As usual, for the math geeks and the short attention spanners, here are the numbers:
Swim (Watch split): 0:35:28
T1 (approx): 0:04:10
Bike: 3:02:50
T2: 0:07:01
Run: 3:06:03
Total Time: 6:55:34
Race day dawned before I got up, which was pretty cool. I was lucky enough to have an early start, at 7:02 AM in wave 5. Riding down to the start I had my first thought about how different this race was going to be, since all I had on my back was my mesh Zoot bag. That's right, no transition bag for this race. The Zoot bag contained a pretty minimal kit, too. Wetsuit, flip flops, body glide, goggles, swim cap and sunblock. Everything else I would need before T2 was attached to the bike.
I was strangely calm as we got into transition. I didn't even use my ipod or go through any of my pre-race jitters. Seems like before I knew it, it was 10 minutes to start and I said good luck to a few friends and headed down to the water.
Swim:
The horn sounded and I took off. I had a little crowd control problem in the first hundred yards or so, but I got clear and found a rhythm pretty fast. I made my along the line of buoys and the only thing that worried me was that every time I hit the one I'd been sighting on, there was another pair. I really wished I had counted them ahead of time so I would have known where the turn was. I'd been warned ahead of time about how shallow the river got in places, but I wasn't ready to grab muck before the halfway point, or to swim into the legs of someone who had stood up to walk at the turn. I don't think he was ready to fall on his ass either, so we'll call it even. Around the turn and into the back stretch I ran into problems. Navigational problems that is. I realized how far off I was when I got close to the bridge and realized I was headed to the wrong side of the leg. I made a hard jag back toward center, only to get stuck behind a frog-kicking girls from a wave or two ahead of me. She wound up getting her ankle grabbed as I jerked past her. Sorry. And then it was out of the water. Final watch split: 00:35:28, my slowest half iron swim so far, but still nothing to sneeze at.
T1:
Pretty clean, considering I had to get my swim gear off, bike gear on and the whole shebang repacked into the Zoot bag so it could get moved to T2. I was really looking forward to those flip-flops. 4 minutes or so and I was on the bike.
Bike:
This bike course rocks. Apart from some rough, narrow roads, it's not technical. It's mostly flat/rolling and a lot of it even has shade. As I came up on the first turn, I felt like I was on a course to make my first goal of the race, which was to finish the bike under 3 hours. I know, it was way too early to feel like that, but I did. A couple miles in, I was approaching a hard right turn into a short, steep climb and there's a volunteer yelling STOP!. Right about then I hear the siren and jam on the brakes. My back wheel starts to slide, but I get my foot out and keep from falling, stopping about a foot shy of the side of a moving ambulance. Not a good sign.
The ambulance passes and I start riding again, from a cold stop up the steep hill. I start talking to the guy next to me about how that just totally messed up our rhythm. Strangely, he agrees with me. We crest the hill and there's another volunteer saying there's been an accident and we'll have to get off our bikes. Also not good. A few hundred yards later, we see the ambulance and a giant tree across the road. There's a cluster of bikers standing there waiting to walk under the tree. There's a fire truck and a cop car on the other side. Going under, I realize that there's a guy under the tree. The paramedics are trying to get him onto a backboard. I shudder.
Clear of the tree, we take off. The guy next to me asks whether I think having a tree fall on you is more or less likely than getting hit by lightning. I have no idea, but I know he's drafting, so I accelerate away. Within the next mile I heard one crash behind me, and then heard another one and turned just in time to see the guy slide into the embankment.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. I felt strong pretty much the whole time. I remembered my lesson from Wildflower and had 6 scoops of CarboPro and 3.5 Nuun tabs spread across 2 water bottles. My other two were plain water. I exchanged two bottles at the first aid station and rode away with more water and a bottle of Gatorade. I never touched my Gus, but I never felt hungry. It must have worked too, because I also never cramped up on the bike.
My only moment of trouble came on the way up Chalk Hill when I suddenly found myself unable to shift into my easiest gears. WTF? At least it wasn't Wildflower. Chalk hill isn't particularly rough, except that it's at mile 42 or so and you're past the last aid station. I stood up, powered up it and dropped back into aero on the other side.
Not too long later, I was in T2, feeling good but a little disappointed that my dead reckoning split was 3:05. Turns out it was 3:02, but I think that without the attack tree I would have made it under.
T2:
This is just sort of embarrassing. I got to my spot pretty quick, but I had trouble getting my ice jug open. Then the guy next to me on the rack showed up and wanted to chat about the tree. Finally, I had to wrestle out of my jersey and into my Barney Butter jersey, which required a fresh application of Body Glide to my sides and chest. The jersey tore me up at Longhorn and I didn't want to have that experience again. I finally got out on the run 7 minutes later. Need to work on that.
Run:
This was an unstated, though internal goal of mine. Run at least half of the course. I'm pretty sure I did it too, though my time doesn't bear it out. It took about 3 miles for my legs to loosen up from the ride. What has two thumbs and needs to work his bike to run transition? That's right, this guy.
Anyway, once my legs loosened up, I found a pretty good rhythm and was able to run more than walk for most of the way out to the turnaround at La Crema Winery. I didn't see many friends on the way out, except for Chris and Joanna, my fellow Barney Butter-ites. I got a confused look from Chris when I called his name, but had a quick chat with Jo as she passed me. Somewhere past the big hill, I heard the following, which threw me for a second: "The sexy thing is that you're running."
And then Brian Melekian ran past me, looking like he wasn't working at all. We had a quick shouted chat and I was on my own again.
Around this point, I still wasn't hungry, but I had a Gu and a salt tab, just to be safe. I still felt good, although the temperature was climbing. When I got to La Crema, I grabbed a couple of fig newtons at the aid station, along with water and Gatorade. Bad idea on the newtons. I couldn't chew them. I choked one down like prison penance and threw the other two away. On the dirt path through the winery, I felt okay, but the heat and dust started to get to me, so I decided to walk around the first pond and run the second. Oops. The second one is way longer. As I crossed onto the trail, I ran into Derek from TNT and we made snarky comments before I ran on.
Derek caught me at the aid station where I made my second mistake and grabbed some flat cola. What kind of cola? What's a pirate's favorite cola? That's right ARRRRR-C cola! (You're welcome Ben and Mike.) This is supposed to be good on the run for some reason but all it was good for was making me burp.
I ran/walked with Derek for the next few miles, wondering why I hadn't seen more friends. Of course, as soon as I said something, we started seeing all sorts of San Diego TNT-ers. I also saw Dana and Paul about this point. At about mile 8, I had a second wind and Derek dropped off. I ran on through about mile 9.5 before I melted down. My calves started to cramp. And I don't mean "oh, that kind of hurts." I'm talking about mucles rippling up and down on the tendons twanging nerves like like badly tuned banjo strings. It got so bad that from mile 10 on, I couldn't run more than a hundred yards or so without the cramps coming back.
This is of course when I saw Gunn, Jason, Penny, Jodi, Robin and pretty much everyone I knew. Awesome.
I gritted my teeth and ran/stumbled my way out into the neighborhood where Betsy caught me at a walk and told me to run the last mile with her. I tried, but the calves rebelled and she pulled away. As I turned into Windsor High for the finish, I saw Iris heading out. I gave her a big high five and dug deep to find something to run through the finish.
I crossed the finish at a run, grabbed my medal and water and headed out to...realize I hadn't turned in my chip. I went back.
So what did I learn? A lot. I learned that it's okay to hold back and leave something in the tank for the run. I spent all last year burning down to the cinders on the bike because I knew that with my feet I wouldn't be able to run. I learned that 6 scoops of CarboPro is hard to choke down, but the 675 calories it give you is really useful. Especially on top of the bagel w/ peanut butter, glass of apple juice and clif bar I had for breakfast. That and 1 Gu (100 calories) was enough to put me through the race with more than enough fuel.
I learned that 3.5 Nuun tabs and 5 salt tabs isn't enough on a hot day. Given that I never felt tired or hungry, I have to chalk the muscle problems up to salt and lack of bricks.
Finally, I learned that my style of racing, which is definitely more relaxed than that of most of my friends, works for me. It's not for everyone, but I'm really digging racing on feel. I'm still happy with not having a computer on my bike, and with not using my heart rate to make speed decisions. I'm happy having my watch and taking splits but not really looking at them. I'm enjoying the races, even when they hurt, and that is progress.
So yeah, my swim was my slowest 1.2 miler and my run was longer than my bike again, but I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed my race and I wasn't destroyed afterward. In the final analysis, despite the issues I ran my fastest 70.3 to date and accomplished my only major goal, which was to break 7 hours. I call that a success.
I've got a lot to do to get ready for Pumpkinman and for the challenges to come, but this race showed me that I'm on the right track.
Showing posts with label race reports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race reports. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Wildflower, or My Day Climbing the Cliffs on the Surface of the Sun
It’s official, Wildflower 2009 has come and gone. It’s in the books. For those of you with short attention spans (or gratuitous number fetishes) here are the splits so you can get back to your graphing calculators.
675 – Ryan Mashburn
Age 32
Hometown San Diego, CA
Time 07:23:08 at Finish Line
Ranking:
1533rd overall
1214th overall men
255th 30-34 men
Splits:
Swim: 00:34:43.710 28:56 min/mi
T1: 00:05:22.680
Bike: 03:26:59.420 16.23 avg MPH
T2: 00:03:03.470
Run: 03:12:58.720 14:44 min/mi
One of many things I love about triathlon is the fact that I can have my lame ass splits down to the millisecond. As if the .720 on my run split was all that separates me and Chris Lieto. Eh, whatever. On with the race report.
Driving up to Lake San Antonio, I wasn’t sure I was going to race. My cage was still rattling from the three serious bike crashes friends have had in the last month, my foot was still bothering me (though it was improving) and, to top it all off, I have no health insurance. Those factors, coming off the general turmoil of the last few months had me seriously considering forgoing the long course in favor of the longneck. On arrival at the campground, parking next to the RV, however, I started to feel something that has been missing for a while now. What is it, you ask? Did I suddenly regain mobility in my left index finger? Did I have a great spiritual epiphany of some kind? Nope. I just felt focused. As I pitched my tent I started feeling more like, well, me than I have in months.
Thursday night was just like last year, beer, BBQ and chucking stuff in the fire. Laughing and goofing off. Catching up with old friends. General good stuff, really. Which made it a little unnerving when rain on the tent fly woke me up that night. I was a little freaked out for a second. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to wait out rain in a tent. It took me back to my old Boy Scout days. Yes, I was a Boy Scout. Is that a shock? Really?
Friday dawned okay and we killed time until noon, when packet pickup started. A bunch of us cruised down to the lake to do a swim preview. I left my wetsuit in camp, figuring I’d rather brave the lake than put on a clammy wetsuit on race morning. This was both wise and foolish. Foolish because there was a serious algae bloom going on and swimming through it was a bit like something that Mike Rowe should be doing at the safe remove of “on TV,” and wise because it meant that I didn’t have to worry about the algae evolving and running off with my wetsuit overnight. Those things are expensive.
The rain started as we toweled off on the boat ramp. It continued through packet pickup and stopped long enough for us to grab some lunch and shop the expo. By the time we got to camp, it had started again, though it was light and intermittent enough for us to ride our bikes out to the camp entrance and snag free Avia visors and gelato. Mmmm… It was a wet ride back to camp, though. The rain continued on and off into the night and I was nervous about the race the next morning, since I knew there would be some serious downhills and I was riding the Kuota for the first time in a race, though not for the first time in the rain. I calmed the nerves by wandering down to the Fargos’ campsite and hanging out over some pasta and snacks. That, and a couple of Tecates got me calmed down. I even got some sleep, which I didn’t manage to do before Longhorn.
Race morning dawned cool but dry. I had a crisis of confidence when the alarm went off and considered hiding in the sleeping bag, but I ultimately decided that someone would probably figure out where I was. I got up, ate my standard pre-race energy bar and prepped my water bottles. BG and I rode down to transition together and this time I remembered to make sure my brakes were closed when we dropped Lynch Hill. When I got to my spot, number 676 was racked wrong and his bike was where mine needed to go. The official I grabbed wasn’t overly helpful, though he was very polite and wrote down the number to come back and check on it. I wedged my bike and bag into what little space I had and went to body marking.
Now, I don’t want to criticize the race volunteers, but I’m going to. The kid that marked me was cool enough. He got the numbers on my arms and hands, the age on my calf and the number on my left leg right. When he got to my right leg, he did something that makes no sense to me. He lifted the cuff of my tri shorts wrote the number, then put my shorts back. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with tri shorts, they’re spandex and have a strip in the cuff that keeps them from moving. This kid wrote my number underneath the leg of my shorts. He knew he was doing it too, because he had to move them out of the way. WTF, I ask you, WTF?
So I go back to transition and number 676 has returned. The four of us who have been screwed up by his mistake politely stare at him until he realizes what he’s done and sheepishly turns his bike around. At this point, the official returns to ask me, number 675, whether racer number 675 has come back fix his bike. I briefly consider slapping him upside the head with my helmet, but realize that that would disqualify me. I explain that it was 676 who had misracked, but that it was okay now. He wandered befuddledly away and I put on my wetsuit while chatting with the guy on my right, who explained that he was worried about his transition times and therefore had already saved drafts of his T1 and T2 twitter posts in his phone. I wandered befuddledly away.
