Saturday, October 21, 2017

Ironman Louisville Race Report

IMLou... this was my A race. I was really hoping to go sub 10:25 and set myself up for some confidence going into the winter. Alas, that didn't happen. Getting to the race was easy, I flew down thursday morning and met up with amber at the louisville airport. mike flew in later that night, john and danh drove from wed evening until thursday. by the time they got there, we were ready for dinner, we had el taco lucadore. it was uber tasty, i ate all the tacos.

friday we checked in and lounged. we ended up meeting up with mike and steve for vietnamese food, which ended up being pretty authentic! saturday was a bit more eventful than we wanted. we dropped off our bikes to find danh's rear wheel seized. he called every shop in the louisville area, no one had a 650 hub, we thought he was going to have to do the ride in a fixed gear. i got home and decided to make a post on slowtwitch. luckily, someone was kind enough to reach out and lend danh a rear 650 zipp wheel. his name was mark weghorst, total trooper.

the cool thing about sat was sitting in at the pro meeting. it was interesting, and really cool to see the race from a pros point of view. to be honest, most of us who know how to ride a bike, or finish in the sub 12 region really feel the same way. the refs need to do a much better job enforcing the rules.

we also watched kona.. all of it. no one could sleep, we all wanted to see sanders finish, lange ran an incredible race to catch him. though we all felt he should have been dq'd for the jersey being zipped too low, rules are rules, right?

race morning: 
i get up at 5am, have some covfefe, an rx bar, bannana, some juice and water. i pack an extra banana and a gu for pre swim. when i get to the transition, i realized that i left my garmin at home... fuck, i can't believe i did this again. i asked danh's fiance ("twin") to grab it at the house when she had the chance so i can possibly snag it during the run. how could i be so stupid to forget it, two races in a row... ugh. 

swim: most of my friends are stronger swimmers than i. i ended up in the 1:10-1:20 line. probably halfway through the pack because i realized my morning bag didn't have my number on it, i rushed to find a volunteer with a marker and we slapped 319 onto it. hopping in the water, i felt fine. i had no idea what i was going to do for time, i knew i would swim faster than my imkph time of 1:17 but i also didn't want to get tired like i did at kph. the water was dark, so it was really hard to follow any feet, more than 1.5 feet and you can't see anything. the swim out to the turn was fine, i got a bit off course a few times (all the way to the right, then left of the course). by the first turn the water got really cold, then warm, then cold. it was really weird. by the 2nd turn i knew i had gone almost half way... i just went into cruise control mode. i realized the current was stronger to the left of me. a few times i was swimming in really calm water, that was a mistake. the last 500 yards of the swim were probably my best 500 yards ever. i started kicking and for the first time ever, i didn't feel awkward, or expend more energy. i should try that more often. 

swim was 1:12, my new swim pr (choo was 1:12, without a wetsuit, but probably stronger current?)

t1: i got out of the water and ramped my heart rate up towards the bike. it was colder than i wanted it to be, so i was careful to dry off as much as i could. as i ran out, my helmet fell off, DOPE. i got my bike and as always, had to be careful of people stopping to hug family and friends. gotta remind myself that not everyone does these events as a race, some people are happy to dilly dally. in the end, it's my fault for being a shitty swimmer. 6:XX (i think)

bike: i generally am slow to get my HR up on the bike. but i think running hard through transition (despite the shitty time) helped me get amped up. i took in my water and calories and was feeling good. i was pushing good speed for the power as well. it was probably the best i have ever felt coming out of the swim. about 30 miles into the bike, before the sharp left turn, i was coming down a fairly straight hill. i was going about 40mph and screaming for people to move over yelling "on your left" 5-6 times. these 3 guys up front were riding 3 wide, and just not moving. i hit my brakes, crossed the double yellow and swerved back. in doing so, i hit a crack in the road pretty hard. i knew i flatted. about 1k yards later my tire went flat, i pulled over immediately as the 3 dotards rode by a min later.

i ripped off my pitstop, only to realize the plastic nozzle had fallen off. whelp. there goes my race. i just sit on the side of the road and asked folks to let neutral support know. about 7 minutes or so goes by and john yen rides by. he blows by me, but comes back to offer me his pit stop. great, this will work. i put his cover on my pit stop. i had never used one in the past, but it seemed pretty self explanatory.. nope. the foam blew out the sides, nothing went into the tube. i then use his.. same thing. now we're down 2 pit stops. i told him i would need his tube co2, lever and co2 inflator. but told him i didn't want to take his only one. he was under the impression i had one, but didn't want to use mine. so he agreed and went on. a few other friends rode by, i just sat and waited. then one guy stopped. #380. jim deruby of maverick multisport. he asked me what i needed, i said everything, just go. he offered me a tube, levers, and co2. i quickly did the repair and he was off. i got off not long after and to lack of better judgement, decided to push the watts to catch up.... unfortunately that's where the course tilted up, it was brief, but it was enough to really drain me. i didn't realize it, but i was sitting for so long that my bike computer turned off. i'm guessing it had to be at least 20 minutes of sitting around getting cold.

