Ironman Training Week 20 Recap & Seattle RnR Half Race Recap

Happy Tuesday, all!


I have so much to catch up on but will try to be succinct with this post so I don't put you to sleep with an overload of stuff.

Here's a quick recap of my training for week 20 (even though I'm at the end of week 21 - I'm a week behind...oops!)
Ran: 20 miles
Biked: 95.5 miles
Swam: 2.28 miles
Total: just shy of 118 miles
Total time: about 9 hours

My bike is definitely my biggest struggle right now - having a tough time with it and it's frustrating. I'm sure it'll be better when I can get out on the road more, but trainer rides are the bane of my existence right now. I hate them.

But I digress. Here is the scoop on the Rock and Roll Seattle Half Marathon festivities:   

What a great weekend - Megan (and Ryan), Megan (and Kevin and baby C), Adrian, Nancy and Stacy all flew in for the race. So excited to host our first visitors to Seattle!

The crew arrived Thursday/Friday morning and we all rallied downtown Seattle to meet up with TriGirl, Nicole, Tasha, Stacie and a few other awesome bloggers for lunch. Here we all are:

Thanks Megan for letting me steal the picture!

We then hit the race Expo to pick up numbers and I got to see Aaron speak on behalf of CEP Compression! He did a great job. And his talk worked - I bought some calf sleeves while I was there.

After, we headed back to the hotel downtown, rested a bit and then hit Tutta Bella for a pizza dinner. So yummy. Fell asleep fairly early thankfully!

Race Day -
The alarm went off way too early and we all headed down to the start, which was about a mile walk away. Luckily the rain stopped so it was a perfect running day!

with Nancy - ready to go!

Fearsome Threesome!

We dropped our gear, set a meeting point and separated into our corrals. I stuck with Megan's husband Kevin since we were aiming for the same time and were in the same corral. I was really excited to have a racing buddy - I rarely have one!

Kevin and I took off and were chatting away having a grand time together. We were averaging between 7:45 and 7:55 per mile too but both of us were feeling good.

Then we rounded a corner and oh, hello hill! Seriously. This hill was redonkulous and super steep. The downhill on the other side was rough too - thankfully it wasn't too wet, else I'm sure I would have gone ass over tea kettle!

I stole this picture from Stacy - the hill is in there but hard to see. I hated it.

It took a bit for us to recover from that one. We continued on, though, and caught back up to our sub- 8:00 pace...until the next hill getting us back up towards the I-90 bridge. Not cool. But once we got onto the highway, there were some downhill portions with views of the city, which was nice.

We knew after those hills that our goal of 1:45 was probably not possible...even though we were so close. Our Garmins got a bit screwed up a bit going through the tunnels, so it was hard to know our pace for a couple of miles.

We kept on trucking, back across the highway, towards the stadiums and then up the last hill onto Alaskan Highway viaduct, through the Battery Tunnel and back to the Space Needle. We were killing it, and again, rounded a corner and boom - another nasty hill literally in the last .25 miles of the race. So evil!! We both could barely keep running but with the finish in sight, we just gave it all that was left in the tank.

We crossed the finish at 1:49:16 - about a minute off my PR. Considering the tough hills (which everyone commented about!), I'll take it! I was thrilled that I really felt good the entire time (except going up that very first hill) and the race felt relatively easy at that pace. Gave me a boost of confidence for Ironman!

My running buddy Kevin (thanks, Megan, for letting me borrow him!)

The group rallied afterwards (everyone did GREAT, especially Nancy who absolutely killed it and finished almost 10 minutes ahead of her goal time! Oh and did I mention that this was her 13th half marathon, in 13 consecutive months, in 13 different locations?! She is my hero!), enjoyed our free beer and watched Gym Class Heroes play their gig. They were really good - the most eclectic group of people in a band I'd ever seen. Google them if you don't know what they look like - you'll be surprised.

Nancy. Is. Awesome.

Yay for all my friends!!

Rob and Julia joined us at the hotel, we went to get burgers for lunch (YUM!), rested for a bit at our house and then hit the down for sushi and drinks. We had 11 of us and it was a great time with really good food.

Megan, Megan, Tri Girl, me, Adrian - we clean up well!

Fearsome Threesome - miss these girls so much

With Tri Girl and her husband

Sunday I took Nancy to the airport early in the AM (boo), did my 2 hour bike ride (yes, 24 hours after my race I was on the bike - brutal) and the rest of the group headed to Red Hook Brewery for some beer tasting before heading to Pike Place Market to do the tourist thing. We met up with TriGirl and Adrian again down there, wandered around, had some great food and enjoyed the sunshine.

Beer tour!

Thanks to the other Megan for this picture!

And just like that, everyone was gone early Monday morning. It was hard for me to say goodbye, as I really wish they could have stayed longer - and it made me homesick too.

So now I start to look ahead to Ironman Lake Stevens 70.3 which is 2 1/2 weeks away. And I'm terrified. Not sure why but I am. I need to trust in my training, but I just have so much self doubt for some reason. Hopefully that will shift in the coming weeks to "I can do this!"

via Google

Hope you are enjoying the Olympic Trials on TV - I love every second of them! I think I would watch badmitton trials if they were televised!
Have a great day!

Questions:
1) Did you race this weekend? How was it?
2) If you bike, how do you get through trainer rides without pulling your hair out?
3) What's your next big goal/race coming up?