Boulder 70.3

August 17, 2017

Boulder 70.3

Spectating at Aquaman

Well, now it's been a LONG time since I updated. After St. George, Garden of the Gods 10 miler, and my sprint, moving, work trips, Bolder Boulder, I figured I had raced enough for the year, right? HA! Not hardly....

Aquaman Fun!

More aquaman fun

In early June, my triathlon team began Aquaman events at the Cherry Creek Res on Tuesday nights. I didn't race in all of them, but did a few. It was a 1 mile swim followed by a 5k run. Fun times to see everyone.

Middle of July was supposed to be the double triple bypass, but it ended up getting canceled because there were fires up in Breck. I was bummed. A big group of people from my tri team were going to attend, and though it would have been physcially very challenging, I was looking forward to the challenge and spending time with friends. Instead, coach had me head out for a double century bike ride--that's right, I did 108 miles on Saturday and 105 miles on Sunday. Needless to say, it wasn't my favorite training weekend! But I got it done! With the 4th of July holiday, I reached a new record of 20.5 hours of training that week!

Riding after the BAM swim with the Trianimals!

BAM SWIM

The following week brought a 3 mile open water swim race in Saturday at the Boulder Res, followed by a 76 mile bike ride, and a 12 mile run on Sunday!

The end of July, I did my very first Olympic distance triathlon! An Olympic distance is a 1 mile swim, 26 mile bike (in this case, sometimes the bike varies a little), and a 10k run. I set a goal for myself to break 3 hours, and I squeezed in at 2:59! But man, Olympics HURT! (Not that I learn, I signed up for another one next week)... I had a particularly bad swim at this one, couldn't see the bouys to save my life. So I'm looking forward to that getting better!

Headed out for a run

there were other people, I promise!

Before I knew it, it was the first week of August and time for Boulder 70.3. Last year, Boulder 70.3 was my first race in the triathlon world really (I had done a sprint and an aqua bike years before, but I'm not counting those). Due to some changes, this year Boulder 70.3 was moved from the first week of June to the first week of August. I thought for sure it was going to be 700 degrees and awful. I was SO pleasantly surprised to have it be over cast and in the low 80s! Score! The week before Boulder, coach had me do a pretty significant rest. I did aquaman that Tuesday, but otherwise workouts were like 30 minutes! I even had just a 1,200 yard swim!!

I took Friday off from work, picked up my packet, took a quick ride around the parking lot to test out the bike after getting it back from the shop (new race wheels!), swam a couple 100 yards in the res to decide if I wanted to use sleeves or no-sleeves wetsuit (went with sleeves), and did a quick 20 minute run. The run actually felt awful. Couldn't keep my heart rate down. So I was a little bit of a wreck. I shopped until I almost dropped at the Ironman Store, and then we had a pasta dinner with Trianimals. (Kudos to Dean who was a fantastic sherpa on Friday, tagged along with me all day in Boulder, and kept track of my stuff, and waited for me!). Then it was home to pack up and get ready for the morning.

I was in a later swim wave (about an hour after the pros went off), so I figured I didn't need to be right at the Res when transition opened. BIG MISTAKE. I ended up in the worst traffic jam of my life. I eventually got there (and they delayed the start of the race), but I was freaking out that they weren't going to let me into transition to drop off all the necessary items (my bike was already there, but had to add bike shoes, running shoes, nutrition, etc.). Fortunately, I made it with about 15 minutes to spare, but I definitely shed some freaked out tears!

Once I was all set up in transition, I was feeling a bit better. I ate some nutrition, got my wetsuit on, and got over to the beach to warm up. I saw a few friends before the start, which was AWESOME! When I did this race last year, I wasn't a part of my tri team, and didn't know anyone but my mom at the start. Mom couldn't make it out this year, so it was fantastic to not be alone, and to have some people to joke around with. Meredith was in my swim wave, so we hung out right until the start.

I got to the front of our wave, and before I knew it they were letting us into the water. I always have a little bit of nerves before the start of any race, especially a half, and it wasn't any different. I was confident though that my training would prove to be valuable, and I knew that minus awful circumstances or mechanical failure, that I would get my butt over the finish line. The real question was just how quickly would I do so!

Hanging out before the swim start

The swim buzzer went off, and my stroke felt great. A few people were right around me, but then I noticed that I had pulled away from the pack. I was catching people from the wave before by about the second bouy, so it was pretty impossible to tell what place you were in. I later found out (like 2 days later thanks to Ironman's system being slow to post results), that I was indeed the fastest out of the water in my age group! Score! My total swim time was 28:53. My previous best was 30:14 at St. George, so I was happy with that! I think there is still a minute or two more that I can gain there!

