Vacation and double race weekend

The first weekend of August was another big weekend in the journey towards Ironman and in my build up towards Chattanooga. In the categories of tough training, fun times with friends, and new experiences... Lake Logan weekend was all of the above.

Lake Logan Multisport Festival is a "local" non-Ironman branded series of triathlons and multi-sport events that take place over a Saturday and Sunday in Canton, North Carolina. Over the past couple of years I have heard people talk about Lake Logan but have never done any of them. This year, early on when planning out my summer and training schedule for Chattanooga, I signed up for the Lake Logan Half Ironman. It would be my first non-Ironman branded race of this distance and my only 70.3 before Chattanooga. With the encouragement from my coach, I ALSO signed up for the Olympic or International distance race. The Half Ironman on Saturday and the International distance race on Sunday. Which is over the course of the weekend about 2.1 miles of swimming, 78 miles of biking, and 19.3 miles of running.

I signed up for them early on in my training, and then didn't think that much else about them. It is actually quite bizarre to me that I didn't think about these races all that much, considering how big each one of my three previous Half Ironmans have been in my life.

I guess as my mileage on the bike increased, the double race weekend didn't seem that much. It was "only" 78 miles of biking over two days, which is something that became quite common, if not a shorter ride, in a normal weekend. Swimming has never been a thing to cause me much concern or drain me energy wise, and given the volume I have run in previous training cycles, this all seemed doable.

In addition, I had two weeks of vacation right before Lake Logan weekend to keep my mind occupied with planning, logistics, and mental energy. In my mind, my vacation weeks would probably be lighter and I would be nice and tapered going into race weekend.

Oh vacation! Leading up to Lake Logan I had a whirlwind of a few weeks. I left on Thursday, July 19th and flew up to New  Hampshire, for my annual family vacation. It was a really fun and relaxing few days, as always, and although I got in a couple good runs and short open water swims - BUT training was not my focus at this time. I skipped a workout or two and traded that time with sitting around and chatting, having a couple beers, and filling up on all normal Ballerini family vacation treats... pasta, pizza, candy, fudge, ice cream, and verrrrry little fruits and vegetables or even water for that matter. If you're a longtime reader and curious about the family music video... I think this year's was a good one!

I flew back to Atlanta on Wednesday, July 25, in the morning and went into the office to work for a bit, went on a 2.5 hour bike ride out and back on the Silver Comet, unpacked, did laundry, repacked, and then flew out again on Thursday morning, July 26.

The next leg of my vacation was to Whistler, Canada to watch my friends compete in Ironman Canada, then on to Vancouver and Seattle. I had planned this to be my major vacation of the year, so despite the fact that I was traveling for a fitness-related activity (hello, Ironman!) and with all my regular training partners and some of the coaches... I still was in vacation mode. I again, ended up missing a couple workouts, and the ones that I got in, just felt terrible. At this point I felt like the travel, unhealthy eating, poor sleep, time zone change, and lack of hydration was catching up to me. Every run I went on felt like a major struggle, I was moving slowly, and I just lacked energy. Sharing beds and rooms with other people did not help much, the small (3 hour) time zone change still had impact, and it was also just hot hot hot. My training was not stellar while in Canada and Seattle. [You can check out a video from that trip here though!]

I flew home on Thursday, August 2nd and arrived in Atlanta in the evening, went to the grocery store, unpacked, did laundry, Friday morning went to my Masters swim workout, went into the office for a bit, then repacked and head out on the 3ish hour drive to North Carolina with my friend Joni at around 1:00 p.m. Another extremely busy and extremely tight turnaround.

One of the fun things about the weekend was that I was going up with friends. It was another trip away, as well as races. A bunch of us rented a house and there was a small group planning to race on both Saturday and Sunday.

We went out to dinner on Friday night once we arrived. We had less time than expected to get settled, and then struggled to get seated at the restaurant where we'd made a reservation. As I was catching up with people, I already started to feel a little anxious because I learned that over the past couple of weeks, people's plans had changed due to various reasons. Of the 5 us going up to race that I thought were doing both days, 3 of them were returning home on Saturday. And of the 5 of us in the house, I was the only one that was doing the run of the Half Ironman on Saturday.

You see, Lake Logan has the option to do an aquabike, which is just the swim and bike portion of the triathlon. So on Friday evening, as we ate dinner and got ready for the next day, I had a really difficult time getting my mindset right that I was going to be doing a Half Ironman the next day since everyone around me was only planning out one transition and didn't have 2ish hours of running involved in their day. Plus, I just hadn't done much mentally to get myself there either.

