I have put it off for way too long, so this will be my race report for Columbia, as well as the week since the race.
Columbia
In the 10 years I've been around for this race, I can only remember two times it being even remotely nice. 2001 wasn't bad, and 2008 was nice. Every other year has been cold, rainy, or cold and rainy. When the weather prognosticators indicated that this year the conditions were going to be better than perfect, I couldn't even believe it. I didn't want to say anything that would jinx it, because I've seen it be nice the day before the race, only to dilapidate on Sunday morning. Saturday I headed down to Columbia and did all the pre-race mumbo jumbo that has become second nature for the event, and ran a quick lake loop with Ben and Prada. Our first mile was just under 8 minutes and I thought man, I better run faster than that tomorrow. While most of Baltimore partied for Preakness, I settled into bed just before 11pm, with a 4am wakeup call for Sunday morning.
I awoke to the most ideal conditions of all time. The air was warm, comfortable enough to go to the race in just a t-shirt and shorts, and there was no wind. I mean none. While waiting in the line to get into the park, all the trees and bushes were still. It was almost too perfect. I got my stuff settled and it's always a fun morning in the Open Wave because it's all the dudes I train with and see on a pretty regular basis, mixed in with some guys I only see at races. Like a May reunion of pretty great athletes.
I went for my warmup and was thoroughly warmed up within seconds, as I came back dripping. I got into my wetsuit, opting for the Orca 3.8 that I had just picked up the week prior. I was hesitant at first, because I didn't like the way it felt, but it didn't seem to be a problem for me on Sunday. Just my swimming was. The water was warm, and particularly warm within the confines of the suit. The gun sounded and off in a flash went all the sharks. I may have been one of the last off the line. My goggles were allowing in a little too much water and I started freaking out about getting pink eye, so I stopped briefly on two occasions to adjust them. I thought I was swimming good lines, but I knew I was way in the back. I was really disappointed to see 22:57 on the clock when I got out of the water. This was at least a minute slower than I was really looking to swim, and put me in a severe disadvantage heading onto the bike.
I got on the bike and immediately started picking up a bunch of chicks who outswam me. I then passed a few guys, and time was going by pretty quickly. I didn't feel great climbing, but I didn't feel tired. I picked up Pat as we made our way back home from the big traffic circle and then it was a few miles of just myself before I saw another athlete up ahead. I caught up to him on 108, and passed him briefly before sitting up to stretch out my back before heading onto the run. My bike split was 1:04:40, which is just 4 seconds faster than I went in 2008. At first I was pleased when I realized it, but I'll elaborate on why I'm not as psyched about it now.
Heading onto the run with the other athlete, he completely took off and my legs refused to match the pace. I hit the first mile in 6:23 - maybe my slowest first mile there ever - and knew I was in for a rough day. I hit the same split for mile 2, which is about where Pat re-passed me. Climbing up and out of the park and into the neighborhood was just not pretty, and my splits were getting slower. I was dejected, but my body simply wasn't going to respond to anything. CTR passed me around mile 4 and looked like he was cooking. I came back up the wall and down onto the lake, which at least allowed me to get excited about finishing. I saw a bunch of my friends who had made the early trip out to Columbia to watch and was pumped as I crossed the line, but sad when I saw the 2:11:38 on the clock.
Not my worst, but far from my best.
In 2008 I went 2:08:40. 2009 was 2:11:00. I legitimately thought I could swim around 22, ride under 1:03 and run under 38, which would have been a 2:05 and change day. I guess I just didn't have it. And I was excited about my ride until I saw the splits and saw just how fast everyone else had gone - it seems as if most people have stepped up their cycling skills because 3 years ago that was the 13th best split of the day and this year it was around the 30th. Andrew Yoder took 2 minutes out of Chris Lieto's 56:30 course record en route to a bike course and overall course record. My 2:11:38 was only good enough for 42nd on the day. Occasional training partner Ben W. had what I think was the fastest amateur bike split of the day at 1:02:30, and went just under 2:06. Pretty insane considering he just recorded a 9:55 IM St. George two weeks ago. Pat PR'd, CTR PR'd, just about everyone I know had really, really good days. That's what made the race tough for me to swallow, because I appear to be the only one that's on the opposite end of improvement. My run split (40:58) was 3 minutes slower than I thought I could go (and the slowest I've run there), but even if I had done that, I would have only gone 2:08:40.
Sometimes it's just not your day, and it seemed like I blew a perfect opportunity because the conditions were truly spectacular. Maybe I've conditioned myself to expect shitty weather and I would have performed better in it. Maybe because I can actually somewhat ride my bike again (unlike last year when my bike splits were slow in the few races I did) it's taking something out of my run.
I was of course excited to see such a competitive race, and great days for my friends, but I won't lie and say I wasn't bummed about my day. The important thing for me was to not focus on the bad day, instead put it behind and try to look forward to Eagleman and the rest of the summer.
Post Race
I took it appropriately easy on Monday and Tuesday, and attempted to go out to Wednesday Night Ride. Somehow I wound up on the front for almost the first 15 minutes of the ride, and when a few of the Kelly pros decided to heat it up, I got shot out the back. Again, not pretty, and it was no fun riding for 75 minutes then by myself. But, at least I was able to just ride my pace, because my legs were still clearly not recovered. I took it easy Thursday in advance of my favorite weekend of the year:
Memorial Day
This weekend is the focal point of my spring. In 2008 I met Joe Liberto and Nick Zohdi out in Cambridge to ride the Eagleman course. It was my first time out there, and while I am a strong cyclist, I am not a power cyclist, so the relentlessly flat roads of Cambridge threw me off. You just have to pedal...so...much. You can never stop pedaling out there. We reprised the ride in 2009, this time adding OJ and Double K (Nick wasn't there). We had a good workout and I went out to modest success two weeks later at EM (2:18 bike split).
This year was primed for an insane day. Benda was in, David Lee was in, OJ, Pat, Zero - all in. Double K was coming out and then brought 3 dudes with him. All told there were 10 of us, all reasonably quick dudes riding time trial bikes. It was seriously like the Postal train of the old Tour days. It was an Eagleman kind of day out there, hot and sunny. There is no shade on the EM course. After 33 minutes of warming up we hit an hour of hard riding. I figured we could have everyone ride a minute on the front and that way each person would get about 6 pulls in the hour, and we would be able to keep the pace high. Mission Accomplished, we took a few minute break before doing another 20 hard minutes to Dorchester HS. Aided by a tailwind, we averaged 30mph for this section (the headwind on the way out was very, very unfriendly) and all told had 80 minutes of really solid work. We cooled down back to the transition area and got ready for a run.
The goal of this run was to do 2 miles at race pace, then a mile easy, another mile hard and a mile easy cooldown. I was hoping that I could run 6:10 pace, but wasn't sure if I could or not. We start out and it feels hard - really hard. It's now 12:30 and the temp is near 90. The sun is unforgiving. Pat is out front, and as we get closer to the mile I realize we are running pretty fast. Pat hits 5:30 and I come through at 5:38. Uh-oh. I obviously have no business running that fast, as I won't touch a mile under 6 in this race, but at this point I'm committed, so I slow only to a 5:48 second mile (11:26). We jog easy for a couple of minutes before running hard from mile 2 back down to mile 1. I kept this effort more in check and was surprised it was a 5:43. An easy mile around 7:20 back to the car and my 5 mile brick was done in 32 minutes. We all slipped into the Choptank to cool off, and it felt good to be done. For the ride we were under 2:28 (22.5mph or something in that range I think) and 5 miles under 6:30 pace meant that a hard effort had been done.
It was time to drive back home now and rest up for Saturday.
"Fucking May 28th" - OJ Keller
Saturday morning was significantly cooler, which was nice to start our ride. The larger group we thought we might have had dwindled to just be me, OJ and Benda, with Alyssa joining us for a little over an hour. We headed out from Meadowbrook just after 8am and rode north, uphill, to do the Lineboro ride. I was looking to ride as easy as possible until we made it to at least Lineboro, but we pretty quickly assumed a little paceline and the effort was not tremendously easy. We covered 18.5 miles in our first hour, and then after Alyssa left us, we brought our average up to 19.1, then in just a 4 mile stretch of Lineboro Rd were at 19.6. We kept the intensity and I didn't know how long I would last. Through 3.5 hours we were at 20.5mph.
The temperature had risen a little, and unfortunately back on York Rd, where we would have around 30 miles back to MB, we faced one of the stiffest headwinds I've ever seen. It had picked up significantly from the morning wind. OJ's favorite new phrase is "every man for himself", which seems to be a feature of every ride now. His plan was to go as hard as his body would allow for the 12ish miles to Hereford. This would be no easy task into the wind, especially with now 120 hard miles in the last 24 hours already in the legs.
OJ and Benda took off, leaving me in their dust. I was pissed, mostly because there was nothing I could do about it. But as I kept them in sight I noticed a few things. One, when Benda was in front, the pace slowed a little. Two, when they were out of the saddle to climb, I was gaining ground. So I used my smarts and made big efforts to catch them, finally reeling them back in. It was no small feat. But, upon catching them, I was promptly dispatched again. This time, I knew I would be okay, though, because I was riding the hills well. And soon enough, we had made it through Hereford.
It gets no easier from there, however, and when we finally got back to Timonium, it started raining randomly. Really annoying. We made it back to the pool in just under 5 hours, which for 96ish miles is quite fast, meaning our average had only slipped a mile per hour over the last two hours into the wind and hills. I was shocked. Unfortunately for me I still had to ride home 8 or 9 miles. Bleh. I got into the pool in the afternoon but could only muster 2000 very slow meters.
Went to see Hangover 2 on Saturday night (disappointing) and then Sunday woke up to spectate the McVETs 5k/10k. I felt like garbage so I opted to not ride that morning, and instead I swam about 2400m. It was all I could do. I picked up Alyssa and Brennan and we made our way two hours to Winchester VA to visit Ben and Kendra and do the Loudoun Street Mile on Monday. When we got to Winchester, I ran 6 miles with Ben. It was 5pm and 95 degrees, and I thought I was going to die. It was the worst I've felt in a long time.
Then I started to feel worse. I am really allergic to cats and dogs, and particularly when a house is carpeted, I seem to really struggle. Both of this factors were leading me to feel awful at Ben's. I tossed and turned at night after taking some Claritin (thanks Kendra) but woke up and didn't feel much better. My legs were cooked and the sunburn I endured Friday and then again Saturday was not feeling good. Unfortunately for me, it was race time.
"Cultimation" - OJ Keller
On Friday, OJ uttered these words, which I believe were intended to mean "culmination". Still, this is our new word for the week. Monday was the cultimation of a long weekend. I don't know how I used to do so much more on Memorial Day Weekend, I guess I just don't have what I used to pre-injury! After warming up, I felt no better, and knew it was going to be a rough day. The nice thing about a mile race is it's only a mile, the worst I would do would maybe be 6 minutes of running. The mean thing about a mile is how often you want to drop out, and then you think it's only a mile, how is it possible that I feel so bad?
The first 350m was downhill, and then there was a short uphill to the quarter mile followed by about 500m of steady incline, then dropped down to the 3/4 mile and it was flat for the last quarter. I got out in 73 which was already slow and hard, and then ran a 79 uphill quarter. While it was slow, I passed at least 15 people in this time. The downhill mile was placed so that it didn't really help me run any faster, but it was helping me not run any slower. 77.3 for that quarter and then I just gritted it and tried to hold on for one more quarter (77.1) and finished in 5:07. The amazing thing was how stacked this race was. Ben was 16th with a 4:42, Brennan 25th with a 4:53 and I was 36th. Moise Joseph won in 4:06, negative splitting the race like it should be done. On our cooldown I realized I had met him at Alan and Julia Webb's wedding, which was pretty funny.
I now felt like complete death and we had to drive home 2 hours. Alyssa and I were going to go to the Terps vs UVA Lacrosse National Championship game, but as we got back to Baltimore and it was 100 degrees and I thought I was going to die, we opted to watch inside. My health has deteriorated ever since, and last night was particularly rough as our house is a piece of shit and the air conditioning doesn't work. We told our landlord about this last Tuesday and it is scheduled to be fixed finally today. I realized there are plenty of people in this world without A/C, but 95 degrees in the house is just too much. I sweated all night as I again tossed and turned in my bed. The fever I was running did not appreciate the temperature.
I can't remember being sick yet this year, and this one has hit me hard. The good thing is that it's this week, not next week, and that I'm within two weeks of EM so I don't have any workout objectives. I need to focus on feeling better and allowing my body to absorb the good work from this weekend.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
If You Want to View Paradise
I had intended on updating this sooner, but just didn't really feel like it. The nerves have been building for this weekend for quite some time. It's not that Columbia is a big race for me, it is THE race - the one I tend to judge my entire year on. This year's edition will be the 8th time competing in this race for me, dating back to 2001. I missed 2004 due to injury, 2005 due to still not being in shape/not having done a triathlon for two years, and last year due to injury again. It's the race I've done the most times in my life, it was my first triathlon and while it used to give me ogeda just thinking about it, I've become a little more mellow about racing. Because, after all, it's just that - a race. Nobody is paying me or counting on me to perform a certain way, if I don't do well everyone will still say good job, even if they're lying through their teeth. Even the phrase "did well" is relative. Still dealing with my messed up body every day has forced me to re-evaluate my goals. When I raced in 2001, I went 2:23:40, at age 19, for my first tri ever. I got down to 2:16 but wasn't able to get over that hump until 2008 when I hit 2:08:40. Even in 2009, coming off of a Boston Marathon spring that limited my riding/swimming, I still managed a 2:11:00. So I know that, come Sunday, the worst I could swim is maybe a 24, I could literally soft pedal a 1:10 (particularly on the new bike) and as I generally don't run worse than 40, just do that for a 2:16.
But obviously that's not the goal, nor do I entertain thoughts of it. If I tried to pull that shit in this year's open wave, I'd be banned from Columbia for life. In talking with my friend, Brian Shea, over the weekend, he and I remarked and agreed that this year's open wave is like a semi-pro field. There are something like 25+ dudes all capable of sub 2:10 performances. Some monster swimmers, as always, and some terrific runners/new triathletes. And I don't anticipate anybody riding all that slow, either. Whoever manages to win this wave will certainly have had to work for it.
That's what makes this race so exciting: a top notch field on an honest course. With my ride there on Tuesday, I've now ridden the course four times this year. Normally I like to do the run course at least once to refamiliarize myself, but I just didn't feel like it anytime I went down there. I put my hand in the water and it feels pretty decent, not that I would expect it to be all that cold, but with the buckets of rain lately, you never know. Having ridden the course I'd say now probably 100 times, I have a good sense of gearing, wind, even where the cracks in the road are. Anticipation is key to a good ride there.
After last weekend's ride/run, I was somewhat unreasonably sore for a few days. We had a fun track workout planned for Tuesday, and the conditions were pretty nice (actually, it was nice all week). We did 3 sets of 400-800-400, with the first 400 just under 5k pace, the 800 about the same and then a 400 at mile pace, with 60sec, 90sec and then 400m jog recovery. Coming off the Alumni Mile, I was feeling pretty quick I guess, and ran my first set in 77/2:36/69.5. This is probably the fastest I've run for a 400 since I got hurt, so I was pleased. It did, however, take a little bit out of me. I controlled the 2nd set, running 78/2:36/74 I think, and then headed into the third. I remember it being 76 or 77 again on the first 400, and then after the first lap of the 800 I pulled off to the side - the point was to be comfortable for the 400/800, and I was working a little too hard to run what would likely have been a fast 800. I ran a 72 for the last 400 and called it a day.
Wednesday I headed up to Weds Night Ride with OJ again, and my legs felt like garbage. I told him I would try to hang as long as I could, but didn't expect great things. The previous week, with shitty weather, there were 8 of us. Funny how when the weather is nice, 45 people show up. With a group that size, particularly with people I don't know or trust, it made the first few miles a little tense. The sun was peeking through the trees real awkwardly, too, so my eyes were getting screwy. The pace was set pretty high once we turned onto Falls Rd, no doubt in an effort to shake some of this large crew. I was riding mid-pack on Stringtown, keeping an eye on those in front of me to make sure they weren't losing wheels. When I sensed someone was, I just moved up. I felt really comfortable, and as we made the left on Yeoho, half the group was jettisoned. I was riding by my standards pretty amazingly, and as we approached the sprint point, I found myself in a position where a dude went, another dude got on his wheel, and I figured what the heck, may as well mix it up, so I got on his wheel. They both looked around and when each decided to give it up, I went off the front on my own. Unfortunately that got pinned back, prior to the sprint, and I was swallowed up, but I felt good about giving it a go.
From there the pace seemed almost to relax, but just past halfway in, a group of 4 or 5 took off. OJ had been on the front, and when they went he tried to go, but too much work on the front leaves the legs zapped when it's time to go. My group of my 7 or 8 now picked OJ back up, and as we ascended Glencoe Rd, OJ found himself on the front again. Just as it looked like he was going to turn off the gas, I came up, flicked my elbow to suggest he get on my wheel, and we took off (side note: for being roadies, these guys ride uphill like they're on tricycles. We live in a super hilly area, friends, learn how to ride them better). We created a huge gap, and were off on our own. The effort was quite hard, and as we came up Belfast, I was having trouble keeping it. I told him to go if he felt good, but ultimately two were still probably better than one, and then just as we got to Cuba, we got scooped up.
With no impetus to ride hard, I sat on the front the whole way up Cuba and set a tempo that no one was going to mess with. I figured, may as well set Juice up for the sprint. Note: these "sprints" are all uphill finishes, so they're extremely difficult, and often result in a lot of failures. Shortly before the top, OJ did indeed go, and Benda came around me (squeezed through on my right even though I was all the way to the right, it was dicey!) and finished just behind. When we got back to the park, it was 1:23:30 ride time for what I think is either 30 or 31 miles, either way it was 5 minutes faster than I've ridden before, and I was really pleased with the effort.
