Tri season is over, now what?

Well, tri season is over.

How I spent my summer

All in all, it was a great summer. I managed to age group place in most of my races, even doing it twice with ‘legit’ 3rd place finishes rather than those slightly odd 5th place ones (I mean, I’m not turning down those medals, but it is a little weird). If Subaru ever updates the points standings I think I ended up placing second overall in the points total for my age group, so that’s kind of neat, even if it is largely because only a handful of people shell out the $$$ to do at least 3 races! I really did enjoy doing the shorter races over the summer, which I think are a little more in my wheelhouse than the longer stuff, if I’m honest.

So obviously the thing to do next year is an Ironman.

I think I almost fainted when that arrived in my inbox.

Still kind of in denial that I really went ahead and signed up for it, but here we are. My focus is now pretty much completely on that beast of a goal and what I need to do to get there healthy and properly trained. I have a rough idea of how I plan to train for it (essentially, focus on the bike and have a strong bike leg to leave myself lots of time for the marathon), but nothing is concrete or written down or official yet. I’m going to spend the next few months building a solid swim/bike/run base, strength training (!!), and having some fun with things. Like bike rides to check out the fall colours and lots of running planned largely around taking pictures of the sunrise, even if I can’t begin to compete with my little brother on that one.

Which brings me to the fact I’m running the Oakville half marathon on Sunday. Which I can’t say I’m feeling super enthusiastic about. I signed up for it way back when because I needed something to motivate me to start building my long runs beyond the strugglebus 8ks I was doing back in June, when every run felt awful. It worked. I slowly (both in terms of # of weeks and the actual paces) worked back up to half marathon distance, focusing largely on keeping my heart rate down and adding 10 minutes or so onto the long run each time (other than race weeks, which sort of acted as cut backs).

I appreciate the sentiment, Waterfront Trail, but I think we can all agree I wasn't looking particularly good 10k into that run.

Running feels decent enough, I guess, and my pace on the 16k I ran this Sunday was down to a not entirely embarrassing 6:14/km, but with no speedwork or high effort stuff in there at all, I have no idea what’s going to happen at Oakville. Clearly I am not aiming for any sort of PB, and the weather forecast looks more like July than September. High of 26, feels like 31, WTF? - and we all know how well I deal with heat, HAHA. Although at least we start early so it shouldn’t be quite that bad during the race.

So my plan is pretty much to flip my watch onto the suffer score screen so I can’t see my pace, keep an eye on my heart rate, and whatever happens, happens. Really, goal #1 at this point is don’t aggravate my sciatic nerve - I had a flare up after Guelph Lake II that is now under control, and after a whole summer blessedly free of back pain, I’d like to get back to that. Slow and steady running seems to be the ticket, so I’ll be sticking with that for a while yet.

So, don’t expect too much excitement in that race report next week. Except for the fact that Sam and Ivanka are also running the race, and Amy and Nicole are lead cyclists! And a morning spent with friends is always a good time. Fun beats out chasing PBs right now for sure.

An overdue update!

I was going to go to the pool at lunch today, but then I didn't want to. So I'm writing this instead. Yay for offseason!

The road bike has busted out of the garage for fall riding.

So, it's been a while since my last race. I've been thoroughly enjoying just doing whatever, which has still involved some swimming, a lot of cycling, and a little bit of running. And doing a lot of thinking about what comes next. Spoiler alert: still really have no idea. Lots of possibilities kicking around at this point, but it's safe to say that 2017 will probably not be the year I do a full Ironman. For a bunch of different reasons, but most importantly, I just don't want to right now. Which is the best reason of all, really!

stopping to smell the flowers. Actually I don't think these really smell like anything. 

 Right now I'm really leaning towards focusing more on the Olympic distance next year, but nothing has been decided. There are too damn many races to choose from!

Oh hello there new toy.

Da fuck with this mountain thing on Zwift? 30 minutes of climbing?!!

