Marquee Triathlon recap...

My weekend truly started on friday evening. My youth group had a lock-in planned on Friday night as part of a fundraising campaign for World Vision and their 30-hour famine money drive. Everyone fasts for 30-hours in an attempt to learn a bit of what kids around the world go through each and everyday.

We met at 5pm at church, played games, did a bible study, talked about their experiences thus far with being hungry for a day, broke fast at midnight and went to bed. I never sleep well at church, even though I shoot for the couch in the youth room. I am not sure if its being in a weird place, temperature or what not, but I was up at 6am after a patchy night of rest. I immediately turned on NPR after looking out the window and watched as my car was continuously buried under the 6 inches of snow that was already on the ground. My biggest worry was getting out of town before they closed I-17 and I wouldn't be able to get to phoenix.

I made it on to the highway. Pushed 50mph over mostly good roads and was in phoenix by noon. First mission accomplished. Apparently when it is snowing in Flagstaff, it stays cold in phoenix too. I was just hoping that the weather was going to be nicer and warmer the next day, cause I hate cold weather races.

I make it to Tempe Town Lake and walk into the check-in tent. As I get my bib number, the volunteer informs me that the swim for tomorrow is cancelled. The recent rain tends to drain bacteria into the lake and there was not enough time between check-in and race morning to analyze samples for cleanliness. Go figure. Kind of a bummer as my swim was going fabulously this spring and I was really looking forward to setting a new PR over the distance. It is what it is. The triathlon just turned into a duathlon.

I wandered through the expo, bought a new pair of cycling gloves as they were on sale and I needed new ones. Took all my gear back to my car, unloaded my bike and began to make my way to transition for bike check-in. I got a nice spot in transition. Bike rack places were reserved by race number. I was number 22 and was on the second rack you see from the run-in and out. Put a trash bag over my frame for safety from the rain and went to check in at my hotel.

The hotel was nice, albeit odd. It seemed more like a short term housing unit as there were bikes chained to stair railings, people milling about and other odd features. But, this was not a $20/night place. Odd, very odd. The room was very large, small kitchenette, couch, two beds, desk. For one night, no problem. I got settled, watched some TV til dinner and went in search of food. Made it old town Scottsdale which I would love to go back to when its warmer. As a historian, I love the old town places that retain much of their original aestheitic. While Old Town does an ok job at this, and has become a snobby hangout for rich artists and those wannabe artists, I can still sense the atmosphere of the area from a hundred years ago. It was just a tad too late for most things to be open and was cold and drizzly which made me retreat back to my car and head back to the hotel after my stomach was full.

I found Good Morning Vietnam on TV (one of my favorites) and watched that til it was time for bed. I was not as nervous for this race and really tried to keep my mind off it. I never sleep well before races and wanted to change that. It mostly worked. I probably had my best night's rest before a competition. However, just like the night before at church, I was up before my alarm. I turned on the weather channel to check the temperature, made some oatmeal and coffee. Did my final touches. Loaded my car, checked out and headed to the race venue just after 5am. There wasn't the same buzz around transition as normal because the olympic distance and sprint distance went of an hour and two hours, respectively, after the half-iron. Most people didn't want to get up just to sit around, especially cause it was pretty chilly outside.

I set up my transition a little different because of the duathlon format. I didn't need to set down my running things because I would be wearing them for the first 5K leg of the race. That left just my helemt and bike shoes. Pumped up my tires, taped my Gu's to my top tube and left for a morning prayer service led by Ryan from FCA Endurance. The turn out was disappointingly small, but we take what we get and the guys who showed up were great.

I left my bag with Ryan, took my sweatshirt and sweatpants off and headed for the start line, which was now on the Mill Ave bridge, instead of at the water line, for our 5k run.

