Sprint and Olympic race reports

2nd place in 40-44 AG

Here goes the summer. Athletically speaking this was a time of relaxation. I had no specific training goals, other than maintaining general fitness by biking on my indoor recumbent trainer 4 to 5 times a week (average of 150 miles a week), running 3 times a week (average of 20 miles a week), swimming a couple of times a month (yeah, almost no swimming this summer), and doing cross training about 4 to 5 times a week (for about 3 hours total). Overall I averaged about 12 hours of fitness per week this summer, which is a little bit less than last year.

YMCA Sprint Triathlon in North Park 

It was no surprise that my race result at YMCA Sprint Triathlon in North Park was slower than in the past. I took second place in my age group, but cramped very very bad in the last few hundred yards on the run and had to limp on one leg to finish (and was limping for the next few days as well). Lesson learned - if one wants to race fast races, one needs to train fast. The other thing to keep in mind is that I did not warm up properly for this race, nor did I take a gel or electrolyte before the start. I think these things could have prevented the cramp. 

Overall this was a well run event. I got beat by the guy who I found out to be a 2:45 marathoner. He also had a faster swim split, but slower bike split. Not surprisingly he caught and passed me on the run part of the course. On a positive side - I am pretty happy with my bike result - it turned out to be #9 among all 154 athletes. And this is considering that I never did a single intensity zone 4 or 5 workout on the bike this year - only steady effort in zone 2 and 3 while working on my computer in the office.

Mighty Morain Man Olympic Triathlon

This was my first time racing at MMM and my second Olympic distance race ever. Now I have done one IM, two HIMs, two Olympics, and a whole bunch of Sprint races.

What a beautiful venue for the race! The swim was in the Lake Arhtur and it was wet suite legal. No current, easy one loop and the water was quite nice. Not crystal clear, but decent lake water. The bike is very hilly - goes up and down constantly, very few flat sections. It got to be a little hot on the run, but half of the run is in the shade, so it was quite ok. The run is relatively flat on paved pedestrian lane with gentle rolling hills along the lake.

3rd place in 40-44 AG

I took one gel 20 minutes before the swim, then one more at the start of the bike and third at the very end of the bike. Sipped water before swim, on the bike, but not on the run. I consumed less than a bottle of water during entire race.

The swim was a mass start, but since there were not that many people, it was not too bad. I started at a moderate pace and just kept behind somebody in front of me drafting almost entire 1500 meters behind one guy who seemed to be going at my slow pace. I came out of water and took my wet suite on the soft grass before entering the transition area, which was all paved and this resulted in me having the fastest T1 among the entire field - always nice to be #1 in something :-).

On the bike I went steady effort - after doing my zone 3 in my office, I feel like I have single speed on my bike - no matter the race distance - it is just so ingrained. Good for long distances, bad for short ones... On the bike I passed a lot of people and when I entered T2, I was the first bike in! I proceeded to the run, but few minutes later I realized that this was impossible because elite men started Olympic distance few minutes ahead of me and there is no way I can be first overall in T2. I stopped running, looked at my watch, stopped it and found out that I only did 20.2 miles on the bike, instead of 26 miles, which meant I turned into T2 too early and cut a course short. In my defense, there was no map of the bike course on the website and the markings were not that great. I figured that I am disqualified at this point and decided to finish the 10K run just to get the workout. My pace dropped and I was just jogging now, at which point the race director passed by me on her bike as she was checking the aid stations and congratulated me with the lead. I told her what happened and then asked if I can finish the run, get back on bike and do this extra 6.5 miles to do a complete bike leg. She said it was ok with her. However it was now very hard to pickup the pace. I finished the run and without crossing the finish got on the bike, did my miles, got off and ran to the finish.

It turned out that I was 4th in my age group, but since the #1 guy in my age group was also #1 overall, we all got bumped one step up and I officially finished #3 in my age group. Looking at the results, my timing looks very weird because of this bike mishap:

Race report - Challenge Cedar Point 140.6 triathlon

I have long dreamed to do the Full Ironman and now this dream has come true. On September 13, 2015 I raced Challenge Cedar Point 140.6 triathlon. For those who are not familiar with Ironman - here is an excellent wikipedia article. I started my triathlon training in 2011 and at first did not even think of doing full distance race. Originally I just wanted to try Sprint distance. After I have done my first Sprint I thought it may be fun to do Olympic distance. After that wanted to try Half Ironman, you get the idea...

