The Garrett County Gran Fondo "Diabolical Double" Report - Hills, Hills & More Hills

Dave and I

I completed my first ever Gran Fondo ride this weekend, to be more precise I did the Garrett County Gran Fondo Diabolical Double which is a bike ride that climbs 16,500 over 125 miles.  I knew going in that this was not going to be an easy ride.  Dave, who trained with me last year for Ironman Louisville, had done the ride before and convinced me to sign up with him this year.  He told me on multiple occasions what a b!tch the hills on this ride are. Still, until you actually see some of these monsters for yourself, words just don’t do them justice. I wanted to do this ride ever since I heard about it last year from Dave - at least once.  I don’t know exactly why other than it was a challenge that I wanted to overcome.

I had hoped to get in a number of rides on Virginia’s Skyline Drive to help me prepare for the ride. Skyline made me a much stronger rider last year, and I was convinced it would help me again this year. Alas, time was not on my side with all the races and travel I had going on this year, and I was only able to get out to Skyline once - the week before.  A 110-mile training ride with Dave and a few others turned into just 80 miles for me as my body struggled to overcome jet lag (from Hawaii) and insomnia as I readjusted to the Eastern time zone.  Add in a strenuous week of workouts consisting of a 11-mile run, over 60 miles of riding, over 3500 meters of swimming  and some weight lifting.  When we started the ride, my body was pretty tired and I did not have a strong ride for my one and only trip to Skyline.

After struggling on my training ride, I decided to take the week leading up to the Diabolical Double pretty easy, so I made sure to get plenty of sleep and moderated my workouts. I did 30 miles of riding on Tuesday and 1,000 meters of swimming on Thursday. Another challenge on my Skyline ride was nutrition, so I focused on this before and during the Diabolical Double. With aid stations every 18-25 miles along the ride with food and liquids, this was not to difficult.

The plan was to drive to Deep Creek the Friday before the Gran Fondo.  I originally hoped to leave DC around 2 p.m. but didn’t get away until 5 p.m. Fortunately, traffic wasn’t too bad so I arrived in Deep Creek around 8 p.m. Packet Pickup and the free dinner were open until 9 p.m. so I met up with Dave and some other members of the DC Tri Club to grab our packets and some pasta, salad, and strawberry shortcake.  While Dave and I were staying at Wisp, the other DC Tri Club members (Jason, Brent, Elaine, and Andy) were staying at a nearby cabin for their jaunt on the “Masochistic Metric”, a 62-mile ride climbing 8,000 feet.   

After getting our gear ready for the following morning and watching some Olympic Trials on the television, Dave and I headed for bed so we could get up at 4:45 a.m. for the 6:50 a.m. mountain-top pre-briefing.   We loaded up on coffee, powdered donuts, and Pringles for a calorie-rich breakfast.  

For my nutrition on the bike, I decided to switch from my normal Gatorade to Accelerade sports drink. It’s one of those powders you mix in with water, so I could fill my water bottle and bring extra powder for later in the day. Overall, I think it did a pretty good job of keeping me going. I was using Fruit Punch flavor which doesn’t taste as good as the Gatorade but wasn’t horrid. I also packed a number of Stinger bars and a banana. I’ve decided to give up on Gels. They just don’t sit well with my stomach, so I have to work on finding suitable alternatives.

The weather for the day looked like it was going to be good. The morning started out a little foggy but the temps were decent starting out in the high 50’s to low 60’s and getting into the mid 80’s by later in the day. The sun was out with a mixture of clouds thrown in occasionally to give a break from the rays beating down at various points on the course.

While 1,200 people total were doing the Gran Fondo event this year (up from last year), only 50-100 people were crazy enough to do the 125-mile Diabolical Double. We were the first ones to start with the shorter rides starting in waves after us. By 7 a.m., we crazy few were lined up to begin the long day’s ride. After the National Anthem, we were off. The course starts off downhill for about a mile and a half which is nice, the downside (no pun intended) is this is the same hill you have to come up at the end to finish. Dave and I decided to stay together for the ride, although Dave is a little stronger rider than me so basically he was willing to ride at a slower pace to stay with me. We began our descent as people doing the shorter rides cheered us on while waiting for their wave to start.

A couple miles in, I heard a loud bang. I knew from past experience (see my Kinetic 70.3 race report) that someone had just gotten a flat - fortunately it wasn’t me. A short time later, Dave discovered his back tire was flat. He insisted it wasn’t his tire that made the loud bang, nonetheless he was in need of a new tube.  We had made our way to the front of the pack by this point but soon would be passed by everyone as we made repairs. People were really nice though and kept asking if we needed any help as they rode by. Dave changed his tire but apparently had only packed one spare tube, not too big a deal though because I was carrying three. We got on the road and began to pass people again although we never really caught back up to the lead group again. The stretch between the start and the first aid station was about 18 miles. My plan for this ride was to take it one aid station at a time. I wasn’t going to dwell on the 125 miles rather I would focus on the next 18 miles. This seemed to be a pretty good mental strategy though it didn’t help that Dave kept telling me about the killer hills yet to come; he said he was trying to keep me motivated. The first 18 miles weren’t terribly bad. Certainly it had its share of hills but nothing I would call killer and of course we were still fresh at this point. As we rolled into the first aid station, the remains of that initial lead group were rolling out. This would be the last time we saw them. The first aid station was well stocked with food and drink as well as entertainment. They had a Hawaiian-type kettle band playing which was cool. Dave filled his tire up with real air from a pump opposed to the stuff in the C02 cartridges which never seem to last long and managed to snag a new spare. We both grabbed some grub and drink and refilled our water bottles before hitting the road for the next aid station.

Less than a mile out of aid station #1, we started riding with a group. One of the guys got too close to another rider, hit the back tire of the guy in front of him with his front tire, and took a bit of a tumble. The rest of us stopped to make sure he was alright (he was), but when I went to clip out I managed to pull the clip off my right shoe. So once again, Dave and I pulled off to the side of the road to make repairs, this time to my shoe.

By this time, riders from the 102-mile century length started passing us while we were sidelined.  Once I got my shoe back in working order, we were back on the road and able to quickly catch up to those century riders. It was about at this point where we hit our first really big/long hill. Some people choose to walk up it, but Dave and I kept on riding and we caught back up with Diabolical Double riders by the time we reached our second aid station. This station was the last one serving all riders regardless of distance.  From this point, the people doing the 40- and 60-mile rides would break off in a different direction. For those of us doing the 102- and 125-mile rides, we had our first major challenge ahead of us. The next stretch included “Bowman” and “Killer Miller.” Either of these hills would be a challenge on their own but having them in the same segment made this one of the toughest portions of the course. The only upside was at this point, I was still feeling pretty strong and fresh. Had this segment been at the end of the course, I am not sure I would have made it. Knowing what was ahead, I made sure to take in a fair number of calories. Peanuts, M&M’s, a PB&J and some orange slices were all consumed at this station. After refueling and a stop by the port-a-john, we were back on the road.

Shortly out of the aid station, Dave began to experience problems with his shoe clip. His didn’t come off like mine but it had become really loose, so we pulled off for our third round of repairs. Once back on the road, it didn’t take us very long to reach the first monster hill, Bowman. This thing seemed like it went on forever. Besides the fact that going up these big hills is just plain tiring, they also take forever to get up. Distances that normally take 20 minutes now take an hour, and your mind starts using the extra time to mess with you. You start asking yourself “Why are we doing this?”  Of course when you pedaling up these things, it’s hard to come up with a good answer. It’s as much a mental game as it is a physical one when you do these things.  Once you finally make it to the top, you start to remember why you’re out here at least until you get to the next hill. Once over Bowman, we had get some nice downhills and a little time to recover before taking on Killer Miller.

There is actually a cutoff time to arrive at aid station #3 if you plan to complete the whole 125 miles. We were well within that time limit, but we still had Miller to overcome. Dave yelled out to a group of people on the side of the road asking how far was it to “Killer Miller”.  Their response - around the corner just 300 meters away.  Oh great, so here it comes. Bowman had managed to make a few cracks in my mental barrier, but I wasn’t going to let Miller get me. After all, the next aid station was only a short distance beyond this monster. As we rounded the corner, there was actually a fork in the road and we started to go up the left side. Quickly realizing this was the wrong way, we back tracked and headed down the right side where a couple little girls riding their bikes in their driveway cheered us on.

I don’t think Miller was quite as steep as Bowman, but it was definitely long with minimal shade. Again, the hardest part of the slow trip up the hill is controlling the little voices in your head asking “Why, oh why are we doing this????” As we approached the top of Miller, we found a timing mat and a group of volunteers screaming “You did it, you’ve made it to the top!” which was music to my ears. Of course, I was still trying to tune out that little voice now saying “Great, but we aren’t even half way yet.” That’s when focus on the next aid station and not the miles left in the entire course is helpful. Fortunately, the next aid station was a short distance ahead.

