Doggler out for a bit

[Doggler]

Hey ya'll, I'm headed to California to do the Wildflower Long Course Triathlon. I'll be lucky enough to spend some time in Vegas on Tuesday night and again on Saturday night as me and a couple buddies drive through.

I'll be back on Monday the 8th.

[Preds]

Originally Posted by Doggler

Hey ya'll, I'm headed to California to do the Wildflower Long Course Triathlon. I'll be lucky enough to spend some time in Vegas on Tuesday night and again on Saturday night as me and a couple buddies drive through.

I'll be back on Monday the 8th.

Good luck!

FTR, SACD Rookie Draft starts next Monday.

[Nittany Dodgers]

GL! "Long course" and "triathalon" in the same sentence sounds like murder to me.

[Doggler]

Originally Posted by Preds

Good luck!

FTR, SACD Rookie Draft starts next Monday.

No worries, I'm not up until 2.3 and won't be looking seriously at moving up.

[Doggler]

back

[randilover]

Ya win?

[Doggler]

Originally Posted by randilover

Ya win?

Hah.

Just for kicks, I'll post my race report here. It'll be mostly garbage to ya'll as I wrote it for my trigeek buddies, but if you feel like wasting some time.

[Doggler]

Monday, May 1st. My last full day in Colorado Springs and my packing day. My gawd, do you know how much crap you have to pack for a tri halfway across the country? Throw in tent(s), sleeping sacs, food, etc, and even a Durango has to be packed like a jigsaw puzzle. I got up to Chris's about 8pm and let him figure out the jigsaw puzzle. We had to call Mitch to make sure he wasn't bringing anything more than a tiny duffelbag. Unfortunately he had the gall to bring as much crap as we had, so Chris went into creative/destructive mode while I closed my eyes. As far as I know he didn't break much and he made it work.

Tuesday, May 2nd. Alarm went off at 5:00 and I pried myself off of the Reed households basement couch. That couch knows me well. Showered, and to my surprise Chris was ready before I was! We hit the road, forgot some food, came back, hit the road again, grabbed food, grabbed gas, grabbed coffee, and finally left for good arount 7am. I had bought a few new CD's for the trip with the hopes of striking gold and finding a couple that we could play to death. We quickly found two that we could agree on - O.A.R.'s new one and some yelling punk album by a group called The Lawrence Arms. Pulled into Vegas at 4:30pm. Checked into our $50 room at Binyon's, ate some fish fry, and Chris and I were playing 2/4 at the Nuggett by 5:30. 7 hours and maybe 7 beers later, Mitch pulls in. Yes, we made him take the airport shuttle to downtown. One must keep their priorities straight and table time is rare these days. I think Chris and I called it a night around 3:30. DEFINATELY in line with making Wildflower an "A" race.

Wednesday, May 3rd. On the road by 8:30, the three of us made great time(not) by covering the first 5 miles thru Vegas in just under an hour and a half. Once we got into the desert, things went smoothly. FWIW Chris went only 7-8 over the speed limit the whole time. Impressive. We stopped in Paso Robles to get a bunch of food and other crap and made it to Lake San Antonio by 6:30pm. Beers were cracked open by 6:31. Tents pitched by 7:00. Even the almost doorless ZEEEEEEEtent was up in short order. We were some of the first folks there and got a pretty damn sweet camping spot on the lake, about 2 miles south of the transition area. (sidebar - there are two main camping areas at Wildflower - Harris Creek and Redondo Vista. Redondo Vista is ungodly high in the hills, and the run course cuts through there around mile 7-9. Harris Creek is also on the run course at about mile 2.) So, we got to shoot the bull and get up close and personal with the wildlife before anyone else showed up. O.A.R. received its 10th full playing at this time - even Mitch was in love with it. Quality.

Thursday, May 4th. Chris was the first one out of the tent. Must've been around 7:15. I was floored. We started a fire, made some coffee (KONA pure), ate some breakfast, wasted some time, then jogged down to the transition area around 11:00. Mitch had to pick up his bike (he had shipped it there to give the Durango a little more space) and I wanted a burrito. Too bad none of the expo stuff was open yet. We went back later in the afternoon to get in the water. IMO the temperature was perfect, maybe 62 or so. We roughed Mitch up for a few minutes to give him an idea of the 'washing machine effect' that one experiences in the open water. He didn't seem too thrilled and had some fun getting used to the constrictive nature of a wetsuit. The swim served as a shower, then we went back to camp and told more stories of how fast and tough and smart we used to be. The campsites were beginning to fill up nicely. And by now everyone else was probably beginning to hate O.A.R. Not us.

Friday, May 5th. Race prep day. I think I had only 6 beers spread out throughout the course of the day. @#$#@$#@ Mitch. Went for a quick ride, checked in, and did the standard pre-race stuff: taped GU to the bike, put our numbers on our bikes, helmets, racing belts, etc. Stretched. And drank beers. The day flew by. We were in our tents by 9:30. I hear there was a Mitchsplosion around 1 but i was lights out.

