Okay guys, this is the start of my season two page. I figured that since I am already planning for next year I might as well start writing about it, since this really keeps me motivated. I want to race a lot more next year. Having raced a total of four triathlons and three run races, I am certain that I love racing! Being surrounded by other athletes striving to finish/PR/place/win is a wonderful feeling, and nothing gets me “up” for a hard workout like imagining my last or next race.
November, 2006
I plan on completing ten triathlons next year, all in the SCTS by Set-up Inc. This is a series, and since I will be racing age group I will have an opportunity to accrue series points and eventually see how I stacked up over the year. I am especially excited as it provides a consistent level of motivation throughout the year and a wonderful way to measure progress. The races will occur between March and October, averaging a bit less than four weeks between races. This will preclude anything else strenuous during those times, so I will certainly not have a run race between March and October! I might sneak in a few 5 or 10k races before, just to see how the winter run training has gone and to get the race mentality back before Parris Island, the first Triathlon in the series. I also hope to get a post season half-marathon or marathon in, I have heard recently that Charleston hosts one during December or January. That would fit wonderfully and is nearby.
I will have the race dates and locations in a finalized form from Set-up on December first, so I will be signing up for races that are early in the season and posting them here. I have also finally gotten a finalized schedule for classes next semester, so I can begin finding ways to work my training routine around my class schedule. It will be a busy year!!
December 1, 2006
Well, Set-up Inc. is now Set Up Events, so after being redirected to their new page I now have my race schedule for 2007!
Paris Island Sprint - 3/17, Clemson Sprint – 5/12, Lake Murray Sprint – 5/20, Greenwood Olympic – 6/10, Tri the Pee Dee Olympic – 7/14, Greenville Sprint – 8/19, Hartsville YMCA Olympic – 9/9, South Carolina Half Iron – 9/30, Hickory Knob Olympic – 10/13
As you can see it will be a full year, and I hope to remain healthy and injury free for all of it. My goal is less about winning or placing in any particular race and more about overall season standings. I am definitely focusing on the Half Iron, however, since it is my favorite distance.
February 11, 2007
I have signed up and reserved hotels for my first two races! Just 34 short days until Parris Island, man I am ready for it to be here! That will be the second weekend of my spring break from classes, so it is going to be tough to resist the urge to put in some hard training days in the week before. This will be a good schedule, though, with plenty of time to have recovery weeks throughout the season and races close enough together to always be thinking about the next one. I am really hoping to be able to show off on the run after a strong ride down in PI, but since it is the first race I am trying to avoid any particular expectations.
March 16 – 22 hours til race
Okay everyone, I’m going to try something a little different here. I have some video clips that I recorded with my thoughts about the race. They are through YouTube with a WMV format. I figure it is a little bit more interesting than just reading about stuff, and it is also good practice for editing some really awesome training and racing montages later! Hopefully they are small enough (about 2 MB) that anybody can see them without a problem. If I post anything larger I will put a warning about the size.
Okay, the first one is just a little about the course and my expectations of how that will affect me.
This one is about some of the anxiety and the little things that can affect the race tomorrow.
Final Pre-Race Video. This one has a little about my expectations and goals, along with the weight of actually racing during my second season.
Well, that is the pre-race update! Next update will be after the event with preliminary results and (hopefully) some neat little video work!
Atten-Hut! Parris Island Race Report! Hoo-ah!
2007 officially began in Parris Island on Saturday, March 17 with the Parris Island Sprint Triathlon from Setup Events. The weather may have been cold, but the competition was certainly hot; and I am pretty proud to say that I was right in the thick of it from start to finish! Race morning dawned clear, cold, and windy. Air temps were anywhere from 40 to maybe 60 by the end of the event, with a gusty but constant wind that varied from 15-25 mph. Parris Island is the premier Marine Corps training base in the country, and they certainly made it a pleasure to be racing on their home turf.