To see all photos in one album - go here.

Warning - some pictures in this post are not mine and used without permission, which I hope is ok by whoever posted these on flickr (I am using it for non-commercial purpose anyway).

I finished this race 4th in my age group out of 26 age groupers and 25th overall out of total 169 Full Distance athletes with the time 11h 52m 07s. Here is the official results site (my bib # is 670). I was hoping to go under 12 hours and the result made me very happy :-).

Due to some minor injuries and travel this was the only race I was able to do in 2015. I had few other things planned, but unfortunately it did not work out. In any case, this was my A race for the year and has been the focus of the past 11 months.

The race was very well organized and was pretty small in size and easily accessible. Cedar Point is an amusement park in Sandusky Ohio and is only 3 hours drive from Pittsburgh. On the same day with the Full Distance there is also a Half Ironman race with about 600+ people, making for a total of about 800 folks. This means the area is not crowded, toilets are freely available, getting in and out is easy, check in for the race is fast and simple. The goody bag and medal were lovely and overall race support was solid. Volunteers on about every 15 miles of the bike (officials claimed every 10 miles, but I did not feel like that) and every 2 miles on the run - they provided Gatorade Endurance, gels, bars, bananas and other stuff. Again, I think the race was organized very well, except for two things: (1) Very poor food for finishers - I did not even touch that food and (2) Not enough toilets on the bike - they only had them about every 20 miles or so, which I feel they need to have a lot more than that. Overall, kudos to the organizers for a race well run!

One minor issue for some people could be that the finish line was not exciting enough - only about 50 people there and some folks feel this is underwhelming. I did not care, but some people prefer huge Ironman brand races because of the gigantic crowd on the finish and crazy festivities going on. Whatever... At the same time there was some crowd support on the bike and run course - some folks were motivating athletes, dressed in costumes, etc.

Training

Here is the training plan I used to prepare for this race. You can download Google Sheets XLS file from here.

What you see above is based on Hal Higdon Novice 2 marathon training plan for running with added swim, bike and cross training sessions. This was the plan. Here is what it turned out to be in reality (from TrainingPeaks.com):

Overall what happened was pretty consistent with the plan and here is the summary of the training as shown on charts above (average 12h 13min of training per week across all disciplines):

• Swimming 
• average of 2 times a week in  25 yard YMCA pool (some weeks once, other weeks 3 times)
• average of 4,128 yards per week (I never swam more than 3,000 yards at a time)
• average of 1h 32min of swimming per week
• handful of open water swims this year, none in wet suite
• 30% of the swim distance was drills, 50% swim with the IM race pace (1m50s/100 yards), 20% tempo and intervals
• Biking 
• started with low volume and increased it up until 3 weeks before the race taper started, so the average numbers below are average over 9 months of training
• between 4 to 5 times a week
• 95% of the biking was done on the indoor recumbent trainer (see picture below) with only a dozen of bike rides on open road on real bike in entire year (same as past year)
• average of 5h 44 min of biking per week
• average 111 miles per week
• 95% of biking was done at steady pace - warm up for 20 minutes and then maintain stable power up to 200 watts for the rest of the bike with 90 rpm cadence
• since biking was done indoors, the hours and distance can be multiplied by 25%
• static stretch after each bike
• Running
• started with low volume and increased it up until 3 weeks before the race taper started, so the average numbers below are average over 9 months of training
• 4 times per week (one of these is a long run on very hilly trails, three other times usually steady pace at about half open marathon intensity on hilly asphalt roads, about a dozen of interval sessions in a year and a dozen tempo runs on flat road or treadmill)
• average of 22.1 miles per week
• average 3h 30 min of running per week
• running drills for a few minutes twice a week before the run
• static stretch for a few minutes after each run
• in April I had an IT Band issue and had to drop volume and intensity for some time, went to ART specialist, did extensive foam rolling, stretching, etc. and it seems to have been completely gone by July
• Cross training
• between 3 to 4 sessions per week up until 2 weeks before the race
• average 1h 25 min per week
• push ups, pull ups, light dumbbells, planks, abdominal crunches on the floor and stability ball, bridges, few yoga sessions, etc.

Here is a picture of my bike with the "desk" for laptop - this is where I spent majority of my training while working on a computer (the laptop is not shown in the picture) - I bought this device over 10 years ago on eBay and had no idea how much I will end up using it :-) :

Pre-race and logistics

My taper started 3 weeks before the race. You can see weekly time in the charts above. Last two days before the race I did not do any sports activity.

