Challege Roth: Race Report by Sara Beck

BACKGROUND

This time last year, when someone asked if I was a triathlete, I would shrug my shoulders and say “well, no, not really, but I like all three sports.” I had only competed in one triathlon (Longhorn half iron in Austin in 2007), and it was terrible. Nevertheless, I wanted to ‘tri’ again so I signed up for Harvest Moon and Redman in 2010. Unfortunately, the month before both races, I broke my collarbone in a bike crash. Fortunately, I had another full iron distance race on the horizon: Challenge Roth in Germany with my boyfriend and 3 friends. I was giddy just thinking about it. This would be my second triathlon and I was excited for the ‘challenge.’ It didn’t seem like too much of a stretch: I had a swimming background and had completed century rides and marathons before … just not all in one day. Come January, I borrowed my roommate’s tri book and started following a training plan for the first time in my life.

I’ve never trained well for anything so I was proud of my newfound discipline: waking up at 5 to swim in an outdoor pool in winter, spinning, track intervals, 2 x 15 mile runs a month. My training quickly increased from a max of 12 hrs/wk in January to a max of 17 hrs/week in March and 19 in May. I was feeling energetic and excited to train even on 6 hr solo rides to Horsetooth. Then came the problems: 3 weeks before race day, I broke my thumb in a small crash during the Sunrise Century. Another broken bone the month before a full ‘ironman!’ It wasn’t a big deal; I had a splint that I could remove for swimming. A few days later, I got an excruciating pain behind my left knee: tendonitis or a strain of my medial gastrocnemius. I couldn’t run more than 2 minutes: not a good situation 2.5 weeks before my first ‘ironman.’ I freaked out and attacked the problem with ice, compression, a foam roller, rolling pin, graston, 2.5 weeks of zero running and KT tape. On top of that, I managed to bruise my rib in a bike fall during my very last training ride. What is the deal? Come race day, I expected anything between an 11:30 and 15:00, all depending on my knee.

RACE DAY

There was a great vibe at the starting area. Athletes were making their final preparations: inflating tires, filling water bottles, securing food to their bikes. Looking beyond the bikes, I could see a bridge over the canal where we swam. It was completely full of spectators. Wow! I remember the red sign “This is your moment. You inspire with your achievements.” Yep. It’s finally here. The loudspeakers were playing inspirational music themes from Chariots of Fire, Rocky, Dances with Wolves, Titanic, and Braveheart. We put on our wetsuits and Vaseline. I finally got teary eyed when my boyfriend hugged me and said “You’re gonna do great.” Nervous!! I headed over for my 6:45am start, hoping to watch the pros start at 6:30, but I couldn’t see them. The 2^nd wave was the elite age group athletes w/ yellow caps. I was in the 3^rd wave: all women. Pink caps.

THE SWIM (1:04:04)

I had no idea what to expect on the swim. I’ve always considered myself slow by swimming standards and until 6 months ago I hadn’t been serious about swimming since high school. On the other hand, I’m also training to swim the Strait of Gibraltar in Sept, which gave me a definite advantage. I had at least 30 training swims of 2.4 – 3 miles under my belt along with swims of 4, 4.5, 5, and 6.6 miles so I was very well prepared. In a pool, 2.4 miles takes me 1:10. In the res with a wetsuit, it takes 1:09. In the race, with drafting, it only took 1:04. I couldn’t believe it!

The swim was up a narrow canal to a bridge, back to another bridge, and around a final buoy to the end. I started in a wave with over 300 women. I seated myself near the front, wondering if that was too fast. I heard the announcer introduce the women’s wave and fire the gun. Here we go! The start was chaotic with everyone bumping into each other. Even after 25 minutes, the competitors hadn’t spread out. I swam over people’s legs and definitely got elbowed. Fortunately, my broken thumb and bruised rib were spared.

On the way to the first bridge, I was the exact same pace as the woman on my right. During races, I revert to breathing on my right side 99% of the time. The woman next to me was breathing on her left side only. Since we were the same pace, we were actually looking into each other’s eyes every single time we breathed. This continued for 5-10 minutes or so. At one point, I noticed her smiling about it, which made me laugh underwater. This is actually one of my favorite memories of the race. I lost track of her at the first turnaround.

