I know I can get a little antsy when waiting for things to materialize and finally come about. This applies in a number of things going on in my life right now. First, let me tell you about the reason that I was thinking about writing this post. Rankings.
Yes that's right, anyone who knows me, knows I am a numbers guy through and through. Take the numbers of races that I competed in this year and I was able to accurately predict how I would do in some, almost down to the minute. (case in point - Timberman 2006. Two weeks before the race, I said I think I can go a 4:40 - ended up going a 4:43 which was a 10 minute PR from 2005)
Anyway, the rankings.... they haven't come out yet for the Ford Ironman Florida race and it's been like 6 weeks since the race and I'm getting a little anxious about them. Not that they are going to be bad for me, but I'm anxious to see how I get ranked for them. Most races that I do are small local triathlons with 50-250 people in them and this was the first tri that I have done with 2000+ people in it. The small tri's get ranked on a base of 83, or 90 and the bigger the races are, the higher the potential rankings could be. They go up to 95 and 98. Ironman will be ranked on a 98 scale for sure (using the old ranking system logistics of course- now with these newfangled "pace-setters" it kind of throws a monkey wrench in the equation.)
So, my national ranking right now without IMFL in it is an 88.3964. Last year I was around an 82 or something, but this past winter, I busted my ass on the bike and actually LEARNED how to ride fast and bought a new cervelo P2C and was able to maintain a speed of over 20mph for any ride. (including IMFL) :) So with a little bit of work, I vastly improved my ranking...to what, I am still not sure of. I think the top 5% of the age group nationally get the honor of being named an All-American and the top 10% get Honorable Mention. I think I am right at the cusp of being in the top ten percent in my age group in the nation, but I'm not sure. Last year HM honors stopped at 87 or 88 points when ranked nationally so I'm secretly hoping that IMFL catapults me into Honorable Mention status. It would be cool.
Regionally, I am ranked #1 in the 20-24 age group for the Northeast Region. I am a full 2 points above the second place dude. I'm hoping that bodes well for the national rankings. The thing is there are not as many LARGER races in this part of the country as there are in other parts. (like Memphis in May, Vineman, Wildflower, any races near Boulder, CO) I feel like if I was in another part of the country, I would have a more accurate depiction of how I was ranked.
So, I'm antsy to wait for the rankings. I'm also antsy for x-mas. I mean, who isn't antsy to get stuff they have secretly wanted all year long, but never had the scratch to afford? Come on!!! I'm like a little kid...seriously. If you leave presents around me long enough, I'll shake them and try to unwrap them when you aren't looking! :) Bad I know, but I get excited :)
I'm also antsy to go rock climbing again, but my fingers are getting a little torn up (you just don't get callouses on the fingertips from triathlon) and my arms and shoulders are massively sore....However, I kinda like bouldering, the technique is fun to learn and it's challenging enough for me, so I like it. So, being that it is 12 days left till Christmas, I'll leave you all till next time. Don't unwrap too many presents and I hope everyone gets what they've wanted. (for me, it's rankings....oooh and a nice pair of Zipp 808's....hahahha yeah right!) Cheers.
December 13, 2006
December 10, 2006
Need some motivation?
This is an amazing video about Ironman that you should definitely check out. It's about 2 minutes long, but well worth it...
December 7, 2006
Off-season cross training?
So I figured that December would be a good time to put down the gallon of ice cream and get my lethargic ass off the couch and begin training a little for next triathlon season. It's been a month and three days since IRONMAN Florida and quite honestly, I haven't done much :)
I can say with a straight face that I haven't been into a pool/ocean/lake or rather touched water with the intent of swimming in it since the race. Not that I don't like swimming, I think I am one of the sole random triathletes that actually LIKES getting into the water and hammering the shit out of my arms and legs for a workout. Masochistic I know, but aren't we all? I have nothing against swimming and once the season draws nearer I will have no problem with geting back in the water. No big deal, I like the solace and the "me-time". But since Florida, I haven't been in the water, just had no desire to go to a pool and do laps. I might next week, we'll see. Maybe I'll start up organizing those Hammerfest Mile Swims again. Afterall, I hear they are kind of a big deal.
So, this week with the start of December I think it is about time to put down the beer bottles and being getting myself onto a schedule of doing at least SOMETHING every other day (if not at least 5 times a week). I ran several times but it has turned awfully COLD lately and the snow is finally starting to stick around again...and you all know how much I love snow
But on Monday this past week, two buddies of mine convinced me to cross train in an unusual manner. Not that it unusual for me to rock climb (I own my own harness, shoes, rope and chalk bag) but unusual for me to consider this a workout. As my last few years have had workouts of just running, swimming or biking. We climbed on Monday and let me tell you, my forearms are still in a WORLD of hurt... I haven't climbed in 2+ years and it was rough.
I'm not a graceful climber and I'm sure I could learn a lot of technique. I know I tend to "muscle" my way up the wall or boulder, and my lats, forearms, trapezius and tons of other little musles paid the price. We all got a membership to the Red Barn at the RIT campus. Seriously, it's a barn that they have turned into a climbing gym. It's awesome in there and right now even though I can only get up 2 and a half routes of the hundreds they have in there, I still have a blast. I'm sure it sill become easier.
It's kind of cool to be able to cover 140.6 miles in an ironman triathlon and that's do-able, but being able to climb up a 10 foot wall to the ceiling above crash pads using only the rocks with while tape to the side of them seems almost impossible. Amazing how something new kicks your ass, I love it. I just hope my arms and back can recover in time to do it again on Friday. I'm using it as a strength training exercise for Ironman.
But don't worry, I'll begin fully training 6 days a week come January in preparation for IRONMAN USA. But for the holidays, I suppose I can sneak in a few last Guiness and random beers and shots and enjoy my time at the rock gym. In January, I guess it will be time to shape up. Cheers
I can say with a straight face that I haven't been into a pool/ocean/lake or rather touched water with the intent of swimming in it since the race. Not that I don't like swimming, I think I am one of the sole random triathletes that actually LIKES getting into the water and hammering the shit out of my arms and legs for a workout. Masochistic I know, but aren't we all? I have nothing against swimming and once the season draws nearer I will have no problem with geting back in the water. No big deal, I like the solace and the "me-time". But since Florida, I haven't been in the water, just had no desire to go to a pool and do laps. I might next week, we'll see. Maybe I'll start up organizing those Hammerfest Mile Swims again. Afterall, I hear they are kind of a big deal.
So, this week with the start of December I think it is about time to put down the beer bottles and being getting myself onto a schedule of doing at least SOMETHING every other day (if not at least 5 times a week). I ran several times but it has turned awfully COLD lately and the snow is finally starting to stick around again...and you all know how much I love snow
But on Monday this past week, two buddies of mine convinced me to cross train in an unusual manner. Not that it unusual for me to rock climb (I own my own harness, shoes, rope and chalk bag) but unusual for me to consider this a workout. As my last few years have had workouts of just running, swimming or biking. We climbed on Monday and let me tell you, my forearms are still in a WORLD of hurt... I haven't climbed in 2+ years and it was rough.
I'm not a graceful climber and I'm sure I could learn a lot of technique. I know I tend to "muscle" my way up the wall or boulder, and my lats, forearms, trapezius and tons of other little musles paid the price. We all got a membership to the Red Barn at the RIT campus. Seriously, it's a barn that they have turned into a climbing gym. It's awesome in there and right now even though I can only get up 2 and a half routes of the hundreds they have in there, I still have a blast. I'm sure it sill become easier.
It's kind of cool to be able to cover 140.6 miles in an ironman triathlon and that's do-able, but being able to climb up a 10 foot wall to the ceiling above crash pads using only the rocks with while tape to the side of them seems almost impossible. Amazing how something new kicks your ass, I love it. I just hope my arms and back can recover in time to do it again on Friday. I'm using it as a strength training exercise for Ironman.
But don't worry, I'll begin fully training 6 days a week come January in preparation for IRONMAN USA. But for the holidays, I suppose I can sneak in a few last Guiness and random beers and shots and enjoy my time at the rock gym. In January, I guess it will be time to shape up. Cheers
November 27, 2006
Come on, baby wants a new pair of shoes!
So this is a shot of "the beast", the P2C a day before she went on the 112 mile bike leg at Ironman Florida. For those of you out there in blogland that wanted a good shot of "bike porn" - this is the best I got...
The beast threw on a new pair of "shoes" for her ride and they were a rented pair of Zipp 606's which worked beautifully by the way. I don't have the money to purchase a $1,900 pair of nice race wheels, so I decided to rent. Made the bike look a little snazzier and probably made me go faster as well. Who knows. This was how flat the bike course was by the way...
Taken from the inside of my car on the way to New Orleans post ironman. I just wanted everyone to get an idea of just how flat Florida was. It was like this for MILES....seriously. Five hours and twenty four minutes of this breathtaking scenery Well the scenery wasn't ALL bad... this was a shot taken at sunset one night by Rachel.
Not half bad eh? Too bad the temperature was like 45F when that was taken. Nothing like Florida in November. :) Well I think that's all the photos I have for right now. I'm sure I could post billions more, but I'll stop for now. There will be more forthcoming for 2007, but for now, I'm enjoying the "offseason" and training when I feel like it, it's nice :)
Ironman Debut ???
So, in speaking with a friend of mine and catching up with him, surprisingly enough, the topic of ironman came up. (Go figure eh?) :) Well we got chatting and he was asking how the triathlon that I was training so hard for went and I told him a little about what it was like. (It's kind of hard not to barf for like 5 hours to someone who asks about it. I kind of have to keep myself in check...) It's easy to talk about, but I have to pull back on the reigns everyonce in a while and say to myself, "I bet they REALLY don't want to hear about how I dialed in my nutrition in the weeks leading up to the race or how I attached my spare tubes and levers to the back of my bike for the race..."
So anyway, we get talking and I tell him that I ended up going a 10:31 and that I know I can do one faster only because my run wasn't under control. He congratulates me and says something to the effect of, "you know 10:31, thats not too bad for your Ironman debut..."
Now this kind of struck me as odd. I know I am going to do several other IM's in my life, but never have I thought of this time in Florida as my ironman "debut". I guess it stems from our running background when the announcers would say as you toed the line that this was your marathon debut, or 3200m debut on the track after doing so well at 1600m. I don't know, it still struck me as odd.
Debut is one of those words you hear for the Professionals who are in your area going to burn up the course at a new distance. You certainly wouldn't be smiling like a maniac in the photo I have below (when I FINALLY got to the run course in Florida...) and I suppose you would take things a lot more seriously if you were a professional athlete making an ironman "debut" and had a lot on the line for this race.
I guess what I'm getting at is that even though I know this isn't my last Ironman race, I hardly thought of it as a debut. I thought of it more as the first try. Along with 48% of the field at IMFL, we were all in the same bucket as first time IM'ers going on our virgin voyage thru this obstacle. I thought of the old cliche they always told you in high school, "look to the person to your left, and look at the person to your right, one of those people is a first time ironman"
The only time I ever want to hear that it is a "debut" is when I finally become a professional. I think then it is appropriate. To hear that this is your professional debut makes it sound like you know what the hell you are doing and are actually going to race it and perhaps do very well in your race. You shouldn't end up like this in the massage tent post race in your Ironman "debut":
Maybe this post was just an excuse to load up a few more photos from IMFL onto the site. Who knows. There are a few more I would like to add and perhaps I will add them later on today. For now, I would like to close with a shot of me and my dad after I finished. It was great having you there dad. Thanks for making the trip a memorable one. :)
So anyway, we get talking and I tell him that I ended up going a 10:31 and that I know I can do one faster only because my run wasn't under control. He congratulates me and says something to the effect of, "you know 10:31, thats not too bad for your Ironman debut..."
Now this kind of struck me as odd. I know I am going to do several other IM's in my life, but never have I thought of this time in Florida as my ironman "debut". I guess it stems from our running background when the announcers would say as you toed the line that this was your marathon debut, or 3200m debut on the track after doing so well at 1600m. I don't know, it still struck me as odd.
Debut is one of those words you hear for the Professionals who are in your area going to burn up the course at a new distance. You certainly wouldn't be smiling like a maniac in the photo I have below (when I FINALLY got to the run course in Florida...) and I suppose you would take things a lot more seriously if you were a professional athlete making an ironman "debut" and had a lot on the line for this race.
I guess what I'm getting at is that even though I know this isn't my last Ironman race, I hardly thought of it as a debut. I thought of it more as the first try. Along with 48% of the field at IMFL, we were all in the same bucket as first time IM'ers going on our virgin voyage thru this obstacle. I thought of the old cliche they always told you in high school, "look to the person to your left, and look at the person to your right, one of those people is a first time ironman"
The only time I ever want to hear that it is a "debut" is when I finally become a professional. I think then it is appropriate. To hear that this is your professional debut makes it sound like you know what the hell you are doing and are actually going to race it and perhaps do very well in your race. You shouldn't end up like this in the massage tent post race in your Ironman "debut":
Maybe this post was just an excuse to load up a few more photos from IMFL onto the site. Who knows. There are a few more I would like to add and perhaps I will add them later on today. For now, I would like to close with a shot of me and my dad after I finished. It was great having you there dad. Thanks for making the trip a memorable one. :)
November 16, 2006
Gross, I know...
BEFORE
This photo was taken on 11/17/05 in my apartment shortly after forking over the $450 registration fee for Ironman Florida. Notice the lack of muscle definition and larger arms and beer gut (remnants of college)
AFTER
This photo was taken after a year of Ironman training on 10/28/06 and I was down to 154lbs. Notice the same paper confirmation page from my active.com registration. Not too much change, but a little more definition. The big weight loss was from senior year of college (2004) to the spring of 2005 where I went from 195lbs down to 165lbs. I wish I had a picture of THAT transformation!
I just wanted to get up a before and after shot of how IM training and racing has changed me. I'll post other photos later on of racing and the like. Cheers.
November 14, 2006
IMFL Race Report
This race report couldn't be started out right without a large THANK YOU to everyone who supported me and came to watch the race all the way from NY to FL for my first IRONMAN. I felt like I had a posse of people down there helping out however they could, an "iron-posse" if you will :) Also to everyone who sent me email wishes of luck and congratulations, thank you all. I know it is cliche, but I couldn't have done this without your support. Ok, enough of the mushy stuff... down to the race
Prerace ride from NY to FL
Dad and I departed from NY to FL on Monday of race week. We began driving and made it to NC to stay for the evening that night after about a 12 hour car ride. In the motel, I hopped on the trainer (yes, I brought it with me...) and spun on the BEAST and dad and I watched HEROES on TV - good program by the way. I spun for an hour and loosened up the legs from the car ride. We departed early the next morning and drove another monster day to finally be able to pull into Panama City Beach, Florida around 9pm that night. Being from the EST time zone, dad had a little trouble when we stopped for dinner at a burger joint on Halloween (Tuesday) and had apparently crossed the CST time zone and were the first ones at the restraunt for dinner (because for us it was 5pm and for them it was only 4pm...kind of a senior citizen type early bird dinner time)
Anyway, we get into a new hotel because the Top of the Gulf reservations I had didn't start until the next day. We sleep off the drive and I realize before hitting the bed that my "sit bones" or more frankly, my ass, REALLY hurts from the two monster days of driving down. We decide to walk around and try to find a bar to celebrate (but not too hard) being in PCB finally. Dad and I walked around for about 30 minutes to no avail and then finally went back to the room to retire for the evening. My butt still hurt though the walking helped.
