Lake swim race report

There isn't much exciting to report from the race itself.

I prepared well

1. eating a reasonable breakfast reasonably early
2. wearing a swimsuit that I was ready to see turned murky from the algal lake-life
3. packing relatively new goggles with tint and polarization for the long part of the swim into the sun

And I did well!

I was seeded in the fifth wave, which meant that I got run over a bit, but the big pack of wave 6 swimmers didn't catch me until the first turn.

I had Garmin set up to buzz every 10 minutes, so I had a "reset button" to restart my attention to form and the fact that it was a race.

I had grand hopes of a sub-30 finish, but given my history, that would have been a little ridiculous, so instead I was happy when the watch buzzed 30 minutes as I was coming up to the last turn.

Overall, it was my best 1 mile lake swim yet at that venue! Hooray!

2009 - 36:28
2010 - missed signup deadline
2011 -  35:18
2012 - 33:28
2013 - 33:20
2014 - went camping on Memorial Day weekend instead of swimming
2015 - 32:33

IMChoo/2 Travel Report

Now that the race report is written, on to more important things, the road trip report!

I drove to & from Chattanooga last September and some parts of that trip were great, and I hoped to repeat, but others were not so exciting.

September 2014:

1. Kind Roots, Lexington, VA. Great find, though sort of random in a strip mall YMCA
2. Ellis Soda Shop, Abingdon, VA. Too far from highway to repeat on this trip
3. Hillbilly Willy's BBQ, Chattanooga, TN. Didn't actually go here
4. Bluewater Grille, Chattanooga, TN. Yummy but indifferent service
5. Mellow Mushroom, Chattanooga, TN. Always a favorite
6. Pigeon Mountain Grill, on bike course, GA. Tasty cheese burger
7. Blue Door Cafe, Draper, VA. Closed on Mondays, so couldn't make it here
8. Shanks Bakery, Harrisonburg, VA. Didn't make it here because my drive home was running so late by this point, and they are closed now.

I decided to make this recent trip a little more exiting by pursuing a theme of "round food". The first night, I had over-sugared myself on doughnuts, so had a salad with grilled mushrooms, but otherwise, much round food was consumed

May 2015:

1. The doughnut quest
   a.      Sugar Shack, Alexandria – Maple Bacon
   b.      Pure Eats, Lexington – Peanut Butter
   c.      Blackbird Bakery, Bristol, VA – Peach-filled glazed (highly recommend this stop for all of your sweet treat desires!!!)
   d.      Julie Darling Doughnuts, Chattanooga, TN – Banana Split cream-filled
   e.      Doughnut World, Bristol, VA – Apple fritter
   f.       Apple House, Lindon, VA – Apple cider cinnamon
2. The round foods
   a.      Pure Eats, Lexington, VA - Basil and Mozz Burger
   b.      Pigeon Mountain Grill, GA - Buckeye chocolate peanut butter ball
   c.      Community Pie, Chattanooga, TN - Sweet Fig Neapoliton pizza
   d.      Cashew, Chattanooga, TN - Black bean and plantain vegan quesadilla. Yum!
   e.      Mellow Mushroom, Knoxville, TN  - Mellowterranean pizza

Looking forward to Sept 2015

For the IM trip, there are a few things already on my wishlist

1. Blackbird Bakery - Must stop here again!
2. Julie Darling Doughnuts- Thurs breakfast
3. Milk & Honey - Thursday lunch/ice cream
4. Farmer's Daughter - Friday morning breakfast
5. Hot Chocolatier - Pick up some surprises for my family
6. Maple Street Biscuits - Send support crew to pick up some while waiting in line for finisher gear.
7. Blue Door Cafe, Draper, VA - Closed on Mondays so haven't made it here on either of the two road trips

IMChoo/2 Race Report

I went to Chattanooga last weekend and tried to race the 70.3 as if it was half of my Ironman. It was great reconnaissance, and I feel way more confident about my race. 

1. Race Report
   a. Swim: 31:00 – Half iron PR, lovely downstream swim. Stayed relaxed and sighted well. New long sleeve wetsuit was a cozy hug in cool water, but I prefer sleeveless if temperature is above 70 degrees
   b. Bike: 3:23 – Half iron PR. Aimed for Z2 and only went above it for 12% of the ride.
   c. Run: 2:27 – Negative split. Aimed for Z2 but implemented as a sawtooth of running too fast and walking.
   d. Overall: 6:29:52 – within 10 seconds of my half iron PR, and on a training day no less!
   