Without my swimming buddy, I started looking for good drafts and “bridged” from one draft to another. After a mile or so, I noticed guys with yellow caps so I was catching up to the elite age group athletes in the wave 5 minutes ahead of us. Swimming must’ve been their weak event, but it was a good confidence booster. The long way back to the 2^nd bridge was peaceful and refreshing. I tried to concentrate on my stroke, but I just felt sloppy. It was nice to see spectators and hot air balloons on the grass next to us. The 2^nd turnaround was far away, but I was excited to see a 1:04 when I stepped out of the water!

THE BIKE (5:57:32 = 18.8 mph)

The start of the bike was awesome. The transition area and driveway were lined with spectators. On the road, someone had spray painted “SEBI” all over the place for Sebastian Kienle who took 2^nd overall. My initials are SEB so I took it as a sign for me. :) The ride starts by cycling over the bridge I mentioned earlier, which was packed with spectators. What an awesome way to start a long bike ride. I was grinning! Absolutely giddy.

The first 10k was downhill and surprisingly peaceful. A few guys passed me, but I was fine with that since they were the elite age group athletes who started before me. Later on, many more guys would pass me; there were 9 waves of men behind mine. Every once in a while, I’d pass someone. If it was a woman, I’d eventually see her later. If it was a man, he’d pass me immediately, within 1 minute. I took too long to pass one woman on a slight incline and a race enforcer on a motorcycle yelled at me in German to hurry up and pass within the allotted time.

Our race bibs had our first names on them, which is awesome since people can cheer for you by name. I started recognizing riders: Sabine from Germany, Francesca from Scotland, Indi, Kirk, etc. I remember a guy in a blue tri suit named Ramon. We leapfrogged each other over and over. If I passed him, he would pass me immediately, but then I’d be behind him, afraid of a drafting violation and I’d have to pass him again a few minutes later. This happened 4 or 5 times. Our bibs had our flags on them, too. There were only about 40 Americans racing. One passed me on the bike chanting “U.S.A.”

I never stopped during the bike. I had all the food I needed: 8 scoops of Perpetuem in a water bottle and a bento box full of 1) six Cliff Shot Blocks with 100 mg caffeine, 2) Power Bar cola chews with 50 mg caffeine 3) two packs of honey stinger energy chews, 4) a honey stinger waffle, and 5) Power Bar protein balls, which I didn’t eat. At each aid station, I poured a bottle of water into my aero bottle and kept pedaling. I wondered if 1 bottle of water was enough, but it was fine. I only ran out of water once, when it was getting hot, ~2 miles before an aid station.

Near the end, my right calf was close to cramping so I started taking salt tablets, which I continued taking through the run. I also took 2 ibuprofens halfway through the bike to prevent knee pain. It’s not smart to take antiinflammatories during an endurance race, but I chose to do it and made sure to drink extra water. I kept the ibuprofens and salt tablets in mini ziplock bags in my tri short pockets along w/ a small tube of Vaseline.

The bike course was absolutely beautiful! We cycled through green German countryside interrupted by historic villages. Every town had crowds of people cheering us on. One in particular, Solar, had people standing on the road itself, leaving a path only wide enough for one bike.  Imagine biking up a hill single file with hundreds of Germans cheering for you, chanting “Up, Up, Up, Up,” shouting “Supah!!” or slapping you on the ass. It seriously felt like the Tour de France. What a great feeling.

There were a lot of hills (up to 6-10% grade), but I had no trouble on them thanks to Jamestown, Ward, and Peak to Peak. The wind on the 2^nd loop wasn’t bad. Overall, I kept my cadence above 90 or 100 rpm. I never felt like I was really pedaling hard, which is awesome! My legs didn’t feel tired after 112 miles.

On the second bike loop, I kept telling myself positive (and NLP!) messages and sweet-talking my bike:  “I am a cyclist. My legs are strong.” “This is my bike. I love my bike. Whatever is vibrating on the bike is going to stay attached. My bike is going to stay together. We are one unit. We’re going to finish this thing together with no problems. I love these wheels. They are going to last the entire race with no flats.” I also apologized to my crotch: “I’m sorry I wore the thinly-padded tri shorts instead of the gel padded bike shorts. Only 1.5 hrs to go!”

With 20 or 30k to go, I reminded myself to “Focus… Focus! … Focus!” to avoid crashing at the very end like I did in the Sunrise Century. I tried not to think of the run until I was safely done w/ the bike, but it was hard not to get excited. I was cruising. Good swim and good bike down. Only a marathon to go. My average on the first bike loop was 19 mph. Overall, I held 18.8. Not bad!