In terms of how my current training is looking, I've reconnected with Zwift, which is a whole hell of a lot of fun on that fancy new Computrainer, and is perfect for me right now since I'm not following any sort of training plan (nor do I want to). Chasing jerseys around the Island and London courses is keeping me in shape, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'll be back on Trainerroad soon enough once I figure out what my target races will be for the summer, and start to get serious again about preparing for them.

outside is alright

Why yes I coordinated my socks with my jersey. Thanks to Amy for the pic!

I've managed to get outside a few times, too, which is always a good thing. Gotta squeeze in as many of those as I can before it gets too cold/snowy/etc.

Foxy made a friend! Big shoutout to Amy for her first ever 100k ride - she was a total trooper and rocked the new distance!

I guess this fall thing is ok.

Swimming is swimming. Going twice a week just to maintain feel for the water and because it's nice to stretch out. Can't complain.

I appreciate how the Muskoka shirt says FINISHER and 70.3 in massive letters to make sure everyone knows I did it. Because if you can't impress random people on the street, what's even the point?

Running. Oh, running. Well, I've been deliberately keeping things slooooooooow the last few weeks, and it's starting to pay off. My last few runs have felt downright good, and the 'slow' pace is getting a little bit faster (man it's nice to see a sub 6 min/km average after a very easy run again!).

I don't totally hate running! Yay!

So I signed up to run the 5k at Road to Hope next weekend. Running no longer feels totally shitty, definitely time to race! SMRT.

#selfies are hard

But seriously there's a reason behind this, which is that I need some sort of pace benchmark before I start Around the Bay training sometime in December. I'm a firm believer in training at my current level, rather than the level I wish I was at, so this will help me set up a training plan. I'd love to take aim at another PB at ATB (2:40?), but that's really going to depend how things shake out over the next month with this slow/steady base building running thing I'm doing. The 5k race will help me figure out where I'm at. I have 0 expectation of anything even close to a PB; I'll be pretty ecstatic if I can keep it close to 25 minutes. Or at least under 26 minutes.

(run confidence: not high right now).

Running is fun! Especially when you muck around for 5 minutes trying to get a decent picture for instagram (which is the most important thing, I think we can all agree).

At any rate, I'm enjoying myself, not putting any pressure on myself (other than a yearly mileage goal that is just within reach - can I hit 10,000 km on the year? I'm at 8430, so as long as I can keep up the trainer miles, it should be doable...), keeping things pretty easy and stopping to take a lot of pictures along the way. 2017 goals will all fall into place eventually, but there's no rush to get there right now.

Leaves seem to be moving past their peak this week. Sad face.

I'm going to miss fall. Enjoying it while it's here!

So now what?

Hey, I'm still alive! And actually feeling pretty damn good! Assorted thoughts, coming up:

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Random fact: I ran the half marathon at Barrelman faster than I ran my first ever half back in 2012. And also faster than my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th half marathon. Kind of nice to have that comparison of my progress! Although the 4th one isn't really fair since I sprained my foot during the training and used it as a training run rather than racing it.

Yes, I have taken the hat off since the race. Once or twice.

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(people who know me: um, are you going to talk about that new bike?)

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One of the things I thought about a lot leading up to Barrelman was how the recovery would go. I found, through the summer, that race recovery from tris feels pretty quick (certainly faster than running races that last the same amount of time). But I always have that awful recovery process after the Mississauga Marathon in the back of my mind.

Fortunately, it went pretty smoothly. The Monday night after the race was rough, but it was just standard post-race muscle soreness. No scary injuries or worrying aches and pains, just my quads and hamstrings letting me know how hard they worked. By Thursday I was feeling normal, and now I'm back to running and biking and feeling good.

Angry Lake Ontario. No swimming there until next year!

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(but what about the new bike?)

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So the big goal of the year is done, but I have one more goal race left for the year: a half marathon. I'm going to attempt a new PB. Note I say attempt. I'm pretty much in the best shape of my life right now (half ironman training is awesome), but I won't really be doing any specific training before the race at Niagara, because frankly I'm kind of burned out on speedwork and effort and all that jazz. In fact I'm sort of going the complete opposite direction and running painfully slowly to keep my heartrate in that aerobic zone. Right now I'm pretty sure this is going to be a replay of Hamilton last year - go out at PB pace for 12k or so, then blow up. But hey, I won't know unless I try!

