Monday, May 30, 2011

St. Francis 5K Run for Peace - Race Report

Just a quick write-up of this one to finally bring the blog back up-to-date....

On Saturday May 21st SWMBO and I did the St. Francis 5K Run for Peace (FS Series) - a nice local event just a couple of miles from home and one of our neighbors was an organizer.  A late "C race" addition to the schedule to get a stretch in on a warm morning.

Another surprisingly hilly course for a 5K race - if anything it was even hillier that the St. Timothy's Spring Sprint that we did in April.  Not only that, but the course was such that almost all of the last mile is up hill!

To cut to the chase I didn't "go crazy" and ran it in 24:42 (7:59 pace) to finish 54th overall and 4th in my age group (age group winner ran 21:29). 

A nice morning and fun to run with SWMBO!   :-)

White Lake Sprint II - Race Report

What a swim debacle!.....

Sunday May 15th was the White Lake Srint II Triathlon in White Lake, North Carolina (White Lake Sprint I was the previous weekend.

This would be my first tri since starting to work with The Puppeteer and I was very much looking forward to it.  Because of the distance from Raleigh I decided to get a room somewhere close to the event rather than suffer a really early alarm call and I eventually found a room at the exotic Days Inn in Clinton, NC!

I drove down on Saturday afternoon to meet with The Puppeteer, The Snitch and others for a cookout by the beach.  I met The Snitch and family at the Days Inn (the cheering section were also staying there) and we headed off in convoy towards White Lake.   This would usually be about a 30 minute drive, but within minutes of pulling out of the hotel parking lot we were drove into absolutely torrential rain and had to pull over.  This really was a deluge and at one point there was some hail as well - I felt sorry for the "back of packers" who were probably still out on the road completing the White Lake Half Tri which was going on that day.  I found out later than they had temporarily suspended the event to allow people to take shelter!

Once the rain finally stopped and the Ark had sailed off over the horizon we were able to recommence our journey and made it to the meeting place at Goldston's Motel.   By the time we got there the sun was back out and the kids were swimming in the lake and we were soon sitting around the grill and amusing ourselves watching a wedding taking place on one of the piers.


The Puppeteer, Mr. Puppeteer and The Snitch getting ready to grill
After a yummy meal of burgers, numerous different side salads and strawberries and cream we enjoyed "hanging" for a while before The Snitch and I drove the bike course (two seven mile laps around the lake) and picked-up our race packets.  Pretty soon we headed back to the hotel to turn in for an early night.

The alarm went off at 5 am Sunday morning and I was soon downing a coffee and eating a bagel with cream cheese and a banana while putting my bike on the back of the car.  As usual I was an "early arriver" and soon found a good parking spot, pumped-up my bike tires (or tyres for my UK friends!) to 120 psi, attached my race number to the bike and took a ride up and down the road for a few miles to stretch out a little and make sure gears, brakes etc. were in good working order. 

Next it was off to set-up my transition area....


Neat and tidy!
Note that bike shoes were left on the pedals and the heel of the left show attached to the skewer on the real wheel so as to prevent it from scraping on the ground while running out of transition and also to hold it in a good position for mounting (when you start peddaling the band breaks and off you go!).  This is one of the few components of a triathlon that I'm actually pretty good at!

The transition area was now starting to fill up....


.....and I soon ran into The Snitch setting up her area....


Next it was time for stretching and a run warm-up before the transition area had to be vacated; wetsuits grabbed and heading down towards the start area.

White Lake is a shallow and very clear man made (?) lake that is far enough south for Spanish Moss to grow on the trees....


The 750 M swim course was a pretty standard triangular layout that started with a water start and finished with a climb up onto a jetty to start a relatively long run to the transition area.

Swim start - level with the structure at the end of the pier.
Swim finish
As race time approached it was time to get wetsuits on in preparation for a swim warm-up.   The Snitch was soon demonstrating how to get your suit on more easily via use of plastic carrier bags, while I opted for a more conventional "sit on the wall and pull" technique!


