Barb's Race - My First 70.3

This recap is three weeks late but hey, better late than never! Three weeks ago I crossed something off my bucket list ... I did my first half-Ironman! Ironman's are technically a brand of race so this race is more officially referred to as a 70.3, the distance you cover between swimming (1.2 miles), biking (56 miles), and running (13.1 miles). Back in 2012 when I was training for the Marine Corps Marathon my plan was to complete marathons #19 and #20 in 2012, and then do my first 70.3 in 2013. Well, life had other plans and brain cancer entered the picture right before marathon #19, so I didn't get through #19 and #20 until 2013, and now this year was the year to do a 70.3. I chose Barb's Race because it was a women's only event which I find to be less intimidating, it was up in Napa which gave me an excuse to go home to San Francisco, and the swim was in the calm Russian River which seemed to be a lot more pleasant than the dirty and choppy ocean water that San Diego has to offer.

 

Race Prep

To prepare for the race I created a bare-bones training plan that had me working out about six times a week - a very light training schedule compared to the 8-10 workouts a week most plans I found online suggested. I travel a lot for work and had a number of other personal trips planned so in the three months that I was training I actually only ended up getting in about four workouts a week, sometimes six, and sometimes only two. Over the course of my three month training period I was out of town NINE times! Oh well, I worked around it the best I could. The weakest leg of a triathlon for me is definitely the swim, so earlier in the year I found a swim coach and started working out with her once a week when I was in town to improve my technique and work on my endurance. Having a swim coach is great! I loved showing up, being told what to do, having someone critiquing my form, and constantly being encouraged. It made me think that I should get a running coach too or go back to having a personal trainer. If only money was no object...

Last Workout With My Swim Coach

 

Race Weekend

Since the race was up in the Bay Area and we needed to take my bike David and I decided to drive and take the dogs with us. We were going to be staying in Santa Rosa at Christina's mom's house for the weekend, which was about 30 minutes from the race start, along with Thu and Barb who were also doing the race . We got up at 3:30am Friday morning to head north and were fortunately passing through LA early enough to miss rush hour traffic.

Mika Photobomb!

 

 

Race Expo

After having lunch (and finally finding a David Coke!) I went to the expo with Barb and Thu to pick up my bib, attend the mandatory pre-race info session, and to set up my run gear. Unlike all of the other triathlons I've done where you ride in and out of the same location, this race had to bike out of one location near the swim exit and bike into a different location miles away where you'd start the run. Because of this we had to set-up our T2/run gear near the finish line on Friday and leave it overnight.

 

 

Not A Monika Coke In Sight....

 

 

 

As we walked around the expo I started to get really nervous about the race as I realized how hot it was. I checked the weather on my phone and it was 97F!! It was supposed to be a bit cooler the next day but not by much. I was also going to be out on the course for 7-8 hours so the run would end up finishing right at the peak temperatures for the day. Yuck.

The Day Before

Gear Is Ready To Go

 

 

Race Morning

The race didn't start until 8:30am which meant we all got to "sleep-in" until 6am. The San Francisco Marathon in comparison which was the same weekend and I was missing for the first time in five years ... sniff sniff ... starts at 5:30am. Brutal. We got down to the race pretty early and set up our bikes and hung out until our wave started. It was only in the mid-50s at the start but you could tell it was going to be a warm day. I was pretty nervous waiting for the swim to start since that is my weakest leg, and just kept telling myself that as long as I made it through the swim I was going to finish the race.

I Love This Guy

Getting Ready To Race

The Swim
Our time to start finally rolled around and we were in the water. I swam a few practice strokes (great warm-up huh?) and was instantly shocked by the fresh water. Swimming in the ocean and having salty water hitting your mouth is a constant shock to me. While this water was green and murky and looked almost as dirty as San Diego bay water, in comparison it tasted as fresh as tap water! I couldn't believe it. I loved it!

