Valentine's Biathlon Recap

Despite the whole V-day theme and the possibility of witnessing too much PDA, I signed up for the Valentine's Biathlon hosted by Waikiki Swim Club. Yeah, I'm a V-day hater. Since this was my first biathlon, I went in with a game plan of being conservative on the run and going all out in the swim.

Race day morning, instead of eating anything solid, decided to try the liquid diet route. Somehow managed to drink 12oz of Hammer Perpetuem (1 scoop) which was pretty rough, taste wise. Since the race was held at Ala Moana Beach park it took me about 10min to get there.

With the run being my weakness, It felt like almost everyone in the race passed my. Despite this, I stuck to my game plan, and held a brisk pace, maybe 75-80% effort knowing I still had to swim. I noticed a few VFF guys doing the gravel dance on the rough spots which was slightly entertaining. Towards the end, started to pass people who were breathing pretty heavy, all I could think was "shit, the swims going to suck for you". Got to the transition area and tossed the shoes and put the goggles on to get ready for the swim. According to my watch, my 5k time was a 24:48 with an average pace of 8:01. I surprised myself since I've never run anything under 25 min and I wasn't going all out. I had a lot of catching up to do since it seemed like half of the racers were swimming already.

Despite not breathing hard during the run, the swim started out a little rough. I took a few strokes and it was pretty tough to breath. Ugh. Thought to myself "Stupid asthma...still got 900m to go". Err so much for a fast swim. I must have swum breaststroke maybe 25-50m until things got under control. Since Ala Moana is pretty murky, I couldn't really see anyone or find a good draft. Hit the turn around point and BAM, talk about SUN! The sun made it pretty impossible to sight so so I kinda gauged it by following the shoreline. Since I was feeling much better, I decided to go all out on the return. Despite the swim fiasco in the beginning, my watch registered a 19:24. Not my greatest swim time but I was happy with it. 

Overall, I managed to place 19th overall (19/130), 5th in the 25-29M age group (5/14). In my age group I was almost the slowest runner (11th) with a time of 24:31.0 but I was the fastest swimmer with a time of 19:37.4 and an overall time of 44:08.4.

I guess my only complaints would be 1) to start the race earlier so the sun doesn't blind anyone and 2) change it to a swim/run format. My speculation is that a runner came up with the format so he/she couldn't lose to the fast swimmers. Haha.

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2011 Cholo's Waimea Bay 1.2 mile Swim

 Waimea Bay

I know it's a little late. Anyways, on with the report. 

Never deprive yourself of sleep. Listen to your body if it's tired. Rest and do it another day. I however, didn't listen and paid the price. Since Mondays are my sort of recovery days from working late on Sunday nights, I had every intention to be out cold by 8:30. So after a great 2K open water swim in my new SLS3 Fobic Speed suit. Little did I know, my post-workout high would be short lived. Two frantic voicemails, 3 call backs and a very quick drive home I found myself in the ER. Six hours later, starving and really grouchy, we finally got to go home. Times like this, I really wish I had a smart phone. Oh, I'm alright, it wasn't me that needed to go to the ER. The rest of the week was pretty rough. Slum lords upstairs had a visitor that would not STFU. So a good sleep was out of the question. So I woke up on Saturday morning, feeling tired as hell but decided to go do the swim. 

Stars and numbers indicate order and buoy placement.

Found parking a 1/4mile away (I'm too cheap to pay for parking) and walked to the bay. So for this race, females were to start first while males go second. I'm not sure on the whole reasoning behind this but it wasn't fun. Our wave starts and I'm feeling alright, got a good draft and started to get into a good rhythm. So somewhere between points 1 and 2,  somehow got stuck behind a slow female and blocked in by two slow guys on both sides and then it hit me. I felt really really exhausted. Almost to the point where I was having trouble breathing. I had to stop. Yes, that's right, I stopped. I dunno how long I was there trying to get my act together but it must have been a while. Anyways, got my act together and managed to finish in 37:32.9 for 20th in my AG. It's a far cry from the week before where I finished 8th. On another note, it was my second time wearing the SLS3 suit. All I can say is "Amazing". Don't forget that I stopped, I was tired and my previous time for 1.2 mile swim was a 38.04.

 

The guy in the back had a ridiculously strong kick which equaled great draft

For those who aren't familiar with Waimea Bay, some vids on how it looks during the winter. 

It's pretty crazy to see this in real life.

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2011 Aloha Salads Summer Sprint Swim

I dunno if I came down with something or what but I felt so drained out last week. I could barely finish my usual 2000m+ swim workouts and was in bed by 8pm. Race morning, had my usual pre-race breakfast of cream of rice w/cinnamon and honey. 

Arriving out on there, the weather wasn't in the ideal summer weather. It was a little overcast, breezy and the water was a little choppy. Not the best conditions for a swim. I've surfed a lot of times out on the North Shore but this was my first time actually swimming out there. Not to mention, first actual race swimming with people who only swim.

 

What I'm usually used to seeing during the winter. 

