Running has exploded recently. There are 5ks, 10ks, color runs, run for various charitable causes, etc. Individuals/corporations have convinced enough people to run while they are bombarded with food coloring, being chased by people dressed up as zombies, etc to be profitable. Mostly these events are not "competitive" in the sense that they do not draw the fastest crowds, but are for fun.
Given that it is Thanksgiving, people obviously need to run to burn off all of the empty calories that they are going to be eating afterwards, so most communities have some form of a "Turkey Trot". Piedmont is no different, and for a town of roughly ~10,000 people, the race has around 2,000 runners each year. Typically, in the crowd, there are some fast runners, mainly college kids who are coming back, and some parents in the community who are very fast.
Earlier this year, I had won a smaller edition of a similar race in town, that had only attracted ~700 runners, and none of the typical faster runners. I had been flirting for the past few months with trying to make myself into a "real" runner, someone who actually maybe kinda sorta doesn't always hate running and might actually enjoy it from time to time when the moon is in the third phase of Saturn but under the watchful eye of Scorpio.
I put effort into my longer runs, and my runs were more consistent, and after this short experiment with running, I decided to put myself in with the self seeded runners at the front of the Turkey Trot.
Typically at these smaller community races, kids like to line up at the front and take off at the gun for about 20 yards. That is fun and awesome, until the rest of the field comes behind them and then this happens:
The rest of the field comes bearing down on them like a pack of hungry zombies. Kids get knocked over, limbs fly everywhere, and then it's the end of the world.
The race had a small section just behind the start line where you could self seed if you thought that you were capable of running the course under 18 minutes, and with about 4 minutes to go to the start of the race, there were only two or three people in there with me. Then a few more showed up, and then came a few more, and there ended up being about 10-12 of us in the front corral.
Some of the runners in the front corral.
At the start, we took off. There was dead silence except for the pounding of feet against the pavement, and the breathing of the runners. This was no joke.
Through the first half mile, the race is pretty flat/downhill, and the group only stretched out a little. I put myself in a group of three that was behind the front group by about 3 seconds heading into the first uphill. Living nearby, I run these hills all the time, and I figured that I would be able to make up ground on the uphills, and my weakness, in comparison to the other runners, would be the flats.
I was wrong. These were actual runners. I only pulled one guy on the first uphill, and one person behind me shot up the hill and took the lead and gapped the field by a few seconds. This was going to be a race.
The first mile had a net elevation change of zero (see course map), and I was through in 5:35, and sitting in about 7th place. I had already lost sight of the leaders, but I was just behind two runners, so I wasn't alone.
The second mile started out flat, and then proceeded up a long, steady incline. Again, I hoped that my legs would allow me to make up time on the people in front and to gap the runners I was with, and again, I was wrong. I only pulled back one person in front, and I was passed by another, so my overall position didn't change. With the uphill, the pace slowed to about 6:10.
What goes up must come down, and seeing how I was bigger than most of the runners in front of me, I hoped that my heavier mass would allow me to get down the hill faster than them, since I was incorrect about my perceived strength of running uphill.
And I was wrong again. These were actual runners. The pace quickened down the hill, their cadence was super high, and they flew down the hill. The gap between the runners in front of me widened again, and they were away. The last mile split was ~5:20. I held on to my spot to finish 7th overall, 3rd in the 20-29 age group with a time of 17:04.
Trucking up to the finish.
My sister also ran in the race-her first road race. With no prep, some walking and talking with friends, and running part of the way with a friend's dog, she finished her first 3mile race. I am proud of her, and hopefully she will get bit by the running bug as I somewhat have.
A post race picture where Katy, one of her friends and I were clearly not ready for it.
Slightly more prepared.
Things to take away: real runners run fast. There are more of them out there. I have a lot of work to do if I want to make up that ground. Keeping healthy will be key. I am currently dealing with a bit of heel discomfort/pain that comes and goes, and hopefully I will be able to sort that out as I push on with the offseason of training.
Now that coaching water polo is over, I will try to keep this more up to date. Thanks for reading.
When we fly, we are told that in the name of safety, we need to take off our shoes, we can't wear belts, and that, save for a few, no liquids can pass through the security checkpoint. We unpack our laptops, and pull whatever we have in our pockets out to be scanned. We then pass through either metal detectors, or a scanning machine that produces images that look like this:
When we are finished with this dance, we frenetically put our shoes back on, shove our belongings back into a backpack, and run, holding our pants up to our gate, hoping that the 45 minutes we stood in line to be verified that we are not a terrorist didn't cause us to miss our flight.
Initially, I did not have a problem with all of these procedures. Anyone can google the anarchist's cookbook and using a few simple chemicals, injure, maim, and kill.
On Saturday, I had the opportunity to support two causes that are close to me. The first of which is a school district where I work has a wellness center to help students who are struggling with stress, depression and any other form of mental health issues, and for the past three years they have put on a fundraiser 5k. I ran in it last year, and signed up again to give me something to train for through the months that I am coaching water polo.
Shortly after I signed up for the race, the master's team that I occasionally swim with as my schedule allows announced that they were doing a swimathon to raise money for a friend who is battling cancer. She was a former age group swim coach of mine, and my babysitter. Looking at the timing of the events, I realized that it would not be a problem to do both. If you would like to donate to support my friend, comment below or message me, and I will get you the details. I will match every donation.
For the run, I knew that my preparation would be pretty solid. After racing at nationals, and my disappointing run, I made a commitment to myself to run every day for 100 days. Some days it is as little as a mile, but I have been averaging roughly 3.5 miles/run. I have also been doing roughly one track workout a week to help with my speed. I am about halfway through my 100 day commitment, and my legs have been feeling pretty solid, so I went into the race hoping to come away faster than last year.
