Swimming: 8990 yards
Biking: 88 miles, had about 110 planned but the crash cut one ride short
Running: 18 miles, crash also cut out about 4 miles of planned running
I also had an olympic distnace race and came in second in my age group. Next week I start my taper for the Ironman Rhode Island 70.3 race.
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Olympic Distance: (1500 m swim, 24 mile bike, 10 k run)
Summary: (2nd Place in AG, 55/160 Men 2:34:17) I had a decent race the goal was to go really hard on the bike and see if I could hold on for the run.
Prerace: The race was a general smallwood park which is southof DC on the Maryland side and has a little cove that has access to the Potomac River. I stayed down near the race in La PlataMD I was familiar withthe area from Baseball tournaments. My brother stayed in the hotel with me and my parents drove to see the race Sunday morning.
The prerace was uneventful. I got there set up my transitionarea found a bathroom and headed down to the swim start.
Swim (30:07, 82nd)
The water was 85 degrees so no wet suits. I got in andwarmed up for little bit. I saw someone with an NC State swim cap and those fancy full leg swimsuits. I recognized him from the ACC swimming championships that were at Georgia Tech over the winter. Turns out he was part of a relay team and swam an 18:00 1500m, and was about 3 minutes faster then the next person.
Everyone walked down to the dock and jumped in for a “deep water” start. This was my first time doing this everyother swim I have done was either a beach start or in a pool.
I was a little disappointedwith this time I was hoping to swim a 28 or so. I just had a hard time getting into a rhythm anddidn’t do a great job sighting again. The course was a triangle that you swam around twice. Coming back toward the pier on the last leg of the triangle there was a lot of hydrilla which is like a sea grass. It wasn’t as bad as this picture but it was enough that you actually had to fight to get through some of if and it messed wit my rhythm.
I think I need to push a little harder when I am swimming because I didn’t really feel that tired or that I was working hard. Like usual I need to improve the sighting andstaying with a good rhythm.
T1 (3:20, 61rst)
Once out of the water there was about a 10th of a mile or so run to the transition area. I also took the time to put some socks because of my cut on my ankle from the crash so I figured I would try to avoid any rubbing on that.
Bike (1:07:08, 18th)
This was what I was really focusing on. My GPSunit actually measured the course at just short of 25 miles which is an average of 22.3 mph. The course was fairly flat with a couple of little hills. I was really happy with this time. As you can see from the picture I got myself some new race wheels and one of those aero helmets. I wish I was on the aerobars in this picture but I was right near the transition area and the guy in front of me was trying to do the take the shoes off while biking dismount and was all over the place so I backed off to give him so room.
Overall a great bike race. One issue I had was hydration and calorie intake. I had the water bottles behind the saddle because I don’t like the aero bottle that I have. To get my drink I had to come out of the aerobars and slow down a lot. Also I didn’t bring any gels which wasn’t a good decision. This would come back to get me on the run.
T2 (1:02, 43)
Not much going on was fairly quick
Run (52:48 92)
The first mile and half sucked. My legs felt like garbage. After a few miles I started to feel better and ran the last mile fast. The spikes are from when I stopped to walk at the aids stations and get in some fluids.
I think the fact I didn’t eat and drink enough on the bike hurt me some on the run but given how I felt being able to run this time was good.
Postrace
I thought I hadn’t come in the top 3 in the ag because I saw two people in 20-24 AG pass me early on the run andI figured I wasn’t the first one out on the run course. It turns out they were both doing the sprint race and I wound up in second.
We stuck around for about an hour until the awards. It was actually a neat award it was a chair with the race logo on the back.
I am really glad I was able to do this race before Rhode Island because I learned what it’s going to be like to run on tired legs, you don’t get that in the sprint races. I also saw how important nutrition is going to be.
I starting to reduce my training volume and taper down over the next two weeks for the 1/2 IM race.
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I had my first bike crash on Friday. It was bound to happen, it’s just part of riding.
I was out doing what was suppose to be a 45 miler as rehearsal for the Rhode Island race. I was 20 miles into the ride and turned onto Bealesville road. They had just started doing a repaving project and were tearing the road up and were only done with the right side of the road.
I was on that road for about a mile, going slowly because it was bumpy. I came up to one of the flag guys for the one lane traffic. He had me go down the right, unpaved side and said I should go down that side until I run into the workers.
I went down the road for about another half mile and ran into the paving machine, I went to go to the left and was completely oblivious to the fact that paved half of the road was about a 1-2 inches higher then the unpaved side.
My wheels got stuck on the low side and I fell on my left side and skidded on my hip. Luckily I was only going about 10-12 mph so It could have been worse. I got myself back up and started peddling, everything on my bike was fine but I had some bleeding so I went home.
I cleaned up and checked out my bike, it looked fine but I took into the triathlon store anyway and they said it was alright. One of the bottle holders on the back got deformed and the left pedal and side of the handlebar has scratches but that’s it. I got really luck there was no damage.
Here is my hand and ankle from today.
