swbkrun mentor group 6 years running closed (Page 39)

awesome job.  that sounds like fun!!

that's great.  and with a casual pace like that you'll be destroying that 1:53 you ran in feb.  and even that 1:50 you ran at sf a few years back.   keep up the great work.

Congrats on the PR!, and complain away, that's what we're here for and we all actually understand.

Great job racers.  So many PRs, AG wins, top finishes and all round good times.  That's what it's all about.  :-) 

Happy Monday!

Very nice, 7:07 casual pace is pretty speedy.

WOW!  Awesome job, racers! Can't wait to read more RR's!  Keep 'em coming.

I had a super enjoyable 1st ride outside on Sat.  Felt so good to get outside with the smell of lilacs in the air.  Desite being slower than molasses, I am happy with the effort as I was on the bike the entire time (ie no breaks) and didn't come out of the saddle at all for the hills. BUT now I have some questions.  BT route map function has a glitch in it, at least for my region.  Its telling me my route had 13,000 ft of climbing.  HA..not quite.  According to mapmyride only 1100 ft of climbing with only one climb that's over a 2% grade.  I know to get better at hills you've got to do hills but do the type of hills matter?  Do I drive to our nearest mtn and do hill repeats (max near me is 1000 ft on a 6% grade) or just incorporating less intense hills in ride is just fine? What say the MG?

All right, race report is up: http://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=436547&posts=1#M4166974

A couple updates:

First off, I didn't come in third place, and I'm okay with it.  The results show me as fourth.  Third place was 45 seconds ahead of me.  There was another woman 4 seconds behind me, whom I'm sure is the one that I passed.  I am still quite sure that she was the one that collected the third place prize, but she must have been picking it up for a friend or something.

More importantly, I can update my time and personal best.    Since I'd forgotten to stop my garmin, I guessed it was 27:10 based on when my pace dropped.  However, my gun time was 27:01!  A difference of 9 seconds.    If I actually had recorded it correctly, I'm sure it would be below 27 minutes.  It took me at least 5-10 seconds to cross the start line, but I'm counting 27:01 as my PB and I can officially go sub-27 at a future race.

PS: Tried to figure out how to make that a clickable link.  What do I need to do?

Suzy, congrats on your race and your first place finish.  That is awesome!

Trevor, where's your race report?  You said that it's not only about ironman this year, so you have to write race reports for the other ones...

David, I agree with Suzy.  How nice to be able to just go for a swim in the ocean.  I think any open water swim places around here still have ice.

Kevin, nice job on the race.  I understand the frustration with 32 seconds.  I've missed a few milestone times by seconds and it's frustrating, because you wish you could have gone just that little bit faster.  Having said that, it's still a finish to be proud of!  In the end, 32 seconds is nothing.

Chet, Now you know you can do it in training, you can make sure your next 10k is a PR.  

Scott: Congrats on your top 10.  I'm very impressed when anyone can call that pace "casual".

Christina, I think, ideally, you do hills that are similar to what the hills will be like in the races you're targeting. 

I don't know what the grades are for MOO, but my personal opinion is you should be doing some fairly decent climbing to prepare yourself for the day.  It will allow you to dial in your HR (or watts) for MOO way better than rollers will.  There are three significant hills that you hit twice during the loop and not managed properly those can hurt you.

Normally you just have to hit "Enter" after pasting in the URL to get it linkable.

I think as long as you are including hills in your workout you'll be fine, I don't think they have to be TDF climbs to be useful.  As you say the more you ride hills the better you will be at them. 

Also it depends on the races you're doing?  Are they hilly?  If so try and find a route with a similar profile as the race and work on maintaining an even cadence/HR over it. 

Alright let's try my hand at writing up a race report. This might get a little lengthy. First off here are my splits:

Swim Time: ?26:41 Pace - 1:38
T1: 3:03
Bike Time: 1:13:24 Pace - 20.3 MPH
T2: 1:08
Run Time: 46:18 Pace - 7:27
Total Time: 2:30:32

Swim

I was wave four so I watched the 3 waves before me go off. Usually I am extremely excited and have a good amount of adrenaline going but for some reason i was extremely flat going into this race. I was hoping that once i got into the water I would get focused/excited/pumped up. I hopped into the water which was a comfortable 68 degrees and waited for them to send us off. They shot the gun and away we went. Now, this is my 5th triathlon and i'm used to mass starts. In fact, usually I am the guy who dominates other people and gets my way. However, perhaps due to the competitive nature of this event i got the sh*t kicked out of me this time. I was punched, kicked, swallowed water, and got my goggles kicked off all within the first 200 meters. I am a strong swimmer but because of the beating I took i was not able to get into a good groove. Finally i got away from the back after about 500 meters and was able to settle into a nice stroke. Even though i wasn't pumped up like i usually am i felt extremely strong in the water. I was having very good catch and pull and felt like i was glidiing effortlessly. I thought that i was sighting extremely well the entire time. I would look up every 15 or so strokes and make sure that i was going straight. However, it seems as if i was sighting at a slight angle to my left since i breath to my left side. By the time i hit the last turnaround buoy i was about 100 yards off course and had to make a really wide turn and back track. This made me extremely upset since i was feeling so fast in the water. I was expecting to come out around mid 24's but ended up mid 26's because of the extra 200 yards I ended up swimming.