Getting on the bike, I felt my stomach was pretty upset. The water in Boulder Res isn't very clean so I thought that was the culprit (after talking to my coach, it sounds like maybe I ate a few too many calories before the swim start, without enough water. So I'll change that up next time and see how I do). I drank plain water for the first little bit, to see if that would calm my stomach down, but it didn't really seem to be helping. A couple of times I burped pretty badly with some liquid behind it. I was nervous for what it meant for the rest of the day. However, I knew that I needed to get calories in my system, and that not eating would be far worse then a stomach ache. So I pounded my drink mix, and mixed in some cliff blocks and gu's over the course of the ride. The stomach was never fabulous but it did calm down some.

The Boulder 70.3 bike course is a pretty fast course. I had done it in just over 3 hours last year (including a porta potty stop), so I was hoping to be a faster this year. The first part of the course is a nice gradual downhill, where you can FLY, followed by a totally false flat for a couple of miles, some rollers, and then the Nelson hill climb, followed by a few more rollers, and a finish up a portion of the false flat from earlier in the course. I put my head down and just tried to keep my heart rate under control and save some energy for Nelson hill. Nelson is not my favorite, but I have the advantage that I had been training on it virtually every weekend all season. I was ready to own that climb! After all was said and done, I earned Strava trophies all up and down that climb, so I was pretty pleased with my efforts.

As I got to the top of the Nelson road, I saw my friend Ed getting out of an ambulance. He was ok and talking, but he said to me "I might be a DNF." My first thought was that someone on his tri-team had a bad crash or something. He quickly explained to me that his HR had gone crazy, and that he was debating what to do. I kept moving, knowing that he was safe, and trusting him to make the right decision. A few minutes later he came up on me and said he was going to continue, but that he wasn't going to push it. Then despite not pushing it, he left me in his dust! Lol!

My bike split ended up being 2:47:41, which I am pretty happy with. I think there is still room for improvement on the bike overall, but I was pleased. I felt like my bike split in St. George was awful, so I was happy to see that the extra time I've been putting on the bike seems to be paying off.

Courtney and Ed running together!

After the bike, of course it's time to run... my least favorite part of triathlon! My stomach was still not fantastic, but I've learned to throw a few chewable pepto tabs in my race belt. I took those, and it seemed after a few miles that my stomach settled down, which was awesome. I ran back into my friend Ed, and we actually got to run the bulk of the first lap together. This NEVER happens in a race, and it was so awesome. He is the one who got me into triathlons, and has been such an inspiration. He's always waiting for me at the finish line and we hardly ever see each other, so it was awesome to be able to run together. I had set a mini-goal for myself to finish the run in under 2:30, which I knew was aggressive, but I thought doable. My legs actually felt pretty good, which was awesome, considering how much I had pushed the bike. About a mile or two into it though, my Garmin totally pooped out. The display just stopped working and I couldn't see anything. Coach makes me run without it sometimes, so it wasn't like I couldn't do it, but I was certainly disappointed to not have any data about how fast I was running, my heart rate etc. In the end, my run split was 2:37, which I can't complain about too much. I'm hoping that with some additional run training, I can get that down under 2:30. Not the fastest, but great for me. The run split was also a PR, so I can't complain to much there.

All and all, I finished in 6:00.13. I was really wanting to break 6 hours, and was a little mad that I was just over. But last year I did the race in 6:30:55, so I can't complain about a 30 minute PR! I know that I'll break 6 hours. Hopefully either at Harvest Moon or AZ 70.3! It will happen! After the race, I hung out with some trianimals peeps, and then went home and had a big burger and a beer, and some ice cream!

Always gotta get the medal pic with the beer!

Finishers! And Meredith just signed up for Boulder full!

Sunday was a trainer bike ride, followed by Monday off, and then getting right back into training. It's under the 100 days to Ironman now, which is crazy to think! Next weekend I've got another Olympic distance triathlon, the Colorado Springs Half Marathon the last weekend of September, Harvest Moon in the middle of September, Arizona 70.3 at the end of October, and then Ironman on November 19th! It's going to be here so soon!

It's been a whirlwind couple of months. I am so grateful to have found this sport, and my tribe of people. I seriously get home every Sunday night and just think about how blessed I am. I can't say that I love absolutely every minute of training (that's not the point right?), but I love every single minute that I spend with these people, and I love the feeling of finishing a hard session, cheering friends in to the finish line, and just being together. I am beyond lucky! A few more pictures from the last month or so because I just couldn't leave them out!