I had stated a few goals at the beginning of the year and I wanted to check in on them and make sure I'm on track to meet all I said I was going to do.
Goal #1: to swim, bike, and run more mileage than last year. Percentage wise, I'm 90% of the way to out swim last year, 53% on the bike, and 48% for running. I ramped up my year with a lot of swimming and was injured for a bit so I couldn't run, so I feel good about beating 2011 mileage.
Goal #2: Sub 2:00 half marathon. I know I have it in me, but I don't have a race planned...
Goal #3: Sub 3:00 Olympic distance triathlon. September 15th is the day I complete this goal.
Goal #4: Get to know more people in the Seattle triathlon scene. I failed on this one, although I have met a few of my online friends in real life!
Goal #5: Race a bike race. I still want to, just have to go do it.
Goal #6: Run farther than 13.1 miles. I'll be starting Marathon training in September, so this will happen quite a bit.
Goal #7: Keep up on weekly speed workouts. Success! Thanks to my coach, I've been pretty diligent about doing speed work each week and it's paid off. My average pace is now down to 8:45. Goal for 2012 is to get it down to 8:30 on longer runs.
How are you doing with your 2012 goals?
Friday, June 29, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Lake Padden Triathlon 2012 recap
I just had a fantastic race. Everything went so well and I'm so proud of what I accomplished since last year. Going into this race I know I could improve over last year's time because I've been coached by my awesome coach Stephanie since just after that race last year. Seeing how I did this year vs. last year shows how much it's worth it to have a coach (for me at least).
Swim. 1/2 mile - 12:36
I put myself in the 3rd wave of swimmers - each wave was about 50 swimmers. I placed myself in the front middle of the pack and tried to find my place once we got going. I had a really hard time getting away from these two girls for the first half of the swim. I would look up and it would be wide open on either side of them and in front of us, but they were sandwiching me! I literally stopped swimming, let the pass then swam on the other side of them. That got me worked up and elevated my heartrate, so I calmed myself down on the second half of the swim, which I had my very one wide open space to swim in. :)
My stomach wasn't feeling too hot during the swim. There were a couple times that I thought I might toss my cookies, but luckily that feeling passed once I ran out of the water. Phew - crisis averted.
Pic of swim exit
T1 - 1:47
Nice, under 2 minutes is always my goal.
Bike. 21 miles - 1:11:29 - 17.63mph
I have said before that this bike course is tough because it has 4 nice hills in it, but today I realized there is also a ton of downhill. I pushed it on the down hills, but if I felt like I needed some recovery, I'd just coast. One of my coasts got me up to 30mph. So fun. I tried to stay in my aero bars as much as possible, but I haven't been riding with my aerobars at all lately, so I was afraid my lower back would start to hurt. It did, but it was tolerable.
I was happy with my climbing effort on the 4 hills. I was able to pass people (even some men) on the hills and it gave me a confidence boost that I'm actually an okay cyclist. The #1 girl in my AG rode the course 4 minutes faster than me. I think that is a goal for next year.
Pic while on the bike
T2 - 1:06
Another fast transition. And unlike last year, I didn't say "oh. my. gosh." because of my legs - they felt great.
Run. 5.2 miles - 43:38 - 8:23/mile
The run is 2 - 2.6 mile loops around the lake. When I lived in Bellingham, this was one of my favorite places to run, so I was excited to run it. I started out with my feel asleep, so it felt semi-awkward to run, but my legs didn't feel tired. Finally, my feet woke up and I felt normal again.
I was waiting for my legs to become tired and and heavy, but it never happened. I've NEVER felt so great on a run in all the triathlons I've done. I didn't know what pace I was holding, so I pushed it to a "comfortably hard" pace and tried to keep up with this guy that I was leap frogging the entire race.
I could see this gal in red a ways ahead of me on my 2nd lap and although I kept saying to myself "This is my race, I'm racing against myself" I still wanted to catch her. She was my carrot. I was able to slowly reel her in and we finished the last half mile together. She was super nice once I got up to her giving words of encouragement as we headed into the last stretch before the finish line. We finished and gave each other a high-5 and I shook hands with the leap frog guy. I love that about triathlon - so much support, such nice people.
