Monday, June 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Richmond Power Sprint!
Here is my BT race report for the sprint I did last weekend! (It doesn’t look as good cut and pasted… Here’s the link again.)
Race info: The Power Sprint Triathlon
Entry by: 
The Power Sprint Triathlon
2009-05-31
Glen Allen, Virginia
United States
Richmond Multisports
83F / 28C
Sunny
Triathlon - Sprint
Total Time = 1h 29m 39s
Overall Rank = 329/449
Age Group = Clyde
Age Group Rank = 17/23
Pre-race routine:
I did a pretty good job organizing ahead of time. Loaded up my car, packed my bags, got my coffee ready so I just had to press the button and set my breakfast on the counter so I wouldn't have to search for anything. This was crazy... The transition area opened at about 5:30am, and I live an hour or so from the race, so I set my alarm to go off at 3:10am (so I could hit the snooze a few times!). Well, there was a HUGE thunderstorm. Long story short it knocked my power out. No alarm clock (glad I was already awake), no lights, no coffeemaker, no microwave, so my morning plan was shot from the get-go. I wound up making a tiny peanut butter sandwich with French bread from the refrigerator (even though I couldn't toast it) and buying coffee from 7-11. Adapt and overcome!
Event warmup:
No warmup really. Walked from the parking lot to the transition area. Set up transition. Body marking, chip pickup. Port-a-potties. Begin loooooooooooong wait for swim.
Comments:
I waited nearly two hours from the time the first swimmer hit the water to when I finally started my swim. This gave me plenty of time to work up some good nerves about the swim!
What would you do differently?:
Estimate my swim time better to get a lower number and not wait so long to get in the pool. I was seeded 466 and placed 320 in the swim. I also plan to get some private swim instruction to help my technique.
T1
Comments:
Took a little time to catch my breath, put on my socks, take a gel/water, etc. Only strange thing was, for some odd reason, I decided to go under the bar with my bike. I did it fine but it retrospect, I would stage my stuff in a more logical fashion (i.e., on the other side of the bar, if that was the direction for exiting on the bike. At this point I wouldn't dream of a flying bike mount, so I ran my bike as best I could to the mount line, stopped and got on and got going.
What would you do differently?:
Set up transition better, in relation to the direction of the course.
* Someone named ARAVIND IMMANENI did this transition in 30 seconds. If you frequent this board and happen to read this, I'd like to talk to you about how you managed that!
Comments:
I wanted to make sure I didn't start too fast and burn myself out for the end of the bike and the run, so I moderated my pace early and picked it up gradually. Even though it was a short distance, 17mph is a good pace for me. I realized all my riding has been long, slow distances. Speedwork might help. Otherwise I felt pretty good about the bike. I could definitely see the benefits of my recent riding.
What would you do differently?:
Maybe train some speed.
T2
Comments:
I felt good about this transition. Again, no major occurrences. Helmet/bike shoes off, running shoes (with brand new Yankz!) on. Took another gel and more water and off I went.
What would you do differently?:
Take the gel and water while running maybe?
Comments:
Running the bike back to the transition rack helped loosen my legs up. I moderated my initial speed on the run, just like the bike. I stopped a little bit for water, otherwise the run was pretty much on my current standard of 10 minute mile pace. Naturally I want to get faster!
What would you do differently?:
Get faster!
Post race
Event comments:
This was a lot of fun and a good choice for my first race. I'm now looking forward to even more!
Last updated: 2009-04-22 12:00 AM
Swimming
00:07:24 | 328.07999 yards | 02m 16s / 100yards
Age Group:
18/23
Overall:
320/449
Performance:
Good
Suit:
Oomph Kahuna Race Shorts
Course:
Pool snake swim
Start type:
Inside Pool
Plus:
Water temp:
83F / 28C
Current:
Low
200M Perf.
Good
Remainder:
Average
Breathing:
Average
Drafting:
Below average
Waves:
Navigation:
Rounding:
T1
Time:
04:08
Performance:
Average
Cap removal:
Good
Helmet on/
Suit off:
Wetsuit stuck?
Run with bike:
Jump on bike:
Getting up to speed:
Biking
00:43:32 | 12.43 miles | 17.13 mile/hr
Age Group:
18/23
Overall:
292/449
Performance:
Good
Wind:
Little
Course:
Flat, flat, flat!
Road:
Smooth Wet
Cadence:
Turns:
Good
Cornering:
Good
Gear changes:
Average
Hills:
Race pace:
Comfortable
Drinks:
T2
Time:
01:36
Overall:
Good
Riding w/ feet on shoes
Jumping off bike
Running with bike
Average
Racking bike
Good
Shoe and helmet removal
Good
Running
00:33:01 | 03.1099999 miles | 10m 37s min/mile
Age Group:
17/23
Overall:
341/449
Performance:
Good
Course:
Flat as well.
Keeping cool
Average
Drinking
Just right
Post race
Weight change:
%
Overall:
Good
Mental exertion [1-5]
3
Physical exertion [1-5]
3
Good race?
Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge
Just right
Organized?
Yes
Events on-time?
