Rest month really?

Well I have come to the end of my “month off”  and my wife would probably be the first one to question if it was really a month off or not.  I suppose if you look at what I did in May and what I have scheduled in July,  June looks fairly light, but trust me I don’t think there was any fitness lost as I averaged about 10-12 hours a week. 

From an athletic standpoint I do feel rested, but as far as the time, where did it go?  My yard surely did not receive any of the extra hours, which was the intent I had. 

I did make the trip to CDA Idaho (I’ll stick to abbreviation as I always butcher the spelling) to watch the Ironman on June 22nd.  This was extremely impressive.  I have even more respect for anyone that can call themselves an ironman.  The event was amazing and the support of the community is incredible.  I did sign up for the race for next year, so hopefully if all goes well that race will be on my schedule next season.

This last weekend was back to the grind as far as training goes.  90 miles with 5000 feet of climbing in just under 5 hours in 90-100 degree heat on Saturday, and an hour swim and two hour run at Hagg lake on Sunday.  Surprisingly I feel great today.  Scott is not wasting time getting my volume back, as I have 18.5 hours this week.  The focus this month is strength and endurance.  So most of my workouts will be in the hills.

Congrats to all who raced Pac-Crest this last weekend,  I understand it was a brutal day in the sun.  Great job Dave for keeping his masters win streak alive, and Ann for placing in the money! 

Blue lake and CDA

I raced the Blue Lake Olympic last Sunday and am happy with the result.  I really did not know what to expect going into the race for several reasons.  1) I had just race my first A race of the year 2 weeks prior 2) I had done very little training since Boise 3) Blue Lake Olympic  draws the toughest competition of any local race… It is also the TRI Northwest Team Competition so there was a great deal of Ironheads racing. 

I approached this race like I do all races and set my 3 goals.  I reached my C goal, to get an AG award.    I arrived at the race about 90 minutes prior to the start.  I was feeling really relaxed, and it was cool chatting and b.s.ing with the other Ironheads.  I went for a light warm up jog with Jason and Ryan, then put on my wetsuit and headed to the water.

I went in the first wave and lined up in thefront. I sprinted the first 300 meters or so, I think I led till then, but my shoulders were burning already and I let up to a good comfortable pace.  I caught a nice draft for a couple minutes but then decided that this group was probably a little to fast for me and I would have to let them go.  Just after I made the turn, Frickin Ian Thorpe or Michael Phelps passed by me.  Seriously, I think I could have water skiied behind this guy.  Not to gloat but I think I am a pretty decent swimmer and this guy started a minute behind me and flew by me at the turn.  Anyway, I began to struggle a bit, and I am bummed that I cannot seem to find a consistent pace for these mile type swims.  I either go out to hard and don’t have enough left by the middle, or go out too slow and have too much left.  So I came in at 21:28 for just under a mile swim, not bad but I expect to go faster than that.  I also stood up to early at the exit and I seem to do this quite frequently also, so I could not run out of the water, because I was still too deep.

 

 T1 was fine no hang-ups, in and out in 2:01.  Solid.

Out on the bike I was passed immediately by a woman, what? Yep!  Don’t worry, as soon as I got my feet into my shoes I passed her back, but it made me realize that I have got figure out how to do that faster (Not that I don’t know that there are women faster than me).    So out on the bike, I just could not get my legs going.  I was given a power CAP by my coach for the first 10 minutes, and I could not even come close to reaching it let alone worry about going over it.  My heart rate was also very low for the perceived effort I was giving, I say perceived, because clearly the actual work was not there.  So once again I began to get discouraged on the bike and as I approached the turn, the six guys in front of me started coming back toward me.  The first 3 were clearly out of reach, but I set out to grab the other 3 one by one.  At the last turn, I could see that Ciaverela  was making up some time, and so was Bill Thompson who started a minute back.  Bill was flying! At mile 19 I passed the 3rd guy, but gave him a ride for a mile or two and he passed me back and went into to transition right ahead of me.  He was also in my AG so this pissed me off.    Bike split: 59.46 not so happy about that.  But I am ertain that I negative split the bike.

T1 was fast, 1:16, and I passed said guy, Dave Campbell, in transition.

