Are you in good hands?

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.

Potential savings with safe racing techniques.

If a tree falls in the forest, has a hipster heard it already?

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.