Blue Lake Olympic - Race Report

It was two weeks to the day yesterday for the race. I had done exactly one swim, two rides and zero runs since Brasil. I was back to having zero expectations for a race again, felt good not have those. There was a lot of in-good-fun shit talking going on between the male Ironheads. A bunch of us entered to try and win the team competition, we should have come close, we took 4 awards home, but Tri Fusion from Spokane had just as many, if not more athletes place.

The weather forecasted to be overcast with some showers and some sun breaks...we got both plus as nice head/tail/crosswind depending on where you were on the course. This was actually my first Oly since 2004 @ Hagg Lake. I had never raced the Oly at Blue Lake, just the Sprint.

Last year the swim was a 1/4 mile short...so times were super fast onthe swim and overall. They also have little to no wind. We all joked that they would not make the swim short and make it long to make sure it was a sanctioned race for USAT. Sure enough it was long...

With no expectations, race prep is SO easy! I don't care about anything and I just get my stuff ready in slow motion and have no worries. Racing this way is very nice, I need to remember this calm for bigger races. On to the swim...

30-39 year olds were the first wave, we started in the water and were doing a clockwise loop around the lake with all the bouys on our right. I lined up in front, gun went off and I went out hard. Last time I raced after and IM and went our hard, I blew up and ended up on my back not being able to breathe...not this time. I went hard, but not very long, worked out. No feet to grab for awhile, but those around were fading by the first bouy anyway. Latched on at one point only to feel like I slowed down too much. Moved off and swam up to another group 25m ahead and sat in there until the last bouy. At that point I was over 18 minutes and knew the swim was long. I got out in 21:14. I had a little trouble getting my wetsuit off, so T1 was slow @ 2:02.

On the bike and rolling. Sweet tailwind to the first turnaround by the Troutdale Airport. Then a bitch of a headwind for a few miles with some very little rain. Got a bit chilly. Wind died and the rain did too after about 20 minutes. Then it was a guessing game as to were and when the wind would come from. Felt like head wind to the next turn-around, but I wasn't any faster and actually slowed coming back in...whatever. I was hoping for a sub one hour split and got one, barely - 59:50. T2 was much better @ 1:13.

The run was expected to be a little rough...it was in parts, but mostly pretty good. That moment of clarity during Hawthorne Farms that I thought I could hold 6:15 for 10k was almost verified. I averaged 6:24 for a 39:45 two weeks after an Ironman...pretty good I'd say. I was fully expecting my legs to be jello after the bike, but they weren't...guess I didn't push it hard enough.

The day ended with 2:04:04 and 12th place OA and 5th AG. PR's all around even with a long swim. The field was very deep and fast. Pro Matt Lieto won with 1:54...he almost caught me on the run after starting 10 minutes back due to a wave start format. I saw him coming and wasn't going to let him get me.

There were shit load of Ironheads out there, which made it super fun to see everyone racing and doing well. The Blackwell Research rep I bought my new race wheels was there, so I brought my bike over to display in his booth. He said it got a lot of attention. I'm letting him display it at Pacific Crest and Hagg lake while I travel the next two weeks.

More traveling and training. I'll le tyou know how that goes. I have a Half Ironman a week after I get back to either get a slot to Canada or to 70.3 Champs...no decision yet.

The Venice Beach Hotel

Couple nice Alfa Romeos in the driveway. Katja, the owner, owns them. Her father owns several Alfa dealerships. He also has, and I didn't get a photo of, a 70's Mustang Mach 1 in orange. Completely orginal and very nice. Katja and her staff bent over backwards to accomadate us anytime of the day. You needed a car, you got a car, you needed drugs for a cold, you got drugs delivered, anything and everything they could get, no problem...just not a crank bolt...