We close in on 7am, start time, when tehy inform us that their is a vehicle accident out on the bike course that is blocking all four lanes. Delay the start 15 minutes.
National Anthem sung, 5....4....3....2....1....GO!!
I have never done a duathlon and was not sure about how to pace myself. We started in waves (I was in the pros/20-39 age group) and I settled in comfortably in about 11th place. I used Bo Reed's advice of transitioning (not to be confused with triathlon transitions) and running with the course. Relaxing on up hills, pushing downhills. With a mile to go, I was in 4th place and feeling strong. By transition, I was in 2nd. I was blown away!! My longest week of mileage since Jan. 1st has been 16 miles and I have done little to no speed work. And none of the little speed work I have done has been faster than 6:45 pace. I finished the first 5k in 17:26. Good enough for the second fastest of the day overall.

I had a blazing fast transition for what I am used to. Despite taking it easy and slowing down. I am out on teh bike course in second place overall. By mile 5 I am passed by two brother who are working together. I stick with them for the next 5 miles but start to lose ground and need to regroup. By the first turn around, 14 miles in, I am in sixth place. I am riding hard and can't do anything about it, they are just superior riders. I hammer it downhill back toward transition to complete the first loop of the bike. I am starting to feel a little tired but keep checking my pace and it hasn't slowed. By the 40 mile mark I am hungry. Full blown hungry and realized I didn't eat enough. My couple bowl of oatmeal were eaten 6 hours ago and all I have had since is a few Gu's and some cytomax. Not enough. Its survival mode. To make matters worse, the wind has picked up and I am fighting it all the way home. I finish in 2:40. I know that I was inshape for a 2:25. Bummer.

My toes are frozen and running into transition is difficult. My second transition was slow for a couple reasons, frozen fingers and toes, and bonking. I know that there is an aid station just a couple hundred meters out on to the run course. I try to run but my legs have nothing in them. I grab a handful of pretzels and eat them as I walk. Thank you to everyone who asked if I was ok during this portion of the race. I do a run/walk for the next mile and grab some animal crackers and gatorade at the next aid station. I am beginning to feel just a bit better. But, it takes a good 4 miles before I have any kind of sustainable strength in my legs. I end up running between aid stations and walking the food line for the rest of the race. Eric, Nate, Gary, and Wendy, all of Team FCA, help encourage me and keep me moving forward. My race is already over, it is just a matter of finiahing now. I could tell that some individual that passed me earlier are coming back to me and I am making up ground. Which tells me that my late-race strength is there, but the first four miles of the run left me uncompetitive and making up a deficit the whole race both in nutrition and speed. Since there was no body marking because of no swim, I had no idea who was in my age group or what place I was in. The only person I know for sure was in my age group was a kid in an ASU singlet. I see him in the last mile and continue pushing until I was right behind him with 50 meters to go. Except, while he was hurting before, he finds an extra gear and beats me by 1.5 seconds.

I had no answer as was the case most of the day.

Good things to take away from this race:
1. My 5K speed is there. Where did it come from? no idea. But, it's there.
2. Despite starting the half marathon on a bad note, give it some time and it can turn around. I believe I was listening to Frank Shorter speak one time and he said this same thing. Everyone runs in to bad patches in a race, maybe for 10 seconds, maybe for 2 miles, but they will eventually turn around.
3.I have 4 more weeks to make my swimming even better before my next race.

Bad things to take away from this race:
1. Keep working on cycling strength. There is no reason I should have been dropped so easily.
2. Eat more before a race!! It was a lapse of judgement and I usually know better.
3. Take more food on the bike, just in case.

pre-race update...

My original plan was to wait til after the Marquee Triathlon to write a recap of the race. However, I have been reading other blogs and was inspired to write early.

