Zack's Triathlon Blog

So last night was my fundraiser at the Elixir. First of all, a tremendous thanks to Sarah and Jessica, friends from college, for volunteering to help bartend. It went very well once things got rolling. We showed up around 8pm to get trained in the ways of bartending in preparation for our night. We sat and chatted for a while until the bartender was ready to give us the tour, unfortunately people were already showing up and it ended up being a bit rushed. Information flew by quickly, and I missed most of it the first time through, but it turned out to be valuable by the end of the evening.

There were some very generous tippers out there, and the tip jar was overflowing - I even saw a few $20's in there. Thanks to everyone for showing up and having a good time. It was tons of fun, and (provided we get the money from the Elixir) I would recommend it to others as a fundraiser.

For more pictures of the event click here.

This week was my most intense week yet. We didn't cover that much distance, or go that fast, but in terms of overall calorie burning this week topped 6000 calories - yowch! With the race only 2 weeks away, I feel well prepared. It looks like we will be tapering a bit over the next two weeks, and then off to Wildflower!

Here are all the graphs and totals for all you fellow numbers geeks:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	175	2.42	1654
Biking	245	46.7	2608
Running	174	17.33	2119
TOTAL	594	66.45	6381

Today was a 100 minute run - the longest of the season. Not only that, but the course started and ended at Land's End (see photo), ran up to the Legion of Honor and then ran loops around Lincoln Park golf course until we got to 100 minutes. For those of you who are not familiar with this part of San Francisco, it is ALL HILLS. It was a tough run for sure, and I didn't get a great night sleep last night, but all of my hill training must be paying off because I had no trouble doing it. I was passing people on the hills - even people on bikes, and then recovering on the downhill parts.

Amanda decided to join us for the run (she ran with the 60 minute group) and she managed to run the entire course for the first time. Given that the people she was running with had all been training for 3 months for this type of run, we were all very impressed at her strength and endurance.

I also wanted to take a moment to reflect on just how beautiful the Bay Area is. I've been trying to post some pictures to give you a sense of the truly amazing places that we have been biking and running. I guess I'm a bit more appreciative now that the rain has finally stopped (knock on wood).

After running the actual course at Wildflower during out training weekend, it occurred to me that while I was already capable of covering the distances necessary, the Wildflower course is really freakin hard! As a result, I felt the need to do more hill training, and apparently I was not the only one. Crammed into the last few weeks of training seems to be lots and lots of hill training. Today we started off with speed drills in the pool. 5 minutes of steady "race-pace" swimming, followed by 5 minutes of sprint-swimming, and repeat. After doing that for almost an hour, we staggered out of the pool and into our bike clothes. Primarily due to the fact that it gave me an extra hour of sleep, I decided to do the 25 mile ride instead of the 40 mile ride today. My justification (clearly an hour of sleep wasn't good enough) was that if I trained at the actual race distance, but did it as fast as I could, that would be better training for the race. In reality there were tons of stop signs and turns for the first, and last 5 miles of the ride. As a result, I rode the middle 15 miles fast (all hills) but had to stick with the group at the beginning and end to avoid getting utterly lost. It was the first group ride where Josh and I were riding the same distance, so we stuck together for most of the ride. My favorite part of the ride was climbing the switchback roads and being able to look down at the roads that I had just climbed. I felt a great sense of accomplishment. Heading back down the hills was a bit scary, and I'm usually pretty comfortable on the descents. There were sharp hairpin turns with loose gravel and potholes in the road. I had to stay very alert and keep my brakes armed and ready.

I went for a fairly long run this morning, around 55 minutes. I decided to run around Dolores Park, which is just down the street from my house. The whole park is on a hill, which gave me the opportunity to do some hill training. I ran hard up and over the Church street hill, which was a first for me - I was never insane enough to try it before.






I met up with some other team in training people at Aquatic Park in the evening to try and get some more open water practice. The water was pretty rough, but it was sunny out, and the water didn't seem quite as cold as usual. The waves were breaking on top of me at times, which resulted in an above average bay-water-consumption-rate *blech*. I had to adjust my breathing to avoid inhaling the oncoming waves so I know the lake swimming will be quite a bit easier than this was. I still had a hard time going straight, and spent a lot of time and distance zigzagging around trying to get to the next bouy. All in all, I felt okay about the swim, I just hope I can get lucky and go on a straight(ish) course for the race.

