Since the triathlon two Sundays ago, I haven't done a whole lot. I swam the Monday night after the race (May 18th), and went biking for 14.76 miles on Tuesday the 19th, and I swam on Wednesday the 20th and Saturday the 23rd, then ran 3.1 miles tonight, Wednesday, May 27th. I also played golf with my dad on Memorial Day, but that doesn't really count as "training." Ironically, though, it'd been so long since I played golf that the repetitive swing motion made me sore the next day.
The reason for my reduction in training is due to the simple fact that I've been very sore recently. Mainly saddle sore. I'm not used to all the miles I've been putting in on the bike. Part of it has to do with my ride on the 19th. 14.76 miles is the longest I've ever been on the bike, and come the Thursday after, I could tell I'd likely been biking a bit too much. The back of my thighs ached constantly, likely from all the time in the saddle, and that ache continued thru Memorial Day. It was far less than pleasant, and I decided to back off a bit and let my body recover from the race and the extra miles I've been doing so as to prevent sickness or injury.
That said, the bike ride on the 19th went very well. I met up with a local triathlon group at the downtown airport to ride, and did four laps around the complex. Not only was this the longest I've ever done, it was a new record for average speed - 15.7 MPH. My goal is to get my average speed up to around 17 or 18 MPH for the half Ironman (HIM) in October, so this is a step in the right direction. I'll grant that this course is mostly flat (two short, but steep, hills), but I'm hoping if I train well here it will translate come race day. I'm also glad I met with the group - had I been on my own, I likely would have stopped after three laps instead of getting the extra 3.7 miles in.
I don't have much to say about the swimming workouts. I did the yardage and felt OK doing it.
Tonight's run went well, however. I did 3.1 miles in 39:19, which is a new record for me. I ran .5 miles and walked .1 to rest for the entire run, and it worked out well. When I first started running last summer, I was doing .1/.1 splits, so to come back after a long layoff and still manage a .5/.1 split for 3 miles felt good. I'm confident that after a few more weeks, maybe a month, I'll be back to running upwards of 5 miles without walking at all.
Overall, I'm glad I scaled back the training a bit. I'm in the beginning of my HIM training plan (it's a twenty week plan) and I think that for my current fitness level it's a bit ambitious. My plan currently is to do what I can, sticking to the plan as closely as I can, and hopefully eventually do all the workouts it's calling for. Even if I never get there, I'm firmly in the "You have a HIM coming up, it's time to train for it" mindset, so I should be able to work up to the distances needed by October and be ready for this race, even if my progress to those distances is slower than my plan would like.
My main focus now is the HIM. I'm planning on doing a 5K on the 4th of July, and I have the Matt Mason Tri at the beginning of August, but both of these are pretty minor races for me right now. I'm doing the 5K mainly because it's going to be a cool, patriotic race, and the Matt Mason tri will really just be a tune-up for the HIM, giving me one more chance to practice my transitions and open water swim skills for real before the big day in October. Of course, the Matt Mason tri will also be really patriotic, which really appeals to me (it's a memorial race for a fallen Navy SEAL, who was killed when the helicopter he was in was shot down in Afghanistan on a mission). In fact, the race's patriotism is what inspired me to sign up for it last year. I'm looking forward to actually experiencing it this year, provided Mother Nature doesn't have other plans again.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Kansas City Triathlon Race Report
Fair warning: this is a long entry. The race was last Sunday, but I purposely took a few days to get this up here because I wanted to let the entire experience sink in a bit before trying to write about it.
This past Sunday, I participated in the Kansas City Triathlon. It was my first outdoor triathlon, and I spent the entire week before the race obsessively checking the weather, hoping that we wouldn't have a repeat of the Matt Mason tri last August and end up with another rain-out. The rain came down in torrents on Saturday, and Sunday dawned cloudy, but the weather did not actually do anything on Sunday.
They offered both a Sprint and Olympic distance at this race. I chose to do the Sprint distance, the shorter of the two. The Sprint consists of 500 meters of swimming, 12.4 miles of biking and 3.1 miles of running.
I got out of bed at 3:30 am to make sure I had enough time to get to the lake. The transition area was set to open at 5:00, and I wanted to leave by 4:15 to get down there. I'd packed most of my stuff in my car the previous night, so all I had to do this morning was get dressed, air up my tires and put my bike rack and bike on the car. We ended up leaving right on time, and got down there and parked almost right at 5:00.
The first thing I did was take my bike off my car and went looking for chip pick-up. After getting my timing chip, I found my way to the entrance to the transition area. Upon finding it, I got my body marked by the volunteers there (my race number, 523, on my left arm and my age on my left calf) and entered transition.
