the swim

the 'elite' wave swimming in liverpool's albert dock. i'm at the back somewhere but not right at the back yessss!!

a shorter race report this time, reflecting shorter race (just wait until ironman!!)

In brief it was great and once we got going i enjoyed every minute. The emphasis there is on the 'once we got going' maaaan it was cold! It took me a lot of bravery to peel off the layers and climb into the wetsuit and i thought i would be warm in the wetsuit but hell no! i was freezing! and so was everyone else. We were standing at the swim assembly waiting for the pre-plunge briefing just shaking with the cold. The great british summer, huh!

newsflash!! The new bargain basement wetsuit and i are friends! wahey! it's so much better, more pliable and doesn't try to strangle me and i can move my arms. Not sure if it had the effect of helping me to swim faster this time as by the time we started i was a frozen iceberg and wouldn't have noticed if someone had stuck a knife in my arm, but hey at least i didn't suffocate from the wetsuit this time, just from the cold water and icy arctic breeze whipping over the water. Nice.

So, we got into the water for the 8am start. Bl**dy cold but hey we will be off soon. Not to be, we were kept there waiting for 10 minutes! we were as blue as our hats! There were 30-something in the 'elite' age group start and only 8 were girls. I had googled them all and they were all fast but they were also all ages from 17-19 age cat to 45-49 so a good cross section. I was not the only frozen competitor, everyone was getting worked up with being left in the water for so long and were getting rather riled and starting to shout at the canoeists and man with the tannoy. Once we started it took me a while to realise i was moving as my limbs had gone numb, i tried to follow some feet but they were all too fast for me after about 150m but i kept tabs on a small group just in front of me and didn't let them get away too far. I actually loved the swim once we were actually swimming and it was over too soon! And there best thing was that there people behind me still, yesss!!

flipping cold up north!!

me and mr felt wearing tons of layers and still absolutely freezing!!!

'summer' in the uk!!!

a lovely summer's day in england

how can anyone live here??! it's Freezing!! Yesterday went for a longish run which was awesome in terms of scenery (my parents live right on the coast and it's so fab for running) but in one direction the wind was so fierce i kept getting smacked in the face by my pigtails and it was like running the wrong way on a fast moving treadmill. The waves were steel grey and smashing onto the beach and there was so much sand on the roads that the cars were driving on the pavement! This morning me and mr felt went out for a spin and i was so cold my ears hurt...heck how are we to survive tomorrow??!

off to cloudy chilly breezy but green UK

supposed to be the other way around but that must be in 'advanced blogging'..... Two: landing in green UK

One: taking off in sand blown desert

So after the usual packing on the way to the airport palava (i was still half packed from my last trips so that makes it easier!) and Mr Felt was being fought over by my villamates who got to take him apart so i just left them all to it, though whether leaving a bunch of boys with a beer in one hand and an allen key in the other is a good idea i'm not sure but was too tired and too much to do to really worry! Met up with a client of mine at the airport who was off to cyprus to do his own tri camp weekend and then off to the plane which was packed. Am always surprised so many people want to fly to manchester ha. Flight was a bit turbulent which made me a bit twitchy after the recent air france crash, but got distracted with movie watching, yay - the only time i get to watch movies and with flying a lot lately i'm so up to date! We landed rather bumpily and there was a big *bang* and everyone collectively inhaled - god knows what that was but a least we were on the ground by then!! Had to wait for ages for mr felt to get off the plane, don't know what he was doing, probably too cold for him to bother getting off, then there was the usual stupid airport posts and narrow slamming security door debacle to contend with, and a snooty security man who said i had to navigate a a double set of narrow no-turning-back doors by myself which involved a bit of nifty bike bag shoving, trolley dragging circus type maneouvres. Then was another hire car drama as europcar had no car and was supposed to wait for hours for one to come in and ended up with some very nice hertz people who didn't take up my entire credit card limit. And i slept an unbroken 9 hours which was wonderful and haven't done that since 1972 it seems and the other good thing is that my new cheapo wetsuit is here and it's SO nice and pliable and soft and it goes on and comes off without battling and being strangled and bullied by the damn thing and ending up with bruises. It just remains to see if i can swim in it!

