2012, Where Art Thou?

So the 2012 season has begun with a bang.  I did my first race of the season last weekend, back to the original scene of crime where I broke the podium for the first time in a half Ironman.  But things did not quite go according to plan this time, and I came 4th.  Out of a start list of 77.  Which I suppose is not bad, all things considered....

But the season began before that.  I decided I would do things a bit differently this year.  I hired myself a swim coach, and brought myself on a solo training camp.  All this after I hired a coach in September 2010.  The training camp was great, one week of training and resting in Fuerteventura, with a fantastic view to wake up to.

And nothing I liked more than tucking into fresh seafood...

That I bought when visiting the supermarket every day!!

But the week away was great.  All I had to focus on was training, and recovering.  Covered over 25 hours of training during the week, and many more hours resting, sleeping and chilling out.  A big boost to my fitness, and a much needed "hill work" injection to my training regime.

Back in Esbjerg for 3 weeks, and all too soon race day loomed.  But not before a few hard parties of drinking beer....

So the first race of the season was on Mallorca.  We arrived fairly early in the day, and checked out Palma which we missed the previous year.

But before I got down to business, I decided I needed a hair cut so my long hair would not flap about on my back.  21 Euros later, and I had a new haircut....

And after that it was serious business of testing out equipment before the race.....  I operate on a "no surprises" policy when racing, and like to test all equipment out before hand.

All calm before the storm of race day itself, where things start looking REALLY serious!  I had had a compact drive train fitted, and was looking forward to reaping the benefits on the climbs...

Gotta love Transition on the morning of the race....  The music and commentary all adds to the atmosphere and the tension.  As they say, "It is a war, not a race"....

You know the game has changed when you set out hoping to win.  Makes the morning a different, more serious affair.  I must confess that I was nervous.  What have I set myself up to?!

I even did a warm up, half an hour before the start of the race!!  I was the only one in the water at the time....

But I forgot to anticipate the obvious, foggy goggles!  I got caught up in a washing machine start and lost the plot.  I came out of the water slower than the previous year, and was slightly disappointed.

Thankfully my bike has improved significantly, and I did not lose much time to my female competitors this time.  On the contrary, I managed to over take many girls on the bike thanks to my lousy swim!! Unfortunately the weather was hot, and I sort of lost my nutrition plot by forgetting to take energy drink as planned.

On to the run, and I tried to stick to my plan.  Run 4:25-4:30 to start with, and pick it up after 13-15k.  Didn't quite work out that way.  Blasted a 4:00 first km, forced myself to slow down, settled into a 4:23 pace for a few km.  Then started to feel shit and slowed down....  And then was very surprised that when I took a gel I felt much better!!

I then realised that I had run out of energy (again, I did the same in Roth) and decided I needed to take more calories at the next aid station.  Too few aid stations, and the aid stations were a war zone.  People fighting for cups and sponges, not quite ideal.  Walked (fought) through a few aid stations, and ran my way to 4th place in my category, 9th amateur woman overall.

Important lessons learnt, hopefully all will be smoothed out before my 1st big goal of 2012.  I can't say I am too disappointed.  If I had played everything right there might have been a chance I could have been 2nd.  So 4th is not too bad.  Next challenge:  Winning my category at Challenge Aarhus.  Game on!!

An Honour to Race - the Bigger Picture

I am REALLY bad at keeping this blog up to date. So apologies, and let's take a look at what's on my mind today....

I noticed when logging on for the first time in 9 months, that my last post was about my first Iron distance race. Funnily enough, that is what I am back to write about today.

Today, I stumbled upon this, and it brought back an unexpected flood of memories....

You see, my first Iron distance race did not go according to plan. I suffered some bad stomach cramps on the run, and walked through every aid station until 30k. Then somehow I cheered up and ran from 30k all the way back to the finish (42k) non stop. But that was enough to throw my plan out of the window. I had hoped for a sub 10:30 finish, but finished closer to 10:50. Not exactly disastrous, enough to make me so disappointed that I forgot the bigger picture.

Even winning a trophy in the team category did not cheer me up....

But watching the video today, I remember now.... It was a good day. A very cool race where 150,000 people lined the street to cheer on us, the competitors.

A race that I trained hard for, for months, some times alone, some times with friend... A week spent living in Germany with a group of Danes (and a French boyfriend), people I now call friends, family even...

It was a fantastic experience that I had managed to "forget" about, just because I had lost 20 minutes of race time. Today I will try to remember what I forgot....

Coming from a country where the average person thinks "Ironman" is the title of a movie, and where the average person would have a heart attack if they knew how much my bike costs (my mother included), I should be honoured to stand at the start line of any race. That I have come so far as to stand at the start line is an achievement in itself.

