Swedish Summer Run 10k 2009

A while ago my Mom decided on a 10k to run in preperation for running the nike half marathon in October. She choose teh Swedish SummerRun because she liked that it was in support of the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. I decided to run it in support of my Mom and because why not it is a 10k and would be a good bench mark for my marathon training.
On July 27th my Mom picked me up at 6am and we headed to the start. I have to say I looked at the course map a bit but there was no elevation map and since it was "just" a 10k did not really worry about it much. So it was not til that morning that I really figured out that the course is actually very hilly. Oh well no really time goal mostly Kainoa wanted me to run negatives and push myself and see what I could do.
Ok so we got there super early, got front row parking pretty much, no lines at the porta potties and I had plenty of time to do my :20 min warm up. My Mom fallowed behind me and we ran around the block a few times and added a few pick ups just to get the heart rate up.
The 10k runners lined up at the start after they did a aerobics warm up thing that i have never seen at at he start of race before but most people seemed to have fun with it. We started not to far forward but not to far back either. We wished each other luck and we were off and running.
My race plan was to start conservative and then pick up the effort through out and finish as strong and fast as I could not leaving anything for later. Just run hard.
I think teh chart from my garmin shows it best. The grey line is the elevation and the red is my heart rate.

I did my best to keep at it even up the hills that seemed to go on forever. I seriously think it was 2 miles of flat/downhill and 4 miles of uphill. The weirdest part of the race was how quiet it was all you could hear was shoes hitting the pavement and nothing else except one lady that every time she saw a volunteer she thanked them.
Since they had water on the course and it was only a 10k I decided not to carry my own liquids which was kind of nice except I did manage to get water up my nose at one point which was fun... After that I mostly just tossed the water on my head.
The kind of annoying part was when the 5k merged with the 10k course and a lot of the 5k people were all over the road with strollers and everything.

Since I did not know the course I just focused on increasing my effort as I went hills or no hills.. well there were lots of hills even up to the finish line. I heard Chris (Kainoa's Husband cheer me on) and then saw Jerry and the finish line.


My mile splits were
1 - 7:59
2 - 7:54
3 - 7:35
4 - 9:16
5 - 8:30
6 - 7:20
.34 - 2:48

Gun Time 00:51:34
Chip Time 00:51:23
Average Pace 00:08:17

20-29 AG 5th/134

Not a PR for me but I am happy with the effort and I followed my race plan so I would call it a good race :)

My mom also did a great job. She kept running up all the hills and I am so proud of her. She is so cute look at that smile :)
My Mom's final times
Gun Time 01:04:50
Chip Time 01:04:37
Average Pace 00:10:24

50-59 AG 10th/24

A good day all in all for Team Super Cute

Seafair Sprint Triathlon 2009

On July 19 a huge group of the Pauole Sport team came out and did the Seafair Sprint Triathlon. So of course Kyle and I did it as well. The weird thing was is as it got closure I really was not that excited about dealing with the logistics and racing such a short race.. But once we got there on race morning with so many people we knew I had such a great time.
The racked the bikes by bib number which must have been based on when you registered because Kyle and I were right next to each other. At least I knew who to blame if all my stuff was tossed everywhere lol

I only brought 1 pair of run shoes and since they close T1 I had to get my :15 warm up run in before they shut it down even though I started almost a full :30 after the start. The warm up went well as always and then I got in my wetsuit and headed to the lake to watch the elite wave start, then Kyle and finally get in the lake myself. It was chilly and I could not help shaking uncontrollably while waiting to get going.

Finally my wave got started. For some reason most of the pack seemed to swim way left and round but I just went straight so I did not really get much of a draft :/ but at least I did not swim extra. I did however forget to kick lol and about half way I had to remind myself this was a short race and I should pick up the intensity a bit and actually kick a little more.

I came out of the water and headed into T1 and got the wetsuit of fairly fast and got the helmet on with no issues and was out on the bike. Not to bad for only my second transition this year... and first with a wetsuit..