I kept eating as usual in the last week before the race, just added little extra carbs than normal. 24 hours before the race I took a double dose of my usual calcium and magnesium (two tables of each, instead of one), but consumed my usual two fish oil pills, one multi-vitamin and one glucosamine-chondroitin pill.

I left Pittsburgh at noon on Saturday and arrived in Sandusky at 3pm. Picked up my bag in 10 minutes, then waited until 4pm mandatory athlete meeting, which lasted about half an hour. On Saturday there was a lot of wind and Sprint distance athletes had their swim and bike (!) canceled. Bike check in for half and full distance was cancelled and we checked in our bikes on Sunday morning. The Lake Erie was more like Pacific Ocean on the day before the race:

On Saturday at 5pm I had Seafood Alfredo Pasta and fresh salad at Olive Garden. Finished my dinner at 6pm and went to hotel for the night. I stayed at Holiday Inn Express & Suites Port Clinton-Catawba Island. This is about 30 minutes away from the race start, which seems like a lot, but it was not too bad. Worked out ok for me. I stayed there two nights, including the night after the race.

On the morning of the race I got up at 4:30 am, ate a banana, two tbsp of peanut butter, good slice of whole wheat bread, about 10 oz of apple cider without sugar, drank about 10 oz of water. Left hotel at 5am and got to the transition area at 5:30am. At 6am ate one PowerGel with 6 oz of water. Setup my bike and all special needs bags, got into a wet suite and was all ready to go by 6:30am by which time they closed the transition area. Race start for full distance was at 7am. The air temperature was about 52 F (about 11C) - pretty darn cold being naked, but in a wet suite it was perfect. Could not have asked for better temperature!

Swim

The the organizers moved the swim about 600 yards away from the transition area because of waves in the main lake. I did not do any warm up or pre-swim. Swim start was time trial - meaning you line up in a queue and they let 2 people at a time into the water with few seconds apart. The timing mat is right on the edge of the water, so your timer starts when you cross it. This makes it for a very calm start and I loved that. Once I entered the water, I washed my face and googles, put them on, did about a dozen of breast strokes and then started easy freestyle swim. After the first 5 minutes I warmed up and slightly increased my pace, but all the way I kept it comfortable in HR zone 2. I was hoping to average 1m50s per 100 yards pace, but because of zigzagging it was a bit slower, so the speed gain of wet suite was not enough to compensate for the imperfections in the swim path. Here is my Garmin track of the swim:

The water temperature was perfect for wet suite and the water inside of the bay was very calm, however outside of the protective wall it was wavy - sometimes I felt like on a little roller coaster going up and down. But overall it was not bad at all and added to the fun. I had no nutrition on the swim and do not feel like it is needed. At the exit from the swim there were wet suite peelers and they helped me to get it off quickly, so I picked it up and ran to the T1.

My swim split was 14th out of 26 in my age group and 78 out of 169 overall. Pretty darn slow, but I was not tired one bit. Like I have not done any swim at all.

Bike

In T1 they made you go into a T1 covered tent, so people can hide from outside view and change. I had my PTC kit under my wet suite and simply took my eye glasses out of the swim-bike transition bag with my race number on it and pushed my wet suite into the bag, then left the tent, took my bike, put on the helmet and ran to the exit. My pedals were already clipped, so it made it easy to run fast in T1 with the bike.
My plan for the bike was to maintain steady 90 rpm all the way and most important keep heart rate in zone 2 at 130 bpm (turned out to be 129 avg). It felt like a very easy pace for the bike and I thought of it as a warm up for the run. Even with that easy pace I passed a lot of people and few people passed me. The wind was sometimes strong (they said it was up to 30 mph at times), but it was all over the place - from sides, front, rear, etc. I would prefer it without the wind, but it was not too bad. My Garmin recorded 2616 ft of elevation gain/loss.

