Spontaneity!

April 26-27 has been booked on the calendar for several months. The Get in Gear 10K was slated as my key running race of the spring, and the Iron man bike ride on Sunday would complete the weekend Brick (reverse order). As many know, MN spring weather is unpredictable, and for this reason, I procrastinated with pre-registration for both events. The forecast was looking grim, and by Thursday morning (I think there was a least 6-10 of us) decided to save the $45 entry fee for the bike ride, and do our own ride in the hills of Wisconsin. The forecast was calling for lows in the 30s, highs in the 50s, so we figured it would be best to control our departure time/route etc. By Thursday mid afternoon, I was hosting a Trainer Party in my basement (forecast now included snow, rain mix and high in the 40s). Of course, I still had the 10K on my plate for Saturday morning, and was planning to register Thursday night at the local running store. I jokingly sent an instant message to my husband before I left work asking if we had a good reason to skip the 10K (I knew it would be painful with Saturday morning temps in the 30s with snow). Sure enough, after as few IMs back and forth, we stared working on booking flights to sunny Arizona. We had a few free tickets in the bank, so we called Sun Country, and they got us on a flight Friday afternoon. Awesome!! “Unfortunately” they had no Sunday return flights, so I quickly asked my manager if I could work from home on Monday, and I received two thumbs up! I really needed to race on Saturday, so after a quick search to find a 10K in the Phoenix area, I found a 5K-That should do.
Friday morning I did another search for races on the Phoenix area and found an International distance Tri. After some discussion with my coach we decided that doing a spontaneous tri would be a great challenge. I was already in route to the office and planning to go directly to the airport from work, so I made a quick call to my husband asking him to pack a few race essentials (Wheels, wetsuit, aero helmet). I was now ready tp race!! Luckily our flight landed on time, and we knew exactly where to go for registration. The Saguaro Lake Triathlon is a fairly low key race (450 total participants), and they allowed registration until 7pm Friday night. I have done this race in the past in both flavors (they do this alongside the Xterra Desert Extreme Tri). The two races share the swim, T1, T2 and the run. The roadies do a 30 mile bike with LOTS of climbing, and the off-road folks do 27K mtn bike. I did the Xterra version in ’06 (two weeks post IMAZ), and remembered how tough the run felt back then. At that point, I simply chalked it up as being post Ironman fatigue, and was looking forward to redemption this year. Saturday morning, less than 24 hours since I found the tri online, I was prepping my stuff and heading to the race. The swim was a 1300 point to point swim, followed by a very challenging 30 Mile bike, then finishing up with a brutal 5 mile trail run. It is actually extremely beautiful in the desert as you climb up and look out of over the Canyon lakes, however, due to the extreme, narrow single track, taking in the scenery is not recommended! All eyes must be focused on the single step ahead!

Swim Start:

Deep water, mass starts are certainly not my favorite, but I was able to survive the early trashing, and get myself in good position early. This was my first wetsuit swim since Ironman Florida, and as I remembered, it feels great! The water was a perfect 68 degrees, and the lake had minimal chop. The water exit was a little sketchy, and the run to T1 was hard on the feet, but I had to remind myself that this was Xterra. I quickly hopped on my road bike (I keep a road bike at the condo here, so no tri bike for this race), and started climbing out of Butchers cove. It’s a very beautiful course, with plenty of fast descents to make up for ALL the tough climbs. I had Kerry and the girls in the car following me, taking photos and giving me updates. It was as special treat to hear “go Cathy go” every few miles. I love hilly bikes courses, so I was having a blast. I finally made it back to T2 and the volunteers were awesome, they took my bike, gave me my T2 bag and I was off climbing on the run. I had heard that I had a good lead on the women behind me, so I knew I didn’t have to kill myself on the run. Regardless, I wanted to run hard to truly test myself. Wow, TEST MYSELF was an understatement, right out of T2, you make a steep switchback single track climb...I think I managed to run up that, but I did surrender and walked another point of the course. This was probably close to the half way point of the run, and I was SO exhausted. My legs felt terrible, and the inability to get any solid footing made it much more difficult. All attempts to work on running form were fruitless. Feet were going in one direction, hips in another, and arms, well they were all over the place. In true Xterra fashion, we were running in very lose sand most of the way down. A few men passed me on the run, and I had nothing in the tank to stay with them. I eventually made it to the finish line and recorded my first win of the year! That race kicked my butt, which is just what I needed in April. A True Reality check, and I’ve got work to do!!! .
Although this race is extremely well run, and typically includes a fun filled awards ceremony. I decided to spare the family more Cathy centered time and get back to our Vacation. The kids were troupers; up early, taking photos, cheering galore, but 90 degrees starts to take its toll when you’ve been doing the race Sherpa gig for 5 hours. It was time for us to go play in the pool and hang out.

