Mach Tenn 2009

Overall this race went pretty well. I started things off taking a short bike ride to warm up there after getting my transition area set up. Then i got in the water to warm up there. Swam probably 200 yards to get good and warm. While standing in line, probably about 30 people left to wait on the girl behind me tells me that my swim cap is on inside out. So i decided i had enough time to fix it. When i got things situated my goggles didn't feel like they were on my face well and i couldn't get them right. I didn't know that the seal had started to tare away from the right eye at the time, but that was the issue and it was time to go. So swimming with one eye i took off, not knowing really what to expect.

I don't think there is much to prepare you for swimming in mob of people. With in the first 5 strokes, i made a point to myself to relax and to pace myself because i knew i was already going out too hard. I think i held good composure for the remainder of the swim. I got off course once while rounding the second buoy. Don't really know what happened, all i knew was a guy in a boat was yelling at me about it getting back on course and i held my pace.

I need to work on sighting. I was looking up every 4 strokes or so. I also think if i could at some point after i get winded to not breath every 2 strokes but 3, i think my speed and effort would be greatly improved.

Things got a little rough in the water rounding the last buoy. I had to swim over people and really hold my ground. I had hands and legs in my face and was being shoved around. The only solution i saw to the problem was to swim faster and just shove back. Nothing too bad in the water though.

I got out and looked at my watch and was impressed and surprised to see i was under 17 min in the swim. Swim time: 16:56 (1000 yards).

Running up the hill to the transition area, Shawn handed me a cup of water, i probably needed it. I tried to drink it, but really just couldn't get it down. I was too busy trying to breath. I chucked it towards the trash can where i missed and almost in slow motion watched the bottom of the cup hit the pavement and the stream of water come up and all over a lady standing in the transition area. whoops...

I felt like i had a slow transition. Looking at my time, it wasn't' too bad 1:57.

On the bike... Time to hydrate. The first mile or two on the bike was rough, i was still hurting from the swim. I choked down half a gel pack on the start. I felt it in my best interest to quit when i did. After i recovered from that though i got on it. I started passing people which should make anyone happy. I sluffed it off when the people with just over the top bikes, disk wheels etc, blew past me. The one thing about the swim and the run (more so on the run due to wetsuits) a guy passes you you don't' have the excuse, "well if i had his shoes i could run faster".

Anyway, the bike went well, the hill going up towards UTSI didn't even really slow me down as much as it had before in my training. I passed quite a few on that hill alone. I finished the last of my gel pack going around UTSI. All and all i had a time i was happy with if i didn't slack in the first few min, it might have been a tad better, meh. I started to really like the aero bars and feel comfortable when i was on them. Bike time: 48:55 (16 miles).

T2 went pretty smooth. Again i felt that i was slacking in the transition area but the time said otherwise 0:56. Forgot to grab my gel pack for the run though. Don't think it mattered really.

The run was slower than i had really hoped for. I was hoping for around a 8:30 pace. I ran at a pace i was comfortable with. I got passed by a lot of people... I think i only passed 3-4 people, and well they were walking. I saw Coach Lester, Joe and Lisa at the turn around cheering me on with her cowbell. Good to see them, i laughed a little just at the fact that they were there which let me kinda get my mind on something else other than the run. When i crossed the finish line, i was glad to be done. Jessie was waiting on me at the finish line. Talked to Shawn briefly as i recovered. Run time: 36:02 (4 miles).

Finish time: 1:44:45.

The race was a lot of fun. Especially considering that less than a year ago i never saw myself really doing this. I've came a long way but there is definitely room for improvement. I'm sold on the triathlons though. The foot races are fun, but i definitely like getting a little more of a break in the monotony in just the running part.

I saw quite a few people that i hadn't seen for a while volunteering. My old boy scout troop and my scoutmaster. As well as the HAM radio guys. Thanks to all.

I've been toying with signing up for the Music City Triathlon that team magic is putting on. Its of the Olympic distance. So it will be quite a bit more challenging than this one. I think its well within my abilities to finish it. I think I've about got myself talked into it.

