August Training...

I didn't recap July, mostly because it was not a good month of training for me, and now August is over and I am nowhere near where I had hoped to be on September 2nd.

I logged 57 miles in August, which was five short of where I was in July. By August 11th I had already rode 76 miles on my bike and I was well on my way to feeling confident about the Half Ironman at the Redman Tri that is three weeks away. I was back in the pool, and while I am never uncomfortable in the water I was getting in the grocery of tri training.

All it took was one small rut in the road to completely derail my fall plans. Everyone I have talked to about my crash/wreck/accident (I still can't decide which makes me sound tougher) has heard me say that I know how lucky I am. While it was bad, it could have been much worse. But to go from the middle of tri training to the sudden stop of a broken bone, separated shoulder, road rash, insanely bruised legs, and banged up face is not easy. It was not easy at all. You end up with a lot of free time.

Day 12 post accident found me sitting at my desk realizing I was going to miss another Saturday group run, and I'm not embarrassed to say I had a mini meltdown. It is one thing to not be able to run because of a sprained ankle or strained quad, but not running because of an injury that didn't involve my legs was especially hard. Injured shoulder means very limited cross training options.

This was unlike any injury I have ever had. It was inescapable, everything hurt that first week. I still have some discomfort in my shoulder, and I would kill to be able to sleep comfortably on my right side. When I saw my orthopedic doctor last week he said that my shoulder is healing well but it'll probably be another month before it feels completely normal.

My face looks much better than it looked here. Yellow is not a good color for me.

Camy and Carson and I had some girl time on Friday and Saturday night. We watched Sixteen Candles, Admissions and Warm Bodies. Camy and I ordered Chinese food on Saturday and this was my fortune.

How fitting. It's not always easy, and sometimes the plan will change but I will keep going one step at a time and see where the road takes me.

 

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No Triathlons in 2013...

For this girl anyway. Clearly there are tons of great races and racing going on, but sadly I will not be able to participate.

My first tri was the Tie Dye Tri at the Norman Y in 2009 and I have done this race every year since then. It was part of my crazy racing September last year. (Who could forget a 5k, Ragnar Relay, sprint tri and Olympic tri in the span of four weeks?). 

I hadn't ruled out doing the TDT this year, it is the week before Redman and I was considering it as a good taper, get your mind ready for transitions sort of race. Plus I placed in my age group last year...

*sigh*

In post on Monday I talked about my fabulous me vs. the sidewalk experience on Sunday. Clearly I was the loser there. Well, I went to see my orthopedic doctor Tuesday morning and got some sad news. 

There will be none of this...

And none of this...

I addition to my AC joint separation I manages to fracture my scapula. According to Dr. Hines it is a skinny bone that will heal quickly but I have four weeks until the Redman and realistically he said that its just not enough time. 

Am I bummed? You bet. It's been a hard summer for me and I feel like ever since my stress fracture last year I have struggled mentally and with injuries. (Hello sprained ankle and strained quad!). 

Plus, and the battle scars from Sunday are just fabulous. 

I haven't even taken picture of my poor legs. I find a new bruise every day. 

Green really isn't my color. 

So for now, I'm sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. Waiting for my poor body to recover. I'm not very good at this. 

If all goes as planned there is a half marathon in Kansas City in October and the Route 66 half in Tulsa in November. My revised goal is to run one (or two) strong half marathons to finish out 2013. 

Keep your fingers crossed. 

Adventures in Bicycling...

It's been a while. It's been a hard summer personally and I haven't felt like putting a lot done on the blog.

About a month ago I decided that instead of a fall marathon I was going to shoot for a fall triathlon.

You might remember last September Rochelle and I tackled our first Olympic distance tri at the Redman, I've been throwing around the idea of the half ironman since then. About a month ago I decided that it was scary as hell, but all that crosstraining would make my body very happy.

After my quad strain in May, running in June was horrible. Even with the heat it has gotten better and I finally saw double digits on my Garmin about three weeks ago. Focusing on crosstraining has taken the pressure off my running and the result is that my running has gotten more comfortable and normal.

It is time consuming training for a HIM. I am just shooting to finish, since it's my first race at this distance, so I am trying to fit in as much training as I can.

