Augusta 70.3 RR

Wow what a great race all around!  The fans were fantastic, the course was great, and the weather was pretty much perfect!  Overcast the entire day with high of maybe 75, occasional misting until the rains really came down after 3pm.

Swim:
I was looking forward to the wave swim start, as I knew it would lead to less congestion and hopefully lend itself to me having a better swim time.  I was in wave 14 which means my race didn't start until 8:24 am, almost a whole hour after the pros started at 7:30.  My time quickly approached, and I made my way down the ramp to the dock along with another 120ish 35-39 year old males.  After jumping in the water and making my way to the starting buoys, the current quickly became apparent as we had to continually push bckward to maintain our position.  The airhorn goes off and I shoot out of there like a cannon!  I quickly find my rhythm and find myself in the lead group with about 8 other people.  I find some feet for the first few minutes then make the pass as I feel I can go a little bit harder.  I do my own thing for the next few minutes, then look around and realize I don't see any other white caps.  Holy sh*t you mean I'm actually LEADING the swim wave?  I flip back over and get back in the rhythm.  Occasionally I see a white cap come up along side me for a few strokes before falling back. 
This is definitely the fastest swim on the 70.3 circuit in North America.  Swimming downstream in a river will do great things for your swim time!  Slowtwitchers have said it typically takes about 5 mins off your normal 1.2 mile swim time,and I think that was pretty accurate.

Bike:
Super flat and fast course with just a couple of rollers.  First 30 minutes legs felt really tight, glutes were screaming at me so knew something wasn't right.  Cadence seemed to be a little high and I had to keep telling myself to slow it down.  Stood and stretched a couple of times and tried to find a good rhythm and finally clicked into one about :40 into the ride.  From there smooth sailing, big gear and steady cadence.  Bike time of 2:32.

Run:
 Right off the bat I could tell my run was not going to be as strong as NOLA.  I felt OK and was clicking off 7:30ish miles for the first 2 or 3 but could tell I wasn't gonna be able to do that for the full 13.1.  Pushed along at 7:40-:50 pace until 10.6 miles, when my damn calf and soleus seized up.  I've been having some plantar fasciitis and tight soleus issues on that side for the last six weeks and it reared its ugly head with a vengeance.  I'm just glad I made it through that much of the race without any issues.  Managed to keep moving with just two one minute spans of walking slowly trying to ease the cramp.  still managed 8:40ish miles for the last two and a half miles so not terrible, but brought my final time down from a 4:45ish to 4:48.

Overall very happy with my race!  HUGE PR by over 31 minutes!  Good way to end the season, and possibly career.  Time to spend some more time with the wife and baby!  Feel a huge amount of guilt every second I'm training and not spending with them, so think I'll switch gears for a while and just try to be a better husband and dad.  Until next time!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, and I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the most inspirational person in my life.  I would not be the person, father, husband, friend(or any other hat that I wear), without the amazing love, guidance, and support you have given me over the past 34 years.  Only as I've gotten older and look back on my childhood and adolescence do I realize how much you sacrificed so that I could have a better life--all those basketball camps, snack money for all those away games even if it meant you wouldn't get lunch at work, an occasional video game when you needed new shoes or jeans, and so many other little things, given selflessly with no concern for yourself.  Not to mention all the words of wisdom and guidance.

As I start my adventure into parenthood, I look back and don't see how you managed to do it.  I could not have asked for a better mother or role model, and just keep telling myself if I can be half the parent you are, I'll have done a good job.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM, I LOVE YOU!!!

Five months already??

To start with, this blog is really nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse to post baby pics.  I will try to provide a little bit of story, but basically, just look at my cute baby! :-)

First, a short bit on my training, or lack thereof.  It's been seven weeks since my Ironman, and I did absolutely zero training for the first three weeks after it.  This was followed by three weeks of, eh, I'm not really feeling it today, I'll just do something tomorrow.  Which led to three weeks of about 3-4 hours of exercise.  This last week I finally had to buckle down though, as I do have another race scheduled to end my season with next month.  As I'd like to not totally bomb it, I actually put in a shocking 8 hours of training this week(Gasp).  Believe me, it was hard after the last six weeks.

OK enough of the boring stuff--here's what I've spent most of my spare time doing!

