July is almost upon us which means the return of the Lazyman Triathlon and the Cville International Tri.
Lazyman
I've participated the last two years in a Lazyman Triathlon put on by some friends at work. The goal is to do the entire distance of the Ironman Triathlon but instead of doing it all in one day, you have all of July to do it. That means 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles biking, and 26.2 miles running.
The last two years I have successfully completed both the swim and the run with miles to spare in both of them. I have not yet successfully completed the bike portion during the timeframe. Therefore this year I have created a plan in which I do a short bike (10ish miles) once a week and a long bike ride (30+ miles) on Sunday morning (except the last Sunday... more on that in a second). This plan allows a little flexibility in weather conditions and routes, but it is a much more solid plan for getting the miles done.
For swimming I'll probably knock it out fairly quickly since it is only 3863 meters and once a week I try to do 1500+ meters (working on distance) and another time in the week do 750+ meters (working on power/speed).
Since my marathon training program starts the last week in July with runs of 3 miles, 4 miles, 3 miles, and 5 miles all in that first week I need to make sure I'm in shape for it. Thus my plan for the rest of July is to do two 3 mile runs during the week and a 3-5 mile run on the weekend (starting with 3 and working up). Even if I low end the weekend run, that is still three 3 mile runs in a week, so I'll be done with the run portion in 3 weeks.
Cville International Triathlon
Once again I'm part of a relay team for the Cville International Triathlon. This year my team members are my coworkers David & Will. I will once again be doing the swim which is ~1500m (thus why my long swims start at 1500m and get longer). I really want to improve on my time over last year and give my team a fighting chance.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Sprint Triathlon Analysis
I like numbers. So here are the fun comparisons to last year's race stats.
Swim
This year - 11:10. 63rd out of 108.
Last year - 13:18. 81st out of 109.
This is the area I did the most consistent work on through out the year. I focused on getting more power out of my strokes.
Transition 1
This year - 1:56. 46th out of 108.
Last year - 2:50. 85th out of 109.
Being in the mentality of wanting to win instead of just finish I pushed harder to get through transitions quickly.
Bike
This year - 1:13:20. 78th out of 108.
Last year - 1:13:52. 88th out of 109.
I practiced on the course a lot more and got a professional bike fit to make it possible to get more power out. While the time did not increase, my relative placement improved so that is the equalizer of the course having extra gravel.
Transition 2
This year - 1:32. 73rd out of 108.
Last year - 2:09. 93rd out of 108.
Like T1, I knowingly tried to speed this up.
Run
This year - 40:14. 93rd out of 108.
Last year - 32:17. 77th out of 109.
Last year I routinely ran multiple times a week but this year I just didn't have that same commitment to the run. I clearly paid for it.
Overall
This year - 2:08:14. 86th out of 108.
Last year - 2:04:26. 87th out of 109.
So despite the longer time, I was in the same relative position as last year. I am happy with decreasing my swim, bike, and transition times.
Swim
This year - 11:10. 63rd out of 108.
Last year - 13:18. 81st out of 109.
This is the area I did the most consistent work on through out the year. I focused on getting more power out of my strokes.
Transition 1
This year - 1:56. 46th out of 108.
Last year - 2:50. 85th out of 109.
Being in the mentality of wanting to win instead of just finish I pushed harder to get through transitions quickly.
Bike
This year - 1:13:20. 78th out of 108.
Last year - 1:13:52. 88th out of 109.
I practiced on the course a lot more and got a professional bike fit to make it possible to get more power out. While the time did not increase, my relative placement improved so that is the equalizer of the course having extra gravel.
Transition 2
This year - 1:32. 73rd out of 108.
Last year - 2:09. 93rd out of 108.
Like T1, I knowingly tried to speed this up.
Run
This year - 40:14. 93rd out of 108.
Last year - 32:17. 77th out of 109.
Last year I routinely ran multiple times a week but this year I just didn't have that same commitment to the run. I clearly paid for it.
Overall
This year - 2:08:14. 86th out of 108.
Last year - 2:04:26. 87th out of 109.
So despite the longer time, I was in the same relative position as last year. I am happy with decreasing my swim, bike, and transition times.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Race Report
Woohoo! I took first in my category!
Now to the full face report.
