"Personal Life" Season Almost Over

Coming out of March marks the end of a crazy time of year for me and marks the beginning of some massive blocks of training.  The year planned is both amazing and daunting.  Three bachelor parties, two weddings, volunteer events, family reunions, work responsibilities and of course a schedule stock full of races that I somehow have to get ready for.

Fortunately both my friends and loved ones are very supportive of the goals for 2011 and I am doing my best to be present both physically and mentally.  With just Tri For the Cure - AZ, and my friends Bill and Anne's wedding left before Oceanside, I'll finally have some breathing room for the smashing my coach has planned for me to get ready for the final push for IM Texas.

Its crazy the things you do to try to get your workouts in and remove some of the training anxiety that comes with both inactivity and guilt for missing a session.  Sometimes it wasn't quite the best idea, such as my hangover run through the strip.

That hurt a bit.  Instant headache.

I am a bit amazed that the body can absorb most of this punishment, and with a little rest, keep up with the training demands.  There is a limit though, and I think I have approached it and pulled back enough to keep from getting ill.  My friends are slowly coming to realize the changes in my priorities and lifestyle, and there isn't enough I can do to thank them for that.  While my former self comes out to play sometimes, he is now content to save those nights for very special occasions.  

As for my next two months, it is going to be a test both physically and mentally.  Oceanside, Wildflower and the IM Texas to top it off.  No more shirking swim practice, Aquatic Park is my friend.  With the longer days, come longer training.  Here's to crushing it for the next two months!

Below are the guys responsible for my lack of training, ha!

Kenny had to have a Vegas bachelor party

Nothing like it.

Bill's was a little more mellow watching Spring Training in Scottsdale.

Salt River Stadium

Epic day in the rain! Self imposed Half Iron workout

Saturday was a day of "fun" that has left me worked!  After being inspired by another blog I read this week, I decided it was a good idea to change up a few things and see where I was in my training.  A full day of swim bike run was in my future, and I was pretty excited to get it done.

The workout consisted of all the Half Iron distances, but broken up with a bit of a break, so its not like a full race.  Swim at Koret, bike to the lagoon between Stinson and Bolinas, then 13 miles around SF.  When I planned this it was 60 and sunny in SF with decent weather projected for the weekend.  Man do our weather people suck!

Woke up, coffee, banana, muffin, news, all the normal Saturday, pre-workout stuff and off to the pool with Dan.  We were going to swim for 30 minutes since we were on a little crunch for time with our other buddy Tim meeting us for the ride.  Broke out the swim into 4 x 400 meters, not quite the 1.2, but acceptable since I just swam the night before and pushed it a bit.  Got it all in just under the 20 minutes along with some fun with my new camera.

Dan sporting the new SF Tri cap

Think I probably need some help?

Out of the pool, feeling good and need to fuel up for the ride.  Two weeks ago we did a similar ride after swimming and I couldn't see straight afterwards from bonking, so banana and Gu were in order to cram in some calories, along with bringing two bars and a mini can of Coke for emergencies.

Tim shows up and were ready to rock!  The sun was shining, so we were hopeful for it to hold up.  On the road, through the Presidio and across GG Bridge we roll through Mill Valley and to Four Corners on our way to Pantoll on Mt. Tam.  The fog is rolling in and wheels are not holding very well, so the amazing downhills are becoming treacherous, and the hands are taking a beating from braking and pressure.

Cruising through Stinson Beach, freezing from riding through mist on our way down Tam we stop off at theStinson Beach Market for some coffee and tri-munchies. 

Cliff Mojo and coffee hit the spot today.

The younger, hung over crowd opted for some Odwalla.

Time for some speed, racing along Bolinas Lagoon!  This is my favorite spot of the ride as its flat, fast and meandering turns to keep it interesting.  Nothing like ripping along the road at 25 mph in aero, dragging my friends along in my draft.  Probably was a bit overanxious, because we turned around and Dan jumped on the gas for the way back and I could get on his wheel and was forced to push to keep the gap the whole way back.

The rest of the ride was us battling the oncoming storm, soaking and hauling back up over the hill on Hwy 1 to the city.  Making good time though, and the legs were responding to the final climbs.  Bike: 3:21:53

Couldn't see across the bay the mist was so bad.