There were wave starts and, at this point, I was feeling pretty good and got into the water for a few practice starts while the earlier waves were heading off.  Little did I know that my confidence was soon to be severely dented!

The 40+ age group men (in fetching forest green swim caps) were called to the start and I positioned myself towards the outside to try to avoid some of the melee that can take place at the start.  It was a bit rough for a while when the gun went off, but I  found some space and was feeling pretty good over the first 100 yards or so and my freestyle was standing up OK.   Suddenly, out of nowhere. someone's foot (I assume) crashed into my nose and pulled my goggles up onto my forehead.   It wasn't a super hard blow and didn't really hurt, but I was disoriented for a moment and had to stop to get my goggles back on.  At that point I reaslised that it felt as if my nose was bleeding and, sure enough, a wipe of my hand confirmed it.   Now none of this was particularly dramatic (or unusual for a triathlon) but it clearly affected me and when I started swimming again my freestyle felt awful and I had no rhythm whatsoever - every stroke felt awful and I soon started feeling tired.  I really didn't have much option at this point but to switch to breaststroke - not a very cool move for triathletes! - but even that felt bad.  Normally breaststrole is a strong stroke for me, but my wetsuit started to feel restrictive and it was a real struggle to get to the end of the swim.  My time was an awful 20 mins plus!  The general post-race opinion is that I suffered a slight panic attack - it was certainly a feeling somewhat akin to the mild claustrophobia that I suffer from - not a good feeling!

I was relieved to be back on terra firma and peeled down my wetsuit and took off cap and goggles as I ran towards my bike.   First transition went pretty well - wetsuit came off with little difficulty (thanks in part to the Pam cooking spray which I sprayed on the outside of the ankles before I started) and the bike mount was good.

The bike course was flat (but pretty bumpy in places).   After working up through the gears I found a nice cadence of around 90 and maintained an average of around 20 mph for the 14 mile bike course.  As usual I was passed by a few speed demons on fancy tri bikes, but I also passed more than my fair share of other riders.  Kept down on the aerobars the entire way and was reasonably pleased.  I'm still getting the feel for how much I can thrash my legs while still saving something for the run.

Transition two was also fine and went without incident.  My legs didn't feel too bad at the start of the run and I concentrated on fast turnover and light feet as I headed out on the 5K out-and-back course through a local neighborhood.  I was pleased that I passed a couple of guys in my age group and felt that my run classified as "OK" although The Puppeteer saw me on the finishing stretch and said that my turnover was too slow - this is something I've been working on and will obviously have to continue to do so!

I had put the swim out of my mind while biking and running, but was pretty annoyed with myself after the race.  It didn't feel at the time like something that I could really control, but the swim time was obviously terrible and I need to do something about it!

While I was in no danger of being anywhere near the front of the pack, I'm very pleased to be able to report that The Snitch came second in her age group and that Mollie Brewer, who was one of the previous evening's cook out attendees won the ladies 20 to 24 age group.  It's nice to be associated with some real talent!

Pleased to be finished....
Mollie on the podium

With The Snitch

The Puppeteer got new wheels!

The Snitch "podiums' too!
So we've seen that the swim leg basically sucked (and why), what about the other legs?   Here are the details and my critique:

Swim:   20:08.   Age group rank:  22nd.    Basically awful as detailed above.
T1:         2:05    This seems to be comfortably in the top 50%, which is good considering that many of the good swimmers didn't wear wetsuits. 
Bike:    43:11    Age group rank:  19th.    I felt that the time was OK, but wish it was ranked a little higher.  In this case, however (unlike the swim) there was a cluster of guys with pretty similar times. 
T2:         1:13    Comfortably top 25%
Run:     27:27    Age group rank:  20th.  Disappointing.

Total:   1:34:02  Age group rank:  20th   Blech!  Needs to be comfortably sub 1:30:00 for a race like this!