The pool was warm, at least in the mid-80s, which left several of us joking that somebody needed to find the switch to turn on the bubble jets! 500 meters went by pretty quickly, although not as quickly as I would have liked. I only swam an 8:22, although I have been a minute faster than that in training. I can really account for the extra time with the temperature and perhaps wearing my race top. Nevertheless, it seemed to affect people pretty equally, as I posted the 36th fastest overall male swim time!
The bike was certainly what everybody said, flat and fast. If you could get on this base and ride the course for fun, it would certainly be a place to see how fast you really can go on a bike. The course wound over some of the lowcountry marshes, the rugged terrain unable to support even a tree, providing some wonderful views across the surrounding lowlands. There was no real difficulty following the well marked course. The wind was the only hindrance, although it was most often a crosswind and very rarely a direct headwind. I certainly spent the entirety of this sprint race in my aero position, and usually leaning about 6 or 7 degrees to one side!
Out on the run I really got to see how my training has been paying off! Again, flat and fast, I left the transition strapping on my number belt and downing some Hammer Gel. A few hundred meters concentrating on my stride, then I began focusing on backs. I reeled in runner after runner, feeling that I had a good pace going. Everything was going well until the last mile, when a muscle in my hip started to act up a little. Nevertheless, it only momentarily slowed me down when it would twinge with pain. I cruised, and I mean cruised, to a sub-seven minute pace, hanging on to my final position by less than 30 seconds. I finished fouth in my age group, with less than four and a half minutes separating me from first, and the top seven competitors in our age group within about seven minutes of each other! Had that been a mass start, that would have been a fun finish to see!
Well, six weeks until the Langley Pond Olympic Distance race! I have two blocks of training, each two weeks on and one week rest, before the event. Today I have already put down more than two miles in the water, and have a second swim workout scheduled for later; wish me luck!
Oh yeah, didn’t I promise some new video work? Didn’t think I had forgotten did ya!
April, 2007
By this point I had a hip injury and I could only swim and cycle, so one of my major workouts (and the one I had focused on and made the most progress) was gone. For six weeks I sat around, looking for time to get out and ride, or go to the pool and swim. I am generally somewhat paranoid about riding right near my place, since it is kind of right in the middle of downtown, so going out for a bike ride takes a little bit more effort. Sitting on the trainer for three hours is not much fun (unless you have some Carlos Mencia to watch!) and the pool is not the most social setting in the world. Funny, back when I could run these were not real problems. Basically, what I am saying here, is that I was feeling a bit down since I could not run. It was, after all, what I had worked on all winter long; making my weakness a strength. The first race of the season had proven that the work had all paid off, since I ran a sub-7 minute pace, but it felt like all of that was being taken away from me as I sat around (and swam and cycled) and waited for it to get better.
That was pretty much how I felt for the last six weeks. Kinda lame, I know. I got into physical therapy two weeks ago and started working on rehab exercises, Breck (the Physical Therapist) isolated which muscles were involved and we started some targeted strengthening exercises. It has actually been a really neat learning process (in hindsight) and most of my PT exercises are just modifications of things I would normally do, so they will fit very well into my workout routine.
Well, on Thursday I had my last PT appointment before the race, and Breck and I sat down and talked a bit about goals and expectations for the race. He asked me what my goals had been for the race before the injury, and I told him that I intended to race the Olympic distance in 2:30, with a 30 minute swim, 1:15 bike, and a 45 minute run. These had been my goals from before I was injured, and I was very much on my way to achieving them before the injury. I had also thought a lot about how I would approach the race at that point, with a really big question mark for my running ability. I thought that I would go out and push on the swim, hammer on the bike, then take it easy on the run just to let things recover. Breck really surprised me, though, saying “Go race, I want to see how it does in competition. If you normally race for first, then race for first.” Well, I always have the mindset of racing for first, I just have not achieved it yet!
