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Posts Tagged ‘Triathlon’

Sudbury Sprint

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

My first shot at earning another spot at the Age Group Nationals starting line.

5:30am came early. I was up, out the door and on my way to the start line with fellow Rev3 teammate, Julia, in tow. While I tried not to put too much pressure on this race, it had the potential of completely changing my race schedule for the year. I could either lock down a qualifying slot at one of the first local triathlons of the season, or I could scramble to try to enter race after race for the next 2 months in hopes that I can grab it somewhere else.

To avoid getting too strung out, I tried to focus on it just as a fitness test, with an added bonus of a potential nationals slot if fate decided to be nice to me.

Sprint races are great because they are simple and fast, but you have ZERO time to settle into a comfortable pace and take a breather. If you aren’t digging deep and making it hurt at any moment, you are losing seconds. Especially since the super short course favored the swim (400 yard swim, 7 mile bike, 2.3 mile run) I knew I’d have an uphill battle since it is still my weakest of the three.

Swim

A time trial pool start, zig zagging and pushing off under lane lines is a mess. There is no easy way to get 300 people through 400 yards of swimming in a pool. It just won’t happen. I may have done a little bit of wishful thinking when I entered my seed time, but I didn’t cause a traffic jam or end up swimming over people, so I’ll take it. 400 is an odd distance. Too long to all out sprint till you are blue in the face, but not quite an endurance swim.

I exited in 6:20 (1:35/100 yards). Not awful, but less than awesome. It was actually a 1 second per 100 slower pace than my 1650. Um, WTH?! Did zig zagging under lane lines slow me down that much? Yikes.

Bike
Out of the pool – shoe, shoe, glasses, helmet. GO! I was in the saddle and pushed as hard as I could. If I started to feel comfortable, I went harder. I was worried that it would be a mess of traffic because of all the fast high school swimmers who were seeded in front of me, but were riding mountain bikes, but the course was relatively clear. I cheered on a few of the little fishie kids as I passed and kept craking along.

Two loops for 7.2 miles and I was back in transition in 20:42. That averages out to 20.8 mph, but since the timing mats include T1 and T2, it was closer to 22 mph. Solid. Not spectacular, but right on with my expectations.

Run
While the bike definitely hurt, the run is where I really started to feel it. 27 minutes of hard work behind me and my throat was dry, my legs were getting heavier by the step and my heart was about to explode in my chest. Because of the time trial start, people were still starting the swim as I was heading out on the run, which made it all really quiet and hard to pace off of anyone else. I followed the same philosophy as the bike. If I felt like I had more to give, I gave it. Never comfortable, always searching for more.

I gathered enough of a breath to cheer on some more people I passed along the way, but brought home a solid 7:18 pace. Not fast enough to win any olympic medals, but fast enough for me. Right about where I thought I’d be.

Final time – 43:51

pretty much collapsed after the finish because my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore. But the funny thing about sprints is that you want to die when you finish, but you can only do so much damage to your body in 44 minutes. An hour later, I was out running along the course, cheering people on and feeling like a champ.

Because of the time trial start, we had to wait a LONG time for the results. And apparently the race director forgot how to use the timing machine, but the race management company is known for being a slightly disorganized, so you can’t really get too mad about it. About 2.5 hours later (yes, no joke. Three times longer than my actual race) I got called up onto the podium! I haven’t placed top 3 in my AG a ton of times before, but was the first time there was a legit podium for me to stand on. Sorta cool little moment. Apparently the first place guy didn’t hang around for the awards. And it turns out the 3rd place guy was just 10 seconds behind me. I’m glad I didn’t dog it into the finish line!

The Bad News:
The first place guy in my AG was WAY faster than me and placed 4th overall. I wasn’t upset about getting beat by him. He was out of my league. But after reviewing the results, there were only 8 people were in my age group. Eight out of 423 total athletes?! Goddamit!

So the short story is that because of USAT’s qualification criteria, only the top guy in my age group qualifies. I’d need to place 2nd in an AG of at least 15 starters to get in. Craptastic.

Oh well. Onward and upward. Rev3 Quassy is the next battlefield/qualifying opportunity. It will be require a HUGE effort there to qualify since some serious guys always show up, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

I didn’t earn my spot to race in Vermont, but I did get a solid fitness test in, brought home some hardware, and hung out with some cool peeps from my local tri team. Not a bad day. I’ll take it.

Tags: sprint triathlon, sudbury sprint, Triathlon | Posted in Triathlon | 6 Comments »

Caption Contest: Slippery Edition

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

I stumbled on this picture and it was too funny not to share.

Between the chick laughing in the back and the tons of aero gear sprawled out over the ground, I got a good chuckle. I feel bad for the guy (because this is exactly the kind of thing that will happen to me one of these days) but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it. You know what that means?

CAPTION CONTEST!

The person with the funniest caption suggestion wins a high five from me.

Here are a few to get you started.

“My coach’s plan is to swim all out until I get on the bike. He said nothing about transition”
“Someone pause my Garmin!”
“My aero helmet and firecrest zipps reduce the time it takes for my face to crash into the ground by 2.5 seconds in an olympic.”
“Damn bananna peel. Should’ve stuck with gels.”
“I refused to get chicked in transition, so I dove for the line.”
“Apparently there is such a thing as ‘too much TriSlide.’”

And on a side note – I do hope the guy is alright. And is that his shoe to the right of him in the picture? I REALLY hope his foot isn’t in there. That would be a twisted mess.

Tags: caption contest, Triathlon | Posted in Triathlon | 6 Comments »

Staying Safe On The Road – 1BandID

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Okay, so this is going to be way more promotional than I usually like to post, but I really dig this product so it is worth sharing.

