IM Boulder 2019 recap

I have been building for the race since mid-January. Averaged 10.5 hours per week which is pretty light. However, this includes 2 short vacations when I could not train all that much, some taper and a 7 day break after St George 70.3, and about 5 days of downtime in late May when I came down with a chest cold . All in all,I felt that it was a decent prep cycle, although the timing of the illness around the Labor day before the race threw a wrench at my plans to have a graduated taper. Cannot control stuff like that, but unfortunately it had some effect on the race. The long and short of it, I had to ease off in Boulder because of the nasal congestion that I could not completely shake off.

In terms of being race ready, I felt that my cycling fitness was probably the strongest ever. The swim fitness was pretty good too, but the run was somewhat weaker than usual - I just could not do more than 30 mpw, and that honestly worried me. But nonetheless the race week came and it was time to go to Boulder and test my limits one more time.

Day 1

I flew into Denver on Thursday of the race week. For the 1st couple of nights I was staying with my childhood buddy Leo who has been living in Colorado since the early 1990s and is always super hospitable. Picked my rental car and drove it to Aurora where Leo lives. Got there at around noon, settled in and went for a quick run. Although it was sort of overcast, I started to feel the sun a couple of miles into it. Was very glad that I had put on a lot of sunscreen! An important lesson learned in St George. The run went pretty well, I did not struggle with the rollers or the altitude, and overall it did not feel that much different from my easy runs in the Valley. The rest of the day was spent napping, checking the Sunday forecast (it was showing a significant cooldown from Saturday with a chance of rain), playing with my buddy's kid, their dog, having a nice dinner and... well I did have a couple of beers. Maybe 3.

Day 2

Got up fairly early, had my usual morning fare - a bagel with peanut butter, a banana and a cup of coffee type of breakfast, and then headed to Boulder to checkin and pick up my bike. The drive took a little bit over an hour. Got to Boulder at around 10am, parked and headed to the IM village. It was setup on a grassy lot next to the parking lot of the high school. The grass was a mess - it could have been cut by the city, and there was also some road construction going on literally right next door to the tents. The village was pretty empty since it was early-ish, so it took me no time to grab my registration packet, a few souvenirs from the store, and then go get the bike. I was pretty relieved that it had seemingly arrived with no damage - well, more on that later. Threw everything in the back of the car and drove back to Denver. On the way there, I got an email from the RD stating that this was going to be the last year of IM Boulder. It was a bummer for sure, but it also gave me a good reason to do my best on Sunday.

Once I got back, I reattached the race number, reinstalled the aero bottle cage, the pedals and the eTap batteries, pumped the tires and headed to a nearby bike path to pre-ride. The bike path ran through an awesome looking open space with lots of greenery, sizable creeks and so on - and it was also twisty as all hell, so staying on the aerobars was a challenge since I had to make sharp turns every few hundred yards. Turned around after about 10 miles and rode back - and suddenly the storm cloud appeared out of nowhere and right around the time I was about 2 miles from my car it started pouring. Had to ride a bit faster while avoiding wiping out on the sharper corners.

Got back to my buddy's house and did the final prep for the race - ie hand tightened every single bolt. As I was working on the front brake, I had noticed something odd - the fork was now turning all the way, while before there was a little stopper pin in the top tube that was restricting the fork to about 30 degrees of movement to the left/right. This was a bit of a surprise, but I did not think much about it.

Assembled the gear and the special needs bags in the afternoon. Was not 100% sure  how the weather was going to turn out, so just in case threw in a rain vest and the arm sleeves into the bike gear bag, and an extra t-shirt and a trash bag with holes for the head and arms into the run special needs bag - in that neck of the woods you just never know if the temps going to drop or if it rains. Threw in some extra GUs and a Clif Bar into the bike special needs bag. Also taped 5 GUs to the top tube just in case I wanted some change of pace for my nutrition - one can only have some much Infinit on any given Sunday 😄

In the evening had another awesome dinner with my buddy and his family - they made shrimp fajitas with some salad. We had a bottle of wine between of us and stayed up fairly late just chatting, reminiscing about our childhoods and enjoying the weather.  Went to bed at around 10:30pm. Slept well.

Day 3

Slept in as long as I could - still got up at around 8am. Had another bagel/banana and a Clif bar with a cup of coffee. Loaded my gear into the car, said bye for now to Leo and his family and headed  to Boulder for the gear drop off and some pre-swimming in the reservoir.

Got there at around 10am and was able to park in the lot right next to the water. Dropped off the bike and the gear bags. Since the forecast was sort of iffy with regards to the rain in the morning of the race, I wrapped the aerobars in a trash bag, and put a plastic bag on the seat. I was very worried about the fork moving around too much.

Then I went for a quick swim. The water in the reservoir was very warm, easily in the upper 60s. Since I missed all of the previous days' supported swims, I could only swim in a small circle near the beach, but honestly it did not matter. Right away I knew that it was going to be a single cap swim in a very comfortable water temperature. I also really liked swimming with just an underlayer under the wetsuit as opposed wearing a full aerosuit - it really did not restrict the range of motion in the shoulders.

Once I dried up a bit, went back to the car and set out to drive one loop of the bike course. It took me a little bit of time to find the beginning of the loop but after that the map was easy to follow. The terrain consisted primarily of stretches of mostly flat roads with some rollers and a few sharp climbs with top kickers that looked quite steep. The back end of the loop had some more rollers but I did not see anything that looked like a concern.

Came back to Boulder around 3pm and headed to Dina's place. She's my cousin's cousin who moved to Boulder when her hubby got a job at CU over there. They invited me to stay over for a couple of nights and I gladly accepted their offer to couch surf 2 miles away from the Boulder High School. We had a nice dinner that night - all while it suddenly hailed outside!

The weather went from warm and sunny to overcast and cold... just like that. In any case, I was in bed by 9:30pm and fell asleep quickly.

Race Day

Woke up at 3am and had 1.5 cinnamon raisin bagels with peanut butter, 2 bananas and a Starbucks espresso double shot. The goal was to get about 750 calories in and I think that I came pretty close.

Headed out of the door at 4 am, drove to the corner of Pearl and 15th and parked in a structure (yay free Sunday parking!). It was VERY cold and wet outside - I was shivering although I had a warm underlayer on and a shirt/hoodie on top of it. Took quick walk to the Boulder high and dropped off my special needs bags on the way before lining up to get on the shuttles.

It was a quick ride to the reservoir, listened to Viktoria by Marduk on the way there - lots of adrenaline in that record! Got off the bus at around 4:50am - and yes, it was even colder there.

We had to walk up this little hill to get to the transition area, so that warmed me up a bit. The bike was in a good condition, a little wet but nothing critical. Took the bags off, attached the batteries and my Garmin, tested the wheels and found that the front wheel was rubbing for some reason. That was odd as this issue was just not there in the morning on Saturday. I had to open up the brake a little - that's one great thing about the TriRig Omegas, you can always fine adjust just one side... that took care of the rubbing issue, but I was still worried about the brake moving during the ride. Just in case, I laid out a trash bag under the front wheel to minimize the movement.

Ate another Clif Bar, put on my wetsuit (swam in a HUUB suit this time) and headed out of the transition area. Lined up for the 1:10 group and started to get mentally prepped for the race. We had Mike Reilley at the start line - he was doing his usual banter/cheering bit  and I had realized that I had really missed it last year in Santa Rosa. He made the time go by very quickly, and I was somehow feeling at peace with the universe. Did not get in the water til 6:46am or so... and then it began.

The Swim

The first 100 yards felt great. And then something happened... I felt a weird discomfort in the upper body, and I suddenly had to stop. I was breathing way too hard. After a minute or 2 I started to feel ok. People were swimming around me, and I decided that I was ok to continue. Had to swim a bit slower than normal until I hit the first left turn. After that I got into the rhythm, which was still a little slower than my usual pace, but I was feeling relaxed and just making sure that I was doing a good job sighting and breathing. After the second turn the chop picked up a little bit and the going got a bit harder. The water was at least 15 degrees warmer than the air but was definitely cooling down minute by minute. The last 300 yards or so were a struggle as the arms started to get a bit sore, so I started kicking harder.  Got out and the watch showed 1:31 as the swim time. Ouch. The Garmin file here.

T1

Was out of the wetsuit very quickly, did not have to stop and have it stripped - that's one thing I really like about HUUB (if it only was not such a pain in the ass to put on). The run on the grass to the bags was pretty short and the volunteers were very helpful and I was in the changing tent in no time. Here I really did mess up. The plan was to take off the underlayer, put on the HR strap, pull up top of the aerosuit, throw on my rain vest, and head out with the shoes on putting on the helmet as I was running to the bike. Sure enough I forgot to put on the HR monitor and only realized it when I had  the vest on... I really did not want to risk not knowing the heart rate on the run, so I had to dress up twice. That sucked. The run to the mount line was basically to the top of the same hill again, this time in bike shoes. 10 minutes left there.