As we rolled into aid station #3, we could see the course was starting to take its toll on people. This aid station marked the final bail out location for the course. If you decided you didn’t want to or couldn’t do the whole 102- or 125-mile distance, the race officials had mapped out a shorter, more direct route back to the finish line. Of course, people were available to drive riders back if they couldn’t continue or to offer aid in general, but this was a way to return under your own power and still cross the finish line. We still had to go up a pretty big hill as we left the aid station plus the monster hill at the finish line, so I figured we might as well keep moving forward (although there was a small part of me tempted to take the bail out route knowing I still had monster hills similar to Miller and Bowman ahead of me).

The next portion of the course between aid station 3 and 4 was would mark the longest distance between aid stations. Most of the aid stations were about 18 miles apart but the distance between these two was 26 miles. The upside was the absence of monster hills like Miller and Bowman on it. By no means it was a flat segment, no such thing on this ride, just not the killer hills like we had just done. What this segment did incorporate was about a mile and a half of course on a gravel road. The last time I did a ride that took me on a gravel road I ended up with a flat tire, so I wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect of taking my road bike off-roading but as Dave put it - it’s one of the many charms of the ride.

The ride up to the gravel road went smoothly and by the time we reached that spot on the course, we had started riding with another group of three riders. We all started down the gravel road which starts out going downhill. To my surprise, we rode past a pair of people standing on the side of this deserted gravel road playing their banjos. Since we were pretty close to the West Virginia border by this point, I couldn’t help the flashbacks to the movie Deliverance.  I spent most of the downhill segment riding my brakes and trying to avoid any major bumps.  Of course, one of the things you learn on these rides is what goes down inevitably goes back up so about halfway through the gravel portion we started going uphill. This wasn’t a Killer Miller type hill but t wasn’t a small hill either and the gravel made it that much more challenging. About half way up the hill, we started hitting softer dirt.  Because I tend to lean forward with my weight on the front of my bike when going uphill, my back tire started spinning out more and more. It got to the point where I felt like I was going to fall over, so I opted to walk the rest the way up the hill. Dave and the other guys we were riding with managed to ride the whole way up and Dave waited for me at the top. It didn’t take me long to get to the top, as I was able to walk it almost as fast as I was able to ride it and once we got going again we were able to catch up to the other group fairly quickly.

The rest of this segment went by without too many issues and as we approached the fourth aid station, we entered a town which is home to the Westernport Wall, a very steep and pretty well known hill that is part of the Savageman Triathlon. You can actually ride up this hill for the Diabolical Double if you want but most people choose not to.... I thought about it for two seconds and then said Nah!!!!. For those not familiar with the Westernport Wall segment, it is not only a very steep hill but it also is on a horribly maintained segment of road with lots of potholes and such which cause a lot of people who try to go up it to fall over.

Once at the fourth aid station, we spent time resting, eating, drinking and trying to physch ourselves up for the next segment which was quite possibly the hardest segment of the entire course.  On this segment , we headed out of town, crossed the border into West Virginia, and immediately start pedaling up. It’s not a super steep climb but it is long and continuous. Something like seven miles of just going uphill not to mention much of it is in the direct sun.  After that, we had some ups and downs to about the 4-mile mark from the next aid station where we found another incredibly steep and long hill. We were so close to the aid station only to be foiled by this neverending hill that after each turn just seems to go on forever. On top of that, we were by no means fresh like when we took on Miller and Bowman. This hill really pushed me to my limits. At this point, Dave had broken away from me and I was on the course by myself. Finally when I got to the top of the hill, an officer sitting in a cop car was waiting to tell me the aid station was just down below in the next little town. It was all downhill. Thank god.  As I got to the town, I didn’t see any sign of a aid station so I kept riding and began to start riding up a hill again. At first, I thought the cop had lied to me but I kept riding. I was to the point distance-wise where I should be seeing an aid station. At this point, another rider had caught up to me and was having similar thoughts. We kept riding for a bit longer. With still no aid station in sight, I decided to stop. The other guy kept going. I was faced with a dilemma. I could keep going up this hill and hope there was an aid station ahead, or I could go back down the hill to see if I already passed it.  However if I hadn’t passed it then I would have to ride all the way up this hill again, which I REALLY didn’t want to have to do. I had just decided to head back down when I came upon another rider. I asked him if he had seen an aid station below, which he hadn’t. He tried to call his buddy who was ahead of him to ask him but only got a voicemail. By this time, the first rider who had ridden ahead came back after still not seeing any aid station. I decided to head back down the hill and the other two followed. As we got to the bottom of the hill, we discovered we had missed a turn arrow and were supposed to turn left. It’s a good thing we had all been desperate to find the aid station because the hill we had been riding up not only didn’t have an aid station, it wasn’t even part of the course.

After making the left turn, we were quickly at the fifth aid station and the 100-mile mark of the course. Dave was waiting for me there where he asked what took me so long. I explained having missed the turn and all. After resting for a bit and refueling, we started out to the final aid station of the course. This one was only 11 miles away. We started out going up a hill - not a monster hill but at this point any and all hills were taking their toll. My left knee was starting to bother me on the hills and I was just flat out tired both mentally and physically. I was starting to tell myself things like “I’ve already ridden over 100 miles on a super hard course. I can walk away and still be proud of my accomplishment, right?????” The 11-mile segment to the final aid station was wearing because it was constant up and down, but I was determined to get to the last aid station. Like the segment before, Dave had pulled out ahead and would wait for me at the aid station. About five miles out from the aid station, I was joined by a group of four riders. I think everyone was having similar thoughts to myself and that was “Where the hell is that aid station?” About one mile out, one of the guys ended up getting a flat but opted to ride it in to the aid station. We arrived at about 6:30 p.m.  Dave was sitting there waiting for me along with a few other riders.  This aid station not only had comfortable chairs but also had lots of ice and cold drinks which was really nice.

We were down to the final 14 miles of the course and most of it was actually fairly easy with rolling hills. The kicker was that nasty 1.5 mile stretch of uphill we started out on going down. Under normal circumstances, 11 miles would be nothing but we all knew that hill was waiting for us at the end and would do everything it could to try and stop us from crossing the finish line. The hotel we were staying at was even at the bottom of the hill, so there was the added temptation of just stopping and calling it a day. Dave wasn’t going to let me quit though, we had made it this far and we would get this 11 miles done together. He said we would ride the whole last segment together which we did. We started out and made our way down the road. Like I mentioned before, most of this segment was not bad at all so by around 7:10 p.m. we made it to that final hill. By this point, I was determined to finish the whole thing. I had played with the idea of bailing at the hotel (at this point, I could really care less about getting my finisher shirt and the free thing of French Fries) but by the time we got to the hill I was ready to beat it.

We began to ride up it and my knee started bothering me again, but I kept going. We made it past the Team Z cheering section, and my knee was really hurting. I looked down at my Garmin which was telling me I had already ridden over 125 miles thanks to that extra hill I rode up when I got lost, so I decided I was entitled to walk. I told Dave I would see him at the top and got off the bike and started to walk. It was really only a short distance before I arrived at a stop sign and a bit of a flat area in the hill. I didn’t really want to walk over the finish line, so I decided I would ride the rest of the way in. Dave actually waited for me before crossing and we rode over that final timing mat together, which was a really cool thing for him to do.

I can’t tell you how many times during the ride I asked myself why I was doing this ride and why I didn’t just quit. There was no finishing medal, this wasn’t even a race. In the end, just like with the Ironman, it’s about pushing yourself to your limit and then exceeding it. When you do that, there aren’t many other things in life I have found that give you that sense of gratitude.  I don’t know if I will ever do the Diabolical Double again, but I am definitely glad I did it once and can proudly say I did the entire thing.

Ironman 70.3 Hawaii - My First DNF, But Oh What A Feeling

Kona Airport

As I begin my final day in paradise, I decided it was time to reflect back over the last two weeks here in Kona, Hawaii and update this blog with my Ironman 70.3 race report. If you are someone who follows me on Facebook or Twitter then you already know that this race didn’t go exactly as planned and that I suffered my first DNF (Did Not Finish).

Now before I go into details on how this DNF happened, let me first go back two weeks to when I first arrived in Hawaii and start from there.

The trip started with me, my wife, and my bike flying out of Dulles airport. This was the first time I had ever taken my bike on a long-distance non-driving trip. I had originally hoped to ship my bike to Hawaii via Tri-Bike transport, but unfortunately they weren’t offering any pick-up locations on the east coast for this particular race, so that left me with the option of shipping it myself or just taking it on the airplane. I ended up renting a bike box from Bonzai and bringing it on the plane with me. The airline charged an additional $100 for an oversized piece of luggage so it seemed the best route to go.  Lugging a big bike box around the airport was a little challenging but all-in-all it went pretty smoothly checking it in. From there we boarded our first flight from Dulles to Denver and then from Denver to Kona. We left around 7AM ET and got to Hawaii at around 3:30PM Hawaiian time. There is a 6 hour difference between time zones, so it was a long day.

