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Archive for May, 2010

Rev3 Knoxville Race Report

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Last weekend rocked. I can’t possibly recap everything, but let’s see how close I can come.

Friday morning I got up, packed a few last minute things into the car, and hit the road pointed South starting at 4:30 am. 950 miles, 2.5 tanks of gas, five bottles of water and countless bathroom breaks later I rolled in to Knoxville, TN. I pulled in just in time to meet up with my team for dinner and a beer before calling it a night.

The road trip was uneventful, which I guess was all I could ask for.

The Day Before

Saturday morning I woke up again with the sun and headed down to the expo to help run the tent and hang out with all of my Trakkers teammates who had rolled into town.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

We had a friendly rivalry going on with the Terrier Tri team and it didn’t take long for antics to ensue. We hijacked their banner from their tent and had some fun with it.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Me practicing winding up and punting their little dog mascot, er… I mean “stretching…”

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

But then we got down to business and had to take some serious team pics.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

We roll deep.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Proudly rocking Saucony all the way down the line.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

My legs were KILLING me all day from the long drive into town, so most of the day involved stretching, hydrating with a full camelbak full of EFS, massaging and warming up with a little SwimBikeRun.

After a quick run around the ‘hood, Sonja and Michelle took me out on the bike course to show me some of the technical parts so I knew exactly what to expect and there weren’t any surprises.

I have officially made it into one of Sonja’s over the shoulder bike pics. I feel like my triathlon blogger street cred just tripled.

Notice the Camelbak still on my firmly strapped to my shoulders. That thing didn’t leave my side all day. The theme of the day was all about hydration and stretching out my aching legs from the long drive.

Next stop, swim course!

We went out and loosened up, all while having a blast. I met up with some of Sonja and Michelle’s CO crew and they are good people. You could spot them anywhere from the random shouts of laughter that echoed down the river banks.

After doing some last minute race prep and meeting up with Megan, Sonja and her adorable daughter Annie for some late night ice cream, I called it a night and got some sleep.

Race Day

Morning rolled around once again, and I was up and out the door just as the sun was rising and on my way to the transition area.

Michael Lovato hand delivered some special EFS Liquid Shot prototypes to us the day before. I stowed it away in my bento box and was going to use it as my secret weapon.

As I started to set up my transition area, I look up and realize that Tara Costa from Biggest Loser was racked right next to me. Sam and I watch BL all the time, so I texted her a picture immediately. I knew she would be pretty jealous.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Not only that, but Heather Gollnick ends up strolling over and asks me to do a short little video interview with her. Pretty sick, right?! If i see it get posted, I’ll share it here. I have no idea what I rambled about. I forgot where I was from and it was probably pretty awkward, but still cool.

Swim

The awesomely fun vibe continued in the swim too. As each swim wave jumped from the shore into the water, people were doing back flips and cartwheels off of the docks and splashing everyone still up on shore. I’ve never seen so many people pre-race with so few butterflies and just out there having a good time.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

I have no idea why, but I started off in the back(ish) of my swim wave. The swim is my weakest of the three sports, but I know I can be more competitive than just hanging out in the back of the group. I paid the price for it too. After the first stoke I took a heel right to the eye. I poked my head up, let the guy in front of me get some distance, and kept on trucking.

My time wasn’t expecting anything spectacular. I’m still stuck in that 1:40-1:45 pace, a rut that I need to figure out how to get out of soon.

Bike

An uneventful T1 and I was off on the bike course. I made it a goal to suck down as much water as I could (without letting my stomach blow up like a water balloon) and grabbed water at every aid station just to slurp down and spray the rest over my helmet and down my back.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Here is Meredith and I rocking the first section of the bike course.

The course was a blast. It had everything. Some flat sections, beautiful scenery, short steep climbs, technical winding descents. LOVED it. Super challenging, low traffic and a ton of fun.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Bull Horn Pose Credit: Kim Kaltreider

If anything, I probably got distracted by how much fun I was having and could have pushed it a little harder out there. Can you tell from the stupid faces I was making every time I saw Sonja’s dad, Eric Willis, snapping pictures of me and all our teammates. I definitely could have pushed it a little harder looking at my time, but at least now I have some better insight into my pacing…

Time: 1:22:07

Avg Speed: 18.12 mph

Run

Blasting through T2 and I was off on the run. I always falter a little bit on the beginning of the run, but by mile 1.5 when I still felt good, I really cranked it up. It was the best I had ever felt on the run by FAR. A confusing feeling, but a very welcome one.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Again, still having a one man roving party on the whole course, shouting at all my teammates and tossing out high fives along the course.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Coming through the home stretch before the finish line, I laid down the last high five on Carole Sharpless before gunning it to the finish.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

I re-passed a few guys (not in my age group unfortunately) that took me earlier in the course as I neared the finish. I heard some grumbles as they spotted the age on my calf. “He is young, that isn’t fair.”

