The Dawn of a New Season Amidst a Crappy Pittsburgh Winter

Okay, I'm ready to begin.  I'm in a local chain coffee shop that lacks the polish of Starbucks (no matter how cookie-cutter it may be), but features just enough hipster edge to warrant the melodramatic post title.  I've got an orange spice tea and a whole carafe of near-boiling water and I'm not afraid to use it.  All of it.  Speaking of hipster, my fixie has been complete for a few weeks now and I love riding it everywhere!  It brings so much joy that no matter the temperature in the middle of December, I'm riding it to work unless there's snow and ice on the road.  I know I know, harden up.  A big thanks goes out to Evan Perrone and the staff/wheelbuilder at Dirty Harry's Bike Shop in Verona for building up the rear wheel and helping me put it all together. More on the Frankenbike later.

Post-Harrisburg Marathon, I took a week completely off, save for a Thursday bike ride.  I felt like crap, but riding was a necessity considering it was going to be the last day of relatively nice weather before the temperatures plummeted into the twenties and thirties until March.

This is actually now day two of the post.  The above is all the further I had gotten before I was distracted by crossword puzzles.  And at the moment I actually am in Starbucks.

Training has definitely been picking up over the few weeks since the race.  I was very surprised at how little the week off affected my fitness.  I had always been hesitant of taking a big break like that, despite having read overwhelming amounts of articles about how nearly everyone who knows what they are doing in a sport like this does indeed take at least this sort of time off.  In the end it turned into quite a long season and I found myself turning to the promise of some time completely off just to mentally get myself through the final push of marathon training.

My swimming definitely did suffer during that time though; partially because of the time off and partially because I was only swimming maybe two days a week during marathon prep so I could have enough time to run.  My swimming has at least found its way back to par at the moment thanks to three and four day weeks in the pool since I started things back up again.

In keeping with my resolution to return next season as the cyclist I began as, I've been putting in some good time on the bike.  Well, on the trainer unfortunately, but I believe there are definitely some benefits of this sort of training.  They were made evident just a few days ago when I got the chance to ride outside thanks to the fifty degree day in Pittsburgh (and it was even sunny, go figure).  On flats and generally rolling terrain I felt like a steamroller because of all the strength work I've been putting in.  I was spinning my usual gears faster and even shifting up one once in a while.  During all of my power intervals on the trainer, I end up holding a cadence of about 90.  I noticed that this is probably a little bit faster than what I actually pedal out on the road because I felt a lot more comfortable spinning my usual gear faster than I did shifting up and working a harder gear at a slightly lower cadence.

My climbing ability on the other hand has become laughable!  It's continually demoralizing for me to ride around the hilly routes of Pittsburgh not getting any better at climbing really since I've gotten here, even though I know that it's for precisely four reasons.  1).  Since I started swimming a little over two years ago, I have gained about ten pounds of useless (on the bike, anyway) upper body weight; 2).  I only have time for maybe four bike rides a week in comparison to the five or six I put in when I just cycled and; 3).  They're usually a bit shorter because I run after a lot of them; 4).  I only ride a TT bike now, which isn't as dramatic a change as some people make it out to be, but still definitely affects climbing.  All in all, I feel as though I have about the same sort of climbing efficiency as I did two years ago.  Sigh

Now, about this running thing.  Typically (although I've only run three of them) I feel as though I enjoy a little speed gain after running a marathon, but the overcompensation really only lasts about a week or so.  Fast forward to now - over a month after Harrisburg - and I'm still really running a lot faster than I was in training during the fall.  My first run averaged in the 6:30s for 7.5 miles and that hasn't changed very much since.  My run a few days ago had me clipping along and doing miles in the 6:30s and 6:40s.  This is especially astounding to me when I consider that I haven't run more than two days a week since the race.  I typically try to run under 7:00/mile for medium-distance runs around 8 miles or more.  Really my only explanation for this besides "maybe I've just gotten faster" is that I've been riding around my fixed-gear bike a lot since I've gotten it.  I realize that I have not gone on any dedicated fixie rides - I've only been using it for commuting - but the different in the pedal stroke really strengthens the hip flexor area considerably.

The one thing I've learned so far from this post is:  Starbucks is more conducive to getting work done than many other coffee shops.

Unfortunately, nothing is really new on the sponsorship front despite sending out a good bit of mail.  If anyone out there is dying to sponsor a triathlete, don't hesitate; Christmas is right around the corner!

That said, I'd like to wish the scant handful of readers of this blog a happy holiday season and an even better 2009.

Race Report of the Harrisburg Marathon, Harrisburg, PA. (11/9)

I took the train into Harrisburg for my last race of the year feeling tapered down, rested up and ready to take on my third marathon.  I was once again attempting to break the three-hour mark, but I knew I would have to have a perfect day to get it done.

It was a great day from the beginning because pretty much my entire family was there to cheer me on.  Great credit and appreciation must go to them.  It seems like every time it's possible, they are there to support me and actua

lly seem excited about it.

The course was a great one for spectators, as yo

u could see runners about three or four time throughout the race without moving at all.  Despite this, my adventurous brother, Matt, planned out the logistics so they could see me at even more points during the race.

During the pre-rac

e small talk with other racers while waiting for the gun to go off, I started a conversation with the guy standing next to me, Jason Elliott.  I aske

d him what sort of time he was aiming for.  He said, "three hours."  We quickly decided to run together, because it's always easier to run with someone.  It helps pass the time and creates a sort of extra motivation at the end of the race when you're feeling tired.  It's an extra incentive not to fall off pace or give up because you don't want to let the other person down.

We started the race and the small talk as well.  In the first few miles, I had found out that he had also gone to the University of Pittsburgh and studied finance (I think).  His previous marathon best was a 3:17, so he was really looking to knock off a huge amount of time to get his goal of three hours.

Pretty much the entire fist half of the race went by so quickly.  We had hit the half mark on perfect pace for three hours, we were in good spirits and, more importantly, our legs were still fresh.  It was a great help having the fam at so many points along the way.  It was also a surprise pick-me-up bec

ause Jason had two people following him all around the course on bikes, providing much encouragement. 

I noticed a few hints of tightness creeping into my legs around the miles 16 and 17.  Miles 18 and 19 went around a lake and featured many sharp, but short inclines.  It was not these inclines that took their toll, rather, it seemed to be the just-as-sharp downhills that followed that were responsible for pounding a lot out of my quads.  The tightness and fatigue that had found its way into my legs was no undeniable.  But my form was staying together at the arrival of mile 20.  The going was getting tough, but my brain 

took much relief in seeing the mile-20 marker.  Just a 10k to go.  My elapsed time at this point was about 2:17 or 2:18 so I knew that I probably wasn't going to make three hours, but I would break my personal best and redeem myself from the failure at the Boston Marathon.

I was really impressed with how tough Jason was hanging with me at this point.  We had paced a great race, and while he wasn't going to get his goal either, I though he was definitely at least going to qualify for Boston, something that he hadn't had the pleasure of doing yet.

Things got really tough after about 21.5 or 22 miles.  My pace had fallen to about 7:30/mile.  Jason actually started pulling away from me as I was falling off pace.  He was hanging about 20 or 30 yards in front of me for the next two and a half miles or so.  As the course dipped down to a trail right along the river, I managed to catch up with, and quickly drop, Jason.  I worked my way up to the bridge that signaled the final mile of the race.  I knew from my watch that I would beat my previous PR, but not by much.  I kicked it in for the finish and stopped the clock at 3:07:21.  I'm not sure what happened to my running partner, but he finished in 3:14.  I was disappointed for him because I th

ought he was going to qualify, no questions.  I couldn't believe that he had lost so much time in the mile and a half or so since I had passed him.

All in all it was a pretty good day.  I hadn't gotten my three hours, but it felt good to re-qualify for Boston and prove to myself that my first marathon wasn't a fluke.  I'm quite happy my season is finally over.  Time to sleep!

Things I Never Should Have Stopped Doing.

Simply put:

1.)  Yoga

2.) Hill sprints as speedwork

Less Simply put:

Okay, so maybe I can't quantifiably claim the benefits of yoga, but it definitely does make me feel better.  I'm still pretty surprised how tight and inflexible my shoulders and back have gotten from swimming.  Yoga session was on Monday evening and I still feel the soreness faintly between my shoulders.  Regardless, I have to make sure I keep doing it frequently...and not just for the off-season.

Hill sprints as speedwork, however, I'm pretty comfortable in saying actually work.  No questions.  I don't have any data to supply, all I know is I'm running faster.  I remember about a year and a half ago I read an article in Runner's World that had some silly tabloid tag line like, "A Faster Marathon in 10 Seconds."  Those always make me laugh.  They're on par with things like, "Eat Yourself to a Slimmer You" and "3-Month Online Advanced Astro-Physics Degree - It's That Easy".  

