Real Bugs Drink Porter

Another sort of random post tonight...

~First of, holy cow I'm so proud of Armando! His swims still leaves a little something to be desired* so a no-wetsuit swim doesn't suit him as well, BUT he kept his head on straight and executed and even split the bike (4:58) then ran a 3:34 and missed beating that 10 hour mark by 5 SECONDS!?! It was a 17' PR which is super... but keep your fingers and toes crossed for a roll down b/c he was 11th and last year there were 9 Kona spots in his age group... 10:20 qualified last year in his age group so clearly those guys all raised the bar this year... looking at Ironman races across the board clearly the bar is being raised across the board so getting a Kona spot is no easy task these days. Crazy to think that 10 hours flat wouldn't qualify you...

~While I was out spinning this morning I had some thoughts about handling ourselves during race week... specifically about how to keep our heads on straight so when race day arrives we're confident... I say "we" but for this I'll just talk about me and what I did this week... I remember reading one time about how Simon Whitfield's coach would not let him see any of his data (pace, power, etc) when it got close to race time. That didn't make much sense to me at the time but I think this week I got it... I had a couple of key workouts that I wanted to nail but at the same time I didn't want to leave my race out there on the training day... so how to balance working as you need to in training without digging too hard and ending up flat on race day? You know what I did? I left my garmin at home. On Thursday I did ride with power b/c I had some numbers I wanted to hit but afterward I went running and made a choice to leave my garmin at home and do the run by feel instead of pace. Part of that was b/c I figured if I was running well I might just end up really blasting and digging super hard to see lower numbers than I even needed to (I know myself well enough now to know that I have no self control if it appears I'm running faster than I should be I don't just let that go... no, I milk it for all it's worth and end up full on racing myself in the workout and digging a little hole to crawl into for a few days.) But then it could actually go the other way where you're not running as fast as you feel like you should and then the race is in 3 days and OMG what if all that training was for naught and now the race is going to suck. See what happened there? Data we perceive as bad will mess with our heads and reduce our confidence level so no need to do that to yourself  prior to race day. Best bet is to just give yourself enough information to allow yourself to feel confident without giving it too much info that could sway you too far up or down the scale. So today I used HR on the bike but not power... I just wanted to see that my HR was acting in a responsive way (and it was)... I didn't want to see power b/c if the numbers were good (and they would have been) I could totally see myself jamming through some crazy set trying to hit that elusive CP6' I've been missing every time I try... I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that when it gets close to race time and you're feeling peppy and ready to rumble, I've found that I can save myself from myself by taking away any pieces of electronic equipment that might give me data that might screw with my head. Instead, I trust that I'm doing the right work at the right intensity b/c it feels right and then when the gun goes off on race day you just go unleash all that you've had bottled up this week.

~And if my race totally sucks tomorrow then disregard all that crap I just wrote and go back to doing it your old way. ;)

~Moana is stoked to come watch me race tomorrow. She helped me put my temporary tattoo numbers on this afternoon (she's a pro at those!) and she put the sticker on my helmet and my bike and put all the stuff I wanted in a crate for my car... good little helper! Having her at races gets more and more fun every year. She's planning on brining her pom pom and her cowbell down to the race so if you're there, you probably won't be able to miss her.

~Ok my wave goes off at 5:45AM tomorrow so Ambien is taking me away at the moment... But before I go... check this out. Real bugs drink Porter. (Hawaii grows real bugs.)

*Don't worry I'm on it.

Race Week Randomness...

~How funny is this?!? I love my athletes! This one is in Texas right now gearing up for Ironman on Saturday... He sent me this pic on FB and I've been laughing ever since!

~It's mango season! There's a giant mango tree right outside our door and it spits out a mango every 90" or so... which would be cool, except that most of them that fall are over-ripe... and then they hit the ground and get smashed so they're not edible. Unfortunately the tree is gigantic and really too tall for us to try to pick any. Such a waste because at the grocery store they're like $2 each. I don't understand that. I need to go in search of a shorter tree because that is ridiculous.

