Kansas City Corporate Challenge Bike Race

Today, I raced in my first ever time trial. I got there about 1.5 hours early and slowly started getting ready. I rode on my trainer for 15 minutes. I followed that up with some extra stretching and riding around the parking lot.

The race started with me on the bike and getting a slight push start. The first mile was very fast and then we hit a little headwind and the only hill on the course. It was tiny but when you are pushing at maximum effort, it feels so much bigger. I cruised past that hill and around the course picking my speed back up. I could definitely feeling my quads yelling at me but I just kept pushing through. I started mile 3 in the same spot that the course started and knew all I had ahead of me was a slight downhill and that uphill. I hammered it hard and finished the race in about 7:36. I am not sure as to when I started and stopped my watch, so that time will be a little off the official time but it should be fairly close.

I passed 6 or 7 people along the way and no one caught me at all, so I think my time will be one of the better times out there. We won't get our official results and placing until Wednesday night or Thursday morning though.

This was easily one of the hardest things I have ever done but it was also one of the most fun. I wish I had worn my heart rate monitor so I could have seen where that was at. From a cardiovascular perspective, the only thing I can compare this to would be wrestling for 6 minutes in High School. From a muscle fatigue standpoint, I don't know that I have ever experience anything like this before.

Longest Ride Ever

This morning, I woke up and ran the Amy Thompson 8k run with Shari. We had a lot of fun and she finished in under 1:15 which was her goal so that was pretty good. We got lots of pictures and videos along the way, so that made it even more fun.

This afternoon, I rode 63 miles. I rode from my house to Martin City. I met Kevin, Erin, Aaron, Derek, Reed and Sev there for a 27 mile group ride. Then I rode back home. It was pretty winding riding west towards Martin City so my speed wasn't all that high during that part of the ride, but everything else was pretty fast. This was my longest distance I have ever ridden and it was wonderful. It started off pretty hot out but cooled down a little by the time I was done.

I missed posting a couple workouts on here, but I am not going to go back and update them.

Yesterday's Run

I ended up taking Monday off and it was pretty nice to not have anything that day.

Yesterday, I woke up with the intention of swimming and just kept thinking about how much I hated that open water swim on Sunday so I said screw it and went back to sleep. I hope when I wake up tomorrow, I can get past that and go swim.

In any event, I had a sweet quality run. I ran 6 intervals of .5 mile at about a 6:30 pace for each interval. I warmed up and cooled down with a 1.5 mile run as well so I got in over 7 miles. I will be interested to see what I can run a 5k at now. I would think I would be really close to my dream of running running sub 20.

KC Tri Race Report

Today was the KC Triathlon. It was an international distance triathlon so that means .93 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride and 6.2 mile run.

I started off in the water at 8:07 and very quickly came to the realization that I really don't like swimming in a wetsuit very much. I also came to the conclusion that I don't know how to swim in a straight line. This is readily apparent by looking at my version of the .93 mile swim. I went about 1.1 miles in a nice zig zag pattern the whole way. I also manage to drink a small amount of lake water and that didn't help. When I got out of the water I felt pretty miserable and was just excited to get out of the wetsuit and start riding.

Transition 1 went pretty poorly because when I got to my bike, some idiot was just sitting in front of my bike taking off his wet suit. I told him to get out of the way so I could take off my wetsuit and get riding.

The 25 mile ride went really well. I was comfortable the whole way and rode just under 21 mph. I am pretty familiar with the course so that helps. I feel like I could have ridden a little faster but I am not entirely sure how much faster. I was really happy with the bike time though.

Transition 2 went better but I tried something new today. I decided I was going to change my socks. I wore my bike socks on the ride and I wanted to wear running socks on the run. I don't really think this helped me too much and their wasn't much difference in comfort, so I will probably just stick with running socks on bike and run from here on out.

The 6.2 mile run to finish went extremely well. Almost every mile was faster than the previous and I felt awesome the whole way. I don't know that I have ever had a negative split before and to have done it after swimming and biking and by such a significant amount was awesome.

My official time was 2:39:50. I completed the swim in 31:26, T1 in 3:24, bike in 1:13:32, T2 in 2:16 and the run in 49:14. I placed 23/52 in the male 25-29 division. However, looking back on it, I should have registered as a Clydesdale since I weigh over 200 lbs (203 lbs this morning to be exact). If I had done so, I would have placed 5th in the Clydesdale division and would have qualified for the Hyvee Championships in September.

Great day overall though. This was my longest endurance event to date and probably one of my best. 20 days until Kansas Half Ironman.

Yesterdays workouts

Yesterday, I got to the pool in the morning for a 1500 yard straight swim. Everything felt good, it just seems to take so long to swim that far when you are used to doing intervals and breaking things up.

Last night, I ran 4 miles but my knee started to hurt slightly at mile 2 so I slowed up and took it easier for the last 2 miles. It wasn't bad but I don't want it to bother me this weekend.

When I woke up this morning it was was a little sore but it feels better now that I have been up and walking around on it. I am debating on riding tonight again just to avoid any extra irritation but we will see what happens after work. Riding doesn't seem to cause any problems.

