Candy Cane City 5km Race

I finally got under 21 minutes for a 5 km race. There’s not really much you can write about for a 5 km race. You run fast and try to keeping running that fast the whole time which you can see in the pace and heart rate charts of the race.

 

Prerace:

Winter is getting here, there was a little bit of frost hanging around this morning

Just finishing my warm-up:

Obviously I wasn’t very nervous before the race:

The only thing of note from the race was I went out at a fast pace but that was by design. The course is very narrow at the start and I didn’t want to boxed in and forced to weave through people so I went out fast and then settled into my pace.

This pictures illustrates what I am talking about.

And this is why I wanted to be up at the front so I didn’t have to run through this:

And here are some more race pictures:

 

I finished with a time right around 20:40 which is a big PR for me, and about a 6:38 min/mile pace and way under 21 minutes. I am excited because I’m seeing results from the run focus I have been doing with my training the last few weeks. The way things are going I think getting close to a 20 minute 5 km at a Thanksgiving race is definitely doable.

I think this post race picture does a good job of explaining what it feels like at the end of a 5 km race.

I went biking later in the afternoon and got ANOTHER flat tire. That’s 3 flat tires in my last four rides after only have one flat tire in two years of riding. 

Breeders Cup

The Breeders Cup is this weekend at Santa Anita, I’m very excited.

After I run my 5k race tomorrow morning I might make a stop on the way home and place some bets on the Breeders Cup Classic and Turf Race that take place at the end of the day.

If you aren’t familiar with the horse racing this weekend of races is a big deal. The triple crown (Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont) that takes place in the spring is a series of races for three year olds and are the most well know races but the Breeders Cup is just as big of a deal. It’s two days of horse racing, unlike the triple crown which focuses on a single race the Breeders Cup spans ever class of horse racing with some of the biggest purses of the year, only one race has a purse less then $1 million. 

1 more swim video

 

I filmed my swim again after my swim on Tuesday and I’m defiantly noticing a lot of improvements. My times are all dropping and from looking at the video I think my stroke is much improved from where it was when I first saw it a few weeks ago.

More Swimming Videos

More swim videos from today. I took these at the end of my workout. I had a good quick 2,000 yard swim at lunch today, most sets were 1:35 per 100 yards.

After the first set of videos I tried  keeping my elbow closer to my body during the pull and it looks a little bit better but I think the underlying problem is not enough rotation while I’m swimming. I tried to exaggerate my rotation but it doesn’t look that different.  

Trail Run

I went on a quick trail run after work today and took along my new digital camera and took some pictures and videos while I was running.

 

I went back to the camera user’s manual and looks like it has a shock reduction setting for both movies and pictures that I’ll have to try out next time.

I also tried some video of me running. I thought I was holding the camera steady and keeping it pointed at the trail but I obviously didn’t and the results turned like the Blair Witch Project.

New Toy

I got myself a new toy this week. A Pentax Option W80 digital camera.

I have been looking for a waterproof/shockproof camera that I could stick in my back pocket to take pictures on my bike rides without having to worry about it and use to look at my swim stroke. I was leaning towards getting a cannon Powershot D10 but after seeing it in person it is a gigantic camera so I decided to go with the Pentax. It looks just like a regular digital camera.

I haven’t used it much this week because it’s been raining and I’m still getting over the flu so I don’t know much about the picture quality or some of the features but here are two pictures I took in the car on the way home.

But the main reason I wanted to get the camera was to see what my swimming stroke looks like, so here it is. This is me swimming at a relatively easy pace, I would guess it was about 1:45 per 100 yards. I;m thinking my stroke would look a little bit different if I was swimming at a “fast” pace.

Above water, it is very humid at the pool so I think that’s the reason for some of the fog.

Below water, it took  me a couple of times to get the camera in the right spot to capture me swimming. I have one sequence showing the ceiling for a minute and one minute showing pool tiles.

It’s interesting to actually see what swim stroke looks like because what it feels like I’m doing and what I am actually doing are not the same. Just looking at my two videos I noticed a couple of things, it’s seem like my head gets very deep in the water sometimes, my arms look very flat going into the water from the pool deck shot, and my arms swing out way too wide on the pull.