mr felt returns

So i whizz off to pick up mr Felt and he takes ages to get ready. He's such a girl sometimes. Meanwhile I amuse myself by causing havoc amongst the staff and customers of wolfis, great fun! Turns out that Mr Felt wasn't just preening and admiring his borrowed race feet in the mirror but needed a new rear shifting cable which needs time to stretch! Flip he's falling apart more than his owner!! Said have no time to ride him properly before the race...heck it's only an olympic, a bit of 'fun' ...yeah.... :-@

Almost 10.30pm and just home and have to be up early again - quelle surprise, lots to pack into tomorrow! Bees want shorter flowers and more honey!! Or is that more flowers in the day, would be handy. What am i on about??!! need to sleep!!!!!

all BACK on track!!!!

Another fab morning of high energy classes and happy smiley people, love it love it! Especially the new bodypump release (70) it rocks!! Went light on the weights in pump and later went to see the magic osteo/physio man who's also a triathlete. Basically my back was so jammed up from all the jumping around i do i was overactivating my lower back and that's why it got upset. A bit of being beaten up and yanked around later followed by a session in the pool and i am back to normal! Well 'normal' in the context of being me anyway. So that's a relief. Just got to find time to pick up Mr Felt from his mini break and we are on countdown to the weekend. Am looking forward to the race but stressing a bit about missing training while i'm there, although hopefully i can escape to do some nice scenic runs.

next race is a week today!

mr felt with borrowed race feet

So got up this morning with a bit of a toothache type pain in the back but hey i had 4 classes in a row to teach plus a meeting to go to plus some other running around then attack practice then another 2 classes and the tri squad training so no time to worry really. It's actually worse when i stop am just concerned about teaching bodypump tomorrow but am sure will be caught up in the energy of the class so won't notice! Then go to the physio to get straightened out! Getting a bit concerned that this olympic tri is taking up essential IM training time! Not long to go! Long run tomorrow early if i don't seize up overnight so had better get some zeds! Mr Felt is on a sleepover at wolfi's bike shop he was so excited about that he didn't even give me a backwards glance when i left him there, he's got a bit of a reputation for keeping the other bikes awake all night so had better go and get him back tomorrow he needs his pre-race wheels up time before he gets put in his box.

June update, next race is round the corner!

julie's serious triathletes ready to train.....


....maybe not so serious then..! whose feet are those??!


Since i got back from Austria i swear my feet (not the ones in the pic!) have not touched the ground! It's been a full on whirl of manic days! Last week was particularly challenging - some crabs in a bucket to deal with (which in its own turn-on-its-head way (see- everything relates to the feet in the pic ;-D)! is a good sign). I suppose! Sometimes, though, rising above it all takes way too much unnecessary energy that could be better spent elsewhere!!

Every (late) night i got home last week there was a row of boys (my villa mates) in the lounge at the infamous Villa 79 avidly watching animal planet which was fascinating (animal planet not the boys - well actually they were when they reeled off the whole cast and goings on of the 'days of our lives' meerkat series - i was quite impressed with the seriousness with which they relayed that information!) There was a bit i saw about a kingfisher who fed off these amazing fish who had the fastest reaction time of any creature on the planet - of course the kingfisher kept missing his potential dinner. I didn't get why the bird didn't go for something slower he could actually eat and wonder how the species survives...there has to be a life lesson in there somewhere!!

How did i get from training/racing to animal planet??!

