Stroke & Stride, Auckland, New Zealand

I recently returned home to Fairfield from a 2-wk vacation in New Zealand with my younger brother. Amidst the hiking, biking, and bungee jumping, I really wanted to sneak in an ocean swim. Ever since my swim in Lake Zurich this summer surrounded by the snow-capped Alps and a beautiful city skyline, I decided that I want to run a great trail or do an open water swim everywhere in the world I visit.

While in Auckland, an old swimmer friend from college, Jen Sweny, who has moved to Auckland permanently pointed me to a Thursday night Stroke & Stride (swim-run) series at Point Chevalier. I didn't have any proper gear but that's the beauty of swimming and running, you don't need any. I jumped right in and raced 1980's Mike Pigg style in only my speedo's and running shoes.

Jen omitted to tell me that the small groups that show up to this Pure Blonde sponsored series are mostly a hard core group of athletes which included a couple kiwi elites and a couple Team Mexico elites training down south over the winter. This along with the cold waters way down south made for me being one of only two people on the start line without a wetsuit

The course was setup so that the athletes could race multiple distances, a short distance (0.5k swim - 2k run), a couple middle distances (0.5k swim - 4k run or 1k swim - 2k run), and a long (1k swim - 4k run). Ofcourse most people chose the "long" distance and so did I. Perfect distance for a Thursday evening race.

New Zealand is a beautiful country for those of you haven't been. Outside of Auckland it's basically dead quiet, hilly and with mild weather year around making it very conducive to spending time outdoors. This translates into a very fit population! You can't go far, even in the city, without seeing runners and cyclists racing through the streets. Needless to say I was one of the last ones out of the water (look, only a few people left behind me)!

While I hadn't run or done any real swimming since SOS almost 2 mths ago, coming out of the water I wasn't feeling too bad. While there were no splits, I was out of the water in roughly 15mins. After two loops in the water, it was up a steep ramp into transition and onto the run. With only shoes to put on, this was a very quick transition!

The run was two loops of a 2km road course. Not the prettiest course but as flat as you can get in Auckland so a reasonably fast one. I passed one guy in transition and was hot on the heals of another during the first lap of the run. Here's me at the turnaround after the first loop.

This is also when I started to lose the runner ahead of me (I swear someone was close even though you can't see them in this pic). Now I had to make sure to stay ahead of the guy I had passed back in transition. Ugh, I hate being chased!

After about 15mins of running I crossed the finish line smiling with pain but maintained my placing (6th out of only 13 men in the "long" distance and a couple women beat me too) with a total time of 31:20.

Maybe next time I'll be better prepared ... nah, that was a blast! Fast and minimalist, just the way I like it. We need more of these swim-run races here at home! I'll have pics from the rest of my trip on my blog in a couple weeks.

Ironman Florida 2010

Signing up a whole year in advance for a race sounds crazy, but you need to do that if you want to compete in one of the best Ironman Race in the world. So last year, I decided to sign up for Ironman Florida and a flat course appealed to me. Mark Carioto did it as well.

Training for it happened in the last 3 months or so before the race with longer rides, longer runs, not enough time for longer swims but figured it would be ok...

Training for it was fine, with 2 unusual training sessions, which happened to have helped me mentally and also physically:

• Reach the Beach Relay in June with team mate Mark Burton with 31 miles of running part of a relay, almost killed me but made me somehow more resilient to boredom I can get into when running for too long
• My last long ride on the computrainer for 6h, which also almost killed me but made the 112 miles on Saturday seem so easy!!!

I think I was well ready to go and mentally strong, it is only a long day in the beautiful outdoors afterall!

After a long trip down there from New York, as I missed my morning flight and could not find my luggage in Panama city, I also missed the mandatory pre-race registration on Thursday! The good news is I did it the next day in 4mn, and everybody else, 2800 athletes, had to get in long 1-2 hours lines!

