FFT Team Camp and Oceanside 70.3 Recap

I spent the end of March in Southern California at the FFT Pro Development Team training camp and racing the Oceanside Ironman 70.3. It was a challenging week filled with training, learning, getting to know my FFT teammates, racing and some quality time with good friends- all in a very scenic environment.

Chris and I flew into San Diego on Friday night and spent a day and a half with my friend Maureen and her husband Iggy. We were treated to some awesome meals and some great relaxing time in their outdoor hot tub! In addition to great friends, they are amazing hosts. Maureen took us on a great long ride on Saturday with lots of climbing, and a great run on Sunday morning. On Sunday morning we made our way up to Santa Barbara, a 5 hour drive, stopping along the way just outside of LA to see my friend (and college track teammate) and now pro cyclist, Devon Gorry, compete in a bike race with the NOW/Novartis women’s cycling team at the Redlands Cycling Classic (they won the race!) After a quick lunch with Devon, we completed the traffic-y drive up I-5 in the pouring rain and finally made it to the awesome Santa Barbara home that would be our training base for the week (many thanks to the Warrens!)

TEAM CAMP

Monday AM started off bright and early with a blood lactate test on the bike. This test is done on the Computrainer and involves cycling at progressively higher wattage while monitoring both heart rate and blood lactate levels. This helps to determine your lactate threshold, approximately the level of effort you should be able to hold for a 1 hour TT on the bike, which is then used to create training zones (measured by wattage and heart rate) for various types of workouts. The team then headed out for a 4 hour ride with some good sections of climbing at a tempo effort. Unfortunately at the beginning of the ride, Chris crashed and landed on his side and left wrist. He seemed to be OK (though in pain) with likely a sprained wrist. Since the ride took longer than expected, we rode straight to Prevail Conditioning for functional strength assessments, which involved performing various movements while being videotaped. I was feeling pretty beat and hungry at this point, and was forever grateful to Moose for bringing over a whole assortment of lunch ingredients for us! After our functional strength assessments, we then headed straight to the pool for a recovery swim workout at a beautiful long course meter outdoor pool. By the time we got home and had dinner, made by Mrs. Warren, which was excellent! I was so tired I fell asleep at 9pm.

Tuesday we did the always exciting bike-run-bike-run brick workout at a hard tempo pace. The bike loop included some beautiful views of the ocean, which we didn’t get to enjoy much once the workout started but could certainly appreciate on the cooldown. I tested out First Endurance Pre-Race for this workout (along with my usual EFS Drink), which I felt made me more alert and focused, and made my legs and lungs forget about all the hard workouts I had done in the days prior and able to ride and run at a relatively hard effort. The afternoon included a swim workout with some all-out 100s, and a sport psychology talk by Dr. Steve of SPaRC. Among other things, he encouraged us to think beyond simply what time or place we want to achieve in a race, to how we want to be remembered as an athlete and person in our sport, and what values we want to express during our training, racing, and interactions with others. He also talked about overcoming mental and emotional obstacles to training and competing at our best. After that it was dinner time (with another amazing dinner prepared by Mrs. Warren) and then cake time as it was Erika’s birthday!

Wednesday included another long ride (80 miles with a long climb partway up the well-known Gibraltar route) out to Solvang and back with a 20 minute brick run, then to Prevail Conditioning for a great session where they showed us how to do some great preventative strengthening exercises and how to self-treat various issues we’re having (or example, a tight IT band or tight plantar fascia) using a foam roller, tennis ball, lacrosse ball, golf ball, etc (painful but so helpful!) and improve our mobility. Their work with us all week was so helpful and I learned a lot.

Thursday held another LCM swim workout followed by a track workout in the afternoon. The Prevail crew came and showed us many great drills to do to help us both warm up and instill proper run form before our workouts, and videotaped us as well. Most of the group then did 6x1000m intervals at VO2 Max effort, while I did a bit shorter workout since I had Oceanside 70.3 in two days. Then we all headed down to downtown Santa Barbara for dinner. Chris and I went to The Natural Café where we got some really awesome fish tacos and an amazing salad- and got to eat outside!

Friday AM we did a team run photo shoot on the beach (beautiful backdrop for it!) with Chris as the photographer. We then packed up and headed back down to San Diego so I could make the Oceanside 70.3 pro meeting, get my race packet, and get my gear and bike situated for the race. After browsing the expo, getting some free samples, visiting some sponsors, checking in and attending the pro meeting, I took a short icebath in the ocean (which at 55 degrees, was the perfect ice bath-ing temperature, though a bit disconcerting that it was also the temperature we would be swimming in the next day!) We then drove further south to San Diego to Maureen’s house where we’d be staying for the night, where she was preparing an amazing salmon dinner on the grill. After getting the bike and gear all ready for the race, Chris prayed for me and for my race the next day, and it was time to get some sleep.