The swim was uneventful. Apart from the muck, it went well. I held a much tighter line than last year and overall swam a cleaner course. I came in a bit slower than I wanted, but all told, I blame that on the dude who kept stopping in front of me to frog kick while sighting and then sprinting ahead to keep me from passing him. I very nearly gave him the butterfly dunk, but I got past him in the end. I felt a little funky running up the boat ramp, but the cheers I got from some friends up on the hill spurred me on into T1. I took some extra time there to settle my stomach and get my heart rate down. Remembering last year’s race, I just calmly walked my bike out to the mount line. Ben, thanks for the cheer at the gate.
Now, the bike was the interesting part. When you sign up for the Wildflower long course, everyone tells you about Nasty Grade. Seriously, everyone. Your doctor, your dog, your dental hygienist, everyone. Nasty Grade is at mile 40. Nobody tells you about Beech Hill at mile 2, or wherever it is. Bastards. I thought it would never end. Frankly, I’m not sure how I stayed vertical heading up it. At the top, we took off on the roads through the park and out to the county road. This is where Marty passed me. I briefly tried to catch him before I realized that I was making a HUGE mistake if I planned to get past mile 5 and so let him go. I dropped back into my aero bars and felt something was wrong. It took a minute of listening to rattling parts before I realized that my aero bottle had come loose and was about to crash down into my front wheel. I got a hand on it and stopped, wasting some time while I fixed it.
Over the course of the next 30 miles or so, I had a lot of time to think, but I didn’t. Apart from the new bike and the aero bottle, there are two other changes I’ve made to my training and racing. I’ve replaced Gu with a Carbo-Pro/Nuun mixture as my primary source of electrolytes and calories. I’ll talk more about this in a minute. The second change is that I’ve thus far eschewed the bike computer on the tri bike. This means that when I ride I have no idea how fast I’m going, what my elapsed mileage, average speed or cadence are. The only things I can use to gauge my progress are mile markers and how I feel. This keeps me intensely dialed into my own legs, heart and lungs and I constantly have to adjust my riding to match the way I feel. Does this help? I don’t know, with only one race under me this way, but I beat my projected bike time by five and a half minutes, so maybe.
At mile 41, I realized I had been going up for a while and that it was really hard. This is about the time I realized I was on Nasty Grade. Who knew? I got about a third of the way up the main stretch and my legs just wouldn’t turn. I don’t know what happened, I just knew that if I didn’t stop I would fall over, so I unclipped and pulled over. I stood on the side of the road for about a minute and then I felt fine, so I started back up the hill and passed the two guys who had just asked if I was okay. That felt good.
This is where the quote of the race happened for me. A guy from the UCSD tri team caught up to me and chatted in between heaving gasps for air as we climbed. We talked about training and the hill, and when I said I didn’t think it was as bad as it had been sold, he said this: “I don’t want to piss on your Cheerios, but up there where it looks like the top, it turns right and goes up again.” I laughed and he left me in the dust.
The coolest thing about the bike course is this: for every ugly climb, you get an awesome descent. The back side of Nasty Grade is worth the whole dang race. I’m actually glad I didn’t have a speedometer. I would probably have slowed down.
Then came mile 48. That sonic boom you heard around noon if you were there…that was the sound of me blowing my wad. My legs just stopped. I was hungry, despite the Carbo-Pro and two Gu Roctanes I had consumed. I was out of energy. I knew I could dig in and just muscle through the last few miles, but I was seriously considering bailing in T2 and calling it a day. I have never thought about that during a race before.
I’m not sure where, but somewhere in here, I realized that race day was the exact opposite of Friday. Instead of rainy and cold, it was crystal clear and roughly a thousand degrees. Oh, and did I mention the head winds? Just like Beech Hill, nobody ever mentioned those.
I got into T2 and I was seriously wobbly. I had to sit down to put my shoes on and that’s when Trent found me. I felt like crap and was convinced I’d just had the worst bike ride since Sleeping Indian. When he said “Nice bike. You killed it.” I thought he was joking. Then I looked at my watch. It had only been 4 hours since the start. I was on schedule. Holy shit. I talked to him for a minute or so and Heather asked how my foot felt, then they shooed me out of T2, where I threw a cup of water on Brian Horne at the gate for ca-cawing at me. Long story.
I mustered enough juice to run past the crowds and out onto the fire roads before it all went to hell. My legs just quit. My calves and quads felt like they wanted to jump off my body and go searching for a less abusive relationship. I started walking. Sometime in mile 2, I think, Gunn caught up. Now usually he catches up, slaps me on the back and keeps on running. This time, he walked with me. That’s when I knew just how hard this thing was. As we walked, we talked about the race and we both came to the conclusion that our nutrition strategies were severely lacking. We kept up a run/walk, though mostly walk, pace for the first 7 miles or so, before we mustered the will to run through camp and past the TCSD station and the TNT camp. I have to say here that team San Diego ROCKED that turn. The roar as we passed carried us through another mile or so. Brian finally pulled ahead at mile 10 and I ran with a really cool guy for another mile and a half or so who had done the race several times and talked me through “the pit of despair” as he called it. This is a 2 mile exposed stretch of road. 1 mile down and 1 back up. When you come out of it, you’ve got about 2 miles to go and Andy dropped me there.
I finally crested Lynch Hill and began the descent to the finish. I managed to run most of the last mile and yes, I crossed the line at a run. I saw Gurujan and Heather in the finish and the hugs I got were a big help. But I have to say that when I saw Rick Fargo and he told me Ben missed the finish because he was in the pisser, I nearly collapsed laughing.
The beer they gave me after I stopped wobbling was one of the best I’ve ever had.
So all in all, I didn’t hit the time I wanted, but who cares? I needed a win, after everything that’s been going on lately, and finishing the 70.3 course at Wildflower certainly qualifies.
675 – Ryan Mashburn
Age 32
Hometown San Diego, CA
Time 07:23:08 at Finish Line
Ranking:
1533rd overall
1214th overall men
255th 30-34 men
Splits:
Swim: 00:34:43.710 28:56 min/mi
T1: 00:05:22.680
Bike: 03:26:59.420 16.23 avg MPH
T2: 00:03:03.470
Run: 03:12:58.720 14:44 min/mi
One of many things I love about triathlon is the fact that I can have my lame ass splits down to the millisecond. As if the .720 on my run split was all that separates me and Chris Lieto. Eh, whatever. On with the race report.
Driving up to Lake San Antonio, I wasn’t sure I was going to race. My cage was still rattling from the three serious bike crashes friends have had in the last month, my foot was still bothering me (though it was improving) and, to top it all off, I have no health insurance. Those factors, coming off the general turmoil of the last few months had me seriously considering forgoing the long course in favor of the longneck. On arrival at the campground, parking next to the RV, however, I started to feel something that has been missing for a while now. What is it, you ask? Did I suddenly regain mobility in my left index finger? Did I have a great spiritual epiphany of some kind? Nope. I just felt focused. As I pitched my tent I started feeling more like, well, me than I have in months.
Thursday night was just like last year, beer, BBQ and chucking stuff in the fire. Laughing and goofing off. Catching up with old friends. General good stuff, really. Which made it a little unnerving when rain on the tent fly woke me up that night. I was a little freaked out for a second. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to wait out rain in a tent. It took me back to my old Boy Scout days. Yes, I was a Boy Scout. Is that a shock? Really?
Friday dawned okay and we killed time until noon, when packet pickup started. A bunch of us cruised down to the lake to do a swim preview. I left my wetsuit in camp, figuring I’d rather brave the lake than put on a clammy wetsuit on race morning. This was both wise and foolish. Foolish because there was a serious algae bloom going on and swimming through it was a bit like something that Mike Rowe should be doing at the safe remove of “on TV,” and wise because it meant that I didn’t have to worry about the algae evolving and running off with my wetsuit overnight. Those things are expensive.
The rain started as we toweled off on the boat ramp. It continued through packet pickup and stopped long enough for us to grab some lunch and shop the expo. By the time we got to camp, it had started again, though it was light and intermittent enough for us to ride our bikes out to the camp entrance and snag free Avia visors and gelato. Mmmm… It was a wet ride back to camp, though. The rain continued on and off into the night and I was nervous about the race the next morning, since I knew there would be some serious downhills and I was riding the Kuota for the first time in a race, though not for the first time in the rain. I calmed the nerves by wandering down to the Fargos’ campsite and hanging out over some pasta and snacks. That, and a couple of Tecates got me calmed down. I even got some sleep, which I didn’t manage to do before Longhorn.
Race morning dawned cool but dry. I had a crisis of confidence when the alarm went off and considered hiding in the sleeping bag, but I ultimately decided that someone would probably figure out where I was. I got up, ate my standard pre-race energy bar and prepped my water bottles. BG and I rode down to transition together and this time I remembered to make sure my brakes were closed when we dropped Lynch Hill. When I got to my spot, number 676 was racked wrong and his bike was where mine needed to go. The official I grabbed wasn’t overly helpful, though he was very polite and wrote down the number to come back and check on it. I wedged my bike and bag into what little space I had and went to body marking.
Now, I don’t want to criticize the race volunteers, but I’m going to. The kid that marked me was cool enough. He got the numbers on my arms and hands, the age on my calf and the number on my left leg right. When he got to my right leg, he did something that makes no sense to me. He lifted the cuff of my tri shorts wrote the number, then put my shorts back. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with tri shorts, they’re spandex and have a strip in the cuff that keeps them from moving. This kid wrote my number underneath the leg of my shorts. He knew he was doing it too, because he had to move them out of the way. WTF, I ask you, WTF?
So I go back to transition and number 676 has returned. The four of us who have been screwed up by his mistake politely stare at him until he realizes what he’s done and sheepishly turns his bike around. At this point, the official returns to ask me, number 675, whether racer number 675 has come back fix his bike. I briefly consider slapping him upside the head with my helmet, but realize that that would disqualify me. I explain that it was 676 who had misracked, but that it was okay now. He wandered befuddledly away and I put on my wetsuit while chatting with the guy on my right, who explained that he was worried about his transition times and therefore had already saved drafts of his T1 and T2 twitter posts in his phone. I wandered befuddledly away.
The swim was uneventful. Apart from the muck, it went well. I held a much tighter line than last year and overall swam a cleaner course. I came in a bit slower than I wanted, but all told, I blame that on the dude who kept stopping in front of me to frog kick while sighting and then sprinting ahead to keep me from passing him. I very nearly gave him the butterfly dunk, but I got past him in the end. I felt a little funky running up the boat ramp, but the cheers I got from some friends up on the hill spurred me on into T1. I took some extra time there to settle my stomach and get my heart rate down. Remembering last year’s race, I just calmly walked my bike out to the mount line. Ben, thanks for the cheer at the gate.
Now, the bike was the interesting part. When you sign up for the Wildflower long course, everyone tells you about Nasty Grade. Seriously, everyone. Your doctor, your dog, your dental hygienist, everyone. Nasty Grade is at mile 40. Nobody tells you about Beech Hill at mile 2, or wherever it is. Bastards. I thought it would never end. Frankly, I’m not sure how I stayed vertical heading up it. At the top, we took off on the roads through the park and out to the county road. This is where Marty passed me. I briefly tried to catch him before I realized that I was making a HUGE mistake if I planned to get past mile 5 and so let him go. I dropped back into my aero bars and felt something was wrong. It took a minute of listening to rattling parts before I realized that my aero bottle had come loose and was about to crash down into my front wheel. I got a hand on it and stopped, wasting some time while I fixed it.
Over the course of the next 30 miles or so, I had a lot of time to think, but I didn’t. Apart from the new bike and the aero bottle, there are two other changes I’ve made to my training and racing. I’ve replaced Gu with a Carbo-Pro/Nuun mixture as my primary source of electrolytes and calories. I’ll talk more about this in a minute. The second change is that I’ve thus far eschewed the bike computer on the tri bike. This means that when I ride I have no idea how fast I’m going, what my elapsed mileage, average speed or cadence are. The only things I can use to gauge my progress are mile markers and how I feel. This keeps me intensely dialed into my own legs, heart and lungs and I constantly have to adjust my riding to match the way I feel. Does this help? I don’t know, with only one race under me this way, but I beat my projected bike time by five and a half minutes, so maybe.
At mile 41, I realized I had been going up for a while and that it was really hard. This is about the time I realized I was on Nasty Grade. Who knew? I got about a third of the way up the main stretch and my legs just wouldn’t turn. I don’t know what happened, I just knew that if I didn’t stop I would fall over, so I unclipped and pulled over. I stood on the side of the road for about a minute and then I felt fine, so I started back up the hill and passed the two guys who had just asked if I was okay. That felt good.
This is where the quote of the race happened for me. A guy from the UCSD tri team caught up to me and chatted in between heaving gasps for air as we climbed. We talked about training and the hill, and when I said I didn’t think it was as bad as it had been sold, he said this: “I don’t want to piss on your Cheerios, but up there where it looks like the top, it turns right and goes up again.” I laughed and he left me in the dust.
The coolest thing about the bike course is this: for every ugly climb, you get an awesome descent. The back side of Nasty Grade is worth the whole dang race. I’m actually glad I didn’t have a speedometer. I would probably have slowed down.
