Sent from my iPhoneBloodied the shoes up pretty good.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
St. Anthony’s Setup
Ready to go for tomorrow. Below are some photos of the race setup, a great area in downtown St. Petersburg. This is a cool downtown area and will be great for tomorrow. We will be hitting the road around 5am tomorrow, so shooting for anything from 2:32 to 2:35 to get AG Nationals Qualification. Weather will be warm in the 80’s and the swim is not going to allow a wetsuit.
This is a view of the city and course from the north end of the run course and also the swim course from the exit angle.
Swim Course
Friday, April 29, 2011
2011 Season Kickoff
This weekend marks the 2011 kickoff and the St. Anthony’s Triathlon in St. Petersburg Florida. Heading down tonight and will be a fun race with 4,000 of my closest friends Sunday. This years running races produced another 10K Best of 45:42 in the Chattahoochee Challenge in February and a Half-Marathon of 1:47:00 in the Publix Georgia Marathon.
In attempting to qualify for USAT Age Group Nationals later this summer I have picked two regional qualifiers over the next two weeks in St. Anthony’s and the Peachtree City International Triathlon. To qualify, I need to finish in the top 1/3 of my age group in these two very competitive fields. Based on past years and field histories, it looks like a 2:35 should get me there. That’s going to take a solid (21mph avg) bike split with a sub 50 minute 10K off the bike. I will update and see how the race goes!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Augusta 70.3 2010
Year two for me in the Augusta 70.3 race. Once again this was my peak race for the year after Alcatraz, and the fitness work up over the last month went very well.
Overall race conditions this year were much different than 2009. On Saturday before the race the sun was out, temps were in the mid 90’s and it was brutally humid. The forecast called for a front to move through overnight and bring rain all day on race day. The rain did come (mostly on the bike), but the main front did not get into town until later in the day so we ended up with mid-80’s temps along with high 80% humidity + rain showers. A good learning experience for hydrating when you don’t feel the need, more on that later.
The goal for this year was to bring in a time under 5:30, and with a great run maybe 5:15-ish. That would require shaving some Transition time off last year as well as a little quicker bike, but most importantly a much faster run. I felt like I could turn in a 1:55-2h run in this race based on my training.
The swim was almost identical to last year. I did the course in 25:07 and it was a very easy swim. Other than vision problems with my goggles fogging up all was good. I did lose about 20 seconds off of last years swim time, but nothing to worry about. T1 time dropped to 3:55 from last years 5min plus. Considering the fact we had everything covered in plastic and it was raining pretty steadily at that time I was very happy with the times.
Out on the bike I felt very strong this year, and the times improved to show it. Total time was 2:45:38 which came out to a 20.3 mph average for the 56 miles. This part of the race was where the majority of the rain came down. It was a pretty light drizzle for the first half, but between miles 30-50 it was really coming down hard. We had some hairy descents and turns, and a few packs to deal with who were drafting, but it was a pretty clean ride. I did lose my computer close to mile 45 when I hit a big bump in the road, so I was blind as to speed the last 10 miles. Not sure if that hurt or helped but I pulled in a 6 minute improvement over last year’s time. As for nutrition, this is also where I was hurt the most. I did take my GU every 45 minutes like I prefer to, but I ended up only drinking about 1 and 3/4 bottles of water and sports drink on the bike portion. Riding in the rain I felt hydrated and did not notice the humidity. That would come back to bite me on the run.
T2 was 2:34, so I lost about 10 seconds off last year, but I had some unique packing to deal with. With the rain I had bagged my running shoes and changed into dry socks as well, so not too shabby for all the extra work to do.
