Earlier this summer I wrote about the day I finally liked swimming. It was a magical morning in A Bay on the big island in Hawaii, and I saw tons of dolphins frolicking in the ocean all around me while I treaded water for 45 minutes and marveled at how I would have missed out on such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if I hated swimming and refused to swim out that far. My swim on Friday couldn’t have been any further from that moment in my life

So I survived Day 1 of the Ironman Canada training camp despite getting blinded and nearly being taken out by a car on the highway. I was still nursing raw eyes when I woke up for Day 2, but I was happy that I wouldn’t have to ride another 112 in the crappy heat. Unfortunately, I’d succumb to the heat in other ways, although my downfall was more due to my poor breakfast choice than the heat alone. (Still, I have to blame something other than my own dumb self, right?) With that said, let’s kick off Day 2 of my 2012 Ironman Canada Training Camp recap. Day 2: Eggs Benny is Not My Buddy My excitement for not having to swim on Day 1 was short-lived, as Day 2 started off with a 30 minute dip in Okanagan Lake. The swim wasn’t too bad, though–the water temperature was nice and I bullied a less-than-thrilled Steve to swim with me despite the fact that he’s not even training for anything (“I just like camps!”–Steven Hooper, 2012). After our dip in the lake, we had to change quickly and hop on our bikes for a 30-ish mile easy effort ride. I headed out with my peeps and immediately discovered that my ladybits wanted nothing to do with the aero position whatsoever. The crotchal region was pissed at me for yesterday’s century-plus sufferfest, so I resorted to sitting upright and catching wind like a human sail for the entire ride. My teammates left me in the dust but I was content to stay comfortable since I didn’t want a horrible sequel to Crotchfest 2012, plus I was trying to leave enough gas in the tank for my long run later that day (insert ominous foreshadowing here). When I got back to the parking lot, I was told by Teresa to rest a bit and eat a good meal before the team was going to start their run workout. She wanted us all to wait until the afternoon to begin running so we could hit the course at the hottest part of the day. Since we had a decent amount of downtime, we could eat a legitimate lunch. Teresa, however, being all Cautious Coach, gave us some guidelines for eating. T: “Eat something light and easy on your stomach before your long run. It’s going to be hot and you don’t want to aggravate your system.” My interpretation of what she said: After a full day of workouts Friday and two hours of workouts already under my belt on Saturday, my body was in a perpetual state of feeling ravenous. Jason and I wandered around trying to find a place to eat and ended up at the resort hotel/casino restaurant overlooking the lake. Waitress: “What can I get you?” Me: “Can I get the potato hash?” Must eat smart! Long, hot run ahead! Waitress: “Sure thing.” *scribbles it down* Jason: “I’ll have a blueberry smoothie and eggs Benedict.” Me: “Ooh, that sounds good.” The waitress left but returned after a few minutes. Waitress: “I’m sorry, we’re out of the potato hash. Can I get you something else instead?” Me: “Screw it, I tried. EGGS BENEDICT, PLEASE!” My meal consisted of eggs Benedict (ham, poached eggs, English muffins, and Hollandaise sauce which is made from craploads of butter, lemon, and egg yolks), breakfast potato wedges, ketchup, generous sips of Jason’s dairy-rich blueberry smoothie, and chunks of buttery croissant that we got as a side order. The stomach felt great since it was all full and happy. By the time we got done eating, we pretty much had to return back to the hotel...

