Spartan Race Ft. Carson

Here are some pics from my first Spartan Race.  It was a ton of fun (when do you ever get to roll around in the mud with an m-16?) and I was fortunate enough to win the race.

Mud crawl w/ Gun

Bolder Boulder

Please excuse the typos, the kids need to be supervised!

The weekend race double is now complete and I every grateful for that.  I finished the Bolder Boulder in a time of
35:38 (+/-) which wins the age group and is somewhere around 90th place.  Unfortunately it looks like my chip wasn't working and I'm not listed in the results.. I have emailed the timers twice so far and I hope that it is corrected soon.

We couldn't have asked for a better day for the largest 10k that I compete in.  For those who have never done the Bolder Boulder, there are something like 60 runners, but the race feels small because you start in seeded waves of a couple hundred.  Any way, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was a pleasantly in the mid 50's (I know a bit chilly but livable).  I started in the back middle of the A wave and that seemed a about right. Even though I do this race every year, I still have some trouble rationalizing finishing around 90th place as about right.  I started the run at a measured pace (5:32) since I knew the difficulty of the course really picked up at mile 3 and it seemed to work. 

I was able to maintain my pace through the second mile (5:33) and was fortunate enough to pass Justin Little.  A quick side comment about Justin, he is racing so fast this year that he is really pushing me.  On one hand I am grateful to be pushed while on the other, a pleasant jog through the Pearl street mall would have been nice too.  He is a far kinder person than I so it is gratifying to see him compete so well.  The third mile is where I started to struggle and I think that Saturdays race played a part in my suffering.  When the grade ticked up, I found it hard to power up the hills.  My third and fourth mile splits were 5?:51 and 5:52 respectively and I was so happy to run through the 'Highest Point' marker.  I was able to let my legs turn over better after the summit and I was able to hold 5:35 pace until the hill into the stadium.  I would have liked to loaf that hill and the lap of the track, but I could feel the mass of runners behind bearing down on me (thanks Justin) and I was able to only loose one place in the stadium.

At 35:38, I was just under 30 seconds faster than last year which is refreshing since all my other running races this year have been slower than last year.  I am hopeful that this is a harbinger of things to come.  I just hope that I make it back into the results some time soon.  I could really use a new key chain.  Thank you Runners Roost, Nike, Pearl Izumi, Power Bar and Colorado Ophthalmology.

2012 Pelican Fest Race report

I always get nervous before races and the first race of the year normally makes the butterflies living in my stomach flutter even more violently.  This year’s edition of the Pelican Fest Triathlon was no different.  I had won last year’s race handily and I was hoping to repeat the result which didn’t help my nerves.  I have normally used this race as a warm-up to the more competitive races later in the season because it has been able to maintain a local (and amateur only) feel which I find helps ease the anxiety of getting back into triathlon racing.

Saturday started with a some what unnatural yet welcome calm that bathed to ground with a thick fog that fogged your goggles and misted your wind shield.  Despite the fog the air was a refreshing 60 degrees at race start which made for ideal race conditions.  The race starts with brisk 63 degree 800 meter swim across Windsor Lake, followed by a rolling 10 mile time trial, and finishing with a 5k out and back run around the lake.  A nice quick race to knock the winter cobwebs from your winter hibernation. 

Before the race started I was looking forward to the swim because I have been swimming faster then years past so I was excited to see if my increase in pool speed translated into a faster swim split.  In addition to swimming faster, this was my first race with my LASIK enhanced eyes that allows me to see the buoys which I thought would also help me swim faster since I would be able to swim a straighter line. Unfortunately at the word go, I had, by anyone’s measure, a slow beach start that ended in me having a dozen or so swimmers to swim over and around.  After the first 200 meter buoy and the only 90 degree turn I was in 4^th place and within sight of first.  There was a lead group of two, and break, and then the one guy that I was behind.  I immediately tried to pass, but either he swam into me or I swerved into him which farced me back behind him.  I tried to pass several times only to be thwarted in the same way until just after the half way point when I was finally able to get past and into third place.  Once I was clear, I started to reel in the leaders, but I ran out of water so I exited the lake in third place 15 to 20 seconds back.  I had a reasonable transition and started the bike course.