Taking the time and commitment to train for and race an Iron distance race is no small feat. Weekends are sacrificed (how else do you pull off an 8 hour training day?!), and a lifestyle is compromised. Thankfully, some partners are easier to appease than others.

I guess what I am trying to say is that there is a bigger picture than the results you see on a race day. People have been trying to explain this to me for a while now but I never quite got it. I do now. A sub optimal performance on a race day is not all doom and gloom as I thought it was. It was a day of experiences, shared with good people, a day to remember, regardless of the outcome. So finally, I am at peace with my first Iron distance race.

It was a day with an amazing start line.....

And an equally amazing after-party, with a bunch of amazing people....

So today I am proud at last, of something I achieved in August 2011. Too bad I was too short sighted to see it back then....

Just keep swimming

In 6 days I will do my first Ironman. Today I got to thinking about mental strategies, and here is what I came up with....

SWIM
I am not a very good swimmer, although I have improved a lot over the last few months. I thought this would be a funny mantra for me, click on picture below for more details:

BIKE

I am not a very good biker other, and it is normal for people (girls) to go past me on the bike.

But, because I know I am a good runner, I should keep thinking "Alrighty then, I'll see you later on the run!".

RUN

And this is where the fun begins for me. Now, it is all a matter of "Run them down, one by one!!"

I'll see you at the finish line!!

First half Ironman podium finish - the end of an era?

I always believed that in order to do well in triathlon, I needed to take at least 5 minutes off my (1.5k) swim time..... People told me that it would be "difficult", and that "it could take years" to achieve it. But apparently nothing is impossible - I took more than 5 minutes off my swim time from my last race in November, to take my first ever Ironman 70.3 trophy! Wheeee! :D

But where did the story leave off the last time? With a new Ironman 70.3 PB under my belt, 2011 started with a bang, some snow.... and some unplanned injuries! Minor niggles (foot, ankle, calf) prevented me from much hard running training, and before I knew it, April and the Paris marathon rolled around...

Stine and I signed up for this ages ago, but I forgot to ask Mr Coach what he thought! Turns out that running a marathon a month before a big half Ironman race was a bad idea, so I did part of the run "for fun". I ran a fun 25.5k in under 2 hours, and then stopped to be a spectator!

Also worth mentioning is that I did manage to get my first multisport race for 2011 in the weekend before Paris! I completed the Jels duathlon with much grumbling and discontent, as I battled the wind and the "Danish hills" to take the place of 2nd woman overall and 2nd in my category. Someone took a funky picture of me at this race!!

April turned to May, and my parents arrived for their visit to Denmark. Then it was off to Majorca for my first half Ironman of 2011. With only one long training week of just under 14 hours in 2011 when most of my friends had been doing 15-20 hours per week for months, I was full of trepidation. Could I really do a half Ironman with the training I had done? Had I trained too little / too much / too hard?!

Apparently not!! Triathletes like to write "race reports" which goes to the nth degree of detail. As a policy I don't do that on my blog and this will be no exception. So to cut a long story short....

The swim was in the sea, where the water was pleasantly cool and clear, off a beautiful beach in the bay of Alcudia.

I thought I had blown the swim since the 2nd half was getting slower and slower, so imagine my surprise when I clocked 31:55 instead of my expected 40 minutes!!

The bike was a hilly course, and many people came past me, including a handful of girls. But the course was 5k too short, and I landed in Transition 2, stuck in my shoes!

On to the run, my best discipline, and it was a matter of running the girls down, one by one.

I started too fast, and started to hurt at the halfway mark. I wanted to slow down, but I could hear the voice of my coach calling me an "amateur" if I did. So I pressed on. At the final 500m, II spied a woman ahead of me, about to finish too.

Somewhere deep in me I found the "final gear", and overtook her with a flying 15+km/h sprint down the finish chute! My parents were waiting for me at the finish, and handed me my Malaysian flag for the final sprint...

It was so so cool. I knew I had done well, but I had no idea how well! "Top 10 woman" according to Alex after, and "3rd or 4th in your category". Wow, that is so cool!!

So I did it! 3rd in my category, 8th woman age grouper. 3rd fastest woman age grouper run for the day. All thanks to the new training regime of Mr Coach. Whoa! It was a good day for the lone Malaysian competitor....

Next up, Challenge Roth, my first full distance Ironman!! :)

Welcome to SubOpt Tri! The journey of a thousand steps... begins with a blog!

