Hess Mess Race Report and 3 more

Friday Night I was at the bike shop to pickup up my Henry after he got a new rear tire. I also picked up some spare tubes. I packed my stuff on Saturday and was ready to leave for the race when Henry got a flat on his front tire. I debated changing it myself but then I would be out of spare tubes again. I decided to stop at the bike shop on my way out of town and let them do it for a couple of reason. They would do it faster and I would trust their job better than mine. And in case it was something more than just a punctured tube. I didn’t have the time to play around with this at the race. There was a thorn stuck in my front tire that punctured the tube. It wasn’t a big deal and I was on my way. However, now I wouldn’t get there to pre-ride the course before the first race started. I was riding in the second race.  I was a little stressed about it but what can you do. At least I had a rideable bike at this point. I took my mtn bike just in case something else happened to henry. I felt a little better knowing I had a pit bike. When I got to the race and got myself numbered and ready to race I asked the race director if I could sneak on with the beginner race just so I could see the course. He was nice enough to let me do it. It may have been better if I didn’t see what was coming before the race!  Basically the course was a series of mud bogs separated by a creek crossing. Yes in December in the northeast.  I’m gonna take a quick moment to explain how cyclocross developed since when I talk to most people that don’t race this they just don’t seem to get it. And this might help you understand that while your are right and cross racers probably have some sort of mental illness there is a method to the madness or at least a story. And here it is. Cross start a long time ago in a far away place called Europe. At the end of road racing season the roadies would have these little races to keep in shape and have some fun before winter set in and the roads were really unrideable. All of the riders would gather in town and they would race over to the next town any way they could. Meaning they could go on the roads, off the roads, through farmland, etc.  usually they were following the steeple as it was the easiest point to see and the sport is very similar to steeplechase in running. Anyway, since there was no set course the riders often too short cuts through muddy streets, grasslands, and had to do things like jump fences with their bikes or run their bikes on unrideable terrain. This is where you get the basically elements of today’s cross courses. Meaning barriers, mud, grass, and yeah even a creek crossing.   Ok onto the race. The course started with a little prologue on a rail trail that lead into the course. I got a good position in the start so I got out fairly well. There were a couple of riders that went down but it was behind me so I didn’t get caught up in it. Once we turned onto the actual course it was off camber and a few of us were hitting each as we were still pretty packed up. I found it kind of amusing that everytime I got hit by a guy on a bike he would apolize to me and ask me if I was ok.  Um yeah it’s bike racing. I think they were just uncomfortable with women being out on the race course with them. I am pretty sure if they were cracking into each other they would not be so courteous about it. So then we were off into the mud. Riding uphill In the mud wasn’t bad on the hills that weren’t really steep. On the first downhill I feel. Basically there were two steep downhills. Your bike is so covered with mud that your brakes basically don’t do anything. They are clogged with mud as is your entire braking surface so even though I was pulling my brakes. They really don’t do much to slow you down at all. My tired were so clogged with mud and grass etc. small tree limbs and leaves that it was like having slick on. It was basically a mud slide down the hill. I just tried to control the descent the best I could. Off the hill you went right through the creek. The first part of the crossing wasn’t bad but it was a lot deeper than I  expected it to be. once you hit the far end there was a lot of current and I saw a few men go down when they hit that part so I rode as far as I could and then I ran my bike the rest of the way through the creek. I felt it was the better way to go because once these guys fell they were completely soaked and it was cold out. And of course their bikes were washing downstream when they fell which was just kinda funny to watch. Where if you run basically your legs are wet but your legs are working so hard it doesn’t make that much of difference. Although I will say my feet instantly froze over and I didn’t feel them again until a couple of hours after the race. All of the mud also made for some trouble clipping in and out. That was the only good thing about the creek is it got some of the mud off your bike but that lasted for about 5 seconds. And I don’t know if I can say I was really running. The water was above my knees the entire tire and at some points almost hip height. So when I was riding the water was higher than my hubs. If the water wasn’t so deep I think it would have been much easier to ride because that is a lot of current hitting your wheel at that height.  So the rest of the course was muddy. There were two unridable steep hills that were even tough to run up because of the mud. At one point a guy running up the hill behind me was helping me shoulder my bike by taking so of the weight off for me. That was nice although I am pretty sure it’s illegal.  I can’t remember the details of the race that well. I fell at least twice. Once was because I couldn’t get my foot clipped out fast enough. I ran my bike more than ever before because of the muddy conditions and my current skill level. So there was a lot of dismounting and mounting. There were 2 sets of barriers but I didn’t have any trouble with them as they were probably one of the easier parts of this course.  I was in the lead starting the race but once I fell the women that went on to win pasted me and I couldn’t catch her after that.  But what I learned from this race is I need to save my money and buy a real mountain bike with suspension and disc brakes and not the old school mtn bike I have and I need to commit to mtn bike training regularly. They can go and do some xterra tris!  My skills hurt me the most of this race but at this point in the season there isn’t much time to get them more developed. There seems to be 2 sets of riders at these things the mtn bikers that have the skills but are less fit and then the roadies that are fit as hell but the technical stuff freaks us out.  So I need to add some mtn biking into the program and get the handing skills so that when I have to ride across a creek in a race it isn’t the first time I am doing it. I’ll already have the fitness from all the tri training. A few people that I talked to after the race said this was more of a mtn bike race then a real cross race because of the conditions but cross def has mud involved. I just never had to ride through it so deep before and I don’t even know where I find mud this deep to try to train in. I am racin again this Sunday and I expect it to be a less technical course with more cross elements. Overall it wasn't my best race but i still got a 2nd place so it wasn't too bad either. I am really banged up from this race. I have too many bruises to count. Although 7 of which are pretty big. I hope they are cleared up for the race this weekend but I doubt it.  Above is a shot of me testing out the course to see how deep this water was.

