Buckle Down

169.9 today. This is basically the main think holding me back still esp without unlimited time to train. It is all in my head as I know what works for me to loose weight (which took a while and a lot of calorie and activity tracking). Now it is time to buckle down and get that mental chip off my shoulder. There is a good read of a pro triathlete who has gained 20 pounds while being injured here at Jp's blog. At least at the higher weights injury is really never a problem and I will be grateful for this fact in about 15 years.

Steeplechase and High Jump

3000 meter steeplechase was the first event on the docket today. I got in a 40 minute bike ride with a couple big hills for a warm up and that was perfect. There were 21 solid hurdles to clear and 7 hurdle/waterjumps to clear. The 2000 boys was rough to watch bc the kids that were strong last night in the 3000 race were struggling bad.

I really wanted to hit my pace that I had for the 5k last night. I made it in 12:13 which is only 1 second per mile off my effort last night. All but two of the hurdles felt good and those two I just had to stutter step a bit. All of the water jumps were to the 6 inch water portion of the pit and I was running the last two. I am very pleased with this effort and it is a VERY tough race with all the solid jumps. I got 3rd overall and 1st in my age group as I was the only one in it.

Next was the high jump one hour later. I was trashed after the past couple days and just didnt have any juice. I think doing another OLY tri would have been easier bc of the pace. Anyway I started at 4ft just to get my bearings and some practice jumps. I cleared that and then 4 ft 2 by about a foot. I then passed to 4 ft 10 and then cleared until 5'4 in which I had a fault but still made it. I was getting tired and hungry by that point and narrowly missed 5 ft 6. Well rested and with something other then wet racing flats from the steeple (high jump shows have spikes on the front and heel for grip) I may be able to clear 5'10 which would be my height. I got 3rd in my 19-29 year old age group of which there were 5 people.

The whole weekend was a lot of fun and I would like to do the steeple and esp the high jump again. I will try the 400 again sometime after I have been doing regular speed work.

Humbling Track Race so far

Ran the 400 in 66 seconds, a full second off my PR. Burned like hell from my arms to my legs and lungs. Winner was 53 and 3rd was 60. I was fourth way back.

Had a 90 degree 5k at 6pm and windy. My time was 20:13. The winner who has recently ran a 1:07 half marathon (converts to a 14:30 5k) only ran a 16:43 so I am actually fairly happy. I should have been around 19 flat though but just not prepared enough. Still fun and learned a lot. Have the 3000 steeple tomorrow followed by the high jump. I think I am going to need a stronger word then humbling to describe tomorrow I think.

First Olympic Triathlon Win!!!

Finally a race that lived up to expectations. Well almost. The day started out great and really felt ready to race and even ready to swim. I knew I would want to go fast but pace the bike bc the run was going to be over 80 degrees.

The OLY race only had about 75 people bc the sprint had over 150 due the past weather issues I believe. A lot of the fast looking people where doing the sprint so I am going to use their times to compare to.

SWIM

The swim started great. The first buoy has about a 130 degree turn so I wanted to make the first group and actually went 2nd! around the first buoy. Then the sun was directly in line and everyone, i mean eveyone, was all over the place bc there were tons of boats around that would grab you eye when trying to site. Most did a lot fo breaststroke through this section of about 200m. The only bad thing I did was but my swim cap under my goggles for some idiot reason so I got some leakage. Only really dumb thing all day though. Came out of the water in 19:06 so a good 300m short. But the good news is that I was only down 1:02 to the first two guys and in 5th place!

T1

1:16 Had the second best transition most likely due to my barefoot running ability bc the asphault was very sharp. Got 30 seconds into many people and 6 seconds into first place.

BIKE

This is where the story gets interesting. There is a 450 ft hill that puts me standing in my granny gear not long after transition. A 400 ft section lasts over 5 minutes and you have to be careful not to blow up. I paced myself to catch the leader at the top which is 5 miles into the course and I did just that. Very sad to not see a pace car though. Then about 3 miles in the hard to see signs showing where to go start. This is NOT the course of 3 years ago and NOT the maps online. Crap. There are also NO volunteers to help guide through a twisty turny neighborhood with 2 very very steep hills. I actually get excited a little bc I am a good handler. But then there was a sign saying to go left around this loop again that couldnt be. So I went right. Then I saw guy and yelled and he said "two" so I turn around and went back up that stupid huge hill until I caught that guy and he had meant two out and back sections but by then I had crested the hill and had to do another turnaround. Nevermind I was in the wrong gears the whole time to be doing this. I set off to make up my lost time bc i was PISSED. After checking the garmin I lost 2:20 roughly by doing this. One good reason to have a graphing computer on the bike. After the race the sign was wrong but the 2nd place guy knew the race director and had talked about the course that morning. Lame.