Kiersten and I rested on floaties and enjoyed catching rays while Karin entertained us with her Butterfly stoke (she just started swimming competitively this year, so butterfly has been her nemesis). I eventually submerged and helped Karin with her flip turns, and butterfly drills while Kiersten resorted to the lawn chair to study for her AP US History exam. Kerry did a quick loop of the bike course, and then joined us at the pool. It didn’t take long for hunger and thirst to override all other needs, so we headed off to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.

It was a fun day with the family. We received the scattered update from friends back home that snow had accumulated and winds were gusting close to 25mph.

It was a great weekend for spontaneity.

Jenny's Light- Spread the Word

Yesterday, I visited Gear West (my favorite tri shop) to pick up the Jenny's Light water bottles I purchased from their website.

After reading Timothy Carlson's poignant article (Inside Tri; May 2008 p. 57) , and hearing more about the Jenny's light foundation, I decided to send a note to a few local tri clubs to help raise awareness for this cause, and to promote their water bottle fundraiser. With potential readers outside these distribution lists, I decided to post here to reach a larger audience.

Here's the note:
(Sent to MNTRICLUB, GEAR WEST TRI CLUB, and MINNESOTA MULTISPORTS CLUB)
Fellow Triathletes,
Although I have no personal connection to this story, I want to help spread the word about a great cause which does in fact have a connection to our triathlon community. Becky Gibbs Lavelle, a former Wayzata resident and pro triathlete, alongside her family, has created “Jenny’s Light” in response to their families’ tragic loss from postpartum illnesses.
This is a foundation created to spread awareness, educate, and help support women and families dealing with postpartum illnesses.
Gear West Bike & Triathlon has teamed up with TYR in a Fundraiser for “Jenny’s Light”. They are selling a limited edition Jenny's Light water bottle in the store and online. They will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the Jenny's Light organization.
I just ordered a few today, and it would be so great if we could create an overwhelming response and show local support for this worthy cause.
According to their website, “contributions will be used to create content, support chosen efforts, and help spread hope where so many hearts may feel desperate, desolate, and dark.”
Although I know very little about Post Partum illnesses, it seems that awareness and therefore support can make a REAL difference.

More info:
http://www.jennyslight.org/
http://www.gearwestbike.com/

YndeCamp Day 4 & 5

After our late night on Friday (see YndeCamp day 3), it took us a little longer to get going on Saturday morning. Once again, it was a beautiful sunny day, and we decided to start our training with a 5000m swim at the outdoor pool. We enjoyed a soothing hot tub after the swim to map out the rest of our day. We decided to hit the desert trails for a fun 5.5 mile run. Although I was feeling SO tired and unmotivated to run, we all took off in typical camp formation and before long; I was feeling great and enjoying every minute. I love running in high temps-I felt strong, and could have run forever. We still had a strong bike workout left for the day, but opted to enjoy a few afternoon hours of quality relaxation and refueling before hitting the road.

The planned bike workout was a 10 mile ride to the “Hill” (3.5 miles w/1000 ft of climbing), then do 3 hill repeats, and ride home. The Usery Pass Hill, is a prefect place to do form repeats (3 min high rpm seated, 1 min high rpm standing, 3 min big gear seated, 3min big gear standing (repeat)). I absolutely love this workout,and I felt great out there. I was having one of those awesome training days. Kerry decided to skip one of the repeats to take photos and video of us climbing -- Thanks honey-great job! We finished our last repeat, and took the scenic overlook route home to catch the beautiful sunset. I felt like a little kid…out playing on my bike until the sun set. We got home shortly after 7pm and enjoyed a wonderful dinner together. We were coming to the sad realization that our training camp was quickly coming to an end. We mapped out our final day and started packing for the trip home.

Sunday (Final Day): We got up early and drove to Tempe Town Lake to catch the energy and excitement of Ironman Arizona. We arrived just in time to hear a powerful rendition of our national anthem, which was followed by Mike Reilly’s always inspirational messages and official Start. That will never get old-Ironman starts are such a powerful and emotional moment in sport.

