My Ride to Conquer Cancer

June 26 & 27, 2010 will be two days of my life that I will not soon forget.
(Warning... it's a bit of a long post)

The morning started off fairly typical for me, early up, and prepping for something new. I headed out to Spruce Meadows, only to be faced with a huge amount of traffic, but guess that's to be expected when 1888 riders are getting ready to head out on a two day, 220km ride. Erin met me at the opening ceremonies and it was great to have her there! There was a lot of excitement in the air and the opening ceremonies were incredibly emotional. I doubt there was a dry eye in the crowd, but there was a lot of cheering too, especially when they announced that collectively we'd raised $7.4 million dollars!!!

With that, we were off! It was odd to me, that even though I was surrounded by 1888 other riders with a common purpose, heading out all together, united as one.... I can't recall the last time in my life I had felt so deeply alone. It must have been that sudden realization that only I could get me and my road bike across those 220kms. It didn't last long, because as soon as we headed out I was focusing on a great big hill to climb.
















(photo above, pitstop at Okotoks)

Before I knew it I was at Okotoks, and then High River, and then Nanton. The pit stops were brilliant, with bike repair service, lots of food and porta potties.
I was lucky to have some family to greet me at lunch which was nice...





























After lunch I hit the road again, as we all headed west toward Chain Lakes Provincial Park. Really all I can say is .... YIKES! Check out the elevation











It was a slog to say the least, and I can't believe I managed a smile when I arrived at camp.
Things going through my mind during the "7 mile climb"

• there's no way on earth I could ever do a Half Ironman
• if I wipe out going down this hill it's going to hurt SO bad
• this hurts, but I won't quit on Heather (oh and I'm too stubborn)
  
• I could walk my bike up this hill, but that looks like too much effort

I can honestly say it was the mental battle of a lifetime!








The camp was a welcome relief, along with my little cheerleading crew that were literally parked at the finish line! Like an automaton, I waited in line for a shower and went to bed in "tent village" with my ear plugs firmly in place, and slept like a LOG.

I'll admit, I didn't have the same gusto behind me when I started out day two, and I seriously expected the day to be horrible. About 15kms into the day I regained my cellular service and heard the chime of text messages coming in (thanks everyone!!!!) that I knew I was going to be fine.

Day two was brilliant!!! I savoured the day and tried to enjoy every second knowing that it was going to go fairly quick. And as I came closer to the end I was overcome by periodic waves of emotion, and I had to choke back the tears. Crossing the finish line was a great moment, not just because I was done, but because it was a great feeling knowing that I was part of something so special, and for such a special purpose. Every person there, had someone they were carrying with them in their minds and hearts, for each and every kilometer. Heather, I can say this without a moments hesitation.... for you, I would do it again and again. It was a weekend I'll remember for FOREVER and I can only hope that it will make a difference.

Generally speaking...I had no mechanical issues which was surprising given the number of flats I had during training. I had a few hurts, mostly my feet because they kept falling asleep :( I've been asked about my backside... but honestly, that great seat I invested in was worth every penny. For the first time in my life, I have a bit of a tan (albeit a crazy form of a farmers tan) and that was with SPF 60 on!!! I had a few moments of "grrrrr" when people decided to pass on the right or ride 4 across up a hill.... I had to quelch my competitive spirit a number of times and remind myself it was a ride not a race :)

I can't begin to thank my donors for their support and of course my family... for being my cheerleaders, for putting up with my crazy training antics and for their general belief in me.

My big weekend approaches

It's true, I'm nervous, but at the same time I'm so excited to be taking on this journey. Saturday June 26 & Sunday June 27.

At the beginning, I was able to focus my energies on doing the fundraising and although I was still training for my triathlons, I wasn't doing anything too special in preparation for the physical part of the ride. However, more recently I've been including some longer rides (Raymond to Lethbridge and back last Sunday!), and since my next triathlon is a longer distance, Shawn's been upping my workouts anyway, with lots of two a day workouts. So yesterday I did a 1:20 ride followed by a 20 min run ;) Today was a ride in the a.m. with a 2000m swim at lunch (had to cut it short to 1800m).

With lots of distractions (see above) I've not really had a chance to get too worked up. I don't have any goals for a finish time, but I know that when it gets hard, and it will, that I will keep all of my donors in mind, and of course Heather (love you!!). As hard as the ride might feel at the time, I know it is only infinitesimal compared to the journey she's on. And I think the collective spirit of all the riders will be an experience of a lifetime, and no doubt very emotional.