Bike

I ran out of the river pulled my wetsuit and goggles off and started running towards transition. This transition isn't set up like a normal one in that there is about a 300 yard run up a hill out of the water to transition (Thus my long T1). I pulled my wetsuit off my legs put on my helmet, sunglasses, and shoes, and ran out of T1 without a hitch. I hopped on my bike and started the 25 mile grind. The course was composed of 3 main hills with straightaways in between. Going to the turn around was mostly uphill while coming back was mostly down hill. Also, when going to the first turnaround there was a pretty strong (10-15 mph) headwind, while coming back there was a much smaller (5-10 MPH) tailwind. I crushed the straightaways averaging about 23-24 MPH and basically stalled out on the hills, which was expected. I finished my first lap a hair over 35 minutes and was happy with that. Once i hit the turnaround I noticed that i was fading fast, luckily i looked down and realized that i had not yet touched my 2 GU's on my bike. I grabbed one took it down and was almost immediately reenergized. My second lap was about the same time as my first except the wind picked up a bit so I went a little slower I cruised in on my bike spinning out the last mile getting ready for my run. At the bike dimount line you had to unmount then run the whole entire way around transition, which was about 100 yards. So my bike split was actually a little faster than my timing chip states.

Run

I racked my bike, switched shoes, grabbed my race belt, and took off again with no problem. When i left T2 I looked down at my watch and saw that it was right around 1:45. That's when I put on my game face and decided to go for it. i would have had to run a 45:xx to break 2:30 which would have been my fastest 10k ever and this would have to be after a bike course significantly harder than i've done before and on a run course harder than i've done before. I cruised my first mile at a little over a 7 minute pace feeling okay and crushing the most daunting hill on the course. My second mile I blew up at little (probably because of the hill) and ran a hair over 8 minutes. After that I settled into a strong pace and consistently ran 7:10-7:20 miles. Around mile 3.5 my abs cramped up. Now this wasn't a stomach cramp or a stitch in my stomach or ribs. My abs on my right side actually were cramping up like a charlie horse. I've never experienced this before and it was quite painful so i tried to stretch them out by leaning back and to my left while i ran (I must have looked ridiculous). At this point I was too determined to stop so i just kept running without slowing down. At the next aid station i grabbed some gatorade which helped. I had a GU in my race belt but i knew that i wouldn't be able to get it down/stomach it. Around mile 5 the cramp just went away and I knew that if i wanted to break 2:30 i would have to sprint the last mile. I checked my watch again at mile 5 and it read 2:23. I had 7 minutes to get to the finish line so i just took off as fast as my legs could carry me. I probably ran those last 1.2 miles in the low 6 range but it wasn't enough. I crossed the finish line at 2:30:32 saw that i didn't break 2:30 let out a loud F-explicative and collapsed. Luckily there were finish line catchers and they caught me before i hit the ground and took me to the med tent.

Thoughts

Now i don't want to sound like I'm super upset. This is my best olympic time by 3 minutes on a course much much harder than the course i set my previous PR. However, I've never laid myself on the line and emptied my tank like that ever before. Having the race coming down to the wire like that and failing to reach my goal was just a huge huge disappointment. The worst part is i think back on the race and see all the parts where i could have made up those 30 seconds. My swim should have been 2 minutes faster, i could have ran to transition faster, i could have bombed down hills faster on my bike. In the end i didn't make the cut and i'm just going to have to try again. Other than that my race nutrition and warm up seemed spot on. I'll add thoughts and such as we go. but this is the breakdown of my race this weekend. 

Don't beat yourself up over the :32"

You ran a hard race on a hard course and gave it everything in the end, finishing strong!
That sub 2:30 is right around the corner!  Congrats on a great race.

HUGE CONGRATS to all our racers this past weekend!!  Stong showing from the MG!

Spent the weekend in the woods camping, so no RR for me

Now lot's of RR reading to catch up on. 

Great rr!  You may want to add it into the official rr section - that way you can access it whenever.    Good Job!!!  You'll lose the 32 seconds next time.....

Hey I just tried adding this to my race log. Can someone check and see if I did it right?

It worked.  Now we need to teach you and Linda how to add links to the MG!

Seriously Kevin, you had a great race.  My only real observation is your pre race nutrition sort of sucked. I weigh 99lbs and would have ingested way more than that pre race even for an Oly.

Haha thanks. I don't really know what I should be doing for pre-race nutrition. I usually work out on an empty stomach and so I had been trying to fuel the previous day (pasta, bananas, bars, etc.). The day of the race I just ate when I was hungry. I also drank a large poweraid figuring that liquid nutrition would be ... safer ... for the race. I guess I should work on having a pre-determined pre race eating regimen. Here's a nice action shot that a teammate of mine took of me:

(Tri transition.jpg)

Lots of great racing this weekend.  Great job MG.

 kicking off the season in style---fast style.  I love it!

update.   i'd hit it. 

trevor!!!!  look!!!!!   f and c in my hotel!!!!