Zack's Triathlon Blog

Highlights Video

2006-05-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

So to wrap up this part of my life, I decided to put together a short video showing you the highlights of my training season. Don't forget to turn your sound on.

Enjoy!

Pictures from the event

2006-05-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

You can find my WildFlower pictures at Flickr.

WildFlower!!!

2006-05-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

We drove down to Wildflower on Saturday. After stopping for some pre-race nutrition at In and Out Burger (well okay, it just tastes good) we continued down to Lake San Antonio. Upon arriving it was buzzing with nervous energy and excitment, packed with triathletes and their bikes. We watched and cheered as the half ironman race was drawing to a close.

The evening went by in a blur. We setup camp and did some eating, socializing and sleeping. Morning was upon us in an instant, and I don't think anyone slept particularly well. Thanks to coach Rand making us practice every part of getting ready for the event, I packed up my gear on auto-pilot. We all grabbed our stuff and make the 2-mile trek from the campground to the starting area.

The transition area was packed with thousands of people and bikes. Coach Rand suggested that we learn the route to and from our particular spot, and he seemed not to be the only one dispensing this advice. As I walked to and from my 18-inch wide transition spot, I battled through thousands of others doing the same thing. I couldn't help but think that to outsiders we must look like a colony of bees, doing a dance that no one outside could understand.

We lined up at the starting line. There was a start every 5 minutes, and mine wasn't until 10:05AM (which means that we subtract 1:05 from the race clocks to get our time). My group, a sea of purple swim caps, lined up behind those in yellow. We were all nervous and shuffling our feet, only minutes away from the inevitable. The air horn blared, and the yellow caps dashed into the water. A race official told us that we could get used to the water, and then line up. The air horn blared again, and the chaos... err race began.

The Swim:
My swim started out better than I expected. Other than swimming headlong into a lifeguard-type on a surfboard (I wondered why that muffled yelling had been getting louder), I was able to swim in a fairly straight line. Towards the end of the swim, I was getting tired, a bit disoriented and frustrated. I kept thinking that the swim should be over by now, and I couldn't help but stop and look at my position every few strokes. After eons of inching closer to the boat ramp, I was finally able to stand and stagger out of the water. I stumbled up the boat ramp into the transition area and shed my wetsuit.

The Bike:
I quickly changed into my bike gear and headed out on the bike. It was especially hot out, upper 80's and we had been training in the 50's and 60's. As a result, I wanted to take it easy on the bike, and leave myself enough energy to finish strong on the run. I rode at a good steady pace, took in all my food and fluids and glided along. In what seemed like no time, I was flying down Lynch Hill back into the transition area.

The Run:
The run was brutally hot, with no shade, and almost all uphill. The roads were lined with people cheering and occasionally spraying water on those of us crazy enough to be running up these hills in the blistering heat after swimming and biking. While the water was refreshing, it seemed to evaporate as fast as it landed on me and it was hard not to focus on the heat. As I was running up one hill, a guy on the side reminded me to enjoy the nice cool breeze blowing off the ocean. I suspect we was trying to help, but he only succeeded in reminding me that we were nowhere near the ocean and that the air was so still that not even a blade of grass was moving. Eventually I made it to the highest part of the course (about 5 miles in), excitedly, I began my all out run down Lynch Hill, this time, heading for the finish line. I felt energized and proud as I dashed across the finish line, the announcer calling my name and saying that I looked like I would be doing the half ironman next year. A cold wet towel was thrown over my head, and I grabbed some food and drink and hopped into the lake to cool off.

The breakdown of my times:

OVERALL	BIB	FINTIME	AGE	SEX
1290	7031	3:17:55	30	M

SWIM

TRANS1

BIKE

TRANS2

RUN

CLASSRANK

SEXRANK

SWIMRANK

SWIMMPK

BIKERANK

BIKEMPH

RUNRANK

RUNMPM

0:35:19

0:03:40

1:38:04

0:03:37

0:57:15

210

1026

1925

0:23:32

1460

15.1

1180

0:09:14

I wanted to thank all of you for your generous donations, for coming to my fundraiser, for your emails and phonecalls and wishes of support. I really appreciate your help through all of this and I'm proud to have met my fundraising goal, as well as completing the triathlon (you won't see it on my fundraising page as the money was mailed in instead of charged, but the fundraiser brought in an additional $350 plus some additonal checks that brought me well over my $3000 goal!).

Guest Bartending at the Elixir

2006-04-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Week 12 Summary

2006-04-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

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

100 minutes of running... hills?!?!

2006-04-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

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).

Speed swimming drills and biking hills

2006-04-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Morning run and evening open water swim

2006-04-21T20:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Nearing the end of training

2006-04-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

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.

Dodging rain drops - Week 11 Summary

2006-04-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

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

Treasure Island Sprint Triathlon

2006-04-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Oops

2006-04-14T18:53:00.000-07:00

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.

Biking around San Francisco

2006-04-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Brick - on my own

2006-04-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

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.

Long intense swim

2006-04-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Week 10 - Training Weekend

2006-04-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

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

Week 9 Summary

2006-04-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

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

Or not!

2006-04-02T19:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Training is easy - motivation is hard

2006-04-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

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.