Some days you just have to wear funky pants.

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(Get to the new bike already!)

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Then I move into training for next year, basically by spending the entire month of November (and much of December) keeping things easy. Easy easy easy SUPER easy. I need a little recovery/base building, and now is the perfect time to start experimenting with low heart rate training. I'll commit to 6-8 weeks of that and see what happens, then decide if I want to continue.

Planning!

Hopefully I can get back to the pool soon, too. My lunch hour pool is closed until January, which is making it really difficult to fit in swim workouts! I miss open water.

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(seriously, are you not going to talk about that NEW BIKE??)

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I did accomplish a big goal this weekend - my first ever imperial century ride! (um, that's a sensible thing to do when you are supposed to be training for a PB half marathon attempt). 165 km of good times. Zindine asked me to join him and a couple of other lovely folks from his tri club, and we went from Georgetown up the Forks of the Credit and then over to Cambridge and then all the way back. It was super fun! And I felt a lot better through the ride than I thought I would (the route helped, with lots of nice downhill towards the end). Key, of course, was Irina acting as our support crew and appearing with bananas and water at the perfect moments.

All photos via Irina! This was one beautiful ride. The fall colours are spectacular right now.

With Zin at a bakery stop early in the ride, but after conquering the Forks of the Credit. Happy the hardest hills were done!

What am I even doing here??!! Perhaps contemplating the magical bananas Irina gave us at 120k. Perked everyone right up!

Great group for the ride! Looking happy because only 40k (hahahaha) to go!

BIG thanks to my husband on this one - he not only was stuck with the kids all day while I gallivanted around the countryside, he cleaned pretty much the whole house while I was gone. AWESOME. Love that guy.

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(BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BIKE?)

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Next year's plans are largely still up in the air. The only sure thing right now is ATB, to get that damn sub 2:45. Then I'll probably do a spring 10k (maybe Oakville?), and then it'll be tri season again!

Tri season is very much a question mark. Before Barrelman I was considering focusing on sprint distances next year, but now having done long course I'm not sure I'd happy with that (the bike leg is just so short...). And it's hard to choose races - to some extent I want to revisit the same races again, to see how I can improve, but then I also want to try new ones. And all of this has to be balanced with my work and family life. So it's all a bit complicated. Stay tuned.

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FINE. There's also this.

Yeah. I got a new bike.

Let me just reiterate how awesome my husband is for going along with THIS craziness.

Like a little kid on Christmas morning.

Her name is Epona, after the Celtic horse goddess, and also a character in a book I loved as a kid who had a white horse. I figure a horse goddess would probably be pretty cool with bicycles. (note: I changed her name! Update coming on that. Hey, it's my bike, I'll do what I want.) She's definitely a far different ride than my road bike; the position is completely different, I'm having to re-learn how to climb hills, and the bar end shifters are definitely taking some getting used to. And I don't have any of the hydration accessories yet to let me take her on long rides.

But oh, the speed! Hot damn can we ever go fast.

I've made a few tries for that QOM. Took 19 seconds off my best time first try with the tri bike!

So I'll be squeezing in a few rides before it gets too cold. And getting seriously pumped up for tri season next year!

Might have to pay another visit to this generous apple farm, too!

Summer running: what about thunderstorms?

Inspired by a twitter conversation last night:

@egrrrl Is thunder a cause of worry? I'm a new runner and don't think I've had this dilemma before. Ps; how did @5PeaksRun go for you?
— Prasheel Gopal (@PralexGorier) July 12, 2014

It's a good question - when it comes to summer running, how do you handle it when there's a thunderstorm risk in the forecast but you were really hoping to get in a run? The obvious answer is treadmill it, but what if you don't have a treadmill (or just really hate them)? Since I don't have one this is my method for figuring out if it's OK - for me - to run when the weather forecast says there might be storms. I'm not a weather expert by any means, this is just my method. Running during a storm watch is a calculated risk, I am not a professional, stay safe, etc.

