IM Canada: Week 17 – Chen’s version (i.e., Catfish Open Water Swim, plus holy heat ride, Batman)

Posted by Chen

After proclaiming that I was ready to tackle this last push of training, my week got off to a rocky start with two unplanned rest days on Monday and Wednesday. Our flight back from the Dirty Jerz was massively delayed thanks to some impressive storms, resulting in a 4am bedtime Sunday night and no time or energy to workout Monday. Wednesday’s rest didn’t necessarily have to happen, but after another long workday, an early bedtime seemed more appealing than a cold, windy run.

I felt so guilty about the extra rest, though, that I did a 3-hour backwards tri on Thursday, which was probably an idiot move given this weekend’s workouts, but it at least made me feel better about myself at the time.

Yesterday’s long workout was the highlight (lowlight?) of the week, starting with the Catfish Open Water Swim over at the Del Valle Regional Park area in Livermore. Rachel, Travers, Katie, Matt and I all competed in the 2.4-mile wetsuit division, though the course ended up being quite short at 2.1 miles. Still, the overall experience was similar enough to what we’ll face at the start in Whistler, which was the whole point of partaking in this race anyway.

The morning started off with less than ideal bodily conditions, as I awoke with a moderate hangover after less than 5 hours of sleep. I find it comical that throughout all of my May travels and events that included a trip to Nashville, a wedding, and my 10^th college reunion, I managed to prevent any hangovers from happening, but give me one night of Benihana’s and karaoke, and I’m on the floor. Too. Much. Sapporo.

I suppose the good thing about being so focused on re-hydrating myself was that I never had a chance to get too nervous before the race. In the back of my mind was the panic attack that I’d experienced during Napa HITS, which I very much wanted to avoid this time around.

The race had an in-water “mass” start (which I have in quotes because there were only 200 or so people starting at the same time – we’ll have to face ten times that in Whistler), and I positioned myself in the back. At 8:15am, we were off, and I put my head down and just focused on keeping myself relaxed. I was determined to maintain my usual pattern of bilateral breathing every three strokes and kept reminding myself that this was just like swimming in the pool. Only murkier and with lots of new friends around :P.

It seemed like it took a long time to get to the first sighting buoy, and as I started to think about just how much more we had to go, I could feel a wave of panic go from my head right down to my feet. It was creepy how I could feel it overcome me like that. In that moment, though, I just told myself “no.” That was NOT going to happen today. I focused my thoughts on my time in the pool and how comfortable I now am with swimming. I thought about the random swimming buddies I’ve made at the pool and how encouraging they always are, and that instantly calmed me down. I COULD do this without panicking.

And with that, the panic was gone. The crowd thinned out quickly, and the rest of the swim went quite smoothly as I focused on making it from one buoy to the next. I actually found myself enjoying the swim and looking around at the scenery every time I breathed or sighted. I even found a pattern of sighting that worked well, which I plan to utilize at Whistler.

The whole thing seemed to go more quickly than I expected, and I came out of the water and crossed the line at 1:07:21 (again, 2.1 miles, not 2.4). Extrapolating out to the full distance means this would have taken me about 1:18, which I would be ecstatic with at IM Canada. Anything under 1:30 will be delightful.

I found the crew and learned that Rachel had won the whole thing for the women (which I fully expected) and that Travers had placed 2^nd in his AG (also not surprising). Shockingly, I learned I had taken third among females 30-39 – Yay for small races!

First time standing on a podium, ever! 

Sweet beer receptacle

After the awards ceremony, we all headed to our cars to gear up for the second leg of the day – a ridiculously hot and difficult ride towards Mount Hamilton (Rachel and Travers actually made it to the top and conquered 93+ miles, while the rest of us turned around early to hit 75 miles for the day). Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that this ride was so hard that no fewer than two of us independently thought about riding off the side of the mountain, because that might feel better than continuing to climb.

The whole thing was just a huge mental and physical challenge for me. I started off feeling pretty tired given the heat and the fact that I’d worked out 5 times between Thursday and Friday. I wasn’t expecting myself to have a stellar day, and I would be right. Thanks to only having ridden my bike outside once during the month of May, I found myself experiencing rookie hand, shoulder, and @$$ pain early on in the ride, which never subsided, and actually got substantially worse. It was also so hot out that at many points, the breeze/wind actually made me feel HOTTER. I concentrated extra hard on fueling and hydrating frequently, which helped me avoid any major crashes, but still, this ride was a rough one.

Side note: One bright moment occurred when I finally hydrated using my back bottle (on my seat post)! I’ve always been too afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get the bottle back in its holder without toppling over, but this ride was so hot and made me so thirsty that my choices were either to reach for the bottle or die. I chose the bottle. Took some fancy hand/bottle maneuvering, but I figured it out! #winning!

Anyway, despite the pain, I’m still glad we did this, because we’ve learned that there’s a chance the ride in Whistler will be just as hot. Better to prepare and expect for the worst!

Overall, it was a solid day with the Running for the Win(e) crew. I’m not sure if I’ve expressed this enough, but I’m SO grateful that we’re all doing this together. There’s no way I would have the motivation to put in this amount of training without the support and camaraderie of these fine folks. You guys are the best!

IM Canada Week 17 Recap:

Monday: 

• Unplanned rest (massive flight delay)

Tuesday: 

• PM: Swimming 3200 yards, including swim / pull ladder (average pace of 1:49/100yds)
• Immediately followed by stationary ride with resistance intervals: 20.19 miles in 1:05:00 (18.6mph)

Wednesday: 

• Unplanned rest. I don’t wanna talk about it.

Thursday: 

• PM: Backwards tri: Bay Trail run practicing various speeds for each mile (e.g., mile repeat, steady state, GMP, easy): 9 miles 1:11:10 (overall ~7:54 pace)
• Backwards tri: Stationary ride, moderate / hard effort: 20.2 miles in 1:04:55 (18.7mph)
• Backwards tri: Swimming 2200 yards, including 500s swimming and pulling (average pace of 1:50/100yds)

Friday: 

• PM: Easy run on Bay Trail: 6.4 miles in 54:33 (~8:31 pace)
• Immediately followed by shake out swim of 1800 yards (average pace of 1:50/100yds)

Saturday: 

• AM: Catfish Open Water Swim: ~3700 yards in 1:07:21 (~1:49/100yd)
• AM/PM: Biking part of Mount Hamilton in the blazing heat: 75.1 miles 5:55:33 with 5500+ feet of climbing (12.7mph)

Sunday: 

• PM: Running Golden Gate Park medium long run: 12 miles in 1:44:19 (~8:42 pace). I kept the effort easy, and this run ended up feeling surprisingly decent. It helped that I waited for the heat and sun to pass, so I was able to run in foggy, cool conditions. The only downside to waiting so long was running on a full day’s worth of food, which resulted in a bathroom pit stop at mile 7. Nice mental image, eh? You’re welcome.