Barb's Race Swim Course

When the race started I was immediately passed by any faster people behind me and tried to ignore them and settle into a comfortable pace. I could tell that I was swimming slower than most of the women in my age group but I didn't care. For the first time in a triathlon I wasn't having anxiety, and I attribute that to the fresh water and the fact that there wasn't seaweed hitting me in the water periodically making me freak out thinking that some creature was touching me. After feeling like I was swimming for what felt like forever I finally saw the turnaround point. Finally! But wait, nope ... it was several buoys farther. After making it to the turnaround and realizing I was half done I was elated. I happened to see Barb at the turnaround and we gave each other a hug before heading back.

The Russian River

The Bike

When I finally reached the shore and got out of the water I must have been smiling ear to ear and thought to myself wow! I'm going to do this! I ran over to transition to change out of my wetsuit, ran my wetsuit over to David to take back to the car so we wouldn't have to return to this transition area since I'd be biking into a location miles away, got my bike and headed out onto the bike course.

Barb's Race Bike Course

The bike course went through miles and miles of vineyards which I had heard was beautiful. A few months prior I had run the Napa Valley Marathon which also ran through wine country and while the vineyards were pretty for a few miles, I found the scenery to be repetitive and dull. This wasn't the case on the bike. Maybe because we were covering so much distance and seeing so many more wineries? Or maybe because it was a beautiful sunny day compared to the gloomy rainy day we had during the marathon.

All Smiles On The Bike

I had completed a 67 mile bike race a few months prior and knew that I could make it through the distance on the bike but was afraid that at some point I was going to get sick of biking. Usually 20-30 miles into a long bike ride I'm on cloud nine thinking about how I should try biking 100 miles someday. Then I get to miles 40-50 and I am just sick of sitting on the bike and can't get done with the ride fast enough. I must have been high on endorphins on race day because the bike ride never got boring for me and went by quickly. I loved cruising around the turns and past the vineyards and up and down little hills. There were only two bigger hills, the last of which I thought I might need to walk up at one point, but before I knew it the bike leg was done.


The Run
After getting through the swim and the bike, I knew I'd finish this race! I could run a half marathon in my sleep! Well ... within the first mile of the run I realized that while I'd be able to cover the distance, it wouldn't be easy. It was SO HOT out. OMG. I bumped into Tara during transition and we ran together for a bit before separating, and then I bumped into Barb a little further into the course. We ran together for a while before I needed a walk break, and in true Barb fashion (Bad Ass Running Buddy) she stopped to walk with me. We stayed together for the rest of the run and alternated between walking and running. At one point Tara caught up to us and the three of us walked and ran together.

Barb's Race Run Course

The course was two out and back loops (which I hate - oh there's the finish line! nope, not yet) which I found to be torturous, but it did give us the opportunity to see everyone cheering for us at the finish. At several of the aid stations there were people with cups of ice that they'd pour down your shirt to keep you cool. I probably had this done six or seven times on the course, and wow did it feel good!

Running With Barb

Running With My Two BARBs

An eternity later we finally approached the end of the run course. Before the race I had set a goal for myself of finishing in 7 - 7 1/2 hours, and I couldn't believe that even with all of the walking we had done we were going to make that. I had joked with Tara earlier that if we were going to finish together we should all hold hands. As we came into the finish chute she asked "hold hands?" which I gladly accepted. They put up the finish banner for each person who ran through which made you feel like you were winning the race as you 'broke' the finish line tape. We won! Not really, but thank goodness it was over. This was my slowest half marathon ever by far, but one of the most rewarding moments crossing the finish line. Best yet, I crossed with  my two friends who each ran a marathon with me last year during chemo. 

Approaching The Finish

We Won!!

Our other friend Catalina had finished before us and our friend Thu was just behind us so we waited around in the finish area until we could cheer her in. When we were all together again at the finish mass picture taking ensued. Hey, we had to, we all had cute matching tri outfits.

San Diego Ladies

GOTRSD Rocks

Love This Sign

Hilarious

 

Official Finish Times

 

Post Race
After the race we went back to shower and change and headed out for some food. We had Chevy's for dinner and an early bedtime since I was exhausted, and the next morning we drove down to San Francisco to have breakfast with my dad before hitting the road back to San Diego. Looking back on the race I had a great time and would love to do it again. When? I'm not sure. These races are expensive and there are only two in San Diego which both have ocean swims which I really don't think I can handle. There are a lot of other 70.3's which are in lakes but they require travel. For now I'm going to relax a bit and maybe get back into calmer sports like yoga and paddle boarding and enjoy this accomplishment. Is a full Ironman in my future? NO WAY. I could barely train enough for this race and can't even imagine how I'd find twice as much time to workout. Training bike rides of 80-100 miles also sound like torture. Unlike the marathon, in this case I think a half is just good enough for me.