at mile 50 i felt pretty crappy, the same feeling i normally get when i am at mile 95 or 100 of the bike portion. i wasn't sure why, but i was really uncomfortable and i couldn't push any watts. i realized my bike saddle was off, i must have landed on it, causing it to tilt up. i couldn't ride aero for more than 1-2 minutes d/t the discomfort, and i couldn't pull on the pedals d/t the saddle position. i think i got things fixed at around mile 84 or 87 which allowed me to put out decent power again. it was good timing though, the winds had picked up and i needed the watts to be able to keep going straight.

bike: 6:13 or 6:17. my 2nd worst im bike ever.

t2: i got off the bike and did the long run on cement (god, i have the softest damn feet in the world). as i grabbed my bag, i reached into my bike bag to grab my arm warmers and gloves as well. by the time i get into the tent, i realized my watch was in my run bag the whole time.. oops sorry "twin"! i scurried out to the run, making a pit stop to clear my insides. because i was on the bike for much longer than expected, i had to take on gatorade, which just doesn't sit well.... time: 7:xx

run: whelps, i probably had a decent run in me since i didn't put out too much power on the bike, at least that's what i had expected. about a mile in i felt my legs cramping (i didn't get enough salt in on the bike). i stopped to stretch for 2-3 mins and got going again. i felt pretty good, i saw a bunch of friends on the course, but as the sun was setting i could feel it getting colder. not good. i just don't run well in the cold. i caught up to joe and we ran together from mile 3 or 4 all the way to 11 where we caught kimball, we ran together for a bit and i con't onwards with joe until mile 15 or 16. at that point i was too cold to run well and told him to carry on. when i'm not having a great race, i take care to take on lots of nutrition and pee about every 3 miles. perhaps those mini intervals to pee and catch him were taking a toll on it. i ended up linking up with jim deruby again, we ran 5-6 miles together and chatted until it suddenly warmed up at mile 24. my stride was widening and i saw della at mile 25. i ran up to her to say hi and told her we were at 25.37, possibly further d/t me delaying my watch start. when jim caught up i took off with him, and pushed a bit faster towards the finish, not because i cared about my time, but because i just wanted to run hard since it was warm. i crossed the finish line. 12:13:XX my 2nd worst ironman time. marthon was 4:45 or something horrible like that. 

i saw john, mike, and amber at the finish, it was nice of them to wait for me, they must have been cold. i then saw kimball, joe, kate, and jeff at bag pickup. we went home to shower and come back to cheer danh but he finished before we could get back out.

this was a tough race for me. the bike was really mentally taxing. my mind went from such a happy place, to such an unhappy place. i knew i put in the time and effort to have a good bike, to have a few mechanics (also dropped my chain 4 times, long story, but i've never done it on a race), really throw a monkey wrench into things.  2017 was a rough year for racing, that's for sure. this is now 4im's where i have done much more poorly than expected. yeah, there are excuses for each one, but in the end, this is a long race, i have to do a better job reducing the chances of these mistakes.

back to the drawing board. i'm hungrier than ever for a strong race in 2018. 

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Ironman Shingles Race Report

A few years ago I was treating a teammate of mine and he suggested Ironman Copenhagen. It really wasn't on my radar, potentially cold race, traveling to europe would be expensive, etc etc. We ended up doing IMMT together a year later and I guess that seed he planted just sprouted. Next thing I know I signed up for IMKPH.

I had a pretty crappy buildup. I was trying to do my own thing and train under 10 hours a week. Not because I thought it was the best plan, but because I was still mentally broken from IMChoo Sept 2016. For those who don't remember, or don't know. I dropped a key nutrition bottle 40 miles into the bike leg, during the hottest day Chattanooga has ever seen in Sept (165+ degree heat index), 30% of the race ended up requiring serious medical treatment. Well, it was a sufferfest to say the least. I put in a few monster weeks of training and it went all down the drain.

I figured a shorter buildup with lower volume would help me jump start things. It didn't. I couldn't get going until it was too late, but that's ok. KPH was a tuneup race for me. I was going to test myself in the swim, push the bike hard and the plan was to CRUISE the run. ZR/Z1 training pace.