For nutrition on the bike I was taking PowerGel every 30 minutes with 4 to 6 oz of water right after the gel and drank Gatorade Endurance provided at aid stations. During my sweat test I would have needed 24 oz of water per hour at 73F going 180 watts, but here it was only 56F and I was wearing long sleeve warm bike jacket and did not sweat one bit, until second half of the bike. In the second half of the bike the temperature rised to about 62F and I took off long sleeve jacket and stuffed it under my PTC kit on the back for the last two hours of the bike (see photo below). At the end of the bike I took one salt stick just in case. I averaged about 20 oz of water and 6 oz of Gatorade on the bike per hour. With lack of sweat this made me use restroom 4 times and I estimate I spent about 8 minutes total on those stops to restrooms. If I went for the podium, I would have to learn to pee on the bike, which is not something I am looking forward to :-). I carried two bottles on the bike - one with water and one with Gatorade. The gels were stuffed into the pouch on the top tube and another pouch under it (see photos). I kept my cell phone in that big pouch for emergency purposes. No solid food on the bike was taken and I did not feel the need. Gels worked perfect.


My bike split was 10th out of 26 in my age group and 48th out of 169 total. After the bike finish I did not feel tired at all, except for the neck - since I do all of my training in the recumbent bike indoors, the neck is totally unprepared to be in the aero position for over 6 hours. I could hardly move my head, but legs felt fantastic - almost like I have not even biked. It was really like a warm up for the run - exactly the way I wanted it. And I did enjoy the bike as it was quite scenic half the time.

In bike-run transition I just put on my socks, hat, race bib and my lovely Saucony Kinvaras 5 and left the station.

Run

On the run I decided to keep the same 130 bpm heart rate (zone 2) for the first 20 miles and then make a decision on how to change it. Out of transition area I started out too fast. When I looked at my Garmin, I had 144 bpm and was going 7:25 min/mile pace. I tried to slow down, but it was not working. So I started walking while watching my HR. As soon as it went down to 130 bpm, I resumed the run and kept looking at it. At that point I switched the screen to time of day and HR so I wont see the pace. 130 bpm felt very easy and up until mile 20 I felt extremely relaxed and enjoyed the scenery. It felt like a walk in the park and indeed it was. When I looked at the pace at mile 20 - turned out I was doing 8:55 min / mile. This was slower than any of my training runs, except for long runs on the crazy hills on the trail in North Park. According to my Garmin, the elevation gain in the run was 315 ft - pretty much perfectly flat run along the lake shore.

So it went similar to the bike - PowerGel every 30 minutes + 4 to 6 oz of water with it. Salt stick once per hour (just in case), few sips of Gatorade every couple of miles. I walked for up to a minute every second aid station (every two miles), except for the last 5 miles. I used toilet once to pee in the middle of the run.

At first some runners were passing me on the run, but I kept to my 130 bpm rule. However in the second half I started to pass lots and lots of other runners who were very slow or even walking, including half distance athletes. I felt like I can run with this slow pace forever, however once I reached mile 20 decided to raise my HR to 140 bpm. At mile 23 still felt great and easy, so I decided not to hold it anymore and let it all unwind. The HR went up to about 155 and I was having great time. Like I was not even racing. There is something about keeping a heart rate vs. pace. With heart rate I KNOW I keep keep certain HR for certain time. Like 130 bpm I can keep "forever". 140 bpm can keep for a very long time. And not knowing the pace makes me not feel tired. So in the last 3 miles I just started accelerating and feeling great. Once I saw a finish line about 500 yards away I went into a full all out sprint and last few dozen yards went with 5 min / mile pace :-).

My run split was 3rd out of 26 in my age group (one person did not finish) and 24 out of 169 overall. Exactly the same as the overall race. Interesting, isn't it? It is very cool to look at the relative place as time goes by:

At the finish I was only slightly tired. Nothing at all comparing to previous races - marathons or Half Ironman distances where I felt half dead after the finish. This felt like I could do the whole thing again and I actually enjoyed the 100% of the race. I guess this is because I was extremely conservative and careful and did not push it at all. Before the race I was not even sure if I could finish the thing - considering my odd bike training and lack of real long distance brick workouts. This made me turn this race into a training exercise, but I learned a lot and most important loved it. I know next time it will be harder since I will push the pace some more - perhaps 135 bpm instead of 130? And it may not feel as good. Or do I even need to push it? Not sure yet.

What's next?

