Jays Ironman 08 Blog

This evening I met up with my good buddy Dave. He is doing his first triathlon in October (Mission Bay). Dave  and I met up for a swim in the bay. We went over the basics of open water swimming and focused on getting him comfortable in the bay. He did very well. We swam from boat to boat practicing various drills. I saw a couple sting rays and it freaked me out. This is why I swim with my eyes closed… so I don’t have to see the creatures below.  

I am excited for Dave to do his first triathlon… I remember how I felt after finishing my first triathlon. I was stoked. I remember that my parents and Aunt were there to watch/support. It was a really cool experience for me and I hope that my buddy has a similar experience. 

I went out surfing last night on the recommendation of surfline.com and wetsand.com. These companies, like the weatherman, seemed to be horribly wrong about the conditions. They predicted waist to chest high waves with occasional head high sets. It was as flat as my sister’s back. j/k… I don’t have a sister, but If i did… you get the point. 

Tomorrow I leave for Ventura for a weekend of beach camping. Whoo-hoo. I am definitely bringing the surfboard!

Hope you al have a great weekend and we’ll chat when I get back. 

It has been exactly one month since I updated my blog! That’s just terrible! There are a lot of things that are new in my life though.

First, and most important, my training is going well. I am training for the Mission Bay Sprint Tri and I am looking to do around a 1:07:00. I have been running around the bay a lot and getting lots of practice running over the bridges. My cycling has been mostly on the flats. I try to get a solid 2 hours on the weekends and a shorter ride on Tuesdays. My swimming has all been in Mission Bay. The water in the bay is a nice 75ish degrees. Very comfortable!

In other news, AmateurEndurance.com is doing well. I am enjoying watching its progression. Over the past two months it has been very well received. I switch from working 8/5 to working 10/4 so I now have an extra day for training. Whoo-hoo!

I finally got fed up with Microsoft windows and made the switch over to Mac. I made an investment into the future of Endurance Media, Inc. yesterday and purchased an shiny new MacBook Pro. I am sure it will take a little getting used to but I feel like I am already moving my way up the learning curve. One thing I like already is that the software for the mac is cheaper than it is for the PC.

That is what has been new with me lately.

Holy Makerel! It has been over two weeks since my last post! Well, I haven’t been training much lately. Mostly because I am having to allocate more time to work and AmateurEndurance.com. I just kind of squeeze in the workouts when I can. I did however have a good weekend of workouts this week.

Saturday I did a meduim-length bike ride from Mission Beach up to Del Mar. The route is a lot of uphill on the way out and downhill with head wind on the way back. Going out we heading east around Mission Bay and North around UCSD and then up the 101 to Del Mar. We made a quick stop at Starbucks to refill the water bottles and made our way back to Mission Beach. The majority of the route back to Mission Beach is downhill. However, there just so happened to be a moderate head wind out of the south west that made things a bit less fun. The whole ride was about 40 miles and took 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Sunday I did some cross training. I went surfing and it was a workout for me. The waves were small but paddling around for an hour or so was enough to make my shoulders sore.

I am definitly more tired than most weekends.

Well, it has been 9 days since my last race and I think I am ready to start training again. I just got my new training plan in my inbox from Felipe @ Breakaway Training. I am still up in the air about my next race. I am thinking SOMA. The problem is that it may be more money than I want to spend. $180 for the race + $200 for the hotel + $200 for gas. I could do 4 local races for that kind of $$.

I definitely am going to do Mission Bay Sprint. Maybe I will do the Silver Strand Half Marathon.

My training is still going well. It took me longer than I thought to recover form the last 15K so I have been slow to jump back in. We will have to see how tomorrow’s run goes.

Yesterday I decided to do something productive on the 4th of July. Paul, Carrie, Daver, Lalita, David T, and I did the Coronado 15k. This particular event is a Kathy Loper event which usually means “great quality”. This race was an exception however. There were a few issues that need to be addressed for next year.