This is Hunter's FAVORITE thing to do--ride in the Bjorn.  I come home from work everyday, change clothes, and in he goes.  He LOVES it!  As soon as he sees me pick it up to start putting it on he smiles really big and starts flailing those arms and legs.  We walk around the house, go out to the garden, help mommy cook dinner, and sit with the cats on the porch.  Usually he's babbling or shrieking with excitement.  And he loves to dance with mommy!  We'll help with dinner prep, and usually have the music playing, and he gets so tickled when she stops and comes over to see him and dance. 

Notice the glazed eyes, slouched position, and small amount of drool on the chin?  According to Joy this is Daddy's classic watching TV pose.  He learns quickly.

Lounging in the recliner watching the Olympics.  Wait, walking is an Olympic sport??

I would really like to taste you, but I can't seem to get any closer to you...  And look at those chunky arms!

Daddy, you think YOU'VE had a long day...after countless reps of putting my feet in my mouth and all that tummy time that Mommy made me do I am just exhausted...

Must.  Eat.  Everything.

I can't believe its been five months!  It's truly been so amazing watching my little guy grow and learn new things, as well as starting to show his personality.  There are times when I think he is just like me, and others where I think he couldn't be more like Joy.  Hopefully he'll end up with the better qualities of both of us :-) 

IM CDA race report

It was SOO nice to get out of New Mexico for a while, and the Spokane/CDA area was just beautiful.   Mountains covered in green spruce trees, green grass everywhere, a river and gorgeous lake.  And everything was just so green.  I mean, GREEN.  Living in the desert you kind of forget what that color is.  But anyway, on to the race!

Race morning arrives and the alarm goes off at 4:30.  Lucky for me, sunrise was at 4:48 so it was already light outside, which makes waking up that early SOO much easier.

 The gun goes off at 7AM start and 2600 crazy people make a mad dash into the water.  I thought the mass swim start at Arizona was bad!  In the swim at AZ I pretty much did my own thing; I swam WAAY outside so I could go at my own pace and not have to worry so much about everyone else in the water.  I knew coming into this race though, if I wanted to improve any on my time, I'd have to mix it up with everyone else.  I spent the first 15 minutes just trying to survive, and finally found a little bit of breathing room after the turnaround buoy.  I also had an A Ha! moment somewhere during this time.  Up to this point, I'd always shied away from any contact in the water, always felt like I was just in the way of all these faster people.  But then I started thinking, hey, I have just at much right to this water as anyone else!  Then I thought, just treat this like a basketball game.  Lord knows I never shied away from contact playing basketball, even though I was often the slimmest player out there!  After this occurred to me I became a lot more aggressive with my swim; I swam where I wanted to and didn't care who was in my way-just like everyone else seemed to be doing :-).  I wouldn't say I was LOOKING for the contact, but I definitely started dishing out more than I was taking :-).  I made it back to the start and jumped out of the water for my short beach run before starting lap 2.  Glanced down and smiled when I saw my first split, 32 minutes! 

The second lap started out well. The crowd had thinned out by this point, but I noticed the water was a LOT choppier than the first loop, despite having fewer people.  Guess the wind had picked up.  About 10 minutes into this lap, though, I started to notice a strange thing.  I couldn't seem to grip the water.  Apparently my hands had had enough and were calling it a day.  I couldn't force my fingers together!  And I couldn't even keep them stiff!  I had developed a case of what I call spaghetti hands.  I didn't feel all that cold in my wetsuit, but apparently my hands did.  My feet had gone numb within five minutes of the start, which was fine as I'm a horrible kicker on a good day when it comes to swimming.  I somehow managed to stay in a good draft though and came out of the water with a 1:07!  I slowed a bit during the second loop but felt it was a good time considering the chop and cold hands!

T1.  Nightmare.  I ran to the wetsuit strippers, and with my lifeless hands had not even managed to unzip the damn thing by the time I got there.

