So you had a bad day

So Ironman Victoria 70.3 happened this weekend. Such a great race and we had absolute awesome weather. This was my first triathlon this year. Because my goal race is Challenge Penticton full distance I'm not doing a lot of races. Vic 70.3 was purely for training purposes. It was all about making sure I was fuelling properly and at the right time. All my gear it fitting properly and nothing is bothering me. Pacing consistent and sustainable. So how did it go?

I started prepping earlier this week. I got a bit of a taper but not a true one. What does that mean? Well since I'm training for a full distance I am covering a lot of miles. So this past week we cut it back a bit but comparing it to a true taper for a 70.3, well lets just say the legs were still a bit loaded going into the race(hill repeats the week of a race!)

I got the wetsuit out and did some patch repairs.

At least I didn't leave that to the night before (which I have been guilty of before).

Not only did I have to prep all my tri gear we decided it was best to take the rv down to Victoria so I didn't have to drive down at 3am. It works great because it's my home away from home. A bed that I'm used to, pillow that I love, all my food that I can prep and cook right there and not have to worry about eating out.

And it's a great way to sit and chill the day before the race.

So I was a little nervous going into this race since it was not only fort race of the season but also my first tri that I was representing Team Soas! 

I couldn't believe that the Vic 70.3 bib, medal, shirt and hat all matched my Team Soas kit to a perfect match!

Anyways, once I got to race site my nerves settled down. The kids did the Iron kids race and had a blast. Little one made me run with her and she ran so fast I could barely keep up in my flip flops. I actually thought I was going to hurt myself, but no that came later.

We were hanging out with the great Jasper Blake who refuelled my kids with liquorice. Little one is a smitten kitten with him now.

And the kids race packages had some great tattoos and other goodies inside. 

Once we got through all of those festivities I racked my bike, took a deep breath and headed back to the trailer for some much needed rest.

So once back at the trailer I was feeling really dry. The weather was so gorgeous and sunny that I was feeling dried out so I figured I better start drinking copious amounts of water to hydrate. The problem with that is it means more trips to the bathroom. So about 1am that is what happened. I crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom (in our trailer). When I went to step out of the bathroom my toe caught the edge of the doorway and crack went my tow. It dropped me like a sack of potatoes. It hurt like you wouldn't believe. So what did I do? I went back to bed and pretended it never happened.

Got up at 4am with my toe still throbbing I got myself and the kids ready to head over to the race. The husband had to drop me off due to crazy lack of parking. So I go drop my bag off by my bike and head for the crazy long port potty line up. While waiting in line I met a super great girl from my age group and had a lovely chat when I suddenly realized I had absolutely no fuel. 0! Natta! Nothing! I forgot all my water bottles, gu's, everything. So I quickly dialled the husband in sheer panic. He had to drive back to the campground and grab all of my supplies. I hadn't even mixed my stuff. Worst part... I only had 20 more min until I had to get out of transition. With 10 min to spare the husband came to my rescue. He brought it all (and I owe him so big for this). I quickly mixed up my concoctions grabbed all of my gu's and headed back into transition with 5min left to get ready. Nothing like a great start to the morning.

The water at Elk lake was lovely. We were borderline wetsuit legal. The water was so warm. Had what I though was a great swim until I got out of the water and my Garmin said 37:00. For 1900m that is slow for me. Don't panic, just keep going. Turns out my Garmin measured 2250m so that explains the time. 

Got out of my wetsuit gingerly trying to not hurt my toe too much. I even had time to smile and wave to the crowd.

Off I go into what seemed like the most tortured bike session I have ever done.

I cannot describe the discomfort I had on the bike. My bike shoes were killing my sore toe, I was trying not to put any pressure on my left foot to help alleviate the discomfort to then get my whole right side seized up from over compensating. Nice! This is when you wanted why the heck you raced when you were pretty sure it was broken to begin with. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Then I reminded myself that I paid a lot of money to do this and those medals were looking nice and shiny. Lets just get it done. 