Tuesday's swim went well. The nice thing about the pool being closed on Friday is that it was all clean when we got in on Tuesday. There were lots of people in the pool (lots of pent-up swimming demand after the 5 day pool closure) which made things a bit more difficult. My swimming has sort of plateau'd lately and I think I need to drag myself out of bed for the 6AM master's class sometime soon to get some professional help. Ugh.

Yesterday I rode my bike over to Sport's Basement, near Crissy Field, for our team brick. We did loops up and down the Presidio on our bikes, dropped them back at the Sport's Basement and then ran out to the Warming Hut and back. It was a reasonable workout, that was rounded out nicely by my 9-miles-each-way ride to and from training. I was pretty beat, and hungry by the time I got home.

After waking up to the sound of a huge downpour, I decided to postpone the run that I had planned for 9AM. I've grown quite accustomed to running during a light rain, but this was another matter entirely. Luckily, the rain stopped and the sun came out, and I drove over to Golden Gate Park for my 75 minute 'slow' run. During our training there are supposed to be long slow runs amidst the fast short runs and today was designated as slow. I made it all the way down to the ocean and back in 77 minutes. Not too shabby for trying to keep my heartrate down. Shortly after I got home it started pouring again, so it looks like I got pretty lucky. It's supposed to stop raining tomorrow so let's hope for a dry week 12!

Week 11 Summary:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	101	1.99	1053
Biking	172	37.68	2034
Running	139.5	14.27	1696
TOTAL	412.5	53.94	4783

Today was super-fun. The coaches setup a practice triathlon that mimiced the exact course of the Treasure Island Triathlon. This was a great time for us to practice our transitions, and figure out the logistics of the whole event while doing shorter distances in each segment. A sprint distance triathlon consists of:

• a 500 meter swim
• a 12.4 mile bike
• a 3.1 mile run

The Swim:
Given my swim in the lake last weekend, I was hoping that this would go relatively well. Unfortunately, we had a "mass start" which involved everyone rushing into the water at the same time. The bottom was disgustingly slimy as we ran out, and as soon as we were deep enough to swim everyone began to bump, kick and swim over eachother in an attempt to get out of the fray. I did my fair share of bumping into people that seemed to be going slower than me, but I never felt confident enough to pass them so I always dropped back. In the end, I just couldn't wait for the swim to be over. I left the water after 17:35 - roughly 95% of the people in the real Treasure Island Tri (and our practice tri) finished faster than I did.



The Bike:
I was ecstatic to finally hop on the bike. The hard part was over, and I knew that I could recover some time on the bike and the run. I headed out onto the course and rode around the wet pavement somewhat cautiously as there were lots of turns, loose gravel and potholes. Sadly, Josh got a flat tire which almost doubled his bike ride. He had a huge piece of glass lodged in his tire. I was able to finish pretty well, and eat and drink a fair amount while on the bike (this is going to be a bit harder in the Wildflower as there are steep hills and it will be HOT). I defititely need to work on eating and drinking even more on the bike in order to give myself enough energy for the run. In the end, I finished the bike ride well, with only 36% of the people finishing faster than me.



The Run:
I jumped off the bike as quickly as I could and switched into my running shoes. I almost ran off with my helmet still on and had to run back a few steps to drop it off. The run was flat, so I tried to go at a decent pace. It was an out and back, so I got to see the other people running back with victorious looks on their faces. I tried to focus on the fact that soon, I would be one of them, but it was hard. I ran at a pretty good pace, for me, averaging 8:22 minutes per mile. I finished the run with only 31% of the other triathletes finishing faster than me.







Overall:
Even though I was faster than most people in the bike and run, my slow swim time led me to finish the entire race in 1:27:39. Around 60% of the others finished the race faster than me. It was a great learning experience for me and I know I can do better in the swim if I work at it a bit more. There are only a couple of weeks left so that doesn't leave me much more time. I think some lessons might be in order.

