White Lake International Race Report

Last weekend saw me racing White Lake International, which is an Olympic distance event put on by Set-Up Events.  For the uninitiated, Olympic distance races are 1,500 M swim;   45 km bike (~28 miles) and 10 km run (~6.2 miles).   This would be my first official Olympic distance race.

The race was (surprise, surprise) held in White Lake, NC, which is about 110 miles from home, so given the early start time on Saturday I decided to join other TriStacey athletes Jenn Mayfield and Beth Grimes (plus The Puppeteer herself) and stay at Langston's Motel on Friday night. 

I was able to cut out a little early and enjoyed cranking tunes with the car window open on the ride south.  I had pre-paid for my room and was soon checked-in at the Langston's reception, where the nice lady directed me up the road a little to "unit 16"...  

I was quite surprised to find that "unit 16" was actually a little self-contained cabin (hut?) with bed, small kitchen area and bathroom.   Even a small screened porch!   It was atually quite clean and comfortable.....

Living the Dream!   The stylish brick base is actually plastic!

Soon texts were flying as everyone started to arrive and we convened for a swim warm-up in the lake with The Puppeteer.   Beth "conveniently" got lost on the way and was too late to join us!

Before getting-in I had the chance to meet Jenn's husband Grant for the first time - nice guy! - and we spent some time chatting about bikes.   He would be riding the bike in a relay team the following morning.

The warm-up swim was, well....   not good!   The water was too warm and "soupy" and I just didn't feel as if I "had it".  I got the impression that The Puppeteer and Jenn felt the same way, so we just swam a few hundred yards before heading back.   After a quick shower I went back to the beach to join everyone for a cookout and a few beers.  Jenn, The Puppeteer and their other halves were staying over on Saturday night and clearly intended to party after the race based on the copious quantities of beer, wine and liquor in their motel "suite".......

Grant working the grill

Jenn being a goof ball.  Not sure what the guy is thinking!



Beth trying to look Glam, which isn't easy to do after you've slammed 17 Trader Joe's salmon burgers!



After watching the sun set, we chatted for a while and discussed race strategy [Question:  who wears chamois butter in their tri shorts before the swim and leaves an oil slick as she passes?  Answers on a postcard please.....] before everyone turned in for an early night.

 

At this point I'll take a break as I seem to have added two new faces to the cast of characters that appear on this blog, and it only seems fair that Jenn and Beth are annointed with nicknames by which they will be known from this point forward....

I already had a name in mind for Jenn, as shes' fond of drinking these things and posting the recipes on line....

Actual picture from Jenn's facebook page......



.......and the ingredients!



Ladies and Gentlemen....   this one is easy....   I give you "The Rabbit"!

"The Rabbit" sporting essential triathlon equipment in her right hand.

Beth is not so easy and I'm not sure that I'm ready to make a decision yet. She seems to be under the sad misapprehension that she gets to choose her own nickname, but I can assure her that "Fashionstar" is not it!   She's a coffee hound, but "La Barista" is also way too kind...      How about "Oil Slick"?    Oh damn, I gave it away!   :-)    I'm pretty sure that she will do something stupid soon and that this will be the basis of a good name, but until then I'll have to be content with "Beth".  Watch this space!

OK, back to the race report......

My alarm went off at 05:15 am and I was soon attacking my now standard race day breakfast of Breuger's bagel (garlic, with honey walnut cream cheese!); bananna; bottle of Ensure and a couple oflarge coffees with cream and sugar.   Nutrition was going to be important today as the temperatures were forecast to be high and the humidity to be 100% at race time!   I stuck with my usual scoop and a half of Accelerade in each of my three water bottles, but added the contents of a Lava Salt capsule to each and also took one capsule with breakfast. http://www.squeezy.com/salts.htm  Important to get lots of electrolytes on a hot and humid day!