Everyone in transition had an assigned rack based on the race number. Every rack had a range of race numbers, and where you placed your bike on that rack was a first-come-first-served system. I found the rack that contained my number and was lucky enough to get the spot right next to the center aisle (a very enviable position as it limits the distance you have to travel in transition and makes spotting your rack that much easier).
I'd brought a shopping bag with me to help me keep my stuff organized once the race started, and was planning on using it mainly as a place to stash my wet suit after the swim finished. I ended up being very glad I had it with me; it made finding my bike that much easier as all I had to look for on the ground was a grey rectangular bag.
I placed the bag and my towel behind my bike, put both pairs of shoes and my camelback in front of my bike, and placed my helmet directly beneath my bike. My helmet contained all the miscellaneous items I would need for the ride - my sunglasses, my cycling cap, my gloves and my spibelt which contained my cell phone.
Below are two photos of my transition area before the race started. I apologize for how dark they are; I took them before the sun rose and didn't think to take any more once it was light outside. Not shown here is my shirt - I ended up draping it over the aerobars before the swim.
After getting the transition area set up, I had a bit of downtime before the swim warm-ups started. I walked around and looked at some of the vendor tents, then got into my wet suit. I got into the water and did some warming up after they opened the beach, mainly to get accustomed to the water temperature, which was at a chilly 64 degrees.
The race start was done in waves, based on which race you were doing and your age group in your particular race. The Olympic race started first, followed by the Sprint.
As the Olympic triathletes took off, most of the Sprint racers gathered on the beach to await our turn to start. Watching them was very sobering. The water was very choppy and many of them were calling over the kayakers or the people in the pontoon boats and being pulled from the water as they were unable to complete the swim. Getting pulled out like this is a big deal - by asking to be pulled out (or just getting pulled out without asking), you're disqualified from the rest of the race. No bike, no run, no finisher medal. You're just done for the day, and seeing some of these athletes tapping out made me a bit nervous.
.
In no time at all my wave was next to start. We were called up to the corral and entered the water, moving out about five to ten feet from shore. I went in barefoot (I'd worn swim shoes in the warm up) and the cold water quickly infiltrated the ankles of my wet suit. As I stood there in the cold water for the fifteen to twenty seconds it took for the race director to blow the horn and send us on our way (if felt more like fifteen or twenty minutes), I was very nervous. I'd just seen a bunch of people get pulled from the water, and didn't really know what to expect since I'd never done an open water swim before. Thankfully, before I could think it over too much, the air horn sounded and off we went.
The first 100 to 200 yards of the swim went well. I was surrounded by people but had enough space to swim without being smacked in the face by someone's feet, and I was getting my sighting down and heading in a pretty good line for the first buoy. Then I turned to take a breath and sucked down a lungful of water instead of the air I'd been expecting. I, of course, stopped dead, coughing and sputtering and trying desperately to keep some form of forward movement going so I wouldn't be plowed over by the people behind me.
A few seconds later I'd recovered enough to resume mostly forward movement, but the effects of that one bad breath were telling. I couldn't confidently do freestyle. Every time I put my face under and tried to take a normal stroke, I felt like I was choking again. I resigned myself to doing breaststroke, a little bit of backstroke (which usually ended pretty quickly after waves splashed my upturned face), and a weird hybrid of the two where I was on my side, doing a breaststroke kick and pulling with my lower arm.
Overall, my swim was not what I wanted. I expected this to be my best event. After all, I swam competitively for almost a decade, and for four of those years my main event was the 500 yard freestyle (the swim here was roughly 550 yards). This should be a walk in the park, old hat, easy as pie. Never have I been so wrong.
The open water really got to me. I know that happened when I sucked in that water: I tried to take a breath at the exact instant a wave was in my face. Obviously this is never a problem in a pool, so I didn't think too much about it until it happened. Had I been more practiced at bi-lateral breathing, I would likely have been breathing on my left side at the beginning of the race (the side away from the wind). However, for my entire swimming career, I've always breathed on my right side, and undoing all those years of habit is just plain hard and exceedingly uncomfortable (it's akin to attempting to write with you non-dominant hand). But, now I have something I know I need to work on in training.
The swim ended up taking 16:31. Had I been in a pool, I could have completed this in about 10 minutes at my current level of fitness. When I exited the lake and looked at my watch, I wasn't really pleased with my time, but I was very pleased that the swim was behind me and that I was out of that cold water. I headed up the beach to transition just as fast as I could, stripping the wet suit off my upper body as I did so.