Well, today was supposed to be a swim day. Unfortunately, I got myself all the way to the gym only to find that the pool was closed. I guess I should be paying more attention to those emails that they send me. Ahh well. I did a poor imitation of swiming using weights, and just did some general weight training. Don't want to get too tired before tomorrow's practice tri.

Today I was supposed to take a long, but easy bike ride. There aren't too many routes in the city that are 'easy' but I took a somewhat flat route out to the embarcadero and through Fisherman's Wharf to the Golden Gate Bridge. I rode across the bridge, dodging tourists the whole way, and then rode back, and through the Presidio, Golden Gate Park and then home. The best thing about cycling is that you can cover a large area in a reasonable amount of time. It was a nice feeling to be able to see a good portion of the city and still consider it an easy ride.

Today was supposed to be a team brick out by the Golden Gate Bridge, but I had plans for tonight, so I decided to do it on my own earlier in the day. I am really feeling the need to do some more hill training after the training weekend, so I decided to ride my bike up to Twin Peaks, and then drop it off at home and run up to Alvarado and back. Both of these start with pretty steep hills, and are all uphill on the way there, and all downhill on the way back. It was cold and rainy and pretty tough to motivate myself, but I want to be able to finish strong in the Wildflower, so I made myself do it.

The bike ride up to twin peaks was brutal, but I was able to push it the whole time. I even got a cheer from a guy in a PG&E van who was doing some work on a telephone pole. Once at the top, I took a moment to enjoy the beautiful view from there, and then headed back down at a quick but safe pace - remember that the roads were all wet.

I tried to keep my transition quick, and threw off my bike gear, slipped into my running shoes and headed out the door. I keep my running shoes tied so that they are loose enough to slip in and out of, but tight enough to stay on my feet comfortably. I actually got this tip from some serious runners during my half-marathon a few years ago. Running after biking always feels strange, and my cold feet took a while to feel normal. On the way up the run I couldn't wait to get to the top, but once I was there, the run down was pretty easy going.

Today we had a pretty intense swim. The total distance was 2600 meters, but the hardest part was the fact that we basically did 200M sprints followed by 200M recovery swims. It was pretty tough overall. I was hoping to keep going after the workout was complete, but I was pretty tired of swimming and I still wanted to get a transition run in. I did a short, 15 minute transition run and called it a day.

Last week flew by. The weekday workouts were rather uneventful so I didn't bother posting about them. Let's get right to the good stuff.

The real WildFlower Triathlon takes place at Lake San Antonio which is sort of west of Fresno. It is very remote and there is very little in the way of civilization nearby. As a result we will be camping there during the event, and in order to avoid any mishaps, and have some fun, we wanted to head down for a trial weekend.

On Friday, we packed up our hordes of gear, camping supplies, and food and headed down to Lake San Antonio. It was a 3-4 hour drive from San Francisco, and by the time we arrived it was starting to rain. We found the rest of our group and set up camp. Friday night was cold and wet, and we had to barter with our neighboring groups to fill in some of the gaps in our supplies. We seemed to be overstocked on cookies and booze and lacking in the fire and shelter area. It was a good learning experience, and hopefully we will be a bit better prepared during the actual event.

Saturday morning we woke up to a cold wet fog and headed down to the lake. I was more than a bit nervous as this was to be the first mile swim I had done in open water. I went very early to get a good look at the course and the others who were swimming before me. Last weekend it took me 38 minutes to swim 2/3 of a mile, so my goal was to beat 60 minutes. When it was finally time for my wave to start I ignored my nerves and just started swimming. We swam out to a bouy and then to the left hugging the shoreline. After some serious concentration and about 100 meters, I felt my hand touch some reeds. I looked up and found that I had turned too sharply around the bouy, and in my intense focus, swam right into the shore. I corrected my line and headed back towards the pack. The water was cold, but not quite as cold as the bay, and it tasted much better. It was a bit clearer - I could see 10 feet or so, compared to the roughly 3 foot visibility of the bay. There were lots of wood chips, twigs and other random things floating everywhere and I did my best not to inhale or swallow any of it. Once I began to focus and get down to business I swam out to the turnaround point and found that only a little over 18 minutes had passed! I turned around with some renewed energy, but quickly grew tired and wasn't able to pick up my speed at all. I made it back to the start in a personal best 36:16! Not too shabby!

