Ironman Training Block 3: Remember the Name

 And here we are again, at the end of another training block.  For those of you keeping track at home (please tell me you aren't, it's ridiculous enough how much I navel gaze) we are at the end of block three - or - halfway through this journey of Ironman Iowa (also known as IMBDSM, also known as IMCORN).  This training block has been pretty interesting, to say the least.  Well, if this sort of thing holds your attention.  If not, I'll ham it up with my usual ridiculous banter.  Either way, settle in for the ride! (pun intended)

Physical

Coming into Block 3, I was admittedly a little apprehensive.  Block 2 sucked.  Horribly.  As a one off, I would let it go, but if it held any pattern, I was going to need to rethink a few things about my goals and dedication to this Ironman.  

As someone wise (not me) once said, "If you don't like your circumstances, you can either change them, or your reaction to them" and that's how I treated this block.  Some I couldn't change, like family stuff, and some I really could - like my job (no, I didn't leave my job, but I'm certainly changing the way things operate within it), my social circle (focusing on those that challenge and bring out my best self, and not needlessly drain me), the way I approached training (positive and goal based and...a process...rather than pure failure or success with minutiae) and the company I kept while training (non dramatic, supportive friends).  

Small order, right?  Right.  I was down for this.  Since we focus on those last two for a review of a block, I'll just say that with regard to the first couple (family, work) that although there were a few challenges in the first 3 weeks of the block (the actual build) I did a pretty decent job of compartmentalizing outside stressors and not bringing them into my training. However, with regard to the last two - the positive, global approach to training and the company - this block completely kicked ass.

We can focus on the goal based training for the physical recap - I reminded myself that the goal of Ironman is consistent, steady pace.  And that speedwork on the bike and run were important, but the building blocks were a steady, sustainable pace. This worked out pretty well - while my speed still needs some work in block 4, I'm improving at Vo2 max portion of the bike with my new FTP, which is encouraging, as the bike is my biggest "growth" area.  I admittedly slacked on running speed work this block - for week one, I tabled it for a Bay run (which one could argue was a tempo 16 miler, with seven miles at a sub 8 pace) and for week three, tabled it for my five mile race (which did NOT work - see race report). Live and learn, right? Either way, we have some goals for block 4, which include sticking to a speed work plan - its a weakness, and while it shouldn't impact my Ironman much, it will serve to help the portions of the course where I need to put more effort out (hills) and also help me out for a few shorter races I plan to do pre Ironman as a dry run.  

I will say that this block was a real success for the tempo work and the long sustained work.  I got up to a 4 hour 15 minute ride, and a 16 mile run.  Success.  This does well for the overall "time in the saddle and on my feet" goal - I'm really pleased with my bike so far, and one outdoor ride in the glorious sunshine of a fools spring gave me even more confidence!  While it was windy and a bit cold, my fit seems to be on, I felt super comfortable in the saddle, and if not for parenting duties and the fact that I couldn't...feel my feet, I would have stayed out for hours.  Can't wait for more outdoor riding weather!

The tempo and long stuff for the run was also a huge success, which I'll attribute to a few things - first, a little bit of flexibility on my runs - looking at the mileage and working with the weather and my schedule to get them accomplished, and second, the company I kept. Which leads us to the mental portion of our recap...

Mental

 As many of you know, I love training solo - I did it for fifteen years - but the addition of buddy runs and rides started in 2019 really have upped my game, both in terms of mixing friendship and sport, as well as athletic gains.  This block was FULL of reminders of why I love this sport - I did three long runs with friends - one bay run with my throwback crew (there is nothing like swapping tri-romance drama at 7:30am with a bunch of dudes I've known for fifteen years), one city run with a new tri buddy, Hugo, and one step back run with Blair, a freakin fastie that kept me entertained and going way faster than I should have (famous last words!).  I did some easy runs with Gary, Matt, and Laura, and have a new crew to do long runs with in block 4 that feature sub 3 hour marathoners, curse words, dumpster fire jokes, and beer.  Life is good.  This not only upped my physical game, but also made the training enjoyable - when you spend 15 hours a week training and have a full time job, family and kids - there often isn't as much time as you would like for friendships.  The no filter, long run, sweaty, I'm gonna tell you everything about my life runs are the BEST.  And they were well worth the tweaking to my "plan" and made the block a real success around tempo and long runs.  

I also took the block to focus on the workout at hand, rather than using it as an escape - which was huge.  Usually I channel anger and frustration at workouts, which works sometimes, but also can lead to doing the easy stuff much too fast and burnout on the fast stuff.  Luckily, I got thrown no "sad life" curveballs until the last day of my build - I don't train well when I'm sad, and that left my recovery week for sad training, which is perfect (um, solely for training perspective).  My slow runs rocked out for most of recovery while I jammed out to sad songs - while this is tongue in cheek for life, in a vacuum for training, I nailed recovery, so there's that - we are POSTIVE focused, people!