The Bike

The first 90 minutes or so were pretty much punctuated by this one uniform sensation - I was cold, shivering and everything. Having the vest on sure helped, but the arms and the hands were uncomfortably cold. I was very grateful that I had put on some warm-ish socks in T1 - at least the feet were not ready to fall off. Once we started hitting the first hill going up to the Hwy 36, I began to feel more normal and had a pretty good climb where I was able to push out of the saddle and generate good steady power. But then came a fast descent down Nelson Road and I got cold again, to the point that when I was riding up the 65th I had a hard time putting back the nutrition bottle in the cage behind the seat. It fell out and landed on the nipple that broke off and ended up inside the bottle - boom! Half of my 1st loop nutrition spilled out. I had to turn around and go salvage whatever was left in it. Stopped at the next aid station and transferred the remaining  Infinit mix into an empty water bottle. Also grabbed a few GU Roctanes just in case. For some reason one of the was open which I did not notice - and the GU leaked out gluing my vest to my aerosuit in the back. Good times!

The rest of the went pretty much without a hitch, although I did have to stop about 10 miles later on Hygeine Rd when my chip band slipped down my leg and was hanging a bit too loose for my liking. I retightened it - as turned out too much, so that the ankle was sore for a few days after run, more on that later. I made it up Hygiene Rd which was probably the steepest bit of the course and that's when I finally stopped being nearly hypothermic. The backside of the course was great - the sun was out on the Hwy 66, we were passing neat little lakes - life was suddenly good! The rollers on the 75th Ave were fun and I hit pretty good speeds coming down. Most importantly I made up a ton of time.

The 2nd loop flew by pretty fast. I got my 2nd bottle of Infinit from the special needs station along with a cold can of Coke, spent about 45 second sipping it and was off fighting the wind on the Hwy 119.

For some reason the out and back on Monarch was very bumpy the 2nd time around and the turnaround was very tight - I actually had to unclip to make it. The climb up Neva was a lot of fun again and I really enjoyed it although it is a mere bump by the standards of Santa Monica mountains. Here's a picture of me cresting there.

By the time we got to Nelson/65th it was plenty warm, so I stopped there for a sec to take off my vest. Nothing remarkable to report on the rest of the ride, although I started feeling a tad fatigued going through the rollers on the 75th ave. By then it was almost over. I was a little bit surprised that the course ended up being short by about 2 miles - with 2 out and back segments repeated twice  I'd have imagined that the organizers could have gotten it right, especially since this was the 2nd time they used this course. The finish time was 5:42. Garmin file here.

T2

This went pretty smoothly. I left the shoes on top of the pedals so that helped a bit. We had to run through a short stretch of uncovered rocky dirt which sucked, but other than that no complaints. I did change into my running clothes (shorts and a singlet) which took about a minute and I reapplied lots and lots of sunscreen, but I was out in 6:19.

The Run

The first 3 miles or so were on some country roads leading out of the reservoir area. There was one sharp hill in the 1st mile, and then it was a gradual climb until mile four. I wanted to try the idea of running faster but walking the transitions since I was very concerned with the possible dehydration from the recent cold. Have to say that worked pretty well for the initial 10 miles or so. I would grab some water in the beginning of the water station and then some Coke, walk briskly while drinking and then pour some more water on my head and shoulders at the end of the aid station. But after a while my brisk walk became a lot less brisk and I ended up moving slower and slower through the aid stations. The other thing was that the bike path we were was relentlessly rolling, and lastly it was super hard on the lower legs. After about 15 miles I was feeling super beat up. The Nike Vaporflys that I was running in provided a lot less cushioning than the Hoka Cliftons that I was so used to in racing.  Eventually I started feeling the unusually crushing fatigue - probably the effects of elevation were becoming more and pronounced, on top of the nasal congestion that was still lingering. At around mile 19.5 when I finally came to the last turnaround I started playing this game in my head where I'd promise myself to walk some if I can run one more mile... and then I'd get to the mile marker and would postpone walking for one more mile, promising some walking in the future, rince and repeat.

The worst part was that we passed by the Boulder high school twice and the bags and the bikes were clearly visible from the path... but yet we had miles to go. Had a minor panicky moment when I could not find the mile 25 marker (it was for some reason misplaced and instead showed up at around mile 25.6). At that point I was negotiating with myself running in quarter mile stretches and the prospect of having to go an extra mile or so was just unthinkable, as sad as it sounds. But it turned out that the course was probably spot on distance wise - I ended up logging 26.4 miles which is pretty good for a twisty bike path with lots and lots of underpasses where GPS just does not work at all. Finally I got off the bike path, headed to the finish line, heard Mike Reilley call my name. It was all over. A 3:57 run, giving a 11:27 finish time for the 23rd spot in the M45-49. Garmin file here.

Full video:

After The Race

Have to say that I was spent - close to 100%. Like a zombie I lurched towards the food tent which was all of 500 yards away Started to feel very cold, so I threw on my finisher shirt on top of my singlet along with the space blanket I got at the finish line. Finally saw Dina and her husband and their daughter near the food tent... they started asking me about how I was feeling... I was out of it. Was not even sure where I was probably!  Tried to eat some food from the tent and had to put it down - just could not digest any real food, save for some Chips Ahoy cookies. That whole plate in the picture - it was left on the bench in its entirety.

Since I was getting colder and colder, decided to go get my morning clothes and the bike. That was an even longer walk and there was a line to get to bags and bikes since you had to be personally accompanied by a volunteer. The kid who walked me was super sweet and patient, wish I had an appreciation wristband to give him. I changed right there on the grass, and decided to drop off my bike with the TriBike transport right away. That took a little while as they had trouble taking the pedals off and for some reason the front derailleur was stuck in the midshift position. Eventually the things got figured out and the bike was signed for and filed to be on the way to Burbank. After a bit more walking I made it to the car, threw my gear bag in the back and headed to Dina's house. Had a great dinner with them again which was sorely needed. I almost passed out from being low on sugar when I waited too long to eat! And then came a great black wave of sleep, with no dreams or sensations...

In Conclusion

I feel happy with the results. Sure, no PRs here, and the course was not all that hard, especially if you mad the right equipment choices. But I think that somehow I did not leave much on the table, and unlike in St George I raced to my fitness level. Kind of sad that I won't get to give this course another go any time soon, but I am quite content with how things went. And the pictures of the peaks of the Rockies that I took on the flight back are still quite stunning. Til we meet again!

St George 70.3 2019 recap

Signed up for St George 70.3 as a way to test my fitness before IM Boulder in June. I have been training steadily since mid January. Spent a lot of time climbing on the bike on Zwift and in real life. By April I had felt pretty good about the bike and the run, and the swim training was actually showing some real progress too after a year spent working on a Vasa trainer. My easy time for 100 yards free was about 1:38, with a hard effort repeats time being around 1:26-1:27. I made some improvements to the bike, lightening it up a bit and getting a custom storage box that attaches to the area above the bottom bracket.

Arrived at St G on Thursday afternoon. Checked into the hotel (Tru by Hilton, very convenient!), unloaded my gear and went to the town square square to pick my registration packet.  Got there right around the time when Andrew Messick was starting his announcement of the full IM returning to StG in 2020, with the 3 year rotation. I tried to listen to the speech but the tent was too loud, and I really did not want to lose my space in line, so I just turned on their Facebook live feed and listened to it instead. Much better J. The pickup lines were pretty long and I ended up spending about 30 minutes waiting for this and that. 

Got back to the room, laid everything out on the spare bed and assembled the gear, sorting it into 3 piles (morning/bike/run). Everything was in place except for the chain lube, so I breathed the sign of relief. By that time, it was almost 6:30pm local time and it was time to get some food. I went out to the local diner called Black Bear. Had a substantial dinner by my standards – with Cobb salad and a baked potato. The diner was teeming with the tourists (non triathletes by the looks of it) and the locals. The food was quite good, especially the bacon. Yum! Afterwards I drove to the nearest supermarket and got some fuel for the race day morning – ie Gatorade, peanut butter, bananas and a few bread rolls. Got back to the hotel, watched TV for a bit and turned in for the night. 