Now that this is behind, what do I do next? The hardest part of this was to stay away from injuries (I felt several times on the brink of overuse injuries and once had IT Band problem in spring time. The second hardest part was to find the time for training. Since I have three boys I really wanted them to see their dad accomplish this, but now I decided to switch into light fitness mode and become training partner for my youngest son, who seems to really like it so far :-). On the last few weeks after the race Edward and I went mountain biking on real trails and started to spend more quality time together. Now my plan is to get my middle son Sasha involved into this. Misha is training every day in the Crossfit studio and is in great physical shape and his first Crossfit Competition is tomorrow in Cleveland. I will be cheering there for him.
When is the next Ironman for me? Do not know. Perhaps when kids go to university and leave home?

Sprint Triathlon in North Park, Pittsburgh (Janney and YMCA - 2014)

On August 10, 2014 I raced Sprint Triathlon in North Park. This is only few minutes from my home and back in 2011 this was my first ever triathlon race (photos here). In 2013 I took first place in my age group (race report), so in this race I was defending my title sort of speak.

This year I won again in my 40-44 age group (19 participants) and went faster than the all competitors from age group 0 to 44, except for the overall competitors. I was 9th overall out of 233 competitors. The official results can be found here: http://www.runhigh.com/2014RESULTS/R081014AC.html.

Here is the comparison of 2014 results to 2013 and 2011 races:

	2011	2013	2014
Swim (700 yards)	00:18:21	00:13:48	00:14:29
Bike (12.5 miles)	00:33:17	00:32:59	00:32:46
Run (3.1 miles)	00:23:04	00:21:42	00:22:01
Total	01:14:42	01:08:29	01:09:16

I am happy with the result, however swim and run are slower compared to 2013 - not really sure why is that so. I sure hope this is because conditions were different and not because I got slower :-).

As always - major thing that needs improvement is the control of pre-race anxiety. I could not get any sleep the night before the race. I may have slept for about 30 minutes total - same as last year...

Video recording of the swim session

Two days ago I recorded my swim workout from several different angles and would love to get ya all critique - feel free to comment directly on YouTube. Looking forward to recommendations!

Would love to hear any recommendations on how to improve my swimming technique and speed. Here is the breakdown of the workout:
----------- View from above the pool (front)
00:00 - 150 yards - warmup breast stroke
00:12 - 150 yards - kick on a side w/ flippers
00:37 - 50 yards - kick on a side without flippers (note how slow I go - very weak kick)
01:00 - 450 yards - alternate 25 yards skulling with 25 yards free style stroke
02:40 - 150 yards - free style stroke with paddles
03:10 - 100 yards - free style stroke
03:22 - 400 yards - alternate 50 yards one arm drill with 50 yards free style stroke
----------- view from the edge of the pool
05:26 - 100 yards free style stroke
----------- view from the bottom of the pool
05:56 - 400 yards - alternate 25 yards fist drill with 25 yards free style stroke
----------- view from the side of the pool (above water)
06:27 - 50 yards - shark fin drill (note how slow I go because of a weak kick)
07:25 - 400 yards free style stroke
10:45 - 100 yards - cool down breast stroke
------
Total: 2500 yards, 50 min.

HD version of this video.

Training and racing summary for 2013

Happy New Year 2014 !

It was another awesome year for many reasons, fitness included. Overall training and racing went well and I enjoyed most of it, except the usual 24 hours of anxiety and lack of sleep before each race - if you know a "method" please let me know :-).

In 2013 I did two Sprint triathlon races and two Half Ironman 70.3 distance races (2nd overall in Boardman Sprint, 1st in age group in YMCA North Park Sprint).  Much anticipated introduction into long distance racing of triathlon went very well with first being Eagleman 70.3 and second being Cedar Point 70.3. Both races went very well, but running half marathon after two and a half hours of hard biking turned out to be harder than I expected. The links to detailed race reports are listed on the RACING page of this blog. Here are year summary stats from TrainingPeaks.com:

I took almost 3 weeks off at the end of the season with very little to no training at the end of November and good part of December.

From Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2013 I averaged 12 hours per week training time:

Year	Total swim (miles)	Total bike (miles*)	Total run (miles)	Longest swim (yards)	Longest bike (miles)	Longest run (miles)	100 yard swim (sec)	Half IronMan	Olympic triathlon	Sprint Triathlon	26.2 miles  run	100 mile bike
2013	130	5,937	985	3,200	65	16	1:24	5:11:04	-	1:06:56	-	-
2012	117	6,259	822	3,100	102	13.6	1:30	-	2:22:28	1:04:01	-	5:45
2011	72	6,800	948	1,500	102	26.2	-	-	-	1:14:42	3:23	5:20
2010	15	1,000	300	600	25	8	-	-	-	-	-	-
2009	5	300	200	400	20	6	-	-	-	-	-

