3M half marathon

hey blogosphere! I’ve been a bad blogger, and I won’t insult your intelligence by saying that I’ll change. But here is a small effort.

I went to Austin this weekend to visit my old friend Steve Young, a.k.a. 57-Steve. We worked together at Trilogy right after college. He managed to get a mobile number of (512) 577-8383 or (512) 57-STEVE. Yeah. We’re geeks.

He didn’t run back then, but has picked up the nasty habit in the past two years… so we agreed to meet up here and to run the 3M half marathon. 3M also happens to be the only half marathon I’d ever run outside of a triathlon, back in 2003, when we lived here.

Steve had a goal to break 90 minutes in a half this year, and I had tried to coach him a bit last year, providing workouts from Seattle that he ran in London. But he got hurt. I must be a bad coach. But he’s healthy again now and was on track to break 90 this time. He didn’t believe it himself, but he’d run 92 minutes on a slightly-short but SUPER HILLY course in France a few months ago, so I knew he could do it. And he did. He ran a smart race, staying with the 1:30 pacer the entire way, and ran an official chip time of 1:29:57. Solid.

I was hoping to break 74 at this race, after running 76:04 at the Seattle half in November when Tahoma convinced me to run it as our workout like two days earlier. Seattle is hillier than 3M, and I was actually able to plan this one in advance. But then I got a persistent head cold about a week before the race, and it was a struggle just to be healthy on the starting line. I hoped to run steady 5:40s for the first half of the race and then drop a bit in the second half if I still felt good. I’d run steady 5:42s on the track for 9 miles with Travis Adams two weeks ago, so I knew I had the fitness to do this. But in the fourth mile yesterday I could already feel that I didn’t quite have it. I ate an energy gel and tried to tough it out. I managed to get my splits back down but was clearly a few clicks slower than I would need to be. I did manage a new PR, though, in the upper 1:15s. Maybe 1:15:40ish?

Splits were 5:28 5:44 5:38 5:48 5:46 5:44 5:41 5:47 6:01 5:44 5:55 6:04 5:44. The 6:01 and 6:04 had hills and/or headwind. I swear.

The best part of the day (and the main reason I’m writing this) happened a few hours after the race. I got two texts from Steve:

http://dailymile.com/people/Iristroph/entries/20196919

Hilarious but keep the face that you read this between you and me.

(We’ve since decided that it is OK for me to share these.)

Go read the link if you haven’t done so already. It is really funny.

Did you read it yet? OK. Good. How funny is that?!! Awesome!! I laughed out loud. So did my running buddies in Seattle. So did Steve.

Hopefully that brought a little levity to your day. I know that most of you probably saw the link on my Facebook wall already… but feel free to comment here, too, so that it looks like people still read this blog.

In other Austin news, it was great to see and catch up a bit with Tim Sandfort, Don & Missy Ruthven, Corey May and George Schmitz, and to see Tim Terwey and Josh Lee at the race. Go check out the new Austin Tri-Cyclist store on 360 at Davenport Village, opening Feb 9th!!

oh regarding use of the photo – it is pretty well-established across race photo companies that athletes can use the shots on their personal blogs pro bono. I know the image header says otherwise :/

We have a house!

I am proud to say that we have locked down on our house for the Austin Endurance Ranch this winter.  The house is located in the Travis Heights neighborhood in South Austin, and is very close to everything that we wanted to be very close to:

• Stacy Pool is 2-3 blocks away -- a short walk!
• South Congress Ave is 0.7 miles away
• the nearest point on the Ladybird Lake running trail is 1.1 miles away
• our bike shop partner, Austin Tri-Cyclist, is 2.3 miles away
• the famous Sixth Street entertainment district is 2.6 miles away
• the flagship Whole Foods Market is 3.2 miles away
• the nearest grocery store, HEB, is 1.0 miles away
• the back entrance to Barton Springs Pool is 3.1 miles away
• Austin-Bergstrom International airport is 6.2 miles away

We have ten beds plus some inflatables for the staff, four bathrooms, a nice kitchen and (of course) wireless ethernet!