Once I reached the transition area, I found my bike easily, thanks to having that nice end spot on the race. I had to sit down to get the wet suit the rest of the way off, then threw it into the shopping bag and quickly toweled off, concentrating on my feet, trying to remove any sand and mud that might still be on them so that wouldn't be a factor once I got my socks and shoes on. I got my socks on as quickly as I could with wet feet, then got my shoes slipped on and threw my shirt on. After my shirt was on, I donned my sunglasses, biking cap, gloves and helmet, then took my bike off the rack and walked towards the bike out area. All told, I spent 6 minutes 59 seconds in T1, which is a little bit too long. This is an area to work on for next time.
The bike portion actually went pretty well. I've said before that swimming is my best event, but biking is my favorite. I really enjoyed the ride at this race. I went a bit past the bike mount line and got my right shoe clipped in and then took off, getting my left shoe clipped in fairly easily, which is not always a given. The bike course was very well marked in terms of where to turn and where to go, and there were plenty of volunteers (both civilians and police officers) to help direct you in the right direction.
There were some hills, but only two really stand out in my memory. The first really bad hill came at the worst time - right after a 180 degree turn. We headed down the hill, then had to slow to turn around at the bottom of it and go right back up it. Now, obviously, the main strategy for hills is to build up as much speed as you can on the downhill and then use the momentum going up the next hill so you don't have to work as hard. This doesn't work when you have to brake to turn at the bottom, but I made it back up the hill and pressed on.
The second killer hill came in around the ten mile mark or so (guesstimating here, not exactly sure what the mileage was). This time there were no gimmicks or tricks with turns - it was just a really steep, really long hill. As soon as you managed to climb it, you had another 180 degree turn to go right back down it. I will admit that the downhill here was fun, but also pretty scary. I reached a top speed of 39.8 MPH going down this hill, and more than once felt like I was going entirely too fast for comfort. I wish I could have gotten another 0.2 MPH, but I also think that extra little bit of speed would've ended with me laying the bike down. Not a good thing at that speed.
I was able to stay in the aero position for long periods of time on this ride, something I've been unable to do before now. I really like the aero position. I'm hunched down low over the handlebars and can get quite a bit more power to the pedals. I know I'll be using this position alot.
I finished the bike portion in 54 minutes 59 seconds with an average pace of 13.6 MPH. Heading into T2 after the bike portion I was feeling good. Tired, of course, but overall pretty good. Two thirds of this thing were down, and all I had left was a 3.1 mile run. I knew I could walk some of it if I needed to, and that there was no danger of either drowning or crashing, both of which would have likely ended my race. I hopped off my bike a bit before the dismount line and struggled to get my right foot unclipped, almost falling in the process, but I managed to get my foot disengaged from the pedal and planted firmly on the ground just in time.
I walked my bike back to my rack, using the grey shopping back to quickly identify where I needed to go. I quickly re-racked my bike, then removed my helmet and gloves and switched my biking shoes for my running shoes and headed towards the run out. T2 took me 2 minutes 39 seconds to complete.
The run was pretty typical for me. It's my least favorite event, and I ended up walking some of it, but I ran more than I walked, which was the goal. Nothing really special to say about the run; it was a run. I finished the run in 42 minutes 30 seconds, with an average pace of 13 minutes and 43 seconds per mile.
The next thing I knew I was across the finish line and a volunteer was hanging my medal around my neck. I felt elated that I'd finally accomplished my goal, and relieved that I was finally finished for the day. My first stop after finishing was at the Tri KC tent to get a cookie, then I sat down at a table and waited for my wife to find me. We found each other pretty easily (hooray for cell phones!) and both sat for a few minutes, talking about the race and taking it all in. After we sat for a few minutes, I went back to the transition area, packed up my stuff and took my bike to the car and headed for home.
This past Sunday, I participated in the Kansas City Triathlon. It was my first outdoor triathlon, and I spent the entire week before the race obsessively checking the weather, hoping that we wouldn't have a repeat of the Matt Mason tri last August and end up with another rain-out. The rain came down in torrents on Saturday, and Sunday dawned cloudy, but the weather did not actually do anything on Sunday.
They offered both a Sprint and Olympic distance at this race. I chose to do the Sprint distance, the shorter of the two. The Sprint consists of 500 meters of swimming, 12.4 miles of biking and 3.1 miles of running.
I got out of bed at 3:30 am to make sure I had enough time to get to the lake. The transition area was set to open at 5:00, and I wanted to leave by 4:15 to get down there. I'd packed most of my stuff in my car the previous night, so all I had to do this morning was get dressed, air up my tires and put my bike rack and bike on the car. We ended up leaving right on time, and got down there and parked almost right at 5:00.
