Things I did this weekend

Took a Just Ducky tour

Technically we did this earlier in the week so I guess the post probably could/should be called “Things I did Last Week” but really, who’s keeping track anyway.

Just Ducky Tours (website link) conducts tours of Pittsburgh using a WWII era amphibious vehicle called a DUKW. From the Just Ducky Tours website, “The DUKW (popularly pronounced "duck") is a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck that was designed by General Motors Corporation during World War II for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for use approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious attacks.”  

The tour starts out overland as any typical bus tour would, driving past local monuments and historic buildings. However, about half way through the tour, the DUKW turns off of the public streets and onto the north shore river walk. The river walk is basically a wide sidewalk along the Allegheny river and it is not open for motorized vehicles (other than the DUKWs). Once on the river walk, the tour continues to a special ramp near Heinz Field where the DUKW gets to show off its true capabilities. The driver turns into the water, there is a large splash, though I stayed dry in my “window” seat, and the next thing you know, you are motoring along as if you’re in a tour boat!

During the river portion of the trip we got to see the city from a different vantage point. The other cool thing about this portion of the trip was that each of the kids on board got a chance to actually drive the boat!

After everyone had a chance to drive and after we motored past all of the river-based sights the captain “drove” the boat up the ramp and back out of the water. The rest of the tour, back to our starting point, was on public roads.

Overall we had a great time, we got to see Downtown Pittsburgh, the North Shore and The Point from the river and my niece got to drive the boat.

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Started building a bench in the dining room

A couple of winters ago, we built a bench in the dining room at the cabin. We knew it would be a game changer because, with the bench, we could seat more people at the table and we could move the table closer to the wall. We guessed that moving the table would improve the traffic flow past the table, which is situated in the pathway between the family room and the rest of the house. Moving the table did greatly improve the traffic flow, but it also ended up giving us another “couch” and in a room other than the living room. Since then we find that people tend to gather and hang out more at the table, which is an unexpected bonus.

The original bench!

Since we had such good luck with the first bench, we decided to build another,  this time in the dining room at home. We have similar issues at home that we are trying to overcome: the dining room is narrow and the patio door is in the dining room, so traffic flow can be problematic.

After drawing up some plans, we headed off to Lowe's to get our materials.

Cath and her cart.

A car full of building supplies.

Living in the city, space can be an issue, so we ended up doing much of the assembly in the dining room on the (well protected) dining room table. 

Nice work bench.

However before we could begin the assembly, we had to cut out the frames on the table saw. Of course we don’t have room for a table saw, but some friends do, (more on that later) so we packed up our uncut frame pieces and headed over to Greg’s.

Laying out frames on the floor.

Cath and the saw.

After about an hour with the table saw and a jig saw we had eight identical frame pieces and we were ready to head back home for the assembly. The frame pieces are held together with four 1x3s that are glued and screwed to each frame. The result is a “cabinet” that looks like a bench, but without any facing. We managed to get one of the two frames assembled before we ran out of time and energy. 

Part 1 complete.

Next up will be finishing the other frame, leveling them and screwing them into place and then adding the facing, the seat and the trim. Hopefully we’ll finish up this coming weekend and you will see the finished product next Monday.

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Visited friends who own a church
So where do you find a table saw in the city? Well, the answer to that question is Greg, who owns an old church that he has turned into a wood shop. Here are a couple of pictures that give you a rough sense of the space. It's really amazing and it's only a few blocks from our house!

Cath setting up for a cut.

Local sculpture.

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Experimented with a new drink idea

I had a left over watermelon from last weekend and on Saturday I realized that there was no way we were going to finish it before it went bad. I hate wasting food so I decided to cut it up and throw it into the freezer for later. Sunday was hot and humid and the idea of making something using frozen watermelon cubes sounded pretty good, so I threw something together as an experiment. I started with the frozen watermelon cubes, then I added some fresh mint from the garden, the zest of one lime and the juice from that same lime. 

I blended these ingredients for a minute in the blender and I got shaved watermelon ice, which was not what I was going for. I need some liquid help everything blend. I would have added some lemonade but I didn't have any lemons or lemonade on hand. I plan to try this another time, after I get some lemons. What I did have, was tequila, and the idea of tequila made me think of a salted rim glass, which reminded me that salted watermelon is the best… so I added two shots of tequila to my blender and I blended again. What I got, once I poured it into two glasses with salted rims, was a nice watermelon flavored “frozen margarita”. Yum!

July 4th Weekend 2014

I’m trying to get into the habit of posting more.  I’m also trying to keep my posts interesting and relevant, and yes, sometimes I feel like those two things are in conflict with one another. In spite of that, here is a DC Rainmaker inspired, 5 random things I did this holiday weekend post, for your reading pleasure.

#1)
Friday was the 4th of July and Cath and I spent the entire weekend at the cabin.  Last year everyone was in town and we built a play set for Gemma and Artie, but before we could start building, we had to cut down a large tree that was in the way.

