Signed up for the Big K...Triathlete, Stratergize!!

Hey y'all.

I done did it. I've been talkin about signing up for the Big Kahuna for the last what...3-4 months now? Well, last monday, two weeks before the race, I finally pulled the trigger and signed up. Yeah I like to cut it close like that. I've never signed up for a race more than 6wks in advance. For Ironman Arizona though,I will be signing up a whole year in advance...wowza. Wonder how that's gonna work out for me haha

Well Back to the Big K.

I had been waiting for some sort of confidence booster, some sign that yes, despite my lack of training, I'm ready for this race. Last week in training was awesome. My 2h Long run on tues felt really good, especially the second half. I did a brick with hill repeates mid week and my legs held up fine under the pressure.

The clincher, however, the sign from the heavens that made me finally do the damn thing happened last sunday.

I did a 55 mile ride in relative hot weather at 15mph on a course that is definitely hillier than the Big K and then I still had a little something left for a 15-20min run after. The run felt good, granted I was slow, but it felt like I could have kept going at the pace for at least an hour. I was a little out of breath, but my legs weren't dead. Hell, I kinda wanted to keep going on my run, just to see how long I'd last before collapsing, but I hadn't brought any fluids with me and I didn't want to push my luck too far. I was happy enough that I finally had what I needed to feel good, and excited and pumped up about the race.

So now that I've signed up, I need to plan and strategize on how I'm going to execute this race.

Overall Summary:

Get through the swim somehow slowly, steadily. Gun it full throttle on the bike and make sure you fuel right in preparation for the run. Worry about the run when you get to it. If you fuel right, you can be confident that you'll pull through in the end.

My weakness is the begining of the triathlon, the swim, it always has been and it always will be. Running, my first love, my savior, my zen, is the last leg and is the leg that I'm the most comfortable with. The middle child, the bike ride, the one that I have a love/hate relationship with, is my wildcard.

During most races, I hold back on the bike just a little (sometimes a lot) so that I have enough gas left for the run..and when I'm done with the triathlon, I always feel like I could have endured the pain a little better on the bike, sucked it up, and pushed a little harder.

Well this time, I'm gonna try something different and see how it turns out. This whole race is a bit of an experiment anyway so why the hell not right?

So now I'm going to break down my strategy individually:

Swim:

This section will be short. Umm, I ain't trained up for this ish (big sorpresa) so I'm hangin back with the slow pokes. Navigation through the waters and spotting bouys shouldn't be too difficult since there's this big old pier that I'll be swimming around that'll always be to my right to sight off of. The waves are supposed to be tame, save the first few breaks on entrance. Besides, I can always just sneak under the pier and pretend to come out ahead with the smokin fast swimmers hehe.

Equipment needed: Wetsuit, goggles, body-glide, 1 Accel Gel.
Optional: Neoprene cap in case it's ridiculously cold in the water
Extra Transition items: basting pan filled with h20 to clean off the sand (buy a gallon), extra towels.

Bike:

This area will require the most planning and execution. I not only need to smoke the bike (well for me at least), I need to make sure that I fuel properly, don't overheat/underhydrate and am in good shape for the run.

T1 Prep and Nutrition Strategy:

Before I even begin the bike ride, I'm going to pop two thermolite pills (fancy pills that basically make sure I have enough salt/potassium in my body for the ride)

I notice that I love gatorade and the liquid energy it provides me on the ride, but sometimes, I just need some plain ol' water without any flavoring or nutrition. Also, three bottles filled with fluids generally suffices for a 3h ride in 70-75 degree weather. So I plan on carrying two bottles filled with Melon flavored gatorade (my fav) and one bottle filled with H to the izo (H2O).

In addition, I plan on taking 1 cliff bar and 5-6 packs of gel with me for calories. That's a lotta food. Like 850 calories worth. I will most likely just consume 1 cliff bar and 3-4 packs of gel, taking in solid energy (bar) towards the beginning/middle of the ride and liquid energy (gels) towards the end for easy digestion before the run.

I would avoid the solid all together if my body liked it that way, but unfortunately I start getting heart burn/uneasiness if I don't have at least a little solid food on the bike.

