Week 26 - Feeling Drained for the Cowichan Challenge!

This past week has been one of my heaviest training weeks yet. My coached warned me that it would be and asked me if I really wanted to do another Tri such as the Cowichan Challenge yesterday. Lots of long distance this week in all 3 disciplines. My shoulder seemed to not bother me so much this week so I pushed it a bit on my swims. My tempo runs went well and I did my really long stuff just 3 days after my previous week's long bike and run. But everthing went well and I lucked out on the weather. This week with the hot weather again and increased humidity, I made sure I practiced with salt tabs which does not seem to bother my stomach at all and gives me the added benefit of retaining water and amazingly prevents any cramping or those smaller muscle spasms that usually came along after the workouts. Those with the addition of L-Glutamine are doing wonders for my post workout and race recoveries.

At the end of this last week however I was feeling very drained of energy and did not feel like doing the Cowichan Challenge on Sunday. But on Saturday when I went to pick up my race package with friends Tam and Ivan, I decided that this was a so not important race for performance but important to me because it was a local race put on by my Club and and would be hanging out and participating with a whole bunch of friends. So I decided to keep this one strictly a fun one. Hence, I did not watch my diet at all and ate 3 plate full of bad bad bad foods such as pizza and fried chicken and calzone etc. and topped it all off with a Dairy Queen chocolate dipped cone. My friend Tam kept shaking her head wondering how I could consume all this and wondering about how it would react on my body the next day. No problem Tam......It will come out......in time I hope. After the meal when I got back home, I downed a couple of beers. Ahhhhh......Nothing goes down, like a couple of Cold Dead Frogs. (the name of my beer). I was definitely going into "Don't Give a Damn Mode" for my Fun Race" But I did go to bed really early that night at 8:30 cause I was so darn tired and immediately fell asleep which lasted till 5am the next morning.

The Fun Race:

Since I had committed to helping out with the final setup and monitor the transition area, I was out there early and the bonus of this was that I was able to get my vehicle in there and also had the pick of my spot on the racks for my bike. Also the timing was great as I was first in the bathroom and was able to expung my dirty deeds from the evening before. OOoohh....That felt good!

The Swim:

The crowd was not very big and there was only about 90 participants in the main event but I decided to take it easy and start at the back again hopefully pick up a draft. The swim was 1000m but seemed much longer from looking at it. You never know the exact location of these buoys year after year. Anyway the swim went fine but the time was again slow but I did not care. I finished the swim in close to 24 minutes. A full 5 minutes slower than previous years. But I did not care at that point. Fun right???

The Bike:

I got out of the water quite far back in the pack, quickly stripped and donned my cycling gear and away I went. The distance for the bike course was 34K. The heart rate was still high and I waited for about 5 minutes before I took my first drink. The adrenaline was starting to kick in and started to possess me and I started to push it! So much for the fun part of it! I had exited out of the water quite far back and was not happy where my position was right now. So I started to do what I usually do and push it more and the more people I passed, the more I felt like pushing. This was a really undulating course and had some pretty steep hills in it that made your legs scream and made you come out of the saddle. At one point I passed my friend Ivan and gave him some friendly encouragement. He had come out of the water ahead of me so I must be doing well on the bike to have caught up with him. This was also confirmed by passing a couple more good cyclists which I didn't normally do in previous races. I also caught up to my good buddy and training partner Julie as we headed up the last steep hill after Bell McKinnon. I yelled encouragement at her also and told her "C'mon Julie you are strong on the hills and can take me" That seemed to help as she passed me and kept it up till the top of the hill. Her and her hubby Bob had just completed 140K the day before and she was performing well but knew she was feeling tired at this point. I waved her good bye and took off for the remaining 6-7k to the transition. About 1km from the transition, I took my feet out of my shoes and when I got it, went to the wrong rack. I noticed my gear was not there and re-racked my bike. It was at this point that I noticed that I had forgotten to take out two of my full bottles of liquids that were in my bottle cages. I had just stored them there and meant to take them out before the race to consume after. No wonder it felt so heavy trying to sprint up those hills. Oh well.....so what? This was good practice with extra load and only a "Fun Race" right? Ya Right! The competitive demon had snuck inside me and was taking control.

The Run:

The 9km two loop run on this course is all trails in the bush and is definitely quite challenging with some good hills in it. As I was about ready to take off on my run, Ivan was coming in ahead of Julie so he had made up a bit of time. However this was my discipline and was now hoping to gain some time and hopefully catch up to some people I knew up ahead. After 1/2 a kilometer on the road you finally enter the trail and it is a good long climb to get up into the woods for the undulating trail run. That definitely takes the wind out of you and sends your heart rate shooting right up. By the time you reach the top there is a water stop but I was too pooped to drink. Awww the heck with it! I will wait till the next water stop. I started to get into a groove on the trail winding it's way through the woods. I love this trail running! Specially the downhills. I get to hop around like a frog. Anyway at the end of the first loop I finally caught up to my good friend Gerry and knew he was having a hard time just by his breathing. A pat on the butt and I took off downhill down the road behind the arena to get ready for my second loop. The climb up to the trail was much easier this time and was able to drink at this one. Then decided to go all out for this last loop. I was doing well but had to slow down a bit on some single track areas of the trail to pass other runners who were courteous enough to let me by. With one kilometer to go, I exited out of the trail downhill towards the road and to make my final sprint to the finish line. I was at the end of my rope as far as energy left in my body was concerned but as I entered the final stretch, all my club members were cheering me on and this gave me my final burst of energy to carry it on through the finish line. But I sure was happy to see the end.

Conclusion:

It was a definitely a Fun Race but as it usually goes when you are in the moment, it is hard to control the adrenaline and the competitiveness in oneself and in the end. No matter what, it boils down to doing the best you can on a given day. What this ended up as was one hell of a hard tempo training workout but throughout, never forgot that it was still a race. As I have done in all my previous races, I had came out of the water way back this time in over 60'th place out of about 90 but managed to make some gains in the bike and run to finish off the race in 20'th place overall with a time of 2:14:12. Not my best but good enough considering the training week.
My swim time was 23:21, my Bike which was outstanding for me that day was 1:09:36 and my run was 41:16. I had come into 16'th place on both the bike and run out of 89 competitors and was really happy with my performance of this really "Fun Race" There's that word again.....FUN! and you know what? It really IS a lot of FUN no matter what we go through! I have one more week of hard trainng to do with my longest 180K ride at the end of the week and then I get a reprieve....An easy week of Rest and Recovery. Rock on!........... Now for some post recovery drink of more cold Dead Frogs..........Lot's of Carbs. Ribbit!