Emotional

Guys, I'm ready to rock this Ironman.  I feel absolutely spectacular about my whole block and recovered well - and am READY to go.  This upcoming block we will focus on a few things - speedwork, Vo2 max work, and lengthening the run and ride (hopefully outside!)  I'm continuing to monitor my boyfriend Lionel Sanders via Facebook and YouTube (I even earned a stalker top fan badge on Facebook!) and subscribe fully to his 30-40 rule - that the training is not just one or two good workouts, but the ability to string 30-40 consistent workouts together.

I'm monitoring and studying the course.  Bike is up on Rouvy and we will ride it.  I'm connecting with friends that share my passion and dreams and talking to them - whether its fan girling picking the brain of my new superhuman former pro friend about his training, running with my IMCORN buddy, or talking bike components with the husband - its all about the dream.  This block is about what's important right now - the key life stuff, like family and friends - and- Ironman.  I can feel it.  I can taste it.  June 12- eyes on the prize.  

One of my new jam songs that I randomly found while listening to Youtube is called Remember the Name.  Is my new go to "Let's get it done" song, and I'm loving the lyrics of the chorus (it's an excellent run song- check it out!)

This is ten percent luck
Twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure
Fifty percent pain

and A HUNDRED percent reason to Remember the Name.

The name - IRONMAN.  Let's get it DONE!

Running of the Green 2022: Dumpster Fire

And 2022 Race season has officially commenced!  Although the title of this post might indicate a sob story, let me reassure you, you won't need tissues.  Maybe something to stifle a laugh or eye roll but hey, that's about standard for this gig - you know how we roll here. On to story time.

Johnny's Not Johnny's Running of the Green 5 miler is the official kick off  party race of the Rochester race season - the last big party we had was in 2019, which is where my year of awesome began.  We don't talk about 2020, where we subbed in our own version dubbed "Dirty Leprechaun" or....2021 where we just drank and didn't even run.

2022 brought it back.  REAL LIVE RACING BABY!  This event is just awesome for so many reasons.  All the people are there.  There's green donuts and beer.  And after two years of COVID, a thousand of us were ready to rock and roll with the return to racing!

I have quite a history with this race.  I've done it at least a dozen times since I started running in 2005, and the last time I raced in real life, I almost cracked a 7 minute mile with a finish is just over 35 minutes and ended up in the front pack of women.  I had ambition to break 35 this year - or bust, baby!

I forgot one small thing.....in order to race fast, you have to train fast.  Whoops.  In 2019 I was almost solely run trained with at least one tempo and one speed session in the midst of fifty plus mile weeks.  This year....well, I've done two speed sessions in the last five weeks, and out of my fifteen hour trainng weeks, about five hours of them are running, with roughly 30-35 miles run per week.  What could possibly go wrong?

Oh right. I was also at the tail end of a build block, so I was coming off of three straight fifteen-sixteen
hour training weeks.  I took zero time off pre race, and while I didn't run the day before, I swam hard and rode.  The plan to break 35 was solid.  No problemo.  I see no barriers. We'll get back to the less cool part of this post - the actual race.  The part I want to focus on is the party!  Pre race I did all the things one should do (note the pink *sarcasm* font)- I drank coffee, ignored food, gave out hugs, hung out, and took pictures.  I was undecided if I wanted to rep Roadkill, RATs, or Reapers, so I wore all the singlets, layered.  I laughed.  I caught up with friends.  I ignored going to the bathroom.  I *did* manage a quick warm up - quick being the operative word, as I found a few friends out for a warm up and tagged on, running way too fast for my own good - Marcus, Dave Bradshaw and Matt Blodgett kindly indulged me as I made sad jokes about how I managed to keep pace with them for a mile (this was an 8:00/mile, people.  I know when I'm out of my league.  Happily, I have no shame).

Pre race I gave Greg a smooch and wished him luck (he, unlike me, rocked this race)  and ran into Barry, the lead biker and friend, who gave me a beer back in 2019 and after a sip I managed a PR.  Since this was as sound a strategy as any you've read so far in this post, I gave him a hug and joked about my beer.  He opened up his bike pouch without a second wasted and handed me a cold one.  Without hesitation, I shot gunned it and headed out to git r done.  (Please note that this race report could also just as easily be titled "What not to do in order to PR".  But we already had a pretty cool title rockin', so just keep in mind that's my working subtitle .  There's more). 

Aside from that sub 35 ambition, which I knew deep down was a silly goal, my backup goal was to find someone zoomies and just hang on as long as I could.  I had a great selection - my speedy friends Jeff, Blair, Laura and Sean were all signed up and right next to me when we started out the race (psst....they all ran 6:30-6:45 pace....spoiler alert....I did not).  I set a loose "B goal" of 36:00, which would be roughly a 7:10 pace, which seemed more reasonable.  Jeff's goal was a sub 35, same as Sean's, so I lined up with them toward the front third and before I knew it, we were off!