 

Catching Up

The past few months have been a blur of travel and races. What would have been probably seven separate blog posts in the past will now be one, filled mostly with pictures. Here’s an update on what I have been up to since May.

 

GOTR 5K
Twice a year Girls on the Run San Diego hosts a 5K to celebrate the end of the season for the girls. Although Tara and I are no longer coaching, I am still on the Board of Directors and we attend the 5K both to support the organization and also to exhibit at the expo for Glam Runner. The race is always fun but this year’s race was extra special because we were brought up on the stage (with a red carpet entrance!) to be thanked for our fundraising of $8000 for the organization through the whole Tutugate ordeal.

 

 

Girls on the Run San Diego 5K

 

 

Even Our Husbands Know #tutusrock

 

 

Self Magazine Visit
Speaking of Tutugate, a few weeks after the GOTR 5K our Executive Director Amy and I had a meeting with the new Editor in Chief and the Director of PR at Self Magazine. Back when the whole media storm was going on, the previous editor and I had made plans to meet up the next time I was in NY. Soon after we planned that though she was replaced by a new editor and I thought the meeting probably wouldn’t happen. I reached out to the new editor though and told her I’d be in NY for work later that month and asked if she would she still like to honor the meeting and she said yes. Great! I invited Amy to join me for the meeting and we met with her to talk about GOTR, what the organization is about and how it was started, what the impact of the program is locally and nationally, and suggested some ways that GOTR and Self could work together. Not sure what if anything will come of that, but hopefully something will.

 

 

Selfie at the Self Magazine Office

 Posing With "My" Issue

 

 

Feature in Self Magazine

 

 

 

San Diego Century Ride
Hot on the heels of my NY trip (aka I actually had to leave a day early to make the race) I was back in San Diego for the San Diego Century Ride. This would be my second time completing the metric century distance (67 miles) and I committed to this race to keep myself accountable with bike training for my big triathlon in July. My friend Shannon and my cousin Giselle joined me for the ride and we had a great time. Just like the last time I did this race, somewhere around mile 20 or 30 I thought “I should do the real century distance (100 miles) sometime!” BUT … about 20 miles later I was pretty much over it and the ride couldn’t end fast enough. Distance riding doesn’t seem as physically exhausting as marathon running, but you are on the bike for SO long. SO SO long. Ugh.

 

 

San Diego Century Metric Course

Halfway Done With The Ride

Best Part Of The Day

 

 

GOTR OC
The day after the San Diego Century I slept in – nope, no I didn’t. I was up at the crack of dawn again to drive up to Orange County with Tara to attend the inaugural GOTR OC 5K. We had been asked to come up on behalf of GOTRSD and Glam Runner and it was hard to say no. The event was great and we ended up having fun and were happy we came. So glad we were able to support our sister chapter!

 

 

With The GOTROC Leaders

 

 

Maui
The weekend following the GOTR OC 5K though I finally got some rest. David and I went to Maui for a week to celebrate my birthday and our one year anniversary (a month early). We had an extremely low key week which was exactly what I needed. Aside from going to the beach, shopping, eating, and relaxing, the only big adventure we went on was ziplining. No road to Hana, no sunrise at Haleakala. Those are fun but are pretty tiring since they involve so many hours in the car, and we’ll save doing those things again for a future trip.

 

 

View From Our Condo

One Of Many Gorgeous Beaches

Dinner at Mama's Fish House For My Birthday

 

Vegas
What would my life be if it wasn’t going from one trip directly to another? A couple days after getting back from Maui I was headed to Vegas to work a tradeshow. Why yes, this would be my fourth time in Vegas this year. That's about three times too many!

 

 

Appetizer At Michael Minna - Seriously?