I got to the race, and with the race being put on by the school district, many of my current and former students were there. A few of my water polo players were there, and a few of the people I train with at the track workouts were there, so I knew that there would be some competition.
I did my usual warm-up, and made my way to the start line. As this is a community race, a bunch of the younger kids like to line up at the start, so the first three or four rows of racers are all kids under 14. While this is adorable, it is also a little dangerous. They sprint the first 25-50 yards, and then slow down. Behind them are another ~400 racers who are running who are now effectively playing dodge the kid to avoid running them over.
I lined up about 4 rows deep with some of the people that I do the track workouts with, and we laughed at the little kids in front of us. At the start, as predicted, the little kids took off. Then one tripped. Then two more tripped. Within the first 100 yards, we had the potential for a bunch of people to get hurt. I carefully picked my way around the kids, and one of my track friends (Steve) went with me.
Through the first mile, I was running side by with a guy I didn't know (henceforth, Nemo), and Steve was behind us by a few steps. The first mile was all flat or downhill, and it ticked off quickly in just under 5:30. I was noticing that Nemo was pulling ahead a little on the flats, but with my superior mass (I weighed more than him by a bit), I was able to use my momentum to keep pace on the downhill.
Then came the first hill. Hills are one thing that I get to run regularly around here, so I pushed the tempo up the hill, and Nemo and Steve fell behind by about ten seconds. The hill was pretty short, and followed by a short flat section, and I was quickly caught again. I knew that the course was hilly, and assuming that I could push the later hills, the course would play into my favor.
Here's the course. Downhill, then uphill, then downhill...and you get the point.
The next hill came quickly, and it was a long one. It goes from the middle of Piedmont to almost the top. I kept my rhythm pretty steady until about halfway up, and then put the pace down a little. The breathing and footsteps that had been right on my shoulder faded away, and I was able to put some time between the two trailing runners.
At the top of the hill, I let my legs go beneath me on the downhill. I wasn't hurting after the hill, but I knew that there was a brief climb at the end, so I would need to save something for that if I was caught. I started making mental notes as I passed spectators and volunteers in the timing of the cheers for Nemo and Steve to try and judge how far behind me they were. In the past I would have looked, but I am trying to get away from that and run with confidence, rather than fear of getting caught, so I kept my eyes forward and my ears back.
I noticed that the gap was getting smaller, but I knew that I had one more hill at the end. I slowed my tempo just a bit to save my legs, and at the base of the hill, I could hear one set of footsteps behind me by a few strides. This is when I threw down what I had left.
The gap slowly got bigger, and at the top of the hill, I took a quick look behind me and saw that I had about 8 seconds on Nemo. Steve wasn't in sight. I pushed through the end, and finished in 17:57, more than a minute faster than my result from last year.
I waited around for a few minutes to congratulate the other finishers, and then I grabbed my stuff to head over to the swim-a-thon. There was a wave of swimmers going off at 9:30, and I was planning on being in that wave. I had raised a bit of money (if you want to donate, you still can-either a flat rate or a per lap donation), and I was looking forward to seeing my friend who was going to show up.
I ended up swimming mostly by myself, and doing 25x200s, to do 5000 yards in one hour and one minute. The team was able to raise more than $3500, and hopefully we will be able to pull more in the next couple of days.
So this song has been going through my head for a while now, but in light of the VMAs, and school just starting, I figured that the musicians who won awards could take some notes on what constitutes actual vocal talent. No autotuning, no background track to hide behind. For the lyrics, the chorus doesn't contain any "na na na na" or other nonsensical utterings that are there only because the songwriter couldn't fill the rest of the lines to keep with the rhyme or meter of the rest of the verse.
Before writing the rest of this post, some people need to be recognized for helping me this season. I raced at USAT Age Group Olympic Distance National Championships in Milwaukee this past weekend, and it could not have happened without the support of my family, my coach Martin, Marielle Allschwang, Adam Carlson and my friends. Thank you.
Most people who do triathlons have competed in one of the three disciplines first, either swimming, cycling or running. For each particular discipline, there is a relatively short laundry list of items you need to bring. For a triathlon, you need all of those bits and then usually a few extra pieces, and leaving one thing behind can lead to disaster.
This is the list put out by USAT. Extensive, and some items are unnecessary, but you get the point.
To do a triathlon, you plan out when and how you are going to get to a race, and then as the race nears, you start packing away your goggles, towel, tri suit or whatever you are going to race in, race belt, sunglasses, helmet, gels, running shoes, cycling shoes, bike. You make your final plans on when to get to the race, when to go to packet pickup, how early you are going to wake up the morning of the race, the meals you are going to have in the days leading up to the race. You decide what your workouts are going to be in the final days so that you are ready when the starting gun goes off.
When a wrench is thrown in the way of your plans, you have usually two options: Freak out, or be flexible enough to change your plans so that your race goes off uninterrupted. This weekend was the most complicated race that I had ever done, for a variety of reasons.
The race was the first time that I had to fly to a race and that I would not have access to a car, so it meant that I couldn't forget anything, or if I had any problems, I would have a harder time fixing them.
Since I was flying to the race, it meant that I had to figure out how to get my bike there. I could ship the bike, or fly with it. Shipping meant at least $250 in expenses, plus being without my bike the week before and week after the race. Flying meant $150 in charges for oversized baggage (Southwest airlines charges $75 each way, cheaper than most other airlines I looked into, and they let you fly with two bags for free- a definite bonus). I reached out to some of my triathlon friends to see if they had a bike box. Fortunately for me, Adam, who I swim with and run with (who regularly smokes me during the track workouts) had one, so it meant that I didn't need to rent one.
This...
had to go in here. Fortunately, youtube videos provided the guidance, and Adam provided the case.