The course is pretty much flat compared to all the rides I have done this year and since flats are not my strength I was not really expecting much. But I managed to pass a ton of people and more importantly only got passed by a few of the relay cyclists who were all decked out in cycling kit. I made sure to try and drink at least half my bottle of gatorade and had a gel half way so that I would not have to eat or drink anything on the run.

In no time I was heading back to transition and out onto the run. It was kind of weird I felt really dizzy on the 1st mile of the run which has never happened to me before. It also felt kind of hard and I did not get why until my garmin told me it was mile 1 and I had run it in 7:40.. hmm yeah no wonder it felt hard. I managed to find a good rhythm and not really slow to much till the hill.. Stupid hill more like it. I'm glad I ran the course a couple days before and found out about it because it was steep. I tried not to completely redline it but of course I kept at it.. But once I reached the top I picked it up as much as I could on the way down and did my best to maintain that momentum and effort all the way to the finish. The last half mile I ran in 3:20 which is a 6:40 m/mi pace :) and my heart rate appropriately reached 190 bpm.


Final times
1/2-mile Swim 0:16:03
t1 1:49
12-mile Bike 0:38:05
t2 1:27
3.1-mile (5k) Run 0:24:46

Overall 1:22:10
Age group 16/124

In all I am pretty happy with how the race went and how I finished in my age group and such. Not to bad for not doing much speed work lol.

After the race the team all got together for a team photo... check out all the orange. It was so much fun racing and seeing so many people from the team out there.

a fun way to spend the day

This morning rather then heading into the office I got on my single speed and rode to the Lake Sammamish State part to join the rest of my org from work in volunteering to help restore native plants at the park with the Mountain to Sound Greenway folks. To be completely honest my main motivation in participating was the fact the park is only a few miles from my house and I could ride my bike there and back and spend the day outside.
Brady, the other big triathlete guy in the department obviously thought the same thing and rode his bike - but he rode from Seattle which was way longer than me.. But still :)

I got there a bit later than I planned because I got distracted watching the Tour so there were already a TON of people gathered and ready to go so I quickly changed out of my bike clothes and ready to pull some blackberry bushes out. I wound up in a group with a lot of the people I work with on a daily basis and we had a great group leader Holly who walked us though how to use a shovel and clippers without hurting ourselves or other just in case lol. And just like that we grabbed ourselves a shovel and we got started.
The main area we worked is actually along the Lake Sammaimish sprint tri run course which was kind of cool - though it felt weird not running lol. Everyone started off at break neck speed. It was pretty amazing how quickly everyone worked. The piles grew quickly and some people pulled out some enormous root balls.
I quickly regretted not bringing more than one bottle of gatorade endurance with me. I can't believe I did not bring any snacks or more Gatorade.. it was very toast and even though they told us to wear long pants I was getting way to hot so I snuck behind a tree and changed into my sugoi capris I road in (I considered changing into my tri shorts i brought for the ride home but thought that might be a bit much).
Kim and I took a short water break after an hour or more.
But quickly got back to work...


In all we worked for about 4 hours and cleared out a LOT of blackberry bushes. I think someone said there were something like 200 people that showed up to help out and if we all worked 4 hours that is a TON of volunteer hours (you can do the math it is not really my thing ;) ) . It really made me feel very proud of the company I work for and all the people who took time to do something for the community/environment. It also reminded me of being in teh Earth Corps group in high school. It was amazing how much area we were able to clear in only 4 hours. Not to mention it was fun getting to know people from work outside of the office setting. Even found out another girl in my org is getting more into triathlon and is doing her first olympic next weekend :)

Anyway they had lots of sanwiches, fruit, veggies, treats and lots of water waiting for us when were done for lunch. Which was really good because I was feeling a little light headed from sweating so much and only having 1 bottle of gatorade - oh and I still needed to ride home.
It was not totally clear what we were doing next but to everyone's pleasure they told us to head out and enjoy the rest of the day off and start the weekend early. (Both of my bosses had already told me to do that but it was still cool).

