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Rev3 Quassy Race Report

Monday, June 7th, 2010

The morning of the race, after a full day of perfect nutrition, hydration, visualization and rest, I woke up to THIS.

See that red pin to the left? That is where the race was.

See that massive blog of angry just west of the red pin? That is what made me poop myself. Twice. Needless to say was mentally preparing myself for a pretty epic race. During the drive to the race site, I eventually tricked myself into looking forward to hydroplaning the entire bike and splashing through puddles for 13 miles.

Swim

Pre race chat with Toby

I’m not going to lie. I was looking forward to a little bit of a PR on the swim. I usually crawl out of the water at around 37 minutes, but have been doing a lot more swimming this season and would have been psyched if I didn’t have to push it too hard and could come out sub 35:00. Those hopes quickly went in the garbage within the first 400 meters of the swim.

I’ve had some pretty aggressive swim starts before, but this was just insane. I positioned myself just like I usually do, in the back(ish) of the middle but found myself at the center of a huge pack still at around 500 meters. Forearms were crashing down across my back. Multiple sets of feet were splashing right in front of my face. I was doing my best just to keep from getting punched and decided to play it safe and head to the outside of the course. It was going to be a long day and I had no reason to spend my competitive juices on so early in the swim.

I felt like I was holding a pretty decent pace. My shoulders were a little tight, but I was staying just left of a pretty decent sized group and was drafting off of some safe feet when I could, but the aggressiveness just never let up, especially as some of the super speedy guys in later waves caught up to my wave (we were the first to go after the pros).

At just about the halfway point, I’m convinced that I firmly planted my heel directly into some dude’s forehead. Feeling the echo of some guy’s scull reverberate through your leg is not a cool feeling, but it has to be better than what he felt. No joke, I felt like I seriously clobbered that guy directly with my heel, full force. This is my way of saying “my b.” I was swimming straight and had a normal kick, he must have just been so speedy coming up behind me that his head caught up to me before his hands did. But the race goes on…

I ended up exiting the water at 38:52 (2:01 min/100m).

I wasn’t too happy about it, but considering how I took a pretty conservative line around the swim course (and I ended up drifting more than usual…), I’m sure my pace was a little faster since I traveled a little more than the 1.2 miles that were marked off.

Bike

T1 was uneventful and relatively quick. I had cut off the last two inches of my wetsuit and lubed up plenty with TriSlide so my heels slipped right out and I was good to go.

I stuck to the nutrition plan that I laid out in my last post and started sucking down on my first bottle of EFS Liquid Shot mixed into a water bottle.

The roads were all pretty wet, but somehow the mega storm of the century was still holding off. Except for a few sprinkles, it was pretty decent weather. Humid, but otherwise cool and great for racing.

The hills hurt just as much as I expected and I was feeling really strong. Besides letting my upper body bounce around above the handlebars like I was rocking out to some sick beats while climbing up one of the major hill (thanks again Sonja for calling me out on my totally lame form), I had a pretty nice groove going and was having a blast. A perfect example of a bad habit that I’ve been working very hard to break all season, but when my mind goes into “race mode” all that goes out the window and I climb up hills like I’m pedaling a moon bounce… ::sigh::

Rolling through mile 29 we passed the Trakkers aid station with all of my teammates and friends who had raced the Oly the day before. They were hootin’ and hollerin’ and it was awesome to suck in all their energy. I even got flashed by Ryan and for some reason I instantly decided to squirt him with some extra water in the bottle I just picked up. I’m not exactly sure why. Strange unexplainable reaction, but I thought it was funny.

Ryan, I hope I didn’t get you too wet buddy. Thanks for the laugh.

Unlike Knoxville where I was just smiling and having a blast the whole time, Quassy was all about getting down to business. Immediately after the Trakkers aid station I hunkered back down and kept on cranking.

I eased up the pace a little during the last five miles and focused on taking in some extra water (to avoid a repeat of the dehydration issues I had on the run last year). Meg went flying past me and I was SO tempted to go chasing after her. I decided to use my better judgment (knowing that she is a super speedy runner and trying to chase her out of T2 would be dangerous) and let her disappear in the distance in front of me.

I knew I was capable of hitting around 3:00 from riding the course two weeks ago, but knew that the run was going to really challenge me so I was aiming for somewhere between 3:05-3:10 so I could get ready to unleash whatever I had left once I got on the run. I felt like I handled the run pretty well. Strong enough pace without having to worry about not saving enough for the run.

Time: 3:11:46 (17.58 mph)

This was definitely on the slow end of my predictions, but I was happy with it. For such a challenging course, it followed my plan to the letter and felt strong coming into T2.

