Kona training weekend.... in Maine

I spent this past weekend up in Maine training with some of my Kona qualifying QT2 teammates. Heading into the weekend, I was physically and mentally exhausted. I know, you'd think that in the final weeks of training heading into the biggest race in the sport of triathlon it'd be hard to calm yourself down from the intense motivation. Actually, it is quite the opposite. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Lake Placid and Kona are awfully close together, but it was nice to find out that pretty much everyone feels the same way. Tired, beat up, starving, and looking forward to some time off after the race. So being on the same page made it all the easier to train together.

I arrived in Maine on Thursday afternoon after getting my morning workouts out of the way, including a bike ride that was a lot colder than I thought it should've been. I hadn't been to Maine in quite a while, and we would be staying at Hannah and Noah Freeman's in Trevett. Hannah will be racing with us in Kona and her husband Noah is training to do Beach to Battleship in November, so he did a somewhat modified version of our ridiculously high volume training since his race is several weeks further out. I am not sure how I managed to find the roads to get to the house without a GPS, but Yahoo! maps were surprisingly accurate and I made it to the long, dirt driveway, the first to arrive for the weekend. It was a gorgeous house on an island, but fortunately we did not have to swim in the frigid ocean in front of us. Everyone else arrived a while later and we demolished some core diet friendly fajitas before heading to bed.

Friday was the really big day. We all trickled downstairs to get something to eat before heading over to a nearby fresh water pond to just do an easy, 30-minute swim. The sun was out, but it was a chilly September morning. We reluctantly got in the water, which wasn't quite as cold as I thought it might be, and got our swim done and headed back to the house to change for our bike ride. Even though it was fairly sunny, it was still a bit on the cool side, so we all opted for long sleeves of some sort. We were all quite proud of ourselves for starting on time, especially considering the fact that we had done the math and knew that if we started late, we'd be finishing in the dark. So at 10:15am, we were off to ride for 7 hours.

The first part of the ride offered the biggest challenge: tri bikes on close to a mile of dirt road and some loose sand. I got better and better at this as the weekend went along, but it certainly made me nervous! There were 7 of us riding: me, Cait, Pat, Michelle, Hannah, Jamie and Noah. Fortunately we are all close enough in ability that we stayed together for the most part, because I had no idea where we were most of the time. 7 hours on the bike is challenging enough, but this was probably the hilliest ride I have ever done. There was basically zero flat riding. It was either up, or down... mostly up, if I remember correctly. At one point I was riding with Michelle in front and we came to an intersection and didn't know which way we were headed so we stopped to wait. She said that when in doubt, we should probably just pick the hill. Usually that was the case. Left or right? Answer: UP. I'm looking forward to hearing exactly how much climbing was involved. Jesse and Tim rode 6 hours on Saturday on I think a lot of the same roads and I believe got 13,000 feet of climbing. Yikes. The climbs weren't usually incredibly long, it was just constantly up and down.

The nice thing about riding somewhere that you are not familiar with is the change of scenery makes you a lot less aware of the mileage and time, which is perfect when riding for such a long time. When you ride the same routes over and over again you know exactly when you are at 20 miles, 30 miles, 4 hours, etc. because you do it all the time. This made the time pass by a lot more quickly. We had our first refuelling stop at about 34 miles where most bought Gatorade while Noah went with American chop suey. This was a recurring theme of the weekend - not the chop suey, but Noah blatantly ignoring the diet that the rest of us are doomed to forever follow. Unfortunately, the rest of us have race weights a heck of a lot lower than 184 pounds, otherwise we might have been right there with him. Nope, Powerbars for us.

The ups and downs continued, but the time actually passed surprisingly fast... for a 7-hour ride, anyway. The pavement was incredibly rough in spots, often with grass growing out of it, but fortunately the traffic wasn't usually an issue so we didn't have to ride off to the side. We did ride through some beautiful scenery, sometimes near the ocean, sometimes off in the woods in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes near areas where it was very apparent that they were spraying manure. In fact, at one point we got passed by the manure-spraying truck as it drove way too slow and stayed in front of us for far too long of a time. I think for the next few weeks, any time I find myself hungry when I probably shouldn't be eating anymore, I will think of that truck and completely lose my appetite.

Our second refueling stop came way too long after the first one, and just before I finished my last sip of fluid. We might've stopped sooner, but we probably rode about 35 miles when there just wasn't anywhere to get anything. Most of us got Gatorade, Noah had an ice cream sandwich and some Combos. The longest part of these rides I always find is reaching the halfway point. It's really hard in your mind to see that you've been riding for 3 hours and know that you're still less than halfway done. But once you get past that, it gets easier. Oh, gee, "only" 3 hours to go? I can handle that. Plus, considering our slow average speed due to all of those hills, at least we didn't have to cover a ridiculous amount of miles... as long as you don't think over 120 miles on the bike is ridiculous.