Langley Pond Olympic Distance Race Report
So the Olympic distance race was held in Aiken, at Langley Pond. An Olympic distance, for those not familiar, is a 1500 meter swim (1600 meters=1 mile), 25 mile bike ride, and a 6.2 mile run. The swim was a two loop course, with an in-water turnaround (no run between laps). The bike was a fairly flat, two loop course with a few moderate, sustained uphills early and about halfway through the course, otherwise roads were flat and in good condition, although there was a possiblity of being held up at any of the six railroad crossings on the course. The run was again flat, through a residential area, with well-spaced aid stations and only two railroad crossings.
The morning of the race came, and I was feeling very good. I picked up my chip, got body marked, stretched out, pulled on my wetsuit, and headed down to the water. By now this has all seemed like routine, and I not really focused on any one thing. The sand is cold between my toes, and it feels very coarse. The elite athletes begin their race, three minutes before my wave. We line up at the water’s edge, by now I feel at home on the leading edge of the swim start. I don’t even think about the mass start, or the other athletes around me ready to dart into the water. One minute warning. I am not afraid of being kicked, or having my goggles tugged off by someone’s flailing arm. Thirty seconds. Those thoughts do not enter my mind; there is no need for them because, if I want, I can leave most of my competitors behind me on the swim. Ten seconds. Only one thought in my mind: I want to.
Into the water we go, two strides, stepping high, water sloshing around me. Vaguely it registers that to both sides of me 
my competitors have dove into the water and begun swimming, I take one more stride and dive myself. It will not occur to me during this entire race that I am in open water, I will not have that anxiety to fight. Stroke rate high, I feel my forearm and hand taking bites of water, about four feet per stroke I move. I sight the first bouy and adjust slightly to the right, breathing to my left I have not seen anyone. I breathe to my right, and do not see anyone. For a brief moment, a hundred meters perhaps, I am leading the race. I relax, settling into a pace that is closer to my sustainable rythm, and find a set of feet. Eventually I move to a faster set of feet. Then we begin the second lap, and I move to the feet of one of the freshly started sprint-distance racers, where I remain until he begins to flag with just three hundred meters left. The next two hundred meters I swim steadily in another competitor’s wake. The dock we exit on is low, and I do not want to follow someone off cours, so I pull hard and come alongside the other swimmer. I have worked on sighting while swimming a lot, and although I have become quite proficient at it the dock is very low and it takes a few glances before I am certain. In minutes I am pulling myself onto the dock and running for T1 after 26 minutes.
Thirty minutes later I have completed the first steady climb and have entered the flat section of the course. Somewhere along this section, I begin to tell myself, “Okay, take it easy, save something for that hill on the next lap” but then something happens. My racing conscience raises it’s hand and queries “Why?” Good question, why save anything? I have done three hour rides already, I have raced twice this distance, why save anything? So I go. I hammer the downhill, crank hard on the long uphill, hit the flats and just let the quads burn. They finally clear the lactic acid when I return to the downhill. I pull into transition feeling pretty good about my effort, what would turn out to be a 1:12:30 bike ride, an average pace of 20 mph.
I really was not worried about my hip coming out of T2, I guess I was just so caught up in the thoughts of the moment (steady, quick feet, fuel up) that it just couldn’t fit in my mindset. It felt like I had microwaved jelly for quads, it has been so long since I really got to do run training, but I just pushed on, knowing that I have finished races with less prep than this before. I checked my watch at the two mile marker, and it had only been about fifteen minutes! I was feeling pretty good, excited that I could keep up a pace that was respectable despite everything. About this time a friend of mine, 
Anthony, comes running up beside me. We exchange greetings, a quick “how’s it going?” (he is also dealing with a hip injury, I discovered) and he gives me some advice: “Just stay within yourself” he says. Very true. I do just that for the rest of the race, not really thinking but just doing. I check my watch at four miles and see it has been about 30 minutes on the run course. Two miles later I am crossing the dam, and I begin my final kick to the finish. I cross the line, and look at the race clock: 2:34:13. The clock started three minutes before my wave entered the water.
