Oilman 2013–a No Show

I suspect that my title tells it all, I had a race yesterday and I didn’t show up.  I didn’t forget, oversleep, and yes I remembered about daylight savings.  While there were a lot of little things that contributed to my decision to not race, it really came down to the temperature.  When we left the area, at 8 am when I expected to be getting on the bike, my phone said it was 46.  It was just too cold for me to get on a bike going 20 mph, soaking wet, wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

That said, I still learned a lot!  This was supposed to be a B- race, a hard training day, and I prepared for a training day.  Lesson #1, for me a race is a race.  Prepare for it just the same.  I participated in a group activity the morning before, which ran late, causing me to miss the race talk.  I don’t normally go to those any more because they are so redundant, but as this was my first aqua-bike I should have gone.  Not knowing how it would work un-nerved me some.

If a race is an hour or more drive from the house I normally get a hotel for the night.  I waited so long to get a room that the closest hotels were all sold out.  My hotel, which looked close on the map, was a 30 minute drive.  In reality, that wasn’t worth it, especially considering how the weather played out.

I should have thought more about the impact of the cold on my race.  I knew it was going to be cold, but I just didn’t think about how cold that was.  I’ve got a personal temperature limit for biking of about 45, and that’s wearing all of my cold weather gear.  The only extra I brought with me for the race were arm warmers; no gloves, head covering, knee or leg warmers.

I always get a haircut pre-race.  This time, because it was supposed to be a hard-training day I didn’t.  That started to mess with my head a bit, I didn’t feel prepared.

I’d also forgotten to bring Melatonin, so I didn’t sleep well the night before, not all that abnormal but always irritating.  Around 2 am I starting thinking about it being too cold.  I kept checking the temperature on my phone, which was set for my home address.  By 3 am I decided to skip the race, thinking I would finally fall asleep.  About 10 minutes later I turned off my alarm, had my wife do the same, and that was it.  I still didn’t fall asleep though.

When we got up that morning, around 8 am, I realized I’d been checking the temperature at my home address.  When I changed it to the local area I found the temperature was 39.  I wish I’d realized my mistake in the middle of the night as it would have made my decision much easier, and I’d have done it sooner.

So with all that in mind, what have/will I do differently?  To start with I’ve already booked hotel rooms for all the out of town races I think I will do next year.  The rest, well we will see…

Product review–Gyro Air Attack Shield

This is my first product review I’ve done.  I’m not sure how qualified I am to do this, though I am pretty particular about the products I use.  Here is a little background first.

I train in a Specialized S-works, your typical roadie helmet.  It’s a helmet – I don’t really have anything good or bad to say about it.  I’ve been racing in a (black) Gyro Advantage 2.  The Gyro always made me nervous because I assumed the black would absorb some heat, and heat has been a factor for me.  Also, the Gyro doesn’t have a lot of ventilation.  I don’t know that it was ever a problem, but it did make the think about it before each race.

I’d seen a lot of buzz about the new Air Attack.  What I really liked was that it was more ventilated than the Advantage, and had some special channels inside to funnel the air over your head.  While the shape was more traditional and less likely to draw attention, it was supposed to be more aerodynamic.

I fell in love with the Air Attack when I first tried it on in the store.  It is VERY comfortable!  I went with the white version which will at least make me think it is cooler than my old black one.

Unlike my Advantage, the Air Attack doesn’t cover my ears, allowing me to hear my surroundings better.  While that’s not yet been a problem during a race, there is always a first time, and it could have had bad results.

My first ride with the new helmet:

Yesterday I went out for a 3 hour, 50-60 mile ride.  It was in the low 80’s to start with and a lot of moisture in the air.  When I put on my helmet, the shield was fogged from having been in the A/C.  No problem, I flipped the shield over and rode for a bit without it.  Score one for the Air Attack.  A few miles down the road I tried to flip the shield over while riding and couldn’t get the magnets to attach, forcing me to pull over.  This is a training/practice issue on my part.

Right away I noticed that I’d gotten fingerprints all over the shield.  I ‘m careful about that with my glasses, but didn’t think about it with the shield.  With such a large viewing area you need to be careful where you touch!