The tree came down pretty easy but then the focus shifted to building the play set, so the most of the wood was left uncut.  Friday seemed like a good day to cut and split wood, so that’s what I did! Once I finished cutting everything to length, there were about 50 round logs ranging in diameter from six inches up to about two feet.   I split and stacked most of the 50 and I cleaned up and consolidate the remaining rounds near the fire pit.  It’s been a while since I split wood, so at the end of the day, my hands, shoulders and hamstrings were pretty sore. No workout today but a lot of work nonetheless.

#2)
Saturday started with more of the same… I restarted the fire from Friday night and then I split and stacked more wood.  Around noon my sister started work on a key lime pie and I fired up the slow cooker to start dinner (more on that in a minute!).  While dinner cooked, I had time for a brief trail run. My legs and back were pretty sore from splitting wood, so I figured a nice easy jog would help to loosen things up.  Cath wanted to come along too, so we worked out a plan: she dropped me at the Maple Summit parking lot on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail and I started running north on the trail.  She then drove to the Rt. 653 parking lot and started hiking south.  We agreed that I would run north until I met her hiking south, at which point she would turn around and I would switch up to her pace.  My best guess was that we would meet up somewhere around my one-hour mark and that’s exactly what happened.  I met her at 1:01:30, just short of five mils into my run.  She turned around and we walked/jogged our way back to the Rt. 653 parking lot. You can see my path here (link to Connect).  Overall I covered a little more than seven miles and felt pretty good.

#3)
Saturday dinner was slow cooked, BBQ, pulled chicken sandwiches with coleslaw, fruit salad, potato salad and key lime pie. We are big fans of the slow cooker and pulled chicken sandwiches are really good and really easy.  I used Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce as the base and then I added orange mango preserves, crushed red pepper flakes, Worchester sauce, and a mix of chicken breasts and thighs. Four hours on high (in my slow cooker) and everything was ready to be pulled.  I removed the skin and bones from the thighs and I pulled the meat into shreds. Next I removed some of the excess fat from the top of the sauce. Finally, I tasted the sauce before adding back the pulled chicken. We served the chicken on hamburger buns with a dollop of coleslaw on top. Yum! There are dozens of similar recipes on the Internet, pick one that sounds good to you and mix up some BBQ!

#4)
Sunday was the real relaxation day of the weekend and I got to shoot sporting clays with my brother-in-law at Seven Springs (link to seven springs sporting clays).  If you’re not familiar, sporting clays are often describes as golf with guns: you move between shooting stations with each station setup to throw clay targets in a different direction and pattern. Seven Springs has three distinct courses.  Each course has 15+ shooting stations and each station has several different throwing patterns.  They also have an outdoor 5-stand and an indoor, heated 5-stand.  The facilities and the trappers are first class.  An accomplished shooter will hit north of 85% of their targets. I am not an accomplished shooter!  That said, I managed to hit 61 out of 100 targets, so I was really happy with the effort.  I was especially happy with the number of fast crossing targets that I managed to hit. I was not at all happy with the number of rising targets that I managed to miss. I was pulling the trigger right at the apex but for some reason I just kept missing. Ugh.

This is a picture of my lovely bruise. Clearly I don't get to shoot often enough because this should not be happening.  Oh well, something else to work on!

One other funny thing: as I was packing up to go shoot, I was trying to figure out a workable way to mount the GoPro to get some pics and video footage. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and I wasn't able to come up with a solution.  Thus, my surprise today, when I received an email from GoPro focused on their new Sportsman Mount (link to GoPro). Briefly, the mount allows you to hang your GoPro from the barrel of a rifle/shotgun and get footage aiming out at the target, back at the shooter or both (if you have two cameras). I don't shoot enough to make this a must have item, but the footage on their site is pretty cool and it makes me wish I would have planned a little further in advance for Sunday.

#5)
The other thing that Seven Springs has done right is the outdoor pool with bar and food service.  The pool is great, the food is great and if the weather is great, you can easily drift off to the tropics and forget that you're still in Western PA!

I don’t know if I’ll turn this into a regular feature but I really enjoyed the weekend, so I figured I would share.  Hopefully you all had an enjoyable and safe holiday weekend.

2014 Laurel Highlands Ultra 50K Race Report

The words for the day were hills, mud, rocks and fun!

This past Saturday was the annual Laurel Highlands Ultra.  There are two race distances, 70.5 miles and 50K.  The 70.5 mile course runs the entire length of the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail from Ohiopyle to Seward, just outside of Johnstown, PA. The 50K course also starts in Ohiopyle and finishes just short of the Route 31 road crossing, near the Hidden Valley Ski Resort. If you have never experienced the LHHT, I highly recommend that you get out there and see what you've been missing. There are plenty of great day hikes for all ability levels and if you like camping, the overnight shelters are also pretty cool.

I ran the 50K with my son-in-law Matt and I was also entered in the relay as part of team-SAC (Sherri, Amyjo, Clark).