Prerace
I arrived at 5:50am to Walnut Creek Park. Took my bike, a towel, and my race number down. Saved my rack spot with my bike and towel, then went to get body marked. After that I went to get the rest of my stuff. Got all of that done by 6:10. Transition didn't close until 7:10 which meant I had a lot of time to kill. Took a short run, did a short bike ride (which was good because I was in the wrong gear initially).
Swim
I was in the 6th swim wave since I was racing in the Athena Category. The prerace camaraderie was great. We were just joking around, supporting each other with Q/A, and cheering for each other. It was great.
Once we got in the water I placed myself in the middle of the pack figuring I wasn't a terrible swimmer but definitely not great. It seemed longer than 500m, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I actually felt better about it this year than last and I came out of the water with still quite a few women behind me so that felt good.
Bike
Coming out of the swim I was more tired than I expected which I attribute mostly from running through the shallow part of the water to get out. So by the time I got out on the bike I was already breathing hard which is just a great place to start when the first mile is 90% uphill and a rather steep one at that. Thankfully I had trained on it and new I was getting a nice downhill once I got to the top.
The first major downhill I just blew down. I was in my top gear possible and still felt like I could've pushed more. I've really learned to enjoy the speed I can get from that and how far it'll carry me up the next one. Once I got to the first turn on major roads I had to slow down more than I wanted for two reasons. First as I stated yesterday, they had just laid fresh gravel down so it was a bit more treacherous and that means the road isn't as smooth to just crank it. Second, I had managed to catch up to a whole group of people ahead of me and just didn't have the speed to pass. Since we can't draft I had to stay 3 bike lengths behind the person in front of me. I did eventually pass a whole group of them but it was still not as quick as I would've liked.
When I got to the halfway point it is the only relatively flat road and I normally crank hard on it. I pushed hard, but I felt like I could've given it a little more but my energy was starting to drag. I did make sure I pushed hard enough so that if the notorious dogs came after me that I could get out fast since at that point I was pretty much all alone (as far as seeing folks ahead of me, not sure about behind me).
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. I did use a powergel on the ride back so I could hope that I had enough energy for the run.
Run
I got back from the bike and had promised myself Gatoraid so I guzzled (mistake #1) more than I should have especially since I had not had positive experiences in the past while running with fluids sloshing in my stomach.
This year we did a slightly modified start to the run so that we wouldn't have to run over wet, slippery, uneven rocks and instead extend the path a bit to use a new bike path they had put in to address the issue of bikers trying to go over those same rocks.
The run time will not be good this year. The gatoraid caused my stomach to cramp and lack of enough trail running caused me to walk a large portion of it. I ran off and on passing Lance who I met on Thursday at a tri-club meeting. Eventually I was only walking and he caught up with me and said "come run with me." So I did. It was great to have someone to run with and he had the same opinions about up-hills that I did... they should be walked. Probably around mile 2.5 my stomach was just getting worse so I told him to go ahead and I would catch up. I finished probably about 20 seconds afterwards.
Overall
I crossed the mat at clock time of 2:27ish. Given that I was in wave six that put me 20 minutes behind the clock time, so I did it in 2:07-2:08ish depending on how the chip time comes out. Which means this year I was slower than last year. It could depend on many things... was the swim course actually longer this year (it felt it), did the gravel roads slow everyone down and thus my relative placement isn't as bad, just how much worse was my run since I think my bike was better. In the end, I'll look at all the pieces and see how I did and compare my relative ranking to the other women.
Placing
This year I competed in the Athena category (women over 150 pounds and opt-in to this category). In the past 3 years there have been 6-8 women who have finished each year. I figured I stood a much better chance placing in that then in my age group which had almost 30 women. As of race day there were only two of us. I raced the entire thing not being sure where the other woman was so I needed to either catch her or not let her catch me. In the end, she didn't end up racing. Thus I took first place by default! I still raced hard and given that when I signed up I did expect 6-8 other women, it's still a victory.
Epilogue: Nutrition is the 4th Sport
As mentioned in the run portion mistake #1 happened when I guzzled gatoraid before going out on the run. This was compounded with mistake #2 that I drank an ice cold gatoraid as soon as I finished. I both chugged it and was not used to drink ice cold water or gatoraid. Mistake #3 was eating about a full orange in a rather ravenous manner. Mistake #4 for drinking another ice cold gatoraid. Can you see where this is leading?