With all of my offseason running and pace improvements the run is where I was expecting to improve the most. My goal here was a sub-2hour half marathon and my conditioning (I thought) was there. First three miles clicked off some 8:30 miles while feeling like I was taking it easy. Legs and heart felt great and I was feeling a good setup for the run. About mile 5 I felt some quad cramping but was able to maintain a steady pace, however it took two to three aid stations to get enough fluids in me to get rid of the cramps. Pace was good as I passed the finish line and entered the dead zone of the course before you loop the second time. This is where I started to feel some fatigue and ended up taking two 30 second walk breaks. This is where my run was broken. From here on out I probably had a minute of walking every 10 minutes and just could not get a rhythm going. We don’t have the 7 mile split times available yet, but I am very curious to see the actual pace on first half and second half to see how much I lost. Anyhow, this is one mentally draining run because the straits are sooooo long and monotonous and I just struggled to feel good the entire second loop. I was pretty pissed but it happens. My final time on the run came in at 2:11:48 for a 10:04 min/mile pace on the run. Not at all what I was expecting after the past year of run improvements.
I finished 14 minutes and 42 seconds ahead of last years pace and the finishing percentages were a bit better (except the bike). Overall I finished in 1,061st place of 2,536 total finishers, so in the 41st percentile overall. That was a five point percentile drop over last year. Swim rank was 276 overall (15%), Bike was 986 overall (38%), and run was 1450 overall (57%). I did get into the top half of my age group this time finishing 178th of 380 in the M35-39 group (46%).
Monday, August 16, 2010
Summer Update
As you can see another decent gap in the updates, mostly due to the summertime craziness of kids, training, and mini vacations all rolled together. I have done two triathlons and one 10K since the last update and two of the three went pretty well.
First up is the West Point Olympic Triathlon that was June 13th. I wanted a mid-season race so this filled the bill. Great setting and production from one of the local RD’s in the area, but the day was made tough by the crazy heat and humidity. Lake temp was announced at 89 degrees before the swim, so it was like bath water. I had a good 1.5k swim going until the very end where I started having hamstring cramps in the water. This is the first time I have ever cramped up on a swim, so I had to stop and roll over to stretch out. Came out of the water in 27:45 even with the delay and had a decent 40K bike split of 1:14:26. Then it got tough. The run on this course is an out and back 10K with miles 3 – 5 running across the dam for Lake West Point, turning around and back across it. At this point in time the temp had crawled up into the mid 90’s and this three mile section was totally exposed, with no breeze and very high humidity. I have never seen as many walkers in a run portion of a race in my life. With only 343 finishers, this race brings in mostly decent athletes and everyone struggled with this run. My 10K time came in at 1:03:55, and I was just glad to get finished. Total time was 2:49:09, with an average race time across the field of 2:51:28. So needless to say it was a slow race. This one was a lesson in adapting goals and surviving. I wanted to break 2:30 and had to adjust to 2:35 on the bike, then just worry about finishing once the run started.
The Peachtree Road Race was up next as the annual July 4th 10K race here in Atlanta, and with a good seed we were able to start right up front with the Kenyans. My goal coming in was to break 48, and I would have been happy with a sub 47 min time. I came in at 46:59 to set another 10K PR for me with a 7:33 min/mile pace. Felt good most of the way, had to kick in at the end with the hills but a very solid performance for me. Now if I can only pull one of these off at the end of a triathlon.
This weekend was the third time for me at the Mountain Lakes Triathlon in Guntersville Alabama. This was the first race I did back in 2007 and is a great track. Along with my wife who had her first race in June at IronGirl Atlanta, we had a total of 8 people from our neighborhood over for this race. 4 of them had never done a triathlon, 3 others only had one under their belt so it was a great time for the rookies as well. Had a solid swim, a 22mph bike, and a 7:50 split for the 3 mile run, so it was a good race for me at 1:18:46. This was good for 20th in my AG and somewhere around 112 of 555 men, so I keep moving up a bit in the groups. Last year this would have gotten me to a top 10 in the AG, but it looks like there were some fast racers there this year. Still stayed in the top 20% of the race overall, and beat my goal time of 1:19:00 so I cannot complain.
This week starts the 6 week countdown to Augusta 70.3, so peak period begins. Ill update with some training info later.
Monday, June 14, 2010
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