I like to get to races early and I had no problem getting a primo parking spot and was soon setting-up my transition area and getting ready to warm-up.   I collected my race chip and went to body marking to have someone write my race number and age all over me in large black letters and everything was going well untl....  CRAP!  I realised that I had left my beautifully prepared nutrition bottles in the fridge in Unit 16!   Damn, damn, damn!   At this point it would have been difficult to go back for them, so there was nothing to do but to put Plab B into operation.   Inside Out Sports were set-up in the race registration area, so I dashed over there and purchased a couple of water bottles and some EFS Energy Drink (the only brand they were carrying).   As it happens, I had been meaning to try this stuff for a long time.  Not good to try something new on race day, but you have to do what you have to do!   I soon had bottles made up and added a capsule of Lava Salts to each.  [Note:  this worked absolutely fine during the race and it is sooo much nicer to drink than the Accelerade I have been using!].

Panic over - now it was time to warm-up.   A few miles on the bike made it very obvious that it was extremely humid out (actually 100% humidity according to weather.com) and a short run confirmed this!   This was not going to be a comfortable race once the sun came up and started beating down!

I found The Rabbit, Grant and Beth in transition and also ran into Kari Obermeyer, Darlene Noyce and a few others that I know.



The usual chaos of transition...

Race time was approaching at this point, so I grabbed my goggles and cap (royal blue for this race) and headed down to the lake for a swim warm-up.   Finally 8 am rolled around and the first waves started.  One thing that I really don't like about Set-Up events is that they always seem to start the ...ahem...."older" age groups last.   This absolutely sucks for two reasons:  firstly you have to stand and watch wave after wave of athletes going off before you at five minute intervals, building nervousness and messing with your adrenalin levels; but perhaps worse is knowing that you are going to be among the later finishers and that it is going to be much hotter on the run than it is for those who started earlier.   I need to write a letter!  :-)

I watched The Rabbit start 10 mins before me and Beth in the wave directly ahead of me and finally it was 8:40 am and my turn!

Swim:  1500 M clockwise triangular course.  Water pretty flat - just a slight wind.  Waist deep start.

Because the sighting buoys appeared to be a little to the left relative to the first turn buoy I elected to start outside and to the right.  This seemed fine and I soon found open water and, other that a few of the usual bumps and nudges, I didn't get into any "physical combat" at the start!   It seemed to take me about 150 M to start to find my rhythm, but I was soon feeling pretty comfortable and concentrating on The Puppeteer's mantra of keeping it loooong in the water. 

I think that I sighted pretty well to the first turn buoy, but I could see a couple of guys from my start wave who had swum waaay too far to the right.  Much to my astonishment, rather than correcting to their left to round the turn buoy, they simply kept swimming futher right and completely cut the corner!!!  I would estimate that the worst offended cut about 100 yards!   I freakin' hate cheats!   You can't tell who it is when all you can see is royal blue caps (and if they were swimming back with me they presumably weren't in contention for a podium spot!), but I hope they can live with themselves!

Anyway, back to my swim...    it was basically pretty uneventful from there on in.  I did pick it up pretty well for the last 200 M, which makes me wonder whether I should have gone harder earlier.  Perhaps by concentrating so much on "long and smooth" I let my stroke rate slow too much?   Lots to work on.  Anyway, given that this was my first competitive open water race at this distance, I was reasonably happy.

41:18 (includes the run down the pier towards transition).   Certainly not fast, but given that this time last year I was strugglng to complete this distance, I'll take it!

T1:   Yet again I showed that (unfortunately) transition is my best discipline!   01:45 and uneventful.

Bike  45 km:  A largely flat triangular course.  A bit breezy in places.

I was pretty pleased with my bike leg.  I had left my Garmin at home and so was going on feel.  Felt pretty strong throughout and stayed in the aero position except to drink.  I think that I was only passed by three guys and two of them from relay teams starting in the wave behind me.  I certainly enjoyed chasing down and passing plenty of people!   I tried to "keep the pedal down" without going too crazy as The Puppeteer and I had discussed what I might be capable of on the run over coffee earlier in the week.  I was determined to put in a good run split and so saved a little on the bike.  Turns out that I shouldn't have bothered!!  :-)  (see below). 

01:29:25.  Roughly 19 mph average. 

T2:   Again uneventful.  01:27

Run  10k:    Flat out and back course.