Week of June 4th, 2007 - Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

I'm feeling at bit of a need to redeem myself from Brazil. Although I had as good of race as I could have asked for being sick, I still feel I need a better result for the year. As I mentioned before I have feelers out to find a slot for IM Canada. If this falls through, I'm either going to do the Desert Half in Osoyoos to get a Canada slot or Lake Stevens 70.3 and try to get a slot to the 70.3 Champs. I haven't decided what to do yet...

Luckily for me, both halfs are on the same day, so Scott is able to give me a plan up to either race significantly easier than try to plan for different weekends.

Some photos of Brazil...

The sun breaking through the clouds...

"Snoop Dog" stand in Centro we stopped at...got some corn dog things and a deep fried banana with sugar coating...mmmm...good.

The street from the beach to the hotel...

Training Totals Leading to IM Brazil

This is kind of stupid, but it illustrates the "little things" I have accomplished over the course of 25 weeks leading to IM Brazil.

Swimming: 225,623 yards (9k/week)
Biking: 3,368 miles (135/week)
Running: 690 miles (28/week)

That averages out to about 14-15 hours a week for 25 weeks. Obviously, larger weeks here and smaller weeks there. This also tells me that I still need to run more and that I have had some good quality cycling. It was all about volume last IM, where as this time, I had lots more quality cycling and more volume running.

My focus for the following weeks will be some swimming a couple days a week and some cycling. The Bally pool outdooors is open now, so that is where I' be headed. Then running focused while I am travelling from the 16th-26th of this month.

After that, I think if I don't get into Canada and then Hawaii, I'm going to try Lake Stevens 70.3 and get to the 70.3 Champs in Clearwater, FL. Wish me luck!

IM Brazil Race Report

IM Brazil 2007


So, #3 is in the books and oh, what a ride it was for the days leading up the Ironman Brasil. In a nut shell, I am happy with my performance and even happier to be home.

I managed to shave off some more time since IM Canada, some 17 minutes to 10:08. My goal was to get under 10 (9:55), but it just wasn’t in the cards that day.

My whole trip started off pretty crappy, some was my fault, some airlines, and some mystery crap.

Just a quick recap of issues that contributed to non-ideal pre-race stress levels…I tried to remember and celebrate the little things, the things that got me here, it was hard, I tried. Gant, Brynje, Bryon and the hotel staff made things a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. I appreciated them very much this week.

• Repack bike box in Portland, too heavy
• Backpack lost in Sao Paulo
• Missing connection to Floripa – cause of lost baggage paperwork
• Missed second flight to Floripa - wrong directions from TAM
• 8pm arrival instead of 9am to Floripa
• Fever/chills/headache for two days, then headache and cough, then just cough till race day morning.
• Sheared crank bolt, left crank arm falls of during training ride. I thought I needed new cranks, twice the price in Brasil, but once I started transferring Brynje’s brother’s crank, I realized, just the bolt was needed. Bought a new one in the States for $10!

Anyway, aside from being sick, I handled things pretty well. And being sick, I was hoping for the Jordan like performance, when he got sick, he goes and scores 60 points…

Race morning comes around and the hotel had it’s usual breakfast out…yogurt, granola, fruits, breads, coffee, cheese and ham. I ate lots of bread, honey, coffee and some yogurt and granola. Now, off to get dressed and apply sunscreen. Since our bikes were dropped off yesterday with our bike/run bags, all we needed to do was drop of our special needs bags and put our bottles on the bike. A van left at 5am to get to the start.

Once there, special needs bags were dropped off, bike bottles were placed, body marked and wetsuit was put on. The bags were all very organized, but their rules on coming and going from certain areas were really fucking annoying.

The swim ramp to T1 was really long, like 200m or so, which other than walking down the street was the only access to the swim start, about 300m down the beach from T1/T2. It was still dark, but watching what sun was coming through the clouds was pretty calming. I had all but abandoned my hopes of a sub 10 day several days ago, so my stress level and pre race jitters were pretty low. The swim start was set-up with the pros only 5m in front of the rest (1200+ athletes). Sucks for them. Warming up before the race in the water was strictly prohibited…stupid.