After figuring out how to get myself and all of my gear to the race, I needed to figure out when to get to Milwaukee, and how long to stay. With a well connected older brother, I got in touch with Marielle, who was willing to let me stay at her flat which was about three miles from the race site, which saved me money on a hotel room. A search of flights, and I found out that the cheapest way to get there would be to leave Thursday morning, and then leave Saturday immediately after the race. (If you want a good flight search engine, use google.com/flights. I find it easier to use than Travelocity, Priceline, etc).
Flight booked, bike packed, it was time to get to Milwaukee. My parents drove me to the airport Thursday morning, and I was able to make it to Milwaukee without any hiccups. Into a shuttle I went, and I made it to Marielle's flat with no problem. One of her roommates let me in, and I checked my email to confirm when packet pickup would be open.
You know you are in Milwaukee when...
When you go to races, the race organizers love to send you lots of emails. Most of them are filled with garbage from retailers trying to sell you stuff, but in the latest email came this nugget of information:
"No bags are allowed in transition. Any items you normally would keep in a backpack in transition should be checked into the bag check tent using the clear plastic bag that athletes will receive at packet pick-up. This is the only bag athletes can use for bag check. Backpacks placed in the clear plastic bag will not be accepted. If you do not want to utilize the bag check, USA Triathlon suggests leaving items in your car, with family/friends or in your hotel room. " No bags in transition other than a garbage bag? Leave your backpack in a hotel room, car, or with family or friends? None of those applied to me. I was planning on riding my bike down to the race the morning of with my backpack, so now it just meant that I would be riding my bike down to the race with a garbage bag.
I went down to packet pick up, and got my race number, timing chip, and garbage bag, and then made my way to a grocery store to find food for the next few days. I didn't want to spend more money than I had to, and I wanted to be safe with the food that I was eating, so I grabbed some fruits and vegetables, some deli meat, a loaf of bread and pop tarts to feed me over the next few days.
These were given in the goody bag with packet pickup. Now I could race for the USA Triathlon Age Group National Championship with free socks from China!
Friday morning, I woke up and went for a ride along the route and swam in Lake Michigan, where the race was being held. Without a car, I rode down to the race site with my backpack containing my swim gear (not yet prohibited as it wasn't race morning), found a volunteer who let me leave my bag at her booth, and stretched my legs on the bike. The course was very flat, which would be something new for me. I put in a few minutes at effort and then went back for a swim. The water temperature was in the high 60s, and I felt loose and fast in the water.
I left my bike next this one while I swam. I figured that if someone was going to steal a bike, it would be the one worth three times mine. Fortunately, both my bike, and the person's whose bike this was were still there after my swim.
I collected my gear, and rode back to Marielle's. I checked the event website one more time to make sure I hadn't missed anything, and I saw this on the published schedule:
Mandatory bike check-in? This means that I had to leave my bike at the race site the night before the race. This wasn't listed in any of the emails that had been sent out. With a mandatory bike check-in, it meant that I wouldn't be able to ride down to the race with my garbage bag. I decided that I would ride back down to the race site to talk to an official to see if I could not leave my bike so that I could get to the race. The answer: no. What if I pretended that I was just out warming up with my bike when I showed up? No. Bikes were not allowed to leave transition for any reason race morning unless you had a mechanical problem.
A triathlete brought his trainer (the green thing) with him to the race so that he could get around the fact that you were not allowed to take your bike out of transition to warm up on before the race. Smart, but a little excessive in my mind. It probably meant that he was a local or drove to the race. There was no way that I could fly with that.
Well, that sucks. No biking down to the race, no backpacks, no bike warm-up. Talking about screwing with my plans. I left my bike in my assigned spot, and in my anger, and grabbed a cab to get back rather than walk. I had walked 6 miles yesterday going from Marielle's down to packet pick up and back, so I justified it as resting up for the race.
I got back to Marielle's, made myself some dinner, wrote a paper for the online classes I am taking (more on that in another blog post), and figured out how I was going to get down to the race the next morning. I didn't want to risk calling a cab and having it not show up, so I looked up the bus schedule. Another shout out to google-their map app on your phone has a public transportation function, so I was able to find a pretty easy way of getting to the race, only having to walk a block to the bus stop and transferring once, and being dropped off within a block of the race.
If you hit that trolley icon at the top, the app shows you how to take public transportation from the locations you put in. It even allows you to select when you want to depart/arrive.
With a game plan on getting to the race, I started loading my gear into the garbage bag. I realized that it was not going to be big enough to hold my wetsuit, towel, cycling shoes.... so I grabbed the grocery bag from my shopping trip and used that as well. Finally, all I had to do was shower, and sleep.
Race morning, I was up at 4:30am. I needed to be on the bus at 5 so that I could make it to transition by 5:30am when it opened. I wanted to be there early in case I had forgotten anything. I ate a quick breakfast of a chocolate fudge poptart and a banana, and grabbed my gear. Holding my garbage bag and grocery store bag, wearing my aero bike helmet, I made my way down to the bus stop.
Made the first bus...
And with my transfer pass, made it to the race site.
Fortunately, Milwaukee's buses were running on time Saturday morning, and I made my transfer and I made it to the race site just after transition opened up. I looked over my bike, checking the tires, brakes and gears to make sure everything was in working order. After I set up my spot, I realized that I had forgotten one item-a pair of shoes to wear while I waited for the race to start. The race was huge (more than 2700 athletes), so the race sent off the athletes in waves by age group. My wave for the race didn't start until just after 9am, but transition closed at 7:30, so I would have to wait around with bare feet from 6am until race time.
After setting up my spot, I grabbed my goggles, cap, wetsuit, and my garbage bag. I plugged in my head phones, found a bench to lay on, munched on some of the food I brought with me, and waited for race time. With about 30 minutes to go until my race started, I changed into my tri suit, went for a quick jog, put on my wetsuit, dropped off my garbage bag at the bag drop and made my way over to the start line. There were no more hiccups that could get in the way before the start of the race.