Welcome to SubOpt Tri! Those of you who have read my blog before would notice that I have cheated and recycled my old posts here. Yes and no. I decided that I want to spend more time writing about my tri adventures, and my old blog was never aimed at that. So I've given my blog a makeover and a new name. As of today, we are SubOpt Tri! And don't ask me who "we" is, I don't know!

So where did the name come from.... Chrissie Wellington has used the word "suboptimal" a few times in her Twitter (@chrissiesmiles) posts. Coming from someone as dominant as she is in her sport, I find it quite ironic. But it made me think, how life can't be perfect, and often, we are stuck in "suboptimal" circumstances. As of today, I have a swollen foot, the weather is crap and I have been sleeping badly. Hardly optimal circumstances for an aspiring triathlete!

But it could be worse, and I am certainly not complaining. After all, 2010 was a fantastic year of opportunities. Settling into my Danish life, bagging a bronze medal at the European Champs duathlon, racing in Hawaii for my 30th birthday and qualifying for the World Champs Ironman 70.3, racing in the long distance Danish Champs and coming 2nd, and finally smashing my previous best time by 20 minutes in the World Champs Ironman 70.3.

So my quest for 2011..... I signed up for my first full Ironman (Challenge Roth). With the help of my coach, I hope 2011 will bring more speed, and less suboptimal performance! Ok, so I might have to rename my blog if that happens, suggestions welcome... ;)

Solution to hours on an indoor trainer - Twitter! (and other forms of mind manipulation)

I have been asked a few times, how I motivate myself to spend hours on an indoor trainer. The amusing (and quite serious) answer is... Twitter! Ok not quite, but I have found a way to mount my laptop within reach of my tribars....

I follow various triathlon superstars on Twitter, and I keep myself entertained reading linked posts, etc on the Internet whilst cycling. I followed the live telecast of IM Arizona. I haunt triathlon magazine websites for the latest news in training and racing. Yes yes, all a bit geeky. :)

Worth noting that actual browsing is limited when faced with interval efforts. Reading with minimal scrolling works, but nothing mouse-clicking intensive! Which brings me to my next point....

At this point in time, my training sessions are not particularly long, but they are intensity focussed. In other words, I spend most of my bike sessions doing intervals. You need to know your heart rate zones, here is a guide if you do not: http://www.ultracycling.com/training/heart_rate_training_zones.html If you don't know your LT, 220 minus your age is a good start.

Aim for longer intervals in zone 3 (e.g. 3x 20 mins or 2x 30 mins) and shorter intervals in zone 3 building into zone 4 (e.g. 3x 15 mins). Include a warm up (~20 mins) and some strength work (low cadence ~50rpm in zone 3) and you get about 1.5 hours of a workout. :) Top it off with a 30-40 minute run, and you have a 2 hour+ quality workout.

Don't forget a towel to mop up the sweat..... ;)

Ironman Fever - 10/10/10

Today is the 10th of October 2010. Yesterday was the 2010 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. Having developed a recent heightened interest in triathlon, I followed the race coverage with great interest. Technology allowed me to watch the race, live, for as long as I liked (or could deal with having an American voice in my apartment). :)

Biggest shock when I read that Chrissie Wellington, reigning triple world champion and my biggest hero, had pulled out of the race due to illness. Chrissie is, without a shadow of doubt, the best female triathlete at long distances, in the world today. The woman is a tough cookie, who does not think that merely winning a race is good enough. She is out there to push all boundaries, to challenge contemporary belief that men are stronger than women.

And yet, she did not race yesterday. So a new World Champion was crowned today (because I live in the wrong time zone). Similarly, on the men's race, 37 year old Chris McCormack beat the odds to win his 2nd World Champion title, not bad for someone scientists dismissed as "you'll never be World Champion".

All this brings me to an interesting observation. That really, anything could happen, in this wonderful sport I race called triathlon. So many ways a race could go right or wrong, anything is possible really.

Against some strange and wonderful odds, I have ended up here today. 3rd in my age group category in the European championships duathlon. 2nd in my age group in the Danish long triathlon. Top 10 finish in the world championship duathlon for the run segments. And in one month's time, I will see where I place in the world, in half Ironman.

Which brings me to the point of this whole entry. I think the time has come for things to get serious in triathlon for me. "For fun" was a good philosophy for the last 4 years, but I think I want more. And what better day than the 10/10/10 to make a decision like this.

I solemnly declare, today, on the 10th of October 2010, that I will try my utmost best, to return to Hawaii. Not to do a half Ironman as I did in June this year, but to participate in The Real Thing, the Ironman world championship. A long road lies ahead of me.... but Game On! Let The Challenge begin.

I am 30, and it is 10/10/10, by any calendar convention. A good sign.