Secondly, I am back to self-coaching. This came about for a few reasons, and while I wasn't totally sure about it at first, it's actually turning out to be okay. As a planner and a huge, self-confessed control freak, I am finding that I'm really happy to have complete control over my calendar again. Also, I've gotten a lot better at talking myself through the crazy. You know, the myopic, irrational crazy that takes over every athlete's inner voice at various times during training, and pretty much always during taper. Previously when I was self-coaching, the crazy would take over. This round, though, I've found a way to tell myself the same things I tell my athletes when their crazy takes over. That's been pretty cool.
Lastly, I didn't do a single training ride outdoors. So, yes, I know that's a horrible strategy, and as much as I'm a giant chicken about riding outside (especially if I haven't done it in a while), it was not my intention to train solely indoors. Colorado had a shockingly cold and snowy fall - the snowiest since I've lived here - and that forced most of my long rides indoors. Then the one day when the weather was cooperating and I was going to ride long outdoors, I woke up with vertigo. And I figured that balance is generally an important thing while riding a bicycle, so I played it safe and stayed indoors. All in all, not ideal, but it was what it was.
My Race Plan
By far, this was the biggest difference in my race. I had ultimately signed up for Indian Wells because I was coming off of a long string of disappointing races, and I need a "win" before IMTX in April. While I knew intrinsically what I needed to get out of race day, for weeks leading into the race I could only articulate my race goal as "don't suck," which was both vague and inaccurate.When my teammate asked what my race goals were literally the night before the race, I was finally able to state them more clearly. I told her that my goals weren't really about the clock or my pace, but rather on how I wanted to feel during the race. I wanted - needed - to feel like I had agency over my day, like I could choose how hard to push and how much discomfort I was willing to put up with, and that my success was based on my choices in execution and effort and totally within my control. I needed to overwrite my experiences from past races of feeling helpless in the face of massive glycogen depletion or major bike psycho trauma or my stupid inner voice telling me to stop.
The Morning
The logistics for the entire morning went really smoothly, and we were at the race site with plenty of time to spare. Which is why I cannot understand how I once again / as always was racing to put on my wetsuit while rushing to the swim queue and didn't get the damn thing fully on until right before the pro start. I think I have some sort of pathological need to not be early, and I really have to work on that.Beyond that, what was notable was my calm (at least, I was calm other than when I was rushing to get my wetsuit on and queue up). I kept telling myself that it was just a training day, just another long workout. I kept thinking about Choice and Opportunity, and focused on the choices I wanted to make in the swim and on the bike. I wasn't even looking far enough ahead to think about the run.
The Swim - 34:13 / 8th AG
At masters on Thursday (all of 3 days before race day), our coach had us do a kind of random "drill" where we swam fly for half a length then finished out with free, trying to incorporate the butterfly catch and finish into our freestyle stroke. I don't know what kind of magic she was sprinkling on deck but I'll be damned if that didn't double the power in my stroke and drop 5 seconds off my 100 time. For the entire practice. So my execution focus for the swim was to find that same weird butterfree technique and hold power in my stroke for the entire 1.2 miles.Thankfully I was focused on that and not the water temperature, which was really fucking cold. They said the water temp race morning was 59.8° but either they lied or I really don't like cold water. The weird thing was that when I first put my face in the water it wasn't that horrible shock that cold water can be. I didn't have to bob my face in and out or anything like that, but about 100yds in my face and hands hurt from the cold. By the first turn, the hurt had thankfully gone but my face and hands and feet were super cold, and they stayed that way until ... later that morning maybe?
T1 - 5:51
There's no real excuse for my T1 time other than the fact that I was cold as fuck and my hands didn't work so well and it just took me a few beats to collect myself and get my shit together. Also, they cram a ludicrous number of bikes on the racks and so when I was trying to take my bike off, my base bars went right through the spokes of the wheel of the bike next to mine, and it was a process to untangle those suckers. So I guess I do have one excuse then.The Bike - 2:53:18 / 28th AG
One thing I had discovered/remembered during my pre-race mini-ride the day prior was that during my first few rides outdoors each season, I tend to underestimate my effort level. I'll be riding along thinking I'm solidly at ___ watts, and I'm inevitably 10W below that. I don't know if it's because I'm not used to the visual of the road rushing by, I spend too much time riding in erg mode, or because I'm convinced that air resistance is actually a headwind, but the same thing happened last spring so I know there's a cause-effect relationship.Because of that, my execution goal on the bike (in addition to nailing my fueling) was to really pay attention to my watts and ride as close to my 80% target as possible. All things considered, I think I did pretty well. My ride average was just a few watts shy of my goal, which may at least in part be explained by the dramatic and prolonged drop in power I experienced each and every time I turned a corner (another wonderful side effect of training indoors).