~Our weather here the last week or so has been phenomenal. Like seriously just incredibly awesome and perfect. Blue sky and light breeze and like 80ish degrees... I look around lately and feel like I live in a postcard. In all honesty I think this is the type of weather people think we live in all the time... and it's the weather we pay for so all of us here expect to live in it all the time... but the reality is that it storms a lot here and much of the time the wind is out of control (and its not as warm as you think!) So I'm trying not to take this awesomeness for granted right now! I will admit that I wore my fleece this afternoon though. True story. The sun went behind a cloud for a bit and I got a chill. #spoiled

~I took Moana to the pool yesterday afternoon... the big one where we train in the mornings is open for play time swimming in the afternoons and I know I should take her there more often. The truth is I don't because I'm such a wimp and it rarely feels warm enough for me to just hang in the water without actually swimming! I know. Get over it, right? Moana had a BLAST yesterday though... jumping in the water and going under (she was so proud of herself) and starting to float on her back. She's old enough to learn how to swim now I know and you all will be shocked to hear that she is not yet swimming... totally my fault and I'm blaming the cold wind we usually have for that but I am committed to turning that around this summer. We had to get out at 5:00 b/c the swim team was getting in and Moana said, "I want to be on the swim team!" Ok melt my heart! She actually can't be on it until she's 5 but the sentiment was music to my ears.

~Just a couple more days until I get to race! This weekend is just sort of a tune-up for Honu which is 2 weeks later. I'm trying to drop a couple pounds to get down to that elusive race weight people talk about... Everyone looks so skinny right now. It's challenging because I love food and really enjoy eating and feel this need to fix it when I feel hunger pangs. I'm not filled up after eating two bites of food so this cutting back is a bit of a challenge for me... and I still like to train a lot and I'm not a fan of bonking so the balance is tough. I'm not trying to get all uber-skinny or anything (I'm not even sure I could or that it is best) but I've weighed a few pounds less in the past and no one was ready to commit me to a psychiatric ward so I think it won't hurt me. Goal is 128lbs and I'm only 3 lbs away at the moment so it may or may not be possible. We'll see. I'm conscious of it at this point anyway which is a start. I'm not cutting out any major food groups or any particular foods (other than straight up sugar which I don't eat much of anyway)... just trying to give myself a new 'normal' on what an acceptable portion size is for a meal. I'm starting by eating off of smaller plates. :)

~Tomorrow is my four year anniversary with Scott! (It's only been 4 years? I swear I don't remember ever living without him or Moana...) So of course we are going out to an awesome fancy dinner with wine and all that to celebrate... I guess the race weight goal will have to start on Friday. :)

A Different Runner

Sundays are fun... email and text race results/reports coming in from all over and then I check FB and see all the pictures from races across the country. Looks like such a blast! Makes me super stoked to start racing. I get to race 2 out of the next 3 weeks so my turn is coming! :) And the timing is spot on... something about the sun coming up earlier and going down later and the weather is getting warmer and it just feels like race time. I love this time of year.

It's funny... I've had some killer training days lately and I think about posting all the details here and then change my mind and think it's really nobody's business... and besides does anyone really even care? And then think I should just keep it to myself and wait to let it all out on race day... But this weekend was just too good and I can't keep it in. How funny is that?? So here you go... :)

My plan for today was to go out and try to PR my Gardens run... It's a beautiful (very hilly) route that I'm sure I've posted about before... I remember when this run used to take me ~1:45 (like 7 years ago) because I couldn't actually run up all the hills... then finally I got strong enough to run the whole thing without walking and that was a huge step forward... then I remember being stoked that it was only taking me ~90' to run... then in the past couple years I was consistently doing it in 1:27-1:28. Once last year I had the green light to really get after it and was stoked to get <1:25! Yeehaw! So this year I've tried a couple times to TT it. On New Years Day I went out to set a benchmark for myself for 2012 and came in at 1:23. That seemed like an awesome start for the year! The second time I tried for a fast one I crushed my old PRs at every time check and came in at 1:21:07. I was so stoked about that one.