Sunday I took a 40ish minute road ride to recovery. It was a flat easy ride but it was soooo nice to be on my R3. I just love that bike. I also did a 2 hour restorative yoga class.  Monday – into the pool warmup was 400 swim, and 10 x 50 distance per stroke. I may have done more than 10 I was losing count. Main set was 5 x 200 as 50 easy, 100 hard, 50 drill all with fins on. With 30 seconds of rest between. The drills were hard to do as  i was cooked from the hard effort especially with the fins since they make you swim faster than if I didn’t have them on.  100 to cooldown of breast and backstroke. Also did some weights. Bodyweight exercises to warmup and then pushpress as 45x5, 55x5, 60x3, 65x3, 75x3, 80x3 then 85 x 3 for 7 rounds. I think I may have been able to do a little more weight but I wanted to have good control over the weight and watch my knee which this new work being introduced to it.  I took a vinyasa flow class at night and we really worked on opening our hips. I was pretty tired afterwards.

Tuesday – totally slept in this morning. The alarm went off a bunch of times and I just did not want to get out of bed. I kept falling back to sleep so im going to have to ride my bike tonight.  But I did get my crossfit workout in. some bodyweight stuff to begin including 25 situps and 25 pushups. Then I worked on my thruster a bit. Its been awhile since I did them. Went 20 x 5, 30 x 5, 40 x5, 50 x 5. Then did my wod of

21 – 15  - 9

Thrusters at 40 lbs

Pushups

Time 5:25

I am feeling the CF love. I was a little sore from yesterday. I know I can do heavier thrusters but I wanted to keep the weight at a level where I was working but not on the line of straining. I didn’t want to through that bar off my squat and have any issues with my knee. I think I picked a good weight because I was def tired and taxed while I was doing it but not to the point where I had to take a lot of breaks. My arms were def feeling it on the pushups too. I got through all of them but none of them were easy after the thrusters. Did my stretching.

Rally for a Bike-Friendly Wilkes-Barre!

wednesday - water running - 10 easy 30 minutes with 5 on 5 easy and 5 minute cooldown. I ended up talking to the lifeguard and did a whole hour. Water running continues to feel good. Had a bike meeting to go to at night. Basic advocacy for getting bike lines in the city here. If you local please help out at:

http://bikewb.org/

Overall it was a step in the right direction.

