Alive With Sport » Race Report

First Race of the Year

joannealisonfox — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:16:02 +0000

The best part of racing is the big brunch you can justify afterwards! The Steveston IceBreaker 8km race was this weekend and I ran hard AND ate some yummy waffles afterwards. I felt strong during the run definitely feeling the positive effects of my Thursday morning trail runs and of the Fall marathon in San Fransisco. This race is always a good fitness test for me and this year was my best time yet at 35:52 – that’s a >30 sec best. Woo hoo. It looks like this year is off to a good start.

Kelowna Apple Race Report

joannealisonfox — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:32:23 +0000

Racing yesterday at the Kelowna Apple was good fun. It’s pretty cool to race in the same events with folks like Simon Whitfield (who repeated his national championship) and 1200 triathletes from across Canada. The event is really well organized and I just clued into why there where bins of Apples everywhere. It’s the Kelowna Apple, duh! I had a good laugh at myself when I “got it.” My goal was to try for a top-ten finish and I was a wee-bit off that spot for worlds but I was still happy with how the race went yesterday.

I had set myself a goal of 2h35 for an earlier race in the season, called the Peach. Yes, I’m having a fruit inspired season. I was 2h38 at the Peach, so I still had that 2h35 goal in my head. I finished at 2h34 yesterday and it felt good to beat that goal. I know this goal is conservative in terms of my abilities but it felt pretty good for where I’m at right now.

When I was in IronMan shape, I did 2h29 at the Apple but that was me at several lbs lighter and a LOT fitter. I seem to respond well to the longer training. It will be interesting to see if I can get to that same fitness again this upcoming year. I’ve got it in my head to beat 12hrs for IronMan Canada in my second kick at the can. As an interesting side note, 2:29 was a top ten finish yesterday. I feel good knowing that qualifying is possible. I’m not at all disappointed about not qualifying. I could likely get a roll down spot if I wanted… but I don’t think I will do that. Instead I think I will focus on IronMan next year. Torbin and I now have the freedom to do our trip to New Zealand with our own timing in 2012/2013.

I was funny at the race yesterday. I enjoyed myself at the event chatting with friends and making new friends but did some silly things in transition. I came out of the water and looked at my transition stuff dumbly and stood there semi-frozen just looking my things. Looking back, I think I did not eat enough breakfast – or at least I didn’t do a top up in the 3hrs between leaving home and the race start. I also had my garmin wristband on and discovered that I couldn’t get my wetsuit on with the band on. It didn’t even occur to me that I ALSO wouldn’t be able to get the wetsuit OFF with the band on. Shoot, I was fiddling with the silly wristband running up from the water. I also totally went up the wrong lane coming off the bike and had to duck under a rack with my bike. My run transition was also pretty lame, I got confused about which stuff to bring. I ended up sitting down and then forgot the darn garmin. For which I had carefully removed and replaced the stupid wristband earlier. Jeez louise!

The run started off well. I had good legs. And then, I got really hot and just ran out of steam. It was hard. I was covered in salt at the end but well hydrated. I’m not used to this Okanagon heat. At least it meant that I really enjoyed the cool water of the lake after the race was over. Next up is the San Francisco marathon. Bring it on!

Kelowna Apple Race Results 2011
60th place overall out of 232 women
18/58 Female 35-39
2:34:00 overall time
swim: 26:25 1:46/100m pace
T1: 1:57
bike: 1:13:21 32.7kph
T2: 1:25
run: 0:50:54 5:06/km pace

Open water and me

joannealisonfox — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 04:03:30 +0000

I really like swimming in oceans, lakes, and rivers. I like outdoor pools too, but oceans and lakes – they take the cake! This morning, I rode my bike down to the ocean to swim the Kits Challenge. 1.5km in 24:40 this morning has me thinking about some of my favorite swims ever. I swam once in the Indian Ocean. It was glorious.

I jumped off an iceberg once into a lake called Lake Lovely Water. That was COLD!! I like it when you swim over the sandbar at Boundary Bay and the crabs give you their best ninja impressions. I love swimming in the Caribbean Ocean because you can float forever and snorkel as you go. As a kid, Lost Lake, Lightening Lakes, and Deer Lake were some of my favorite swimming holes. As an adult, I’m grateful for every time I discover new and beautiful locations for swimming outdoors.

The Peach

joannealisonfox — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 05:41:53 +0000

The swim at the Peach was crazy blender of arms legs and a full on kick in the face but I was calm – and apparently kind of slow. Sigh.

This bike was fun. I’m feeling strong on the bike right now. This route is a tough hilly route and I was riding without any bike computer so I kind of got into the racing – which made it fun. At one point, I realized I was forgetting to eat. So I sat up, had a little break, drank some water, and ate some gels. Once that was over, I actually had the TV announcer going in my head “… and now back to our regular scheduled programming.” The rest of the ride was spent catching the next rider on the road. I was happy with where I placed myself off the swim/bike. But, I almost seriously bit it on the bike dismount. I changed my mind about the shoeless dismount at the last minute – and my legs weren’t ready for this last minute change. Fortunately, I stayed upright but I think I scared some poor volunteer as I stopped mid cartwheel right in front of her. I guess more practicing on the dismount is in order.

