Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Showers and Flowers

April (and its showers) has come to a close--here are the aggregate stats:

Swim: 30,100 yards
Bike: 769 miles
Run: 145 miles
X-Train: 3.5 hours
Time: 83:44

Lots of ups and downs during the month but at the end of the day it represents good progress and some good honest work.  The run total was especially gratifying.

As I mentioned prior I've veen wrestling with more than my normal share of muscle pain/soreness this year, which at this point I attribute to the tri-specific detraining that occurred when I focused on climbing in Dec/Jan.  I'm hopeful this will diminish as my fitness to train at my normal volumes comes up to normal standards.  Injury-wise I'm in good shape and (so-far) I've managed to avoid the spring-time running problems that have plagued me over the last few years.  I hope I haven't jinxed myself!

As for the flowers, the plan for May is:

1.  Enhance my fitness so that I am well-prepared to start my IM build on June 1st.  This means being ready to tackle 25-30 hour training weeks.

2.  Increase the standard deviations around duration and intensity in my training sessions.  I'll be moving away from a high number of moderate duration/moderate intensity sessions to higher percentages of short and long duration and low and high intensity workouts.  Of-course, it will probably mean a higher number of short/high and long/low workouts.

3.  Race a bunch of B/C priority races.  It's been almost a month since I lasted race.  My pre-season is over and its time to start the early regular season.  I hope to race 2-4 times in May, with at least 2 of these being triathlons.  My first of the month is on May 5th when I do the Bassman International:  0.5 mile swim/29 mile bike/4.4 mile run.

If all goes well I should be in position to begin the 12-14 week build in front of IMLT.  A good early test will be Mt. Tremblanc 70.3, which will be my 56th birthday.

Onward and upward--thanks for reading!

Sunday, April 28, 2013

This week past: A tale of two days, twice....

So, M-W this week I dutifully set out to execute what I call a transition week.  By that, I mean I'm trying to transition from my lassez-faire approach to training over the last couple of months to one a fair bit more rigorous.  I wanted to begin to prepare my body for my IMLT build, which will commence on June 1st.  So, I was looking for somewhere north of 20 hours of work and I was very keen to begin to build my bike volume.

However, as Monday turned into Wednesday a deep body fatigue arose.  I've been stepping on the gas  a bit over the last couple of weeks and I really felt it.  Muscle fatigue and stiffness in the morning (the wrong kind).  However, when I did my workouts I was surprised to see some pretty solid results....I was confused by this.

I've concluded that I am suffering a bit this year from the significant de-training that occurred with my extended mountain-climbing focus back in Dec and Jan.  As I've stepped up the volume, the lack of my traditional high volume base has, I think, come home to roost (of course, my advancing years may be another equally valid explanation).  The apparent contradiction of my reasonable race results and training test sessions I think is due to the relative emphasis on quality.  At the end of the day, I think I've done enough to fake it at short-course but as I begin to prepare for IM, my lack of effort is being exposed.

So, I decided I need to back off on Th/F, which I did.  I bagged 3 workouts (2 swim and 1 run).  I was prepared to write the week-off.

and then I woke up on Saturday to glorius weather for once.  I had a fabulous 5.7-mile, very demanding trail run and then went out and hammered out a 55-mile bike ride.  I felt absolutely fantastic--what a great ride!

Today (Sunday), I got up early and another solid 6 mile run and then went out for a 30-35 mile ride.  However, I got lost.  Not just a little, but a ton.  I've never been so lost.  To compound things I was on extremely technical and up/down roads.  Over 4 hours later I finally rode home having recorded 68.9 miles!  Not what I intended, and I do feel a bit more sore tonight that I would want but here are the stats for the week:

Swim: 4,750 yards
Bike: 231 miles
Run: 32.5 miles
Time: 22:11

I'll share with you the plan for the month of May in the next day or two....Lock and load--it's triathlon time!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Last week

Well I have to say that a great deal of my energy and motivation were effected by the horrible events that unfolded on CNN....having two sons and many friends and relatives in Boston made it tougher for sure.  Obviously, the people in Boston are the real ones impacted but we felt it here in Delaware as well.