The bike is the most worrisome aspect of the race for me. 56 miles is far and prior to starting this training cycle I hadn't ridden farther than about 27 miles. A week ago I got up to 38, and riding that far by myself is pretty boring.

I was happy to have a plan to get in about half of yesterday's ride with some friends. We set out yesterday morning in the east side hills. The dogs that looked to chase us were pretty scary, but we got through the hills and at a little ober 20 miles and headed to the flats on the west side of town.

I really felt pretty good out there, and I was on track to get in 40+ miles. I was headed back on Tecumseh when my wheel caught a rut in the road. It was enough to throw me off and I tried to correct but just couldn't avoid the curb that I hit. I landed on a sidewalk right next to a light post.

Thankfully, some very nice women saw it all and stopped. They got my bike off of me, called Josh, called 911, and helped to calm me down. One of them even got a small blanket out of her car for me to rest my head on while we waited for the fire fighters to get there. I am very thankful for the kindness of strangers.

I'm not gonna lie. I was a little humiliated, something so silly as a little rut in the road and I caused such a fuss. The firefighters helped me sit up and checked me over. We decided we didn't need an ambulance, once Josh got there he took me straight to urgent care.

I basically landed on my chin.

And my right shoulder. They X-rayed my shoulder and said I have a grade I AC (acromioclavicular) joint separation.

Those bruises on my forehead are from my helmet, the scratch on my nose is sidewalk, and my left cheek is bruised.

I am very lucky. It could have been so much worse. That being said, my whole body hurts today. I am waiting on a call back from my orthopedic doctor to follow up on my shoulder. I am going to need to get my bike in to get my front tire replaced and check to make sure the wheel and frame are ok. Oh yeah, and I need a new helmet.

Not sure what this does to my Redman plans. The thought of getting back on my bike scares the hell out of me. I guess we will dee what the doctor says.

 

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Redman Recap...

I was horribly nervous all last week leading up to the Redman. I headed up to Lake Hefner after work Friday to drop off the cookies I traded out for mine and Rochelle's entries into the Oly pic distance tri on Sunday.

I got to see the sea of bikes all set up in the transition area for Saturday's races, I also picked up my race packet and meet Ben to pick up the wetsuit I was borrowing for the race. I lucked out and borrowed one from Ben's sister, who is crazy awesome, she won the full ironman at the Redman last year. (After swimming over two miles and riding her bike 112 miles she ran a marathon in four hours. Amazing!)

Can I just say that wetsuits are not easy to get on?

This really isn't my best look, I think.

After spending most of Saturday feeling very sick to my stomach, we had a birthday party and then I did some carb loading. I got all my stuffed packed and loaded my bike in my car. I was in bed by 9:30, and I slept pretty good.

I was up bright and early (4:45) and got dressed and put on my tri tats. What a great idea to have temporary tattoos for your race numbers.

We loaded up, swung by and picked up my partner in crime, and after a bathroom pit stop at Starbucks, we made it to Lake Hefner. It was quite a scramble to get our tires aired up at the Schlegal's tent and get our transitions set up.

Assigned transition spots are a really good idea. The fact that they closed the transition an hour and a half before our race was not. The sprint distance race started at 7:30 and we weren't allowed back in transition at that time. Things like sunscreen got missed because of this. More on that later.

It was nice to be able to see the swim portion of the sprint race. It got pretty interesting, the water was so shallow we got to see exactly where we would have to walk during our swim. We also had time for pictures.

Do we look terrified here?

Where we were standing, there should have been water. The low water levels made for a very long trek from the swim to the transition area.

Before we knew it, it was time to get in the water.

I'm not gonna lie, the water was freezing, and the bottom was pretty muddy and slimy. I managed to not get too beat up when the swim started. It was not easy to adjust to not being able to see anything when you put your face in the water. I swear, every time I looked to see where I was in relation to the bouys it didn't seem like I was getting any closer to them. I did get kicked in the face once, and on the second lap when I had to walk I got a horrible cramp in my right calf. I managed to work it out and finish the swim.

The craziest part of the race was the strippers. If you had a wetsuit on, when you got into transition they had strippers to get you out of your wetsuit. I had mine unzipped and my arms out, so I ran up and laid down and they just grabbed ahold of the wetsuit and ripped it off, then they helped you get back up, threw the suit back to me and I was on my way.