Things were very good on Saturday. No hip pain, an effort I am certainly proud of, and a top-3 finish. It was quite an enjoyable event, just like every event put on by Setup Events I have been to. Also, I really learned something over the last four miles of the run. I don’t have to worry about motivation. If I am training, racing, and living within myself I will be just fine, I have the drive to succeed.
Now, back to business. Who wants to go for a little 10k run?
May – Clemson Race Report
Guess I just have to give it to our collegiate rivals on this one. They have the Tiger Rag, a huge NORBA sanctioned mountain biking event, the Junior Elite National Qualifier for the state, and the Best of the US national qualifier. For those of you not familiar, our big in-state rivals are the Clemson Tigers, so I am supposed to be appalled when anybody would choose their facility over ours. I should put my nose up and scoff, saying things like “They just have more undeveloped land” referencing their roots as an agriculturally oriented school. Now that’s how I am supposed to be, because of the rivalry and all that, but I really must admit that the venue was perfect for all of the festivities. Actually, if that’s how the area around an “agricultural” university ends up, we really need more of them around to preserve more natural areas. The entire university is wonderfully nestled among the rolling hills of the upstate; you round a turn on Hwy 93 and the campus materializes, with it’s accompanying immaculate downtown business district. You can stroll through the area and enjoy the feeling of a buzzing college campus (eager young minds, and all that) or you can go just a few blocks in any direction and the hills will swallow the entire university, presenting a crisp, uncluttered appearance that allows for a very ‘in touch with nature’ feeling. Very much fung shue (spelling?) in city planning.
I had no real expectations for the race, having trained right up to the thursday before. I was actually still a little sore the day before, after a fairly heavy lifting session. I have a race next weekend as well that is just up the street at Lake Murray, so it is sort of my home turf event. I was definitely looking at this event as my last hard workout before that race; but it seemed to be looking back at me with something different in mind. I had no expectations. Until I rode the bike course. Guesstimate the swim at thirteen minutes, 22 mph on the bike puts that at 30 minutes, run in 22, then three more for transition and that’s an hour and 8 minute race. At packet pickup I met Stanley and Paula; Stanley is getting back into triathlon after having raced in Chicago for a while, and his wife Paula was going to be in her first event. Stanley is a real character, he races in the Master Clydesdale division, which he is proud to announce to anybody is the only division where the aid stations have biscuits! I got to talk to a lot of first timers who were a little nervous about this or that, problems that I had been through before and could at least calm some fears, and it felt like just yesterday when Anthony was giving me advice at my first event in Cheraw where I competed as a novice.
I got very little sleep the night before, but woke up energized. With calm confidence I slowly and deliberately went through my pre-race rituals. Eat the same things, drink water, stretch the same routine, drink water, travel to the event, set up the TA, drink water, stretch, wetsuit on, warmup swim, drink some sports drink. Then I am standing in the staging area, laughing, enjoying the moment, taking nothing for granted.
Lake Hartwell provided a wonderful venue, with water temps that would have been comfortable without a wetsuit, but were cool enough that it was certainly justifiable to wear one (especially if you are as skinny as me!). There were nearly six hundred competitors at this race, making it one of the largest and most popular in the state; and by the end of the day it was obvious that everyone showed up to race hard. The Junior Elite division was draft legal, but only between competitors in that division, so they had a ten minute head start on the swim just to keep their race clean. The elite group went next, then the first age group wave. “Three Minutes” My wave enters the water, swims out for the in-water start. “One Minute” Everybody lines up, standing on the line of bouys. I take my spot, front inside, a poll position. “Ten Seconds, everybody have a great race, you start on the horn.” We’re off.