Kicking off week 9 in the pool

2006-03-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

This week's schedule is looking pretty light. I think the coaches are having us taper off a bit in preparation for our trial weekend next week. Not this weekend, but next, we will be heading down to the location of the Wildflower Tri to practice doing the actual course over two days. That should be great!

In any case, today was my first day back at the pool in over a week. It was a nice change from swimming in the bay. I wound up doing 2350M (1.71 Zacklongs) at a pretty good (for me) pace. I tried to increase my speed a bit, but every time I pulled harder with my arms, I felt like I needed too much air. I also tried breathing less often and pulling less hard. All-in-all I was unable to make a serious dent in my overall average lap time which is still hovering at 90 seconds/50 meters. One note however is that this includes all of my rest time, in other words I was in the pool for 71 minutes and did 47 laps. 71*60/47 = 90 seconds.

Week 8 Summary

2006-03-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

Went for another beautiful bike ride today. This time in the Marin Headlands. Gorgeous views of the city, and breathtaking descents that take you right down to sea level. Summary for week 8 (what was supposed to be a light week - made lighter by my cold earlier this week):

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	30	0.16	202
Biking	367	69.1	2985
Running	113	11.32	1092
TOTAL	510	80.58	4279

Open water swim at last!

2006-03-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

After a short run in the rain yesterday with Amanda it was finally time to tackle the San Francisco Bay. I arrived at Aquatic Park shortly before 8AM. The air was nice and sunny, but the water was a bone-chilling 53 degrees. Everyone was feeling pretty nervous, excited and cold.

The goals of today's swim were to get used to the cold water, learn how to put on a wetsuit, figure out how to breathe normally despite the cold water, learn how to swim in a straight line, and learn how to swim with a large group of people.

1) Putting on the wetsuit, ear plugs, thermal cap, and goggles
We started out with one of the coaches walking us through donning our wetsuits, which included using lots of BodyGlide to lubricate our necks, wrists and ankles and lots of tugging and pulling. I managed to get my suit on without too much difficulty. It fit remarkably well, however the water is soo cold that we needed additional accessories to make us even warmer. We used wax ear plugs which apparently add 2-3 degrees and a thermal swim cap which adds another 3-5 degrees. With all of this stuff on me, I felt a bit isolated, everyone was yelling at each other in order to hear through the 20DB earplugs, and tourists were stopping and taking pictures of us.

2) Getting used to the cold water
After some more words of encouragment we finally got into the water. The theory of wetsuits (for those of you that haven't worn them) is that the cold water rushes into the suit and then sits between the suit and your body and warms up. In other words, the initial rush of cold water into your suit beats the pants off a cup of coffee. I mean you are AWAKE! We jumped around a bit in the water and then swam out to where we could no longer stand. I noticed a bunch of people treading water with their hands out of the water. At first I thought they were just showing off... but after I tried it, I realized that it was a great way to stay a bit warmer. Keep in mind that your hands and feet are totally exposed to the water.

3) Having your face in freezing cold, salty, not-so-clean water
There are many more pleasant things in life than sticking your face in 53 degree water, in fact I think most things would qualify. First of all, the coaches assured us that our faces, much like our hands and feet, would go numb eventually and like all of there other tips, this was true. The cold water also causes you to take quick shallow breaths. After a while, I was able to adjust my breathing a bit to get some deeper breaths and get some more air. Once we got to swimming, I was mostly concerned about the salty water getting into my nose and mouth. The water tastes terrible and burned my nose. I'll have to work on getting less water in both.

4) Swimming in a big group
Finally we started swimming around the buoys. There was a lot of chaos, and with all of the people around, bumping someone was a fairly common occurance. I got kicked in the goggles once, which dislodged them, prompting me to stop swimming and fix them. Swimming in murky water with earplugs and a tight cap on is a very isolating experience. You can't hear or see anything, and you are left to your own thoughts. Despite this, it wasn't as scary as I expected. I did have one moment of panic when I caught up to the person in front of me, the pale white foot floating the water briefly reminded me of movies depicting dead bodies in the water. But I put that out of my head quickly and went on swimming.

5) Swimming in a straight line
Once I got used to the crowd, and the water, and began swimming in earnest, I realized that swimming in a straight line is a lot harder than it sounds. I was going at a reasonable clip, enjoying the added bouyancy provided by the wetsuit and salt water, and I realized that I was no longer bumping people or being bumped into. I looked up and realized that I was swimming was off course. I tried to correct my line, and wound up crossing over the middle and ran into people who were on their way back. After a few zigzags, I managed to get to the end of the swim, but not very efficiently. I'll have to work on that.

Now, being a bay swimming veteran, I realize that these are all things that need a lot of practice. I'm thrilled that the mystery is gone, I know what to expect now, but I am not fooling myself into thinking that I've got it all figured out. Stay tuned to many more bay swims in which I will continue to develop and tune my open water swimming.