Yeah, I know, I've got like the finickiest stomach ever.

Also, I need to take a few pills on the ride with me. A couple of thermolytes are definitely to be consumed circa mile 30. That's when my legs start to cramp sometimes, and thermolytes will help with that.

I'm also gonna take along with me some gas-x or beano, a couple of heart-burn pills and some ibuprofen. Yeah yeah, go on, point and laugh I don't care. I've had major gas, major heart burn and throbbing headaches during rides before, and I'll be darned if any of those cause me to lose focus on my race and take away from the experience.

The Ride Strategy:

The first few miles, say 2-4 miles, out of the transition area, I need to take it chill. I need to get my bearings together, let my legs get used to riding, hydrate up a little and take an accel gel.

At the sight of the first hill after the warmup phase, I need to gun it up and push through the pain. The reason is that once I get used to the pain in my quads, it's easier to spin my legs and go faster on the flats. I guess going hard up the hills conditions my legs for the pain better and the ride just feels good on the not so hilly parts.

I also work better if I push it for a little while say 15min, and then chill it and get my Heart rate down for 1-2min. This is perfect because while i'm 'chilling it' I can take time to rehydrate and refuel and be energized and be good to go.I plan on utilizing this strategy for at least 2/3 of the course.

The last third of the course can go one of three ways.

1) (Ideal situation) If I'm making good time and feel good, I'll continue with this strategy and be even more careful to fuel up for the run. The last 10miles, I'm gonna let it all hang out and just floor it, but definitely not compromise on the hydration and fueling. The very last mile of the ride, if time permits, I'll gear down to the easier gears, spin my legs out, get my HR down and prep for the run.


2) (not the best situation) If I'm making good time (i.e. I'm confident that I will make the cutoff) and don't feel good, i.e. my legs are cramping, my head hurts from dehydration etc. I'll concentrate more of my efforts on rehydration and maybe I won't be 'flooring it' for teh last 10 miles. Grr. I hope I don't have to pull back due to improper fueling.

3) (the worst situation of all) If I'm not making good time and am actually worried that I won't make the bike cutoff all bets are off. The primary goal here would be to get to the effin' transition area before the 1pm cut off time. Fuel to the best of your abilities, no doubt, but don't slow down, don't look back, and don't listen to your body when it screams out in pain. Period.

Let's hope it doesn't come down to that.



Equipment needed: Bike, helmet, shades, socks, bike shoes, tire tube changing essentials, 3 bottles, 1 profile design bento box.
Nutrition needed: 2 melon flavored gatorades, 1 H20, 5-6 accel gels. 1 cliff bar cut in half.
Pills: a baggy with thermolytes, gas-x, ibuprofen, heart burn pills.
T1 Area: Take 2 thermolytes


Run Strategy:

To be honest, I haven't thought nearly as much about my run strategy as I have about my bike strategy mainly because I feel like my strategy on the bike is what'll help me the most during this race and greatly affect my run as well.


-T2 and Nutrition Strategy:

take two more thermolytes in transition and two for the road. I'll be popping those like candy if the temperatures are higher than expected hehe.

I also need to have the following waiting for me in transition: 1 packet of gel and two 8oz bottles filled with fluids 1=gatorade, 1=H20 and the usual collection of medication (gas-x, beano, ibuprofen, heartburn). I will be stuffing all of these in the side pockets of my shorts before taking off for the run section.

I ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, 100% need to have hydration with me at all times.

If there's one thing I learned from my last half-ironman's run portion, it's that relying on aid stations to provide you with your fluids is a baaaad idea.

Baaaad. Baaad. Baaaaad. (Yes, I'm a sheep today)

Sometimes they're not spaced evenly, sometimes there aren't enough of them, and sometimes they run out of stuff before you get there!! I need to freeze my fluids the night before so that they're still somewhat cold by the time I get to them. I will also Take a gel with me to be consumed mind run.

So hydration on the run will be a combination of sipping from my fluid bottles and grabbing a cup of gatorade and a cup of water at every station or maybe even every other station depending on how they're spaced out.

