From Runner to Triathlete

Poconos Ironman 70.3

2011-10-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

This was one really hard ~~70.3~~ 69.1. I did like the challenging course though, so much that I might be back next year. But at the same time I got lots of complaints about, so I'm just hoping the organizers fix everything by then. I do love challenging courses, if I didn't like a challenge, I wouldn’t be doing Black Bear year after year.

The bike course was really technical and hilly, but it was not the hardest bike course I’ve done. That honor still goes to the Black Bear 70.3 before it was shortened to an Olympic distance (maybe that is why the organizers switch). Don’t get me wrong, this was a hard course; there were lots of uphill and I mean “LOTS”, with some inclines steep enough to make people get off their bike and walk up it. The only reason Black Bear was not the hardest race was because the run was relatively flat compared to this. There were lots of sweeping corners and tricky descents, both which wouldn’t be too bad if it you didn’t have to worry about the person in-front of you hitting their brakes and taking you out. The course was too crowded especially if you are starting in the last few waves, like I was. I had to cross the center line several time to complete a pass, lucky I didn’t get any penalties for it. I think the organizers got greedy and over sold the race. I always thought that limit on these IM 70.3 was like 1,300. Well they sold almost 2,000 slots, lucky only about 1,300 showed up to race.

During the ride, I couldn’t really stay in aero because I might need to hit my brakes at any time. I think the organizers actually cause more confusion in some spots. Why the hell would they tell participants to ride “English Right”, I’m not sure that is even a term, but that is what they used to describe it. On certain parts of the course we were going to be riding on the left side of the road. These terms apparently meant while riding on the left side of the road, stay left and pass on the right. Now if you have been riding right and passing left all your life, you think you will remember this now? Half the people did it while the other half not. So the whole road was just congested. But the worse part of this were the idiots who were yelling at the top of their lungs “LEFT” “COMING THROUGH ON YOUR LEFT”. Kristine told me there were some really obnoxious people yelling at her and other riders. I understand yelling left if the person in front had somewhere to go, but with the course being too crowded, there is really no place to go but stay the lane. If anything all the lane changing it will cause accidents.

Ok, so enough about my complaints. I knew the bike was going to be hard so I was ready for it. My plan was to take it easy and get to the run in good shape. I took it easy most of the way and pass when I could. I just took it easy when I couldn’t get around people and waited for the right time to pass. When I saw a group of riders start passing, I just latched on to them (ok, so I drafted a little, but that was the only way I was going to get around some of these big groups) and took advantage of the path they made. On a few hills, where I usually make my passes, I’d got cornered in by groups of riders and was not able to get around to pass till the top, in these cases I just shift to my easiest gear and ate my uncrustable sandwich. In my opinion, uncrustables http://tinyurl.com/ao8f29 are the best energy source on the bike. I personally didn’t really care for all those overpriced gels/bars and stick to good old PB&J. Not really much more I good write about the bike part as I just rode it out to get to the run. I have video of the whole ride that shows everything I mention above and more. I just need time to do some editing because no one really wants to watch 2 hours 45 min of video.

My bike Split was 2 hours 45min which was 39^th out of the 180 starters in my age group. It looks like out of the 300+ that signed up in my age group, only 180 made it to the start line and of that only 177 finished. I hate the way Ironman doesn’t show overall stats, so I don’t know where I was with that. I was really happy with this split since there was not much I could to go faster and it kept me pretty fresh for the run. It was only 33min off the fastest bike split.

Elevation Maps

The run course was on the other hand pretty empty. I got to T2 and there were not too many bikes racked yet. The run course was an out and back course. Before the race, I didn’t really pay any attention to the run course. I was too busy planning the bike and I didn’t really think about the run. I knew what I could run since I did a dress rehearsal two weeks ago at the Philly Half Rock and Roll half marathon. Set a pretty decent time and got a new personal best of 93min.