Thursday - Bike - took the cross bike ou and did 10 minutes easy, 5 minutes moderate 2 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy and then 30 minutes with 5  30 second hard and 30 second easy. 5 minute cooldown. I rode a lot of rocky terrain to get ready for saturday race. I also rode some water to get ready for riding through the creek crossing at the hess mess.  Got wet and muddy and had a blast. on my cooldown i decided to descend this loosy rocky downhill and i hit a much bigger rock than i was thought were around going pretty fast and i got a flat. yuck! had to take my bike into the shop as i had no cross tubes and i also needed to have the front derauiller looked at. Got my bike back today and they advised that i ride the rocky courses with more PSI so that this doesn't happen again. I dented the rim but they said it is ridable. I plan on taking both my cross bike and my mtn bike to the race tomorrow in case anything happens because it is a rocky course and also with the creek crossing and the steep uphills and steep loose rock downhills i am going to use whatever bike seems to be working the best. although i think the crossbike is going to be best for the carry sections up the steep hills but it doesn't hurt to have a backup.  Because of the bike flat i was wagging it home yesterday after work (walk/jogging) pushing my bike and carrying all of my stuff. it wasn't too bad but it would have been easier if i had actual sneakers and wasn't wearing mary janes. so this was the first semi running ive d one in awhile.

Friday - swim - had a tri geek orgy at the pool this morning. everyone that showed up to swim was a triathlete and we took over the whole pool and all did the same workout. I was the only female but i held my own! (gasp, gasp)  warmed up doing 100 swim and 500 drills. my form felt really good drilling today. then we did 200, 150, 100 ,200 ,200 ,150, 100 on 30 seconds rest followed by 5  - 50s on 1 minute. i cooled down with 150  alternating back and breaststroke every 25. It was a tough workout swimming with a group like that. I really should do it more often.

My cross race tomorrow isn't until noon so i am going to take it easy tonight and do all over my packing and stuff in the morning tomorrow before the race. It is going to be 60 minutes of suffering but in a fun way!

blood ties

Bike wod – on the trainer (yuck yuck yuck and yuck!)

5 minutes easy, 3 minutes moderate, 2 minutes hard to warmup then 7 minutes on, 3 minutes off, 5 minuteson, 2:30 off, 3 minutes on. Plus a 5 minutes easy cooldown.

Pushed a lot of gear. But hate riding the trainer. Had to do it today because of time and weather issues.

Warmup

20 air circles each direction

10 air squats

20 ball situps

5 pullups

10 supermans

5 chair dips

20 kettlebell swings at 35 lbs

30 air squats

5 pullups

Amrap 12 minutes   - 9 of which were about humility!

10 kettlebell swings @35 lbs

5 pullups.

Got 9 rounds. (ha!) I started off great. Thought I would get 12 rounds by the way my first few rounds went.  I kipped for the 3 rounds and then tore my hand open on the 4^th set of pull-ups. (welcome to the club, gimme some blood) So for the following 5 rounds I used a band and did strict pull-ups with a shirt tied around my hand. I even had to break the kettlebell swings which are normally a strong point for me. I could have gone lighter on the weight to make it easier but I don’t regreat using the 35. Some of it might have been doing them with a shirt tied around my hand. But most of it was my grip was just shot going back and forth between the KBS and the PUs. I def lost grip strength. While my performance was humbling the good news is I was able to kip and drop off the pullup bar without pain. Two things I was completely unable to do when my knee was hurting. I think I am finally on the road to recovery!

Dead Weather

Sunday – started the day with yoga. Then rode the cross bike for an hour and ten minutes. My lower back was pretty sure towards the end of the time. I got a lot of different terrain in and it was super fun.  This is pretty much what I have to do next week. I would have liked to get a little longer in but I ran out of daylight. I am going to have to start doing some cross practice in the dark since my last race will be at night. I registered for another cross race on Saturday. The hess mess!  (www.meatybeaty.com   - click under updates to see some race course photos) I registered for the open so I’ll be out there suffering for an hour! (cough! Gasp! Wheeze!).  This is the part of the rivertown race series which I have a lot of points in so far this season.

Monday – swim – warmup 100 swim, 100 kick, 100 paddles, 200 swim, 200 kick, 200 paddle. Then 1,000 as 50 hard 50 easy. I always love this workout. Took me 18:47 for the whole thing. My lower back along my tailbone was bother me after this I must have strained something flip turning.

Then some deadlifts. These went really well. No pain! Warmup as

65x5,95x5, 115x5 then

135x5

155x5

175x5

180x5

185x5

I decided to quite there as that was starting to be tough. I did not want to push the knee too hard too soon as regret. But it felt good to be doing these again. Probably not the best thing for the tailbone but i don't think that is anything serious.