Tired on Thursday, I rode with Alyssa on our Gunpowder loop (35 miles) and then Saturday, following a great 90 minute run with a good group, including Terp and GRCer living and studying (unfortunately) at Duke, Patrick Reaves, I again saddled up with Alyssa for a longer ride. It was raining when we started, and I was not at all psyched about it. The planned ride of 3.5 hours I had mentally shortened to 2, tops. But once we got out there I felt better and figured what the heck, may as well get it done. Of course I hadn't brought any source of food or water, not thinking we'd be out that long.
Sunday came and following another race timing, I zoned out for a while. I finally slinked into the pool in the late afternoon, and then actually got out to run in the evening and I felt better than I've felt all year. 35 minutes around the stadiums, Inner Harbor and Fed Hill, with the pace quick the whole time. My foot didn't feel great, but I managed. Monday I felt it, and last night on the track I felt it for sure. Our workout last night was 3200m "tempo" followed by 4x400. Normally before Columbia I don't like to do much on the track. Most years I just do a couple 400s, maybe some 200s. With less confidence in my running than in years past, I felt like doing something closer to projected race pace, which, off the bike, is slower than real race pace for 10k. It was a blustery night out on the Hopkins track, and since it was only really me, Pat and Ed doing that workout, we were spread out. But, my splits were pretty awesome, and by awesome I mean totally calculated and radical. 88.3, 88.2, 86.7, 86.5, 84.8, 84.8, 83.7, 82.9 for an 11:25. First 1600 was 5:50, came back in 5:35. I'd say only the last 2 laps was I working for it, but I also don't anticipate running 5:35 on race day. My 400s weren't great, for some reason I didn't feel as comfortable going fast last night, but still averaged 75 for 4 of them so I took that.
I then kept things in perspective and realized that halfway through this month of May I have run 81 miles. That is 81 times the number of miles I ran last May (1.00), although Ed is quick to point out that my average speed (somewhere over 7min, obviously) for these 81 miles is slower than last May (6:15). But I also remember starting to run again last summer and having a hard time running under 6 minutes, so that's cool.
Something just seems up, I can't quite put my finger on it. Talking with Brennan about it, he felt the same way - we're just amazed at how much a body can handle, and then curious why doing so much less feels just as hard, if not harder, than the higher volume. Last fall I didn't have any weeks really under 20 hours. My weekly miles on the bike were always over 200 (now in the 120-140 range, albeit much faster). My meters per week were in the 17-25k range (now 9-10k). Running isn't too much different, and I'm running my workouts faster, but I just feel more tired. It's weird. I don't quite understand it.
But, Columbia is only a few days away now and there's no more that you can do other than rest. To quote all the euphemisms, the hay is in the barn, the money is in the bank, yada yada. I think part of the reason I lived in fear of Columbia was that I didn't have experience with anything longer, and also that it came at the end of the school semester. In 2003, my senior year, I was ready to go fast. Then school decided that, even though we don't have Saturday classes, we'll give finals on Saturdays. And even though I only had 4 classes to begin with, 3 of them had Saturday finals. So that year I had to take an 8am final, then a 10am, then haul over to Columbia, drop of my bike and stuff, then come back for a 6pm final. On a Saturday night. I went to bed tired, woke up at 4am to 40 degree rain, went and suffered for a few hours, came back, and had an 8am final on Monday. It was a confluence of terribleness.
I'm excited to go head to head with these guys this year. It really is a choice field, and I could honestly see a huge PR and still finish dead last in the wave. I think the swim will be close to what I always swim, and my run will probably not be far from what I always run. If I have a good day, maybe I'll be able to finally crack that 38min barrier that has eluded me for years. What I'm counting on is a strong bike. That is the key to the race this year for me. I'd like to get into the 2:06:xx range and believe it's possible, but I've got to ride super duper fast to accomplish that. It will be fun, we'll see what happens on Sunday!
But obviously that's not the goal, nor do I entertain thoughts of it. If I tried to pull that shit in this year's open wave, I'd be banned from Columbia for life. In talking with my friend, Brian Shea, over the weekend, he and I remarked and agreed that this year's open wave is like a semi-pro field. There are something like 25+ dudes all capable of sub 2:10 performances. Some monster swimmers, as always, and some terrific runners/new triathletes. And I don't anticipate anybody riding all that slow, either. Whoever manages to win this wave will certainly have had to work for it.
That's what makes this race so exciting: a top notch field on an honest course. With my ride there on Tuesday, I've now ridden the course four times this year. Normally I like to do the run course at least once to refamiliarize myself, but I just didn't feel like it anytime I went down there. I put my hand in the water and it feels pretty decent, not that I would expect it to be all that cold, but with the buckets of rain lately, you never know. Having ridden the course I'd say now probably 100 times, I have a good sense of gearing, wind, even where the cracks in the road are. Anticipation is key to a good ride there.
After last weekend's ride/run, I was somewhat unreasonably sore for a few days. We had a fun track workout planned for Tuesday, and the conditions were pretty nice (actually, it was nice all week). We did 3 sets of 400-800-400, with the first 400 just under 5k pace, the 800 about the same and then a 400 at mile pace, with 60sec, 90sec and then 400m jog recovery. Coming off the Alumni Mile, I was feeling pretty quick I guess, and ran my first set in 77/2:36/69.5. This is probably the fastest I've run for a 400 since I got hurt, so I was pleased. It did, however, take a little bit out of me. I controlled the 2nd set, running 78/2:36/74 I think, and then headed into the third. I remember it being 76 or 77 again on the first 400, and then after the first lap of the 800 I pulled off to the side - the point was to be comfortable for the 400/800, and I was working a little too hard to run what would likely have been a fast 800. I ran a 72 for the last 400 and called it a day.
Wednesday I headed up to Weds Night Ride with OJ again, and my legs felt like garbage. I told him I would try to hang as long as I could, but didn't expect great things. The previous week, with shitty weather, there were 8 of us. Funny how when the weather is nice, 45 people show up. With a group that size, particularly with people I don't know or trust, it made the first few miles a little tense. The sun was peeking through the trees real awkwardly, too, so my eyes were getting screwy. The pace was set pretty high once we turned onto Falls Rd, no doubt in an effort to shake some of this large crew. I was riding mid-pack on Stringtown, keeping an eye on those in front of me to make sure they weren't losing wheels. When I sensed someone was, I just moved up. I felt really comfortable, and as we made the left on Yeoho, half the group was jettisoned. I was riding by my standards pretty amazingly, and as we approached the sprint point, I found myself in a position where a dude went, another dude got on his wheel, and I figured what the heck, may as well mix it up, so I got on his wheel. They both looked around and when each decided to give it up, I went off the front on my own. Unfortunately that got pinned back, prior to the sprint, and I was swallowed up, but I felt good about giving it a go.
From there the pace seemed almost to relax, but just past halfway in, a group of 4 or 5 took off. OJ had been on the front, and when they went he tried to go, but too much work on the front leaves the legs zapped when it's time to go. My group of my 7 or 8 now picked OJ back up, and as we ascended Glencoe Rd, OJ found himself on the front again. Just as it looked like he was going to turn off the gas, I came up, flicked my elbow to suggest he get on my wheel, and we took off (side note: for being roadies, these guys ride uphill like they're on tricycles. We live in a super hilly area, friends, learn how to ride them better). We created a huge gap, and were off on our own. The effort was quite hard, and as we came up Belfast, I was having trouble keeping it. I told him to go if he felt good, but ultimately two were still probably better than one, and then just as we got to Cuba, we got scooped up.
With no impetus to ride hard, I sat on the front the whole way up Cuba and set a tempo that no one was going to mess with. I figured, may as well set Juice up for the sprint. Note: these "sprints" are all uphill finishes, so they're extremely difficult, and often result in a lot of failures. Shortly before the top, OJ did indeed go, and Benda came around me (squeezed through on my right even though I was all the way to the right, it was dicey!) and finished just behind. When we got back to the park, it was 1:23:30 ride time for what I think is either 30 or 31 miles, either way it was 5 minutes faster than I've ridden before, and I was really pleased with the effort.
Tired on Thursday, I rode with Alyssa on our Gunpowder loop (35 miles) and then Saturday, following a great 90 minute run with a good group, including Terp and GRCer living and studying (unfortunately) at Duke, Patrick Reaves, I again saddled up with Alyssa for a longer ride. It was raining when we started, and I was not at all psyched about it. The planned ride of 3.5 hours I had mentally shortened to 2, tops. But once we got out there I felt better and figured what the heck, may as well get it done. Of course I hadn't brought any source of food or water, not thinking we'd be out that long.
Sunday came and following another race timing, I zoned out for a while. I finally slinked into the pool in the late afternoon, and then actually got out to run in the evening and I felt better than I've felt all year. 35 minutes around the stadiums, Inner Harbor and Fed Hill, with the pace quick the whole time. My foot didn't feel great, but I managed. Monday I felt it, and last night on the track I felt it for sure. Our workout last night was 3200m "tempo" followed by 4x400. Normally before Columbia I don't like to do much on the track. Most years I just do a couple 400s, maybe some 200s. With less confidence in my running than in years past, I felt like doing something closer to projected race pace, which, off the bike, is slower than real race pace for 10k. It was a blustery night out on the Hopkins track, and since it was only really me, Pat and Ed doing that workout, we were spread out. But, my splits were pretty awesome, and by awesome I mean totally calculated and radical. 88.3, 88.2, 86.7, 86.5, 84.8, 84.8, 83.7, 82.9 for an 11:25. First 1600 was 5:50, came back in 5:35. I'd say only the last 2 laps was I working for it, but I also don't anticipate running 5:35 on race day. My 400s weren't great, for some reason I didn't feel as comfortable going fast last night, but still averaged 75 for 4 of them so I took that.
I then kept things in perspective and realized that halfway through this month of May I have run 81 miles. That is 81 times the number of miles I ran last May (1.00), although Ed is quick to point out that my average speed (somewhere over 7min, obviously) for these 81 miles is slower than last May (6:15). But I also remember starting to run again last summer and having a hard time running under 6 minutes, so that's cool.
Something just seems up, I can't quite put my finger on it. Talking with Brennan about it, he felt the same way - we're just amazed at how much a body can handle, and then curious why doing so much less feels just as hard, if not harder, than the higher volume. Last fall I didn't have any weeks really under 20 hours. My weekly miles on the bike were always over 200 (now in the 120-140 range, albeit much faster). My meters per week were in the 17-25k range (now 9-10k). Running isn't too much different, and I'm running my workouts faster, but I just feel more tired. It's weird. I don't quite understand it.
But, Columbia is only a few days away now and there's no more that you can do other than rest. To quote all the euphemisms, the hay is in the barn, the money is in the bank, yada yada. I think part of the reason I lived in fear of Columbia was that I didn't have experience with anything longer, and also that it came at the end of the school semester. In 2003, my senior year, I was ready to go fast. Then school decided that, even though we don't have Saturday classes, we'll give finals on Saturdays. And even though I only had 4 classes to begin with, 3 of them had Saturday finals. So that year I had to take an 8am final, then a 10am, then haul over to Columbia, drop of my bike and stuff, then come back for a 6pm final. On a Saturday night. I went to bed tired, woke up at 4am to 40 degree rain, went and suffered for a few hours, came back, and had an 8am final on Monday. It was a confluence of terribleness.
I'm excited to go head to head with these guys this year. It really is a choice field, and I could honestly see a huge PR and still finish dead last in the wave. I think the swim will be close to what I always swim, and my run will probably not be far from what I always run. If I have a good day, maybe I'll be able to finally crack that 38min barrier that has eluded me for years. What I'm counting on is a strong bike. That is the key to the race this year for me. I'd like to get into the 2:06:xx range and believe it's possible, but I've got to ride super duper fast to accomplish that. It will be fun, we'll see what happens on Sunday!
Monday, May 09, 2011
Fluff
Following my Thursday night Alumni Mile, I braced for another long weekend. Friday's swim was a straight 2200m as the main set, and since I was pretty tired, I started out a little slower and worked to negative split. I was pleased with the effort. Later in the day, Hollywood came by and ran with me before we went to DC for the bachelor party of Jack Manner. Outside of the handful of TNTs that Hollywood makes each year, this was probably the first normal run I've gone on with him in a few years. We did the 7 mile Wednesday Night Loop and, despite some foot pain from last night's race, I felt pretty good. Hamstrings were sore from the track.
We then departed to make it to NE DC and celebrate our friend's last weeks of bachelordom. We met a crew of GRCers, including the Red Fox himself, Jarrin, PMurph, Wiggy, Snizzow, KDuse, Dickson - the list goes on. After eating, we made our way to another local H Street establishment, where I made it until about 10pm before feeling wiped. It wouldn't have been so bad, but with an hour's drive home, not to mention a 6am wake up on Saturday, I just couldn't hold on much longer.
Saturday's timing of the MAC Half Marathon was...interesting. I anticipated being out there for a little over 3 hours. 3:05 was the last finisher last year, and I just didn't think one could go much slower than that for a half. It was a beautiful morning that far up on the NCR Trail (almost at the PA line) and the crowd of about 160 runners took off just after 8am down the trail. Around 2:40, the runners were trickling in much slower, but we were hearing reports of two walkers that were on allegedly a 4 hour pace. No way on earth, it's not possible.
Sure enough, at just after noon, the last finishers came strolling across the line, in 3:58. The last finisher before that was 50 minutes earlier. Now I was hungry, tired from standing most of the morning and still had to ride home. Because I knew I wouldn't ride if I drove back to Baltimore first, Alyssa had driven me up, with my bike, and all I had to do was ride home. I figured it would be a good ride, because you're almost 20 miles away from Hunt Valley (straight down York Rd) and then another 20 to get home from there. I of course made it a little longer. The sun was shining and the temperature was good, so it was a nice day to be out for a chill ride by myself. It was also nice to hit the Hereford Hills fresh, as opposed to 80 miles into a 115 mile day. I felt pretty awesome riding and got home after 2h45m and didn't feel like I had done anything.
I had just about 90 minutes before I needed to get down to FH for the 3rd Annual Beer Mile (timing/coordinating, not participating). The event has grown year after year, and it was another good time had by all. Following the race, most went out for a while. I made it until about midnight before crashing. With a hard effort planned for Sunday, I didn't need to exhaust any additional energy.
Sunday was amazing - one of the nicest days of the year. I met a great crew down at Centennial Park just before 10, and we headed out for our ride. The Chickenest of Tender Runners and Michelle had driven up to meet myself, Pat and Alyssa. The plan was about 40 miles, so we were going to do the course plus an additional lollipop section, and then add on from there. Within the ride we were going to do a few 10 minute efforts. These went incredibly well, and I felt really good about how Frankenstein handled the day. It was undoubtedly the best I've ever ridden out there outside of the race, and actually, if you took our time from the ride (subtracting one of the lollipop loops) it was faster than the first time I did the race in 2001. Side note: hard to believe it's been 10 years since my first race, at Columbia!
Following the run, CTR and Michelle had runs of 20 minutes scheduled. Unless I cut off one of his legs, there was no way I was keeping up with CTR, and even running with Michelle isn't a given. We did 10 minutes at race effort and then 10 easy, and man, the first 10 minutes felt hard. Hopefully it's not that hard on May 22nd. We finished up and like some kind of magic, a Shaved Ice truck came rolling through. One of the flavors was Tiger's Blood - no joke - and he said he had it way before Charlie Sheen ever used the term. It was Strawberry and Coconut, so I got that and Watermelon and had a tasty, super frozen treat before heading back to Bmore to swim. That did not go so well, but I guess I shouldn't have expected it to, as my shoulders were fried from riding the TT bike (which was weird because honestly I didn't even ride that long in the aero position). I guess I just don't ride that way very often so it took its toll.
All told last week was a pretty short week by volume, at just 9000m in the pool, 125 or so miles on the bike and just 28 miles of running, but it was full of some good efforts. With just two weeks now until Columbia, I'm going to try and rest a little more, taking easy days super easy (as if I haven't been already) and make my efforts focused, but likely a little shorter. Track tomorrow, Wednesday Night Ride, probably do a workout on Saturday and all the rest is just fluff.
We then departed to make it to NE DC and celebrate our friend's last weeks of bachelordom. We met a crew of GRCers, including the Red Fox himself, Jarrin, PMurph, Wiggy, Snizzow, KDuse, Dickson - the list goes on. After eating, we made our way to another local H Street establishment, where I made it until about 10pm before feeling wiped. It wouldn't have been so bad, but with an hour's drive home, not to mention a 6am wake up on Saturday, I just couldn't hold on much longer.
Saturday's timing of the MAC Half Marathon was...interesting. I anticipated being out there for a little over 3 hours. 3:05 was the last finisher last year, and I just didn't think one could go much slower than that for a half. It was a beautiful morning that far up on the NCR Trail (almost at the PA line) and the crowd of about 160 runners took off just after 8am down the trail. Around 2:40, the runners were trickling in much slower, but we were hearing reports of two walkers that were on allegedly a 4 hour pace. No way on earth, it's not possible.
Sure enough, at just after noon, the last finishers came strolling across the line, in 3:58. The last finisher before that was 50 minutes earlier. Now I was hungry, tired from standing most of the morning and still had to ride home. Because I knew I wouldn't ride if I drove back to Baltimore first, Alyssa had driven me up, with my bike, and all I had to do was ride home. I figured it would be a good ride, because you're almost 20 miles away from Hunt Valley (straight down York Rd) and then another 20 to get home from there. I of course made it a little longer. The sun was shining and the temperature was good, so it was a nice day to be out for a chill ride by myself. It was also nice to hit the Hereford Hills fresh, as opposed to 80 miles into a 115 mile day. I felt pretty awesome riding and got home after 2h45m and didn't feel like I had done anything.
