First race, 1/2 Marathon, a family affair

The victorious (from left: Brenda (mom), Steve (dad), Jeff (me), Susan (fiancee), Kelley (sister), and Sarah (fiancees friend)...Tina and Byron absent)

Saturday was my first race of the season. It wasn't my first tri, only about 4 weeks until that comes along, but it was my first race none the less. The event was the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon/Mini-marathon. I competed in the mini (which is half distance) along with a number of family and friends. This event holds a special place for me since it was the event that spurred me to get in shape in high school. It's also the first time I've done it since graduating high school, so I was excited going in. To add to that, my entire immediate family (mom, dad, and sister) along with my fiancee, her friend, my aunt, and my cousin were all participating. It was the first half-marathon for my mom, fiancee, her friend, and my cousin, so definately a big day.

We arrived at the start line probably 15 minutes early. We parked a ways away, so I warmed up along the walk to the start. My fiancee and her friend had to use the restroom (along with about 1/3 of the participants), so they got in one of the many porto-potty lines. Unfortunately the lines weren't moving very quickly, so the race actually started before they were able to use the restroom. Some of our group took off at the actual start, but it was chip-timed, so no big deal for being late as far as that goes. I waited around to make sure my fiancee met up with my mom since they were planning on run/walking together, and the rest of us still at the start began our individual journies.

I crossed the start line about 11.5 minutes after the gun and began making my way through the crowds to try and find some space to run my own pace since I obviously was not going to be running with people of my speed after letting them all get a substantial head start. After making a variety of football maneuvers, off road cuts, and short speed bursts I passed the 1st mile marker. The clock read 20:00. Since I had no idea how late I was to the start line I estimated I ran about an 8.5-9 min first mile...slow for where I wanted to be and I was still in a crowd. This was a little frustrating, but my energy was high and I kept on bobbing and weaving for the next mile and worked my pace down to about 8:15. At mile 2, we enter Iroquois Park, where the hills portion of the run takes place. People were beginning to string out, so it looked like a good time to get back some of my lost time before hitting the hills and settling into my goal pace.

I pushed the next 1/2 mile before getting comfortable and tackling the hills. I felt very strong through the entire park, but was still happy to be exitting them just before mile 6. From my previous experiences with the course, I knew the rest of the course was wide open and flat, so I pushed the pace a little more. At the next water stop, I grabbed some water and carried it with me to just past the mile 7 marker where I took the PowerGel I brought along in my pocket. I didn't feel like I would need it at the time, but since this was a C race in my triathlon training schedule, I figured I'd practice taking in nutrition at a regular interval whether I felt like I needed a boost or not. I was also hitting every water stop (6 total) and grabbing a bottle every opportunity. I kept cruising along taking in the sights of the spectators and the city, took a little cut through Churchill Downs (a new addition to the course since the last time I'd run it) and before I knew it I was at mile 10, still feeling great.

Somewhere in the 10th mile, where I usually start to feel the fatigue a strange thing happened. I don't know if it was the gel and consistent nutrition, the fact that triathlon training has me in better shape than I ever was in high school, or some combination of other factors...but all of a sudden I caught my second wind. I felt great, so great in fact that I headed over the the side of the course and gave a couple high-fives to spectators and picked up the pace again. At this point I knew I was ahead of my original goal pace, so hitting it wouldn't be a problem. I continued to cruise and said good-bye to the marathoners wishing them luck as their route split off just after mile 12. I then kicked it up 1 final notch and started my finishing kick. I probably ran about a 6:30 last mile.

I crossed the line and didn't feel totally drained, everything had gone as I had hoped...it was a great day for me, so now I could prepare to receive all my other family members and friends still working their way to the finish. I wasn't sure of my time, but knew I reached my goal, so wasn't worried. I headed around to watch others finish. Not too long after me, my dad crossed. He broke 2hrs, so was much faster than he hinted that he would be. My cousin Byron, who had just gotten into running over the winter came next, much faster than we expected. He had done a 10 miler about a month earlier in about 11 min per mile pace, and managed to cut out over a minute each mile for the mini...an impressive perrformance. After him came my Aunt Tina and my sister. They both have done it before, so are basically old pros here (my sister has done it 11 times in fact, almost half as long as she's been alive). Then Susan's friend, Sarah, followed. In the confusion of bodies around the finish line, we were having some difficulty reuniting but were slowly coming together. I went back around to see more finishers and look for my aunt and sister, when I saw my mom and fiancee heading to the finish line, about 10 minutes faster than I expected them. It was a successful morning for all of us. Very exciting start to the season.

