Tag: triathlon training

Beer, Training

Negativity,*!@#!$ Tendinitis and the Trillium Beer Garden.

Kalyn

I like to think of myself as a generally positive person. Not the… in-your-face, everything-happens-for-a-reason type of positive. More the pragmatic… “sh*t happens but it will all work out” type of positive. You know what I’m talking about, right?

So when my Achilles Tendinitis flared up 3-4 weeks ago for the first time in years, I was okay with taking it in stride. As my Coach reminded me, now is the time to rest and heal; focus on my swim; take a needed break from running, etc. I’ve been a good little athlete: avoided running; prioritized stretching and strengthening; convinced my husband to torture me with an achilles “sports massage” almost nightly.

Because of all of this, I was really ready for my test run today (20 minutes, super easy) to go well. But it didn’t. It still hurt… so much that I had to cut it 2 miles in.

Pragmatic, positive Kalyn reminded myself that it’s only been three weeks; that it’s cold  and my achilles is going to be extra stiff in this weather; that injuries (this one in particular) take time to heal and Ironman Lake Placid is still 8 months away.

But then Negative Nancy (that bitch) swept in: “How am I going to ever get to marathon level run-volume if I can’t even run 2 miles?” “Swimming and biking alone is no way to work off these holiday cocktails and cookies.”  “I’m getting so out of shape.” Wah. wah. wah.

Basically Nancy won. She took over my mind like whoa and I spent the rest of the afternoon sulking through social media, being a brat to my husband, contemplating quitting triathlon all together (such a drama queen). When the hubs said he was going to the gym, I begrudgingly agreed to go with him….I literally rolled my eyes pulling on my bathing suit on and grimaced as I got into the pool.

fullsizeoutput_c50
GoPro birthday present FTW.

But something changed as I started to go through my swim drills. I actually felt really good in the water and couldn’t believe how quickly and easily I was reaching the wall. I checked my Garmin to confirm: yes, this was a good pace!

HOLD UP! Maybe I wasn’t so out of shape! Maybe this whole “focusing on swim technique for the winter” thing was actually working!

I met my husband in the lobby feeling significantly more perked up.

“Should we grab a beer at Trillium?”

Um… yup. With good beer, the answer is always yes. 

So we did. For those not familiar (i.e. non-craft beer peeps): Trillium makes some of best beer. No joke: their double IPAs are ridiculous. Awesomely enough, they just opened a seasonal, beer garden at the old Substation in downtown Roslindale… just a few blocks from our house.

The Garden was filled with fellow yuppies, buzzed off 8.5% beers and holiday cheer: Exactly our kind of scene. 😉

Trillium Garden
Dialed In & Farnsworth St

I had the Dialed In DIPA…So freaking crisp and juicy that I had to get a second. And somewhere on the way to my own beer buzz, I decided I’d stick with triathlon a little while longer.

The moral of the story is that injury still sucks but there’s nothing that a decent swim and even better beer can’t make better.  So I guess I’ll continue to practice patience and positivity to ring in the New Year!

Happy Holidays All!

Cheers,

K

Training

Rest and a run to take me out of my funk

Kalyn

Like so many others after the New Year, I started 2017 with a crazy amount of motivation to train. I had signed up for my first half Iron and started working with a coach for training for the first time.

I trained every day, rarely missing a workout. My “tempo” run pace quickly dropped from around 8:30 min/mile to 7:30 min/mile. I bought a new Trek Speed Concept (not a bad whip for a bad a newbie) and a power meter and watched my watts increase. My first race of the year (despite racing like a complete idiot) I took 3rd overall for women and won my age group at the HITS Hudson Valley Olympic.

That was July.

Then life happened.

Luckily most were good life-things but still life-things that needed to be prioritized, often times over training. (1) I was promoted at work, (2) we adopted a puppy (she’s the best), (3) my only sister got married, etc.

 

Some were bad life-things. I had two bad bike crashes in one month, the second ending with a broken hand just two weeks out from the 70.3 I’d been training for all year.

All that is to say that somewhere along the line, I forgot that I do this shit for fun. Training became a stressor instead of stress reliever: another obligatory responsibility that I’d grown to resent.

So, after my last race I took about 6 weeks off from “training”. I worked out when I felt like it, and I didn’t beat myself up when I didn’t. I gained a few pounds and didn’t sweat it. I mostly just focused on letting myself heal.

This week I started back up again. With a new coach from QT2, who I love, my training theme for the next few months is durability. I’m keeping my training effort very aerobic to work explicitly on building endurance (as a former college sprinter, my slow-twitch fibers are the ones that need the most work).

All of this is to say that I am doing a lot workouts at lower effort.  Lots of Zone 1 runs and rides, lots of swims where I’m not caring about the pace at all and just focusing on technique.