I had just about 90 minutes before I needed to get down to FH for the 3rd Annual Beer Mile (timing/coordinating, not participating). The event has grown year after year, and it was another good time had by all. Following the race, most went out for a while. I made it until about midnight before crashing. With a hard effort planned for Sunday, I didn't need to exhaust any additional energy.
Sunday was amazing - one of the nicest days of the year. I met a great crew down at Centennial Park just before 10, and we headed out for our ride. The Chickenest of Tender Runners and Michelle had driven up to meet myself, Pat and Alyssa. The plan was about 40 miles, so we were going to do the course plus an additional lollipop section, and then add on from there. Within the ride we were going to do a few 10 minute efforts. These went incredibly well, and I felt really good about how Frankenstein handled the day. It was undoubtedly the best I've ever ridden out there outside of the race, and actually, if you took our time from the ride (subtracting one of the lollipop loops) it was faster than the first time I did the race in 2001. Side note: hard to believe it's been 10 years since my first race, at Columbia!
Following the run, CTR and Michelle had runs of 20 minutes scheduled. Unless I cut off one of his legs, there was no way I was keeping up with CTR, and even running with Michelle isn't a given. We did 10 minutes at race effort and then 10 easy, and man, the first 10 minutes felt hard. Hopefully it's not that hard on May 22nd. We finished up and like some kind of magic, a Shaved Ice truck came rolling through. One of the flavors was Tiger's Blood - no joke - and he said he had it way before Charlie Sheen ever used the term. It was Strawberry and Coconut, so I got that and Watermelon and had a tasty, super frozen treat before heading back to Bmore to swim. That did not go so well, but I guess I shouldn't have expected it to, as my shoulders were fried from riding the TT bike (which was weird because honestly I didn't even ride that long in the aero position). I guess I just don't ride that way very often so it took its toll.
All told last week was a pretty short week by volume, at just 9000m in the pool, 125 or so miles on the bike and just 28 miles of running, but it was full of some good efforts. With just two weeks now until Columbia, I'm going to try and rest a little more, taking easy days super easy (as if I haven't been already) and make my efforts focused, but likely a little shorter. Track tomorrow, Wednesday Night Ride, probably do a workout on Saturday and all the rest is just fluff.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Missed it by *That* Much
Last night was one of the most important events on my calendar - the Maryland Twilight Meet, featuring the Alumni Mile. Now in its 3rd year, the event began in 2009 as a last opportunity for the team to race, and as a way to reconnect the alumni to the program. That first year I was super pumped to get out there and race a mile. There was a good field and I was looking to run fast. Well, that failed. I ended up running a disappointing 5:13, getting beat by Laurel in the process. At least they had Chick-Fil-A sandwiches for us, and got t-shirts and hats.
Year 2, last year, was a different story. Just 6 weeks off my second knee surgery and I hadn't run at all, but there were only 3 starters on the line and they weren't going to hold the event with just 3. So I sucked it up. I finished in 4th, in 6:15, behind Denise this time. Still, for not having run in a long time, I was psyched I could run that fast.
This year I tried to rally support for the event. The trouble is, anyone who was a sprinter on the team didn't want to run a mile, and it's as if people just don't run anymore. Everyone whines about how they're not in shape. This is the worst excuse in the world. If you ran for a Division 1 school, I'm pretty sure that, unless your legs have been amputated, you can make it through a mile. As an aside, even if my legs were amputated, I would still do it. Not being in shape is never an excuse. It's not like you register for this event, pay for it, nor is it truly serious.
In the end, there were a dozen of us on the line. And, everyone was interested in running as fast as they could. Conrad was the designated pacesetter, and took us through the first 409 meters in 75.6. We had a pack of Conrad, Doug, Prada and Tom Stott. The pace was comfortably hard, but I was disappointed to see a split over 75. Not going to help me run under 5, that's for sure. The 2nd lap was picked up, and we came through in 73.3 (2:28.9 at the half). I was holding on, but it was getting difficult. I was tightening up, and just trying to tick my legs over.
The third quarter was key, and I split 75.5. If I was going to get under 5, it was going to be by the closest of margins.
I was fortunate to have an unreal support crew out there. Alyssa, Brennan, Melissa, Pat, Pete and Alex B had come down to spectate. Cheese, Arjun, Tristram, Diane and Meg D were all finished with their race(s) so they were all over the track, and Wiggy was out there giving some encouragement at the 200 mark as well.
No matter what I did on that last lap, it was going to be better than 2009, but I really had to get under 5. Coming up the final straight, I could see the clock, and was charging as hard as I could. As I crossed the line, I thought I had it. I was spent. My watch read 4:59.6. Pat had .66. Alyssa had .7. Brad Jaeger had .9. I felt as if I had certainly gotten under 5. My last lap was 75.2.
Then the official results were posted and it was revealed that I ran a 5:00.11. Bullshit! No way on earth. I was disappointed, because coming THAT close and missing by such a marginal amount is obviously frustrating, but I was really excited with the race. It's the fastest mile (other than the downhill road mile) I've run since 2002 probably. It was an even race, and it was a competitive race. I felt good after the warmup, like I was actually ready to race. I didn't give up during the race when it got hard. Of course now I feel like a herb because two of the mile races I've run in the last 3 years have results in 5:00.99 (indoors) and 5:00.11 (outdoors).
The good news is that I was in pretty good shape in 2008 when I ran that indoor race, so I feel like I can still run pretty quick. My foot was killing me after the race, unfortunately. But we did go on a sweet cooldown through North Campus, ran through a rave by North Woods (in the courtyard) and then saw the new Oakland Hall. On the warmup, got to run down College Ave, up past the sororities and frats and Knox Rd. I always love going back to CP. And it was an especially surreal day to head down there as men's basketball coach Gary Williams had just announced his retirement after 22 years.
The conditions had evolved into perfection by race time, too. It had been windy all day, but the wind died and the temp was perfect at around 60. You don't get many days like that to race a mile! Also, Laurel didn't show up, so I didn't have to worry about getting beat by her. I'll have some chances to run another mile this summer, probably at a BRRC meet, but I need to get under 5 again.
This was a really good race for me with a great result. My 4:50 at the Westminster Mile I figured would put me at 5:03 on the track, but I also didn't have any faith in running that quick as I felt like I've not done the work to warrant running that fast. I realistically thought I would run a 5:08 or 5:09, so this was good.
Year 2, last year, was a different story. Just 6 weeks off my second knee surgery and I hadn't run at all, but there were only 3 starters on the line and they weren't going to hold the event with just 3. So I sucked it up. I finished in 4th, in 6:15, behind Denise this time. Still, for not having run in a long time, I was psyched I could run that fast.
This year I tried to rally support for the event. The trouble is, anyone who was a sprinter on the team didn't want to run a mile, and it's as if people just don't run anymore. Everyone whines about how they're not in shape. This is the worst excuse in the world. If you ran for a Division 1 school, I'm pretty sure that, unless your legs have been amputated, you can make it through a mile. As an aside, even if my legs were amputated, I would still do it. Not being in shape is never an excuse. It's not like you register for this event, pay for it, nor is it truly serious.
In the end, there were a dozen of us on the line. And, everyone was interested in running as fast as they could. Conrad was the designated pacesetter, and took us through the first 409 meters in 75.6. We had a pack of Conrad, Doug, Prada and Tom Stott. The pace was comfortably hard, but I was disappointed to see a split over 75. Not going to help me run under 5, that's for sure. The 2nd lap was picked up, and we came through in 73.3 (2:28.9 at the half). I was holding on, but it was getting difficult. I was tightening up, and just trying to tick my legs over.
The third quarter was key, and I split 75.5. If I was going to get under 5, it was going to be by the closest of margins.
I was fortunate to have an unreal support crew out there. Alyssa, Brennan, Melissa, Pat, Pete and Alex B had come down to spectate. Cheese, Arjun, Tristram, Diane and Meg D were all finished with their race(s) so they were all over the track, and Wiggy was out there giving some encouragement at the 200 mark as well.
No matter what I did on that last lap, it was going to be better than 2009, but I really had to get under 5. Coming up the final straight, I could see the clock, and was charging as hard as I could. As I crossed the line, I thought I had it. I was spent. My watch read 4:59.6. Pat had .66. Alyssa had .7. Brad Jaeger had .9. I felt as if I had certainly gotten under 5. My last lap was 75.2.
Then the official results were posted and it was revealed that I ran a 5:00.11. Bullshit! No way on earth. I was disappointed, because coming THAT close and missing by such a marginal amount is obviously frustrating, but I was really excited with the race. It's the fastest mile (other than the downhill road mile) I've run since 2002 probably. It was an even race, and it was a competitive race. I felt good after the warmup, like I was actually ready to race. I didn't give up during the race when it got hard. Of course now I feel like a herb because two of the mile races I've run in the last 3 years have results in 5:00.99 (indoors) and 5:00.11 (outdoors).
The good news is that I was in pretty good shape in 2008 when I ran that indoor race, so I feel like I can still run pretty quick. My foot was killing me after the race, unfortunately. But we did go on a sweet cooldown through North Campus, ran through a rave by North Woods (in the courtyard) and then saw the new Oakland Hall. On the warmup, got to run down College Ave, up past the sororities and frats and Knox Rd. I always love going back to CP. And it was an especially surreal day to head down there as men's basketball coach Gary Williams had just announced his retirement after 22 years.
The conditions had evolved into perfection by race time, too. It had been windy all day, but the wind died and the temp was perfect at around 60. You don't get many days like that to race a mile! Also, Laurel didn't show up, so I didn't have to worry about getting beat by her. I'll have some chances to run another mile this summer, probably at a BRRC meet, but I need to get under 5 again.
This was a really good race for me with a great result. My 4:50 at the Westminster Mile I figured would put me at 5:03 on the track, but I also didn't have any faith in running that quick as I felt like I've not done the work to warrant running that fast. I realistically thought I would run a 5:08 or 5:09, so this was good.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Faster, and With More Fury
May 1st, 2011 is a day I will always remember.
For it was on that day that I saw the fifth installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise, The Fast Five, and I have to say it was probably the best one. More importantly, they set it up for another sequel. Who knows - maybe they'll get to 10! And it reminded me of a situation I was in 10 years ago. It was July 13, 2011. I was leaving for Australia for 6 months on July 15, and TFATF had just come out. I went to see it. It was awesome. A few months later, America, and the world, would be shocked by the events of September 11th, which were credited to a tall, grisly dude with a heinous beard who liked caves. It was a tragic time, but once again I was greeted by the bad-assery of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, as TFATF arrived in Australia that November.
2 Fast 2 Furious came out 2 years later, and without Vin Diesel, and weak writing (and acting, courtesy of Tyrese), the only thing it gave us was a name for our second Hubs of Fury event in 2008. The third film, Tokyo Drift, was really bad. And I think everyone hoped it would just die there.
Fortunately for us, Fast and Furious came to the rescue. It did not disappoint; in fact, it revived the franchise. And then came The Fast Five. And in an interesting twist of fate, 10 years later, TFATF is once again connected to that September day, only this time, much like the BAMFs of the film, America came out on top. It wasn't more than a half hour after I got back from seeing the movie on Sunday when I received a text from a friend on the inside alerting me of the news, and until about midnight I absorbed as much of the coverage as I could. Yesterday and today I have been scouring the news for the details of this amazing mission. It is, without a doubt, the most awesome thing I've ever heard and I can't wait for the movie.
But back in a world that seems a million miles away, where covert black op missions include getting in and out of the pool without getting stuck talking to a million crazies, or figuring out which eating establishment will have the shortest line after TNT, life went on.
April turned out to be a really good month, both in volume and quality of work. Here's how I would grade myself:
Swimming - B. It's only half a letter grade better than March, and I feel better in the pool as of late, but I just took a look and saw that my volume (37,000m) was a grand less than March somehow. For some reason I thought I was only 34k for March. Either way, the volume is still pretty low, and while I still don't feel great, I'm starting to feel a little better. I saw improvement in my long swims, and am getting a little speed back.
Cycling - A. At 525 miles, my biggest April ever and steady improvement from March. More importantly, finally getting off the trainer (although did have a few rides on it early in the month) and some really good group rides. I'm riding less miles, usually on 3, sometimes 4 days of riding, but I'm getting after it again. Two trips to Frederick this month, including Sunday's trip out there (that's next). I feel better pedaling than I do walking these days.
Running - A. 167.5 miles this month is the most I've ever run in the month of April (keeping in mind these numbers only go back to 2004, college days don't count). And this was on an average of 4 runs per week. 7 of my 18 runs were 12+ miles. My foot has unfortunately been worse this month than any other, so that's been really frustrating, but I'm getting through it. My workouts on the track have gotten a little better, and if my foot DIDN'T hurt, I would feel great about running right now as my fitness really feels "there."
This past weekend was good, starting off Friday with a Friday evening long run with Brennan, Harvey and, of all people, Mike Prada. My foot was bad from the start, and only got worse, but we made it through at least 14 miles along Gwynns Falls Trail, past Coppin State/Mondawmin Mall and down through Reservoir Hill, etc. Saturday we timed a race in the morning, and then I headed out with Alyssa on bikes for a 3.5 hour ride. It was a) not as warm as I thought it was going to be and b) windy, as usual. Following the ride I joined her for her swim, which was, without a doubt, one of the hardest swims I've ever done. Lots of Band work, as the main set was basically all Band. Lots of 25s. My weak core was cooked by the end, but it was a great workout.
Sunday morning was another early day as I headed out to Frederick to meet OJ and Ben Ingram for the Frederick ride. This was my 4th trip out there this season, and each time has gotten faster. The last time I went out there 4 times in the winter/spring was 2008, when I ended up riding really well at Columbia. The temperature was borderline chilly, so arm and leg warmers were donned, and we got rolling. Rolling might not be the right word - barreling, perhaps? It was go-weapons-hot from the gun, as OJ was interested in attempting a CR (2:50, by his account. My fastest ride out here was a few weeks ago at 2:59). 15 minutes in, OJ needed to tap a kidney, so we let Ben ride up the road to hit the climb ahead of us. We started the climb about a minute down and I figured we'd wipe that out pretty quick, but as we were beyond halfway up and Ben still evaded our capture, I began to think: "is Ben going to ride faster than me at Columbia??" Holy shit, was he climbing well. For a guy who has ridden his bike probably 10 times outside, ever, and was tackling Frederick for just the second time (I remember all of my Frederick rides and it took me a long time to climb as well as he does now), he was killing it.
OJ, who has clawed his way into nasty bike fitness, created some space between himself and me, caught Ben, who then wisely sat on his wheel to the stop sign. OJ's time up Hamburg was around 18:50, Ben's was just under 20, I came through at 19:03. Yikes. I had to work on that one, this could be a long day. Along 40 we were moving at a rapid pace, and Wolfsville Rd came up incredibly quick (1h5m). Now it was time for Harp Hill, my least favorite of the climbs. I rode within myself as OJ gapped me and Ben. When it kicked up, I still felt okay and managed to bridge up to OJ right before the top. Apparently Ben's chain slipped and he had to put that back on, which is tough to start back up on that climb.
We flew along the flat part of Wolfsville, where Ben had to learn a lesson the hard way: don't mess with the rotation. This is a rare flat stretch of road on this ride and we like to ride it fast, each person doing their turn on the front. Ben decided he would move to the front, but he came from the back to do so. OJ got on his wheel, sat there for a while, and then blasted around him, to which I responded. We rolled Ben off for a little bit before slowing to let him get back on. He learned from his error.
Back on 40 and onto Greenbrier, OJ was mashing his monster gear and again put a little time into me at the top, and then we dropped into Boonsboro. Which is exactly when it started raining. OJ nearly lost it on a sharp left-hander, and at this point I knew that, despite our 7 minutes in the bank (putting our approximate finish under 2:50), we were going to be in for a tough ride home. We climbed South Mountain in the rain, and then descended. The rain was the coldest I've ever felt, and I was nervous about riding with the cars flying along as I don't like to ride anywhere near wet paint (shoulder lines). All of this cold rain I've ridden in has taught me that, no matter how good I was feeling before it, it saps my legs of all its energy and then I'm done. I made it up the last climb and was at 2:43 - the CR out of the question now with 5 miles to go, and I figure I'm not riding in the TdF so taking risks is not something I care to do.
On the descent, though, OJ must have gotten a flat and I couldn't hear him behind me, so I was confused when I waited for him at a light and he never came through. Ben came and told me about the flat. I sent Ben on his way and waited for OJ. His ride time for the day was around 2:52 to my 2:54 and some change. Pleased that it was able to be that fast despite the conditions in the last hour. I got back to Baltimore and ran 45 minutes with Ed and felt okay.
With all this time-dropping going on, it really makes me wonder how it all works. I mean, I have ridden 1:04:44 at Columbia before and it hasn't felt as hard as when I go for a ride out there and ride 1:19. I have ridden this Frederick ride in 2:54 now, but a normal ride used to be 3:10-3:15. I've also been out there for 3:30 before. So I'm hoping that my legs are ready to go in three weeks. Things I need to try and do before then include 1) get a new wetsuit and 2) get some wheels. Then I'll be ready to go. I have some times in my head of where I think I'm at right now, and should be able to do. I was going to look into doing the Terp Tri this weekend but opted against it because it's just too short. Instead I'll head out to Columbia and get in some good work on the bike and run course.
Now's the time to be careful because you can really overload yourself. Racing too much, too many hard workouts, not recovering well can all equal stale legs come race day. And then you get into a situation where I've been before, which is that you're overdrawing your account every week just to get to the line. On the one hand, you're super fit and you feel like you can go out and smash every day; on the other, you lack the killer punch when you need it. I always try different ways to get more out of myself - looking back on old logs I've noticed some years had a lot of days off. I probably felt more rested and could go hard every time I went out. Some years it's been high volume for a block and then nothing (particularly with cycling and swimming). Last year, as I got back into it, it became about the consistency of doing something every single day, and this meant high volume. As a result (and also because my body wasn't able to in some cases) I wasn't doing anything as fast, or even at a harder effort.