The first thing I did was take my bike off my car and went looking for chip pick-up. After getting my timing chip, I found my way to the entrance to the transition area. Upon finding it, I got my body marked by the volunteers there (my race number, 523, on my left arm and my age on my left calf) and entered transition.
Everyone in transition had an assigned rack based on the race number. Every rack had a range of race numbers, and where you placed your bike on that rack was a first-come-first-served system. I found the rack that contained my number and was lucky enough to get the spot right next to the center aisle (a very enviable position as it limits the distance you have to travel in transition and makes spotting your rack that much easier).
I'd brought a shopping bag with me to help me keep my stuff organized once the race started, and was planning on using it mainly as a place to stash my wet suit after the swim finished. I ended up being very glad I had it with me; it made finding my bike that much easier as all I had to look for on the ground was a grey rectangular bag.
I placed the bag and my towel behind my bike, put both pairs of shoes and my camelback in front of my bike, and placed my helmet directly beneath my bike. My helmet contained all the miscellaneous items I would need for the ride - my sunglasses, my cycling cap, my gloves and my spibelt which contained my cell phone.
Below are two photos of my transition area before the race started. I apologize for how dark they are; I took them before the sun rose and didn't think to take any more once it was light outside. Not shown here is my shirt - I ended up draping it over the aerobars before the swim.
After getting the transition area set up, I had a bit of downtime before the swim warm-ups started. I walked around and looked at some of the vendor tents, then got into my wet suit. I got into the water and did some warming up after they opened the beach, mainly to get accustomed to the water temperature, which was at a chilly 64 degrees.
 |
| After warm-ups, ready to start the swim |
As the Olympic triathletes took off, most of the Sprint racers gathered on the beach to await our turn to start. Watching them was very sobering. The water was very choppy and many of them were calling over the kayakers or the people in the pontoon boats and being pulled from the water as they were unable to complete the swim. Getting pulled out like this is a big deal - by asking to be pulled out (or just getting pulled out without asking), you're disqualified from the rest of the race. No bike, no run, no finisher medal. You're just done for the day, and seeing some of these athletes tapping out made me a bit nervous.
.
In no time at all my wave was next to start. We were called up to the corral and entered the water, moving out about five to ten feet from shore. I went in barefoot (I'd worn swim shoes in the warm up) and the cold water quickly infiltrated the ankles of my wet suit. As I stood there in the cold water for the fifteen to twenty seconds it took for the race director to blow the horn and send us on our way (if felt more like fifteen or twenty minutes), I was very nervous. I'd just seen a bunch of people get pulled from the water, and didn't really know what to expect since I'd never done an open water swim before. Thankfully, before I could think it over too much, the air horn sounded and off we went.
 |
| My wave (I'm the one in the black wet suit and green swim cap) |
A few seconds later I'd recovered enough to resume mostly forward movement, but the effects of that one bad breath were telling. I couldn't confidently do freestyle. Every time I put my face under and tried to take a normal stroke, I felt like I was choking again. I resigned myself to doing breaststroke, a little bit of backstroke (which usually ended pretty quickly after waves splashed my upturned face), and a weird hybrid of the two where I was on my side, doing a breaststroke kick and pulling with my lower arm.
Overall, my swim was not what I wanted. I expected this to be my best event. After all, I swam competitively for almost a decade, and for four of those years my main event was the 500 yard freestyle (the swim here was roughly 550 yards). This should be a walk in the park, old hat, easy as pie. Never have I been so wrong.
The open water really got to me. I know that happened when I sucked in that water: I tried to take a breath at the exact instant a wave was in my face. Obviously this is never a problem in a pool, so I didn't think too much about it until it happened. Had I been more practiced at bi-lateral breathing, I would likely have been breathing on my left side at the beginning of the race (the side away from the wind). However, for my entire swimming career, I've always breathed on my right side, and undoing all those years of habit is just plain hard and exceedingly uncomfortable (it's akin to attempting to write with you non-dominant hand). But, now I have something I know I need to work on in training.
The swim ended up taking 16:31. Had I been in a pool, I could have completed this in about 10 minutes at my current level of fitness. When I exited the lake and looked at my watch, I wasn't really pleased with my time, but I was very pleased that the swim was behind me and that I was out of that cold water. I headed up the beach to transition just as fast as I could, stripping the wet suit off my upper body as I did so.
