2008 Philly Marathon

I ran the Philly marathon yesterday. At most I wanted to beat my time from last year, but secretly I was still aiming to go 3:30. Well it didn't go the way I planned, but I guess nothing really does.

After months of training I got through all my workouts and started my taper, then I caught a nasty bug. I tried to train through it but it just drained all the energy from me. A week and a half before the marathon, I finally went to the doctors and was prescribed anti-biotic to help. It got to the point that I din't run for about 2 weeks and had aches and pains till about 5 days before the race.  

But then being the Genius I am, I decided that all this illness happened during my taper and I should still be fit enough to meet my goal since I did all my workouts. I also got a few personal best during my training, so I knew I was fitter than last year. Well it doesn't work that way. 

I started the marathon feeling good. I couldn't get to my corral since the streets were just packed with people. I guess with 18,000 people, what would you expect. I started in corral 6 with the 4 hour pace group, so I figured I was on my own for pacing. I think I did a pretty good job of pacing since I made it though the first half at about 1:44 min and mile 15 in 2 hours. 

I knew I was in trouble though when I started to feel some fatigue at about mile 13.  I lost my 1 min buffer in just 2 miles. I kept running till about mile 16, then I couldn't keep it up anymore. Somewhere around there I saw Jan. He tapped me on the shoulder and told me he was doing a walk break at every mile. I should have stuck with him and started on walk breaks a little earlier. Instead I though I could push through and ended up really paying for it later.  After a while Jan caught up with me at the bridge to Manayunk and I took his advice to just forget about the race and just try to enjoy the time outside. So the rest of the race was doing a 1 min walk and run 1 min intervals. I was doing pretty good and tried to keep the pace to about 10 to 11 min/miles, until the mile 23 water station. It was very icy because the water on the ground was freezing up. Well I slipped and fell on the ground and a few of the Volunteers had to help me up. At this point I was barely able to walk now I'm on the ground. After they got me up, they would not let me go on and kept asking me if I was Okay. After a few min assuring them I was Okay to finish the race they finally let me continue. I know they were just doing their job and I'm really grateful for it even if I didn't show it at the time. What would you expect, I felt like crap and still had 3.2 miles to go and on top of that the 4 hour mark was still within reach.

I finally made it to the finish line and was so glad to just make it. I didn't break the 4 hour mark, but I am happy with my time considering. I knew it just was not my day. I will get this marathon thing down someday. I have a whole lot more years to keep trying. There is always next year. Speaking of next year, that will be the last year where my Boston qualifying time will be 3:15, I get an extra 5 min after next year. whoo hooo!!!

After getting home from the marathon, I found I had to go to work since I am on an project with a fast approaching deadline. I showed up to work and stayed there till about 7PM. The one good thing that came out of it is I am now know as the guy who showed up to work after running the marathon. 

I also found out that Garmin connect has a cool new player. Gives stats and everything as you re-play the race. Here is my 2008 Philly Marathon version:

http://connect.garmin.com/player/1415732

I think I will go for a swim on Wednesday. I've been dying to swim for a few weeks now. I kind of like having no workout structure and just doing what I feel like. Well I'll do this till at least Feburary, then I start training for the Half Ironman.  Now that's gona be fun.

The Philly Distance Run Half Marathon

Well, we did it. Not a new personal best, but close. Only off by a few minutes. Kristine did very well considering not tapering and running a 20 miler last week. The weather was perfect. It was a bit too sunny for me and I could have used a little more cloud cover in some areas, but great over all. 

 

The race started at about 7:45AM so we had to be there by 7:00 because of the walk to the start. Kristine is not a morning person. It was best to stay away from here till we get

to the start line.:) We ran with Kristine’s friend Monica. This was her first half marathon. They are both training for the Full marathon this November and will be running it together.