So, what did I learn?    Basically that, although the swim was an obvious problem, by rank I was about equally "bad" (or "good" if you wear rose tinted glasses) in all three disciplines.  I'm not bad at transitions though!    There is a lot of work to be done!

I have had a lot of time to reflect on this since the event.  Felt pretty despondent at first and yes, questioned myself quite a bit.  After chatting with The Puppeteer we are going to make some changes to the upcoming race schedule and long term plan (more on this in a later post).  

One of the great things about working with The Puppeteer is that you get to "hang" with some great athletes - it's nice to see so many of them climbing up onto the podium to collect their rewards.  The way I look at it I can choose to be intimidated by this or inspired by this.....   and I choose inspired!  This was only my third race and I have a lot of time ahead of me for improvement.  :-)

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Outer Banks Riding Hazards

The OBX are a great place to ride your bike!   There are, however, some specific hazards that you need to be aware of!   I went for a nice two hour ride today and encountered four of them......

Hazard 1.   Do all assholes live in Virginia?

I started my ride by heading south to the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center and I have to give the NC,DOT credit for doing a really nice job of re-surfacing the road and making it significantly wider.  Where they have completed the marking there is a very nice wide shoulder to ride on.  South of the Beach Road intersection, however, they haven't yet completed the marking.....

I kept well to the right and, in general, the drivers were very respectful and gave me plenty of room.  There were, however, no less that three complete assholes who appeared to deliberately "buzz me" - presumably for kicks.   In all three cases the vehicle was a jacked-up truck with over-sized wheels that looked something like this:


and in all three cases they were driven by yound guys and had Virginia plates.   As if that wasn't enough, when approaching the turn off for the Bodie Island camp ground on my way north, a mini van sped by me before jamming on its brakes, turning right in front of me and stopping right across my path, causing me to have to slam my brakes on and swerve around him.   Surprise, surprise, another Virginia plate!  What is the matter with these idiots?

Hazard 2.  The wind

It's almost always windy here, but some days are worse than others.  Today there was a strong (but warm) wind from the south.  Any time that you ride hard and average about 15 mph in one direction before turning around and riding easily and averaging about 25 mph in the other direction you know that it's windy!   It was also "blustery" today - a good excuse to work on handling skills!

Hazard 3.  Green Plastic Monsters....

Yep!   They are everywhere down here!   Here's a picture that I snapped today.....


This one is behaving itself reasonably well, but many of its siblings like nothing better than to jut out a few feet into the road or to take up half of the bike path.   You need to be particularly careful when riding in the aero position and to keep an eye on what's ahead of you.  I haven't hit one yet, but I've been close a few times!

Hazard 4.  (OK, this one is self-induced)  Sun Screen!

Having got my fair share of sun yesterday, I thought it prudent to apply sun screen  before I headed out today.  Note to self:  don't put sun screen on your forehead before riding!   All was fine for a while, but once I started to sweat a little it started to drip down into my eyes and stung like crazy!   I spent a good part of the ride continuously wiping my eyes so that I could see where I was going.  Lesson learned!

Despite the hazards, a really nice ride!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Nice Weekend!

A wonderful weekend here in central NC!  

I'm well aware that I owe race reports for both White Lake Spint Triathlon last weekend and the St, Francis Run for Peace 5K yesterday, but just wanted to comment on a really nice outing with The Snitch this morning...

The Snitch is partially responsible for getting me in to this "triathlon thing" (and she's definitely responsible for me working with The Puppeteer!) but we have never riden or run together before. 

We met this morning at 8:15 am on a sunny and warm NC morning at the White Oak parking lot on the American Tobacco Trail in Apex.  We were soon setting out on a nice 31 plus mile ride through Wake, Chatham and Durham (?) counties.  We each took turns to "pull" for 20 mins and enjoyed a nice "stretch" and a good chat between tempo efforts.  It was great to see so many other people out riding on such a nice morning.

