travels, races, and other musings

Pre-Race When I signed up for CapTex, I was planning to get in a lot more training than actually happened. Life intervened and I was sick and Emmaline was sick and we were on vacation and busy and so on and so on.  So my training has been fairly minimal lately. I also took off most of the winter, only doing a little biking, an occasional run and some core/strength. Actually, mostly core and strength training. But I found that doesn't make up for swimming, biking, and running in terms of speed. My general fitness was maintained, but I lost some of my speed in those areas. So my goal for this year's CapTex was just to go out, relax, and have fun. I wasn't going to push like crazy or work really hard, just go and take it easy - more like a training day.  I didn't worry about my times or my pace. I didn't worry about making specific splits. I kept my heart rate lower (it was in the range I used when I did Longhorn Half Ironman). The morning was fairly uneventful. T...

I really intended that this would not be a long long long race report. But it turns out that when you race for 9.5 hours you end up with a lot to report. Pre-Race Roger dropped me off a few blocks from the race site and I walked over and got into a long line of people trying to get into transition. I didn't see anyone body marking so I wasn't sure what was up there. I figured I would set up and figure that out later. The line was very long and it took me about 20 minutes to get into transition. Once I got into transition, I set up all my stuff, grabbed my wetsuit and headed out to get in one last port-a-potty stop. Except that by the time I got out of there, I realized there were only a few minutes until my wave started. How did that happen? I wriggled into my wetsuit and got ready to head down to the water. Swim The swim start was very chaotic and it was hard to know what was going on. I couldn't tell who was on deck or who was getting in so I just went over and hu...

Pre-Race Goals/Thoughts I'm really happy with my race this year at CapTexTri. 6 years ago, my very first triathlon was CapTexTri so in a way, it was fun to do it again since I haven't done it since then. Of course, back then, I did the super sprint version and this year I was doing the Olympic distance. I remember thinking the Olympic distance seemed CRAZY to me. Ha! At first, I wasn't really super thrilled about doing this race and had in fact, avoided it for the most part since then. It's expensive, it's hot, it's a congested course with tons of people. But I felt like I wanted something in my season before heading off to Vineman and it sort of fell at the right time so I signed up. Then a week before the race, I suddenly realized I was racing my first race of the season (and it wasn't a sprint) and I should probably think about preparing for it. I didn't really prepare much since it's not my goal race, though I did do shortened versions of my...

I had no real goals when it came to this year's 3M. The last time I ran it was in 2007 and this year was a different course. I was thinking the course would be a little easier this year, but I didn't really know how fast I should aim for. I decided to try to pace it similar to my half in August in San Diego and see if I could get the 2:10 I missed out there.  The whole household had been sick during the peak of my training so I missed my longest run before the race. My longest run was 9.5 miles 3 weeks prior, then I missed a week and had a crummy 7.5 mile run the weekend before.  Pre-race was all smooth. I got a ride in with my friend Dan, which I was grateful for because it meant I didn't have to deal with stashing my key somewhere or pick up the car after the race.  I lined up with the 2:10 pacers, thinking I'd just stay with them and see how it went. We started and it took me about 5 minutes to get to the starting line, then I just started running.  ...

This year's Austin Triathlon was a hard race for me, mostly because of the run, but timewise, I still did well and met my expectations. I knew going into the race that it wasn't going to be my perfect race. I was coming off a big ramp up to my "A" race (America's Finest City Half Marathon) and was focusing a lot on my running (to the detriment of my biking and swimming). Also, while I was in San Diego for the race, I really didn't do any training the week after the race. Then once I got home it was time to "taper" again for this race. So it was a week of taper, a hard race, a week of vacation/recovery, another week of taper, then this race. Not ideal, but doable. Pre-Race 4:30 AM wakeup, breakfast, get ready and out the door by myself at around 5:20 (Roger and Emmaline were coming later). Arrived a bit before 6 and got my stuff set up. Then I found Michelle in transition and we chatted for a bit before heading down to the swim start where we chatt...