I will leave for Calgary tomorrow morning, as I have a few work meetings scheduled for the afternoon. Then to my sister's for the night. Then on Saturday I'll begin my "epic" ride out of Calgary, returning on Sunday. On Sunday, I'll have a tired body, but I expect I'll have a refreshed optimism and hope for humanity and a new respect for cyclists around the world :)

I hope to be able to document this experience via twitter [ @jasminnbert ] and to take some photos along the way.

Wasa Tri 2010

The lead up to this race seems to have been long ;)

Last year's race was so awesome, so I was really hoping that my experience this year would be at least as enjoyable. Of course the weekend started off excellent with Brynn's first ever triathlon, which she really enjoyed :)

After Brynn's race and some hanging out, I decided to take a quick ride over the bike course. It's a 7 km loop that is done 3 times during the race. It is an amazing course, nice and scenic and no major hills. The weather was great, and I thought I'd just take a nice easy ride. It was hard to go easy, I wanted to see how fast I could do it, but I resisted the temptation, which was made even harder because there were other people out just tearing it up :)

After the ride, it was time to head into Cranbrook, where I'd planned to meet up with Stacey and Lilli. Well... the drive in was infuriating to say the least, with road construction making me about 30 minutes late! Oh well... what are you going to do... of course I'd also forgotten my iPod so was stuck listening to CBC1 talk-radio! OY!

Race package pickup/meeting was typical, packed packed packed. Stuck around for the beginning of the meeting, until the swim course was announced. The lake was pretty low, so it was doubtful it'd be on the same course as last year, as we'd have likely been able to run half of it ;) As suspected it was in a different location, but I think it is where it was in previous years. And of course this year the distance would actually be 750 for the sprint (last year's was short, quite a lot shorter.. not sure the exact numbers though).

Headed back to WASA and took Lilli down to transition, and we scoped out the swim course, and then drove the bike course. Came back, had supper (spaghetti and salad).
Eventually got the kids settled down and all my gear packed up. I was worried because I was SO tired!!!!! I did some stretching and foam rolling and went to bed. Luckily sleep came easy and I woke up at about 5:30... only 30 min before the alarm.

I was pretty calm, got up, got ready and headed to transition. Just love where we stayed, because I could walk to transition and didn't have to worry about parking at all. Got my bike racked, checked in, body marking (#720) and timing chip.

Met up with Stacey & Lilli and got transition set up. My nerves weren't too bad, but I was excited. At about 7:45 we started to get our wet suits on, and headed down to the beach for the race start (8:15). Then I got nervous as I always do at the beginning of the swim... was thinking the buoys looked pretty far out!!!

Decided to check out the water temp, it was warmer than the day before, up to 17.5 degrees C.
Lilli is a strong swimmer so she waded out into the middle, I stayed near the back. Then it was go time.

My race was pretty good! I tried not to get all crazy like I did at the last one. My overall time was longer than last year, but that was to be expected since the swim course was actually 750m this year (I’m not sure what it was last year, but looking at my times I’m guessing less than 500m). So I decided for comparison to last year that I would not focus on my overall time or on my swim time.

My swim time, which included 180 m run up the beach, wet suit stripping (very cool feature) and re-doing my timing chip which flew off (grrrr… didn’t like the new system at ALL and then I had to put a new strap on with cold hands), was 22:01. Not bad, since I totally panicked. The first leg of the race I was a wreck and I felt like I was in survival mode, by the time I got to the first buoy though I “sorted” myself out, and concentrated on long strokes. By the time I hit the 2nd buoy and headed back I was horribly surprised that I couldn’t SEE at all. The sun was shining right at us. So I just tried to keep with the yellow swim caps… which eventually worked :) I was happy when I got out and realized I was within the middle of the pack for my age group!!!! Can you believe it?!?!?! And, although I was somewhat tired, I wasn’t completely gassed like I usually feel. 36/62 for my age group.

