Ridges Resort 5K Swim Race Report

Since I injured myself again this year, there was no reason not to do the Ridges Resort 5K Swim again this year. I wasn't as excited about the training this year, though, maybe because it wasn't a distance record. It could also be that all of Doug's marathons just made me want to run.

So, last Sunday, Doug and I loaded up the kids and headed up to Hiawassee. The Ridges Resort is a neat area located just up the road and across the street from the Brasstown Valley Resort. When we arrived, I noticed a distinct lack of teenagers in the field. Apparently, the team that has raced together for the last several years had a conflict. There were, however, a lot of triathletes. We all milled around and sized-up the competition while waiting for the start. I ate a granola bar and made several trips to the car to retrieve things I'd forgotten.

Scott Hanna is the race director. He is really nice. He gave the same speech as last year with similarly vague directions and we were off - trooping in line down to the dock for launching. A lot of people waded out to start this year. which didn't happen last year. Then, Scott counted down and we started in unison. After about 30 seconds of trying to find a clear area, I found my place. Looking around, I saw only men around me. "Cool!" I thought, "I'm hanging with the guys!" Number 123 was on my right. He had a beautiful relaxed stroke so I listened to Doug's voice in my head telling me to "elongate my stroke" and copied #123.

I did a good job navigating around the first island. It has three points (the point-on-land-adjacent-to-a-body-of-water/regular-old-point distinction was lost on some people during the pre-race meeting) and I rounded them decently close to the shore because that is the shortest line. My strokes felt good and I was pulling strongly. There was no trace of my yoga-induced shoulder issue. All was great. The water was green and cool and it felt effortless to glide through it.

Until I saw the bottom. Ugh. The bottom freaks me out. Maybe that is my problem with swimming in the ocean - I'm not deep enough to not see the bottom. So, I chose to move deeper to avoid the view. That was probably a mistake.

After rounding the points, I headed for the two-story dock. Turns out that there are two two-story docks. Scott had told us to get close to it - so close you could touch it so I headed way over there. The rest of the field did no such thing. So, there I was all by myself in the middle of the lake. Awesome. I sang a little of the song to myself as I swam. We had escorts in boats and canoes, but they never seemed to be very close to where I was. No problem - I knew I could finish without assistance and boats make waves, which are disorienting. At times, the wakes were so big that the tops of my feet and legs would hit the surface of the water as I was tossed around. Annoying.

I had worried since last year about whether or not to fuel during this swim. 2 hours of swimming shouldn't require any fuel and I have never fueled during my training swims. However, on a bike or run of the same duration, I would have some electrolyte drink or a Gu. And, I really ran out of gas at the end of the race last year. So, I couldn't decide. Despite some rash claims about taping a Gu to my chest, I ended up just putting it in the side of my bathing suit. Guess what? Gu is about the same buouancy in the water as I am, so it just floated around inside my suit. Eventually it nestled around my tummy. I felt better just knowing it was there.

Finally, I crossed the channel and could see the buoys (there were 6, 5 yellow ones in the water and an orange one at the finish). You could only see one of them at the time, though, because they were pretty far apart. I made a deal with myself that I could eat my Gu at the first buoy. "Better safe than sorry," I thought. "I'd rather finish with gas in the tank than drag-ass across the line." I reached the buoy and had a slug of my Just Plain Gu as I did some breaststroke kicking. Mmmm, delicious Gu. It's hard to breaststroke kick without your arms, though, so I flutter-kicked with my hands out of the water while I squeezed the Gu from the bottom to get it out of the envelope. I'm sure I looked like an idiot. After 3 tries, I had consumed most of the Gu, tucked it back into my suit and resumed swimming. As I did so, the canoe escort came past me. "You don't need a gel in a 5K swim," the woman sniped nastily. They weren't talking to me because I was swimming; they were just talking about me. I resisted the urge to stop them to explain my whole fueling plan and rationale. They had probably just come over because it looked like I was drowning and now they were making conversation. Still, they hacked me off.

And, negative motivation, it works for me.