So all week I've been gearing up for cracking 1:20 on this course today... A couple days of rest and some easier workouts earlier in the week gave me some breakthrough workouts across the board s/b/r in the last few days so I was feeling fairly confident that I'd have a good run today... of course I biked 94 miles yesterday including 3 x 30' sections in the second half of that ride where I was just drilling it at over 70.3 race pace power. That didn't hurt me too badly though b/c I was able to run 4 miles off the bike at 70.3 goal race pace and it didn't feel that hard. But today I thought my best bet to PR the Gardens run would be to spin it out for about an hour on the bike first (I always run better off the bike than I do just running) and then try to run. I think that was a good call b/c my legs felt pretty darn heavy for the first bit on the bike... but of course they came around after about an hour so I gave myself the green light to get after it on the run!

I started off feeling super and light and easy but not slow... I have intermittent time checks on this route that I know... for whatever reason I never wear a garmin on this route... somehow that would ruin it for me... this route stays more 'pure' in my mind when I just start my Timex and go for it without worrying about actual miles splits. Anyway, I got to the turn-around in <40' which is a first (42:11 was my previous best!) and knew I was on my way to sub 1:20 b/c I always negative split this run... and sure enough, negative split by nearly 2' and got home in 1:17:52. Excuse my language here but HOLY SHIT!!!! I was stoked. Huge PR 3+' on this route. I am just beside myself at the moment. :)))

You know, I have worked so hard so consistently year after year after year after year... and for the first time really I feel like my run is actually (finally!) coming around. You hear (or read) all the time that hard work eventually pays off and I have lived by that for so long and even when I wasn't seeing huge results I just kept after it and kept diligently consistently chipping away at it... and finally now I feel like I've had this breakthrough. I wrote in my TP notes today that I feel like I'm a different runner now. So anyway, we'll see if I can run like that in the next few weeks when it actually (sort of) matters at these races. I think I'll be able to. Stay tuned! :)

Reloading

So the magic formula for improving in triathlon goes something like this:

~Build yourself an awesome and deep base. This usually takes years so be patient.
~Train consistently (nearly) every day.
~Be smart about recovering between workouts by maximizing sleep, nutrition, compression, massage, etc.
~Pay attention to how your body is responding to the training you are doing (HR, paces, power, mood, appetite, sleep, etc).
~Work yourself until your body tells you it needs a break (see signs above). The deeper your base and therefore the more fit you are, the longer/harder you will be able to go before your body will start rebelling. Less fit athletes will require more frequent unloading.
~Unload when its time.
~Reload when your body gives you the green light (ie HR is normal and power/desire is there).

By the way, that whole unloading thing is the bomb! I'm reloading now.

15 Weeks til IM Canada.

Unloading

I like the term 'unloading'. Somehow it sounds better to me than 'resting' or 'recovering'... both of which maybe somehow imply weakness (only in my own head?)... Or maybe not weakness but you know, the things you have to 'recover' from are typically not good things... Recovering Alcoholic comes to mind... but 'unloading' somehow sounds smarter or more scientific or something?? For whatever that's worth.

So it's true that while I understand the concept of resting, I myself am not a huge fan of actually doing it. BUT, when I change up the semantics and think of what I'm doing as unloading, well, it all becomes perfectly acceptable. Because, you see, before you can unload, you have to have something to unload from... and I just spent the last several weeks loading up. My goal was to push myself right to the edge, but not over the edge, stay there and play for a little while, then back off a bit... So this is tricky of course because how do you know when you're at the edge?

Maybe it's different for you, but for me, here's how I know I'm nearing time to unload...

1. I just don't want to train. Our brains are super cool in that they are awesome indicators of when we're nearing the edge. I almost ALWAYS would rather be training... so when I start having thoughts like I don't want to do this... well, that's a sign that it's almost time to unload. I say almost because I think that part of the training process is to teach our brains that we are capable of doing more than they think we can... I think our brains give us fatigue signals pretty well in advance of when we're truly at the edge, so pushing through some of that is good and necessary if we want to push the edge out further for next time. I started feeling like I didn't want to train anymore on Friday... felt it again starting Saturday... interestingly pushed right through it both times and my brain got on board for Sunday and it didn't even try to get in my way. That sort of surprised me but I found it pretty cool. This morning though, there was absolutely nothing in me that wanted to go to the pool. So I didn't go. I'm unloading now. :)