I huffed “It is just a number, come with me!” as I blasted by some more old guys, but no one could hold on.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

It was great having such a strong push to the finish because it shows that my run fitness is way beyond where it has been for the past few years. My pace wasn’t anything spectacular, but knowing that I still had some juice in me says a lot. Better understanding my pacing will come before Rev3 Quassy next month and I’m hoping to totally rock it there.

Run Pace: 7:42

Finishing Time: 2:41:33

The End

Overall I wasn’t totally happy with my finish time, but had a BLAST during the race otherwise. My plan was to leave everything out there on the course. I left everything that I THOUGHT that I had out there, but it turns out my tank holds a lot more speed than I thought. It is dissapointing to not hit anywhere close to what I think my potential is, but I’m totally psyched to realize that my new training plan is bringing me places that my old plan from last year could have never done.

All in all, it was a great day.

A major thanks has to be laid out to Team Trakkers’ Momma Bear, Carole Sharpless. Managing of team of +30 athletes all across the country is no easy feat, and she was a blast to hang around with all weekend. She makes me proud to be part of such an amazing group. I won’t even try to attempt naming all of the awesome teammates and blogger friends that I met in person for the first time last weekend. You know who you are. You all rock and I can’t wait to race with you again very soon.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Until next time folks! The next race on the plan is to seek revenge on the Rev3 Quassy course and annihilate last year’s time. Only a few more weeks until race day comes again. At Quassy I’ll have to race a little more seriously and not make stupid faces for the photographers every time.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Celebrating a great day with some of Trakkers’ speediest ladies, Sonja and Michelle.

Lastly, a huge OBVIOUS thanks for Sonja’s dad, Eric Willis for taking a million awesome pictures for the team. He is the one with his name plastered in the photo credits all over this post. If you liked all the pictures in this post, he is the guy to thank.

Tags: olympic distance triathlon, rev3 knoxville | Posted in Nutrition, Race Reports, Triathlon | 10 Comments »

The Road To Rev3 Knoxville

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

I realized that I haven’t officially announced it here, but this is long overdue.

I’m kicking off the 2010 tri season this weekend in Knoxville!

Friday morning, long before the sun rises, I’ll be in my car making the almost 1,000 mile journey down to the other side of the Mason Dixon line. Fifteen hours (God I hope it doesn’t actually take me that long) in the car with just my thoughts, my bike and my iPod. I hear Lady Gaga is good company.

Not only will I get to witness the Trakkers vs. Trek/KSwiss showdown play out in person, but I’ll get to hang out with a TON of my Trakkers, bloggy and twitter friends for the whole weekend. It is going to be tough focusing on actually racing instead of just hanging out with teammates all weekend, but it will be a fun challenge to try and balance. Plus, we issued a challenge to two other age group triathlon teams and it will be fun laying some hurtin’ on them.

I’ll be racing the Oly on Sunday morning. I’m not even going to bother making goals since I have NO clue what is going to happen. I feel like I’m the fittest I’ve been in a really long time, but it has all been ironman-focused. How well does that translate into olympic distance speed? I guess we will find out. All I’m going to say that I feel like a PR might be possible.

No matter what, if I’m driving that far to race, I’m leaving it ALL out on the course. I’ve got no reason to hold back.

I’ll try to blog a little bit over the weekend, but much more info will be up on my twitter account. Check that for all my Rev3 Knoxville adventure/road trip updates.

Tags: rev3 knoxville, road trip | Posted in Ironman, Training Log, Triathlon | 4 Comments »

Number One

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

Last weekend I did it.

It took a few tries, but I finally did it.

The seal is broken.

It is done. There is no turning back now.

Last weekend’s 60 mile training ride had two goals.

Ditch the “1 bottle per hour” rule and experiment to see how much water my body really needs while training hard
Try to pee on the bike as practice for Rev3 Cedar Point

1 Bottle Per Hour Rule

The more I looked back at old training log data and how I felt at the end of long bike rides, the more I started to realize that I need WAY more than the 1 bottle per hour. Sure, it makes the math really easy for planning out ride nutrition, but by mile 30, I’ve almost always started to fade. NOT good.

The plan was to just drink. Whenever I needed some water I just had to keep just keep sucking it down. Keep. On. Drinking.

The first bottle went down in 45 minutes. The second in another :45, and the third was done in 20 minutes. I was done with three bottles (and felt good) in 1:50, the time when I would normally be just polishing off the end of my second bottle.

Dehydrated much?