Going again, I could see drops of moisture forming on the leading edge of my helmet, which eventually dropped down to my visor.  Two things happened:  The visor snapped into place when I bumped it (I hadn’t gotten it on right) and the drop was on the inside so I couldn’t clear it.  I should note that once properly in place I didn’t have any more problems with drops of water inside the shield.

As I’m riding along I took a real hard look at the helmet and how it felt.  First off it was still very comfortable.  I don’t think I’ve ever worn one this comfortable.  Second, I could actually feel two tracks of air flowing over my head.  This was pretty cooling, though I would have liked more of them!  It was hot out there, and while I had sweat dripping off my chin my head never felt hot.

Then the rain came.  The visor did a good job of allowing me to see until the rain got too hard.  It was easy to wipe the surface clear, probably much easier than it would be with glasses.  Once the rain stopped, the visor cleared up.  I didn’t notice any spots or streaking.

Summary

In short I LOVE the Air Attack.  The flippable visor is a great idea and the cooling vents do work.  It is the most comfortable helmet I’ve ever worn.  It weighs a bit more than my roadie helmet, but less than my old Gyro.

There is an adjustment on the helmet to raise it up/down on your head.  My next test is to play with that and see if that makes a difference in the air flow.

Knowing what I know now, I would definitely buy the Air Attack!

The best way to end the month

September was a busy month.  I’d started off with only one scheduled race.  Then at the last minute I added another, shorter one, to help ease my jitters.  When that went ok, I jumped in with both feet and decided to take on a new challenge:  two races in one weekend on back to back days.

My coach “allowed” me to register for both with the understanding that I would race the sprint (the Saturday race), and then use the longer Sunday race as a training day.  The trick would be proper recovery in between the races, and then good pacing on Sunday to avoid a blow-up.

Saturday went off exactly as planned, minus a slight problem removing my wetsuit after the swim.  I actually finished a couple of minutes faster than I’d projected and ended up winning second place.  I thought I’d done fairly well on the swim, and never saw anyone else in my age group the rest of the race.  I honestly thought I might have won.  Unfortunately someone snuck by me somewhere on the run and I missed the top prize by 20 seconds.  I’m still very happy with my results.  It’s worth noting that my time was only 2 minutes off my pace from 2 years ago when I was in top form, and most of that time was lost in the swim.  This is a very good sign for things to come!

The problem was that now I stuck around at the finish line to cheer on the rest of my clan (we had four more family members racing) and then for the awards.  What I was supposed to do was get my stuff and get home to eat, rest and get ready for Sunday.  It was probably noon before I got home – not good considering I’d finished at 9.  Then I felt sluggish the rest of the day.  I was exhausted and my legs were tired, I just had no energy.

Sunday morning I was a bit better but certainly didn’t feel as fresh as I had on Saturday.  To make it worse it was cold, windy, wet and drizzling outside.  I’d decided to wear my short sleeved wetsuit to avoid the problems from Saturday and regretted it.  I even checked the time to see if I had time to rush back home and get the other one.

The closer it got to my wave start the less I wanted to be there.  I thought about packing up my stuff and going home, that’s how much I wasn’t into it.  When they called my wave I told my wife bye and just did the motions to get started.  In hindsight it felt like going to a swim workout:  if I could just get in the water and get going everything would be fine.

Because this was just supposed to be a workout I started at the back of my swim group.  That was a bit of a problem because I had to fight my way through and around the slower swimmers.  I tried to draft some but felt badly when I kept hitting the feet of the guy in front of me and moved around.  I wished the guy behind me would have done the same instead of pounding my calves!  I finally found some space and then tried to work on my stroke (remembering it was just a workout).  I found out that if I slowed my cadence I could hold form better and actually thought I was going faster.  I wish I could have unconsciously kept that going, alas every time my mind wandered my stroke reverted to the old style.

I came out of the swim actually feeling pretty good about where I was, thinking I might be near the front of my age group.  I quickly jumped on my bike (I did have the best transitions!) and started pounding it.  It was sort of an out and back, and the previous day there was a headwind on the outbound leg.  That thrilled me as I was going pretty fast and hard.  Despite looking I never saw any wind signs, making me think I was just having a great day, not that there was a tail wind pushing me along.  Also, I passed so many people I just knew I was having a good day.  Until we turned around and ran into the wind.  I focused on keeping myself small and pushing through it.  Before long I was trading my bike for my running shoes.

