Heat and Humidity - The Great Equalizers - Colonial Beach Int'l Race Report

Flat, fast.......and miserable. I think that would be a more accurate description of the Colonial Beach International race held this Sunday. At least that's how I would describe it.

I went into this race very excited to post some fast bike and run times on a flat course. What I conveniently put out of mind is how tough it is to go all out under tough conditions. Turns out the dreams I had of 6:30 mile splits were just that...dreams.

I was able to snag a room at a hotel that is literally on the race site which was unbelievably convenient. Having your own private bathroom prior to a race is a sweet luxury.

The swim was interesting as this was the first time I've swam in salt water and significant current. The race organizers changed the course the morning of the race in order to help us out. After the first turn buoy I actually settled in to a groove, but damn, it seemed like it took forever to reach the turnaround. On the way back I veered way off course because I mistakenly sighted off the yellow paddle of a kayaker rather than the yellow turn buoy. Despite my slow time I was pleased with my swim in conditions I've never before faced.

My transition to the bike was a bit of a disaster. I elected not to do a bike warm-up and if I had I would have realized that my bike shoes were filled with dryer sheets (I use them to keep the stank out). So here I was in transition pulling dryer sheets out of my shoes. I'm an idiot.

Onto the bike and I found that this course isn't as flat as advertised. It seemed like I was either going slightly uphill or downhill the entire time. For whatever reason I had a persistent pain down the inside of my right leg. This happened during the first 10 miles of the Charleston HIM I did last year and it eventually went away, but it did a good job of sufficiently freaking me out. It wasn't until after the turnaround that I felt normal and I eventually passed two guys in my age group who passed me at the start.

On to the run and it quickly became a battle within myself of how fast can I run without melting in a heap on the side of the road.

It's been a pretty mild spring and summer so far in Southwest Virginia and Sunday was by far the hottest and most humid day of the year. It seemed that everyone was struggling so I just set my sights on the people in front of me, assuming all of them were in my age group, and did my best to catch them. Not too long after I crossed the finish line another competitor came across in really bad shape. He eventually had to be taken away in an ambulance, which was yet another reminded of the importance of hydration and pacing.

Results - 2:25:08
25/276 Overall
3/22 Age Group
Swim: 34:14 - 55/276, 4/22
T1: 1:58 - 95/276, 7/22
Bike: 1:03:39 - 22/276, 3/22
T2: 1:12 - 17/276, 1/22
Run: 43:57 - 19/276, 4/22

Bath Triathlon Race Report

I've often but disappointed that some of the pro triathletes that I follow don't post often enough of their websites or blogs. I now realize that despite how easy it may seem, oftentimes you just don't feel like doing it. That said, here is my race report from Bath.

Total Time: 1:12:22/6th out of 132 men/1st out of 12 in Age Group

750 Meter Swim: 12:46 - 10th overall - 1st AG
T1: 1:15 - 27th overall - 3rd AG
20K Bike: 37:12 - 13th overall - 3rd AG
T2: :38 - 7th overall - 1st AG
5K Run: 20:33 - 7th overall - 1st AG

Got up at 3:30AM (that's not a typo) for the long drive up to Bath on race day morning. Halfway through the drive I did my traditional coffee spill on my One-on-One Endurance shirt. That's three times now!

I warmed up with a short spin on the bike course and jog on the run course. My legs did not feel good at all, but I brushed it aside because I felt the same way last year. However, unlike last year my legs never came back to me.

The swim here is always great. The water is a comfortable temperature and there is no chop. It was barely wetsuit legal, which really didn't matter to me. I started close to the outside but made a conscious decision to go out hard for my first 20 strokes.

I have a tendency to swim the pace of those around me, so going hard at the start put me with some fast swimmers. I was able to keep up with them and drafted behind someone the entire way back in after the last buoy.

At the start of the bike course there is a pretty steep hill that you have to cross. I got over it fine but the rest of the out section is gradually uphill. It was here that my legs just felt dead. They missed the familiar pop that I've had in previous races. The crazy thing is that I didn't see anyone ahead or behind me until we got close to the turnaround. I was in third place (not exactly because the race starts in waves based on age) and I've never been in this position before during the bike leg.

I hammered the back section as best I could and made a pass for second place. WTH? My time was almost 2 minutes slower than last year. Bummer.

The run starts with a killer first half-mile uphill. My legs felt like jello here and I actually got passed. Humble brag, but I literally cannot remember the last time I got passed on the run course. After about a mile it seemed like my legs finally woke up a bit and I was able to pick up the pace.