Wednesday November 1, 2006
Dad and I are the only ones in PCB, FL right now. The weather is BEAUTIFUL and we check in to the Top of the Gulf Resort. I decide it would be best to see if we could pickup the packet today instead of standing in the massive lines later on once the thousands of triathletes get there. We walk out of the hotel and like 200 yards down the road to the expo. (Yes it was THAT close) I picked up my packet, weighed in at 154lbs. (That is 46lbs lighter than I was 2 years ago after graduating college...) and got some free schwag at the expo including 2 t-shirts and fig newtons and I actually swiped a clean white IMFL swim cap when the volunteer lady had turned around. I just wanted one without any marker on it. :) I realize I still need to swim and we headed to the ocean (out the back door of the hotel)
I strapped on the wetsuit and dad waited on the beach and I told him I would be back in about 30 minutes. It was about 3pm and the sun was setting and there really weren't too many other people swimming and after several minutes in the water and getting about 1/2 mile from shore out in the middle of the ocean around "feeding time" for sharks in a black wetsuit splashing on the surface of the water alone in the murky depths, I realized why everyone goes to the Gatorade morning swims instead of venturing out in the ocean alone... it was stupid and I realize it now and will never do that again. I was bobbing a half mile from shore in the ocean that day wondering why I watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel the week before and thinking to myself, "If I get bumped by something, I am going to seriously freak out!!!" Luckily I made it back in one piece.
Thursday November 2nd, 2006
More friends arrive!! Rachel and Kelly show up in the afternoon and dad and I hit the Gatorade swim in the AM hours so I can splash around a bit more. I found that I tend to swim with my mouth open and was almost sick to my stomach when I ran up the beach practicing what it was going to be like to enter the second loop of the swim on Saturday. I had to remember to keep my mouth shut in order to not swallow a gallon of salt water.
After Rachel and Kelly arrived, I went to the expo and slapped a new pair of shoes on the beast. Zipp 606 wheels. Rented them from Race Day Wheels and they were nice :) I spun for a good 20 minutes on them and even in the headwinds they were fast! I was gettting a little more excited.
Friday, November 3rd, 2006
I had to rack my bike in transition and give all of my bags (special needs bike and run/ bike to run and swim to bike bags) to the transition area so they could organize them, problem was I had no idea what to put inside. After several lists, I finally figured out what I needed in every bag. I felt good about it. When racking my bike I took a look at the thousands of othe bikes in the TA and started to get a little jittery. This was finally going to happen, weird. I even managed to procure a volunteer IRON CREW t-shirt while racking my bike (don't ask, but I kind of stole it from a box of them as a keep sake). Sam came as well in the AM hours and we were almost all there.
In the PM, I almost forgot to shave down so I hopped in the tub at the hotel. I had been kind of embarassed because I had stubbly legs and was walking around in shorts at the expo next to seasoned triathlon vets who all had clean shaven legs. Normally I wouldn't be embarassed about having hair on my legs, but at Ironman, I guess priorities change. I was in the tub shaving my legs and arms when Phil arrived! I was done with one arm and I came out half shaven to hang for a little. It was great to see him and he is still my partner in crime for triathlon, just he is training to become a paratrooper in the air force right now, so can't race as much as I am. I would love to do an IM race with him someday and I really hope we get the chance. He is a champ.
RACE DAY - November 4th, 2006
I woke up at about 5am after not being able to sleep too well and had some food. I really don't remember what I had but since it was like 2 hours to race time, I wanted to keep it light. I've had problems before with eating too much before hand and not feeling to well during a race. I grabbed my wetsuit and goggles and cap and headed down to the beach. I pounded a Gatorade Endurance bottle about 20 mintes before the race to top the system off and watched the pro's start. I managed to say "good luck" to Amanda Lovato because I spotted Michael Lovato on the beach cheering her on. She looked at me funny because she had no idea who I was, but I smiled a lot. What a cool couple. It's so cool to see your hero's and pro's so close and doing the same thing you are doing. Neat. :)
THE SWIM - 1:01:51
The water was a churning and the temp was about 45 degrees F outside that morning. The cannon went off for us and I was in the middle of all of the "elbows and assholes" like Johnathan would say. I seriously started in the front row in the middle of everyone. I wanted to experience IM racing to the fullest. Afterall they say for ironman it's a "fight, bike, and run" and I wanted to be in the middle of it. It was choppy. I only got punched in the face once and it wasn't enough to move my goggles (thank goodness) because I had put my cap on over my goggle strap (good tip by the way) to keep them in place and prevent them from getting ripped off. It was physical for about the first 200 meters, but after that thinned out and I found some good feet to draft off of. I stood up at the sand bar for a minute and caught my breath and then dolphin dove back into the mix.
The first turn around the orange buoy and we were staring DIRECTLY into the sun. For the first time ever, I put my head down, did not sight and put my faith directly into the heels in front of me and thanked my lucky stars that they went the right way. It was too hard to see, let alone sight bouys into the sun. The vanilla Gu that I had stuffed up my sleeve was lost to the murky depths so I had no nutrition to take in on that small beach run thru the archway between swim laps. Oh well, one less thing to worry about. We turned shortly after that and headed back to the shore for the second lap. I checked my watch when I hit the beach and it read 29:xx and I knew I was on pace to go about an hour. I didn't get any water and I heard my name from the iron-posse as I ran by and gave a HUGE trademark-Travis smile. It was good to hear everyone and I dove back into the mix.
Lap two is fuzzy, other than me throwing up a little in my mouth from what I think was the salt water. My espophogus burned in the back of my throat from my stomach acid and it left me a burning sensation every time I ate or drank for the rest of the day. I hit the beach for the second time in 1:01:51 and quickly found a wetsuit stripper to yank off my legs and ran as fast as I could to T1.
T1 - 4:09
I hit the change tent after I was yelling "169" to the volunteers to grab my bag. They were so helpful and it definitely sped things up a bit. I dumped the bag, found a seat and began getting my stuff ready. I threw on the arm warmers because it was cold as hell outside and strapped on Excalibur and my bike shoes and was off.
The Bike - 5:24:40
It was cold...and windy...and boring. Which was good I guess, nothing exciting happened and this felt pretty easy comparitively. I began taking in my 750 calorie bottles of gatorade and carb-pro and washed it down with water just like you are supposed to after letting your stomach settle 20 minutes after the swim. This was going to be a long one, so I took it easy at first.
Florida is flat, I mean REALLY flat. The only hill on the entire course took about 1 minute to climb and I think it rose about 150 vertical feet. It was a bridge over a highway overpass I think. Really really easy. I was just really stoked to be on the bike (its all about the bike) and was enjoying being in my first Ironman, it was very cool. The only UNCOOL thing was all the drafting... I can hold my chin up and say truthfully that I did NOT draft at all during this race. (Not that I do in any other race, but there was so much drafting that it was incredible and I want it to be known that I had NO part in it) I was actually stuck in a gap for most of the ride. No one was near me and then out of the blue, a pack of like 20-30 people would blow by me and they seriously looked like they were in a freaking paceline. Just dispicable. Anyway, you had to make a serious effort NOT to draft and I figured I would see them later on the run anyway. (I saw about 6 guys huddled in the penalty tent as I rode by at mile 60 or so.)
The 750 calorie bottles of gatorade and carb-pro were going down ok. Each time I felt my stomach slosh and feel full, I slowed it down to zone one on the HR monitor in order to digest. This was a good plan and seemed to work, although the last few miles were shaky. There was a turn around at about 70 miles in and everyone got a chance to see who was in front/behind you. It was kind of nice and I knew I might be in the running for an age group placing, so I was checking race #'s on helmets to see if any were low and presumably in my age group. Each person that I passed or got passed by I made sure to check their calf to see what their age was from the bodymarking. :) I'm sneaky like that I know, but it kept my mind off the ride. I launched a water bottle from my x-lab flatwing at about mile 65 of the ride, right before I was about to take in some salt tabs, and had to wait until the next aide station to get more water. No big deal I guess.
Miles 80-95 were rougher than I thought. I don't think I did enough continuous long rides in my training. Like if I would go for a 100+ ride, I would ussually stop and visit someone for 20-30 minutes in the middle of my ride. Probably not the smartest idea, I'll know for next time. Well, I was standing out of the saddle and couldn't get my rythym down for those miles, I really had to work hard at keeping the MPH up and my heart rate down. Once we hit the overpass at mile 100 or so, I knew I was home free. Seeing that 105 miles mile marker was a good feeling. I undid the shoes and had a solid dismount before the line at mile 112. The legs didn't feel too rough because I think they were ready to run after all of my getting out of the saddle in the latter parts of this ride.
T2 -2:42
This was MUCH quicker than I thought. I had luckily packed an extra pair of socks in this bag for the run which was nice since mine were a little soaked after "nature called" several times on the bike. I changed socks and grabbed a premade 400 calorie bottle of gatorade and took it with me on the run. TriSports.com race hat and I was off. Almost. I hit the porta-potty and evacuated some liquid and noticed that my legs were shaking uncontrollabbly inside. I figured it was because they were tired, but I hoped I could get thru the marathon ahead. I had never run a marathon before this, so this was going to be interesting.
The Run - 3:58:01
I had planned to run with the water bottle full of 400 cals of gatorade and carb-pro to slow me down out of transition and it did JUST that. I was going about 8 minute -8:15 pace for the first several miles but just couldn't stomach it anymore. I had previously had problems with not being able to take in ANY nutrition during the run portion of longer races this year and was nervious because I knew I couldn't do that during an IM. My stomach sloshed for about the first 7 miles. I mean it was churning. I was trying to run at the bottom of zone one so I could digest whatever was in there, but it seemed to be going really slow. I dropped the bottle around the first turn around in the state park. I wasn't drinking it and I figured it would only slow me down more, so it got chucked to the side of the road at an aide station. I had half a cookie to try and soak up the sloshing, but that was so dry I almost choked on it. Mental note - cookies without liquid = no good. I choked on the crumbs for about a half mile.
There were friends EVERYWHERE on the course and I thank Rachel, Sam, Phil and Kelly for running all around and cheering your hearts out for me on the run. I really needed it that last loop. I was feeling good on the way back to complete my first loop and I found that grapes worked really well for nutrition. They were full of water, sugar and were a good food source for me. I know you are not supposed to try anything new on race day, but I had to go with what worked. I took in a single "Esspresso Love" double caffinated gel somewhere there too and that definitely picked me up a bit. I made it back to the half marathon point in 1:50 and was feeling ok. I saw my dad, who was cheering REALLY loudly and holding a sign that had a T- dot (like the IM M-dot) and read, "Travis, the G awaits" and I had no idea what that meant until after the race I got back to the hotel to find a 4 pack of my most favorite alcoholic beverage, Guinness. Thanks dad :)
The second loop was a little more trying, especially the last part. I have told people that the "wheels didn't fall off" until about mile 18-19. It was right before entering the park for the second time. I stopped at a porta potty and really just wanted to walk for the rest of the day. I was calculating what kind of splits I was doing and what might be possible and I realized that breaking 10 hours was no longer feasible which got me down a little bit. I knew I had to stay focused though. Previously I was walking the aide stations to give my legs some rest and now I was walking the aide stations, plus about 50 yards at a brisk pace before I began running. I was getting to each aide station in about 8-9 minutes but walking thru them really slowed down my marathon "pace".
I hit thru turn around in the state park somewhere after mile 19 and it was beginning to get dark. The real reason I wanted to finish in under 10 hours was to be able to have a finishers photo in the daylight, but turns out I was 30 minutes late...there's always next year, and I hear Ironman Lake Placid is light until about 7pm :) Anyway, as I was saying, my mood was getting down and I thought maybe it was low blood sugar and I tried to eat, but wasn't feeling like it. I seriously contemplated stopping. I don't know what the hell I was thinking but it sounded good right then. Luckily I thought of all the people who told me that they would be watching online and all of the emails and phone calls I had gotten and I dug a little deeper and found the strength to soldier on. I realized that I was doing about 10 minute per mile pace and the wheels were falling off. It hurt a lot for about the first time that day.
I thought to myself that if only the last 6-8 miles hurt, then thats not that bad at all. I had heard so many horror stories about IM racing and how it is 12 hours of pain and I guess I had built it up and put it on this HUGE pedestal in my mind. It honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was expecting much worse. Anyway, for the last 4 miles or so, I hooked up with this 28 year old dude named Dan (I think?) who was from DC and had raced the Timberman with me this year. Turns out in the rain at the Timberman, he fell off the bike, dislocated his shoulder and when he got up, popped it back in and finished the triathlon. He said saw the father and son duo of Team Hoyt in the race and he thought to himself, if that dad can haul around his son for IM's and half IM's, then I can finish this race. That's crazy man. So we chatted about a lot and he was running slightly faster than I was which helped drag me along towards the finish. Turns out he was on his first loop as I was nearing the finish.
I didn't even see mile markers 24 and 25. I was distracted by the conversation with my new friend from DC. Which was good. But we got closer and closer to transition and it snuck up on me until he said "dude, you're almost there, look" and pointed to the glow that was about 0.5 miles away that was the finishing area. I thanked him immensely for his conversation and headed to the split and took the "finish" route instead of the "2nd loop" which felt soooooooo good. I was beaming and the adrenaline REALLY kicked in as I entered the throngs of people. I zipped up the jersey, made sure I was presentable, realized there was no one around me and smiled HUGELY as I zig zagged back and forth in the finishing chute slapping as many hands as I could while hearing those sweet words, "Travis Earley, you are an IRONMAN!!!". The finishing clock read 10:31:22 and I was just overcome. Amazing.
This race was something that I seriously thought was a physical impossibility when I was younger watching IM Hawaii on TV. I thought no one was capable of doing a marathon after biking so long. Just an incredible feeling overwhelmed me. I was whisked away to take a finishers photo in which I looked REALLY stupid. Grinning ear to ear and clutching my medal and space blanket. I was taken to the massage tent and everyone was asking me what I wanted/needed and all I really wanted was to sit down, but I got Gatorade and chicken broth instead. I hugged my dad a lot, and everyone was there, it was really cool. I got a massage of my hamstrings and quads and upon standing up, I started shaking uncontrollably for the second time that day. It was near 50 degrees out and I was in wet clothes, so I changed into my dry finishers shirt and cap and they wrapped me in my space blanket and a few comforters and every volunteer that passed my shivering but smiling huddle, rubbed me on the back and asked if I was ok. I was ok, just cold as hell. I'll post some pictures later on.
We all went out for ice cream afterwards which was amazing and I iced the knees for a good 30 minutes before bed. I woke up the next morning feeling good, just slow to get up from a seated position. By Tuesday, my muscles were not sore and I felt like I could go for a 3 hour ride if I wanted...I didn't, but it was good to begin feeling fine. I was pleased with the result, even though my marathon was not under control. I would have loved to run the whole thing and not have to walk the aide stations. Next time. I was 6th in my age group and 211th overall of 2109 finishers. I JUST missed out on age group awards as they went to the top 5 in the age group (9:12/10:11/10:12/10:19/10:20) I was 10:31 and just missed out on those. The Kona roll down ceremony went like this, "male 18-24 age group, there was one slot available, it was taken. Moving on"
I have many other stories to tell, but this was long enough. Leave some comment love and I'll post more pics later on. Cheers.