Run

I rushed through transition, packed two fuel belt bottles and an EFS Liquid Shot flask into my pockets and started the last part of my trek to the finish line.

While I normally struggle to find my legs after the run, apparently all the BRick workouts this year paid off. I didn’t feel super speedy (which would have been a great surprise) but I was able to get a nice rhythm going. I started checking the time at every mile to keep my pace under control until at least mile 4 or 5 where I planned to reassess how I felt.

I was only looking at the minutes and seconds, so it took me four miles to realize that my watch had frozen half way through the bike and I wasn’t actually doing perfect 10:00 min/mile pace over and over. Crap. It wouldn’t even let me tell the time. I’ve gotta replace that thing ASAP. For a $25 garage sale purchase five years ago, my Polar HRM was a steal but I need to invest in some new goodies that are more reliable.

The run hurt, but I was doing a LOT better than last year. I had to walk up some hills (and even some flats) but I mostly focused on listening to my body and making smart decisions.

Example: I have this theory that whenever I’m dehydrated and working out, I can feel my pulse in my head. When that thump came back to my skull. I stopped, tossed down a little water from my fuel belt bottle and walked for a minute or two to help it absorb instead of just sitting in my stomach.

While the hills were relentless and were tearing everyone apart, the humidity only made things more insane. I just couldn’t cool my body off. Any water that the kick-ass volunteers splashed on me or that I dumped on my head just sat there. Nothing was evaporating. I felt like I was a giant running sponge. Thankfully I decided to run with my Fastwitchs. This was my first time testing out the drain holes in the bottom. Unlike my old Asics trainers, these things didn’t soak up all that much water and were WAY more comfortable to run in while wet.

The last half mile of the run course was just some sick joke. A giant, straight hill just out of earshot of the finish line. As you come up to the base you can look up and see all the athletes ahead of you practically crying as they go up.

Every single person I saw in front of me on the hill was walking at some point, but I refused. I knew how close we were to the finish and was going to take them down. Slow and steady I increased my pace and knocked down four guys until I reached the top and let loose. I could hear their pace quicken behind me as they tried to hold on, but I must have had too much ground on them to respond. It was awesome having those rabbits to chase and take down on my way to the finish.

Granted I was only really competing with myself for the first 70 miles, but throwing a little mano-a-mano (x4) action for the last .3 miles is always exciting.

Run: 2:21:09 (10:47 min/mile)

The clock stopped for me at 6:15:44

That is a full 13 minutes faster than last year!

The End

I couldn’t be happier with my race. Of course there are things I’d go back and tweak (including doing more tempo run workouts), but that will always be the case for any 70 mile race. Ultimately, I had a plan, I nailed it and had a blast the whole time.

Great event. Killer course. Awesome teammates. I can’t think of any better way to spend a weekend.

I’m nowhere near speedy enough to bringing home age group hardware, but check out all my fast teammates.

And more importantly, a great weekend spent showing Momma Bull what her son is capable of. Major thanks to my mom and my girlfriend Sam for coming out to spectate and take pictures. Knowing that they would be there screaming my name each time I came through transition was more motivation than they’ll ever know.

Up next: Reevaluating my FullRev Cedar Point training plan. Stay Tuned!

Tags: half ironman, rev3 quassy | Posted in Nutrition, Race Reports, Triathlon | 12 Comments »

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 »

Computrainer Time Trial = Reality Check

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Sunday I went downtown to Landry’s for the Boston Triathlon Team’s indoor time trial/suffer fest.

I had only done one computrainer time trial once before (last March), and I was doing a LOT more running and was teaching hardcore spinning classes twice a week, so needless to say, I was in much better shape. I didn’t need a test to tell me that I wasn’t in the shape I was last year, but I was pretty curious to see exactly how much farther back I was (and how much ground I had to make up).

I did last year’s 10k TT in 15:56 (283 average watts/ HR: 174 avg – 189 max). As long as I finished in sight of that 283 avg watts, I’d be a happy camper. The course profile was the last 10k of the Boston Marathon, backwards. From Copley square to the top of heartbreak hill. Almost completely uphill. Yikes.

The results:

Time: 18:21 (CLEARLY a much harder course)

Avg Watts: 259

Avg Speed: 20.3

HR: 177 avg – 189 max

I have to give credit to a few of those watts to Kim who was behind me screaming almost the whole time, cheering me on. She is an awesome motivator. THANKS KIM!

24 watts isn’t a TON, but definitely enough of a difference in my fitness to hopefully motivate me to get my butt in gear. It is pretty interesting that I had almost the exact same HR as a year earlier, just lower watts.