This year I've really tried to do my best and combine a few of these past seasons, with a focus on consistency, but lower volume; harder efforts on the days they should be hard, easier ones on the days I need them to be. And it seems to be working. I don't feel overextended, but I also haven't taken a complete day off since early February (96ish days now). If I don't feel like I'm going to swim well, I don't swim. If I miss a few days in the week of running, I don't sweat it. If weather is bad and I don't ride, I'm not worried. It feels good, because I know that come July, it's going to be a different story.
For it was on that day that I saw the fifth installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise, The Fast Five, and I have to say it was probably the best one. More importantly, they set it up for another sequel. Who knows - maybe they'll get to 10! And it reminded me of a situation I was in 10 years ago. It was July 13, 2011. I was leaving for Australia for 6 months on July 15, and TFATF had just come out. I went to see it. It was awesome. A few months later, America, and the world, would be shocked by the events of September 11th, which were credited to a tall, grisly dude with a heinous beard who liked caves. It was a tragic time, but once again I was greeted by the bad-assery of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, as TFATF arrived in Australia that November.
2 Fast 2 Furious came out 2 years later, and without Vin Diesel, and weak writing (and acting, courtesy of Tyrese), the only thing it gave us was a name for our second Hubs of Fury event in 2008. The third film, Tokyo Drift, was really bad. And I think everyone hoped it would just die there.
Fortunately for us, Fast and Furious came to the rescue. It did not disappoint; in fact, it revived the franchise. And then came The Fast Five. And in an interesting twist of fate, 10 years later, TFATF is once again connected to that September day, only this time, much like the BAMFs of the film, America came out on top. It wasn't more than a half hour after I got back from seeing the movie on Sunday when I received a text from a friend on the inside alerting me of the news, and until about midnight I absorbed as much of the coverage as I could. Yesterday and today I have been scouring the news for the details of this amazing mission. It is, without a doubt, the most awesome thing I've ever heard and I can't wait for the movie.
But back in a world that seems a million miles away, where covert black op missions include getting in and out of the pool without getting stuck talking to a million crazies, or figuring out which eating establishment will have the shortest line after TNT, life went on.
April turned out to be a really good month, both in volume and quality of work. Here's how I would grade myself:
Swimming - B. It's only half a letter grade better than March, and I feel better in the pool as of late, but I just took a look and saw that my volume (37,000m) was a grand less than March somehow. For some reason I thought I was only 34k for March. Either way, the volume is still pretty low, and while I still don't feel great, I'm starting to feel a little better. I saw improvement in my long swims, and am getting a little speed back.
Cycling - A. At 525 miles, my biggest April ever and steady improvement from March. More importantly, finally getting off the trainer (although did have a few rides on it early in the month) and some really good group rides. I'm riding less miles, usually on 3, sometimes 4 days of riding, but I'm getting after it again. Two trips to Frederick this month, including Sunday's trip out there (that's next). I feel better pedaling than I do walking these days.
Running - A. 167.5 miles this month is the most I've ever run in the month of April (keeping in mind these numbers only go back to 2004, college days don't count). And this was on an average of 4 runs per week. 7 of my 18 runs were 12+ miles. My foot has unfortunately been worse this month than any other, so that's been really frustrating, but I'm getting through it. My workouts on the track have gotten a little better, and if my foot DIDN'T hurt, I would feel great about running right now as my fitness really feels "there."
This past weekend was good, starting off Friday with a Friday evening long run with Brennan, Harvey and, of all people, Mike Prada. My foot was bad from the start, and only got worse, but we made it through at least 14 miles along Gwynns Falls Trail, past Coppin State/Mondawmin Mall and down through Reservoir Hill, etc. Saturday we timed a race in the morning, and then I headed out with Alyssa on bikes for a 3.5 hour ride. It was a) not as warm as I thought it was going to be and b) windy, as usual. Following the ride I joined her for her swim, which was, without a doubt, one of the hardest swims I've ever done. Lots of Band work, as the main set was basically all Band. Lots of 25s. My weak core was cooked by the end, but it was a great workout.
Sunday morning was another early day as I headed out to Frederick to meet OJ and Ben Ingram for the Frederick ride. This was my 4th trip out there this season, and each time has gotten faster. The last time I went out there 4 times in the winter/spring was 2008, when I ended up riding really well at Columbia. The temperature was borderline chilly, so arm and leg warmers were donned, and we got rolling. Rolling might not be the right word - barreling, perhaps? It was go-weapons-hot from the gun, as OJ was interested in attempting a CR (2:50, by his account. My fastest ride out here was a few weeks ago at 2:59). 15 minutes in, OJ needed to tap a kidney, so we let Ben ride up the road to hit the climb ahead of us. We started the climb about a minute down and I figured we'd wipe that out pretty quick, but as we were beyond halfway up and Ben still evaded our capture, I began to think: "is Ben going to ride faster than me at Columbia??" Holy shit, was he climbing well. For a guy who has ridden his bike probably 10 times outside, ever, and was tackling Frederick for just the second time (I remember all of my Frederick rides and it took me a long time to climb as well as he does now), he was killing it.
OJ, who has clawed his way into nasty bike fitness, created some space between himself and me, caught Ben, who then wisely sat on his wheel to the stop sign. OJ's time up Hamburg was around 18:50, Ben's was just under 20, I came through at 19:03. Yikes. I had to work on that one, this could be a long day. Along 40 we were moving at a rapid pace, and Wolfsville Rd came up incredibly quick (1h5m). Now it was time for Harp Hill, my least favorite of the climbs. I rode within myself as OJ gapped me and Ben. When it kicked up, I still felt okay and managed to bridge up to OJ right before the top. Apparently Ben's chain slipped and he had to put that back on, which is tough to start back up on that climb.
We flew along the flat part of Wolfsville, where Ben had to learn a lesson the hard way: don't mess with the rotation. This is a rare flat stretch of road on this ride and we like to ride it fast, each person doing their turn on the front. Ben decided he would move to the front, but he came from the back to do so. OJ got on his wheel, sat there for a while, and then blasted around him, to which I responded. We rolled Ben off for a little bit before slowing to let him get back on. He learned from his error.
Back on 40 and onto Greenbrier, OJ was mashing his monster gear and again put a little time into me at the top, and then we dropped into Boonsboro. Which is exactly when it started raining. OJ nearly lost it on a sharp left-hander, and at this point I knew that, despite our 7 minutes in the bank (putting our approximate finish under 2:50), we were going to be in for a tough ride home. We climbed South Mountain in the rain, and then descended. The rain was the coldest I've ever felt, and I was nervous about riding with the cars flying along as I don't like to ride anywhere near wet paint (shoulder lines). All of this cold rain I've ridden in has taught me that, no matter how good I was feeling before it, it saps my legs of all its energy and then I'm done. I made it up the last climb and was at 2:43 - the CR out of the question now with 5 miles to go, and I figure I'm not riding in the TdF so taking risks is not something I care to do.
On the descent, though, OJ must have gotten a flat and I couldn't hear him behind me, so I was confused when I waited for him at a light and he never came through. Ben came and told me about the flat. I sent Ben on his way and waited for OJ. His ride time for the day was around 2:52 to my 2:54 and some change. Pleased that it was able to be that fast despite the conditions in the last hour. I got back to Baltimore and ran 45 minutes with Ed and felt okay.
With all this time-dropping going on, it really makes me wonder how it all works. I mean, I have ridden 1:04:44 at Columbia before and it hasn't felt as hard as when I go for a ride out there and ride 1:19. I have ridden this Frederick ride in 2:54 now, but a normal ride used to be 3:10-3:15. I've also been out there for 3:30 before. So I'm hoping that my legs are ready to go in three weeks. Things I need to try and do before then include 1) get a new wetsuit and 2) get some wheels. Then I'll be ready to go. I have some times in my head of where I think I'm at right now, and should be able to do. I was going to look into doing the Terp Tri this weekend but opted against it because it's just too short. Instead I'll head out to Columbia and get in some good work on the bike and run course.
Now's the time to be careful because you can really overload yourself. Racing too much, too many hard workouts, not recovering well can all equal stale legs come race day. And then you get into a situation where I've been before, which is that you're overdrawing your account every week just to get to the line. On the one hand, you're super fit and you feel like you can go out and smash every day; on the other, you lack the killer punch when you need it. I always try different ways to get more out of myself - looking back on old logs I've noticed some years had a lot of days off. I probably felt more rested and could go hard every time I went out. Some years it's been high volume for a block and then nothing (particularly with cycling and swimming). Last year, as I got back into it, it became about the consistency of doing something every single day, and this meant high volume. As a result (and also because my body wasn't able to in some cases) I wasn't doing anything as fast, or even at a harder effort.
This year I've really tried to do my best and combine a few of these past seasons, with a focus on consistency, but lower volume; harder efforts on the days they should be hard, easier ones on the days I need them to be. And it seems to be working. I don't feel overextended, but I also haven't taken a complete day off since early February (96ish days now). If I don't feel like I'm going to swim well, I don't swim. If I miss a few days in the week of running, I don't sweat it. If weather is bad and I don't ride, I'm not worried. It feels good, because I know that come July, it's going to be a different story.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
It's....ALIVE
Sunday I christened my new bike, Frankenstein, by riding from my parents' house in Red Bank to my aunt and uncle's house in Toms River. The Parkway, of course, yields the shortest distance at around 40 miles, but taking the backroads, and a few scenic routes, bumped the ride to over 50. For the first time this year, it was legitimately warm, with temps in the upper, upper 80s and a powerful sun shining down. Frankenstein is a 2010 Cervelo P3, and I was very excited to take him home. I used what I could from my old bike - which wasn't much - hence the name, Frankenstein. I wish I could have made it all black, but maybe I'll add some skulls and crossbones at some point.
My last post was on Wednesday, following my string of a few good workouts, and last Thursday I kept the juice rolling. I wasn't sure how my legs would respond to the back-to-back Wednesday/Thursday hard group rides, but I felt pretty awesome and decided to give it a go at Thursday Night Ride. My 6th summer of riding with them now, and it's always fun to see them. Unfortunately, since my POS road bike is dying, I had to ride entirely in the big ring. This was particularly challenging up Piney Grove, and at the end going up Caves. But I had a great ride, really good group of us got rolling. We didn't do the summertime long version, for time considerations, but did the 35 mile route and it was a good one. A little chillier than I was hoping for, had to wear arm warmers, but at least it wasn't raining.
Friday I got into the pool, and again, thanks to The Band, had a better-than-good workout for myself. Did 800m of warmup, then jumped into a 2000m straight swim. I like to do this workout on Fridays, and this was the 3rd one I've done in the last month. The first week I swam a negative split 34:40, but started out pretty slow. The second week I swam a 33:15, which was also negative split, and I felt good about that. This week, I started out much quicker, but felt a little tired. I swam 1:40/100m for each hundred through the 1000, then "picked it up" to 1:39/100m for the next 500 (1500 = 24:55). I was looking for 1:35s or better on the last 500 but I was not feeling it, and finished with an 8:02 for 32:57 (31:20ish through 1.9km). I was still pretty pleased, as I swam about that in the fall (granted it was the second of 2x1900) and was in 29 minute half-iron swim shape.
Then it was off to NJ for the weekend. I got home and it was time to go to dinner, so I didn't run. It wasn't very nice out, so I didn't really care. I housed an obscene amount of food at dinner, including one of my mom's soft shell crabs. Never having eaten one before, I was a little curious about the whole "eating the shell and claws and stuff". It was alright, but afterwards I didn't feel so hot. Could have been that or just all of the food, who knows.
Saturday's plan was to ride, originally, but upon waking up to a downpour, it looked like Sunday's run was going to replace the bike. I called up Pat (it's totally awesome when one of the people you train with every day in Baltimore also happens to originate from your hometown) and he and his brother Tommy met me and my brother at Hartshorne. The goal was a 90 minute run, and we hit all the trails with maybe only a mile of repeats. The rain wasn't too bad in the woods, and the fog was epic. I haven't been on trails since January, and my foot held up pretty well. It just felt good to be back in there, as it's one of my favorite places to run in the world.
Run done, and I wasn't going to ride (even though later in the day, like after 4, it cleared up and the temp picked up) so I relished in not having to do anything for the rest of the day. Sunday I woke up and it was much nicer already. We were instructed we'd be going to breakfast at 7:30 so my sister could join us before going to work. The waitress was totally vapid and a few jokes went way over her head, but the food came out and all seemed good - until my sister let out a sigh of disgust. There was an enormous (dead) carpenter ant on her plate. Now, we don't have proof, but we think it may have been INSIDE her sausage and came out when she cut it open. Either way, it was totally gross. I felt bad for her; the rest of us could have brushed it off, but she doesn't deal very well with things like that.
Now it had turned out to be a nicer than nice day. My brother wanted to join for the journey down to Toms River, and I was okay with it, but needed to remind him of a few things: 1) this was only his third ride of the year, and at 50+ miles, a pretty long one; 2) it was really quite warm, and he is not fond of the heat; 3) I would be on an aerodynamic machine intended to be ridden fast. We went out via 520 through Marlboro, into the wind, and he was right on my wheel. We crossed 33 and found one of our roads was closed, so we had to detour slightly out of the way (in the end, about 3 miles). When we went right on 524 and then Sweetman's Lane, we hit a few rollers, and he began to fall off a little. I would ride up, then wait up. Ride up, wait up. We finally got onto 571, which would be our home for the last 22 miles or so, and came around with the wind a little bit. Combined with the flat roads, it was beautiful. We just don't have easy roads like that around Baltimore. It felt good to be on a time trial bike again, it had been too long. By a little over 40 miles my brother was about out of water and with nowhere to stop, I gave him mine (I had only consumed maybe a quarter of the bottle). As we got closer to the beach, the winds shifted and the temp dropped just slightly, and we ultimately came in at about 55 miles and just over 3 hours - a really solid ride for my brother. I was contemplating going for a short run real quick, but we were already late for eating so scrapped it. On the way home we put the bikes on my dad's car, and made it to within a mile of the house before the skies opened up and my bike got drenched. Go figure, I should have expected it would get wet the first day out.
For the week I ended up with just two swims (good ones, at least) and 3 really solid days on the bike (130 miles). Only ran 3 times for a total of just over 32 miles. But feeling good doing it, so that's a plus.
Yesterday I got back to Baltimore in time to run down to Fed Hill for the run. It was warm again, and it always takes a few runs in the heat to get the legs used to it. Pat and I ran down at a fairly reasonable pace, and the group run started off pretty chill, but heated up towards the end. We then had to run back. A long 12.5 miles, but the run did bring my total for the year up to 666 miles. Thought that was pretty interesting.
Now is the time of the year when you've got to be careful - there is finally some better weather, and the legs feel good so you go out every day and just want to crush. But, you pay for those efforts quickly enough. This week, I'm hitting up track tonight, and then tomorrow night will be an easy ride, and Thursday I think I'll head back up to TNR. Friday and Saturday will be light and then Sunday, back out to Frederick for trip #4 on the year.
I killed a spider in my house this morning, and within a very short while, ants sprang from virtually nowhere and began to pick apart it's body. It was kind of awesome to watch, so I almost felt bad when I had to kill them all.
My last post was on Wednesday, following my string of a few good workouts, and last Thursday I kept the juice rolling. I wasn't sure how my legs would respond to the back-to-back Wednesday/Thursday hard group rides, but I felt pretty awesome and decided to give it a go at Thursday Night Ride. My 6th summer of riding with them now, and it's always fun to see them. Unfortunately, since my POS road bike is dying, I had to ride entirely in the big ring. This was particularly challenging up Piney Grove, and at the end going up Caves. But I had a great ride, really good group of us got rolling. We didn't do the summertime long version, for time considerations, but did the 35 mile route and it was a good one. A little chillier than I was hoping for, had to wear arm warmers, but at least it wasn't raining.
Friday I got into the pool, and again, thanks to The Band, had a better-than-good workout for myself. Did 800m of warmup, then jumped into a 2000m straight swim. I like to do this workout on Fridays, and this was the 3rd one I've done in the last month. The first week I swam a negative split 34:40, but started out pretty slow. The second week I swam a 33:15, which was also negative split, and I felt good about that. This week, I started out much quicker, but felt a little tired. I swam 1:40/100m for each hundred through the 1000, then "picked it up" to 1:39/100m for the next 500 (1500 = 24:55). I was looking for 1:35s or better on the last 500 but I was not feeling it, and finished with an 8:02 for 32:57 (31:20ish through 1.9km). I was still pretty pleased, as I swam about that in the fall (granted it was the second of 2x1900) and was in 29 minute half-iron swim shape.
Then it was off to NJ for the weekend. I got home and it was time to go to dinner, so I didn't run. It wasn't very nice out, so I didn't really care. I housed an obscene amount of food at dinner, including one of my mom's soft shell crabs. Never having eaten one before, I was a little curious about the whole "eating the shell and claws and stuff". It was alright, but afterwards I didn't feel so hot. Could have been that or just all of the food, who knows.
Saturday's plan was to ride, originally, but upon waking up to a downpour, it looked like Sunday's run was going to replace the bike. I called up Pat (it's totally awesome when one of the people you train with every day in Baltimore also happens to originate from your hometown) and he and his brother Tommy met me and my brother at Hartshorne. The goal was a 90 minute run, and we hit all the trails with maybe only a mile of repeats. The rain wasn't too bad in the woods, and the fog was epic. I haven't been on trails since January, and my foot held up pretty well. It just felt good to be back in there, as it's one of my favorite places to run in the world.