So I got into the run and just settled into my pace for the first mile. I wanted to stay at about 7:30min/mile. If you look at the elevation map the first mile was pretty much flat. Then the fun begun, as you can see it is pretty much uphill till the turn around at mile 7 with some short steep spikes in the middle. Well, I found out the hard way that was not hill climbing pace. My pace started to slow down by mile 9 and I finally hit the wall at mile 10. It took everything I got to maintain a sub 9:30 min/mile. So I ended up with a 1:51 half marathon split. This was just incorrect run pacing on my part. Since there are not too many hills around my way, I don’t get to practice running hills too often. The bike was different since I could put the roller tension on high to simulate hills. I could probably do it on a treadmill, but that won’t be as much fun. Well lessons learned for next time. And at least I was not the only one surprised by the hills. A quote from the winner of the women’s elite in an article in Ironman’s Lava magazine, she says “The run course, described to me as “two hills, followed by a false flat to the turnaround,” was (in my opinion) nothing of the sort. It seemed like hill after relentless hill, and was a course that anything involving the Poconos could be proud of”.

Here is the link to the article:

http://lavamagazine.com/racing/chilly-fall-race-debuts-in-the-poconos/#axzz1Zldi4ikw

I finished with an overall time of 4 hours 39 min with transition. 45th out off 177 finishers in my age group. So even if the swim was there I think I would have had my goal of sub 5:30. I estimated a worse case swim time of 40 min with transition. Given the regular water current, I was thinking that it would be more like 30 min swim with transition. But I’ll have to wait till next year to find out.

Kristine did very well too. She met her goal to finish and did it under 6 hours to boot. Not bad for her first half Ironman. She had some close calls on the bike, but was able to avoid the fall because of her good bike handling skills. She has come a long way Yay Kristine!!!!

Here is the video of the bike portion of the race. If you don't have 20mins to kill to watch the whole video, fast forward to 16min in and watch the long hill climb. It gets steeper at the top.

2008 Philly Marathon

2008-11-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

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

2008-09-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-03T07:27:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-24T09:41:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

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.

My new ride

2008-06-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

My new ride was delivered yesterday. Quoting my wife, “what an ordeal”; UPS delivered it to the local bike shop down the street from where I live. They delivered it as part of a shipment to the bike shop. What kind of service was that? Man, if I didn’t want to use the bike for this weekend’s race and it was not such an expensive purchase, I would have let UPS screw it up and let them deal with the consequence because the package was insured.

Well, when I got home from work and started assembling and fitting the bike. Fitting was not that hard as I am the ideal size for the 51cm Cervelo P2SL. With little adjustments to the aero bars, I felt quite comfortable in the aero position. After getting it ready for tomorrow’s inaugural ride, it was finally 11:00PM before I got to bed. That’s an hour past my bed time, yikes; I was hoping to be up and out riding by 5:30AM.

5:30AM came along and I was up and getting ready to ride. Still a little sluggish, I didn’t get out the door till about 6:00AM. That’s really late for me. I start up with a slow warm up. My impression of this bike was WOW!!! With little effort, I was just cruising. After about a 10 minute warm-up, I started a 15 min at threshold heart rate. I had to make sure I don’t over do it as this is suppose to be a taper week for me. I set out for my regular rolling 5 mile course. Surprised, I finished it in less than 15 min, that’s 2 miles per hour faster than my all out time trial on the same course. Wow, I really like it, it was stiff and didn’t flex at all during the hill climbs (I actually go up a 12% grade on my route). I like the gear ratios, although I think the 10 speed cassette is just extra weight. I like the 2 rings up front but would have been happy with an 8 speed in the back. The steering geometry was steeper than I thought. Since this was a TT bike, they are suppose to have less of an angle to increase control in the aero position, but I guess I just have to get use to it. I need to get used to the bar end shifters and probably break them in. The rear shifter was a little tight and hard to shift in the aero position.

Tonight I still have to do some minor tweaking as I was not as comfortable in the aero position as I thought. I found myself coming out of it to much. I need to move the aero bars up a little. I feel more comfortable with a little longer cockpit than what slowtwitch recommends. I’d also like to try taking some spacers out from under the stem to lower the bars, but I just don’t have time to experiment. Don’t want to change too much with 2 days to go before my first “A” race of the season. I’ll have to do the experimenting next week.

The Olympic Distance

2008-06-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's been about 6 months since I learned to swim and I think I am doing great. About a month ago, I felt comfortable enough to swim the distance for an Olympic distance Triathlon (1600 meters), so I put myself on the "wait list" for the the Philadelphia Olympic distance triathlon. I didn't think I get in anyway because it's been sold out for months now. I think it actually sold out in January.