In the lead up to the race, I was joking around with friends and I asked the question, “Should I think about this as 10x5K or 5x10K? Or should I just not think about it at all?”  The responses mostly skewed to the “don’t think about it at all” side, but one friend suggested I think about it as a “scenic marathon”.  This was both amusing and creative, but ultimately not very useful from a planning perspective.

The course and aid station layout point towards a 5x10K model, so that’s how I ended up planning.  Actually it was more of a 2x:1x:2x model since the three legs were approximately 12, 7 and 12 miles respectively.

Leg 1 – Ohiopyle to Maple Summit Road
(12 miles, 2537 ft of elevation gain, 1445 ft of elevation loss, 1092 net elevation gain)

This is the really hilly section of the (very hilly) course.  It starts out with two good sized climbs and descents and then moves on to the mother of all climbs.  I ran this section last year and in the process destroyed my legs.  And by destroyed, I mean my legs hurt much worse and for far longer after those 12 miles than they did immediately after Ironman.

Based on that experience,  I knew I would have to go out at a slower, more sustainable pace, but I was not sure exactly what that pace would be.  My race plan was to try and stay in zone 2 and pay close attention to any short-term bursts of effort.  The other area that I wanted to monitor closely was the descents.  Last year I bombed down the hills at full speed and I think that contributed quite a bit to the post-race pain and suffering.

My time for this section last year was 2:24 and my rough estimate for this year was 3:00 – 3:30.  I figured that was conservative, but I really had no idea what a Z2 pace would look like on those hills.  As it turns out, that estimate was conservative as I finished the first leg in 2:36!  I was really happy with this result because I was only a few minutes slower than last year but I felt really fresh when I hit the aid station and exchange point.

At this point, my leg of the relay was finished, so I high-fived Amyjo and she took off for her leg.  I refilled my pack and took my shoes off to shake out the rocks.  Matt got to the aid station a couple of minutes before me so he was finishing up when I got there and he took off just a few seconds later.

Leg 2 – Maple Summit Road to Route 31
(7 miles, 1148 ft of elevation gain, 697 ft of elevation loss, 451 net elevation gain)

This section was all about the mud.  There was wet, sticky, suck your shoes off mud, squishy, hero-shot mud that broke like two cresting waves, one off of each side of your shoe, booby trap mud that turned out to be nothing more than really dirty water, just waiting to fill your shoes and soak your socks, slippery, slimy mud that left you scrambling for traction and for your balance, and, my personal favorite, smelly, dead-things mud, that left you dirty and holding your nose.

And where there was no mud, there were rocks.  Rocks to step around, over and in between. Rocks to keep your feet out of the mud. Rocks to slip on and rocks to bash your feet into as you're running full speed down a steep hill (ouch).

In between all of that, though, there were sections of trail where you could really make time.  Especially since this leg is mostly flat except for the last mile or so which includes a pretty steep, stair-step climb.

I caught and passed Amyjo about a mile into the leg.  She was having “technical difficulties” when I passed her so her iPhone was out and she was tapping on the screen trying to get her tunes back.  I caught Matt a couple of miles later and we ran together for quite a while.  I’m not sure exactly where we split up again, but it was probably around mile 15 or 16?

I've run this section several times in training so I knew what to expect from a pacing standpoint.  My plan estimate was 1:30 – 1:45 and my actual time was 1:36  This time I was the first of our group into the aid station.  I waited for the car to pass (yikes) so that I could cross the road and then I waved at Sherri, refilled my pack, grabbed a spare pair of socks and took off on the third and final leg.  Matt arrived just before I left.  I'm not exactly sure when Amyjo arrived and Sherri started.

Leg 3 – Route 31 to the finish
(12 miles, 1477 ft of elevation gain, 1321 ft of elevation loss, 156 net elevation gain)

This section was all about pacing and survival.  The net elevation number is misleading because this section is descend, climb, descend, climb, so you start and end at about the same elevation but you still climb and descend quite a bit in between.  This section includes the highest elevation point on the entire trail, near the Lake Tahoe lodge at 7 Springs (mile 27 ish) followed by a long (and tiring) descent down the ski slopes and then out of the resort.

I was still feeling pretty good when I hit the aid station at mile 26.  The climb up to Lake Tahoe was tough but not too bad.  The descent from Lake Tahoe to County Line Road was a bitch. I was trying to move slowly and it felt like I was using way too much energy keeping my speed in check as I was descending. Crossing County Line was a pain, people drive like demons on that damn road, and climbing over the guide rail on the far side was a nightmare.  I had to sit down and then hoist each leg over the rail one at a time just to get to the other side. That sucked.

In my training I ran everything up through County Line at least once but I did not get the chance to train on the section of trail from there to the finish.  I wanted to, but logistically it’s the worst section for me and it just never happened.  That was a typical rookie mistake, since it turns out there is a decent climb right after County Line, but what are you gonna do? I struggled my way up the unexpected hill, hoping it would turn into a nice flat run to the finish.

I had been watching the time since mile 27 or 28 because it looked like I could finish in under 7 hours if I could just maintain a respectable pace.  I did my best to hold pace and not lose time in those final miles.