Paradise Loop - a great cycling route

2006-03-23T22:01:00.000-08:00

So Josh and I did the Paradise Loop aka Tiburon Loop ride today. On our drive over to our starting point, we heard a loud "bang" while sitting at a stop light. It sounded like a backfire to me, but Josh thought it sounded like a bike tire popping. Sure enough, when we parked at Sports Basement Josh found that his other tire had blown (his front tire blew a few weeks ago). Perhaps I have been lucky, or perhaps his tubes were old or poorly installed, but he has now had two flats to my zero (knock-on-wood). I asked to change the tire, since I have yet to attend one of the clinics and wanted the experience. So, once the change was done, we set out across the Golden Gate Bridge on our ride.

I knew this was a popular ride, but having it experienced it first-hand, it was truly breath-taking. Flying around the rolling hills and curvy roads was a unique experience. I love being in shape and having nice weather, and being able to take a 3-hour bike ride in the middle of the day is pretty nice too.

Here's a graph for all you graph lovers out there:

Don't panic - week 8 is still in progress and I was sick, so there won't be much swimming this week.

Caught the cold that was going around

2006-03-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

So after having a scratchy throat for most of the weekend it hit me on Monday. I was in bed most of Monday and Tuesday - missing my Tuesday swim. Being sick is never fun.

By Wednesday, I was feeling mostly better. I decided to go for the run on my own before the track workout because I had plans that evening. Given that we were supposed to do a 1.5 mile warm-up, a .5 mile drill, a 2-mile fast-as-you-can run and then a 2 mile cool-down, I decided to map out a relatively flat, mile loop near my house. As you know, living in San Francisco doesn't play too well with flat running, and even this loop had some somewhat steep portions. I used Gmap-Pedometer to map this out. I had a fairly good run given that I wasn't feeling 100% and it was hilly, crossed lots of traffic, and by the third or fourth lap I was getting quite a lot of stares. My favorite was running past Mitchell's ice cream shop, where I ran roughly two miles during the time it took most people to eat an ice cream cone. I'll have to go back there for a treat sometime!

My running speed has definitely increased, and I finished my 2-mile as-fast-as-you-can run in 16:32 minutes. I think I would have gone slightly faster on the track without the hills and traffic, but that's just pure speculation. I'm pretty pleased that my running speed has been picking up. Even during my half-marathon I was pretty much stuck at 9-minute miles.

Damn the Imperial System! (A week 7 summary)

2006-03-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

So, today we swam in the pool at IVC and while I'm probably the only one that is pissed off about this, why oh why do we have to follow the totally illogical imperial measurement system? Let me explain... the pool at IVC measures 25 yards across, while the one in the YMCA is 25 meters. For a while I was pleasantly surprised each time I finished a lap (in what seemed to be my personal best) until I realized that I wasn't swimming as far as I was in the Y pool. I had to convert the units to Meters to get a fair comparison.

While researching this conversion, I decided to find out why a mile is such a screwy measurement (5280 feet) in the first place. The answer according to Wikipedia (and several other internet sources) was that "the international mile is equivalent to 8 furlongs, 80 chains or 5280 international feet". Well... apparently, the mile was 5000 feet during the rule of the Romans, but went to furlongs after the decline of the Roman Empire. See, all of the land holdings in England were measured in terms of furlongs (which is the distance a team of oxen can pull a plow before needing rest). In order to keep all the paperwork simple, Queen Elizabeth I decided to change the definition of a mile to 8 furlongs.

Now, it occurs to me that the physical fitness of the team of oxen probably varied significantly and while imagining a bunch of English farmers lining up their teams of oxen while the scientists were measuring the distances and finding an overall average is quite amusing, I'm guessing that the process for determining this distance involved much less research.

In the end, I have decided to resort to the old (and completely useless) mantra "if you can't beat them, join them". Clearly the precedent has been set for me to name a new unit - the swimlong. Henceforth, the swimlong is defined as the distance a human (namely Zack) can travel by means of swimming (in highly chlorinated water) over the course of one hour. In order to avoid any future disputes, hostile takeovers, or other attempts to change the unit, we will fix the swimlong as the distance Zack traveled in an hour during today's workout, which included a wide variety of drills, water swallowing, coughing fits and other humbling events.

You see, leading up to today, I was beginning to think that my swimming was pretty good. The problem is that I'm really a one-trick pony when it comes to swimming. In my haste to swim distance, I have neglected all other (apparently important) swimming skills. Up until now, I have just been following phrases on our training calendar that say things like "back - kicking only". As a result, I developed a "back" swimming method that involved having my arms at my sides and kicking my feet. That worked fairly well, until today, when one of the coaches told me that I was doing it wrong. I am supposed to hold my hands straight over my head. Attempt after attempt, this resulted in my head going under water, which in turned meant that I was either swallowing water, or blowing clouds of water out my nose and/or mouth. Right about the time I was able to complete a lap without this unpleasantness it was time to move on to the next drill "spotting".

Spotting requires you to raise your head out of the water and actually look at where you are going. You see, in open water (which we will encounter for the first time next Saturday) there are no lines for you to follow on the bottom of the pool and you have to take the time to occasionally make sure you are going in the right direction. While spotting seemed to come to others naturally (I keep telling myself that they had done it before to make myself feel better), every time I attempted to "spot" I began to sink, flail and drown. Picture a person who has fallen into the water, splashing their arms wildly and yelling "Help! I can't swim!" and you should have a fairly good impression of what I looked like while "spotting". In the end, I was able to complete 1500Y or 1 swimlong.