Prerace ride from NY to FL
Dad and I departed from NY to FL on Monday of race week. We began driving and made it to NC to stay for the evening that night after about a 12 hour car ride. In the motel, I hopped on the trainer (yes, I brought it with me...) and spun on the BEAST and dad and I watched HEROES on TV - good program by the way. I spun for an hour and loosened up the legs from the car ride. We departed early the next morning and drove another monster day to finally be able to pull into Panama City Beach, Florida around 9pm that night. Being from the EST time zone, dad had a little trouble when we stopped for dinner at a burger joint on Halloween (Tuesday) and had apparently crossed the CST time zone and were the first ones at the restraunt for dinner (because for us it was 5pm and for them it was only 4pm...kind of a senior citizen type early bird dinner time)
Anyway, we get into a new hotel because the Top of the Gulf reservations I had didn't start until the next day. We sleep off the drive and I realize before hitting the bed that my "sit bones" or more frankly, my ass, REALLY hurts from the two monster days of driving down. We decide to walk around and try to find a bar to celebrate (but not too hard) being in PCB finally. Dad and I walked around for about 30 minutes to no avail and then finally went back to the room to retire for the evening. My butt still hurt though the walking helped.
Wednesday November 1, 2006
Dad and I are the only ones in PCB, FL right now. The weather is BEAUTIFUL and we check in to the Top of the Gulf Resort. I decide it would be best to see if we could pickup the packet today instead of standing in the massive lines later on once the thousands of triathletes get there. We walk out of the hotel and like 200 yards down the road to the expo. (Yes it was THAT close) I picked up my packet, weighed in at 154lbs. (That is 46lbs lighter than I was 2 years ago after graduating college...) and got some free schwag at the expo including 2 t-shirts and fig newtons and I actually swiped a clean white IMFL swim cap when the volunteer lady had turned around. I just wanted one without any marker on it. :) I realize I still need to swim and we headed to the ocean (out the back door of the hotel)
I strapped on the wetsuit and dad waited on the beach and I told him I would be back in about 30 minutes. It was about 3pm and the sun was setting and there really weren't too many other people swimming and after several minutes in the water and getting about 1/2 mile from shore out in the middle of the ocean around "feeding time" for sharks in a black wetsuit splashing on the surface of the water alone in the murky depths, I realized why everyone goes to the Gatorade morning swims instead of venturing out in the ocean alone... it was stupid and I realize it now and will never do that again. I was bobbing a half mile from shore in the ocean that day wondering why I watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel the week before and thinking to myself, "If I get bumped by something, I am going to seriously freak out!!!" Luckily I made it back in one piece.
Thursday November 2nd, 2006
More friends arrive!! Rachel and Kelly show up in the afternoon and dad and I hit the Gatorade swim in the AM hours so I can splash around a bit more. I found that I tend to swim with my mouth open and was almost sick to my stomach when I ran up the beach practicing what it was going to be like to enter the second loop of the swim on Saturday. I had to remember to keep my mouth shut in order to not swallow a gallon of salt water.
After Rachel and Kelly arrived, I went to the expo and slapped a new pair of shoes on the beast. Zipp 606 wheels. Rented them from Race Day Wheels and they were nice :) I spun for a good 20 minutes on them and even in the headwinds they were fast! I was gettting a little more excited.
Friday, November 3rd, 2006
I had to rack my bike in transition and give all of my bags (special needs bike and run/ bike to run and swim to bike bags) to the transition area so they could organize them, problem was I had no idea what to put inside. After several lists, I finally figured out what I needed in every bag. I felt good about it. When racking my bike I took a look at the thousands of othe bikes in the TA and started to get a little jittery. This was finally going to happen, weird. I even managed to procure a volunteer IRON CREW t-shirt while racking my bike (don't ask, but I kind of stole it from a box of them as a keep sake). Sam came as well in the AM hours and we were almost all there.
In the PM, I almost forgot to shave down so I hopped in the tub at the hotel. I had been kind of embarassed because I had stubbly legs and was walking around in shorts at the expo next to seasoned triathlon vets who all had clean shaven legs. Normally I wouldn't be embarassed about having hair on my legs, but at Ironman, I guess priorities change. I was in the tub shaving my legs and arms when Phil arrived! I was done with one arm and I came out half shaven to hang for a little. It was great to see him and he is still my partner in crime for triathlon, just he is training to become a paratrooper in the air force right now, so can't race as much as I am. I would love to do an IM race with him someday and I really hope we get the chance. He is a champ.
RACE DAY - November 4th, 2006
I woke up at about 5am after not being able to sleep too well and had some food. I really don't remember what I had but since it was like 2 hours to race time, I wanted to keep it light. I've had problems before with eating too much before hand and not feeling to well during a race. I grabbed my wetsuit and goggles and cap and headed down to the beach. I pounded a Gatorade Endurance bottle about 20 mintes before the race to top the system off and watched the pro's start. I managed to say "good luck" to Amanda Lovato because I spotted Michael Lovato on the beach cheering her on. She looked at me funny because she had no idea who I was, but I smiled a lot. What a cool couple. It's so cool to see your hero's and pro's so close and doing the same thing you are doing. Neat. :)
THE SWIM - 1:01:51
The water was a churning and the temp was about 45 degrees F outside that morning. The cannon went off for us and I was in the middle of all of the "elbows and assholes" like Johnathan would say. I seriously started in the front row in the middle of everyone. I wanted to experience IM racing to the fullest. Afterall they say for ironman it's a "fight, bike, and run" and I wanted to be in the middle of it. It was choppy. I only got punched in the face once and it wasn't enough to move my goggles (thank goodness) because I had put my cap on over my goggle strap (good tip by the way) to keep them in place and prevent them from getting ripped off. It was physical for about the first 200 meters, but after that thinned out and I found some good feet to draft off of. I stood up at the sand bar for a minute and caught my breath and then dolphin dove back into the mix.
The first turn around the orange buoy and we were staring DIRECTLY into the sun. For the first time ever, I put my head down, did not sight and put my faith directly into the heels in front of me and thanked my lucky stars that they went the right way. It was too hard to see, let alone sight bouys into the sun. The vanilla Gu that I had stuffed up my sleeve was lost to the murky depths so I had no nutrition to take in on that small beach run thru the archway between swim laps. Oh well, one less thing to worry about. We turned shortly after that and headed back to the shore for the second lap. I checked my watch when I hit the beach and it read 29:xx and I knew I was on pace to go about an hour. I didn't get any water and I heard my name from the iron-posse as I ran by and gave a HUGE trademark-Travis smile. It was good to hear everyone and I dove back into the mix.
Lap two is fuzzy, other than me throwing up a little in my mouth from what I think was the salt water. My espophogus burned in the back of my throat from my stomach acid and it left me a burning sensation every time I ate or drank for the rest of the day. I hit the beach for the second time in 1:01:51 and quickly found a wetsuit stripper to yank off my legs and ran as fast as I could to T1.
T1 - 4:09
I hit the change tent after I was yelling "169" to the volunteers to grab my bag. They were so helpful and it definitely sped things up a bit. I dumped the bag, found a seat and began getting my stuff ready. I threw on the arm warmers because it was cold as hell outside and strapped on Excalibur and my bike shoes and was off.
The Bike - 5:24:40
It was cold...and windy...and boring. Which was good I guess, nothing exciting happened and this felt pretty easy comparitively. I began taking in my 750 calorie bottles of gatorade and carb-pro and washed it down with water just like you are supposed to after letting your stomach settle 20 minutes after the swim. This was going to be a long one, so I took it easy at first.
Florida is flat, I mean REALLY flat. The only hill on the entire course took about 1 minute to climb and I think it rose about 150 vertical feet. It was a bridge over a highway overpass I think. Really really easy. I was just really stoked to be on the bike (its all about the bike) and was enjoying being in my first Ironman, it was very cool. The only UNCOOL thing was all the drafting... I can hold my chin up and say truthfully that I did NOT draft at all during this race. (Not that I do in any other race, but there was so much drafting that it was incredible and I want it to be known that I had NO part in it) I was actually stuck in a gap for most of the ride. No one was near me and then out of the blue, a pack of like 20-30 people would blow by me and they seriously looked like they were in a freaking paceline. Just dispicable. Anyway, you had to make a serious effort NOT to draft and I figured I would see them later on the run anyway. (I saw about 6 guys huddled in the penalty tent as I rode by at mile 60 or so.)
The 750 calorie bottles of gatorade and carb-pro were going down ok. Each time I felt my stomach slosh and feel full, I slowed it down to zone one on the HR monitor in order to digest. This was a good plan and seemed to work, although the last few miles were shaky. There was a turn around at about 70 miles in and everyone got a chance to see who was in front/behind you. It was kind of nice and I knew I might be in the running for an age group placing, so I was checking race #'s on helmets to see if any were low and presumably in my age group. Each person that I passed or got passed by I made sure to check their calf to see what their age was from the bodymarking. :) I'm sneaky like that I know, but it kept my mind off the ride. I launched a water bottle from my x-lab flatwing at about mile 65 of the ride, right before I was about to take in some salt tabs, and had to wait until the next aide station to get more water. No big deal I guess.
Miles 80-95 were rougher than I thought. I don't think I did enough continuous long rides in my training. Like if I would go for a 100+ ride, I would ussually stop and visit someone for 20-30 minutes in the middle of my ride. Probably not the smartest idea, I'll know for next time. Well, I was standing out of the saddle and couldn't get my rythym down for those miles, I really had to work hard at keeping the MPH up and my heart rate down. Once we hit the overpass at mile 100 or so, I knew I was home free. Seeing that 105 miles mile marker was a good feeling. I undid the shoes and had a solid dismount before the line at mile 112. The legs didn't feel too rough because I think they were ready to run after all of my getting out of the saddle in the latter parts of this ride.
T2 -2:42
This was MUCH quicker than I thought. I had luckily packed an extra pair of socks in this bag for the run which was nice since mine were a little soaked after "nature called" several times on the bike. I changed socks and grabbed a premade 400 calorie bottle of gatorade and took it with me on the run. TriSports.com race hat and I was off. Almost. I hit the porta-potty and evacuated some liquid and noticed that my legs were shaking uncontrollabbly inside. I figured it was because they were tired, but I hoped I could get thru the marathon ahead. I had never run a marathon before this, so this was going to be interesting.
The Run - 3:58:01
I had planned to run with the water bottle full of 400 cals of gatorade and carb-pro to slow me down out of transition and it did JUST that. I was going about 8 minute -8:15 pace for the first several miles but just couldn't stomach it anymore. I had previously had problems with not being able to take in ANY nutrition during the run portion of longer races this year and was nervious because I knew I couldn't do that during an IM. My stomach sloshed for about the first 7 miles. I mean it was churning. I was trying to run at the bottom of zone one so I could digest whatever was in there, but it seemed to be going really slow. I dropped the bottle around the first turn around in the state park. I wasn't drinking it and I figured it would only slow me down more, so it got chucked to the side of the road at an aide station. I had half a cookie to try and soak up the sloshing, but that was so dry I almost choked on it. Mental note - cookies without liquid = no good. I choked on the crumbs for about a half mile.
There were friends EVERYWHERE on the course and I thank Rachel, Sam, Phil and Kelly for running all around and cheering your hearts out for me on the run. I really needed it that last loop. I was feeling good on the way back to complete my first loop and I found that grapes worked really well for nutrition. They were full of water, sugar and were a good food source for me. I know you are not supposed to try anything new on race day, but I had to go with what worked. I took in a single "Esspresso Love" double caffinated gel somewhere there too and that definitely picked me up a bit. I made it back to the half marathon point in 1:50 and was feeling ok. I saw my dad, who was cheering REALLY loudly and holding a sign that had a T- dot (like the IM M-dot) and read, "Travis, the G awaits" and I had no idea what that meant until after the race I got back to the hotel to find a 4 pack of my most favorite alcoholic beverage, Guinness. Thanks dad :)
The second loop was a little more trying, especially the last part. I have told people that the "wheels didn't fall off" until about mile 18-19. It was right before entering the park for the second time. I stopped at a porta potty and really just wanted to walk for the rest of the day. I was calculating what kind of splits I was doing and what might be possible and I realized that breaking 10 hours was no longer feasible which got me down a little bit. I knew I had to stay focused though. Previously I was walking the aide stations to give my legs some rest and now I was walking the aide stations, plus about 50 yards at a brisk pace before I began running. I was getting to each aide station in about 8-9 minutes but walking thru them really slowed down my marathon "pace".
I hit thru turn around in the state park somewhere after mile 19 and it was beginning to get dark. The real reason I wanted to finish in under 10 hours was to be able to have a finishers photo in the daylight, but turns out I was 30 minutes late...there's always next year, and I hear Ironman Lake Placid is light until about 7pm :) Anyway, as I was saying, my mood was getting down and I thought maybe it was low blood sugar and I tried to eat, but wasn't feeling like it. I seriously contemplated stopping. I don't know what the hell I was thinking but it sounded good right then. Luckily I thought of all the people who told me that they would be watching online and all of the emails and phone calls I had gotten and I dug a little deeper and found the strength to soldier on. I realized that I was doing about 10 minute per mile pace and the wheels were falling off. It hurt a lot for about the first time that day.
I thought to myself that if only the last 6-8 miles hurt, then thats not that bad at all. I had heard so many horror stories about IM racing and how it is 12 hours of pain and I guess I had built it up and put it on this HUGE pedestal in my mind. It honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was expecting much worse. Anyway, for the last 4 miles or so, I hooked up with this 28 year old dude named Dan (I think?) who was from DC and had raced the Timberman with me this year. Turns out in the rain at the Timberman, he fell off the bike, dislocated his shoulder and when he got up, popped it back in and finished the triathlon. He said saw the father and son duo of Team Hoyt in the race and he thought to himself, if that dad can haul around his son for IM's and half IM's, then I can finish this race. That's crazy man. So we chatted about a lot and he was running slightly faster than I was which helped drag me along towards the finish. Turns out he was on his first loop as I was nearing the finish.
I didn't even see mile markers 24 and 25. I was distracted by the conversation with my new friend from DC. Which was good. But we got closer and closer to transition and it snuck up on me until he said "dude, you're almost there, look" and pointed to the glow that was about 0.5 miles away that was the finishing area. I thanked him immensely for his conversation and headed to the split and took the "finish" route instead of the "2nd loop" which felt soooooooo good. I was beaming and the adrenaline REALLY kicked in as I entered the throngs of people. I zipped up the jersey, made sure I was presentable, realized there was no one around me and smiled HUGELY as I zig zagged back and forth in the finishing chute slapping as many hands as I could while hearing those sweet words, "Travis Earley, you are an IRONMAN!!!". The finishing clock read 10:31:22 and I was just overcome. Amazing.
This race was something that I seriously thought was a physical impossibility when I was younger watching IM Hawaii on TV. I thought no one was capable of doing a marathon after biking so long. Just an incredible feeling overwhelmed me. I was whisked away to take a finishers photo in which I looked REALLY stupid. Grinning ear to ear and clutching my medal and space blanket. I was taken to the massage tent and everyone was asking me what I wanted/needed and all I really wanted was to sit down, but I got Gatorade and chicken broth instead. I hugged my dad a lot, and everyone was there, it was really cool. I got a massage of my hamstrings and quads and upon standing up, I started shaking uncontrollably for the second time that day. It was near 50 degrees out and I was in wet clothes, so I changed into my dry finishers shirt and cap and they wrapped me in my space blanket and a few comforters and every volunteer that passed my shivering but smiling huddle, rubbed me on the back and asked if I was ok. I was ok, just cold as hell. I'll post some pictures later on.