Heading out on the run I saw my Dad who told me I was ahead of schedule.  Well, I thought, no need to rush out there for my next training leg.  I stopped and made a smart remark about taking a break, only to get weird looks from other people standing around.  For the first 4 miles things went just like they had the previous day:  run to the aid stations and walk briefly while I dumped water over my head, repeat.  About that time I just ran out of gas.  I allowed myself to walk, but only long enough to get my HR down a bit and slow my breathing before I’d start it up again.  I think I walked 4 extra times in those last 2.5 miles, only on the flats though.  I forced myself to run up and down the hills.  I should add that when I was just going out on my second loop of the run I heard them announce a 50 year old finishing.  While I thought that maybe I was near the front, that told me I really wasn’t.

I was really tired when I was done.  I‘d gone harder than I expected I’d be able to, and while I’d been forced to walk several times, they weren’t an endless walk like I’ve done before.  They were walk to that sign and then you have to run again.  I was really pleased with my workout, but too tired to find out how I did.  I sent my wife to check it out and almost died when she told me I’d gotten third!  I’m more proud of that third place than I am of my second place the previous day.

I think this weekend bodes well for what might be next year!  After 4 races in 5 weeks I’m a bit worn down and ready for some down time and then to get back at it.  No more races for a month!

Back on the podium

Another weekend in September means another race, this time a small local triathlon put on by my favorite Tri shop and race director.  I hadn’t planned on doing this many races because I didn’t want to get a national ranking that might depress me.  However, someone convinced me that I should get a ranking so I can see where I am this year and compare it to next year.  Besides, I had so much fun at my last triathlon I could hardly stay away!

This was a weird race/distance, at least to me.  The swim and run, at 500 yards and 3.1 miles, were consistent with a sprint, but the bike leg was long at 21 miles.  That would be the furthest I’d raced on a bike since April 2012, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to post the type of results I had on the shorter courses.  Fortunately that distracted me from the swim, which while it wasn’t long, it was the longest OWS without a wetsuit I’d done since my disaster at Lake Pflugerville 2 years ago.

Like I mentioned previously, the race director is a good friend, so I volunteered to help with packet pickup – the only place where I could help since I was racing.  Next thing I knew they had me signed up to work there two full days before the race.  That was going to interfere some with my normal pre-race hydration and resting.  I showed up the first day and there were no chairs for us to sit in.  After standing for nearly 13 hours in two days my legs were tired and my joints all hurt.  Not the pre-race I would have picked!

I got there race morning, checked in, set up, and hung out with all my new friends I’d made during packet pick-up.  It seemed like everyone knew my name!  We finally made it out to the swim start to see the course and it sure looked long to me.  I remembered just now that they always look long to me, and with 500 yards being about one lap on the track it probably was accurate.

I was in the last wave, which meant I wouldn’t have people running over me from behind.  I took my spot in about the middle of the pack, and we left.  I started off doing the new stroke I’ve been working on in practice.  I started to digress after about 100 yards and by the halfway point as those muscles got tired I completely reverted to my old style.  I also noticed at about this time that there were very few people around me.  I saw one guy that was doing the breast stroke ahead of me, which got me thinking I was pretty far back in the pack.  As we made the final turn in to the exit I started seeing green swim caps from the previous  wave.  It sounds sexist, but it was a female wave and I didn’t  think much about it.  Especially when I hit the lap counter on my watch and it said I had taken more than 12 minutes.  I was way back in the pack.

We climbed out of the water, and I congratulated the only other swimmer I saw with my color cap (as I passed him on the way to transition).  I was broken hearted when I got there as it was almost completely empty.  I was focused on my bike and getting there and swore I only saw about 5 bikes.  I knew I had a lot of ground to make up!

I got out on the bike and was determined to catch some of the people who had left me behind on the swim.  The only problem was that there was no one in sight.  I rode as hard as I could but my pace was off from the previous races, especially when we came to the chip-seal section.  Finally around mile 16 we got some favorable conditions and it showed.  I was, for a long period of time, holding over 27 mph.  With a few miles out I started calculating my estimated bike split at somewhere between 1:03 and 1:05 or around 20 mph.  As we made the final turn I realized I’d miscounted the miles and I was going to finish in under an hour!

