San Diego Day 3 Report – Wild Animals and Walking

The 3rd morning of our vacation did not start like the others as I decided to forego my bike ride and sleep in a little longer.  Hey, it’s a recovery week and the first week of the taper, right?  Anyways, we had plans that required us to get going a little earlier than usual, so we were both out of bed and on the road heading north by 8:30.  Today’s main activity was the San Diego Wild Animal Park.  It’s associated with the zoo and is basically the zoo meets a nature preserve.  The animal enclosures are larger and there are areas where the non-predatory animals are cohabitating in the same areas, giving the viewer a more safari like experience.  Susan captured more great pictures than I can describe through our morning at the park, so I will not even attempt to.  Enjoy…

Going in the morning had distinct advantages, since we were able to ride the safari tram before there was a line built up, and we were able to be on our way out when the crowds seemed to be peaking.  Also, we were able to park within walking distance of the gate.  Not to be overlooked on the trip to the park was the scenery in the surrounding area.  The mountainous desert-like terrain and hillside vineyards were pretty spectacular. 

After leaving the park, we were famished, but our next planned attraction was Torrey Pines State Preserve, so we had to drive a bit before getting to Del Mar for some food.  The traffic on the 101 was pretty high, especially near Del Mar, but I was continually amazed by the number of cyclists along the road.  We eventually parked in Del Mar and walked the main drag a bit before stopping at Americana for lunch.  It was a trendy cafe, and the food was pretty good although maybe a bit overpriced for lunch fare.  After dining, we walked down to the beach and watched some people surfing, although the waves were less than impressive for it.  Then we returned to the car to get to Torrey Pines.

The State Reserve was only a couple miles south of our lunch spot.  We drove up to the top of the hill and then check out the trails.  The best way to describe Torrey Pines is a lush dessert over-looking the ocean.  We hiked a few miles around the park to a couple overlooks including Yucca Point and Red Butte. 

The two of us along the trails

 

Cliff with the Pacific

 

A little lizard also travelling on the trail

 

The landscape consisted of mostly sand, cacti, and rock – this is at Yucca Point

 

Some cacti along the route

View up to Red Butte

After making our way back to the car, we drove back to the hotel with tentative dinner plans with some fellow Cincinnatians.  Since those plans fell through, we ended up relaxing at the hotel for a bit before catching dinner near our hotel at a Hawaiian themed restaurant.  We noticed drones of Chargers’ fan in the area which prompted us to discover that the Chargers Stadium was mere blocks away from where we were.  With their first pre-season game playing tonight, fans were obviously excited for the game.  After stuffing ourselves with pub grub, we made it back to our hotel just in time for Transformers 2 on HBO.

Today, we really got to experience the Southern California micro-climates.  Leaving sunny San Diego in the morning, we headed to the arid heat of Escondido area, then to the fog-covered chilly breezes of Del Mar and Torrey Pines.  Quite the variety! 

San Diego Day 2 Report – Cruising through another day

Not to be one to relax on vacation, I woke up bright and early to enjoy the cool morning weather on the bike.  It wasn’t the most constant effort since I was trying to keep from getting lost, but I was able to check out a few new areas and find a bike path that would lead me to the beach.  I’ll probably try and do more exploring tomorrow morning, especially since it’s so easy to get around with dedicated bike lanes on many of the roads.  After the ride, I got Susan up and we headed off to the coffee shop for breakfast and internet before embarking on more sight-seeing.

The morning began with a trip to Balboa park to check out what it had to offer (other than the zoo).  Besides being a beautiful urban park, there are also a variety of museums (some of them free) along with historical buildings to take in.  The architecture and landscape alone was worth going to see, so the combination of the museums and scenery pretty much make it a can’t miss attraction.  Be warned, though that traffic in the parking lots gets pretty busy by the middle of the day.  Anyways, here is a quick picture recap of our morning in the park…

Lilly pads on the courtyard reflecting pool.  

The main exhibition at the MOPA (Museum of Photographic Arts) was a tribute to rock n roll photography.  Some very cool (and some very strange) photos were there. 

From MOPA, we walked the grounds and saw the pavilion above, which was an ornate amphitheatre with a built in pipe organ.  Someone was rehearsing for a performance scheduled for that evening.

