Bike

Bike, Swim, Triathlon

The Lake and the Lab

Camp Day 1

I woke up at about 3:45 and just laid in bed thinking that same thing I have been.  What was I thinking?!  Why am I here?  My body ached, my eyes felt like they only got like 3 maybe 4 hours sleep, oh wait they did only get that much sleep.  I got up and made a cup of coffee.  Did I mention this hotel rocks?  Keurig machine was awesome!  I am not a fan of powered creamer but I didn’t care.  I chugged that bad boy.  My hope was that the coffee would work it’s magic and I would do my business before having to leave at 5 for the lake.  I started to get all the things together that I had not thought of the night before (like hello, I need my helmet!).  Thankfully, tired as I was I was functioning pretty well. 

Yes!  Murphy has left the building!  Things were smooth sailing in the “do my business” department and that simple thing was a great start to the day.  I know, TMI but if you have ever had to do that kind of business in a port o potty than you know how awesome not having to is.  I got all my gear packed up, grabbed the bike and headed to the truck.  I just hoped the bike was put together right! 

I got to the lake and everyone knew each other already so I got to do that awkward “Hi, I’m Cris, I missed the dinner because my flight was delayed” thing over and over again.  We had to part outside the area where the lake was because only so many cars can go in and we carpooled in.  Me and about 5 other girls got in the back of a pick up truck with our swim gear.   One of them said “I hope there’s a bathroom because I swear, I need to take a dump.”  We all laughed and I gave my secret thanks for having already taken care of business in the comfort of my room. Not long after, another one advised us that she cut one so she apologizes if it stinks.  I chuckled and thought, who are these people and what have I gotten myself into! 

Crazy crew riding in!

I finally met coach in person and we headed to the lake shore.  I don’t know if it was just the fact that the fear was creeping up, the fact that I didn’t have much sleep or the fact that this was all going to decide my future but I almost burst into tears.  I held it in, but I was seriously loosing it.  I won’t even go into what was running though my mind, you might never talk to me again.  Let’s just say it was pure crazy town. 

You can see I am eager to get in…. last one!

We split into two groups, one would go do a workout and swim out to this really far (my view) buoy and the other would work on technique.  Thankfully I was on team technique.  It was a lot of discussion and motions with our arms in waist deep water.  So far, so good.  We were told we would swim to coach and critique each other.  I don’t mind feedback if I can keep my dang head in the water and swim.  I got in the back of the line and then we were told to make a horseshoe shape so we could all see.  That ended up turning into me going second because he took one from each end of the horseshoe instead of going in order.  Well played coach, well played.   

It took me second and I went for it.  The entire time I am thinking, don’t freak out, don’t freak out.  I finally got to him and stood up, almost hyperventilating.  He was super excited.  It was the farthest I had gone and kept my face in the water.  He said my swim stroke was actually pretty good.  He said, “we just gotta fix in here” and poked my forehead.  He made me swim back to the group and back to him again.  Each time, I felt the anxiety a little more but was able to do it.  Then it was time to switch and the other group would come do technique and our group would do the workout.  Thankfully, he said I would stay on technique.  Bullet dodged.  Or so I thought.  I said “thanks, I was kind of terrified I would have to try to swim out to that thing and I know I can’t so I was freaking out.”  “Oh, you are swimming out to it, just not today”, he said.  He went on to say that on Sunday morning we would be back at the lake and I would swim to it.  He said he would swim right along side me, but I was going to do it.  “It all changes, starting today.  You can do this, I just need to show you that you can.”  He sucks.  In a good way. 

We got out of the water and headed over to Starbucks for some sustenance.  I had a very small (by my standards) breakfast sandwich and a water.  We all headed out to what they call the “Lab”.  I stopped at Walgreens on the way to get some waters since I never got to do my Publix run.  We got there and got our cycling gear all ready.  Coach prescribed our workouts.  My group’s was to warm up for 10 minutes, then do 5 laps hard, 1 lap easy, 4 laps hard, 1 lap easy, 3 laps hard, 1 lap easy, 2 labs hard and the transition into our running shoes and run two laps at whatever pace you could maintain.  It’s flat and about 1.4 miles each lap, so I thought I’d be able to do ok.  He warned us that one direction we would be in a harsh headwind and the other direction we would have a nice tailwind. 

Boy did I underestimate the headwind!  I also came to realize that what I consider “hard” in daily training, was nothing compared to actual hard.  I almost gassed out after the first hard lap so I needed to back off a little if I was going to survive.  We were all working at our own pace and version of hard, so it was nice because you could not tell who was ahead and who was behind…. Until the run or so I thought. 

Turned out, that the other group (the super fast people) had a much longer workout and since they went fast, some were right with us at times and when I finished my run, there were still people on course.  I expected to be dead last because of my group, I was, but since it was spread out that way I technically was not.  A very awesome dude by the name of Stuart was waiting at the lap end and giving everyone high fives.  Some people went back over to the shade, but he was there to cheer people on, so I joined him.  How could I not, when his high 5 motivated me?!  Soon, it was 3 of us, then 4, then 5 and so on.  Soon, just about the entire team was waiting for the last people to come in and cheer them on.  It was a pretty awesome finish to the day.  Maybe people don’t suck.  Maybe. 