2. My numbers are off. Could be trending slower and slower pace in the pool or on the run... and now I can also see when I just am not able to put out power on the bike which is really a clear objective sign that I've never had the opportunity to work around in the past. So say, for example, that I was headed out to do some threshold intervals on the bike... and I know what power I should be able to push because I've done it before... but I get out there and just can't even come close to hitting the numbers I was supposed to hit. Maybe it's a one off day and I don't worry about those too much but when you start to see trends going in the wrong direction, well, it's time to unload. When your pace in the pool slows over the course of a week and you don't want to train anymore and then you try to ride and your power numbers suck, well, these are the trends that add up to show us the big picture... It's like rocket science, isn't it? ;)

3. Low and sluggish heart rate. People think that heart rate training is always about easing up and going slower than you want to go... but it's not! Heart rate data is super valuable and paying attention and knowing what yours should be on a normal day is good stuff. So again I'll use the bike as an example: when I'm out riding and see my HR is 134, well, that's pretty low for me. Maybe not a problem if I'm going really easy but if I try to go hard and it only jumps up to 138, well, that's a sign. I can ride for extended periods of time with my HR at 180+ so if I'm out there and 140 feels hard and it won't jump past 148 even when I'm trying to sprint up a hill, that's about as reliable as the low power data I was talking about above in indicating you're at your current training limit and it's time to unload. When I'm fit and fresh, I can ride pretty strongly at HR140, but I also have the ability to pretty quickly jump up to HR 175+ should I want to. When I'm not fresh I cannot get my HR up that high no matter how hard I try.

So anyway, I had a great build and got myself right where I wanted and now I'm going to back off for a few days and let my body fix itself a bit. I've been through this process a couple times already this winter/spring and I'm actually pretty stoked about it because I know I have some *super* workouts coming my way after I ease up and unload for a few days. It only takes me maybe 3-4 days and then I'm on FIRE for another couple of weeks... or however long it takes me to LOAD UP again. ;)

On Giving In To The Demons... Or Not.

I got in the pool this morning and started warming up and the piano fell on my back after about 50M. Sweet. It was going to be one of those workouts... Which was a bummer b/c this was supposed to be a good hard one and I had been looking forward to it. Sort of.

I kept the w/u pretty mellow and then we got into the long main set and I was just off the back right away and thinking whatever. Just get through this one. Or maybe I should get out? Should I get out? No. Stay in and do it but just let it go that it's just going to be a shitty day.

As the meters dragged on my thoughts evolved. I didn't say any of this out loud but all this was going through my head this morning...

This sucks. I am just too tired. I should know that if I want to swim well on Friday morning I can't do a w/o like I did Thursday afternoon... and Wednesday... and Tuesday... So much fatigue. Ugh. Mark and Steve don't have this fatigue b/c all they do is swim. Losers. I should swim by myself more. Seriously, they have no idea what it feels like to actually be tired. I need to eat more. Ugh. Am I going to get my period soon? I bet I am and that's why I'm being so pissy. Oh that would suck. Honu is 4 weeks away and if I'm going to get it now then I'll be PMSing at Honu. That sucks. Seriously I have just not fueled enough this week. So.much.fatigue. Damn Mark is all peppy. Whatever. Should I start resting soon? Feeling like this sucks... I must be PMSing.

So there I was swimming off the back with all those negative thoughts in my head. I wasn't speaking to anyone at the wall except to say "5 seconds..." and then we'd just go again. It wasn't very much fun.

And then, 2600M into the swim, I told my bitchy self to SHUT UP and I started SWIMMING. Nalani and Mark noticed right away b/c I was actually swimming next to them instead of 1/2 a pool behind them... Nalani was like "Michelle is warmed up now!" But it wasn't about being warmed up. It was about getting over myself, shutting out the negative thoughts and doing WORK. I jammed through the rest of the main set (which was only like 1200M but still) and even started goading Mark on (which was way more fun than just being a bitch in my own head)!

I think the biggest take-away for me today was that it is indeed possible to turn around your shitty attitude mid-workout. I've known for quite some time that especially when it comes to swimming, whether or not I swim fast is completely dependent on whether or not I decide I'm going to swim fast. I know it's all in my head. But typically the way that works is I decide on my mind-set (consciously or unconsciously) prior to starting the swim and then it is what it is and the whole w/o goes that way. Today was the first time I've managed to turn it around in the midst of it. Valuable lesson to put in our pockets!

