Lake Logan Half Aquabike – Aug 6, 2022

Doing longer races in the summer is not my thing. If you know me well, you know I hate the heat and humidity. So, unless I’m traveling way up north to escape it, I have no interest in doing any longer distance races until the fall. Lake Logan in North Carolina has always been a good August race though. The weekend of racing includes half, international and sprint distance races. For numerous years I’ve done the international distance while training for a big fall race. It’s a beautiful race venue, tucked into the mountains.
 
I originally said I wasn’t going to race there this year since it was the first full weekend in a while to focus on the kitchen. But the lure of racing pulled at me. I debated heavily between doing the international distance again or doing the aquabike version of the half. I’ve been training enough to swim 1.2 miles and bike 56 miles, but not run a half marathon. Given I’ve raced the international distance probably more than any other race, it seemed like a good time to mix it up. I signed up for the aquabike with a few intentions: have fun, experiment with pacing on the bike and enjoy being in the tri community with friends. I didn’t plan to take the race too seriously. I did two days of less training than normal as a pseudo taper, didn’t bother switching to racing wheels and kept forgetting I was supposed to be eating less fiber.
 
The morning started at a startling 2:46AM. This gave me an hour to drink enough coffee to keep me awake, eat breakfast and get ready to go. I told Bill to stay home to work on the kitchen (evident from my lack of pictures) so unfortunately this time I had to drive myself vs sleeping a bit in the car. After a two-hour drive, I arrived at the secluded race site well before sunrise with over an hour before the first wave started. The benefit of a smaller race is you easily run into friends. After the usual packet pick up and transition set up, I swung by the car to drop my bag off and do a short warm up run. I had to swing back to transition to drop off my keys and do the wiggle dance into my wetsuit. I got into the water to swim back and forth a bit to warm up. Not nearly as much of a swim warmup as I wanted but at least it was something.

In my usual pre-race fashion, I had to somehow hurt myself. It’s amazing how many races I’ve started with some type of scab or open wound. I’ve hurt myself anywhere from crashing my bike 4 days before an Ironman to falling off the road during a pre-race warm up run. While doing the swim warm up, during the downward part of my kick, my ankle hit something hard. Maybe a tree in the water? I ended up with a small scratch, bruise and cranky ankle when in plantarflexion.
 
Since I was doing the aquabike, I was in the fourth and last wave to start the swim. The course was switched to two loops this year. I actually like wave starts since you quickly sort yourselves out based on pace. The chaos of one mass wave start is fun but rarely done in races anymore. Unfortunately, multiple wave starts normally means that as a female, I will always be in a later wave. I started front and center of my wave and had my eyes set on the waves ahead of me. By the time our gun went off, most of the first wave was on their second lap.
 
I decided to swim based on a normal 70.3 effort, despite not running. I wanted the first portion of the race to simulate 70.3 pacing and effort as much as possible. Despite five minutes between waves, it didn’t take long for me to catch up to green caps, then blue caps. The last straight away of my first lap I was swimming in line with a guy from the first wave on this second lap. He was on my right which was less than ideal since he had to go straight and I had to turn right. I decided to slow down and pull behind him for a few seconds before peeling off for lap two. Lap two was a bit lonely. At this point the field was more spread out and other than around the turn buoys, I was mostly swimming alone. The swim ended going up the cold river which certainly makes you want to hop out of the water quickly.
 
I’m not a fan of the transition area of the race since it’s a lot of running with your bike on wet grass that ends up cakes on everything. The bike course starts with a short uphill followed with a nice windy downhill. It’s just steep enough to tap my brakes a bit to send the grass on the wheels spraying all over my legs. Afterwards I settled into the rollers on the course. Overall, Lake Logan is a pretty hilly course which I enjoy the challenge of. Especially when I know I don’t have to run afterwards.
 
As I said earlier, I wanted to start my effort like I was racing the whole 70.3. I also wanted to practice fueling as if I were running. Unfortunately, between bites I noticed that I was holding an empty wrapper. Somehow, I had pushed the rest of my bar out the other side of the wrapper. So there went part of my fuel.
 
I was feeling strong and happy with my effort at the start. Then as I was slowly rolling up a hill, I noticed something didn’t feel right. It felt like a rear flat tire, just like I had earlier in the week. I pulled over in someone’s driveway, gave the tire a quick squeeze and confirmed I had a flat. Awesome. I then proceeded to somehow spend a whopping 16 minutes fixing the flat. How, I don’t know. I accidently dropped the nut that goes on the valve stem into the grass and never found it. Not critical. I spent a while trying to find the hole in the tube because I was worried there was something in my tire despite not feeling anything. The tire wasn’t completely flat when I changed it so I figured it was a slow leak. I could not find the hole though. I played the usual game with the CO2 cartridge of being afraid I’m going to put too much air into the tube and not enough. As always, I ended way too low on pressure. I pumped it up when I got home and it was 60psi. Good job me. I brought the tube home, mostly because I wasn’t going to leave it on someone’s lawn and because my brain had to find the hole. I had to pump it up, and stick it in water to find the tiny, slow-forming air bubbles on the backside of the valve stem.

