Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Beach, Bike & Beryl..... or why training at the coast is tougher than in Raleigh

So this past weekend found us enjoying the Memorial Day holiday weekend in Nags Head on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.   In addition to a voluntary open water swim, The Puppeteer had me scheduled for two rides and a long-ish run over the course of the weekend.

First the bike.  It's pretty much dead flat down there on a sand bar in the middle of the ocean - not a hill in sight - so it should be nice and easy, right?    WRONG!  It is always windy down there (see my previous posts on "wrestling with The Slut" and an epic ride to Rodanthe with The Snitch last summer) and given that you basically have the choice of riding north or riding south, you are pretty much guaranteed to find yourself dealing with either a good head wind or a problematic cross-wind on every ride.  When the wind picks up to more than 15 knots (which is often!) maintaining a good aero position is essential and, even then, it's pretty much like riding in to one of these:



This weekend was no exception and on Saturday the edge of Tropical Storm Beryl was making for on shore winds and some occasionally ferocious gusts. 

But what really makes riding on the Outer Banks tough (with wind or without) is the relentlessness.....    When riding over more hilly terrain you get to work hard at times but then get some easier sections and sometimes you can even coast a bit (but don't tell The Puppeteer I said that - she hates to see anyone not turning the cranks all the time!).   In addition, whether you realise it or not, you are continuously moving in the saddle; standing up now and again ; changing gear; cornering etc. and this helps "spread the load" during a 2 or 3 hour ride.

When there are no hills and 95% of the road is straight, you tend to have less need to move around and there's very little opportunity to do anything except "keep peddaling".   This was certainly the case on Saturday, when I did a "flat" (but windy) 45 mile ride and felt more as if I had done 60 by the time I finished.   It was essentially like spending 2 plus hours on the trainer.   Brutal and relentless!

The run is a similar story......

Sunday saw me heading out for a 7.5 mile run up the beach road.  Perhaps foolishly I opted to grab a couple of hours additional sleep rather than get up early to beat the heat.   Like the bike, running on the Outer Banks is usually over flat terrain, unless you decide to run hill repeats up and down the Wright Brothers Memorial, which is about the closest thing the Outer Banks has to a hill unless you count the bridges!  I guess you could run the giant sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge, but that seems a little masochistic!

Running up this makes a nice change........

......but running this is just plain stupid!

Running up and down flat dead straight roads or paths is the toughest thing for me, especially when there's nowhere to hide from the wind and absolutely no shade from the sun.   Again, the best word I can come up with is "relentless".   I find myself making-up all sorts of silly games to get me to the next landmark - you would be surprised how many games you can play using the ubiquitous green trash cans that line the beach road!    Unlike biking, there are places such as the Nags Head Woods to run trails and you can run around the Nags Head golf course, but this involves driving and I'm usually looking to leave straight from home.   You can always run on the beach, of course, to change things up and I love doing this, but it becomes an altogether different workout.

So, I don't want to hear it about "training on the flat roads of the Outer Banks must be easy"....     I much prefer the rolling hills of the Piedmont!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Progress in the Pool......

I have been working hard on my swim this year and I am definitely starting to see some significant progress.  2,900 yard swim workouts that would have been daunting a few months back now seem pretty routine.  I know that my freestyle stroke is improving and, as a result, my endurance is also getting much better.

Case-in-point....    today The Puppeteer had me scheduled for a 2,900 yard swim workout.   When I looked at the details, however, and added-up the various segments, the total was 3,700 yards....   that's more than two miles!  Could this be correct?  A quick check let me know that this was, indeed, correct (apparently they don't teach simple arithmatic at Duke!) so I "pulled on my big boy trunks" and headed to Optimist Pool.

I was pleasantly surprised by my performance - including the 3 x 500s to finish.  I felt especially long and smooth in the water for the last 500 yards, but truth-be told, this was because I slowed down and really concentrated because the local high school girls swim team arrived for their session and were watching from the bleachers!  A sad Old Geezer like me has to take motivation anywhere I can get it!  ;-)  This is probably the way the cute seventeen year olds saw me, but in my mind I was looking OK.....   


Definitely start to "feel it" and get a lot more confident in the pool.   Looking forward to an Open Water session in the Pamlico Sound on Saturday with the guys from GS-OBX triathlon group on the Outer Banks.

Also looking forward to diving into (pun intended) SheilaTaormina's new book "Swim Speed Secrets for Swimmers and Triathletes" to pick up some more tips.






Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Memorial Day weekend is here..... and so is the humidity!

I guess that for many the arrival of Memorial Day signals that the pools are opening here in central NC and that (apparently) it's now OK for ladies to wear white shoes....   who makes up these ridiculous rules?

