Monday, April 22, 2013

April 15-21: Age Group Podium!

I was skeptical that I'd get to the starting line of my half ironman. Less than three weeks ago, I could barely pull myself out of bed, and to say that my athletic performance was inconsistent would be putting it mildly. I changed my mind a bunch of times, thought about doing the sprint instead, remembered that I HATE sprints, decided to just go and see how it went with a minimalist race plan and no real time goals. After all, when you bag a good part of your workout schedule during a peak training week because you can't force yourself to lift your arms, you really can't be too ambitious. 

Even without being ambitious, you can go out on the race course and have a fun day. 

And maybe even set a 35+ minute PR and come in 4th in your age group while you're at it.

Well...I guess that's something to be happy about.



Monday: Rest day.

Tuesday: DC pools were closed for Emancipation Day, so DCRP Masters wasn’t an option. However, I had to go to Rockville anyway, so I logged 3400 meters up at the Shriver Aquatic Center.

Wednesday: An hour of easy spinning on the trainer in the morning, then a 4.69 mile track workout, including 2.5 miles at “goal race pace” which was 8:01/mile. Because, obviously, a sub-1:45 half ironman run split is realistic for me. Or not.

Thursday: 2000 yards of easy swimming before hopping into the car with Rachel and driving down to Charleston for the race.

Friday: A pre-race brick of 30 minutes of biking and 20 minutes of running, then a lot of sitting around and resting in between obsessively packing and repacking transition bags.

Saturday: 1.2 miles of swimming in 30:30 (29:40 in the water plus some running to a timing mat), 56 miles of biking in 2:55:47, and 13.1 miles of running in 1:54:49. Total race time of 5:27:51.

Sunday: Many hours of driving, then about 6 miles of walking to loosen up the legs. A rest day otherwise.

19 comments:

  1. You are a freaking rock star!!! Way to get it done!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Damn, Victoria! Even if it fails you on occasion, it seems you have your body trained to perform on command ...

    Congrats!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Whoa! Congratulations :D Good on you for racing anyway despite a difficult training cycle and kicking some ass while doing so.

    Also, randomly, I wish I was as tall as you!

    xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks!

      I'm actually not that tall - 5'8" - I think I'm just big in general and that creates some sort of optical illusion.

      Delete
  4. NICE WORK, FRIEND!! Race recap coming soon I hope? My not-so-secret trigeek wants to know exactly how it went down!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Outstanding job, Victoria! You definitely fought through a lot of bad things, which would have sidelined amsost all other triathetes. Congratulations on a great job under any circumstances.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I' really happy for you and this is certainly more good things to come. Fearless leader of team #rage fueled by blogging BS!

    ReplyDelete
  7. That is RIDIC. Beast mode. Why are you making us wait for the recap?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are amazing! And evil...what sort of race report is this??

      PS -do you follow penatpeace? She's an awesome triathlete too, and I love her blog (when she does post)

      Delete
    2. I do follow her! And said "hi, I read your blog!" when I was at mile 8.5 and she was at mile 10.5 of the run.

      Delete
  8. Holy smokes! That is fantastic! Congrats on so many counts. Can't wait to hear about it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Victoria! So nice to meet you out there on the course! You don't know how excited I was when you said hi! I was dying and it gave a little extra push to get me to the end. Congrats on your PR! What do you have coming up next?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh good, I wasn't ceep-tastic :). Well, maybe I was, but at least it pushed you through that run course faster. I have a bunch of open water swims coming up, including the Chesapeake Bay Swim on 6/9. 4.4 miles in dirty water - can't wait! After that, there's this little race in Mont Tremblant, QC in August...

      Delete
    2. Oh yea, the CB swim is always the same weekend as Eagleman, I never get that. I always want to do both (I grew up going to summer camp in Easton and sailing/swimming in the bay..) one day i'll figure out a way.

      Delete