EricaUrquiola

This was officially my first “pro” race I have ever done and I was a bit nervous and self-destructive. There was a huge part of me that kept backtracking everything I did to prepare for this race. It felt like for every step forward I made – I would take 4 huge leaps backwards. It’s totally annoying when your mind acts like a giant bitch and your body just wants to do what you have been training it to do. For someone who hates to be just a bit less than perfect – the fear of failure was weighing super heavy on my mind. Last year – I raced in the amateur elite division where I rarely lost and I knew moving up to pro, I would rarely win but I wanted the challenge to push myself to higher levels. I want to awe-mazing so why would I not race against the best in the field. Well today I got to do that and it was a hell of a challenge.

The announcer calls out for all the professionals to line up and prepare for the start of the race. It wasn’t longer than a few second before the gun went off. I had a quick look around and didn’t see much of the other females as the women and men were starting off as one big group. Gun went off and off we went. The swim was a boxing match and I forgot to wear gloves and a helmet, shit I wasn’t even aware it was a boxing match. It’s been 6 months since I raced and my last race didn’t end so pretty so yup this was a tough start. I had NO swim plan, no tactic, nothing – it’s like I went into the swim as a total newbie. I’m upset at myself and I know better. I kept swimming off course – Jumping from feet to feet and not keeping a clear mind. I didn’t push or dig hard enough and eventually got punched so hard in the face I literally had to stop swimming. I’m still a little confused about what happen with my swim since I have NEVER Swam so horribly. Honestly- that pace, the sighting, the tactic, it’s embarrassing and awful for the level I’m competing at. At this point I need to really re-evaluate my training regimen for my swim and figure out exactly what happen out there.

Once out of the water, running into transition and seeing one sole bike on the rack – sigh – was a little discouraging. Although, I know what I can do on the bike and I’m confident of my bike skills. The first few miles were oh so painful, but once I got rid of my water legs I felt fantastic. That was till I passed a group of men on a bridge and was making my way down. On the way down I was passed again by these men. A parked (P-A-R-K-E-D) Official decided that I was at fault for someone coming down a bridge and passing me and ME not falling back within 15 seconds is my fault. Let me explain this again – coming down a bridge – I was passed – the official is parked – How do I fall back? Do I brake? Oh well – I’m called to actually dismount my bike and wait until my penalty time is over! AHH I’m actually stopped from over 25+ mph to zero! All the ground I had just made up is lost and now I’m sitting here with lactic acid building in my legs! Time is up. I’m angry and going even faster. I wanted to sub 60 minutes on my bike and now I have a 2+ minute penalty. I ended up having a sub 60 if you discount the penalty time so I’m happy with my bike time and I’m happy with myself for getting back on the bike and grinding through it. I’m NOT happy with the shirtless dude that loves to draft off people in races!

Once again I’m in transition and there are a lot of bikes in there – sigh – but I’m still in it! I start my run and I feel like crude. It is no fun running after biking hard. As a long course racer I tend to take the first mile a bit easy and in these short races I know that will come back and hurt me pretty bad. Nevertheless I started to pick it up towards to second miles and felt a decent tempo but not my best run. Around the last mile I got a horrible cramp towards the center of my belly. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to run back so I slowed the pace /breathing a bit and was able to get in a decent run.  Not happy with my run – I don’t like when I run 10K’s in the 40’s. I feel like I pushed harder out there but I guess the first mile combined with the last mile did me in!

Today wasn’t the best of all races but now I know where I’m at and where I need to be. This swim will always bother me and until I can figure out what happened out there I will be doing endless laps and tempo swims!

Three weeks and I’m off to New Orleans 70.3!! Happy reports ONLY for that race

Dear Peroneal Tendon,

Seriously .. It’s been like 6 weeks and you’re still a pain my my ass. What the hell? I get it – I overworked you but do you really need to be such a bitch? Of all my running injuries you have to be my most annoying.. You should really go away and stay away.

When the doctor first told me about how unhappy you were, I really didn’t give a shit. I thought – whatever – If it’s not broken than there isn’t anything to fix . But no – you just weren’t having that and decided to blow my ankle up like a balloon, be like fire to the touch, and not let anyone touch you. When the doctor later explained you may need surgery, I started to take you a little more seriously. Although I have been nothing but compliant (minus a handful of century rides and a full-time training schedule), you still continue to be a pain.

So.. I have decided .. I just wanna run .. I don’t really care if you are inflamed/torn.