I guess that I'm pleased with my overall performance. I had my best ever swim and I improved my run time. After talking with coach Jim we determined that my lack of pop on the bike might have been due to a new strength workout I've been doing. This sucker hurts:

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2013/05/training/one-hour-workout-functional-strength-work_76190

Needless to say I'll be going back to my old proven strength routine. Next up is the Colonial Beach International, a race I've never done before. I've never got a podium finish in an international distance event and I plan to change that in two weeks.

Kinetic Half Race Recap - 7th out of 57 in Age Group!

4:46:47. I still can't believe that was my time for the Kinetic Half Ironman on Saturday. The scary thing is that it didn't feel nearly as mentally or physically taxing as my previous three HIM races. Maybe there's something to all this training I've been doing.

Unfortunately, Set-Up events somehow misplaced the chips for bib numbers over 400. This meant that they lumped the swim and T1 times together as well as the T2 and bike times. Here's the breakdown:

Overall Time: 4:46:47, 38 out of 478 (male & female), 7 out of 57 in male age group
Swim & T1: 37:17, 10 out of 57 age group
Bike: 2:31:40, 9 out of 57 age group - 22.2 mph (what?!)
Run & T2: 1:37:52, 12 out of 57 age group

My goals for this race was to have fun, be safe, test my nutrition plan, and race my butt off. Mission accomplished. I arrived at the soaked race site to overcast skies and a slight drizzle. The temperature would reach the mid-60s but it was pretty damn humid. The best news I heard all morning was that the water temp was 69 degrees, a far cry from last week's 56.

I did a brief swim warmup to get used to the water and waited for my wave to be called. This was the first race I've done that I was not in the first wave, which was due to the number of people in the 30-34 and 35-39 age groups. I started well right of everyone but with a clear line of the buoys. The 1.2 mile course goes out, over, and then back. It was breezy, so we swam into the chop on the way out which seemed like it took forever. After about the first 200 meters I settled into a nice groove and sighted every 7 strokes. I didn't draft that much, which is something I need to work on.

I got out of the water in 34:40, which didn't impress me but I still feel good about my time. Better than last week!

On to the bike and first I have to say that the course was absolutely beautiful. Rolling hills around the lake and through farms. I did a great job anticipating the hills and working through all of my gears. The hills are where I did my damage and I passed a ton of people who were just grinding. Notable sights were a dead rattlesnake, a dead possum with its guts exposed, and the overall female winner who passed me halfway through. We actually rode together for a while and I eventually dropped her, or rather she fell of the pace. I talked to her after the race and she was beyond excited.

My nutrition consisted of a sip of Clif Shot Endurylyte sports drink every five minutes and half a clif-z bar every 30 minutes chased with water. My official time had my a 22.2 mph average but my watch had it at 21.8. Either way that's a faster average than any bike split I've ever had and I did it on a hilly course over 56 miles. This is how I felt about that:

The run was three loops with two nice hills at the start and about halfway through. Coach Jim told me to be a "mental giant" and not run too fast at the start. What Coach Jim fails to understand is that mental and giant are two word not typically associated with me. Nevertheless I tried to scale it back despite my legs wanting to treat a half-marathon like a 5K. About this time nature called and luckily there were some porta John Kings around the course. Even with a long hiatus in loo I still manged to average a 7:19/mile pace.

So obviously I'm extremely thrilled with the result. I took almost 8 minutes off my HIM PR and this was on a hilly course. I still can't quite believe I was able to perform so well. I get a little break from training this week, which works nicely with my five-year wedding anniversary. Hard to believe my incredibly smart wife still hasn't figured out what an idiot she married.

SML Race Report - 2nd in Age Group But Not Quite Satisfied

This year is my fifth competing in triathlons and I've never experienced anything like I did yesterday at the Smith Mountain Lake Sprint.

I think I've competed in close to 20 races and I've been pretty fortunate with the weather. The heat and humidity at Patriot's Half in 2011 was rough. I've had close calls with rain but have never actually raced in it.

On Thursday, Set-Up events announced that the water temperature in the lake was 56 degrees and that it would likely mean the swim would be reduced to 400 meters. It didn't really warm up at all and at racetime on Saturday I believe the outside temp was only 49!

In order to get used to the cold, I decided to swim the entire swim course as my warm-up. 400 meters is about what I do as a warm-up in my typical swim sessions anyway. My wetsuit is sleeveless and towards the end of my warm-up I knew I was in trouble as my shoulders were numb. The bad thing about being in the first swim wave is that you have to stand around for a while after you warm-up as the pre-race ceremonies go on. By the time the gun went off I was literally shaking from being so cold.

