Getting Ready for Ironman Canada: the BIG Picture

One of my favourite kids books is called A Hole is To Dig. It is a book of simple definitions, written in 1952 by Ruth Kraus and illustrated by Maurice Sendak (most well known for the children's classic, Where the Wild Things Are). It is full of wonderful things that only children can teach us to appreciate again. Things like: "Parties are to make children happy", and "Toes are to wiggle". The answer to "What is a moutain?" is quite naturally, "A mountain is to go to the top...a mountain is to go to the bottom."

As I go into this last week before Ironman Canada, as I prepare for this mammoth undertaking that seems as insanely full of details as an Everest expedition, each one quite important for race day, I am also making sure that once I start the race on Sunday morning, I have my own clear definition for why I do what I do:

What is an Ironman (and why am I doing it?)

Fundamentally, I personally need to know the answer, the real honest reason I am undertaking this trip. Maybe I am too philosophical, but philosphy has always pulled me through.

I have come to understand that my racing involves three levels of preparation:

First there is the obvious physical preparation, training for the distance without which I would not get over Richter Pass. Learning the nutrition and hydration specific to Ironman took a tremendous level of commitment and involvement that will be crucial to my race day success.

Then there is creating the opportunity to race to my physical potential. This is where sports psychology comes in. I use mental preparation strategies to develop a game plan for the week before Ironman, and a lot of positive visualization to tackle the length of the actual race.

When I have completed the training to the best of my ability I enter my taper week and accept that I will be as ready as I can be. I don't waste energy second guessing my training. It's done. I put my energy into taking care of the race details and getting my mind wrapped around the process of executing the race.

In the calmness and confidence that comes from being mentally and physically prepared for a goal, my intentions (intentions that have been hovering in the background of my consciousness) make themselves joyfully known. I race because I love the test of racing. I race because it makes me feel good about myself and my life. I race because it connects me to a community that shares similar values. I race because for the hours I am out there, I can focus on one thing that I do well, my mind free and uncluttered from the paying of bills, the car repairs, the laundry. Finishing, winning, running a 3 hour marathon: these things might be my goals, but my purpose is to race.

After all the calories are calculated, the bags are packed, the tires pumped and goggles adjusted, the cannon thunders into the morning and I enter the zone called 'race day'.

Deep into the race, with so many hours to talk myself through this test of endurance and with so many hours to experience discomfort, joy, agony, elation, pain, and everything else that happens out there, it's nice to know that deep in my subconscious, I am happy that I am where I am. Not only am I happy, but I am sure of my reasons for being there.

What is an Ironman? An Ironman is to race.

We all have different reasons for being out there. Know yours. Know it well.

What's your definition?

See you out there!

Lucy

To ride the Similkameen Valley, on the Ironman Canada course, is one of the many gifts that make this career rewarding. The dry, mostly bare hills are a fascinating study in the many shades of green and grey that make up this part of the country. In the distance valleys, mountains and rocky bluffs overlap in endless layers. When there is no traffic, you can hear the hanging road signs creaking as they swing in the wind. The squeaking chains reminds me of a ghost town sound effect, something from the remote wild west. I feel totally alone when I hear that sound, and it reminds me of the greatness of my personal dreams.

Penticton, August 7, 2007

Here we are again, at the playground of Penticton. We rolled into town around 5 o'clock last evening, taking a short pitstop at the Save on Foods for supplies before checking into the Golden Sands on Lakeshore drive. The drive was smooth, Ross slept most of the way from the ferry to Princeton, Maia happily watched a few movies, and all the cars seemed to be going in the other direction. (All the speed traps were west bound too: we saw at least half a dozen tickets being given out).