You can bitch, bruise, pulsate, or whatever all you want – this shit is going down!

I have given you way too much time to heal, lots of immobilization, ice, food, PT, and massage. It’s time to get back on on the track and focus on the overall plan.

I understand what the consequences of my choices are but I also understand what can happen if I don’t PUSH myself. So Tendon – If we are going to go Pro in 2012 – You really need to get strong and healthy FAST! Ready for some one legged squats and 3 hours PT X 5 weekly? I AM!!

Love you much,

Erica ♥

Yesterday marked another day in what seems to be the eternal battle between my crotch and saddle. It’s amazing how that combo of leather and carbon can be the determining factor between me going for hours or calling it quits.

I feel like women are not open enough about this topic. Seriously, I’m a conservative christian woman but this is a MEDICAL issue! We need to help each other out. There should be some kind of pamphlet when you buy a bike – something along the line of “Ladies … How to avoid Vaginitis …” I don’t know but for months I have only had men to talk to and only one has really tried to understand me. Saddle sores are a nightmare and pretty nasty – I’m not even going to go into it b/c if you ride, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

Before I started training competitively for 70.3′s – I never went past 125 miles a week. It was hard/short intervals on the bike or “long rides” @ 50 miles. With Ironman World’s/ITU Championships on my mind – My weekly base has built to over 250 miles a week. It’s been very hard on my vagina – we are not on speaking terms.

When anyone says 100 miles .. The first thing I think is .. “Shit, my Vajaja is going to be pissed!”.. Not where am I going to pee, what am I going to eat, how many bottles to take.. Nah, that’s easy stuff to handle but 100 miles on the saddle going hard/easy (DOESN”T MATTER) = an amount of pain that I can’t understand.

Yes, I have tried other saddles, even paid over $400 for some POS euro saddle which now sits on my road bike and beats the crap out of me on the trainer. Many people have been suggesting the Adamo saddle (I’m openly discuss my “saddle issues”) and I just don’t know. I feel like I should keep pushing through the pain and eventually I will just get used to it. I have yet to apply hemorrhoid cream before riding and should really ice down after a ride (YES, ICE my privates).

Maybe I’m just too attached to my saddle, It’s a POS factory saddle that came with my bike. It’s insane that I ride with it but there is a part of me that really resists change and switching out my saddle freaks me out. Bonus part on having this saddle is there is a layer of Vaseline/Chammy Butter that you can’t beat. It’s provides a preventative layer  I know I should be trying out new saddles and eventually will give in.. I do have some in mind.. the SMP Female/Adamo/Fizik Female – I’m going for the female line versus male which is unusually for me. I normally wear/ride all male.

Guess I should just STFU, apply my cream  and saddle up! I mean look at these people – They don’t seem to be complaining! Safe Training everyone!

A few months ago I would have told you that I was done for the season but there was this little piece of me that had a glimpse of “what if”. What if I trained a little longer, a little harder, pushed myself just a bit more? This is exactly what I did. As soon as I got clearance from my orthopedic surgeon, I hit the track. My running mileage slowly increased as the days followed. I kept focusing on the ITU Long course championships and believed that I could compete in it. Unfortunately I never made it to that race, but what I did accomplish was overcoming the sense that I was a failure. It was only weeks prior that I felt like I had lost my entire season, all my training buddies, and everything I worked hard for. It still feels as if I started all over again when I broke my ankle. After missing my qualifying race I was lost. I soon found out I still had a shot at qualifying for a championship race in 2011. Ironman Miami 70.3  gave me a shot at Ironman Worlds in 2011 and with my ankle healed, I just had under a month to get ready for the event. Mentally I was prepared for whatever the race had to bring and physically I knew my body was ready for the party.

Ironman Miami 70.3 Race Report

The days leading to the race my coach was hesitant about me actually racing. I’ve been dealing with prolonged shin splints which could have possibly become R/L tibia fractures. Each run leading up to the race eventually led to me kneeled over in pain clutching onto my shins. I understood the damage I would do racing on them and possibly the downtime in recovery. It didn’t seem to matter since this was my last race and I was going out there like I had to prove something. Pain was going to be irrelevant and I was going to race each discipline like it was the end of the race. Just a month ago I missed Age group nationals and a chance at ITU Long course Worlds due to my ankle – I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity if I could control it. I was so hungry to win this race. All I wanted to do was get out there and tear the shit out of every muscle in my body. If my shins blew up on the run then I would crawl to the finish line, I didn’t care how I physically finished the race – as long as I finished it.