"I don't see your asses swimming 5K," I thought to myself. "Assholes." And picked up my pace from "two hairs above forever pace" to "hair slower than 1K time-trial pace." I felt awesome. Either the extra calories or the mental boost from the Gu or the anger-induced adrenaline kicked in and I flew to the next buoy and then the next.

And suddenly, there were the guys! I was back! I saw them over to my left - right in line with the next buoy. Oops, I had veered right again. I fell back in behind them and it was delightful looking up every few (15) strokes to see their blue caps ahead of me. Then, just as suddenly, they were gone! When I breathed to the left, I saw them again - I had drifted right about 50 yards. I tacked back left but couldn't seem to stay there. Next thing I knew, they were way left again. We continued this way for the last three yellow buoys. I tried to sprint up past them at the finish, but three of us finished together with me in the middle, which threw the whole finish area into an uproar. Apparently, they weren't used to more than one swimmer at the time. Ha!

There were 6 finishers in the Women 35 to 39 age group and 79 finishers in the race.
My overall finish place was 35 and my age group finish place was 3. My time was 1:47:38.0

Here are the official results. Apparently #123 was the guy who finished in front of me! Funny how that happens.

And then, I ran up the hill and got a banana and then we jumped in the car and came home because Doug had a long run to do and the girls had a birthday party to attend. Next year, though, I'll bring some peeps so we can hang out and enjoy the burgers that Scott's group were grilling up for the finishers.

Too Hot for Ladies

Yesterday, I was the second rider in our house. Doug got up at the crack of dawn and left the house as soon as it was light. He was going 60 miles so he would be home at 10:15am.


Meanwhile, instead of preparing for my ride, I lost my marbles and did laundry, changed the bed, cleaned the potties and vacuumed. Luckily, my sister Jen reminded me to pre-hydrate for the ride.


Doug came home while I was still vacuuming so I didn't actually leave the house until nearly 11. Oops. You don't want to ride at noon when all the weather forecast says is "HOT". My first 30 mile loop was OK. I was sweating copiously but there was a breeze and it was OK. I stopped for the second time at 30 miles to refill my water in our neighborhood (because there are coolers of water conveniently located on the golf course). Two guys that I know were stopped to get water also as they played golf with their kids. I greeted them by name, but they still looked at me like I was from Mars. I was wearing my Team Bachman jersey and made sure to mention Doug, but it didn't help. Maybe they were unnerved by my hives, which were brighter and more widespread than before.


Anyway, the ride went OK for the next 10-15 miles and then I started to get a little frazzled. I refilled the waters a third time and soldiered on, getting slower and slower. I usually eat a Gu every hour on the bike, but at the top of hour 4, all of my water was hot and I couldn't stomach another hot Gu. I almost got off of my bike to walk. Luckily, I had some Chomps in my bento box.

Hallelujah!

The Chomps weren't even a little gooey. I sucked on one at the time until I got home. The slowly-melting Chomp did not make me hurl and had enough fuel + electrolyte to keep me going. Whew. My water ran out again about 4 miles from home. Whatever, it's the home stretch - good thing that part is through the neighborhoods, though.

Doug had the fan set up and brought me a giant Nuun water when I finally rolled in. Thank goodness for him. In retrospect, I should have called it quits while I was in the neighborhood at mile 30. It just didn't occur to me that the ride would go downhill so fast.

In other news, after Annika blabbed the Father's Day present to Doug while we were in the car the other day. She thought so was so sly . . . "Dad, don't buy a Garmin until after Father's Day." Ha! But Doug was pleased to have his data back and we are all enjoying the blueberry muffins now. The girls get a big kick out of wrapping the presents and making the "surprise" breakfast. Doug and I have to plan in advance how to allow him to eat an actual breakfast before the girls wake up. And later, the pool!

The Indignity

It sucks getting old.

Doug sent me the following while I was at work on Thursday.



Poor Annie. She is the world's nicest dog to put up with the tutu.

And this.


And the ears to the pig costume.

In dog heaven, she will get to eat lots of extra milkbones for enduring our kids and not biting their faces off.