Then came mile 48. That sonic boom you heard around noon if you were there…that was the sound of me blowing my wad. My legs just stopped. I was hungry, despite the Carbo-Pro and two Gu Roctanes I had consumed. I was out of energy. I knew I could dig in and just muscle through the last few miles, but I was seriously considering bailing in T2 and calling it a day. I have never thought about that during a race before.
I’m not sure where, but somewhere in here, I realized that race day was the exact opposite of Friday. Instead of rainy and cold, it was crystal clear and roughly a thousand degrees. Oh, and did I mention the head winds? Just like Beech Hill, nobody ever mentioned those.
I got into T2 and I was seriously wobbly. I had to sit down to put my shoes on and that’s when Trent found me. I felt like crap and was convinced I’d just had the worst bike ride since Sleeping Indian. When he said “Nice bike. You killed it.” I thought he was joking. Then I looked at my watch. It had only been 4 hours since the start. I was on schedule. Holy shit. I talked to him for a minute or so and Heather asked how my foot felt, then they shooed me out of T2, where I threw a cup of water on Brian Horne at the gate for ca-cawing at me. Long story.
I mustered enough juice to run past the crowds and out onto the fire roads before it all went to hell. My legs just quit. My calves and quads felt like they wanted to jump off my body and go searching for a less abusive relationship. I started walking. Sometime in mile 2, I think, Gunn caught up. Now usually he catches up, slaps me on the back and keeps on running. This time, he walked with me. That’s when I knew just how hard this thing was. As we walked, we talked about the race and we both came to the conclusion that our nutrition strategies were severely lacking. We kept up a run/walk, though mostly walk, pace for the first 7 miles or so, before we mustered the will to run through camp and past the TCSD station and the TNT camp. I have to say here that team San Diego ROCKED that turn. The roar as we passed carried us through another mile or so. Brian finally pulled ahead at mile 10 and I ran with a really cool guy for another mile and a half or so who had done the race several times and talked me through “the pit of despair” as he called it. This is a 2 mile exposed stretch of road. 1 mile down and 1 back up. When you come out of it, you’ve got about 2 miles to go and Andy dropped me there.
I finally crested Lynch Hill and began the descent to the finish. I managed to run most of the last mile and yes, I crossed the line at a run. I saw Gurujan and Heather in the finish and the hugs I got were a big help. But I have to say that when I saw Rick Fargo and he told me Ben missed the finish because he was in the pisser, I nearly collapsed laughing.
The beer they gave me after I stopped wobbling was one of the best I’ve ever had.
So all in all, I didn’t hit the time I wanted, but who cares? I needed a win, after everything that’s been going on lately, and finishing the 70.3 course at Wildflower certainly qualifies.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Pac Grove 2008
Well, it's Sunday night and another exhausting race weekend has come and gone. That's right, yesterday saw me running the Triathlon at Pacific Grove. If you've been playing along at home, this was my first ever race in 2007.
Since that fateful day last September, I've been racing like crazy. In fact, yesterday was my ninth triathlon in 12 months. Does that make me obsessive? I'm not qualified to answer that question.
I decided to return to PG after a year of racing to see just what I had accomplished. What better benchmark than repetition, right? Again, if you've been playing along, this year has seen lots of races, but also lots of injury. Cracked ribs, plantar fasciitis, blisters and cuts and bruises too numerous to recall.
Anyway, how did I do? I crushed myself.
Pac Grove 2007 Finish: 3:10:22
Pac Grove 2008 Finish: 2:49:42
Apart from the overall, what did I want out of this race?
1. Beat my swim from 07. Check.
2. Beat my run from 07. Check.
3. Finish the run with no walk breaks. Check.
Icing on the cake:
1. Beat my Lavaman bike split. (by about a minute and a half)
2. Ran my fastest triathlon 10K. (by about 5 minutes)
3. Cracked the top half of my age group.
That's 3 PRs in one race (bike, run, overall).
Oh yeah, bring on Longhorn.
It was interesting, racing on my own even though the TNT crew was there and they all knew me. I raced in my age group rather than with them and for the first time since I started this, I stepped into the chute not knowing a soul in my wave. I couldn't feed off the energy of friends and had to really pull into my own head for motivation. As I wandered around on the beach waiting for my turn, I could look up at the road and see the wall of purple jackets. Part of me wished I was up there with them, but I went into the water and just stood there for a while. There's an angle you can find where if you look out to sea, all you can see are rocks and water and grey sky. You can hear the announcer and the crowd, but if you tune it out it's almost like you're out there alone.
The swim was solid. I found a good rhythm pretty quickly, though I had some crowd issues. I came out of the water to go around the rock and braced for the next wave to land on top of me just like last year. It didn't happen, so I snuck a quick look at my watch. 13:36 for the first half of the swim. Not a PR but I had nearly 90 seconds to get out of the way before the horn went off for the next wave.
No problems until the home stretch. I was drafting off of a guy's shoulder and he started pulling to the outside, into me, since I was to his right. I stuttered a stroke and let him pull ahead, then cut inside. No problem, right? Well, he turned back inside and swam underneath me. We got all pretzeled up. As I tried to push off of him, he mule kicked me square in the right shoulder, hard enough to stand me up in the water and stop me cold. I gave him a second and finished my swim.
Up into T1 and I got my bike shoes on before I went completely, totally blank. I was literally standing in front of my gear with no idea what I was doing. The i heard someone yelling my name. I looked up to see Tim and Neil from the TNT squad cheering for me. That snapped me right out of it and I suited up and ran out to the mount line.
It was on the bike that I realized just how cool the AG start was. Last year, the bike course was straight out of Thunderdome, with people all over the road on all manner of bikes and no two of them following the same set of rules. In snowboarding, we call that the human slalom. Since I took off in wave two, the road was a ghost town. I had no traffic until lap four and by then it just didn't matter. After IB, I was really worried about my dismount into T2, so I prepped my shoes and slowed down a little early, but it worked. I stuck it and ran into transition. I could even feel my feet this time.
T2 was smooth and I was out on the run. Looking at my bike on the rack, I saw that I only used one of the four Gus I brought, which had me a little worried, but I had a tough time putting it down, so I didn't try to force a second.
On the run, all I wanted to do was run the whole thing without cramping. I figured that meant all I needed to do was find a pace that I could hold and just be steady, forgetting all about speed. This was a perfect strategy for me, apparently. I had no muscle issues, didn't stop at any of the aid stations and finished smooth. The 1:01 time is a PR for the triathlon 10K, so maybe for Lavaman I can get it under an hour. Who knows?
Congrats to the TNT crew. You guys looked great out there. Some of you actually looked like you were enjoying yourself. And the after party...mother of god, you people know what you're doing. I'm still hurting.
Oh, and you guys at Nation's...nice job all of you.
Congrats to Ben on his first olympic distance race.
Thank you to all the SCU crew who came down and to everyone who texted or emailed or facebooked a good luck message. You guys rock.
Well, I think that's about it for now. I need sleep since it's back to the real world tomorrow.
Since that fateful day last September, I've been racing like crazy. In fact, yesterday was my ninth triathlon in 12 months. Does that make me obsessive? I'm not qualified to answer that question.
I decided to return to PG after a year of racing to see just what I had accomplished. What better benchmark than repetition, right? Again, if you've been playing along, this year has seen lots of races, but also lots of injury. Cracked ribs, plantar fasciitis, blisters and cuts and bruises too numerous to recall.
Anyway, how did I do? I crushed myself.
Pac Grove 2007 Finish: 3:10:22
Pac Grove 2008 Finish: 2:49:42
Apart from the overall, what did I want out of this race?
1. Beat my swim from 07. Check.
2. Beat my run from 07. Check.
3. Finish the run with no walk breaks. Check.
Icing on the cake:
1. Beat my Lavaman bike split. (by about a minute and a half)
2. Ran my fastest triathlon 10K. (by about 5 minutes)
3. Cracked the top half of my age group.
That's 3 PRs in one race (bike, run, overall).
Oh yeah, bring on Longhorn.
It was interesting, racing on my own even though the TNT crew was there and they all knew me. I raced in my age group rather than with them and for the first time since I started this, I stepped into the chute not knowing a soul in my wave. I couldn't feed off the energy of friends and had to really pull into my own head for motivation. As I wandered around on the beach waiting for my turn, I could look up at the road and see the wall of purple jackets. Part of me wished I was up there with them, but I went into the water and just stood there for a while. There's an angle you can find where if you look out to sea, all you can see are rocks and water and grey sky. You can hear the announcer and the crowd, but if you tune it out it's almost like you're out there alone.
The swim was solid. I found a good rhythm pretty quickly, though I had some crowd issues. I came out of the water to go around the rock and braced for the next wave to land on top of me just like last year. It didn't happen, so I snuck a quick look at my watch. 13:36 for the first half of the swim. Not a PR but I had nearly 90 seconds to get out of the way before the horn went off for the next wave.
No problems until the home stretch. I was drafting off of a guy's shoulder and he started pulling to the outside, into me, since I was to his right. I stuttered a stroke and let him pull ahead, then cut inside. No problem, right? Well, he turned back inside and swam underneath me. We got all pretzeled up. As I tried to push off of him, he mule kicked me square in the right shoulder, hard enough to stand me up in the water and stop me cold. I gave him a second and finished my swim.
Up into T1 and I got my bike shoes on before I went completely, totally blank. I was literally standing in front of my gear with no idea what I was doing. The i heard someone yelling my name. I looked up to see Tim and Neil from the TNT squad cheering for me. That snapped me right out of it and I suited up and ran out to the mount line.
It was on the bike that I realized just how cool the AG start was. Last year, the bike course was straight out of Thunderdome, with people all over the road on all manner of bikes and no two of them following the same set of rules. In snowboarding, we call that the human slalom. Since I took off in wave two, the road was a ghost town. I had no traffic until lap four and by then it just didn't matter. After IB, I was really worried about my dismount into T2, so I prepped my shoes and slowed down a little early, but it worked. I stuck it and ran into transition. I could even feel my feet this time.
T2 was smooth and I was out on the run. Looking at my bike on the rack, I saw that I only used one of the four Gus I brought, which had me a little worried, but I had a tough time putting it down, so I didn't try to force a second.
On the run, all I wanted to do was run the whole thing without cramping. I figured that meant all I needed to do was find a pace that I could hold and just be steady, forgetting all about speed. This was a perfect strategy for me, apparently. I had no muscle issues, didn't stop at any of the aid stations and finished smooth. The 1:01 time is a PR for the triathlon 10K, so maybe for Lavaman I can get it under an hour. Who knows?
Congrats to the TNT crew. You guys looked great out there. Some of you actually looked like you were enjoying yourself. And the after party...mother of god, you people know what you're doing. I'm still hurting.
Oh, and you guys at Nation's...nice job all of you.
Congrats to Ben on his first olympic distance race.
Thank you to all the SCU crew who came down and to everyone who texted or emailed or facebooked a good luck message. You guys rock.
Well, I think that's about it for now. I need sleep since it's back to the real world tomorrow.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sometimes I'm so smart I scare myself.
Okay, I'm finally coming out of the coma. I'm only beginning, I think, to understand exactly what I put myself through this weekend. By way of initial context, I'll say this: It was all tri, all the time.
Friday night was the TNT swim at La Jolla Shores. 1 mile, no big deal, right? Right. Except...when I swim slow, I get bored. Actually, I don't have time to get bored. In the water, if there's no clock running, I'm about six years old. I spent my forty five minutes in the water diving into the giant school of bait fish just offshore, trying to touch the bottom and sprinting around after seal barks, all in between bouts of making sure newbies didn't drown. I don't know how far I actually swam, but it was probably well over a mile. My arms and shoulders were sore the next day and they never really are after Shores swims.
I actually stayed in and slept on Friday night, knowing that Saturday was Iron Mountain. Now, if you've read this blog for a while, you know that I have a history with this workout. It was my fourth time on the course, and my first going in without an injury. I was supposed to be helping TNT again, but frankly there isn't much to be done for them at this point.
Prophecy moment: Iris gave me a bumper sticker that reads "Warning! Training with hangover." This is awesome on many levels. Mainly, it's damn funny, but I wonder if it signifies that I've been sending the wrong message to the TNT folks. It seems that every time they've called me to help out with a Saturday workout, and I've done several this season, I show up hung over, on no sleep, or both. Of course, I still manage to grind out the workouts and I'm usually pretty quick about it, but still, definitely something belongs in the "Don't Try This At home" category.
I think the alumni volunteers matched or outnumbered the participants who showed up. We got going and the lead out volunteer, Greg, and I dropped the teamies pretty quick, so I topped to let several catch and pass me to try and bookend the faster team group. The thing is, they were only holding about 15 MPH in that part of the pack and the top half of the IM route is way too fun to ride that slow. I wound up waiting at the turnaround. I let most of the team pass me there while I goofed off and talked to Robbie. We finally started riding after giving the middle of the pack a goof four or five minute head start. That's when Robbie said "Let's catch Dana." I said, "Okay" and tore off. A long hard sprint later, I caught and passed Dana. At that point I realized that Robbie hadn't followed me. Bastard.
No turning back now, though, I was committed to seeing how far up in the line I could get. I eventually caught Katie and passed her, which I think made her angry, because she wound up chasing me all the way back up the hill. More on that in a bit.
If you haven't ridden or driven highway 67 southbound, the stretch from where it connects to Scripps-Poway Parkway to Willow Road in Lakeside, which is our second turnaround, is an insane downhill section. I hit 40 MPH this time, though I've gone as high as 45. Iris told me she hit 49, which is AWESOME!!!!
