I'm back

So it looks like it's been about 8 years since I last posted here. I wonder if this is some sort of record for greatest length between blog posts...I'm sure somewhere, that information exists.

Anyway, lots of things have happened in those 8 years...I got married, finished grad school, moved halfway across the country to start a new job, adopted a pair of adorable guinea pigs, and had a baby...standard stuff. It turned out that my triathlon habit was too hard to break so after a year of "only" running I joined the DC Tri Club and since 2013 have been on the Snapple/DC Tri Elite Team, which is an awesome group of people I have had the pleasure to get to know and train and race with. A recent website upgrade removed the internal blogging tools, so this will be my new home (again) for race reports and rambling on weather and other topics.

Some housekeeping notes...title changed to reflect my current status in life. I actually still eat Five Guys from time to time but District Taco is a superior meal. I have saved my old posts from the Snapple site, so they may make an appearance here as archives.

What's ahead in 2016 - trying to get back on track. The first winter of daycare disease vector illnesses hit me hard during my normal base building time, so things are behind schedule. Nevertheless I've got a few running races and annual Columbia triathlon appearance coming up and will end the season with the intriguing Savageman 50 (back to back sprint/Olympic races).

Thunderstorm Dodging Skills

Well, it's been about a month and I hope some people still check in from time to time. In this time I've actually been pretty busy with work (working group and science team meetings in the past 5 weeks), and after 3 weeks of really easy workouts started building up for Hawaii although I'm not at quite the volume I was doing before Coeur d'Alene. I'm actually doing a few more races this fall so that will probably tilt my workouts more towards intensity with a little less total miles.

Before I get to today's workout, I should mention that last weekend I was on a 6-person team for the Wild West Relay which is a 195 mile running race from Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs. I was asked by the CSU tri coach at the last minute to join her team, since someone dropped out. I was a little unsure of having to run 30+ miles in 24 hours with little or no sleep, but I actually ended up having a lot of fun. I'll spare the full details, since my camera was out of battery, but it was a little surreal running with a headlamp down a mountain road in Wyoming at 1:30 in the morning, and seeing the occasional flashing red light on another runner's back way off in the distance. I ended up running 34 miles at 7:00 pace (maybe a good goal pace for Hawaii?), and never really felt that sore or fatigues while running but my legs sure were stiff for a few days afterwards.

Anyway, today was my first real long ride, and the topic of the subject line. Before though, I did an open water swim race, 2.4 miles in Horsetooth Reservoir. I came in right around 1:03 which is about a minute off my time in the Ironman, but I didn't wear a wetsuit today so I'm pretty happy with that since it would probably be about 1:00 with a wetsuit. And I won't have a wetsuit in Hawaii, so it was good practice for that.

So afterwards I headed north, than east, way out to US 85, in the plains that are far enough away from the Poudre river and its reservoirs that the land is just used for grazing. Then I headed south towards Severance and back east to Fort Collins. All the while this was happening, it was probably the most humid day I have ever experienced on the Front Range (dew points near 60!), and anytime it's that humid, there is bound to be rain later in the day. Things were looking pretty good at first, with just some haze and high clouds, but I saw the first storm popping up while I was near the Power plant ('m at the center of the fuzzy red dot in the following series of radar images).
Pretty soon, I headed south away from the storm, but I see a few towers popping up far away to the southeast, and it was also getting petty dark over the mountains (which I couldn't see at all, because it was so hazy).
I finally turned to the east, and within a few miles I could make out the mountains through the haze and below the storm clouds. I could see a few areas of more intense rain, directly ahead of me and to the north. This had me worried that I would have to punch through the storm to make it home, but I could tell from watching the clouds earlier that the storms were heading northeast. This meant that there was going to be a gap in the line as I made it back to Fort Collins.
I ended up getting sprinkled on (which was quite a relief from the heat and humidity, actually), but I never got caught in the heavy rain. However I did end up getting pretty wet from riding on the roads where it had rained earlier. Still, it's always a good ride when you get rained on less than the total rainfall over your route while you were riding.

That's all for now! Next weekend I have an olympic distance triathlon coming up, so expect a report on that when I'm done, or a few days later.

Race Report!