Yes
Lots of volunteers?
Yes
Plenty of drinks?
Yes
Post race activities:
Average
Race evaluation [1-5]
4
Monday, April 27, 2009
Blue Ridge Parkway Ride
It seems that everything I add in here relates to biking lately!
After the Silver Comet adventure last week, we undertook something completely different this week.
We went camping at Montebello with the Outdoor Adventure Social Club.
It was a full weekend to celebrate the club's 5th year in existence. There was music (including my tunes on Friday night) and tons of activities.
Amy decided to lead a bike ride. Initially the plan was to do an advanced ride in the morning and a beginner ride in the afternoon. However after scouting out the local roads, we found it would be at least an hour drive (like, in a car) to get to any terrain suitable for a beginner ride, so that plan was scrapped.
I'm going to try and map this route and link to it, but it was pretty ridiculous.
We turned left out of the campground and started straight up a hill for almost 2 miles. I'm sure some people would have loved it, but after an evening of staying up late, poor nutrition and subpar sleep (not to mention alcohol for some of the riders the night before), this was the kind of climb that made many people want to quit. In fact, we had 2 folks drop out after 1.5 miles.
After some sitting and thinking and discussion about turning around and putting the bikes on the car to drive them to someplace more fun (read: easier) to ride, we opted to go ahead and ride to the Blue Ridge Parkway, just to say we got there.
Of course once we got to the parkway, we decided to ride a little more.
This was brutal after the climb just to get there, however, in retrospect, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought at the time. The climbs were longer, but nowhere near as steep.
We rode about 6ish miles to a picnic table and had lunch. It doesn't sound like much, but at this point, we had been on our bikes for about 2 hours!
Then we decided to turn around and head back down. Fortunately, all the climbing we did to get to our lunch spot meant that it was primarily descents to get back to the road to the campground! It took us probably more than an hour to get to the picnic table, and probably about 20 minutes to get back down.
So naturally, after a lunch and a bunch of fast downhill riding (after which we all felt invincible! Note: never plan the rest of your day's biking immediately following long stretches where you don't have to pedal), we figured we needed to get at least 20 miles in.
That decided, instead of turning off to head back to the campground, we went the other direction on the parkway. One guy in our group had a GPS, we found a route that would add a few miles and get us back to the campground.
There was more climbing, but again, it was not severe and actually kind of pleasant (as long as you didn't look too far ahead to see how long the hill lasted!).
We reached our turn off and (incorrectly) calculated that we needed to add about 3 more miles to get to 20, so we kept on, planning to turn around after 1.5 miles.
This was where the highlight (sarcasm) of my day occurred. After doing another little climb and riding about 2 miles, the people in front hit the top of the hill and turned around to head back.
I stopped pedaling and unclipped to take a drink and turn my bike around, but the second I put my foot on the ground and put a little weight on it, but left quad completely cramped up. I couldn't even bend my leg to get off my bike. I had to lay the bike down on the ground, so I could swing my leg off it to sit on the ground. It took several minutes before I could bend my leg, but once that happened, everything was good to go.
I attribute that cramp to my poor nutrition and hydration the evening before. I was wearing my camelbak and had a bottle of gatorade on my bike as well, but that wasn't enough hydration on a hot day (probably close to 90, but for the first time this season, so I wasn't particularly acclimatized to it). Regardless, I'm going to the bike shop after work today to get a second bottle cage and water bottle!
All in all we wound up doing just under 23 miles in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Quite an accomplishment for and overweight, underexperienced (this is only my second year cycling, compared to about 6 years for the next least experiened) rider like myself!
I have to say I was quite proud of finishing that ride, especially considering how badly I wanted to quit at the beginning! One of the other guys really helped my by riding slow along with me and encouraging me to keep going. Doing a ride like that is so psychological, any kind of support you can get helps!
Hopefully I'll get a couple of pictures up soon!
After the Silver Comet adventure last week, we undertook something completely different this week.
We went camping at Montebello with the Outdoor Adventure Social Club.
It was a full weekend to celebrate the club's 5th year in existence. There was music (including my tunes on Friday night) and tons of activities.
Amy decided to lead a bike ride. Initially the plan was to do an advanced ride in the morning and a beginner ride in the afternoon. However after scouting out the local roads, we found it would be at least an hour drive (like, in a car) to get to any terrain suitable for a beginner ride, so that plan was scrapped.
I'm going to try and map this route and link to it, but it was pretty ridiculous.
We turned left out of the campground and started straight up a hill for almost 2 miles. I'm sure some people would have loved it, but after an evening of staying up late, poor nutrition and subpar sleep (not to mention alcohol for some of the riders the night before), this was the kind of climb that made many people want to quit. In fact, we had 2 folks drop out after 1.5 miles.
After some sitting and thinking and discussion about turning around and putting the bikes on the car to drive them to someplace more fun (read: easier) to ride, we opted to go ahead and ride to the Blue Ridge Parkway, just to say we got there.
Of course once we got to the parkway, we decided to ride a little more.