At the bottom, we have an aid station at the Circle K. This is where everyone regroups and I got to heckle Robbie for not keeping up with me. He patiently explained that yes, he caught Dana too, he just waitied for a big downhill, rather than waste a bunch of energy sprinting through Ramona. I felt stupid, because it was at that point that I remembered I was racing on Sunday morning.
So we set out for the last leg of the ride, which a multi-mile climb back to Poway Road. This where it got weird for me. I was tired anyway, so when my energy started flagging, I sang songs in my head to keep going. I went through some Springsteen (Thunder Road), Social Distortion (Highway 101) and then I settled on, of all things, John Denver. That's right, JOHN FREAKIN' DENVER!!! Wanna fight about it? Apparently, Take Me Home, Country Roads works like afterburners. Who knew?
This is also where I realized I think I made Katie mad passing her earlier. See, she wiped the road with me climbing Torrey last week, but this time I stayed ahead of her, though she wasn't far back. I don't know, but I think she was holding back, letting me win, but knowing all the while that I would pay for it. I know this because back at the trail head, when I changed into run gear and took off up the hill, she and Dana and Tim went and did the ride again.
I had thought about going with them, but seeing as I was racing on Sunday morning, I decided to limit myself to the official workout, which was the 30 mile ride with 2274 feet of climbing, followed by a 3 mile trail run up the side of the mountain. You can actually go 6 miles if you go to the top, but I was being smart remember? I was saving something for the race, so I only went to the T junction. About halfway up, I realized that I hadn't done a trail run since I hurt my foot back in February. That's right, I picked pretty much the hardest one you can do to test the waters. That's me, Ryan Mashburn, Super Genius.
I felt a little better when Brian, who was also doing the race on Sunday, showed up at the T. At least I wasn't being dumb alone.
We grabbed lunch after the workout and it was at about 2:30 in the hamburger factory, in Poway, that Brian and I remembered we had to be in Imperial Beach, which is basically Mexico, by 4 to get our packets. We made it as they were packing up the expo.
Saturday night was a fundraiser where I was supposed to go for an hour or so, have a beer or two and then get some sleep. Four and half hours later I'm shooting pool with Iris and Melinda, several more than two beers into the night, thanks to Trent and Alan, and I have a stake in Brian, who I helped Iris buy at the singles auction. If you've got any suggestions on what we should do with him, hit the comment board.
So at 12:45 as I'm walking four blocks in the wrong direction from my car to get Melinda back to hers, I'm beginning to think I should revise my race goals for IB.
At 1:30AM, as I set the alarm for 4:30, I thought I may have made a, shall we say, tactical misstep, in my handlling of Saturday, which is when someone started backing heavy trucks around in one of the construction sites around my neighborhood. Beep beep beep rev. Repeat. Until 2AM, when I finally nodded off.
5AM Sunday. My text to Brian: "We are stupid. I've decided this." He agreed.
As I was setting up my transition area, someone asked me if the swim was still going to happen. Given that this was a triathlon, I said "I think so, why?" Apparently, the beach had been closed for a few days leading up to the race due to high bacteria levels. Wow, good thing I had all that beer in my system. Alcohol kills germs, right?
Not much to report on the swim, except that the water was disgusting and the visibility was worse.
Running out of T1, I heard someone yell my name and looked over to see Denner shouting at me from his seat atop a bike trainer. I spent the first mile or so of the bike ride wondering why the hell he was on a trainer in the transition area. My morning was definitely starting to rule.
I powered through the ride as best I could, though my legs felt like, I don't know, similes fail me. They felt like crap. I felt like crap. Thank god it was only 9 miles. I know 'cuz I read my t-shirt this time. I was so zonked though that even though I had my feet on top of my shoes coming into the home stretch, I nearly powered through the dismount line. Hopping off the bike as it was moving way too fast, I hit the brake to slow down, only I hit the front brake, causing the bike to endo with me in midair and slapping down onto the pavement in my bare feet. Somehow, I didn't break an ankle or drop my bike, though I got a great agonized "oohhh!" out of the crowd. And I made the dismount line. Yay! So into T2 I went.
That run sucked. How much did it suck? There are not yet computers powerful enough to calculate the magnitude of the suck. And I ran the whole 5K in under 30, but I didn't enjoy it damn you!
When I passed Greg on the course he asked how I was feeling and I said, "This sucks!" He laughed at me and we ran on. He was heading into the turnaround and I had already gone through it. I found out after the race, however, that after he laughed at me, he barfed. So see, that run sucked! It even sucked for the guy who wasn't hung over and running on 3 hours sleep the day after Iron Mountain.
Thankfully, after the race we got to go to Jim's house and eat heaping piles of awesome food. Thank you Denner for showing me that you don't need a fork to eat mac and cheese. You are correct that it's just more efficient, not to mention visceral to just shovel it in by hand.
By the time I got home Sunday night, I was so tired I don't think I knew my name anymore. I fell asleep in the shower. I finally plonked my worn out carcass into bed around 10:30, and I barely made it past turning off the light. Score! Sleep. Finally, sweet holy blessed sleep. And I have no idea whether the jackass in the truck was working last night.
Friday night was the TNT swim at La Jolla Shores. 1 mile, no big deal, right? Right. Except...when I swim slow, I get bored. Actually, I don't have time to get bored. In the water, if there's no clock running, I'm about six years old. I spent my forty five minutes in the water diving into the giant school of bait fish just offshore, trying to touch the bottom and sprinting around after seal barks, all in between bouts of making sure newbies didn't drown. I don't know how far I actually swam, but it was probably well over a mile. My arms and shoulders were sore the next day and they never really are after Shores swims.
I actually stayed in and slept on Friday night, knowing that Saturday was Iron Mountain. Now, if you've read this blog for a while, you know that I have a history with this workout. It was my fourth time on the course, and my first going in without an injury. I was supposed to be helping TNT again, but frankly there isn't much to be done for them at this point.
Prophecy moment: Iris gave me a bumper sticker that reads "Warning! Training with hangover." This is awesome on many levels. Mainly, it's damn funny, but I wonder if it signifies that I've been sending the wrong message to the TNT folks. It seems that every time they've called me to help out with a Saturday workout, and I've done several this season, I show up hung over, on no sleep, or both. Of course, I still manage to grind out the workouts and I'm usually pretty quick about it, but still, definitely something belongs in the "Don't Try This At home" category.
I think the alumni volunteers matched or outnumbered the participants who showed up. We got going and the lead out volunteer, Greg, and I dropped the teamies pretty quick, so I topped to let several catch and pass me to try and bookend the faster team group. The thing is, they were only holding about 15 MPH in that part of the pack and the top half of the IM route is way too fun to ride that slow. I wound up waiting at the turnaround. I let most of the team pass me there while I goofed off and talked to Robbie. We finally started riding after giving the middle of the pack a goof four or five minute head start. That's when Robbie said "Let's catch Dana." I said, "Okay" and tore off. A long hard sprint later, I caught and passed Dana. At that point I realized that Robbie hadn't followed me. Bastard.
No turning back now, though, I was committed to seeing how far up in the line I could get. I eventually caught Katie and passed her, which I think made her angry, because she wound up chasing me all the way back up the hill. More on that in a bit.
If you haven't ridden or driven highway 67 southbound, the stretch from where it connects to Scripps-Poway Parkway to Willow Road in Lakeside, which is our second turnaround, is an insane downhill section. I hit 40 MPH this time, though I've gone as high as 45. Iris told me she hit 49, which is AWESOME!!!!
At the bottom, we have an aid station at the Circle K. This is where everyone regroups and I got to heckle Robbie for not keeping up with me. He patiently explained that yes, he caught Dana too, he just waitied for a big downhill, rather than waste a bunch of energy sprinting through Ramona. I felt stupid, because it was at that point that I remembered I was racing on Sunday morning.
So we set out for the last leg of the ride, which a multi-mile climb back to Poway Road. This where it got weird for me. I was tired anyway, so when my energy started flagging, I sang songs in my head to keep going. I went through some Springsteen (Thunder Road), Social Distortion (Highway 101) and then I settled on, of all things, John Denver. That's right, JOHN FREAKIN' DENVER!!! Wanna fight about it? Apparently, Take Me Home, Country Roads works like afterburners. Who knew?
This is also where I realized I think I made Katie mad passing her earlier. See, she wiped the road with me climbing Torrey last week, but this time I stayed ahead of her, though she wasn't far back. I don't know, but I think she was holding back, letting me win, but knowing all the while that I would pay for it. I know this because back at the trail head, when I changed into run gear and took off up the hill, she and Dana and Tim went and did the ride again.
I had thought about going with them, but seeing as I was racing on Sunday morning, I decided to limit myself to the official workout, which was the 30 mile ride with 2274 feet of climbing, followed by a 3 mile trail run up the side of the mountain. You can actually go 6 miles if you go to the top, but I was being smart remember? I was saving something for the race, so I only went to the T junction. About halfway up, I realized that I hadn't done a trail run since I hurt my foot back in February. That's right, I picked pretty much the hardest one you can do to test the waters. That's me, Ryan Mashburn, Super Genius.
I felt a little better when Brian, who was also doing the race on Sunday, showed up at the T. At least I wasn't being dumb alone.
We grabbed lunch after the workout and it was at about 2:30 in the hamburger factory, in Poway, that Brian and I remembered we had to be in Imperial Beach, which is basically Mexico, by 4 to get our packets. We made it as they were packing up the expo.
Saturday night was a fundraiser where I was supposed to go for an hour or so, have a beer or two and then get some sleep. Four and half hours later I'm shooting pool with Iris and Melinda, several more than two beers into the night, thanks to Trent and Alan, and I have a stake in Brian, who I helped Iris buy at the singles auction. If you've got any suggestions on what we should do with him, hit the comment board.
So at 12:45 as I'm walking four blocks in the wrong direction from my car to get Melinda back to hers, I'm beginning to think I should revise my race goals for IB.
At 1:30AM, as I set the alarm for 4:30, I thought I may have made a, shall we say, tactical misstep, in my handlling of Saturday, which is when someone started backing heavy trucks around in one of the construction sites around my neighborhood. Beep beep beep rev. Repeat. Until 2AM, when I finally nodded off.
5AM Sunday. My text to Brian: "We are stupid. I've decided this." He agreed.
As I was setting up my transition area, someone asked me if the swim was still going to happen. Given that this was a triathlon, I said "I think so, why?" Apparently, the beach had been closed for a few days leading up to the race due to high bacteria levels. Wow, good thing I had all that beer in my system. Alcohol kills germs, right?
Not much to report on the swim, except that the water was disgusting and the visibility was worse.
Running out of T1, I heard someone yell my name and looked over to see Denner shouting at me from his seat atop a bike trainer. I spent the first mile or so of the bike ride wondering why the hell he was on a trainer in the transition area. My morning was definitely starting to rule.
I powered through the ride as best I could, though my legs felt like, I don't know, similes fail me. They felt like crap. I felt like crap. Thank god it was only 9 miles. I know 'cuz I read my t-shirt this time. I was so zonked though that even though I had my feet on top of my shoes coming into the home stretch, I nearly powered through the dismount line. Hopping off the bike as it was moving way too fast, I hit the brake to slow down, only I hit the front brake, causing the bike to endo with me in midair and slapping down onto the pavement in my bare feet. Somehow, I didn't break an ankle or drop my bike, though I got a great agonized "oohhh!" out of the crowd. And I made the dismount line. Yay! So into T2 I went.
That run sucked. How much did it suck? There are not yet computers powerful enough to calculate the magnitude of the suck. And I ran the whole 5K in under 30, but I didn't enjoy it damn you!
When I passed Greg on the course he asked how I was feeling and I said, "This sucks!" He laughed at me and we ran on. He was heading into the turnaround and I had already gone through it. I found out after the race, however, that after he laughed at me, he barfed. So see, that run sucked! It even sucked for the guy who wasn't hung over and running on 3 hours sleep the day after Iron Mountain.
Thankfully, after the race we got to go to Jim's house and eat heaping piles of awesome food. Thank you Denner for showing me that you don't need a fork to eat mac and cheese. You are correct that it's just more efficient, not to mention visceral to just shovel it in by hand.
By the time I got home Sunday night, I was so tired I don't think I knew my name anymore. I fell asleep in the shower. I finally plonked my worn out carcass into bed around 10:30, and I barely made it past turning off the light. Score! Sleep. Finally, sweet holy blessed sleep. And I have no idea whether the jackass in the truck was working last night.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
My pain threshold, explored....
I'm going to count this as my San Diego International recap. And I'll get to it after I switch the stereo from the DVD feed. Who would have thought that the end credits of Ghost Rider would have such annoying music? Seriously, it's like nails on a blackboard remixed by Jay-Z. From the techno/industrial cover of Ghost Riders in the Sky (Get it?) to..oh, never mind. This doesn't mean anything.
Sidebar: Fun drinking game: Watch Ghost Rider and take a shot every time Eva Mendes delivers a line like she's made of plastic.
So, back to the race.
I can't believe I know this many people who are willing to get up at 4 in the morning on a Sunday and put on spandex.
Interesting experience, this one. I realized that I've come a long way because I wasn't nervous. I didn't fuss with my bag all night and I wasn't worried about forgetting anything.