 

Here are some of the pictures I took while running. I carried a camera and a backpack full of cold water in a camelback bladder.  This worked out perfect because some of the water stations were out of water. For some reason now I am more comfortable running with a backpack. It keeps my shoulders back and my chest open, great for my breathing. I noticed this when I would run to work every other day with a backpack.  Some of the pictures are a little blurry as I was running backwards while taking them.

 

The funniest part of the race was at the end. At about mile 12.5 I sprinted to the finish line so I can get Kristine and Monica’s picture as they cross the line. I told them to run under the clock because they were on pace to break 2 hours (clock time) even with starting way back in coral number 9. I get to the finish line and positioned myself a few meters from the line to get ready to take the picture. As I did this some of the volunteers were asking me to please keep moving. I looked around and there were a lot of people around me who were hunched over out of breathe and looking they’re ready to puke.  I thought it was funny how the volunteers did not bother them. So, I hunched over and pretended I was out of breath and ready to puke too. Well they left me alone and I was able to snap a shot as they cross the finish line.

 

This is really a fun run and the finisher medal always looks awesome. Next year I definitely want to go for the heavy medal. I think Virginia Beach is closest race of the Rock and Roll series to get the Heavy Medal.  

The Steelman Triathlon

What a way to finish out my first Triathlon season. After my last Olympic distance triathlon, I was not expecting to do much better. This course had a hillier bike ride and the swim portion was not wet suit legal. The only thing I had going for me was the weather was perfect. It was nice, a bit chilly and low humidity. It was actually chillier out of the water than in. 

I got there at about 6 AM. The line of cars to get into the park was long. I ended up jumping out of the car with my bag and bike and riding about a mile to the transition area while my wife waited in the traffic. While setting up, I met up with Jan who was on the same rack. As I was unpacking my wetsuit, the announcement about the race not being wetsuit legal came on the loud speaker. This was great; my first non-wetsuit open water swim is going to be during this race. 

After setting up my transition area, I went to do some swim warm-ups. The water felt comfortable and actually warmer than the ambient temperature. After I exited the water I met up with Jan. And a little later my wife found us. We watched as the first and second waves went off and I then entered the water a little after that. As the starter signaled the start, I just took of at a comfortable pace. I was feeling good and just tried to maintain a comfortable pace. I ended up with a 35 min swim time. I definitely need to work some more on the swim during the off season. I must have been zigzagging in open water as I could usually do the 1500 meter comfortably in the pool in about 30 min. I did 33min in Philly and that was with my goggles getting knocked off in the last few hundred meters of the swim. I know I had the wet suit in Philly but … excuses excuses. Oh well, either way it is a big improvement from January where I couldn’t even swim 25 yards without being out of breath. If only that lifeguard at the Y who gave me swimming tips at the pool when he saw I couldn’t make it across the 25 yards could see me now.

 

 

As I exited the water, the boat ramp was a little slippery; luckily one of the volunteers caught me as I slipped when I started to run up the ramp. I finally made it to T1 and as I expected the rack was half empty. My T1 was a little long as I struggled to put my socks on. I will have to work on getting it to under a minute (Goal for next year). I finally got my shoes on and headed out to the bike mounting line. The exit out of the marina was a long steep hill. Yet, another thing I need to work on for next year. Hills just kill me, it took me almost 2 miles after the hill just to get my HR back under control. Then finally after getting back into my rhythm I notice my seat was loose. I know I should have not played with it the night before in the hotel. I must have not tightened it all the way as I was adjusting the tilt. In a way, it was a good thing as it restricted the amount of effort I could put on the bike. My heart rate stayed relatively low and I still achieved my goal of 75 min on the bike. Still 30 sec faster than Philly and this was a hillier course.