Run done, and I wasn't going to ride (even though later in the day, like after 4, it cleared up and the temp picked up) so I relished in not having to do anything for the rest of the day. Sunday I woke up and it was much nicer already. We were instructed we'd be going to breakfast at 7:30 so my sister could join us before going to work. The waitress was totally vapid and a few jokes went way over her head, but the food came out and all seemed good - until my sister let out a sigh of disgust. There was an enormous (dead) carpenter ant on her plate. Now, we don't have proof, but we think it may have been INSIDE her sausage and came out when she cut it open. Either way, it was totally gross. I felt bad for her; the rest of us could have brushed it off, but she doesn't deal very well with things like that.
Now it had turned out to be a nicer than nice day. My brother wanted to join for the journey down to Toms River, and I was okay with it, but needed to remind him of a few things: 1) this was only his third ride of the year, and at 50+ miles, a pretty long one; 2) it was really quite warm, and he is not fond of the heat; 3) I would be on an aerodynamic machine intended to be ridden fast. We went out via 520 through Marlboro, into the wind, and he was right on my wheel. We crossed 33 and found one of our roads was closed, so we had to detour slightly out of the way (in the end, about 3 miles). When we went right on 524 and then Sweetman's Lane, we hit a few rollers, and he began to fall off a little. I would ride up, then wait up. Ride up, wait up. We finally got onto 571, which would be our home for the last 22 miles or so, and came around with the wind a little bit. Combined with the flat roads, it was beautiful. We just don't have easy roads like that around Baltimore. It felt good to be on a time trial bike again, it had been too long. By a little over 40 miles my brother was about out of water and with nowhere to stop, I gave him mine (I had only consumed maybe a quarter of the bottle). As we got closer to the beach, the winds shifted and the temp dropped just slightly, and we ultimately came in at about 55 miles and just over 3 hours - a really solid ride for my brother. I was contemplating going for a short run real quick, but we were already late for eating so scrapped it. On the way home we put the bikes on my dad's car, and made it to within a mile of the house before the skies opened up and my bike got drenched. Go figure, I should have expected it would get wet the first day out.
For the week I ended up with just two swims (good ones, at least) and 3 really solid days on the bike (130 miles). Only ran 3 times for a total of just over 32 miles. But feeling good doing it, so that's a plus.
Yesterday I got back to Baltimore in time to run down to Fed Hill for the run. It was warm again, and it always takes a few runs in the heat to get the legs used to it. Pat and I ran down at a fairly reasonable pace, and the group run started off pretty chill, but heated up towards the end. We then had to run back. A long 12.5 miles, but the run did bring my total for the year up to 666 miles. Thought that was pretty interesting.
Now is the time of the year when you've got to be careful - there is finally some better weather, and the legs feel good so you go out every day and just want to crush. But, you pay for those efforts quickly enough. This week, I'm hitting up track tonight, and then tomorrow night will be an easy ride, and Thursday I think I'll head back up to TNR. Friday and Saturday will be light and then Sunday, back out to Frederick for trip #4 on the year.
I killed a spider in my house this morning, and within a very short while, ants sprang from virtually nowhere and began to pick apart it's body. It was kind of awesome to watch, so I almost felt bad when I had to kill them all.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Changing Up the Stash
I don't normally post about individual workouts, or even back to back days, but today I felt like it was warranted.
I came off of Saturday's disappointing season-opener with a Sunday long run down at Pike's Peek, where everyone ran incredibly fast. I got in what I felt like was 12.5 for sure, maybe 13, but it was mostly pretty slow. It was real windy, and pretty cold, and following the early (for me) weekend mornings, I opted out of a Sunday ride. My stuff was still soaking wet from Saturday, and since I need to pick up a new pair of cycling shoes, I would have had to wear my tri shoes, which were real wet. I was glad to take the remainder of the day off. My foot was really bothering me.
Monday came and the weather was pretty nice, so Ed and I ran down to FHR (3ish miles). The run there is 6, and I was content with making that it - but that was counting on having a ride home. No such luck. Real small group, so I had to just suck it up and run home. This run was incredibly slow, and by the time I got home, my foot was in bad shape. Consecutive 12+ mile days plus the "race" on Saturday had me a little beat up.
My initial plan for Tuesday was to just get in the pool, but when I didn't, I figured I would just do an easy run up at the track. After taking an Aleve on Monday night (for those who don't know, I hate taking pain relievers. I still have basically all my oxy's from surgery - well, until I disposed of them), my foot felt good enough to make it through the workout. The workout was going to be 1600-1400-1200-1000-800 with 200m rolling jog (<90sec). My intention was to run around 85sec to start and work down to 81 by the end. With a smaller, evenly matched group of me, Brennan, Berardi and Elijah, and Pat slightly off the front, we came through the 1600 in 5:31. The effort wasn't too challenging, but my legs were not feeling too fresh. Since it was a little quicker than I was looking to run, I now had to make sure I didn't go any slower.
The 1400 was the same pace as the 1600, but before the 1200 my stomach was not great, so I ran inside to hit the bathroom real quick. I caught back on with them after 600m, and they were moving much quicker - 80sec pace now. So I ran the 600 in 2:01, and then was back on track with them. We ran a strong 1000 at 3:20, and then I was a little tired and fell off pace in the last 200 of the 800, running 2:42. I then ran another 600 to make up the distance, and ran 2:00. All in all, a pretty decent workout for me, as it's the longest one I've done this year and I am getting back to where I was towards the end of last season.
A good track workout, a bad Chipotle experience. Barely made it home before blowing up. Felt real bad all night.
Woke up today and felt a little better, and today was trying a new thing in the pool - The Band. This is courtesy of Alyssa, via her coach Hilary Biscay. I've seen people use this over my years in the pool, never understanding it. I try to avoid too many pool toys, usually opting for some pull work, not to exceed a third of my total swim volume for the day. But, in a few short weeks of swimming, Alyssa made some no joke improvements, and it's puzzled myself and Pat. It could be the fact that she's actually swimming for once, or just her overall gains in fitness and speed have translated to the pool. Either way, I'm getting frustrated with my own swimming, which has apparently hit the wall. So when that happens, it's time to change up the stash. Today marked day one of my swimming with the band. And, almost unbelievably, I saw improvements.
Now, because I am chronic disbeliever, I could chalk it up to the fact that I shaved my legs on Friday for the first time since January I think. Maybe since I haven't swam since Saturday I just felt good today (although every other time I've been out of the pool for 3+ days this year that hasn't been the case). But those things probably wouldn't amount to much time, and I was swimming considerably faster than I've been swimming. Note: this is still not very fast, but improvement is improvement. So it was a good 3500m in the pool, back to maybe where I was swimming last fall. It is just one workout, so only time will tell what the band's real impact will be.
Tonight I headed up to Oregon Ridge for the Wednesday Night Ride. I went two weeks ago and got shelled after about 25 minutes. My goal this week was to make it to at least York Road with the front guys. I met OJ at his crib and we rode the 20 minutes over. I felt like I had decent legs today, so I'd try and give it a go. There was a sizeable group (85 degrees, no duh), and the first couple miles there was a strong accordion effect going on. A lot of yo-yoing. After we got onto Falls Road, the pace ramped up, and once on Stringtown, it got real strung out. I was sitting in the back, and decided in order to not get dropped when we turn onto Yeoho, I moved up to the middle of the group (now down to maybe 12), and sat next to OJ. When we turned onto Yeoho, I was up in the front and all of a sudden found myself on the front of the group. Next thing I know, me and this other guy have a gap. Wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew there was a sprint point fairly soon, so I imagined everyone else was prepping for that. This one guy bridged up to us, and then he and the other guy rolled - I got left in the middle. I figured I would wait up for the others but to my dismay they blew right through me. Yikes.
As I was now 9th on the road, I was just trying to keep pace. When we made it to York, two of the guys in front of me popped and now I was 7th on the road, behind the front group of 3 (way up) and Gruppo OJ, consisting of Juice and two others, were a little up the road. I could see them, but I was never going to catch them. I turned the gas off a little, at the same time the roads came around into the wind. Tough ride home in a solo effort, but I rode pretty well today and I was pleased. The way home we had a tailwind, which was sweet, until we turned up the steep hill back to OJ's and, in the small chain ring, my gears were jumping all around and then the chain dropped. Thought I was going to go straight into traffic, but finally got it back onto the big ring and had to suffer up the hill in a big gear. Piece of shit bike, I don't know how much more it has in it, but I don't have the resources to get a new road bike right now.
Man, that was more words about my last swim/bike/run, and more positivity, than my race report. Obviously training is not racing, but it helped put me back in better spirits following the weekend, and confirmed to myself at least that it was just a bad day.
I came off of Saturday's disappointing season-opener with a Sunday long run down at Pike's Peek, where everyone ran incredibly fast. I got in what I felt like was 12.5 for sure, maybe 13, but it was mostly pretty slow. It was real windy, and pretty cold, and following the early (for me) weekend mornings, I opted out of a Sunday ride. My stuff was still soaking wet from Saturday, and since I need to pick up a new pair of cycling shoes, I would have had to wear my tri shoes, which were real wet. I was glad to take the remainder of the day off. My foot was really bothering me.
Monday came and the weather was pretty nice, so Ed and I ran down to FHR (3ish miles). The run there is 6, and I was content with making that it - but that was counting on having a ride home. No such luck. Real small group, so I had to just suck it up and run home. This run was incredibly slow, and by the time I got home, my foot was in bad shape. Consecutive 12+ mile days plus the "race" on Saturday had me a little beat up.
My initial plan for Tuesday was to just get in the pool, but when I didn't, I figured I would just do an easy run up at the track. After taking an Aleve on Monday night (for those who don't know, I hate taking pain relievers. I still have basically all my oxy's from surgery - well, until I disposed of them), my foot felt good enough to make it through the workout. The workout was going to be 1600-1400-1200-1000-800 with 200m rolling jog (<90sec). My intention was to run around 85sec to start and work down to 81 by the end. With a smaller, evenly matched group of me, Brennan, Berardi and Elijah, and Pat slightly off the front, we came through the 1600 in 5:31. The effort wasn't too challenging, but my legs were not feeling too fresh. Since it was a little quicker than I was looking to run, I now had to make sure I didn't go any slower.
The 1400 was the same pace as the 1600, but before the 1200 my stomach was not great, so I ran inside to hit the bathroom real quick. I caught back on with them after 600m, and they were moving much quicker - 80sec pace now. So I ran the 600 in 2:01, and then was back on track with them. We ran a strong 1000 at 3:20, and then I was a little tired and fell off pace in the last 200 of the 800, running 2:42. I then ran another 600 to make up the distance, and ran 2:00. All in all, a pretty decent workout for me, as it's the longest one I've done this year and I am getting back to where I was towards the end of last season.
A good track workout, a bad Chipotle experience. Barely made it home before blowing up. Felt real bad all night.
Woke up today and felt a little better, and today was trying a new thing in the pool - The Band. This is courtesy of Alyssa, via her coach Hilary Biscay. I've seen people use this over my years in the pool, never understanding it. I try to avoid too many pool toys, usually opting for some pull work, not to exceed a third of my total swim volume for the day. But, in a few short weeks of swimming, Alyssa made some no joke improvements, and it's puzzled myself and Pat. It could be the fact that she's actually swimming for once, or just her overall gains in fitness and speed have translated to the pool. Either way, I'm getting frustrated with my own swimming, which has apparently hit the wall. So when that happens, it's time to change up the stash. Today marked day one of my swimming with the band. And, almost unbelievably, I saw improvements.
Now, because I am chronic disbeliever, I could chalk it up to the fact that I shaved my legs on Friday for the first time since January I think. Maybe since I haven't swam since Saturday I just felt good today (although every other time I've been out of the pool for 3+ days this year that hasn't been the case). But those things probably wouldn't amount to much time, and I was swimming considerably faster than I've been swimming. Note: this is still not very fast, but improvement is improvement. So it was a good 3500m in the pool, back to maybe where I was swimming last fall. It is just one workout, so only time will tell what the band's real impact will be.
Tonight I headed up to Oregon Ridge for the Wednesday Night Ride. I went two weeks ago and got shelled after about 25 minutes. My goal this week was to make it to at least York Road with the front guys. I met OJ at his crib and we rode the 20 minutes over. I felt like I had decent legs today, so I'd try and give it a go. There was a sizeable group (85 degrees, no duh), and the first couple miles there was a strong accordion effect going on. A lot of yo-yoing. After we got onto Falls Road, the pace ramped up, and once on Stringtown, it got real strung out. I was sitting in the back, and decided in order to not get dropped when we turn onto Yeoho, I moved up to the middle of the group (now down to maybe 12), and sat next to OJ. When we turned onto Yeoho, I was up in the front and all of a sudden found myself on the front of the group. Next thing I know, me and this other guy have a gap. Wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew there was a sprint point fairly soon, so I imagined everyone else was prepping for that. This one guy bridged up to us, and then he and the other guy rolled - I got left in the middle. I figured I would wait up for the others but to my dismay they blew right through me. Yikes.
As I was now 9th on the road, I was just trying to keep pace. When we made it to York, two of the guys in front of me popped and now I was 7th on the road, behind the front group of 3 (way up) and Gruppo OJ, consisting of Juice and two others, were a little up the road. I could see them, but I was never going to catch them. I turned the gas off a little, at the same time the roads came around into the wind. Tough ride home in a solo effort, but I rode pretty well today and I was pleased. The way home we had a tailwind, which was sweet, until we turned up the steep hill back to OJ's and, in the small chain ring, my gears were jumping all around and then the chain dropped. Thought I was going to go straight into traffic, but finally got it back onto the big ring and had to suffer up the hill in a big gear. Piece of shit bike, I don't know how much more it has in it, but I don't have the resources to get a new road bike right now.
Man, that was more words about my last swim/bike/run, and more positivity, than my race report. Obviously training is not racing, but it helped put me back in better spirits following the weekend, and confirmed to myself at least that it was just a bad day.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Charlie Browned
Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest - Lucy
Warning: as negative as my posts generally are, this will by far, be one of the most negative. So keep that in mind if you choose to read this "race" report. It will then end in a scathing indictment of triathlon race organizations.
Saturday was the first stop in the triathlon season, with the Rumpus in Bumpass Triathlon down in Virginia. I had been following the anticipated weather reports throughout the week and knew that conditions looked pretty miserable. However, weather is weather, and everyone has to deal with it the same on race day. We had received an email saying the water temperature was 68 degrees (pretty nice) and I expected to have my new bike finished by Thursday before the race to ride on. With OJ having raced the year before, I had it on good authority that the swim was both potentially long, and quite rough. The bike course was a two loop format, pretty easy roads, as in only small rollers to contend with. The run was also two loops, not very difficult, not very interesting. Despite how bad my foot's been lately, I have been feeling okay racing so I figured I could have a decent run, and a pretty good ride.
Then it was time to get Charlie Browned.
Thursday I call the bike shop. The bike I was/am purchasing was built and ready to go, but I didn't like the aerobars so I wanted to swap them out. This was last Saturday. They were going to order the bars that day, expected them in by Wednesday, bike ready to go by Thursday. I am told on Thursday afternoon that it is on the list to be finished that night. Okay.
Friday I call the bike shop. The response I get was quite unexpected. They tell me that they put the order in Wednesday for one-day delivery, but due to a glitch [sic] the part didn't ship and now they don't expect bike to be finished until Monday.
I am pissed, but whatever. I can ride my road bike, even if it is on its last wheels. I've raced on it many times, and considering I am generally one of the only people that can ride as fast as I do that you will ever see racing a road bike, I really don't care. I do recognize that, off the bat, I will lose time on the bike. Simple fact: it is not as fast as a time trial bike/aero position. My main problem with the bike is how its been behaving lately. I've ridden the shit out of this thing over the 6 years I've had it, and it needs some serious work. It's not shifting cleanly, sometimes at all. This has caused me irritation on normal rides, and I knew it was going to frustrate me during the race. As a result I do not put on aero wheels, which I don't have anyway, and I wouldn't wear an aero helmet while on a road bike, because that would just look stupid.
Friday night I finally decide to do my taxes and find out I owe money. Quite a bit, actually. And it has me stressed. I don't sleep great, but thanks to the 10am start, at least I don't have to be up at 3am to get there.
I drive with Alyssa down to Lake Anna, and that was probably the highlight of the day. The rain starts, it's supremely dark even when it's supposed to be light, it's windy and it's cold. It evoked memories of April 2008 when OJ and I drove to the very same place for the Kinetic Sprint. It was a week later, and on the other side of the lake, but the conditions were identical. On that day, I was racing my brand new P2, and I rode it pretty well. I then had a good run, and finished well. I swore that I would not race in conditions like that again. It's not that I can't, it's that I don't want to. I have been racing triathlons for 10 years now. By some standards, far from an O.G., but for most people out there, it makes me a dinosaur. I have decided that I no longer enjoy some conditions, and I'm not going to pretend like I do. And considering that, three years ago I hadn't been seriously injured, my feelings are only stronger against it. There are a few reasons, including the danger of riding wet roads in a loop format when 98% of people can't properly handle a bicycle; roads that remain unclosed to traffic but cars couldn't care less; my knee locks up when it's cold and raining, and knocks me out of commission.
Of the last 4 triathlons I've done, now going back to Oct 2 of last year, the temperature has been below 55 degrees and it has rained. I just don't enjoy it.
Nevertheless, I'm already at the race site, and I've paid (oh, I've paid) for the race, so of course I'm going to do it. I do a short warmup before getting into the sweet new black kit I picked up. I go down to the start, and since my body is already wet, getting the wetsuit on is becoming a challenge. In order to facilitate getting it on, I put my right arm over my head and Riiiiipppppp - there it goes. I now have a hole in the armpit, and my motivation is flattened. I have never before wanted to just not start a race. I know this hole is going to bother me during the swim, as it will allow the water to fill up the suit, but the water is too cold to go without the suit. I don't believe it was 68. I would say maybe more like 64, and with the air temp and rain, it was miserable. The only thing keeping me in the water was that I heard Ke$ha's "Blow" blasting over the speakers.