At ~1h into the race, I'll take the gel that I brought along with me, esp if I'm feeling a little weak. If I feel like I'm cramping or that I might start cramping, I'll take another thermolite as well.

Run Strategy:

The goal at this point is to finish smooth and not blow up mid run. I really, really, really don't want to suffer unnecesarily if I can help it.

So the first third of the run, I'm going to take it super chill. No worries about time or speed, enjoy it, get my legs back into it, humm a nice song in my head, look around and enjoy the scenery. Don't push and don't get out of breath. It's just the first third, the start of the run. Take it slow and cherish it.

If I'm still feeling good, I will let myself kick up the pace just a teensy bit and get a little competitive. No triathlon would be feel right without at least a little bit of competitiveness now would it?

I'll start sizing people up that are ahead of me, see if I can chase them down (slowly but surely) and maybe even pass them :).

To be precise, the mental game that I usually play at these races is called "I'll shoot 'em down one by one". Yes it's a little violent, but hey it works for me.

In this game, I size up the people ahead of me, esp those that look like they're struggling or just plain old slow (i.e. plain old slower than me), find someone to target (i.e. pass) and then, I start shit talking to them in my head:

"Oh you think you can get ahead of me huh? You think you can beat me? Well I got news for ya buddy, I'll hunt you down like a dog. I'll hunt you doowwwwwnnnn. You don't even see it coming do you? Run for your life cuz when I come for you, you'll have no where to hide!!"

And then, as I'm passing my prey, I point a mental gun at them and I shoot them down. One Runner Down...who's next??

Yes it's kind of pathetic, maybe a little sadistic even and yes i'm a big dork and yes I still get an immense amount of joy from playing my mental shooting game and no I don't care what you think about it so hah :)


If I feel not that great, or just barely hanging on, I'll see if I can just hang on to my pace a little longer and not worry about anything/anyone else. Maybe I'll even resort to (gasp) a bit of little run-walking. I'm really hoping it doesn't come down to that though!



The last third of the race, maybe more like the last 5k, if I'm still feeling good, and still having fun shooting people down I'll kick my legs some more and really pick it up. I know that there's a fair bit of sand running along the beach involved at this point so i'll just do what I can with that.

If I'm feeling just okay,or not that great but not terrible, I'll see if I can at least push myself just a little more and run this last bit a little faster. Of course, if I'm feeling like absolutely crap I'll just focus on keeping pace and keep running.



During the very last mile, unless I feel like I'm about to die, I'm gonna try to give it all I've got. I need to take every ounce of energy, every iota of strength and put it all into my run.


In the last 100m or so, I'm gonna Push that final sprint kick in. It's the last stretch, time to leave every bit of your heart, your soul, your everything you have left in you out on the course no matter how you feel. Find it in you some where, and just push it to the finish line. Smile for the camera as you cross, and try not to throw up on the announcer :)

Equipment needed: sun glasses, visor, running shoes 2 8oz bottles filled with fluids, a little baggie of pills (gas x, beano, heart burt, theromolites, ibuprofen).


Wish me luck y'all I hope that I'm able to come out with the best of the scenarios that I've hypothesized and not face anything more tragic than the worst of the situations I've delineated in this post.

Emma Snowsill Wins Gold in Triathlon! I raced with her!!

Last year, I did the LA triathlon which is by far, my favorite triathlon of all time. The swim was at beautiful Santa Monica Beach...all the streets of hollywood were closed down just so we could bike through it in peace and the finish line was at the LA convention center..what more could you want?

Side detour: I'm not doing the LA triathlon this year because it falls on the same day as the Big Kahuna (which I'm hoping, will become my new fav).

Back to the title of the Post.

Emma Snowsill won the Olympic Gold for Triathlon this year.

Last year Emma Snowsill was the same woman who Won the LA triathlon which is the same freakin LA triathlon that I was competing in! That's crazy!! I actually raced with an olympiad!