If I could make the scanner work, I'd put the photo of Oscar the cat in Emily's bathing suit here.

My point, other than eliciting an "awwww" from the dog lovers, is to note that being an "older" woman sometimes sucks. Poor Annie can't hear the kids coming and can't move fast enough to escape them so she gets dressed up in costumes.

While on the 100 mile bike ride last week, and again yesterday, I got hives all over my upper thighs. Very sexy. Who wouldn't want red, swollen, bumpy upper thighs? Only on the front, though, and thank God for that!

It appears that I'm allergic to hot weather and cycling. So, I googled and binged with my friend the internet.

To discover that middle-aged women sometimes just get hives.

Like we get hot flashes.

And stress fractures.

Harumph.

As if cellulite and stretch marks weren't bad enough.

But you know what else middle-aged women get? Beer. And wine.

And those make you not really care about the hives. Or the pink fuzzy pig ears.

100 Miles Before the Day is Done

But first I have to tell you about Annika's first swim meet. It was in Alpharetta at 5:30 last Thursday. Plenty of time if I left my office at 5:15, right?

Wrong.

I changed my clothes in the car, possibly flashing a bunch of drivers on the Old Alabama Connector. I chose to believe that they were not looking. And really, my bra isn't that sexy.

Despite the quick-change and running the half mile from my car to the pool, I missed Annika's first race, the 100 free relay (4 kids, each swimming 25 yards). Oh, the guilt!

Doug said that she did awesome and didn't stop the whole lap! I found her to give her a hug and was worried that she would be stressed because I was late. The guilt was killing me.

Luckily, she didn't care. I was chopped liver. She wanted to play with her buddies.

The second race was 25 free and she did great! She jumped in and swam the whole way without touching the rope. 4th place! Doug let her have a Gu before her third race because my kids love Gu. I figured that it wouldn't hurt because (a) Annika always needs calories, and (b) she was jumping around like a crazy child in the wading pool so she could have been low on fuel. Then, it was on to backstroke. She started out great, but tired fast. She had to rest several times on the rope.



But each time, she set her jaw and resumed her progress. 6th place by many seconds. Ooh was she mad! Apparently she was able to swim the full 25 without stopping at practice, so she was angry with herself about stopping to rest. Pretty tough girl - check out the form!

After that race, we went to Steak-n-Shake for dinner despite the fact that Doug had brought us all sandwiches to eat before and during the meet. Annika and Dagny both had the mini-steakburgers (sliders) and ate them ALL. Apparently, swimming makes you hungry.

In other news, Doug and I rode our first century (100 mile ride) with Natalie yesterday. My mom and Grammy kept the girls while we rode the West Georgia 100 with a bunch of our triathlon buddies (Karen, Neal, Courtney, John, Lou, Justin, Brian, Jessica and Ron). For accuracy's sake, we actually only saw Brian at the beginning and Justin at the start and end, and I never saw Jessica at all. Regardless, it was a great ride. There was cold water and gatorade and an assortment of food, plus sunscreen, portopotties and hand sanitizer at all of the rest stops, except #2 which had run out of water. This would have been fine except we skipped rest stop #1. Oops. Other than that miscue, the race was perfect and the roads were very clearly marked - it was a pleasure.

Doug kept the pace for us and we did great. We averaged right at 16 mph (rolling time only) the whole way, which is awesome for me. I didn't think I could go that fast, but was able to hang on to the back of the faster riders to catch some free mph. In fact, if Doug hadn't been there to hold the pace (and tolerate my valley of darkness in miles 40-60), I wouldn't have gone that fast and probably could have talked myself into quitting at 60 miles because I didn't think I could do it. I have yet to discover if this darkness thing is a fuel issue or if it's just mental. It's weird, though, to be riding along and suddenly and overwhelmingly hate yourself and everyone else. I dropped my chain after water stop #2 and fought to catch back up and got angry. I was saying bad words and shooting birds at Natalie and Doug. It was a bad place.