It's three week to Ironman Canada and this is my last big week of training for another crack on that course. Last year, when I ran in for my 8th place pro finish, I decided I had to come back and do it better. On all accounts, I believe I have done a better job of preparing this year. My long runs have been longer and stronger, I have made major changes to my nutrition plans and electrolyte replacement strategy, and I have been able to race and train over Richter and the long stretch to Yellow Lake several times. Most of all, continuing into a 2nd consecutive season of Ironman training, (it's hard to beleive that it was only '04-'05 that I was in pregnancy mode) has made the sheer volume of miles feels manageable, instead of merely insane.

It has been an eventful summer of training, children, Lance's own training for Ironman Canada, and trying to focus on the task and goal while thoughts of my future career plans continue to grow in my mind. But here I am now, in Ironman country, getting ready for a 6 hour ride, which by all accounts, is one of the most beautiful rides I have ever done. There will be points today where I look around and feel lucky to be able to what I do. There will be points where I think about my long career with wistfulness as I know I am going to be moving on to another chapter soon. But for the most part, I will be riding, mindful only of my pedals stokes, immersed in the moments of pure sport.

Am I really smiling that wide? It seemed so tough at the time!


What went through my mind while racing the Desert Half Ironman and Canadian Long Course Triathlon Championships, July 8th 2007:

At the 16k mark of the run, I am still in 2nd. I tell myself, you can mix it up with the world’s best at an international 5k road race, you can definitely run your way into first here. C’mon, 5k to go; run like you know you can. Be a runner.

Thinking about Greg Bennett and Brent McMahon and Simon Whitfield and all the great triathlete runners I trained with at the National Training Centre with coaches Lance Watson and Paul Regensburg before Athens. Greg, with his trademark high heels stride, would always be so jovial and funny during warm ups and cool downs, keeping up a running commentary a la Phil Ligget as if we were in the last 600m of the Olympic 10 000m final…. “And here comes Smith, pushing the pace, but Bennet responds, unleashing a confident surge, Smith pushes back with a fury that the mighty Australian can't match”….I’m smiling at these memories and it relaxes me, helping me run more efficiently.

“50 quick steps”. The words of husband and coach Lance Watson, and all of our pre-race talks over the years, things to draw on when the going gets tough. I head into each corner, putting in 50 quick steps, trying to draw out my lead so I can relax.

And then the ridiculous bargaining with myself, which in the heat (literally) of the race, makes me laugh, as it’s so inane. “Finish this one off and you don’t have to do Ironman Canada.” “Win this one last Canadian Championship and you can retire”. Even I, in my fatigued discomfort am not so delirious to believe any of this for one moment, and have to chuckle at the craziness of a sport that makes you start negotiating for pleasure because it’s so tough.


Racing in the Okanagan, Family in Tow

I opted for the Osoyoos race particularly because I wanted to race and attempt a win at a National Triathlon Championships, because the Desert Half is a really good race in a really beautiful part of the country, and because it was a great chance for Lance and I to get away with Maia and Ross on a summer holiday.

In the course of three days, we drove to the Okanagan, ate cherries, played rounds of mini golf (7 year old Maia regularly scores higher than I do by the way), swam in the lake, went out on a motor boat, played on bumper boats, and I raced and successfully defended my title at Joe and Sarah Dixon’s Desert Half Ironman.

On race morning, everyone the whole family woke with me at 5AM, so we had a pre-race breakfast party, with Ross on my lap and Maia and Lance beside me on the sofa. Then it was time to say good bye and head to transition to get prepared.

Not having done quite enough swim training on account of my own unique parenting priorities, and the fabulous May-June road running trips I did, I set my goals in the swim as “keeping my turnover high, my focus steady and to sight smoothly”. I have always had a tendency to need to see too much where I am going in the swim. I am not sure if this is an extension of my own personality to always need to know what’s going on, or as a result of a more specific human need to feel grounded out in open water, even if that means being able to lock onto a big orange buoy 500m meters away. In any case, my biggest challenge as a triathlete (outside of the small detail of just swimming faster), has always been to swim a course well, from sighting smoothly, to drafting efficiently, and staying on course.