We all went out for ice cream afterwards which was amazing and I iced the knees for a good 30 minutes before bed. I woke up the next morning feeling good, just slow to get up from a seated position. By Tuesday, my muscles were not sore and I felt like I could go for a 3 hour ride if I wanted...I didn't, but it was good to begin feeling fine. I was pleased with the result, even though my marathon was not under control. I would have loved to run the whole thing and not have to walk the aide stations. Next time. I was 6th in my age group and 211th overall of 2109 finishers. I JUST missed out on age group awards as they went to the top 5 in the age group (9:12/10:11/10:12/10:19/10:20) I was 10:31 and just missed out on those. The Kona roll down ceremony went like this, "male 18-24 age group, there was one slot available, it was taken. Moving on"
I have many other stories to tell, but this was long enough. Leave some comment love and I'll post more pics later on. Cheers.
November 10, 2006
WATCH ME FINISH!!!
THIS right here is a link to watch me finish Ironman Florida. Hopefully you have Windows Media Player and can view it, let me know if it works or not. I'm the one coming in who is going from side to side in the chute and slapping as many hands as I can. Needless to say I was quite happy to see that finish line :)
The longest ten days ever
Well folks, it's been a while since I've blogged to you all and it's been a long and hard ten days. For those of you who don't know, I completed IMFL and was able to post some stellar splits. (in my mind) and was pleased having done the following:
So there you have it, I hit 5 out of my top seven goals and placed 6th in the 18-24 age group. I am very pleased and will write up a race report later on.
If you follow this linky you can type in my bib # and see a yellow bar that reads "watch me finish" and check out Mike Reily calling me an IRONMAN :) very cool, I had the whole shoot to myself :)
I'll give a detailed race report later on. Till then, cheers
TRAVIS EARLEY
BIB #169
AGE 24
ROCHESTER NY USA
SWIM BIKE RUN OVERALL POSITION
1:01:50 5:24:40 3:58:01 10:31:22 211
RACE LEG DISTANCE PACE POSITION
TOTAL SWIM 2.4 mi. (1:01:50) 1:37/100m 158
TOTAL BIKE 112 mi. (5:24:40) 20.70 mph 176
FIRST RUN SEGMENT 13.1 mi.(1:50:07) 8:24/mile
RUN FINISH 13.1 mi.(2:07:54) 9:45/mile
TOTAL RUN 26.2 mi.(3:58:01) 9:05/mile 211
TRANSITION TIME
T1: SWIM-TO-BIKE 4:09
T2: BIKE-TO-RUN 2:42
PENALTY TIME
TOTAL PENALTIES --:--
So there you have it, I hit 5 out of my top seven goals and placed 6th in the 18-24 age group. I am very pleased and will write up a race report later on.
If you follow this linky you can type in my bib # and see a yellow bar that reads "watch me finish" and check out Mike Reily calling me an IRONMAN :) very cool, I had the whole shoot to myself :)
I'll give a detailed race report later on. Till then, cheers
October 25, 2006
Bib # 169
So, as the ticker to the right creeps down into the single digits today...we officially get our BIB numbers for IM Florida. This is a big day for many reasons...
1. it's finally beginning to sink in that I am going to do an ironman
2. This is the bib number that I will eventually put on my wall in my apartment, maybe along with the swim cap and wristband
3. This is the race # that I have been waiting for to tell everyone about so they can keep track of me on 11/4/06 from points all over the world.
Kinda cool huh? So there it is. Number 169. Wow. Cool :)
I leave in less than a week and the taper and rest are finally beginning to kick in. Stay tuned to see what happens next Saturday :) I won't dissappoint.
1. it's finally beginning to sink in that I am going to do an ironman
2. This is the bib number that I will eventually put on my wall in my apartment, maybe along with the swim cap and wristband
3. This is the race # that I have been waiting for to tell everyone about so they can keep track of me on 11/4/06 from points all over the world.
Kinda cool huh? So there it is. Number 169. Wow. Cool :)
I leave in less than a week and the taper and rest are finally beginning to kick in. Stay tuned to see what happens next Saturday :) I won't dissappoint.
October 20, 2006
2 weeks away and goals
So, IMFL is about 2 weeks away now. I can say things have been going well and I am right on schedule, but now seems to be the time that I am doubting myself and my abilities and training program.
I think the big thing was that I don't have a coach. It's not like I have anyone to tell me what to do or when to schedule the correct workouts, I have just been increasing volume steadily over time while taking rest weeks in there every 4 weeks and throwing in monster bike rides and runs to keep the sword sharp. I guess it is the fear (healthy fear though) of never having done an Ironman that is banging me out a bit. I'm sure if I think hard enough back to the first half ironman I ever did. (Musselman 2005) There I was in 36th place overall having run a 5:05, but the last 3 miles felt like absolute poop. I don't want to feel like poop coming to the line in 2 weeks in Florida, but I'm sure I will have a lot of the same fears and aprehensions now about the distance just like I did slightly over a year ago. Now, the thought of a half ironman seems like it is normal. I am planning on doing 3 next year and maybe even another full if I can qualify for a slot for Placid in 2007.
I'm sure what I need to do is relax a little more and let the taper sink in. I took a rest week last week which topped out at about 8 hours from the previous week to that was at 17... but this week is back up to about 12 and I'm not really feeling the taper quite yet. I'm sure next week I will begin to feel a little fresher and the legs won't feel as dead as they have lately.
I have all the time in the world right now to train and get everything situated. It's a lot nicer to be able to have the hours in the day to, A.) clean your apartment B.) Do your dishes C.) get the laundry done. I can say right now honestly, there are NO dirty dishes in my apartment, there is one day worth of dirty laundry in my basket and I just cleaned, swiftered, and dusted my apartment this week. It's nice not to have to live in filth :-p
Anyway, training is coming along. I think I just need to relax about it and let the taper run its course. I have to believe in the training program that I have put together and know that it will bring me to the line on November 4th... But anyway, I thought aditionally I would throw some goals out there for my first ironman experience in Florida 2006. First thing first, the absolute first goal of mine is to have fun.
1. Have fun
2. Finish
3. Finish and stay out of the medical tent
4. Finish in less than 12 hours
5. Finish in less than 10:45 and place in top ten in my age group
6. Finish in less than 10:30 and place top five to get a plaque in my age group
7. Finish in less than 10 hours and get top three in my age group to grab a rolldown slot for Kona
The last one there is kind of a "pipe dreams" goal, although I would like to think I could rock a top five finish in my 18-24 age group and come away with some hardware. But there are so many factors that could go wrong, we'll have to wait the 14 days and see what happens.
I just wanted to kind of get those out there and on paper (kind of) to get them off my chest. I have absolutely NO IDEA how I will do in Florida, but I just want to have fun and post a good time. They say you can double your HIM time and add a little bit for fatigue and since I have gone a 4:43 at timberman this year, that comes to a 9:26 doubling it and adding 30-60 minutes for fatigue that is about a 10:15 or so. Just saying :) About a year ago (actually on 11/2/05) I worked it out that I think it would be do-able that I could snag a 10:50 at IMFL. I thought I would do a 1:10 swim, 5 minute T1, a 5:30 bike ride - for 20.5 mph, a 5 minute T2, and a 4 hour marathon - 9minute pace. Looking back on that, I definitely gave myself some extra room for the marathon seeing as I did a 1:34 at Timberman and I smoked a 22 mph avg split there as well on the bike. And with the wetsuit and salt water and HUGE amounts of people to draft in the swim, 1:10 is generous as well, but I guess we'll see.
Maybe that is what Ironman is all about, the unknown. The X factors that can affect your race in so many ways. The unknowns, no one knows how they will do until it's over. Sprint races I could pretty well predict down to the minute, but an IM, there are so many factors. Nutrition being one of them. I'm hoping the stomach holds up. But that is more for another post.
Sorry to bombard this one with a large post, but I guess it needed to be written. Rocking the taper and enjoying this free time, till next time, train hard and I'll see you on the roads.
I think the big thing was that I don't have a coach. It's not like I have anyone to tell me what to do or when to schedule the correct workouts, I have just been increasing volume steadily over time while taking rest weeks in there every 4 weeks and throwing in monster bike rides and runs to keep the sword sharp. I guess it is the fear (healthy fear though) of never having done an Ironman that is banging me out a bit. I'm sure if I think hard enough back to the first half ironman I ever did. (Musselman 2005) There I was in 36th place overall having run a 5:05, but the last 3 miles felt like absolute poop. I don't want to feel like poop coming to the line in 2 weeks in Florida, but I'm sure I will have a lot of the same fears and aprehensions now about the distance just like I did slightly over a year ago. Now, the thought of a half ironman seems like it is normal. I am planning on doing 3 next year and maybe even another full if I can qualify for a slot for Placid in 2007.
I'm sure what I need to do is relax a little more and let the taper sink in. I took a rest week last week which topped out at about 8 hours from the previous week to that was at 17... but this week is back up to about 12 and I'm not really feeling the taper quite yet. I'm sure next week I will begin to feel a little fresher and the legs won't feel as dead as they have lately.
I have all the time in the world right now to train and get everything situated. It's a lot nicer to be able to have the hours in the day to, A.) clean your apartment B.) Do your dishes C.) get the laundry done. I can say right now honestly, there are NO dirty dishes in my apartment, there is one day worth of dirty laundry in my basket and I just cleaned, swiftered, and dusted my apartment this week. It's nice not to have to live in filth :-p
Anyway, training is coming along. I think I just need to relax about it and let the taper run its course. I have to believe in the training program that I have put together and know that it will bring me to the line on November 4th... But anyway, I thought aditionally I would throw some goals out there for my first ironman experience in Florida 2006. First thing first, the absolute first goal of mine is to have fun.
1. Have fun
2. Finish
3. Finish and stay out of the medical tent
4. Finish in less than 12 hours
5. Finish in less than 10:45 and place in top ten in my age group
6. Finish in less than 10:30 and place top five to get a plaque in my age group
7. Finish in less than 10 hours and get top three in my age group to grab a rolldown slot for Kona
The last one there is kind of a "pipe dreams" goal, although I would like to think I could rock a top five finish in my 18-24 age group and come away with some hardware. But there are so many factors that could go wrong, we'll have to wait the 14 days and see what happens.
I just wanted to kind of get those out there and on paper (kind of) to get them off my chest. I have absolutely NO IDEA how I will do in Florida, but I just want to have fun and post a good time. They say you can double your HIM time and add a little bit for fatigue and since I have gone a 4:43 at timberman this year, that comes to a 9:26 doubling it and adding 30-60 minutes for fatigue that is about a 10:15 or so. Just saying :) About a year ago (actually on 11/2/05) I worked it out that I think it would be do-able that I could snag a 10:50 at IMFL. I thought I would do a 1:10 swim, 5 minute T1, a 5:30 bike ride - for 20.5 mph, a 5 minute T2, and a 4 hour marathon - 9minute pace. Looking back on that, I definitely gave myself some extra room for the marathon seeing as I did a 1:34 at Timberman and I smoked a 22 mph avg split there as well on the bike. And with the wetsuit and salt water and HUGE amounts of people to draft in the swim, 1:10 is generous as well, but I guess we'll see.
Maybe that is what Ironman is all about, the unknown. The X factors that can affect your race in so many ways. The unknowns, no one knows how they will do until it's over. Sprint races I could pretty well predict down to the minute, but an IM, there are so many factors. Nutrition being one of them. I'm hoping the stomach holds up. But that is more for another post.
Sorry to bombard this one with a large post, but I guess it needed to be written. Rocking the taper and enjoying this free time, till next time, train hard and I'll see you on the roads.
October 10, 2006
The IMFL Bible is here!!!
The 2006 Athlete guide is now posted to the Ironman Florida site.
The guide can be found here. Enjoy. I've already printed my copy and I'm rip roaring ready to go. Not a lot of time to post, but I'll write a race report of the Rizzo's BTC du later on this week or next. I'm enjoying the fruits of a rest week too much right now :)
Score-This!!! Series banquet is this weekend at Rizzo's Bachietti italian restraunt and I will be coming home with some hardware. I'll tell you more later. Cheers.
October 6, 2006
Trying to get over the last big hump
Well my peeples,
This has been a long and hard last 4 weeks. I know I had left you all with the promise of getting to this every week during my last 4 week build period, but I've been slipping... I know, it's the curse of the triathlete. Try to fit as many things into such a small amount of time. There are only so many hours of the day and something had to give, and guess what? It was updating you all on my progresses.
But, I'm back and I'm alive. I survived a 12 hour week (the usual) a 14 hour week, a 15 hour week (just barely survived that, more on that later though) and this will cap off what is looking to be a 16 hour week (if I can get my shit in line - literally and figureatively of course!...ANYWAY)
There have been some big workouts since the last post, some hard swimmings been done. Alone, I finally broke the 13:00 barrier in the 1000. I hit a 12:53 and almost had my head explode from not enough oxygen to my brain. There was a 110 mile ride to Letchworth State Park where I felt like I was bonking on the way home, but only took 6 hours to complete, so that's looking up. The next day after that though i tried for a 20 mile run and my muscles were fine. My insides revolted is all...Luckily I stayed close to my apartment and after two stops to "evacuate" I halted my forward progress at mile 10 and called it a day. I think it may have something to do with increasing run mileage too fast and the extra stressors on my body from increased training.
Well anyway, it's been hairy, but the end is in sight. I just have to get thru Sunday and then it is a glorious rest week, then a 3 week taper down to the big dance. Sunday I have a planned 3 hour ride in the morning and then will be running with an old high school friend back home near my parents place for 17 miles at 3pm. All of this of course is after the Champagne Party on Friday night at Greg's place that I convinced everyone to dress up in uber formal wear for. I'll post pictures if anyone has them.
Well, THE RACE is only 28 days away and I am freaking a little bit. I'm scared, but not in fear of the distance. It's a healthy fear I think....I hope. It's just hard to trust in a plan you have built for yourself and you find yourself second guessing EVERYTHING too. I don't have a fancy coach, so I've been just increasing mileage and hourage and doing the whole 3 weeks on and one rest week a month. It's worked, we'll see if it was enough in about a month....28 days to be exact.
Well tomorrow is the last chance to dance at the shorter distances and I am hoping to have fun at the Rizzos Buffalo Triathlon Club duathlon in Grand Island, NY. There are good names racing and my family is finally coming to watch me so I know I won't dissappoint. I need to do well to hang on to my 2nd place overall standing in the Score-This multisport series. I'm hoping to podium and race really well one last time as a BIG confidence booster for Florida. It's a 2.5 mile run/16 mile out and back bike/2.5 mile run, so it's simple and should be wicked fast. I'll have my parents there which will make me push for everything I'm worth too. Wish me luck guys.
Anyway, I'll post a report and results as per usual on Monday, but until then, train hard and see you on the course. Cheers.
This has been a long and hard last 4 weeks. I know I had left you all with the promise of getting to this every week during my last 4 week build period, but I've been slipping... I know, it's the curse of the triathlete. Try to fit as many things into such a small amount of time. There are only so many hours of the day and something had to give, and guess what? It was updating you all on my progresses.