1. Active thunderstorms in the area, I wait until later. The Weather Network hourly forecast can be really helpful for this, as you can see when the storms are most likely to move past. I also pay attention to if there's currently a thunderstorm watch (chance of a storm developing) or a warning (active storm activity has been spotted). Warning = no go, full stop.

2. If there's a watch, I check the weather radar to see what's going on. The local radar for me is the King City weather radar, and it shows active precipitation as it moves across the province. Rain/storms here almost always approach from the west, and if you are familiar with the radar you can get pretty good at judging how much time you have before a band of rain/possible storm arrives at your location. This works in the winter for snowfall, too. I use this all the time when I'm planning a lunch run on a day with rain in the forecast - I can often spot windows of opportunity to run with minimal rain by paying attention to the weather radar.

The storms almost always move from the left to the right over our area. This map shows a good window of opportunity to get in a short run, as the last storm has moved over Toronto and the next one will take probably an hour or so to arrive in the Hamilton/Burlington area.

3. Revise my routes. If there's a thunderstorm watch, I will run loops around my neighbourhood so I can get home quickly. This also means I'm running through a residential area, and can take cover on someone's porch if necessary. It's boring to run loops and my neighbourhood has too many damn hills, but I don't want to be caught 30 minutes from home if a storm rolls in.

4. Eyes on the sky. Since I know storms almost always approach from the same direction, I pay attention to what's coming. If I'm listening to music or a podcast and I see dark clouds moving in, I shut that down so I can listen for thunder.

5. Sometimes, I just have a bad feeling and decide not to run. Nothing wrong with paying attention to that gut instinct. One missed run isn't going to ruin your training!

So, that's about it. I'm usually pretty good at judging if I can get in a run or not, although it doesn't always work perfectly - this morning I got soaked when the first line of rain arrived a little sooner than I thought it would based on the weather radar, and I was about a km from home when I heard a rumble of thunder and ended up doing a fast finish run to get inside.

Oh, and if you think it's going to rain and you are prone to chafe? This stuff becomes very important. Unfortunately the only way to know which body parts are chafe-prone is to experience it at least once. I learned a painful lesson at the Toronto Women's Half Marathon a few years ago...

In a holding pattern

Still keeping things easy right now. Although my hip has been feeling better, there's occasionally still a bit of twinging going on. Essentially every day I ask my legs, are you cool today? And I pay attention to the answer. Last week was the first since the marathon where all 5 days I wanted to run my legs said Yes, we're cool with that. But no speedwork or hard hills or tempo efforts until everything feels 100%. So while I'm not officially training for the fall yet, my thoughts are turning that way, and I think next week I should be comfortable starting an actual plan. With speed and tempo and all that good stuff. Oh, and I've started registering for races. Watch the sidebar (I have an irrational rule that I won't put a race on the sidebar until I've paid for it, which is why Road 2 Hope isn't up there yet even though I plan to do it).

From here.

I did end up with 70k total last week - 25k on the bike, 45k running. Highest running week since the marathon, with no ill effects, so that's a positive. Last year I kind of abandoned bike cross training because it just wasn't fun, but somehow this year the bike is really appealing. It might just be that I'm a lot more confident sharing the road with cars, which means I can ride more interesting places. Or maybe it's all those pushy triathletes tempting me to become a multi-sport athlete. They seem to have an awfully good time.

Here's some random photos to liven things up.

Back to 5 am run club, which at least comes with the bonus of sunrises.

Seeing the girls off on Patty's birthday run - I was cycling that day, which is why I look like even more of a giant than usual, since the cleats on my shoes make me taller. And the driveway slopes down.

Sweet rocky running on the Bruce trail. Love this stuff.

The mighty Saugeen River in Grey County. The husband and I are getting really into the idea of seeking out new running trails when we travel. Ottawa in August will be fun - we'll definitely be getting in at least one run while we are there.

