XTerra Wold Championships 2016

Its overall been a pretty awesome season.  I had to work through a bunch of injuries (mostly from crashing on my bike) but I was able to arrive in Maui healthy, though a little undertrained on the run.

 

We arrived in Maui on Wednesday with the goal to get out and pre-ride the course Thursday.  We did it and the course conditions were just about perfect-not very representative to what we would find Sunday.  What I did prove to myself is that my fitness is in a good spot—I was able to climb a couple of the hills that I have never made all the way up before—great for my mental game!  Friday we met Annie to go for a swim and practice swim entrance/exits in the surf.  The waves were pretty small—again, practice was not going to turn out to be representative of race day.

Basically the weather turned and we had rain and wind all day Friday and Saturday.  At the pre-race briefing on Saturday somebody asked what Plan B was for the bike course as more and more of it became un-rideable.  The answer:  Plan B is Plan A but we will extend the cut-off time since you are going to be out there a long time.  Nobody even asked the question about the swim course—we all knew that the high surf warning just meant that the swim would be an adventure and not for the weak.  The wind was actually welcome—it really helps to keep the heat down once you are up on the mountain.

 

Race morning sees the weather still windy, still a high surf warning and partly cloudy—except for the high surf, actually really nice weather for this race.  Don and I get our stuff together and head down to get set up - -we have a place less than ½ mile from the race site so we just jump on our bikes and go.  This year we have the joy of having all our kids (and significant others) with us.  They head down a while before the start so we get to see them for a bit before we go off.

We do a little practice—once into and out of the surf—I make it, not necessarily pretty but I call anything that gets me to shore with all my body parts a huge success.

This year they broke us up into more waves—I liked it since that meant less obstacles to deal with on top of the surf.  The women went last of 5 waves.  As we stand on the beach we see a few people from the earlier waves come back into shore—not willing/able to tackle the shorebreak we all have to go through.  From the looks of the numbers quite a few people opted to not tackle the swim—they said there were just over 800 competitors but only just over 700 finished the swim—I don’t blame anyone one little bit—I can’t imagine doing this swim and not being a strong swimmer.

Anyhow—we get the go—and luckily it is in between large sets and I get into the water with no difficulty.  The ocean is super rough so it really doesn’t get any easier once you are past the breakers.  Several times I take a stroke and there is no water there as I crest a wave and head down the other side.  You can only sight when you are at the top of a wave-and then only if you are lucky that the buoy is also at the top—otherwise its just ocean all around.  The kayakers are great—they are trying to keep us all pointed in the right direction.  I get around the first buoy and head to shore—going with the waves is a little bit easier.  As you come in to shore it just looks like you are about to go over the edge of a waterfall—I start looking behind me to see the size of the waves and hopefully catch a little one to carry me in. 

 I actually execute not to badly for me.  I run out and around the flags on shore to get back in for lap 2 - -and there is a wall of waves and just a ton of people just standing there looking at them.  I do an epic fail at trying to get back in and the wave just carries me back to shore.  Someone helps me get back up.  In the process I have lost my swim cap (but not my goggles, thank goodness).  Well, the race is not going to go anywhere if I don’t get myself back into the ocean so I try again—thankfully the big set is past and I get in.  The water feels rougher here towards the south end of the beach (the swim course is a big M).  Sighting is horrible since I now have to deal with my hair in my eyes.  I get out to the buoy and make the final turn for home—thinking that it will be better going with the waves—well, not so much—it just kept getting rougher and rougher.  I can see that the kayakers and not super happy—the current is driving all the swimmers south—towards a very rocky shore.  I make sure I am angling away from the rocks even if I have to swim a little longer.  I approach the cliff that is the shore break and do a decent job of getting in.  That was definitely the hardest swim I have ever done.  35:27—definitely slow but 5^th in my AG and within about a minute of the fastest in AG

