Oceanside 70.3: Chipping away

Heading into this race I was nothing but excited.  Ironman California Oceanside 70.3 is my absolute favorite triathlon.  Salty swim in a protected harbor.  Rolling hills on the bike course.  And a run along the beach.  Throw in perfect weather, men in uniform, and fresh ocean air.  What could possibly be better?

Post race.  Enjoying the view.

I struggle with appropriate goal setting.  If you read all the magazines (which I do) you have surely come across the phrases "process goals" and "outcome goals".  I love to set outcome goals.  I want to podium.  I want to finish in 5 hours.  This type of goal is great, but it doesn't account for things that are completely out of the realm of my control.  I cannot control the weather.  If it's hotter then hell, or there are 30 mph winds I may not make my time goals.  I also cannot control who else shows up.  I would love to tell all the ladies who've already had their shot on the Queen K to stay at home, it's my turn.  But the WTC will not allow me to ban them.  So when the speedsters show up, I have to compete against them too.  

My plan for the next 2 years involves slowly chipping away at the lava rock, so to speak.  I am going to make steady progress in training until such a time when I am the speedster that shows up and takes the slot to Kona.  It's not going to happen overnight, but I have proven myself capable of getting there and I have so much room for improvement.     

So for Oceanside, I knew I needed other goals.  Process goals.  Goals that reflect my desire to chip away at the bigger picture.  Goals that were within my control that I could strive to reach on race day.  I wanted to have a swim PR.  I knew that over the last 3 months with my coach, my swim has improved tremendously.  I wanted to prove that to myself by having a strong swim.  I wanted to give everything I had on the bike.  I wanted to save nothing.  This was a conscious decision.  I'm not sure why I thought this was the best way to race, but I didn't want to get to the finish line and believe that I could have biked faster.  I wanted to nail my nutrition.  This is something that I've struggled with over the years.  Early on I ate way too much, and the wrong things, and ended up trying to run with a bloated gut.  To combat that I switched to taking in almost nothing, and would end up running the marathon from aid station to aid station eating a gel every 10 minutes.  Better, but not great.  We've really been working in training to improve my intake and practice not only taking in appropriate calories, but also going hard while eating which can be even more difficult.   

There was a brief moment in the morning when I was trying to choke down breakfast that I was feeling nervous.  But once we left the hotel room and headed toward transition that faded and I was pumped and ready to race.

Race morning.  Let's do this!

The Swim:  29:34!!!

The swim at Oceanside is a wave start.  The harbor is narrow, and groups of a couple hundred people are started every 3 minutes.  This is really nice as far as avoiding contact initially, but it's challenging when you start in wave 16 and catch people who were in waves 9, 10, 11 and so on.  

Normally I seed myself far to the outside to avoid any sort of contact.  However, this time I stayed pretty close to the inside buoy.  And when the gun sounded, I took off.  I realized quickly that a friend of mine was swimming just to my left and I jumped in her draft and held on for dear life.  Another first for me as I have never successfully drafted in the water before.  As we approached the 5th (of 7) buoys on the way out to the turn around, I felt her back off the pace just a hair.  I took that opportunity to pull up beside her to take the lead.  At that point we hit a huge pack of slow swimmers from previous waves and we got separated.  I kept swimming hard and was pleased to find that I never felt tired coming back into the harbor.  Once I left KD I never saw another light pink swim cap so I thought I might be in the lead, but I wasn't sure.  We were literally passing hundreds of swimmers so it would have been easy to miss another pink cap.  

I got out of the water and dashed up the ramp.  I glanced down and saw on my Garmin that I had swum under 30 minutes!  A huge Oceanside swim PR for me!!  (My previous best at this race was 31:24.)  Oh, and I was first in my age group out of the water!

T1:  3:46  (aka: fucking forever!)  At Oceanside, there are no wetsuit strippers.  This is a huge disadvantage for me because my limbs are long and my wetsuit hits me just below my knee.  So when I try to get out of it by myself it is impossible.  It gets turned inside out and sticks to my legs and it's a big mess.  I fumbled around my transition area for nearly a century trying to get my feet out of the suit.  And then when I finally do, I have to pack everything up in the little plastic bag so the volunteers can transport our gear to T2 for post race pickup (much appreciated!).

Bike:  2:45:02!!!

I love the bike ride at Oceanside.  The first 25 miles are smokin' fast.  And then you hit some rolling hills for about 15 miles or so.  The final 10 miles are flat and fast back into town.  Ironically I felt so good coming out of the water that there was no "settling in" period on the bike.  Usually it takes about 20-30 minutes for me to get my legs up to speed and my gut ready to eat.  On this day, I hopped on, cleared the saltwater from my palate and I was ready to fly.  