The swim was eventfully uneventful. I did not want to be there, but I was committed to swimming at least some kind of effort. The start was fine, until we made the first turn, when we were faced with some chop. I didn't really care, but apparently it was a little too much for the slower swimmers of the first wave. I was having some difficulty making out the buoys, but was doing my best to swim good lines. I know I made a big error as we made the turn back towards shore, and had to correct myself. It was around this time that a swimmer from the wave behind overtook me, I felt like it was the form of perennially fast swimmer Chip Berry, so I thought maybe I wasn't swimming all that bad. Got out of the water finally, and walked it into T1.
While others rushed around me, I had no impetus for moving quickly. There was about 100m on grass that we had to run out to the road, and then another 100m before you could mount your bike. My feet, being cold especially, but with my left foot being unable to run barefoot, were in serious agony. I had clipped my shoes into my pedals, and as I tried to hop on my bike, my calves cramped. I could not get my feet into the shoes. I wound up having to get off the bike, unclip the shoes, put them on my feet, and then get back on. Now the wind was really out of my sails.
Onto the bike and I felt okay, I passed a few people, then a few people passed me. I brought no water bottles, I carried no food. I rode at an effort that wouldn't have been acceptable for a weeknight ride. The parts that I took pretty slow were the turns, as I've ridden enough to know that water + paint = fall. Other than that I was mostly sitting up, and keeping a consistent effort going. When I got back to the last 600m or so, I really sat up, stretched out my back a bit and then got off the bike, took OFF my shoes, and walked down the hill into T2.
I was pretty annoyed that my feet were as wet, cold and muddy as they were, so I slowly put on my socks (which were wet) and old flats (which were wet) and got on my way. Two dudes from that Team FeXY came out of transition with me, and started moving at a pretty good pace. I briefly gave consideration to running with them, but then thought, why bother? My day was over before it began, and now the goal was to run 10k as efficiently as possible so that I could at least salvage the weekend with a better day on Sunday.
I didn't wear a watch, which was one of the first times I've run a race without a watch. I didn't even want to know my mile splits. I passed a few people, think I got passed by one kid (a Terp Tri member, go Terps!) who had started in the wave before me. I was unimpressed by the course, which featured a 200m section of trail that was particularly muddy, at the end of the first loop and then at the end of the race. I walked across the line, grabbed a bottle of water, and went straight into a short cooldown, where I headed back up to the main road to see Alyssa come through.
When it was all said and done, my 2:19:17/39th place finish was the worst placed finish relative to the race (distance, field, etc) that I think I've ever had. I tend to only use the markers of the best of each discipline to measure my day, and they were all lackluster. The swim ended up being a shade over 27 minutes. I always expect to lose around 5 minutes to OJ, but this was like 6.5 minutes. That's really atrocious. On the bike, based on last year's results, I felt like I could have ridden under an hour. Given the conditions of the day, and the bike I had to ride, I knew this wouldn't happen, but between my slowness in getting my shoes on/off at the bike mount/dismount line, and the level of effort I put out, it just wasn't happening. I think it was a little over 1:08, and actually ranked worse relative to the field than my swim. Ouch. The run ended up being 40:28, 31st best for the day. That's one the slowest 10k's I've ever run off the bike, but considering how little effort I put in, about right.
Actually, I don't even feel all that bad about the run, because I know what kind of shape I'm in and that was as easy of a day as I've had in a while.
There were some things in my control, and some that were out, but in the end, I just didn't want to be there - and it showed. I won't make an excuse for my lack of effort. Conditions are conditions, and races are still races. The likelihood of having a shitty day at Columbia (cold, rainy) and Eagleman (hot, humid) is quite high, but those races are more important to me and I try to save my efforts for when they count more. If anything, I should apologize to my fellow competitors, who are guaranteed shitty weather anytime I touch the course.
Now, as promised, an open letter to organizers and directors of triathlons:
After racing at Saturday's Rumpus in Bumpass Triathlon (Setup Events), I feel even stronger than ever that the registration fees for these events is criminal. The trend over the past few years is races selling out and fields expanding, but the quality of races has not improved. As much as it kills me to spend $600 a year in advance to sign up for an Ironman, I have come to expect that one of their races will not only be run well, but you will at least feel like you've received what you paid for. Even a race like Columbia, which charges now $130, you expect great competition, a professional field and a well-organized race.
Rumpus cost $95 when I went to register some months ago. For this, I had the opportunity to do a race. At the end of the race, I got a bottle of water, a small pizza from Papa John's, and a couple of Cokes. There were over 700 people registered for the race on Saturday, and another similar size field registered for Sunday's sprint event. My best estimate is that in registration fees alone, the race cleared something like $125,000 for two days' worth of activities. I certainly don't expect people to go broke, in fact I expect race directors to make enough to get by, but I also think that fees should be reasonable. I know there are both fixed and variable costs, including things like permits, insurance, POLICE, t-shirts, food, portable toilets, lifeguards, EMTs, etc. This stuff all adds up. If it adds up to even half what they generate from registration, that's still a lot of money.
The reason they can charge it, though, is because they can. They say "well it's less expensive than races like Columbia." True, and it certainly doesn't dismiss the fact that, in 2001, I paid $65 to register for Columbia in February (race is in May). And, 10 years later, we still eat the same shitty pasta salad and fake Oreos at the end of that race, which are inevitably soggy because it rains every year. Everyone knows that triathlon is an expensive sport, and over the years has priced some people out. What the sport needs is people like Brad Jaeger, whose Triathlantic Association used to hold lowkey, fun races, that charged a minimal amount. Sidenote: Brad has gotten back into the business, and tried to hold a duathlon this weekend in Chesapeake. He had to cancel due to lack of interest.
People don't want to race those races. I don't know why. And I'll admit, I'm part of the problem. I'm going to do big, competitive races because that's my focus. I don't want to do a duathlon because, well, I don't want to race duathlons.
In the couple of years that Setup Events has gone from hosting a few races to now being the "nation's largest triathlon production company", they have put on great races and have always received positive feedback. I loved the Kinetic race (done it twice) and Luray (done that twice). But I say, with great power comes great responsibility (Peter Parker's uncle also said it, after I did). If you are going to be a premier event producer, act like it. You have 700 people registered for your race, and you are giving out towels to the winners? That is bush league. A towel with "Virginia Triathlon Series" printed on it not only cheapens the effort of those who have helped make your race a great, competitive race, but it also shows how cheap you are. I wager that towel, bought in bulk, costs less than $2. Probably less than a trophy.
Mark Coleman of Endurance Maryland gets it. He put up a prize purse for his St. Patrick's Day Duathlon. It was a small field, and that severely cut into his budget for the race (the race did, however, cost $95), but he still offered it. That was enough for me to go. And you know what, if he has the race next year, I'll probably go back.
For Setup to not offer a cash purse, or even free entry into another race of theirs, is absurd. But, they are able to act as a small monopoly because people will keep signing up for races regardless of the possibility of a payday. Very few of us are in this sport to become professional triathletes, earning minor ducats along the way. No, instead triathlon is a sport of opulence, for people who can afford to do it, and would do it anyway.
To be fair, while this is like the US Government (wasting time) trying to send Barry Bonds to jail for doing something everyone else does too, Setup Events is not the only culprit. All of them are. Columbia Triathlon Association is just as guilty. They have now begun their IronGirl race, and the Celebration Sprint. They just use the same course skeleton as Columbia. I know triathlons are limited by swimmable bodies of water, but to me that's just lazy. The worst is probably Piranha Sports, because they put on the same shitty race weekend after weekend, on the same flat, boring Delaware courses, and charge a ton for that privilege.
I am not saying I could do better, nor am I offering. I actually do not want to be a triathlon race organizer, mostly because I still want to race myself. I know that races struggle to make money, and a lot of them are trying to raise money for causes other than their own pocketbook. I just think that there need to be some changes, like if you're going to charge as much as you do, put some money on the line. There are plenty of running races that do it, and some of those fields are even smaller than triathlons. There are some race directors out there who are open to suggestions, and others who operate on the MYOB tip.
Of course, the only thing I can do is not go back. I'm not going to actively tell people to not do a race, or not support one association over the other. They wouldn't listen anyway. I can say, unequivocally, that I will not go back to Rumpus, but in all likelihood I will go back to Luray in August. I generally appreciate Setup Events and what they have done and continue to do for creating more races. I wouldn't have gone to Rumpus anyway had they not changed the date of Kinetic to the week before Columbia. I love how we can have plenty of Father's Day races but nobody dares F with Mother's Day.
Ultimately I have been having a bad couple of days, and it culminated with the bitterness of a race that I did not enjoy. It happens.
As far as my foot, I don't know how I'm going to deal with it. My knee was locked up all Saturday, and my foot has been unbearable. I'm going to see if a few days off from running will help out. I can't really run less than what I'm running right now. Oh and update on my bike - well there is none, as they still aren't done with it yet. I wonder if I'll even have it before Columbia at this point.
Warning: as negative as my posts generally are, this will by far, be one of the most negative. So keep that in mind if you choose to read this "race" report. It will then end in a scathing indictment of triathlon race organizations.
Saturday was the first stop in the triathlon season, with the Rumpus in Bumpass Triathlon down in Virginia. I had been following the anticipated weather reports throughout the week and knew that conditions looked pretty miserable. However, weather is weather, and everyone has to deal with it the same on race day. We had received an email saying the water temperature was 68 degrees (pretty nice) and I expected to have my new bike finished by Thursday before the race to ride on. With OJ having raced the year before, I had it on good authority that the swim was both potentially long, and quite rough. The bike course was a two loop format, pretty easy roads, as in only small rollers to contend with. The run was also two loops, not very difficult, not very interesting. Despite how bad my foot's been lately, I have been feeling okay racing so I figured I could have a decent run, and a pretty good ride.
Then it was time to get Charlie Browned.
Thursday I call the bike shop. The bike I was/am purchasing was built and ready to go, but I didn't like the aerobars so I wanted to swap them out. This was last Saturday. They were going to order the bars that day, expected them in by Wednesday, bike ready to go by Thursday. I am told on Thursday afternoon that it is on the list to be finished that night. Okay.
Friday I call the bike shop. The response I get was quite unexpected. They tell me that they put the order in Wednesday for one-day delivery, but due to a glitch [sic] the part didn't ship and now they don't expect bike to be finished until Monday.
I am pissed, but whatever. I can ride my road bike, even if it is on its last wheels. I've raced on it many times, and considering I am generally one of the only people that can ride as fast as I do that you will ever see racing a road bike, I really don't care. I do recognize that, off the bat, I will lose time on the bike. Simple fact: it is not as fast as a time trial bike/aero position. My main problem with the bike is how its been behaving lately. I've ridden the shit out of this thing over the 6 years I've had it, and it needs some serious work. It's not shifting cleanly, sometimes at all. This has caused me irritation on normal rides, and I knew it was going to frustrate me during the race. As a result I do not put on aero wheels, which I don't have anyway, and I wouldn't wear an aero helmet while on a road bike, because that would just look stupid.
Friday night I finally decide to do my taxes and find out I owe money. Quite a bit, actually. And it has me stressed. I don't sleep great, but thanks to the 10am start, at least I don't have to be up at 3am to get there.
I drive with Alyssa down to Lake Anna, and that was probably the highlight of the day. The rain starts, it's supremely dark even when it's supposed to be light, it's windy and it's cold. It evoked memories of April 2008 when OJ and I drove to the very same place for the Kinetic Sprint. It was a week later, and on the other side of the lake, but the conditions were identical. On that day, I was racing my brand new P2, and I rode it pretty well. I then had a good run, and finished well. I swore that I would not race in conditions like that again. It's not that I can't, it's that I don't want to. I have been racing triathlons for 10 years now. By some standards, far from an O.G., but for most people out there, it makes me a dinosaur. I have decided that I no longer enjoy some conditions, and I'm not going to pretend like I do. And considering that, three years ago I hadn't been seriously injured, my feelings are only stronger against it. There are a few reasons, including the danger of riding wet roads in a loop format when 98% of people can't properly handle a bicycle; roads that remain unclosed to traffic but cars couldn't care less; my knee locks up when it's cold and raining, and knocks me out of commission.
Of the last 4 triathlons I've done, now going back to Oct 2 of last year, the temperature has been below 55 degrees and it has rained. I just don't enjoy it.
Nevertheless, I'm already at the race site, and I've paid (oh, I've paid) for the race, so of course I'm going to do it. I do a short warmup before getting into the sweet new black kit I picked up. I go down to the start, and since my body is already wet, getting the wetsuit on is becoming a challenge. In order to facilitate getting it on, I put my right arm over my head and Riiiiipppppp - there it goes. I now have a hole in the armpit, and my motivation is flattened. I have never before wanted to just not start a race. I know this hole is going to bother me during the swim, as it will allow the water to fill up the suit, but the water is too cold to go without the suit. I don't believe it was 68. I would say maybe more like 64, and with the air temp and rain, it was miserable. The only thing keeping me in the water was that I heard Ke$ha's "Blow" blasting over the speakers.
The swim was eventfully uneventful. I did not want to be there, but I was committed to swimming at least some kind of effort. The start was fine, until we made the first turn, when we were faced with some chop. I didn't really care, but apparently it was a little too much for the slower swimmers of the first wave. I was having some difficulty making out the buoys, but was doing my best to swim good lines. I know I made a big error as we made the turn back towards shore, and had to correct myself. It was around this time that a swimmer from the wave behind overtook me, I felt like it was the form of perennially fast swimmer Chip Berry, so I thought maybe I wasn't swimming all that bad. Got out of the water finally, and walked it into T1.
While others rushed around me, I had no impetus for moving quickly. There was about 100m on grass that we had to run out to the road, and then another 100m before you could mount your bike. My feet, being cold especially, but with my left foot being unable to run barefoot, were in serious agony. I had clipped my shoes into my pedals, and as I tried to hop on my bike, my calves cramped. I could not get my feet into the shoes. I wound up having to get off the bike, unclip the shoes, put them on my feet, and then get back on. Now the wind was really out of my sails.
Onto the bike and I felt okay, I passed a few people, then a few people passed me. I brought no water bottles, I carried no food. I rode at an effort that wouldn't have been acceptable for a weeknight ride. The parts that I took pretty slow were the turns, as I've ridden enough to know that water + paint = fall. Other than that I was mostly sitting up, and keeping a consistent effort going. When I got back to the last 600m or so, I really sat up, stretched out my back a bit and then got off the bike, took OFF my shoes, and walked down the hill into T2.
I was pretty annoyed that my feet were as wet, cold and muddy as they were, so I slowly put on my socks (which were wet) and old flats (which were wet) and got on my way. Two dudes from that Team FeXY came out of transition with me, and started moving at a pretty good pace. I briefly gave consideration to running with them, but then thought, why bother? My day was over before it began, and now the goal was to run 10k as efficiently as possible so that I could at least salvage the weekend with a better day on Sunday.
I didn't wear a watch, which was one of the first times I've run a race without a watch. I didn't even want to know my mile splits. I passed a few people, think I got passed by one kid (a Terp Tri member, go Terps!) who had started in the wave before me. I was unimpressed by the course, which featured a 200m section of trail that was particularly muddy, at the end of the first loop and then at the end of the race. I walked across the line, grabbed a bottle of water, and went straight into a short cooldown, where I headed back up to the main road to see Alyssa come through.
When it was all said and done, my 2:19:17/39th place finish was the worst placed finish relative to the race (distance, field, etc) that I think I've ever had. I tend to only use the markers of the best of each discipline to measure my day, and they were all lackluster. The swim ended up being a shade over 27 minutes. I always expect to lose around 5 minutes to OJ, but this was like 6.5 minutes. That's really atrocious. On the bike, based on last year's results, I felt like I could have ridden under an hour. Given the conditions of the day, and the bike I had to ride, I knew this wouldn't happen, but between my slowness in getting my shoes on/off at the bike mount/dismount line, and the level of effort I put out, it just wasn't happening. I think it was a little over 1:08, and actually ranked worse relative to the field than my swim. Ouch. The run ended up being 40:28, 31st best for the day. That's one the slowest 10k's I've ever run off the bike, but considering how little effort I put in, about right.
Actually, I don't even feel all that bad about the run, because I know what kind of shape I'm in and that was as easy of a day as I've had in a while.
There were some things in my control, and some that were out, but in the end, I just didn't want to be there - and it showed. I won't make an excuse for my lack of effort. Conditions are conditions, and races are still races. The likelihood of having a shitty day at Columbia (cold, rainy) and Eagleman (hot, humid) is quite high, but those races are more important to me and I try to save my efforts for when they count more. If anything, I should apologize to my fellow competitors, who are guaranteed shitty weather anytime I touch the course.
Now, as promised, an open letter to organizers and directors of triathlons:
After racing at Saturday's Rumpus in Bumpass Triathlon (Setup Events), I feel even stronger than ever that the registration fees for these events is criminal. The trend over the past few years is races selling out and fields expanding, but the quality of races has not improved. As much as it kills me to spend $600 a year in advance to sign up for an Ironman, I have come to expect that one of their races will not only be run well, but you will at least feel like you've received what you paid for. Even a race like Columbia, which charges now $130, you expect great competition, a professional field and a well-organized race.