* - bike miles in 2013 have been measured based on Wattage, not on the number shown by the trainer bike (to compare to previous years bike mileage needs to be multiplied by about 20%)

One thing that was very special this past year was the Savage Triathlon Camp that I attended for 3 days. That was a blast! Coaches were super knowledgeable and helpful, the athletes were friendly and fun, the program was very useful and included swim and run video analysis, bike fit, bike ride, open water swims, lectures and barbecue :-). Among other things, I really enjoyed climbing up "The Wall" during our epic bike ride almost entirely in rain. The camp was well worth the time and money and I would highly recommend it.

In  2013 I generally followed the following schedule of training and kept my log in the TrainingPeaks.com:

• Monday
  Crosstraining + bike + swim
• Tuesday
  Crosstraining + bike + run (hill repeats)
• Wednesday
  Crosstraining + bike + swim
• Thursday
  Crosstraining + bike + run (track intervals up to 600 yards)
• Friday
  Bike
• Saturday
  Swim
• Sunday
  Long run (usually on the trail in North Park)

Swim

This past year I was able to improve my swimming quite a bit. Last week in the pool I was able to swim a couple of 1m30s per 100 yards with 10 sec break and that was just steady swim - not all out effort. In 2012 I took two private swim lessons from Kim Schwabenbauer (she is coach, professional triathlete and nutritionist) and in 2013 had two private lessons from Suzanne Atkinson (she is swim coach and triathlete). These lessons helped me a lot as they set me on the right path.

In 2013 I took underwater video camera (Swann Freestyle goes for $140 on Amazon) with me to the pool every other week and set it on the side of the pool, at the end of the lane, under and over water, etc. and then watched that footage when I got back home. This was perhaps the single best thing that helped my swim. Other than that I have read few books on swimming and am subscribed to the http://www.swimsmooth.com newsletter (and bought their book). Those guys are fantastic! Their app is just pure awesomeness :-) - it is free to download and use.

Bike

This past year (same as in 2012) 95% of all of my biking I did on the indoor trainer - on my recumbent Schwinn 230i bike (purchase in 2001 on eBay for $650). I have built a computer desk over this bike and while pedaling do some email, read, write and do all kinds of stuff while biking. This is what allows me to do 4 to 5 bike workouts per week. I would never have been able to biks this much if I had to ride outside. Plus doing something on the computer removes any sense of boredom. I know people dread indoor bike workouts and would too if not for my computer setup. Since most of my cycling is done on the trainer indoors while doing something on my laptop, almost all of it is long steady ride with no intervals - after initial warmup of about 25 min, building up power to the steady level of 150 to 230 Watts and maintain it for the period of the ride (usually 1 hour to 3 hours), then cool down for 5 min at the end. I have not ridden my mountain bike in 2013 on real trail (I did ride it on pavement when riding with kids) and took my tri bike to the road for a total of about 15 times this past year, with 5 of those being races.

Run

In 2013 I ran three times a week with a long run being on Sunday morning on the trail of North Park. Other days either on the McKnight Elementary school track or in my neighborhood. Most of my running was in heart rate zones 3 and 4. Thru the year at different times I did tempo runs, 400 and 800 repeats, hill repeats, long steady runs, etc. However I feel I have a lot of work to do to improve my running as shown by the 70.3 races this year. I ran in top

90% of my runs I do while listening to audiobooks and podcasts. Some of my favorites are listed here. Because of those books and podcasts I love running. If I had more time, I would run three times as much. There is simply unbelievable amount of solid non-fiction content available on audio these days. I load my Android phone with podcasts and books, put on headphones and never want to stop running :-), especially if it is on North Park trail. It is as good as it gets.

Crosstraining

I usually do cross training in the morning before work and it takes ~35 min. I do about 90 reps on stability ball or on the floor for abs and 90 for the back (laying on stability ball face down), then do about 30 dynamic side planks on each side and then hold for 30 sec, do two sets of pull-ups (total of about 30), pushups with feet on stability ball and hands on floor handles (about 30 to 40 of these in one set).

Health

My height was 172 cm (5'7'') and weight stayed between 68 to 73 kg (about 2 kg less compared to last year). I had one minor foot injury this past year after having tried running in Newton shoes. Wont be using those again... Thanks to Dr. Brad Kleuber for fixing me and for showing some preventative exercises.

