Slowing down to enjoy something ridiculously cool

Yes, life has been crazy lately.  Work, home, and training for a stupid race in November have all combined in their normal complicated fashion.  But busy as I am, I still have time to appreciate something as cool as this.  No need to have the sound on.


This brings back fond memories of modifying ground-bloom flower fireworks to create, well, slightly more destructive ground-bloom flowers, then placing them into a) packs of hot dogs, b) cups of macaroni noodles, c) old sour cream, d) etc.  (No need to incriminate myself here.)  My only regret was that the "action" happened so quickly.  If only we had used a sweet camera like this one ... I assume the video would be equally as cool.

There Are No 'B Priority' Races.

Just a few more thoughts about Saturday's race (and then I'll stop gloating about it).  According to the Triathlete's Training Bible, there should be only 1 or 2 "A Priority" races per year.  While it is useful to regularly test your progress, and although a race is the perfect for periodic testing (and practice with transitions), anything other than an "A Priority" race should not be run at full speed.

I respectfully disagree.  There is no such thing as a "B Priority" or a "C Priority" race.  There are no limited efforts when I have a timing chip on my ankle.  Race day is race day for me.  It doesn't matter if I'm running in a 5K charity "fun run" in a silly costume or a Half-Ironman.  So although the Rumpus was supposed to be a "B Priority" on my Ironman schedule, I ran it like my life depended on it.  Even the last mile, when I knew I was beating my PR by over 20 minutes, I still sprinted like a maniac.  (It helped that I could see several people in my age group in front of me.)

As for the official times and distances, on further research, it appears that the bike course was less than 1/2 mile off the previous bike course, and the run course was much more difficult.  I hate not being able to compare races on the same course, but as far as Personal Records go, I'll claim the 2:26.  If the course was not long enough to the inch, that's not my problem. 

I'm always torn about whether proofs of photographs taken on the course (and emailed to me) are fair game for reproduction online.  I know that the people taking the photos, sorting them according to number, and sending advertisements for them must make a living, and I think it is unfair to use the images they create without paying for them.  In the past, I have tried to post only those photos that I have purchased, but they are so expensive that it is a rarity. 

So I'm exploring a new policy.  Since low-resolution proofs are sent to racers, and are available online for anyone to view, for the purpose of selling an actual print, I will post a few awesome photos below that you should buy on their website.  Yes, I'm re-posting these photos below only as an advertisement for the fine services of Tricycle Studios (please forgive them for such a lame name).  Copies can be purchased here.  I haven't decided which photos I will buy yet, but I'll give you one guess which photo is my favorite.

  

Race Report: 2012 Rumpus in Bumpass International

Today I set a new personal best at the Rumpus In Bumpass International Triathlon in (of course) Bumpass, Virginia.  For the tri-nerds, here are the stats:

Official time:  2:26:21  -  Swim 34:11  -  T1 2:00  -  Bike  -  1:03:18  -  T2 1:34  -  Run 45:20

2 hours & 26 minutes is a great time for me, since my previous PR was over 2 hours 50 minutes.  And the good news is that I set bests in all three disciplines and in the transisions. However, I'm not sure what to think of it, for several reasons.  First, my watch showed 2:22:45.  I'm not sure how the watch could be 4 minutes off, but I must have hit the wrong button during the first transition.  But I was rather euphoric until I discovered the discrepancy!

Also, the bike leg was only 23.11 miles, not 25.  So if I normalize the bike portion, I get a corrected time of 2 hours 32 minutes.  Still an 18-minute improvement over my personal best.  In fact, the last 3 international distance tris I have completed, I've been just over 2:50, so I've at last climbed out of that plateau.

Here is the color commentary.  I had a perfect spot for my bike.  Every race is the luck of the draw -- you rack your bike according to number, and it seems like I never get the front or back row.  Until TODAY!  My bike was 5 steps from the end of the swim.  (I still had to push it all the way through the transition area, but it's nice when it's easy to find your bike.)  I also arrived 2.5 hours before the start, so the transition area looks really empty in the photo below.  The blue towel is there so that I can find my bike quickly, but it was probably overkill since it was basically in the best spot ever.