Two hundred meters to the first turn, for four minutes we swim side by side, squeezing around and between each other. The start of a triathlon has been described as swimming in a blender. I once read some advice about how to practice for a mass start that went something like “Put your goggles on, get in a full bathtub with a football, then have two NFL 
linemen fight over ball with you in the middle.” Strangely, I am now at home. We work, we are kick and are kicked, we are pressed aside. Whoever it is beside, in front, or behind me is trying to do the same thing I am. I smile to myself, as swimmer let their opening sprints subside and fall away, and silently thank them. I thank them for pushing me, for making me dig deeper to strengthen my will and become a better athlete. Let them ride my feet, I want them to push me on the bike and the run, too! Two hundred meters before I allow my opening pace to begin to lessen. Turn right, sight the turn bouy, ignore the middle sighting bouy, just take the straightest line. I notice another sky blue cap, and decide that if they are still with me, I can follow their line. Shortly, I decide that while they may be fast, I cannot trust their line, and begin swimming on my own again, racing my race. Three hundred more meters to the final turn, I have passed a lot of white caps (the wave before me). I sight the finish flag, and swim straight for it, other competitors to the left and right. I realize that I have swam this event almost entirely on my own, not having found a set of feet experienced enough for my liking. I swim past someone who tries to stand too early, and pull myself, bounding, from the water.
Routine takes over as I clamber up the hill to transition, removing the wetsuit, goggles, and swim cap. Still, I take my time in transition, but exit at a quick clip. The bike ride starts with a downhill segment and I fuel up early, knowing the hills that are to come will require I top off my reserves as much as possible. The first push begins, and with every gradual steepening of the hill I feel momentum building. I have taken all of the training in, and I am strong for this. I feel stable on the climbs, solidly transfering energy to the pedals. I take on a lot of fluid after the first push, as I hold about 27 mph through the flat section. I am averaging 21.5 mph. The second push comes and goes, and I feel solid, continuing to drink as I push through to the last climb of the course. Even the turns felt faster.
I relax through T2 to keep my focus where it should be, internally. Quickly I exit transition, gels and race belt in hand, feet moving at a severely quick pace.
I spend the downhill section fueling up again, tricking my body to give me more power, to relinquish our natural desires for rest, to unlock more human potential. We fly through the first mile, through the aid station, all of us moving in our own rythms, hearing our own music. A mile goes by and I am passed, the number on the calf tells me that he is in my age group. I really don’t know where I am in the standings at that point, so I try to keep up. Over the next half-mile I lose about 75 meters to my competitor, and at the turn-around I begin to question my reserves. One mile out and the legs feel weak, still 75 meters back. The final half mile is uphill and as we begin the climb I know that the gap must be closed now. I push, and in a minute the gap has disappeared, legs full of heavily burning lactic acid. My competitor never looks back, he knows I am there, and picks the pace up when he hears my footfalls. So I have to match his push at a half mile out with leaden legs. At a quarter mile the pace increases again, the flames in my muscles overwhelming my ability to quench their fire.
We turn into the YMCA grounds, legs moving, forcing a lean into the turn the stresses already worn muscles even more. We hug the next turn tight and the crowds are there, I hear our names called, I feel the crowd, I feel a change in my competitor, I have been waiting. I go. The last kick is on, we close on someone else as well, not in our age group. He hears us and of course does not look back, he just goes, so we are all racing! We three charge through the finish, surging right through the end, the third racer and I end up in the spectators before we get stopped. I turn to him and thank him, again I have been pushed, this time right to the end, and the well of perseverance has been dug a little deeper.
I had swam 14:04, biked 31:22, ran 22:30, and spent 2:49 in transitions for a total time of 1:10:43. My final push was enough to open a few seconds lead, in a battle for fifth place. I hung around to watch the other finishers cross and have their own sprint finishes, happy to live life. I got to see a 71 year old cross the finish line just seven minutes behind me, and to see my new friends Stanley and Paula, to congratulate Paula on her first triathlon and welcome Stanley “Biscuit” back. I watched the awards given out to the top three in each group, quite pleased with my results for the day.
