Silverlake Swim 2009 – Victory is mine!

Awww, yeah!

Swim Strong

4 days until the Silverlake Open Water swim! I’ve been rocking 3000 meter swim workouts lately, so I’m pumped and feeling ready for this race.  The only thing I’m concerned about right now is the weather.  It looks like we have a cold front coming in on Thursday evening that will have temperatures in the low 70’s.  So, it could be a chilly morning.  One of these days I intend on buying a wetsuit… maybe this will be my motivation.

I’ve had a few people ask me for an example of my swim workouts.  Here is a good 3000 meter workout that I did yesterday, you may enjoy:

Warm Up: 300 swim, 200 kick with board
Drills:  4 x 100’s – (Drill, Swim, Drill, Swim) each
Main: 4 x (300/200)
300’s – Cruise Pace; rest 0:30
200’s – Pull with paddles and buoy; rest 1:00
Last 200, swim regular, strong pace (cruise -0:10)
Warm Down: 100 Easy

Silverlake Open Water Swim Race

Well, I tried to stay in the offseason… but when this race came up, I couldn’t help myself…

I’ve signed up for a 1 mile open water swim race!  If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I am a triathlete, but my true love lies in swimming… so I was stoked to find out about this race!

It’s October 17th, so I have three weeks to be ready for it.  Luckily, I’ve been swimming twice a week regularly this offseason so I’m still in good swim shape.  I’m going to up my swimming to at least 5 times a week and mix in alot more endurance and long swims.  Plus I guess I’ll need a few open water swims between now and then.

Should be good!  I’m excited!

Off Season Workouts

One of my regular readers, Irene (check out her blog: http://blog.fithungrygurl.com/) asked about my off season training. I was going to just reply in the comments, but figured it was worth a blog post!

I’m not “training”, per se, but I still get some workouts in. After all, I made some major improvements this season and I don’t want to just get lazy and lose all that.  Not only have I built my athletic ability, but I also lost a bunch of weight (right before my main race of the year I was at 165 lbs. which is the same weight I was when I was swimming competitively… in high school…).

I still swim twice a week (2000-3000 meters per workout) and I am trying to do an 8 mile run every weekend. Aside from that, though, nothing is regimented or scheduled, like I do when I’m “in season”. If I feel like working out, I do. I just don’t stress over “requiring” a workout. If I want to clean my garage after work, I can do that instead of stressing about getting that bike ride or run done.

I want to use October, November and December to do a strength training program, maybe 2-3 times a week. However, I’m not very familiar with weights or a weight training program, so I haven’t ironed out the details of that just yet. I’m doing some reading on it and once I get something figured out, I’ll probably post about it.

Triathlon Off Season…

In case you haven’t noticed, lately I’ve been posting far less frequently. As my season is over, I fear my blog is pretty much on cruise control until January when I start up my training again.

Thanks for reading and special thanks to all those who supported me last season! Get ready to make the 2010 season just as awesome!

Half Full Triathlon

Just signed up for the Half Full Triathlon in Ellicott, Maryland, in October of 2010!

A friend of mine works for the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults and they are hosting this triathlon to help raise money and awarness for their cause.  It’s definitely a great organization and worth checking out if you are looking for a good program to donate to.

It will be my first half iron tri, so I am pretty excited already!  I’m going to try to start a strength training program next week to mix in to some light run and bike training, and then, probably in January, really hit the training hard (I always take off in November and December… too busy with the holidays and work).

Here’s to the new goal!  Half Iron?!?  BRING IT!

Clear Lake Tri 2009 – Results/Recap

Results are IN! 

First of all, for reference, here are the distances:
Swim – 1.5K in open water (or 0.93 miles, or 1,500 m which is equivalent to 60 laps in a 25 meter pool)
Bike – 40K (or 24.8 miles)
Run – 10K (or 6.2 miles)

So I wake up and leave at 4:30AM and get there around 5:30AM.  I get marked up, find my bike rack, get my chip, take care of some business and set up my transition area, then head out for some warm up jogging and stretching.  All good so far.

After transition closes, I head to the water for a warm up swim.  Getting in is tricky as there are some bad rocks at the entry… and I cut the bottom of my foot.  Not good.  I start swimming and realize it’s a salt water lake.  Wasn’t aware of that… irritating, but oh well.  Get done warming up and head to the swim exit and hit the top of my foot on the exit ramp and get a nice pain/bruise.  Double not good.  Get out to do some more stretching and take a Hammer Gel.  National anthem… and it’s go time.  A few minutes later, my wave gets in…

I make it a point to get to the front of the group this time.  I don’t want to start my swim in the back and swim over everyone, like usual.  Everyone says their “good lucks” (triathletes are so nice to each other…) and the gun sounds… IT’S ON!

Fantastic idea, getting in front for the swim.  I am able to get in my groove and get a nice strong, efficiently long stroke going.  Everything was going fine… until about 200 meters in and I hit a rock.  Not head on, or anything.  It was about 2-3 feet under the water.  It bumped me off rhythm a bit and cut my hand… wasn’t thrilled about that.  Aside from that, the swim went… swimmingly. 

Swim Time:  24:23.5
Rank: 4th
Pace: 1:37/100 m.

I’m happy with that time.  I was probably going at a 1:30 pace most of the time, but when I started catching up to the slower swimmers in previous waves and had to make corrections and alter my sighting, it slowed me down.  I was a bit disappointed to be 4th, but 3 & 2 swam fairly close to my time and 1st was swimming at a 1:19/100 pace… so he earned it!