 

THE RUN (4:37:19 = 10:35/mile)

I was excited for the run. I started at 7:13. The best run I expected was 4 hours (my PR is 3:52), which would be an incredible 11:13 finish. If my knee gave me problems, I’d have to walk the run, which would still let me finish by the 15 hr cutoff. I felt great right away! I started jogging slowly to get my running legs. That didn’t take long and I was able to hold a comfortable 8:34 pace for the first few miles. I felt fine – not even close to out of breath and I thought I’d be able to hold a sub 9-minute pace for a while. The run course begins as a shaded path in the trees toward a canal. At ~6 km, you turn and run on an exposed sandy path along a canal to the first turnaround at 13k. Then you run back in the other direction to another turnaround at 29k, and back.

I felt amazing for the first 8 km! I was watching all the other runners, alert, talking, exhaling every 4^th step. When I hit 8 km, after running exposed to the sun for 10 min or so, I realized “Wow. I don’t feel good. I need something. It’s so hot! Why didn’t I grab a sponge back there? What do I need? Salt tablets? Is the ibuprofen making me feel this way? The caffeine? Where is the turnaround? Wow- still 4 km away. Where the hell is the next aid station? I need water. Why didn’t I bring a water bottle? What was I thinking? I need a banana. Where are the bananas?”

Around the time I was deteriorating with 20 miles left, the pros were finishing. Andreas Raelert, whom we met the day before, set a new world record of 7:41. Chrissie Wellington finished 5th overall (!), beating her previous world record with an 8:18. Absolutely incredible. Unfortunately, I never saw the pros along either the bike or the run course.

In my long training runs, I carry a water bottle and hammer gel. During the Austin marathon, I carried Gu only and relied on water from aid stations. It worked fine there, but now I really needed more water and regretted not carrying a bottle. The Clif Shot Blocks and 4 oz flask of caffeinated Gu I had been carrying were just taunting me since I had no water to wash them down. I trashed them at an aid station.

Still, I was happy to still be jogging with no knee pain. One quarter down, three more to go. Around this time, I started alternating Coke with energy drink at every other aid station, along with bananas. From hereon out, the times I felt the worst coincided with a sugar low right before I got my next Coke fix. I kept jogging (walking through aid stations), but my pace was slowing down considerably (11:51 min miles). Since we were running along a canal, I could see the aid stations from far away. I’d be excited to see a group of people and flags off in the distance only to get disappointed when I realized they were just spectators with no Coke. Must drink Coke! I wanted to walk, but knew that would take even longer to get a drink and I might never start running again. Once I drank Coke, I was optimistic again. “I feel great! I’m going to fly to the finish.” Yeah. Right.

I was in a zone for most of the run, counting down the distance. “Keep running to 15k. Then walk if your knee hurts. Keep going to 21k; run at least half of this. You’re at 30k, baby! Only 10k to go.” Around 25k, I heard a spectator tell me “Just hold your pace.” I must have been visibly hurting.

The 2^nd turnaround was a huge boost. We were finally rewarded with a short downhill. There was music playing and a lot of spectators were cheering. I only had a 10k left. I cruised for 1 mile and thought I could hold that pace to the end. Nope. A few km later, I noticed Ramon, the guy from the bike ride, running ahead of me. I even called his name excitedly “Ramon! We rode together.” He replied “Yes, yes… I know.”… and waved me off as if to say “Stay behind me.” We leap frogged a few times on the run, but I eventually passed him thinking “I don’t care who passes me from now on – as long as it’s not Ramon!”

The last 10k proved to be very difficult. I strained my neck to see the next km marker. Instead of exhaling, I was cussing and groaning.“9k. You can do it. 8k. 7k. The home stretch. 5k. You got this. 4k. For the love of God. These are taking too long. A steep hill. What is this shit? (Said in a thick Russian accent the way my former coworker, Sergei, says it)… 3k… Keep going! MOVE!” At 3k, we were in the city. There were two small turnarounds  through two plazas where crowds were sitting along the course drinking beer and cheering like mad. Incredible! I loved it when people called my name from the race bib. It made all the difference in the world. “Thank you so much!!” 2k to go. A spectator was crossing the street with his bike right in front of me and I yelled at him to move. I couldn’t lose my momentum! 1k to go and I finally managed to pick up the pace in the finisher’s chute. I sped up on the track, heard them call my name over the loudspeaker, and ran to the finish line with my arm in the air. Yay!