So, now for some numbers:

My goal: 1:45:00
Actual: 1:42:42 (7:50 pace), 670/9700+ overall, not too bad

Family and friends:
Steve (my dad): 1:58:45
Byron (cousin): 2:08:45
Kelley (sister): 2:09:25
Tina (aunt): 2:08:56
Sarah (fiancee's friend): 2:37:52
Susan (fiancee): 2:47:27
Brenda (my mom): 2:47:27

Pretty sweet...and we all celebrated with victory beers that evening (or wine for my mom).

I've got a testing week in 2 weeks to look forward to and May 18 is my first tri...feeling strong, antsy to race. More to come later

Run test, holy humidity batman

Well my run test was today, and heavy thunderstorms had been moving through the area for the past 18 hours so I assumed as I went into work that I'd be doing my run in wet conditions. However, as I monitored the weather throughout the day, I was happy to find that the last storms passed through around 3:30, and it would be partly sunny the rest of the evening. Not too bad, or so I thought.

I did a quick warmup and didn't really take into account the environment too much. I was just too excited about getting a run test in as well as being done with work for the week. I put on some angry music on my Ipod, and off I went. The first quarter mile of the route I do (2.6 miles total) is the flattest stretch and I was floating along. Unfortunately, it wasn't too long after that, probably around the 1/2 mile mark I realized I hadn't taken the humidity into account and had gone out too fast. I was going to be suffering for the next 2.1 miles. Needless to say, it was a very depressing thought.

I labored through the next 1.1 miles sweating profusely and feeling extremely overheated and only looking for the next .25 mile mark on the ground thinking about when it would all be over. By the time I saw I had 1 mile left, my stomach was hurting and I couldn't figure out if I wanted to get sick or pass out. But seeing I was on the last mile, I just slowed my pace a little and used it to remotivate myself to push a little further. As I hit the next .25 mile mark, I had all but convinced myself I was going to stop at the .5 mile to go mark and forefeit the test. However, when I got there I just passed on by, thinking that even though it hurt, it wasn't forcing me to stop. I came over the top of the last hill sure I was getting ready to pull up and quit, and I could see the overpass I pass under just before the finish and all of a sudden I felt like I could breathe a little easier. The next thing I knew I was increasing the pace and had less than a .25 mile to go. As I passed under the overpass, the pain made one final massive attack to take me down, but I was too close and was able to fight through it and get to the finish.

After walking it out and catching my breath I checked out my time. Just as I suspected, slower than last time, but not by much...or was it. After a slow mile cooldown, I drove home convinced I hadn't seen improvement, and began logging my workout...

Here's the numbers:
Distance: 2.6 miles
Time: 17:28
Pace: 6:43/mile

Turns out, I dropped basically just over 1 minute from my overall time on the first test. I was shocked. All the pain was definately worth it. And what's more important, I did it in the humidity, which in Ohio is something I am going to have to deal with as the weather warms up. Obviously I was more than pleased. I improved on all my legs in the past 4 weeks and still have plenty of speed work coming. Now on to Base 2.

Finally, in other exciting news, I got home today to find out my new Xterra wetsuit has arrived. It's my first one, ever. Awesome...more updates soon

Swim Test 2, baby steps

Well, I'm still slow...just not as slow. My swim test was this morning and it was a 900yd pool test in the same lane of the same pool as before. My muscles felt sluggish from the outset, probably because this was my first morning workout in over a week. I did a quick warmup, but never really felt completely ready to start. On the swim, I never really felt like I got into a rhythm. It was more like I was forcing myself through the pool with brute force the entire time. I didn't monitor HR, but would imagine it was high for what I would like to swim at. By the end my time improved by nearly 30 seconds, so I guess that's a plus. I'd still like to see more gains, especially in efficiency. I don't care if I only get a little faster as long as I can make it easier.

Anyways, here are the results:
Distance: 900yd (40 lengths of 22.5yd pool)
Time: 19:55
Pace (per 90yd): 1:59.5

I'm still below my desired race speed, which is slower than my desired goal split for my last test in mid-summer. I feel a little behind on my swimming at this point, and need to pick up my volume. Unfortunately, this is where I've been missing the most scheduled workouts since I usually plan them for the mornings and have a tendency to not want to get up. To make things worse, the pool I was using is closed from tommorrow until April 29. I will either need to pay to go to my fiance's pool or drive a little more to get to another branch of the gym I belong to and use thiers. I can't afford to miss out on the training in this period. I still have think I will reach my goals. My training will has been getting more consistent and will continue to do so since I am just getting into my first competitions, which will keep me focused. Sometimes in the winter and preseason I feel like I lose sight of what I'm doing all this work for in the first place. I need some good competition to get me back on track.

