A running oxymoron

My Team in Training homework today was an easy run. Now that an oxymoron. Will I ever be good enough to run easy?

Actually, we had to drop the office van off at the office, so we ran home from there. The problem with living on a hill, is that you have to go up that hill to get home. So I resorted to a method I used to have to employ when I was in Sun Valley, at 6000 foot altitude. Run to a telephone pole. Walk to the next one. Run to a telephone pole. Walk to the next one. 

Perhaps I'll eventually be able to run past two telephone pools, then walk one.

Why I recommend Team in Training

Well I've done it again. I've signed up for another Team in Training triathlon. This year will be Pac Crest in Bend. Perhaps it's because it's a dark January and I have just ate and drank my way through the holidays. Perhaps it's really because I love the program.

We had our first swim practice last night. I came home happy. At work today I was positively cheerful. If you know me, you know this is a stretch.

I'm inspired by the veterans in the program. I aspire to be as good, fast, and dedicated as them. I'm inspired by the newcomers in the program with their attitude to learn. I've seen overweight, rain-soaked beginners come in from a bike ride, last, grinning like they won the lottery.

We have a dedicated coach that inspires, guides, teaches, and generates dedication from the team year after year.

People join for many reasons. When leukemia strikes your family, this is one way to fight back. I started that way, but also with a little curiosity as to whether I could do a triathlon. Now I'm absolutely hooked.

Now here's the crux of this missive: Join me. Sign up. Sign up this week. Do something good for yourself. Do something good for others.

http://www.teamintraining.org/firsttimehere/signup/

Did it!

Twenty-two weeks of training, six days a week. We are standing around like a bunch of penguins waiting for the start of the Pacific Crest Olympic Triathlon in Sunriver, Oregon.  Our big day is finally here.

Last April I agreed to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They agreed to train me for a triathlon. They brought in Wade Praeger, a triathlete since 1981 and one of the owners of Everyday Athlete. An experienced Team in Training coach, Wade, with amazing patience, pushed my group beyond our expectations. All the while he kept emphasizing "Have fun." And miraculously, for me he made bicycling hills fun, lake swimming not traumatic, and running . . . well, I'm still working on running.

Some of my happy teammates

Still, three days before the event, the nerves kicked in. I was feeling so ill and tired that I left work, went home and slept. I really thought I was coming down with something. Friday, I felt a little better on the drive to Sunriver. But where would I find the energy to get through this race?

Saturday morning we drove my bike up to Wickiup Reservoir to set up for next day's swim-to-bike transition. The reservoir was a 50 minute drive outside of town, delivering all the requisite views of volcanic mountains -- Bachelor, Three Sisters, and so on. In the roped-off transition area I find my designated row, set up my bike food bag, hang my bike on the rail, cover the seat and handlebars with plastic bags to keep the morning dew off, and leave. A sweet volunteer decorates my legs with my race number and age with big beautiful block letters. Bob and I then head back the town via the bicycle route to check it out. It's roly-poly at the beginning, climbs to 15 miles, then is downhill and flat the rest of the way. 

We make it back to ‘base camp’ in time to watch our coach and a couple of teammates complete Saturday's Long Course Triathlon. Those animals.

Sunday morning I out of the room at 6:15 am to set up the bike-to-run transition, meet with the team, and catch the bus. We are swapping great stories and ride seems short.

Preparing to start

Off the bus and on with the wetsuits. Once again, I start by putting my wetsuit on backwards. Luckily no photos were taken to document this. 


The coach checked bikes, so cleaned and oiled my bike chain. Apparently, I missed that lesson in training. 

We had a nice crowd up there. There were 504 swimmers racing as singles, plus the duathlon and relay people. I was in the sixth wave of swimmers, for the 45-year-olds and older, the last group to leave. 


I have my first mini melt-down. Just the verge of tears and a little hopping around, as the moment sinks in.

First the red cap swimmers start. Then the silver. Followed by yellow, green, purple. Then the blue. That’s my group. I stay off to the side to avoid the crowd. We start swimming in the 61 degree water, crisp but not numbing. To my left are thrashing arms. To my right are calm stretched-out swimmers. Guess I’ll breath to the right more, just to keep my head on straight. 

It’s crowded around the first buoy, but all is ok. I swing way left on the second leg. By the second buoy I adjust my sighting and aim to the right. At the third buoy a teammate, Polly, spots me and yells a greeting. Great moral support. Then it’s around the fourth buoy and on to the home stretch. 


What’s with this person in front of me? I try to go straight and I keep bouncing off of him. So I swing wide to one side. When I peek back, I see that he zig zags a lot. Whooh, the mile swim gets a lot longer that way.

Then I’m climbing out the water. There’s the coach taking pictures. He says "Run!" I say, "I’m trying to get the zipper undone on my wet suit!" I struggle along and my transition is slow, but there are a couple of teammates in the area with me, peeling off wetsuits and stuffing all into a bag for the event people to haul away to a local pickup spot in Sunriver. 

For a bit, the biking is tough. Then I get in to a rhythm and relax. I get a little teary again. Bob shows up on his bike and pedals behind me off and on. Again, nice moral support. There’s a large group of Team in Training people at one spot cheering us up the hill. Whoops, I'm a little emotional again.

There’s one steep spot in the roly-poly part, then there’s that last big hill, about 2 miles long. I just put it in good gear and pedal steadily up. I pass five people and am feeling quite good about myself. That training on Juanita Hill really did paid off. Oh, oh. I'm sniffling again.