 

As I entered the marina, I was flying down the hill and trying to avoid the people who were slowing down. It gets kind of hairy as there were lots of people going different speeds. I entered T2 and saw that the bike rack was still half empty. This made me feel good as I knew that I made up some time from the long swim. I got out of T2 in under a minute. Whoo Hoooo!!! New T2 personal best ;)  I had to slow myself down at the start of the run. I always tend to run too fast of the bike. I finally got into my grove at about mile 2. I was fine and felt good for the next 2 miles. At mile 5 I saw Kristine cheering me on from the side of the trails. Then it all hit me at once. My stomach started feeling funny and I started to feel Nauseous. I ended up running to the side of the road and vomiting all the contents of my stomach. So much for taking in fluids and nutrition, it’s all on the ground now. A funny thing went through my mind as several racers came to my aid. Before the race started, the race director made an announcement about helping out other racers if you see them in trouble. This was due to the recent death during the New Jersey Triathlon a few weeks ago. The racer who stops to help out gets a free entry to next year’s race. I know everyone was stopping to make sure I was alright regardless of the free entry, but it made me think how of many free entries the directory would have to give to these people, at least 5. I told them I was alright and most of them went on. For some reason after this I felt better. I started to jog back with the 2 people who stayed around and eventually started running again. The funny thing is that I eventually caught up to the others who stopped to help me. I was feeling good and finished strong.

I was surprised at my at my total time as I bettered my Philly Tri time by 10 min. and I beat my self imposed goal by 8 min. even after all the set backs. I’m really happy with the results and kind of glad I completed my first triathlon season on a high note. I still have some relatively easy improvements I can work on. Now I know what to work on during the off season and have some great realistic goals for next season. Now I start training for my last “A” race of the year the Philly marathon. My goal is just to beat my time from last year. 

 

Bike Part:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/539243

Run Part:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/539163

 

The Half Century Ride

Well I did my first 50 miler this weekend. Well, it was actually fun. I went and explored some routes I found on motionbased and used my Garmin 305 as a compass.












This thing is amazing. I put waypoints in Training Center to mark where to turn and uploaded the whole course into my Garmin 305. I used both compass and map mode to help navigate though the course. It was really helpful because not all the roads are clearly marked and around the pine barrens street signs are not easily visible.











The map layout also tells you if you go off course, which is very cool. There was a place near the 30 mile mark where I missed a turn and the Garmin started beeping telling me I’m off course. The map then showed where I was and how far I was off the course. You can see where I did a little u-turn to get back on course on the map.

I downloaded a route that the local bike shop used for their group ride. This was a nice route and apparently the same route as the ACS Bike-a-thon used this weekend for their century ride. It was a rolling course with mostly nice newly paved roads, but there were also the pot holes and gravel you needed to watch for in some areas. I did it solo this time as the group that does this route are all class A/B riders. I wanted to know if I could maintain the 19+ MPH through out the route. Well surprisingly I did.

I’m not sure why I haven’t done this before. It was really fun and I could have kept going, but I ran out of liquids. I was carrying 2 bottles, Aero drink and a 16 ounce on the frame. I was hydrating a lot as it was war and humid, but I guess I am getting used to it as the heat and humidity did not bother me. Just needed to make sure to stay hydrated. I defifntly need to find a safer way to take gels on the bike. I ordered the Hammer Gel Flask from REI and hopefully this will help. Well next goal is go with the group ride and see is I can “hang” with them then I will see if I can go 75 miles next.
Here is the Garmin Connect record of the Ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/339015

Not sure why I didn’t start this type of riding sooner. I was so relaxed on the ride that I was able to do a long run the next day. I’m looking to breaking the century ride before the end of the year.

Official pictures from the Philadelphia Triathlon have been released. Well, what a difference a few miles make. I think this running picture was taken at about mile 2. I was still smiling and giving the thumbs up. I can’t believe how much thing changed in a matter of minutes. I went from this smiling feeling good to the almost about to collapse picture Kristine took by the finish line.


Here are some cool Bike shots. Kristine had a hard time taking pictures of me on the bike because she never knew when I would be passing by, and when I did it was too late. It looks like my setup is pretty good in the aero position. I wish I had a shot from the side so I can see the angle of my back, but I think it looks good from this picture.