Pictures and "lessons learned" to come later...here is what I sent out to the CSU tri team:

I drove up on Thursday with Leigh, which took all day but we did manage to complete the drive in daylight. We stayed at a house about an hour from the race in Harrison, ID. On Friday I went to packet pickup and the expo for a bit, then rode the middle 30 miles of the bike course where most of the hills are, which was definitely worthwhile just to learn which turns I would have to brake for, and how to pace the hills.

On Saturday I swam a loop of the swim course. I had been worried about the cold water for a few weeks, but even though it was 58 degrees that morning it felt pretty comfortable in my sleeveless wetsuit, although I did get a new neoprene cap for this race which kept my head a bit warmer. I followed that up with a 20 minute run which felt super easy for the pace I was going, a good sign that my taper had been effective.

Saturday night I stayed with Wendy at her client Fred's house, which meant that instead of an hour drive I was only a 10 minute boat ride away from the race site Sunday morning. Unfortunately, I forgot my tri shorts so I had to wait around for my parents and Leigh to arrive 30 minutes before the start to get my uniform on and in the wetsuit. Because of the long, slow line to get to the beach, I only had a few minutes to get used to the water.

Since there are no separate waves in Ironman (besides the pros who went off at 6:25), all 2060 competitors began the race at the same time from a standing start on the beach, which was quite a sight to see from a spectator's point of view. As one of the those athletes, it actually wasn't all that bad either. I've dealt with more punching and kicking at collegiate nationals and the boulder stroke & strides. Anyway, the crowd became pretty thin after about 5 minutes and on the way back in the first loop, I actually lost contact with anyone to draft off, so on the 2nd loop I sprinted to catch a couple guys and sat on them for the rest of the swim. I came out of the water in 1:02:23, which is a few minutes slower than I thought I'd do, but significantly faster than my practice swim the day before, so I was pretty happy with that.

The transitions in Ironman are also different from your typical triathlon. Once I got out of the water, some volunteers took my wetsuit off and I was asssisted in changing for the bike (putting helmet on, power bars/gel flask in back pocket) by another volunteer in the changing tent, and ran off to my bike, clipped in and began the 112 mile bike course.

The bike course was 2 loops of basically 20 miles flat, 25 miles hilly, 10 miles flat.
First 10 miles - ate a powerbar right away, dropped chain going up hill but quick to fix and no other mechanicals.
10-20 kept it easy, let dozens of guys pass me, tried to stay w/ women bc they pace better, and look better too. I was worried when a 21 year old dude blew by me around mile 20, so fast that I couldn't have stayed with him even if I wanted to, so I figured this kid was either the next Lance and there's no way I would beat him anyway, or he would blow up and I'd get him on the run.
20-30 hills begin, keep getting passed, but kept reminding myself that patience was key, and that I was on pace for a pretty good bike split if I didn't slow down, regardless of what everyone else was doing. For nutrition I was only using on course stuff to keep things simple and was shooting for 1 pwerbar, 1 gel, and 1 gatorade/water an hour.
30-40 passed Wendy, she was on the roadside w/ a broken chain but got a fix and came back w/ a ridiculous run to get 4th in her age group and a Kona slot, great job! I still was patient and kept a moderate intensity.
40-56 - back into town, slight downhill but headwind, so just tried to keep a steady effort, 1st loop in 2:40
56-70 - began to pass people back, found myself alone for about 10 miles and was starting to get tired, but that was because I had gotten off my nutitrition plan. Once a got another powerbar felt a lot more energy just in time for the hills.
70-90 - 2nd loop of hills, definitely pushed harder than 1st time and began to move up in the field for the first time on the bike.
90-112 - continued to push hills, settled in to place. Came up to a group of 4 guys whow were clearly less than the legal distance from each other, that would pass and slow, then I would pass, only to get caught by them again. This happened a few times, finally one of them got busted around mile 105. At this point I decided to sit back and stay out of this nonsense, and keep an easier effort than if I were alone. I figured that the minute or 2 I'd lose on the bike would be made up for in the run, as I was starting to feel pretty cooked and was wondering if I'd pushed too hard on the bike, so I came in with a 5 minute fade for a total of 5:25, although some of this may have been the headwind picking up on the 2nd loop.