I guess there was a count down, but I didn’t hear it, the banner went up and everyone started running to the water. The cannon went off a minute later as I was already in the water… I waded pretty far out looking for a spot to dive in and go, but nothing materialized, so I just went… The course was a bit of a an ‘M’ shape. The first bouy was 900m out and turning left the whole day…the current was going right to left as well. This made for an interesting swim. I was always swimming to the right. I was alone a lot, but this meant I was going in the right direction. Following the masses on this day was not the right thing to do. So, I was never on any feet, nor were there anyone on mine… At the half way point, we run out and around the beach and back in…I was just under 30 minutes…fine, I said, 60 is cool with what I have had to deal with this week. But, apparently the second have is much faster, cause I was out in 56 minutes…PR by almost 3 minutes…I’m happy about that.

T1 had the usual wetsuit strippers and I was in and out pretty quick. They roll your T1/T2 times into your bike…which is stupid, but what can you do… T1 was somewhere around 3 minutes with that long run to the tent and T2 was less than 2 minutes.

The bike is 90km loops out to the Central Florpia and back with a few little out and backs along the way. The bike was deceptively hard for me. It was very flat and fast, but I didn’t feel it. HR was down to 130s for most of the first lap and second lap I pushed up to 140, just as planned, but the speed was no there. Sick legs…my legs were sore Wednesday and Thursday from the violent shivering… Both loops were around 2:37ish which makes sense since my official bike if 5:21. Gant and I rode for a bit, he was pushing 200 watts as I was staying close to him for awhile.

Drafting, holy shit do these guys not give a shit. There were pelatons of 50 guys riding the day. I would see them on the turnarounds, never breaking apart, never leaving the wheel in front. I got into several as there was no where to go. If you went ahead, guess who was on your wheel? I tried not to sit in, but occasional I had no choice. I broke free on the hills on time, just torched them and only three came with me and then passed me on the flats…fine, I was by myself again. Next time, I’m sitting in, fuck it, save the legs to run a 3:30…

So, the run…I felt really good compared to Canada last year, so that was a good sign. However, that quickly faded as the 21k mark came, it was a struggle. I started running 8/8:30’s and faded to 9:30 by the last 10k loop. There was a 22k loop followed by two 10k loops. The two 10k loops were nice, I liked that. The run was flat after the first loop, but my quads were feeling it already. There isn’t much to say about the run…the pocket on the jersey isn’t worth crap, it can barely hold gu packets and sure as hell not a 10oz nutrition bottle. I threw it out after 16k of slopping around. The sun came out for the run after being overcast and sprinkling a bit on the bike. It never got hot, or humid. In the end I took 10 minutes of Canada’s run to low my marathon mark to 3:50… Guess what Garren is doing this off season? Running!

I’m happy, I PR’d, Brazil is a beautiful place, with good food and drink. I was told over and over again to come in the summer when the women out number the men, 10-1…that’s a good deal!

The hotel where we stayed was the best! They bent over backwards for us on everything, anytime. Venice Beach is the place…Katja is the owner and speaks English. I definitely didn’t stress about the living situation.

What’s next? Who knows…I really want to get to Kona, so at least one more race to get there…maybe squeeze a slot to Canada…who knows…

Week of May 21st - Race Week, Birthday and Travelling...

Let me warn you about the following blog entry...It's unedited and full of cussing, ill remarks and just plain bad writing. I wrote this on four different occasions during my trip down to Brazil, during the week there and after the race.

Saturday morning at 5am came quick after a long night of packing. Starbucks was open and I stopped on the way to the airport. I knew that this trip was going to be long and it hasn’t let me down…hence I am writing this in Sao Paulo @ 12:41pm local time…I should have been in Floripa by 9:30am… My BlackBerry contrary to T-Mo website doesn’t work here… Fuck! Where do I begin?