I started realizing that although I had been training for one, I hadn't actually done a triathlon in over a year. I hadn't put on my wet suit since Chattanooga Half the May before. The swim had been shortened that day, so I hadn't even done a full 70.3 in two years! How do I set up transition again? What parts of my body do I need to put Glide on so I don't chafe? How much nutrition and fluids do I need for 56 miles on bike then 13 miles on foot?

I didn't sleep super well the Friday night and my alarm went off way too early for my liking, but alas, we all head over to the race start from our house.

Now, it's important to mention that I wasn't technically planning to "race" these two races. At least not in the sense that I had raced Chattanooga the year before or any of my half Ironmans in the past. In talking with my coach on Friday afternoon on the drive to Lake Logan, he told me to take each day at "Ironman effort." Given that I've never actually done an Ironman, I wasn't entirely sure how to handle that, but I figured the gist of it. Steady, hard, but not all out. Something I could maintain for longer than a Half Ironman or Olympic distance. Not to finish each day completely all out.

Setting up transition was surprisingly like riding a bike (ha!) and it all came back to me pretty simply. I set up my area and squeezed into my wet suit, then head over to the start. This race warns you that the swim, which finishes by swimming through an underpass/bridge thing, gets very cold towards the finish. "Very cold" water to people in the South is different than what I consider to be very cold, so it did not concern me that much as people talked about it. Plus, the temperature change was supposedly just at the very end, so I didn't think too much of it. Using a wet suit in a lake, in the South, in August, seemed funny to me on its own.

After having to make a small correction with my swim cap color to get me into the right wave of swimmers, when they called our wave over and said we could hop into the water if we wanted to, I happily jumped right in with no concerns.

But OH MY GOSH. That water was the coldest water I have EVER been in, in my life. I immediately regretted jumping into the freezing water early and was SO wishing that I had a wet suit with sleeves. I tried to paddle around and warm up and get used to the water, but it just was not happening. There were 3 minutes until they told our wave to go and I was so terrified to put my face in the water.

When they told us to, and I put my face in and started to go... it hurt. The water hurt my face and gave me an instant brain freeze. I forced myself to just keep going and said it would get better as I got moving but it was hard to breathe and tightened your chest it was so cold, even with the wet suit.

I struggled with sighting a bit and had to stop and tread water a couple of times to re-orient myself. I tried to draft off of people but could never get caught behind others. I started catching the men who had been in the wave before me, tried to follow swimmers who seemed to look strong, and just focused on keeping my face down and swimming steady. The water did warm up a bit the further out you got, but after turning the furthest buoys and heading back in, the water got colder and colder again.

As I neared the bridge I was scared for how much colder it could possibly get and swam my frozen self to the dock as best I could. I hauled myself out on my own, and head into transition, stripping my wet suit as I did. I took my time in transition, thinking "Ironman effort, right??" and got my bike, heading out on the course, which I knew was a big hill to start.

56 miles didn't seem super intimidating given the long rides I had been doing before I went away. But I underestimated. I felt like junk the entire bike ride and I really struggled on the ride. The first 20 miles I had to go to the bathroom so badly and I thought that was what was causing me to feel uncomfortable, but even after stopping and using the porta potty, I still could barely move my legs and I felt SO uncomfortable on the saddle.

There's no need to rehash every mile. But I did not feel good. I struggled to stay positive and wanted to cry. I looked around and took in the beautiful mountains around me, tried to stay in the moment, and focus on things going well and the beauty around me... but I just wanted to be done. There were some terrible hills from miles 40-45 and they just completely zonked me. I was crawling up them. The last hill to return to the finish, I thought I might fall off my bike and was tempted to walk. I didn't understand how this possibly felt so terrible, when I had felt so strong a few weeks before. I tried to remind myself of all the tough things I had done on my bike in the past, like riding the 3 Sisters in Roswell at mile 180ish of a 200 mile weekend. But it didn't help. How was it at all possible I could do THAT but not this? 