Once I reached the transition area, I found my bike easily, thanks to having that nice end spot on the race. I had to sit down to get the wet suit the rest of the way off, then threw it into the shopping bag and quickly toweled off, concentrating on my feet, trying to remove any sand and mud that might still be on them so that wouldn't be a factor once I got my socks and shoes on. I got my socks on as quickly as I could with wet feet, then got my shoes slipped on and threw my shirt on. After my shirt was on, I donned my sunglasses, biking cap, gloves and helmet, then took my bike off the rack and walked towards the bike out area. All told, I spent 6 minutes 59 seconds in T1, which is a little bit too long. This is an area to work on for next time.
 |
| Exiting T1 |
The bike portion actually went pretty well. I've said before that swimming is my best event, but biking is my favorite. I really enjoyed the ride at this race. I went a bit past the bike mount line and got my right shoe clipped in and then took off, getting my left shoe clipped in fairly easily, which is not always a given. The bike course was very well marked in terms of where to turn and where to go, and there were plenty of volunteers (both civilians and police officers) to help direct you in the right direction.
There were some hills, but only two really stand out in my memory. The first really bad hill came at the worst time - right after a 180 degree turn. We headed down the hill, then had to slow to turn around at the bottom of it and go right back up it. Now, obviously, the main strategy for hills is to build up as much speed as you can on the downhill and then use the momentum going up the next hill so you don't have to work as hard. This doesn't work when you have to brake to turn at the bottom, but I made it back up the hill and pressed on.
The second killer hill came in around the ten mile mark or so (guesstimating here, not exactly sure what the mileage was). This time there were no gimmicks or tricks with turns - it was just a really steep, really long hill. As soon as you managed to climb it, you had another 180 degree turn to go right back down it. I will admit that the downhill here was fun, but also pretty scary. I reached a top speed of 39.8 MPH going down this hill, and more than once felt like I was going entirely too fast for comfort. I wish I could have gotten another 0.2 MPH, but I also think that extra little bit of speed would've ended with me laying the bike down. Not a good thing at that speed.
I was able to stay in the aero position for long periods of time on this ride, something I've been unable to do before now. I really like the aero position. I'm hunched down low over the handlebars and can get quite a bit more power to the pedals. I know I'll be using this position alot.
I finished the bike portion in 54 minutes 59 seconds with an average pace of 13.6 MPH. Heading into T2 after the bike portion I was feeling good. Tired, of course, but overall pretty good. Two thirds of this thing were down, and all I had left was a 3.1 mile run. I knew I could walk some of it if I needed to, and that there was no danger of either drowning or crashing, both of which would have likely ended my race. I hopped off my bike a bit before the dismount line and struggled to get my right foot unclipped, almost falling in the process, but I managed to get my foot disengaged from the pedal and planted firmly on the ground just in time.
I walked my bike back to my rack, using the grey shopping back to quickly identify where I needed to go. I quickly re-racked my bike, then removed my helmet and gloves and switched my biking shoes for my running shoes and headed towards the run out. T2 took me 2 minutes 39 seconds to complete.
The run was pretty typical for me. It's my least favorite event, and I ended up walking some of it, but I ran more than I walked, which was the goal. Nothing really special to say about the run; it was a run. I finished the run in 42 minutes 30 seconds, with an average pace of 13 minutes and 43 seconds per mile.
 |
| Heading towards the finish line |
 |
| Almost there! |
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| Finished! |
Overall, the race was great. I had a really good time doing it, and never once thought "I don't know if I can make it," The race itself was very well organized and executed. From talking to some of the other triathletes, I understand that this is one of the tougher tris in the K.C. area, mainly due to the cold, choppy water and some of the hills on the bike leg. Everyone I talked to agreed that the swim this year was the roughest they've experienced at any tri in the area for the past half decade, so I don't feel so bad about my swim time now as I did right after I finished. I should have realized it would be a rough swim beforehand based on how many people were pulled out of the water, but I didn't think about it that way then.
Still, a great first tri for me. If I can do one of the toughest tris in the area for my first tri, I'm confident that I can do my next tri without issue.
I'm now proud to call myself a triathlete.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Country Music Half Marathon
This weekend Melissa and I ran the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville, TN (there is also a full marathon, but so far I'm only half crazy). The race was 13.1 miles of hills. I thought KC was hilly, but Nashville is crazy hilly. As soon as you finish climbing one hill, another one starts going up. There are some downhills, but I'm convinved we did more climbing than descending. I haven't looked at the race's elevation chart, so I don't know if that's actually true or not, but it sure seemed that way.
Myself and Deedra
Myself and Melissa
Overall, the race went well. It was supposed to be really rainy, and I was very worried we'd have s repeat of my first tri last August, which was cancelled due to lightning. It did rain overnight, but when we got up and out of the hotel it was dry, and it stayed that way.
The downside to overnight rain was the humidity. Being from KC I'm no stranger to humidity, but I haven't had much chance to train in it, and it made for a sweaty, sticky run. It's been a long time (since last August, at least) that I've been in this kind of humidity. When we got off the shuttle back at the hotel, I quite enjoyed the high heat and humidity (I love the heat), but it made racing much more difficult.