If not, let me guide you. In my cube I have a photocopy of a shoe ad that has the slogon "In triathlons, victory and defeat often taste the same" and a picture of a female triathlete on the side of the road curled up and clearly looking like she lost breakfast. Yep, that was me. Expect instead of losing breakfast I lost all that lovely gatoraid and orange pieces. I ended up doing it twice in two separate locations since I was dumb and tried to eat part of banana and water to calm my nerves. Nope, that just came up too.
This left my body in an extreme sugar low (which I already have issues with) and unable to eat. Thankfully the triathlon community is very supportive and so I had many offers of help to either take me to a hospital for IV fluids, take me home so I could rest, or just get me anything I needed. I appreciated it all.
Lesson learned: be careful about both pre-race and post-race nutrition.
Now to the full face report.
Prerace
I arrived at 5:50am to Walnut Creek Park. Took my bike, a towel, and my race number down. Saved my rack spot with my bike and towel, then went to get body marked. After that I went to get the rest of my stuff. Got all of that done by 6:10. Transition didn't close until 7:10 which meant I had a lot of time to kill. Took a short run, did a short bike ride (which was good because I was in the wrong gear initially).
Swim
I was in the 6th swim wave since I was racing in the Athena Category. The prerace camaraderie was great. We were just joking around, supporting each other with Q/A, and cheering for each other. It was great.
Once we got in the water I placed myself in the middle of the pack figuring I wasn't a terrible swimmer but definitely not great. It seemed longer than 500m, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I actually felt better about it this year than last and I came out of the water with still quite a few women behind me so that felt good.
Bike
Coming out of the swim I was more tired than I expected which I attribute mostly from running through the shallow part of the water to get out. So by the time I got out on the bike I was already breathing hard which is just a great place to start when the first mile is 90% uphill and a rather steep one at that. Thankfully I had trained on it and new I was getting a nice downhill once I got to the top.
The first major downhill I just blew down. I was in my top gear possible and still felt like I could've pushed more. I've really learned to enjoy the speed I can get from that and how far it'll carry me up the next one. Once I got to the first turn on major roads I had to slow down more than I wanted for two reasons. First as I stated yesterday, they had just laid fresh gravel down so it was a bit more treacherous and that means the road isn't as smooth to just crank it. Second, I had managed to catch up to a whole group of people ahead of me and just didn't have the speed to pass. Since we can't draft I had to stay 3 bike lengths behind the person in front of me. I did eventually pass a whole group of them but it was still not as quick as I would've liked.
When I got to the halfway point it is the only relatively flat road and I normally crank hard on it. I pushed hard, but I felt like I could've given it a little more but my energy was starting to drag. I did make sure I pushed hard enough so that if the notorious dogs came after me that I could get out fast since at that point I was pretty much all alone (as far as seeing folks ahead of me, not sure about behind me).
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. I did use a powergel on the ride back so I could hope that I had enough energy for the run.
Run
I got back from the bike and had promised myself Gatoraid so I guzzled (mistake #1) more than I should have especially since I had not had positive experiences in the past while running with fluids sloshing in my stomach.
This year we did a slightly modified start to the run so that we wouldn't have to run over wet, slippery, uneven rocks and instead extend the path a bit to use a new bike path they had put in to address the issue of bikers trying to go over those same rocks.
The run time will not be good this year. The gatoraid caused my stomach to cramp and lack of enough trail running caused me to walk a large portion of it. I ran off and on passing Lance who I met on Thursday at a tri-club meeting. Eventually I was only walking and he caught up with me and said "come run with me." So I did. It was great to have someone to run with and he had the same opinions about up-hills that I did... they should be walked. Probably around mile 2.5 my stomach was just getting worse so I told him to go ahead and I would catch up. I finished probably about 20 seconds afterwards.
Overall
I crossed the mat at clock time of 2:27ish. Given that I was in wave six that put me 20 minutes behind the clock time, so I did it in 2:07-2:08ish depending on how the chip time comes out. Which means this year I was slower than last year. It could depend on many things... was the swim course actually longer this year (it felt it), did the gravel roads slow everyone down and thus my relative placement isn't as bad, just how much worse was my run since I think my bike was better. In the end, I'll look at all the pieces and see how I did and compare my relative ranking to the other women.