And you know what? It’s been awesome. This weekend I went out for a 90 minute easy trail run and genuinely enjoyed every minute of it. Loving that run took me out of my funk. I’m not sure I can remember the last time I found myself smiling during a “work out”. I’m pumped to do speed work again. Waking up at 5:45 to get on the trainer isn’t my favorite but I’m doing it and do not feel like I’m acquiring massive sleep debt along the way.

Ironman Lake Placid is 9 months away. My prep race for it is Ironman 70.3 Raleigh in June. I have plenty of time to stress about training as race day grows nearer… but it’s too early in the journey to sweat the small stuff. For now, I’m just pumped to be excited to train again.

A bunch of girlfriends out on the trails
Me and Evie

P.S. Easier pace runs means more runs with Evie – so she is very happy too. 🙂

Race Reports

Recap: Sea Gull Century and My First 100 Miler

Kalyn

Some rides are not meant to be raced. Your first 100 miler is probably one of them. At least that was my takeaway from this weekend. I rode the Sea Gull Century ride in Salisbury, Maryland and had the most fun checking off my first 100 miler on the bike.

Going into the ride, I was in decent cycling shape coming off training for a 70.3 in September. Still, making the jump from 60 mile long-rides to the full century was intimidating, even on a flat course. I had never fueled for a ride that long and it was more hours than I’d ever put in the saddle. In my over-anxious mind… there was much to go wrong!

Common Roots Family
The family – most of us rocking our Common Roots Brewing Company jerseys.

Turns out, I need not have worried. The day was perfect. I rode with my entire family and, despite coming into the ride with different levels of fitness, the group of us decided to stick together and ride socially. We built our own pace line and slowed down anytime someone came close to falling off. In addition to spending a lovely day together as a family, this was also great pacing mechanism, forcing me to quell my [overly] competitive nature, focus on fueling and hydrating correctly, and truly just enjoy the day.

As an event, the Sea Gull Century is a perfect course to ride for pure fun. Over 5,000 cyclists turn out for this fundraiser for Salisbury University. It is well-organized and supported by volunteers and draws cyclist from all different abilities. In addition to the 100 mile course, there is also 62 mile “metric century”. There are rest stations every ~20-25 miles (even one that serves beer 10 miles before the finish), the terrain is incredibly flat, and the 99% of the roads are in perfect conditions.

We only stopped at two out of the five rest stations but did spend a solid 20-25 minutes at each one, using the restrooms, fueling up, filling our water bottles and stretching a bit. I did find that starting up again after stopping was one of the toughest parts of the day so will keep that mind in the future… and maybe be a little quicker at the rest stops.

Other than that, I’m going to be arrogant and give myself an “A for execution” on my first Century. Here are some things that went well:

  • Pacing – riding several mph slower than I would have normally allowed me to finish the ride with some gas in the tank… i.e. great practice for Ironman when I’ll be starting a marathon (versus cracking a beer) off the bike. My legs felt fantastic (almost fresh even!) on my 5-mile recovery run the next day, which gave me some confidence about my fitness base going into the “off season”.
  • Fueling and Hydration – I ate some sort of solid carb every 20 miles or so (I like having something solid in my stomach) and kept my water bottles filled at the rest stations. I ran out of Infinit powder but filled up one bottle of water and the other with Gatorade and that seemed to work okay. The shots of pickle juice at mile 65 on Assateague Island were a game changer… I felt awesome afterwards.
    • Note: Had it been a hotter day, my casual approach to fueling may not have worked so well (I have a pretty high sweat rate). Planning to get more precise and dial in nutrition in prepping for IMLP.
  • Equipment – I hadn’t spent much time on my road bike since starting triathlon race season so decided to give it some love with a proper tune up before the race. Shout out to Mystic Cycle Centre – my old roadie rode great! My one blunder was forgetting to transfer my tube repair kit from my tri bike to my road bike, meaning I nothing to change a flat with. Luckily, we had just one flat in our group (and it wasn’t me), so we were covered in terms of tubes and CO2… still not a great move.

    Citra Session Common Roots Beer
    After being carried 100 miles, this tasted delicious.
  • Fun – I had fun from start to finish of this ride – took in the scenery, caught up with the family, and visualized cracking open the 16 oz can of Citra Session Pale Ale we each carried in our jersey pocket the full 100 miles. Slightly warm and shook up… It was as delicious as I imagined it being.

Summary: The Seagull Century was a fantastic experience. We will be back again next year to do it all again.

With my first 100 miler under my belt, signing up for the next one won’t be so intimidating. Any good race (or ride) suggestions? Currently accepting recommendations for my next century!

Cheers,
Kalyn

 

Me and Mom celebrating the way we do after the ride.