I struggled into T2, wanting to quit, and feeling so down that I had lost all my bike fitness during my 2 weeks off from riding. My coach was there, telling me to just forget the numbers, I was doing great, and to just have fun. Him being there was such a huge help to me. I don't know if I could have done it if he weren't there. I knew all my friends were now all done and just hanging out (they all passed me on the bike, after starting in a later swim wave for the aqua-bike.) I knew I probably didn't NEED to do the full run, since at one point my coach and I discussed me just doing the aqua-bike as well. I considered asking him if I could stop or just doing one loop. But I knew that on the official results that would be a DNF and that's not something I wanted. Especially coming right back from Ironman Canada, where a number of my friends ended the day with a DNF after months of training their hearts out. Weather conditions and a tough day just shut down some of their bodies and I felt for them so badly. When I thought of that, there was no way I was taking a DNF on the official record books when my body was still moving but it was just my mind that wasn't in it.

So, I did what I could and I ran-walked the half marathon. "Ironman effort, right?" I figured that meant I could walk some, since I imagine I likely will on race day. So I walked some of the aid stops, I used the bathroom, and I took small 1-1:30 minute walk breaks at some points. It was a two loop course with 3ish miles uphill, 3ish miles downhill, two times through.

As I came in towards the finish I saw my coach, my friends, my boyfriend, all around cheering for me, and although I was not happy with how the day was going and felt disappointed in myself, that put the biggest smile on my face.

I was so happy to be done and happy to have a medal to take away with me for the day. Medals don't always mean a ton to me for races that are not goal races. But this one was important because it represented that I didn't take the DNF or drop down to aqua-bike or anything like that, even though I wanted to.

We hung around the finish a bit, took some pictures, drank some water, walked, etc. But then like the weekend of my double centuries, I knew that what I did immediately after one day would impact the next day, so I opted out of the post race beer, post race snacks, and ate my rice cakes and peanut butter and then went back to get out of the sun.

At the house, we showered and hung around a bit, which was really nice to just be off my feet. Tightness started to settle in from the day and my coach had advised me to be sure I stretched a lot and drank a lot of water (which, Jonathan was very good at helping to enforce.) I also was dealing with some major chafing issues. Turns out I did NOT remember all the places to put on body glide when wearing my wet suit and I ended up with some really bad chafing on my underarms right below my armpit. I had realized it was rubbing while I was swimming, but what could I do? As soon as I got on my bike it was hugely painful and continued to be throughout both the bike and the run. I asked every aid station on the run for vaseline but none of them had it so I just suffered through, rubbing more and more as my arms swung. The shower I took back at the house was pretty terrible and I tried my best afterwards to lube up with any form of anti-chafe anyone in the house had.

We went out for an early dinner, then the remaining people around, which was just myself, Jonathan and our friend Michelle, went back to the house for a quick hot tub dip. I was totally dreading the next day. It was such a mental trick thinking that I had to set my alarm for 4:30 AGAIN, drive to the same place AGAIN, I had to set up transition and squeeze into the wet suit AGAIN, get back in that darn cold water and deal with how uncomfortable I was on the bike yet AGAIN. It was painful to think about.

I texted my coach from the hot tub asking him to please, please tell me again all of the benefits and things I would gain by doing another triathlon the next day would be. I felt so tight, so tired, and just overall drained. I told him I didn't think I could do it.

He wrote back telling me that we both knew I could do the race the next day (aka, stop being such a brat) and that yes, it would suck and I would be tight and tired during the race. But that was the point. The point was that it was going to suck and to find a good pace when that suck happens. It wasn't to go fast but to find that zone amidst the hurt. AND that I would be surprised at how much my body could handle.

I went to bed with another 4:30 a.m. alarm set for the next day, and got up to do the same routine over again - putting more body glide on this time than the day before! My friend Michelle, along with Jonathan and I, head over to the start together - me doing my best to try and feign ignorance and pretend I didn't know how cold the water was going to be. It was the first time in my life I was dreading the swim portion of a triathlon! We got to the start, got transition set up, squeezed back into my wet suit, and went over to the race start.

I actually got into the water even earlier than the day before, hoping to acclimate myself a little. I waded around a bit before the wave start, and then once we were officially underway just went out and tried to keep my head down and swim. With International distance triathlons, the swim is barely any shorter than a Half Ironman it feels - .9 mile swim this day vs. 1.2 miles the day before. I did a slightly better job of sighting than the day before, but still feel like I didn't stick too close to the markers and probably got in some extra yardage. I was worried that my chafing under my arms would hurt but luckily, it didn't seem too noticeable once I was swimming. I felt tired and sore though, my whole body and arms felt tired and achey - a feeling I have never really had while swimming in a triathlon before.