I still need to tweak some stats, do a sweat rate test and figure out exactly how much I need, but at least I was able to prove that I need to drink a lot more frequently than just one bottle per hour.

Which leads me to my next story….

Last weekend Kim was hassling me about the fact that I’ve never peed on the bike before. There is no way I’m stopping at a port-o-potty on the bike to let ‘er go, so I had to practice (once I got my hyradtion nailed down enough to where there is something to actually let go).

Once I polished off my third water bottle, I found a nice easy downhill, relaxed the legs, pointed the “artillery” away from the drive side of the bike and try to let her rip. (Does worrying about which way I’m pointing mean I’m completely over analyzing this whole thing).

I was really surprised. Why was everyone freaking out and talking about how hard this was? Until I realized that my leg was bone dry. It was a phantom pee! WTH!

No, I did not let it dangle out of the bottom of my shorts like this guy. Smiling that big while peeing (no matter where you are) is just creepy.

After I found another slow straightaway, I readjusted, tried to relax my legs and stop pedaling and try again. I’m not going to lie. It was pretty hot outside and having wind blow across the pee dripping down my leg was actually pretty refreshing…

My right leg was pretty jealous.

Later in the ride (after sucking down a few more bottles) I even did it again! I think I may have this thing down. Speedy bike times with perfect hydration here I come!

Coach Liz told me to look out for letting some surprise splashes go by accident once you get off the bike, stand up and start running, but thankfully I was all dried up at that point. I’m definitely glad I remembered to wear my Trakkers tri shorts and not my cycling kit.

Another random skill down that should bring me one step closer to the finish line at Cedar Point…

Tags: peeing on the bike | Posted in Triathlon | 4 Comments »

The Base-Build Trasition

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

It is that time of the year people!

For most people, the triathlon racing season is just kicking off, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. For this guy whose main focus is on that big 140.6 mile race in September, the base training season is OVER.

Time to ratchet up the training volume and intensity to see exactly what my body can handle.

Besides just cranking out more hours and more hard intervals, I’ve got a bunch of other training goals that I’m trying to hit along the way.

Focus on recovery just as much as training.

Going hard one day isn’t worth much if you are so wasted that you can’t hit your workout targets for the next three days. I’ve been addicted to Ultragen after all of my hard workouts and I’ve been liking it a lot. I was big into chocolate milk as a recovery drink last year. Ultragen is obviously a little pricier than a glass of chocolate milk, but there is no sense doing all this training if I’m not fueling with some top quality stuff, so I think it is worth it so far. Plus, the cappuccino flavor is so freaking delicious it is something great to look forward to as a reward after beating up my body for a few hours on the weekend.

I’ve also been pretty awful about stretching, except when something starts to bother me. No excuses here. I just gotta make it a more regular part of my post-workout routine to keep me healthy and loose.

Anticipate raging food cravings so I can make responsible choices

The hunger is already coming. I feel like I have only seen the beginning of the ironman food cravings. The one major thing that I learned from my #i8this challenge is that the easiest way to eat healthy is to simply stock your fridge and pantry with healthy godies. If you have crap in the house, it will get eaten. Or even if you don’t have anything good in the house and need food fast, you are probably going to make some bad choices.

Start my experimentation with OptygenHP.

So far I’ve loved everything that I’ve tried from my new nutrition sponsor, First Endurance. Beyond killer race nutrition and recovery stuff, I really wanted to test out their OptygenHP supplement. All their stuff is based on tons of research, so I trust ‘em. They haven’t let me down yet. You can check out their site for details on it, but it has some special goodies in it that Tibetian sherpas use for climbing Everest and helps increase oxygen utilization, reduce lactic acid buildup and helps adapt to high levels of physical stress.

For the first two days, it did give me this strange tingling all over my body, especially on my face and ears. The site says that this is caused by one of the ingredients (Beta-Alanine) activating some neurons or something like that. All this time they were just hitching a ride and not carrying their own weight?! Shenanigans! Their whole explanation is over here.

I’ve only been taking it for six days so far, so it is too early to tell how effective it is, but I’ll definitely report back if I feel that it helps me get through hard training days (and ultimately race day) any easier.

Get my legs smooth n’ race ready.

Nuff said. Soon it will be time to lather up and get these doggies race-day smooth!

Balance both my training and social calendars

Except for a few hiccups, I think I’ve been doing pretty good about keeping a relatively normal social life during my base training. Keeping Sam posted on when my long workouts will be, having a shared Google calendar and doing lots of pre-dawn workouts has helped to keep things pretty sane. It isn’t going to get any easier now that the weekly training hours will be jumping up, but definitely something I need to keep my attention on.

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I’m not going to lie. I was thinking about this blog post while doing hill repeats the other morning and was singing this song to myself (in my head).