RACE REPORT: Boilerman Olympic Distance Triathlon, Purdue University.

Today, I competed in the Boilerman Olympic distance triathlon in Lafayette, Indiana. The distances were an 800 meter pool swim, a 40k bike and a 10k run.

SWIM: 16:35
T1: 0:48
BIKE: 1:10:03
T2: 0:58
RUN: 53:06
TOTAL: 2:21:30

My first mistake was underestimating the difficulty of all three legs of the course:
- The swim was made difficult because of all the people trying to navigate through the 8 lanes of the Purdue University Aquatic center pool, even though they did a time trial start to avoid congestion.
- The bike was much hillier than I expected. Either West Lafayette is hillier than most of central Indiana, or the race director deliberately took us on some pretty steep hills. My time reflects that.
- The run was also quite hilly, including three steep hills that we had to run twice each (it was a two loop course). I was hoping to break 50 minutes for 10k, but there was no way with the hills.

My second mistake was not getting mentally into the race. It’s a “C” priority race for me, with nothing at stake and no big races left this season to look forward to. As a consequence, I lacked the desire to really “push” at the end of the race. I tried to turn the pain dial up on the second loop of the run, but only managed a 20 second negative split when I was hoping for more.

Perhaps I am better suited to long course events, where the pain is a different, more physical kind of pain (e.g. the “my body is giving out” kind of pain, rather than the “there is too much lactic acid in my muscles” kind).

However, all is not negative to report with this race. I didn’t botch my flip turns too badly on the swim. I even did some flip turns under the lane lines, to quickly get myself into the next lane! After the first few miles, I felt really smooth on the bike. I was cruising on the last several miles of the course. My nutrition felt better this race (I ate more before the race), but I still had some minor stomach distress during the end of the bike/start of the run. Lastly, I felt very strong and confident on the run, like I could run for a long time at the pace I was running (though, as I said, I couldn’t make the diesel engines that are my legs jump up a gear). And my pace, considering the topography of the course, was respectable.

I did the race with my friend Yushen, who has come a *long* way since starting training for triathlons at the beginning of the year. His swim and bike times reflect considerable improvement, and I hope he sticks with triathlon in the future.

My front derailleur started to act up *after* the race finished today. I’ll be making a trip to the shop on Monday, but it’s a good thing it didn’t give me problems during the race!

Marty Predicts His Ironman Wisconsin 2009 Time.

While I was out on what turned out to be a really solid training session today (51 mile ride, 3 mile brick run), I realized that it would probably be a good idea for me to publicly post about how I want Ironman Wisconsin to go in September.  This will give me some targets to shoot for during my training in the off-season, spring and summer.  It will also make sure my training stays on target and keep me from getting lazy when the going gets tough.

I’m basing these projections on my best half Ironman distance performance from this season.  I went 5:30 at the Muncie Endurathon in July with the following time splits: 39:00 swim, 2:44 bike, 2:03 run.  I am also basing my projections on the premise that I will get more fit and improve my skills in all three sports in the next several months.

Projected IM swim time: 1:16 (2:00/100 meter pace)
Projected T1: 5:00
Projected IM bike time: 6:13 (18mph pace)
Projected T2: 3:00
Projected IM run time: 4:22 (10 min/mile pace)
Projected total time: 11:59

So basically I want to break 12 hours. If I can improve my bike and run stamina, get a bit more streamlined in the water, and lose some more weight, I think that this is a realistic, but challenging goal. Now hold me to it!

Just Finished my First Bridge Game Against Real People!

 My co-worker, Carl, has been trying to teach me more about bridge over the past couple of weeks.  We’ve played together online several times, and evidently I’m progressing adequately because he invited me to the Thursday night duplicate Bridge game at the Older American Center tonight!

I was totally nervous as I was driving to the OAC.  Carl had told me that the players were all very nice, but “cut-throat” and “ruthless.”  So I was pretty scared, since I can barely handle a simple natural bidding system right now.  When I arrived, there were about 8-9 tables set up, and we got started.

Carl and I had a bye in the first round, so we stepped out and talked about how things would go today. Carl has been really nice in reminding me to just stay calm, have a good time, and don’t worry about things too much.  Although it would be an impossible task for me not to freak out, I appreciated him saying that.