If you want blood (you've got it!)

Bit of a catch up blog post . tuesday afternoon I threw down a cf wod. Did 10 pushups, 10 squats and 10 situps to warmup and then did a 15 minutes amrap of 5 pushups, 7 situps and 9 squats. I happily got 19 rounds. It's been awhile since I did that kind of work. So i felt it for a few days.

Wednesday - 100 swim,  200 kick, 300 pull, 200 kick, 100 swim.  Main set i did with jeff as 100 -pull, 200 swim, 300 pull, 400 swim, 400 pull, 300swim ,200pull, 100 swim. did a 100 of fly kick  and 50 backstroke, 50 breatstroke. All of the pulling I did with paddles to turn this into more of a strength workout.
Took a great yoga class in the evening. I really needed it to loosen up some. felt great afterwards.

Thursday took a rest day for thanksgiving. Here is the menu I cooked for me and my husband to enjoy.

Garlic Teesy Cheddar Biscuits
Cornbread Dressing
Celebration Roast
Roasted Carrots and Parsnips with Cumin Vinagrette
Harvard Red Beets
Shredded Brussel Sprouts with Apples and Pecans
Blueberry Pie

Some of these things are a treat as i don't normally consume them but overall we kept it on the healthy side. I posted photos of this to my facebook page and i received numerous requests for recipes. which I gladly give out. On a day when most people are over eating I love getting contacted for a brussell sprouts recipe!

Friday - Water running - 10 minutes easy then 30 minutes with a 1 minute all out effort every five minutes. 5 minute cooldown.

Then back under the barbell again! I am going to a new gym now. http://www.leveragetrainingstudio.com/
It is not a crossfit specific gym but it is studio that lends itself to crossfitting as it has the same basic equipment. barbells, kettlebells, pullup bar,  things tojump, dumbbells. and the only machines are treadmills and rowers. i believe there may be one bike. Also it is a small gym so i won't have to fight people for equipment or space. especially since i will be there at off hours most of the time. the best part it has a shower!!! most crossfit gyms are garages or industrial spaces so they don't usuall have the comforts of home in them. But when trying to fit training into a busy day it is nice to be able to shower before continuing on with the day.

Warmup 25 situps on ab ball, 25 pushups and 3  rounds of 5 pullups using a band. I also did 3 rounds of 5 kipping pullups. Then back squats were the order of the day to test out the knee a bit. went in reps of 5 at 45,55,65,75,85,95,100,105.  I miscounted my addition and 3 reps at 135. i started to feel some knee strain at that weight which is what made me look at it. so i called it a day. i just happy to be back in a gym and under a barbell for awhile. Tim showed me his various "ab" toys around the gym. he doesn't believe in situps finding them ineffective and i have to say i agree with him. i can do situps forever and then don't bother me. He is a stronger believer in stability abs like planks and rotational abs. i was throwing around a medicine ball on a string. the only piece of equipment they don't have that i used to use a GHD machine. But there are plenty of other ab options and I can always do good morning for back etensions. Overall i think this place will be a better fit for me.

 Saturday - had to do a fast and go and get some bloodwork done. it has been awhile since i last had it taken. it came back really clean last time so i didn't have to get it done for a bit. But it is a good idea for someone living as a vegan and especially a vegan athletes to get it checked occasionally. Now most people that are vegan for health reasons are not going to come back with high cholesterol or anything like that but having certain vitamin levels checked are a good idea. namely B12 and D. If you are taking any kind of vegan supplements you should be fine. But if you not you can run into some issues with B12. you body can store it for years but since it isn't normally found in vegan food you need to get it somewhere. they are various places. mine is vega. http://myvega.com/
 Vitamin D isn;t an issue if you spend time in the sun  everyday but in the colder areas like where i live. Wintertime can lead to a problem. It is important for athletes to get these checked because fatigue is a normal symptom and for people doing heavy training it can hard to notice.

Bike - done on the trainer (not the most fun i've ever had) warmup 8 minutes easy 2 minutes hard then

on:off 20:10 3:10 40:10 50:10 60:10 60:10 50:10 40:10 30:10 20:10 and a 5 minute easy cooldown.

