Training Day Motivation

Today I found this race day motivation on Linsey Corbin's blog (She's an American pro triathlete that just won IM 70.3 Honu)... It's really cute. This is what I need to listen to when I bike or run.

What I Am by Will.i.am
If what I am is what’s in me
Then I’ll stay strong - that’s who I’ll be
and I will always be the best
“me” that I can be.
There’s only one me, I am it
have a dream I’ll follow it
It’s up to me to try.
Oh! I’m a keep my head up high
Keep on reaching high
Never gonna quit
I’ll be getting stronger.
And nothing’s gonna bring me down (no!)
Never gonna stop, gotta go.
Because I know
I’ll keep getting stronger.
And what I am is thoughtful
what I am is musical
what I am is smart
and what I am is brave
what I am is helpful
what I am is special
There’s nothing I can’t achieve.
Because in myself I believe in oh…
Gonna keep our heads up high
Keep on reaching high
Never gonna quit
Just keep getting stronger.
And nothing’s gonna bring us down (no!)
Never give it up, gotta go.
Because I know
I’ll keep getting stronger.
What I am is super
what I am is proud
what I am is friendly
what I am is grouchy
what you are is magical
what you are is special
There’s nothing I can’t achieve.
Because in myself I believe in oh…
Gonna hold my head up high
Keep on reaching high
Never gonna stop
I’ll be getting stronger.
Nothing’s gonna bring me down (no!)
Never give it up gotta go, oh… yeah…
I’ll keep getting stronger.

Big training block (Part 1)

The way I get my workout schedule from my coach is through Training Peaks. It's a great tool. As an athlete, I see my schedule for the week. I enter the completion time and post activity comments to keep my coach in the loop. After last week's recovery week, the next training block is getting tougher. This weekend's long ride was 80 miles and long run was 17 miles. The following week we are going to the tri camp in Blowing Rock, NC. The following weekend is a century ride. My first one ever!

I was dreading the 80/17 workout, more so on the bike than the run. Biking is always a challenge for me because I'm not fast but I work hard at it. I did get better each year and especially this year since I started taking Will's Ultimate cycling class in Jan-March. We rode at Silk Sheets. There were quite a few people that joined us. Susan, Kevin and I were the only ones that rode 80. The rest were 50-60 miles. Ellen was so kind to SAG for us. I would say the first 40 miles were fine. I would like to stop less often but since we were in the group, we regroup 3 times in the first 40. That's a mistake for me. I don't like stopping that many times. I should have gone by myself. The second 40 were painful. The wind picked up. At times, I was scared to be on aero but the wind was gusty. Mentally it was so hard to talk myself into riding faster and picking up the cadence. I was so glad when it was finally over. It took almost 5 hours to ride 80. After I got home, I poured the excess fluid from my aero bottle. It turned out, after I counted, I only took 180 calories per hour. Way too low. I put my comment in Training Peaks. I looked at my notes from 2 weekends ago when I rode 70 and I felt much better and faster. It was 230 calories per hour. No wonder why the day went badly. Lesson learned. Mary caught on that too. She emailed me and asked to get the calorie intake to at least 200. I couldn't agree more.

First SAG stop

At Mile 60

I went home, took a shower and ate. I have not been taking an ice bath after a ride. I think rolling, stretching and drinking a lot fluid after a long ride help me more than ice bath. I was following IM 70.3 Honu. I was rooting for Linsey Corbin, an American pro, and she won. I didn't nap after the ride, I felt tired at 6PM. I decided to go to bed at 6.30PM. I didn't feel like eating dinner because I was still full from lunch.

I got up a couple of times and went back to sleep. I was finally up at 5.45AM. I went to Riverside Park around 7AM. The plan was to run the 8.5 mile loop twice. That way I could refill halfway. I turned on my Garmin and the battery was low. Crap! I thought I would have enough power from yesterday's ride. It was weird to run without a watch. I had no idea what my pace or HR were. I ran based on how I felt. My legs were fine. I just felt scared about how I would feel 10 miles from now. It was easy to talk myself down. Running by yourself for 17 miles. I started a little pity party, then I kicked myself in the butt. Stop it. You're healthy and can run. Today would be another great run. After 3 flat miles, I started running on Eves Rd which was hilly. It was up, up and up. Martins Landing was hilly too and the downhill part wasn't a pleasant downhill. It was the one that you had to keep your torso up and brake using your hamstring so you won't fall forward. The first loop was good. The second loop was hard on hills, which was expected. I walked a couple of minutes on the steepest hills. I wouldn't run this loop twice ever again. It hurt. The last few miles I found a second wind and picked up my pace.... or I think I picked up my pace.... The greatest moment was I saw my car. That's my finish line!