Soon enough we were back at the parking lot and changing into our running shoes for a nice 30 min run on the American Tobacco Trail - 10 min easy; 10 min race pave and 10  in moderate.  The Snitch left me when we started race pace, but I managed to keep her within about 100 yards for the duration, which made me feel good.  By the time we got back to our cars it was getting pretty warm and very humid - we timed it well.  The noise of the cicadas was pretty impressive by the time we headed for home!

Really nice to get out there and work out with someone else for a change.  Thanks Lisa for a good session - hope we can do it again soon!

BTW, The Puppeteer seems to want me to mention the term "pace booty" in my blog, so I'm happy to oblige!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Cary Duathlon - Race Report

On the morning of Saturday April 9th my alarm was set early for the Cary Duathlon.  It was later that evening that I headed across the Atlantic for a two and a half week stint in Europe and I'm only now catching-up with a race report....

I took part in the short course event, which comprised a 2.5 mile run; 17.5 mile bike and a second 2.5 mile run.  Details at:  http://fsseries.com/index.php?action=event&event_id=49

After a breakfast of bagel/cream cheese, a banana, one Ensure and coffee I got to Brooks Park in plenty of time and scored a good parking spot close to the start and transition area.  The morning was significantly chillier than forecast and overcast.  A slight drizzle appeared a couple of times.  I soon had my bike off the car, checked my tires and walked it over to the transition area.  Race number this time was 63 and after checking-in, collecting my "race booty" (a nice shirt and socks included) and allowing the nice lady to write all over me at body marking, I found my appointed rack, set-up my transition area and found myself another warm cup of coffee!

After chatting for a while with some of the folks from IOS Delta Triathlon I was accosted by a very nice lady from USA Triathlon who was there to monitor the event and look for ways of improving things.  I had a really nice chat about getting into triathlon at my age; races I have done; training and all manner of other things.  Later I also ran into Lili Fernandez and her Mom Angie and had another nice chat - Lili went on to smoke her age group and finish a very impressive third overall woman!

Finally it was time to get serious and I found some space to "get my mind in the game" and do the stretching execrises and warm-up prescribed by the Puppeteer and soon after that we were lined-up at the start.

The out-and-back run course ran through Brooks Park and an adjoining neighborhood and featured a few hills.  I felt that my first run went well and I finished it in 20:46.5, which is 8:19 pace and reasonably respectable.   The first transition went well and I was soon wheeling the bike out of the transition area.  Bike shoes were attached to the pedals and the shoes held-up so that they didn't scrape the ground using a rubber band.  I find this by far the easiest way to transition (vs. putting on your shoes; hobbling through the transition area and then clipping-in) and The Puppeteer approves - apparently a lot of much more experienced triathletes don't use this technique.

The bike was a rolling course through western Wake County close to Jordan Lake.   I felt good and passed a few people fairly quickly, but was equally passed by several "speed demons" on a range of fancy triathlon bikes.  Kept things spinning at a good cadence so as not to blow out my legs and finished in 58:48 (18.0 mph average) which, again, I feel was respectable. 

The second transition was also OK (although I very neary started running with my bike helmet still on - realised just in time - phew!  Would have looked pretty stupid!  :-)   ).

The Puppeteer suggested that my second run should be within 45 seconds of my first.  I could tell that it was slower, but was actually surprised to find out how much.  Time was 22:33.5 (9:02 pace) - about 1:45 slower than the first.   I don't feel that I "thrashed" the bike leg, but presumably it was enough to take something out of my legs.

Some kind soul snapped this pic. of me struggling to the finish!

My overall time was  1:43:32.5, which was good enough for 35th overall in the mens division.  Yet again the 50-54 age group was competitive and I was 5th in my age group.   Impressively the top guy in the age group finished second overall in a time of 1:24:38.3 - I still have a lot of work to do!

