Lake Murray Triathlon 2012

Impromptu podium: Peter Kotland (2nd), me, Mark Woody (3rd)

I'm very happy to have come away with the win this weekend at Lake Murray. I haven't managed a "W" in a (sizable) race in nearly 2 years and for it to come about at this race is a huge bonus. This race is staple in the SCTS and is longest running triathlon in the midlands area and was definetly one that I'd dreamed of winning. It's also about the longest "sprint" distance I know of in that the swim is 750m and the bike is 16 miles instead of the standard 20k (12.4 miles).

After the half ironman in Charleston there was no question what my strategy against Peter needed to be. During the ride in Charleston I could sense that I was stronger on the bike but I also knew after Charleston that I didn't want to run shoulder to shoulder with him. The dude is tough as nails and holds the double marathon course record at the Ultraman World Championship and has won tons of races. He doesn't give up when the race gets hard (take a look at what he did two weeks ago in Charleston, repassing a competitor to take back 2nd place with .5 mile left). I had to come off the bike with a cushion. In talking with Paul Harrell last week I think I said I would need a minimum of 20 seconds - he outran me by 25 seconds ... thankfully I had 90 seconds coming off the bike and was able to stay out of striking distance.

Mark was also on my pre-race radar as he consistently does well here ... 2nd last year, 4th in 2010, 5th 2009, 4th 2008 ... I consider these longer sprints distance events his sweet spot because of his super fast swim and good run. In 2010 I didn't catch him on the bike until the very end and then he was out of T2 before me and I wasn't able to catch him on the run. So I knew I wanted to get him early on the bike and put time on him before the run.

So the plan was to swim on Peter's feet, pass he and Mark early on the bike and hammer, hammer, hammer and hopefully get enough cushion and have enough left in the tank to hold out for the win.

As soon as the horn sounded I was on Peter's feet. The pace felt hard for the first 200 meters or so then it was full on cruise mode. After we made the first turn we were swimming directly into the sun and I was really happy not to have to sight the buoy. I felt like I was conserving energy which was great! When we got out of the water I quickly ran to transition passing Peter along the way and actually crossing the timing mat first. I couldn't help but think back to two weeks ago when he essentially did the same thing to me coming off the bike after he sat behind me for 55 miles ... it's just racing.

Mark was up the road a little and Peter made it out of transition before me, but I passed him while we were mounting our bikes thanks to my running / flying mount! I pushed the pace out of the gate to try and get a gap as I set out in pursuit of Mark. I managed to get past Mark before we made the left off the park entrance road. From there it was just a matter of pushing hard and and getting as much time as possible. My quads were screaming and I really didn't know if I'd have any legs left to run with. I managed a 25.25 mph average speed on that course which I was pleased with. The Orbea rode excellent once again. I think Mandisa likes going 25!

Rarely do things go exactly to plan, but that's exactly how it played out with the exception that I had much more time than I thought I would coming off the bike.

Not much to report about the run ... just a matter of hanging on and managing an abdominal cramp.

Thanks to big John Wellens for giving me splits to the others on the run! That took some of the pressure off at the end and helped me enjoy the final stretch knowing I had it wrapped up.

Thanks also to Harrell's Bicycle World for all their support and of course my family for all their support and encouragement and embracing the triathlon lifestyle. My kids are looking forward to their race in a few weeks!

Results are here: http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_results&id=2883

Next up is a big block of work ahead of Festival of Flowers Olympic in June. I need to develop some foot speed and raise the threshold power on the bike to achieve my goal there.

Happy training!

Bringing back the blog

in a big way … life update and 3 race reports all in a single post!

2012 got off to a late start after little break from sport where energy and attention was focused on getting the new homestead setup. 2011 was pretty much a total disaster from a triathlon perspective which left me wondering if my best days were behind me. After the DNF at Ironman St. George and then the 2 bike crashes, I knew it was time for a break.  The real estate transaction that had been in the works for nearly 2 years finally came to pass which gave and great outlet to focus on.

It also left me 10 lbs overweight and slow … but rested!

Winter Challenge Offroad Duathlon Race Report

So 2012 literally started with 30 minute runs, 30 minute trainer rides, and a couple of short easy swims a week. After a few weeks of that I decided to see where I stood from a fitness perspective and signed up for the Winter Challenge Offroad Duathlon in February. It’s a super-fun 2.5 mile trail run followed by an 8 mile offroad ride on a mix of dirt road, double and single track, followed by another 2.5 mile trail run. It was a first year event and there were only a handful of us competing, and with so few in the field I managed to win by 13 minutes. http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_results&id=2747 I really enjoyed this race and hope the multisport community around here embraces it next year. I wasn’t very fit at the time and it gave me just to boost mentally and physically that I needed to get me excited to try and get some speed going before the tri season started 6 weeks later.