But, I'm back and I'm alive. I survived a 12 hour week (the usual) a 14 hour week, a 15 hour week (just barely survived that, more on that later though) and this will cap off what is looking to be a 16 hour week (if I can get my shit in line - literally and figureatively of course!...ANYWAY)
There have been some big workouts since the last post, some hard swimmings been done. Alone, I finally broke the 13:00 barrier in the 1000. I hit a 12:53 and almost had my head explode from not enough oxygen to my brain. There was a 110 mile ride to Letchworth State Park where I felt like I was bonking on the way home, but only took 6 hours to complete, so that's looking up. The next day after that though i tried for a 20 mile run and my muscles were fine. My insides revolted is all...Luckily I stayed close to my apartment and after two stops to "evacuate" I halted my forward progress at mile 10 and called it a day. I think it may have something to do with increasing run mileage too fast and the extra stressors on my body from increased training.
Well anyway, it's been hairy, but the end is in sight. I just have to get thru Sunday and then it is a glorious rest week, then a 3 week taper down to the big dance. Sunday I have a planned 3 hour ride in the morning and then will be running with an old high school friend back home near my parents place for 17 miles at 3pm. All of this of course is after the Champagne Party on Friday night at Greg's place that I convinced everyone to dress up in uber formal wear for. I'll post pictures if anyone has them.
Well, THE RACE is only 28 days away and I am freaking a little bit. I'm scared, but not in fear of the distance. It's a healthy fear I think....I hope. It's just hard to trust in a plan you have built for yourself and you find yourself second guessing EVERYTHING too. I don't have a fancy coach, so I've been just increasing mileage and hourage and doing the whole 3 weeks on and one rest week a month. It's worked, we'll see if it was enough in about a month....28 days to be exact.
Well tomorrow is the last chance to dance at the shorter distances and I am hoping to have fun at the Rizzos Buffalo Triathlon Club duathlon in Grand Island, NY. There are good names racing and my family is finally coming to watch me so I know I won't dissappoint. I need to do well to hang on to my 2nd place overall standing in the Score-This multisport series. I'm hoping to podium and race really well one last time as a BIG confidence booster for Florida. It's a 2.5 mile run/16 mile out and back bike/2.5 mile run, so it's simple and should be wicked fast. I'll have my parents there which will make me push for everything I'm worth too. Wish me luck guys.
Anyway, I'll post a report and results as per usual on Monday, but until then, train hard and see you on the course. Cheers.
September 19, 2006
Fall Frolic Race Report - review of week
Well, my peeples this was an interesting week for training/racing/life for me. It is the first of four in the the last 4 week build before Ironman Florida and also the Danforth Fall Frolic sprint triathlon and my best friends wedding. Crazy.
First off it was a solid training week which capped out at slightly over 12 hours. It was a little rushed to get everything in as I was leaving for Buffalo, NY on Thursday night after work. (I was also leaving work 2 hours early in order to do a 16 mile run before I went to Buffalo) I was running late (as usual) and had like 30 minutes to pack for a wedding, a long weekend and a triathlon that Sunday in Barker, NY. I packed up the beast and headed out the door en route to Buffalo after a nice 16 miler in which I linked a lot of short runs together because I lacked the time to plot out a nice 16 mile route.
In Buffalo, we drink. We drink each night and since I was 150lbs after the run, it takes me about 0.5 beers before I start acting silly. We drank every night that I was there. Not heavily (at least I tried not to) but still nonetheless, my system was not used to the abnormal eating and drinking each day. Josh and his wife Melissa are in Aruba as I type this and they didn't want rotting groceries in their fridge so they ate out the last few nights before leaving, which since I was also up, forced me to eat out at chain restaurants...ewww. Anyway, needless to say, when I stepped on the scale back at the apartment, I was 158lbs...Not cool.
So, the wedding goes great, I was the best man, things are good, I have a triathlon the next morning and I stop drinking at like 8pm. Go to sleep, wake up a little later than expected and realize on the drive over to the race site (about 45 minutes from the hotel) that the mapquest directions are mental...not really getting me to the race site. I'm freaking a little, and when I finally get there it's t minus 30 minutes till my wave goes off.
I'm running around with the bike in a muddy field and bare feet (yes it is a trend, just like Timberman) since it was a mudfest, my corduroys are smattered in mud and I am pushing the bike and all my gear til I find the race registration table to pickup the bag, race# and timing chip. (I almost ran to transition without my chip...that wouldn't have been fun) I get there, set up everything in the mud and off to the lake to warm up, I'm slamming on the wetsuit, get it all zipped up and as soon as I am waist deep, I hear, "alright, everyone out of the water, we've gotta get you all counted, back thru the corral." damn, no warm up, again.
We get set and find out there are only 4 men and 5 women in the eliminator wave. For the men, it's Joe Niezgoda, Joe Meyers, Daryl Clarke, and myself. Good talent. Daryl is joking around and the mood is light. We see the women go off 4:48 in front of us and then take off at the second siren to chase them down. I exit the water in first place for the men with Mr. Niezgoda on my heels and Meyers and Clarke behind him. For the 400m swim I was 6:52.
We hit transition and I get everything going and head out to the bike course. About a mile in I hear what seems to be a car, but it was Niezgoda and his disc wheel floating by me. I was watching him pull away from me the whole time, but we both managed to catch all the women before the turn around. So much for the equalizer... The bike was 12 miles and ended in 34 minutes on the dot for me and I held off a fast charging Joe Meyer. I was 21.9mph average.
The 5k run was nice and flat, and had a bunch of turn arounds which was nice to be able to see where the competition was. I was hurting near the end REAL bad and was trying my damndest not to get passed by Joe M. I didn't realize how much Joe N. was fading up front. He crossed the line 28 seconds in front of me and I was able to hang on for the runner up (first loser!) haha. Meyer was about 30 seconds back on me and we all were caked in mud after the final 400 meters of the run was thru a field. Fun times. I ran an 18:38 5k which was 6:01 pace/mile. Not bad. No one broke the elusive hour, but the course really wasn't suited for it this year. Too much mud. I was happy with another nice podium finish.
At the awards I snagged a nice tech top from Mizuno and a large tub of the worst tasting stuff in the world...Mandarin orange HEED. Bleh. since we were a special wave and not considered in the race, there were no Score-This!!! plaques for us. Bummerooski. Better luck next time.
Next week (this week) is a 3 miles of swimming, 8.5 hours in the saddle and 28-30 miles running. With a 100 mile ride and a 18 mile run, wish me luck. It's crunch time. I'll write another report next week. Mentally, this is do-able :)
First off it was a solid training week which capped out at slightly over 12 hours. It was a little rushed to get everything in as I was leaving for Buffalo, NY on Thursday night after work. (I was also leaving work 2 hours early in order to do a 16 mile run before I went to Buffalo) I was running late (as usual) and had like 30 minutes to pack for a wedding, a long weekend and a triathlon that Sunday in Barker, NY. I packed up the beast and headed out the door en route to Buffalo after a nice 16 miler in which I linked a lot of short runs together because I lacked the time to plot out a nice 16 mile route.
In Buffalo, we drink. We drink each night and since I was 150lbs after the run, it takes me about 0.5 beers before I start acting silly. We drank every night that I was there. Not heavily (at least I tried not to) but still nonetheless, my system was not used to the abnormal eating and drinking each day. Josh and his wife Melissa are in Aruba as I type this and they didn't want rotting groceries in their fridge so they ate out the last few nights before leaving, which since I was also up, forced me to eat out at chain restaurants...ewww. Anyway, needless to say, when I stepped on the scale back at the apartment, I was 158lbs...Not cool.
So, the wedding goes great, I was the best man, things are good, I have a triathlon the next morning and I stop drinking at like 8pm. Go to sleep, wake up a little later than expected and realize on the drive over to the race site (about 45 minutes from the hotel) that the mapquest directions are mental...not really getting me to the race site. I'm freaking a little, and when I finally get there it's t minus 30 minutes till my wave goes off.
I'm running around with the bike in a muddy field and bare feet (yes it is a trend, just like Timberman) since it was a mudfest, my corduroys are smattered in mud and I am pushing the bike and all my gear til I find the race registration table to pickup the bag, race# and timing chip. (I almost ran to transition without my chip...that wouldn't have been fun) I get there, set up everything in the mud and off to the lake to warm up, I'm slamming on the wetsuit, get it all zipped up and as soon as I am waist deep, I hear, "alright, everyone out of the water, we've gotta get you all counted, back thru the corral." damn, no warm up, again.
We get set and find out there are only 4 men and 5 women in the eliminator wave. For the men, it's Joe Niezgoda, Joe Meyers, Daryl Clarke, and myself. Good talent. Daryl is joking around and the mood is light. We see the women go off 4:48 in front of us and then take off at the second siren to chase them down. I exit the water in first place for the men with Mr. Niezgoda on my heels and Meyers and Clarke behind him. For the 400m swim I was 6:52.
We hit transition and I get everything going and head out to the bike course. About a mile in I hear what seems to be a car, but it was Niezgoda and his disc wheel floating by me. I was watching him pull away from me the whole time, but we both managed to catch all the women before the turn around. So much for the equalizer... The bike was 12 miles and ended in 34 minutes on the dot for me and I held off a fast charging Joe Meyer. I was 21.9mph average.
The 5k run was nice and flat, and had a bunch of turn arounds which was nice to be able to see where the competition was. I was hurting near the end REAL bad and was trying my damndest not to get passed by Joe M. I didn't realize how much Joe N. was fading up front. He crossed the line 28 seconds in front of me and I was able to hang on for the runner up (first loser!) haha. Meyer was about 30 seconds back on me and we all were caked in mud after the final 400 meters of the run was thru a field. Fun times. I ran an 18:38 5k which was 6:01 pace/mile. Not bad. No one broke the elusive hour, but the course really wasn't suited for it this year. Too much mud. I was happy with another nice podium finish.
At the awards I snagged a nice tech top from Mizuno and a large tub of the worst tasting stuff in the world...Mandarin orange HEED. Bleh. since we were a special wave and not considered in the race, there were no Score-This!!! plaques for us. Bummerooski. Better luck next time.
Next week (this week) is a 3 miles of swimming, 8.5 hours in the saddle and 28-30 miles running. With a 100 mile ride and a 18 mile run, wish me luck. It's crunch time. I'll write another report next week. Mentally, this is do-able :)
September 13, 2006
Oh GLORIOUS rest week! / FLT report
Well, last week was the week that every tired and hurting triathlete looks for in his training schedule. It was a rest week. These are the weeks when training is cut down to (for me) 6-8 hours instead of the usual double that amount and you let your body heal and get to see all of the friends/family that you have neglected and also get a chance to clean up your abode and get your life in order for a minute.
My rest week was nothing short of that. I tipped the scales at a nice even 8 hours of training and even raced on Sunday at the Finger Lakes Intermediate Triathlon. I always thought I could do better than the 2:14 that I posted at Keuka earlier this year and this was going to be the last chance to bury that time. The registration confirmation list was out and Mr. Travis Money kept on emailing me and letting me know that none of the big names for Rochester triathlon (Eggers, Niezgoda, Meyers, Phipps, Moriarty, Johnson, etc...) were registered. (I advised him that there was still race day registration, but I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't thinking about a potential win...)
5am came and I was on the road packed and ready to go at 5:30, I arrived at 6:15am to find all the prime spots gone in transition, but settled my things and noticed how cold the air felt. I was sure glad that I had put on the toe covers on my bike shoes the night before. I said HI to a few friends, pulled up the neoprene and headed down to the lake.
We huddled in our wetsuits together to keep warm and I was in the second wave to go off. I lined up next to Jeff Henderson, director of the Musselman half ironman triathlon and the Fly by Night duathlon at Watkins Glen race track. Our wave started 3 minutes behind the previous one and I thought to myself, "why not try and draft off Jeff? I bet he is fast and I could push the swim with him..." I know realize, those were naive thoughts...
The gun goes off and I look to my left and Jeff is dolphin diving off of the bottom (because for like 100 yards it is really shallow) and he is pulling away from me. 30 seconds later, I realize that he is 50 yards in front of me. I pushed to try and catch up, but he was rocketting off and apparently was a good swimmer. (I find out later that he was a division one swimmer for Princeton in college...Graduated in 1997) Apparently he beat everyone out of the water that morning. I mean EVERYONE, the entire first wave included that had a 3 minute head start. I was the third fastest time out of the water with a 24:16 and I exited the water in around 23 minutes, but the time doesn't stop until you cross the mat in T1.
I hopped on the bike after some chain troubles in what felt like the slowest transition yet and I headed out hoping to hunt down Mr. Henderson. I never saw him over the 24 miles on the bike. Looking at the results after the race, I see that we split about the same time on the bike, so it makes sense. 23.2 mph and there were some nasty hills, especially about 5 minutes into the bike course. Had me huffing and puffing, but overall I was fast and not hurting too much.
I hurl myself into T2 off the bike and get out of there in a hurry. I begin the run, 2 loops of a 10k course (it was more than 10k I think, a little bit long...) I begin the pursuit and since this was kind of an out and back run course, I would get to see where Jeff was. I was hauling it pretty good and was about 18 minutes thru 3 miles, so I knew I was about 6 minute pace. I finally saw Jeff after 3 miles and began to reel him in. He was about 3/8ths of a mile in front of me and I was running out of room to catch him. I made sure to have fun on the course too as I did a spin move around the barrel at the turnaround and the volunteer lady looked at me like I was crazy.
I was gaining on Jeff and I could smell it, I pushed for all I had the last mile, but as I crossed the line in 2:07:27, he was still 31 seconds in front of me. It was a good race and I think he might be a M PRO, but I'm not sure. After the dust settled, I was the FLT runner up with a respectable 2nd place overall and a 7 minute PR from my time at Keuka. I was very pleased. I like racing at the end of a rest week, because it is kind of like a mini taper :) It was another podium spot and a good race in my mind. I think if there were more miles on the run, I might have been able to catch Jeff, but who knows. At least I learned that my body is capable of hauling it during the swim and not feeling too bad on the bike afterwards. Good to know :)
Well, this week is the first of the last 4 build weeks before IRONMAN Florida. These will be the biggest training weeks to date, every workout counts. I have 4 runs scheduled between 16 and 20 miles, 2 century rides and a few more 60-80 mile rides in there. Along with some monster swim workouts too (Just last night I did 20x100's on 1:30 and held between 1:16-1:19 and the last one was 1:13...rough, but good)
So there it is, I have a nice 12 hour training week scheduled and a wedding for my best friend Josh Mee in Buffalo on Saturday and the Danforth Fall Frolic triathlon on Sunday after the wedding. (should be interesting as this is a BIG race with an eliminator wave - which equalizes out the top men and women) My goal at that race is to place top 3 and break 1 hour. We shall see how that goes as there will be a star studded field there and I will likely be in rough shape after the wedding. And that is it, FL tri race report and review of the rest week. Good luck training and thanks for reading. I'll give a review of the Fall Frolic next week sometime. Cheers.