The transition area before the race started. There were at least 12 rows of bikes, probably around 60 yards long. It had to fit ~2700 athletes and their gear.
At the start, I took a look around. Swimmers give themselves away by the type of goggles they use, and I found a few likely candidates. I put myself next to some who were chatting about swimming in college, so I knew that I would have some company on the swim. I jumped out and pushed the tempo for the first minute or so to get away from the field, and my new friends went with me. I found myself leading the race, with one other guy on my left. I slowed to get down to a sustainable pace and no one was willing to go by me, so I slowed one more time, and the swede wearing swimmers took over the pace making. I fell on their feet, and settled into my rhythm.
The rest of the swim was uneventful. Having done a bunch of open water swimming this year, I was much more comfortable in the water, and I ended up having my fastest swim ever. I was in the top 8 or so of swimmers in my age group, about a minute faster than I had planned. Swim split: 18:37.
I struggled out of the water. To get out, you had to climb up a steep, slippery dock. There were several volunteers there who were helping us out, but even with their help, I slipped twice trying to get up and off the dock. After finally making it up, I stripped out of my wetsuit and ran to my bike.
Helmet, sunglasses, shoes, go. I got everything on, and ran to the mount line. At this point, my age group was catching the tail ends of the age groups in front of us, and I had to space out my mount on to my bike. Others were stopping and getting on, I spotted an opening, ran and jumped, and was off on the bike.
This is a pretty decent video of how to get on to your bike quickly and off of it. You can see that the guy racing saves time over the people who are stopped and getting on their bike slowly.
There was already a little wind, but I was still pushing 24 mph on the flat course. I kept my heart rate low, and kept my cadence high. This was going to be an interesting ride for me, as I haven't had many races where the course was completely flat. I didn't need to plan for any hills or tricky turns, all I had to do was keep from getting too excited and going too hard on the bike.
Early on the bike, I got passed by a few riders. And by passed, I mean they blitzed by me. I thought that I was moving pretty well, and I was surprised by how much faster they were going. I just had a great swim, and I was already being passed? I pushed the tempo a little more, and tried to limit the damage.
About three quarters of the way through the bike, I knew that I was moving solidly, and I had a good chance of beating my goal time. Apart from the two or three riders who passed me early on, not many others passed me. Legs felt tired but good, and I started mentally preparing for going over the one hill (actually a bridge) on the course.
After the bridge was a quick descent down into transition. I got off my bike, again with my fastest bike split: 1:00:05.
I headed into t2 and tried to make my way to my spot. I accidentally ran down the wrong aisle, which cost me a few seconds, slipped into my shoes and grabbed a gel, and took off. I knew that I was going to need a good run, but not a personal best run to make my goal time.
As usual, the first few miles hurt and I found it difficult to get into a rhythm. The first two miles ticked off at just over 6:15 minute pace. I knew that this wasn't fast enough, so I pushed the third mile and got under 6 minutes. Then I got passed by two people who were moving quickly. I knew that I was sitting somewhere near 10-12th place in my age group, and getting passed like this on the run was mentally tough. My legs were tightening up, so I shoved my gel down my throat, grabbed liquid at one of the aid stations and tried to hold on. My fourth mile split ballooned up to 6:11, and then my fifth mile was at 6:15. My goal time was slipping away, and I got passed by another runner from my age group.
I let out an expletive looking at my watch. I had just over 6 minutes to run the last 1.2 miles of the race to get under my goal time. I turned my watch over to the bottom side of my wrist so that I wouldn't look at it, and pushed with what I had left. My last mile was 5:37, but with the extra .2 of a mile, it wasn't enough to get under my goal time of 2 hours flat. I stopped my watch at 2:00:20.
I was disappointed. Hours on the bike, time spent on the track and in the water to be so close. My run was not what I had hoped it to be. The race had almost gone perfectly. Fastest swim, fastest bike. I just didn't have it in the tank to put down the run that I know am capable of doing. I didn't know where I had finished overall or in my age group, but I also knew that I was on the cusp of being in the top 18 in my age group, which means I had a chance of making the Team USA team for World Championships.
After the race, I had to deal with logistics again. I had about three hours to get all my gear, get back to Marielle's, and pack up my bike and luggage before the shuttle came to take me to the airport. I made my way over to get a print out of my results, and get my bike and gear. Due to a few competitors still on the course, the officials didn't open up transition, so I had to wait around for an hour to get my bike, which meant that I had a little more than two hours until the shuttle arrived.
My results. It says that I was 20th overall because some of the waves that started after me hadn't finished yet. My transitions need to be faster.
Once transition opened up, I loaded everything into my garbage bag, put the bag on my aero bars, and road back. I quickly packed up my gear, took apart my bike, and with two minutes to spare, had everything put away before the shuttle came. I made my flight home, and my parents came to meet me at the airport. They took me out to my favorite Chinese restaurant, and finally home where I passed out.
Despite the wrenches and the speed bumps, a successful race. I finished 52nd overall, out of more than 2700 other competitors. In my age group, I finished 14th out of 151. I had personal bests on the swim and the bike, and a run that I know I can improve on.
Takeaways from the race:
1) There are a lot of very fast triathletes out there.
2) Too much of my racing is mental. I need to stay within myself and not get down when I get passed.
3) I need to have a greater sense of urgency in transition. My times for the swim and bike were well below what I had hoped, but I can be faster going between each discipline. Also, making the mistake of going down the wrong aisle was a product of fatigue and a huge mental lapse that cost me time. Without that mistake, I might have been under my goal time. A huge rookie mistake.