Downtown Columbia Triathlon Race Report

So after a pretty good block of training with more consistent s/b/r came the Downtown Columbia Triathlon. It’s a time trial start, pool swim, sprint distance race in the heart of the city with plenty of action from hills, cars, pedestrians, and spectators to add to the excitement. In the past I’ve placed 4^th, 1^st, 4^th, so naturally I was hoping for another 1^st to keep the pattern going. One obstacle to overcome was the fact that I had yet to receive my race/tri bike from Harrell’s Bicycle World (the greatest bike shop on planet Earth). All my training this year up to that point had been done on my trusty cyclocross bike. My friend Chip did me a huge favor and lent me his Quintana Roo Caliente for the race.

The race went pretty well with the exception of a near head on collision with a Honda Civic. These short races just HURT ‘cause you go all out. Check out my facial expression in these run pictures and you’ll see what I mean: https://birdseyeview.net/cgi-local/ImageFolio42/imageFolio.cgi?search=001&cat=Triathlons%2F20120325_CDT&bool=and
My thought is that if you don’t look ugly in a sprint race you aren’t going hard enough!  I ended up in 3^rd place and was happy to have made the podium in my season opener: http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_results&id=2804



Try Charleston Half Ironman Race Report

That left me with a 3 week training block plus a taper week to get ready for Try Charleston Half ironman. And I got my new bike!

Some pictures of the new ride:

Unfortunately work reared its ugly head, rendering me some of the most stressful weeks ever. One week required that I work 82 hours! That’s the kind of PR I hope never to beat.  But somehow I was able to maintain a pretty good training load throughout that time and I felt pretty well prepared. You always wish you could’ve done more but that’s the plight of the weekend warrior I suppose.

Taper week went well and I came into the race quietly confident that I could beat my ½ ironman PR of 4hrs 19minutes set at the 2009 world championship race in Clearwater Beach, FL (a notoriously fast course). We brought our 3 kids down to Charleston hoping for a beach day after the race on Sunday and split a suite with our friend (and fellow competitor) Chris Olson, his wife Laura and their 2 youngest girls … the youngest of which is just 13 weeks old. Unfortunately the day after the race was rainy and we didn’t get to go to the beach but we had a fun time with the Olson’s nonetheless.

This race seems to have really gotten popular triathletes coming from North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia along with South Carolina natives.  It’s also become very competitive with the top 5 last year all going 4hr 18min and under. It seems like this is quickly becoming the unofficial regional long course champs!

Onto the race … the swim was uneventful for the post part. One kick to the face by a breast-stroker on the second lap as we ran into age groupers that had started after us. I didn’t have any feet to follow so I just set a steady pace and tried to stay on course. I came out of the water 27 minutes and change (28:10 with run to transition) just a few seconds behind Chris and Peter Kotland.

Chris was out of T1 first from our group then Peter then me. Chris set a high pace out of the gate and opened a massive gap. I pinned the HR at 165 and tried to drop Peter without digging too deep. I figured there were some fish up the road like Mike Wendt and David Hall that would need catching so I kept the effort pretty high for the first few miles. Soon I caught and passed those guys but then I was caught also by someone. I decided to stay with him and soon enough we brought back Chris as well. Peter evidently had the same idea as me when he was passed, as did Chris when we caught him. So now we had a group of 4 rolling along.  The pace was high but not too uncomfortable. Once we got to the turn-around we could see that there was just one guy ahead of us by a little bit … maybe a minute?

I sat second wheel (legally of course!) for almost the entire ride with Peter and Chris behind me.  The guy setting the pace wouldn’t let me take the lead and honestly he was stronger on the bike so I was happy to let him set the pace. I felt most comfortable turning a big gear (alternating between 53x11 and 53x12) at a cadence of 70 and my HR sitting in the high 140s. Eventually Chris dropped off and not too much later we hit a section of road where the surface had deteriorated and the traffic got really heavy with aggressive drivers. I let a gap open to the guy ahead of me and so Peter and I rode into T2 together in +-2hr 15min with an average speed for the 56 miles of around 25 mph! I wasn’t sure how I would run off such a hard effort on the bike. Certainly I haven’t been riding like that in training. I was ranked 3^rd on the bike but I think I was 4^th since the winner’s splits didn’t get recorded.