But I read the article anyway, probably because I was really bored and had read everything else in the magazine.  To make a long story short, it suggested, after a ten or fifteen minute warmup, to find a hill with about an 8 or 10 percent grade.  Simply sprint all out up the hill for ten seconds and walk back down for about a minute or so.  Repeat.  It suggested stopping after noticing a significant power decrease.  Add one repeat every week until getting ten repeats.  The concept sounded interesting to me.  Uphill so it requires more power and shorter intervals than one would have to do on the track.  Also a lot less strain on the knees - pretty much just straight-up quad work.

I started incorporating this into my weekly routine in preparation for the Richmond Marathon last year.  I didn't know if I was actually running faster because of it at the time because I didn't have a GPS watch or anything else to measure what I was doing.  But I did end up qualifying for Boston so perhaps it did indeed have something to do with it.

Fast forward to the beginning of this year when I started running outside again.  As I've noted many times before, I'm still a novice runner and there are tons of training techniques that I have not tried yet; track work being one of them.  So I ended up hitting the track once in a while for my speedwork this summer and completely forgot about hill sprints.  In my recent freak-out about the possibility of not being ready for the race, I started to do hill sprints again in hopes of finding the magic bullet to ensure my success in the race.  Of course this does not exist and is only a product of race performance insecurity...or maybe it does exist.

I went out for a bike/run brick session yesterday.  My standard run after a bike ride is a hilly three mile loop.  My only goal is to keep it under 7:00/mile pace.  Not fast by any stretch of the imagination for three miles, but not so bad after a couple-hour bike ride.  Well I was motoring along yesterday, feeling pretty average, and average pace for the run ended up being 6:38/mile!  Something tells me I shouldn't stop doing hill sprint sessions.

Well, I've got a bike ride to go on.  Maybe a bit of a swim later, then I'm going to go break three hours in a few days.

How it Feels to Do Nothing (and some fixed-gear action)

Tapering.  Necessary for allowing your body to recover, absorb the training that it has been through and top off its stores for a successful race day.  And by the way:  It's dead boring!

Last week was pretty low on the running side of things.  And the swimming side of things for that matter.  But I spent some QT with my favorite Trek TTX and it was pretty wonderful.  It gives me such a great feeling to make it to November and still be riding outside whenever I want to.  Once I make it about half-way through the month without having to go inside, I take it as a success.  I'm better prepared to take on the cold this year, so I'm sure I'll still be able to find some days to get out there well into December, but the majority of the work will start to be done inside on the trainer by that point.

I dove back into yoga last night.  I haven't really done any since last spring and summer, when I was doing it a few times a week.  I did some light stuff maybe for a half hour about two weeks ago just to find out exactly how inflexible I had gotten.  It turns out I'm a lot worse off than I thought.  I was under the impression that I could struggle through some without that much difficulty because it's not as though I've been inactive since I've stopped doing yoga regularly or anything.  I did a hard hour of it last night and my back is more sore than it ever has been from swimming.  I think my shoulders have gotten a lot more stiff than they used to be because it was killing me to do some of the poses.  But it felt great and I'm happy to get back into it.  

Had an 8-mile run this morning.  I was pretty sore from yoga the night before and my quads still burn a little from the hill sprints that I did over the weekend.  It was a pretty hilly run and I managed a 6:59/mile pace.  Not exactly impressive, but I'm sure once I'm completely tapered down, I'll be okay.  I have not been running for that long in the grand scheme of things - maybe for about two years - but I still cannot seem to comfortably sit on my marathon pace.  I don't mean that it is too difficult to handle, rather I find that I cannot trust myself to know what pace I am running.  Therefore, I feel like I go out a bit too hard.  On an easy flat run, I struggle to keep my pace around the 6:52/mile that I need to run for the marathon.  The first few miles usually end up in the 6:40/mile ballpark.  My pace doesn't end up suffering at the end on these eight-to-twelve mile runs, but I'm sure it will quite a bit when I start getting on in the race.

Tomorrow I've got a bike/run brick.  Maybe more of the same on Thursday with a bit of time at the pool and then that's it.  Time to find a good book or magazine and get used to sitting around and eating (a lot) for a few days.  Train leaves to Harrisburg on Saturday!

I have long lamented the absence of a commuter bike in my life.  My stable at the moment consists of my beloved Trek TTX and my old racing steed, a Trek Equinox 7 from a good three years ago.  I would gladly sell of the old bike to finance something like a Bianchi Pista or some other fixie, but I'm just not sure who would by the bike at this point.  On the other hand, I have seen many bikes that are much worse off than my old EQ 7 at some races, so maybe someone would take it.  I'm probably just a little jaded by my new ride.  I could have put it up on craigslist, but it just never happened.

Fast forward to last Friday when I was at Dirty Harry's hanging out with the best bike shop crew in town.  I'm talking to the one-and-only Evan Perrone, with whom I used to race on the cycling team.  I tell him how I'm sad that my old bike does not have horizontal drop-outs, or else I'd turn it into a fixed-gear commuter (I'm still not exactly sure why, but I've been told it is necessary for a bike to have such drop-outs to be converted to a fixie...it has something to do with getting the proper chain tension, I think).  "Not so", says my crazy friend.  A company called White Industries produces a hub called the ENO eccentric hub that is designed specifically to work with vertical drop-outs.  Apparently, it is elliptical instead of round so you can basically adjust the chain tension simply by rotating the axle.  Or something like that.  If you want to find out more, just visit here.  But it's also a flip-flop hub, so the other side is a singlespeed/freewheel configuration, allowing me to get used to riding fixie without killing myself.

So basically DH and their BA wheelbuilder is going to build up a rear wheel for me based around this hub so I can throw it on my old Equinox and use it as a fixie.  I'll need to make a few other adjustments, like taking off the aero bars and throwing on a standard drop bar.  I'm keeping the front brake on for safety measures.  The only thing I wish is that the decals on the bike were removable, but they are under the clear-coat so no luck.  I'm just afraid that my new frankenbike will attract a little too much attention as is.

Alas, this is a perfect, comparatively (especially with my sponsorship discount) inexpensive option to buying a completely new, or even used, commuter.

Enough nerd talk!  I've got some tapering to do.

Cheers!

Post Hell-Week Marathon Prep...and a few thoughts on running.

I have successfully made it through my "tough" prep week in relatively good condition.  Sadly, my Sunday ride wasn't exactly "long" and I dropped the run portion of a bike/run brick early in the week.  I was planning to pick it up after Sunday's ride, but it just didn't happen.  I definitely feel confident going into the marathon now, so c'est la vie.

Beginning of the week went pretty well, so fast forward to Friday's 20-mile run.  First of all, it ended up at 18 miles instead.  I was getting really close to home and, because of where my house is situated in the city, anywhere I would have run to go farther would have taken me uphill.  I was getting pretty beat so I called it at 18.  Once again, I consider the run a success, doing it in about 2:05 with no food or drink.

This spring in Boston, my race started to quickly unravel about mile 18.  My time checks had me at the 30k (18.6 miles) mark in 2:12.  Imagine if I was still running anything close to a reasonable pace and I would cover the next 10k in about 45 minutes, adding up to 2:57.  True, that after the closing 2k, that would put me past three hours, but still at a PR by a few minutes.  That means my 18 in 2:05 on nothing seems pretty favorable to me.

Saturday was even more exciting and solidified my confidence that I could have a shot of getting three hours in Harrisburg.  I knew I had to get up and run.  I knew it would hurt, but I knew I had to do it because it would mean a lot to me mentally toughening up for the race.  I was definitely really tight running up the half-mile slight grade out to one of the main roads by my house.  I decided that I would use the "pace" function on my watch for the first time just to track my mile splits and make sure that it would work the way I was expecting for the marathon.  I hit the split button at mile 1 and the elapsed time was 6:53!  I was pretty surprised by this because the last thing I was thinking about was pushing the pace at all.  My main focus was just to run a few miles and maintain good form at all costs.  The next mile's terrain was a little bit more favorable and went by in 6:47!  I couldn't believe it.  The next two splits were something like 6:58 and 6:48.  A little erratic, but I'm pretty sure it was because of the elevation profile of the route that I did.  I did about another 3/4 of a mile in good time and my average pace for the run worked out to 6:51/mile.  So all seems to be in place for a decent run at my goal in two weeks from yesterday.

On a side note, I went over to Mapple's last night to install my brand-new Dura-ace cranks on my TTX!  They're so super-sweet and I'm taking them on their maiden voyage this afternoon.