Also went to yoga class tonight. I can feel the effects of the squats on my legs from yesterday but it isn't too much. So far my knee seems to be tolerating this new work!  It has improved a lot of the last few weeks.

K-Town Cross Race Report +

Friday  - took it to the pool in the morning. 300 swim, 100 kick, 4 x 50 builds on 15 sec rest, 300 pull. The main workout was 300 pull, 6 x 50 fast on 15 seconds rest, 300 pull on 20 sec rest, 4 x 50 fast on 15 sec rest 2 x 300 pulls on 20 sec rest and 2 x 50 fast on 15 sec rest. Cooldown was 100 backstroke. This felt like a long and tedious workout. I just didn’t feel great swimming. I was hitting about 45 seconds on the 50s. I did a couple faster with Kevin but for the most part that was where it was at today and I wasn’t really happy with it so I finally broke down and decided to call the doctor since it was 3 weeks and I still had the sinus infection. Happily he got me in the same day. Gave me some antibiotics and we’re hoping that the end of it but because of my history with sinus issues. If it doesn’t clear up it is a cat scan and back to the ENT.  He is also sending me for bloodwork (yuck!) since I haven’t had it in years. I was also offered a shot for my knee to just see if that helps to get me over the hump of this long healing process. We’ll see where it is at when I go back in a couple of weeks and he will do it then.  Due to a social commitment on Friday my later day training and my early Saturday morning training didn’t happen.  

Saturday I did a 2 and half hour hip opening workshop. It really did help as I was able to get back in the full lotus position again. It’s been awhile since that was accessible to me.  But I didn’t do any other training because I wanted to try to rest a bit and get ahead of this sinus infection because I wanted to race cross the next day.  Saturday I decided to leave the CrossFit gym I was training out of. That was a stressful decision but I do believe it will be for the best overall.  I felt very stressed there lately and I just don’t need any unnecessary stress in my life.

Sunday I raced cross again! This time a usac sanctioned race so the women’s field was open. Meaning all categories of female riders  from elites to beginners raced together in the same race. It was lot of suffering and really fun which is kind of the cross formula. I got there early so I could pre ride the course and I found they had a log in one section of the course.  I don’t have the skill to bunny hop that kind of stuff yet so I freaked a little but decided to just run it and not take any chances. The rest of the course was lot of tight turns on grassy, muddy, dirty terrain. There were 2 sets of 2 barriers each and they both were really high! Everyone was commenting on how  they were higher than they were supposed to be but I didn’t get too hung up in it because everyone had to get over them. Although I admit they were harder. I didn’t feel like I had a good running flow of them. I felt like I was getting over it then running then getting over it. Not smooth! Gotta work on that! There was a technical section in the back end of the course that was winding around a bunch of trees and roots and it was really torn up from all the riders that had already raced through there. There were itty bitty uphills and downhills. Nothing too serious in that area. I was riding back to the starting line to get ready for my race and my chain got twisted around the front derailleur and completely locked up my pedals. I couldn’t get it out. So I asked another guy to help me. He couldn’t do it either and like an ass I didn’t bring a spare bike because there was no way I was going to ride anything other than my cross bike unless my cross bike broke. So thankfully another guy ran over and flipped my bike over and started kicking my pedals. He said the only way to get it out was to force it. It did work but I was a little nervous heading into the race that it was going to happen again because if it happened on the course I was screwed. I had no spare bike so if the pedals locked up I would have to run the entire course or dnf and I don’t dnf. He said I would be find and it didn’t happen again but I am going to try to get it into the shop sometime soon to have it looked at.  So I wore shorts and just a long sleeve jersey this time and I was still hot! I zipped down my jersey while I was racing just to vent a bit. I must put off a lot of heat or something. I haven’t found the magical bike clothing formula because it’s so cold when your not riding and then when your racing your just full throttle hot. Jay wanted me to wear gloves but I just couldn’t do it. Although after the race my hands were all red and  black and when I went out to ride today they were sore.  I’m going to have to work on having gloves on. I just never liked them. Anyone back to the race.  Since it was an open race they were calling the riders up by name and placing them in the start position. I was in the second row behind the elites.  We started on a grassy uphill that did a hairpin turn into a grassy downhill as the prologue into the actual course. I didn’t get out well. I was blocked out kind of early but I’d have time to try to get back into it. The riders broke up over the first lap of the course pretty quickly.  I felt like my skill level hurt me more on this race than it did on the last. My dismounts were good but my flying mounts were rough. I didn’t have a good efficient flow to them I felt like I really had to muscle my bike after each one to accelerate. I need to practice them more.althought my inner thighs are bruised from hitting off the seat during the flying mounts. I did good through the technical sections. I was fishtailing a bit in the mud around the turns so in the following laps I was trying to ride the tape line when I could just to try to get a bit of better traction. I did slow down a bit through all of the muddy turns because I didn’t want to fall and lose even more time. Some riders actually choose to dismount. I don’t know if was really any more efficient. None of them passed me.