Memorial Day weekend

This week is a recovery week. Ride 55 on Saturday and run 9 on Sunday. Seems a light task compared to the previous week (70 and 16) or the following week (80 and 17). Recovery... ahhh! I protested Mary when she put the average speed for the ride, 17 MPH, plus I should enjoy the scenery at the same time. I could ride 15 MPH and enjoy the scenery, but not at 17. Mary said I could take it as easy as I could. The high temperature for Saturday was 91F. Thanks to Tropical Storm Beryl! but I'm thankful there was no rain in the forecast.

I coordinated the group ride. After a few emails back and forth between groups,  there were around 12 people who were going. We met at the Sossebee bike park. The plan was to wheel down at 8AM. At 8AM, Karen's and Katie's groups wheeled down. I was anxious to go. Susan was behind me. Sarah, Eric and Scott were still in the parking lot. I told Susan, I was rolling. I rode pretty slow. After 3.5 miles, at the Busch Drive intersection, I stopped and didn't see anybody behind me. I waited a few minutes, and then I decided to ride back to the park thinking I was going to run into them. One mile... two miles... still didn't see anybody. It was odd. They shouldn't be this late to start. I got to the park, there was nobody there. I don't know what route they took but apparently not the same one that I took. I was annoyed. I should have waited. I was a little nervous riding 52 miles by myself. At that time, it was going to be 59 miles total since I went back to the park. I thought maybe I should just ride the 31 mile loop and made up the difference by adding some stretches. But I hate doing that. I preferred riding a big loop, so when I was back to the parking lot, I was done.

I decided to wait until I got to the church to decide what I was going to do. I was praying for safety. When I got to the church, I saw TNT cycling team. Cindy asked me where everybody else was. I told her what happened. I felt a little better because I saw somebody that I knew. Her group rode pretty slow, so after a couple of miles I took off. Right before one major intersection, I saw a big dog running towards a house. He was backing me, so I was riding silently and hoping he didn't turn around and see me.

I got to the convenient store and didn't see anybody. I was hoping I saw Karen's group but they were at least 10 miles ahead of me. Even though they were slower than me, there was no way I would be able to catch up. From the store, I had only 20 miles to go. I felt better and at this point, it didn't bother me anymore that I was riding alone.

Lonely Ride (minus an awesome view)

I got back to the park safely. My speed was 16.4 MPH. I didn't push hard except the last few miles when the temperature was getting hotter and I was ready to be done. I saw Susan. Apparently they were worried when they didn't see me at the store. Sarah called my cell but I left it in the car. Oh well... lesson learned. Next time, just be patient and wait for your riding buddies.

Since I had to run only 9 miles on Sunday, I decided to try a different running course. Leita Thompson Memorial Park was across the street from me. It had a few options for running trails. The longest one was 2.25 miles. I was planning to run it 4 times. I thought I could handle that. I knew from the reviews, the trail was hilly but I thought how hilly could it be? I'm used to run on hilly courses. Little did I know....
It started off okay. After a mile, I ran on downhill and uphill that were pretty steep. A half mile later, the hills were a bit much. A quarter mile later, they were ridiculous. Running downhill was scary too since the surface was loose gravel, so it was a recipe for sliding down with my butt if I wasn't careful. At the end of the run, I was done. I drove off to Riverside Park and finished the run there.

On Monday, we swam at a quarry in Carterville. I never heard of a quarry before, so I googled the word. It was a body of water where divers normally practice. Eric found this place. It was just a couple of miles away from our bike course. Who knew? I carpooled with Katie. Since the owners wanted us to promote this place to other triathletes, we got to swim for free, otherwise it was $5 per person. The lake was blue, not brown like Lake Lanier or Allatoona. We decided to swim counter clock wise. The first loop I swam by myself. I was a little nervous of sea monsters... seriously! I like swimming in open water as long as I could see somebody by me. The second loop I waited for Katie. It was a good idea. I had somebody to keep up with and I wasn't scared anymore. We swam 5 loops. It was probably around 500-550 meters a loop. I had a great swim. I felt better about breathing every three strokes. I didn't have a problem in the pool but sometimes in open water, I felt the need to breathe every two. We definitely would be back again!