My enthusiastic helpers did not initially notice this and attempted to rip the thing from my shoulders down to my ankles in one fell swoop.  After several attempts I finally managed to yell "Hold it!" after which they slowed down, unzipped me, pulled it off my arms and then the rest of the way off.  I grabbed it, my T1 bag, and headed into the changing tent.  I definitely wasn't in shock, but I was a little out of it, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, I almost felt disconnected from my body.  Is that what hypothermia feels like?  Who knows.  I found a seat in the changing tent and couldn't grasp anything in my bag!  Come ON hands, we have a race here!  I finally just dumped it all out on the ground, managed to scoop up my towel, and held my cold lifeless hands inside it for a little bit to try and get some feeling back.  A quick rubdown got most of the water off, then I attempted to peel the speedos off and put the bike shorts on.  After much fumbling and bumbling, I finally had all my gear on--except my arm warmers.  I just looked at them dumbly for a second, realized I had no chance of putting them on, so stuffed them in my pocket and headed out.  T1 time 11:52, good grief!

On to the bike!

 I spent the first ten minutes shivering uncontrollably.  I mean COME ON!!!  I decided there was no way I could continue to go on like this, so I stopped and spent over three painful minutes trying to pull my damn arm warmers on.  I ended up using my teeth.  But it was definitely three minutes well spent, as I quickly stopped shivering.  I rode for about 1:15 before my bladder reached  its bursting point.  I was almost to the top of the biggest climb of the day and knew I had a big descent coming up.  Perfect timing.  At least 4-5 minutes of coasting would be a great time to go!  Of course I've never yet been able to pee while on the bike, but I knew I wouldn't have a better chance.  Plus, you would think screaming down the road at 40+ mph would literally scare the piss out of you, right?  Well guess who still hasn't managed to pee while riding.  Yeah, this guy.  I managed to make it back to the top of the next climb but had to pull off and spent over two minutes parked on the side of the road--grr I hate losing time like that!  I had one other bathroom break on the bike that also lasted about 2:30, but otherwise had a pretty spectacular bike!    I finished the first loop right at three hours, and still felt really strong.  The second loop was fairly uneventful as well, I felt great right up to the dismount.  Final bike time 6:11:xx, 18.1mph avg.  I was super pumped; I felt coming in to the race that at best I’d do about 6:00 to 6:10, and I almost hit that even with my stupid three pit stops.  I felt even better than night when I looked at my garmin

 and realized that I’d climbed over 6000 feet!  That’s 25% more than the 4660 advertised on the website!  BAM!  I crushed this thing!  :-)

T2.  Much better than than T1!  I ran immediately to the port-o-potties, and spent the next 2:11 on what would be my final pee break of the day.  Yes I timed it; I am that Type A.  I finished up, grabbed my transition bag for a quick change of clothes and shoes, got lathered up with sunscreen by a group of gray haired ladies (come on where were the young hot women??), and headed out!  Final T2 time 5:04.  MUCH BETTER.

RUN.  After only about 45 seconds out of T2, I saw my sexy wife and beautiful baby boy cheering me on!  Of course I had to stop and give them both a quick smooch, then off I went.  The first 6.5 miles went very smoothly, I settled into a very comfortable 8:45ish pace and just enjoyed the experience. 

Most of the course is an out and back along the shore of Lake CDA, and it is beautiful!  I hit the turnaround feeling great and started back in.  The next 6.5 miles went fairly well, I continued to feel great until around mile 11.  I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was wrong, but I just started feeling blah.  My legs were good, my lungs were good, no stomach  issues up to this point, so what gives?  I kept my same pace and finished the first loop in just under two hours.  I passed Joy and Hunter twice in town, and told Joy I was really hurting as I went by.  I don’t remember what exactly she said, but I think the gist of it was along the lines of HTFU J.  I didn’t know what exactly was going on, but at the aid station at mile 14 it was time for another gel, I reached for it then realized I didn’t want the f’ing thing.  I was suddenly, desperately, craving salt!  I decided instead to go with some salty Lay's potato chips.  That seemed to hit the spot!  I was still running a bit slower than the first loop, but I wasn’t walking dang it!  I did this for the next 5 aid stations as well, and could feel myself coming out of the hole.  I did walk up the hill on the way out on this second loop :-/.  However I was feeling pretty good at the turnaround, only 6.5 miles to go!  I managed to run jog up the backside of the hill on my way back in to town, and picked up the pace once at the top.  I think I kept it at about 9:00 miles for the last quarter of the race.  I was super proud of myself for coming back and finishing strong!  Final run time 4:16:xx.  I had hoped to do a little better, but still a 36 minute improvement over my first IM run!

