brick94513-GoGoGo Mentor Group - Closed For Now! (Page 46)

What? Is that double AG 1st places..... Nice frickin' work! It must of been all of that mentor advice Hahahaha!

Is that glass the 1st place award?  That's WAY better than a plastic trophy or something.  I love it!  Nice job guys, looking forward to a full report tomorrow.

Yes... Dual 1st Podiums for our Group; Yes... friggin' cool a$$ beer mugs for 1st Place bling. and; Yes... the Mentoring here helped make it possible.  Your ears should have been on fire today Tim!

Dude!!!! you guys had to go setting the bar that hight in here? LOL

Nice job guys!!! Those are some seriously fast times!!

What can I say, we rocked it today!  I had a FREAKIN BLAST!  I was hoping for a top 5 finish, never did I think I would win my AG.  Mark, get that horrendous picture of us off the internet LOL!  That woman couldn't have snapped it when our faces were contorted any worse.  I have some stuff to finish up for work tomorrow but like Mark said, full report tomorrow gang.  Let me say THANKS for all the words of wisdom and advice that seriously made our success today possible!

Edited by shmeeg 2010-05-16 10:54 PM

Amazing performance, guys! You two rocked it!!!  

Great jobs guys! 

Good morning!

Congrats again Mark and Jay!! I bet you guys are still on a high!

I have to congratulate my wife from this weekend too. She's an ice dancer and I think she only does endurance sports to spend time with me. She's not real good at consistent training with it, but she can lay it down!! She ran the Brookfield Zoo 5k this weekend. I played support role. She was running around 30 minute 5k's in training for the last few weeks. She put down a 28:44!!! That was good for 18th in her class out of 124(I thought there were 200 before, but still great!) She really enjoyed this race and we got to hang out at the zoo and bring along as many people as we wanted afterward for free.

It was different playing support and taking pictures. But I really enjoyed it!!


Distance 5K
Clock Time 28:44
Chip Time 28:43
Overall Place 285 / 1281
Gender Place 113 / 836
Division Place 18 / 124
Pace 9:15
Divtotal 124
Sextotal 836


For me, I'm focussed on Xterra this weekend. I'm really starting to get pumped up and over the nervousness. I really can't wait for this.

I'm starting to set some goals for myself based on my training #'s and previous race results. I'll be shooting for:

5 mile OW swim: 25-30 minutes

I'm usually under 20 minutes in the pool for a half mile but realistically I haven't swam OW since I was a kid and won't be dissapointed if I have to roll on my back and back stroke a bit, or have trouble with current, traffic, etc. So I'm giving myself 5-10 minutes extra on the OWS

12.5 mile MTB: 1:15
At Iola I managed about a 10mph avg. I'm hoping for the same here but don't really know the course so it's hard to say.

4 mile trail run:
I don't do much running on the trails. I'm sure I could come in under 30 minutes on a flat road so I'm going to shoot for 8-9 minute miles. I'll be happy with 32-36 minutes

Overall, with transitions I want to shoot for 2:35-2:45 minutes. If I can come in around that I'd be pretty happy.

Tim, you know these things better than anyone. Let me know if I'm missing something or not being realistic.




Edited by Meulen 2010-05-17 8:42 AM

^^ Awesome work by your wife!  Give her a BT congrats for the group.  I'm kind of in the same boat, my wife likes to train together, but she's definitely not as dedicated to it as I am so it's cool that you got to play the support role!  That Xterra sounds AWESOME. I wish I had a MTB to participate in stuff like that.

thanks, will do

I think I may be being a little overly optimistic on the MTB and especially trail run. I looked at some times from last year and my run time goal puts me with the pro men. LOL My MTB goal doesn't put me far behind them either. I may have to go with 40-45 minute goal on the trail run and 1:20-1:25 on the bike. The course maybe tough than I thought even though overall elevation profile is much less than my Iola race. Maybe it's very technical. I dunno. Either way, I doubt my MTB time will be within 15 minutes of Conrad Stoltz. LOL My swimming really sucks. It seems a lot of last years times were under 20 minutes. I don't see me doing that at all. I'll probably be waaay behind after the swim and have to navigate through some traffic on the MTB. Which means I'll probably fly off the bike a few times passing. LOL So maybe my overall goal should be to shoot for under 3 hours. I'll wait for Tim to Chime in.

These are very reasonable numbers.