Before I forget, I saw one or two of my age groupers on the bike which shocked me.  I figured I was WAY behind.  On the other hand, I passed a lot of people and not a single person passed me.

I had a great transition, buoyed by one of my new friends that had done the swim portion of a relay, and was pretty quickly out on the run.  With the longer bike I figured I would be slower than the previous week.  Unlike the previous week though I started running immediately upon leaving my bike.

I tried to distract myself by looking around at the course which was supposed to be beautiful.  I suspect it was, though at the time all I saw was grass, trees, and a long path for me to follow.  I passed a bunch of people on the run, stopping at each aid station only long enough to pour a cup of water over my head.  At the second aid station I grabbed two cups, one for my head and one for a drink.  I took one sip, which went down the wrong way and I started coughing and almost threw up.  It was at that point that someone caught up to me.  He said he had been chasing me since the 5 mile mark on the bike.  I was feeling pretty tired, so when he told me he wasn’t in my age group (he was 57) I told him not to let me slow him down.  Then for whatever reason he started to fall back.  He later told me that he’d used everything he had to catch me and just couldn’t hang on.

As we got close to the finish line I heard people cheering for Rick, telling him that the gap was only 100 yards.  If they were talking about  someone catching me, that wasn’t going to happen without him putting in a whole lot of effort so I really kicked in the afterburners.  I turned to look when they announced Rick was finishing, and it was the guy who had tailed me for so long.  He ended up winning his bracket.  He’d better watch out for next year when I age  up!

After a long delay due to athletes accidentally placed in the wrong brackets they announced the winners.  I was surprised to see I took 3rd, mostly because of my lousy swim and because I never saw anyone else from my bracket out on the course.  It turns out that they were all behind me!

In speaking with my coach this is something I need to get used to as I’m only going to get faster.  It’s been 15 months since I had my injury, 6 months since surgery, and 5 months since my first run.  I look at where I am now, with such little training and wonder what the limit is.  If this continues, last Sunday won’t be the last podium for me!

Towne Lake Triathlon 2013

This race almost didn’t happen.  It wasn’t on the schedule, and I didn’t realize when it was until someone told me about it less than a week before the race.  I thought about it, had a brief (text) conversation with my coach, and decided it would be good for me.

The real reason I wanted to do the race was to get comfortable in the open water without a wetsuit.  I’ve only done two races that weren’t wetsuit legal, and the last was a disaster.  While I can comfortably swim 3000+ yards in the pool, I get very anxious in the open water, and have for a couple of years, since that last race, questioned my abilities.  So, I wanted to get back in the water on a shorter distance and prove to myself that I can do this.

Because I took the race on such short notice, there wasn’t time to adjust my training or get antsy about the race.  I trained very hard up until two days before the race.  Then I snuck in a short swim in an endless pool.  I think that was good for me as I was able to swim non-stop for some time.  Having the ability to stand up if I needed to kept me calm and I was able to convince myself that not being able to catch that extra breath at the end of each length of the pool didn’t matter.

Jumping forward to the race: Swim

This was a deep water start.  As I didn’t want to tread water for several minutes before the race I chose to stand in chest deep water until the gun went off.  That put me at the back of the pack and not crossing the starting line for probably 30 seconds.  I don’t/didn’t care about the 30 seconds, but the “back of the pack” was a problem.  There were a bunch of non-swimmers in front of me.  They would get in a pack, stop, and block my path so I kept running into them.  One time I actually swam up one guy’s back before I realized what was happening.  I just kept telling myself to relax and keep it easy.  I could tell my legs were dropping, but since it wasn’t really causing any problems I didn’t worry about it.  Besides, there wasn’t much I could do about it anyway. 

The final leg was into the sun, which made it difficult to see the exit.  I just  kept an eye on the people around me and tried to stay near them.  The exit was so steep I had to get help getting out of the water, and then staggered up the slope for the long (they said 1/4 mile, but I think it was MUCH longer) run to transition.  I remembered to hit the lap button on my watch and checked the time, only to see a scrolling screen I’d never seen before.  So much for knowing my swim time!  I’d opted to leave some shoes on the road for this run, not wanting to risk stepping on something.  This really helped as I ended up with one of the fastest T1 times in my group.