Final finishing time 11:52:30, a whopping 30 minute PR on a much tougher course than Arizona!

 I couldn’t be happier with my race!  I drastically cut my weekly training hours after Hunter was born, so I was really uncertain how that would affect race day.  However I did increase the intensity of most of my workouts, which really seems to have paid off!  My coach is pretty smart :-).

I do think this will mark my retirement from the full Ironman distance, even though I know this will be disappointing to my wife.  I really just want to spend more time with my family now.  I still love triathlon and racing, but it’s definitely a much less important part of my life.  Until next time friends!

NOLA 67.1??? Race Report

I promise this post will be mostly light-hearted and upbeat, but I am gonna start it off with just a bit of a soap box rant.  Cancelling the swim was RIDICULOUS.  I checked out the water the day before the race, and again on race morning.  Yes, it was choppy.  Yes, it was murky.  It’s an OPEN WATER SWIM.  The last time I did Gulf Coast(2010), the water was MUCH choppier than here in NOLA.  Races take place with ocean swims almost every weekend of the race season, and I guarantee most of those swims are at least as choppy as Lake Pontchartrain on Sunday morning.  And cancelling the swim almost 24 hours BEFORE the race begins is just inexcusable.  The organization for this race was severely lacking.  I talked to several other racers at the expo, and it seemed that the information given out at each race meeting (hourly)changed throughout the day.  And it’s all fine and dandy that every NOLA 70.3 from now on will be in some protected cove, but how does that make me feel any better about my race this weekend?  And thank goodness I didn’t stay at the host hotel, who provided shuttles TO the race site Sunday morning for all participants, but offered NO RETURN SERVICE?? 

Ok enough already, let’s get down to it!  Since no swim was in the plan, we had to complete a 2 mile run instead prior to the bike.  This was done in wave format, just like the swim, with the added bonus of a time trial start, with 2 people leaving every 3 seconds.  I chose to start at the tail end of my wave, and afterward realized this may have been a mistake.  My start time ended up not being until almost 8AM, but I finally stepped up to the mat and took off!  Well, maybe not took off, but started J.  My coach suggested doing the 2 mile preamble at about 10K pace, or slower.  I chose slower, 7:30 it is.  I didn’t want to feel winded at all coming into T1, I figured losing 1-2 mins in that first run was definitely worth it to keep my legs for the bike and run to follow.  7:30 ended up feeling a little uncomfortable so I backed off to 7:45 pace and felt much better.  I found a couple of guys running the same pace and we chatted our way through the 2 miles without any difficulty.  I came into T1 feeling GREAT.  My time was 16:11, but the run was actually 2.1 miles, so I’ll take it.

Quick T1 and out on the bike.  The winds were steady at 15-17mph throughout the day, straight out of the north.  I knew going in that if they stayed that way I’d only have two sections of straight on headwind, otherwise it was going to be crosswind all day.  Which was fine by me.  One thing about the windy season in the desert, I felt the wind today was pretty much a non-factor!  I was actually hoping for some stronger wind to maybe hurt my competition!  Anyway, I wanted to really try and do what my coach has always told suggested I do, which was negative split everything.  I took the first 15 mins of the bike really easily, just trying to find my cycling legs, making sure everything was in order.  After that, found a big gear and just kept a steady cadence.  Cursed, loudly, at the occasional pace line that passed me, but as I started at the end of my age group these were mostly the 25-29 males, so it wasn’t AS frustrating as it could have been.  Around mile 23 I picked up a ‘friend’ who proceeded to ride DIRECTLY behind me.  I let him hang out for a couple of minutes to see if he was gonna pass, but he seemed very content to ride my draft, so I slowed down and pretended to be drinking.  20, 19, 18mph.  Finally he pulled out and passed.  I stayed my 4 bike lengths behind and followed for a few minutes, but he just wasn’t going as fast as I wanted so I put in a burst and passed him.  Within 5 mins he was back, right on my wheel.  Again, I slowed and he eventually passed.  After two more rounds of this, I just stayed back, as we were about to hit the first section of headwind.   We hit the headwind and BAM, I put the hammer down.  As I rolled past him I looked at him and gave him my best EAT SH*T smile.  I crushed the next two miles and hit the turn around.  Now with the tailwind I was flying, and I saw he was still a good 90 seconds  from the turnaround.  I smiled and waved and kept going J  Number 921, you short little man, wherever you are, grow a pair and do your own work.  With just under halfway still to go, my legs felt great and I knew it was time to start pushing a little bit more.  This is where my decision to start at the back of my age group might have been a bad idea.  By this time the line of bikes had really thinned out and I was no longer seeing any 35-39 year olds.  It’s tougher to keep the hammer down if you don’t see someone to chase, ya know?  Anyway, the rest of the bike passed uneventfully and I cruised into T2. 52 miles in 2:24, 21.6mph!  Definitely feeling it a little bit, ready to be off the bike, but looking forward to the run!