Awesome 27 mile ride

I got on the bike tonight for the first time since Sunday after I had a bad ride. Tonight was awesome though. I rode out to Longview Lake and rode 1 loop of the KC Tri course for this weekend and then came home. I rode 26.79 miles at 20.9 mph.

I am going to be swimming in the morning for the first time since I hurt my knee so hopefully it doesn't cause me any more problems in the morning.

Not a good day to ride

The weather was great outside but nothing else was really in my favor today. I got on the bike and could tell that I ran hard yesterday but that wasn't going to stop me. After 2-3 miles, I realized that my cadence sensor wasn't working and my speed/distance were jacked up. I had forgotten that when I swapped my training tire back off, I needed to readjust the cadence sensor so it wasn't always picking up the magnet. I just turned off the sensor and kept riding.

After about 5 miles or so, my back tire started to freak out and I realized that it had gone flat. When I pulled off the tire and looked at the tube, what appeared to be a small metal pin had punctured my tire and tube. I didn't feel like risking the possibility of geting stranded 20 miles out without another tube so I decided to head home. I wouldn't have cared if I was with a group or I was going a shorter distance but 50 miles with no spare tube scares me...

In any event, I only rode 10 miles today, but I got in quite a bit of stretching as I am getting ready for KC Tri this upcoming weekend.

Running with the Cows Half Marathon

I ran the Running with the Cows Half Marathon. My time was 1:41:34 which was a new PR. I was running running ahead of the 1:40 pack until mile 10 when they caught me. I knew they were coming since I made the turn at mile 6.5 so it was really only a matter of how longer until they caught me. My splits today were great, other than mile 13 for some reason. I am not really sure what happened there. The only thing I can think of is that I checked out mentally since I was still 1 minute behind 1:40 but I don't remember feeling like I really slowed down ever and my legs felt good.

I went over to the gym this afternoon and went swimming to finish up the day. I swam 1000 yards at 1:45 min/100 yards. When I was on my last lap, I remember thinking to myself that I would be happy if I finished in under 20 minutes so to finish in 17:35 was awesome. I am hoping I can maintain that pace for my triathlon swims because that is a great speed for me compared to last winter.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday, I had my quality swim in the morning. It was about 2500 yards total and took just over an hour. The rest breaks between the final interval sets are between 3-4 minutes and they seem like they take forever so I hope this is helping because that was boring.

Over lunch, I went and ran 30 minutes on the treadmill as my last prep run for tomorrow mornings half marathon. It was a very steady pace and I didn't try to do too much.

I took today off instead of riding 20 miles so that my legs could be good to go in the morning. I have the Running with the Cows Half Marathon and the course is fairly flat, so I am hoping that I might be able to run under 1:40 but we will see about that.

Second Quality Bike Ride

Tonight, I stayed indoors on my trainer. I rode for just over 90 minutes. I thought the trainer would make it easier to get my heart rate up for the interval rides but I am starting to doubt that now. I think I will try to get back outside next week and find a hill that I can do repeats on to get my heart rate where I want it.

AM Swim / PM Quality Run

This morning was my long swim of the week. I swam 2500 yards with the main set being 10x100yards with 15 seconds between each set. I swam each set between 1:38 and 1:42. I didn't feel as good as yesterday but that could be some fatigue from the 1300 yard warmup. Regardless, I was really happy with the times I was able to put up for the main set.

Tonight was my second quality run workout. I added another interval to my run tonight so I ran 4 intervals of 1/2 mile with 1/4 mile recoveries. I ran 6.16 miles total and each of my half mile intervals were between 6:23 and 6:36 per mile. All of my intervals were faster than last week and I even got in an extra one. Overall, this was a sweet workout as I don't know that I have ever really run that fast for a half mile.

1500 yard swim

I was supposed to swim and bike today but due the past two days and my bike being completely dirty from riding in the rain yesterday, I decided to just swim and clean up my bike tonight.

I swam 1500 yards after work. The main set was a straight 800 yards tonight. I felt great the whole set and managed to swim at a 1:45 min/100 yard pace. This was one of my fastest swims ever, especially over this distance. If I could swim at this pace for the whole half IM, I would be thrilled.

Then I got home, ate some dinner and took apart my bike for a full cleaning. Its amazing how much better it looks now. The rain and grime really did a number on it yesterday.

KCCC Triathlon Tryout

Today, I had a tryout for the Cerner's Triathlon team for the Kansas City Corporate Challenge. We didn't do a swim leg but instead added and extra 4.5 miles on the bike to make up for it.

It was a little cloudy to start and it had been raining on and off throughout the day. But the temperature was good and the weather was almost perfect.

I showed up a little later than I wanted, so I didn't get a change to get all the way warmed up but I was still feeling pretty comfortable considering what I did yesterday. The bike course was 3 laps around Shawnee Mission Park. It spanned 13.59 miles. I averaged 20.2 mph. During lap 1, I was still warming up a little bit. Lap 2 went pretty smoothly though and I felt great the entire time. At the start of lap 3, the rain started coming down. I had to slow a bit down hills just to make sure I didn't lose traction or anything but I still kept a pretty good speed throughout.