Finally I passed the 30 mile marker, the last marker  on the 50K course, and I knew that I was going to make it!  Another ~7/10 of a mile on the main trail and then the left turn onto the access trail and the humiliating lap around the parking lot and I was finished. My first 50K was in the books and I made it in just under the seven hour mark – 6:54:xx.

I tried to chill out for a few minutes and I got some food out of my finish line stash.  My legs and feet were feeling pretty rough so I tried to keep moving for a little while.  I took a minute to change into dry clothes and a jacket since it was colder than I had expected.  Eventually I closed up the car and crashed out in the driver’s seat for a while.  It was warm in the car and sitting down helped to ease the pain in my legs.  The problem with this was that I couldn't see the course from the car, so I kept getting out as people came in to check for Matt and Sherri.  Not too long after, Sherri and Matt came in together, made the lap around the parking lot and finished up.

Matt was happy to be finished and Sherri was super happy because she ran quite a bit faster than last year! Like I said earlier, I was about 12 minutes slower on my leg and I’m told that Amyjo was about 10 minutes slower on her leg also.  In the end, our relay team finished about 10 minutes FASTER than last year, which means that Sherri was ~32 minutes faster than last year!  Like I said, she was super happy.

We all hung out for a while eating and checking the results board and then we decided to bail and head back to the house to get cleaned up for dinner.

I love this race.  It’s super small (less than 100 entrants for the 50K), it’s very well run, the scenery is beautiful, it’s super low key and relaxed, and it’s just plain fun.  I’m not sure what I’ll do next year but if my schedule permits and I can get a spot, I’ll be back for another round of LHHT goodness.

Full course (approximate) elevation numbers for those who are interested:
5162 feet of elevation gain, 3463 feet of elevation loss and 1699 net elevation gain over 50K!

Special thanks to Sherri for most of the pictures!

My 2014 Season Plan

Let me start off with a note about this post, specifically that I started it back in October and I'm only now getting around to finishing and posting it.  As an interesting exercise in how my mindset has changed, I've left in all of the original post, marking out what needs to be deleted and I've added my updates/changes in red. I hope yo enjoy the read.  Oh, also keep in mind that even four full months later, parts of my schedule are still up in the air...
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This is the first time that I've gone through the process of building out a season plan and it's proven to be quite the exercise in mental gymnastics. I knew for sure that I wanted to do another full Iron distance race, so that was a starting point.  I also knew that I'm out of commission for most of August 2014 due to other commitments.

With that in mind, I set out to build a viable schedule.  Much of the process that I followed was my own, but I did follow the advice I found in a couple of DC Rainmaker posts that you can read here and also here.

The one fixed point on my 2014 schedule is IronMan Arizona.  I signed up to volunteer for the 2013 race and I've already booked my travel. Hopefully this will This did earn me a spot in the 2014 version of the race as this is my A+ race for next year.  Volunteering was really cool and it's something that I highly recommend if you want to get a small dose of the IronMan experience without actually entering the race.

The other race that I'm treating as an A B race, at least from a scheduling perspective, is the 50K version of the Laurel Highlands Ultra.  This is in early June and it has been a sellout in each of the past couple of seasons. I was part of a relay team for this race back in June of this year and it looked like fun.  Plus it's a new distance for me, so I'm making it an A B race for next year. I did actually get in to this one, so it's confirmed and on my schedule!

The reason that the 50K has shifted to a B priority is that I've decided to do IMTX again!  I was up in the air about this for a while but I finally decided that it's the best way to start my season. I did IMTX last year (2013) and then I was able to maintain that fitness level out into October before my world sort of fell apart. Hopefully fall of 2014 is better than 2013, but that's another story.  The plan is to use Texas as motivation for the early part of the season and then build on that for Arizona in the fall.  We'll see how it turns out!

Starting from these two three races and my August hiatus, I worked out the following season plan.

• Volunteering at IMAZ in November 2013 - Done!
• Snowboarding and off-season strength training in December and January and February
• Pittsburgh Marathon - May - I'm treating this as a C race, basically a long structured workout in preparation for the 50K in June. Sorry, too close to IMTX to stay on the schedule
• IronMan Texas - May 17th - This is an A race.
• Laurel Highlands Ultra 50K - June 14th - This is an A B race.
• Pittsburgh Triathlon (International Distance) - July 27 - This is an A race.
• Rev3 Cedar Point or MoraineMan - early to mid September - One of these will be a B race to help prepare for IMAZ.
• Waterman's Half - mid October - This could be a C race, essentially a long structured workout in preparation for IMAZ.
• IMAZ - November 16th - A+ race and the main focus of my 2014 season.

So there you have it, my 2014 season in black and white!

I hope your season planning is going well!

Clark

2013 Pittsburgh Triathlon (International) By The Numbers

This post has been hanging around in draft for over a month, so I finally decided to finish it and hit publish. It's a little dated, but the data is all valid and I did actually used some of the data in my race plan for Cedar Point.
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Here's a by-the-numbers look at my result from the 2013 Pittsburgh, International Distance, Triathlon from earlier this summer. Starting with a correlation analysis of Bike vs Run times.