I got back on my bike and headed home.
The ride home was more of a challenge then usual - especially the last mile that is all uphill. I was kind of surprised how tired I was. I guess I will spend the rest of the day trying to rehydrate... But really the day has been pretty great and a wonderful way to start the weekend.

101 miles

Yesterday while Tivo was recording the 1st stage of the Tour de France I headed out with a great group of people from Pauole Sport Team - Laurie, Greg, Jodie, Deanna, Darren and myself - all but me are training for Ironman Canada in August. Laurie was our trusty navigator and she planned a great route on back roads with a good mix of hills and flats. The best part was at 7a it was warm enough to wear just a sleeveless jersey - no arm warmers or anything :)
We headed out from Laurie's house and within 3 miles Darren got a flat - since I knew the route pretty well I held back with him and Deanna. He fixed it really quickly and we were back at it. I guess Greg and Jodie rode past the first turn off and Laurie was questioning how to deal with a the group splitting.

We all grouped back up together at the turn up the plateau for the long climb on Thomson Road. Once up the long climb we turned toward Beaver lake poor Darren his aero bottle broke loose and all his fluid poured out.. He was just getting everything out of the way early.. So we stopped a mile or so down the road at Beaver lake Park to refill water bottles..
We headed down one of my favorite climbs - stair step hill. I'm happy to say I have gotten a lot better at downhills and was able to stay in the middle of the group. Greg and Jodie led and missed the turn so they got a little bit extra milage again (this happened a few more times esp to Greg). We took back roads up past Snoqulamie falls and up to the truck stop in North Bend with some good climbs and a lot of false flats.
At some point the sponge in my aero bottle slipped down and no longer helped block the gatarade from splattering all over the place - I found this out after refilling the bottle and quickly taking a gatorade shower until I stopped and fixed it.. I had no plain water with me so I wound up licking my hands as much as I could to help get rid of the sticky feeling. Now I had a good sugar coating to go with all the salt I was sweating so as we passed the Snoqualmie river a few times I was very very temped to jump in and rinse off.
As we headed back down into the valley we had to take a short detour through Carnation for a 4th of July parade. We got to see horses and it smelled of festival food.. mmm pure torture while I ate "yummy" gel...
We rolled through Carnation valley and a short out and back to the the climb back towards Redmond via Union hill. I actually loved this part. I had not dropped everything on the erst of the climbs just so that i could redeem myself from last weekend where I hit the wall on these hills. So this week I was so happy my legs worked with me and climbed really well. I pulled a bit away from the group until the downhills where they caught back up as usual. Just reminded me how much I like climbing :)
Next up was a final 20 miles around Lake Sammamish just to finish off the century with nothing to hard. I was just sop happy to be able to rinse off my hands a bit at Marymoore park. Deanna and Darren separated and finished off there ride on the trail.
Around mile 90 the stickiness of my bike and everything finally broke me of any desire to drink gatorade which quickly led to me hitting wall.. I did not want to eat or drink anything other than plain water. So the last 10 miles I dropped back from Laurie, Greg and Jodie and just chilled the rest of the way around the lake to Laurie's house.
Laurie and Jodie head out on a :30 run off the bike while Greg and I jumped in the lake to cool/rinse off with recovery chocolate milk in hand.

Laurie was nice enough to send out the elevations graph from the route :)



I am very happy with how I did on my first century ride since doing IMC in 2007 and even better I rode a lot strong and lasted a lot longer than last weekend :) Other than getting tired of sticky food at the end my nutrition did well for me. I have found that I need to eat something "solid" about half way so I tried a mini powerbar and then a mini cliff bar an hour later which were both good because they are small enough to eat in a bite or two and helped keep my stomach settled. But by far the best part was riding with such a fun group of people. Laurie, Greg and Jodie made a great little pack and were really nice to let me tag along :)