We stuck around to see a few of our buddies start the bike, then suffered through our final workout of YndeCamp or as it had been renamed; YndeCramp. We did a loop of the run course (9miles), and while having an ‘out of body’ training day on Saturday, my legs (and mental stamina) was nowhere to be found on Sunday…I was officially checked out…and barely survived the run…I just wanted to hang out and watch the race.

We stuck around to watch additional race action before our hunger quickly took over – The boys had been craving In and Out Burger all week, and with one close by, it didn’t take long to get them Double Double combos w/ chocolate shakes-they were in their happy place! Sorry Karl-Wish we could have taken one home for you!

We went back to the condo for a few final hours before heading to the airport. Julie and I opted to maximize sun exposure and laid by the pool for a few hour, whereas the guys decided to "watch" the Masters (check out the photo). It’s hard to believe that we were in beautiful sunny Arizona for 5 days, and this was the first and only time we laid by the pool. We enjoyed yummy snacks, fun conversation, and before long, it was time to head back. We left for the airport around 3pm and that was it-YndeCamp was complete:

12000m of swimming
180 miles of biking
32 miles of running
TONS of fun!!

Thanks to Julie, Erik and Kerry for being such wonderful training buddies and great friends. So many great memories-You guys are awesome!!

YndeCamp Day 3

Today (Friday) our main workout was a ride up Mt. Lemmon. We started our day with an easy 2000m swim at our local pool before packing up the car for our road trip to Tucson. I know it seems strange to drive 2 hours to ride, but I have never ridden Mt Lemmon and it’s been on the MUST RIDE LIST for some time now. We successfully configured the car to fit our four bikes, but we hit the road a few hours behind our original schedule.
We found a place to park about 7 miles from the base and got rolling around 1:30pm. We decided that our ride would be about enjoying the moment, and fully appreciating the beauty around us, therefore we stopped periodically to regroup, snap photos, take videos, consume snacks etc. I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of the journey until I saw mile marker 2…Yikes-I felt like it took us forever to get there and we had 23 miles to go.
Julie and Erik at Mile 13/25
Although we did our final regroup around mile 19 to confirm that we were going to the top, we did not come to a clear consensus on what/where the top was. We had talked quite a bit about the famous pie shop in Summerhaven, so that’s where we headed. Julie and I rode off the front and pulled into the General Store in Summerhaven just after 5pm. There are a few descents between Mile 21 and the top, so we were getting pretty cold up there close to 8500ft. We had been warned to take extra clothing for the ride down, but I woefully underestimated what that really meant. It was 80 degrees at the Base, so I had a hard time believing that I would need much more that arm warmers, gloves and a vest.
I was getting very cold, and we were waiting for the boys for a long time, until we finally saw Kerry ride down. He stopped just short of the General Store (near the pie shop). He had been riding all over looking for us until someone told him we were further down the road at the store. He was pretty much freezing as well, and more significantly he was without Erik. We couldn’t believe Erik had not arrived yet, so we figured he may have decided to rest at one of the earlier stops. We bundled in garbage bags, and I filled my water bottle with Hot cocco before starting our descent around 5:45pm. Indeed the sun was starting to set, and we took off looking for Erik at all the “stops”. We rode by a few of the landmarks and Erik was nowhere to be found. We were pretty sure we didn’t miss him, so we continued towards the base. The temps starting to increase as we dropped below 5000ft, but we all had chattering teeth and deep chilled bodies. We arrived at the base, and still no sign of Erik?? We could not believe it. It’s really starting to get dark at this point, and none of us have reflective clothing or bike lights (evidently, we were not expecting this adventure to take so long). We decided to keep heading towards the car. Thankfully, the Tucson drivers were pretty bike friendly because we were testing our luck as we cruised through town in the dark around 7:15pm. We were so anxious to get back to the car to find Erik…Well, that quickly turned to panic when we discovered he wasn’t there. He had no cell phone and we knew that he did not have our phone numbers in his memory bank. At the beginning of our descent, we had seen an Ambulance rushing to the summit medical facility, so we quickly tired to find the phone number for that location to see if they “had him”.
Erik is the least experienced rider out of our group, and we knew he was under fueled and under hydrated for this day. After several failed attempts to locate contact information for this emergency facility, and the Coronado Sheriff Department, we resorted to 911. Yes-We were panicked and Julie was of course pacing with fear of the unknown. The 911 operator was finally able to connect us to the Sheriff group in the Mt Lemmon area, and they confirmed that they had no reported cyclist incidents. They took all of his stats (height, build, clothing, bike color etc.), and were getting ready to start the search for our missing cyclist. It was well after 8pm at this point, full darkness, and we lost our buddy on the Mountain. As advised by the sheriff group, we were about to split up…Someone needed to stay put, and the rest would take the car back up the mountain to search. Oh man-We were all so scared and worried. Luckily, this story has a very happy ending, and thankfully through the darkness we spotted a lone cyclist…and it was ERIK!! I think Julie should log that run in her training journal because I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her move that fast (and she’s speedy), as she ran to his side. Emotions were flying high, and I we were so relived to have him back unharmed. It was a pretty scary time, and we were all pretty weirded out for a while. Erik ended up taking the Summit road to the ski hill (assuming that’s were we would go), and that’s how we missed him at the top. Luckily the great folks (actually Minnesotans) at the general store gave him a Gatroade, cheese sticks and garbage bags at no cost (Erik had no money with him) and they also let him know that we had left about 30 minutes earlier. I’m sure he was shocked at the love and attention he received from us when he pulled into the parking lot. He was such a trouper and arrived shivering, but in high spirits. I’m sure this was the hardest/longest ride of his short riding career, and he MADE it to the SUMMIT-Higher than the rest of us. Way to go Erik!!