Transition 1: 2:18.4

Not much to say on T1.  I need to bring that down to about 1:30 or so. 

The bike went well enough.  I was happy with how it felt, but I was hoping to be at a pace of at least 20 mph.  Still, not bad considering I’m not very good about getting bike training in and I don’t have click pedals, special disc wheels or a $3,000 bike, like most of the fast guys.

The bike course left alot to be desired.  It was alright, for the most part, but one stretch of it was a rough blacktop surface that was hell on your legs and butt (made the bike rattle like crazy) and there were a few spots with no traffic control or cones or anything, so passing cars had to either be nice and ride with you, or be assholes and slam the accelerator.  I thought one guy was going to clip a few cyclists… quite frightening. 

Bike Time: 1:16:25.7
Bike Pace: 19.5 mph
Bike Rank: 22nd (out of 28)

Transition 2 Time: 2:02.6

That transition time was pretty bad.  I should have been about half of that.  Can’t remember why it was that high… I think I remember having trouble finding my racking spot.  Oh well.

On to the dreaded run.  As I racked my bike and was starting to take off my helmet and get my race bib and whatnot… and I could feel my left hamstring starting to act up.  Not.  Good.  I popped a few Endurolytes and hoped for the best… but, given my history with cramping on the run, I wasn’t optimistic.

So I started running… no cramp yet.  Kept on running… and kept on… legs were holding up!  I was feeling GREAT!  Holy crap… could this be the race?!

Sure enough… I never cramped up!  To make a good situation better, I was able to keep up one of my other goals: running the whole time!  Oh sure, I stopped for a few seconds at each water station to grab a drink (hard to run and drink), but other than that… I kept on running!  This may seem small to some seasoned runners/triathletes, but it was big for me.  I was so stoked and proud of myself!

Run Time:  57:04.9
Run Pace: 9:12/mile
Run Rank: 15th (out of 28)

Ideally, I’d like to get my run pace down.  I’d prefer to be in the sub-8:30 range, but I’ll take 9:12 and no cramps!

TOTAL TIME: 2:42:15.1

Age Group Rank: 14 out of 28
Overall Rank: 152 out of 700

My goal was to break 3 hours… and I destroyed that goal!  From a personal standpoint, I was thrilled with my race.  I really felt strong and felt like I owned it. 

Let me tell you, there is no feeling like coming across the finish line of a triathlon when you feel like you’ve just done the best race of your life!  The mixture of pride, achievement and confidence is so freaking amazing!  I felt like I just won the Ironman Hawaii!  It’s moments like that when I remember what it is that I love about triathlon.  That amazing feeling of personal achievement is unbelievable.

What a way to end my tri season.  Now… time for a little well deserved off season!

Clear Lake Tri… TOMORROW!

Well, it’s upon me.  The last day before the big day.

I worked out fairly light yesterday and won’t be doing any work out today.  Tonight I’ll be carbo loading with a nice pasta dinner, then hitting the sack by 9:30. 

I’m stoked.   I’m pumped.  I’m ready.  BRING IT ON!

My goal is to finish in under 3 hours.  To do that I’ll have to maintain a strong bike pace and power through the run with minimal walking.  I’m going to try my little heart out to run the whole time.  Hopefully some electrolyte drink/suppliments will help with the cramping issues I usually have.

So… until tomorrow… I’ll keep a positive mindset and get mentally prepared to make this race my bitch…

Clear Lake Tri… 3 days away!

I’m starting to get excited!  Saturday is the big day!

I printed off directions today as well as a checklist (check it out… you can select what you want to add to the list, then print it of!  CLICK HERE).  On Friday I’ll be picking up my race packet and getting some race shopping done (need some carbo gels and some electrolyte mix for my water).

I’m in my taper right now with decreased workouts.  Today will be my last pre-race workout.  I’m going to go to the gym for a 30 min ride on the spin bike, 20 minute jog on the treadmill and probably 1500 meters worth of swimming.  I’ll be doing a gym workout instead of an outside workout because I have to be at the gym anyways, for Masters Swim… in case you were wondering.  If I had it my way, I’d be outside.

Friday I’ll be resting and carb loading… then getting to bed.  4AM comes pretty early… need to be rested.

For now… just keep visualizing the race.  Think positive thoughts.

Weekend Training

It’s tough to work out on the weekends… isn’t it?  Take all the lack of motivation from the weekdays, and multiply it.

Friday I had to give swim lessons at 6:30, after which my mom calls and says we are invited out to eat with them, and they’ve already picked up my wife.  I wasn’t really feeling like working out anyways… figured I’d make up for it on Saturday.

Saturday I was scheduled to volunteer for Operation School Supplies in the morning and then went to the UH Football Fan Appreciation day.  In the afternoon, my good friend, Chris, came over to have a few beers whilst I organized my garage.  No working out done (unless you count 12 oz. curls).  In my defense, I thought I had a productive Saturday… I enjoy volunteering and I haven’t seen Chris in a while.

So Sunday rolls around.  I scheduled to join a group ride for 30 miles at 7AM… but, since I had a few beers the night before, 6:15 came too early.  So I snoozed until around 7:05.  Whoops.  Determined, though, I still got up, drank lots of water, and loaded up my bike for a 25 mile ride.  I tell you there is no better cure for a hangover!   Sweat out the evil…

So, though I had a weak training weekend, I think I’ll be alright.  I’m going to try to do a brick tonight, swim tomorrow and Thursday, and on Wednesday I’ll probably do a light run.  Rest on Friday. Then on Saturday… BOOM!

5 days…