I got myself back towards the bridge, up and out of the water, and jogged into transition. Again, taking my time - maybe even more so this time - knowing how uncomfortable I had been on the bike the day before and not wanting to get that suffering started. Now that I was out of the cold water, the bike was what I had to get through next.

I was reminded by my coach to have fun as I head out on the bike, but I immediately felt like junk again. I worked to stay positive and just get myself through it. Right away I started being passed on the bike (story of my life in triathlon.) Part of me felt a little proud when guys would pass me - which made me feel like - Ha! I at least swam faster than you! But when females my wave start passing me at my crawling pace, I felt like yelling after them "I did the half yesterday too! Just so you know!"

The course was much less climbing than the day before, thank goodness, and they didn't have the terrible section, just the big hill to get back into transition. I kept myself going through that, and felt much better on it than I did the day before (I guess 20ish less miles and a lot less elevation makes it feel a bit better on the legs!) I still came in to T2 feeling pretty down though and immediately whined to my coach as I got off my bike, "I feel like I lost ALL my bike fitness!"

It was fun getting to see Jonathan at the transition of one of my triathlons for the first time, he was taking pictures and that forced smiles on my face each time. I changed into my sneakers and head out on the run, anxious to just get the weekend over with. I was tired and my body was achey, but I started running. Just one loop of the 3 mile up, 3 mile down course to get through today. I could do this! I ran the first mile and walked an aid station during the 2nd mile, grabbing some water. I also walked from mile 2.0 to 2.1 and then told myself to screw this walking and just get the day over with. I ran the remaining 4 miles with negative splits (it was downhill the last 3 miles, so don't be too impressed) and was so thankful for the high fives and cheers from my friends as I finished. As I rounded the corner into the finisher shoot I got two words from my coach of, "Great weekend." I wasn't just finishing an International Distance triathlon, I was finishing a big training weekend.

Finishing the race, I felt really happy to be done. I felt proud of myself for completing this weekend when I doubted myself so many times and I was happy that I had run those last 4 miles of the run. It was a good feeling to get those two days under my belt and it was much harder than I anticipated. I wanted to stop so many times, and I am sure there is a lot of people that probably wouldn't have blamed me for it, but I kept going more than once thinking about my friends in Canada and their toughness that kept me going.

I had no desire to hang around this day so I immediately went and gathered together my things out of transition, packed up, and we all started to head to the car. Lake Logan weekend was a wrap.

As the adrenaline and immediate proudness from finishing wore off, I started to reflect more about the weekend and how it had gone. I had very different feelings and mixed emotions finishing this "double weekend" of racing than I did finishing my other "double weekend" of two century rides. I had been ecstatic after that weekend in early July. It had been something I was really scared of and a massive accomplishment. In comparison, after this big "double" weekend, I just felt really down.

Looking at my times, I felt disappointed. My race times were slower than when I first started doing triathlons at all. Comparing Lake Logan Half to Chattanooga Half the year before, was laughable. Even comparing the times to pre-coaching and pre-ITL, when I was riding a road bike with no aero bars, my times were slower.

After a year and half of busting my butt to get faster on the bike and the run, I was looking at my results wondering, "What happened? How can I tell myself this is progress? How can I not be disappointed with slower times? How should I be happy with this?" I went from building speed and power into my run for over a year with grueling training plans...  to being excited to have run 4 miles in a row without stopping. And have just one of those miles be under 9:00 min/mile. It felt silly to me when I stopped to think about the times to be happy about what I had just done.

In addition, looking through pictures, I felt unfit. I did not like how I looked (or had felt) in my tri kit that weekend. I didn't feel confident and I cringed at most of the pictures of me. It feels a little shameful to admit that since I want to be proud of my body for being strong and having endurance, but when I looked at pics all I saw were the rolls and that made me upset.

Logically, I know all the things to tell myself and all the things that my coach, a friend, a boyfriend, anyone would and did tell me following the weekend. First, that it was a difficult and impressive thing that I had done. It was a lot of stress on the body and many people would have likely opted to do less. I didn't, and I should be proud. And as far as comparing times to last year... it's not comparable. To start, I wasn't even "racing" these races. I wasn't peaking for them or prepping for them like I did any of the Half Ironmans I had done in the past. The course was much harder. I haven't been focused on speed this training cycle either. And I had JUST come back from 2 weeks of travel, poor eating, hydration, sleep, and time zone changes. These and so many other reasons make it just silly to compare my performance that weekend to anything in my past, but I couldn't help myself. I wished that I felt better about it, but I couldn't get there.

