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Beach to Beacon 10k Pictures

Monday, August 8th, 2011

In my rush to hit the publish button on my race report, I left some awesome pictures of my first Beach2 Beacon. I say “first” because it was a ton of fun and I’ll definitely be back for more next time. Click on the pictures if you want a bigger version.

The Starting Line: Can you see me? I’m the one in green.

Photo Credit: Kevin Morris

The Finish Line: The “Beacon” – Portland Head LightPhoto Credit: Kevin Morris

The Finish Line: From The Other Side

Photo Credit: Kevin Morris

The Awards Ceremony

And one of my favorites… Some shirtless Mainer with nipple rings and a crab hat inside a mini lighthouse on wheels. The results say he ran it in under an hour. I hope he ran it from inside the lighthouse! That would have been AWESOME. He flashed me a double shaka just after I took this picture once he saw me with my camera. Wished I got that on film.

And of course I hit up Wild Willy’s for a BBQ bacon cheeseburger, onion rings and a lime rickey before I headed back home. I showed self restraint and only at about 1/4 of the onion rings.

Tags: beach 2 beacon, beach 2 beacon 10k, beach to beacon, beach to beacon 10k | Posted in Race Reports, Running, Triathlon | No Comments »

Beach to Beacon 10k Race Report

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

Yesterday I crawled out of bed at 4am and was on the road at 4:30 to drive 2 hours up to Cape Elizabeth Maine for a 10k. Seems like a lot for a 6.2 mile race? Yeah. It is. Let’s just say s*it happens. What was supposed to be a weekend spent up in Portland enjoying lobster, beer and some time in the ocean, turned into a short visit without any lobster or beer. There was a little time spent floating in the ocean tho.

I rolled into Cape Elizabeth around 6:30, and hopped on a bus from one of the remote parking lots to take me to the race start. The bus driver had the heat BLASTING which only made the bus full of nasty nervous pre-race farts even worse! The bus was like I was in a giant fart oven. Not an awesome way to start the morning.

The only reason I’m smiling in this picture is because it is BEFORE everyone’s pre-race farts started.

A 2 hour drive, a bus ride, and a half mile walk to the start line and I was finally there. I grabbed my number, ran into some old friends that were racing and moved out of Boston, warmed up, peed in the woods and waited for the gun to go off.

Waiting at the starting line

The race itself was fun pretty uneventful. I lined up somewhere just behind the 7:00 minute pace marker and waited for the gun to go off. I didn’t taper for this and the plan was just to train through it and test out my pacing strategy for nationals.

In the end, I was REALLY happy with how consistent my pacing was. Except for a hilly second mile, I held pretty steady 7:30 miles. I would have liked to be a little faster, but since my legs weren’t 100% fresh, I was fine with it. One thing I did notice is that compared to the average runner that was holding a 7:30 pace, I’m WAY better at running hills. At the start of even the slightest hill, every pack that I was running with seemed to slowly fade back as I kept a steady effort. I don’t think this is unique to me, but probably a triathlete thing. Looks like my cycling quads aren’t just dead weight on the run after all!

Does anyone else notice this when doing stand alone running races?

My final time was 47:03. Since I can’t remember the last time I did a stand alone 10k (at least 10 years ago?) I’m calling this a PR. Here are my mile splits:

Splits:
1 – 7:27
2 – 8:03
3 – 7:38
4 – 7:33
5 – 7:30
6 -7:23

After the race, I headed through through the food tent to suck down some chocolate milk, watermelon, and a fist full of mini snickers bars. They were hiding all the good stuff (chocolate and candy) at the END of the food line! Very sneaky.Then I hit up the massage tent, something I’ve never done post-race. Usually I’m busy regrouping with Sam after she spent the morning cheering me on. Since I was flying solo this time around, I took advantage of it and made some friends in the massage line before getting my butt rubbed.

Then, it was on to the beach for a soak! There was a little rocky beach just passed the finish line and only a few other runners took advantage of it for a cold soak. I was surprised more people didn’t dive in for a little cool down, but was happy to have it (almost) to myself.

I tried doing a video race report, and almost got got knocked over by a ninja wave that came out of nowhere….

As for the race itself, I was a little hesitant because I usually hate gigantic races. This one had more than 5,000 runners and sold out in seven minutes. In MARCH. For a TEN K! Fortunately, it was super casual and really well run. There were a TON of spectators lining the course and you can tell how proud the locals were of the race. Super well run, GREAT volunteers, aid stations and finisher’s area. If you can get in, I’d definitely recommend this race. Plus, Portland is a pretty cool little city to hang out in if you’ve got some time to kill after the race.

