The Black Fly Sprint Tri

Triathlon = DUN

Where to even start with this post?  There has been so much leading up to this I feel like this one is gonna be HUGE.  Bear with me.  I'm gonna try and just tell the whole story from beginning to end, and hopefully I don't forget anything awesome.

Tri's start early so I was up at the house at 4:30am.  I usually don't really need the full allotted time listed on race sheets for pre race stuff, at least with MTB, but I figured seeing as I had no idea what I was doing this time around I would show up bright and early and wander around aimlessly.  I started off by finding what I thought was a pretty killer parking spot in an empty lot for the Waterville Conference Center.  It was a short walk/ride from the transition area and when I got there the lot was empty.

turns out it was also completely empty when I left as well.  Apparently I picked the dumbest spot to park ever.

I continued my bumbling as I entered the transition/registration area and tried to pick up my race packet.  The woman asked my what my number was and I was all like "uh I don't know I haven't gotten my race packet yet, don't you give me my number?" and she was all like "no you are supposed to get your number before hand and that is how I find your packet" and I was all like "oh I didn't know that, was the number sent to us in an email or something?" and she was all like "no its on that huge god damned board you walked right by to get into this tent you idiot."

It may not have gone just like that but pretty close.  Finally got my race packet, got my body all marked up with sharpie and then I tried to get into the transition area and I get a not so fast from a race official.  You are not allowed into the transition area until you put the bib sticker on your bike apparently.  Learning stuff every 2 mins at this rate I find my rack spot and rack my bike and start to get unpacked.  Then I get yelled at again.  Another race official informed me that I racked my bike incorrectly.  So far I am owning the transition area. (and of course they were not literally yelling at me, a few could have been a tad more friendly about explaining things to a newb but all in all it was a very civil affair)

properly situated...finally

I then started taking the customary pics of the transition area and wandered around the start area a bit.

Looking towards the Run start

On the other side, the Bike start/finish

Swim start/finish at the pond

about half of the swim course

Sightseeing complete, I set to actually making sure I knew what I was doing for my transitions.  As I did this I slowly realized that we had a run bib that we needed to be wearing during the run that was supposed to be pinned on.  Most experienced racers took care of this issue with a fuel belt that they just pin the bib to.  Or a different jersey or shirt that they put on for the run that has the bib pinned to it when they enter the transition area.  I was rocking my onesy so there was no other shirt to use and I don't have a race belt because I'm not an experienced racer.  BUT I do own 7 seasons of MacGyver.  GAME ON.

My timbuktu messenger bag has a strap used to keep the bag from slipping to the side while riding.  It is not designed to be a belt by any means and if I didn't have the waist of a 12 year old girl I would have been screwed, but I do so this worked:

Used the velcro closure and clipped it to itself and it literally just barely fit around my waist.  Crisis averted.

Ok now to the actual racing.  We lined up at the swim start in a huge line for a time trial start, you enter the water one person at a time with a new swimmer every 5 secs.  Bibs only went up to about 378 or thereabouts so I was pretty far back.  The time trial start was nice because it seemed to keep traffic very manageable but it kinda sucked because I was standing in line waiting to go for probably 25mins.  Plenty of time for that race anxiety to get my heart rate and breath rate increased, which I think was my undoing in the swim.

Finally my turn to get wet and off I go.  Things got going ok.  Water temps were nice (race organizers said 73 degrees I think) and being that far back traffic was good and I had plenty of room to do my thing.  My thing worked for a while, maybe until about the first left turn which was only really 100-200m into the swim.  My breathing rate was just too fast for the rhythm of my crawl stroke and the lack of oxygen caught up with me.  I switched to the breast stroke because it is a faster stroke and easier to breathe faster.  But breast is pretty inefficient and it was starting to wear on me a bit.  Then I saw a woman doing the back stroke and I was on the long straightaway of the course so I figured it would work at least for a bit.  Flipped over and went to town.  That actually worked really well for me.  I could breathe fine and felt like I was making up ground or in this case water.  Couldn't see where I was going at all but I didn't really care at that point and it didn't matter so much in the straight portion of the course.  