As we arrived in Kona and disembarked off the airplane, I was immediately struck with how different things are here. First of all, it was the first time I had ever been in what was essentially an outdoor airport. Everything was open with sidewalks to get from one section to the next. The different section had roofs but no walls to speak of. The weather was humid but gorgeous. My wife, Kara went over to pick up our rental vehicle (Jeep Wrangler) while I waited for our luggage to be offloaded and brought to the luggage claim area. After some wait all four bags arrived but no sign of my bike. Immediately panic began to set in, but I managed to stay outwardly calm. I went over to the help desk of the baggage claim area where only one person worked the desk, and he was already trying to help someone else find their missing luggage. One of the first things I had to get used to was the laid-back attitude towards “Hawai’i time” which meant patience (not one of my strengths) especially when I’m trying to find out where my $4,000 bike is. After some time waiting, it was finally my turn to be helped. I proceeded to ask the gentleman if he had my bike in the back by chance, which of course it was not. The gentleman told me he had offloaded three bike boxes, two of which I had seen while gathering the rest of my luggage. The third one was nowhere to be seen. The gentleman took my baggage claim number for the bike along with my personal information, told me he would begin the process of finding my bike, assured me that it would be found, then sent me on my way. At this point, all I could do was wait and hope.

As we left the airport and headed to the house we would be staying at for the next two weeks (awesome accommodations provided for us by our friends Tricia Totten and Al Denbleyker), I tried to put aside my worries about the bike and enjoy myself - after all we were in Hawaii. Driving down the Queen K, one of the main roads in Kona and a well known landmark to triathletes, I couldn’t help but notice how different the island looked from what I was expecting. For those not that familiar with the “Big Island”, it is essentially a landmass made up by multiple large volcanoes, and the Kona side of the island contains a large number of lava fields which are essentially areas of large rocky terrains. I know that doesn’t necessarily sound appealing, but when you mix in all the mountains to the one side and the ocean to the other it really does make for some very unique and breathtaking scenery. At times, it almost seems like you are on another planet.

View from the house

After arriving at the house, we unpacked and got settled in. Our hosts wouldn’t be joining us until the following day, so for the first night we explored the island on our own.  We headed for town which was five minutes away looking for a good place to eat. By this time it was 5 p.m. Hawaiian time, but our internal clocks where still on Eastern time which meant for us it was 11 p.m. We soon found a nice little seafood place near the water and enjoyed a great meal while looking out at the Pacific Ocean. After dinner, we headed back to the house and soon to bed. This was probably the first time in a very long time I had gone to bed at 8 p.m. at night but again for us it was really 2 a.m. 

The next morning I woke up very early. I actually first woke up at 3 a.m. which for me was really 9 a.m., but managed to go back to sleep until around 5:30 a.m. After getting up, I decided the first thing I would do was go for a run. The house we were staying at was up on a mountain. You could see the ocean from the front of the house which made for an awesome view, but to get down to the water and the town you had to go downhill. Not being the familiar with my location, I decided to just start running towards the ocean which meant downhill. I ran for about five miles, two of which was downhill with the remaining three on Ali'i Drive, the main oceanfront road that goes through town. The morning often starts out a bit overcast which was good because it meant I could run without having to deal with the full brunt of the sun bearing down on me. As I ran I couldn’t help but notice all the different flowers growing everywhere. My nose was immediately bombarded with all different scents, it was literally like running through a florist. I also was greeted by some of the island’s wildlife, like a family of turkeys walking down the road (there is something you don’t see everyday back home). After running out five miles, I decided it was time to turn around and head back. Of course, this meant I would now have to run uphill. If you ever thought of Hawaii as flat, you are wrong.  There are some stretches of flatness, mainly along the Queen K highway, but for the most part the terrain here is very hilly.

Once I got back to the house, I decided it was time to call the airport and find out what the status of my bike was. I ended up calling a main number for the airline opposed to a local one and they were finally able to tell me that my bike for some reason got diverted to San Francisco but was now on its way to Kona and should arrive later in the day. Hearing this was a tremendous relief. After a nice Brunch at a place called Lava Java and some more exploring, we picked up my bike and proceeded to the local bike shop called Bike Works to have the bike reassembled. We also rented a bike for Kara so she could ride during the next two weeks. She has signed up to do a small triathlon in July with her sister and has begun training for it, so we wanted to make sure she had some wheels to ride while here.

Now that I had my bike, I was anxious to get out and ride. That next morning, I headed out on the Queen K towards Hapuna Beach which is where the swim portion of the 70.3 race would take place. The distance from the house to Hapuna is about 35 miles and the plan was for me to ride out and have Kara meet me there in the Jeep where we would spend the day at the beach relaxing and also getting a feel for the swim course.

Energy Lab Center

Riding the Queen K was an awesome experience. After all this was the road where the Ironman Championship takes place, and I was riding along the same course as many great Ironman Champs like MACCA and Chrissie Wellington had rode. I rode past the Natural Energy Lab, another well known Ironman landmark and continued on through the lava fields past the airport. At this point in the ride, I first got to experience the legendary Kona headwinds. The road is fairly flat but the headwinds were like nothing I had ever experienced before. We are talking about gusts of wind up to 35-40 mph hitting you head on or even worse from the side. I can tell you that when this happens just staying upright on the bike becomes a real challenge. It took me about an hour and 50 minutes to get out to Hapuna with the last five miles of the ride being a huge challenge. I was really hoping that come race day the wind would not be as bad. Once at the beach, I waited for Kara to arrive and watched as the wind whipped the water around. It would seem the wind would not only present a challenge on the bike but on the swim as well.

Going into this race, I was somewhat nervous about the swim portion. I hadn’t thought about the wind, but this was going to be my first ocean swim race and with no wetsuit allowed I was concerned about whether I would be able to complete the race within the allotted 1 hour and 15 minute cut off time. After swimming for a bit, I quickly realized that it was true what people had told me - the salt water makes you really buoyant and makes up for a lack of wetsuit. This made me feel a bit more confident about the swim, but still I would have to deal with the waves and this swim would also be a mass start, as opposed to a wave start, so I would be starting out with 1600 competitors all at the same time.

On Thursday, I did another 20 mile bike ride with Tricia and Al who were also racing on Saturday, this time starting out from Hapuna and doing about 10 miles out and back of the 70.3 course. It was still windy but not quite as bad as when I had biked on Monday. I also did another swim of around 900 yards. Swimming out was fine but coming back in, we were hit with some really choppy waves. I can tell you this was not particularly fun, however I felt if this was the worst I would have to deal with in the race, I was feeling much more confident about completing the swim in time.

Greg Welch Swim Clinic

On Friday morning, we attended a swim clinic out at Hapuna put on by Ironman Champion Greg Welch. The buoys for the race had been put out in the water and we had a chance to swim some of the course. I also had a chance to try on a TYR skinsuit. These are suits that look very much like a basic tri-suit but are said to help you swim a little faster. They don’t have Neoprene in them like a wetsuit, but they are made with a material that is said to help trap air between yourself and the suit that I guess gives you that little extra float. I figured I needed all the help I could get so I got one for the race, and they do seem to work.

After the clinic, it was time to go pick up our packets and drop off our bikes to be racked. The race had two different transition areas. T1 was located at Hapuna Beach and T2 was located about five miles down the road at a hotel resort. You had to go to the resort to pick up your packet and attend the pre-race briefings and then take your bike over to Hapuna to be racked. The only thing that sucked about this was that the parking at the resort was a mile away from the actual building, and you had to either walk or take a shuttle from your car to the resort area then do the same to get back to your car. In other words, it took most of the afternoon to get the race packet then rack the bike.  Another strange thing with this race was that you had to bring your T2 stuff with you because they wanted you to drop off your T2 bag that day opposed to bringing it with you on race day.

70.3 Hawaii Event Center

After spending the afternoon doing all of this, we returned home for a nice spaghetti pasta dinner and soon got ready for bed. Because my body’s internal clock was still used to eastern time, I actually was able to go to bed fairly early and got a really good night sleep. We went to bed around 9 p.m. and woke up at 3 a.m.

After having some eggs for breakfast, we headed out to transition which opened at 5 a.m. Once again, we parked at the resort and took a shuttle over to Hapuna. We got to T1 around 5:30 a.m. After checking my bike, making sure my tires where inflated, and finding Tricia and Al who had arrived a little sooner than me and Kara, we proceeded down to the area where they were doing body markings. This was the first race I had done where they did the stamp markings opposed to just writing your number on you with a marker. The girl who did my markings must of thought I was an idiot because I kept messing up my number. You see my number was 969 which is the number I first told her to put on me, however I looked at the wristband I had been given the day before just to verify the number I had given her was correct and saw it as 696. Not fully thinking, I said, “Oh wait, I am sorry my number is 696 not 969”. So she wiped off the numbers and started again, until I realized I had in fact been correct the first time and that my number was 969. So for second time, she had to clean the numbers off my arm and start again. I felt like an idiot, but she was completely cool about it.

Getting Ready To Swim

After getting body marked, I headed back up to where my bike was to finish getting ready for the race. I decided I needed to hit the port-a-john before the race started so I went over and started standing in the long line. Finally, I was only four people back in line when I heard the loud speaker, “Athlete 969, your back tire has blown out on your bike. Jay Cochran, you have a blown out back tire, please report to your bike.” My first thought was, “Are you kidding me?” I bailed out of line and ran over to my bike where a volunteer was standing to tell me I had a flat. When I was riding the course earlier in the week, I had gotten a cava seed stuck in my tire which gave me a flat, and I am guessing when I changed the tube I might have pinched it, so when I inflated my tire it caused a blowout. Anyway, I didn’t want to risk messing up another tire changing it myself so I ran over to a bike tech (which was a nice thing about this race, there were plenty of bike techs around) and had them change the tire for me. About 15 minutes later, I was back in action with my bike remounted, and I proceeded to once again try to use the bathroom. Fortunately, the line was shorter now and I didn’t have to wait long.