At the bottom of the post is how I stacked-up vs. the guys who beat me in my age group:

Basically, the good guys were good in all disciplines and in order to compete with the "speedsters" I would have to improve significantly in both run and bike.  The run pace of the guy who finished second overall was 6:21 - difficult to conceive at this point!  That said, my running is improving and I'm very confident that with more "TITS" (time in the saddle) I will be able to push my bike pace up quite considerably.
One minor victory that I hope makes coach proud is my 6th ranking in the first transition - must have been the shoes on the bike!

Overall a nice event and a good warm-up for the events to come.  Next up is the White Lake II Sprint Triathlon on May 15th.

Overall
Place
Age
Run 1
Rank
Run 1
T1
Rank
T1
Bike
Rank
Bike
T2
Rank
T2
Run 2
Rank
Run
Total
Time
2nd
54
5
15:51.6
1
0:27
3
51:10.7
1
0:21
4
15:37.4
1:24:38
7th
51
11
17:37.4
11
0:48
6
51:57.2
10
0:39
13
18:53.2
1:29:54
16th
52
20
18:46.6
29
1:03
14
54.13.6
31
0:59
22
20:09.2
1:35:10
31st
52
23
19:13.7
7
0.39
32
59:28.3
17
0:46
24
20:44.7
1:40:51
Me
51
35
20:46.5
6
0.38
31
58:48.0
19
0:48
36
22:33.5
1:43:32


Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Weighty Matters....

It's been a while since I have posted.  This is in no small part because I have recently returned from an extended overseas trip (both business and pleasure).  One of the challenges of "work travel" is that there's a constant pressure to "eat out", whether it's business related lunches, dinners and, yes, breakfasts or just a lack of good choices when stuck in a hotel room.

I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to see that I appear to have lost a couple of pounds on this trip.  Losing weight "for vanity" has never been an objective of my oddessy into the crazy world of triathlon, but I certainly recognized at the start of my journey that I needed to lose a few pounds and that this would make me feel better (OK, OK, I'll be happy to look better too, but this really isn't the primary objective!).  I do now keep a reasonable eye on my weight as both my run and bike speed should benefit if I am "carrying less".  I'm by no means obsessive about it and recognize that (a) muscle is heavier than fat and (b) everyone's weight goes up and down naturally over the course of a week or a month (it's therefore pretty crazy to weigh yourself every day - better once a week or month at the same time of day!).

So having said all of this, am I losing weight?   Yes!  I have been tracking my weight using Garmin Connect since the end of 2009.  During this period I "peaked" at somewhere around 210 lbs (I never assume our bathroom scale is any better than plus or minus a pound or two!) and am currently in the vicinity of 193 lbs.  Here's a screen shot:


I'm pleased with this - a nice steady decline since I started getting more serious about training without going crazy.  Hopefully I've also built some muscle over the same period!

I'm 6' 0" tall and reasonably thick set (or shall we just say that I'll never be really skinny!) and think that over time 185 lbs is probably a good target "race weight" for me - we'll see how I do and I'll keep you informed!



In other news, the White Lake II Sprint Triathlon is now just around the corner on May 15th.  My travel and work commitments have made it difficult for The Puppeteer to develop me a solid lead-in training schedule, so I'll be treating it as a "C" race and focus on the more challenging Bandit's Challenge Olympic Distance event in June as my primary short term target. 

Just before I headed out on my trip I did the Cary Duathlon (run - bike - run).   I feel that it went reasonably well and need to write-up a race report when I have a moment.

Finally managed to see The Dominatrix for another TRX session yesterday and was pleased that SWMBO was able to join me.   It really is a great core workout - I think that I'm going to have to invest in a set-up for home.  Tried out the new TRX "rip trainer" as well as the usual strap system.....





Finally, in a somewhat disturbing development, a member of "Team Lias" is boasting on facebook that he/she has seen another member sans clothes more than anyone else......   what's that about?  (you know who you are!)   :-)