At the dock. Eric is odd ball with a long sleeve wetsuit.

Random updates

I'm 14 weeks away from IM Canada. 3.5 months are going to fly fast. We started training officially since Jan 30. People asked me all the time how my training has been. I always said it's going fine. I like the training schedule. Every 3 weeks I do get a break. One recovery weekend made a big difference. It's recovery but we still ride 40-45 and run 8 on Sat and Sun. But it's a lot less compared to 65-70 bike ride and 14-16 run. I don't have big stories to tell but here are some updates on my training:

Tumble
I rode Up the Creek without a Pedal last weekend. It was a 60 mile ride but we added a 5 mile loop that  equates to Baby Wolfpen gap. Steep climb and technical decent. One mile from the finish, I looked on the ground and when I looked up, the guy in front of me, seemed so close and I panicked. I tried to unclip my left foot and break at the same time. Next second I felt a bump on my head and shoulder, and then I found myself on the ground laying on my right side. I went over the handle bar. This was the first time for me. I heard a guy asked me 3 times if I were okay. I couldn't respond since I was still in shock. Finally I said okay and got up and rode to the finish. I asked somebody if I really flipped over, and yes I did. It happened so fast. When I got up, I remembered checking my Garmin and water bottle, and they were still there. I had a headache but not nauseous. I scraped the top of my left shoulder a bit. I had two big bruises on my left thigh from the elbow pad and handle bar. I'm so thankful that I was okay. No broken bones or sprained muscle/ ligament. God protected me from getting injured.

Not sure why the bike is missing the front wheel, but you got the idea.

Nutrition
I have been trying different shots and solid. I'm down with EFS drink but not sure if I wanted gel or EFS liquid shot. I tried Nutter Butter but felt not 100% sure about it. Yesteday we rode 70 miles and I tried something different. I bought Kona Mocha EFS Liquid Shot. I wasn't sure if I like the flavor so I bought a single serve bottle. All EFS Liquid Shot is super sweet. I tried the wild berry and vanilla flavors. So, I mixed half of the small bottle (200 cals) with 20 oz of water. It tastes like Mocha Cappuccino. Awesome.

For the solid food, I bought Apple Pie Bonk Breaker. I heard about this product and saw this I went to All 3 Sports. When they rang it, holy cow one bar was almost $3. But the guy said Apple Pie tasted really good and it was his fave. I still bought it because it would make my 70 mile ride a little bit more exciting. Believe me, when you train that long, sometimes trying one new thing can put you in a better mood.

I tried it and it tasted so good. The texture was great. It wasn't too gooey like Lara bar and not dry like cookies or crackers. It was in between. They have PB and Jelly flavor. I'm going to get a box of 12, which was cheaper than buying a single bar.

Big Run
Up until Rev3, the longest mileage I ran was 14. Today was 16. Mary said to run at 10 minute pace. That was pretty slow. At first I thought it was really slow. But when I started running this morning, I was so glad that she didn't ask me to run 9:20 pace. Because apparently after yesterday's 70 mile ride, my legs were tirrrredddd. Enough said. I went to Riverside Park to Eves to Martins Landing and back to the park. That loop was 9.75 mile. I was back on Riverside again and ran the remaining miles. My pace was 9:45. Not bad considering it was pretty hilly.

Yoga
On Wednesday, I went to the yoga class at the office's gym. I was so glad I went. My hamstrings and back needed a lot of love and stretching. I'm going to do this every week. I think once a week will make a big difference. It's not on the training schedule but it was so worth it. And the best of all, it's free.

I can also bend over at my waist and put my entire palm underneath my feet

Sleep
I think I'm worse than a grandma. I try to sleep 8-8.5 hours a night. Since I'm usually up by 4.30-4.45AM, that means I go to bed at 8PM. I know that's early but I feel great in the morning after an 8 hour sleep. Chloe, my dog, is a little confused why I'm in my bed when it's still light outside. Just wait, Chlo.... it's going to get worse from here.