4) I am tired of sacrificing convenience for safety. I understand wanting to be safe after what happened during the Boston Marathon, but not allowing athletes to have a backpack? I fear that next year, they are going to prevent us from bringing shoes, or bottles over 6 ounces or whatever the limit is on plane flights.
For this season, serious racing is over. I might do a few road races or open water swims, but nothing major. Takeaways from the season:
1) Without a group to train with, having a coach was key. In Williamsburg, I had friends to run with, and a cycling group to whoop on me. When I moved to California, I didn't have either of those. I now have people to run and swim with, but having Martin write workouts adds consistency to my training. After working with him for eight months, I can honestly say that I can count the number of workouts I have missed on only one hand.
2) I can be faster. I truly believe that my bike and run can get faster, and I can be faster in transition. It will take time, but I know that I can do it.
3) I made huge improvements this season. While taking into consideration that the course can dictate how fast you go (flat vs hilly course), I dropped more than 6 minutes from my previous best in the Olympic distance triathlon. In all of 10 km runs in my triathlons this year were under 40 minutes, regardless of how much rest I was racing on.
4) The sport can consume you if you let it. To not miss workouts, I was frequently running or doing cycling roller workouts after 10pm. Friday night social activities were cut short so that I could get a long ride or swim in Saturday morning. It definitely hurt some of my personal relationships at the expense of my training. Finding balance was difficult this year.
5) Triathlons are expensive. Races can range from $60-400+. Then you need to get to and from the races, and the gear is not cheap. Is it more expensive than other sports? Yes. Is it more expensive than as intense training program? Compared to crossfit? To be determined in a future post.
6) I am already thinking about next season. After two days off, my body is wondering when my next workout will be. Will I be able to balance teaching, coaching two sports and training? I did it for one year. I can do it again.
The gif below is applicable to a lot of things going on right now.
The seal has no idea...
On Saturday, August 10th, is my big race for the summer, and you can tell that it is a really important race because it has such a grandiose name: USAT Olympic Distance Age Group National Championships in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Try saying that five times fast. It would take you at least an hour to do it. Imagine if I didn't use the USAT acronym.
Imagine if the person who designed this graphic charged by the letter. The designer would have made a whole lot more money.
School and the water polo season both start in a little less than three weeks.
In college, we were surrounded by our closest friends. Friends that have picked us up from the pavement, dragged us to the library to make sure we understood some arcane chemical reaction, and who listened to us complain about anything and everything. These people made sure we got home ok, sent us distracting messages in class, and were the first ones we looked for when we got back from the breaks. We took pictures that looked like this:
Where for some reason we decided we all would dress the same and look like complete idiots,
Or when we needed to look good...
Or look like the Icelandic Curling team.
Now we pretend to be grown ups. The distance between us has grown, so rather than eating meals together, we get together for weddings, and other large events. We don't look any different, but it is just longer in between times that we have seen each other.
I demand that someone get married every weekend.
Or that it be new year's every...month. That would be acceptable. Weddings each weekend, and then we could celebrate new year's every month.
But now most of have some form of a career, are married, and have actual priorities. We are either on different coasts (my fault), or in different parts of the world, so it makes it difficult to talk. We are not on gchat at the same time, and a phone call when I get done with work or coaching is too late for people three hours ahead. We make time to talk like this:
I don't have a real solution for this, other than I hope that this is not a natural progression of getting older, because so far, it sucks. The work, the bills, etc are not a problem. So everyone move out west.
Note-this race report is full of bad puns, but before I get there, my friend needs a shout out.
Just a warning.
Greg, who I have mentioned several times before, just finished a half Ironman race in Muncie, Indiana. He finished as the second overall amateur, and 13th overall. This was his first attempt at the half ironman distance, and he destroyed it. His race report is here.
This past weekend, I did a "splash and dash" race down in Santa Cruz. One of the primary reasons why I wanted to do the race was it was an opportunity to finally meet my coach, Martin Spierings. He has been coaching me since the beginning of the year, but all of our interaction has taken place through email, gchatting, etc. So far I had been getting the esurance coaching plan, and I was looking forward to meeting the man who was putting the details into my workouts.
Meeting the coach and one of his kids.
The race was also in the former home of my training buddy, Liz, and the splash and dash type of race is her speciality. She, her husband, and I all carpooled down the morning of the race. For the course, the race was a 1 mile swim (two laps around a set of buoys), and then a flat out and back 4 mile run.
When we got to the race site, the sky looked like this:
Super foggy. The sun did not make an appearance until well after the race was over.
It was colder than I anticipated on race morning. Temperatures were in the low 50s, with a water temperature around 56 degrees. If it were not for Liz mentioning to me a couple days before the race that she was borrowing a wetsuit, I might not have brought mine. Fortunately, I was prepared.
Pre-race, I grabbed my iphone and did a quick run to stretch out my legs. I had been training pretty hard the past two weeks (15 hours last week, and then 11 the week of the race), with a pretty hard run workout on Thursday morning. My legs felt super tight, and I found it difficult to find my rhythm for the first 10 minutes. Fortunately, my legs loosened up as my pump up music rattled through my head phones.
A lot of people are familiar with song "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor, but I like this one more. Note-uncensored.
I made my way back to the start and put on my wetsuit, made sure my stuff in transition was all together, and got some words of encouragement from my coach. Liz also provided some insight on the local competition, as she had raced against many of the competitors before. A few were fast swimmers, so don't expect to be in the lead after the swim was what I gathered from her information. I had also noticed a guy wearing a Flash t-shirt in the transition area, so I figured him to be quick.
If you ever want to make yourself a target before a race, wear this in the transition area.
At the race start line, a bunch of people got in the water to warm up. I knew that was a terrible idea. The water temperature and the air temperature meant that if I got in, I would have to get out and I would be freezing by the time the race started. I jumped around and waved my arms around in something that resembled circles to get my arms and legs race ready.