I had two goals going into the race:
1. Run the entire course. No walk breaks.
2. Finish without feeling like I could have done more.
I managed both. Yes, you heard that right, I ran the whole 10K. My pace was close to 10:30 per mile, but screw it, man. I haven't managed to run the entire course since Mission Bay last October. I wasn't even limping when I got done.
I think I'm capable of going faster, but that's for another race. For this one, I'll take the lessons, and the proof that I might actually get my run back.
I hit the swim feeling good. It was a floating start, only my second time doing that, but I reaffirmed my belief that it is the coolest way to start a tri. Straight, u-shaped course, and only 1,000 meters. I was out of the water in 14.47, which was a little slower than I wanted, but still not too bad.
My first indication that I was going to have a good race was when I ran into T1. Yes, I ran into T1. I didn't limp. My foot didn't hurt. I ran. I hit the bike with a big boost, feeling good.
The bike went well, though I wish I had been able to preview the whole course. I only rode from the transition area to the Navy gate before the race. That's the big hill, but I wasn't quite ready for the tail end past the cemetary and down to Cabrillo Monument, twice. I also enjoyed passing people who were dressed for more serious racing than I will ever contemplate. Seriously, Team Skyfuel, lighten up and work on your drafting/passing rules. That, or stop selling your jerseys to newbies at the expo.
I got a little more tired than I expected on the ride and had to take some of the hills a little slower than I wanted to, but I was able to keep my speed up above single digits pretty much the whole way. I think I dropped into the 9s once or twice. I definitely need to fix my dang cadence sensor though. I miss that. I didn't realize how dependent I am on it.
I was ready for T2, with my feet out of the shoes and coasting down the hill to the dismount line when I saw the guy in my line go down. I got scared for a second because he was disoriented and having trouble picking up his bike. Someone was next to me, so I wasn't going around, but he got it together and I was able to dismount smoothly.
Through T2 and out onto the run, where I had my first moment of doubt. About a quarter mile onto the course, my calves were spasming and making me shuffle. Someone ran by me, slapped my shoulder and told me I was looking strong. How bad did I really look, I wonder? I kept running, gritting my teeth until Jay caught me. We ran most of the course together, except that he got a burst at the finish and left me behind just before the chute. I tried to keep up, but I wasn't going any faster. Nice work, man, and thanks for the pacing help.
It took until the middle of mile two for the cramps to work out, but they did pass, which means I need to do some bricks, but my nutrition and hydration held up. I only used two water bottles on the bike. One with water and one with 2 tabs of Nuun and 2 scoops of Carbo-pro. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be enough. I usually have a couple of Gus, but I left them behind to try this method. It worked. I love it, too. No trash, no choking down weird pasty stuff.
My foot was sore as hell all through the run, but it stayed loose and the pain hasn't stuck. I guess now I just need to get off my lazy butt and train my run.
The run at this race is great. Flat and fast (if you're into that sort of thing) and there's lots of spectator participation. The older lady on the bike who kept riding 100 yards ahead of us and saying "Damn, you caught me." was awesome. Seriously, she kept it up for at least two miles. It never got old. Then there was the, let's say special, homeless guy who yelled at every runner going by, calling us by race number. "Go 307!" He was loud. He had an appreciative audience. He had a balance problem. I was a little worried that he would fall into the harbor, but he hung in there.
I had a fun moment at the last aid station, when the volunteers asked if we wanted to be splashed. I said yes, and they promptly threw two cups of water into my eyes. It sheeted all over my glasses and I had to take them off. Then there was the lovely combo of harbor water slime, sweat and coppertone sport that surprisingly, doesn't feel very good underneath your contacts. I couldn't see a damn thing, and I gave serious thought to scratching out my eyes.
The finish line was great, except that I totally spaced on the beer garden. Oh well, put that in the race notes for next year.
Sidebar: Fun drinking game: Watch Ghost Rider and take a shot every time Eva Mendes delivers a line like she's made of plastic.
So, back to the race.
I can't believe I know this many people who are willing to get up at 4 in the morning on a Sunday and put on spandex.
Interesting experience, this one. I realized that I've come a long way because I wasn't nervous. I didn't fuss with my bag all night and I wasn't worried about forgetting anything.
I had two goals going into the race:
1. Run the entire course. No walk breaks.
2. Finish without feeling like I could have done more.
I managed both. Yes, you heard that right, I ran the whole 10K. My pace was close to 10:30 per mile, but screw it, man. I haven't managed to run the entire course since Mission Bay last October. I wasn't even limping when I got done.
I think I'm capable of going faster, but that's for another race. For this one, I'll take the lessons, and the proof that I might actually get my run back.
I hit the swim feeling good. It was a floating start, only my second time doing that, but I reaffirmed my belief that it is the coolest way to start a tri. Straight, u-shaped course, and only 1,000 meters. I was out of the water in 14.47, which was a little slower than I wanted, but still not too bad.
My first indication that I was going to have a good race was when I ran into T1. Yes, I ran into T1. I didn't limp. My foot didn't hurt. I ran. I hit the bike with a big boost, feeling good.
The bike went well, though I wish I had been able to preview the whole course. I only rode from the transition area to the Navy gate before the race. That's the big hill, but I wasn't quite ready for the tail end past the cemetary and down to Cabrillo Monument, twice. I also enjoyed passing people who were dressed for more serious racing than I will ever contemplate. Seriously, Team Skyfuel, lighten up and work on your drafting/passing rules. That, or stop selling your jerseys to newbies at the expo.
I got a little more tired than I expected on the ride and had to take some of the hills a little slower than I wanted to, but I was able to keep my speed up above single digits pretty much the whole way. I think I dropped into the 9s once or twice. I definitely need to fix my dang cadence sensor though. I miss that. I didn't realize how dependent I am on it.
I was ready for T2, with my feet out of the shoes and coasting down the hill to the dismount line when I saw the guy in my line go down. I got scared for a second because he was disoriented and having trouble picking up his bike. Someone was next to me, so I wasn't going around, but he got it together and I was able to dismount smoothly.
Through T2 and out onto the run, where I had my first moment of doubt. About a quarter mile onto the course, my calves were spasming and making me shuffle. Someone ran by me, slapped my shoulder and told me I was looking strong. How bad did I really look, I wonder? I kept running, gritting my teeth until Jay caught me. We ran most of the course together, except that he got a burst at the finish and left me behind just before the chute. I tried to keep up, but I wasn't going any faster. Nice work, man, and thanks for the pacing help.
It took until the middle of mile two for the cramps to work out, but they did pass, which means I need to do some bricks, but my nutrition and hydration held up. I only used two water bottles on the bike. One with water and one with 2 tabs of Nuun and 2 scoops of Carbo-pro. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be enough. I usually have a couple of Gus, but I left them behind to try this method. It worked. I love it, too. No trash, no choking down weird pasty stuff.
My foot was sore as hell all through the run, but it stayed loose and the pain hasn't stuck. I guess now I just need to get off my lazy butt and train my run.
The run at this race is great. Flat and fast (if you're into that sort of thing) and there's lots of spectator participation. The older lady on the bike who kept riding 100 yards ahead of us and saying "Damn, you caught me." was awesome. Seriously, she kept it up for at least two miles. It never got old. Then there was the, let's say special, homeless guy who yelled at every runner going by, calling us by race number. "Go 307!" He was loud. He had an appreciative audience. He had a balance problem. I was a little worried that he would fall into the harbor, but he hung in there.
I had a fun moment at the last aid station, when the volunteers asked if we wanted to be splashed. I said yes, and they promptly threw two cups of water into my eyes. It sheeted all over my glasses and I had to take them off. Then there was the lovely combo of harbor water slime, sweat and coppertone sport that surprisingly, doesn't feel very good underneath your contacts. I couldn't see a damn thing, and I gave serious thought to scratching out my eyes.
The finish line was great, except that I totally spaced on the beer garden. Oh well, put that in the race notes for next year.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Wildflower: How the worst swim of my life turned into the best one, or dammit, why did I forget the safe word?
I wrote this whole huge report and realized I forgot my times, so here they are, for the short attention span theater crowd:
Overall: 1333 of 2390 ranked
Division Rank, M30-34: 170 of 241 ranked
Finish Time: 03:17:11
Swim: 00:26:11
Division/Overall: 67/589
T1 00:03:49
Bike: 01:32:22
Division/Overall: 126/875
T2 00:02:37
Run: 01:12:09
Division/Overall: 227/2007
And now for the story.
Unlike Denner, who broke his WF post into the race report and the overall weekend impressions, I'm just gonna lump it all together, since for me the experience and the race are all one and the same.
It all started at Costco...Man if I had a nickel for every time...no, not gonna do that.
Anyway, Brian picked up the RV and we met on Wednesday night to load up and make the communal food run. Turns out that running thorugh a warehouse full of food with no menu plan and 8 triathletes who haven't had dinner leads to madness. $450 bucks later we made it out (without the giant can of Bueno! cheez sauce, which still pisses me off.).
Thursday morning, it was into the RV and off to Wildflower we go, but a couple of hours into the ride, this is pretty much how it looked:
It was all uneventful, until Brian clipped the crippled guy. Well, his truck. It was too funny, watching this guy pull a wheelchair from his extended cab and thinking "Christ, what a drama queen," only to find that he only had one leg and one the foot he had was a bootie like they put on you when you break your foot.
Long story short, he had paint transfer on the bumper. Paul got a good shot of Jason doing some ad hoc car repair.
Then there were the three highway patrol cruisers. Most memorable moment: Brian's field sobriety test, which he passed once they explained the rules, followed by the following exchange:
Cop: Sir, I don't think you're under the influence. So, did you hit him intentionally?
Brian: Um, no.
Cop: You mean you didn't try to hit him and only manage to scrape the back corner of his bumper.
Brian: Um, no.
Cop: Okay.
It was a long hour and a half in Valencia, but then we were back on the road. We finally made it to Lake San Antonio around 6PM and immediately, Scott broke out the tequila. The night went from there.
Yes, Allison, we see you.
Friday:
Preview day. We rode down to transition, which was fascinating. Acres and acres of empty racks.
From there it was off and up Lynch Hill, which Coach Gurujan had told us was way harder and longer than Torrey Pines. After the first time up, it didn't seem so bad, and we took off out along the course, which was beautiful.
You belong, among the wildflowers...
And then it was packet pickup and back to camp to hang out and watch the long coursers get ready.
Saturday:
The long course and the mountain bike sprint. Same course, not quite the same time, but still a bit of NASCAR wreck thrill when the fast guys on mountain bikes were sharing the chute with the slow long coursers. I had to wonder for a few minutes whose blood I'd be running through on Sunday. I only saw a couple of guys bump shoulders and hit sandbags, but incredibly, no one went down. The crew went back to camp to wait for our long course buds to run by, but I had to wait for Ben to finish the MB race. Which was cool because I got to see this:
Yes, that's a fox.
Shortly thereafter, Ben:
Sorry buddy, you got beat by the furry.
I'm gonna skip over the expo and the swim preview and get right to:
Sunday: Race Day
So first of all, the TriCal folks are all Christians, and the race starts after church, so my wave didn't go off until 9:25AM. Jeez, but even so, it was hte usual race morning jitters. I honestly wasn't feeling it at all, especially when I got to transition and found someone racked in my spot. And, this was the view of the bike out from my rack:
After milling about for an hour or so, it was time to go and get in line. I seeded myself well and got off to a clean start on the swim, but that was about all that went right. A couple of hundred yards in, my goggles fogged to full opaque and I had to stop to clear them. A minute or two later, again. I cleared them again and took off swimming, but I just didn't feel it. My rhythm sucked, my arms felt like wood and about every other breath I got a mouth full of diesel, I mean lake water. I got lost twice and had to stop to figure out if I was anywhere near the course. I just knew I was going to finish the swim with a 40 minute time or something otherwise ridiculously out of character for me. When I took a split on the Timex as I hit the ramp, I was convinced it was broken. It read 26:58, which is about the fastest I've ever gone. My official time was 26:11, so I did something right, but I'm damned if I know what it was.
Up the ramp and into T1. On the way, I heard my name and there were Pat, Erin and maybe Damien (I was the rocket, so I don't know who exactly, sorry.). It was awesome to see them so early in the race. It reminded that, damn it all, I was racing.
I intentionally took some extra time in T1, so that I'd have my heart rate under control before I launched up Lynch Hill, which is about 100 yards from the mount line. It worked. I trucked up solidly, veering around the rattlesnake coiled in the middle of the road. At the top, I saw Coach Gurujan in his official's jacket and he gave me another big cheer, just as I was putting the hammer down to go for the real ride.
Out on the highway, I was feeling good, holding my speed up and not hurting. At the bottom of a roller, there was a guy changing a tire off to the side. I swung out to give him some room just as I heard the official's bike coming up behind me. As he passed, I heard "Move over!" and got flashed two fingers. I figured I'd just got my first penalty. 2 minutes. It pissed me off, but there was nothing to do but keep going. So I kept riding.
One of the biggest moments of my race happened about 2 miles past the turnaround, so around mile 14 or 15, when Greg passed me. This is big for me because, even though he passed me, it took him that long. Considering he beat me in the race by 37 minutes, it was cool.