The last weekend of July was my team’s Ironman Canada training camp. It had been a couple years since I had ridden the course (the last time I trained on it was when I raced the event in 2010), so I was really anxious to dust off the ol’ cobwebs and re-familiarize myself with the area and see how much my fitness had improved in the past two years. I was also excited to hang out with my teammates–even though we were going to be working our asses off all weekend long, it’s still fun to spend time with your friends and enjoy each other’s company away from the stresses of the real world. The camp consisted of three days, which I’ve broken into separate posts. Here’s a recap of Day 1: Day 1: What Doesn’t Kill You Just Half-Blinds You Canada camp was scheduled a bit differently than Coeur d’Alene’s training camp. At Coeur d’Alene we swam, then rode the course, then did a brick run (and the day bested me because I was battling a fever and a cold and chumped out after 80 miles on the bike). At Canada, however, we’d start the day off by tackling the bike course, then doing a 20-30 minute brick run. No swimming? Boo-yah! I took off with my cycling group from our hotel. It was going to be warm (mid to upper-80s) but not as hot as the ridiculous training camp back in 2010 (when temps hit 97 degrees). I was supposed to stay in zone 2 for my ride but my stupid Garmin didn’t charge overnight so I had to ride “naked,” so to speak, and went without heart rate information. It was actually kind of nice riding based on exertion/feel for a change, but I was mildly disheartened when the guys all took off as if they stole something and left me, Aimee, and Leslee behind. It was hard to tell whether I was going out too easy or they were going out too hard, or if they were just riding comfortably while I was sucking it up. Not helping matters was hitting Richter about 2 hours, 3 minutes into my ride, which was a few minutes slower than my training time two years ago. Cue the “Oh God, am I actually slower than I was in 2010?! My bike split is going to be shit this year! Why did I sign up for this race, I’m no good, I’m not getting faster, what the hell is the matter with me, I’m not going to break 12 hours this year, not by a long shot, screw this sport, I’mma retire and get fat instead.” I pushed the doubt out of my head and instructed myself to just ride. Don’t worry about the watch or how fast your teammates are going, just focus on what you need to do out there. So that’s what I did–I powered up Richter at a good clip (hooray for improved climbing skills this year!), busted through the “rollers” (aka the “Little Bitches,” as Slowtwitch so appropriately named them), and made it to the TN support car at the end of the out and back turnaround. And wouldn’t you know it, my lovely ladies Leslee and Aimee were right there with me as the first three in our group to make it to the car. I guess we all paced ourselves perfectly fine, after all. 🙂 By this point I had to pee something fierce. I looked around for a semi-private place to wander off to but there really weren’t many options, especially as more teammates started to roll in. Aimee tried to...

So you’re aware that Hawaii was crazy windy and that after my race I almost fainted on Linsey Corbin, but you don’t know how the actual half Ironman went because I haven’t gotten around to writing it yet. My bad–juggling a new job and Ironman Canada training ramp up has been a bit crazy and I haven’t had a chance to blog much lately. But enough with the excuses, I’ve got posts to write and they’ll spill out of my sun-baked brain and onto a keyboard sooner or later. Here’s how it all went down… The 2012 Lance Armstrong Ironman Lance Honu 70.3, Sponsored by Livestrong Oh, was this the race that Lance Armstrong was at? They made such little fuss about him that I barely knew he was there. (I’m kidding–Ironman totally and unabashedly gargled his ball.) Anyway, the morning of the race I woke up, showered, sunscreened, choked down breakfast, gathered my bottles and gear, and hopped in the van with my housemates to head to the race start. I got to transition and went through the standard ordeal: Pumped up my tires Checked my bike computer Arranged my bottles and fuel Used the portapotty Slathered on more obscene amounts of sunscreen Lubed up my nethers I went down to the beach and got body-marked. This race likes to use fancy stamps for your numbers to make athletes feel as if they’re at the World Championships despite only having to do half the distance. I had a really smudgy stamp and a volunteer captain came up and scolded the person who was helping me for using an inferior stamp on my glorious arm canvas. She spent a few minutes painstakingly cleaning up the ink smears around my numbers, and when she finished I promptly returned to transition and coated myself with another layer of sunscreen. (I wasn’t about to get Cancun’d again so I sacrificed number readability for not getting skin cancer.) Jas and I wandered around, avoiding Lance’s entourage and the surrounding crowd of gawkers, in an effort to find his parents so we could hand them our pre-race gear bags to hold onto. We eventually found them on the beach at the swim start, so we dropped off our stuff and headed into the ocean to get warmed up. Jason made it in fine but I only waded in a few feet before a big-ass wave knocked me down. I popped up, sputtering, and tried again, but the waves were all “Haha, no” and bitch-slapped me back down again. At this point I thought, “Screw it, swim warm ups are overrated anyway” and headed back onto the beach. Jason emerged after a couple minutes and asked why I was covered in sand. I explained that the ocean was not being kind to me and he started laughing. It was a great send-off from my supportive boyfriend. Swim Summary I found my slow and steady Lane 7 teammates and stood with them to wait for the race to start. In previous years the pros and amateurs all started at the same time, but since Lance Armstrong was gracing us with his presence this year, the pros were allowed to start three minutes before us peons. They took off while I stared at the buoys, confused by how the course had been set up. It looked roughly like this: We had to start at the first buoy and take a long, diagonal path to a buoy in the upper left area, which meant a lot of swimming without seeing anything for a while. Then we would swim to the second buoy and turn right. From there, we’d...