This season one of my main goals is to focus on recovery more. Not just physically, but nutritionally too. I don’t think I paid enough attention to that last year and led to me getting pretty burnt by mid-summer. Feeling wasted before your workout even starts isn’t good. Thankfully I’m loving the cappuccino flavored Ultragen. I’ve only used it a few times so far after some of my hard workouts, so I can’t say much yet about how effective it is (yet), but it definitely is freaking delicious.

Oh, and last year I somehow just barely edged out Triathlon hall of famer Karen Smyers. This year, (I think, but am awaiting the final results to be posted) I think I beat out ’08 Lake Placid winner Cait Snow. I’m sure that there is something wonky going on with the computrainers since I know for a fact that both ladies can tear me apart on the road, but it is still pretty cool thinking that I can compete with them on SOME level (albeit fake).

Now that I know where my fitness stands, I’ve gotta get this whole ironman training plan thing squared away so I can hit it hard once March hits. More on that soon…

Tags: boston triathlon team, computrainer, computrainer time trial | Posted in Cycling, Race Reports, Training Log, Triathlon | 4 Comments »

Amica Half Marathon Relay Race Report

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

One word: Epic.

It all started when Sam’s aunt signed up for the Amica Half Marathon in Newport, RI to celebrate being cancer-free for 10 years. To show our support along the way, a group of us (Sam’s parents, uncle and I) decided to do the marathon relay that went along the same course at the same time.

Looking at the weather forecast, it was supposed to be pretty cold and rainy, so I tested out some race outfit options.

This was one of my favorites (except I obviously be racing in jeans). The tri top/arm sleeve combo is the best combination of ridiculous and bad-ass. Unfortunately I was way too optomistic about the weather forecast and that outfit wasn’t even an option. It was about 40 degrees with 30 mph winds and driving rain. Typical nor’easter. Not exactly tri-top weather. Lame.

Something cool that the relay did was to have all of the relay runners wear a tasuki (think of a Ms. America sash) instead of carrying a baton. There is a pretty cool story behind it too. We made our own yellow tasuki since we were doing it in celebration of Sam’s aunt’s cancer remission (a la LiveSTRONG bracelet).

The marathon relay will be run in an ekiden race style format. An ekiden, a term that originated in Japan and usually referred to as a marathon relay in English, is a long-distance relay, road race. The original concept of the race hearkens back to Japan’s ancient Tokaido (road) communication and transportation system in which stations were posted at intervals along the road. In the race, each runner on a team runs the distance from one “station” to the next, and then hands off a cloth sash, or tasuki, to the next runner. It is considered a great honor to wear the tasuki and, in doing so, represents their team.

I had the second and longest leg. 6.85 miles. My whole section of the course went along the ocean and around all of the mansions that line the Newport coast. It was probably one of the most scenic courses I’ve ever done. It would have be nice if we had better weather to enjoy the views, but you’ve got to work with what you’ve got.

The first transition point (where I started my leg of the marathon) looked almost exactly like this on the morning of the race. (I had to steal this from the internet. Not taken from the actual race site.)

But unfortunately this is the best picture that I could get. But the waves did crash over the road almost like the first one! I promise.

Every time the waves crashed up against the seawall and above the road I threw my hands up in the air and yelled “WOOHOO!” like on a roller coaster or when doing the wave at a baseball game. I’m not sure if the runners around me found it as amusing as I did, but at least I had fun.

Since this was my last planned race of 2009, I decided to leave it all out on the course and see exactly what I was capable of (even though I definitely didn’t train for this race to be on top of my game). I had nothing to save my body for anytime soon, so did a little experimenting.

I started out at about 7:45-8:00 pace, and just held on from there. Just a little bit faster than I would have gone otherwise. I wavered a little (especially when the headwinds practically stopped me dead in my tracks) but was able to hold on and average 7:48/mile to finish in 53:24. WOOT! My goal was to average 7:45′s, but given that this was the worst conditions that I’ve ever run in, I was more than happy with going a few seconds/mile slower.

That is the first time I’ve done sub-8:00/mile pace in a race in a LONG time. Maybe since high school. Granted, the four running races I’ve done this year (including the half ironmans) have all been half marathons or longer, but again, I’ll take it and be very happy. I think I’m slowly leaving the running doldrums and getting faster!

In other news:

Sam’s aunt and cousin finished the half marathon just before the cutoff and I was there to cheer them in. Her determination amazes me.

Sam did the third leg of the relay and rocked it! She was a runner in High School, and that is where she left her athleticism. She is super competitive and made a return to run training during the last few months to run with me in the relay. I’m used to her being on the sidelines while I’m racing and taking most of the awesome pictures that I post here, but I loved being able to pass off the tasuki to her once I finished.

Lots of pics were taken. I’ll post them as they come.