As far as training this week. I'm skipping the running and just swimming. I went to spin class on Tuesday for the first time in a while. Chad puts on a mean class. Sunday I'm going to pick it back up with the training. With a middle distance run through Bonnaroo on Sunday morning with Jessie. This week is Bonnaroo time. Looking forward to a few bands however I'm skipping the headliners this year... probably take a nap so i can be awake for MGMT and Girl Talk who both have late night shows.

First Tri - GJCC

This is a couple of weeks late, but better late than never.

I had planned on my first Triathlon to be the Mach Tenn. A goal i set back for myself around Nov, Dec when i realized i could run a few miles and didn't hate it. I haven't really been in great shape since well high school and after that college was kinda on and off. After college, it was pretty much off. Anyway, for a long time, I've kinda thought a triathlon would be a fun thing to try. I really had no motivation or desire to peruse that thought though. I've never been able to run and most of all didn't want to put myself through the pain and agony that is running.

I started getting in to shape, started to like running. My friend, Lisa, that i used to work with at the theater in high school challenged me to sign up for the CMM half. After i did the math in my head about pace to finish etc... i was out of excuses. I signed up. And in the next few months i got comfortable with the skill i thought I'd never had.

So after that things started to fall in line... I was going to spin class and trying to swim in the pool for cross training. Then probably the best motivator was the onset of a master's swim program at the rec center in Manchester. After this, i really had no excuse... Mach Tenn here i come.

In talking to Don Rogers he actually mentioned the GJCC as a great beginners tri to make my first one. I took his advice, and signed up for it.

So on to the race:

I was lucky enough that my brothers girlfriend lives about a mile from the bike course. So when i had planned on driving up that morning, i was able to stay over there and get a little more rest. I went up the night before for the beginners briefings. Some helpful information was said. A lot of stuff was just review, as I've spent a good bit of time researching how to take this on.

It was a great day for it in the morning, overcast looking like it was going to rain really and not really hot either. The swim was technically wet suit legal. That morning i warmed up with a 200 meter swim in the pool nice and slow and smooth. Its been my experience that my first 200 or so is always rough in swim class.

I got to the front of the line, GO... the race was on. I hopped in the pool (i was expecting to be able to start in a swimming start fashion, however, 5 min before race time i was informed that would get me DQ'ed.) So i jumped in and started swimming. The swim felt smooth and at the 100m turn i had passed the guy in front of me. I got out and was kinda happy with the swim especially with the unexpected things that came about on race day... ie, not being able to dive in, and having to swim across 3 lanes and a swim well to exit the swim. Swim time 3:38 (200m).

T1 went pretty smooth: 1:52.

On to the bike. Not knowing what to expect and wondering how easy/hard it is to get a drafting/passing violation, i kinda started off a bit timid. After i saw what other people were doing on the bike, i picked it up. I passed quite a few people and pushed it hard. Hard up the hills. The downhills weren't as friendly as I'd had wished pretty much any downhill we had, there was a turn in it with people yelling to slow down. Going into the last turn, the girl in front of me, lost control of her bike and hit the gate and rolled. It didn't look pretty. I finished the bike strong. 28:51 (8.5 mi + T2).

The run was the first mile of the bike course, out and back. I took off, trying to run my own race. Didn't want to pace anyone and wear myself out. I know I'm slow, I've got a lot of work to do on the run. around the turn around the girl that wiped out on the fence came trotting past me. Glad she was OK, however a tad depressing that she could take a spill like that and still catch me. I might have had a little left at the end of the run, but i was definitely ready to be finished. I ran at an 8:22 pace which is respectable for me. 16:43 (2 miles). Total 51:03.

I recovered, and got some snacks and stuck around for the results to be posted. I was very surprised to find out that I took first in the beginner class age group. So i can't complain about much there. Team-Magic did a great job organizing the race. It was a great experience and a confidence builder for the Mach Tenn coming up in a couple of weeks.

Busy Weekend

I decided to hit it hard this weekend. Most of it came from wanting to get a long run in as well as run a dry run through the mach tenn course.