[Doggler]

Saturday, May 6th. Woke up at 5:30, which I felt going in was a little late, but we had run out of firewood and sitting in the cold for hours before a race wasn't my idea of fun. Saturday's weather was the exact same as every other days weather. High of 76, low of 47, wind maxed out at about 5-10mph during the race. Breakfast was:

• A cup of Kona.
• A can of Ensure.
• A bagel with a little cream cheese.
• A yogurt.
• A packet of oatmeal.
• A cup of diluted juice.

We were a little slow getting to transition area. Since I had felt a little unprepared the whole week, I didn't worry too much about it, but Chris and Mitch still chided me for becoming introverted. We loaded our backpacks and walked/rode our bikes 2 miles to the transition area. In case you haven't seen it, it's HUGE. Larger than an IM transition zone, as it holds not only 2000+ bikes for the long course, but another 1000(?) for the off-road tri that goes off a few hours after the long course. (Sunday features a mammoth-sized Oly race too) I got marked, stopped at the portojohn more than a few times, and before I knew it, it was 8:20 and my wave was about to go off. I was in the 2nd of 3 waves of M30-34, as was Chris. Mitch got to wear a pink cap and set off 5 minutes after us, while Darrel went off in the wave before us. Chris and I gave each other a few last minute wetsuit adjustments, a hug and a goose, and we were off at 8:25. BTW for all the competition that Chris and I have, once we're getting ready to go, it's all forgotten. Very cool like that.

The Swim. The swim starts in a dock area, so it's really narrow. I think the waves were about 80-90 people or so, and we were probably about 8 deep and 10-12 across. The dock ends about 100 yards into the swim...the start was IMO a little rough, and the second the dock ended suddenly half the field tried to spread out to the left. Problem was a lot of those trying to go left were coming from the middle, and a lot of folks on the left were trying to stay or get to the middle, so there was a lot of jostling. My HR started pretty high (170-175) until it settled down. I ran into Chris once or twice there...he was easy to spot as he was one of few sleeveless grey Orcas out there. I saw him a few more times during the course of the swim...it was almost strange to not be overtaken by anyone in the wave after me. This was probably the first time I've ever experienced this...i believe they split us up by projected swim time, so the next AG worth of dudes that had fast swim times went off 10 minutes after us. Anyway, I checked my watch and saw that I was hovering around 155-160 in the latter stages of the swim. I relieved myself while moving in the last 5 minutes, figuring it would save me having to do it one more time on the bike. As I approached land, I realized Chris was pretty much right next to me...and when I took my first step on land, he was right beside me! It was VERY cool to step out of the water with him! There was some high-fiving, butt-slapping, etc, as we did our 1-minute jog to our bikes. Our official swim split was 33:40 but we were out of the water at 32:45....I actually got my left leg stuck in my suit for a good 30 seconds. I took a few seconds to put down an 'Enervit' or something energy thing, about 140 calories. Put on gloves and armwarmers (rolled up around my wrists so i could take them off if i didn't need them) but no socks. I saw Darrell grabbing his bike as I got to mine, but that was the last I saw of him...

The Bike. As soon as I started I realized I'd have no need for the armwarmers, so I put them in my shirt pockets in the first mile. Beach hill started as soon as the first mile ended, and I just threw into 27/39 and took it as easy as I could. Maybe 10 people passed me...it felt easy but my HR said otherwise, clocking in at a consistent 175. I figured I could get it under control once I got out of the park and onto some tamer roads. At about mile 3 I hit a pothole hard on a downhill and bad things happened. First, my entire headset jarred loose and dropped about one inch. Ack! Worse yet, my left aerobar jarred loose from my headset until it had about 2 inches of slack in it. Double-ack. (this was a new headset, all carbon, and I was warned repeatedly NOT to overtighten it as the carbon would crack. Damnit.) So from that point on I stayed out of aero unless I was on flat and smooth pavement, which was RARELY. Every screaming downhill saw me clenching the bullhorns. Anyhoo. By mile 20, my HR had gotten down into the 150's. I realized it wasn't going to go much lower, so I decided to hold that effort at the possible expense of some of my run. My nutrition wasn't anything crazy, just two very strong bottles of Accelerade (360 cals in one, 180 in the other, both about 18 oz bottles) that required dilution with water. Also two gels (w/ caffeine, mmm) and 2 salt tablets. All in all about 1000 calories on the bike. Also let fly 3 times on teh bike - only 2 were necessary but the third was on the very last downhill, just to save the hassle of having to stop while running. (in order the order of less detriment as far as places to do it, timewise for me at least, are swim, then bike, then run ) Well, Nastygrade came up soon enough, and at mile 41 I began the 'second half' of the race. My left bar was dipping and rising and squeaking and creakign the whole time...half of the 30 or so folks who passed me on Nastygrade said "oooooho", or "ouch, that sux". While I went slow, it definately wasn't a killer this time around, and I probably passed back more than those 30 guys on the next set of crazy-arse hills on the way back to T2. The hills at the end were truly relentless and those who didn't have a strong base (like me in 2004) just got throttled at this point. I hit T2 ready to start running, feeling OK with my 3:05:xx, as it was a good 8-9 minutes faster than in 2004 and I had barely been aero through it all.

