I am honored and proud to be a Mind Over Matter Alpha for the 2023 season!
This will be my second year as part of the team, and I’m hopeful that I can continue to self-shrink into the Tri kit.
I’m still waiting for a proper ‘visit’ from the M/M mascot, Ms. Primm (@adventures_of_primmcakes)… 🙂
I am honored and proud to be part of the Kiwami Racing Team (North America) for the 2023 season!
This will be my second year as part of the team. I’m looking forward to a strong season when I can make full use of the Tri kit as the self-shrinking has been successful! 🙂
Welcome to Santa Claus, IL… um, I mean the Santa Rotary run.
About 5 years ago, one of my guides mentioned this race in Arlington Heights. I did it in 2019 for the first time, and had so much fun. It’s become one of my standard winter races at this point.
For 2022’s race, you couldn’t try the suits on (due to the pandemic), so I had to guess on sizing. Even though I had shrunk a bit at that point, I still went with the same size as in the past since I had to guess. That was a bad choice, as I’ll explain later. [For reference, the Santa suit was over an Under Armour base layer and Saucony running pants / t-shirt.]
As I’ve mentioned in the past, pacing was a concern. So Natalie made sure that we kept things fairly slow for mile 1, and started to negative split from there. Mile 1 went great, and mile 2 was decent. And then the wardrobe malfunctions began…
When we started running at a decent pace for the final mile, first the Santa pants started coming down. After stopping to fix them twice, I gave up and stripped them off. However, that didn’t stop the issue. The running pants were also too large, and started coming off as we ran.
While I haven’t found them, I am certain that there are some very ‘interesting’ photos of us coming into the finish line with me holding up the running pants so that I’m decent. Yes, I did have on the UA tights, but I didn’t want it to get to that level…
Even with the wardrobe challenges, I still felt that it was a solid race and a great way to end the 2022 running season!
The FraidyCat races have been one of my consistent fall running races. While I did the 10K at one point, I’ve primarily focused on the 5Ks.
The 2022 race was my first chance to use the new Hoka shoes in a 5K. It was also an opportunity to put into practice everything that I had learned at the Welcome 2 Running camp.
One of my biggest challenges in all 3 disciplines of Triathlon is going out too fast. In swimming and cycling, I can usually compensate and ‘smooth the curve’. But in running, if I end up going out too fast, it can bonk the race later on.
Knowing this, I had asked John to watch the pace. Unconciously, multiple times during the first mile I was in the 9:30-10:00 / mi range. That’s at least 3 min faster than the target had been. And that was with him telling me I was going too fast, allowing myself to correct the pace, and then unconciously going back to a too-fast pace.
Needless to say, things started falling apart after the first mile. The second mile was a respectable mix of run and run/walk. However, the last 1.1 was a choppy walk/run at best.
While it wasn’t the race I wanted, I did at least confirm that the Hokas worked and that they will be the right shoe going forward!
(Photo courtesy of Blake)
As I’ve mentioned in the past, the run leg has been where I’ve struggled the most. So when the opportunity to participate in a run-specific camp with Team Catapult presented itself, I jumped at it.
Day 1 of camp started with a run gait analysis, followed by a shake out run before dinner. Both of these were done in the new Hoka shoes that were generously provided. After dinner, Oofos added the recovery sandals into our gear. These will be incredibly helpful as I continue running more and longer.
Day 2 included run training and two specific runs (moderate and faster pace) along with strength, yoga and nutrition sessions.. Almost 8 years in, I still am NOT a fan of Yoga, but the instructor did an amazing job.. I learned a lot from the nutrition session, and got a fair amount out of the strength session.
The first run session of the day started with drills (active warmup such as butt kickers and the like) followed by intervals. The second session was more of a longer run at medium pace, and the last session of the day was doing loops around a neighborhood at a faster pace. I’ll admit now (and I told the coach on the way back) that I was hiding the vomit to avoid being pulled from the run session. Especially as I was able to have a conversation 5-10 seconds on either side of it, I was confident that it was just my body not being used to that pace vs. anything being wrong.
At the end of Day 2, we all ended up in the pool. It was honestly one of the strangest and most mesmerising things I’ve ever experienced. When you went under the water, you could clearly hear music that wasn’t audible at or above the surface. Think of The Sirens from the Odyssey… I did want to try the 25 ft water slide in the dark, but by the time I got up the nerve, it had closed for the night.
The camp concluded on Day 3 with a relay (coaches and athletes). I believe each team had athletes from each type (amputee, VI, WC), with the coach being the anchor. I also believe that it was a 1/4 mile loop for each member of the relay.
When it was our turn, I had to trust Blake (my guide) tremendously. Whether it wasn’t fully light or it was overcast, it was hard to see. While it was only 1/4 mile, I still treated that last 50 yards or so like a normal finishing chute. There’s a great video floating around of our leg finish.