Three o’clock came quickly Saturday morning and everyone in my house was up before me. Gotta love when your family is more excited about your race than you are! The car ride to the event is usually were I find my peaceful solitude before the race. Once you get to the event venue the nervousness begins to build up and it’s a little tricky to calm down. Therefore in the car I take my time to do my imagery, get my competitive drive going, and bring down my tension. Picturing each stroke in the water, how I will take the bike turns, and thinking about my pace for each mile on the run. Usually the day prior to the race I would have scoped out the S/B/R course. This time I chose not to and instead race a blind course. It worked out in my advantage – we all have our racing techniques and I used one that works well for me. Once I got to the venue I made my way into transition and set up my area – checked it 3 times over the next hour to make sure no one knocked anything over and made my way over to the swim. Unfortunately there wasn’t access to the water to get a proper warm up. This caused A LOT of apprehension for me – a good warm up is REALLY important. Immediately I told my husband/coach that the first 800m of the swim were going to be a warm up for me. I don’t train without a warm-up and I certainly don’t train to start a race like this. I knew I had to warm-up, but couldn’t swim and shouldn’t run before the race b/c of my shins. So I ran. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Once I got my warm-up in, it was time to line up for the race. The line was long, full of orange, pink, yellow swim caps. I finally, “excuse me, pardon me”, my way to the front of the line and into the water. Each wave had a 100-200 meter swim out to the starting buoy, which allowed for another slight warm-up and a last chance to pee pee! Get er done! The gun went off. I found myself in the front of the pack and stayed nice and comfy in the middle. There is no better place then in-between two set of hips. For everyone swimming the odd shaped 1.2 miles with only 4 buoys was challenging. We had NO IDEA where we were going. My pack quickly got dispersed after the first buoy and I started chasing feet till I could site another buoy. My swim was off drastically, I know I can swim a mile in under 22 minutes and 1.2 miles in about 26 minutes – to see my swim time was 38 minutes, was a little disheartening. Something went very wrong with the swim and it wasn’t me !

The bike ride/route was my favorite part of the entire event. I pushed myself to the front of the pack which helped me avoid the cluster mess in the back. There was a slight issue with my left calf which began cramping out of the water and continued on the bike. It took about 25 miles to work it out with nutrition and on the bike stretching. This race had a lot of technical turns, which I was a little concerned about since my technical skills aren’t exactly where they need to be. I had been training on my turning and cornering, it definitely paid off in this leg of the race, I was able to take the turns with enough speed and I didn’t have to over work myself to get back to speed.

Coming off the bike was complicated– I knew I had 8 bridge repeats and was in NO mood for it. This was my 2nd half ironman and mentally I was already exhausted. At this point I didn’t know if my shins would take the bridges – especially with the early on calf cramping from the swim and bike. I could feel myself starting to break down and just wanting to walk away. The mental war between my body and mind was starting to wear on me. That’s when I heard my husband shout, you have a 4 minute lead, and I knew I had no other choice but to (forgive the pun) run with it.

The run was brutal – before I found out about the bridge repeat run course I had projected a half marathon of 1:34:00-1:36:00 –according to my performance on training sets. This run was not something I trained for. With all the rumors running around about the run course changing  and no official information to be sure about, I could only hope for the best. There were eight bridges with very little nutritional support (sorry Ironman 70.3). I had to stop and stand in line to get water on multiple occasions which was beyond frustrating knowing that I may loose my position, but if i kept going with no hydration I could foresee a big wall ahead. I could only HOPE the girls behind me were in the same situation as me. I only blame myself for NOT bringing my own water.

The second loop – 6th bridge repeat, I could feel my muscles starting to break down and vomit was quickly creeping up my throat. At this moment I kept asking God to get me to the finish line and to give me the strength I needed to keep moving. This run was nothing short of a mental test and I found myself failing quickly. The last mile – 8th bridge repeat I took off and didn’t look back. Usually at this point the battle between body and mind gets really intensive and I find myself losing to both sides. NOT this time! I wasn’t about to let that happen. I still didn’t know what overall place I was at, but I knew no female passed me on the run course. I turned the corner – passed the swim exit – and ran straight into the finish line! … I heard the announcer say I was the first in my age group… Happy doesn’t define that moment.