Here is a neat little animation of the freestyle stroke I look at every now and then to see what it should look like.

Giant Acorn Double

I capped off triathlon season number two last weekend with the Giant Acorn Olympic Distance and Sprint triathlon in Bumpass VA.  Just like the Giant Acorn last year and the Rumpass in Bumpass from this spring I stayed with family while there.

Overall(2:25:53, 60 overall, 6 AG)

Saturday was the Olympic distance. This is the same course as in the spring and I really wanted to see some improvement to end the season and I was happy to shave about 4 minutes off my total time.

Swim(28:12, 115 Overall)

I this was one of my best Olympic distance swim so. I made an effort to swim hard but and was actually swimming faster then what my time indicates because I had some major navigational issues on the third leg swimming back to the dock, I was out very wide for most of the time and had to go somewhat sideways to get back on course.

 

The problem was this leg was looking back into the sun and the tent that I was sighting off wasn’t in line with the finish like I thought it was. You can see the white tent in the picture below, it obviously is not the finish line. In fact the lead pack swam off course and went to the tip of the peninsula instead of the dock. Oh and we had to swim around the dock and hop up to the pier because obviously it was broken.

T1(1:36, 71 Overall)

It took a second to remember what row I was in but once I did I had another fairly quick transition. I also took the time to put on socks.

Bike(1:05:06 35 overall)

I would consider this a solid bike leg. Really I rode the 24 miles  sub 1:04:00 because the bike time included the run from T1 out to the road and back when you finished. The goal for this ride was to go at 250 watts and keep things nice and steady. I did exactly that and wound up with 247 watts and an average speed of 22.4 mph. Unfortunately my Garmin decided to lose the file so I don’t have any of the power data. This was about 10 seconds slower then the spring but it felt a lot easier.

T2(1:20, 109 overall)

I didn’t have elastic laces on my shoes so I had to take the time to tie them but I didn’t waste to much time in transitions. This winter I plan to work on the flying dismount to see if I can save additional time.

Run(49:41, 86 overall)

This is where I need to make a lot of improvement this winter. There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to run a 44-45 minute triathlon 10k.

This is actually a tough run course, it’s two laps on some "rolling" country roads and the road has a big slant to it in a couple of places.

Then I spent some time relaxing in the lake.

 

 

Next up was the sprint on Saturday morning.

Overall(1:09:45, 27 Overall, 2 AG)

This race is on a similar course to one I did last fall, the run course is harder on this one but it’s close enough to compare to last year. This is far and away the best race I have ever had. Maybe I should do a warm-up race the day before more often.

Swim(11:36, 36 Overall, 5 AG)

This was a breakthrough swim for me. I lined up near the front and went hard from the start. I was able to stay with what I think was the second pack of swimmers and I felt like I was going hard the whole way and didn’t let up. The swim course interesting. I was similar to Saturday but the turns were sooner. In an effort to make the course more spectator friendly the organizers put one of the buoys to close to the piers and i guess the water depth changed with tide but it got so shallow in the middle of the swim that it was quicker to run for about 15 yards or so.

 

This part was actually really phone, I was running along and then did some dives to get swimming again. Using my knowledge from yesterday I took a much better line for the last leg of the swim and saved myself some time by coming in right at the dock. I am very, very happy with this swim, it comes at to around 1:25 per 100 yards which means I worked hard and took advantage of the gains I get with wetsuit. Compared to last year this is 2-3 minutes and about 100 places better.

This is a funny sequence of shots I would like to share that show what happens when people decide they don’t want to swim in the same directions as everyone else.

 

 

T1(1:12, 24 Overall, 3 AG)

I felt like I had a good swim and to save my self some time I decided to go without socks so that is where the 20 second improvement for Saturday came from.

Bike(33:22, 20 Overall, 1 AG)

Another solid bike ride, I wanted to put in a solid ~275 watt ride but after a few minutes I knew that wasn’t going to happen because my legs felt a little drained after yesterday so I toned it down and finished up was 260 watt average. There was a decent amount of wind out on the course so that is why the speed didn’t go  up as much for the increase in watts.