Bike

Jumping out on the bike I had a simple plan:  go hard and fast!  If I couldn’t run when I was done then so be it, at least I would have had a good bike leg.  For most of this leg the sun was reflecting off the screen of my bike computer, and all I could read was my power.  I could tell when my cadence was 3 digits instead of two.  Every now and then I’d be able to see the distance and speed, but not often enough to be of much use.  Since my Garmin wasn’t working and I couldn’t read my bike computer I went by feel:  how hard could I push and still finish.

I didn’t keep track, but I think I was passed by 4 riders.  On the flip side I passed a TON of people.  I was really flying!  I couldn’t hear it but I was hoping that my rear disk was making the whirring, train sound I used to hear when riders with a disk would pass.  For the most part I stayed in the left side of the lane because there were just too many people I was passing for me to move back and forth.  That said, I did get passed one and looked down to see how I was doing and I was going over 23 mph.  That guy was moving!

I hesitate to mention this as I’m trying to not be competitive, but I am.  When I first got onto the bike course I saw a friend of mine.  He was just starting his second loop for the Olympic distance.  I knew he was riding twice as far as I and it isn’t a fair comparison, and he hasn’t been training, but he’s also an ex-marine and more than 20 years younger than I.  He was in front of me and there was no way I was going to let him beat me!  I really pushed it so I could pass him and then kept going hard.  He was just like everybody else I torched on the bike!

Run

The moment of truth, how would I fare after pushing so hard on the bike?  I grabbed my stuff and started out of transition.  I walked for a bit just to get my heart rate down a bit, and then took off.  I fiddled, to no avail, with my watch a bit trying to get it going so I’d have an idea of the run time or elapsed distance.  I finally gave up on it and decided I’d just have to run by feel.  I took stock and thought I was going a bit fast for me to run the whole way.  There were a couple of times I was breathing too hard and forced myself to slow down.  I kind of figured I was running at about 10 minute mile pace.  I was bummed, but figured that was better than walking and just kept going.

I did walk a couple of times:  once to take a gel (I used to be able to do that while running) and at the aid stations, just long enough to accurately dump water over my head.  I can’t imagine that it was more than 30 seconds total, so I don’t count it as walking.

When we got close to the finish line there was one guy in front of me and no one behind me.  I didn’t know if I could catch him, but there was enough room for me to try.  I picked up the pace, and so did he.  I kept increasing my speed but the gap never closed.  At least I had a good finish!

In the end

With no working computers I had no idea how I’d done and it wasn’t until much later in the day that I saw my results.  5th (out of 22) in my age group, with a bike speed of 21.8 and run pace of 8:05.  I will definitely take those results!  I’ve never ridden that fast before, and to be able to run that well off the bike was surprising.  All of this with just a few months of training – most of which has been pretty low key since I’m coming off an injury.

What is going to happen when I start training hard and with a purpose?  I could be good at this!

p.s.

I should add that I had a blast at this race!  I was frustrated some on the swim, but it was awesome on the bike passing so many people.  The run, which could have been less than pleasant felt great.  I think that after so many months of not being able to train/race I am even more grateful for being able to get out there and participate in the sport that I love!

Leadville–an off road experience

Preamble

Ever since falling on a trail run 2+ years ago I’ve avoided all off road runs like the plague.  I’ve even skipped most triathlons where part of the road is trail.  The risk of injury just wasn’t worth it any more.

That all changed with my injury last summer.  I did extensive therapy to strengthen my ankle (and did both while I was at it).  I felt my ankles were better than pre-injury, so maybe off-road would be ok.  Plus, I wanted to do something different where I wouldn’t put so much pressure in myself to perform.  That’s where the Leadville Trail 10K came into play.

Pre-race

Before arriving in Colorado for the race, I was mostly worried about the hills – the profile looked pretty bad.  Then I did a couple days of pre-race runs at 8800 feet (much lower than race level) and I discovered that I couldn’t run very far without running out of wind.  As a matter of fact, depending on how hard I ran I could only manage 1-5 minutes without having to stop and walk.  Now I was pretty freaked out, but decided this would be a run/walk event.  Still, lying in bed the night before the race I somehow came up with a projected finish time (No pressure, right??)