Pic of run finish
Over all time was 2:10:34, which is a 11:52 minute PR over last year's time. I was shocked when I saw how well I did. Here are my times from last year vs. this year to see the improvement:
Swim: 14:25 (2011) vs. 12:36 (2012) - 1:49 improvement
Bike: 1:16:22 (2011) vs. 1:11:29 (2012) 4:53 improvement
Run: 48:47 (2011) vs. 43:38 (2012) 5:09 improvement
4/18 in 25-29 Age Group
19/104 all women
114/251 overall (men and women)
Swim. 1/2 mile - 12:36
I put myself in the 3rd wave of swimmers - each wave was about 50 swimmers. I placed myself in the front middle of the pack and tried to find my place once we got going. I had a really hard time getting away from these two girls for the first half of the swim. I would look up and it would be wide open on either side of them and in front of us, but they were sandwiching me! I literally stopped swimming, let the pass then swam on the other side of them. That got me worked up and elevated my heartrate, so I calmed myself down on the second half of the swim, which I had my very one wide open space to swim in. :)
My stomach wasn't feeling too hot during the swim. There were a couple times that I thought I might toss my cookies, but luckily that feeling passed once I ran out of the water. Phew - crisis averted.
Pic of swim exit
T1 - 1:47
Nice, under 2 minutes is always my goal.
Bike. 21 miles - 1:11:29 - 17.63mph
I have said before that this bike course is tough because it has 4 nice hills in it, but today I realized there is also a ton of downhill. I pushed it on the down hills, but if I felt like I needed some recovery, I'd just coast. One of my coasts got me up to 30mph. So fun. I tried to stay in my aero bars as much as possible, but I haven't been riding with my aerobars at all lately, so I was afraid my lower back would start to hurt. It did, but it was tolerable.
I was happy with my climbing effort on the 4 hills. I was able to pass people (even some men) on the hills and it gave me a confidence boost that I'm actually an okay cyclist. The #1 girl in my AG rode the course 4 minutes faster than me. I think that is a goal for next year.
Pic while on the bike
T2 - 1:06
Another fast transition. And unlike last year, I didn't say "oh. my. gosh." because of my legs - they felt great.
Run. 5.2 miles - 43:38 - 8:23/mile
The run is 2 - 2.6 mile loops around the lake. When I lived in Bellingham, this was one of my favorite places to run, so I was excited to run it. I started out with my feel asleep, so it felt semi-awkward to run, but my legs didn't feel tired. Finally, my feet woke up and I felt normal again.
I was waiting for my legs to become tired and and heavy, but it never happened. I've NEVER felt so great on a run in all the triathlons I've done. I didn't know what pace I was holding, so I pushed it to a "comfortably hard" pace and tried to keep up with this guy that I was leap frogging the entire race.
I could see this gal in red a ways ahead of me on my 2nd lap and although I kept saying to myself "This is my race, I'm racing against myself" I still wanted to catch her. She was my carrot. I was able to slowly reel her in and we finished the last half mile together. She was super nice once I got up to her giving words of encouragement as we headed into the last stretch before the finish line. We finished and gave each other a high-5 and I shook hands with the leap frog guy. I love that about triathlon - so much support, such nice people.
Pic of run finish
Over all time was 2:10:34, which is a 11:52 minute PR over last year's time. I was shocked when I saw how well I did. Here are my times from last year vs. this year to see the improvement:
Swim: 14:25 (2011) vs. 12:36 (2012) - 1:49 improvement
Bike: 1:16:22 (2011) vs. 1:11:29 (2012) 4:53 improvement
Run: 48:47 (2011) vs. 43:38 (2012) 5:09 improvement
4/18 in 25-29 Age Group
19/104 all women
114/251 overall (men and women)
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Healed up and ready to race
Well, my face is pretty healed and life is getting back to normal. I had to go out of town for work two days after my bike accident, so it was pretty easy taking the prescribed 5 days off from working out.
 |
| Pretty much all healed |
Getting back to working out has been a surprising struggle. Taking a measly 5 days off really threw a curve ball at me and I'm finding it hard to stay motivated for my triathlon on Saturday. I'm hoping all the rest I had will allow me to race on really fresh legs and be able to improve over my time last year, but I never want to take that much time off if it's going to make me feel the way I do right now...