For the first time in my racing career, the swim started on land. This means that all the competitors were lined up on shore, and then had to run in and start swimming. This usually results in a higher number of crashes than a high school driver's ed course. People are running all over the place, some are running all out, some are jogging, and then when they hit the water, some start dolphin diving, others start swimming right away, and everyone just needs to switch to State Farm because after the end of the first 30 seconds, a fair number of athletes are going to need some body work done.
Here is a quick video on what dolphin diving is. With all the competitors doing it, it gets messy quickly.
When the gun went off, I took off, attempting to avoid the traffic mess that was sure to develop behind me. There a few others going out hard as well, and a leader group developed. One swimmer went out hard, and a triangle of other swimmers fell in behind. I was sitting in fourth, but on the outside of the group. I changed my angle a bit and "pushed" whoever was on the inside of me further in so that I could get in on the moving water. Note: I did not actually push, I just cut off. I am saving 15% or more with Geico.
The first few minutes of the swim were a little hectic. With the jostling for position, getting my body used to the cold water (if you haven't been in water below 60 degrees, it's cold). I forced a rhythm into my arms and stayed on the feet of the leaders.
The first lap I felt pretty solid, and stayed on the leaders' feet. The course was two laps, with a short run on to land to start the second lap. I figured that this would be to my advantage, as getting into and out of the water, I could dolphin dive. This is a skill that I regularly get to practice in lifeguard training. This was not the case though, as I was unfamiliar with the depth of the water coming into shore, and I started my dives to soon. This cost me about 10 seconds going into the second lap.
Going into the second lap, we were catching the second wave of swimmers who were sent off several minutes after my wave. The two swimmers who were in front of me went to the outside of the pack of swimmers; I decided to go through them. Why? The water was moving already, and if I was able to maneuver through the crowd, I would have more water moving in the right direction to drag me along. I hit some swimmers on the feet, but they were in good hands, and no major accidents occurred.
I hit the shore and got a shout out from my coach running into transition. I had two in front of me, one about 20 seconds, another about 30 seconds. I slipped out of my wetsuit as smoothly as I had in my races this season, and hit the run.
On the run, the two leaders were moving quickly. I realized that they were both identified to me pre race by Liz as being favorites to win. One was Pieter deHart, who has won his age group at the National Championships for Aquathlon (the technical name for a splash and dash) and was a silver medalist in his age group at the World Championships a few years ago (age group 30-34), and Yuta Sano, a former collegiate swimmer for UC Santa Cruz (mascot-the banana slugs). This information I did not have before the race started, but all I could hope for was that they fit the stereotype of swimmers being poor runners.
They most clearly did not. They took off on the run, and I started trucking after them. My legs felt great, and I knew that I was moving faster than I normally did. The time on the track was paying off. In the first mile, I had made up the ground on Yuta, but I had not made up any ground on Pieter. He was still in my sights, but I was getting frustrated that the gap wasn't closing.
At the turnaround, the gap between us was around 20 seconds. My first two miles were each about 6:10 pace, and I wasn't sure if I could push the pace anymore. On the way back, the other runners were encouraging me to catch him, which was a mental boost. I was unable to do my usual sharing of encouragement as I was putting everything I had into pulling the leader back.
Just after mile three, I had the gap down to 10 seconds. Martin was waiting just past the mile marker, and gave me a shout. From this point, I could see the finishing stretch. I pushed the tempo one more time and moved around Pieter. I kept the pace as high as I could, hoping that he didn't have the legs to go with me.
Behind by a few seconds...
Pushing to catch...
And finally, the catch.
Fortunately for me, he did not. I held on for the last half mile, checking over my shoulder a couple of times. I finished my run in 24:07, putting out ~6:02 miles for 4 miles. I walked up to where Martin was standing to cheer on Liz as she finished the course.
In the end, both Liz and I won the overall titles for the race, and we walked away with a coupon for a pair of sunglasses and some coupons for cash off future races with Finish Line Productions, who put on the race.
One of the great things about triathlons is that anyone can do them. With a few months of training a few times a week, one can complete a triathlon. For this reason, triathlons are a frequent item found on "bucket lists". With time, it is an item that can be checked off-similar to half marathons, tough mudders, etc.
With the rising popularity of triathlons, my guess is that close to 80% of the field in most sprint or olympic races are not racing, but rather completing or competing against themselves. The last 20% of the field is going for a podium finish within their age group. There are usually only a few athletes in each race who have a legitimate chance of winning the race. This is usually because those last few athletes are the least sane. They devote a huge amount of time and money into racing, which if most other people had their way, these extremists would instead be tied to generators and they single handled could probably solve global warming.
Imagine if triathletes did all of their training with these. All of our pedal power turned into electricity? We would be super green. Also, if I was preparing for the zombiepocolypse, I would probably get one of these.
For most of this season, my races have been as described above. A few athletes trying for the win, and the rest of the field competing or completing the race. With the exception of the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon, I had not yet been part of a race where a large portion of the field would be racing until collapse. The races that I had been doing, I had been having success, but as compared to the rest of the serious triathletes in California, I didn't really have an idea about how fast I was. I had been placing in my age group and in the overall classification (and winning my first race outright this season), but those races were small. I had emailed some teams in the area to see if I was fast enough to earn a spot, and most of the responses back I got were to get faster. I had chopped down trees in the forest, but not big enough ones to make noise.
This past Sunday, I raced at the California International Triathlon in Pleasanton, California. The official, really long title of the race was the "USA Triathlon Southwest Regional Championships". With such a grandiose and long title, I knew that the field would be more stacked than normal, so the race would be a good test of my ability. I had been dealing with some knee and back pain over the past month or so, so my fitness was not what it could be, but I was feeling pretty good going into the race.
Look at how long and complicated the name is! The race must be kinda important!