My final test of the week and the one I'm looking most forward to (since it's my favorite leg) is tommorrow evening. I will be doing my 2.6mile run test, report to follow.

Base1 End Bike Test

Wow, that was quite the improvement. Apparently not having to stop and walk the bike through snow multiple times during a time trial really improves the overall performance.

So my testing week bike time trial was yesterday, and although I'm still not certain the choice of routes I made was the best considering the general patchiness of the path and the 6 road intersections that create a variable with possible stops. However, I'm going to go with it because it's relatively convenient and I've now logged 2 times there already.

My course is a 7.3 mile route that goes between two small towns outside Cincinnati along the Little Miami Bike Trail (a nice rails to trails route that connects to most other major cities in Ohio). Last time I rode it as I alluded to earlier was four weeks ago when there were still patches of snow along the route (see previous blog entry). On that ride, I was able to cover the distance at just about 18.4mph due to multiple slows/stops and accelerations. My average HR for this ride was 154, which is high for me on the bike. I assumed it wouldn't be too hard to improve, I just wasn't expecting the jump that I made.

Yesterday, the weather was great, but there was noticeably more wind than my first run. The course was clear, except for the other people out enjoying the outdoors who never really got in the way. Also, by a stroke of some luck, I made it through almost all the intersections without having to slow substantially. Must have been good timing. However, the last intersection just about 1.3 miles before the finish I did hit substantial traffic and had to stop completely for about 10 seconds. I made up for this loss of time as well as I could with a solid sprint once I got going again. So, without further ado...

Here are my numbers:
Distance: 7.31 miles
Time: 21:05
Avg speed: 20.8mph
Time difference (from previous best): -3:55
Avg HR: 144bpm

A huge improvement. After the original ride, I thought breaking 20mph avg in my final test would be an accomplishment. I guess I set the bar high for the next test. Also, I felt generally more relaxed (see the avg HR drop of 10bpm at the higher speed).

Along with the time trial, I also covered 10.8 miles warming up and cooling down combined at around 16.5-17mph. Just basically spinning it out. I'm feeling very good about my bike progress to date, and I still have speed work coming yet.

Tommorrow morning is my swim test. This one may be ugly. I'll let you know how it goes.

First Race Report, Sort of...

Alright, so I did a 5k over the weekend, and really used it more as a training run than a race, but I've been eager about getting into some competition so I'm going to write a race report about it anyways.

The race took place at my former university (University of Dayton) and was a memorial 5k for a girl who passed away unexpectedly from a seizure in her sleep in January. She was my age and actually was in the same graduating class/program as my fiancee. Her parents were there and there was a speech given about her before the race. Other than that portion though, the race was more of a celebration in her honor and a way to raise money for research of epillepsy (the condition she suffered from), so the mood was pretty upbeat.

There were only about 50-60 competitors since a lot of her friends live outside Dayton now after graduating and couldn't make it in, as well as the fact it took place on a saturday morning on a college campus, which means the area was basically a ghost town as far as outdoor activities were concerned. The course wound through the majority of campus and the main student neighborhood and had 1 major hill that effected the pace throughout the majority of the middle section of the race. Since I had run around campus the past 4 years, I was familiar with the layout of the course as well as Stuart hill.

I started on the edge of the front line of competitors, eyeing up the rest of the people who looked like they might run a pretty decent pace. As I watched people warmup I thought I might have a shot to take the race, but thought better of going all out and ruining the training aspect of the run after taking a better look at the competition.