So while this wasn't my best 70.3 bike ever, or necessarily even the best I could do on that particular course, this was a "win" in terms of what I needed to accomplish on that day. Throughout the 56 miles, I consistently brought myself back to my race goal, and focused on my Choice to ride at the watts I was hitting. Yes, they were a few shy of what I wanted to see - I knew this the whole time - but that was my Choice. I could choose to push harder if I wanted to, and I acknowledged that I wasn't choosing that option. But the point was that I was in control and actively making decisions, rather than feeling like I had no ability to dictate my day.
T2 - 3:39
This one at least was short and sweet. It would've been longer if I'd hit the port o potty, but the four heading out of T2 were full and there were already a few people waiting and fuck if I was just going to stand around. The squelching in my shoes only lasted a mile or so. 😳The Run - 2:04:55 / 28th AG
Everyone knows that the run is what matters - if you have a solid run, you're happy with your day. If you fall apart on the run, not so much. Beyond not falling apart, my execution goal was to have ideally four gears on the run - 4 miles in first gear, 3 in second, 3 in third, and the final 5k in my top gear. If second and third gear kinda blended into a single gear, that was okay, but I need to start easy, stay moderate in the middle, and finish strong.
I didn't want to get my head messed up by knowing my pace, because inevitably I look at my watch and either freak out because I think I'm running too fast or get discouraged because I can't believe how slow I am. So as soon as I started running, I switched my watch data screen to a pre-set miles-only display, and never once looked at a mile split.And there started the most mentally positive and present run I've had in maybe my entire life. Within the first mile I noted that my legs didn't feel great. But that's all I did - I noted it. I didn't panic, I didn't immediately turn to doomsday thinking, I was just aware of it. And I stayed aware of it, even as my legs got a bit crankier the final 5 miles or so, but that was it. Just awareness.
All I really thought about was my effort level - was it where I needed it to be now so that I could increase it later - and my fueling. When to eat a gel block, what I was going to take in at the next aid station, whether I was going to run through it or walk for a minute to down a more substantial amount of fluids. I didn't think almost at all about how much further I had to run (usually a constant, overwhelming thought) and I don't think I even looked at my watch to check the distance between mile markers until I was past mile 10. I wasn't phased by the absolutely relentless undulations of the 3 miles of golf cart paths on each loop of the run. Just: Effort Level. Fueling. Choice. Opportunity. (Sadly, Sheer Force of Will had dropped off at some point.)
By the final 5k, I was pushing the pace as best I could, and I was able to pick up the pace just a bit - but I didn't have that strong final gear that I was hoping for (not a big surprise, I would've told you based on my training that I had developed good endurance but not a ton of speed). Instead of getting discouraged, though, I felt good about the fact that my middle 6 miles had been so strong.
Cue the final mile. I took one last gulp of water at the aid station (okay maybe that was an excuse to catch my breath), stayed steady up the hill, then kicked it to the finish. I was mentally counting down the final few tenths of a mile, and visualized the last few turns to the finish. I hit the second-to-last turn - damn that final stretch is longer than I thought! - and made that last turn into the finisher's chute.
Overall - 5:41:56 / 24th AG
I hadn't remembered my swim split, kind of knew my T1, bike, and T2 splits, but had absolutely no idea what my run paces were or what my run split might be. And I had spent zero minutes doing any math to predict what my overall time would be (yet another first). I did know that the clock showed 7:16am as I was approaching the swim start, so I knew that I was 16+ minutes behind the race clock.I was thrilled when I rounded the final corner to the finish, saw the race clock, and realized that I'd actually beat my that-would-be-a-solid-day time guesstimate. I had no idea how thrilled, though, until I saw my finisher pics. Damn, I was happy! And apparently very surprised.
Having had some time to reflect on the day, I'm still really pleased with how everything played out. I got exactly what I needed out of my day and posted a time comparable with other solid races. I know where I have room for improvement, and have specific ideas about how to address those before my next race. One thing I won't change though, is my race mantra. That primed a really good mental state that I would love to repeat.