Placing
This year I competed in the Athena category (women over 150 pounds and opt-in to this category). In the past 3 years there have been 6-8 women who have finished each year. I figured I stood a much better chance placing in that then in my age group which had almost 30 women. As of race day there were only two of us. I raced the entire thing not being sure where the other woman was so I needed to either catch her or not let her catch me. In the end, she didn't end up racing. Thus I took first place by default! I still raced hard and given that when I signed up I did expect 6-8 other women, it's still a victory.
Epilogue: Nutrition is the 4th Sport
As mentioned in the run portion mistake #1 happened when I guzzled gatoraid before going out on the run. This was compounded with mistake #2 that I drank an ice cold gatoraid as soon as I finished. I both chugged it and was not used to drink ice cold water or gatoraid. Mistake #3 was eating about a full orange in a rather ravenous manner. Mistake #4 for drinking another ice cold gatoraid. Can you see where this is leading?
If not, let me guide you. In my cube I have a photocopy of a shoe ad that has the slogon "In triathlons, victory and defeat often taste the same" and a picture of a female triathlete on the side of the road curled up and clearly looking like she lost breakfast. Yep, that was me. Expect instead of losing breakfast I lost all that lovely gatoraid and orange pieces. I ended up doing it twice in two separate locations since I was dumb and tried to eat part of banana and water to calm my nerves. Nope, that just came up too.
This left my body in an extreme sugar low (which I already have issues with) and unable to eat. Thankfully the triathlon community is very supportive and so I had many offers of help to either take me to a hospital for IV fluids, take me home so I could rest, or just get me anything I needed. I appreciated it all.
Lesson learned: be careful about both pre-race and post-race nutrition.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
12 hours...
12 hours from now I will likely be on my way to the park. Yep, I'm planning on being there by 5:50 so I can set up my gear right when the transition area opens at 6. Then time to chill out for an hour, eat a banana, and relax.
Swim - A couple days ago I did my first open water lake swim for the year. I really had forgotten how murky the water is and how variable the temperature is. One section would be chilly and another would be warm. A report from earlier today said the water was around 77 degrees which would make it wetsuit legal, but given that it is over 90+ and direct sun out there right now it will probably get back up to the normal 80 degrees.
Bike - Rather concerned about this because %()*&#($*& VDOT decided that Friday would be a great day to tear up one of the main roads we use. It's only a couple miles torn up, but we use that portion twice (going out and coming back). What's worse is that I've really practiced getting up my speed on that portion so I feel like it has been a lot of wasted effort. I guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow morning.
Run - some folks today said that it wasn't nearly as muddy as we were fearing thanks to a lot of the heat in the last couple days. Like always, I'm more worried about my nutrition for that portion.
Race placement - I'm in the 6th and final wave which means I'll have a lot of folks to pass on the bike if I'm lucky. That being said, there will also already be people done with the race by the time I get back from the bike.
Race category - the best I can tell there are still only two Athenas. I know the number of the other woman so I should be able to spot her reasonably well and just make it my goal to get ahead of her and stay ahead of her.
Swim - A couple days ago I did my first open water lake swim for the year. I really had forgotten how murky the water is and how variable the temperature is. One section would be chilly and another would be warm. A report from earlier today said the water was around 77 degrees which would make it wetsuit legal, but given that it is over 90+ and direct sun out there right now it will probably get back up to the normal 80 degrees.
Bike - Rather concerned about this because %()*&#($*& VDOT decided that Friday would be a great day to tear up one of the main roads we use. It's only a couple miles torn up, but we use that portion twice (going out and coming back). What's worse is that I've really practiced getting up my speed on that portion so I feel like it has been a lot of wasted effort. I guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow morning.
Run - some folks today said that it wasn't nearly as muddy as we were fearing thanks to a lot of the heat in the last couple days. Like always, I'm more worried about my nutrition for that portion.
Race placement - I'm in the 6th and final wave which means I'll have a lot of folks to pass on the bike if I'm lucky. That being said, there will also already be people done with the race by the time I get back from the bike.