For me, however, it seems to signal the arrival of humidity....     I had two workouts today - a hilly five mile run early this morning and some brutal hill repeats on the bike this evening (just got them in before the thunderstorms arrived!).  It was very noticeable that the humidity has ramped-up considerably and both were a bit of a "sweat fest" and much more uncomfortable than they would have been a couple of weeks back.   It will get easier as I get used to it again, but I guess my mantra must be "hydrate, hydrate, hydrate" going forward!

Time to break out the ODO.RO.NO!  


Monday, May 7, 2012

Revenge at White Lake - Race Report

Yesterday was the White Lake, NC Sprint Triathlon and I'm pleased to be able to report that I performed considerably better than I did last year - revenge is mine!   (insert evil laugh here......)

It turned out to be a fun weekend and a nice event and, hopefully, I can provide a flavor of things below.

I drove the hundred miles or so south to White Lake early on Saturday afternoon, but before leaving I laid out all of my gear because I'm paranoid about forgetting something.   Seems like a lot, but the only "extra" items were some swim gear for a warm-up session later that afternoon and an extra tri top "just-in-case".   On top of this lot I had my bike, food, regular clothes, laptop, Weber grill, charcoal and all manner of other junk - I certainly wasn't traveling light!


The drive down was uneventful and I was soon checked-in at Goldston's Motel and enjoying a pleasant hour hanging out on the beach with The Puppeteer, The Snitch, Mr. Snitch and Junior Snitch while waiting to take part in a warm-up swim.   At this time the weather was beautiful and the lake was relatively "mirror like" as advertised in the race promos and illustrated by this snap that I took:


The warm-up swim with The Puppeteer, Snitch, Jenn Mayfield and James went well and after showering we gathered and enjoyed a couple of beers in the afternoon sunshine.
The Puppeteer gave me crap for having more than one!
One of the nice things about triathlon is all of the nice new people you meet and this weekend was no exception.   It was great to meet Sylvain Lefebvre, another TriStacey athlete, who had taken part in the 70.3 mile race that morning and finished as first overall age grouper in 4 hrs 25 mins 30 secs - despite being accidentally knocked off his bike by a volunteer - awesome!   Also nice to meet James (sorry, no last name) and Michelle Staniunas (sp?).....
Sylvain and James
 

Michelle "en repose"
At 6 pm The Snitch and I drove to the race headquarters to register and pick-up our race numbers, while the rest of the gang got the grill set up on the beach.   It seemed that many of the 600 plus competitors had the same idea and there was, quite literally, a line out the door, so it took a while!

Keen triathletes!

By the time we got back the coals were burning and we were soon enjoying chicken and burgers on the beach.....
Mr. Snitch was head chef

Jenn Mayfield in the house (drinking wine from a pint glass!)

The Puppeteer looking snooty outside The Bates Motel before deciding to blatantly break house rules!....
The sunset over the lake was beautiful........

......but pretty soon after this shot was taken the winds really started to pick up and the storm clouds started to build........
......and soon enough we were taking cover on the motel balcony as the wind started to blow things over and the rain crashed down!   Luckily Jon Armstrong and Carolyn Fellowes-Gentry turned up armed with Irish whiskey to keep the party going (although tempted I didn't partake!).


 While some partied-on those of us racing in the morning turned-in early to get some good shut-eye prior to  the big day!

My alarm went off at 5:20 am and I was soon chowing down my breakfast (Breuger's bagel; cream cheese; banana; bottle of Ensure) and packing everything I would need in to my transition bag.  Because parking can be a big hassle I decided to ride my bike the short distance to the race start, so after checking tire pressure (or tyre pressure if you're reading this in the Old Country) and waiting until there was sufficient light I pedaled to the start and was soon getting "body marked" (thanks Jenn & Michelle!); picking-up my timing chip and setting-up my transition area:
Better set-up properly or the ref. will get ya!
 Warm-ups consisted first of a brief ride and run and it was at this point that I first noted (a) that it was pretty humid and (b) that a pretty good wind was picking-up.   Point (b) was quickly confirmed when I went to the lake for a warm-up swim - it was quite breezy and the lake was certainly no longer "mirror like"!  I wouldn't say that there were white caps, but there was certainly some pretty good chop!

Thanks to Mr. Snitch for many of the pictures below.  A couple were snagged from Set-Up Events facebook page!
Start area for the 70.3 on Saturday.....

....and one of the waves preparing for the start on Sunday at the same spot.