Right off the bat, I knew my shoe choice was dumb - I opted for my zoom shoes, which are Saucony

endorphins.  Since I've been wearing them for 5 months, they don't have much zoom foam left, or I forgot to charge the batteries on the engine feature (that's a bad joke), but they felt kind of gross and also don't handle bad weather well - it was snowy and slushy out (and windy, but more on that later) and I slipped right out of the gate.  I didn't bite it, but I carefully did the navigating clear road/dodging/weaving run around for the first half mile a little slower than I wanted, and by the time I had clear road, I had lost all my rabbits.  Dammit.  Either way, mile 1 was rather uneventful, over the bridge and clocked in at 6:54.  

The pace I was holding post first mile immediately felt crappy and I slowed somewhat, taking it down a notch.  Mile 2 wasn't too bad, but I knew I had taken it out too hot and clocked mile 2 in 7:10.  At this point the cross winds were pretty decent, but seeing the leaders come back through (its an out and back) was pretty cool, and took my mind off the fact that I was pacing beyond my five mile reach.  I took a quick break uphill to catch my breath halfway, and thus began the ridiculous descent of my race - cutely dubbed the dumpster fire for a reason.  Check out this speed profile:

I probably could just end the post here, but that wouldn't be any fun.  See the nice (albeit slowing) blue line of progression that's solid until about 17 minutes in?  Yep.  That's me running.  Those little dips?  That's me walking.  We don't like that in a race, especially a five miler (to my personal standards).  See the red line below?  That's my heart rate.  Its not going in the right direction either - we like that to be pretty constant.  It might rise a little bit the first ten minutes as you warm up, but the continued increase as I slowed my pace meant....I cooked myself.  Ego over brain, baby.  It's a thing and happens to the best of us.

Needless to say, the return trip back to the finish line was not as fun.  While I hit the first half to pace nicely for my 36 minute goal (just under 18 minutes) the pace was not sustainable, and I knew it. I grabbed a cup of water at the aid station from my friend Josh, who yelled encouraging things about looking fast (he's such a sweet liar), and began the painful journey back.

Mile 3 had little going for it, except I got to see all the fun people heading toward the turn around - some strong Roadkill racers, RATs, Greg looking awesome, and a bunch of RWB teammates (which I am slightly part of).  Everyone, despite the crap weather, was having a blast and it was so great to see.  This high lasted me until about mile 3.5, when I said screw it and walked again.  (Mile 3 = 7:26) Again, this was the dumpster fire ensuing.  I must have totally looked like real shit at this point because a passing runner slowed to see if I was ok, which I lied cheerfully about and begrudgingly started running again.  Mile 4 - 7:35.

I looked at my watch as I (walked) up the Ford St bridge and saw a sub 37 in my future if I got my head out of my you know where (I was also running tangents like shit and about .1 off the course mile markers).  Fine.  Screw it.  Lets end this. I picked it up to a respectable pace and ran it in, with the last quarter mile a little showy for my Wolfpack fam and cheery speedsters at Roadkill (Something about putting on a good face?) and zoomed it in for a 36:52, and 7:13 overall pace, oddly, not too far off my B goal pace.

Post race, I grabbed a water and hung around chatting Ironman with the Dave's (Bradshaw and Hansen), discussing Kona dreams (theirs, not mine) and waited for Greg to finish, which he did in a kick ass time of 41 minutes (nearly a PR!).  We headed inside for green donuts and more socializing, which really, with perfect hindsight, might have been smarter for me to skip the 36 minutes of pain and just stuck with what I came to do anyways.  But do I ever learn?  Nah.

I shook out 8th in my AG out of 91, and 30th overall woman out of 535.  Not quite 2019 standards, but for my crap timing, pacing, and attitude, I'll take it.  The socializing aspect was top notch so we will call one out of two not bad, and roll with it.

Aside from the jokes, was I a little bummed about this race?  Sure.  But once I stepped back and looked at my training so far for the year, I was in no shape to run as fast as I wanted to - so it was more about unrealistic goals.  I laid down some amazing times last fall in the 5k and half marathon- because I did the speed work.  That's not the focus right now, and I'm ok with it.  Evidence to support my theory included a really strong temp ride Saturday evening and kick ass fifteen mile run the day after the race.  Clearly, I don't have a fast engine right now.  And to cover 140.6 I don't need raw speed - I need consistent effort over several hours on the course.

And now that we are nearing the end of block 3 of training, I know you're all dying to know how that went.  Well, stay tuned, folks.  There's always more to chat about.

And about dumpster fires?  Well, among all the friends I saw at the race, I managed to land myself smack in the middle of a new group of runny friends, complete with two sub 3 hour marathoners that want to take me on some long runs.  The smack talk is already great, complete with dumpster fire gifs and completely inappropriate jokes.  I can't figure out what they want with me, but I'm gonna roll with it - and according to Dave, the lead smack talker, "All good race seasons begin with a dumpster fire".

I don't know about that, but I'll roll with it.  So, with that note, bring it 2022 race season.  Up next - Fly by Night Duathlon on May 14!