Like most athletes, I’ve got an ID bracelet in case something happens to me and someone finds me on the side of the road and needs to call 911 or the wife. Sam is militant about making sure that I wear it whenever I workout, especially when I go off for long bike rides and disappear for most of the day. Unfortunately, with a bike, helmet, glasses, shoes, booty lube, bottles, gels, sunscreen and everything else that you need to pack for a long bike ride, the Road ID usually gets left at home.

That was until I met a local athlete (and fellow PR vet) who started his won company out of his basement. Joe Vukson started 1BandID with a similar concept to RoadID, but it is built to attach to gear that you already have rather than be one more piece of equipment that you have to remember to strap on before you walk out the door. What good is a Road ID if it is sitting back at home? Nada.

You can strap 1BandID on your shoe laces or on your HRM watch band (whatever piece of equipment you always workout with) and forget about it.

1bandid road id

To be honest, I was pretty skeptical about how comfortable it would be. But I strapped it on my suunto watch when I first got it, and I don’t even notice that it is on there. It is comfortable enough that I don’t notice it, but obvious enough that a first repsonder will see it. I’ve been wearing it and working out in it all month, and am really happy with it.

A random side note, Joe sent me my band right after my honeymoon and (other than all of our wedding printed materials) it is one of the first times that Sam had her new last name printed on something. Plus he added a sweet “Team Rev3″ on the side.

If you want to get one for yourself, here is a coupon code to save 20% (or 2$) at www.1bandid.com : jamie27273

Train safe!

Tags: 1bandid, road id, roadid, safety, Triathlon | Posted in Triathlon | No Comments »

What To Do With My Wedding Ring?

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

I’m in no mans land. About 45 days from my last race and 40 days until my last day of being a single man. The big day is coming soon. Sam and I are busy crossing off a lot of the final t0-dos and we picked up our rings last week.

As someone who hasn’t worn a single piece of jewelry (other than watches) since high school, I’m anticipating a learning curve in making this whole “ring wearing” thing part of my routine. (I wore hemp shell necklaces in high school to pretend I was some hippie/surfer/skater rather than a kid that lived next to a corn field.)

And the biggest obstacle – What do I do with this thing when I’m training and racing?

I’m was thinking that this was some big “married triathlete” secret that I needed the scoop on, so I polled Twitter to get some help. I don’t want to loose my ring right away or not wear it often enough and set some sort of precedent as being a bad husband. Unfortunately, there was no single answer from all my married triathlon friends and they were all across the board. I guess I’m going to have to come up with my own plan, but I’ll probably end up taking it off and keeping it someplace safe when I’m working out. I just have to figure out where that safe place is.

Here are all the responses I got from Twitter. For any married blogger friends that aren’t on Twitter – What do you do with your ring when training and racing?

Keep It On

Lisa-Marie Howe - I wear both rings but put them on my ‘fat’ hand.
Megan Killian - I wear my “engagement” ring (which is actually going to be my wedding ring) all the time, training/etc. Never take it off
Heidi Henry - I wear mine, but not my engagement ring.Didn’t realize how often I checked for my rings until I tried to swim w/ them off once.
bikezen - I keep mine on.
Matt T - keep it on always.
Sonja Wieck - wear it.
George Houston - I keep it on all the time. Rain or Shine.
Kirstine Roberts - wear it?!!!

Take It Off

Meredith Trowbridge - I take engage ring off-crashed bike w it once almost impaled myself wed band I wear ride/run in train. None racing/swimin
Alex Gonzalez - I leave my ring at home. It can come off to easy and a lake is not a good place for it.
Kelly Covert - i take mine off for racing and OWS…especially when the water is cold!
Jen Small - i stopped wearing mine for fear of losing it (swim) damaging it (weight room) but a mens ring would be different
Joe Vukson - I’ve got a good fit on mine but I don’t wear it to race. I typically take it off for rides when I’m wearing cycling gloves too.
Kiersten Henry - Leave mine at home. Spent my entire ows last weekend worrying about it falling off because I forgot.
Patricia Brownell - I don’t wear mine. It would fall off in the beginning & I wouldn’t be able to get it off at the end (I swell a lot).
Colleen Lasko - just leave it at home then you don’t have to worry about it. I never wear mine anymore since the diamond is lose anyway.
Chris - when racing, I give to my wife.I always feel like I will lose my ring on the swim.Had a friend lose his this summer in a sprint
Andy Rosebrook - I take mine off for the swim and put it on my glasses waiting for me in T1. Had my ring come off in a pool once badday. When I played basketball they would make me take it off so I laced it on my left shoe.
Stephanie Buckler - don’t wear it that’s my take anyways
Heidi L - We don’t wear them – leave it at home. Not worth losing. Sometimes I’ll wear my band, but never engagement diamond
Triathlon Funster - remove at home or put in wallet if to/from work.
dan kazup - My wife wears it on a necklace or I hide it in the car.

It Is Complicated

Jill Poon - I leave it on for training, I give it to Alex during races (or some poor unsuspecting teammate passing by)
Barb - I wear mine but my husband takes his off and leaves it in a safe place at home.
Jan Hawkins - I put it on my watch band
ransick - I wear it unless I’m wearing tight pearl izumi full fingered gloves. It’s uncomfortable under those.
Sean Prior - take the ring off for swimming, usually leave it on for anything else.
Sir IronWorm - training I keep it on. Race I give it to the wife. If she’s not there it goes on my car key chain
philiplavoie – on a necklace.