The first 100 meters went okay, but after the turn buoy is was like that not only my body was freezing but my brain as well. For some reason I could only breathe to my left side and I was disoriented. I even had to resort to the backstroke a few times just to calm down. What should have taken me less than 7 minutes took just over 8.

What's cooler than being cold? Ice cold!

Into T1 and I had even more trouble. Because of the cold I decided to wear a long sleeve shirt and gloves. Putting them on wet is hard enough but my hands were so cold it made everything take twice as long as it should have.

Finally on the bike and I immediately hammered it to make up time.

I've never rode this hard in a race and all those threshold rides paid off. For the first time in a race I didn't get passed on the bike. In fact, after the swim I never got passed once the rest of the race. I was almost a full minute faster than last year, which is a lot given it was only just over 12 miles.

T2 was uneventful and I stormed onto the run. The plan was to hold back and let the last mile be my fastest and I executed it perfectly. My first two mile splits were right at 6:30 and my last was 5:58. My total time of 20:04 was a 5K personal best and over a minute faster than last year!

Despite the cold I did have a good time. It's pretty clear I'm not a cold water swimmer and I may need to think about buying a fully sleeved wetsuit.

Smith Mountain Lake Sprint
1:08:10
13th out of 196 men
2nd out of 15 age group
Swim
8:18 - 62 overall/8 Age Group
T1
2:46 - 82 overall/10 Age Group - OUCH!
Bike
36:04 - 16 overall/3 Age Group
Run
20:11 - 10 overall/2 Age Group

These Go To 11 - My SML Preview

It's finally here! Saturday marked my last tough workout before I tackle two straight weekends of racing. First up is the Appalachian Power Spring at Smith Mountain Lake this Saturday and then I follow it up with the Kinetic Half at Lake Anna.

Last week was pretty intense and I broke through some barriers that I didn't expect. I completely surprised myself on Thursday during a 55 minute negative-split run. The way back I went at my upper-tempo or lower threshold pace. I chose the latter and ended up running my fastest ever 5K in the process. Granted, I've only run two stand-alone 5Ks so I didn't have much to base it on. But this was a major indicator that all of the effort I've put in on the run has paid off.

Saturday was my longest brick of the year. It was a 2.5 hour, mixed-intensity, bike session followed up with a 1:15 run. The first six miles of the run were supposed to be at my goal HIM pace and I ended up about 20-30 seconds faster per mile. Whoops. I was consciously telling myself to slow down but my legs had other plans so I just went with it.

So Smith Mountain Lake is this Saturday and it's a race that I've experienced both success and frustration. I've done it twice and each time the swim has not gone as planned. I don't know if it's the cooler water temperature or the beach start, but I've always struggled to get comfortable in the water. This year should be even colder since we can't quite seem to break into spring-time weather. My plan is to do a much longer swim warm-up than I have in the past.

My main goals are to have fun, be safe, and leave it all out on the course. If I do that then I think I'll have a good result since my training has gone so well this year. Coach Jim has certainly cranked it up to 11. There's a reason I've seen the term "threshold" so often in my training.

What I Feel Like When I See The Word "Threshold" In My Cycling Workout Description

Five times 5 minutes at threshold today. Hold on to your butts!

Why I Just Got An EKG

Death in endurance sports is very rare, but it gets a lot of attention. Last year it seemed like each weekend I would read about a death that occurred during a triathlon - and 99% of them happened during the swim. Why?

Well, I'm not a doctor but I play one on the internet. Seriously, though, there are probably a million reasons and I imagine that each case is drastically different. Dan Empfield at Slowtwitch addresses the issue in a series of articles.

And that leads me to today and the first "physical" I've had since I was a teenager. This is something that I've put off for too long, which isn't anything "macho" but more like stupidity. I checked out just fine but requested an EKG. My doctor understood where I was coming from but still took the time to explain to me what would it would mean (time and $$$) if something suspicious looking was actually found. Mainly he was concerned that I would have to go through a battery of tests that took a lot of time and the end result would be that I was still okay. I elected to do it anyway, just for peace of mind. By the way, he guessed the actual cost of an EKG is about $120 so even if my insurance is a POS and doesn't pick up the tab, I can handle it.

My EKG - it's all good.

Just because my EKG and physical came out find doesn't mean I won't be cautious. I'll still do a solid warm-up both prior to my regular workouts and races. I'll still eat a balance diet (although it might be heavy at times on beer and bourbon).

With that done I'd like to go train except it looks like the North Pole outside. Seriously, it's April 4! Since I took the picture below about 5 minutes ago my track in the sidewalk are already covered.

WTF? It's April!