Born Again Athlete:

Holy shit - when did I turn into fucking Pollyanna? :) The Galveston Race Report

Er, uhm - I didn't find the race that hard?? I smiled a lot, and kissed Toby (my pug) on the course, and wore the boa, so had lots of fun.... and this made the race nice for me. (If you want to gag or punch me now, please do so.)

I'm really going with the cliche that attitude determines everything. I don't think I had the best race timewise or what I had planned or wanted, but it was a good race. And not because everything went perfectly. In fact, probably because there were a few snafus which I handled well.

1. My swim start did not start until 8:10 even though we all had to get there around 5ish for transition. Great, more time to worry and bitch. I meditated....and napped. Thanks Amy, especially for the second flattering pic! Wetsuits are pretty comfy to sleep on.

hahaha - like the hair?

2. I know I freak out the first 800 meters of the swim. I'm very consistent on this. And knowing beforehand won the battle. Was it a bad swim? Everyone said it was. I dunno. Every swim feels bad for me in the beginning. and this was no different. Then I felt that I swam really well - swam fairly straight, good form, good effort. Didn't get punched. Maybe it was choppy, but at least it wasn't cold!

3. When I came out of the swim, I felt good. I navigated the wetsuit strippers really well! (I usually get really discombobulated and start laughing. I do that when I get undressed by strangers....) I glanced at my time in T1 - and saw it was 51! Way longer than I had hoped ( I wanted 40-45 minutes). But for some reason, I just shrugged and didn't really care about the time. I think this was a really fantastic move. I went through T1 really fast and went into the bike in a good frame of mind.

4. I had planned to really push myself on the bike. And I did, but maybe in a wrong way. My bike computer broke the day before, so I didn't know my speed (actually ended up a good thing), so I focused on heart rate. It wasn't too high, but I was probably mashing - rode in big chain ring in a big gear. I felt I was going pretty hard. My split out was almost 18 mph! Then on the way back, I started cramping. In my hip flexors. Fuck. I have never cramped on the bike. Never ever. and never in that area. My thoughts: will have to stop and DNF? I won't get a 3 hour bike split? yikes, all the people are passing me!

Counter thoughts: hmmm, what can I do and keep going? (I put it in the small chain ring, in very low gear and just spun at higher cadence.); this is just a 56 mile training ride in the Galveston countryside. People are passing me - so what? Then I legally drafted (5-6 bike lengths) behind 72 year old Don for about 20 miles. Thanks Don! I started smiling and singing. Miles Kurosky songs to be exact. I saw him at SXSW. Is it ironic that on his myspace page, the first song is one called "I can't swim"? heh 

As far as the wind,  it never really bothered me. Windy conditions never really have. I guess I'm not very broad, have a very aero bike, usually scrunch down alot. Lucky I guess.

Great picture taken by Philip Shama (who sold and assembled my Guru in Houston)

5. The Post method definitely works (see previous post about this.) Again, run with a boa and you get a lot of cheers, can't help but smile back. Lots of people ask - aren't you hot running in that boa?. You know what? I'd be hot anyways and a lot less happy. And when I'm happy, I run faster. (it's an aero boa too, made of carbon and cost $4000. I am sponsored by the Tyr boa division.) 

So, one of my main goals this year is to run the whole run course for every race - and I did! Apart from a little walking through an aid station.

Wow - averaged 10:22 over the 13.1 miles. Whuuuut?!?! Hell yeah !

Some stranger asked me if I was Jane and about this blog.  David - say hi! He said that he was inspired to sign up for this race because of me! Admittedly, he said that during the run he hated me, but sure he would thank me after he finished the race. Hope you had a great first half iron! 

I noticed a lot of people looked miserable during the run. I mean really unhappy, in pain, yucko. Geez,  smile a little. In the whole scheme of things in the world, the race is so not important. I mean, I felt big honking blisters develop on my feet, hated the 4 loop course, and yeah, it was kinda hot. Here's a race trick - when you're feeling like this, look at all the people, mostly middle aged professional adults with lots of disposable income, paying lots of money to be hot and miserable and run around like lab rats, then you start laughing at the absurdity of it all. Smiling makes you feel better too. And you look better in your race photos (work it girl! It's all about the photogs). 

