1000 miles

Kerry on an off day by all accounts, still managed to snag 6th Female Overall and 2nd in her Age Group at theSand Key Triathlon in Clearwater, Fl. She was forced to come to a complete stop on the bike when a car decided to cut in front of her. Bad driver, no soda and hot dog for you.

My tendinitis has cleared up enough for me to begin running….again. I finally crossed over 1000 miles of running for the year this past week. It’s never taken me this long in a year to accumulate 1000 miles of running. Never. Pathetic, but not as pathetic as my swim total which isn’t even up to 100,00 yards since October 1. Of 2009.

The next three weekends should be interesting. First up is the Elephant Man Triathlon, then the next weekend, my sponsor, Trisports.com gave me an entry to the USAT Trisports.com Halfmax Championship Triathlon, then the following weekend, Trisports.com gave me another entry to the Tucson Tinfoilman Triathlon. I’m sitting 3rd overall in the series standings about :40 seconds behind first place. Plus it never sucks getting comp’d entries. Thanks Trisports.com!

The other exciting thing about Elephant Man is I’ve got a total of three athletes racing. I expect very good races from my two athletes. I’d normally expect a good race from myself. But with at most 35 miles of running in the last month, well you can see where I’m going with that. About the best I can hope for is to crush the swim like last year then hang on for a top 10 overall finish on the run.

Albatross Removed….Finally

After 15 or so Tucson Triathlon Series races, after seven or eight 2nd and 3rd place finishes, after leading the entire field off the bike no less then six times, yes at least six times, pathetic but true, after getting run down no less then six times, even more pathetic and more true, finally, after all these years, I finally won a Tucson Tri Series race. First overall. Finally.

I never really counted on winning one of these things. There are just too many guys around my level. It takes a solid race from start to finish to win one of these, well, and someone not going faster. To give you an idea of how competitive this series can be, the first two guys in the series are separated by :04. The top three of us are separated by :42. That’s after 2 races and close to 2 hours of racing. For you power people my numbers from the race: AP 253/NP 258.

It’s a fitting end for the racing flats that have been with me for most of those 2nd and 3rd place finishes. But now it’s time to retire these faithful shoes. After carrying me to the fastest run time of the day, it was pretty evident to me, that their time had come. My shoes were broken. Hard as a rock under my feet with little to no cushioning left in them. Goodbye ghetto lacing system.

Since it was July 4th, it was also time to watch fireworks. Into the Tucson Mountains Sarah and I hiked. We headed up to one of the best spots anywhere in Tucson to watch fireworks. I could tell you where, but then I’d have to kill you. From the edge of a ridge we ate watermelon and watched fireworks from at least five different displays. Not a shabby way to end the day.

Ass Whooping

Another Tucson Tri Series race has come and gone. Surprisingly, I was 3rd Overall. In a time about :90 seconds slower then most of the 3rd place overall finishes that I’ve garnered in this series. I’m infamous for 2 things in this race series. I hold the mens course record for the most number of top three overall finishes without a win and better yet, the record for leading off the bike more then anyone else and not winning. Six times baby that I failed to seal the deal after starting the run with the entire field staring at my ass. For those of you interested in power numbers, my AP was 239w my NP 245w. The race got away from me at the beginning. The swim took me about :40 longer then usual. At one point, a mere 100 yards into the race, I looked across 11 other lanes. Each lane had 2 people in it, and no one was behind me. Not one freaking person. Nada, zip, zero, zilch. At that point I didn’t bother to look on the other side at those six lanes. A big congratulations to my friend Mike Montoya. He won the final race of the series last October and the series championships. Then he kicked off this year with a sprint finish win to put himself into good position to capture another championship. My other Trisports.com teammate, Leo, whom I’ve not met, finished 2nd giving Trisports.com a clean sweep of the mens podium. Too bad I was :90+ back at the line, a 3 way sprint would have been awesome. Except for one small thing. I sprint like a snail. I’d use old age and treachery against them if it ever came down to it, but they are both older then me, so I’m screwed. What’s up with the young people in triathlon in AZ? 8 of the top 10 men were in the 35+ age bracket. You young MFers are SLOW. The way you young guys race, you’re going to need more time here beginner triathlete.

