UC Irvine backwards sprint (1st WCCTC race of season)

This was a rough one. For some explained and some unexplained reasons.
Half of my team was staying with the family of my teammate Lauren about 15 minutes away, and the rest of us were dispersed throughout the apartments of the generous UCI team's grad students. They were hosting the race and were up until the early hours of the morning and out at the race site again before I woke up.
My plan was to get to the race site with plenty of time to do a full warm up, including riding and running. This was going to be a good opportunity since I wasn't going to have to worry about driving or getting other people there.

I woke up low and clammy at 2:00am; I was 42. I ate about 45gs worth of juicy juice and cliff bar, and went back to sleep. I woke up to my alarm at 5:20 in the 200's. (Too much correction.)

I ate the rest of my Cliff Bar for breakfast and drank some water. I covered it with only 25%. I literally walked out the door and rode to transition in 3 minutes. When I got back from riding a loop of the bike course I was 280ish, and I fought this unit by unit until the start. (I didn't record BG's soon enough post race, so I don't have the exact readings.)

I had a really good warm up as planned; I rode one loop of the bike course and ran about 30 minutes and did strides.

My run was horrible.
In T1 I was 250, so I took 0.5 units before getting on the bike.

I was already not feeling great and wouldn't have been happy about my ride regardless, but I had some mechanical issues on the bike. There were about 12 180 degree turns on the bike course and the sharpest was at the base of a pretty steep hill. I was having fun with these turns, calling out 'on your left' as I rode hard in and out of them. But my first time through the one at the base of the hill I shifted up and my chain did its thing where it sits between the two chain rings and spins with no resistance. I had to stop to get it down. I quickly discovered my rear derailer cable had snapped in the process of my frantic shifting to set the chain right. So I stood up all the hills for the next 2/3 of the race. I've been feeling that over the last few days!

For the first time I took my feet out of my shoes on the bike, it was really nice to run to transition without my shoes.
The swim was only 250, a snake pattern through their 25 meter pool. I passed a few guys, but unfortunately there were no girls close enough to catch.

I was 10th.
I need to learn how to run again.

Special thanks to Mum,Dad, Alison,Katie,Jon,Tania,Magali and Tammy for coming to watch and cheer. Some of you got a good show at the base of the hill :P

Photos by Dean Ryan

Winter Cycling Camp at Borrego

On Friday I drove in a two car caravan to join the rest of the group out in the desert in Borrego Springs for Sergio's winter cycling camp. The group had ridden Palomar Mtn. that day, but I wasn't able to go up because of a midterm exam I had that morning.
I was driving my friend's truck, which we fit six bikes and three people in, and of course managed to take a wrong turn. We spent too many miles looking for a street that was not going to be there. We arrived late, which mean't eating late...Mexican food, always hard to guess:

Pre dinner: 71
post dinner:241
Post correction:240

I always have higher blood sugars when I'm away for the weekend, regardless of whether it is a race or not. I do increase my basal rate, but am usually too conservative, fearful of going very low in a strange place. It is also hard to set an alarm for 3am to wake up and test when you have three other people in the room.

Saturday AM:
Fasting: 230
Post Breakfast/Pre Ride:393
1.5 unit correction
At the top of Montezuma: 138, ate 2/3 of Clif Bar and drank more accelerade
mid ride: 130
post ride pre T Run: 130
Pre dinner: 136
post dinner: 151
did eat some trail mix at 10:30 and covered it

The beginning of Montezuma has a lot of climbing, about 3500 fit in 11 miles with grades of 6-8%. I had had a lot of trouble last year with a different ride at the camp. I tend to go anaerobic very quickly without a very good warm up. This has been the case since I ran youth track and has been most apparent the last 6 years. Knowing this and trying to learn from last year...I tried to get out a little earlier than the group and rode for about 15-20 minutes around the hotel complex. There were only about 5 flat miles after that before we started climbing; I would have liked 25...
I definitely would have wanted to start the ride at 150 NOT 393...however my attempt to make the best of the poor situation worked ok. The 1.5 unit correction was enough on top of the breakfast coverage to bring it down, but not too far. The rest of the ride proved easy to control. I covered the bars I ate with 0.3-0.8 units (25% of coverage not during or near exercise) and sipped Accelerade and it was all enough. I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't too anaerobic climbing Montezuma.

Sunday AM:
Fasting: 222
Post breakfast/ pre TT: 254
Post TT: 110

Again too high a fasting; I wish I hadn't eaten the trail mix before bed. Then I would have been able to isolate whether it was purely a need to increase basal over night...but as far as I know it was a combination of both eating late (even though I covered it 100% of normal coverage) and the stress of being at camp.
The time trial went pretty poorly. It was a 40k. The first half is slightly uphill almost the whole way, and it is an out and back. I definitely didn't warm up until at least the half way mark. I rode a couple minutes faster than camp last year, but don't think/hope it wasn't an accurate measure of my cycling fitness. I needed to make myself get out the door earlier and do a better warm up. It is just hard when the continental breakfast at the hotel restaurant is part of the social aspect of the camp!

The corrections of the high fastings and breakfast coverage were enough, so if I can just get it down from the beginning it may make all the difference.


Photos by Tyler Carle

Fiesta Island Race Simulation Workout

My favorite weather!


Pouring rain
Transitioning in 3 inches of mud
What could be better?!

7:00am:
8 mile bike (2 big loops)
2.5 miles run (1 small loop)
4 mile bike (1 big loop)
1 mile run
4 mile bike (1 big loop)
1 mile run

so fun, felt good, tested after the first 2 loops on bike, 79, had to drink JJ, drank 10 oz. of Accelerade throughout the rest of the workout

breakfast at Daniel's after...yum

12:00pm: taught swimming lesson, swam 20 min after, probably 1500 yds total