I couldn't tell how many people had passed me but I knew at least 1 had. I sped up and caught him at mile 11. I burned WAY too many matches doing that as I made up a 1/4 mile in about 1.5 miles on a good biker. 5 minutes of way past redline was stupid. It took me 4 more miles to put a gap of more then 200m on him. Then back up the big hill which went well bc I had calmed down and started to panic about the run bc my 40 ounces of water were already gone.

My time was 1:04:43 which was still good for second on the bike and a 1:02:23 . The course was only 24.0 miles but with 1200 ft of change and all the turns and pacing I am really happy. So a 23.1 mph avg. The sprint course winner (race was more competative) avg was only 22.5 and the best bike split was also 23.1. I was rocking the bike at the time of the incident and my goal turned from time to WIN.

T2

Posted a time of 56 seconds with putting socks on and getting in some separate drinks of water. Lost a little time here but I know the run is brutal.

RUN

Started out at a 6:13 mile trying to demotivate my chasers. The second aid station did not have water and only super concentrated gatorade I couldn't drink at a walk. First on there so it must have settled in the cooler, GROSS! At the turnaround aid station I was able to get a bottle of water and very slowly drank it and poured some on my head. I ran with it for a while bc I knew the middle aid station had no water. Went out in 20:30. I had a 4 minute lead so I just shut down into 6:45 pace mode for the hills and to let the water I drank absorb. Going back the middle aid station found water so I got some there and just jogged it back in for the WIN! My final run time was 42:09 which was second best on the day by 5 seconds but I celebrated at the end instead of sprinting so it was worth it. The run course has 400 ft of hills and two sections of 130 ft climbs that are steady to its hard to get a rhythm. The short course winner was 18:05 but biked the equiv of a 1:07 and the next best was 19:30. To place in the top 50% you could run over 1 hour for the 10k portion. I had hoped for a 38 which I think I was on pace for before the bad turn and absent aid station.

In the end I am very pleased with my adjusted time of 2:05:55 which puts me a full 5 minutes ahead of second place. Full Results are on the link. I have read many posts in the past about how bad it is to lead a race and now I know why. I never even thought about the gatorade settling or not having the stuff set up. There was no aid station on the bike set up either which was bad for the slower finishers as I ran out with my 40 ounces. Very bad race directing and I was sad to just get an age group medal for the overall and nothing else but that is just my personality so to make up for it I wrote this bragging post.

As far as things to work on are. Swim: New wetsuit. I getrubbed really really really bad and extension is horrible. 10 year old suit needs replaced.

Bike: Endurance so I can have enough left for the run.

Run: Longer runs and 40 mpw mileage.

OLY tri this weekend

Signed up for the Utah Summer games triathlon on Sat. This race is hot and hilly and the bike course is slow. The record is only a 2:08:10 and the race is at least 10 years old. This is thus my goal. 25 minute swim, 1:02:00 bike and 38:00 run. I would want a faster run but it is hilly and usually almost 90 out by then. That gives me 3 minutes for transitions to take the record. My race plan is to take out the first bouy quite hard and then relax until after about mile 6 of the bike after the huge hill. I cranked too hard on it and it is such a slow hill it is oddly hard to get time there bc you can easily go WAY over threshold and have to take way to long to recover.

I also signed up for a 4 event track meet bc it was only 20 bucks more. so the weekend after the Tri I get to do the 400M, and 5000M on the track on the same day and the next day I do the 3000M steeplechase (should be interesting and hoping to get video) and then the high jump bc I did it in grade school. Should be a "relaxing" event bc it is so out of character. I need more events like this.

Also thinking of wearing the HR monitor for the race but still unsure.

May Montly Totals

Swim 3:30:00 11900
Bike 14:15:00 286.5
Run 13:02:00 101.7

Days off: 7
Workouts: 30
Key Workouts: C trail Cycling in 28:59
5/7 BRICK 1:06:20 40K Z2, 4x600 (2:04, 2:01, 2:03, 2:04)
Trainer 1 mile in 2 minutes
OLY Race: See Race Report

Been super duper extremely tired this month due mostly to work and poor sleep habits. Didn't really set goals for this month so for next month I want to get in more sleep mostly. I am also going to fuel better during work. I want 3 quality track workouts and two 4 hour rides and 1 TT. Totals I want to hit 12000 in the pool, 400 on the bike, and 130 on the run.