A big thank you out to the guys at Genuine Innovations. Marty, their CEO was at the race grabbing 4th overall and handing out limited edition black 16g Co2 cartridges. This is a pros and bros only type of thing. I don’t qualify for the former but I do qualify for the latter. Now I’m sporting at least half a dozen limited edition cartridges in case I flat. Thanks Marty!

At the end of the day this result reconfirms what I’ve said. Oceanside 70.3 isn’t going to be pretty. I’m going to need some serious training if I’m going to get through Wildflower without wilting.

You Want Some Blame?

I would love to lay blame for my pathetic fitness level on someone. Maybe even you, one of my faithful 11 readers. Who wants the blame?

Really though I have no one to blame but myself. These next two weekends should be interesting. I have the Tucson Tri on Sunday. It’s a sprint so I’m pretty confident I should make it through. It’s so short I’ll have to go train that afternoon as well. Then six days later, I’ve got the Oceanside 70.3 half ironman. This should be interesting. While I’m somewhat optimistic I’ll actually not drown, when your last two swims total 6000 yards and that is just about 35% of your yearly swimming, well, no good can come of that. The good news is I can’t go slower then 1:25 per 100 yards, the bad news is I can’t go faster then 1:20. Not to mention my power meter still won’t give me numbers. While it doesn’t read “You Suck” while riding anymore, it still says “Wattage to low to Display”. Sigh. Stupid f*cking computer.

On the bright side, while not fast, my running is coming along. On the downside, I’ve got one run over 10 miles in my legs since November. I’ll be going for the Area Under the Curve approach to the half run. Let’s hope that I’ve got enough 7-8 mile runs in my legs that I can fake the last 5k. Maybe I’ll go run long this week…twice.

Billy and Sarah have been telling me for months to get back into the water. In retrospect I should have listened. It seems to take longer then before to get back into shape.

Just like one year ago, my bike is still not sorted out. Instead of not changing anything so close to the races, I go and stick on new aerobars. Brilliant, in a stupid sort of way. I realized that the extensions are a bit long, currently, but I’m confident that I’ll grow into them. You need a special tool to shorten the bars. Of course I don’t own that tool. So I figure f*ck it. Maybe by April or May I’ll sort that out.

So kids what I’m trying to say is do what I say and not what I do. It’ll work out better in the end for everyone. Besides I’m a trained professional 😉

Back into it

Almost done with my course of antibiotics.  Strung a week+ of decent training together.  Got in just over 2hr on Thursday,  5:15 Friday, 4 hours Saturday.  Lots of riding, some swimming and some running.  Lots of frequency but not a ton of volume running.  Even raced today which went fairly well.  Run was a bit slow, but across the board run times were slow.  Probably had a bit to do with the heat and humidty. It was the first time I can ever remember unzipping my race top all the way on the run.  The swim went well.  It seems the 21,400 yards in the pool last month paid off.  Solid swim, didn’t lose too much time over the 750m LC pool swim. Crappy T1 as usual, fumbled with my helmet strap/buckle and according to my power file it only took me 400 feet to get in my shoes once I hopped on the bike.  Seriously, what the hell was I doing for 133 yards?  Solid ride, avg 25.9mph (250/261 AP/NP)  for the bike including putting on and taking off my shoes.  Almost fell over in T2 putting on my running shoes.  Ended up 2nd Overall so I’m not complaining too much.  About :45 down on first, he out ran me by over 1 min and about :30 up on 3rd.  I think I now officially hold the record for leading a Tucson Tri series race off the bike but not winning the race.  Over the last few years, I’ve finished 2nd overall 5 times, 3rd overall 3 times, at least 4 of those times I’ve left T2 in the overall lead.  I need to run faster. Probably swimming a bit faster and not being so slow in T1 wouldn’t hurt either. But it really comes down to running faster. Oh well, next weekend in NC I’ll take another crack at racing.  Hopefully I can move up the podium 1 position.   Congratulations to Billy Oliver, one of the guys I’ve been coaching for a few years,  finishing 6th overall and winning his AG.  On his 21st anniversary to boot!    Results here, bike includes both transitions: http://www.tritucson.com/results/FCTres09.htm#Overall Male