Then there is that false peak at the top. You start heading down the hill, thinking you've made it over the top, but wait, there's more. So up the hill you go again. At least I had seen this yesterday, so was mentally prepared.

Where is my bike?

After 28 biking miles I am back in town and running my bike through the transition area. I almost flipped over the top of my bike when I turn at a sharp corner and the bike didn’t. Luckily, it’s a very nice light bike and I grabbed it and pulled it around to my side.

And there’s the coach again, taking pictures while we exit the transition area. 


The run was hard -- very, very hard. All my plans of running 10 minutes, walk 1 minutes or run 5 minutes, walk 30 seconds went flying out the door. So I ran until I couldn’t stand it then walked. I threw ice cubes down my top, stuffed them in my hat. I guzzled the water at the water stations. Training in the rain didn't prepare us for Sunriver weather.

And there was my coach again, about a mile from the finish with his camera. How did he do that?

#524. That's me!

I’m walking along, musing that the only people I pass are the ones in the porta-potties, when I hear a conversation ahead of me, “You’ve done 21 triathlons . . . . “ Twenty-one triathlons? So I catch up to the guy in front and start the questions. He is Lew Hollander, 82 years old, Ironman competitor, and record holder in his age group. We chat for a while, then he taps me on the elbow and says, “Let’s go.” So we run. I’m inspired and keep on going. 

And there's the finish line. Done. Three hours and 45 minutes. Third in my age group! And it was fun!

Progress

We are now in Week 15 of our training. Our coach has announced that the next three weeks will be the toughest.

Swimming feels good. Biking feels good. Running, not so good.

I think I am finally learning the things we were taught last year in swimming. I guess you just have to keep practicing till you get it right.

Our Saturday workout: bike to from Genesee Park to Seward Park and back, a loop of about 5 miles. Include a lap up the Seward Park Ave hill. Run a lap around Genesee Park. Repeat all this 5 times. It was fun. The biking didn't feel too bad, although I was tired for the last 2 laps. The running felt awful, a least for the first half of each lap.

It's probably obvious, but running has been a struggle. With stretching, strengthening, physical therapy visits, I managed to reduce the pain in the back, hip, knee to just a little soreness in my hip. Last night I ran the perimeter of the Zoo (My, what a farmyard smell.) Running was fun for the first time in weeks. There is a little glimmer of hope on the horizon.

Another Rainy Week

What is going on? I'm feeling old, not energized.

When I finished last year's triathlon I felt alive. When I stopped training to let my knee heal up the energy slipped away, week by week. I want that feeling again. When is it going to come back?

Tuesday was 'strides' at the track: 90% effort on the straight stretchs and recovery on the corners. Running fast is fun, even though I can't keep it up with the others. Wednesday night was fast repeats at the pool, trying to maintain an even pace. Thursday was another physical therapy session, then indoor pedaling in the evening. Friday was my coveted rest day. And Saturday . . .

Saturday was a bike ride starting at Redmond: Bike an easy pace to Kenmore. Turn around. Push it. Get dropped by the lead group. Keep that lady with the new bike in sight. Get dropped by her too. Get lost in the last mile. Use the iPhone to find your way back. Clean the little worms off your bike. (Where did those come from? Everyone had them.) Come home to the rain.

Sunday was another run in Discovery Park. Actually it was a lot of walking.

Just another typical training week.

Bricks!

Bricks! Such a heavy load.

Last Saturday our practice was a 5-mile bike ride followed by a 1-mile run. Repeat that four times. We were practicing transitions. Brick is the term for the combo practice we are doing. They really do feel like you are carrying a load of bricks around.

Is this running going to ever get better? For a while there I thought I really liked running. Right now it just seems very, very hard.

Fortunately, it wasn't actually raining during practice. The roads were a little wet from earlier storms, but water wasn't actually coming out of the sky while we rode.

When you are raising money to combat cancer, it seems like you should get a free pass from cancer -- a 'Get Out of Jail' card that keeps you and your family cancer free. But no, it doesn't work that way. We had a teammate drop out Saturday, as she was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Wisely, she is going to spend her energy battling that.

It's Not About the Knee

It's been six weeks of training with LLS's Team in Training. Sometimes I think I have missed more group practices than I have made. There are the ski trips (I'm not complaining!), the flu (I am complaining), the snow (The pool closed), and the time I was late and missed the running group (It was raining anyway).

We have to settle for one coach this year, instead of three. But Wade is a really, really good coach. I've gotten great tips for bike gearing on hills. I've gotten my swim stroke corrected. I'm learning about hydration.

Last Tuesday we ran around Greenlake -- first from the Community Center to the Aqua Center. Then we did laps on the amphitheater seating. Suck in those gluts and abs. Then we ran the rest of the way around Greenlake.

My knee has giving me fits lately. Once again, I am concerned. Should I really be running at all? I mentioned this to the training crowd last week. A physical therapist was suggested. A particular physical therapist was suggested. A physical therapist that was married to one of my teammates. After some deliberation, and a little more research, I made an appointment.

This group, Stretch, was amazing. Turns out that my problems comes from my back, my ever-aching back and herniated disc from 20 years ago. Yes, my knee is still healing from last fall's surgery, but it's my back that not firing all of its cylinders. So we are working on that.