The girls patiently waiting for me to come in off the bike. I was at least 20 min slower then I expected. I just couldn't crank it up.

Once I finally came in off the bike the husband asked how I was, fighting back tear all I could muster was I was in a lot of pain but I'll be back in 2 hours. That was it I was doing the run.

The first loop was tough. My toe was throbbing. Ever step sent a stabbing pain up through my toe into my foot all the wait up my leg. what was I thinking? Ugh, just keep going. I took in my fuel, made sure to drink my fluids and just kept going. By the time I finished the first loop my toe finally went numb. At around the same time I ran into the family and it put a big smile on my face. 

Less then an hour to go. I can do this.

I decided to just get this over with. I kicked it up and did my second loop faster. I felt strong and able. I went from 44th in my age group to 37. (We had 115 in our group for this race).  Definitely not my strongest race but the fact that I pushed though and finished when I wanted to quit so badly. I did it. I wasn't sore physically or mentally except for my stupid toe. 

It felt so good to be done and I immediately removed my shoe and sock to let my toe have a little room.

So now instead of getting right back to training I have to take a few days off to get the swelling down. 

I'm hoping that by wednesday I'll be able to at least get on the bike for a bit and maybe if I can tape my toe I can do an easy run.

So next race for me will be the Chelanman down in Chelan Washington. This is going to be a great test. It will be hot, the bike course is supposedly a tough one and it is 5 weeks before Penticton. So one last race before the big one. 

Big thanks to all my friends and family for their support. My coaches Marilyn (for run) and Mick (for bike) and of course all of the love Soas ladies who inspire me so much every day!!!

But I can barely walk

First race of the season all said and done. After missing more than 3 races already this year I had to buckle down and get healthy and do a race. I have a half Ironman in June so I really felt like this was a do or die situation. 

Friday was a nice rest day. I did a short bike workout and laid low. 

Saturday I had 20 min of easy running and needed to go to package pick up.

The shirts were very nice. The expo wasn't too busy and there were lots of great booths. When I got home I did a very easy spin on the bike right before I made dinner. Got to bed nice and early.

I love doing races where the kids can be involved as well. Big sis considered doing the 10k but she's not quite there yet. So they signed up for the 1.5km. 

Sunday morning we got up nice and early and made the drive down to the University of Victoria. It was a cool grey day but the rain held off. The girls were very excited to watch me start and then the plan was for them to meet me halfway for a quick cheer before Dad took them to their start.

This is only the second year the TC has done the half marathon. So there were only 500 people or so. I liked how much room there was.

They got right down to business and I took off right with the crowd. I started out a little fast. Because this is a point to point we started out at the university then headed down towards the water, so the first few km's were all downhill. Some of my splits were pretty fast and I got a little worried. I did try to slow down a bit but it just felt sooooo good (such a rookie move). I was going faster than my planned pace, I knew this was bad.

at 7km in the family was there to cheer me on. I love when they are out on the course. It gives me a burst of energy but I wasn't in need of that energy just yet... I was annoyed that my husband didn't meet me further along.

13km in and there's the family! I definitely needed them at this point. I just had my slowest split and was still holding a grudge that my husband showed up too soon. He totally redeemed himself. I wasn't expecting them again. The girls were cheering me on and giving high 5's.

I knew at this point I wouldn't see them again because they had to get to the kids race start but I was so happy to see them. Things were starting to get a bit uncomfortable.

I ended up running with an older gentleman for most of the race. We kind of were going back and forth between each other and then decided maybe we would run together and keep each other going. It worked. When I slowed down at the 12km mark he told me we had to pick up the pace, so we did. Apparently his goal was to break 2 hours and I was so thrilled that he not only broke 2 hours he broke 1:55:00!!!

The last 2 km were tough. My calves were burning, My big toe felt like it was going to explode, my little tow on the other foot felt like it had been torn off. I wanted to walk so bad. My new friend said we've come too far to walk and he was right. He slowly got ahead of me but I kept pushing. Everything was screaming, just then I see my coach and one of my training partners on the corner waiting for me with less than a km to go. Seeing them lifted my spirits and gave me the motivation to push through that last 750m. I ended up with my last km being my fastest split.