Swim started in waves, with males being first and females second. The swim was a little choppy and the currents really sucked (nothing worse than swimming and not moving). One thing I have to say, for a mass start, it wasn't that crazy. I didn't have to dodge breaststroke kicks or have to play rough with those who like too. 

Overall, I thought I did alright despite feeling tired during the week. Would I do it again? Most likely. Lessons learned, don't start in the inside, nor swim on the inside, always check your siting, the person you draft doesn't always swim straight. 

Time - 32:50.4

Age group 25-29 - 8th/36

Overall place - 143rd/743

Up next, the Cholo's Waimea Bay 1.2mile Swim - 7/16

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2001 Honu recap Pt 2

Still finding it hard to write. Post race blues? I dunno. Like I said, here's part 2. 

Race morning

Got up around 3:30, had my usual pre-race breakfast of 1/3cp cream of rice topped with cinnamon and sugar, 1/2 of a boiled sweet potato and a glass of Gu brew. On race mornings, I like to get up early so I can relax and get ready with out stressing out too much. Off to transition.

The thing I liked about transition area for this race is that all your gear must be in your bag and nothing on the ground. I'm not a big fan of clutter at transition areas. Seriously, you're just missing the kitchen sink. Got numbered and headed down to the beach for a warm up.

If you weren't aware, this is a mass start swim so it get's pretty hectic. Due to a last min bathroom visit, I didn't get the best starting position. The cannon goes off at 7am and it was pure madness. I pretty much had to swim heads up for about 25m to avoid getting kicked in the face. After getting out of that, I made it to the outside to get ready for buoy one. So after reading a few reports from previous years about people getting their ass handed to them at buoy one I chose to go wide. Here's a vid of buoy one last year

Despite the mass start swim, I found a good rhythm and pushed on. Since I started back in the outside middle, I had passed a lot of people so it was hard to find a good draft for the entire segment. Since this was my first actual deep water open water swim, I found it pretty cool swimming in water so deep, you only see dark blue. I felt really good for the most part of the race until the ending until some guy decided to grab my leg and pull me back. Wtf, who does that? Let's just say, I didn't play nice. Ended up with a 38:04 overall. Little disappointed with my time. Guess I should have pushed a little harder since I didn't feel tired when I got out.

So the bike course covers a good part of the Kona Ironman world championship course so that was pretty cool riding it.

This course has a lot of long hills and some flats so it was definitely not a walk in the park. The wind was pretty crazy at times, strong head winds both ways. I found myself passing a lot of people going up hills, only to be passed by the same people on the down hill. If you're wondering why I'm running black arm coolers, it's because I find it distracting to have white on while I'm riding. With the black, it blends in with my front end, thus no distraction.

 Overall, I went pretty conservative on the first half of the course, thinking of it, I should have pushed a little more on the hills and a little more on the way back. I didn't realize it until I got off the bike but I almost broke the 3hr mark. Finished in 3:04:26.

Bike dismount 

Bike rack area

T2 was pretty enjoyable, volunteers were at the dismount line to catch your bike and rack it. This was pretty nice. My mom took some pics of T2 for some reason. Guess she didn't realize I was going to bike it so fast. Anyways, started running and felt pretty good despite not running for a while and not doing much bricks. The Achilles tendons weren't sore at all so I thought the outlook would be good.

Two sponges in jersey and one in hat

However, at the end of  mile 3, things fell apart. My left IT band got tight and downright painful. Over the many months of running before I injured the Achilles, no ITB problems, nothing. Every time I tried running, it would hurt but when walking fast, it wouldn't hurt as much. So I ended up walking the last 10 miles of the race. Mentally, it was the toughest thing I had to go through. Old grandmas and grandpas would run past me, then walk once they were 10ft in front of me. The running course, was probably one of the toughest courses I've ever been on. A good part was on grass, than it would switch to concrete or asphalt, hills were long but not to steep. The toughest part was the so called "Death March" miles 9-11. It consisted of a long dusty paved road in the middle of the lava field with no shade or breeze whatsoever. 

Despite being in pain, sucked it up and ran it in. 

I'd like to forget this part of the race forever since it was so horrible. I'm so glad I didn't break 4 hours. Finished it in 3:28:12. Overall, I finished in a disappointing 7:19:30. Thinking about it, I'm still a little disappointed about it today. Would I do it again? Depending on funds, I will be back next year to beat my time by an hour or more. Promise. 

I'll be writing about my nutrition/gear set up on the next post.

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2011 Honu recap pt 1

It's been a awhile but I'm still alive. I'm kinda having a hard time finding motivation to write so you'll get the whirlwind version for now. Going to break it into two parts to make things easier.

So flew back home (Big Island) for the race on Tuesday night hoping to try get a swim in on Wednesday and buy food for Kona. Well, things didn't go as planned and found myself home on Wednesday. Living 30miles away from pretty much anything is pretty harsh, especially when the weather is bad.

It was about 59deg, probably colder with the wind chill 

Headed over to Kona on Thursday to check into the condo we were staying at, pick up bike and check in for the race. 