On the bike I caught second at about 1.5 miles into the ride and discovered the shock of the day.  A bunch of ITU races had shown up to race.  Only in Colorado does a small local triathlon become an international Olympic qualifying race!  The rest of the ride was uneventful until the dismount line into t2 when I caught the leader and was also passed by an Argentinian ITU points racer (gotta love the names and country written on the uniform).  The original leader took the run out hard (+/- 5 min pace) and me and the Argentinian where forced to try to keep pace.  I passed the Argentinian after the first half mile, but I was a good 25 seconds behind first.  I was able to get some time back after the initial blazing pace so that I was with in 20 seconds behind the leading ITU racer, but once he saw me at the turn around he restarted his original relentless pace which I couldn’t match.  Once I realized that overtaking him was not to be, I shut it down and cruised for the last mile. 

Intellectually I know that second overall including beating 4 of 5 pros and posting a faster time then last year isn’t a bad result, but emotionally I would have liked to won.  Perhaps with a better start and a stronger effort on the run I might have been able to get the W, but probably not.  The one silver lining is that I am old enough to be the winner’s father.

8/31 swim practice

scm im
Wednesday 8/31 swim practice

600 choice warm up

4 x 25 @ 30 IM order
4x 150 free @ 2:15

4 x 50 @ :50 IM order 
3 x 150 free @ 2:10

4 x 75 @ 1:20 IM rotating the starting stroke
2 x 150 free @ 2:05

4 x 100 IM @ 1:40
1 x 150 free @ 2:00

4 x 125 @ 2:00 IM rotate an extra 25 each stroke

6 x 150 @ 2:00 free w/ fins

Repeat 3x
100 fast kick w/o fins
50 easy
25 under water
25 sprint
Repeat 3x

wd
4500 + wu and wd

Monday swim practice

SCM, free, 100s

warm up 600 choice

1 x 100 @ 1:35
2 x 100 @ 1:30
3 x 100 @ 1:25
R:15
4 x 100 @ 1:30
R: 30

2 x 100 @ 1:30

2 x 100 @ 1:25
2 x 100 @ 1:20
R:15
4 x 100 @ 1:25
R:30

3 x 100 @ 1:25
2 x 100 @ 1:20
1 x 100 @ 1:15
R:15
4 x 100 @ 1:20

6 x 100 kick 1-3 w/o fins @ 2:15 4-6 w/ fins @ 1:45
6 x 100 swim w/ fins @ 1:25

200 warm down

Friday swim practice

Short course meters
Warm-up 600 choice

5 x 200 free @ 3:00
2 x 25 @ :15

4 x 200 free @ 2:55
4 x 25 @ :20

3 x 200 free @ 2:50
6 x 25 @ :25

2 x 200 free @ 2:45
8 x 25 @ :30

1 x 200 free @ 2:40
10 x 25 @ :35

All 25 are sprint

3 x 200 kick 1,2 w/o fins @ 4:15/3 w/ fins @ 3:30

3 x 200 Pull @ 2:50

Warm down

Pigman Half-Ironman Triathlon Cedar Rapids, IA

4:10-1st in the age group, 4th overall

This race was the last qualifying event for the US national team that is to compete at the ITU World Long-Course Triathlon World Championship.  Since this was my only opportunity to qualify for a race that I had circled on my calender for more then a year, I felt that I had to do whatever I could to ensure that I qualified for the team I chose to race accordingly.  The distances for ITU Worlds are 4k swim, 120k bike and 30k run.  These are the distances of the old Nice (France) Triathlon which Mark Allen won repeatedly and is almost never contested in the States. 

Swim:
Few people in this area have ventured to Cedar Rapids for this race and overall I think that it is a good race that unfortunately is difficult to get to.  The swim took place in scenic Pleasant Creek State Park that had to be in the lower 80s, yet the officials found somewhere (perhaps at the bottom of the lake with a couple ice cubes surrounding the thermometer)  at 77 degrees.  Everyone get your wetsuit on!  Unlike most races, Pigman is a time trial start with racers leaving single file three seconds apart.  Some people love this style since it makes the swim start less intimidating with out the mass start, but it's not my favorite because you have no idea where you are in the overall competition.  At least in wave starts you can figure out the times of other racers because you know where they started based on which wave they were in.  In a time trial start you have no idea where you are.  Before I started I asked the starter how far ahead the elites started and I was told 30 minutes.  Racers were able to pick their place in line of like colored caps so I placed myself at the very end of my age group line thinking that that way everyone I passed I knew I was ahead of.  The other reason why I don't like this style is because you never have clear water and you always have to swim over people for most of the race.