55 Miles, but a ton of climbing.

Total gain of 5647 ft, much more than planned thanks to Dan's late course change.

Once back to the house I left a trail of drenched clothes as I changed and stood in front of my heater for a few minutes to heat up.  Fueling up with some cherries, a banana and cashews, time to put my feet up for 20 minutes and get ready for the run.

The rain stopped, and it was just overcast, so great improvements to my motivation and I'm out the door cruising at 7-7:30 pace.  Down through the Presidio again, to Hoppers hands at Fort Point and then towards the city along Crissy Fields and Marina Green.  These are amazing spots to get to train, and if you ever visit SF I recommend cruising through.  Still feeling good cresting the hill on the way to Aquatic Park and then I make the turn back to head home and all the energy begins to drain away.  8 miles of great running and now 5 feeling like crap.  It wasn't lack of fuel, just lack of overall fitness and ability to respond.  I like to think if it was a race I would have pushed through, but today it just wan't there.  Trudging back home at 8-8:30 miles and the rain starts back up, ugh. Run: 1:45:24

12.75 miles and 1000 feet of climbing.

Get home, Muscle Milk immediately and nearly pass out on the couch and catch up on my 30 Rock while trying to unsuccessfully feed myself.  Appetite was not there surprisingly.  Usually I'm off to Safeway to binge on whatever (everything) looks appetizing in their prepared food section, but no go, very strange.

Great day and all in all and I have to thank Dan and Tim for getting out there with me to keep me honest.  Looking for a great Kaiser Half next weekend, and an even better Oceanside.

Year review and 2011 Goals

This has been a great year of finding my lost speed and a first Ironman finish.  While my performances were beyond expectations this year, my favorite part was watching my Dad finish Ironman Kona!

That was nearly the perfect motivation for my season in 2011 since there is no way I can let my Dad have one up on me.  My journey back to fitness started when he actually beat me in a race about 7 years ago, and now he is proportionately ahead of me, so that is how I'm setting my next years goals.

When you are looking to improve it is very hard to set achievable results.  Its easy to say you want to be "10 minutes faster" or "top whatever", but every race is different, conditions on race day can change, and you never know who is going to show up.  I had multiple races where I was bumped off the podium by one spot because three of the top AG'ers in NorCal showed up to almost all my races!  Frustrating, but I was happy with the improvements made.

My process of setting my 2011 goals was straight forward, but also required a bit of research.  First I gathered my last two years race results.  There are a few races that I do every year, which helps in the next step.  Using those races, I came up with an improvement percentage from 2009 to 2010.  I set it at 7%.  Unfortunately, time doesn't divide or multiply nicely, so I converted all my times into minutes.  This yielded some spectacular time improvements for my 2011 goals, so I'm thinking I'll have to find some sort of factor for the Law of Diminishing Returns.

To balance out the 7% with what I think is the easier to achieve goal times, I began factoring in the field placement for all the races.  I can see that in 2009 I finished around the top 10% of the total field, and in 2010 that improved to 4-5% of the field, cutting the field in half over a year.  That seemed like a better solution since taking a percentage off time is always moving towards ZERO, which is unattainable, cutting the field down is always moving towards the winning time which is not likely, but attainable.  This is what I came up with.

 Based on this I can come up with some exact goals for repeat races, along with some generalizations about where I think I can place.  Repeat races of course are easy to judge, you just need to follow what I spoke about above, but finding unknown races and where you think you should place takes some guesswork.  Luckily www.athlinks.com helps out with a lot of this by having a nice central spot for all race results. 

For races I haven't done yet, I don't know exactly what to expect so I go with a race I think is similar to it and I compare placement in the field that raced in the most recent event.  All field sizes are different, so you still have to take a proportionate finish placement.  For example, Oceanside is a complete unknown for me.  I can see some people I've raced against in the past, so for my 7% improvement goal, I'll estimate a time based on one of these people to get that goal.  For the field placement goal, I take my average field finish of 3% and find the time associated with that finisher from last year.  I hope to jump up 50% in the field, then I have my field goal.  Since Ironman Texas is a first year event, I used IM Arizona as my test field, hopefully that works out. 

Here you can see my race schedule and my goals range from perfect race to achievable.  Wish me luck and hopefully this gets me to Kona!