Victory Week 10 Miler Race Report

Well this past week was Victory Week here for the mighty 1st Infantry Division, the OLDEST active duty division, and each year at around the Division's birthday, we celebrate by holding a Victory Week were the units in the division compete against each other in many different sports, like water polo, basketball, flag football, soccer, and other team events (little known facts: People think that Kansas is known for being a basketball state; WRONG, water polo!  Yup!).  I am not sure about that fact, but hey, why not!

LTC(R) Ted Leblow (center in Big Red One singlet) was the team captain last year.

Well as part of the sports extravaganza, there was a 10 mile race, which serves not only to see who has the fastest battalion level team, but to select the always competitive and fast Fort Riley Post Army Ten Mile Team that races in Washington DC at the Army Ten Miler (Last year was the 8th team, and 3rd Active Duty Army Team!), so the team has dudes who can FLY.

But I lined up this year at 0600 in the morning to take an outside chance for the team (didn't want to go too hard since I have a race this weekend too), but as we started out, I could tell, top 15 was not in it for me.  My first mile was 06:31, and I was about 45-50 people back, yeah, not happening, but will use this as a nice endurance/speed workout for the week.  I am in good shape, but my focus was short, fast races, so the 10 miles didn't hurt too bad, but if I maintained sub-7 minute pace, it would hurt.  With a capital H.

 My two photos near the finish line. Amanda got both with both feet off the ground!  Good timing!

My splits slowly slowed down, which was good, and I kept them in the mid-7 minutes thru 7 miles, and topped out at 08:07, so kept the average for the 10 miles at 07:29, which was good for me, for any distance.  Biggest thing was the wind.  Wind at your back on the way out, everyone was flying, but once they turned back into the wind, the big guys started to shrivle up.  After the turn around, I started to organize "pacelines" of runners to take turns breaking the wind and that really helped, either physically or mentally, but my groups started to move up on folks, where I may have been in the top 50 at the turn around, I finished in the top 30 or so.  Was nice to keep picking people off, but most times, my drafting buddies were shelled out the back, so sometimes I gapped up solo to other runners.  Only one big guy didn't want me to draft him and he ran all over to make sure, so I left him in my dust and told him "See you at the finish line".

But I finished up nicely (route was 10.3, so a little long) but I still PR'd my 10mile time, my 15K time, my 10K (post college) and 5K (post college) times, so overall, it wasn't a bad day at all.  Now on to my notes:

1.  The kid who won the race, WOW, was flying big time.  I think I heard he hit the 5 mile turnaround at 27 minutes or something.  I hit it at 37 and change.  So he put 10 minutes on my, in 5 miles, in a 10 mile race.  Wow, out of my league.
2.  It was hot and windy, water stops were a must, mainly for cooling on the head, not so much drinking.
3.  I figured that we would have about 100 folks out there, Nope!  it was 300 and possibly closer to 400.  Nice turnout!
4.  Wish I would have worn my running stuff, instead of my "PT" stuff.  It breathes better, is lighter, and just feels faster.  Oh well.

Overall, I am happy with my run, shows that my fitness level is good going into these next few races, so I should make some noise this year in the sprints and be good to move to fewer, longer races next year, if I keep my volume up (mainly the swimming).

But looking forward to racing on Saturday in Topeka in the Tinman Sprint Triathlon, in my new age group, the men's 40-44 (I'm still 39 right now, but the age-up rule means I race at 40!), so I am the new kid on the block for this year, good times!

Salina Road Race (Bicycle) Race Report

Or "How not to ride a road race" or "Don't write checks your butt can't cash" or any number of funny slogans.  Well, I decided to venture once again into the world of bike racin', since last time I straight up raced was about 3-4 years ago in a criterium (think NASCAR / F1 racing, on bikes, with folks that CAN crash you), which ended, ironically, with me getting crashed, but I got up, sucked it up and raced the last crit and ended up in 3rd overall, so, meh.

But this was going to be my first road race, sort of like a nice group ride, but with everyone thinking "STRAVA SECTION!!!!" all the time.  But as this was my first RR, I of course had a half baked plan going in, but with luck, I knew one of the riders in my Category, Alex Ardussi, who drove a long way to race.  We said that we would work together since bike racing is not only an individual sport, but team tactics really plays out in these as one team in the CAT5 swept the podium (out of 4 riders on their team) so smarts plays into it and being a one man band isn't that cool.

I'm sooo roooonry!

Things started out nice, got there, warmed up on the first stretch of road and headed back to get ready and lined up for the CAT5 race, of which 11 brave souls signed up for.  As we all looked each other up and down, I noticed a few things about my competitors; A: They are all taller and leaner than me, B: They have nicer bikes and better wheels, and C: They all know each other, making me the odd man out.

Well as we started to roll out the first half mile was "neutral", meaning, the race was not on, but after we crossed the finish line area, it was on and our pace went from 18 to 22 mph, so a nice start to this hilly, windy, 30 mile race.  We stayed in a nice double pace line for the first 5 miles or so, with me tearing ass up a hill to see who could climb (answer: all of them), so I settled back in to the pace line, feeling a little dumb.  But about another mile later, one guy launches out on a break, and he gets about 30 secs up the road, I think to myself, "Hey self, we should chase him down" which was the WRONG answer!  Sure I caught him, but as the rest of the peloton absorbs me, chews me up and spits me out.  Being "off the back", "dropped" or "loosing a wheel" is the worst feeling in the world.  It seems no matter how hard you try to latch back on, you are toast.