After a decent T2, I was out on the run.  Time to see if any of that speedwork has paid off!  I cruised through mile 1 at 7:30 pace and had to slow down at least a half dozen times.  Yes my legs felt  wonderful immediately off the bike(didn’t ride hard enough??), but I’ve got a long way to go!  I slowed down just a bit more and tried to keep the next several miles around 7:35-7:40.  I really wanted to negative split my run if possible.  Hit the halfway mark right around :49, and still felt STRONG.  Definitely thought I was gonna go under 1:40.  Tried to pick it up at that point and pushed the pace up to about 7:15, but after less than 30 seconds I’d glance down and be back to that 7:40 pace.  Dang it!  Go faster Jeremy!  I continued to kinda go up and down til about mile 10, and that was when I started having my first trouble of the day.  Just some mild GI cramping, I never had to stop or even walk, but definitely had several spells where I slowed way down to try and let it pass.  I also started to feel the fatigue at this point, and my last 3 miles ended up with about an 8:05 pace.  I finished up with a 1:41, so close!  Not my goal but a 14 minute PR for a Half-Ironman run!  HUGE IMPROVEMENT!

Overall I have to give myself an A for this race.  Things couldn’t have gone much better!  My nutrition was spot on.  My bike was right where I thought it would be.  I feel that personally I’m a little faster runner than my time, but still a GINORMOUS leap from my last Half-Ironman. 

Now, I’m gonna play with the numbers, because I’m a numbers freak.  And I know this is all speculation, because there’s no way to know that I would have had the same bike and run if I’d have to swim, but… I finished in 4:24.  Minus the 16 minutes for the first run gives you 4:08.  Add on 4 miles on the bike at 3min/mi(20mph) gives you another 12 minutes.  That brings us to 4:20.  I was prepared to CRUSH this swim.  My swim workout last Thursday was 4x500m at 7:30 with 1:00 rest.  So, even with a choppy swim, I definitely should have finished this thing in 4:5x.  Again this is all speculation but helps me put it all in perspective. 

I’ve really been kind of dreading Ironman CDA since Hunter was born.  I’ve skipped a lot of workouts to stay and spend time with Joy and him, and I definitely don’t regret that!  I’ll choose them over silly triathlon any day!  And I’d probably have skipped even more if Joy hadn’t been pushing me out the door.   Because I’ve missed so much I was really feeling unprepared, but this race has given me oodles of confidence!  Now if I can just keep that confidence for the next nine weeks…until next time, cheers!

Where's my motivation?

Seven more long runs.  Seven more long rides.  I keep repeating this to myself, ONLY SEVEN more of each.  Its not working.  Ever since my little man came into our lives, my desire to do this Ironman has been pretty much at zero.  I've skipped maybe half of my workouts the past three weeks.  And I don't like being tired all the time, because this takes away from my play time with Hunter.  And I don't like being gone for all those hours training ON TOP of being gone all day at work.  I purchased the plane tickets to Spokane this weekend, to try and get myself motivated--if I've spent the money then surely I'll be more into it.  Nope, didn't work.  Of course I did have a pretty intense week of training last week, and I ran my 17 miler tonight that I missed last weekend, so I know my fatigue is playing a large part in my current blahness.  I watched one of my motivational clips about HTFU on youtube, which did cheer me up a little.  WARNING to family members--there is a lot of profanity in this video, so you may want to skip it!  :-)  OK enough bellyaching on my part-its bedtime!  I'm sure I'll be back to my usual chipper self in a couple of days, good night and God bless!