Race category - the best I can tell there are still only two Athenas. I know the number of the other woman so I should be able to spot her reasonably well and just make it my goal to get ahead of her and stay ahead of her.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Rename to Muddy Buddy?
Earlier in the year I was considering doing the Muddy Buddy which features a large mud pit at the end of the run/bike race. I may get my chance to get truly muddy anyways this weekend. It has been raining every night during the past week and the trail for the run portion was already fairly muddy and waterlogged on Sunday. The forecast continues to call for more rain through the rest of the week, thus the trail is going to be essentially 3 miles of muddy fun. And when I say fun, it really won't be. The trail isn't that wide and mountain bikers ride through it so there are deep gashes in the trail in many places. Therefore, I suspect I'll have to either walk a fair bit in order to not slip & fall, and/or just kick up a bunch of mud onto myself. I predict run times overall this year will be slower. That being said, I'm still going to try my best.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
1 Week!
The final stretch for the Cville Sprint Tri is upon us. In one week from today, the triathlon will take place. This week I'm going to focus on eating right, not injuring myself, and light exercise. Unlike school tasks, this cannot be crammed for. Infact, training hard the last week before the event can reduce performance since it wears you out and the muscles may not be optimally reseted. That being said, it is good to keep moving.
As for my competition... First and foremost I'm trying to improve on my personal recored from last year. It's the same course, but the conditions may not be the same. Temperature, wind, and how much the trail is will all affect things. So I will use both the time but also relative position to the other women. The second part of the competition is that I've stated I want to place in my category of Athena. Right now that won't be too hard, there are 273 people signed up but out of that there are only two of us in the Athena category. There are still 57 spots open so we could get more, but right now its a small field.
The whole thing feels rather surreal. I know it is 7 days away, but it still seems like months away.
As for my competition... First and foremost I'm trying to improve on my personal recored from last year. It's the same course, but the conditions may not be the same. Temperature, wind, and how much the trail is will all affect things. So I will use both the time but also relative position to the other women. The second part of the competition is that I've stated I want to place in my category of Athena. Right now that won't be too hard, there are 273 people signed up but out of that there are only two of us in the Athena category. There are still 57 spots open so we could get more, but right now its a small field.
The whole thing feels rather surreal. I know it is 7 days away, but it still seems like months away.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
4 Weeks!
There are only 4 weeks remaining until the Cville Sprint Triathlon. Which really means only 3 more weeks of training and one week of tapering. It seems so far away and yet not enough time to really improve much on my training.
Swimming
I've been doing 1000m in the pool about twice a week for the last few months. I may pick up a little time over last year, but I will only be able to tell in comparison to my relative standing since as a previous post noted - the times vary greatly year to year. The 1000m I've been doing is plenty since the actual race is supposedly only 500m, but I will need to be able to do 1000m for the IronGirl Sprint Triathlon in August. Therefore I need to start increasing my distance to train for that. In addition, all of my swimming has been in the pool. The local parks open this weekend for swimming, so I shall try to get some murky water swim time in soon.
Biking
I've only been biking about once a week. I seem to come up with all sorts of excuses as to why. The only good thing is the once a week is riding the actual course and thus really learning the hills. I have gotten better at them. I don't know how it'll compare since I've only been doing group rides. In addition, last week was my first time since getting my bike professionally fitted, so I'm still working on building the correct muscles. That being said, already it was better than the old set up I had.
Running
I've been consistently getting 2 runs in a week at 3 miles each run, but on far too many of them I've had to walk a portion of it. Plus, I have only run/walked the entire sprint run course once since last year. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get out there a few more times.
Overall
I know I'm going to finish it because I feel like I'm in good enough shape for that. I don't know if I'll do better or not from last year since I feel like each of my areas has lots of room for improvement. If I could do this training time all over again, I would've gotten serious about it much sooner and actually stuck with my plan of increasing distances.
Swimming
I've been doing 1000m in the pool about twice a week for the last few months. I may pick up a little time over last year, but I will only be able to tell in comparison to my relative standing since as a previous post noted - the times vary greatly year to year. The 1000m I've been doing is plenty since the actual race is supposedly only 500m, but I will need to be able to do 1000m for the IronGirl Sprint Triathlon in August. Therefore I need to start increasing my distance to train for that. In addition, all of my swimming has been in the pool. The local parks open this weekend for swimming, so I shall try to get some murky water swim time in soon.