I returned from Florida on Monday morning after having visited my Mom in Naples.  Monday afternoon of course then happened.  Judy and the girls left on Thursday for Phoenix and I took over dog care duty.  I did escape to the beach for a couple of days and visited with our friends the Baums and tested out my new TT bike.  I determined that the drop was a bit much and am currently modifying it by about an inch (my old drop was 5 and 1/8 and my new drop is currently 6 and 1/4)--hopefully this will lead to happy riding and no neck pain.  it was difficult to tell how the bike is vs. the older TT01 due to the ridiculous wind I had to ride through at the beach this weekend.  30mph crosswinds with 808s does not generally lead to happy thoughts in the aerobars.

In any event, I shouldered through on the training doing more than I wanted to.  I definitely withdrew from the First Bank of Motivation (which I hate to do) but hopefully it will actually get nice out at some point (I had to run in a winter hat and long pants the last two days) and all will be right once again in my training world.

Here is last weeks data:

Swim: 8000 yards
Bike: 197 miles
Run: 37 miles
Time: 19:55

this morning I did my 200 swim repeats in 2:55, which is at the very least, heading in the right direction...

onward and (maybe) upward!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

All in the family....

Its hard to focus on triathlon stuff during this time of such sadness.  I won't jump into my thoughts on the subject except to say that both of my Boston based boys are safe and sound and that we are all pretty upset by what happened....

So with that backdrop, I wanted to share with you something a little more fun.  I picked up my new racing steed today.  It's a bit like its predecessor but I have big expectations about the improved performance I expect from her.  Here are some pics:

Firstly, the original time machine on the left and my new baby on the right.  You can see, even with this picture the much more aggressive geometry of the new TM01. Just playing around during my fitting the new bike indicates that I'll be able to get much more aero on the new bike.  PLus the bike itself is more aero and quite a bit lighter--should be good!

Here is the new baby.  Some facts on it:

Size ML (about 56cm I think)
Campy super Record 11 (53/39 and 11/23, 172.5 mm cranks)
SRM Power Meter/Edge 800 head unit
Zipp Super 9 Carbon Clincher Disc/Zipp Firecrest Clincher 880 wheels
3T Breeza II Limited
Kep Blade Carbon TI 12 NM
Sella Italia SLR XC Flow seat



These next two pictures show the more advanced and aero front end on the TM01 (second pic) vs. my older TT01:

  

Pretty exciting stuff!!!  I guess I'll need to ride faster now!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Smithfield Race Report!


Smithfield Race Report
April 7th, 2013


Background

Location: Smithfield, VA
Distance: 300 meter swim/9.85 mile bike/3.1 mile run
2013 Triathlon Race Number: 2
Career Triathlon Race Number: 128
Conditions: Cool and breezy, around 50 degrees at the race start.  Clear and sunny.  Pool swim.

My second race of the 2013 season was down in Smithfield, VA at this Set-Up Events sprint triathlon.  This was my third time at this venue having raced here in 2009 and 2012.  I won my AG in each of those prior contests.

I drove down the day before, stopping in Washington DC to pick-up my race number for the Cherry Blossom 10-mile run, which I planned to run on Sunday, the day after Smithfield.  It was a lengthy drive but after about 7 hours I was ready to roll and safely in my hotel for the evening.  I stayed at the Smithfield Station, which is where I’d say you want to stay for this event—I’ve stayed there all three times.

This race boasts an unusually large and competitive field (for an early season local sprint) comprised of mostly Virginia triathletes.  Notably, two big triathlon clubs: Endorphins and Fat Frogs come out in force for this event.  Endorphins bills itself as an elite triathlon team that requires “tri-outs” to join.  They definitely distort the OA %-tile numbers.