I usually feel happy in the swim, especially after the frenetic start is over. I love swimming surrounded by other athletes; I enjoy being in a sport that starts with a swim in a lake while the sun is rising in the sky. During the middle portion of the swim while I am immersed in my own internal focus on swimming well, pulling and rotating and relaxing my shoulders, I become acutely aware of the rhythmical quality and sounds of swimming. 1,2,3 breath, 1,2,3 breath, gurgle splash, splash, splash, gurgle splash, splash, splash. My ears are filled with watery sounds and the athletic world is muffled in the lake.

With the swim completed, I hurried my way to transition, eager to start the bike, eager to start eating into the big deficit that I know I created by a not so fast swim time. Once on the bike, I headed for the hills like a horse, pushing for the first climb up Richter Pass and my chance to make up some time. I love the climb of Richter Pass, the steady cadence of cycling uphill. (Maybe I just love being on my bike period, doing something I know I can do well.)

The bike this year didn’t feel quite as easy or powerful as last year’s ride. I could say it was the wind, which was a big factor in this year’s race by all accounts as we seemed to have headwind both out and back up the hill! I have no excuses, except that I suspect that I am not quite as well trained this year. Last year, Ross was still a little baby, sleeping a lot and fairly immobile and I was keen to get back to racing form. This year he is an active toddler, has stopped his regular naps and I don’t take much rest or recovery time, preferring to explore the world with him when I am not on my bike or laced into running shoes.

I decided to pace myself on the bike, to be careful of doing a 'Lucy' and burning it all up in the first 40k of the course. To take a more tactical and patient approach to the race and use my skill-set well. Seeing Lance and the kids out in the car at various points on the course gave me a boost. I saw him outside a fruit market, holding a bag of cherries in one arm and Ross in the other. After a blustery go of it out to Cawston and the turn around, in which my thoughts wandered occasionally off on the tangent of being a 40 year old woman with two children in a sport that has pretty much redefined what getting old means, I hit the backside of Richter with energy to climb well and to take a bit more bite out of the time between me and the (unknown) competition up ahead.

I came into transition 6 minutes down this year, and I ran out into the heat of the day feeling a little like that was an insurmountable goal to reach. However, in my triathlon memory bank, are all the races that I have won from behind, from patiently and strategically using my run off the bike to pull the leaders back. While I race most duathlons and road races from the front, I relish the challenge to having to make up a gap.

I ran up past Yvonne Timewell first, who gave me tremendous unflagging support on the out and back course. As far as she was concerned I was “Going to CATCH those GIRLS!”. Ok, I said to myself. I was running well, and I wasn’t dead, but my legs didn’t have the ‘fire’ in them that they had last year.

It took 17km of really focused running and a lot of positive mental pep talks to catch the lead woman, with a lot of that time spent wondering if I would catch her at all. All along I knew that I couldn't give up on the desire to reel her in, as everything can change so much in the last half of the race. Lance, and the rest of the field seemed to me sure that I would catch first place as well. It is a 2 loop out and back course so you see the same faces a few times and each time the same people would yell at me, as they ran by.

“She’s just up the road! You’re going to catch her for sure!” Although I never could see her “just up ahead” I figure so many people can’t be wrong and I think that the absolute certainty in their earnest encouragement helped me to believe that I would reel her in.

And there she was, finally, around the 16km mark. I spied Rosemarie Gerspacher’s back, and it was game over. Of course once I took over the lead, a new fear crept in. “What if someone runs up to ME from behind?”. So that old familiar feeling of running like a rabbit came over me, I pulled in my road racing skills—quick corners to get a few steps up, quick feet, fast water stops—and couldn’t relax until I was only metres away from the finish line and that is when and I knew that I had won my 19th Canadian Championship title and my first Triathlon Championships, and that is the end of another great day in sport.

A little bit about turning 40 and being an athlete.