Very high pedestrian bridge in Hanover, Ontario.

The latest addition to my running playlist:

On bikes and enemies

As I find myself increasingly 'getting it' with cycling, I've been reading more about bikes and biking and such. And man do I ever want a road bike. Not in the budget at the moment, but someday...

At some point I stumbled across this very amusing video:

(check out some of their other videos, too - the Road Vs. Mountain bike rap battle is hysterical)

Unfortunately there's no How to be a Runner video in their series, because the road bike one got me thinking about who would be on the runner enemy list.

So far I have:
Walkers (especially the ones who line up at the front at races)
Nordic Walkers (why do they always stare like they've never seen a runner before?)
Pelotons (because of the one that almost ran me off the road on Northshore that one time)
Dogs (both the off-leash variety for being terrifying, and the on-leash variety whose owners don't clean up after them)
"You are going to ruin your knees" people (because shut up)

Who is on your enemy list?

Fall plans 2014

Boy it takes a long time to recover from a marathon. Yeesh. I mean, I was expecting it to take some time, but still. Although the DOMS faded quickly, my legs have felt generally shitty for the last few weeks for a bunch of different reasons - hip bursitis, something weird with my hip flexor, a quad strain, and on and on and on. And my sciatica has been acting up, which is always super fun.

I finally feel like I've turned the corner and I'm at about 98%, although it's possible I'm just delusional from the new DOMS from the Ride for Heart yesterday. In a fit of brilliance I scheduled my follow up with the sports doctor for this morning. "So, how are you feeling?" Well, everything is pretty sore but that's because of the 75k I rode on my bike yesterday, so good luck figuring out if there's anything still wrong with my hips! DUH. He rolled his eyes at me, checked my hips, and said I'm good to go as long as I take it easy for a few weeks, build slowly, and cut back if things hurt. So I'll be keeping things light and easy for next couple of weeks, will probably mix in some cycling, and a 5k race on Saturday but let's not talk about that right now shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Bikes: kind of fun. I may or may not have been looking at road bikes on Kijiji last night. 

Naturally, when doing less running, that gives me more time to think about the next training cycle. Which leads to goal setting and planning. I'm not officially training at this point, as I haven't registered for anything yet, and I want to see how I feel over the next week or so once my legs recover from the ride (my glutes are so not happy today).

In all the free time I had after the marathon, I replaced the backsplash in my kitchen, which I am insanely proud of so here, admire it. Amazing what you can find time to do when you aren't running 80k a week.

The main thing I'd like to achieve right now is a sub 1:50 half. I ran 1:51:19 at Chilly, so a sub 1:50 is definitely within reach.

September 6th: MEC Burlington 15k. This will essentially be a long tempo run; first 10k at half marathon pace, whatever I have left for the last 5k. If I can nail this, I'll be in great shape to go sub 1:50 at...

Sept 21st: Oakville half marathon. First shot at sub 1:50. I ran the 10k here last year, it's close to home, the course is largely flat and has lots of shade (important for a September half - sorry, Milton, your route is WAY too exposed for me). Have I mentioned how much I hate running in the heat? Good thing I've got a summer of training ahead of me!

Hopefully I hit the goal here and the rest of the fall is gravy. But if not...

Oct 4th: 25k Run for the Toad. I plan to take this race seriously - it won't just be a fun run (although I expect it to be pretty damn fun!). Assuming good health, I want to run it aggressively and see how it goes.

Nov 2nd: Road 2 Hope half marathon. There's enough time between races that I should be able to peak for this one and really bring my half PB down. Hopefully the 1:50 will be out of the way, so I can just take advantage of the net downhill and knock a few minutes off whatever I do in Oakville.

I have a few other things planned over the summer (maybe a trail race, the Colleen Lantz memorial run), but these are my four main goal races. I'll be running the Moon in June 5k on Saturday with zero expectations, but I will of course write a race report. 5ks always make for the best, most curse-laden race reports.