Switched back to breast stroke around the final two turns and then got bear hugged by an old guy.  No idea how he got as close to me as he did without noticing me but he basically put me into a headlock as his arm came around for a stroke.  Surprisingly didn't affect me much, he apologized and we both continued to flail for the last 50m.  I suppose I limited my losses as best I could but I was out of the water in about 11mins which was quite a bit slower than I was capable of in the pool.  But race jitters got me and I couldn't stay settled enough to stay with freestyle and those are the things you learn to deal with over the course of time I guess.  According to results my swim time was 273 best haha.

T1 went pretty well.  Kept it under two minutes at least.  We had to run pretty far with the bikes before we were allowed to mount and get going at both the start of the bike and they also made us dismount about 30yds before entering the transition area.  Kind of annoying but I guess lots of triathletes don't really know how to get on and off a bike so they have to do that for safety reasons.  The swim affected me a bit more than I thought it would but not horrible.  Took me about a mile or two to get into my groove.  Then I set about to passing just about everyone.  If you think about the numbers, I started at the end of the field and put up one of the worst swim times so entering the bike I was behind just about everyone...yet I finished in 88th out of 338 finishers.  So I completely lost track of how many but I was basically passing people constantly for the full 15 miles. 

But really only one of the passes really meant anything to me.  I passed a lot of guys with full aero gear (which was nice) but one in particular took the cake.  Full triathlon club kit, full aero gear setup, an Ironman logo tattoo'd on his calf and I blew by him like he was standing still.  P'WND.  So yeah, not much to really report on the bike, it was a straight out and back and I rode it fairly well, and posted the 67th best time on the day.

Again T2 was ok, kept it under 2mins squeezed into my race bib belt and got to it.  The run was actually a bit of a surprise.  In a good way.  I had thought it had gone fairly well yesterday and that I had paced well, I managed to pass a few more people and I finished strong.  But checking results and split times today it turns out I posted the 55th best time in the run. Huh?! My strongest leg was the run? What the hell is happening here?  Very pleased but also somewhat confused, maybe the field wasn't that strong in the run?  My best guess is a superior recovery rate.  Mountain bike racing relies very heavily on being able to recover quickly from hard efforts.  Maybe I can get up to my top run pace immediately after the bike whereas many others struggle to get into form?  No clue.  But again not much to really report from the run, no issues, felt pretty strong.  The two aid stations that provided a gulp of water with the rest being poured on my head really helped.

So yeah pulled into the finish with a 1:25:59.  Good for 88th overall of 338 finishers.  My goal had been more like 1:20:00 but considering my issues in the swim, I'm very happy.  I beat more people than beat me and I can guarantee a decent amount of racers I beat consider themselves 'triathletes' and are not first timers.  I also enjoy scanning the results and seeing how bad my swim time is compared to everyone else in the top 100.  I have the worst time BY FAR.

Full Results:

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/10/nh/Jul11_BlackF_set1.shtml

So the 60 million dollar question, will I ever do a tri again??  Probably.  Will it be my new thing?  Nope.  It was fun, challenging, required me to exit my comfort zone.  All good things.  Who knows maybe my breathing rate was more mental than physical and now that I have a swim under my belt I can get over that hump.  If my swim was good I would be dangerous in my onesy....

11th hour

Just checked the Black Fly Tri website....10 days 4hours and 13mins until go time.  Well probably a bit longer than that because the Black Fly is a weekend long festival and the Sprint Tri is last on Sunday.  But you get the idea.