Friday was good with a quick swim in huge waves, more fun for body surfing than swimming, I enjoyed it! The sand is white and fine, really beautiful and the water so clear blue green amazing! The best beach on the planet maybe. Panama City has nothing else: a beach and that is it!

And that was-it for the day relax, prepare the bike, meet people, nice pasta dinner and bed time.

Met an interesting Mexican Business man Luis who was doing ironman #9 for 2010, he started in April, went to France and everything. He is on the Timex Team. He has done 70 ironman, started in 1991, just count!!! The things I love about these races is that you meet interesting or crazy people!!!

Tomorrow will be a great day I was telling myself and it was!

It started so cold about 40F, but in the excitement of everything else it was hard to notice. The day was going to start. I decided to try a new thing and started quite in the front with all the men on the left near the buoys! Well that was an experience on being beaten up all over!!! No panic I did it, lost goggles, got scratched but survived!

Swim done, I thought, now some work is still ahead! Transition was slow because there were so many people everywhere. I had looked at my watch and saw 127 so thought it was my swim time! During the whole race I thought I swam in 1:27 and was quite mad at myself, that was slow! I only discovered after the race that it was my heart rate! My swim time was 1:10!!!

Anyway I put a new tight fitting lond sleeves shirt I bought the day before (with an ironman logo of course) on my wet jersey, put my newly bought Walmart gloves on and off I went!

112 miles on the bike, flat as a pancake bike course, hardly changed gear for the whole thing! Good speed, felt good, had my powertap on average speed not per choice just happened but liked that a lot. I biked with groups and on my own. It seemed hard not to avoid the groups, but they make riding more fun at the same time, you make some friends like that. I could have gone for longer on the bike honestly. Ate the power gels at the aids stations, they were very easy to squeeze and tasted quite good! Did not stop for the bathroom, well managed again...on the bike, not sure if I need to be proud of myself for that!

And then, yes the dreaded run was there. I just needed 4h,  felt great at the beginning and maybe went too fast, I was excited. There were some fun cheer leaders, pretty course, but 26 miles still to go. I could feel my pace going slower, my heart rate dropping, but still 15 to go, 10 to go. I had to play mental games, had to look forward for the girls cheer leaders who were quite funny. and then with 4-5 miles left a woman looked like my age passed me and in my head I knew she was going to be 3rd, I knew about #2, did not know about #1 but had a feeling there was one. I lost a bit of motivation then.

Everything clicked again when I ran through the finish chute, a spectator was screaming to a man next to me that he did it under 11h! The man turned to me and told me let's go it is under 11h! I could not believe it!

The finish was great, better than the first ironman I did in 2008. There were amazing words on the ground printed in colors, archs, people and the finish clock 10:52!!! Mark Carioto's family was there and it was nice to see familiar faces. Mark did really well for his first ironman as well, I know he wanted to finish with me (or ahead!), he was not far off 10:55!

I was so happy.

I know I missed Kona, again, by one spot but that is life! I did not run in 4h but 4:07. No big deal. Who could have guessed the woman who won my AG was going to bike under 5h!? It always seem there is a crazy woman or two in my AG. Next time I will be the crazy woman I think!

I highly recommed this race to first timers or racers who want  a fast race. After all it is better to cover the 140.6 miles in less time on a flat course than more time on a hilly course don't you think?

bimbler`s bluff 50k

Here is a little recap of the longest run I have ever done...It took place on October 24^th , 2 weeks after I ran the Hartford marathon.

When I woke up early that morning after only about 4h of sleep and having spent 15h on my feet working a party the day before I felt like not doing the race, I had after all a very good excuse...I was pretty tired and my feet were already trashed!

I decided nonetheless to leave the house with all my gear and hit 95 to drive to Guilford CT. Rain started falling and I thought there was no way I would run a 50k today!

When I got there it had stopped raining and I then decided to check in and race. People started coming in and soon the parking lot was full of racers who seemed to..  have done this before and pretty much knew one another. I wore my marathon shirt and the race director asked me strangely if that was last year`s or this year`s?!  When I replied that it was the one I ran a few weeks ago, he said it was too soon to participate at this race!! I laughed and walked away slightly annoyed and pondering his words until a fellow racer came to me and said he had done Hartford too and it was also his first 50k trail run.