So the good thing about the ride is that we discovered that I can go farther and faster and power through that stupid valley. And, that there actually is an end to the valley of darkness. I still think the Cheetos helped, though, because of their delicious salty goodness. Because let's be honest, I'm all about the food.

For some reason, I broke out in hives in the last 30 miles of the ride. They didn't itch and weren't spreading so I don't think it was a big deal. Nat had her valley of darkness for the last 20 miles but perked right up after she changed clothes and looked cute again and had a beer.

And Doug? He ran 3 miles. Because he is going to do an Ironman. Holy cow. I have a newfound respect for folks who can ride 112 miles and then run after. My friend Brent, for example, who rode 125 miles yesterday and topped that off with an 8.23 mile run (at 7 minute pace!). He rocks.

So, what ride should we do next . . . hmmm.

You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby

Today I rode 60 miles (61.92 miles, to be exact) around Roswell.


I thought it would be only slightly more difficult than last week's 50 mile ride.


Wrong.


The first 40 miles were fine. Nat, Jamie Corn and I chatted and waved to the other bikers and had a lovely ride. We even saw Kindzia and the lovely Angela down by the river. We even made fun of Natalie because she doesn't like to fuel. Insert foreboding music here.


Hey - did you know that Angela sells marathon and IM finish framing - check out her site here. It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time. After kicking my ass on the climb up from the river, Jamie peeled off to go up Lake Charles instead of down the big hill on Pine Grove (she is tougher than Nat and me). Nat and I made it down the hill and up Shallowford with only a minor stop because Nat's phone jumped out of her bento box and across the road. Nat veered off towards her folks' house at Jones and I headed back down to the river to get my remaining 20 miles, stopping at the park to refill my water/Accelerade bottles.


Here is where the story goes awry. I was OK on fuel, only a little behind on my Accelerade. I had eaten 1 Gu per hour for three hours (plain, expresso love and vanilla), so that was fine. But it was HOT and my mind got a little fried on the Coleman Road rollers. I coasted down to Inverness for my turnaround and had convinced myself that there was no need to eat another Gu. Because I was at 3 hrs 45 minutes and only had 10 miles to go. I even texted Doug at the turnaround that I would be home in approximately 30 minutes.


People, to go 10 miles in 30 minutes, I would need to ride 20 miles an hour. I don't ride 20 miles an hour. Not even in a race. And, the 10 miles I had to go was uphill - because the river is the lowest point in town.


Nevertheless, I convinced myself that it was silly to have a Gu at the turnaround because it wouldn't "hit" until I was home anyway. That would have been true IF I'd been riding at the aforementioned 20 miles per hour. But alas, I was not.


I started to realize the fuel/Gu problem as I plodded (if you can plod on a bike) up Wileo. However, did I mention it was hot? Blazing hot? Know what happens when it is hot? Your heartrate increases. With an increased heartrate, digestion slows or stops. So, with the increased heartrate, my Accelerade and water were not digesting and were instead threatening to reappear at any moment to paint my handlebars. So there was no way I could eat my Gu. I had Gus in my pocket, plenty of them (because I've made the mistake of not bringing extra before), but my tummy was emphatically opposed to any more admissions.


So, I suffered. And thanked my stars that you can coast on a bike. I hoped against hope that I would have only 3 miles to go at the top of Shallowford so that I wouldn't need to go down Stroup Road. No dice. I needed 4.5 miles. BIG sigh.

Good thing that all of the ride after Stroup is in neighborhoods because I wasn't in any shape to ride on the road with cars. Loopy! I hit upon the genius idea to use my water bottle to sprinkle myself to cool off. That helped a lot. And, luckily, the light at 92 took a ridiculously long time so that I could rest a little and get some more Accelerade in me. I made it, though, and learned (or re-learned) some good lessons for the next ride.

1. I don't have enough bike fitness to bust out a 60 mile ride on any given day yet.
2. 1 Gu per hour, no excuses
3. Do not get behind on Accelerade
4. I don't ride 20 mph

The neat thing about endurance sports is that there are so many variables. It's not necessarily about who is the fastest, but who is the fastest without making stupid mistakes. And that is hard! Even the pros barf sometimes in a race because they've made a fueling or exertion error. So, next week I'll try to do a better job because Doug and I are riding in the West Georgia 100. Look out!

