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 :)

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.

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