Slept pretty well, although the noise from the Interstate 15 right outside the window was a bit annoying.Woke up at around 6:30am and headed downstairs for breakfast. The hotel clearly was doing a good amount of business with the triathletes – saw quite a few loading up on carbs or heading out/returning from rides. I had some oatmeal with cranberries and a banana with coffee. After that it was time for some equipment testing. Rode my bike for about 15 mins, no hard efforts, just making sure that the shifting was working the way it was supposed to. No issues, although the return route via River Rd was not great – the bike lane was too narrow to stay in aero. Rode it on the bullhorns mostly. Got back, put on running shoes and headed out for a quick run. The sun was already pretty hot, and there I made my first mistake – not putting on lots and lots of sunscreen right away.  Went downstairs, had a waffle and more coffee, and then headed to a bike shop up the street to get some chain lube. It was so fantastically dry outside that I realized that the chain needed to be dry lubed. Picked up some dry lube and after that was finally all set.

Loaded my gear bags and my bike into the car at around 11:30am and headed towards the town square. The plan was to listen to the athlete meeting, drop off the run gear bag and then head towards the reservoir. By the time I got the stage, the area in front of it was pretty full and I ended up sitting sort of high way between the shaded area and the area exposed to the sun. That was a really dumb move. I got baked there big time, while learning absolutely nothing new from the presenter. And then I had to wait another 30 mins for T2 to open up. More time in the sun without the proper hydration and sunscreen. Arggh.

Once I had dropped off the run gear, I headed to the reservoir. It was a bit longer of a drive than I had expected with the traffic being heavy. I got there eventually and the parking situation was not great… had to make myself a parking spot. Lubed the chain, racked the bike, hung the bag on the numbered rack and then went down to the water to see what condition my condition was in. The water was definitely not warm, but felt about 62-63 degrees, which was exactly what I was expecting. I walked ankle deep in the water of the shallow end of the boat ramp for a few minutes and decided that it is going to be a 2 swim cap thing. Finally got to the car at around 2:30pm and drove back to StG. Stopped by a supermarket on the way back and got 2 slices of pizza and a chicken sandwich for dinner. Was back at the hotel at 3pm. Charged all of my electronics, mixed my Infinit drink, rolled a little bit on the foam roller.... At that point, the plan was to park myself in front of TV, and only step out of the room to drop off the stuff I won't need in the morning by the car at around 6:30pm.

I followed the plan to the T, but unfortunately, when I went down to the car, I had discovered a huge nail sticking out of the rear left tire. Not sure where I picked it up, but there it was. I checked with Google for the tire shops nearby that were still opened and the only one without 2 miles that was still open was a WalMart down street. Drove there quickly, but they had a line of cars out of the door and the manager told me to come back tomorrow. At that point, I simply put on a spare and drove back to the hotel, bummed knowing that I had to take care of the tire right after the race.

Got to the room at 7:30, had my sandwich and did my best to calm the nerves down and prep for sleep. I really started to feel the sunburn on my neck and my back and even my arms. Slept fairly well, not great… got up at 3:45am. Had 2 bread rolls with Justin's peanut butter and honey mix, a banana and a Starbucks Espresso shot can. Rolled on the foam roller, got my bags, checked out and stepped into the cool, dark night. The hotel was about 1.5 miles from the finish line, so got there at 4:15am, parked 3 blocks from the shuttles and headed out. Boarded right away, no wait… the drive to the T1 in the darkness is always a weird experience (somewhere between exciting and terrifying) – listened to Burzum as I always do before races, and his magic was lifting my spirit off this planet one more time.

Got to my bike, re-installed the eTap batteries, pumped the tires to 85/90 front/rear, put in Infinit, filled up the aero bottle with a mix of Gatorade and water, milled around… was looking for a couple of my buddies, but the T1 got hectic quick, and suddenly it was 20 minutes to the start and the portapotty lines were long as always… I did not get to the swim start til about 5 minutes to 7. There I made another mistake. I did not realize how long it’d take to let everyone into the water, so as I lined up with the 35-38 minute swim section, I did not start swimming until 7:35am. One weird thing was that I felt something in the right eye as I was tightening the goggles. Perhaps, I somehow overtightened one side? 

The swim was uneventful but.. once again, just like in Palm Springs earlier this year, I could not find my groove. I was not struggling, but it was not a smooth swim at all. Although the water temps were in the low 60s I felt cold, and was not just in my element. The course was very easy to navigate, as it is a simple triangle swam counterclockwise. At one point, somewhere before the 2^nd turn, suddenly the wind picked up and it got choppy. In any case, I was out of the water in 40 minutes. Well, 40:34 for those who care. Garmin file here.

In T1, somehow the wetsuit got stuck on the right leg (the one that did not have the chip on, go figure) and I had to get down on the mat to get it to come off. Once that was done, I grabbed my bag off the rack and got the helmet and the shoes on. Ran up to the bike in shoes since we could not leave them clipped in and we were off into the desert.

I got on the bike and only then had realized that somehow I got either some speck of sand or something like that into my right eye. It was starting to itch bad and would kind of get worse every few miles, and then let up. I managed to sort of initially wink through it, but then a thing happened that could have ended my race right there. We were going up the first incline when some guy in front of me dropped his bottle and in some inexplicable fashion turned around to catch it as it was rolling down. In the process, he almost took me down, but thankfully I was able to  make a stealthy evasive maneuver. After that I rode the next 10 miles trying to warm up and get the hips going again. It was not going well, and I kind of tried to just work through it. Things got better once we turned left on the highway (Hwy 6/State st), but the problem was that by then I was riding against a fast moving traffic on the right, and the left lane/shoulder was full of rumble strips. Basically til mile 19 I could not do much and was just going as fast as possible given the conditions.

Once we turned on Telegraph Road, I felt a bit better. I was not shivering anymore and was pushing good wattage up up the inclines. There was one descent that could have been taken very fast in aero but it was so crowded that I had to brake hard in a few spots. Nonetheless mentally I was feeling pretty strong but the power in the legs was just not coming back. The course was starting to wind through the suburbia for a while until we hit Red Rocks Parkway where we rode on the opposite side of the run course - but that time the pros were starting to climb the infamous Booyah Bend. At the top I managed to drop the chain shifting into the big ring... that was a big bummer, and I kind of lost my motivation there. 

We rode back into town and did an out and back on Snow Canyon parkway which is basically just a series of false flats. It was starting to get a bit warmer and I could feel the sun on my arms and my back. Once we started going up the actual Snow Canyon climb past the ranger station, I started to feel back in my element and powered through the segment. To be honest, it is not that hard of a climb if you pace with power - although it does get fairly steep within the last mile or so. Oh and it also is completely exposed to the sun. Once I crested it, there was a water station - grabbed a bottle of water and poured all over the head/neck/back... and then I dropped the chain for the second time. The irony! That was the point when I mentally threw in the towel and decided to just cruise through the rest of the race. 

The descent into town was a lot of fun - it really is fast and by then the road was pretty open since the climb broke up the packs of riders. A few sections were exposed to the wind so I had to get off the aerobars but generally it was a pretty screaming ride all the way to the turn off on Diagonal street. The last mile or so was along the run course again... and I was pretty surprised to see a few age groupers clearly on the way to the finish line. Assuming the run in the range of 1:30-1:35 and them lining up at the front of the swim - that meant that the faster age grouper times were going to be in the 4:40 range. Ouch. The final bummer was the fact that the bike course was about 0.6 miles short and I stupidly did not get my feet out of the bike shoes fast enough so that I ended somehow with the right foot on top of the right shoe, but the left foot dangling on top of the left shoe... at the dismount somehow the left foot ended back in the shoe, which almost caused me to drop the bike... just the series of unfortunate events. Bike time - 3:02:38, which is pretty sad. Nutrition wise I had about 550 kcals of Infinit mix, 2 GUs with caffeine, about 15oz of Gatorade  and 1 half of a Clif Bar. I think that I could taken about 200 kcals more since I came off the bike feeling a bit low on fuel. Garmin file here.

The T2 was already hot and I somehow ended up having trouble getting the run gear back untied. The the Nikes shoelaces would not tie... at least I got 2 packets of sunscreen smeared on quickly, but another 5 mins wasted. 

The run was the least eventful leg of the race. I would take a cup of water and a serving of Cola for nutrition and try to stay as cool as possible by dumping water on my head and shoulders at every station. The first climb was steep but went by quickly, About a mile into it I saw my co-worker and studly triathlete Jeremy running down towards the finish. From there onward I was not definitely working particularly hard, keeping the heart rate around 160bpm give or take. Somewhere towards the top some dude ended up running along with me, and we basically ran together until mile 12 where he pushed forward and I had no real desire to push any harder. We chatted as we were going up and down Red Hills parkway and the time flew by quite fast. We passed a ton of people, don't think that anyone really passed us at all for the entire stretch... the course is actually quite fast if you did not burn all your matches climbing Snow Canyon or going up the Booyah Bend climb out of town. The only thing that bugged was the soreness in the right eyelid, which was probably aggravated by the sweat and the sunscreen running down... it got bad enough with 0.5 miles to go that I had to stop and pour some cold water on the eye. It did not bother me until I sat down to get some food after the race. Run was done in 1:40:58, average heart rate 159bpm, Garmin file here. All together, the total time was 5:34:28.  