The 10 a.m. Time Trail (TT) start made for a leisurely pre-race morning.  I awoke at about 6 am and had coffee and a muffin to charge up.  It was clear and chilly with quite a bit of wind about.  The wind would definitely be a factor out on the bike.  Upon arriving at the race site I did my usual warm-up including riding the entire bike course.

On this morning there were 451 starters with 20 in my 55-59 YO MAG.  I was surprised to find 7 guys in my AG with lower bib numbers.  This is unexpected because the bib numbers are assigned based on self-estimated swim times.  I’ve done pretty well historically on the swim so this was a bit of a jolt.  The swim is contested in a 300-meter pool with swimmers going off every 15 seconds.  The faster (estimated) swimmers go first so this indicated that I had quite a bit of potential competition from a swim perspective.  I had bib number 129 and as we will soon see, I had at the end of the day done an effective job of seeding myself against the field.

I didn’t know much about the competitors in my AG though it was clear that one fellow, Greg Guinther would pose a serious challenge.  Greg had won his previous 8 straight triathlon AGs dating back to 2011.  One of these was the 2011 Kinetic Half-IM where he rode a 2:24 bike split, on a pretty challenging bike course, to a 4:48:02 H-IM.  The last time I went that fast was 2007—and on a much easier course than Kinetic.  He also was 8th OA at the US National Duathlon Championship, where he beat among others, Brian Sullivan by 3+ minutes, Nace Mullen by 5 minutes and Lou Almekindres by over 6 minutes.  All three of these gentlemen are considerably stronger athletes than I so this did not bode well for me.

As luck would have it, Greg had bib number 128 so he started the swim and race 15 seconds in front of me.  On the pool deck before the race I introduced myself to him and he was very eager to talk about himself and his expectations for the race.  He told me that he was “going for the VTS (Virginia Triathlon Series) title in our AG this year”.  He said he planned on racing 5 or more VTS events.  I offered that he should have no trouble winning the VTS title because I didn’t think many guys our age would race 5 VTS events.  He disagreed and said that there were 3 or 4 top guys who were all competitive.  He expected to “set the bar” and establish a lead at this race.

He further told me that he had been a competitive bike racer since he was 14 and used to be a Cat 1 rider.  He said he still raced bike races and that biking was his real strength.  I kept my mouth shut (unusual for me) by I thought to myself that we would just have to see about that out on the course.

I thought starting just behind Greg was ideal from a competitive perspective and as I waited on the deck, I decided that “Plan A” was to make-up the 15 second gap on the swim, out-transition him and leave on the bike first and then pull away from him in an attempt to convince him that he would be better off racing for second….

The Swim

Since this was a pool swim I didn’t have my wetsuit as a crutch for this swim.  This is a relative competitive disadvantage as I tend to be at or above the 90 %-tile with a wetsuit but only in the 70s without.

After Guinther started, I jumped in and 15 seconds later I was off.  I felt pretty good and I tried to swim at a pretty controlled level of effort.  With no wetsuit I wanted to be conservative and not go anaerobic early in the swim.  I noted where Greg was as he swam back in our lane after the first turn.  After 50 meters I crossed under the lane line and as I swam towards the 75 meter point I could see that Greg passed earlier in this lap than my first.  This was disappointing as it indicated Greg was actually out-swimming me.  I put this out of my head and just focused on getting through the swim with as little drama as possible—Plan A apparently needed to be abandoned.

I passed a couple of slower swimmers (which led to a bit of lost time) along the way and had one pass me as well and I finally pulled myself up and out of the pool with an elapsed time of 5:16.  I was reasonably pleased with this effort given the late start I’ve had to training this year due to my expedition to Aconcagua in January.  In fact my swim volume over the first three months is only about half of what I have averaged over the last few years. 