Portland to LA was the first leg of this trip. Upon weighing the borrowed bike case stuffed with my new 100s, the B2 and training wheels it was 80 pounds…shit…time to repack. I got it down to 74 pounds and the very nice lady said TAM takes 70lbs free of charge. International bike checking is free – stoked again! Quick flight and there was a lot of babies and little kids on this flight…I think I used up my good karma in this first leg. Once in LA, it was good people watching. I had a sandwich – turkey, pear and brie – good stuff. I had a bit of worry about my luggage (which is later confirmed) so I asked about checking to see if my bags had made it to this flight (AA) I flew on United to LA and then TAM from Sao Paulo. They couldn’t. Had a cup of Starbucks on the flight.

LA – Miami-Dade as the second leg, second longest. Boeing 777 with an isle seat. Flight was fine, but getting hungry. Stretched a bit in the bulkhead to loosen up. iShuffle songs starting to repeat…bad sign. Got into Miami on time and had less then an hour to get to my AA flight, which (and it starts now…) is on the other side of the airport! Almost got lost trying to navigate without getting out the secured area. The corridors I walked down were super ghetto and it looked like they just cleaned up a flood. Not the best smelling either. I stopped at some Cuban/Puerto Rican/Brazilian café and got a espresso shot, Gatorade and a Cuban sandwich and walked to the gate and onto the already full plane. Found my seat, isle in the middle isle. I also got a neck pillow for the next leg, but didn’t use it.

Miami to Sao Paulo was/still is the longest leg… Isle seat again, and a few hours into the flight, it’s still only 7pm PST. Not tired yet. Watched some more TV and read some of this book I picked up. Billions of missing links, by Geoffery Simmons M.D. (he’s a local author). I thought it was more about evolution and missing links, but rather its about “Intelligent Design.” Not really what I was looking for, but interesting nonetheless. The espresso is SUPER strong down here…the coffee on the plane is also “not your average Starbucks cup of joe.” The book says there are too many very complex living things/relationships between them that evolution can’t explain… I don’t know what to make of it yet, but there are sentences that I think, “So what? Just because we haven’t discovered the missing link between evolutions of an elephant, doesn’t mean that it didn’t evolve from something smaller or bigger…” Anyway.

Alright, the fun begins as we touch down in Brazil. I’m thinking, “Is my bike here” Shit yeah! It made it! Fuck! Where’s my backpack? Fuck, I have to get my backpack, go through customs, check-in, recheck bags and board to Floripa.” Over two hours later…missed connecting flight, no backpack, customs line was really long, get stopped for my bike, didn’t understand that I was bringing everything home that I am bringing, finally let go. I head to the TAM counters – HOLY SHIT it’s a mad house, lines everywhere. I find, quickly, where to get a new ticket. However, the 11:50 flight is full and I get a reservation for the 4:50!!! Can you say nine hours later…in Portuguese? I can’t, but I can say Chinga Dera a whole fucking lot! So, I get over to the “Estrada de Listo” and get on the list for 11:50. She tells me to come back to this window @ 11:20 to see if seats were released. I twitter around for a bit and return @ 11am. The door is closed, there are several others lining up. At 11:20 a lady goes and finds out where they are…apparently we need to go to the actual counter – not the instructions given to us! I make it over there and guess what? No more people are allowed since it’s past 11:20… I argue in futility about the instructions I was given, but doesn’t change anything… At this point I walk about 3 meters away and almost, almost start crying (for the record that’s twice in as many days). I’ve been traveling for over 30 hours by now and I’m pissed to no end. You’re all lucky you didn’t have to witness this. I regroup and check my bike in for the 4:50 flight.

