Santa Cruz AquaBike - my race report

Sunday was the 29th annual Santa Cruz Triathlon. This year they had an AquaBike option which I jumped on because I didn't want the pressure of having to run a certain amount in a certain time. It turned out to be a good thing because I managed to set myself back on Monday running a 5K time trial and I was pretty sore and my one other run that weekend was a bit of a bust.

Packet pickup was the Saturday before and it reinforced my feeling that the AquaBike was a bit of an afterthought. I had a run number in my packet and there was no separate AquaBike wave. This meant that, as is often the case, I was in the last wave of the day with the other old ladies and the "leftovers" (which in this case was the Athenas/Clydesdales and the Relay teams).

I was supposed to be meeting friends in Santa Cruz for a day of fun but I barely had time to get my packet before the expo closed and then I had to immediately drive back over the mountain to finish up several errands.

An auspicious day

Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind album and also the three year anniversary of my surgery.

Last year I was kind of "eh" about the whole "surgiversary" thing. I was doing what I always did and having the results I always did. There really didn't seem to be anything to say. But I'm more excited this year for some reason. (Which very well be the whole Nirvana thing -- every where I got people are talking about it and the Nevermind album has good memories for me.)

There have been a lot of changes this year. I no longer log everything I eat. I still log all my exercise, but only to keep track of improvements and to adjust my training for big events. I just eat when I'm hungry, stop when I feel satisfied and try to eat healthy most of the time.

When I said I liked Heavy Metal, this isn't what I meant

My grand experiment is over... I had read something that made me think my protein issues were related to endurance exercise-induced anemia. In other words, maybe I have low protein because I'm not getting enough iron.

Now, nothing in my labs screamed anemia. All my iron and anemia related labs were in range.

BUT

Ironman Canada - My (Belated) Race Report

It's only been 2.5 weeks since I did Ironman Canada and three weeks since I wrote anything for the blog. So maybe I should get off my duff and write this race report, eh?

Ironman Canada was an interesting experience - fun, social, frustrating and triumphant at the same time. Since I have so much to say, I think I'll break it up into a series of posts:

Race Week

The Race

The Aftermath

Ironman Canada - The Aftermath

The day after the race, I felt pretty good. My mom and I went down to the merchandize tent and I asked her to spot me some money so I could buy my finisher gear. That $300 that Budget had taken from me was starting to come back to haunt me. The sad part is that we had the money in our other account but I didn't have that Debit card with me and I wasn't able to successfully transfer the money into the account whose card I did have via the equipment I had with me.

Ironman Canada - The Race

The morning of the race, everything seemed to be going well. It had cooled off Friday and Saturday compared to Wednesday and Thursday so I was crossing my fingers that it wouldn't be killer hot for the race.

I got up at 4:15 am, ate my normal breakfast, picked up my Bike and Run Special Needs bag and my "Dry Clothes" bag with everything I needed for the swim and some stuff for after the race and then my mom and I took off.

It was still relatively dark, but there were street lights.

Ironman Canada - Race Week

I have a certain race week routine that I follow for my big races. It works pretty well, but it still needs some ironing out for Ironman races. The travel that is involved

Shipping the Bike

I drove my bike over to Front of the Pack on Sunday as ordered to by TriBike Transport. When I had signed up for the service, I signed up to ship a gear bag too. But when the time came to pack, I couldn't figure out what I should put in it. 

It turns out, you can keep your Bento box and under-the-saddle seat and even bottles in your bottle cages. So the CO2 cartridges that you (supposedly) aren't supposed to take on the plane and a lot of other spare equipment fit into those just fine. I thought about shipping my bike helmet, but it needed to be in a hard case and I had nothing at home that would work for that and fit into my gym bag.

So I put in a bunch of crap that weighed a lot just to keep it out of my suitcase. I also put in things that I would really need in case the airlines lost my luggage.