Exterior pictures:

 

Kitchen and dining:

 

Living areas:

    

If you have questions about our training camps, check out the website or drop me an email.

Shutting ‘er down

After much thought and consultation on the topic, I have decided not to race at this Sunday’s Longhorn 70.3.  I will still be there on the sidelines, cheering my friends along and taking pictures.  I will be wearing my US Pro Tri tech tee from Mt Borah Custom so I should be easy to find if you happen to be at the race.

After a year where I probably traveled and raced a bit too much despite a few injuries, it recently became clear to me that I’m not in position to turn in a good performance at Austin and I am better off getting an early start on my off-season break.  This will let me jump into 2010 training that much sooner!

I *love* to get out and race, especially in my adoptive hometown, so this will be quite hard for me.  But I think it is a good growth experience for me, and hopefully a sign of maturity.

Don’t worry, everybody, I promise that my behavior will remain as immature as always!

Austin Endurance Ranch

I am proud to announce that this winter I will be hosting the best “training vacation” that you’ve ever experienced at the Austin Endurance Ranch.  Our staff will help you get away from your cold, rainy winter to beautiful Austin, TX.  We provide full support so that you can focus on your training – a comfortable bed, nutritionist-designed meals, a spacious house, airport pickups, ground transportation to and from the airport, access to spring-fed outdoor swimming pools and dirt running trails, ground transportation to any workouts that don’t start from the house, mechanical support, a sag/support vehicle on long rides, a few fun non-training activities … and every training session will be led by our team of professional triathletes!

We are currently offering camp dates from late January through mid February but may add more dates if there is adequate demand.  We expect many folks to take advantage of our special Monday-Monday pricing but you can also pay by the day in order to suit your schedule. 

Learn more about what we have to offer at www.enduranceranch.com.  Feel free to ping me with questions at chris@enduranceranch.com or use the comments below.  Happy Training!!

Capital of Texas Triathlon

On Memorial Day I raced in the ITU Pan American Cup race at the Capital of Texas Triathlon in sunny Austin. After cutting my foot at Wildflower and rolling my ankle on a training run, I wasn’t sure where my fitness would be for this race. I was super-excited to get to race an ITU race in front of the “home” crowd in Austin, though.

somebody needs to lean their bike a bit more … who is that? … oh …

Town Lake (now known as Ladybird Lake, IIRC) was a balmy 71 degrees on race morning so it was a non-wetsuit swim. There were a lot of accomplished swimmers on the start list so we knew that the swim would be quick. Here is a sampling:

• Mark Van Akkeren has been first-out at numerous IM races … qualified for Olympic Trials as a swimmer.


• Kalen Darling swims for the University of Hawaii. Lots of open-water experience.


• Brian Fleischmann and Cam Dye were the breakaway at the Geneva, NY points race last year.


• Eric Limkemann swam at the University of Pittsburgh.


• Dave Kuendig swam at Kentucky and always seems to make the lead group.


• Ben Collins swam at Columbia and made NCAAs in the 400 IM.

Of course you also run into guys like Callum Millward, Kevin Collington and Brandon Marsh before the start.

The most interesting thing about this bunch is that there are distinct levels of supreme swim speed in this group, bringing up questions like “will Ben keep up with Mark?” Normally you wouldn’t question whether all of these guys make the front group but with such premium swimmers like Mark and Kalen in the field, you have to wonder.

Anyways, the swim start was very fast and I worked pretty hard just to stay with whoever was around me. Side note: with the recent injuries, I had to play it conservative at the start. If my bad ankle or my bad foot got tugged on during the melee, that could end my race right there. So my positioning was less than ideal. When I was able to evaluate the situation a bit at 400-500m in, the pack was already breaking up. In fact, I was in a “C” pack that had already lost a lot of ground to the “B” and “A” groups. Mark strung everything out and reduced the lead group to 3-5 guys, of which only 3 made the bike pack. Ben & Kalen had slow transitions, so it was Mark, Brian and Cam together leading the bike. A few of the strongest swimmers exited between that lead group (16:30) and the main group (17:30) while my “C” group was almost another minute behind them! I tried to bridge from the C pack to the B pack … or at least to the stragglers in between … but while I could put a gap between myself and the C group the gap ahead was just too large. Bummer.

