Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Vacation time

I'm now back in Lexington after 2+ weeks of traveling. I started the trip on the Thursday before Kansas 70.3. We drove to St. Louis, stayed the night, then traveled on to Lawrence for the race. After the race, we drove back to St. Louis and stayed two nights with Casey's family. Tuesday came around and we came back to Lexington. Wednesday came and we were off to the Lake for a family reunion. We spent several days at the Lake just relaxing and enjoying a few short and easy trail runs. It is always great to see my extended family that I don't get to see very often and to eat all of the amazing baked goods that everyone brings for snacking. We had some fun laying by the pool and enjoying time out on the boat. Very early Saturday morning, we hit the road from the lake to meet up with my dad's side of the family for our trip to the beach. By 3pm that day, we were in Destin, Florida. We spent a very nice week in Destin before traveling back to Kentucky this past Saturday. Unfortunately my car broke down in Bowling Green so Casey had to pick me up to get me back to Lexington, but I did eventually make it, haha.





Florida was amazing and it was nice to get in some good training on the beach. The weather was extremely hot and humid, but I guess its good for a short amount of time. My hardest run workout of the week was performed at 5am as I was trying to beat the heat. I did some early bike workouts as well as I had to ride on a busy road so if I didn't go early, then I had to fight with very heavy beach traffic for 12 - 14 miles of road. Swimming was the easiest of the 3 disciplines as I had a nice outdoor pool to swim in, and the heat wouldn't affect me as much as the other 2 sports. I did several runs in the afternoon when the "feels like" temperature was well above 100 so that made for some "not-so-easy" easy runs. What always makes vacation fun is being able to spend time with my family as we all live in different locations and of course all of the good seafood. I had Lobster twice (which is my favorite seafood) and then several different types of fish that were freshly caught and prepared.





But it is good to be back and to have a normal routine again. I have Muncie 70.3 coming up in about 10 days and then the Giant Eagle Triathlon in Columbus, Ohio on the 31st of July.





Tony

Monday, June 13, 2011

Kansas 70.3 RR

After a couple of solid training weeks, I was ready to race. I felt like a bum during my taper this past week as I was doing a lot of nothing. I am reading a great book that I got for Christmas entitled "Unbroken." Anyways, last weekend I decided to compete in a local sprint Tri to get in a solid effort 1 week out from Kansas and I knew it wouldn't take too much out of me. After some difficulties with the course, I did manage to pull out the win but I could definitely tell I needed to rest more as I didn't feel great in either the swim, bike, or run.
This past Thursday, Casey and I hit the road to St. Louis as we stayed with her parents Thursday evening before heading to Lawrence on Friday. Friday we made it to Lawrence and had a fabulous homestay with Marc. He has an amazing home and Casey and I really enjoyed staying with his family. We even got to Karaoke on Saturday for our evening entertainment.
Saturday was a lot of short, easy workouts, eating food, Pro meeting, and just chilling. I watch the Adidas Grand Prix Track meet on TV and rested before heading out to dinner.

Sunday morning came and I was ready to roll. I got everything ready, set up my T2 before heading down to T1 by the water. At 6:15, I had my wetsuit on and was ready to get started. At 6:30, the gun went off. I had a great starting position on the inside and got out pretty good. I found some feet after about 100 - 200 of swimming and I stayed right where I was for the next 600 - 700 meters. I started to fall off pace just a tad but was really fatigued for some reason. This was the warmest water that I've used my wetsuit in many years and I was getting very over heated. My shoulders were a little tired as I didn't swim in my wetsuit very much leading up to the race as I didn't expect to use it, but these are all just excuses. I lost those feet just before the first turn, and also got hit by a big wave right as I took a breath so it took me 6 - 8 strokes to catch my breath. By that time, a 10 meter gap had opened and I was in no man's land for the return trip to shore. This felt like the longest swim ever. The wind was howling and pushing me to the left so I was swimming like a snake trying to fight the current of the water as I came back to shore. I came out off the water with no one in sight and a feeling that I was in dead last. I hopped on my bike and I was off.

I felt terrible for these first 5 miles on the bike, I had trouble getting my feet in my shoes, and also had a direct head wind. I thought about stopping but figured that I had traveled too far to just stop. I put my head down and went after those guys up the road. I kept my eye on my power and pushed the pace. I caught one guy around mile 8, then didn't see anyone else until Zach Ruble flew by me around mile 22. I caught a few others but wasn't really making up much time on the leaders. The wind was brutal for most of the bike and I was not a happy camper. I had a decent wattage average for my bike split but the time was really slow compared to other years here at Kansas. I came into T2 in about 13 or 14th position with a group of guys just 1 minute up the road or so. I knew if I could put together one of my usual runs, I would most likely catch them.

2 miles into the run I felt terrible. My legs were heavy and I felt like I was slogging along. I passed Zach pretty early in the run but everyone else had at least a minute on me. I held pace for the first lap and loosened up a little but never felt great. Around mile 8, I could finally see places 10th and 11th running together. I passed them around mile 9 - 9.5 and put some good time on them. I was happy to be in 10th given how terrible I felt and knew that 8th place still had a good distance on me. I just ran it in and managed to sneek into 9th position thanks to a guy who went a little too hard on the bike. I crossed the line in 9th place and was extremely happy to be finished.

I am really sore as my shoulders, back, legs, hips, knees, and stomach are all making it hard for me to move normally today. I'm thinking a lot of laying around, or hanging out by the pool if the sun comes out, is my plan for the day. I'm racing in the Muncie 70.3 race in a few weeks but I have 2 good weeks of R&R which will be spent at the Lake this week and then at the beach in Florida next week.

Tony