Biking
I've only been biking about once a week. I seem to come up with all sorts of excuses as to why. The only good thing is the once a week is riding the actual course and thus really learning the hills. I have gotten better at them. I don't know how it'll compare since I've only been doing group rides. In addition, last week was my first time since getting my bike professionally fitted, so I'm still working on building the correct muscles. That being said, already it was better than the old set up I had.
Running
I've been consistently getting 2 runs in a week at 3 miles each run, but on far too many of them I've had to walk a portion of it. Plus, I have only run/walked the entire sprint run course once since last year. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get out there a few more times.
Overall
I know I'm going to finish it because I feel like I'm in good enough shape for that. I don't know if I'll do better or not from last year since I feel like each of my areas has lots of room for improvement. If I could do this training time all over again, I would've gotten serious about it much sooner and actually stuck with my plan of increasing distances.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Running the Numbers
While on my lunch break I started playing with doing multi-year comparisons of the race results. 2008 had 109 women finish, 2007 had104, and 2006 had 108. There may be slightly more data points than that in the swim and bike in case women dropped out. I kept the numbers because I don't know why they dropped out.
Overall, the times got lower as the years increased. Not by anything significant. However, the item of major note is that the swim times got longer by a fairly sizable amount. Using the average swim time (though the pattern carried through out including the fastest times), 2006 had an avg of 9:36, then 2007 went up to 10:53, then 2008 was at 11:50. My guess is that the women as a whole did not get slower (especially since it did carry into even the fastest time going from 6:03 to 8:24). Most likely the course distance has been getting slightly longer.
Other than that, my goals to have my bike around 1:05 and run around 30 are well within reason. Those goals happen to be less than a minute lower than the average time. So basically, I'm looking to go from being in the 80s in rank to right around 50s in rank (again, out of about 105-110 women).
I would also like to get my transition times down a bit since every second helps. Last year since I was just going for completing the triathlon I took my time to get something to drink between the bike and the run. If I can streamline that, I think I could easily gain some time there.
Overall, the times got lower as the years increased. Not by anything significant. However, the item of major note is that the swim times got longer by a fairly sizable amount. Using the average swim time (though the pattern carried through out including the fastest times), 2006 had an avg of 9:36, then 2007 went up to 10:53, then 2008 was at 11:50. My guess is that the women as a whole did not get slower (especially since it did carry into even the fastest time going from 6:03 to 8:24). Most likely the course distance has been getting slightly longer.
Other than that, my goals to have my bike around 1:05 and run around 30 are well within reason. Those goals happen to be less than a minute lower than the average time. So basically, I'm looking to go from being in the 80s in rank to right around 50s in rank (again, out of about 105-110 women).
I would also like to get my transition times down a bit since every second helps. Last year since I was just going for completing the triathlon I took my time to get something to drink between the bike and the run. If I can streamline that, I think I could easily gain some time there.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Ironman Inspiration
10 weeks until the Charlottesville Sprint Triathlon. I have not been as committed to training as I should've been and more than anything its a mental game at this point. I know I can do all 3 distances individually and I'm pretty sure if I took it slow I could do them all in a row right now. However, I need to get my performance up if I want to enjoy the day (aka I don't want to fill incredibly sick from overworking myself to get a decent time). Last year I was really scared that I would DNF (Did not finish) that it inspired me to train lots. This year it's a mental game to tell myself that I need to train more if I want to improve my time. So often when I'm running or biking right now I see a shortcut and think "Well, I could just cut it short today, it wouldn't matter that much." However, all those times cutting short would only hurt me in the end since you can't cram for a race like you can studying. All nighters don't work in physical goals.
To pick up a little more inspiration about doing this, today I watched the Ironman 70.3 competition. Half the length of a full Ironman but that is still 1.2 miles swimming, 56 miles biking, and 13.1 miles running. The perseverance of the athletes was impressive. They also did some stories on unlikely competitors who had overcome hardship to be there. If they can do it, so can I. Plus, my distance is a lot shorter so there is no reason not to be in my best physical shape.