So now what?

So the big one is done (at least until I lose my mind and decide to run an ultra). Marathon. Done. Boom.

Now what do I do, other than annoy people with constant talk of how I ran a marathon? (I RAN A MARATHON! Want to see my medal?)

Short term

Goal 1: Recover. Fully recover. Take it easy until the end of May. Don't go doing anything stupid. Let the body heal up and relax. I did a short easy run this morning - first one since the race - and my quad strain seems to have healed up, but there's something unpleasant going on with my right knee (the one that was nagging me during the marathon). I'll try another easy run on Tuesday, and if it still feels weird I'll make a trip to physio this week to try and get a handle on what's going on there.

Gorgeous morning for a run, even with a wonky knee.

Goal 2: Diet stuff. This is not a food blog and likely never will be, but I do know that I can't eat the same quantities now as I was during peak training weeks. I'm going to keep an eye on my weight for the next little while, not because I care overly much about the specific number, but to make sure I've got my diet in line with my actual current energy needs. Expect a few photos of giant salads on my instagram. Also my husband got me a fancy blender for Mother's Day, so it's smoothie time.

There are a terrifying number of blades in this blender.

Goal 3: Assuming good physical recovery (possibly a major assumption considering how bad my leg felt today!), I'd like to see what sort of 5 and 10k times I might be able to lay down. I've got two races tentatively planned for June, and we'll see what happens:

Moon in June 5k: looking for a new PB at this one. Basically, get as close to 24 as I can. It's a PB friendly course, but it also starts at 9 pm, so it could be great, it could be a total horror show. I did run sub 25 here last year (and finished 3rd for my age group!), so I don't think the 9 pm start will be much of an issue. My husband has been suggesting he pace me, but his PB is 23 flat so I'm worried running with him would lead to my legs blowing up at around km 3.5. We will see.

MEC Burlington race 3 10k: Likely not an ideal course for a PB attempt (hello Northshore hills), but it's only $15 and why not.

I may run the Canada Day 5k again, I haven't decided. If I crap the bed at Moon in June I'll definitely run it, but if I hit a decent time I may not bother with Canada Day. I hate how part of the race is run on sand, and it always seems to be unbearably hot. Despite the fact it's my current 5k PB I can't say I love the race overly much, although I do like the Canada themed medals.

Medium term - the fall

Sub 1:50 half to qualify for an Around the Bay corral. I only have to take 1:19 off my Chilly Half time to hit this, so it feels a little wimpy to make that a main goal. So I guess the secondary goal for this fall is to get as far under 1:50 as I can manage.

The Believe bracelet was for the marathon (and it was helpful, several times during the race when things got tough I touched it to remind myself to believe I could do it). The Achieve bracelet is for my fall races.

The plan to get there involves a lot of hard work through July and August, and then two halfs in the fall. Most likely the Oakville half (where I hope to bag the sub 1:50) and then Road 2 Hope in November (where I will try and take 2-3 minutes off whatever time I get at Oakville). That gives me a nice long stretch in between the two halves so I can recovery properly and race both flat out.

Long term aka so when's the next marathon?

Yeah, so I definitely want to take a run (HA HA HA) at a sub 4 hour marathon. If I can get fast enough at the half distance before my next marathon training cycle, maybe even take aim at 3:50. However, marathon training takes a shitton of time, and I'm not sure when I'll be mentally prepared to tackle that again, or when I'll be comfortable having my family's life revolve around my training again. Maybe next spring, but maybe not. Lots of time to make that decision.

Blog plan

Since I know y'all wait with baited breath for my next 2000+ word post. I'll post race reports for the various things I have going on, and then start doing weekly training updates again at the beginning of July. Or whenever I feel like I have stuff to say (which, let's face it, is likely to be soon. One thing I miss about teaching is the captive audience who had to listen to me Tell Them Things. I do enjoy telling people things).

So, what's on the schedule for everyone else? I could totally be talked into other races for the fall. Like, say, the Run for the Toad, if anyone else wants to do it?