The Run. I had visions of 2004, when I felt great through 4 miles and then the 'secret' hills ate me alive. I had averaged 7:30's and felt fine until those hills, and i think my final avg was in the mid 9:xx's, meaning i was easily over 10:00 pace for the last 9 miles...I went out at a very easy pace this time. Almost immediately I was blistering though. I'd never begun blistering so soon in a race before! (all my hottubbing in March and April had softened callouses on the balls of both my feet and the dead blisters had only fallen off a few weeks ago, so this wasn't suprising) Man, that sucked! But it detracted me from any pain I may had felt. My rules quickly became 'walk the hill once your HR goes 165+, as 165 was the HR I held for my half-mary in WI last month. It seemed to keep me alive although it made miles 4-7 extremely slow. I hit mile 7 in 62:00 after hitting mile 4 in 31:00...so what's that, 10:20's? I calculated I was on pace for another 1:53 (what I did in 2004) but I felt pretty good...I didn't stop running from that point forward and passed a good share of peeps. I wasn't overly strong by the end, but I'd been in a lot worse situations before. At about mile 10 I realized I would probably finish up near 5:30, and started really gunning to get under. Unfortunately mile 11, which was all uphill, was a 9:45 scorcher which kinda threw that possibility away. But, I finished strong, and other than the blisters I didn't feel the agony I've felt in other IM's and halves at all...even afterwards I was coherent enough to get in the lake, go back to my Transition area, change into boxers and shorts, and get to a point to cheer Chris in, all within about 15 minutes. Final run split 1:46:xx, final time 5:32:xx.

Afterwards. I went back down to the lake with Chris, got a burrito, and baaaarely got to the finish in time to see Mitch come in. Damn kid went too fast. Ya'll shoulda seen the smile on his face when we yelled to him. I was shirtless the whole time as I didn't bring a dry T. Real smart. What hadn't burned already was hit during the next 2 hours as we tried to get organized and back to camp. Chris and i rode back...on the way, we saw a rattler on an uphill. We waited for the thing to move, and when Chris started back up again, he tipped right over. Good times. Better yet, two VERY attractive tri girls were witness to the whole thing. We got back, had a beer, packed up, and hit the road by 7:00 or so. Worlds longest traffic jam and worlds worst location ensued. Basically we had to backtrack 30 miles in order to go 100 miles on the windiest, most useless, slowest, most BFEest road EVER until we got to Bakersfield. What should've taken us 2 hours took us over 5 hours. We ate Gyros in the desert at 2:30 AM and checked into our hotel at 4:30. I think we were all asleep by 4:45, and the alarm went off at 7:00. Dropped Mitch off at McCarren Intl at 8:30, and Chris and I were back in Denver by 9pm. I got home just before 11. Good times.

[Doggler]

This one will be short. it's just a 'lessons learned' and things that need to be done differently in order for me to accomplish my goal of sub-5:00 at Pigman.

1. I need more long rides. I was unable to run my half-marathon anywhere near where I was able to run one open one month ago. The biggest factor in getting one's run split close to their normal open time at the same race distance is the ability to get to T2 as fresh as possible...if you can get to T2 with minimal damage you should be able to run pretty close to your open half-mary time. Look at the winner. He popped a 1:11. I doubt he could do much better than say 1:04 open on a flat course. But he obviously was less affected by the swim + bike or the terrain as I was. I have yet to scare up the detail to my ATP from here to Aug 20th, but I'm pretty sure it's going to contain at least 10 65+ mile rides. I'm not sure just how long I'll go yet, maybe 4-6 centuries, maybe 0. I'm going to talk to some other trigeeks about this one.
2. My cycling power is my biggest limiter. Hey, the swim was beautiful. I don't feel I need to hammer on it now...instead, I've got to figure out how to pull a Darrell and become capable of busting out a sub-2:50 on a course like WF. Lots of big gear work.
3. Time to introduce interval work to my runs. With the Piggy course being not too hilly, I think hitting the track for some mile repeats and such will help me get to the next level running.
4. Add run frequency. Simply to aid in forming callouses, so I don't blister, etc. And it'll keep the dogs from going gonzo.
5. More attention to details. E, we REALLY missed you in this department. I need to have a more concrete nutrition plan. My equipment can't be all hodgepodge like it was on Saturday. I should cut back on the beers pre-race. I used to write a 'race plan' for all my half and full IM's to make sure I wasn't just winging it. Even though I have enough experience to get by on winging it now, I really should get back to that level of attention.
6. More swim-bike combos. I've noticed that whenever I race, my HR is sky high for the first 20-60 minutes on the bike. When I did my Race Rehersals, which were usually bike/run, I didn't have this issue.
7. Add core work. Hip flexors were a little 'tired' out of the water. I need to feel fresher in T1. This likely ties into my previous point. This was a totally neglected part of my training this spring.
8. Diet. I think I can focus for 4 months...maybe I'll put less garbage in this summer.