After making sure everything was completely set up for T1, I headed down to the beach to get ready to begin my swim. As I mentioned before, this would be a mass start swim. The pros would begin first with a foghorn followed by a cannon shot to start the 1,600 age groupers from an in-the-water start. You could stay closer to shore and stand in the water, or swim out and tread water if you preferred. My plan had been to hang out towards the back of the back and stand until the cannon sounded. The course was basically a triangle shape with the first leg along the left side of the triangle for about 900 yards followed by a turn to swim left to right along the back side and a turn to come into to the swim out from the right side. The first leg of the swim went very smoothly. Hanging out towards the back of the pack seemed to have worked as I didn’t have to waste a lot of energy fighting off other swimmers or getting hit by them. I made pretty good time as I turned the first buoy. It wasn’t until I made the turn around the second buoy to begin the swim along the back stretch of the triangle that I began to run into problems. By this time, the sun had come up enough and was hitting off the water at an angle that essentially blinded the swimmers. I had planned to use a hotel building on land as a sight point for this stretch of the course, but the sun nullified that plan. Another problem was that the wind had begun to pick up to 15 mph gusts which started churning the water.

A Mass Start

At this point, finding anything substantial to sight was not going to happen since you had waves hitting you in the face and the glare of the sun blinding you. I was still seeing some swimmers off to the right side of me so I tried to follow them. It was at this point when one of the volunteers on a paddle board came up to me and indicated I was swimming too far in and needed to head out some, so taking her word for it I started heading out. At this point, I was blind as a bat and just swimming hoping I was going the right way. After some time had passed, I couldn’t help but notice I didn’t seem to be passing any more buoys, and another volunteer on a paddle board came up beside me to tell me I was swimming too far out. I looked to where he was pointing but still could not see anything. I continued to swim in but was getting really frustrated. I stopped several times to try to see where I was but could not see any buoys in front of me. I could see some behind me and saw how far out I had gone but still had nothing in front of me to really sight. Finally, I just started to aim for the central point of glare from the sun and used that to sight. Finally, I got back to the last turn buoy but looking at my watch I now had less than 10 minutes to finish the last stretch of the race and get to the swim out before the 1 hour and 15 minute cutoff. Refusing to give up, I headed for the finish and just hoped I could eke it out. As I made it to the shore, I realized I had missed the cutoff. The last stretch of the race was the shortest, but it was also against the current and it just took a little longer than I had to do it. I was out of the water at about the 1:19 mark so I had missed the cutoff time by about 4 minutes. According to my Garmin I swam 2653 yards. What was surprising was there was still a fair amount of people on the beach cheering me on and congratulating me on completing the swim. Part of me appreciated the sentiment but part of me wanted to yell why are you congratulating me, I just DNF’d. I’m a goddamn Ironman and I wasn’t able to finish this 70.3 race. I managed to bury that frustrated side of me and thanked people as I walked by who were congratulating me. Then the race director came up and collected my chip and swim cap, again I thanked him but at the same time was trying very hard to control my disappointment mainly in myself. Even then I knew this had not been a easy swim and in fact should be proud I never gave up and finished the whole thing including the extra 600+ yards I swam, but part of me also knew I failed in the overall goal of finishing the entire race. I then went up to T1 to see if Kara was there because I didn’t see her at the beach. Turns out, she didn’t know if or when I had come out of the water and was up at T1 looking for me there.  At this point, the volunteers had begun the process of closing down T1. They had to gather up all the T1 bags and take them over to T2 for when people finished the race. There were several other athletes there who had also not finished the swim in time gathering their bike and things. By the time, I go to my bike the volunteers had already grabbed my T1 bag and thrown it in a truck with all the other bags. This bag of course had my bike shoes in it so without the bag I wasn’t going to be able to ride my bike over to the T2 area. The volunteers where nice though and we ended up putting my bike in the back of the truck and I rode over with the driver to the T2 area. Kara took a shuttle over because there wasn’t enough room in the truck for both of us.

Lance Armstrong

Once over at T2, I met back up with Kara at the car and we loaded the bike in then headed back to the race area to cheer our friends Tricia and Al on who were still in the race. I got to see Lance Armstrong who won the race in a record breaking time of 3:50:58. My friends Tricia and Al also finished the race. Tricia came in 5th place for her age group and got cool Kona bowl as a trophy.

I found out later that the swim had caused problems for lots of people. Apparently the winds had gotten so strong that some of the volunteers on the paddle boards got carried out to sea and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard.  A possibility of why it took so long for a volunteer to come tell me I had swum out too far. The wind also caused one of the buoys to break loose during the race although I don’t know which one, and I also learned the lead pack of age groupers got confused and ended up turning in towards the finish line too early and once they got to the finish they were told they had to turn around and swim the entire course.

For those who made it out of the water in time, they had to face quite a few challenges on the bike and run. Wind guests by this point had gotten up to 35 mph on the bike course, and I heard there where a number of accidents. My friend Al saw one lady do a face plant on the pavement, and for the run the sun was out in full force on a course with no shade. Part of me would have liked to face those challenges because that is in fact what part of doing these races is all about, but I will be honest there was also a part of me that wasn’t too upset that I missed out on that.

Trish & Al

Though disappointed I got a DNF for this race, I have had an awesome time here on the Big Island both with fun and leisure stuff and with training on the same course that the Ironman Championships use. I have already decided that I am coming back next year to redeem myself on this race, and I also know I come away with some great experiences here that will help me on my races to come. I now know first hand why the Kona course is so challenging, it’s not the course itself but the elements and uncertainty they can throw at you. Racing here really is like racing no other place I’ve been to. It wows you with its beauty and can crush you with its temperament.

A big thanks to Trish and Al for letting us crash with them for 2 weeks.

The Columbia Triathlon - Hills, Hills, Hills

So it’s been a week since my last blog post, and with that I have another Triathlon under my belt. This time it was the Columbia Triathlon held by TriColumbia in Columbia, MD which took place this past Sunday 5/20. This was the first time I had ever done this particular triathlon but I had heard it was a good, tough race to do, so I signed up early in the year to avoid sell-out registration.  

For the week leading up to this race, I decided to really try and taper. Tapering is something I always struggle with because I don’t like to stop training. After doing the Kinetic 70.3 and Sprint triathlons last weekend and hearing that the run course on Columbia was really tough, I decided my legs could use a little RnR. That Monday I rested completely, no training at all. On Tuesday I ended up doing a pretty high-paced 30 mile bike ride followed by a 2 mile run afterwards. Wednesday, I ended up resting again with no training at all. On Thursday, I did some work in the pool for about an hour followed by an easy 60 minute ride down at Hains Point on Friday. Finally on Saturday I did an easy pace 3 mile run, again at Hains Point.

That Saturday, I also had to pick up my race packet, take my bike over to the race site, and rack it. For this race, they don’t allow you to rack your bike the day of the race. My plan was to drive over with my wife, drop the bike off, and be on my way. When we first arrived at the transition area, I learned that we had to head over to the Sheraton hotel about 2 miles away from the race venue. This is where the packets were being given out which we needed before we could take the bike into transition. So we hopped into the car and headed over to the Sheraton. Even though it was only 2 miles away, the local roads were struggling to deal with all the added pre-race day traffic so it was a little slow-going getting to the hotel. Once we finally arrived, I ran in and got my packet which went fairly smoothly or so I thought. With packet in hand, we headed back to transition. Again, slow-going due to heavy traffic. Once back at transition, I started to notice that everyone walking their bike over to the transition area was wearing a green wrist band. I had attended races before where you had to wear a wristband to enter transition, but no one at the packet pickup had said anything about a wristband and there was no wristband in my packet envelope. Before taking my bike off the car rack, I decided to go find an official for clarification. I had a sinking suspicion I was going to have to go back to the Sheraton but wanted clarification before I made the trip again. My suspicion was confirmed and a wristband was needed to get in. So with that we headed back to the hotel. Once there, I quickly ran in and found the table where the wristbands were being given out. Turns out it was a separate table from where you pick up the envelopes, and the person who gave me my envelope failed to mention that I needed to get a wristband. Of course, I do take some blame for this - mainly that if I had thoroughly read the athlete’s guide I would have seen that I needed a wristband and where the packets where being given out at. (My wife kindly did not point this out.)

With everything finally in hand we returned to transition and got the bike racked.

That night, I tried to go to bed fairly early. The race start time was 7 a.m. and transition opened at 4:45 a.m. I wanted to get there pretty close to when transition opened because they said the parking near the transition area was limited and expected to fill up fast, and I didn’t want to have to park far away and walk like 10 minutes from my car to transition. So I decided I would get up at 3:30 a.m. so I could leave the house by 4 a.m. It was a 40-minute drive from the house to the race. Despite going to bed early, I didn’t sleep well. Apparently, sometime on Saturday I was stung by a bee or something in my left arm, and it was starting to bother me. It wasn’t a horrid pain but more like an annoying pain, and with that and just the pre-race jitters I did a lot of tossing and turning.