So at the 10 mile mark, that was me, off the back.  It sucked.  No, it more than sucked!  It was lonely (as you can see from the picture up there, courtesy of Lanterne Rouge!).  It took me a while to get back any semblance of speed going and by then, I was out of sight, especially on the hills.  So, that was how I "raced" the last 20 miles.  Ugggh!

If you look hard enough, that was they guy I was chasing, waaaaay down there!

Well, to make matters worse, I had to contend with a bit of a head wind on the way back, so I just kept plugging.  I will fast forward to the end, because, no matter what I did, that speck on the road never got closer.  I did sprint the last 2 miles to the end, to get some good intervals in, but I ended up about 10 minutes down to the winners and 2-3 from Alex.  Overall, I was 10th of 11.  And the guy I "beat" was in his 60s, whoohoo!  Uggh, well my lessons learned are here:

1.  Stay patient for as long as you can.

2.  Stay with the peloton.  It saves energy.

3.  You will always overestimate your own fitness.

4.  The wind is not your friend when you are alone.

Could I have done better?  Yup, but I got all antsy in my pantsy, and before I knew it, BAM!  Done and gone!  But at least I learned a little more from this, now if I remember those lessons come next time!  And this catches me up on my race reports and all, but I have a busy next few months up ahead.

Next race up: Victory Week 10 Miler, tomorrow (Wednesday 12 June), to try to qualify for the Ft Riley Army Ten Miler Team, which last year was stacked.  I am looking to break my 10 mile PR tomorrow, so I have an "A" goal of 1:08 and quicker, "B" goal of 1:12 or quicker, and the "breakeven" goal of 1:25.  It is a pretty rolling course, nothing too major out and back, but we will see how this turns out.

I'll be back tomorrow with another RR!

* All photos for this post is courtesy of The Lanterne Rouge (Roger Harrison) (Thanks Roger!)

For the Longest Time

Well I have been “gone” for a long time, and I will try to catch every one up as to what I have been up to!
After a long layoff in July (vacation), I got back on the horse and started to train really hard, almost like a base for a new season, I started August somewhat slow with 60 and 66 miles, then ramped up big time with 130, 151, 148 and 102, before taking a break, with only 40 miles, then resumed to 97 miles last week. These are some serious miles folks and I also started to keep track of time spent exercising, which helps me show how much of my week is spent working out / training.
A lot of this stemmed from my trip to the “Bod Pod” and doing some physical and nutritional studies to see where I was at, and boy, did I get my eyes opened! According to the Bod Pod, I weighed in at 185 and had a body fat % of 33.2, which is “Risky High”. Yikes! On the good side, I did take a VO2 submaximal test, which equates to a VO2 Max of 50.1, just a point short of “Superior”, so I guess I got that going for me. The best part is that I now know my heart rate zones, my resting metabolic rate (I burn 1849 kcals sitting on my butt each day! Whoo hoo!) and after my 2nd trip to the Bod Pod, I brought my body fat % down to 32.4% in about a month.

So as you can see, that has spurred on my “second season” kick and I have just two more races in the “season” (well, also I had recently found out that the Army is moving me to Middle America{Kansas}, so this will mark the end of my season) with the Pinehurst Sprint Triathlon and the Army Ten Miler. I can’t wait for both, since I haven’t raced a tri in 3 months or I haven’t ever raced a 10 miler, so this will be fun.

Also, I hinted last post about adding a new bit to my post, and it is going to be the “ProTips” List. This will be a tongue-in-cheek look at the “what not to do” in the world of tri, (or running, or biking, etc), so basically it is a “don’t try this at home” kinda thing. And I call it ProTips, not because I am a pro by any stretch of the imagination, but because it is facetious! So like the ProTip of “Not taking a full month off from training in the middle of your season”, I would like to add for your entertainment; “Don’t go on a ride without a flat kit or a cell phone!”

This ProTip was born on a long Sunday ride on the tri bike, with a superior attitude of “I’ve never had a flat”, coupled with “I’m too lazy to take the flat kit off my other bike” and a dash of “My cell phone battery is almost dead, I’ll let it charge”. All this adds up to a great big EPIC FAIL! The short story is I rode out 5.75 miles and flatted on a raised metal track, and had to walk back to my house, barefoot. Yes I took off my cycling shoes to save my cleats (next time; the cleats will be sacrificed!). I ended up wreaking a pair of socks, and my feet, and walked with a pissed off attitude because no one stopped to ask if I was ok. I mark that up as being on the east coast and that everyone was “too busy” to stop, but also that I was the dumbass who flatted with no kit or phone. So remember boys and girls, ALWAYS take a flat kit with you (I now have two kits), and as the old GI Joe PSAs would say, “knowing is half the battle!”

So I am going to keep this blog more updated (even though my work has now blocked all blogs, ) I will still keep this updated at least weekly, in addition to my usual race reports, and maybe delve into my training philosophy a bit. You know, as I grow here as a triathlete!

Later everyone!