A week before leaving, I noticed I had an itch on my back. I had my co-worker look at it and she said it was a pimple. I thought it was a spider bite for sure, but ok, whatever. Except it kept itching and just got worse. By the time I got to Denmark it began to spread to the front of my chest and started to hurt. By friday (2 days before the race), it started to hurt to move, and take a full breath. I thought it was bed bugs, which is the most terrifying thing to read about online. I freaked out, started putting all kinds of bed bug killing shit in my amazon cart... almost pulled the trigger too. My buddy John said it looked like shingles. I was kind of surprised, I'm 32, I eat well, I'm fit, I'm not supposed to get shingles! I decided to FB my PCP (holla ajay!) and send him some pics. He also diagnosed me with shingles and advised me to get some meds if I could, or suck it up. Well I didn't have time to see an MD then get meds from a foreign pharmacy, so I decided to suck it up. Not going to lie, I never thought I would be HAPPY to have shingles, I mean, it beats bed bugs...

Race morning:
I get to the swim start, it's starting to drizzle a bit, but not bad. I realized that I left my solids at home (2 cliff bars, 1 pro bar)... ugh, that's 600 damn calories. I really need real food during cold races. Not good. John offered me one of his bars, but I didn't want to dip into his backup food. I declined. The swim was pretty cool, single lap swim, wetsuit legal and you enter the water depending on your pace. I lined up with the 1:10-1:15 group and we were sent into the water 6 at a time, every 5 seconds (something like that). The swim went well enough for me, I had a lot of trouble sighting, but that's nothing new for me. After about 700 yards, I found a pair of feet to follow, except some guy liked those feet and pushed me out of the way. Nothing you can do when you're 5'3" and he's 6" and fat. I made a few mistakes on the swim, 1 was not getting a new pair of goggle, the sun was in your face on the back half of the swim and it would have been nice to be able to see better. There was also a ton of seaweed, but meh, you can see the bottom. I swam 1:17, which is a PR (for the full 2.4 swim) for me. I knew my neck was really chaffed, it stung as I swam. More body glide next time.

T1: was cold, and wet. I didn't like how there was no changing tent, it would have been nice to get a bit warmer. I ended up stuffing a plastic bag in my jersey to help build up heat for the first 5 miles. I hate being a crap swimmer, I get out of the water with a bunch of horrible cyclist. Did I mention how shitty triathletes are when it comes to bike handling skills?

Bike: I was ready to crush the bike. I felt strong, a bit cold, but strong. The first 40 miles of the course is FAAAST. There was a slight tail wind and I was averaging 23+mph with 120ish watts. The race director warned us of flintstones the night before the race. He said to put on tires that had protection... ooops, I was rocking my supersonics and grand prix tt. aka the tires with the LEAST puncture protection, faaaaak. Flintstones are round stones that flip upside down and go point side up when it rains. Rain was in the forecast, I was scared. The first lap was uneventful, I was blowing by a lot of people, which is normal for me since I'm such a crud swimmer. By the time the 2nd loop started, it got a bit cold and started to rain.. crap, I threw away my bag already. The rain really killed me, I started to get cold and my power started to drop. Oh, my BTA bottle also broke, so I was forced to hold it on during the whole ride, that sucked. I realized I wasn't going to PR the bike, so I just rode tempo and used it build on my bike fitness. I finished the bike in 5:26. Not my best time, but considering everything, I could live with it.

T2: I got into t2 and I really wanted some vaseline for my bottom, just in case. I knew it was going to be a long run.

Run: KPH course is incredible and shitty at the same time. The crowd support at KPH is the best I have ever seen in any IM. The downside is that its' 4.5 laps, which means it gets REALLY tight in some sections. By the time I was on my 2nd lap, the part that runs through the cobblestones was really congested, I'm really surprised no one twisted an ankle or fell. I took off a bit faster than I wanted to, which was fine, cus I planned on walking a ton of the marathon. Every water stop, every hill, then at least 6-7 bathroom breaks. I stuck to my plan, walk/run a lot of miles, with the exception of mile 23 or 24? It started to rain, I got cold and cranky and I just wanted to be home. So I took off and put down a random 8:15 mile snuggled between a 13 and 14 min mile segment. oops. I also forgot my charger at home, so I ran with my garmin 520 (bike computer) hitting lap every mile. This means I found my pace AFTER I ran the mile. It was a fun little experiment. I was going to just walk from 24-26 since I was vacationing in Iceland the week after and I didn't want to have junk legs for any of the hikes, but my 520 battery was low, so I ended up jogging it in.