Soon it was time and we ran  one loop of a soccer field before entering the woods on a very narrow path full of branches. I felt good and stayed in contact with the lead group until the first aid station at mile 3 that I reached in 27mns. Then it started to get crazy at mile 6..I was running pretty fast ( you know like in a regular road race..) when my left ankle hit a rock and I suddenly fell down in pain. People were friendly as they passed me and asked if I needed any help. I got up and decided to forgo what had just happened and soon passed racers again ..The trail was very tough, leaves were covering tiny rocks and it was uncomfortable running at its best! Soon we had to tackle river crossings, rock climbing, and really crazy hills. Running was getting impossible, one could barely walk!

I reached the mile 12 aid station in 2h..and stopped for 2 mns to get some fluids. In front of me was a 200 yards vertical wall of mud and signs like “ the Bluff”, what you have been training for!”  Getting up there on my knees took forever, it was very scary and people were visibly shaken by it. I made it with difficulty and resumed my walk/run on a tricky path bordering a 200 yards fall. For the next 6 miles it was very difficult to progress, lots of steep hills, fallen logs on the way, mud patches, but the worst happened when happy to finally see some open space in front of me, I decided to go all out just to make up some time..  Terrible mistake because I hit a rock again on the same ankle and this time I had to stop for 10mns, unable to even put it down. At this stage you are pretty much alone..I was still far away from the next aid station and I was getting a bit nervous about how to get there. I made it after an eternity and I was ready to quit because it seemed so pointless to go on! Many racers were there, actually telling the officials they were dropping out….and I was about to do the same when my Hartford friend whom I talked to at the beginning arrived and started chatting with me. He too was really demoralized by the fact that one could not really run the race, you took your eyes away from the trail from one second and you would injure yourself! But he told me his wife was waiting for him at the finish, and that she had given him such a hard time for even registering that quitting was no option!!  He made me laugh and we decided to go on together for the next 13 miles! He had injured his knee falling off the mud wall and was walking fast at best. We calculated that it would take us about 8h to complete and we pushed through the dense forest. Endless trails opened as far as the eyes could see, pretty surreal! The landscape was boringly mesmerizing. We did not meet anybody for the next 3h, not a soul. We got lost at one point, because we were so busy talking we missed a turn and walked/jogged another 5 miles until we realized our mistake! I thought he would start crying….and me too!

At this stage my legs were hurting badly and I was getting really annoyed with the whole thing. We would talk a lot for 30mns then would not say a word for an hour, then would resume....it was weird, kind of a survival mode. At one point he told me he could see the parking lot with cars and that that was great! We had made it...but all I could see at the horizon was a large pond with ducks in there…I did not know what to say ..he kept talking about it, really excited...until he realized he was hallucinating! It was hilarious. I am sure the forest still echoes from my laugh!

Next I saw a house which was not a house but a large boulder and we laughed again. It was getting serious!  We finally found the aid station at mile 28,  volunteers were excited to see us ..and told us it was almost over, another 3 miles on the easiest portion of the trail. We disappeared in the woods, anxious to get it over with and after 45 mns we saw volunteers perched on a big rock and screaming at us that we had made it, it was almost over and a big crowd was waiting for us..

We came out the woods sprinting ( for the crowd and the photographs..), and saw 5 persons waiting for us at the finish.. The parking lot was literally empty...people had probably already showered and were taking their naps..! but it did not matter, we did not give up and we made it...in 9h 04mns 40s!   Of course we were among the last ones to arrive!

I will never race this one again but I would maybe try an easier one some day...just to see how it is. The distance is not really scary...it is more the frustration of not being able to run normally, always scared of getting injured.

By the way my ankle was so swollen the next days...it was unbelievable!

Kelly I don`t know how you do it so well..