After getting out of the water and a quick transition, we headed out on the bikes. It was a beautiful day with shorts and short sleeves. Compared to last weekend's snow and freezing cold, it was a nice surprise. I wish I had some good stories about the ride, but it was fairly routine. We went further than I have ever gone before, and I ended up drinking all of the water and gatorade from both of my water bottles and I even finished the refill I got at a water stop. I also had a power bar, a power gel, and numerous cliff shot blocks. In the end I felt that I was just about right on carb consumption, but I could have used even more water. I'll have to keep that in mind for the Wildflower, because it will be even hotter there than it was today.

In summary week 7 was quite a record breaking week. I set new personal records for average bike speed, total bike distance, average run speed, total swim distance and total calories burned. If you are impressed, or at least entertained - please donate! I'm still well under my minimum.

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	187	3.77	1346
Biking	284	63.1	2386
Running	146	15.26	1528
TOTAL	617	82.13	5260

Week 7 is almost over

2006-03-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a few days since my last post, so let me catch you up.

On Thursday I went for a bike ride with my friend Roland. We ended up going for a 24 mile ride, through Golden Gate Park, through the Presidio, over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and back again. It was a beautiful ride, especially once we got out of the traffic-laden streets and over to Golden Gate Park. Going over the bridge was a lot of fun. The wind was at our backs and it was smooth sailing all the way. The way back however, took us straight into the wind, which made the entire bridge feel like one big hill. I'm guessing that some of the wind was created by the 4 lanes of traffic that we were next to. Perhaps next time I'll try coming back on the other side of the bridge. I have to say that despite all my training, I was still trailing Roland going up most of the hills. Ahh well, it seems that no matter how in shape I get there are tons of people who are in even better shape.

The Friday swim was nice, as the pool was not as crowded as my last few trips. I got into a fairly good rhythm though having to turn around every 25M is starting to get annoying. I either need to learn how to do those cool flip turns, or get into some open water soon. I'm actually looking forward to our first open water swim next Saturday! My total distance today was 2200M, but there were various rests throughout the workout. Still, it is nice that 2200M feels like no big deal.

I woke up this morning with a bit of a sore throat, and I have had a huge knot in my left shoulder for the past few days now. However today is a beautiful sunny warm wonderful day, and we were doing 2 laps around Lake Merced. The lake is about 4.5 miles around and is a common running/walking/biking route for hundreds of people. I have been trying to increase my running speed, and I was hoping to get my average for today under 9-minute miles. Given that last weekend I ran 8 miles in 80 minutes, running 9 in 81 was probably a bit ambitious in hindsight. I took it easy on my first lap around the lake and was chatting with June, who is now training for her third triathlon. It is always nice to have someone to chat with, and it was nice to hear about June's success in losing 60 pounds and keeping it off. We ran together for the first 4.7 miles at a 9:37 per mile pace.

After my 4.7 mile "warm-up lap", I ran ahead and tried to get my average down to 9:00. Running on my own was a little tough. It's always hard to pace yourself and having a watch that tells you how fast you are going is not nearly as helpful as a person who is also going through the same thing as you. See... the watch doesn't understand hills, or being tired, it just tells you "speed up you slowpoke!". In any case, I was able to complete the second lap at an average pace of 8:44. In the end, I wasn't able to get my overall average down to 9:00, but I did finish in a respectible 83 minutes, or 9:10 minutes per mile. I was actually fairly pleased with myself... that is until one guy returned from running 3 laps in 90 minutes (an average of 6:12 minutes per mile)! That bastard... I mean... good for him.

Fundraising for a worthy cause

2006-03-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

I wanted send out a huge thanks to everyone for donating so far! Last night I was reminded of why I am doing this. One of our teammates asked to speak before our track practice. As she stood before us, voice trembling, she descibed how a friend of hers had supported her during her first fundraising triathlon in 2004. Ironically, her friend was diagnosed with leukemia the following summer and felt invigorated by having an entire team of triathletes pulling for her recovery. Despite all of the support and dedication, her friend passed away on Friday. As she finished her story in more tears than words, I glanced over at one of the leukemia survivors that trains with us and is a marathon runner and a triathlete himself. It occurred to me that the difference between his life, and the one just described can be bridged by research, medication and treatment. These are the exact things that our fundraising dollars are supporting. Asking people for money has been one of the most challenging parts of this experience for me, so I wanted to let you know just how much I appreciate your contributions.

Training becoming routine?

2006-03-15T21:00:00.000-08:00

So after my milestone swim on Friday, and the snowy, rainy, cold, never-ending weekend, I would have to say that training this week has been rather routine. I suppose that must mean that I'm getting in shape, because a month ago swimming a total of 2500M (Tuesday) or running half a mile at a 6-minute pace (last night) would have been quite eventful.

To summarize, I was able to swim 2500M total, on Tuesday in a very crowded and choppy pool. The longest consecutive distance was 800M and after Friday's 1500M, it was quite do-able. At the Wednesday track workout, we worked primarily on recovery. We alternated running hard with easy recovery running. I was able to maintain a fairly consistent pace which is what fabulous coach Steve recommended.