The bike went well enough for the first three laps. We reeled in a group of three ahead of us and while our organization wasn’t great, I’ve certainly seen worse. A group of guys who’ve never met each other that could rotate efficiently would be able to put minutes into the other groups. Some day I’ll figure out how to make that happen.

At the end of the third lap, we heard the telltale “pfffft” of a tire going flat. We were going into a tight U-turn and it felt like my tire may have gone … but it didn’t look flat yet. I lost the group as I tried to look at my tire while riding/cornering … then as I tried to charge back into things it became clear that the tire was very flat. I hadn’t done my homework about the wheel pit location so I did the best I could in that situation – I started asking spectators and officials, “wheel pit?! where is the wheel pit! flat! flat tire!” I got misdirected once and backtracked for a bit before learning that the wheels were at the other end of the course. According to the race results I lost five minutes while soft-pedaling to the wheel pit. I hadn’t given up, but I just couldn’t go very fast when I was practically riding on the rim. I saw Jimmy Archer’s group wasn’t far behind and I hoped to get my wheel change before they caught me so that I wouldn’t have to ride alone. They passed me 2 blocks before the wheel pit. D’oh!

I rode hard on my own for the last 1.5 laps and entered T2 in like 3rd-to-last place. At least I didn’t get lapped out! And at least I hopefully wouldn’t DNF for my second straight race! I had loaded my bottles with salt so that I’d hopefully withstand the 95 degree heat and 95% humidity.

I put on socks in T2 – very rare for ITU races but with my injuries it seemed prudent – and hit the run course. I tried to push it, hoping to reel in some of the guys ahead … but I was *way* behind the big groups at this point and I only caught 2 or 3 guys. Plus Tate caught me from behind and a few guys dropped, so I ended up third-to-last.

On a bright note – I finished the race. I didn’t worsen my injuries. I found that I still have a lot of fitness. So I’m eager to get back into the heavy training that will lead me up to Kansas 70.3 and the Philly Tri.

Back in Seattle

After being out of town for 16 of the last 17 days, it is sort of nice to be back home again.  Sure, there are lots of chores to catch up on and I don’t get to see the sun very much … but there are other positives, right?

Austin was a great trip.  30k yards of swimming, 366 miles of biking, 78 miles of running and I almost got a sunburn.  The Chicago trip after that had a very different focus but it was great to see so much of my family and to catch up a bit with them.

Back here in Seattle, it is time to get ready for racing season.  New Orleans 70.3 is only three weeks away!  I have a bunch of new equipment from the US Pro Triathlon Team and I hope to be posting pictures of my new bike very soon.

I’ve already booked flights for my first two races – New Orleans (April 5th) and Wildflower (May 2nd).  I hear that fares are really coming down these days so I’m starting to look at travel plans for the 4-5 races after that.

I am also getting started with some informal “indoor cycling in Chris’s garage” sessions.  This is part of a larger project, to be announced in full at a later date.  But for now, if you’d like to work out in my garage before or after work some day then let me know.  I just finished setting up a sound system to complement the TV and Tivo.  Right now I have a CompuTrainer, a magnetic trainer and a set of rollers but I’ll soon be adding a Kurt Kinetic Rock N Roll trainer to the mix, too.  I also have two box fans to cool folks off, in case the crisp Seattle mornings aren’t already cold enough.  Luckily my dad, my uncle and my friend Kent helped me insulate the garage and put up drywall two summers ago.

This has been sort of a boring post, so here is a video that has nothing to do with triathlon.  I found this the other day when trying to locate an eclectic track to add to a mix CD that I’m making for my sister.  The video is a talent show bit where two friends dressed as Mario and Luigi play through the original Super Mario Brothers in about 6 minutes.  Good times.

Keeping it Weird in Austin

Even though this winter has been a bit drier than normal in Seattle I jumped at the chance to spend 11 days in Austin, training more and working a reduced schedule remotely – basically the same approach as last summer’s Boulder trip.