My rest week was nothing short of that. I tipped the scales at a nice even 8 hours of training and even raced on Sunday at the Finger Lakes Intermediate Triathlon. I always thought I could do better than the 2:14 that I posted at Keuka earlier this year and this was going to be the last chance to bury that time. The registration confirmation list was out and Mr. Travis Money kept on emailing me and letting me know that none of the big names for Rochester triathlon (Eggers, Niezgoda, Meyers, Phipps, Moriarty, Johnson, etc...) were registered. (I advised him that there was still race day registration, but I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't thinking about a potential win...)
5am came and I was on the road packed and ready to go at 5:30, I arrived at 6:15am to find all the prime spots gone in transition, but settled my things and noticed how cold the air felt. I was sure glad that I had put on the toe covers on my bike shoes the night before. I said HI to a few friends, pulled up the neoprene and headed down to the lake.
We huddled in our wetsuits together to keep warm and I was in the second wave to go off. I lined up next to Jeff Henderson, director of the Musselman half ironman triathlon and the Fly by Night duathlon at Watkins Glen race track. Our wave started 3 minutes behind the previous one and I thought to myself, "why not try and draft off Jeff? I bet he is fast and I could push the swim with him..." I know realize, those were naive thoughts...
The gun goes off and I look to my left and Jeff is dolphin diving off of the bottom (because for like 100 yards it is really shallow) and he is pulling away from me. 30 seconds later, I realize that he is 50 yards in front of me. I pushed to try and catch up, but he was rocketting off and apparently was a good swimmer. (I find out later that he was a division one swimmer for Princeton in college...Graduated in 1997) Apparently he beat everyone out of the water that morning. I mean EVERYONE, the entire first wave included that had a 3 minute head start. I was the third fastest time out of the water with a 24:16 and I exited the water in around 23 minutes, but the time doesn't stop until you cross the mat in T1.
I hopped on the bike after some chain troubles in what felt like the slowest transition yet and I headed out hoping to hunt down Mr. Henderson. I never saw him over the 24 miles on the bike. Looking at the results after the race, I see that we split about the same time on the bike, so it makes sense. 23.2 mph and there were some nasty hills, especially about 5 minutes into the bike course. Had me huffing and puffing, but overall I was fast and not hurting too much.
I hurl myself into T2 off the bike and get out of there in a hurry. I begin the run, 2 loops of a 10k course (it was more than 10k I think, a little bit long...) I begin the pursuit and since this was kind of an out and back run course, I would get to see where Jeff was. I was hauling it pretty good and was about 18 minutes thru 3 miles, so I knew I was about 6 minute pace. I finally saw Jeff after 3 miles and began to reel him in. He was about 3/8ths of a mile in front of me and I was running out of room to catch him. I made sure to have fun on the course too as I did a spin move around the barrel at the turnaround and the volunteer lady looked at me like I was crazy.
I was gaining on Jeff and I could smell it, I pushed for all I had the last mile, but as I crossed the line in 2:07:27, he was still 31 seconds in front of me. It was a good race and I think he might be a M PRO, but I'm not sure. After the dust settled, I was the FLT runner up with a respectable 2nd place overall and a 7 minute PR from my time at Keuka. I was very pleased. I like racing at the end of a rest week, because it is kind of like a mini taper :) It was another podium spot and a good race in my mind. I think if there were more miles on the run, I might have been able to catch Jeff, but who knows. At least I learned that my body is capable of hauling it during the swim and not feeling too bad on the bike afterwards. Good to know :)
Well, this week is the first of the last 4 build weeks before IRONMAN Florida. These will be the biggest training weeks to date, every workout counts. I have 4 runs scheduled between 16 and 20 miles, 2 century rides and a few more 60-80 mile rides in there. Along with some monster swim workouts too (Just last night I did 20x100's on 1:30 and held between 1:16-1:19 and the last one was 1:13...rough, but good)
So there it is, I have a nice 12 hour training week scheduled and a wedding for my best friend Josh Mee in Buffalo on Saturday and the Danforth Fall Frolic triathlon on Sunday after the wedding. (should be interesting as this is a BIG race with an eliminator wave - which equalizes out the top men and women) My goal at that race is to place top 3 and break 1 hour. We shall see how that goes as there will be a star studded field there and I will likely be in rough shape after the wedding. And that is it, FL tri race report and review of the rest week. Good luck training and thanks for reading. I'll give a review of the Fall Frolic next week sometime. Cheers.
September 5, 2006
The end is in sight!!!
Well it's time for another week in review for last week. The Escape from the judge one mile open water swim was on sunday this past week and capped off a nice week of over 14.25 hours of training while still holding down a 40+ hour a week job that does not allow flex time...
This week capped out with a 72mile ride on Friday, followed immediately by an 8 mile run. A nice and "easy" day of a 2 hour ride on Saturday with a 2 mile swim at a local pool with some friends and Sunday in the AM hours, I woke up and for the second weekend straight, before the sun rose I was travelling to a site to race on dark roads (this week however I was driving to Skaneateles Lake) After the race, I ran the bike 30 K long course of our local club's run bike run course in Webster Park for a total of an 18.6 mile run which left me feeling suprisingly OK afterwards. Not quite the thrashing that I took the previous weekend after the bachelors party.
I was stoked at the milage I was able to hold last week and looked forward to this weeks "rest week". My body likes to rest and although I get all antsy in the pantsy's...I know it's good for me to completely recover rather than kill myself with mucho miles like I would like to. I had some good workouts and the long run and long brick I did on Friday really helped give me some confidence that I thought I might have lost.
As an aside, yesterday was 2 months EXACLTY to the day to IM FLORIDA and that was a reality check. I realized that after this weeks rest week, I have 4 weeks to do one last build, rest adn then taper down to the big dance. Starting to feel it friends, the hair on the back of my neck is "at attention" right now. :) Good times.
As for the racing front, I raced the Escape from the Judge this weekend and did ok. I had a three and a half minute improvement from last year and I placed 8 spots better as well. The race ends on some timing mats on the beach and your time stops when you get to them so you can totally tell who all the triathletes are because they are the ones running up the ramp and pulling down their wetsuits (even though there is no transition zone and nothing after the swim, you just kind of do it out of habit...) and I was able to come in neck and neck with this one dude, but I stood up faster and raced up the beach and he just kinda stood up really slow and waddled up the beach and it looks like I beat him by 3 seconds, which looks like a lot in a swim race, but I assure you, we were neck and neck in the water, I just exited the water faster :)
I placed first in the 20-24 Age group and got another pint glass which was nice and then went home to sleep and run close to 19 miles by myself. It was choppy conditions on the water, but I was pleased with the results. I'm looking forward to the rest week so I can do all those things I haven't had time to do (laundry, dishes, clean the apartment, etc...) The Finger Lakes Tri is this weekend and it looks like a fun one. I honestly just want to better that 2:14 that I had at Keuka and I will be happy. (I'd love to break 2:10...but we'll see...) So until then, you might actually see me around this week as the training load is muchly reduced. Take care and I'll see you around.
~Travis
This week capped out with a 72mile ride on Friday, followed immediately by an 8 mile run. A nice and "easy" day of a 2 hour ride on Saturday with a 2 mile swim at a local pool with some friends and Sunday in the AM hours, I woke up and for the second weekend straight, before the sun rose I was travelling to a site to race on dark roads (this week however I was driving to Skaneateles Lake) After the race, I ran the bike 30 K long course of our local club's run bike run course in Webster Park for a total of an 18.6 mile run which left me feeling suprisingly OK afterwards. Not quite the thrashing that I took the previous weekend after the bachelors party.
I was stoked at the milage I was able to hold last week and looked forward to this weeks "rest week". My body likes to rest and although I get all antsy in the pantsy's...I know it's good for me to completely recover rather than kill myself with mucho miles like I would like to. I had some good workouts and the long run and long brick I did on Friday really helped give me some confidence that I thought I might have lost.
As an aside, yesterday was 2 months EXACLTY to the day to IM FLORIDA and that was a reality check. I realized that after this weeks rest week, I have 4 weeks to do one last build, rest adn then taper down to the big dance. Starting to feel it friends, the hair on the back of my neck is "at attention" right now. :) Good times.
As for the racing front, I raced the Escape from the Judge this weekend and did ok. I had a three and a half minute improvement from last year and I placed 8 spots better as well. The race ends on some timing mats on the beach and your time stops when you get to them so you can totally tell who all the triathletes are because they are the ones running up the ramp and pulling down their wetsuits (even though there is no transition zone and nothing after the swim, you just kind of do it out of habit...) and I was able to come in neck and neck with this one dude, but I stood up faster and raced up the beach and he just kinda stood up really slow and waddled up the beach and it looks like I beat him by 3 seconds, which looks like a lot in a swim race, but I assure you, we were neck and neck in the water, I just exited the water faster :)
I placed first in the 20-24 Age group and got another pint glass which was nice and then went home to sleep and run close to 19 miles by myself. It was choppy conditions on the water, but I was pleased with the results. I'm looking forward to the rest week so I can do all those things I haven't had time to do (laundry, dishes, clean the apartment, etc...) The Finger Lakes Tri is this weekend and it looks like a fun one. I honestly just want to better that 2:14 that I had at Keuka and I will be happy. (I'd love to break 2:10...but we'll see...) So until then, you might actually see me around this week as the training load is muchly reduced. Take care and I'll see you around.
~Travis
August 29, 2006
Week in review - Alumni run and massive training
Well, I was perusing the web today and popped over to Bold's site and found his edition of "the good, the bad and the ugly" again as it was a Monday morning yesterday. (Yeah, I'm always kind of late when keeping on top of those things...)
But the section of his 'da Republic of Bolder' report labeled 'the bad' struck me as pretty significant. It rang true as they say. Here is a little excerpt:
THE BAD
The days are long, and the nights are getting shorter.
Yesterday, in review:
slept, got up, ate, ran over a mountain and back half-mary style, ate, slept, rode my bike over a mountain and back olympic style, ate, slept, ran beside a mountain and back dog-tired style, slept for 9 hours which didn't seem like long enough.
I believe in everything in moderation.
Moderation has left the building my peoples.
Left.the.building.
I agree with him. We both were crazy enough to sign up for Ironman Florida and from the looks of it we are both trying very hard to throw in massive amounts of mileage before the big dance in November (which is less than 70 days away I might add...)
This past weekend was like that for me too, maybe not as severe being that there are not too many mountains here in NY as there are on the left coast. But still, I see Bold's pain in knowing that moderation has left the building.
Saturday morning, I woke up at 4:45am. Strapped on a headlamp, got the bike all set up and climbed on it to ride down to Letchworth State Park (about a 45 mile trip) by 8am to run in the SUNY Geneseo Alumni race there. I was in the saddle at 5:15am and rolling down the back roads trying not to get hit by cars while en route.
I get down to the "Grand Canyon of the East" state park and roll in to meet the rest of the alum's and the newbie's on the XC team. Now mind you, I dropped out of college running because my grades were so bad and I was in danger of failing out of school. (I graduated, yes....but if I would have ran all four years, that probably would not have been the case...) So the last 2 years of my college career I majored in beer and darts and had a minor in Business Administration. I was also pushing the envelope of about 195lbs...
Right now after months of training for IM Florida, I am happy to say I am under 155lbs and some people at the Alumni Race didn't really recognize me. Nice. Anyway, I just biked 45 miles to the park, and strapped on the old Nike XC spikes and warmed up with most of the Alum's who are either really fast now (some are going to the olympic trials) or have gained some weight and like their booze (not that there is anything wrong with that!)
So needless to say when the 4 mile race went out and I saw the leaders hit the one mile mark in 5:05, I knew this was going to be fast. I crossed in 6:05 and held that pace until the end and came in with a 24:07. Apparently the course was long, and I would have loved to have broken 24 and held sub-6 minute miles, but I still knew I needed to cycle home and get some sleep. As an aside, Jeff Beck was the winner in just over 20 minutes and I was like 18th overall... I was never really speedy in college, but these guys ALWAYS blew me away. It's great to see so much talent in one place. Good times.
So I strapped on the cycling shoes again and began to pedal out of the Genesee Valley and back to home. My legs were smoked... I made it home in one piece and slept for an hour before tending to some last minute preparations for a buddy's bachelor party. (Which I can't reveal any details of here, because we all know...what happens at a bachelors party, stays at a bachelors party...standard 'dude law'...)
The next day I awoke in a drunken stupor (again my folks, "moderation has left the building" - I work hard, I play hard...) at 11am, said goodbye to the friends who were on my couch and realized I needed to do a 15 mile run today. I'm not lying when I say this was one of the worst runs in my life. I don't know if I was still drunk, or if it was cause I was "hanging over" so bad, or if it was the long bike ride and fast racing yesterday, but I was hurting. (again, moderation has left the building) Well, long story short (too late) I finished it and crashed that night. It rounded out the week at just over 13 hours of training and this week is the last week of building before a short rest week after Labor Day. Looking forward to the rest...then one last four week build and then my friends, its taper time.
Bold was right, moderation is gone. It's all about the miles now. Good luck to all who are training for whatever and I'll see you out on the roads. Cheers.
But the section of his 'da Republic of Bolder' report labeled 'the bad' struck me as pretty significant. It rang true as they say. Here is a little excerpt:
THE BAD
The days are long, and the nights are getting shorter.
Yesterday, in review:
slept, got up, ate, ran over a mountain and back half-mary style, ate, slept, rode my bike over a mountain and back olympic style, ate, slept, ran beside a mountain and back dog-tired style, slept for 9 hours which didn't seem like long enough.
I believe in everything in moderation.
Moderation has left the building my peoples.
Left.the.building.
I agree with him. We both were crazy enough to sign up for Ironman Florida and from the looks of it we are both trying very hard to throw in massive amounts of mileage before the big dance in November (which is less than 70 days away I might add...)
This past weekend was like that for me too, maybe not as severe being that there are not too many mountains here in NY as there are on the left coast. But still, I see Bold's pain in knowing that moderation has left the building.
Saturday morning, I woke up at 4:45am. Strapped on a headlamp, got the bike all set up and climbed on it to ride down to Letchworth State Park (about a 45 mile trip) by 8am to run in the SUNY Geneseo Alumni race there. I was in the saddle at 5:15am and rolling down the back roads trying not to get hit by cars while en route.
I get down to the "Grand Canyon of the East" state park and roll in to meet the rest of the alum's and the newbie's on the XC team. Now mind you, I dropped out of college running because my grades were so bad and I was in danger of failing out of school. (I graduated, yes....but if I would have ran all four years, that probably would not have been the case...) So the last 2 years of my college career I majored in beer and darts and had a minor in Business Administration. I was also pushing the envelope of about 195lbs...
Right now after months of training for IM Florida, I am happy to say I am under 155lbs and some people at the Alumni Race didn't really recognize me. Nice. Anyway, I just biked 45 miles to the park, and strapped on the old Nike XC spikes and warmed up with most of the Alum's who are either really fast now (some are going to the olympic trials) or have gained some weight and like their booze (not that there is anything wrong with that!)
So needless to say when the 4 mile race went out and I saw the leaders hit the one mile mark in 5:05, I knew this was going to be fast. I crossed in 6:05 and held that pace until the end and came in with a 24:07. Apparently the course was long, and I would have loved to have broken 24 and held sub-6 minute miles, but I still knew I needed to cycle home and get some sleep. As an aside, Jeff Beck was the winner in just over 20 minutes and I was like 18th overall... I was never really speedy in college, but these guys ALWAYS blew me away. It's great to see so much talent in one place. Good times.