We got out of the water and took around 20 minutes to transition to our bikes. During the real race, we will attempt to do this faster, but for now, the goal was simply to learn the course. We set off with the pack and headed up the road to Lynch Hill. I had heard many things about this hill, which is steep enough to garner "steep grade" road signs.
Going up the hill wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had made it out to be, and I was pleased to be able to power up the hill at a pretty good clip. After the climb, my usual riding buddies took off ahead of me and I faced the long and very hilly course alone for almost the entire time. It was a very tough course overall, there were very few flat areas and almost no tree cover. My top speed heading down the hills was 41.5 MPH, which would have been loads of fun if I didn't know that I would later have to ride back up the hill. The best thing about the course is flying down Lynch Hill at top speed which allows you to cool off a bit at the end of the ride. My time was 1:40:05, but I wouldn't be surprised if I am not able to ride this fast during the real event, as the temperatures are expected to be in the 90's-100's.

After arriving back in the transition area (aka the parking lot) we ate, re-hydrated, stretched and cheered for others as they arrived. Shortly, the entire team was sprawled out around the parking lot resting and soaking up the warm sun. The cold and misery of Friday night all but forgotten. The rest of the day was spent eating, drinking and lounging around the campsite. It was incredibly nice outside, and a great bonding experience for the team.

While we were doing the first two legs (swim, bike) of our race, the Iron Team was doing a complete Half IronMan, which consisted of a 1.25 mile swim, a 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run. Saturday night, they held a party to celebrate their completion of a significant milestone in their training. There was music and booze and it was unfortunate that some of us had to take it easy and turn in early so that we could run the next morning.

We got up and packed up camp on Sunday morning and headed back to the transition area. I tried to imagine arriving here and hopping off my bike and heading off to the run, and I'm sure it would have been much harder. For starters, it is a VERY challenging run. The "flat part" would be considered hilly in most parts of the world. It looked like rolling hills (and rather steep ones at that) to me. The course is essentially 5 miles up hill, and then a one mile very steep descent (down Lynch Hill) back to the transition area. It was tough, even with the night of sleep. This time, I finished it in 55:09, we'll see how I do with the heat and after swimming and biking in just 4 weeks!

All-in-all the weekend was a fantastic and very memorable experience. I can only hope that the real event goes this well. Click here to see all of the pictures I took over the weekend.

Summary for week 10:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	113	2.45	1081
Biking	100	24.8	1287
Running	154	12.34	1585
TOTAL	367	39.59	3953

This week involved more swimming, a little less running, and the most intense biking I have done.

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	150	3.11	1306
Biking	239	59.3	2722
Running	88.5	9.33	1106
TOTAL	477.5	71.74	5134

So I'm looking at my title for my post yesterday "Training is easy - motivation is hard" and thinking "or not". Allow me to explain:

This morning we went on the longest bike/run (brick) of the season. This involved a 50 mile bike ride followed by a 30 minute run. When we finally arrived at the Point Reyes Bear Valley Visitor Center we had little time to prepare before rolling out on our ride. It was raining (of course) so I aimed to wear material that was good at transferring moisture. It probably mattered little, but it seemed to work well. As I digested the bagel I had just scarfed down and the course that we were supposed to follow, I realized that I was in for a challenge. The ride consisted of over 4000 feet of elevation gain! This was not going to be an easy ride. We rode up Highway 1 at a pretty substantial pace. The scenery was nice, despite the rain, but I imagine it would have been spectacular on a sunny day. Roughly 20 miles into the ride, we passed a bunch of pastures with grazing sheep and cows. One of the sheep was stuck outside the fence and baaa'd at us as we rode by, as if to ask for help getting back to his friends. When we got to the top of the climb, Coach Rand was there with the car and we chatted a bit as we waited for a few of our teammates to catch up. On the descent a cow, also trapped outside the fence, attempted to chase/race me as I rode by. He kept pace with me for about 30 seconds, speeding up as I sped up, until I finally exceeded his top speed and pulled away (thanks to the hill). It was a long ride - 3:19 in the end and a couple of riding buddies and I were playing around with drafting, both up and down hills, and fine tuning our shifting skills.