Anyway, I don't have huge time goals for my race on Saturday. Last year I finished in 2:22. I'd like to break 2:20 this year. I know I can do it, I just have to focus on Saturday and not let my extended rest period bite me in the butt.
I had a complete tune up on the Masi while I was out of town and got a new chain, cassette, brakes, handle bar tape and had the derailleurs adjusted - practically a new bike! I hopped on it last night for an easy ride (first time on it since crashing) and felt good, but I'm not going to lie, I felt timid. I took note to gravel more than I ever have, took turns slower, and focused on what I was doing instead of chatting a lot like I normally do. It's not that I'm scared of biking, but knowing what could happen (thoughts of puddles of blood on the road kept flashing into my thoughts) and the repercussions is making me take biking slightly more on the safe side.
 |
| New helmet, new scar... |
Sunday, June 10, 2012
PRs and Stitches
What a crazy weekend it has been. I'm sure a lot of you saw what happened both for the good and bad on Twitter, but for those of you who didn't, let me explain. Warning: This may be one of the lengthier posts I've written and there are graphic pictures below.
Friday
I raced the Fremont 5k on Friday night. We got so lucky - after a day of gray skies and rain, at 5pm the skies cleared and we had warm sunshine for the 7pm start time. Like I said in my post about this race last year, 7pm is a strange time to race. I sat all day at work, made a bad decision and ate Thai food for lunch, and over thought the race all day long. So by the time 7pm came along, I was feeling not 100%, but okay considering.
With a time of 25:15 last year, I knew I could pull off a big improvement with all the track workouts I've been doing and my coach was betting that I could do a 23:49. The race started and I went out...fast. I saw 6:xx on my Garmin and tried to slow myself down. A hill forced me to slow and the 1st mile clocked in at 7:35. I thought, "Ok, just hold this pace, that first mile was easy." I fell into a comfortable push at 7:40-7:45 pace for the next mile and then I entered the suffer fest.
I knew if I just held onto that 7:45 pace, I could get under 24 minutes. But I had a 1.1 miles to go. My lungs were burning and I felt like I could puke (thanks Thai food). I kept pushing and at about .5 miles to go I just wanted to keep a sub 8 pace. I pushed and pushed and felt like I was moving as slow as molasses. I could see the finish line and it wasn't getting any closer, or so it felt.
The last .2 mile Paige, Jen and her husband were cheering me on which gave me the final push to finish in 24:04. That is a :46 PR and a 1:11 improvement over my time at this race last year. I am pleased but geeze louise... 5ks are freaking tough! They are no joke.
Before the race I got to meet Jen Bigham! She runs for Oiselle and is a speedster. She picked up the W for the women's race in 17:15! It's always really nice to connect in real life with someone you've been chatting with on Twitter forever.
Saturday (warning, graphic pictures below)
I had plans to ride Flying Wheels on Saturday, which is an organized ride by Cascade Bike Club. Team Sweat (Rebecca, Thanh and myself) set out for 65 miles in hopes for a good ride with no rain.
We knocked out the first 30 miles no problem and when we hit the half way point, we were happy to only have one monster hill to go on the ride.
At about mile 40, Rebecca and I were riding slow because we had gotten in front of Thanh. I glanced back over my left shoulder (which I often do when riding with other people) to see where Thanh was and didn't notice that I was veering off to the right. My front wheel went off the pavement, into the gravel shoulder and when I went to correct it and get back on the road my bike wasn't having it and sent me down to the ground really quickly. I can't believe how quickly it all happened.
I went down kind of to my left. I don't know what part of my body hit the ground first, but I felt the impact most on my chin and forehead. I then felt bikes on top of me and heard Rebecca saying "oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Megan!" The next thing I know I have people all around me asking me a million questions as I see a constant run of blood off my face making a pool on the concrete. The first thing I remember doing is running my tongue across all my teeth making sure they were all there. Thankfully they were.
The people that stopped were so helpful. One of them had gauze with them so this nurse and another man (I think his name was Stuart) held those on my wounds while someone else who stopped called 911. I didn't know how bad I was hurt. I seriously thought I just needed a bandaid and I could then go finish the ride, so I was surprised when I asked and the man holding my wound said I had a 2 inch gash on my forehead and I'd probably need stitches.