Sleep like a baby after a long workout

Racing season
I love following pro's, my friends or people that I don't really know but they're friends of a friend, when they race. Thanks for Ironman Live. It's exciting to see their progress. Sometimes, I wondered if they suffered at the time or held on their race pace. Everybody that toed on the start lines had a story to tell, a lot of sacrifices had been made. They all came with expectation to race well. So inspiring.

I hope this is not the swim start in IM Canada

Rev 3 Knoxville

 After reading some reviews on the race's packet pickup and talking to Katie who did the race last year, I decided to leave here at 7AM. My concern was the line for the packet pickup would be super long like Augusta. I didn't want to stand in the line for 1.5 hours. Apparently Rev3 did a much better job and the line was supposedly not bad at all. Sarah came at 6.45AM. We packed the bike and bags and took off 5 minutes earlier than planned. The drive to the K town was 3 hours. It really flew by. We talked about our family. For some reasons I was talking about my dad when he was sick in 2010. My mom took care of him and was by his side 24/7. One morning she called me before work and said she dreamed of me. I came home to visit and she was so happy. She and I were just balling over the phone. I felt so helpless. Sarah told me when his dad was sick and finally passed away. She had to be away for her brother's wedding one weekend and she told her dad to hang on until she came back. When she saw her dad again, he told her he was so happy to see her beautiful face and that he kept his promise to wait for her. I was tearing up while driving.

We got to Knoxville at 10AM. The hotel had our room ready so we checked in early. We went to the expo which was literally at the back of the hotel. We didn't know the shortcut and took the long way to get there. The expo was very family friendly. They had a bounce house for kids. I saw Darren, Heather and their 2 year daughter, Holland. I gave Holland a penguin bath toy for her first birthday. Every time I saw her, Darren or Heather always told Holland that I was the one that gave her that toy. Funny! That kid was a chunky monkey, so cute with her curly reddish brown hair. Heather looked great, she lost 15 pounds getting ready for her first half. I also saw a bunch of other TNT friends. It was nice to see them all.

Nice swag from Rev3. We looked like frogs with those goggles.

There was no line for the packet pickup. We also had to get our timing chip and our picture taken. The line was a little longer but was moving. I asked what the picture was for and they said it would be on the jumbotron when we crossed the finish. Nice! I didn't have my best look (no make-up, pony tail) but who cares. I spotted a BBQ vendor at the expo. I loved a BBQ sandwich for lunch, plus we were in TN, their BBQ was one of the best. After picking up the packet, we went back to the hotel. Susan and Ellen was an hour away at the time. We decided to wait for Susan for the practice swim which was from noon to 2PM. We met up with Susan at the expo. While waiting for Susan, Sarah and I bought a pork BBQ sandwich for lunch. We saved them for after the swim. The plan was to drop off the bikes at the transition and went for a practice swim. The transition was about 0.5 mile from the expo. It was weird that the transition was actually in a parking garage. There was no bike racks, instead we had bike boxes. The rear wheel rested in a slot. I memorized the bike in/out, swim in and run out. Last year I had a brain fart in Augusta. I ran to the bike out at T2 which was the opposite side of the run out. We headed out the swim finish where the swim practice was. We saw more TNTers. Most of them did Olympic distance. The water was nice and not too cold. Perfect for a long sleeve wetsuit. I swam for 15 minutes. I had a good practice swim.

After swim practice. We crossed this track in T1.

We walked back to the hotel. I took a cat nap. Sarah woke me up for the 4PM mandatory athlete meeting at the expo. The race director did a quick overview of the course. As expected, T1 would be long since we had to cross the street and half circle the parking garage. The way they served water on the run course was not on cups but in plastic pouches. At first, I thought it was a bad idea because it would just splash all over as we tried to drink, but I took one to practice, it was actually easier to drink than cups.