RACE DAY

Saturday morning we awoke at 3:30am, which is I think the earliest I’ve ever gotten up for a race. I was so glad Maureen was racing too, as that made the early wakeup much more tolerable. I was still feeling really tired by the time we were ready to leave so I skipped the coffee and napped on the 45-minute drive up to Oceanside (thanks to Maureen’s husband Iggy for driving, and to both Chris and Iggy for getting up so early to support us at the race!) I felt better after that and had my coffee and breakfast and some EFS and Pre-Race. It was about 50 degrees out and clear, but when we got to transition, it had started to drizzle. Since the weather forecast had not called for rain, I assumed this was just a momentary patch. As I got my wetsuit on and prepared for the start, it was clear that it was only getting ranier, but I hoped it would let up before we got on the bike. I was definitely a bit nervous for the swim, as in addition to the cold water, they’d told us at the pro meeting that there would be 3-foot swells during the middle section of the course, and sighting is not my best talent as it is. My goal was to swim with a pack to make this easier.

When they let the pro women into the water, it indeed felt like we were jumping into an icebath, as I'd anticipated the day prior- the water was COLD! I had to swim with my head up for a minute or two as the water was so cold I couldn’t breathe with my head submerged. Finally my body semi-adjusted to the temperature, just in time for the starting gun. The start of the swim was pretty violent- I got kicked directly in the face pretty hard twice and my goggles partially filled with water. Good thing I’d had plenty of practice swimming with salty water in my goggles earlier in the week at team camp, when we did 100s off the blocks and my goggles filled with water on every one! I was able to stay with a couple girls which helped immensely as we neared the rough section of the course, but sighting and staying in a straight line was still pretty tough for us. By the end, my head and feet got pretty cold, even with two swim caps on. I came out of the water pretty close behind the little pack I was swimming with at almost 34 minutes and struggled to get my wetsuit off and socks and helmet on with numb fingers- not a quick transition! 

As I began to bike, I thought of the verse Philipians 3:13, as it was how I wanted to approach this race- “but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal…” Though I’d put a lot of training in this week, I did not want to use this as an excuse to have a sub-par race or not push myself as much as I was capable of. During the race I tried not to think about the training we’d done that week, but just about pushing myself and moving up throughout the race! I knew the field was pretty large and strong, but I tried to focus on my own race, and moving forward, not on the week behind or what I could have done differently in the swim or earlier in the race.

Out on the bike course I couldn’t get my Garmin to pickup my power meter, odd since I've never had this issue before. I tried to re-set it in order to get it to pick up, but it took several tries. The rain got a little stronger which made corners (which there were many of, and which I’m not that great at anyway!) tricky. About 5 miles in, I dropped a bottle, thankfully not the one with all of my calories for the ride. I also had to make do with the one cassette I’d brought for the week, an 11-23, which made the course’s decent-grade climbs tough standing climbs for me. Despite the rain, the bike course was beautiful! Green mountains and foothills were the only sight for miles. I tried to keep up a good level of effort but in retrospect, my average wattage for the ride was at least 20 watts lower than I wanted it to be, and I would have liked to have ridden more strategically as well. However, I was really loving my new Rudy Project aero helmet- so much more comfortable and lighter than my old one, and I like the fact that I could close up the front air vents to stay a little warmer on a cold, rainy day like this.

On to the run, I was not feeling very energetic. This had the potential to be a really long run… I tried to think of ways to keep pushing myself. First I focused on my run form, then focused on staying with anyone who passed (mainly fast age group males at this point). At the out and backs, I could see the pro women ahead of me so tried to focus on narrowing the gap between us. I began to feel better with each passing mile, and gained about 3 or 4 spots on the run. Amazingly, my pace stayed even throughout the run and my last mile was the fastest one. It was great to have Chris and Iggy cheering out on the course! Overall 14^th place out of 21^st- not my best race, but my second-fastest 70.3 run and I think I more or less accomplished my goals for the day. Still, I’m looking forward to racing again, an opportunity I will have in a couple weeks at New Orleans 70.3.

          Overall a challenging week with some great fitness gained! Thanks to coach Alex for all the work that went into planning and leading the camp, Moose for planning and coordinating our activities and rides for the week, Mr. and Mrs. Warren for the accommodations and wonderful meals, coach Eric for the training and racing guidance, and to the FFT team for pushing me during workouts - congrats on great week of hard work. Thanks also to our great sponsors- Inside Out Sports, Rudy Project, Cervelo, Computrainer, First Endurance, Skin Sake, CEP Compression, Training Peaks, Prevail Conditioning, SPaRC, and FSSeries for helping us to train, race, and recover better this year!