The run was tough and I didn’t really go very hard. Even though it wasn’t really hot, I was too hot. I should have worn my visor not the hat. I liked cheering for all the people I knew in the race. Overall, I was pretty happy with my finish. It wasn’t as fast as I was hoping for but I can see that my goals are within sight.

swim 29:06
bike 1:17:26, avg speed of 31kph
run 50:34
2:39:26

Swim Across the Lake

joannealisonfox — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 05:58:26 +0000

This Swim Across the Lake event is awesome. I’m totally doing it next year. The goodie bag was awesome. The organization was awesome. The beach towel you get for finishing is awesome. The food and coffee afterwards was awesome. Hanging with Kathryn was awesome. Figuring out our swim heat mistakes at the last minute was awesome. The swimming was awesome. Calm deep blue water. That’s at least half a dozen “awesomes” already. The only thing that wasn’t awesome was getting up at 5am to head off to the races two days in a row. But even that wasn’t too bad.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that my swim time was awesome…
33:53 for 2.1km = 1:37/100m

Canada Day Swim

joannealisonfox — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 21:18:37 +0000

“Here for a good time (not a long time)” is today’s Canada Day swim theme song. Except I need to change the words… to “and a long time”. I had a good time at today’s race but I was slow. Nothing went wrong. I just couldn’t go any faster. I felt more like this,

… and not at all like this:

I’m feeling tired and discouraged but hopefully a nap and a visit with my niece / goddaughter this evening will fix me right up.

Longest Day Run

joannealisonfox — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 23:35:52 +0000

Wow, the Longest Day run at UBC is awesome! If you haven’t done this race before, you should put it on your calendar. It’s got a great friendly community vibe and has the best post-race food you’ll ever see. My friend Stephen took this “action” photo to prove it. They had cheesecake and ice cream for dessert, for pete’s sake. That’s my kind of race!

Lots of friends & familiar faces… equals lots of fun! However, 10Km races are hard. The 10km distance is not so much fun (after about 6km) and this route had a little hill that almost got me. Even if it was hard, I was only 30 sec of my 10Km best so it’s a good start.

Year of Events, not Races

joannealisonfox — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:33:29 +0000

In previous year’s, all of this crazy triathlon training was about the racing but this year its about the events. A subtle distinction, but a distinction none the less.

What a better event to kick of the year, then my swim bunny appearance at the Delta Triathlon:

New Year, New Best

joannealisonfox — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:36:51 +0000

Looks like I’m starting the year off right with a 36:23 personal best at the Steveston Ice Breaker 8km race! I went out way too hard but still hung on for about a 30sec best time. It hurt like a son-of-a-gun. With about 2km to go, I couldn’t help thinking I hope the half marathon doesn’t feel like this. However, It is nice to see that I’ve cracked the 37min-ish barrier that this race seemed to hold for me over the past 3yrs. We’re still a little travel weary from our trip to Mexico, and Torbin seems to have brought back a tropical bug with him, so all-in-all, I’m pretty happy with the effort. Next up, the Langley half marathon.

Third Half of Oliver Race Report

joannealisonfox — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:30:15 +0000

The second half of my Oliver race report is here. I don’t want to stretch this race report out too much longer… but the reason why I’m reflecting is that I’d like to learn from what happened on the run – specifically on the second half of the run. Short story, I ran out of gas. For the long story, keep on reading.

I felt great coming off the bike. I came in just behind one girl, and noticed that only one bike from my age group’s rack had returned. My head space was great – and I was feeling great. I wasn’t running hard, just steady. I definitely felt the extra effort on the bike, but was still running well. I passed a bunch of folks including one girl within the first 5km. At the first turn around, I could see some very strong racers behind me so I knew I was in a very good position. My headspace was awesome. The run hurt, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I’m not exactly sure where it all went wrong. But I definitely ran out of gas. Somewhere in the first loop I discovered that my stomach was saying, “No way, Jose to gatorade.” I tried to get a gel in me on the way back but had to spit about half of it out. I dropped my fuel belt at the 11km mark – since gatorade was a no go. The second loop was all about determination. Physically, I wasn’t doing well and started getting passed by racers. I don’t usually get passed on the run, so that was interesting. Amazingly, my headspace was still really positive. It was, however, taking a lot of energy to keep it there.

By 15km, it hurt. Hurt, like the IronMan run hurt. My mental energies had to focus on, “Keep on running – Do not walk!” I was passed by the final fast racer at 19km. In ~4km, she gained 4 minutes on me. This is bad. I know I can do better but I am really proud of myself. I did very well to keep positive and keep going. It was a very huge mental challenge… and I met the challenge. This is a first step. At IronMan I walked, here I kept running. I am proud of this. By the last kms, I was feeling the bouyant energy of a best ever finish – and my physical crash on the run melted away. The big personal best of 5:23:13 is 4 and a half minutes faster then the last time I raced… and this includes the extra 3 min+ transition that they’ve added to the course. You can see from the picture that I was really pleased with this finish.

Reflecting back, I can see that the extra effort on the bike plus not enough calories taken in on the bike hurt me on the run. I ran out of gas. But I’ll trade 15min faster on the bike for 5 min slower on the run. That’s a good trade. But, I know that I don’t need to make this trade. I think I can go the same pace on the bike, be smarter with my nutrition ie., eat more for the run, and pull of the 1:48 that I know I’m capable of. This race was really good for me. It made me realize how much more I have to experience in racing. I’m still really new to triathlon racing… and I’m still learning. As Calvin, says, “It’s like renovating a kitchen. You pull away a wall, and find out that you didn’t even know what was behind there. After your done with all the improvements, you’ve got totally new granite counters and fancy cupboards. It’s very exciting” Oliver helped me pull away one wall… the next wall will be breaking that 5h20 barrier. I’m really looking forward to ripping that one down.