This was a great weekend, and I learned a lot. I came away having formed new friendships, gained knowledge and picked up some really great gear that will get used from here on out. And I will be switching to Hokas going forward — I can definitely feel the difference.
THANK YOU to Team Catapult for putting this event on and to ALL of the sponsor!
In the early part of 2015, Naperville was supposed to be my ‘one and done’ Tri. As I’ve talked about in the past, it was simply a springboard to the next 75 Tris…
Going into the race, I was still a bit ‘shaky’ from the crash in The Woodlands and the issues in Hammond. But I had a strong pilot and guide for the race, which helped to calm some of the nerves.
While Centennial Beach is a great venue for the race, it’s a challenge to get a car close to after 90 minutes prior to transition opening (so say after 5 AM). While we had a plan (Todd riding the bike solo and me taking an Uber), it didn’t go off as smothly as hoped because the Uber had trouble getting relatively close.
We were able to regroup and get transition set up just in time. After having a few minutes to say hello to Coach Joe and friends, we headed over towards the beach to wait for the swim start.
In 2015 and for a couple years after, I was almost the first one in (after the Elites). While this was good in theory, it also meant that those who could legitimately swim 65 second / 100s were climbing over us within the first 50m. To try and combat this, I moved further back in 19. Even though we were about 2/3rds of the way back, the ‘swim over’ issues still occurred. So for this year, we decided to try being the final adult Triathletes into the water.
While this worked better than in years past, and we passed a fair number of people, there were still issues. After all these races, I accept that there are going to be arm strikes and unintentional one-off ‘swim overs’ in every race. It just happens as you’re going full speed.
But what happened at about the 2nd to last turn was far beyond unacceptable. For about 3-4 full cycles (meaning a good 20-30 seconds), someone not only was fully on top of me, but they kept going on top. I would subtly nudge them off, and they’d be back on top of me less than 5 seconds later.
Even with those issues, we made it out of the water successfully and into T1. I had told Todd that I needed to keep the curves a bit speed conservative given the nerves after The Woodlands.
The bike itself was uneventful. We passed a large number of people and got the standard smart-assed ‘that’s cheating’ responses as we passed some (to which my response always is ‘I’ll trade you the tandem for your eyes…’) Even with keeping things conservative, we were able to take advantage of some of the ‘straighter’ downhills.
Going into the race, I had decided to try a different tact for the run. In the past, I had started running at run out and had pushed things up the hill that goes from within the Riverwalk path up to Jefferson and over the bridge. As that had led to me being spent by mile 1, I planned to run the flat part from run out to the base of the hill and speed walk until we were over the bridge.
This seemed to work well, and even with a run / walk due to the heat, it seemed to be better overall.
Although I was still working through the issues I mentioned in Hammond, Naperville seemed to be a solid race. Thank you to Todd for guiding me!
Since 2019, Team Catapult has continually provided amazing opportunities for me.
This has included opportunities to do some amazing ‘comfortably uncomfortable’ things. From being part of the Texas INdependence Relay (TIR) and running in the dark down two lane country roads to 25 ft platform diving in the dark and so much more. In addition to those group opportunities, their support has opened up individual opportunities for me.
Because of their continued support, I have the opportunity to get individual swim coaching. THANK YOU Team Catapult for your continued support!
I have contstantly struggled with finding running guides for practices. While I had a routine with a few in 2020, the Pandemic killed that. Post-pandemic, many of those haven’t been able to guide for practices.
In the past, treadmills have not worked for me. Part of it has been the narrow running band surfaces; part of it has been my inability to read the ‘video game’ type displays due to my vision issues. But I believed that if I could find a more accessible treadmill, things might work better.
Because of the USA Triathlon Foundation’s generous support, I now have that accessible treadmill! I was able to find one (made by Horizon Fitness) that has the old-school number display, a wide running band and easy to use controls. I am extremely grateful to have it, and I look forward to getting a lot out of the treadmill and improving my run!
Right before I left for Charleston, I was hit with some very unpleasant news. As it was fresh, I was able to ignore it in SC. However, that wasn’t the case in IN two weeks later…
As in past years, I was in Hammond the day before with Dare2Tri, and helped out at their Injured Military Camp. In the afternoon, I had a chance to get the bike set up and practice with Lee. During the swim practice, the tether (newly created in SC) kept slipping. As it had stayed relatively stable during the SC race, I was hopeful that I’d have better luck the next day.