Susan tamed the mosaic crocodile who clearly wasn’t happy with the situation.  Hundreds of lives were likely saved by her heroics.

I tried to make sense of the abstract art in the sculpture garden, but the symbolism was lost on me.  

Although we did not enter the museum of man, we did get some nice shots of the mosaic domed roof and bell tower. 

Then we made our way to the botanical gardens where Susan was able to go wild with her camera for a while.

We finished our Balboa park trip with a walk through the shops and workshops of local artists at the Spanish Village Art Center.  We found a photographer’s studio that we really enjoyed and bought a couple post-card prints of his work since we couldn’t afford the full size ones.  He was running the shop, so was able to give Susan some pointers on developing photography skills.

After Balboa park it was back to the hotel to grab a quick lunch and get down to business getting Susan ready for her poster presentation at the APA convention.  Everything went smoothly and before we knew it, it was time to pack up the poster and get back to vacation.

Susan’s a pro at the poster presentation business.

Once we cleaned up, we headed back to the car to drop off the APA materials and then headed over to the harbor, though we weren’t sure what there was to do there in the evening.  We walked passed the USS Midway (the aircraft carrier) which was already closed for the day and decided to head over to check out what may be available on the harbor cruises.  Before we got too far, a guy who we almost dismissed as a solicitor offered us free tickets to the sunset harbor cruise that was already in the process of boarding.  As we had no plans for the evening, we took him up on the offer and jumped on board!  The cruise offered a 2-hour trip of the north and south harbor with complimentary hors d’ouvres.

We passed under the Coronado bridge as the sun dipped behind the fog.

  

Another view looking at the skyline off the front of the ship, below the bridge.

 

This boat was capturing dolphins for training exercises.  The dolphin was in the boat when we first saw them, then they released it, I guess to go do the mission it was trained for.  Interesting.

 

The outside deck got cold, with the wind, but we braved the cold for the sake of the scenery.

The front of the USS Midway bearing down on us.  It is imposing, to say the least.

Once our free ride was over, we made our way up to old town to grab some dinner.

After trying a busier Mexican restaurant with an hour and a half wait, we went next door to a smaller place where we got a table on the patio right away.  Instead of the traditional chips and salsa, this place served a “crispy quesadilla” with their salsa (which was hot!).  It was delicious!  We were happy to have the authentic Mexican food we’ve been looking for.

By this point we were thoroughly full and exhausted from the day’s exploits so we wet back to the hotel before 10 to call it another early night.  Tomorrow looks to be another big day!

Getting to Know San Diego

Day 1 started bright and early since my mind was still in the eastern time zone.  I got out of bed at 7:15 and felt like I’d slept in…no complaints about that.  Susan values sleep much more than me, so I let her continue to sleep in while I ran next door and picked up the rental car, then set out for a run.  There is a big hill behind our hotel, so I found a road to climb it, which was pretty tough, but rewarded me with some awesome views on the return trip.  It was great to run without the stifling humidity.  Upon returning from the run, Susan was awake and we were hungry.  Most of the rest of the day was accompanied by a camera, so we’ll let the pictures do the talking…

We had breakfast at a nearby coffee shop to take advantage of free internet and to get ourselves organized for the day.  This place was pretty nice, so we will probably use it as our launching point most mornings.

Breakfast was done earlier than planned, so we had some time to take a quick drive over to Mission Bay to walk around a public beach.  It was pretty breathtaking.

A sea lion popped up to say hello, before being scared off by a group of kids doing some open-water swimming.

After a quick return to the hotel and a change of clothes, I dropped Susan off downtown at the convention center for a little APA fun, while I returned to the hotel to get the delivery I was expecting.

My rental bike!  Nothing fancy, but definitely enough to get around on.  It was the cheapest I could find, and they delivered it to the hotel.  All I had to do was bring the pedals (which they installed)…solid. 

After a VERY brief ride to check the fit, etc…I was hailed by Susan to pick her up and go play tourist for the rest of the afternoon.

The convention center is only a stone’s throw away from the Gaslamp district, so that’s where we started.