Nearing the end of a rainy Friday at work i decided to leave a little early to both try to avoid the post work traffic on TN-127 and i had a small window where it wasn't raining. So i headed out to the recreation center on woods and knocked out the course. I hopped on the bike and road out, it was pretty humid as the sun was out and it just finished raining. Road the loop, nothing special, i got it done in 51 min. Got back and put the bike up and started running... This running with tired legs is rough, much like last time, it took me about a mile for me to tell my legs that they were running come hell or high water... The rolling hills aren't really so bad. It was my longest run since the CMM as well. I've been concentrating on running the trail at work with some people that are faster than me and they only run 3.5 miles at lunch. The 4 mile run on the course took me 37 min. The sun was beating down on me the whole time. There was really no shade the whole time.

So on to Saturday... I got up early and road in the dogwood ride. 62 miles through Franklin county. I got rained on pretty good right before climbing up the hill at alto. I'd never been up that route before. It was challenging and pretty good scenery as well. Overall the ride went well. Took my time, and stopped at the aid stations for some snacks. I was supposed to head out to Fayetteville for a BBQ with Jessie later that afternoon but it was canceled due to the forecast of rain. So exhausted i went home and slept for a few hours then i was off to Jessie's for dinner.

Sunday again i got up good and early for a 10 mile run. I ran a route i ran before which included 3 laps of the 3 mile loop out of the rec center with one of the laps taking a spur over I-24 before heading back towards the rec center. I was pretty impressed with my performance after the first lap. I guess it took me a little while to get loosened up, etc. It was a nice and cool morning for the run, it was around 60 degrees. I wasn't complaining.

After the running, Jessie and I headed up to the resonance fair. It was a good time. Threw some axes, and ate food that should kill a man... i don't think anyone was ever supposed to fry a milky way bar. :S

I'll take it easy this week and I'm looking forward to testing myself on memorial day.

Weekly totals:
Swim: 4650 yrds
Bike: 88.1 mi
Run: 21 mi

Tri Training

Well after the CMM I've shifted my training to get ready for these tris.

I've been busy and with the rain and all my training has been struggling anyway... I have yet to do a long run since the half.

I've been running at lunch with some people from the design group at work. They are fast. I can hold my ground with them on their first lap. After that i make it about half way until i start to drop back and then shortly after that want to die. I've ran with them 4 times. I've managed to pull a negative split each time and almost every time i wonder how the hell.... Its a 1.75 mile trail and we run 2 laps. Best time so far is 30:20. I'm hoping that running with them will make me faster and in a few weeks I'll be able to hold my ground to them.

I've also been doing some short bike rides. 10-12 miles. So far in all of my training i am probably going to be the least prepared for the bike ride. Probably because of the 3 its the one I'm the most comfortable with.

Swimming is still going alright. We did a T-30 the other day. I improved by 25 yrds. I was kinda hoping for better as the first one i really paced myself as i wasn't really even sure if i could swim for 30 minutes non stop haha. So naturally i was more comfortable with my second one. I need to get to where I'm comfortable with doing the flip turns during it and I'll knock it out. I've been trying to do them more and more. I need to find a way to get in an open water swim. The water is probably still pretty chilly.

Today i also did my first brick training. I did 11.5 miles on the bike and then turned around and did a 2.2 mile run. The expectation was upheld, my legs didn't like me for the first half mile or so but they loosened up after and i did alright. It also felt like i was running really slow however i managed to crank out a 8:48 pace. I also got a pretty bad cramp in my chest toward the end of my run, maybe the worst one I've had.

So on to next week. Hopefully i can hit it hard. Memorial day is fast approaching.

CMM 2009 Half

This blogging thing is sometimes a chore haha...

Anyway, Leading up to the CMM i had a pretty huge taper, as with all the rain i had quite a few baseball games. Almost every night. So needless to say i didn't get as much running or cross training in as I'd have liked to. I had a 12 mile run on Easter that left me feeling pretty good about the race. In the next two weeks i ran a total of 9 miles (one 6 and one 3 miles). That's less than half of what i hoped...