This chart is interesting to me because it shows that I ran faster than I biked as compared to my peers. Interestingly, this is somewhat of an ongoing theme for me and I'm not sure why.  I'm also not sure exactly what to do as a result of having this knowledge, but I plan to give it some thought and incorporate that thinking into future race planning.

Here's a simple look at my numbers as compared to the averages in my AG. Nothing really special here, I finished "below the average" so I would follow that my individual times would also be near or below average, which they were.

Here is a quick look at my position against the field as compared to the overall, the other men and of course, my AG. Finally the number of people that I passed during the bike and the run.

I always like to look at the "passed while" numbers because it highlights how slow I am in the water! Of course if I was a faster swimmer, then these numbers would not be nearly as large.

Like I said, this post goes in the better late than never category but I'm glad it's finally done.  I'm working on another similar post for Cedar Point where I'll talk more about how I used this data to set that race plan.

Clark

Pittsburgh Triathlon 2013 Race Report

This past Sunday was the 2013 version of the Pittsburgh International Triathlon. This race marks my one-year anniversary as a triathlete! As I thought about my race schedule for 2013 this was an important race for me because I wanted to try and quantify my personal growth. I realize that no two races are the same and that there are many environmental factors that limit the value of comparing year over year for the same race, blah blah blah. That said I’m going to do it anyway and since my results were so much better, I’m going to be all like, “I rock” and “I kicked ass”, so you've been warned.

I started my race prep pretty late, but I really didn't have that much to do.  I changed my wheels and brake pads, I removed my back bottle holder and I swapped out my seat bag so that I had the right tools for fixing a tubeless flat since my race wheels are tubeless. Since the ride is only 40K I planned to use only my front water bottle. Also I did not plan to carry any bottles on the run, so that was one less thing to prepare as well.

The other thing I wanted to do pre-race was to practice transition with a “shoes on the bike” setup. This is new for me but since this is a short course race I wanted to be as fast in transition as possible so I figured I would give it a try. I got everything setup and then I made six or eight laps around the block. At the start of each lap I practiced mounting the bike with the shoes on the pedals and then slipping my feet into the shoes while I was moving. No crashes, so that’s a positive, but I kept pushing the tongue of the shoe up into the toe box. Eventually I got that sorted out and I was able to get my feet into the shoes pretty quickly and without veering all over the road. Getting off was much more straight forward. After releasing the ratchet and Velcro straps, I just slipped my foot out and then went back to pedaling with my foot on top of the shoe.

I have to say that I’m not convinced of the overall benefit of this approach, at least for the first half anyway. Leaving my shoes on the bike and dismounting barefoot seems MUCH faster and I expect that I will add this to my normal routine. However leaving T1 barefoot and putting my feet into my shoes on the go seems like I’m just saving time in transition only to lose it back on the bike. I’ll probably take this on a race by race basis moving forward, but who knows. It would be interesting if someone would do some research on this, it would be an easy experiment to setup.

Race day started nice and early as usual.  Get breakfast, load the car, wake Cath up and then head out on the short drive to the race. Since I was pretty early there were no lines for body marking or transition setup, so that went really quickly. My transition setup this year was super minimal, since my helmet and shoes were on my bike, the only thing on my towel was my running shoes and race belt. Compared to my transition neighbor, who had water bottles and gels and an upside down bucket (I guess to sit on?), my stuff looked really lonely… But minimal is fast and fast is good.  This super minimal approach was a direct reaction to my non-minimal and thus aimless and horribly slow transitions in IMTX.

With everything setup, Cath and I headed back to the car to chill out and stay out of the rain. We stayed there until about 6:20 at which point we wandered back to transition and the prerace meeting and the porta-johns.

Swim:
The first wave went off at 6:45 and I got in the water right after. The swim is an upstream start so everyone was floating and swimming to try and hold their spot in the current. The gun went off (well, actually someone shouted GO) at 6:50 and we were off. About 1/3 of the course is upstream before we take a sharp right turn and swim out into the middle of the river where we make another sharp right turn to start the downstream leg. I felt strong and the visibility was much better than IMTX. I found some feet and tried to keep my head down and my stroke efficient. The turn, turn section of the course is interesting because many people try to swim a straight line across the current from turn to turn, which does not work out very well. From my kayaking days I learned that the fastest way to swim across current like that is to keep yourself pointed upstream into the current, not across it. Using this strategy I was able to swim from marker to marker without getting pushed below the second turn.

The downstream leg felt fast and I tried to keep my intensity up for the entire distance.

The finish is my least favorite part of this swim as it involves a sharp right turn and then an upstream swim to the dock. The switch from downstream back to upstream, at the end of the race always zaps me. Anyway, I made it out of the water and started the longish run to the timing mat and the start of T1.

Final Time – 29:49 which is 2:00 faster than last year!

