2011 in the books!

Well, another year has come and gone. This was probably my best season to date racing and in life. It all started in January (I guess every year does) with my wife and I welcoming a little girl to the world. I then followed that up with a few hours less sleep than in 2010 and a lot more fun. I was injured at times, but was able to put together a pretty successful season. I picked my first overall triathlon win in the driving rain of Medical Lake then and snagged a slot to the 70.3 IM World Championship in Las Vegas.
There were a few age group wins along the way and all in all I had a great time!
I even met quite a few new training partners who I trained with quite a bit in 2011.
It was a lower volume year for me but here are my numbers
Swim- 391,960 yards
Bike- 3681 miles
Run- 698 miles
I'm not even going to put up my 2010 numbers because it's unfair to compare a year where I did 2 Ironman races to a year filled with 70.3's.
Next on the docket for me is Ironman Cda. After a little break I'm back at it as much as I can be right now. I'm excited for what 2012 will bring.

Swim Focus: Did it work?

Well, my swim focus has come to an end. After two months of consistent dedicated work I made it.
My normal swim volume is probably somewhere around 30,000 yards a month. For October and November I had a goal of 50,000 yards per month. Unfortunately due to a sickness in October and a little bit of life outside of triathlon getting in the way I was unable to hit that mark either month. I did make it to about 45,000 each month though. Here is what I learned from past 2 months.
1. The black line in my pool is actually blue. The funny thing is I never noticed this. I had it pointed out to me by Kelly Jahns who informed me in late Novembr. I guess it's time for some new goggles. :)
2. A swim focus will really dry out your skin. I'm pretty good about putting lotion on post swim but I can't reach my back, and I'd feel weird asking my swim buddies to lotion me up. So I walk around with an itchy back all the time.
3. I started to actually enjoy swimming. (don't worry, the feeling went away). I no longer dreaded going to the pool in the morning. The biggest reason for this was the people I swim with. They were all very encouraging and helpful.
4. I did get faster. I felt like I got significantly faster, though I'm still not signifcantly fast but certainly "faster" than I was.
My benchmark tests showed some rather significant gains.
1000 TT. October time- 15:32 December time- 14:42
500 TT. October time- 7:20 December time- 6:54
100 TT. October time- 1:14 December time- 1:12

The only goal I didn't hit was my 100 time which I missed by 1 second. Hopefully I can maintain some of this speed I've gained in last year and it will benefit at Ironman Coeur d' Alene in June.

De Soto Polypro Thermal jersey review

Living in the northwest I am constantly on the look out for things to keep warm while training in frigid temperatures. After a couple of years of doubling up on Underarmour cold weather shirts and fleece beanies I think I've finally found the best solution.

This is it!  The De Soto Polypro thermal jersey is awesome.  

1.  Its thicker without being cumbersome.  There is a fleece liner to keep you warm, however it still seems to breath remarkably well.

2.  It has a hood.  I know what you're thinking "big deal" hoods just bounce around and get in the way.  This hood is different though.  Its tight around your head and cut slightly in on the side so it doesn't inhibit your line of sight at all.  It reminds me of the suits you see speed skaters wearing. 

3.  It has thumb holes.  You can cover nearly half of your hand with these thumb holes and it keeps the sleeve from sliding up.

4.  It had a pocket at the top of the neck that you can put a chemical warmer in.  I haven't actually put a warmer in there but I have put my ipod in there and it worked great.  

Bottom line the Polypro jersey is great for biking, running cross country skiing and I'm sure it would work for any outdoor activity where you want to be warm but don't want to worry about of a lot of bulkiness getting in your way.

Just keep swimming

Well... It's now the offseason and that means it time to focus on your weakness. For me it's painfully obvious that it's swimming (and maybe transitions). That has meant more time than ever staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool.

After the 70.3 World Championship I took 2 weeks off. When I say off I mean OFF. It didn't take long for me to notice I no longer had abs and my pants either shrunk or I was getting a little "thicker". It's amazing how quickly I was packing on the pounds. After those 2 weeks I decided I was time to get to work. The pool was calling my name. Typically when the pool calls my name I have no problem ignoring it. This year it was unavoidable.