I wasn't quite prepared for the big climb on the was back in, so my average speed fell off a bit, but I still felt good and as I headed back into the park to drop Lynch into T2 I saw Ben cheering me on. He pumped me up a bit and I totally channeled Damien on the way down. I don't think I touched my brakes. I barely made the dismount line.
T2 was a lot faster than T1 and I was out onto the run, where I saw Paul and got another boost.
The run sucked, like I knew it would. My foot is almost healed, but not quite, and though I was able to run on the roads, the trails nearly killed me. Plus, since I was running funny on my right leg, my left overcompensated and kept going numb. From miles 2-4 I couldn't feel it at all. Plus, my base is shot from not training my run for three months. At any rate, I pulled through it, ran as much as I could and walked when I had to. Ben was waiting at the top of Lynch Hill again and I picked it up, deciding to run all the way down, even if it killed me. I kept it up too, hearing bikers whizzing by me like angry dragonflies (that yell things like "On your left, god damnit! as they try not to crash into bikers and runners in their direction and still somehow not cross the centerline).
Finally, the finish chute was in sight. I figured I didn't have far to go so I dug in, found whatever was left and powered through. I got a yell from Paul J. in the chute and powered in. Across the line and out into the crowd. I totally spaced on the free athlete food and water. Good thing Ben was there to buy me a beer. Thanks buddy. Best beer ever.
And then we waited for everyone else to finish. This where I come back to the penalty. Gurujan found me and Brian and asked how the race went. When I told him about the official, he grinned and said "That was me." So I asked what he penalized me for and he said "I was waving to you. The asshole wagging his butt into the road while changing a tire got a penalty for not moving all the way over." I think I laughed for five minutes.
The it was a couple more beers, a quick race review with Coach Trent ("Dude, you should warm up next time. You won't feel so crappy in the water.") and finally, it was time for the long, long climb back to camp.
And then we drank. Jason, you don't get to pick chasers anymore.
So glad it's over.
And that, as they say, was that. Monday, we packed up, parked our hung over asses in the RV and headed home.
Bye bye Wildflower, see you next year...FOR THE LONG COURSE!!!!
Overall: 1333 of 2390 ranked
Division Rank, M30-34: 170 of 241 ranked
Finish Time: 03:17:11
Swim: 00:26:11
Division/Overall: 67/589
T1 00:03:49
Bike: 01:32:22
Division/Overall: 126/875
T2 00:02:37
Run: 01:12:09
Division/Overall: 227/2007
And now for the story.
Unlike Denner, who broke his WF post into the race report and the overall weekend impressions, I'm just gonna lump it all together, since for me the experience and the race are all one and the same.
It all started at Costco...Man if I had a nickel for every time...no, not gonna do that.
Anyway, Brian picked up the RV and we met on Wednesday night to load up and make the communal food run. Turns out that running thorugh a warehouse full of food with no menu plan and 8 triathletes who haven't had dinner leads to madness. $450 bucks later we made it out (without the giant can of Bueno! cheez sauce, which still pisses me off.).
Thursday morning, it was into the RV and off to Wildflower we go, but a couple of hours into the ride, this is pretty much how it looked:
It was all uneventful, until Brian clipped the crippled guy. Well, his truck. It was too funny, watching this guy pull a wheelchair from his extended cab and thinking "Christ, what a drama queen," only to find that he only had one leg and one the foot he had was a bootie like they put on you when you break your foot.
Long story short, he had paint transfer on the bumper. Paul got a good shot of Jason doing some ad hoc car repair.
Then there were the three highway patrol cruisers. Most memorable moment: Brian's field sobriety test, which he passed once they explained the rules, followed by the following exchange:
Cop: Sir, I don't think you're under the influence. So, did you hit him intentionally?
Brian: Um, no.
Cop: You mean you didn't try to hit him and only manage to scrape the back corner of his bumper.
Brian: Um, no.
Cop: Okay.
It was a long hour and a half in Valencia, but then we were back on the road. We finally made it to Lake San Antonio around 6PM and immediately, Scott broke out the tequila. The night went from there.
Yes, Allison, we see you.Friday:
Preview day. We rode down to transition, which was fascinating. Acres and acres of empty racks.
From there it was off and up Lynch Hill, which Coach Gurujan had told us was way harder and longer than Torrey Pines. After the first time up, it didn't seem so bad, and we took off out along the course, which was beautiful.
You belong, among the wildflowers...And then it was packet pickup and back to camp to hang out and watch the long coursers get ready.
Saturday:
The long course and the mountain bike sprint. Same course, not quite the same time, but still a bit of NASCAR wreck thrill when the fast guys on mountain bikes were sharing the chute with the slow long coursers. I had to wonder for a few minutes whose blood I'd be running through on Sunday. I only saw a couple of guys bump shoulders and hit sandbags, but incredibly, no one went down. The crew went back to camp to wait for our long course buds to run by, but I had to wait for Ben to finish the MB race. Which was cool because I got to see this:
Yes, that's a fox.Shortly thereafter, Ben:
Sorry buddy, you got beat by the furry.I'm gonna skip over the expo and the swim preview and get right to:
Sunday: Race Day
So first of all, the TriCal folks are all Christians, and the race starts after church, so my wave didn't go off until 9:25AM. Jeez, but even so, it was hte usual race morning jitters. I honestly wasn't feeling it at all, especially when I got to transition and found someone racked in my spot. And, this was the view of the bike out from my rack:
After milling about for an hour or so, it was time to go and get in line. I seeded myself well and got off to a clean start on the swim, but that was about all that went right. A couple of hundred yards in, my goggles fogged to full opaque and I had to stop to clear them. A minute or two later, again. I cleared them again and took off swimming, but I just didn't feel it. My rhythm sucked, my arms felt like wood and about every other breath I got a mouth full of diesel, I mean lake water. I got lost twice and had to stop to figure out if I was anywhere near the course. I just knew I was going to finish the swim with a 40 minute time or something otherwise ridiculously out of character for me. When I took a split on the Timex as I hit the ramp, I was convinced it was broken. It read 26:58, which is about the fastest I've ever gone. My official time was 26:11, so I did something right, but I'm damned if I know what it was.
Up the ramp and into T1. On the way, I heard my name and there were Pat, Erin and maybe Damien (I was the rocket, so I don't know who exactly, sorry.). It was awesome to see them so early in the race. It reminded that, damn it all, I was racing.
I intentionally took some extra time in T1, so that I'd have my heart rate under control before I launched up Lynch Hill, which is about 100 yards from the mount line. It worked. I trucked up solidly, veering around the rattlesnake coiled in the middle of the road. At the top, I saw Coach Gurujan in his official's jacket and he gave me another big cheer, just as I was putting the hammer down to go for the real ride.
Out on the highway, I was feeling good, holding my speed up and not hurting. At the bottom of a roller, there was a guy changing a tire off to the side. I swung out to give him some room just as I heard the official's bike coming up behind me. As he passed, I heard "Move over!" and got flashed two fingers. I figured I'd just got my first penalty. 2 minutes. It pissed me off, but there was nothing to do but keep going. So I kept riding.
One of the biggest moments of my race happened about 2 miles past the turnaround, so around mile 14 or 15, when Greg passed me. This is big for me because, even though he passed me, it took him that long. Considering he beat me in the race by 37 minutes, it was cool.
I wasn't quite prepared for the big climb on the was back in, so my average speed fell off a bit, but I still felt good and as I headed back into the park to drop Lynch into T2 I saw Ben cheering me on. He pumped me up a bit and I totally channeled Damien on the way down. I don't think I touched my brakes. I barely made the dismount line.
T2 was a lot faster than T1 and I was out onto the run, where I saw Paul and got another boost.
The run sucked, like I knew it would. My foot is almost healed, but not quite, and though I was able to run on the roads, the trails nearly killed me. Plus, since I was running funny on my right leg, my left overcompensated and kept going numb. From miles 2-4 I couldn't feel it at all. Plus, my base is shot from not training my run for three months. At any rate, I pulled through it, ran as much as I could and walked when I had to. Ben was waiting at the top of Lynch Hill again and I picked it up, deciding to run all the way down, even if it killed me. I kept it up too, hearing bikers whizzing by me like angry dragonflies (that yell things like "On your left, god damnit! as they try not to crash into bikers and runners in their direction and still somehow not cross the centerline).
Finally, the finish chute was in sight. I figured I didn't have far to go so I dug in, found whatever was left and powered through. I got a yell from Paul J. in the chute and powered in. Across the line and out into the crowd. I totally spaced on the free athlete food and water. Good thing Ben was there to buy me a beer. Thanks buddy. Best beer ever.
And then we waited for everyone else to finish. This where I come back to the penalty. Gurujan found me and Brian and asked how the race went. When I told him about the official, he grinned and said "That was me." So I asked what he penalized me for and he said "I was waving to you. The asshole wagging his butt into the road while changing a tire got a penalty for not moving all the way over." I think I laughed for five minutes.
The it was a couple more beers, a quick race review with Coach Trent ("Dude, you should warm up next time. You won't feel so crappy in the water.") and finally, it was time for the long, long climb back to camp.
And then we drank. Jason, you don't get to pick chasers anymore.
So glad it's over.
And that, as they say, was that. Monday, we packed up, parked our hung over asses in the RV and headed home.
Bye bye Wildflower, see you next year...FOR THE LONG COURSE!!!!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Lavaman Recap. It's Done, Now What?
Okay, so Lavaman has come and gone. What an awesome experience. I’ll get to the details in a sec, but for you short attention span folks, here are the numbers:
Overall: 2:58:38
Swim: 0:28:52
T1: 0:02:40
Bike: 1:17:28
T2: 0:1:17
Run: 1:08:23
I went into the Lavaman season with one main goal, break 3 hours. I friggin’ did it, even with the bum foot. Of course, whack job that I am, I find myself dampening my excitement with the thought that, had I been healthy, I would have gone faster. How sick is that?
So there it is, under 3 hours and I’m barely sore today, except to say that my foot feels like it’s made of concrete and two of my toes have been numb since I crossed the finish line. The physical therapist I saw this morning says that’s normal, that my altered gait inflamed the tissue around the nerve bundle under my middle toe. Fixing this right leg of mine is going to be all kinds of fun, but that’s for another post.
Now to talk about race weekend. Settle into a comfortable chair, grab some hydration, maybe a gu…this could take a while.
On the flight to Maui, Laurie (our coordinator) gave the flight attendants the script to read about how TNT was on the plane and what we were doing and how much money we’d raised. It was really cool to hear, as it was on the flight to Pac Grove, except that by the time the crew got around to reading it, every purple jacket I could see was wrapped around a sleeping teammate.
The practicing triathlete's carry-on.
Four hours later I got my first taste of Hawaii, stepping off the plane into sunny rain and humidity. We flew to Kona and there was no rain, only a 60 mile per hour wind along the Queen K highway, also known as our bike course. A little unnerving, to say the least. Following hot on the heels of this beginning was our first run/swim preview. We did the last mile and a half or so of the run, which is the off-road, lava rock, coral and deep sand portion. I could barely walk it, my foot hurt so bad, let alone imagine running it.
The mythical A-bay was no better. The wind had the water stirred up into a chop that just slapped you in the face every time you breathed and the visibility was about four feet. Not exactly what we’d been sold all season. I got nervous.
On Friday, I got an early start, thanks to the three hours we gained. I couldn’t run, so I skipped the mile 4 preview and rode with Laurie to unload tri bags. We were scheduled to pick up our bikes at 10:30 and they were waiting for us in the parking lot, but coach made everyone run and swim first. The wind was still up and the water was still seriously choppy, but the visibility was way better. An encouraging sign.
Coach finally let us get our bikes and there was much rejoicing. I did get a flat right after I reinflated my tires, but it turned out to be a blown valve on the tube. We took some time to get the team’s bikes situated and headed out on our bike course preview, which was interesting, because we didn’t have our CO2 cartridges yet and just had to hope no one blew a tire.
The Queen K. From a sensible vehicle.
We only rode about half the course, since the turnaround tunnel was closed to us until race morning. We got back to transition, packed up our bags and headed out to ride the run course, at least the part on the road. This doesn’t sound like much, but then you probably haven’t been through a Gurujan course preview. We previewed just under a third of the course but it took about an hour longer than the slowest competitor ran the race.
Friday night was a trip to the infamous LuLu’s. I won’t record anything that happened there here, but if you ever stop by, look for our dollars stapled to the ceiling.
Saturday, another time zone induced early start, but this time with a hangover. We did mentor-led previews since the coaches and coordinators had meetings. I went on the bike ride, which was sparsely attended. This turned out to be for the best, I think, since the wind was actually moving our bikes laterally across the bike lane while we were riding. The headwind on the way back scared the crap out of me.
A couple of hours in line and I got my race number, goodie bag, lunch ticket and souvenirs.
The pasta party that night kind of tripped me out. It was the first time on the trip that I think being a mentor hit me. It was also where I destroyed my pants. I’ll get to that in a minute.
We started at the mandatory pre-race meeting where they were going to explain all the new course changes. Of course, we had to do red carpet and so we only got to watch the first 30 minutes of the meeting. This means we got to watch the race directors thank each other. Then we left to form up and do the red carpet for the participants.
For those of you who don’t know, the pasta party is for all the TNT chapters in the race. All the mentors for all the chapters form a corridor and whoop and holler and make noise as the participants go into the party. After about thirty minutes of banging bam bam sticks and shouting, I started to realize I was burning valuable calories that I would need for the swim. I had to slow down or risk a 35 minute mile. The last people finally piled in and it was time to go eat, except that it turned out we were missing a couple. Which brings me to destroying my pants.