Anyway, the race was supposed to be hot. It was hot, not as hot as Hawaii running but the combination between the hills and the heat took its toll on me. I started running with chad. We both had pretty much the same goal. Goal being that we felt that we might be able to get a 2:00 time. We started in corral 12 with the 2 hour pacer from the striders. The first 5k of the race was strong. Somewhere after mile 4 we started dropping off... before we got to mile 5 the 2 hour guy was out of reach for us. Somewhere around that time i also got bottle necked at an aid station and lost chad. I was hurting but maintaining a reasonable pace. I managed to catch up to chad by mile 7. Just after i caught him, i was able to spot Jessie in the crowd of people running the opposite way, she was around mile 5.

After that i was still hurting but still pushing. My 10k split was still decent. Shortly before the 10 mile mark, chad told me he'd see me at the finish line and he dropped back. At the 10 mile split i was still on track for my declared finishing time of 2:05. Another mile down the road, everything fell apart. My lower back started aching. I told myself i was too close to the end to let that bother me. Right at the split off of the half marathon i couldn't take the pain anymore. By now it was shooting down my legs and just a tight aching pain to lift my legs followed.

I had to pull over and stretch... I'm sure i looked miserable. One of the running coaches approached me to make sure i was OK even. I stretched my back, and walked a little hoping that it would loosen me up. I started to jog slowly again, to what was seemly worse pain, plus my legs felt like anchors.

I ran walked through mile 11... and tried to run again at 12... same but i was a little more motivated. I stopped to walk one last time, for a little bit... Then i made it to the bridge over the river, at this point, i sucked it up and ran. 2:11 was still seemly in sight (i started my watch a little late so i really only had an estimate). I ran down the hill... around the bend, and to the finish line. I finished up with a 2:13:18.

I'll take it. I'd had really hoped for a tad better, but hey its my first one. Gives me something to improve on.

I recovered in the finisher's area with some fruit, drinks, etc... then i made my way to try to cheer Jessie on as she crossed the finish line. I waited and watched a few people go by and Jessie rounded the bend i was a little late seeing her and tried to yell for her... she was in the zone and just ran right past haha. She did well especially given the heat and that there were 3 consecutive aid stations that were bone dry for her. Her finishing time didn't publish however. She is in the 2:30 range however. Hopefully they will get that straightened out soon.

On to the triathlons. GJCC and Mach Tenn are on my list. I am also considering running the middle half in the fall, and maybe hoping to complete a full marathon by the end of the year.

Foot issues

Since march 30^th I’ve been having a slight pain in my foot as previously mentioned here…

 

Thursday I went out for my 6 mile run after lunch at work since I didn’t really have any time to work it in.  I tried to eat a little bit of a lighter lunch (no cheeseburger, etc…) however apparently subway isn’t a good alternative.  I think I was a little dehydrated from swim the night before as well as spin class.  I hadn’t drank too much water that morning (aside from a couple of cups of coffee).  Anyway, I started my run and it was going good.  The first mile was under 9:00.  After that I was looking for the water coolers on the trail at the base… for some reason they decided not to put them out.   Next my sandwich was disagreeing with me.  However despite my pains there, I was determined I was either throwing up or finishing… possibly both :P…  All this while my foot was being a trooper… nothing from it.  Probably about 3 miles into the run, it kind of ached a little…  quarter mile later… shooting pains forced me to quit.  I limped and walked for a little bit in pretty decent pain.  After walking for a min or two the pain seemed to subside.  I jogged a little bit, no pain, so I picked it up to a pretty quick run.  I did quit at the entrance to the trail. 

 

So with that, I was going to the Doctors to get my shots and decided to let him take a look at it.  I got an x-ray and some poking around.  He said that it looked like it was an inflamed tendon and give me some anti-inflammatory drugs as well as some topical cream.  Hopefully that will do the trick.  I’m looking forward to the half marathon in just a couple of weeks.  I feel prepared and don’t want something to crush my hard work. 

 

I’m going to try to get a long run in this weekend pending my foot.  It will be my last until the race.  I’ll start tapering and just sticking to shorter runs. 

ok... lets do this.