This is where things started to get ugly (and not just for me!).   The NC sun was now high in the sky and there is absolutely no shade on this course.  Humidity was forecast to have dropped to "only" 90% by this time of day.  I don't know what the temperature was as I was running, but I do know that it was 91 F not long after I had finished.   I felt pretty good for the first mile or so and concentrated on high turnover, but things got ugly pretty quickly and, like many, many others, I was soon down to slogging it out and just trying to get to the finish.   I saw several people just sitting on the side of the course, which I haven't seen before. 

I basically just ran from aid station to aid station (1 mile apart) and kept looking forward to the ice cold wet towels that they were handing out!  I did manage to run the whole thing apart from two of the aid stations where I deliberately stopped to walk to make sure that I could get sufficient fluids inside me.   Not much more to say - it was basically an ugly slog!   I know that everyone felt the same way and I'm not going to beat myself up over it, as most people seemed to be complaining of being 10 mins or so outside their target time,  Brutal!

01:02:02

Overall:  03:15:55     Significantly slower than my target time, but then again, so was everyone else!

So - my first Olympic race in the books and, despite the run conditions, I really enjoyed it.  A nice stepping stone towards my first 70.3 mile race in October...



Dreaming of Rev.3 Anderson SC



The Sound of Speed

I spent part of yesterday evening cleaning and lubricating The Slut ready to race at White Lake this weekend.  Cleaned the chain and cassette.  Once that was completed it was time to put on the Zipp 808 race wheels....    I LOVE those things!

Ready to race

It was pouring rain yesterday evening, so I waited until this morning to adjust the brakes and take her for a test ride to make sure that everything is ready to go.  Smoothest gear changes ever!   :-)

I love the way that the race wheels look fast, but best of all is the way they sound!  Firstly, they "ratchet" when free-wheeling, which my training wheels don't.  Even better than that though is the "whoosh" sound they make when you get up to speed - awesome!

I'm ready.  White Lake here I come!

The Slut Has a Sister

We were down on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the Labor Day Holiday weekend.  Fellow TriStacey triathlete Brian Lambert joined us for an offshore fishing trip planned for the Sunday, so we decided to put in a long ride on Saturday morning.

Because of typically heavy "changeover day" traffic on Saturdays and the narrowness of the shoulder on the Oregon Inlet Bridge, we got up early and drove our bikes to the parking lot on the south side of Oregon Inlet to start our ride.  

This was the first time for me to see Brian's new bike - a Cannondale Slice very similar to "The Slut" - she has a sister!   I like to think that we got some admiring looks as we headed south on Route 12 - "look! those guys must be team mates of Peter Sagan and Ivan Basso".....    OK, maybe not, but I do sometimes find my mind "playing in the self amusement park" when I ride.

We made the 75 mile round trip down to Hatteras Lighthouse and back.   Slight headwind on the way south, but it could have been a lot worse.   As usual, it was a relentless slog along the flat and largely dead straight road.

Brian showing us his aero position

Here are The Slut and her sister plus a few photos to prove that we got there....

The Slut (left) and Brian;s new Slice

Brian looking "too cool for school" as usual....

.......and me rying to keep up and failing miserably!

It was a great ride, but I was ultimately very happy to be finished - the last few miles seemed to take an eternity.  Of course, compared to Brian who bombed the return leg at north of 22 mph, they did!  :-)

All-in-all a nice morning.  Now all that remains is to come up with a suitable blog nickname for Brian - all suggestions will be considered.   "The Kid", "Frat Boy" and "Headband" are the current suggestions!

There will also be a caption contest for this one.....

Name This Triathlete.....

• She sends aggressive charging pit bulls running for cover with a single Appache-like scream
• She warms her hands down her pants.....   in August for crying out loud!
• She occasionally finds my jokes funny (believe me, this is rare!)
• She can drop her chain twice within about a mile and a half

and....  best of all.....   she can inadvertently give herself a "Hitler moustache" made of chain oil and ride with it for miles, thus giving great amusement to her fellow riders!

Of course, a decent guy would have told her, but why spoil all that fun?   :-)

Yes, you've guessed it, I rode 68 plus miles with The Compass this morning and, as usual, it was greatly entertaining.  I won't even bother regaling you with the details of the giant vulture; the pack of dogs; the barnyard animal impressions....  let's just say that riding with Lindsay is always entertaining!