If you look closely you can see my grimace. I was hurting big time. I was fighting the pukes too.

Ugh, the price to pay for going out too fast.

So as I cross the finish line and see my new PR of 1:53:36 yay!!! Then  I see the kids race started early and there goes the wave of kids... without me. I missed the kids start. Luckily I was still in the finish shute. So I stayed put and sure enough my little speedsters came barreling through the finish line right into my arms. I wish I had had my camera. 

 So alas, another race over and done with just like that.

Kids were happy and I was happy. The hubs was exhausted more then any of us even though he only ran the kids 1.5km. For some reason he got a nap when we got home and I did not. At least I got my recovery almond milk latte. Life is good.

So am I happy? Yes, was I hoping to do better? Yup. I'll take that PR but I was really hoping to be under 1:52:00. I know I had it in me but with my terrible pacing at the beginning it was my own fault. There's always next time.

Proud Momma

First off, a huge congratulations to everyone who raced the Boston marathon! My friend and training buddy Colleen did amazing. I can't wait to hear her stories.

***

All this training is catching up to me. Something had to give and unfortunately it was the blog. I can't even remember the last time I did a post but honestly you haven't missed out on too much, I promise. 

However, if you do feel you are missing out you can follow me on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/TriMomsLife

or Instagram:

srapamum

I strongly encourage you to also follow my team I'm racing for this year:

soas_racing

Steph posts some pretty fantastic photos.

So what has been happening? Well I have been on the bike so much that I had to get a new saddle. Seriously, I did a 3 1/2 hour ride that was so painful I could barely sit on anything. I really loved my Adamo saddle to begin with but as time went on it got more and more uncomfortable and apparently I'm not the only one with this issue. I think I may have found the right saddle. 

I went with the Bontrager hilo RXL. I really liked how I could adjust the nose of the saddle so I get the benefits of the split seat and the back part doesn't torture my sit bones like the Adamo did. I've got a 100km ride coming up next weekend and then the following weekend I have an 8 hour ride so I'm thinking those will be a good test for my bum comfort.

We've been quite lucky out on the west coast with mild and sunny weather. I have been out on the bike way more than usual.

We had a pit stop at the top of the Malahat a few weeks back. Not my favourite ride due to heavy, crazy fast traffic but the scenery is amazing.

Last weekend I got out with another fabulous friend to ride part of the Ironman Victoria 70.3 bike course. Unfortunately I had a tough track workout first and the legs were not happy so I had to cut the ride short. But again, gorgeous weather and I got to show off my Team Soas jersey.

So needless to say training is going pretty good. I am definitely enjoying it, getting out a lot. I have a confession to make though, I am not in the pool nearly as much as I would like to be. Lately I seem to make it twice a week. I probably should be going 3 but I'm really struggling to fit it in. Work has been very busy, kids have been sick and need extra momma time. I'm doing volunteering whenever I get the chance. Life is just busy and really, swimming is my strongest so I'm okay with 2 days for now.

So onto some bragging. My awesome girls did a Splash n' Dash this past weekend. They were so excited. Big sis has ben training with the school triathlon club (which I love helping out with). She is hoping to do a triathlon in June or July this year.

Little sis just loves being in the water and has made it very clear she does not want to do a triathlon this year. 

This year they started with the little kids which was great. They love all of the cheering.

Little sis was the second group to go. Her swim coach was there cheering her on.

I was volunteering at the finish line so I got to give her the medal. 

Next up was big sis. She had 50m to do and she did great! 

After her 250m run she cam across the line happy and wanting to run some more. I might have a future Ironman on my hands.

And no race is complete without snacks.

We are so lucky with the swim club coaches we have. They are so good to the kids.

Big shout out to our swim club CV Breakers and the volunteers who made the event so great!

This weekend the kids will be doing the TC 10k kids race.

I will be racing the half. I have to say I'm a little nervous. This will be my first race of the year and first race in over 6 months. I think it's safe to say this will be my kick off for race season.