As an aside, here is how my training volume this year compares to the my average training volume for 2010-2012 for the January-March period:

                      2010-12 Avg        2013              Change

Swim (yds)             103,900          52,500            - 49.5 %
Bike (miles)            2,255             1,764             - 21.8 %
Run (miles)             420                261                - 37.8 %

In any event, my swim split this year was comparable to my prior efforts here:

                             2009              2012              2013

Time                      5:09               5:13               5:16
OA %-tile               71.4               75.2               72.2
AG %-tile               85.7               85.7               80.0

Also, from an overall %-tile perspective, this swim was in line with my prior triathlon pool swim results:

                     OA%             AG%

Angel’s 2005          45.4        45.0
Angel’s 2006          58.1        80.0
Angel’s 2007          70.1        80.0
Smithfield 2009       71.4        85.7
Smithfield 2012       75.2        85.7
Tune-Up 2013        78.5        80.0
Smithfield 2013       72.2        80.0


I was 126th OA (72.2 %-tile), so my predicted time and it’s swim seeding (129th) were pretty good.  I was also the 5th fastest in my AG.  Perhaps most importantly, I lost 6 seconds to Guinther as he exited the water 21 seconds in front of me.  Here is where we stood after the swim:


1.  Clarke                              --------
2.  Wolf                                + 0:05
3.  Guinther                          + 0:26
4.  Young                             + 0:27
5.  Christofferson                  + 0:32

Transition One

As I exited the pool building and ran towards my bike rack I could see Guinther up ahead executing his transition—because of our bib numbers we were racked right next to each other.  He had told me that he focused on transitions and he even used old-school “rat-traps” so he could ride in his running shoes.  This strikes me as a flawed strategy as I’m sure the biking inefficiencies generated with flexible shoes more than out-weigh the 10 seconds or so it might take to put one’s running shoes on.

In any event, Guinther’s shoe strategy didn’t benefit his T1 and I was 7 seconds faster than him in transition.  In fact, my total T1 was just 1:22.  This was an excellent transition for me and you can see that reflected in this comparison to 2009 and 2012 here at Smithfield (note that the transitions in 2012/2013 were much longer than in 2009):

                             2009              2012              2013

Time                      1:20               1:59               1:22       
OA %-tile               87.3%            77.1%            89.1%

Competitively, I had the 3rd fastest transition in my AG.  Notably, Clarke had the top transition to extend his lead.  Clarke is the fellow in my AG who races for Endorphin and had we started in a normal wave format, I would have been very concerned with his strong swim/T1 performance.  However, since he started close to 10 minutes in front of me I was blissfully unaware that I was getting thumped in the early stages of this race.  Here is where we stood after T1:

1.  Clarke                       --------
2.  Christofferson           + 0:40
3.  Kiehl                         + 0:40
4.  Guinther                   + 0:41
5.  Young                      + 1:05

Indeed, we had a real good one going here but of-course with the TT start we were all unaware.  However, I was focused on Guinther and as I ran out of T1 I could see him mounting up and I estimated that he was 15 seconds ahead of me (equivalent to us being tied)—this proved to be a solid guess.  Now that the bike was upon us, I was about to find out if I really had a chance to win this thing!  I have to say I was very motivated this morning!

The Bike

I headed out on the bike very focused on Guinther, who was just up the road.  Despite my cocky attitude, I was riding with a lot of respect for him.  I decided that what I needed to do, now that “Plan A” was out the window, was just try to pace off of him and see how my body felt.  I thought there was a reasonable chance that he was a better cyclist than I and that the cost of my staying with him might be too much of a stress on my body.  I found the first two miles to be pretty challenging and I guessed that the distance between Guinther and I was staying constant.  Here is what my Garmin 800 said about the first two miles:

Mile 1: 266 watts/268 watts NP/80rpm/169 bpm HR
Mile 2: 241 watts/243 watts NP/81 rpm/166 bpm HR

This data reflects what I was feeling and I thought that it might be the right strategy to just try to stay close to him.  However as we made our way through the third mile it seemed to me that it was becoming easier to track Guinther’s pace.  My third mile looked like this:

Mile 3: 240 watts/241 watts NP/80 rpm/164 bpm

As we headed into the 4th mile I began to get my mojo up and I started to real Guinther in.  I had the advantage of knowing the course and about midway through the 4th mile there was a blind downhill with a fairly tight curve leading to a short but steep climb.  Guinther backed off on the descent and I, knowing the course decided to pour it on.  I flew down the descent and at the crest of the hill blew past him going at least 10 mph faster.  Right after this section there was a 120-degree left turn and then the steepest climb on the course and having seen this many times before I executed a strong downshift and then pushed close to 800 watts up the hill.  I was away and feeling very pumped and I decided that I was all in on this ride—I wanted to ride away from Guinther.  My next two miles reflect this:

Mile 4: 274 watts/274 watts NP/81 rpm/166 bpm
Mile 5: 264 watts/284 watts NP/85 rpm/170 bpm

Mile 5 was probably the hardest I have ever pushed it in a triathlon bike leg.  284 watts Normalized is the highest I’ve ever recorded for a triathlon mile and 170 bpm for an average HR is also higher than I’ve ever recorded in a tri bike leg.  The truth is I was riding way above my fitness level given my limited training coming into this race.

That said, I was having a blast.  I was committed to making my break stick—no matter what—and I was not going to look behind me…I assumed that Guinther was hot on my tail and I needed to push it.  And so for the most part, push it I did, although I could really feel that I was making some withdraws from the First Bank of Fitness that probably exceeded my balance.  In any event—here were the last 5 miles:

Mile 6: 251 watts/251 watts NP/87 rpm/168 bpm
Mile 7: 258 watts/260 watts NP/84 rpm/167 bpm
Mile 8: 249 watts/249 watts NP/82 rpm/166 bpm
Mile 9: 249 watts/249 watts NP/83 rpm/166 bpm
Mile 10: 247 watts/264 watts NP/83 rpm/166 bpm

I finished the bike leg in 26:16, which given the wind we faced this morning was an excellent effort.  The wind this year was more like 2009 and much worse than the easier conditions in 2012.  Here are the key measures of my bike effort over these three races—based on this data, I’m confident that my ride this year was the strongest of the three times I’ve competed here:


                             2009              2012              2013

Time                      26:25             26:12             26:16
Average watts         253                251                254
Normalized Power                          256                259
Average HR            162                161                167
Average Cadence                          80                  82

Of course, the 167bpm average HR is a real clue to the fact that I rode above my fitness level this morning.  167bpm is what I do when I’m really motivated in August…definitely not what I typically see in early April.  Especially given my lack to training this year.   I had fun, but from a tactical point, I rode too hard this morning.  That said, I kicked some ass and I was able to put 1:13 on Guinther and two and more minutes on the rest of my AG competitors.  I had the 23rd best bike OA (which given the caliber of this field I feel great about) and this was good enough for 95.9 %-tile.  Here is where we stood after the bike in my AG:

1.  Christofferson                  --------
2.  Guinther                          + 1:14
3.  Clarke                              + 1:38
4.  Kiehl                                + 3:07
5.  Siemers                           + 3:19

Transition Two

After dismounting and running the 30-40 yards to the actual transition area I glanced back towards the dismount line to see if Guinther was nearby.  I was pleased (and truth be known, a little surprised) to not see him.  I dashed to my rack in a real hurry—I had worked very hard to build my lead on the bike and I was focused on maintaining it.

I executed a very good T2 taking a total of 1:17.  This compares to 59 seconds in 2009 (with a much more compact transition area) and 1:20 last year.  I had the 66th fastest transition overall (85.6 %-tile) and I ended up posting the 2nd fastest T2 in my AG.  The fastest, unfortunately was Guinther’s with his rat-traps and no need to change shoes.  As I was running out of transition I saw Guinther coming in and I surmised I was probably less than a minute ahead of him.  In fact Guinther made up 19 seconds on me in T2 and with his 15 second headstart at the swim, he left T2 just 40 seconds behind me.  Here is where we stood in actual elapsed time through T2:


1.  Christofferson                  --------
2.  Guinther                          + 0:55
3.  Clarke                              + 2:01
4.  Kiehl                                + 3:14
5.  Siemers                           + 3:51

The Run

I was not surprised to feel heaviness in my legs due to the big effort I put out on the bike and with my lack of recent racing and training for that matter.  However, I didn’t feel completely smoked and I tried to push myself even though I knew Guinther was close and he is a much stronger runner.  You never know what’s going to actually happen so I wanted to give myself a chance to win this thing.  I thought if I could get a ways past 2 miles—preferably quite a ways past, then maybe I could stay close and use my 15-second offset to eek out a win.