 

 

San Diego International Triathlon (SDIT)
The weekend after I came back from Vegas I had my second triathlon of the year. I had competed in SDIT three years ago and liked the course and thought it would be a nice intermediate length race between the Spring Sprint in May and Barb’s Race in July. Fortunately, in this race I didn’t freak out in the swim as much as I did in the Spring Sprint, and I made it back to the shore without a near panic attack. My dad was also visiting for the weekend and the night before the race we went to the Padres game. Pre-race carbo loading with garlic fries? Sure, why not!

 

 

San Diego International Triathlon

(1000m swim, 30K bike, 10K run)

Twinsies! We're So Cute ;o)

Getting OUT Of The Water

 

 

Selfie With My Dad At The Padres Game

 

 

Coronado 15K
The next weekend after SDIT was 4th of July weekend and Christina came to visit and we ran the Coronado 15K. This would be my 6th time running this race in the 7 years I have spent in San Diego. (I was up in the Bay Area one 4th of July and ran a race up there instead.) I love the 15K distance because it’s long enough to feel more challenging than a training run, but short enough that it doesn’t warrant any stress like a half marathon.

 

 

Showing Off Our American Pride

Padres vs Giants Game

 

 

Next Up
This coming weekend I’ll be heading up to the Bay Area for Barb’s Race – a women’s only 70.3 distance triathlon aka a half-Ironman. To say I’m nervous about the race would be an understatement.  I feel completely undertrained and have probably only put in about half as many workouts as most training plans recommend. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I’ve been out of own NINE times in the past four months and I can’t swim or bike on the road and often don’t have time for longer runs when I'm traveling. With my 12 ½ hour day thanks to my commute I also don’t have time to workout morning and night which is pretty common for triathletes. I’ve done what I can though and hope that I’m in good enough shape to get to the finish line. If you want to track me on Saturday you can do so here. Wish me luck!

 

 

My Bare Bones Training Schedule
That I only completed about 75% of

Green = out of town!

 

 

 

 

 

Capitol Hill Advocacy

The past several months have been a whirlwind of travel for me and I’m way behind on my blog and can never seem to find the time to update it. In between traveling I’ve been trying to train for my big triathlon in July as much as I can, and have been kept very busy making tutus. In my last post I talked about the Spring Sprint Triathlon, my first triathlon back after a 2 ½ year hiatus. That race came right on the heels of a trip to Vegas for work … and believe it or not later that evening after the race I was back on a plane again headed to DC.

 

 

Spring Sprint Triathlon Complete!

 

 

Red-Eye Sleep Mask from JetBlue

In early May David and I attended an advocacy event called “Head to the Hill” put on by the National Brain Tumor Society. According to the event website:

On Tuesday, May 6th, brain tumor advocates from across the country converged on Capitol Hill to share their stories and advocate for public policy issues that are important to the brain tumor community. This year’s fourth-annual Head to the Hill Advocacy Day was our largest to date, with 135 advocates from 30 states attending 156 meetings with members of Congress or their staff.

This event sounded like a great way to get involved and make a difference in the brain tumor community, and also gave us a chance to visit David’s family. I managed to talk David’s mom into attending as well so the Allens were 3 of the 135 attendees and represented California and West Virginia.  The event started out on Monday afternoon with a training session on the three keys issues that we would be advocating for.

 

 

Brain Tumor Advocacy Issues

 

1. Oral Chemotherapy Parity – ensuring affordability of oral chemotherapy, the standard of care for brain tumors (more here)
2. Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Reauthorization Act – a bill to improve pediatric cancer research and information (more here)
3. Appropriations for Medical Research and Drug Approval – ensuring support for brain tumor research and drug development (more here)

 

The following day we would be broken up into a group of California constituents who would be visiting Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and then later California would be broken up into several smaller groups (because there were so many of us from California - go California!) to visit our representatives for our regional areas. In each meeting that we had scheduled there would be a set flow to the meeting with assigned roles for each topic. In the larger California group there were more of us than there were roles so I didn't speak, but in the smaller group I volunteered for the role of talking about the oral chemo parity act since that was one that is personally relevant to me. In our training we spent time going over the issues, assigning roles, practicing our parts, and role playing.