After finishing I quickly looked for my husband and parents.  My husband/coach came around the corner with so much pride on his face. Whenever I see his face shine like that, I’m reminded that he sacrifices so much for me to do this. Every victory for me is a victory for him. I really love this man. He reconfirmed that I won my age group but wasn’t sure which place I was overall. It wasn’t until 10 minutes later that I heard my husband say… “Oh no way” – I thought to myself “oh no, I wasn’t first place in my age group”. I asked him “what?” and he told me I was overall and had a better time than two professionals.

The only way to describe this moment is dream like. I’ve had some incredible races since coming back from my injury and this just topped it off. I’m still figuring out what drives me do this or desire this type of pain. I assume its the need to be extraordinary and achieve something astonishing. These races are difficult and can make the strong turn weak. I’ve worked hard and had many people roll their eyes at my dreams of becoming a professional athlete. I’m going to make it to the top thanks to the support of my husband, parents, sponsors, friends, and God. Without any of them none of this would be possible.

Well .. It’s off to run the roads for the next couple months but you will see me soon making waves!

… So I’ve raced enough to get the feel of what to DO and what NOT to DO…

Unfortunately the majority of people have less experience on what they are doing when they race.. It’s quite hazardous. I’ve been racing since I was 12years old and lost just as many as I have won. My resume of races range from cross country races to 5K-13.1k races and even a couple off road races. So I’m going to share with you my experience of what to DO and what NOT TO DO while racing in a running event, or what I call “road racing”

* Please take into account that I don’t just run but  race, so my Do’s and Dont’s may seen a little extreme to some*

So here are a couple of my “DO’s”

• DO Sign up ONLINE – If you choose to sign up the morning of, then expect to have your name spelled incorrectly!
• DO Pick up your packet the day before the race. This way you don’t have to stress about picking up your packet race morning or even missing the start of the race.
• DO Warm up and stretch. No Bueno if you skip this!
• DO Line up at the start according to your distance pace … EX.. If you run a 5K in 26 mins than go to the 8+ min line.
• DO bring your own water/Gatorade/Gu – 99% of the time you will not get the proper fluid required on the course.
• DO Pee and Poo before the race! No need to stop for that, get ‘er done before the race
• DO pee on yourself while racing long distances – If you’re in it to win it why would you lose time to make a pee pee stop? WEAK! (If you are grossed out by this than I apologize)
• DO use every single ounce of energy you have to finish the race strong.
• DO remind yourself that every mile gets your closer to the finish line.
• DO mentally prepare yourself for the race – Know the course, Set your “goal” finish time, break down what time you need to hit each mile marker at, and vision yourself running/winning the race.
• Do know it’s going to hurt and get ready to want that hurt.

Here are the many “DO NOTs” D:

• DO NOT EVER STAND IN THE FRONT OF THE LINE IF YOU CAN’T KEEP A 5:30 min/mile or better PACE! This is a special place that you have to EARN so step back!
• DO NOT Pee on me or others at the starting line. Squat in the corner, do your business, and come back..
• DO NOT just stop running – Turn to see who is behind you and run to the side.
• DO NOT hold back! Every mile should be harder than the last and each breath should get more painful then the last.
• DO NOT Poop on the Porta Potty Seat. Why do I even need to put this?
• DO NOT walk unless you have hit the wall – at this point you shouldn’t even be able to walk!
• DO NOT question if others are in pain b/c they are hurting just as bad as you are
• DO NOT QUIT

Now go out there and RACE!

There are many moments in my training that I forget that I’m not just training to reach my goals. The sacrifices I have made are not my own but rather my entire family. Birthdays, holidays, and many occasions are missed due to races, early morning trains, or some training obligation that requires my attention.

My husband has made a lot of sacrifices for me to reach my goals. He also has taken on the task of coaching me full time. There isn’t a moment in his day where he isn’t working. I have to admit this is one of the many aspects of why I love him. He can never stop until everything is just right. Especially when he works so hard to make sure I always feel secure.

Training over 35 hours a week is physically exhausting. The recovery is painful and never comes quick enough. It is because of my husband that I’m able to train with such passion, aggression, and success. My days are long and my nights are short but knowing I have my husband’s support makes every day a little bit easier. Easy is so very nice. I really need him to know that I couldn’t do this without him. If there was only one person I could see when I cross that finish line than he would be that one person. He has invested as much into me as I have myself.

He is the greatest thing about me….