I have been psyching myself up mentally by reading articles this morning about first time triathletes drowning in the swim leg of a Sprint Tri down in Philly.  Sobering.  This doesn't scare me too much because the locales are very different.  I'll be in a pond not a river and the field size will be much smaller, but it is a great reminder that the water is not a good place to "push things to the limit".  I will gladly take my 18min swim time and get out of the water with the 80 year olds if I have to.

Short of the threat of death I am actually feeling pretty confident about my chances to do fairly well in about two weeks.  I am putting in my last few hard efforts this week to try and cap things off with next week planned as a recovery/taper week just to make sure I don't loose any cardio fitness.  Lets cover where I'm at and recap a bit:

Swim:

• Started in the pool in late March basically April (with a small break in late May early June while the pool was closed).
• My first session in the pool netted me a 18min and change for the quarter mile.  This is hilariously slow.
• Over the next 10 weeks or so I have slowly hacked away at my time with a current personal best of 9:03
• In essence I am twice as fast as I was after 10 weeks with absolutely no instruction (minus youtube)...not bad

Bike:

• I haven't really done much tri specific bike work
• Short of doing my MTB races and just riding as much as I usually do
• A test on the course got me a 47:20, good for a top 60 time from last years results
• I want to be top 50 on the bike this year and I'm pretty sure I can get there

Run:

• Started the experiment back in Nov of last year to see if my knees could carry me without exploding
• My initial 5K time was a bit over 24mins (with me being sore for 2 days after)
• I now consistently flirt with the 20min threshold for my 5K
• Not blazing but not a bad improvement over 7 months for a lifetime skier

With those performance indicators I think my goal of a top 50 finish overall might be a tad unrealistic but I think I could be in the neighborhood...  The open water swim is a real X factor because I just don't have the race experience to know how to manage that.  I know I can put down 9mins in a pool with a lane to myself with a line painted on the bottom of the pool to follow and nice clear water to see through.  Not sure about sharing a murky pond with lots of other people all with the same goal...get there faster than you.  If I can limit my losses and get out of the water in under 10mins I will be very pleased.

Only time will tell now but I think I can call this experiment a success whatever happens on race day.  My fitness profile is much more rounded out and I feel great and really that was the point of all this, so I win. (but I still want top 50...)

Zoot Suit Riot

Finally the day has come.

I know several people in my 'inner circle' that have been waiting with bated breath for this moment.  The moment that the onesy is revealed to the world.  I took my first test run in the suit in the pool this afternoon and got real sketch before hand and took a self portrait in the mens locker room.

I'm not going to even try for a witty caption on this one

Took a few tries to successfully get this shot, I think the suit is so fast that the light was bending around it weird...or I just couldn't get my phone at the right angle.  I also spent some time trying to figure out the most appropriate pose/expression.  I ended up settling on the serious, hands on hips, looking down on you, condescending, uber-fitness nerd.  And I think I nailed it.

Suit (its a Zoot TRIfit Racesuit) performed as expected in the water.  I cut 30 secs off my personal best to date and almost broke the 9min barrier and that is coming off two weeks down time.  I think I have a good chance of hitting my 8min goal before July.

Suit seemed to dry fairly quickly once out of the water and I would imagine it will dry even faster out in the wind and sun (assuming there is some) on the bike leg.  I'll be updating this post this weekend after I do a bike/run brick up in Waterville on the course to test the suit in those disciplines as well as get some benchmark times so I can see where I'm at on the course itself.

**UPDATE**:

Well I did my first 'brick' today, and I think it went pretty well.  I drove up to Waterville this morning hoping to beat the heat (it was still pretty damn hot) and to see what kind of times I could put up on the bike and run courses back to back and to see how my onesy felt in action.

For starters the suit felt great.  The low profile chamois was plenty and I didn't feel any hot spots on the bike and the same for the run, no issues what so ever, except for the fact that I looked like a complete and utter tool.  It was also nice for the heat today, probably would have been struggling a bit more with a full jersey on.