To get to the swim start, you have to walk down 400 meters of this sharp gravel-covered trail. I decided to wear flip flops to the start and sacrifice them to the race, rather than sacrifice my feet like everyone else did on these razor-sharp things.  I learned the hard way why you should never ask a 22-year old to zip up your wetsuit.  I jumped into the water to get my face wet, and the top velcro was too loose, so a big shot of cold water ran into my suit (and stayed there for the duration of the swim).  I also learned the hard way that if you put something in your pocket (earplugs) before zipping up your suit, it's huge pain to get it back out once you are all zipped up.  Lesson learned.

I gave the swim a moderate effort, and actually finished the swim portion in 33 minutes.  (The extra minute on my swim time was the run up the hill to the transition area.)  33 minutes is a personal best by a solid 2 minutes!

The swim course changed this week, and there were definitely highs and lows. On the bright side, because Boxley's Cove is a long inlet, there were absolutely no (natural) waves. That made for a fast swim. Unfortunately, the inlet was rather shallow, so the swimmers churned up all sorts of mud and turned the water dark chocolate-milk-brown. I also decided to start in the middle of my wave, just to practice getting kicked in the nose (in preparation for the mass start at IM Florida). I got just what I asked for. I was fighting other swimmers for the whole 33 minutes. I ran into one of the lifeguards, nearly hit a buoy, and got hit in the calf repeatedly until my leg cramped up. (Luckily it was 100 meters from the finish, so I just dragged my legs and tried not to let the cramp overtake me.) Did I mention that the water was cold? 65 degrees is not the worst, but it's still a little cooler than my baths. Here's a picture of the swim course from the finish, a couple of hours before the start.

Aside from cool water, the temperature could not have been better for a race.  Warm enough for me & my minimalist tri suit, but not so hot that I overheated.  I unfortunately don't have any action pictures of the bike or the run, but here are my descriptions.

Bike.  This is the maiden voyage of "The Assassin," and I decided early on that it is worth every penny that I spent on it.  The bike is super aerodynamic, and it hits 30 mph the way a roadie hits 20.  I laid down a good bike time, and not just because of the shortened course.  If the race had only been a bike race, I would have been in the top 15%.  If I could get out of the bottom 25% of the swim, I might just race with the big boys ...

I saw a little bit of carnage on the course (though not nearly as much as last year).  One poor guy went over his handlebars and asked to be taken away in the ambulance.  I nearly collided with the race official's motorcycle when he decided to peel off to the outside of a corner while I was trying to pass him.  I felt like yelling "Penalty!!!" at him.  As I was riding, I started doing math in my head (always dangerous in long-distance races), and I thought I might break one hour.  (My OCD kicked in and pushed me toward a round number.)  I didn't make it, but I at least talked myself out of an all-out effort that would have killed my run.  For the bike nerds, here are the stats:

Distance: 23.11  -  Total time: 1:02:31  - Total elevation gain/descent: 725/675  -  Top speed: 33.4 (weak, yes, but I sustained over 30mph for several sections)  There were no big hills, but there certainly wasn't any flat area on the whole course.

Run.  Although I have been tapering my runs, I have at the same time been folding hill workouts into the mix for a few weeks.  Those hill workouts paid off bigtime on the run.  The run course was totally different from last year, and it involved a few killer hills.  A 45:20 10K doesn't seem like a fast time, but the surface was very rocky and it was difficult to keep my feet under me (and to keep my ankles from rolling).  I'm not the fastest runner on the course, but I pride myself in consistency.  My mile splits were 7:21/7:32/7:19/7:44/7:48/7:03 (and 33 seconds to sprint the last .2mi).  It was my best run finish ever, but just barely.

As I was loading up my car to go home, I asked the folks in the car next to me to snap this picture.  They asked (in a rather patronizing manner), "Ohhh, is this your first triathlon?"  I said, "No, just my best triathlon."  Punks.

The Fourth Discipline is ... Tapering? Or Checking the Event Website.

The first olympic distance triathlon of my season is tomorrow morning.  After I contested Rumpus in Bumpass last year, I swore I would never undertake a spring triathlon again.  But training for over 6 months without a multisport event gets old.  For example, since last November, I've logged over 60 miles in the swimming pool.  Back & forth, back & forth, back & forth -- 3,840 times.  As cold as Lake Anna is in April, at least I'll be justifying all the mind-numbing hours in the pool.