I have never experienced that level of temperature fluctuation on a ride before. I swear it went up and down 10 degrees or so just constantly. I know I've started rides when it was cold and it got a whole lot warmer, but this was all over the place the whole time. I guess that is to be expected near the ocean. So the arm warmers stayed on the whole time, because anytime I thought it might be warm enough to take them off, it would get cool again and I'd be glad I still had them on.

One of the last sections we rode was a nice, smooth stretch of pavement with a lot less ridiculous hills. Somewhere around there I found myself riding alone in the middle of two small groups, 3 ahead of me, 3 behind me. At one point I did catch up to Cait, Michelle and Hannah again, who said they were wondering where I went. I told them that I had not only lost the will to pedal, but I had lost the will to live. It didn't take that long for me to fall back again before I finally had to wait for the rest to catch up so I wouldn't get lost on some random island, never to be heard from again.

The sun was getting lower and it actually started raining a tiny bit, even though we were in the sun. Luckily that didn't last long enough to even get us wet. We finally made it back to the driveway, which is when I left everyone else to go do their 30-minute transition run while I went to ride another 3o minutes. Oh, I definitely forgot to mention that I can't run right now. You see, last week on my second 90-minute run on Sunday, I was about halfway through, running on a dirt road when I stepped awkwardly on a rock. I only made it a few more steps before I realized something was not right. I sat down for a few minutes, poking at my feet and trying to figure out what was going on before I just got up and decided I needed to get home. I ran a tiny bit before I decided it wasn't going to happen, so I had to walk home 4 miles. I did the last mile in my socks because I was getting blisters. Initial fear was stress fracture, so I had my first non-routine-dental x-ray on Monday and left the doctor's office incredibly fast when they told me that there was nothing on the x-ray. Another doctor visit tells me that I probably strained some ligaments in between my metatarsals. Glad it's not a stress fracture, but no running as of yet. So my big bike volume week just got a whole lot bigger since the lost run volume was to be made up for with biking. So 7 hours for everyone else became 7 and a half for me. I had never spent 7 and a half hours on my bike before. I have covered more miles - 143 - but that was nice and flat and fast.

At that point, honestly, what's another 30 minutes? I survived the deadly driveway again and was incredibly happy to not be sitting in my bike saddle anymore. And also to be done with eating Powerbars for the day. The funny thing was, I wasn't actually all that hungry, amazingly enough. We went out to dinner pretty late that night and I didn't even care that I had to order a salad with grilled chicken for the millionth time. I was far too tired to care about food at that point. I'm surprised I remained awake the entire time at the table. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to fall asleep that night.

Saturday morning was to start off with a 2-mile swim time trial. We needed to get going fairly early in order to get in the other training for the day. It was bright and sunny, but windy and quite cold that morning. The drive to the pond provided the most comical moment of the weekend. Without going into incredible detail, for future reference, when looking at the wrapper on a vanilla Powergel, that would be 0mg caffeine - that is, ZERO milligrams. Not OMG - Oh My God - caffeine! We made it to the pond around 9:00 and all stood shivering just getting into our wetsuits. Mine also currently has a hole in it, which doesn't help matters. You've never seen athletes so reluctant to get in the water. The wind was whipping at us and making the water look more ocean-like than pond-like. We had tried to map out a good course to swim, but fortunately quickly decided it was too complicated, so we picked a red-leaved tree on the other side to swim to and come back, thinking we'd probably have to do it 3 times in order to make it about 2 miles.

Into the water we went, and Cait's sister Mikaela was standing on the dock as our official timer, layered in many of the clothes the rest of us wouldn't be needing again until we got out. With a very low-key, "go" we were off. Cait, Pat and Hannah are far and away better swimmers than the rest of us, so it was no surprise that they were off in the front. I took in a few mouthfuls of water as the wind blew the waves in our faces for the entire trip across toward the red tree. That stupid red tree never seemed to get any closer no matter how hard I was swimming. It was like trying to swim to the end of a rainbow: it didn't exist, just kept getting further and further away. The water was definitely cold, although tolerable at that point. I felt someone on my feet for a while but eventually found myself swimming the entire time trial all by myself.

After what seemed like an eternity, I saw Cait's orange cap coming back in my direction, so I knew that sooner or later I'd probably reach the other side. Once I got there I glanced at my watch and saw that I had been swimming already for over 17 minutes, so I knew that unless the current that was in our faces on the way out carried us back about twice as fast, we were definitely going to be swimming more than 2 miles that day. At least on the way back I wasn't fighting with waves breaking over my face, although they certainly didn't seem to be aiding my forward progress in the other direction.