The course was a triangle where the first and second leg of the triangle combining for 1500 meters with the last leg into the beach only spanning 400 meters.  With such long legs I had real troubles with sighting because there were only small (balloon size) buoys in between the two larger buoys at the corners and a couple hundred racers with red and pink caps that looked like the course buoys.  I swear that I ended up swimming from one 'buoy' to the another only to discover each time that the 'buoy' was actually a participants head.  In the end I tried to split all of the 'buoys' and hope for the best.  I got out of the water slower than I would have expected, but upon getting into transition I saw I was first in the wave to come in.  That meant I had up to a 3:30 lead on everyone in my age group.  Things were looking good for qualifying.

Bike:
The bike course was a challenging out and back through the corn fields of central Iowa.  I was proud of my 15 stalks in the back yard before this trip, I was overwhelmed by the millions of corn plants as far as the eye can see and I haven't had the heart to go in the backyard to look at my once regal stalks of corn.  The roads were in poor condition and the early railroad crossings jettisoned my water bottles every which way. 

Now I am a slave to my heart-rate monitor.  Normally I have some general guidelines about where I want my heart rate to be at anyone time during the race with the understanding that given race situations things may need to be modified.  Since this was my only opportunity to qualify for team USA I felt I needed to exercise an abundance of cation in planning and executing my heart rate.  Once on the course I settled into pace that I could hold without risking a later blow-up.  For me it was keeping my heart rate under 155.  Normally on the bike I try to keep it under 160, but I had to qualify and I thought I would still have a fast enough ride with the lower effort knowing I should be able to out run the rest on the age-group if need be.  I rode the course as I planned and I was never passed by anyone in my group.  All was going well I suppose.  I was still first in the age group so I knew that a conservative run would do the trick.

The funny thing was that another racer that I passed before mile 4 used me to pace the entire course, we got into transition together.  It turned out he is on our Runners Roost team and lives in Boulder.  I didn't know that because he was racing in an Erin Baker's Cookie team having never being given a team racing kit. 

Run:
The run was also an out and back with the first half having a net down hill into the wind.  The last 2 miles were defiantly a challenging up hill back into the park.  The scenery you ask?  Corn, Corn , and more corn.  My normal strategy in a half-ironman run is to keep my heart rate ceilings for the run at 165 for the first half and 170 for miles 6-9 with 10-13 having no restriction.  Since I wanted to assure a slot on Team USA, I subtracted 5 beats per minute for each of these sections.  I ran the first 5 miles at 155, 5-8 at 160, 8-11 at 163 and 11-13 at 170.  Much lower then normal.  The run was very pleasant.  I never felt like I was pushing and I didn't have anyone to race or pace off of. At this point I had passed almost all of the 600 racers that started before me (OK, passing that many is the fun part of time trial racing). I did see the elites coming back and assuming I started 30 minutes after them I was sitting in a comfortable 2nd place so I didn't think I should deviate from the plan.  I finished thinking that I was second behind a pro.  Unfortunately I discovered after the race that the starter was wrong about how far back I started I didn't start 30 minutes behind, I started 27 minutes behind.  A 60 second lead evaporated into a 120 second deficit and I had finished fourth overall.

I don't think my race plan was misguided.  I needed to qualify for worlds and I still handily beat everyone in my age-group.  On the other hand, I was so close to finishing second that I am having some misgivings for racing so conservatively.  If I had raced as I normally would, there is no guarantee I would have gone the two minutes faster I needed to finish second, but I do believe I would have.  I feel a bit like a wimp.  On the other hand, I could have also toed the line in an effort to have the fastest time I possible could and then fallen apart, so who knows if I was right to do what I did.  In the end this is an effort I will not look back on with an overwhelming sense of pride, but I did exactly what I set out to do, qualify for Team USA.  I look forward to my next race in Glenwood Springs where I can race for the love of racing instead of racing like it is a job.