Yesterday felt like the first day off i've had in a while, and that 'day off' involved getting up at the witching hour to go cycling. Seriously i feel quite refreshed after that 'day off' though :-). Only a week to go until the Liverpool Olympic, hope everything holds together this week in the lead up. i get a bit paranoid the week before a race as i usually do something stupid like fall off my bike/down a hole (real or imaginary)/off the stage during a superman haha, no really!! So i need to be bubblewrapped but it's getting a bit toasty for that! Today tweaked something in my back during bodypump now that's one i haven't done before! The back track was a killer and not just cos of the weight on the bar which i couldn't do anything about being the instructor. darn it! will be ok tomorrow i'm sure! Another busy week kicks off tomorrow, after today not being so bad (in my mad world anyway ;-O). Big party going on in my garden full of diving people...ahhh it's always drinks again at villa 79...i'm off to bed!

austria 70.3 episode twelve - beyond the finishline

the danube river - i cycled up one side and back on the other

tri bikes the day after the race! (not really)

my 'cool down' route

my borrowed touring bike

Ah so, peaceful post race sleep...actually far from it, brekky was spent discussing how all of us were so pumped from adrenaline and fatigue no one could sleep so we should just have got up and had a cup of tea. We spent a happy obsessive few more hours pouring over the results, then i borrowed a bike from my gasthoff owners and went off into the bright morning armed with my ipod, book and a picnic, intending to meander happily about in the sunny day. I ended up cycling almost 60k quite accidentally but hey it took me all day and it was such a lovely way to spend a day. Cycle tourism is huge in austria and the cycle paths are well set up and are just so inviting and pleasant to pedal along. Mr Felt really didn't mind being left behind he said he knew i wasn't cheating on him with another bike as he is obviously vastly superior and he spent the day with his wheels up, chilling.

Ah, so what's next and when?? bring it on!! :-)

austria 70.3 episode eleven - the run!

compulsory post race beers!

me and my go faster pigtails!

So onto the run! and as this was now weeks ago and it's old news i will keep it short ;-). Basically i loved the run, i felt amazingly springy right from the first stride - love that feeling! i didn't let any girls at all overtake me woohoo! I was quite thirsty by then so i did stop off at every aid station (every 2k) and grab some water/electrolyte and coke towards the end. What i took on and the amount seemed to be spot on anyway and i had bouncy feet all the way. Run time was 1.43.33 which i was happy with. All in all despite the baaaad T1 and the other bits i'm critical of, i still took 21 minutes off my March 70.3 time and this course was tougher, so i was generally happy!

I love that finishline experience though it seems to pass in a blur and all you want to do then is swop notes with someone! In keeping with the rest of the austria experience there was a bit of a wander to the recovery tent, i stopped off in a big queue on the way to get my street and bike bags back and then sat on a bench in the sunshine regrouping my molecules and just relishing the whole experience of it until i felt balanced enough to join the food queue. Even so i wasn't hungry, post race the hunger never catches up until later on! Chatted to some random people, the girl in the flouncy frock was one of them. everyone in the recovery area was still in their tri suits and she was in the flouncy frock...i will always wonder if she raced in it! Went back to the gasthoff and spent the whole evening swapping tales with my race buddies. I think we all managed two vases of beer each before fading. We sat in the courtyard and enjoyed the long spring evening and laughed at my 7 minute transition hahaha not ;-Z and various other things that had happened along the way (Eric was very unfortunate as he got into a crash at the bike dismount line - some riders flew into him and two others and he was concussed and taken out of the race) and we spent a Lot of time analysing everyone's results on ironman.com!

austria 70.3 episode ten - the bike!