I am beginning to look forward to all of the various workouts. I think the next big hurdle will be swimming in open water, which everyone tells me is pretty scary. I'm also looking forward to getting used to the feeling of the transitions from swimming to biking and from biking to running. I'm told that eventually I'll get used to running on jello legs. Let's hope!

Will it ever end?

2006-03-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

Ouch. It has been a long week, filled with tons of exercise. Today started out cold and rainy again. And once again, I was headed out into the weather to go running. Thanks tons to Amanda, who joined me for the first half of my 8 mile run this morning, despite the cold and the rain. She's hardcore!

So after 6 weeks of training, I have completed each part of the race individually and am starting to string some activities together. By the weekend, after 6 days of consecutive training, I can't wait to take a rest day tomorrow. Yesterday and today have pretty much consisted of waking up, exercising, getting home, showering, eating everything in sight, and then falling asleep in some random part of the house.

Whoever said that exercising a lot gives you lots of energy must be in a lot better shape than me.

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	123	2.49	998
Biking	212	46.7	2028
Running	190	18.1	1915
TOTAL	525	67.29	4941

Snow in the Bay Area!

2006-03-11T16:45:00.000-08:00

So, today was a bike/run day. Every time I think I've gotten over the muscle soreness and fatigue, they throw in some curve balls to keep me on my toes. Today was a 32 mile bike ride followed by a transition run. First of all - it was freezing cold. I mean literally. Last night it actually snowed in the Bay Area - it even stuck around long enough for us to see it in the morning.

I have made some major leaps in efficiency for getting ready for the bike rides and managed to have everything organized and ready to go this morning. However, the cold weather forced me to wear just about every piece of breathable warm clothing that I have. For the first few miles of the ride my legs, toes and fingers were numb. This made shifting and breaking quite difficult. Eventually everything warmed up to a tolerable point - though my fingers were still pretty cold throughout the ride.

The route started out the same as my previous rides - up the steep climb to the aptly named "big rock". However, this time we descended the other side of the hill through a breathtaking redwood forest with houses tucked away in all corners. All-in-all the ride went pretty well, I tried to remember to drink lots and eat some Cliff Shot Blocks - a great source of calories. Upon getting back to the parking lot, I tried to transition as quickly as possible. I have to say that trying to run after 2 hours of cycling is one of the strangest sensations I have felt. Someone described it as feeling like your feet were baloons and your legs were like jello. I asked the coach if this ever goes away - could I run faster and get to a normal feeling sooner. The answer I got was that while there isn't much you can do to avoid or even shorten the transition sensation, you do get accustomed to it.

I'm Now An Über Swimmer!

2006-03-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

Well, okay, maybe not über but definitely elite within the context of the triathlon training schedule. So today was the long distance swim. The elite group was supposed to go 1000M without stopping. Given that prior to this, the longest consecutive distance that I had gone was only 400M I was quite worried.

I got in the pool and started warming up and began to wonder how this was going to be possible. I didn't want to warm up too much because I didn't want to tire myself out. So, I started into the long swim. By about lap 4 of 20 I was dying, and pretty sure that there was no way I would be able to keep going. I swam a lap on my back to regain some energy. By around lap 10, I started trying out different things on the various laps, catchup drill, focus on breathing, focus on looking down at the bottom of the pool (which in turn causes your butt to float to the top making you more streamlined). Finally I got to a point where I could keep a consistent pace without killing myself and before I knew it, I had done 1200M! At that point I figured if I added a few more laps, I might be able to hit 1500M - the actual race distance.

I realized that unlike most things in life, I could acheive this goal just by pushing myself a little harder. If only everything in life was this easy to control. In any case, this realization, and the fact that imaginary finish line was within sight, saw me through to 1500M (or maybe 1550 ... I lost count). Needless to say, I felt truly victorious today. This was something that I was not even sure I would be able to do 2 months ago!

I did a short cool-down, and then went for an 'optional' run on the treadmill. I only ran for 20 minutes - which is supposedly the time it takes your body to 'transition' to the next activity and let me tell you - running on legs that have been doing something else for an hour is a sensation like no other. Somewhere between the feeling of having no legs, to the feeling you get when you get off the treadmill and feel like you should be moving but you are not. Tomorrow we are doing a 30 mile bike followed by a run, and Sunday we are doing an 80 minute run... oof.

Coached run

2006-03-08T21:36:00.000-08:00

So, the daylight is definitely returning - tonight there was still an inkling of light when we got to Kezar. The workout was basically the same as last week's run. It was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that a large number of people seemed to be in the 'injured' category - including Josh. In fact, there were sooo many injured people, that the coaches made a seperate workout routine for them. Yowie!

My run went pretty well but no matter how fast I run there always seems to be someone flying past me. I was averaging around a 8:35 min/mile pace during the fast stretches, and I felt like I could keep going after we finished, so that felt pretty good for me.

A bit of Zack trivia - my fastest half-marathon time was 9:15 min/mile. Respectible, but it would be nice to improve on that a bit given that I will be running a shorter distance.

Back to the pool

2006-03-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

So, after getting back from Tahoe, I seemed to have a fairly major headache - maybe from tweaking my neck during a fall, or maybe from dehydration, I wasn't sure. In any case, I took it easy on Sunday and Monday, and was hoping that I'd feel up for the pool today.