I looked at my watch at the one-mile point and realized that in the heat of battle I had neglected to hit the lap button at the end of T2—so I had no idea how fast I was going although it seemed like I was well under an 8-minute pace.  My spirits were up as I had stayed ahead for the first mile.

The run course is an out and back with the turnaround just past the halfway point.  I made the left-hand turn on the road where the turnaround was and I could see that the course was considerably longer this year than last year (more on that shortly).  As I approached the turnaround, Guinther caught me and I wished him well and resigned myself to trying to hold onto 2nd.  The air went out of my balloon at this point and my pace definitely slowed.  It took Guinther about 1.4 miles to make up just 40 seconds on me but he was able to put another 79 seconds on me the rest of the race. 

I crossed the finish line with a 24:33 split (7:54/mile) for an overall time of 58:44.  Greg was 1:59 faster than I and I ended up with the 5th fastest run in my AG and the 155th OA (65.9 %-tile).  I finished 2nd in my AG and 62nd OA (86.4 %-tile).  Here is where we finished in my AG:

1.  Gunither                   --------
2.  Christofferson           + 1:04
3.  Clarke                       + 3:05
4.  Kiehl                         + 3:54
5.  Siemers                    + 4:15

My time this year was the slowest of my three efforts here but with the wind on the bike and the added length on the run, I decided that I needed to dig a little deeper analytically to really understand how I did this year compared to prior efforts.  Normally, I’d just look at OA %-tile comparisons but with the added competitiveness that Endorphins have brought to this race I thought it would be more instructive to find people who had competed in both 2012 and 2013 and see how their bikes and runs compared.  I found five guys who were close to me in Overall finish time both years and I took them, plus the fellow who won both years and compared how their times changed from year to year and compared to my splits:

Change in bike split from 2012 to 2013:

Basham                  + 1.2%
Keihl                      + 5.4
Harlow                   + 4.8
Wozniak                 + 2.3
Jordan                   + 3.8
Berman                  + 3.7

Comp Average:       + 3.5%

Christofferson         + 0.4%

As can be seen by this comparison, I did relatively better on the bike than did all of these direct competitors.  This difference indicates I was actually about 49 seconds faster (relatively) than my competitors this year than I was in 2012.

Here is the same analysis for the run, which as I mentioned was quite a bit longer (physically) in 2013 than in 2012:

Basham                  +12.0%
Keihl                      + 6.3
Harlow                   +10.9
Wozniak                 + 7.1
Jordan                   +10.5
Berman                  + 4.3

Comp Average:       + 8.5%

Christofferson         + 8.9%

So it would seem that my slower time this year was in line with the rest of the field and due principally to the course being longer this year.  This also indicates that my pace last year (which was my best of the year last year) was a little optimistic and not that accurate.  If I had to guess, the course was probably closer to 3.1 miles this year than last year.

Conclusion

Guinther was the stronger triathlete today (and probably most days) and I did well to finish 2nd.  With the tougher conditions this year and the longer run course, my time this year was certainly quite a bit better than it was in 2009 and 2012.  Given my lack of training this year my results were very strong this year—my bike was especially surprising.

Still, it’s just one race and I probably raced above my fitness level—for sure on the bike.  This pre-season stuff is behind me now. 

I need to now focus on training and building my LC fitness.  As a consequence, I’ll take 4 weeks off from racing.  I’ll jump back in with 3 races in May.  That said, I did however cruise the Cherry Blossom 10-mile race the next day after Smithfiled treating it more like a training run than a race.  And I did well!  Onward and upward!