Fast forward to race time

The starting gun went off, and I deliberately hung back to let most of the racers go ahead of me.  I figured this way I would have fewer people passing and demoralizing me.  The race started with a short downhill and then into our first hill.  I was almost immediately winded, going downhill!  I told myself this was a bad idea:  I wasn’t ready to race this distance, I wasn’t acclimated and hadn’t done enough hill work.  I started composing an email to my coach telling her how I wanted to pull out of all racing until I was more ready.  I really had a lot of negative thoughts going through my head.  Then something happened…

I heard lots of yelling and realized it was my fellow racers.  They were just excited to be there and were having fun!  What a novel idea, have fun at a race.  I wish I could explain what happened, but something changed and I decided to have fun myself.  I didn’t worry about rude runners, conditions or anything that would take me out of my “Zen” mode.  I had good music to listen to, the course was beautiful and everyone was friendly.

I didn’t look at my watch much, if at all, focusing on the trail to ensure I stayed safe.  Before long I was at the turn-around and only aid station.  I’d survived the first half without walking.  (I should note that people started walking at the first hill, less than 1/4 mile into the course.)  It was very congested, and impossible for me to run through.  I decided to walk through, get some water and take a gel.  Then I was off again, the real test:  3.1 miles of mostly uphill.

I made it about a mile and had to walk to catch my breath.  I kept walking hard, and my breath didn’t really come back.  After about 30+ seconds I decided to get going again, even though I wasn’t any better off.  I made it another mile and had to walk again.  I forced myself to run up the hills and use the crest to recover.

This was an out-and-back course, with the first part being road.  When I hit the road on the way back I knew I was close, sort of.  We came to a big hill, with a lot of people walking.  I picked a spot halfway up and told myself I could walk after that.  Then as I reached that spot I decided I could go a bit further and picked another spot.  Repeat.  As I got to a spot near the crest, where I really wanted to stop, I thought I saw the finish line up ahead.  I was so gassed that I needed to get confirmation from the runner next to me.  One more down and uphill to go!

With my old friend waiting for me at the finish line I knew I couldn’t walk where he might see me.  I dug deep and hung on, watching the finish get closer.  I passed a lot of people up that last hill.  I wasn’t thinking about that so much, I just wanted it to be over.  I don’t remember much about the finish other than being handed a much needed bottle of water.  I rinsed my mouth and spit it out, right onto the shoes of a passing runner.  I felt badly, but it makes me laugh today.

The goal for this race was to have fun and decide if I’d be interested in doing it or the half marathon next year.  Thinking about what I’ve written I’m not sure it is clear how I felt.  I knew immediately that I wanted to do the half marathon next year.  I didn’t care about the profile or that at 15+ miles it would be the furthest I’ve raced in 30+ years.  I had SO much fun.  I don’t remember when I’ve had that much fun in a race – maybe never.

I don’t know what will happen the rest of the year, or in the years to come, but this much is certain:  I had a blast a Leadville.  I wonder if I could do a 50 mile mountain bike ride???

What’s next?

A quick update before I dive into “what’s next”:

It’s been just about 3 months since my surgery.  The doctor said it would be 6 weeks before I was good, and three months before I was real good.  I wrote that down so I would remember it correctly.  So am I “real good”?

I am able to run and bike without any pain.  I have some discomfort on my long swims or kick sets, but nothing that would make me stop.  My ankle is stronger today than pre-injury, but I still come up a bit short when it comes to flexibility.  I could work on that, but I think forcing the flexibility could cause more problems that it solves.

Am I real good?  I’m not sure, but I am sure that I’m good enough!

In two weeks I’m going to do my first triathlon in over a year, a sprint.  I didn’t say “just a sprint” because to me it is much more than that.  Not only is it the next leg in my journey back, but it is also the first race I had to cancel due to my injury.  Needless to say I suspect it will be an emotional race.

This race is special:  I’m a sweeper, meaning I (and a group of other runners) will be doing the run leg carrying the US and service flags.  I’m going to be carrying the Navy flag in honor of my friend Chris “Doc” Goehner.  It’s going to be an awesome finish, one I hope the crowd appreciates as much as I appreciate the honor of carrying the flag!

The question I have, and a race day decision I suspect, is whether I will do the entire race on my own, and then run it again, carrying the flag with the rest of the guys.  I change my mind daily on what to do, and probably will again half a dozen times before I commit one way or the other.  Whatever I decide to do I’d bet that I cross the line smiling!