2. Course notes and focus points
   a. Lodging
     ·        When I found out my nice hotel wasn't serving breakfast until 7am on race morning, I switched to a cheap motel out of town, close to Waffle House. No regrets!
     ·        I recommend the Lookout Mountain cluster of motels over the airport cluster -- closer to town.
     ·        Last year, when I was checking out the course, I camped at Raccoon Mountain Campground and found that to be a great location as well.
   b. Pre-race
     ·        Wake up early, get breakfast in. Picked up 500 calories of food at 4am, and ate it after setting up transition.
     ·        For IM, clean transition area, so just need to say hi to bike and put on bottles.
     ·        Get on shuttle early and get in line for swim. Getting into the water early, and hence onto the bike course early was perfect for me – avoid passing people on the bike.
     ·        Bring something to sit on while in line. Send it back with your sherpa
     ·        Gu or other small snacky before swim start
   c. Swimming
     ·        Flow controlled by upstream dam. 8000 cu ft/whatever for 70.3 race day. 24000 cu ft/whatever last year on IM day. Calibrate expectations
     ·        Remember to start watch on the dock
     ·        Practice jumping in and starting swimming at swim practice. If I feel breathless at practice, the next day, jump in and swim slower.
     ·        70 degree water was ok with long sleeve wetsuit. For race day, last year, it was too warm for wetsuit. Research swim skins
   d. Biking
     ·         Get bottles that fit well in cages. Noteworthy bumps in first few miles left other people's nutrition on the side of the road.
     ·         Get a trusted tune-up. I saw lots of dropped chains and inability to get into desired gearing.
     ·         Mentally, break ride into 6 parts.
       1.       Stick (outbound) – 11 mi – settle in
       2.       Loop front half – 21 mi – slower
       3.       Loop back half – 25.5 mi – faster
       4.       Loop front half – 21 mi – slower
       5.       Loop back half – 25.5 mi – faster
       6.       Stick (inbound) – 11 mi – fly home
   e. Running
     ·         Practice evening running in heat by coming to Monday night runs!
     ·         Practice running bravely downhill and avoid the braking quadkiller http://running.competitor.com/2013/11/training/improve-strength-and-speed-with-downhill-running_53833
     ·         Two loop course, climb in 1^st mile
     ·         1 mean little climb on the south side of the river. Battery Pl. Quarter mile with 4% grade
     ·         For IM course, 1 hill up & down on the north side of the river, Barton Rd. Quarter mile with 5% grade up, 0.4 mile with -4% grade on the backside. Face that in the other direction a few miles later

IMCHOO Build 2 recap

I had a big confidence booster when I relayed for a half iron. I did the bike leg and mostly stayed within Z2 and had a resulting time that was much, much faster than I had hoped for. Following that up with a 70.3 in Chattanooga showed that the relay was not a fluke. Hooray!

Mini-goal assessment

• Go to 1 Monday bootcamp - Success
  
• Do 2 bike hills workouts with 2x and 3x trippple hill - Success, including getting it done on my own
• Drop bike off for annual tune-up over a vacation weekend - Success, including getting a hand-me-down power meter installed
  
• Run 11 while on vacation - Nope! Late night catching up with old friends instead
  
• Eat rationally while on vacation and on race weekends - Nope! too much deliciousness, too little control
  
• Race Chattanooga 1/2 as an Ironman/2- Grand Success!
  

Review of last three weeks

• 1x College reunion weekend
• 1x Monday bootcamp
• 3x Weds strength training
• 1x Yoga
• Swam
• at 6 swim practices
• 1.2 mi at Choo/2
• Ran
• 3x Monday night run lead
• 2x track practice - one derailed with a lingering side stitch
• 1 hr brick during Kinetic race weekend
• 13.1 at Choo/2
• Biked
• 2 flat workouts
• 2 hills workouts with 2x and 3x trippple hill
• 56 relay miles at Kinetic race weekend
• 56 at Choo/2
• 21 assorted commute miles

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Go to 1 Monday bootcamp
• Do 2 bike hills workouts with 2x and 3x trippple hill
• Race the lake swim mile with good sighting and body position 
• FTP test on the bike
• Enjoy evening off for theater

Half-iron relay: bike leg

I was the bike leg of a relay for a half-iron this last weekend, and had an amazing bike that greatly exceeded expectations.

