The Shipping Dilemma

I know I live in paradise.  But let me tell you, occasionally it has drawbacks.  Other than the daily living drawbacks like the insanely high price of gas and food (which we all learn to get over or we leave this black rock)... The past two weeks I have had the unfortunate dealings with crazy shipping dilemmas.  Let me explain.

It all started with a simple picture frame.  I found some really great deals on picture frames on target.com.  Like $20 for 2 poster size frames.  When I went to check out the shipping was $90.  My mouth dropped open and I cleared my cart and proceeded to amazon where I knew I could find the free shipping.  

$90 to ship me???!!!

Fast forward to a week later when I was stoked to build up a new mountain bike for 2013.  I am not too picky about bikes but I certainly have brands that I like.  My dream machine comes in the form of a Scott.  I have had fantastic luck with this bike brand as my road bike and I have heard great reviews about it in mountain biking.  

I hopped online to check out one in my price range and REI happened to be the only retailer that I could order it from off of an online shop.  However, there are no REI stores in Hawaii.  I devised this great plan that I would have it shipped to an REI on the mainland and then my parents could pick it up and ship it to me.  OR... I could call the one store that carries Scott bicycles on the island and they could have it shipped into their store.  

I picked up the phone and kept my fingers crossed.  They said they were discontinuing Scott bicycles and could no longer take customer orders.  Plan Failed. 

I re-thought my plan to have it shipped to REI.  My parents would have to drive to pick up the bike and making sure that it would stay in the box it came in might be an issue and I would have to pay the shipping again to get it out to Hawaii.  

$$$ to get it shipped to Oahu! 

To make a long story short... I've decided that I have a new dream machine in mind.  One that is available for purchase at the local bike shop without shipping involved.  I'll post a picture as soon as that new fun toy is in my hands.  I did already order the shoes, pedals, and helmet to go with it.  As soon as those come in I'll be ready to go!

For now- I am trying to solve the next shipping dilemma of trying to get a stock paddleboard from california to hawaii.  Any ideas?  

Kona Recap

I realize that I left this blog in limbo... much like my life was at the time.  I wasn't ready to continue writing a blog while I was trying to sort out my life because... well, like many of the triathlete and runner blogs I read... personal life escapades sneak into blogs.  Sometimes it is very hard to separate the two like it was in my case so I figured it was best to wait until better days to continue writing my blog.  So here it goes... the sum of 8 months to catch all of you up, the recap of Kona, and a few future prospects!

The Last 8 Months:
Honu:  In June I went and raced Hawaii 70.3.  I had a fantastic race at one of my hardest points in my life.  I knew I was literally 'running' down my Kona spot and for the first time in my triathlon career I succeeded in the run portion and placed 1st in my AG and secured a spot to Kona World Championships (and Las Vegas Half Ironman Worlds- which I declined). Total: 5:13:18

Coeur d'Alene:  This was my first full Ironman.... and holy moly did it hurt!  I always have a thing about knowing courses in advance (where I don't want to know them).  So I had a lot of people along the way in my training asking me if I knew the course in which I always replied 'nope, and I'm happy to keep it that way.'  Well... the hills took everyone by a bit of surprise in Ida-hill! The bike portion was changed from previous years to a new course that included 6000 ft of climbing.  It hurt.  It hurt more on the run and it totally freaked me out for Kona so that I didn't want to do another full Ironman! Total: 12:00:26

Kona World Championships:

Let me start by saying this... I have had more people come up to me after the race/during the race and tell me that it was "hell".  I couldn't disagree more.  I actually had a great time and enjoyed almost every moment of it and learned A LOT that I will now share with everyone who cares to read this novel.

Pre- Race:
I had a wonderful group of friends staying in a condo with me.  Yup... 10 people into a condo and I knew it would be a perfect mix because we have travelled together before and it is nothing but positivity.  We all have raced together (Hawaii 70.3), some of us live very close together, and some came from various places (Ohio, Big Island).  It's a lot about the vibe and knowing that if I want to eat cookies and brownies for breakfast each morning before the race that these people know me and won't judge at all.  I have to say that it influences my races a lot because I can't ask for better people to spend my pre-race days with and better supporters. (Note: The following photos are all courtesy of Colin Cross as I was clearly either on the race course or laughing too hard to take the actual picture myself)

Signage!

My savior fixing my back wheel

               Awesome group of friends and family made for a phenomenal support team!                              

My transition bags and helmet were in good hands!