Weather wasn't looking good for Satuday 

After packet pickup/registration and bike pick up was over decided to take a quick swim at Hapuna beach (the swim start). Conditions were a little sloppy and choppy but that's what you get when you go in the late afternoon. 

Fettuccine alla Turkey Puttanesca with baby greens

Since we were staying in a condo, I cooked most of my meals instead of going out and eating. Will post the recipe for my Fettuccine alla Turkey Puttanesca with baby greens in another post.

Woke up Friday morning with the weather looking much better. It was a little hazy and the winds weren't too strong. 

View from deck looking towards Kailua Kona

Headed out to Hapuna for a swim and quick bike ride. The conditions were much better, calm, flat and visibility was really good. To be honest, I haven't swam in deep water in years so I felt a little nervous when it got really deep. After treading water for a bit and telling myself "I can swim, so STFU and get with it" I swam a bit further and headed back to shore. 

Prepping bike for drop off 

Bike hdyration/nutrition setup - X-Lab Super Wing (2 bottles), 2 frame mount (one left empty on purpose), bento box (1 Cliff bar and 2 Hammer Gels) and 2 Hammer Gels taped to frame. I know it wasn't the most aero setup. I'm sure I'd get some flack on ST for it.

Notice the saddles around my bike. No cheap stuff.

Just a future reminder, bring helmet for bike check in. I forgot to bring it, wasted 30min going back to get it. 

 

AstroTurf was laid down on top of the pavement. No worries about stepping on rocks in T1. 

My pre-race dinner was nothing to write home about. I like to keep things light and simple, so chopped up some roasted chicken breast deli meat, kalamata olives and mixed it up with some fettuccine and olive oil.

Part 2 coming up..

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Honolulu Triathlon 2011 Recap

I have to admit, I'm still new to this blogging thing so I tend to forget things essential to blogging. A camera. So this weekend was the 8th annual Honolulu Triathlon International Festival of Sports. It's a pretty big event with the Olympic and sprint distance triathlons, junior, youth and kids triathlons, sprint duathlon, open water swim, and a road race all on one day. I give them credit for holding such a huge event with races all going on at  the same time.

So Saturday was packet pick up, body marking and bike drop off. This day before stuff is really nice since it reduces lines and makes race morning smoother, however since it's such a big ass race, the longs were quite long in my section. This year they decided to do the body marking before the race. I'm used to having the number written on me and getting high off the fumes. I lucked out, this year they had legit number stamps instead of pens. If you just so happen to stumble on my blog, I hurt my Achilles tendon a few months ago and had to changed 2/3 races over to relay events with me swimming and biking while having another run. This worked out at the Lanikai triathlon since it was a little on the smaller scale side. I was still able to change it over but talk about confusion on their end. I guess people don't really do two people teams that often or at all since they seemed a little lost on what I was talking about despite the approval from the race director. After I got that sorted out, I still had a feeling that they weren't sure on what to do.

On race days, I get up a few hours before start time to give myself time to eat, use the bathroom, stretch and check my bags to make sure I have everything and head out early. One of my things is arriving early on race day. By arriving early, it gives me time to set up my transition area, check the bike, use the bathroom, and try to relax.

Time for the race report. Since I was doing a relay, we had to start dead last for the swim. Luckily I found another relay swimmer who was pretty decent so I decided to draft off of her for the first 500m but that was when things got interesting. We hit the mass of slow swimmers. From this point on, most of my time was spent avoiding the breaststroke kicks, sidestroke kicks and trying not to run any slow swimmers over. Not fun. It was like swimming at a crowed public pool. Somehow I managed to do the 1500 in 23 min. Not my best time but can't help it. On to the bike section. The game plan was to sandbag the ride for 13 miles and slowly pick it up to mile 18 and pound it for the till the finish.The plan worked out perfectly, allowing me to have energy to fight the head wind and pound it back for a 1:08.

I don't know the exact times for what we did, the times were taken from my watch and meter on the bike. Apparently the timing chip didn't work for the swim part, somehow worked for the bike and run. Remember I said I had that feeling like they didn't know what they were doing? Well I guess my gut was right, they messed up on the category we were in, thus making us not exist on the results posted online today. Oh well. We still had fun doing it. On another note, 2 more weeks till the Honu. I know I must have said this a million times but I pretty excited to do it! Can't wait! 

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2011 Lanikai Triathlon

It's a little late but finally getting around to it. I had all intentions of doing this myself but since the Achilles is still hurting, I changed it over to a two man relay. It was my first time doing the Lanikai Triathlon so I wasn't sure what to expect. Overall, I thought we did pretty well for a two person team. We got 112/354 overall, 9/23 overall relay, 4/5 male realy. Times were 1:13:36, swim 55/354 - 9:10, bike 128/354 32:07, run 159/354 30:05. Oh, post-race snacks were awesome. Can't go wrong with free Jamba juice. Up next, 2 man relay action for the Honolulu Triathlon Olympic distance.

Here's the only pic I could find. I dunno who the woman in the back of me was but it was really entertaining to play bike tag with her over the whole bike course.

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