Chatting to Junior Snitch before the race - you can't blame me for the picture of the lady's butt cheeks
as I clearly didn't take the picture!!
OK, so a few more pictures from the race before I get to my actual race report!.......
The Snitch......   either praying to the Lake Gods or doing some sort of duck impression......
Ready to race in new TriStacey suit!
The Puppeteer keeping an eye on us.....






At least I overtook a few people!
Going past a slower guy from an earlier
start wave coming out of T2




Hurting as I turn into the finishing chute.
Don't tell me that this doesn't freakin' well hurt!
OK, so finally, the actual race report.......

Swim:  Yeah! After last year's difficulties I was pleased with a time of 16:09 in choppy conditions and, yes, I did manage freestyle all the way!   :-)    I started at the front of my wave (all men over 40 - a reasonably big wave) and to the outside, hoping to find some open water and avoid too much "bumping and thumping",  I was relatively successful in this and soon found some good water and a rhythm.  The leg out to the first turn buoy was toughest because of the chop, but once around the buoy things got easier and I was able to finish with little trouble - yeah!

T1:   1:56.  Transitions continue to be my best discipline!   :-)  Little trouble apart from two slower guys clogging-up the exit chute.

Bike:  42:40.  Quicker than last year, but not by as much as I expected, which I attribute to the wind.  Plan was to maintain a cadence of 90 and I executed that perfectly - my average over the 14 miles was exectly 90.  I got slowed down on both laps on the tight turn on to Route 701 because the cones were so tight and there were slower riders ahead of me.   Got overtaken by some of the speed demons as usual (including three in my age group) but enjoyed chasing down and overtaking a lot of "victims" of my own!

T2:  1:25.   Again uneventful.

Run:  26:28.  Not exactly "smoking", but again faster than last year.   Focused on cadence, arm swing and toe-off (and making sure that The Snitch didn't catch me from the wave behind!).  Was starting to hurt by the end as you can tell from the pictures above, but I certainly feel that I put in a good effort.

Overall:  01:28:46 (18th of 42 finishers in my age group)

I'm pleased!   I met all three of my pre-race goals:
  • Break 1 hr 30 minutes
  • Finish top 50% age group
  • Finish the swim freestyle without incident
A great confidence booster and a good start to the season!

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Planning My Revenge.....

Wow!   Can it really be May already?  That surely means that my first race of the season, the White Lake Sprint Tri put on by Set-up Events is this coming weekend......   I'm really looking forward to my weekend at "The Redneck Riviera"!  There will be a group of us staying at Goldston's Beach - I hope there's a wedding on the beach like last year - we can play "count the tattoos" again and listen for celebratory gun fire!   :-)



This isn't an "A" race for me, more of an early season "B+" training outing, but I am determined to take revenge on the course this year after the debacle at the same event last year.  For those of you who haven't been reading my blog for long, I was kicked in the nose within about 75 yards of the start of the swim; got a nose bleed; suffered a minor panic attack; felt horribly restricted by my wetsuit; had trouble breathing and them swam breast stroke much of the way in for an absolutely horrible swim time of somewhere around 20 minutes - not good!   From there I picked it up a bit on the bike, but was pretty slow on the run to finish 20th in my age group at 1:34:02.    This was especially galling as it was my first race under the Puppeteer's evil reign as Queen Nasty Coach....      This year things will be different!

I feel as if my training has been going reasonably well and that I am getting faster in all three disciplines.  My swim is definitely improving and, after taking a short while to get comfortable, I enjoyed a good open water swim session at Jordan Lake last week and am looking forward to another one tomorrow.  The mantra is "loooong and sloooow" while maintaining a strong catch and long, strong pull.   Surely it can't be any worse than last year and hopefully I will be much closer to 15 minutes than 20!

The bike is a relatively short and flat 14 miler and the plan is to basically hammer it on The Slut.   I dropped her off with Matt Lodder, the wonderful Cary Cycle Surgeon today for a tune-up with race wheels and cassette fitted.   This will be her first race, so I want to do her proud!   Last year was 37:51 and I would like to be closer to 35 minutes.

Finally, of course, the run.....       My running has suffered a little because of the calf injury I suffered at the end of last year, but I feel that it's finally coming back.   The plan here is fast cadence, a good toe-off and finish the stride.  It won't be very scientific beyong that - give it all I have, chase everything in sight and collapse over the line!  Slow last year at 27 mins plus.  Surely I have 25 minutes in me?   We'll see.

Somewhere around 1 hour 25 mins total would be a good outcome, but the weather may become a wild card.  It is forecast to be in the 90s every day between now and Sunday.  The low on Saturday night is forecast to be 66 F, so it could already be pretty toasty by the time we get to the run, especially if I'm in one of the later start waves - going to need lots of fluids to avoid this!...........