So I strapped on the cycling shoes again and began to pedal out of the Genesee Valley and back to home. My legs were smoked... I made it home in one piece and slept for an hour before tending to some last minute preparations for a buddy's bachelor party. (Which I can't reveal any details of here, because we all know...what happens at a bachelors party, stays at a bachelors party...standard 'dude law'...)
The next day I awoke in a drunken stupor (again my folks, "moderation has left the building" - I work hard, I play hard...) at 11am, said goodbye to the friends who were on my couch and realized I needed to do a 15 mile run today. I'm not lying when I say this was one of the worst runs in my life. I don't know if I was still drunk, or if it was cause I was "hanging over" so bad, or if it was the long bike ride and fast racing yesterday, but I was hurting. (again, moderation has left the building) Well, long story short (too late) I finished it and crashed that night. It rounded out the week at just over 13 hours of training and this week is the last week of building before a short rest week after Labor Day. Looking forward to the rest...then one last four week build and then my friends, its taper time.
Bold was right, moderation is gone. It's all about the miles now. Good luck to all who are training for whatever and I'll see you out on the roads. Cheers.
August 22, 2006
Timberman 70.3 race report
I wake up from a lumpy pillow at the hotel, rip-roarin’ ready to go. It’s Sunday August 20th at 5am, I’m in Tilton, New Hampshire and it is the day of the Timberman 70.3 triathlon. I’ve already racked my bike in the transition area the day before, picked up my packet and attended a pre-race meeting all yesterday now all I needed to do was get to Ellacoya State Park and set up transition and get in the water.
A quick pull back of the hotel window curtains, I look outside and it’s pouring rain….
Great, I think to myself. No normal person likes to race in the rain. But then again, show me a triathlete that is “normal” and well wait, I don’t think you could find one… We’re all different and unique in our own ways and no one fits the “norm”. So after packing up the car and having a clif bar, yogurt and bagel breakfast in the hotel room, we depart for the race site at 5:25am.
We’re driving to the park and it’s still black out (the sun hasn’t risen yet) and the impending rain clouds mean it looks like it won’t be out for quite some time. We get closer and closer to the park and all of the sudden there is a train of about 20 cars waiting to take a left into the park. That’s just what a nervous triathlete wants to see race morning, a traffic jam. It’s now 6:20am and I check the Athlete Guide and see that the transition closes at 7am and the nerves and adrenaline begin to pump more and more as we are still stuck in traffic waiting to get into the park.
My wave goes off at 7:28am, so I’m not too worried, but there are other triathletes who obviously have earlier waves that are walking down the hill with their transition bags and rain gear on who are “hoofing it” into the park. I thought I might be ok and not have to walk into the park, but when 6:30am showed on the car stereo and the police officer who was supposed to let us into the park told us to keep going down the road because the park was full, I decided to jump out with my bag and walk into the park to set up transition while Rachel was shuttled off down the road to park.
I hopped out barefoot from the car and walked in. I didn’t have any waterproof sandals with me, so I decided rather than get my running shoes wet, or ruining my leather Birkenstocks, I would walk barefoot. No big deal. It was still pouring and I was getting soaked and got to my transition area and found my bike, started putting my run and bike stuff in separate bags to keep it dry and realized that I didn’t have the bag with my bike and run shoes in it…it was in the trunk of the car…
I packed up my bag with everything and began running, barefoot, to the entrance of the park. Panic was setting in very quickly…How could I bike without bike shoes? I might be able to manage the run; I mean some of the top Kenyans run barefoot, right? But the bike, I don’t think I would make it on these hills.
I ran up to the police officer who told us the park was full and asked him the next spot down the road where they were shuttling cars, he said it was the Victorian House about a quarter mile down the road. I must have looked like quite the spectacle running barefoot up the road with a bullet helmet in one hand and soaked to the bone with a backpack full of my wetsuit and everything on too. I got to the Victorian house and couldn’t find the car or Rachel. My heart began to race, I needed the shoes to do well today and I had no idea if Rachel’s car was 0.25 miles down the road or if she had been shuttled 5 miles away. I didn’t even know her cell phone number to call her and let her know I needed her to bring the shoes. I ran back to the park. Panic was REALLY setting in now as it was 6:40am. Pro wave was going off at 7am and my wave was 28 minutes later.
I begin frantically looking around as I am entering the park for a blue rain coat that contains the woman who has the car keys. I get all the way back to transition and I am at the entrance and I hear, “Travis!!!” – No one else here knew my name, it must have been Rachel…my heart skipped a beat, there she was. Phew… I yell that I need the keys and as we are running back to her car which amazingly was one of the last few to get a spot near the entrance of the park, I apologize for being so frantic and thank her immensely for finding me. I get the shoes out of the trunk and race back to set up T1 and T2. I throw everything I think I need in the appropriate bags and get everything ready for the swim. Now It is past 7am and for some reason, the pros haven’t gone off yet. Its 7:05 and the announcement comes over the loudspeaker that the race will be delayed a little bit and the pros will go off at 7:30 because of the horrendous traffic. I breathe a sigh of relief. I get on the wetsuit with the help of some body glide and go off for the swim start. I’m in the water off to the side in Lake Winnapasauke when the pro’s dolphin into the water and I start to warm up a little. (Not like I wasn’t warmed up already from running around before looking for the car…but anyway)
There is a port-a-potty on the beach and I get in line, I think it might be best to relieve myself fully before the start. When I exit the john, my wave is being ushered thru the corral, over the mat to activate the timing chips and into the water for our start. Just in time…a few short jokes with the boys of the male 29 and under wave and we hear the race begin for us.
Several dolphin kicks out and there are still massive amounts of people everywhere you look in the water for our wave, all fighting for position and it is an endless sea of florescent green caps. I thought the swimming on top of each other and closed fist punches would stop, but all the way around the last buoy, there was still jockeying for position. Waves had begun to form in the middle of the swim leg and we caught up to some of the earlier waves so the “lap traffic” was interesting to navigate around. I tried not to get kicked in the ribcage by the slower swimmers who were breast stroking keeping their heads above water from previous waves, but couldn’t avoid the feet. I was trying to keep on the feet of a fast green capped swimmer who a few other people were trying to draft off of as well. That might have been an explanation for all of the physical-ness of the swim.
We exit the water and my watch reads 32 something. 2 minutes slower than I wanted to go, but it was raining and the swim was physical and choppy, no big deal, I ran off to T1.
I find my bike really easily because they lettered off the rows and I somehow remembered that I was in row “I”. I find the beast, strap on Excalibur (the Louis Garneau rocket helmet) and I’m out of there in a little over 2 minutes. The adrenaline must have been pumping because I forgot to hit the split on my watch. Oops, looks like I’ll never know my true heart rate for the swim. Oh well, onto the bike course.
There are a lot of people in front of me, and I’m trying to pass them and not get hit with a drafting penalty, but it’s hard when there are so many riders on such a small course and everyone is tearing out of T1 and there are a lot of wet turns in the first few miles. So in order to not get hit with a red card drafting penalty, I take it upon myself to charge past the pack that was now forming and take the lead and get out of the four bike length draft zone. I was in a gap and riding smoothly on the rain parched roads and I looked down and thought my rear tire was flatting, it looked low from my vantage point, but I didn’t hear the hissing sound of a flat time on wet pavement, so I continued to ride. Maybe I was just heavier than I remembered. We did have a good sized pasta dinner the night before.
I continued to pass people and we got to the Marsh Hill monster, which is a 3-9% grade climb at mile 10 of the ride. I am not a good climber, but up this hill I felt good. People in their nice new P3 Cervelo’s with Zipp discs on the rear tire were up and standing out of the saddle. I just leaned back and spun up and blew by them. It was nice and made me smile a little inside to pass people with better machines than me. Just goes to tell you it’s all about the engine inside. The course was never really flat on the bike, but there were sections where it was nice and gradual up or down for miles at a time.
We passed by the Louden, NH speedway and a greyhound dog race track and all of these really wooded areas which were really pretty, even in the rain. I was trying to take in gels and nutrition, but for some reason my stomach was not cooperating, I was feeling bloated and gassy and every time I took a gel or drink of Gatorade or water, I felt like it was sloshing in my stomach. I don’t know if it was from too much of a breakfast or what, but I was worried at what would happen on the run if I didn’t get enough fuel in me.
At about mile 20, I began to see the pros coming back on the bike course and picked out big old Bjorn Anderson in his sweet bullet helmet with shark teeth down the side. (think WWII fighter pilot plane) followed, after a good gap by Michael Lovato and Chris Legh. It was cool, I was geeking it a little and flipping out on the bike when I saw the pros go by. I was telling everyone I was passing who they were, it was great. They must have looked at me funny because I was yelling out things like, “dude, that was just Bjorn Anderson!!” and “Holy crap that was Karen Smeyers!” – Awesome.
I was feeling good on the bike and fast too, I was managing the down hills, maintaining my speed and using it to carry me up the up hills on the other side, it was nice to have a good average speed and not be completely spent after the bike portion. To give you an idea, I hit 49.9mph (I know, I didn’t break 50…) on a downhill section of the course in the rain. I was descending like a madman, hell bent on getting some age group hardware at the awards ceremony. It was neat being on a slight uphill and seeing your speedometer say 22.5mph and the little arrow that tells you if your average speed for the ride is above or below that point up. (Meaning that at that point in the race, my average speed was above 22.5mph, craziness…)
The last few miles of the bike it began to REALLY pour, and I was feeling a little sluggish, but by mile 50, I knew I could bring it in. I still hadn’t been able to intake a lot of nutrition so I was interested to see what was going to happen on the run. I came off the bike in 2:33:04 averaging 22.0mph. As I took my left foot out of my bike shoe when getting ready to dismount, my insole of the bike shoe came out as well. I didn’t want to drop it on the course as it would have been a penalty for abandonment of equipment, so I shoved it in my jersey pocket thinking I would leave it with my bike in T2. Long story short, I forgot about it till 2 miles in the run. Oh well.
I started out on the run and the first 4 miles flew by in less than 28 minutes. I thought to myself, “oh crap, I’m going to blow up; I’ve never run this fast before for the run on a half iron race. Best I’ve ever done before was 7:29 pace…I’m doing sub-7’s right now” I was feeling good though. The crowd support and volunteers at the 17 aide stations that they had for the 13.1 mile run were great. I continued on thru the TimberMON aide station where they had Bob Marley blaring in the rain and everyone had on fake dreads. It was pretty sweet. Shortly after that there was a paradise themed aide station where people where in grass skirts and there was Hawaiian music playing and everything.
There was a lot to keep your mind off of the pain of running thru the race, there were even little signs on the course to make you smile that read things like, “How can there be self help groups?” – Which in my fatigued state, took me a minute to figure out, but I laughed a lot when it dawned on me. They were totally my goofy sense of humor. I smiled and kept a good demeanor for the first of the two loops on the run and wanted to keep a positive attitude to keep me going strong.
The second loop was a little more trying, but I kept my mind off the pain by trying to pick out the pros that were finishing up as I was going back out for the last loop. I started to fall apart at around mile 11, but started saying to myself, “come on princess, you can get there, don’t crap out now” and that worked. Somehow making fun of myself when I was suffering and hurting and calling myself a princess really got me going. I ended the half marathon in 1:34:52 which was just under 7:15 pace and crossed the line in 4:43:19 which I knew was a 10 minute PR from last year at the US Half Championship in Missouri. The announcer guy even said my name as I crossed the line and I out sprinted a guy who I thought was in my age group around the last corner. (Later I found out he was 34…I must not have been seeing clearly)
After finishing, I was handed a finishers metal, Timberman water bottle and tiny Timberman towel. It was pretty cool. I stumbled around for a bit, found Rachel and walked with her to get some more liquid and food from the food tent. I found out I was really dehydrated after going to a port-a-potty, probably because I really couldn’t keep anything down without sloshing on the run. I took 3 sips total of Gatorade on the run and no other nutrition, no pretzels, gels, clif bars, nothing. I was amazed that I made it to the line in one piece.
So I’m outside the food tent ready to get some eats and I look to my right and see who else but Mr. Michael Lovato!!! I chatted with him and he told me Bjorn basically tore it up on the bike and put lots of time on him, and he was never able to get it back, but we both congratulated each other on the day’s performances and he was even cool enough to let me pose for a quick picture with him. He was just an all around AWESOME guy, classy too.
I knew I did ok that day and was happy with my 10 minute PR (I originally wanted to go sub 4:45 and place top five in the age group to be able to come home with a etched maple syrup bottle with the Timberman logo on it….it sounded sweet – no pun intended) But it was to my surprise that after I got out of the car after warming up for about 30 minutes post race (my lips had turned purple, because it was about 65*F out and still raining after the race.) I was at the merchandise tent buying a long sleeved t-shirt to wear to keep warm, and I heard over the loud speaker that they were awarding the 70.3 world championship slots for the race November 11th in Clearwater, Florida.
I was in the middle of buying my long sleeved t-shirt and heard them announce who was getting the slots for the male 20-24 age group and they said “first place Travis Earley!!!” I immediately ran out of the tent and yelled, “Holy crap I just won my age group!!!!” and was jumping up and down and yelling causing quite the spectacle! I was beaming ear to ear, I had no idea that I had won until they announced it and I went to the tent and quite proudly, while still smiling, declined the slot because the race is 7 days after Ironman Florida and I don’t think I will be able to walk that well after Florida, let alone race like I would like to at the World Championships. It was so cool though to be able to say, “You can pass that slot on to someone else…it’s too close to Ironman Florida”
I was still floored and in shock. I was secretly hoping for a top 5 age group placing and to come away with some hardware from the race, not to be the Timberman 2006, 20-24 age group champion! At the awards ceremony, I watched Bjorn Anderson take his $1,000 check and say a few words in his Swedish accent and Karen Smeyers hold her son as she accepted her awards. I walked up quite proudly when they called my name and accepted the large container of VT maple syrup, a $30 gift certificate to Final Kick Sports, a $1,500 gift certificate off a new Aegis bicycle and brand new Zoot Sports transition backpack. It was so cool, and the guy that was announcing the awards told me to say hello to Boots and Ellen at Fleet Feet in Rochester. I don’t know who he was, but he says “hi”.
So, of the 1900+ athletes that competed, it broke down like this; I was 41st overall in a time of 4:43:19 and that was good enough for 1st in the 20-24 male age group. I even beat 5 professional men in the rankings. The Timberman was a great race and I am likely to do it all again next year. Even despite the weather, which we have no control over, it was a great time and a great course, highly recommended. Thanks for reading.
~Travis Earley
August 14, 2006
Hammerfest Eight details
For those of you who can't read the caption, it says "Consequently, Jesus was banned from further triathlons..." - thought this one was hysterical. Hope you get a laugh out of it. :)
Well hello Hammerheads,
It's that time of the month again for the Hammerfest Swim. We've reached our eighth month (been going strong since January) and I believe that these actually DO help people reduce their swim times, or just get people to get some more open water swimming in....
So without further adieu, details for Hammerfest 8, or H8 for short, are as follows:
8/25/06 - 7pm - Kershaw Park in Canandaigua
***Meet outside the large blue changing house and we will organize there to go over the details and course. Just look for my bright blue Honda with the bike rack on the back and triathlon stickers ALL over the rear bumper. Bring a watch to time yourself (yes were are REALLY high tech...) and the times will be posted to the leaderboard after exiting the water.