Well, I got the e-mail telling me that I was chosen for one of the 50 openning spots. They will even will credit my sprint entry fee if I chose to sign up for the Olympic. So I jumped on the chance and signed up for the Olympic distance. We'll see how it goes...

The Beginning

2008-06-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm jumping on this bloging band wagon. Not really sure what to write about, but let me start with this. I've been training for the Philadelphia Triathlon since January. I signed up for the sprint distance because I didn't think I could swim the 1600 meter swim leg of the Olympic distance. I wasn't even sure that I could do the 900 meter sprint distance swim.

A few weeks ago, I actually did my first triathlon on a very difficult course. The Black Bear triathlon was totally unplaned. It was so unplanned that I ordered my wetsuit on six days before the race. It was right after I got the e-mail from CGI-Racing telling me I could still register for race in person, I just had to show up at the expo the day before the race. I was hoping they would still let me register because the online registration closed a few weeks ago.

So after tracking my wetsuit on UPS all week, it finally arive on Friday. I was glad since the it would have been a coold swim without it. Saturday came and we left for the Poconos. Traffic on the way up was horrible. Philadelphia should really do something about the Schuylkill Expressway.

I needed to be at registration by 5:00PM or else there was no racing the next day. We finnaly arived at about 3:00PM. I thought "great, now we still have plenty of time", but I was wrong. One thing the e-mail from CGI racing did not mention was that they were not accepting credit cards at this in-person registration. I didn't have the $100 cash to register. So, off to look for a MAC machine. The racers meeting was just about to start and newbies were required to attend. Luckily my wife was the best wife in the world and offered to go get the cash for me. Apperently, hunting for a MAC machine up here was a task in itself. After asking for directions and finding several out-of-order machines, my wife finnaly returns with the cash. I finnaly secured a spot at the startline.

Well, I survived my first Tri. It was weird that I was so worried about the swim that it went the smoothes out off all events. I started with the “First Timer” wave which was the last wave before the Half Iron. I was surprise with the number of first timers. After a few jokes about picking this course for our first time, the start guy gave us the go signal. It was an in-water start and I moved to the very back before the start. I think I was essentially the last sprint person to cross the starting line. Soon after that my goggles fogged up and had limited visibility so I just aimed for the big orange buoys. I collided with a few swimmers, had to swim around some and was lightly kicked several times, but aside form that it went pretty smoothly. The timing mats at the beach must have malfunctioned because the swim time included T1. I know I messed up T1 pretty bad specially that I jog the more than 400 meters to the transition area with my wet suit on. Had a hell of a time getting it off and getting the sand of my feet before putting my socks on. It was an easily 4 min T1.

Got on the bike and could not believe the climbs. I powered through the first few hills, but by the third hill, I could see a lot of people were walking their bikes up. The hills were so steep that we were hitting 45MPH on the down side without pedaling. I pretty much stopped pedaling and tucked in the aero position. I was passing lots of people here, not sure if I was just more aero dynamic here or what. But, I did hear some applying their breaks. I tried to use the momentum of the down hills to help with the up hills, but it was not much help. I think I wore my self out too much on the bike, my avgerage heart rate on the bike was actually higher than my average heart rate on the run. I don’t think it help any that, I caught up with 2 other riders in my age group and the three of us started taking turns passing each other. I really like the way they mark your age on you, makes it more fun that way. I wish they did that on running races. These 2 guys would take me on the climb and I would take them on the down hills and flats. When I finnaly got to T2, I was pretty much wasted.

At T2, I put my running shoes on and started running. Only to find out that I still had my helmet on. I ran back to put my helmet on the bike and off I went. Another wasted min, my T2 was like 1:32.

I started to jog the trails waiting for it to lead to the asphalt. Well that never came. It leads to more trails and some with wicked up hills. I ended up walking some of these hills. The fact that I was wearing racing flats didn’t help any in the trails plus I didn’t want to risk twisting an ankle or anything right before the Tri I was originally training for.

Finally the finish line, and still smiling. Happy to see my family

there. I’ll definitely need to do this one again next year, and this time and be more prepared.

I finished 16/46 First Time Male and I think I would have been 24/34 in M35-39. 750m/18mile/3.4mile = 2:02:16

Can’t wait to do it again in 2 weeks, this time locally (Philadelphia) and I this time I know the terrain.