Bike was uneventful, not too much improvement in time from last year. My time this year was 49:27, last year was 50:38 (this includes T1 & T2, actual moving time for 21k was 46 min according to Garmin). I think I really need to work on my bike strategy. The course is 3 loops of 7km, and I don’t think I pushed myself hard enough, and I think I’m always afraid that if I push too hard on the bike I’ll be done for the run. During the last 2/3 of the 3rd loop, I really focused on pulling up and I passed quite a few people :) I think my HR stayed around 147-150, so I could definitely have worked harder….finding a balance on the pacing is hard, so any advice you have there is welcomed :) Because it is a shorter distance, should I just be gunning it the entire time?? I am bigger "thighed" so I really should be doing better at the ride :(

The first part of the run, my calves were pretty annoyed with me…but it didn’t take too long for them to sort out. I felt pretty good but was annoyed that I didn’t have my watch (forgot it on my bike) to monitor my pace or my effort. But my run time was 29:56 this year whereas last year it was 32:07. So some improvement for sure. And when I was finished, I felt much stronger than last year. So I was tired, but it was more like a hard workout than a race, which makes me think I could have pushed more :) My transitions were good, and I had enough energy… so I think I did pretty good there. Now it’s just a matter of knowing how hard to push myself ;) My overall time was 1:41:23 (not what I'd hoped for, but I had to be realistic with the swim).

This pic I'm going in for a "low five" with Eamon ;)

If I could go back, I'd definitely push harder on the bike, and if I'd had my Garmin I would have known I could have gone harder on the run. I wouldn't really change my transitions, was happy to do the dismount where I unstrapped my shoes, and put my feet on the top of the shoes so when I hopped off it was an easy "trot" to the rack.

Of course, I feel like any plan I had for this race will have to be different for Magrath, since it’ll be the Oly distance. *sigh* it's 5 weeks away, but I've got the Ride to Conquer Cancer in just 2 weeks, so I'm thinking after a 200km weekend ride, the 40k of the Olympic distance a few weeks later should feel like a breeze ;)

Photos below, me and Brynn (luv ya baby)
Stacey and I, my training partner in crime ;) She & baby "newt" did great
bottom photo, Lilli & I afterward... we look relieved but happy :)

Brynn's first Triathlon

OK, so we are at WASA Lake, BC for the Gerricks Wasa Lake Tri 2010!
It is SO beautiful here....
We arrived last night and I was so happy to see that it was quite a lot warmer than at home.
Today couldn't have been a more perfect day... weather was great, and Brynn had so much fun at her race.

They really made the kids feel like the adults, so they got body marked, personalized bib numbers, and REAL timing chips, and swim caps :) The swim was hilarious. The water was a chilly 14.5 Celsius. So some of the kids, mine included, opted to run through the water instead of swimming :) hehehe it was more like an aqua duathlon (water run, bike, run).

As the swim was winding down, one of the volunteers cheered Brynn and told her to run, so she took off super speedy to the transition, was up a hill and through some grassy areas :) Got to T1 where she insisted she needed to wear her biking gloves, which took FOREVER to get on ;) oh well it was pretty cute. So she hopped onto her bike, training wheels and all, and went for 5 rides around the transition area. I have to say it was one of the cutest things I've ever witnessed. There were so many cute little ones just burning around like crazy. During one lap, Brynn decided she needed a drink, but didn't take her bottle off, she just bent over and drank while she rode :)

So fun :)
It was great to cheer on the other kids, everytime we'd cheer they'd go faster and smile!

The run was fun, as I got to go along with her for most of it...she was really hoofing it and got tired out...but she did it and ran the whole thing :)
It was super great that they had Steve King (you can see him in the background of the next photo) doing the announcing, so as she went through the finishers shoot he called out her name :) We were so proud of her, and I'm so glad she enjoyed it. Honestly, I was so wrapped up in the fun and excitement, I didn't bother to look at her time. Will have to check out her splits online later :)

So on the way back after the race she said to her Daddy "Daddy, when I get home I want to start training for next year!".

I'm so glad she got to experience it and I hope she will race again next year... just because it is so fun :)

I'm pretty tired.... and tomorrow's my big day. Gear's all ready to go, kids are in bed. So I think I'll do a bit of foam rolling, and then call it a day!!!

Lots of travel lately and a great Easter!

Well, Easter is over, and the kids are just finishing up their Easter Break. They have enjoyed their time off school and they decided to camp out in our home office, needless to say, it's nice to have a laptop for it's portability. (That's my girl, we were baking cookies. Delicious sugar cookies *gulp* If you can see it in the background, that white on the walls is not flour, it's the prep for the touch up painting that is in progress!)

I am pretty sure my last post was from the road, and it has seemed over the last while I've spent SO much time traveling for work. It didn't really cut much into my training, I thought I did good at planning to fit my work outs in. Tried out 3 different pools in one city!!! It wasn't always easy, and I did forget my HRM for one trip, which was highly annoying to me.

Just this last week, I packed up my suitcase for a day flight just so I could drag along my swim and running gear :) That day was TOO long though.