The first part of the ride was along the 'autobahn', flat but a little against the wind (used to that though!) . My left calf had cramped up getting out of the darned wetsuit and i was hoping that would ease off before we hit the first hill! After that stretch of road we were onto the country roads and the scenery got prettier and greener, just so lovely, though i was glad i had seen it from the bus the day before as on the day really you just focus on catching the bum in front of you (some not so pleasant - who thinks White is a good colour for bike shorts???? nooooo!!!). Soon it was time to climb the first hill through the vineyards and since on this hill i was soon down to my lowest gear i thought heck what will i do on the big one, but time to worry about that later! Everyone slowed down and was bunched together but that hardly constituted drafting, we were just in our own zones. I was just trying to get ahead of 'Carletto' who either had a nervous tic or had a wasp in his ear and was bugging me big time shaking his head around, i just had to get past him! Once up and over the hill it was up and down through some tight roads through the villages - those moments that you have flashbacks about post race but don't have time to really 'see' during the ride. After that it was through more green green a bit up and down until we got to the long flat part that took us along the Danube river, how amazing. The uphills and the flat stretches were the parts i found myself overtaking other cyclists (unfortunately not in my age group!!). I felt great riding along the danube stretch, i was fired up from climbing the first hill and my legs felt full of energy and strength. I even found jesus....and overtook him ;-) ! mr Felt was loving whizzing past all the cervelos with their zipp wheels - his favourite pastime. We eventually turned off from the Danube and judging by the stack of chucked water bottles it was time to climb! A long and slow grind in the sun up and up round a bend in the road, then another...Actually i really enjoyed this bit. Again it was a crowd of cyclists bunched up as far as you could see, but everyone silent apart from huffing and puffing and the creak of pedals turning as we just focussed on getting on and getting up there. Right at the top (where it got just that bit steeper) there was an aid station and a bunch of people cheering us on tour de france style which was fab and lifted the draining energy. People were a bit wobbly at the top where they tried to balance new water bottles with bananas and breathing and finding new gears and finding their legs so you had to watch out for unbalanced bikes as you found your own legs and gears over the top and onward. The climbing was not totally done with as there was an awful lot more of up (despite the profile map showing a nice trailing off soon after). But these hills were a lot shorter. Most of the triathletes were very proficient at descending and cornering at speed, skills that i totally lack, but i can't really complain as i was so stoked at myself for being able to actually stay on the bike going downhill! The 14% descent sign struck terror into my soul but it was a bit like jumping off a cliff into an icy pool - i sucked in a sharp terrified lungful of air and mr felt just went for it...i don't think i will ever be great at flying downhill but at least i can now do it :-). It was soon enough back into St Polten and into T2. I thanked the bike gods for no mechanical problems (apart from the chain falling off after an over zealous gear change after a descent and sudden uphill). I was 8 minutes slower on the bike than i wanted but not too bad considering all the uphill bits.

austria 70.3 episode nine - the bike!

After the T1 palava it was off out on the bike course which was Gorgeous and well worth doing the race for! The weather was perfect -dry, bright and sunny, around 26-28C throughout.

austria 70.3 episode eight - the swim!

Apparently most of my stories are punctuated with 'and then' so here we go...

And then on the way to the swim start my timing plan - which up til then had been perfect - was hampered by lack of portaloos and people (guys, no chicks in my Q except for me) taking Forever! In the end i was giving them cut off times or none of us would have got to the swim start in time. By the time i'd got to the swim start, the pre-race excitement had turned into dawning terror, particularly as the dreaded wetsuit and i had a pre-swim standoff. As i miserably clambered into the horrible thing, the 2XU guy appeared from nowhere and helped to yank me about and then evaporated. Am not sure whether he was a figment of my imagination or whether he was real and his brief for the day was to grope people in 2XU wetsuits! Flung my street wear bag at a blokey in an army uniform, later i wondered whether he was actually the right person to give it to or whether he was just out walking his dog, but hey, i got it back at the end. And then had a bit of a moment where i couldn't find how to get behind the metal gate things to join my fellow wetsuit, red swim hat clad wave, found it, got in and did a perfunctory warm up and then re-stretched the neoprene around again as instructed by imaginary 2XU groper. We were off! but after about 2-300m the wetsuit demons tried to clamp my lungs and drown me and i had a 'i can't breathe/move' panic attack, shook off the demons and got going again, but heck, the julestar really can't swim in a wetsuit! I feel as aquadynamic as an octopus with all its legs tied together in it. So i lost time and useful feet getting through the first lake, trotted the 200m over the bridge to the next lake and started to feel a bit more settled by but was desperate to get the suit off. That's Another Story as in addition to my dismal swim time my T1 time was laughable (see later for more comment on this :-Z) as the suit then decides it likes me after all and refuses to come off. Next time i will put scissors in my bike bag and cut the damn thing off. That will make an interesting YouTube video!!