Super happy and smiling Amy and Bill 

The Swim: 58:08

Amy (a former collegiate swim teammate) and myself.
This might not have been how the swim really went...
but the waters were really this crystal clear!

Since this is my strongest portion of the triathlon I always head straight for the front line.  I took the advice of my friend and headed under the finish line portion (where everyone has to funnel through) to get in the water right away after the last female pros started.  However, unlike some of the AGers I definitely didn't hop in the water 30 min before the start.  I stood on the beach and hopped in 10 min before the start and still paddled myself to the front of the swim start and found myself amongst a group of freezing triathletes who had been waiting still in the waters for 20 minutes.  I couldn't help but think to myself that even tropical waters get cold when you aren't moving!  The cannon didn't go off this year so the announcer just shouted over the mic for us to start the swim really loudly.  The first half was a blur of us just following the crowd.  It was the easiest swim course to follow because you just followed the group in front of you.  However at the turn around you took a left and went around a boat and then flipped back around a funky way.  Apparently... it's a good thing I had a set of feet in front of me to follow because this was not the intuition of the lead pro guy either.  Like any normal open water swimmer would think... this went against most normal way of turn buoys.  The swim on the way back was like leap frog.  Since I knew there was only one way back I just kept jumping from one group to another working my way up the swim packs.

The Bike: 5:59:35

The final stretch!

I had an awesome bike on the way out to Hawi (the turnaround).  I felt awesome.  But I was having issues with my speedfill.  The liquid (Gu Roctane) had heated up inside of it and I had no way of getting it out and because I had removed all other bottle carriers I had no way of getting any other liquids at the aid stations besides taking a bottle, chugging, and throwing it before the end of the station.
My stomach felt horribly crampy but I knew that I had to keep taking in liquids.  I unfortunately couldn't even think about eating my gu gels that were taped to my bike.  They just looked disgusting.  I'm sure that probably had something to do with my biking demise by mile 90-112.  I just had run out of some of that awesome energy that I had to start but I really didn't want to have any food and chugging powerbar perform at every aid station certainly wasn't help to settle it much.  I still was happy with my bike time although I know that I could have certainly gone faster.

The Run: 5:15:09

All smiles!

A lot of people ask me what happened on the run.  I tell them what didn't happen.  Simple training.  I looked at my training log before racing for the entire 4 months from late June - early October and realized hat I had only run a total of about 50 miles.  Yup, grand total.  I'm sure that there are some triathletes who do that in one week.  Am I going to make up some excuses?  Nope!  I had a whole lot of fun in those 4 months biking in Colorado, doing night rides, paddling on the ocean, and not doing long runs.  I definitely came out of Coeur d'Alene disappointed with my running and therefore didn't think twice about seeing what would happen if I didn't train at all with my running.  I knew that I could pull off a marathon in Kona by run/walking it and that's what I did.  My stomach really liked me walking through each aid station and afterwards for about a minute.  Conveniently this perfectly worked out to 7/3 (run 7 minutes, walk 3 min).  I'm not entirely disappointed in my  marathon.  Would I change it?  Certainly.. If I trained for it.  However, for not training I just wanted to get through it and come out injury free!

Reflections Back for Kona:
I did learn some valuable lessons at Kona that I would like to share so that hopefully you all will not make these mistakes.
-  I will never again use my Speedfill in a hot climate race.  Although it worked in Coeur d'Alene because the liquid was kept cool in a colder climate... one hot liquid was in there in Kona... getting 64 oz out was impossible and I certainly wasn't able to drink it.
-  I had one amazing looking tri kit on... however, I recommend washing them before first time use... the chafing. was. unbearable.
-  I am completely convinced that the sunscreen they used was oil-based... next time I am bringing my own Planet Sun for them to apply in T1 & T2.  I only burned where the volunteers re-applied their sunscreen.  And I burned... quite badly!

-  I still need to talk to Garmin about this- but I raced with the newest Garmin 910XT and I set it to triathlon mode.  However, since we started in the water (like a lot of triathlons), it lost satellite before the start while we were treading water.  The unfortunate part was that it didn't recover after it lost it's satellite and therefore when I hit the bike.. it was registering bike mode and somehow was still recording in yards/min for speed and still had the screen up for the swim.  The whole watch had glitched because it had not regained satellite during the swim and therefore in the first 5 miles of my bike I had to re-set the watch and go back to bike mode and forget about tri mode completely (and do the same for the run mode).  This could have been a one time glitch and I will continue to play but if not then I will not wear the watch in the water because it was a pain to play with it on the bike.
Total Time: 12:19:31

What's Next?
I can confidently say that I have raced one downwind paddleboard race since Kona and it was the first time that I came in both first and dfl.  I was the only girl on a stock (12' 6") prone paddleboard and at the same time I also was waiting for my roommate on her SUP (stand up paddleboard) so we both managed to be last.  I adamantly wanted to be last just because i have never been last in a race.  It was a 8.5 mile race that was supposed to be downwind and ended up being slightly upwind with no current and taking close to 3 hrs.  I absolutely LOVED it.