I started the race keeping up with the 2:30 pace group, which, in retrospect, was quite ambitious for me. I haven't been able to train much recently because of long work hours and general laziness on my part, and I could tell at the race. I kept up with the pace group for 1.25 miles, then had to stop and walk.
For the next mile and a half or so, I had random run/walk intervals, but finally found something comfortable in mile 3. At 2.9 miles, I started running, intending to run 1/10 of a mile and walk 1/10 at mile three. When I hit mile 3 though I was feeling pretty good and told myself "Just go to 3.1 before you walk, then you'll only have 10 miles left." Yeah. "Only" 10 miles left.
I did manage to run to 3.1, then I walked to 3.25, then ran to 3.5, walked to 3.6, ran to 3.8, walked to 3.9, then ran to 4.1. I kept up with those intervals until mile 8. They helped the miles go by faster and easier, which was the goal.
At mile 8, my walk breaks started extending and my runs started becoming shorter. The longest I ever ran in training was 6 miles, so after the extra 2 miles my body was like "Dude! You are the stupidest stupid person ever to grace the planet with their stupidity! What are you doing?" Unfortunately, I listened to my body and let the walk breaks extend.
At mile 11.5, I finally decided I was done running for the day until the finish line. I started running a bit at 11.5, but couldn't keep it up for more than 0.02 miles. I had a small blister on a toe on my left foot, both feet generally just hurt, and my right knee ached something fierce (not an uncommon problem for me - my knees have always given me problems), so I decided I was going to walk until I got near to the finish line and then run across it.
This actually ended up being a great decision. At around mile 11.75, another member of Team RWB pulled up mext to me and we started talking. We were both in our Team RWB shirts, making it easier to identify each other. She was from LA, and did 10 half marathons last year. She was super excited that this was my first half marathon, and we had a good conversation over the last mile in. I told her that if she wanted to run on ahead, she didn't have to wait for me, but she said she wanted to cross the line with me since it was my first one.
I really enjoyed talking to Deedra (might not be the right spelling) for the last mile. It was kind of unusual for me - I'm not a people person and usually find conversations with strangers very uncomfortable, but this was relaxed and easy, likely because we're both half marathoners and belong to Team RWB.
For anyone that doesn't know, Team RWB (Red White Blue) is an orgainization dedicated to helping American veterans. I've always been pretty patriotic (I tried to serve in the Navy but was declined due to my asthma), and my cousin, who was also the best man in my wedding, had been deployed to Iraq twice, so when I found out about Team RWB it was almost a guarantee I would join. If you're interested, check out www.teamrwb.org
Almost right at mile 13, Melissa caught up with Deedra and I. Her joining us there worked out wonderfully. Once she got there, all three of us started running because the finish line was right around the corner, and we all crossed the finish line holding hands. It was a great feeling crossing with both of them.
Overall, the race was a great experience. I would have liked a faster time, but given the lack of training I'm not disappointed. I had a really good time doing it, and it's given me a baseline for the half ironman in October. This race, more than anything, has me charged up to start training again. While the running is my least favorite part of triathlon, I still enjoyed the race today. I'm very much looking forward to my next race on May 17th.
Myself, Melissa & Deedra after the finish
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Workouts - April 5th-11th
I didn't do much for the first three days this week. Life just kind of interfered on Monday and Wednesday, and Tuesday is typically a rest day as that's typically my day with my little brother.
I did get to the pool on Thursday. I swam 2,150 yards in 51:11. I started with 5 sets of 100 yards on a 2:15 interval, rested for a little over a minute, then did another set of 5 100s on a 2:15. After another short rest, I started a set of 2 250 yard swims on a 5:30 interval, then followed that by a 500 yard swim.
I had intended to do 200 yards of cool-down, but after about 80 or 85 yards my right calf cramped up bad. The cramp happened in the deep end of the pool, so I was not able to just immediately stand up and put some weight on it. After treading water for 30 seconds or so, I finished out the rest of the 20 or 25 yards of the first 100 of my cool down and promptly stood up to work the cramp out. I was contemplating finishing out the last 100 yards, but my left calf started cramping up while I was standing in the shallow end and at that point I decided I was just done for the night.
Overall the swim went well. Even with the cramp at the end, I got over a mile in. I was happy with the way I responded, epsecially since it'd been awhile since I swam.
On Saturday morning I headed down to the downtown airport for a biking workout (less traffic to deal with there as opposed to the streets around my house). I did two laps of the airport, which worked out to 7.4 miles in 29 minutes and 39 seconds.