I started swimming with an unofficial masters group Monday, Wednesday, and Friday last January. I have seen a tremendous amount of improvement in the last year in the pool and a small amount in some of my races. If I was going to make the leap to tremendous improvement in my races I needed to swim more. So starting October 1st I set out to swim 5 days week. I'm happy to report that 1 month in I'm still swimming 5 days a week and things seem to be progressing nicely. I'm actually enjoying my swims. All the swims haven't been long been but most have had some technique work built in. After all, swimming is 20% strength and 95% technique.

The swim focus started with a 100, 500 and 1000 yard time trial. I'm embarrassed to share these times but I figure if I throw them out in the blogosphere I'll have no choice but to improve upon them. Besides when you swim a 37 minute Half Ironman there is no hiding the fact that my swimming is well behind my bike and run. So here are the results.

100-1:14
500- 7:20
1000- 15:32
I think a 1:11 100 is doable and 7:00 500 and hopefully 14:50 1000. I'll report back at the end of November.
In the meantime I encourage everyone to get out there and do what you enjoy the least. :)

Las Vegas 70.3 World Championship

Walking down to the lake... an 1:30 after the pro start

This race has been my goal "A" race since Kona last year. Kona didn't go quite as planned. I’d say the biggest problem for on the big island was letting everyone convince me that the race didn't matter because I wasn't going to win my age group anyway. This way of thinking poisoned me and made me believe that I didn't really belong there.

I set out this year to race a World Championship. Not simply show up and participate.

I qualified in Boise on a roll down. That didn't eaxactly help my confidence going into Vegas. If I couldn't even get it done at a smaller race in the Northwest, how was I supposed to compete with the best in the world?

As the season progressed I started to get more and more fit and it was showing in most of my races. I finished in the top five overall in all of my non WTC races with one overall win.

The successful season paired with some great training sessions leading into Vegas had me cautiously optimistic.

T1 full of bikes!

Race Day:

The pros started at 6:30 and I went off at 8. Transition closed at 6 so that meant I had to get down there at around 5 to make sure everything was ready to roll. Luckily I stayed at the Ravella on Lake Las Vegas, which is about 500 yards from the swim start. That meant I was able to walk back to my room, eat and hang out until my wave was getting closer to starting. On a side note if you're looking for a hotel I reccomend the Ravella over Loews. It's actually a lot closer to the swim and T1.

As far as a warm up goes. I just hopped in with about 5 minutes left before we started and swam around a little. I got tired of treading water so I stood on the rocks under the bridge for the final minute before the race started.

Here I come...37 minutes into the swim :(

Swim- 37:04

I decided to go with a swim skin this year. In Kona, I just wore my tri shorts and I had a hell of a time getting into my top after the swim. My Desoto Liftfoil performed beautifully! You can even wear it the whole race if you want. I raced in my Planet X team kit and pealed the swim skin but you can go either way.

As far as the swim went, I started to the far left and swam straight for the first turn buoy. The course curves to the left and I think you can effectively cut some of the swim by not following the buoy line. I got out for the first 100 yards with very little contact. I even managed to stay up near the bulk of the field up to right around the first turn buoy. The swim was pretty uneventful. I was hoping to swim a 34-35, but I came out in 37. Oh well. At least I have something to work on for next year.

T1 – 3:27

T1 is about a 200 yard run around the backside of the lake. I ended up passing about 5 people on the run, only to have them pass me back as I struggled to get my socks on. Somehow I put both on heel side up and had to take them off and start over. Coming out of the change tent my Planet X Exocet was looking pretty lonely. I assumed this would be the case and I didn't let it bother me. The nice thing is I felt zero pressure all day.

I grabbed my bike and started the long run out of T1 and up a windy hill. I left my shoes clipped in and was having problems with the heel loop hitting the ground and spinning my shoes around. I was just waiting for one to pop out of the pedals and go flying. This was a new problem for me. I guess I’d never had to run this far with my bike.

After mounting my bike I had a ridiculous time getting into my left shoe. I collapsed the part I needed to get my foot into and couldn’t get it to open back up. This happened to me one other time this year and it is extremely frustrating. Eventually I got it straightened out, but it took about ½ mile.

What would you do differently?:

I need different socks. I never have problems with the pair I wear for the run. Also, use bands on my shoes to hold them level.

I know my wife meant to show me getting onto my bike, but I can't help but notice how lonely T1 looks.... I was in the last wave though so cut me some slack.

