Quick Weekend Recap

As weekends go, this one was pretty decent. I mean, as good a weekend can be that doesn't involve several hours of singletrack and sweat. And about as good a weekend can be that involves one of our cars spinning out on the highway, blowing a tire and destroying the rim.

That was low point and it could have very, very easily been much worse as my wife missed the guardrail by not much more than 20 feet. As it was, her outside wheels slipped off the newly laid asphalt lip and dropped about four inches which yanked the car to the left, she over-compensated to the right and the back end of the car whipped around spinning her into a gigantic cloud of dust. She was luckily unhurt and the car is mostly fine, just a tweaked rim, lots of dust everywhere and an ache for a front end alignment.

Target Acquired

I am almost officially signed on to compete in my second sprint triathlon race. It is the Santa Cruz Sprint Triathlon on August 9th, it consists of a 600-700 yard ocean swim, a 12 mile bike ride and then a 3.2 mile run. My buddy, Paul, is going to be racing in it as well so that will be fun. My wife has declined the challenge because of the swim portion which will definitely be the most challenging aspect of the race for me as well.

The best part about this race is that much of it takes place on West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. One of my all-time favorite places in the whole world and not just because there is usually a tailwind coming back from Natural Bridges State Park that makes the blast towards the Boardwalk feel like it is at warp speed (though it definitely does not hurt).

I will probably end up doing this race on my mountain bike refitted with slick road tires as I do not see a new road bike (nor do I really want one if the truth is told) in my near future. Maybe a full wetsuit and definitely some new and better running shoes but I've already got most of the gear I will need.

And, with a new race target acquired, I am now automatically compelled to kick my lax ass back into gear and back into shape. I will freely admit to having slacked off badly after the Avia. The lack of a goal to work towards is a strong motivator. I will likely start looking for my next race midway through the training for this one. Maybe September or October but definitely no ocean swims then!

One other really cool thing about this particular race is that, once I'm signed up, there are free Tuesday evening workouts to join in on. This includes transition practices and open water swims! And the more comfortable I am going in, the better my overall time and satisfaction will be. Racing and finishing is fun and all but now I'm going to start setting higher and higher goals. I want to shoot for a top 25% in my age group finish and that's a pretty good sized improvement from my 33rd of 72 at the Avia.

Stay tuned for delightful training updates, epiphanies and, I'm sure, the occasional owie.

Welcome to The Other Side

We survived the weekend. We survived our first family camping trip and survived our respective triathlons. I did better than I'd hoped, placing 33rd in my age class and 304th out of all the men in the race and 399th out of 998 total racers. I was slow (but faster than expected) in the water at 11:44 and good for 694th overall, I knew my bike stage was going to be my strength and it was with a time of 42:51 and good for 203rd overall and my run was surprisingly better than expected at 21:03 and good for 619th place overall.

My run was actually faster than my training runs which was quite surprising since I felt like I was crawling most of the way. And, if the run had been any longer, my quads would have started to cramp up on me. I'd hydrated like a mofo the day before, had avoided caffeine and alcohol and had gotten as decent a sleep as was possible the night before my first ever triathlon.

In some ways the whole thing was kind of surreal. I found myself in the transition area laying out my gear, making sure sunglasses and gloves and helmet were ready on my handlebars, making sure my socks were in my cycling shoes and doing all of the other little things to make the switch from swim to bike to run smoother and easier. And then I was standing in my age group on the boat launch ramp watching the previous age classes get sent out into the water. And then I was in the water feeling the icy grip of the water squeeze the air out of my lungs even through my wetsuit.

I made a conscious effort to think out my race plan as I was awaiting the gun to plunge into the water. I was telling myself again and again to not worry when I was passed by others and to swim/bike/run my own race. I knew I would be passed left and right in the swim but I also knew I'd be passing lots of folks on the bike and then I'd get passed again on the run. Unlike the race at the Sea Otter Classic a few weeks ago, I went at my own speed and let the rest of the athletes race at their speed. The plan worked out much, much better than my go like a jack rabbit on an electric skillet plan from the Sea Otter.

From a race perspective I think I did about as well as could be expected given it was my first time. I'm not sure of too many things I would change for next time, maybe less water on the bike ride since I barely even got through half my first water bottle and the second bottle was just dead weight.

And, of course, we've been spending a bunch of time this week looking at other races coming up. There are bunches and bunches of them. I'm mostly interested in the sprint or mountain bike triathlons for now but we might just work our way up to full triathlons at some point. There are several triathlons in Santa Cruz over the summer and I might just jump into one of those, the only big sticking point is that the swim is going to be much harder and much, much colder since it will be in the Monterey Bay and not in a lake.

Overall, I would give the Avia Wildflower Triathlon a strong B+. They could have been much more informative on the web site so we'd have planned better but the actual event was run incredibly smoothly given that there were 7500 triathletes competing over the two days. I would give my performance in the race as a straight B, I did many things right and only a couple of things could be made better.

It was alot of fun and we are planning on returning next year and trying to bring a team of friends along for the fun as well.

I will also add some photos to this post when I get home this evening. I didn't get as many pictures taken as I would have liked but its quite hard to race and think about photo opps, ya know?

T-Minus Five Days and Counting

I can never remember, when you're counting something down, do you include today and the day of the event? If today is Monday and the event is Saturday then does that make it five days or six? I could make cogent arguments either way but the underlying reality is that come Saturday morning at 9:45 or so, I will be on or near the starting line for the Avia Wildflower Mountain Bike Triathlon.

Which means this is the last week to get some reasonably decent workouts in, add a little extra cardio to the tank, work on transitions and get our gear sorted out and then packed into the truck. We will be camping out at the triathlon along with 20,000 other triathletes and their support teams/families which will also be a new experience as the boys have not really done any camping save for sleeping in the tent in the backyard.

I don't feel completely ready for the race especially since my training has taken a hit in the last week since the Sea Otter Classic where I bonked very hard. My legs have felt quite leaden lately but I'm doing my best to spin the deadness out of them. I've been putting in the time when I can and will race as best I can. I'm going to be approaching the race differently than the mountain bike race last week. I will be pacing myself better, holding energy in reserve, prepping better the day before and starting the race with a clearer race plan.

And my main focus of the entire thing is to have fun, spend some quality time with my family and to not take everything so seriously. I know I'm not going to win so I'm going to try and have a good time.

I still need to put together my checklist of gear, camping and other stuff. This is going to be a busy and fast week and I'm sure there will be much stress in the process too. Hopefully it will all end up in an awesome time for all of us. And maybe I'll get some cool photos as well.

But really, I just want it to be a fun weekend.