Little Miami Triathlon - Spring 2014 Results

The SPRING 2014 Little Miami Triathlon on June 1st results blog!

The weather was almost perfect. No rain and ~75 degrees at the start. It said a high of 85 but I think it almost hit 90 because it was hot!

This year we had 3 team participate:
Dave and Jesse were JUST GOT BACK FROM OUR HONEYMOON AND BOY ARE WE TIRED.
Casey and Brad were TRI BEING ENGAGED
and Cousin-in-law Scott and I were CRUISING COUSINS (slogan "Partner's for Life")

Annie and Julie were our ATHLETIC SUPPORTERS and met us at the top of the hill and the finish line.

Top things I learned this time:
1) Wear sunscreen! With all the pumping up of bikes and getting things sorted I forgot to put sunscreen on and got a little burned on my next, arms and face. Not good.
2) I don't think I ate enough the night before or the morning of so I just didn't feel like I had much energy even with eating 3 shot blok bars during the race.

Some things I noticed was that the triathlon was under staffed. There were not enough canoes when we got there so they were pulling out of the "bad" piles. All 3 of our teams ended up in metal canoes even though only Scott and I should have had one. Also at the end of the canoe you almost couldn't reach the shore due to the HUGE pile up of canoes. It looked like volunteer boy scouts were helping but this part of the race was much less organized than in previous years.

I was concerned about battery life since my larger back up battery didn't fit in the waterproof pouch so I didn't run the HR monitor via bluetooth. At the end of the race I think I had ~40% life left on my battery which seemed pretty good even while using the small extra battery.

On to the results: I continued to generate data proving that if you don't exercise much you are slower than when you exercise. Hopefully that motivates me to find more time to exercise even with a baby toddler. I just didn't have the energy today for any event.

Side note: I wore my Louis Garneau yellow jersey to stay cool but was chased for 0.5 miles on the run by a bee so next time I'll wear white!

 

Canoeing ~6mi [64 min, +10 mins from last FALL]
Scott and I had a pretty good canoe trip. For the first half we were pretty close to the front of our heat. Then we probably got tired and slowed a bit. Casey and Brad also contributed by trying to T-bone us a few times so both teams were slowed down for those shenanigans.

I think the main reason our time was ~10 minutes slower from the fall was because we got stuck on rocks 3 times. We really got surprised by a set of rocks that lines the river. We should have stayed to the right but we went left into all sorts of trouble. I think Scott and I did an awesome job of not panicking even when water was starting to pour into the canoe (I really don't know how we didn't end up swimming). We were able to get free and we continues on but got stuck 2 more times for 3 in total and I think we never made back that time. Looking through the data based on our initial splits we probably lost 5-6 minutes in total on the rocks.

 

Running ~5mi [66 min, +2 mins from last FALL]
I hadn't run since the indoor tri in March so I knew this wouldn't be that great. It was also a hot day so I didn't feel that great. Only remarkable thing to say on the run was the fact that a bee was chasing me on the bike trail for about 0.5 mile. It would land on Scott's hat and "launch attacks" at me so I waited until it landed on Scott's head and then I killed it. Unfortunately in doing so I slapped Scott's head harder than I anticipated (sorry partner!). But we triumphed over the bee! I saw one other person being chased by a bee so I think I'll wear white next time.

 

Killer Hill + Transition ~0.5mi [13 min, +2 mins from last FALL]
At the end of the run Scott went ahead because he was going to change into bike shorts so after the canoe and run I was the last one up the hill. I ended up on the bike ride ahead of Scott but it didn't take him long to pass me for good on the bike.

Biking ~18mi [79 min, +3 mins from last FALL]
I knew getting on the bike that I wasn't going to break my PR. I was pretty far behind my times. As I said Scott was gone and for most of the bike ride I was pulling up the rear. This was also my first event on my Cervelso S3 so it was not a good debut for my bike.

It was surprisingly windy for what initially seemed like a calm day. There was a stretch around mile 10 into the wind and those uphill "S-curves" until mile 13 that still seemed a bit hard. But in general I think my time was slow just because I didn't have any energy.

Other notes would be that I didn't cramp much at all this time which was nice, however after the race the bottom of my feet were tight so I need to look into that. Also my S3 isn't geared for hills but I had (just) enough gears for this course.