I was pleased with the first day, but a little disappointed.  I really hoped for that epiphany.  I was hoping the clouds would part, the sun would shine down, the angels would sing and my love for triathlon would be reinvigorated.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have that moment.  Coach asked if I was happy I came.  I said “so far.”  He laughed and said we still had three more days to either make me love it or regret it and we both laughed. 

There was no team dinners or anything planned, which I was thankful for.  I was so short on sleep, all I wanted was the biggest hamburger I could find and some rest!  I can’t remember the last time I ate Burger King, but either they have made vast improvements to the whopper or I was so hungry it tasted like a gourmet burger….and fries….and onion rings….and the biggest diet coke they had.  Time for a shower, and that Publix run. 

Bike

Introducing…… Milo!

No, we didn’t get a new pet, Milo is a character in a kids show.   It’s a cartoon called Milo Murphy’s law.  The general concept is that this kid, named Milo, has anything and everything go wrong for him.  He knows it,  his friends know it, and they go about their adventures and have to deal with all the things that will go wrong because Milo is involved.  I have felt a lot like Milo lately whenever I do my cycling training.

I generally look forward to my cycling.  I have an awesome stationary trainer.  I have my really cool power pedals.  I use Zwift which is like a video game to entertain myself as I am trying to get the work done.  I have my headphones and a t.v. right there should I want to have another form of entertainment.  Lately,  anything and everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong.  I am not just talking about once or twice.  I am talking one or more things go wrong, every time.  I have a limited number of hours in the morning to get my workout done before I have to get ready for the day.  When something goes wrong and I end up taking a bunch of time to fix it, then I have an issue.  The first time it started, I chalked it up to a bad morning.  I was upset, but got over it.  I can’t remember if it was short enough that once I got it all fixed I was still able to work out, or maybe I did it that evening.  Either way, I let it go.  Then it happened again…. and again… and again.  I cycle three times a week and for a couple of weeks in a row, every single time I went to do it, things went wrong.  My heart rate monitor would not connect.  Fine,  I will do it without capturing that.  My power pedal lost connection and that mean that even though I was pedaling away, my workout was not being captured.  I deleted and started over…. four times.  Finally I just did it without the power readings.  Those were important since the entire workout was based on the power output.  Other times, Zwift wouldn’t work.  Ok,  fine I can use other forms of entertainment and means to capture the workout.  Last week, several things went wrong at once on more than one occasion.  One time, I just lost it.  I broke into tears, said forget it and just went and had my pity party in the shower.

It’s really disheartening to push yourself to get in a mindset where you are going to give it your all and then not be able to do it.  It’s hard to come back to that after all that struggle and enjoy it.  Once is one thing, but over and over can really try a person’s patience.  Well,  it tried mine at least.  After my little breakdown, I came back to it later in the day and got the workout done.  Still, not everything worked right, but I made do.  I still kept feeling sorry for myself.  Why can’t things just go right for me?  Is this the universe telling me that I should just quit this nonsense?  Can’t just one of these go right?  As I sat there feeling sorry for myself, I tried to think about what I could do to prevent the issues and see if that could help.  So, the night before my next ride, I opened up the apps, activated all the sensors, tested all the connections and got everything working.  Awesome!  Set myself up for success!  I was excited for the next ride.

The following day, I got my water bottle and my laptop and went over to get moving!  I was really stoked.  I hopped on the cycle triggered all my sensors and got going.  This was going to be a ride!  Not two seconds into my power based ride, did my power meter complete bag out on me.  Not again!  Keep calm, I told myself.  It’s ok.  I had scheduled enough time this evening that I could crank this workout out and still have dinner on time and everything.  Ok, I can fix this.  I worked on connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting.  It took well longer than anticipated and I still could not get it connected.  I eventually remembered that my trainer can act as a power meter and connected that for now.  After more than 30 minutes of struggling, I had a band-aid I could use to at least get it done.  I had already wasted any extra time I had, and then some.  I got started on the workout.  About ten minutes into it, I realized that while I could certainly use the trainer as a power meter, it would have been a lot better to use if I had calibrated it.  So, there I was, struggling through the workout not sure if I had the correct power or not.  It seemed harder than it should have been, but maybe it was just that I was so beat from trying to fix it.  My heart rate was way up before I started.  Don’t take that to mean that it was reading my heart rate well, because it wasn’t.  If I were a patient in a hospital and you looked at the readings, you would think I died every few seconds because it kept losing connection.

I eventually finished the workout and felt great.  I didn’t lose my cool.  As much as I wanted to throw my cycling shoes across the house, smash my bike, the trainer and the t.v….. I didn’t.  I stayed mostly calm (I’m not gonna lie, I was really frustrated) and was able to get back into the correct mind-set once I got moving for a while.  The “I should just quit this crap” thoughts were eventually replaced with pride that I worked really hard during that ride and did a good job.

Darin and I had joked that I was the Milo of cycling workouts.  Whatever can go wrong always seems to go wrong.  I am still not sure what lesson I am supposed to learn, I guess it’s patience and maybe mental preparation.  On the show, Milo doesn’t even think about it.  He pretty much knows it will go wrong and it never phases him.  His friends know it could go wrong, and it doesn’t phase them either.  They hang out with him, literally knowing everything will go nuts.  Why? Well, it always works out in the end.  Guess it’s the same with my cycling escapades.  What can go wrong, pretty much does, but it all works out in the end.  I have a ride tomorrow.  Fingers crossed!