I wrote this entry shortly after turning 40 on a weekend in April. In some ways it's a dedication to the community in which I live. It is also a celebration of running and being able to do something I love. And the photo above was taken by my friend Geoff. www.geoffwilkings.com.

The Race season has officially begun. I know because yesterday afternoon I was standing in the ocean icing my legs in the frigid 8 degree waters of the Straight of Georgia. There is a set of stairs at the end of our lane, 66 worn and well used concrete steps that leads straight into the ocean at high tide. After hard racing and training days, I throw on my puffy down jacket and shorts, take my recovery drink down there and stand amongts the scuttling little crabs and flotsam and floating shreds of seaweeed.

I wade in up to the top of my thighs and the first 3 minutes are the most excrutiating and uncomforable minutes of all my training. The cold actually hurts and makes my insides constrict with tension. I tell myself to be tough and I stare fiercely at the designs the branchs of the Garry Oak makes against the sky, I watch the diving ducks, I search for eagles, I drink my drink, I drink in the amazing surface of the ocean view you get when standing in the ocean. I grit my teeth against the numbing cold against my legs and tell myself how good this is for recovery, and suddenly the horrendous shock of the cold water dissipates somewhat. I am not so uncomfortable as my legs feel sort of warm and numb and I am able to just relax for the remaining 7 minutes of ocean recovery.

Sometimes walkers come wandering down the steps and see me there in the ocean, standing there with the shorts and big coat. I give them a friendly smile and look back out to the ducks. They usually go back up the stairs then, as if venturing any farther towards this crazy peson standing in the ocaen might be dangerous to their health. I stay there, pacing back and forth, watching the way the rocks look underneath the clear sea, trying not to trip and fall in (oh, that would be so cold) and then my ten mintues is up and I stiffly pull my body back up the 66 steps to higher ground.

Later in the evening, as I sat watching the play off game between the Canucks and the Ducks with my husband Lance and our two children Maia and Ross, I helped myself to a piece of my leftover birthday cake, and I celebrated the end of a great weekend.

The weekend started on Friday night with a celebration for my 40th birthday and ended with my 6th Garden City 10k victory. As one TV reported said after the race, there were three significant numbers to the weekend: 40, 6 and 1. There was something else significant to the weekend: and that is the gratitude I feel for being surrounded by friends and joy in this beautfiful city of ours.

Sunday morning dawned clear and sunny, if a little chilly. I walked from my car to the start line, feeling calm and happy as I passed teams of runners doing warm up stretches and families with baby joggers and vendors setting up for the street festival post race. I passed the ever impressive ivy colured Empress Hotel on the inner harbour and the legislature buildings that face it on the other side of the harbour. I did my warm up routine on my own, jogging easily through the flowers and blossoms of Beacon Hill park.

As the race started, there was quite a crowd lining the streets and I was certainly pumped up. I started quite fast, hitting the first corner tucked right into the lead pack of men. As far as races go, this race was quite uneventful competitively, as I was well ahead of the other women from the first kilometre and had found my group of male runners to race with. I ran hard and found the windy stretches quite a challenge. I stayed relaxed and efficient through the last ten minutes of the race.

What makes this race such a fun one for me, is the energy and familiarity of the crowd. Victoria is a small city and after living here for 7 years I now have a big circle of friends: there are the close ones…the 40+ people who dropped into my birthday party on Friday…and then there are the thousands of athlete and runners who are a vital part of my community. Over the past few years I have spoken to hundreds of runners and walkers in clinics and many many come up to me in the street, at the store or before races and say hello. I have heard people’s stories and listened to their athletic questions and dreams. I have felt inspired by their enthusiasm, as they are inspired by my love of running.

When I turn around at the 5 km mark out at Ross Bay and start racing back towards town, I notice the sea of runners snaking along Dallas Road. While I am running on my own in the whole left lane, the other side of the road is one mass of athletes, a crowd of humans out celebrating life and health.