In terms of the actual ride it was interesting, I beat the people I swimming with out of transition so I didn’t see them on the course. I did catch someone who came out of transition right ahead of me on the first downhill and within the first two-three miles I passed a couple of swimmers . I got re-passed by the transition person around mile 5 and I kept him in sight for most of the ride but there was No One else on the course until around mile 9-10 mile when I saw two people up the road who I eventually passed.

T2(1:00 60 Overall, 9 AG)

I found out why there was nobody else on the course when getting back to transition I hear the announcer say "we have just had the last of the top 5 into transition" I counted one person ahead of me so I was in about 6-7th off the bike. Kind of neat. Again I forgot where my bike was and went down the wrong isle so I ducked under a rack to get to my bike and lost of couple of seconds. I went with the old Asics that have the elastic laces for this run so I saved a couple of seconds. 

Run(22:38 44 Overall, 5 AG)

The run course was one loop of the Saturday course except you went out of the marina on the grass instead of the road. There isn’t much to say about the 5k run. You just go out and run hard.

Just like the bike course the run course was empty and I saw mountain bike for the leader right before the turnaround and he recognized from Saturday and said hi. I only got passed once and for the last half of the run I just kept someone insight and stayed on their shoulder.

Post Race

I watched my little cousin while Aunt successfully first triathlon.

Oh and I won a prize for getting second in my age group. This was a great weekend to cap of triathlon season #2

 

So far I have done four races at this location and is a great place to have a race. The swim is close enough to the pier spectators can see everything and the water is warmer then normal because of the Nuclear plant so it makes it a great place for early and late season races. The bike course is on nice road with just enough rolling terrain to make it interesting. The run course has changed a couple times but if the race directors are able to get their new plan in place by next year it would make this race even cooler. The plan is to  be able run on the damn out and back as the run course. I included a picture of it below as seen from the pier, it would make for some nice views and cool pictures.

Flat tires and Alpacas

For my Saturday ride I went out early to get ahead of the afternoon rain. I did my Middletown ride which includes a climb with a couple of very steep sections, it tops out at 15% in the first section, and 12.5% at the end.

 

I find that climbs like this that are short and steep are a lot harder for me then longer more gradual climbs like along skyline drive.

I was having a very good ride until about 30 miles in when I got a flat on my front tire and I almost crashed going around a corner. I got the tire changed and went riding again. It turns out I also had a flat on rear wheel. Which sucked because I only brought one spare tube with me so I pumped it back up and rode back with a semi-flat tire. I think what happened was I hit a pothole at high speed and it caused a “pinch” flat in both wheels were the tube gets stuck on the rim and punctures. This is probably what happened because when I got home I took both tires off and looked for any debris or cuts and didn’t find any. I decided to change the tires to a pair I had sitting around the garage anyway and I haven’t had any trouble since.

I have been very happy with biking the last couple of weeks, and where my power numbers are at. I have put in a lot of miles and a ton of climbing so I’m excited to see how this translates to my race this weekend where I doing an Olympic distance race on Saturday and a spring on Sunday.

There is an Alpaca farm near Frederick that I also drive by and they had an open house so I stopped by to see what they look like up close. They are some hideous looking animals.

 

They are very docile as evident by little kids running around with them and that they are very friendly with feeding.

Alpacas are a lot like sheep because their main function is for wool. They had some things for sale at the open house so I might go back in a couple of days and get some Alpaca gloves.

Skyline Drive

I went biking on Skyline drive in Front Royal, VA on Friday. All I can say is WOW! That was an awesome bike ride. I’m kind of upset I didn’t got there earlier this summer. I got there really early in the morning and there was not a lot of car traffic, I think I saw more cyclists then cars but later in the day when I was done the park was starting to get crowded. I could see if being a bit of hassle if you went ride on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

I rode an out and back loop for a total of 40 miles.