In what other sport does this actually happen? (well, besides running)

During the pro triathlete swim start for the LA triathlon (they let the pros go first), I actually got to watched Emma and other pros sprint through the sand down to the water, hit the waves and dive right in...butterflying their way over and past the crazy breaks and out to the bouys....absolutely amazing.

In what other sport do you actually get to watch the people you idolize and admire up close (like 20ft away)?

In what other sport do you get to see them compete with you?

Many of the pros were warming up for their swim in the Ocean before the race started....just like us regular joe triathletes..so in reality I could have been warming up with Emma Snowsill.

For those of you who are football fans, this would be akin to warming up with Tom Brady or Eli Manning or something to that extent.

Being able to freely talk to and warm up with and interact with pro triathletes...just another one of the many reasons why triathlon is an awesome sport :)

Azra

What do you say after being MIA for so long?

It's been almost two months since my last blogpost and I've gotta say I've missed blogging. Blogging started as something to do while I kill time at my boring old job and also as an attempt to document my life as a quarter lifin' gal trying to figure things out.

A lot has happened since. Well main a series of things leading to a huge, monumental, life changing event:

On June 20th, I got laid off from my old boring job.

As luck would have it, on the same day, I had a phone interview for an Analytics Research position with Slide, a facebook apps and widget making start-up founded by Max Levchin, the founder of PayPal.com.

They liked me on the phone and wanted to bring me in. I was scheduled to visit my parents in San Jose that upcoming weekend and so I extended my visit for an 8-round deep interview process at the Slide headquarters in San Francisco...amazing, beautiful, vibrant San Francisco.

They grilled the hell out of me in that interview, asking me all kinds of questions from brain teasers, to "how would you solve xyz metrics related problem" to prove that a limit exists from my Real Analysis class. It was non-stop talking and thinking and rinse and repeat and wait you think you're done but you're really not so let's grill you some more. Man, it was an intense, intense experience..but strangely, secretly, masochistically..I enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed it.

It had been so long since I'd been challenged to think, challenged to use my brain, that part of my body that I value the most, that I had neglected for a little while. As scary and intimidating as it was, I really liked every one who interviewed me and some how I knew, I knew that they felt that I belonged at Slide.

I guess that gut feeling was right, because that friday, the 27th, I got an offer.

I packed my bags up, took off for good old SF and started my position on the 21st of July.

Since then, I've been challenged day in and day out both intellectually and emotionally, as a I swim upstream to get up to speed, work long hours and feel exhausted. But I welcome it. I welcome feeling humbled, I welcome feeling like there's so much to do and so little time to do it in, and I welcome feeling overwhelmed to my fullest capacity....I guess these feelings have been missing from my life for so long that I had forgotten how much I secretly enjoyed them.

Alas all this does come at a price. All other aspects of my life have taken a bit of a backseat. My relationships with family and friends, my triathlon training, my desire to read more books and of course my blog. My days just sort of fuse together into a long string of work-sleep continum with a little bit of eating and working out.

I am definitely struggling to keep my triathlon training schedule and am just now starting to get back on it with less than 4 weeks left until my big race, the big Kahuna.

Luckily I had built a nice cushy run/bike base while I was in AZ. Th swim...well you know how I am with the swim..I'll just have to wing it some how..like I always do :).

It was already tough to be on a strict workout regimen with working 7-8 hrs a day in arizona, but now, working 12-14hr days..it's even harder. But that's what makes it that much of a challenge..and predictably enough, that's what makes me wanna work out even more.

Scarcity.

It's an amazing phenomenon

When you have the time, you don't know what to do with it, but when you don't, alluva sudden you wish you did.

Now, I look forward to all my workouts. I cherish them whole heartedly and I love each and every one of them because every time I make it to a work out, I thank God that I was able to find time in my schedule to run, bike or swim.

That fire that I talked about a few blogposts ago..it's back. it's here. that fire to do something big. I feel like being here in SF is my callng, I feel like working this much and being so involved in what I do has reminded me of the passion I used to have of being something bigger, achieving something grand. That combined with my desire to be Ironman...I'm on top of the world.

And, I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of a nice place to be. All I can do is just work hard and hope that I don't get knocked off this cloud :)

Azra