I felt okay going into the pool and started on the elite workout. Unfortunately, I got a few laps in and the headache returned. After another lap or two it was all I could think about... it was pounding and very distracting. I got out the pool and over then 10 minutes, drank an enormous amount of water... did some stretching, sat in the jacuzzi for a while and finally convinced myself that I could finish the workout.

There were lots of people in the pool and almost every lane was circle swimming (see below for an explanation). As a result I was getting a fair bit of water in my mouth as a result of splashes from other people. I figured it was good training for the event. I even found that I was able to use a cough as a breath out to get some water out of my lungs. After a serious struggle, I was able to complete the workout, though I can't say I did it exactly, as it certainly didn't include a 10-minute break. But given my headache, and feeling extra fatigued, I think I did well. It definitely reminded me just how tough and humbling swimming is going to be for me.

Swimming Etiquette Note: When there are two people in a single swim lane, it is customary to "split" the lane. This means that one person swims on the right side and one on the left side. However, when there are more than two people, you have to swim in a circle (typically going counter clockwise). The downside of circle swimming is that if you are too slow people pass you, if you are too fast you have to pass other people. Ideally everyone in a particular lane is swimming at roughly the same pace.

Week 5 is over - with much of it spent in Tahoe

2006-03-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

So I didn't stick to my training schedule that closely due to my going to Tahoe for the weekend. Wednesday was a coached run at Kezar, but I decided to do it on my own instead so that I could attend a convention-thingy in the evening.

So here's a quick recap of my week:

Wednesday - rode my bike to Kezar and did the Pro (hardest) running workout. I felt great. After the workout I decided to try running one lap as fast as I could, and was shocked to see my pace meter showing 5:15! I've never run a lap that fast in my life! Don't get me wrong, I certainly couldn't have kept that pace up for a mile, but it was still exciting. After that I rode my bike the 4 miles or so home.

Thursday - Since I was leaving for Tahoe on Thursday, I decided to try to squeeze in some extra exercise. I did a long, but not very intense, bike ride with Josh and then followed it up with the elite swim which included 5 250's in a row. It was quite a lot for one day, but I knew I was going to missing some of the weekend training, so it was worth it. I quite proud of my progress in swimming - I may not be a pro yet, and I'm even hesitant to call myself an "elite" swimmer, but I do think that I have graduated from "beginner" status.

Week 5 Summary:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	115	2.08	826
Biking	147	21.9	973
Running	65	6.3	652
Snowboarding	480	?	?
TOTAL	807	30.28	2451

So... week 5 doesn't look so impressive, but keep in mind that this was only 3 days of training (half of my usual training week). Plus, I'm sure I burned tons of calories snowboarding. My friend Byron took his heart monitor with him and burned almost 3500 calories in just 3 hours of boarding. Granted he is about twice my size, but if we scale that down to Zack-calories, I would guess that I burned roughly 3000 calories during my two days of snowboarding.

Here's a fun graph for you - my speed over time:

Week 5 begins

2006-02-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

So after a very restful rest day I was feeling well rested and not sore for the first time in a long time. My resting heart rate is down in the upper-50's. Apparently your resting heart rate goes down as your level of fitness increases, so I suppose that having mine come down from 70ish to 57ish is a good sign.

Given how rested and not sore I was feeling today, I raised my goal for my swim. I wanted to finish up the easy swim workout and then see how much more I could do. As it turned out, I was able to do the easy swim workout exactly as specified and was then able to swim a 400M! The longest I had gone before was 250M. Not only that, but once I reached 400, I actually felt like I could keep going. In total I did over 1800M today which also marks the first time that I have gone further than the race distance. Now the challenge is that the race is in open water - which means that you can't see anything and you can't take rests at the side of the pool when you get tired.

Unfortunately for my training, but fortunately for me, I will be heading to Lake Tahoe this weekend for some snowboarding. Believe it or not, I will not be taking my heart monitor along with me, so no calorie report on snowboarding ;) It will be hard to get in as much exercise as the swim/bike, swim/run, and bike that I will be missing, but it has to be better than sitting on my ass all day.

Swimming and biking brings week 4 to a close

2006-02-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

Ok...
I'm pretty wiped out...

After waking up at the crack of dawn, desperately scrounging the 10 million things that you need to support a swim/bike, and then picking up Josh and Katie, we wound up making it into the pool on time. Before talking about the workout, let me rant about how much freaking stuff you need to do a triathlon. Just for today's workout, I needed to bring: Sneakers, Bike Shoes, Bike Helmet, Sweat Pants, Hat, Sweat Shirt, Biking shirt, Dry Shirt (for after the bike ride), Biking Shorts/Swimsuit (fortunately the same shorts work for both), biking socks, dry socks, heart monitor, two water bottles (one filled with water and one filled with Gatorade), a package of Cliff Shot Blocks, A Cliff Bar, Gloves, Windbreaker, Sunglasses, Wallet, Keys, Cellphone, Bike, Bike Rack, Towel, and a cup of coffee. I had to somehow find a way to transport all of these things without losing them, and figure out in which order they needed to be used and what could and couldn't be in the trunk given that the trunk couldn't be opened once the bike rack was in place. Needless to say, everything did not go quite as planned, but I managed to get through everything. You can now see, why making it to the pool on time was an accomplishment in itself. Clearly this is part of the reason we practice this stuff. If you were brave enough to read all that... I'm sorry.