I’ve been feeling a bit flat on a lot of the workouts.  I got dropped on the Austin Tri-Cyclist taco ride last Saturday, although I hope that a part of that was sleep deprivation from my early flight the day before.  My Sunday ride felt pretty weak, too, but it was hella windy out here so maybe that had something to do with it.  Even with the wind, the weather here in Texas has been fantastic.  Sunny every day and high temperatures in the 80s more often than not!

I was quite disappointed to learn that Barton Springs is closed for annual cleaning for the entirety of my trip.  They actually closed three days before I got here and they’ll reopen three days after I leave!  I did two swims at Deep Eddy – a *long* one with a wetsuit and a short, frigid attempt on Monday morning.  62 degree water + 58 degree air == a short swim!

I had a nice ride on Wednesday morning on one of my favorite loops: Southwest Parkway – 71 – Hamilton Pool Road – Old Fitzhugh – 290 – Nutty Brown – South MoPac, more or less.  I was unsure of my legs during the warm-up hour but once I hit the first interval I felt good.  It was fantastic to roll out at 7:30 AM under sunny skies with just arm warmers & leg warmers.

My running has felt flat most of the time but I had a surprisingly strong effort last night.  About 8 of us left the shop at 6pm expecting to run 7.5 miles easy … George suggested 7:00/mile pace but Pat Darragh and I were probably the most guilty offenders in pushing the pace just a little bit harder.  Heh… We whittled the group down to just three – Pat and me and Tim Sandfort, who I raced with at the Age Group Worlds in Madeira in 2004.

As expected, a lot of great eating has occurred on this trip – Rudy’s BBQ, Tacodeli, Havana, Taco Cabana … of course a stop at the flagship Whole Foods … but I still need to find time for some Amy’s Ice Cream and a bit more Tex Mex.

One tough part of “camping” in Austin as opposed to Boulder is that there are both an upside and a downside to knowing a bunch of folks in town.  It is great to see everybody and to catch up a bit but I haven’t been sleeping as much as I should.  I’ve kept the beer to a minimum, actually cutting it out completely after Monday, but my recovery hasn’t been quite what I’d like.  I am probably not eating enough.  I am getting some large meals in but not enough smaller in-between meals and snacking.  Maybe I’ll go find a snack right now!

Race Report: Austin Triathlon

(Note: I am back-dating this post so that it ends up near the actual race date in the sort order.  Let me know if that is a blogging faux pas.)

I had a business trip to Texas at the end of August so I decided to spend the long weekend visiting friends in Austin.  It also just so happened that the Austin Triathlon was taking place, so I went ahead and signed up.  The Austin Tri is a second-year Olympic Distance race whose course is very similar to the Capital of Texas Tri, which kicks off the summer on Memorial Day Weekend.

Rumors swirled all weekend about who might be racing...  Richie Cunningham... Mike Lovato... Simon Lessing... none of them raced but it was still a pretty strong field for a non-pro race, including James Cotter, newcomer David Kahn, Brandon Marsh and me.

My biggest goal for this race was to really fight on the swim.  Do everything I can to come out with Marsh & Kahn.  Although this race's bike leg didn't allow drafting, I wanted to practice the tactics & intensity of needing to hang with the leaders. 

At the start my plan was to position myself next to Brandon & James.  I knew that James had been staying on Brandon's feet whenever they'd races each other in '08, so I figured that would give me two chances to stay in the lead group.  We jumped in and I swam over to the start buoy which marked the shortest path.  Of course those jokers were nowhere near it, off on the other side of the start line.  This is a good tactic for faster swimmers -- "hide" from the guys who might try to follow your feet -- although I can't really be sure that they were consciously trying to avoid me. 

So with the race set to start any second, I didn't think it was worth trying to swim along the start line looking for them.  I waited for the gun and then just tried to stay ahead of the swimmers around me and make sure that I didn't let anybody from the other side get away.  This actually worked quite nicely as only one swimmer from my end of the start line was able to stay near me and I had pretty clean water to swim in.  As things stretched out I merged in with the other leaders and we turned into a 4-pack.