Discussing race strategy while hydrating

That night we went to eat dinner at Cafe Four. There was a pork tenderloin sandwich on the menu. Immediately Sarah and I thought of Iowa State Fair's giant pork tenderloin. I had grilled turkey burger. It was delicious. I practically inhaled my dinner. I went to bed early that night. Every hour or so, we heard loud fire truck siren. So annoying. We got up around 4.30AM. Before heading to transition, we checked out from the hotel and put our stuff in the car. We saw Renee at the hotel lobby and we walked over to the transition. I set up my transition area. I thought I had everything but I forgot to lay out my gloves and Garmin wrist strap. I didn't realize about this until T1/T2. I started to get nervous walking to the swim start. This was when you asked yourself why I did what I did. Signing up for a race sounded great 4 months ago, but not that morning. I was still a little uncertain of the turn around for the half. I guess I would find out soon.

Swim start. I was in the front left.

I was in the front of the pack, not that I was a super fast swimmer but for some reason, I felt I would not be passed by too many people. As soon as they blew the horn, I swam hard to get away. The swim wasn't brutal and I didn't get hit. The turn around wasn't a struggle either. By the time, I swam with a lot of red caps, they were Half's men that started before my wave. After the turn, I swam a little bit away from the buoys. I had more space to myself but I decided to get closer to the buoys since I didn't want to be off course too much. Pretty soon, I saw a bunch green caps joining the swim course. They were Olympic's men. I chuckled a bit since we looked like Skittles. A bunch of red, green and yellow dots floating around.

Colorful swim caps floating around

As soon as I swam around the green caps, I started swimming defensively. Their limbs were all over the place. Not good swimmers but aggressive. Not long after that, I passed the last bridge. There was no ramp at the swim finish. We had to swim to the dock and either pulled ourselves up or had one of the volunteers to help us. I extended my hand and a volunteer pulled me out of the water. Great!

After a long run to T1, I got on the bike. My stomach felt great at that point. No bloating, thanks to Beano. I even burped in the water, which rarely happened. I don't remember much the first 20 miles. It was hilly but not too bad. At some point, one guy passed me on my right. It wasn't his day because the race official was right behind us. I saw a motorcycle passed me, wrote his number down, and caught up to him.

On top of one of the hills

Around mile 30, I started getting tired and to make matter worse, somebody's helmet sticker got stuck on my front wheel. It made noise every time it hit the ground. Imagine that my cadence averaged 80 per minute. I heard that stupid noise 80 times in a minute. I could've got off the bike and yanked it out but I didn't want to stop. Honestly, the last 26 miles were quite painful. The hills were getting worse. I felt I was riding in the Gaps at times. There was a short stretch where you rode out and back. I saw Susan. She was just 2 miles behind me. She sounded great as she screamed my name.

Susan: "Monikaaaaa!!!"

The last 9 miles were quite lonely and scary because I didn't see anybody around me. I was afraid I took the wrong turn and went off the course. I was happy every time I saw the pink arrows on the ground. It seemed like an eternity but finally I made it back to the transition. The last 10-15 miles my stomach started to bother me. It was acid party in my tummy!!! I didn't have my med with me but I remembered I had it in my transition bag.

I racked my bike, changed to running shoes and couldn't find my wrist strap. I ended up holding it on my hand. The first two miles of the run was excruciating. My stomach was killing me. It was burning hot running with no shade on the street. I felt like a turtle. We entered the park and I saw a TNTer 50 yards in front of me. It was Heather. When I caught up to her, she told me her quads were cramping. I had extra salt pills but she just took some. After I passed her and the Olympic turnaround, I was either up the hill or down, hardly any flat. I saw Scott, he was having a tough time. He had a flat that took him 20 minutes to fix and now his GPS/ HR watch quit working. I thought I could run with him but his pace was actually slower. I took off. After the half turnaround, I saw Susan again. We chatted a bit over the island. She was in great spirit. Not long after, Sarah came. She looked great too. We all did fairly well in this tough race.

Around Mile 10. Pretty good running posture although felt like crap.

I didn't have a run strategy, except hydrate, keep a steady pace and pick my battle, decide which hill I should walk a bit to save energy. The last 3 miles were painful. I was back on the street and there was no shade. It was hot. I passed one guy that was cramping. I gave him some salt pills. After I passed the swim finish, I knew I had to be really close, maybe a mile away from finish. Then, I saw Ellen sitting on the grass. She said this was the first time she saw me the whole day. I wasn't sure how we missed each other at the swim finish.