My training has been going well. I am swimming more consistently, more mileage and longer mileage than I ever have. I am ready for a great day come race morning in the water. I will be testing out a new wetsuit at this race and hoping that everything goes well with it. Last April, a wetsuit mishap cost me a podium spot at the XTERRA West Championships in Las Vegas (Read a race recap here)

I have not been quite as consistent on my bike, but feel like I have a good level of fitness, at least more than I did at this time last year. After a ride/time trial last friday of 28 miles (half the distance of the bike leg for this weekend), I had a few miles over 30mph and averaged closer to 22mph on a ride that had 600+ft of climbing over the distance. I was not even tired afterward, which give me tons of confidence for this weekend. It is supposed to be a fast ride and I plan on takign every mph from it as I can.

Compared to last year, my running fitness is far better. Which is not saying much. I was injured with an as of yet undiagnosed injury that was originally wrongly said to be a stress fracture. It ended up not being a stress fracture, but I took 4 weeks totally off running through april. I am once again fighting injury, but have been able to do short, slow miles this spring. I am far from PR shape, but am looking to just settle in comfortably for the half marathon and see what comes of it.

Stayed tuned for a full race recap next week after the inaugural Marquee triathlon half-iron this Sunday.

Time to unload...

Have you ever had those times when your brain is thinking about so many things, the only way to get them out is to unload them in writing? Yeah, that's where i am at. So, I am going to try to, succinctly, write out all these thoughts without spending too much time on any one issue.

First off, this is a training blog, so here is my training. It took a while to get back in to training after the lethargic Christmas break. I ate healthier, however, so my weight was more close to where it needed to be at the beginning of the year. I had added up all my miles for swimming, biking and running in 2010...they were lame. I set new goals this year and broke it down to how many miles I would need each week for the year to reach those goals. So far, it's going OK. My nagging hamstring is still nagging. I am taking a new approach to my run training after finally becoming too frustrated with the past few years' injuries. Plus, I have almost fully decided on racing the Leadman Life Time Fitness EPIC 250 (did I get that right?) in May, in Vegas. Just about 140 miles of biking, which is twice as long as any single ride I have ever done. That's my focus for the first half of the year. The second half has my sights set on a Boston Qualifier. As long as my hamstring holds up, early September looks like a great time for a shot at qualifying. That time frame gives me a chance to get good summer (IE: weather) training done.

Secondly, I am graduating in May. That means an unsure future. I think I have the next year of my life planned, but that depends on certain things happening too. Meaning, it's not for sure either. What do I want to do with my life? That is a constant question that deserves some deep thought. At this point I am just ready for life to show me a path. I have the chance to do whatever I want. It is that kind of uncertainty and excitement that keeps me excited about where my life is headed. It is a type of optimism that I have never experienced before. For the first time in my life, I will have no reason to be tied down to anyone or anything or any place. That's exciting.

With that in mind, I am looking at beginning a bike camp/class/club here in Flagstaff. I grew up mountain biking 6-7 hours a day during the summer when I was young, thanks in part to the city recreation bike camp. It has since went the way of many similar programs across this country in this fallowed economy. I want to start it up again. It gives an opportunity to give kids the same kind of experience I had as a youngster. I can honestly say I would not be a triathlete and, in turn, not writing this blog without the memory of this program. Let alone the health benefits it affords an ever increasingly overweight youth population in America. We have a town that had a cycling club as early as 1893, and we don't have a program for a new generation of kids to experience the same freedom? Something needs to change and I want to lead that change. This idea has also given rise to thoughts of expanding. Counting my eggs before they hatch? Maybe. But, I don't think it takes any stretch of the imagination to expand this program into an after school program at local schools. And, in time, expand it into something similar to the High School mountain bike programs that are scattered around California. It has been tried in the past here in AZ. But, the organization of the programs were never coordinated enough to follow through. I am not in a position to take on that responsibility as of now, but the future holds a lot of optimism.