The finish line was a bit disorganized by the WTC standards. I got my medal and my finisher's hat and then sort of hung around the chute, waiting for god knows what, until I had realized that we were supposed to walk back towards the town center square. I was so overheated that I jumped into mini creek where the kids were splashing and just submerged in it for a few minutes. Was joined by a couple of other triathletes.. one of them stated rightly - hey, we're all just big kids! That made me laugh, and I felt so much better... proceeded to the food tent, got a box of what looked like Chipotle food with a banana and a soda. The eye was still bugging me, and at that point I just wanted to get to my car quick because I had some artificial tears in my backpack... I got my morning bag and my T1 bag from the volunteers, thanked them, piled everything up, grabbed the bike and walked to the car. Still was a bit out of it, and took some time to actually find where I had parked 😁. 

Threw everything back into the car, and then drove back to that WalMart place. Half way through the eye started hurting so bad that I had to stop to drip in more tears. The mechanic told me it'd take 2 hours to put on a new tire, and I used the time to get more food at some local BBQ place (which was just awful, as an aside) and catch a cat nap on a patio furniture at the Garden section of the said supercenter (very comfy). The sun was just burning me up, the eye would itch like crazy every 10 minutes or so... not good. At that point I bailed on the plan to stay overnight in Las Vegas and instead called the hotel where had I stayed the night before and booked a room for 1 more night to get myself together. In the hotel, I could not stand to see any screen glare at all, so I listened to podcasts, ate the leftover peanut butter, bread and bananas... fell asleep, woke up at 7am, had the breakfast downstairs and decided to take a chance on driving back to LA... with the hope that the eye won't be an issue anymore. Drove without any problems (not counting the Vegas traffic), although had to stop twice to stretch the legs and the back.

What are my thoughts, now that it's been 2 weeks since the race? I think that it is a tricky course for a number of reasons. I was told by the number of people to bring a compact crankset to avoid overbiking on Snow Canyon. Well I did that and certainly did not overbike by any stretch of imagination, but I also spun out on every downhill losing a bunch of time.  I will switch back to  52/36 upfront and 11/28 in the back for Boulder. To hopefully fix the chain drops, I am going to set my front derailleur as close to the SRAM specs as possible. My OWS continues to be my weakness and it keeps me from riding a less crowded course - will try to get more ocean swims in summer. The run is the only reliable constant. Lastly, definitely no more athlete briefings or ignoring the sunscreen or hydration in the dry climates! Lessons learned hopefully.

Some pretty pictures of the pretty sites I saw on the way there and in StG

Chicago Marathon 2018 recap

I was so incredibly burned out after IM Santa Rosa that I had no desire to get on the bike any time soon. I tried to pick it back up for a few weeks, but it was not working at all. Thankfully, I can fall back on running. My colleague got me a spot in the Chi-town marathon and it was just what I needed. The simplicity of the running training is so captivating... It just felt right. I started training in early July.

Of course, life interferes. Injuries crept up out of nowhere. Bumped the left knee accidentally, pulled the right right hammy playing ball with my pointer dog... stuff like this just kept coming up. Nonetheless, I put in about 14 weeks of good to great training, averaging about 45 miles per week. No week had more than 55 miles in it. I focused on easy mileage to help with the injuries, but every other week I'd throw in a bit of tempo running. The longest run logged was about 18 miles.

All in all. I felt ready.

Pre-race

Got into Chicago on Friday night. It was pissing rain with thunderstorms when we were landing. I had to walk to the hotel from the train station in a pitch dark humid wall of sparse water. Felt very ritualistic. Got to the hotel, has a simple dinner with a sandwich and some salad and a glass of beer.

Got to the room, and feel asleep very quickly.

Got up the next morning at around 8am local time, had some coffee and went for a run. Rosemont does not have a ton of exciting options in terms of running routes,  but I used the opportunity to discover the places to grab some food and just get some basics. I brought my Hoka Claytons with me and since they are about 1/2 size too small, I was worried about the effects of humidity... but the feet felt good. Neither the left knee or the right hammy bugged me.

I got to the hotel, changed, showered, ate some breakfast and headed to the Expo. The ride was pretty simple, although the connection to the other line was as confusing as they come (many tunnels to walk through, lots of escalators/etc). I met a fellow out of town runner on the train who was also trying to get to the expo from my station... he was going for the top 20 in his M60-64 age group. We got to the expo while chatting about the strategies for tomorrow and then went our separate ways.

The expo was very well organized, and I got my bib in no time. The only odd thing was the goodie bag station located in the back of the hall. That forced you to walk through the vendor village twice - which I guess worked, since I bought a pair of Vaporflys at the Nike's area.

Sampled some gels, skipped the beer bus, also grabbed some BioFreeze samples and headed out. Was back in Rosemont by noon. When I got off the train, the drizzle was back on and it sure did not look like it was going to end any time soon. I stopped by the 7-Eleven, grabbed some peanut butter/bread/Gatorade/bananas and on the way back got some Chicken Parm sandwich from a local restaurant. Stayed in the room the rest of the day, stretched and watched college football. Got a call from the team I was on at around 7:30pm - the lady told me that I had forgotten to pick up my hospitality tent pass at the expo. I was totally dumbfounded as I thought that the sticker on bib would work as a pass but I guess I was wrong. I told her that I would pick it up on the way to the starting line from a hotel near the Grant Park. Was in bed by 9pm, but hardly slept.

The Race Morning

Got up at 4am and had coffee and 2 slices of bread with peanut butter and bananas. Headed out at 5am to get on the 5:15 train. The platform was pretty tightly packed with the other runners and their entourage. It was still drizzling and the air was fairly cold with high humidity. The train ride went quick, although I kind of struggled to stay warm. Got off at Jackson with the rest of the runners who by that time had packed the train. It was raining a bit harder in the downtown area and the wind was pretty strong too. Got to the Congress entrance to the park at 6:20am and at that point decided not to risk it and skipped the pass pickup.

Got through the security checkpoints, dropped off my gear bag, hit the portapotties a couple of times. By that time it was 6:55am and I had realized that I was not at the right wave entrance - I was located by the wave G entrance and yet had to get to the wave B. That turned out to be a fairly difficult task as one had to cross a narrow passage that separated the wave D and E corrals to get to the A/B entrance which was off to the side. I did not get there until 7:15am which was 5 minutes prior to the cutoff time. Phew.

The corral space was pretty packed. I positioned myself a bit to the side, and stretched a little more. Finished my Gatorade, sneaked a quick pee into the bottle, disposed of my throwaway hoodie, applied the last layer of Vaseline to the chest and the privates... and we were off to the races.

The Run itself

The goal was basically to run by feel with the general target of anywhere between 3:00 and 3:15. The pace out of the gate was roughly in the 6:55 min/mileish range, which was a little bit too fast for my fitness level but I decided to give it a whirl and see how I'd feel after 10 miles. The first 2-3 miles were basically all through the downtown area with the tall buildings messing with the GPS signal. I was hitting the lap button every time I'd cross the mile marker. The drizzle was on and off but the air was pretty warm, so running in a singlet was not an issue at all.

One thing about this course was the crazy number of turns one has to make. Thankfully the organizers painted a consistent blue line that was a huge help with taking the right tangents. I mostly followed it to the finish line and managed to clock about 26.3 miles which is a really really good result.

We headed out over the bridge and then descended into some sort of a subterranean garage/road, running through a tunnel for a little bit. Then we re-entered the world of the living again! The  next 4 miles or so were all through the downtown area, pretty tightly packed with the crowds doing the LOUD cheering. By mile 5 we were in Lincoln Park and running through the faithful imitations of the great London parks. The drizzle turned into rain and crowds have thinned out quite a bit. What was bugging me was the humidity. It was so high that my running headphones were swimming in the liquid in my earholes and either I would hear the music that sounded like it was coming from a pack of dolphins or at times it'd seem like it was being played through some severe wah wah pedal distortion. By the end of the run I could not hear anything and it was really messing with the running rhythm, so I turned the music off.