Which brings me to next year.  I am looking to do some fun small races between now and Hawaii 70.3 in June. I might hop over to the mainland and race another 70.3 in April.  Tentatively I'm looking at New Orleans 70.3.  I've gotten this urge lately to hop on my paddleboard with any free time that I have.  I'm toying with the idea of Molokai to Oahu (Kaiwi Channel) race on a stock paddleboard in July.
I'll keep everyone updated on the latest through the blog!

Rest, Recovery, and Relaxation

It has certainly been awhile since I have posted.  Although I can't completely say it's been because I have been overwhelmed... I want to say it's more because of the research that I have been doing.  Since last time that I posted, I have made some significant purchases, discoveries while traveling, and research into the world of training and recovery.  Since there are a lot of gimmicks on the market, I definitely want to mention that I am only backing up the usefulness of these recovery aids by personal experience and do not endorse any one thing.  I think that a lot has to do with listening to one's own body and figuring out what's best that way.  Anyway here goes:

So, if you know me, then you know that for a few years I have sworn by my compression tights.  I LOVE them!  I usually would sneak them on after any race or hard training regime and wear them for the next 6-8 hrs.  I had vaguely heard of compression boots about a year ago, but ditched the thought because of the price.  Well, since the price (and the medical prescription) came majorly down in the last year, I started taking a closer look at them.  There are a few pro athletes that absolutely love them, and they too had been wearing the compression wear for awhile and said the boots took recovery to the next level.  So, imagine a blood pressure cuff that inflates and deflates (and you can set for how high it inflates) and slowly works all the lactic acid and forces the blood to work through your legs.  Here's a picture of me sitting perfectly content with these suckers.  I like to think that the Michelin man attacked my legs (it sort of reminds me of that).

In other good news, I saw an acupuncturist for my neck issues (and in general health).  This was in Colorado.  She was phenomenal.  I wish I could have taken her with me back to Hawaii.  But at least I took her good pointers for eating (adding more iron into my diet) and certain Chinese herbs back.  The funny thing is though, so far, I have had zero luck in finding these Chinese fruits back here in Hawaii.  Apparently (because wikipedia is so useful!) they are actually really hard to find and even on the rare fruits list!  But a very helpful person at a health food store recommended some supplements that were similar to the properties of the fruits that she had recommended.  I couldn't really tell you if I feel a difference, but supposedly these are good for my internal health. 

On that note, I am now making other riders around me suffer with the smell of tiger balm.  It might be my only hope for reliving some of the neck pain and my new jar of fun in my back jersey pocket!  Honestly, it smells like Vicks Vaporub but about 10x as powerful.  And boy does it do miracles.  At first, I scoffed at it.  The jar is like the width of a 1 dollar coin and is only about in inch tall.  But just a tiny amount goes a long way so apparently this tiny jar packs a punch and will last me at least 3 weeks.  

Raspberry Tiramisu

So now onto that relaxation part!  When I took that trip to Colorado I promised my coach that I would run but I really snuggled up under blankets by a fireplace and read.  I knew that I would have 6 months of intense training ahead and traded in 3 days of skiing from sun up to sundown for running.  Since being back in Hawaii, the training has slowly increased and my waistline has slowly decreased.  I keep making tiramisu each week in an effort to have calories at hand (and I am a sweets fanatic!).  One example of my raspberry tiramisu is to the right... although this is just my middle layer.  The top layer had blackberries too! Delicious! For relaxing moments, I keep reading here and trying to salvage my veggie and herb garden.  Clearly, I only got a semi-green thumb because I can grow plants through the first harvest and then they die off.  Hmmm... something to think about in my time on the trainer. 

The Gardening Project!

Don't Buy a Bike after 4 hours of Sleep...

Right now I am still working nearly 40 hours at Starbucks every week.  When I tell people this they sometimes are jealous of the coffee that I must be drinking on my shifts.  To be quite honest, I don't drink as much as you might think.  I try to save the extreme caffeine days for when I really need a boost so I try to limit myself to 1-2 total shots of coffee a day and fill in the tiredness with sleep! Novel concept right?!