I rode the tape line in some other areas just because my turns were wide.  I passed one girl early on in the course but I couldn’t really catch the rest of the field. But I had a battle the whole time with the rider behind me. She tried to pass me a few times but everytime she went I would match her sprint and stay in front of her. She would drop back everytime. This happened like 3 times. But she stayed on me the rest of the way and it put the pressure on me to try to ride really clean and not make any mistakes. I always wanted a bigger gap so everytime I could I tried to open it up but I really wasn’t building any kind of great lead. I knew going into the last lap that she was going to try to sprint me for the line. So I started riding as hard as I could (which is rough six laps deep) and we sprinted for the line and I was lucky enough to beat her. It was a great challenge to ride this way. I congratulated her on a great race after we crossed the line. She pretty much bitched at me and rode off. Later her teammate came up to me and said something about how I was blocking her and sprinting off everytime she tried to pass me and that as a rider she needs to become more aggressive. I talked to Chris about it because I thought that was weird and he said I didn’t do anything wrong I was just holding my position. I was happy with the way I raced. My avg heart rate was 170 and my max was 180 so the effort was there. I just need more skill work..  This was a 45 minute race and since I started my last lap until the 45 minutes I finished in 52 minutes. So it was a long time to suffer compared to last week’s 30 minute race. Cross brain is funny. In lap 1 your acknowledging your pain. By the middle of the race our accepting it and by the final lap I was thinking I’m so tired I’m going to flip over these bars on some of this shit and the break of lying on the ground for awhile might be nice.  The girl that finished in front of me came up to me as soon as I crossed the line and said she thought I was going to catch her the whole race. I could barely talk to her I was so wound. I didn’t think she was in striking distance, I guess I was too focused on the chic chasing me but she said I basically ate away at her lead until the end when it was closer than I thought. One thing I am really not used to is cross being a no hands up sport. Meaning you can’t eat or drink on the course (not that you have the time to really) . so you can’t take anything with you on the bike and the spectators can’t hand you anything.  I had some serious dry mouth at the end. I’m sure the antibiotics I am on for the sinus infection didn’t help that. They are killing my stomach too. But tomorrow is hopefully my last dose as they seem to be working! I was pretty tired after the race so I stayed to watch the elite men’s race. Even some of them fell over their handlebars on the log. I feel like I need to start really mountain biking so I learn how to ride that kind of terrain better. No cross racing this weekend so I have to wait for 2 weeks to race again!

Monday – felt much better this morning than I did after the race yesterday. Energy level was back. Sometimes I think being out in the cold like that is an energy zapper because I was really tired after the race for only a 52 minute effort. Not really sore but just fatigued. I was ok doing  life stuff but if I had to go out and train again it would have been rough.

Swim – 500 drills, 10 x 50 as distance per stroke. Not a fan. It just makes me swim slower. 3 x 300 moderate hit on 5 minutes exactly. Then 2 x 100 fast hit as 1:30 and 1:29 all over 20 seconds rest. 50 backstroke and 50 breaststroke to cool down. Had a 30 minutes recovery ride on the schedule today so I grabbed king Henry and took it to the terrain!  We came back to work muddy and happy. I didn’t ride  hard but I worked on tight turns and riding in rocks a bunch. Also it is supposed to rain the next few days so I wanted to get out and ride a bit. I am going to switch my training schedule around to try to keep most of my riding outside for as long as possible.

Tuesday – water running – 5 minutes easy, 3 minutes moderate, 2 minutes hard, 7 min moderate, 3 minutes easy, 7 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy, 3 minutes all out! 7 minutes moderate and 5 minutes easy.