And then the cheers begin and while I can’t acknowledge every face in the crowd I hear them all. All the way from Ross Bay back to Mile 0 and the Terry Fox Statue I hear, Go LUCY! Way to go Girl! Lucy! LUCY! GO GO Lucy!

No wonder I smile. I feel like the luckiest runner in the universe. Not only do I get to do what I love doing most of all, which is running fast, I get to do it on my 40th birthday, in the sun, along a scenic and gorgeous ocean front race course, surrounded by thousands of friends and an abundance of joy. I feel honoured to race in front of such a crowd of enthusastic people.

I had a wonderful day at the race today....I felt honoured to be able to do something I love so much, again surrounded by friends and joy!

Pictures from early season road races.

Below, finding a groove at the Nordion 10k, Ottawa, May 25th.
1st Canadian, 1st master, 6th overall. 34:45

Moving it up a gear for the 5k, at Freihofers Run for Women, Albany, NY. June 2
1st Masters, 11th overall. 16:32

I've had my eye on the Freihofers race for a few years. I love all-women's events, I love being on the east coast (must be my Bluenoser roots) and I love the feel of the big US road races. Last year was too close to Ross being born, and I didn't feel in shape for a trip all the way across the continent, but this year, things lined up. First, I was feeling strong again after racing a triathlon season in '06, and I just turned 40 which has opened up the whole masters competition for me.

And I have always wanted to take Maia to New York so this seemed like a really neat opportunity for the two of us to take a trip together and for me to share with Maia just what my professional life looks like when I am on the road.

For the first two days of our trip, Maia and I stayed at the Crowne Plaza in Albany, New York, and we met all sorts of great people connected with the race. The morning after we got in, I was scheduled to talk to a bunch of kids at an elementary school. When we arrvied at East Lebanon school all the kids from grades 1-5 were seated in the gym and I spent a lively half hour talking about being a professional athlete and explaining how much satisfaction I get from doing something I love so much. Maia was a great help, choosing students to ask questions. Being around kids is such a rush!

The volunteers in the elite athlete hospitality suite took good care of us and later on looked after Maia while I went for a run with my new friend, Jonh, a local runner. When I came back from the run, Maia had made me a thank you card:

thang you

To Mum

thang

you for bringing

me to Nu ork

if you wor

not a aflyt

we wod not be in Nu ork

You are good to Be a aflyt

Love Maia

It's now almost the middle of June, the days are long and bright and every morning for the last week, the sand and beach have been beckoning us as Maia finishes grade one.

I have raced in Victoria, Ottawa, Spokane, WA and Albany, New York since turning 40 in April, going 4 for 4 with Masters wins. It's been fun, and going to the Freihofer's 5k in Albany was really superb. (see the news story posted on http://www.lifesport.ca/. Freihofer's is a run for women, with a world class elite field, and 3000 more women, running solo or on sister-sister, mother-daughter and other teams. I spoke to a whole elementary school the first morning I was there, about being active and having a professional career. I had to demonstrate my skills by running as fast as I could around the gym.

Race morning was sunny, humid and exciting. With an uphill start and a flying downhill finish, I had to pull out all the stops to beat the Russian and American women also in the masters field. I was happy with my 16:32 and 11th finish overall in a race won in 15:23.

Maia came with me to New York and after the race in Albany, together we rode trains, took yellow taxi cabs in the rain from Grand Central station, and walked 5th Avenue. We browsed Tiffanies, where we had to ask the price of the diamonds as they are not displayed($1500-150 000), and looked in the glitzy foyer of the Donald Trump tower. Maia played on the expansive floor piano at FAO Schwartz. What I will remember from the trip, more than the images of NYC, is the banana bread we bought each day in the food hall of Grand Central, before the train ride on the Hartford line to our friends in Connecticut, and endless word and drawing games we played while taking the planes, taxis and sitting in waiting lounges.

2 days after coming back to Victoria, Maia turned 7 years old. The birthday party on a rainy day concluded with a fun bout of shaving cream foam in the back yard.