Average daily sleep time was about 7 hrs 20 min. Would be nice to get it up to 8 hours per day in 2014 :-).

Nutritionally I did well and made fruit and berry smoothies on my Vitamix blender several times a week. I must admit that this Vitamix is the most important "fitness" equipment I own :-). This is really outstanding stuff. I buy frozen fruit and berries at Costco or Sams Club, add fresh carrots and bananas, some flax seed or chia seed, honey, water and those smoothies are heavenly... The only thing is that I really like chocolate and natural honey and consume more of it than I should. I also love bunch of other sweet things (not soda though) and need to reduce overall sugar intake. This is a hard one... Here is what my fruit shakes look like. I stole this picture from the internet, but you get the idea :-). If you only had $350 to spend on your triathlon gear in 2014 and you asked me where to spend it, I would say you buy yourself Vitamix blender!

Plans for 2014

In 2014 plan on doing few Sprints and Olympic distance races, will run full distance Pittsburgh Marathon and will do MS150 ride. My goal at the Pittsburgh Marathon is to qualify for Boston and run under 3h 15 min.

Have not yet decided on the Half Ironman. If I do, it will likely be Cedar Point 70.3 or perhaps Moraine Man?

Braggart goose tale - a lesson for triathletes

TRANSLATION

BRAGGART GOOSE
(Uzbek tale)
- Here I am, - was bragging the goose, - I can fly in the sky, and can swim in the water, and can walk on land.
- So you can fly in the sky. But can you fly like an eagle? - he was asked.
- No, I can not fly like an eagle.
- So you can swim, but can you swim like a fish?
- No, I can't swim like a fish.
- Can you run on land like a horse?
- No, I can't run like a horse.
- Well goose, - he was told, - why are you bragging then?

LESSON for Triathletes

Do not brag too much if you can't swim like Phelps, bike like Lance (sorry...) or run like Bolt. :-)))

Race report - Half-Ironman 70.3 Rev3 Cedar Point

On September 8th I raced Cedar Point Rev3 70.3 Half Ironman in Sandusky, Ohio. This was my second Half Ironman distance with first being Eagleman 70.3 back in June. The race was a 70.3 distance, including 1.2 miles swim (1.93 km), 56 miles bike (90.1 km) and 13.1 miles run (21.1 km). I finished with the time of 5:11:04. Total number of people participated was 706, including 104 in my age group.

This was my "A" race for the year and since it was my second 70.3 distance, I was better prepared mentally and physically. Full race results can be found here. Here is the analysis of my times:

Two weeks before the race I had cold with running nose and cough, but I trained thru it and ignored it since there was no fever and I felt more or less normal.

In preparation for this race I did bike chain cleanup. I also bought new Continental 4000s race tires and put them on both front and rear. These are highly rated and are puncture resistant. My old tires were the originals that came with the bike and they had over 3,000 miles on them with visible signs of wear.


The race was held at the Cedar Point amusement park and start and finish are right next to the park entrance with roller coaster and all the park fun going on:

Swim

The swim was supposed to be held in Lake Erie, but because of strong winds and high waves it was moved half a mile (or more) away from transition to the inner harbor on the other side of the island. The race was wet suite legal and water was relatively clean and not too cold. I felt pretty good on the swim and as always did not push very hard. However one problem was that I zig-zagged quite a bit and had to get back to the proper position quite a few times during this swim. I did practice sighting in the pool and do not lose much speed when I sight, but I did not do it often enough and I think this contributed to getting off course. I passed few swimmers and few people passed me.

The best thing was that this was a time trial swim start. In other words, we did not start the heat all at once, but rather walked at our own pace thru the timing mat - two people at a time and your time starts when you cross the mat. This made for a comfortable start and helped to avoid the mess. This race was a little bit unique for me as I was not as nervous as usual. For whatever reason I felt pretty good and relaxed, waiting for the start.

Things to do for the next race:

• Keep working on swim technique and speed (drills, intervals, etc.)
• Do 400 and 800 tempo swims (for this race I only did tempos of up to 200 yards)
• Work harder during the swim in the race. I took this swim at moderate pace, but could do better next time.
• Do dry and wet warm-up before the race start (this time I could only do dry warm-up).