T1:
T1 went super-fast! I put on my helmet, grabbed my bike and ran for the line. This year I did not bother with bike gloves or sun glasses and after I got on the bike, I did not bother moving my Garmin from my wrist to the bike mount. Minimal and quick.

Final Time – 0:59 which is 1:37 faster than last year! Ha, I took 1 minute and 37 seconds off of my time in T1!

Bike:
The bike was a two lap course where the front half of each lap is mostly uphill and the back half is mostly downhill. I got my feet into my shoes without too much trouble and settled into a comfortable rhythm. For some reason my heart rate was higher than I wanted it to be, so for the first couple of miles I focused on keeping steady and bringing my HR down. The run out of the water to T1 was uphill all the way and I tried to move pretty quickly, so that may explain my elevated HR.

Most of the ride was uneventful. I kept my head down and tried to keep my cadence up and I tried to keep pedaling smoothly on the downhill. My first split was 19:30, which was slower than I wanted but tolerable since it was all uphill. My second split was 11:58, which was much faster than I expected even with it being all downhill. The remaining splits were 17:12, 15:55 and 7:56, which are more in line with my norms.

I finished my bottle before the second aid station, where I took some water. I also ate a gel on each lap just to try and stay topped off. Since I was not going to carry any liquid on the run my plan was to make sure I was well hydrated coming off of the bike and I feel like I succeeded in this.

Local races are interesting for many reasons, but the one thing that stands out from this race is the wide variety of bikes that I passed on the ride. I passed tons of tri and road bikes, but I also passed mountain bikes, hybrid bikes and a commuter with full fenders on the front and rear. The only other thing of note is the guy that sucked my wheel the entire way up the hill on the second lap.

Final Time – 1:12:32 which is 3:55 faster than last year! This is a mixed bag for me. Yes, I was faster than last year, but the improvement was not nearly what I wanted. There are lots of possible explanations for this, the most logical being that the bike was my best event last year and thus would be the hardest to improve.

T2:
My barefoot dismount and run into T2 went super smoothly and thus super fast. So fast, in fact, that it actually earned praise from one of the volunteers at the dismount line! He said something like “That’s how you’re supposed to do it, Nice Job!”

The only snag with T2 was that each of my thighs cramped when I lifted my foot up to put on my running shoes! Yikes, that’s not the way I wanted to start the run. Fortunately I was able to get my foot in each shoe on the first try and then straighten my leg back out to relieve the cramp.

Final Time – 1:15 which is 0:34 faster than last year. Not as big of an improvement as T1 but still great.

Run:
The run is an out and back on a riverfront trail. There is not much elevation gain or loss and the out/back setup makes pacing pretty easy. My goal was to start strong but sustainable and then build from there once I made the turn - basically to negative split.

The first mile went by fairly quickly at a 7:40 pace which made me happy! The second and third were 7:43 and 7:36, so again, right where I wanted to be. After making the turnaround, I started to pick up the pace. Mile four finished at 7:10 and mile five at 7:08. Just a little over one mile to go and I was feeling tired and sore, but I knew that I would be able to hold on until the finish. I crossed under the bridge and made the last turn towards the finish and my watch beeped 6:49 for mile six. Sweet! I could see the line and three clocks, quick, which one is mine? I guessed that mine was in the middle and that one read 2:29 and change. Hurry, I thought to myself, and you can get there before it rolls over to 2:30!

Final Run Time – 45:15 which is 8:44 faster than last year! Yikes, that almost a minute and a half faster per mile! I’m super stoked about that.

Final Race Time – 2:29:52 which is 16:50 faster than last year! Again, Yikes!

So how do I measure one year of growth in a sport that I've come to love? Well, almost 17 minutes faster is one very real way and another is that I was right back in the water swimming again on Monday night, where last year I had to take a couple of days off to recover.

The Good:
Nearly everything, with special emphasis on T1 and the run.

The Bad:
The lines for the porta-johns and the fact that my coffee didn't do its job until after the race had started… Sorry, over share.

The Ugly:
My poor feet. I rode and ran without socks this year to improve my time in T1 and neither my cycling nor running shoes are well suited for sockless activity – lesson learned.

So that's the story of my first ever repeat race.

Oh, one other note, I spent much of the rest of the day and far, far too late into the night watching the live finisher feed from IronMan Lake Placid. That feed is like triathlon crack, I just can't put it down!

Clark

Last Long Ride - Fail

So today the weatherman and I failed to connect.  Thus, the wardrobe guy and I failed to communicate properly and the net result was a massive failure on my last long ride before IMTX.

Everything started out really well.  I managed to cleanup the carnage from last week regarding my flat tubular tire.  Actually, my flat, brand new tubular tire :-(  I also took care of a number of other repairs and adjustments, so I thought I was ready to go.

I got up and got going as planned.  I did the sunscreen thing, making sure to roll my shorts up a little to account for them riding up during the ride.  This way I would not reburn my racing stripes of sunburn from last week.  While I was outside putting on sunscreen, it seemed cold, but really nothing worse than last week.  Plus the sun was shining so that made it seem warmer.