Look, I get that it was unseasonably warm on Monday and that it made for hotter than usual Boston Marathon race conditions, but deciding not to race or deferring to next year because you didn’t like the temperature is just laughable. If you’re elite or athletic enough to be able to qualify for the Boston Marathon, you can deal with a hot race. There are thousands of runners who would have killed to race on Monday, regardless of the conditions, and you’re telling me that you’re too big a diva to run when it gets to the mid-80s? Gimme a break. A higher than usual percentage of racers (3,863) didn’t even bother showing up to pick up their numbers this year. Obviously a portion of the no-shows could be folks who had injuries (as was the case of a friend of mine who tore her hamstring and was unable to race) or had a situation pop up where they couldn’t race (a family emergency, work conflict, etc), but the rate was higher than in previous years. Of the 22,426 runners who did show up to pick up their numbers, 427 deferred, which is even worse than not bothering to show up in the first place. You travel all the way to Boston, pick up your number, and then decide that you’re going to chump out and run next year in the hopes that temperatures will be more to your satisfaction? Ridiculous. Yes, I know it was hot. I know it was uncomfortable. I know that overall times were slower than previous years and that more people were treated for heat-related ailments (cramping, exhaustion, overheating). But that’s the nature of racing. You sign up for a race not knowing what’s going to come your way. You can do the training and prepare for it as best you can, but there are certain factors you can’t control on race day that you just have to deal with. Do you think the 2011 Ironman Canada athletes wanted to race in upper-90 degree heat all day? Obviously not, but they showed up at the start line and powered their way through like champs, and they raced 140.6 miles in adverse conditions, not just 26.2. Do you think Ironman Louisville athletes want to spend an entire day pushing themselves through ungodly heat and humidity, or that Ironman Coeur d’Alene athletes want to swim 2.4 miles in a ball-shrinkingly frigid lake? Did I want to race Costa Rica in the searing sunshine and come home with absurd tan lines? Did I want to battle ridiculous crosswinds at Ironman Boise 70.3 in 2010? Did I want to run through a windy monsoon during the Seattle Half Marathon this past year? No. Hell no. But you know what? I gritted my teeth and persevered, just as the Ironman Canada, the Louisville, and the Coeur d’Alene athletes did and just as every athlete should. Boston was hard this year. Harder than usual, I’m sure. PRs were shot, everyone was uncomfortable, it was a miserable day. But if you sign up for a race and aren’t prepared to deal with the potential curveballs that go along with it, you shouldn’t race at all because clearly you’re not cut out for it. You’re kidding yourself if you expect all of your races to have perfect weather, perfect race conditions, and that you’ll post a PR. You’re delusional if you think you’ll never get a flat tire, experience gut rot, be forced to endure wind or rain or snow or heat, and that everything will be hunky dory for you. The challenges behind racing are more mental than physical. The people...