T1

Because the swim was moved over half a mile away from the transition, it took quite a bit of running to get to T1 - all bare feet on asphalt. However my T1 time was better than top 5 overall finishers of the race (!!). This was the first time I used the service offered by strippers - those people do not dance naked, they rather take your wet suite off in a matter of seconds. I ran quickly to the T1 and got on my bike in no time. As always I had my shoes clipped on and this helped to save time in transition. Bare feet in bike shoes - as always. I never use socks on the bike in triathlon races, but I would use socks for the "pure" bike race if I did one. Since I do not have a road bike, I can't really participate in "pure bike" road races. May be it is time to get a road bike so I can do it? Something to think about for 2014.

Bike

Bike was almost as flat as Eagleman race with very few small hills on the way. This was my first race ever when I had heart rate monitor and GPS on me. Here is the bike report from my Garmin watch - click to open interactive dashboard:

Overall I felt very good on the bike and did not go all out - saving some steam for the run. I did do several long rides of 2.5 to 4 hours and it helped a lot. However 99% of my bike training is on my recumbent bike, not even on the real bike, so it is hard to compete for the podium without training on the real bike and without intervals.

 The wind at times was extremely strong blowing from the side and some times into the face, so the bike time is a bit slower than expected, but still better than my last race. Notice that the average RPM on the bike is exactly 90! I passed a couple of hundred people on the bike and about 5 people passed me. Loved it.

T2

T2 was good and smooth. I definitely wanted to put on my socks and this contributed to slightly slower T2 time compared to top athletes. However it was totally worth few seconds. Here is the picture of transition area as it looked before the race:

Run

The run during the Eagleman back in June felt very very hard, so I was curious to see how it will go this time, considering that I was running quite well in training and shorter races. I started out at the pace of 7 min/mile, then involuntarily slowed down all the way to the crawling 9 min/mile towards the end of the race as you can see in this Garmin report (click for interactive dashboard):

The run felt good until about mile 5 and then it started to get harder and harder very quickly. However the air was relatively cool and there was no sun, so I kept running. I did walk on most of the aid stations, but never stopped in between. It felt better compared to the run at the Eagleman, but was still a very very hard run. I could say I more or less fell apart on the run. I watched GPS and in second half simply could not hold the pace at what I wanted it to be. In training I can run 13.1 miles with 7:30 min/mile pace, but this race was a minute slower than that. My full marathon pace was 7:45 min/mile back in late 2011, but I ran 4 times a week then and only 3 times a week with lower mileage now. Could that be a problem?

Things to do to improve the run:

• Longer tempo runs - faster than race pace - repeats of 2, 5, 8 miles. 
• Tempo runs race pace for 10 miles and above.
• Increase long runs to about 18 miles (up from the longest of 16 miles and average of 13 miles I did for this race).
• Participate in run races - in the past 30 yars I have only done one run race - Lake Erie Marathon back in 2011. May be I should do 5K, 10K, etc. There are many races in the Pittsburgh area. Need to have a look and plan for it.

 

 Nutrition

For breakfast 2.5 hours before the start had half a cup of almonds, banana and orange, slice of bread with a table spoon of peanut butter and strawberry jam, cup of green tea and then sipped water. Had half a cup of apple sauce.

I had 1.5 bottles of Gatorade on the bike and about 0.7 bottle on the run (at aid stations). Took gels every 40 minutes on the bike and run. Did not have to use restroom during the race and overall nutrition seemed to work well.

Logistics

Drove from Pittsburgh to Sandusky on Saturday morning - took 3 hours to get there. Slept in the car at the RV camping site on the back of the Cedar Point amusement park. It only took 5 minutes from that camping spot to the race start by car. The camping site office folks said I can just use their parking lot for free. The only problem was that it was noisy with all the amusement park rides and stuff up until about 11 pm. On the up side, this small camping site has free shower room, toilets, etc. All clean and nice. This is where I took shower after the race.

Two night before the race I did not sleep (bummer - never happened 2 night before). The night before the race I could not fall asleep on my own (again!) and had to take a risk with one tablet of Melatonin - never used it before. With this I got about 4 hours of sleep and woke up at 6am. Felt good - no residual effect from the tablet, so will definitely use it next time - will take one tablet about 3 hours before bed time on race night.

Oh yes, got this medal at the finish line (both sides shown):

Training and taper

Here is TrainingPeaks report on the training leading up to the race.My annual training plan was auto-generated by TrainingPeaks.com. You can see training hours on this dashboard (click on the image for full size picture).