The first few hands progressed without too much difficulty–I was dummy once and on defense on another.  On the third board, I managed to bid myself into a 2H contract.  Which means that I had to take command and play the hand.  Command, haha.   When the dummy came down I spent the next thirty seconds panicking, and trying to remember what contract I was in (2H) and how many tricks that meant I had to take (8). I somehow managed to escape that first hand only going down one (taking 7 tricks instead of 8).

The next few boards went a bit better, mostly because I spent a lot of time as the dummy and I could get a better feel for how in-person bridge is played.  We used what are called “bidding boxes,” which allow for one to bid without talking.  Not only does this prevent a person from using the inflection of their voice to communicate information to their partner, but it makes the room a lot quieter.

As the night progressed, I made a bunch of silly goofs, like laying down the trump (as dummy) on the wrong side of the table, playing out of dummy instead out of my hand, and making some generally poor play decisions.  I did, however, declare and make no less than three contracts, including two at game level (3NT both times)!

Everyone I played with was, as Carl said, quite nice and welcoming.  Almost everyone mentioned that it was lovely that I came to play, and that they hoped I’d come back again.  Many were in their 70s and 80s, and a few lovely ladies were over 90 years old!  However, everyone there pretty much cleaned my clock, which was again as expected.

Afterwards, Carl and a few others gave me some suggestions as to how I could improve my game (which I appreciated very much), and after washing our hands several times (which Carl said is the most important part of playing Bridge), I was done.  

As I got in the car to head home, I realized just how mentally draining playing Bridge can be.   We played 24 boards (hands) without a break.  I haven’t used my brain that much since Calculus class in high school.

In addition to the Thursday night game, they also play a game on Monday afternoon.  Even though it was tough, and I’m pooped, I am totally excited about playing more Bridge.   Since Carl has a regular partner (who was out of town today), he can’t play with me all the time.  Anyone want to be my partner?

Biking to work (so far), and playing Bridge!

This week was my first week at my new job, tutoring pre-algebra and algebra to students at Ivy Tech Community College here in Bloomington.  The job is great so far–low stress, rewarding, and moderately challenging–with the added benefit of allowing me to bike to and from work.  It’s about a 16 mile round trip, and only adds about 20 minutes each way of total commute time (from out-the-door to in-the-tutoring-center).  The roads are nice, and it gives me a nice chance to get some short hard rides in (which I rarely do, but is so important to gaining bike speed).

The only downside is that there’s not really any place to take a shower once I get to work.  I have to clean up in one of the bathrooms, and keep a change of clothes and some toiletries in my filing cabinet at work.  However, it’s tolerable, as I can usually get clean enough to be presentable.  At any rate, I think I’ll keep this up until it gets really cold!  (and even then, maybe I’ll just buy warmer clothes!)

At work, I met a guy who also plays Bridge.  He seems to be excited about finding a “young person” who plays Bridge, so we’ve played together a few times on the internet.  I’ve played OK, but I definitely have a long way to go.  There’s a lot to learn about bidding, conventions, and the play of the game that I just haven’t internalized yet.

The big news is that he has invited me to play a “real life” game against “real people” next week!  We have a date for Thursday night, where we’ll take on the champion Little Old Ladies (LOLs) of Bloomington in a cut-throat, die-hard test of knowledge, cunning and skill.  I will probably do horribly, but it will be a great learning experience for me.

WEEKEND REPORT (Part 2 of 2): Volunteering at Ironman Wisconsin.

We met Lana’s friend Jo at her apartment in downtown Madison. Her apartment is literally three blocks from the Ironman transition area, and overlooks the swim course! After a nice dinner (and some drinkys) out on the town and a bit of sleep on Saturday night, I was up at 6am to go watch the swim start of Ironman Wisconsin.

IMMOO (as it’s called, because of the cows) consists of a 2.4 mile swim in Lake Monona, a 112 mile bike in the rolling terrain west of Madison, and a 26.2 mile marathon around the city of Madison and the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Racers start at 7am and have until midnight to finish the race.