A few thoughts on running.  So I read an interesting thread on the Slowtwitch forum yesterday that make me think more about running with what you have as opposed to trying to change your body to run with some sort of "ideal" running form.  Here's the quick version:  First off, slowtwitch is a triathlon news site with a forum that's always good for some controversial issues.  The first post is by a pro training with Team TBB and Bret Sutton.  Sutton's training methods are responsible for taking amateurs with a lot of talent but not much else and turning them into dominant professionals.  Examples would be Chrissie Wellington, Belinda Granger and a handful of others.  His methods are much discussed, praised and criticized because they defy conventional and scientific methods that have been all but accepted as the standard.  Sutton is known to think about things in such a practical way and come up with reasons why everyone else is wrong and exploit them.  For instance, he doesn't have his athletes wear aero helmets because, although they may be "faster" on the bike, they can often cause the wearer to overheat and consequently suffer in the run portion of the race, especially in iron-distance races.

In any case, this woman in question was trying to change her running form to land more on the mid-or-fore-foot instead of heel-striking because it is "supposed" to be faster and more economical.  And indeed, this would seem to be the case.  Land on the middle or front part of your foot and there is less resistance to overcome to start your next stride, allowing you to spend less energy for each step.  Initially this seems to make sense.  However, this woman began to experience some shin pain (possibly shin splints) and couldn't run for very long before the pain was too great.  Sutton advised her to go back to her natural heel-striking form and his reasons seem to be just as well.  

It seems logical to believe, as Sutton believes, that it would be detrimental to try to change the running form of a person who has either not been running or running a certain way for years and years.  Their body is already set in its physiology.  To make a long story slightly less so, she went back to heel-striking and her shin pain is receding dramatically.

Which brings me to my own experiences with this phenomenon.  I also frequently attempt to alter my stride a little in hopes of becoming a more efficient runner and have noticed that, after one pretty long session in particular, I definitely had some pain in my right shin; something that I have never experienced before.  Needless to say, I think I have gone back to just trying to run efficiently as my body will allow.

My brother, who is 26 and just really started to run this summer, has had to go to the doctor to assess some pretty severe shin pain himself.  Unfortunately, he has found out that he basically has a lot of borderline stress fractures beginning and has to take 6-8 weeks off of running.  He has done a lot of research before really diving into running, so I'm sure, as we have also talked on the phone about it, that he is aware of the popular belief that it's better to land on the front part of your foot.  This make me wonder if this is a contributor to his pain.  Just some thoughts that I think are worth considering for anyone biting on this theory.  Of course, there are plenty of people who have a naturally beautiful stride and it is amazing to watch them run, but it is also certainly not a prerequisite of successful running.

Alas, I digress.

Marathon in 13 days.  Be there!

Cheers!

Harrisburg Marathon Preparation through October 21st.

Wow.  I can't believe I'm already down to the final two weeks of preparation before taper-week hits for the race on November 9th.  Running has been going pretty well since I've really turned it up after the Pittsburgh Great Race 10k.  Two weeks ago, my big run was a 16-miler that took about 1:52.  Not too shabby, but also not good enough to net a 3:00 marathon.  My aunt has been trying to qualify for Boston for years and would give her right leg to run 16 miles in that time, so I feel guilty complaining about it.

In some ways that makes me nervous, and it some ways it makes me feel like I'm about where I should be.  I'll elaborate:  It makes me nervous because 16 miles isn't even two-thirds of the way through the race and I'm already off the pace that I need.  It makes me feel like that's okay because I did the run with nothing to drink and nothing to eat during, which is obviously different from the marathon where you get aid stations every two miles or so and you get to pop a handful of gels throughout the day.  I'm also okay with it because it was a run that I did in the usual grind of a training week.  It was probably one of two workouts for the day and I had probably been working out for a few days straight already at that point.  Considering these things, maybe I'll be okay, but I don't have heaps of experience with this yet so it's hard to stay calm.  Plus, I'd like to think you always run faster in a race.  I'm sure it's for a variety of reasons, but I know it's the case.  

Last week was a pretty big mileage week.  I hit about 40, which is a lot for me.  I know I could run a lot more per week if all I was doing was running, but I also had three bike rides and some time in the pool.  I also know that there are plenty of people who put a lot more time into running when they're getting ready for a marathon, but I feel like this is quite a lot considering I'm pretty sure I maybe hit 40 miles in a week once during my training for Richmond last year.  Maybe.  I think that was about the third week since the week of the Milton Harvest Festival 5k that I've done 40+.

This week is going to be a big week and I feel that if I can get through having done all of my planned workouts, I'll be ready for the race.  I might get up to 40 for the week again, but the centerpiece of this week is a 20-mile run on Friday.  I've never run that far just for a training run, not even getting ready for Richmond.  But after the Boston Massacre, I just want to make sure that at least the endurance is there.  Saturday, I have to make myself run.  I don't care how far and I'm sure it will hurt, but having done it will give me a lot of confidence in my mental preparation.  I should also be swimming that day.  I'm sure I'll collapse Sunday evening after the long bike ride I have planned, but if I rest up after that, I'll be ready!

That's about it for this week.  Perhaps I'll give another update at the end of this week or early next to give more of an idea of how it's going.  Again, thanks for tuning in and until next time...

Cheers!

New Sponsor Time!

While I was working with the Panther Cycling Club at the University of Pittsburgh last year, I was invited to take advantage of their bike shop sponsor, Dirty Harry's.  They helped me out a ton in getting me set up for this past triathlon season, giving me a great deal on a Trek Equinox TTX, which has been unbelievable.  I can't describe how willing everyone at the shop was to help out myself and the team with anything that we could have needed.  I even asked one of the guys if they could get something in that they didn't carry in any of their catalogs or through any of their suppliers:  "No problem," came the answer after a brief phone call directly to the company.  I've been to lots of bike shops in the area - probably all of them - and have not found service that even comes close to they guys at DH.

And service is only half of the story.  Scooter, their head mechanic, has wrenching skills head and shoulders above anyone I've met.  When I was with the team, he would come out to our weekly meetings and do different bike maintenance demos.  Everything from wheel truing, tape wrapping and pre-race check-ups, to derailleur adjustments and installing new cables.  Whenever I've needed a wheel truing (I don't have a stand at home), he'd pretty much stop whatever he was doing and throw it on the stand for me while milled around the shop.  The guy is awesome.

So you can imagine how bummed out I was at the beginning of this fall semester having no official ties to the PCC, thus no sponsorship ties to DH.  Therefore, over the past weeks, I have been working on a letter to the shop's owner, Barry, as well as an athlete resume and statement.  I sent it out via snail mail last week and got a call from him on Saturday.  To make a potentially longer story slightly less so, I'm in there like swim wear (did I just say that?).  So excited to be a part of their store again and have their support heading into the off season and 2009.  

If you're in the Pittsburgh area, show them some love and stop by.  They'll return the favor!  Their located in Verona, just a straight shot down from Allegheny River Blvd.

Race Report of the Great Race 10k, Pittsburgh, PA (9/28)

There's only one thing to do after a tough 70+ miles on the bike:  update the blog!  

So a week ago, I raced the Great Race 10k here in Pittsburgh.  Normally, I would just say some pointless and boring dribble about how the morning was pretty typical and then the race started, void of interesting detail.  This morning was completely different.

The race had a start time of nine thirty in the morning.  Late by most race standards, suggesting the opportunity to sleep in.  However, it is a point-to-point race so there were a few transportation logistics that we needed to work out in the morning so it was a six o' clock wake up call as usual...or it was supposed to be, anyway.

The plan was to get up at six, go to Mappleton's house by 7:50, drive downtown and park so we would have transportation at our fingertips after the race, and take his cousin's car to the start.  Well, I shut off my alarm without much of a second thought as to what I was doing and before I knew it, Mapple was calling me and it was 7:45.  Stress!!!  I threw on my race clothes while Kayla whipped together a peanut butter bagel for me and threw me out the door.  What?  No coffee?  No water?  What was I to do?  Surely the bagel would help a little and it was a short race, but I still wanted to do well.  To make matters worse, I was part of the Pitt Cycling Club team that was running the race and first place in the Collegiate Division was on the line.  Being one of the stronger people on the team, I felt that it was imperative to carry my weight.

We got downtown and back to the race start with plenty of time to spare - over an hour - and we had luckily parked right next to a convenience store so I could get some more fuel.  They picked a good name for those stores.

Jeff (another PCC runner) and I worked are way up through the 12,000-strong crowd until we were about 1,000 people back from the start.  We both knew that we would finish well ahead of most of these people too, but space was tight and moving up really wasn't an option.

The start was an absolute melee because of how many people we had to run through.  We had a great system of working our way through it though, as I would dive through holes while he stayed on my heels.  At one point, we were on the sidewalk and grass banks, streaking past other runners.  If I hit a jam, Jeff had already found another hole and pulled me through it.  I was getting audibly irritated at this cluster of people who should not have even been that far up at the start of the race.  A note to those people to may be reading this:  Get the &%@# back from the start line at a race like this, it's chip-timed.  Nope, even farther...yep, keep going.  Little bit more.  Okay, good.  Seriously, you're annoying.  And get that stroller out of the way.  

