It's all about Pace: June 2011

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Hammer Jammer

Our local triathlon club puts together a mock triathlon/multisport workout a few times a year… since our club is called the Hammerhead Triathlon Cub…. The workout is called the Hammer Jammer… goofy name, I know

Well.. after an easy recovery week from the ½ IM DNF we showed up Saturday morning to hang out with the club and get a solid 2.5 hours or so of training in.

It works like this….

We got to the site and set up transition pretty much like a race except for the fact that Judi and I had an entire rack to ourselves.

The swim was fairly quick, easy and uneventful… I was almost able to keep up with Judi by swimming in a straight line as she zigzagged between the beach and the Gulfstream

Transition was pretty low-key… we basically walked to the bikes with some club mates and soon I had fiddled around long enough to have gotten left so I hopped on and took off

I caught Judi and a couple other folks within the first mile or two then plowed ahead on my own. We had mostly a crosswind on the way down. I just stayed in the aerobars and tried to keep the effort constant. At 45 minutes I had almost reached the Vilano bridge… so I decided to ride to the top and try and make up the difference on the way back. Although I made up some time with a slight tailwind on the way back the ride portion still took 93 minutes which put me behind everyone once again on the run.

My plan for the run was to run steady on the way out… then once I saw Judi on the way back I would give her a minute or 2 head start and try and catch up. The plan worked great… I caught Judi right at 4 miles. Then we jogged the last ½ mile together…

Super workout with some fun folks… and we were finished with our workout… sitting on the beach with beer in hand by 1030.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Florida Challenge Aftermath....

Linae from over at
A Most Peculiar Gray
http://linae.blogspot.com/

sent me the below in an email regarding my DNF... and subsequent ponderings in my previous post "hopefully I can learn to swim, hydrate, electrolyte balance, fuel, and pace myself over the next 4 months"

Have you thought about how to work it out? You've already said you prefer to train with very minimal nutrition, however, it didn't work the same way on race day?

Well...
I have been thinking about it... here are some of my thoughts...

1. I seem to be fine and dandy on glycogen stores for 4-5 hours (less in the heat)
2. I have gotten quite comfortable training and racing on that since I have mostly done races in that timeframe in the past few years.
3. I am trying to go fast
4. if I keep my heartrate under 125 I can eat pretty much whatever I want.
5. I'm not incredibly speedy at a 125 HR (19mph on the flats on the bike 10 min mile run)

What am I gonna do?
1. Do more 5+ hour training sessions
2. Practice/experiment with nutrition strategies
3. Not let a DNF bother me

Thanks for asking Linae

Monday, June 13, 2011

Florida Challenge Race Report

Packing up the car

This racecourse has soundly beaten me twice in the past

After yesterday:

Pre race

Florida Challenge Triathlon - 3

MC - 0

Swim: DFL in my AG almost DFL O/A

Tranistion spot

Bike: went all Leroy Jenkins on the bike course… partially out of anger/embarrassment at my swim time

Run: started well enough with a couple of 8:30s but overheated and went downhill from there… after mile 11 taking me almost 20 minutes to complete I dropped at the aid station.

Yep, that’s right I DNFed with less than 2 miles to go.

Could I have finished? Yes

Could I have pulled myself and my stuff together to make the 3 hour trip home after spending the better part of another hour in the 95F blazing sunshine… probably not

I’ll be back in October for the full… hopefully I can learn to swim, hydrate, electrolyte balance, fuel, and pace myself over the next 4 months

temp per my car as I drove home

Friday, June 10, 2011

Trails

Judi and I are quite accomplished trail runners… but yesterday we took on a beast of a run…

Okay so we were just running the goofy 3 mile nature trail at the local university and…

I tried to find a way to cut through from one trail to another… and in so doing got roughed up by some palmettos…

Judi was done in my a leaping root that caught her foot

We are dorks

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Questions... I got Questions....

Yeah I’m singing that Jack Johnson song in my head as I ponder the Florida Challenge ½ IM coming up this weekend…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7IUgCEsZYc

Will it be too hot to wear my aero helmet? How hot is too hot for the aero increase to be less than the increase in melon temperature?

What about a tri top? What skinsuit is more aero than… skin?

Why didn’t I come up with some kind of nutrition plan? Why is it that I never practice this? We ride 40-90 miles every Saturday… most of the time I just eat either a pack of peanutbutter crackers or a Payday bar (okay sometimes both) we follow the ride up with a 3-10 mile brick (where more often than not I consume nothing)

Sunday long runs of 7-16 miles… nothing… just some water… once again… why didn’t I at least try some gels?

Why do I hate to taper? Nevermind… stupid question.

What has happened to SommerSports? I have done many of their races in the past… in fact my 1^st triathlon in 1997 was put on by them… they have always put on top notch races in the past… now it seems as if they can barely muster the energy to change a date here and a logo there on their site… I hope it’s just poor web admin.

Case in point:

http://floridachallenge.com/Details/GeneralEventInformation/LongCourseTriathlon/tabid/216/Default.aspx

Did I register to use my own ChampionChip? BTW where is my chip/strap?