The start in an Ironman is really an awesome sight. When 2600 wetsuit-clad athletes switch from treading water to swimming furiously, the affect is stunning.

After taking a bunch of pictures and videos of the beginning portion of the race, I took a nap before my volunteer shift, which started at 2:30pm. I decided to volunteer because (a) it would be cool to actually be a part of the race in some small way, but mostly because (b) volunteers get priority signup for the 2009 race. I volunteered as a “bike handler,” which means that I take the bikes from the athletes as they complete the bike course, and rack them in the transition area. In most races, the athletes do this themselves, but in an Ironman the athletes get “white glove” treatment (literally–we wore white rubber gloves!) and we take their bikes for them while they go straight into the changing area.

I got to see a lot of cool bikes, and I also got to see the last few athletes come in off of the bike course. After the last athlete came in within the time cutoff, I went to the finish line and watched some of the finishers in the 11 hour range. 11 hours is a pretty darn fast race, and for the few women I saw they were likely AG winners, or close to it. Lots of lean, tan, strong-looking people, moving quickly through the finishing chute to get the quickest possible time.

It’s interesting to contrast the way the 11 hour finishers looked in comparison to the 15-17 hour finishers looked. After a dinner and hanging out with Lana and Jo some more, I went back to the finishing area to watch the last finishers. Though just as excited and full of adrenaline as the 11 hour finishers, these folks seemed more just happy to be finishing (as opposed to the “racing” mentality of the 11 hour finishers). A few folks had a bit of trouble, but no one seemed too bad off. There were a couple of finishers who just barely made it within the time cutoff, and one woman made it with just four seconds to spare!! Good for her!

I can definitely see why people love to do the Ironman branded races. The atmosphere is incredible, the support is amazing, and the athletes are basically treated like celebrities for the entire time.

So, this morning, I got in line to sign up for next year. There were two lines–both very, very long–one “priority” line for volunteers that registered first, then a second line for anyone else who wanted to register. Fortunately, everyone who stood in line had the opportunity to sign up for the race next year–including me! I’ll be toeing the line at Ironman Wisconsin 2009!

Doing the race will be the easy part. The hard part is what’s to come in the next year–training my butt off, avoid injuring myself, and trying not to do anything stupid.

WEEKEND REPORT (Part 1 of 2): Great Illini Half Ironman.

SWIM: 41:07 (Rank: 102/181)
T1: 1:38 (Rank: 26/181)
BIKE: 2:53:26 (Pace: 19.4mph Rank: 78/181)
T2: 1:56 (Rank: 77/181)
RUN: 2:05:32 (Pace: 9:35/mile Rank: 77/181)
TOTAL: 5:43:41 (Rank: 77/181)

The Great Illini Half Distance Triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) was on Saturday.  It was a pretty small (about 180 people doing the half distance, and about 70 people doing the full Ironman distance) event, but the crew still did a really nice job of providing a safe course and support to the athletes.  The stadium lights in the transition area were a nice touch, so we could see what we were doing in the pre-dawn hours.

My race went pretty well–not fantastic, but not bad either. If anything, I put in a consistent performance, judging by my split rankings. I felt good on the swim, but swam crooked and couldn’t find any feet to draft, so I fell just short of my target 40 minute swim. T1 was okay, but I lost about 20 seconds because I forgot to put on bodyglide and my wetsuit didn’t come off so easily.

The bike was deceptively tough, for a super flat midwestern farmland course. There was a slight wind out of the North blowing at maybe 3-5mph, and the northbound portions of the course (maybe 20% of the total course) were very slightly uphill. These two factors really messed with my head–when I was traveling north, my speedometer would say 18mph when I really should have been doing 21 with the same effort! This probably cost me a bit of time, as I no doubt put in way too much power on the northbound portions of the course and had to compensate by going easy on the southbound portions. At any rate, my time was just a few minutes short of my 2:50 target (several miles of brand new chip seal didn’t help my time, either). T2 was slow, because I made sure to tie my shoes properly this time.