I headed out in shorts and short sleeves with arm warmers, same as last week.  I was a little chilly at the start, but I figured I would warm up once my legs got moving.  The only problem was that as my legs got moving, my fingers and toes kept getting colder.

My first two splits were great, so I just tried to push on and wait for the temps to inch up.  But then I passed the time/temp banner at mile 12 and the temperature was showing as 39!  Oh, shit, no wonder I'm so cold, I'm out here riding in shorts and it's only 39 degrees.  I probably should have gone home at this point and put on some more clothes, but the first hill was coming up and I figured a nice climb might warm me up.

Again, no such luck, the backside downhill wiped out any gain almost immediately: but I pushed on.

When I hit the first turnaround in Rochester my fingers were feeling thick and numb and I was cold to the core. I stopped for a minute to try and warm up.  Then I stopped at the Get-Go to use the restroom and I had to buy a cup of coffee. The coffee helped so I pushed on.

When I came through Ambridge the temps had climbed up to 44 - progress.  Keep on keeping on, let's just get this thing done.

I made the left onto the red belt and started towards Warrendale, thinking that turning away from the river might mean warmer winds instead of the cold winds thus far.  Again, no such luck.  By the time I was half way to Warrendale I was simply freezing and when my teeth started to chatter uncontrollably I knew that was it, I needed to do something drastic.  I called Cath, I groveled, and I convinced her to meet me with my warmer clothes.

15 minutes in the car with the heat on, sitting on a heated seat seemed to do the trick.  Then I got out of the car to get back on the bike and I immediately started shivering again.  And just like that my day was over.  I threw the bike in the back of the car and we headed home.  Fail.  Miserable fail...

It took the whole ride home and about 20 minutes in the shower before I finally stopped shaking.

What a massive fuck-up.  What was I thinking?

Ok, enough whining, time to get your game face back on.  Recovery week coming up and then taper and then IMTX.  Get this out of your head and move on.  Cold will not be a problem come race day, so not another thought...

Hopefully your training day went better than mine.

Clark

Six PRs and a Bald Eagle, Oh My

Today the calendar said "15k race, all out. Try to negative split each 5k".

Actually, I've been thinking about this run for a couple of weeks now, wondering how fast I could really go and what my plan should be.  The last time I tried to run "all out" it was a dismal failure.  I started out way too fast and I couldn't hold pace for the entire distance.  Although I was ok with my time, I wasn't able to negative split and that was only a 10k, not a 15k.

Based on my recent longer runs, I settled on the following plan:

• First 5k - keep to a heart rate in the 140s.
• Second 5k - keep to a heart rate in the 150s.
• Third 5k - stay over 160, but don't die!

My time goal for the day was under 75 minutes, which is considerably faster than my normal 9 min per mile training pace.

For the first mile I stayed mostly on pace, but I was a little psyched up, so I kept having to dial it back a little bit.  In general though it felt really good and when my Garmin beeped out a first split of 7:24, I kind of freaked out.  I slowed up a little more and settled into the high 140s.  So far, so good.  Miles two and three passed without event.  Slower than the first, but still starting with 7s instead of 8s - winning.

First 5k - 24:05

So, about that bald eagle...

In January of this year, people in my part of town started talking about bald eagle sightings.  Sure enough, a pair of bald eagles built a nest about four miles from my house and right along the soon to be completed, last leg of the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) bicycle trail.  I run or bike on this trail nearly every day, but I've not been past that stretch of trail recently, so I've not seen the eagles or the nest - until today!

Between miles three and four I noticed small crowds gathering around spotting scopes and passing binoculars, so I looked up towards the hillside and sure enough, there was a giant bird with a shiny white head - bald eagle!  Holy crap.  The last bald eagle I saw was in Alaska and now I can see one within walking distance of my house, that's fantastic.

But back to my run.  As I edged into the second 5k I picked up the pace to move my heart rate into the mid 150s.  So far I'm right on plan and all I've seen is miles starting with 7!  If I can hold this together, this could be way faster than I was hoping.  This part of the route is more exposed than the first part and I found myself  running into the wind for a while.  Nothing major, but still, more wind that I was expecting.  I passed the halfway point and turned around and started back towards home.  Still on pace and feeling ok.

Second 5k - 22:59

Now comes the "hurt" part that everyone talks about in their 5k race reports.  Ugh, they are not kidding.  The plan is to push my heart rate north of 160 and keep it there until I collapse or finish.  Garmin beeps out a split for mile seven that starts with a 6 - holy crap, that's fast.  I go away for a minute or two while running with the wind past the local water park.  Garmin brings me back with another 6, but I'm starting to struggle. One mile and change left, reach deeper and keep going...  Oh my god, I'm going to die.  Garmin beeps out the final 6 (woot!) and I struggle to finish off the "and change".  And then it's over and I'm not dead.  Wow, that was way faster than I expected.  I guess all of those base miles have been worth the effort.

Third 5k - 20:51

Success on every possible metric.  I negative split each of the 5k sections and I even managed to negative split each of the miles in the final 5k.