Thanks for coming out Compass - can we do it again soon?

Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to draw the "actual" oil moustache........

So How Am I Doing?

Back in the middle of July I rather rashy announced that I would be racing my first 70.3 mile "Half Ironman" race in October (Rev.3 Anderson, South Carolina).  In order to help achieve this goal, I set myself an "I Will" list of things that I would try to do outside of "workouts".  I think it's time to assess how I'm doing and determine where more work is required.   Here's the original list (in black) and my updates (in red)....

 

I Will……

I will make myself and my coach proud at Rev.3 South Carolina 70.3 in October    Definitely still a goal!   Overall I'm pretty pleased with the way my training is going so far.

In order to do this I will……

….work my ass off for the next three months.   (A)   I feel as if I am working hard.  Workout frequency, duration and intensity have ramped-up.  Summer months have helped as I have had significantly less work travel to get in the way.  Now I just need to keep it going!

….give 100% on every workout  (A-)   Can I really say 100%?  Probably not and there are times when I just "don't have it" or feel tired, but I'm certainly trying and I haven't skipped any scheduled workouts so far apart from one day when I was feeling unwell. 

….lose at least 10 lbs by race day  (B)   Hmmm....   this one is tough.  I have been working hard at it, but the weight is slow to come off.   The tape measure tells me things are going well (had to put an extra hole in my belt last week!) but the scale is slow to move.   I'm pretty sure that I'm doing all of the right things though and that this surely must come!

….eat fewer carbs  (A)   Working hard at this and have even given up my beloved Sour Cream and Onion Pringles (aka "Crack Chips").   She Who Must Be Obeyed is giving me crap for eating less than her!   :-)

….move my calorie input earlier in the day  (B+).  Trying.  Eating more substantial breakfasts and smaller dinners, but we put a lot of emphasis on family meal times so it can be a challenge!

….cut alcohol consumption by at least 50% (I’m not going nuts!)  (B+)  Have cut down but give myself a B+ because I know I can do better.  As of this week I'm back on my "no mid week" schedule.

….eat more fruit and veggies  (A-)   Doing pretty well here.   I'm not quite Jenn Mayfield with her rabbit food shakes yet, but I'm doing OK!

….stay hydrated  (A).  Sure love those Nuun tablets!

….get more sleep (get to bed earlier)  (B+) Was doing pretty well until this week when the kids went back to school so the alarm goes off very early again.   Need to re-adjust bed time!

….get my workouts in earlier to beat the heat  (B)  Too many early morning calls with Europe, but I'm being good when I can.

….not sneak any extra breaths during swim workouts  (A)   What can I say?  I've been good.

….do more open water work  (A)  Spending a lot of time at the coast this summer helped.  Lots of time in the Atlantic and the sounds.

….perfect my sighting and swim straight!   (B)  Have been trying hard, but tough to judge.  I think I'm getting better.

….finish swim workouts with tired lats  (A).  Yep!   I'm pretty darned tired after some of my pool sessions

….not mash on the bike and maintain a high cadence – distribute power more evenly  (A-)  Doing well when I think about it, but could do better.   Needs to become second nature.

….engage my core and glutes on the bike   (?)   Hopefully this is coming, but I need The Puppeteer to confirm.

….not freewheel unless I run out of gears   (A-)  Working hard at this.  Rides on the flats at the coast where the pedaling is relentless helps, as does spending more time "in the big ring"

….take more calories on my rides  (C)  I don't think enough about this.  I have just added a dual water bottle holder to the saddle of  The Slut, so hopefully this will help. 

….stay aero!   (A-)   Considerable improvement over the past couple of months.

….do 10 mins dynamic warm-up before every run   (A)   I'm doing as I'm told!

….toe-off and finish every stride  (B)  Still working on this.  I need to concentrate more while I run.

….learn to use contralateral rotation when I run  (B?)   Ditto. 

….become a lot more flexible  (B+)   Working hard on this and I guess I'm probably improving, burt still a long way to go for this old codger!

….do TRX or other core/flex work at least twice a week   (B)   Some weeks better than others - what can I say?