By mile 7 were running north along the shore and it was also pretty packed with supporters. Had my 1st gel and felt pretty good. I was trying to draft as much as possible since the wind had picked up considerably. Miles 10 and 11 were through what looked like a typical mid-Western town's business district stretching for blocks and blocks with little to see. I started to feel a little bit more fatigued and by mile 12 I got caught by the 3:05 pacer group. I ran with them for about a mile and then decided to give this one more go... and picked up the pace.

However, this turned out to be a bad move. I downed some more gel but the speed was slowly dropping. By mile 16 the 3:05 group reconnected with with me and I got dropped. Right then I knew that a 3:05 was not in cards that day. The rain would start and stop, and the scenery that we were moving through was pretty drab... just your typical non-descript suburbia. We ran along some freeway for a while and then turned into Chinatown - which was fun and had some nice decorations along the water stations, but also with  long stretches of totally gloomy streets... basically the butt end of the course.  Had 1 more gel but from the mile 23 I REALLY slowed down and was just hoping to come in under 3:10. Once we turned left on Indiana avenue, the surroundings got brighter and much more festive, with the crowds visible again and cheering loudly. I was focusing on the steady breathing and the miles started rolling by a bit quicker. Eventually we got to the last right turn of the course and cut back into the park - where we hit one real incline of the course (kind of a joke, but still). Hit the finish line... could not even sprint! The official finish time ended up being 3:08:28. The Garmin data is here.

Post run

Had to walk about 5 blocks until I got back to the entry point to the gear check. Got some grub, and a special 26.2 edition Goose Island IPA beer.


The finishers looked pretty rough, lots of people barely able to walk, someone would barf randomly here and there... the organizers had lots volunteers on hand to help, so things were moving smoothly. Got to my gear bag, changed, walked to the train station, got on the train... it was pretty painful, and the ride back seemed to take forever. The walk back to the hotel was not super pleasant either, but at least I moving a bit better... Got to the room, showered, headed out and grabbed some McDonalds and some beer from a liquor store, went back to the room... watched the NFL the rest of the day.

On the way the next day the airport was full of zombie-like runners, carrying all kinds of swag. I chatted with a few of them, commiserated and/or praised their results depending... all good. By the way, every bathroom at the O'Hare airport carries this sign 😀

The main takeaway from this race - do not go out fast. The course feels easy but with the landscape being so flat you can never cruise on a downhill - it is basically a track race. In a race like the Los Angeles marathon you can actually try to bank some time up front because the last 4 miles or so are downhill and you can cruise down while using the muscle groups that haven't been utilized all that much ie as fatigued. In Chicago you don't a chance to clear the lactic acid and the fatigue can get you if you exceed your fitness, with the wheels coming off suddenly. I'd like to go back and re-do this race one more time - with the right strategy, I can probably get closer to the 3:03 mark... have to do it right.

Ironman Santa Rosa 2018 recap

I signed up for IMSR 2018 after receiving an assurance from the wife that she'd be able to go there with me. Of course, then the circumstances changed and it became a solo trip. I had a place to stay in Santa Rosa with my friends Cynthia and Shawn, so I was all set.

The training spanned January through early May with a break for Oceanside 70.3 and a business trip that followed it. I changed up a couple of things this time around. I put a heavy emphasis on structured training 2x a week via Zwift's 12 week FTP builder program. I also bought a Vasa ERG system on the cheap over the winter break and started utilizing it for 3 sessions a week + 1 longer session in the pool. I really felt strong in the pool towards the beginning on May - I was able to do 10x100 yards at 1:30 and so on. The bike did not progress as well as hoped - I felt that I just did not push it hard enough. Still with a few peak weeks at 15 hours plus I was hopeful that this might get me closer to KQ.

Pre-race

I had to travel for work right after Oceanside, and so I trained very little that week. I got back into town, put a few 15 hour weeks, and after predictably got a head cold. I could not shake it off, so the week before the race was my downtime, save for a few minor workouts. As of Wednesday, my snottiness started to go away, but I still felt that my airways were not 100% clear even the morning of the race.

Got into town on Thursday afternoon. Stopped by the race venue, got my athlete bag and headed over to my friend's house. Got some "athlete's" food en-route - bread, peanut butter, bananas, cheese, turkey, mini-starbucks espresso cans, Gatorade, etc. Got my race bags sorted out, hung out with the hosts, went to bed early, slept some solid 9 hours...

Woke up and did my usual pre-check routine. Went for a short ride around Fulton Rd... not without some wild stuff happening. I picked Wood Rd as a rougher part of the course, and coming out of it - hit a gravel patch and almost skidded into the busy traffic on Fulton. Got home safe, but the wind and the roughness of the road was no joke. Made me worried enough about Saturday. The run was fine although it was getting pretty warm by the time I got back.

The nutrition plan for the bike was 2x bottles each with 3x servings of Infinit custom mix with 276 kcals per servings, 4x Clif shot gels on the frame, water at the aid stations, and a frozen mini-Coke can in the special needs bag. The run as always was going to Cola + water taken as needed. The rest of the day was spent shuttling the bike, dropping the run gear, hydrating, sweating the windy sunset... went to bed at 9:30pm, slept again like a baby.

Race day

Got up at 2:45am, had 2 slices of bread with peanut butter and syrup, a banana and a real cup of Cuban coffee (major crack if you ask me!). Grabbed my frozen drinks and headed out. Parked by 4am at the Macy's parking lot, and was on the shuttle by 4:10am.

I was at the T1 by 5am. It was still dark, but there was plenty of lights. Set up my bottles and my gels on the bike frame, proceeded to pump the tires... the rear tube exploded when I pushed the pump head down on it too hard. Replaced it with a spare latex tube I had with me, and was all set.

Headed down to the swim start at 6:15am and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to make my way to the right self seeding corral - unlike the last year's 70.3 where I was stuck with no hope of moving up. I lined up in the middle of the 1:10 swim group and waited for the start. Had another Clif shot gel with caffeine, sipped some Gatorade, onward into the battle!  The volunteers were letting 5 folks into the water at a time, so it took about 12 mins for me to start swimming.

Swim

The course consisted of 2 laps, with an exit and re-entry at the end of the 1st lap. Seemed like each lap was exactly the same as the the lap of the 70.3 last year. The water was quite warm this time around - to the point where I thought that I could have swam in a sleeveless suit.The first lap was totally unremarkable, although with lots of contact for some reason around the turn markers - the sighting was easy with the exception of the first few hundred yards that were directly into the sun. I was riding the feet the entire way so the effort was pretty minimal. We got back into the water and I continued to draft about half way into the 2nd lap until someone whacked me on the left foot and somehow dislodged the timing chip. I could feel the velcro strap dangling, so I had to stop, roll up the ankle sleeve, close the velcro the best I could in the water (it is awkward!) and continue the swim. It was a bit harder without anyone to draft off of and I had to do my own sighting. Came out of the water a bit winded probably due to the water being warm - swim time 01:20:02. GPX here.

T1

The organizers have laid a long rubberized carpet up the ramp this time around, so I ran up the hill with no problem - although it was as steep as it was last year. Took the wetsuit down to the waist and had the strippers pull it off under the bridge. The velcro strap was loose still, so I retightened it and proceeded to the changing tent. A quick change - helmet on, throwaway socks on, shoes on, wetsuit and goggles into the bag... I had a disposable riding vest I brought with me just in case it was going to be cold - I put it on initially but dropped it before the exit from T1 - it was already WARM. T1 time was 07:19

Bike

The course started with a fairly long descent into the Dry Creek area and generally followed the 70.3 course from last year for a while. Then it switched to the old Vineman course which took us to the Chalk Hill area. The road quality was ranging from ok to poor. The 128 stretch was very jarring, and the supposedly resurfaced Chalk Hill part had some truly dangerous potholes in the shaded areas. The first climb went ok, although the road was partially blocked by a truck that somehow got stuck there at the most inopportune time. I had to descend carefully with all the holes in the road surface. It just got worse after we passed Shiloh Road - the Mark West Station area was unbelievably bad and there I had the bottle holding my spare kit pop out. Luckily the rubber band area held up and only had to fish it out from the ditch. Later I have discovered that the plastic part of the bottle cage that holds the bottle secure came loose and got lost somewhere along the way. About 5 miles down the road on Eastside or Wohler I ran across the section that had a huge lip in it - which forced me into the opposite lane... had to do some Sagan level shit to avoid getting hit by an oncoming car.