The next morning, I woke up at 3 a.m. and decided to go on and get up. I may not have gotten a lot of sleep but decided I would cook some eggs and toast for a decent pre-race breakfast. After eating and getting dressed, I loaded up the car with my gear bags (I made sure not to forget those this time like I did at Kinetic) and hit the road.

I arrived at the race site at about 4:40 a.m., the parking was open and people were already arriving. After parking, I just hung out in my car listening to some good pre-race tunes to get me focused and relaxed for the race. Finally, I headed to transition with my gear bags and set up for the race.  Transition for this race had us pretty packed in, so there wasn’t a lot of space between bikes. I was fairly far back from the bike out area which was actually at the top of a steep hill. Unlike Kinetic where you had to mount at the bottom of a hill and then ride, this one you had to run your bike up a hill and then mount on a fairly flat area.

The weather for the day was expected to be quite nice. Sunny with temps in the mid 70’s. The water temp was a nice 70.6 degrees, so it was looking like a good day all around to race.

The swim portion started around 6:45 a.m. with the pros then kicked off with the age groupers in waves based on age and gender starting every 8 minutes or so. My wave was slated to start by 7:14 a.m. The Columbia Triathlon requires that you swim out to the start line with your wave and tread water till the horn blew. As we approached the final minutes of my wave’s race start, I swam out looking for a spot that was towards the back of the pack. My wave was large with at least 30 people in it. Finally, the horn blew for our wave to begin and we were off. It was very hard to get any kind of space to swim in the beginning. I am always afraid I am going to get kicked in the face when swimming so close to everyone, and I was particularly worried about getting hit in this race. I didn’t get kicked, but one guy kept swimming right next to me and hitting me on the top of the head like 4 times. Every time he would take a stroke, his hand would come out and over to hit the top of my head. Once or twice is one thing, but I was really getting annoyed at this guy because he seemed either completely clueless to the fact he was hitting me or just didn’t care. It was the first time in a race where I really had to restrain myself from wanting to hit someone. Finally, I managed to get away from the guy and tried to get into some kind of swim rhythm. For both the half and sprint tri’s I did the week before, I had swims that I felt pretty good with. I was hoping today I would be able to get under 40 minutes. I had not been able to get a good look at the swim course beforehand, and we started off swimming into the rising sun which was creating a glare on the water. I knew we essentially were swimming straight upstream then would be turning at some point to come back down, but I didn’t know exactly how far the turn was or how many buoys were in the water till the turn. I basically ended up just following the people in front of me and hoped they knew where they were going. This strategy worked for the most part as I don’t think I ever swam terribly off-course. I may have zig-zagged a little more than I would have liked but I have a hard time keeping my head in the water when I don’t feel comfortable knowing where I am going. I alway want to raise my head up and verify I am on course, even though the more you swim with your head up the slower you move.

Towards the end of the swim, we swam past a small little island right before the swim out location. This section of the lake was filled with lots of underwater plant life, the kind of viney/clingy plants that end up clingy on your arms as you’re swimming. Not a big deal but just another annoyance. My final swim time was 42:46. Not quite the time I was hoping for but still within the ballpark.

I decided to walk instead of run back to T1. Once I got back to my bike I quickly got my wetsuit off, my bike shoes on, grabbed my bike and made my way up the hill to the bike mount area. I had ridden the bike course of this race before so I was pretty familiar with it and knew what to expect as far as hills. It’s by no means a flat course but it didn’t have any kind of hills I wasn’t use to dealing with in more normal training routes. My biggest concern with the bike was making sure I didn’t get any flats this time.  Just in case, I packed 3 spare tubes and 3 C02 cartridges so I was well prepared.

The bike course was pretty crowded. There was really no point along the 26 mile ride where I was alone. For a good majority of the race, I kept playing the passing game with some guy who was 30. He was a bigger guy and seemed to have a similar riding style to mine, basically he was able to power up the hills which I’ve found to be my strength when my legs are fresh. I would pass him then he would pass me and as I mentioned this went on for a while. Finally at about mile 18, I got the jump on him with one of the bigger hills on the course and was able to pull away.

The bike course was pretty uneventful, no accidents that I saw and for me more specifically no flats. With the course being as crowded as it was, I was a little hesitant getting into the aero position as much as I would have liked. The course was not closed to traffic so you had to keep an eye on cars as well as other riders. I was shooting to get the ride portion of the race done in 1:15 but ended up doing it in 1:17:43. Again a little off from my goal time but still in the ballpark.

After dismounting off the bike and running back down the hill to transition with my bike in hand, I returned to my spot on the rack to find both my transition neighbors there. They had both gotten out of the water and were on the road when I first got to T1, but it would seem I made up some time on them during the bike portion. I quickly got my bike back on the rack and proceeded to change bike shoes for running shoes.

It was finally time for the last and likely the toughest portion of the race. I hadn’t seen the run course before but had heard it was one of the toughest 10k courses on the east coast for a triathlon. It also had a portion of the course with its own nickname, “The Gatorade Wall.” I normally feel pretty strong running on hills but my confidence had been shaken a bit after my lackluster performance on the Kinetic 70.3 run course. I knew a large part of my poor performance on the Kinetic run course had more to do with mental aspects than physical, but the fact is that run course had gotten the better of me and I did not want a repeat performance here.

As I started out on the run, the first thing I told myself was regardless of how bad the hills might be here, it was only 6.2 miles. Starting out I felt pretty good. My legs felt strong and had no noticeable cramps to speak of. The first mile was in the park with a pretty steep (monster) hill. I had actually run up this one a few weeks earlier during a bricknic held by the DC Tri Club. I made it up the hill and was still feeling good. Mile 2 was pretty flat and into mile 3, I was starting to feel as though the reputation of this run course was a bit overinflated. By this time, the course was taking us out of the park and through some nearby neighborhoods. This is where the real hills would be found. I started to see why the course had the reputation it did. Still, a lot of it was in shade and had people who would come out of their homes and cheer you on. At one point, a bunch of the neighborhood kids were on hand to cool us down with their Supersoakers. The one thing that did suck about this portion of the race was with the aid station. Apparently, they decided to fill up the water cups with a garden hose because I definitely got that gross rubbery garden hose taste when I drank the water there.

The hills on the course where pretty constant for the last 3 miles of the run. Even the last .2 leg of the race to the finish line they managed to get one more hill in, still I managed to finish pretty strong. Since I didn’t really know how bad the hills would be, I didn’t have a specific time goal in mind for the run. I figured unless things went really badly I could do it somewhere between 40-50 minutes. My final run time was 48:45.

Post Race Photo Op With Andy Steinfeld

My final time for the race was 2:56:20.17, This was a comparable time to the other olympic distance Tri’s I had done, but since this was the toughest olympic distance race I have done to date I was pretty happy with that time. I was also happy that I continued to build on the trend from last Sunday’s Sprint of having a issue-free race. Hopefully that trend will continue on to my next race in 2 weeks with the Hawaii 70.3 Half Ironman race. I do have concerns with that race -how well will I do a 1.5 mile ocean swim with no wetsuit?  Truth is, who cares cause I’m going to Hawaii :) Also thanks to my friend Sara who came out to cheer me on Sunday.

This is where I will be writing my next race report from :)

2012 Kinetic 70.3 - A Weekend Of Firsts

The Kinetic 70.3 and Sprint distance triathlons, held by Setup Events at Lake Anna State Park in Spotsylvania, VA for the Virginia Triathlon Series, saw a number of firsts for me and my would-be triathlon career this weekend.

This 70.3 race is my first half-distance Ironman race of the season and technically my first half-distance Ironman ever since the swim was cancelled at the Poconos 70.3.  I headed down to Lake Anna with my wife and several members of the DC Tri Club on Friday to avoid a long drive on the morning of the race.  Eight of us plus a dog stayed in a nice little cabin near the lake.  After picking up our race packets, we hit up the local grocery store for pre-race and race day nutrition - you know, those healthy foods like Krispy Kream donuts and chocolate chip cookies along with a nice pasta dinner to carb load.  Between the grocery run and dinner, I managed to get in a quick open water swim  to test out my sleeveless wetsuit.  I was getting tired of messing with the wetsuit sleeves, so I upgraded to a Blueseventy Helix sleeveless suit which is working quite nicely.   

After stuffing ourselves on carbs and hanging out for a bit while we got our gear prepared for the next day’s race, we all decided it was time to hit the sack around 10:30 p.m. to try for a good night sleep. Like the night before most races, pre-race day jitters, a strange bed, and a very warm room (in part thanks to one of the other guys in the cabin turning the air conditioner off during the night) made sleep difficult.