The nice thing about being one of the slowest people in the pool last time, is that they put me in with the slow people. There were 25ish lanes in the pool (it was a huge pool) and they put the slowest people in lane 1 and the fastest in lane 25. Due to my stellar performance last time, I was placed in lane 2 :)

It was remarkable to see how much I had improved, and I certainly no longer felt like a swimming loser. I was able to complete 1400 yards in just 45 minutes! The same distance (ok, I suppose this is a little less distance than the 1400 meters that I did the other day) took me 63 minutes on Tuesday. Definitely fun to see yourself improving so quickly!

After the swim, chaos ensued again while everyone rushed around to shower, change and eat/drink in order to have some calories in them for the bike. I found that people were gradually clustering in one particular part of the parking lot, with bikes so I joined them. The route turned out to be the exact same as the week before. Despite being tired from the swim and the long run yesterday, I was able to finish the ride in 7 minutes less than the week before! Again, nice to see noticible improvement.

Finally we came back and had a big potluck picnic thingy. Thankfully there was lots of food because a) I forgot to bring .5lb of lunch meat like I was supposed to, and b) 90 people who have been awake since 6AM and have just done 3 hours of exercise devour food like a pack of piranas. After everyone could speak again some of the cancer survivors came up and spoke. It was very touching and reminded me that we are not only working hard for ourselves, but for those who's lives have or will be touched by blood cancers. If you haven't donated yet, please do now by clicking here. Every little bit helps!

For those of you who have donated, thanks so much for your support! It means a lot to me, and to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

A summary for anyone interested:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	148	2.42	933
Biking	144	31.5	1346
Running	150	12	1470
TOTAL	442	45.92	3749

Running along Crissy Field

2006-02-25T14:15:00.000-08:00

Today Josh, Amanda, Sadie and I went running along Crissy Field. It was nice to do it as a group and Sadie and Amanda kept eachother company while Josh and I ran ahead to do the interval training. Overall it was a fairly slow run as we were trying to keep our heartrate low. In the end we covered the distance that will be in the Triathlon, which certainly helped to boost our confidence.

Tomorrow is our first official "brick" workout, which means that we will be doing more than one activity. The plan is to do a swim and then bike. This will be my second coached swim, and I'm pretty anxious about it as last time I was pretty much the slowest one in the pool.

Friday swim

2006-02-24T18:12:00.000-08:00

Wow... my upper body is sore. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the 100 pushups that we did on Wednesday night.

Today's mission was a distance swim, and being the swimming weenie that I am was shooting for the age group workout (the easiest one). This was supposed to contain two back-to-back 250's on 20 seconds rest. While it sounded easy after my progress on Tuesday it proved to be quite difficult. In the end I was able to do one 250, one 150 and a couple of 100's. I swam a total of 1100M, but swimming long distance without resting still eludes me. I'm hoping that my sore muscles had something to do with it.

Sore muscles, exhilerating bike ride

2006-02-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

So, after a tough coached run on Wednesday night (in which the coaches tricked us into doing 100 pushups), Josh and I went for a bike ride on Thursday morning. We drove and parked in a parking lot where Skyline Blvd meets Highway 92. I had been there before for a motorcycle ride and remembered the terrain as gradual rolling hills. Unfortunately for us, it turned out to be a 5 mile ride uphill - thankfully it wasn't too steep. I have to say that the 5 mile ride back to the car was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my adult life. All downhill, averaging almost 30 miles per hour Josh and I raced down Skyline Blvd revealing amazing views of the Peninsula at every turn. Despite the fact that we only covered 10 miles, we ended up doing the "pro" workout due to the mountain that we were climbing. Pretty good for Josh's first time out on his new bike!

Swimming lesson

2006-02-21T20:00:00.000-08:00

So I had a swimming lesson today. It was only 20 minutes, but the instructor gave me some good tips. In the end I made some great progress and was able to swim 150's! This means that I have finally caught up to the easiest swimming training schedule! In total I swam 1350M and while this included resting, the fact that I could swim for longer distances without stopping was very encouraging.

Tomorrow is another coached run at Kezar Stadium - maybe I'll skip the long bikeride before the run this time.

How am I tracking my calories?

2006-02-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Many people have asked me how I keep track of my calories burned. I purchased a heart monitor - Polar RS200SD. I use this to track all my workouts and measure the distance and speed of my runs. Quite handy, and a great motivator.

Week 3 Summary

2006-02-20T11:21:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,
I made some significant progress in swimming this week. I can finally breathe on both sides. I can also do several back-to-back 50M swims (though I'm supposed to be doing 100's at this point). I have signed up for a swim lesson on Tuesday, so hopefully that will help me even further. I didn't get in as many swims as I wanted this week - I'll try to make it up in Week 4.
Biking is going pretty well, after my grueling day on Wednesday, I felt well prepared for the team bike ride in Novato on Sunday. I decided to go on the "pro" ride which was a 21.5 mile climb up "Big Rock" and back. The ride took us right near Skywalker Ranch, and reminded me how much I love my bike.
Running is going well, though rather uneventful - I did a 6 mile run in 55 minutes on Saturday. I'm starting to notice some general health changes, I weigh a few pounds less, but I have noticibly less fat. My resting heart rate has come down from 71 to 62 or so.