 

A Mexican restaurant (although not authentic, I’m sure) was the first place that caught our eye, so afternoon margaritas and a chips and salsa bar it would be.  After lunch we checked out a portion of the Gaslamp district and hit a souvenir shop before moving on.  I think it would be fun to come back at night when I hear it’s really hopping, but we’ll see if we have time.

From Gaslamp, we crossed the big bridge over to Coronado Island and checked out the harbor side first to get some beautiful skyline views of downtown SD.

Then, we walked around the main business route through the island and did a little shopping before heading to the historic Hotel del Coronado.  We originally planned to watch the sunset from a beach-side bar here, but instead were summoned back to the mainland by another of Susan’s classmates.  The drink prices were a little high for my taste anyways.  Still it was nice to walk on the large beach and watch the fog roll in.  Oh yeah, and the resort itself is pretty nice too.

Because of our late lunch, and since the friends we were meeting had already eaten, we decided it was best to forego dinner and skip straight to dessert.  Luckily, another classmate of Susan’s with experience in San Diego had recommended a place that fit the bill perfectly, Extraordinary Desserts in Little Italy.  While the restaurant did offer a limited food selection, the clear star of the show were the rich, and largely portioned desserts.  I took in the French pastry on the right (filled with chocolate), while Susan handled the dulce de leche cake on the left.  On top of that we split a scoop of the homemade salted caramel creme brulee ice cream.  All I can say is wow, thank you Bryan for the suggestion. 

After “dinner”, it was only around 9PM, but we had fit a LOT into the first day, plus tomorrow is Susan’s time to shine with her poster at the convention.  We called it a night early and returned to the hotel to get some rest.  Hopefully, my internal alarm clock stays on eastern time so I can get up early and get some good 2-wheeled exploring done before the sight-seeing recommences.  So far, San Diego is all that I had expected and more…but vacation is only beginning.

En route to San Diego

It has been an exhausting few weeks.  Since Muncie, I went into my 5 week key block in the build for the Ironman.  This included basically all the workouts I listed in the last entry plus many more shorter efforts.  I successfully worked my way through the checklist while also completing my summer grad school classes and working full time.  I cannot remember a period in my life when I’ve been more consistently tired.  Granted, I’m only 25 and been in the workforce for 3 years or so…I’m sure this is just the beginning of lifelong exhaustion.  Either way, as of this past Sunday, I have reached the Ironman taper.  This is somewhat a relief and at the same time terrifying.

To celebrate being in a taper, the wife and I decided it’s time for a vacation.  Well, to be honest, she has a psychology conference to attend for a few hours Thursday and Friday and it looked like something we could spin into a vacation…so we are on our way to San Diego, flying as I type this.  Yay for the APA for planning their convention in a city I’ve always dreamed of visiting.  As with other vacations, I plan on documenting the activities here, so my blog may actually be active over the next few days.  Even more exciting, the wife has a new fancy camera to support her budding photography hobby (she also has a photography blog and a cooking blog worth checking out), so there should be plenty of pictures to support my rambling narratives.  Anyways, I guess this post is more of an intro to the vacation report upcoming and a quick update…Day 1 recap should be on the way soon.

Added before posting…our hotel the first morning.  I think I’m going to like it here.

Muncie Endurathon Race Report

The last pre-IM race is officially completed, so now 7 weeks is all that’s left. It’s a little overwhelming to think about, but luckily I’m too busy to spend much time looking ahead. This past Saturday, I completed the ½ IM at the Muncie Endurathon, so now comes the race report…

The Muncie Endurathon is a long running independent half-iron distance race in the Midwest. This year was its 31^st running. As you would expect from a race ongoing for this long, it is run very professionally and had many of the offerings of the 70.3 series races without the crowds and additional costs. Additionally, there was a sprint tri, multiple distance duathlons, and an aqua-bike offering. The city of Muncie doesn’t have a great deal to offer for tourists, but the area near the course, which is SE of town at the Prairie Creek Reservoir, is a pretty nice farm and boating area. Overall, the event is worth doing if you live in the area and are looking for this particular distance…or if you want a bike course split to brag about for the rest of your life, but more on that later.

