Milkman 09, the Race Report.

soo...

This is a somewhat crowded little sprint, as it is the USAT "Best of the US" event for New Mexico. It's a lot of fun. It's hot, and windy, but they give you free ice creme from Schwanns at the end, and lots of cold drinks.

I've course, I was fully carb-loaded having had as I did

my dinner, which Baboo ordered without asking me and here it was, are you ready for it?

PASTA in a BREAD BOWL.

How perfect is that for the carb-loading racing individual? I ask you. It can't be more perfect than:

PASTA in a BREAD BOWL.

That's right. a Bowl made of Bread. or more precisely, Pizza dough. Fully of pasta and primavera sauce and--as Baboo discovered--icky vegetables. With melted cheese on top, of course. Otherwise, what would be the point?

It was much better than it sounds. Or as good, depending on what you expect. Delivered to our hotel room, from Dominos. Umm. Like a lot of simple carbs, it was very, very good. Then, I took a Benedryl, which if you save it for special occasions makes a very effective sleep aid. LIGHTS. OUT. I slept like a stone in one position all night.

So, the morning of the sprint, I had a couple of Electrolyte caps, some G2, and a couple of nutrigrain blueberry bars. Yum.

THE SWIM: The lake was 72 degrees, so I eschewed a wetsuit. The lake didn't taste as bad as I remember. Why is it that swims seem to take SOOOOO LONG? I think my swim was only about 12 minutes, but it seemed to take 6 HOURS. I felt pretty good toward the end, though. Stroke, stroke, turn and breathe. Stroke, stroke, turn and breathe. SIGHT. Stroke, stroke, turn and breathe. Stroke, stroke, turn and breathe....

I T1, I glanced at my socks, and decided against it.

THE BIKE: I was hauling ass, relatively speaking, trying to stay ahead of Sarah, who has been closing in on me this year. I beat her by 35 seconds at Jay Benson. I used to beat her pretty easily, but then she went and lost about 25 pounds, dammit, and now I have to WORK harder. CRAP!! Not long after the turnaround, I saw her close behind me. I sipped Heed from my aerobottle whenever I could remember to do it.

You know, each year I'm surprised afresh at the roads. I've formed the opinion that kindergartenders must be given trowels and buckets of blacktop when it's time to pave. They are THAT sloppy.

In T2, I thought about my socks again. And again, decided to skip them.

THE RUN: I grabbed my bottle of HEED, my hat, my racing flats with elastic laces and slid them onto my feet and took off. The run felt better, though. It felt easier. Not faster, but not as labored. Just as hot, though. I realized about 1/2 mile in that I'd forgotten my race belt with my number on it, and spent the rest of the run practicing a lie that nobody ever asked me to tell about why I wasn't wearing my race number. They seemed to be pretty satisfied with the number as it was written on both my arms and the fronts of both my legs.

It was in the upper 90s when I finished, and Sarah finished 8 seconds behind me,

which I figure is about how long it would have taken me to put on my socks.

Total time, about 1:42. Not the fastest I've done it. But not the slowest, either. I was 3rd in 2006, and 1st last year.

The first place awards were pitchers

that stands about 6 inches high.

Meanwhile, Sweet Baboo took first Master's Clydesdale.

Then we headed back to Albuquerque listening to loud 80s music.

video killed the radio star, video killed the radio star...

Soooooo, now we have four of these pitchers in the house. One of them is already in charge of holding all the splenda, and another one sits next to the sink and holds the hand blender we use for our protein shakes.

Any ideas of what to do with these two?

...

Ewwww.

It was SUCH a grand idea: One last swim to say goodbye to summer, out at Cochiti. The three of us, Cindy, Courtney and myself piling into my Fit, heading up the highway, laughing and carefree.

We drove the 40+ miles and then parked at Cochiti. It was a beautiful morning, and we laughed and joked and then headed down the beach, kicked off our shoes, tossed our towels town, and then headed into the green shoreline.

You read correctly.

There had been a major algae bloom, and the water was full of algae, so full that it ran in virulent green streaks through the water. Some of the individual algae plants clumped together; as you lifted the clumps, they fell apart and some of them stuck to your hand while the rest slid off. Mmmmm.
The rocks under our feet were slippery. Green bits floated throughout. In water up to our knees, we could just make out our feet through the green haze.

We waded out to about chest deep, eventually, to see if the water was clearer away from the shore. It wasn't. We watched, unbelieving, as Courtney ran out and then dove through and swam about 200 meters out in the green water.

"Let's just think of it as a spa," I said, running my hand through the green water. "A redneck spa. People pay money to plaster this stuff on their skin, you know. Facial masks. Hair masks."

"I'm not putting my face in this stuff," Cindy retorted.

We watched Courtney swim some more.

"I wonder if this is the stuff that people eat," I said. "You know, like chlorella." We stood around, and watched Courtney splash and swim some more way, way out in the lake. Wondered out loud if the stuff was harmful. Waved our arms and hands through the water some more. Watched the green clumps slide off our skin.

We waved to Courtney. She waved back. Then we agreed that, 40 miles or not, we just weren't going out in this muck.

Oh, well.

Goodbye, summer.

...

Like a Stone.

You know, after my initial 30 pound drop in the spring of 2005, I've only lost about 8 pounds, but I've gone down a couple dress sizes. Some people who I think I can trust swear to me that I'm smaller. Sweet Baboo is one of these. I know he's not just doing it to get lucky, too.
Never mind how I know.

So.

So, Lisa and Cindy and I went to Cochiti on Friday to do an open water swim. I didn't have my sleeveless wetsuit with me because I'd stored it someplace that I'd forgotten and remember, I. Am. Lazy and besides, the lake was warm and TRUST ME when I tell you that boyancy has never been a problem, Riiiiigggghhhh?