 

 

Advocacy Training Day

 

That night after the training we headed over to Nationals Park to meet up with David’s parents, brother, and brother's fiancé to watch the Nationals vs Dodgers game. It had been a beautiful sunny day … up until the moment we stepped out of the Metro station. It started raining, then raining harder, then pouring. Such a shame because we had great seats! We watched three innings before they stopped the game for a rain delay (We were soaked by this point!) and after waiting a bit to see if the rain was going to let up we ended up going home. We found out later that after a 3 hour delay (?!?!) they ended up continuing the game and finishing it. Um, sounds miserable.

 

 

Rainy Nats Game

 

The next morning we were up bright and early to meet everyone for breakfast before heading off to Capitol Hill. So much for my plans of running around DC... oh well! We were starting the day with a group photo on the steps of the Capitol before breaking up into our smaller groups and heading off to our meetings.

 

 

Headed to the Hill!

Car2Go Sighting!(My morning transportation to the train station in SD)

 

 

California Constituents

Head to the Hill Advocacy Group

 

Our first meeting was with Diane Feinstein’s office. A San Francisco legend!! She had a lot of San Francisco photos and memorabilia around her office which was really neat. She also had a bowl of California prunes, which we later saw was a staple in the offices of many of the California representatives. Who knew prunes represented California?

 

 

California Prunes - Did the CA Raisins retire?

For those who didn't grow up in CA in the 80s,
check out this video for reference to the CA Raisins

 

In this first meeting I felt perfectly fine until we got to the part of our presentation where someone shared a personal story. This woman in our group talked about her own personal battle with brain cancer, showed pictures of friends she had lost, and also said “I know that this is something that is going to kill me someday”. (She didn’t say this in our practice session the day before.) It took about everything I had not to burst into tears. That is something I often think about, but rarely say since I don't event want to acknowledge the chance of it. Hearing someone else say it so matter-of-factly hit too close to home. I thought that nobody noticed my eye-watering moment in the meeting, but it turns out that the woman who was talking did. After we left the office she came up to me and said something along the lines of – “Hey, I’m sorry that bothered you. You know that I only said that to get to them right? I don’t believe that is the truth. Doctors don’t always know everything. No one can predict when you’re going to die”. As a long term survivor (9 years I think?) I found her words fairly comforting, but I was still shaken up a bit. But … we moved on with our meetings and I kept it together.

 

 

Outside Diane Feinstein's Office

 

Well … I kept it together until one of our smaller group meetings with Susan Davis, our representative for San Diego. In most meetings we attended David was sitting by my side, but for this meeting for some reason he ended up across the table from me. During the meeting I was going through my part talking about oral chemotherapy and how it was something that I was on for a year, and how as someone with an inoperable brain tumor it was my only choice of treatment, and sadly there aren’t really many other treatment options. As I was talking about this I looked across the table at David and out of nowhere burst into tears. The gravity of my situation suddenly hit me, and I just lost it. I tried to finish my part but was sobbing through the whole thing. SOBBING! What a mess. Hey, at least I came through as passionate right? So embarrassing … We had one more meeting after that and luckily I had everything back under control and didn’t cry again, although I’m sure I had the rest of my group nervous about my emotional instability.

 

 

Busy Day of Meetings!

 

At the end of the day we had five successful meetings. In each meeting we found out that the representative either already supported what we were advocating for, or the staff member we talked to seemed engaged and interested in the issues we were talking about. After the day ended David and I talked about whether or not we thought our meetings made a difference, and we both felt that they did.

 

 

Team Allen Advocates

 

A few weeks after the advocacy event we received an email from the event organizer confirming our speculations. A number of co-sponsors were added to the Cancer Drug Coverage Parity Act and the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Reauthorization Act soon after our meetings! For example, the first act only gained 4 co-sponsors between January – May 2014, but 6 more co-sponsors were added in the days following our meetings. Wow!

 

 

Capitol Hill with My Rappelling Friend Beth!

 

The whole event was really a great experience. It was well run, we enjoyed trying to make a difference, it was fun meeting all of the other advocates, and hey – we snuck in a trip home for David to see his family. If you are interested in advocacy work with the National Brain Tumor Society, you can find more information on their website.