I was not feeling the run, the legs were sluggish to start, and I knew that Campbell was a runner and knew he would be coming for me.  I also knew Ciav would be coming in due time.  I pulled the ultimate rookie mistake several times and kept looking back to see where they were.  I seemed to be keeping Campbell off, but at the turn both Ciav and Campbell were 30 seconds back.  See Ciavs blog to get the low down on that race.  So with a mile to go I could hear the familiar footsteps and breathing of my favorite training partner!  He said to me “perfect day”; and I am thinking “not really time for a weather conversation Dave” He passed me at 5.5, and I hung on his feet.  He made a few surges and I battled to hang with him, just as I thought about making a push to pass him at the 6 mile mark he surged again and I had to let him go, I was happy to finish 6 seconds behind him.   Run Time 39.36, I’ll take that for this race!

Overall, happy with the results I finished in 2:04.08, good for 6th overall and 2nd in my age group however I got the 1st place AG award because Roger Thompson, 39, was the overall winner, and AA sports does not allow double dipping in the awards ceremony.

I learned a lot in this, my second Olympic distance race.  Dave Ciaverlla, who has really mentored me this season, gave me allot of much appreciated advice following the race.  I have really been enjoying the racing scene this year and with great consultation from Scott, my coach, we have decided to add some more, shorter racing and incorporate them in with my Ironman training.  Next up is Hagg lake Sprint on July12th, followed by the Deschutes Dash Olympic in Bend the very next weekend.

I am excited to leave tomorrow for Ironman Coeur De’Lene, to get some solid training in, volunteer at the race and sign up for next year!  I m going up with teammates Jake Barakat, Ryan Jasperson, Jason Kurian, and Darin Shields.  Should be fun!

 

 

 

 

So what now you ask?

Taking it easy!  Training very sparingly since Boise, I am going to attempt to race this Sunday at the Blue Lake Olympic and  I am not real sure how this will go.   I know that it has to be mostly phsychological, but I  feel like I can literally watch the fitness slip away every day.  Its funny when you grow accustom to training 17-20 hours a week, when there is any drop off it just does not feel right.  The eating thing is my downfall.  I am so used to needing to eat all the time to keep up with my training, I find it hard to slow it down.

The plan for June is to rest without losing too much fitness, and then begin a build in July toward IMAZ in November.   I will be racing alot of short course stuff from July to October, seven or eight races in all, in corporation with my Ironman training.  I am also heading to Coer D’aLene Idaho on June 20th to volunteer and watch IMCDA, and register for next years race. So I am really looking forward to that.  Since I started racing last year, I don’t think I have been to a race just to watch, so that should be cool.  Plus I think watching an Ironman before doing one must have some benefit. 

For the Triathletes that read my blog, check out Dave Ciaverela’s blog, he has some really good insight talkng about training in  zone 5.  For you others it will be very boring.

 

Ironman Boise 70.3

My family and I drove from Portland to Boise Thursday afternoon to arrive later that night.  We stayed at the Hampton Inn which was nice as it was right at the bike to run transition and the finish line.  In fact you could see both from our room window.  I got all checked in on Friday and slept 10.5 hours that night (which in hind sight saved me).  Saturday I did my pre-race workouts, got my bike checked in and so forth.   The only knock I have about this race is that it is really hard for spectators to participate at the swim, my wife could not go as it was just too complicated having a child to get up there.

 

Saturday night I went to bed at 7:00 to get 8 hours. I had to get up at 3:15am to catch my shuttle at 4:15.  Too early?  Yep.  8:00 came, no biggy, 9:00, 10:00 okay I can still get 5 hours… 11:00, argg, 12:00 getting really frustrated 1:00 “oh for the love of god!”  Last check 1:14.  So with 2 hours sleep I arose and took my pre-race shower, grabbed my coffee and bags and headed up the street to catch the shuttle.  I drank my 625 calories of infinit on the bus ride up.  It was really windy and cold up at the reservoir.  I am glad that I had put on my compression tights and shirt under my sweats.

 

My wave went off at 7:30.  I watched the pros go out, and just as my wave was approaching the water the pros were coming in.  This is something of importance that I should have noticed then but it really did not dawn on me.  The male pro’s started at 7:00; I started at 7:30.  For the top male pro swimmers to be coming in pushing 30 minutes, this course is either long, or it’s a tough swim.