T2 - similar to T1, volunteer grabbed my bike at the line and I grabbed my run gear bag, put shoes, watch, and hat on in tent, and began the marathon! I was still wondering if I'd biked too hard, but when I hit the first mile in 6:43 that question was answered. I had to reign myself, but settled into a 7:20ish pace by the third mile. On the first loop, spectators kept encouraging me by saying how strong I looked - to which I replied, 'It's easy to look strong at mile 3'. Around mile 4 I passed the one guy in my age group who I knew was ahead of me, the same dude who blew by on the bike. I think I returned the favor. By the 1st turnaround in the 7th mile I was beginning to feel the fatigue, but kept taking in plenty of water, gatorade, coke, and a gel every 3 miles. I knew I was pretty far up in the amatuer field, but didn't know for sure that I was first in my age group, which is what I thought I would need for the Kona slot. Oddly though, since I knew I was on pace for a sub 10 hour finish I didn't feel any huge urgency, and would be happy with that time no matter what place it got me. I came through the half marathon in around 1:35, saw my cheering section around mile 15 and headed out for the 2nd loop. At this point I was still keeping pace in the 7:20s, but it was getting harder every mile and moments of doubt became more and more common. There were times when I didn't know if I'd be able to run for another 5 minutes let alone 10 miles, but usually a power gel would fix this in a few minutes. Still, miles 18-24 were a very dark place mentally as there wasn't much of a crowd for support besides the aid stations, and my pace began to slip to the 7:40s and 7:50s. Somehow I made it through and things began to get better in the last 2-3 miles, knowing I was so close to the finish. At this point I'd been on my feet longer, in terms of time, than I had ever run before, but as I made the final turn to the finish I wanted the moment to last much longer than it actually would. I felt like a pro for a few seconds as I was giving high fives to the crowd on the way to the finish line which I reached in a total time of 9:48:10, finshing the race with a 3:15 marathon. I was so excited that I don't think I can remember the announcer saying "You are an Ironman!". Right then I found out from my parents and Leigh that I'd won my age group and was going to Hawaii!! I don't think I could have better fans and supporters than them, and in strange constrast to my immediate response from my first marathon ("Never let me do this again"), I couldn't wait to sign up the next morning. So I'll be taking it easy for the next few weeks before gearing up for a few late summer/fall races, culminating in the world championships in Kona!

How do I know I'm ready?

With less than 1 week to go there is not much more that can be done to improve fitness without adding fatigue on race day. But in the past several weeks I've had a few opportunities to gauge my fitness and most indicators say that I'm ready. Just 2 days after the epic long day, I raced in the Bolder Boulder, the world's largest 10K road race with 50,000 participants. Since we got to Boulder a little late and I basically jogged from the car to the start line as a warmup, and took the first 3 miles at tempo pace before picking it up a little, I'm pretty happy with the 36:23 time I posted, which is still the 2nd fastest 10K I have ever run. Not bad for 2 days after a 9 hour workout!

Later on that week I did a 10 mi cycling time trial. It was a pretty windy day but it was mostly a crosswind, which isn't quite as bad as a headwind/tailwind combo on an out and back course. Anyway, I came in at 26.3 mph which is 1 mph faster than my best from last summer. Although the wind conditions can impact that a lot, I was also less than 2 minutes off the winning time and only a minute behind a lot of cat1/2 cyclists with all sorts of aero equipment, so I was pretty happy with that result too.

Moving on, 2 weekends ago I did one final race simulation to see what biking for 5+ hours hard would feel like after a long swim, and what running 13.1 miles would feel like after that. So after vortex masters, I did quite possibly the hilliest ride that can be done in and around Fort Collins. Start by going up Rist Canyon, a 9 mile climb of about 3000 feet. Then, decsend down the Poudre Canyon, turn ride, head up over the dams (5 climbs of 200-400 ft each), and climb the back side of Rist from Masonville (another ~3000 ft w/ several steep sections, including the last mile at about 12%). Although this was only a 93 mile ride, the point was to trash my legs at least as much as the relatively flatter ironman course will, while practicing my race nutrition strategy. After this ride, I went off to do a 13.1 mi run, which I managed to do on pace for a 3:15 marathon. Although this was definitely hard, and I needed more water than the 1 fountain I was able to stop at on this run, nothing seemed to indicate that this type of pace was not doable on race day, so hopefully all will work out.