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Getting back to work!

I'll have the Smithfield RR ready for posting in the next day or so.  Meanwhile, I've been creative in trying to get in a solid training week despite all of my travels.  I was in Delaware for just two full days this week as I was still down in DC on Monday and Tuesday and I've been down in Naples, FL the last three days visiting my Mom.  So given that schedule, I did pretty well to get some solid training in this week.  The improving weather helps and my expectation for the next 2-3 weeks is to be north of 20 training hours.  Here are the totals for the week that just passed:

Swim: 7,000 yards
Bike: 191 miles
Run: 32 miles
Time: 21:50 

Monday, April 8, 2013

Awesome Weekend

sorry to delay on this latest update!

I have good reason--I'm down in DC with my bride and we are celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary today.  The weather is phenom and to put icing on the cake, the cherry blossoms went nuts today and came out in full force with the near 80 degree heat and beautiful sunshine!

It's been an event filled weekend.  I did the Smithfield Sprint Tri on Saturday and had a very satisfying race.  I didn't win but I had a very encouraging swim and bike and a not to bad run and it was good enough for 2nd (out of 20) in my AG.  I was 2nd to a better triathlete but I really gave him a scare--the race report to come will prove to be interesting reading (by the humble standards of this blog!)

I then drove up to DC and met Judy.  We had a nice night on Saturday night and then we BOTH got up sunday morning and did the Cherry Blossom 10-miler!  This was the longest running race that Judy has ever done.

This morning, Judy and I did the Mount Vernon bike trail as Judy was able to try out her new Tarmac SL-4 for the first time.  She LOVED it and it's pretty impressive that she was able to just bang out a 27-miler for her first ride of the year--especially after running 10 miles the prior day.

We did some awesome sight seeing as well.  Tomorrow we head back to Delaware and I will begin to get serious about my training and fitness.  Time to start getting to work.  The real triathlon season is not too far off in the future.  Here is last week's totals:

Last week:

Swim: 6200 yards
Bike: 119 miles
Run: 34 miles
Time: 14:14






Thursday, April 4, 2013

Odds and ends

sorry to be a bit behind in posting....

much to do here....went and visited a dear friend at the beach...had the fam home for Easter...

And I have been working on my White Paper: "The Difference Between Winning and Losing"...more on that later...

So volume wise:

Last week:

Swim: 6550 yards
Bike 139 miles
run: 31.5 miles
time: 16:45

Last month:

Swim: 28,450 yards
Bike: 707 miles
Run: 120.2 miles
Cross-train: 7:05
Time: 80:42

so, it is what it is....I'm not in hardcore mode.  I'm late to the dance.  I should be training more.  Am I am in shape?  My guess is better than I deserve to be but probably not where I would normally be at this point in the season...

Anyways, we'll get some good data this weekend!  Just like 2009 and 2012 it's Smithfield Sprint Tri/Cherry Blossom 10-mile run Weekend coming up!  I'm off tomorrow for an extended trip south that will ultimately entail my bride of soon to be 29 years joining me for a celebration of our anniversary in DC on Sunday and Monday!

Before that, I'll have the first good indicator of where I'm really at fitness wise 2013....

So, at Smithfield, I'll have 25 AG competitors and according to my new "BIG DATA" analysis I'll have a 16.86% probability of winning.  LOL.  Well indeed, it's hard to beat 24 other guys so for sure the odds are against me.  That said, looking at the entrants I'd say my odds are more like 25-40%.  I have one other strong triathlete whom normally I'd expect to edge out but my fitness this year may not be up to the task.  Then there is this bike centric dude who has not done tris before who looks to be able to press me on the bike....and what I've learned (white paper to come) is when that happens, I'm toast....

In any event, looking forward to it.  The weather looks good--probably low 40s at the start, which seems positively balmy after the 28 degree start on 3/24....

OK, while it's still "pre-season" by my definition, I feel like I'm "hitching up" and back in the game....awesome---summer can't be far behind!!!!!!