This was brutal after the climb just to get there, however, in retrospect, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought at the time. The climbs were longer, but nowhere near as steep.
We rode about 6ish miles to a picnic table and had lunch. It doesn't sound like much, but at this point, we had been on our bikes for about 2 hours!
Then we decided to turn around and head back down. Fortunately, all the climbing we did to get to our lunch spot meant that it was primarily descents to get back to the road to the campground! It took us probably more than an hour to get to the picnic table, and probably about 20 minutes to get back down.
So naturally, after a lunch and a bunch of fast downhill riding (after which we all felt invincible! Note: never plan the rest of your day's biking immediately following long stretches where you don't have to pedal), we figured we needed to get at least 20 miles in.
That decided, instead of turning off to head back to the campground, we went the other direction on the parkway. One guy in our group had a GPS, we found a route that would add a few miles and get us back to the campground.
There was more climbing, but again, it was not severe and actually kind of pleasant (as long as you didn't look too far ahead to see how long the hill lasted!).
We reached our turn off and (incorrectly) calculated that we needed to add about 3 more miles to get to 20, so we kept on, planning to turn around after 1.5 miles.
This was where the highlight (sarcasm) of my day occurred. After doing another little climb and riding about 2 miles, the people in front hit the top of the hill and turned around to head back.
I stopped pedaling and unclipped to take a drink and turn my bike around, but the second I put my foot on the ground and put a little weight on it, but left quad completely cramped up. I couldn't even bend my leg to get off my bike. I had to lay the bike down on the ground, so I could swing my leg off it to sit on the ground. It took several minutes before I could bend my leg, but once that happened, everything was good to go.
I attribute that cramp to my poor nutrition and hydration the evening before. I was wearing my camelbak and had a bottle of gatorade on my bike as well, but that wasn't enough hydration on a hot day (probably close to 90, but for the first time this season, so I wasn't particularly acclimatized to it). Regardless, I'm going to the bike shop after work today to get a second bottle cage and water bottle!
All in all we wound up doing just under 23 miles in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Quite an accomplishment for and overweight, underexperienced (this is only my second year cycling, compared to about 6 years for the next least experiened) rider like myself!
I have to say I was quite proud of finishing that ride, especially considering how badly I wanted to quit at the beginning! One of the other guys really helped my by riding slow along with me and encouraging me to keep going. Doing a ride like that is so psychological, any kind of support you can get helps!
Hopefully I'll get a couple of pictures up soon!
Friday, April 24, 2009
MS 150 Jerseys
This is fun!
One way I raised money for this year’s MS 150 Tour de Vine was offering to put company logos on a custom jersey I would be using.
I actually got a few takers! Here’s the template:
Also, if you'd like to donate, click here to go to my personal page!
One way I raised money for this year’s MS 150 Tour de Vine was offering to put company logos on a custom jersey I would be using.
I actually got a few takers! Here’s the template:
Also, if you'd like to donate, click here to go to my personal page!
Last Weekend
Amy and I did 55 miles on the Silver Comet in GA for her birthday.
The Silver Comet is a rail trail… A long one.
This ride was pretty cool… at first… The trail, at least in the direction we were going sloped just barely downhill on the way out, with an equivalent uphill on the way back. Although I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate to call it a hill!
We split it up and rode about 22.5 miles from Hiram to Rock Mart, then turned around and came back.
The first half of the ride took just about an hour for me to do.
The second half was another story altogether!
It took closer to an 1hr 45 min… My legs were working the whole way, but just barely!
We ate a little lunch then tacked on 10 extra miles and called it a day.
By the way, 55 miles is my longest ride to date.
The Silver Comet is a rail trail… A long one.
This ride was pretty cool… at first… The trail, at least in the direction we were going sloped just barely downhill on the way out, with an equivalent uphill on the way back. Although I don’t think it’s necessarily accurate to call it a hill!
We split it up and rode about 22.5 miles from Hiram to Rock Mart, then turned around and came back.
The first half of the ride took just about an hour for me to do.
The second half was another story altogether!
It took closer to an 1hr 45 min… My legs were working the whole way, but just barely!
We ate a little lunch then tacked on 10 extra miles and called it a day.
By the way, 55 miles is my longest ride to date.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Charlottesville Tri Club
I (very) recently joined the C’Ville Tri Club. My hope is to eventually get into some group training and coaching to help improve myself once I get in better shape and a couple/few races under my belt.
Looks like my timing was very good, as they are currently taking orders for the 2009 kit. Pretty cool!
Now, all that’s left is to lose enough fat to squeeze into the tri top by the time it gets here!
Changing my game up
I realized something the other day… Reading what someone did for training is boring, like 99% of the time.
I no longer want to summarize each pathetic workout on this blog. I already log them over at BT.
So I’m looking more toward using this for stuff that might actually be a little more interesting to people!
Here’s the first item…
I signed up for my very first sprint triathlon recently!
It’s the Power Sprint Triathlon in Richmond on May 31.
This one is supposed to be a good, beginner friendly race. Short pool swim, rolling 12 mile bike course and flat run.
I’m looking forward to my first triathlon experience!
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