Bike- 2:30:38

In talking to people throughout the week I had told some that I was planning on going pretty hard on the bike and some I was planning on taking it easy. To be honest I wasn't lying to either of them. I didn’t know what the plan was. I ride mostly based on feel and I just decided to see now I felt on the day.

Right out of transition you have a 2 mile climb. I was passed by about 5 people in this section, as I struggled with my shoes. Luckily I was able to pass them all back within the next 2 miles. I was passing people left and right (actually most on the left ;). I was feeling great.

There was one guy in my AG (Charlie) that I was going back and forth with until about mile 20. He was kind of a bigger guy so I assumed he must be a biker and I figured I may have a shot at catching on the run.

The race progressed and I kept waiting for the big hills everyone had warned me about, but they never came. For the most part this course is spent going back and forth between your big ring and small ring. I had an 11-25 on the back I never really needed the 25. There is one difficult part of the course. The climb out of Lake Mead all the way back to T2. It's not super steep but it is long.

By the time I was back near Henderson I was seeing fewer and fewer people in my AG. However, as I was passing by one of the last 2 penalty tents I did see two guys from my age group, and I couldn't help but smile (cheating bastards).

I rolled into T2 feeling good. It turns out I was more on the easy side of the bike. Which in my opinion is usually the better way to go.

T2

I finally had a decent transition. Shoes and socks went on easy and I was ready to run.

Feeling pretty good on the run

Run- 1:30:11

Comments:

I came into the run having no idea where I was in my AG and not really caring to tell you the truth. I wanted have a good run, and that was all that mattered. This was my last race of the year and I wanted to leave it all on the course. No saving it for a future race. No worrying about an injury flaring up. Just go hard and see where you end up.

The first mile or so is a steady downhill. This allowed me to get my legs under me and set a good pace from the beginning. I was running at about 6:30 per mile pace and it felt relatively easy going downhill. At around 1 mile into the race a guy from my AG in a PACwest kit went flying by me like I wasn't even moving. I looked down and at that time I was running a 6:10.

"Welcome to the world championships" I thought.

My mind started to drift back to my Kona race last year where I did nothing but get passed for the entire run. For a split second I started to struggle with my confidence. It’s times like this that you have to remind yourself that you’re just starting a half marathon. That’s a fairly long race by itself. When you pair with a swim and hard bike anything can happen. I decided to just to keep my pace and run my own race. I knew I wasn't getting on the podium so I may as see what I could do.

The first lap was a bit of a struggle, but then something awesome started to happen. I started noticing that I was passing people in my AG and no one else was passing me. With a renewed sense of confidence I was able to find another gear. It was crazy. Nothing hurt, I was staying cool, and was running really well. The uphill half of the race I was running about 7:20 and the downhill is would let myself go as fast as I wanted and I was running 6:10's.

The second loop flew by and before I knew it I was on the last loop.

It was gut check time.

I had been falling apart at about mile 11 of all my longer runs and races this year and I didn't want that to happen. So with three miles to go I started to push hard. I knew I only had one more trip up the hill then it would be a mile downhill to the finish.

Oh yea, and PACwest guy that blew by me was suddenly running right up the road from me. Holy shit! I had managed to bring this guy back that I had deemed untouchable. When I him passed I made sure it was a hard pass and checked him at the next 2 turns. I gapped him pretty quickly and he looked miserable. From there it was just pushing hard to the top of hill and gearing up to finish with the downhill.

Then, out of nowhere I noticed at the turn at the top of the hill that were 2 guys in my AG within striking distance so I gave it all I had left coming down the hill. I was running a 5:40 and gaining on those 2 in hurry. I made the pass about halfway down the hill and kept on the gas all the way though the shoot. I was spent! I ended up with a final finish time of 4:43:07. That was good enough for 21^st in my age group and the 4^th American finisher in my age group. Those Europeans are FAST!

What would you do differently?:

The key at a race like this is staying cool. If you overheat you're done. I made sure to take ice and water and dump it all over me at every aid station. I also hit the coke early. I know from experience Coke is magic for me on the run

My best cheerleaders!

Post race

Warm down:

I had done exactly what I wanted to do at the race. I ran hard... So hard that when I stopped I got really dizzy. Luckily Ironman races never have a shortage of volunteers at the finish. 3 people grabbed me and helped to the medical tent. The tent was full so I sat there for a minute talking to Nate Birdsall and cooling off. I could tell an IV was going to be a long wait so I eventually got up and walked to meet my family and friends.