Even so, we hit the mile 1 marker at about 6:08; a slower pace than I wanted to average for the race, but not bad considering the stressful first half-mile.  There was quite a bit of downhill in mile 2 and the road was starting to clear up nicely, so that mile went by in about 11:30 something.

The first set of rollers stopped around mile three as we ran through the Oakland area of Pittsburgh.  It really required quite a bit of power to keep up a pace near that of mile two for this section.  5k time: 18:22.

The hardest part of the race came at around mile five as the course held a steady grade past Duquesne University.  I was definitely starting to slow, but still finished that mile in 30 and a half-ish.  Keeping with tradition of most races, I ran the last mile without regard and came in at 37:23.  According to the lovely Garmin on my wrist, the course was 6.31 miles, giving me an average pace of 5:56/mile.  My pace according to official race postings was 6:01/mile.

The first person in the PCC ran about thirty seconds faster than me and the third (only the first three counted towards our cumulative time) close to 41 minutes.  This was enough for us to win the Collegiate Division by a margin of about 5 minutes.  First place:  Party on the Gateway Clipper.  I can't wait. 

I finished in 106th place overall and 99th among males.  It was pretty cool because they published the top 100 male and female finishers in the Post-Gazette; Grandmother would be so tickled.  

P.S. Kevin Greene came up to us after the race and said we had awesome cycling jerseys, wondering where he could get one.

P.P.S.  Mapple left his keys at the other car.  Put it together yourself.

Cheers!

The Ongoing Myth of Lactic Acid

Well, the while the triathlon season is over for me, the racing season all together has not yet come to a close.  Even so, I thought it would be a good idea to start a lot of ideas on training principles, as well as updates on my own training for next year.  In an odd way, ever since the beginning of this triathlon season back in May, I've been looking forward to the twilight of this season so I could start training for the next.  It is a funny truth that one finds out what he or she should have been working on once the season starts.  Unfortunately, the seemingly endless cycle of buildup and taper for races that occur anywhere from every weekend to every other weekend during the season make it virtually impossible to correct these discovered inadequacies.  Simply put:  You don't find out until it's too late.

First, I should preface this by saying that, since the beginnings of my endurance sports career, I have had a keen interest in physiology, exercise science and nutrition as it applies to exercise.  When the day comes that I end up going to back to school, I feel like it would take a lot for me to not pursue these courses of study as they are infinitely interesting and they would allow me to continue to play a role in these sports.

Back in early February, I was having a post-swim coffee and a read of the New York Times at Starbucks before heading off to work.  On the front of the Science section of the paper, I noticed a headline that said something to the effect of, "Scientists believe to have discovered the cause of muscle fatigue".  Naturally, I was a little mystified.  Regardless of the overall awareness of the general public towards this issue, hadn't we endurance athletes been aware that lactic acid is the cause of muscle fatigue for quite some time.  After all, any training article I have read in magazines from Triathlete or Bicycling, to legendary books such as The Cyclists Training Bible (by a certified Level 1 Cycling coach) have unanimously pointed to this as undeniable fact.

But of course, I read the article fully expecting to read, yet again, about lactic acid.  Much to my surprise, within the first paragraph or two, the article very matter-of-factly stated that lactic acid as the cause of muscle fatigue had been dismissed years ago and that it was only ever theory at best.  Needless to say, I was now glued to the article.  It went on to point out that scientists were now fairly certain that they had ascertained the cause.

Apparently calcium in muscle cells is largely responsible for their contractions.  In studies involving mice, scientists found that, after prolonged muscular repetition, a certain amount of calcium "leaks" out of cells, thereby weakening the contractions.  This seemed to make sense to me, but I was still shocked that lactic acid as the cause had been dismissed for years.

The next day, I called a good friend of mine who is a med student and avid cyclist (I rode with him on the Pitt Cycling team back in the day).  I was thinking I was about to spring some ground-breaking news on him, but when I told him about the article, he reacted by saying that, yes people have known that lactic acid is not the cause of muscle fatigue for years.  I told him the findings about calcium leaking out of cells and he said that this seemed plausible.  

So why is it then, that cycling and triathlon coaches, as well as every article I have read since still attributes muscle fatigue to lactic acid buildup?  Perhaps it is not so important because it is the training principle that it produces that is more important than the particular fact.  What I mean is, whether they are called lactic threshold intervals or calcium intervals, the overall goal remains the same:  to increase the body's ability to withstand prolonged activity without tiring.

Even so, I think it is the responsibility of these professionals to relay the most accurate information possible to the athlete and stop furthering theories that have been dismissed years ago.  Training for these sports is difficult and incredibly time-consuming and, with the presence of popular article-writing coaches syndicated across many magazines and websites, we as athletes should not have to also take out a subscriptions to sports science magazines to get to the bottom of these important issues.  

Well, that was a sufficient amount of thinking for the morning, I believe.  Time to head out for a bike/run brick.  Love to hear any comments or reactions if you have them!

Cheers.

Race Report of the Milton Harvest Festival 5k, Milton, Pa. (9/20)

I know, I know, I'm writing a race report for a small-town 5k, but it was a fun weekend so I felt compelled.  I was going home to not only spend some time with the fam, but to also be joined in the race by both of my brothers, Matt's girlfriend, my mom and step-dad.  My grandparents and dad would also be there to cheer us on so it was quite a family affair.  It was also exciting for my brother, Ryan, because it was going to be his very first running race!  He really started running quite a bit early in the summer and had been getting himself up to about five or six miles on a long run.  We were all playing up the rivalry between Matt and Ryan most of the week.

I once again took the train into Harrisburg and hooked up with my brother, Matt, who lives there.  I didn't get much sleep the night before and couldn't sleep very well on the train so I decided to forgo the run I had planned on Friday evening because I could hardly stay awake.  In the back of my head, I was thinking that this would be a good thing because the race was the next morning.  I know, it was only a 5k, but I still wanted to do as well as I could and I felt that running on Friday would not have had a purpose aside from just throwing in some junk miles.  The 2007 edition of the Harvest Festival 5k was my very first running race and I managed an 18:24, good for a ninth place finish.  After having run an opening 5k leg in a duathlon in May in about 17:30, I was thinking maybe I could come close to tickling the 17:00 mark.

We drove into town on Saturday morning and hung around for a good hour before the race.  Before we knew it, we were lining up at the start line.  I had thought that it would have been cool for all of us to line up together at the front to start the race, which seemed like a good idea until the race director announced that, "if you're not planning on running under six-minute miles, you probably shouldn't be at the front."  That pretty much left me standing up there alone and everyone else randomly scattered throughout the crowd behind me.

The air horn sounded and I jumped off the front right away.  I was trying to be conservative and not spend myself in the first mile like I did last year.  While this might have worked somewhat, it still did not stop me from jumping out quite quickly.  After about a half-mile of leading the race, the eventual winner (with a time of 15:39) blew past me and was putting road between us at an alarming rate.  The second mile seemed to drag on endlessly and was very mentally difficult to try to hand onto my pace.  A little over half way through the race, another runner crept up to me.  I tried to hitch myself onto him and ran shoulder to shoulder with him for about a quarter of a mile before I couldn't hack it anymore.  He began to slowly inch away from me.

Rounding the corner into the last half mile, I got a bit of a second wind, especially because I saw that fourth place was not so far behind me.  I made two or three hard surges that successfully discouraged further chase from him.  I hit the line with a good five seconds in hand over him with a final time of 17:52.  I was a little disappointed at this time, as it was way off my mark, but I think I realized that it's more difficult to run on a course that's pan flat (like this one) as opposed to one that rolls a bit.  Either way, I guess a 32 second improvement over a year isn't so bad for such a short race.  I fully realize that, had I shown up at a 5k that had drawn some talent and posted that time, I would have easily been ejected from the top 10.  But I won't complain about getting another podium finish.

After I had finished, the race for second in the family was heating up.  Matt and Ryan had been running together for pretty much the entire race.  Matt even admitted afterwards that, if not for Ryan pushing the pace, he probably wouldn't have run so quickly.  Ryan hung on until about the last hundred yards when Matt dropped the hammer and opened up a winning margin of fifteen seconds.  They finished 21:15 and 21:30 respectively.  I was impressed.

The rest of the day was pretty hectic with family pictures being taken from 2-4, followed by another run in the evening, dinner and bowling.  I hit the road again Sunday morning and put in five miles to bring the weekly total up to 40.  Flash forward to 8:30 and my arrival back in Pittsburgh for some wine and fake chicken salad with Kayla.