Race morning came early (4:30 a.m.), and we headed out around 5:10 a.m. after a light breakfast of eggs and cheese danish.  The race started at 7 a.m. and we were parked and ready by 5:30 a.m.  Imagine my horror when I realized I left all my gear at the cabin, 20 minutes away.  Talk about boneheaded mistakes.  My wife drove back to get my stuff while I checked in, got my body markings, and racked my bike.  She was back in plenty of time with my stuff, so the first mini-crisis of the day was averted.

The weather for the day was spectacular. The high was in the mid-70’s and sunny. The race start was delayed about 15 minutes while we waited for fog to clear over the water, but we got good pictures and made sure everything was ready for race start, including a quick jump in the lake to get that panic feeling from the first hit of cold water out of the way. Water temperature that morning was about 70 degrees. For this race, we would be swimming 1.2 miles in a triangular course with the swim buoys on our right following a beach start. I was in the fourth wave, males 40-44 years old.  

After the national anthem, the horn sounded and I was off.  For the first time, I actually passed people on the swim portion although breaking through the crowd in front of me was difficult.  Eventually the crowd began to thin, and things went pretty smoothly from there. Unlike the Olympic Distance race I had done at this lake two weeks before, this race was going quite smoothly - no fogged up goggles or breathing problems from a recent cold. My goal for the swim was 50 minutes, and I did it in 51:50. Not considered a fast time by most, but pretty good for me who sucks at swimming.

I came out of the water feeling pretty good and headed for T1 which is where things started to take a turn for the worse.  I tried to put on my bike jersey after peeling off the wetsuit.  I had decided not to wear the one piece tri-suit for this race and didn’t want to wear the jersey under my wetsuit. Turns out this was a mistake and a lessoned learned. Every time I tried to put the damn thing on, it would get twisted.  I literally had to try four different times before I finally got it on. After that and getting my shoes and helmet on I finally grabbed my bike and headed out of T1 with a horrid T1 time of 00:06:38.

The bike mount area for this race is at the bottom of a fairly steep hill so I made sure my bike was in a low gear. After getting on and clipping in, I began to pedal up the big hill still feeling pretty good and then it happened. Not two minutes into the bike portion of the race, I heard one of the worst noises you can hear in a race, a loud POP.  I was close enough to the transition area, that I thought some kind of starter gun had gone off.  No such luck, my front tire had just blown.  I had done a Century ride the weekend before where I first started experiencing tire problems.  It had been the back tire then, now the front tire wanted a turn. One good thing about having the flat the weekend before, I had practiced my tire changing skills.  About the time that I got the old tube off, a gentleman in a SUV pulled up and asked if I needed a pump. I don’t know how many of you have ever had to change a flat but I can tell you it is easier to do with a pump than those C02 cartridges, so I said sure.  At first I thought he was a SAG driver associated with the race, but as we installed the new tube I realized he was just someone there cheering on his wife. I was a little concerned I might get penalized for accepting outside assistance during the race, but at this point I wasn’t going to tell him to go away. After getting my first of two spare tubes on the wheel, the gentleman began to pump up the tire. Unfortunately he pumped it up a little too much and ended up popping it. Now down to only one spare tube, I quickly changed out the second busted tube and asked if he would mind if I inflated it.  After thanking the gentleman for his help, I was finally back on my way. My Garmin was set so that it would stop timing if I wasn’t moving so I didn’t know for sure how many minutes the flats had set me back.  What I did know was that I had no more spare tubes left, so if I got another flat I was going to be SOL.

The race course consisted of two loops and was fairly flat. A few hills were nothing I wasn’t used to in my regular training rides. My original goal was to complete the 56 mile bike portion in under three hours.  For the first portion of the ride, I ended up riding with some of the guys with the fancy disc wheels. They were already on their second loop while I was still on the first, but it gave me something to focus on. I would pass them then they would pass me. This went on for a bit - helps pass the time and beats riding out there all alone. The second loop got pretty lonely though. I was making good time on the bike but had a lot of ground to make up after the slow swim (normal for me) and dealing with the flats.  As I started on my last 15 miles of the bike ride, I noticed my front tire was feeling a little funny. It didn’t really feel like a flat, but it didn’t feel quite right either.  As I made the next turn, I realized it was in fact a flat. The tire wasn’t totally flat like before but it definitely had lost a lot of air. I was faced with the possibility of my first DNF. I had no more spare tubes and even though the tire wasn’t completely flat, could I honestly expect to ride 15 more miles on this thing? As I made the next turn, one of the cops directing traffic yelled out “Your tire is flat” as I rode by.  I thought to myself “no shit” but just kept on riding. I finally decided to pull over and fully assess the situation. It dawned on me that even though I didn’t have any spare tubes left I did still have some C02 cartridges, and since this appeared to be some kind of slow leak I decided to pump the tire up and hope it would last long enough to finish out the ride.

At this point, I really wasn’t concerned about time and just wanted to finish the race. I started riding again but at a moderate pace, especially on turns.  Going into the aero position was no longer an option either at this point. Amazingly though I was still able to pass people but with my focus on the tire and just finishing, I was no longer bothering with nutrition and apparently I even racked up my first penalty as I got dinged 4 minutes for some kind of position penalty. The best I can figure is that I was concentrating more on my tire and less on if I was riding too far left. In fact I stayed away from the right side of the road because it was bumpier road than in the middle.

I finally made it back to transition after taking the final downhill super-slow. I felt my tire again in transition and it was very low on air again. My official bike time ended up being 3:18:34 plus the 4 minute penalty. My Garmin, which didn’t count the time I was stopped changing tires, said my bike time was 2:53:25 including the slower pace for the last 15 miles.

Once I got my bike remounted and my running shoes on, I was off to complete the last leg of the race. My T2 time was 00:02:54. After dealing with all the flat tire issues, I was feeling mentally drained. I felt like my overall time goal in the neighborhood of 5 1/2 hours was now out of reach, so all I really wanted at this point was just to be done with the race. The run consisted of the same loop three times for a total of 13.1 miles. You start out by running up this monster hill which I knew.  Little did I know that this run course was nothing but hill after hill, much of it in the glaring sun. As I completed the first loop of the run, I started to experience some cramps in my upper back. I don’t know if this was caused from dehydration or by a new pair of Newton shoes which had been fine on shorter runs but now seemed to be bothering my feet on this longer run with all these hills. Either way, it was dawning on me that this was not going to be an easy run. Having done the first loop, I now knew exactly was to expect for the next two... hills and lots of them. Halfway through the second loop, knowing I had a bunch more hills to run and figuring my goal time was totally screwed, I was finding it harder and harder to convince myself to keep pushing myself through these back cramps. Finally, I started walking. This may be mental more than anything, but once I start walking in a race I find it that much harder to start running again. Things start tightening up and it just gets harder and harder to push myself. I spent a lot of the last half of the run walking. My final run time was 2:32:10 making my total race time a dismal 6:56:04.

This was not a time I was terribly happy with. I was very happy that many of my friends who also did this race had PR’s and very good races, but I couldn’t help feel a bit discouraged.

Many of the people who stayed at the cabin the night before headed for home on Saturday, but my wife and I stayed through Sunday with two friends.  That morning, I woke up around 5:30 a.m. and decided I wanted to do the Sprint distance race starting at 9 a.m. I originally had not planned to do this race but felt I needed some kind of redemption from the day before. It wasn’t really about the time, but more about I wanting to have a problem-free race. I was beginning to feel like I was cursed or something. Most my gear was still in the car, so I got up, kissed my wife, and headed off to the park to see if race-day registration available. I also needed to see if I could get my tire fixed. The answer to both was yes. The bike technicians were able to get my tire fixed up and gave me a new spare tube. This was the first time I had ever done a Sprint distance race which consists of a 750 meter swim, 18 mile bike, and 5k run. I didn’t really have any major time goals in place but wanted that problem-free race. My legs felt a little tired from the day before but overall I felt pretty good. The weather like the day before was fantastic. The water temperature was 68 degrees, a couple degrees cooler from the day before. I did the swim in 19:46 which I was pretty happy with.  Like before, not a fast time but good for me. I went with the one piece tri-suit for this race which gave me a better T1 time of 00:03:54.

The bike course was different from the day before. Obviously a shorter distance but they threw in more hills to make it a little tougher. I did it in 54:04.  More importantly though, I had no flat tires.

The run consisted of one lap similar to the laps from the day before. In other words, hills. I managed to do it 24:38. Not bad for a hilly course and considering I just did a half Ironman race the day before. My overall time for the Sprint was 01:44:38.

Obviously, a Sprint is not the same as doing a 70.3 race but it was great getting a problem-free race under my belt and will hopefully set the tone for the rest of my season. Next up is the Columbia MD Olympic distance triathlon next weekend.

For one final first for the weekend, I met four-time Ironman champion Chrissie Wellington at a book signing for her new book that afternoon. She was great and gave me some advice for my 70.3 race in Hawaii coming up next month.

Oh and a big shout-out to my wife for supporting me this weekend and for taking tons of great pictures.