I had an excellent cheering/ support system for the race. My brother his wife, my wife and daughter, and my friend drove up the night before from San Diego to come watch. It always helps to see familiar faces.

Finally I had a race I felt I could be proud of. I loved this race and really want to come back. Next year is an Ironman year and hopefully another Kona year so we'll see what happens.

Troika 74.6 2011

Troika has been on the top of my list to do for the last 2 seasons. My first year I think I just plain ran out of money to sign up. Last year I was still battling IT band problems and I had Kona to think about. This year things seemed to come together nicely. I've been smarter with my injuries, and not let them put a complete stop to my training and racing for any long periods of time this season.

Race morning was interesting.... Morgan had to work the night before the race from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. This left me to take care of Amelia over night and tend to any middle of the night awakenings. Luckily there was only one at about 3 am and I wanted to get up around 4 anyway. So I just started my day at 3. She went back to sleep and my sister in law arrived at 4:45 so I could make the drive out to Medical Lake.

When I got to the venue I saw all the familiar faces that make it out to every race. (I love being a part of such a strong local contingent of triathletes.)

Before the race I already had the podium all figured out. At least thats what I thought. Sam Piccici (not sure if I spelled that right, I know it starts with a P then you just throw "i"s and "c"s everywhere) was there and he was coming off of a crazy fast 9:30 at IMCDA. Ben Greenfield was a late entry and he's always a threat to win. Troy Nelson has been getting faster and faster every time he races, so I thought that would be the podium in that very order. This would leave Jon Moen and I to battle it out for 4th and 5th. You always figure someone from elsewhere will show up and beat everyone so I had that guy in the back of my mind as well.

The swim- (40:07)

There were rumors that this swim is always a bit long. This year it really lived up to the hype. During the swim I felt pretty good for the first half. I was pretty much in the thick of the middle of the pack. I decided to go ahead and draft for much of the swim and in retrospect I think that was a mistake.

The way back into the beach there didn't seem to be enough buoys and I couldn't tell if I should aim for the one closest to the beach or if I was missing one off to the left. I decided to swim with a group of 4 guys and we all swam very wide. In the end my navigation was very poor and I think that partially accounted for my slow swim time with respect to others. The good news is, everyone was slow. About 4-6 minutes slow in fact. No one swam under 33:00. Ben who swam a 27:xx last year only managed a 33:xx this year. So if you take 6 minutes off my time I think I would have been around 34:xx. Not exactly where I want to be, but I have not been staying in the pool long enough lately. I only have myself to blame. I put myself in a 6 minute hole to the top swimmers and about 4 minutes to Jon and Troy. Not a good start.

Bike- 2:30:21

I took off on the bike and made the decision to try and push at least to the turn around so I could make up some of the damage from the swim. I don't wear a watch to swim so I didn't yet know how slow I was in the water. When I got up by the turn I started counting spots and taking splits. Ben was in 1st, Sam pretty close behind in 2nd and they both had about 7 minutes on me. I ended up counting 16 in front of me. From there I just rode hard and tried to catch as many people as possible. My Planet X exocet and wheels again did me well. By the time we went back by Medical Lake things were getting spread out and I passed Greg Gallagher to move into 9th. Normally Greg would be a contender to get onto the podium but he told me before the race that he had won the entry the week before and he was just training through it.

I saw my parents out on Espanola and they gave me a split of 6:30 to the leader and told me I was in 5th. I knew that wasn't right, but hopefully the split was somewhat accurate. It was nice to see them out there though. It gets pretty lonely in these smaller races. I was hammering the bike and not really worrying about pace up until I hit the 40k mark and realized I had rode it in 1:00:24. This was a 4 minute PR for that distance. I realized I better back off a bit. So I did.

From there I didn't see any other racers for the next 45 minutes to an hour. It was a strange feeling. At about the 45 mile mark I caught and passed a guy and could see one more up about 30 seconds. I passed him when we turned past the river in 7 mile. This is where I started to get suspicious that the bike would be long too. At mile 52 I knew we weren't even going to be close to 56 miles. The 56 mile mark was behind the college which I knew to be 4 miles from the finish because it's basically the 4 mile mark for Bloomsday. I was really ready to be done. Mentally it sucked. Physically it probably wasn't a big deal. It gave me a chance to pee one more time and I let the guy pass me back so I could follow him into the finish, as I had no idea where to go. So we ended up going 60 miles. I came off the bike in 7th.