The second test of survival was about to begin.  The bike here is not easy, even with good conditions—about 3300 ft climbing fit into 20 miles.  The soil here is pretty much clay—and we all know what happens when you mix clay with water and put it on a 10-15 degree slope.  The first 8 miles of the bike are pretty much up.  The first 3 miles are actually not too bad—low enough on the mountain that it did not get the same volume of rain and hills are not as steep.  As we get higher on the mountain the conditions deteriorate.  And of course on mostly single track, as soon as the person in front of you loses it, you also end up off your bike.  I fell once and smacked my hip/leg pretty good—have rainbow bruises to show for it.  Just got up and kept going.  There are some pretty long sustained climbs between mile 3 and 8 that were for the most part completely unrideable.  Shoe choice really came into play in this race—there were many people whose bike shoes did not have aggressive treads/toespikes that could barely walk up the hills.  I was a super happy camper—the shoes I have this year (Mavic Crossride SL) have a super aggressive tread and we spent Saturday afternoon at the hardware store to make me some toespikes.  I probably passed a hundred people just because I could get traction walking up the hills.  The clay was also at the stage of wet/dry that it was very attracted to tires—which meant that you tires/frame packed up and your wheels would not turn—and of course your bike weighed about 50 lbs.  So the drill was push your bike until the wheels packed up, clean out, repeat.  I decided enough of that, cleaned a bunch of the mud off my bike and then shouldered it----I am sure glad I race cyclocross. 

It was heavy and hard carrying the bike, but much faster than the alternative.  When I had my call with Chris before the race—his words were—the worse the conditions were the better it was for me—this mud favored a strong rider, not a fast rider.  It seemed it was working out that way.  Getting to the top at mile 8 did not mean it was over—down was not any less treacherous.  I was very happy for my dropper seat post that allowed me to get my center of gravity lower and also get a foot on the ground when needed.  Of course your tires kept packing up with mud so you could only ride down a little way and then your wheels stopped turning.  Eventually after about mile 9 we got back to the drier portion of the trail and could actually start riding again.  The remainder of the bike course was uneventful.  In the end it took me 3:25 to ride 20 miles.

After all that I was happy to get out on the run, though I knew I had 3 miles of climbing at the start (about 1100 ft elevation gain) and it would not be super fast.  I did a combo of power hiking and running all the way up to the top.  After that I tried to not walk anymore—and was pretty successful.  The trail conditions were actually pretty good-it had had all morning to dry out so there were very few slippery sections.  I actually felt good on the run and the foot injury I have been dealing with for the past several weeks was non-existant.  I kept waiting for women in my AG to pass me—I knew there were a couple behind me that were good runners (I had passed them on the bike) but nobody came.  I was so happy when I hit the beach and knew that I only had 400m left to the finish line!  Run time 1:18:55.  Total race time was 5:26:51 - - good enough for 5^th!  This is my highest finish at a World Championship ever and I am super pumped about it.  To put how challenging this day was compared to a ‘regular’ year here—to get 5^th place you would need to finish in close to 4 hours.

 

I’ve had a great race season this year despite several injuries and I have lots of people to thank for helping me accomplish this.  Chris Bagg has been an awesome coach—this has been my first year with him and I would say it was a resounding success!  Kirk Whiteman at Tempo Cycling has definitely helped me to push past limits and find strength inside me that I never knew I had.  The team that kept my body together through all of this:  Chris Ramsey (PT at PACE), Brad Farra (chiropractor at Evolution Healthcare and Ftiness) and D.JD’Austria (massage) - -I really needed all of you guys.  Also big thank you to Evolution Healthcare and Fitness for the access to your great facilities including the altitude room!  Also Pearl Izumi-I have been an ambassador all year and their product has been top notch.  And last and most important supporter—Don—I am not sure how he puts up with all my craziness but I couldn’t do any of this without him!