Team San Diego’s mentors reformed in the hallway to ring in the stragglers and in the process, I crouched down. I don’t know why, but when I did, the leg of my shorts just split. Our stragglers got there, after walking through a different door, so they missed us and my shorts gave their lives in vain. I had to hand out my mentee gifts with a gaping hole in the ass of my shorts and then I took the car and went to change. By the time I got back, I had missed the food and the speeches had started so I had a powerbar and watched from the back. It was at this point that I realized, watching the coach from the Silicon Valley team talk about riding his bike home from his mom’s funeral in Colorado, that I was torn between wanting my race to go well and seeing all my mentees finish. I was more interested in how they were going to do and whether they’d enjoy it than I was with my race.
Sunday, 4/6 – RACE DAY!!!!!!
5:00AM, meet at hotel, get mentee bikes set up. Take pictures. Ride to transition.
6:00AM, get into transition, rack bikes, get body marked and pick up timing chip. Get team photo, last team meeting. Get psyched.
7:30AM, men’s wave start. Take off on extremely confusing swim. The course was M-shaped, with three 180 degree turns and serious crowd issues.
Seriously, who switches to breast stroke on the inside lane of a course and starts frog-kicking? After one or two of those in the face, I wound up grabbing some guy’s foot and yanking him out of my way. I still got stuck behind a lot of tangled up bodies, which slowed me down. I was encouraged, however, by the fact that I started passing women after the second 180. It took me a minute to realize the import of this, since I at first thought I was being passed the women’s wave that started five minutes after me. And I had been passed by some, but most of them were relay swimmers from the wave that was five minutes ahead of me. Very cool. Also cool was the fact that, in the middle of the race, I was watching sea turtles mack on coral heads. Trippy. I don’t know if I saw three turtles, or one turtle three times, but who cares?
Out of the water and into T1. The longest barefoot jog of my life. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get into transition and I was limping pretty badly by the time I got there. Good thing the bike is before the run.
I thought I was out of T1 pretty fast, but then, I screwed up my splits since I had no idea where the timing mats were. I just slapped the button on my watch arbitrarily and hoped I was close.
The bike, even though it’s a PR, started pretty shakily. The road from T1 to the Queen K was designated no passing. I got stuck behind a girl on a bike that looked familiar, but who was going slower than I wanted to. Some guy behind me kept pulling up next to me (illegal) and then deciding not to break the rule, grumbling in frustration, and dropping back (also illegal). Finally, we got to the highway entrance and I was able to pass. It turned out that the biker in front was a teammate, who is way faster than she was riding. Anyway, I hit the gas at that point and took off. There was no wind that I could feel and I spent most of the ride in my aero bars, chasing this 28-year old girl. Actually, we kept leapfrogging, until we got to the one long, gradual climb and I started to get tired, so I throttled back and she passed me, for the last time.
It was then that some guy from another chapter rode up next to me and taunted me for letting a hot 28 year old spandex-clad tri chick get away. For lack of a witty response, I let him pass. I had some electrolytes and a gu, and put the hammer back down. I passed the guy and never saw him again.
At the turnaround, I got screwed on the bottle exchange because the last guy in line, who I was going to take a second bottle from, was about 8 feet tall and was holding the bottle above his head. Lacking a vert ramp, there was no way for me to grab it, so I did the last half with one water bottle.
The second half of the ride actually went better than the first. I was stronger and more consistent with my cadence and speed. The highlight of the ride was toward the end when I slowed down a bit to take my last gu. As I did that, some guy rode by me and said “I’ve been trying to catch you for the last few miles. You’re really strong.” Then he took off while I was putting away the wrapper. I didn’t catch him again, but I was definitely charged up going into T2.
It didn’t take more than 300 yards or so on the run to realize I was going to have a tough time. Running out of the transition area, we immediately went off road and my foot immediately started to throb and stiffen. I decided to walk to the road and start running there. That was when the first teammate passed me. Once I got to the street, I was able to run, albeit slowly, until the end of mile 2, when I had to start the second hill repeat. I got my popsicle stick (don’t ask), ran down, put ice my hat (sweet, heavenly ice in the hat) and started back up the hill, which was when my foot went completely numb. I walked halfway up the hill and then ran past the volunteer collecting popsicle sticks.
I ran again until the course went off-road during mile 5. I had to walk-limp-run-hop-walk-limp until I hit sand. On the sand, with the finish in sight, adrenaline took over. I ran into the line, only to be passed in the chute by another teammate. He beat me by 3 seconds. He apologized, but I don’t know why. The whole point of a race is to finish ahead of as many people as possible.
And that was that. For the rest of the afternoon, it was free food, free beer and hanging with wiped out, grinning teammates, hearing stories and discussing results. Overall, just enjoying the day. The capper was that Captain Emily placed. She took fourth in her age group and got the biggest cheer of everyone who got called. I have pictures.
Eventually, we had to pack our bikes (and take a moment of silence) and go home to clean up for the victory party. For some stupid reason, I didn’t nap. So team, this is why most of you didn’t see me at the party. I bonked. I’ll do better at the finale, I promise.
I think that’s it for now. I’ll probably talk more about the PT process as it continues, and I’ll definitely report on Wildflower. Until then, alo…no, I can’t do it.
Overall: 2:58:38
Swim: 0:28:52
T1: 0:02:40
Bike: 1:17:28
T2: 0:1:17
Run: 1:08:23
I went into the Lavaman season with one main goal, break 3 hours. I friggin’ did it, even with the bum foot. Of course, whack job that I am, I find myself dampening my excitement with the thought that, had I been healthy, I would have gone faster. How sick is that?
So there it is, under 3 hours and I’m barely sore today, except to say that my foot feels like it’s made of concrete and two of my toes have been numb since I crossed the finish line. The physical therapist I saw this morning says that’s normal, that my altered gait inflamed the tissue around the nerve bundle under my middle toe. Fixing this right leg of mine is going to be all kinds of fun, but that’s for another post.
Now to talk about race weekend. Settle into a comfortable chair, grab some hydration, maybe a gu…this could take a while.
On the flight to Maui, Laurie (our coordinator) gave the flight attendants the script to read about how TNT was on the plane and what we were doing and how much money we’d raised. It was really cool to hear, as it was on the flight to Pac Grove, except that by the time the crew got around to reading it, every purple jacket I could see was wrapped around a sleeping teammate.
Four hours later I got my first taste of Hawaii, stepping off the plane into sunny rain and humidity. We flew to Kona and there was no rain, only a 60 mile per hour wind along the Queen K highway, also known as our bike course. A little unnerving, to say the least. Following hot on the heels of this beginning was our first run/swim preview. We did the last mile and a half or so of the run, which is the off-road, lava rock, coral and deep sand portion. I could barely walk it, my foot hurt so bad, let alone imagine running it.
The mythical A-bay was no better. The wind had the water stirred up into a chop that just slapped you in the face every time you breathed and the visibility was about four feet. Not exactly what we’d been sold all season. I got nervous.
On Friday, I got an early start, thanks to the three hours we gained. I couldn’t run, so I skipped the mile 4 preview and rode with Laurie to unload tri bags. We were scheduled to pick up our bikes at 10:30 and they were waiting for us in the parking lot, but coach made everyone run and swim first. The wind was still up and the water was still seriously choppy, but the visibility was way better. An encouraging sign.
Coach finally let us get our bikes and there was much rejoicing. I did get a flat right after I reinflated my tires, but it turned out to be a blown valve on the tube. We took some time to get the team’s bikes situated and headed out on our bike course preview, which was interesting, because we didn’t have our CO2 cartridges yet and just had to hope no one blew a tire.
We only rode about half the course, since the turnaround tunnel was closed to us until race morning. We got back to transition, packed up our bags and headed out to ride the run course, at least the part on the road. This doesn’t sound like much, but then you probably haven’t been through a Gurujan course preview. We previewed just under a third of the course but it took about an hour longer than the slowest competitor ran the race.
Friday night was a trip to the infamous LuLu’s. I won’t record anything that happened there here, but if you ever stop by, look for our dollars stapled to the ceiling.
Saturday, another time zone induced early start, but this time with a hangover. We did mentor-led previews since the coaches and coordinators had meetings. I went on the bike ride, which was sparsely attended. This turned out to be for the best, I think, since the wind was actually moving our bikes laterally across the bike lane while we were riding. The headwind on the way back scared the crap out of me.
A couple of hours in line and I got my race number, goodie bag, lunch ticket and souvenirs.
The pasta party that night kind of tripped me out. It was the first time on the trip that I think being a mentor hit me. It was also where I destroyed my pants. I’ll get to that in a minute.
We started at the mandatory pre-race meeting where they were going to explain all the new course changes. Of course, we had to do red carpet and so we only got to watch the first 30 minutes of the meeting. This means we got to watch the race directors thank each other. Then we left to form up and do the red carpet for the participants.
For those of you who don’t know, the pasta party is for all the TNT chapters in the race. All the mentors for all the chapters form a corridor and whoop and holler and make noise as the participants go into the party. After about thirty minutes of banging bam bam sticks and shouting, I started to realize I was burning valuable calories that I would need for the swim. I had to slow down or risk a 35 minute mile. The last people finally piled in and it was time to go eat, except that it turned out we were missing a couple. Which brings me to destroying my pants.
Team San Diego’s mentors reformed in the hallway to ring in the stragglers and in the process, I crouched down. I don’t know why, but when I did, the leg of my shorts just split. Our stragglers got there, after walking through a different door, so they missed us and my shorts gave their lives in vain. I had to hand out my mentee gifts with a gaping hole in the ass of my shorts and then I took the car and went to change. By the time I got back, I had missed the food and the speeches had started so I had a powerbar and watched from the back. It was at this point that I realized, watching the coach from the Silicon Valley team talk about riding his bike home from his mom’s funeral in Colorado, that I was torn between wanting my race to go well and seeing all my mentees finish. I was more interested in how they were going to do and whether they’d enjoy it than I was with my race.
Sunday, 4/6 – RACE DAY!!!!!!
5:00AM, meet at hotel, get mentee bikes set up. Take pictures. Ride to transition.
6:00AM, get into transition, rack bikes, get body marked and pick up timing chip. Get team photo, last team meeting. Get psyched.
7:30AM, men’s wave start. Take off on extremely confusing swim. The course was M-shaped, with three 180 degree turns and serious crowd issues.
Seriously, who switches to breast stroke on the inside lane of a course and starts frog-kicking? After one or two of those in the face, I wound up grabbing some guy’s foot and yanking him out of my way. I still got stuck behind a lot of tangled up bodies, which slowed me down. I was encouraged, however, by the fact that I started passing women after the second 180. It took me a minute to realize the import of this, since I at first thought I was being passed the women’s wave that started five minutes after me. And I had been passed by some, but most of them were relay swimmers from the wave that was five minutes ahead of me. Very cool. Also cool was the fact that, in the middle of the race, I was watching sea turtles mack on coral heads. Trippy. I don’t know if I saw three turtles, or one turtle three times, but who cares?
Out of the water and into T1. The longest barefoot jog of my life. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get into transition and I was limping pretty badly by the time I got there. Good thing the bike is before the run.
I thought I was out of T1 pretty fast, but then, I screwed up my splits since I had no idea where the timing mats were. I just slapped the button on my watch arbitrarily and hoped I was close.
The bike, even though it’s a PR, started pretty shakily. The road from T1 to the Queen K was designated no passing. I got stuck behind a girl on a bike that looked familiar, but who was going slower than I wanted to. Some guy behind me kept pulling up next to me (illegal) and then deciding not to break the rule, grumbling in frustration, and dropping back (also illegal). Finally, we got to the highway entrance and I was able to pass. It turned out that the biker in front was a teammate, who is way faster than she was riding. Anyway, I hit the gas at that point and took off. There was no wind that I could feel and I spent most of the ride in my aero bars, chasing this 28-year old girl. Actually, we kept leapfrogging, until we got to the one long, gradual climb and I started to get tired, so I throttled back and she passed me, for the last time.
It was then that some guy from another chapter rode up next to me and taunted me for letting a hot 28 year old spandex-clad tri chick get away. For lack of a witty response, I let him pass. I had some electrolytes and a gu, and put the hammer back down. I passed the guy and never saw him again.
At the turnaround, I got screwed on the bottle exchange because the last guy in line, who I was going to take a second bottle from, was about 8 feet tall and was holding the bottle above his head. Lacking a vert ramp, there was no way for me to grab it, so I did the last half with one water bottle.
The second half of the ride actually went better than the first. I was stronger and more consistent with my cadence and speed. The highlight of the ride was toward the end when I slowed down a bit to take my last gu. As I did that, some guy rode by me and said “I’ve been trying to catch you for the last few miles. You’re really strong.” Then he took off while I was putting away the wrapper. I didn’t catch him again, but I was definitely charged up going into T2.
It didn’t take more than 300 yards or so on the run to realize I was going to have a tough time. Running out of the transition area, we immediately went off road and my foot immediately started to throb and stiffen. I decided to walk to the road and start running there. That was when the first teammate passed me. Once I got to the street, I was able to run, albeit slowly, until the end of mile 2, when I had to start the second hill repeat. I got my popsicle stick (don’t ask), ran down, put ice my hat (sweet, heavenly ice in the hat) and started back up the hill, which was when my foot went completely numb. I walked halfway up the hill and then ran past the volunteer collecting popsicle sticks.