Finally, a less optimistic idea that needs writing down. As a college student in America, I am far from the only student, or at the only university, or living in the only state facing budget cuts. It seems largely worse in Arizona, but i can't speak for students from other states. I am specifically referring to the huge tuition increases and lack of financial oversight that NAU seems to be applying to the fiscal responsibility of running this institution. For instance, they recently built a $35million science building. What apparently was missed was the need for an extra stairwell that meets the strictest guidelines of fire safety. To add this stairwell now, it will cost the university $9million. How will they pay for it? Through student tuition. I, for one, do not appreciate being charged for someone elses oversight. Are they going to fire the planners of the building for not constructing the stairwell initially? probably not. That's outrageous. Read about the issue here.
In the same vein of anger, the Liberal Arts building on campus is getting a much needed face lift. I can accept that facilities need upgrading. However, just 4 or 5 years ago, the third floor of the building was fully renovated due to, what was rumored to be a mold issue. Ideally this floor should not need to be renovated again, just a handful of years after its previous upgrade. But, less than acceptable work was done on the space and millions of more dollars are now being spent to re-renovate the space. How can this happen? This is now two, of who knows how many, oversights on construction on this campus. In turn, they are charging students more to make up for their lack of insight.
I have also heard that a yearly "fitness fee" is proposed to go up to $400 per student next year. I don't specifically know how much it was last year, but I know it was no where close to $400. They draw students in by advertising a "locked-in" tuition rate for 4 years, but forget to mention that fees can be increased to astronomical levels to make up for a traditional tuition increase.
We pay more for tuition, we pay more fees, we still walk out of here with a degree. Fine. But, paying more for less services because of faculty reductions, less class space which turns into a four-year degree into a five-year puts more pressure on students to accept loans. The increase in loans, leads to more student debt and more stress on the economy as a whole.
For one, I am sick of paying higher fees and tuition for less service. I hate that America doesn't put more emphasis on education, because it is a vital institution. Education needs to be careful or they will have an Egypt type event on their hands. There are more parallels to these situations than one might first suspect.
Something to think about.

Beginning of Christ's month...

The month of December and the whole end of the year in general is a great time to reflect on the blessings I have. This past semester in school has been one of the most stressful of my life. Classes that I didn't like and loads of work that I eventually waded through. With just a week and a little left on the academic calendar for the year, I am feeling the end coming. There will be some speed bumps for sure, but I will make it. I am looking forward to next semester because I will be out on an internship and away from the classroom, potentially forever. I have to count that as a blessing.
I am working on my marathon for January. The long runs are really mentally taxing me at this moment. I took this last week off because I just needed a recharge. The constant 10+ mile days is rough. I like going fast and doing 10x1 mile is easier than 10 miles straight. Easy. So, I am looking to revamp my training and hopefully get through my long runs without any more hitches. My swim speed is still hanging around and I have no idea where my cycling is. But, I have a triathlon on Saturday and am really looking forward to a change of pace. I think I have begun to figure out my running off the bike and am confident with this upcoming race. My swim and run will most likely be faster than the last time i did this race. The bike is the dark horse.
Christmas is coming. The blessings in my life are more evident each day and I hope to just continue to appreciate everything that I am given, even the horribly rough long runs that continue to dot my training every week. I just need to hit that special 20 miles before the race.

November...

Not much new to say. The weekend beofre halloween, I was invited to backpack the Grand Canyon with a number of friends. We did the "tonto loop," down Bright Angel, Across West Tonto and up Hermits. 27 miles in three day. It was a blast. My legs were feeling the effort for at least a week afterward. It was a rough hike, but worth every drop of sweat.

I have been consistently in the pool three times per week. I was building up lengths everyday. But, I have since backed off to 1500m per day for a couple reasons. I know 1500m is kind of wimpy for some of you athletes, but I am mostly swimming just to maintain fitness. So, going more than that runs the risk of burnout and unneccessary fatique. Plus, I am usually on a time crunch and 1500m is easily fit into 30min. Finally, I have decided to race the Anthem Holiday Classic sprint which only involves a 400m pool swim. So, staying at 1500m allows me to focus more on speed than long efforts. So there.