Who knows what day 4 will bring, but at that point it didn’t matter - It was 9pm, and we were all together and headed to Chipotle for dinner. HAPPINESS!

YndeCamp Day 2

Day two highlights will be brief-Just finished my Day One post (see below) and I need to get my gear ready for the road trip to Tucson and my climb up Mt Lemmon tomorrow.

Workout 1: SWIM. Our community has a 25m lap pool, so we decide to do a 3500m swim in the early am. We shared the pool with a water aerobics class which made for true open water like conditions. Despite relatively slower then normal splits, it was hard to complain considering the sun was shining brightly, and I was not at work!

Workout 2: BIKE. We had an 'easy' ride on the schedule today, so we decided to ride to the Ironman Arizona bike course and do the 20 mile section of the Beeline Highway. It's about 10 miles from our place, and with a consistent wind, this ride undoubtedly fell outside the "recovery" zone. 45 miles total miles under beautiful blue skies. Life is good!

Workout 3: RUN. I was pretty tired after the bike and ready to relax, but this was training camp, and there was no room for wimping out. We decided to run into the desert across the street and enjoy the Castus forest and challenging terrain. Although the first 3 minutes felt horrible, the pace steadily increased, and I started to feel much better. We added a few random pick-ups to keep things going, and before I knew it, we had over 7.5 miles under our belt. Awesome!

Next up: (Take a guess)... Quality refueling. The stop at the Market was valuable as we whipped up a delicious veggie, chicked stir fry. Yum Yum.

Ok-time to retire for the evening...Looking forward to an epic ride up Mt Lemmon tomorrow. Apparently, the ride from the base of the mountain to the summit traverses seven of the world’s nine life zones—it’s like riding from Canada to Mexico in 2.5hrs. SWEET!

YndeCamp Day One

Alright, technically, today is Day Two, but we had so much fun yesterday I had no time for a Day One update (or maybe its simply because I fell asleep at 8pm!).

YndeCamp was born simply with the need to get out of MN for quality training time. Julie and Erik shared out desire to breakaway, so immediately the Inaugural YndeCamp was formed. Although I’ve been fortunate to take several trips to AZ this spring, I still juggle the day job with training while I’m here. This trip however, I decided to take 3 days off work and focus on my training- My True Happy Place!!

Day one started at 5:15am when our alarm clock rank simultaneously with our doorbell-Yup Julie and Erik came to our house a few minutes early, but before long, we all took off to the airport together. Flights were on time, and we landed at PHX shortly after 8 am local time. We picked up the rental car and had our first challenge of the day…Getting all our gear into the Nissan Xterra! Luckily we scored high in artistry as we creatively jammed all the gear in the car.

Workout # 1: The Track- The first track workout of the year for all of us. We knew it would be tough, but we were all anxious to see how those treadmill speed sessions translated to the track-The track does not lie, and there is never that element of doubt about calibration. 6x 800 was the main set. We did a few 200 builds to get in the groove, and then it was Party time. Initially we’re thinking we would do two at 10K pace, 2 at 5K pace, then the last two “Whatever you’ve got”. Of course, we took the first one out fast, and never looked back. We all hit 800pr’s…and they kept getting faster. It was awesome!