Well, let me tell you what happened when I went to pick up my bike that I spent about 2.5 months getting the fit right.  Everything was seemingly perfect on the new P2 Cervelo and I just needed to test ride it outside before I actually purchased it.  The day I went to test ride it- was after 3 days of working from 4AM- 12:30 PM shifts- and I had been going to bed a little later than normal (and training still).  Needless to say I was a little dazed.  I took the bike out for a spin and could swear that the shifters were reversed from what I was used to.  I told my friend and bike shop tech the issue and he wasn't surprised at all.   Since I used to ride a really old Aussie designed tri bike he was pretty sure that my old bike probably had shifters that matched what I was telling him.  He would just go ahead and re-wire the cables to switch the shifting direction.  I was thinking to myself... Awesome! And bought the bike.

Well this is my new bike.  See anything weird on it?

Right... my first thoughts were those too.  Holy moly my shifters are completely upright and reversed!  I'm an idiot!  I knew it right away but was too ashamed to tell my friend who had spent hours flipping it for me.  So... I did this to my bike for Christmas.

Since then, I have played more with my bike and the positioning.  I went back into the shop to actually get a rebate on the bike that I never thought I could get ($1000!!!) and at the same time apologized profusely to my friend and told him that I would need the shifters re-done because I was delirious when I asked him the first time and we both got a good laugh out of it (thank goodness!).  When I find the time (which is practically never), I'll bring it back to get it re-done.  For now, I like to think of it as good training.  No one should get too set in their ways, right?

In other news, I hired a coach last week too!  WHOA!  I know... That's actually huge news!  It all started with a facebook message out of the blue from a friend of mine in college recommending a friend of his as a coach.  I never take those messages seriously.  But facebook doesn't have a delete button for messages.  Weird.  So a few days later I went back to it and looked into it.  Something about this coach caught my attention.  The promptness of his reply and the enthusiasm of his attitude was astounding.

I'm super duper excited to get training with him.   Already, in the first interview it was amazing how much we both had similar ideas in workouts.  I didn't have to sit on the phone explaining why I wasn't completely sold on one thing or another.  He understood. I'm sure you will hear more about it when the training ensues... however, for now- I'm just looking forward to the butt-kicking and variety.  It's exactly what I need at this point and the inspiration that I am looking for to continue my training towards Ironman CdA.   For now though, I am continuing with North Shore bike trips and running trips on the weekend to maintain my fitness... they have been quite serene and chilly (laugh it up! 62 degrees with wind is chilly to start when you are used to mid 80s!!).

Training Theory Debunked!

Whew! I know it has been a long time since I have posted.  But I guess that is how things go when you are working 40 hours and training and still trying to keep a decent social life.  In all seriousness...  I was a little worried about the Honolulu Marathon that was coming up too!  I mean, I have been running, but the longest run that I had done was a nice 10 mile run on Thanksgiving day.  However, I guess everything just came together on that particular day and I have a few theories why!

First, let's start with the pre-marathon hype.  I definitely bought a new pair of shoes a week out.  I went into the store looking for the same ones that I have always run with.  And well, they didn't have them in my size.  The young gentleman tried convincing me that another brand was very similiar.  I didn't buy that gig.  I decided to size up a 1/2 size in the exact same shoe instead... and get my exact same inserts which I haven't gotten in 2 years.

At marathon expo I found the next 2 things that were my saviors!
I know, I know! They look so plain and simple.  But the Nuun is actually Kona Coke!  It tastes like heaven in a bottle.  A little zip of coke flavored sports drink (and a taste that I actually like that is NOT a fruity flavor) is exactly what I have been looking for in sports drinks for years!  And the socks.... compression.. not regular. :-).


And then... what goes better with coke than vanilla!?  This amazingness arrived the night before! Everything was coming in perfect timing!

Sooo... I went to bed at 8 PM, set the alarm for 2 AM and headed out.  Apparently the cone crew over slept because as Rick and I were driving down to the start we managed to just barely beat them to coning off the left turn that we needed to take to get to our secret parking spot :-).  Everything was going great!  We had decorated trash bags the night before- and honestly, we didn't need them as much for rain as we did for warmth!  However, even better... we ran into our good friend at the bus line and we ended up not only on the one custom bus, but also at PF Changs with water and bathrooms and a place to sit-down about 500m from the start line!