The bike leg felt about how I thought it would but I came in about 1-2mins slower than I wanted to.  I put up a 47:20 which is still respectable for that course and is a top 60 time from results last year but I think I should be closer to 45mins.  I think I can dig just that little bit deeper on race day and there was some other riders on the road that were hard to pass due to bike week traffic but those are issues that will probably also be present on race day so I'll need to just focus on getting that last bit of fitness before July.  But I am pleased because I have a feeling that at least half of the other riders in the top 50 from last year put those times up with ridiculous aero gear that I don't have so I'm pleased with where I'm at for now.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/37400977

My transition time wasn't blazing because I had to put the bike back on top of the car and lock it up, etc. but I basically went straight into the run.  I have been told by several people coming into today that the first half mile or so of the run coming off a hard effort on the bike is 'funny'.  And I would wholeheartedly agree.  Lets see best way I can put the feeling to words is that when you run even though its second nature and almost involuntary in a way there is a neural aspect where your brain tells your legs to go.  I felt like those signals were stopping at my hips.

I was running but there was this 'numbness' like the coordination was there but I wasn't 100% in control.  It did eventually wear off and I was able to pace surprisingly well, I just kind of fell into a pace early on that felt good and was decently fast.  First mile was under 7mins and I tried to turn it up a bit shortly after mile one but hit the only real climbing of the loop and kind of bonked a tad with the heat.  Slowed it down a bit to recover and then tried to speed back up on the home stretch.  Strategy seemed to work and I came in with a 20:05 but the distance came in pretty short.  I thought I had only really cut out the transition area which at most would have maybe added a .1 of a mile on each end and this route came in at 2.86mi and they advertise the run leg at 3.4 so not sure if the Garmin is off or promoters are off (but the bike leg came in closer to 16mi so they are probably just estimating)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/37400972

Either way with my average pace, which I probably could have held with no issue for a bit longer, I would have put up another top 60ish time in the run which is quite a bit better than I expected.

All in all I am pretty pleased.  I think I might be able to do ok at this whole tri thing.  The only thing I am still kind of dreading is the difference between .25mi in the pool and .25mi in a pond with 315 other people...

The Pinnacle EFTA NECS '10 #4

"@kevinorlowski the way this season is going, if your bike didn't blow up - I would say it was a good ride"

So true A. Brad, so true.  So I wanted to do a bit better at this race because I love it so much but all things considered I made a decent step to getting back on track today so I have to call that a win.

I liek the Pinnacle

I couldn't find my '06 shirt, can't remember if they gave one out that year or not...regardless I think I have made my point.  I love this race, I love the course.  Many thanks to the folks at Team Pinnacle that keep organizing things year after year (and this isn't even counting all my Pinnacle Challenge wardrobe).

Things were greasy today, similar to last year, which worked in my favor so I was still pretty pumped to get things going.  This year the SS'ers got to start in a group with the Elite riders with all the Experts leaving shortly after in waves to hunt us down.  I didn't get a good handle on how many were in our field this time around because we were all mixed in but I think it was in the 10-15 range.  Per usual things got going fast right from the gun and I was kind of hurting early, legs felt a tad sluggish but I was mid pack(ish) so I wasn't too worried.

Roots and rocks were real loosy goosy today, made for pretty funny riding and some traffic issues early on as people struggled to find the good lines and as the experts were catching me and passing things got a bit nuts.  Luckily most of them went by shortly after the water tower on the doubletrack climb.  I also caught a SSer at the tower and moved up a spot so I felt like my legs were coming around and I had a good day ahead.  Another mile or so after that a different SSer passed me on the last of the doubletrack climbing but he wasn't able to drop me and he was not as proficient of a descender as me so I passed him back shortly after and never saw him again.

