Thursday, May 20, 2010

CEP giveaway.

Ok.  Gonna have to try them now...  If I don't win these, I am going to buy some.

Barefoot Angie B and her Great Sock Giveaway.

-ryan

Thursday, May 13, 2010

I am a dumbass and didn't reapply sunscreen even though I have had one of the most deadly skin cancers there is...TWICE!

So, there you have it.  Transition 1 and I am putting on my long sleeved UA heat gear, buckling my helmet, putting on my glasses, getting into my bike shoes, and throwing all the nutrition back into my pocket that fell out when I thought I would be so cool as to already have it in my pocket before I put my shirt on.  What did i forget? Re-application of SPF70 sunblock.  It was right there, I just missed it.
So, the bike was fun.  It is my favorite part.  The first part was a little head-windy, so I took it easy.  I passed some excellent swimmers, and just cruised.  18mph or so, into the wind coming up off of the water.  Then when we hooked inland, the wind went away, so I continued to cruise along.  Chugs of my nutrition about every 15-20 minutes, with water in-between.  My goal was to get to the feeling that "If I have any more of this crap I am going to be sick", and I got there after about an hour.  I had water in my aero bottle, and Sustained Energy mixed with Gatorade in my bottle.  I had two open butt bottle holders for picking up at the hydration stations, which I did at the first and second.  Gatorade and water.  I also had some shot blocks in my pocket to change up the flavors if I needed to.  Up and over the causeway bridge thing, and then down WHEEE!  35mph on the down.  I love going fast - almost too much.  My 245lb massive freight-train body makes me able to pass the little people on the downhill even if I don't pedal.  Then there was a long stretch of smooth, flat, new pavement that I just kept on with - all the way to the turn-around.
Thats when I realized that I had been helped a bit with a tail wind for the last hour or so - cause coming back was a tad harder.   So, I pushed through and tried to keep some speed so I could hit my goal of 3 hours for the bike.  Up the bridge was a little slower than last time, but since there was not a turn at the bottom this time, I could keep my speed for longer  WHEE!. Then back on the straight stretch coming in, the wind was at my back, so what should a speed freak do?  Pedal harder!  By this time I was feeling it.  The extended swim in the choppy water had taken it's toll on my upper body, and so I was uncomfortable in aero position.  I was spending more time vertical, which was bad in the second half because of the headwind on the way back to the beach.  The tailwind along the beach was not too bad for being vertical in, but I could tell that I was getting tired.
I ended up getting back to transition in just a teeny bit over 3 hours.  I think it would have been a really great race time if that had been the end of the race.  4 hours for those two events was right on plan for me.  Problem is that I was tired, and this was normally the end of my workout.  4 hours of exercise, then a day off after.  I realize now this was one mistake that I had made during training.  Oh, I had done long bricks during training, but I always took the next day off to recover.  My long bricks also usually were heavy on the bike, and light on the run.  My longest included an hour of running where I felt like I was probably running 10's but really was closer to 12's.
Anyway, that is the bike in a nutshell.  Stay tuned for "You Idiot! Why didn't you run more?"

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Gulf Swim

The swim for Gulf Coast Triathlon was really hard.  I was told it was more difficult than St. Anthony's swim which was cut short so nobody would get hurt. I am not saying they should have canceled, or cut it short, but just that it was more difficult than I thought it would be.  So my goal in the swim was to find a fast person, and draft for dear life.  Then I found out that the current was pulling people from right to left, so people were going way off course.  So, I positioned myself at the far right thinking this is where I should be so that the current will pull me into the course and I will line up with the buoy just fine, (this is also where the slow people swim on the outside so that they do not get trampled). So the horn sounds, and we stalk into the breakers.  Yes, I said we STALKED into the BREAKERS.  The waves pushed us back, but we stubbornly walked into them.  As I started getting hit above the waist with waves, I started diving into them kinda like you see the surfers do it on TV.  That worked OK, and all the sudden I was swimming. I did what I had intended for a while, and followed some feet.  This was GREAT!  Then after a while, I looked up to find a buoy and see how close I was to the big red one signaling the turn.
There were no buoys!  What the hell! That is when I also got my first sinus cleaning and throat gargle of salt water.  Awesome.  So I waited until I was at the top of a wave, and looked again.  I was off course.  WAY off course.  I was very near Texas I was so off course.  The other problem, is that I could only see two buoys.  I could see the one I was parallel to, and the one I was supposed to be going to, and i guess the one that i should be going away from THREE buoys.  I could see three buoys.  So course correction, I started seeing some little hands windmilling over by the buoy I was supposed to be near, so I headed that direction.  After two more course corrections, I finally made it to the big turn.  Gulped another mouthful of salt water, and then turned and headed out to sea.  After about 10 strokes, the nice man in the kayak trying not to fall over said, "HEY, THAT WAY" and pointed me back towards shore.  Swim, Swim, Swim, look up, drink seawater, swim some more.  It went this way for a lot longer.  Then I hit a sand bar.  I walked for about 25 feet in 2 foot water, then swim again the last little bit to the beach.  Unfortunately, the waves were not regular enough to body surf them.  Oh, well.  During this long swim, I was passed by the orange capped guys, and most of the purple capped guys, and was seeing some of the women from the wave behind them.  All in all, 54 minutes to get out of the water, about 15 minutes more than I thought I would do, But I was still alive and racing.  I sauntered up the beach, rinsed off in the shower things, and tippy-toed over to transition and my waiting bike for my favorite part of the race.

Stay tuned for "I am a dumbass and didn't reapply sunscreen even though I have had one of the most deadly skin cancers there is...TWICE!"

Monday, May 10, 2010

Gulf Coast Triathlon RR

Here are my results:

538 JONATHAN COMBS          37 ORLANDO FL              
Total time: 7:18:51    
Swim time: 53:37  
T1: 4:37  
Bike Time: 3:02:29  (Avg 18.4)
T2:  3:51  
Run Time: 3:14:19 (Avg 14:50)
I will break this down over the next couple posts.
-Ryan