This was my first bike ride outside this year. Overall, I feel it went well. I was a bit disappointed that my overall speed was only at 15 MPH, as I was hoping for something around 16 or 17 MPH, but since this is my first ride outside I can't complain. I am faster than last year. Last year my max average speed was 13 MPH, and it typically hovered around 12.5 MPH.
There were a few things that I was actually fairly nervous about before this ride. The first thing that had me worried was how I was going to get started riding. I recently had my bike fit to me, and one of the things that changed was the height of my seat. I'm happy with the new seat position as it gives me more power, but those of you that know me know that I'm not exactly tall. Last year, I was able to straddle my seat and have my left foot on the ground. This year, with the seat raised, that's not possible, and I was worried about how I was going to get clipped into my pedals and actually start riding. I took some advice from a biking friend and instead of straddling the seat, I straddled the center post and clipped my right shoe into the pedal. I then pushed off and started going, standing on the pedal to raise myself up enough to get seated, then just started pedaling without clipping my left shoe in. I managed to clip myself into the left pedal while riding. It worked well. I took a short break between the two laps and was thus able to practice this twice, and it worked well both times.
The pedals I have on the bike now are nice. Over the winter I upgraded from Shimanos to Crank Brothers Eggbeaters. The Eggbeaters are technically mountain bike pedals, but they work very well on my road bike. They are super easy to clip into and out of. Today was my first time I used them on the actual road, and I was very impressed with them. I'll be using these for awhile.
The other thing I was nervous about was using the new aero bars. I knew from reading I'd done that controlling the bike was more difficult while on the aero bars, and I was worried about falling, especially while I was getting into and out of the aero position. This ended up not being an issue. The bike was certainly a bit harder to control from the aero position, but that makes sense since you're essentialy controlling the bike with your elbows instead of your hands. But it wasn't too bad. There was some weaving, but I think that was expected, and I never even came close to laying the bike down, even when I was switching positions.
I really liked being in the aero position, and I attribute that position to the increase in MPH from last year. I think I'm going to be spending alot of time in this position as it was pretty comfortable and allowed me to get some really good power from the pedals.
One other point of interest to talk about regarding this ride: my new tires. I upgraded my tire to Vitorria Rubino IIIs recently and had not ridden them yet. I really liked them. They rode well, and I could tell a bit of difference from my old stock tires.
Overall my week wasn't terribly productive workout-wise, but I was happy with the work I did get in. This week has me reenergized in terms of wanting to work out, so hopefully this next week will be a little bit better.
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Getting Back at It
I know it's been awhile since I've posted here. I've been on a pretty steady diet of 50 hour weeks at work since last October, so when I was working out, by the time I got home from work and finished my work out, it was time for dinner, and by the time I finished dinner I would forget to write up a post about my workout.
Thankfully the overtime has cooled some - we're now on an alternating 40 hour week/50 hour week schedule, which is actually quite nice. I get off "early" one week, but get the extra money from ten hours of time-and-a-half pay the next week, so it's a medium I'm currently happy with.
That being said, I doubt I'm going to try to update here daily anymore. Part of my problem with updating earlier this year was that I didn't want to make a 25-word post that basically said "I worked out for 45 minutes on the trainer tonight, and it went well." I always found writing those posts an annoying waste of time, and assumed anyone reading them felt the same. So, I think I'm going to try to post on Sundays with one big post that sums up the week's efforts.
Of course, if I do have something to say outside of my workouts, like race write-ups or equipment reviews, I'll write those when I can and throw them up here outside of the once-a-week format. Now that it's finally getting warmer outside, I can start biking outside again, something I'm very much looking forward to. Not only do I have new pedals on my bike since the last time I rode it outside, I've got new tires and a set of clip-on aerobars that have yet to be tested on the road. Expect posts about all these things (except maybe the tires; we'll see if I can tell any difference and go from there).
As far as this past week goes, I was very lax with my training. I biked on the trainer for 45 minutes on Monday and got a very good workout in there, had Tuesday as a rest day (Tuesday are typically rest days for me), then ran six miles on Wednesday. I did nothing beyond that. I'd planned on swimming on Thursday, but decided mowing the lawn was more important (and it turns out, I was glad I mowed it Thursday; it rained on Friday, my back-up mow day). Friday is also typically a rest day for me, and Saturday I'd planned to bike 11 miles and run 7 1/2 miles, but the fairly cold temps coupled with the need to be done fairly early to run some errands and meet up for a friend's birthday celebration eventually convinced me to be lazy and play baseball on the Playstation instead. Sunday is usually a swimming day, but with Easter family plans I didn't even attempt to get to the pool. I don't even know if the Community Center was open on Easter or not; I knew I wasn't going to try so I didn't even bother to find out.