So we're swimming, and I'm winded. Really winded, but I'm not sure why, and I'm not really motivated enough to be curious, I figure maybe I just needed more sleep or caffein or something, whatever, so I'm swimming and swimming, and I'm breathless and feel like I'm working way too hard.
And, my goggles are fogging up. Of course they are. Then, Cindy says, "hey, you should just spit on them," which I've done before, but for now I just rinsed them out a couple times and kept swimming.

They keep fogging up so at one point, I stop swimming to spit and clear them out, but here's what happened next,
well, what happened next was,

I sank.

Yeah.

When I stopped waving my arms around in the water to hold myself up I just went straight down and hit the sandy lake bottom and luckily, I was already holding my breath (a bad habit of mine when I exert myself) and I had held my breath in anticipation of having to tread water only with my legs, but my legs weren't up to the job because, buddy, down I went. Like a stone.

Now a lot of you tiny bird people are probably scratching your head saying, "what's the big deal? everyone sinks when they stop treading water."

Oh, no, ho, ho, they DON'T! Those of us with lot of natural boyancy (read: fat floats, muscle sinks) don't sink. I myself am used to bobbing up and down in the water like a cork.
Plus, turns out that the reason I was so winded is that because my legs keep sinking I have to kick more now to keep myself level in the water.

That's a good thing, I think. A sign of progress. More muscle, less fat, right?
But boy, you can bet I looked very hard for my wetsuit because I think I need it from now on. I wasn't planning on wearing it at Barb's race Half Iron this Saturday, but I sure am now!

That's it. Just a weird thing. All I have to say.

...

Insanely Sexy Socks, the sequel.

<-- These are Blue Seventy neoprene socks.

They are, as all gear designed for foot comfort must be, insanely sexy.

Current water temp at CDA, about 50 degrees F (11 degrees C).

Today I swam Cochiti Lake (60 degrees F) It's 2.2 miles if you swim down and back. I found that I've been very run focused and my swim has slowed down as a result.

Hey, why can't fitness be like a college degree? You reach a certain level, and then you get this certificate, and it's yours forever. No matter how much TV I watch, I'll still have a master's degree. Not so with fitness though.
Wouldn't that be nice?
E.g., You can now run an 11 minute mile. forever.

Anyway. Cindy swam with me, (and faster, I might add.) and I'd like to take a moment to publicly thank her for accompanying me in a great deal of my training. Honestly, if you've known me for long you have some idea the level of laziness I'm capable of reaching. However, if I know that someone is waiting for me, I'll show up and do the training. Plus, there's no way I would have done this swim alone - not safe.

Anyway, my swim was incredibly S-L-O-W, although I figured out on the way back across that if I sort of pull up on the torse of my wetsuit (neoprene wedgie not withstanding) and pull up on the sleeves, this provides some "give" in the neoprene over my shoulders, so I could reach better in my stroke. I'm going back out tomorrow, but a little more gently because I don't want to wrench my shoulder. I'll be doing it twice next week, with at least a day in between swims.

Lastly, I've been obsessing some more over the the bike course at CDA. Looks like, about 12 miles of gentle rollers, and then about 25 miles of hills, then about twenty miles or so downhill. Lather, rinse, repeat. If I don't get a flat, I may actually pull this off. Ayii.

And hey, did I mention Mini-baboo has been gone for 2 weeks, and will be returning in JULY? Hah!
More on that later.

...

Open Water Freak-Outs PSA

Today I went with SW Tri Gal, Bones, Sweet Baboo, and others to Cochiti Lake to get in my first long open water swim of the season.

The lake was around 57 degrees, and I wore my long-sleeved wetsuit for the first time.

I turned back and only finished a mile of the swim. It was my first cold open water swim of the season, and every year the first one of the season is always shorter than I planned. That first time your face goes into the icy water and takes your breath away. Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h!

Cold water, when your face hits it, causes your breathing and heart rate to increase, which your brain reads as panic. When that happens, you're supposed to relax and just concentrate on swimming smoothly and slowly and breathing slowly and deeply. Usually within the first 400 meters you body starts to adjust to the temperature but oh, how long that first 400 meters seems!

Your brain's first line of defense in protecting you from dehydration, low blood sugar, or hypothermia is to start send you a message: STOP THIS! STOP NOW! TURN BACK. QUIT! TURN BACK NOW! Each of us hears this differently. For some of us, it's a tiny voice of despair that whispers, "Oh, I can't do this! I'll never be able to do this!" I at remember my first open water swim, I actually forgot how to swim at the start.

You can practice to overcome it and become mentally strong. Every now and then, it gets the better of me, like today, the first cold open water swim of the season. But Friday is a different day, and then there's the Friday after that...with practice, you learn to overcome the despair and the freakouts.

I'm going to be doing it every Friday until we leave for Coeur D'Alene, and at least one time there, too. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I'm saying this directly to anyone who has freaked out about swimming in open water: I promise you it gets better. The best part is that the side effects from being mentally tough are that you start getting mentally tough in other situations, too. You start thinking things to yourself like, "I swam a mile in an ice-cold lake! I think I can start that training course! I can tell that jerk that I don't like the way she talks to me!"

Or change jobs.

or Whatever.

But anway. Another reason for practicing long swims are that there are some unpleasant aspects to doing a forward crawl in a lake for 4000 meters. You have to practice long, open water swims so that you can experience and deal with them. Friday I'll be administering body glide in strategic places, and cutting two slits in the front of the neck of my suit. I did this in my old sleeveless wetsuit and it made a huge difference in my comfort.

Added later: I should have asked if anyone has any open-water swim advice to offer, go ahead and put it here.

...