The race was held at Shadow Cliffs, one of the East Bay Regional Parks, where I would know some of the guards that were watching the swim. Also, the race was only about 45 minutes from home.
Shadow Cliffs is one of the busiest aquatic facilities in the East Bay Regional Parks, with hundreds if not thousands of people visiting every day.
I made my way to the race site, and by 5:45am I had my transition spot set up. The normal stuff was put out, and I avoided one of the many mistakes of my last race, and was sure to tape my gels down with electrical tape. I had one for the run, and one for before the race. I decided to go with only one bottle on the bike instead of two as I rarely get through both. That ended up being the right decision, but barely. More on that later.
You can't see it because of the bar, but my gels are taped on. I ended up taking one of the bottles off. And you can see the extra gel nestled between my cycling shoes.
As I warmed up, I heard the announcement that the race would be wet suit legal due to a water temperature of 77.8 degrees (for a race to be wetsuit legal, water temps must be below 78 degrees) (for those that don't know, wearing a wetsuit makes you more buoyant in the water, and thus, faster. It is a benefit to those who are not the strongest swimmers, particularly when the water is not cold enough to warrant wearing one, but the water temperature is still below 78). The weather had been very hot recently (it was 100 degrees at packet pickup on the Friday before the race), and I was surprised that the water was below 78. Even with the race being wetsuit legal, I decided against wearing a wetsuit. The race was going to be hot, and I did not need to be hot in the water before hitting the bike.
I finished my warm up, and went down to the water for the race to start. I recognized some of the athletes from other races, and we exchanged pleasantries before the race started. At the start, I made my way through a few swimmers, and I was in a lead pack of 5-7 swimmers. I fell in on the feet of one of the swimmers, with two wetsuit clad people beside me. The wetsuit swimmers decided to squeeze me off the feet of the lead swimmer I was following, so I let them go, not wanting to fight for a few seconds now that I could make up later.
The gap between me and the lead swimmers grew to about a minute halfway through the swim before I finally found a rhythm and started pulling the lead group back. By the time I hit transition, I was about 30 seconds behind the leaders.
I ran up to my bike and realized that I had about 4 people in front of me. I got to my bike, did my normal dance to get onto the bike, and away I went. On the hill out of transition, Eric Clarkson (a professional triathlete from Team Every Man Jack) had lost his chain. I wished him luck and pushed on.
Out of transition, I had two people in front of me by about a minute. I was pushing 25-26 mph on the flat course, and was quickly overtaking those two. By mile 3, I was ahead of them, with three people in front of me. Then came the turnarounds.
On the course, there were three turnarounds. The course was well marked with cones and chalk, which was a bonus, except at the first turnaround. The chalk on the ground indicated that the turnaround was at a median in the road, so around the median I went. The two people that I had just passed whizzed by me. I looked to see why, and to my surprise, there were cones set up for the turnaround about 20 yards further down the road. While the chalk arrow went around the median, the course was set up for me to go around the cones.
I cursed myself for not looking further down the road, and sat up to turnaround and fix my mistake. Cutting the course short can result in a disqualification, and two athletes had seen me mess up. A tree had fallen, and someone heard it. I pulled a quick u-turn, and tried to minimize the damage.
I lost about 40 seconds due to the mistake, and the two people I had passed went by me again. Another thing that I noticed was that the field was charging behind me. I buried my head, and pushed the tempo as much as I could.
I hit the hill at mile 9, having passed the two again from my mistake, but I was passed by two more, so my overall position in the race didn't change. Having looked at the map profile for the course, the hill did not look to bad. On the hill, it was rough. There was a head wind pouring down, and my speed slowed to 10-11 mph. I forced myself to not hammer, and just maintain my heart rate and cadence until the summit. I am a fan of keeping my cadence high on hills; I look at hills as being a sandwich. It is easier to eat a sandwich with a lot of little bites versus a few large ones, so why not take little bites and enjoy it? On the hill, it is easier to keep my cadence high and in a low chain ring rather than trying to muscle over the hill.
At the top of the hill, I got back into aero and pushed down the hill. I hit 42 mph on the way down (with a head wind... Probably could have hit 50 without it), and then the next time I looked at my computer, it said I was going 17, and then 12, and then 5, and then zero. My magnet had gotten pushed out of position on my wheel, and my computer was not showing my speed, so it wouldn't show my distance, or my time for the rest of the ride. I was riding without knowing anything except what my body was telling me, my overall time from my wrist watch, and what landmarks I had memorized from the course map.
Within triathlons and other types of training, there is a wealth of information that can be gathered. For example, you can buy GPS watches that track your speed, distance, cadence, altitude change, power output, heart rate, and they can probably measure the distance between two atoms if you let them. Some of this information can be useful in your training, such as the power output. There will be a more complete post on some of the ways that pertinent (and non-pertinent) data can be collected.
This is the latest bit of technology you can get for riding your bike. It's called ReconJet, and it projects all of your data in front of you as you ride in the form of a "heads up display". Cost? $599. It relies upon other pieces of equipment on your bike and body to collect the data, so you still need to buy the power meter (~$250), heart rate monitor ($50-100), etc. Useful? No, unless it also shoots lasers at your competitors too.
Without my bike computer, all I had to go on was feel for the last 14 or so miles. For me, it was actually a pleasant way to race. I did not allow myself to get caught up in how fast I was going, and I wasn't distracted by the information that I could have been using. I simply raced. Frequently I get down on myself for putting out subpar efforts during workouts, and the way that I know they are subpar is from looking at my watch/bike computer. Now, the only thing pushing me was my desire to race.
The rest of the bike I listened to my legs, and pushed hard, but controlled. The weather was getting hot, and I knew that the run was going to be tough. One competitor passed me the rest of the way, so I figured to be in 7th overall.