Things felt pretty comfortable for the next 400m.  Marsh and Kahn swam side-by-side giving Cotter and me a lot of wake to draft in.  I just tried to keep my strong long and relaxed.  As we hit the turn buoy (maybe 600m in??) Brandon got on the front and started stringing things out.  Kahn got on his feet, I got on Kahn's and Cotter got on mine.  Cotter and I both started losing the feet ahead of us around 1k... I lost about 20 seconds to Marsh & Kahn and Cotter lost maybe 5 or 6 seconds to me.  I felt like I popped a bit those last 500m... probably something to be learned there.

T1... a pretty long run... I could hear the announcer talking about Marsh and Kahn just ahead...  James Cotter just about caught me as we were running out with our bikes

Bike leg... I tried to keep Cotter close but I screwed up on the long downhill stretch of South Congress.  I somehow got myself on the wrong side of a line of cones and had to brake a lot in order to get back on course.  Stupid mistake... cost me at least 5-10 seconds right there, plus I lost that visual/mental "contact" with the bike in front of me -- something that can be very useful even if you are too far away for any physical draft.

Eventually Cotter caught up to Marsh & Kahn and the three of them started the run together.  I was probably 3-4 minutes back and the next racers were about 2 minutes behind me.  I tried to push my pace a bit so that I could catch any of the lead guys if they blew up...  but that didn't happen so I just ran in No Man's Land the whole way and finished a very unambiguous fourth place overall.  I was still in the money and I felt pretty good about my swim effort... and I got to spend the day in Austin!  So overall, I can't complain!

austin trip!

A little recap of my Austin trip...

Wed: travel day

Thu: Mark, Brian and I tried to go to Barton Springs but it was closed for cleaning.  Instead we swam at Deep Eddy.  Deep Eddy is freshly-filled with spring water each day and during the slower, non-summer months there isn't any chlorine.  The lap lanes are 33 yards long.  Mark and I wore wetsuits just b/c we hadn't used them in a quite awhile.  Brian went sans-wetsuit and laughed at us.  We got in about 3000 yards including 2x4x200 descending.  Mark is significantly faster than me in the water... grrr...  after the swim we went for a 5-6 mile run on the Town Lake trail.  I was feeling a little bit frisky so we picked up the pace for a few stretches... we probably averaged closer to 7-minute miles...  after the run, Mark and I got set up on bikes at Austin Tri-Cyclist and we went out for a 45-mile ride.  I quickly learned that Mark doesn't do casual rides.

Richard Freer saw us riding by and met up with us at ATC afterwards.  It was great to see the big Aussie again, although his Sunday race plans meant that he wouldn't be able to train with us very much.

Friday night we went to a cookout at the Ruthvens' new place.  They have an awesome house across the street from the Shady Grove restuarant, where they feature live bands on Thursday nights during the warmer months.  A good time was had by all.  After dinner Don started talking smack about a 2.5k-ish run course around the Town Lake trail (Lamar footbrdige & S 1st St bridge) where apparently I still hold the record (8:49).  Back then, you had to do ~20 mles hard on the computrainer before the run... but Adam (new guy at the shop) and I accepted Don's challenge to go out and try to break my old record.  Given that I'd only get more tired as the week goes on I decided to make my attempt the next morning, after our swim.. 

Fri: we all got up way too early on a vacation day in order to swim with the UT masters.  The workout was at 6:30 so we were up at like 5:30.  Grrr... but it was an awesome workout.  Whitney had us work down from a 2:00 send-off to a 1:00 send-off in 2 second increments, picking a "challenging distance" for each interval.  Brandon Marsh was leading my lane, so we started with a few 175s, then did 150s thru 1:40, 125s thru 1:24 and 100s to 1:06.  The last 3 75s were easy!  All in all, a tough workout.