….do yoga or other stretch/flex work at least twice a week  (B+)  Have been stretching, but haven't done much yoga.  I need to work more on this!

 

So there you have it.  I have tried to be honest in my assessments and overall I am reasonaly happy with my progress.  Mostly As and Bs.  Still lots of work to do though!

 

Highlight for me has undoubtedly been my swim progress.  On a macro level The Puppeteer went as far as to say that my run is now more a "limiter" than my swim last week and that's really saying something!   Outside of actual performance in any of the three disciplines core strength and flexibility remain limiters and are big areas to work on over the coming months.   More effort also required on getting those 10 lbs off - I'm about half way there.

 

More of this.....

 

...and this.....



....and this......



....and less of this!  :-(



Getting there!

A Swimming Milestone....

Well, a 1.2 milestone to be precise.....

My swim has undoubtedly improved dramatically this year:  the routine pool sessions I have been doing would have been inconceivable this time last year and I remain very comfortable in open water.  I still have to make sure, however, that I can "put it all together" for both the White Lake International (Olympic) distance race (1500 M swim) and Rev.3 South 70.3 (1.2 mile swim).

This evening (along with The Compass) I joined the Beaver Dam (Falls Lake) workout group for one of their regularly scheduled open water swims and decided that it was time to go the full 1.2 miles. 

Whaddaya know?   It was actually pretty straightforward.   I concentrated on keeping my stroke long and smooth and "went steady" (rather than try to race it) and finished in almost exactly 40 minutes.  I wore my Garmin 310xt GPS under my swim cap and it showed exactly 1.20 miles at the finish   Not even a thought of resting or switching to breaststroke!   Maybe I'm finally a swimmer?   Certainly this was a nice confidence builder for me.   I can't wait to go back and repeat it next week.

I'm a happy camper.  Now I just need to learn to do it in this type of chaos!.....   :-)

Updated Race Calendar.....and stuff!

Well, we are basically a little more than half way through the triathlon season, the Olympics are over and my super speedy "short course" friends are up in Burlington, VT preparing to race in USAT age group nationals this weekend.   So what's an old fat guy to do while all of this is going on?   Yep.....   keep training and update my race calendar!

So far my triathlon race experiences have been limited to shorter events.   I'm not really built to be a super long endurance guy but,then again, I'm not really built to be a sprinter either!    What's a guy to do?   Several things have factored-in to my decision making:

Firstly, my training has (I think) been going pretty well.  The summer months typically bring a bit of a lull at work and a lot less travel, so I have been able to work this to my advantage and increase my training hours reasonably significantly.

Next, my swim has really started to come together.   The Puppeteer has offered nice words about my form (still lots of work to do though) and I rattle off workouts in the pool that would have been inconceivable last year. 

My base fitness is (again, I think) much better than it was this time last year.   I have also been working on core strength and flexibility.   I'm not exactly Gumby, but I'm getting there.   Hopefully also losing a few pounds, but this continues to be a challenge.

I originally thought that running my first 26.2 mile full marathon might be a good challenge this year, but somehow the thought of the run intensive training (especially during the summer months) just lost it's appeal.   I was interested to see The Puppeteer say just this week that running is currently my limiter - which I'm taking as a very positive endorsement of my swim!  :-)

Finally, like many relative "newbies" to the sport of triathlon, I have a desire to test myself against longer courses.   I'm not up for a full 140.6 mile "Ironman" distance event yet, but I can sure as heck go longer than sprint distance!

So....    here's my updated race calendar for the rest of the year:

Sept. 8th.   White Lake International.   White Lake, NC
Sept. 23rd.   Outer Banks Sprint.   Manteo, NC
Oct.  14th.  Rev.3 SC 70.3 (Half Ironman Distance).  Anderson, SC
Nov. 11th.   Outer Banks Half Marathon.  Kill Devil Hills, NC

Links for all races on the right hand side of this page.

The highlight, of course, will be my first half Ironman (70.3 miles) race.   1.2 mile swim; 56 mile bike; 13.1 mile run.   I'll be very interested to see how I do and already have my eye on the new Ironman 70.3 Raleigh race and Beach-to-Battleship (Wilmington, NC) next year - I'll keep you posted!