Race Morning

It seems like most of the chain hotels in Muncie are in the NW corner of the city, likely due to that being near Ball State University and the university being a major part of the city as a whole. However, that made for a longer drive to the reservoir (~30 minutes) and thus an early wake-up. We were not alone on this trip, though since it looked like most of the out of town athletes stayed in the same area. Now, normally triathlons lead to waking up and leaving before breakfasts fire up at the chain hotels, however I have to give credit to the Hampton Inn in Muncie, for not only having coffee and fruit out by 5am, but also having breakfast grab bags that you could snag on your way out the door. They included an apple, special k bar, and muffin. The extra effort to accommodate the race participants was appreciated.

Pre-race

Talking pre-race strategy with Dad

Arrived at the site and had to park about a quarter mile down the road due to the main lot (open field) being full. No big deal though, as I just threw everything on my back and biked to transition. Got everything setup in my designated spot and hung out with the family a bit before heading down to check out the water. I wanted to see if the Tegaderm on my healing road rash would keep the water out…it worked like a charm. Afterwards, I downed my gel, drank the last of my pre-race water and got into the mass of other green-capped starters in my wave to await the swim.

1.2 mile swim (or so they claim)

Being a weaker swimmer, I always tend to think the course looks long when staring out at the buoys. For this race, my dad and I were both discussion how far away the turn buoys looked from the moment we arrived. Turns out, this time we were right. The swim was a single loop triangular course with only 2 turns. The water wasn’t too choppy and with long stretches of straight before the turns there really was no congestion on the course. I felt like I got into my rhythm earlier than ever while swimming and cruised along pretty smoothly. However, I felt like I had been swimming a long time…and I had. I wouldn’t know my time until the end of the day, but the swim took me 7-10 minutes longer than my previous swims of this distance. I don’t know how long the course was, but evidenced by the fact that only 3 swimmers (of 650+) broke 30minutes, I can say for sure it was long. It hurts the overall goal time, but I felt better knowing that I didn’t just lose a bunch of speed in the last 2 weeks.  Either way, eventually I found my way back to shore by sighting off the giant flailing-arm tube creature (that you see at car lots) and headed to T1.

Time: 43:18 (228/663 overall)

56 Mile Bike

The entire bike course here is on totally closed roads, the course starts going around the south of the reservoir, then picks up the Cardinal Greenway (a rail trail) for about 7 miles heading north, u-turns onto a state hwy and is essentially a long out and back on the closed highways until the very end when you return around the north of the reservoir.  It is pancake flat with minimal turns and super smooth roads.  Add to that the fact there was basically no wind Saturday, and the bike course becomes a speedway.  I felt strong from the get-go and paced off another athlete (outside the draft zone) as we navigated the narrow rail trail.  Once we got on the highway, I settled in to what felt like a good pace, but holding back a bit.  I cruised the first hour and a half or so and was well ahead of my goal pace.  I really focused on taking nutrition at regular intervals to practice for the IM.  In the times when I wasn’t thinking too much, I caught myself singing “A Whole New World”.  You know, from Aladdin…I have no idea how that came into my head.  I was still felling strong at mile 30, so decided to push the pace until mile 50 before shutting it down to prepare for the run.  The course ended up being a little over a mile short, so my already surprisingly fast bike split looks even faster, but I won’t complain.

Time: 2:23:02 (23.5mph avg, 23.0 according to Garmin, 43/663 overall)—lots of fast bike splits out there

Returning from the bike

13.1 Mile Run

For Christmas this past year, I got a Garmin 305.  The biggest reason I wanted one was to help me with pacing, particularly on the run since I tend to leave T2 faster than I should, which comes back to bite me in longer events.  However, I haven’t adjusted the data fields for multisport mode, so I wasn’t getting real time pace data.  So, of course, I took it out too fast.  In my head, I kept repeating to myself to be humble and thought I was.  It wasn’t until mile 7 when I looked at my watch, and by that point it was too late to make a big difference… Before going further with my run, though I’ll describe the course a little.  After the bike, I assumed there were no real hills in the area of the course.  While there weren’t big hills, the roads surrounding the reservoir (where the run course was) were constantly rolling one way or the other.  Along with that, the midday sun provided very little shade, so the course was hot as well.  Thankfully there were aid stations every mile where I was able to squeeze ice cold rags out over my head and drink plenty of water.  Now back to the last 6 miles, I tried to pull back on the pace, but walking was already on my mind.  I held on until mile 9 before adding in some walking, but once I started, I decided to add a lot of short walking breaks in the rest of the way.  The finish line was just past the top of the largest hill on the run course, and I walked part of it too even though I was less than a .1 miles from the finish.  At the end, my run pace was still close to my goal since I had gone out so fast, but I need to pace better if I’m going to do the IM run in a time I can be satisfied with.