Don't Look Now But The 2012 Triathlon Season Is Upon Us

My second year of triathlons kicks off in less than a week with the Rumpus in the Bumpass International Triathlon which takes place in Bumpass, VA, and I find myself getting pretty excited. This will be the first time I have done this particular triathlon, and at last I will be able to see if all the hard training in the off season pays off. I’ve spent so much time in the pool these last 5 months that I feel like a fish (though  sadly I still don’t swim like one), but I think I have made some significant improvements since last August when I swam in the Ironman Louisville. My best swim time in the international distance (1.5k) last year was 42:52 (I know pathetic right?), and I am hoping to do around 35-37 minutes at Rumpus (still not great, but good for me).

Besides lots of training, I also have made a number of equipment upgrades since my last Tri. Most notably in the bike department. This past Christmas I finally made the financial plunge and added an actual tri bike to my arsenal as opposed to the Trek Modone 3.1 road bike I used all last year. My new bike is a Felt B10 with electronic gear shifters. I named it “Freedom” because everyone kept telling me I needed to come up with a name for my bike and you feel so free with the world speeding by while riding on it. My best bike time on the Trek for the international distance (24.85 miles) was 1:05:03 so I am hoping to break that time next week. I even broke down and got myself an actual aero helmet. I still think they look funny but figured what the hell, a fast bike needs a fast helmet right?

For the run, I haven’t made a lot of changes. My time for my last international distance (10k) was 44:29, but that was on a flat course. If I can do a comparable time at Rumpus, then I will be pretty happy. I have done quite a few running races in the off-season and feel I have gotten faster since last year, but I have slacked a bit on doing any kind of runs off the bike up to this point for my training, so I am afraid that might slow me down a little for this first race.

Last year, when I first started doing triathlons my goal was simply to finish. For this year, I want to be more competitive with my times, and (as I learned a few weeks ago at the Washington DC Rock N’ Roll Marathon where I ran the first 13.1 miles in 1:37 but finished with terrible 4hr time) pacing becomes a lot more challenging. Every instinct screams go full throttle and hammer this thing, only to find you don’t have enough gas to finish strong. I think I learned my lesson at the RnR, but it still is not easy when the adrenaline is flowing and people start running by you when that start gun first goes off.

I hope to have a Rumpus race report up here shortly after next Saturday, wish me luck and hope that everyone racing this year has a great season.

My 2012 Race Schedule

With 2011 coming to a close and only two planned races left in the year with the Richmond Marathon on November 12 and the Hot Chocolate 15k on December 3, I thought it was time to start planning out my 2012 race schedule. 

As of last week I officially joined local Tri Club Team Z, and I plan on doing a lot of my training with them in the off season, especially with my swimming. I will try and blog more about my experiences and training with them at a later time, but I mainly mention that I joined the team here because I will be incorporating a number of the races they do officially as a team in my schedule for 2012.

So without further ado (I know the anticipation is killing you) here is my tentative race schedule for 2012. I say tentative because I haven't actually signed up and paid for all these races yet and obviously it is possible things could change between now and when registration opens for some of them. The Half Ironman in HI is a done deal as is the Columbia Triathlon. Ironman Fl registration doesn't open till next month, but I have decided I want this to be my big race for the 2012 season. So here it is:

2012 Tentative Race Schedule 

- * National Marathon - March 17, 2012

- * Rumpus In Bumpass International Tri - April 14, 2012

- * Arlington Science Focus 5k - May 5, 2012

- High Cloud PeasantMan Triathlon - May 8, 2012(?)

- * Kinetic Half Tri - May 12, 2012

- Columbia Triathlon International Tri - May 20, 2012

- Ironman 70.3 Hawaii - June 2, 2012

- DC Triathlon - June 17, 2012

- The Diabolical Double (125 miles and 16,500 feet of climbing cycle event) - June 25, 2012

- U.P. Northwoods Tri (International) - July, 2012

- * Luray International Tri - August 18, 2012

- *  REV3 70.3 Cedar Point OH - September 9, 2012

- * Savageman Oly Tri - September 15, 2012

- Ironman Florida - November 5, 2012

*= Team Z Race

Some races like Peasantman which was the very first triathlon I ever did have not yet posted official race dates for 2012 so they remain really tentative till I know for sure what days they fall on. I also plan to enter the lottery for Kona this year and will shoot for a qualifying time at the 70.3 Hawaii race which is a Kona qualifier race, so who knows maybe I can add that one to the list later in the year :)

There you have it, my tentative race schedule for 2012. I hope to see all of you out there next year, and feel free to post in the comments section below what races you plan on doing in 2012.

Pocono Mountains Half Ironman Race Report - My Almost first 70.3 Race

The morning of race day

This race report is for my almost first half-Ironman race. Since I completed Ironman Louisville, I’ve been looking for one more race to finish out my inaugural season of triathlons. Originally, that final race was going to be the Nation’s Triathlon which was held locally on 9/11. Not only would it be my last race of the season, I could redeem myself for my performance in the similarly designed DC Triathlon in June.  (I decided to try out running with no socks during that race. I am not sure if my feet have forgiven me yet.) Thanks to the monsoon season of rain we have been experiencing on the East Coast this fall, the swim portion of Nation’s was canceled.  Although I had a good race overall, it didn’t seem like an appropriate way to end the season. So I decided to do the half Ironman in the Pocono Mountains (1.5 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run).  As my first half Ironman, I thought it would be a good note to end the season. Mother Nature is laughing at me.

For those of you unfamiliar with the area, the Poconos are basically a resort area on the PA, NJ, NY border and surrounding the Delaware Gap National Park.  My wife and I spent New Year’s skiing there, so we were familiar with the geography.  Did I mention this was the inaugural race for this area? 

After signing up for the race, I tried to book a room at the Fernwood Resort, the official race headquarters and the hotel we used in January.  After hearing the “No Vacancy” news from this hotel and every other hotel in the area I decided I had two choices, book a hotel almost 30 miles away from the race or stay at the nearby Pocono Palace, an all-inclusive resort for honeymooners.  Not wanting to get up at 4 a.m., we opted for the Palace, although I was disappointed we didn’t get a heart-shaped bed.

With final race of the season chosen and housing arrangements made, I just needed to train and wait for race day to arrive. Fast forward to the week of the race. The extended forecast predicted no rain and low temperatures (low 42 to high 52).  This was quite the change since all my triathlons have been in the spring and summer months, and I had trained primarily for hot weather races. My first concern was that I was going to freeze my butt off getting out of the water. Yes, wetsuits would be allowed for the swim (thank god), but I was still going to be freezing once I got out of the river. Of course, none of this really mattered because the weather in the area continued to deteriorate as the week progressed. Heavy rains fell most of the week, and now it looked like it would rain all weekend as well. By Friday, the swim was canceled, and my plan to end the season with a full triathlon was nixed.  Though not a huge fan of swimming, I was pretty disappointed. I had been working on my swim technique quite a bit since Louisville and was really looking forward to see how much progress I had made.

While I no longer had to be concerned with freezing once I got out of the water, it was looking more and more like I would be racing in the pouring cold rain.  The day before the race, we woke up at 5 a.m. to drive the four hours to the Poconos.  we checked in, grabbed my race packet, and joined the pre-race briefing to hear about the revised time-trial bike start and several warnings to avoid the walnuts on the course.  (No joke, walnuts.)

Originally, shuttles from the Fernwood would take athletes to the river several miles away.  T1 was a short distance from Swim Out then off to the bike course which ended at a separate T2 at the local high school.  Run an out-and-back for a finish through downtown and into the area Oktoberfest.  With the swim canceled, things changed a bit.    Instead of dropping our bike gear at T1, we brought the gear with us in the morning.  With the swim, we would have started in waves based on our age with each wave jumping in the water at a designated time. Now we would start on the bike using a time-trial fashion. The bikes were racked by bib number with athletes released in numeric order.  The lower your number, the less time you spent waiting in transition.  My number was 1976 of 2000.  A long, tedious wait followed by lots of time spent passing.

After the coordinators finished with the course changes, it was time for the head race official.  Now I’ve heard the Ironman rules before and if you read my Ironman Louisville race report, you know these rules don’t seem to be strictly enforced for general age groupers. This particular official seemed proud of the number of penalty flags issued by her team.  She predicted the penalty tents would be incredibly full - and even talked about stopping to pick up your dropped water bottles to avoid disqualification for unsportsmanlike conduct.  My first thought was, “Are you kidding me?”  One of the things I knew based on my experience from the bike start on the Nation’s Tri is that everyone piles into tiny lanes at the same time because there is no swim portion to thin out the crowds.  Preventing drafting and blocking in a race like this is almost impossible. Maybe the official was trying to scare us to cut down on rules violations they had no way to enforce.  (Turns out I was right, plenty of people drafted with nary an official in sight.) 

The rain was still holding off so after we racked my bike at T1, we headed out to drive the course on our way to T2 to drop my run gear bag.  It was quickly apparent the 56-mile course was going to be very challenging.  I originally hoped to finish the bike leg in 3 hours but revised that estimate to 3 1/2 to 4 hours depending on the weather.  The course was hill after hill with at least three OMG hills. Many of the downhill portions ended with fairly sharp turns causing you to have to slow down and lose any real momentum. Add to that wet roads with wet leaves and huge nuts that kept falling from the trees. My concern in Louisville was getting out of the water; for this race I was quickly becoming concerned with coming out of the bike course alive, especially if it was going to be pouring down rain. The run course had its share of hills as well but nothing I wasn’t used to.