I ran again until the course went off-road during mile 5. I had to walk-limp-run-hop-walk-limp until I hit sand. On the sand, with the finish in sight, adrenaline took over. I ran into the line, only to be passed in the chute by another teammate. He beat me by 3 seconds. He apologized, but I don’t know why. The whole point of a race is to finish ahead of as many people as possible.
And that was that. For the rest of the afternoon, it was free food, free beer and hanging with wiped out, grinning teammates, hearing stories and discussing results. Overall, just enjoying the day. The capper was that Captain Emily placed. She took fourth in her age group and got the biggest cheer of everyone who got called. I have pictures.
Eventually, we had to pack our bikes (and take a moment of silence) and go home to clean up for the victory party. For some stupid reason, I didn’t nap. So team, this is why most of you didn’t see me at the party. I bonked. I’ll do better at the finale, I promise.
I think that’s it for now. I’ll probably talk more about the PT process as it continues, and I’ll definitely report on Wildflower. Until then, alo…no, I can’t do it.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
So I've got a little catching up to do...
So, it's been an eventful couple of weeks. So much so, that my blogging has been more internal than recorded, but I'm here now, so I might as well write something down.
We had a party to watch the Chargers/Colts game at my buddy's house and I picked up the Martian Death Flu, which sucked. It knocked me on my butt for three solid days. So what did I do, besides mainline dayquil and robitussin? I blew off a weekend of training and went snowboarding, which was awesome. The only drawback was that I stayed sick for the rest of the following week.
I couldn't train to save my life. Every little bit of exertion brought on a coughing fit that could've snapped my spine. I took it as easy as I could but I was going stir crazy doing less than I knew I could. Saturday rolled around and I felt good enough to ride my bike.
I took off on the team ride and knocked out the thirty miles coach assigned, including the three times up Torrey Pines hill. It took more out of me than it should have, but hey, I'd been sick and hadn't trained for two weeks. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
But here's where it all catches up to me. After the ride, a few of us ran up to Carlsbad to get our race bibs for the Carlsbad Half Marathon, right before we hauled ass back to La Jolla to make the team's first ocean swim.
The team looked a little shaky, but enthusiastic, as they waded into the 50-something degree water (hooray wetsuits!) but the spirit took hold after a while. Despite the shivering, everybody tagged the kayaks and actually looked pretty happy. We just had to keep reminding them that the water in Hawaii will be way warmer than this, more like the pool we train in.
Anyway, after the swim a few of us Carlsbad runners grabbed a carbo-load dinner and went home. Early to bed and out to the starting line for a 7:30 gun.
Now for the race report, dissecting my first half-marathon.
My overall time was 2:24:25, with my 6.6 mile (halfway) split happening at 1:08:29.
My mile splits for the first half of the race came in at 10:23, but my overall average mile pace was 11:01. What does this tell me, apart from that I ran out of gas part way through? Don't run sick, or shortly after being sick. My body rebelled at mile 7. I had to stop and walk away the nausea a couple times, but I finished, and I ran probably 12 of the 13 miles overall. I'll take it for my first one.
Now, if only the stupid Chargers had won. Or at least the Packers...
Now I have to dig deep into the well of self-denial and root for the Patriots come Super Bowl Sunday. I pledge here and now to hate myself while I do it.
We had a party to watch the Chargers/Colts game at my buddy's house and I picked up the Martian Death Flu, which sucked. It knocked me on my butt for three solid days. So what did I do, besides mainline dayquil and robitussin? I blew off a weekend of training and went snowboarding, which was awesome. The only drawback was that I stayed sick for the rest of the following week.
I couldn't train to save my life. Every little bit of exertion brought on a coughing fit that could've snapped my spine. I took it as easy as I could but I was going stir crazy doing less than I knew I could. Saturday rolled around and I felt good enough to ride my bike.
I took off on the team ride and knocked out the thirty miles coach assigned, including the three times up Torrey Pines hill. It took more out of me than it should have, but hey, I'd been sick and hadn't trained for two weeks. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
But here's where it all catches up to me. After the ride, a few of us ran up to Carlsbad to get our race bibs for the Carlsbad Half Marathon, right before we hauled ass back to La Jolla to make the team's first ocean swim.
The team looked a little shaky, but enthusiastic, as they waded into the 50-something degree water (hooray wetsuits!) but the spirit took hold after a while. Despite the shivering, everybody tagged the kayaks and actually looked pretty happy. We just had to keep reminding them that the water in Hawaii will be way warmer than this, more like the pool we train in.
Anyway, after the swim a few of us Carlsbad runners grabbed a carbo-load dinner and went home. Early to bed and out to the starting line for a 7:30 gun.
Now for the race report, dissecting my first half-marathon.
My overall time was 2:24:25, with my 6.6 mile (halfway) split happening at 1:08:29.
My mile splits for the first half of the race came in at 10:23, but my overall average mile pace was 11:01. What does this tell me, apart from that I ran out of gas part way through? Don't run sick, or shortly after being sick. My body rebelled at mile 7. I had to stop and walk away the nausea a couple times, but I finished, and I ran probably 12 of the 13 miles overall. I'll take it for my first one.
Now, if only the stupid Chargers had won. Or at least the Packers...
Now I have to dig deep into the well of self-denial and root for the Patriots come Super Bowl Sunday. I pledge here and now to hate myself while I do it.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Race expos, expert advice and tri #2...
So this past weekend was the Mission Bay triathlon. Sprint distance which, for those of you playing along at home, is about half the distance of the olympic race at Pac Grove. Since I know you're just craving numbers, that's a 500m swim (.31 miles), 15km bike (9.32 miles) and 5km run (3.1 miles).
I did it in 1:14:01, so now I have a benchmark for future sprints. With any luck, it'll only get faster.
This was a great race for me. I've now got a floating start under my belt, which is cool. Instead of running into the water in a tangle of thrashing humanity like we did a Pac Grove, we all swam out to a buoy and when the horn sounded, just started swimming. The new bike continues to perform well. Once I go back and get the fit adjusted, it should be perfect. Also, I managed to get and keep the computer in the right mode this time, so I could actually track my cadence and speed, so I knew how I was doing. Finally, and this is key, I ran the ENTIRE run course. No cramps, no stretching, no limping, no walking. Fantastic.
In case you're just tuning in, it was a really fun race, more so for being home turf. Makes me want to try all the other races in town. It is odd, though, to drive into Pacific Beach at 5AM on a Sunday morning. The only other cars on the road are going the same place you are.
Even more interesting than the race was the expo the day before. Coach Gurujan gave his course talks and several of us Pac Grovers volunteered to demonstrate transitions and answer questions. We had a fun time and it was kind of surreal to have people coming up and asking us for advice. Most of us had all of one race to draw from. Now we have two. It was a trip to answer those questions and to think that just a few short months ago, we were the ones asking where we'd go to change our shorts between swim and bike (you don't), what you carry your keys and wallet in (your bag, in transition) and how you ride a bike in your aero bars (if you haven't, don't try it on race day). So many other questions. How do you attach your race number to your wetsuit? What does "no drafting" mean? How hard is it to switch from biking to running?
Suddenly, all us rookies are experts?
Still, to see some of those people on race morning, and see the jitters and excitement on their faces. I wonder if that's what we looked like at Pac Grove? Probably.
I did it in 1:14:01, so now I have a benchmark for future sprints. With any luck, it'll only get faster.
This was a great race for me. I've now got a floating start under my belt, which is cool. Instead of running into the water in a tangle of thrashing humanity like we did a Pac Grove, we all swam out to a buoy and when the horn sounded, just started swimming. The new bike continues to perform well. Once I go back and get the fit adjusted, it should be perfect. Also, I managed to get and keep the computer in the right mode this time, so I could actually track my cadence and speed, so I knew how I was doing. Finally, and this is key, I ran the ENTIRE run course. No cramps, no stretching, no limping, no walking. Fantastic.
In case you're just tuning in, it was a really fun race, more so for being home turf. Makes me want to try all the other races in town. It is odd, though, to drive into Pacific Beach at 5AM on a Sunday morning. The only other cars on the road are going the same place you are.
Even more interesting than the race was the expo the day before. Coach Gurujan gave his course talks and several of us Pac Grovers volunteered to demonstrate transitions and answer questions. We had a fun time and it was kind of surreal to have people coming up and asking us for advice. Most of us had all of one race to draw from. Now we have two. It was a trip to answer those questions and to think that just a few short months ago, we were the ones asking where we'd go to change our shorts between swim and bike (you don't), what you carry your keys and wallet in (your bag, in transition) and how you ride a bike in your aero bars (if you haven't, don't try it on race day). So many other questions. How do you attach your race number to your wetsuit? What does "no drafting" mean? How hard is it to switch from biking to running?
Suddenly, all us rookies are experts?
Still, to see some of those people on race morning, and see the jitters and excitement on their faces. I wonder if that's what we looked like at Pac Grove? Probably.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
So this is it...
So I know the race was almost a week ago and I'm only just getting to the final report. It's taken me a few days to process exactly what went down in Monterey.
First off, I finished the race. I did it in 3:10:22, which is a little slow, but hey, it's the first one, so I'll take it. Here's how it broke down:
Overall: 3:10:22
Swim: 31:59
T1: 3:01
Bike: 1:25:50
T2: 2:46
Run: 1:06:46
So what does this tell me, now that I am a highly trained triathlete?
1. I swim crooked. I got aggressive. I swam over people, yanked them out of my way, clubbed them with my forearms (Sorry, Pat.) but I guess I still went around one too many. Still, Coach swears the course was longer than 1500 meters. Sounds good to me. I still need to work on my sighting.
2. It was hard to get that damn wetsuit off.
2a. Never trust the people in transition. If you don't know where to go, they sure as hell don't.
3. My new bike is faster than the one I trained on.
4. Work harder to go around, through and over the people who can't seem to get their bikes back into transition. Throw shoulders if you have to.
5. I need to learn to run through leg cramps. Seriously, the ones I had could have brought down a stegosaurus.
All told, I was only 10 minutes slower than my projected time, and most of that could have been made up on the run. Maybe I need more electrolytes on the next one. Maybe I need to even out my pedal cadence while biking. Maybe I just have to drill my bike/run transition more. Probably all of the above. At any rate, I have another race coming up to try some of the fixes.
That's right, I'm doing it again. Mission Bay is coming up in a couple of weeks. It's a sprint, so I can play around a little. I should be past the first race jitters too, if I'm lucky. We'll see how it goes.
Finally, I'd like to say this: the triathlon hangover is interesting. It doesn't hit until the second day after the race and then it lasts a little while. You have crappy motor control, writing and typing tend to look like exercises in drunken hieroglyphics and cryptography, respectively. You space out, you get cramps. Sitting for too long makes you stand up like a drunken, arthritic walrus. It's not pretty, but it's totally worth it.
Thanks to you all. Everyone who reads this, everyone who donated, Coach Gurujan, Coach Robbie, all the mentors, and to the team. We made it. If things work out right, we'll see you at Lavaman. Otherwise, we'll see you in a start chute somewhere along the way.
Stay tuned...
First off, I finished the race. I did it in 3:10:22, which is a little slow, but hey, it's the first one, so I'll take it. Here's how it broke down:
Overall: 3:10:22
Swim: 31:59
T1: 3:01
Bike: 1:25:50
T2: 2:46
Run: 1:06:46
So what does this tell me, now that I am a highly trained triathlete?
1. I swim crooked. I got aggressive. I swam over people, yanked them out of my way, clubbed them with my forearms (Sorry, Pat.) but I guess I still went around one too many. Still, Coach swears the course was longer than 1500 meters. Sounds good to me. I still need to work on my sighting.
2. It was hard to get that damn wetsuit off.
2a. Never trust the people in transition. If you don't know where to go, they sure as hell don't.
3. My new bike is faster than the one I trained on.
4. Work harder to go around, through and over the people who can't seem to get their bikes back into transition. Throw shoulders if you have to.
5. I need to learn to run through leg cramps. Seriously, the ones I had could have brought down a stegosaurus.
All told, I was only 10 minutes slower than my projected time, and most of that could have been made up on the run. Maybe I need more electrolytes on the next one. Maybe I need to even out my pedal cadence while biking. Maybe I just have to drill my bike/run transition more. Probably all of the above. At any rate, I have another race coming up to try some of the fixes.
That's right, I'm doing it again. Mission Bay is coming up in a couple of weeks. It's a sprint, so I can play around a little. I should be past the first race jitters too, if I'm lucky. We'll see how it goes.
Finally, I'd like to say this: the triathlon hangover is interesting. It doesn't hit until the second day after the race and then it lasts a little while. You have crappy motor control, writing and typing tend to look like exercises in drunken hieroglyphics and cryptography, respectively. You space out, you get cramps. Sitting for too long makes you stand up like a drunken, arthritic walrus. It's not pretty, but it's totally worth it.
Thanks to you all. Everyone who reads this, everyone who donated, Coach Gurujan, Coach Robbie, all the mentors, and to the team. We made it. If things work out right, we'll see you at Lavaman. Otherwise, we'll see you in a start chute somewhere along the way.
Stay tuned...
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