St. Anthony's Tri

The title pretty much says it all. I went to Florida to race in my first professional race, and I ended up not even finishing it. The swim was cancelled for the age groupers due to the choppy water but the professionals were still going to swim. And considering that open water swimming in the ocean is my strength (sarcastic tone), I was really excited about swimming (still a sarcastic tone). I might have been a little too anxious about the whole swim after they cancelled the swim, and I never really got back into "race mode" before the race start. That competitive drive that is almost always there on the starting line, just wasn't there Sunday morning. I was extremely worried about the swim.

We sprinted into the 5 ft. swells and started the swim. The first 500 - 600 yards of the swim were directly into the swells along side the pier. Once we made the first turn, it wasn't near as bad, but by that time, I had already lost contact with a lot of the better swimmers. I was in no man's land, and I just wanted the swim to be over. I came out of the water feeling like I was in last place, and grabbed my bike. Once I was on the bike, I felt decent, but nothing spectacular. I know that I was kicking A LOT during the swim because I felt "the burn" in my legs during the swim, which never happens. And this over ambitious amount of kicking really burned me out for the rest of the race. I caught a few people on the bike, but not a ton. I moved into about 25th place by the end of the bike, and I was looking forward to the run because of how good some of my running workouts had been going lately. Well, I ran out of T2 and just felt absolutely horrible. I had a side stitch before I even started the run which never happens, my legs felt smoked, and the heat just didn't help the current situation. I made it about 3/4 of a mile before I stopped and tried to catch my breath. I started running again only to find myself jogging at a leisurely pace. I couldn't go any faster and was still forced to stop and sit down for a minute. Right then I just decided it wasn't worth it to try and run a slow 10k to finish the race. I just walked back to the transition area with my head down. This was my first ever DNF for a triathlon and I am not proud of it. I wish there was a race tomorrow that I could run in.

The trip was pretty fun though. We got to hang out on the beach, I met some pretty cool guys, relaxed a little, and just had some fun.

Hopefully my next race report is a little better.

Tony

St. Pete Beach

I am currently sitting on the patio of a Panera bread while I type this. I am enjoying the nice breeze and warm sunshine. I had my first professional interview yesterday which kind of happened my accident. When I find out where it is, I'll post a link. The race tomorrow is going to be followed on twitter by a guy who is in charge of "Athletes for a Cure." Brian, who is with the group, did my interview. I start at 6:52 am.
The official race website is

www.satriathlon.com

The twitter cast of the race is

http://twitter.com/athletes4acure

And another possible link is

http://twitter.com/triboomer

They are providing minute by minute race coverage. Hopefully I'll be close enough to the front to be mentioned, haha. I heard that last year they had live results at the official race website so you may be able to check up on the race there as well.

I'll post a race report sometime in the following days. Remember, I always give brief updates through my twitter page: http://twitter.com/tonywhitetri

Thanks for reading and thanks for all of your support. I'm really excited about the race tomorrow.

T-Bird

Pics from H&S Tri

Here are just a few pictures from the race this past weekend. My girlfriend told me she didn't get many of me because "I was too fast." Haha, that's nice to know. She was borrowing Beth's camera so I''m assuming she just wasn't used to the snapshot time on the camera.


Myself, Sean McNulty, and my bro Ben

Crossing the finish line

Beth and I after the race

Ben before the race in the transition area.

Beth crossing the finish line in first.

Heart & Sole Triathlon

I competed in my first triathlon of the year on Saturday in Versailles, KY. This was my third time competing in this race, but my first since 2006. I was excited to wear my new Kiwami suit, try out my CycleOps Powertap in the race since I decided not to put the Zipp's on for this race, and to simply race for the first time this year.

The race was a 400 yard swim, 15 mile bike, and a 5k run on a cross country course which was 95% grass. Luckily, Eric had emailed the race director to inform him I was an "elite" so the race director seeded me first in the water (time trial start in a pool). I swam the 400 in about 4:20 ish and was headed out on the bike. It was a beutiful day. At the beginning of the race, it was probably mid to high 50's and sunny. The bike course was a lot more rolling than I remember it and I haven't been doing many hills on the bike, so that hurt a little. After really working hard out on the bike, I came into T2 ready for the run. I had averaged just over 300 watts for the 15 mile bike course. I was around 310 watts going into the last 3 miles, but I made a turn and had a tail wind for the final 3 miles of the bike so my average wattage went down. Not that I'm complaining, I would rather have a tail wind, ha. I took off on the run feeling great. This run course is known as one of the toughest XC courses in the state of KY. There are all kinds of crazy hills on it, so it isn't really a great predictor for St. Anthony's next weekend, but it was still a race pace effort which is always good before a big race. There were no mile markers so I was running on "feel." I crossed the finish line in 58:58. My run time was 17:08. I was hoping to be under 17 but I forgot how hard that run course was. I won the race with my good friend Jeff Buhr finishing right behind me. Mideast Multisport related athletes really cleaned up at this race. We took 6 of the top 7 spots overall. Myself in first, Jeff in second, Sean McNulty in 4th, one of Beth's athletes in 5th, Eric in 6th, and my brother Ben in 7th. Not to mention, Beth won the women's race, so we did really well overall. The results can be found here:

http://www.headfirstperformance.com/Results/09H&S.htm

I was pleased with my effort and times. My bike pace was around 24.5 mph. That was on a hard course with no racing wheels. Next weekend I'll be on an extremely flat course with racing wheels so hopefully I'll show some of those other "big name" pro's who Tony White is, ha. It'll be my first professional race.

This week I finished my last school assignment which is always a good feeling. I had a 20 page paper due in my "Exercise and Disease" class. I still have to attend class over the next 2 weeks, and possibly take a pop quiz, but other than that, my semester is over. I guess it's time to find a job.

Tony

Last Week

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but I've been really busy with school. I took my Comprehensive Oral exams last Friday (and passed) and I have a big paper due tomorrow that I'm still working on. I had a great training week last week with some really solid workouts. I did two really hard runs, several good bike workouts, and some good swims.

Swim: 7:20 hours
Bike: 8:26 hours
Run: 4:49 hours

Total: 20:40 hours

Monday I took an easy day and then was back at it yesterday with a hard run. My first triathon is this weekend and I'm really looking forward to getting back into racing season. The race this weekend is a little one in Versailles, KY. It's going to be a tune up race for the big one the following weekend in Florida against some "big dawgs."

Back to typing the paper.

Tony

Weekly Update

So even though last week was kind of a recovery week from my sickness, I was still able to get in a decent amount of training towards the end of the week.

Run: 3:10 hrs
Swim: 4:55 hrs
Bike: 5:10 hrs
Weights: :25 minutes
Total: 13: 30 hours

I got in a great bike ride on Saturday. It was my longest ride of the year. I went about 53 miles at a pretty easy pace. I didn't feel that easy since I've been recovering from illness, but we rode lots of hills. And I ran my longest run in about 3 weeks on Sunday. I ran 11 miles. It was a pretty good run but again it didn't feel great. I was probably tired from the bike ride on the day before. I'm currently about to go run some hill repeats and then hang out with Casey, Beth, Eric, and Tyson and go watch "Fast & Furious." I need to study for my Comprehensive Oral Exams, but I just can't get motivated. I'll probably bear down tomorrow and study a lot over the span of the next two days. I feel like I know the material from the written exams, and that I just need to make a few small changes in my responses for the Oral exams.

I am currently not very good at Nintendo Wii, haha. My studying and training has taken its toll on my nintendo time, and I have recently found more time to play. I just got dominated on Mario Kart so I hope to improve in the near future. Maybe I should skip a few workouts this week so I can improve. Don't tell my coach.

Tony

Saturday

So I finally recovered from that nasty flu that I had. I haven't felt that horrible in a long time. I did get a stomach bug last year but that only took me out of 2 days of training. This bug took a whole week away from me. But maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Not that I think I really needed a week of no workouts, I did probably need some rest. I have felt a little sluggish on my runs/swims since the flu but nothing too serious. Wednesday was my first exercise since the following Wednesday. So far I've swam and run 3 times this week with a bike ride. I am doing a longerish bike ride this afternoon followed by a short run. Then I'll probably watch the NCAA games tonight. I definitely didn't feel good in the water on Wednesday or Thursday, but I did have a decent workout yesterday so that was encouraging. I'll probably do a few really hard sessions in the next 2 - 3 weeks to try and get me ready for the big race in Florida on the 26th.

School is almost over and I'm pretty happy about that. I have a 20 page paper that is due on the 16th and I have my Comprehensive Oral exams this coming Friday. Once those two things are behind me, then my semester and school career will be officially over. I will still have to teach until the first week of May, and I'll have to attend the one class that I'm taking this semester, but my school work will be over. I only have another 1.5 weeks left.

I know it was a short update, but that's about all that is going on right now.

T-Bird