I actually went out on the run feeling pretty good, and clocking some good miles. We did a pancake flat 6.55 mile out and back, twice, for the half marathon distance. Unfortunately, the road was pretty cambered so I found myself running either in the center of the road, or on the soft shoulder next to the road. I had some digestive problems, and unfortunately had to visit the port-a-potty twice on the run, losing a total of about 4 minutes. My feet also ended up blistering pretty bad–that’s the last time I wear my orthotics during a race! At any rate, I closed out the run with my legs intact, in 2:05 and change, which fell well short of my two hour goal (though if you subtract the 4 minutes in the bathroom, it’s a lot closer to the goal).

I tried a few things in this race, in anticipation of my longer races next season. I already mentioned the orthotics, which I likely won’t be using in races again (though on my winter runs, they’ll be great to keep my legs healthy). I did some different nutritional things (more calories on the bike, more gels on the run, a bit less water), and I have a better idea of what I’ll need next season. I cramped a bit on the run, and it may be time to try out some salt tablets and see if that works. Also, I think that less water was a bad idea–it didn’t hurt me too much during this race, but during a longer race I’ll need to keep my fluids up more.

For once, the weather was beautiful. 65 at the start, warming to 75 at the end of the bike, and 80 at the end of the run. I even got a bit of a sunburn!

I actually got an AG award (4th in my age group), but we left before I could pick it up (and who knew that they would give out awards FIVE deep in the age groups)! Drat!

After the race, Lana and I drove up to Madison, Wisconsin, to visit Lana’s friend Jo and to check out Ironman Wisconsin!

I got a Second Job!

It’s actually the same job Lana has had for a few months now–I’ll be working part time as a Math Tutor at Ivy Tech community college across town.  I’ll be helping students who are taking pre-college math courses, and some college algebra as well.

I decided to take this job because it’s a small time committment (only 11 hours/week), because Lana likes working there, and because this will be great experience for me as someone who is interested in teaching and pedagogy.  At first, I was skeptical since I haven’t taken a math course since high school (except for Discrete math at UIUC), but after taking a look at the textbooks that the students are working with, I’m confident that I’ll be able to help the students even though I’m not a “math person” per se.

The pay isn’t as good as being an AI (especially since I’m only working about 40-45 hours/month), but it’s mitigated by the fact that I can get a decent bike workout riding to and from the tutoring center!  Also, when the tutoring center gets slow, I can either do homework or talk to the tutors!  (I happen to be dating one of the tutors.)

I start on Tuesday

This website made me sick.

So I was going about my business reading triathlon internet forums, when I was linked to this website.  What I found made me feel terrible.  I counted many, many threads openly discussing the use of illegal substances, such as EPO, HGH and testosterone, in endurance events such as triathlons.

What I don’t understand is how these people can look at themselves in the mirror!  Ignoring the fact that these substances are dangerous to use (with potentially severe side effects), using them is simply cheating.  Whena qualification spot for Ironman Hawaii is at stake, it makes it that much more difficult for the clean athletes (such as myself) to earn the spot that we deserve.  

At a time when doping is at the forefront of all of our minds (especially in sports like Cycling), these people who choose to break the rules are destroying the sport.  If you’re a doper and you’re reading this, until the rules change to allow the use of these substances, please stop it.  Your selfish, unconscionable actions affect us all.

Marty’s Fall Semester Time Management Post.

Okay, I’m posting this mostly to get my head around my schedule this semester, but also so that people can get an idea of how I manage to fit in school, work, and triathlon training (some people have asked me recently).

My classes (including time spent teaching in the classroom, plus one office hour/week) amount to 13 hours/week. I plan on averaging about 11 hours/week of triathlon training all the way through the semester. If homework takes another 13 hours/week (a reasonable guess for me, based on previous semester’s workload, and including 3 hours/week on my capstone), then I’m only looking at 37 total week hours spent either in class, doing homework or working out.

This leaves plenty of time for other things, like sleeping, eating, transporting myself to class, or even picking up another part-time job to buy all the cycling parts I want!

Now, all I have to do is actually stick to this plan! Easier said than done, of course

P.S. A hidden benefit of doing long bicycle rides is that I can actually get a bunch of homework done in my head–especially stuff like Capstone research, which is mostly thinking-type stuff anyway. I do my ride, get done and spend about 20 minutes writing down two hours of work, and presto! Double Jeopardy!