1. They did not have enough t-shirts. I go to pick mine up and they ran out. Why would you not have enough t-shirts?
2. They ran out of water at the finish line. I finished middle of the pack and they had already ran out of water. I had to walk around looking for anything, water, gatorade, FRS, anything. Finally found some folks with some powerade. Not having enough water for a 9.3-mile race/run is simply not acceptable.
3. This one isn’t a huge deal for me but the course was 1/4 mile long. Cant get a PR on a 15k when the course is 1/4 mile too long.

I had an ok race. My splits were all over the place… no consistancy. Below are my splits.

Mile 1: 8:56
Mile 2: 9:11
Mile 3: 9:14
Mile 4: 8:52
Mile 5: 8:53
Mile 6: 9:31
Mile 7: 9:23
Mile 8: 11:12 (had to walk a little)
Mile 9: 9:54
.55 Mile: 5:44

Total time 1:30:56. It was a lot of fun and a great way to get ready for the celebration that was to follow.

4 days after the San Diego International Triathlon and my smooth legs are no more. So I figure, I better take advantage of my last few days of little to no hair on my legs and train hard. We all know how slow hairy legs can make you.

Wednesday I met up with Paul and Carrie and we did a 40-minute run down to Shelter Island and back. These runs are very therapeutic for me. It gives me a chance to tell crazy work stories and vent. I can’t tell you how far we ran, but I can tell you I told three stories. That’s how long it was!

This morning my alarm didn’t go off and I was woken up by Paul asking if I forgot to set my alarm. The night before Paul had given Nikee a bunch of shit for wanting to bail, so there was no way in hell I could bail. So I threw my bike on the car and halled hiney down to paint loma to do our Thursday morning ride. It was a pretty good ride today, I was able to hang on longer than last time!

Then tonight I went for a run around the bay with my neighbor. I definitely pushed it too hard. It was my fastest loop around the bay in a while. I was driven to go faster by the power of the shaved legs… or something like that. Either way, it was a dumb move as I am running a 15k tomorrow morning.

But such is life. I took my recovery drink and now I rest until tomorrow.

Oh man! it has been a while since I updated my blog. I have been focusing on our new venture, AmateurEndurance.com. Be sure to check it out as we have over 200 pics of the race that will be up tonight. This weekend was a big one for us as we were at the expo with breakaway training AND working the event getting athlete interviews, photos, videos, etc. As a result, we have had a very successful launch and the site is growing daily.

Enough of that… How bout a race report.

Today was the 25th Annual San Diego International Triathlon and as usual, it was a great race. The race today was not my fastest but it was probably my smartest race to date.

The swim: The swim was exactly what I expected. By the 500m mark my nose was burning from the pollution/diesel in the water. It is pretty bad swimming in that part of the bay. I took my time and kept my pace. I didn’t go out too fast. I didn’t tire myself out. It was simply smart swimming. I believe my swim was about 16 minutes.

T1: This is where I feel I excelled this year, the transitions. I came out of the water from the swim and trotted through about 100 yds of bike racks and finally got to my bike. At that point I had successfully accomplished one of my goals. Don’t puke coming out of the swim. I kept my HR down and was able to calmly and quickly put my helmet on, grab my bike, and rush off to the bike course.

The Bike: I set out on the bike course at 19:25. I figure my T1 was roughly 2:00 making my swim about 17:25. But we shall see when the splits come out. In any event I took off like a bat out of hell. The flats were fast and I was ably to maintain a pretty good pace. At one point my ass got smacked by a fellow team mate as he passed me. As I started to head up Canon St. I slowed a bit. I played the hills of the bike course very smart. I didn’t blow up, but I didn’t go terribly slow either. Fortunately I had ridden this course in practice numerous times before and I knew exactly how to work it so that I saw the maximum benefit from a solid effort. After I finished the loops I flew down the hill back to the transition area. It would appear that the fear of going fast downhill is gone as I maxed out at 47mph on the bike.

T2: Into the T2 I dismounted with my shoes on the bike, threw my bike on the rack, slipped into my shoes, grabbed my hat and was out of there. It was definitely a T2 PR. But wait! I forgot. After I just had this super fast transition, I still had to run a football field to get out of the transition area. Dangit.

My bike + T2 time was 1:00:12.