As a final test, I raced a stroke and stride (1500m swim + 5k run) last Thursday as a final tune-up. The swim was about 2-3 minutes slower than what I was expecting, but I was also only 2-3 minutes off some ITU junior team guys that I know can swim in the 17-18 minute range, and just 30 seconds behind my coach who was the top female amateur at Ironman Hawaii last year coming out of the water. Whether it was the choppy water or a long course, I don't know, but I'm not too worried about the time given my relative place. On the run, though, I managed to run down a few of those ITU junior team guys and ran basically as fast as I ever have for 5K, not bad for no speedwork and coming off a hard swim. That's how I know I'm ready.

Well, only a couple days before I make the trip up to Idaho. I plan to get in 1 more post about lessons learned from my training for this, and detail some of my final prep, so keep checking back for more!

Truly Epic

Well, as I continue to get through the backlog, I am going to share one workout in particular that has me mentally, if not physically, prepared for the race. I did this 2 weeks ago - it's scary to think that between then and now, half the time to race day has passed!

I mentioned earlier the "big day" training I had been doing on Saturdays. This was the biggest of them all. I began by swimming with the Vortex Masters swimming group at CSU, which is a great group to swim with. If you want to get your ass kicked in the water for an hour and a half, this is the place to go. In all honesty though, I have probably made more progress in swimming this past year than in the prior few, which I think I can attribute to a few things but having to keep up with a lane of good swimmers is definitely one of them. Anyway, this particular day we had a swim set of 4000 yards, just shy of the ironman distance - a nice warmup for...

...Cameron Pass. This was truly an epic ride, 133 miles, which is 19 miles longer than my previous longest ride (from the week before), and 21 miles longer than the race distance! It was also one of the most scenic rides I could do from Fort Collins, hitting the mouth of the Poudre Canyon in the first 10 miles and then progressing up very gradually from 5000 ft to 10,300 at the top (1,000 ft higher than I had ever been on a bike before). The first 20 miles in the canyon had some light traffic, but not as bad as I'd imagined for Memorial Day - perhaps there is some truth to the notion that driving is being cut back due to gas costs. Most of the traffic was from buses full of kayakers out to enjoy the rapids produced by the fresh snowmelt from the Rockies. As a progressed onward, I passed the small town of Rustic, which is more of a getaway spot than anything else. At about this time I began to face an increasing stiff headwind blowing down the canyon, which slowed my progress even more than the gradual uphill grade. About 50 miles in, at about 8000 ft, the real fun began. The wind let up ever so slightly, but the gentle, barely noticeable uphill was replaced by a more serious climb of about 5%. To make matters worse, a series of graupel (hard snow pellets) showers began to sting my face and legs. Fortunately, I had brought a long sleeved jersey, so I was able to stay warm on the way up. Once above 9000 ft, though, the lack of air began to really cut into my climbing, and I had to keep reminding myself that I did not come over 60 miles just to turn away less than 500 feet from the top. So I pressed on, and thankfully, the last few miles are a return to the more gently slopes, although it was quite chilly by this point and my hands were getting numb. But once I saw the sign at the top, I knew it had all been worth it.


On the way down, I faced a new dilemma - the graupel/snow showers had intensified enough behind me to make the roads entirely wet. Combined with an air temperature that was probably on the low side of 40 degrees, I knew my failure to bring gloves and knee warmers was a miscalculation, to put it mildly. All I knew, as I touched my brakes without any feeling in my fingers, was that I had to make it down to 8000 feet, and things would start to get better. Although it only took about 25 minutes, I was generating almost no heat the whole time as I sped down at 40 mph on the wet pavement. I survived, however, and had the benefit of a tailwind the whole way down the canyon. I made a short stop in Rustic for some Mountain Dew and chocolate to supplement the granola bars I'd been eating the whole ride up to that point. The bone-chilling initial descent didn't totally wear off for another hour, though, but it felt great to navigate the twists and turns of the lower Poudre canyon with the wind at my back. What went up in 4:22 came back down in 2:28 - at an average speed of 27 mph! In fact, the first 56 miles of the descent took just under 2 hours - which is what some of the top pro triathletes do without the wind at their back or 5000 ft of elevation drop in a half ironman!