I had a crappy T2 and Peter made it out well ahead of me. Somehow though I managed to get out ahead of the guy that came in before me.  I didn’t grab my Garmin off the bike for the run so I was running with just a stopwatch. I went through the first mile comfortably at 6:30/mile and had cut Peter’s lead nearly in half. Soon I was caught and passed by the guy behind me who went on to pass Peter also.

So there we sat for a good long while just trying to run strong and keep moving toward the finish. I developed a major hot spot on the bottom of my foot and after trying to tolerate it for a few miles I had to stop and remove the sock. By then the damage was done and so every step was pain. I wasn’t passed by anyone else nor did I pass anyone (other than age groupers on their first lap of the double out and back course). Peter managed to repass the guy ahead of him with just a ½ left to go to finish 2^nd. I came in 4^th in a time of 4hours 14minutes setting a new PR for the distance!!

Results:  http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_results&id=2843

Pictures: https://birdseyeview.net/cgi-local/ImageFolio42/imageFolio.cgi?search=105&cat=Triathlons%2F20120421_TCH&bool=and

I really enjoyed racing here and hope to come back next year and move up a few places and see if I can go under 4hrs 10min ... that would be nice!

Nov 14-20

Feeling a little under the weather today. I came down with a sore throat last night which somehow as robbed me of nearly all my energy. I stayed home today, working from the home office and front and back porches. That I love ... the run at lunch, not so much. But that's for next week's blog. I'm supposed to be summarizing last week.

The goal after last week was to start adding on some volume while keeping the intensity pretty high. Goal achieved!

Monday
Run: 1hr 23 min with 20 x 30 second strides on 30 second jog. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/128728672

Tuesday
Bike: 1hr steady
Swim: 40 min with my favorite main set (400, 4 x 100 desc, 300, 3 x 100 desc, 200, 2 x 100 desc, 100, 2 x 50 desc).
Run: 30 min hills

Wednesday
Bike: 1 hr w/8 x 4min intervals: http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/4054
Run: 55 min w/8 x 400m intervals: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/129474118

Thursday
Run: 30 min recovery

Friday
Bike: 1 hr w/ 6 x 5-7 min intervals: http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/4267
Run: 1 hr 16min easy but with the usual 2 mile time trial. Both J-Flo and I made big strides (pun intended) over last week. I shaved like 25 seconds off. My splits were 5:40 and then 5:46 for a total time of 11:26. No negative split tho (J-Flo was 6:01/6:00): http://connect.garmin.com/activity/129474123
Swim: 30 min technique focus.

Saturday
Bike: Usual CX dirt/asphalt mix ride. Rode pretty hard: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/129603905

Sunday
Bike: 30 min easy spin

Summary: Swim: 1 hr 10 min, Bike: 4.5 hrs, Run: 4.5 hrs, Total: 10 hrs 10 min

This week is Thanksgiving so we'll just have to wait and see if I can continue building volume back up.

Saturday was also a big play day for me and the girls. My son was spending the night with grandparents and Jennifer was at her dance practice. So first I took them to a birthday party at the skating rink / indoor putt-putt place (which was FUN) and then we came home and found some new toys had been delivered. Of course we played on them all afternoon - which was even funner! :p

Nov 7th - 13th

This week was a pretty light with the need ease myself back into training following last Saturday’s half marathon. The last thing I want to do is push too hard and sideline myself while I’m just getting started! I think the biggest hindrance to performance right now is my weight. I’m a good 10 lbs over my prime race weight of 150 lbs. I need to get more disciplined with my diet (layoff the snickers) to kick start shedding some pounds.

Monday
Bike: 1hr w/ 5 x 7min @ +-92% FTP Intervals: http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/3201
Run: 50 min w/ 8 x 30 sec strides: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/127538992

Tuesday
Run: 35 min recovery

Wednesday
Bike: 1 hr w/ 3 x 12 min intervals at 90-92% FTP: http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/3384
Run: 10k trail run on my trails

Thursday
Swim: 30 min
Run: 35 min recovery

Friday
Bike: 1hr progressive ride building to 125% FTP (358 watts)
Swim: 30 min
Run: 1hr 10 min w/ 2 mile TT: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/128168309 I was a few seconds faster than 2 weeks ago with a 5:52 first mile and 5:57 second mile for an 11:51 for a modest improvement. J-Flo had a great improvement from 2 weeks ago by dropping 10 seconds for a 12:20 (6:04, 6:16).

Saturday
Bike: CX ride in the countryside! Once again the Garmin failed me (my own fault) by running out of juice 1.5 miles before the end of the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/128168319

Here are some pictures from the ride …



A sea of cotton. It’s time to pull it in; many of the fields have already been harvested.