Just A Bunch Of Dribble

This is my favorite time of the day... mid- morning home from swim w/o sitting at my computer with a good cup of coffee... checking out FB and Twitter and thinking I should be writing schedules but then come up with an idea for a blog instead... By the way, good coffee is totally worth the extra couple of bucks. Grind it yourself and make it in a french press. Funny how that is something I truly look forward to.

So in reality I don't have a good idea for a blog post this morning I was just thinking that it's been a while since I've updated and for whatever reason I feel compelled to share what is going on in my world sometimes... this one will probably be all over the place so bear with me... or just close this tab and don't read it if you don't want to read a bunch of dribble coming off the top of my head. ;)

Holy cow there's a lot of racing going on this weekend! Lots of big races and little local ones too... not here in Hawaii but across the mainland (world actually). If I could pick one to be at it would be Wildflower... hands down... Man I would love to go do that race again. One of these years I will... when Moana is a bit older I can totally picture Scott and I taking her and camping out there all weekend... One of my athletes is racing there on Saturday so GOOD LUCK KELLY!

I've actually spent a good bit of time the last few days reading through and commenting on race plans for this weekend. I haven't write a ton about my coaching business on here but I just have to say... I am loving it more and more as the years go by. This year it seems I have a particularly awesome group of athletes (near and far) and we are meshing well even if some of us have never met. I was telling Scott the other day, I now have athletes in Hawaii (of course), California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, Illinois, and Kentucky! Most are experienced and focusing on Ironman but I do have a few newbies too and it has been fun to show them the ropes. One of these days I'll have to write a blog post about all the funny post-workout notes I read in Training Peaks... Guess I should ask permission before I make some of that stuff public but just last weekend I got a movie recommendation, read all about what several people ate for breakfast, heard a serious saddle sore woe, screaming toddlers, and even read a story involving a stuffed rooster. I cannot make this stuff up. Anyway, sometimes I have to pinch myself when I take a step back and see how awesome this life is that I have created for myself. I get to work from home in my pajamas drinking coffee... I don't worry about commuting or showering... and I train pretty much whenever I want. I do work a lot of off hours and am pretty much a slave to email and Training Peaks even on nights and weekends... so I guess that's sort of the downside of the job (there's really no vacation at all b/c pretty much 100% of the time I have schedules to write and emails to respond to) but thinking about an alternative career that would involve getting dressed and putting on make-up and a commute to an office, well, there's no comparison in my mind. I will happily work nights and weekends so I can ride my bike during the day. :) Plus, it's super cool when you get feedback from your athletes who are so stoked b/c they are reaching new levels and hitting paces and watts they didn't think they could. I love that and it gets me all pumped up.

What else? Training is humming along nicely. I am motivated and feeling super and nailing workouts across the board. Here's the swim set we did this morning (some of my athletes have seen a version of this as well- I thought it was an awesome main set!)
4 x 200's fast @ 3:20
100 easy
3 x 200's fast @ 3:15
100 easy
2 x 200's fast @ 3:10
100 easy
200 FAST.
Of course you change up the intervals according to your own t-pace (this was LCM) but the key is you should have no more than ~20" rest (max) and ideally holding about the same pace throughout the set... I was stoked b/c I actually started at a solid pace and then got faster as I went so that's a satisfying sign of some deep swim fitness. Seems like lately I have not had super swims on Wednesdays but today I felt good... I'm guessing that's b/c we swam super easy on Monday. Easy swims are boring as all get out but if that's what I have to do in order to swim like I did today, well, easy/boring every once in a while is worth it. :)

OK well looks like the sun has finally come out (and my coffee is gone) so I'm off to go ride my bike... Not a long one today but I am going to try to put some pressure on my pedals (and hold it!) so we'll see how that goes. Funny now that I have a power meter and can quantify how hard I'm actually working, I get way more nervous for hard bike workouts. Because with the objective data there's no fudging it and being all subjective thinking 'Ya I worked that one hard' when really you were only giving 80%...