New addition! (and race report)

Yes its been a while since I last blogged, as my mom never fails to point out each time we talk :-).  Lets start with a quick race report, then I'll move on to the important stuff, that beautiful baby boy of mine!

Mesilla Valley Sprint Triathlon was last weekend, and I was looking forward to testing out the old pain gauge before Nola 70.3 in three weeks.  Fortunately for me, I had forgotten how much sprint tris HURT.  As I had done this same race last year, I was anxious to see if I'd improved any.  As my wife coach has repeatedly told me, you can't compare races as conditions are always different.  For the sake of this blog, I'll pretend I don't know this :)

On to the race.  As we live in the desert(no open water), this is a reverse triathlon, starting with a 5K run, then a 20K bike, followed by a 500 meter swim.  The run was PAINFUL.  The lead group of guys gapped me wihtin the first 5 minutes, and as I got to the turnaround I had approximately 20 people in front of me, the leader at least 1 minute ahead of me.  I did hit the halfway point at 10:20, and as the first half was gradually up hill, I felt a little better about how bad I was sucking wind.  I managed to negative split the second half of the run and hit T1 at 20:20--thats my new 5K PR by one second :-).  Also, faster by 1:20 than my run from the race last year!

A quick T1 and onto the bike.  I quickly passed 4-5 guys in the first 2 miles, then spent the next 10 minutes trying to slowly catch the shirtless guy up ahead.  I passed him at the turnaround, and we switched positions 3 or 4 times over the next 5 minutes.  As he passed me for the third time, he looked over with a HUGE grin and shouted, ITZ ZE RACE!!  Ahh, the Germans, gotta love them!  I finally gapped him on the next hill and cruised into T2 about 20 seconds ahead of him.  Bike time, 34:50, almost 10 minutes faster than last year!  The course HAD to be short!(It was, by 2.4 miles)

An even quicker T2 and as I'm heading to the pool I hear my German buddy screaming what could possibly be a long litany of expletives as he tried to rack his bike and catch me(which he did, halfway through the swim).  The swim has always been my Achilles heel in these ridiculous reverse triathlons, but today I felt much better than usual.  And other than my German friend, I got passed by no one.  And, wait for it, I actually PASSED 3 people in the pool!  I finished in 8:40, an improvement of 1:25 over last years 10:05!

Final time, 1:04:57, 11th overall, and 1st in my age group! 

OK ENOUGH OF THE BORING STUFF WHAT ABOUT THAT BABY?!?!?!?!?

What can I say, I'm a DADDY!  :-)  These past three weeks have been unbelievably amazing!  I already can't imagine life without Hunter; its like all my life I've been waiting for him to get here, and I didn't even know it.  I could go on and on about my little man, but let's just get to the important stuff, pictures of my buddy!

 Of course we have already taken almost 1000 pictures...literally!  But I can't share all of them, at least not all at once :-)

I haven't written in almost seven weeks.  Actually, I haven't done much of anything in almost seven weeks.  Some people have been known to have post-Ironman depression.  Definitely not a problem here!  I had no problem putting the workouts on hold and enjoying some other things for a few weeks.  I managed to make a couple of trips to the ski slopes;  I spent countless hours and days playing my latest game on my playstation (Joy was thrilled with this one);  I got back to playing my drums;  spent some time at home visiting the fams; and slept in :-)  Total times I rode my bike in the last 7 weeks--two.  Total times I got in the pool in the last 7 weeks--seven.  I did run 2-3 times a week, but nothing too strenuous.  And it's exactly what I needed.  I started my training plan for Ironman Coeur D'Alene today, and I did it will a full set of batteries--physically and mentally.  I'm excited and enthusiastically looking forward to see what I can do this time around. 

 

All of this is fine and good, but even more exciting--I'm gonna be a daddy!  I know most of my posts tend to revolve around my training, but ever since I first saw that cute little baby, I wouldn't say I could care less about triathlon, because I do love it, but it definitely makes me realize it's not all that important in the grand scheme of things.  I find myself thinking about what kind of dad am I gonna be, how can I be the best dad and husband that I can be-stuff like that.  I'm eagerly counting down the days until we meet him!!