I kept pushing.  And pushing.  And pushing my legs as hard as they would let me.  My plan was to take in my bottle of EFS (300 calories, electrolytes) before the climbing started and ditch the bottle at the second aid station.  Then I would rely on my Honey Stinger gels for the remainder of the ride (480 calories).  

As I rode along I did not let up on my effort.  I kept telling myself that the ride up Mt. Lemmon at camp last month hurt worse than this.  (Completely true.).  Eventually I began to feel the effort in my quads, but by that point the worst of the hills were behind me and I just had the final home stretch in front of me.  I did not let up.  

I hopped off my bike in T2 with my fastest ride on this course by over 7 minutes.  I knew I was somewhere in the top of my age group.  It was all going to come down to how fast I could run.  (I was 3rd in my age group off the bike.. A first for me!)

T2:  1:35  Helmet off, run shoes on.  Let's go!!   

Run:  1:49:55

Ahhh, the run.  Again.... Best. course. ever.  The first part of the run is a mile out and back along the strand.  And then they pitch you up a ramp onto the pier at about a 40 degree angle.  With the first step I took onto the ramp, my adductor seized into a cramp.  Fuck!  I thought.  A mile in and this is how it's going to go??!!  I was pissed.  I hobbled up the ramp and back onto the flat pavement trying to work the cramp out.  My husband who was just coming out of T1 (his wave started 15 minutes behind me) saw me and ran over to see what was up.  He shouted to get some salt caps, and an athlete who happened to be running in my same direction offered me a couple of his.  

I picked up my pace and started running again, and within a minute or so my leg, though sore, was good enough.  I started drinking the PowerBar Perform at every aid station to help with my hydration status.  I stuck with my plan to take a gel every 30 minutes.  Having fueled appropriately on the bike, this strategy worked beautifully.  My energy level never waned.    

  

I watched my splits on my Garmin as it beeped every mile and I realized that my run would not be my fastest ever, but I could still PR.  I was heartbroken as I saw the girls with numbers ranging from 35-39 written on their left calf pass me and I could not respond.  I was giving my best, this I was confident of, but they were flying by me.  I knew my friend, KD, would beat me (she is significantly faster than me most days) but I had hoped to stand by her side on the podium.

In the past, I would let me mind get the better of me and would call it a day and start walking aid stations, dicking around, etc.  This was not going to happen.  I kept my mind in the game and I tried to give my all.  I pushed a little harder on the downhills.  Maintained a strong effort on the inclines.  And when my legs were screaming the final 4 miles, I called on my little Z kitty angel to loan me his wings so I could fly.  I don't think I went any faster, but I also didn't slow down.  

The run was over before I knew it and I crossed the line in 5:09:52.  A 2 minute PR and good enough for 6th in my age group.  

Overall time:  5:09:52, 6th AG

To top it off, I had a little throwdown going with a couple of my training partners.  Loser had to buy margaritas post race:  

Guess who didn't have to buy margaritas?!  

Initially I was a little disappointed in my run, and the fact that I finished 6th and just off the podium.  But the more I thought about it, the things that are important to my progress over the next 2 years were executed perfectly.  2 years ago when I ran a 1:42 at Oceanside, I was coming off my best run preparation ever including my marathon PR 6 weeks prior.  I was in phenomenal run shape then.  Right now, my focus is on the bigger picture and I've been training for triathlon, not a marathon.  I swam 2 minutes faster, biked 7 minutes faster, and only ran 7 minutes slower.  I am happy with that.  

My coach reminded me that I put a huge deposit in the bank of "get the legs used to riding hard".  The next time I push hard on the bike they will remember... just like they did this weekend after biking hard up Mt. Lemmon last month.  I will keep making deposits and chipping away until the day comes when it all falls into place.  

She also gave me a couple of nice recovery workouts for Sunday to flush the legs a bit.  My husband and I took a bike tour of Oceanside and the San Luis Rey bike path.  

Biking on the San Luis Rey bike path.

Overlooking the pier.  #Smash

Then I had a little swim in our hotel pool which from my rough calculation was about 12 yards long.  

View from our hotel overlooking the pool and the harbor.

I am excited to have just under 7 weeks to continue my preparation for my first IM of the season.  Texas is going to be hot and humid, and I can't wait to have another opportunity to chip away at my ultimate goal of finding Kona.  

Contemplating finding Kona.