This post would be over normally, but there has been a change in my late season plans.  I will be running the Pittsburgh Great Race 10k this weekend, but the Steamtown marathon is out of the picture.  The original plan was for my dad to come out to Scranton for some awesome race support, but that's gone out the window.  So instead, it looks like the Harrisburg Marathon will take its place at the beginning of November.  I think this is a more favorable option because its a much shorter trip for everyone involved and it gives me just that little extra time to prepare.

Well, thanks for tuning in!  Check back soon.

Things Gained (and Lost) From the Portage Lakes Olympic Triathlon

Thing Gained #1:  Look how huge my quad is in this pic...

Moving on

No, but seriously, There are definitely a few little nuggets of experience that I gained from the Portage Lakes Triathlon that could pay off in a big way in the future.

The first of these stemming from the fact that this was my last triathlon of the season.  What better way to fuel the long, cold winter months  of training (often indoors) than to have quite a significant PR at the distance as my last racing memory?  That was rhetorical; no answer needed.

Perhaps the biggest boost came when I learned how much I can really throw it down on the bike and not be any worse off for it for the rest of the race.  I was obviously a bit upset that this was going to be my last race and it was only the beginning of September.  I wanted more than anything to go out with a bang.  The last thing I wanted was to leave anything out on the course - any part of it.  So I absolutely drilled it on the bike and once again had the very satisfying feeling of passing a few hand fulls of people and not getting passed by anyone.  My slower than average swim time may have been the culprit in allowing that to happen, but in comparison with the swim times of others, it was not so bad.  In the past, a sort of half-iron mentality has prevented me from leaving everything on the bike course, so it was nice to finally see what I really need to do to keep myself at the front of the race. 

It was also valuable to reap the benefits of a revamped nutrition plan that led to finally having confirmation that I can indeed run a sub-40 minute 10k somewhere outside the theoretical plane.  I believe I was only two minutes behind the winner (a professional) in my run split.

I know that the end of the year has not even really begun to wind down, but I'm excited at the energy that I will be carrying into the off-season.  For sure, the 2009 season will be an extremely crucial one in my development as a triathlete and I should get a much better sense of exactly how realistic my goals are.  Judging from how this year has gone, I would say that it seems pretty favorable, but I still have to settle for nothing less than putting everything I have into becoming a better athlete to have a chance.

Having the knowledge that this is now the distance I must concentrate on will let me further specifically tailor my training to it.  That's about it for last impressions following the last triathlon of the year, but before I forget...

Things lost in the Portage Lakes Olympic Triathlon:  Another toe nail has fallen off.

Cheers!

Race Report of the Portage Lakes Olympic Triathlon, Akron, Oh. (9/7)

Sigh, last triathlon of the season.  I drove the 2+ hours out to Portage Lakes (just south of Akron) at about four thirty in the morning.  Sadly, the race was minus my cheering section (Kayla) and I really could have used her navigation skills getting there.  I spent a bit of time getting lost and cut it quite close getting there on time.

The drive was rather boring and transition set-up and pre-race were uneventful.  These are pluses though because having an eventful pre-race would probably mean that something had gone wrong.  I've been to three HFP racing events this year and have to commend their organization.  Every one of them have gone off without a hitch and they are the most enthusiastic people.  Even without anyone to watch me at the race, I still felt like I had them cheering for me.  They seem to be proud of everyone who makes it across the line; pros and back-of-the-packers alike.  I even saw the director of the Greater Cleveland Triathlon there, who I can only assume was trying to learn how a real race is organized.

The swim started pretty normally and I felt great on the first of two laps.  However, for about the last three or four hundred meters, the fact that I had not been in the pool since Tuesday had started to take effect and I really had to drag myself through the water.  At the end of the swim, I had no idea as there was no clock, but I felt as though I had posted a slow swim time.  Checking out the race results online confirmed my suspicions, listing a swim time of over 23 minutes.  I am led to believe that the swim course was a little long because the winner of the race, a legitimate pro triathlete, only pulled off a 20 minute swim.

Because of a few little rises and the traffic coming out of transition from other races, it took about a mile and a half to really get my cycling legs under me.  After that, I was absolutely flying for the rest of the course.  There were a few decent hills and the course was rolling, but there were good downhills leading into these climbs, giving a good deal of speed to use on the way up.  Once again, I had no idea of how much time had elapsed by the end of the bike, but results show that I biked a 1:01!  It was one of my goals this season to get a 40k under an hour, and while this didn't happen, I'm pretty pleased with this particular bike split.  Because I've been having such a hard time with cramping on the run, I knew I had to change my nutrition strategy on the bike.  I probably would not have tried to alter it for this race otherwise, but I had run out of Accelerade a few weeks prior and had not yet gotten a new supply of it.  I knew I had to:  get more electrolytes in me because I am quite a salty sweater, and stop putting calories in my stomach after about two-thirds of the way through the bike so they wouldn't be sitting there for the run.  My usual plan is to have Accelerade up front in my aero-drink and take one gel about half-way through the bike.  For this race, I just used Nuun up front (this electrolyte drink has no calories) and took two gels pretty early on.  I wasn't sure what the outcome would be until I...

...Got to the run.  In a word, I felt fantastic.  I clicked off the first mile in about 6:10.  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run this fast for the entire 10k, but it was the last race of the season and I wanted to leave it all out there.  Nearly the entire second mile of the two-lap run course was a steady uphill drag.  It wasn't a bad grade, but it was enough that I could absolutely let myself go when running back down the other way.  I got to the turn around to start the second lap and my watch showed a little over twenty minutes.  I was a little bit put-off at this time because I felt like I had been running so much faster.  The run wound down and I stopped my watch at just over 40 minutes.  I've really wanted a sub-40 all season, but I guess I'll have to be happy with this.  Thanks to the wonders of my GPS watch (read previous post), I learned that the run was 6.43 miles as opposed to the standard 6.2 miles.  Does this mean I could have firmly planted myself in the 38th minute for the run had it been standard distance?  I sure hope so and am pretty happy at the thought.  All in all, my run split amounted to 6:19/mile.

My cumulative time was a 2:07 that I was very happy to take and very happy on which to end my season.  Although, I can't help but speculate on what my time would have been had I been able to couple my PR bike and run splits with one of my sub-20 minutes swims and a run course a quarter-mile shorter.  Maybe somewhere between 2:02 or 2:03?  Now, that would be phenomenal for my second season!  

Thanks for reading and keep and eye out for reports of the trio of running races that will finish out my season.  Cheers!

The Wonders of Technology: Part 1 of an undeclared amount

So I finally took the plunge and joined the rest of the technologically affluent athletic community (well, the intelligent athletic community anyway, i.e. most things that don't involve balls or pads) and got a GPS watch!  Mostly to be used for running, but maybe a bit of cycling as well just to have fun with the elevation profile so I don't have to plot my route on mapmyride.com anymore.  Previous to this, I had just been wearing a normal watch.  I never felt the need to progress any further than this until I ran a marathon that did not have pace groups.  Perhaps the only upside to this stone age approach is that it was the only thing still giving me the opportunity to use math on a semi-daily basis ("I need to be running 6:37 miles and it's mile 17 so the elapsed time should read what?  Eh, I give up, I'm tired").  Besides, studies have shown that your brain uses an incredible percentage of energy stores to operate so why give it any more to do that it needs and rob my body of those precious calories?  I prefer to have something else do the thinking for me so I can plod along mindlessly, thanks very much.

But back to the wonders of the Garmin 205.  I bought it for $150, which a steal considering that its MSRP is about $100 more than that.  I would have sprung for the model with an HRM, but I feel that it's an unnecessary distraction for people who have nothing better to do than over-analyze every single one of their workouts.  Secondly, one would benefit far more from actually listening to and getting to know one's own body instead of just looking at a number and having no feeling to associate it with.  

Cool thing number 1:  It tells me exactly what pace I'm running in that moment!  This is phenomenal and it feels so great not having to get to a mile marker to find out how fast I'm running.  However, Pittsburgh it surprisingly tall building and tree-lined and that often messes with the satellite reception.  Occasionally I'll be running 10:00/mile pace, only to follow it up with a super-human (well, super-me, anyway) 4:28/mile pace.  But I can overlook this minor flaw.  It's not as if I'm staring at my watch the entire time I'm running anyway, and if I am, I have other problems to deal with first.

Cool thing B:  It allows me to easily track how far I've run for the session.  This is also another thing that is obviously impossible to do without such a unit, unless of course I would drive the route ahead of time in the car that I don't own.

Cool thing iii:  It comes with a program (that runs on Macs, too!) on which you can upload all of your running data from the watch.  From here, you can take a look at the elevation profile and, since it's a GPS, the exact route that you ran.  My only gripe about this is that the maps that the program uses do not show every street around so, unless you're on a main road, you can't really tell exactly where you went.  But it's pretty awesome because you can match up different parameters.  For example, you can compare the elevation with your pace to see if you really ended up slowing down during a sustained climb or how much you sped up on downhills.

There are many other bonuses about it, but I'm running out of different ways to number/letter things.  I can't wait to use this in a marathon (or really any race for that matter) and view all the stats from it.

For those of you keeping up with my schedule, I'm quite positive I'm going for Steamtown.  I've had a few great long runs and can feel myself working up to where I want to be.  That race is only about five weeks away or so.  If I can crank out 40-45 mile weeks for two of those, I'll feel pretty ready.  Stay tuned for the upcoming last tri of the season and my shorter running races leading up to Steamtown.  Cheers!

Remainder of Season Update...or...Triathlon Season, Where Have You Gone?

   I don't feel I should have to be doing this in the middle of August, but the triathlon calendar and its lack of possible races to attend (living in the northeast, sans car) deem it so.  I may only have one more triathlon for the season before the distances to travel grow too great and, by default, I end this season the way I started it:  Doing running races.

   Having started this sport so late, it would be nice to have everything figured out by now.  I suppose I should be lucky that, while this season (only my second) has proven that I did not have everything figured out, it has given me the direction in which I should be headed.

   Late this past winter, I drew up a list of about eight goals for this season.  Some of them have not yet been met, such as winning a race outright, but most importantly, the ones that hinged on time goals have been met.  While it would be nice to come across the line first, it is these time goals that are far more important because getting a pro license has nothing to do with placing and everything to do with time.

   My assumptions that long course racing would provide my best opportunity for a pro license were firmly shattered this season, as both of my half-iron distance races ended with very disappointing runs.  It seems as though I cannot yet nail down a good run at the end of a race that long.

    Surprisingly, confirmation that all is going according to plan came from Olympic Distance races; a distance I have always associated with speed, especially in the water, that I just did not have.  Well, I've knocked nearly ten minutes from my OD swim time since the Pittsburgh Triathlon last July and my running speed has been picking up.  I devoted all of the off-season to improving my swim and what an improvement it was.  It was a sacrifice to allow my biking abilities to stagnate, but in the long run, I believe it will have been a necessary step.  Although it is only August, I know that this off-season will be devoted to turning myself back into a cyclist and nailing sub-hour 40ks next season.  While improvements in my swim would be welcome, I think maintenance will be more the name of the game while I strengthen the bike again.  Opening next season with swims under 19 minutes will give me all I need in the water in consideration for my '09 goals.

   A brief outlook of the rest of my season is as follows:

   The Portage Lakes Olympic Triathlon in Akron, Ohio in early September.

   The Milton Harvest Festival 5k on September 20th.

   The Pittsburgh Great Race 10k on September 27th.

   The Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, Pa on October 12th.  I'm about 85% sure I'm going to do this race, but I hope I have enough time work my run back up to sub-3 hour marathon ability.  After the Beantown disaster, I have realized just how bad of an idea it is to go into a marathon underprepared. 

Race Report of the Vermilion Harbour Olympic Triathlon, Vermilion, Oh. (8/17)

   After the previous week's disaster at the Greater Cleveland Triathlon, I was keen to get back on the good result train.  Under normal circumstances, getting up at 3 in the morning after going to bed at midnight (work the night before), would be a terrible idea, but this was possibly my second to last chance to race a triathlon for the rest of the season.  I was just happy that this race was allowing day-of packet pick-up so that I wouldn't have to spend more money on a car or hotel, and take Saturday off of work.

   I was surprisingly not tired when I got up in the morning.  After packing up the car, I woke up Kayla and off we went.  The three hours from Pittsburgh to Vermilion were pretty uneventful.  It's nice having no cars on the road to deal with, especially after missing out on so much sleep.  We didn't find a place to get coffee until maybe fifteen minutes before we got to the race so it was a tough three hours.

   As it turns out, Vermilion is a pretty cool little place, save for the fact that it is in northern Ohio and that it is indeed little.  I think that after spending nearly a week in Rhode Island with a beach a stone's throw away in most directions, I'm just excited to see any beach.

   I had plenty of time to set up transition stress-free and hang out with Kayla while watching earlier waves of the sprint race go off.

   Our U-29/Elite wave was finally called to the start line on the beach for the two-lap swim in Lake Erie.  After swimming in the ocean in Rhode Island, I felt pretty confident that I could take on pretty much anything in the water.  It made what little waves or current there were in the Lake seem pretty insignificant.

   The gun went off, we dove in and I promptly stopped.  The water had apparently jarred the left side of my goggle loose and it immediately filled up with water.  I took a second to fix it and was back on.  The swim seemed to go incredibly fast, but I had no idea where I was within the wave because there were people from so many other waves around.  Not that I knew it at the time, but I came out with a sub-19 minute swim!  

   My bike was waiting in transition at the end of one of the rows right on the edge of the transition area.  Before the race, I pointed this out to Kayla, suggesting that it might be fun for her to wait for  me there, just outside of the barrier, to cheer me on during T1.  Standing right next to each  other for the minute and change that it took for me to strip my wetsuit and grab my bike proved to be incredibly awkward.  We smiled, said "hi", said "bye" and then I was off for the bike.

   It was a bit hard to get going the first two miles or so because of the rough road surface, but luckily, that was the extent of the problems I had for this 40k portion of the race.  The route was great.  There was no traffic and everything was well organized and marked.  It took  a little bit longer than I had expected to get through the bike for a  few reasons.  First of all, the bike was about 3/4 of a mile long according to my bike computer.  About a week before the race, I plotted out the bike course on mapmytri.com and found it to be long on there as well.  Also, while there weren't really any significant hills to speak of, there were many long grinds up very small grades that definitely made it difficult to keep the speed up and proved to be tiring by the end of the leg.  Being a loop course, one would expect the downhills to make up for it, but they were quick, steep and technical with a lot of sharp turns.  This made it impossible to take advantage of the speed that downhills offer.  I passed my fair share of people and ended the bike in 1:09.  I would usually be appalled at this slow time, but it appeared as though everyone else's were a bit slower than average as well.

   Coming into transition, I was about five seconds behind four people.  Leaving transition, I managed to pass all of them straight away.  Then a  side stitch decided to knot my stomach almost instantly.  Luckily, about a week before the race, I read an article about how to manage side stitches.  It progressively started to fade, so I could pick up the speed gradually, however, it was not completely gone until about the half-way point.  I started running my usual pace after that, but the damage had been done over the first three miles and I was relegated to a 45-minute 10k.  Compared to the sub-40 run I should be able to cranks out barring any side stitches, I was a little disappointed.  But it was still enough to keep me in 16th place overall (including all of the registered elites), also putting me in first for the 20-24 age group.

   While not a horrendous day, it was still a little lackluster after being spoiled by Morgantown and a handful of other top-5 finishes this year.

   To sum up the rest of the day after the race:  Drive home and sleep.

Race Report of the Providence 70.3, Providence, RI. (7/13)

    Second 70.3 of the year and I was gunning for around a 4:45 or 4:50.  The Black Bear Half earlier in the year was a 5:13, but expectedly so, as the bike course was extremely hilly and the run was not on a paved surface.  I did the Timberman 70.3 last August and ended up with a 5:02.  

    Kayla and I decided to turn the weekend into a bit of a vacation.  The drive from Pittsburgh was pretty long and would have been entirely painless if not for getting rear-ended on the way there.  But Enterprise cars have insurance so all was okay.

    Saturday we went to the race expo to get registered and spend some time in the city of Providence before heading back to the beach!  Just as a fun fact, I got a race program that had a profile of the "average Ironman athlete".  According to this, they make an average of about 160,000 dollars a year.  Hmmm... nice to know I'm trying to do this sport on about a tenth of that.  Ouch.

    We had to go to bed quite early on Saturday night, as the race start for the pros was at 6 AM.  This means we got up around three in the morning and headed out the door at about 4:15.   Criticism number 1 of the inaugural edition of the Providence 70.3:  In an attempt to have roads clear of cyclists so traffic could get back to normal as soon as possible, they had the fastest people start last.  That's right, my 18-29M wave went dead last.  This set the stage for a couple of the other criticisms that will follow shortly.

     The swim was an experience to say the least.  It was my first ocean swim and I really didn't know what to expect, but this is what happened:  Wave, mouth of salt water, wave, can't see, wave, more salt water, another wave, I'm not going straight, wave, when will this be over, water, wave, finish.  The first few hundred meters were insane before we got past the breakers.  All at once, I was trying to avoid running into other swimmers, going off course and swallowing salt water.  Sighting was very very difficult because if a wave was more than a couple inches high in front of me, I couldn't see the buoys.  I got out in 32 minutes.  A few minutes off of what I should be able to do, but not bad considering the first time experience.

   The first 15 miles of the bike were ungodly fast.  There weren't many hills to speak of around the area so it was an incredibly favorable bike course.  I would have been worried about wind coming off of the coast, but there were only a few sections were I could really feel it.  Criticism number 2:  While the roads that the bike course covered were awesome (well paved, fast), there were many unfavorable encounters with traffic.  I'm pretty sure one cyclist got hit in an intersection.  There were a handful of instances where traffic was directly beside a line of cyclists.  The cars couldn't move forward because riders in front were making passes of other riders.  The cars gave us as much room as they realistically could, but it was incredibly nervous when there was a car right beside me and I had to make a pass.  I had to make many many passes because (all together now) we were the last wave to start!  All was fine until (criticism number 3) the last three miles of the bike took us through a very poor and run down neighborhood.  It was not fun at all taking my new, very expensive carbon bike over pothole after pothole.  Unlike the 160,000 dollar-per year average Ironman, I do not have money to replace this stuff.  It was very uncomfortable when I had to dodge potholes and pass someone at the same time.  And I had to make passes many many times because (all together now) we were the last wave to start!  But I made it (unbelievably) to the end without a flat in 2:29 (22.5 mph avg).

   I started the run course feeling pretty good, thinking that I was closing in on having a great day.  Then the course went up a hill that dwarfs all other hills that I have run up.  Apparently it was part of the downhill luge course in an X-games once upon a time.  That about killed my pace immediately.  

   The rest of the course was rolling and not bad at all.  It was a frustrating run though, because I could tell that if I ran any harder, as I really wanted to and so did my legs, my stomach would have cramped severely.  My run was an awful 1:51, so I finished in 4:57.  Under 5, so I guess it was not too bad, but definitely not what I wanted.  Apparently, I need to figure out how to do this running thing...

    Maybe next race.

Race Report of the Spirit of Morgantown Olypmic Distance Triathlon, Morgantown, Wv. (6/29)

   Well, it was my original intention to put up these reports in chronological order, but I had such an amazing race yesterday that I had to post it now.

   My good friend from the Pitt Cycling Club, Matt Appleton ("Mappleton" for those in the know) and I headed south for a good time in West Virginia.  This was a momentous occasion for him because, while I was doing the Olympic race (Rhode Island 70.3 was two weeks away), Mapple was taking on his first Half Iron distance triathlon and hoping for a time somewhere in the 5:30 range.  I was also excited to see some top pros such as David Thompson, Brian Rhodes, Richie Cunningham, Amanda Lovato, and Heather Gollnick, as well as up and coming star Andew Yoder, also taking a shot at his first half.  Disappointment followed the day before the race, however, when I found out that Rhodes, Cunningham and Gollnick were not coming due to injuries.  

   I was much relieved to have a short drive to a race for once, but will make up for it when I have to drive to Rhode Island in a week and a half.  It's common in Pittsburgh to give WV a little grief because of the school rivalries and just because it's WV.  We were given good reason on the drive down about ten seconds after crossing the border when we saw a tire directly in the middle of the road.  Oh, West Virginia.  We stayed at the house of one of Matt's cousins that was only about ten minutes away from the race site.  

   They had a great system set up for racking the bikes in transition.  We had to rack the day before (as well as pick up our packets) and I was a little concerned about my bike because the forecast was calling for heavy rains that night and early the next morning.  However the genius race organizers held the transition on the first floor of the race hotel's parking garage.

    We spent a pretty low key night watching Harry Potter and playing with the family dog and finally turned into bed around ten or ten thirty.  I played the nice guy and let Mapple have the spare bed so he could be well rested for his long day.  Unfortunately, his nerves didn't let him sleep very well.  I, on the other hand, slept like a rock and didn't even feel the slightest hint of nervousness.  I think I'm starting to race better for it as well.  I'm getting used to the process and seem to be a lot more calm and collect heading into things and it's really letting me focus more on just racing well (as, we'll see).

    We had the normal breakfast, the normal drive to the race site and a calm transition set-up.  The pros started (which was cool), Mappleton's wave started, and after awhile, so did mine.  Before I started however, I had the pleasure of seeing the pros come out of the water.  18-year-old Andrew Yoder was in the lead by a little more than a minute.  Our swim started out well with no elbows being thrown and nobody getting kicks to the face.  After the first turn, I settled into my swim and was feeling good, but not phenomenal.  I was catching a lot of stragglers from the half iron swim waves (including Mapple).  I could tell because all of the waves had different colored swim caps.  Though, I didn't see any oranges (my color) around me.  I figured I was in a pretty good spot, but that there were at least a few people way out in front of me.  My swim has been improving in leaps and bounds, but I still consider it my weakest point.  

   I exited the swim, but didn't know in what sort of time.  I don't like to wear a watch until the run because I don't think it's going to make me move any faster in the swim or the bike.  There was also no clock at the swim exit, so I had no idea.  I got to my bike and could tell that nearly everyone's bike was still there, so I was in a good position.  It's hard to tell because I obviously didn't waste any time taking too good of a look around.  I had no idea I was in the lead.  I had the fastest swim of the day, even out of the elites that were in the OD race.  Something that I would be absolutely shocked to find out later, but had no idea of at the time.

   About five miles into the bike, I got to see David Thompson fly by the other way.  Awesome.  I began mowing down people in the Half Iron race.  The course was a little hilly, but not rolling.  The uphills were really gradual, with a few big climbs, but I think it was less tiring because it wasn't constantly up and down.  The gradual uphills were slight enough that I could stay in my tuck.  The first person from my race caught me after about 8 miles or so and the second after maybe 15.  I dropped my chain at this point on the course during one of the big climbs.  I tried to throw it into the big ring to correct the problem without having to get off, but my bike wasn't having it.  I hopped off and calmly and quickly fixed it.  I lost maybe twenty seconds.  

   I got in off of the bike and was feeling great.  Two people passed me (a feeling I'm not used to, as the bike is usually my strongest of the three).  I still had no idea that I was running in third, but my suspicions were growing.  I also thought that I had biked a lot faster than I had (1:05, a 22.6 mph average).

   I threw my watch on and started the run at a very fast pace.  I was a little worried about holding it for the whole run, but I was consciously taking that risk.  My first mile was in about 6:00 and I hit mile two at around 12:30 or a little less.  The run went two miles down a paved bike path along the river in which we swam, turned around and went the two miles back to the finish area, continued on the trail for about another mile and then wound up through town and WVU's campus for about a mile and a half.  We were running one lap of what the half iron guys were doing two of so the mileage turned out to be 6.55 miles, instead of the Olympic standard of 6.2.

    About a third of a mile from the turn around, I saw the first guy coming the other way and he was absolutely flying.  Number two followed shortly after.  I still thought there was maybe someone else in front of us that had just been way way ahead.  I passed through transition at mile four and still felt comfortable with my pace.  After about another half-mile, a woman recreationally running the other way shouted at me that I was looking good and that I was third.  This was the first time during the race that I knew that for sure.  She also said that second was three minutes up the road and that she couldn't see anyone anywhere behind me.  I knew it was essentially useless to try to catch a guy three minutes up the road with only two miles left when he was already running in the 6:15 (I guessed) ballpark.  I concentrated on holding as fast a pace as I could without blowing up and without letting #4 gain any ground.  I didn't know how well he was running.

    The course took a right at mile five that took me up and out of the bike trail area and started through town.  I crossed a main street and had to run up one of the steepest hills I have ever seen in a race (or in training for that matter).  They had a guy in a devil suit at the top so that was great fun.  The rest of the run through town was fairly undulating, but was nothing major.  I took a look over my shoulder a few times in the last mile and still didn't see anyone.  I was letting myself soak up the experience that I was about to place third overall in a substantially large race.  I wasn't exactly sure how much longer I had to go because there was no mile 6 marker, just five and then the finish.  I crossed back into the park through and underpass and saw the finishing chute.  I had the place and the crowd all to myself as the race director announced my arrival as third in the Olympic Distance race.  It was a rush.

   My final time was 2:13:06.  It was my goal this season to finish an Olympic in 2:10, but I think I can say that, if not for the extra .35 miles on the run course,  would have been in the 2:10 minute.  I called my dad and Kayla and told them the good news and took pleasure in the fact that I have such great people pulling for me and feeling just as happy towards great days like this.

   I hooked up with Mappleton's family and watched him finish his race in a tiring time of just under six hours.  Definitely an experience.  I was so glad to actually get to watch a race, because I'm usually doing it.

   The race report pretty much ends here.  I'm still pretty excited.

Race Report of the Silver Springs Duathlon, Stow, Oh. (5/4)

Kayla once again accompanied on the way to Ohio (I could get used to this) as I headed out for my first duathlon.  I was a little nervous because I had heard that running before biking, as opposed to the opposite order, causes quite a bit of soreness.  The only time I had done these sports in this order was at least a year and a half ago and I remember my legs not being too happy about it.  I didn't really intend on doing one, although I was never opposed to the idea, but with a half iron race about a month away, I needed to find a race to do somewhere and finding triathlons in the northeast in early may is a little difficult because of the water temperature.

The morning was chilly, but not unbearable (especially after Allison Park) and things were looking up as we didn't get lost on the way.  After checking in and racking my bike, time seemed to fly by and we were lining up.  I really didn't get in a warm-up, but just a short ride up the road to make sure everything was in working order on the bike.

The gun went off and we started on the first 5k lap of the race.  About the first mile was uphill and put us all in check.  The pace was pretty high to start out with and two of us jumped on the heels of the guy in the lead.  We hit the first mile marker in 5:37.  This was officially the fastest mile I had run in my life and I was doing it in the first leg of a multisport race.  This might have been cause for concern, but I felt pretty good.  I had a look behind me and already pretty much saw nobody.  It looked as though the race would be between the three of us and we were only a mile in.  Over the next two miles, the other two slowly put a few seconds in to me.  By the time we finished the first run, the leader had around a minute on me and second place had about thirty seconds.  I knew the leader was obviously pretty strong, but I felt confident that I could do something on the bike.  I finished the first 5k in 17:30, nearly a minute faster than I had run a straight 5k the year before.

I could see second place on the road in the distance in front of me at the beginning of the first of two laps.  I was ever so slowly reeling him in and I ended up passing him just before the beginning of lap #2.  First place was very far off in the distance, but I could see him so I put everything into the second lap but couldn't pull him back.  From talking to Kayla after the race, it sounded like we were biking about even times so he was still around a minute up on me.  As I made the turn into transition, I could see him starting the run.  Although I put a good thirty seconds on him in the first lap of the bike, I couldn't put any more time into the guy behind me during the second, really.  I had maybe ten or fifteen seconds on him into transition.

I knew starting the last run that he was a better runner than me, and he closed the gap pretty quickly and started to pull away.  I was heaving pretty hard and was doing my best to at least limit my losses.  Not much changed in the last 5k.  The three of us finished about a minute apart from each other.  I hit the time goal that I was looking for (which would have won the race a year ago; story of my life) and was pretty impressed with myself and the run times I posted.  Just as an aside, fourth place didn't come in for over three minutes after I had crossed the line.

I picked up another piece of hardware and Kayla and I hopped in the car to find something to eat.  Normally the story would end here, but we were unaware of the wonder of Ohio and its lack of restaurants where the amount of deep fryers outnumber the employees.  We eventually got back on the turnpike and stopped at a huge rest stop.  Not fine dining, I know, but it was better than Arby's.  Once again the story would normally end here, but we were unaware that there must thoroughly be nothing to do in Ohio.  How could we tell?  Because there were at least fifty high school kids in the rest stop.  What were they doing there?  Were they on a field trip?  After a while, we came to the conclusion that, no, they were not on a field trip.  They do this for fun.  High school kids in Ohio hang out at rest stops, apparently.  The story ends here.

Race Report of the Boston Marathon (4/21)

Trying to describe the Boston Marathon without the experiences and environment surrounding it before, during and after the race would be like...well, just take my word for it.

I arrived at the train station in Harrisburg where I joined both of my brothers and my dad for the long drive up to Boston.  The drive was a drive with nothing remarkable happening, but it was nice to be in the same place with those three.  I'm not sure of the last time we all got the chance to spend some time together.  I'm excited everyday to think about how my athletic endeavors often bring us to the same place after such a long time of seeing each other mostly only on holidays.  

On Sunday, I still had to pick up my registration packet.  Luckily the building where I had to go was right across the street from the finish line of the Women's Olympic Marathon Trials so we go there a little early and caught the end.  After hanging around the finish area for a bit, we headed to the convention center that, because of the Trials was absolutely packed.  I think it took me about twenty minutes to get my packet and t-shirt.  I very much wanted to check out the expo as it was the last day for it, but it was a mad house and not worth it.  We had tickets to catch the Sox game later that day and if it worked out, we'd be able to get back to the convention center before it closed for the day (which later worked out perfectly).

I was naive to think that a 10:00 am start time meant that I could sleep in a little bit longer than most races.  Then I realized on race morning that moving 25,000 people from Boston to Hopkinton by shuttle actually takes that long!  We got up about five in the morning.  I packed my pasta to eat later at the athlete village, on-site microwave discovery or not.  The fam dropped me off across from the park where the shuttles were at a little after six or six thirty and headed out to do some sight-seeing until they had to stake out a spot along the course to cheer me on later in the morning.  

The organization and logistics of moving that many people are so well put together that it has be commended.  Beside the park was a line of school buses that stretched up the road and out of sight.  About ten buses would be loaded up to capacity, depart for Hopkinton, and another ten would pull in their place immediately to start the process all over again.  I ended up sitting next to an older woman from Wisconsin and had a great conversation with her.  After hearing about some of her experiences with getting outside for a run in the bitter cold of Wisconsin in the preceding months, I felt like a bit of a whiner complaining about dealing with the winter weather in Pennsylvania.

I luckily got to the athlete village (no microwave to be found...hello, cold pasta) early enough that finding an open portable toilet was no problem.  I hung out on a bench with a guy from Canada for most of the morning and ate my pasta and went to the bathroom again...and again and again.  Nerves, I think.  After a while, we were given the signal to start the short walk to the starting corrals.  As my number was 4701, I was in the fourth corral and close to five thousand people back from the starting line.  I was finally going to experience what the people at the back of the pack at a normal marathon would experience.  As I was standing ready with my arm warmers, running gloves and low-light lenses (it was a crappy, cold and dreary day all morning long), the sun broke out and warmed everything up pretty quickly.  I didn't have much time to consider this because the gun went off a few minutes later.  

We crested the very small hill in front of us and I'll never forget what I saw:  nearly five thousand people stretched out in the valley in front of me like one giant, moving mass.  It was a pretty remarkable horde of people and I can't imagine how it looked from all the way back.  About two miles into the race, I ditched my arm warmers and tucked my gloves into my shorts.  Before the race, I figured out that I needed to run 21:15 5ks to hit my target time of sub-3 hours.  I started nailing my target times right away and felt great.  I was even putting a little time in the bank with every passing mile.

The first half of the race was surreal and I hardly remember it going by.  I was feeling great and giddy at the prospect of hitting my ambitious target.  We passed Wellesley College to the tune of a flock of college students shrieking at the top of their lungs.  I had heard that they were loud, but loud was a huge understatement.

After 30k, all was still going to plan.  I think I still had something like fifty-two minutes to finish the final 12k.  Then something went wrong.  I still have no idea what it was but I was slowing down.  Late into mile 19, I knew that if things didn't turn around quickly, I would not be hitting my goal.  But I don't think things very often turn around after 19 miles.  After mile 20, I had pretty much accepted that my chances of under three hours had gone out the window, but I was content in thinking that I would at least shave some time from my PR of 3:08 (the previous November in Richmond, my only other marathon).  But the Newton hills had gotten the better of me and I was forced to start walking after 21 miles.  This was the biggest mistake of any race I have ever done.  I have never had the experience of having to walk and quickly found out that, once you stop running, your legs get so tight that to get that running motion back is nearly impossible.  

 I started to run again after a few minutes at probably the slowest pace that's allowed to be called something other than walking.  Time disappeared at an alarming rate.  I walked for the second time (of three total) around mile 23.  I couldn't believe that I didn't have anything left to even finish out a 5k.  The crowds were three and four people deep all along the barricades for the last few miles.  This would have been the coolest thing if not for the fact that I felt like I was letting all of them down by walking.  It was the exact, crushing opposite of the feeling it should be having that many people cheering you to the finish.  I wanted to run if for no other reason than to make them happy.  But at the same time I was seeing people around me being pulled off of the course because they couldn't stand up anymore or because they were weaving all over the road in a painfully lifeless walk.  The second to last thing I would have wanted was to walk the closing miles of the Boston Marathon.  The last thing I would have wanted was to be one of those people not even allowed to finish.

I did my best to run down the final street to the finish line and stop the clock at an incredibly disheartening 3:52.  I struggled through the timing chip lines, the food lines and the medal lines just in time to get my race bag and find my family, who I had also felt like I had let down enormously by dragging them to Boston so they could see me struggle in for such a pedestrian finish.

I arrived back in Pittsburgh the next day, disappointed, but in awe of what an experience it all was.  I don't like to have to find a silver lining in anything, I'd much rather just have it all be a glowing spectacle.  But I could find some comfort in little things that actually went according to plan up until the point it all fell apart.  I can also find comfort in the fact that I qualified for Boston, the holy grail of marathons, on my first try and that many more opportunities to go there will come.  There is no way I'm letting a 3:52 stand as my only result at such a hallowed race.  And finally I can take comfort in looking at my wall and seeing that finishers medal.  It's a pretty cool feeling having one.