Home stretch

As I got closer, I could hear the announcer. I sprinted to the finish. Overall, it was a good race.
Swim time 35:35 (I had a great swim, but not this great, the course had to be a little shorter)
T1 6:01 (a quarter mile distance between swim finish and transition)
Bike 3:20 (16.8MPH, not too bad, considering it was super hilly)
T2 3:34 (It was worth to spend 30 secs to dig up some Antacid med)
Run 2:13 (pretty good on this course, especially after 56 mile ride)
Total Time 6:17:59. My first goal was 6:15, my second goal was 6:30. 

Going home. Post race.

I talked to Coach Mary post race. I asked for some kind of feedback. I realized that I always have to keep acid indigestion med with me all times. If I didn't have stomach issues, my run would have felt so much better. I need to take in more calories on the run. Half a cup of Coke and a bite of banana every mile or two was not enough. Again, if my stomach feels good, I wouldn't have a problem taking in more calories. Hammer's raspberry gel always works for me and I'll stick with that.

The Gaps

If you're not a cyclist or triathlete that lives in Georgia, "the gaps" don't mean anything to you. What's that? the rip-off version of Gap clothing line? no... not even close. The gaps are the climbs in North Georgia mountains. They are 6 of them, Jack's, Unicoi, Neel's, Wolfpen, Woody's and Hogpen. Every year Cycle North Georgia club holds the Six Gap Century ride. The gaps are famous for cyclists and triathletes who train for different events that involve long and steep climbs. All of them wish they were mountain goats when they ride on the gaps.

The first time I heard about the gaps was when I was training for my first tri in 2009. I thought why? Who's crazy and stupid enough to ride on the mountains on a two skinny wheel vehicle? The answer is (fast forward 3 years later)... I am.

When I signed up for IM Canada, I knew I had to tackle the gaps. Where else do you train to simulate the climbs in Canada? I guess we're lucky enough we have the right venue to practice. I started doing the Ultimate Cycling classes in January. Some of the drills would prepare me to ride the gaps. My IM Canada training partners had a great idea to camp at the Vogel State Park for a weekend and ride the gaps. Vogel was at Rest Stop 7/3 on this Six Gap map. Ignore the arrow signs. We didn't follow the same route.

The plan was to start at Vogel and ride the following gaps in order, Wolfpen, Woody, Unicoi and Jack's for a total of 66 miles. Here's the elevation chart.

It was a big task. I never climbed that high and never descended that steep. The latter part scared me more than the first part. Climbing was relatively easy for me. If you were tired, the worst thing could happen was you fell off the bike because your feet stopped pedaling. But descending was scary, my bike handling skills were practically nonexistent, cornering didn't come naturally for me, I was afraid of height, it was not just a straight downhill, but there were switchbacks.... the list was on and on and on. I was super nervous. a week before the ride, I carpooled with Eric and Sarah to Hard Labor Creek ride. Eric showed me Woody's descent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4TnUrzL5e8&feature=related. After I got home, I watched the other gap descent on youtube. I didn't know if it made feel better or more nervous. I emailed Mary on Thursday. I fessed up about my fear. Since she was going to SAG on Saturday and she's my coach, I thought she should know. She gave me 4 tips: Look straight ahead, not what's right in front of you. Don't turn the handle bar, instead, lean towards the direction that you're going to. When cornering, drop the outside foot down and drive with your other knee. Feather the brakes, no kung-fu grip. I knew them but it was nice to be reminded again of what I'm supposed to do. Funny that on Friday, xtri.com posted this article http://www.xtri.com/features/detail/284-itemId.511713881.html. Perfect timing.

I took a day off on Friday. I thought I could relax a little before Saturday epic ride but it turned out I was busy packing, loading up the car, running errands, dropping Chloe off at Rebecca's house for the weekend.... next thing I knew it was 2.30PM. I stopped by at Lake Lanier to do a quick open water swim. I just wanted to get a feel for swimming with a long sleeve wetsuit. On the way to Vogel, I started noticing the climbs. At one point I was sure I was driving on Neel's gap. I tried not to think too much of it. I was the first one to arrive. I shared a 3 bedroom cabin with Wendy, Eric and Sarah. Susan and Ellen camped with their 2 dogs. The cabin was nice. It was old but clean and spacious. I ate dinner on the back deck overlooking the mountains.