I couldn't have asked for a better pre-race!  At 4:35 AM we headed out to the race start and all is history.  I started running as the fireworks in front of me went off and couldn't have felt better!  I kept telling myself "no walls today!" and singing something like, "Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no river wide enough... " you know the rest :-)


I felt so happy and grateful at mile 21 that I was still sub 4:00 hour pace that I was pretty giddy.

I finished the race in exactly 3:51:00.  That ended up being a 15 minute PR from any marathon that I have previously run.  We are 8 weeks into our Ironman training.

The Crazy Begins...

Whew.  It hasn't even been a week since I clicked on the "Pay Now" button for Ironman Coeur d'Alene and I already feel like I am in full swing for training and I see 8 months flying by!

Luckily, I am not in this alone.  I refused to click on that button until my boyfriend Rick clicked on it too. Heck, I wasn't going to get $1200 deep without a co-partner in crime!  I definitely need someone there to help remind me why I am still out training until 8 PM rather than at that bbq that started 2 hours ago!  Or maybe it's vice versa.  Maybe I need to be telling someone else that they need to be along with me until 8 PM so that I can justify my crazy training schedule and not feel badly about showing up a bit late.  Either way, having a training partner is definitely worth it.

Okay, anyway so back to week one.  I found myself increasingly TIRED (and cursing my legs for sitting on the couch for 4 months straight rather than running once a week), WAY more hungry, and CALLING more pools than I knew existed on this side of oahu to find out their pool hours at night time.

So on a Friday night Rick finds out that Manoa Pool is open from 6:30PM-8:30PM for lap swim.  Perfect.   Enough time for us to get in that bike ride after work, pick up food for the bbq, and still get to lap swim.

Now let me tell you a bit about my swimming background.  I have been swimming since I was 4 years old (competitively).  I have been to A LOT of public pools.  Yes, I have been to a pool in Australia where there is a lane 0 (actually quite common), to infiniti pools for lap swim, to pools in barbados, puerto rico, st. croix, and all over the united states.  However, I have to say Hawaii can have some interesting pool rules.

So when the lifeguard asked me if I knew the pool rules, I jokingly said.. "umm.. No, why don't you let me know because they are all different out here in Hawaii".  And no kidding, I have been to a public pool in hawaii where they fill in all the black lanes before they even allow you to swim in between the lines even if you come there with a friend who you willingly want to share a lane with.  However, here are the Manoa Pool Rules:
1) Swim down the pool in One Lane and Back in the Other Lane
2) If you are not completely confused by Rule #1... let us add... that it is in reverse circle swim direction!

Needless to say, it looks kinda like this crazy snake game that I laid out below :-)

After the workout... Rick and I were quite proud that we made it through without any major head on collisions and even got a decent workout in!  However, we were a bit taken aback by this craziness and it has been moved to the "last resort" pool option.

A Fresh Start

I have always talked about doing an Ironman.  I got hooked into triathlons when I was babysitting for a family in the summer of 2005 in Michigan and both of the parents were training for Ironman Lake Placid. Let me be a little more specific, I was only the baby sitter when they needed to go out for their 4-6 hour bike rides at 5 AM in the morning.  At the time I was the swim coach for their 8 year old daughter and they knew that getting up that early in the morning was natural for me... so I was a perfect fit for being the early AM sitter for their 3 active kids.  After going on their family vacation to help out at Ironman Lake Placid and I saw their mom qualify for Kona World Championships, I was hooked and competed in my first olympic distance triathlon later in the summer in Michigan.  For that race I bought this bike: 

                                                                  Quintana Roo Kilo

Ever since then I have been riding that bike.  And I have to say, that bike did me quite well.  It's amazing how over time the technology has developed... yet my QR was an aluminum machine that NEVER broke and I never had any major issues with.  However, even though it didn't break, my body has broken down.  My stipulation to doing a full Ironman has always been that I would need a new bike.  I can't sit in the aero bar position on my bike anymore for an extended period of time without my neck getting major pain and my arm going numb.  I have tried PT, massage, docs, etc. and it comes back to the bike.  Seems easy enough right?  Well, as of this past Sunday I met with a bike fitting specialist who takes measurements, health assessments, and tests you on a mock bike that can change to all different sizes with a power meter.  Dr. Mike McMahon  (http://tricoachonline.com/72/126.html) will be able to give me a list of bikes that can fit my dimensions.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't come back with "CUSTOM bike only."  That will be a kick in the financial end! 

Anyway, here's to a fresh start with a new bike... soon!