Run- 1:30:07

I passed the one guy in T1 and never saw him again until I was coming back. It was weird running through park with everyone in normal clothes and me all by myself clad in spandex. But I digress.

At the three mile mark I started to really wonder where everyone was. I had lost track of my placing in my head (my parents number started to creep into my mind). I knew Sam, Ben, and Jon Moen were ahead. Somehow I didn't see Troy on the bike. In my mind I thought best case I was 5th. I was steadily ticking off 6:47 miles on my garmin. Pre-race I wanted to run 6:30's, but this was all I had for that day. I was starting to get frustrated that no one was in site. I felt like there were points at miles 4 and 5 that I could see way up the road (I was thinking I could see 3 minutes up the road) but no one was in site. Thankfully, Roger and Jesse Thompson were out there cheering us on and Roger told me I was 6th, about 6 minutes back from Ben and 3 minutes from everyone else. You have no idea how much this helped. I tried to pick it up a little and by the time I made the turn around I was 2:30 back and gaining on many of them. Ben was too far ahead for me to catch at that point and when I saw Troy he was running FAST. I thought he had a legit shot at catching Ben. Everyone else was in striking distance. Unfortunately my stomach started to rebel. It was all I could do to hold everything in. The last thing I wanted to do was be immortalized on slowtwitch.com as poopman #2. Some poor schmuck from Ironman Florida had shat his pants last year and from that moment on he has been known as poopman by thousands of triathletes.

My pace took a little hit with that distraction but I will say I was able to keep it together for the remainder of the race and I will not be taking "poopmans" place anytime soon.

Back to the race... I was able to catch a younger guy who I was concerned was in my age group. He was the only one I thought might be, as he was the only one I didn't know and he looked about my age. As I caught an passed him I noticed his calf said 21 so I felt pretty confident I would win my AG. This put me in 5th and to my surprise I could see Sam not moving too well and not too far ahead. When I passed him I could tell he was not doing well. He was pretty much running the same pace he ran at Ironman. He's a much faster runner than he showed that day. Everyone has bad days though, and all I could do was move on. So now I had Jon ahead of me, and that was all that stood between me and a podium finish. I got a split from a friend on the course of 1:45 to Jon with about 2.5 miles left. At that point I knew I was done passing people and I really wasn't feeling that great anyway. I went into cruise mode and made sure no one was coming up behind and just finished out the race. I probably lost a minute over the last 2 miles but I really didn't care. The chance at a PR went out the window with the longer swim and bike.

It's easy to be mad and complain about them screwing up the distances but in the end everyone covered the same distance so it doesn't matter. I will do this race again, but maybe not next year. Another race where I was never passed after T1, which again be chalked up to poor swimming more so than strong biking and running.

Final finish time 4:42:15, 4th overall, 1st m25-29

De soto Liftoil Review

I thought I would share a review of a recent purchase I made. It is he De soto Liftfoil. What is a Liftfoil you ask? Well, it's a one piece tri suit that doubles as a swim skin. Impossible you say? No so fast. This thing is great!

We'll go through the Liftfoil in order of event that you wear it.
1. The swim- The De Soto Liftfoil is first and foremost a tri suit. However, it also pulls double duty as a swim skin. In non-wetsuit swims this is my go to suit. First of all it is very hydrodynamic. De Soto claims it to be every bit as fast as the more expensive swim skins from Blue Seventy. It has no pockets to act as parachutes in the water. If you've swam in a tri top you know what I mean. This suit also has what De Soto calls a float pad. It adds a little extra buoyancy and doubles as the bike chamois.
2. The bike- De soto shorts are by far the most comfortable I've ever used. They work great with Adamo saddle because of the slightly wider pad. The Liftfoil also feels very aerodynamic. In a podcast on tritalk.com they claimed that it could save minutes in an Ironman over a traditional 2 piece design.
3. The run- super comfy and you able to zip it down the front to cool off.
4. I forgot to mention the fourth discipline..... T1. You can run right past everyone peeling their swimskins.