Less than an hour later, Wendy came. I was glad I had somebody to chat with so I didn't keep thinking about tomorrow's ride.I guess we had nothing to do, so we took pictures of our bikes.

Eric and Sarah came a couple of hours later. We talked about tomorrow's route. It turned out that we would climb the switchbacks, not descend, which made me really happy.

The next morning I got up around 6AM. We were all ride ready by 9AM and met with Mary and some  friends at the parking lot. While waiting for the group, Sarah gave me some pointers on descending. I felt more confident at that point.

Carlos, Katie, Mike, Sarah, me, Susan, Eric, John and Jane

Eric, Sarah, Wendy and me

 Mary, my coach, is on the left

After a quick pow wow, we took off. Silly me, I went to a different direction and when I realized nobody behind me, I realized that everybody else went the other way. The good thing I caught up with them right away. Our warm up was just a half a mile. We started climbing Wolfpen right away. It was steep and a couple of sharp turns.... so glad I didn't descend on those. I was going really slow. I was just focusing on my cadence. As long as it was 70 plus, I was on the right gear. Keep it nice and light, it was going to be a long day. Wolfpen was about 3 miles long. I got to the top. One down, three more to go. It wasn't bad at all. Easier than what I expected.

At the top of Wolfpen

Now the first descent of the day. I focused on the tips that Mary gave me. Susan was in front me, Mary was behind me. Susan passed Carlos not long after. Carlos was pretty cautious wasn't going too fast. Having somebody in front of me helped a lot. Not long after that, we got to the bottom and started climbing Woody's. Honestly it was a blur. I think part of me was just a huge relief. Now I knew what to expect on a descent. The other part was Woody's was shorter and less steep climb than Wolfpen. I got to the top of Woody's, everybody asked me how I was doing. This was the first time we regrouped after Wolfpen descent. People were very supportive. I was really thankful for that.

At the top of Woody's gap

Woody's descent was long and less curvy. You could see far out in front of you. By this time, my aero bottle's sponge/ plug went inside the bottle, so the aero bottle didn't have a cover on. The drink kept splashing all over, my bike, my face and my legs. It was pretty annoying. There were 20 miles stretch from the bottom of Woody's and the next gap, Unicoi. On the elevation chart, the climbs looked nothing compared to the gaps but there were actually pretty tough. Something funny happened. While descending on Woody's, I heard something was flickering. What was that? was my brake caught on fire and made that flickering noise? but it was rubber... shouldn't be caught on fire. If anything, it was just going to melt (which I heard it could happen if you brake too much). Several miles later, I realized it was my cue sheet that made the noise. I taped it to my bento box but the wind blew it away.

For a while I rode by myself, I got nervous because I lost my cue sheet. there was not too many turns and Mary pretty much stopped at every turn, so I wasn't too worried. When I got to the next intersection, Susan, Jane and Sarah were there. We started climbing Unicoi. I knew this was the longest climb. I passed Eric after several miles. I heard Sarah asked Eric how many miles we had to climb, he said 10 more. I was like, there was no way, my guess was around 4 more. We were climbing switchbacks so I couldn't see how much more to climb until the next turn. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what was coming up or not. It was steep and practically no break. I peeked at my Garmin to see my speed. A couple times I saw 5 something MPH. I could run much faster than that. Then, I saw a white van in front of me. The top of the van started to disappear as it was driving away. It's the top of Unicoi. I made it.

The view I had been waiting for

The rest of the ride wasn't too bad. Jack's was short and sweet. I was ready to be done. We made the last turn to Vogel. It was actually part of Neel's climb. It was a little scary because there was no guard rail on my right. I was just praying that no car would knock me over.

Kinda like this

We got back to the park, I ran for 30 minutes and took a group ice bath at the creek. I was the only one who got submerged from the waist down.

We had a nice dinner that night. Eric made baked meatball pasta with cheesy broccoli. Yum! The next morning, Sarah, Susan and I climbed Neel's.

Day 2 Vogel State Park

At the store, on top of Neel's

We went down to the park and climbed Neel's again. Sarah and I were talking about what body parts hurt the most, it was actually sitting bones. My quads felt fine. I think that was a good thing. Ellen took a really cook picture when I was climbing up Neel's.