I finished in 11:50 and am more than happy with that, especially considering that I didn’t know if I’d be able to run or not. I would absolutely recommend Challenge Roth to any iron distance triathlete. It was an incredible race with over 170,000 amazing spectators. Without Kona slots, the competitors are racing because they truly love the sport. I’d say I’m pretty hooked. I’m excited to try to beat my time. And I can now answer without hesitation that “yes, I am a triathlete…and I love it!”

 

 

 

Summer of 2010, Revisited by Pam Schuckies

Over a 3 week period of the summer of 2010, I  back-to-back raced Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 (BSLT), Boulder Peak, and the Alcatraz Challenge Aquathon.  Did the same this year, but with totally different experiences.  Boulder Peak was the least remarkable of the 3…I think of it as just sleeping in your own bed, to wake up and mosey on over to the Rez, then race on a course we train on all the time.  Boulder Peak was much the same as last year for me – faster bike and faster run, but the train wreck of a swim meant I dropped down one place in my AG to the hardest place to be …. 4th place.  Sad face.

Training was going great last year.  I had just entered the 55-59 AG and had managed to train consistently and without injury.  So, when I had the race of my life at BSLT and secured a Kona slot, it was magic.  The next week, we went to San Francisco for the Alcatraz Challenge (1.5 mile swim across the Bay, and 7 mile run across the Golden Gate Bridge and back). There are so many variables to that swim, based on weather, fog, current, choppiness; last year all those things were “not good.”  It’s truly a swim you have to swim with your head as much as your body, as far as staying calm if you are a reluctant swimmer like me – and navigating well because the current and chop are definitely going to alter your course.  I didn’t do that well in 2010 and ended up west of the swim finish point on my way to being swept under the Bridge….a bad thing.  After getting “repositioned” by way of a cop on a jetski, I swam my way in to finish, but my swim time was ridiculously slow.  Run went well, but total race time– not so great.  The good news is that when I went back to do that race this year it wasn’t that hard to take 18 minutes off my swim time just by doing a better job of navigating, along with taking advantage of a little less severe weather and Bay conditions.  They do 10 year age groups, so I was pretty happy at the advanced age of 56 to end up 3rd in my age group.  Doesn’t mean I swam well, but does mean my run was decent.

Wish I could say the outcome of BSLT in 2011 was as positive.  When I went into the race this year, it was on the heels of an early season glute injury that had put the brakes on the kind of training I’d done last year in preparation.  So while my expectations were lower, I was still hoping to “gut it out” and salvage a reasonable outcome.

Here is how the two races compared, at least in my world:

Conditions…

2010: Lubbock is always hot but with temps in the low 90’s it was manageable.  Wind on the bike only got intense in the last 15 miles.

2011: 2nd hottest day on record in Lubbock at 114 degrees – and definitely hotter on that asphalt. Super windy the whole day!  Almost Kona-esque winds.  Wind blowing dirt and sand off the fields along the roads.  Ugly.

Swim:

2010: Felt good and, for me, a decent swim time. Water was warm but wetsuit legal, even though the day before they had said “no wetsuits,” and I woke up many times that night thinking about THAT – and was thrilled when we showed up to T1 race morning to the RD’s announcement “Wetsuit legal!”  O happy day….

2011: In an attempt to get people from start line to finish line as quickly as possible in the intense heat, the RD combined waves and reduced the start time between them.  What this means is way more people in the water together at a time. Waves were huge and I spent way too much time in the water trying to get away from people who were swimming over top of me.  Suffice to say I did NOT take the most direct line in the water- by a long shot.  I swam way wide most of the way which means more meters than the course required – but I felt like I was swimming faster than last year.  When I exited the water, I was shocked to see that my swim was almost 9 minutes slower than last year.  Really?!?

Bike:

2010: Last year, around mile 10, I thought I passed the 12-time Ironman World Champion girl in my AG who was a shoo-in for first place – so I spent the rest of the race killing myself so that she didn’t pass me back.  It wasn’t her, it turned out, but it’s OK, it made me up my game significantly – I came in 2nd, she already had her Kona slot, so it was mine.  Crazy good luck.

2011: My bike was 6 minutes slower than last year and I guess that’s not so bad considering how ridiculous the wind was – scary cross winds and difficult head winds. Took a lot of mental and physical energy out of me.  Due to my slow swim, got to pass a ton of people, girls & guys.