Home stretch of the run, I can’t tell which if I looked worse than I felt at that point or not

Time: 1:36:28 (7:22/mile pace, 27/663 OA)

Final time (w/ transitions): 4:47:04 (37th OA, 4/29 in 25-29 AG)

I got a new PR by a minute, the goal was to break 4:40, but the swim killed that.  My bike + run time was on pace, so with that I’m pretty pleased.  After the race, I still feel like I’m on pace to meet my IM goals, provided my next 4 weeks of heavy training go well.  I guess we’ll see…

Pre race thoughts and a look ahead

As the weekend approaches, so does my next tri, the Muncie Endurathon Half Iron Distance Triathlon in Muncie, IN. This race has snuck up on me a little since it comes only 3 weeks after my last short course races, and although it is nearly two months before IM Louisville, the ominous presence of the full Ironman has overshadowed it. It is the last race prior to the Ironman as well, so no longer will I be able to distract myself from the end goal of the season with these intermediate hurdles. After Saturday afternoon, I will be staring the Iron Monster straight in the face.

All melodrama aside, I still do have aggressive goals this weekend and am in a recovery cycle of my overall season schedule, so should come into the race relatively rested, although slightly beaten up. This past weekend at the premature end of a long training ride I took a tame spill by most standards (skidded out on a gravel patch at low speed), but it was my first wreck that I can remember and has left its mark with minor soreness and bruising along with a small (about 2 inch diameter) patch of road rash on my right hip. Luckily no damage was done to my BSM team kit. I was able to continue riding (the bike appears fine), but was only about 10 miles shy of the 90 I planned for the day and probably dropped my remaining motivation on the road to melt in the hot sun, so I called it quits a little early.

Anyways, back to the task at hand, the race this weekend. I am hoping to PR on the half-iron distance, but it will take some work since I won’t have the strong current to push me through the swim in record time as was the case in Augusta last year. I’d like to break 4:40 for the distance, and here’s how I see it breaking down…
• Swim: 31 minutes (aggressive, and will depend on if wetsuits are legal)
• T1: 3 minutes, hopefully less
• Bike: 2h30minutes (22.4mph avg…breaking the 2:30 barrier is kind of a sub-goal in itself)
• T2: 2 minutes, again hopefully less
• Run: 1h34minutes (~7:10 / mile pace)
I feel like if I can hit close to these splits, particularly bike and run, I should be about where I would like to heading into the final push before Ironman taper.

Speaking of the final push, I made a list last week of the remaining key workouts to be completed before the taper. There’s a lot to be done in a month, but I think the speed is where it needs to be; now I need to finalize the long workout nutrition and get in some of the longest training days to finalize my pacing strategy. I came up with 12 remaining key workouts, one of which I completed with my crash on Sunday…the remaining 11 are as follows with approximate timing.
• 7/10 – Muncie Half Ironman
• 7/13 – 100+ mile bike ride (no time for post-race recovery)
• 7/17 – 18.5+ mile run
• 7/18 – IM course scouting ride in Louisville (w/ Kelley and Dad, distance TBD)
• 7/20 – 100+ mile bike ride w/ short t-run
• 7/24 – 20+ mile run
• 7/27 – 100+ mile bike ride w/ short t-run
• 7/28 – 4000m steady-state swim
• 8/3 – 100+ mile bike ride w/ 30+ minute t-run
• 8/7 – 20+ mile run
• 8/8 – 4000m steady-state swim
All these are long aerobic efforts for the most part (disregarding the race this weekend). The taper begins August 9th with a 3 week gradual step down in volume injected with some speed work.

The steps are in place…now to follow the path