The transition from bike to run took just over a minute so that was good.

To finish up, we had a 2.4 mile run to do. It was in my favorite kind of weather as well. The rain was really coming down now and I loved every minute of it. I ran 2.39 miles in 19:26 to complete the tryout. My total time was just a little over an hour.

This was only 1 of the 3 tryouts that they had so I can only compare myself to the people there, but I did really well. There was only 1 other person ahead of me on the bike but she slowed down tremendously in the rain and didn't even do the run course because of the lightning. I am pretty hopeful that I will be able to make the team as I didn't see anyone behind me during the bike course and I only saw another guy about a minute behind me on the run and he wasn't in my age division.

Ride/Run Brick

Today, I kind of threw together a Ride/Run brick. I have a triathlon tryout tomorrow for the Kansas City Corporate Challenge and I didn't want to ride or run in the morning so I figured why not do them both today :)

I started of with a pretty good ride. I rode 53 miles. Everything went really well on the ride except when I got toe 291 highway. I looked across the intersection and saw a cop blockade. Apparently, there was a running race this morning and some of the roads were blocked off. This quickly became a fun challenge to find my way around but eventually, I found a route and got back on track. It definitely slowed my started down a little bit but not enough to really matter. I ate 2 clif bars and 3 Gu's on the bike. I also guzzled down all 92 ounces of water that I brought with me (50 ounces in the aquacell and another 42 in my water bottles). I practiced reloading the aquacell with water while riding today too, so hopefully I can do that on the bike course to help with not stopping at the stops.

Today's transition wasn't as much about speed as it was about trying to rub as much of my sweat on Shari as I could. I also used that time to sit in the A/C for a little bit and cool down before heading back out. I took about 8 minutes to transition. If I did that at an event, that would suck big time.

As usual, my run started off too fast. I really want to run a 9 minute/mile for the Half Ironman. I think that is almost the perfect pace for me for that long of an endurance event. I wanted to run 10 miles today but I ended up with 8.25 miles. The heat definitely played a part of that but another big factor was leaving my last Gu at home. I definitely hit mile 4 and reached in my back pocket to realize it wasn't there. When I got home, it was sitting on the stairwell right where I left it :(.

Today's workout was awesome though. It was by far the longest single workout I have done from a time and distance perspective. I also got outside about the same time I will get on my bike for the half iron man so that helped me see how hot it might be and get used to that. I am not really worried at this point about completing the distance, as I know I can do that. It is all a matter of how fast I can do it. I originally thought 5 to 5.5 hours would be possible but realistically with transitions, I would be perfectly happy with 5.5 to 6 hours.

Yesterday's Run/Swim

Due to rain in the forecast, I got up early and ran outside and moved my swim to the evening. I ran 5 miles in just over 40 minutes. It was fairly humid out even that early.

Last night I got in my first quality swim. It covered almost 2500 yards. I cut it short on accident though because I thought I was misremembering the training plan. In any event, I got in a lot of hypoxic breathing during it and put up some of my best swim times I have ever had. I swam a couple 100's at less than 1:33 which I have never done before and I also swam several 50s in 40-44 seconds. I will have the training plan right next week. It sure does take a while because of the long rest between sets but you feel so much better during the max effort intervals.

Quality Bike Ride

Tonight was my first quality bike ride. I rode around Longview Lake, thinking that would be a good place to do it but now I think that bike intervals might be better at the airport or on the trainer. It's really difficult to get the terrain right for intervals. I had a couple stop lights and some downhills that messed up my "fast" intervals.

In any event, I got in almost 30 miles. The first 10 miles was a nice and easy warmup. I followed that up with 6 intervals. Each interval consisted of 3 minutes attempting to get my hr in the upper 150s or even 160 if I could(didn't happen tonight though) and then 2 minutes of recovery. Then I did a 10 mile cooldown afterwards. This was the first time I have ever done intervals on the bike and I think it could have gone better.

AM Swim/PM Run

I pretty well dread Tuesdays because they are always my longest swim days. It wouldn't be so bad either if they were just straight swims, but these swims always have a lot of intervals, drills and other stuff that makes it take longer. Overall, today's swim was 2500 yards. It took almost an hour so I had to get up extra early. At least there is no swim on Wednesdays, so I can sleep in until 7 instead.

Tonight, I started the first of several "quality" workouts. These workouts are designed to work on speed, working past max hr efforts and working past lactic acid thresholds. This workout was a run consisting of 3 half mile intervals. I started with a 1.5 mile warmup. Then I did the following set 3 times: 1/2 mile at fast pace (pushing hr as high as I can), 1/4 at recovery pace and 1 minute of complete rest. When I finished this, I ran another 1.5 miles to cooldown and then walk 1/4 mile. I managed to run my intervals at a pretty quick pace at 6:40, 6:50, 7:04 respectively. I definitely got slower each time, but my HR increased higher each time. It was nearly impossible to get my HR into the 160s on the first interval but much easier for the second 2 intervals.

Tomorrow, I have my first quality bike workout so I am looking forward to that.