BFAS Triathlon Race Report

My new wheels!

After several months of putting up with frequent flat tires, and being perplexed on why it kept happening, I finally took the plunge and upgraded to a new wheelset.  I found a great price on Amazon for a set of Easton EA50 wheels, and they arrived in time for race day!

The BFAS Triathlon series is where Matt and I got bit by the tri-bug.  This was the first triathlon we ever did, back in 2010 and we’ve been hooked since.  They offer three races a year (plus a duathlon, which I participated in earlier this year) and it really a fun and well run event.  My personal best was the second race of last year, where I completed it in 1:16.  For this race, my goal was to get under 1:15 and be in the top half of my age group.

We arrive to the race site bright and early, we are old hat at this by now, and proceed to check in and get body marked.  We set up our bikes in transition area, and then headed out to the beach for the quarter mile ocean swim.  The ocean was pretty rough that morning, and there was a strong current as well.  Matt and I swam out for a warm-up and we both came in and commented on how rough it was.  It appeared we had a difficult swim ahead of us.

Artist rendition of what the swim looked like

We all lined up and waited for the opening horn to send us off.  And we waited, and waited and waited.  Having done this race a few times, I knew something was up, as they are usually very good at starting everything on time, and I suspected they were considering cancelling the swim.  Finally after several minutes, my suspicions were confirmed as the race director pulled everyone over and explained that the swim portion was going to be cancelled and replaced with a short (about a half mile) run on the beach.  No one really complained, and I suspect many were relieved. 

So they line us up on the beach, sounded the horn and we were off!  Since this run wasn’t really planned, the beach run wasn’t actually measured, but it was approximately just short of a half mile.  I hit the timing mat at 2:32 and began the 100 or so yard trek to the bike transition area.  I ran my bike out of transition, mounted and was on my way.  The bike course is 13.1 miles, and my personal best on this course is 35:46.  As this is a sprint triathlon, you don’t have to worry too much about pacing and saving yourself for the run.  And though I may not have gone 100% (there is still a run), I was going at least 95%.  I felt good the whole way and completed the course in 35:13, knocking over 30 seconds from my personal best.   I racked my bike, put on my running shoes, and headed out to the 5k course.

Running has always been my weakest discipline of the three, but it is the one I have been working the most on.  My previous record on this course was 26:55 (my GPS consistently measures this course a bit long, about 3.2 as opposed to 3.1) and I could tell right away, that I would best that easily.  I ran the first mile just under 8 minutes, and ran each mile faster than the previous.  I crossed the finish line with a run time of 24:26, easily smashing my old record.  My overall time ended up at 1:06:28 and I finished 6^th out of 15 in my age group.  Since they cancelled the swim, I can’t really compare that time to previous times, or my goal time. But since I have done this race several times, I know I usually swim the course in about 8-9 minutes.  I completed the first run in 2:32, so if I had 6.5 minutes to my overall time, that still puts me at 1:13ish, which is easily a personal record for me, and well under my goal time.  Couple that with the 6^th out of 15 finish, and I’m easily very pleased with my race results.  I’m especially pleased with the progress I’ve made in my running.  I still nowhere near as fast as Matt, but I’m at least making progress.

Speaking of my brother Matt, he also had a very successful race.  He finished 4^th overall (just missed a top three finish by 45 seconds), and was the champion of our age group.  He is really getting pretty fast and I think he has an excellent chance of finishing top 3, and maybe even winning our Ironman race in Orlando

Week 1 Summary

Week 1 is in the books, and all ready we’ve ran into some diversity.  Nothing real serious mind you, just some technical difficulties with my bike.  After fixing my flat tire from the St. Anthony’s race, I promptly flatted again immediately on my next ride.  I took the tire to my local bike shop to have them look at it, figuring that maybe something more serious is wrong with it.  They changed the tire and said they didn’t see any problems.  I put the tire back on, but then I started a session on my rollers, and the tire popped again in like 10 minutes.  Now this was especially concerning, as I’ve never flatted on my rollers before, and I’m not really sure how that could even happen.  So I took it back to the bike shop and they looked it over again.  Again they found nothing (though they didn’t charge me this time), and they fixed the flat.  I picked it up on Friday, just in time for our trip to Daytona Beach.  Sunday I intended to ride from Daytona back to Jacksonville.  I started my trip, but then 15 miles in my rear wheel flatted.  At least this was a different wheel, so it appears that the front tire is working.  Anyway, I didn’t have a change kit with me, so my wife picked me up, and I rode back home with the family.