After a short ride, we ate lunch and parted ways. What a great weekend at the gaps!

Swim...Swim...Swim...

This week is the first week that I don't have the Ultimate Cycling anymore. It feels great. I have more time to do other things, sleep and rest. Mary, my coach, just bought a new underwater camera. We met her at the Mountain View aquatic center on Wed night. She was going to film us swim. I was so excited about this because I wanted to know how my strokes looked (Plus this session was free. Other coaches would charge $75-$100 for underwater analysis). Do I drop my elbows, do I catch the water when I pull, do I rotate my hips etc? Oliver would go underwater to watch us swim and gave us feedback but it was not the same when you could see it with your own eyes.

Mary made us swim several laps, back and forth. She took it from the front, the side, back and above water. After that, we sat down with her. She plugged her camera to her laptop, so we could see it better in a bigger screen. It's so funny to see yourself swim. I now understood when Oliver said my right hand was not pulling straight down right away as soon as it entered the water. Instead, I was wiggling. If I have a pen at the tip of my fingers, I was drawing an S. I didn't know why I did that. My left hand was fine. That's one issue that I have to fix. It sounded easy but since it was something that I had been doing for a while, it was hard to break an old habit.

That night I woke up with a sore throat. I took care of myself, getting enough sleep, eating my veggies, taking my vitamin, but when you got sick, you're just sick. Couldn't do anything about it. I took Zicam right away. It's a Zinc supplement that was proven to reduce the severity and length of your cold. Sometimes when you were lucky, the sore throat went away in a few hours and you didn't get a cold. I was unlucky this week. It got worse. I was sneezing a lot and my nasal was congested. It was official I was sick. On Thursday I could see dark lines under my eyes. I got that when I had a cold. I texted Mary to ask her what the minimum miles I had to run. I was supposed to run for 2 hours and 10 minutes on Friday. There was no way I could do that. I felt horrible and couldn't bear the thought of running. She said ZERO. Amen. I liked it. I thought she would say 6 or 8 miles. I didn't like missing a workout but this time around I didn't care. My body was achy. My scalp was even sore when I touched my head. Friday afternoon was worse. We had a conference call and I would have to walk out of the conference room when I had to sneeze and blow my nose. I sneezed like a man.... so loud.... I left even before the call ended. Jen and Matt were on the call anyway. I went to Walgreen. It's been a while since I bought cold medication. Finally I bought sinus and allergy med even though it wasn't allergy. The symptoms were the same... runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing. That was what I needed.

I went home and tried to sleep. I didn't know if I could do an open water swim the next day. That was another thing... We were planning to go to Lake Lanier to do the first open water swim. The water temp was around 63F. I didn't think it was a good idea to swim in cold water while having a cold. I decided to wait until the next morning before I made a decision.

I woke up around 6AM. As soon as I opened my eyes, I was analyzing my body.... any chest congestion? nope. nasal congestion? a little. runny nose? nope. I felt much better than the night before. I got ready and ate my breakfast. We had to swim for 50 minutes. If I felt horrible, my plan B was to swim less than that. It was actually not only open water swim, we would practice transition to bike and then to run as well. Oh by the way... did I mention that I had the biggest canker sore ever? The diameter was 1/3 of an inch. No kidding. It hurt like crazy when I put Albothyl, but after that, it went numb for a few hours.

After a quick warm up, we started the continuous swim. The water felt good. It was so different swimming with a long sleeve wetsuit. I breathed every two strokes and sighted every 6-8 strokes. I went pretty easy. I thought about the swim video. I drove me crazy that my right arm was doing what it wasn't supposed to be doing. It actually helped thinking about it to kill time and helped me concentrate on my stroke... not what's at the bottom of the lake. I could freak myself out when I didn't see other people swimming around me.

John, Susan, me, Sarah and Eric

Mary brought her 9 month old German Shepperd puppy with her, Lucinda. Lu learned to swim that morning. It was funny to see her doggie paddle. It was a pretty good day overall. I suffered a little bit after I got home. My body was a little angry after the swim, but I was pretty confident that I could ride 60 miles tomorrow. Maybe slow but as long as I logged the miles in, I would be okay.