Totals for week 3:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	83	1.06	602
Biking	218	42.94	1993
Running	128	12	1422
TOTAL	429	56.00	4017

Crazy Training Day

2006-02-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

Today I went for a bike ride with Mario, and then rode over to the running workout with the team at Kezar Stadium. It was a pretty brutal ride for me (though a "light workout" for Mario). We rode down the Presidio, along Crissy Field to the Marina, and back. Riding up the Presidio was pretty tough, I managed to keep moving the whole way, but managed to hit a heart rate of 211 doing so.

The running workout was tough, lots of strength training, pacing, and warmups and cooldowns. All in all, the coaches did a great job of tricking us into running around 6 miles and doing all kinds of other training (sit-ups, push-ups and stair climbing).

After the workout I had to ride my bike back home. Whew... burned a total of 1658 today. It will probably be a while before I ride my bike to the Wednesday coach runs again.

Week 2 summary

2006-02-13T10:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, I love my bike! This week was largely focused on getting my bike and keeping up with the training. My swimming is coming along nicely. I am seeing great progression, though I am still tring to catch up to the "age group" workout schedule.
Note: For each event there are three levels of training Age Group (level 1), Elite (level 2) and Pro (level 3). In the runs, I am right around the Elite level, but for the swims I am still below the Age Group level.

I have been doing a bit further distance in the swims (with resting in between each 25M length). I'm still working on breathing on both sides (I strongly favor my left side). Also, I made some progress by holding a floaty thing in between my legs. This stopped me from kicking, and I seemed to be able to swim faster, and use less energy. I don't know what I'm doing with my legs, but it must be horribly inefficient.

Totals for this week:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	78	0.84	637
Biking	106	14.8	800
Running	80	7.9	955
TOTAL	264	23.54	2392

The bike saga

2006-02-10T10:34:00.000-08:00

After riding on my friend Mario's road bike, I knew it was going to be hard to convince myself to go through the race on the mountain bike. For anyone else out there who has ridden a mountain bike recently but has forgotten what a road bike is like, a mountain bike is to running as a road bike is to ice skating. The energy you put into the pedals doesn't die away instantly... you just glide along. In any case, I wanted to get a road bike for the triathlon.

I did look around on Craig's List and at various bike shops for good deals, and was actually offered what seemed like a good deal through one particular bike shop (I won't trash them here as they redeemed themselves in the end). When I went to that shop I was told the deal was all filled up, but that they had some very nice bikes from last year for a great price. Needless to say, they fitted me for a fully carbon frame bike (that prior to this would have been completely out of my price range). They were able to discount the bike to a price that was a little above my target price. Given the great deal, I relucently spent the money and took the bike home.

Even on the drive back home I felt terrible. Even though the bike was a good deal for what it was, it was not the bike I was looking for, and the thought of the sales tactics that were used on me left me feeling terrible about the whole experience. I brought the bike to a local bike shop to see what they thought about the deal I was given and sure enough, it was an unbelievable deal. However, in the end I decided to return that bike and get the bike that I originally wanted from a sales person that helped me find a bike that was right for me, instead of baiting me in and then using me to clear out some old inventory. I am much happier with my decision and my bike now.

Week 1 Finished

2006-02-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

Week 1 is over and I already feel like I have made a lot of progress. I swam every other day this week to try to make up some ground. Prior to this, I have never done much swimming. I began the week flailing from one side of the pool to the other, and getting there completely exhausted. I have been getting a bit more efficient with some help from my friend Josh.

Notice how I am holding onto the side of the pool in the picture here - that wasn't just for the photo op.

Aside from that I have been trying to get in all of the training recommended. I have not purchased a bike yet, so I rode my mountain bike for the bike rides.

Totals for Week 1:

	Duration (Min)	Distance	Calories
Swimming	93	0.84	555
Biking	95	10.3	696
Running	88	6.7	867
TOTAL	276	17.84	2118

Why am I doing a triathlon?

2006-01-30T09:59:00.000-08:00

As you may know, I did the Home Depot Half Marathon with Team In Training back in January 2003. That experience was a big success, I was able to raise over $4000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! At that time, my primary motivation was my good friend Githa Ong, who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia in the Spring of 2002. Githa was only 24 at the time.
Sadly, after a long valiant fight, Githa's struggle ended in November of 2003. My life has forever been changed by this experience, and I am still as determined as ever to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in their efforts to make stories like this one a thing of the past.

Which event am I doing?

2006-01-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

I am now training for the Wildflower Olympic Triathlon.
This is my first Triathlon ever, and for those of you that are new to Triathlons, the Olympic distance consists of:

A 1.5K (.93 mile) swim

A 40K (24.8 mile) bike

A 10K (6.2 mile) run

Over the 14 week training period, I will be training 6 days a week. The swim will be my biggest challenge, as prior to a couple of months ago, I had never swam a lap in my life. I will try to periodically post an update of my progress, so check back often.

Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance the Society's mission.

Thanks for your support! -- Zack