Off the line, I accelerated out in front of the majority of the pack just to get myself some space to move and then settled into my pace, allowing the leaders to escape right away so I'd avoid the temptation to push too hard in the first 1/2 mile. Initially I was settled in 4th with about 2sec spacing to both 3rd and 5th. I slowly let 3rd push his lead to about 5 sec as we hit the slight inclince of the 1st half mile. I felt a lot of adrenaline, but could also tell my HR was too high, and so I slowed slightly to relax myself. My HR didn't drop any, but I felt much better. Right around the 1st mile mark, I was passed by another runner I hadn't seen before the race who was moving pretty well. I almost wondered if he delayed off the start to make it more fun to pass people. Then, I turned the 180 degree turnaround at about 1.1 in and sized up the rest of the people following me. My stomach was a little uneasy and I decided that I'd try to hold 5th to the top of the upcoming climb, but would settle to still be top 10 going into the downhill where I knew I'd regain some lost time. To my suprise, I was 5th at the top of the hill and even though the 6th runner had gained on me I hadn't lost ground to 4th (who had also been passed by this mystery late-comer). I got a second wind and my stomach felt much better knowing that I had basically all downhill for the last mile to the finish. I leaned forward and let my legs catch up as I flew down the steepest part of the hill and then carried the gained momentum into the turn to the main section of campus where I passed a few confused students here and there (since the race was so small and we were decently spread out, people not involved were not sure what was going on). The next time I had a chance to look behind me I saw I had added to my advantage and I knew that I would hold onto 5th. Unfortunately, I also knew I wouldn't catch 4th with only a little left and most of it being downhill and fast. I accepted my fate and cruised into the finish, about 10 seconds off 4th.

What I liked most about the race was that I was able to walk to my car, drink some water and put my HR monitor on and take off on an easy 4.5 mile run to complete my training for the day. My HR was a little high at the outset, but I just went out slow to ease it to a comfortable level and then was able to maintain a steady pace the rest of the way. All in all, it was a good day for training and I got some much needed competing in as well.

This week upcoming is a testing week with a bike TT tommorrow, a swim TT thursday morning, and a run TT friday afternoon. I'll update as I complete them.

Post-Birthday Update

Well, my birthday was yesterday. I am now the ripe old age of 23, so hopefully in the next year or two I will be offered a nice retirement package from my employer and I can move to training fulltime while living off my pension.

I had a pretty awesome birthday evening I must say, although it wasn't very condusive to training. It led me to sleep in through my scheduled morning workouts, but hey it's my birthday and it only happens once a year. Anyways, back to my evening. My fiancee suprised me with registering us in a red wine tasting class that went for 2 hours. The topic was "Price Point: $10 reds vs $20 reds". Even though I've never tasted wines "properly" before, I am a pretty big fan of reds, and I was hoping this would be an opportunity to learn more about how they should be enjoyed.
The class was very interesting and the instructor never actually taught us proper tasting technique (we just kind of watched what he did and mimicked, acting like we knew what was going on), but I did learn loads of new information about the different types of red wines and the grapes that make them up. The class was way more fun than it even sounded. It was setup like a game where we'd get 2 wines made predominantly from the same grape, 1 was $10 and 1 was $20. Then we tasted them blind, with only general tasting notes from the producer that were not specified toward either glass. We then took notes and guessed which was the $20 bottle. We did this with 4 varietals of wines (so we tasted 8 wines total). At the end, the wines were revealed and we were shown whether we preferred 10 or 20 dollar wines. The class cost $20 per person, which i thought was a good deal for all the info you get, but on top of that they throw in a $12 gift card at the end so you can stock up on some wines afterward. I'd highly recommend it to anyone, it's money well spent for the experience. And the most amazing part was that my fiancee (an avid red wine hater) found that they aren't all evil. There were two of the 8 we both liked a lot, so we bought a bottle of each on the way out.

We left a little tipsy from the tasting and went to the Chart House, a local high end seafood establishment right on the river. Even though it was a rainy evening, the atmosphere was still great, and the fish! I haven't had good seafood in a while and I thought I was going to start drooling while reading the menu. I settled on the parmesan crusted snapper, which was topped with lump crab meat and was delicious. All in all, it was a great night, after a kind of dull day at work. I hadn't really been looking forward to my b-day, but it was great.

In other news, my training is going pretty well I'd say. I'm only in base 1, but my endurance is well above where it needs to be for the olympic race in august and I'm still building. I have another testing week next week, so updates on my speed progression (which will probably be small gains since I haven't done speed work persay) will be given. I'm not training the amount of hours I've scheduled but I think I overshot a little. I still feel like I will be faster than ever, mostly because I've started my tri-focused training so early. I used to not start training for tris fully until May, once the rowing season ended. Since my rowing career is over, tris have become my full-time commitment. I'm excited about the season.

One final note, I'm doing a 5k tommorrow morning and don't know if I'll go all out or not. I was thinking it'd be fun to throw down a good time, but it might also be fun to run at like 7:00/mile pace and just blow through the finish and keep going for another 35 minutes or so (slowing the pace) to make it an aerobic run. I'll let you know what how it goes down, though I'll probably go all out if I see that I can hang near the front of the race.