The Run: My run was solid. Again, I didn’t blow up and that is whats important. As I set out, my buddy Mash was about 100yds ahead of me. So I caught up to him and we ran almost the entire run together. We kept a solid 10:00 min/mi pace. It was nice having someone to talk to as it made the run WAY less boring. The mile markers slowly but surely went by and before we knew it we were charging down the finish chute.

As I crossed the finish line my first thought was, Geez, that was fun, why the heck did I take 9 months off from racing? I was very happy with my race performance. I knew that I did the best I possibly could have done given my current fitness level.

Total time: 2:22:32. Not my fastest, not my slowest, but definitely my smartest.

I just finished the San Diego International post over at AmateurEndurance.com SO I thought I would post it here too.

The San Diego International Triathlon is an excellent race for all levels of athletes. I highly encourage anyone to sign up and give it a go. Here is a run down of the course.

Weather:
The weather is usually perfect for this race. The average high is 72 degrees and the average low is 63. More likely than not the weather will be mild. The chances of the race falling on a rainy day is less than 4%*. Wind is typically not an issue either. Early in the morning the wind is typically calm. Coastal San Diego, during the month of June, typically is overcast in the morning and partly cloudy or sunny in the afternoon. Based on personal experience, the past two years have been perfect with respect to weather, not too hot and not too cold with very little wind.

Swim:

The swim is located in the bay just off Spanish Landing. The water is calm along the single loop course. This particular race has an in-water start, meaning you are treading water at the start line. The course is a clockwise loop, so all the turns are right turns with the exception of the last buoy which you turn left around to head into the shore. The way the course is setup, you swim roughly 500 meters before you have to make the first turn, which allows the crowd to thin out a bit before bunching up around the turn. Below is a map of the course. The only thing that is different is there are no boats driving around on the course.

Bike:

The San Diego International bike course is a hilly 30-kilometer ride through Point Loma. You start out

on Harbor drive, then up Canon St. This is the toughest hill on the course. The hill starts out gentle but gets steeper as you go up. Fortunately the hill is less than a mile long so its very manageable with a little practice. Once up Canon you continue up Catalina Blvd. out to the entrance to the Military base. Once on the base you do two laps of rolling hills out to Cabrillo National Monument and back. Then you get to enjoy the fast decent back down Canon. Be aware, at the bottom of the hill is a sharp left turn. Then its a nice flat ride back to the transition area.

Run:

The run course is probably one the flattest and fastest 10k courses in San Diego. The course has you start out at Spanish Landing and head south to Harbor Island. After a quick loop on Harbor Island you continue south to Seaport Village. The majority of the run is along the bay and is roughly 50% asphalt and 50% concrete. There will be a minimum of 3 aid stations on the run, every 1.5 miles. All of the aid stations will have water and one will have Accelerade.

Post-race:

After you cross the finish line they have a large post-race celebration area filled with vendors, food, beer, etc. Shuttles are provided to give you a ride back to the transition area after the race.

* data from the National Weather Service

It’s been a week I think since my last post. Holy crap… I’ve been slackin. It has been a particularly busy week this week getting ready for San Diego International, working, and working. However, I was able to get out and do some training over the past week.

Tuesday: I did the “Paul and Jay” morning run. We ran around the bay this week as opposed to running on the Point Loma hills. It was a nice easy jog and we stuck to about a 9:45 pace.

Wednesday: I did a 3-mile run with a new run buddy along the bay.

Thursday: I did the “Paul and Jay” bike workout in Point Loma. This week we had a celebrity guest join us for the ride. Nikee decided to brave the elements and chase Paul up and down Catalina Blvd.

So with one week left before San Diego International I think my training cuts back. (I haven’t actually checked the training plan yet for next week) I am very excited about racing. This is my first tri in 9 months. Should be a blast!

Tomorrow is the launch of AmateurEndurance.com! Paul and I have been working very hard to get everything up and running.

As for my training, On Thursday I did a ride with Paul on and around the hills in Point Loma. The ride itself was only about an hour but we rode hard, just like I will do for San Diego International.

Yesterday, I did a short run around the bay. The 4.8 mile loop took 44 minutes which worked out to about a 9 min/mi pace. It just about as fast as I could do at my current fitness level. I am confident that will come down in the coming months.