It was a bad week for training, but those are going to happen. Life has a way of interfering with our plans, so all I can do is accept it and do better next week.
Thankfully the overtime has cooled some - we're now on an alternating 40 hour week/50 hour week schedule, which is actually quite nice. I get off "early" one week, but get the extra money from ten hours of time-and-a-half pay the next week, so it's a medium I'm currently happy with.
That being said, I doubt I'm going to try to update here daily anymore. Part of my problem with updating earlier this year was that I didn't want to make a 25-word post that basically said "I worked out for 45 minutes on the trainer tonight, and it went well." I always found writing those posts an annoying waste of time, and assumed anyone reading them felt the same. So, I think I'm going to try to post on Sundays with one big post that sums up the week's efforts.
Of course, if I do have something to say outside of my workouts, like race write-ups or equipment reviews, I'll write those when I can and throw them up here outside of the once-a-week format. Now that it's finally getting warmer outside, I can start biking outside again, something I'm very much looking forward to. Not only do I have new pedals on my bike since the last time I rode it outside, I've got new tires and a set of clip-on aerobars that have yet to be tested on the road. Expect posts about all these things (except maybe the tires; we'll see if I can tell any difference and go from there).
As far as this past week goes, I was very lax with my training. I biked on the trainer for 45 minutes on Monday and got a very good workout in there, had Tuesday as a rest day (Tuesday are typically rest days for me), then ran six miles on Wednesday. I did nothing beyond that. I'd planned on swimming on Thursday, but decided mowing the lawn was more important (and it turns out, I was glad I mowed it Thursday; it rained on Friday, my back-up mow day). Friday is also typically a rest day for me, and Saturday I'd planned to bike 11 miles and run 7 1/2 miles, but the fairly cold temps coupled with the need to be done fairly early to run some errands and meet up for a friend's birthday celebration eventually convinced me to be lazy and play baseball on the Playstation instead. Sunday is usually a swimming day, but with Easter family plans I didn't even attempt to get to the pool. I don't even know if the Community Center was open on Easter or not; I knew I wasn't going to try so I didn't even bother to find out.
It was a bad week for training, but those are going to happen. Life has a way of interfering with our plans, so all I can do is accept it and do better next week.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Thursday Night Workout
I got a really good workout in tonight. I started with 50 minutes on the bike trainer followed immediately by 15 minutes (1.4 miles) on the treadmill.
I was very happy with the workouts tonight. I was a bit apprehensive about the run. As I mentioned earlier this week, I took all of last week off because I was feeling a bit ill, so it's been over a week since I last ran. Since I was doing it after the longest ride of the year, I didn't know how long I was going to be able to last, but I surprised myself by not only being able to go all 15 minutes, but by being able to keep a pace of 5.7 mph the entire time. 5.7 mph is a pretty good clip for me on the treadmill, but I was able to keep the pace the entire time tonight and actually felt like I could keep going when I was done.
It felt great to get back into the full swing of things tonight. The aerobars on the bike are working out nicely, but I still feel I need a fitting to get the most use out of them. Overall though I'm quite happy with them thus far. I'll write a proper review on them after I use them on the actual road a few times.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Monday Night Workout
I got a good workout in tonight. I did 1,200 yards in the pool, then did some strength training and then went home and did 35 minutes on the bike trainer.
The swim went very well. I got 1,200 yards done in 24:56. Yesterday I did 1,100 yards in 25:05, so today went a bit better than yesterday. Today, however, I went back to distance swimming, which is my bread and butter in the water and did 1,000 yards non-stop. I'm not sure this is the longest I've ever gone in one stretch before, but it's certainly the longest I've gone since high school. I felt like I could've kept going, so that's good.
I don't have much to say about the strength training. I used the machines at the Community Center for the first time and rather liked them.
The biking was the most fun portion tonight. A week and a half ago I ordered a set of clip-on aerobars for my bike. They arrived last Saturday and I installed them then, but aside from playing with them a bit to get a decent fit this was my first workout with them.
I went with the Profile Design T3+ Carbon aerobars (picturs below). After using them tonight I really like them. They let me get down into a more aerodynamic position and they let me rest my arms a bit. That was a fairly large issue tonight as my arms were quite tired from the swim and weights, so being able to rest them was nice. I think the option to rest my arms will come in very handy during the half Ironman in October.
I feel I need a proper fitting from an actual bike fitter for the aerobars, however. I liked being able to rest my arms, I felt like my knees were in my chest while riding. While this very well might be normal for aerobars, I feel it isn't and want to get fitted to make sure my bike is set up correctly. All things considered, however, I'm very happy with them.
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