So today was supposed to be my practice run for next week’s Olympic distance triathlon. I was going to try to figure out nutrion and salt so I wouldn’t get sick on the run in the heat. On the plus side I had plenty of heat to work wtih. That was on the minus side, too.

Last night I had a mad dash to the running store to get Endurolytes because I hadn’t yet done that. I was stuck in freeway traffic and careening around corners on 2 wheels, I made it to the store with 3 minutes to spare before they locked the doors. They were out. I tried a couple of other places – no go. Great. The whole point was to see how salt improved how I felt going long in the heat. Oh well – Momo told me to try salt packets so there was always that. But then I found a bottle of Thermotabs that I had purchased in 1999. They said they were expired but what could go bad – it’s just salt. These things have 450 mg of Na and it is buffered – awesome. I put some in a little zip lock bag and put them with my stuff.

I went to a late Master’s workout on Saturday that didn’t start until 8:30 I swam 2350 yards in an hour which included kicking and drills and slack time. It was fine.

T1 took about an hour because, you know, T1 isn’t my strong suit. I took a full shower, washed my hair, drove home, talked to my daughter, filled water bottles I had forgotten to fill, talked to my daughter some more, petted the dog and apologized for not taking her for a walk, loaded up my stuff and headed out.

I ate 3 Cliff Shot Blox on the bike (Cran-Razz), drank water, pedaled…blah, blah,blah. My bike computer is totally broken for speed so I only had cadence on the bike computer and I just didn’t use my Garmin to check my speed. Every time I felt compelled to go race pace I held back – this was not a race, this was a test drive. My time was only slightly faster than Wildflower which was a bit of a bummer but we’ll call that an improvement because at Wildflower I was racing so it appears that not racing is now faster than racing so that’s good.

About 20 miles in to the ride I felt the salt on my face so I took a Thermotab. I ate a couple of Cliff Blox. I got home and T2 was much quicker – maybe 5 minutes. Part of that time was spent getting ice and putting it in my bra because by now it was HOT! (this was 12:30)

I started running. It was hot – so hot. I had a water bottle but had forgotten to bring Thermotabs. No biggie – I had a Nuun with me so I put that in the water bottle and amused myself with the way it spurted out of the rubber nipple every couple of minutes.

3/4 of a mile into this run I found some shade and stopped dead in my tracks. It was hot – so hot. I gathered up my courage and ran some more. 1 and a 1/2 miles into the run I decided that this whole thing was just stupid. There would be no aid stations every mile or 2 with cold water and ice. Forget it! I ran a 1/2 mary last weekend and I’m doing a race next weekend and I’m officially leaving racing every weekend to less sane but better trained people like Kona Shelly and IronmomJenny (who are both sane but crazy about triathlon).I called my daughter and told her where to pick me up. My run was just under 2 miles.

When she picked me up I looked at the thermometer in her car that measures the temp on the road – 110. When we got home I looked at the back yard thermometer which is in the shade – 96.

I felt vindicated. I also felt great. I didn’t even take a nap today. MIssion accomplished.

ps- Thermotabs cost $6.19/100 tabs – significantly less than all those ‘sexed up for a triathlon’ products on the market.

Mine is full of remote control devices because I need to spend time every day in my trainer because anyone who is anyone knows that in triathlon it’s all about the bike and I need to get my bike on, big time.

I have an “A” race coming up but before the “A” race is a “B” race that I almost chickened out of. The “B” race is an Olympic distance event – the Folsom International Triathlon. I can’t quite remember why I signed up but I think it’s because I felt a need to redeem my Wildflower performance. Never mind the lack of need for redemption – that’s how I feel about it and you can’t take that away from me so onward.

After I signed up, I looked at last years results for this race. I was immediately discouraged. In my age group the finishing times ranged from 2:33 to 3:20 – gulp. How was I, a person who had finished Wildflower in 4:38 going to keep from going DFL? I knew this was a flat, fast course but still – how could I knock over an hour off my time?

Then I did a Tri for Fun. I was happy with my performance but I got passed on the bike by so many people and I started to have grave, grave doubts about my ability to manage FIT and not DFL. In fact, I was totally demoralized and had visions of hitting the run with nary a soul around and coping with a pile of self loathing on top of the heat. I went so far as to send an email asking if I could just withdraw since my fee hadn’t gone through yet. They offered a race voucher for a fee of $20 and I decided to think about it. When thinking failed me I turned to the numbers. I found a triathlon pace calculator and using the numbers from the tri for fun plus some liberal padding (since it will be hot and will be longer) I came up with this:

Shablam! That is doable – very doable. If I could keep the transition times down to a total of 5 minutes then I can come in between 3:20 and 3:30 which might be last in my age group but not last of all. So I took it a step further and I did this:

Which gets me in under 3:20 and in under 3:20 = not DFL in my age group. And that makes me happy enough and confident enough that I decided not to withdraw and to just go for it.

This weekend I am going to do an Oly distance brick to see if I can manage that distance in the heat without getting totally nauseated. I’m going to test drive using Endurolytes or… (insert favorite product name here – if you have a fave please comment) Masters (swimming) isn’t until 8:30 on Saturday which means it will be good and hot by the time I get off the bike and head for the run – just what I need. I will then spend the rest of the week doing a couple of light workouts to keep my muscles loose and then it’s show time on August 12.

Guess I’ll have to replace the remote controls with some Cliff Blocks.

Mine is full of remote control devices because I need to spend time every day in my trainer because anyone who is anyone knows that in triathlon it’s all about the bike and I need to get my bike on, big time.

I have an “A” race coming up but before the “A” race is a “B” race that I almost chickened out of. The “B” race is an Olympic distance event – the Folsom International Triathlon. I can’t quite remember why I signed up but I think it’s because I felt a need to redeem my Wildflower performance. Never mind the lack of need for redemption – that’s how I feel about it and you can’t take that away from me so onward.

After I signed up, I looked at last years results for this race. I was immediately discouraged. In my age group the finishing times ranged from 2:33 to 3:20 – gulp. How was I, a person who had finished Wildflower in 4:38 going to keep from going DFL? I knew this was a flat, fast course but still – how could I knock over an hour off my time?

Then I did a Tri for Fun. I was happy with my performance but I got passed on the bike by so many people and I started to have grave, grave doubts about my ability to manage FIT and not DFL. In fact, I was totally demoralized and had visions of hitting the run with nary a soul around and coping with a pile of self loathing on top of the heat. I went so far as to send an email asking if I could just withdraw since my fee hadn’t gone through yet. They offered a race voucher for a fee of $20 and I decided to think about it. When thinking failed me I turned to the numbers. I found a triathlon pace calculator and using the numbers from the tri for fun plus some liberal padding (since it will be hot and will be longer) I came up with this:

Shablam! That is doable – very doable. If I could keep the transition times down to a total of 5 minutes then I can come in between 3:20 and 3:30 which might be last in my age group but not last of all. So I took it a step further and I did this:

Which gets me in under 3:20 and in under 3:20 = not DFL in my age group. And that makes me happy enough and confident enough that I decided not to withdraw and to just go for it.

This weekend I am going to do an Oly distance brick to see if I can manage that distance in the heat without getting totally nauseated. I’m going to test drive using Endurolytes or… (insert favorite product name here – if you have a fave please comment) Masters (swimming) isn’t until 8:30 on Saturday which means it will be good and hot by the time I get off the bike and head for the run – just what I need. I will then spend the rest of the week doing a couple of light workouts to keep my muscles loose and then it’s show time on August 12.

Guess I’ll have to replace the remote controls with some Cliff Blocks.