I am gradually bumping up my run distances. So, far right around 10 miles is feeling good. I am doing an 11 mile long run today, followed by a much needed massage by Bo Reed. I am going to make sure that his massages are added to my schedule because my hamstrings are giving me some issues. I am hoping he can begin to work them out.

I am also trying to fit in some bike rides. I am little worried about my bike riding for the upcoming triathlon. It is only 12 miles on a flat, low elevation course. But, despite being a "fun" triathlon, I still want to have a good go at it. Bricks here I come!!

Quick Update...

It's been a while since I have updated this thing. I have been super busy and stressed with my school load this semester. I am a procrastinator and when you have a number of things due each week, they tend to add up. I have been able to finish them all and get everything in, but it still stresses me out to no end.

Anyway, I have been getting in the pool three days per week. I have really noticed the aerobic base that I have built over the past few years of swimming. When I started out swimming in 2007, it was always a struggle in the water, my fitness wasn't great, I didn't have the muscle tone and my fluidity in the water was lacking. But now, even after taking a break from swimming throughout the whole summer, I came back and after a rough couple weeks finding my stroke again, I am hitting times in my workouts that I have never touched before. My fitness levels stay more consistent even after breaks in my training. I wish my running could do the same thing. Running has always been the hardest to get back into after long breaks.

Speaking of long running breaks...I will finally get back to training next week. After the Disneyland Half Marathon I took a much needed two weeks off to let myself recover before starting training for the PF Changs Rock and Roll Marathon. When I went out, an old injury resurfaced with vengeance and I had to go down for another week. I tried it out again and still no luck. So, I decided to just not rush and take another few weeks off, leaving me with 12 full weeks of training for PF Changs. Twelve weeks out from the race is next week and that's when I will begin a re-build of training.

Before that though, I will be hiking the Grand Canyon with a group of five others. We are doing 27 miles in 3 days next weekend. Down Bright Angel, across Tonto and up Hermit's. Should be a blast, I have never backpacked in the Grand Canyon, so stay tuned for a recap of that adventure next week.

I guess that's it, hopefully I don't take so much time between now and the next post.

Rest, recover, rebuild...

It has been almost three weeks since the end of the DIsneyland Half Marathon. I have run once. I knew I was going to take at least a full two weeks off after the race to recover and after 15 days I went out for an easy 5 miler. I have had some pain in the Tibial Tuberosity on both my legs since late last year. The pain is similar to Osgodd Schlatter's disease, but as a 21 year old who isn't growing anymore, it is very unlikely that that is the case. The pain seemingly dumbfounded the doctor's that I saw. And while not understanding what was happening, a PT suggested getting patella tendon straps. They work for Osgood Schlatter's pain, so why not here? I bought them and besides being annoying, they worked very well. Kept the pain WAY down and I was able to do all the training neccessary for the half marathon.

Well, after two weeks of not running, I totally spaced putting on my straps. I thought, "whatever, I ran the race without them and had no issue, I should be fine." Well, I wasn't fine. I had some really sharp pain in my high shin, right below the tibial tubercle which made me stop. I decided to run home (cause how else was I going to get there). I ran on tuesday and have had pain in my knees since. Albeit, it is getting better. The pain was as worse as it ever was before I got the straps.

My training for the PF Changs Rock N' Roll Marathon (yes, a full marathon!!) is supposed to begin on Monday. I am contemplating putting it off another week so that I can test my knees with the straps on again and make sure it isn't something new and more serious.

Otherwise, despite not swimming at all this summer, my fitness levels in the pool are similar to where they were last spring, praise God! But, I feel like I am struggling more and don't feel as fluid in the water either. It will take time before I can get back to the same fluidity I enjoyed in the pool last semester.

Anyway, stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks and months of my training for the marathon. Myself and two other friends are making a run at a Boston qualifying time which is set at 3:10. 7:15 mile pace for 26.2 miles. Oh boy.