Those don’t look to bad and I got home and wiped those down. I felt some buring below my left hip and thought I wonder what that is. Thisis what it was.
The one my hip looks bad but it doesn’t hurt that much I was actually able to go riding on Saturday and I had a race today
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Poolesville had been in the news a little bit lately.
Extreme Makeover Home Edition is in town for the week. They are filming the fall season premiere in town. The story behind it is actually pretty interesting. The Felicia Jackson who is having the home makeover has a family of 15 living under one roof. She has 4 kids of her own. She and her sister were placed in different foster care homes when they were young and finally reunited about 5 years ago. Her sister wound up getting cancer and passing away. Felicia adopted all of her sisters ten children and now has a household of 15.
A Sophmore from Poolesville high school qualifired for the olympic trials in swimming. She is part of the RMSC swim club which has about a dozen kids going to the Olympic trials. When I was at the Germantown Aquatic Center this morning the part of the team not at the trials was working out. Wow those kids are fast.
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I ride the ferry to work everyday. The mornings I go swimming I am usually out the door by 5am and on the ferry by 5:15 so there are not a lot of other cars, I’m usually by myself. Sometime I am even the first ride of the day.
This morning I am going across and about half way the ferry man (they don’t like when you call them that) came and got my ticket. He then went back towards the booth and started smoking like he usually does.
I was watching him in my side mirror and he is looking over the side of the ferry very intently. He walks to the throttle and turns the engine off. I am curious what’s going on at this point. Next he hops right over the side railing.
If you didn’t ride the ferry often you’d think he just jump right in the Potomac. He was actually leaning on the engine off to the side. What he was doing was removing a stick from one of the pulleys that probably got lodged overnight.
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Swimming: 7,800 yards
Biking: 113 miles
Running: 21 miles
This was a very good week. I got back to the levels I was at before the ankle injury. I haven’t lost a whole lot of speed or endurance.
Highlights:
Swimming 2,000 yard time trial on Friday, felt really good
Biking: 52 miler on Saturday with a short run afterwards, again felt really good.
Running: I started doing some of the workouts from the training program I m going to use for my marathon. I did a track workout, a tempo run, and fairly fast long run. All the workouts were very focused and I think I am going to like that for the marathon training.
Overall a great week, I have one more hard week before I start tapering for the Rhode Island race.
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Teen pregnancy pact. I don’t really understand this one.
I heard about this story Friday morning and find it interesting because it brings up a lot of sensitive issues. I have watched some of the news shows on CNN, etc… This is who the ‘expert’ guests believe are at fault:
How about this one. Some people are not doing a good job parenting. Not much more to it then that. But at least none of the parents tried to name their children this.
A fallout of the story is the school’s doctor resigned/was fired because he was giving out birth control to some of the girls that came in after a string of twenty or more pregnancy tests in a matter of a week or two. That brings up the question of schools teaching and offering protection to students. This resulting in my favorite news quote.
A women was on CNN as an ‘expert’ and was asked about the teaching of protection. Her response; “It really wouldn’t have mattered in this case, these girls wanted to get pregnant. They would not have used condoms if they fell off the condom and landed in their lap.”
Hilarious.
I could totally be an ‘expert’ guest on some show. All you have to do is say something insightful/sarcastic/funny and just look good. I know enough about some issues to form a good opinion and I’ve got plenty of practice at the last part because that’s what I did at Georgia Tech.
‘Just sit in the back of meeting and look good’ I’m an expert at that.
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Summary:
This was a really short race that I wanted to use to test out my ankle it was a 250 yard swim, 4 mile bike, and 1.4 mile run. I was 13th out of ~330 and 3rd in 20-24 Age group in a time of 27:18. I found this race on-line and based on last years times I thought I might have a chance to win. My time was 30 seconds faster then lasts years winner but I guess 12 other people had the same idea I did. This makes it 3 straight top 3 age group finishes for me.
Prerace:
The race was at the Prince William Campus of George Mason University. It’s a nice little campus. We got there about a half hour before the start and went and got the body marking numbers done without much hassle. I got to the transition area to rack my bike and was surprised to see how low the racks were. It should look like this.
But the race director didn’t set them up correctly so could rack the bike by the seat. What I had to do was use a piece of string and tie my on by the stem. This would cost me some trying to put it back after the bike leg.
Swim (250 yards 4:24, 63th)
This picture sums up the swim well. I haven’t race a 250 but I probably should have been able to swim this in about 3:50 or 3:45. Since it was a pool swim they started everyone 5 seconds apart and you went up one lane and back down the next. Since I signed up after on-line registration was closed they had already seeded everyone by swim time so instead of being the 20th or so person in the pool there were only about 10 people after me. There was a lot of doggy paddling and breast stroking going on in this speed of swimmer and I had to do a lot of passing. I felt kinda bad bumping into a lot of people who you could tell it was their first race and they hadn’ been in the pool in a really long time. I lost time and wasted a lot of energy passing people I was disappointed I had to go off the back of the race but that’s what I get for signing up late.