Run:

2010: I lived up to my nickname Steady Eddie and got it done with a good run split, I think the fastest in my age group.  Not super fast, but super consistent.  It’s how I roll.

2011: The heat was oppressive, and the run was a death march for many.  Volunteers did a great job of taking care of the runners though they must have been melting themselves. Jim Buderus had given me some Zoot arm coolers and I wet them down with water at each aid station, which helped a ton – thanks Jimmy!!  I never walked, except a few steps through some aid stations – just kept trying to make forward progress. Run 13 minutes slower than last year.

Final outcome:

2010:  Race of my life, Kona slot.  Boom shaka laka!

2011:  At the finish line, I saw Warren who was yelling at me to pick it up and sprint for the finish and not let this girl who had been walking behing me, catch me.  I did pick it up but not enough. She caught me right at the finish line, and her time was 1 second faster than mine.  Turned out she was in my age group (Warren saw that on her leg but didn’t want to yell it because then he’d let HER know I was in hers),  and she also got the last 70.3 World slot in my age group.  I would have loved to have come away with that.  In my head later I started running through all the times during the day that I could have found that 1 second I needed.  There was that time on the run coming in around mile 12 when I saw Sister Madonna Buder, the 81-year-old IronNun, who was in her first mile going out on the run.  She didn’t look well,  and seemed to need some encouragement, so I stopped and gave her a hug and some “you can do this” love.   As it turned out, she didn’t make the run time cutoffs and was a victim of the very harsh conditions of the day.  Too bad as she was trying to qualify for Kona and only had to finish as she was the only one in her AG.  But no worries on that 1 second…I know that good karma will return to me one day, and I’m glad I was able to make her smile for a few minutes anyway.

Oh, and I had my first post-race IV in the medical tent.  Lots of them given out that day.

It was so much fun seeing so many Boulder people in Lubbock racing, and celebrating that evening at the Banquet.  Mike and Marti Greer do an awesome job directing BSLT.  I’ll definitely to go back and race there again….but maybe not next year.

 

The Schuckies family did not return to Boulder without race hardware, however.  Warren placed 2nd in the 40+ AquaBike division that day!  Since he had an injury that prevented him from doing much running, he made some great lemonade of the situation by kicking butt in the swim/bike event. Well done, Sweetie!

 

 

FIGURE COMPETITIONS AND ENDURANCE SPORT: Two totally different sports, with the passion of doing bothby Tricia Dixon

Ever wonder what it would be like to train for two very entirely different sports at the same time?  You have two completely different diets and two different mindsets. One sport, you need to be inside a gym for hours to build a lot of muscle and be very lean. The other sport will eat up all the muscle you put on because it requires you to be doing cardio workouts for at least one or more hours at a time.

Getting ready for a Figure competition is a lot like training for an Ironman or any triathlon. Believe it or not, both sports actually have a lot in common.  Training for a Figure or Body Building Competition starts at least a year in advance. First, you need to figure out what your biggest flaws are. Next, you need to decide on what your goals are, when you want to compete.  Then comes the training plan and diet.

What’s it like getting ready for a competition?  Let me tell you about my day and life of a figure competitor, with the heart of a triathlete.

I was lucky enough to find a coach who understood that my mind was set on competing in a figure competition, but my heart was set in maintaining my triathlon training at the same time.  So, I was able to incorporate my swim/bike/run into my workouts every day, but could not do too many high intensity or long cardio sessions at a time.  The Diet is a very harsh diet.  To be honest, body building/figure diets can be the worst diets out there.  I would never recommend my friends to compete in this sport.

Daily Diet

6:30    Breakfast

½ cup oatmeal

4 egg whites

½ cup pumpkin or blueberries

9:30    Morning Snack

6 oz chicken breast

2 cups spinach

½ cup brown rice

12:30  Lunch

6 oz white fish

2 cups spinach

3:00    Snack

Protein Shake

I do wetsuit repair as a side business to help pay for my racing and bike addiction.  Suits with tears and holes can be dropped off at Fleet Feet for me to repair. The only thing I won’t work on is zippers b/c I don’t have the tools to fix those.  BTC members get 10% off my services.  Turn around time is usually 1 to 3 days.

It’s wedding bells for Melissa Mosley and James Meldrum, tying the knot in a few short weeks! Congratulations, you guys! xo