To pick up a little more inspiration about doing this, today I watched the Ironman 70.3 competition. Half the length of a full Ironman but that is still 1.2 miles swimming, 56 miles biking, and 13.1 miles running. The perseverance of the athletes was impressive. They also did some stories on unlikely competitors who had overcome hardship to be there. If they can do it, so can I. Plus, my distance is a lot shorter so there is no reason not to be in my best physical shape.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Getting Realistic, part 2
A few posts ago I wrote that I wasn't training as much as I needed to be and that caused me to drop out of the Cville 10 miler. The second casualty has been the Muddy Buddy. I have not ridden a mountain bike in quite some time and certainly not offroad. With only 3 weeks until the event, it isn't going to happen. Instead with the 10 weeks I have left until the first triathlon, I'm going to focus on the activities for that.
My revised list grouped by liklihood
Definites:
Cville Sprint Triathlon
Iron Girl Sprint Triathlon
Richmond Marathon
Iffy:
Cville International Triathlon (as part of relay team - thus need to check with my team)
Unlikely:
Luray International Triathlon - it's just too close to Pennsic
Boys and Girls club ride - I just don't enjoy biking that much and I should be well into marathon training at that point.
My revised list grouped by liklihood
Definites:
Cville Sprint Triathlon
Iron Girl Sprint Triathlon
Richmond Marathon
Iffy:
Cville International Triathlon (as part of relay team - thus need to check with my team)
Unlikely:
Luray International Triathlon - it's just too close to Pennsic
Boys and Girls club ride - I just don't enjoy biking that much and I should be well into marathon training at that point.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Richmond Marathon - Registered
I am now officially registered for the Richmond Marathon. I should've done it yesterday when registering for the Cville Sprint Triathlon, since I missed one of the early registration time frames by a day. But now I've paid, so I'm going to do this thing!
(And no, it's not an Aprils Fools joke... I'm serious, I'm doing this)
(And no, it's not an Aprils Fools joke... I'm serious, I'm doing this)
Monday, March 30, 2009
Registered for the Sprint Tri
Nothing says motivation like forking over the money to commit oneself to the cause. I am now registered for the 2009 Charlottesville Sprint Triathlon. In order to not make a fool of myself out there, time to get serious about the training. Only two months left.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Quick results & video!
The MJ8K folks were amazingly on the ball this year, the results are already posted. My team finished 7th out of 8 teams. Much like the triathlon song says, "won't be first, won't be last, but I'm sure I'm going to have a blast." That definitely holds true for over 3 miles I ran with David and finished strong with him. Becky also ran about 2 miles with us, but we sprinted the final part. During the time we all were running together we were bantering, having fun, and keeping those around us entertained.
My personal time was not as high as I estimated earlier. The official time was 53:55 which is a 10:53 pace. Definitely my slowest pace of any race I've ever done (of all 4 run-only races). That put my 49th out of 56th. Once again... at least I wasn't last!
This year for those of us finishing 45 minutes through 63 minutes they posted video on youtube. I'm in the red pants, grey sweatshirt, and pink bandana.
My personal time was not as high as I estimated earlier. The official time was 53:55 which is a 10:53 pace. Definitely my slowest pace of any race I've ever done (of all 4 run-only races). That put my 49th out of 56th. Once again... at least I wasn't last!
This year for those of us finishing 45 minutes through 63 minutes they posted video on youtube. I'm in the red pants, grey sweatshirt, and pink bandana.
Publish Post
Martha Jefferson 8K Results
This morning was the Martha Jefferson 8K run. As my last post states, I didn't really train for it this year and I knew my time was going to suffer. That being said, my time was around 53 minutes. That is about a 10:39 pace. This is all conjecture because I didn't stop my watch until 55 minutes at which point I was just out of the shoot (walking area to hand over our number).
The good:
The good:
- It wasn't raining this year!
- I spent most of the race chatting and running with a friend.
- I was part of the awesome PQA team.
- The t-shirt fits better than last year's.
- I had to walk multiple times because I just wasn't in good enough shape.
- It was kinda chilly out (40ish degrees).
- My time last year was 45:41 thus I was about 8 minutes slower this year.