I also felt so tired and achey, worse than I had felt after the back-to-back century rides. I struggled to understand why I was feeling so sore when the total mileage was less and my intensity wasn't even that high for these triathlons. My mind was in a bad place and it was a lot of work to dig myself out of it.

I learned a lot from this weekend. First, I under estimated what it would be like. I got a bit cocky from having done some tough things earlier in the month and didn't think I needed to prep or prepare in the ways that I usually do for races. I didn't eat, sleep, or hydrate at all properly. I went into it, expecting it to not be as challenging as it was and I got my butt kicked.

That being said, I had a week or so of being mopey about the races and am moving on, knowing what I need to focus on and learning a lot from how I felt going into a race unprepared. I am ready to conquer the next 7ish weeks of training for Chattanooga. I have no time in my schedule to feel down on myself, just opportunity to get ready.

Coming out of that weekend, I know that I don't want to go into a race day ever again feeling like I have any regrets or thoughts of things I could have, would have, or should have done to be prepared. I want to have NO REGRETS on September 30th of how I spent these last two months of training. Not just in terms of completing the actual training and workouts, but in getting enough rest, in eating well, and being the best version of myself. Over the past couple of years I haven't just been busting my ass to become faster, but I have busted my ass to train like an athlete and to consider myself an athlete. It is what I forgot about going into Lake Logan and what I am focused on now. No more coulda, woulda, shouldas. No regrets in these last weeks of training. It is go time.

All in all, I had a great weekend in Lake Logan with my friends and my boyfriend. I loved that both Jonathan and I could get in a great weekend of training while going away together with friends. I love how supportive he is of me and that he isn't afraid to give me a hug at the end of a race when I am the grossest, sweatiest version of Katelyn there is. It was great that he was able to be at a triathlon with me for the first time, meet and spend more time with the broader triathlon community, and have more practice being my race day "sherpa" prior to Chattanooga.

I loved that I was able to spend this weekend with some of the people I have been putting in a lot of training hours with and who I will be racing with on September 30th. At the beginning of the summer we joked that we'd all be doing a lot of bonding this summer, and this weekend was one of those. Michelle, who did the aqua-bike AND the Olympic distance race, which is incredibly badass - not only did both races, but PODIUMed both days (very humbly I might add!) She was so supportive and positive about my weekend and her encouragement was so incredible. I am so thankful she was racing both days as well and I couldn't have done it without her.

I was also beyond appreciative and grateful for my coach and his support throughout the weekend. I had no idea that he was planning to be at both races but seeing him before, during, and after each one of the races made me feel so much more comfortable. At least if he was signing me up for this craziness, he was there to see me through it, right?? He really is such a supportive part of this journey for me and deals with a lot of my craziness, anxieties and near constant questions always with a smile (old pic below, because apparently we didn't take one!)

The course was absolutely beautiful. I loved the scenery of the Smoky Mountains and multiple times when just driving around, I couldn't stop myself from just commenting on how pretty it all was. It was really fun to race in a new place, with new scenery, and my first non-Ironman branded race. In addition to the medal from the Half, I came away with TWO new pairs of red triathlon themed PJ pants, TWO t-shirts, a pair of too big socks, and lots of fun memories from the weekend.

I knew at the beginning of the season that not every weekend or every training day would be the best. It's only natural. It is the tough weekends we learn and grow from and that make the end result worth it. It's the ones we don't feel good, but have to keep going, that make us stronger. Lake Logan weekend was hard mentally and physically, but I am thankful to have had that kick in the butt going into my final stretch of training. Thank you to everyone who said something positive to me about this weekend - you have no idea how much it meant. Can't wait to crush the last 7 weeks of training.

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Also, and an FYI for my future self who will probably be curious what my times were and for anyone who was interested themselves. Here are the results for the 2018 Lake Logan Half Ironman and the 2018 Lake Logan International distance triathlon. I finished in 6:31:34 and was 5/9 in my AG in the Half Ironman with a 35:49 swim, 3:34:29 bike, and 2:14:29 run. For the International, I finished in 3:00:48 and 8/11 in my AG. My swim was 28:18 (2nd in my AG!), bike was 1:25:55, and run was 1:00:38.