One more week of hard training then it is time to taper for what I’ve been building my whole season around – Age Group Nationals!

Tags: beach 2 beacon, beach to beacon, cape elizabeth, maine | Posted in Race Reports, Running, Training Log, Triathlon, Videos | 5 Comments »

Ran Out Of Workout Karma

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

To be honest, this year has been pretty good to me triathlon training-wise. No huge breakthroughs, but steady progress towards getting faster times at the Olympic distance.

Other than spending most of May not training and draining gallons of boogers from my nose and some random personal issues that are inevitable, my training hasn’t hit any major snags. Except for this weekend. Actually, just Sunday. I kinda wanted to curl up in a ball and cry a little.

It wasn’t a particularly spectacular or entertaining blow up, but just for the sake of making sure you know it isn’t always sunshine, rainbows and unicorns over here, let’s talk about it. Gotta keep things balanced.

They Fart Rainbows

Saturday was an easy 2k OWS followed by a hard HARD brick. A two hour blike at faster than race pace and an all out 30 minute run. It was a great swimbikerun session and the bike pace was faster than I’ve seen in a long time (read: ever). It was +90 degrees and my legs were destroyed at the end. I headed home for some ultragen, pulled pork flat bread and 90 minutes in my Recovery Pump boots.

I inhaled the crap outta this pizza. I’d been waiting for it all week.

Sunday is when the shit show started. My recovery work the day before helped me start to recoop, but I still had a long way to go and my legs still felt like death. Clearly I dug my hole pretty deep on Saturday. I moved my 12 mile to the afternoon in hopes that a few extra hours would do the trick.

The plan was for six easy miles and six tempo miles. The first half was okay. I took a new route along the beach and enjoyed some really interesting people watching. Nahant beach has some interesting characters (I’ll save that story for another day). The second half, I tried to kick it up into some tempo work. The harder I pushed, the more it hurt, but I didn’t go any faster at all. My nutrition with EFS was spot on, but my legs just had no desire to come with me. It was like trying to argue with a toddler. The more I pushed, the harder they pushed back and threw a massive tantrum. Full on Ironman shuffle style. Dragging my feet forward with every step just to hold a 9:30 pace.

I held on for the last 6 miles and was barely able to sustain the same pace as the first 6.

Here is the route that I took. There is a sidewalk along the beach that goes from right to left. I went out to that little island sticking out on the left and back (twice) for 12 ish total miles.

The moral of the story is that no matter what you do sometimes with your planning, nutrition, stretching, recovery pumping and sleeping, sometimes the wheels just fall off.

In the words of Coach Hirsch: “In the end the legs have the final say in the workout we do!”

| Posted in Cycling, Running, Triathlon | 4 Comments »

Sports Psychology

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Triathlon is kind of like baseball. 90% if mental. The other half is physical.

But unlike baseball, which usually puts me to sleep, I LOVE triathlon AND sports psychology.

Psych was my minor in college and if I could ever find a way to get someone to pay me to get my PhD in psychology, I’d jump on it in a heart beat. Plus, at it’s core, my job of helping companies understand and make use of social media is all about psychology and sociology.

Anyway, my point is that I’m fascinated by the whole psych element of triathlon and love experiencing first hand how important the mental side of this sport is sometimes. I dragged myself out in some nasty mid-day heat and humidity for a 12 mile run on Sunday. I didn’t want to have any part of it. I wanted to sit on my arse and drink beer and play video games. It took me a solid 30 minutes to put my shoes on and another 30 get out the door and actually start running.

From there on out, the next 12 miles were was a complete roller coaster. I couldn’t focus and kept letting my pace slip REALLY really slow. As soon as I stopped paying attention to my pace, I was doing slow 10 min miles and dragging my feet. (I wanted to do high 8′s.)

It wasn’t that my legs were dead from my 3 hour ride the day before, they had plenty of energy. I’ve actually been giving them plenty of love with Ultragen and my Recovery Pump boots, so they were feeling strong. I just had trouble getting the energy OUT of them and laying it out on the road.

I found myself thinking back to REALLY hard run sessions and races. Specifically, the last run leg at Ragnar New England and the marathon at Rev3 Cedar Point. I started thinking about how dead my legs were, but how I forced myself to keep on moving forward. Instantly, I felt my turnover picking up and even got goosebumps on my arms. Crazy how the mind can impact the body, eh? Over the rest of the run, I kept thinking back to some of my hardest and most memorable runs in my head to keep my motivation and my turnover up high.

What memories do you pull up when you have to dig deep and keep moving forward?

| Posted in Running, Training Log, Triathlon | 1 Comment »