Mississauga Marathon 2014: Post race

A random assortment of post race stuff. If you somehow missed the epic race recap it's here.

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My poor knees! My legs felt surprisingly good Sunday afternoon/Monday, but my knees, yikes. I was starting to think the 'running will ruin your knees' contingent were right all along. But by Monday afternoon they were significantly better, and they now feel normal again.

Assorted ice packs to give the knees some love.

Monday afternoon was when my quads joined the party with some lovely DOMS. It was definitely a fun couple of days of dreading stairs. Although this, surprisingly, wasn't my worst post-race recovery - that honour goes to the first time I did Around the Bay, didn't train enough for the race, and then couldn't walk for three days. With this one I wasn't moving real fast, but walking felt OK. If the zombie apocalypse had happened Monday morning I could have escaped the shamblers, but fast zombies would have caught me no problem.

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Monday I came home from work to find a surprise in my mailbox. Thank you Amy! Slapped that sucker right on the car (after I worked up the energy to tackle the stairs outside the front door. stupid stairs).

Yes, I'm one of Those People. I earned that sticker, damn it.

And my TRX trainer brought my flowers! How sweet is she! Especially considering I haven't been to class in over a month, what with tapering and such. I'll be back, it's almost tank top time and the guns need some love.

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So the photo company for the race has a page with infographic type stuff, including some statistics. Nothing too exciting except for this:

You can find this by clicking the 'photo' link on your sportstats results page and then choosing 'more stats'.

Since there was no timing mat with 5k to go I assume they are calculating that based on the last timing mat at 25k. The numbers make sense to me if they are talking about the final 17k - we passed a lot of people in the late stages of the race, and I don't remember being passed more than a couple of times. I'm rather pleased with this; even though we ran a massive positive split (our second half was six minutes slower than our first, yikes), the course past 25k was really tough thanks to that wind. I remember a lot of people really struggling and doing the death march as we got past 30k, and I had to ignore them to avoid getting sucked in. I've been a death marcher at Around the Bay, it's no fun.

Also, one of the three people who 'passed' me in the last 17k? AMY. All our splits through the entire race were identical except somehow she hit the timing mats at the end a tenth of a second before I did. Sneaky, Amy, very sneaky.

Amy up to no good, clearly sneaking across the finish ahead of me. I'M ON TO YOU.

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Looking at my finish line pictures tells another story. Note the guy in white:

I managed to nip him at the end and finish ahead of him. And possibly wrecked his finish line photos (hopefully he got a few without me being all ME! YAY ME! in them).

Again Amy and I with the freakishly synced up form.

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So what's next. Still resting and recovering. That ache that developed in my right thigh during the last 2k of the race is still there. Getting better, but it's worrying me a bit. Considering heading off to the doctor to rule out a stress fracture if it doesn't resolve in the next couple of days - the symptoms don't really fit (my Dr. Google degree suggests it's more likely a mild muscle strain, along the same lines as what I had in my calf pre-Chilly half), but after what happened to Krista Duchene I kind of don't want to take any chances! I definitely won't be doing any running until my leg feels 100%. I got my bike out and cleaned up tonight, so if biking doesn't aggravate whatever is up with my leg and the weather cooperates, I might try some easy rides over the next few days.

Big Red is ready to roll (obvious bike name is obvious)

I also find myself doing a whole foods/clean eating sort of thing right now. It wasn't a deliberate choice, but after the heavy carb load before the race I am carbed out, man. It's been all salads and protein and good fats since the race, and I'm going to stick with that for a while since it does feel better to eat that way. I'm also supplementing calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin C for recovery purposes.

Big lunch salad.

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What's next? I'm signed up to run Sulphur Springs in a few weeks, but that will be a run for fun and not a race per se. And I have the Ride for Heart 75k at the beginning of June, again for fun. After that, not sure. Kind of depends on this leg thing, so I don't want to make any plans until I know what's going on there. Once that's settled it'll be time to start thinking about short term race goals for June, and then the fall and fall goals. Stay tuned!