I can't really ask for much more from a race than I had from this morning. My goal was 2:10 - a 10:00/mi pace and while I didn't quite meet my goal, I was pretty close and it was still a PR by two and a half minutes so I'm happy. I gave every last bit I had; I stuck to my race plan and had a good day. Everything went very smoothly in the morning. The race started at 7 AM, but we had to be in line for the shuttle buses up to the start line (the race is a point to point with no parking at the start) no later than 5:30 AM. I woke up at 3:30 AM, left the house at 4 AM and headed to meet up with a friend from Texas Iron for a carpool. Mark grew up here and had come out for the race, too. I arrived at his house and we left around 4:45 and got to the race site around 5:15. We parked easily, hopped on the bus and headed for the start. The start point at Cabrillo National Monument was at the top of a hill and was quite beautiful. We hopped into the port a potty line (in the larg...

The stars were not aligned going into this race. I got sick on Tuesday and spent the rest of the week resting and recuperating (and trying everything possible to get well). By Saturday, I was still a bit sick, but pretty sure I was going to do the race. I knew it wouldn't be my best race ever, but I felt well enough to at least go through the motions. Sunday morning, I was still coughing but I decided I was mostly well so off I went. The night before I had gotten everything ready and Roger put the rack and bike on my car with my tires all pumped and ready to go. I had taken my bike for a quick spin around the block (5 minutes as opposed to my usual 20 minute warm up ride) and everything was working well. Sunday morning I arrived at the race site and realized that my front tire was completely flat. Because I ride tubulars on my race wheels, I don't carry a spare for short races. There's just no point. So of course, I had no spare. I called home (Roger and Emmaline were c...

I did my first official duathlon event this morning. Not by choice, since the swim for my triathlon was cancelled. I had fun and usually I vow not to do races without a swim (since it's my strongest sport) but I actually had fun today. But let me back up a bit. We originally came to Corpus Christi so could do the triathlon, Roger would do the duathlon and we'd have a beach vacation. Roger's mom (Elke) and her husband Stephen flew out to meet us and have vacation with us and watch Emmaline during the race. On Friday I heard that there may be jellyfish in the bay. I sort of shrugged it off and on Saturday I was picking up my packet and heard again about the jellyfish and that there were actually a fair number of them. One guy said that they didn't sting much - more like a fire ant bite. I dunno, I sort of go out of my way to avoid fire ants. Plus the water was super choppy and I was getting really nervous. Then Saturday night we got an email. The race organizers had...

I had been looking forward to Skeese Greets Triathlon as my first race of the season not just because it was my first race, but because I've been feeling really strong lately and I wanted a good benchmark for how my training has been going lately. I knew my bike was a little lacking, but I've been feeling so strong on the run, I just decided that my strategy would be do have a solid swim, hammer the bike and then put my running skills to the test. It's a short race and I didn't feel like I would need to pace too much.That was the plan anyway.  Pre-Race Before the race, things went smoothly and I found friends to hang out with. Emmaline was excited to be in her new (cheap) stroller for the event and was ready to ring her cow bell. I was in a new age group this year (35-39, even though I'm not yet 35) and I met up with Amy Bush, also in my age group and we lined up together.  As we waited for our swim wave, "Push It" (Salt N' Pepa) came over th...

The idea was to wake up at 4:30, leave by 5:30 and arrive at the race around 6 for a 7 AM start. Things didn't work that way. When I got up at 4:30, Emmaline woke up and I spent until 5:30 getting her settled again. So I raced through getting ready and was out the door by 5:50. I arrived and sat in a small traffic jam, parked and walked to the race site. As I was parking, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. Badly. I saw a bank of port a potties, but there weren't many and there was a LONG line. Thinking there would be many many more closer to the start (I mean, this was a race with 20,000 people) I headed for the start. Boy was I wrong. There were not many more than those I saw before, but there were gobs more people. So I waited. And waited. I probably waited about 40 minutes in the line before it was my turn. By the time I completed my business in the port a potty it was 7:10. The race had started 10 minutes earlier. It wasn't a big deal, really, though so I jo...