I've been running around like crazy the last few weeks so the blog took most of the hit. was kinda waiting to try to get some pictures on here, but I'm giving up on that goal.

Anyway, Hawaii was good. I got 3 runs out there 6, 10, then 6. All 3 runs were tough. The heat and the humidity took its toll on me. I was not ready for that. I found it hard to stay hydrated and I've said i felt like i was going to throw up but Hawaii was the first time i was actually coughing and gaging thinking i was going to toss my lunch. We also got some weights in. If hot tubbing counts as swimming then i got plenty of that too :P

We got back Friday evening from Hawaii. We flew in on the red eye. I've never been able to sleep on the plane... especially when I'm expected to. Exhausted i think i made it until about 8:00 and i was out cold. I got up nice and early to run in the St. Patrick's Day 10k here in Manchester. It was pretty cold up until start time. It started warming up and becoming a nice day as we were running. My goal time was 55 min however i exceeded that buy over a min and ended up with 53:41 (unofficial as by my watch, I've yet to actually see the official results). It was a pretty good run. I paced chad for probably half the distance then pulled away after we ran up the jail hill.

The next week went well training wise. I had some really strong runs. My time off from swimming caused me to fall back to some old habits. Actually on Monday i managed to rub my shoulder raw with the stubble from my face not good. We did a 30 min time trial in the pool Wednesday. I was concerned about being able to swim for 30 min. After the fact it wasn't bad at all and i could have pushed myself a little more. I ended up with 1625 yards. Comments from some of the other swimmers confirmed my thoughts of my stroke being off.

On that Saturday, i went out for a very windy but long bike ride. I took my bike over to Winchester to see Jessie at hammers and then came home through Tullahoma. I ended up with 58 miles. I lost my temper around mile 50 when a car with the whole other lane (4 lane road) decided he was going to come with in about a foot of me going 50mph or so in extremely light traffic. So... he got the finger. Which is something that doesn't come out much, even when driving :P Anyway, it took me 3:30 to get 58 miles in. It was my longest ride to date and i was really out of condition for it as my neck and butt were killing me after the fact.

No time for my long run on Sunday, so i got up at 4:00 am to turn out my 12 mile run. I ran 4 laps around the rec center in Manchester including 4 trips up the hill. My ipod was dead so i was a little disappointed at the start, but it turned out to not be so bad. It was 28 degrees so i had my tights on. The run was really strong. I was pleased with myself and nothing really to complain about (pain, stitches, etc). Time: 1:59:30. I stretched and left feeling accomplished and ready to tackle the half marathon in a few weeks.

I had ball games Monday through Wednesday. So no swimming. Tuesday is where things started going down hill. At work wearing some very old new balance tennis shoes, my foot started hurting. Its been worrying me. I decided to skip my run as not to irritate it. Wednesday it wasn't any better, nor Thursday... (skipped another run). Through advice of Jessie, Lisa and a few others i went up to fleet feet on Friday to look into some new shoes. Friday the pain was better and Saturday it was feeling pretty good as well. I did get some new shoes on Friday so hopefully they will help out.

Saturday i also did a 3000yrd swim work out. I asked Shawn for a workout since i missed all week and i don't think i can afford another week out of the pool. Not sure how my stroke worked, but hopefully I'm getting the kinks out. I'm sure I'll get some constructive criticism in the pool Monday, which will be very welcomed.

Sunday with no foot pain, i went out to try my new shoes. I hadn't ran for a while and didn't want to irritate my foot anymore than necessary. I was hoping for 6 miles, but only got 3. Hard to explain why i quit. I wouldn't really call it pain (at least not like before) but my foot felt uncomfortable, so i called it quits when i got back to my car at 3 miles. I'm going to do a 6 mile run on Tuesday either on the track or the trail at the base so I'm not running on pavement. Hopefully that will go well for me.

I managed to finally fix my garage door today, through some structural reinforcement. Its not too pretty but it works. I'm happy. I also got my oil changed and a few other odd jobs around the house done. Now I'm hoping for an early bedtime.

Anyway, that's a quick rundown of about my last months of training. Hopefully i can keep this updated in the future.