Summary[ +17 mins from last FALL]
It's amazing to have lost 17 minutes from the fall, though I was only 3 minutes slower than last spring so I guess I don't keep in shape much over the winter and then get in a little shape furing the summer.

Also looking at 4.5 years of doing this event it is interesting that my times haven't moved much so I obviously haven't figured out how to build on fitness year over year which is something I would like to do. I really like having a consistent benchmark 2 times per year to track my fitness. No other race on my calendar is as easy to fit in as Morgna's Tri.

If you read this blog to this point you must be interested enough to try it in the Fall of 2014! I'll see you there!

Vegas 2014

This year Dave, Adam and I stayed at the Wynn Encore and it was a blast!

 

Panoramic View.

 

The view from our room was nice!

 

Here's a Wheel Of Fortune win!

 

This was the first Vegas trip that UMass made it to the tourney so I finally got the chance to lose some money betting on UMass.

 

The last night I couldn't lose at a Black Jack table in the Encore and took $700 profit off the table.

 

Highlights of the trip included the Wynn buffet, playing $10 craps right outside our tower elevator with a couple from Vancouver, and being up $700 on the trip!

Lifetime Fitnesss Indoor Triathlon - 2014

This past weekend we completed the Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon and it was a great time! We did the same event last year and enjoyed it so I was glad when we got a LARGE group together to do it this year.

This year Dave, Jesse, Casey, Brad, Julie, Scott and I participated. At the last minute Brad was unable to participate when a doctor's visit turned up performance enhancing drugs ended in elective surgery.
The Indy group deserves a LOT of credit for driving down early in the morning for the event. It was a blast having them here for the day!

Although this event is for individuals, Scott and I competed as a team (Partner's for Life) and we came in first place among all other teams.

OK on to my results. (some pictures are from 2011).

[ 10 min Swim ]

I'm in the far right lane -
and blurry because I am swimming so fast!

I learned my lesson from last year about not trying to exert myself in the swim too much too early as I ended up wasting time resting.

This time I did the breast stroke relatively easily and mixed it up with the backstroke when I wanted to catch my breath. This worked out well as I completed 13 lengths in 10 minutes, 2 lengths better than last year.

My swim rank was tied for #50-55 out of #65 which is improved ~8 spots from last year. Take SWIM LESSONS already!


[1st Transition ]
I was more prepared for the short transition time this year but still didn't really have time to adjust the seat height of my bike properly before it started. Also apparently my SPD-SL clips don't work with these bikes.

[ 30 min Cycling ]

I'm blurry because I am biking so fast..

So after giving Lifetime Fitness poor reviews in the bike last year (since they always change their unrealistic mileage and you can't compare year to year) I was actually open to the changes they said they made this year.

It was supposed to be more realistic distances however I think the calibration of the bikes were all over the map. My bike was in kilometers which is fine as they easily converted the distance to miles however I finished in the top third of cyclists last year and this year I was at the bottom. I think others in our group felt their bike results were not accurate. I know Scott was working hard and it didn't show up in his distance, and I watched Casey's feet / cadence and I think she got ripped off on her distance. Also Jesse scored ~100 points in every other event but the bike so I am sure her distance was not accurate either.

Again - Lifetime should just track revolutions and calculate a score. I've participated in this event 3 times and the bike is different each time ,aking it frustrating and hard to compare.

My biking rank (for what its worth) was  tied for #51-52 out of #65 which much worse than last year (by almost 30 places) when I earned 2/3 of my total points on the bike alone.

[ 5 min transition ]
This transition was pretty straight forward and you just walk over to the treadmills. There was plenty of time to get ready for the next event. We were told to take a shortcut through some other classes which I don't think made sense. Next time I'll just go down and around as usual.

[ 20 min run ]


The run was pretty straight forward - 20 minutes on a treadmill. It was great to have such a large group of us competing together!

I was able to finish 1.70 miles which was better than last year and gave me  a rank of  #45 out of #65 competitors on the run. Believe it or not this was my best event this year though I am not buying the bike part this year.

Summary
Overall - I came in a not-too-great but expected #53 out of #65 competitors. Although I improved in my swim and run the bike score brought me down and this is a worse overall result than last year but I guess I feel pretty good about my performance.

Also I again wish that the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon was more than once per winter as there isn't much else to do AND I always have the bug to do a little better after I figure out how to do the indoor tri again.

Maybe next year...