Rumpus cost $95 when I went to register some months ago. For this, I had the opportunity to do a race. At the end of the race, I got a bottle of water, a small pizza from Papa John's, and a couple of Cokes. There were over 700 people registered for the race on Saturday, and another similar size field registered for Sunday's sprint event. My best estimate is that in registration fees alone, the race cleared something like $125,000 for two days' worth of activities. I certainly don't expect people to go broke, in fact I expect race directors to make enough to get by, but I also think that fees should be reasonable. I know there are both fixed and variable costs, including things like permits, insurance, POLICE, t-shirts, food, portable toilets, lifeguards, EMTs, etc. This stuff all adds up. If it adds up to even half what they generate from registration, that's still a lot of money.
The reason they can charge it, though, is because they can. They say "well it's less expensive than races like Columbia." True, and it certainly doesn't dismiss the fact that, in 2001, I paid $65 to register for Columbia in February (race is in May). And, 10 years later, we still eat the same shitty pasta salad and fake Oreos at the end of that race, which are inevitably soggy because it rains every year. Everyone knows that triathlon is an expensive sport, and over the years has priced some people out. What the sport needs is people like Brad Jaeger, whose Triathlantic Association used to hold lowkey, fun races, that charged a minimal amount. Sidenote: Brad has gotten back into the business, and tried to hold a duathlon this weekend in Chesapeake. He had to cancel due to lack of interest.
People don't want to race those races. I don't know why. And I'll admit, I'm part of the problem. I'm going to do big, competitive races because that's my focus. I don't want to do a duathlon because, well, I don't want to race duathlons.
In the couple of years that Setup Events has gone from hosting a few races to now being the "nation's largest triathlon production company", they have put on great races and have always received positive feedback. I loved the Kinetic race (done it twice) and Luray (done that twice). But I say, with great power comes great responsibility (Peter Parker's uncle also said it, after I did). If you are going to be a premier event producer, act like it. You have 700 people registered for your race, and you are giving out towels to the winners? That is bush league. A towel with "Virginia Triathlon Series" printed on it not only cheapens the effort of those who have helped make your race a great, competitive race, but it also shows how cheap you are. I wager that towel, bought in bulk, costs less than $2. Probably less than a trophy.
Mark Coleman of Endurance Maryland gets it. He put up a prize purse for his St. Patrick's Day Duathlon. It was a small field, and that severely cut into his budget for the race (the race did, however, cost $95), but he still offered it. That was enough for me to go. And you know what, if he has the race next year, I'll probably go back.
For Setup to not offer a cash purse, or even free entry into another race of theirs, is absurd. But, they are able to act as a small monopoly because people will keep signing up for races regardless of the possibility of a payday. Very few of us are in this sport to become professional triathletes, earning minor ducats along the way. No, instead triathlon is a sport of opulence, for people who can afford to do it, and would do it anyway.
To be fair, while this is like the US Government (wasting time) trying to send Barry Bonds to jail for doing something everyone else does too, Setup Events is not the only culprit. All of them are. Columbia Triathlon Association is just as guilty. They have now begun their IronGirl race, and the Celebration Sprint. They just use the same course skeleton as Columbia. I know triathlons are limited by swimmable bodies of water, but to me that's just lazy. The worst is probably Piranha Sports, because they put on the same shitty race weekend after weekend, on the same flat, boring Delaware courses, and charge a ton for that privilege.
I am not saying I could do better, nor am I offering. I actually do not want to be a triathlon race organizer, mostly because I still want to race myself. I know that races struggle to make money, and a lot of them are trying to raise money for causes other than their own pocketbook. I just think that there need to be some changes, like if you're going to charge as much as you do, put some money on the line. There are plenty of running races that do it, and some of those fields are even smaller than triathlons. There are some race directors out there who are open to suggestions, and others who operate on the MYOB tip.
Of course, the only thing I can do is not go back. I'm not going to actively tell people to not do a race, or not support one association over the other. They wouldn't listen anyway. I can say, unequivocally, that I will not go back to Rumpus, but in all likelihood I will go back to Luray in August. I generally appreciate Setup Events and what they have done and continue to do for creating more races. I wouldn't have gone to Rumpus anyway had they not changed the date of Kinetic to the week before Columbia. I love how we can have plenty of Father's Day races but nobody dares F with Mother's Day.
Ultimately I have been having a bad couple of days, and it culminated with the bitterness of a race that I did not enjoy. It happens.
As far as my foot, I don't know how I'm going to deal with it. My knee was locked up all Saturday, and my foot has been unbearable. I'm going to see if a few days off from running will help out. I can't really run less than what I'm running right now. Oh and update on my bike - well there is none, as they still aren't done with it yet. I wonder if I'll even have it before Columbia at this point.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Perfect Mile
Last night was the Westminster Main Street Mile, the 30th edition of the downtown event, and the gang had decided to bum rush this race. We rolled 12 deep to Westminster, a town I'd never visited. The usual pre-race rigamarole was replaced with the affable feel of a summer youth race. There were literally hundreds of small children, behaving like small children, and then a handful of people who looked like they had come to do work. The Falls Road Dirty Dozen, as I'm calling us, warmed up and then changed into flats and trudged up the hill to the start. There were a few older guys who looked pretty serious, including, we came to find out, the course record holder (3:56); Luke Belford, a quasi-local guy who was 3rd in Sunday's Port to Fort; and a smattering of high school/college looking kids.
Based on the homework I'd done, I figured this course was up to 13 seconds faster than a flat mile. I figured right now I'm not in great shape, but maybe could run a 5:13 - so I felt like there was an outside shot at breaking 5 for me. When the whistle was blown to signify the start of the race, everyone tore down the hill, leaving me in their dust. Obviously, anyone who has seen me run downhill since my surgeries knows that a) I can't really do it and b) it hurts...a lot. Fortunately it was such a short race that I didn't have time to complain about it, and I passed through the quarter in 67. If I tried to run that on the track (which I don't think I could right now), I'd be so toast I would have had to walk the rest of the way.
At this point, I was still behind at least 3 girls. I knew I would not be able to beat Diane, I was actually handicapping myself at + :20 to her. Fortunately, I started to move up through the fading field, passing two of the girls and making my way through a few other guys. I hit the half in 2:22, and though that was pretty decent. If I could keep that pace, I would run under 5. The course flattened out from there, and then there was a slight rise before dropping again into the finish. I passed the 3/4 mark in 3:36, so breaking 5 was pretty sure now.
I passed one or two people right before the finish, and held off one hard-charging long haired guy at the line to finish 23rd in 4:50. Obviously it was super fast because of the downhill, but at + :13, that would be a 5:03 mile. Even if it was 20 seconds faster, that would be a 5:10. I would gladly take either of those. It sets me up well for a potential 5 minute mile at May 5th's Maryland Twilight Meet Alumni Mile.
Following the race I was pretty pumped. It isn't too often that I exceed my expectations, and I really didn't think I'd be able to run that fast. I didn't feel too wrecked, and my foot felt okay (does not feel great today, but I expected that). We cooled down by running back up the hill to the start, where Chrissie asked "how long have we been running" - to which we all replied "uhh...a mile". We headed over to McDaniel College, which is right near the finish line, and watched the DMR of Ed, Jordan, Arjun and Tristram (all of whom had raced the mile) run 10:48. Jordan pointed out that the last time he ran on a DMR, they ran 9:37. Yikes, that's fast.
The race was a lot of fun, and will definitely go on my calendar every year. It's a great subsitute for my workout for the week, and with the tri season opener on Saturday, I wasn't too pressed to run much more than that. Today and tomorrow will be pretty easy, and then Saturday race followed by Sunday long ride.
Oh, and I obviously didn't run the perfect mile. Ed came as close as possible, running 4:05 in a winning effort. Breaking 4 is clearly a possibility for one of our group in the next few years. The perfect mile, for me, would have been if the race course was reversed and we ran UP the hill.
Based on the homework I'd done, I figured this course was up to 13 seconds faster than a flat mile. I figured right now I'm not in great shape, but maybe could run a 5:13 - so I felt like there was an outside shot at breaking 5 for me. When the whistle was blown to signify the start of the race, everyone tore down the hill, leaving me in their dust. Obviously, anyone who has seen me run downhill since my surgeries knows that a) I can't really do it and b) it hurts...a lot. Fortunately it was such a short race that I didn't have time to complain about it, and I passed through the quarter in 67. If I tried to run that on the track (which I don't think I could right now), I'd be so toast I would have had to walk the rest of the way.
At this point, I was still behind at least 3 girls. I knew I would not be able to beat Diane, I was actually handicapping myself at + :20 to her. Fortunately, I started to move up through the fading field, passing two of the girls and making my way through a few other guys. I hit the half in 2:22, and though that was pretty decent. If I could keep that pace, I would run under 5. The course flattened out from there, and then there was a slight rise before dropping again into the finish. I passed the 3/4 mark in 3:36, so breaking 5 was pretty sure now.
I passed one or two people right before the finish, and held off one hard-charging long haired guy at the line to finish 23rd in 4:50. Obviously it was super fast because of the downhill, but at + :13, that would be a 5:03 mile. Even if it was 20 seconds faster, that would be a 5:10. I would gladly take either of those. It sets me up well for a potential 5 minute mile at May 5th's Maryland Twilight Meet Alumni Mile.
Following the race I was pretty pumped. It isn't too often that I exceed my expectations, and I really didn't think I'd be able to run that fast. I didn't feel too wrecked, and my foot felt okay (does not feel great today, but I expected that). We cooled down by running back up the hill to the start, where Chrissie asked "how long have we been running" - to which we all replied "uhh...a mile". We headed over to McDaniel College, which is right near the finish line, and watched the DMR of Ed, Jordan, Arjun and Tristram (all of whom had raced the mile) run 10:48. Jordan pointed out that the last time he ran on a DMR, they ran 9:37. Yikes, that's fast.
The race was a lot of fun, and will definitely go on my calendar every year. It's a great subsitute for my workout for the week, and with the tri season opener on Saturday, I wasn't too pressed to run much more than that. Today and tomorrow will be pretty easy, and then Saturday race followed by Sunday long ride.
Oh, and I obviously didn't run the perfect mile. Ed came as close as possible, running 4:05 in a winning effort. Breaking 4 is clearly a possibility for one of our group in the next few years. The perfect mile, for me, would have been if the race course was reversed and we ran UP the hill.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Riding Dirty
The first full week of April made me realize one thing:
I don't give a shit about May flowers, and what it takes to bring them to us.
I am seriously struggling with rain-onset depression right now, and last week was another tough week to make it through. It was not terrificly warm, and it rained a few full days, and just brought about that spring malaise I loathe so much. But, I turned lemons into lemonade and made the most of my workouts, featuring a fairly decent 4x(600-400-200) workout on the track on Tuesday, and my first Wednesday Night Ride out of Oregon Ridge of the year. I don't anticipate I'll go every week, 1) because it's the day after my track workouts and I no longer have the energy or brash stupidity of trying to do back-to-back workouts like that but 2) I like my Thursday Night Ride that I've been going to for now 6 summers. Unfortunately, Thursday Night Ride starts in Owings Mills at 5:30, and it's a pretty far drive just to ride 35-38 miles. In summers past I've driven to the running store and ridden from there, making it a little over 50, but I don't feel like riding that much right now. Riding from home, while heinous and meaning I have to ride on Route 40, is just easier. But, I also realize the value of the hard group rides, so my plan right now is to alternate which one I go to week-to-week.
Anyway, the Wednesday ride got hot pretty early, with a split occurring before it even got to Stringtown Rd. I was comfortable on Stringtown, but as soon as the group went up Yeoho I started to lose contact a bit, and spent a few miles desperately chasing. When I realized I was never going to catch back up, I just rode hard (by myself) for 45 minutes, then cooled out for a while. Later, I saw two guys a little ways back so waited for them to catch on, and then wound up largely pulling them to the finish.
After my usual 4 day hiatus, I got back in the pool Wednesday with a subpar workout. Thursday went a little better, and Friday was decent. Still need to be more consistent about it, especially because I hate getting in the pool on weekends, and if I don't get in on Mondays, I'm already three days out.
Saturday was a day I had been looking forward to, my third trip out to Frederick in the last 6 weeks and we had a big group coming - including OJ, Benda, David, Pat and Zero. We hit the first climb pretty hard, and at the top I had ridden it in 18:12. When I went out with OJ and David a month or so ago, I rode it in 19:16, so I was pleased with the improvement/personal best. On Harp, which is always the death of me, I rode solidly, and then on Wolfsville I called for a sprint point before the end of the looped road. The homefield advantage went to OJ and myself, who know the road better, but nevertheless we were lining up for a good sprint. OJ had pulled off, so it was David, Benda, me. Zero let a little gap form between us, so OJ slotted in right behind me. I knew this meant trouble, as I figured David would pull off, then Benda, and then I would be stuck leading out OJ. My only play, I felt, was to attack from third wheel and just try and go early. Unfortunately OJ was right on my wheel, and then I was burned up. OJ took it out from Benda.
Now my legs were feeling it, and the third climb back on 40 was going to be tough. OJ was grinding out a massive gear, charging up the hill in the big ring. I sat right on his wheel, content with letting him set the pace on this one. I felt awesome though, and was sitting in a small gear and riding comfortably. As we got closer to the top, I was plotting my move. The road flattens out a little, just enough to pop into a bigger gear and take off. My bike, which is falling apart in its old age, refused to go into the big ring when I needed it most. Finally I got it going and made me move, gapping OJ and Benda. The move was the death blow, or so I thought. My legs were burned up and I had to sit back down, I had gone too far into the red. The duo were coming back, fortunately not quickly enough, so I stayed ahead.
We dropped into Boonsboro and found that we were going to face a slight headwind on the way home. Coming up South Mountain, I knew what was going to happen - OJ was going to do to me what I had just done to him. That's how it goes out here, no mercy. I sat on the front, setting the tempo up the shorter climb. At one point, OJ and Benda went around me and I thought "sweet, this works out even better for me". I made one last effort, passed them both, and neither came around as we crested the hill. Rode it in 6:39 which is about as fast as I rode a few weeks ago (when I rode up in the big ring, today was small).
But now, my body was paying for the day's efforts. I was cooked. It's about 12 miles to go, mostly pretty easy on the way back but if you're not feeling great, even the little rollers feel like mountains. I had topped the first 4 climbs in first, but on the last climb of the day, the shortest one (Braddock Mountain) I had had enough. Rode up as easy as my body could, trying to regroup before the Fast and Furious 5 mile descent into the finish.
The ride ended up being the fastest I've gone out there, and the first time getting under 3 hours for the just-under-54 mile ride. We scrapped our post-ride 30 minute run and instead went to Wendy's, which was a great choice.
Sunday morning was the Port to Fort 6k, a race I've done once (2006) and a unique distance that attracts 2000 competitors (using that term loosely, a lot of corporate teams show up and basically walk). The idea was to run our long run and in the middle just try and open up the legs a bit (during the race part) and then continue with the long run. 3 of us had ridden the day before and 1 of us had gotten real ripped up at the bars, so needless to say, it was a tough one. Like the taints we are, we wore the race day t-shirt, which was cotton. Side note: I can't believe people actually do this. Generally you are picking up your shirt on race day, which means I presume you arrived at the race already wearing a shirt. Why would you wear two, or switch them? Seems crazy. I still abide by my 14 day rule. Anyway, we get in about 5 miles prior to the race, and then the race starts. My legs were trashed. Made it through the 3.72 mile run, just over 6 minute pace, and then ate a hot dog and glazed donut, and got back onto the run.
Got back at 11 (race didn't start until 9) so I only had 30 minutes to get myself together to leave for Columbia to ride. I was meeting a pretty large group down at the course, for a 40-50 mile ride. Well, a couple things didn't go right, and ended up just riding 30 miles, but that was fine by me as I was pretty cooked. And I will say this - the Beastman and Chicken Tender Runner are going to rock the bike, and the entire race, at Columbia, much to my ego's dismay. I'll have to see if I can compete on the bike at least!
It turned out to be a pretty good, and evenly distributed, training week. 9600m in the pool, 170 miles on the bike and 35 miles of running. Very efficient, not a wasted workout among the bunch.
The title of the post is also appropriate because, anyone who has ridden with me can attest, my bike is filthy. The Orbea Opal I acquired in 2005 is nearing the end of its life. Everything is original, and the crap has been ridden out of it. I think more things need to be fixed than work, and these days I sometimes wonder if it'll even make it through any given ride. Therefore, this will be its farewell season. By the fall/winter, I will need to find a suitable replacement. Usually if I need something fixed, I bribe OJ with McDonald's to help me with it (once, though, it was a Dura Ace cassette, chain, cranks and whatever else we stripped from the P2). But these things don't seem worth fixing.
However, on a more positive note, I did acquire a new bike to race on. I figured I can race on my road bike pretty well, but as I'm returning to my pre-accident level of fitness, that I need a proper time trial bike, or I'll just ride with a chip on my shoulder. I wound up getting a P3, should have it by Thursday, just in time to race Saturday. Pictures and epic story to come later.
I don't give a shit about May flowers, and what it takes to bring them to us.
I am seriously struggling with rain-onset depression right now, and last week was another tough week to make it through. It was not terrificly warm, and it rained a few full days, and just brought about that spring malaise I loathe so much. But, I turned lemons into lemonade and made the most of my workouts, featuring a fairly decent 4x(600-400-200) workout on the track on Tuesday, and my first Wednesday Night Ride out of Oregon Ridge of the year. I don't anticipate I'll go every week, 1) because it's the day after my track workouts and I no longer have the energy or brash stupidity of trying to do back-to-back workouts like that but 2) I like my Thursday Night Ride that I've been going to for now 6 summers. Unfortunately, Thursday Night Ride starts in Owings Mills at 5:30, and it's a pretty far drive just to ride 35-38 miles. In summers past I've driven to the running store and ridden from there, making it a little over 50, but I don't feel like riding that much right now. Riding from home, while heinous and meaning I have to ride on Route 40, is just easier. But, I also realize the value of the hard group rides, so my plan right now is to alternate which one I go to week-to-week.