As a result of all my tire problems, I was not able to get anywhere near as much bike time as I had planned.  The rest of the week, however, actually went very well.  Below is my summary for the week:

Monday

Swim: 2000 yd TT (37 minutes);  That’s slower then I want to be.  We’ll do this test every 4 weeks, and my goal will be to get it to 30 minutes before the race

Run: 3 mi short run (9:12 pace);  I felt really good on this run. I kept an even pace and no real fatigue set in

Tuesday

Swim: 1000 yd swim (17:45) just a nice consistent swim, still need to bring the time down, but I wasn’t really trying to push hard here

Run: 3.25 mi short run (9:12 pace); This was done on the treadmill after my swim.  Again, I felt good, pretty similar to yesterday’s run

Wednesday

Swim: 2400 yds; mostly 50 and 100 yard intervals, with the primary focus on stroke rate.  There was also some 200 and 300 yard swims in between sets

Run: 6 mi medium run (9:26 pace); Started off strong and felt good.  The last two miles, or so, I started to fatigue a bit.  Pace/Hr was 7.7%, and that needs to be under 5%.  It’s better than it’s been, but I still have some work to do.

Thursday

Run: 3 mi short run (8:59 pace);  Felt stronger on this run then any of the others so far

Friday

Swim:  3000 yds mostly 500 yd intervals

Run: 6 mi medium run (8:58 pace);  Easily my best run of the week.  I felt great the whole time.  I negative split the run (second half faster than the first half) and my Pace/HR was 3.2%.  This was a real encouraging workout!

Saturday

Run: 9 mi long run (9:47 pace); Started out pretty good, but I could tell my legs were a little tired from last night’s run. (there was less than a 12 hour turnaround between runs)  I did the whole run on the beach, which was pretty cool, but it was also very windy.  Apparently I had the tailwind on the way out, which gave me a pretty stiff headwind on the way back home.  I’ve never had the wind bother me on runs, but when I made the turn around I went from holding a 9:25 pace to barely a 10:00 pace.  The last couple miles were rough.

Sunday

Bike: 14.5 miles/ 45 minutes; This was my aborted long ride.  Not much to say, as I didn’t ride long enough to really get much info.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 8.1 kms/2:59

Run:  30.25 miles/4:42

Bike: 14.4 miles/0:45

Total workout time: 8:28

Other than the bike, it was a good week for me.  The bike is easily my strongest discipline of the three, so I’m not too worried about missing out on it this week.  I got some really good work done on my run and swim, and as long as the bike doesn’t turn into a long term issue, I should be ok.

Goals for Week 2:

Swim: 8 kms

Run: 30 miles

Bike: 5.5 hours

We also have a race this Saturday, the BFAST Sprint Triathlon.  I’ll post a race preview later this week.

The Journey Begins!

They say, “A journey of 1000 miles, begins with one step.”  Well, on Monday, our Ironman journey began with a 2000 yd swim.   And so it begins, the road to Ironman, and 24 weeks of disciplined and progressively increased training.

Our training will be broken up into six 4-week training blocks, with a swim test and a bike test done at the end of each.  (we will not be doing much in the way of run testing, as our run focus will be more about just increasing our weekly mileage)  The first 12 weeks (3 blocks) are considered “base training,” as the focus will be mostly about building endurance.  The majority of our efforts during this time period will be at lower intensities, allowing us to gradually increase the mileage we are able to swim, bike and run.  The final 12 weeks (3 blocks) are known as “the build,” and our focus changes from increasing our mileage, to getting faster at our current distances. 

Our first 4 week block began this week, and my goals for week 1 are as follows

Swim: 8 kms

Bike: 5.5 hours

Run: 30 miles

(included in these are a 2000 yd swim time-trial test and a bike threshold test)

Bike goals are in hours, instead of miles, as I will be doing a decent portion of my bike training indoors, on my rollers.  Since this does not lend itself to mileage (at least not real accurately), time spent biking is a better indicator of work done on the bike.

My schedule calls for me to run Monday – Saturday, swim M-W-F, and Bike T-W-Th-Sun.  Saturday is the long run, and Sunday is the long ride.  This week’s long run will be 9 miles, and my long ride will be 50-60 miles.