Then it got hot and dry all a sudden and it was 10 miles to go to the next aid station... and I was running out of water. The stretch of Westside road had all the rollers in the world and I was just getting hotter and hotter... and so I think that that's where I cracked. Really made me regret using Giro Aerohead on that day - it is a hot helmet in conditions like this. I made it to the aid station on Kinley but I think that the race was over by then. It was the mile 56 or so and all I wanted and I dreamt of was the frozen Coke in my special needs bag. I made it there after climbing what would have been normally a piss ant sized hill... took in half of he can contents and suddenly my nose and my throat and my eyes were on fire and just blowing snot. Crazy stuff. The 2nd pass over the 128 was painful and I stopped looking at the power readings - in my mind I was no longer racing, I just wanted to get home. I made it over Chalk Hill again, it was a relief to climb out of the saddle for a bit, I knew it was going to make my run slower, but I could not care less at that point. I passed the lap marker on Shiloh and we turned towards Santa Rosa... and the wind suddenly picked up. I was getting blown all over the road, Laughlin Road which I have ridden a bunch in the past was suddenly this obstacle course of the blown up riders, Woolsey Road was even worse - I saw riders swerving all over the road... and the road quality was just abysmal in some spots.

Eventually I made it back into town, with the last 10 miles being a total blur. I was focused enough to get my feet out of the shoes before the finish line and do a decent sprint along the bike racks. Bike time was 6:01:08. GPX here.

T2

I got to the changing tent, all I had to do was get the helmet off, drop the bike socks and put the running socks/shoes on.  For a minute, I sat there thinking - what's the point? I am not racing anymore, why suffer? Then I talked myself into running 1 lap, to see how it feels... maybe the inspiration will come. I put on my running belt and a hat and headed out.  The T2 time was 04:50

Run

Basically - jogged the whole thing. Stopped by the porta potties twice. Walked most of the water stations after mile 14. Had Cola and water judiciously, even sampled the red Bull (yikes) every  now and then. My friend Cynthia saw me at mile 17, I hugged her and her kid, she told me to to push through this, that gave me a good moral boost, so I snapped out of it and did not just walk the last 5 miles.Ran the final 2 miles fairly hard to wrap this up - run time 3:52:23, for the total time of 11:25:42.  As an aside, the course looked a little short, perhaps about 0.5 miles off.  GPX here.

Post race

Got my medal, my hat, a space blanket... tried eating some grub but had no appetite whatsoever. Not
even for free beer or spicy Spanish food. Just nothing, total self negation, everything running on empty,
maybe that's just the way it was meant to be - the cleansing of the soul, of the mind.

Collected my gear, walked to the car, loaded everything in, the brain was not working, to the point of
not knowing how to pay for parking. Drove back to my hosts' place, showered, was treated to sushi,
beer and a fantastic conversation on the future of the human race... somewhere along the way I crashed
and did not wake up til the mid morning the next day. Still, dreams crushed once again. Til the
next time - of course.

Oceanside 70.3 2018 recap

I started structured training again during the first week of January of 2018. For this year, I wanted to focus on improving my swim as much as possible and raising my bike FTP to be as close to 4w/kg as possible. For the swim portion, I found a used Vasa ERG on Craigslist and bought it for cheap, despite the grumbling of my dear wife. For the bike, I have decided to commit to Zwift’s 12 week FTP booster program and do at least 3 exercises weekly, coupled with a long ride at the end of the week. Running was to be capped at no more than 35 miles per week to make room for Vasa training and more stationary trainer work.

The Vasa stuff was a real struggle in the beginning. I simply did not have the right muscles to pull off 30-35 min intervals workouts when I started. It was genuinely hard. But once I got going, I started to appreciate the focus that it gives you and the incredible time savings that it provides. The Zwift training was much easier to get going with but eventually it got hard enough that I could do maybe 2 hard workouts per week – which meant that I had to supplement it with maybe 1 easy 1-hour spin and a long ride over the weekend.

In any case, once I started my fitness testing in the pool, I really liked the results. The improvement in swim times was noticeable. On the Zwift front, I also bested every single PR from the last 2 years, not by much – but by 3-4% easily across the board. The FTP test done in the beginning of the month did not show the improvement I was hoping for but I did hit 274w which was still a reasonable progress.

So with that in mind my goals for the race were to swim a 35-36 min pace, ride in 2:40 or so and then hold on for the dear life on the run, hoping for a sub 1:30 showing. That’d give me a sub 5 hour result that I was after, assuming that I’d not commit a horrible blunder in transitions. One thing that worried me greatly was the lack of familiarity with the bike course – the map showed a very varied rolling terrain with a couple of massive hills, and some exposure to head winds in the last 10-12 miles.  I spent a bit of time wondering if I should bring a cassette with a less tight of a range than my usual 11-25. At the end I decided to stick with what I knew.

I drove to Oceanside from Los Angeles on Friday morning. Got there at around 1pm, found a good parking spot near the beach and went to pick up my registration packet. After some confusion, got my parking permit for the race day, grabbed my swag and went back to the car. Put the stickers on the bike and the helmet, and pedaled about 0.8 miles to the transition area. Everything seemed to be working good. Checked the bike in with the handlebars covered by a plastic bag in case it rained… and walked to the water. The water was definitely a bit on the colder side, but like daggers cold.  The little kids on the beach were swimming in the surf, so it was probably not bad at all. I really regretted not brining the wetsuit to the beach with me – a short swim past the breakers would have been awesome. Oh well. Walked back to the car, and headed to the hotel in Carlsbad.

The traffic was just terrible! This was as vicious as any day time 5pm traffic on the 405. Took me 47 minutes to go 11 miles… craziness. Checked in the Hamptons, had to change rooms after realizing that the hotel staff put me into the room next to the ice machine and with a pool facing side wall. Prepped the clothes for the morning, watched TV, ate my rice and tuna dinner

and attempted sleeping at 9pm. Had trouble falling asleep, but eventually I dozed off only to be rudely awakened by the alarm clock at 3:30am. Ate a Clif bar, a banana, about 2 handfuls of mixed raw cashews and almonds and a small can of Starbucks double espresso shot. That felt good, although I was not 100% awake. Hit the can, lubed up, put on my bike clothes and headed out.

I debated back and forth the time I needed to be parked by… but having been unfamiliar with the parking situation I opted for caution and got there by 5am. Got on the shuttle almost immediately although I could have just walked that 0.6 miles. Was at the T1 by 5:15am. It was dark but fairly warm. The transition was starting to fill up slowly… that pre-race nervous energy was very evident. That’s the time to feel alive! Pumped the tires to about 90 psi, had another Clif bar, more lube and sunscreen, put on my wetsuit, dropped off the morning clothes bag, went for a warm up jog… by the time I got done it was 6:20pm and I had to push my way to the 35 min swim group.  It was packed!  By the time I got there the pros had already gone off and the age groupers in the faster groups have started swimming as well.

Had a final caffeine packed GU gel and was in the water by 7:10am. The swim was a little congested in the beginning, lots of contact, but it was pretty orderly all thing considered. I got out of the harbor quite fast and the sun was just blasting me into my eyes…. There were so many people swimming in that confined space that I had no use for sighting at all – the feet to follow were everywhere. I got to the turn around and felt so fresh that I actually did not start kicking until around the 0.6 mile marker. The swim was basically into the sun, so breathing was to the right only which was fine – once inside the harbor I wanted to swim as far to the right as the life guards would allow me. It was actually great – zero contact, and super easy to sight off of. Soon enough the finish chute appeared, and I swam up to the timing mat! The watch was showing about 36:30 which was ok by me. I got out of the water and started running into T1. The heart rate was totally manageable.

I pulled my wetsuit down to my waist, but then I saw the strippers! Boom – my wetsuit got pulled off and I was on my way to my bike! Fantastic! Everything was going awesome – found my bike, put on my helmet, socks and shoes and started running towards the starting line. Then I have heard the announcer stating that the bib number has to be on to ride through Camp Pendleton as I was half way out…. I had to leave my bike with a volunteer in the transition, run back to my spot… for some reason finding my way back was very confusing – it took me at least a minute to find my spot, get my racing belt… another 30 seconds to put it on, make sure it is not twisted, find my bike… 2 minutes lost there. I was kicking myself for not paying attention to the athlete guide. Dumb move, Shterenberg!

Started riding and was feeling good again. The nutrition consisted primarily of 3 servings of Infinit custom mix, and I had 2 Clif shot gels taped to the frame just to break things up a bit. I’d take a big swig from the bottle every 15 minutes and chase it with water 2x in between intakes of Infinit. The riding space was tight, people were forced to ride 3-4 wide, saw a crash maybe a mile or so out with a girl on the ground. The road surface quality was rough. I thought that maybe the right pressure should have been 85 psi or so. In any case, the first 20 miles or so were pretty great – riding along the coast, seeing the nuclear power plant up close, cool breezes making the riding so effortless. Once we turned east towards the inland portion of Camp Pendleton, the weather started to change. It was a lot more arid, the wind got warm, the desert scenery had a lot less green to it. And then I saw the infamous San Mateo hill.