While I was laying on the road waiting for the medics, I wasn't really concerned about myself, which is strange in hindsight. I was thinking about 1) how embarrassed I felt for doing something so stupid 2) felt horrible for ruining Rebecca and Thanh's bike ride 3) if I was still going to be able to go on my business trip to Toronto/New York this week 4) where is my bike?! Funny what kind of things you think about when you get hurt.
The medics arrived and did their thing, strapped me to a board, put a neck brace on (just in case I had any head/neck injuries) and drove me off in the aid car to the hospital. I tried to say thank you to everyone who stopped and helped, but I'm sure I missed a lot. If somehow you are a person who stopped and are reading this, THANK YOU!
The ER doctor decided to bring in a Plastic Surgeon to do my stitches because of the fact that it was my face they were dealing with and Plastic Surgeons apparently have better technique so less chance of huge scaring. I will have scars, but it shouldn't be too bad.
It's now been over 24 hours since the fall and I'm feeling okay. I can't make any facial expressions with my eyebrows or else it pulls at the stitches and it kind of hurts my chin to smile big, so I've been just trying to keep any kind of face movements to a minimal.
But I am okay, thank goodness. It could have been a lot worse. And my bike is okay. Did I learn anything from this experience? Yes. Bring some first aid supplies, especially on long rides where you don't know the route. Always wear your Road ID. Mine came in handy as it had my parents phone numbers on it and I just had to give it to my friend and she took care of contacting them.
Phew. What a weekend. I'm going to sleep.
Friday
I raced the Fremont 5k on Friday night. We got so lucky - after a day of gray skies and rain, at 5pm the skies cleared and we had warm sunshine for the 7pm start time. Like I said in my post about this race last year, 7pm is a strange time to race. I sat all day at work, made a bad decision and ate Thai food for lunch, and over thought the race all day long. So by the time 7pm came along, I was feeling not 100%, but okay considering.
With a time of 25:15 last year, I knew I could pull off a big improvement with all the track workouts I've been doing and my coach was betting that I could do a 23:49. The race started and I went out...fast. I saw 6:xx on my Garmin and tried to slow myself down. A hill forced me to slow and the 1st mile clocked in at 7:35. I thought, "Ok, just hold this pace, that first mile was easy." I fell into a comfortable push at 7:40-7:45 pace for the next mile and then I entered the suffer fest.
I knew if I just held onto that 7:45 pace, I could get under 24 minutes. But I had a 1.1 miles to go. My lungs were burning and I felt like I could puke (thanks Thai food). I kept pushing and at about .5 miles to go I just wanted to keep a sub 8 pace. I pushed and pushed and felt like I was moving as slow as molasses. I could see the finish line and it wasn't getting any closer, or so it felt.
 |
| I hope I beat that little kid... |
Before the race I got to meet Jen Bigham! She runs for Oiselle and is a speedster. She picked up the W for the women's race in 17:15! It's always really nice to connect in real life with someone you've been chatting with on Twitter forever.
 |
| Jen, her daughter Currie and me |
Saturday (warning, graphic pictures below)
I had plans to ride Flying Wheels on Saturday, which is an organized ride by Cascade Bike Club. Team Sweat (Rebecca, Thanh and myself) set out for 65 miles in hopes for a good ride with no rain.
 |
| We decided to all wear fun sunglasses in hopes that the sun would come out |
At about mile 40, Rebecca and I were riding slow because we had gotten in front of Thanh. I glanced back over my left shoulder (which I often do when riding with other people) to see where Thanh was and didn't notice that I was veering off to the right. My front wheel went off the pavement, into the gravel shoulder and when I went to correct it and get back on the road my bike wasn't having it and sent me down to the ground really quickly. I can't believe how quickly it all happened.
I went down kind of to my left. I don't know what part of my body hit the ground first, but I felt the impact most on my chin and forehead. I then felt bikes on top of me and heard Rebecca saying "oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Megan!" The next thing I know I have people all around me asking me a million questions as I see a constant run of blood off my face making a pool on the concrete. The first thing I remember doing is running my tongue across all my teeth making sure they were all there. Thankfully they were.