The Olympic Distance Triathlon

Well, I finished my first Olympic Triathlon. In my opinion, that was the hardest race I have done yet. I don’t think I ever got to the point of just giving up before, but I came really close on this one.

It all started at 4:00Am. I had my alarm set to 4:30Am because a friend of mine was picking me up at 5:15Am. I somehow woke up at 4:00Am and could not get back to sleep. So I figured that I might as well start the day now. After a couple of PB&J sandwiches and some Gatorade, I got ready and was out in our cul-de-sac riding my bike by 4:45Am. I must have rode in circles for about a half hour till I finally saw head lights turn down the street. Kurt picked me up right on schedule and we were off to Philly. On the way down, I was getting some pointers as Kurt has done this race several times now and he rode the bike course the previous week.

We get to Fairmount Park and all I can say is that parking was just horrible. We were parked a little more than a mile from transition. Some of the racers had to park as far as 2 to 3 miles away. Off course while unpacking our stuff, we saw a senator’s son with secret service open all the barricades and drive right in. We latter saw them parked right on Black Road, I would say about a quarter mile from transition.

When we got to transition, we had to wait in line for body makings before we were allowed in. It took like almost 15 minutes before I finally got to where I need to setup my transition. Now it was almost 6:30Am and the announcer kept reminding people that the last bus to the swim start leaves at 6:50Am and if you miss the bus, there was no racing for you today. After setting up and looking for land marks so I can find my way back to my bike, I headed to the busses just to find a very long line of people waiting for the busses. I finally got on the bus around 6:50Am and was on my way to the swim start.

I though to myself that my wave doesn’t start till 7:25Am so I have plenty of time use the port-a-potties at the boat house. When we arrived at the boat house the lines for the port-a-potties were so long that I just made it to the water as my wave was jumping in. After debating for a few minutes I finally decide to jump into the Schuylkill River. Well, it was not as bad as I thought. The water was 73 degrees and the race was wetsuit legal, so the water was really comfortable. I floated in the water for a while waiting for the start signal.

As the start signal was given, we all swam towards the bridge. It was crowded at first, but about a few minutes the swimmers started to spread out. The speedsters started to pull away and the range of swimmers started to show. I found myself in the middle of the pack. The hardest part of the swim in open water was navigating. I definitely still need to work on this as I found myself going full steam away from the path several times. Since I breathe to my right, I tend to go right and without the black line at the bottom of a swimming pool, I can’t tell which way I am going. All in all I had a good swim until I got to the last buoy. This is where all the craziness started. Kurt told me to take it wide, but I did not listen. Everyone bottlenecked here because this was the last and only turn toward the beach. There were a lot of people colliding with each other in this area. I got kick several times and slapped in the face. The slap in the face actually knocked my goggles off. Luckily the goggles stayed on my head. I don’t know how I would have swum the last 100 meters without goggles. I had turn over to lie on my back and tried to get my goggles back on. This is really hard with a lot of people slashing and bumping into you. It was like being in a large washing machine. Luckily I only had about 100 meters to go so I got my goggles back on best I can and swam the rest of the way to the beach.

I got into T1 and found my bike really quick. My plan for counting the number of trees worked, I found my spot quickly and had a pretty fast T1. I put on my helmet, Garmin and shoes; then off I was to the Bike leg. I surprisingly felt good on the bike. I thought the swim incident would have me a little more shook-up, but I guess the adrenaline pumping took care of that.

With a little less than a mile down the road we hit our first hill. The hills were not as bad as Black Bear, but they were long and winding. At least Black Bear’s climbs were straight, for some reason I found it tougher going up an “S” like hill, as this was the case at Lemon Hill, the entrance to Fairmount Park and a few other spots. These hills were just really long and winding. It was also really difficult to navigate the hills when it got really crowed. I can hardly ride a straight line while cracking up a hill, now with people all around me and trying to navigate the turns, it was just crazy.

