train smarter this year. Last year I tried to do as many rides as possible outside, but now I do the weekly endurance ride outside and the 2 shorter technique rides insides on the trainer using the Sufferfest app. Given that Mont-Tremblant is very hilly, I do one hill video a week and one with speed work.
Last Sunday brought the Texasman X-50 race, my first chance to see in race conditions how my training was going. I went in feeling pretty well prepared for all 3 legs.
Well, it turned out to be one for the "experience holding a good mental attitude on a challenging day" file. The 1 mile swim had very heavy chop and was the hardest open water swim I've ever done. It was hard to get into a rhythm because every few seconds a wave would hit me. I had to go to breaststroke more often than expected so I could sight to the buoys and get some full breaths. The out leg was into the waves so you'd think the back should have been a glide in with the current, but that actually felt harder as it felt like I was just moving my limbs but not actually advancing. There are few objects to sight to there and when I'm in open water and feel like I'm stuck I debate between swimming as hard as I can to get out or conserving energy. I found that flipping over to backstroke actually gave me a better sense of movement by watching the clouds; good to keep in mind for future reference.
Eventually I finally made it to shore. It speaks to how tough the water was that day that I finished the swim about 8 minutes slower than last year but was 5th rather than 11th out of the water in my age group. Given that, while it wasn't the solid swim I'd hoped for, it was good to get some practice in rough water and develop some strategies for dealing with it. Better at your B race than A race.
Then there was the bike. 40 miles of chip seal with about 20 minutes of getting rained on-just enough to get puddles in my shoes and regret not packing spare socks. Fortunately they just about dried out before the run. But the chip seal? Like riding a jackhammer for 2+ hours. If I needed further proof that my aero drink setup was bad, this sealed the deal. It bounced along making quite the racket. I wasn't sneaking up on anyone like that. I was pleased that all that notwithstanding, I did improve my speed over last year's race and finished strong, passing several people on the 2nd loop and turning in a solid effort on the hills. In that respect it was the confidence boost I needed before Mont-Tremblant. And I spent much of that time on the rough road remembering how I've read MT's roads described as "smooth as glass," immaculate, and freshly-swept. I'll certainly appreciate that!
Then the run. Hot and muggy, my kryptonite weather, so I wasn't fast, but I never walked. All in all I finished in 5 hours and about 18 minutes-no danger of ending up on the podium, and not faster than last year, but it was a good tune-up race. Hopefully I don't have rough water, bad roads, or rain in my 70.3, but if I do, well, I'll be able to draw on this experience and know I can do it. And I feel like my nutrition plan is good.
Good thing I had it on the calendar, because my other tune-up race didn't happen. This morning I was to do the Olympic distance of the CapTexTri in Austin. Last year I won a free registration to that race, trekked down to Austin to do it, and then the flooding forced cancellation of the swim. Which was just as well since I had caught the kids' stomach bug and was in no shape to race. I paid a small fee to defer to this year's race.
Yesterday at the expo we learned that they had had to cancel the swim because the upstream dams had been opened that morning and would remain open for 2 days, creating an unsafe current. So, it was to be a bike-run. Ok, disappointed to lose the swim, but still good practice, right? Alas, this morning in the wee hours as I was getting dressed I heard what turned out to be rain outside. It proved to be a sign of things to come, as heavy rains and lightning led to first a delay of the race then cancellation of the bike leg, turning it into just a 10k. By the time that was announced, though, it was 8:30, I'd already been out there since before 6, and the run wasn't to start till 10. I wasn't interested in sticking around another hour and a half just to run 6 miles in the mud and rain, and we needed to get on the road home to beat the traffic. So, for a second year in a row I came to Austin for this race and don't end up racing. Not the race's fault, but ugh.
So, here we are a little less than a month out from Mont-Tremblant. I'll keep working the bike and run and do my best to get some more open water swim practice. If nothing else, I'll get the opportunity to swim in the race swim area in the days before the race, so I'll definitely take advantage of that.
Four more weeks. Which means, especially keeping last year in mind, that focus shifts increasingly away from improvement and more toward injury prevention and staying healthy. No bruising my ribs the week before the race this time!