I hit t2 feeling solid but hot. Temperatures were in the low to mid 80s now, and my legs would not turn over. I left transition about 1 minute behind one athlete, and about 30 seconds behind a second athlete, who ended up being Ritch Viola. More on him later.
The first two miles were rough, and the course ended up being harder than anticipated. Most of the two lap course was on a partially/barely shaded trail that was flat with a bunch of very short, steep hills. For the first two miles, my pace was just above 6:45 pace, and I lost sight of the athlete who was 1 minute in front. Ritch, who started the run ~30 seconds in front, was still in sight.
Keeping him in my vision was key. I very much feed off of my belief that I can catch people if I can see them. Over the next four miles my legs loosened up and my pace dropped to ~6:10 pace and I pulled up to Ritch at about mile 5. As I got closer to him, I realized that he was minutes in front of me because he had started in a wave behind me. He was also a popular guy on the course- most of the volunteers at the aid stations knew him. We exchanged pleasantries as he is the founder of Team Everyman Jack, and we had exchanged emails about me joining his team. After a few words, I pushed on in the last mile, finishing in 2:09:14.
My splits:
Swim: 20:43
Bike: 1:07:21
Run: 39:36.
I finished in 7th place overall, and second in my age group. When I crossed the finish, I took a look at the athletes who were laying in the shade near the finish. I didn't recognize any, but upon further research, I found out that most of the athletes in front if me were either current or former elite or professional triathletes. In a competitive field, I had done well.
After the race, I waited around for the few athletes that I knew to congratulate them. One of the athletes from the bass lake triathlon was there (AJ Reid), and one from the masters team that I swim with (Adam Carlson), so I made it a point to find them at the finish.
For my podium, I got a cheap bag and a bottle of wine, and this picture where I am cheesing hard for the camera. I had cut down a reasonably sized tree.
Update-I technically won my age group. The athlete who beat me, Andrew Bauer, is an "elite" triathlete, and was incorrectly placed in the age group category.
There are plenty of sources for dating advice. The magazines that are grace the check out aisle at the grocery store preach various methods of getting that dream guy/girl, or fixing a problem in your relationship. For some reason, a few of my friends come to me seeking advice. Being a friend, I don't tell them to pick up the most recent edition of Cosmo, but rather tell them to calm down and try to fix whatever issue is going on. Advice varies case to case, and I have really no idea why my friends ask me for advice. I have never had much success in the dating realm, so most of my advice consists of listening, telling my friend to calm down, and then working through some compromise.
Every Cosmo cover offers 100+ tips to improve... well so I chose this cover instead.
Now, some of the advice you may read is "Try something new in the bedroom!" or "Explore this part of the city!" or "Try these new date ideas!"The only one that seems like a good idea that I have seen is the "Never stop dating".
This is advice from a florist shop. Definitely been there in my life...
Why do I think this is a good idea? Because the beginning part of dating is the most fun part. Figuring out who the person is, what things you share in common, trying new things, going to new places, etc. This is not a post on dating, however, but staying motivated in training.
While I have not had success in dating, I have had some success in training, and staying motivated with it. My coach, Martin Spierings, has kept things pretty entertaining, but eventually, it gets dull. So how to fix that? Start dating again. So below is a list of tips that start out as a list that you could find in a grocery check out rag, but is meant to help you get started training or push through a rough patch in your training.
This is what my log typically looks like for a week. Lots of boring without some spice. I don't think that dating comes with logs. That would make my life way easier.
These are in no particular order.
1) Get out. Can't find something to do? Then check out the local gym/pool/track. There are bound to be other people there. Go talk to them. See if you can find a group to latch on to. The more the merrier. They will help keep you committed to whatever plan you have. And you will meet new people.
2) Go some place new. Tired of going to the same restaurant or renting movies from Blockbuster? (Do people still go to Blockbuster anymore? I recently rented movies from a nearby place that I used to go to as a kid. I forgot how fun it was). But in terms of training-try a new trail, bike path. If you are a swimmer, go to a lake/open water place. A change of scenery will do a body good.
3) Take a personal day. Need some alone time? We all do. A day off, or days off, can help you recover from a particularly strenuous string of workouts. The track/gym/road is not going anywhere, and the time off can be an opportunity to refocus your goals. Use the day to do things that have been pushed back on your to do list. Catch up on those episodes of Game of Thrones (assuming you haven't already read everyone's facebook statuses that give everything away).
4) Get cleaned up. One of the perks of dating is getting all put together to go out somewhere nice. Do that for your workout gear. Take extra time to clean up your bike, or to wash your workout equipment. Take care of the equipment that takes care of you in a workout. That includes your body. After a workout, take an extra long shower. Scrub with that fuzzy thing that has a fancy name. Soak up the heat.
This is called a loofah, which is apparently also spelled loofah. Convenient. Use it.
5) Make a playlist. Remember the first time you made your sweetheart a playlist on iTunes and then burned it on to a cd? Every song had some significance. And then after you burned it on to a cd, you wrote on it in sharpie for the track names and artists? Those were the days. For your workout, do the same. So that when your legs start telling you can't do it anymore, you have that track that will push you through whatever workout you are struggling with. Then you can take Jens Voigt's advice:
We can't all be like Jens, but we can all tell our body to shut up and push through whatever perceived threshold we have reached. And if for you it takes the latest Rihanna/David Guetta song to do it, then so be it. I personally go for something along these lines:
You generally don't want to be around me when I am doing intervals and this is going.
6) Try something new. Tired of hitting the saddle for hours, or pounding the pavement, or pumping iron? Then go to a yoga class. Or try a session of crossfit. Or maybe something crazy like aerobic dance. If you like it, incorporate it into your routine.
There are times I should take my own advice. Some day, I will find someone looking for this:
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