I have missed some training over the last month or so though, but because I was sick (maybe from too much travel?!?!). It was the head cold that would not end! I found that so frustrating, but in between there I did my first 10 km run and it could be that the extra rest I gained from being sick helped me to not be too tired for the race. I was really stoked with the race though, because it felt great :) Really good. I feel as though my goal for a 1/2 marathon in the fall is realistic.

Sadly, the sport that was hit the most from being ill was swimming. It is the one that requires the most planning for me, and usually very early mornings. But I also feel like I may have had a bit of a breakthrough with my swimming. First, Shawn has us doing some swim specific strength training with elastic paddles on the deck. I'm really concentrating on my pull and putting more strength into it instead of just thinking about my recovery and breathing, and I had my best ever 50 m time. It could have been a fluke, but I'm optimistic, and have been "enjoying" my pool time. I find myself calculating how long it'll take me at the various distances.

I've also been pretty diligent in doing my stretching, foam rolling and tennis ball "therapy". Including a few visits to physio, and a couple massages. Of course it's been a few nights now since I've done any stretching ;( I also want to start working in some leg strength and keeping up with core. Sigh...oh time where will I find you!

Now that the weather is getting better I'm anxious to get out on the road, and in particular I'm hoping to ride my bike to work in the next few weeks, since my first race is 4 weeks from tomorrow! Holy cow... just did the math on that!!!! Now I'm a bit freaked out. I know I should be doing it for the fun of it, but I really really really want to place top 5 in my age group.
Hope I didn't jinx myself now! I think my age group includes some pretty serious athletes, likely using this race as a warm up for their 1/2 Ironman races. Double sigh.

This post has dragged on too long and now I will really try to update again soon, so I'm not so far behind.

Really a whole month?!?!?!

Just happened to notice that it's been over a month since I posted. Shame shame.
Life's been pretty busy (bday parties, kids stuff, visitors etc.), and this month has me travelling a fair bit. I'm actually writing this post from my hotel room :) Which I'm happy to say I got upgraded to a King Delux suite :)

I'm getting pretty good at fitting my workouts into my travel schedule. Oddly, this week the workout I missed (Monday) was when I was at home (made it up yesterday). That was just poor planning... had the best intentions, but when I got to the pool at 4:15 p.m. I discovered that lane swim ended at 3:45. What are you going to do?!?!? So I'm trying out all the pools Red Deer has to offer (yesterday Michener Aquatic, today Rec Centre). My last trip here in February I ended up doing lane swim in a wave pool that was marked off with lanes, and I'm not convinced they were 25 m. The hotel has a nice fitness centre, so I can easily do my runs on the treadmill. But, I have to laugh because the treadmills are pre-programmed to stop after 30 minutes. That just won't work for me ;) Especially my 65 minute run scheduled for tomorrow. Sigh.

I am fighting off a cold, so I plan to try and get a nap in later this afternoon as tomorrow is going to be a very busy day, and then a long drive home.

Training has been pretty good, am really enjoying my cycling. I suppose that's a good thing given my plans for this summer! I've been going to physio (also a triathlete) for my left hip, in hopes it doesn't get too crazy, it's so tight and causes me trouble especially during my long runs. Was "ordered" to do a therapeutic massage.... didn't take too much convincing :) I was seriously bruised after! Also have some exercises and was shown a few other purposes for a tennis ball. GENIOUS!

I feel like I'm on "reporting" overload. I've been logging on beginnertriathlete.com then in my triathlete's training diary, and then in my spreadsheet for Shawn, plus uploading to garminconnect.com so I can see the charts etc.. TOO much... have to figure out something a little less redundant.

Anyway, have to get dressed and head out for my next meeting (45 minute drive away).

Just for fun!

So today's run was bound to be fun. I'd programmed my Garmin to indicate to me the different intervals.... so this is what my workout called for...
10min warm up
4 X (4min pick-up/2min easy)
6 X (30 sec fast/1min easy)
5 min warm down

But I'm also supposed to be recovering my HR down to 120, so some of those "easy" were a bit longer until my HR got there. Here are the HR results...
Looks like a roller coaster ;)

So in total it took 51:19
So of course I was disappointed in the distance, but I have to factor in a fair bit of walking, that would be depicted by the "valleys".

Feeling good overall though, even though we've got an extra swim booked in for next week!
Today is "hump" day, and 1/2 of this week's training is done.

I keep going online to check out blogs for work (how cool is that?!), then I get distracted, and want to do a quick entry into my own :) Keeps my mind fresh!