Race morning started off as usual — watching the motorcade bring the Dare2Tri camp in, getting transition set up, and seeing Leon as we all went down to start. While treading water prior to the start, I felt good about the race. If only it had gone that way…
During the swim, the tether slipped several times. I also remember having to stop a few times because of breathing issues. While all of that was going on, I was having a ‘me vs. me’ struggle in the water. Since a guide is my eyes, I’m focused on just proper breathing and proper stroke / position. This gave my mind a lot of time to wander. And unfortunately, it wandered to what had been going on outside of racing.
When we made it out of the water and towards T1, I tried to push all of that back down and refocus on the race. In the period between swim out and entering T1, I managed to succeed. But as I made it into T1, the dam broke and a massive panic attack hit.
While I tried for 15 minutes, I just couldn’t get past it. As much as I wanted to continue racing, I just wasn’t in the right mindspace. I knew how unsafe it would be to try and get on the bike in that frame of mind, so I eventually threw in the towel.
As we were walking equipment back, Lee and I were stopped by a photographer. She said that she’d been photographing each of the finishes. Even though I had a DNF for the race, we found a way so she could get a photo of us close to the finish.
I don’t know what the rest of the season will hold. There are some things bigger than racing that I need to deal with before the next race.
(Photo courtesy of Paul)
As you may remember, Mother Nature was NOT kind to me the last time I visited the Carolinas to race. Apparently she didn’t get the memo that just because I was from the Chicago area didn’t mean that she needed to provide Chicago-style weather (32 degrees) for the race start… And the hits [almost] kept on coming for this trip…
Before heading down to Charleston for the race Sunday, Paul helped me to do the USAT Para Combine. Two weeks out from the crash, my knee was maybe 80% at best. And that missing 20% was the crucial hinging part. If I had to guess, I was only able to get about a 25-30 degree lift instead of the normal 90. Even still, the first ~550 of the 800 runs was OK. As we came to the back half of the 2nd lap, a gentleman joined us and ran in the rest with us. It was extremely helpful to have that distraction, especially during the end 20-40 yards when I didn’t think I could finish without falling down. All in all, it was on par with where I was prior to the Pandemic (11:40 / mi).
Having finished the run, we headed to the pool for the 300yd swim. As with the run, the hinging motion reared its head. This time, it caused real problems getting into and out of the pool. But as I kept warming up, I got a little more flexibility each time. We started the actual test as soon as I could get a full extension/push off the wall, and the times were a little better than when I was pre-Pandemic (2:24/100).
One other piece that we addressed before heading down was the new swim tether. It had been about a year of struggles since most of the similar tether had gotten lost in the Gulf of Mexico. The key feature of the new tether is that I’m not having to either shorten the stroke OR hit the connection.
As I mentioned, Mother Nature did not play nicely in April. With all of the rain on the way down to Charleston (including a couple of points where it was like a faucet had been turned on full blast), I was concerned that we’d be racing in the rain. Thankfully, we got a clear window Sunday morning to race in.
On race morning, packet pickup and set up went extremely smoothly. The only hiccup was that the bottom part of the tether kept slipping. Paul helped to triage it, and we got ready to race.
While the tether did come partially off a couple of times during the swim due to these issues, it felt to be a much smoother swim. I did find an unintended fix after the 2nd time, and it stayed in place after that.
T1 took a little longer, but we made it out onto the bike with a strong mount. As this was my next race after the crash in TX, there were a lot of nerves early on. Paul helped with that, and we did take the corners a lot slower than normal. As a comparison, I know that we were taking corners at 22+ last year in Cypress. If we took any at greater than 15 in Charleston, I’d be surprised. But it was all about being safe. I know that I’ll get back to being comfortable again in the near future. And even with the slower corners, it was still a strong (~19mph) bike.
Coming off the bike, we had a solid T2 and then headed out onto the run. Given the knee issues, Paul had come up with a plan of a 60s/90s-120s run/walk pattern. Even though the overall time was about 8 minutes slower than where I would like to be, going this route ensured that we finished with a respectable time. I truly believe that if we had tried for a normal run that mile 1 would have been about 13, and then I would have been in so much pain that we would have had to walk the rest.
As I can never make out the course maps, I rely on my guides. So I had no idea that we would loop through the area near the transition between loops 1 and 2. That energy, and all of the people cheering for us, helped so much.
Post-race, Nick front the Charleston County Parks took the time to interview us. I really appreciate everything that Allison had done pre-race and race morning to help things go smoothly, and we were glad to talk with him.
While there were a lot of positives from this race, there were also several things I need to focus on improving. One of those is going back to wearing gloves on the bike. About 5 years ago, I went away from those for Sprint races. However, I believe it’s once again worth the extra 30 seconds between T1 and T2 to have that comfort in the bike.
Thanks to Paul for guiding and all of his help throughout the weekend. And thanks to Para Guide for all of their help and support! If you’d like to support what they’re doing, please visit https://www.paraguide.org/how-to-help