Before blowing up, I was proactive and rented some internet to the tune of 2 Real to get the hotel address so my backpack would show up, sometime this week. Another 6 Real to call the airline and give them the details…I know now that I could have just walked to the baggage claim service and given them the address…cause that’s where I went to actually GET my bag. It came in on the 10:30 flight from Miami. I ran into a bloke from the UK who said that 50% of the time his bags show up on later flights from Miami to Sao Paulo…I think I would find a new hub to go through…

So, now I have checked in my backpack to Floripa…I leave @ 4:50 this afternoon BST. That’s three hours from now!!! Another shot of espresso…yum! Typing fast now! I think I will have a JetStack, JetFrites and PostMix 400ml meal…yeah, that’s right!

Oh snap, forgot the only thing keeping me sane at the moment…chics. There are some of the finest asses in the planet here! Everyone is related to J. Lo and Shakira! It’s awesome.

These are my twitter moments…

There are enormous lines here too…like when you travel on the holidays in the states, it’s all day here, line after line after line…also a reason things take just a BIT longer than normal.

I had an Antarctica beer with two little penguins on the can on the plane. Tasted like Pabst.

There are several little beggers running around asking for change…love saying “no comprende” like they understand me!

What should I be doing about getting a hold of Bill and the group in Floripa to tell them what is happening…pay another 2 Real to get the phone number and then another 10 to call the hotel? I’m sure they are wondering what the fuck is going on… yeah I should go do that.

Then go do my budget…then maybe go through security to the gate…

Oh, and the Gate Monitors are wrong…leading me to believe that I need to be at Gate 9, not Gate 1 like my ticket says…argh!

And, I’m pretty sure that I forgot or lost my watch for the race…wonder if Polar will be at the Expo…loaner watch? Buy a cheapo HR for the race? Go without data?

I’m sitting inhaling diesel fumes…mmmm…benzene.

I finally get to the Venice Beach Hotel. I had a van get me. I was a little worried since the owner, Katja kept saying I’ll see you tomorrow, when I was coming in today. She went to college in the States. Everyone was surprised to see me, since Katja was saying tomorrow to them as well. It’s a nice place, very clean and very loud as everything is tile.

Gant, Brynje and Byron were just coming back from dinner, so I had a few beers with them and crashed for the night.

Monday morning I was up at 9:45 and headed to breakfast. Lots of breads, cheeses and fruit. I squirreled away some food for lunch that afternoon. I built my bike up today as well. Looks like everything made it just fine… Later that afternoon Gant, Bill and I went for run along the course. It goes right past my hotel. We ran to the start about 6k away and got a taste of the super steep hill. It’s steep! A little bit after the run we went swimming, sans wetsuit, the water was a great temperature. There are a couple moored boats off shore we swam to and around. It was very choppy and windy, but fun.

Tuesday morning I was up at 9:45 again…headed to breakfast. We swam shortly after breakfast with wetsuits…it’s been awhile. Same course out and back and forth between the anchored boats. Today was also a ride for about 40k out along the courses only three hills… And wouldn’t you know it…my left crank arm falls off! WTF!!! Can this trip get any worse? Well, yes it can… It must have happened in transit because of the way the bolt was sheared… Unbelievable. I have a couple options, new crank, new crank arm or borrow Byron’s for the race. I’m leaning towards borrowing a crank… The ones at the expo are spendy and 172.5s. Anywayz!

As we head to dinner Tuesday night I start getting some sniffles and by the time I go to bed, my head is pounding, I’m achy, stuffed up, feverish, chills…good times! I was hot/cold/sweating/shivering uncontrollably all night! I was so miserable. I have been under crazy stress ever since I left the states…It’s me time the rest of the trip. I have some Vicks – stuffy head so you can rest medicine that I am taking, so hopefully that will do it.

Birthday morning…not feeling any better. I’m sitting eating breakfast sweating buckets…another girl here has a bag of meds that her flight school doctor gave her. She hooked me up with some drugs for today. I haven’t got worse, but my headache is bad. And now I have a slight cough. We rode to the expo today to get CO2, water bottles, crankset? and other gear we needed. US$10 water bottles!!! Crazy. Nothing good so far.

