Triathlon at Retirement

This was a really great race weekend. On Saturday, the Rookie Sprint, a slightly shortened course with only 300m open water swim and a 2 mile run, while the bike leg was 14 miles. On Sunday, Quarter and Half Distance of the ironman lengths. I was intending to do the sprint as I have been polishing my speed for the Sprint World Championships in Bermuda in October, but as the championships got cancelled due to corona, I decided to do the quarter distance at Kerrville instead. After all, I am no rookie anymore, and I am in my home town, right? The weekend came in with a cool front, which in September in the Texas hill country, is good news. I looked at the rookie race, and it was a glorious day, perfect temperatures, beautiful location and a flat course. Swim was in the Guadalupe river. The competition was big and well organized, I think about 1800 participants. Swim Exit Being a home competition, I definitely felt pressure to do well. I started to worry weeks in advance. Aches and pains ...

I have completed two more triathlon competitions; September 5, a sprint at Cane Island, Katy TX, place 2 and September 12, a sprint at Rose City, Tyler TX, place 1. Both competitions went well. I  usually  have a feeling that I exhaust myself more than other people, both on training and on races. For example, sometimes competitors talk to me during races, saying things like "looking good", or "go girl". This happened again during my last race. There is no way I have enough spare breath to talk during a race. But I don't know how other people really feel. My Garmin smartwatch gives me a score on aerobic training effect after each workout  on a 0 to 5 scale that accounts for my personal fitness level and training habits. Now, I can get some sort of measure of my suffering. According to Garmin: 5.0 Overreaching 4.0-4.9 Highly Impacting 3.0-3.9 Impacting 2.0-2.9 Maintaining On my last triathlon competition, my bike ride was registered at 4.3 aerobic impact with an a...

I have to confess, I look at Strava way too much. What really has my attention are the "segments" where my time is compared to other people. A big incentive is to appear on the list of top 10 of all times. As I am older, this is rare, but then there is the top 10 in my age group, or in my training group... Not on a Strava segment.. . If you are out biking with friends  and suddenly one person sets off in a mad pace, recklessly passing parked cars and loose dogs, you can be sure it is a Strava nerd that just entered a segment. Must have that record time! Recently, I did a longer run up a mountain in a rural area and my smartwatch lost contact with the GPS for part of the run. Consequently, Strava did not credit me with the segment. Grrr, I had a really good time... I tried for hours to fiddle with the settings on Strava to see if the program could understand that I had not been teleported from halfway up the mountain to the top, but I could not change the result. Then it happe...

This was the biggest triathlon competition ever in the USA, maybe the whole world with over six thousand competitors over two days. The athletic village and transition area dominated the pretty sea front near the Art Museum and Discovery Center. I did the sprint distance. Women's age group 60-64 was completely full at 100 qualified athletes! I did not feel particularly nervous, I knew I would not have anything to do with the top. I did a business like swim at 16.50 for 750m coming in at 32nd place. Swimming is not my forte, and if I try too hard, I just get tired without swimming faster. Getting out of the water, I was not exhausted and I passed several people on the run between water and bike.  Rather than pressing the leg time button on my smartwatch, I pressed finish. On the bike, I fiddled with the watch trying to restart, and I was not totally focused on the ride from the beginning. I passed people on the uphills, and they passed me on the downhills, even though I peddled like...

Lots of events have been cancelled in Sweden due to corona, but 11 July, Mora Trail, a cross country running competition was allowed to take place. I signed up because it is such good training, and I always push myself harder running against other people.  I choose the 8km course, but longer courses were available. Starting at Mora cross country ski stadium, the trail was winding up and down little hills on mostly rough trails. It was hard, in the middle I actually walked up some of the hills but I still feel I had a good race at 50.02. I got 14th place amongst the women, all ages were in the same class and I was one of the oldest. My Garmin watch recorded the training effect at highly improving! It was probably correct, a week later I PRd on one of my training routes.  Mora Trail | 11 juli 2021

After a while, your workout routines will feel old and uninspiring. It is a good idea to change training environment every now and then. I am lucky to be able to be able to travel to Sweden every summer. I escape Texas hot weather and I get to test myself on new routes. The change gives me new motivation and energy to continue pushing myself.  My base is in the region of Dalecarlia (Dalarna in Swedish), a center for endurance sports. Here we have one of the worlds largest outdoor swimming competitions with the "Vansbrosimningen", and the worlds largest cross country skiing competition, the "Vasaloppet", just for starters. I find arenas and training opportunities for triathlon, outdoor swimming, MTB, running, trail running, orienteering and more.  It is fun changing routines. In the picture, I am mountain biking on the Vasa trail, it is 90 km long. The same approximate trail is used for cross-country skiing, mountain biking and distance running. Major competitions fo...

The look of exhaustion... A few weeks ago, I was feeling more and more exhausted during, and after training. I still performed, but pain levels seemed harder. I really noticed it on the Fort Worth olympic distance triathlon, my legs were tired right at the start of the bike course. I pushed through in a businesslike manner, but it all felt hard, mechanical and uninspired. The run (10k) was not fun and it got worse along the way. After the competition, I was faint. At the time, I thought I had eaten poorly before the competition, compounded by sports drink not being offered on the run course. Not my best race. The following week I cut down on my normal training dose to about half, I wanted to recover. But training still felt harder than normal, in fact, it did not feel fun at all. Bottom was hit one day when I ran one mile at a fast pace, but just could not continue. My legs could not move at any decent pace. I checked my heart rate, max had only been 127 bpm. I regularly reach 170 bpm ...