 

 

 

 

 

Accountability

So this year my big goal is to do well at XTerra World Championships.  For those that don’t know the course—it is basically a series of hill repeats on both the bike and the run.  They pack in 3000+ ft climbing in 18 miles on the bike and 1500 ft in 6 miles of the run.  So the key to this race is power/weight ratio.  I like to think that I do fairly well on the power side of the equation—which does me well on flatter courses.  I am also not that tall so I am pretty compact for the windy courses.  My forte is definitely flat, windy courses (I also get blown around less than the smaller women in the wind, another advantage).  So, what business do I have targeting the exact opposite of what I am naturally good at?  What we love and what we are naturally good at don’t always line up.  So here I go.

The first easy thing to do on the weight side of the equation is to throw money at it.  I’ve been riding a dual suspension, fairly long travel mountain bike for the past few years.  For Christmas Santa Clause (Don) brought me a nice new 29er hardtail that is going to save me a good 5 lbs once we finish swapping out a few components and put race wheels on it.

Now the hard part and what this post is really about—actually getting to race weight.  I always seem to be able to get within about 5 lbs of what I consider my optimal race weight.  That 5 lbs is probably the difference between standing on the podium and not.  How to make it happen?  Enter the coach, Chris Bagg.  On one of our recent calls:  “Hey, your weight is staying the same, how about we do food logging for the next couple of weeks so the I can see where we might need to make some adjustments”  So, to make it as painless as possible, I got the app for my phone (My Fitness Pal) and started logging my food.  The sneaky thing is—you can hook it to your Training Peaks account—so not only do I get to see what I am eating every day—my coach also gets to see it.  After 2 weeks of logging, he has not suggested any changes in my diet.  The very fact that I am logging it and he can see it is causing me to make smarter choices and the scales are going in the right direction.

I actually know exactly what I need to eat to get to where I want to be.  So why don’t I do it?  Why can’t we be accountable enough to ourselves to not need the added step of a coach looking over our shoulder?  I don’t actually know the answer to that question or I would have been successful in the past.  Since I don’t know the answer I am going to go with it and pause every time I go to eat something and think:  What will Chris think when he reads this in my log?  I still have a way’s to go—I’ve actually now gotten rid of the off-season weight and will be moving towards those last 5 lbs.  I hope I can be successful with this extra measure of accountability we have added.  #cbcg #WeAreEvolution #EndureandEnjoy

Balance

Something that I am and have been struggling with for a while now.  2015 was a busy year—but not all by choice.  From a professional perspective, my team was executing what for most, is a once in a career project (moving a major data center).  This was in the middle of an already incredibly busy year—we broke all kinds of sales and profit records.  Delivered 2x the amount of projects we have every done in our history. 

I have prided myself over the years for having been able to maintain a good work/life balance.  Knowing when to say no, making sure that I have put the proper systems/staff in place so that the work side of the equation did not overwhelm the life side of the equation.  Well, the onslaught of 2015 tipped that balance too far over to the work side.  I don’t feel like I have recovered from it—and some of the early 2016 indications are that this is on the way to becoming the new ‘normal’  Which means I am going to have to figure some new things out to regain that balance-I don’t particularly like where I am at now.

I am in the process of changing some things at work that hopefully will help the equation a little bit—but I fear that I will not see the balance I had before—part of what can keep me going is that at the most I have a little more than 2 years before it all goes away and I can pursue my passions.  Part of what makes me successful in business –is the life part —so I cannot lose that and still succeed.

I’ve had to make some tough choices:  how much/how do I continue to pursue my passion (triathlon/cycling), how much can I give back to the community I love to foster, how large of a circle of friends can I realistically support? 

Obviously this past year I have blogged almost not at all, I have been very sparse on social media - -this is one decision I had to make-which is hard with friends scattered all over the continent.  I have started working with a coach again (Chris Bagg)—that has taken a huge planning burden off me and I hope this will be part of the solution to bring the balance back (and help me go faster). I will not be taking on Ironman this year, instead will be focusing on XTerra—which is a ton of fun and does not take the time commitment of IM.  I have one sponsor, Evolution Healthcare and Fitness, that is giving me great support to keep my body healthy and I find it super easy spread the word when all that they do is top notch.

Of course through all this, Don is always there and always super supportive of whatever is driving me.  He is the one constant that I can always count on.