The people that stopped were so helpful. One of them had gauze with them so this nurse and another man (I think his name was Stuart) held those on my wounds while someone else who stopped called 911. I didn't know how bad I was hurt. I seriously thought I just needed a bandaid and I could then go finish the ride, so I was surprised when I asked and the man holding my wound said I had a 2 inch gash on my forehead and I'd probably need stitches.
 |
| Nice nurse and man, so thankful for them |
While I was laying on the road waiting for the medics, I wasn't really concerned about myself, which is strange in hindsight. I was thinking about 1) how embarrassed I felt for doing something so stupid 2) felt horrible for ruining Rebecca and Thanh's bike ride 3) if I was still going to be able to go on my business trip to Toronto/New York this week 4) where is my bike?! Funny what kind of things you think about when you get hurt.
The medics arrived and did their thing, strapped me to a board, put a neck brace on (just in case I had any head/neck injuries) and drove me off in the aid car to the hospital. I tried to say thank you to everyone who stopped and helped, but I'm sure I missed a lot. If somehow you are a person who stopped and are reading this, THANK YOU!
The ER doctor decided to bring in a Plastic Surgeon to do my stitches because of the fact that it was my face they were dealing with and Plastic Surgeons apparently have better technique so less chance of huge scaring. I will have scars, but it shouldn't be too bad.
 |
| Before I got cleaned up |
 |
| I'd smile, but it kind of hurts... |
But I am okay, thank goodness. It could have been a lot worse. And my bike is okay. Did I learn anything from this experience? Yes. Bring some first aid supplies, especially on long rides where you don't know the route. Always wear your Road ID. Mine came in handy as it had my parents phone numbers on it and I just had to give it to my friend and she took care of contacting them.
Phew. What a weekend. I'm going to sleep.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Nuun Kids On The Block
I mentioned a couple posts ago that I'm running the Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage with Nuun in July and I'm getting more and more excited for it the closer it gets. Since it's June, I can now say it's NEXT month!
Just recently, we decided our team name will be Nuun Kids on the Block. Awesome, right? Our attire will be nothing less than full neon and probably some scrunchies. I need to go shopping. Need more neon!
We also now know what legs of the race we'll each be running. I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm runner 12. Yes, the last runner. The team is putting in their trust in me to cross that finish line strong. I feel pressure, but I'm up for the challenge. Not only am I the last runner, but I'm also running the most miles - 24.4 miles. That is split up between 3 legs, and they look like this:
I hope I can cram in some kind of recovery between each of these...
I'm very much looking forward to meeting all the awesome ladies I get to run with. How often do you think you know someone, yet you've only read their blog and follow them on Twitter? It happens to me a lot, so I'm excited to actually meet some virtual friends!
Who is team Nuun Kids on the Block?
Nuun
And I'm sure you've all heard about Nuun's new product, Nuun All Day. It's meant for drinking even when you're not sweating. I really like the Blueberry Pomegranate flavor. You can get 15% off your Nuun order using the code "bloggerslovenuun" Go buy some.
Just recently, we decided our team name will be Nuun Kids on the Block. Awesome, right? Our attire will be nothing less than full neon and probably some scrunchies. I need to go shopping. Need more neon!
We also now know what legs of the race we'll each be running. I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm runner 12. Yes, the last runner. The team is putting in their trust in me to cross that finish line strong. I feel pressure, but I'm up for the challenge. Not only am I the last runner, but I'm also running the most miles - 24.4 miles. That is split up between 3 legs, and they look like this:
 |
| My 1st leg - leg 12 |
 |
| My 2nd leg - leg 24 |
 |
| Last leg - leg 36 |
I hope I can cram in some kind of recovery between each of these...
I'm very much looking forward to meeting all the awesome ladies I get to run with. How often do you think you know someone, yet you've only read their blog and follow them on Twitter? It happens to me a lot, so I'm excited to actually meet some virtual friends!
Who is team Nuun Kids on the Block?
Nuun
And I'm sure you've all heard about Nuun's new product, Nuun All Day. It's meant for drinking even when you're not sweating. I really like the Blueberry Pomegranate flavor. You can get 15% off your Nuun order using the code "bloggerslovenuun" Go buy some.
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