The descending was awesome as usual, trails were holding up great even with some of the wet weather lately.  I caught a Junior Expert heading into the best of the descending and he was moving along nicely but was really slowing down in the corners and it was evident that I could be moving much faster on the other side of him but passing in that area is tough.  I told him I was going to try and pass when I found a spot and he was friendly about it so I can't fault him but I definitely picked the wrong spot to make a stab at the pass.  As he was slowing down for another corner I thought I had a shot at the tight inside line.  There was a big stump right on the corner and I thought I could just wiggle around it and then motor ahead.  Aaaaand I was about 3/4 there when my rear wheel clipped said stump and sent me ass over tea-kettle in short order and flying into the woods.

One of my NEMBA teammates (a very fast Sport rider who was already catching me late into lap 1) was just coming up behind me when it happened and he said it looked AWESOME.  Unfortunately he couldn't get his helmet cam working in the parking lot this morning otherwise there would be footage.

No real damage resulted from the crash, nothing broke on the bike and nothing banged up on my person, so I set to chasing again.  What I didn't notice at the time is that during the short time I was inverted flying into the woods my bottle flew out of my cage and disappeared for good...no fluids the rest of the race for me.  NOT GOOD.  This kind of derailed my chances for really getting back in the game and catching any other SSers.  Luckily I have been racing long enough now to have a pretty good handle on what my body can do with a certain amount of calories, etc. before the dreaded bonk shuts me down and I was able to meter my effort to get across the finish line without going to la la land, trouble is I had to meter my effort.

Head here to see me cruising down the Pinnacle Plummet

Oh well, the rest of the day was taking the climbs conservatively and going as fast as possible on the descents.  Could be worse.  I was still having fun and as far as I could tell I was still in an ok position.  Finished up the three laps in what the results sheet said was 2:12 but my garmin said 2:07 so not sure how that works but whatever.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36776787

I also found out looking at those results sheets that there was a SSer about 1 min in front of me and I didn't even know.  If I had I probably would have had enough gas to hunt him down, it would have hurt a lot more and I would feel much worse right now but I would have had a 6th instead of my 7th.  When I left there were 9 finishers for SS.  I'm pretty sure there were more than 9 of us pre-reg'd so there might have been some DNF's or more people still coming in.  I saw a lot of people fixing flats... 

That's it for MTB racing for a bit, now its back to 100% focus on my tri coming up with a few weddings thrown in there for good measure.

Gina's Old Fashioned Draft

Crotchville Beer has diversified!  We are expanding into new markets, trying to elbow in and snag all those straight edge kids.  THIS IS A WAAAAAAAAAR!  That's right Mike...ROOT BEER.

Making soda is actually really easy and I'm kinda surprised I haven't gotten around to it yet but other things have just taken priority I guess.  I got some extract from Gina's mom for this past x-mas and bought the additional gear needed recently and went to it.

 This is basically all you need

The additional stuff I needed was another bottling bucket, the extract is so strong that basically whatever it touches becomes 'root beer for life' so you can't use a bottling bucket that you intend to also use for beer again.  I also needed plastic bottles.  Due to the high amounts of sugar the natural carbonation process happens faster and can carbonate much more than beer usually does and glass bottles have a tendency to 'fail' spectacularly if you don't keep a close eye on them.  Plastic has more give and it also gives you a tactile way to know when carbonation is done...when the bottles harden up.  Also needed some dry champagne yeast for the natural carbonation.  Not sure what that does to flavor but I was told by the local homebrew store manager that the extract is strong enough to cover any residual flavors.  And judging by its smell I think we should be fine.

Gina loves her some root beer

The actual process is a snap.  Warm water, extract, sugar, yeast all go in the bucket.  Stir it up to mix/dissolve.  And then bottle it.  That's it.  Makes 4 gallons and took us maybe 30mins.  Needs to 'ferment' / carbonate at room temperature for 3-4 days then to a slightly cooler basement type locale for another 3-4 or so and then to the fridge and then your stomach, with maybe another week in the basement to refine the flavors a bit before drinking if you want.

And yes, I know that its not Draft because its in bottles but I don't care.  I'm running this show.