The day wasn't over yet, though - I still had to run. After a short break, essentially to get changed and take in a little food, I went out on the trails and did 8.8 miles, or about 1/3 of a marathon. The legs actually felt pretty good, and I had to remind myself to keep it under control. I ended up on pace for about a 3:10 marathon, so being able to do that after the ironman distance swim and a longer, tougher bike was a huge confidence boost. The only difference on race day will be that I won't have quite as luxurious breaks between each event, and there is the small matter of having to run another 17+ miles. Oh well - that's what the taper is for.

Testing

A couple of weeks ago (as you can see I'm still catching up), I did a VO2 max test as part of a physiology laboratory study I'm participating in. The objective of the study is to see if sweat rates and body temperature are affected by different types of clothing worn while exercising, or something like that...anyway what it comes down to is that I get paid $200 to get this testing done which normally costs $200!

So what the test encompasses is running on a treadmill, while being hooked up to 10 electrodes and a respirator to analyze the gas content of my expirations. I think I looked pretty goofy, and it wasn't the most comfortable running I've ever done but it wasn't terrible either. The protocol was to run the treadmill at 8 minute miles, raising the grade by 1% every minute until I couldn't go any more, which was at 14%. Thankfully the really painful part only lasted a few minutes.

So, what did all this fancy equipment tell me that I didn't already know? Well, if the results are accurate, and I have every reason to believe that they are, I actually have a pretty high rate of oxygen intake for my weight, nothing extraordinary but there have been olympic marathoners with similar numbers to mine. What this means is that I'm actually not a very economical runner, compared to average, because it costs me the same amount of oxygen to run over a minute per mile slower than these guys! Now, the reasons for this could be many but are probably not related to form (if you want to learn more than you could ever possibly want to about running economy, see this excellent series of posts at the Science of Sport). I suspect that I'm carrying a good deal more leg muscle than your average runner, due to cycling, and that is probably part of the reason it takes more energy to move those legs, but there might be other factors as well. What interesting is that its generally thought that, while VO2 max is hard to raise in someone who's been active for several years, running economy takes much longer to plateau. So, maybe I'll get that marathon time down there someday.

For a long time, I skipped a few opportunities to do this type of testing because I thought I would just use it to limit myself. Now that I know the results, I can't say I feel any more limited, and neither should anyone else who has these numbers. It's most important to remember that awards aren't given out for oxygen consumption, or efficiency, or anything else done in a lab setting. To paraphrase a common sports quote, "That's why they run the race!".

She said yes!

Ok, I admit to being a bad blogger but things have been pretty busy since the last post (as if they weren't before). This is because, in addition to hitting my biggest training weeks, I am also having to start wedding planning! Since by now this isn't news to anyone, I'll just give a few details about how it went down.

Sunday May 18th was a planned day off, which is nothing out of the ordinary. In the past we've done all sorts of things on these days, such as going to the zoo, snowshoeing, or just hanging around town and seeing a movie. In fact, one of the times we were snowshoeing Leigh thought I was going to propose when I reached to get something out of my backpack...but that was just a set up for this time (at least I can think that in hindsight).

We went to the Wild Basin trailhead where we'd done a hike the previous fall, and headed up to Copeland falls on a trail which followed the St. Vrain creek (the lower elevations of which I had biked alongside just the day before). It was windy and mostly overcast, although the sun would peek through from time to time. I hadn't planned the exact moment to do it, but when the sun came out right when we reached the falls I knew I had it do it then to get the sparkle sparkle effect. After sitting down and eating a bit, I pulled the gift box out of my backpack, gave it to her and watched unwrap it and then assumed the position on one knee and we were both very happy on the way back. Here is a picture of us just a few minutes after the happy moment, and a picture of the ring:



By now we actually have a lot of ideas for the wedding, and should have a date/location within a few weeks. We'll keep all family/friends informed as soon as we know the details!