It's no secret having a puppy is hard work, and a lot of missed sleep. That's what I'm calling out as the main reason for my poor performance. Add in a really stressful time at work (people in BC know what I'm talking about... without getting into any politics on this blog but there is a pretty tough situation here between teachers and the government, and being in administration I'm caught in the proverbial middle; and of course add on the craziness that comes with wrapping up one school year), also a crazy non-stop day before the race, and bad weather day-of, and I came up with one lousy performance. So anyway, here's how the race went.
Swim:
A measly 500 meters. I figured I could swim that in 8 minutes based on what I've been doing in training. Yeah, it was my first wetsuit swim of the year (and no open water since Hawaii in March which is not really comparable to a cold lake), but honestly I didn't think any of that would matter as I've been swimming really well. I definitely was working hard in the water, but knew that I wasn't getting anywhere by the number of women around me. I hit the beach at 8:36 on my watch, and the timing mat in transition (why don't they put them at the actual swim exit?) in 9:09. Yeesh. Last year I had the fastest swim in my age group by a minute. This year I did not. Argh. Especially disappointing as I have been working hard on my swim and seeing way better times than that in training. My only consolation is that everyone was slower this year, and I know it's tough to measure a swim course accurately (and any error over 500 m is going to be a big time difference, really).
Bike:
22 km on a twisty, hilly route around a lake. I was three minutes slower than last year. Yeah, it was raining and the technical nature of the course forced everyone to be slower because of the wet roads. But, I'm a good bike handler and didn't really ride conservatively around corners or anything. Girls I should have been able to ride with just rode away. The real tell is looking at my power numbers. Despite trying to work hard, I was at the low end of my tempo zone, when my plan for this short event was to push the numbers up closer to lactate threshold. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get any higher numbers. So something's going on - fatigue, mentally not into it, or whatever. Honestly, that morning I said to Jason that if I hadn't already had to check my bike in the day before, I probably would have bailed on the whole thing. I ain't got no game today!
Run:
I wasn't expecting anything out of my run, as because of knee issues I haven't really been running high volumes or intensity. So my run was basically the same pace I would have run 5 km in training. I got passed by A LOT of people.
Finish:
Eight minutes slower than last year. For a sprint, that's an eternity.
There were some saving graces. One, I now know I need to race a few more times before the Vineman Aquabike to shake the cobwebs out. I'm carefully perusing the local race schedule to see what I can fit in. Two, my friend Steve King was the race announcer (anyone familiar with the "old" days of Ironman Canada knows who I'm talking about) and it's always great to see him, and I love the "extra" commentary he throws in when I cross the finish line. Three, the number of complements and "Go Betty!" comments I got on my Betty team kit. I have yet to do an event wearing Betty gear that I don't get several comments on.
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| My awesome Betty Designs team tri kit. Not sure if there are any pics from the actual race, or if I'd even want to see them! |
I am going to carefully study my training log from last year and talk to Jason, and make the adjustments necessary to get in some quality training. I've had some really good workouts lately, so Sunday was just a blip and I've been telling myself that you can't be faster every single race, right? Right?
It sounds like you have a lot of external stressors, which is definitely going to affect race performance. I wouldn't worry about it too much!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing what other race(s) you put on I your schedule! And, if you'd like, sharing how you adjust your training.