At this point it’s hard for me to have very specific time goals for this race, as I’ve never done anything close to this distance.  So, I really only have a guess as to how fast I could do it now, and another guess on how much improvement I should expect over the next 24 weeks.  As such, I have set a “loose” goal of trying to break 11 hours.  Breaking 11 hours will give me a really good chance of being top 5 in my age-group, and thus earning a spot on the podium. I really have no idea how realistic that is, but it is at least a starting point.  As we get into the season, my training and testing will give me a better idea of what kind of times I’m capable of.  We are also doing a ½ Ironman 3 weeks before the full Ironman, and that race will give us the best estimate of what time to expect in Orlando.

At this point, I’m excited about the journey ahead.  The trick will be maintaining that focus and enthusiasm during the tough training days ahead.  Consistency will be the key.  If I listen to my body, and stick with my plan, I will arrive in Orlando, on race day, in peak condition and ready to put forth a great race.

Transition Week Continued

The rest of my transition week workouts are as follows:

Friday:

4 mi run (9:28 min/mile);   A nice easy short run.  I felt good for the most part, though I’m still getting a little too fatigued toward the end, as evidenced by looking at my Pace/HR ratio. 

I was not able to get to the pool today.  The AC in our house went out yesterday, so I had to wait at home today until the repairman came.   The AC is now fixed, but the repairman didn’t leave to after 1:00pm, and the Kid Zone at the Y closes @ 1:30 on Fridays and is not open on Friday afternoons.

Saturday:

8 mi long run (9:56 pace);  I started off feeling pretty good (that’s pretty much been the theme for this week), but my pace really dragged off the last three miles.  My pace/HR ratio changed 13% from 1^st half to 2^nd half of the run.  That really needs to be below 5%.  I’m obviously not where I need to be, from a running standpoint, at least not based off this week’s runs.  Luckily I have some time to correct this problem.

Week Totals:

Run: 25 miles/4:06:55

Bike: 0 miles/0:00:00

Swim: 1.1 kms/0:27:00

Total Time:  4:33:55

TSS for the week: 351.1

Transition Week

I’ve put the disappointment from last week behind me.  It sucked, but it’s just one race and now I need to focus on what’s ahead of me.  Of course, what’s ahead of me is a pretty big undertaking, a 140.3 mile race!  But specific training for the Ironman won’t start until next week.  This week is a transition week, where the only real goal is to maintain fitness until the start of the next training cycle.  (in this case just one week)  Specifically, all I really want to accomplish this week is to get 25 miles worth of running in, and to get in the pool a couple times.  I may get on the bike this weekend, but it is not a priority.  All my running is done at a endurance or conversational pace.  Once I get a couple blocks into my Ironman training, I’ll start running a little harder at the end of my long runs, but even then, the vast majority of my runs will be at a conversational pace.

So far this week, my training has looked like this:

Monday:

4 mile run (9:24 min/mile)

Normally I would take the Monday after a race off, but given that my race didn’t last too long, I figured I’d get a run in.  I felt good, didn’t push too hard, and kept a solid pace

Tuesday:

Off

Wednesday:

1200 yds in the pool, mostly working on stroke rate.

3 mi run immediately following the swim. (10:56 min/mi)

I felt really sluggish during both these workouts.  My swim times were slow, and my run was abysmal.  Not really sure what the cause was, I guess some days you just feel better than others.

Thursday:

6 mi run (9:49 min/mi)

Felt pretty good for most of the run, though I started to tire a bit at the end.  The last climb up the bridge was a chore, but I definitely felt better than yesterday.

I plan to get in the pool again tomorrow, and then follow that up with another short run.  On Saturday I’ll do my long run, and then Sunday I may get on the bike, I’ll see how I feel.

St. Anthony's Race Report

The Three Amigos! Jason, Matt (my brother) and I headed down to St. Petersburg, FL on Saturday morning for The St. Anthony's Triathlon on Sunday. Matt and I were going as competitors, while Jason was coming for emotional support (plus he really likes road trips).    Spirits were high, and we knew tomorrow was going to be a great day.

Matt and I before our swim start

We arrived in St. Pete  around 4:00 pm, and headed to the registration area.  Registration was incredibly smooth and we picked up our packets and goodies and moved on the bike check in.  We setup our bikes in their assigned spots and met back up with Jason to check into the hotel and get some dinner.   On a side note, my favorite part of the bike check-in was observing all the bikes and noticing how many of them are really high end.   It’s like I can put together a mental wish list for my next bike purchase.

Sunday morning we woke up before dawn, around 4:40 am, and proceeded to get ready.  Jason dropped us off at the race site at around 5:50 am, we got our body marking done, and then we finished setting up our transition area.  The race started at 6:50 am with the Male Pro’s, but Matt and I’s wave didn’t go off until 7:35 am, so we had some time to get warmed up.

150 swimmers (including Me and Matt)
start our race!

At 7:35 the horn for our wave goes off and we all start swimming.  There were about 140-150 in our starting wave and that makes for a tight pack at the start of the swim.  For about the first 200-300 yards I’m pretty sure I swam on top of a couple guys, had a couple guys swim on top of me, and I think at least one time, I had a swimmer on top and underneath me.  I was kicked a half dozen time, and had my legs grabbed at least one.  Matt still has a scratch mark on his neck.  After about 300 yds the pack thinned out, and I was able to settle into my stroke.  Overall my swim ended up being slow, but that was mostly due to my inability to site.  When you are swimming in open water, there is no line on the bottom to guide you, so you need to look up and site the buoys from time-to-time.  I was continually swimming wide and had to constantly readjust my course.  The swim course is 1.5 km but I bet I swam more like 1.8-1.9 km.  Anyway, my goal was to complete it in 31 minutes and it actually took me 36 minutes.  Even though the time wasn’t great, I still felt great getting out of the water, and had plenty of energy for the rest of the race.

I climbed out the water, hurried over into the transition area, located my bike, quickly put on my bike gear then headed out to the bike course.  Starting on the bike, I felt great.  I was passing a number of people and was easily holding a speed between 23 and 24 mph.  At this point I was feeling good about my race and really felt like I was going to beat my goal time.  Then, at about mile 4, I heard a “POP!” and then a “SWOOSH!” and I knew instantly what it was, and that it was me.  FLAT TIRE!!  I hit something with my front tire and it had gone flat.  At this point there is not much you can do, and my race was over.  I had never gotten a flat during a race before, and I can tell you it is a very frustrating feeling!

So, my race over, I walked back to the transition area, and watched for Matt so I could at least offer him some support.  Matt had a terrific race, finishing with a time of 2:21:16 placing him 35^th out of 290 in our age group.  But probably the most impressive thing about his race, was his 10k time.  After swimming for  30 minutes, then biking hard for just over an hour, he still went out an ran a 39 minute 10k.  That was the 3^rd fastest run in his age group!

All in all, despite my disappointment, it was a fun day and we definitely plan on going back again next year!

St. Anthony's Preview

We are leaving this morning for St. Petersburg, FL and the St. Anthony’s Triathlon.  St. Anthony’s is one of the largest triathlons in the United States, having over 3,400 competitors.  It is an Olympic distance race, so that means a 1.5km (.93 mile) swim, 40 km (24.85 mile) bike, and 10km (6.2 mile) run.  Among the 3,400+ competitors, will be some of the world’s fastest professionals and elite amateurs. That’s one of the cool things about triathlon, us everyday age-groupers get to compete on the same course, at the same time, with the best in the world.

Because of the large field, the swim start goes of in waves.  The first wave will start Sunday morning at 6:50 am with the Male Pros, which will be followed a couple minutes later by the Female Pros.  Matt and I are in the 12^th wave (M35-39 M-Z) and will start our race at 7:35 am.  If you’ve never done a mass swim start, it’s an interesting experience.  Approximately 100 people all swimming in a similar area, all at once.  It pretty much expected that you will bump into each other, and you will probably get kicked at least once.  After about 200 yards or so, it starts to thin out and you can settle into your stroke.

Matt and I are in the same age group (Male 35-39).  It’s one of the largest age groups in the field, having close to 300 entries. (290 I believe is the exact amount).  My goal for this race is to be in the top half of my age group.  In order to accomplish that, I’m going to have to need a time of about 2:40-2:45.   I’ve broken down my goals as such:

Swim: 31 minutes

T1:  3 minutes

Bike: 72 minutes

T2: 2 minutes

Run: 55 minutes

That gives me a total time of 2:43.  Each of those is certainly doable for me,  my only concern is controlling myself on the bike, so that I have enough left for the run.  I have a tendency to go too hard on the bike (it’s probably my strongest of the 3 disciplines) and I don’t have enough energy to put forth a good run.  I’m going to try and control my pacing on the  bike for this race, and if I’m successful at that, then I think my run can be much better than my 55 minute goal.  I’m hopeful that I can break the 2:40 mark, but I’ll be happy if I’m less than 2:45.

I’m looking forward to the event, it should be a good time!