I spent the rest of the ride praying I didn’t get another flat and thinking if I did, maybe it would be another slow leak and I could just keep topping it off with my CO2 cartridge. It took my legs a while to come back around after being on the side of the road for so long. After watching half the field pass me, I was eventually back in the groove and ready to get to work. I started riding harder than 70.3 effort to test what it would feel like to overreach. Several times I thought “yep I can’t sustain this and run well off the bike” which is actually the type of information I was hoping to figure out. I was attacking the hills more than I normally would. Mile 42 is where the climb was and I decided to let it rip. After recovering a bit from the climb, I tried to keep the pressure on and actually start racing it as if it were an aquabike. I kept telling everyone I passed good job. I wish I had a sign that said “I’m not running!” to explain why I was passing people so quickly. They probably thought I was going to blow up on the run. It was fun pushing hard at the end of the ride knowing I didn’t have to run. It did not make for a fun run back into transition though.
 
After I figured out where to hand my chip in, I decided to do a 10-minute shake out run. There was no option other than on the race run course. Once again, I wanted a sign explaining I wasn’t still racing as people kept cheering for me. When I made a random u-turn, I’m sure one of the other racers thought I was cheating by turning around early. Oh well.

I got 3^rd place for female aquabike. I came in 42 seconds after 2^nd place and 7 minutes after 1^st place. Safe to say I probably would have had 1^st place had I not spent 16 minutes changing a flat. It was a good experience though. I’d much rather get a flat and practice changing it mid race during a “just for fun” race than an “important race”. I know I should better reflect the mindset I had in this race for all my other races. But alas, I still take some races a bit too seriously as if it matters at the end of the day. As I always say, unless you are a pro, this is all just for fun and to challenge yourself. I accomplished what I wanted out of the day and am happy for it!

16 going on 17 (x2)

Goodbye 33.

Yesterday I woke up singing “I am 16, going on 17” from Sound of Music, stuck in my head from some Instagram video I saw the night before. Annoyingly, those are the only lyrics I remember so that one line was on repeat in my head for hours. Well, twice that age is what I actually turned yesterday. Happy 34^th birthday to me! I’m not one to make a big deal out of my birthday. All I want out of the day is to not have to cook, to eat chocolate in some form and to have a fun day of hard training.

I rarely drink coffee before training these days and when I do, more often than not it’s decaf. I decided to treat myself to an espresso to prep for the hard birthday swim I had planned. My favorite type of birthday training is a swim that incorporates my age into a hard set. This year I decided after a warm up to include a 34x100 set with mixed efforts, toys and strokes. It’s been a while since I’ve swam IM so naturally, I cheated with some fins. Afterwards, I met Bill for breakfast at Exchange Co for delicious vegan crepes and a latte. All the caffeine! I’ve seen couples split one crepe but we like to split a savory crepe then each get a sweet crepe like the little piggies we are.

I originally wanted to spend some time riding in the mountains but last week I decided it would be a good idea to sign up for a half distance aquabike race that’s this Saturday. So, I played in the mountains for four hours last Friday to train for the race and opted for a shorter ride on my birthday with some hard intervals. Half way through my intervals, my rear tire got a flat. I’m fairly certain the last time I got a flat mid-ride was in New Zealand so after that whole situation, I was due several years of no issues. Since I have changed very few tires, I’m still very slow at the process and it was driving me bonkers that I couldn’t find where the hole was in the tube (found it when I got home). After that I decided to ditch the intervals and cruise home. I followed it up with a 20-minute run off the bike which felt pretty crappy and with a high heart rate.
 
I then proceeded to spend the entire, and I really do mean entire, afternoon on the phone with my family. What started as birthday wishes turned into hours of listening to complaining and talking about mentally draining topics. By dinner time I was drained so I had Bill pick up a vegan sushi platter so I could sit on the couch and numb my brain with TV. For the amount of caffeine I consumed, I still don’t understand how I was so tired by the end of the day. Overall, my birthday was ok. I received lots of birthday love which I greatly appreciate. I checked all my boxes of not cooking, chocolate and training. I didn’t technically get a birthday cake which has sadly become a trend the last few years. I made a cake last Friday for someone else’s birthday and they decided to throw my birthday into the mix as well. Given I ate at least a third of the cake, I guess that counts.
 
When I went downstairs at 4:30AM, there was a birthday card from Bill sitting on top of my pre-swim banana and peanut butter container. He learned early in our marriage that I think it’s a waste of our money to buy a card with someone else’s words so instead he often hand writes a card. Part of the card said the following:
 
Another year around the sun and your last year in the 30-34 age group, exciting and terrifying! This has been a packed year with lots of life changes from *meeting big financial goals*, to starting your own business, to quitting GE, to qualifying for 70.3 worlds and all the fun and exciting things we regularly do.
 
It’s sad that it took someone pointing out to me what I’ve accomplished in the last year for me to recognize it. I honestly didn’t realize how big of a year it has been until I read what he wrote. I also recently got my personal trainer certification. The bonus room was renovated to become a gym and the kitchen renovation has finally started. We traveled out west three times, to NJ twice for weddings, to the beach, and Chattanooga countless times. It’s been a year of lots of growth and struggle. Lots of debating what direction I want my life to go in and having a hard time pulling the trigger. Lots of doubting my abilities and questioning my decisions. But like any big life change, it can take a while to settle in, find a rhythm and feel like you made the right choice. Sometimes I feel like I’m aimlessly wandering. Sometimes I feel like I’m thriving. It’s all part of the game of life. While I don’t think I’ll have another year of my life like 33 any time soon, I’m open to whatever the future holds. Here's my final farewell to 33, and what a year it was, as I welcome 34.