It was a really imposing climb as the grade was steep - I had to mash most of the way up. Saw some dude walk his bike up that hill. It was thankfully pretty short but it definitely took a good size bite out of me. The ride down was pretty short, and soon enough we started to climb what looked like a long false flat with periodic rollers.  I was not having a great ride by that time – I was climbing out of the saddle on the short rollers, had a close call with some guy trying to pass me on the right… we climbed the second big hill, which was actually not big at all and then the descent started in earnest. We went through the speed control section which was not well marked at all – I was lucky that the girl in front of me was riding her brakes pretty hard and just followed her lead. We climbed one more hill which was a bit longer but not as steep as the second hill, and then with about 14 miles to go it was time to ride the flats.

I really had trouble putting out much power until we got out of the open space and got to something that looked like civilian housing. The rest of the ride was pretty unremarkable, but generally I felt kind of blown up. I was still racing, but it was clear to me that the sub 5 hour goal was no longer possible. I finished the ride as quickly as I could – perhaps lost 10-15 seconds once we got to the beach when I was riding with my feet on top of my shoes – I did not realize that the single file section at the end was THAT long. Got off the bike, dropped my socks somewhere while I was running back to my spot, changed into the clean socks, my Claytons and my hat and was off to the run course.

The running pace was pretty good out of the gate and I was passing people left and right. The course had some steep on and off ramps right around the pier area, and some rollers off the strand. The pier inclines were almost too steep to run so I half walked them. I was maintaining a very good 6:40-ish pace through mile 5 when we turned around and the wheels started to come off a bit. I was still running pretty good, all the way to the 2^nd turnaround. I’d take a Coke and some water every station and dump some water on my head as it was getting a little hot. I was feeling a little bloated but not too bad.. once I started the 2^nd lap I knew that I am going to run strong the rest of the way, but I was feeling a bit more worked than I had hoped. Started sampling Red Bull at around mile 11, it was pretty tasty but was really jacking me up in a bad way. Many thanks to the dude who was blasting AC/DC from a loud speaker on the way back – it was like an anthem… pushed me through the last mile or so. I kicked a bit harder in the last 0.5 miles on the Strand, brought it home but was feeling flat. I was just spent.

Had a one and half mini-burrito with some cheese cubes, a banana and a Pepsi for my post race meal, chatted with a couple people next to me, grabbed my clothes, changed… caught a shuttle back to the transition, grabbed my bike and headed to the car. That ride was too pathetic to capture in my Garmin. Got to the car, packed everything and headed home…. The 2.5 hour drive home was perhaps the last obstacle that the race threw at me. The traffic was just gnarly and relentless.

What are my take from this race? The swim went just as planned, the bike was a shitshow, and the run was good, but probably could have been faster had I not burnt all those matches on the bike. I am going to take a week off to recover and then will have 4 weeks til my date with the Ironman Santa Rosa in May… some introspection and perhaps some rejiggering of the crankset and/or the cassette might be in order. Stay tuned.

The splits are here - swim, bike and run.

NYC Marathon 2017 recap

I signed up for the NY marathon as a last minute decision. I was looking for the season closing race in 2017, but could not talk myself into doing another IM. The body felt beat up, I had trouble sleeping, was constantly stressed, was probably drinking more than I should I have... all in all, another round of IM training would have been too much at this point. But a marathon seemed manageable, and when my contact at the sponsor company of the marathon offered me a spot, I could not say no. 

So as I was finishing up the training for the Malibu Olympic distance race, I started to slowly ramp up my running mileage.I spent about 8 weeks training fairly consistently, and hit a couple of 50+ mile weeks, but did nothing really earth shattering in terms of the training volume. On the year I averaged 36 miles per week, and I was hoping that would be a good enough foundation for a solid year ending marathon run. I really wanted to improve on my time in the 2014 NYC marathon where I had a really crappy 8 mile stretch at the end of the race. I knew that with the constant rollers and tall bridge crossings, the 5 boroughs course will require strength and consistent pacing. I cut down on the quality runs a bit and concentrated on running daily, sometimes doubling up on a day to get used to running on tired legs. All in all, I think that the training went well, even though I had to reduce the volume in the week before the race, as I was feeling too much fatigue. I did 3 18 mile runs, one of them was done with a 4 mile closing stretch at the race pace at about 7:20 min/mile. I also ran a 1:25 half marathon (albeit on a very flat course) about a month before the race, which was encouraging but not really indicative of my potential time. It gave me hope, but in the absence of the longer training stretch I had to be careful with having too ambitious of a goal.

Got to NY on a Wednesday night, had a dinner with a co-worker who also traveled with me, checked into the hotel and fell asleep right away. Woke up at 7 am local time to what sounded like an animal stampede in the hallway. Dressed up and went outside and to my amusement there were a couple of dozen of Italian runners gathered outside of the hotel door. There were staying on my floor I guess - and they were all out to pre-run the course. Went for a run towards the Central Park, with the intent to make it about 6 miles in total... it was still a bit dark, lots of folks running, clearly in town for the race. By the time I got back to the hotel it was bright outside and very, very warm. In the evening I went to the convention center and picked up my packet. Walked back to the hotel and was pretty tired from all the running and walking during the day. Had to go for another dinner close by, and by the time I got back I had logged close to 20k steps on the day.

The next morning I did the same routine but kept the run down to about 3 miles, at a very easy pace. Limited walking to a trek to the office and back, had a quiet night by myself, went to bed at 9:30 pm - and woke up rested. Checked the forecast fr Sunday and it was showing the mid 50s to low 60s with rain and a bit of the wind throughout the day. I needed some warm clothes for the starting line - I had a couple of spare shifts that I could just change out of before the run, but no bottoms to keep the legs warm. Walked to a TJ Maxx nearby and bought some pajama pants that were on clearance for $9 and a cotton shirt for $5. Spent most of the day in bed, watching college football and went for an pasta dinner in a nearby Italian joint. Had a strangely intense conversation with some woman at a bar who was drinking fairly heavily (her $50 bill was made up of mostly red wine by glass) about the pros and cons of prolonging someone's life through tube feeding and so on. She mentioned working as a surgeon in a Brooklyn hospital but she might have been a bit drunk and exaggerated somewhat. Nonetheless I had a very tasty pasta with meat sauce with a glass of table wine, and afterwards went back to the hotel feeling quite ready.

Woke up the next morning, had 2 slices of bread with almond butter and marmalade, a cup of coffee, got dressed and headed out. Yes, I looked dorky.

The Europeans were already crowding in the lobby, all looking grumpy for some reason... walked to the Essex House hotel on the 58th to get on the sponsor's bus. Was seated fairly quickly and we were moving by 6 am. Have to say that the ride to Staten Island is one of my favorite parts of the race experience. Seeing New York early in the morning, the streets mostly empty except for the runners and their entourage getting on the race buses is quite a difference experience from the usual crazy hustle of the daily life in the city.We had a fairly smooth ride all the way to the Staten Island where we ran into the race day traffic and were moving at a glacial speed until one of the traffic cops cleared the road for us. I had a Clif bar right before we pulled into the terminal, and got ready to exit the bus. The weather outside was very, very autumn-like. Low clouds, a bit windy, with a tiny drizzle and the temps at about 53 degrees... we had to go through a massive security theater at the entrance with the metal detector gates, bag "checks", lots of cops of every imaginable unit clocking easy time and even the army units present in a full combat gear.I made it to the sponsor's tent, had a coffee and bagel and went outside to get a bit more used to the climate. It was wet and chilly, and I was worried that we would get drenched before the race even begins. After some more thinking I put on removable sleeves, grabbed my gels, Gatorade and one more Clif bar, and dropped my bag with the UPS track. I had to think for a second about potentially bringing with me a spare pair of running socks wrapped in a plastic bag... but the rain did not seem that bad. So I left them in the bag to change into them later. It was time to go to the Blue village for the start of my Wave 2. 

Made it there too early, and just sat on the ground for a bit in my Corral A. At around 9:40 am I went to a porta potty... and by the time I got out, the organizers had removed the ropes separating the corrals. I was suddenly in the middle of the 3:30 pace group probably in Corral D or maybe even further in the back. I tried to make my way to the front corral again, but no dice - I was facing a human wall made out of stressed and angry runners. As I was realizing that I was stuck, I took a deep breath and decided to relax and enjoy the experience... hopefully I'd make it through the crowds and get to run my pace. I was suddenly in a good place, rested and ready for a great run through the Big Apple. Had 3 Clif shot gels, 1 super caffeinated GU gel and 8 salt stick tabs in a baggie. Bring it!