And, eventually, I'll be able to bust out a 60 mile ride without blinking an eye. Just not yet.

Home Again

We are back from Walt Disney World! Let the laundry begin!

This was not our first visit to the mouse house. Because of the International Builder's Show appearing every few years in Orlando, we have been able to go several times in the past few years. We've done it the fancy way, staying on the club level at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and eating at the Crystal Palace for lunch every day.

This was not that trip.

Just after receiving notice of our income tax refund (a complete and fabulous surprise), Doug found a great deal to stay in the "budget" hotel (Disney's All Star Sports) and subscribe to the pre-paid meal plan. Game on!

We packed food, snacks and bottled water and drove down in my car. The only big thing that only forgot was Dagny's dresses - we had enough outfits for every day, but I had laid out an equal number of dresses for both girls in case they had wardrobe issues or got dirty. Oops. Good thing they wear approximately the same sized clothes.

I have to say that we had just as much fun in the budget hotel as in the posh one. Yes, the food at the lodge was better and the setting was way cooler, but the rooms were about the same size with similar layouts. Really, at Disney, anything more than a room with beds and a bathroom is extra. We would have been more comfortable in a two-bedroom with Wifi, but it wasn't a big hardship to share the internet cable and be silent while the kids napped. Other than the fact that the meal plan gives you ridiculously large amounts of food and is very dessert-centric, it was a perfect set-up. We ate dry cereal or granola bars for breakfast every morning, had a self-serve lunch and had a sit-down dinner every night in the day's park. The food was all tasty and it was nice not having to worry about how much everything cost, especially since Dagny ate nothing the whole trip.

Coincidentally, Doug's sister Katie was going to Disney the same week. We saw them a couple of times, but their schedules did not mesh with ours because they didn't require naps. Fools. Naps are mandatory at Disney, everyone knows that!

Waiting for the opening of Epcot:


Here is Dagny posing for me in the Magic Kingdom while Doug and Annika rode Splashwater Falls again. We were surprised how much the parks freaked Dagny out. She is a control girl, and usually the life of the party but blankie rode a lot of rides with us and she spent a lot of time in the stroller. You should have seen her vibrating with excitement to meet Aurora and Tinkerbell, though. It was awesome.

We had dinner at the Biergarden in Germany at Epcot one night. The food was awesome - tons of sausages, cabbage, saurkraut, potato dumplings, pretzel bread. Yummo! A polka band played a set every few minutes, including at least one drinking song. As they do in Germany, we sat at a big table with another family. They sang their "hie, hie, hie"s with Coke instead of beer. Needless to say, they were not impressed with our singing and left quickly. Too bad, because the restaurant was really fun. Michael, our delightful server, was super-fast with the beer refills and Doug and I had more than our share. We completed Annika's Kim-Possible adventure and watched the fireworks before toddling home. We had a great time, but really suffered through the "Magic Hour" (and all of the other hours) at the Magic Kingdom the next day.

Here is Annika polka-ing with the other kids. That could be Dagny with her - it was hard to catch Dagny because she was so fast. Or, it could have been the beer, I don't know.

Chicken Dance:

We had a blast. Disney just knows how to move large crowds of people. I love them.

In other news, Doug has signed up for the Beach to Battleship Ironman in November. I'll be volunteering because there is no way to get two of us into ironman shape in six months. I'm still doing the Amelia Island race, though, because Aunt Gena has thoughtfully agreed to let us stay with her and Uncle Pat. Now, if I could just get my run distance up.

Doug Rocks

And Natalie rocks too!

They ran the Twisted Ankle Marathon in Summerville, Georgia yesterday. For those of you that don't know, Summerville is in the mountains. We got up early and drove to Sloppy Floyd State Park under overcast skies with sprinkles of rain.