 

I lined up at the front of my group and it was cold!  They say 59 degrees but I doubt it was that warm.  The cannon went off and I took off hard as usual but let up a bit sooner because my HR was climbing sky high and I was forced to breathe every other stroke.  I fell into a nice rhythm, but seriously I was hitting feet from previous waves within 200 meters.  No drafting, but I was swimming well, and I felt good.  I had no issues sighting, and I never really even broke stride throughout the swim.  I had a smooth exit and found a wetsuit stripper and they jerked the suit right off.  I was extremely disappointed when I looked at my watch and it read 32 minutes.  It was a slap in the face!  I really thought I had put in a 26-27 minute swim.  I got to my bike and it did not look like any other bikes from my age group were gone so that made me feel a bit better.  Turns out everyone thought the swim was about 4 minutes slow.  Swim time: 31:58 slow but good for the course. 

 

The pavement in T1 was brutal, it felt like I was running on broken glass, I could have sworn that the bottoms of my feet were a bloody mess when I mounted my bike.  Other than T1 went ok.  Time: 1:57 could have been better.

 

I fought my shoes a bit getting on the bike, partially because my feet were burning from the cold, then the shards of glass they thought they just ran through.  But I got settled in nicely for a sudden long decent.  Sat in the aero bars and coasted at brisk 42 MPH.  This was nice to get the HR down.  This bike course was not easy and fast like it was being dubbed.  Although the climbs were not monsters, the flats were not flats either.  Lots of false flats and headwinds. 

 

Greg Mills (ironhead teammate) I owe you one!  On the climb up to the birds of prey, I passed by Greg and he yelled to me that my nutrition bottle on my hydro tail was falling out the bottom.  I looked back and it was literally an inch from falling out and hitting my rear tire.  I unfortunately could not pull it back out while riding so when I reached the top I stopped for like 20 seconds to grab it and re position it.

 

Somewhere around mile 25-30 my left glute started cramping and getting sore.  I hit a head wind on one of these “false flats” and started to get discouraged.  I really had no idea what position I was in, I pretty much rode the course by my self with no one around me for the bulk of it. I started thinking about my swim time and the fact that my leg was really starting to hurt. For some reason negativity set in and I started doubting my performance thinking that “I just don’t have it today”.  Luckily I switched gears real quick and told myself the swim was long, and I have not been passed by anyone and look at all the people I had passed.  “For all you know, you are leading your age group right now” were the words that got me back into it mentally.  I tried to finish the bike strong.  I would have liked to have averaged about 20 more watts over the ride than I did, I average 230 and would like to be at 250.  Maybe pushing those ups a bit more and attacking the downs harder would have gotten me at 250, but as it were my legs were about spent.  Let me tell you, Boise knows how to support the athletes!  Coming into T2 was awesome.  The last ½ mile the streets were lined with people ringing cowbells!  Inspiring to say the least.  Total bike 2:26.42, I am happy with that effort.

 

T2 again the support is awesome!  In an out with no issues.  Time: 1:11.

 

The run, I felt great running out, and kept a great pace and rhythm till about mile five, I felt so comfortable in fact that for the first time I was able to relieve myself while running!  It was really hard to judge pace, because the mile markers were all over the place, but I felt good keeping my hr at 170-172 high z3 for me.  I began to feel some fatigue at mile 5, but at mile 6 I hit that AWESOME crowd support again at  the turn and that got me through till mile 7, then another lull.  My plan was to push the last 10k as hard as I could.  I tried, and mile 11 and 12 were a bit faster, but I was really able to push the last 1.1.  The finish line was incredible, the best finish line I have ever seen.  The crowd was unbelievably loud, screaming and ringing there cowbells.  I was giving high fives down the chute and everything!  Great experience!!!  Total Run time 1:31.53, not great, but I think the run was also a bit long.  Looking at the times across the board,  they are slow for such a flat run course.

 

Regardless, this was the best race performance that I have put together.  I am really proud of my accomplishment and result in this race!  I know I need to get my run time down, but I am still getting faster so that is encouraging.

 

Total time: 4:33.42

3^rd Age Group

12^th overall amateur

35^th overall including pros