Thank you so much T3 teammates who were out there cheering. It was great to see Mo, Michelle and Charles going apeshit every time I passed that loop.

And Congrats to teammates who completed there first half iron! It does continue to be fun and addictive. 

So in summary, to have a great race:

1. Lighten up!

2. Sing and smile a lot!

3. Wear a boa! (okay, you don't have to do this.)

the end.

Lonestar - well, now called Memorial Hermann Ironman 70.3 Texas (gotta love corporate sponsorship)

A quick recap of why it was a good day:

1. It was fun.

2. Ran the whole 13.1

3. Sang stupid songs on the bike

4. Giggled a lot on the run (especially when I found a conglomeration of chocolate chip cookie, Clif blocks and chamois butter in my pocket)

5. Toby and David were there.

6. Blue feather boa.

7. Saw only one guy in a speedo.

More later....

I am a Pose convert - proof is in the pudding (where the hell did that phrase originate from?)

The secondary title of this post is : thank you Yvonne! Yvonne, who is in my tri group, makes great cookies and whose blog I read. She has been struggling with a lot of foot and running injuries in the past 2 years. She mentioned something about this new method of running. I thought, great - I really don't have time for yet another thing to attend. But I went to ask her (Yvonne) about orthotics, she wrote about running in a way that didn't injure you, so you didn't need orthotics. Intrigued.....

  Pose Method of running. Can check out here http://www.posetech.com/pose_method/pose-method.html 

I'd probably screw it up trying to fully explain, but it is based on very logical principals, biomechanics really. There is a natural way of running that uses our body and gravity, but most runners don't run that way. We run the way we think we're "supposed" to run. Interesting side note to all this, is that children run in this natural way, but it somehow gets taught out of them.

Running unnaturally causes a lot of force to hit your body in unnatural ways. Example - I heel strike. I was told I might as well just hit a hammer to my heel three times for every step. In addition, I run with my legs in front of me. So I'm basically just stopping myself (well letting the ground and gravity) from going forward. Imagine an almost hitching movement - step, stop, step, stop, step, stop. Very inefficient. No wonder I felt I was running "hard" and not going anywhere.

In addition, the unnatural leg positions also cause force to go up the leg, causing hip and knee problems.

[Valerie - if I'm screwing up this explanation, please correct me! But I think I got the jist of it]

Notice that I consistently was a heel striker! with one leg far out in front of me and the other behind. Even as recently as IM Florida.

 Now recent race photos after learning Pose method:

Much better body position - no heel strike or legs in front of me. Notice the second picture. You can almost draw a straight line from my neck to my hips to my foot to the ground. This transfers any force upward through the body and spine (evenly I think) instead of jarringly on the hip or knee.  A slight lean forward to use gravity (which is free!) to go forward.  Almost perfect form (my lifted foot should be parallel to the ground.)   

So form is great and all, but so what? Two weeks ago I ran a half-marathon. My friend was running her first, so I went to support and pace her. I ran it pretty slowly. I stopped at the portapotties a lot for some reason, so she would keep going and I would sprint ahead to find her. When I ran with her, it was an easy pace for me. Still, I averaged 10:45 minute miles over 13 miles and this was feeling like it was easy run! I did a little test - I ran next to a guy, matched his cadence step for step - and was going faster! I noticed I was spending more time in the air, so using much less effort, going faster, running more efficiently! 

This all completely makes sense. Swimming is all about form and technique. Cycling less so, but it's emphasized as well (and I've gotten stronger learning about proper foot position etc in spin class). Why not running? Makes more sense than anything else, since most people are injured running. Duh, revolutionary I think. I'm a convert.

Their motto is "Love to run." Not sure if I'm there yet, but I like it much more!

A Training Haiku

Missed one swim only

Hit 90% of workouts

Look cute in run skirt

Hmmm....

I'm not a numbers girl, but my percentage of training completed of what I'm supposed to do, over the first 7 weeks has been 55%. Not horrible, but not great. Yeah, I was sick, SXSW, pool was closed, insert random excuse here, but I need to get that up to 80%. We'll see what happens in the next 2 months.