Gant, Brynje and Bryon went to dinner with me, I was a stick in the mud cause I feel like shit. We had a good quasi-Italian dinner. Brynje had a steak covered with marinara and egg! Looked and tasted really good.

There is a local guy that has friends with bike shops here, so maybe I can get a good deal on a crankset or something…cross your fingers.

I’m getting crazy shivers with are pretty much negating my leg wax by the minute… Also, my legs are very stiff and tired from shaking all day and night – miserable… I just think back to other professional athletes who get sick before big games and come and have the day of their lives…I’m going to have one of those! I’ve never drank so much water and peeing so much in my life!

Thursday we rode a little bit as I am feeling better. Still sweating a bit a night. I can’t remember if I swam today or not, but I sure didn’t run. For dinner we went back to the Cantina Pizzaeria for dinner. I got some seafood pasta that wasn’t all that great. Bryon got the Santa Maria calzone that Gant and I had a couple nights before as a pizza. Fillet Mignon on pizza/calzone is grubbin’!

We picked up our packets today as well. Not much different than past events. I wish we were staying a bit closer to the start, so we didn’t have to ride to get our stuff.

Friday rolls around and we rent a car to head to the Centro to visit Giselle’s clothing store, Coulche or something like that… I ended up getting the car, we got a VW Gol. I think I took today completely off as well. It was fun driving here. People drive crazy, but controlled. Your blinker is a declaration, not a question…you just go. It was fun. It was a quick 30 minutes to the city and we parked in Floripa’s version of Smart park where they give you a card and when you get back, you pay.

We never did find the store, it must have closed. We found a billion other shops, mostly for shoes. There a little trinket shop we stopped at that was full of local artist stuff, some cool, some junk.

I got a massage today as well. Everyone said she was good, but I disagree. It was good and relaxing though.

Tonight was the athlete dinner at the start/finish. They had crazy little status of women and on with an animal and human head in the jaws…weird. They said a bunch of stuff and then translated into English, which we still couldn’t understand…and eat and left.

Saturday rolls around and we are debating on what to do for breakfast race morning. They have yogurt, granola, coffee, fruit, rolls and stuff every morning, so since we can’t find peanut butter, we all settled on the usual. It worked, just ate more of it.

We all rode to drop off our bike and bike/run bags in the afternoon. Our plan was to run the 6k back to the hotel along the ocean, which was nice. This run was the first run since Mondays 75 minutes. It started off pretty rough and was hacking a bit still, but by the end I was feeling okay, not great, but okay. I stayed off the feet the rest of the day.

We had a dinner planned at the hotel with pasta, chicken, meat sauce and vino.

So, it’s a couple days after IM now, I’m Costa Norte with my dad and brother. I was hoping to surf, but it’s not happening, ocean is flat. We walked around town one day and did some shopping as well go back to the Centro Mercado to shop some more. That night we went to a soccer game Avai FC vs. Gremio…it was fun, but got pretty cold, 10 degrees C. We bought an Avai FC scarf to keep warm, but that didn’t help much. The funniest thing about the game was the at half time the referees were escort courted off the field by a dozen riot geared policia, guess they aren’t popular…

The trip home was just as bad as the trip down. I spare you the details, but I missed the connection to Miami from Sau Paulo because of TAM. Spent the night in a hotel in SP and got on the wait list for Dalles/Forth Worth @ 9:50pm. Made that flight, STOKED! The nicest lady at American, by far the nicest and cutest Customer Service rep put me on a direct to PDX from Dalles, STOKED! Anyway, I made it home, two days after I left Floripa...

Week of May 14th, 2007 - Preparation Week

The week of the 14th, two weeks out, I did a bunch of stuff...here's the summary:

Actual Time 10:55
Planned Time 12:45
Swim Distance 12500 yd
Bike Distance 90 mi
Run Distance 15 mi

Not much to stay about this week as I was very busy getting ready, seeing friends and family before i left for good lucks, and birthday wishes...