This is awesome, because I'd been a little anxious that my current bike plan of prioritizing friendship and bonding for long rides was going to have a negative impact on my ability to reach my IM bike goals. But the results from Saturday helped me feel good about keeping the hard work hard, and the easy work very easy.

So, back to those expectations. How did I set those?
I am a data junky, and have years of Garmin files from bike rides. I've found feet of elevation gain per mile to be a good normalization factor, so I've made some plots to answer the following question:

By year, for rides over 30 miles, what was the relationship between speed achieved and the climbiness of the ride?

I've broken it down by year, but re-started the data collection on 2013, when I started riding a carbon-fibre road bike, vs my older aluminum one.

Also, I wanted to separate my 2013 results from the 2014 results, since I purposefully dropped weight throughout 2014.

Here's the data I've collected over the last 2+ years:

Speed vs. Climbiness for bicycling

From this chart, using last year's line, I had a notion that for the course I was going to do this weekend, at around 30 feet/mile of climbiness, I should expect something around 14mph.

As you can see from the little blue dot hanging out up in the sky, I actually came in much closer to 16mph, which was amazing! But also a little nerve-wracking, since I was part of a relay and was worried the runner wouldn't be expecting me yet.

As it turns out, everything worked out fine, and I am going to continue treating most long rides as wonderful time with friends. I'll check in again with an individual brick workout in mid-June to verify that this plan is still working.

Setting Goals

I read this blog post a few years ago that distinguished between goals, targets, and outcomes, and it resonated with me. Since reading this, I've tried to let the outcomes be what they are, and to get there with smart and consistent goals.
http://kropelnicki.com/goals/triathlon

For 2015, my most quantifiable goals involve getting work done

• Run - 750 miles
• Bike - 2500 miles
• Swim - 200 miles
• Bootcamp/Strength - 36 times
• Yoga - 30 times

I'm currently behind on all but running, but expect things to pickup from here. I might not make the swimming goal this year since it was based on going 3x per week most of the time, and for the first 4 months of this year, I haven't been hitting that too well.

I have also made smaller term goals in the past like "Be active - achieved by doing 8 workouts in the week", and for this 3 week build cycle, I want to get a Monday strength workout in and I want to build on the bike hill workouts.

Using the language of that blog post, I have an outcome time I would like to achieve for IM Choo -- also known as "the post-it of my dreams". I believe the biggest training-related variable that will influence that outcome is my biking strength, so I hope to develop some most specific goal/target level plans to help me hit that outcome.

Biking related goals, like biking more, working on strength, and working the biking muscle systems in training, will help me set training and race day bike targets, which *hopefully* will help me get my desired bike outcome.

Fingers crossed, and checklists ready for checking!

Colonies Zone 1000y FR Race Report

Finally! Improvement in swimming!

I've raced this event at the April meet 5 times, and have a number of ways this was my most solid performance yet

2010: I was still in my first year at Team Z and identified myself as a swimmer. I had no idea how to pace a 1000, and my splits showed it with a 17 second positive split between the 500's.

2012: Nothing special performance 9 seconds slower than 2010.

2013: Aiming for some redemption, I started from the blocks, and then had a person in my heat to chase down for the second half. There was only a 2.5 second positive split between the 500s. I took 2 seconds off my 2010 time, and had a great race.

2014: I started from the blocks, but had a hard time pushing the limits on the pace. When it felt uncomfortable, I backed off, and had my slowest performance yet, almost 20 seconds slower than my PR.

2015: I was late to the event and was placed in the last (slowest) heat. I'm very thankful that they made room for me, and talked with my heat mates in the hour leading up to the event explaining and apologizing -- hopefully I didn't seem like a speedy jerk who didn't understand seed times. After all the traffic anxiety getting there, I made time for a long warmup, including some 100's with and w/o pull buoy to try to hold the memory of what good body position feels like
I had a great dive, and strong first 100. After that, I settled into what felt like steady pacing. My splits agree with that with 1 second between the fastest and slowest 50's for the main part of the race. I was able to kick it up for the last 50 (probably should've tried harder for last 100) and got my fastest non-dive split for the finish.
The end result of this steady, pushing swim was a 15 second PR and a pace of 1:32/100y

In the grand scheme of triathlon-ing, swimming faster won't affect my day much, but it's my favorite part, and seeing improvement at something I've been doing for so many years now is lovely.

Data nerding: