With the Emmett triathlon over, my season seems to be pretty much behind me now. I had a blast doing the triathlons, and am already looking forward to the next season. So the question then begs, what will next season look like for me? To start off, I don't have a clue. Most races haven't posted anything for what the next year will possibly look like, and probably won't until closer to January. That is, off course unless you consider Ironman events, which open almost a full year out and fill up shortly there after. I do have a few things on the agenda of what I'd like to see happen next year, so I guess I can start there. I'd like to do the Spudman and Emmett Triathlons again next year. Spudman is 2+ hours away, but the venue was fairly family friendly so the kids would enjoy the time out there. Emmett is close, and was a fairly well organized race. Plus with the kids tri that they put on the day before, I know that the boys will want to do that one too! If the Boise 70.3 Ironman comes back to town, I'd really like to do that one again and hope that next year has better weather and we can actually get the full 70.3 distance done. As of right now, there is no word on it coming back to town. This year was the last year of the initial 5 year contract, so hopefully it will come back. I also hope to do the Rev 3 olympic distance race in Portland. They had one this year, and I'm hoping that they will have another one for 2013. I am choosing Portland because we have friends that live in the area, and anytime you can possibly save money on the travel fees with staying at someone's house, then it makes it more enticing. My focus for next year will be more of the olympic distance, with a goal of crushing 2:30 for any of the events. I was soo close to doing that in Emmett, and know that it's obtainable on a flat course like that for me next year.
Training for this next season is going to be structured around the Crossfit Endurance model, but probably not following their site. I might follow the Crossfit main site for some of the workouts, but I think that with what my goals are for improving, I'd be better served doing my own programming. The main emphasis is going to be on the bike, and then the swim. My running is what I already consider my strength, and will take a back seat to the other two disciplines. I will still run, but I will probably only have one key run session a week, with the rest of the time being filled by the bike and swim. The interesting thing about training for the next season is how to get it all done. Starting in October, work is changing schedules. No longer will I be doing a 24hr shift, with a day off in between for 3 shifts before I get 4 days off. Now, I will be doing a 48hr shift, and then getting 4 days off. This will be different in soo many different ways, I can't even imagine or describe all of them.
In the triathlon training world, it means less water time. Why? because I would usually hit the pool on my way to work 2x week. But now with the schedule change, my water time doesn't have to be reduced, but it'll be harder to hit the water all the time because of family commitments. My plan? My plan is to buy the swim halo training system. I'll get a full review once I've bought the system and had a chance to try it out. It's basically an indoor training device for swimming that helps to build strength, endurance, pacing and most importantly muscle memory on what a good high elbow catch is for the water. My intention is to use that while at work and at home to get some muscle memory of a good catch and pull phase of my stroke, something that I know I'm lacking in. Hopefully this will then translate into faster swim times in the water.
For the bike portion, I'm super fortunate to have a very serious cyclist as my captain. One who likes to race as well. I've already talked with him about his thoughts on my ability to build speed over this off season, and we will have a plan in place to get it done. The nice thing, is that we will be doing the same basic speed building plan together, getting ready for the next season. So I will have an experienced athlete/coach to not only hold me accountable to getting faster, but to push me harder. Right now, it seems that my average speed is around 19 for most of my rides. The Emmett tri I pushed out over 20, but it was mostly a flat course, vs the rolling hills that I normally ride. On the bike, I really want to have a solid 20+ mph average, and the closer I can get to 21mph for the course of 56 miles the better. The ultimate goal is to do a full Ironman distance, and that is 112 miles. But the Ironman dream is still a few years down the road. For now, I want to build some more speed and endurance at the olympic distance and dabble in the 70.3 world. I know that it's early to say still being so new to the sport, but I think that 2013 will be mostly the olympic distance, and then 2014 will start to have more 70.3's. I will continue to do the Boise 70.3 since it is a local race and I have no excuse not to do it.
Running will, like I said, take more of a back seat. I will try to get at minimum, one key run session a week of a long distance (10k+) and then a second run session of longer distance intervals, 1/2mile - 1 mile intervals. The goals for the run is to push my times lower. The goal is to push myself into the sub 7 min/miles (6:45-6:50) for the 10k, and then extend that into a full 13.1 mile (21k). This should be obtainable with the fact that I can push and do pretty close to a 7min/miles now for a 10k. The biggest issue is just to stay focused during the run and not slack off. Embrace the pain and discomfort as it comes, and push through it. I had my quarterly fitness evaluation 2 days ago, and I crushed the run! It's a mile and a half, and I've had maybe two run sessions since Emmett, but nothing super serious. On Tuesday, I got a new PR for the run at 8:23. My previous PR was 8:28, and that was a couple of years ago. Over the last year, I've had an 8:30-something, and a couple of 8:40's. Tuesday had me do a mile in ~5:25. Granted, I can't keep that pace for a 5k, but it shows that I have the ability to be fast, and now I just need to translate that into fast over an extended distance.
The rest of my training as of late, has been lifting and some Crossfit stuff. Getting back to my roots, as I'd like to say. I haven't done any swimming since Emmett. It's not that I don't want to swim, in fact I actually miss it a little bit. But the big thing is that I just don't feel like getting up at 5am to hit the pool before work. I've been enjoying the extra hour of sleep in the am. Now, If I could only get to bed earlier, that would be even better! I've done a few rides on the bike, and interval based one, and then an outside ride, but I've been enjoying just getting out on the road and not worrying about my speed. Next week, a bunch of us from work are going to get together for a ride, and I'm super stoked about that ride.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Race report, Emmett Olympic Tri
Wow, it's been 2+ weeks since I've sat down to write anything out, and since then I've done what will probably be my last triathlon of the season. Before we get into the nitty gritty details of the race, lets talk about the last 2 weeks. I had a 2 week break from the Spudman Tri to Emmett's Most Excellent Tri. Those 2 weeks were filled with some more training, but not a ton. Ever since California, I've had little motivation to really get after it on the training side. Fatigue was starting to set in, I didn't get a ton of chances to train while in California, and I had the injury to my right leg that made me have to take running off the schedule. In the 2 weeks between races, I think I did one pool session, and no open water swims. I got a few cycling sessions done, one run interval done and a bike/run brick a couple of days before Emmett. The cycling was good, I was still pushing myself on the bike a bit, and although I told myself to go easy on the bike for the brick, I did start to push myself there too. I've been getting faster on the bike, and I think that a lot of it is mental. I've just decided to suck it up and push through. When it starts to get hard in that gear, I just push it out and work through it (assuming I'm not climbing of course) trying to continue to build the endurance and speed. My average speed has gone from the mid 18's into the mid 19's, and on the last 6 mile brick ride I was into the 20's, which was awesome! I really want to be able to consistently push out 22+ for 60 miles or more. That would cover the 56mi bike for a 70.3 distance race. Also during the 2 week break I still didn't run much because of my hip. The previous pain in my leg was down low, by my ankle; but the new pain was in the hip right where the IT band connects. I've never had hip pain before, and this wasn't so much a pain, as just a dull ache that was there. My lower leg feels great, but the hip soreness was a little worrisome so I decided to continue to take it easy with the run training. So the little motivation, and the potential for an injury coupled with the fatigue made getting any training done a little difficult. So onto the race weekend!!! It really was almost a full weekend of racing for the family. You see, boy #1 has been talking about doing a kids triathlon if they ever have one. I told him that Emmett does have a kids triathlon the day before my race, but that training wheels were not allowed. I only said the training wheels part to encourage him to get on his bike more and get off the training wheels. Unfortunately it didn't work and he is still on the training wheels. But we did sign him up for the race. For all the kids, there is a "swimmer" and a "non-swimmer" category. My son has been working on his swimming lately, but he would not have been able to do the 25yds across the length of the pool without a kick board, and that didn't seem to be an option. So he was registered in the non-swimmer division which meant that they had to wade through the kiddie pool and touch all 4 corners before getting out. Well my boy wanted to swim, and simply wading through waist high water was not good enough for him. He got into the pool, would wade a few steps and then dive under the water and swim. When it came time for a breath, he'd get up, get a breath or 2 while wading and then go back down into the water. I was impressed, and he was the only kid in his non-swimmer division to even attempt to actually swim. I met him at the bike and helped get his socks on, shoes tied, shirt on and helmet on. Then off he went for his 3/4 mile bike ride. When he came back into the transition area off came the helmet and we ran the 1/2 loop of the run course. He did great! We had to walk at one point during the run, but then he found his second wind and kept going. He had a strong finish at the end, and ended up taking 2nd place in his division.
Getting ready for the swim
Coming back from the bike
On the run
Swim: The swim went really well. The water was borderline warm enough to not need a wetsuit, but with the chilly morning air still lingering around and the buoyancy that the suit provides I decided to wear the suit. I got in the water and was ready to go. I was actually really calm. I knew what I wanted to do, and that was just have a good race and go fast. I knew that the swim is the worse of the 3 disciplines, and the bouy that was out there to mark the turn around point seemed to be barely there it was so far out. But I know that I can swim the distance, the biggest thing is to just relax and try to get into a rhythm (something that I couldn't do at the Spudman). Emmett has a civil war re-enactor shoot a canon off for the start of the race, and with the blast of the canon we were off! I was in the middle of the pack to start, but the hands and feet weren't too bad. A few pulls and slaps here and there, but since I was toward the outside and not directly in the middle I missed most of the fighting in the water. I had the intention to find some feet and try to draft off of someone, but that didn't work out for me. The feet that I tried to follow were either slower than me, or faster and I just gave up. Instead I just stayed relaxed and tried to get into a rhythm. I found a rhythm and it just started to flow. I know that I wasn't moving super fast as the majority of the pack was up in front of me, but I was still moving forward. Everytime I stopped to sight and catch a breath I just enjoyed the view of the mountains and trees and the ability to do what I was doing. After about 30 min I was out of the water and into T1.
T1 is still a little slow for me. I tend to walk the first little bit out of the water, trying to catch my bearings and not fall over. Coming into a standing position from being supine swimming for so long, and trying to run I get a little dizzy, so I walk at first and once I get the cob webbs cleared then I start to jog toward the bikes. Once at the bikes, it's strip the rest of the wetsuit off and stick it in the bag, wipe my face off real quick, put my race belt on, garmin on, sunglasses and helmet. Grab my bike and I'm off.
Bike: I jumped on the bike and started off. There was a little uphil section getting out of the park before you got on the road and into a slight down hill. Once on the road and into the down hill I got my feet into my shoes and really started going. The course had some rolling hills to start off before turning flat. Road conditions weren't horrible, but weren't great either. With the chip sealing that they do in Idaho to keep the roads maintained it can get a little bumpy and rough being on a bike. I felt like I struggled for a while to find something that felt smooth. They asked us to stay to the right as much as possible while on the bike, but when the smoothest part of the road is where the car tires constantly travel, that's the part of the road you choose to try and stay on. I felt really good on the bike. My legs felt strong and full of power. There were very few occasions where I was thinking about my effort and if I was going to be able to sustain my pace. I was just feeling really good on the bike. We had one more decent size hill on the course which actually required me to drop into my smaller chain ring, but I still powered right up the hill at over 14mph and passed another cyclist going up the hill. The Roctane in my Torhans was really working as I felt great! I was going between the Roctane and a water bottle that I had behind my seat. I was concerned that I might be starting to take on too much fluid while on the bike, but the weather was heating up and it was going to be a hot one on the run course, so I decided to try to not worry about it, and if I felt like water I would drink water. Coming back into town, I had gotten out of my shoes with less than a mile left of the bike course, and finished the last of the Roctane as well.
The smile on my face says it all. I was very happy with how I felt and how I rode on my bike
Heading off on the run, delaney pack in hand.
Run: I decided to try and run with my Delaney pack for the race. I wear it on all my longer (10K and up)runs outside anyways, so it wasn't like it would be new territory for me. But at least now I wasn't hindered by the aid station. I hate the aid stations for one reason. They slow me down! If I don't walk through the aid station, I don't really get any water. You get a 4oz cup and then 1/2 of it spills when you grab the cup. Then you have ~25 feet to time your breathing, running and water intake before the trash can. If you mess up, you're choking and have to slow down because now you can't breath. So I would walk through to get the water. But not this time! Oh no, this time, the aid stations were for one thing and one thing only. Keeping me cool. With the temperatures rising, I was only grabbing water just to dump it on my head and cool me off. It didn't matter if 1/2 of the water spilled out, it was going on my head. My Delaney pack holds a single water bottle in a slanted position and is very easy for me to get in and out of the pack. So the water bottle had Roctane for the energy and electrolytes to finish the race. Once I started the run, I took another dose of the Sport Legs, and almost half way through the run I took some electrolyte pills just to be safe of the cramping. The first 1-1.5 miles is always brutal. I didn't get the jelly legs, but rather the cramps and stiffness in the shins, calves and spot cramps here and there in the quads. It's just one of those things that you just have to work through and keep going. Eventually they subside and then you can get into a good rhythm and pace. The run felt good for me, and although I didn't feel like I was really pushing it, my time was still almost a full 2 min faster than Spudman. I tried to push it on the second lap, but my legs did start to feel heavy and tired, so I backed off the gas a little bit but continued to plug along and pass the people that I saw in front of me.
The final sprint
Overall, I was stoked with the race. I had a ton of fun, and was very happy with my overall performance. I was shooting for a time between 2:30-2:45, and I got a 2:33:22. Swim: 29:28 T1: 2:22 Bike: 1:13:44 (ave 20.3mph!) T2: 0:54 Run: 46:53 This gave me a 12th in age group and 74 overall. It's interesting to note that my bike split was almost the same from Spudman, but with no peleton this time around, and then the run was almost 2 full min faster. My transition times were also faster this time around too.
A family affair. The best support a guy could ask for!
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