Awards and door prizes will commence shortly after the last swimmer has exited the water and changed into dryland clothes. Awards will be at Scoops Ice cream across the street so bring some cash for a tasty post-workout treat. The overall swimmer with the fastest time will get his/her ice cream purchased for them!!! :) Wahoo!
We are opening this up to swimmers of all ages and I will be posting this on the RATS website as well. Wetsuits are not required, and the water should be plenty warm enough, but if you are a speed demon and want the extra advantage, they are recommended! Invite anyone who you think would want to attend and swim a mile. I am planning on making this the biggest Hammerfest yet! Be sure not to miss out on the fun of Hammerfest 8!
Reply to my email or post a comment here to let me know you are going to be able to attend so I can get a grip on the #'s. Be there on Friday night chicos/chicas and be ready to race, the leaderboard will be rearranged once again! Cheers!
August 8, 2006
Hammerfest visits Europe (part II)
I apologize if any of these captions are incorrect or whatnot, but I think it's pretty cool that little old Hammerfest is making international news by being photographed around the world. :) - I hear it is kinda a big deal, so I guess it is no wonder it's gained international recognition. Cheers folks! Keep up the good work!
August 7, 2006
Champs d'ParkEast
So I know this is a little latter than normal to be posted to the site, and I feel a little silly even acknowledging it now considering the recent news, but this is a photo is from the last day of le Tour. At 11am, as the pro's were taking their celebratory ride on the Champs d'Elysees sipping champagne and celebrating the last 3 weeks of riding thru France, Greg and I had our own celebratory ride around a loop on Park Ave and East Ave.We drank sparkling water out of REAL champagne glasses (the sparkling water tasted TERRIBLE by the way...I don't know HOW people can drink it!) and rode our bikes around the "block" yelling such chants as, "vive le tour!" and "yeah, Floyd!". It was a good time and we got some strange looks considering our garb and demeanor, but it was fun and nonsensical nonetheless. :)
Considering the recent series of unfortunate events in the news, it seems like it was all for naught. Maybe I'm being naive, but no one wants to see their idols fall off a pedestal and especially not the winner of the tour de France. I hope he gets cleared, but there's a strong suspicion that he just may not...unfortunate, but the real world is harsh, I guess.
August 4, 2006
Epic Day #2 recap
I know it's been a while since Epic Day #2, but this is the first day I actually don't feel shelled and like my legs are sore to the bone...better late than never.
Epic Day #2 started off in the usual style, being late for the start... I caught traffic on the way to Canandaigua and hadn't packed the night before so I was a little hurried that Sunday morning making sure I had everything with me as I wasn't going to be seeing Rochester again until it was night time.
I arrived to Kershaw at the usual meeting spot about 15 minutes late for the 9am kickoff and saw T$ and Darren sitting on the back of their cars waiting for my slow ass. We suited up and entered the water and JUST as we were ready to push off and start swimming, a lifeguard zipped by in a golf cart and started yelling at us as we were half swimming away. If the other Travis had put his goggles on faster, we would have made it, but she made us come out and enter thru the change house (which was weird because we were going to swim in the same area anyway) But I guess they wanted to keep tabs on how many people were in the water swimming, just to make sure everyone was safe. So now it's 9:30am and we push off, it's a nice easy swim at an easy heart rate and I did 3 laps for a total time of 63 minutes or so (I'm thinking it was closer to 2.5 miles rather than 3...) and Darren and Travis each did 1-1.5 miles.
I exited the water, stripped out of the wetsuit, got my bike stuff ready and the three of us rolled out after about a 20 minute transition and a stop at the Hess Express to fill up the H2O bottles and a pit stop. I decided it would be fun to put a temporary tattoo of a snake on my right deltoid before we left on the bike. More about that later though. We hit the hills of Canandaigua hard and Darren and Travis kept me in check so I didn't blow up too early for the 110 mile ride. It was a good hot day and the ride was fun, just hilly as hell. Even without Bopple (which I flicked off each time I passed it that day! - "Fuck you Bopple!, I hate you!" ) it was still a very hard route. I definitely used the granny gear on the "tank" to spin up the hills and keep the heart rate in check. (I'm so glad IM Florida has no hills...)
We made a breakfast stop at the Grainery and looked stylish to all the other customers as we sat and ate for about 5 minutes before Travis and I realized we still had our bike helmets on...duh, I guess the heat was getting to us at that point. We finished up the route and saw a Mr. John Hunter blow by us and tell us how slow we were going about 10 miles from Kershaw. Unbeknownst to me he was joining me for the second loop around the lake. Darren and Travis had been pushed enough and held me back well enough so I was quasi fresh for Johns speedy legs. They bailed on the second lap (Darren said something about how this was only his second ride in 2 months...you're a trooper man, thanks!) Darren thought the tattoo of the snake was a worm stuck on my arm as well. I took it off after I got home and realized just how much sun I got that day... I had an un-sunburn. The outline of the snake was not burned, but my whole shoulder was. I had a permanent white S on my shoulder for a few days, it looked good :-p
John and I headed out after I refilled the water bottles and we dropped off Darren and Travis at the parking lot. We rode pretty quick and I was super stoked to have John there to pick his brain about how AWESOMELY he did at Placid last weekend.
We rode and rode and John was doing amazingly well for tackling all these hills (he was beating me up most of them...) We had a stellar ride and I dropped him off at his truck and he was showing me all the pictures he had, and I would be lying thru my teeth if I told you I wasn't envious of him. One, for posting such a stellar time and Two for being done! :) Lucky guy. Well as I stopped my bike at my car, my odometer read "110.00 miles"...weird. It was dead nuts on. Not bad. My legs hurt though.
Anyway, I headed back to the car, and grabbed the Fuel Belt and headed uptown. I just ran uphill and thought about only doing an hour and then realized how dark it was and I ended up cutting the run from 2 hours to 90 minutes. I turned around at Yerkes Road from Kershaw Park and ended up having to go past Kershaw because I wasn't at 90 minutes when I got back to my car (something about running downhill on the way back) I was hurting, but didn't want to be injured and shut it off at 90 minutes having run 11 miles at that point. 8:15 pace...not bad considering my legs were shelled from the hills at that point.
I came home and crashed afterwards, but knew that I only needed to do one more Epic Day in September sometime and that would be the end of Epic (for this year at least...:) ) The days afterwards, I took real easy, and I still am taking it easy. My legs felt sore all the way to my femur, not just topical muscle soreness, my legs were ravaged all the way down to the bone. I can only hope this gives me the strength to perservere on November 4th. We'll see though, John's set the bar REALLY high, so we'll see what happens. Till then, thanks you to everyone who rode, swam and supported me for Epic Day. Cheers.
Epic Day #2 started off in the usual style, being late for the start... I caught traffic on the way to Canandaigua and hadn't packed the night before so I was a little hurried that Sunday morning making sure I had everything with me as I wasn't going to be seeing Rochester again until it was night time.
I arrived to Kershaw at the usual meeting spot about 15 minutes late for the 9am kickoff and saw T$ and Darren sitting on the back of their cars waiting for my slow ass. We suited up and entered the water and JUST as we were ready to push off and start swimming, a lifeguard zipped by in a golf cart and started yelling at us as we were half swimming away. If the other Travis had put his goggles on faster, we would have made it, but she made us come out and enter thru the change house (which was weird because we were going to swim in the same area anyway) But I guess they wanted to keep tabs on how many people were in the water swimming, just to make sure everyone was safe. So now it's 9:30am and we push off, it's a nice easy swim at an easy heart rate and I did 3 laps for a total time of 63 minutes or so (I'm thinking it was closer to 2.5 miles rather than 3...) and Darren and Travis each did 1-1.5 miles.
I exited the water, stripped out of the wetsuit, got my bike stuff ready and the three of us rolled out after about a 20 minute transition and a stop at the Hess Express to fill up the H2O bottles and a pit stop. I decided it would be fun to put a temporary tattoo of a snake on my right deltoid before we left on the bike. More about that later though. We hit the hills of Canandaigua hard and Darren and Travis kept me in check so I didn't blow up too early for the 110 mile ride. It was a good hot day and the ride was fun, just hilly as hell. Even without Bopple (which I flicked off each time I passed it that day! - "Fuck you Bopple!, I hate you!" ) it was still a very hard route. I definitely used the granny gear on the "tank" to spin up the hills and keep the heart rate in check. (I'm so glad IM Florida has no hills...)
We made a breakfast stop at the Grainery and looked stylish to all the other customers as we sat and ate for about 5 minutes before Travis and I realized we still had our bike helmets on...duh, I guess the heat was getting to us at that point. We finished up the route and saw a Mr. John Hunter blow by us and tell us how slow we were going about 10 miles from Kershaw. Unbeknownst to me he was joining me for the second loop around the lake. Darren and Travis had been pushed enough and held me back well enough so I was quasi fresh for Johns speedy legs. They bailed on the second lap (Darren said something about how this was only his second ride in 2 months...you're a trooper man, thanks!) Darren thought the tattoo of the snake was a worm stuck on my arm as well. I took it off after I got home and realized just how much sun I got that day... I had an un-sunburn. The outline of the snake was not burned, but my whole shoulder was. I had a permanent white S on my shoulder for a few days, it looked good :-p
John and I headed out after I refilled the water bottles and we dropped off Darren and Travis at the parking lot. We rode pretty quick and I was super stoked to have John there to pick his brain about how AWESOMELY he did at Placid last weekend.
We rode and rode and John was doing amazingly well for tackling all these hills (he was beating me up most of them...) We had a stellar ride and I dropped him off at his truck and he was showing me all the pictures he had, and I would be lying thru my teeth if I told you I wasn't envious of him. One, for posting such a stellar time and Two for being done! :) Lucky guy. Well as I stopped my bike at my car, my odometer read "110.00 miles"...weird. It was dead nuts on. Not bad. My legs hurt though.
Anyway, I headed back to the car, and grabbed the Fuel Belt and headed uptown. I just ran uphill and thought about only doing an hour and then realized how dark it was and I ended up cutting the run from 2 hours to 90 minutes. I turned around at Yerkes Road from Kershaw Park and ended up having to go past Kershaw because I wasn't at 90 minutes when I got back to my car (something about running downhill on the way back) I was hurting, but didn't want to be injured and shut it off at 90 minutes having run 11 miles at that point. 8:15 pace...not bad considering my legs were shelled from the hills at that point.
I came home and crashed afterwards, but knew that I only needed to do one more Epic Day in September sometime and that would be the end of Epic (for this year at least...:) ) The days afterwards, I took real easy, and I still am taking it easy. My legs felt sore all the way to my femur, not just topical muscle soreness, my legs were ravaged all the way down to the bone. I can only hope this gives me the strength to perservere on November 4th. We'll see though, John's set the bar REALLY high, so we'll see what happens. Till then, thanks you to everyone who rode, swam and supported me for Epic Day. Cheers.
July 28, 2006
EPIC DAY #2 - details
OK guys,
For those brave folks who are planning on participating in some of Epic Day #2 with me on Sunday, here are the details/itinerary;
9am - enter Canandaigua Lake to begin swimming 3 miles, this will be 3 out and backs. All the way back to the shore each time and out to the rock barrier. No skimpingthis early in the day...
11am - (or shortly thereafter) depart for two loops around Canandaigua Lake via this route: Kick ass route around Canandaigua, not up Bopple Should be a good ride, be sure to pack enough food to get you thru the bike and if you plan on running afterwards, pack more than you think is necessary to get the most calories on the bike as possible.
5:30pm or 6pm - rack our bikes and lock them on our vehicles (which still would be parked at Kershaw Park) and plod off and shuffle along on a really really easy 90 minute or 120 minute run. The run is not to be sprinted, if you come only for the run and take it out real fast, I won't like you and I will let you run out in front and run away. Those of us who did the swim and the bike will be hurting by that time. Hurting greatly...
***Bring some extra cash and tubes/CO2 for the bike, it will be a 100+ mile ride and you just need to be prepared, so be smart about it. Bring cell phones just in case too and we will exchange #'s before we leave in case anyone gets lost or anything happens. We will stop only a few times to regroup and maybe once to buy drinks/ice cream at that store in Italy Valley again. Additionally, it is supposed to be HOT and humid on Sunday. We are going rain/shine, so come prepared for both (salt caps for the sun, rain gear for the wet...) Again, just be prepared for whatever mommy nature throws our way.
I do not have a course set for the run as it is just going to be a 90-120 minute run and I figure we can just figure out a good direction that day. Bring food/gels/water on the run to stay hydrated and fueled, it will be a long day...I'm wearing a fuel belt for the run like I did last time I ran for epic. (thanks for sponsoring me fuel belt!!!) it's just a good idea.
All in all, it is shaping up to be a STELLAR weekend for EPIC! :) I'm getting stoked about it. It's a HUGE confidence booster for any endurance racing and you can test out nutrition/hydration strategies during training. Come for all, just the swim, or any smattering of the three disciplines. The departure/itinerary times will not change, so if you decide jsut to come for the run, be there by 5:30pm just to be safe... Hope to see you on Sunday for Epic #2!!! Cheers.
Nothing wakes me up like the smell of neoprene in the morning :-)
For those brave folks who are planning on participating in some of Epic Day #2 with me on Sunday, here are the details/itinerary;
9am - enter Canandaigua Lake to begin swimming 3 miles, this will be 3 out and backs. All the way back to the shore each time and out to the rock barrier. No skimpingthis early in the day...
11am - (or shortly thereafter) depart for two loops around Canandaigua Lake via this route: Kick ass route around Canandaigua, not up Bopple Should be a good ride, be sure to pack enough food to get you thru the bike and if you plan on running afterwards, pack more than you think is necessary to get the most calories on the bike as possible.
5:30pm or 6pm - rack our bikes and lock them on our vehicles (which still would be parked at Kershaw Park) and plod off and shuffle along on a really really easy 90 minute or 120 minute run. The run is not to be sprinted, if you come only for the run and take it out real fast, I won't like you and I will let you run out in front and run away. Those of us who did the swim and the bike will be hurting by that time. Hurting greatly...
***Bring some extra cash and tubes/CO2 for the bike, it will be a 100+ mile ride and you just need to be prepared, so be smart about it. Bring cell phones just in case too and we will exchange #'s before we leave in case anyone gets lost or anything happens. We will stop only a few times to regroup and maybe once to buy drinks/ice cream at that store in Italy Valley again. Additionally, it is supposed to be HOT and humid on Sunday. We are going rain/shine, so come prepared for both (salt caps for the sun, rain gear for the wet...) Again, just be prepared for whatever mommy nature throws our way.
I do not have a course set for the run as it is just going to be a 90-120 minute run and I figure we can just figure out a good direction that day. Bring food/gels/water on the run to stay hydrated and fueled, it will be a long day...I'm wearing a fuel belt for the run like I did last time I ran for epic. (thanks for sponsoring me fuel belt!!!) it's just a good idea.
All in all, it is shaping up to be a STELLAR weekend for EPIC! :) I'm getting stoked about it. It's a HUGE confidence booster for any endurance racing and you can test out nutrition/hydration strategies during training. Come for all, just the swim, or any smattering of the three disciplines. The departure/itinerary times will not change, so if you decide jsut to come for the run, be there by 5:30pm just to be safe... Hope to see you on Sunday for Epic #2!!! Cheers.
Nothing wakes me up like the smell of neoprene in the morning :-)
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