Some of the down hills were also little scary, not because of the speed but because people are slowing way down in front of you as you’re trying to pick up speed. From what I heard, there were a lot of people that went down on Black Road. My wife told me about one guy who was hit as he was getting up from going down. I found out later that he was the guy I was hanging out with at the boat house. I met with him afterwards, and he told me that he took most of the force and his bike is aright.

Funny how we triathletes are more concerned about our bikes than ourselves. I guess I would be too if I had just gone down in a $2500 carbon fiber QR frame, which had $1500 Zipp wheels. His bike was a $5000 bike, crazy.

Black road was the worse as there is a sharp turn at the fastest point of the down hill and a lot of riders would speed up towards the turn and all of a sudden panic and lock their breaks. I always made sure I had a way out when in a group; I guess that’s the motorcycle rider in me. I had a couple of close calls when people cut into my lane during high speed turns, but nothing too bad.

The other thing I found interesting on during the bike is how noisy those disk and deep rims are. When these guys would pass me, they made so much noise that it sometimes startles me. I also noticed a large number of Profile Design AeroDrink yellow sponges on the road. It looks like a lot of people lost them. It was bumpy in some areas, and I guess if you don’t have the newer version (the one with the cap) the yellow sponges tend to go airborne when you hit a bump. Good thing I have the newer version because there was hardly any spillage onto the bike.

So I finished the bike leg. I think I pushed a little too much on the bike leg as I averaged 19.5 MPH throughout the whole 40K. I got into T2 and felt OK. I was able to squeak out a couple high seven minute miles and then it all hit me, the dreaded “wall”. All of a sudden, I couldn’t maintain the pace and dropped down to just about walking. I eventually took some walking time to recover, and at some points, just pretty much contemplated just sitting down and calling it a day. It was just awful, I was not sure if I was not taking in enough calories or the heat and humidity, or a combination. Kristine took a great picture of me headed to the finish line that, I think, showed exactly how I felt.

Here are my Garmin records:

run part
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/240339
Bike Part
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/240337

I’m very happy with my performance and met my goal of under 3 hours by 7 minutes. It took me a while to calculate if I made my goal because I was not sure when I started relative to the time clock display at the finish line. This now gives me a new challenge for my next Olympic Triathlon in 2 months. The time to beat now is 2 hours and 50mins. Let’s see what happens.

The Kids Duathlon

My kids did their first duathlon this past Saturday. I think they had lots of fun during their race. You might not be able to tell from Jared’s picture recovering under the tent right after the race, but he did have fun. I need to remember to get my daughter a bigger bike for next year. I forgot that the gearing and wheel size of her bike will make any one mile ride feel like ten miles. After pinning on their bibs and a few coaching tips from mom and dad they were off to the start line. We told them to take it easy in the beginning because it was a long race. Hopefully they don’t take after me in the pacing department; I'm still learning the ropes myself.

Kristine ran most of the way with them while taking pictures and I was in transition area waiting for them, so I could help them with their bikes if they needed. They both got into transition pretty quickly; the kick stand just slowed them down a little. I was going to hang their bikes on the rack but they might have had problems getting it off. As soon as they both headed off on their bikes, I jumped on mine and tired to catch them. Jared was with the lead pack and was already on his way back to T2 by time I saw him. I caught up with Hailey and she was pedaling like a maniac. What a chip of the old block, that crazy little girl. We finally got to T2 and Hailey didn’t want any help lifting the bike over the high curb. She just did it her self and got into the transition area.

Jared was now nearing the finish line and rushed to the finish line on my bike and I think startled a good number of people and had some real close calls. Now I know not to try to ride fast on a crowded sidewalk with a camera in one hand. Good thing I wasn’t on my new bike.

After the race, they both had to take several minutes to recover in the tent. Kristine and I know exactly how they feel. I don’t know if they will ever do an Ironman someday, but right now they are our Iron Boy and Iron Girl.