The problem with swimming in an unfamiliar body of water is that unless you check it out first, you have no idea what it looks like to swim back where you came from. Yes, we were swimming for a dock on the other side, but it is pretty much impossible to spot a dock low in the water from over half a mile away while swimming. I had no landmarks, just a general idea to swim in the opposite direction from where I came. We were also swimming back into the sun, which didn't help matters. At one point I finally thought I could see where I was going only to find myself swimming into two buoys that I had no recollection of seeing on the way out. I actually stopped for a minute, removed my goggles and looked around. I was convinvced I had swum into some inlet that I wasn't supposed to, but finally I spotted Mikaela off in the distance standing on the dock, thankfully wearing a red jacket as the outermost of her many layers. I hoped the second time back would be easier.

I made it to the dock, touched it with my hand and quickly said, "I'm assuming we're only doing this twice, right?" I got an affirmative and started back against the waves 33 minutes or so in. The first time out I could see the arms of those swimming in front of me, this time I did not have that advantage. I saw one or two of the people behind me, but mostly just felt completely alone in the water. At some point on that second crossing I started to feel colder. Much colder. You know the water is cold when you are swimming hard and instead of getting warmer as you go along, you feel much worse. My feet were going numb. My hands and face were frozen. It was going to be a long second crossing.

The tree once again never got any closer, and I was relieved to finally see I think Pat coming back in the other direction so I knew I wasn't totally alone out there. The coldness continued to seep into my body, and when I reached the other side for the last time to come back, I was determined to not hit those buoys again and maybe swim a more direct route. I have no idea if I did or not, but I do know that I at least didn't have to stop this time, except for one brief pulling down of the swim cap since it started slipping off my head. I don't know why it did that suddenly. Maybe my head was shrinking from being in cold water for such a long time.

Up ahead I finally saw Mikaela, who was getting closer as slowly as the stupid tree, but finally I made it to the dock in I think just under 1:08. Essentially, I probably just did my Ironman swim. Only this water was nothing like Kona. I was so happy that I had thought ahead and brought a warm winter hat to put on when I got out of the water. Without a doubt I could've gone right back to bed at that moment, but instead, I had to get dressed to go ride my bike for 5 more hours. Had I been running, it would've been 4 with a 1-hour transition run, but nope, 5 more for me!

It was cooler that day, but at least sunny again. We were supposed to be doing a recovery ride, but this is incredibly difficult to accomplish when riding so many hills. I had to pedal incredibly softly when going up so as not to destroy my already trashed legs, which resulted in the slowest average speed I have ever accomplished on a bike ride - and that includes when I used to trail behind my dad on a mountain bike. Although it actually wasn't so much my legs that were the big problem, but rather that I couldn't stand being in my bike saddle anymore. At least we had some more nice scenery to help pass the time once again. At one point Cait rode up to me and said, "We have a pretty sweet life, huh?" She's right. It's like getting to go off and play with your friends all of the time. I used to ride bikes with my friends when I was a kid and now I get to do it again as an "adult". Just for a little longer. It's sort of like perpetual summer camp.

I left everyone else off to run while I rode another hour by myself. I don't even remember really how I passed that last hour, but I got it done. At least this time we were done close to 2 hours earlier than the night before. That night we had a great cookout, sat around the fire and only once or twice mentioned how it would've been better if we were allowed to eat s'mores. Lobster for the seafood eaters, chicken and turkey burgers for the rest of us. It was a fun evening.

Sunday morning came quick and somehow I didn't sleep well the night before. I felt like my eyes had 20 pound bags under them when I got up. I moved pretty slowly while getting ready to head out for my ride. On the schedule was a 1-hour bike and a 2 and a half hour run. Which for me meant another 3 and a half hours on the bike. Yep, I spent 16 hours on my bike over 3 days. I've definitely never done that before. But at that point, 3 and a half hours seemed like nothing. Everyone else had some different variations, 1-hour ride before the run, maybe a shorter run, some no ride, so we all were sort of on our own this time. I rode out to a 9-mile stretch of smooth pavement and not ridiculously hilly roads and went around in circles a bunch of times because it was just the simplest thing to do. It worked out well and the ride actually went a lot better than I thought it would. Before I knew it, I was done. A few others were finished already and the rest came in one by one. Noah with a Kit Kat in his pocket from his run. His response as to why he had a Kit Kat in his pocket? "Why wouldn't I have a Kit Kat in my pocket?"

Amazingly, the last big weekend of training had come to a close. I never would've made it through without having everyone else there, even if I did have to spend a good amount of time on my bike by myself. I'm choosing not to panic over my foot and the lack of running. I'm heading back to the doctor to have it checked out again tomorow and hopefully will have good news to report. For now, I certainly have the bike base to get me through the race. Thanks to Hannah and Noah (and Noah's mom) for letting us stay at the house and for the delicious food. Thanks to my teammates for keeping me going all weekend and for reminding me that I'm not the only one who is feeling a little exhausted right now. I'll see you all in a few weeks where it will be much, much warmer!