During the whole race, the shingles didn't bother me too much. Sure I couldn't take a full breath, but I only had like 1-2 moments where I thought my body was going to break. It was actually worse the days before and the days after. I always thought shingles was adult chicken pox, that it just itched. NOT TRUE. it feels like someone is taking a blowtorch to your skin, it hurts to move, impossible to sleep. But hey, it's not bed bugs.

This is a shitty race report, I know. That's cus I have to wake up at 6 tomorrow to run with my croo. I promise a better race report for IMLOU in 6 weeks.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Why we keep the things we keep

Over the past 5-6 months I have been trying to reduce the things I own. It seems like it would be easy to get rid of things you just don't use, or just don't need, but it's not. People are sentimental creatures, we give life and emotion to inanimate objects, we project our feelings onto them. Thus we hold on to things because they are "important" to us. It is because of those feelings that it has taken me over a year to get rid of some of the things that I have.

I started small, getting rid of things that had no sentimental value, nor use. The next round, I got rid of race shirts that I didn't think would go well with my race quilt (yes, one day, i'll learn how to sew and quilt all my race shirts that don't fit).... Then came sneakers that I didn't wear anymore.

I tend to be a collector, but not always of things worthy of collecting. I had things like old redsox ticket stubs, all my concert ticket stubs, and old race bracelets. Those things were a little more difficult to get rid of. But I found that once I committed to getting rid of them, it wasn't that hard. The reality is that people only have so much to give. These objects are taking up part of my emotional energy that could be better directed towards other things/people/activities.

More recently, I donated a few items that held a lot of sentimental value. One was a hoodie that I have had since 9th grade. It was one that I designed with my high school best friend (for our paintball team). That hoodie represented almost everything about me in my early life. Paintball was my passion, and I spent every moment of my free time with Jared. I thought about it long and hard. I put it in the bag, I took it out of the bag. In the end, I let it go. The fact is, Jared and I don't even talk anymore. This tends to happen with most of my friends who have had kids and are living more of an "adult" life, whilst I play vagabond bachelor. I think part of letting the hoodie go was telling myself that it was OK that people come and go in your life. Part of it was that it just wasn't a very comfortable hoodie anyways. I needed to downsize, and now I am down to 3 hoodies that fit well and are comfortable. Of the 3, 2 have sentimental value, and the 3rd one is starting to develop a little history. Eventually, I'll let one of them go, but for now, they are too comfy...

The other items I let go were my first pair of racing shoes. The Brooks ST Racers. I haven't worn them in 10 years, but I still held onto them. In fact, I had 4 pairs (to go with my almost 50 pairs of sneakers). The last purge was a big one. I had donated over 27 pairs of sneakers to goodwill. I must say, donating the sneaker was relatively easy compared to the MFL (massholes for life, that was the name of our team lol) hoodie.

This particular blog entry was inspired by my friend Rebecca. She asked me to send a photo of something that had sentimental value to me, and tell a story about it. For a week, I thought about what I would write about. I have all my race bibs, I have my race medals, I have my pint glass collection, I have my first carabiner, I have something that was given to me the day I was born.

Whilst rummaging through my race bibs (looking for Big Lake Half Marathon 2007), I stumbled onto my Penguin Pizza beer list and immediately knew that I was going to write about it. It's funny that I keep a piece of paper that chronicles exactly when I had each beer. It's really a 10 month journey that encompasses undergrad and grad school. From a Bachelors degree, to starting the Doctorate program. All the trials and tribulations throughout that period of my life. New friends, old friends, breakups, new loves, all of it is there. What an emotional journey. I never really kept a diary growing up. I would write things here and there, but I've always had a knack of remembering things so I have never felt the need to write things down.


It's weird, when I gave up the hoodie, I was ok with it because I knew that my memories that the hoodie encompassed would not go away. That period of my life meant so much, but also so little in the grand scheme of things. I still remember the tournaments, the long drive to the cape every weekend, the custom paintball guns, to paying 12 bucks to fill up the tank. Yet here I am, holding on to this piece of paper, not willing to let it go.



Part of being minimalist is that things have to serve multiple purposes (at least it gives more reason to keep the item). This journal into my past takes up relatively little space, compared to a hoodie, not to mention, Jared (high school best friend) was also part of many penguin nights. Is it weird that this all came up, 24 hours from his birthday?

How does someone who is so sentimental (myself), cope with trying to be a minimalist. I'll let you know when I move into my van next year.... ;-)