I've heard that "The fourth discipline is effective tapering."  Tapering is the period between hitting your training peak and race day.  The smart athlete tapers the workouts just enough to allow the body to recharge, but not so much that essential form or fitness is lost.  It's a difficult balance, and it is made more complex by the three disciplines.  Running, for example, requires a very long taper (10-14 days of reduced mileage), whereas biking can be tapered in 4-5 days, and swimming requires a day or two, at most.  Because I started long-distance events with marathoning, I have unfortunately attempted to apply my running tapering to all 3 sports in the past, and the results have been disastrous.  I'm experimenting with a much more refined tapering system this time around, and I'll be sure to report the results.

One minor ... okay, major pet peeve.  In preparing for a triathlon, I run through all the steps over and over.  Swim:  Where does the swim start and end, where do they place the buoys, from which direction does the "chop" come, where are the biggest waves, what are the sight lines, where will the sun be at 10:12 am, etc.  T1: What am I wearing, what am I eating/drinking, what do I put on first, second, last, etc.  You get the picture.  One reason why I like repeating a race is because I'm comfortable with the course.  Imagine my surprise when I checked the race website today and found out that the course has been changed -- significantly on the swim and run. 

Here is the old course:

And here is the new course:

I certainly haven't swum in "Boxley's Cove" before, but this appears to be a rather significant change.  I hope the seaweed is minimal.  And I hope there aren't any sharks.  The water certainly looks a lot greener on the new course.  I suppose I'm glad that I found this out now, rather than tomorrow morning (at the empty Lake Anna Marina).  Time to start re-visualizing the race.  Apparently "Checking the event website obsessively many times before the race" is the fourth discipline.

And We Have Liftoff!

One of my earliest memories is the first time I rode a bike without training wheels.  We had a metallic-green banana seat Schwinn fixed gear bike with 12 inch wheels (airless tires made of solid rubber).  I can still clearly recall starting at the top of the driveway at our Nampa home, with my dad firmly holding the handle at the back of the seat.  As he guided me down the driveway, he said, "I'm going to let go now ..." but the sound of his voice was well behind me.  He had let go of the seat, and I hadn't even realized it.  I remember the rush I got from riding the green bike.  The freedom of riding with no training wheels.  I still enjoy riding my bike more than just about anything else.

I have put many miles on bikes in my lifetime.  We lived a mile outside of the city while I was growing up, and about 2 miles from my friends' homes.  I covered the dirt road between my house and my friends' houses many times on a metallic blue 1982 Schwinn Stingray.  I have seen some incredible things while riding on two wheels, and even today I still get a rush every time I clip into my pedals and zip down our driveway.

Fast forward to April 1, 2012.  Genevieve has grown very comfortable with her training wheels, and we have debated at length how to wean her off them.  We decided to spend $15 on a set of elbow & knee pads and gloves.  Now, lest you believe we're "helicopter parents" who are afraid of our child getting hurt, you obviously haven't experienced Genevieve in pain.  When she scrapes her leg on a branch or skins it falling down, she will limp for days, and will refuse to let you clean it for even longer.  The last thing we need is a spectacular (or even minor) bike wreck to set her back on her path to riding without training wheels.  More importantly, we put the pads on Genevieve to give her the last bit of confidence she needs to make the next step.

I took the pedals off her bike to make it a "balance bike" for about 15 minutes, and she asked me to put the pedals back on.  Here is what happened next:

I took a cue from my Dad, and gave Genevieve the same "I'm going to let go now" a few seconds after I had let her go.  The whole experience nearly brought tears to my eyes (but didn't, because of course, I'm an Iron Man).  After a few rides, Genevieve looked like this:

For the next hour, Genevieve took wider and wider circles around the huge parking area, expanding the reach of her new freedom.  Even when she rode around the backside of the building so that we couldn't see her, we could still feel her enthusiasm.  It's difficult to describe the pure joy on her face and coursing through her whole being.  And it's even more difficult to describe my own joy as I pass along an element of my own life that has brought me to so many beautiful and challenging heights.