Shamrock Duathlon

Last Sunday I raced the Shamrock Duathlon. It consists of a 5k run, then 28k bike, followed by another 5k run. The race setup was great. The weather was perfect. They had these great bike racks that you simply place your rear wheel in so it is clean and simple and everyone has the same amount of space. I do a little .5 mile warmup, one last trip to the bushes and I line up near the front.

I looked at the results from 2007 and noticed they had a clydesdale division so I register for that division and notice the winning time and person that won. I know who the guy is and I spot him at this year's race too. I know he is a pretty fast guy for us clydesdales so my game plan is to keep him in sight.

The gun goes off and he takes off......too fast for me. I tend to take the starts conservatively at first because everyone goes out too fast. It takes a few minutes for my HR to get up into my race zone, and to stabilize at a sustainable pace for me. So, I get into my zone and I start to pass a lot of people that go out too hard. That guy is one of them. I don't look back and I don't worry about him. I passed a few others that normally are faster than me. I guess I was running well. Sub 20:00 for first leg. Faster than I expected. I wasn't sure how I would feel today because I rode 4 hours just 13 hours ago. My legs were tired. Onto the bike and so far so good. I settle into my zone, steady on the climbs and push the flats, and take in some gatorade. A few guys are passing me which I wasn't happy about but I wasn't going to push too hard because I still had to run again. Here comes my guy......he passes me. I step it up a bit to keep in contact and end up re-passing him for a little bit. Then, a large downhill comes so I get into my position and all of a sudden, here comes a high speed wobble.....oh crap. I was moving at this point and my front wheel was seriously wobbling. I thought I was going down but I controlled it. Here comes another downhill and the wobble is here again.....oh crap. This stinks. I resign myself to riding the downhill very conservatively in order to stay on top of my bike and let the other guy go. There was no way I could keep the gap close. If this didn't happen, I would have pushed harder to keep him in contact. And, if I didn't ride 4 hours the day before, this would have been much easier too.....oh well. Maybe I can catch him on the run.

Glad to get off the bike and start running. I shouldn't have a wobble problem here. I start out slow to get my legs under me to see how they are going to do and so far, so good. I settle into my pace and with about a mile to go, I see the other guy and I'm closing. I finish strong but didn't catch him. I needed another mile or two and I would have caught him. He finished ahead of me by about 30 sec.

I get a massage, hydrate, and eat a bit. The results go up on the board and I look at my name and see a 2:00 penalty....thats odd. I ask the official what it was for and she tells me that I racked my bike on the wrong side of the bike rack. I laughed in her face and asked her if she was joking. She laughed too and said that a bunch of people received the penalty. This is the part of the sport that gets me angry because they have different governing bodies that have different rules and every race is set up differently. It knocks me from 2nd to 3rd in my category. I would have been 35th overall out of 254 finishers.

Overall, a good effort.

I sold my race wheels 2 days later so now I'm shopping for a new set again. Tubulars vs. clinchers is my great debate now.

Friday's Weigh-in

Well, I was happy when I saw that I lost 4 pounds which was done in only 3 days. You may think that I cut calories but I will tell you that I ate a ton. In fact, I haven't stopped eating. I have been training a lot so its important to fuel. I can really feel it when I don't have enough fuel in me. I am also planning ahead when I know I have a long workout. It really makes a difference to fuel up on carbs. If I eat fried calamari and nachos for dinner, then try to ride 5 hours the next day, I will be in for a long day.....not very good fuel.

Whenever I cut out sweets from my diet, I lose weight immediately but it plateaus and the challenge is to continue to eat right. I started eating right last Tuesday and now I'm down 5 pounds....maybe more. I'm on my way to meeting my goal. Only 21 pounds to go :-) People say to me that there is no way I have that much to lose but the numbers don't lie. If I have 15% body fat, then losing 26 pounds brings me down to 8-9% body fat which is a healthy number in males.....not too much.

Had a really nice week of training. I had a key swim training session with some friends gearing up for Lake Placid so we hammered some meters in a 50 meter long course pool. I'm enjoying these sessions in the 50 meter pool....it breaks up the monotony of going back and forth so many times. I rode 80 miles yesterday on a very hilly course and felt pretty strong doing so. This is a good 20 miles beyond my longest ride so far. I did a brick run afterwards too and my legs felt great. I really believe the loss of a few pounds makes a huge difference and the clean diet is such better fuel for these workouts. I followed this workout up with a 12 mile run today and my legs felt good. I was running really strong for the middle hour of this session so I know the potential is there to feel strong for a few hours with less weight and more training.

The spring is getting busy already. Heading up to RI hopefully in the next couple of weeks to ride the RI 70.3 bike course and coax Sue to swim some in the cold waters to acclimate to CDA water temps predicted to be in the mid 50's. Then its out to CDA for Sue's race which I'm really looking forward to, then up to Lake Placid for a training weekend. Its up to RI for my race and back to Lake Placid for Ironman (to watch, volunteer, train, and work).

Looking forward to this coming week for training, eating right and Friday's weigh in.

The 26 week challenge

My coach just emailed me and said that he was 26 pounds overweight and he had 26 weeks until his 'A' race which also happens to be my 'A' race.....Ironman Florida. So, I thought it would be good motivation for me to give myself the 26 pound challenge. That is 1 pound per week for 26 weeks.....I'm good at math :-)

I really believe I have the fitness to be a lot faster if I had less weight. I don't think I would sacrifice a lot of strength with less weight. I think for smaller athletes....<10% body fat, losing more weight verges on the side of losing speed.

I competed in a duathlon yesterday....the Greenwich biathlon.....a 2.5 mi run/10 mi bike/2.5 mi run. The race was over before I had a chance to warmup. I ran a 2 mile warmup at a fairly good pace. The race started and everyone went out hard. I held back some to allow myself to settle into a comfortable pace. It takes time for your HR to work up to that point. When you go out too hard, you risk tweeking a hamstring and dying because you go beyond your lactate threshold that you can recover so you crash (so to speak). I paced the first run very well, allowing myself to build into and as a result I consistently passed people all the way. Then I had a crappy transition and fumbled with my helmet and my shoes but not terrible. Getting onto the bike my legs felt terrible but then I realized that I had just run 2.5 miles all out.....that explains it. I eased into trying it to get a feel for my legs. The race was fairly spread out at this point. I was only passed by one person on the bike and he was part of a relay. I passed a half a dozen people or so but not as many as I would have liked. My second transition was much better as it always is. I came into transition with a group of people and I was the first or second out. My legs felt pretty decent and I settled into a good pace. I was passed fairly quickly by the eventual women's winner, then only one other guy who finished directly in front of me by 10 seconds or less. Overall I was pleased with my race and fitness at this point. I was 2 minutes faster this year than last. I missed breaking an hour by 30 seconds. I think my run pace was approx. 6:30/mile.

With less weight, running pace will be the biggest difference. With 20 pounds less weight, I should be able to run closer to 6 min miles. I could feel the weight as I was running. For every 5 pounds I feel a big difference.

I had some solid workouts last week. I trained with some buddies and we did a great ride one night and a really hard swim the following day. I followed that with an endurance 2:30 on the trainer on Saturday. It wasn't as bad as I expected. I rode the Wildflower course on the computrainer which is a really good course for riding on the training. Fairly flat...no steep climbs....just some gradual rises.

I have a challenging week ahead but not too bad. Looking forward to it and looking forward to losing a pound this week :-)

So, there it is....the 26 pound challenge. Anyone else want to join me?? Wish me luck :-)