The gun went off at 10:15 and the human stampede across the Verrazano-Narrows bridge has began. I was highly amused by the folks taking their selfies in all sorts of bizarre spots, like on the divider row, while running with the back turned, even attempting mini group selfies while all trying to run at the same pace... saw some dude drop his iPhone on the ground shuttering it into 2 halves. Good times. Human vanity is the true movers of the economy. In any case, there was not a ton of room to maneuver here, so I ran at whatever pace the crowd would let me without doing too much twisting and turning. The first mile was predictably slow, but then we starting going down the bridge, and the speed picked up. The next couple of miles through Brooklyn along the 4th Ave were fast fast fast and eventually I caught up with the 3:25 group. I started to feel really hot in the sleeves and dropped them soon after. Bye old friends - you served me well!

The problem was that there was just not a ton of space to run around people in. I kept passing folks who looked like they were running in the 10 min/mile range, and they were all bunched up together, clearly running as a group. Knowing from the past that doing too much running around the people will eventually cost me, I tried to keep it down to the minimum. And there odd bits like having a full camera crew on the motorcycles filming some human interest story about (I am assuming) the folks using the hand cycles and so on. But for most part I could find space and was keeping a steady pace. 

By the time we got to mile 9 I was averaging about 7:14 min/mile and that pace felt about right. The heart rate was mostly around 158 bpm and it felt comfortable. The drizzle started back up about an hour into the run. It was falling steadily, never quite turning into a full on rain, but kind of just slowly drenching everyone. On the upside, I stopped drinking water and would just take Gatorade every other station. Saw an open porta potty at around mile 10, darted into it, the piping was a bit frozen up so the pee took about a minute. Started running again, and eventually the pace was about 7:16 min/mile right. Both Pulaski and the Queensboro bridges were completely packed with very little room for maneuvering. We passed the halfway marker between those bridges and the time was 1:35:39 - so I was looking at something along the line of a 3:10-3:15 finish depending on how the rest of the run would go. Had the first Clif gel at that point.

That stretch on Queensboro broke me last time, as I was probably climbing too hard and then ran down too fast too. This time I made sure to keep it a steady effort, without jacking up the heart rate into the zone 5 range. The bridge is pretty dark and dank inside, although it looks absolutely majestic from the outside. It kept echoing with hundreds of feet pounding on the surface. I came off the bridge and was feeling very pumped. I knew that I was going to finish the run strong that day. And was really looking forward to running the 1st Ave - it is always the craziest stretch!

We ran north through Manhattan, crossed the Willis Ave bridge and then trekked into Bronx for about 2 miles. As everyone would tell you, it is the least exciting part of the run from the scenic view perspective. Drab streets, project buildings and a general feeling of this lingering industrial misery - that's pretty much what you see there. But soon enough you get back into Manhattan via Madison Ave and by then you are either doing a death march on the 5th Ave or are out to bring it for the final stretch. I was feeling good, had another Clif gel, but something inside of me was beginning to ache a bit. I also started to get a little bit of a twinge in the right hammy from probably not taking enough electrolytes. Had to pop a salt tab and started taking Gatorade at every water station without exception. The twinge went away. But I sure was seeing a lot folks working through massive cramps, and more or less run-walking those last 4-5 miles.The last few miles of the race along the 5th Ave are either a steady climb, or rollers that hurt. My pace was good and steady but I definitely felt that I lost 45-70 seconds along that stretch, as I had to respect the HR - was pretty sure that I push it I might cramp up pretty severely. This was taken at mile 24.

The rain stopped for a bit, but then started back up again...   feet were dry, but my top and shorts were all drenched. The average pace was dropping, and it was around 7:20 min/mile. With all the running around people I was looking to ending up running about 0.2 mile extra, which would have cost about 85 seconds extra, and with that it looked like it was going to be a 3:13-ish finish time. Indeed, that's what ended up happening - I finished with the time of 3:13:40.

Made my way to the tent of the sponsor, got my bag and rain poncho, put on calf sleeves and started walking towards the exit. I was absolutely drenched, shivering cold and just wanted to make it back to the hotel as soon as possible to get a hot shower. The walk was not bad save for the super congested stretch near the Columbus circle mall. Got back, showered and went out with a couple of friends to enjoy a burger and some brews! Should I even say that they hit the spot?

Final thoughts. It seems like the elites were about 3 min slower  compared to 2016, so perhaps I can be excused for missing my goal by 3 mins. I love this race, but being in the second wave majorly sucks. My whole race up until the last turn to the finish line was spent running around people. I ran up full 0.2 miles extra on top of the 26.2 and oftentimes there was just no way to run clean tangents. The first 3 bridges were jam packed and it certainly cost me anywhere between 60 an 90 seconds. Most importantly - I get that the organizers want to make it a special race for a lot of people but seeding massive European club teams way above their running ability turns this into a video game for the 2nd wave folks. If you are thinking of doing this race for a BQ - I'd find another course where you can have an open road. But then again - where else will you have this kind of crowd support?

My splits can be found here and my Garmin file is there - now I am going to go work on my breakfast.

Long Beach half marathon 2017 recap

I had nothing on the schedule between Nautica in mid September and the NYC marathon in early November, so I started to get antsy.  I felt like I need a teaser race to get a sense of my fitness to help decide on the realistic goals for the NYC. The Long Beach half was convenient, a bit on the pricey side, but quite a few of my fellow athletes were running it, so I signed up. Took it easy in the days leading to the race and skipped the tempo run that week. But still the legs were not feeling super fresh, but that's just how it goes - can't really taper for a half marathon.

Woke up at 4am on Sunday, had 2 slices of bread with some peanut butter and banana slices, a cup of coffee and headed out. The drive was quick and the traffic in the area was light. I like to park about a mile away and then walk down, and usually the parking is easy to find... this time it was a real hassle. I ended up parking about 1.2 miles, in a pretty run down area. But on the flip side, a walk at an easy pace woke my legs up and by the time I made it to the starting line area I was fully awake and was feeling like running some fast miles.

By the time I made it to the Aquarium area, the bike tour was starting. A fairly long line of cyclists blocked the street crossing, and I had to wait for them to trickle out to the course. Once I crossed I saw my friend Joanne who was also picking up her bib in the morning. We chatted for a bit and then I wen to the gear drop off area to change into my running gear.

We also had a Boston line up reunion which was super cool! Have not seen Alan in a very long time.

I really had no strategy at all for this race, no goals, just wanted to go out and run fast. And I did just that. The first 3 miles I simply ran at the pace that felt very fast. The heart rate was high, Z5 pretty much all the way, so I knew that soon enough I'd have to throttle back a bit. By the time we crossed back to Ocean blvd I started slowing down and holding a steady 6:40ish pace. That felt comfortable and I knew that it was a safe pace to hold for 7-8 more miles.

I was still not that far from the second leading pack, and I was still hoping that once we get to the beach path I'd be able to work my way back into the pack if the wind was favorable. But unfortunately the wind was the exact opposite, and me running solo proved to be a huge detriment. They gapped me up quickly and by the time we made it to Belmont Shores I was easily 3-4 minutes behind. Oh yeah, I passed some odd looking slower marathon runners, including some dude wearing a Pikachu costume. Here's him checking out my ass.

Now with 3 miles to go I simply wanted to bring it home without being overtaken by my buddies. With the wind in my back from mile 10 onward, the run pace felt a bit easier although the heart rate was still way too high to be able to squeeze any real gains. 175bpm is only like 8 beats away from my max heart rate so I had to be judicious about trying to gain a few seconds here and there. Also, by the time I got to mile 11 I was absolutely soaking wet from the humidity of Long Beach, and was also weighing me down - I can do heat and cold, but humidity is my kryptonite.

Anyhow, soon enough I was turning left towards the finish chute. Was quite happy to cross it with the time around 1:25:10, and my fastest 10k/10mile/13.1 mile effort to date. My buddy Kevin finished about a minute behind, but I am sure that he was controlling his pace since he is training for a real goal (ie a sub 3 at the California Intl course in December). I hung out with him for a bit, but soon had to make my way back to the car to get home to take care of some stuff. I did stop by a tiny little cash only breakfast place run to get some omelet and bacon with toast or else my body was threatening a hard crash.

Overall I thought that the race was a success. I could have probably gone under 1:25 had I been executing on some specific race plan, but I really just wanted to go by a feel and just blast it out without any regard for the strategy. The end result gave me some confidence towards trying to go 3:12 or so in NY in November, but I'll have to recalibrate depending on the race day conditions. Until then...