The runners started at 9am. Everyone lined up to hear the instructions. This was a very low-key race, so the RD just yelled "go!" and they were off. The girls and I trekked back to the car and got money and the stroller and lined up for the ($5) kids' race. We ran across the playground and jumped a creek. At that point I decided that my run would NOT be on any trails - hefting a double jogger over a creek (even that dinky one) was too much. When Dagny and I caught back up to the group, Annika was crying and talking to a volunteer. She had fallen and twisted her ankle. I babied her a little and then said "let's go". She blubbered that the other kids had left her. I gave her some firm words about how if she kept crying like a baby and walking with me she would never catch them but she could be running and getting closer every second. And then, she took off. I tried to keep up. We eventually caught the end of the group and her new friend Christina. She was thrilled. Didn't care a bit that Christina sprinted at the end and left us in the dust. The RD made special ribbons from the buttons they gave all of the adult racers so Annika was absolutely thrilled to get one. I gave Doug's button to Dagny and all was right with the world.

Annika complained that her legs were tired so I put her in the jogger with Dagny and we started my run. I had planned to go 4 miles so I decided that would take about 45 minutes. We ran around on the roads of the park, which are not flat. At all. We actually ran for about 50 minutes so hopefully I got to 4 miles. Doug had my Garmin so who knows.

Then, it was back to the car to get the lunches, stow the jogger and on to the playground. Muddy. Ick. The girls had a good time on the playground and we noticed some weird bugs hopping all over the ground.

Turns out that they were toads. And when you picked them up, they played dead so it looked like the kids were smushing handfuls of toads, until they put them down and the toads hopped off. That is Dagny's arm for a size comparison. These toads were about as wide as a pencil eraser.

Dagny was even able to pick them up. Here she is showing them to me. Check out her button from the race.

Then, Dagny got hungry so we made our picnic by the finish line and watched the half-marathoners come in. Do you see the bridge across the lake in the photo from the park? That is the route to the finish line! The runners come across the bridge and the announcer reads their number and announces their name and everyone cheers. Awesome!

Annika and I had a little talk about how she kept going in her race even though it was hard. I gave her big praise for keeping going. Then I explained how that was "sucking it up" and we talked about "Suck It Up, Buttercup." It was a good lesson. Doug reinforced later with the "discomfort is temporary, quitting is forever." Annika has the button on her bulletin board so she is very proud of herself for finishing.

Then, more playground and frogs. The boys were throwing rocks at the girls. Then, the boys got on the merry-go-round on their bellies and spun as fast as possible while trailing their hands in the mud puddles. Whew, boy am I glad I only have girls! I packed contingency clothes for everyone but thankfully didn't need them. Some of the kids were running around with no shoes (squishing frogs!), even.

Then Dagny got tired and needed a snack so I was able to convince her to spread out the picnic blanket and read stories. Just in time because it was 4 hours into the race and Doug had predicted a 4:30-5:30 finish. The lady (Desiree) from the Rogue Runners group that I met thought that was optimistic. I was worried. Just as Dagny and I were almost finished reading "It's Not Easy Being a Bunny" (after she had run around like a crazy girl for 45 minutes and made the boys cry while I chatted with Desiree), we saw Doug! He looked great coming across the bridge! No shuffling and he didn't lose body temp. after the race! Yay! As we got him some fluids, Nat came across too. She wasn't shuffling either and really enjoyed a nice Coca Cola at the end. She said it was the shoes that got her to the finish. She couldn't quit and not get to wear the shoes. : ) hee.

And in other news, here is Annika's swim team doing the kickboard. You can't tell here but Annika was first in line with her kickboard. her lane is the middle one with the blonde coach holding the yellow kickboard.

And here, they are kicking while on their backs. Notice how Annika is crashing into the kid behind her.

Instantly after I took this picture, she started to cry because the kickboard slipped away from her. It was downhill from there. Low fuel, cold water, performance anxiety, and nerves all combined to undermine her confidence. She told the coach she couldn't swim so she had to move to the 4-5 year old group on the steps - you can see them in the top photo. Oh, the humilation. We talked all evening about how to get back to the "big kid" group. And now she only swims with the big kids - all of her friends from school.