One of the fastest stretches of dirt in Lexington County




Heading out



Sunday: Off! I could’ve ridden a hard 90 min trainer session (which was my plan) but I opted for a 90 min ride on the John Deere instead :)

So it was another low volume week with plenty of rest coming off a race, but still had some good quality sessions.

Swim: 1hr; Bike: 4 hrs; Run: 4 hrs; Total: 9hrs. Hopefully building back in some volume this week and keeping the intensity high.

Today (Monday) is our 13th wedding anniversary! Counting the 3 years of shacking up, that’s 16 years together! Wow, how we changed since those early days. Many adventures lay ahead to experience together with the love of my life! For her gift she got horse riding lessons at the stable across the road from the house (Poole Training Center: http://www.pooletrainingcenter.com/). The thing is that she has to keep it secret from our youngest, Hannah. She’s already jealous because her sister Abby takes lesson and if she finds out Mom is also riding, we might just have a full blown 5 yr old meltdown on our hands!

For our anniversary date night we ended up at Home Depot after dinner since Tractor Supply was closed. What have we become??

In other news Caleb was selected along with 3 other students to read a letter to veterans on Veteran’s Day at his school. When I read his letter it literally brought tears to my eyes. I’m having trouble uploading the YouTube video from my phone so I’ll have to settle for this picture. Can’t you sense the excitement??





The girls have gotten really good at flying their kites:

Oct 31 - Nov 6 Rock N Roll Savannah

The focus this week has been getting in some good all-around tri training before heading back home to Savannah for a visit with the family and to run Rock and Roll ½ marathon as part of the Lowcounty Down's Syndrome Society team. This year we had 21 runners and next year we hope to have 100! If you want to help support LDSS financially, please donate here: https://dsal.worldsecuresystems.com/Donate

The Garmin has been a real challenge this week so I'm missing data for some of the training sessions the Tuesday big gear ride which had to have had an average cadence in the range of 50-60 RPM!!



With the impending 1/2 marathon on the weekend, the volume was a little low this week ...

Monday

Bike: 1hr, intervals http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/2617

Run: 8 x 200m with Ole Tender Nip along with some easy running

Tuesday

Swim: 30 minutes with the highlight being 50 meter repeats holding best average. Let me just say that I have a looooong way to go to back to where I need to be in the water!

Bike: 90 min ride smashfest with J-Flo and Scott in the Northwest (Peak loop). This was a BRO (big ring only) ride with the bro’s with me doing my best to ride them off my wheel and drop them on climbs while mashing the biggest gear possible. I was able to manage most of the route in 53 x 11 gear, which utterly shredded my quads. I had doubts about my ability to make it up the Mike Stuck climb in my big ring, but in the end I pulled it off (with the help of my 28 rear cog). The Garmin crapped out so no data for this one unfortunately. I'm thinking cadence would have been in the 50-60 range.

Wednesday
Run: 1hr, hill repeats on Carl loop

Thursday
Swim: 30 min longer intervals
Run: 30 min easy with hills

Friday
Bike: 30 min easy spin
Travel day!

Saturday
Run: Rock N Roll Savannah 1/2 Marathon, 1:25:00. I'll have to say that this race was a lot of fun! Running down Liberty Street with crowd's lining the course screaming and then hanging with friends and family in Forsyth Park afterwards was just awesome!

Mini race report:For some crazy reason I started in the 2nd corral instead of the 1st one where I was assigned. This made the first 2 miles a little slow as I navigated through the crowd. Also interesting to note is that my Garmin measured the distance at 13.2 instead of 13.1. I believe this is because I was unable to run tangents through most of the corners because of number of runners on the course. Evidently there were 14,000 running the 1/2 and another 5,000 running the full. I ended up 50th overal, 8th in M35-39. I had the time I expected but obviously would have like to have gone faster! You can't rush fitness though. It is one it's way though and patience is the key (and losing a few lbs). With any luck I'll be able to run this time off the bike at the Charleston 1/2 ironman in April. We shall see ...

finish line before it got really crowded



Me, my son and sis after the race



Post race in the park



Race spectating really wears the kids out!



cousins Ethan and Abby playing

Sunday

Bike: 1hr. Easy cruise from parents house down to River Street where I was able to ride some cobbles and then back home with a short detour through Ardsley Park to ride by some old stomping grounds. Here are some pictures from the ride:

Riding through town




Trump Square






Broughton Street



cobbles



River Street


Along the water



more cobbles



one of many squares

Totals: Bike: 4 hrs; Swim: 1hr; Run: 4 hrs = 9 hrs.