Next stop: FOOD of course. We headed to the local market and picked up major fuel for the week. Additionally, I took some of my favorites from home, but we picked up fruits and veggies in mass quantities. I am the fruit monster

Workout #2: Scenic Hilly bike ride. We left the condo and headed into the Tonto National forest for a spectacular 2.5 hour ride. It was so beautiful and we all felt great. We rode about 20 miles to Butchers Cove and of course we had to take a break and check out the water temp for potential open water swimming. Water felt great, and then we rode our way out of there. There was plenty of climbing on the way home, but we had so much fun. Multiple times during the ride (despite the difficulty) and was able to look around me in awe at the natural beautify and fully appreciated the luxury we all enjoyed.

Next: FOOD! We picked our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. As chatty as we are, I don’t think there was much said once our dinner arrived…Refueling at its finest. Certainly no shortage of food, and as soon as I got back in the car, the fatigue set in. I was SO tired!! We got back to the condo around 7:45pm, and I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 8:00pm. Contacts still in, Teeth unbrushed; Yup-quite the beauty, by I was out and quickly dreaming about day Two!

Group Riding at its Finest!

After our freak 6 inch snow storm on Monday, the temps finally started moving in the right direction, and there was a great forecast for Saturday. I think the emails starting circulating as early as Tuesday to get something coordinated, and sure enough, we had 11 eager riders ready to hit the road on Saturday.

We stared rolling into Julie’s just after 9:30am. Enthusiasm was high, however there was much debate on the proper clothing required. That’s always a challenge during these first outdoor rides. I think it was 40ish degrees, but we all knew it would only get warmer throughout the day. Of course, I opted for 3 warm layers on top, and tights over my bike shorts-A tad on the overdressed side, but I love to be toasty.

Our plan was to head East from Farmington into Hastings, cross the river and then head into the Hills of Afton. There’s a great coffee shop in Afton, so that was our midpoint destination.

This ride was originally touted as “conversational pace” but of course, about 5 miles into it, the Boys decided they wanted to do 3x10min at strong pace…Humm, sure I thought that could be fun, but I think I only lasted a few minutes before I decided that it was too early in the 80 mile ride to come out of my small ring. It worked out great, as Marty and I had a chance to catch up. And I guess the 3x10 min turned into 30 min of torture. We all re-grouped across the River, before we made the anticipated turn onto the St, Croix trail and climbed our way towards Afton. Of course, we had to take a detour down to the base of Afton Alps Ski hill, just for the JOY of climbing our way out of there. Sorry I don’t have any stats, but it was a steep one. Short and Sweet I like to call those. Everyone climbed very well, and once at the top we knew the coffee shop was nearby…Just a few descents, one climb and it was break time!

I always have so much fun descending, but I get really nervous with 10 additional riders around me. I don’t know how those ‘Roadies’ do it.-Thankfully, when I really care about maximizing speed, there is usually plenty of room between all the riders. I’m happy to report there were no accidents today, and it was a splendid ride to the coffee shop. We sat outside in the glorious sunshine, but before too long we all started to get a little chill, and we knew it was time to head back. The chill didn’t last long, as we faced a steady climb out of Afton. Those climbs are my favorite! The fatigue factor started to kick in around mile 60, and the thought of all the yummy snacks at Julies was the motivation I needed to keep the pace moving. I was ready to get home- I was under fueled, with only about 400 cals for the entire 4+ hour ride. Not good planning on my part, but I more than made up for the deficit when I got back to Julies! Thanks Julie(s) for the great smoothies and snacks.

Thanks to all my training buddies for a great ride-I was so wonderful to see you all again and I can’t wait until next time.

I have a long run today, then its two days of ez recovery before we head to AZ for ‘YndeCamp’. Camp starts on Wednesday, and Coach Berg just sent the training plans for the week. Highlights include 800s on the track on Wednesday, and a ride up Mt Lemon in Tucson on Friday. It’s Ironman weekend in Phoenix, so we’ll be there for a few open water swim sessions, and of course, we’ll be part of the all important cheering squad on Sunday. Good luck to all you IMAZ bound athletes. Enjoy your final week of prep—The best part is almost here!!