I smashed my 10k PR in the out two thirds of the run and then I turned around and CRUSHED that in the back two thirds.  Along the way, I managed to PR every other distance along the way: 1 mile, 2 miles, 5k and 15k.

Overall, this was a super successful run and just what I needed to shake off the motivational blues and push forward into the final 5-week build before IMTX.

Oh and I got to see a bald eagle!

How about you, any bird watching or personal records in your first weekend of spring?

Race Report - Pittsburgh International Triathlon

Back in May of this year I made the decision that I was going to do a triathlon.  My secret plan was to do a Half IM distance, but to play it safe, I told people I was going to do an international / Olympic distance.  Since this was new to me, I did what everyone does when they want to learn about new things, I Googled it.

My search for beginner triathlon training plans returned hundreds of useful sites and a great training plan that was complete and seemingly doable.  So with a plan in hand, I was off and running (and, of course, biking and swimming).

As I worked through the plan one topic kept coming up over and over again, which was "nothing new on race day".  Seems logical to me.  Of course, what I came to realize is that meant racing should not be new on race day, which meant I needed to get a real race under my belt before my mystical future Half IM.

Back to Google, where I find lots of useful information on the Pittsburgh Triathlon including the fact that it's scheduled for July 29th, which is a perfect spot in my training cycle, so I signed up!

Lot's of training later and it's finally the day before race day.  I cut out of work right at the crack of 5:00 and head across the river to packet pickup.

Packet pickup for my first ever triathlon.  I'm was so excited, I had to take a picture!

Saturday comes and goes and I find time to get in one final workout, attend the prerace meeting, ask all my questions and pick up a few odds and ends and then it's time for bed for a good night of sleep.

Sunday, I'm up before the sun, I gather all of my things and ride my way over to the start.  I setup transition, talk with some new people, run into my orthopedic surgeon who is swimming for a relay team, etc.  Finally, it's time to head off for the start.

As you can probably tell by the name of the blog, I'm not the strongest of swimmers.  Actually, it's the swim that has kept me out of triathlon to this point and it's the challenge of the swim that has me the most concerned and also the most interested as I approach this race.

I spent a fair amount of time in the pool in preparation  plus I took some swimming lessons at the Y from a coach who turned out to be way more knowledgeable than I expected I would find at the Y.  So anyway, I'm feeling prepared, but I'm also feeling like 1500 meters is a long way and all the rain the night before has the river raging and looking like a boiling glass of chocolate milk.  It's also not helpful that the first one-third of the swim is up stream in the aforementioned current.

Of course, the good news is that two-thirds of the swim are downstream and the raging current carries my water treading, freestyle and breast stroking ass to the end in record time!

Here's a shot of my tired ass leaving the water after the swim.

Swim split 31:49

I had some transition practice under my belt prior to the race, so I'm not unhappy with my time in T1 and the good news is I did not forget anything or get lost, etc. so I consider my first ever T1 a success.

T1 split 2:36

Again, from the name of the blog, I think you can deduce that cycling is my strongest event and this race certainly proved that to be true.  The course was a two lap affair where the first half of each lap was nearly all up hill and the second half was mostly down hill.  I tried to find a pace that would leave me energy for the run but still be fast.  I think I did fine in spite of the fact that my watch decided that today would be a good day for a vacation.

Here's a picture of me starting out on lap two.

All-in-all, a successful bike with no major issues other than dropping my chain half way through the second lap and having to get off the bike to get it reengaged.

Bike split 1:16:27

Nothing to say really about T2 other than the fact that I forgot to take off my bike gloves as the picture below proves.

T2 split 1:49

Me leaving T2 for the run, still wearing my bike gloves.  Of course I did not even realize that fact until about 30 second after this picture was taken.

The run was a flat out and back along the river.  I was concerned about my right calf since I was recovering from a bad calf cramp a couple of weeks earlier.  I ran at a comfortable pace until I hit the turnaround and then I started to pick up the pace somewhat.  In the end, I had enough energy left for a pretty strong kick to the finish.

Here are two shots taken at the line.

I'm happy with my run, but I also know that I could have done it faster had I not been worried about my calf.  Of course I'm much happier to have finished with something left vs. pushing and dealing with another calf cramp.

Run split 53:59

I am thrilled with the day and with my result.  I completed a triathlon!  The training plan worked very well, I'm happy with my nutrition plan and I'm happy with my execution.

Total Time 02:46:44

Next stop Half IM?

One Deadly Summer

For Pittsburgh bicyclists, the summer of 2012 brought mayhem, injury and death.  Here is a summary of news clips.  Take a minute, read the the stories and remember to be careful out there...

5/13/2012 - lawrenceville - cyclist seriously injured, driver fled the scene.

7/31/2012 - wilkinsburg - cyclist killed, driver fled the scene. 

7/25/2012 - point breeze - cyclist killed, driver fled the scene. 

9/3/2012 - highland park - cyclist seriously injured, driver fled the scene. 

9/5/2012 - Southside - cyclist attacked and stabbed by driver.