Finally after checking out the courses and dropping all our stuff, we headed to dinner at a local Italian restaurant (have to stock up on those carbs) then hit the local grocery store to stock up on some last minute race day snacks. After a relaxing stint in the room’s hot tub it was time for bed. Unlike Louisville where I got next to no sleep, I was going to get plenty of rest for this one. During the night, the rains returned so hard I actually woke up from the rain hitting the roof of the hotel. By 5 a.m., the rain thankfully had stopped.

Dressing in layers for a cold race day start

After I packed everything I needed for the race in a bag, my wife drove me over to Fernwood to catch a shuttle (school bus) to the T1 area. Spectators weren’t allowed down at the T1 spot, so my wife just dropped me off and headed back to our hotel to get a couple more hours of sleep. I had a long wait ahead of me. I sat in the Fernwood lobby for about 40 minutes waiting for the last shuttle to arrive around 6:30. It took about 15 minutes to get down to the T1 area where I proceeded to my bike rack. After removing the covers I had put on the handle bars and seat to keep it dry from the night rain, I dried the rest of my bike, checked the tires for air, and made sure everything was in good working order. Now all I had to do was wait. I made sure to dress in layers for this race as I knew the day was going to start off very cold and possibly even wet, but as the day went on and things warmed up I likely was going to want to easily remove the warmer garments. This would be my first Tri in the cold so I was treading some new ground with how I should dress. I packed everything from your basic tri kit to long leggings and a long-sleeved shirt. I opted to wear basic tri shorts and a sleeveless tri top with arm warmers and a windstopper short-sleeved cycle jersey. On top of that, I put on running pants and a water-proof bike jacket. Oh, and I had a skull cap on to keep my ears warm under my bike helmet.

The race was supposed to start at 7 a.m. but was delayed to 7:15ish. Either way, I knew I wouldn’t be crossing the starting line till at least 8:30 a.m.. Fortunately, the rain held off for the entire race and I did not have to sit there in the rain.  It was quite chilly. After the National Anthem was sung and we heard a mile had to be taken off the course due to overnight flooding, the pros got started from first rows. Of course, being all the way in the back I really couldn’t see much. Deciding I wouldn’t be starting off in the rain, I decided to leave the rain jacket and just wear the tri shorts and top with the cycle jersey over top and the arm warmers to keep my arms warm. This was definitely the right call. After patiently waiting and pacing and watching, it was finally time for my row to head to the start line. The time was like 8:33 a.m., so I had estimated my start time fairly accurately. I ran to the bike mounting area over the time mat, hopped on my bike and was off.

The course starts with in a parking lot type area leading to a left turn to a quick up and back. Unlike with Louisville where my primary goal was to simply finish, I wanted to push myself hard with this race so that’s what I did. Right off the bat, I pushed hard. I had a bit of a pain in my lower back which I had actually been dealing with all week. This made it more difficult to get in the aero-position, but truthfully this wasn’t really much of an aero-postion type of race. At first the cold caused my heart rate to speed up faster than what I am used to, so I did end up pulling it back a notch for a short bit but as I got going I quickly warmed up and my heart rate returned to normal. After completing the first up and back, I knew the first set of big hills would soon be upon me. As I approached the first OMG hill (within the first 5 miles of the course), already I was seeing other riders who had stopped to either rest or walk their bike up the hill. I had seen people walk in the run portion of a triathlon but this was the first time I had seen people walk their bike in a race. There was one lady off to the side resting against a guardrail who looked as if she was on the verge of a heart attack. I heard another rider who must have thought the same thing ask her if she was alright as we went by and she said yes, she just needed to catch her breath. Knowing this hill was only the beginning, I thought if people were already struggling they might as well hang it up now.

As the race went along I continued to push my self hard. There was always a steady stream of people in front of me since I basically started at the back of the pack and had to make my way to the front, so getting complacent was never much of an issue. Almost from the beginning, I played tag with another racer in front of me as we took turns passing each other.  This went on until almost the very end of the race. We even joked with each other about it as we kept passing one another. He was faster than me on the straight-aways but I was always able to overtake him on the hills. I think the last OMG hill towards the end must have slowed him down enough though, because I didn’t see him after that.

At one point in the course, I had two riders wipe out right by me. One guy decided he was going to try and pass in a pack of riders, and I guess he ended up pushing another rider over to the right where he hit one of those plastic orange cones used to divide the lanes. When he hit, he wiped out causing the guy behind him to also crash. Both riders ended up with only some scratches and bruises.

During another leg of the race, a car ended up driving onto the bike course causing us to stop for a second. They weren't race officials, just someone who somehow ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. The rider next to me wasn’t happy she had to slow down for this, but I just blew it off and started pushing hard once again.

For nutrition up to this point I had my usual bottle of Gatorade and water on my bike. I had eaten a banana and a box of Frosted Flakes cereal right before the race start and overall was feeling pretty good. I had a Gu pack on the bike and a Kit Kat bar in my cycle jersey. As I was approaching the last 15 miles of the bike course I was contemplating whether to stick with just the liquids or have either the Gu or Kit Kat. Before I could decide though, I came upon the biggest of the OMG hills. This thing was a monster. I don’t know the exact elevation of it but it was steep and it was long. The front tire of my bike actually came up off the ground a bit as I was pedaling. This one had quite a few people walking it, but I wasn’t going to be one of those people. Kicking it into the lowest gear on the bike which I seldom use, I made my way up that monster.

After that I had no choice, I was beginning to feel it and needed an extra boost. I knew the Gu was probably the better choice but I really don’t like those things, so I decided to eat just a small portion of the Kit Kat. I didn’t want a repeat of Louisville and have bad cramps on the run portion of the race. It seemed to work as I was feeling better and no cramps, though probably the Gu would have been better overall.

As I approached the end of the bike portion, my butt was sore and my back was still bothering me a bit but overall my legs felt good. I rolled into the dismount area looking to see if my wife was there. She wasn’t, turns out she had gotten stuck in traffic trying to make her way to the T2 area. As I mentioned before, this was the first year for this race and I think it’s safe to say the coordinators have quite a few bugs to work out for next year especially when it comes to coordinating the traffic and spectators.


My final bike time was 2:55:12. In T2, I racked my bike which to my surprise caused the entire rack to begin tipping over. I managed to catch it before that happened and saw one of the legs on the rack had come loose and so after playing with it for a few minutes I got it to stay up. This wasn’t a good start to my T2 time. After that, I realized I had forgotten to untie the laces on my running shoes (yes I have laces on my shoes). Of course this was after I had already taken one of my bike shoes off so I had to hop on one leg trying to untie the shoe cause I didn’t want to put my socked foot down on the wet ground. Finally after 6 minutes I was out of T2 and on my way to do the run.

Crossing the finish line

The run portion begins out the back of a high school. You actually run part way around the school’s track then out the parking lot onto a main road through the town. The course is basically a long up and back, where we ran out to about the 7-mile mark then turned around and came back. Things start out flat but I had to take on a number of hills before all was said and done, no OMG hills thankfully though. As I began running I thankfully had no stomach cramps. The pain in my lower back was there but nothing I couldn’t deal with. My legs overall felt pretty strong which was surprising after coming off that bike course. Still I wasn’t getting my pace up as quickly as I wanted to. I was running about a 9-minute pace the first half of the race as opposed to the 6-7 minute I would have liked to have seen. I attribute this partly to a very tough bike course, but also to the fact that I had gotten a little lazy in my training and had not done very many brick sessions (this is when you ride your bike and then do a run right after) since Louisville. By the second half of the race I had gotten my pace up in the 7-minute range. The weather was perfect for running and by this point I had shed my cycle jersey, arm warmers and skull cap. I grabbed water at several of the aid stations to make sure I stay hydrated and at one point contemplated stoping to pee, but decided I could hold it till the end of the race. There were a number of people opting to walk the race and on more than one occasion, I would hear people who were walking in pairs talking about how they were unhappy the swim portion had gotten canceled. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “If you can’t complete the race without walking with no swim, how can you really be upset there wasn’t one?”

As we got to the 12-mile marker one runner started saying how we were almost to the finish line, and another one said he wished it was the 13-mile marker. I yelled out it’s just around the corner when a spectator on the sidewalk jokingly yelled out, “I hear runners talking, they must not be pushing themselves very much.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

As I rounded the final turn, the finish line was in sight. There were several runners in front of me so I decided to kick it in high gear to pass as many of them as I could before crossing the line. The crowd was cheering and the adrenaline was pumping. Running down the chute of this race was nothing like the excitement of Ironman Louisville, but it was still a great feeling nonetheless. I crossed the line with a final run time of 1:52:31.

This race wasn’t a perfect race in large part due to the weather and in some part due to the its youth as a race. Despite that, it was a very challenging race even without the swim, and I was happy to finish my first Tri season with it. If I do a race in October next year though, I hope it’s in Kona :)

The finisher medal

Results:
Division M35-39 Place: 75/193
Overall Male Place: 301/907
Bike Time: 2:55:12
T2 Time: 6:03
Run Time: 1:52:31
Overall Time: 4:53:46