Bike (13:24, 7th, included both transitions with long run from pool to bike so actual bike time was about 10-11 minutes)
Thetransition was a long run from the pool out to the bikes. I got on my bike and got going. It was a 4 mile race so I just hammered it the entire way. This was the first race with my new bike and it felt great. The course made a 1/2 star like shape and had 3 U-Turns so there was a lot of slowing and picking back up speed. There was a slightly downhill section were kept up 30 mph for a long time. I was worried about safety on the course because I was one of the last one out but it turned out to be alright. I average about 24-25 mph and given the slowdown for the turnarounds I am happy with that.
there’s me running back in to transition with my bike. My brother is in the blue. I had trouble getting my bike racked and actually had to lie it down on it’s side, that cost a couple more seconds.
Run (9:31, 28th)
Not a whole lot going on with the run It was an out and turnaround route. I was trying to break ten minutes so I’m happy with that. Just the like the bike I sprinted from the start and tried to hold on. I tried to turn it up a notch the last quarter mile but just didn’t have it today.
Post-Race:
Stuck around to pick up my award. Before the awards ceremony They had two kids (probably 4-8 years old) duathlons were they ran around the parking lot, biked and then ran again. It was really funny to see becasue they had to do the run with helmets on and some these kids were getting competitive.
As a note the kid that won broke 25 minutes which is fast. He was total ringer though. He competed in the ITU Junior World Championships a couple weeks and I think he was in town to visit family this weekend and did the race.
Overall this was a fun race and is a good way for lots of people to get into triathlons and see how much fun it can be. I was a little disappointed with the swim but that’s my fault, if it fits in my schedule I would probably do this race again next year.
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I really like what Nike has done with their ads lately. The SPARQ ads are really fun to watch, it’s essentially I work as my ass and I’m gonna kick yours so you better watch out.
The other thing they do a good job of is the timing of their ads. This ran last night when I was watching the US Open.
What makes the timing great is the fact Tiger is coming back from a knee injury and this is his first tournament since surgery, he hasn’t competed in about 3 months. You could clearly see since the first day that his knee was bothering him. Then halfway though his third round he makes a swing and you can see it buckle and he is extraordinary pain.
Tiger regroups mentally and has an amazing birdie, eagle finish to take the lead at the end of the third round. He is clearly favoring his knee and adjusts his swing to try and ease the pain but you can see the discomfort on his face after every swing.
Where you really see the mental toughness is the in the post round press conference. Quotes from his competitors where mostly “I’ve got to play my best round tomorrow to have a chance” and others along that line. It’s almost like everyone else has decided they are playing for second place.
Here’s a sportscenter highlight that summarizes everything.
The difference was Tiger Woods attitude. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes and could make some better decisions.” When asked about his knee hurting during the swing he was honest in saying yes it’s getting worse, “It hurts but not when I’m making the swing only after I’ve hit the ball so I just need to block it out and make swing. I don’t know if it will be after a wedge or a driver so I just need to block it out.”
He just keeps competing making adjusts and there’s no doubt in his mind he is going to get it done. If he holds on to win, the end of last night’s round will go down golf history and you will be seeing these clips over and over again.
By the way he’s 13 for 13 going into the final round of a major when leading or tied for the lead.
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I think I gave myself heat exhaustion this weekend. I am not very bright.
As you probably know it’s been really hot all weekend and early this week.
These were my workouts Saturday through this morning.
Saturday: 5 mile run, mid 90′s
Sunday: 45 mile bike including climb of Sugarloaf mountain. I tried get out really early to beat the heat but didn’t get going until abut 7:30 so it was going to be hot. The gas station we were going to stop at halfway through the ride did not open until 9 am so I only had half a water bottle for the last 20 miles, not much fun.
Monday: Hard swim in the AM. Afternoon hard 15 mile bike ride in high 90′s degree weather. I got to the end of ride and realized I hadn’t drank anything. Not a good thing.
Tuesday: AM run of ~4 miles, somewhere in the 80′s didn’t bring a water bottle, again not a smart choice.
After I got my coffer this morning and drove to work. I got to work and at about 10:00 I had some cracker for a snack and 10 minutes later I started feeling horrible. I was really dehydrated and felt like I was getting ready to just pass out from exhaustion, not kind from being tired from lack of sleep but just no energy.
I wasn’t feeling good all morning and felt like I had a knot in my stomach. I went over to wholefoods to get Tums like medicine. I also picked up some lunch and brought that back to eat. I started taking a bite or two of sandwich and had to stop. I waited a couple more minutes and then tried to eat some more because I thought it might help give me some energy with no success.
After a quick dash to see my lunch again I figured it was time to go home. At least I got to the bathroom and didn’t have to use my trash can. I got home and slept for about 3 hours.
Warning signs of heat exhaustion include:
8 1/2 out of 10 is not bad. I think I got it nailed down what it is. I still have a really bad headache, and feel dehydrated and exhausted but I am feeling better.
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