Sweet Victory

Generally speaking, 36-year-old men shouldn’t do more than 1 race per week. Or rather, this one shouldn’t. But since I agreed to help set up for this year’s YWCA Race Against Racism – which meant I’d be at the course on a relatively early Saturday morning, I figured, “Why not?” Going into the race (a 5k), I’d set a goal of sub 21:00, with a stretch goal of 20:45. Hitting this would raise my VDOT to 47, continuing my trend of VDOT improvement of 1/month for the past several months. All of that being said, I knew I needed to be flexible with my goal because a. I’d finished the triathlon six days prior, b. I’d done a hard workout 48 hours prior and c. I’d gotten up a 5am to help set up. Coupled with a 5 wake-up call for the tri last week, I knew I was tired. Truth be told, I had a secondary goal, too for this race. A guy I work with had out-kicked me last time we did a 5k together and I wanted a little revenge. I intended to get it by going out hard because I’ve never had a kick s...

Results are in for the Hempfield Tri for Kids Sake and they confirm what I suspected: I'm a much better runner at this point than triathlete. Overall, I came in 49th, out of 132. Among men in my age group, I came in 14th out of 23, which is so-so. If there's anything to feel alright about, it's that while 13th place was just one second faster, I would've had to shave five minutes off my time for 12th place and there was nooooo way that was happening. And for what it's worth, on my own time clock, I did come in five seconds faster, so if it helps me sleep better at night, I could claim 13th place. It won't, though, so I won't. Split-wise, things were about what I expected: 19/23 on the swim.. can't expect much more with six weeks of swim training, I suppose. On the bike, I finished 18/23... this is probably the most frustrating to me, as I did a good amount of bike training over the winter. However, there were 3 finishers within 90 seconds of me on the ...

So yesterday was my first triathlon, the Hempfield Tri for Kids Sake – a sprint distance tri… 300 meter swim, followed by 16 mi. bike, followed by a 3 mile run. As a little re-cap, when I started getting back into shape ten months ago, I did it with the goal of doing tris, thinking that my knees wouldn’t handle just running anymore. But a few interesting things have happened over the past ten months. 1. ) My knees feel great, particularly since getting orthotics five months ago.. My training has been virtually injury-free. 2.) I’ve steadily climbed up the results in my age-group in running races – generally finishing in the top 25-30%. Due to my experiences in high school and college, I know my ceiling is about top 10% - I just didn’t realize how quickly I could get back to that level. 3.) I don’t really like the specificity of tri training – due to time constraints and facility constraints, certain days I have to do certain workouts and – to be frank – that ann...

So today was my last hard workout, prior to the tri... and it wasn't a monster workout by any stretch, but a hard effort swim workout. And it's done. And I'm happy about that. I think for a triathlete, I make a pretty good runner. But no matter -- I'm looking forward to the race this Sunday. Random notes: 1) I rode the bike course last weekend before the Noreaster came... or at least, I rode most of it and then some. Some roads weren't well marked (though presumably will be on Race Day) and I ended up riding 21 miles instead of the 16 mile course. 2) I saw a lot of other bikers on the course -- many I'm sure we're doing a test ride like myself. One dude - I promise you - will destroy me come Sunday. He had the aero bars, the tear drop helmet and the tights with Italian words on. I had my biking shorts, a windbreaker and my 10 year old Cannondale. And while the purple Cannondale comes in at 20 lbs. and is a fine machine, let's face it -- I've got shif...

Funny thing happens when you're a bad blogger... you write a post about hitting crunch time. Two weeks later, you're writing a post about your taper. In between, mostly radio silence. But all is good... Had a great nine mile run at an 8:00/clip last Friday, with a seven mile run at the same pace yesterday. In between, I had what I think was a good workout on the bike but since it's still on the trainer, who the hell knows how fast I'm really going. At any rate, even though my race is only a sprint tri., I've pretty much decided it's a *key* race for me, so I'm pulling a mini taper going into it, dropping 1 bike workout each of the next two weeks and cutting down on one of my runs next week. Unless something miraculous happens, I'm going to race my butt off on this one and put together a great running program for the summer, culminating in what I hope will be a sub- 3:30 marathon in the fall. As always - all of this is subject to change. But I feel relati...