We grabbed a quick breakfast (tacos at Austin Java) and then I got dropped off at ATC.  I took about 15 minutes to let my breakfast settle a little and then Don and I headed out to warm up.  I felt like my breakfast was gonna come up at any moment, but I warmed up, stretched, did some strides and went for it.  I ran a steady, solid, fast attempt and clocked an 8:11.8.  I reckon that mark should stand for a while - maybe until I go for it again next year.

After the run, I grabbed a quick recovery drink and then Mark & I went out for a 100 mile ride.  We met up with Brian for the first 40 miles... I was feeling pretty shelled so I tried to just draft off the other guys most of the time.  Eventually we got into some 15-minute TT intervals but I found that once I lost "metnal contact" with Mark that my effort level & HR dropped considerably...  We had fluid/food stops in San Marcos and somewhere near Bastrop... We each consumed over 2000 calories on this 5-hour death march.  My tally was 2 clif bars, 2 bags of clif bloks, 3 packages of nature valley granola bars, two bottles of gatorade, a brownie, and banana, a cookie and a king-size snickers bar.  Awesome...

That night I was probably about as tired as I've ever been... and Mark wasn't too far off... good times...

Sat: Neither of us set an alarm on Friday night but "luckily" I woke up around 7:30 on Saturday and we got tot he shop in time for the famous Saturday Morning Taco Ride.  Both of us were surprised to have legs that morning, bt we felt fit/strong once we got rolling.  Mark A-packed it, I got stuck behind a gap and was unable to bridge.  I was single-handedly pulling the train of chasers for awhile... so I shouldn't have had a problem sitting in if only I'd gotten myself into a more aggressive position within the pack... grrr...

After the ride I was unable to convince anybody to join me on an "easy 5-mile" brick run.  Since I was solo I picked it up a bit more and spent most of the run in the 6:15-6:30 range.  Fun times.

After the run I hung out at the shop for awhile and eventually made my way to Barton Springs for a soak.

Saturday night I met up with my friends 57 Steve and Sarah and we had a very nice dinner at the Eastside Cafe.  Then Steve and I went down to Sixth St for a few beers.  Just a few, though, as I am now an Elite Athlete.

Sun: "recovery day." our fabulous plans of swimming downriver from the 360 bridge to the Hula Hut were derailed by friends' predictions of heavy, drunken boat traffic on a Sunday.  So instead we just did a run.  The first 7 miles were with Mark & Brian, allegedly shooting for 7:00-7:30 pace but actually averaging more like 6:45... until I gave up on sitting in and went to the front... 6:30... 6:15... oh well... I then did another 4 miles by mself at a 7:15-ish pace...

After the run, Mark and I went out to Hamilton Pool to hike around a bit and take some pictures.

Mon: Went to the UT masters swim in the morning.  Felt somewhat shelled.  Was hanging on for dear life most of the time...  then Mark and I went on a 50-mile ride (south MoPac, Nutty Brown, Old Fitzhugh, Hamilton Pool Rd, Bee Caves) and had a swell time.  We learned that the surface on the farm road that goes out to the Salt Lick is terrible (as is the traffic) and that Nutty Brown has a fresh layer of fantastically smooth pavement.  It was magnificent.

We capped off the day with some Tex Mex at Chuy's with James Supak and then some Amy's Ice Cream.. What good is a vacation if you don't eat a little junk food, eh?

Tue: got up mad early in order to hit Barton Springs on the way to the airport.  We were in the water around 6am.  The sun hadn't come up yet and there were at least a dozen people in the water.  What a terrific place...

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Keeping the old-style daily training log going.... after my return to Seattle

Wed: run with Tom's group including 2.5 miles of easy tempo (~6min pace) flowing into a "faster but not overly hard" mile at 5:29

Thu: solo AM run in bridle trails; PM pro club masters

Fri: pool swim with Ben Collins at Green Lake Pool; ran a lap around Green Lake; did some pull-ups and stretched and BS'ed a bit...

Sat: Green Valley Time Trail - should be a separate post; easy riding afterwards to get cinnamon rolls... easy 4-5 mile jog with Ben

Sun: Easy 5-mile jog in Bridle Trails; open-water swim in Lake Washington with Ben