I wasn't going to write it down because now there will be pressure but my coach is electing a PB from me. I've been working very hard on my running and all of my target workouts I have hit my pace bang on. So wish me luck that I achieve my goal and the weather isn't like it was at Boston on Monday.

As I end todays post I want to remind everyone to take time for yourself. Away from training, away from work, away from kids, away from spouses. Spend a little time on yourself. Do something that you wouldn't normally do. Last week I had luck with a great friend and as we finished our lunch she suggested we go get a pedi. At first I thought I don't have time for that, I've got to get kids from school, make dinner and whatever else was on my list. Then I thought, I could really use one. so I called my husband to see if he could grab the kids so I could enjoy a little extra time with my girlfriend. It was seriously the best thing I could have done for myself. We had a great time and it felt so amazing. 

My toes even match my bike and Soas team kit.

So thank you Dr. R for making my day super special, I really enjoyed our afternoon together.

To count or not to count

On Vancouver Island it seems the summer came a little early. I don't mind one bit though, it's making those long training hours totally worthwhile. 

So after this week I will have finished 2 cycles of Base 1 training. My training load is still fairly light in comparison to what it will be come June/July but I am still working hard. With all of this training I thought I would feel fantastic, but sadly no. I have struggled with some health issues over the course of the years but I've been working hard alongside my ND to figure out what is going on. I'm feeling better than I was 2 years ago and I do have great days but occasionally I still feel exhausted and not due to training. So I decided to look a little deeper.

I've never really worried about my calorie intake since I'm a plant based athlete. I eat good, whole, clean foods. We rarely eat out. I make all of our meals from scratch. I don't eat any meat, I don't consume any dairy. I even make my own home made vegan cheeses. So what am I doing wrong?

A few weeks ago I decided to check and see exactly how many calories I need a day without exercise. I figured I should at least have a benchmark of what my regular day to day should be. Keep in mind I have a fairly physical job that has me on my feet for up to 12 hours. I plugged in my hight, weight, age, sex, general activeness. Turns out I need about 1700 calories a day. Not bad, but that is without doing any exercise at all. Now that I've figured out one piece of the nutritional puzzle I thought I better take it a step further and track my daily calorie intake. Maybe I do over eat?

So I downloaded the App Fitnesspal.

It's a free App and the best part is it connects to Strava and I'll explain later why this is so awesome.

So after a day of tracking my food I was bang on. Definitely consuming the right amount of calories. So where was I going wrong? This is where connecting the Strava App to the Fitnesspal App is game changing.

After doing my workout for the day I connected my Strava info to the Fitnesspal App. Sure enough I had burned way more calories than I ever imagined. So here I am at 4pm and I have another 1500 to consume. Seriously. I have been under eating for who knows how long. The lightbulb went off and it all came crashing down. I was tired all of the time because I was lacking so many calories. I felt ridiculous for not looking into this sooner. I should have know better. Above all though, I was glad to solve my mystery. To celebrate and get more calories I decided to make my self an iced almond latte.

Unfortunately it only has 50 calories so I had to eat a lot more food. 

After my realization of lacking major calories I have began tracking my food and training daily. I'm now 2 weeks in and I have to tell you I am feeling amazing. I have way more energy, I'm sleeping so well and my workouts are also going well. I now plan my food around the workouts for that day. So for days like Mondays where I only swim and do weights I don't need as many calories verses the days like Saturday or Sundays when I am running and cycling therefore needing substantially more calories. 

I cannot emphasize enough at how easy it is to track food and calories through these combined apps. Every time I load my garmin onto my computer Strava automatically loads it (I do have it set up that way). The food tracking is also pretty easy and straight forward. It even has a barcode scanner for packaged foods. 

So now that I am back on track and feeling fine I got out for a fabulous 2 1/2 hour ride with my very good buddy. I love spending time with this hard core chick.

We road all around Victoria and it was fabulous. 

So now I take advantage of my rest week and heal up my poor torn calf muscle so I can get back to my hard running efforts.