- Did I mention the walking thing?
Monday, March 9, 2009
Time to get Realistic
There comes a time when you must face reality and accept the consequences. One of my stated goals and races was to do the Cville 10 miler. I would like to do it, it just won't be this year. I haven't trained sufficiently for it so actually running it would only be setting myself up for failure and possibly injury. As it is I'm hoping to even be able to finish the Martha Jefferson 8K (~5miles). Again, I haven't trained enough. I know my time will be worse than last year and that is just the consequence of not training.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Back to training
I ended last season's commitment to running after the Women's 4 miler (Aug 30th) and ended the biking training after the Boys' & Girls' Club ride (Mid October). As for swimming, I wasn't keeping up since July. Now with the holidays mostly over, it's time to get back into training for my series of events. In the near future I will try to post or incorporate a training plan, but for now I'm just going to try to get my baseline back up. I did 2 miles running outside today and that got me out of breathe. I may have a long time until the marathon, but that 10 miler is coming up quickly.
Friday, December 5, 2008
2009 Race Schedule
I've decided on my 2009 Race schedule. Please note I use race as the official term about what the events are, but I don't necessarily plan on competing with others. For most of the races, it is a matter of finishing the race (especially for the longer distances) and trying to improve my PR (Personal Record) on the courses I have done before.
March 14, Martha Jefferson 8K Run
April 4th, Charlottesville 10 miler
June (?), Charlottesville Sprint Triathlon
~ 0.3 mile swim, 16.5 mile bike, 3 mile trail run
July (?), Charlottesville International Triathlon
Trail running portion of relay team.
~ 6 miles
July (?), Muddy Buddy
~6 miles split between running & biking. And the mud pit
August 15th, Luray International Triathlon
~ 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run
August 23rd, Iron Girl Sprint Triathlon
~ .62 mile swim, 17.5 mile bike, 3.4 mile run
October 18th, Boys & Girls Club Challenge Ride
~60 miles biking
November 14th, Richmond Marathon
(Links to each event are on the side)
March 14, Martha Jefferson 8K Run
April 4th, Charlottesville 10 miler
June (?), Charlottesville Sprint Triathlon
~ 0.3 mile swim, 16.5 mile bike, 3 mile trail run
July (?), Charlottesville International Triathlon
Trail running portion of relay team.
~ 6 miles
July (?), Muddy Buddy
~6 miles split between running & biking. And the mud pit
August 15th, Luray International Triathlon
~ 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run
August 23rd, Iron Girl Sprint Triathlon
~ .62 mile swim, 17.5 mile bike, 3.4 mile run
October 18th, Boys & Girls Club Challenge Ride
~60 miles biking
November 14th, Richmond Marathon
(Links to each event are on the side)
Friday, October 24, 2008
wdydwyd
The graphic designer in me really enjoyed making my response for a "Why do you do what you do?" meme.
Sized 5x7 so I can print it off and frame it easily to provide further inspiration.
Sized 5x7 so I can print it off and frame it easily to provide further inspiration.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Women's 4 miler
The whole notion of running being part of my life started last year with the women's 4-miler training program and race. I did the training program again this year in the advanced group for most of the summer but Pennsic kinda threw everything off for me. That being said, it was still a good race.
The fun stats:
This year 36:00. Last year 38:42.
This year 352 out of 2505. Last year: 567 out of 2240.
This year 45 out of 277 in my age group. Last year 69 out of 146. (Note, I moved up an age group to 25-29)
The fun stats:
This year 36:00. Last year 38:42.
This year 352 out of 2505. Last year: 567 out of 2240.
This year 45 out of 277 in my age group. Last year 69 out of 146. (Note, I moved up an age group to 25-29)
Lazy man final report
Yes, it's an entire month late, but Pennsic came and just never got a chance to update it. If you've been watching the numbers for the last month they haven't moved and the final tally was 3.3 miles swim (over by 1.1 miles), 78.3 miles bike (under by 33.7), 37.2 miles run (over by 11).
Once again, I didn't make it. However, I did do much better this year and I suspect I can do better yet next year. It's all a matter of getting the biking in early.
Once again, I didn't make it. However, I did do much better this year and I suspect I can do better yet next year. It's all a matter of getting the biking in early.
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