For the swim, I assume the water will be cold.  Since you haven't had the opporunity to get in the water, get down there a few minutes before start time.  Get your face in the water and float around.  Otherwise, you take the risk of getting your breath taken away from the shock of the cold water which will only lead to apprehension and anxiety.

Don't get caught up in the mad dash at the beginning.  Remember YOUR pace and concentrate on form.  It's easy to get caught up in the moment, start sprinting, then blow up.  Also, find some open water and take the bouys wide.  While you might swim a little longer, you wouldn't be throwing elbows and getting kicked.  Finding a little space will allow you to relax.

If you have any space between the swim and transition, start getting that wetsuit off on the move.  No drinking, eating, or donning clothes in transition!!!!

10 mph is a good number for the bike.  If the course is flat, I would assume your avg speed will be higher.  I like to hammer the bike because I know I'll fade some on the run.  This is where your strategy will come into play.  Toward the end of the ride remember to fuel up for the run.

The trail run will probably be tough.  Be ready for some good hill climbs and possibly obstacles.  I try to hit the flats pretty hard because you can expect some climbs that will drop you to the 12 min/mile pace.

I know you got the basics down.  Now, its going to come down to trial-and-error.  You can learn from every race.

  I was wondering about that!

Brian, I couldn't find any course information on the event organizer's website except for a hand scribbled PDF map.

Cant seem to focus on work today.  I keep staring out the window thinking about heading to the beach... but work wont wait.  Slept real good last night and woke up exhausted.  Nothing is sore (other than my R knee)... I'm just beat down.  Swelling is gone on the knee but it's going to be a few days before I can run or mash a peddle.  Taking today off to hydrate and rest then I'll get back into the pool tomorrow.   I'll do the RR later this evening.

Famous quotes from Encinitas (J to me as he flies past me on the run): "Dude... It's hurting me just watching you run" ... (Me to myself) "Yeah... I need to try and hurry up and get this over with".

Brian - Awesome job by your Wife on her 5K!

me too. I've been piecing together info I found on message boards and on some you tube. MTB course looks relatively flat. I've heard it's about 850ft ascent gain mostly short steep hills. I think Conrad Stotz did in a little over an hour. The you tubes look pretty technical so that would slow me down some. So I'm bumping my goal for the MTB. Checking out a you tube of last year, the run seems to start on a pretty good incline. Being I'm not used to that sort of thing I think my run time is a little too optimistic. I also looked at some of last years times.

I think if I finish around the 3 hour mark that should be an accomplishment. Pro's are doing it in a little over 2 hours.

Here's a good description of the trails. We are doing red/blue/green

http://summitcitybikes.com/articles/fort-custer-m.t.b-michigan-pg94...

and here's a race report I found

http://www.xterraplanet.com/news/dsp_content.cfm?id=1958

Unfortunately, like my bike, my Sidi's are on backorder too. Which means I'm going to have to lace up my old POS MTB shoes in T1.

Haha... Nice inspiration!

Hey Brian, I found this for you:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5589144

If you have Google Earth, you can export the route to examine it further.  However, looks like this guy was able to finish in 1:20 with and average mph of 12.  Elevations from his GPS was 1,151 ft.  While this seems light, be careful.  I've made this erroneous assumption in the past only to get my butt handed to me on some short, anaerobic, lung busting ascents.  A couple of brutal singletrack climbs that are on the verge of hike-a-bike could easily amount to this elevation with the rest of the course being relatively flat.

I hear ya.  I want to get a new pair of shoe just for off-road tris.  My current pair have a ratchet strap that always seems to stick.  I love these shoes, but would rather keep them for purely cycling and get an all velcro shoe for the tris.  I'm probably going to go with the Specialized MTB expert shoe with the three velcro strap.

thanks, I'll keep this in mind for sure since everything I hear about this course points to this being relatively flat with some short steep ascents. If that's the case, I'm glad I did Iola because that course seemed to be full of short steep climbs one after anohther. 1055 in only 10 miles.

edit....I notice this isn't the exact course. Our course is only 12.5 miles and I think goes around Eagle lake. This may be a profile of some of the other trails in the park

Edited by Meulen 2010-05-17 1:55 PM

Actually it was more like "C'MON OLD MAN, it hurts MY legs to watch you run! LOL.  And Mark...the picture! Seriously, you gotta send that thing to the eternal recycle bin.  It's just terrible.

I think it should be your new avatar pic!

Edited by brick94513 2010-05-17 5:28 PM

HELL NO!  I look like some sort of crash victim or something!

Edited by shmeeg 2010-05-17 2:37 PM