Midway back to the starting point, our route had us turn off Highway 1 again and head up a steep 2.9 mile climb known as "Marshall's Wall". Thankfully, I didn't know the name until the end of the ride or I may have turned back. As it was "Marshall's Wall" was one of the most difficult challenges that I have faced all season. I can't say that it was particularly steep, but it was long and after 30-some miles my legs just didn't have the energy the push the pedals very hard. I resorted to zig-zagging up the hill at a steady pace (which kept my cadence reasonably efficient). Our little riding group split up completely, and I was riding along for most of the climb. There were many times when I began to question my sanity for commiting to doing this triathlon in the first place. In the end, I focused on the multi-year battles that people diagnosed with blood cancer have to face, even in the best scenario. My short-lived pain and suffering climbing the 'wall' was insignificant in comparision. Thankfully my stomache and my legs held, and I was able to reach the top without stopping, walking or puking (others weren't so lucky).

The rest of the ride was a blur other than the distinct memory that my butt was sore as hell by the end. Upon arrival in the parking lot, I switched shoes, stretched a tiny bit, and ran off up the trail. The run was an out-and-back run, and the first half was all uphill. After the ride it felt pretty strange and I was working on keeping my breathing even and my heartrate steady. I was very encouraged by the people who were running down the hill on the second half of their run. They were all yelling encouraging things, and promising that the way back was all downhill and easy. They were right. When it was finally time to turn around, I felt as though I had already finished. I ran down the hill and out of the trees, revealing a beautiful view of the parking lot where everyone was either arriving from their ride, heading out on their run or returning like me. A few people cheered, and there were some high-fives, and I have to say that those go a long way after almost 4 hours of hard exercise. My average heartrate for those 3 hours and 50 minutes was a mind-boggling 153 bpm, or 80% of my max (I hope that's not bad for me) and I burned a whopping 2700 calories.

This week was the most challenging week in terms of motivation. The schedule was somewhat light (we had Monday and Wednesday off), however after soooo many rainy days, I could really use some sunshine. For those of you that have not been living in the bay area for this past month, we set a new record for the most rain during March. In fact, we had 4x the amount of rain that Seattle had during the same time period. Wow! To make the week even harder, I ended up training on my own Thursday and Friday.

Thursday night I decided to go out running on my own, after my two running buddies (who will remain nameless) cancelled on me. It felt a bit odd running around the city streets on a cold wet night. There were quite a lot of people out and about eating and such and I got lots of strange looks as I ran 6 miles in the dark. It wasn't fun, it wasn't particularly hard or easy, it just kindof was.

Friday was supposed to be a bike ride, but the rain convinced me to move the workout to the gym instead. Once again on my own, I tried to make it interesting by swimming 1500M and moving on to a stationary bike right afterwards. Riding an exercise bike after doing the real thing was unbelievably miserable.

Today it was finally time to get back into the bay. It was less cold than last weekend, unfortunately it started pouring rain shortly after we got there. We were going to get wet anyway, but it would have been nice for our dry clothes to stay dry for changing into later. We had a great speaker, an accomplished and impressive swimmer named Deann Joslin. In addition to raising 5 kids, she swam in just about every aquatic race possible and even won some of them. She is currently training for a 40 mile swim that is supposed to take 18 hours and has to be done overnight to avoid sunburn. Umm... okay.

Getting into the frigid water was much easier than last week, in fact just about everything today was easier than I remembered. The salt water didn't burn, I didn't swallow as much, and I got into a rhythm much faster. I swam a little over 2/3 of a mile in about 38 minutes. I wasn't breaking any speed records, but I was pleased that I was going straighter and actually covering some distance. I'm looking forward to even more improvement next weekend during our "trial weekend". Next weekend we are going camping at the Wildflower site to do a practice session. The practice will span two days instead of all-at-once like it will be in the real race, but it will still be nice to get acquainted with the real course.