Anyway, the Wednesday ride got hot pretty early, with a split occurring before it even got to Stringtown Rd. I was comfortable on Stringtown, but as soon as the group went up Yeoho I started to lose contact a bit, and spent a few miles desperately chasing. When I realized I was never going to catch back up, I just rode hard (by myself) for 45 minutes, then cooled out for a while. Later, I saw two guys a little ways back so waited for them to catch on, and then wound up largely pulling them to the finish.
After my usual 4 day hiatus, I got back in the pool Wednesday with a subpar workout. Thursday went a little better, and Friday was decent. Still need to be more consistent about it, especially because I hate getting in the pool on weekends, and if I don't get in on Mondays, I'm already three days out.
Saturday was a day I had been looking forward to, my third trip out to Frederick in the last 6 weeks and we had a big group coming - including OJ, Benda, David, Pat and Zero. We hit the first climb pretty hard, and at the top I had ridden it in 18:12. When I went out with OJ and David a month or so ago, I rode it in 19:16, so I was pleased with the improvement/personal best. On Harp, which is always the death of me, I rode solidly, and then on Wolfsville I called for a sprint point before the end of the looped road. The homefield advantage went to OJ and myself, who know the road better, but nevertheless we were lining up for a good sprint. OJ had pulled off, so it was David, Benda, me. Zero let a little gap form between us, so OJ slotted in right behind me. I knew this meant trouble, as I figured David would pull off, then Benda, and then I would be stuck leading out OJ. My only play, I felt, was to attack from third wheel and just try and go early. Unfortunately OJ was right on my wheel, and then I was burned up. OJ took it out from Benda.
Now my legs were feeling it, and the third climb back on 40 was going to be tough. OJ was grinding out a massive gear, charging up the hill in the big ring. I sat right on his wheel, content with letting him set the pace on this one. I felt awesome though, and was sitting in a small gear and riding comfortably. As we got closer to the top, I was plotting my move. The road flattens out a little, just enough to pop into a bigger gear and take off. My bike, which is falling apart in its old age, refused to go into the big ring when I needed it most. Finally I got it going and made me move, gapping OJ and Benda. The move was the death blow, or so I thought. My legs were burned up and I had to sit back down, I had gone too far into the red. The duo were coming back, fortunately not quickly enough, so I stayed ahead.
We dropped into Boonsboro and found that we were going to face a slight headwind on the way home. Coming up South Mountain, I knew what was going to happen - OJ was going to do to me what I had just done to him. That's how it goes out here, no mercy. I sat on the front, setting the tempo up the shorter climb. At one point, OJ and Benda went around me and I thought "sweet, this works out even better for me". I made one last effort, passed them both, and neither came around as we crested the hill. Rode it in 6:39 which is about as fast as I rode a few weeks ago (when I rode up in the big ring, today was small).
But now, my body was paying for the day's efforts. I was cooked. It's about 12 miles to go, mostly pretty easy on the way back but if you're not feeling great, even the little rollers feel like mountains. I had topped the first 4 climbs in first, but on the last climb of the day, the shortest one (Braddock Mountain) I had had enough. Rode up as easy as my body could, trying to regroup before the Fast and Furious 5 mile descent into the finish.
The ride ended up being the fastest I've gone out there, and the first time getting under 3 hours for the just-under-54 mile ride. We scrapped our post-ride 30 minute run and instead went to Wendy's, which was a great choice.
Sunday morning was the Port to Fort 6k, a race I've done once (2006) and a unique distance that attracts 2000 competitors (using that term loosely, a lot of corporate teams show up and basically walk). The idea was to run our long run and in the middle just try and open up the legs a bit (during the race part) and then continue with the long run. 3 of us had ridden the day before and 1 of us had gotten real ripped up at the bars, so needless to say, it was a tough one. Like the taints we are, we wore the race day t-shirt, which was cotton. Side note: I can't believe people actually do this. Generally you are picking up your shirt on race day, which means I presume you arrived at the race already wearing a shirt. Why would you wear two, or switch them? Seems crazy. I still abide by my 14 day rule. Anyway, we get in about 5 miles prior to the race, and then the race starts. My legs were trashed. Made it through the 3.72 mile run, just over 6 minute pace, and then ate a hot dog and glazed donut, and got back onto the run.
Got back at 11 (race didn't start until 9) so I only had 30 minutes to get myself together to leave for Columbia to ride. I was meeting a pretty large group down at the course, for a 40-50 mile ride. Well, a couple things didn't go right, and ended up just riding 30 miles, but that was fine by me as I was pretty cooked. And I will say this - the Beastman and Chicken Tender Runner are going to rock the bike, and the entire race, at Columbia, much to my ego's dismay. I'll have to see if I can compete on the bike at least!
It turned out to be a pretty good, and evenly distributed, training week. 9600m in the pool, 170 miles on the bike and 35 miles of running. Very efficient, not a wasted workout among the bunch.
The title of the post is also appropriate because, anyone who has ridden with me can attest, my bike is filthy. The Orbea Opal I acquired in 2005 is nearing the end of its life. Everything is original, and the crap has been ridden out of it. I think more things need to be fixed than work, and these days I sometimes wonder if it'll even make it through any given ride. Therefore, this will be its farewell season. By the fall/winter, I will need to find a suitable replacement. Usually if I need something fixed, I bribe OJ with McDonald's to help me with it (once, though, it was a Dura Ace cassette, chain, cranks and whatever else we stripped from the P2). But these things don't seem worth fixing.
However, on a more positive note, I did acquire a new bike to race on. I figured I can race on my road bike pretty well, but as I'm returning to my pre-accident level of fitness, that I need a proper time trial bike, or I'll just ride with a chip on my shoulder. I wound up getting a P3, should have it by Thursday, just in time to race Saturday. Pictures and epic story to come later.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Super GT Saturday
The weather this time of year, to me, is frightful. In December, if it's too cold, or it's raining or snowing, I am fine either taking the day off, or riding inside. Rides can be much shorter, as the "season" is a ways away. By the time you get to March and April, though, excuse time is running thin and you have to start getting outside no matter what. A 90 minute trainer ride just does not do what a 3+ hour ride on the roads will do. Of course, it's also the time of year when it rains (all the f***ing time) and is always super windy. And sometimes you luck out and it's warm but a lot of times it's not.
This was the case with Saturday, which became Super GT Saturday (Super Get Tough Saturday). The planned ride was the famed Lineboro ride. It was the first ride I did with OJ and Benda all those years ago (I guess 2006?) when I overestimated my abilities and got left in Glen Rock to ride 30 miles home by myself. From old Tri-Speed in Timonium, it's a 78 mile ride. From home, it's 115. I was up for something in the middle, so Pat and I met Ben W and Benda at Meadowbrook shortly after 8am on Saturday.
Rewinding for a minute, back in college, training with Tri Guy Tommy meant that you went out in all conditions. One day I remember was so bad that I wanted to scream bloody murder. 38 degrees, monsoon-like rain. I made it through 90 minutes or 2 hours or something and had to call it a day. From that day forward I was committed to not doing that again. Over time, OJ and I have developed our system. If it's below 50 and actively precipitating at the time we are supposed to ride, we call the ride off. If it is not raining at the start, but we think we will get rained on during the ride, we'll suck it up. Shoot, just riding below 40 degrees sometimes is a challenge, without rain.
Saturday morning when I woke up it was 32. When we got to Meadowbrook, it was maybe 34. And it looked like it was going to rain. As we were putting our stuff on, it started to rain. Shit. Get on the bikes, quick, I said. As we pedaled out of the parking lot and onto Falls Road, it was a steady rain. For 2 hours it rained. We went up and up and up, until finally we were in Hampstead. When we got to Lineboro Rd, we were pleased to finally have some respite. For at least 20 miles, it's generally flat to small rollers, and with the tailwind we had, it was pretty comfortable.
But riding in the rain is weird, and does strange things to you. You can be miserable, but totally fine, while it's raining, but then it stops and your legs lock up. It's happened to me before, and it happened to me on this day. I tend to not do well with stops, particularly extended ones, on cold days. The sun was not shining and even at 1pm the temperature was still not above 40, and the hours of rain enabled my body to get pretty cold. One minute I was riding well, we stopped in Glen Rock for a refueling break, and when we got going again, I had nothing.
As we got onto York Rd (22 miles from HV, at least 34 back to Meadowbrook), there was no power left in the engine room. It took everything I had to get up the grueling hills of Hereford. Ben, who is training for an IM in a few weeks, was riding stronger now and I told him to go home. Pat stayed back with me and I quickly crushed a Snickers, a glazed donut and drank a Coke from a (now) 7-11 on Mt. Carmel Rd. It seemed to get me back to a better place, and I was able to get home from there. As I don't ride with a computer, Ben's was malfunctioning and Pat forgot to start his for a few miles, the ride was somewhere between 96 and 97 miles. Easily the worst day I've ever tried to ride that long in my life, so even though I was brutalized by the end, I deposited that one into the fitness bank.
All plans to do anything else on Saturday were now erased, and efforts went toward recovering for Sunday's very early long run. I started running from College Park to DC in college, and for most of the last 12 years I've always done the run on the weekend of Cherry Blossom, timing it so I finish my run around the time of the finish of the race. Waking up at 5:30 on Sunday to accomplish this, this time, was tough for me, but we made it down just in time to see Zero get across the line. The run was probably not too slow, either. None of us seemed to have great legs, but we muddled through and put in an hour and fifty minutes, so we figured at least 15 miles.
The two days of long ride/run had taken their toll, and by the time I got home Sunday at noon, I was not much in the mood for getting out on the bike again. This was a good move, as I felt a little better on Monday morning. With Monday being Orioles Opening Day, and the mercury hitting 80 degrees, it was an opportune time to get out on the bike. Alyssa wanted to go down to the Columbia course, and since I haven't ridden it in two years, thought it would be a good idea as well. The forecast said it was going to be windy, and you know anytime they actually bother to say that, it's going to be SUPER windy, which it was. I hate riding in Columbia to begin with, and the wind just makes it worse.
I break that course into 3 parts - beginning (to the second traffic circle), middle (the lollipop section, back to the circle) and end (circle back home). It breaks pretty nicely almost into even thirds (by distance), with the beginning being somewhat hard, the middle being hard, and the end being somewhat easy. I don't often go out to Columbia, so when I do, I try to ride an honest effort (if I am just doing the course). In the first section, we got to the circle in 25:35. Three times over, that would be a 1:16ish ride. The middle was particularly tough on this day, because of the wind. That section took 29:18 so we were just under 55 minutes back at the circle. The way home was quite fast, at just over 21 minutes, and we finished up at just over 1:16. That's a pretty decent ride out there, particularly for Alyssa, who rode around 1:19 last time she raced there.
For me, though, I always get somewhat disheartened when I realize how much time I have to pull to ride what I need to ride. 12-16 minutes, where can I even find that time? I didn't feel like I was going all out, but I also just don't understand how I've ridden as fast as I have there. A time trial bike will certainly help a little, and full-on race effort. I guess that could be 10 minutes. So right now I'd give myself a 1:06. I need at least 2 minutes in the next 6 weeks. Considering how badly I'm going to get smoked in the water and on the run, I really need to make sure there's at least one shining moment come race day. Nevertheless, a ride like that goes a long way. From there it was Orioles time, where the O's won their Opening Day matchup against the Tigers to start the season 4-0 for the first time in a decade and a half.
I have been feeling pretty crappy for a while now, some days like I'm completely broken. Too bad I'm not better on a bike, maybe I'd just stop running and swimming.
Here are some of bike riding tips mentioned in today's post:
1) Besides being uncomfortable, and my hatred of being cold, the real reason I don't ride outside in the rain is safety. When faced with choices now I try to think safety first. Rain may be okay for us on our bikes, but with the talking/texting/asians/women/old people, etc, going on in cars, I don't trust them. I'd rather take the day off or ride inside.
2) A Coke and a Snickers can bring you back from the brink.
3) If you plan on riding your TT bike, plan on that day being windy. It's Murphy's Law, just the way it works.
This was the case with Saturday, which became Super GT Saturday (Super Get Tough Saturday). The planned ride was the famed Lineboro ride. It was the first ride I did with OJ and Benda all those years ago (I guess 2006?) when I overestimated my abilities and got left in Glen Rock to ride 30 miles home by myself. From old Tri-Speed in Timonium, it's a 78 mile ride. From home, it's 115. I was up for something in the middle, so Pat and I met Ben W and Benda at Meadowbrook shortly after 8am on Saturday.
Rewinding for a minute, back in college, training with Tri Guy Tommy meant that you went out in all conditions. One day I remember was so bad that I wanted to scream bloody murder. 38 degrees, monsoon-like rain. I made it through 90 minutes or 2 hours or something and had to call it a day. From that day forward I was committed to not doing that again. Over time, OJ and I have developed our system. If it's below 50 and actively precipitating at the time we are supposed to ride, we call the ride off. If it is not raining at the start, but we think we will get rained on during the ride, we'll suck it up. Shoot, just riding below 40 degrees sometimes is a challenge, without rain.
Saturday morning when I woke up it was 32. When we got to Meadowbrook, it was maybe 34. And it looked like it was going to rain. As we were putting our stuff on, it started to rain. Shit. Get on the bikes, quick, I said. As we pedaled out of the parking lot and onto Falls Road, it was a steady rain. For 2 hours it rained. We went up and up and up, until finally we were in Hampstead. When we got to Lineboro Rd, we were pleased to finally have some respite. For at least 20 miles, it's generally flat to small rollers, and with the tailwind we had, it was pretty comfortable.
But riding in the rain is weird, and does strange things to you. You can be miserable, but totally fine, while it's raining, but then it stops and your legs lock up. It's happened to me before, and it happened to me on this day. I tend to not do well with stops, particularly extended ones, on cold days. The sun was not shining and even at 1pm the temperature was still not above 40, and the hours of rain enabled my body to get pretty cold. One minute I was riding well, we stopped in Glen Rock for a refueling break, and when we got going again, I had nothing.
As we got onto York Rd (22 miles from HV, at least 34 back to Meadowbrook), there was no power left in the engine room. It took everything I had to get up the grueling hills of Hereford. Ben, who is training for an IM in a few weeks, was riding stronger now and I told him to go home. Pat stayed back with me and I quickly crushed a Snickers, a glazed donut and drank a Coke from a (now) 7-11 on Mt. Carmel Rd. It seemed to get me back to a better place, and I was able to get home from there. As I don't ride with a computer, Ben's was malfunctioning and Pat forgot to start his for a few miles, the ride was somewhere between 96 and 97 miles. Easily the worst day I've ever tried to ride that long in my life, so even though I was brutalized by the end, I deposited that one into the fitness bank.
All plans to do anything else on Saturday were now erased, and efforts went toward recovering for Sunday's very early long run. I started running from College Park to DC in college, and for most of the last 12 years I've always done the run on the weekend of Cherry Blossom, timing it so I finish my run around the time of the finish of the race. Waking up at 5:30 on Sunday to accomplish this, this time, was tough for me, but we made it down just in time to see Zero get across the line. The run was probably not too slow, either. None of us seemed to have great legs, but we muddled through and put in an hour and fifty minutes, so we figured at least 15 miles.
The two days of long ride/run had taken their toll, and by the time I got home Sunday at noon, I was not much in the mood for getting out on the bike again. This was a good move, as I felt a little better on Monday morning. With Monday being Orioles Opening Day, and the mercury hitting 80 degrees, it was an opportune time to get out on the bike. Alyssa wanted to go down to the Columbia course, and since I haven't ridden it in two years, thought it would be a good idea as well. The forecast said it was going to be windy, and you know anytime they actually bother to say that, it's going to be SUPER windy, which it was. I hate riding in Columbia to begin with, and the wind just makes it worse.
I break that course into 3 parts - beginning (to the second traffic circle), middle (the lollipop section, back to the circle) and end (circle back home). It breaks pretty nicely almost into even thirds (by distance), with the beginning being somewhat hard, the middle being hard, and the end being somewhat easy. I don't often go out to Columbia, so when I do, I try to ride an honest effort (if I am just doing the course). In the first section, we got to the circle in 25:35. Three times over, that would be a 1:16ish ride. The middle was particularly tough on this day, because of the wind. That section took 29:18 so we were just under 55 minutes back at the circle. The way home was quite fast, at just over 21 minutes, and we finished up at just over 1:16. That's a pretty decent ride out there, particularly for Alyssa, who rode around 1:19 last time she raced there.
For me, though, I always get somewhat disheartened when I realize how much time I have to pull to ride what I need to ride. 12-16 minutes, where can I even find that time? I didn't feel like I was going all out, but I also just don't understand how I've ridden as fast as I have there. A time trial bike will certainly help a little, and full-on race effort. I guess that could be 10 minutes. So right now I'd give myself a 1:06. I need at least 2 minutes in the next 6 weeks. Considering how badly I'm going to get smoked in the water and on the run, I really need to make sure there's at least one shining moment come race day. Nevertheless, a ride like that goes a long way. From there it was Orioles time, where the O's won their Opening Day matchup against the Tigers to start the season 4-0 for the first time in a decade and a half.
I have been feeling pretty crappy for a while now, some days like I'm completely broken. Too bad I'm not better on a bike, maybe I'd just stop running and swimming.
Here are some of bike riding tips mentioned in today's post:
1) Besides being uncomfortable, and my hatred of being cold, the real reason I don't ride outside in the rain is safety. When faced with choices now I try to think safety first. Rain may be okay for us on our bikes, but with the talking/texting/asians/women/old people, etc, going on in cars, I don't trust them. I'd rather take the day off or ride inside.
2) A Coke and a Snickers can bring you back from the brink.
3) If you plan on riding your TT bike, plan on that day being windy. It's Murphy's Law, just the way it works.
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