This is going to be my new computer wallpaper:

Since there isn’t any parking at the entrance to the park I started at the visitors center about 5 miles into the park about 1,000 feet higher then the entrance. I started my ride by descending back to the visitors center and climbing back up instead of getting the large climb at the end of my ride. Really I didn’t think it was a bad climb, just get in the right gear and spin my way up. Having the power meter was nice because I could get a reasonable watts and just stick to that number.

I would consider this my first ride of serious climbing and my descent from the visitors station was fast and chilly, I had on a wind breaker but my teeth were still chattering. Even after the first climb it was still a lot of climbing the rest of the way but it never really got that steep and I was able to keep a good rhythm most of the ride.

While stopping for pictures I forgot to restart my Garmin and because the next few miles were a fast 30+ mph descent I wasn’t looking at my computer so I didn’t notice it for a while. It looks like the software took the last point before I stopped and the point where I started and just interpolated a straight line between the two for all the measures.

Here is an album of pictures that I took along the way.

View Full Album

This was a very cool ride and one I plan to do again. It should get even better as the colors change this fall.

Timberman Triathlon

 

Pre race

Lots of prerace stuff in the days before. The trip to New Hampshire worked out perfectly with my brother returning from school work for the summer in Grenada so the trip to New Hampshire involved a stop at JFK to pick him up.

 

The day before the race was packet pickup at the Gunstock ski resort. On the way there we stopped and picked ups some lobster rolls, yum!

They had the lift open so I went up to the top after getting my race packet. The views were amazing and the lakes region in New Hampshire is gorgeous.

The race took place off to the right off this picture.

Overall (5:43:42, 58 AG, 652 overall)

This was about the result I was expecting given the lack of focus in training post Eagleman. As for the race, the course and surrounding area is beautiful and defiantly worth a trip up here. Logistically it is a bit of a hassle in the morning because there is only one entrance to the park so when it come to race morning the earlier the better.

The community support is great. I saw lots of people cheering on the bike course, and the run course was packed with spectators and themes at all the aid stations. These guys made an appearance at the swim start and also appeared on the run course as well. Why drag? I don’t know but it helped to lighten the mood and relax everyone before the race.

Swim (35:48, 659 Overall)

The race start was delayed by 45 minutes because someone on the bike course had an accident with a deer and police needed to clear out the area. After that got taken of things go going again and went smoothly, I was in the 9th wave so I warmed up for a bit and wondered over to start the race.

The lake for the swim was gorgeous. It was crystal clear and surrounded by mountains with fogs and clouds burning off all morning. Not really much to say about the swim, it was another race with about the same time. I think all my half ironman swims have been within 30 seconds of each other. I guess I am consistent? I lost the main group I was with in the middle of the swim when we caught up to the slower people in the earlier wave so I was putting out more effort then I should have been.

Not me but I thought this was a good picture of what the swim looks like at a big ironman race.

Bike (2:48:02, 20 mph average, 533 overall)

This result was on par with what I was expecting and given what the course actually looked like I am very happy. The first and last ten miles were very hilly. It didn’t look that bad on the course profile but after driving the course and then riding it, there is some climbing.

The middle section is actually very fast and if you are light and climb well you could easily put together a fast time on this course. I don’t climb very fast but I put in the effort that I wanted and kept my watts where they needed to be.

 

Run (2:12:59, 10:10 pace, 847 Overall)

1) I need to run more

2) I need to learn to suck it up and not start walking

That’s really all there is to say about the run.

I made it through the first loop but the second turned into a run/walk/shuffle. I haven’t been running as much I should be so this was expected but it’s always disappointing.

The course it’s self was great, it was two loops along the lake with tons of aid stations and crowd support.

 

Post Race

This was race number 2 for the year that I got my medal from Chrissie Wellington. That’s always a treat, and she seems like a genuinely nice person.

I grabbed some food and sat down. This is me realizing I probably ate too much and I’m not going to be feeling good in a few minutes. We hung out for few minutes, and I went in the lake to cool off for a few minutes.

I got change and we headed out for the 2 hour drive. This is about ten minutes into the car ride back to Keene to drop my brother off at school. I just passed out when my head hit pillow and I think I slept for 10 more hours that night.