I did have to make a stop at one of the most disgusting port-o-potties ever, and then I got my helmet and socks and bike shoes on. I did not get sunscreen, I managed to tune my Garmin on but forgot to put it on, and forgot my sun glasses. After a GU and a drink of water I was ready to go.

The bike route was a seven mile loop, which made the total long for an Olympic distance race. It was nice riding along the dam, but coming back up Hefner was not easy. By the fourth loop I was seriously ready to be done.

Transition 2 was a bit faster than the first one. I managed to get my Garmin on, had another GU and some water, put on my visor and set off for the run. I did have a bit of a freak out moment when people were cheering my name at the start, (the fans were awesome), but then I realized my name was on my race bib.

It was only about 80 degrees out but it was not cloudy at all. I was wishing I was back in the freezing cold lake. For the first half I was maintaining about an 8 minute pace, which I was really happy about, and I managed only one walk break in the first half.

After this there were a few more walk breaks. Im not gonna lie to you, because of the lack of wind during the walk breaks i could tell how stinky i was. I was very happy to finish the run in under 55 minutes. So after just over 3 hours and 17 minutes my first Olympic triathlon was over.

You can't tell from this picture but I was quite sunburnt.

Our cheering section were real troopers.

Josh even rode up with us at the crack of dawn. I think he might have gotten a nap in before our race started.

We got loaded up and headed home. After a shower there was this.

I used baby oil to get the tattoos off on Tuesday, and my arms look like this now.

That's my number 673, it'll be there foe who knows how long. What a great reminder of a great race.

Looks like 2013 will be the year of the half ironman. More on that later.

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Redman Triathlon...

Just the highlights right now, but I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon on Sunday. I don't think I did too bad.

Becky Craig. 673 Congratulations On Your Finish Here Are Your Ultramax Sports Personalized Results Race Name/Distance Olympic Overall Place 131 Division Name F3539 Division Place 4 Gender Place 40 Swim Time 32:50 Swim Pace 2:01 Transition 1 5:34 Bike 1:41:37 Bike Rate 16.5 Transition 2 3:26 Run 54:27 Run Pace 8:47 Finish Time 3:17:53

In a regular Olympic distance Tri the bike should be 24 miles. Because of route limitations it was long at 28 miles, trust me on lap four I was wishing it was four miles shorter.

Lake Hefner was very low because of the lack of rain all summer. They used the alternate swim location, and it was so shallow that there was a part that we had to walk instead of swim. As a person who has never had a love for lakes, the slimy bottom was not only hard to walk on,but it completely freaked me out. I never imagined that 1000 meters would take me over 30 minutes. I only got kicked in the face once.

My transitions were not super speedy, the first one involved a trip to the port-o-potty. I certainly wasn't going to go in a borrowed wetsuit. There were quite a few women in our wave that talked about going before we started.

I am very happy with my run time. I was tired, and there was a few walk breaks, it was only about 80 degrees out but the sun was blazing.

It was a great race. I think there is a Half Ironman coming up for me in 2013. I sure will train more for it.

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Redman, I Must Be Crazy...

Back in May when I made cupcakes for Beer Sprocket, I had a chance to talk to my BIL's boss who is the race director for the Redman Triathlon. We talked about how they were wanting to get some higher calorie foods for the finish line. He said we could do a trade out, cookies for two entries into the Olympic distance triathlon.

Fast forward to September. It's been a busy month, after three months off in the spring, I decided to make up for it in one month. Brookhaven, Ragnar, the Tie Dye Tri and now Redman. There is only one person crazy enough to tackle all of this with me, that would be Rochelle.

Everyone needs that friend that you can take your crazy ideas to and they will always say yes.

So I baked about 400 cookies this week.

I boxed them up last night.

I'm gonna deliver them this afternoon. After that I'll probably be even more nervous than I already am, and come Sunday I'll be trying not to freeze to death during my first open water swim.

This was part of the conversation I had with Ro yesterday. I think insanity loves company, because I sure don't think I could do all this on my own.

I don't know how I'm going to survive the next 48 hours.

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